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		<title>Do Call it a Bailout</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/andrew-cline/do-call-it-a-bailout/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=do-call-it-a-bailout</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 30 Apr 2010 04:01:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Andrew Cline]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Chris Dodd and the Democrats' new financial reform bill authorizes bailouts in perpetuity.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/chris_dodd_bailout.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-59207" title="83818442CS008_Senate_Holds_" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/chris_dodd_bailout-300x184.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="184" /></a></p>
<p>President Obama and his financial reform sidekick, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, want you to believe that the financial reform bill they hope to pass in the Senate soon not only contains no bailout mechanism for large financial firms, but forbids bailouts from ever happening again. Alas, it isn’t so.</p>
<p>Virtually everyone agrees that bailouts are driven by the notion that some firms are “too big to fail.” As long as some institutions are so big that their failure would drag down the entire economy, Washington politicians will always feel compelled to act in some way to halt their collapse. Simply letting them go bankrupt, as the Bush administration did with Lehmann Brothers, is both economically and politically risky, and politicians famously want to avoid risk.</p>
<p>The trouble with the Dodd bill is that it does not decree that the government must stay back and watch firms fail, but instead creates a new legal framework with which Washington heavily regulates financial institutions in such a way as to encourage them to grow, not shrink.</p>
<p>In addition to a new regulatory regime, the bill creates rules that allow the Federal Reserve to takeover and liquidate huge firms on the verge of collapse. But in liquidating them, the Fed will have the authority to borrow from the U.S. Treasury to pay off the failing firm’s bad debts. The whole idea is to protect the system from collapse. The question is: why is that not a bailout?</p>
<p>Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, adamantly denying that the bill allows bailouts, characterizes its liquidation authority like this: “If a major institution manages itself to the edge of their abyss, we’re able to put them out of their misery … dismember them safely without taxpayers being exposed to a penny of risk of loss.”</p>
<p>Geithner, Obama and Dodd are claiming that because the Fed will dismantle the firm, the process cannot be called a bailout. They are trying to change the definition of a bailout to exclude any taxpayer-funded intervention that does not keep a firm intact.</p>
<p>But when Washington bailed out AIG in September of 2008, the Bush administration didn’t keep AIG intact. The top managers were fired, and huge chunks of the company were sold off. The bailout was not to save AIG, but to pay people whose money AIG had lost. That is exactly what the Dodd bill allows. Under its provisions, the Fed will take over a firm, fire its top executives, use taxpayer money to pay its bad debts, and fold the company.</p>
<p>Because that authority would be used only on firms so large that their bankruptcy would cause huge losses throughout the economy, possibly triggering another crisis, the Dodd bill provides investors with powerful incentives to avoid small banks and put their money in large ones. A small bank won’t be rescued. If it dies, your money is gone. But under the Dodd bill, the larger the bank, the safer your money.</p>
<p>Instead of ending “too big to fail,” the Dodd bill could make it much worse. Instead of ending bailouts, it creates a legal framework that authorizes them in perpetuity.</p>
<p>Financial reform is definitely needed. But this bill does not provide the kind of reform most Americans want – regulations that make large financial transactions more transparent and that discourage large firms from getting larger and taking dangerous risks. It actually encourages the flow of money to larger and larger institutions and puts taxpayers on the hook should they fail, which is exactly the opposite of what it should do.</p>
<p><strong><em>Andrew Cline is editorial page editor of the </em><a href="http://www.unionleader.com/">New Hampshire Union Leader</a><em>.</em></strong></p>
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		<title>The New DHFC.org!</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/calvin-freiburger/the-new-dhfc-org/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-new-dhfc-org</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/calvin-freiburger/the-new-dhfc-org/#respond</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:20:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Calvin Freiburger]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.horowitzfreedomcenter.org.php5-7.dfw1-2.websitetestlink.com/?p=112</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[
Welcome to our newly modified website! We have several new features and sections to our new site. For more information regarding the site, continue reading. If this is your first time here, feel free to see what the DHFC is all about. Click on the navigation links at the top of the page to learn [...]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-116" title="dhfc" src="http://www.horowitzfreedomcenter.org.php5-7.dfw1-2.websitetestlink.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/dhfc2.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="250" /></p>
<p>Welcome to our newly modified website! We have several new features and sections to our new site. For more information regarding the site, continue reading. If this is your first time here, feel free to see what the DHFC is all about. Click on the navigation links at the top of the page to learn more about us and what we do.</p>
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		<title>The True Face of J Street</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/moshe-phillips/the-true-face-of-j-street-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-true-face-of-j-street-2</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/moshe-phillips/the-true-face-of-j-street-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:03:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Moshe Phillips]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Is it really "pro-Israel" to call out for talks with Hamas?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/heschelgreen.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-53732" title="heschelgreen" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/heschelgreen.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="329" /></a></p>
<p>J Street, the controversial pressure group, explains on the &#8220;About Us&#8221; page on its official website that &#8220;J Street is the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement.” Since its inception in 2008, J Street has undergone growth that must be considered no less than remarkable.</p>
<p>In large part, the success of J Street has occurred without any serious investigations into how this group grew so incredibly fast and just where it came from.</p>
