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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Secretary</title>
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		<title>Chuck Hagel&#8217;s Trust in Fidel Castro</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/humberto-fontova/chuck-hagels-trust-in-fidel-castro/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=chuck-hagels-trust-in-fidel-castro</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 04 Feb 2013 04:05:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Humberto Fontova]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Castro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chuck Hagel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[confirmation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cuba]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[department of defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Elian Gonzalez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hearing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nominee]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Secretary]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Senate]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=176049</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The former senator's forgotten support for the Elian Gonzalez disgrace. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/humberto-fontova/chuck-hagels-trust-in-fidel-castro/hagel1n-3-web/" rel="attachment wp-att-176051"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-176051" title="hagel1n-3-web" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/hagel1n-3-web.jpg" alt="" width="278" height="198" /></a>&#8220;Elian is now where he belongs.&#8221; (Senator Chuck Hagel after Elian Gonzalez was shanghaied at U.S. gunpoint from his American family at Fidel Castro’s command and without a warrant.)</p>
<p>“To me,” wrote <a href="http://babalublog.com/2013/01/09/chuck-hagel-expert-on-both-cuba-and-on-family-values/">Hagel in a New York Times Op-Ed </a>just after the armed raid on the Gonzalez family’s Miami home, “this case has always been fundamentally about a father-son relationship. … the point of the raid &#8212; to reunite Elián with his father when those housing him had repeatedly refused to hand him ove<em>r….The boy is where he belongs.”</em></p>
<p>Why did this <em>Republican</em> senator accept the word of a Stalinist dictator whose lifelong dream was to nuke Hagel’s homeland over that of the most loyal <em>Republicans </em>in modern U.S. history (i.e. Americans of Cuban heritage)?</p>
<p>Some background:</p>
<p>During the dawn of April 22, 2000 on the orders of Janet Reno &#8212; acting on the orders of her Commander-in-Chief Bill Clinton, acting under the threat of blackmail by Stalinist dictator Fidel Castro—armed INS agents maced, kicked, and gun-butted their way into Lazaro Gonzalez&#8217;s Miami home, wrenched a bawling 6-year-old child from his American family at (genuine) assault weapon-point and bundled him off to Castro’s Stalinist fiefdom, leaving 102 people injured, some seriously.</p>
<p>Thanks to the ritual media-Democratic-Castroite collusion, most people forget (or missed) the crucial legal and ethical details of this circus/tragedy — which were mostly established during the first week after Elian’s rescue at sea, after his heroic mother’s drowning. The “son-belongs-with-his-father” crowd, for instance, “missed” that Elian’s father was initially <em>delighted </em>that his motherless son was in the U.S. and in the loving arms of his uncles and cousins.</p>
<p>The evidence —  frantically buried by the media-Democratic-Castroite complex — was overwhelming. Mauricio Vicent, a reporter for Madrid newspaper <em>El Pais</em>, wrote that during that first week he’d visited Elian’s hometown of Cardenas and talked with Elian’s father, Juan Miguel, along with other family members and friends. All confirmed that Juan Miguel had always longed for his son Elian to flee to the United State<em>.</em> Shortly after Elian’s rescue, his father had even applied for a U.S. visa.</p>
<p>Elian’s Miami uncle, Lazaro, explained it repeatedly and best: “I always said I would turn over Elian to his father, when Juan Miguel would come here and claim him. But I (along with practically everyone with experience under communism from Cambodians to Hungarians and from Lithuanians to Cubans) knew such a thing was <em>impossible.</em> He couldn’t do that. I knew it wasn’t Juan Miguel requesting Elian–<em> it was Fidel.</em>”</p>
<p>The legal-weasels forgot (or missed) that on Dec. 1, 1999 the INS asserted that Miami-based uncle Lazaro was indeed Elian’s legal custodian and Florida’s family court was indeed the place to arbitrate further issues.</p>
<p>Then on Dec 5th, 1999, Castro clapped his hands and his U.S. media minions along with the Clinton administration snapped to attention.</p>
<p>“Bill Clinton was terrified of Castro,” later explained Dick Morris. “Clinton looked over his shoulder for rafters the way Castro is always looking over his shoulder expecting an invasion of marines.”</p>
<p>The Mariel exodus of Cubans in 1980, you see, had cost Bill Clinton the only electoral loss of his life. Some of the Cuban criminals Castro sent over (a small portion of the refugees, actually) had been held in Fort Chafee Arkansas, as agreed by Governor Clinton acting on Jimmy Carter&#8217;s request.  Shortly the criminals rioted, many horrified Arkansans blamed the governor, and Bill Clinton lost the next elections.</p>
<p>The point is, the Clinton team who ordered the Elian raid knew exactly what was going on behind the scenes and were simply reacting to Castro’s blackmail. They knew Elian’s father wanted Elian to remain in the U.S. They knew Juan Miguel would have defected to the U.S. in a nanosecond if given half the chance. They knew Castro held a gun to Juan Miguel’s head. How could they not?  Bill Clinton’s lawyer and chum Gregory Craig, who had sprung him from the Lewinsky rap, now represented Elian’s father (i.e. Fidel Castro behind the façade). Craig even traveled to Cuba and met with the Stalinist dictator himself to batten down the details of his (Potemkin) client’s visit to the U.S.</p>
<p>Some of these details were uncovered during the U.S. visit by an alarmed Pedro Porro during the taping of Juan Miguel’s 60 Minutes “interview” with Gregory Craig’s other chum, Dan Rather.</p>
<p>&#8220;Juan Miguel Gonzalez was surrounded by Castro security agents the entire time he was in the studio with Rather.&#8221; This is an eye-witness account from Pedro Porro, who served as Dan Rather&#8217;s translator during the famous 60 Minutes interview. Dan Rather would ask the question in English into Porro&#8217;s earpiece whereupon Porro would translate it into Spanish for Elian&#8217;s heavily-guarded father.</p>
<p>&#8220;Juan Miguel was never completely alone,&#8221; says Porro. &#8220;He never smiled. His eyes kept shifting back and forth. It was obvious to me that he was under heavy coercion. I probably should have walked out. But I&#8217;d been hired by CBS in good faith and I didn&#8217;t know exactly how the interview would be edited &#8211; how it would come across on the screen.</p>
<p>&#8220;The questions Dan Rather was asking Elian&#8217;s father during that 60 Minutes interview were being handed to him by attorney Gregory Craig,&#8221; continues Pedro Porro. &#8220;It was obvious that Craig and Rather where on very friendly terms. They were joshing and bantering back and forth, as Juan Miguel sat there petrified. Craig was stage managing the whole thing &#8211; almost like a movie director.”</p>
<p>So whatever else can be said, the Clintons weren’t ignorant. They were cowing to Castroite blackmail. So let’s call them something else; perhaps “ethically-challenged” and/or “cowardly.”</p>
