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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; President Obama</title>
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		<title>A Legal Precedent for Executive Amnesty?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ian-smith/a-legal-precedent-for-executive-amnesty/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-legal-precedent-for-executive-amnesty</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ian-smith/a-legal-precedent-for-executive-amnesty/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 06 Nov 2014 05:25:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ian Smith]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amnesty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[executive]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=244658</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A Georgetown Law confab makes the case for the president.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/2329886714_0bfdbfbe73.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-244659" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/2329886714_0bfdbfbe73-450x337.jpg" alt="2329886714_0bfdbfbe73" width="315" height="236" /></a>C-SPAN recently aired footage of the 11th annual Immigration Law and Policy Conference held every year at the Georgetown University Law Center just off Capitol Hill. The confab’s always a &#8220;who’s who&#8221; of the open-borders, anti-sovereignty movement, from the immigration lawyers lobby to Hispanic chauvinist groups, and past keynote speakers have included such border insecurity-stalwarts as Chuck Schumer and John McCain.</p>
<p>This year’s big panel was on the “legal precedents” supporting President Obama’s forthcoming amnesty, led by Marc Rosenblum of the Migration Policy Institute, a pro-open borders, Carnegie-funded outfit. Rosenblum helped craft the 2007 McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill and he’s advised Obama on immigration policy in the past. In other forums, he’s also described America as a “nation of nations,” presumably because he thinks the country should no longer be an actual nation unified by language, culture and history.</p>
<p>Norm Ornstein, resident leftist at the American Enterprise Institute and Rosenblum’s fellow panelist, was more open about his views on transforming America. When speaking about the GOP’s voter base (“old white men”), Ornstein informed the audience that “older white men are a group you cannot trust.” Although this is normal discourse for the contemporary Left, it should still be a red alert for those who resist balkanizing the nation – watch the video from 01:06:30; send your complaints to Georgetown University, AEI, and the SPLC.</p>
<p>Rosenblum’s pro-amnesty presentation was essentially a lecture to attendees (majority law students) on why we should ignore the immigration laws on our books should. He proceeded to “justify” Obama’s forthcoming amnesty by pointing out five previous “executive actions on immigration” going back to the 1960s, which gave some degree of discretion to federal agencies in the management of deportations. To people who actually know immigration law, however, Rosenblum’s presentation was close to fraudulent.</p>
<p>Left out of his powerpoint was that of the five executive actions picked, four were illegitimate power-grabs by federal agencies which were later restricted or completely culled by Congress and the other wasn’t even an executive program at all, but one implemented by Congress. Each are addressed below. Rosenblum’s list actually turns out to be very useful for pro-borders advocates, as it shows a historical pattern of Congress pushing back against programs created out of thin air by the executive.</p>
<p>As Rosenblum first notes, the executive has in the past exercised so-called “parole authority” as a sort of mass refugee program for whole groups of illegals, like after Castro’s takeover of Cuba in 1960 when thousands of Cubans illegally residing in the US were granted permission to stay. But as was recalled in a recent court filing by the Immigration Reform Law Institute, the INS’s use of group parole had been in violation of the Immigration and Naturalization Act, which grants parole only in isolated, case-by-case situations. In the words of the court of appeals for the second circuit, Congress therefore clamped down on the practice in 1980 with the Refugee Act and again in 1996 with the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) due to a “concern that parole &#8230; was being used by the executive to circumvent congressionally established immigration policy.”</p>
<p>Other programs justifying amnesty described by Rosenblum have followed a similar pattern. The still-current “Temporary Protected Status” (TPS) program, started in 1990, is basically a temporary refugee program that can apply to certain national groups when their country of origin becomes ravaged by war or suffers a natural disaster. But TPS was implemented by Congress, not the executive. In fact, Congress passed TPS in order to restrain the executive which had for years practiced a similar program on its own (through a program called “extended voluntary departure,” which Rosenblum also covered). Congress reacted by creating an “exclusive remedy” in the area of deportation-relief based on nationality, which was intended to tether by statute the executive’s potentially boundless application of deportation relief.</p>
<p>Another program Rosenblum uses, “deferred enforced departure,” merely sought to revive what the executive had been doing before TPS. The courts have described this program as essentially the same as TPS, although Obama extended deportation relief under the program to a group of Liberians living illegally in the US in 2011.</p>
<p>Finally, there’s “deferred action,” Rosenblum’s final justification for Obama’s unilateral amnesty. This program was an attempt by the executive to delegate to itself the authority to grant relief based on humanitarian reasons or reasons of convenience. Congress once again took back this authority with the 1996 passage of IIRIRA, and although DHS admitted in 2000 that the statute expunged deferred action, Obama cited it as an authority in 2012 when he unilaterally implemented the &#8220;Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals&#8221; program, which has twice been held unconstitutional in federal court and which was based on a bill (the DREAM Act) that was rejected 24 times in Congress.</p>
<p>Executive discretion for group-deportation relief has always been followed by Congress either rolling it back or regulating it under legislation according to Congress’s terms. That tension is now higher than it’s ever been.</p>
<p>Much of the motivation behind the executive actions Rosenblum lays out was probably explained as a natural power-grab from bureaucrats simply looking to expand their authority. But the motivation for amnesty today appears to be far more sinister. People like Obama, Rosenblum and Ornstein want to balkanize the nation, presumably out of distrust of “old white men.” And so serious is their drive toward this end, they’ll even ignore the letter and spirit of the law to get there.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Religious Rally Against Israel</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/mark-d-tooley/religious-rally-against-israel/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=religious-rally-against-israel</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/mark-d-tooley/religious-rally-against-israel/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Jun 2010 04:00:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark D. Tooley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[anglican communion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[antiochian orthodox church]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Bishop]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blockade]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CMEP]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[D.C.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[episcopal church presiding bishop]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[episcopal peace fellowship]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gaza]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[greek archdiocese]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[israeli blockade]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=62422</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Churches for Middle East Peace gets on the side of those lusting for genocide. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/presiding-bishop-katharine-jefferts-schori.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-62731" title="presiding-bishop-katharine-jefferts-schori" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/presiding-bishop-katharine-jefferts-schori-300x229.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="229" /></a></p>
<p>Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) tries to organize American religious opinion against Israel with relatively measured tones.  Its participants predictably include officials from the left-dominated Mainline Protestant denominations, liberal Catholic orders, and the Greek Archdiocese of North America, as well as the Antiochian Orthodox Church in the U.S.  Its official &#8220;friends&#8221; include more overtly anti-Israel diehards like Friends of Sabeel &#8211; North America, which essentially wants to dissolve Jewish Israel in favor of a multi-ethnic &#8220;Palestine.&#8221;   Various advocates of anti-Israel divestment, an otherwise largely defeated cause, are also &#8220;friends&#8221; to CEMP, including the Episcopal Peace Fellowship, the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, and the Methodist Federation for Social Action.</p>
<p>The star of CMEP&#8217;s annual &#8220;advocacy&#8221; conference in Washington, D.C. starting June 13 will be Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.  Comfortably liberal Episcopal refinement is exactly the sort of tone that CMEP often prefers to mask its more provocative agenda.  Bishop Schori is enmeshed in the melt-down of her own denomination, including lawsuits against departing local congregations, and its schism with the more theologically orthodox global Anglican Communion.  But denouncing Israel still merits her attention.</p>
<p>Last week, she wrote President Obama a relatively long, substantive and, by Religious left standards, temperate denunciation of Israel&#8217;s interception of the Gaza-bound flotilla. But the bias and preoccupation with Israeli sins, perceived or real, are still obvious, even if cloaked in Episcopalian politesse.  Admitting all the details of the flotilla event are still unclear, she still insisted:   &#8220;It is clear, however, that the deaths of civilians working to deliver humanitarian aid could not have happened absent the counterproductive Israeli blockade of Gaza.&#8221;  Ostensibly there are &#8220;far better ways to protect Israel&#8217;s security and promote moderate political leadership in Gaza than a blockade that intensifies human suffering and perpetuates regional insecurity.&#8221;</p>
<p>What are the alternatives to counteracting Hamas rule in Gaza short of a partial blockade against it?  Like most Israel critics, Bishop Schori does not say.  And as with other professions of supposed concern about Israel&#8217;s &#8220;security,&#8221; Bishop Schori and other clerics who publicly pontificate about the Middle East almost never offer substitute proposals for whatever Israeli defenses they reject.  The security wall is supposedly an outrage, but what else will impede suicide bombers?  Israel&#8217;s continued security oversight of the West Bank is purportedly oppresses the Palestinians.  But since most Palestinians still seem to reject a Palestinian state existing peacefully alongside a Jewish Israel, what are the other options?  Religious and secular complainants insist that removal of Jewish settlements from the West Bank is prerequisite for peace.  But the abrupt closure of all Jewish settlements in Gaza hardly generated good will and instead seemed only to stimulate appetite for more Israeli concessions.  Browbeating Israel into endless accommodations that only feed an inexhaustible expectation by Palestinians for further Israeli retreat and eventual Arab/Islamist triumph seems to be the Religious Left&#8217;s main strategy for Middle East &#8220;peace.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;Instead of enhancing Israel&#8217;s security, the blockade has harmed its international standing and imposed an inexcusable humanitarian toll on the people of Gaza,&#8221; Bishop Schori insisted in her letter to Obama.  &#8220;While Israel has allowed a very limited amount of humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, the restriction on basic goods for agriculture, fishing, and infrastructure construction has caused poverty and joblessness to soar.&#8221;  This may be true, but why is Israel exclusively at fault for Gaza&#8217;s suffering?  How was Gaza faring before to the blockade, and under the rule of the Palestinian Authority?  What evidence is there for Palestinian leadership genuinely interested in responsible governance rather than indefinite conflict?</p>
<p>Bishop Schori provided details about the number of trucks with supplies entering Gaza per day. The concern is partly admirable, if sincere.  But why is a U.S. Episcopal Bishop obsessed with living standards for Gaza, or the Palestinians, when hundreds of millions globally live in far greater poverty?  Would Palestinian GNP, in Gaza or the West Bank, interest liberal U.S. bishops at all, absent Israel as the targeted culprit?  How many anti-Western dictators have blockaded or literally starved hostile populations much larger than Gaza, without a murmur from Bishop Schori or the Religious Left?</p>
<p>Rather than tacitly backing an ill-advised blockade, the U.S. should work with its ally, Israel, to promote constructive new policies toward Gaza that serve the aims of peace and security,&#8221; Bishop Schori lectured.  The former oceanographer and teacher wants &#8220;continued efforts to halt violence, and credible long-term strategies to support Palestinian leaders who are actively working for peace,&#8221; while also drawing &#8220;support and legitimacy from across Palestinian society.&#8221;  She suggests &#8220;political reconciliation so that a future Palestinian government can draw strength both from its internal support and from its external actions on behalf of peace.&#8221;  How does the Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop, unable to reconcile the divisions within her own denomination of tea sippers and Volvo drivers, propose to reconcile Hamas with other Palestinians, much less Israel?</p>
<p>For Schori, the goals for the Middle East are simple.  The Episcopal Church has &#8220;repeatedly&#8221; supported a &#8220;secure Israel with defined borders, whose right to exist is universally recognized; a sovereign, independent and secure state for the Palestinian people; and shared custody and protection of the holy sites in Jerusalem held sacred by the three great Abrahamic faiths.&#8221;  This rhetoric appeals to Episcopalians snugly secure in their New England hamlets.  But how many Palestinians, even outside Hamas, share this vision?</p>
<p>Schori instructed Obama to shift our nation&#8217;s posture&#8221; towards &#8220;lifting the blockade,&#8221; while also &#8220;robustly&#8221; encouraging &#8220;long-term peace.&#8221;  She also expects &#8220;direct negotiation between the parties,&#8221; i.e. apparent recognition for Hamas.  How will abandoning the Gaza blockade and recognizing Hamas, which would surely inflate that Islamist group’s prestige and ambitions, advance peace?   In the rarified and often beautiful world of Episcopal liturgy, noblesse oblige, gothic spires, and ancient endowments, simply demanding “long-term peace’ may seem quite attainable over a lunch at the country club.  In the real world of guns, power, and even more ancient hatreds, appeasement often only breeds greater conflict.</p>
<p>Bishop Schori’s pleas to appease Hamas were relatively more thoughtful than other Religious Left voices.  United Methodist lobbyist Jim Winkler histrionically bewailed Israel’s “high-seas piracy” against the “Freedom Flotilla.”  But her appeal to Obama, and her likely commentary to Churches for Middle East Peace later this week, are just as feckless, and, if heeded, just as dangerous.</p>
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		<title>Primary Lessons</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/primary-lessons/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=primary-lessons</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/primary-lessons/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Jun 2010 05:00:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=62630</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Left sputters, while the Tea Parties surge. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/scaled.0609_sun_angle_t651.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-62645" title="scaled.0609_sun_angle_t651" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/scaled.0609_sun_angle_t651-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" /></a></p>
<p>As President Obama’s poll ratings tumble and the Democratic majority in Congress continues to post record disapproval numbers, some on the Left have consoled themselves with the thought that the growing grassroots hostility to incumbent candidates transcends party and ideology. In this exegesis, liberal and progressive discontents are just as wound up – and just as influential – as their conservative Tea Party counterparts. If this week’s primary election results proved anything, it’s that this reading of the nation’s political map won’t wash. While the Tea Parties continued to notch victories in pivotal primary races, the Left’s insurgents were rebuffed.</p>
<p>The most prominent example came from Arkansas, where embattled Senator Blanche Lincoln staved off a bruising challenge from her union-backed rival, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. Lincoln drew Big Labor’s wrath for heresies like opposing “<a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Labor-blows-another-_10-million-on-card-check-95977759.html">card check</a>” legislation, which would have eliminated secret ballots to facilitate union organizing. As payback, unions, aided by a battery of progressive political action groups, put their full political clout into the race, sponsoring Halter to the tune of $10 million. But while the lavishly funded challenge did force Lincoln into a runoff, the unions’ purchasing power came up short. As one agonized Obama White House official told <em>Politico</em>: “Organized labor just flushed $10 million of their members&#8217; money down the toilet on a pointless exercise.” Lincoln remains deeply vulnerable. Polls show she trails her Republican opponent John Boozman by some 25 points. But her defeat, if it comes, will be punishment for being too loyal to the Left’s agenda (Lincoln cast the decisive 60<sup>th</sup> vote to pass ObamaCare) rather than for straying too far from it.</p>