<p>Jeffrey  Goldberg, writing for <em>The Atlantic </em>on October 27, 2009, stated “J Street grew organically, and continues to grow organically.” Goldberg’s essay was published during J Street’s first conference. The conference was held near Capitol Hill and 1,500 delegates attended. An October 29m, JTA news service report stated “activists had meetings in 210 of the 535 lawmakers&#8217; offices on the Hill, including about 100 meetings with the lawmakers themselves…”</p>
<p>Organic? How could such a new group create such a powerful infrastructure and nurture such impressive contacts so quickly? There should be no doubt that J Street came from somewhere. The question is from where?</p>
<p>The  statement on the &#8220;<a href="http://www.jstreet.org/about/about-us">About Us</a>&#8221; page goes on to state:</p>
<blockquote><p>“J Street was founded to change the dynamics of American politics and policy on Israel and the Middle East. We believe the security and future of Israel as the democratic home of the Jewish people depend on rapidly achieving a two-state solution and regional comprehensive peace. Our mission is to promote meaningful American leadership to achieve peace and security in the Middle East and to broaden the debate on these issues nationally and in the Jewish community.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>On J Street  website’s “Myths and Facts about J Street” page, J Street declares:</p>
<blockquote><p>“J Street&#8217;s Advisory Council consists of over 170 prominent Americans &#8211; including three Former Members of Congress, 28 Rabbis, a number of former Jewish community leaders and professionals, and many others.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Researchers with the Philadelphia Chapter of Americans For A Safe Israel/AFSI initiated a study of the rabbis connected to J Street in order to understand just what the backgrounds of “former Jewish community leaders” involved in J Street are. What light can be shed on J Street’s agenda by examining its structure and organization?</p>
<p>Being Philadelphia based, AFSI researchers had prior familiarity with many of these players. A large number of J Street rabbis have played senior leadership roles in the Pennsylvania based Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and the locally headquartered network of Jewish Renewal organizations. A cadre of these individuals were also leaders of the now defunct Philadelphia chapter of New Jewish Agenda, which was specifically noted for its radical stance &#8212; even in that radical group.</p>
<p>The results  of the AFSI research into these rabbis is startling.</p>
<p>A JTA report from October 25, 2009 stated that “The left-wing lobby J Street is absorbing Brit Tzedek v&#8217;Shalom&#8217;s chapters and rabbinic wing.”</p>
<p>The national president of Brit Tzedek v&#8217;Shalom at the time of the merger was Steve Masters. Masters is a Philadelphia attorney and a former leader of the Philadelphia Chapter of the New Jewish Agenda. Jeremy Ben-Ami, the executive director of J Street, was introduced by Masters at a local kick-off event in Philadelphia on February 4, 2010.</p>
<p>Many of Brit Tzedek v&#8217;Shalom’s rabbis were among the founders and key activists of New Jewish Agenda including Rabbi Gerald Serotta, Arthur Waskow, Rabbi Everett Gendler and others. Serotta, Waskow and Gendler are also all involved in a group called Jewish Fast For Gaza – but more on that later. Waskow attended the February 4, 2010 event also.</p>
<p>It is well worth noting that many of these rabbis were first involved in an organization called Breira (meaning alternative) that was universally opposed by almost all sectors of the American Jewish community. I. L. Kenen the founder of AIPAC claimed that Breira &#8220;undermined U.S. support for Israel.&#8221;</p>
<p>The majority of Brit Tzedek v&#8217;Shalom/J Street rabbis hold radical views that go far past anything that even Breira advocated in its hay day.</p>
<p>Half of the  rabbis on J Street’s Advisory Council were members of Brit Tzedek v&#8217;Shalom’s  Rabbinic Cabinet &#8211; before the merge.</p>
<p>There is a very significant overlap between the rabbis from Brit Tzedek v&#8217;Shalom and the Jewish Fast for Gaza group. Fast for Gaza made its first public announcement in July 2009. Rabbi Brian Walt was listed as the contact for the group’s initial press release. Walt is a member of Brit Tzedek v&#8217;Shalom’s Rabbinic Cabinet.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.fastforgaza.net/statement">Fast  for Gaza group purpose</a> is &#8220;To call upon Israel, the US, and the international community to engage in negotiations without pre-conditions with all relevant Palestinian parties &#8211; including Hamas &#8211; in order to end the blockade…&#8221;</p>
<p>Here are  the facts:</p>
<p>More than half of the seventy-eight rabbis listed on the Fast for Gaza website are also members of Brit Tzedek v&#8217;Shalom’s Rabbinic Cabinet. Put another way, about 12.5 % of all of Brit Tzedek v&#8217;Shalom’s Rabbinic Cabinet are involved with the Fast for Gaza and call for talks with Hamas.</p>
<p>For example, Rabbi Arthur Green is listed by J Street as an Advisory Council member. Green is a former dean of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC) and was a prominent member of Breira. Another Advisory Council member is the former president of RRC, Rabbi David A. Teutsch. Rabbi Mordechai Liebling, a former director of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation, is on Brit Tzedek v&#8217;Shalom’s Rabbinic Cabinet and is a “Rabbinical Supporter of the Fast for Gaza”. Teutsch too attended J Street’s February 4, 2010 event.</p>
<p>Breira. New Jewish Agenda. Brit Tzedek v&#8217;Shalom. Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. Is J Street really just old wine in a new bottle? Has this wine turned to vinegar? Where are the likes of I. L. Kenen among today’s American Jewish leaders to stand up to J Street? An article on the website of the <em>Forward</em> newspaper (December 9, 2009) states that Israel&#8217;s Ambassador Michael Oren recently publicly labeled J Street as &#8220;a unique problem in that it not only opposes one policy of one Israeli government, it opposes all policies of all Israeli governments. It&#8217;s significantly out of the mainstream&#8230;&#8221;</p>
<p>Ambassador Oren should have been applauded for his statement. And loudly. After all, shouldn’t it be apparent to even the casual observer that forces within the highest echelons of the Obama Administration and/or the Democratic Party are assisting J Street, or perhaps even pulling its strings?</p>
<p><em>Moshe Phillips is a member of the Executive Committee of the Philadelphia Chapter of Americans for a Safe Israel/AFSI. The chapter&#8217;s website is at: <a href="http://mail.google.com/mail/www.phillyafsi.com" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">phillyafsi.com</span></a> and Moshe&#8217;s blog can be found at <a href="http://phillyafsi.blogtownhall.com/" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">phillyafsi.blogtownhall.com</span></a>.</em></p>
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		<title>Indicting the Anointed</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/davidforsmark/indicting-the-anointed/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=indicting-the-anointed</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 25 Feb 2010 05:03:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Forsmark]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Thomas Sowell shows that people known as “intellects” might just not be that very smart.