<p>But how can a Republican who came of political age during the Cold War, and who actually fought Communists in Viet-Nam, have been unaware that Communist regimes can apply unseen pressure to their inmates? Can a prospective U.S. Secretary of Defense have taken at face value the word of the same Stalinist dictator who declared:</p>
<p>“Again I stress I am <em>not a communist</em>. And Communists have absolutely <em>no influence</em> in my nation!” (Fidel Castro, April 1959)</p>
<p>“Political p<em>ower does interest me in the least!</em> And I will never assume such power!” (Fidel Castro, April 1959)</p>
<p>“What!” Nikita Khrushchev gasped, as recalled by his son Sergei. “Is he (Fidel Castro) proposing that we start a nuclear war? That we launch missiles from Cuba?”</p>
<p>“Of course I knew the missiles were nuclear- armed,” responded Fidel Castro to Robert McNamara during a meeting in 1992. “That’s precisely WHY I urged Khrushchev to launch them.”</p>
<p>But it appears that we’ll soon entrust our nation’s security to a U.S. Secretary of <em>Defense </em>who wholeheartedly trusted Fidel Castro.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Kerry as Obama&#8217;s Overseas Enforcer</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/kerry-as-obamas-overseas-enforcer/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=kerry-as-obamas-overseas-enforcer</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jan 2013 04:58:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[foreign policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hearings]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kerry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Secretary]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=174948</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Carrying the administration's catastrophic policies worldwide.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/kerry-as-obamas-overseas-enforcer/kerry-5/" rel="attachment wp-att-174951"><img class=" wp-image-174951 alignleft" title="kerry" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/kerry-450x300.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="180" /></a>Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) promised yesterday to faithfully execute President Obama&#8217;s chaotic, destructive foreign policy if confirmed as the new U.S. secretary of state.</p>
<p>At a congressional hearing, Obama&#8217;s nominee to replace Hillary Clinton at Foggy Bottom vowed to de-emphasize the military role &#8220;thrust upon us&#8221; by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, saying &#8220;we cannot afford a diplomacy that is defined by troops or drones or confrontation.&#8221;</p>
<p>Kerry told his fellow senators that it was time to highlight U.S. programs abroad aimed at helping poor people, advancing human rights, and combating disease.</p>
<p>&#8220;We cannot allow the extraordinary good we do to save and change lives to be eclipsed entirely,&#8221; said Kerry.</p>
<p>Senators from both parties, including John McCain (R-Ariz.), warmly lauded Kerry for whatever it is he&#8217;s been doing in the Senate since the 1980s.</p>
<p>The Left&#8217;s favorite Boston Brahmin, this dull, seemingly passionless, double-talking man, bereft of important legislative accomplishments, now appears virtually certain to become the nation&#8217;s next top diplomat after a confirmation hearing that was more of a group hug than a grilling. Kerry has been a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 29 years. If confirmed he would be the first committee member to rise to the post of secretary of state in more than a century.</p>
<p>Kerry&#8217;s pledge to do the administration&#8217;s bidding overseas amounts to a vow to export the same kind of chaos and malaise worldwide that Obama has generated domestically &#8212; not that the president needs much help after turning Egypt, until fairly recently America&#8217;s staunchest Arab ally, into an Islamist enemy in a relatively short span of time.</p>
<p>Left-wingers like Kerry generally care little about defending America; they would prefer to divert the nation’s defense budget to social welfare schemes. Leftists prefer to send our soldiers abroad as armed social workers bearing care packages instead of as warriors defending America’s freedoms and interests.</p>
<p>Anyone who watched Kerry, stiff and robotic as a presidential candidate, saluting perfunctorily and pretending he was of presidential timber by saying he was “reporting for duty” at the Democratic Party’s 2004 national convention, knows that he&#8217;s well suited for running the liberal-internationalist echo chamber that is the Department of State.</p>
<p>Although yesterday&#8217;s hearing in the clubby Senate was cordial for the most part, Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) challenged Kerry over the Obama administration&#8217;s Libya policy, NPR reported. These attacks from two Tea Party-backed prospective presidential contenders in 2016, offer a window into what the political landscape of the next four years is going to look like.</p>
<p>On constitutional grounds, Paul critiqued the military campaign that helped to oust strongman Muammar Qaddafi.</p>
<p>President Obama &#8220;took us to war in Libya without congressional authority, unilaterally,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I would argue though that the Constitution really has no exceptions for when you are having a tough time or people disagree with you, that you just go ahead and do it.&#8221;</p>
<p>In 2008, Paul noted, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama said he was opposed to presidents going to war without congressional authorization, adding that Kerry too had denounced the U.S. invention in Cambodia in the 1970s for the same reason.</p>
<p>&#8220;The Constitution doesn&#8217;t really give this kind of latitude to sometimes go to war and to sometimes not go to war,&#8221; Paul said.</p>
<p>&#8220;I thought [candidate] Barack Obama was very explicit, it&#8217;s what I liked about him frankly. People are like, &#8216;oh, Rand Paul certainly doesn&#8217;t like anything about Barack Obama,&#8217; I did like his forthrightness when he ran for office and said &#8216;no president should unilaterally go to war, the Constitution doesn&#8217;t allow it.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
<p>A dissembling Kerry rejected Paul&#8217;s reasoning, saying the situations in Cambodia and Libya are significantly different. &#8220;You can be absolutist and apply it to every circumstance, the problem is, it just doesn&#8217;t work in some instances,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>&#8220;When 10,000 people are about to be wiped out by a brutal dictator and you need to make a quick judgment about engagement, you certainly can&#8217;t rely on a Congress that has proven itself unwilling to move after weeks and months sometimes,&#8221; Kerry said.</p>
<p>Rubio suggested that Obama bungled the effort in Libya.</p>
<p>&#8220;I was not suggesting that the U.S. should have invaded or put soldiers on the ground,&#8221; Rubio said.</p>
<p>&#8220;We did certain things in the first 48 to 72 hours of that conflict – had we extended that for a couple weeks that conflict would have ended a lot sooner. In hindsight, a shortened conflict there would have certainly led to a government that would have been stronger and less instability than exists now.&#8221;</p>
<p>Rubio asked Kerry what impact the overthrow of Qaddafi&#8217;s regime was having on stability in North Africa.</p>
<p>Kerry was vague. &#8220;There is a monumental transformation taking place&#8221; in the region, he said. &#8220;This is the biggest upheaval in that part of the world since the Ottoman Empire.&#8221;</p>
<p>Americans can be forgiven if they have forgotten that Kerry was the Democrats&#8217; unsuccessful presidential candidate who, with heavy financial backing from radical billionaires like George Soros and Peter B. Lewis, came surprisingly close to unseating President George W. Bush in 2004.</p>