<p>Lest one dismiss Arkansas as a one-off from conservative country, liberal bastions proved no more receptive to left-wing insurgents. In California’s 36<sup>th</sup> district, far-Left candidate Marcy Winograd lost her second successive bid to oust Democratic centrist Jane Harman. Winograd, who styles herself as a “peace” activist, ran a campaign that sounded the full range of the angry Left’s talking points: Harman was variously portrayed as a corporate shill, a warmonger, and a traitor to the Left. An outspoken foe of Israel, Winograd even tried to capitalize on Harman’s pro-Israel record in the context of the recent clash between Israeli commandos and armed Turkish activists attempting to run Israel’s naval blockade. Winograd<a href="http://www.facebook.com/notes/marcy-winograd-for-congress/peace-candidate-winograd-denounces-murders-of-free-gaza-activists/10150196134540206%20"> boasted</a> that as a sign of “solidarity” with the activists, her campaign had sent a Winograd for Congress T-Shirt that had been “worn on the flotilla.” As primary day neared, progressive blogs began <a href="http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/linda-milazzo/28963/will-marcy-winograd-pull-a-sestak-and-beat-jane-harman-in-the-june-8th-california-primary">trumpeting</a> Winograd as the new Joe Sestak – a true progressive who would oust the incumbent impostor. The hype proved just that, as Harman won by a comfortable <a href="http://redondobeach.patch.com/articles/election-results-veteran-harman-defeats-winograd">18-point</a> margin.</p>
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		<title>Will the West Back the Jihad or Israel?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/davidhornik/will-the-west-back-the-jihad-or-israel/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=will-the-west-back-the-jihad-or-israel</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 08 Jun 2010 04:33:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[P. David Hornik]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The stakes are more than very high.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Obama.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62389" title="Obama" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Obama.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="292" /></a></p>
<p>Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/netanyahu-group-who-attacked-idf-troops-boarded-ship-separately-1.294459">told his cabinet</a> this week that “the world is beginning to become aware” of what really happened in the “flotilla incident” in which nine of the “activists” trying to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza were killed. Namely, that the “activists” on the <em>Mavi Marmara</em>—actually “martyrdom”-seeking jihadists tied to the <a href="http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/gj_e007.htm">terror-linked IHH organization</a> with some sort of backing from the Turkish government—fell upon inadequately-armed Israeli soldiers with knives, clubs, iron bars, and guns and forced them to fight for their lives.</p>
<p>Is Netanyahu right that this accurate picture of the events is sinking in? True, Vice-President Joe Biden <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100603/pl_afp/israelconflictgazausbiden">said</a> Israel “has an absolute right to deal with its security interest…. It’s legitimate for Israel to say, ‘I don’t know what’s on that ship. These guys are dropping eight—3,000 rockets on my people.’” The <em>Washington Post</em> asked why Israel was taking all the blame and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/04/AR2010060404806.html">called for</a> Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s role in the incident to be probed. Prospective Republican presidential candidates <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/palin-reacts-flotilla-incident">Sarah Palin</a> and <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGE4NzkyY2FhZDIzMzMxM2NmMDE2MWFmNmUzM2JiMDA=">Liz Cheney</a> both came out solidly in defense of Israel.</p>
<p>But, even if some understand that last week’s round of media and diplomatic Israel-bashing over the affair was again baseless and slanderous, it still appears to be too little, too late. There have already been reports, and concerns, in Israel that the next flotilla might be escorted by Turkish naval warships, or include Erdogan himself as one of the passengers. This week Iran, too, is getting into the act, with one <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7145279.ece">report</a> claiming Tehran is already planning to send two aid ships to Gaza, and Ali Shirazi, representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini within the Revolutionary Guards, <a href="http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/100606/world/international_us_israel_flotilla_iran">saying</a> that “Iran’s Revolutionary Guards naval forces are fully prepared to escort the peace and freedom convoys to Gaza with all their powers and capabilities.”</p>
<p>Bluff? Threats made to keep Israel off balance and keep the spotlight off Iran’s continuing progress toward nukes? It’s impossible to know at this point. But what is clear is that the radical bloc led by Iran—which also includes Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah and, increasingly, Turkey—feels all the more emboldened by its successes and by Western weakness. To those successes—which include, along with Iran’s unimpeded nuke program, the ongoing, extensive armament of Hezbollah—can now be added igniting another storm of Western fury at Israel over last week’s incident, which included the usual professions of “shock” by Western leaders, the usual pounding of Israel in the Western mainstream media, the usual cooperation by Western countries with anti-Israeli votes in the Security Council and the UN Human Rights Council, as well as the Obama administration’s repeated calls—<a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=177672">steeped in contempt</a> for Israeli democracy—for an Israeli investigation of the flotilla incident with “international components.”</p>
<p>The West will have to decide whether it wants to keep encouraging the radicals or finally start discouraging them. Regarding Turkey itself, Israeli analyst Efraim Inbar <a href="http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/docs/perspectives108.pdf">notes</a> that “support in public opinion for [Erdogan’s] ruling Islamic party is in decline.” If that trend persists, as Inbar points out, a new government could well emerge in Turkey’s July 2011 elections—and that could be precisely why Erdogan is now trying to whip up the masses by upping the ante with Israel. When the result of the flotilla-ploy against Israel is that the West indeed turns in wrath upon the Jewish state, it paints Erdogan as a hero in many Turkish eyes and only bolsters the extremist, anti-Western proclivity.</p>
<p>More generally, one doesn’t have to have excessively fine instruments to detect the escalating saber-rattling against Israel by the Iranian-led bloc, with Turkey now adding its voice emphatically. An armed challenge to Israel’s blockade of Gaza could be the match that lights the fuse. Even if some Western leaders appear to regard Israel as a burdensome rogue, not really worth sticking up for, they would have to think about what such a Middle Eastern conflagration would mean for stability, oil availability and prices, and the like. The sides are heavily armed and the stakes are very high.</p>
<p>Standing up for Israel, imparting the sense that it has Western support, calms the winds and keeps war at bay. Raging against Israel for killing nine jihadists in self-defense is a way of telling the radicals that it’s open season.</p>
<p><em>P. David Hornik is a freelance writer and translator in Beersheva, Israel. He blogs at </em><a href="http://pdavidhornik.typepad.com/" target="_blank"><em>http://pdavidhornik.typepad.com</em></a><em>.</em></p>
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		<title>Disasters and Double Standards</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/andrew-cline/disasters-and-double-standards/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=disasters-and-double-standards</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/andrew-cline/disasters-and-double-standards/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 04 Jun 2010 04:26:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Andrew Cline]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Where’s the media outrage over Obama's mismanagement of the Gulf Coast crisis?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/gallery-obamabpspill1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-61790" title="gallery-obamabpspill1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/gallery-obamabpspill1-300x216.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="216" /></a></p>
<p>Remember the big stories in the national media when George W. Bush waited four days to tour New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit? Here’s a pop quiz: How long did it take President Obama to visit the Gulf coast after the Deepwater Horizon oil leak began?</p>
<p>The answer is 13 days. Here is how The <em>Washington Post</em> described that visit:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;He flew in and out of New Orleans on May 2, drove two hours to a Coast Guard station and got a briefing before taking a quick helicopter tour. He did not even see the oil slick.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Mark Knoller of CBS News reported last week that in the first 39 days after each respective catastrophe, Obama visited the Gulf coast twice; Bush visited New Orleans seven times. But remember, this is not Obama’s Katrina!</p>
<p>Now imagine if President Bush, five weeks into one of the largest oil leaks in U.S. history, and without ever having seen the slick, jetted across the country to headline a $17,600 per-person fund-raiser at the home of an oil-fortune heir. How do you think the national press would have treated that? Bush didn’t do that, which is why you didn’t hear about it. President Obama did — which is why you didn’t hear about it.</p>
<p>The media covered Obama’s trip to San   Francisco to raise money for Barbara Boxer. Some news outlets even reported that Obama spoke at a private reception at the home of Democratic Party donor Gordon Getty. But few reported that Getty is the heir to the Getty Oil fortune. For instance, the <em>New York Times</em> reports on Obama’s trip never identified Getty as an oil heir. Do you think that would have been omitted had Bush been Getty’s guest?</p>
<p>What if, hours after the head of the U.S. Minerals Management Service left her job over Washington’s mishandling of that giant oil spill, President Bush held a press conference (his first in months) and, when asked about that agency head, could not say whether she had resigned or been fired? What if, hours later, the White House stated that the President knew all along that she had been dismissed, but that story was contradicted by the Cabinet secretary — the one who supposedly did the dismissing — having said that morning during a congressional hearing that she’d resigned voluntarily?</p>
<p>That happened in the Obama administration last week. Where are the outraged cries of incompetence and dishonesty?</p>
<p>Can you imagine the charges of buffoonery that would pour forth from New York, Washington, and Los Angeles, if the George W. Bush administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a state law that had been signed into law by one of Bush’s own cabinet secretaries?</p>
<p>Well, last week the Obama administration did exactly that. The Department of Justice asked the court to overturn a 2007 Arizona immigration law that punishes employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano signed the bill into law when she was Arizona governor.</p>
<p>All of these events were reported in the mainstream media. But they were not reported in the same way they would have been had a Republican been president. The point of this criticism is not to say that Bush was great and Obama stinks. Bush was not a great president. The point is to illustrate the double standard most of the media have.</p>
<p>Media bias exhibits itself in the subtle favoring of liberal politicians and ideas. The same rules don’t apply to the left and the right. The left is presumed to have good intentions, the right bad. So when Bush took four days to get to New Orleans after Katrina hit, it was evidence of racism, elitism, a general lack of concern for the little people. But when it took Obama three times as long to visit the Gulf Coast, there was silence.</p>
<p>When a left-wing administration makes mistakes or contradicts itself, that is simply human nature. When a right-of-center administration does, it is incompetence or duplicity. Or both.</p>
<p>At least some on the left are calling out Obama for his inattentiveness to the Gulf oil spill. That’s no substitute for the press setting the national narrative by holding him to the same standards to which it held Bush. But it’s a start.</p>
<p><em>Andrew Cline is editorial page editor of the New Hampshire Union Leader. Follow him on twitter @Drewhampshire.</em></p>
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		<title>Hanging Israel Out to Dry</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/larry-elder/hanging-israel-out-to-dry/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hanging-israel-out-to-dry</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/larry-elder/hanging-israel-out-to-dry/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 04 Jun 2010 04:00:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Larry Elder]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=62037</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Obama turns his back on the only safe-haven of freedom in the Middle East.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/1269443148obama_netanyahu_wash_nyt.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-62062" title="1269443148obama_netanyahu_wash_nyt" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/1269443148obama_netanyahu_wash_nyt-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a></p>
<p>Vice President Joe Biden, wrong on virtually every major foreign policy issue since his election to the Senate in 1972, nailed this one: He warned that actors on the international stage would test the new, inexperienced President.</p>
<p>He knew that President Barack Obama&#8217;s enemies would perceive his strength-through-peace (versus peace-through-strength) approach as weakness. They do and are acting accordingly.</p>
<p>Candidate Obama vowed to hold high-level talks with Iran and North Korea without &#8220;preconditions.&#8221; Obama promised a &#8220;reset&#8221; of all things President George W. Bush, with no more talk of &#8220;victory&#8221; in Iraq and Afghanistan. He reneged on the promised missile shield defense in Poland and the Czech Republic. He waits for countries like China and Russia, both of which have business interests in Iran, to agree to &#8220;tough, crippling&#8221; sanctions.</p>
<p>The President dropped the term &#8220;war on terror&#8221; and refuses to call Islamofascists &#8220;Islamofascists.&#8221; He apologetically says America is vital in maintaining world peace &#8220;whether we like it or not.&#8221; He sent a videotaped message to Iran telling of our willingness to re-engage the country — if only it would unclench its fist. It unclenched more time for Iran to pursue a nuclear bomb. The administration was painfully slow to acknowledge that the Times Square truck bomb attempt involved foreign Islamic terrorists.</p>
<p>The administration chastised Israel for settlement construction in an area of east Jerusalem that President Bill Clinton, President George W. Bush and even Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat assumed would be part of Israel in any peace agreement. During Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu&#8217;s state visit, Obama treated him worse than a White House dinner gate-crasher.</p>
<p>How&#8217;s the hope and change working out?</p>
<p>North Korea, in an act of war, sank a South Korean ship. Iran may now have sufficient materiel and technical knowledge to build a nuclear bomb. The Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah — under the nose of United Nations &#8220;peacekeepers&#8221; — continues to stock southern Lebanon with weapons that threaten Israel.</p>
<p>Now comes the anti-Israel &#8220;humanitarian&#8221; flotilla.</p>
<p>After Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza, the terror group Hamas seized power. Israel and Egypt began a naval blockade of ships in and out of Gaza. Though Israel had uprooted every Israeli settler from Gaza, Hamas fired thousands of rockets into Israel, a bombardment that continues today.</p>
<p>Israel already sends humanitarian aid into Gaza and allows others to do so.</p>
<p>Israel even agreed to allow the supposed humanitarian flotilla cargo to enter, provided Israeli security could check it for weapons. And never mind that some of the flotilla&#8217;s &#8220;humanitarian activists&#8221; appear to have ties to terror organizations.</p>
<p>The flotilla&#8217;s attempt to run the blockade resulted in nine deaths when the Israeli military boarded ships to inspect the cargo. As Israel&#8217;s enemies hoped, Israel stands accused of a &#8220;disproportionate&#8221; response.</p>
<p>But why the flotilla now?</p>
<p>The most significant intervening event is the election of President Obama. Now Israel&#8217;s most important ally considers Israeli intransigence the principal obstacle to peace with the Palestinians in particular and in the Middle East in general. The activists got the message: Israel is on the defensive.</p>
<p>Israel, with good reason, feels alone.</p>
<p>Obama, like Bush in his second term, seems willing to accept a nuclear-armed Iran — even as Iran threatens Israel with annihilation. Obama apparently considers a nuclear-armed Iran inevitable, even if it ignites a regional nuclear arms race — since Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan fear Iran more than they do Israel.</p>
<p>Give Obama credit for continuing many of Bush&#8217;s policies. Gitmo remains open, the administration finally understanding that the prison exists for a reason. He continued rendition, the terror surveillance program and the increased use of drone predators in Pakistan. He used the same &#8220;state secrets&#8221; argument to fight courtroom disclosure of sources and methods. He increased troop strength in Afghanistan and continues the Bush &#8220;clear and hold&#8221; strategy for that country and Iraq.</p>
<p>But Jimmy Carter governed as a strength-through-peace president. He pressured the Shah of Iran to release &#8220;political prisoners.&#8221; The shah was toppled, only to be followed by the repressive and threatening Islamic Republic of Iran. Carter urged Americans to abandon their &#8220;inordinate fear of communism.&#8221; Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev considered Carter weak and rewarded him by invading Afghanistan. This triggered a chain reaction from which the world continues to suffer. The Arabs and Muslims who fought to expel the Soviet Union then turned on the United States and the West in a grand plan for an Islamic world.</p>
<p>Israel&#8217;s response to the flotilla was an act of self-defense. The Western world&#8217;s reaction has been shameful. Western countries once again fail to distinguish the arsonist from the firefighter.</p>
<p>In 1962, the United States imposed a naval blockade — a &#8220;quarantine&#8221; — on Cuba. What would we have done to a &#8220;humanitarian&#8221; flotilla determined to help Fidel Castro place Soviet missiles 90 miles from Florida?</p>
<p><em>Larry Elder is a syndicated radio talk show host and best-selling author. His latest book, &#8220;What&#8217;s Race Got to Do with It?&#8221; is available now. To find out more about Larry Elder, visit his Web page at www.WeveGotACountryToSav</em><em>e.com.</em></p>
