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47352
Politics & Religion / WSJ: The Buffet Ruse
« on: January 26, 2012, 12:33:00 PM »
Remember the moment in 2008 when Charlie Gibson of ABC News asked Senator Barack Obama why he would support raising the capital gains tax even though "revenues from the tax increased" when the rate fell? Mr. Obama's famous reply: "I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness." Well, we were warned.
Here we are four years later, and President Obama on Tuesday night linked the term "fair" to U.S. tax and economic policy seven times. The U.S. economy is still hobbling out of recession, real family incomes are falling and 14 million Americans are unemployed, but Mr. Obama declared that his top priority is not to reform the tax code to promote growth and job creation. His overriding goal is redistributing income.
Mr. Obama endorsed the political ruse he calls the Buffett rule, which asserts as a matter of moral principle that millionaires should not pay a lower tax rate than middle-class wage earners. Specifically, Mr. Obama is proposing that anyone earning more than $1 million pay at least 30% of that income to Uncle Barack.
The White House says that if a millionaire household's effective tax rate falls below 30%, it would have to pay a surcharge—in essence a new Super Alternative Minimum Tax—to bring the tax liability to 30%. For those facing this new Super AMT, all deductions and exemptions would be eliminated except for charity.
The Buffett rule is rooted in the fairy tale that taxes on the wealthy are lower than on the middle class. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office notes that the effective income tax rate of the richest 1% is about 29.5% when including all federal taxes such as the distribution of corporate taxes, or about twice the 15.1% paid by middle-class families. (See "How Much the Rich Pay," January 23, 2012.)
This is because wealthy tax filers make most of their income from investments. Such income is taxed once at the corporate rate of 35% and again when it is passed through to the individual as a capital gain or dividend at 15%, for a highest marginal tax rate of about 44.75%.
This double taxation is one reason the U.S. has long had a differential tax rate for capital gains. Another reason is because while taxpayers must pay taxes on their gains, they aren't allowed to deduct capital losses (beyond $3,000 a year) except against gains in the current year. Capital gains also aren't indexed for inflation, so a lower rate is intended to offset the effect of inflated gains.
One implication of the Buffett rule is that all millionaire investment income would be taxed at the shareholder level at a minimum rate of 30%, up from 15% today. The tax rate on investment income from corporations would rise to 54.5% from 44.75%, a punitive tax on start-up or expanding businesses.
The new 30% capital gains rate would be the developed world's third highest behind only Denmark and Chile, according to the American Council for Capital Formation. This is on top of the 35% corporate rate that is already the second highest rate in the world after Japan. That giant sucking sound you hear come January 2013 would be hundreds of billions of investment dollars fleeing to China, India, Korea and other U.S. competitors. Lower capital investment in the U.S. means less wage growth, and so the people hurt most by this tax hike would be workers, according to a study by the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation.
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.Mr. Obama conceded on Tuesday that the high U.S. corporate tax is an economic loser. Yet he misses the crucial point that business owners assess the combined corporate and capital gains tax on those business profits. Lowering the corporate tax rate makes the U.S. more competitive, but the tax change is self-defeating if it is combined with an even larger rise in investment income taxes on capital gains and dividends.
Mr. Obama isn't setting himself apart merely from conservatives with this Buffett ploy. He is rejecting 35 years of bipartisan tax policy that began with the passage of the Steiger Amendment by a Democratic Congress that cut the capital-gains rate to 28% from 35% in 1978.
As the nearby chart shows, the rate has never since risen above 28%, and the last time it moved that high was in 1986 as part of the Reagan-Rostenkowski tax reform that also cut the top marginal income tax rate to 28% from 50%. With income-tax rates so low, a differential was arguably less necessary—though it's worth noting that capital gains revenues fell dramatically after that rate increase.
A decade later Bill Clinton agreed to cut the rate back to 20% as part of the balanced-budget deal with Newt Gingrich. Capital gains revenues soared, helping to balance the federal budget. Nearly every study estimates that the revenue-maximizing tax rate from the capital gains tax is between 15% and 28%. Doug Holtz-Eakin, the former director of the Congressional Budget Office, says that a 30% tax rate "is almost surely above the rate that maximizes tax revenues." So it's likely the Buffett trick would lose revenue for the government.
Yet in a time of the highest deficits since World War II, Mr. Obama wants to double the capital gains tax rate even as he raises the top income-tax rate to 42% or so. Mr. Obama really is taking us back to the worst habits of the 1970s. And not because he thinks higher rates will raise revenue, but merely so he can score points against Mitt Romney and stick it to the successful.
This isn't tax fairness. It's tax folly.
Here we are four years later, and President Obama on Tuesday night linked the term "fair" to U.S. tax and economic policy seven times. The U.S. economy is still hobbling out of recession, real family incomes are falling and 14 million Americans are unemployed, but Mr. Obama declared that his top priority is not to reform the tax code to promote growth and job creation. His overriding goal is redistributing income.
Mr. Obama endorsed the political ruse he calls the Buffett rule, which asserts as a matter of moral principle that millionaires should not pay a lower tax rate than middle-class wage earners. Specifically, Mr. Obama is proposing that anyone earning more than $1 million pay at least 30% of that income to Uncle Barack.
The White House says that if a millionaire household's effective tax rate falls below 30%, it would have to pay a surcharge—in essence a new Super Alternative Minimum Tax—to bring the tax liability to 30%. For those facing this new Super AMT, all deductions and exemptions would be eliminated except for charity.
The Buffett rule is rooted in the fairy tale that taxes on the wealthy are lower than on the middle class. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office notes that the effective income tax rate of the richest 1% is about 29.5% when including all federal taxes such as the distribution of corporate taxes, or about twice the 15.1% paid by middle-class families. (See "How Much the Rich Pay," January 23, 2012.)
This is because wealthy tax filers make most of their income from investments. Such income is taxed once at the corporate rate of 35% and again when it is passed through to the individual as a capital gain or dividend at 15%, for a highest marginal tax rate of about 44.75%.
This double taxation is one reason the U.S. has long had a differential tax rate for capital gains. Another reason is because while taxpayers must pay taxes on their gains, they aren't allowed to deduct capital losses (beyond $3,000 a year) except against gains in the current year. Capital gains also aren't indexed for inflation, so a lower rate is intended to offset the effect of inflated gains.
One implication of the Buffett rule is that all millionaire investment income would be taxed at the shareholder level at a minimum rate of 30%, up from 15% today. The tax rate on investment income from corporations would rise to 54.5% from 44.75%, a punitive tax on start-up or expanding businesses.
The new 30% capital gains rate would be the developed world's third highest behind only Denmark and Chile, according to the American Council for Capital Formation. This is on top of the 35% corporate rate that is already the second highest rate in the world after Japan. That giant sucking sound you hear come January 2013 would be hundreds of billions of investment dollars fleeing to China, India, Korea and other U.S. competitors. Lower capital investment in the U.S. means less wage growth, and so the people hurt most by this tax hike would be workers, according to a study by the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation.
Enlarge Image
CloseGetty Images
.Mr. Obama conceded on Tuesday that the high U.S. corporate tax is an economic loser. Yet he misses the crucial point that business owners assess the combined corporate and capital gains tax on those business profits. Lowering the corporate tax rate makes the U.S. more competitive, but the tax change is self-defeating if it is combined with an even larger rise in investment income taxes on capital gains and dividends.
Mr. Obama isn't setting himself apart merely from conservatives with this Buffett ploy. He is rejecting 35 years of bipartisan tax policy that began with the passage of the Steiger Amendment by a Democratic Congress that cut the capital-gains rate to 28% from 35% in 1978.
As the nearby chart shows, the rate has never since risen above 28%, and the last time it moved that high was in 1986 as part of the Reagan-Rostenkowski tax reform that also cut the top marginal income tax rate to 28% from 50%. With income-tax rates so low, a differential was arguably less necessary—though it's worth noting that capital gains revenues fell dramatically after that rate increase.
A decade later Bill Clinton agreed to cut the rate back to 20% as part of the balanced-budget deal with Newt Gingrich. Capital gains revenues soared, helping to balance the federal budget. Nearly every study estimates that the revenue-maximizing tax rate from the capital gains tax is between 15% and 28%. Doug Holtz-Eakin, the former director of the Congressional Budget Office, says that a 30% tax rate "is almost surely above the rate that maximizes tax revenues." So it's likely the Buffett trick would lose revenue for the government.
Yet in a time of the highest deficits since World War II, Mr. Obama wants to double the capital gains tax rate even as he raises the top income-tax rate to 42% or so. Mr. Obama really is taking us back to the worst habits of the 1970s. And not because he thinks higher rates will raise revenue, but merely so he can score points against Mitt Romney and stick it to the successful.
This isn't tax fairness. It's tax folly.
47353
Politics & Religion / Good politics for Baraq
« on: January 26, 2012, 12:12:53 PM »By LAURA MECKLER And KEITH JOHNSON
LAS VEGAS—Working to advance his "all of the above" energy strategy, President Barack Obama on Thursday embraced natural gas as a transportation fuel, saying it is cleaner and cheaper than oil, and much more abundant inside the U.S.
"We've got a supply of natural gas under our feet that can last America nearly a hundred years….It turns out we are the Saudi Arabia of natural gas," Mr. Obama said at a United Parcel Service Inc. facility that will serve as a refueling station for trucks that run on liquefied natural gas. "Think about an America where more cars and trucks are running on domestic natural gas than on foreign oil."
The president officially opened the first natural gas corredor from LA to Salt Lake City-where medium- and heavy-duty trucks can refuel along the way.
Atlanta-based UPS used more than $5 million in federal support to upgrade its own fleet of trucks and complete the corridor.
Mr. Obama nodded to concerns associated with hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, a technique used to extract the natural gas that environmentalists worry will contaminate groundwater supplies. The White House said this week that the administration will require companies drilling for gas on public lands to disclose the chemicals they use.
"I know there are families worried about the impact this could have on our environment and on the health of our communities, and I share that concern," Mr. Obama said. "America will develop this resource without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk."
Also Thursday, Mr. Obama announced the final lease sale of offshore acreage in the central Gulf of Mexico, scheduled for late June, with conditions meant to make sure that oil companies develop the leases they acquire, officials said. The lease sale of some 38 million acres will be the last one of the current five-year plan for development of offshore resources. The agreement will include a sliding scale of rental rates to compensate deep-water lessees for delays in beginning operations in the wake of the 2010 BP PLC Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
According to administration officials, the latest Gulf lease sale could lead to the development of one billion barrels of oil.
The president has faced strong criticism on energy policy after he blocked for now the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast. Republicans have excoriated that decision, saying Mr. Obama put the concerns of environmentalists over jobs.
Later Thursday, at an event at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colo., outside Denver, Mr. Obama was set to tout his administration's support for alternative energy, particularly through the military. The president was set to play up a Navy announcement that it will buy a gigawatt of clean energy, enough to power 250,000 homes at any given time, and point to a solar-energy installation on the base.
The White House natural-gas plan, contingent on congressional support, also includes tax credits to offset part of the cost of upgrading trucks to run on natural gas and federal help to spur the creation of five additional natural-gas corridors on heavy trucking routes. Additionally, the Obama administration plans to promote federal research to find new ways to use natural gas for transportation, as well as supporting the conversion of city bus and truck fleets to run on the cleaner fuel, administration officials said.
The Obama administration's embrace of natural gas as a transportation fuel comes after years of similar efforts by high-profile proponents ranging from the oil-and-gas tycoon T. Boone Pickens to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat.
The Obama administration had signaled before that it favored the idea, but the president jumped in with both feet this week, first in his State of the Union speech Tuesday and then Thursday in Las Vegas.
The U.S. is experiencing an unexpected glut in natural-gas supplies thanks to a revolution in drilling technology over the last decade. Natural-gas prices have fallen to near 10-year lows.
Some important industrial sectors are less eager to see natural-gas demand increase, notably big chemical and petrochemical concerns. They rely on cheap natural gas, a key input for their operations, to boost international competitiveness.
Write to Laura Meckler at laura.meckler@wsj.com and Keith Johnson at keith.johnson@wsj.com
47354
Politics & Religion / WSJ: Malpass on the Fed
« on: January 26, 2012, 12:04:21 PM »By DAVID MALPASS
On Wednesday the Federal Reserve shared its thoughts on the course of interest rates—but not on the implications for the value of the dollar. The two can't be disconnected. The Fed's rationale on interest rates determines the stability of the dollar, which is the economic bedrock for price stability, capital inflows, growth and jobs.
Obfuscation on the dollar works fine for Wall Street, which reaps billions in profits from the Fed's unstable dollar policy. It trades currencies and volatility, and makes a bundle protecting investors from the Fed by selling complex derivatives, interest-rate swaps, even triple-leveraged gold and currency funds pitched on television.
After the Fed's statement, markets bid gold above $1,700 per ounce, the latest insult to the Founders' clear intent for the dollar's value to be strong and stable relative to gold and silver over the life of our republic.
Dollar weakness doesn't work at all for economic well-being. The corollary to the Fed's policy of manipulating interest rates downward at the expense of savers is declining median incomes. It's no coincidence that inflation-adjusted median incomes rose in the sound-money booms of the Reagan and Clinton administrations and fell in the weak-dollar busts during the Carter, Bush and Obama years. When the currency weakens, the prices of staples rise faster than wages, hurting all but the rich who buy protection.
The economy and median incomes would do much better if the Fed said simply that it would set interest rates as best it could in order to keep the dollar's value strong and stable in coming decades, with the goal of attracting capital, maintaining price stability and encouraging full employment.
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.Yet the Fed is adamant that somehow business confidence will benefit by the Fed sharing its guesses on equilibrium interest rates—which after all are far from a science—but not its vital thinking on the future value of the dollar.
The Fed's status in Washington is unique and practically unassailable. It alone is a colossal self-funder operating outside the congressional appropriations process. Even the CIA and Navy Seals don't enjoy the Fed's unlimited spending power, checked only by its handpicked board and senior leadership.
Americans know this is a big problem but can't stop it. Texas Congressman Ron Paul has created an intensely popular presidential campaign around the need for stable money and limitations on the size (the Fed employs 22,000 people) and power of the Fed.
Yet legislation is moving in the opposite direction. Dodd-Frank's open-ended mandate has added another layer to the Fed's power, instructing it to control bank risk (good luck), protect the financial welfare of consumers, and even advise on mortgage bailouts.
Wednesday's meeting result could have been worse. The Fed might have announced more purchases of U.S. Treasurys and mortgage securities. It already owns nearly $2 trillion worth and has no limit on its expenditures, which fall completely outside the federal budget. Bond traders have been pleading with the Fed to announce further purchases so they can buy first and score big profits.
Stopping Fed asset purchases would help growth by allowing market distortions to subside. Its clear there's been no benefit from the Fed's unprecedented balance-sheet expansion, up 250% since 2008: no increase in private-sector credit (flat since 2009) and no impetus to the economy, which has been particularly weak in the quarters following Fed asset purchases.
Near-zero interest rates penalize savers and channel artificially cheap capital to government, big corporations and foreign countries. One of the most fundamental principles of economics is that holding prices artificially low causes shortages. When something of value is free, it runs out fast and only the well-connected get any. Interest rates are the price for credit and shouldn't be controlled at zero. It causes cheap credit for those with special access but shortages for those without—primarily new and small businesses and those seeking private-sector mortgages.
The economy's exit from Fed dominance of bond markets wouldn't be traumatic. The Fed has been fully sterilizing its asset purchases, meaning all the cash it has used to buy bonds is still contained at the Fed, not multiplied in the private sector. The Fed accomplishes this through bank regulation and by borrowing from banks at above-market interest rates—$1.5 trillion as of Jan. 18.
The Fed can reverse this process, letting its bond portfolio mature and the private sector smoothly reabsorb the debt by drawing down the excess reserves it has on deposit at the Fed. Other bond holders may see price pressure as the Fed finally sells its portfolio, but principal losses on bonds are small compared to fluctuations in equity markets. If the Fed adopts the pro-growth stance of letting markets allocate capital and the dollar stabilize, equity market gains will heavily outweigh bond market losses, lowering the cost of capital in the private sector.
The Fed's responsibility is to create confidence in price stability and the dollar, thus providing the best monetary policy environment for full employment. Most central banks operate on this principle. Instead, the Fed has systematically undermined economic confidence by promising to maintain zero interest rates for privileged borrowers. That policy will have to stop if the U.S. is to again achieve impressive growth.
Mr. Malpass, a deputy assistant Treasury secretary in the Reagan administration, is president of Encima Global LLC.
47355
Science, Culture, & Humanities / Re: Survivalist issues
« on: January 26, 2012, 09:10:21 AM »
Funny you should ask CW 
I went to the SHOT Show last week and purchased or made connection for various items for sale in our catalog in this vein e.g.
*trauma kits
*aluminum blankets
*MRE for long term storage in the home
*related items.
These will begin appearing in our catalog in the coming weeks/months.
I went to the SHOT Show last week and purchased or made connection for various items for sale in our catalog in this vein e.g.
*trauma kits
*aluminum blankets
*MRE for long term storage in the home
*related items.
These will begin appearing in our catalog in the coming weeks/months.
47356
Politics & Religion / Military prepares realignment
« on: January 26, 2012, 08:14:55 AM »
The Pentagon plans to expand its global network of drones and special-operations bases in a fundamental realignment meant to project U.S. power even as it cuts back conventional forces.
The plan, to be unveiled by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Thursday and in budget documents next month, calls for a 30% increase in the U.S. fleet of armed unmanned aircraft in the coming years, defense officials said. It also foresees the deployment of more special-operations teams at a growing number of small "lily pad" bases across the globe where they can mentor local allies and launch missions.
The utility of such tools was evident on Wednesday after an elite team—including members of Navy SEAL Team Six, the unit that killed Osama bin Laden—parachuted into Somalia and freed an American woman and Danish man held hostage for months.
The strategy reflects the Obama administration's increasing focus on small, secret operations in place of larger wars. The shift follows the U.S. troop pullout from Iraq in December, and comes alongside the gradual U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, where a troop-intensive strategy is giving way to an emphasis on training Afghan forces and on hunt-and-kill missions.
Defense officials said the U.S. Army plans to eliminate at least eight brigades while reducing the size of the active duty Army from 570,000 to 490,000, cuts that are likely to hit armored and heavy infantry units the hardest. But drone and special-operations deployments would continue to grow as they have in recent years.
At the same time, the Army aims to accentuate the importance of special operations by preserving light, rapidly deployable units such as the 82nd and the 101st Airborne divisions.
"What we really want is to see the Army adopt the mentality of special forces," said a military officer who advises Pentagon leaders.
The new strategy would assign specific U.S.-based Army brigades and Marine Expeditionary units to different regions of the world, where they would travel regularly for joint exercises and other missions, using permanent facilities and the forward-staging bases that some advisers call lily pads.
Marines, for example, will use a new base in Darwin, Australia, as a launch pad for Southeast Asia, while the U.S. is in talks to expand the U.S. presence in the Philippines—potential signals to China that the U.S. has quick-response capability in its backyard, defense officials said.
Yet many of the proposed bases will be secret and could temporarily house small commando teams, the officials said.
"There are going to be times when action is called upon, like Tuesday night, when it will be clearly advantageous to be forward deployed," a military official said, referring to the Somalia operation. "On the other hand, most of the time it will help you to be there to develop host nation or regional security."
Republican presidential contenders have seized on planned cuts to accuse President Barack Obama of weakening the U.S. military. While national-security issues aren't seen as a weakness for Mr. Obama in the coming presidential campaign, lawmakers could try to block his proposals on Capitol Hill.
Mr. Obama often emphasizes the value of special-operations raids like the one that killed bin Laden to fend off criticism.
The Pentagon, meanwhile, sees the bases and drones as part of an effort to offset cutbacks that some critics say will undercut the U.S.'s global dominance. The Pentagon says it will have more than enough force to fight at least one major troop-intensive ground war.
The Pentagon still will invest in some big-ticket items, including the F-35 stealth fighter, as a counterweight to rising powers, including China—although the department is poised to announce this week that it is going to slow procurement of the new plane, said defense officials.
Many Obama administration officials see last year's international military intervention in Libya as a model for future conflicts, with the U.S. using its air power up front while also relying on its allies, and on local forces to fight on the ground.
"You are looking at the military try to find new ways to stay globally engaged. When you are smaller, you have to be smarter," said a U.S. official.
Mr. Panetta alluded in a speech on Friday to plans to invest more heavily in drones and special forces, saying the U.S. wanted to develop an "innovative rotational presence" in Latin America, Africa and elsewhere.
Mr. Panetta is scheduled to outline elements of the department's $525 billion budget for fiscal 2013, including the first of $487 billion in cuts over 10 years, at the Pentagon Thursday.
The plan, however, envisions a 10% increase in special-operations forces over the next four years, from 63,750 this year to 70,000 by 2015, U.S. officials said. Mr. Panetta also will announce a buildup in the drone fleet in the coming years, U.S. officials said, following growth under predecessor Robert Gates.
The Air Force now operates 61 drone combat air patrols around the clock, with up to four drones in each patrol. Mr. Panetta's plan calls for the military to have enough drones to comfortably operate 65 combat air patrols constantly with the ability to temporarily surge to 85 combat air patrols, officials said.
The new emphasis represents a victory for Vice President Joe Biden and others in the White House who argued for reducing troops in Afghanistan and relying more on special-operations forces and local allies.
The strategy is similar to ideas that circulated through the military in the years before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and were championed by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Mr. Rumsfeld advocated building facilities in Eastern Europe and other locations as he pushed to remake the Army into a lighter, more expeditionary force. Mr. Rumsfeld declined a request for an interview.
The use of secretive commando teams and small, low-profile bases is appealing to the Obama administration because of the reduced costs, said a U.S. official briefed on the plans. They also risk less apprehension by host governments.
Military leaders are looking into the creation of new special-operations bases in Turkey and eastern Jordan, near the border with Iraq. U.S. officials said. Those will supplement a network of airstrips and other facilities in the region that house drones and operatives used for missions in Yemen, Somalia and beyond.
Write to Adam Entous at adam.entous@wsj.com and Siobhan Gorman at siobhan.gorman@wsj.com
The plan, to be unveiled by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Thursday and in budget documents next month, calls for a 30% increase in the U.S. fleet of armed unmanned aircraft in the coming years, defense officials said. It also foresees the deployment of more special-operations teams at a growing number of small "lily pad" bases across the globe where they can mentor local allies and launch missions.
The utility of such tools was evident on Wednesday after an elite team—including members of Navy SEAL Team Six, the unit that killed Osama bin Laden—parachuted into Somalia and freed an American woman and Danish man held hostage for months.
The strategy reflects the Obama administration's increasing focus on small, secret operations in place of larger wars. The shift follows the U.S. troop pullout from Iraq in December, and comes alongside the gradual U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, where a troop-intensive strategy is giving way to an emphasis on training Afghan forces and on hunt-and-kill missions.
Defense officials said the U.S. Army plans to eliminate at least eight brigades while reducing the size of the active duty Army from 570,000 to 490,000, cuts that are likely to hit armored and heavy infantry units the hardest. But drone and special-operations deployments would continue to grow as they have in recent years.
At the same time, the Army aims to accentuate the importance of special operations by preserving light, rapidly deployable units such as the 82nd and the 101st Airborne divisions.
"What we really want is to see the Army adopt the mentality of special forces," said a military officer who advises Pentagon leaders.
The new strategy would assign specific U.S.-based Army brigades and Marine Expeditionary units to different regions of the world, where they would travel regularly for joint exercises and other missions, using permanent facilities and the forward-staging bases that some advisers call lily pads.
Marines, for example, will use a new base in Darwin, Australia, as a launch pad for Southeast Asia, while the U.S. is in talks to expand the U.S. presence in the Philippines—potential signals to China that the U.S. has quick-response capability in its backyard, defense officials said.
Yet many of the proposed bases will be secret and could temporarily house small commando teams, the officials said.
"There are going to be times when action is called upon, like Tuesday night, when it will be clearly advantageous to be forward deployed," a military official said, referring to the Somalia operation. "On the other hand, most of the time it will help you to be there to develop host nation or regional security."
Republican presidential contenders have seized on planned cuts to accuse President Barack Obama of weakening the U.S. military. While national-security issues aren't seen as a weakness for Mr. Obama in the coming presidential campaign, lawmakers could try to block his proposals on Capitol Hill.
Mr. Obama often emphasizes the value of special-operations raids like the one that killed bin Laden to fend off criticism.
The Pentagon, meanwhile, sees the bases and drones as part of an effort to offset cutbacks that some critics say will undercut the U.S.'s global dominance. The Pentagon says it will have more than enough force to fight at least one major troop-intensive ground war.
The Pentagon still will invest in some big-ticket items, including the F-35 stealth fighter, as a counterweight to rising powers, including China—although the department is poised to announce this week that it is going to slow procurement of the new plane, said defense officials.
Many Obama administration officials see last year's international military intervention in Libya as a model for future conflicts, with the U.S. using its air power up front while also relying on its allies, and on local forces to fight on the ground.
"You are looking at the military try to find new ways to stay globally engaged. When you are smaller, you have to be smarter," said a U.S. official.
Mr. Panetta alluded in a speech on Friday to plans to invest more heavily in drones and special forces, saying the U.S. wanted to develop an "innovative rotational presence" in Latin America, Africa and elsewhere.
Mr. Panetta is scheduled to outline elements of the department's $525 billion budget for fiscal 2013, including the first of $487 billion in cuts over 10 years, at the Pentagon Thursday.
The plan, however, envisions a 10% increase in special-operations forces over the next four years, from 63,750 this year to 70,000 by 2015, U.S. officials said. Mr. Panetta also will announce a buildup in the drone fleet in the coming years, U.S. officials said, following growth under predecessor Robert Gates.
The Air Force now operates 61 drone combat air patrols around the clock, with up to four drones in each patrol. Mr. Panetta's plan calls for the military to have enough drones to comfortably operate 65 combat air patrols constantly with the ability to temporarily surge to 85 combat air patrols, officials said.
The new emphasis represents a victory for Vice President Joe Biden and others in the White House who argued for reducing troops in Afghanistan and relying more on special-operations forces and local allies.
The strategy is similar to ideas that circulated through the military in the years before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and were championed by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Mr. Rumsfeld advocated building facilities in Eastern Europe and other locations as he pushed to remake the Army into a lighter, more expeditionary force. Mr. Rumsfeld declined a request for an interview.
The use of secretive commando teams and small, low-profile bases is appealing to the Obama administration because of the reduced costs, said a U.S. official briefed on the plans. They also risk less apprehension by host governments.
Military leaders are looking into the creation of new special-operations bases in Turkey and eastern Jordan, near the border with Iraq. U.S. officials said. Those will supplement a network of airstrips and other facilities in the region that house drones and operatives used for missions in Yemen, Somalia and beyond.
Write to Adam Entous at adam.entous@wsj.com and Siobhan Gorman at siobhan.gorman@wsj.com
47357
Politics & Religion / Pravda on the Hudson and CAIR
« on: January 26, 2012, 07:54:23 AM »
The New York Times Collaborates with Hamas Front Group to Suppress the Truth
by Steven Emerson
IPT News
January 25, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3406/the-new-york-times-collaborates-with-hamas-front
• The New York Times cites the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a credible source, while continuing its policy of never mentioning that CAIR was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood, and operates as a Hamas support group.
• NYT also suppressed the facts that CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator 2007 Holy Land Foundation conspiracy trial, which resulted in the FBI cutting off all formal contact with the group and that an FBI official has described CAIR as a "front for Hamas."
• NYT primarily relies on two sources for comments: Zead Ramadan of CAIR-NY, and Faiza Patel, of the Brennan Center of Justice, but which the Times deliberately fails to mention that both of whom represent organizations that have repeatedly refused to condemn Hamas and other Islamic terrorist groups or have blamed the FBI for fabricating Islamic terror plots.
• An IPT investigator videotaped Ramadan at a press event refusing to answer her questions as to whether Hamas is a terrorist organization.
• The Times cites CAIR's Zead Ramadan as a legitimate source of criticism of the film but fails to report that Ramadan contributed $1,000 to Viva Palestina, an organization led by noted anti-Semite George Galloway, that supports Hamas financially and politically, in 2010.
• Patel of the Brennan Center has long been a critic of law enforcement's attempts to counter terrorism, even denouncing the NYPD's operation that resulted in the arrest of accused lone-wolf jihadist Jose Pimentel, charged with plotting to bomb U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
• The Times failed to report that their only two sources for their story--CAIR and the Brennan Center, who are made to seem independent and impartial are actual apologists for Islamic terrorist groups. In fact, the Times failed to report that the Brennan Center received CAIR's "Safe While Free" Award in 2009.
• The Times failed to report one actual flaw in the film but based its demonization of the film based largely on emails it did not disclose that it received from CAIR, a Hamas front group
In a front-page story on Tuesday discussing the documentary film, "The Third Jihad," and its use by the NYPD in training, The New York Times once again collaborates with radical Islamists to help shape the news. The article revealed the newspaper's bias, from the vaguely threatening headline – "In Police Training, a Dark Film on U.S. Muslims" - and by relying on those who are not simply opposed to the film, but have previously demonstrated their support of radical Islamists by both word and by association with similarly aligned groups.
The Times' article, written by Michael Powell, primarily relies on the opinions of Zead Ramadan of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' New York chapter (CAIR-NY) and Faiza Patel of the Brennan Center, both of whom aver that the NYPD acted questionably by showing city police the film, to present the case. Ramadan asserts that the movie "defiled our faith and misrepresented everything we stood for." Patel stated that, "The police have shown an explosive documentary to its officers and simply stonewalled us."
The problem with Ramadan and Patel, left unsaid by the newspaper, is found in their words and associations. As has been its longstanding policy, the Times never mentions that CAIR is a Hamas support group, created by the Muslim Brotherhood to present and promote its interests. (Of course, even if one day the Times did acknowledge that, it would still have to break another self-imposed taboo of having never once called Hamas a terrorist organization.)
In contrast to the newspaper, the film does reveal how CAIR was created shortly after a secret 1993 meeting in Philadelphia involving members of the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee. The goal was for CAIR to operate as a pro-Hamas lobbying group, without being publicly linked to Hamas.
The FBI later cited that evidence, which was used to help name CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation conspiracy trial, in explaining why it cut off formal communication with CAIR. "Until we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS," FBI Assistant Director Richard Powers wrote in April 2009, "the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner."
But CAIR refused to address the documentary's substance. Instead, the group issued a press release quoting Ramadan comparing it to the Nazi-era film "Triumph of the Will" and the silent movie "Birth of a Nation." Ramadan voiced his concerns to NYPD chief Raymond Kelly, who said he would "take care of it" and department spokesman Browne denounced the film as "wacky."
All of this was left out of the article on Tuesday, which also failed to inform readers about the questionable backgrounds of the movie's critics. The story said nothing about the fact that in 2010 Ramadan contributed $1,000 to Viva Palestina, an organization founded by the notorious anti-Semite George Galloway, and which supports Hamas financially and politically, or that CAIR-NY in 2008 issued a statement calling for the release of Sami al-Arian, who pleaded guilty to conspiring to contribute funds to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a designated terrorist group.
The Investigative Project on Terrorism attended a Dec. 15, 2011 press conference held by a group calling itself the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, and asked if he considered Hamas a terrorist organization. Ramadan was asked point-blank: "Do you consider Hamas a terrorist organization?"
[click above to view the video or click here to see the video and a full transcript]
Ramadan proceeded to tap-dance around the question. He replied by stating that, "Islam, myself, and I think all people of conscience, are opposed to all terrorism in all of its forms against all people of the world. Anyone who is innocent that is killed, it's not the way of the Islamic people or people who stand for liberty and justice. Thank you very much."
Our investigator pressed forward, asking Ramadan about Hamas specifically. Ramadan refused to answer, stating that his concern was "the American Bill of Rights situation that we now have."
Ramadan then proceeded to attack the questioner. "You want to take our foreign policy issue and make it the number one issue in the world. No. The issue we have right here is the problem we have in America, and we're eroding," he said.
Ramadan added that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had gone to Myanmar to talk about the erosion of human rights and appeared to be "bringing that back here" and "showing how to erode our civil rights here."
Again, our investigator noted that Ramadan was evading the question about Hamas.
"He already answered," moderator Imam Talib Abdur Rashid shot back. "You just didn't get the answer you wanted."
Over and over, CAIR spends a lot of effort urging Muslim Americans not to cooperate with law enforcement. Speaking at CAIR-NY's "Annual Banquet and Leadership Conference" in April 2011, board member Lamis Deek implored her audience not to speak to the FBI, NYPD or other law enforcement agencies.
"It's very important to not speak to law enforcement of any type, not just FBI agents," she said. "We're talking about the New York Police Department, we're talking about tax agents, we're talking about everybody."
Deek said that if the FBI shows up claiming it has a warrant for someone's arrest, they need to ask to see the warrant because "Mossad" agents had been "go[ing] around pretending to be FBI." She warned that "they" (it was unclear whether she was referring to the Mossad, the FBI, or both) will threaten to "seriously blackmail" people.
Faiza Patel of the Brennan Center - which is sufficiently in accord with CAIR that in 2009 it received CAIR's 'Safe While Free' Award - offers complementary positions. At a Nov. 17 forum in Washington entitled "Islamist Radicalization, Myth or Reality," Patel appeared to suggest that any effort by law enforcement to look for signs of radicalism in the Muslim community was doomed to failure. "You can't expect the community to behave as your partner if at the same time you're subjecting them to intense surveillance and monitoring," she said.
And if Muslims were in denial about the existence of radical Islamist ideologies in their communities, perhaps law enforcement should defer to them, Patel added: "If the community doesn't believe that radicalization or extremism or extremist views or extremist ideologies is (sic) a problem in their own community, then you should also understand that maybe they know what they're talking about, and not be spending police resources this way."
In a Huffington Post op-ed, Patel denounced the NYPD's operation that resulted in the arrest of accused lone-wolf jihadist Jose Pimentel, charged with plotting to bomb U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
It should not come as a surprise that The New York Times left all of this critical information out of Tuesday's article, given the paper's long history of covering for CAIR, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist organizations. As we have noted before, Times reporters like Andrea Elliott and columnists like Nicholas Kristof have published stories glossing over the radical background of Salafist cleric Yasir Qadhi, dean of academic affairs at the Houston-based AlMaghrib Institute, and whitewashing the Muslim Brotherhood's radical record and hostility towards Israel.
Last December, after Kristof penned a column in which he claimed that Brotherhood officials in Egypt had been behaving responsibly, Eric Trager of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy described Kristof as "credulous" about the Brotherhood. After interviewing some of the organization's members who had just been elected to Parliament, Trager wrote in the New Republic that, "Far from being moderate, these future leaders share a commitment to theocratic rule, complete with a limited view of civil liberties and an unmistakable antipathy for the West."
Nonetheless, the NYPD, apparently responding to pressure from the media and perhaps from politicians, including Mayor Bloomberg, who denounced the film, stopped showing the documentary.
Somebody [at the NYPD] exercised some terrible judgment," Bloomberg said Tuesday. "As soon as they found out about it, they stopped it." The mayor gave no indication that he had actually seen the film.
Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and narrator of the film, took exception to Bloomberg's comments. "I could not disagree more," he said. "The fact that Bloomberg made such a comment without providing any evidence that the film was in error indicates that the mayor's comment was "careless," Jasser said.
Bloomberg's ignorance should not be surprising given his administration's friendly relationship with CAIR-NY. In May 2009, for example, the mayor's education policy advisor, Fatima Ashraf, hosted the Islamist group's annual banquet and fundraiser, where she gushed praise for CAIR-NY. Ashraf called it "a shining star among Muslim organizations in the country," adding that "their sincerity and motivation" and "genuine desire to make positive change for Muslims is what really makes them stand out."
In similar fashion, Bloomberg's uninformed position is mirrored by the Times article, which does not provide any examples, or specific information of any kind, to back up criticism of the film.
The article hints in rather foreboding fashion that the film is an effort to scare people about the threat posed by radical Islam: "Ominous music plays as images appear on the screen: Muslim terrorists shoot Christians in the head, car bombs explode, executed children lie covered by sheets and a doctored photograph shows an Islamic flag flying near the White House."
Even in this brief description of the film, The New York Times got it wrong. According to Clarion Films, which produced the documentary, the photograph of the White House with an Islamic flag on top was taken from Islamist sources, not altered by the filmmakers.
by Steven Emerson
IPT News
January 25, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3406/the-new-york-times-collaborates-with-hamas-front
• The New York Times cites the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a credible source, while continuing its policy of never mentioning that CAIR was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood, and operates as a Hamas support group.
• NYT also suppressed the facts that CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator 2007 Holy Land Foundation conspiracy trial, which resulted in the FBI cutting off all formal contact with the group and that an FBI official has described CAIR as a "front for Hamas."
• NYT primarily relies on two sources for comments: Zead Ramadan of CAIR-NY, and Faiza Patel, of the Brennan Center of Justice, but which the Times deliberately fails to mention that both of whom represent organizations that have repeatedly refused to condemn Hamas and other Islamic terrorist groups or have blamed the FBI for fabricating Islamic terror plots.
• An IPT investigator videotaped Ramadan at a press event refusing to answer her questions as to whether Hamas is a terrorist organization.
• The Times cites CAIR's Zead Ramadan as a legitimate source of criticism of the film but fails to report that Ramadan contributed $1,000 to Viva Palestina, an organization led by noted anti-Semite George Galloway, that supports Hamas financially and politically, in 2010.
• Patel of the Brennan Center has long been a critic of law enforcement's attempts to counter terrorism, even denouncing the NYPD's operation that resulted in the arrest of accused lone-wolf jihadist Jose Pimentel, charged with plotting to bomb U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
• The Times failed to report that their only two sources for their story--CAIR and the Brennan Center, who are made to seem independent and impartial are actual apologists for Islamic terrorist groups. In fact, the Times failed to report that the Brennan Center received CAIR's "Safe While Free" Award in 2009.
• The Times failed to report one actual flaw in the film but based its demonization of the film based largely on emails it did not disclose that it received from CAIR, a Hamas front group
In a front-page story on Tuesday discussing the documentary film, "The Third Jihad," and its use by the NYPD in training, The New York Times once again collaborates with radical Islamists to help shape the news. The article revealed the newspaper's bias, from the vaguely threatening headline – "In Police Training, a Dark Film on U.S. Muslims" - and by relying on those who are not simply opposed to the film, but have previously demonstrated their support of radical Islamists by both word and by association with similarly aligned groups.
The Times' article, written by Michael Powell, primarily relies on the opinions of Zead Ramadan of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' New York chapter (CAIR-NY) and Faiza Patel of the Brennan Center, both of whom aver that the NYPD acted questionably by showing city police the film, to present the case. Ramadan asserts that the movie "defiled our faith and misrepresented everything we stood for." Patel stated that, "The police have shown an explosive documentary to its officers and simply stonewalled us."
The problem with Ramadan and Patel, left unsaid by the newspaper, is found in their words and associations. As has been its longstanding policy, the Times never mentions that CAIR is a Hamas support group, created by the Muslim Brotherhood to present and promote its interests. (Of course, even if one day the Times did acknowledge that, it would still have to break another self-imposed taboo of having never once called Hamas a terrorist organization.)
In contrast to the newspaper, the film does reveal how CAIR was created shortly after a secret 1993 meeting in Philadelphia involving members of the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee. The goal was for CAIR to operate as a pro-Hamas lobbying group, without being publicly linked to Hamas.
The FBI later cited that evidence, which was used to help name CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation conspiracy trial, in explaining why it cut off formal communication with CAIR. "Until we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS," FBI Assistant Director Richard Powers wrote in April 2009, "the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner."
But CAIR refused to address the documentary's substance. Instead, the group issued a press release quoting Ramadan comparing it to the Nazi-era film "Triumph of the Will" and the silent movie "Birth of a Nation." Ramadan voiced his concerns to NYPD chief Raymond Kelly, who said he would "take care of it" and department spokesman Browne denounced the film as "wacky."
All of this was left out of the article on Tuesday, which also failed to inform readers about the questionable backgrounds of the movie's critics. The story said nothing about the fact that in 2010 Ramadan contributed $1,000 to Viva Palestina, an organization founded by the notorious anti-Semite George Galloway, and which supports Hamas financially and politically, or that CAIR-NY in 2008 issued a statement calling for the release of Sami al-Arian, who pleaded guilty to conspiring to contribute funds to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a designated terrorist group.
The Investigative Project on Terrorism attended a Dec. 15, 2011 press conference held by a group calling itself the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, and asked if he considered Hamas a terrorist organization. Ramadan was asked point-blank: "Do you consider Hamas a terrorist organization?"
[click above to view the video or click here to see the video and a full transcript]
Ramadan proceeded to tap-dance around the question. He replied by stating that, "Islam, myself, and I think all people of conscience, are opposed to all terrorism in all of its forms against all people of the world. Anyone who is innocent that is killed, it's not the way of the Islamic people or people who stand for liberty and justice. Thank you very much."
Our investigator pressed forward, asking Ramadan about Hamas specifically. Ramadan refused to answer, stating that his concern was "the American Bill of Rights situation that we now have."
Ramadan then proceeded to attack the questioner. "You want to take our foreign policy issue and make it the number one issue in the world. No. The issue we have right here is the problem we have in America, and we're eroding," he said.
Ramadan added that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had gone to Myanmar to talk about the erosion of human rights and appeared to be "bringing that back here" and "showing how to erode our civil rights here."
Again, our investigator noted that Ramadan was evading the question about Hamas.
"He already answered," moderator Imam Talib Abdur Rashid shot back. "You just didn't get the answer you wanted."
Over and over, CAIR spends a lot of effort urging Muslim Americans not to cooperate with law enforcement. Speaking at CAIR-NY's "Annual Banquet and Leadership Conference" in April 2011, board member Lamis Deek implored her audience not to speak to the FBI, NYPD or other law enforcement agencies.
"It's very important to not speak to law enforcement of any type, not just FBI agents," she said. "We're talking about the New York Police Department, we're talking about tax agents, we're talking about everybody."
Deek said that if the FBI shows up claiming it has a warrant for someone's arrest, they need to ask to see the warrant because "Mossad" agents had been "go[ing] around pretending to be FBI." She warned that "they" (it was unclear whether she was referring to the Mossad, the FBI, or both) will threaten to "seriously blackmail" people.
Faiza Patel of the Brennan Center - which is sufficiently in accord with CAIR that in 2009 it received CAIR's 'Safe While Free' Award - offers complementary positions. At a Nov. 17 forum in Washington entitled "Islamist Radicalization, Myth or Reality," Patel appeared to suggest that any effort by law enforcement to look for signs of radicalism in the Muslim community was doomed to failure. "You can't expect the community to behave as your partner if at the same time you're subjecting them to intense surveillance and monitoring," she said.
And if Muslims were in denial about the existence of radical Islamist ideologies in their communities, perhaps law enforcement should defer to them, Patel added: "If the community doesn't believe that radicalization or extremism or extremist views or extremist ideologies is (sic) a problem in their own community, then you should also understand that maybe they know what they're talking about, and not be spending police resources this way."
In a Huffington Post op-ed, Patel denounced the NYPD's operation that resulted in the arrest of accused lone-wolf jihadist Jose Pimentel, charged with plotting to bomb U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
It should not come as a surprise that The New York Times left all of this critical information out of Tuesday's article, given the paper's long history of covering for CAIR, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist organizations. As we have noted before, Times reporters like Andrea Elliott and columnists like Nicholas Kristof have published stories glossing over the radical background of Salafist cleric Yasir Qadhi, dean of academic affairs at the Houston-based AlMaghrib Institute, and whitewashing the Muslim Brotherhood's radical record and hostility towards Israel.
Last December, after Kristof penned a column in which he claimed that Brotherhood officials in Egypt had been behaving responsibly, Eric Trager of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy described Kristof as "credulous" about the Brotherhood. After interviewing some of the organization's members who had just been elected to Parliament, Trager wrote in the New Republic that, "Far from being moderate, these future leaders share a commitment to theocratic rule, complete with a limited view of civil liberties and an unmistakable antipathy for the West."
Nonetheless, the NYPD, apparently responding to pressure from the media and perhaps from politicians, including Mayor Bloomberg, who denounced the film, stopped showing the documentary.