]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em> </em></p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/intellecutuals.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-51989" title="intellecutuals" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/intellecutuals.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="497" /></a></p>
<p><em>Intellectuals and Society</em><br />
By Thomas Sowell<br />
Basic Books, $29.95,<br />
Review by David Forsmark</p>
<p>George Orwell famously said some things are so foolish that only an intellectual could believe them, for no ordinary man could be such a fool.</p>
<p>Thomas Sowell has made a career out of debunking those very things—most famously elite assumptions about racism and economics in classic books like <em>Ethnic America</em>, <em>Race and Culture</em>, <em>Knowledge and Decisions</em>, and <em>The Vision of the Annointed.</em></p>
<p>I’ve often defined a postmodern intellectual as someone who is trained to be sure he knows better.  Thomas Sowell, however, is a true intellectual in the best sense.  His mind is not only open to the fact that he might <em>not</em> know better, his superb new book explains why it is impossible for one dictator or a small group of elites to know better than the great unwashed how to run their lives.</p>
<p>A constant theme of Sowell’s work is that elites regularly—and with disastrous effect—substitute their assumptions for the actual on the ground knowledge of the masses of people.  In <em>Intellectuals and Society</em>, he singles out so-called “intellectuals,” those whose profession is trafficking in ideas, and the echo chamber they tend to inhabit.</p>
<p>He charges that such people may be “intellects,” but that doesn’t mean they are very smart.</p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<blockquote><p><em>“The capacity to grasp and manipulate complex ideas is enough to define intellect but not enough to encompass intelligence, which involves combining intellect with judgment and care in selecting relevant explanatory factors and in establishing empirical tests of any theory that emerges. Intelligence minus judgment equals intellect.  Wisdom is the rarest quality of all &#8212; the ability to combine intellect, knowledge, experience, and judgment in a way to produce a coherent understanding.”</em></p></blockquote>
<p>Of course, once you have spent a lifetime debunking things that are accepted as Gospel by the “intellectual class,” and prove Orwell’s thesis on a daily basis, the term “pseudo- intellectual&#8221; starts to lose its meaning:</p>
<blockquote><p><em>The term “pseudo- intellectual&#8221; has sometimes been applied to less intelligent or less knowledgeable members of this profession. But just as a bad cop is still a cop &#8212; no matter how much we may regret it &#8212; so a shallow, confused, or dishonest intellectual is just as much a member of that occupation as is a paragon of the profession.</em></p></blockquote>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>Recently, Boston College’s Alan Wolfe, a prime example of the above definition&#8211; wrote an intellectually dishonest pseudo-review of <em>Intellectuals and Society </em>for the usually rigorous <em>New</em><em> </em><em>Republic</em>—<a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/02/10/the-closing-of-the-liberal-mind-tnr-attacks-thomas-sowell/">which David Horowitz dispatched quite nicely</a>.</p>
<p>Wolfe’s review might as well have been titled, “I Represent That Remark.”  (I have done a couple of radio interviews with Wolfe, and found him to be less than impressive.) While Horowitz doubted that Wolfe, who protested the lack of musicians and novelists in Sowells’ discussion, had read the parameters of the discussion on page 2, I think it’s more likely Wolfe made it to the page 4 definition of pseudo-intellectuals, felt the pang of self-recognition, and then went on his <a href="http://www.tnr.com/book/review/the-joyless-mind">very personal rant</a> against Sowell.</p>
<p>Wolfe, ironically supplies the perfect example of how intellectuals who share the currently anointed vision of the world make what Sowell calls “Arguments without Arguments:”</p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<blockquote><p><em>Although many intellectuals are especially well-equipped by talent and training to engage in logically structured arguments using empirical evidence to analyze contending ideas, many of their political or ideological views are promoted by verbal virtuosity and evading structured arguments and empirical evidence. Among the many arguments without arguments are claims that opposing views are &#8220;simplistic&#8221; and opposing individuals unworthy, as well as assertion of &#8220;rights&#8221; and attributing to adversaries a belief and panaceas or golden ages.</em></p></blockquote>
<p><em> </em></p>
<blockquote><p><em>…Before an explanation can be too simple, it must first be wrong.  But often the fact that some explanation seems to simple becomes a substitute for showing that it is wrong.</em></p></blockquote>
<p>Usually, economists who discuss Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” do so in the context of business and the economy.  In<em> Intellectuals and Society</em>, Sowell not only gives the best explanation of why the invisible hand of self-interest works better than a central plan, he then applies it to subjects as far afield from economics as war and police shootings.</p>
<p>Sowell argues that the intelligentsia devalue “mundane knowledge” in favor of special knowledge.  However, mundane knowledge is what it takes to actually get anything done.</p>
<blockquote><p><em>Someone who is considered to be a &#8216;knowledgeable&#8217; person usually has a special kind of knowledge &#8212; perhaps academic or other kinds of knowledge not widely found in the population at large. Someone who has even more knowledge of more mudane things &#8212; plumbing, carpentry, or baseball, for example &#8212; is less likely to be called &#8220;knowledgeable&#8221; by those intellectuals, for what they don&#8217;t know isn&#8217;t knowledge.. .. It is by no means certain that the kind of knowledge mastered by intellectuals is necessarily more consequential in its effect in the real world.</em></p></blockquote>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>For instance, it may be impressive that a physicist understands Bernoulli’s principles of aerodynamic lift, but you wouldn’t want him in the cockpit second guessing your pilot.  Sowell argues that the smartest man cannot know even 1% of what would be required to run the lives of the people in a community, but that is what experts, politicians and intellectuals attempt in their hubris.<em> </em></p>
<blockquote><p><em>Despite the often expressed dichotomy between chaos and planning, what is called &#8220;planning&#8221; is the forcible suppression of millions of people&#8217;s plans by government imposed plan.</em></p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p><em>&#8230;.what is called &#8220;social&#8221; planning are in fact government orders over writing the plans and mutual accommodations of millions of other people.</em></p></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p style="text-align: left;"><em>That is why free markets, judicial restraint, and reliance on decisions and traditions growing out of the experiences of the many &#8212; rather than the presumptions of elite few &#8212; are so important to those who do not share the social vision prevalent among intellectual elites.</em></p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p style="text-align: left;"><em>The intellectuals’ exultation of “reason&#8221; often comes at the expense of experience, allowing them to have sweeping confidence about things in which they have little or no knowledge or experience.</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>Intellectuals and Society</em> is one of those books you want to read with a red pencil, to highlight nuggets like those above for later use.</p>
