Fire Hydrant of Freedom

This footage seems to me to be quite extraordinary. Apparently the crow has observed humans snowboarding and has taken up the sport himself.

Thus we see:

a) cross-species learning
b) the use of a tool
c) play

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dWw9GLcOeA&feature=share

The Orwellian fascism of it all boggles the mind 

It was a banner day for religious freedom yesterday as the Supreme Court ruled that government can't tell religious institutions whom they can hire and fire as "ministers." The unanimous decision was a crushing rebuke to the Obama Administration, which had taken the radical position that churches are little different from any other employer in job disputes.
In the High Court's latest support for the First Amendment, all nine Justices upheld what's known as the "ministerial exception" in employment disputes, recognizing a healthy degree of autonomy for churches, synagogues and other houses of worship.
In Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School vs. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Cheryl Perich had worked as a religiously affiliated or "called" teacher at the Lutheran school, teaching math and music as well as leading students in prayer. In 2004, she took a medical leave for narcolepsy, a sleep disorder. When she sought to return, the school declined, and she was eventually voted out by the church congregation. Ms. Perich and the federal EEOC sued for backpay, reinstatement and damages.
Writing for the Court, Chief Justice John Roberts explained that the Constitution's Free Exercise and Establishment clauses both bar the government from interfering with a church's decision to fire a minister. To do so, he writes, "intrudes upon more than a mere employment decision. Such action interferes with the internal governance of the church, depriving the church of control over the selection of those who will personify its beliefs" as well as "the right to shape its own faith and mission through its appointments."
The Court rejected the EEOC's argument that in order to qualify as a minister, an employee should have to spend a certain amount of her time on religious duties. Under such a system, church employees would presumably be required to clock in and out of different responsibilities within their jobs, lending an artificial and secular overlay on the nature of their work.
The Justices also didn't spare their disdain for the position advanced by the Obama Administration. The Justice Department argued that the same First Amendment analysis should apply to churches as to social clubs. The Court called that argument "hard to square with the text of the First Amendment itself, which gives special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations. We cannot accept the remarkable view that the Religion Clauses have nothing to say about a religious organization's freedom to select its own ministers." Ouch.
Also notable is a concurring opinion written by the unlikely duo of Justices Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan—think judicial cats and dogs living together—who add their belief that religious organizations should be protected in staffing decisions regardless of whether or not those groups "ordain" their ministers under the traditional understanding of that practice.
Justice Clarence Thomas filed a separate concurrence arguing for an even broader interpretation of the ministerial designation than is suggested by Justice Roberts's opinion. Justice Thomas reasonably argues that no outside body should be given power to overrule the church on any grounds in designating ministers.
The decision closes off new avenues for employment lawsuits that would have been opened by Ms. Perich's position. All 12 federal appellate-court circuits have adopted some form of ministerial exception over the years, but that failed to dissuade the Justice Department from claiming that giving churches discretion in hiring decisions would undermine the Americans with Disabilities Act.
As in so many of its policies, the Obama Administration's position reflected both its default preference for government control and its secular indifference to American religious sensibilities. This has become obvious in the contraceptive and surgical sterilization mandates the Administration is trying to impose on Catholic charities and hospitals. In this case the Justice Department's opinion was so radical that it might have provoked the broad and unanimous Court ruling.
Hosanna-Tabor is an important reminder that the core religious freedoms guarded by the First Amendment were not to protect the public from religion, but to protect religion from government. The case is arguably among the most important religious liberty cases in a half century, and the concurrence of Justices across the ideological spectrum will be felt for years. Hallelujah.

second post

By Fred Barnes
Mitt Romney is rolling to the Republican presidential nomination. He's the first Republican other than a sitting president to win both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. Yet he just began confronting the greatest threat to his quest for the presidency—an explosive issue that could diminish the Republican Party's prospects for defeating President Obama.

The issue is Mr. Romney's record as an investor and corporate-turnaround artist at Bain Capital from 1984 to 1999. That experience is the heart of his campaign for the White House, the source of his claim to be uniquely qualified to invigorate the economy and create jobs.

But increasingly Mr. Romney is accused, as boss of Bain, of buying battered companies to loot and bankrupt them, firing thousands of workers while making millions himself. The charge is bad enough. That it's now coming not just from Democrats but from two of his Republican rivals—former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry—makes things worse.

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Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney
.One can imagine TV ads aired by Mr. Obama's re-election team that feature clips of Mr. Gingrich, Mr. Perry and possibly ex-Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman attacking Mr. Romney on his Bain record. The ads would be a double-barreled assault on Mr. Romney's success as a businessman and on Republicans as the party of corporate wheeler-dealers and the uncaring rich.

The Bain issue surfaced last weekend, too late to have any noticeable impact on Tuesday's New Hampshire primary, won by Mr. Romney in impressive fashion. Though favored to win, Mr. Romney exceeded expectations.

That wasn't all. After nearly upsetting Mr. Romney in Iowa last week, former Sen. Rick Santorum was seen as a candidate around whom conservatives might rally in New Hampshire. But they failed to elevate him or anyone else as the conservative alternative to Mr. Romney. Mr. Santorum was nosed out by Mr. Gingrich for fourth place.

By winning, Mr. Romney has history on his side. Both other non-incumbent candidates who have won Iowa and New Hampshire—Jimmy Carter in 1976 and John Kerry in 2004—have gone on to capture their party's nomination. And if Mr. Romney wins the South Carolina primary on Jan. 21, he'd be close to locking up the nomination. He currently leads the polls in the Palmetto State, but with the Bain assault his path could be interrupted or reversed.

Related Video
 Larry Sabato on the New Hampshire primary results and what to watch for in South Carolina.
..An outside super PAC backing Mr. Gingrich plans to spend nearly $3.5 million on television in South Carolina, with Bain its chief subject. It has acquired a 28-minute film that denounces Mr. Romney as a "predatory corporate raider." The private equity firm is also likely to get considerable attention in two nationally televised debates in South Carolina.

Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Perry insist Mr. Romney veered from "traditional capitalism" at Bain. Campaigning in South Carolina, Mr. Perry has been drawing a distinction between "venture capitalism" and the "vulture capitalism" he says was practiced by Mr. Romney.

This isn't the first time the Bain issue has been exploited against Mr. Romney. In 1994, he sought Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in Massachusetts, pulling even in polls weeks before election day. Kennedy responded with television spots of workers laid off at a company, American Pad & Paper, once owned by Bain Capital. The ads worked. Mr. Romney lost, 59% to 41%.

But the Bain angle has a twist today, as the essentially left-wing critique has been adopted by conservative Republicans. It's as if a Democratic challenger to President Obama attacked his health-care plan with arguments borrowed from Republicans and conservatives. As it is, Mr. Obama has no Democratic opponent.

Mr. Romney is reluctant to defend his conduct at Bain, perhaps fearing that would only add fuel the issue. On Tuesday night he zinged "desperate Republicans" for echoing Mr. Obama's strategy to "put free enterprise on trial. . . . This is such a mistake for our party and our nation. This country already has a leader who divides us with the bitter politics of envy." But that was it. Otherwise, Mr. Romney's speech focused on Mr. Obama.

Messrs. Gingrich and Perry appear untroubled by the potentially broad impact of their offensive against Mr. Romney and Bain. But "the consequences of this are serious," says Republican consultant Frank Luntz, as "seeds" planted now could lead to a GOP "disaster" in November.

Consider the damage if Mr. Romney, whom at least a plurality of Republicans regard as their most electable candidate, ultimately lost the nomination because of Bain. The party, left with a nominee whom Mr. Romney had beaten twice, would be angrily split, its enthusiasm gone. Or consider if Mr. Romney is nominated but is weakened by the Bain attacks. That's more likely, and it too would be divisive.

Mr. Romney bears some of the blame for the awkward situation. Candidates for president normally build their campaigns on a big idea. Mr. Gingrich's is that he would crush Mr. Obama in debates and win the election. Mr. Perry's is that he would extend the economic success of Texas to the entire nation. Mr. Romney's is himself, the man whose skill at economic revival was on display at Bain. This is an invitation to attacks.

What Mr. Romney needs is a bigger idea to deflect attention from Bain. He's treated the economy as susceptible to his personal care. That's insufficient. A bold plan for economic growth, especially a controversial plan with sweeping tax reform, might work. But if not that, then at least do something that dwarfs Bain—and do it soon.

Mr. Barnes is executive editor of the Weekly Standard and a commentator on Fox News Channel.

Annual Forecast 2012
January 11, 2012 | 0609 GMT


Stratfor
There are periods when the international system undergoes radical shifts in a short time. The last such period was 1989-1991. During that time, the Soviet empire collapsed. The Japanese economic miracle ended. The Maastricht Treaty creating contemporary Europe was signed. Tiananmen Square defined China as a market economy dominated by an unchallenged Communist Party, and so on. Fundamental components of the international system shifted radically, changing the rules for the next 20 years.

We are in a similar cycle, one that began in 2008 and is still playing out. In this period, the European Union has stopped functioning as it did five years ago and has yet to see its new form defined. China has moved into a difficult social and economic phase, with the global recession severely affecting its export-oriented economy and its products increasingly uncompetitive due to inflation. The U.S. withdrawal from Iraq has created opportunities for an Iranian assertion of power that could change the balance of power in the region. The simultaneous shifts in Europe, China and the Middle East open the door to a new international framework replacing the one created in 1989-1991.

Our forecast for 2012 is framed by the idea that we are in the midst of what we might call a generational shift in the way the world works. The processes are still under way, and we will therefore have to consider the future of Europe, China and the Middle East in some detail before drawing a conclusion. The 2012 forecast is unique in that it is not a forecast for one year in a succession of years, all basically framed by the same realities. Rather, it is a year in which the individual forecasts point to a new generational reality and a redefinition of how the world works.

2012 may not be the conclusion of this transformative process. Neither was 1991 the conclusion. However, just as 1991 was the year in which it became clear that the old world of the Cold War no longer functioned, 2012 is the year in which it will become clear that the Post-Cold War world has come to an end, being replaced by changed players and changed dynamics.

Europe
The European Union and eurozone will survive 2012, and Europe's financial crisis will stabilize, at least temporarily. However, Stratfor expects Europe to continue its long, painful slide into deepening recession. We expect accelerating capital flight out of peripheral European countries as investors in Europe and farther afield lose confidence in the European system. We expect financial support measures to be withdrawn on occasion to maintain pressure on governments to implement fiscal reforms, which will lead to financial scares.

However, the driving force behind developments in Europe in 2012 will be political, not economic. Germany, seeing an opportunity in the ongoing financial crisis, is using its superior financial and economic position to attempt to alter the eurozone's structure to its advantage. The core of this "reform" effort is to hardwire tight financial controls into as many European states as possible, both in a new intergovernmental treaty and in each state's national constitution. Normally, we would predict failure for such an effort: Sacrificing budgetary authority to an outside power would be the most dramatic sacrifice of state sovereignty yet in the European experiment -- a sacrifice that most European governments would strongly resist. However, the Germans have six key advantages in 2012.