<p>The fabulously wealthy Kerry may not be memorable but he is certainly consistent. The ultimate pampered limousine leftist, Kerry has been on the wrong side of every major foreign policy debate for his entire adult life.</p>
<p>This makes him a good fit for President Obama&#8217;s cabinet.</p>
<p>Remember last March when during an unguarded moment with Russia&#8217;s then-president Dmitri Medvedev, Obama said he would gut America&#8217;s nuclear shield in his second term?</p>
<p>“This is my last election,” Obama said at a nuclear security summit in Seoul. Leaning in close to Medvedev, he said, &#8220;After my election, I have more flexibility,&#8221; and reassuringly clutched his counterpart&#8217;s forearm.</p>
<p>There is probably no one better qualified to wave the white flag in front of America&#8217;s enemies than Kerry. After all, the senior senator from Massachusetts two decades Obama&#8217;s senior has been toiling in the trenches of seditious anti-Americanism for his entire political career.</p>
<p>After serving in Vietnam, Kerry left the Navy in 1970 and began working to undermine America&#8217;s war effort. He vigorously attacked U.S. soldiers for doing their duty and assumed a leadership role in the group Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW).</p>
<p>Kerry depicted the U.S. as a thuggish aggressor that needed to be checked externally. &#8220;I&#8217;m an internationalist,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I&#8217;d like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations.&#8221;</p>
<p>In early 1971, Kerry played a key role in the “Winter Soldier Investigation” in Detroit, a piece of political theater in which Vietnam veterans and civilians falsely testified that American troops routinely committed atrocities against innocent civilians in South Vietnam as a matter of U.S. policy.</p>
<p>Later that year before a congressional committee, Kerry accused the U.S. of war crimes as he recounted the lies from the mock inquiry.</p>
<p>Many Vietnam veterans, he said, had “told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war…”</p>
<p>“We learned the meaning of free fire zones,” Kerry said, “shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of Orientals.”</p>
<p>The future senator said the U.S. was racist and no better than its Communist enemy. “We saw that many people in this country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by our flag, as blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties.”</p>
<p>Evidence places Kerry at a series of VVAW meetings in Kansas City, Missouri, in late 1971 at which his fellow subversives made plans to assassinate U.S. senators. Kerry reportedly resigned from the group on the third day of the meetings but historian Gerald Nicosia said, “My evidence is incontrovertible. He [Kerry] was there.”</p>
<p>As an elected official years later Kerry rarely missed an opportunity to trash his country.</p>
<p>He criticized the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada, which replaced a hostile communist dictatorship with a pro-Western government.</p>
<p>&#8220;The invasion represented a bully’s show of force against a weak Third World nation,&#8221; Kerry said, channeling Noam Chomsky. &#8220;The invasion only served to heighten world tensions and further strain brittle U.S.–Soviet and North–South relations.”</p>
<p>In 1985 the Institute for Policy Studies, a rabidly anti-American think tank-activist group, arranged for Kerry and fellow Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) to travel to Nicaragua. While there they had friendly meetings with communist Daniel Ortega, that nation&#8217;s pro-Soviet, pro-Cuban leader. The senators relayed Ortega&#8217;s offer to President Reagan of a ceasefire with Nicaragua&#8217;s anti-communist insurgents, the Contras, if the U.S. would stop funding those fighters.</p>
<p>The U.S. Congress later rejected sending new aid to the Contras but Ortega visited Moscow the very next day to accept a $200 million loan from the Soviet Union.</p>
<p>In 1986, Kerry expressed support for a “fast for life” initiative by four U.S. military veterans opposed to Reagan&#8217;s anti-communist foreign policy, which those veterans claimed consisted of  “illegal and extraordinarily vicious wars against the poor of Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, as Kerry began to wind down his largely dry testimony yesterday a young woman disrupted the hearing, shouting “I’m tired of my friends in the Middle East dying.”</p>
<p>After the woman was ejected from the committee room, Code Pink leader and Obama bundler Jodie Evans took to Twitter to identify the protester as Lachelle Roddy, a so-called intern at Code Pink. Roddy is a political science major at Hollins University, a small, private women&#8217;s college in Roanoke, Virginia. It is unclear if she will receive college credit for these extracurricular activities.</p>
<p>Kerry refused to criticize his detractor, fondly recalling his own protest antics. “I respect the woman who was voicing her concerns about the world,” he said.</p>
<p>“People measure what we do.”</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <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">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>Jack Lew: Architect of Obama&#8217;s Trillion-Dollar-Deficit Budgets</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/tom-blumer/jack-lew-architect-of-obamas-trillion-dollar-deficit-budgets/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=jack-lew-architect-of-obamas-trillion-dollar-deficit-budgets</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Jan 2013 04:50:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tom Blumer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jack Lew]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nominee]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Secretary]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tim Geithner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Treasury]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=172961</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[No Treasury Secretary would better embody the president's fiscal insanity. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/tom-blumer/jack-lew-architect-of-obamas-trillion-dollar-deficit-budgets/afp-516314650_001-4_3_r560/" rel="attachment wp-att-172966"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-172966" title="afp-516314650_001-4_3_r560" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/afp-516314650_001-4_3_r560-450x337.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="202" /></a>On Wednesday, Julie Pace and Martin Crutsinger, two of the usual suspects at the Associated Press, <a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OBAMA_TREASURY_SECRETARY?SITE=AP&amp;SECTION=HOME&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&amp;CTIME=2013-01-09-17-45-11" target="_blank">began paving the way</a> for what they clearly hope will be a worry-free Senate confirmation of current Obama administration Chief of Staff Jack Lew to become the nation&#8217;s next Treasury Secretary.</p>
<p>Towards that end, the AP pair larded on the compliments and historical revisionism with reckless abandon. Among other things, their report lauded Lew as &#8220;one of Washington&#8217;s most knowledgeable budget experts to manage prickly fiscal negotiations with Congress and steer the still-shaky national economy&#8221;; said that he would &#8220;bring to Treasury a mastery of federal budget mechanics&#8221;; claimed that he had &#8220;helped negotiate a balanced budget agreement with Congress, something that has eluded Washington ever since&#8221;; and described Lew as &#8220;a pragmatic liberal &#8230; [who] is well-liked in Washington by both Democrats and Republicans[.]&#8221;</p>