Somebody [at the NYPD] exercised some terrible judgment," Bloomberg said Tuesday. "As soon as they found out about it, they stopped it." The mayor gave no indication that he had actually seen the film.
Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and narrator of the film, took exception to Bloomberg's comments. "I could not disagree more," he said. "The fact that Bloomberg made such a comment without providing any evidence that the film was in error indicates that the mayor's comment was "careless," Jasser said.
Bloomberg's ignorance should not be surprising given his administration's friendly relationship with CAIR-NY. In May 2009, for example, the mayor's education policy advisor, Fatima Ashraf, hosted the Islamist group's annual banquet and fundraiser, where she gushed praise for CAIR-NY. Ashraf called it "a shining star among Muslim organizations in the country," adding that "their sincerity and motivation" and "genuine desire to make positive change for Muslims is what really makes them stand out."
In similar fashion, Bloomberg's uninformed position is mirrored by the Times article, which does not provide any examples, or specific information of any kind, to back up criticism of the film.
The article hints in rather foreboding fashion that the film is an effort to scare people about the threat posed by radical Islam: "Ominous music plays as images appear on the screen: Muslim terrorists shoot Christians in the head, car bombs explode, executed children lie covered by sheets and a doctored photograph shows an Islamic flag flying near the White House."
Even in this brief description of the film, The New York Times got it wrong. According to Clarion Films, which produced the documentary, the photograph of the White House with an Islamic flag on top was taken from Islamist sources, not altered by the filmmakers.
47358
Politics & Religion / STratfor: The Arab Uprising one year later
« on: January 26, 2012, 06:28:29 AM »
The Arab Uprising, One Year Later
January 26, 2012
Wednesday marked the first anniversary of the first day of public unrest in Egypt, which led to former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's ouster 18 days later. A little before Mubarak was toppled, Tunisian autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, having lost support of the military, fled his country in the wake of mass unrest. The unrest that began in North Africa quickly spread eastward toward the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula; what has been termed the "Arab Spring" has manifested itself differently in different national contexts.
Stratfor's position from very early on was that the events sweeping the Middle East did not constitute a chain of revolutions. More importantly, the toppling of Ben Ali and Mubarak did not in either case amount to regime change -- and the changes that transpired have not led to democracy, nor will they for some time. A year after the Arab unrest broke out, it is important to step back and take stock of what has happened -- and of what has not.
The unrest began in Tunisia. An interim government replaced Ben Ali, and elections took place last October. The country’s Islamist Ennahda movement won the legislative polls, securing 90 out of 217 seats, and proceeded to form a coalition government with the secular parties that won the second and third-highest number of parliamentary seats. Parliament has a year to draft a new charter for the country.
In Egypt, Mubarak handed power over to a military junta. This event meant that the country’s armed forces had to move from ruling from behind the scenes to direct governance (albeit through an interim civilian Cabinet). One year after the unrest began, protests continue. The most important recent event, though, saw two different Islamist movements claim three-quarters of parliamentary seats in elections. Crucial next steps include the formation of a government led by Islamists and the crafting of a new constitution. We will also watch the extent to which military leaders will hand over power to a civilian government.
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi became the third Arab leader to fall from power, and he lost his life in the process. Shortly after the fall of Mubarak, unrest broke out in Libya. This situation quickly turned into a civil war pitting the regime against armed rebels. In August, the Gadhafi regime fell after rebel forces -- aided by NATO air, intelligence and special forces support -- took over the capital of Tripoli. Two months later, rebel forces captured the Libyan dictator and killed him. Since then, the very forces that united to battle the old regime have increasingly begun fighting each other and challenging the caretaker government.
Events in Libya have been dramatic, but those in the Arab Persian Gulf island kingdom of Bahrain are far more geopolitically significant. Given the fact that a Sunni monarchy is faced with a public uprising led by the country’s Shia majority -- whose political principals are Islamist movements that Iran can exploit -- the outcome of Bahraini unrest is exceedingly critical internationally. This importance is why Saudi Arabia deployed its forces (along with those of other Gulf Cooperation Council countries) to Bahrain in March 2011, less than a month after the unrest began, and eventually contained the uprising. Shia unrest has picked up again in Bahrain in recent weeks, however, as well as in the nearby Qatif region of Saudi Arabia.
Bahrain is not the only place where the Saudis have had to deal with unrest. In Yemen, protests erupted against President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Shortly thereafter, key divisions within the Yemeni armed forces took up arms against the Saleh regime. The president survived an assassination attempt in which he was badly wounded, but he was also able to block moves by both political and armed opponents to oust his regime. He is expected to step down as part of a Saudi-brokered deal, but only after ensuring that the regime he presided over will largely remain intact -- with his faction maintaining its stake in the Yemeni state.
A completely unique scenario has played out in Syria, where the regime of President Bashar al Assad -- aided by Iran and employing a massive crackdown involving the alleged killing of some 5,000 protesters -- has weathered a nine-month-old uprising. That said, the regime has not been able to quell the agitation and has begun to face a slowly growing level of armed resistance. However, because of the weakness of the opposition and the unwillingness of outside powers to intervene (despite their desire to weaken Iran), the Syrian regime doesn’t appear likely to fall anytime soon.
What we have seen is unrest that has been limited to a number of countries within the Arab world – and the nature of the unrest has varied with each regime. In fact, the monarchies of the region (save Bahrain) have not seen the kind of uprisings experienced by authoritarian republics. Even in the case of the latter, only Tunisia and Egypt saw quick ousters of incumbent rulers -- but no regime change. Libya saw full-scale warfare and regime collapse, while Yemen is seeing its leader exit power through a negotiated deal. In Syria, the regime has survived despite nearly a year of unrest.
Clearly, in none of these cases has the expectation of democratic regime change been achieved. Where there have been elections, political Islamists have emerged as the winners, but they still have a long way to go to achieve some semblance of empowerment. The Arab unrest has indeed begun to unravel the old political orders in the Arab world -- but new ones are unlikely to be erected anytime soon, especially since another key dynamic – the rise of Iran and geosectarianism -- is complicating the Arab unrest.
January 26, 2012
Wednesday marked the first anniversary of the first day of public unrest in Egypt, which led to former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's ouster 18 days later. A little before Mubarak was toppled, Tunisian autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, having lost support of the military, fled his country in the wake of mass unrest. The unrest that began in North Africa quickly spread eastward toward the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula; what has been termed the "Arab Spring" has manifested itself differently in different national contexts.
Stratfor's position from very early on was that the events sweeping the Middle East did not constitute a chain of revolutions. More importantly, the toppling of Ben Ali and Mubarak did not in either case amount to regime change -- and the changes that transpired have not led to democracy, nor will they for some time. A year after the Arab unrest broke out, it is important to step back and take stock of what has happened -- and of what has not.
The unrest began in Tunisia. An interim government replaced Ben Ali, and elections took place last October. The country’s Islamist Ennahda movement won the legislative polls, securing 90 out of 217 seats, and proceeded to form a coalition government with the secular parties that won the second and third-highest number of parliamentary seats. Parliament has a year to draft a new charter for the country.
In Egypt, Mubarak handed power over to a military junta. This event meant that the country’s armed forces had to move from ruling from behind the scenes to direct governance (albeit through an interim civilian Cabinet). One year after the unrest began, protests continue. The most important recent event, though, saw two different Islamist movements claim three-quarters of parliamentary seats in elections. Crucial next steps include the formation of a government led by Islamists and the crafting of a new constitution. We will also watch the extent to which military leaders will hand over power to a civilian government.
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi became the third Arab leader to fall from power, and he lost his life in the process. Shortly after the fall of Mubarak, unrest broke out in Libya. This situation quickly turned into a civil war pitting the regime against armed rebels. In August, the Gadhafi regime fell after rebel forces -- aided by NATO air, intelligence and special forces support -- took over the capital of Tripoli. Two months later, rebel forces captured the Libyan dictator and killed him. Since then, the very forces that united to battle the old regime have increasingly begun fighting each other and challenging the caretaker government.
Events in Libya have been dramatic, but those in the Arab Persian Gulf island kingdom of Bahrain are far more geopolitically significant. Given the fact that a Sunni monarchy is faced with a public uprising led by the country’s Shia majority -- whose political principals are Islamist movements that Iran can exploit -- the outcome of Bahraini unrest is exceedingly critical internationally. This importance is why Saudi Arabia deployed its forces (along with those of other Gulf Cooperation Council countries) to Bahrain in March 2011, less than a month after the unrest began, and eventually contained the uprising. Shia unrest has picked up again in Bahrain in recent weeks, however, as well as in the nearby Qatif region of Saudi Arabia.
Bahrain is not the only place where the Saudis have had to deal with unrest. In Yemen, protests erupted against President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Shortly thereafter, key divisions within the Yemeni armed forces took up arms against the Saleh regime. The president survived an assassination attempt in which he was badly wounded, but he was also able to block moves by both political and armed opponents to oust his regime. He is expected to step down as part of a Saudi-brokered deal, but only after ensuring that the regime he presided over will largely remain intact -- with his faction maintaining its stake in the Yemeni state.
A completely unique scenario has played out in Syria, where the regime of President Bashar al Assad -- aided by Iran and employing a massive crackdown involving the alleged killing of some 5,000 protesters -- has weathered a nine-month-old uprising. That said, the regime has not been able to quell the agitation and has begun to face a slowly growing level of armed resistance. However, because of the weakness of the opposition and the unwillingness of outside powers to intervene (despite their desire to weaken Iran), the Syrian regime doesn’t appear likely to fall anytime soon.
What we have seen is unrest that has been limited to a number of countries within the Arab world – and the nature of the unrest has varied with each regime. In fact, the monarchies of the region (save Bahrain) have not seen the kind of uprisings experienced by authoritarian republics. Even in the case of the latter, only Tunisia and Egypt saw quick ousters of incumbent rulers -- but no regime change. Libya saw full-scale warfare and regime collapse, while Yemen is seeing its leader exit power through a negotiated deal. In Syria, the regime has survived despite nearly a year of unrest.
Clearly, in none of these cases has the expectation of democratic regime change been achieved. Where there have been elections, political Islamists have emerged as the winners, but they still have a long way to go to achieve some semblance of empowerment. The Arab unrest has indeed begun to unravel the old political orders in the Arab world -- but new ones are unlikely to be erected anytime soon, especially since another key dynamic – the rise of Iran and geosectarianism -- is complicating the Arab unrest.
47359
Science, Culture, & Humanities / Ten entries
« on: January 26, 2012, 06:22:52 AM »"Men, to act with vigour and effect, must have time to mature measures, and judgment and experience, as to the best method of applying them. They must not be hurried on to their conclusions by the passions, or the fears of the multitude. They must deliberate, as well as resolve." --Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833
"How much more do they deserve our reverence and praise, whose lives are devoted to the formation of institutions, which, when they and their children are mingled in the common dust, may continue to cherish the principles and the practice of liberty in perpetual freshness and vigour." --Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833
"The Grecians and Romans were strongly possessed of the spirit of liberty but not the principle, for at the time they were determined not to be slaves themselves, they employed their power to enslave the rest of mankind." --Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. 5, 1778
"Wisely, therefore, do they consider union and a good national government as necessary to put and keep them in such a situation as, instead of inviting war, will tend to repress and discourage it. That situation consists in the best possible state of defense, and necessarily depends on the government, the arms, and the resources of the country." --John Jay, Federalist No. 4
"The diversity in the faculties of men from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government." --James Madison, Federalist No. 10, 1787
"t is the reason alone, of the public, that ought to control and regulate the government." --James Madison, Federalist No. 49, 1788
"The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse." --James Madison, speech in the Virginia constitutional convention, 1829
"History by apprising [citizens] of the past will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views." --Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 14, 1781
"Every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country." --Noah Webster, On the Education of Youth in America, 1788
"Without wishing to damp the ardor of curiosity or influence the freedom of inquiry, I will hazard a prediction that, after the most industrious and impartial researchers, the longest liver of you all will find no principles, institutions or systems of education more fit in general to be transmitted to your posterity than those you have received from your ancestors." --John Adams, letter to the young men of the Philadelphia, 1798
47360
Science, Culture, & Humanities / EMP: Electro Magnetic Pulse
« on: January 25, 2012, 11:06:47 PM »This is what EMP is, and how it might affect the U.S. Hundreds of thousands of people would likely starve to death within a few months. Most vehicles would have their electronics fried and would not operate. No electricity, no phone service, no refrigeration. People on life-saving drugs would not be able to get them in most cases. Hospitals would have no power after their generators failed. It's a nightmare scenario - and one that our Congress has failed to address.
Newt Gingrich is one of the very few politicians who understands this threat and has said he would make protecting against it a priority. To do so would involve "hardening" and shielding the country's electrical grid, as well as mandating "hardened" pulse-immune electronics in vehicles and other electronic devices. Such hardened circuitry exists, but is used in only very few military critical aircraft and computer systems presently. Interestingly - tubes would be unaffected, so if you have a tube-amplified radio for example, it would still operate after one of these pulses. Most vehicles made after about 1968 would cease to operate, however - because they rely on electronic circuitry that would be fried.
Check out this short video:
http://empactamerica.org/videos_featured.php
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Politics & Religion / Steyn: Our Sick State
« on: January 25, 2012, 10:56:58 PM »
Our Sick State
by Mark Steyn
National Review's Happy Warrior
January 25, 2012
http://www.steynonline.com/4783/our-sick-state
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A couple of months back, I was with a friend of mine when she suddenly collapsed and I found myself having to run her to the emergency room. After a fairly harrowing 14 hours, the hospital released her, the doctor writing her a prescription for the still-very-intense pain she was in. So we stopped at her local Kinney Drugs in Vermont.
Despite having been called in by the doc, the prescription wasn't ready. Come back in an hour. Heigh-ho. So we left it an hour and a half, and then, not wishing to make another pointless trip, called the pharmacy just to make sure. No, sorry, the druggist said. They ran the insurance number and it was denied. So they canceled the prescription. Without calling the patient to tell her they'd canceled it. I passed the phone to my friend, lying on the couch like a tubercular Victorian heroine, and she explained that her employer had recently switched plans from Blue Cross/Blue Shield to Cigna and, midst groans, gave them the new policy number. She waited another hour in pain and we then returned to Kinney Drugs, using the convenient drive-thru lane.
This time, they had the drugs. My pal handed over her new insurance card. After some 15 minutes, the clerk returned and said the insurer had declined it. There were two cars backed up behind us. My friend said that couldn't be right, the number was valid, could they please run the number again. They did. Same result. There were now four cars behind us. The clerk suggested we drive around the building, join the back of the drive-thru line, and maybe when she'd taken care of the four cars behind things would have quietened down sufficiently for her to call someone and try to find out what the problem was.
Never mind my friend's crippling pain, spare a thought for me: I'd had to spend untold hours being kindly and supportive and sympathetic, which is not a role to which I'm naturally suited, and the strain was beginning to tell. In that useful Americanism, I didn't need this in my life right now. So I enquired of Kinney Drugs whether it would be possible for us just to pay for the prescription — you know, with money — and then bugger off to resume our lives. She went off to see whether that was still possible. Upon her return, I grabbed my wallet and pulled out a credit card.
"That will be eighteen dollars and 79 cents," she said.
Oh. For whatever reason — perhaps the sheer dogged determination required to negotiate this time-consuming transaction to a successful conclusion — I had assumed this would be one of those expensive pills about which one hears so much and I'd be ponying up 500 bucks. Instead, I put away the credit card and fished out a $20 bill.
And then I thought of the opportunity cost not only to me but to the four cars behind. It seemed a very expensive way to buy 18 bucks' worth of pills.
It turned out my friend's prescription was denied because someone at the pharmacy had transposed two numbers. Oh, well. Could happen to anyone. And, in fact, it does. Speaking as an unassimilated foreigner, I notice when you're standing in line that the big difference between a trip to the pharmacy in the U.S. and one in the rest of the developed world is that in America the druggists spend virtually their entire time talking about not the medicine but the "customer"'s degree of access to it. For example, while guest-hosting for Fox News just after Christmas, I was taken ill while in New York. Saw a doc, got a prescription, this time went to a Duane Reade pharmacy on Sixth Avenue. The lady ahead of me was going away for New Year's. Too bad. Her health-care provider declined to provide her with a renewal of her prescriptions before the 31st. The stylishly accoutered lady ahead of her had a better strike rate. After some delay, the pharmacist returned. She informed her (and the rest of us) that the good news was that her insurer had approved her Ortho, but the bad news was that they'd denied her Valtrex. Ortho is a birth-control pill. Valtrex is a herpes medication. Had her dinner date been a couple of places behind me in line, the news might have cast a bit of a damper on his evening. As it was, it occasioned general amusement among the women present.
I don't quite know what you'd call these rituals, but the term "private health-care system" doesn't seem the most obvious fit. Indeed, as in so many other areas of American life — the Fannie-Freddied mortgage market, the six-figure college education — the main purpose of these dysfunctional labyrinths ever more disconnected from any genuinely free market seems to be to discredit the very concept of a "private" system and thus soften up the electorate for statist fixes. I've argued for years in these pages that governmentalized health care fundamentally transforms the relationship between citizen and state in ways that make it all but impossible to have genuinely conservative government ever again. But at least the Canadian and British systems have the saving grace of an equality of awfulness. Both Obamacare and, alas, Romneycare seem designed to combine the worst aspects of the Scottish NHS and America's present third-party pseudo-market — and thus a scale of bloated, bureaucratic, inflationary capriciousness unknown to human history.
In free, functioning societies, it ought to be easy to buy a bottle of pills. The fact that it isn't is one reason why America has a real bad headache.
by Mark Steyn
National Review's Happy Warrior
January 25, 2012
http://www.steynonline.com/4783/our-sick-state
Print Send RSS Share
A couple of months back, I was with a friend of mine when she suddenly collapsed and I found myself having to run her to the emergency room. After a fairly harrowing 14 hours, the hospital released her, the doctor writing her a prescription for the still-very-intense pain she was in. So we stopped at her local Kinney Drugs in Vermont.
Despite having been called in by the doc, the prescription wasn't ready. Come back in an hour. Heigh-ho. So we left it an hour and a half, and then, not wishing to make another pointless trip, called the pharmacy just to make sure. No, sorry, the druggist said. They ran the insurance number and it was denied. So they canceled the prescription. Without calling the patient to tell her they'd canceled it. I passed the phone to my friend, lying on the couch like a tubercular Victorian heroine, and she explained that her employer had recently switched plans from Blue Cross/Blue Shield to Cigna and, midst groans, gave them the new policy number. She waited another hour in pain and we then returned to Kinney Drugs, using the convenient drive-thru lane.
This time, they had the drugs. My pal handed over her new insurance card. After some 15 minutes, the clerk returned and said the insurer had declined it. There were two cars backed up behind us. My friend said that couldn't be right, the number was valid, could they please run the number again. They did. Same result. There were now four cars behind us. The clerk suggested we drive around the building, join the back of the drive-thru line, and maybe when she'd taken care of the four cars behind things would have quietened down sufficiently for her to call someone and try to find out what the problem was.
Never mind my friend's crippling pain, spare a thought for me: I'd had to spend untold hours being kindly and supportive and sympathetic, which is not a role to which I'm naturally suited, and the strain was beginning to tell. In that useful Americanism, I didn't need this in my life right now. So I enquired of Kinney Drugs whether it would be possible for us just to pay for the prescription — you know, with money — and then bugger off to resume our lives. She went off to see whether that was still possible. Upon her return, I grabbed my wallet and pulled out a credit card.
"That will be eighteen dollars and 79 cents," she said.
Oh. For whatever reason — perhaps the sheer dogged determination required to negotiate this time-consuming transaction to a successful conclusion — I had assumed this would be one of those expensive pills about which one hears so much and I'd be ponying up 500 bucks. Instead, I put away the credit card and fished out a $20 bill.
And then I thought of the opportunity cost not only to me but to the four cars behind. It seemed a very expensive way to buy 18 bucks' worth of pills.
It turned out my friend's prescription was denied because someone at the pharmacy had transposed two numbers. Oh, well. Could happen to anyone. And, in fact, it does. Speaking as an unassimilated foreigner, I notice when you're standing in line that the big difference between a trip to the pharmacy in the U.S. and one in the rest of the developed world is that in America the druggists spend virtually their entire time talking about not the medicine but the "customer"'s degree of access to it. For example, while guest-hosting for Fox News just after Christmas, I was taken ill while in New York. Saw a doc, got a prescription, this time went to a Duane Reade pharmacy on Sixth Avenue. The lady ahead of me was going away for New Year's. Too bad. Her health-care provider declined to provide her with a renewal of her prescriptions before the 31st. The stylishly accoutered lady ahead of her had a better strike rate. After some delay, the pharmacist returned. She informed her (and the rest of us) that the good news was that her insurer had approved her Ortho, but the bad news was that they'd denied her Valtrex. Ortho is a birth-control pill. Valtrex is a herpes medication. Had her dinner date been a couple of places behind me in line, the news might have cast a bit of a damper on his evening. As it was, it occasioned general amusement among the women present.
I don't quite know what you'd call these rituals, but the term "private health-care system" doesn't seem the most obvious fit. Indeed, as in so many other areas of American life — the Fannie-Freddied mortgage market, the six-figure college education — the main purpose of these dysfunctional labyrinths ever more disconnected from any genuinely free market seems to be to discredit the very concept of a "private" system and thus soften up the electorate for statist fixes. I've argued for years in these pages that governmentalized health care fundamentally transforms the relationship between citizen and state in ways that make it all but impossible to have genuinely conservative government ever again. But at least the Canadian and British systems have the saving grace of an equality of awfulness. Both Obamacare and, alas, Romneycare seem designed to combine the worst aspects of the Scottish NHS and America's present third-party pseudo-market — and thus a scale of bloated, bureaucratic, inflationary capriciousness unknown to human history.
In free, functioning societies, it ought to be easy to buy a bottle of pills. The fact that it isn't is one reason why America has a real bad headache.
47362
Politics & Religion / Krauthammer on Newt House Leadership resignation
« on: January 25, 2012, 10:47:03 PM »47364
Politics & Religion / WSJ: a deeper analysis of spending issues
« on: January 25, 2012, 10:46:32 AM »By MACKENZIE EAGLEN
On Thursday, the Pentagon will begin detailing its plans to cut $500 billion from the military's budget over the next decade. The reason, insists President Barack Obama, is that "since 9/11, our defense budget grew at an extraordinary pace." That's true in top-line numbers—but it's anything but true when examined strategically.
Between budget cuts, cost overruns, overweight bureaucracy, ever-growing red tape, and changing requirements, the arsenal of democracy has become a bureaucratic nightmare. In spite of itself, our military cannot build new programs anymore. Old programs might win wars, but with much higher human and financial costs.
After 9/11, defense budgets grew because they had to. The U.S. military's budget, size and force structure had been too deeply cut in the 1990s, after the anticipated post-Soviet "peace dividend" failed to materialize. So the Pentagon began quickly and inefficiently dumping dollars into the military to fund the missions in Afghanistan and Iraq.
This made budgets grow steadily, but the money did little to increase cutting-edge capabilities for the future. Our war-related investments came at the expense of tomorrow's military capabilities. As a new American Enterprise Institute study concludes, the military over the past decade didn't modernize but rather embraced the equivalent of buying new apps for its old, clunky cellphone.
Enlarge Image
CloseAssociated Press
The Air Force wanted 750 F-22s to replace the F15, above, but they ultimately only received 187.
.From 2000-2010, the Air Force spent $38 billion on 220 fighters—as compared to $68 billion for 2,063 fighters from 1981-1990. Air Force leaders wanted 750 F-22s to replace their F-15s, but successive administrations cut that number—to 648, then 438, 339, 270 and finally 187—before President Obama terminated production. That wasn't a coherent acquisition strategy but budget-driven politics, plain and simple.
The Navy fared little better than the Air Force in terms of true modernization over the past decade. Sure, there are three Navy programs touted as "new"—the Virginia-class attack submarine, the DDG-51 destroyer and the F/A-18 Hornet. Problem is, those programs are already the Pentagon's "Plan B."
The Virginia-class sub was designed as a cheaper alternative to the truly dominant Seawolf-class attack submarine (and the Navy has bought less than half of the Virginia class, with the majority of funding still to come). The DDG-51 destroyer was a fall-back alternative to the now-canceled DDG-1000. And the F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornets are only stopgap purchases until the Navy can put the F-35C Joint Strike Fighter on its carrier decks. Thus the Navy's recent spending has gone to programs that are increasingly out of date and ill-prepared to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
The Marine Corps and Army fared better on modernization over the last decade. Though the Marine Corps saw its Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle canceled under President Obama, it successfully completed most of its ambitious amphibious docking platform.
The Army, meanwhile, completed several programs over the past decade, buying older platforms like the Abrams tank and the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, as well as the newer Stryker and even the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) armored vehicles. The problem is that all these vehicles are effective in land-based operations but would probably sit out during any conflict in the Western Pacific. And few of them have so-called next-generation capabilities—meaning brand-new platforms and technologies, not simply upgrades to existing tools. Almost every truly next-generation Army program has been canceled.
The common denominator among the services since 2001 is that their investment choices were geared toward lower-end conflict. Weapons systems designed for high-end future warfare suffered as a result (notwithstanding the evolving capabilities of drones over the past decade).
Compounding the problem is the reality that the services seem to be getting worse at acquiring high-tech systems and have used upgraded legacy programs as temporary band-aids. While it's often important to get weapons out the door during a war, the unmistakable reality is that the momentum for innovative research and development seems nonexistent across the U.S. military.
What the Obama Pentagon will lay out this week is the final nail in the coffin of our national contract with our all-volunteer military—that if they fight, they'll have the very best to win. It marks the beginning of the end of America's unquestioned international military dominance. Our soldiers will increasingly go into combat with aged equipment, lacking assurance that they'll prevail against any enemy.
Ms. Eaglen, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, has worked on defense issues at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill.
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Politics & Religion / WSJ: Rescue operation Somalia. All GGs saved, all BGs killed.
« on: January 25, 2012, 10:40:48 AM »
By JULIAN E. BARNES And NATHAN HODGE
An elite U.S. special-operations team parachuted into Somalia early Wednesday in a daring and successful nighttime rescue, freeing two hostages held since October and killing nine captors.
An elite U.S. special-operations team parachuted into Somalia early Wednesday morning in a daring and successful nighttime raid to free an American and Danish hostage.
The captives, 32-year-old U.S. citizen Jessica Buchanan and Poul Thisted of Denmark, 60, were rescued in the vicinity of Gadaado, Somalia, the U.S. military's Africa Command said.
During the raid, the rescue team found the hostages guarded by nine people, all of whom were killed during the assault, while the captives were found unharmed, according to the U.S. military.
The raid was planned and carried out after U.S. officials developed intelligence on the hostages' location. Military planners were also worried about the deteriorating health of Ms. Buchanan.
"One of the hostages has a disease that was very serious and that had to be solved," Danish Foreign Minister Villy Soevndal told Danish television, the Associated Press reported. Mr. Soevndal didn't provide any more details.
"There was a window of opportunity for military success," said Navy Capt. John Kirby, the chief Pentagon spokesman. "Within the last week or so, we were able to connect enough dots to make the decision."
Capt. Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, declined to provide any details on Ms. Buchanan's medical condition, citing privacy rules. But he said the military's understanding that her condition was deteriorating while she was being held captive "contributed to the sense of urgency" that the raid must be carried out.
U.S. officials said the freed hostages had been taken to a safe location for evaluation.
Ms. Buchanan and Mr. Thisted worked for the nonprofit Danish De-mining Group, which helps locate and clear old land mines and unexploded ordnance from armed conflicts. They had been conducting a demining training course in Somalia when they were kidnapped by gunmen on Oct. 25 as they headed to the airport in Galkayo, a town in central Somalia.
Enlarge Image
CloseReuters
The Danish Refugee Council confirmed that the two aid workers, American Jessica Buchanan, right, and Dane Poul Hagen Thisted, were freed "during an operation in Somalia.
."This mission demonstrates our military's commitment to the safety of our fellow citizens wherever they may be around the world," U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a statement.
Somalia has been a base for piracy and kidnapping, and U.S. forces have staged rescues of other hostages at sea. "It is my hope that all those who work in Somalia for the betterment of the Somali people can be free from the dangers of violent criminals," said Gen. Carter Ham, the commander of U.S. Africa Command.
The unusual raid points to the expanded counterterrorism mission of secretive U.S. special operations teams in the Horn of Africa and elsewhere. Last year, a team of U.S. Navy SEALs staged a daring operation in Pakistan to kill al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden.
Enlarge Image
CloseAssociated Press
After the State of the Union, President Barack Obama, with by First Lady Michelle Obama, informed John Buchanan that his daughter Jessica was rescued in Somalia.
.Pentagon officials said they hadn't confirmed that the people holding the hostages have any direct ties to pirates, and characterized them only as criminals. Still, military officials said that some pirates move between trying to capture ships and other criminal activity.
A pirate who gave his name as Bile Hussein told the AP he had spoken to pirates at the scene of the raid and they reported that nine pirates had been killed and three were missing. He said the raid had been very quick and caught the guards as they were sleeping after having chewed the narcotic leaf khat for much of the evening. Khat is a stimulant but users often sleep heavily after hours of chewing.
A second pirate who gave his name as Ahmed Hashi said two helicopters attacked at about 2 a.m. at the site where the hostages were being held about 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the Somali town of Gadaado, the AP reported.
In a statement, President Barack Obama praised the "the extraordinary courage and capabilities of our special-operations forces."
In an apparent reference to the raid before Mr. Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday night, as the president entered the House chamber, he shook Mr. Panetta's hand and said, "Good job tonight."
The White House said Mr. Obama spoke with Ms. Buchanan's father to inform him of the successful rescue mission.
The raid is unlikely to deter kidnappers in Somalia, parts of which have been buffeted by drought, famine and armed conflict over the last two years, said Emmanuel Ksiangani, a senior researcher at the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies who monitors Somalia.
"This doesn't change the dynamic of these people having no other source of livelihood and so they will try again," said Mr. Ksiangani. "They will use this as a propaganda tool. Even if these were criminal elements, they will say [the Americans] killed innocent people and try to capitalize on the deaths of Somalis to create resentment against the United States."
The raid is another example of President Obama's new security strategy, with its emphasis on rapid, low-cost, intelligence-driven strikes, said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
But there is always risk of failure even in well-planned operations, said Mr. Cordesman, including the possibility that kidnappers might try to kill their hostages.
"There's no such thing a neutral use of force," he said. "There's a reason we call it force. There's a reason we call it war."
An elite U.S. special-operations team parachuted into Somalia early Wednesday in a daring and successful nighttime rescue, freeing two hostages held since October and killing nine captors.
An elite U.S. special-operations team parachuted into Somalia early Wednesday morning in a daring and successful nighttime raid to free an American and Danish hostage.
The captives, 32-year-old U.S. citizen Jessica Buchanan and Poul Thisted of Denmark, 60, were rescued in the vicinity of Gadaado, Somalia, the U.S. military's Africa Command said.
During the raid, the rescue team found the hostages guarded by nine people, all of whom were killed during the assault, while the captives were found unharmed, according to the U.S. military.
The raid was planned and carried out after U.S. officials developed intelligence on the hostages' location. Military planners were also worried about the deteriorating health of Ms. Buchanan.
"One of the hostages has a disease that was very serious and that had to be solved," Danish Foreign Minister Villy Soevndal told Danish television, the Associated Press reported. Mr. Soevndal didn't provide any more details.
"There was a window of opportunity for military success," said Navy Capt. John Kirby, the chief Pentagon spokesman. "Within the last week or so, we were able to connect enough dots to make the decision."
Capt. Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, declined to provide any details on Ms. Buchanan's medical condition, citing privacy rules. But he said the military's understanding that her condition was deteriorating while she was being held captive "contributed to the sense of urgency" that the raid must be carried out.
U.S. officials said the freed hostages had been taken to a safe location for evaluation.
Ms. Buchanan and Mr. Thisted worked for the nonprofit Danish De-mining Group, which helps locate and clear old land mines and unexploded ordnance from armed conflicts. They had been conducting a demining training course in Somalia when they were kidnapped by gunmen on Oct. 25 as they headed to the airport in Galkayo, a town in central Somalia.
Enlarge Image
CloseReuters
The Danish Refugee Council confirmed that the two aid workers, American Jessica Buchanan, right, and Dane Poul Hagen Thisted, were freed "during an operation in Somalia.
."This mission demonstrates our military's commitment to the safety of our fellow citizens wherever they may be around the world," U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a statement.
Somalia has been a base for piracy and kidnapping, and U.S. forces have staged rescues of other hostages at sea. "It is my hope that all those who work in Somalia for the betterment of the Somali people can be free from the dangers of violent criminals," said Gen. Carter Ham, the commander of U.S. Africa Command.
The unusual raid points to the expanded counterterrorism mission of secretive U.S. special operations teams in the Horn of Africa and elsewhere. Last year, a team of U.S. Navy SEALs staged a daring operation in Pakistan to kill al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden.
Enlarge Image
CloseAssociated Press
After the State of the Union, President Barack Obama, with by First Lady Michelle Obama, informed John Buchanan that his daughter Jessica was rescued in Somalia.
.Pentagon officials said they hadn't confirmed that the people holding the hostages have any direct ties to pirates, and characterized them only as criminals. Still, military officials said that some pirates move between trying to capture ships and other criminal activity.
A pirate who gave his name as Bile Hussein told the AP he had spoken to pirates at the scene of the raid and they reported that nine pirates had been killed and three were missing. He said the raid had been very quick and caught the guards as they were sleeping after having chewed the narcotic leaf khat for much of the evening. Khat is a stimulant but users often sleep heavily after hours of chewing.
A second pirate who gave his name as Ahmed Hashi said two helicopters attacked at about 2 a.m. at the site where the hostages were being held about 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the Somali town of Gadaado, the AP reported.
In a statement, President Barack Obama praised the "the extraordinary courage and capabilities of our special-operations forces."
In an apparent reference to the raid before Mr. Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday night, as the president entered the House chamber, he shook Mr. Panetta's hand and said, "Good job tonight."
The White House said Mr. Obama spoke with Ms. Buchanan's father to inform him of the successful rescue mission.
The raid is unlikely to deter kidnappers in Somalia, parts of which have been buffeted by drought, famine and armed conflict over the last two years, said Emmanuel Ksiangani, a senior researcher at the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies who monitors Somalia.
"This doesn't change the dynamic of these people having no other source of livelihood and so they will try again," said Mr. Ksiangani. "They will use this as a propaganda tool. Even if these were criminal elements, they will say [the Americans] killed innocent people and try to capitalize on the deaths of Somalis to create resentment against the United States."
The raid is another example of President Obama's new security strategy, with its emphasis on rapid, low-cost, intelligence-driven strikes, said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
But there is always risk of failure even in well-planned operations, said Mr. Cordesman, including the possibility that kidnappers might try to kill their hostages.
"There's no such thing a neutral use of force," he said. "There's a reason we call it force. There's a reason we call it war."
47366
Politics & Religion / Re: Politics
« on: January 25, 2012, 09:04:24 AM »
"Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason." --Benjamin Franklin
The Demo-gogues
Obama thinks the only problem with America is that we don't realize how awesome he is.
To sum up the SOTU: "I went ... I know ... My ... My ... I took office ... I'm president ... I will work ... I intend ... I will oppose ... I want to speak ... I took office ... I refused ... told me ... My message ... Send me ... I'll sign ... I set ... I signed ... I will go ... I will not stand ... It's not fair ... I'm announcing ... I promise you ... I also hear ... I want ... Join me ... My administration ... I want to cut ... I call on ... I spoke ... let me put ... I believe ... my administration ... I took office ... I will sign ... I'm directing ... my administration ... I'm requiring ... I will not walk away ... I will not walk away ... I will not cede ... I will ... I'm directing ... I'm proud ... Send me ... I will sign ... I'm sending ... I've approved ... my presidency ... I've ordered ... I guess ... I'm confident ... I will not back down ... I will not back down ... I will not go back ... I will not go back ... I'm asking ... fair play ... So do I ... I told ... I'm prepared ... fair share ... my fair share ... I get tax breaks I don't need ... I recognize ... I bet ... I've talked ... Send me a bill ... I will sign ... I ask the Senate ... I've asked ... I'm a Democrat ... I believe ... my education reform ... I will keep taking ... I can do ... I have no doubt ... I will take ... I'm president ... I intend ... I have proposed ... I have already ... I'm proposing ... brings me ... my proudest ... I sat ... I look at ... I'm reminded." --BO
The Demo-gogues
Obama thinks the only problem with America is that we don't realize how awesome he is.
To sum up the SOTU: "I went ... I know ... My ... My ... I took office ... I'm president ... I will work ... I intend ... I will oppose ... I want to speak ... I took office ... I refused ... told me ... My message ... Send me ... I'll sign ... I set ... I signed ... I will go ... I will not stand ... It's not fair ... I'm announcing ... I promise you ... I also hear ... I want ... Join me ... My administration ... I want to cut ... I call on ... I spoke ... let me put ... I believe ... my administration ... I took office ... I will sign ... I'm directing ... my administration ... I'm requiring ... I will not walk away ... I will not walk away ... I will not cede ... I will ... I'm directing ... I'm proud ... Send me ... I will sign ... I'm sending ... I've approved ... my presidency ... I've ordered ... I guess ... I'm confident ... I will not back down ... I will not back down ... I will not go back ... I will not go back ... I'm asking ... fair play ... So do I ... I told ... I'm prepared ... fair share ... my fair share ... I get tax breaks I don't need ... I recognize ... I bet ... I've talked ... Send me a bill ... I will sign ... I ask the Senate ... I've asked ... I'm a Democrat ... I believe ... my education reform ... I will keep taking ... I can do ... I have no doubt ... I will take ... I'm president ... I intend ... I have proposed ... I have already ... I'm proposing ... brings me ... my proudest ... I sat ... I look at ... I'm reminded." --BO
47367
Science, Culture, & Humanities / Encryption privacy
« on: January 24, 2012, 11:24:05 PM »
I get up in 5 hours and so don't have the time to read those with the care they merit in this moment, but I heard about this decision. This issue seems worthy of our collective consideration. Big Dog, care to frame the issues for us?
47368
Politics & Religion / Signals coming in on my tin foil hat , , ,
« on: January 24, 2012, 08:21:30 PM »47369
Politics & Religion / Re: Chomsky
« on: January 24, 2012, 08:12:48 PM »
I return to LA tomorrow and it will take me a few days to get caught up after 12 days on the road.
47370
Politics & Religion / Stratfor: Annual Report
« on: January 24, 2012, 08:08:52 PM »Editor's Note: In this annual report on Mexico's drug cartels, we assess the most
significant developments of 2011 and provide updated profiles of the country's
powerful criminal cartels as well as a forecast for 2012. The report is a product of
the coverage we maintain through our Mexico Security Memo, quarterly updates and
other analyses we produce throughout the year.
As we noted in last year's annual cartel report, Mexico in 2010 bore witness to some
15,273 deaths in connection with the drug trade. The death toll for 2010 surpassed
that of any previous year, and in doing so became the deadliest year ever in the
country's fight against the cartels. But in the bloody chronology that is Mexico's
cartel war, 2010's time at the top may have been short-lived. Despite the Mexican
government's efforts to curb cartel-related violence, the death toll for 2011 may
have exceeded what had been an unprecedented number.
According to the Mexican government, cartel-related homicides claimed around 12,900
lives from January to September -- about 1,400 deaths per month. While this figure
is lower than that of 2010, it does not account for the final quarter of 2011. The
Mexican government has not yet released official statistics for the entire year, but
if the monthly average held until year's end, the overall death toll for 2011 would
reach 17,000. Though most estimates put the total below that, the actual number of
homicides in Mexico is likely higher than what is officially reported. At the very
least, although we do not have a final, official number -- and despite media reports
to the contrary -- we can conclude that violence in Mexico did not decline
substantially in 2011.
Indeed, rather than receding to levels acceptable to the Mexican government,
violence in Mexico has persisted, though it seems to have shifted geographically,
abating in some cities and worsening in others. For example, while Ciudad Juarez,
Chihuahua state, was once again Mexico's deadliest city in terms of gross numbers,
the city's annual death toll reportedly dropped substantially from 3,111 in 2010 to
1,955 in 2011. However, such reductions appear to have been offset by increases
elsewhere, including Veracruz, Veracruz state; Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state;
Matamoros, Tamaulipas state; and Durango, Durango state.
Over the past year it has also become evident that a polarization is under way among
the country's cartels. Most smaller groups (or remnants of groups) have been
subsumed by the Sinaloa Federation, which controls much of western Mexico, and Los
Zetas, who control much of eastern Mexico. While a great deal has been said about
the fluidity of the Mexican cartel landscape, these two groups have solidified
themselves as the country's predominant forces. Of course, the battle lines in
Mexico have not been drawn absolutely, and not every entity calling itself a cartel
swears allegiance to one side or the other, but a polarization clearly is occurring.
Geography does not encapsulate this polarization. It reflects two very different
modes of operation practiced by the two cartel hegemons, delineated by a common
expression in Mexican vernacular: "Plata o plomo." The expression, which translates
to "silver or lead" in English, means that a cartel will force one's cooperation
with either a bribe or a bullet. The Sinaloa Federation leadership more often
employs the former, preferring to buy off and corrupt to achieve its objectives. It
also frequently provides intelligence to authorities, and in doing so uses the
authorities as a weapon against rival cartels. Sinaloa certainly can and does resort
to ruthless violence, but the violence it employs is merely one of many tools at its
disposal, not its preferred tactic.
On the other hand, Los Zetas prefer brutality. They can and do resort to bribery,
but they lean toward intimidation and violence. Their mode of operation tends to be
far less subtle than that of their Sinaloa counterparts, and with a leadership
composed of former special operations soldiers, they are quite effective in
employing force and fear to achieve their objectives. Because ex-military personnel
formed Los Zetas, members tend to move up in the group's hierarchy through merit
rather than through familial connections. This contrasts starkly with the culture of
other cartels, including Sinaloa.
Status of Mexico's Major Cartels
Sinaloa Federation
The Sinaloa Federation lost at least 10 major plaza bosses or top lieutenants in
2011, including its security chief and its alleged main weapons supplier. It is
unclear how much those losses have affected the group's operations overall.
One Sinaloa operation that appears to have been affected is the group's
methamphetamine production. After the disintegration of La Familia Michoacana (LFM)
in early 2011, the Sinaloa Federation clearly emerged as the country's foremost
producer of methamphetamine. Most of the tons of precursor chemicals seized by
Mexican authorities in Manzanillo, Colima state; Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco state;
Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan state; and Los Mochis and Mazatlan, Sinaloa state, likely
belonged to the Sinaloa Federation. Because of these government operations -- and
other operations to disassemble methamphetamine labs -- the group apparently began
to divert at least some of its methamphetamine production to Guatemala in late 2011.
In addition to maintaining its anti-Zetas alliance with the Gulf cartel, Sinaloa in
2011 affiliated itself with the Knights Templar (KT) in Michoacan, and to counter
Los Zetas in Jalisco state, Sinaloa affiliated itself with the Cartel de Jalisco
Nueva Generacion (CJNG). Sinaloa also has tightened its encirclement of the Vicente
Carrillo Fuentes (VCF) organization in the latter's long-held plaza of Ciudad
Juarez. There are even signs that it continues to expand its control over parts of
Juarez itself.
Los Zetas
By the end of 2011, Los Zetas eclipsed the Sinaloa Federation as the largest cartel
operating in Mexico in terms of geographic presence. According to a report from the
Assistant Attorney General's Office of Special Investigations into Organized Crime,
Los Zetas now operate in 17 states. (The same report said the Sinaloa Federation
operates in 16 states, down from 23 in 2005.) While Los Zetas continue to fight off
a CJNG incursion into Veracruz state, they did not sustain any significant
territorial losses in 2011.
Los Zetas moved into Zacatecas and Durango states, achieving a degree of control of
the former and challenging the Sinaloa Federation in the latter. Both states are
mountainous and conducive to the harvesting of poppy and marijuana. They also
contain major north-south transportation corridors. By mid-November, reports
indicated that Los Zetas had begun to assert control over Colima state and its
crucial port of Manzanillo. In some cases, Los Zetas are sharing territories with
cartels they reportedly have relationships with, including the Cartel Pacifico Sur
(CPS), La Resistencia and the remnants of LFM. But Los Zetas have a long history of
working as hired enforcers for other organizations throughout the country.