<p>While intellectuals’ visions cause social and economic disruption in many areas, none are so immediately deadly as their approach to war and foreign relations.  Sowell indicts the anointed for ignoring all empirical evidence and experience to the contrary, and insisting that the next dictator—from Hitler to Ahmadinejad—is the one who can be dealt with diplomatically.</p>
<p>Sowell concludes with a list of the anointed intelligentsia’s assumptions which have turned the world upside down, of which, he says, a complete refutation would fill volumes. “More important,” he says ruefully<em>, “It fills our schools and colleges.”</em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<blockquote><p><em>The intelligentsia have treated the conclusions of their vision as axioms to be followed, rather than hypotheses to be tested.</em></p></blockquote>
<p><em> </em></p>
<blockquote><p><em>Some among the intelligentsia have treated reality itself as objective or illusory, thereby putting current intellectual fashions and fads on the same plane as verified knowledge and the cultural wisdom distilled from generations of experience…</em></p></blockquote>
<p><em> </em></p>
<blockquote><p><em>They have filtered information in the media, in the schools, and in academia, who to leave out things that threaten their vision of the world.</em></p></blockquote>
<p><em> </em></p>
<blockquote><p><em>Above all, they exalt themselves by denigrating the society in which they live and turning its members against each other.</em></p></blockquote>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>Of course, as he points out early in the book, an intellectual is someone who can lecture a police department on how many shots are sufficient to bring down an armed suspect under stressful conditions—when he himself has never even fired a pistol on a range.</p>
<p>Long before the<em> Freakonomics </em>phenomenon<em>, </em>Thomas Sowell was making this kind of real life critique from an economist’s point of view.<em> Intellectuals and Society</em> is accessible, witty, practical, brilliantly argued, and essential reading.  It’s sure to infuriate self-important elites.</p>
<p>In other words, it’s a typical Thomas Sowell book.</p>
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		<title>The Times Finds A Lone Crazed Assassin</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/peter-collier/the-times-finds-a-lone-crazed-assassin-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-times-finds-a-lone-crazed-assassin-2</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/peter-collier/the-times-finds-a-lone-crazed-assassin-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:05:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Peter Collier]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[What the Grey Lady won't tell you about professor Amy Bishop.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/bishop1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-51443" title="bishop" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/bishop1.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="347" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Visit <a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/">Newsreal</a></strong><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/us/21bishop.html" target="_blank"><em></em></a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/us/21bishop.html" target="_blank"><em>The New York Times</em>’ front page profile</a> on Saturday of professor Amy Bishop, who allegedly executed three University of Alabama Biology Department colleagues after being denied tenure, appears to be an exhaustively reported piece based on “numerous interviews with colleagues and others who knew her.” It portrays Bishop as violent and unpredictable, rejected by Harvard because of mediocre work and shunned by a series of neighbors and co-workers scared off by the suppressed rage that kept bubbling up to the surfaces of her social life, and also someone who may already have gotten away with the murder of her brother years earlier possibly because of her mother’s political connections in her home town of Braintree, Mass.</p>
<div>
<p>“Between brilliance and rage” is the caption of the photo of Bishop used by the<em> Times</em> for the story, although the piece makes no case for the former.  But is this all the news that is fit to print about the perpetrator of this murder spree in academe?  What about the “family source” who told the Boston Herald that Bishop was,</p>
<blockquote><p>“<a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guideDesc.asp?catid=144&amp;type=issue" target="_blank">a far left</a> political activist who was ‘obsessed’ with <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1511" target="_blank">President Obama</a> to the point of being off putting”?</p></blockquote>
<p>What about the student who called her a <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guideDesc.asp?catid=115&amp;type=issue" target="_blank">“socialist”</a>? What about one report that Bishop complained about a rule issued by University  of Alabama administrators regarding underclassmen living on campus because she believed it was destructive of “diversity.”  And what about the crowning irony of this case, whether or not she made this complaint: that two of the colleagues she allegedly killed were black and one was South Asian, and that Bishop thus wiped out the 14 person Biology department’s entire diversity in one burst of gunfire?</p>
<p>Considering the politics of Bishop’s <em>ressentiment</em> might have helped fill out the Times’ portrait of a psychopathic time bomb who had already gone off several times in her disordered life on her way to the Big Explosion on February 12 in Huntsville. There is no doubt, as the blogosphere has already noted, that the paper would have pursued even the vaguest hint that Bishop had been a fan of Glenn Beck or was a Tea Party fellow traveler as a major story line. For the Grey Lady, only the politics of the Right is personal.</p>
</div>
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		<title>Endangering Lives to Sell Newspapers</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/alan-m-dershowitz/endangering-lives-to-sell-newspapers/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=endangering-lives-to-sell-newspapers</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 12 Feb 2010 05:05:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Alan M. Dershowitz]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[How some Israeli and American Jewish media incite violence.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/goldstone-043009.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-49980" title="goldstone-043009" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/goldstone-043009.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="314" /></a></p>
<p>It all began with an innocent enough request for an interview about the Goldstone report and my <a href="http://www.alandershowitz.com/goldstone.pdf">49 page response</a> to it. The Israeli Army radio station asked to interview me.  The interview was conducted by an experienced host, Razi Barkai.  Unbeknownst to me, Barkai had an agenda.  He wanted to get me to say that I thought that Goldstone was a “moser.”  He wanted me to use this Hebrew word, whose meaning I did not understand, because in Israel, this obscure theological term has taken on a meaning of its own.  According to The Forward, “the term moser entered Israeli political discourse in 1995 in the wake of Rabin’s assassination by radical settler supporter Yigal Amir, when Amir cited some rabbis’ designation of Rabin as a moser as part of his justification for carrying out the murder.”  The Forward quoted Michael Karpin, an Israeli journalist and the author of a book on Rabin’s assassination, as follows: “After the assassination, when Amir was interviewed by the police and he mentioned the term moser, people tried to find out what it is…Nobody used it here before the assassination.”</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I was totally unfamiliar with the “inside baseball”—or in this case “inside Israel”—use of this esoteric term.</p>