<p>Along the way, Pace and Crutsinger couldn&#8217;t make up their minds about the current condition of the economy. After the &#8220;still-shaky&#8221; characterization just noted in their first paragraph, they later evaluated it as &#8220;now stabilized, if still sluggish.&#8221; Those two conditions can&#8217;t exist at the same time, given that &#8220;shaky&#8221; <a href="http://www.synonyms.net/antonyms/stable" target="_blank">is an antonym</a> of &#8220;stable.&#8221; Although it would have required more verbiage, the AP pair should have characterized the current economy, as a result of <a href="http://pjmedia.com/blog/43-months-of-depressing-misery/" target="_blank">the derelict stewardship</a> of Obama, the soon-departing Tim Geithner, and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke as &#8220;the worst since Franklin Delano Roosevelt needlessly extended the Great Depression by over eight years during the 1930s.&#8221; <a href="http://pjmedia.com/blog/43-months-of-depressing-misery/" target="_blank">Because it is</a>.</p>
<p>The AP also decided to have a little fun with Lew&#8217;s signature, which will appear on the nation&#8217;s currency if he is confirmed, commenting <a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_LEWS_LOOPY_SIGNATURE?SITE=AP&amp;SECTION=HOME&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&amp;CTIME=2013-01-09-19-37-26" target="_blank">in a separate item</a> that his sign-off, a &#8220;J&#8221; followed by &#8220;seven loopy scribbles,&#8221; is &#8220;illegible.&#8221;</p>
<p>What&#8217;s really loopy is AP&#8217;s collection of contentions about Lew.</p>
<p>Lew may actually be &#8220;knowledgeable&#8221; and have a &#8220;mastery of federal budget mechanics,&#8221; but he hasn&#8217;t demonstrated either. As Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget in early 2011 following service in that same position during Bill Clinton&#8217;s final 32 months in office a decade earlier, Lew was the primary compiler of that February&#8217;s proposed White House Budget. That document blessed the idea of running a full-year fiscal 2011 deficit <a href="http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/world-news/obama-budget-curbs-us-deficit-setsfiscal-fight_522687.html" target="_blank">of $1.645 trillion </a>while coveting $1.5 trillion in taxes over the next 10 years beyond those already locked in by the previous year&#8217;s passage of ObamaCare.</p>
<p><a href="http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/021411-563132-editorial-obamas-gutless-budget-proposal.htm" target="_blank">An Investor&#8217;s Business Daily editorial</a> made mincemeat of Lew&#8217;s handiwork, correctly describing it as &#8220;gutless&#8221; because it chose to do nothing about runaway entitlement spending, even with the available political cover of Obama&#8217;s own Simpson Bowles Commission. That panel <a href="http://www.thepoliticalguide.com/Issues/Simpson-Bowles/" target="_blank">had recommended  </a>sweeping changes to the Social Security system and significant Medicare and Medicaid reforms just two months earlier.</p>
<p>As to Lew&#8217;s vaunted negotiating skills, give me a break.</p>
<p>The Clinton administration&#8217;s agreement with Congress early in his second term did balance the budget and generate surpluses for a few years, but Lew&#8217;s role appears to have been minimal. The key players in that drama were then-Congressman, now Ohio Governor John Kasich and House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The AP itself in 2009 <a href="http://www.bizzyblog.com/2009/05/04/ap-ohio-writer-pulls-a-calvin-woodward-explains-fundamental-truth-about-john-kasich/" target="_blank">acknowledged Kasich&#8217;s role</a> as &#8220;chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Budget Committee in 1997 that balanced the nation’s budget for the first time in more than 30 years.&#8221;</p>
<p>Jack Lew did not become Bill Clinton&#8217;s OMB Director until May 1998. Concerning 1997, when the measures which ultimately led to a balanced budget became law, including the reduction in the capital gains tax which caused related tax receipts to skyrocket during the next several years, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Lew#Clinton_administration" target="_blank">Lew&#8217;s Wikipedia entry </a>currently only says that he &#8220;frequently served as a member of the Administration negotiating team.&#8221; Big whoop.</p>
<p>When he has been a player in negotiations, he has been anything but constructive. <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/01/09/Jack-Lew-The-Man-Who-Cannot-Say-Yes-to-Republicans" target="_blank">Breitbart.com&#8217;s Joel Pollak</a> noted on Wednesday that, according to Bob Woodward&#8217;s book, The Price of Politics, Lew &#8220;so irritated congressional Republicans during debt ceiling negotiations in 2011 that Speaker of the House John Boehner personally asked Obama to exclude Lew from the talks.&#8221; Pollak believes that the Lew nomination &#8220;is a clear sign that he intends to drive a hard bargain with Republicans and that he is even less interested in compromise than he was during his first term.&#8221; It&#8217;s hard to see how he could be wrong. So if you thought Geithner&#8217;s <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2012/02/17/geithner-yeah-we-dont-have-a-solution-to-the-debt-problem/" target="_blank">condescending, punkish comment</a> to Congressman Paul Ryan about Ryan&#8217;s plan to prevent the country&#8217;s deficit- and debt-driven financial implosion was bad &#8212; &#8220;we (don&#8217;t) have a definitive solution &#8230; What we do know is, we don’t like yours&#8221; &#8212; you probably haven&#8217;t seen anything yet.</p>
<p>AP&#8217;s suggestion that Lew is &#8220;pragmatic&#8221; is nonsense. In early 2011, Lew showed himself to be beyond doubt a doctrinaire leftist unconcerned with facts or the truth.</p>
<p>It all began when <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2011-02-22-editorial22_ST_N.htm" target="_blank">a USA Today editorial</a> called Social Security&#8217;s trust fund, &#8220;at least in cash terms, a fiction,&#8221; correctly asserting: &#8220;In reality, the trust fund is no more than a collection of IOUs.&#8221; (More on Social Security&#8217;s dire situation can be found <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/tom-blumer/social-security-even-more-insolvent-than-you-thought/" target="_blank">in my Tuesday FrontPage column</a>, &#8220;Social Security: Even More Insolvent Than You Thought.&#8221;)</p>
<p>Lew took umbrage at USA Today&#8217;s contention <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2011-02-22-editorial22_ST1_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip" target="_blank">in an opposing column</a> there. Included in his collection of laughable claims were these howlers: &#8220;Social Security does not cause our deficits,&#8221; and &#8220;Social Security benefits are entirely self-financing.&#8221;</p>
<p>That was too much for Washington Post syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/10/AR2011031004683.html" target="_blank">who flung verbiage</a> from Clinton-era reports issued by Lew&#8217;s own OMB back in his face:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8230; listen to the OMB&#8217;s own explanation (in the Clinton administration budget for fiscal 2000 under then-Director Jack Lew, the very same). The OMB explained that these trust fund &#8220;balances&#8221; are nothing more than a &#8220;bookkeeping&#8221; device. &#8220;They do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits.&#8221;</p>
<p>In other words, the Social Security trust fund contains &#8211; nothing.</p></blockquote>