First, there are very few scheduled electoral contests, so the general populace of most European states will not be consulted on the exercise. Of the eurozone states, only France, Slovakia and Slovenia face scheduled national elections. Out of these three, France is by far the most critical: The Franco-German partnership is the core of the European system, and any serious breach between the two would herald the end of the European Union. If Germany is to compromise on its efforts for anyone, it will be for France, and if France needs another country in order to secure its own position in Europe, it needs Germany. Consequently, the two have chosen to collaborate rather than compete thus far, and we expect their partnership to survive the year. Luckily for the German effort, French elections will be at the very beginning of the ratification process, so any possible modifications to the German plan will come early.

Second, Germany only needs the approval of the 17 eurozone states -- rather than the 27 members of the full European Union -- to forward its plan with credibility. That the United Kingdom has already opted out is inconvenient for those seeking a pan-European process, but it does not derail the German effort.

Third, the process of approving a treaty such as this will take significant time, and some aspects of the reform process can be pushed back. European leaders are expected to sign the new treaty in March, and the rest of the year and some of 2013 will be used to seek ratification by individual countries. Amending national constitutions to satisfy Germany will be the bitterest part of the process, but much of that can be put off until 2013, and judgment by European institutions over how the revision process was handled comes still later. Such delays allow political leaders the option of pushing back the most politically risky portions of the process for months or years.

Fourth, the Germans are willing to apply significant pressure. Nearly all EU states count Germany as the largest destination for their exports, and such exports are critical for local employment. In 2011, Germany used its superior economic and financial position as leverage to help ease the elected leaderships of Greece and Italy out of office, replacing them with unelected former EU bureaucrats who are now working to implement aspects of the German program. Similar pressures could be brought to bear against additional states in 2012.

Those most likely to clash with Germany are Ireland, Finland, the Netherlands and Spain. Ireland wants the terms of its bailout program to be softened and is threatening a national referendum that could derail the ratification process. Finland's laws require parliamentary approval by a two-thirds majority for some aspects of ratification. The normally pro-European government of the Netherlands is a weak coalition that can only rule with the support of other parties, one of which is strongly euroskeptic. Spain must attempt the most painful austerity efforts of any non-bailout state if the reform process is to have credibility -- and it must do so amid record-high unemployment and a shrinking economy. Also, if Greece decides to hold new elections in 2012, European stakeholders will attempt to ensure that the new government in Athens does not end its collaboration with the European Central Bank (ECB), European Commission and International Monetary Fund. None of these issues will force an automatic confrontation, but all will have to be managed to ensure successful ratification, and the Germans have demonstrated that they have many tools with which to compel other governments.

Fifth, the Europeans are scared, which makes them willing to do things they would not normally do -- such as implementing austerity and ratifying treaties they dislike. Agreeing to sacrifice sovereignty in principle to maintain the European economic system in practice will seem a reasonable trade. The real political crisis will not come until the sacrifice of sovereignty moves from the realm of theory to application, but that will not occur in 2012. In many ways, the political pliability of European governments now is all about staving off unbearable economic catastrophe for another day.

The economic deferment of that pain is the sixth German advantage. Here, the primary player is the ECB. The financial crisis has two aspects: Over-indebted European governments are lurching toward defaults that would collapse the European system, and European banks (the largest purchasers of European government debt) are broadly insolvent -- their collapse would similarly break apart the European system. In December, the ECB indicated that it was willing to put up 20 billion euros ($28 billion) a week for sovereign bond purchases on secondary markets to support struggling eurozone governments, while extending low-interest, long-term liquidity loans to European banks in unlimited volumes. The bond program is large enough to potentially purchase three-fourths of all expected eurozone government debt issuances for 2012, while the first day of the loan program extended 490 billion euros in fresh credit to ailing banks.

Together these two measures make a eurozone financial meltdown highly unlikely in 2012, but they will greatly degrade European competitiveness and efficiency. That will be a problem for another time, though. For now, ECB actions are buying economic and political breathing room: economic in that austerity efforts can be somewhat softer than they would otherwise need to be, and political in that there is a feeling that Germany is willing to compromise somewhat on the issues of budgetary discipline today in order to achieve its broader goals of budgetary control tomorrow. Therefore, while the financial support is not exactly buying good will from other European states, it is certainly buying time.

As the ratification process proceeds, European hostility toward Germany and Brussels will increase. Internationally, the key theme will be states attempting to protect themselves from what they see as a growing -- and unwelcome -- German intrusion into their internal affairs. At the national level, the deepening recession will translate into general anger toward the government's announced austerity measures. The relative dearth of elections will deny that anger its normal release valve of centrist opposition parties, emboldening nationalist and extremist movements and leading to social unrest.

Political and financial turbulence will persist within this framework as Germany negotiates the new treaty with other eurozone countries. Though the core of these negotiations is a highly contentious abdication of national fiscal sovereignty, Europe is highly likely to adopt the new treaty since a perceived failure would dramatically accelerate the collapse of EU political structures and implementation will not happen in 2012.

Former Soviet Union
Russia's Challenges
In 2012, the Kremlin will face numerous challenges: social unrest, restructuring Russia's political makeup (both inside and outside of the Kremlin) and major economic shifts due to the crisis in Europe. The social unrest seen at the end of 2011 will continue festering throughout the presidential elections in 2012. Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin will have to reshape the political landscape from one dominated by his party to one that accounts for the increasing support for the nationalists and a new class of young, liberal activists. Simultaneously, Putin will restructure his inner circle of Kremlin loyalists, who have allowed infighting to divert their attention from their roles in tackling Russia's social unrest and financial problems. None of this will significantly diminish Putin's authority. The Kremlin will also have to adjust its economy in 2012 to accommodate changes in previous plans involving billions of dollars in investments from Europe in some of Russia's most strategic sectors. The crisis in Europe means any such investments will be significantly reduced, so the Kremlin will have to restructure the economic plans for its modernization and privatization programs and fund many of the projects itself. Putin will be able to navigate through these obstacles, though they will take up much of the Kremlin's attention. None of these factors will fundamentally change Russia's direction either domestically or in its foreign policy.

Russian Resurgence
Russia will continue building its influence in its former Soviet periphery in 2012, particularly by institutionalizing its relationships with many former Soviet states. Russia will build upon its Customs Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan as it evolves into the Common Economic Space (CES). This larger institution will allow the scope of Russia's influence over Minsk and Astana, as well as new member countries such as Kyrgyzstan and possibly Tajikistan, to expand from the economic sphere into politics and security as Moscow lays the groundwork for the eventual formation of the Eurasian Union, which it is hoping to start around 2015.

As Ukraine's chances to grow closer to the European Union decrease, Kiev will realize that Moscow is the only outside power it can turn to. Russia will be able to take advantage of Ukraine's inability to maneuver and will gain access to strategic Ukrainian assets, possibly including minority control in its natural gas transit system. However, Ukraine will continue to resist the institutionalization of Russia's influence via the CES by maintaining a degree of cooperation with the West.

In the Baltic countries -- which, unlike other former Soviet states, are committed members of NATO and the European Union -- Russia's ultimate goal is to neutralize the countries' pro-Western and anti-Russian policies, a goal it will make progress toward in Latvia in 2012. It will face setbacks in Lithuania, but Lithuania will not be able to seriously challenge Russia's maneuvers in the region because of ongoing difficulties for its primary supporters: NATO and the European Union.

Russia and the West
Russia will continue managing various crises with the West -- mainly the United States and NATO -- while shaping its relationships in Europe. Moscow and Washington will continue their standoff over ballistic missile defense and U.S. support for Central Europe, and Moscow will react to the ongoing row by increasing security pressure on Central Europe and bolstering its economic presence in the region. Russia will use these crises as an opportunity to deepen divisions among the Europeans, between the Europeans and the United States, and within NATO while promoting the perception that Russia is being forced to act aggressively. The security situation will become tenser, and Russia will attempt to push these crises with the United States to the brink without actually rupturing relations -- a difficult balance.

Russia will also use the financial and political crises in Europe to bolster its influence in strategic countries and sectors. Moscow and Berlin will continue their close relationship, especially in the areas of economics and security, but Russia will focus more on Central Europe in areas of security and energy and in picking up assets. There is no real counter to Russia in Europe, as the Europeans will be absorbed with domestic and EU issues. But this does not mean Russia has a free pass, as it must still manage the domestic effects of its neighbors' crisis.

Central Asia
Numerous factors will undermine Central Asia's stability in 2012, but they will not lead to a major breaking point in the region this year. Protests over deteriorating economic conditions will occur throughout the region, particularly in Kazakhstan, though these will be contained to the region and will not result in overly disruptive violence. Serious issues in Kazakhstan's banking sector could lead to a financial crisis, though the government will be able to manage the difficulties and contain it during 2012 by using the oil revenues it has saved up.

The more pressing problem is the rising Islamist militancy in the region. Sporadic attacks will continue in Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan could see an increase in attacks. However, these attacks will not achieve their strategic goal of overthrowing regimes or coalesce into a transnational movement capable of destabilizing the region. In addition to these security tensions, looming successions for the longtime leaders in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan will create political tensions, but barring the death of either leader, no major political upheavals are expected.

Middle East
Iran and the Saudi Dilemma
Iran's efforts to expand its influence will be the primary issue for the Middle East in 2012. The U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq has rendered Iran the pre-eminent military power in the Persian Gulf, but Tehran cannot count on the United States being as constrained beyond this year, and Turkey, Iran's natural regional counterweight, is rising steadily, albeit slowly. Iran's efforts to consolidate and extend its regional influence must therefore accelerate this year before its window of opportunity closes. Iran will still be operating under heavy constraints, however, and will therefore be unable to fundamentally alter the politics of the region in its favor.

Iran's regional expansion will be felt most deeply by Saudi Arabia. The Saudi royals now doubt that the United States has the ability or the willingness to fully guarantee Riyadh's interests. Adding to Saudi Arabia's vulnerabilities, the Gulf Cooperation Council states fear that if Iran is not contained within Iraq, it will exploit continued Shiite unrest in Bahrain and in Saudi Arabia's Shia-concentrated, oil-rich Eastern Province. In 2012, Saudi Arabia will lead efforts to shore up and consolidate the defenses of Gulf Cooperation Council members to try to ward off the threat posed by Iran, but such efforts will not be a sufficient replacement for the United States and the role it plays as a security guarantor. A critical part of Iran's regional agenda for the year will be to force Riyadh into an accommodation that benefits Iran and allows Saudi Arabia some reprieve. This could lead to temporary truces between the two adversaries, but given Iran's constraints and limited timetable, Saudi Arabia is more likely to stay committed to the U.S. security framework in the region -- for lack of better options.