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		<title>Netanyahu to International Community: Stop the Hypocrisy</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/davidhornik/netanyahu-to-international-community-stop-the-hypocrisy/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=netanyahu-to-international-community-stop-the-hypocrisy</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 03 Jun 2010 04:38:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[P. David Hornik]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[What nation in the world would forbid its soldiers to protect their own lives?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/net.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-61910" title="net" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/net.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="303" /></a></p>
<p>The IDF has released two more videos from the incident Monday morning on the <em>Mavi Marmara</em>, the largest in the Turkish-organized six-ship flotilla that challenged Israel’s blockade of Gaza, and the only one to prepare a violent ambush. One of these two videos is even more dramatic than the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYjkLUcbJWo">one released on Monday</a>, now viewed by over a million on YouTube, that shows <em>Mavi Marmara</em> “peace activists” among other things beating the soldiers with iron bars.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6sAEYpHF24&amp;feature=player_embedded">relatively less dramatic</a> of the two newly released videos shows the “activists”—actually <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3898109,00.html">jihadists seeking “martyrdom”</a>—attacking the soldiers with a stun grenade, a box of plates, and water hoses as they try to board the ship. The other newly released video is actually almost purely <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFGuwUGaI9o&amp;feature=player_embedded">audial footage</a> of a frenetic exchange between soldiers on the <em>Mavi Marmara</em> and the nearby IDF ship. The former, in a state of acute panic, shout that they need reinforcements, are being fired at from all directions, and have to be evacuated immediately. For a while the jihadists can be heard chanting something in the background.</p>
<p>The iron-bars video was released only late Monday afternoon after the “Israel kills peace activists” media-storm had already swept through the world for eight or nine hours, and some in Israel have bitterly charged that releasing it a good deal earlier, if not immediately, could have saved Israel much of the media and diplomatic damage. The reason for the delay was a concern for military morale: seeing soldiers of the Naval Commandos—one of the most legendary of all IDF units—being abjectly beaten, and in one case thrown over the side of the boat, is not the sort of imagery the IDF and Israel itself want to project of these fighters.</p>
<p>But if the iron-bars video is problematic in that regard, the new one in which the soldiers shout, in panic, for their lives is even more so. Why, then, was it released now, when the UN Security Council, <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/joining-jackals">with President Obama’s acquiescence</a>, has already condemned Israel over the incident, the UN Human Rights Council is <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3898157,00.html">preparing another Goldstone-type “investigation,”</a> and Israel has generally been dragged through another worldwide round of condemnation? This new video proves beyond a doubt to any reasonable human being that the soldiers finally opened fired, killing nine of their attackers, solely to save their own lives. But what good could it do at this point?</p>
<p>The answer is that Israel realizes its troubles from this incident are not over and indeed are just beginning. Another ship, the <em>Rachel Corrie</em> (named after the young anti-Israeli activist accidentally killed by an IDF bulldozer in 2003), is <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/activists-we-have-funding-for-another-larger-gaza-flotilla-1.293748">already on its way</a> to Gaza from Malta; while carrying only fifteen activists, Irish prime minister Brian Cowen has described it as Irish-owned and is calling on Israel to let it through. A group called the European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza claims to be planning a new, much larger flotilla than the one intercepted by Israel this week. Newly elected British prime minister David Cameron is <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-faces-growing-world-pressure-to-lift-gaza-blockade-1.293800">calling on Israel</a> to lift the Gaza blockade altogether.</p>
<p>In other words, the democratic world is now getting into the act too—with a vengeance. It was one thing for increasingly-Islamist, Iran- and Syria-friendly, Hamas-supporting Turkey to send the first flotilla. It is quite another thing—and well beyond the usual, de rigueur, but shameful cooperation with Arab-, Islamic-, and “nonaligned”-bloc calumny against Israel in the UN—for Western governments to start getting on this bandwagon as well.</p>
<p>It was in response to the increasingly alarming situation that Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=177286">gave a brief, terse statement</a> to the nation Wednesday night in which he said: “The state of Israel faces an attack of international hypocrisy. This is not the first time we have faced this; two years ago we faced a massive attack of missiles fired by Hamas who hid behind civilians. Israel went to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties; but whom did the UN condemn? It condemned Israel.”</p>
<p>Noting that “It is our right according to international law to prevent arms smuggling to Gaza and that is why the naval blockade was put in place,” Netanyahu pointed out that two ships intercepted by the Israeli navy in recent years—the <em><a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/iranian-arms-ship-captured-by-israel-shows-tehran%E2%80%99s-real-aims/">Francop</a></em> in 2009 and the <em><a href="http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Communiques/2002/Seizing%20of%20the%20Palestinian%20weapons%20ship%20Karine%20A%20-">Karine-A</a></em> in 2002—were carrying hundreds of tons of Iranian-supplied weapons, and that while the smuggling of Iranian weapons into Gaza through tunnels continues, what can be delivered by sea is incomparably vaster and would result in an Iranian port in Gaza threatening not only Tel Aviv but also “other countries in the region.”</p>
<p>Turning finally to the uproar over the <em>Mavi Marmara</em>, Netanyahu, noting that he had talked personally with the wounded soldiers and heard firsthand accounts of how their lives were endangered, stated:</p>
<blockquote><p>The soldiers defended their lives with incomparable restraint. What would any other country do?&#8230; I ask the international community, what would you do instead? We’ll continue to defend our citizens and assert our right to self-defense, which is my first duty as prime minister.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>It is important that we stay united on this issue, which is a matter of life and death.</p></blockquote>
<p>The questions Netanyahu raised are indeed very much open. It is no longer clear whether the international community, including its democratic component, is prepared to tolerate the soldiers of the Jewish state shooting back when shot at by a mob, and no longer clear whether it is prepared to countenance the Jewish state defending itself, or existing, at all. Israel, meanwhile, is still trying to make its case, hardly confident that it makes a difference.</p>
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		<title>Never Letting a Serious Crisis Go to Waste</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/dov-fischer/never-letting-a-serious-crisis-go-to-waste/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=never-letting-a-serious-crisis-go-to-waste</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 03 Jun 2010 04:00:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dov Fischer]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Will Obama exploit the BP oil fiasco to further his environmentalist agenda?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/photo_1268888322112-4-0_77266_G.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-61963" title="photo_1268888322112-4-0_77266_G" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/photo_1268888322112-4-0_77266_G-300x191.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="191" /></a></p>
<p>White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel gained notoriety for declaring his credo: “<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yeA_kHHLow" target="_blank">You never want a serious crisis to go to waste</a>.” In other words, when there is tragedy and suffering, intense human pain and disaster, a political expert enjoys a unique opportunity to push the least popular parts of his agenda past a distracted electorate.</p>
<p>No sooner had President Barack Obama entered the White House than the Emanuel Doctrine was put into motion with the 1,073-page $787 billion “stimulus bill” that had to be <a href="http://www.nwfdailynews.com/opinion/bill-15375-welfare-people.html" target="_blank">rushed through Congress, seemingly overnight</a>.  As <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/jan/26/joe-barton/Congress-getting-little-review-of-stimulus-bill/" target="_blank">Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) said</a>: “We have not had a single hearing on anything in front of us&#8230;.We’ve been told that even one hearing would be one too many, and that we have a single day to approve these five complex propositions that will affect the lives of millions.”</p>
<p>Faced in January 2009 with a looming national financial catastrophe, as a crash in the residential real estate market prompted a grave Wall Street crisis, the Obama White House detected cover to raid the public till and reward staunch Democrat loyalists under the rubric of a “stimulus bill.”  Beneath the public radar and buried within <a href="http://bailout.uslaw.com/?p=453" target="_blank">the bill’s 1,073 pages</a>, the “stimulus” allocated <em>inter alia</em> $50 million to the National Endowment for the Arts, nearly half a billion dollars for people interested in researching “global warming,” even <a href="http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/07/18m-being-spent-to-redesign-recoverygov-web-site.html" target="_blank">at least $18 million for the website</a> that reports how the “stimulus” funds are allocated.  Overturning a prime achievement of the Clinton Administration, the “stimulus” <a href="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2009/02/Welfare-Spendathon-House-Stimulus-Bill-Will-Cost-Taxpayers-787-Billion-in-New-Welfare-Spending" target="_blank">restored key elements of the welfare practices</a> that America had abandoned. Over time, the “stimulus” has trickled down to fund $233,825 for <a href="http://stimuluswatch.org/2.0/awards/view/2798/explaining-the-african-vote" target="_blank">explaining voting patterns in Africa</a> and $363,760 for two jobs “<a href="http://stimuluswatch.org/2.0/awards/view/21694/develop-real-life-stroies-that-underscore-job-and-infrastructure-related-to-arra-research-findings" target="_blank">[d]evelop[ing] &#8216;real life&#8217; st[or]ies</a> that underscore job and infrastructure related to [the Stimulus Bill] research findings.”</p>
<p>In sum, there was crisis – thus opportunity.  The sweaty-palms sense of crisis that demanded virtually overnight passage before Congressional representatives could read its encyclopedic contents has long since proven exaggerated.  The vast majority of the bill’s funds still have not stimulated anything.  Much of it still has not been infused into the economy.</p>
<p>This is the Emanuel Doctrine:  never let a crisis go to waste.  This doctrine similarly was implemented after <a href="http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/19/brown-coakley-massachusetts-business-healthcare-senate.html" target="_blank">the ObamaCare health measure had been all-but-abandoned</a> when Scott Brown surprisingly defeated Attorney-General Martha Coakley in the race for United State Senator from Massachusetts.  Soon after, unexpectedly, a national pseudo-crisis emerged when Anthem Blue Cross, a California health insurer, sought to raise its health premiums by <a href="http://www.californiahealthline.org/articles/2010/2/5/anthem-blue-cross-to-hike-premium-rates-for-individual-policy-holders.aspx" target="_blank">as much as 39 percent</a>.  The crisis was not wasted by Washington.  Within days, ObamaCare was rushed back onto the House calendar.  Forgotten amid the federal legislative carnage that followed – most recently credited with helping bring down <a href="http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/05/senior-house-democrat-rep-david-obey-to-resign/" target="_blank">Rep. David Obey</a>, <a href="http://img.thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/91307-stupak-to-retire" target="_blank">Rep. Bart Stupak</a>, and Sen. Arlen Specter – is that <a href="http://www.californiahealthline.org/articles/2010/4/30/anthem-blue-cross-to-withdraw-planned-rate-hikes-could-refile-soon.aspx" target="_blank">Anthem Blue Cross ultimately withdrew their rate-hike request</a> as the California insurance oversight system effectively regulated as intended.</p>
<p>Considered in the light of this prior experience, it becomes understandable why the Obama Administration has opted to curtail oil-exploration, suspending and rescinding permits, in response to the tragic Deepwater Horizon oil rig spill off the Gulf  of Mexico.  The story is fresh in the public mind. In raw numbers, eleven have died, and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/27/AR2010052701957_2.html?wpisrc=nl_headline&amp;sid=ST2010052704421" target="_blank">between 18 million and 39 million gallons</a> of oil have gushed along America’s Gulf Coast, already exceeding the <em>Exxon Valdez</em> disaster that spilled nearly 11 million gallons of oil into the waters along Alaska. One of America’s fiercest Democrat partisans, New Orleans resident James Carville, <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill" target="_blank">went on an extraordinary tear</a> last week against the Obama Administration:  “The President of the United States could’ve come down here. He could’ve been involved with the families of these 11 people&#8230;.These people are crying. They&#8217;re begging for something down here, and it just looks like he&#8217;s not involved in this. Man, you got to get down here and take control of this. Put somebody in charge of this and get this thing moving. We&#8217;re about to die down here.” Observing that “[t]he political stupidity of this is just unbelievable,” Carville emphatically repeated his call: “There&#8217;s a thousand things that he could do. He just needs to get down here and start doing something, people are dying.”</p>
<p>By last Thursday, the <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll" target="_blank">daily Rasmussen tracking poll</a> revealed that 26 percent of Americans strongly approve of the President’s job performance, while 42 percent strongly disapprove, giving Mr. Obama a Presidential Approval rating of minus-16.  A <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_pl2270" target="_blank">USA Today/Gallup survey</a> found that 53 percent of Americans rate his handling of the crisis as “poor” or “very poor” while only 43 percent still are satisfied.  Nevertheless, Americans continue to support oil exploration. By a <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_state_surveys/texas/65_in_texas_still_support_offshore_drilling" target="_blank">significant margin, Texas voters</a> still want more offshore oil drilling.  <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/offshore_drilling/64_favor_offshore_oil_drilling" target="_blank">Similar percentages hold nationally. </a> However, for this White House, proceeding with new drilling would “waste” the crisis.</p>
<p>If Obama’s goal were to evaluate ecologically responsible alternatives to drilling for oil a mile below the gulf’s surface, the White House could <a href="http://www.anwr.org/ANWR-Basics/Top-ten-reasons-to-support-ANWR-development.php" target="_blank">reconsider exploring for oil and natural gas in ANWR</a>, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in the north Alaskan coast.  Of ANWR’s 19 million acres, there is enormous potential in a small section, the “10-02 Area,” which still would leave 92% of ANWR untouched. Only one-ten-thousandth of ANWR – a section smaller than LAX airport – actually would have surface drilling rigs. ANWR exploration could pump scores of billions of dollars into the national economy, create half a million great-paying jobs, and reduce American fuel-import expenditures by hundreds of billions of dollars.  Moreover, the local caribou population fare <a href="http://alaskaspirit.com/alaska-travel/the-trans-alaska-pipeline-the-must-see-attraction-for-the-caribou/" target="_blank">better around oil pipelines</a> than environmentalists ever expected.</p>
<p>The Obama White House also could focus its response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster by intensifying federal efforts to clean the environmental catastrophe to Louisiana’s fishing waters, and by <a href="http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/gov_bobby_jindal_state_will_co.html" target="_blank">moving rapidly to approve</a> Gov. <a href="http://www.wwl.com/Jindal---We-won-t-wait-for-federal-permission-to-s/7163295" target="_blank">Bobby Jindal’s almost-frantic pleas for federal permission to erect more protective sand berms</a> along the coast.  However, prior crisis behavior by this White House – whether prompted by a devastating Wall Street collapse or an outlier health insurer inordinately applying to raise rates by 39 percent – reflects that President Obama deems moments like these as unique <em>opportunities</em> for “<a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/11/obamas_transformative_powers.html" target="_blank">transformative</a> social change.”  Thus, we may well anticipate an intensified effort in the near term to resuscitate the moribund “<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124588837560750781.html" target="_blank">Cap and Trade</a>” bill which would add <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504383_162-5314040-504383.html" target="_blank">between $1,761 and $3,100 in annual energy costs</a> for most American homes.</p>
<p>For the President’s <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100528/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill_obama_glance_2" target="_blank">longer-range vision</a> of this crisis, we again encounter his determination to pursue ideological goals that <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/environment_energy/56_don_t_want_to_pay_more_to_fight_global_warming" target="_blank">clash with the American people’s concerns</a>.  He is now stopping new oil exploration: suspending plans for exploratory drilling off the Virginia and Alaska coasts; stopping 33 exploratory drilling projects in the Gulf of Mexico, and; continuing a six-month moratorium on all permits for offshore drilling.  Although our Outer Continental Shelf contains <a href="http://www.mms.gov/offshore/" target="_blank">as much as 86 billion barrels of oil</a>, with possibly <a href="http://www.mms.gov/offshore/220.htm" target="_blank">130 million barrels off the coast of Virginia</a> alone, the President’s response means that we instead will continue importing <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2175rank.html" target="_blank">approximately 13.5 million barrels daily</a> – more than twenty percent of that <a href="http://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/wps/portal/rielcano_eng/Content?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/elcano/elcano_in/zonas_in/ari+74-2006" target="_blank">from the Persian Gulf dictatorships</a> – at prices that now hover around $70 a barrel. We will send Arab Gulf despots some $175 million daily or some $65 billion a year, even as our deficit-driven economy starves for capital, and as our unemployed search for good-paying jobs at home.</p>