<p>Lew doubled down a day later while attacking Krauthammer <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/03/11/hammer-misses-mark" target="_blank">at the White House&#8217;s OMB blog</a>. In addition to repeating the lies contained in his USA Today column, he also blamed the country&#8217;s budget problems on &#8220;the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 and the Medicare prescription drug benefit.&#8221; Unfortunately for Lew, federal collections <a href="http://i739.photobucket.com/albums/xx40/mmatters/FederalReceipts2003thru2007.jpg" target="_blank">rose by 44%</a> from fiscal 2003 through fiscal 2007 after those cuts took full effect, and the federal budget was <a href="http://fms.treas.gov/mts/mts0907.txt" target="_blank">within $163 billion</a> of achieving balance in fiscal 2007. As to the drug benefit, also known as Medicare Part D, it was indeed an ill-advised move by the Bush administration and the Republican Congress, but competition-enhancing aspects of that law have caused the program&#8217;s costs to rise at <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2012/06/06/medicare-part-d-proves-that-competition-lowers-health-care-spending/" target="_blank">a much lower annual rate</a> than health care costs in general.</p>
<p>Krauthammer got in the last word <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/its-still-an-empty-lockbox/2011/03/17/ABPpoym_story.html" target="_blank">in his next column</a>, correctly arguing that Lew&#8217;s false arguments justify &#8220;precisely the kind of debt denial and entitlement complacency that his boss is now engaged in.&#8221;</p>
<p>The Lew nomination tells us that we can expect four more years of &#8220;debt denial and complacency.&#8221; Moves like this lend further credence to the idea that Obama really doesn&#8217;t mind if the country falls apart financially by the time he leaves the White House &#8212; assuming he plans to.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>A Voice of Reason from an Arab Dissident</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/yoel-meltzer/a-voice-of-reason-from-an-arab-dissident/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-voice-of-reason-from-an-arab-dissident</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 06 May 2011 04:05:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Yoel Meltzer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bedouin tribes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[colonel gaddafi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[constitutional monarchy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jordanian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[location]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[muslim brotherhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Secretary]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[state]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tribal elders]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[week]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[A courageous Palestinian Jordanian openly announces: Jordan is Palestine!]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/courage.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-92322" title="courage" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/courage.jpg" alt="" width="378" height="504" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Introduction: </strong>The following is an interview with Mudar Zahran, a Palestinian Jordanian and former political insider who fled Jordan and currently resides in England.  In an open and honest manner, Mudar briefly discusses the current unrest in Jordan, the various players in Jordan and their links to Islamic groups, his vision of a Palestinian state in Jordan as opposed to the two-state solution, his attempts at effecting change and the subsequent threats against him.</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Protests in Jordan</strong></span></p>
<p><strong>Yoel Meltzer:</strong> Like most Arab countries, protests are also taking place in Jordan.  According to what I&#8217;ve read the king is claiming that the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is responsible for the protests.  Is this true?</p>
<p><strong>Mudar Zahran:</strong> Not at all. A story was reported in the Jerusalem Post and it dismissed such a claim.  The organizers of the events are mostly tribal Jordanians calling for less power for the king.</p>
<p><strong>YM:</strong> So the MB is not involved at all?</p>
<p><strong>MZ:</strong> The MB represents just a small fraction of the protesters.  Most of those involved are tribal elders or people representing tribal factions and very, very few Palestinians.  What the king is doing is exactly what Colonel Gaddafi is doing.  Just as Gaddafi is claiming that he is fighting Al-Qaeda when he is actually fighting rebels who hate his oppressive rule, so too Abdullah and his media, and lately his prime minister, are all insisting the protesters are MB members.</p>
<p><strong>YM:</strong> But I thought the Bedouin tribes were allies of the king?</p>
<p><strong>MZ:</strong> They are.  Yet he has fed them and empowered them to the point where they do not want him any more.  They want a constitutional monarchy as was referred to in a 1920 convention.  In that year King Abdullah&#8217;s grandfather met with tribal leaders of what was then Eastern Palestine and agreed with them to mutually rule the country.  They want that restored so that they become partners in his rule, or nearly rulers themselves.  If not, they shall revolt.  They have been saying that openly.</p>
<p><strong>YM:</strong> Isn&#8217;t Jordan already a constitutional monarchy?</p>
<p><strong>MZ:</strong> Jordan claims to be a constitutional monarchy while it is by all means a dictatorship.  A constitutional monarchy is where the king reigns but does not run the country, as is the case in the UK, Sweden, Norway and others.  In Jordan the king has all the authority with zero accountability.</p>
<p>In reality Jordan is a dictatorship headed by a slick-dressing dictator who speaks perfect English, as opposed to Saddam&#8217;s military uniform or Assad&#8217;s bad English.</p>
<p><strong>YM:</strong> Regarding the current protests in Jordan, are they being attended by large crowds or do most people choose to stay away?</p>
<p><strong>MZ:</strong> Most Palestinians, who are the majority, are too afraid to get involved.  Even the Washington Institute and the Jerusalem Post have confirmed that most Palestinians are not participating.  While in other Arab countries the protesters are facing their own cousins behind the police guns and clubs, in Jordan the Palestinians would be facing the ruthless Bedouins who have been terrorizing them since 1970.</p>
<p>This is mainly an affair between the king and the tribes.</p>
<p><strong>YM:</strong> In your opinion, will the changes that the tribes are requesting have a positive effect on the Palestinians?</p>
<p><strong>MZ:</strong> Just read their statements.  The latest one was signed by 36 of their leaders calling for the expelling of the Palestinians or taking away their passports.  Some even called for repossessing the property of Palestinians and several called for &#8220;re-establishing Israel as an enemy state.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>YM:</strong> Are they more anti-Israel than the king?</p>
<p><strong>MZ:</strong> You bet.  The king is just a puppet in their hand and that is why he has been taking an anti-Palestinian and an anti-Israeli stance since he came to power.</p>
<p><strong>YM:</strong> So which would you prefer, the king continuing as is or the changes that the tribes want?</p>