Turmoil in Iraq and Syria
The effects of Iran's expansion efforts will be most visible in Iraq and Syria. In Iraq, Iran's main challenge is to consolidate Shiite power among several competing groups. As Iraq's fractured Shiite leadership tries to solidify its influence with Iranian support, Iraq's Sunni and Kurdish factions increasingly will be put on the defensive. This ethno-sectarian struggle and the security vacuum created by the U.S. withdrawal will degrade Iraq's overall security conditions. Meanwhile, Turkey will attempt to contain the spread of Iranian influence in northern Iraq by building up political, economic, military and intelligence assets.

In Syria, the ultimate goal of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States will be to disrupt Iran's Shiite arc of influence by trying to crack Syrian President Bashar al Assad's regime. However, without direct foreign military intervention, the Syrian regime is unlikely to collapse. Al Assad will continue to struggle in trying to stamp out domestic unrest. The regime's limited options to deal with the crisis will force Syria to further rely on Iran for support, which will allow Tehran to reinforce its presence in the Mediterranean.

Stratfor cannot rule out the remote possibility that the al Assad clan will be coerced into a political exit. Such an outcome would risk inciting a sectarian struggle within the regime. Iran's goal is for Syria to maintain a regime -- regardless of who leads it -- that will remain favorable to Iranian interests, but Iran's ability to influence the situation is limited, and finding a replacement to hold the regime together will be difficult. It should be noted that the battle for Syria cannot take place without spilling over into Lebanon. In that regard, Lebanon faces a difficult year as proxy battles intensify between Iran and Saudi Arabia in the Levant.

Turkey's Struggles
Overwhelmed by instability in its periphery, Turkey will continue to face significant challenges to its regional ascendency. Despite its rhetoric, Turkey will not undertake significant overt military action in Syria unless the United States leads the intervention -- a scenario Stratfor regards as improbable -- though it will continue efforts to mold an opposition in Syria and counterbalance Iranian influence in Iraq. Ankara will thus work to maintain a decent bilateral relationship with Tehran despite growing tensions between the two. Economic conditions in Europe will slow Turkey's economic growth, Kurdish militancy in Turkey will remain a significant threat, and concerns over Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's health could turn the government's focus inward as it tries to work through a contentious set of proposed constitutional changes. On the foreign policy front, Turkey will try to influence the rise of political Islamists, particularly in Egypt and Syria, but Ankara's own constraints will prevent it from taking meaningful steps in that regard.

Egypt's Political Transition
Egypt's turbulent political transition likely will give rise to a parliament with a significant Islamist presence, thereby complicating the ruling military elite's hold on power. However, the democratic transition will be a partial one at best; the country's fractious opposition and impotent parliament will continue to suffer from internal divisions and will be unable to overrule the military on issues of national strategic importance. Thus, the military will remain the de facto authority of the state.

Concerns over the country's struggling economy will outweigh the military's concerns over its political opposition. Egypt's preoccupation with its economic and political issues will undermine its ability to patrol its Sinai buffer, leading to increased tensions with Israel. However, both sides will continue to maintain the peace treaty that has been the foundation of Israeli-Egyptian relations for the past generation.

The Hamas Agenda
Hamas will take advantage of the slowly growing political clout of Islamists throughout the region in hopes of presenting itself to neighboring Arab governments and the West as a pragmatic and reconcilable political alternative to Fatah. These moves will help protect Hamas from the potential regime crisis in Syria (where its politburo is based) and bolster its relationships with Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. At the same time, Hamas will be on alert for tactical opportunities to undermine security in the Sinai Peninsula with the hope of creating a crisis between Egypt and Israel.

Egypt's preoccupations and Hamas' expanded room to maneuver will incentivize the Jordanian leadership to strengthen its ties with Hamas. It will also allow Jordan to manage its own unrest by building more credibility among Islamists, leverage its relations with Fatah and keep a tab on Hamas' actions as the Jordanian monarchs adjust to changing regional dynamics.

East Asia
Three things will shape events in East Asia: China's response to the economic crisis and possible social turmoil amid a leadership transition; the European Union's debt crisis and economic slowdown sapping demand for East Asia's exports; and regional interaction with the U.S. re-engagement in the Asia-Pacific region.

The 2008 financial crisis exposed the inherent weaknesses of the Chinese economy, which, like its East Asian powerhouse predecessors, largely was based on a growth model driven by exports and government-led investment. While Beijing had been aware for some time of the need to shift toward a more balanced economic model, the continued slump in Europe and fears of another global slowdown have forced the government to face the challenges of economic restructuring now, rather than constantly staving them off. Even in the best of times, the redirection of an economy the size of China's would be difficult, but the pressure for change comes amid a leadership transition, when Beijing is particularly sensitive to any disruptions. With the politburo lineup changing in October and the new state leaders taking office in early 2013, the Communist Party of China (CPC) is focused on maintaining social stability to preserve the legacy of the outgoing leadership and solidify the legitimacy of the incoming leadership.

A rapid drop in economic growth poses a serious threat to China in 2012; a modest slowdown is widely expected this year due to the weakening export sector, a slump in the real estate market, and investment and risks to the banking system. Beijing is betting the decline will remain at a manageable level -- at least for a year of transition. The sharp drop in demand from Europe will harm the export sector in particular, with growth likely reduced to single digits. This declining external demand will threaten the already weakened export-oriented manufacturing industry, which has experienced rising costs in labor, raw materials and utilities as well as appreciating currency on top of its already thin-to-nonexistent profit margins. China will seek to compensate in part by refocusing on exports to the United States and expanding in emerging markets in Southeast Asia, Latin America or Africa, though this will not fully make up for the drop-off from Europe. Moreover, growing trade protectionism because of the economic downturn and political considerations -- especially the upcoming U.S. election season -- will likely put Chinese manufacturers at the center of trade frictions, making their position even more vulnerable. Beijing will employ traditional tools including targeted credit, tax reductions and direct subsidies to mitigate the risks of rising unemployment and bankruptcy in the financially strained manufacturing sector.

While Beijing knows that rolling out another massive fiscal stimulus and bank loans as it did in 2008-2009 is unsustainable and would put the economy at risk, it sees few other short-term options and thus will use government-led investment to sustain growth in 2012. Beijing will resume and launch a number of large infrastructure projects even at the expense of overcapacity and lack of productivity. However, accounting for around 10 percent of gross domestic product and a quarter of fixed investment, the decline in the real estate sector due to Beijing's tightening measures since 2010 represents one of the largest threats to Beijing's effort to stabilize growth. With affordable housing projects -- Beijing's plan to offset the negative consequences from falling real estate prices and weakening investment -- unlikely to reach their designated goal, Beijing may have to selectively relax its real estate tightening policy in 2012 while trying to avoid overcompensating by causing a sharp market rebound or property price inflation. The ruling Communist Party had promised it would bring these issues under control; its failure to do so could undermine the Party's credibility.

The continued high-level credit boom combined with the need to work out nonperforming loans (NPL) from the 2008-2009 stimulus will bring China into heightened NPL risk. The actual NPL ratio may rise as high as 8-12 percent in the next few years. At least 4.6 trillion yuan ($729 billion) out of a government-estimated local debt of 10.7 trillion yuan is set to mature within two years, and Beijing expects 2.5 trillion to 3 trillion yuan of the total risk to turn sour. The NPL risk, the 2.1 trillion-yuan debt from investment in the railway system and the massive informal lending from the shadow banking system that grew significantly during Beijing's credit tightening pose a systemic risk to the banking sector. Beijing may have to take some pre-emptive actions, such as refinancing measures or capital injections, in 2012 to ensure Chinese banks are able to maintain confidence in China's financial system. China's leaders, faced with near-term stabilizing options and long-term deep reforms, will choose the former, postponing the crisis but amplifying it when it becomes unavoidable in the future.

Given the economic uncertainty and political sensitivity surrounding the leadership transition, political elites in Beijing will attempt consensus at the highest levels. As it learned from the Tiananmen Square incident, CPC factional infighting exploited at a sensitive time is a serious risk, and we expect to see measures to ensure ideological and cultural control throughout the Party and down through the rest of society. Meanwhile, the priority to ensure a smooth transition means Beijing will be much less tolerant of actions that could spread instability, though Beijing is also cultivating pre-emptive methods for social control, such as community-level management or providing carefully controlled outlets for expressing grievances to better manage the country's social frustration, which will likely be exacerbated by the deteriorating economic situation.

Internationally, China will continue to accelerate its resource acquisition and outward investment strategy. As domestic problems mount, China may use external disputes to ease public dissatisfaction. Anticipating U.S. economic and trade pressure due to the electoral season and strategic encroachment in China's periphery, Beijing will focus its attention on reducing miscalculation and stressing interdependence in its relations with Washington while clarifying its response to the U.S engagement. Meanwhile, China will balance nationalistic initiatives with maintaining neighborly relations -- particularly with the South China Sea claimant countries, India and Japan -- and countering perceived moves by the United States to constrain China's economic influence in the region and lines of supply. The South China Sea claimant countries, including Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, will respond by accelerating their military purchases, taking advantage of the U.S. re-engagement efforts to hedge against China.

Most Asian countries -- which showed a strong economic recovery throughout 2010 and early 2011 -- will experience reduced growth amid the global economic slowdown. As the most important economic partner to many countries, China will increase its economic assistance and trade to Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries to leverage its influence. Beijing hopes to again project economic power in the region through aid, the import of consumer goods, currency swaps and regional trade agreements, but Beijing's role may also face challenges by renewed interest from other nations -- for example, the United States and Japan.

The death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has increased uncertainty on the Korean Peninsula. The first six months of the year will be critical as the unity of the regime is tested amid the leadership transfer. The leadership structure between civilian and military elements was established in recent years to strengthen the role of the Workers' Party of Korea as one of the pillars of power and to rebalance the military's role, but the process was not yet complete at the time of Kim's death. North Korean leaders are unlikely to fundamentally change the direction of Pyongyang's foreign policy in the near term. Their attention initially will be focused internally, and they will seek to avoid any sudden shift in policy that could destabilize the regime or significantly increase foreign pressure. China will look to make a push to ensure even greater influence on the Korean Peninsula during the transition period. In addition, bilateral discussions with the United States on resuming the six-party nuclear talks were showing progress before Kim's death, and Pyongyang is likely to restart these discussions sometime during the year.

South Asia
The U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan will not maintain sufficient force levels long enough to militarily defeat the Taliban -- and their various factions -- or pacify the country. But the Taliban will not be in a position to drive the United States and its allies from the country by force. Force structure choices must be made in 2012 to define the war effort through 2014, but the United States and its allies will continue to combat the Taliban in 2012 even as Afghan forces increasingly bear the brunt of the war effort. The United States will continue to consider a political accommodation with the Taliban, but such accommodation is unlikely to be reached this year.