<p>Our nation consumes more than <a href="http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_con-energy-oil-consumption" target="_blank">20 million barrels of oil daily</a>, importing nearly <a href="http://www.nationmaster.com/country/us-united-states/ene-energy" target="_blank">sixty percent</a> from foreign countries whose production standards are far less friendly to the polar ice caps than ours.  <a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Earth/Saudi_Arabia_dirtiest/articleshow/3816750.cms" target="_blank">Saudi Arabia, for example, ranks last</a> as the dirtiest emitter of greenhouse gases among the 57 countries rated on one NGO’s “Climate Change Performance Index.” Moreover, our imported oil necessarily arrives in tankers – the petroleum obviously cannot be delivered any other way – and those tankers pose <a href="http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/coal-oil-gas/biggest-oil-spills-in-history" target="_blank">even more extreme environmental risks</a>.  The 1979 <em>Atlantic Empress</em> tanker spilled 88.3 million gallons of oil.  The <em>ABT Summer</em> tanker spilled 78 million off the Angola Coast in 1991.  The <em>Castillo de Bellver </em>spilled 78.5 million.  The <em>Amoco Cadiz</em> tanker lost 68.7 million gallons off France’s Brittany coast.  The <em>Odyssey</em> spilled 43 million off Nova Scotia. The <em>Haven </em>poured 42 million gallons in the waters outside Italy.  <a href="http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001451.html" target="_blank">The list goes on.</a> Yet oil-importing tankers have not been suspended from sailing America’s waters.  Nor do we suspend air travel after a tragedy in the sky nor rail transportation after a train wreck.</p>
<p>President Obama has long opposed new oil exploration. In <a href="http://www.ontheissues.org/SenateVote/Party_2005-288.htm" target="_blank">November 2005</a>, he voted against oil and gas leasing in the Alaskan Coastal Plain.  On April 20, 2007, rolling out his “Initiative to Combat Global Warming,” he told students in New Hampshire that “[i]t will take a grassroots effort to make America greener and <a href="http://www.barackobama.com/2007/04/20/barack_obama_unveils_initiativ.php" target="_blank">end the tyranny of oil</a>.”  Weeks later, he told a crowd: “<a href="http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2007/05/obama_the_age_of_oil_must_end.html" target="_blank">The age of oil must end</a>.” In his <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/07/presidential.debate.transcript/index.html" target="_blank">second Presidential Debate</a> against John McCain, he stated: “[W]e can&#8217;t simply drill our way out of the problem. And we&#8217;re not going to be able to deal with the climate crisis if our only solution is to use more fossil fuels that create global warming.”</p>
<p>Now, with a crisis too opportune to waste, the President has chosen not to respond with a comprehensive proactive approach to America’s energy choices.  He could have encouraged safe new exploration by directing his Interior Secretary henceforth to administer and enforce competently the safety regulations already on the books, but which his <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/04/AR2010050404118.html" target="_blank">Minerals Management Service ignored on his watch</a> during the construction of Deepwater Horizon. He could reconsider opening ANWR to drilling, encourage efforts to expand clean-coal technology, and even order a prioritized review aimed at reviving the construction of nuclear power plants in America. (America has <a href="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-04/28/content_438216.htm" target="_blank">not built a new nuclear power plant in more than thirty years</a>, even as France’s <a href="http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf40.html" target="_blank">sixteen nuclear power plants generate nearly 80 percent</a> of that country’s electricity.) Instead, this Administration, which knows that <a href="http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2008/07/14/4425084-drilling-debate-part-2" target="_blank">it can take ten years</a> from licensing exploration until newly discovered oil reaches market, is prepared to risk laying the foundations for a future crisis by presently deterring new exploration and instead tilting disproportionately at windmills.</p>
<p><em>Dov Fischer is a legal affairs consultant and adjunct professor of the law of civil procedure and advanced torts. He was formerly Chief Articles Editor of UCLA Law Review and writes extensively on political, cultural, and religious issues.  He is author of general </em><em>Sharon</em><em>’s War Against Time Magazine and blogs at <a title="blocked::http://www.rabbidov.com/ http://www.rabbidov.com/" href="http://www.rabbidov.com/" target="_blank">www.rabbidov.com</a></em></p>
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		<title>What&#8217;s Driving Obama Down?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/dick-morris/whats-driving-obama-down/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=whats-driving-obama-down</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 01 Jun 2010 04:02:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dick Morris]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=61658</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The perfect trifecta that's causing the President's plummeting poll numbers.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/obama-sad.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-61690" title="obama-sad" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/obama-sad-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" /></a></p>
<p>President Obama&#8217;s job-approval rating just hit an all-time low. And there&#8217;s a pattern behind the trifecta of issues that are driving the drop — the oil spill, the Arizona immigration-policing law and the fallout from the Greek crisis.</p>
<p>After four months of hovering between a low of 46 percent approval and a high of 49 percent, Obama just fell to 42 percent in the daily Rasmussen polls. What&#8217;s hurting him and why?</p>
<p>On each of these issues, the president originally seized on the issue to make populist political hay. But then the problem wouldn&#8217;t go away — and voters began to realize that Obama is, in fact, the president and (logically enough) started giving him much of the blame.</p>
<p>When oil started to spill into the Gulf of Mexico, Obama seized the opportunity for a partisan attack — blaming Republicans who had chanted &#8220;drill, baby, drill&#8221; the whole summer of 2008 as high gasoline prices gave John McCain&#8217;s candidacy new steam.</p>
<p>Even though the president had himself, with lamentable timing, moved to allow expanded drilling a few weeks before the rig exploded, the impetus for drilling was clearly seen as Republican, and the disaster hurt Republican ratings. Obama couldn&#8217;t resist also piling populist scorn on BP, lambasting big oil for the spill.</p>
<p>But then the leak didn&#8217;t stop — and the slick kept heading to shore. Now the public is wondering why it&#8217;s seen no presidential action to stop the spill. As the oil seeps onto the beaches of Florida, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, it also seeps into Obama&#8217;s poll numbers and drags them down. His press conference was a clear effort to look decisive and effective, and stop the bleeding — but it came awfully late in the crisis.</p>
<p>As soon as Arizona passed its law authorizing cops to pick up illegal immigrants, the president jumped on the issue, trying to use it to drive up Latino turnout for Democrats later this year.</p>
<p>But it became clear that the majority of Americans strongly back the law — and now Obama is sending 1,200 National Guard troops to the border to stop the bleeding in his polls.</p>
<p>Then there&#8217;s the stock market. After the crash of 2008, Obama was quick to blame banks and other big businesses for their irresponsible behavior and then to take credit for averting a global collapse in the aftermath. So when Greece exploded due to its top-heavy debt load and dragged the market below 10,000, people wondered if Obama&#8217;s populist treatment of the financial markets and his big spending and borrowing were subjecting America to economic peril.</p>
<p>When Moody&#8217;s announces that it is considering downgrading the credit rating of the United States of America — the richest nation, by far, on earth — it raises understandable alarm.</p>
<p>Of course, Obama&#8217;s polls will rise and fall in the weeks, months and years ahead; today&#8217;s 42 percent may prove a long-forgotten blip. But it&#8217;s bit like noticing the line of seaweed on the beach. The tide comes in and go out — but the seaweed marks where it will likely return to.</p>
<p>Look at it this way: Obama got 52 percent of the vote in 2008 — so his 42 percent approval means that one in five of his voters has turned on him.</p>
<p>And it&#8217;s a traumatic event for someone who voted for Obama and had stuck with him since, saying he approved of the president&#8217;s policies, to finally turn and says he doesn&#8217;t approve. That voter may go back to approving of his president again — but it gets easier and easier to voice disapproval.</p>
<p>Especially if the oil keeps spilling, the illegals keep coming — and the market keeps tanking.</p>
<p><em>Dick Morris and Eileen McGann are authors of the new book &#8220;2010: Take Back America — A Battle Plan.&#8221;</em></p>
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		<title>The Appeaser</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/william-r-hawkins/the-appeaser/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-appeaser</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/william-r-hawkins/the-appeaser/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 01 Jun 2010 04:01:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[William R. Hawkins]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=61660</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The troubling unwillingness of Obama to confront our enemies and protect our friends. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/obamam.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-61696" title="obamam" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/obamam.gif" alt="" width="400" height="319" /></a></p>
<p>The National Security Strategy (NSS) released by the Barack Obama administration on May 27 is not so much a look forward as a look back. It is an attempt to return to the optimistic days following the end of the Cold War when it seemed a peaceful new world order was possible. In 1999, President Bill Clinton claimed “perhaps for the first time in history, the world’s leading nations are not engaged in a struggle with each other for security or territory. The world clearly is coming together.” President Obama says essentially the same thing in the opening paragraph of his cover letter to the NSS when he notes that “globalization”—the buzz word of the post-Cold War era &#8212; has “made peace possible among the major powers.” The dangers that remain are of a different sort, “from international terrorism and the spread of deadly technologies, to economic upheaval and a changing climate.”</p>
<p>That the world looked like the classical liberal model expounded by Clinton in 1999 was doubtful even then. A decade later, the cracks are even larger. Five months before the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, a Chinese fighter rammed a U.S. Navy EP-3 reconnaissance plane over the South China Sea, an area Beijing has been trying to claim as sovereign territory. The rise of China and the emergence of other ambitious powers herald not a new world but a new cycle in the old world of international rivalry. The NSS explicitly rejects the “world as it is” in its attempt to fashion “the world we seek.” But the NSS does not lay out a path between worlds; it simply assumes the new world already exists.</p>
<p>There are still a few odds and ends to be cleaned up from the Bush administration, such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The NSS pledges “a focus on defeating al-Qa’ida and its affiliates in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and around the globe” but sees no real dangers after that which would require a military effort. Though the NSS identifies the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (nuclear and biological) as problems, the two most menacing rogue states, North Korea and Iran, are to be dealt with through diplomacy. As the NSS states on page 23, “If North Korea eliminates its nuclear weapons program, and Iran meets its international obligations on its nuclear program, they will be able to proceed on a path to greater political and economic integration with the international community. If they ignore their international obligations, we will pursue multiple means to increase their isolation and bring them into compliance with international nonproliferation norms.” This is at best a containment policy.</p>
<p>But how can Pyongyang or Tehran be contained, let alone “isolated” when they have friends among the other major powers? The NSS depends on there being a consensus among the powers on issues like non-proliferation within a general spirit of cooperation. That is not how world politics is evolving.</p>
<p>According to the NSS, “The European Union has deepened its integration. Russia has reemerged in the international arena as a strong voice. China and India—the world’s two most populous nations—are becoming more engaged globally. From Latin America to Africa to the Pacific, new and emerging powers hold out opportunities for partnership, even as a handful of states endanger regional and global security by flouting international norms.” Under the Obama policy, “We are working to build deeper and more effective partnerships with other key centers of influence—including China, India, and Russia, as well as increasingly influential nations such as Brazil, South Africa, and Indonesia—so that we can cooperate on issues of bilateral and global concern, with the recognition that power, in an interconnected world, is no longer a zero sum game.”</p>
<p>The integration of the EU is being called into question by the sovereign debt crisis that has ripped through Greece and has threatened to spread to Spain, Portugal, and Ireland. The single euro currency, once thought to be an alternative to the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, is in free fall. Euro skeptics in England, France, Holland and Germany are balking at “saving” the Mediterranean and Eastern members of the bloc.</p>
<p>The NSS singles out Brazil for special praise saying, “We welcome Brazil’s leadership and seek to move beyond dated North-South divisions to pursue progress on bilateral, hemispheric, and global issues.” Yet, Brazil just brokered a deal with Iran over its nuclear enrichment program meant to shield it from a new round of UN sanctions being pushed by the U.S. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had told President Obama personally at the Nuclear Security Summit that he would not back additional sanctions on Iran, and repeated this stance when meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Brasilia immediately after the two leaders left Washington. The Hu-Lula meeting took place within the larger context of a BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) summit where the emerging powers coordinate policies formulated primarily against the positions of the United States and EU.</p>
<p>South Africa joins the mix in BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India, China), a coalition at the UN that opposes the American and European demand for mandated limits on green house gas emissions to fight alleged global warming. Supported by Russia and the group of 77 developing nations, BASIC represents the world’s rejection of President Obama’s obsession about climate change that appears repeatedly in the NSS as a priority global threat.</p>
<p>The core value of BASIC and its allies is unrestricted economic growth, which means intensified competition in domestic and world markets. For some time, American officials have made it clear that unless China, India and Brazil provide substantial market access to U.S. exports commensurate with their high economic growth rates, there can be no conclusion to the Doha Round of trade talks. These negotiations have been stalled virtually from their inception in 2001 due to a fundamental clash of national interests.</p>
<p>The Obama administration has hailed China and Russia for supporting a draft sanctions proposal against Iran at the UN. Yet, Beijing and Moscow watered down the resolution to prevent it from crippling the Tehran regime. Most importantly, Russia and China will be allowed to continue investing in Iran’s energy sector, which will boost the country’s revenues which the mullah’s use to finance their aggressive foreign policy as well as nuclear development. To improve relations, the Obama administration dropped sanctions against Moscow’s state arms export agency and three Russian entities previously found to have transferred technology or weapons to Iran. The UN sanctions proposal would also allow the Russians to sell S-300 air defense missiles (which have an anti-missile capability) to Tehran. So even if the UN Security Council adopts the resolution, it will not “isolate” Iran from its main international backers.</p>
<p>Nor is international rivalry confined to economics and rogue states. China’s massive military modernization program, led by new weapon systems designed to attack U.S. and allied forces across Asia, is not mentioned in the NSS. To do so would have undermined the fanciful vision of a peaceful, cooperative world. It would also have called into question why the Obama Pentagon is cutting back on the high-end conventional forces, from armored units and air superiority fighters to missile defense and naval shipbuilding, that would be needed to not only counter rising “peer” competitors like China but to defeat major regional powers like North Korea and Iran.</p>
<p>The NSS attempts to conjure up a world in which an NSS is not needed, but the Obama administration does not have the power to change the true, dangerous nature of global politics. What the NSS reveals is the unwillingness of President Obama to deal with the world as it is. Thus, America will remain vulnerable, as its leaders are continually blindsided by the strategies of adversaries they cannot bring themselves to think about.</p>
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		<title>National Security Mush</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/ralph-peter/national-security-mush/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=national-security-mush</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/ralph-peter/national-security-mush/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 28 May 2010 04:10:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ralph Peters]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=61288</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A strategy that isn’t a strategy.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/tr9328998511.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-61300" title="tr932899851" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/tr9328998511-300x231.gif" alt="" width="300" height="231" /></a></p>