<p><strong>MZ:</strong> The king cannot continue and the tribes will oust him sooner or later.  His father remained their king only because he fed them so much and gave them unbelievable privileges even according to American standards.  The present king does not have the money to do this and their numbers have exceeded the country&#8217;s resources.  Economically speaking Jordan, which heavily depends on excessive taxation of its Palestinians, will not have the resources to pay any more of the privileges and benefits the tribesmen get in Jordan.  So sooner or later they will oust him, probably sooner more than later.  The result will be hostile uncontrollable tribes in Jordan who are playing with the country in an unruly manner just like their ancestors did for thousands of years.  In the Bedouin culture stealing someone else&#8217;s wealth and land is not a shame, in fact it is a matter of honor&#8230;they call it Ghazou and Khawa.</p>
<p><strong>YM:</strong> Almost sounds like Afghanistan</p>
<p><strong>MZ:</strong> Very much so, only the Bedouins in Jordan are well armed and well trained with fine American weapons.  For some unknown reason Jordan spends 40 percent of its budget on military and building an army.</p>
<p><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Links between Bedouin Tribes and Islamic Groups</span></strong></p>
<p><strong>YM:</strong> Are the tribes close to the MB or to other groups outside of Jordan such as Al-Qaeda or Hezbollah?</p>
<p><strong>MZ:</strong> The MB&#8217;s leadership is mostly tribal. Its senior leaders are Zaki Bani Rushaid, Salim Flahat and Abdul Majid Thubnibat.  Each one of them is a Bedouin and not a Palestinian and each one was present at the last protest which ended up violently.  Zaki Bani Rushaid, who is the strongest leader within the MB, was a former office manager of Khaled Meshaal (the political leader of Hamas).</p>
<p>The southern part of Jordan is closely and heavily connected to Al-Qaeda.  Many tribesmen believe in Salafi methodology and lately they have been parading around the southern city of Maan, a tribal stronghold, waving their own flags and walking around with their fine M-16s.  Yet for some reason none of this has made it to the western media.</p>
<p><strong>YM:</strong> What is &#8220;Salafi methodology&#8221;?</p>
<p><strong>MZ:</strong> Salafi methodology is the orthodox denomination in Islam.  It is the ideology that Osama bin Laden belongs too as did Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist who was the chief Al-Qaeda operator in Iraq until shortly before he was killed.  Also connected to Salafi was Hammam al-Balawi, the suicide bomber who killed 7 CIA officers in Afghanistan in the 2009 Khost bombing.</p>
<p><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Trying to Establish Peace in the Wrong Geographical Location</span></strong></p>
<p><strong>YM:</strong> As you know, later this year the Palestinians intend on declaring a state.  Although personally you believe that Jordan should be this Palestinian state, Abbas is pushing for a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria.  What do you think about this?</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>MZ:</strong> I believe Jordan is the eastern side of Palestine and that the Jordan River should be a good fence between Israel and Jordan.  What Abbas is going to do is comedy evolving into Saturday Night Live sponsored by the UN.  What state Mr. Abbas?  What state when most Palestinians, including 70 percent of Palestinians in Jerusalem, would rather be under Israeli rule?  Mr. Abbas is repaying those Arab states who finance his authority and who do not want to see the Palestinians and the Israelis enjoying peace.</p>
<p>The question is, are the Israelis that weak?  In any normal country the Itamar massacre would send shock waves of reality.  Have I seen any Israeli politician, even so-called right-wingers like FM Lieberman, speak openly of putting the Palestinians back in their homeland?</p>
<p><strong>YM:</strong> Your words are very powerful.  The problems in Israel are deep and complex.  Putting them aside for a moment, the current problem is that Abbas going to the UN has serious repercussions.  Whether it&#8217;s approval from the Security Council or from the General Assembly, either way it&#8217;s something that carries a lot of weight. From there it might be relatively easy to call for sanctions against Israel if it fails to comply and remove its citizens and army from the new Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>MZ:</strong> It seems that Mr. Abbas&#8217;s adventures will lead the region into a massive war.  Although I doubt the US and Israel&#8217;s other friends would approve a UN resolution calling for sanctions against Israel, nonetheless there will be more headaches and more trouble for Israel.  More importantly, I believe all of this is the result of trying to establish peace in the wrong geographical location.  Imagine if the pressure had always been to share historical Palestine where we get two thirds and you get one third &#8211; us across the river and you on the other side.</p>
<p>Abbas&#8217; statehood stunt is reckless and will eventually lead the region into a massive war that might even produce WWIII.</p>
<p>Such a move is also harmful to the Palestinians since it can give Israel every legitimate reason to sever ties for good with the Palestinians.  Israel is the only country that allows them to accept and take jobs and it is their transportation and trade outlet.  Only Abbas will benefit from such a move.  He is following in the footsteps of Hamas who only wanted to rule and didn&#8217;t care if the Palestinians starved.  The same is going to happen with Mr. Abbas.</p>
<p>By the way, his seeking a state is also against the Oslo agreement.  Hence it&#8217;s about time that Israel gets real and revises its agreement.  Israel needs to decide that the Palestinians can establish their own state across the river since any Palestinian statehood between the sea and the river will only lead to more wars and more troubles.</p>
<p>However, keep in mind that all of this is happening because one family, the Hashemites, want to keep controlling Eastern  Palestine.  This is absurd.</p>
<p><strong>YM:</strong> I&#8217;m not sure if it&#8217;s only because of the Hashemites but that certainly is part of it.  Whatever may have been in the past, today most of the world &#8220;buys&#8221; the Palestinian story and Israel is increasingly being slandered as a &#8220;horrible occupier.&#8221;  Just recently was the 7th annual &#8220;Israel Apartheid Week&#8221; in colleges throughout the West.  Can the trend of the world be changed in order to stop, as you said, &#8220;trying to establish peace in the wrong geographical location&#8221;?</p>
<p><em>(Editor&#8217;s note: See <a href="http://walloflies.org/home/">the Freedom Center&#8217;s campaign</a> to counter the lies of &#8220;Israel Apartheid Week&#8221;.)</em></p>
<p><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Efforts to Change the Entrenched Point of View</span></strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>MZ:</strong> True, it is not only because of the Hashemites yet it certainly is partly due to their presence.  Were the Hashemites not ruling the eastern part of Palestine then the Palestinians already would have had a country for sixty years and nobody would have pressured Israel to give away its land.  Yet this is not the case and the Hashemites are ruling the place and constantly telling the Palestinians they are merely refugees.</p>