The most important development in South Asia is Pakistan's ongoing political evolution. While other states, including Iran, are interested in shaping the future political landscape of Afghanistan, Pakistan continues to be at the heart of the Afghan war. As such, U.S.-Pakistani tensions will intensify in 2012 as the United States reaches an understanding with Pakistan, which will have to deal with the situation in the region after the United States leaves. Political, religious, ethnic and ideological tensions will intensify inside the country, and these will affect Pakistan, Afghanistan and U.S.-Pakistani relations moving forward.

Latin America
Mexico
Through the first half of 2012, Mexico will be enmeshed in campaigning for its July 1 presidential election. The country faces the possible end of what will be 12 years of rule by the National Action Party (PAN). Faced with public condemnation of rising violence, the PAN has lost a great deal of credibility over the past five years, something likely to benefit the Institutional Revolutionary Party and the newly unified Revolutionary Democratic Party. We expect no major legislative action under the administration of outgoing President Felipe Calderon as the three main parties compete for public approval. The new president takes office Dec. 1, meaning most of the new administration's major policy moves will not occur until 2013.

Regardless of any change in party, Mexico's underlying challenges will remain. The country's drug war rages on, with Los Zetas having consolidated control over most of Mexico's eastern coastal transportation corridor and the Sinaloa cartel having done the same in the west. Both cartels have a significant, growing presence in Central America and relations with South American organized crime. We expect the cartels to intensify their efforts to extend control over regional supply chains in 2012, although the Mexican cartels will remain dependent on relationships with local organized crime in other transit and producing countries. Despite significant territorial control in Mexico by Sinaloa and Los Zetas, numerous smaller criminal entities are still struggling for access to key transport hubs such as Acapulco. Meanwhile, the two main cartels will continue to attack each other in critical transit cities such as Veracruz and Guadalajara.

Continued inter-cartel competition among Mexico's diverse criminal groups will prevent any kind of alliance between Los Zetas and Sinaloa that allows them to abandon violence in favor of more profitable smuggling conditions. Similarly, the government faces severe constraints on its counter-cartel activities. It cannot afford to be seen publicly backing away from attempts to rein in violence. At the same time, any significant uptick in military offensives against the cartels carries the risk of intensifying the violence. The government will therefore attempt to emphasize social and economic policies while maintaining its current, high-tempo counter-cartel strategy.

Brazil
Brazil will spend 2012 focused on mitigating shocks to trade and capital flows from the crisis in Europe. However, with only 10 percent of Brazil's gross domestic product dependent on exports, Brazil is much less vulnerable than many other developing countries. In politics, Brazil will remain focused on trying to strike a balance between growth and inflation during the expected slowdown with judicious fiscal outlays and monetary expansion. Brazil will thus remain primarily focused on domestic issues through 2012. Trade protectionism will play a strong role in efforts to shield vulnerable industries. With global trade slowing, China will look for alternative export markets; these two trends will drive increased bilateral tensions between China and Brazil over the next year. Key Brazilian domestic issues will include ongoing city and border security initiatives; social welfare programs; infrastructure construction; and the development of, and politics surrounding, Brazil's petroleum reserves.

Venezuela
Uncertainty surrounding the health of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez makes it difficult to forecast the precise direction of Venezuelan politics in 2012. There will certainly be continued speculation about a potential successor from the Chavista elite, and growing dissatisfaction with the status quo among Chavez's base will be a prominent political force. Meanwhile, the political opposition parties -- which at this point appear prepared to unite behind a single candidate to be selected in February -- will make their most credible play for power in a decade. Under these conditions, the 2012 election will serve as a disruptor of Venezuelan politics. While the exact details of the outcome are unpredictable, 2012 will likely see some sort of power transition away from Chavez.

Regardless of who holds power at the end of the year, 2012 will continue to be characterized by growing domestic economic uncertainty, periodic infrastructure failure and poor distribution of basic goods. Dissatisfaction with these and other socio-economic issues will drive further protests, but the majority of political action will be centered on the election.

Cuba
Cuba's slow and cautious transitional measures can be expected to continue in 2012. Key reforms such as making credit and private property available to individuals are under way, and similar reforms, including attempts to loosen travel restrictions, can be expected in the next year. Cuba's ultimate international challenge is to balance the liberalization demands of the United States with its need for subsidized Venezuelan oil. A sudden disruption of these shipments is unlikely, but a political shift in Venezuela could force Cuba to reach out to the United States as a much more powerful -- but also more politically invasive -- economic partner.

Sub-Saharan Africa
Somalia
In 2012, a containment strategy will solidify against Somali jihadists -- both the transnationalist group al Shabaab and its nationalist rival, the Somali Islamic Emirate. This strategy will have three elements. The first will feature African Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) forces consolidating their presence in Mogadishu. These forces include peacekeepers from Uganda, Burundi and Djibouti, and additional forces from Sierra Leone will be deployed soon.

In the second part of the strategy, Kenyan troops will strengthen the cordon along the Kenyan border with southern Somalia. The 4,000 Kenyan troops there, nominally part of AMISOM, will hold territory and interdict Somali jihadists moving about the area. Lastly, Ethiopian forces will fortify a cordon along Ethiopia's border with central Somalia, also attempting to hold the territory and interdict jihadists.

To deny the Somali militias propaganda material, AMISOM, the Kenyans and the Ethiopians will not push deep into Somali territory to engage the jihadists. Instead, local militias employing guerrilla tactics will fight the jihadists within the containment zone. The combined efforts will successfully disrupt the jihadists' lines of supply, but they will not bring about their defeat. The United States will continue covert action in the Somali theater. U.S. special operations forces and unmanned aerial vehicles will collect and share intelligence with the Somali government and its allies. Additionally, U.S. forces in East Africa and the Horn of Africa will remain poised to strike high-value Somali jihadists or senior al Qaeda targets, should the opportunity arise.

Nigeria
Nigeria will see sustained militant violence in its northern region. Aggrieved political elites in the north, believing the government of President Goodluck Jonathan stole political power from them, will seek to use the Boko Haram militant group to their advantage. As part of their campaign to regain political power in 2015 national elections, these northern politicians will provide Boko Haram with arms and funding while protecting it politically.

This will enable the group to carry out frequent attacks on Nigerian government and civilian targets in its core area of operations in the country's northeast and northwest. Boko Haram will also conduct operations in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, but these will be rare. Boko Haram's statements will be jihadist and fierce, but the nature of its support will prevent it from carrying out attacks that would trigger an international response and result in a loss of leverage for northern Nigeria's political elite, such as transnational operations or attacks against foreign political or commercial facilities in Nigeria.

The Niger Delta in the south will also see a slow but steady return to militant violence. Though the Jonathan administration has stated that it will serve only from 2011 to 2015, divisions will start to emerge within the Jonathan camp over whether a single term is sufficient. Like their peers in northern Nigeria, political elites in the Niger Delta region, including Jonathan, will start reactivating alliances with regional militant groups such as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).

Attacks by MEND or other Niger Delta militants in 2012 will be infrequent and ultimately will not threaten oil production. However, they will form the basis for a counter-campaign by the Niger Delta political elite to demand political patronage while the region's elite decides whether to run for the ruling party's nomination for the presidency in the next elections.

Sudan
Domestic opposition in Sudan and South Sudan will prevent both governments from signing a legally binding oil revenue-sharing accord. Instead, they will accept the continuation of ad hoc agreements regarding the distribution of oil revenues. Additionally, U.N. peacekeepers will maintain their deployments in South Sudan and Darfur to respond to border clashes between militias on both sides of the Sudan-South Sudan border. It will take much of the year, but Khartoum and Juba will settle into an informal understanding over border demarcation.

South Africa
South Africa will remain focused on internal rivalries that will inhibit its ability to consolidate its influence in the southern African region. The ruling African National Congress (ANC) will contend with internal rivalries as it moves toward a leadership convention and election in December 2012. South African President Jacob Zuma will be working to secure a second term as ANC president, a post that would effectively make him the party's candidate for South African president in 2014 elections. Simultaneously, the Zuma camp will work to ensure that no rival faction in the ANC gains enough momentum to challenge Zuma.

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Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and most of his colleagues showed little concern when house prices started to decline in 2006, predicting “a soft landing” in the then-strong U.S. economy, transcripts from the central bank released Thursday show.


Bloomberg News
Fed Chairman Ben S. BernankeBernanke, who took over from Alan Greenspan as Fed chairman in February 2006, is cautious in making forecasts about housing and the wider economy. But, together with then New York Fed chief Timothy Geither, he believes the slowdown in housing is healthy and likely to end well.

Few central bank officials look overly worried just a few months before the storm hit, leading to the worst recession since the Great Depression. There are expectations, however. At the May 2006 meeting, for example, Fed Governor Susan Bies brings the discussion back to housing and her growing worries about mortgages. At the following meeting in June, Janet Yellen, the Fed vice chairwoman who headed the San Francisco Fed in 2006, appears to be the most concerned about housing.

The transcripts, available on the Fed’s website, provide full details of Fed officials’ individual views during the eight Federal Open Market Committee Meetings, with the traditional five-year lag (the minutes, released three weeks after FOMC meetings, only give a summary.)

Highlights of the transcripts include:

JAN. 31: Alan Greenspan, who took over as Fed chairman in 1987, is chief for the last time during the meeting of the Fed’s decision-making body. Fed officials spend much of their time praising him. “I’d like the record to show that I think you’re pretty terrific, too,” says Timothy Geithner. “And thinking in terms of probabilities, I think the risk that we decide in the future that you’re even better than we think is higher than the alternative.”

MAR. 27-28: In Bernanke’s first meeting as Fed chairman, housing looms as a risk, but officials haven’t grasped the severity of the threat. The Fed’s chief economist, David Stockton, offers some ominous warnings. “Right now, it feels a bit like riding a roller coaster with one’s eyes shut,” when discussing his forecast for a modest slowdown in housing. “We sense that we’re going over the top, but we just don’t know what lies below.” Later, he notes that housing is “the most salient risk” to the economy. “I just don’t know how to forecast those prices,” he says of housing prices.

“Again, I think we are unlikely to see growth being derailed by the housing market, but I do want us to be prepared for some quarter-to-quarter fluctuations,” Bernanke says. He identifies housing as a crucial issue, but adds that he agrees “with most of the commentary that the strong fundamentals support a relatively soft landing in housing.

Timothy Geithner, who is now Treasury Secretary and was then president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, doesn’t see the parallel risks building in the financial system. “Equity prices and credit spreads suggest considerable confidence in the prospect for growth,” he says. “Overall financial conditions seem pretty supportive of the expansion.”

In terms of policy, Bernanke picks up where predecessor Greenspan left off: with another quarter-point boost in interest rates, and a hint of more to come.