<p>President Obama’s so proud of his new National Security Strategy that the White House released it on the eve of a holiday weekend &#8212; when everybody in Washington’s racing for the beach, the ‘burbs or a bunker.</p>
<p>With good reason.  This isn’t a strategy.  It’s a stump speech.</p>
<p>If you want to know what details of a document really matter to any administration, don’t obsess on the text itself.  Listen to the roll-out speeches by the White House sales reps.</p>
<p>Remarks by terror czar John Brennan and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made it painfully clear that it isn’t only our Gulf  Coast shoreline that’s threatened by this administration’s ineptitude and genius for self-delusion.</p>
<p>But Hillary only offered the standard boilerplate about the primacy of diplomacy and development in solving security problems.  (Terrific!  Let’s bring all the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan immediately and let the State Department and NGOs sort things out…).</p>
<p>But Brennan, in full tin-foil-hat mode, was downright scary.  Speaking on Wednesday, he even praised the administration’s response to the BP oil disaster.  Jeez…sycophancy should have legal limits.</p>
<p>Brennan was prepping the pundits on the terrorism side of the NSS.  Except that it’s not really terrorism, you see.  And it’s certainly not <em>Islamist</em> terrorism or a <em>jihad</em>.  Brennan spent an alarming amount of time on indirect apologies to Muslims.  As in:</p>
<p>“Nor do we describe our enemy as jihadists or Islamists because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community.”</p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em>What?</em> Does this administration really believe that it gets to re-define jihad?  Sounds like one of its pet Muslim “experts” worked on the speech.  But trust me: When Osama says al-Qaeda’s waging jihad, Muslims believe him, not White-Bread John Brennan.</p>
<p>And by the way: Jihad in Islam <em>usually </em>means aggressive holy war to kill and subjugate infidels.  Check the Islamic texts (you know, the ones Muslims read).  And there’s no pope in Islam who gets to give claims of jihad a thumbs up or down.  If the local yokels declare a jihad, it’s a jihad, boys and girls.</p>
<p>Don’t facts matter at <em>all </em>to this administration?  I guess the 9/11 terrorists were just purifying themselves and their community.</p>
<p>The speech got worse.  Speaking of the Israel-Palestine situation, Brennan employed coded left-wing language when he said that “legitimate grievances can be resolved peacefully through…dialogue.”</p>
<p>In case you missed it, only the Palestinians have “legitimate grievances.”  Then Brennan invoked Obama’s blame-America Cairo speech as at least the equivalent of the Sermon on the Mount.  Okay, Big John: Where are the results?  Iran?  Hezbollah?  Hamas?  Al-Qaeda?  The Taliban?  Syria?</p>
<p>Of course, he called for “collective action,” another left-wing buzz-phrase.  Well, how’s all that collective action been going for this White House?  Got tough sanctions on Iran yet?  Or on North   Korea?  Anybody notice that the Bush administration (boo, hiss, shame!) had more allies fighting beside us in Iraq than Obama has in Afghanistan?</p>
<p>Of course, Brennan, who’s turned into a shameless bootlicker, didn’t miss a chance to hammer Bush-Cheney, the true axis of evil.  As in his claim that <em>his</em> team is “responsibly ending the war in Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11.”</p>
<p>Well, the first point’s doubtful, while the last point depends on whether you’re a little-picture or big-picture thinker.  What’s indisputable is that the invasion did lead to the most catastrophic defeat al-Qaeda has yet suffered, when millions of Sunni <em>Muslims</em> turned on the terrorists.  No mention of that, of course.</p>
<p>Things grew even shabbier when Brennan—our top <em>terrorism</em> guy—spoke of “the senseless slaughter of 13 innocent Americans at Ft.  Hood” as if they had been killed by space invaders.  No mention of Major Hasan, Anwar al-Alaqi, shouts of “Allah is great!” or jihad.</p>
<p>Tireless—at least behind a microphone&#8211;Brennan went back to stressing the importance of “international partnerships.”  Great.  We’re all with you, Big John.  But with who?  The allies Obama has stiffed?  Or was our terror czar speaking of Obama’s unprecedented success in engaging Iran, North Korea, Russia, China and his Venezuelan hug-buddy, Hugo Chavez?</p>
<p>Of course, Breanna didn’t say one word about the terror on our border with Mexico or in our illegal-immigrant-gang-plagued cities.  Nope, our problem’s just with al-Qaeda.  None of whose members are Islamists or jihadists.</p>
<p>Guess I ought to check out the Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Bahais and others in line down at the al-Qaeda recruiting office volunteering to purify their neighborhoods.</p>
<p>Our new National Security Strategy isn’t about security for our nation.  It’s about making our enemies feel good about themselves.  Sure, Brennan said we were going to get al-Qaeda.  But he made it clear that neither he nor our president is willing to recognize what al-Qaeda is.</p>
<p>Of course, that probably depends on what your definition of “is” is.</p>
<p><em> Ralph Peters’ latest book is “<a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/04/16/endless-war-2/">Endless War</a>.”</em></p>
<p><em><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/peters2.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-61408" title="peters2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/peters2.jpg" alt="" width="316" height="474" /></a><br />
</em></p>
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		<title>Troops to the Border</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/dov-fischer/troops-to-the-border/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=troops-to-the-border</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/dov-fischer/troops-to-the-border/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 27 May 2010 04:04:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dov Fischer]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Has Eric Holder finally read the Arizona Immigration Law?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/100_0501.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-61214  aligncenter" title="100_0501" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/100_0501-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">The Obama Administration announced on Tuesday that it is sending 1,200 National Guard troops to assist with immigration control, notably along the Arizona border with Mexico. The move represents an unstated victory for the much-maligned Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and her state legislature, whose recently passed immigration law, assailed by critics as a remarkable assertion of state authority to secure borders, was at least in part an indictment of the federal government’s failure to do precisely that job. Sending in troops to secure the border is an acknowledgement that Arizona was right, after all.</p>
<p>Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, faced with the mounting natural disaster occasioned by the month-long Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, may want to take notice of how quickly a significant federal military response to a national crisis can be implemented. Indeed, a state just needs to act forthrightly within the constitutional limits of its police power to fill the vacuum of leadership caused by a paralysis of will in Washington.</p>
<p>Arizonans, across party lines, had requested the troops months ago. Democrat Rep. <a href="http://giffords.house.gov/2010/04/us-rep-gabrielle-giffords-again-urges-president-to-send-national-guard-to-border.shtml">Gabrielle Giffords had asked Washington for the troops</a> after the March 27 murder of Robert Krentz, whose family and 35,000-acre cattle ranch had been inducted into the Arizona Farming and Ranching Hall of Fame only two years earlier. Krentz, whose prominent family had been in cattle ranching for nearly a century, <a href="http://www.diggersrealm.com/mt/archives/003355.html">had reported that illegals crossing his land had cost him nearly $8 million</a> in damage just during the years 2000-2005. Arizona’s Attorney-General, also a Democrat, wrote the Obama White House on April 20 for National Guard assistance. Meanwhile, the state’s two U.S. Senators, <a href="http://azstarnet.com/news/local/border/article_5269e3db-1ff5-5611-a02a-149c0b413996.html">Republicans Jon Kyl and John McCain, both had asked for 3,000 troops a month ago</a>. Indeed, <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-now/2010/05/mccain_gets_political_win_on_b.html">McCain now wants 6,000</a> along the border.</p>
<p>Along came <a href="http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070h.pdf">Arizona Senate Bill 1070</a> (SB 1070), as amended by <a href="http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/azstarnet.com/content/tncms/assets/editorial/6/47/206/64720634-4e56-11df-9876-001cc4c03286.pdf.pdf?_dc=1272645050">House Bill 2162</a>. Then the <a href="http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/35442/americans_support_arizona_immigration_bill">public opinion surveys</a>. Suddenly, Obama was persuaded to send in the cavalry.</p>
<p>SB 1070 is hardly remarkable. Consistent with settled federal Constitutional precedent dating back 42 years to <em>Terry v. Ohio</em>, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), the <a href="http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/043010_hb2162/">new Arizona law</a> merely codifies that state law enforcement officials may make a “reasonable attempt” to ascertain a person’s lawful status in America when that person already has been lawfully stopped, detained, or arrested – but only when a “reasonable suspicion exists” to suspect the person is here illegally. (How else, for that matter, did federal immigration officers in Postville, Iowa, determine precisely which 300 employees at the <a href="http://qctimes.com/news/state-and-regional/article_98fed9d0-968d-56c7-8500-95e7c2f6ac4e.html">Agriprocessors slaughterhouse were illegally in America</a>?)</p>
<p>Even so, the Arizona law explicitly warns law enforcement that they “may not consider race, color or national origin” when implementing the law. For anyone here legally, the law hardly differs from allowing a traffic cop to ask for your driver’s license at a lawful stop because all legal aliens carry proper documentation with them, as mandated by federal law. 8 U.S.C. § 1304(e).</p>
<p>Attorney-General Eric Holder, who had been condemning the Arizona law, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr2HCDODPRI">told Congress last week that he still had not read it</a>. Perhaps he finally has worked his way through its ten pages and advised his boss that Washington better do something to recapture the immigration enforcement debate because SB 1070 probably will pass Constitutional muster. In finally responding to widespread public pressure – the Arizona law is <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/immigration/55_favor_immigration_law_like_arizona_s_for_their_state">wildly popular throughout America</a> – with a partial military deployment to bolster a desperate front in the nation’s effort to protect the Homeland, President Obama has afforded us a “déjà vu moment.”</p>
<p>We have seen this Obama drama before. His announcement is eerily reminiscent of Washington’s three-month delay last year in responding – and, then, only with a partial, politically handcuffed deployment – to Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s increasingly public pleas last autumn to send 40,000 troops to bolster American efforts aimed at suppressing the Taliban in Afghanistan. Gen McChrystal pleaded for troops, finally getting only some of what he sought after a months-long delay. And this only after he took matters into his own hands, breaking protocol to back the President into a corner.</p>
<p>In McChrystal’s case, he <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN06420075">finally went public in late September 2009</a> with the substance of his <a href="http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/Assessment_Redacted_092109.pdf">66-page August 30 request for troops. </a>Obama, after dressing down his four-star general for deviating impatiently from protocol and forcing the President into that corner, finally acted on December 1 – virtually three months later – with a partial fix: most of the requested troops, but handcuffed in their objective by the President’s announcement at West Point that they would be withdrawn from the Afghanistan theater a year later.</p>
<p>The pattern is repeating in Arizona. As a <a href="http://cis.org/Videos/HiddenCameras-IllegalImmigration">brief film posted</a> by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) demonstrates, America’s southern border along Arizona is outright porous. It seems harder to enter a movie theater without a ticket than to cross Mexico illegally into Arizona. The <a href="http://cis.org/Announcement/AZ-Immigration-SB1070">CIS further reports</a>, <em>inter alia</em>, that some 460,000 illegals presently reside in Arizona; that as many as 22 percent of all felonies in Maricopa County are perpetrated by illegals; that illegals comprise approximately ten percent of the county’s adult population; that illegals comprise 11 percent of the state prison population; and that approximately one of every six people arrested by the Border Patrol in the Tucson area have prior criminal records in the U.S. No wonder the new measure’s supporters outnumber opponents by three-to-one in Arizona.</p>
<p>As it did towards McChrystal’s continuing pleas to bolster the Afghanistan front, the Obama White House dallied for more than two months in the face of desperate bipartisan pleas for troops to protect the Arizona-Mexico border – <a href="http://www.army.mil/-news/2009/03/13/18189-obama-considers-deploying-national-guard-to-us-mexico-border/">actually dallying for more than a year on the challenge to demonstrate some leadership on the issue</a> – finally agreeing only piecemeal to dispatch a mere forty percent of the military muscle most recently sought, and only to provide intelligence and surveillance but not to participate in direct enforcement. Cochise County sheriff Larry Dever has noted that the deployment provides <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64O5RE20100526">only one Guardsman for every two miles of security fence</a>, and – assuming the standard three shifts over a daily 24-hour period – actually only one troop for every six miles. Rep. Harry Mitchell, an Arizona Democrat, was equally dismayed: “<a href="http://mitchell.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&amp;task=view&amp;id=797&amp;Itemid=80">I believe we need much more,” he said. “Arizona continues to pay a huge price for the federal government’s failure to secure the border</a>.” Another Arizona Democrat, <a href="http://kirkpatrick.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=924:rep-kirkpatrick-on-decision-to-deploy-national-guard-to-border-it-is-about-time-washington-started-listening-to-us&amp;catid=37:press-releases&amp;Itemid=92">Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, also chided the White House</a>: “[M]uch more needs to be done. It will take more than just 1,200 additional troops to get the border under control.”</p>
<p>And so we watch a hapless Administration in Washington, awarded a Nobel Peace Prize by European admirers and cluelessly obsessed with pursuing an agenda of all the wrong priorities.</p>
<p>Indeed, the stumbling in the dark has included everything from winning the right to host the Olympic Games in Chicago to endangering the fragile national economy and job market by pursuing costly and scientifically dubious climate-control strategies to revamping an excellent national healthcare system into a morass that Americans do not want and at a price we cannot afford. All of this while the White House fails to grasp the first responsibility of government: to protect Homeland security.</p>
<p>At a minimum, that responsibility includes sealing the porous border with a comprehensively planned federal strategy that does not rely patchwork on states doing Washington’s job, and proactively preventing terrorist attacks on these shores rather than racing to Mirandize admitted Al Qaeda bombers. The fate of Democratic incumbents in the recent primary elections is a sign of what’s in store for the president’s party if his administration continues on its present course of appeasing every constituency in the world except for the lawfully documented American people.</p>
<p><em><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; color: black; font-size: small;">Dov Fischer is a legal affairs consultant and adjunct professor of the law of civil procedure and advanced torts. He was formerly Chief Articles Editor of UCLA Law Review and writes extensively on political, cultural, and religious issues.  He is author of general Sharon’s War Against Time Magazine and blogs at <a title="http://www.rabbidov.com/" href="http://www.rabbidov.com/" target="_blank">www.rabbidov.com</a></span></em></p>
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		<title>The New Korean War</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/stephenbrown/the-new-korean-war/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-new-korean-war</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/stephenbrown/the-new-korean-war/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 26 May 2010 04:27:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Stephen Brown]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Kim Jong-il puts his tyranny's armed forces on war footing.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em> </em></p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/new.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-61140" title="new" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/new.gif" alt="" width="375" height="464" /></a></p>
<p>President Obama may soon discover his  predecessor, George Bush, was more than correct in designating  North  Korea an “Axis of Evil”  state.</p>
<p>As the  United  States announced on Monday it would conduct joint  naval exercises with the South Korean navy in response to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROKS_Cheonan_sinking" target="_blank">sinking of a South  Korean warship</a> two months ago, North  Korea, the nation deemed responsible for the  disaster that cost 46 lives, raised tensions by putting its military forces on a  war footing.</p>
<p><em><a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/LE26Dg01.html" target="_blank">Asia Times</a></em> reported yesterday that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, in a military  broadcast, placed his million plus armed forces on “combat readiness,” causing  concern worldwide about North Korean intentions as well as a drop in major stock  markets.</p>
<p>“We  do not hope for war but if South Korea, with the United States and Japan on its  back, tries to attack us, Kim Jong-il has ordered us to finish the task of  unification left undone during the…(Korean) war (in 1953),” the military  broadcast stated.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/LE26Dg01.html" target="_blank">North Korea, of course, denies</a> that it sank the South Korean corvette, <em>Cheonan</em>, on March 26, but the evidence  states otherwise. An international commission made up of experts from  Australia,  America and  Sweden investigated the sinking and  concluded North  Korea was guilty of the atrocity after finding North  Korean torpedo parts in the wreckage raised from the sea bottom.</p>
<p>“The  evidence is quite compelling,” said Ban Ki-moon, United Nations secretary  general. “There is no controversy.”</p>