Therefore, having an alliance or business relationship with Los Zetas is not
necessarily the equivalent of being a Sinaloa vassal. A relationship with Los Zetas
may be perceived as more fleeting than Sinaloa subjugation.
On the whole, Los Zetas remained strong in 2011 despite losing 17 cell leaders and
plaza bosses to death and arrest. Los Zetas also remain the dominant force in the
Yucatan Peninsula. However, the CJNG's mass killings of alleged Zetas members or
supporters in Veracruz have called into question the group's unchallenged control of
that state.
In response to the mass killings in Veracruz, Los Zetas killed dozens of CJNG and
Sinaloa members in Guadalajara, Jalisco state, and Culiacan, Sinaloa state. Aided by
La Resistencia, these operations were well-executed, and the groups clearly invested
a great deal of time and effort into surveillance and planning.
The Gulf Cartel
The Gulf cartel (CDG) was strong at the beginning of 2011, holding off several Zetas
incursions into its territory. However, as the year progressed, internal divisions
led to intra-cartel battles in Matamoros and Reynosa, Tamaulipas state. The
infighting resulted in several deaths and arrests in Mexico and in the United
States. The CDG has since broken apart, and it appears that one faction, known as
Los Metros, has overpowered its rival Los Rojos faction and is now asserting its
control over CDG operations. The infighting has weakened the CDG, but the group
seems to have maintained control of its primary plazas, or smuggling corridors, into
the United States. (CDG infighting is detailed further in another section of this
report.)
La Familia Michoacana
LFM disintegrated at the beginning of 2011, giving rise to and becoming eclipsed by
one of its factions, the Knights Templar (KT). Indeed, by July it was clear the KT
had become more powerful than LFM in Mexico. The media and the police continue to
report that LFM maintains extensive networks in the United States, but it is unclear
how many of the U.S.-based networks are actually working with LFM rather than the
KT, which is far more capable of trafficking narcotics. It appears that many reports
regarding LFM in the United States do not reflect the changes that have occurred in
Mexico over the past year; many former LFM leaders are now members of the KT. Adding
to the confusion was the alleged late-summer alliance between LFM and Los Zetas.
Such an alliance would have been a final attempt by the remaining LFM leadership to
keep the group from being utterly destroyed by the KT. LFM is still active, but it
is very weak.
The Knights Templar
In January 2011, a month after the death of charismatic LFM leader Nazario "El Mas
Loco" Moreno, two former LFM lieutenants, Servando "La Tuta" Gomez and Enrique
Plancarte, formed the Knights Templar due to differences with Jose de Jesus "El
Chango" Mendez, who had assumed leadership of LFM. In March they announced the
formation of their new organization via narcomantas in Morelia, Zitacuaro and
Apatzingan, Michoacan state.
After the emergence of the KT, sizable battles flared up during the spring and
summer months between the KT and LFM. The organization has grown from a splinter
group to a dominant force over LFM, and it appears to be taking over the bulk of the
original LFM's operations in Mexico. At present, the Knights Templar appear to have
aligned with the Sinaloa Federation in an effort to root out the remnants of LFM and
to prevent Los Zetas from gaining a more substantial foothold in the region through
their alliance with LFM.
Independent Cartel of Acapulco
The Independent Cartel of Acapulco (CIDA) has not been eliminated entirely, but it
appears to have been severely damaged. Since the capture of CIDA leader Gilberto
Castrejon Morales in early December, the group has faded from the public view.
CIDA's weakness appears to have allowed its in-town rival, Sinaloa-affiliated La
Barredora, to move some of its enforcers to Guadalajara to fend off the Zetas
offensive there. The decreased levels of violence and public displays of dead bodies
in Acapulco of late can be attributed to the group's weakening, and we are unsure if
CIDA will be able to regroup and attempt to reclaim Acapulco.
Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion
After the death of Ignacio "El Nacho" Coronel in July 2010, his followers suspected
the Sinaloa cartel had betrayed him and broke away to form the CJNG. In spring 2011,
the CJNG declared war on all other Mexican cartels and stated its intention to take
control of Guadalajara. However, by midsummer, the group appeared to have been
reunited with its former partners in the Sinaloa Federation. We are unsure what
precipitated the reconciliation, but it seems that the CJNG was somehow convinced
that Sinaloa did not betray Coronel after all. It is also possible CJNG was
convinced that Coronel needed to go. In any case, CJNG "sicarios," or assassins, in
September traveled to the important Los Zetas stronghold of Veracruz, labeled
themselves the "Matazetas," or Zeta killers, and began to murder alleged Zetas
members and their supporters. By mid-December, the CJNG was still in Veracruz
fighting Los Zetas while also helping to protect Guadalajara and other areas on
Mexico's west coast from
Zetas aggression.
Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization/Juarez Cartel
The VCF, aka the Juarez cartel, continues to weaken. A Sinaloa operative killed one
of its top lieutenants, Francisco Vicente Castillo Carrillo -- a Carrillo family
member -- in September 2011. The VCF reportedly still controls the three main points
of entry into El Paso, Texas, but the organization appears unable to expand its
operations or move narcotics en masse through its plazas because it is hemmed in by
the Sinaloa Federation, which appears to have chipped away at the VCF's monopoly of
the Juarez plaza. The VCF is only a shadow of the organization it was a decade ago,
and its weakness and inability to effectively fight against Sinaloa's advances in
Juarez contributed to the lower death toll in Juarez in 2011.
Cartel Pacifico Sur
The CPS, headed by Hector Beltran Leyva, saw a reduction in violence in the latter
part of 2011 after having been very active in the first third of the year. We are
unsure why the group quieted down. The CPS may be concentrating on smuggling for
revenue generation to support itself and assist its Los Zetas allies, who provide
military muscle for the CPS and work in their areas of operation. Because of their
reputation, Los Zetas receive a great deal of media attention, so it is also
possible that the media attributed violent incidents involving CPS gunmen to Los
Zetas.
Arellano Felix Organization
The November arrest of Juan Francisco Sillas Rocha, the AFO's chief enforcer, was
yet another sign of the organization's continued weakness. It remains an impotent
and reluctant subsidiary of the Sinaloa Federation, unable to reclaim the Tijuana
plaza for its own.
2011 Forecast in Review
In our forecast for 2011, we believed that the unprecedented levels of violence from
2010 would continue as long as the cartel balance of power remained in a state of
flux. Indeed, cartel-related deaths appear to have at least continued apace.
Much of the cartel conflict in 2011 followed patterns set in 2010. Los Zetas
continued to fight the CDG in northeast Mexico while maintaining their control of
Veracruz state and the Yucatan Peninsula. The Sinaloa Federation continued to fight
the VCF in Ciudad Juarez while maintaining control of much of Sonora state and Baja
California state.
We forecast that government operations and cartel infighting and rivalry would
expose fissures in and among the cartels. This prediction held true. The Beltran
Leyva Organization no longer exists in its original form, its members dispersed
among the Sinaloa Federation, the CPS, CIDA and other smaller groups. As noted
above, fissures within LFM led to the creation of two groups, LFM and the KT. The
CDG also now consists of two factions competing for control of the organization's
operations.
We also forecast that the degree of violence in the country was politically
unacceptable for Mexican President Felipe Calderon and his ruling National Action
Party. Calderon knew he would have to reduce the violence to acceptable levels if
his party was going to have a chance to continue to hold power after he left office
in 2012 (Mexican presidents serve only one six-year term). As the 2012 presidential
election approaches, Calderon is continuing his strategy of deploying the armed
forces against the cartels. He has also reached out to the United States for
assistance. The two countries shared signals intelligence throughout the year and
continued to cooperate through joint intelligence centers like the one in Mexico
City. The U.S. military also continues to train Mexican military and law enforcement
personnel, and the United States has deployed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in
Mexican airspace at Mexico's behest. The Mexican military was in operational command
of the UAV
missions.
As we have noted the past few years, we also believed that Calderon's continued use
of the military would perpetuate what is referred to as the three-front war in
Mexico. The fronts consist of cartels against rival cartels, the military against
cartels, and cartels against civilians. Indeed, in 2011 the cartels continued to vie
for control of ports, plazas and markets, while deployments of military forces
increased to counter Los Zetas in the states of Coahuila, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon and
Veracruz; to combat several groups waging a bloody turf war in Acapulco, Guerrero
state; and to respond to conflicts arising between the Sinaloa Federation and Los
Zetas and their affiliate groups in Nayarit and Michoacan states.
While Los Zetas were hit hard in 2011, the Mexican government's offensive against
the group was unable to damage it to the extent we believed it would. Despite losing
several key leaders and plaza bosses, as noted previously, the group maintains its
pre-eminence in the east. This is largely due to the ease with which such groups can
replenish their ranks.
Resupplying Leadership
One of the ways in which Mexico's cartels, including Los Zetas, replenish their
ranks is with defected military personnel. Around 27,000 men and women desert the
Mexican military every year, and about 50 percent of the military's recruiting class
will have left before the end of their first tour. In March 2011, the Mexican army
admitted that it had "lost track of" 1,680 special forces personnel over the past
decade (Los Zetas were formed by more than 30 former members of Mexico's Special
Forces Airmobile Group). Some cartels even reportedly task some of their own foot
soldiers to enlist in the military to gain knowledge and experience in military
tactics. In any case, retention is clearly a serious problem for the Mexican armed
forces, and deserting soldiers take their skills (and oftentimes their weapons) to
the cartels.
In addition, the drug trade attracts ex-military personnel who did not desert but
left in good standing after serving their duty. There are fewer opportunities for
veterans in Mexico than in many countries, and understandably many are drawn to a
lucrative practice that places value on their skill sets. But deserters or former
soldiers are not the only source of recruits for the cartels. They also replenish
their ranks with current and former police officers, gang members and others (to
include Central American immigrants and even U.S. citizens).
2012 Forecasts by Region
Northeast Mexico
Northeast Mexico saw some of the most noteworthy cartel violence in 2011. The
primary conflict in the region involved the continuing fight between CDG and Los
Zetas, who were CDG enforcers before breaking away from the CDG in early 2010. Los
Zetas have since eclipsed the CDG in terms of size, reach and influence. In 2011,
divisions within the CDG over leadership succession came to the fore, leading to
further violence in the region, and we believe these divisions will sow the group's
undoing in 2012.
The CDG began to suffer another internal fracture in late 2010 when the Mexican army
killed Antonio "Tony Tormenta" Cardenas Guillen, who co-lead the CDG with Eduardo
"El Coss" Costilla Sanchez, in Matamoros, Tamaulipas state. After Cardenas Guillen's
death in November 2010, Costilla Sanchez assumed full control of the organization,
passing over Rafael "El Junior" Cardenas Vela, the Cardenas family's heir apparent,
in the process. This bisected the CDG, creating two competing factions: Los Rojos,
loyal to the Cardenas family, and Los Metros, loyal to Costilla Sanchez.
In late 2011, several events exacerbated tensions between the factions. On Sept. 3,
authorities found the body of Samuel "El Metro 3" Flores Borrego, Costilla Sanchez's
second-in-command, in Reynosa, Tamaulipas state. Then on Sept. 27, gunmen in an SUV
shot and killed a man driving a vehicle on U.S. Route 83, east of McAllen, Texas.
The driver, Jorge Zavala of Mission, Texas, was connected to Los Metros.
The Mexican navy reported the following month that Cesar "El Gama" Davila Garcia,
the CDG's head finance officer, was found dead in Reynosa. Davila previously had
served as Cardenas Guillen's accountant. Then on Oct. 20, U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement agents arrested Cardenas Vela after a traffic stop near Port
Isabel, Texas. We believe Los Metros tipped off U.S. authorities about Cardenas
Vela's location. (Los Metros have every reason to kill Los Rojos leaders, including
Cardenas Vela, but cartels rarely conduct assassinations on U.S. soil for fear of
U.S. retribution.)
On Oct. 28, Jose Luis "Comandante Wicho" Zuniga Hernandez, believed to be Cardenas
Vela's deputy and operational leader in Matamoros, reportedly turned himself in to
U.S. authorities without a fight near Santa Maria, Texas. Finally, Mexican federal
authorities arrested Ezequiel "El Junior" Cardenas Rivera, Cardenas Guillen's son,
in Matamoros on Nov. 25.
By December, media agencies reported that Cardenas Guillen's brother, Mario Cardenas
Guillen, was the overall leader of the CDG. But Mario was never known to be very
active in the family business, and his reluctance to involve himself in cartel
operations appears to have continued after his brother's death. In addition,
Costilla Sanchez is reclusive, choosing to run his organization from several
secluded ranches. That he is not mentioned in media reports does not mean he has
been removed from his position. Given his reclusiveness and Mario Cardenas Guillen's
longstanding reticence to involve himself in cartel activity, it seems unlikely that
Costilla Sanchez would be replaced. Because Los Metros seemingly have gained the
upper hand over Los Rojos, we anticipate that they will further expand their
dominance in early 2012.
However, while Los Metros may have defeated their rival for control of the CDG, the
organizational infighting has left the CDG vulnerable to outside attack. Of course,
any group divided is vulnerable to attack, but the CDG's ongoing feud with Los Zetas
compounds its problem. Fully aware of the CDG's weakness, we believe Los Zetas will
step up their attempts to assume control of CDG territory.
If Los Zetas are able to defeat the Los Metros faction -- or they engage in a truce
with the faction -- they may be able to redeploy fighters to other regions or
cities, particularly Veracruz and Guadalajara. Reinforcements in Veracruz would help
counter the CJNG presence in the port city, and reinforcements in Guadalajara would
shore up Los Zetas' operations and presence in Jalisco state. Likewise, a reduction
in cartel-on-cartel fighting in the region would free up troops the Mexican army has
stationed in Tamaulipas state -- an estimated force of 13,000 soldiers -- for
deployment elsewhere.
Southeast Mexico
Some notable events took place in southeast Mexico in 2011. On Dec. 4 the Mexican
army dismantled a Zetas communications network that encompassed multiple cities in
Veracruz, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, San Luis Potosi and Coahuila states.
In addition, Veracruz state Gov. Javier Duarte on Dec. 21 fired the city's municipal
police, including officers and administrative employees, and gave the Mexican navy
law enforcement responsibilities. By Dec. 22, Mexican marines began patrols and law
enforcement activities, effectively replacing the police much like the army replaced
the police in Ciudad Juarez in 2009 and in various cities in Tamaulipas state in
August 2011. We anticipate that fighting between the CJNG and Los Zetas will
continue in Veracruz for at least the first quarter of 2012.
We expect security conditions on the Yucatan Peninsula to remain relatively stable
in 2012 because there are no other major players in the region contesting Los Zetas'
control.
Southwest Mexico
In the southern Pacific coastal states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, we expect violence to
be as infrequent in 2012 as it was in 2011. Chiapas and Oaxaca have been
transshipment zones for Los Zetas and the Sinaloa Federation for several years; as
such, clashes and cargo hijackings occasionally take place. However, direct and
sustained combat does not occur regularly because the two groups tend to use
different routes to transport their shipments. The Sinaloa Federation prefers to
move its product north on roads and highways along the Pacific coast, whereas Los
Zetas' transportation lines cross Mexico's interior before moving north along the
Gulf coast.
Pacific Coast and Central Mexico
As many as a dozen organizations, ranging from the KT to local criminal
organizations to newer groups like La Barredora and La Resistencia, continue to
fight for control of the plazas in Guerrero, Michoacan and Jalisco states. Acapulco
was particularly violent in 2011, and we believe it will continue to be violent
through 2012 unless La Barredora is able to exert firm control over the city.
Acapulco has been a traditional Beltran Leyva stronghold, and the CPS may attempt to
reassert itself there. If that happens, violence will once again increase.
Security conditions worsened in Jalisco state at the end of 2011, and Stratfor
anticipates violence there will continue to increase in 2012, especially in
Guadalajara, a valued transportation hub. In November, Los Zetas struck the CJNG in
Guadalajara in response to the mass killings of Los Zetas members in Veracruz state.
The attacks are significant because they demonstrated an ability to conduct
protracted cross-country operations. Should Los Zetas establish firm control over
Guadalajara, the Sinaloa Federation's smuggling activities could be adversely
affected, something Sinaloa obviously cannot permit. Given an increased Zetas
presence in Zacatecas, Durango and Jalisco states, and Sinaloa's operational need to
counter that presence, we expect to see violence increase in the region in 2012.
Unless a significant military force is somehow brought to bear, we do not expect to
see any substantive improvement in the security conditions in Guerrero or Michoacan
states.
Northwest Mexico
The cross-country operations performed by Los Zetas indicate that the group's growth
and expansion has been more profound than we expected in the face of the
government's major operations specifically targeting the organization. Such
expansion will pose a direct threat not only to the Sinaloa Federation's supply
lines but to its home turf, which stretches from Guadalajara to southern Sonora
state.
In northwest Mexico, specifically Baja California, Baja California Sur and Chihuahua
states (and most of Sonora state), the Sinaloa Federation either directly controls
or regularly uses the smuggling corridors and points of entry into the United
States. Security conditions in the plazas under firm Sinaloa control have been
relatively stable. Indeed, as Sinaloa tightened its control over Tijuana, violence
there dropped, and we expect to see the same dynamic play out in Juarez as Sinaloa
consolidates its control of that city. Stability could be threatened, however, if
Los Zetas attempt to push into Sinaloa-held cities.
Outside of Mexico
As we noted in the past three annual cartel reports, Mexico's cartels have been
expanding their control of the cocaine supply chain all the way into South America.
This eliminates middlemen and brings in more profit. They are also using their
presence in South America to obtain chemical precursors and weapons.
Increased violence in northern Mexico and ramped-up law enforcement along the U.S.
border has made narcotics smuggling into the United States more difficult than it
has been in the past. The cartels have adapted to these challenges by becoming more
involved in the trafficking of cocaine to alternative markets in Europe and
Australia. The arrests of Mexican cartel members in such places as the Dominican
Republic also seem to indicate that the Mexicans are becoming more involved in the
Caribbean smuggling routes into the United States. In the past, Colombian smuggling
groups and their Caribbean partners in places like Cuba, Puerto Rico and the
Dominican Republic used these routes. We anticipate seeing more signs of Mexican
cartel involvement in the Caribbean, Europe and Australia in 2012.
Government Strategy in 2012
There is no indication of a major shift in the Mexican government's overarching
security strategy for 2012; Calderon will continue to use the military against the
cartels throughout the year (a new president will be elected in July, but Calderon's
term does not conclude until the end of 2012). This strategy of taking out cartel
leaders has resulted in the disruption of the cartel balance of power in the past,
which tends to lead to more violence as groups scramble to fill the resultant power
vacuum. Mexican operations may further disrupt that balance in 2012, but while
government operations have broken apart some cartel organizations, the combination
of military and law enforcement resources has been unable to dislodge cartel
influence from the areas it targets. They can break specific criminal organizations,
but the lucrative smuggling corridors into the United States will continue to exist,
even after the organizations controlling them are taken down. And as long as the
smuggling
corridors exist, and provide access to so much money, other organizations will
inevitably fight to assume control over them.
Some 45,000 Mexican troops are actively involved in domestic counter-cartel
operations. These troops work alongside state and federal law enforcement officers
and in some cases have replaced fired municipal police officers. They are spread
across a large country with high levels of violence in most major cities, and their
presence in these cities is essential for maintaining what security has been
achieved.
While this number of troops represents only about a quarter of the overall Mexican
army's manpower -- troops are often supplemented by deployments of Mexican marines
-- it also represents the bulk of applicable Mexican military ground combat
strength. Meager and poorly maintained reserve forces do not appear to be a
meaningful supplemental resource.
In short, if the current conditions persist, it does not appear that the Mexican
government can redeploy troops to conduct meaningful offensive operations in new
areas of Mexico in 2012 without jeopardizing the gains it has already made. The
government cannot eliminate the cartels any more than it can end the drug trade. The
only way the Mexican government can bring the violence down to what would be
considered an acceptable level is for it to allow one cartel group to become
dominant throughout the country -- something that does not appear to be plausible in
the near term -- or for some sort of truce to be reached between the country's two
cartel hegemons, Los Zetas and the Sinaloa Federation.
Such scenarios are not unprecedented. At one time the Guadalajara cartel controlled
virtually all of Mexico's drug trade, and it was only the dissolution of that
organization that led to its regional branches subsequently becoming what we now
know as the Sinaloa Federation, AFO, VCF and CDG. There have also been periods of
cartel truces in the past between the various regional cartel groups, although they
tend to be short-lived.
With the current levels of violence, a government-brokered truce between Los Zetas
and Sinaloa will be no easy task, given the level of animosity and mistrust that
exists between the two organizations. This means that it is unlikely that such a
truce will be brokered in 2012, but we expect to see more rhetoric in support of a
truce as a way to reduce violence.
47371
Politics & Religion / Stratfor: The potential for a deal
« on: January 24, 2012, 06:54:17 AM »Considering a U.S.-Iranian Deal
By George Friedman | January 24, 2012
Last week, I wrote on the strategic challenge Iran faces in its bid to shape a
sphere of influence stretching from western Afghanistan to Beirut on the eastern
Mediterranean coast. I also pointed out the limited options available to the United
States and other Western powers to counter Iran.
One was increased efforts to block Iranian influence in Syria. The other was to
consider a strategy of negotiation with Iran. In the past few days, we have seen
hints of both.
Rebel Gains in Syria
The city of Zabadani in southwestern Syria reportedly has fallen into the hands of
anti-regime forces. Though the city does not have much tactical value for the
rebels, and the regime could well retake it, the event could have real significance.
Up to this point, apart from media attention, the resistance to the regime of
President Bashar al Assad has not proven particularly effective. It was certainly
not able to take and hold territory, which is critical for any insurgency to have
significance.
Now that the rebels have taken Zabadani amid much fanfare -- even though it is not
clear to what extent the city was ceded to their control, much less whether they
will be able to hold it against Syrian military action -- a small bit of Syria now
appears to be under rebel control. The longer they can hold it, the weaker al Assad
will look and the more likely it becomes that regime opponents can create a
provisional government on Syrian soil to rally around.
Zabadani also gives outside powers something to help defend, should they choose to
do so. Intervening in a civil war against weak and diffused rebels is one thing.
Attacking Syrian tanks moving to retake Zabadani is quite another. There are no
indications that this is under consideration, but for the first time, there is the
potential for a militarily viable target set for outside players acting on behalf of
the rebels. The existence of that possibility might change the dynamic in Syria.
When we take into account the atmospherics of the Arab League demands for a
provisional government, some meaningful pressure might actually emerge.
From the Iranian point of view, this raises the risk that the sphere of influence
Tehran is pursuing will be blocked by the fall of the al Assad regime. This would
not pose a fundamental challenge to Iran, so long as its influence in Iraq remains
intact, but it would represent a potential high-water mark in Iranian ambitions. It
could open the door to recalculations in Tehran as to the limits of Iranian
influence and the threat to their national security. I must not overstate this:
Events in Syria have not gone that far, and Iran is hardly backed into a corner.
Still, it is a reminder to Tehran that all might not go the Iranians' way.
A Possibility of Negotiations
It is in this context that the possibility of negotiations has arisen. The Iranians
have claimed that the letter the U.S. administration sent to Iranian supreme leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that defined Iran's threats to Strait of Hormuz as a red line
contained a second paragraph offering direct talks with Iran. After hesitation, the
United States denied the offer of talks, but it did not deny it had sent a message
to the Iranian leadership. The Iranians then claimed such an offer was made verbally
to Tehran and not in the letter. Washington again was not categorical in its denial.
On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during a meeting with the
German foreign minister, "We do not seek conflict. We strongly believe the people of
Iran deserve a better future. They can have that future, the country can be
reintegrated into the global community ... when their government definitively turns
away from pursuing nuclear weapons."
From our perspective, this is a critical idea. As we have said for several years, we
do not see Iran as close to having a nuclear weapon. They may be close to being able
to test a crude nuclear device under controlled circumstances (and we don't know
this either), but the development of a deliverable nuclear weapon poses major
challenges for Iran.
Moreover, while the Iranians may aspire to a deterrent via a viable nuclear weapons
capability, we do not believe the Iranians see nuclear weapons as militarily useful.
A few such weapons could devastate Israel, but Iran would be annihilated in
retaliation. While the Iranians talk aggressively, historically they have acted
cautiously. For Iran, nuclear weapons are far more valuable as a notional threat and
bargaining chip than as something to be deployed. Indeed, the ideal situation is not
quite having a weapon, and therefore not forcing anyone to act against them, but
seeming close enough to be taken seriously. They certainly have achieved that.
The important question, therefore, is this: What would the United States offer if
Iran made meaningful concessions on its nuclear program, and what would Iran want in
return? In other words, forgetting the nuclear part of the equation, what did
Hillary Clinton mean when she said that Iran can be reintegrated into the
international community, and what would Iran actually want?
Recall that in our view, nuclear weapons never have been the issue. Instead, the
issue has been the development of an Iranian sphere of influence following the
withdrawal of the United States from Iraq, and the pressure Iran could place on
oil-producing states on the Arabian Peninsula. Iran has long felt that its natural
role as leader in the Persian Gulf has been thwarted, first by the Ottomans, then
the British and now by the Americans, and they have wanted to create what they
regard as the natural state of things.
The United States and its allies do not want Iran to get nuclear weapons. But more
than that, they do not want to see Iran as the dominant conventional force in the
area able to use its influence to undermine the Saudis. With or without nuclear
weapons, the United States must contain the Iranians to protect their Saudi allies.
But the problem is that Iran is not contained in Syria yet, and even were it
contained in Syria, it is not contained in Iraq. Iran has broken out of its
containment in a decisive fashion, and its ability to exert pressure in Arabia is
substantial.
Assume for the moment that Iran was willing to abandon its nuclear program. What
would the United States give in return? Obviously, Clinton would like to offer an
end to the sanctions. But the sanctions on Iran are simply not that onerous with the
Russians and Chinese not cooperating and the United States being forced to allow the
Japanese and others not to participate fully. But it goes deeper.
Iran's Historic Opportunity
This is a historic opportunity for Iran. It is the first moment in which no outside
power is in a direct position to block Iran militarily or politically. Whatever the
pain of sanctions, trading that moment for lifting the sanctions would not be
rational. The threat of Iranian influence is the problem, and Iran would not trade
that influence for an end to sanctions. So assuming the nuclear issue was to go
away, what exactly is the United States prepared to offer?
The United States has assured access to oil from the Persian Gulf -- not only for
itself, but also for the global industrial world -- since World War II. It does not
want to face a potential interruption of oil for any reason, like the one that
occurred in 1973. Certainly, as Iran expands its influence, the possibility of
conflict increases, along with the possibility that the United States would
intervene to protect its allies in Arabia from Iranian-sponsored subversion or even
direct attack. The United States does not want to intervene in the region. It does
not want an interruption of oil. It also does not want an extension of Iranian
power. It is not clear that Washington can have all three.
Iran wants three things, too.
First, it wants the United States to reduce its presence in the Persian Gulf
dramatically. Having seen two U.S. interventions against Iraq and one against
Afghanistan, Iran is aware of U.S. power and the way American political sentiment
can shift. It experienced the shift from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan, so it knows
how fast things can change. Tehran sees the United States in the Persian Gulf
coupled with U.S. and Israeli covert operations and destabilization campaigns as an
unpredictable danger to Iranian national security.
Second, the Iranians want to be recognized as the leading power in the region. This
does not mean they intend to occupy any nation directly. It does mean that Iran
doesn't want Saudi Arabia, for example, to pose a military threat against it.
Third, Iran wants a restructuring of oil revenue in the region. How this is formally
achieved -- whether by allowing Iranian investment in Arabian oil companies
(possibly financed by the host country) or some other means -- is unimportant. What
does matter is that the Iranians want a bigger share of the region's vast financial
resources.
The United States doesn't want a conflict with Iran. Iran doesn't want one with the
United States. Neither can be sure how such a conflict would play out. The Iranians
want to sell oil. The Americans want the West to be able to buy oil. The issue
really comes down to whether the United States wants to guarantee the flow of oil
militarily or via a political accommodation with the country that could disrupt the
flow of oil -- namely, Iran. That in turn raises two questions. First, could the
United States trust Iran? And second, could it live with withdrawing the American
protectorate on the Arabian Peninsula, casting old allies adrift?
When we listen to the rhetoric of American and Iranian politicians, it is difficult
to imagine trust between them. But when we recall the U.S. alliance with Stalin and
Mao or the Islamic republic's collaboration with the Soviet Union, we find rhetoric
is a very poor guide. Nations pursue their national interest, and while those
interests are never eternal, they can be substantial. From a purely rhetorical point
of view it is not always easy to tell which sides' politicians are more colorful. It
will be difficult to sell an alliance between the Great Satan and a founding member
of the Axis of Evil to the respective public of each country, but harder things have
been managed.
Iran's ultimate interest is security against the United States and the ability to
sell oil at a more substantial profit. (This would entail an easing of sanctions and
a redefinition of how oil revenues in the region are distributed.) The United
States' ultimate interest is access to oil and manageable prices that do not require
American military intervention. On that basis, Iranian and American interests are
not that far apart.
The Arabian Factor and a Possible Accommodation
The key point in this scenario is the future of U.S. relations with the countries of
the Arabian Peninsula. Any deal between Iran and the United States affects them two
ways. First, the reduction of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf requires them to reach
an accommodation with the Iranians, something difficult and potentially
destabilizing for them. Second, the shift in the financial flow will hurt them and
probably will not be the final deal. Over time, the Iranians will use their
strengthened position in the region to continue pushing for additional concessions
from them.
There is always danger in abandoning allies. Other allies might be made
uncomfortable, for example. But these things have happened before. Abandoning old
allies for the national interest is not something the United States invented. The
idea that the United States should find money flowing to the Saudis inherently more
attractive than money flowing to the Iranians is not obvious.
The main question for the United States is how Iran might be contained. The flow of
money will strengthen Iran, and it might seek to extend its power beyond what is
tolerable to the United States. There are potential answers. First, the United
States can always return to the region. The Iranians do not see the Americans as
weak, but rather as unpredictable. Challenging the United States after Iran has
achieved its historic goal is not likely. Second, no matter how Iran grows, it is
far behind Turkey by every measure. Turkey is not ready to play an active role
balancing Iran now, but in the time it takes Iran to consolidate its position,
Turkey will be a force that will balance and eventually contain Iran. In the end, a
deal will come down to one that profits both sides and clearly defines the limits of
Iranian power -- limits that it is in Iran's interest to respect given that it is
profiting mightily from the deal.
Geopolitics leads in one direction. Ideology leads in another direction. The ability
to trust one another is yet a third. At the same time, the Iranians cannot be sure
of what the United States is prepared to do. The Americans do not want to go to war
with Iran. Both want oil flowing, and neither cares about nuclear weapons as much as
they pretend. Finally, no one else really matters in this deal. The Israelis are not
as hardline on Iran as they appear, nor will the United States listen to Israel on a
matter fundamental to the global economy. In the end, absent nuclear weapons, Israel
does not have that much of a problem with Iran.
It would not surprise me to find out that the United States offered direct talks,
nor to discover that Clinton's comments could not be extended to a more extensive
accommodation. Nor do I think that Iran would miss a chance for an historic
transformation of its strategic and financial position in favor of ideology. They
are much too cynical for that. The great losers would be the Saudis, but even they
could come around to a deal that, while less satisfactory than they have now, is
still quite satisfactory.
There are many blocks in the way of such a deal, from ideology to distrust to
domestic politics. But given the knot that is being tied in the region, rumors that
negotiations are being floated come as no surprise. Syria might not go the way Iran
wants, and Iraq is certainly not going the way the United States wants. Marriages
have been built on less.
47372
Science, Culture, & Humanities / Supremes reject GM!!!
« on: January 24, 2012, 06:50:59 AM »
Gun Owners Scores a Victory for Individual Privacy in the Supreme Court
The Supreme Court yesterday unanimously sided with Gun Owners of
America in finding that the placement of a Global Positioning Device on
an automobile constitutes a "search" for purposes of the
Fourth Amendment.
The majority opinion in U.S. v. Jones was written by Justice Antonin
Scalia and follows GOA's reasoning to throw out the "reasonable
expectation of privacy" test which has been thought to be the
dominant Fourth Amendment standard in recent years.
The Obama Administration argued that because the police could
theoretically follow Antoine Jones' car, he had no "reasonable
expectation of privacy," and thus, placing a GPS device on his car
was justified. GOA argued, however, that this constituted an
"unreasonable search and seizure" which violates the Fourth
Amendment of the Constitution.
This decision will have dramatic ramifications for gun owners. Indeed,
the Court looked to the Founders' intentions with respect to the Fourth
Amendment, which, until the latter part of the 20th Century, was
understood to restrict the ability of police to "trespass"
upon the persons or property of Americans.
"This is no less than a fundamental transformation of American
jurisprudence concerning searches and seizures," according to
GOA's Executive Director Larry Pratt. "And it is a transformation
which throws out fake modern jurisprudence and restores the Founders'
intent."
The "reasonable expectation of privacy" test flowed from a
Justice Harlan concurring opinion in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S.
347 (1967). Gun Owners of America had argued that the Supreme Court
should jettison that decision by an activist court, and a majority of
the justices agreed.
"The 'expectation of privacy' test for searches and seizures arose
without support in the text or historical context of the Fourth
Amendment, and has proven wholly inadequate to protect the American
people from their government," argued GOA.
Four members of the court -- led by Samuel Alito, and joined by Ruth
Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan -- argued for the
continuation of the "reasonable expectation of privacy test,"
but concluded that planting a GPS device on a car for 28 days
constituted a Fourth Amendment "search" under that standard
as well.
The Obama administration, which had argued that planting a GPS device
on a car was not a "search" under the Harlan standard, was
unanimously repudiated by the High Court. And the case is being cited
by the mainstream media as a defeat for Obama and his Justice
Department, which is led by Attorney General Eric Holder.
Said Pratt: "This is yet another failure by Eric Holder, the most
corrupt and incompetent Attorney General in the history of the
Republic."
Gun Owners would like to thank its activists for their support. Your
giving at http://gunowners.org/store/contribute helps GOA to assist in
future cases like this at the Supreme Court.
47373
Politics & Religion / UN Small Arms Treaty
« on: January 24, 2012, 05:57:39 AM »
As you can see, this is a fundraiser and it is from a group with which I am not familiar. That said, the basic thrust of the argument I believe to be true.
Dear fellow Patriot,
Gun-grabbers around the globe believe they have it made.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently announced the Obama Administration will
be working hand-in-glove with the UN to pass a new "Small Arms Treaty."
Disguised as an "International Arms Control Treaty" to fight against "terrorism,"
"insurgency" and "international crime syndicates," the UN Small Arms Treaty is in
fact a massive, GLOBAL gun control scheme.
I'm helping lead the fight to defeat this radical treaty in the United States Senate
and I want your help.
Please join me by taking a public stand against this outright assault on our
national sovereignty by signing the Official Firearms Sovereignty Survey.
http://list.dickmorris.com/t/137804/613051/909/2/
Ultimately, the UN Small Arms Treaty is designed to register, ban and CONFISCATE
firearms owned by private citizens like YOU.
So far, the gun-grabbers have successfully kept the exact wording of their new
scheme under wraps.
But looking at previous versions of the UN Small Arms Treaty, you and I can get a
good idea of what's likely in the works.
http://list.dickmorris.com/t/137804/613051/909/4/
If passed by the UN and ratified by the U.S. Senate, the UN Small Arms Treaty would
almost certainly FORCE the U.S. to:
*** Enact tougher licensing requirements, making law-abiding Americans cut through
even more bureaucratic red tape just to own a firearm legally;
*** CONFISCATE and DESTROY ALL "unauthorized" civilian firearms (all firearms owned
by the government are excluded, of course);
*** BAN the trade, sale and private ownership of ALL semi-automatic weapons;
*** Create an INTERNATIONAL gun registry, setting the stage for full-scale gun
CONFISCATION.
I'm sure I don't have to tell you that this is NOT a fight we can afford to lose.
Ever since its founding 65 years ago, the United Nations has been hell-bent on
bringing the United States to its knees.
To the petty dictators and one-world socialists who control the UN, the United
States of America isn't a "shining city on a hill" -- it's an affront to their grand
designs for the globe.
These anti-gun globalists know that so long as Americans remain free to make our own
decisions without being bossed around by big government bureaucrats, they'll NEVER
be able to seize the worldwide power they crave.
And the UN's apologists also know the most effective way to finally strip you and me
of ALL our freedoms would be to DESTROY our gun rights.
That's why I was so glad to hear that the National Association for Gun Rights is
leading the fight to stop this assault on our Constitution!
http://list.dickmorris.com/t/137804/613051/909/5/
The truth is there's no time to waste.
You and I have to be prepared for this fight to move FAST.
The fact is the last thing the gun-grabbers at the UN and in Washington, D.C. want
is for you and me to have time to mobilize gun owners to defeat this radical
legislation.
They've made that mistake before, and we've made them pay, defeating EVERY attempt
to ram the UN Small Arms Treaty into law since the mid-1990s.
But now time may not be on our side.
In fact, we're likely to only have a few weeks to defeat the treaty when they make
their move.
And we definitely don't have a President in the White House who will oppose this
treaty.
So our ONE AND ONLY CHANCE to stop the UN Small Arms Treaty is during the
ratification process in the U.S. Senate.
As you know, it takes 67 Senate votes to ratify a treaty.
With new pro-gun champions joining me in the Senate, rounding up enough votes to
kill this thing should be easy, right?
Unfortunately, that couldn't be further from the truth.
Even with the Republican tidal wave in 2010, there still isn't a pro-gun majority in
the Senate to kill ratification of the treaty.
You know just as well as I do how few Senators are truly "pro-gun."
Not only that, but many Senators get "queasy" about killing treaties for fear of
"embarrassing" the President -- especially with "international prestige" at stake.
They look at ratifying treaties much like approving the President's Supreme Court
nominees.
Remember how many Senators turned their back on us and voted to confirm anti-gun
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor?
A dozen more only voted against Sotomayor after receiving massive grassroots
pressure from the folks back home.
So if we're going to defeat the UN Small Arms Treaty gun owners have to turn the
heat up on the U.S. Senate now before it's too late!
Do you believe the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Second Amendment
are the supreme law of the land?
Do you believe any attempt by the United Nations to subvert or supersede your
Constitutional rights must be opposed?
If you said "Yes" to these questions, please sign the survey the National
Association for Gun Rights has prepared for you.
Your survey will put you squarely on the record AGAINST the UN Small Arms Treaty.
http://list.dickmorris.com/t/137804/613051/909/6/
And along with your signed survey, I hope you'll send a generous contribution of
$250, $100, $50 or even just $35 to help finance this battle.
With your generous contribution, the National Association for Gun Rights will
continue contacting Second Amendment supporters to turn up the heat on targeted U.S.
Senators.
Not only that, but they're preparing a massive program to launch the second this
treaty is brought before the Senate.
Direct mail. Phones. E-mail. Blogs. Guest editorials. Press conferences.
Hard-hitting internet, newspaper, radio and even TV ads if funding permits. The
whole nine yards.
Of course, a program of this scale is only possible if the National Association for
Gun Rights can raise the money.
But that's not easy, and we may not have much time.
In fact, if gun owners are going to defeat the UN Small Arms Treaty pro-gun
Americans like you and me have to get involved NOW!
So please put yourself on record AGAINST the UN Small Arms Treaty by signing NAGR's
Firearms Sovereignty Survey.
http://list.dickmorris.com/t/137804/613051/909/7/
But along with your survey, please agree to make a generous contribution of $250,
$100, $50 or even just $35.
http://list.dickmorris.com/t/137804/613051/909/18/
And every dollar counts in this fight so even if you can only chip in $10 or $20, it
will make a difference.
http://list.dickmorris.com/t/137804/613051/909/19/
Thank you in advance for your time and money devoted to defending our Second
Amendment rights.
For Freedom,
Rand Paul
United States Senator
P.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced the Obama Administration will
be working hand in glove with the United Nations to pass a new GLOBAL, "Small Arms
Treaty."
If we're going to defeat the UN Small Arms Treaty gun owners have to turn the heat
up on the U.S. Senate now before it's too late!
Please return your Firearms Sovereignty Survey and put yourself squarely on the
record AGAINST ratification of the UN Small Arms Treaty.
And if you can, please make a generous contribution to the National Association for
Gun Rights of $250, $150, $100 or even just $35 right away!
And every dollar counts in this fight so even if you can only chip in $10 or $20, it
will make a difference.
http://list.dickmorris.com/t/137804/613051/909/20/
Dear fellow Patriot,
Gun-grabbers around the globe believe they have it made.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently announced the Obama Administration will
be working hand-in-glove with the UN to pass a new "Small Arms Treaty."
Disguised as an "International Arms Control Treaty" to fight against "terrorism,"
"insurgency" and "international crime syndicates," the UN Small Arms Treaty is in
fact a massive, GLOBAL gun control scheme.
I'm helping lead the fight to defeat this radical treaty in the United States Senate
and I want your help.
Please join me by taking a public stand against this outright assault on our
national sovereignty by signing the Official Firearms Sovereignty Survey.
http://list.dickmorris.com/t/137804/613051/909/2/
Ultimately, the UN Small Arms Treaty is designed to register, ban and CONFISCATE
firearms owned by private citizens like YOU.
So far, the gun-grabbers have successfully kept the exact wording of their new
scheme under wraps.
But looking at previous versions of the UN Small Arms Treaty, you and I can get a
good idea of what's likely in the works.
http://list.dickmorris.com/t/137804/613051/909/4/
If passed by the UN and ratified by the U.S. Senate, the UN Small Arms Treaty would
almost certainly FORCE the U.S. to:
*** Enact tougher licensing requirements, making law-abiding Americans cut through
even more bureaucratic red tape just to own a firearm legally;
*** CONFISCATE and DESTROY ALL "unauthorized" civilian firearms (all firearms owned
by the government are excluded, of course);
*** BAN the trade, sale and private ownership of ALL semi-automatic weapons;
*** Create an INTERNATIONAL gun registry, setting the stage for full-scale gun
CONFISCATION.
I'm sure I don't have to tell you that this is NOT a fight we can afford to lose.
Ever since its founding 65 years ago, the United Nations has been hell-bent on
bringing the United States to its knees.
To the petty dictators and one-world socialists who control the UN, the United
States of America isn't a "shining city on a hill" -- it's an affront to their grand
designs for the globe.
These anti-gun globalists know that so long as Americans remain free to make our own
decisions without being bossed around by big government bureaucrats, they'll NEVER
be able to seize the worldwide power they crave.
And the UN's apologists also know the most effective way to finally strip you and me
of ALL our freedoms would be to DESTROY our gun rights.
That's why I was so glad to hear that the National Association for Gun Rights is
leading the fight to stop this assault on our Constitution!
http://list.dickmorris.com/t/137804/613051/909/5/
The truth is there's no time to waste.
You and I have to be prepared for this fight to move FAST.
The fact is the last thing the gun-grabbers at the UN and in Washington, D.C. want
is for you and me to have time to mobilize gun owners to defeat this radical
legislation.
They've made that mistake before, and we've made them pay, defeating EVERY attempt
to ram the UN Small Arms Treaty into law since the mid-1990s.
But now time may not be on our side.
In fact, we're likely to only have a few weeks to defeat the treaty when they make
their move.
And we definitely don't have a President in the White House who will oppose this
treaty.
So our ONE AND ONLY CHANCE to stop the UN Small Arms Treaty is during the
ratification process in the U.S. Senate.
As you know, it takes 67 Senate votes to ratify a treaty.
With new pro-gun champions joining me in the Senate, rounding up enough votes to
kill this thing should be easy, right?
Unfortunately, that couldn't be further from the truth.
Even with the Republican tidal wave in 2010, there still isn't a pro-gun majority in
the Senate to kill ratification of the treaty.
You know just as well as I do how few Senators are truly "pro-gun."
Not only that, but many Senators get "queasy" about killing treaties for fear of
"embarrassing" the President -- especially with "international prestige" at stake.
They look at ratifying treaties much like approving the President's Supreme Court
nominees.
Remember how many Senators turned their back on us and voted to confirm anti-gun
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor?
A dozen more only voted against Sotomayor after receiving massive grassroots
pressure from the folks back home.
So if we're going to defeat the UN Small Arms Treaty gun owners have to turn the
heat up on the U.S. Senate now before it's too late!