But he puts a modest stamp of his own on the Fed’s closely watched post-meeting statement, by including a more explicit view of where the nation’s economy is headed. The statement’s forecast that economic growth appears likely “to moderate to a more sustainable pace” may be an early, though small, sign of his efforts to make the central bank’s thinking more transparent.

MAY 10: Fed officials spend a lot of time discussing rising energy prices and risks to inflation and agree to raise short-term interest rates by 0.25%. Susan Bies, a Fed governor, tries to bring the discussion back to housing and her growing worries about mortgages. She looks enlightened in retrospect in a discussion about the risks that increasingly exotic mortgages pose to consumers and banks.

Bies points in particular to negative amortization loans, in which household loan balances get bigger and not smaller over time. “I just wonder about the consumer’s ability to absorb shocks,” she warns. “The buildup of home equity and the ability to borrow against it have helped individual homeowners when they have had layoffs, medical problems, divorces-all the things in life that create month-to-month problems for cash flow. With the growth of negative amortization, home equity is not being built up anymore.” She sums up with a ominous warning: “The growing ingenuity in the mortgage sector is making me more nervous as we go forward in this cycle, rather than comforted that we have learned a lesson. Some of the models the banks are using clearly were built in times of falling interest rates and rising housing prices. It is not clear what may happen when either of those trends turns around.”

Bernanke acknowledges the risks, but doesn’t sound overly worried: “So far we are seeing, at worst, an orderly decline in the housing market; but there is still, I think, a lot to be seen as to whether the housing market will decline slowly or more quickly. As I noted last time, some correction in this market is a healthy thing, and our goal should not be to try to prevent that correction but rather to ensure that the correction does not overly influence growth in the rest of the economy.”

JUNE 28-29: In summarizing Fed officials’ views, Bernanke notes how it’s getting more and more difficult to make forecasts, describing the economic situation as “exceptionally complicated.” Since housing is particularly hard to project, Bernanke calls it “an important risk and one that should lead us to be cautious in our policy decisions.”

The Fed raises interest rates to 5.25% from 5% at this meeting, the 17th increase in a row. But for the first time since it began raising rates from a low of 1% in June 2004, the Fed doesn’t explicitly say another rate increase was under consideration.

AUG. 8: Bernanke reminds his colleagues that the Fed has not been “terribly successful with soft landings” in the economy. Then he adds: “We have a chance to get one.” Janet Yellen, the Fed vice chairwoman who headed the San Francisco Fed in 2006, appears to be the most concerned about housing, warning that the housing slowdown could become an “unwelcome housing slump.” The central bank leaves rates unchanged at this meeting after two years of steady increases. Geithner wants to cite housing weakness as a factor, but the majority is against that.

SEP. 20: The Fed cites housing and energy declines in holding interest rates steady. However, chief economist Stockton says that the economy “bends but doesn’t break” under one Fed forecasting scenario of a housing slump. “So far the collateral damage from the downturn in housing has been limited, and for the most part, we expect it to remain that way, at least for a time,” he says. Bernanke notes there’s a split on how housing is viewed at the Fed, with some expecting a deep correction while others believe incomes and rates will support housing. Here’s how he sums it up: “the economy except for housing and autos is still pretty strong, and we do not yet see any significant spillover from housing.”

OCT. 24-25: Fed officials spend most of the meeting talking about how to improve their communication with the public, a topic still obsessing them that will be the focus of the upcoming FOMC meeting this month. Officials are mired in an extensive debate about the words employed in the policy statement. They also devote significant time to airing views on whether the central bank should adopt an inflation target, a matter still unresolved to this very day.

The market’s long struggle to divine meaning from certain words is mirrored inside the Fed. Officials struggle to choose the right words to associate with their economic views. Geithner flags the “dictionary” issues before them, amid a conversation about what a word like “moderate” might mean when applied to the FOMC’s expectations of growth. He asks, “have we used that phrase in the recent past in a way that would allow the reasonably informed outside person to interpret it that way?” That leads to Vincent Reinhart, who was then an FOMC monetary policy advisor, to say “I don’t know.”

DEC. 12: The meeting that closes out the year sees policymakers showing little rising awareness of the storm coming their way. Indeed, much of the conversation officials have was about employment and inflation. Some of the evidence of rising weakness in housing was seen largely as a correction for past excess, rather than the genesis of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Boston Fed boss Cathy Minehan then observes her district was seeing a slowdown in housing, but she saw no great concern in this development. The Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker notes a mixed housing picture: he doesn’t see any great catastrophe coming the sector’s way. Cleveland Fed leader Sandra Pianalto flags some borrowers’ increased difficulty in getting mortgages in her region. Then Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohn says rising inventories in manufacturing was “a bit more troubling” than the cooling in housing activity he’d seen.

Fed Governor Bies once again looks ahead of the curve. She says “the amount of leverage in each housing deal may still need some correction going forward, and so we may see some slowdown in the volume of dollars that are funded through mortgage lending.” She also says that in markets there is a realization “that a lot of the private mortgages that have been securitized during the past few years really do have much more risk than the investors have been focusing on.”

Bernanke fails to see any major problem brewing in housing based on his comments in the transcripts, once again predicting a “soft landing” for the economy.

Speaking only as a humble civilian my sense of things is that these things have always happened, that we do them far, far less than others, and the new technologies make covering them up harder and give them mass dissemination in an instant.  Who amongst the greater public knows that Abu Graib was expossed through internal Army procedures and released to the press by the Pentagon?

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The Pakistani military issued a press release Wednesday criticizing remarks that Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani made to China’s People’s Daily Online. Pakistan’s Supreme Court is probing allegations that the civilian government sent a memo seeking U.S. assistance to reverse the military’s domination over the state. In an interview with the newspaper, Gilani had said the chief of the country’s army, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, and the head of the country’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, acted unconstitutionally in statements they submitted to the court. The statement from the military’s public relations directorate warned that Gilani’s comments to the Chinese newspaper entailed “very serious ramifications with potentially grievous consequences for the country.”

On the same day, Gilani fired the Defense Ministry’s senior-most bureaucrat -- a retired three-star general with close ties to military leadership -- accusing him of “gross misconduct” and illegal action.

These two events, the latest in a standoff between the country’s civilian and military leaders that began when the memo controversy surfaced last October, are being read internationally as signs that the military is working once again to force a civilian government out of office. Since Pakistan’s first coup in 1958 -- a mere 11 years after independence -- three more have followed, in 1969, 1977 and 1999, and have ushered in long periods of military rule. Even during the longest period of civilian rule, from 1988 to 1997, the security establishment constitutionally ousted three elected governments, in 1990, 1993 and 1996.

Considering that history, it is not unusual that the military would try to get rid of the current government. That said, much has changed since the last coup, which brought former Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to power a little more than 12 years ago. Since that time, it has been difficult for the military to dispose of a government it does not like. The proliferation of private media and rise of civil society during Musharraf’s rule, the popular uprising that helped bring about the military dictator’s fall from power, and the judiciary’s emergence as a power center have greatly complicated matters for Pakistan’s military-intelligence complex.

The current military leadership knows that present domestic and international circumstances make a classic coup unviable. And at any rate, the military does not wish to seize power and with it inherit the responsibility for addressing the social, economic and security issues plaguing the country. The military would much rather see the government ousted through constitutional means.

The constitutional option is also not presently viable. In the past, the military would align with the presidency and opposition parties in parliament to counter the government. But Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari leads the ruling Pakistan People’s Party. And while opposition parties in parliament would like to reap the benefits of a weakened ruling party, they are unwilling to see the army gain the upper hand.

That leaves the Supreme Court, which has taken a clear stance against the civilian administration and is pressing the president and others in the government on corruption charges.

However, even a Supreme Court ruling against it would not necessarily bring about the government’s ouster. For that to happen, parliament needs to vote down both the prime minister and the president -- and the arithmetic of such a theoretical vote right now favors the ruling party. So even as it retains a great deal of power, the military cannot oust governments as easily as it has done in the past.

Even if the government is forced to call early elections and is unable to complete the term set to expire in about a year, a shift in the civil-military power dynamic is undeniably in the making in Pakistan. Given the historical trend, the military will not become subordinate to civilians anytime soon -- while the country’s political parties have yet to demonstrate they are a coherent lot capable of effective governance. That said, the military’s ability to dominate the polity is no longer what it once was.

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"Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it." --John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

Somehow I missed that one Andrew

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/romney-delivers-victory-speech-unlike-obama-i-will-never-apologize-for-the-greatest-nation-in-the-history-of-the-earth/

European financial markets have gotten very strange. Greece's one-year government bond yield hit 376% yesterday, while Germany, Switzerland and the U.K. sold short-term debt this week at yields below 0%. That means investors are effectively paying the latter governments for the privilege of lending to them. Reuters also reported Monday that blue-chip firms like Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer are lending to struggling European banks, turning the usual creditor-debtor relationship on its head.

At this point, flying saucers over the Eiffel Tower or the Colosseum in Rome wouldn't surprise anyone.

There's a serious point here. The longer Europe's crisis lumbers on, the more distortions it creates in credit markets across Europe, not merely in the distressed South. The big uncertainties—will the euro zone break up? will the European Central Bank step in?—are causing capital to flee troubled markets for safer shores. But in the financial world, a flight to safety is a clear warning sign for both the trouble spots and the safe havens.

Take those negative sovereign yields. The governments that sell debt at below-zero rates get to borrow on hugely favorable terms. Germany joined the negative-yield club on Monday, but the Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland and the U.K. have all seen their borrowing costs dip below zero at various points in the past few months.

The more important implication is that investors are so risk-averse that they'd rather lose a little money keeping funds with a reasonably solvent national treasury than potentially lose much more in private markets. Consider the calculation from the buyer's perspective: When yields are negative, bondholders can only make a capital gain if yields drop even further below zero.

That should have policy makers in Berlin and London quaking in their boots, not celebrating the good performance (at least by comparison) that has caused them to be perceived as safe. When yields on Japanese government bills turned negative in 1998, the radical pessimism it suggested soon proved to presage a broader economic downturn.

As for Europe's banks, the fact that they are taking loans from their clients is only one sign of their plight. Before Christmas, the ECB offered banks hundreds of billions in cheap three-year loans, but evidence since then suggests that lenders are turning around and parking that cash right back at the central bank. Banks still aren't comfortable lending to each other, and the ECB can only pick up the slack for so long.

That means it's still up to the politicians to heed the now almost-Biblical warning signs. (Plague of locusts, anyone?) Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy met in Berlin on Monday. They took their first announcement of the year as an opportunity for more sweeping promises about Europe's new fiscal pact, which will almost certainly include a tax on financial transactions among other "decisive" measures. It is time for Europe's leaders to act more like leaders and less like politicians moving step by step and going nowhere.

Conrad and Summerlin both have more than a passing interest in drawing.

Sounds like I should look for this book.