<p>North  Korea also has a long history of committing  terrorist acts against South  Korea. In 1983, North Korean agents bombed a South  Korean delegation in Burma, killing several members. In 1987,  North  Korea was also blamed for blowing up a South Korean  airliner in flight. In another naval incident in 2002, four South Korean sailors  were killed in an exchange of gunfire with North Korean patrol boats.</p>
<p>Besides  joint naval exercises with the United  States, the South Korean government has responded  with punitive measures. All trade with  North  Korea will be cut off as well as access to shipping  lanes through South Korean waters that North Korean ships use to shorten voyages  to China.</p>
<p>South  Korea will also again name  North  Korea as its “principal enemy”, a designation  dropped in 2004 during a warming of relations. According to a <em><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/world/asia/26korea.html?hp" target="_blank">New York  Times story</a></em>, North Korea was  first named a “principal enemy” in 1994 after threatening “to turn Seoul into a  ‘sea of fire’ ” during the crisis over its nuclear weapons program.” After the  <em>Cheonan</em> incident, Kim Jong-il has  threatened South  Korea with “all-out war” if sanctions are applied.</p>
<p>The  world is now waiting to see whether Kim Jong-il will actually carry out his  threat to engulf the two countries in war or whether he is simply staging a  tantrum to extort aid from Western countries as he has done in the past.</p>
<p>Although the two  Koreas are still technically at war,  outwardly, the war scenario appears the most unlikely one. Both North and  South  Korea know the latter is not going to initiate any  military action against the North over the <em>Cheonan</em> incident. As columnist Donald  Kirk states, South  Korea is doing so well economically, possessing one  of the world’s fastest growing economies, it does not want to risk its  hard-earned prosperity and high living standards in a destructive war. Kirk and  other military analysts have pointed out a further reason for  South  Korea’s avoiding war over North Korean provocations  like the <em>Cheonan</em>:  Seoul would bear the brunt of any North  Korean attack due to its location close to the North Korean border.</p>
<p>“The North  still has thousands of artillery pieces within range of metropolitan Seoul and  the nearby port of Inchon as well as missiles with the range to reach anywhere  in the South, and nobody in South Korea really wants to challenge that,”  <a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/LD29Ae01.html" target="_blank">Kirk writes</a>.</p>
<p>For  North  Korea’s part, war also does not appear to be an  option. Its army is in a very dilapidated condition. Years of sanctions and a  ramshackle economy have left the North Korean armed forces with no money for  training, maintenance or for purchasing new equipment.  North  Korea’s biggest military threat is its 60,000  commando troops, many of whom have been moved close to the border. In case of  war, it is thought the North Koreans’ plan, due to their army’s movement  limitations, would be to occupy Seoul and then seek a  ceasefire.</p>
<p>Analysts, like the military news publication <em><a href="http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/South-Korea-Plans-To-Invade-The-North-6-26-2009.asp" target="_blank">Strategy  Page</a>,</em> state that the modern, well-equipped South Korean army, which  produces many of its own weapons and is supported by a strong economy, has a  plan to throw back such an invasion and then move into the North. Such a plan to  cross the border would also be implemented if the North Korean state ever  collapsed. American forces in South Korea, which numbered 42,000 before 9/11,  now stand at about 30,000 and would come under South Korean command in case of a  conflict.</p>
<p>But  common sense may play no part in a Stalinist dictatorship’s decision to go to  war, especially one struggling to survive. Reports have been coming out of  North  Korea that the people are again facing starvation  like in the 1990s when an estimated two million died. A poor harvest this year,  the failure of a currency reform scheme last year and the repressing of private  farmer’s markets have again left the long-suffering North Koreans destitute.</p>
<p>North  Korea also cannot look to  China, its main ally, for help.  China, like other countries, has refused  food aid as long as North  Korea refuses to give up its nuclear weapons  program. Not wishing to support an economic cripple,  China also vainly wanted  North  Korea to adopt free market reforms and become  self-sufficient like it did. Like South  Korea, China fears a North Korean collapse and  the millions of hungry Korean refugees that would flood over its border seeking  food.</p>
<p>Unlike in the 1990s though, North Korean citizens are  reported to be more restless regarding their cruel, state-sponsored fate. The  underground black market is reported as thriving, indicating a disregard for the  government, as the people are becoming more aware of what is happening outside  their country, especially on the North Korean-Chinese border, where smuggling  and Chinese cell phones, although illegal, have connected North Koreans with the  modern world.</p>
<p>To  block this unrest from becoming a popular uprising and detract people’s  attention from their misery, the North Korean government may do what the  Argentinean military junta did in 1982 when faced with a similar disastrous  economic situation and restless population: launch a military adventure. And  with the 60<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the start of the Korean War next month,  Kim Jong-il may see that as a sign to “finish the task” of reuniting the Koreas,  especially while his government still controls the population.</p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Crony Capitalism</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/michellemalkin/obamas-crony-capitalism/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-crony-capitalism</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/michellemalkin/obamas-crony-capitalism/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 25 May 2010 04:04:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michelle Malkin]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Chicago's ShoreBank is too politically connected to fail.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/obamatoast.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-60951" title="obamatoast" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/obamatoast-235x300.gif" alt="" width="235" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>&#8220;No more bailouts, no more greed, how many profits do you need?&#8221; That&#8217;s been a signature chant of community organizers and Big Labor thugs who have stormed <a href="http://www.creators.com/opinion/michelle-malkin.html#" target="_blank">bank</a> offices and financial executives&#8217; private homes decrying corporate welfare over the past several months. But now that the federal government and a coalition of big banking interests are poised to bail out a crony Chicago bank with longtime ties to the Obama administration, Saul Alinsky&#8217;s avenging angels are nowhere to be found.</p>
<p>ShoreBank is a Windy City investment bank with all the right (or, rather, left) ties. Its stated progressive mission isn&#8217;t merely to make good lending decisions, but to engage in Barack Obama-esque social engineering to &#8220;create economic <a href="http://www.creators.com/opinion/michelle-malkin.html#" target="_blank">equity</a> and a healthy environment.&#8221; The ShoreBank corporate slogan: &#8220;Let&#8217;s change the world.&#8221;</p>
<p>The company website features a video of Obama in Kenya championing ShoreBank microlending projects overseas. ShoreBank has also touted itself as a &#8220;green&#8221; bank from its founding days — promoting dubious carbon credit programs, subjecting new borrowers to eco-litmus tests (&#8220;we look at how you use water, how you recover water and clean it, how you use energy, if you produce clean energy, how you manage CO2, whether you are offsetting CO2 that your product produces, if you are using sustainably produced materials&#8221;) and encouraging customers to participate in &#8220;EcoDeposits&#8221; to &#8220;directly support the green agenda.&#8221;</p>
<p>Social and environmental justice may make for good Volvo bumper stickers. They do not, however, make for a good bottom line. While the bank was on do-gooder missions around the world, business at home was in trouble. As The Wall Street Journal reported, &#8220;Losses racked up during the recession have left the bank facing a demand to raise new capital or face likely closure by regulators.&#8221;</p>
<p>Enter the Chicago political friends and family of ShoreBank. The ties are long and deep, as the Central Illinois 9/12 Project has been chronicling for months:</p>
<p>— ShoreBank co-founder Jan Piercy was a Wellesley College roommate of Hillary Clinton&#8217;s, who has long supported the bank along with former president Bill Clinton.</p>
<p>— Former ShoreBank Vice Chairman Bob Nash worked for Mrs. Clinton&#8217;s presidential bid as deputy campaign manager. Board of Directors member Howard Stanback is a Hyde Park neighborhood pal of President Obama, who served with Stanback on the board of the radical Woods <a href="http://www.creators.com/opinion/michelle-malkin.html#" target="_blank">Fund</a> (where Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers also sat).</p>
<p>— White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett served on the board of Chicago Metropolis 2020 with ShoreBank Director Adele Simmons, former president of the liberal MacArthur Foundation, where she focused on &#8220;climate change&#8221; and &#8220;global governance&#8221; issues.</p>
<p>— The bank and its employees donated some $12,000 to the Obama 2008 presidential campaign, and co-founder Mary Houghton reportedly gave advice to Obama&#8217;s late mother about small business lending issues.</p>
<p>In other words: ShoreBank is too politically connected to fail.</p>
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<p>And now you, the taxpayer, may be on the hook for helping its cronies engineer a special rescue. Fox Business News reported this week that a consortium of large lenders — including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and GE Capital — have partnered with the feds to pitch in a combined $200 million public-private bailout. (In addition, Illinois Democrat Rep. Jan Schakowsky has been crusading for a state-level bailout of the beleaguered bank.) The buzz on both Wall Street and Capitol Hill is that Goldman and perhaps others in the public-private partnership were pressured to lend a hand.</p>
<p>It wouldn&#8217;t be the first time that businesses have felt the Obama squeeze. And it wouldn&#8217;t be the first time that Democrats exploited the financial crisis to milk public money for their banking cronies.</p>
<p>The laggardly House Ethics Committee is still investigating Democrat California Rep. Maxine Waters, who had a personal and financial stake in Boston-based OneUnited, a minority bank that received $12 million in TARP bailout money under smelly circumstances. The bank&#8217;s executives donated $12,500 to her congressional campaigns. Her husband, Sidney Williams, was an <a href="http://www.creators.com/opinion/michelle-malkin.html#" target="_blank">investor</a> in one of the banks that merged into OneUnited. Waters secured meetings between OneUnited execs and Treasury Department officials.</p>
<p>That probe has dragged on for nearly a year, which doesn&#8217;t bode well for fresh GOP demands for an investigation into the shady ShoreBank bailout. House Financial Services Committee ranking minority member Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., has demanded that the White House cough up documentation about any possible overt contact with Goldman about the deal.</p>
<p>Team Obama is smarter than that, of course. To quote Obama&#8217;s environmental czar Carol Browner, who pressured <a href="http://www.creators.com/opinion/michelle-malkin.html#" target="_blank">auto</a> industry execs last year to cooperate on a fuel standards increase, they know &#8220;to put nothing in writing, ever.&#8221;</p>
<p>The fingerprints may be missing, but the stench of the Chicago Way is impossible to cover up.</p>
<p><em>Michelle Malkin is the author of &#8220;Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks &amp; Cronies&#8221; (Regnery 2010). Her e-mail address is malkinblog@gmail.com.</em></p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Professor and America&#8217;s Cultural Crisis</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-horowitz/obamas-professor-and-americas-cultural-crisis/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-professor-and-americas-cultural-crisis</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 24 May 2010 04:24:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Horowitz]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Cornel West is a Rosetta Stone of our national disaster.]]></description>
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<p>No man more exemplifies the Left’s half-century assault on America’s intellectual and academic traditions than celebrity professor and intellectual con artist Cornell West. Thrust into cultural prominence most recently thanks to his ties to President Obama, to whom he has acted, together with the anti-American preacher Jeremiah Wright, as a spiritual mentor, the radical West also typifies the decline and degradation of standards in the American university. As David Horowitz illustrates in his devastating new pamphlet, “Obama’s Professor and America’s Cultural Crisis,” West is an improbable intellectual icon – an apologist for racists and anti-Semites; a cheerleader for Marxism; and a perpetrator of books of pseudo-cerebral nonsense that are celebrated by his legions of fans in inverse correlation to their literary merit. For anyone wishing to understand America’s current cultural predicament, the destructive career of Cornel West shows with alarming clarity the grave damage that the progressive onslaught has wrought.</p>
<p>We have kept printing costs down and are offering bulk copies at just $1.00 per booklet for orders of 25 or more, or $3.00 for a single copy.</p>
<p>To make an order, <strong><a href="https://secure.donationreport.com/productlist.html?key=RKTF5FVRQEM7">click here</a></strong>.</p>
<p>To read the pamphlet, <strong><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/HurricaneWest.pdf">click here</a></strong>.</p>
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		<title>Courageous Restraint?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/alan-w-dowd/courageous-restraint/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=courageous-restraint</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 21 May 2010 04:42:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Alan W. Dowd]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[A new effort to encourage “self-control” among American troops may get them killed. ]]></description>
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<p>Hoping to win more hearts and minds in Afghanistan, the U.S. and its NATO allies are planning a commendation to recognize “courageous restraint” among troops in the field. According to a NATO <a href="http://www.isaf.nato.int/en/article/caat-anaysis-news/honoring-courageous-restraint.html">statement</a>, the goal would be to “celebrate the troops who exhibit extraordinary courage and self-control by not using their weapons.”</p>
<p>What an apt metaphor for the Age of Obama. If there is a coherent theme to President Obama’s foreign policy, it seems to be constraining and restraining American power.</p>
<p>Consider the “New START” agreement. From Moscow’s perspective, New <a href="http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/04/30/new_start_vs_missile_defense_is_it_one_or_the_other">START</a> will constrain the U.S. from building and deploying additional missile defenses. New START, according to the Russian interpretation, will “be viable if the United States of America refrains from developing its missile-defense capabilities quantitatively or qualitatively.”</p>
<p>Where would the Russians get that idea, if not from the administration? And if this is so, then it means the administration is unable to recognize that missile defense is, by definition, defensive. In other words, the goal of missile defense is to constrain America’s enemies.</p>
<p>Then there’s the related issue of the Obama administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (<a href="http://www.defense.gov/NPR/docs/NPR%20FACT%20SHEET%20April%202010.pdf">NPR</a>), which is all about constraining the United States. Among other things, the NPR pledges that the United States:</p>
<blockquote><p>• <em>Will not conduct nuclear testing, and will seek ratification and entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty</em>,</p>
<p>• <em>will not develop new nuclear warheads</em>, and</p>
<p>•<em> will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and in compliance with their nuclear nonproliferation obligations.</em></p></blockquote>
<p>Obama’s NPR also removes the protection afforded by what Defense Secretary Robert <a href="http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4599">Gates</a> calls “calculated ambiguity.” “If a non-nuclear-weapon state is in compliance with the nonproliferation treaty and its obligations,” Gates explains, “the U.S. pledges not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against it.” Instead, such an enemy “would face the prospect of a devastating conventional military response”—even if that enemy “were to use chemical or biological weapons against the United States or its allies or partners.”</p>
<p>“Calculated ambiguity” has kept America’s enemies on notice and off balance for decades—and, not coincidentally, has kept America and American forces safe from nuclear, biological or chemical attack. As Eisenhower counseled at the beginning of the nuclear age, quoting Gen. Stonewall Jackson, “Always surprise, mystify and mislead the enemy.”</p>
<p>Obama clearly doesn’t subscribe to that commonsense view. In fact, he recently took a huge step in the opposite direction by <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2010/0504/NPT-Obama-reveals-size-of-US-nuclear-weapons-arsenal.-Will-Russia-respond">revealing</a> the size of America’s nuclear arsenal.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the likes of North Korea and Iran play games with the world—and appear to be under no constraints whatsoever.  For instance, in the past 12 months, North Korea has detonated a nuclear weapon, test-fired long-range missiles and blown a South Korean ship out of the water, killing 46 sailors.</p>
<p>Likewise, Iran has shown no restraint in response to Washington’s restraint. Last summer, as the Iranian people rose up against a sham election and as Ahmadinejad’s henchmen crushed the popular revolt, the President was virtually silent. The sad irony of the President’s restrained reaction to the Twitter Revolution was that it answered his own rhetorical <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/us/politics/24text-obama.html?pagewanted=all">question</a> of a year before, albeit in a manner his supporters would never have imagined. “Will we stand for the human rights of…the blogger in Iran?” he asked during his 2008 rock-concert speech in Berlin. Last summer provided the answer.</p>