Do you believe the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Second Amendment
are the supreme law of the land?
Do you believe any attempt by the United Nations to subvert or supersede your
Constitutional rights must be opposed?
If you said "Yes" to these questions, please sign the survey the National
Association for Gun Rights has prepared for you.
Your survey will put you squarely on the record AGAINST the UN Small Arms Treaty.
http://list.dickmorris.com/t/137804/613051/909/6/
And along with your signed survey, I hope you'll send a generous contribution of
$250, $100, $50 or even just $35 to help finance this battle.
With your generous contribution, the National Association for Gun Rights will
continue contacting Second Amendment supporters to turn up the heat on targeted U.S.
Senators.
Not only that, but they're preparing a massive program to launch the second this
treaty is brought before the Senate.
Direct mail. Phones. E-mail. Blogs. Guest editorials. Press conferences.
Hard-hitting internet, newspaper, radio and even TV ads if funding permits. The
whole nine yards.
Of course, a program of this scale is only possible if the National Association for
Gun Rights can raise the money.
But that's not easy, and we may not have much time.
In fact, if gun owners are going to defeat the UN Small Arms Treaty pro-gun
Americans like you and me have to get involved NOW!
So please put yourself on record AGAINST the UN Small Arms Treaty by signing NAGR's
Firearms Sovereignty Survey.
http://list.dickmorris.com/t/137804/613051/909/7/
But along with your survey, please agree to make a generous contribution of $250,
$100, $50 or even just $35.
http://list.dickmorris.com/t/137804/613051/909/18/
And every dollar counts in this fight so even if you can only chip in $10 or $20, it
will make a difference.
http://list.dickmorris.com/t/137804/613051/909/19/
Thank you in advance for your time and money devoted to defending our Second
Amendment rights.
For Freedom,
Rand Paul
United States Senator
P.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced the Obama Administration will
be working hand in glove with the United Nations to pass a new GLOBAL, "Small Arms
Treaty."
If we're going to defeat the UN Small Arms Treaty gun owners have to turn the heat
up on the U.S. Senate now before it's too late!
Please return your Firearms Sovereignty Survey and put yourself squarely on the
record AGAINST ratification of the UN Small Arms Treaty.
And if you can, please make a generous contribution to the National Association for
Gun Rights of $250, $150, $100 or even just $35 right away!
And every dollar counts in this fight so even if you can only chip in $10 or $20, it
will make a difference.
http://list.dickmorris.com/t/137804/613051/909/20/
47374
Politics & Religion / Venezuela Missile Crisis
« on: January 24, 2012, 05:47:38 AM »
The tone here tends towards hypervenitlating, but the question presented is important.
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/01/24/the-venezuelan-missile-crisis/
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/01/24/the-venezuelan-missile-crisis/
47375
Politics & Religion / Mercator.com: Suffocating Freedom
« on: January 23, 2012, 10:29:40 PM »
Bryce J. Christensen | Monday, 23 January 2012
tags : same-sex marriage
The new outlaws: how same-sex marriage suffocates freedom
Advocating gay marriage as a way of enlarging the American sphere of liberty are profoundly—and deceptively—misrepresenting their aims.
Those advocating the radical social innovation, which they label “same-sex or gay marriage,” typically claim that they are fighting for freedom, championing a basic liberty. “Freedom to Marry” is indeed the name of a national organization devoted to the advocacy of same-sex marriage. Established in 2003 by civil-rights advocate Evan Wolfson and headquartered in New York City, this group takes “We All Deserve the Freedom to Marry” as its slogan. So effective has it promulgated this perspective that even former First Lady Laura Bush endorsed homosexuals’ right to marry as a matter of basic freedom when she appeared on the Larry King Show in May 2010.
But those who advocate homosexual marriage as a way of enlarging the American sphere of liberty are profoundly—and deceptively—misrepresenting their aims. Their real aim came to light in the public controversy over remarks attributed to Queen Sophia of Spain in criticizing her country’s invention in 2005 of a homosexual right to “marry.” “If those people [homosexuals] want to live together,” commented the Spanish monarch, “dress up as bride and groom and get married they can do so, but that should not be called marriage because it is not.” Widely reported by the media, the furor over these remarks forced representatives of the Queen to issue a statement claiming that the published remarks “do not exactly match the opinions expressed by Her Majesty the Queen” and apologizing for the “ill-feeling and upset” her comments had caused. The pressures compelling this semi-retraction and apology prompted one media commentator to ponder the “interesting question” of whether on the issue of homosexual marriage, the Queen still had “the right... to express her opinion like any other citizen.”
This commentator had glimpsed the fundamental aim of those advocating homosexual marriage: it is not at all about giving homosexuals a new freedom to participate in ceremonies that they regard as weddings. It is entirely about denying freedom of public speech to anyone who would criticize such ceremonies or the sexual behaviors such ceremonies legitimize. The muzzle that homosexual activists tried (largely successfully) to put on an outspoken monarch represents only the beginning. Homosexual activists in this country deeply desire to place first thousands, and then millions, of even tighter muzzles on all who disagree with them about the nature of homosexual behavior. They well understand that enactment of laws authorizing homosexual marriage will give them sweeping powers to bind those muzzles very tightly on their fellow citizens.
In this environment, attempts to legalize same-sex marriage are not chiefly about enlarging homosexual couples’ freedom: they are free now in every state of the union to say that they are married. They can claim anything they want about their “unions”: they can affirm that those relationships are life affirming and emancipatory; they can even assert that their partnerships are actually superior to natural sexual unions traditionally called marriages. In almost all states, Americans are also still perfectly free to reject such claims and to voice their rejection as forcefully as Queen Sofia did—before being cowed by activists and media commen-tators wielding Spain’s homosexual-marriage law as a cudgel.
Homosexual activists may plausibly assert that they were advancing the cause of freedom when opposing anti-sodomy laws, even if many Americans view the freedom advanced as morally and even medically problematic. However, when these same activists claim that they are still advancing the cause of freedom in advocating laws that grant same-sex unions the status of marriage, their arguments quickly lose all plausibility. For those trying to enshrine the notion of same-sex “marriage” in law are not primarily trying to enlarge the freedom of homosexuals; they are primarily striving to diminish the freedom of skeptics who would deny that the union of homosexuals is—or can ever be—a legitimate marriage. The aim of those trying to inscribe the novelty of homosexual marriage in law is actually that of making an outlaw out of anyone who would question the moral substance of this new social construct and the sexual behaviors it legitimates.
Americans with little invested in the issue may suppose that their freedom to oppose homosexuality is secure in the wake of the 2011 Supreme Court ruling in Snyder v. Phelps that opponents of homosexuality can legally express their views through funeral protests. But the freedom the Court upheld in the Snyder case is actually very marginal. It is the freedom of a self-discrediting sideshow, a freedom that matters only to a radical fringe.
More important, but now deeply imperiled, is precisely the kind of freedom that Queen Sophia briefly tried to exercise in publicly resisting the notion of homosexual marriage and the behaviors it represents. This is the freedom of individuals in positions of public trust to voice their opposition to homosexual behavior. It is this freedom that homosexual advocates hope to make disappear through enactment of homosexual marriage. Enshrining this radically innovative construct in law will not so much enlarge the sphere of freedom for homosexuals as it will shrink the sphere of freedom—in the workplace, legislative chamber, classroom, mainstream media, civic and student club, and marketplace—for those who in any way find homosexual behavior wanting.
Anti-Anti-Homosexual Bullying
The ex-nihilo creation of homosexual marriage as a legal notion serves, above all, to give coercive power to those Justice Antonin Scalia has identified as “homosexual activists . . . [intent on] eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct.” The success of these activists, as Scalia notes, has helped foster an “anti-anti-homosexual culture.”1 Some Americans may wonder how a private sexual behavior became the basis for an unassailable public identity guaran-teeing coercive state protection from critics. However, those who have created the “anti-anti-homosexual culture” understand well how they can use the notion of homosexual marriage to silence their opponents and to drive them from the public square. With good reason, syndicated columnist John Leo has complained that in recent homosexual activism, “a line is being crossed”: “The traditional civic virtue of tolerance (if gays want to live together, it’s their own business) has been replaced with a new ethicrequiring approval and endorsement” (emphasis added).
Homosexual activists know that if they enshrine same-sex relationships in the legal category of marriage, they will find it far easier to impose this new requirement for approval and endorsement on other Americans. As homosexual activists and their allies press this new requirement, Americans who resist the normalizing of homosexuality are seeing their freedom shrink. Indeed, when homosexual activists claim the “freedom” of same-sex couples to marry, we see yet another instance of what cultural historian Robert Nisbet has labeled “the ingenious camouflaging of power with the rhetoric of freedom.”2
Americans have seen more than a few instances in which anti-anti-homosexual power has flexed its muscles in suppressing the freedom of those who dare resist their agenda for normalizing homosexual behavior. That power was manifest in March 2011 when homosexual activists successfully pressured Apple to withdraw from its iTunes store an app developed by an evangelical Christian group that works with individuals trying to overcome homosexual impulses. That power was manifest again a month later when the prominent law firm King & Spalding announced that, despite its previous commitment to doing so, it would not defend the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which acknowledges marriage as the union of a man and a woman. But Americans have perhaps seen homosexuals’ power most often and most nakedly in the one institution that is supposed to provide a free and open forum for all points of view: the university.
A prime case of how the university suppresses any resistance to homosexual behavior is that of University of Illinois professor Ken Howell. Howell was dismissed for informing students enrolled in a class on Modern Catholic Thought that “the Catholic Church holds that homosexual acts are immoral” and further suggesting that homosexual acts violate the natural moral law, though he freely allowed that there are other viewpoints. Though the outcry at the dismissal of this very popular professor ultimately proved sufficient to force the university to reverse itself, the university administration capitulated only reluctantly and without any public acknowledgement that it had violated Howells’ academic freedom.3
In other episodes of anti-anti-homosexual zealotry, university officials show no signs of backing off. In 2008, a biology professor at San Jose City College was dismissed for indicating—in answer to a student’s question about how heredity affects sexual orientation—that environment might be a cause of homosexuality. In 2010, Hasting College of Law denied official recognition and funding to the Christian Legal Society as a student organization (the first time it had ever denied a student organization recognition) because the group required officers (not its members) to affirm Christian sexual ethics, including the scriptural proscription against homosexuality. In 2009, a student was expelled from a counseling program at Eastern Michigan State University for refusing to affirm that homosexual behavior is normal and acceptable. In 2005, a student in a counseling program at Missouri State University found that the university had filed a grievance against her for refusing to fulfill a class assignment requiring her to write a letter to the state legislature advocating the legalization of homosexual adoption. And in 2011, a counseling student who dared to voice her opinion in class that homosexual acts are immoral learned that Augusta State University would not let her continue her academic program unless she successfully completed diversity-sensitivity training. The list goes on, with reports of similar anti-anti-homosexual bullying at Washington State University, Georgia Tech University, and the Ohio State University.
The Academy as Surrogate State Church
Perhaps no one should be surprised that university administrators and professors have increasingly become thought police on the issue of homosexuality. In a 2007 survey of professors at 927 American institutions of higher education, sociologists Neil Gross and Solon Simmons from Harvard and George Mason Universities, respectively, found that liberals dominate the campus world: 44.1 percent of survey respondents characterized themselves as either “liberal” or “very liberal,” compared to only 9.2 percent who described themselves as “conservative” or “very conservative.” Even these numbers fail to fully reflect the “very liberal attitudes toward sex” which pervade the university: the Harvard and George Mason scholars report that about 70 percent [68.7 percent of the professors surveyed] think that homosexuality “is not wrong at all.”4
The freedom of students and professors who oppose homosexuality can survive in such an environment only if professors are deeply committed to maintaining a campus neutrality that fosters free exchange of all viewpoints. Unfortunately, when Harvard scholar Louis Menand analyzes the Gross and Solon data, he sees evidence that “neutrality, or disinterestedness,” is declining as a university standard because there is now apparently “less aversion to weighing political views in evaluating merit than would have been the case thirty or forty years ago.” In fact, though not a conservative, Menand concedes that the Gross and Solon study provides “data . . . useful to anyone claiming that colleges and universities discriminate against people with conservative views.” Menand goes so far as to raise the question of whether “holding liberal views has become a tacit requirement for entry and promotion in the academic profession.”5 In an academic world such as this, it is entirely predictable that top university professors of law openly argue—in direct riposte to Scalia’s complaint against judicial endorsement of the homosexual agenda—in favor of measures aimed at “eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct.”6
Only the complete hegemony of anti-anti-homosexual dogma within the university renders comprehensible the blog comment recently posted by Stanford student Gregory Hirshman. Hirshman asserts that in an academic world governed by a “strict, if informal, rule against speaking negatively of homosexuality,” it now requires “more strength and conviction on the Stanford campus to come out as an outspoken conservative than as a homosexual.” The strict enforcement of the academic orthodoxy on homosexuality also harmonizes with critic and former University of Maryland professor George A. Panichas, who reports that in the university world “opponents of liberal ideas are increasingly treated as outlaws.”7
Just how much the outlaw status of those who oppose homosexuality on the university campus should matter to the broader American community is clarified by the prominent philosopher Richard Rorty’s assertion, “The university has replaced the church as the center of morality.” This assertion, of course, would strike millions of church-going Americans as patently untrue, even bizarre. However, for the cultural, political, and judicial elite who shape much of national life, it is all too true: the university has become the new surrogate church, laying down the moral imperatives guiding judges, policymakers, executives, and media moguls. The outlaws who oppose homosexuality will find no right of sanctuary in this church. Far otherwise. They will find that that new church regards them not only as outlaws but also as dangerous heretics.
Outlaw-heretics have reason to fear inquisitorial persecution from the priests in the surrogate church, one of whom has candidly admitted that he and his anti-anti-homosexual colleagues are “sometimes self-righteous . . . and sometimes too dismissive or snotty toward those who disagree with us.”8 At a minimum, outlaw-heretics have reason to fear that the new priests—for all their professed commitment to freedom for all—will actually lock them out of the democratic process. It is this real abridgment of political liberties that legal scholar Ronald J. Krotoszynski Jr. has in view in his analysis of how “religious minorities” face discrimination:
To the extent that religious minorities position themselves in opposition to progressive understandings on issues of race, gender and sexual orientation, they increasingly face the prospect of being silenced by government officials who have come to embrace the progressives’ value structure.9
Many of America’s religiously devout citizens would strenuously object to Krotoszynski’s characterization of them as “minorities,” pointing to survey data showing that most Americans profess a belief in Christianity (and the Bible, which condemns homosexual acts as incompatible with a knowledge of God [cf. Rom. 1:18-28]). According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 78.4 percent of all adult Americans are Christian, with more than half of adult Americans affiliated with a Protestant denomination and almost one quarter of adult Americans belonging to the Roman Catholic Church.10 Those Americans can also point to election results on ballot initiatives in thirty-one states across the country defining marriage in ways consonant with religious belief, but not in alignment with the progressive homosexual-affirming agenda.
Diminishing Political and Religious Liberty
But the fact that silenced and marginalized church-goers actually constitute a majority only makes the process by which they are denied their full democratic liberties all the more insidious. For those in doubt as to how this process works, California has provided a prime illustration: through a costly and bruising electoral fight, defenders of natural marriage passed a measure (Proposition
acknowledging marriage as the union of man and woman—only to have a single unelected federal judge, Vaughan Walker, strike down the voter-approved measure because he, a “now-outed” homosexual, disapproved of the moral and religious impulses of those who championed it! In this fashion, a progressive anti-anti-homosexual elite dramatically diminishes the political liberties of those who wish to affirm an understanding of marriage consistent with reality as affirmed by nature, history, biology, reason, as well as religion. It is this kind of assault on religious liberty that legal scholar Matthew J. Franck has in view when he remarks, “The freedom to participate fully in civic life, to offer oneself to others in civil society, conscientiously on one’s own terms as a religious person professing one’s beliefs, may be jeopardized by this new dispensation.”11
It is precisely that liberty-denying process that elite activists are trying to advance through the legal notion of same-sex marriage. For outlaws, enforcement of the law can mean only punishment—usually loss of freedom. That contraction of freedom is exactly what those advocating same-sex marriage seek: they want to lock those who oppose homosexuality into as small a box as possible. Just how terribly small that box can be is illustrated by the case of the fertility specialist in California who in 2001 declined to artificially inseminate a lesbian, though he referred that woman to a colleague who would perform that service for her. When the doctor, who happened to also be a devout Christian, later lost a discrimination suit filed by the offended lesbian woman, he found no relief upon appeal to the California Supreme Court, which found—unanimously—that this doctor’s religious convictions did not afford him even the very, very minimal freedom of declining to perform a medical procedure that violated his convictions!
The same kind of liberty-abridging legal logic worked against the religious convictions of a New Mexico photographer who in 2006 declined to take pictures of a same-sex couple’s “commitment ceremony” because of her religious objections to homosexuality, only to find herself fined $6000 by the state Human Rights Commission for having discriminated against the couple. Predictably enough, this logic now works to constrain the consciences of chaplains in the new gay-friendly military that Obama and his allies have created: credible reports now indicate that military chaplains must “embrace the new openly homosexual military, resign from service, or face court-martial for their ‘religious, conscience’ objections.”12 All these assaults on religious liberty have occurred in jurisdictions without the legal innovation of same-sex marriage. That the enactment of same-sex marriage multiplies such assaults is evident in the way that justices of the peace in Massachusetts have been forced to resign if they decline, on moral or religious grounds, to perform homosexual weddings. Similar legal coercion compelled Catholic Social Services to suspend its handling of adoptions in the Bay State because of its refusal to violate its religious principles by placing children with homosexual couples.
This disturbing pattern of hostility to religious freedom should leave little doubt as to the consequences of broader enactment of homosexual marriage: it can only mean fewer freedoms for men and women of religious conviction. “Both freedom and the desire for freedom,” Nisbet sagely remarks, “are nourished within the realization of spiritual privacy and among privileges of personal decision.”13 But it is precisely personal decision—in expression and in conduct—which homosexual activists wish to eradicate, whenever such decisions draw inspiration from religious or moral principles at odds with homosexual emancipation. In this context, Franck warns, “We are in danger of telling many millions of our fellow citizens that they may not act as their conscience guides them in exercising the fundamental right of self government.”14 As the fertility specialist in California, the photographer in New Mexico, the justices of the peace in Massachusetts could all testify, when anti-anti-homosexual principles triumph, Americans asked to engage in acts that would violate their conscience by implying acceptance or endorsement of homosexual acts cannot even respond with that precious shred of self-preserving liberty that Herman Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener claims with the simple words, “I prefer not to.”15
Individual freedom seemed to be uppermost in the minds of the High Court justices who struck down Texas’s anti-sodomy law. In justifying their decision, Anthony Kennedy invoked a concern for “the liberty of all,” and then elaborated in elevated language: “Liberty presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct. The instant case involves liberty of the person both in its spatial and more transcendent dimensions.”16 But Americans may increasingly wonder why this spatial and transcendent liberty and autonomy of self do not extend to those Americans who want to distance themselves from homosexual acts, to stand apart, as it were, from those who engage in such acts. Why is that autonomy of self, that transcendent dimension of liberty, not protected by law or court proceedings?
Dubious Claims of Homosexual Activists
Make no mistake: homosexual activists do, in fact, know that advancing their agenda means reducing the liberty of Americans. They hide that reality behind rhetoric of freedom, just as they hide their exclusion of religious Americans from the public square behind rhetoric of inclusion, and their extirpation of every deviation from the approved attitude toward homosexuality behind the rhetoric of diversity. But at bottom, these activists know that they are denying their fellow Americans a sizable measure of freedom. They justify this denial in two ways, both dubious.
First, advocates of gay rights—including the right to marry—manifest a surprising eagerness to believe a “genetic basis of homosexuality,”17 despite clear scientific refutation of the very notion of “a gay gene.”18 Apparently, homosexual activists follow this line of logic: since genes have made homosexuals “what they are,” they are not free to be otherwise. Since homosexuals are not free to be otherwise, the government is justified in denying liberty of those who would discriminate against them. This surrender to genetic determinism is stunning, especially coming from a segment of the political spectrum known for its resistance to genetic determinism in other contexts, such as those involving questions of racial or gender characteristics.19Apparently, homosexual activists do not want anyone to notice that all the arguments that their political allies have made against the decidedly illiberal and dehumanizing logic of genetic determinism in other contexts tell against their reliance upon genetic determinism in advocating restrictions on the liberty of those who would criticize homosexual conduct.
The second justification for restricting the freedoms of those who oppose homosexuality is that of asserting that this freedom has no content except that of hatred and bigotry, or that this freedom amounts to nothing but the equivalent of racism. So those who deny this freedom are not denying a freedom that has any real substance anyway. This line of justification will not bear scrutiny. In the first place, surveys reveal that, as a group, African Americans—who should be the very first to recognize a fundamental kinship between racial bias and resistance to homosexuality—are actually more resistant to homosexuality than are whites,20 while polling data indicate that African Americans support measures such as California’s Proposition 8 significantly more than whites.21
But further weaknesses emerge in the argument that opposition to homosexuality amounts to nothing but bigotry and hatred and that therefore denying Americans the freedom to oppose homosexuality does not constitute a serious infringement of their liberty. The long list of those who have expressed opposition to homosexuality has included some intelligent and gifted individuals. With his brilliant poetic masterpiece The Divine Comedy culminating in a vision of “the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars” (33. 146, Ciardi translation), Dante seems like something other than a hate-filled bigot. Yet he opposed homosexuality, placing homosexuals in the Seventh Circle of the Hell he depicts in his Inferno. As one of the architects of quantum physics, Edwin Schrödinger would seem to be more than a dull conformist. Yet he lamented the increasing ubiquity of homosexuality in higher education.22 As a brilliant opponent of “all the smelly little orthodoxies” of the twentieth century, George Orwell would not normally be classed as an unthinking exponent of bias. Yet he opposed homosexuality, and as a twenty-first-century critic has remarked, “Orwell’s anti-homosexual position (definitely not ‘homophobia,’ which would suggest irrational fear) flowed naturally from beliefs and values about which he was quite forthcoming.”23
Surprisingly, even the homosexual poet W. H. Auden—famous both for his insistent honesty and his astonishing prosodic talents—said some very negative things about homosexuality. “I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s wrong to be queer,” Auden said. “In the first place, all homosexual acts are acts of envy. In the second, the more you’re involved with someone, the more trouble arises, and affection shouldn’t result in that. It shows something’s wrong somewhere.”24 And then there is Stephen Spender, another great twentieth-century British poet who was homosexual as a young man, but who, after renouncing homosexuality went on to marry two women (not at the same time!). Spender said, “I find the actual sex act with women more satisfactory [than the sex act with men] . . . To me it is much more of an experience.”25
Opposition to homosexuality took a more intriguing form in the life of the great German novelist Thomas Mann, who felt the pull of homoerotic impulses (as any reader of Death in Venice will recognize). For religious reasons, Mann chose not to act on those impulses and to live a life of abstinence. As Mann’s biographer explains, for Mann, “Homosexual courtship . . . is from the Devil,” while “His chastity is love for the purity of God” 26
When Law and Morality Collide
Americans have every reason to ask what is left of an intellectual freedom that does not include the freedom to examine and to affirm the views expressed by great poets and novelists. They may also wonder about the authenticity of an intellectual freedom that does not allow full and frank discussion of research limning a troubling pattern of co-morbidity linking homosexuality to a wide array of both psychological27 and physical illnesses.28 Nor would a genuine intellectual freedom prohibit candid public discussion of the remarkable promiscuity that researchers have documented within the homosexual population.29
Of course, for most Americans opposed to homosexuality, the freedom that matters most is not the freedom to endorse the views of Dante or Auden, Orwell or Mann. Nor is it the freedom to probe the latest research in homosexual epidemiology or sexual conduct. The freedom that matters most—and the freedom most imperiled by the legal definition of a homosexual liaison as a marriage—is the freedom to affirm a religiously grounded sexual morality. Religiously committed Americans regard this as a very important freedom indeed. As Franck has explained, “For the religious person who holds a traditional view of sexual morality, the holding of that view is not accidentally related to his religious faith. It is inseparable from it.”30
Consequently, it can only gall these Americans when homosexual activists use the law—particularly in the radical redefinition of the marital law—to deny them the freedom to express and to act on their convictions about sexual ethics. No doubt, homosexual activists expect everyone to accept the legal redefinition of marriage they are promoting. But they forget how many Americans recognize a divine law transcending and standing above merely human law. As Aquinas observed, “Human laws are either just or unjust. If they are just, they have the power to bind our conscience because of the eternal law from which they are derived.” But, quoting Augustine’s assertion that “an unjust law does not seem to be a law at all,” Aquinas reasons that unjust laws “do not bind the conscience.” In fact, Aquinas goes so far as to assert that if laws are unjust because they are “opposed to the divine good,” then “such laws must never be observed, because ‘one must obey God rather than men’ (Acts 5:29).”31
Even Americans who do not draw their legal philosophy from Aquinas should recognize that when the law sets itself in opposition to the moral convictions held by a great many citizens, it puts those citizens in a difficult and painful circumstance. That circumstance is well described by legal theorist Frederick Bastiat: “When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.”32Disrespect for the law may become particularly intense among parents who see the law using tax revenues to pay for “gay-friendly curricular materials” in public schools increasingly hostile to the sexual ethics they want to instill in their children.33
Since survey sociologists have recently established that America’s religiously devout citizens are the nation’s most generous, selfless, honest, civic-minded, and community-spirited,34 the nation’s cultural and legal elite may want to pause before using homosexual marriage as a legal weapon for limiting the religious freedoms of those citizens. Do they really want to undermine respect for the law among tens of millions of Americans? Do they really want to imbue in Americans who are, by nature, selfless, civic-minded and community-spirited a new feeling of alienation from and resentment toward their government?
Of course, millions of Americans who oppose homosexual acts for religious reasons will not want to simply wait while the elite decide what restrictions to impose on their liberties. They will want to vigorously protest every incursion upon those liberties, and they will want to lend their full support to lawmakers sympathetic to their concerns. Americans with a mature religious faith will understand the need to avoid hateful or spiteful references toward homosexuals. They will indeed recognize that their witness for truth will be most effective when it is expressed with empathy and compassion, including especially a merciful compassion for those who are suffering from AIDS or other diseases often found among homosexuals. But devout Americans can express genuine love for homosexuals without accepting or endorsing their sexual behavior. An authentic faith indeed requires both firm opposition to homosexual acts and unfailing love for those who commit such acts.35
Americans motivated by religious faith will be zealous to protect the liberty to express and to act on that faith. That will mean vigorously opposing same-sex marriage whenever possible. Where such opposition appears—at least in the short run—futile (as in Massachusetts, Iowa, New York, and Washington, D.C.), perhaps it is time for sympathetic law-makers to start enacting “conscience clause” protections—comparable to those that protect medical professionals from being compelled to perform abortions—for justices of the peace, fertility doctors, wedding caterers and photographers, and others who will find themselves forced to choose between their careers and their convictions. If they cannot prevent the enactment (often by judicial fiat) of same-sex marriage laws, lawmakers should at least be able to give an opt-out to citizens who object to homosexuality for religious reasons. Bartleby would understand.
Dr. Christensen teaches composition and literature at Southern Utah University. This article has been republished with permission from The Family in America.
Notes
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1.Antonin Scalia, with William Rehnquist and Clarence Thomas, dissenting, John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner v. Texas, June 26, 2003.
2.Robert Nisbet, The Quest for Community: A Study in the Ethics of Order & Freedom (1953; rpt. San Francisco: ICS Press, 1990), p. 141.
3.Cf. Meghan Duke, “Fired, In a Crowded Theater,” First Things, October 2010, pp. 24–29.
4.Neil Gross and Solon Simmons, “The Social and Political Views of American Professors,” Working Paper, September 24, 2007, http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~ngross/lounsbery_9-25.pdf.
5.Louis Menand, The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University (New York: W. W. Norton, 2009), pp. 139–40.
6.Naomi Cahn and June Carbone, Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 164.
7.George A. Panichas, Growing Wings to Overcome Gravity: Criticism as the Pursuit of Virtue (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1999), p. 37.
8.Michael Bérubé, What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts? Classroom Politics and ‘Bias’ in Higher Education (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006), p. 287.
9.Ronald J. Krotoszynski Jr., “Dissent, Free Speech, and the Continuing Search for the ‘Central Meaning’ of the First Amendment,” review of The Dissent of the Governed: A Meditation on Law, Religion, and Loyalty, by Stephen L. Carter, and Dissent, Injustice, and the Meanings of America by Steven H. Shiffrin, Michigan Law Review 98.6 (2000): 1673.
10.“Religious Affiliation: Summary of Key Findings,” U.S. Religious Landscape Survey (Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 2010), http://religions.pewforum.org/reports.
11.Matthew J. Franck, “Religion, Reason, and Same-Sex Marriage,” First Things, May 2011, p. 51.
12.“Army: Court-Martial Chaplains for ‘Religious, Conscience’ Objection to Homosexuality,” Catholic Citizens of Illinois, March 24, 2011, http://catholiccitizens.org/press/pressview.asp?c=52791.
13.Nisbet, The Quest for Community, p. 220.
14.Francky, “Religion, Reason, and Same-Sex Marriage,” p. 50.
15.Herman Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener” (1853), American Literature: The Makers and the Making,ed. Cleanth Brooks, R. W. B. Lewis, and Robert Penn Warren (New York: St. Martin’s, 1973), 1:842–59.
16.Anthony Kennedy, with John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer, John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner v. Texas.
17.Cahn and Carbone, Red Families v. Blue Families, pp. 65 and 226, 22n.
18.Cf. Ian Stewart, The Mathematics of Life (New York: Basic, 2011), pp. 118–19.
19.Cf. Leonard A. Cole, review of Not in Our Genes: Biology, Ideology and Human Nature by R. C. Lewontin, Leon J. Kamin, and Steven Rose, Politics and the Life Sciences 4.2 (1986): 200–201.
20.Cf. Gregory B. Lewis, “Black-White Differences in Attitudes toward Homosexuality and Gay Rights,” The Public Opinion Quarterly 67.1 (2003): 59–78.
21.Cf. Patrick J. Egan and Kenneth Sherrill, “California’s Proposition 8 and America’s Racial and Ethnic Divides on Same‐Sex Marriage.” Working Paper, January 2010,http://as.nyu.edu/docs/IO/4819/marriagedivides.pdf.
22.Cf. Jim Baggott, The Quantum Story: A History in 40 Moments (New York: Oxford, 2011), p. 150.
23.David Ramsay Steele, “My Orwell Right or Wrong,” review of Why Orwell Matters, by Christopher Hitchens, Libertarian Alliance, 2003, http://www.la-articles.org.uk/orwell.pdf.
24.Arthur Kirsch, Auden and Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), pp. 172–73.
25.John Sutherland, Stephen Spender: A Literary Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 168.
26.Hermann Kurzke, Thomas Mann: Life as a Work of Art. A Biography (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), pp. 412–14, 486.
27.Theo G. M. Sandfort et al., “Same-Sex Sexual Behavior and Psychiatric Disorders,” Archives of General Psychiatry 58 (2001): 85-91; Michael King et al., “A Systematic Review of Mental Disorder, Suicide, and Deliberate Self-Harm in Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual people,” BMC Psychiatry 8 (August 18, 2008): 70.
28.Compared to men who do not, men who have sex with men are more than 46 times more likely to contract syphilis, and more than 44 times more likely to contract HIV. “Gay Men Still More Likely to Contract HIV,” BC Medical Journal 52.4 (May 2010): web.
29.M. A. Bellis et al., “Re-Emerging Syphilis in Gay Men: A Case-Control Study of Behavioural Risk Factors and HIV Status,” Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 56.3 (2002): 235–36.
30.Franck, “Religion, Reason, and Same-Sex Marriage.”
31.Thomas Aquinas, “Aquinas on Law,” Medieval Source Book, ed. Paul Halsall. Fordham University Center for Medieval Studies, 2006. Web.
32.Frederick Bastiat, The Law (1850; rpt. New York: Cosimo Classics, 2006), p. 11.
33.Cf. Charles J. Russo, “Same-Sex Marriage and Public School Curricula,” What’s the Harm? Does Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage Really Harm Individuals, Families, or Society? ed. Lynn D. Wardle (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2008), pp. 355–73.
34.Cf. Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010).
35.Cf. Ron Sider, “Bearing Better Witness,” First Things, December 2010, pp. 47–50.
tags : same-sex marriage
The new outlaws: how same-sex marriage suffocates freedom
Advocating gay marriage as a way of enlarging the American sphere of liberty are profoundly—and deceptively—misrepresenting their aims.
Those advocating the radical social innovation, which they label “same-sex or gay marriage,” typically claim that they are fighting for freedom, championing a basic liberty. “Freedom to Marry” is indeed the name of a national organization devoted to the advocacy of same-sex marriage. Established in 2003 by civil-rights advocate Evan Wolfson and headquartered in New York City, this group takes “We All Deserve the Freedom to Marry” as its slogan. So effective has it promulgated this perspective that even former First Lady Laura Bush endorsed homosexuals’ right to marry as a matter of basic freedom when she appeared on the Larry King Show in May 2010.
But those who advocate homosexual marriage as a way of enlarging the American sphere of liberty are profoundly—and deceptively—misrepresenting their aims. Their real aim came to light in the public controversy over remarks attributed to Queen Sophia of Spain in criticizing her country’s invention in 2005 of a homosexual right to “marry.” “If those people [homosexuals] want to live together,” commented the Spanish monarch, “dress up as bride and groom and get married they can do so, but that should not be called marriage because it is not.” Widely reported by the media, the furor over these remarks forced representatives of the Queen to issue a statement claiming that the published remarks “do not exactly match the opinions expressed by Her Majesty the Queen” and apologizing for the “ill-feeling and upset” her comments had caused. The pressures compelling this semi-retraction and apology prompted one media commentator to ponder the “interesting question” of whether on the issue of homosexual marriage, the Queen still had “the right... to express her opinion like any other citizen.”
This commentator had glimpsed the fundamental aim of those advocating homosexual marriage: it is not at all about giving homosexuals a new freedom to participate in ceremonies that they regard as weddings. It is entirely about denying freedom of public speech to anyone who would criticize such ceremonies or the sexual behaviors such ceremonies legitimize. The muzzle that homosexual activists tried (largely successfully) to put on an outspoken monarch represents only the beginning. Homosexual activists in this country deeply desire to place first thousands, and then millions, of even tighter muzzles on all who disagree with them about the nature of homosexual behavior. They well understand that enactment of laws authorizing homosexual marriage will give them sweeping powers to bind those muzzles very tightly on their fellow citizens.
In this environment, attempts to legalize same-sex marriage are not chiefly about enlarging homosexual couples’ freedom: they are free now in every state of the union to say that they are married. They can claim anything they want about their “unions”: they can affirm that those relationships are life affirming and emancipatory; they can even assert that their partnerships are actually superior to natural sexual unions traditionally called marriages. In almost all states, Americans are also still perfectly free to reject such claims and to voice their rejection as forcefully as Queen Sofia did—before being cowed by activists and media commen-tators wielding Spain’s homosexual-marriage law as a cudgel.
Homosexual activists may plausibly assert that they were advancing the cause of freedom when opposing anti-sodomy laws, even if many Americans view the freedom advanced as morally and even medically problematic. However, when these same activists claim that they are still advancing the cause of freedom in advocating laws that grant same-sex unions the status of marriage, their arguments quickly lose all plausibility. For those trying to enshrine the notion of same-sex “marriage” in law are not primarily trying to enlarge the freedom of homosexuals; they are primarily striving to diminish the freedom of skeptics who would deny that the union of homosexuals is—or can ever be—a legitimate marriage. The aim of those trying to inscribe the novelty of homosexual marriage in law is actually that of making an outlaw out of anyone who would question the moral substance of this new social construct and the sexual behaviors it legitimates.
Americans with little invested in the issue may suppose that their freedom to oppose homosexuality is secure in the wake of the 2011 Supreme Court ruling in Snyder v. Phelps that opponents of homosexuality can legally express their views through funeral protests. But the freedom the Court upheld in the Snyder case is actually very marginal. It is the freedom of a self-discrediting sideshow, a freedom that matters only to a radical fringe.
More important, but now deeply imperiled, is precisely the kind of freedom that Queen Sophia briefly tried to exercise in publicly resisting the notion of homosexual marriage and the behaviors it represents. This is the freedom of individuals in positions of public trust to voice their opposition to homosexual behavior. It is this freedom that homosexual advocates hope to make disappear through enactment of homosexual marriage. Enshrining this radically innovative construct in law will not so much enlarge the sphere of freedom for homosexuals as it will shrink the sphere of freedom—in the workplace, legislative chamber, classroom, mainstream media, civic and student club, and marketplace—for those who in any way find homosexual behavior wanting.
Anti-Anti-Homosexual Bullying
The ex-nihilo creation of homosexual marriage as a legal notion serves, above all, to give coercive power to those Justice Antonin Scalia has identified as “homosexual activists . . . [intent on] eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct.” The success of these activists, as Scalia notes, has helped foster an “anti-anti-homosexual culture.”1 Some Americans may wonder how a private sexual behavior became the basis for an unassailable public identity guaran-teeing coercive state protection from critics. However, those who have created the “anti-anti-homosexual culture” understand well how they can use the notion of homosexual marriage to silence their opponents and to drive them from the public square. With good reason, syndicated columnist John Leo has complained that in recent homosexual activism, “a line is being crossed”: “The traditional civic virtue of tolerance (if gays want to live together, it’s their own business) has been replaced with a new ethicrequiring approval and endorsement” (emphasis added).
Homosexual activists know that if they enshrine same-sex relationships in the legal category of marriage, they will find it far easier to impose this new requirement for approval and endorsement on other Americans. As homosexual activists and their allies press this new requirement, Americans who resist the normalizing of homosexuality are seeing their freedom shrink. Indeed, when homosexual activists claim the “freedom” of same-sex couples to marry, we see yet another instance of what cultural historian Robert Nisbet has labeled “the ingenious camouflaging of power with the rhetoric of freedom.”2
Americans have seen more than a few instances in which anti-anti-homosexual power has flexed its muscles in suppressing the freedom of those who dare resist their agenda for normalizing homosexual behavior. That power was manifest in March 2011 when homosexual activists successfully pressured Apple to withdraw from its iTunes store an app developed by an evangelical Christian group that works with individuals trying to overcome homosexual impulses. That power was manifest again a month later when the prominent law firm King & Spalding announced that, despite its previous commitment to doing so, it would not defend the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which acknowledges marriage as the union of a man and a woman. But Americans have perhaps seen homosexuals’ power most often and most nakedly in the one institution that is supposed to provide a free and open forum for all points of view: the university.
A prime case of how the university suppresses any resistance to homosexual behavior is that of University of Illinois professor Ken Howell. Howell was dismissed for informing students enrolled in a class on Modern Catholic Thought that “the Catholic Church holds that homosexual acts are immoral” and further suggesting that homosexual acts violate the natural moral law, though he freely allowed that there are other viewpoints. Though the outcry at the dismissal of this very popular professor ultimately proved sufficient to force the university to reverse itself, the university administration capitulated only reluctantly and without any public acknowledgement that it had violated Howells’ academic freedom.3
In other episodes of anti-anti-homosexual zealotry, university officials show no signs of backing off. In 2008, a biology professor at San Jose City College was dismissed for indicating—in answer to a student’s question about how heredity affects sexual orientation—that environment might be a cause of homosexuality. In 2010, Hasting College of Law denied official recognition and funding to the Christian Legal Society as a student organization (the first time it had ever denied a student organization recognition) because the group required officers (not its members) to affirm Christian sexual ethics, including the scriptural proscription against homosexuality. In 2009, a student was expelled from a counseling program at Eastern Michigan State University for refusing to affirm that homosexual behavior is normal and acceptable. In 2005, a student in a counseling program at Missouri State University found that the university had filed a grievance against her for refusing to fulfill a class assignment requiring her to write a letter to the state legislature advocating the legalization of homosexual adoption. And in 2011, a counseling student who dared to voice her opinion in class that homosexual acts are immoral learned that Augusta State University would not let her continue her academic program unless she successfully completed diversity-sensitivity training. The list goes on, with reports of similar anti-anti-homosexual bullying at Washington State University, Georgia Tech University, and the Ohio State University.
The Academy as Surrogate State Church
Perhaps no one should be surprised that university administrators and professors have increasingly become thought police on the issue of homosexuality. In a 2007 survey of professors at 927 American institutions of higher education, sociologists Neil Gross and Solon Simmons from Harvard and George Mason Universities, respectively, found that liberals dominate the campus world: 44.1 percent of survey respondents characterized themselves as either “liberal” or “very liberal,” compared to only 9.2 percent who described themselves as “conservative” or “very conservative.” Even these numbers fail to fully reflect the “very liberal attitudes toward sex” which pervade the university: the Harvard and George Mason scholars report that about 70 percent [68.7 percent of the professors surveyed] think that homosexuality “is not wrong at all.”4
The freedom of students and professors who oppose homosexuality can survive in such an environment only if professors are deeply committed to maintaining a campus neutrality that fosters free exchange of all viewpoints. Unfortunately, when Harvard scholar Louis Menand analyzes the Gross and Solon data, he sees evidence that “neutrality, or disinterestedness,” is declining as a university standard because there is now apparently “less aversion to weighing political views in evaluating merit than would have been the case thirty or forty years ago.” In fact, though not a conservative, Menand concedes that the Gross and Solon study provides “data . . . useful to anyone claiming that colleges and universities discriminate against people with conservative views.” Menand goes so far as to raise the question of whether “holding liberal views has become a tacit requirement for entry and promotion in the academic profession.”5 In an academic world such as this, it is entirely predictable that top university professors of law openly argue—in direct riposte to Scalia’s complaint against judicial endorsement of the homosexual agenda—in favor of measures aimed at “eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct.”6
Only the complete hegemony of anti-anti-homosexual dogma within the university renders comprehensible the blog comment recently posted by Stanford student Gregory Hirshman. Hirshman asserts that in an academic world governed by a “strict, if informal, rule against speaking negatively of homosexuality,” it now requires “more strength and conviction on the Stanford campus to come out as an outspoken conservative than as a homosexual.” The strict enforcement of the academic orthodoxy on homosexuality also harmonizes with critic and former University of Maryland professor George A. Panichas, who reports that in the university world “opponents of liberal ideas are increasingly treated as outlaws.”7
Just how much the outlaw status of those who oppose homosexuality on the university campus should matter to the broader American community is clarified by the prominent philosopher Richard Rorty’s assertion, “The university has replaced the church as the center of morality.” This assertion, of course, would strike millions of church-going Americans as patently untrue, even bizarre. However, for the cultural, political, and judicial elite who shape much of national life, it is all too true: the university has become the new surrogate church, laying down the moral imperatives guiding judges, policymakers, executives, and media moguls. The outlaws who oppose homosexuality will find no right of sanctuary in this church. Far otherwise. They will find that that new church regards them not only as outlaws but also as dangerous heretics.
Outlaw-heretics have reason to fear inquisitorial persecution from the priests in the surrogate church, one of whom has candidly admitted that he and his anti-anti-homosexual colleagues are “sometimes self-righteous . . . and sometimes too dismissive or snotty toward those who disagree with us.”8 At a minimum, outlaw-heretics have reason to fear that the new priests—for all their professed commitment to freedom for all—will actually lock them out of the democratic process. It is this real abridgment of political liberties that legal scholar Ronald J. Krotoszynski Jr. has in view in his analysis of how “religious minorities” face discrimination:
To the extent that religious minorities position themselves in opposition to progressive understandings on issues of race, gender and sexual orientation, they increasingly face the prospect of being silenced by government officials who have come to embrace the progressives’ value structure.9
Many of America’s religiously devout citizens would strenuously object to Krotoszynski’s characterization of them as “minorities,” pointing to survey data showing that most Americans profess a belief in Christianity (and the Bible, which condemns homosexual acts as incompatible with a knowledge of God [cf. Rom. 1:18-28]). According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 78.4 percent of all adult Americans are Christian, with more than half of adult Americans affiliated with a Protestant denomination and almost one quarter of adult Americans belonging to the Roman Catholic Church.10 Those Americans can also point to election results on ballot initiatives in thirty-one states across the country defining marriage in ways consonant with religious belief, but not in alignment with the progressive homosexual-affirming agenda.