About the best that can be said about the Republican attacks on Mitt Romney's record at Bain Capital is that President Obama is going to do the same thing eventually, so GOP primary voters might as well know what's coming. Yet that hardly absolves Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and others for their crude and damaging caricatures of modern business and capitalism.

Bain's business model is little more than "rich people figuring out clever legal ways to loot a company," says Mr. Gingrich, whose previous insights into free enterprise include years of defending the taxpayer-fed business of corn ethanol.

A super PAC supporting the former House Speaker plans to spend $3.4 million in TV ads in South Carolina portraying Mr. Romney as Gordon Gekko without the social conscience. The financing for these ads will come from a billionaire who made his money in the casino business, which Mr. Gingrich apparently considers morally superior to investing in companies in the hope of making a profit.

Mr. Perry, who has no problem using taxpayer financing to back his political allies in Texas, chimes in that "I have no doubt that Mitt Romney was worried about pink slips, whether he was going to have enough of them to hand out. Because his company Bain Capital, with all the jobs that they killed, I'm sure he was worried he'd run out of pink slips."

Politics isn't subtle, and these candidates are desperate, but do they have to sound like Michael Moore?

***
We have our policy differences with Mr. Romney, but by any reasonable measure Bain Capital has been a net job and wealth creator. Founded in 1984 as an offshoot of the Bain consulting company, Bain Capital's business is a combination of private equity and venture capital. The latter means taking a flyer on start-ups that may or may not pan out, something that neither Mr. Gingrich nor Mr. Obama seem to find offensive when those investments are made by Silicon Valley firms in "clean energy."

One Bain investment during Mr. Romney's tenure was to back an entrepreneur named Tom Stemberg, who was convinced he could provide savings for small-business owners if they were willing to shop at a store instead of taking deliveries. Today, the Staples chain of business-supply stores employs 90,000 people.

Bain also backed a start-up called Bright Horizons that now manages child-care centers for more than 700 corporate clients around the world. Many other venture bets failed, but that's capitalism, which is supposed to be a profit and loss system.

Enlarge Image

CloseBoston Globe via Getty Images
 
Mitt Romney at Bain's offices in Copley Plaza in 1990.
.The loss part is what seems to trouble the Gingrich-Perry-Obama critics, especially in Bain's private-equity business. Like some 2,300 other such U.S. equity firms, Bain looks to buy companies that are underperforming or undervalued and turn them around.

Far from "looting," this is a vital contribution to capitalism and corporate governance. One of the persistent gripes of the left is that too many CEOs make too much money even as their companies flounder. Private-equity firms target such companies or subsidiaries, replace their management, and try to unlock the underlying value in the enterprise.

Private equity helps to promote dynamic capitalism that creates wealth, rather than dinosaur capitalism of the kind that prevails in Europe and futilely tries to prevent failure. Sometimes this means closing parts of the company and laying off employees, but the overriding goal is to create value, not destroy it.

A Wall Street Journal news story this week reported that Bain in the Romney era differed from many equity firms in buying more young and thus riskier companies. This contributed to a higher rate of bankruptcy or closure—22%—for companies held by Bain after eight years.

Bain disputes the Journal's calculations, but one test of overall success is whether investors keep entrusting a firm with their money. Mr. Romney and his colleagues raised $37 million for their first fund in 1984. Today, Bain Capital manages roughly $66 billion. Its investors include college endowments and public pension funds that have increased their investments in private equity to get larger returns than stocks and bonds provide. The people who benefit from those returns thus include average workers.

Bain's turnaround hits include Sports Authority and tech-research outfit Gartner Inc., which was once a small division of an advertising firm and is now a public company worth more than $3 billion. Another success was Steel Dynamics, which used Bain money to build a new steel factory and now employs 6,000 people.

The tougher questions for Mr. Romney involve the cases in which Bain took early payouts in dividends and management fees after purchasing existing businesses that ultimately went bankrupt. There are several in this category, including another steel company called GSI, though its hundreds of job losses were far fewer than the jobs created at Steel Dynamics.

The medical-equipment maker once known as Dade International is now much larger than it was when Bain bought it in the 1990s. But Mr. Romney's company later sold its stake, and heavy debts taken on during the Bain years forced Dade to spend two months in bankruptcy in 2002 and cost 2,000 jobs. The company later resumed its rapid growth, and Siemens bought it in 2007 for $7 billion.

Certainly Bain Capital made sure that its investment partners were paid first, but the larger truth is that the invisible hand worked pretty well. Notice that because the overall job statistics for Bain investments are by all accounts positive, many critics attack the Romney record with claims about private equity in general. The left is cheering a study commissioned by the Census Bureau that found that companies bought by private-equity firms suffer more job losses soon after a buy-out than similar firms that didn't experience buy-outs.

But this is hardly surprising since the companies were acquired in part because they were underperforming. The critics also don't mention that the Census study found that firms acquired in private-equity transactions created more new jobs in the ensuing decade. Imagine what might have happened if Chrysler or GM had been bought by private equity two or three decades ago. They might have been turned around much earlier, at far less pain to fewer workers, and without any taxpayer cost.

***
The larger political point is that Mr. Romney has a good story to tell if he is willing to elevate this ugly rumble into a debate over free enterprise and America's future. This is not Mr. Romney's strength, as he prefers to talk in personal terms ("I'm an optimist!") or to lapse into his default mode as the corporate technocrat. This invites personal attacks in return and it leads him into mistakes like this week's gaffe that "I like being able to fire people who provide me services."

Mr. Romney needs to rise above the personal and base his claim to office on a defense of the system of free enterprise that has enriched America over the decades and is now under assault. Mr. Obama will attack Mr. Romney as Gordon Gekko because the President can't win by touting his own economic record. Mr. Romney's GOP opponents (with the admirable exception of Rick Santorum) are embarrassing themselves by taking the Obama line, but Mr. Romney should view this as an opportunity to stake his campaign on something larger and far more important than his own business expertise.

An assailant on a motorcycle attached magnetic bombs on Wednesday to the car of an Iranian university professor specializing in petroleum, killing him and wounding two others, an Iranian semiofficial news agency reported.

The attack closely resembled earlier attacks on scientists allegedly connected to Tehran's controversial nuclear program.

The killing of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was similar to previous apparent assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists that Tehran has blamed on Israel and the United States. Both countries have denied the accusations.

Mr. Roshan, 32, was inside the Iranian-assembled Peugeot 405 car together with two others when the bomb exploded near Gol Nabi Street in north Tehran, Fars reported. It wasn't immediately clear if Mr. Ahmadi was involved in Iran's nuclear program.

Fars described the explosion as a "terrorist attack" targeting Roshan, a graduate of the prestigious Sharif University of Technology in Tehran.

A similar bomb explosion on Jan. 12, 2010, killed Tehran University professor Masoud Ali Mohammadi, a senior physics professor. He was killed when a bomb-rigged motorcycle exploded near his car as he was about to leave for work.

In November 2010, a pair of back-to-back bomb attacks in different parts of the capital killed one nuclear scientist and wounded another. The slain scientist, Majid Shahriari, was a member of the nuclear-engineering faculty at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran and cooperated with the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. The wounded scientist, Fereidoun Abbasi, was appointed head of Iran's atomic agency.

The United States and other countries say Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons technology. Iran denies the allegations, saying that its program is intended for peaceful purposes

A good read for a smart 12 year old boy?

http://www.notechmagazine.com/2011/1...liticians.html


Castration Might Bring Us Better Politicians

"The major role of the eunuch in ancient societies was a political one. Eunuchs were the perfect guardians of harems and provided safe companions and secretaries for royal ladies. They could also be entrusted with the very highest offices of state with no fear that they would want to muscle in and start their own dynasties. Less susceptible than other men to corruption and persuasion by sexual means, they were the ideal politicians and civil servants. Their reputations could not be sullied by the accusations of rape, paternity suits and other scandals that so often blight the careers of public figures."

"The first civilization deliberately to select eunuchs as officers of state was the Assyrian Empire, which dominated the Near East during the early first millenium BC. The practice was continued by its successors, including the Persian Empire, founded by Cyrus the Great (559-529 BC) who, according to the Greek writer Xenophon, 'selected eunuchs for every post of personal service to him, from the doorkeepers up'. Eunuchs were becoming powerful in China during the same period. They were especially influential under the Han Dynasty (202 BC - 220 AD), when some held tremendous power simply because of their looks, and it was normal for emperors to have as many male favorites as the recommended magical number of wives. But most were of the professional variety, trained for a career in government."

"The Roman civil service also employed eunuchs, despite the bans on castration imposed by various emperors. And, although the custom was condemned by the Church, the zenith of 'eunuch power' in the Roman world actually came after it was Christianized, under the Eastern Roman (Byzantyne) Empire, which ruled from Constantinople (Istanbul) between AD 395 and 1453. Thousands of young men entered public service by being castrated, providing the empire with some of its most distinguished state secretaries, generals and even Church leaders."

I want to see that!

At the complete other end of the spectrum is Martin Scorcese's "Hugo" to which we took our children this past weekend.  Slow, thoughtful, no chase scenes, no cute smartass children, and ultimately quite powerful.  Recommended!

WILL BAIN DERAIL ROMNEY?
By DICK MORRIS
Published on DickMorris.com on January 10, 2012

Printer-Friendly Version
The short answer is: No!  People, particularly Republicans, understand the difference between capitalism and safety-net socialism.  They are even savvy enough to have heard of Schumpeter's doctrine of the "gales of creative destruction" that blow through our economy. They grasp that if we save everyone's job and everyone's pension and everyone's company, we will become so ossified, so indebted, so burdened that we will never be able to create any new jobs or wealth.
 
They get it that to attract capital to turn around ailing companies, you need either to have a very good lobbyist who makes mega campaign contributions or a good enough return on capital to attract private investors.  Obama is trying the first way.  Romney did the second.  Republicans get this.
 
They also understand that Romney was scarcely a "predator" as Rick Tyler, spokesman for the new anti-Romney movie, describes him.  Critics zero in on GS Technologies, a steel company that, like more than forty others, went bankrupt in the late 90s or the early years of the new century.  Was Romney a "predator?" Was Bain Capital?  What predator would make an initial investment of $8 million and then up its investment to $16 million in an effort to turn the failing company around?  What "predator" would merge the company with a stronger one in an effort to preserve it in a highly competitive global marketplace?
 
Was Romney a "predator" when GS went bankrupt in 2001?  He had left Bain in 1999.  The decision to deny the GS workers their pensions and health benefits was Bain's, not Romney's.  He was out of the picture by then.
 
And what of the more than one hundred thousand people who have jobs and pensions and health insurance because of Romney's work at Bain Capital?  What of the winners and the survivors who far outnumbered the losers during Romney's Bain Capital years?
 