<p>And it gets worse. When evidence of a secret Iranian nuclear-fuel plant came to light last autumn, there was no reaction from the White House. In fact, it was French president Nicolas <a href="http://ambafrance-us.org/spip.php?article1432">Sarkozy</a> who spoke up: “Since 2005, Iran has violated five Security Council resolutions…An offer of dialogue was made in 2005, an offer of dialogue was made in 2006, an offer of dialogue was made in 2007, an offer of dialogue was made in 2008, and another one was made in 2009…What did the international community gain from these offers of dialogue? Nothing.”</p>
<p>Perhaps nowhere is the policy of restraint and constraint on better display than in Afghanistan itself. German forces, for instance, refer to a seven-page <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6730996.ece">guidebook</a> before engaging the enemy. Until mid-2009, they were even required to shout warnings to enemy forces—in three languages—before opening fire. The joys of coalition warfare.</p>
<p>The president has told us, over and over, that Afghanistan is a “war of necessity.” It was so important, as the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/world/asia/11command.html">New York Times</a> reported, that the president gave his military commander “extraordinary leeway” and “carte blanche” control to choose “a dream team of subordinates.”</p>
<p>But when Gen. McChrystal asked for the resources necessary to win this war of necessity, the president balked. Then, after a lengthy re-review of his own policy, the president concluded that “it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan,” before <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/12/01/new-way-forward-presidents-address">promising</a> that “after 18 months, our troops will begin to come home.”</p>
<p>Of course, vital national interests don’t have expiration dates, and letting the Taliban know when the U.S. military will end its offensive won’t make victory any easier to achieve. But victory is probably not the goal in this era of constraint and restraint. As the constrainer-in-chief <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/07/23/nightline_interview_with_president_obama_transcript_97608.html">himself</a> puts it, “I’m always worried about using the word ‘victory.’”</p>
<p>That brings us back to NATO’s “courageous restraint” idea.</p>
<p>The notion that there needs to be a commendation for restraint is based on the false and faulty premise that U.S. forces haven’t used restraint to date. In fact, as Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis told Navy Times, “Our young men and women display remarkable courage every day, including situations where they refrain from using lethal force, even at risk to themselves, in order to prevent possible harm to civilians.”</p>
<p>Indeed, the U.S. military is so self-restrained that the world doesn’t even notice. Just think about what happens when the U.S. military makes what we civilians, from 7,000 miles away, call a mistake: It court-martials people, changes target sets, scrubs missions, orders bombing pauses, investigates, apologizes and invests in ever-more precise weapons to prevent mistakes.</p>
<p>The fact is, the American military of today is the most lethal force in history, which makes its self-restraint so impressive. U.S. forces could flatten Kandahar, kill anything that moves in Waziristan, erase all the Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden and all the terror camps in Syria, eliminate the North Korean and Iranian thugocracies, and turn Mosul into glass—all in less than 24 hours. But they don’t do those things. The reason? Thankfully, the means are as important as the ends to Americans and their military.</p>
<p>This is not an argument for shooting first and asking questions later or for countenancing battlefield brutality. Rather, it’s a reminder that U.S. forces in Afghanistan are already holding their fire enough. They already think twice before squeezing the trigger. We shouldn’t expect them to think three times.</p>
<p>The people who know best—those who have served—worry about the unintended consequences of rewarding and thereby encouraging “courageous restraint.” As Clarence Hill, national commander of the American Legion, observes, “Too much restraint will get our own people killed.”</p>
<p>Veterans of Foreign Wars spokesman Joe Davis adds, ominously and presciently, “The creation of such an award will only…put more American and noncombatant lives in jeopardy. Let’s not rush to create something that no one wants to present posthumously.”</p>
<p><strong><em>Alan W. Dowd writes on defense and security issues.</em></strong></p>
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		<title>The Meaning of Miss Muslim USA</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/christine-williams/the-meaning-of-miss-muslim-usa/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-meaning-of-miss-muslim-usa</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 20 May 2010 04:03:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Christine Williams]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[How much does the Left care about what would happen to Rima Fakih under Sharia Law? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/miss-usa-bikini-rima-fakih.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60675" title="miss-usa-bikini-rima-fakih" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/miss-usa-bikini-rima-fakih.gif" alt="" width="375" height="457" /></a></p>
<p>The explosion in the blogosphere about the crowning of a Muslim Miss USA comes at a time when Americans have been tested to the limit, at least for the many patriots who recognize the threats to the American way of life since the declaration of the War on Terror.</p>
<p>Some pressing issues: Questions about <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1511" target="_new">Barack Obama</a>’s Muslim sympathies are still unresolved, complicated by his pitiful bowing to American enemies and plans to build a mosque on ground zero, a site of grief and trauma for New Yorkers and fellow empathizers.  So now with the crowning of a Muslim Miss America, it should come as no surprise that questions will be raised.   Rima Fakih has become more than a beauty queen.  She has become the battle ground between those critical of her crown (branded as racists) and politically correct appeasers.</p>
<p>From the moment he took office, Obama’s posture has served to divide America, racially and otherwise:  he took to insulting long-standing American allies while apologizing for America’s sins among the country’s worst enemies.  Obama snubbed British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on a visit to the White House right after he took office.  More recently his deplorable treatment of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has left Israel aghast.  Then there was his reading of the <em>riot act</em> to Afghanistan President<em> Hamid Karzai, </em>and his promise to unveil a detailed strategy on nuclear nonproliferation in the middle of a War on Terror. To top it off, the Obama administration’s support for illegal immigration at the expense of hard-working American citizens and <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/16/obama-bowing-to-the-world/">the president bowing to foreign tyrants</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>President Obama has disgraced the United States – again. During this week’s nuclear summit in Washington, he bowed when greeting Chinese President Hu Jintao.</p>
<p>The act was not only shocking but revealing. Mr. Obama has come under intense criticism for bowing to leaders in the past – the king of Saudi Arabia, the emperor of Japan. But never before has America’s commander in chief prostrated himself to a foreign tyrant on U.S. soil.</p>
<p>By bowing, Mr. Obama degraded and cheapened the office of the presidency; as commander in chief, he represents every American when meeting with other heads of state. He is supposed to embody the dignity of the Oval Office, reflecting our collective heritage as a self-governing, constitutional republic.</p></blockquote>
<p>Sadly, the crowning of Rima Fakih as Miss America comes at a bad time and has raised questions among the political Right.  Among them, conservative scholar <em>Daniel Pipes</em> who asserted in his blog that this and five other recent Muslim beauty pageant winners in the West indicate “<a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2010/05/affirmative-action-in-beauty-contests">an odd form of affirmative action</a>.”<strong></strong></p>
<p>For even posing this question, <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/abraham/detail?blogid=95&amp;entry_id=63819">Pipes was branded a racist</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>That rate of wins is enough to send Daniel Pipes to the moon. This is a perfect example of how some people are brainwashed to think one person who’s white and female should be a beauty standard, and someone of color like Rima Fakih could only win a contest due to affirmative action. His view is so sick it makes me sick.</p></blockquote>
<p>And let’s not forget, this not the first time that politics has run rough shod over the Miss USA pageant.  Carrie Prejean—despite the scandal surrounding her that followed—faced a grilling by openly gay blogger Perez Hilton about her conservative views regarding gay marriage.  Did the left come to her rescue?  No, she was then <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,517137,00.html">taken to the woodshed</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p><strong>Keith Lewis</strong>, who runs the Miss California competition, tells FOXNews.com that he was “saddened” by Prejean’s statement. Associated Press.</p></blockquote>
<p>So could it be true that Rima Fakih’s win represented affirmative action in action?  She is undeniably beautiful and the countdown of any beauty pageant is a close one, so who could prove either way?  At least we can still entertain discourse in our superior way of life:  democracy.</p>
<p>There is a win-win to this for all those who support freedom:  <a href="http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/05/rima-fakih-is-first-muslim-miss-usa.html" target="_blank">Rima Fakih is an icon of a liberated Muslim.</a> She would be brutally murdered under strict Shariah law—yes under those inferior cultures—for not wearing a head covering, let alone baring skin for a swimsuit competition.  Leftists can meditate on that as they contemplate how to berate America &#8212; and make excuses for Islamic gender apartheid &#8212; the next time around.</p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Empty Gestures</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/rick-moran/obamas-empty-gestures-3/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-empty-gestures-3</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 20 May 2010 04:01:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rick Moran]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[When will the administration honor Daniel Pearl's memory with real action on global free press?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/obamar.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60730" title="obamar" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/obamar.gif" alt="" width="375" height="359" /></a></p>
<p>There was an emotional ceremony at the White House on Monday when President Obama welcomed slain journalist Daniel Pearl&#8217;s surviving family members to witness the signing of the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act.</p>
<p>Pearl, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was brutally murdered in Pakistan as he was following up some leads on al-Qaeda financing in early 2002. Four Pakistanis <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/15/world/4-in-pearl-murder-are-found-guilty-in-pakistan-court.html">were convicted</a> in Pearl&#8217;s murder in July of that year. The mastermind of the kidnapping and murder, however, may have been Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who confessed to the murder under interrogation by the CIA.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/world/18press.html">New York Times</a>, the Freedom of the Press Act &#8220;requires the State Department to expand its scrutiny of news media restrictions and intimidation as part of its annual review of human rights in each country. Among other considerations, the department will be required to determine whether foreign governments participate in or condone violations of press freedom.&#8221;</p>
<p>This is certainly good news. According to Freedom House&#8217;s <a href="http://freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=70&amp;release=1177">annual survey</a>of press freedom in 196 countries, the indicators fell for the 8th straight year:</p>
<ul>
<li>Significant declines outnumbered gains by a 2-to-1 margin. Notable regional declines were registered in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, as well as the Middle East.</li>
<li>Declines in important emerging democracies demonstrate the fragility of press freedom in such environments. Namibia and South Africa, two of the new democracies, dropped from Free to Partly Free. Worrying declines were also registered in Mexico, the Philippines, and Senegal.</li>
<li>The only area to show overall improvement was the Asia-Pacific region, spurred by notable gains in South Asia that included status changes in Bangladesh and Bhutan from Not Free to Partly Free and a numerical score jump for the Maldives.</li>
<li>Governments in China, Russia, Venezuela, and other countries have been systematically encroaching on the comparatively free environment of the internet and new media. Sophisticated techniques are being used to censor and block access to particular types of information, to flood the internet with antidemocratic, nationalistic views, and to provide broad surveillance of citizen activity.</li>
<li>Journalists are increasingly the victims of assault and murder, a trend fueled by impunity for past crimes.</li>
</ul>
<p>We give Egypt billions of dollars in aid every year and yet, President Mubarak and his security services have gotten into the very bad habit of arresting journalists and even <a href="http://egymonitor.blogspot.com/2010/04/egyptian-blogger-arrested.html">bloggers</a> who write on subjects that the state deems &#8220;dangerous.&#8221; It&#8217;s certainly dangerous to the journalists but beyond that, there doesn&#8217;t seem to be much rhyme nor reason to the practice except to clamp down on dissent.</p>
<p>Of course, you take your life in your hands if you write anything against the regime in Iran. Entire newspapers have been shut down by the mullahs since the disputed election last year and there is no sign that they are letting up in their campaign to silence critics.</p>
<p>Perhaps President Obama will want to do something about his friend Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela, who has shut down <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCTV">opposition TV stations</a>and engaged in media intimidation. Freedom House lists Venezuela as &#8220;Not Free,&#8221; <a href="http://freedomhouse.org/images/File/fop/2010/FOTP2010Global&amp;RegionalTables.pdf">ranking it a dismal 163</a> our of 196 nations. Just don&#8217;t let Sean Penn hear you call Hugo a &#8220;dictator,&#8221; though. He favors having <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCTV">journalists arrested </a>who call Chavez the &#8220;D&#8221; word.</p>
<p>Mexico, South Africa, India, and Italy are all listed as &#8220;Partly Free.&#8221; Freedom House uses a broad range of criteria to determine it&#8217;s rankings<a href="http://freedomhouse.org/images/File/fop/2010/Methodology2010--final5May10.pdf">based on a point system.</a> The legal, political, and economic environment for the press in each country is given a numerical score of 0-40 in each. The totals reveal whether a country is &#8220;Free,&#8221; &#8220;Partly Free,&#8221; or &#8220;Not Free.&#8221; Only 69 countries are judged as having a &#8220;Free&#8221; press in their 2010 survey.</p>
<p>While a welcome addition to our criteria for giving aid and adjudging a level of support our State Department can offer a nation, one has to wonder how seriously the president and his appointees will actually take this new law. As Jennifer Rubin points out in a piece in <a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/rubin/295551">Commentary&#8217;s Contentions blog</a>, this administration has fallen down in its support for press freedom in countries where the weight of our words is desperately needed:</p>
<blockquote><p>Has Obama done anything about the suppression of media critics in Egypt (other than prepare a lucrative financial package for the Egyptian government)? Has Obama made this a priority with any thugocracy? No. And when signing a bill in the name of someone who elevated and personified the freedom of expression, Obama at least could have departed from his campaign to delete the name of our enemies from the public lexicon.</p></blockquote>
<p>Meanwhile, at the United Nations, it&#8217;s business as usual for the enemies of the free press. <a href="http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=9b8e3a6d-795d-440f-a5de-6ff6e78c78d5">Anti-blasphemy measures </a>are being pushed by the usual suspects in the Muslim world in a clear effort to stifling criticism of Islam.</p>
<p>In addition, the UN Human Rights Council <a href="http://www.internationalfreepresssociety.org/2009/04/spencer-the-un%E2%80%99s-jihad-against-free-speech/">has drafted rules</a> designed to &#8220;protect&#8221; Islam from &#8220;political cartoonists and bigots.&#8221; This attitude seems widespread at the United Nations, who recently celebrated &#8220;World Press Freedom Day&#8221; on May 3rd. How devoted the UN is to press freedom is a matter open for debate. UNESCO, sponsor of World Press Freedom Day, defines &#8220;Fundamental Principles concerning the Contribution of the Mass Media&#8221; in what must be considered a <a href="http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13176&amp;URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&amp;URL_SECTION=201.html">novel manner:</a></p>
<blockquote><p>2. Access by the public to information should be guaranteed by the diversity of the sources and means of information available to it, thus enabling each individual to check the accuracy of facts and to appraise events objectively. To this end, journalists must have freedom to report and the fullest possible access to information. Similarly, it is important that the mass media be responsive to concerns of peoples and individuals, thus promoting the participation of the public in the aggregation of information.</p>
<p>3. With a view to the strengthening of peace and international understanding, to promoting human rights and to countering racialism, apartheid and incitement to war, the mass media throughout the world, by reason of their role, contribute to promoting human rights, in particular by giving expression to oppressed peoples who struggle against colonialism, neo-colonialism, foreign occupation and all forms of racial discrimination and oppression and who are unable to make their voices heard within their own territories.</p></blockquote>
<p>We Americans prefer the simple, &#8220;Congress shall make no law&#8230;&#8221; found in the First Amendment. It would appear that UNESCO has narrowed that definition considerably.</p>
<p>This is important because of the Obama administration&#8217;s clear preference for bending to the will of the United Nations on a variety of issues, most recently when Iran <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/04/29/elects-iran-commission-womens-rights/">was given a seat </a>on the UN Commission on Women&#8217;s Rights and President Obama remained silent. If we acquiesce on this, what other nonsense will the Obama administration put up with?</p>