Diminishing Political and Religious Liberty
But the fact that silenced and marginalized church-goers actually constitute a majority only makes the process by which they are denied their full democratic liberties all the more insidious. For those in doubt as to how this process works, California has provided a prime illustration: through a costly and bruising electoral fight, defenders of natural marriage passed a measure (Proposition
acknowledging marriage as the union of man and woman—only to have a single unelected federal judge, Vaughan Walker, strike down the voter-approved measure because he, a “now-outed” homosexual, disapproved of the moral and religious impulses of those who championed it! In this fashion, a progressive anti-anti-homosexual elite dramatically diminishes the political liberties of those who wish to affirm an understanding of marriage consistent with reality as affirmed by nature, history, biology, reason, as well as religion. It is this kind of assault on religious liberty that legal scholar Matthew J. Franck has in view when he remarks, “The freedom to participate fully in civic life, to offer oneself to others in civil society, conscientiously on one’s own terms as a religious person professing one’s beliefs, may be jeopardized by this new dispensation.”11It is precisely that liberty-denying process that elite activists are trying to advance through the legal notion of same-sex marriage. For outlaws, enforcement of the law can mean only punishment—usually loss of freedom. That contraction of freedom is exactly what those advocating same-sex marriage seek: they want to lock those who oppose homosexuality into as small a box as possible. Just how terribly small that box can be is illustrated by the case of the fertility specialist in California who in 2001 declined to artificially inseminate a lesbian, though he referred that woman to a colleague who would perform that service for her. When the doctor, who happened to also be a devout Christian, later lost a discrimination suit filed by the offended lesbian woman, he found no relief upon appeal to the California Supreme Court, which found—unanimously—that this doctor’s religious convictions did not afford him even the very, very minimal freedom of declining to perform a medical procedure that violated his convictions!
The same kind of liberty-abridging legal logic worked against the religious convictions of a New Mexico photographer who in 2006 declined to take pictures of a same-sex couple’s “commitment ceremony” because of her religious objections to homosexuality, only to find herself fined $6000 by the state Human Rights Commission for having discriminated against the couple. Predictably enough, this logic now works to constrain the consciences of chaplains in the new gay-friendly military that Obama and his allies have created: credible reports now indicate that military chaplains must “embrace the new openly homosexual military, resign from service, or face court-martial for their ‘religious, conscience’ objections.”12 All these assaults on religious liberty have occurred in jurisdictions without the legal innovation of same-sex marriage. That the enactment of same-sex marriage multiplies such assaults is evident in the way that justices of the peace in Massachusetts have been forced to resign if they decline, on moral or religious grounds, to perform homosexual weddings. Similar legal coercion compelled Catholic Social Services to suspend its handling of adoptions in the Bay State because of its refusal to violate its religious principles by placing children with homosexual couples.
This disturbing pattern of hostility to religious freedom should leave little doubt as to the consequences of broader enactment of homosexual marriage: it can only mean fewer freedoms for men and women of religious conviction. “Both freedom and the desire for freedom,” Nisbet sagely remarks, “are nourished within the realization of spiritual privacy and among privileges of personal decision.”13 But it is precisely personal decision—in expression and in conduct—which homosexual activists wish to eradicate, whenever such decisions draw inspiration from religious or moral principles at odds with homosexual emancipation. In this context, Franck warns, “We are in danger of telling many millions of our fellow citizens that they may not act as their conscience guides them in exercising the fundamental right of self government.”14 As the fertility specialist in California, the photographer in New Mexico, the justices of the peace in Massachusetts could all testify, when anti-anti-homosexual principles triumph, Americans asked to engage in acts that would violate their conscience by implying acceptance or endorsement of homosexual acts cannot even respond with that precious shred of self-preserving liberty that Herman Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener claims with the simple words, “I prefer not to.”15
Individual freedom seemed to be uppermost in the minds of the High Court justices who struck down Texas’s anti-sodomy law. In justifying their decision, Anthony Kennedy invoked a concern for “the liberty of all,” and then elaborated in elevated language: “Liberty presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct. The instant case involves liberty of the person both in its spatial and more transcendent dimensions.”16 But Americans may increasingly wonder why this spatial and transcendent liberty and autonomy of self do not extend to those Americans who want to distance themselves from homosexual acts, to stand apart, as it were, from those who engage in such acts. Why is that autonomy of self, that transcendent dimension of liberty, not protected by law or court proceedings?
Dubious Claims of Homosexual Activists
Make no mistake: homosexual activists do, in fact, know that advancing their agenda means reducing the liberty of Americans. They hide that reality behind rhetoric of freedom, just as they hide their exclusion of religious Americans from the public square behind rhetoric of inclusion, and their extirpation of every deviation from the approved attitude toward homosexuality behind the rhetoric of diversity. But at bottom, these activists know that they are denying their fellow Americans a sizable measure of freedom. They justify this denial in two ways, both dubious.
First, advocates of gay rights—including the right to marry—manifest a surprising eagerness to believe a “genetic basis of homosexuality,”17 despite clear scientific refutation of the very notion of “a gay gene.”18 Apparently, homosexual activists follow this line of logic: since genes have made homosexuals “what they are,” they are not free to be otherwise. Since homosexuals are not free to be otherwise, the government is justified in denying liberty of those who would discriminate against them. This surrender to genetic determinism is stunning, especially coming from a segment of the political spectrum known for its resistance to genetic determinism in other contexts, such as those involving questions of racial or gender characteristics.19Apparently, homosexual activists do not want anyone to notice that all the arguments that their political allies have made against the decidedly illiberal and dehumanizing logic of genetic determinism in other contexts tell against their reliance upon genetic determinism in advocating restrictions on the liberty of those who would criticize homosexual conduct.
The second justification for restricting the freedoms of those who oppose homosexuality is that of asserting that this freedom has no content except that of hatred and bigotry, or that this freedom amounts to nothing but the equivalent of racism. So those who deny this freedom are not denying a freedom that has any real substance anyway. This line of justification will not bear scrutiny. In the first place, surveys reveal that, as a group, African Americans—who should be the very first to recognize a fundamental kinship between racial bias and resistance to homosexuality—are actually more resistant to homosexuality than are whites,20 while polling data indicate that African Americans support measures such as California’s Proposition 8 significantly more than whites.21
But further weaknesses emerge in the argument that opposition to homosexuality amounts to nothing but bigotry and hatred and that therefore denying Americans the freedom to oppose homosexuality does not constitute a serious infringement of their liberty. The long list of those who have expressed opposition to homosexuality has included some intelligent and gifted individuals. With his brilliant poetic masterpiece The Divine Comedy culminating in a vision of “the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars” (33. 146, Ciardi translation), Dante seems like something other than a hate-filled bigot. Yet he opposed homosexuality, placing homosexuals in the Seventh Circle of the Hell he depicts in his Inferno. As one of the architects of quantum physics, Edwin Schrödinger would seem to be more than a dull conformist. Yet he lamented the increasing ubiquity of homosexuality in higher education.22 As a brilliant opponent of “all the smelly little orthodoxies” of the twentieth century, George Orwell would not normally be classed as an unthinking exponent of bias. Yet he opposed homosexuality, and as a twenty-first-century critic has remarked, “Orwell’s anti-homosexual position (definitely not ‘homophobia,’ which would suggest irrational fear) flowed naturally from beliefs and values about which he was quite forthcoming.”23
Surprisingly, even the homosexual poet W. H. Auden—famous both for his insistent honesty and his astonishing prosodic talents—said some very negative things about homosexuality. “I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s wrong to be queer,” Auden said. “In the first place, all homosexual acts are acts of envy. In the second, the more you’re involved with someone, the more trouble arises, and affection shouldn’t result in that. It shows something’s wrong somewhere.”24 And then there is Stephen Spender, another great twentieth-century British poet who was homosexual as a young man, but who, after renouncing homosexuality went on to marry two women (not at the same time!). Spender said, “I find the actual sex act with women more satisfactory [than the sex act with men] . . . To me it is much more of an experience.”25
Opposition to homosexuality took a more intriguing form in the life of the great German novelist Thomas Mann, who felt the pull of homoerotic impulses (as any reader of Death in Venice will recognize). For religious reasons, Mann chose not to act on those impulses and to live a life of abstinence. As Mann’s biographer explains, for Mann, “Homosexual courtship . . . is from the Devil,” while “His chastity is love for the purity of God” 26
When Law and Morality Collide
Americans have every reason to ask what is left of an intellectual freedom that does not include the freedom to examine and to affirm the views expressed by great poets and novelists. They may also wonder about the authenticity of an intellectual freedom that does not allow full and frank discussion of research limning a troubling pattern of co-morbidity linking homosexuality to a wide array of both psychological27 and physical illnesses.28 Nor would a genuine intellectual freedom prohibit candid public discussion of the remarkable promiscuity that researchers have documented within the homosexual population.29
Of course, for most Americans opposed to homosexuality, the freedom that matters most is not the freedom to endorse the views of Dante or Auden, Orwell or Mann. Nor is it the freedom to probe the latest research in homosexual epidemiology or sexual conduct. The freedom that matters most—and the freedom most imperiled by the legal definition of a homosexual liaison as a marriage—is the freedom to affirm a religiously grounded sexual morality. Religiously committed Americans regard this as a very important freedom indeed. As Franck has explained, “For the religious person who holds a traditional view of sexual morality, the holding of that view is not accidentally related to his religious faith. It is inseparable from it.”30
Consequently, it can only gall these Americans when homosexual activists use the law—particularly in the radical redefinition of the marital law—to deny them the freedom to express and to act on their convictions about sexual ethics. No doubt, homosexual activists expect everyone to accept the legal redefinition of marriage they are promoting. But they forget how many Americans recognize a divine law transcending and standing above merely human law. As Aquinas observed, “Human laws are either just or unjust. If they are just, they have the power to bind our conscience because of the eternal law from which they are derived.” But, quoting Augustine’s assertion that “an unjust law does not seem to be a law at all,” Aquinas reasons that unjust laws “do not bind the conscience.” In fact, Aquinas goes so far as to assert that if laws are unjust because they are “opposed to the divine good,” then “such laws must never be observed, because ‘one must obey God rather than men’ (Acts 5:29).”31
Even Americans who do not draw their legal philosophy from Aquinas should recognize that when the law sets itself in opposition to the moral convictions held by a great many citizens, it puts those citizens in a difficult and painful circumstance. That circumstance is well described by legal theorist Frederick Bastiat: “When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.”32Disrespect for the law may become particularly intense among parents who see the law using tax revenues to pay for “gay-friendly curricular materials” in public schools increasingly hostile to the sexual ethics they want to instill in their children.33
Since survey sociologists have recently established that America’s religiously devout citizens are the nation’s most generous, selfless, honest, civic-minded, and community-spirited,34 the nation’s cultural and legal elite may want to pause before using homosexual marriage as a legal weapon for limiting the religious freedoms of those citizens. Do they really want to undermine respect for the law among tens of millions of Americans? Do they really want to imbue in Americans who are, by nature, selfless, civic-minded and community-spirited a new feeling of alienation from and resentment toward their government?
Of course, millions of Americans who oppose homosexual acts for religious reasons will not want to simply wait while the elite decide what restrictions to impose on their liberties. They will want to vigorously protest every incursion upon those liberties, and they will want to lend their full support to lawmakers sympathetic to their concerns. Americans with a mature religious faith will understand the need to avoid hateful or spiteful references toward homosexuals. They will indeed recognize that their witness for truth will be most effective when it is expressed with empathy and compassion, including especially a merciful compassion for those who are suffering from AIDS or other diseases often found among homosexuals. But devout Americans can express genuine love for homosexuals without accepting or endorsing their sexual behavior. An authentic faith indeed requires both firm opposition to homosexual acts and unfailing love for those who commit such acts.35
Americans motivated by religious faith will be zealous to protect the liberty to express and to act on that faith. That will mean vigorously opposing same-sex marriage whenever possible. Where such opposition appears—at least in the short run—futile (as in Massachusetts, Iowa, New York, and Washington, D.C.), perhaps it is time for sympathetic law-makers to start enacting “conscience clause” protections—comparable to those that protect medical professionals from being compelled to perform abortions—for justices of the peace, fertility doctors, wedding caterers and photographers, and others who will find themselves forced to choose between their careers and their convictions. If they cannot prevent the enactment (often by judicial fiat) of same-sex marriage laws, lawmakers should at least be able to give an opt-out to citizens who object to homosexuality for religious reasons. Bartleby would understand.
Dr. Christensen teaches composition and literature at Southern Utah University. This article has been republished with permission from The Family in America.
Notes
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1.Antonin Scalia, with William Rehnquist and Clarence Thomas, dissenting, John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner v. Texas, June 26, 2003.
2.Robert Nisbet, The Quest for Community: A Study in the Ethics of Order & Freedom (1953; rpt. San Francisco: ICS Press, 1990), p. 141.
3.Cf. Meghan Duke, “Fired, In a Crowded Theater,” First Things, October 2010, pp. 24–29.
4.Neil Gross and Solon Simmons, “The Social and Political Views of American Professors,” Working Paper, September 24, 2007, http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~ngross/lounsbery_9-25.pdf.
5.Louis Menand, The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University (New York: W. W. Norton, 2009), pp. 139–40.
6.Naomi Cahn and June Carbone, Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 164.
7.George A. Panichas, Growing Wings to Overcome Gravity: Criticism as the Pursuit of Virtue (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1999), p. 37.
8.Michael Bérubé, What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts? Classroom Politics and ‘Bias’ in Higher Education (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006), p. 287.
9.Ronald J. Krotoszynski Jr., “Dissent, Free Speech, and the Continuing Search for the ‘Central Meaning’ of the First Amendment,” review of The Dissent of the Governed: A Meditation on Law, Religion, and Loyalty, by Stephen L. Carter, and Dissent, Injustice, and the Meanings of America by Steven H. Shiffrin, Michigan Law Review 98.6 (2000): 1673.
10.“Religious Affiliation: Summary of Key Findings,” U.S. Religious Landscape Survey (Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 2010), http://religions.pewforum.org/reports.
11.Matthew J. Franck, “Religion, Reason, and Same-Sex Marriage,” First Things, May 2011, p. 51.
12.“Army: Court-Martial Chaplains for ‘Religious, Conscience’ Objection to Homosexuality,” Catholic Citizens of Illinois, March 24, 2011, http://catholiccitizens.org/press/pressview.asp?c=52791.
13.Nisbet, The Quest for Community, p. 220.
14.Francky, “Religion, Reason, and Same-Sex Marriage,” p. 50.
15.Herman Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener” (1853), American Literature: The Makers and the Making,ed. Cleanth Brooks, R. W. B. Lewis, and Robert Penn Warren (New York: St. Martin’s, 1973), 1:842–59.
16.Anthony Kennedy, with John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer, John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner v. Texas.
17.Cahn and Carbone, Red Families v. Blue Families, pp. 65 and 226, 22n.
18.Cf. Ian Stewart, The Mathematics of Life (New York: Basic, 2011), pp. 118–19.
19.Cf. Leonard A. Cole, review of Not in Our Genes: Biology, Ideology and Human Nature by R. C. Lewontin, Leon J. Kamin, and Steven Rose, Politics and the Life Sciences 4.2 (1986): 200–201.
20.Cf. Gregory B. Lewis, “Black-White Differences in Attitudes toward Homosexuality and Gay Rights,” The Public Opinion Quarterly 67.1 (2003): 59–78.
21.Cf. Patrick J. Egan and Kenneth Sherrill, “California’s Proposition 8 and America’s Racial and Ethnic Divides on Same‐Sex Marriage.” Working Paper, January 2010,http://as.nyu.edu/docs/IO/4819/marriagedivides.pdf.
22.Cf. Jim Baggott, The Quantum Story: A History in 40 Moments (New York: Oxford, 2011), p. 150.
23.David Ramsay Steele, “My Orwell Right or Wrong,” review of Why Orwell Matters, by Christopher Hitchens, Libertarian Alliance, 2003, http://www.la-articles.org.uk/orwell.pdf.
24.Arthur Kirsch, Auden and Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), pp. 172–73.
25.John Sutherland, Stephen Spender: A Literary Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 168.
26.Hermann Kurzke, Thomas Mann: Life as a Work of Art. A Biography (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), pp. 412–14, 486.
27.Theo G. M. Sandfort et al., “Same-Sex Sexual Behavior and Psychiatric Disorders,” Archives of General Psychiatry 58 (2001): 85-91; Michael King et al., “A Systematic Review of Mental Disorder, Suicide, and Deliberate Self-Harm in Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual people,” BMC Psychiatry 8 (August 18, 2008): 70.
28.Compared to men who do not, men who have sex with men are more than 46 times more likely to contract syphilis, and more than 44 times more likely to contract HIV. “Gay Men Still More Likely to Contract HIV,” BC Medical Journal 52.4 (May 2010): web.
29.M. A. Bellis et al., “Re-Emerging Syphilis in Gay Men: A Case-Control Study of Behavioural Risk Factors and HIV Status,” Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 56.3 (2002): 235–36.
30.Franck, “Religion, Reason, and Same-Sex Marriage.”
31.Thomas Aquinas, “Aquinas on Law,” Medieval Source Book, ed. Paul Halsall. Fordham University Center for Medieval Studies, 2006. Web.
32.Frederick Bastiat, The Law (1850; rpt. New York: Cosimo Classics, 2006), p. 11.
33.Cf. Charles J. Russo, “Same-Sex Marriage and Public School Curricula,” What’s the Harm? Does Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage Really Harm Individuals, Families, or Society? ed. Lynn D. Wardle (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2008), pp. 355–73.
34.Cf. Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010).
35.Cf. Ron Sider, “Bearing Better Witness,” First Things, December 2010, pp. 47–50.
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Politics & Religion / Stratfor: Sit Rep
« on: January 23, 2012, 10:21:54 PM »
Summary
A Sunni-Shia standoff has taken shape in Iraq following the U.S. military
withdrawal. While the Sunnis are looking to such outside actors as the United States
and Turkey to intervene on their behalf, Iran continues to hold more influence in
Iraq than any other country. Ideally, Tehran would like to keep Iraq in a manageable
state of instability. Indeed, Tehran will have to perform a delicate balancing act
in resolving the Shia-Sunni standoff, helping its Shia proxies enough to retain its
influence but preventing them from becoming too powerful.
Analysis
Iraq's political, ethnic and sectarian groups saw the December 2011 U.S. military
departure as an opportunity to grab for power. Even Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki tried to capitalize on the U.S. departure, as evidenced by his attempted
arrest of Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, the country's highest-ranking Sunni
official, on terrorism-related charges. Al-Hashimi evaded arrest by fleeing to
northern Iraq's Kurdish enclave, under the auspices of Iraqi President Jalal
Talabani.
The incident has created a standoff between al-Maliki's Shia-dominated government
and the country's Sunnis, represented by the al-Iraqiya bloc, and has exacerbated
tensions between the Iraqi and Kurdish governments. It has also exposed rifts
between al-Maliki and the movement led by Iraqi Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, which
holds more seats in parliament than any other Shiite political group.
While the Sunnis have sought Turkish and U.S. political assistance in the matter,
Ankara and Washington have markedly less influence in Iraq than Tehran. In fact,
Iran has been trying to assuage tensions in Iraq, as shown by its appointing senior
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force commander Gen. Sardar Majidi to mediate
the Sunni-Shia standoff. The challenge for Tehran is to ensure a resolution of the
current crisis without empowering the Sunnis.
In similar past situations Iran has played one faction off the other, maintaining
its influence over Iraq's Shia community without weakening the Shia position
overall. Despite being competitors, both al-Maliki's and al-Sadr's factions realize
they need to work with one another. But the current situation is slightly different
than those of the past. Iran not only has to secure Shiite unity but also make sure
al-Maliki's moves against the Sunnis do not go too far. Iran cannot afford to
alienate the Sunnis entirely, especially with so much uncertainty in Syria. Should
the Alawite government in Damascus give way to Sunni government -- or if there is
anarchy -- Iraqi Sunnis could feel so empowered as to confront the Shia who
currently dominate Baghdad.
Unchecked instability in Iraq is not in Iran's interest, especially now that
Tehran's influence in Syria is threatened. In truth, the current situation in
Baghdad is ideal for the Iranians, considering it took nine months for Iraqis to
create a government after the March 7, 2010, parliamentary elections. However,
managed Iraqi instability is useful for Iran because it keeps Iraq within Iran's
sphere of influence -- and because it can be used as leverage against the United
States. But if such instability threatens Shia political domination, Tehran would
have to intervene to ensure that its foreign policy interests were not undermined.
Another problem is that Tehran's interests differ from those of its various Shia
proxies. While Iran certainly has influence over Iraq's Shia community, this
influence is limited by differences within Iraq's Shia factions. In fact, the
leaders of Iraq's two main Shia factions, al-Maliki and al-Sadr, on several
occasions have tried to free themselves from Iranian influence. Al-Maliki attempted
to do so when he formed the State of Law coalition and contested the parliamentary
elections independently of the Iraqi National Alliance. As al-Maliki tightens his
control over Iraq -- he is the acting interior minister, defense minister and
national security chief -- Iran is careful not to see him become too powerful or
allow him to upset the balance Tehran has been trying to maintain.
Interestingly, Iran was instrumental in al-Maliki's winning the Iraqi premiership.
He was able to win the post because of his post-election partnership with the Iraqi
National Alliance. This partnership formed a super Shia bloc that collectively won
159 seats, allowing al-Maliki to prevent his biggest rival, al-Iraqiya leader Iyad
Allawi, from becoming prime minister. The Iranians were heavily involved in this
post-election engineering.
Al-Maliki also was aided by support from his Shia rivals, whom he could not afford
to alienate. If his Sunni opponents were to somehow persuade these opponents to
abandon their support of al-Maliki, they might be able to remove him. But al-Maliki
is betting his rivals will refrain from going that far, lest they want to undertake
the daunting task of forming a new government. This gives him much leverage. Already
he is operating outside parliamentary bounds by establishing an executive branch
with sweeping powers, which is exactly the type of scenario Iran wants to avoid.
Iran has the option of working with the Kurds, who also have close ties to Tehran.
However, if the Sunnis realize that the Iranians and their Iraqi Shia allies are on
the defensive, they will try to gain more political power. In essence, the Iranians
would have to oversee a fresh power-sharing understanding in Baghdad.
A Sunni-Shia standoff has taken shape in Iraq following the U.S. military
withdrawal. While the Sunnis are looking to such outside actors as the United States
and Turkey to intervene on their behalf, Iran continues to hold more influence in
Iraq than any other country. Ideally, Tehran would like to keep Iraq in a manageable
state of instability. Indeed, Tehran will have to perform a delicate balancing act
in resolving the Shia-Sunni standoff, helping its Shia proxies enough to retain its
influence but preventing them from becoming too powerful.
A Sunni-Shia standoff has taken shape in Iraq following the U.S. military
withdrawal. While the Sunnis are looking to such outside actors as the United States
and Turkey to intervene on their behalf, Iran continues to hold more influence in
Iraq than any other country. Ideally, Tehran would like to keep Iraq in a manageable
state of instability. Indeed, Tehran will have to perform a delicate balancing act
in resolving the Shia-Sunni standoff, helping its Shia proxies enough to retain its
influence but preventing them from becoming too powerful.
Analysis
Iraq's political, ethnic and sectarian groups saw the December 2011 U.S. military
departure as an opportunity to grab for power. Even Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki tried to capitalize on the U.S. departure, as evidenced by his attempted
arrest of Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, the country's highest-ranking Sunni
official, on terrorism-related charges. Al-Hashimi evaded arrest by fleeing to
northern Iraq's Kurdish enclave, under the auspices of Iraqi President Jalal
Talabani.
The incident has created a standoff between al-Maliki's Shia-dominated government
and the country's Sunnis, represented by the al-Iraqiya bloc, and has exacerbated
tensions between the Iraqi and Kurdish governments. It has also exposed rifts
between al-Maliki and the movement led by Iraqi Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, which
holds more seats in parliament than any other Shiite political group.
While the Sunnis have sought Turkish and U.S. political assistance in the matter,
Ankara and Washington have markedly less influence in Iraq than Tehran. In fact,
Iran has been trying to assuage tensions in Iraq, as shown by its appointing senior
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force commander Gen. Sardar Majidi to mediate
the Sunni-Shia standoff. The challenge for Tehran is to ensure a resolution of the
current crisis without empowering the Sunnis.
In similar past situations Iran has played one faction off the other, maintaining
its influence over Iraq's Shia community without weakening the Shia position
overall. Despite being competitors, both al-Maliki's and al-Sadr's factions realize
they need to work with one another. But the current situation is slightly different
than those of the past. Iran not only has to secure Shiite unity but also make sure
al-Maliki's moves against the Sunnis do not go too far. Iran cannot afford to
alienate the Sunnis entirely, especially with so much uncertainty in Syria. Should
the Alawite government in Damascus give way to Sunni government -- or if there is
anarchy -- Iraqi Sunnis could feel so empowered as to confront the Shia who
currently dominate Baghdad.
Unchecked instability in Iraq is not in Iran's interest, especially now that
Tehran's influence in Syria is threatened. In truth, the current situation in
Baghdad is ideal for the Iranians, considering it took nine months for Iraqis to
create a government after the March 7, 2010, parliamentary elections. However,
managed Iraqi instability is useful for Iran because it keeps Iraq within Iran's
sphere of influence -- and because it can be used as leverage against the United
States. But if such instability threatens Shia political domination, Tehran would
have to intervene to ensure that its foreign policy interests were not undermined.
Another problem is that Tehran's interests differ from those of its various Shia
proxies. While Iran certainly has influence over Iraq's Shia community, this
influence is limited by differences within Iraq's Shia factions. In fact, the
leaders of Iraq's two main Shia factions, al-Maliki and al-Sadr, on several
occasions have tried to free themselves from Iranian influence. Al-Maliki attempted
to do so when he formed the State of Law coalition and contested the parliamentary
elections independently of the Iraqi National Alliance. As al-Maliki tightens his
control over Iraq -- he is the acting interior minister, defense minister and
national security chief -- Iran is careful not to see him become too powerful or
allow him to upset the balance Tehran has been trying to maintain.
Interestingly, Iran was instrumental in al-Maliki's winning the Iraqi premiership.
He was able to win the post because of his post-election partnership with the Iraqi
National Alliance. This partnership formed a super Shia bloc that collectively won
159 seats, allowing al-Maliki to prevent his biggest rival, al-Iraqiya leader Iyad
Allawi, from becoming prime minister. The Iranians were heavily involved in this
post-election engineering.
Al-Maliki also was aided by support from his Shia rivals, whom he could not afford
to alienate. If his Sunni opponents were to somehow persuade these opponents to
abandon their support of al-Maliki, they might be able to remove him. But al-Maliki
is betting his rivals will refrain from going that far, lest they want to undertake
the daunting task of forming a new government. This gives him much leverage. Already
he is operating outside parliamentary bounds by establishing an executive branch
with sweeping powers, which is exactly the type of scenario Iran wants to avoid.
Iran has the option of working with the Kurds, who also have close ties to Tehran.
However, if the Sunnis realize that the Iranians and their Iraqi Shia allies are on
the defensive, they will try to gain more political power. In essence, the Iranians
would have to oversee a fresh power-sharing understanding in Baghdad.
A Sunni-Shia standoff has taken shape in Iraq following the U.S. military
withdrawal. While the Sunnis are looking to such outside actors as the United States
and Turkey to intervene on their behalf, Iran continues to hold more influence in
Iraq than any other country. Ideally, Tehran would like to keep Iraq in a manageable
state of instability. Indeed, Tehran will have to perform a delicate balancing act
in resolving the Shia-Sunni standoff, helping its Shia proxies enough to retain its
influence but preventing them from becoming too powerful.
47377
Politics & Religion / Federal domination through Medicaid
« on: January 23, 2012, 10:00:43 PM »"Spending on Medicaid, a theoretically cooperative federal-state program, is
approximately 40 percent of all federal funds given to states and 7 percent of all
federal spending. Enacted in 1965 as a program for the poor, it has exploded. The
increase in its costs by the end of this decade is expected to be $434 billion. ...
Obamacare requires states to cover all persons with incomes up to, effectively, 138
percent of the poverty level. The federal government will pay all increased costs
(other than administrative costs) until 2016; by 2020 states will pay 10 percent of
the expansion. But even with the federal government paying most of the costs, in
many states their portion of Medicaid costs is the largest item in their budgets,
even exceeding education. And Obamacare, which forbids states to make more
restrictive the eligibility criteria it adopted before this new burden, would deny
all Medicaid funds to noncompliant states. This would cost most states billions of
dollars. ... In theory, state participation in Medicaid is voluntary; practically,
no state can leave Medicaid because ... [it] leaves states this agonizing choice:
Allow expanded Medicaid to devastate your budgets, or abandon the poor." --columnist
George Will
(http://patriotpost.us/opinion/george-will/2012/01/22/something-to-argue-about/ )
47378
Politics & Religion / AG Holder and DOJ' Lanny Breuer linked to banks accused of foreclosure fraud
« on: January 23, 2012, 09:50:45 PM »
U.S. AG Eric Holder, DoJ Head Lanny Breuer Linked To Banks Accused Of Foreclosure Fraud
First Posted: 1/20/12 07:00 AM ET Updated: 1/20/12 09:23 AM ET
By Scot J. Paltrow
Jan 19 (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Department's criminal division, were partners for years at a Washington law firm that represented a Who's Who of big banks and other companies at the center of alleged foreclosure fraud, a Reuters inquiry shows.
The firm, Covington & Burling, is one of Washington's biggest white shoe law firms. Law professors and other federal ethics experts said that federal conflict of interest rules required Holder and Breuer to recuse themselves from any Justice Department decisions relating to law firm clients they personally had done work for.
Both the Justice Department and Covington declined to say if either official had personally worked on matters for the big mortgage industry clients. Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said Holder and Breuer had complied fully with conflict of interest regulations, but she declined to say if they had recused themselves from any matters related to the former clients.
Reuters reported in December that under Holder and Breuer, the Justice Department hasn't brought any criminal cases against big banks or other companies involved in mortgage servicing, even though copious evidence has surfaced of apparent criminal violations in foreclosure cases.
The evidence, including records from federal and state courts and local clerks' offices around the country, shows widespread forgery, perjury, obstruction of justice, and illegal foreclosures on the homes of thousands of active-duty military personnel.
In recent weeks the Justice Department has come under renewed pressure from members of Congress, state and local officials and homeowners' lawyers to open a wide-ranging criminal investigation of mortgage servicers, the biggest of which have been Covington clients. So far Justice officials haven't responded publicly to any of the requests.
While Holder and Breuer were partners at Covington, the firm's clients included the four largest U.S. banks - Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo & Co - as well as at least one other bank that is among the 10 largest mortgage servicers.
DEFENDER OF FREDDIE
Servicers perform routine mortgage maintenance tasks, including filing foreclosures, on behalf of mortgage owners, usually groups of investors who bought mortgage-backed securities.
Covington represented Freddie Mac, one of the nation's biggest issuers of mortgage backed securities, in enforcement investigations by federal financial regulators.
A particular concern by those pressing for an investigation is Covington's involvement with Virginia-based MERS Corp, which runs a vast computerized registry of mortgages. Little known before the mortgage crisis hit, MERS, which stands for Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, has been at the center of complaints about false or erroneous mortgage documents.
Court records show that Covington, in the late 1990s, provided legal opinion letters needed to create MERS on behalf of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and several other large banks. It was meant to speed up registration and transfers of mortgages. By 2010, MERS claimed to own about half of all mortgages in the U.S. -- roughly 60 million loans.
But evidence in numerous state and federal court cases around the country has shown that MERS authorized thousands of bank employees to sign their names as MERS officials. The banks allegedly drew up fake mortgage assignments, making it appear falsely that they had standing to file foreclosures, and then had their own employees sign the documents as MERS "vice presidents" or "assistant secretaries."
Covington in 2004 also wrote a crucial opinion letter commissioned by MERS, providing legal justification for its electronic registry. MERS spokeswoman Karmela Lejarde declined to comment on Covington legal work done for MERS.
It isn't known to what extent if any Covington has continued to represent the banks and other mortgage firms since Holder and Breuer left. Covington declined to respond to questions from Reuters. A Covington spokeswoman said the firm had no comment.
Several lawyers for homeowners have said that even if Holder and Breuer haven't violated any ethics rules, their ties to Covington create an impression of bias toward the firms' clients, especially in the absence of any prosecutions by the Justice Department.
O. Max Gardner III, a lawyer who trains other attorneys to represent homeowners in bankruptcy court foreclosure actions, said he attributes the Justice Department's reluctance to prosecute the banks or their executives to the Obama White House's view that it might harm the economy.
But he said that the background of Holder and Breuer at Covington -- and their failure to act on foreclosure fraud or publicly recuse themselves -- "doesn't pass the smell test."
Federal ethics regulations generally require new government officials to recuse themselves for one year from involvement in matters involving clients they personally had represented at their former law firms.
President Obama imposed additional restrictions on appointees that essentially extended the ban to two years. For Holder, that ban would have expired in February 2011, and in April for Breuer. Rules also require officials to avoid creating the appearance of a conflict.
Schmaler, the Justice Department spokeswoman, said in an e-mail that "The Attorney General and Assistant Attorney General Breuer have conformed with all financial, legal and ethical obligations under law as well as additional ethical standards set by the Obama Administration."
She said they "routinely consult" the department's ethics officials for guidance. Without offering specifics, Schmaler said they "have recused themselves from matters as required by the law."
Senior government officials often move to big Washington law firms, and lawyers from those firms often move into government posts. But records show that in recent years the traffic between the Justice Department and Covington & Burling has been particularly heavy. In 2010, Holder's deputy chief of staff, John Garland, returned to Covington, as did Steven Fagell, who was Breuer's deputy chief of staff in the criminal division.
The firm has on its web site a page listing its attorneys who are former federal government officials. Covington lists 22 from the Justice Department, and 12 from U.S. Attorneys offices, the Justice Department's local federal prosecutors' offices around the country.
As Reuters reported in 2011, public records show large numbers of mortgage promissory notes with apparently forged endorsements that were submitted as evidence to courts.
There also is evidence of almost routine manufacturing of false mortgage assignments, documents that transfer ownership of mortgages between banks or to groups of investors. In foreclosure actions in courts mortgage assignments are required to show that a bank has the legal right to foreclose.
In an interview in late 2011, Raymond Brescia, a visiting professor at Yale Law School who has written about foreclosure practices said, "I think it's difficult to find a fraud of this size on the U.S. court system in U.S. history."
Holder has resisted calls for a criminal investigation since October 2010, when evidence of widespread "robo-signing" first surfaced. That involved mortgage servicer employees falsely signing and swearing to massive numbers of affidavits and other foreclosure documents that they had never read or checked for accuracy.
Recent calls for a wide-ranging criminal investigation of the mortgage servicing industry have come from members of Congress, including Senator Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., state officials, and county clerks. In recent months clerks from around the country have examined mortgage and foreclosure records filed with them and reported finding high percentages of apparently fraudulent documents.
On Wednesday, John O'Brien Jr., register of deeds in Salem, Mass., announced that he had sent 31,897 allegedly fraudulent foreclosure-related documents to Holder. O'Brien said he asked for a criminal investigation of servicers and their law firms that had filed the documents because they "show a pattern of fraud," forgery and false notarizations.
First Posted: 1/20/12 07:00 AM ET Updated: 1/20/12 09:23 AM ET
By Scot J. Paltrow
Jan 19 (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Department's criminal division, were partners for years at a Washington law firm that represented a Who's Who of big banks and other companies at the center of alleged foreclosure fraud, a Reuters inquiry shows.
The firm, Covington & Burling, is one of Washington's biggest white shoe law firms. Law professors and other federal ethics experts said that federal conflict of interest rules required Holder and Breuer to recuse themselves from any Justice Department decisions relating to law firm clients they personally had done work for.
Both the Justice Department and Covington declined to say if either official had personally worked on matters for the big mortgage industry clients. Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said Holder and Breuer had complied fully with conflict of interest regulations, but she declined to say if they had recused themselves from any matters related to the former clients.
Reuters reported in December that under Holder and Breuer, the Justice Department hasn't brought any criminal cases against big banks or other companies involved in mortgage servicing, even though copious evidence has surfaced of apparent criminal violations in foreclosure cases.
The evidence, including records from federal and state courts and local clerks' offices around the country, shows widespread forgery, perjury, obstruction of justice, and illegal foreclosures on the homes of thousands of active-duty military personnel.
In recent weeks the Justice Department has come under renewed pressure from members of Congress, state and local officials and homeowners' lawyers to open a wide-ranging criminal investigation of mortgage servicers, the biggest of which have been Covington clients. So far Justice officials haven't responded publicly to any of the requests.
While Holder and Breuer were partners at Covington, the firm's clients included the four largest U.S. banks - Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo & Co - as well as at least one other bank that is among the 10 largest mortgage servicers.
DEFENDER OF FREDDIE
Servicers perform routine mortgage maintenance tasks, including filing foreclosures, on behalf of mortgage owners, usually groups of investors who bought mortgage-backed securities.
Covington represented Freddie Mac, one of the nation's biggest issuers of mortgage backed securities, in enforcement investigations by federal financial regulators.
A particular concern by those pressing for an investigation is Covington's involvement with Virginia-based MERS Corp, which runs a vast computerized registry of mortgages. Little known before the mortgage crisis hit, MERS, which stands for Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, has been at the center of complaints about false or erroneous mortgage documents.
Court records show that Covington, in the late 1990s, provided legal opinion letters needed to create MERS on behalf of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and several other large banks. It was meant to speed up registration and transfers of mortgages. By 2010, MERS claimed to own about half of all mortgages in the U.S. -- roughly 60 million loans.
But evidence in numerous state and federal court cases around the country has shown that MERS authorized thousands of bank employees to sign their names as MERS officials. The banks allegedly drew up fake mortgage assignments, making it appear falsely that they had standing to file foreclosures, and then had their own employees sign the documents as MERS "vice presidents" or "assistant secretaries."
Covington in 2004 also wrote a crucial opinion letter commissioned by MERS, providing legal justification for its electronic registry. MERS spokeswoman Karmela Lejarde declined to comment on Covington legal work done for MERS.
It isn't known to what extent if any Covington has continued to represent the banks and other mortgage firms since Holder and Breuer left. Covington declined to respond to questions from Reuters. A Covington spokeswoman said the firm had no comment.
Several lawyers for homeowners have said that even if Holder and Breuer haven't violated any ethics rules, their ties to Covington create an impression of bias toward the firms' clients, especially in the absence of any prosecutions by the Justice Department.
O. Max Gardner III, a lawyer who trains other attorneys to represent homeowners in bankruptcy court foreclosure actions, said he attributes the Justice Department's reluctance to prosecute the banks or their executives to the Obama White House's view that it might harm the economy.
But he said that the background of Holder and Breuer at Covington -- and their failure to act on foreclosure fraud or publicly recuse themselves -- "doesn't pass the smell test."
Federal ethics regulations generally require new government officials to recuse themselves for one year from involvement in matters involving clients they personally had represented at their former law firms.
President Obama imposed additional restrictions on appointees that essentially extended the ban to two years. For Holder, that ban would have expired in February 2011, and in April for Breuer. Rules also require officials to avoid creating the appearance of a conflict.
Schmaler, the Justice Department spokeswoman, said in an e-mail that "The Attorney General and Assistant Attorney General Breuer have conformed with all financial, legal and ethical obligations under law as well as additional ethical standards set by the Obama Administration."
She said they "routinely consult" the department's ethics officials for guidance. Without offering specifics, Schmaler said they "have recused themselves from matters as required by the law."
Senior government officials often move to big Washington law firms, and lawyers from those firms often move into government posts. But records show that in recent years the traffic between the Justice Department and Covington & Burling has been particularly heavy. In 2010, Holder's deputy chief of staff, John Garland, returned to Covington, as did Steven Fagell, who was Breuer's deputy chief of staff in the criminal division.
The firm has on its web site a page listing its attorneys who are former federal government officials. Covington lists 22 from the Justice Department, and 12 from U.S. Attorneys offices, the Justice Department's local federal prosecutors' offices around the country.
As Reuters reported in 2011, public records show large numbers of mortgage promissory notes with apparently forged endorsements that were submitted as evidence to courts.
There also is evidence of almost routine manufacturing of false mortgage assignments, documents that transfer ownership of mortgages between banks or to groups of investors. In foreclosure actions in courts mortgage assignments are required to show that a bank has the legal right to foreclose.
In an interview in late 2011, Raymond Brescia, a visiting professor at Yale Law School who has written about foreclosure practices said, "I think it's difficult to find a fraud of this size on the U.S. court system in U.S. history."
Holder has resisted calls for a criminal investigation since October 2010, when evidence of widespread "robo-signing" first surfaced. That involved mortgage servicer employees falsely signing and swearing to massive numbers of affidavits and other foreclosure documents that they had never read or checked for accuracy.
Recent calls for a wide-ranging criminal investigation of the mortgage servicing industry have come from members of Congress, including Senator Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., state officials, and county clerks. In recent months clerks from around the country have examined mortgage and foreclosure records filed with them and reported finding high percentages of apparently fraudulent documents.
On Wednesday, John O'Brien Jr., register of deeds in Salem, Mass., announced that he had sent 31,897 allegedly fraudulent foreclosure-related documents to Holder. O'Brien said he asked for a criminal investigation of servicers and their law firms that had filed the documents because they "show a pattern of fraud," forgery and false notarizations.
47379
Science, Culture, & Humanities / Re: Pathological Science
« on: January 23, 2012, 09:29:11 PM »
I'm not qualified or inclined to debate the science at the level in play here. The articles I cited seemed to me to offer a scientifcally plausible alternate to the temperature variations-- but I sure ain't the one to defend the case. I didn't get that there was an assertion that solar output had changed, only that some see an empirically observed connection between the solar flares and what happens here on earth. Signing off to lurk and enjoy the back and forth between BBG and you.
47380
Politics & Religion / Is this what Sen. Rand Paul was afraid of?
« on: January 23, 2012, 08:43:13 PM »
Man arrested after ejaculating during TSA pat-down : Dead Serious News
www.deadseriousnews.com
A 47 year old gay man was arrested at San Francisco International Airport after ejaculating while being patted down by a male TSA agent. Percy Cummings, an interior designer from San Francisco, is being held without bail after the alleged incident, charged with sexually assaulting a Federal agent.
SEn. Rand Paul on his incident:
Sen. Rand Paul on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer - 1/23/12
www.youtube.com
www.deadseriousnews.com
A 47 year old gay man was arrested at San Francisco International Airport after ejaculating while being patted down by a male TSA agent. Percy Cummings, an interior designer from San Francisco, is being held without bail after the alleged incident, charged with sexually assaulting a Federal agent.
SEn. Rand Paul on his incident:
Sen. Rand Paul on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer - 1/23/12
www.youtube.com
47381
Politics & Religion / Wesbury: GM is very wrong
« on: January 23, 2012, 08:28:38 PM »
Monday Morning Outlook
Rally Not Built on Complacency To view this article, Click Here
Brian S. Wesbury - Chief Economist
Robert Stein, CFA - Senior Economist
Date: 1/23/2012
There are three types of people involved in the prognostication business these days.
The “end of the world” types, the “it’s a slower,
post-apocalypse world” types, and the “everything is going to be
OK” types.
For a long time now, we have been saying that the “end of the world”
types are over-doing it. This is actually a dangerous stance for us to take because
the “end of the world” types can be very nasty to people who disagree
with them. The “it’s a slower world” types are more cerebral and
less nasty, but equally adamant. We, obviously, fall in the third camp.
No matter how we make our argument, and no matter how consistently the economy
grows, the doubt and fear and disbelief just won’t go away. We noticed this
recently, when conventional wisdom started to say that investors were being
“complacent” these days.
In other words, when the equity markets go down, investors are “living in
reality” and “accepting” that the economy and financial markets
just aren’t in great shape. But when the equity markets go up, they are being
schizophrenic, overly optimistic, and now some are saying “complacent.”
We couldn’t disagree more. Private sector payrolls have grown 160,000 per
month in the past year. The unemployment rate is down almost a full percentage point
from a year ago, while the size of the labor force is up (just like it was up in
2010, too). Over the past four weeks, unemployment claims have averaged 10% lower
than the same period a year ago.