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		<title>The UN&#8217;s Hypocrisy on Women’s Rights</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/joseph-klein/the-uns-hypocrisy-on-women%e2%80%99s-rights/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-uns-hypocrisy-on-women%25e2%2580%2599s-rights</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 04 Mar 2010 05:00:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[american citizen]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ban]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ban ki moon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Commission]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cynthia Brzak]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[gender rights]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Geneva]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[immunity defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kofi annan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Lubbers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Martin Nesirky]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New York]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rachel Mayanja]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[How can the agency fight sexual harassment if it doesn’t punish it in its own ranks?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/united_nations_campaign_women.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-52970" title="united_nations_campaign_women" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/united_nations_campaign_women.jpg" alt="" width="560" height="344" /></a></p>
<p>The United Nations has been busy this past week celebrating International Women’s Day and convening a conference at UN headquarters in New York of the Commission on the Status of Women. A key focus of the Commission, according to the website of the UN’s Division for the Advancement of Women, is “sharing of experiences and good practices with a view to overcoming remaining obstacles and new challenges.” Unfortunately, the one place where women will see ingrained <em>bad</em> practices in dealing with sexual harassment against women in its ranks is the United Nations itself.</p>
<p>A case in point involves a lawsuit brought by an American citizen and United Nations employee, Cynthia Brzak, who worked for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers, in Geneva. She claimed that Lubbers improperly touched her after a December 2003 business meeting in his office. Lubbers resigned in 2005 because of the scandal. However, he does not have to worry about ever facing justice in a U.S. court because he has permanent immunity as an ex-United Nations employee. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on March 2, 2010 that the United Nations is absolutely immune from such a lawsuit, and that its former employees also have immunity.</p>
<p>If the United Nations’ leadership were serious about walking the walk itself, instead of preaching about gender rights to everyone else, the UN could have waived its own immunity and the immunity of its staff with respect to claims of sexual harassment acts by its employees &#8211; or, in this case, its former employee. That did not happen. Instead, reprisals against Brzak allegedly followed in the wake of her complaint and continue to this day.</p>
<p>Kofi Annan, the former Secretary General, ran interference for Lubbers even to the point of allegedly disregarding the findings of an internal UN investigation and exonerating him. The current Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, is ducking the issue and has allowed the UN’s legal staff to vigorously assert the immunity defense rather than waive it.</p>
<p>Ban Ki-moon addressed the Commission on the Status of Women High-Level Event marking International Women’s Day, one day after the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ immunity decision shielding the UN and Lubbers from liability came out. Ban Ki-moon said that as a son and husband, a father and grandfather to girls, and as UN Secretary General, it is his duty to fight for gender equality and women’s empowerment, which are fundamental to the very identity of the United Nations. He can start in his own backyard.</p>
<p>In light of all the attention the United Nations is bestowing on women’s rights during the conference of the Commission on the Status of Women and Ban Ki-moon’s self-described personal involvement with the issue, I asked his spokesperson, Martin Nesirky, whether the Secretary General had any comment on the latest development in the sexual harassment case against the United Nations and Lubbers. Not surprisingly, he did not. When I persisted on when we can expect a comment on this women’s rights issue, he replied with a riddle: “Do we know how long is a string?”</p>
<p>I addressed the same question to Rachel Mayanja, Special Adviser to the Secretary General on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women. Oblivious to the irony of her specializing in gender issues and the advancement of women at the United Nations, she professed ignorance of the facts of the sexual harassment case against the United Nations and Lubbers. And she defended the UN’s use of immunity “to protect the interests of the organization.”</p>
<p>The fact is that the United Nations has a serious problem on its hands with sexual abuse and harassment cases, most notably in its peace-keeping forces, but at high managerial levels as well. Instead of serving as a role model on an issue that it purports to champion, the UN is fighting judicial accountability for the actions of its own employees.</p>
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		<slash:comments>7</slash:comments>
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		<title>Iran and the Threat of the Revolutionary Guard</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/paul-e-vallely-and-fred-gedrich/iran-and-the-threat-of-the-revolutionary-guard/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=iran-and-the-threat-of-the-revolutionary-guard</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/paul-e-vallely-and-fred-gedrich/iran-and-the-threat-of-the-revolutionary-guard/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 24 Feb 2010 05:05:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Paul E. Vallely and Fred Gedrich]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=51715</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[And what the Obama administration has to do to get the Mullahs’ attention.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/rev.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-51722" title="rev" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/rev.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="294" /></a></p>
<p>Team Obama, clearly exasperated that Iran’s terrorist state hasn’t reciprocated to its public and private engagement overtures, took a new tact during U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent Mideast tour.  The secretary declared that the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is supplanting the country’s clerical and political leadership and moving the nation toward a “military dictatorship.”  And the administration is now seeking yet another U.N. Security Council resolution as a remedy.</p>
<p>Newsflash to Team Obama:  Iran’s theocratic rulers, president, and their IRGC protectors share the same nuclear weapons and terrorism goals and are the driving force behind the regime’s 31-year one-sided “Death to America” war. They have collectively and successfully thwarted all previous economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the United Nations.</p>
<p>There are plenty of reasons why the Iranian regime (dating back to the time of the Reagan administration) and the IRGC (during the George W. Bush administration) have been labeled as terrorists by the United   States. With the consent of the Iranian regime, IRGC members participated in seizing the American embassy in 1979 and holding 52 hostages for 444 days – in violation of international law and millennia of diplomatic protocols.  Its Quds Force used Hezbollah proxies to target and bomb the U.S. embassy and the Marine Barracks in Lebanon, bomb U.S. residences in Saudi Arabia, and kidnap and murder American captives (such as William Buckley and USMC  Lt. Col. William Higgins). The Quds Force now manufactures and supplies lethal roadside bombs (IEDs) to Shi’ite militias in Iraq and the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan that kill and maim American troops.</p>