For Republicans to be attacking a Republican for winning in the free market and for turning companies around so they make a profit (without public subsidy) is a sad sight.  They will come to rue their criticisms.  Bain will not become the bane of Romney's existence!

By DAVID BRADY
AND DOUGLAS RIVERS
More Americans now call themselves independents than Democrats or Republicans, and New Hampshire, the site of Tuesday's GOP primary, is no different. About 40% of Granite State voters are not registered in either major political party, and our best estimate is that the share of independents nationally has grown to 42% from 35% over the past three years. That 7% of the electorate is big enough to have changed the outcome of any of the last five presidential elections—and this is not necessarily good news for the GOP.

Barack Obama carried independents by an eight-point margin in the 2008 exit poll—and Republicans carried them by a 19-point margin in the 2010 midterms. Thus GOP candidates may be tempted to believe the independents' disaffection with the president that cost Democrats control of the House will lead inexorably to a Republican presidential victory this year.

 Paul Gigot on Rick Santorum's economic plan and what to expect out of New Hampshire on Tuesday.
.Not so fast. In the first place, Republicans benefited from a low Democratic midterm turnout. According to exit polls, there were about equal numbers of Democratic and Republican voters in the midterm, unlike 2008 when Democratic voters outnumbered Republicans by seven percentage points (39% to 32%). Republicans can't count on a low Democratic turnout in 2012 and there are still more registered Democrats than Republicans. To win in 2012, it's good enough for Democrats to split the independent vote. Republicans need to carry a clear majority. And there are significant policy disagreements between independents and the Republican base.

Take, for example, a YouGov survey conducted on Dec. 22. After the economy (which all voters said was their No. 1 concern), the next most important issues for Democrats are Social Security, Medicare and the environment. For each, their preference is for the federal government to do more. For Republicans, the next most important issues are the budget deficit, taxes and immigration and, for the first two, they want the federal government to do less.

Independents, on the other hand, say that health care and education are more important. They tend to worry about what the federal government does in each area, but unlike the Republican base they are not opposed in principle to federal action.

On ObamaCare, for example, independents oppose repeal 40%-33% while Republicans favor 62%-23% and Democrats oppose 46%-27%, according to a Nov. 12 YouGov survey. And in an Oct. 29 YouGov survey, independents opposed cutting federal education spending 56%-20% while Republicans favored reductions 39%-29%. Democrats opposed cutting spending 67%-8%.

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Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, right, speaks during a campaign stop on January 9 in Hudson, New Hampshire.
.Independents are usually closer to Republicans than Democrats on the general issue of the size of government and government spending. In a Nov. 22 YouGov poll, 76% of independents favored decreasing federal spending and almost half would include entitlements within these cuts.

On the other hand, they are closer to Democrats on raising taxes: 36% of independents favored increasing taxes across the board versus 43% of Democrats and 7% of Republicans.

Moreover, a Sept. 27 YouGov poll revealed overwhelming support for raising taxes on the wealthy: 55% of independents favored raising taxes on families earning over $250,000 (versus 43% of Democrats and 7% of Republicans), and 72% of independents favored raising taxes on families earning more than $1 million (versus 88% of Democrats and 46% of Republicans).

Among the leading Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney has consistently done the best among independents nationally. He normally splits the independent vote with President Obama (38% to 38% in the Dec. 22 YouGov poll), while Newt Gringrich trails among independents by 13 points. But to win, Mr. Romney would have to do better than split the independent vote.

Neither President Obama nor the eventual Republican nominee has the independent vote locked up. How the candidates explain their plans to get the economy moving, and the crucial trade-offs among deficits, jobs and the safety net will determine how the crucial independent vote goes in the 2012 election. Preaching to the choir of Republican primary and caucus voters may well be necessary to win the nomination. But independents hold the key in November 2012.

Mr. Brady is deputy director of the Hoover Institution and a professor in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. Mr. Rivers is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor of political science at Stanford. He is also chairman of YouGov America, a survey and research company.

A funny thing happened on the way to the New Hampshire primary: ABC moderator George Stephanopoulos embarrassed himself on national television with questions plainly intended to embarrass the Republican candidates. Therein lies a lesson.

On Saturday night, Mr. Stephanopoulos stepped outside the role of honest interlocutor when he pursued Mitt Romney with the issue on nobody's lips or legislative agenda: whether states have the right to ban contraception. Likewise, fellow moderator Diane Sawyer, who asked Republicans what they would say, "sitting in their living rooms," to a gay couple.

As the audience appreciated—they booed after Mr. Stephanopolous's sixth follow-up—these questions were designed less to illuminate than to paint Republicans as people who hate gays and are so crazy they might just ban contraception if elected.

For conservatives, this is nothing new. Conservatives are used to a world where the referees often seem to be playing for the other team. In this case, however, the responses from the candidates were revealing.

Rick Santorum essentially answered directly, opposing the Supreme Court's definition of privacy and defending traditional marriage. On the question about gays, Newt Gingrich called marriage between a man and a woman a defining part of our civilization. He then turned the question back on Ms. Sawyer, wondering why the press never asks about how same-sex marriage is driving the Catholic Church out of the adoption business. As for state bans on contraception, Mr. Romney noted that no state was in fact proposing to do so, "and asking me whether they could do it or not is kind of a silly thing."

If this were an academic exercise, Mr. Santorum might score highest. Even those who disagree with him would concede that his answers were on point. He knows what he believes and why, and he does not run away when asked to defend the hard position.

Mr. Gingrich's answer showed why he remains popular among many Republican quarters despite his considerable baggage. Unlike those who strike conservative voters as too polite or deferential to lordly media figures, Mr. Gingrich calls bias by its name. And he was right to point out that there are serious consequences (such as adoption) to the legalization of same-sex marriage that the news media mostly choose to ignore.

Nevertheless, Mr. Romney trumped. He didn't shy away from the substance, confirming that he favors repeal of Roe v. Wade and explaining the constitutional way to oppose court decisions when you believe one has been wrongly decided. But when he dismissed the whole line of questioning as "silly," he made Mr. Stephanopoulos look ridiculous.

That's something to remember going forward. Yes, it's unfair that Democratic candidates such as President Obama can count on the media to amplify their biases against Republicans.

Bias, however, is a fact of American political life. Merely complaining about it doesn't move the ball.

No one appreciated this more than Ronald Reagan. Today we remember the Gipper as a popular and beloved American figure. That's not the way he was presented to the American public when he was running against Jimmy Carter in 1980. Back then, Mr. Reagan was cast as a divisive, Neanderthal warmonger itching to push the nuclear button.

President Carter played to this image. A "MacNeil/Lehrer Report" after the single presidential debate that year noted that Mr. Carter had used the word "dangerous" six times. Another observer added that the president had also called Reagan "heartless," "insensitive," "misleading," "disturbing" and "irresponsible."

Mr. Reagan didn't let it get to him. When Mr. Carter implied Mr. Reagan was against Medicare because he opposed all efforts to help provide decent health care for American citizens, Mr. Reagan smiled and shook his head. Then he issued four devastating words that have now entered the political lexicon: "There you go again."

There's a good lesson here. Whatever else we know about 2012, we know we will have many more Stephanopoulos moments ahead. Though it might be more satisfying to thunder against the injustice, there are other, possibly more effective ways to expose the bias.

On the social issues especially, the media narrative is that Republicans are obsessed. The truth is that at a time when millions of Americans can't find work, when our Middle East policy is in turmoil, when the future of Mr. Obama's signature legislative achievement—health care—is in question, every Republican in the running is itching for the opportunity to talk about how he would address these things.

In sharp contrast, it was Mr. Stephanopoulos and Ms. Sawyer who showed themselves consumed with nonexistent initiatives on contraception and what you might say to gay friends who are sitting in your living room. Saturday night on ABC, we saw this bias in its full, condescending form.

We also saw something less well appreciated: that a Republican candidate can turn it to his advantage.