Retail sales are up 6.5% from a year ago; orders for long-lasting durable goods are
up 12.1%, and auto sales are up 8.4%.
Perhaps most importantly, the long-awaited recovery in the housing sector has
finally started. Housing starts in the fourth quarter hit the highest level since
late 2008 and were up at a 32% annual rate compared to Q2. This was not all
apartment buildings; single-family housing was up at a 13% annual rate in the second
half of 2011.
Meanwhile, even after a recent rally, US equities remain incredibly cheap. Based on
trailing after-tax earnings, the price-to-earnings ratio on stocks in the S&P
500 is roughly 13.5. On future earnings it’s even cheaper.
Flipping this over, so earnings are on top and price is on bottom, the
“earnings yield” on stocks is 7.4%, compared to a 10-year Treasury yield
of only 2%. This suggests that stocks are cheap relative to bonds.
In other words, rather than being the result of complacency, craziness or stupidity,
the recent rally has a much more straightforward explanation. The economy is
growing, it’s very likely to continue to grow, and if that is the case then
stocks are grossly undervalued relative to bonds.
And the good news continues. With about 15% of the S&P 500 companies having
reported earnings for the fourth quarter of 2011, 60+% have beaten street estimates.
Notice how none of this has anything to do with a third round of quantitative easing
by the Federal Reserve. The last round of quantitative easing was essentially
useless, with banks boosting their excess reserves from $1 trillion to $1.6
trillion.
Nonetheless, bank lending is picking up and accelerated after QE2 ended. This has
helped boost the M2 measure of money (Milton Friedman’s favorite gauge), which
has also been growing faster since the end of QE2 than during it.
So far in 2012, the S&P 500 has had eleven up days versus only two down days.
That ratio probably won’t continue for the full year, but the idea that it is
unwarranted, crazy or complacent is a point of view that is supported by a decidedly
bearish set of assumptions.
Rather, it appears that the stock market is finally (or once again) beginning to
realize that the world is not ending and that the recovery is not so fragile that it
cannot last. We remain optimistic. We continue to believe that things are getting
better and we don’t feel complacent at all.
Rally Not Built on Complacency To view this article, Click Here
Brian S. Wesbury - Chief Economist
Robert Stein, CFA - Senior Economist
Date: 1/23/2012
There are three types of people involved in the prognostication business these days.
The “end of the world” types, the “it’s a slower,
post-apocalypse world” types, and the “everything is going to be
OK” types.
For a long time now, we have been saying that the “end of the world”
types are over-doing it. This is actually a dangerous stance for us to take because
the “end of the world” types can be very nasty to people who disagree
with them. The “it’s a slower world” types are more cerebral and
less nasty, but equally adamant. We, obviously, fall in the third camp.
No matter how we make our argument, and no matter how consistently the economy
grows, the doubt and fear and disbelief just won’t go away. We noticed this
recently, when conventional wisdom started to say that investors were being
“complacent” these days.
In other words, when the equity markets go down, investors are “living in
reality” and “accepting” that the economy and financial markets
just aren’t in great shape. But when the equity markets go up, they are being
schizophrenic, overly optimistic, and now some are saying “complacent.”
We couldn’t disagree more. Private sector payrolls have grown 160,000 per
month in the past year. The unemployment rate is down almost a full percentage point
from a year ago, while the size of the labor force is up (just like it was up in
2010, too). Over the past four weeks, unemployment claims have averaged 10% lower
than the same period a year ago.
Retail sales are up 6.5% from a year ago; orders for long-lasting durable goods are
up 12.1%, and auto sales are up 8.4%.
Perhaps most importantly, the long-awaited recovery in the housing sector has
finally started. Housing starts in the fourth quarter hit the highest level since
late 2008 and were up at a 32% annual rate compared to Q2. This was not all
apartment buildings; single-family housing was up at a 13% annual rate in the second
half of 2011.
Meanwhile, even after a recent rally, US equities remain incredibly cheap. Based on
trailing after-tax earnings, the price-to-earnings ratio on stocks in the S&P
500 is roughly 13.5. On future earnings it’s even cheaper.
Flipping this over, so earnings are on top and price is on bottom, the
“earnings yield” on stocks is 7.4%, compared to a 10-year Treasury yield
of only 2%. This suggests that stocks are cheap relative to bonds.
In other words, rather than being the result of complacency, craziness or stupidity,
the recent rally has a much more straightforward explanation. The economy is
growing, it’s very likely to continue to grow, and if that is the case then
stocks are grossly undervalued relative to bonds.
And the good news continues. With about 15% of the S&P 500 companies having
reported earnings for the fourth quarter of 2011, 60+% have beaten street estimates.
Notice how none of this has anything to do with a third round of quantitative easing
by the Federal Reserve. The last round of quantitative easing was essentially
useless, with banks boosting their excess reserves from $1 trillion to $1.6
trillion.
Nonetheless, bank lending is picking up and accelerated after QE2 ended. This has
helped boost the M2 measure of money (Milton Friedman’s favorite gauge), which
has also been growing faster since the end of QE2 than during it.
So far in 2012, the S&P 500 has had eleven up days versus only two down days.
That ratio probably won’t continue for the full year, but the idea that it is
unwarranted, crazy or complacent is a point of view that is supported by a decidedly
bearish set of assumptions.
Rather, it appears that the stock market is finally (or once again) beginning to
realize that the world is not ending and that the recovery is not so fragile that it
cannot last. We remain optimistic. We continue to believe that things are getting
better and we don’t feel complacent at all.
47382
Politics & Religion / Re: 2012 Presidential
« on: January 23, 2012, 06:04:09 PM »
I'm surprised Santorum scores as well as Newt.
47383
Politics & Religion / EX-CIA agent busted for blabbing to POTH and others
« on: January 23, 2012, 06:00:55 PM »
Ex-CIA man accused of leaking classified info
January 23, 2012 7:20 PM EST
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — An ex-CIA officer who helped track down and capture a top al-Qaida figure was charged Monday with disclosing classified secrets, including the role of one of his associates on that covert mission, in the latest of a series of prosecutions by the Obama administration against suspected leakers.
John Kiriakou, 47, of Arlington, is charged with violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act and the Espionage Act. A federal judge ordered Kiriakou to be released on a $250,000 unsecured bond. Kiriakou declined to comment as he left the courthouse Monday.
According to authorities, Kiriakou divulged to three journalists, including a New York Times reporter, the role of "Officer B," who worked with Kiriakou on the capture of suspected al-Qaida financier Abu Zubaydah in the months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times, and his case has been made an example by those who believe the interrogation technique should be outlawed. And Kiriakou's public discussions of Zubaydah's waterboarding were a key part of the debate.
In a separate accusation, Kiriakou is alleged to have disclosed the identity of a covert operator to an unidentified journalist. Authorities say that journalist then gave the officer's name to a team of defense lawyers representing a suspect the U.S. held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. When the lawyers included information about the officer in a sealed legal brief in 2009, the CIA became suspicious and the government began to investigate.
The affidavit states that the defense lawyers were found to have done nothing wrong.
According to the affidavit, FBI agents interviewed Kiriakou last week, and he denied leaking the information. When specifically asked whether he had provided the Zubaydah interrogator's name to the Times for a 2008 article, he replied "Heavens, no." A New York Times spokeswoman declined to comment.
Kiriakou's attorney, Plato Cacheris, told reporters after the hearing that his client will plead not guilty. He also said a potential defense argument could be that the charges criminalize conduct that has been common between reporters and government sources for decades.
If convicted, Kiriakou could face up to 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine.
The case was secretly investigated by a top federal prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of the Northern District of Illinois. Fitzgerald is best known for his successful prosecutions of Scooter Libby, former Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, for perjury and of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich for corruption.
Kiriakou has worked as a consultant to ABC News, although he hasn't appeared on the network since early 2009. ABC declined to comment on his arrest. In a 2007 interview with the network, Kiriakou said that waterboarding was used — effectively — to break down Zubaydah. But he expressed ambivalence about pouring water into a suspect's breathing passages to simulate drowning to try to get them to talk.
"(W)e were really trying to do anything that we could to stop another major attack from happening," Kiriakou said, describing the months after the Sept. 11 attacks. "I don't think we're in that mindset right now. ... And, as a result, waterboarding, at least right now, is unnecessary."
The attorney who represents Zubaydah in the prisoner's civil petition for release said he is not involved in the Kiriakou prosecution and has never met him. However, Brent Mickum said he had wanted to interview Kiriakou for information that might help the case, but the ex-CIA man refused, by email, to speak with him.
"He was basically out there talking to the whole world about our client and his involvement . I would have loved to hear what he had to say, but he refused to talk to me," Mickum said.
Mickum said he has come to believe Kiriakou has overstated his knowledge and involvement in the case against Zubaydah, who has been held without charges at Guantanamo since 2006.
Mickum said he and other attorneys who work at Guantanamo take security restrictions seriously and know not to reveal classified information such as the names of covert investigators. But he also said the government abuses the classification system, selectively leaking information and keeping secret anything that could embarrass U.S. officials.
The charges also accuse Kiriakou of lying about his actions in an effort to convince the CIA to let him publish a book, "The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA's War on Terror," in 2010. The book explores "the inner workings of the U.S. intelligence apparatus," according to its description on Amazon.com, and "chillingly describes what it was like inside the CIA headquarters on the morning of 9/11."
Since leaving the agency, Kiriakou has also worked as a consultant and on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, according to his LinkedIn profile. He earned a bachelor's degree in Middle Eastern studies in 1986 and a master's degree in legislative affairs in 1988, both from George Washington University in Washington.
The Justice Department's campaign to prosecute leakers has been particularly aggressive under Obama. This is the sixth criminal leak case opened under the administration and the second involving a former CIA officer and the Times. Federal prosecutors in Alexandria claim Jeffrey Sterling divulged classified information to Times reporter James Risen about CIA efforts to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Sterling's trial has been delayed while prosecutors appeal several pre-trial rulings, including the judge's decision to effectively quash a government subpoena demanding that Risen testify. His attorneys argued that unless his testimony is absolutely critical to a government's case then prosecutors should not be able to subpoena a reporter and require him to testify about anonymous sources.
The Sterling case is not the only leak prosecution to run into trouble. In a case against former National Security Agency executive Thomas Drake, a judge sentenced him only to probation and scolded prosecutors for how they pursued the case.
Prosecutions under the Espionage Act have been particularly contentious. Opponents say the law can be used to unfairly target those who expose government misdeeds. The law was used, for instance, to charge Daniel Ellsberg in the Pentagon Papers case, and a grand jury has been investigating whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can be prosecuted for the mass of disclosures by WikiLeaks that were allegedly fostered by leaks from Army Pfc. Bradley Manning.
"Safeguarding classified information, including the identities of CIA officers involved in sensitive operations, is critical to keeping our intelligence officers safe and protecting our national security," said Attorney General Eric Holder. "Today's charges reinforce the Justice Department's commitment to hold accountable anyone who would violate the solemn duty not to disclose such sensitive information."
In light of the indictment, CIA Director David Petraeus reminded his agency's employees of the essential need for secrecy in their work.
"When we joined this organization, we swore to safeguard classified information; those oaths stay with us for life," he said "Unauthorized disclosures of any sort — including information concerning the identities of other agency officers — betray the public trust, our country, and our colleagues."
___
Associated Press writers Ben Fox in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Brett Zongker in Washington contributed to this story.
January 23, 2012 7:20 PM EST
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — An ex-CIA officer who helped track down and capture a top al-Qaida figure was charged Monday with disclosing classified secrets, including the role of one of his associates on that covert mission, in the latest of a series of prosecutions by the Obama administration against suspected leakers.
John Kiriakou, 47, of Arlington, is charged with violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act and the Espionage Act. A federal judge ordered Kiriakou to be released on a $250,000 unsecured bond. Kiriakou declined to comment as he left the courthouse Monday.
According to authorities, Kiriakou divulged to three journalists, including a New York Times reporter, the role of "Officer B," who worked with Kiriakou on the capture of suspected al-Qaida financier Abu Zubaydah in the months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times, and his case has been made an example by those who believe the interrogation technique should be outlawed. And Kiriakou's public discussions of Zubaydah's waterboarding were a key part of the debate.
In a separate accusation, Kiriakou is alleged to have disclosed the identity of a covert operator to an unidentified journalist. Authorities say that journalist then gave the officer's name to a team of defense lawyers representing a suspect the U.S. held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. When the lawyers included information about the officer in a sealed legal brief in 2009, the CIA became suspicious and the government began to investigate.
The affidavit states that the defense lawyers were found to have done nothing wrong.
According to the affidavit, FBI agents interviewed Kiriakou last week, and he denied leaking the information. When specifically asked whether he had provided the Zubaydah interrogator's name to the Times for a 2008 article, he replied "Heavens, no." A New York Times spokeswoman declined to comment.
Kiriakou's attorney, Plato Cacheris, told reporters after the hearing that his client will plead not guilty. He also said a potential defense argument could be that the charges criminalize conduct that has been common between reporters and government sources for decades.
If convicted, Kiriakou could face up to 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine.
The case was secretly investigated by a top federal prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of the Northern District of Illinois. Fitzgerald is best known for his successful prosecutions of Scooter Libby, former Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, for perjury and of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich for corruption.
Kiriakou has worked as a consultant to ABC News, although he hasn't appeared on the network since early 2009. ABC declined to comment on his arrest. In a 2007 interview with the network, Kiriakou said that waterboarding was used — effectively — to break down Zubaydah. But he expressed ambivalence about pouring water into a suspect's breathing passages to simulate drowning to try to get them to talk.
"(W)e were really trying to do anything that we could to stop another major attack from happening," Kiriakou said, describing the months after the Sept. 11 attacks. "I don't think we're in that mindset right now. ... And, as a result, waterboarding, at least right now, is unnecessary."
The attorney who represents Zubaydah in the prisoner's civil petition for release said he is not involved in the Kiriakou prosecution and has never met him. However, Brent Mickum said he had wanted to interview Kiriakou for information that might help the case, but the ex-CIA man refused, by email, to speak with him.
"He was basically out there talking to the whole world about our client and his involvement . I would have loved to hear what he had to say, but he refused to talk to me," Mickum said.
Mickum said he has come to believe Kiriakou has overstated his knowledge and involvement in the case against Zubaydah, who has been held without charges at Guantanamo since 2006.
Mickum said he and other attorneys who work at Guantanamo take security restrictions seriously and know not to reveal classified information such as the names of covert investigators. But he also said the government abuses the classification system, selectively leaking information and keeping secret anything that could embarrass U.S. officials.
The charges also accuse Kiriakou of lying about his actions in an effort to convince the CIA to let him publish a book, "The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA's War on Terror," in 2010. The book explores "the inner workings of the U.S. intelligence apparatus," according to its description on Amazon.com, and "chillingly describes what it was like inside the CIA headquarters on the morning of 9/11."
Since leaving the agency, Kiriakou has also worked as a consultant and on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, according to his LinkedIn profile. He earned a bachelor's degree in Middle Eastern studies in 1986 and a master's degree in legislative affairs in 1988, both from George Washington University in Washington.
The Justice Department's campaign to prosecute leakers has been particularly aggressive under Obama. This is the sixth criminal leak case opened under the administration and the second involving a former CIA officer and the Times. Federal prosecutors in Alexandria claim Jeffrey Sterling divulged classified information to Times reporter James Risen about CIA efforts to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Sterling's trial has been delayed while prosecutors appeal several pre-trial rulings, including the judge's decision to effectively quash a government subpoena demanding that Risen testify. His attorneys argued that unless his testimony is absolutely critical to a government's case then prosecutors should not be able to subpoena a reporter and require him to testify about anonymous sources.
The Sterling case is not the only leak prosecution to run into trouble. In a case against former National Security Agency executive Thomas Drake, a judge sentenced him only to probation and scolded prosecutors for how they pursued the case.
Prosecutions under the Espionage Act have been particularly contentious. Opponents say the law can be used to unfairly target those who expose government misdeeds. The law was used, for instance, to charge Daniel Ellsberg in the Pentagon Papers case, and a grand jury has been investigating whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can be prosecuted for the mass of disclosures by WikiLeaks that were allegedly fostered by leaks from Army Pfc. Bradley Manning.
"Safeguarding classified information, including the identities of CIA officers involved in sensitive operations, is critical to keeping our intelligence officers safe and protecting our national security," said Attorney General Eric Holder. "Today's charges reinforce the Justice Department's commitment to hold accountable anyone who would violate the solemn duty not to disclose such sensitive information."
In light of the indictment, CIA Director David Petraeus reminded his agency's employees of the essential need for secrecy in their work.
"When we joined this organization, we swore to safeguard classified information; those oaths stay with us for life," he said "Unauthorized disclosures of any sort — including information concerning the identities of other agency officers — betray the public trust, our country, and our colleagues."
___
Associated Press writers Ben Fox in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Brett Zongker in Washington contributed to this story.
47384
Politics & Religion / Re: Newt Gingrich
« on: January 23, 2012, 10:53:59 AM »
IMHO Newt's strategy for making Obama accept the debates is fiendishly clever. I'm out the door right now, but I'm pretty sure its already been posted in this thread or the election thread.
47385
Science, Culture, & Humanities / WSJ Hackers for hire or rent
« on: January 23, 2012, 07:55:05 AM »
By CASSELL BRYAN-LOW
Sitting in his Los Angeles home, Kuwaiti billionaire Bassam Alghanim received an alarming call from a business associate: Hundreds of his personal emails were posted online for anyone to see.
Mr. Alghanim checked and found it to be true, according to a person familiar with the matter. The emails included information on his personal finances, legal affairs, even his pharmacy bills, this person said.
Enlarge Image
Reuters
Kuwaiti billionaire Kutayba Alghanim, above, allegedly commissioned hackers to copy emails of his brother, Bassam.
.
That led to another surprise. Mr. Alghanim discovered the person who had allegedly commissioned the hackers was his own brother, with whom he is fighting over how to divide up billions of dollars of joint assets. Mr. Alghanim's lawyers allege in court filings that the brother hired investigators to illegally access his email with the help of Chinese hackers. Cost to hire the hackers: about $400.
Although the brothers' feud involves big money, documents filed in two civil cases in September 2009 suggests just how simple and affordable online espionage has become. Computer forensic specialists say some hackers-for-hire openly market themselves online. "It's not hard to find hackers," says Mikko Hyppönen of computer-security firm F-Secure Corp.
One such site, hiretohack.net, advertises online services including being able to "crack" passwords for major email services in less than 48 hours. It says it charges a minimum of $150, depending on the email provider, the password's complexity and the urgency of the job. The site describes itself as a group of technology students based in Europe, U.S. and Asia.
Hiretohack.net's claims couldn't immediately be verified, and the group didn't respond to a request for comment.
Reuters
Bassam Alghanim
.
Mischel Kwon, who runs a security-consulting firm and is the former director of the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team, a government organization known as US-CERT, says the hacker-for-hire industry is well established. Some are one- or two-person outfits, but there are also larger "organized crime" groups," she said. She and other specialists note that it is also easy to find tools online that assist in hacking into someone's email.
The issue of hacking and online espionage has gained prominence recently. In December, The Wall Street Journal reported that hackers in China breached the computer defenses of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. A month earlier, a Paris court fined French energy giant Électricité de France SA €1.5 million, or about $1.9 million, for directing an investigator to hack into the computers of environmental group Greenpeace in 2006. In the U.K., authorities are investigating allegations of hacking by News Corp.'s recently closed tabloid, News of the World. News Corp., which has said it is cooperating with police, also owns The Wall Street Journal.
China appears to be a source of a significant proportion of attacks. In an October 2011 report to Congress, the U.S. Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive said that U.S. economic information and technology are targeted by industry and government from dozens of countries but that attackers based in China "are the world's most active and persistent perpetrators of economic espionage."
A U.K. government report took a shot at putting numbers to the problem last year: It estimated that computer-related industrial espionage cost U.K. businesses about £7.6 billion, or about $11.8 billion, annually in loss of information that could hurt a company's chances of winning open tenders, and loss of merger-related information. Cyber intellectual-property theft cost business an additional £9.2 billion annually, it estimated.
The problem is under-measured because many victims are reluctant to report attacks to protect their reputation. The Alghanims' dispute, however, provides a rare look at detailed hacking allegations.
The spat between the two brothers involves the divvying up of a sprawling business empire originally founded by their father. The brothers, Kutayba and Bassam, 66 years old and 60, respectively, are both U.S.-educated Kuwaiti citizens.
Enlarge Image
.
The allegations of email hacking are detailed in litigation filed by Bassam in the U.K. and the U.S. According to his court filings, his older brother, Kutayba Alghanim, along with the brother's son and the company's chief legal officer, allegedly stole thousands of pages of emails over more than a year.
Bassam's lawyer said his client "was horrified to discover the privacy of his email accounts had been compromised."
A lawyer representing Kutayba and his son declined to comment on the hacking allegations or make the men available for comment. A lawyer representing the son's chief legal officer declined to comment. In the U.S. lawsuit—the one in which the three men are named as defendants—none has addressed the hacking allegations. The three men aren't named as defendants in the U.K. action.
Bassam is based in Los Angeles, while Kutayba and his son primarily live in Kuwait but maintain residences in the U.S., including a 16,000-square-foot Manhattan mansion and a 48-acre Long Island estate, according to Bassam's legal filings. Their fight has included a U.K. High Court civil case and a separate civil case in U.S. Federal Court in New York.
In the U.K., a judge recently concluded that the two defendants in that case, both British investigators, arranged the hacking. In that October decision, Justice Peter Smith also said the evidence showed that the hacking was carried out at the direction of Kutayba, his son and the chief legal officer, although they weren't defendants in that case.
"It is clear, on the evidence I have," that the trio orchestrated the computer hacking, Mr. Smith said in his ruling.
In the U.S. civil case, Kutayba, his son and the legal officer are named as defendants. Documents filed in federal court in New York allege the three directed the hacking and violated federal and state laws including computer misuse.
One of the two private investigators admitted to the U.K. court that he had hacked Bassam's email and said he did it at the orders of the second investigator. After the first investigator began cooperating with Bassam's lawyers, the legal action against him was stayed. The second investigator denied hacking; the judge found him in breach of civil laws on privacy and confidence.
Kutayba's legal filings argue that his brother is trying to avoid earlier agreements requiring their asset-split dispute to be handled by a Kuwaiti arbitrator. "Bassam has done everything in his power to avoid his obligations, including his obligation to arbitrate," Kutayba said in U.S. court filings.
In November in New York, the judge stayed the U.S. case pending a ruling by a Kuwait arbitrator on the dispute.
The two brothers were once close—they used to share homes in New York, Los Angeles and Kuwait, according to a person familiar with the matter. But they fell out a few years ago, according to Bassam's U.S. filings. One source of tension was an effort by Kutayba to promote his eldest son, Omar Alghanim, as heir to the family business, a person familiar with the matter said. Omar is a former Morgan Stanley analyst and founding shareholder of New York merger firm Perella Weinberg Partners LP.
Omar currently is chief executive of the family company, Alghanim Industries, a conglomerate that distributes electronics, among other things. The company's chief legal officer is Waleed Moubarak, the man who is alleged, along with Kutayba and his son, to have commissioned the hacking. Mr. Moubarak didn't respond to a request for comment.
Unable to reconcile, the brothers decided to divide their jointly held assets. Included is Alghanim Industries and other businesses; a stake in Kuwait's Gulf Bank; residential properties in New York, London, Los Angeles, Kuwait and elsewhere; a $450 million portfolio; and $100 million in art, according to Bassam's U.S. and U.K. court filings.
The two continued to feud even after signing a March 2008 memorandum of understanding, according to U.S. court filings by both. That memorandum, included in Kutayba's filings, describes a 60:40 ownership split between Kutayba and Bassam, respectively, of their Kuwait-based assets and an even split of overseas assets.
As the dispute escalated, Kutayba and his associates turned to Steven McIntyre, a private investigator near London, according to documents filed in the U.K. court by Bassam and Mr. McIntyre. Mr. McIntyre, in turn, enlisted the help of Timothy Zimmer, a forensic investigator and then-colleague, and in mid-2008 asked him to gain access to Bassam's two personal email accounts, according to a witness statement by Mr. Zimmer in U.K. court.
A lawyer who represented Mr. McIntyre during the U.K. proceedings declined to comment. Mr. McIntyre didn't respond to requests seeking comment.
In his witness statement, Mr. Zimmer said he contacted an organization called Invisible Hacking Group, which he had previously used for security-testing of web-based email accounts.
Little is known about IHG. Mr. Zimmer, in his witness statement, said IHG instructed him to send payment to Chengdu, a city in China. The legal filings don't indicate how Mr. Zimmer and IHG first came in contact.
Today, IHG doesn't appear to have an online presence, although there are a few message-board posts from 2004 under that name offering computer-monitoring services for a few hundred dollars a month. "Do you want to know what your business competitors are doing online everyday?" the message reads. An email sent to an address in the message bounced back.
According to Mr. Zimmer's statement, the IHG service worked like this: It requested the target person's email address, the names of friends or colleagues, and examples of topics that interest them. The hackers would then send an email to the target that sounded as if it came from an acquaintance, but which actually installed malicious software on the target's computer. The software would let the hackers capture the target's email password.
Mr. Zimmer forwarded Bassam's email addresses to IHG, according to his witness statement. IHG then sent him the passwords to Bassam's email accounts, for which he paid £256 (about $400) to the China address, he said.
Using the passwords, Mr. Zimmer printed Bassam's emails—filling eight ring binders—and gave them to Mr. McIntyre, according to Mr. Zimmer's statement. Mr. McIntyre initially personally delivered them to Omar, Kutayba's son, first on his yacht moored at the Italian island of Capri and then, via a colleague, on his yacht in Sardinia, according to Bassam's U.K. and U.S. filings.
To make the process of obtaining the emails more efficient, the investigators set up a password-protected website, jackshome.info, to which they uploaded copies of the emails, Bassam's U.K. and U.S. court filings allege.
Bassam alleges that his brother and his associates accessed thousands of pages of emails, according to the U.K. and U.S. court filings. The private investigators received more than $200,000 for their alleged hacking services over 13 months, according to Bassam's U.S. filings.
The operation was tripped up in August 2009 when one of Bassam's advisers found some of the emails online, according to U.K. filings. Because of a glitch, documents uploaded to the password-protected website were actually accessible via Google search, the filings said.
In September 2009, Mr. Zimmer and Mr. McIntyre's colleague flew to New York to explain what went wrong to Omar and Mr. Moubarak, Mr. Zimmer said in his witness statement. The men gathered in a suite at the luxury Carlyle Hotel. Omar, who "was getting very worked up," according to Mr. Zimmer's statement, said in the meeting that not only did he want to get back into Bassam's email accounts but he also wanted access to the email of another family member close to Bassam.
In his U.K. witness statement, Mr. Zimmer admitted he hacked Bassam's emails and said Mr. McIntyre instructed him to do so.
Mr. McIntyre disputed the hacking allegations in a letter to the court, but said he couldn't afford to attend court. According to the October judgment, Mr. McIntyre said he was "too ill and too distressed, too oppressed" to attend. The judge hasn't yet ruled on whether Mr. McIntyre will have to pay damages.
Sitting in his Los Angeles home, Kuwaiti billionaire Bassam Alghanim received an alarming call from a business associate: Hundreds of his personal emails were posted online for anyone to see.
Mr. Alghanim checked and found it to be true, according to a person familiar with the matter. The emails included information on his personal finances, legal affairs, even his pharmacy bills, this person said.
Enlarge Image
Reuters
Kuwaiti billionaire Kutayba Alghanim, above, allegedly commissioned hackers to copy emails of his brother, Bassam.
.
That led to another surprise. Mr. Alghanim discovered the person who had allegedly commissioned the hackers was his own brother, with whom he is fighting over how to divide up billions of dollars of joint assets. Mr. Alghanim's lawyers allege in court filings that the brother hired investigators to illegally access his email with the help of Chinese hackers. Cost to hire the hackers: about $400.
Although the brothers' feud involves big money, documents filed in two civil cases in September 2009 suggests just how simple and affordable online espionage has become. Computer forensic specialists say some hackers-for-hire openly market themselves online. "It's not hard to find hackers," says Mikko Hyppönen of computer-security firm F-Secure Corp.
One such site, hiretohack.net, advertises online services including being able to "crack" passwords for major email services in less than 48 hours. It says it charges a minimum of $150, depending on the email provider, the password's complexity and the urgency of the job. The site describes itself as a group of technology students based in Europe, U.S. and Asia.
Hiretohack.net's claims couldn't immediately be verified, and the group didn't respond to a request for comment.
Reuters
Bassam Alghanim
.
Mischel Kwon, who runs a security-consulting firm and is the former director of the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team, a government organization known as US-CERT, says the hacker-for-hire industry is well established. Some are one- or two-person outfits, but there are also larger "organized crime" groups," she said. She and other specialists note that it is also easy to find tools online that assist in hacking into someone's email.
The issue of hacking and online espionage has gained prominence recently. In December, The Wall Street Journal reported that hackers in China breached the computer defenses of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. A month earlier, a Paris court fined French energy giant Électricité de France SA €1.5 million, or about $1.9 million, for directing an investigator to hack into the computers of environmental group Greenpeace in 2006. In the U.K., authorities are investigating allegations of hacking by News Corp.'s recently closed tabloid, News of the World. News Corp., which has said it is cooperating with police, also owns The Wall Street Journal.
China appears to be a source of a significant proportion of attacks. In an October 2011 report to Congress, the U.S. Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive said that U.S. economic information and technology are targeted by industry and government from dozens of countries but that attackers based in China "are the world's most active and persistent perpetrators of economic espionage."
A U.K. government report took a shot at putting numbers to the problem last year: It estimated that computer-related industrial espionage cost U.K. businesses about £7.6 billion, or about $11.8 billion, annually in loss of information that could hurt a company's chances of winning open tenders, and loss of merger-related information. Cyber intellectual-property theft cost business an additional £9.2 billion annually, it estimated.
The problem is under-measured because many victims are reluctant to report attacks to protect their reputation. The Alghanims' dispute, however, provides a rare look at detailed hacking allegations.
The spat between the two brothers involves the divvying up of a sprawling business empire originally founded by their father. The brothers, Kutayba and Bassam, 66 years old and 60, respectively, are both U.S.-educated Kuwaiti citizens.
Enlarge Image
.
The allegations of email hacking are detailed in litigation filed by Bassam in the U.K. and the U.S. According to his court filings, his older brother, Kutayba Alghanim, along with the brother's son and the company's chief legal officer, allegedly stole thousands of pages of emails over more than a year.
Bassam's lawyer said his client "was horrified to discover the privacy of his email accounts had been compromised."
A lawyer representing Kutayba and his son declined to comment on the hacking allegations or make the men available for comment. A lawyer representing the son's chief legal officer declined to comment. In the U.S. lawsuit—the one in which the three men are named as defendants—none has addressed the hacking allegations. The three men aren't named as defendants in the U.K. action.
Bassam is based in Los Angeles, while Kutayba and his son primarily live in Kuwait but maintain residences in the U.S., including a 16,000-square-foot Manhattan mansion and a 48-acre Long Island estate, according to Bassam's legal filings. Their fight has included a U.K. High Court civil case and a separate civil case in U.S. Federal Court in New York.
In the U.K., a judge recently concluded that the two defendants in that case, both British investigators, arranged the hacking. In that October decision, Justice Peter Smith also said the evidence showed that the hacking was carried out at the direction of Kutayba, his son and the chief legal officer, although they weren't defendants in that case.
"It is clear, on the evidence I have," that the trio orchestrated the computer hacking, Mr. Smith said in his ruling.
In the U.S. civil case, Kutayba, his son and the legal officer are named as defendants. Documents filed in federal court in New York allege the three directed the hacking and violated federal and state laws including computer misuse.
One of the two private investigators admitted to the U.K. court that he had hacked Bassam's email and said he did it at the orders of the second investigator. After the first investigator began cooperating with Bassam's lawyers, the legal action against him was stayed. The second investigator denied hacking; the judge found him in breach of civil laws on privacy and confidence.
Kutayba's legal filings argue that his brother is trying to avoid earlier agreements requiring their asset-split dispute to be handled by a Kuwaiti arbitrator. "Bassam has done everything in his power to avoid his obligations, including his obligation to arbitrate," Kutayba said in U.S. court filings.
In November in New York, the judge stayed the U.S. case pending a ruling by a Kuwait arbitrator on the dispute.
The two brothers were once close—they used to share homes in New York, Los Angeles and Kuwait, according to a person familiar with the matter. But they fell out a few years ago, according to Bassam's U.S. filings. One source of tension was an effort by Kutayba to promote his eldest son, Omar Alghanim, as heir to the family business, a person familiar with the matter said. Omar is a former Morgan Stanley analyst and founding shareholder of New York merger firm Perella Weinberg Partners LP.
Omar currently is chief executive of the family company, Alghanim Industries, a conglomerate that distributes electronics, among other things. The company's chief legal officer is Waleed Moubarak, the man who is alleged, along with Kutayba and his son, to have commissioned the hacking. Mr. Moubarak didn't respond to a request for comment.
Unable to reconcile, the brothers decided to divide their jointly held assets. Included is Alghanim Industries and other businesses; a stake in Kuwait's Gulf Bank; residential properties in New York, London, Los Angeles, Kuwait and elsewhere; a $450 million portfolio; and $100 million in art, according to Bassam's U.S. and U.K. court filings.
The two continued to feud even after signing a March 2008 memorandum of understanding, according to U.S. court filings by both. That memorandum, included in Kutayba's filings, describes a 60:40 ownership split between Kutayba and Bassam, respectively, of their Kuwait-based assets and an even split of overseas assets.
As the dispute escalated, Kutayba and his associates turned to Steven McIntyre, a private investigator near London, according to documents filed in the U.K. court by Bassam and Mr. McIntyre. Mr. McIntyre, in turn, enlisted the help of Timothy Zimmer, a forensic investigator and then-colleague, and in mid-2008 asked him to gain access to Bassam's two personal email accounts, according to a witness statement by Mr. Zimmer in U.K. court.
A lawyer who represented Mr. McIntyre during the U.K. proceedings declined to comment. Mr. McIntyre didn't respond to requests seeking comment.
In his witness statement, Mr. Zimmer said he contacted an organization called Invisible Hacking Group, which he had previously used for security-testing of web-based email accounts.
Little is known about IHG. Mr. Zimmer, in his witness statement, said IHG instructed him to send payment to Chengdu, a city in China. The legal filings don't indicate how Mr. Zimmer and IHG first came in contact.
Today, IHG doesn't appear to have an online presence, although there are a few message-board posts from 2004 under that name offering computer-monitoring services for a few hundred dollars a month. "Do you want to know what your business competitors are doing online everyday?" the message reads. An email sent to an address in the message bounced back.
According to Mr. Zimmer's statement, the IHG service worked like this: It requested the target person's email address, the names of friends or colleagues, and examples of topics that interest them. The hackers would then send an email to the target that sounded as if it came from an acquaintance, but which actually installed malicious software on the target's computer. The software would let the hackers capture the target's email password.
Mr. Zimmer forwarded Bassam's email addresses to IHG, according to his witness statement. IHG then sent him the passwords to Bassam's email accounts, for which he paid £256 (about $400) to the China address, he said.
Using the passwords, Mr. Zimmer printed Bassam's emails—filling eight ring binders—and gave them to Mr. McIntyre, according to Mr. Zimmer's statement. Mr. McIntyre initially personally delivered them to Omar, Kutayba's son, first on his yacht moored at the Italian island of Capri and then, via a colleague, on his yacht in Sardinia, according to Bassam's U.K. and U.S. filings.
To make the process of obtaining the emails more efficient, the investigators set up a password-protected website, jackshome.info, to which they uploaded copies of the emails, Bassam's U.K. and U.S. court filings allege.
Bassam alleges that his brother and his associates accessed thousands of pages of emails, according to the U.K. and U.S. court filings. The private investigators received more than $200,000 for their alleged hacking services over 13 months, according to Bassam's U.S. filings.
The operation was tripped up in August 2009 when one of Bassam's advisers found some of the emails online, according to U.K. filings. Because of a glitch, documents uploaded to the password-protected website were actually accessible via Google search, the filings said.
In September 2009, Mr. Zimmer and Mr. McIntyre's colleague flew to New York to explain what went wrong to Omar and Mr. Moubarak, Mr. Zimmer said in his witness statement. The men gathered in a suite at the luxury Carlyle Hotel. Omar, who "was getting very worked up," according to Mr. Zimmer's statement, said in the meeting that not only did he want to get back into Bassam's email accounts but he also wanted access to the email of another family member close to Bassam.
In his U.K. witness statement, Mr. Zimmer admitted he hacked Bassam's emails and said Mr. McIntyre instructed him to do so.
Mr. McIntyre disputed the hacking allegations in a letter to the court, but said he couldn't afford to attend court. According to the October judgment, Mr. McIntyre said he was "too ill and too distressed, too oppressed" to attend. The judge hasn't yet ruled on whether Mr. McIntyre will have to pay damages.
47386
Politics & Religion / Yes we have no bananas
« on: January 23, 2012, 07:48:41 AM »
Banana republics have trouble attracting capital because of a reputation for arbitrarily changing the rules whenever it suits the populist in power. With last week's decision to block TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline, President Obama stunned investors by demonstrating that he doesn't see anything wrong with the banana republic way of doing things.
The administration seems to think that it can use environmental claptrap to convince the American public that it is behaving ethically and legally in denying the TransCanada permit, even after the company has spent $1.9 billion over 40 months carefully adhering to the federal regulatory process. And a lot of Americans will not have the time or inclination to get into the weeds on this issue.
Enlarge Image
Associated Press
A Keystone XL Pipeline protest at the White House, Sept. 2, 2011.
.
Yet what is unseen by the public is likely to be more dangerous to the well-being of the society than what is seen, as the 19th-century journalist and political philosopher Frédéric Bastiat famously warned. In this case, the unseen is the effect that Mr. Obama's unmitigated cynicism and abuse of power is likely to have on investors. Unlike the general public, those who have ready capital to deploy to infrastructure projects like Keystone will fully analyze this decision. Seeing how our president has behaved, they are not likely to come away feeling confident about the rule of law.
To understand how Mr. Obama is thumbing his nose at the law, recall the State Department's decision in November to delay permit approval based on a complaint from the state of Nebraska about the pipeline route there. State had already issued three environmental impact statements over three years finding that there would be "no significant impact" on the environment from the pipeline. But as it prepared to issue its final ruling, the environmental lobby descended on the White House with protests.
Within days, State announced that a rerouting in Nebraska was necessary, which implied yet another round of environmental impact studies. It was a "green" victory because it meant delaying the permitting at least another three years, not counting the inevitable litigation and notwithstanding State's forecast that it would be done in 15 months.
It was an absurd proposition. Keystone XL will run more than 2,000 miles. The disputed segment is about 100 miles and by late November the company had already begun working with Nebraska on a rerouting plan. With some 20,000 new direct construction jobs and more than 100,000 indirect jobs along the pipeline route hanging in the balance, Republicans decided to give Mr. Obama a way out of the problem he faced of having to do another long, drawn-out environmental impact study. They attached a rider to the Dec. 23 payroll-tax bill that instructed the president to rule within 60 days on whether the oil pipeline crossing the U.S. border is in the national interest.
In making the determination, the rider said, the president should consider factors like the economy, energy security, foreign policy, employment, trade and even, notably, the environment. For example, Mr. Obama could have said that oil from Canada's oil sands is bad for the global environment. Perhaps that's what he wanted to say. It is, after all, the position of some of his most generous campaign contributors.
But with unemployment at 8.5%, Iran threatening to close off the Strait of Hormuz and Hugo Chávez jailing dissidents, denouncing Canadian energy isn't a winning campaign slogan. It may also be discriminatory, and thus a violation, under the North American Free Trade Agreement and U.S. membership in the World Trade Organization.
Out of options, Mr. Obama concluded last week that it is not in the national interest to grant the permit because of the State Department's view that further environmental studies are required due to the Nebraska rerouting. It's a nice try. But it directly contravenes the rider, which specifically states that the one thing Mr. Obama need not concern himself about—indeed could not consider—is any new environmental impact studies.
The three bullet points that cover this point in the rider couldn't be much clearer: First, "the final environmental impact statement issued by the Secretary of State on August 26, 2011, satisfies all requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 . . . and section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act." Second, "any [my emphasis] modification" to the route "shall not require supplementation of the final environmental impact statement . . ." Third, "no further Federal environmental review shall be required."
Congress anticipated that Mr. Obama would try to use the complex process of environmental study as a fig leaf for further delaying the pipeline. But if the law is to be followed, since the president failed to make a national interest determination as specified in the rider, it means that "the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline . . . shall be in effect by operation of law." The only question is whether Mr. Obama can be made to obey the letter and the spirit of that law and whether Republicans will try to enforce it. Investors will be watching.
Write to O'Grady@wsj.com
The administration seems to think that it can use environmental claptrap to convince the American public that it is behaving ethically and legally in denying the TransCanada permit, even after the company has spent $1.9 billion over 40 months carefully adhering to the federal regulatory process. And a lot of Americans will not have the time or inclination to get into the weeds on this issue.
Enlarge Image
Associated Press
A Keystone XL Pipeline protest at the White House, Sept. 2, 2011.
.
Yet what is unseen by the public is likely to be more dangerous to the well-being of the society than what is seen, as the 19th-century journalist and political philosopher Frédéric Bastiat famously warned. In this case, the unseen is the effect that Mr. Obama's unmitigated cynicism and abuse of power is likely to have on investors. Unlike the general public, those who have ready capital to deploy to infrastructure projects like Keystone will fully analyze this decision. Seeing how our president has behaved, they are not likely to come away feeling confident about the rule of law.
To understand how Mr. Obama is thumbing his nose at the law, recall the State Department's decision in November to delay permit approval based on a complaint from the state of Nebraska about the pipeline route there. State had already issued three environmental impact statements over three years finding that there would be "no significant impact" on the environment from the pipeline. But as it prepared to issue its final ruling, the environmental lobby descended on the White House with protests.
Within days, State announced that a rerouting in Nebraska was necessary, which implied yet another round of environmental impact studies. It was a "green" victory because it meant delaying the permitting at least another three years, not counting the inevitable litigation and notwithstanding State's forecast that it would be done in 15 months.
It was an absurd proposition. Keystone XL will run more than 2,000 miles. The disputed segment is about 100 miles and by late November the company had already begun working with Nebraska on a rerouting plan. With some 20,000 new direct construction jobs and more than 100,000 indirect jobs along the pipeline route hanging in the balance, Republicans decided to give Mr. Obama a way out of the problem he faced of having to do another long, drawn-out environmental impact study. They attached a rider to the Dec. 23 payroll-tax bill that instructed the president to rule within 60 days on whether the oil pipeline crossing the U.S. border is in the national interest.
In making the determination, the rider said, the president should consider factors like the economy, energy security, foreign policy, employment, trade and even, notably, the environment. For example, Mr. Obama could have said that oil from Canada's oil sands is bad for the global environment. Perhaps that's what he wanted to say. It is, after all, the position of some of his most generous campaign contributors.
But with unemployment at 8.5%, Iran threatening to close off the Strait of Hormuz and Hugo Chávez jailing dissidents, denouncing Canadian energy isn't a winning campaign slogan. It may also be discriminatory, and thus a violation, under the North American Free Trade Agreement and U.S. membership in the World Trade Organization.
Out of options, Mr. Obama concluded last week that it is not in the national interest to grant the permit because of the State Department's view that further environmental studies are required due to the Nebraska rerouting. It's a nice try. But it directly contravenes the rider, which specifically states that the one thing Mr. Obama need not concern himself about—indeed could not consider—is any new environmental impact studies.
The three bullet points that cover this point in the rider couldn't be much clearer: First, "the final environmental impact statement issued by the Secretary of State on August 26, 2011, satisfies all requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 . . . and section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act." Second, "any [my emphasis] modification" to the route "shall not require supplementation of the final environmental impact statement . . ." Third, "no further Federal environmental review shall be required."
Congress anticipated that Mr. Obama would try to use the complex process of environmental study as a fig leaf for further delaying the pipeline. But if the law is to be followed, since the president failed to make a national interest determination as specified in the rider, it means that "the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline . . . shall be in effect by operation of law." The only question is whether Mr. Obama can be made to obey the letter and the spirit of that law and whether Republicans will try to enforce it. Investors will be watching.