<p>Despite its noble goals, it would seem to be a pipe dream to expect the State Department to do more than go through the motions when it comes to fulfilling the requirements of the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act. Given the large number of states who routinely violate that freedom, we should expect a business as usual attitude, especially from this president, whose outreach to thugs and tyrants around the world regardless their treatment of journalists – or their people &#8211; continues.</p>
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		<title>The Fall of the Incumbents</title>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 19 May 2010 05:03:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[A Tea-Party led rebellion against big government sweeps some familiar faces out of office. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/OB-IN800_0518sp_G_20100518223816.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60626" title="OB-IN800_0518sp_G_20100518223816" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/OB-IN800_0518sp_G_20100518223816.jpg" alt="" width="332" height="221" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">For months now, speculation has been rife that the Tea Party movement and the grassroots revolt against big-government that it represents poses a real threat to political incumbents of both parties. Yesterday’s primary election results have transformed such speculation into political reality.</p>
<p>In Kentucky, the Tea-Party backed candidate, Rand Paul, the son of libertarian Texas Congressman Ron Paul, won a convincing victory over Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Greyson. Greyson enjoyed the support of the GOP establishment, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConell, but Paul had the Tea Party insurgents on his side. Unapologetically embracing the Tea Partiers, Paul ran on a straightforward small-government platform, calling for a balanced federal budget, a reduced national debt, and an end to government bailouts and subsidies for private industries and interests. In the end, he won by a comfortable margin.</p>
<p>Rand Paul’s victory is only the latest example of the Tea Partiers successfully gate-crashing the official Republican camp. In Utah earlier this month, voters in the Republican nomination convention heeded the Tea Party movement’s urging to dump Sen. Bob Bennett. Dooming Bennett was his support for several big-government initiatives, most prominently the Troubled Asset Relief Program bank bailout. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has also met with the wrath of the Tea Partiers, whose opposition forced him surrender the Republican mantle to Tea Party favorite Marco Rubio in favor of an independent run. Polls suggest he faces an uphill struggle.</p>
<p>While the Tea Parties have had their greatest impact on Republican primary races, Democrats have also born the brunt of the anti-incumbent backlash. In Pennsylvania last night, Republican defector Sen. Arlen Specter lost the state’s Democratic primary to two-term Rep. Joe Sestak, effectively ending his political career. Even in the absence of anti-incumbent sentiment, Specter’s was a tall order: He had to convince voters that his political conversion was a matter of principle rather than, as was apparent to all, pure political expedience. It was an obvious fiction that not even President Obama, who campaigned for Specter and even cut radio and television ads on his behalf, could make credible.</p>
<p>Even here, though, the Tea Party, or at least its brand of anti-Washington angst, made its presence felt. In his victory speech, Sestak sounded like nothing so much as a Tea Party candidate, as he hailed his win as a triumph “over the establishment, over the status quo, even over Washington, D.C.” Of course, it’s a bit rich for a Democrat to style himself as an opponent of Washington, where after all Democrats control both houses of Congress. But such is the national mood that even the party in charge must distance itself from any association with leadership.</p>
<p>Arlen Specter meanwhile is not the only political veteran on the Democratic side, however recent his affiliation, to find himself out of a job for too-close a connection with Washington’s failures. In West Virginia last week, 14-term Democratic Rep. Alan Mollohan became the first House member in 2010 to lose a reelection bid. Although he lost to a fellow Democrat, key in Mollohan’s defeat was his support for the Obama administration’s health care overhaul. It is a sign of perilous times ahead for the party that, even in a Democratic primary, support for the Democratic administration’s signature legislative initiative has become a political death warrant.</p>
<p>Still, that does not yet make the Tea Party and its small-government vision kingmaker in political races. While the influence of the Tea Partiers has obviously been important, the usual primary season caveats apply. Primary elections tend to draw a more ideologically motivated cohort of voters, and it remains to be seen whether the Tea Party will be a significant factor in the fall’s elections races. And yet it is becoming increasingly implausible to claim, as many in the prestige media have, that the Tea Party and the backlash against big government are fringe phenomena. As Rand Paul declared in his victory speech last night: “I have a message from the Tea Party. We’ve come to take our government back.” They will soon have their chance.</p>
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		<title>Betraying Iranian Women</title>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 18 May 2010 04:06:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Faith J. H. McDonnell]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[U.N Commission on the Status of Women looks to Iran for advice on women's rights.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/iran.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60348" title="iran" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/iran.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="375" /></a></p>
<p>On April 28, 2010, the Islamic Republic of Iran was elected to the United Nation’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). Possibly the world’s worst abuser of women, the <em>Shariah-</em>ruled country in which the fate of women and girls is left in the lecherous hands of misogynistic mullahs had been given membership on a commission founded to protect women’s rights and promote their equality. There was little media coverage of the announcement. And there has been little effort to prevent or denounce this obscene situation. But a few voices in Congress, some women human rights leaders, and, most poignantly, Iranian women themselves, have challenged the moral equivalency and cowardly silence of those that have failed to support women’s rights in Iran.</p>
<p>Iran’s CSW election was not surprising for the United Nations, whose moral vacuity remains proudly unmolested on First Avenue and the Palais des Nations. After all, Libya has chaired the Commission on Human Rights and Sudan has graced the Human Rights Commission with its presence during the most ferocious years of the genocide it has perpetrated in Darfur. But for the United States, it was a new low to remain silent in the face of such an outrage.</p>
<p>Iran was elected by acclamation. (Remember vote by acclamation? That was how Barack Obama got the Democratic presidential nomination, when between clenched teeth Hillary suspended the roll call.) In the case of Iran, it meant that none of the UN member states, including the U.S., asked for an open vote on Iran’s election to the women’s commission. Some say that this was a <em>quid pro quo </em>for Iran withdrawing its bid for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council. So human rights abuser Iran will only make UN policy on <em>women’s</em> human rights, not <em>human </em>human rights. The women of Iran are not greatly relieved by this devil’s bargain.</p>
<p>In past years, the U.S. worked to prevent abusers of women, genocidairres, and other assorted miscreants from achieving such positions of authority on UN commissions. American delegations to the UN encouraged the delegations of other countries to take a stand and to work together to present alternatives to objectionable candidates and to objectionable text in resolutions.</p>
<p>This was not an easy task. Dr. Mark Lagon described the challenges faced by the Bush Administration at the UN in an April 19, 2005</p>
<p><a href="http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa20782.000/hfa20782_0.HTM" target="_blank">testimony</a> at a subcommittee hearing of the House International Relations Committee (now House Committee on Foreign Affairs). Then Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, Lagon explained that “some of the most egregious violators of human rights work through their regional blocs to gain nomination and election” to UN commissions “in order to protect themselves and their ilk from criticism.” The UN Commission on Human Rights (CHR) was being “increasingly confronted with bloc voting. . . shifting the CHR’s focus away from bedrock civil and political rights, and toward economic, social, and cultural rights.&#8221;</p>
<p>If</p>
<p>the United States could not prevent such elections or resolutions, it could at least be counted on to speak out about such injustices, even when criticized for acting “unilaterally.” For example, in the spring of 2004, in the midst of horrific genocide in Darfur, the UN Commission on Human Rights passed an insultingly weak resolution on Sudan. As Lagon later <a href="http://blogs.georgetown.edu/?id=11639" target="_blank">told students</a> at Georgetown University’s Institute of International Law and Politics, the U.S. tried to revise and/or replace text to more accurately respond to the atrocities taking place. When this failed, the U.S. opposed the resolution. A few days later, when Sudan was reelected to the Commission on Human Rights, Lagon said “the U.S. delegation reproached the body by walking out of the meeting and issuing a public, very critical, statement.”</p>
<p>Under the Obama Administration the U.S. delegation has twice</p>
<p><a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g3_pRt7XUWThaEmE4cpP7XEgWeyw" target="_blank">walked out</a> of speeches by Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The most recent walkout occurred on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1y5JRO7iPo&amp;feature=player_embedded" target="_blank">May 3, 2010</a>, at the UN Conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But walking out on the Iranian dictator’s sound and fury about “the Zionist regime,” aimed, in part, at America, is less difficult than a public reproach of the UN body for approving Iran’s CSW election.</p>
<p>Writing in <em>Commentary </em>the day after the election, Jennifer Rubin</p>
<p><a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/rubin/286911" target="_blank">raged</a>, “The U.S. couldn’t muster a word of opposition — not even call for a vote&#8230; why? Because our policy is not to confront and challenge the brutal regime for which rape and discrimination are institutionalized policies. No, rather, we are in the business of trying to ingratiate ourselves, and making the U.S. as inoffensive as possible to the world’s thugocracies. …It is what this administration does and how they envision raising <em>our</em> status in the world.”</p>
<p>Thankfully, “making the U.S. as inoffensive as possible to the world’s thugocracies” is not the approach of some members of the U.S. Congress. U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) released a</p>
<p><a href="http://wucr.wordpress.com/statements/sen-kirsten-gillibrands-statement/" target="_blank">statement</a> the day after the election in which she said, &#8220;Allowing Iran to sit on the commission, a nation where gender equality is only a dream and where women are subject to inequality in all aspects of their daily lives, makes a mockery of the commission’s work.&#8221;</p>
<p>Thaddeus McCotter, a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Michigan, also vehemently</p>
<p><a href="http://mccotter.house.gov/HoR/MI11/Home/The+UN+Salts+Iranian+Womens+Wounds+McCotter+Denounces+Irans+Election+to+the+UN+Commission+on+the+Sta.htm" target="_blank">denounced</a> Iran’s election the same day. McCotter declared, “By electing the Tehran butchers to its Commission on the Status of Women, a morally rancid United Nations has salted the wounds of the Iranian freedom movement’s regime-murdered martyrs.” The congressman went on to blast this outrage in an <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koUcgQurv_Y" target="_blank">interview</a> on Fox News in which he said that the moral relativism of the UN had allowed Iran to “get elected to sit as a predator monitoring the prey.” McCotter will also introduce a congressional resolution condemning Iran’s election. Hopefully, many other members of congress will join on the resolution as co-sponsors.</p>
<p>No corresponding calls denouncing Iran have been issued by the major feminist organizations, however. The National Organization of Women (NOW) is too busy gloating over the Wal-Mart lawsuit, cheering Democratic congressional delegates, and experiencing ecstasy over President Obama’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee to go about the messy and thankless job of defending the rights of women under Islam. On the other hand, the women’s rights group Equality Now does fight against the evils that affect women under <em>Shariah </em>in Iran and elsewhere, such as</p>
<p><a href="http://equalitynow.org/english/takeaction/newsalert/urgentalert_us_20100429_en.html" target="_blank">female genital mutilation</a> (FGM), rape, sex trafficking, and child marriage. But perhaps because they work too closely with the disease-ridden United Nations, Equality Now focuses on the symptoms rather than the disease.</p>
<p>Women’s ministries and commissions of left-leaning and “progressive” evangelical churches have also let down the women and girls of Iran by not protesting Iran’s farcical election. The feminists of</p>
<p><a href="http://www.episcopalwomenscaucus.org/" target="_blank">such groups</a> make careers of attempting to shatter every stained glass ceiling that they encounter. But given the opportunity to respond to the life-long suffocation of women under <em>Shariah</em>’s oppressive ceiling, they are silent. Officers and staff of these ministries spend their days issuing statements against gender inequality, sexual violence, and the perceived iniquities of misogynistic patriarchal Christianity, but <a href="http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/Hannas_UN_Thank_You.pdf" target="_blank">the UN is their friend</a>! And the progressive evangelicals of trendy organizations like <em>Sojourners</em> blog and twitter in their usual self-important, <a href="http://blog.sojo.net/" target="_blank">self-righteous</a> way about America’s greed, evil, and injustice. But there is neither a tweet nor a blog post expressing outrage over Iran’s ascendency to the UN commission.</p>
<p>Other than the resolution pending in Congress, there have not been many efforts to support the women of Iran. But on May 5, 2010, a group of women leaders sent an</p>
<p><a href="http://wucr.wordpress.com/endorsers-of-open-letter-to-hillary-clinton/" target="_blank">open letter</a> to Secretary Clinton protesting U.S. silence over the election of Iran to the women&#8217;s rights commission. The letter called on Clinton to &#8220;denounce Iran’s election. . . as an appointment that shocks the conscience of civilized societies&#8221; and demanded to know why the United States failed to request an open vote. &#8220;We await your public and clear condemnation of this outrageously sexist and insensitive decision by the U.N.,&#8221; the letter concluded.</p>
<p>Letter signers range from Ayaan Hirsi Ali to Wafa Sultan, Anne Applebaum to Diana West. They are international human rights and women&#8217;s rights specialists, attorneys, scholars, columnists, media figures, women in the arts, and activists of all sorts. Experience for experience they match and surpass the leftist feminists. But unlike their counterparts in liberal land, the letter signers &#8220;get it&#8221; and their integrity requires them to enter the realm of the so-called politically incorrect and intolerant on behalf of women living under <em>Shariah</em>.</p>
<p>The most courageous effort to prevent Iran’s CSW election came from Iranians themselves. On April 27, 2010, 214 Iranian women’s rights activists inside and outside Iran sent an</p>
<p><a href="http://www.iranhumanrights.org/2010/04/letter-economic-social-council/" target="_blank">open letter</a> to the United Nations urging that Iran not be allowed CSW membership. Supported by “the global sisterhood network” and endorsed by over a dozen other organizations, the Iranian activists told the UN that “for the sake of women‘s rights globally, an empty seat for the Asia group on CSW is much preferable to Iran‘s membership.” They reminded the UN that “discrimination against women is codified in [Iran’s] laws, as well as in executive and cultural institutions, and Iran has consistently sought to preserve gender inequality in all places, from the family unit to the highest governmental bodies.” Iran will certainly use the opportunity afforded to it on CSW “to curtail progress and the advancement of women,” they warned.</p>
<p>Not long after the UN failed to heed this warning and elected Iran to the CSW, the official Iranian news agency (IRNA) demonstrated the accuracy of the Iranian activists’ prediction when it stated that “Iran’s membership in the Commission on the Status of Women is important because “Iran’s views about the position of women,” through this podium, “can help reflect Islamic views about family and women.” The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran also</p>
<p><a href="http://www.iranhumanrights.org/2010/05/islamic-republic-of-iran-elected-to-commission-on-the-status-of-women/" target="_blank">reported</a> IRNA’s claim that efforts against their candidacy were by “hostile groups and western media” trying to prevent Iran’s membership in the CSW through “poisonous propagation.” IRNA then boasted “their efforts were ignored by members of ECOSOC.” A sad indictment of all of the member nations of the UN.</p>
<p>The U.S. and other nations of the free world let down the Iranian people when they stood by and did nothing as the regime crushed the election protesters last year. Some brave Iranian freedom fighters are still</p>
<p><a href="http://www.iranhumanrights.org/2010/05/iran-political-executions-indication-of-governments-insecurity/" target="_blank">paying the cost</a> for that defiance. Five political prisoners were hanged in secret on May 9, and twenty-seven others are awaiting execution. Now by remaining silent about the election of Iran to the CSW the U.S. has failed to support the people of Iran again.</p>
<p>But this will not deter courageous Iranians. They will find encouragement from those who have decried the UN’s outrageous election. And it’s not too late for the U.S. to help. By supporting legislative efforts like Mr. McCotter’s resolution, the U.S. could, as that resolution’s last sentence says, “reaffirm its solidarity with the Iranian people in their continuing struggle for freedom and human rights, including equal rights for women in Iran.”</p>
<p><em>Faith J. H. McDonnell directs <a href="http://www.theird.org/Page.aspx?pid=183&amp;srcid=-2" target="_blank">The Institute on Religion and Democracy’s</a></em><em> Religious Liberty Program and Church Alliance for a New Sudan, and is the author of Girl Soldier: A Story of Hope for Northern Uganda’s Children (Chosen Books, 2007).</em></p>
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