Pravda on the Hudson seeks to guide us to the "proper" conclusions , , ,  

=================================================

MANCHESTER, N.H. — For weeks this winter, as Newt Gingrich’s presidential hopes faltered under the weight of millions of dollars in attack ads paid for by backers of Mitt Romney, a small group of Gingrich supporters quietly lobbied for help from one of the richest men in America: Sheldon Adelson, a billionaire casino owner and Mr. Gingrich’s longtime friend and patron.
Mr. Romney’s supporters were also calling, imploring Mr. Adelson to stay out of the race.
By the time Mr. Gingrich limped into New Hampshire, some of his top backers had given up on Mr. Adelson and begun prospecting elsewhere, including among erstwhile supporters of Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, to finance a counterattack.
But on Friday, the cavalry arrived: a $5 million check from Mr. Adelson to Winning Our Future, a “super PAC” that supports Mr. Gingrich. By Monday morning, the group had reserved more than $3.4 million in advertising time in South Carolina, a huge sum in a state where the airwaves come cheap and the primary is 11 days away. The group is planning to air portions of a movie critical of Mr. Romney’s time at Bain Capital, the private equity firm he helped found.
The last-minute injection underscores how last year’s landmark Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance has made it possible for a wealthy individual to influence an election. Mr. Adelson’s contribution to the super PAC is 1,000 times the $5,000 he could legally give directly to Mr. Gingrich’s campaign this year.
Several people with knowledge of Mr. Adelson’s decision to donate to Winning Our Future said that it was born out of a two-decade friendship with Mr. Gingrich, his advocacy on behalf of Israel and his turbulent months as a presidential candidate.
“His friend needed his help,” said a close associate of both men, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid drawing Mr. Adelson’s ire. “It’s more than anything else a loyalty thing. And he believes strongly in his platform and in Newt’s candidacy.”
Ron Reese, a spokesman for Mr. Adelson, declined to comment for this article.
At a stop in New Hampshire on Monday, Mr. Gingrich, who complained bitterly about the wealthy Romney supporters who helped send him to a fifth-place finish in Iowa, said Mr. Adelson was operating on his own.
“If he wants to counterbalance Romney’s millionaires,” Mr. Gingrich said, “I have no objection to him counterbalancing Romney’s millionaires.”
But for Mr. Gingrich, the donation could be both boon and burden: Mr. Adelson comes with potential liabilities. His main source of income, casinos, could upset some social conservatives. That he operates in China could rankle isolationist voters, while some of his views on Israel are hawkish by mainstream Republican standards.
Mr. Adelson’s company, Las Vegas Sands, also faces a federal investigation for possible violations of a federal antibribery law, relating to operations in the Chinese gambling district of Macau, the company acknowledged last year. The company has said the investigation stems from the allegations of a disgruntled former employee.
The aid is also likely to intensify public scrutiny of Mr. Adelson, 78, who has invested millions of dollars in conservative causes over the years but prefers to keep his political activities private.
The relationship between Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Adelson dates to the mid-1990s and first centered on their common animosity for labor unions.
Mr. Adelson was building his newest resort casino, the Venetian, and became embroiled in a battle with a local culinary union trying to organize his employees. The conflict soured further when Mr. Adelson helped finance a campaign in Nevada to pass legislation curtailing the ability of labor unions to automatically deduct money from members to finance political activities.
Aides to Mr. Adelson turned to Mr. Gingrich — known for his criticism of labor unions — for advice, said George Harris, who worked for Mr. Adelson at the time. Aides to Mr. Gingrich, then the House speaker, helped Mr. Adelson hone his antiunion pitch, and Mr. Gingrich was invited to Las Vegas to speak and be honored with a fund-raiser.
Mr. Gingrich endorsed the Nevada legislation. He also backed other legislation in 1998 to preserve tax deductions beneficial to the industry.
“They hit it off immediately,” Mr. Harris recalled Monday, explaining that he helped broker the introduction. “They became friends, pals, as they had a great deal in common.”
Mr. Adelson became one of Mr. Gingrich’s most important patrons, donating $7 million to a political committee founded by Mr. Gingrich in 2006, American Solutions, whose direct-mail lists and advocacy of Social Security privatization and greater oil exploration were critical building blocks to Mr. Gingrich’s presidential campaign.
Mr. Adelson allowed Mr. Gingrich the use of his personal aircraft, and the two occasionally met for meals and spoke often by phone, a former aide to Mr. Adelson said.
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But the two shared views about much more than domestic issues. Both men have long been staunch American allies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. Mr. Adelson owns a free daily newspaper in Israel that is credited with helping Mr. Netanyahu return to power in 2009.
In May 2010, the cover of a special section of the paper featured a full-page photograph of Mr. Gingrich in front of an American flag, with Mr. Gingrich criticizing the Obama administration for not moving more aggressively against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
“Evading the confrontation with evil may bring a second Holocaust,” Mr. Gingrich wrote in the article. “The mistakes made by the White House will exact a terrible price.”
This willingness to publicly criticize American policy toward Israel — during the Bush and Obama administrations — has distinguished Mr. Gingrich from his Republican rivals, said Daniel C. Kurtzer, a former ambassador to Israel under President George W. Bush. Those views often echoed Mr. Adelson’s.
Early on, Mr. Adelson was expected to play a central role on Mr. Gingrich’s campaign, perhaps as finance chairman. But in June, the campaign seemed to implode, with the resignations of his campaign manager and a half-dozen senior advisers.
Within days, though, Mr. Gingrich rebooted his campaign, speaking at a fund-raiser for the Republican Jewish Coalition, where Mr. Adelson sits on the board.
In December, Becky Burkett, the former chief fund-raiser for American Solutions, formed Winning Our Future. Mr. Tyler came aboard as a senior adviser. Rumors soon floated that Mr. Adelson would give the group as much as $20 million — but were quickly denied by Mr. Adelson.
In the days before the Iowa caucuses, as Mr. Gingrich’s poll numbers fell under a withering assault from Restore Our Future, a super PAC backing Mr. Romney, supporters of other Republican candidates said they urged Mr. Adelson to hold back or even endorse a different candidate
People close to the men disagreed on whether Mr. Adelson always intended to support Mr. Gingrich or only came around in recent days, as his supporters came to believe that only a major infusion of money could salvage the campaign.
But when Mr. Gingrich declared in a December interview that Palestinians are an “invented” people — meaning they had no historical claim to have their own state and that they remain committed to destroying Israel — it inspired a new round of enthusiasm for him among many conservative American Jews.
“Not many others are willing to say that, but it is a tragic truth,” said Morton A. Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America
Mr. Adelson echoed Mr. Gingrich’s comments within days in an interview with Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper.
“Read the history of those who call themselves Palestinians, and you will hear why Gingrich said recently that the Palestinians are an invented people,” Mr. Adelson said.
Fred Zeidman, a Texas energy executive who is another prominent Jewish political contributor and a supporter of Mr. Romney, said he was among those who called Mr. Adelson, and they talked about why he was still backing Mr. Gingrich.
“As long as Newt is in the race, we are going to be with Newt,” Mr. Adelson replied, according to Mr. Zeidman, in a conversation they had in December. “We can’t abandon him now.”

Following up on my post of last night:

Political junkie that I am while I was searching for the Sunday morning debate I ran across Newt in a NH townhall meeting.

In my opinion, NONE of the candidates come close to the level that this man operates at.

He told a story of the his time with President Reagan based upon a riff of "Lions don't hunt chipmunks, they hunt zebras and antelopes" with the idea that a lion hunting chipmunks would starve-- this being a metaphor for choosing a few big themes and not sweating the smaller issues.  Hard to convey with my words here, but it was very effective.  As he built the theme and worked with it the audience, my son, and I sat in close attention.

Romney, Huntsman Stonewall Gun Owners

As New Hampshire voters get set to head to the polls, Mitt and Jon Huntsman continue to ignore requests from gun owners that he return the GOA candidate questionnaire.
 
Thank to your efforts, we’ve heard from most of the Republican candidates, including Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul. But Romney and Huntsman continue to turn a deaf ear to the Second Amendment community.
 
Romney’s stonewalling is no surprise. After all, he is on record supporting a semi-auto ban and waiting periods for gun purchases. Still, he has the audacity to travel around the country claiming to be a supporter of the Second Amendment.
 
If he truly has “changed his spots,” then why not commit in writing to support specific Second Amendment issues?
 
For instance, would he veto a semi-auto ban, something he signed into law as Governor of Massachusetts? Will he reverse the Obama administration’s support of the massive UN small arms treaty? And what about executive orders, gun owner registration, and a host of other issues important to gun owners?
 
Jon Huntsman views on gun rights are largely unknown, but as the former Utah governor creeps up in the polls in New Hampshire, gun owners are becoming increasingly interested in his positions.
 
Huntsman said over the summer that he would “absolutely veto” a semi-auto ban, but he has not elaborated further.
 
There are some 100 million gun owners in America. It is outrageous for ANY candidate for elected office to ignore this vast segment of the population.
 
ACTION: Please contact the Romney and Huntsman campaigns and urge them to complete the GOA candidate questionnaire.
 
Romney campaign contact info
 
Email: info@mittromney.com
 
Phone: (857) 288-3500
 
Huntsman campaign contact info
 
Webform: http://jon2012.com/contact
 
Phone: (603) 836-5643

Anwar found not guilty 

By BOB DAVIS, WAYNE MA and JEREMY PAGE
BEIJING—U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is likely to get a skeptical hearing in Beijing on Tuesday and Wednesday as he presses leaders to reduce purchases of Iranian oil and explains tough new U.S. sanctions rules meant to hobble Iran's financial sector.

Chinese officials are wary about cutting off a major source of supply, as are their counterparts in Tokyo, which Mr. Geithner will visit after Beijing. In China's case, the issue is also overlaid with nationalist politics. It doesn't want to be seen as succumbing to increased U.S. pressure to punish another nation, particularly when the latest effort was driven by the U.S. Congress, not a new United Nations agreement.

Indeed, if the European Union goes through with plans to cut off oil imports from Iran, and China were one of its few big buyers left, Beijing could find itself in a strong position to wring commercial concessions from Iran on a series of oil-industry contract disputes. The U.S. and Europe have been trying to press Iran to scrap a nuclear-weapons program; Iran says it isn't developing such weapons.

"To the U.S., the Chinese will be passive-aggressive," says Patrick Chovanec, a business professor at Beijing's Tsinghua University. "They won't tell the U.S. they're not going along, but implicitly it will be 'You don't tell us what to do.' "

Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai bluntly dismissed the new U.S. sanctions effort. "These issues cannot be resolved through sanctions," he said at a media briefing on Monday. "Negotiations are also needed to solve the issue."

President Barack Obama recently signed into law a measure he initially opposed that would bar from U.S. financial markets foreign financial institutions that do business with Iran's central bank, which plays a critical role in facilitating trade with Iran. One way for a nation to get an exemption is to show a "significant reduction" in Iranian oil imports. The law would increase pressure on Chinese financial institutions that finance Chinese business deals in Iran.

The administration says it won changes in the legislation before it became law to give it more flexibility. "We encourage everyone that trades with Iran to significantly reduce their oil imports," said a Treasury official.

U.S. officials say China has been abiding by the requirements of U.N.-approved sanctions, but they have been trying to encourage Beijing to go further by—among other things—instructing Chinese banks not to deal with any Iranian counterparts engaged in the country's weapons program.

Even before the new law, Washington believed that China's largest banks were becoming increasingly cooperative with U.S. sanctions efforts. But Washington is still concerned that Iran is seeking new "access points" to international finance through smaller banks in Hong Kong and mainland China.

In September, David Cohen, the undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, visited China and Hong Kong to persuade local officials and bankers to help strengthen the sanctions against Iran and North Korea. Since then other U.S. officials have had discussions on sanctions with Chinese oil companies and Chinese government agencies.

In 2011 through Nov. 30, China's oil imports from Iran rose roughly 30% from the year-ago period. China imports about 11% of its crude oil from Iran, making Iran its No. 3 supplier after Saudi Arabia and Angola.

Since December, though, exports have begun to fall compared to a year earlier. Industry analysts doubt that's the result of U.S. pressure. Rather, negotiations between China United Petroleum & Chemicals Co, known as Unipec, and the National Iranian Oil Co., over commercial issues have dragged on longer than expected, they say.

But U.S. pressure may have played a role in China slowing down the pace of investment in oil and gas projects. Chinese oil firms are concerned about being hit by U.S. sanctions, say energy executives in Beijing. Even so, the more isolated Iran becomes economically, the more leverage Beijing may have in its various disputes with Iran. In 2010, China was Iran's largest oil import market, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, with Japan No. 2.

China is caught between its extensive commercial relations with Iran and its need to keep strong ties to the U.S. economy, said Pang Zhongying, director of Nankai University's Institute of Global Studies. "China has no choice but to prepare for the worst and try to avoid Chinese losses" in the U.S.-Iran showdown, he said.

Appearing to give in to the U.S. would play poorly at home for Chinese officials. "It will only take a few years before China is faced with zero oil," said a posting on an online forum of People's Daily, the Communist Party's newspaper. "By that time, the U.S. and EU will be strangling us."

Mr. Geithner's visit will mark a rare opportunity to discuss the issue with the two men who are expected to spearhead the new leadership of the Communist Party following a once-a-decade power transition beginning later this year.

On Wednesday, he is expected to meet Vice President Xi Jinping, the man due to take over as party chief in October or November this year, as well as Vice Premier Li Keqiang, who is widely expected to become premier after the leadership change.

U.S. officials are keen to gain to as much access as possible this year to the two men, about whom little is known outside the party elite. Mr Geithner's visit will also allow both sides to discuss preparations for Mr Xi's expected visit to the U.S. later this year, probably in February.

FYI, GM is on the road for a week or two.