<p>Several times during the interview, Barkai tried to get me to agree that Goldstone was a moser, a word he pronounced with a thick accent.  Since the interview was being conducted in English, I thought he was asking me to agree with him that Goldstone was a “monster.”  I would never use the term “monster” since it suggests an inherent, even genetic, flaw in a person, without regard to what he has said or done.  I was clear throughout my interview that I believed that Goldstone had exploited his Jewishness to lend illegitimate credibility <a href="http://cgis.jpost.com/Blogs/dershowitz/entry/arguments_ad_hominem_in_defense">to a false report</a>. In this respect, he had betrayed his people and deserved to be condemned in the marketplace of ideas.  Accordingly, when Barkai asked me the following question, “Do you hint, Professor, that he is a moser, someone who betrays his own people?,”  I focused on the part of the question I understood.  Believing that he is someone who betrays his own people, I answered the question in the affirmative.  Barkai had sprung the trap.  Now he had me.  He could send out press releases indicating that I had called Goldstone a moser, even though I never used the word and had no idea what it meant.</p>
<p>The story spread quickly around the world, and I was condemned, largely by the extreme left, for advocating Goldstone’s murder.  As soon as I heard this, I immediately demanded a clarification from Barkai, which he ran on the air.  I repeatedly emphasized, in subsequent interviews, that “I certainly did not mean to imply that any physical harm should come to Goldstone.”  But this didn’t stop the incitement by those in the media more interested in sensationalism than truth.</p>
<p>M.J. Rosenberg, the former Director of Policy Analysis for Israel Policy Forum, wrote in his Palestine Note blog that I was “calling for Goldstone’s murder.”  Even more insidiously, the Forward, a mainstream Jewish newspaper, ran a lengthy piece strongly implying that I must have known the theological (or “Halachic”) implications of “moser.”  They went so far as to find an elementary school classmate at Etz Chayim Yeshiva in Boro Park who told them, quite erroneously, that I “must have heard it as a child.”  (Another classmate wrote the Forward a letter confirming that he too had never heard it—and he was a <span style="text-decoration: underline;">good</span> Yeshiva student!)  The Forward then went on to quote another rabbi to the effect that “a moser can become a capital crime” under certain circumstances.  At the very bottom of the article, so as not to detract from its sensationalism, the Forward included the following disclaimer:</p>
<p>“I do not want any harm to come to Richard Goldstone,” Dershowitz said.  “I want him to be responded to in the marketplace of ideas.”</p>
<p>An article in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency by Ron Kampares was even more irresponsible.  It “reported” the following:</p>
<p>“Most recently, Alan Dershowitz likened him to a “moser”, a Jewish traitor deemed in some interpretations as worthy of a death sentence.”</p>
<p>This was written days <span style="text-decoration: underline;">after</span> I had made it clear that I wanted no harm to befall Goldstone.  A response to the JTA article by Debra DeLee, President and CEO of Americans For Peace Now, accused me—also days after I made my position clear—of calling Goldstone a “moser,” which she said is “a term reserved in traditional Jewish law for a Jewish traitor who should be killed.”</p>
<p>She also showed her ignorance of the fact that I had written a 49 page substantive response to the Goldstone report, by saying that I “could have—and should have—aired substantive disagreements about the report that Judge Goldstone authored following the Gaza War.”</p>
<p>Finally, a columnist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz (Bradley Burston) described me as “Kahane-sounding,” a reference for the radical rabbi who did in fact call for violence—as contrasted for my call for peace based on a two-state solution and the end of civilian settlements.  But no matter, its sells newspapers.</p>
<p>It’s bad enough that there are some religious extremists on both sides who actually incite their followers to commit violence.  But when elements of the mainstream Israeli and Jewish media twist the truth in the interest of sensationalism to imply—or state outright—that I am calling for the murder of Richard Goldstone, it is those irresponsible members of the media (and of Americans For Peace Now) who become the inciters.</p>
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		<title>A New Era of Responsibility?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/vasko-kohlmayer/a-new-era-of-responsibility/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-new-era-of-responsibility</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:00:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Vasko Kohlmayer]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[President's proposed 2011 budget is a fiscal sham.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/obamaj.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-49453" title="obamaj" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/obamaj-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a></p>
<p>“We will continue to go through the budget, line by line, page by page, to eliminate programs that we can&#8217;t afford and don&#8217;t work,” declared President Obama in his State of the Union address on January 27.</p>
<p>Five days later the president delivered his Fiscal 2011 budget to the US Congress. This he did to much fanfare, seeking to cast it as a product of fiscal prudence. In the <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/budget/03_Presidents_Message.pdf">message</a> that accompanied the document, he stated:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;The Budget includes more than 120 programs for termination, reduction, or other savings for a total of approximately $23 billion in 2011, as well as an aggressive effort to reduce the tens of billions of dollars in improper Government payments made each year.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>At first sight this may look like the work of an earnest waste cutter. It is, however, nothing of the sort. The $23 billion of “savings” is actually only about one half of one percent of the $3.84 trillion total.</p>
<p>A question for the president: Is one half of one percent all the waste you can find in the federal government? After all, it is an institution whose financial profligacy is legendary. Should we assume, Mr. President, that all of the remaining 99.5 percent is spent wisely and un-wastefully?</p>
<p>It goes without saying that most of the meagre $23 billion will never be cut. Those involved with the agencies and programs slatted for reductions will make sure of that. Claiming that their work is indispensable for the well-being of the nation, they will make a hysterical run on Capitol Hill where their cause will receive much sympathy. When all is said and done most of their budgets will not only be restored, but many will walk away with increases.</p>
<p>But here is the larger point. By calling the proposed $23 billion of cuts “savings,” the administration makes it sound as if the government&#8217;s expenditures would go down by this amount vis-à-vis last year&#8217;s levels.  This, however, is not the case. The proposed $3.84 trillion budget represents a three percent plus increase over the 2010 total. So even as ordinary Americans are forced to cut back on their consumption, the federal government&#8217;s voracious appetite for spending continues to grow unabated. Needless to say, we can ill afford it. As a consequence, the government will post a deficit of $1.25 trillion, which will represent more than 8 percent of the nation&#8217;s GDP. These abysmal figures, however, have done nothing to detract from the president&#8217;s sense of humor. He chose to unveil his budget under the motto “a new era of responsibility.”</p>
<p>But all this is still apparently not enough for some of the president&#8217;s friends on Capitol Hill. Shortly after he introduced his 2011 budget proposal, Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), the House majority whip, <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/79039-clyburn-weve-got-to-spend-our-way-out-of-this-recession">opined</a> that looking for any more savings would only make things worse. “We&#8217;re not going to save our way out of this recession. We&#8217;ve got to spend our way out of this recession,” he said.</p>