Write to O'Grady@wsj.com
47387
Politics & Religion / WSJ: No-fault Newt
« on: January 23, 2012, 07:06:50 AM »
By JAMES TARANTO
It looks as if standing ovations at political debates are now the norm. Newt Gingrich got another one last night, after his answer to the opening question from CNN's John King, which concerned what the Drudge Report had hyped as ABC-TV's "bombshell" interview with the ex-speaker's ex-wife Marianne.
CNN.com quotes the response: " 'To take an ex-wife and make it two days before the primary a significant question in a presidential campaign is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine,' Gingrich told King, the moderator of the debate." The story notes that "Gingrich's response elicited loud applause from the audience" but it doesn't mention the standing ovation, perhaps because such a thing is no longer newsworthy, more likely because it was at the expense of the network's host.
The interview aired on "Nightline" some 90 minutes after the debate ended, and the bombshell turned out to be a dud. The supposed big revelation--that "he wanted an open marriage," as she, not he, put it--turned out in context to be trivial.
As Mrs. Gingrich told the story, the then-speaker informed her over the phone that he wanted a divorce. "I said to him, 'Newt, we've been married a long time.' And he said, 'Yes. But you want me all to yourself. Callista doesn't care what I do.' "
"What was he saying to you, do you think?" asked interviewer Brian Ross.
Mrs. Gingrich: "Oh, he was asking to have an open marriage and I refused."
By her account, he first asked for a divorce. She protested, and he made clear that he was unwilling to give up his then-mistress. It's unclear from Marianne Gingrich's account whether Mr. Gingrich actually offered to remain married in exchange for tolerance of his infidelity, or if this was merely her inference.
In either case, there is an enormous difference between offering such an arrangement as a "compromise" to a spouse who does not wish to divorce, which is what Mr. Gingrich appears to have done, and flat-out asking for an open marriage. Neither reflects well on him, but the former is within the normal range of cruel and confused behavior during a breakup, whereas the latter is, at least by American standards, deviant.
There is also evidence that the Gingriches' marriage had been troubled for years before the split. National Review's Robert Costa notes a 1999 Associated Press report on their separation, which revealed some background:
Documents related to the divorce filed Friday in Cobb County Superior Court include a separation agreement signed by the couple and notarized in December 1987. There is no indication it was ever filed.
Browning said Marianne Gingrich called her husband on his birthday in June 1987 to tell him she was leaving him. Gingrich, he said, came back to Georgia to find his home emptied out.
Browning said the pair maintained separate residences for six years before reconciling in late 1993 or early 1994.
There's no way to know who was at fault in the first separation, and while it is not in dispute that Mr. Gingrich committed adultery before the actual divorce, the 1987 story leads one to wonder if he was completely to blame for the ultimate breakup.
Which brings us to the public-policy implication of the Gingrich divorce story. Mr. Gingrich might have been morally blameworthy in the breakup of his marriage, but at the time almost every state had a no-fault divorce regime. Today every state does. Mr. Gingrich was acting in accord with a legal regime that favors the spouse who wishes to divorce and gives no weight to the other's objections. Mrs. Gingrich's position would have been stronger, giving Mr. Gingrich an incentive to be more respectful, under the old fault-based divorce system.
Here is a point of commonality between Mr. Gingrich and his political contemporary, Bill Clinton: Both of their personal-political scandals arose out of relatively recent changes in the law. As we noted in a 1998 Wall Street Journal essay, the discovery process that led to the revelation of Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky was normal for a sexual harassment lawsuit. Yet Clinton's defenders, while complaining bitterly about how intrusive that process was, never questioned whether harassment law in general had gone too far.
Likewise, we don't expect the spotlight on Gingrich's marital woes to lead to a debate over the wisdom of no-fault divorce. Like the sexual harassment tort, it is firmly entrenched in our culture. Women initiate a large majority of both divorces and harassment lawsuits, so put this down to the power of feminism.
It looks as if standing ovations at political debates are now the norm. Newt Gingrich got another one last night, after his answer to the opening question from CNN's John King, which concerned what the Drudge Report had hyped as ABC-TV's "bombshell" interview with the ex-speaker's ex-wife Marianne.
CNN.com quotes the response: " 'To take an ex-wife and make it two days before the primary a significant question in a presidential campaign is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine,' Gingrich told King, the moderator of the debate." The story notes that "Gingrich's response elicited loud applause from the audience" but it doesn't mention the standing ovation, perhaps because such a thing is no longer newsworthy, more likely because it was at the expense of the network's host.
The interview aired on "Nightline" some 90 minutes after the debate ended, and the bombshell turned out to be a dud. The supposed big revelation--that "he wanted an open marriage," as she, not he, put it--turned out in context to be trivial.
As Mrs. Gingrich told the story, the then-speaker informed her over the phone that he wanted a divorce. "I said to him, 'Newt, we've been married a long time.' And he said, 'Yes. But you want me all to yourself. Callista doesn't care what I do.' "
"What was he saying to you, do you think?" asked interviewer Brian Ross.
Mrs. Gingrich: "Oh, he was asking to have an open marriage and I refused."
By her account, he first asked for a divorce. She protested, and he made clear that he was unwilling to give up his then-mistress. It's unclear from Marianne Gingrich's account whether Mr. Gingrich actually offered to remain married in exchange for tolerance of his infidelity, or if this was merely her inference.
In either case, there is an enormous difference between offering such an arrangement as a "compromise" to a spouse who does not wish to divorce, which is what Mr. Gingrich appears to have done, and flat-out asking for an open marriage. Neither reflects well on him, but the former is within the normal range of cruel and confused behavior during a breakup, whereas the latter is, at least by American standards, deviant.
There is also evidence that the Gingriches' marriage had been troubled for years before the split. National Review's Robert Costa notes a 1999 Associated Press report on their separation, which revealed some background:
Documents related to the divorce filed Friday in Cobb County Superior Court include a separation agreement signed by the couple and notarized in December 1987. There is no indication it was ever filed.
Browning said Marianne Gingrich called her husband on his birthday in June 1987 to tell him she was leaving him. Gingrich, he said, came back to Georgia to find his home emptied out.
Browning said the pair maintained separate residences for six years before reconciling in late 1993 or early 1994.
There's no way to know who was at fault in the first separation, and while it is not in dispute that Mr. Gingrich committed adultery before the actual divorce, the 1987 story leads one to wonder if he was completely to blame for the ultimate breakup.
Which brings us to the public-policy implication of the Gingrich divorce story. Mr. Gingrich might have been morally blameworthy in the breakup of his marriage, but at the time almost every state had a no-fault divorce regime. Today every state does. Mr. Gingrich was acting in accord with a legal regime that favors the spouse who wishes to divorce and gives no weight to the other's objections. Mrs. Gingrich's position would have been stronger, giving Mr. Gingrich an incentive to be more respectful, under the old fault-based divorce system.
Here is a point of commonality between Mr. Gingrich and his political contemporary, Bill Clinton: Both of their personal-political scandals arose out of relatively recent changes in the law. As we noted in a 1998 Wall Street Journal essay, the discovery process that led to the revelation of Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky was normal for a sexual harassment lawsuit. Yet Clinton's defenders, while complaining bitterly about how intrusive that process was, never questioned whether harassment law in general had gone too far.
Likewise, we don't expect the spotlight on Gingrich's marital woes to lead to a debate over the wisdom of no-fault divorce. Like the sexual harassment tort, it is firmly entrenched in our culture. Women initiate a large majority of both divorces and harassment lawsuits, so put this down to the power of feminism.
47388
Politics & Religion / WSJ
« on: January 23, 2012, 06:56:50 AM »
Newt Gingrich's sweeping victory in South Carolina throws the GOP Presidential contest into a useful uproar and poses a challenge for Mitt Romney, what's left of the Republican establishment, and not least for Mr. Gingrich himself. We'll see who rises to the occasion.
There's no denying the breadth of the former House speaker's triumph in the Palmetto State. He won among rank-and-file Republicans, tea partiers, men and women, all manner of conservatives, most income groups, and every age group save those under 30 (who went narrowly for Ron Paul over Mr. Gingrich).
Most strikingly, he routed Mr. Romney on what had been the former Massachusetts governor's greatest strength—electability. Some 45% of voters in the exit poll said defeating President Obama was the candidate trait that mattered most, and they went for Mr. Gingrich over Mr. Romney, 51% to 37%.
***
This reflects Mr. Gingrich's debate skills but perhaps more his willingness to promote conservative values. Since Reagan, Republicans have had a President or nominee who was typically either tongue-tied or timid in defending their policies and principles. With Mr. Obama preparing a re-election assault on those principles, GOP voters understandably want a tenacious advocate. Voters sense that, whatever his other failings, Mr. Gingrich can match Mr. Obama on the issues and won't go down without a fight.
Enlarge Image
Reuters.
This is in contrast to Mr. Romney, who is cautious at his most tenacious but in the last week has seemed befuddled by questions he surely knew were coming. The demand to release his tax returns was inevitable, especially with Mr. Obama preparing to attack him as "Mr. 1%." Mr. Romney said Sunday he will release his 2010 tax return on Tuesday, but blowing that layup suggests either personal stubbornness or the lack of an adviser who can tell him when he's wrong.
The more serious flaw exposed by the tax debate is Mr. Romney's inability, or unwillingness, to make a larger and persuasive case for free-market economic growth and lower tax rates. Before last week, he seemed to believe he could dodge a class-war battle by not proposing a cut in tax rates. This was always implausible given Mr. Obama's campaign, but it is impossible now that he has disclosed that his own effective tax rate is 15%.
He faces a fundamental political choice: Duck and cover against the barrage of attacks on his 15% rate, the lower rate on "carried-interest" and any overseas income he might have, or go on offense by standing for something larger than his own career, such as a major tax reform to spur growth.
Mr. Romney and his advisers are making the mistake that John Kerry made against George W. Bush in 2004—believing that voters are so unhappy with the incumbent that all Mr. Romney has to do is present himself as a safe alternative. Mr. Romney seems to think it's enough to run on his biography as a businessman.
It won't be enough—unless the economy goes into another recession, which no one should want in any case. The Republican nominee will have to make a sustained and specific case that Mr. Obama's policies made the recovery weaker than it should have been (stimulus, health care), squandered resources on political boondoggles (Solyndra), and how and why GOP policies will do better. Mr. Romney's 59 economic proposals are fine but forgettable little ideas. He needs a big idea.
In the wake of his victory, Mr. Gingrich has his own challenge because he has always been at his worst when he is on top. The Georgian's main vulnerability isn't his failed marriages, as South Carolina proved. It is his penchant for over-the-top statements and sudden shifts of strategy or policy based on personal whim. In South Carolina, for example, he began to rise when he muted his misguided attacks on Bain Capital and focused on other issues.
Rick Santorum is candidly saying he plans to stay in the race, despite a distant third-place finish, mainly because he thinks Mr. Gingrich will blow himself up again. Mr. Romney and his surrogates will also try to portray the former speaker as unreliable and erratic, a Hindenburg sure to explode if he gets the nomination. If Mr. Gingrich handles the attacks with good humor and rational explanation, he'll reassure voters. If he erupts in anger or unleashes his inner de Gaulle, he'll play into the hands of his competitors.
Mr. Gingrich will also eventually need a more inclusive message than he is now offering. He made a stab at it in his South Carolina victory remarks by mentioning the strengths of his competitors. His bow to Mr. Paul's "sound money" platform was especially shrewd, but then he kept talking and talking in his familiar undisciplined fashion.
Mr. Gingrich's biggest problem is that more voters say they dislike than like him. In a recent Fox News poll, 56% said they had an unfavorable view of him, versus 27% favorable. That's a net unfavorable rating of minus-29%, compared with a plus-5% for Mr. Obama and plus-7% for Mr. Romney.
Mr. Gingrich is never going to be well loved, and voters may overlook that if they want a hard man for hard times. But he can't only practice the politics of contrast and win an election. Media-bashing may work when the questions seem unfair, but not when they are legitimate queries concerning his record at Freddie Mac or in Congress. He needs to practice the politics of addition with independents and nonconservatives.
***
As for the GOP establishment, such as it still is, Mr. Gingrich's re-emergence is likely to cause a panic attack. They don't believe he is electable. Our advice would be to relax and let the voters decide. If Mr. Romney can't marshal the wit and nerve to defeat the speaker, then he isn't likely to defeat Mr. Obama.
If GOP office-holders had a better candidate, they should have rallied behind one to get into the race, and they still could if the primary contest drags on without a clear winner. In any case the record of elected GOP politicians in picking nominees is hardly inspiring. Rank-and-file voters are likely to have a clearer sense of what the country needs. On to Florida.
There's no denying the breadth of the former House speaker's triumph in the Palmetto State. He won among rank-and-file Republicans, tea partiers, men and women, all manner of conservatives, most income groups, and every age group save those under 30 (who went narrowly for Ron Paul over Mr. Gingrich).
Most strikingly, he routed Mr. Romney on what had been the former Massachusetts governor's greatest strength—electability. Some 45% of voters in the exit poll said defeating President Obama was the candidate trait that mattered most, and they went for Mr. Gingrich over Mr. Romney, 51% to 37%.
***
This reflects Mr. Gingrich's debate skills but perhaps more his willingness to promote conservative values. Since Reagan, Republicans have had a President or nominee who was typically either tongue-tied or timid in defending their policies and principles. With Mr. Obama preparing a re-election assault on those principles, GOP voters understandably want a tenacious advocate. Voters sense that, whatever his other failings, Mr. Gingrich can match Mr. Obama on the issues and won't go down without a fight.
Enlarge Image
Reuters.
This is in contrast to Mr. Romney, who is cautious at his most tenacious but in the last week has seemed befuddled by questions he surely knew were coming. The demand to release his tax returns was inevitable, especially with Mr. Obama preparing to attack him as "Mr. 1%." Mr. Romney said Sunday he will release his 2010 tax return on Tuesday, but blowing that layup suggests either personal stubbornness or the lack of an adviser who can tell him when he's wrong.
The more serious flaw exposed by the tax debate is Mr. Romney's inability, or unwillingness, to make a larger and persuasive case for free-market economic growth and lower tax rates. Before last week, he seemed to believe he could dodge a class-war battle by not proposing a cut in tax rates. This was always implausible given Mr. Obama's campaign, but it is impossible now that he has disclosed that his own effective tax rate is 15%.
He faces a fundamental political choice: Duck and cover against the barrage of attacks on his 15% rate, the lower rate on "carried-interest" and any overseas income he might have, or go on offense by standing for something larger than his own career, such as a major tax reform to spur growth.
Mr. Romney and his advisers are making the mistake that John Kerry made against George W. Bush in 2004—believing that voters are so unhappy with the incumbent that all Mr. Romney has to do is present himself as a safe alternative. Mr. Romney seems to think it's enough to run on his biography as a businessman.
It won't be enough—unless the economy goes into another recession, which no one should want in any case. The Republican nominee will have to make a sustained and specific case that Mr. Obama's policies made the recovery weaker than it should have been (stimulus, health care), squandered resources on political boondoggles (Solyndra), and how and why GOP policies will do better. Mr. Romney's 59 economic proposals are fine but forgettable little ideas. He needs a big idea.
In the wake of his victory, Mr. Gingrich has his own challenge because he has always been at his worst when he is on top. The Georgian's main vulnerability isn't his failed marriages, as South Carolina proved. It is his penchant for over-the-top statements and sudden shifts of strategy or policy based on personal whim. In South Carolina, for example, he began to rise when he muted his misguided attacks on Bain Capital and focused on other issues.
Rick Santorum is candidly saying he plans to stay in the race, despite a distant third-place finish, mainly because he thinks Mr. Gingrich will blow himself up again. Mr. Romney and his surrogates will also try to portray the former speaker as unreliable and erratic, a Hindenburg sure to explode if he gets the nomination. If Mr. Gingrich handles the attacks with good humor and rational explanation, he'll reassure voters. If he erupts in anger or unleashes his inner de Gaulle, he'll play into the hands of his competitors.
Mr. Gingrich will also eventually need a more inclusive message than he is now offering. He made a stab at it in his South Carolina victory remarks by mentioning the strengths of his competitors. His bow to Mr. Paul's "sound money" platform was especially shrewd, but then he kept talking and talking in his familiar undisciplined fashion.
Mr. Gingrich's biggest problem is that more voters say they dislike than like him. In a recent Fox News poll, 56% said they had an unfavorable view of him, versus 27% favorable. That's a net unfavorable rating of minus-29%, compared with a plus-5% for Mr. Obama and plus-7% for Mr. Romney.
Mr. Gingrich is never going to be well loved, and voters may overlook that if they want a hard man for hard times. But he can't only practice the politics of contrast and win an election. Media-bashing may work when the questions seem unfair, but not when they are legitimate queries concerning his record at Freddie Mac or in Congress. He needs to practice the politics of addition with independents and nonconservatives.
***
As for the GOP establishment, such as it still is, Mr. Gingrich's re-emergence is likely to cause a panic attack. They don't believe he is electable. Our advice would be to relax and let the voters decide. If Mr. Romney can't marshal the wit and nerve to defeat the speaker, then he isn't likely to defeat Mr. Obama.
If GOP office-holders had a better candidate, they should have rallied behind one to get into the race, and they still could if the primary contest drags on without a clear winner. In any case the record of elected GOP politicians in picking nominees is hardly inspiring. Rank-and-file voters are likely to have a clearer sense of what the country needs. On to Florida.
47389
Politics & Religion / Demogogue snakes at their anti-gun ways again
« on: January 22, 2012, 10:58:14 PM »
*****Nationwide Warning*****
A friend sent this to me.....It goes right along with pediatricians
asking children if there are guns in their home.
Concealed Carry - IMPORTANT
I didn't have this happen, but then I wasn't at a V.A. doctors office.
A friend did run into a little of this when he had to visit a doctor
other than his regular doctor when his doctor was on vacation. One of
the questions on the form he had to fill out was: Do you have any guns
in your house?? His answer was "None of your damn business!!" So it is
out there! It is either an insurance issue or government intervention.
Either way, it is out there and the second the government gets into
your medical records (as they want to under Obama care) it will become
a major issue and will ultimately result in lock and load!!
Please pass this on to all the other retired guys and gun owners...Thanks
From a Vietnam Vet and retired Police Officer:
I had a doctor’s appointment at the local V.A. clinic yesterday and
found out something very interesting that I would like to pass along.
While going through triage before seeing the doctor, I was asked at
the end of the exam, three questions:
1. Did I feel stressed?
2. Did I feel threatened?
3. Did I feel like doing harm to someone?
The nurse then informed me, that if I had answered yes to any of the
questions, I would have lost my concealed carry permit as it would
have gone into my medical records and the VA would have reported it to
Homeland Security.
Looks like they are going after the vets first. Other gun people like
retired law enforcement will probably be next. Then when they go after
the civilians, what argument will they have? Be forewarned and be
aware.
The Obama administration has gone on record as considering veterans
and gun owners potential terrorists. Whether you are a gun owner
veteran or not, YOU'VE BEEN WARNED !
If you know veterans and gun owners, please pass this on to them.
Be very cautious about what you say and to whom.
I already have concern for those that have followed legal procedure and are now on
record with a permit.
as for me and mine and most I know around south central Texas...what permits? and
everyone knows someone set up to selfload ammo.
Please!!! When Sending This Vital Information To Friends and Family DO NOT Use The
"To: Address Line!!! It Shows Every Name and The Email Associated With Each Name In
The Body of Any Email Sent Using This Line!
Instead Enter The Email Address of Those You Are Sending This Important Warning To
on The "Bcc: Line"!! This Will Show Only Names and Not Email Addresses!!!
A friend sent this to me.....It goes right along with pediatricians
asking children if there are guns in their home.
Concealed Carry - IMPORTANT
I didn't have this happen, but then I wasn't at a V.A. doctors office.
A friend did run into a little of this when he had to visit a doctor
other than his regular doctor when his doctor was on vacation. One of
the questions on the form he had to fill out was: Do you have any guns
in your house?? His answer was "None of your damn business!!" So it is
out there! It is either an insurance issue or government intervention.
Either way, it is out there and the second the government gets into
your medical records (as they want to under Obama care) it will become
a major issue and will ultimately result in lock and load!!
Please pass this on to all the other retired guys and gun owners...Thanks
From a Vietnam Vet and retired Police Officer:
I had a doctor’s appointment at the local V.A. clinic yesterday and
found out something very interesting that I would like to pass along.
While going through triage before seeing the doctor, I was asked at
the end of the exam, three questions:
1. Did I feel stressed?
2. Did I feel threatened?
3. Did I feel like doing harm to someone?
The nurse then informed me, that if I had answered yes to any of the
questions, I would have lost my concealed carry permit as it would
have gone into my medical records and the VA would have reported it to
Homeland Security.
Looks like they are going after the vets first. Other gun people like
retired law enforcement will probably be next. Then when they go after
the civilians, what argument will they have? Be forewarned and be
aware.
The Obama administration has gone on record as considering veterans
and gun owners potential terrorists. Whether you are a gun owner
veteran or not, YOU'VE BEEN WARNED !
If you know veterans and gun owners, please pass this on to them.
Be very cautious about what you say and to whom.
I already have concern for those that have followed legal procedure and are now on
record with a permit.
as for me and mine and most I know around south central Texas...what permits? and
everyone knows someone set up to selfload ammo.
Please!!! When Sending This Vital Information To Friends and Family DO NOT Use The
"To: Address Line!!! It Shows Every Name and The Email Associated With Each Name In
The Body of Any Email Sent Using This Line!
Instead Enter The Email Address of Those You Are Sending This Important Warning To
on The "Bcc: Line"!! This Will Show Only Names and Not Email Addresses!!!
47390
Politics & Religion / Show up, show up, from wherever you are!
« on: January 22, 2012, 10:24:12 PM »
No idea as to the trustworthiness of this site
http://obamareleaseyourrecords.blogspot.com/2012/01/georgia-judge-malihi-denies-obamas.html
http://obamareleaseyourrecords.blogspot.com/2012/01/georgia-judge-malihi-denies-obamas.html
47391
Politics & Religion / Withdraw from Afghanistan
« on: January 22, 2012, 10:13:18 PM »
I have called out both Bush and Baraq's policies in Afpakia for incoherence. I have done my best to draw attention to the insightful intel and analysis brought our way by our YA. I have done my best to apply what I understand from what he has shared to offer better strategies-- the essence being that the true problem is to be found in Pakistan. As best as I can tell there is essentially zero chance of an intelligent policy eminating from any of the possible candidates. I have listened to Romney talk tough on Afghanistan and wondered if he really would produce any better. I have seen our troops bravely and loyally stay the course through year after year of piss-poor leadership in Afpakia. I cannot say I disrespect what this man is saying here, though I think he gravely underestimates the consequences of our leaving, especially in conjunction with Baraq's clueless and politically motivated dash for the exits, but I think the thoughts worth sharing here and worth our discussion.
www.captainsjournal.com
Withdraw From Afghanistan
BY Herschel Smith
1 hour, 20 minutes ago
Michael Yon has written a short note entitled Time To Leave Afghanistan. I concur, but for somewhat different reasons, or at least, I will state my reasons somewhat differently. I had been pondering going public with my counsel to withdraw from Afghanistan, and then I read possibly the most depressing entry on Afghanistan I have ever seen, from Tim Lynch. Some of it is repeated below.
Ten years ago, Afghans were thrilled to see us and thought that finally they could live in peace and develop their country …
Five years ago they watched us flounder – we stayed on FOBs and shoveled cash by the billions into the hands of a corrupt central government that we insisted, despite clear evidence to the contrary, was a legitimate government – one that had to be supported at all costs. We raided their homes at night and shot up civilians who got too close to our convoys, we paid for roads that did not exist and, because of the “force protection” mentality, most Afghans thought our soldiers were cowards because they never came to the bazaar off duty and unarmored to buy stuff like the Russians did. In fact, every bite of food our soldiers consumed was flown into country at great expense, so in a land famous for its melons and grapes our troops ate crappy melon and tasteless grapes flown in by contractors from God knows where.
Now, they want to shoot us in the face. Except for the klepocratic elite who want us to give them billions more and then shoot us in the face.
There it is; Afghanistan is toast, and what the last 10 years has taught us is we cannot afford to deploy American ground forces. Two billion dollars a week (that’s billion with a B) has bought what? Every year we stay to “bring security to the people,” the security situation for the people gets worse and worse, deteriorating by orders of magnitude. Now the boy genius has announced a “new strategy”. A strategy that is identical to the “strategy” that resulted in a hollow ground force getting its ass kicked by North Korea in 1950; a mere five years after we had ascended to the most dominant military the world had ever known.
Tim goes on to say things about Iraq and national defense policy with which I don’t entirely agree. My views on Iraq are complicated, as my readers know, and I will recapitulate (and summarize) them soon. But if anyone would know that Afghanistan is toast, Tim Lynch would.
Listen well. This is no anti-war cry. If have argued virtually non-stop for increasing troop levels, staying the course, and increased (and different) lines of logistics for support of our troops. But I have watched with dismay and even panic over the course of the last six years as we haven’t taken the campaign seriously, and good men have suffered and perished because of it.
I have watched as different members of NATO carried different strategies into the campaign without being united at the top level. I have argued for recognizing the resurgence of the Taliban, while General Rodriguez argued against even the possibility of a spring offensive in 2008. I watched as that same general micromanaged the Marines as they surged into the Helmand Province, issuing an order requiring that his operations center clear any airstrike that was on a housing compound in the area but not sought in self-defense.
We have seen General McChrystal issue awful and debilitating rules of engagement, along with personal stipulations that modified them to be even more restrictive. “If you are in a situation where you are under fire from the enemy… if there is any chance of creating civilian casualties or if you don’t know whether you will create civilian casualties, if you can withdraw from that situation without firing, then you must do so,” said McChrystal.
Those disastrous rules and McChrystal’s disastrous management played a critical role in the shameful and immoral deaths of three Marines, a Navy Corpsman and a Soldier at Ganjgal, the firefight where Dakota Meyer earned his MoH. Read the comments of the families of those warriors who perished at Ganjgal, and let the sentiments wash over you.
Study again my writing on Now Zad. I was the only writer or blogger anywhere who was following the Marines at Now Zad – how they brought more trauma doctors with them than usual due to the massive loss of limbs and life that Marine command knew they would sustain, how they lived in so-called Hobbit holes in Now Zad, two or three Marines to a hole in distributed operations, hunting for Taliban fighters who had taken R&R in Now Zad because we didn’t have enough troops to prevent them from doing so.
While I was arguing for more Marines in Now Zad, I watched as a Battalion of infantrymen at Camp Lejeune (the class entering after my own son returned from his combat deployment in Iraq) entered the Marines expecting to go to Afghanistan or Iraq. At that time we were heading for the exits in the Anbar Province of Iraq, and instead of focusing on Marines losing their legs and screaming for help in Now Zad, Afghanistan, that Battalion went on a wasteful MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit). No MEU has ever been used by a President for anything in the history of doing MEUs except for humanitarian missions.
So that Battalion didn’t deploy to Iraq, went on a MEU, and then weren’t on rotation for Afghanistan. Instead of helping their brothers in Now Zad, the Marine Corps Commandant had them playing Iwo Jima, as if we’re ever going to launch a major, sea-based forcible entry again. A full Battalion of infantry Marines with two wars going on – and no deployment to Iraq, and no deployment to Afghanistan in a four year enlistment.
I argued against night raids by the so-called “snake eaters,” with them flying back to the FOBs that night, totally absent from the locals to explain what happened and why. In addition to pointing out the wrong way to do it, I pointed out the right way to do it in lieu of night time raids by snake eaters. I have argued for following and killing every single Taliban fighter into the hinterlands of Afghanistan, while the strategists under General McChrystal withdrew to the population centers just like the Russians did.
I pointed out that withdrawal from the Pech River Valley would invite the return of of al qaeda, Haqqani and allied fighters, and that’s exactly what happened. I have been in the thick of this with my advocacy for the campaign, but again and again, it has become clear that we aren’t going to take this campaign seriously. I have advocated against nation building, and by now I think it has become clear that population-centric counterinsurgency and nation building won’t ever work in Afghanistan. Staying long enough with enough troops to find and kill the enemy has its problems, of course, including the fact that we may have to go back in eight or ten years later and do it all over again.
But that’s the Marine way. Do now what has to be done, do it quickly and violently, achieve the mission, and leave. At least I have been consistent, while always acknowledging that we cannot possibly achieve anything permanent, and will probably have to return at some point. As it is, it isn’t clear that we’ve achieved anything at all.
The Wise family from Arkansas has lost their second son in Afghanistan. For all those warriors who have given their all, and those families still suffering today because of that, America isn’t worthy of their sacrifices. To be sure, if we continue the campaign there will still be magnificent warriors who answer the call. But it’s our duty to take seriously the war to which we’re calling them if we let them go. We’re heading for the exits, releasing insurgents from prisons in Afghanistan, and instead of trying to develop better lines of logistics, we’re trying to figure out how to get all of our equipment out of Afghanistan.
Regardless of who calls for what, the President will ask the Joint Chiefs of Staff what can be done to withdraw. They will ask the flag and staff officers, and the staff officers will ask the logistics officers. Logistics will decide how and when we can withdraw from Afghanistan. No one else.
But within that framework, I am calling for the full, immediate and comprehensive withdrawal of all troops from Afghanistan, and that we focus exclusively on force protection until that can be accomplished. It’s time to come home.
UPDATE: Many thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the attention.
UPDATE #2: Thanks to Michael Yon for the attention.
Afghanistan,Featured
www.captainsjournal.com
Withdraw From Afghanistan
BY Herschel Smith
1 hour, 20 minutes ago
Michael Yon has written a short note entitled Time To Leave Afghanistan. I concur, but for somewhat different reasons, or at least, I will state my reasons somewhat differently. I had been pondering going public with my counsel to withdraw from Afghanistan, and then I read possibly the most depressing entry on Afghanistan I have ever seen, from Tim Lynch. Some of it is repeated below.
Ten years ago, Afghans were thrilled to see us and thought that finally they could live in peace and develop their country …
Five years ago they watched us flounder – we stayed on FOBs and shoveled cash by the billions into the hands of a corrupt central government that we insisted, despite clear evidence to the contrary, was a legitimate government – one that had to be supported at all costs. We raided their homes at night and shot up civilians who got too close to our convoys, we paid for roads that did not exist and, because of the “force protection” mentality, most Afghans thought our soldiers were cowards because they never came to the bazaar off duty and unarmored to buy stuff like the Russians did. In fact, every bite of food our soldiers consumed was flown into country at great expense, so in a land famous for its melons and grapes our troops ate crappy melon and tasteless grapes flown in by contractors from God knows where.
Now, they want to shoot us in the face. Except for the klepocratic elite who want us to give them billions more and then shoot us in the face.
There it is; Afghanistan is toast, and what the last 10 years has taught us is we cannot afford to deploy American ground forces. Two billion dollars a week (that’s billion with a B) has bought what? Every year we stay to “bring security to the people,” the security situation for the people gets worse and worse, deteriorating by orders of magnitude. Now the boy genius has announced a “new strategy”. A strategy that is identical to the “strategy” that resulted in a hollow ground force getting its ass kicked by North Korea in 1950; a mere five years after we had ascended to the most dominant military the world had ever known.
Tim goes on to say things about Iraq and national defense policy with which I don’t entirely agree. My views on Iraq are complicated, as my readers know, and I will recapitulate (and summarize) them soon. But if anyone would know that Afghanistan is toast, Tim Lynch would.
Listen well. This is no anti-war cry. If have argued virtually non-stop for increasing troop levels, staying the course, and increased (and different) lines of logistics for support of our troops. But I have watched with dismay and even panic over the course of the last six years as we haven’t taken the campaign seriously, and good men have suffered and perished because of it.
I have watched as different members of NATO carried different strategies into the campaign without being united at the top level. I have argued for recognizing the resurgence of the Taliban, while General Rodriguez argued against even the possibility of a spring offensive in 2008. I watched as that same general micromanaged the Marines as they surged into the Helmand Province, issuing an order requiring that his operations center clear any airstrike that was on a housing compound in the area but not sought in self-defense.
We have seen General McChrystal issue awful and debilitating rules of engagement, along with personal stipulations that modified them to be even more restrictive. “If you are in a situation where you are under fire from the enemy… if there is any chance of creating civilian casualties or if you don’t know whether you will create civilian casualties, if you can withdraw from that situation without firing, then you must do so,” said McChrystal.
Those disastrous rules and McChrystal’s disastrous management played a critical role in the shameful and immoral deaths of three Marines, a Navy Corpsman and a Soldier at Ganjgal, the firefight where Dakota Meyer earned his MoH. Read the comments of the families of those warriors who perished at Ganjgal, and let the sentiments wash over you.
Study again my writing on Now Zad. I was the only writer or blogger anywhere who was following the Marines at Now Zad – how they brought more trauma doctors with them than usual due to the massive loss of limbs and life that Marine command knew they would sustain, how they lived in so-called Hobbit holes in Now Zad, two or three Marines to a hole in distributed operations, hunting for Taliban fighters who had taken R&R in Now Zad because we didn’t have enough troops to prevent them from doing so.
While I was arguing for more Marines in Now Zad, I watched as a Battalion of infantrymen at Camp Lejeune (the class entering after my own son returned from his combat deployment in Iraq) entered the Marines expecting to go to Afghanistan or Iraq. At that time we were heading for the exits in the Anbar Province of Iraq, and instead of focusing on Marines losing their legs and screaming for help in Now Zad, Afghanistan, that Battalion went on a wasteful MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit). No MEU has ever been used by a President for anything in the history of doing MEUs except for humanitarian missions.
So that Battalion didn’t deploy to Iraq, went on a MEU, and then weren’t on rotation for Afghanistan. Instead of helping their brothers in Now Zad, the Marine Corps Commandant had them playing Iwo Jima, as if we’re ever going to launch a major, sea-based forcible entry again. A full Battalion of infantry Marines with two wars going on – and no deployment to Iraq, and no deployment to Afghanistan in a four year enlistment.
I argued against night raids by the so-called “snake eaters,” with them flying back to the FOBs that night, totally absent from the locals to explain what happened and why. In addition to pointing out the wrong way to do it, I pointed out the right way to do it in lieu of night time raids by snake eaters. I have argued for following and killing every single Taliban fighter into the hinterlands of Afghanistan, while the strategists under General McChrystal withdrew to the population centers just like the Russians did.
I pointed out that withdrawal from the Pech River Valley would invite the return of of al qaeda, Haqqani and allied fighters, and that’s exactly what happened. I have been in the thick of this with my advocacy for the campaign, but again and again, it has become clear that we aren’t going to take this campaign seriously. I have advocated against nation building, and by now I think it has become clear that population-centric counterinsurgency and nation building won’t ever work in Afghanistan. Staying long enough with enough troops to find and kill the enemy has its problems, of course, including the fact that we may have to go back in eight or ten years later and do it all over again.
But that’s the Marine way. Do now what has to be done, do it quickly and violently, achieve the mission, and leave. At least I have been consistent, while always acknowledging that we cannot possibly achieve anything permanent, and will probably have to return at some point. As it is, it isn’t clear that we’ve achieved anything at all.
The Wise family from Arkansas has lost their second son in Afghanistan. For all those warriors who have given their all, and those families still suffering today because of that, America isn’t worthy of their sacrifices. To be sure, if we continue the campaign there will still be magnificent warriors who answer the call. But it’s our duty to take seriously the war to which we’re calling them if we let them go. We’re heading for the exits, releasing insurgents from prisons in Afghanistan, and instead of trying to develop better lines of logistics, we’re trying to figure out how to get all of our equipment out of Afghanistan.
Regardless of who calls for what, the President will ask the Joint Chiefs of Staff what can be done to withdraw. They will ask the flag and staff officers, and the staff officers will ask the logistics officers. Logistics will decide how and when we can withdraw from Afghanistan. No one else.
But within that framework, I am calling for the full, immediate and comprehensive withdrawal of all troops from Afghanistan, and that we focus exclusively on force protection until that can be accomplished. It’s time to come home.
UPDATE: Many thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the attention.
UPDATE #2: Thanks to Michael Yon for the attention.
Afghanistan,Featured
47392
Politics & Religion / Morris on FL.
« on: January 22, 2012, 07:31:53 PM »
HOW TO WIN FLORIDA
By DICK MORRIS
Published on DickMorris.com on January 22, 2012
Everybody is focused on momentum, money, and manpower as the keys to victory in
Florida. But the three Ms won't matter much. It is a fourth M that will determine
the winner: message.
Don't count on Mitt Romney's money or organization to win the Florida primary after
his devastating loss in South Carolina. And don't bet on Newt's momentum coming off
a win to mean a whole lot. With two debates next week, it will be these rhetorical
matchups that will determine the winner, not money or manpower. The GOP debates are
the functional equivalent of campaign finance reform!
Florida is a very different state from South Carolina. It has an altogether
different mix of the three elements that comprise the GOP electorate. It is strong
on national security and evangelical conservatives, but there are fewer economic
conservatives in the mix. The Florida Panhandle is a lot like South Carolina, but
its west coast is pure Midwestern and its east coast is composed largely of New York
and New Jersey refugees and Latinos - quite unlike South Carolina.
Newt Gingrich's social populism played well with evangelicals (and Romney's religion
hurt him). His long-standing embrace of a strong military attracted lots of military
active and retired voters to give him a winning coalition.
But, in South Carolina, it is the free market economic conservatives who will
predominate.
To win, Romney must link Newt's attacks on Bain Capital and his tax rate to Obama's
class warfare. He needs to play jujitsu to Newt's new found economic populism,
making himself the poster boy for capitalism.
But, first, Romney needs to release his tax returns. There is likely nothing in
them so deadly as the question mark that hangs over the GOP contest. Where formerly
Romney was seen as the most likely to defeat Obama, now worries about what might be
in his taxes overshadow his claim to electability.
If Newt hits Romney over taxes, he will be playing into his rival's hands and
setting up the class warfare argument for Mitt. For his part, Romney must explain
the inequity of double taxation to voters and should ask a simple question: Does
anyone in America voluntarily pay more than they legally owe in taxes? So why
should I have done so? Then he needs to cite his millions in charitable donations
to explain what he does instead with his fortune.
For Newt's part, he will make a big mistake if he continues to pound on Romney over
taxes and Bain Capital. If he attributes his victory in South Carolina to these
attacks, he will be wrong. He won because of his positive message. He triumphed
because he won the debate on Monday in grand style - slamming Paul for comparing
Osama bin Laden to a Chinese dissident seeking asylum and calling Obama the
"foodstamp president." His incredible insights, his unique way of looking at
issues, and his intellect and sagacity brought him to victory in South Carolina, not
his attacks on either the media or Romney.
Santorum is still in this race. In a four way contest, if A and B attack one
another, it is C and D who benefit. After a week of watching Mitt and Newt fight it
out, Rick will look pretty good to many voters. His relatively strong finish in
South Carolina - 17% isn't bad - after languishing in single digits in most polls
was due to his victory in Thursday's debate. So he is still on the map and the
likely beneficiary of the battle between Romney and Gingrich.
Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum each have a shot in Florida. But the Sunshine State
won't determine the outcome. This battle still has a long way to go!
By DICK MORRIS
Published on DickMorris.com on January 22, 2012
Everybody is focused on momentum, money, and manpower as the keys to victory in
Florida. But the three Ms won't matter much. It is a fourth M that will determine
the winner: message.
Don't count on Mitt Romney's money or organization to win the Florida primary after
his devastating loss in South Carolina. And don't bet on Newt's momentum coming off
a win to mean a whole lot. With two debates next week, it will be these rhetorical
matchups that will determine the winner, not money or manpower. The GOP debates are
the functional equivalent of campaign finance reform!
Florida is a very different state from South Carolina. It has an altogether
different mix of the three elements that comprise the GOP electorate. It is strong
on national security and evangelical conservatives, but there are fewer economic
conservatives in the mix. The Florida Panhandle is a lot like South Carolina, but
its west coast is pure Midwestern and its east coast is composed largely of New York
and New Jersey refugees and Latinos - quite unlike South Carolina.
Newt Gingrich's social populism played well with evangelicals (and Romney's religion
hurt him). His long-standing embrace of a strong military attracted lots of military
active and retired voters to give him a winning coalition.
But, in South Carolina, it is the free market economic conservatives who will
predominate.
To win, Romney must link Newt's attacks on Bain Capital and his tax rate to Obama's
class warfare. He needs to play jujitsu to Newt's new found economic populism,
making himself the poster boy for capitalism.
But, first, Romney needs to release his tax returns. There is likely nothing in
them so deadly as the question mark that hangs over the GOP contest. Where formerly
Romney was seen as the most likely to defeat Obama, now worries about what might be
in his taxes overshadow his claim to electability.
If Newt hits Romney over taxes, he will be playing into his rival's hands and
setting up the class warfare argument for Mitt. For his part, Romney must explain
the inequity of double taxation to voters and should ask a simple question: Does
anyone in America voluntarily pay more than they legally owe in taxes? So why
should I have done so? Then he needs to cite his millions in charitable donations
to explain what he does instead with his fortune.
For Newt's part, he will make a big mistake if he continues to pound on Romney over
taxes and Bain Capital. If he attributes his victory in South Carolina to these
attacks, he will be wrong. He won because of his positive message. He triumphed
because he won the debate on Monday in grand style - slamming Paul for comparing
Osama bin Laden to a Chinese dissident seeking asylum and calling Obama the
"foodstamp president." His incredible insights, his unique way of looking at
issues, and his intellect and sagacity brought him to victory in South Carolina, not
his attacks on either the media or Romney.
Santorum is still in this race. In a four way contest, if A and B attack one
another, it is C and D who benefit. After a week of watching Mitt and Newt fight it
out, Rick will look pretty good to many voters. His relatively strong finish in
South Carolina - 17% isn't bad - after languishing in single digits in most polls
was due to his victory in Thursday's debate. So he is still on the map and the
likely beneficiary of the battle between Romney and Gingrich.
Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum each have a shot in Florida. But the Sunshine State
won't determine the outcome. This battle still has a long way to go!
47393
Politics & Religion / WSJ: 5 What ifs?
« on: January 22, 2012, 06:32:37 AM »
By SIMON CONSTABLE
When it comes to investing, 2012 isn't the year to do nothing and just hope for the best.
Yes, there are some mammoth-sized unknowns out there that could hurt your returns. But when the biggest "what ifs" are resolved, you could also profit, if you play it right.
Here's how to tackle the five scenarios that are keeping Wall Street investors awake at night:
1 What if Europe gets worse?
No matter how much investors might desire it, Europe's economic mess just won't go away. But the big fear is that it will deteriorate even more before it gets better.
Jon Krause.
"Europe getting worse is a disaster for everything but the safest investments," says Milton Ezrati, market strategist at Jersey City, N.J.-based money-management firm Lord Abbett.
You'll know Europe's economy is imploding if you see the value of the euro fall much further. Currently, one euro buys approximately $1.29, down from $1.48 in May.
If it does get worse, then all assets will do poorly except U.S. Treasurys, U.S. government agency debt and the highest-quality corporate debt, Mr. Ezrati says.
In simpler terms, stay in investments denominated in U.S. dollars and away from those in euros or British pounds. Britain isn't part of the euro zone, but it does more business with Europe than with any other region. So a recession in Europe would hit the pound hard.
All European stock markets will likely fare poorly: If you must stay in European stocks, then Germany's stock market would be "the least worst," he says.
He adds: European stocks could look really cheap in 12 to 18 months. So savvy investors will be wise to keep some cash on the sidelines.
2 What if U.S. housing finally improves?
It's now close to five years since the housing bubble burst. When it rebounds isn't only an investment question, but of vital importance to households as well.
You'll know real estate is improving when you see rising prices in combination with greater sales volumes of housing units. For that to occur, "lots of other good things need to be happening," says Barry Ritholtz, CEO of FusionIQ, a New York-based research and asset-management company.
Notably, he says, look for a better jobs picture, with an increase in average wages. You'll also need to see people who had been living with their parents for financial reasons finally getting their own home, either buying or renting.
That would lead to an increase in so-called household formation, a vital factor for a housing recovery.
If all those things are happening, then, Mr. Ritholtz says, savvy investors will be looking beyond the obvious investment choices of home-building stocks. Instead, he says, look to companies that will prosper from an improved labor market, such as staffing firm Robert Half International (RHI), payroll processor ADP(ADP) and jobs-listing service Monster Worldwide (MWW).