<p>The insanity of this should be obvious to all. It is simply impossible to spend our way out of trouble when we are so deeply in debt already. Spending more will only make things worse. Having incurred astronomical debts, we are still able to borrow at low rates because of the dollar&#8217;s status as the world&#8217;s reserve currency. But this situation will sooner or later come to an end. In another sign that the day of fiscal reckoning is approach fast, Moody&#8217;s Investor Services <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a82cfe04-10f5-11df-9a9e-00144feab49a.html">warned</a> that at some point it may be forced to lower America&#8217;s triple A credit rating. The reason for this? The unrestrained spending of the federal government. Steven Hess, senior credit officer at Moody’s, told the <em>Financial Times</em> that the budget outlook submitted by the Obama administration last week “did not stabilise debt levels in relation to gross domestic product.” It would be interesting to hear the spend-happy James Clyburn comment on that one.</p>
<p>Needless to say, losing the triple A rating would have a devastating effect on this nation&#8217;s finances as it would make servicing the national debt far more expensive. The only way to avert this outcome is by slashing spending and cutting deficits. Unfortunately, those in charge lack the political will to do so. Instead of offering real solutions, the president tries to posture as a fiscal hawk while proposing laughable savings of one half of one percent. As if this was not bad enough, the third most powerful Democrat in the House of Representatives thinks that cutting further would be outright harmful.</p>
<p>Even as Obama and Clyburn were talking up the proposed budget, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer worked quietly behind the scenes to line up votes to raise the <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hEkfx_bpGC-zVoeKNR38gWLcjXdw">debt ceiling</a> by another $1.9 trillion. The effort to pass the record hike was triggered by the Treasury&#8217;s warning that the national debt is on the track to hit $14.3 by the end of this month. If the Treasury&#8217;s estimate is correct, the national debt will have grown by more than one third in less than thirteen months of Obama&#8217;s term. This expansion of national indebtedness is as astounding as it is unprecedented. But if this should frighten you there is no need to worry, because we have just entered “a new era of responsibility.”</p>
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		<title>French report wants limits on Muslim face veil &#8211; AP</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/french-report-wants-limits-on-muslim-face-veil-ap/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=french-report-wants-limits-on-muslim-face-veil-ap</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/french-report-wants-limits-on-muslim-face-veil-ap/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:23:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=47705</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[PARIS – A parliamentary panel that wants Muslim women to stop veiling their faces recommended Tuesday that France ban such garb in public facilities, including hospitals and mass transit, and a leading panel member said he foresees such an interdiction by the end of 2010. The nearly 200-page report contains a panoply of measures intended [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>PARIS – A parliamentary panel that wants Muslim women to stop veiling their faces recommended Tuesday that France ban such garb in public facilities, including hospitals and mass transit, and a leading panel member said he foresees such an interdiction by the end of 2010.</p>
<p>The nearly 200-page report contains a panoply of measures intended to dissuade women from wearing all-enveloping veils in France. It also recommends refusing residence cards and citizenship to anyone with visible signs of a &#8220;radical religious practice.&#8221;</p>
<p>However, there is no call to outlaw such garments — worn by a tiny minority of Muslims — in private areas and in the street. A full ban was the major issue that divided the 32-member, multiparty panel which ultimately heeded warnings that a full ban risked being deemed unconstitutional and could even cause trouble in a country where Islam is the second-largest religion.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100126/ap_on_re_eu/eu_france_forbidding_the_veil">French report wants limits on Muslim face veil &#8211; Yahoo! News</a>.</p>
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		<title>Inside the Green Revolution – by Jacob Laksin</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/inside-the-green-revolution-%e2%80%93-by-jacob-laksin/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=inside-the-green-revolution-%25e2%2580%2593-by-jacob-laksin</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/inside-the-green-revolution-%e2%80%93-by-jacob-laksin/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 04 Jan 2010 05:17:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=44523</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Political dissident Amir Fakhravar discusses his brother’s arrest by the Iranian regime and the democratic uprising that threatens its rule. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-44525" title="091228211523IranProtestAPPhoto" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/091228211523IranProtestAPPhoto.jpg" alt="091228211523IranProtestAPPhoto" width="430" height="341" /></p>
<p>As a student dissident in Iran, <a href="http://fakhravar.com/">Amir Fakhravar</a> was jailed and tortured for his pro-democracy political activism. Since moving to the United States in 2006, he has continued to take part in Iran’s opposition movement. He serves as the secretary general of the <a href="http://www.cistudents.com/about/">Confederation of Iranian Students</a> and the president of the Iranian Enterprise Institute. Last week, Fakhravar’s 18-year-old-brother, Arash, was arrested by the Iranian regime. After three days of absence, the Fakhravar family learned that Arash had been arrested, beaten up and taken to the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Tehran, then placed in solitary confinement in an undisclosed location. Amir Fakhravar spoke to <em>Front Page</em> about his brother’s arrest, Iran’s growing “green revolution,” and the best strategy for ending the mullahs’ three-decade rule.</p>
<p><em><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-44528" title="art_amir_fakhravar_cnn" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/art_amir_fakhravar_cnn.jpg" alt="art_amir_fakhravar_cnn" width="292" height="219" /></em></p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Can you tell us what happened with your brother Arash? What do you know of his current whereabouts?</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar: </strong>Arash is in the very middle of this fight. He became politically active in high school and now he goes to all the anti-government demonstrations. My mother always says, “Please talk to him.” But my response is: This is what he has chosen. We need to pay the price for freedom. The day after the Ashura festival, the intelligence services called my mother in Tehran. They said, “We know all about your son. He’s been involved in protests, making videos. Be careful or they will arrest him.” The day after the phone call, they arrested him. My mother didn’t know anything for three days. She called the police, but they didn’t know anything. So she went to the Revolutionary Court with my sister and they saw him there. He was beaten up and blindfolded, wearing a bloody shirt and handcuffs. They tried to take a picture but could not. Right now, he is still in the hands of the Revolutionary Court.