3 What if the jobs recovery falters?
The long-awaited jobs recovery seems to have arrived. The unemployment rate has dropped steadily, albeit slowly, from 9.1% in August to 8.5% in December.
The big question: Can it be sustained?
If things start going backward, then "basic support for U.S. stocks will be undermined," says Art Hogan, head of product strategy at New York-based Lazard Capital Markets. "It will do an awful lot of damage to investor confidence."
You'll know the jobs recovery is in reverse by watching the unemployment claims data (released Thursdays) and the Department of Labor employment report (the first Friday of each month).
Specifically, watch for a higher unemployment rate and climbing first-time claims for unemployment insurance.
If the jobs market does falter, then stocks of companies that sell consumer staples, such as soap and food, could benefit, he says. In addition, pharmaceutical companies and electric utilities, also providers of essentials, will tend to do well, he says. You can get a basket of such stocks by purchasing the Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR (XLP) exchange-traded fund.
4 What if there's another budget crisis?
Last summer, investors watched in horror as Congress wrestled over the government's finances. They even risked the first-ever default on U.S. debt.
Although no one wants it, a repeat performance is possible at year-end. Why? The Bush-era tax cuts are set to expire (again). Unless one party claims a decisive victory across Capitol Hill in November's election, then there will be a wrangle over whether to extend some or all of the tax cuts into 2013.
"It's always a shaky prospect when you put the fate of the U.S. economy in the hands of congressional leaders," says Ellen Zentner, senior U.S. economist at Nomura Securities in New York.
The problem: Massive uncertainty over the outcome.The bigger the differences between the two sides, the worse it will be for investors. Ms. Zentner says an impasse could cause wild swings in the stock market and the economy. So if Congress looks like it's headed for another blockbuster fight, stay safe in cash and avoid the potential gyrations of stocks.
5 What if China's economy heats up?
China's economy matters because it's the second largest in the world. Over the past decade, the communist country has grown fast, but lately it has been cooling off. The question is: What happens when it heats up again?
"As China grows so does the use of commodities," says Michael Woolfolk, senior currency strategist at BNY Mellon in New York. Specifically, he points to industrial minerals such as iron ore and copper, which are used in construction and manufacturing.
You'll know China's economy is doing better if you see a sustained rise in Chinese output. Look for gross-domestic-product growth to jump back to the double digits, from its "slow rate" of 8.9% at the end of 2011.
Many observers doubt the value of Chinese economic data. "Just take it at face value," Mr. Woolfolk says, since the trends in the data are more important.
Stocks that would likely do well include industrial miners Vale(VALE), Rio Tinto (RIO), BHP Billiton (BHP) and Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (FCX).
Those investors not wanting to pick stocks might consider a specialized mutual fund, such as the $3.9 billion Vanguard Precious Metals and Mining fund (VGPMX).
When it comes to investing, 2012 isn't the year to do nothing and just hope for the best.
Yes, there are some mammoth-sized unknowns out there that could hurt your returns. But when the biggest "what ifs" are resolved, you could also profit, if you play it right.
Here's how to tackle the five scenarios that are keeping Wall Street investors awake at night:
1 What if Europe gets worse?
No matter how much investors might desire it, Europe's economic mess just won't go away. But the big fear is that it will deteriorate even more before it gets better.
Jon Krause.
"Europe getting worse is a disaster for everything but the safest investments," says Milton Ezrati, market strategist at Jersey City, N.J.-based money-management firm Lord Abbett.
You'll know Europe's economy is imploding if you see the value of the euro fall much further. Currently, one euro buys approximately $1.29, down from $1.48 in May.
If it does get worse, then all assets will do poorly except U.S. Treasurys, U.S. government agency debt and the highest-quality corporate debt, Mr. Ezrati says.
In simpler terms, stay in investments denominated in U.S. dollars and away from those in euros or British pounds. Britain isn't part of the euro zone, but it does more business with Europe than with any other region. So a recession in Europe would hit the pound hard.
All European stock markets will likely fare poorly: If you must stay in European stocks, then Germany's stock market would be "the least worst," he says.
He adds: European stocks could look really cheap in 12 to 18 months. So savvy investors will be wise to keep some cash on the sidelines.
2 What if U.S. housing finally improves?
It's now close to five years since the housing bubble burst. When it rebounds isn't only an investment question, but of vital importance to households as well.
You'll know real estate is improving when you see rising prices in combination with greater sales volumes of housing units. For that to occur, "lots of other good things need to be happening," says Barry Ritholtz, CEO of FusionIQ, a New York-based research and asset-management company.
Notably, he says, look for a better jobs picture, with an increase in average wages. You'll also need to see people who had been living with their parents for financial reasons finally getting their own home, either buying or renting.
That would lead to an increase in so-called household formation, a vital factor for a housing recovery.
If all those things are happening, then, Mr. Ritholtz says, savvy investors will be looking beyond the obvious investment choices of home-building stocks. Instead, he says, look to companies that will prosper from an improved labor market, such as staffing firm Robert Half International (RHI), payroll processor ADP(ADP) and jobs-listing service Monster Worldwide (MWW).
3 What if the jobs recovery falters?
The long-awaited jobs recovery seems to have arrived. The unemployment rate has dropped steadily, albeit slowly, from 9.1% in August to 8.5% in December.
The big question: Can it be sustained?
If things start going backward, then "basic support for U.S. stocks will be undermined," says Art Hogan, head of product strategy at New York-based Lazard Capital Markets. "It will do an awful lot of damage to investor confidence."
You'll know the jobs recovery is in reverse by watching the unemployment claims data (released Thursdays) and the Department of Labor employment report (the first Friday of each month).
Specifically, watch for a higher unemployment rate and climbing first-time claims for unemployment insurance.
If the jobs market does falter, then stocks of companies that sell consumer staples, such as soap and food, could benefit, he says. In addition, pharmaceutical companies and electric utilities, also providers of essentials, will tend to do well, he says. You can get a basket of such stocks by purchasing the Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR (XLP) exchange-traded fund.
4 What if there's another budget crisis?
Last summer, investors watched in horror as Congress wrestled over the government's finances. They even risked the first-ever default on U.S. debt.
Although no one wants it, a repeat performance is possible at year-end. Why? The Bush-era tax cuts are set to expire (again). Unless one party claims a decisive victory across Capitol Hill in November's election, then there will be a wrangle over whether to extend some or all of the tax cuts into 2013.
"It's always a shaky prospect when you put the fate of the U.S. economy in the hands of congressional leaders," says Ellen Zentner, senior U.S. economist at Nomura Securities in New York.
The problem: Massive uncertainty over the outcome.The bigger the differences between the two sides, the worse it will be for investors. Ms. Zentner says an impasse could cause wild swings in the stock market and the economy. So if Congress looks like it's headed for another blockbuster fight, stay safe in cash and avoid the potential gyrations of stocks.
5 What if China's economy heats up?
China's economy matters because it's the second largest in the world. Over the past decade, the communist country has grown fast, but lately it has been cooling off. The question is: What happens when it heats up again?
"As China grows so does the use of commodities," says Michael Woolfolk, senior currency strategist at BNY Mellon in New York. Specifically, he points to industrial minerals such as iron ore and copper, which are used in construction and manufacturing.
You'll know China's economy is doing better if you see a sustained rise in Chinese output. Look for gross-domestic-product growth to jump back to the double digits, from its "slow rate" of 8.9% at the end of 2011.
Many observers doubt the value of Chinese economic data. "Just take it at face value," Mr. Woolfolk says, since the trends in the data are more important.
Stocks that would likely do well include industrial miners Vale(VALE), Rio Tinto (RIO), BHP Billiton (BHP) and Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (FCX).
Those investors not wanting to pick stocks might consider a specialized mutual fund, such as the $3.9 billion Vanguard Precious Metals and Mining fund (VGPMX).
47394
Science, Culture, & Humanities / Scientific American: The coming mega-drought
« on: January 22, 2012, 05:26:10 AM »47395
Politics & Religion / Ohio fire, CAIR, & Salah Soltan
« on: January 21, 2012, 06:25:48 PM »
Ohio Fire Illuminates CAIR's Inconsistency
IPT News
January 20, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3391/ohio-fire-illuminates-cair-inconsistency
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Can a hate peddler be the victim of a hate crime?
The people at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) seem to think so. It
is not clear whether they agree that Salah Soltan, a former leader in the Columbus,
Ohio Muslim community who is hailed by some Islamists as an influential scholar, is
a hate monger. He has issued fatwas sanctioning the murder of Zionists, and who has
said the 9/11 attacks were "planned within the U.S., in order to enable the U.S. to
control and terrorize the entire world."
Soltan's home in Hilliard was nearly destroyed early Monday morning in a fire
described as arson by local investigators. Soltan's adult son and a roommate escaped
without injuries. CAIR issued a statement asking the FBI to investigate the fire as
a hate crime, noting two recent incidents in which anti-Muslim graffiti was painted
on the house.
This is not to minimize the severity of the crime, which thankfully resulted in no
injuries, but the case serves as an example of how dangerous radicalism like
Soltan's gets sugar-coated by his supporters and by the media.
CAIR's release about the fire makes no mention of his history of incitement, or of
the fact that it worked with Soltan, who also helped establish the Muslim American
Society and spent years in Ohio running the American Center for Islamic Research and
lecturing at the Islamic Society of Greater Columbus. There is no record of CAIR
condemning Soltan's radicalism when he lived in Ohio or since he left the country
for Bahrain about five years ago.
Soltan signed CAIR's 2005 fatwa against terrorism. But he has repeatedly praised
Hamas, endorsing "the creed of Jihad and Resistance" while rejecting the very
concept of a peaceful settlement to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He serves on
the board of trustees for influential Muslim Brotherhood theologian Yusuf
al-Qaradawi's International Union for Muslim Scholars.
Media reports from Columbus news outlets refer to Soltan as a "controversial Islamic
scholar."
Ricky Gervais hosting the Golden Globes again was controversial. College football's
system of declaring a champion is controversial. But Soltan is more than
"controversial:" by his words and actions, he has spread the most virulent
anti-Semitism and endorsed violence.
In August, Soltan issued a fatwa during a rally in Cairo saying "whoever meets a
Zionist in Egypt, it is his right to kill him."
During the Jewish holiday of Passover in 2010, Soltan appeared on the
Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa television station in Gaza where he invoked the blood libel
against Jews. Zionists killed a French doctor and his nurse, Soltan claimed, "Then
they kneaded the matzos with the blood of Dr. Toma and his nurse. They do this every
year."
Osama bin Laden's terrorism, Soltan said last year, is not as bad as American
terrorism because bin Laden acted "in the defense of Islam and the resistance
against the occupiers," while the United States acts only "in defense of hegemony,
oppression, and tyranny."
CAIR, which has a record of touting alleged hate crimes which do not turn out to be
right, does not allow consideration that Soltan may not have been targeted solely
for his faith; the house that was set on fire also is the listed address for
Soltan's former research center.
Soltan may have returned to the United States in the wake of the fire. Egypt's
Al-Ahram newspaper reports that officials there wanted to question him regarding
insults he may have made toward the Egyptian army, but that was postponed "to allow
him to travel urgently to the US."
An article on Soltan's website blamed "the Zionist entity" for the fire, vowing that
"such brutal attacks will not deter us from continuing our struggle and jihad in the
way of God Almighty in order to achieve the liberation of al Aqsa, the prisoners
Jerusalem and Palestine."
Rather than believing two wrongs don't make a right, Soltan took the destruction of
his property to call for jihad against Israel.
The FBI defines a hate crime as a regular offense "with an added element of bias"
including race, religion, sexuality and other factors. In other words, because the
victims are black, or gay, or Muslim, they are targeted for the crime.
If Salah's home was targeted, it likely wasn't merely due to his faith. That doesn't
make it any less deplorable. But neither is it a hate crime.
Read More: Salah Soltan, blood libel, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Hamas, The Council on
American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
The IPT accepts no funding from outside the United States, or from any governmental
agency or political or religious institutions. Your support of The Investigative
Project on Terrorism is critical in winning a battle we cannot afford to lose. All
donations are tax-deductible. Click here to donate online. The Investigative Project
on Terrorism Foundation is a recognized 501(c)3 organization.
IPT News
January 20, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3391/ohio-fire-illuminates-cair-inconsistency
Send
Comment
RSS
Share:
Be the first of your friends to like this.
Can a hate peddler be the victim of a hate crime?
The people at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) seem to think so. It
is not clear whether they agree that Salah Soltan, a former leader in the Columbus,
Ohio Muslim community who is hailed by some Islamists as an influential scholar, is
a hate monger. He has issued fatwas sanctioning the murder of Zionists, and who has
said the 9/11 attacks were "planned within the U.S., in order to enable the U.S. to
control and terrorize the entire world."
Soltan's home in Hilliard was nearly destroyed early Monday morning in a fire
described as arson by local investigators. Soltan's adult son and a roommate escaped
without injuries. CAIR issued a statement asking the FBI to investigate the fire as
a hate crime, noting two recent incidents in which anti-Muslim graffiti was painted
on the house.
This is not to minimize the severity of the crime, which thankfully resulted in no
injuries, but the case serves as an example of how dangerous radicalism like
Soltan's gets sugar-coated by his supporters and by the media.
CAIR's release about the fire makes no mention of his history of incitement, or of
the fact that it worked with Soltan, who also helped establish the Muslim American
Society and spent years in Ohio running the American Center for Islamic Research and
lecturing at the Islamic Society of Greater Columbus. There is no record of CAIR
condemning Soltan's radicalism when he lived in Ohio or since he left the country
for Bahrain about five years ago.
Soltan signed CAIR's 2005 fatwa against terrorism. But he has repeatedly praised
Hamas, endorsing "the creed of Jihad and Resistance" while rejecting the very
concept of a peaceful settlement to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He serves on
the board of trustees for influential Muslim Brotherhood theologian Yusuf
al-Qaradawi's International Union for Muslim Scholars.
Media reports from Columbus news outlets refer to Soltan as a "controversial Islamic
scholar."
Ricky Gervais hosting the Golden Globes again was controversial. College football's
system of declaring a champion is controversial. But Soltan is more than
"controversial:" by his words and actions, he has spread the most virulent
anti-Semitism and endorsed violence.
In August, Soltan issued a fatwa during a rally in Cairo saying "whoever meets a
Zionist in Egypt, it is his right to kill him."
During the Jewish holiday of Passover in 2010, Soltan appeared on the
Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa television station in Gaza where he invoked the blood libel
against Jews. Zionists killed a French doctor and his nurse, Soltan claimed, "Then
they kneaded the matzos with the blood of Dr. Toma and his nurse. They do this every
year."
Osama bin Laden's terrorism, Soltan said last year, is not as bad as American
terrorism because bin Laden acted "in the defense of Islam and the resistance
against the occupiers," while the United States acts only "in defense of hegemony,
oppression, and tyranny."
CAIR, which has a record of touting alleged hate crimes which do not turn out to be
right, does not allow consideration that Soltan may not have been targeted solely
for his faith; the house that was set on fire also is the listed address for
Soltan's former research center.
Soltan may have returned to the United States in the wake of the fire. Egypt's
Al-Ahram newspaper reports that officials there wanted to question him regarding
insults he may have made toward the Egyptian army, but that was postponed "to allow
him to travel urgently to the US."
An article on Soltan's website blamed "the Zionist entity" for the fire, vowing that
"such brutal attacks will not deter us from continuing our struggle and jihad in the
way of God Almighty in order to achieve the liberation of al Aqsa, the prisoners
Jerusalem and Palestine."
Rather than believing two wrongs don't make a right, Soltan took the destruction of
his property to call for jihad against Israel.
The FBI defines a hate crime as a regular offense "with an added element of bias"
including race, religion, sexuality and other factors. In other words, because the
victims are black, or gay, or Muslim, they are targeted for the crime.
If Salah's home was targeted, it likely wasn't merely due to his faith. That doesn't
make it any less deplorable. But neither is it a hate crime.
Read More: Salah Soltan, blood libel, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Hamas, The Council on
American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
The IPT accepts no funding from outside the United States, or from any governmental
agency or political or religious institutions. Your support of The Investigative
Project on Terrorism is critical in winning a battle we cannot afford to lose. All
donations are tax-deductible. Click here to donate online. The Investigative Project
on Terrorism Foundation is a recognized 501(c)3 organization.
47396
Politics & Religion / How far does this reach?
« on: January 21, 2012, 06:15:07 PM »
Not Just A Democrat Dirty Trick, But A Crime
A few years ago, as part of its strategy of facilitating voter fraud as a means of winning close elections, the Democratic Party undertook a campaign to secure as many Secretary of State offices in swing states as possible. From those perches, the Democrats would be in a position to oversee elections and enforce (or decline to enforce) election laws. That strategy has been quite successful, but the Democrats suffered a setback in Iowa in 2010 when conservative Republican Matt Schultz won an upset victory in the Secretary of State race. Since then, Iowa Democrats have targeted Schultz.
That targeting has taken a sinister turn–a criminal one, in fact–as the Des Moines Register reports:
A Des Moines man has been arrested after police say he used, or tried to use, the identity of Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz in a scheme to falsely implicate Schultz in perceived unethical behavior in office.
Zachary Edwards was arrested Friday and charged with identity theft.
The Iowa Department of Public Safety issued a news release saying Schultz’s office discovered the scheme on June 24, 2011 and notified authorities.
Iowa blogger Shane Vander Hart has more here.
Edwards is a former Obama staffer who directed “new media operations” for Obama in five states during the 2008 primaries. Thereafter, he was Obama’s Director of New Media for the State of Iowa. In the Democratic Party’s lexicon, “new media” apparently includes identity theft.
Edwards now works for LINK Strategies, a Democratic consulting firm with extraordinarily close ties to Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin. Its principal, Jeff Link, has served as Harkin’s campaign manager and chief of staff. Link, too, is a former Obama staffer. The LINK Strategies web site says that Jeff Link “served as a media consultant to the Obama for President Campaign, coordinating branding, all paid media and polling in 25 states, including seven battleground states (VA, NC, FL, CO, NM, NV, MT)….”
That Edwards allegedly tried to steal the Secretary of State’s identity in order to frame Schultz for “unethical behavior in office” is no coincidence. Iowa Democrats, as Kevin Hall of the Iowa Republican points out, have mounted a campaign of false accusations against Schultz:
Since his surprise victory over incumbent Michael Mauro in November 2010, Secretary of State Schultz has been a target of the Iowa Democratic Party. Interestingly, on June 24, the same day as Zach Edwards alleged crime, Under the Golden Dome, a blog connected to Iowa Democrats, launched a three-part series of articles critical of Matt Schultz. They were based on documents obtained through an open records request from “a tipster.” The blog alleged that a batch of emails from Schultz’s office “raise some serious questions about his ability to remain independent and ensure election integrity”.
Just 15 days earlier, on June 9, the Iowa Democratic Party filed an ethics complaint against Schultz, claiming the Secretary of State of used public resources to campaign against presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman. The Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board dismissed the complaint on July 19.
So on its face, Edwards’s identity theft appears to be part of a coordinated effort by the Iowa Democratic Party to bring down the Republican Secretary of State so he can be replaced with a Democrat. We hope that Edwards will get the long jail term that he deserves, but the more important question is, from whom was he taking instructions? Circumstantially, one would guess from his boss, Jeff Link. But if so, who was instructing (and paying?) Link’s firm? The White House? Tom Harkin? Iowa’s Democratic Party?
Much like Watergate, which began with a seemingly simple (if puzzling) burglary and ultimately unraveled the Nixon administration, it is impossible to say how far the trail of criminality will go if the Edwards case is pursued aggressively. Will that happen? I don’t know; stay tuned.
A few years ago, as part of its strategy of facilitating voter fraud as a means of winning close elections, the Democratic Party undertook a campaign to secure as many Secretary of State offices in swing states as possible. From those perches, the Democrats would be in a position to oversee elections and enforce (or decline to enforce) election laws. That strategy has been quite successful, but the Democrats suffered a setback in Iowa in 2010 when conservative Republican Matt Schultz won an upset victory in the Secretary of State race. Since then, Iowa Democrats have targeted Schultz.
That targeting has taken a sinister turn–a criminal one, in fact–as the Des Moines Register reports:
A Des Moines man has been arrested after police say he used, or tried to use, the identity of Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz in a scheme to falsely implicate Schultz in perceived unethical behavior in office.
Zachary Edwards was arrested Friday and charged with identity theft.
The Iowa Department of Public Safety issued a news release saying Schultz’s office discovered the scheme on June 24, 2011 and notified authorities.
Iowa blogger Shane Vander Hart has more here.
Edwards is a former Obama staffer who directed “new media operations” for Obama in five states during the 2008 primaries. Thereafter, he was Obama’s Director of New Media for the State of Iowa. In the Democratic Party’s lexicon, “new media” apparently includes identity theft.
Edwards now works for LINK Strategies, a Democratic consulting firm with extraordinarily close ties to Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin. Its principal, Jeff Link, has served as Harkin’s campaign manager and chief of staff. Link, too, is a former Obama staffer. The LINK Strategies web site says that Jeff Link “served as a media consultant to the Obama for President Campaign, coordinating branding, all paid media and polling in 25 states, including seven battleground states (VA, NC, FL, CO, NM, NV, MT)….”
That Edwards allegedly tried to steal the Secretary of State’s identity in order to frame Schultz for “unethical behavior in office” is no coincidence. Iowa Democrats, as Kevin Hall of the Iowa Republican points out, have mounted a campaign of false accusations against Schultz:
Since his surprise victory over incumbent Michael Mauro in November 2010, Secretary of State Schultz has been a target of the Iowa Democratic Party. Interestingly, on June 24, the same day as Zach Edwards alleged crime, Under the Golden Dome, a blog connected to Iowa Democrats, launched a three-part series of articles critical of Matt Schultz. They were based on documents obtained through an open records request from “a tipster.” The blog alleged that a batch of emails from Schultz’s office “raise some serious questions about his ability to remain independent and ensure election integrity”.
Just 15 days earlier, on June 9, the Iowa Democratic Party filed an ethics complaint against Schultz, claiming the Secretary of State of used public resources to campaign against presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman. The Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board dismissed the complaint on July 19.
So on its face, Edwards’s identity theft appears to be part of a coordinated effort by the Iowa Democratic Party to bring down the Republican Secretary of State so he can be replaced with a Democrat. We hope that Edwards will get the long jail term that he deserves, but the more important question is, from whom was he taking instructions? Circumstantially, one would guess from his boss, Jeff Link. But if so, who was instructing (and paying?) Link’s firm? The White House? Tom Harkin? Iowa’s Democratic Party?
Much like Watergate, which began with a seemingly simple (if puzzling) burglary and ultimately unraveled the Nixon administration, it is impossible to say how far the trail of criminality will go if the Edwards case is pursued aggressively. Will that happen? I don’t know; stay tuned.
47397
Politics & Religion / Cunningham to plead the 5th; AZ to open its own investigation
« on: January 21, 2012, 06:11:47 PM »
second post:
Federal official in Arizona to plead the fifth and not answer questions on 'furious'
By William La Jeunesse
Published January 20, 2012
FoxNews.com
The chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona is refusing to testify before Congress regarding Operation Fast and Furious, the federal gun-running scandal that sent U.S. weapons to Mexico.
Patrick J. Cunningham informed the House Oversight Committee late Thursday through his attorney that he will use the Fifth Amendment protection.
Cunningham was ordered Wednesday to appear before Chairman Darrell Issa and the House Oversight Committee regarding his role in the operation that sent more than 2,000 guns to the Sinaloa Cartel. Guns from the failed operation were found at the murder scene of Border Agent Brian Terry.
The letter from Cunningham’s Washington DC attorney stunned congressional staff. Last week, Cunningham, the second highest ranking U.S. Attorney in Arizona, was scheduled to appear before Issa‘s committee voluntarily. Then, he declined and Issa issued a subpoena.
Cunningham is represented by Tobin Romero of Williams and Connolly who is a specialist in white collar crime. In the letter, he suggests witnesses from the Department of Justice in Washington, who have spoken in support of Attorney General Eric Holder, are wrong or lying.
“Department of Justice officials have reported to the Committee that my client relayed inaccurate information to the Department upon which it relied in preparing its initial response to Congress. If, as you claim, Department officials have blamed my client, they have blamed him unfairly,” the letter to Issa says.
Romero claims Cunningham did nothing wrong and acted in good faith, but the Department of Justice in Washington is making him the fall guy, claiming he failed to accurately provide the Oversight Committee with information on the execution of Fast and Furious.
"To avoid needless preparation by the Committee and its staff for a deposition next week, I am writing to advise you that my client is going to assert his constitutional privilege not to be compelled to be a witness against himself." Romero told Issa.
This schism is the first big break in what has been a unified front in the government’s defense of itself in the gun-running scandal. Cunningham claims he is a victim of a conflict between two branches of government and will not be compelled to be a witnesses against himself, and make a statement that could be later used by a grand jury or special prosecutor to indict him on criminal charges.
==============
Arizona's state legislature will open its own investigation into the Obama administration's disgraced gun-running program, known as "Fast and Furious," the speaker of the state House said Friday.
Speaker Andy Tobin created the committee, and charged it with looking at whether the program broke any state laws — raising the possibility of state penalties against those responsible for the operation.
It's a turnaround from the rest of the immigration issue, where the federal government has sued to block the state's own set of laws.
A law requiring businesses to check new workers' legal status was upheld by the Supreme Court last year, and the court has agreed to hear the case of Arizona's crackdown law that makes being an illegal immigrant a state crime and gives state and local police the power to enforce that law.
Fast and Furious was a straw-purchase program run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The goal was to try to trace guns sold in Arizona shops and then trafficked across the Mexican border, where they landed in the hands of drug cartels.
As part of the operation, however, agents let the guns "walk" — meaning they lost track of them. At least two of the guns ended up at the scene where Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in a shootout with Mexican bandits along a smuggling corridor in Arizona.
Mr. Tobin will announce the committee's jurisdiction at a press conference in Phoenix on Monday. The committee is charged with looking into the facts about the program, what impact it had on Arizona and whether any of the state's laws were broken.
A report is due back by March 30.
Arizona's investigation into Fast and Furious comes on top of an investigation by Republicans in Congress.
On Friday the chief of the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona told a House committee he will decline to answer their questions next week, citing his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.
The official's lawyer, in a letter to the committee, said his client is innocent but is "ensnared by the unfortunate circumstances in which he now stands between two branches of government."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/...es-feds-over-/
By Stephen Dinan
Federal official in Arizona to plead the fifth and not answer questions on 'furious'
By William La Jeunesse
Published January 20, 2012
FoxNews.com
The chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona is refusing to testify before Congress regarding Operation Fast and Furious, the federal gun-running scandal that sent U.S. weapons to Mexico.
Patrick J. Cunningham informed the House Oversight Committee late Thursday through his attorney that he will use the Fifth Amendment protection.
Cunningham was ordered Wednesday to appear before Chairman Darrell Issa and the House Oversight Committee regarding his role in the operation that sent more than 2,000 guns to the Sinaloa Cartel. Guns from the failed operation were found at the murder scene of Border Agent Brian Terry.
The letter from Cunningham’s Washington DC attorney stunned congressional staff. Last week, Cunningham, the second highest ranking U.S. Attorney in Arizona, was scheduled to appear before Issa‘s committee voluntarily. Then, he declined and Issa issued a subpoena.
Cunningham is represented by Tobin Romero of Williams and Connolly who is a specialist in white collar crime. In the letter, he suggests witnesses from the Department of Justice in Washington, who have spoken in support of Attorney General Eric Holder, are wrong or lying.
“Department of Justice officials have reported to the Committee that my client relayed inaccurate information to the Department upon which it relied in preparing its initial response to Congress. If, as you claim, Department officials have blamed my client, they have blamed him unfairly,” the letter to Issa says.
Romero claims Cunningham did nothing wrong and acted in good faith, but the Department of Justice in Washington is making him the fall guy, claiming he failed to accurately provide the Oversight Committee with information on the execution of Fast and Furious.
"To avoid needless preparation by the Committee and its staff for a deposition next week, I am writing to advise you that my client is going to assert his constitutional privilege not to be compelled to be a witness against himself." Romero told Issa.
This schism is the first big break in what has been a unified front in the government’s defense of itself in the gun-running scandal. Cunningham claims he is a victim of a conflict between two branches of government and will not be compelled to be a witnesses against himself, and make a statement that could be later used by a grand jury or special prosecutor to indict him on criminal charges.
==============
Arizona's state legislature will open its own investigation into the Obama administration's disgraced gun-running program, known as "Fast and Furious," the speaker of the state House said Friday.
Speaker Andy Tobin created the committee, and charged it with looking at whether the program broke any state laws — raising the possibility of state penalties against those responsible for the operation.
It's a turnaround from the rest of the immigration issue, where the federal government has sued to block the state's own set of laws.
A law requiring businesses to check new workers' legal status was upheld by the Supreme Court last year, and the court has agreed to hear the case of Arizona's crackdown law that makes being an illegal immigrant a state crime and gives state and local police the power to enforce that law.
Fast and Furious was a straw-purchase program run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The goal was to try to trace guns sold in Arizona shops and then trafficked across the Mexican border, where they landed in the hands of drug cartels.
As part of the operation, however, agents let the guns "walk" — meaning they lost track of them. At least two of the guns ended up at the scene where Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in a shootout with Mexican bandits along a smuggling corridor in Arizona.
Mr. Tobin will announce the committee's jurisdiction at a press conference in Phoenix on Monday. The committee is charged with looking into the facts about the program, what impact it had on Arizona and whether any of the state's laws were broken.
A report is due back by March 30.
Arizona's investigation into Fast and Furious comes on top of an investigation by Republicans in Congress.
On Friday the chief of the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona told a House committee he will decline to answer their questions next week, citing his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.
The official's lawyer, in a letter to the committee, said his client is innocent but is "ensnared by the unfortunate circumstances in which he now stands between two branches of government."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/...es-feds-over-/
By Stephen Dinan
47398
Politics & Religion / Re: Afpakia: Afghanistan-Pakistan
« on: January 21, 2012, 06:05:47 PM »
Reality check. We helped Afg throw the Russians out and left them along until they hosted an attack on our homeland. As for Pak, I'll wait and see if YA jumps in, but until then would note that there are lots of seriously tough places on the planet that do not teach their children to commit suicide. Only Iran, the Palestinian territories, and Afpakia come to mind.
47399
Politics & Religion / DC Fed District Court rules in favor on ATF's multiple sale regs
« on: January 21, 2012, 06:01:53 PM »
This from Gun Owners of America. GOA's emails have started appearing in my email box, but I am not really familiar with them.
Well, this past Friday, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a setback to gun owners. The issue involved a lawsuit challenging Barack Obama’s illegal multiple sales regulations. [NSSF v. Jones, Acting Director, BATFE.]
Through those regulations, Obama has demanded, by regulatory fiat, that firearms licensees in four southwestern states report multiple sales of certain long guns to the federal government.
In upholding this action, Judge Rosemary Collyer -– a Bush appointee! –- ignored the Constitution, the Supreme Court’s decision in the Heller case, and the clear language of federal law.
Of course, this once again underscores the danger of putting all our eggs in the “court basket.” It’s not a bad idea to challenge unconstitutional measures in the courts, but it’s problematic if we look to them as being the ultimate defenders of our gun rights. Clearly, they are not.
Among other things, Judge Collyer ignored the obvious language of the 1986 McClure-Volkmer Act, which prohibits the ATF from demanding any information on gun owners other than information explicitly allowed by statute.
Specifically, the section states: “Such [licensees] shall not be required to submit to the Attorney General reports and information with respect to such records and the contents thereof, except as expressly required by this section.” (18 U.S.C. 923(g)(1))
Paragraph (g)(5) allows the Attorney General to demand information by issuing a “demand letter,” but participants in the drafting of McClure-Volkmer affirm that this was not intended to trump the paragraph (1) limitation, in order to statutorily mandate reporting requirements.
To interpret paragraph (g)(5), as Obama and Attorney General Holder have interpreted it, is to say that there are NO limits on the information the Attorney General can demand -– up to and including every 4473 in the country.
In opening this door, Collyer cited much narrower decisions in the Fourth and the liberal Ninth Circuit, but expanded them beyond any judicial precedent. Citing a test that looked at whether the ATF’s action constituted a “clear error of judgment” or was “arbitrary or capricious,” Collyer gave all of the benefit of the doubt to Obama -– and none to the Second Amendment, which wasn’t even considered in her 21-page opinion.
The decision will presumably be appealed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals -– a supposedly “conservative” circuit that nevertheless upheld ObamaCare.
But the larger issue is this: Congress can block these regulations by simply cutting off the money to implement them. Last fall, we demanded that the House include such a prohibition in its giant money bill. But congressional leaders ignored the Second Amendment community on this and a variety of other pro-gun issues, including defunding ObamaCare.
It is late in the game. But there is still an opportunity to prohibit funding for the multiple sales regulations on the annual Department of Justice Appropriations bill and the “continuing resolution” which will inevitably follow around September 30.
True, a lot of damage will have been done by that point. But we cannot allow to stand the precedent that the Attorney General can seize any and all gun-related information, simply by saying he wants it.
ACTION: Click here to ontact your representative. Tell him Congress must act to block funding for the unlawful, anti-gun Obama multiple sales regulations.
Well, this past Friday, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a setback to gun owners. The issue involved a lawsuit challenging Barack Obama’s illegal multiple sales regulations. [NSSF v. Jones, Acting Director, BATFE.]
Through those regulations, Obama has demanded, by regulatory fiat, that firearms licensees in four southwestern states report multiple sales of certain long guns to the federal government.
In upholding this action, Judge Rosemary Collyer -– a Bush appointee! –- ignored the Constitution, the Supreme Court’s decision in the Heller case, and the clear language of federal law.
Of course, this once again underscores the danger of putting all our eggs in the “court basket.” It’s not a bad idea to challenge unconstitutional measures in the courts, but it’s problematic if we look to them as being the ultimate defenders of our gun rights. Clearly, they are not.
Among other things, Judge Collyer ignored the obvious language of the 1986 McClure-Volkmer Act, which prohibits the ATF from demanding any information on gun owners other than information explicitly allowed by statute.
Specifically, the section states: “Such [licensees] shall not be required to submit to the Attorney General reports and information with respect to such records and the contents thereof, except as expressly required by this section.” (18 U.S.C. 923(g)(1))
Paragraph (g)(5) allows the Attorney General to demand information by issuing a “demand letter,” but participants in the drafting of McClure-Volkmer affirm that this was not intended to trump the paragraph (1) limitation, in order to statutorily mandate reporting requirements.
To interpret paragraph (g)(5), as Obama and Attorney General Holder have interpreted it, is to say that there are NO limits on the information the Attorney General can demand -– up to and including every 4473 in the country.
In opening this door, Collyer cited much narrower decisions in the Fourth and the liberal Ninth Circuit, but expanded them beyond any judicial precedent. Citing a test that looked at whether the ATF’s action constituted a “clear error of judgment” or was “arbitrary or capricious,” Collyer gave all of the benefit of the doubt to Obama -– and none to the Second Amendment, which wasn’t even considered in her 21-page opinion.
The decision will presumably be appealed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals -– a supposedly “conservative” circuit that nevertheless upheld ObamaCare.
But the larger issue is this: Congress can block these regulations by simply cutting off the money to implement them. Last fall, we demanded that the House include such a prohibition in its giant money bill. But congressional leaders ignored the Second Amendment community on this and a variety of other pro-gun issues, including defunding ObamaCare.
It is late in the game. But there is still an opportunity to prohibit funding for the multiple sales regulations on the annual Department of Justice Appropriations bill and the “continuing resolution” which will inevitably follow around September 30.
True, a lot of damage will have been done by that point. But we cannot allow to stand the precedent that the Attorney General can seize any and all gun-related information, simply by saying he wants it.
ACTION: Click here to ontact your representative. Tell him Congress must act to block funding for the unlawful, anti-gun Obama multiple sales regulations.
47400
Politics & Religion / Stratfor: The Dance continues
« on: January 21, 2012, 05:33:37 PM »
Japan on Thursday became the first country to officially inform Washington that it
would seek a waiver from pending U.S. sanctions on foreign institutions doing
business with Iran's central bank. Japanese officials delivered the message to a
visiting U.S. government delegation. Other importers of Iranian crude, including
India, China and South Korea, have either waffled in their commitment to support the
U.S.-led sanctions or expressed an outright dismissal of them.
Washington passed sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran as part of a larger defense
authorization bill Dec. 31. Nations that agree to abide by the sanctions have a
six-month window to comply, during which time they can continue buying crude from
Iran. This is similar to proposed EU sanctions that will be discussed Jan. 23. As
with the 2010 U.N. sanctions banning gasoline sales to Iran, these sanctions are
unlikely to have the desired effect of crippling Iran's economy to the point of
Iranian capitulation. The same goes for the European Union's planned embargo, which
will be replete with loopholes for objecting states. Beyond trying to financially
strain Iran, the sanctions rhetoric is designed to keep Iran and its nuclear
ambitions in the headlines and to demonstrate publicly that action is being taken
against Iran, while quieter clandestine efforts are in play.
The last three months have seen the latest round of a cycle that has played out
repeatedly over the last several years: Israel escalates claims that Iran is close
to attaining a bomb that could threaten the existence of the Jewish state. The
United States and Europe then propose hardened sanctions aimed at deterring that
activity -- while Washington makes sure to note that military options remain on the
table -- and Iran responds by threatening to disrupt the shipment of oil through the
Strait of Hormuz, enervating global energy markets. The rhetoric in this
circumstance belies the actors' capabilities. Israel knows it has limited ability to
launch a successful airstrike on Iran, while the United States wants to avoid a new
war with a Persian Gulf state, and Tehran does not want to incur the economic cost
of shutting down the Strait of Hormuz.
Israeli rhetoric markedly shifted Wednesday. Defense Minister Ehud Barak told
Israeli Army Radio that an attack on Iran by his country is not soon forthcoming,
and he downplayed the immediacy of the threat posed by Iran's nuclear efforts.
Barak's comments came the day before U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen.
Martin Dempsey traveled to Israel. An article published Thursday in Israeli media,
written by a journalist with close ties to Barak, claimed that Dempsey would be
briefed on an Israeli intelligence assessment indicating that Iran has not yet tried
building a deliverable nuclear device. The assessment also implies that the Iranian
regime is more preoccupied with the potential for unrest following parliamentary
elections in March than it is with moving forward with its nuclear program.
A visit by a high-level U.S. defense official to Israel was already guaranteed to
capture Iran's attention, especially coming on the heels of Iranian military
maneuvers centered on the Strait of Hormuz. Israel and the United States could have
hinted at a possible attack in an effort to further their psychological warfare
campaign against Iran. Instead, Israel has done essentially the opposite, choosing
to de-emphasize the urgency of the Iranian nuclear threat. Notably, this follows
revelations that the United States reached out to Iran amid tensions over the Strait
of Hormuz. Israel's recent rhetoric on the Iranian nuclear program in many ways
takes the wind out of an already tottering sanctions campaign. The question is why
Israel would do this.
Israel could be employing psychological warfare tactics, lowering Iran's guard in
preparation for an attack. But Israel could not carry out such an attack
unilaterally, and the United States is giving no indication it is ready for a
military confrontation in one of the world's most vital energy thoroughfares. Israel
seems pleased with the progression of its covert military campaign against Iran (the
recent death of an Iranian chemist associated with the nuclear program could serve
to bolster that confidence), and thus does not seem motivated to push Washington
toward a military campaign the United States wants no part of. Israel may be willing
to see what comes out of the United States' latest attempt at dialogue with Iran.
Israel is even doing its part to create an atmosphere more conducive to those talks,
while relying on its covert capabilities to address Iran's nuclear threat.
And so, after a months-long buildup in tensions that again raised in the media the
possibility of a looming regional war, it appears rhetoric is cooling for now. U.S.
sanctions will likely leave space for allies of the United States to continue buying
Iranian crude (albeit at reduced levels); Washington is reportedly reaching out to
Iran for a diplomatic dialogue, while Iran has temporarily dialed down its bellicose
rhetoric regarding the Strait of Hormuz; and the Israelis, through the conduit of
Barak, have indicated that they are content for now with this course of action.
would seek a waiver from pending U.S. sanctions on foreign institutions doing
business with Iran's central bank. Japanese officials delivered the message to a
visiting U.S. government delegation. Other importers of Iranian crude, including
India, China and South Korea, have either waffled in their commitment to support the
U.S.-led sanctions or expressed an outright dismissal of them.
Washington passed sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran as part of a larger defense
authorization bill Dec. 31. Nations that agree to abide by the sanctions have a
six-month window to comply, during which time they can continue buying crude from
Iran. This is similar to proposed EU sanctions that will be discussed Jan. 23. As
with the 2010 U.N. sanctions banning gasoline sales to Iran, these sanctions are
unlikely to have the desired effect of crippling Iran's economy to the point of
Iranian capitulation. The same goes for the European Union's planned embargo, which
will be replete with loopholes for objecting states. Beyond trying to financially
strain Iran, the sanctions rhetoric is designed to keep Iran and its nuclear
ambitions in the headlines and to demonstrate publicly that action is being taken
against Iran, while quieter clandestine efforts are in play.
The last three months have seen the latest round of a cycle that has played out
repeatedly over the last several years: Israel escalates claims that Iran is close
to attaining a bomb that could threaten the existence of the Jewish state. The
United States and Europe then propose hardened sanctions aimed at deterring that
activity -- while Washington makes sure to note that military options remain on the
table -- and Iran responds by threatening to disrupt the shipment of oil through the
Strait of Hormuz, enervating global energy markets. The rhetoric in this
circumstance belies the actors' capabilities. Israel knows it has limited ability to
launch a successful airstrike on Iran, while the United States wants to avoid a new
war with a Persian Gulf state, and Tehran does not want to incur the economic cost
of shutting down the Strait of Hormuz.
Israeli rhetoric markedly shifted Wednesday. Defense Minister Ehud Barak told
Israeli Army Radio that an attack on Iran by his country is not soon forthcoming,
and he downplayed the immediacy of the threat posed by Iran's nuclear efforts.
Barak's comments came the day before U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen.
Martin Dempsey traveled to Israel. An article published Thursday in Israeli media,
written by a journalist with close ties to Barak, claimed that Dempsey would be
briefed on an Israeli intelligence assessment indicating that Iran has not yet tried
building a deliverable nuclear device. The assessment also implies that the Iranian
regime is more preoccupied with the potential for unrest following parliamentary
elections in March than it is with moving forward with its nuclear program.
A visit by a high-level U.S. defense official to Israel was already guaranteed to
capture Iran's attention, especially coming on the heels of Iranian military
maneuvers centered on the Strait of Hormuz. Israel and the United States could have
hinted at a possible attack in an effort to further their psychological warfare
campaign against Iran. Instead, Israel has done essentially the opposite, choosing
to de-emphasize the urgency of the Iranian nuclear threat. Notably, this follows
revelations that the United States reached out to Iran amid tensions over the Strait
of Hormuz. Israel's recent rhetoric on the Iranian nuclear program in many ways
takes the wind out of an already tottering sanctions campaign. The question is why
Israel would do this.
Israel could be employing psychological warfare tactics, lowering Iran's guard in
preparation for an attack. But Israel could not carry out such an attack
unilaterally, and the United States is giving no indication it is ready for a
military confrontation in one of the world's most vital energy thoroughfares. Israel
seems pleased with the progression of its covert military campaign against Iran (the
recent death of an Iranian chemist associated with the nuclear program could serve
to bolster that confidence), and thus does not seem motivated to push Washington
toward a military campaign the United States wants no part of. Israel may be willing
to see what comes out of the United States' latest attempt at dialogue with Iran.
Israel is even doing its part to create an atmosphere more conducive to those talks,
while relying on its covert capabilities to address Iran's nuclear threat.
And so, after a months-long buildup in tensions that again raised in the media the
possibility of a looming regional war, it appears rhetoric is cooling for now. U.S.
sanctions will likely leave space for allies of the United States to continue buying
Iranian crude (albeit at reduced levels); Washington is reportedly reaching out to
Iran for a diplomatic dialogue, while Iran has temporarily dialed down its bellicose
rhetoric regarding the Strait of Hormuz; and the Israelis, through the conduit of
Barak, have indicated that they are content for now with this course of action.