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img class="size-full wp-image-44531 aligncenter" title="DSC01294" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/DSC01294.JPG" alt="DSC01294" width="336" height="448" /><em>In the line of fire: Amir Fakhravar’s 18-year-old brother Arash is among the thousands of opposition demonstrators beaten up and arrested by the Iranian government.</em></p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> What are you doing to free Arash and what can those outside of Iran do to help?</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar: </strong>His best chance of survival is organizing a media campaign for his release. In Iran, my family cannot do anything. But from the outside we can do quite a lot. We created a <a href="http://www.facebook.com/people/Amir-Fakhravar/100000126867757">Facebook page</a> for him that now has 2,000 members. We can also write letters to the news media and human-rights groups to cover his case. This is probably the best thing we can do. We need to put more pressure on the government. They are afraid of free information.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Your brother, like you, is active in the “green revolution” in Iran. How do you see what is happening inside the country right now?</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar: </strong>What has happened is that something many thought was a small movement has become a revolution. After the summer election, the government tried to strike fear into the people, but millions came out into the streets in Iran’s major cities. After seven months, they are showing that they are not going to give up. The recent death of Ayatollah Montazeri was a good excuse for this new generation to oppose the government because he had fought [Ayatollah] Khomeini for twenty years. The latest demonstrations have taken place during the Ashura festival, which is a symbol of the Islamic Republic and Shiism. This is a sign that they want to get rid of the mullahs and they are not afraid anymore. [Politician and presidential challenger] Mir Hossein Mousavi has said it best: We are not leading these people. They are leading themselves.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> So where does the leadership come from?</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar: </strong>This movement doesn’t have a leader, but things like Facebook help. We use social media to help organize events inside Iran. For instance, we are planning a demonstration in February to coincide with the 31<sup>st</sup> anniversary of the Iranian revolution. Earlier this year, I was giving a speech before Congress and I said, “Iranians don’t want a war. All we need are cell phones, cameras and computers.” Some of the Senators laughed at that. But it has happened. We are close to a cyber revolution in Iran.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> What are the aims of this revolution? What do the participants hope to achieve?</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar: </strong>Most of the demonstrators are young – 70 percent are under the age of 35 – and they are not motivated by partisan politics. They are not communists or Marxists or monarchists; they are not involved with political parties and they don’t want to be. Via the internet, they know a lot about American culture – perhaps more than many people here – and they want the things it represents: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. They are secular and they want a country where Islam is kept separate from the government. A free, secular, democratic Iran – that is their dream</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> What do you make of the “<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/30/iran-protests">pro-government” rallies</a> that have been held in recent days? The government has tried to portray them as representing the true voice of the Iranian people.</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar: </strong>Actually,<strong> </strong>this what my brother was protesting when he was arrested. He was at a counter protest. For thirty years, the Iranian government has used petrodollars to create the illusion of popular support. These protests are designed to show that the government is strong and that it has real legitimacy. But the protests are staged. What happens is that the government will bus in people, usually poorer people from the countryside. They will give them food, and arrange for them to see the sites. For some of those people, it was their chance to see Tehran for the first time. They are being used to create these protests. But it’s not working. They had one of the pro-government protests in a big city near Tehran. Just 150 people showed up.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> How would you rate the Obama administration’s response to the protests in Iran? President Obama, for instance, has condemned the brutality of the regime, but the U.S. <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2009/12/31/a-new-way-on-iran-%e2%80%93-by-jacob-laksin/">has not meaningfully supported the opposition</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar</strong>: I think Obama just did not have any idea of what to do about Iran. So he decided that the U.S. would not become involved and would watch the situation unfold. This is not a football game, Mr. President. The Iranian government is killing the people, but during the past seven months the United States has done nothing positive to support them. It has done something negative, though. The Obama administration recognized the Ahmadinejad government as legitimately elected, which it is not. It also said it wanted to hold talks with Ahmadinejad. That was the wrong decision. It gave the regime legitimacy and hurt the democratic movement a lot.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>What should the administration do?</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar:</strong> First, it needs new advisors on Iran. Second, it needs to pass sanctions. By that I mean smart sanctions. The kind of targeted sanctions against the Revolutionary Guard that have been proposed will not be effective and will probably be watered down by China and Russia. Smart sanctions – on oil and gasoline – can help us. Petrodollars are the lifeline of the Iranian regime. If they can’t pay the salaries of the Revolutionary Guard, within two months they will be powerless because most of the Revolutionary Guard don’t believe in the mullahs. They believe in money. Right now, they are killing people for money. Take away the money away and you can collapse the regime.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Some observers have called for a preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. Do you think that’s the right strategy?</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar:</strong> Not right now. At this moment, I believe it would be unhelpful. When you have an army in the streets – like Iran’s new generation – it is a sign that the mullahs’ reign is over. A strike on Iran would allow the regime to play the victim and would give it legitimacy. That is the last thing we need. To those who support a strike, my message is: Give us time. This June, there were four million people on the street in Tehran. It was the biggest anti-government protest in Iran’s history. Even during the 1979 revolution, you did not see that many people in the street. This is the Iranians’ fight against the mullahs, and they believe they can bring them down. If they had a little help from free countries, especially the United States, they could succeed right now.</p>
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		<title>Crime Pays for Somali Pirates &#8211; by Stephen Brown</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/stephenbrown/crime-pays-for-somali-pirates-by-stephen-brown/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=crime-pays-for-somali-pirates-by-stephen-brown</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/stephenbrown/crime-pays-for-somali-pirates-by-stephen-brown/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 31 Dec 2009 05:03:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Stephen Brown]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=44242</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Al-Qaeda’s proxies step up terror war at sea. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em> </em></p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-44244" title="pirates" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/pirates.jpg" alt="pirates" width="450" height="370" /></p>
<p>When it comes to the scourge of Somali piracy, the latest  incident leaves one wondering whether to laugh or cry. At the very least, it  should cause heads to shake and have people asking how the West is ever going to  win the <a rel="nofollow" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Terrorism" target="_blank">War On Terror</a>.</p>
<p>The military news publication, <em>Strategy Page</em>, reports this week that  the Dutch frigate, HNLMS Eversten, was ordered to release 13 Somali pirates it  had captured earlier this month. The pirates were attacking a merchant ship when  the Dutch intervened and apprehended them and their vessel.</p>
<p>However, instead of being clapped in irons to await  trial, the Dutch captain was ordered to put the pirates back on their boat and  release them. In addition, the Dutch sailors’ also had to provide the pirates,  who not long ago would have been hung on the spot, with food and fuel to return  to <a rel="nofollow" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalia" target="_blank">Somalia</a>. (It is a  wonder they were not sent on their way with apologies for any  inconvenience.)</p>
<p>The only consolation regarding this sad state of affairs  concerned the pirates’ weapons: they were not returned. But the way things are  going, Western naval crews may eventually have to do just that, or be required  to supply a substitute, like cash or DVDs (The Pirates of the Caribbean might be  a big hit) to keep their former captives entertained during their trip home.</p>
<p>Once back at their bases, one  can be assured such pillow-soft treatment will see the pirates not hesitate to  return to terrorizing international shipping as soon as possible. They can  easily obtain new weapons in war-torn   Somalia. The International  Maritime Bureau estimates the pirates’ number at about a thousand, organized  in well-armed groups of 15 to 20. Last year, they earned about $50 million in  ransom money from ships they had seized.</p>
<p>In the past, al Qaeda and  Islamists in Somalia have both praised  Somali piracy as part of the “fight against the West.” A leader of a Somali  Islamist group called the pirates “part of the  mujahedeen.</p>
<p>“They are waging war against Christian nations, who want  to misuse the Somali coast,” he said.</p>
<p>Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the surge in pirate  attacks in 2008. It called the campaign to seize ships and hold them for ransom  a justifiable “new strategy”, since “fighters who aspire to establish the  caliphate must control the seas and waterways.”</p>
<p>Counterterrorism consultant  Olivier Guitta revealed the importance of the Somali piracy campaign to al  Qaeda. Guitta stated al Qaeda “intends to take control of the  Gulf of  Aden and the southern entrance of  the Red  Sea, calling the area “strategic”  to the Islamic terrorist group.</p>
<p>Al-Qaeda’s goal in seizing  control of the vital waterways around the Horn of Africa leading to the  Suez  Canal is the removal of Western  military bases from the Arabian  Peninsula. It believes sea lanes  weakened by “acts of piracy” and mujahedeen attacks will accomplish this.</p>
<p>The Somali piracy campaign  also fits in nicely with al Qaeda’s plan to disrupt the American and other  Western economies. It knows Western countries derive their military and cultural  strength from their economic power, hence al Qaeda’s attack on  America’s  World  Trade  Center.</p>
<p>Al Qaeda wants to draw  America and its allies  into as many security sideshows as possible in order to further drain their  treasuries. The <em>New York Times</em> reports that after 9/11, for example, the Department of Homeland Security spent  $40 billion on the aviation security system alone. Tens of millions more can  probably be added to that sum after the Northwest Airlines terrorist incident on  Christmas Day, making it an al Qaeda victory in this respect despite the plot’s  failure.</p>
<p>On the high seas around  Somalia, al Qaeda’s  strategy of death by a thousand financial cuts sees Western and other countries  facing, besides ransom payments and the huge expense of maintaining an  anti-piracy naval presence, increased insurance costs. Ships that reroute around  South  Africa to avoid the  Somalia region, while  escaping the insurance penalty, incur higher operating bills due to the longer  voyage.</p>
<p>Considering the importance the Somali pirate campaign  holds for al Qaeda in its long-term plans, it is a wonder that Western  strategists have only come up with the harmless “catch and release” tactic as  its main counter measure. Resembling a form of appeasement, it has not worked  and instead has led to an increase in attacks.</p>
<p>Statistics from the  Piracy  Reporting  Center of the  International Maritime Bureau, as reported in <em>New York Times</em> this week, bear this out.  Pirate attacks in the Gulf of  Aden and along the Somali coast  have increased 200 per cent since 2007.  While 111 ships were attacked in this  area in 2008, 214 have been attacked this year. Only last Monday, pirates seized  a <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/12/29/world/AP-Piracy.html" target="_blank">chemical  tanker</a> with a crew of 26 and a Greek bulk  carrier.</p>
<p><em>Strategy Page</em> notes that  although the number of attacks was higher this year, the international naval  patrols established to thwart the pirates reduced the number of successful  attacks from 40 per cent in 2008 to 25 per cent in 2009. The ransom demands,  however, increased and the pirates are now operating off  Somalia’s east coast and  in the Gulf of  Aden to avoid the anti-piracy  patrols.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, one can only  expect the number of pirate attacks around  Somalia to increase in the  future. Somali pirates know Western countries seldom use force to free ships and  pay large ransoms. According to <em>Strategy  Page</em>, Western countries also refuse to attack the pirates’ bases for fear of  causing civilian casualties and to avoid becoming bogged down in a land campaign  in Somalia.</p>
<p>The fact the pirates seldom face prosecution and are  usually released make piracy in that region almost a risk-free crime that  encourages attacks. More unsettling, however, is that these weak, ineffective  policies on the part of Western countries indicate a moral bankruptcy that could  decide the issue of this war.</p>
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		<title>The impudent tyranny of Harry Reid &#8211; Washington Examiner</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jlaksin/the-impudent-tyranny-of-harry-reid-washington-examiner/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-impudent-tyranny-of-harry-reid-washington-examiner</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:19:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada is proving once again the maxim that darkness hates the light. Buried in his massive amendment to the Senate version of Obamacare is Reid&#8217;s anti-democratic poison pill designed to prevent any future Congress from repealing the central feature of this monstrous legislation. Beginning on page 1,000 of the [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada is proving once again the maxim that darkness hates the light.</p>
<p>Buried in his massive amendment to the Senate version of Obamacare is Reid&#8217;s anti-democratic poison pill designed to prevent any future Congress from repealing the central feature of this monstrous legislation.</p>
<p>Beginning on page 1,000 of the measure, Section 3403 reads in part: &#8220;&#8230; it shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.&#8221;</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/The-impudent-tyranny-of-Harry-Reid-8665439-79935422.html">The impudent tyranny of Harry Reid | Washington Examiner</a>.</p>
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