<p>If that isn’t bad enough, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog (IAEA) recently said the regime, with the IRGC leading the way, may be on the verge of producing a nuclear warhead to go along with their long-range missiles, which many believe will further threaten regional and global peace and security. Others believe Iran already possesses a nuclear capability and is in the process of achieving the capability of matching warheads to missiles. Surprisingly, many Americans know little about the IRGC, which wields considerable security, political and economic clout in Iran.  Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini created the IRGC in 1979 primarily to safeguard the ideal of his Shi’ite Islamic Revolution, protect his regime from domestic and foreign enemies, and export his brutal brand of Islamic fundamentalism to neighboring states.</p>
<p>The IRGC operates independently from Iran’s regular military, reporting directly to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.  It currently has about 200,000 members assigned to special army, air force, navy and intelligence units – in all 30 Iranian provinces.   At the behest of the Supreme Leader during the past year, the IRGC cracked down on innocent Iranians protesting the questionable reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Islamic Republic’s 31st anniversary celebration. The IRGC exports the revolution through their notorious Quds (Jerusalem) Force.  This force has about 20,000 highly trained personnel specializing in international terrorism, armed conflict and support of proxies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza.</p>
<p>Former and current IRGC members occupy 14 of 21 cabinet positions, about 90 of 290 parliament seats, and a host of local mayorships and council seats.  Past and present IRGC members include President Ahmadinejad, ambassador to Iraq Hassan Kazemi-Qomi and parliament speaker Ali Larijani. The IRGC is also a business conglomerate controlling some 500 companies active in a wide range of industries including nuclear power, banking, insurance, and recreation.</p>
<p>The IRGC and Quds Force headquarters are located in Tehran, the latter in the former U.S. embassy.  The IRGC oversees at least seven nuclear facilities, including those at Isfahan, Natanz, and Qom.  And the IRGC/Quds Force operates at least 20 terrorist training centers including the Imam Ali Training Garrison, Tehran; Bahonar Garrison near Karaj Dam; and the Abouzar Garrison, Ahwaz, Khuzestan Province.   Lethal roadside bombs are produced by Sattari Industries in Tehran’s Lavizan District.</p>
<p>The IRGC and Quds Force are currently led by Maj. Gen. Mohammed Ali Jafari.  He was appointed by Supreme Leader Khamenei in 2007.  His portfolio includes command of Iran’s nuclear weapons and missile programs, relations with countries like Venezuela and terror proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas, and liaison with intelligence organ Ministry of Intelligence and Security.</p>
<p>One cannot fault Secretary Clinton for putting the well-deserved spotlight on the IRGC.  However, her declaration about it becoming an emerging “military dictatorship” misses the mark.  In reality, it doesn’t matter whether Iran is ruled by clerics or a card-carrying IRGC member as president. The IRGC will still continue developing nuclear weapons, engaging in terrorism, oppressing millions of freedom-seeking Iranians, ignoring Team Obama’s rapprochement overtures and economic sanction threats, and dismissing another worthless U.N. Security Council resolution watered down by Iran’s security council veto-wielding friends in Russia and China.</p>
<p>The time has come for Team Obama to shelve its idealistic, naïve and dangerous “open-hand” diplomacy in favor of “bold and aggressive” action against Iran. The administration must support the Iranian Opposition organizations.  The best way to get the Iranian regime’s attention would be to inform them that President Obama will:</p>
<p>(1) Ask Congress to pass a resolution making Iranian “regime change” a strong U.S. policy (similar to what Congress and President Clinton did for Iraq in 1998);</p>
<p>(2) Direct, under executive authority or with congressional permission, precise military strikes on Iranian nuclear development sites as well as regime targets like terrorist training facilities, IRGC and Quds Force headquarters. This will be done if Iran doesn’t cease its nuclear weapons program and supporting radical Islamic/global caliphate activities;</p>
<p>and</p>
<p>(3) Overtly and covertly encourage and support all Iranian opposition and freedom seeking groups to foster regime change.</p>
<p>Let’s “hope” President Obama makes these policy “changes” before it’s too late. Global peace and security depend on it.</p>
<p><strong>Army Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely, retired, is chairman of <em>Stand Up America</em>, a member of the Iran Policy Committee and co-author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Endgame-Blueprint-Victory-War-Terror/dp/0895260662/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1266990395&amp;sr=1-3"><em>Endgame</em></a>.  Fred Gedrich is a foreign policy and national security analyst who served in the Departments of State and Defense.</strong></p>
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		<title>John McCain: I was Misled on Bank Bailout &#8211; Arizona Republic</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-swindle/john-mccain-i-was-misled-on-bank-bailout-arizona-republic/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=john-mccain-i-was-misled-on-bank-bailout-arizona-republic</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-swindle/john-mccain-i-was-misled-on-bank-bailout-arizona-republic/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:49:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Swindle]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=51666</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Under growing pressure from conservatives and “tea party” activists, Sen. John McCain of Arizona is having to defend his record of supporting the government’s massive bailout of the financial system. In response to criticism from opponents seeking to defeat him in the Aug. 24 Republican primary, the four-term senator says he was misled by then-Treasury [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Under growing pressure from conservatives and “tea party” activists, Sen. John McCain of Arizona is having to defend his record of supporting the government’s massive bailout of the financial system.</p>
<p>In response to criticism from opponents seeking to defeat him in the Aug. 24 Republican primary, the four-term senator says he was misled by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. McCain said the pair assured him that the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program would focus on what was seen as the cause of the financial crisis, the housing meltdown.</p>
<p><em><strong><a href="http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/azelections/articles/2010/02/22/20100222mccain-tarp0222.html" target="_blank">Read the whole thing.</a></strong></em></p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>5</slash:comments>
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		<title>John Samples and Ilya Shapiro: Free Speech for All &#8211; Cato Institute</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/john-samples-and-ilya-shapiro-free-speech-for-all-cato-institute/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=john-samples-and-ilya-shapiro-free-speech-for-all-cato-institute</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/john-samples-and-ilya-shapiro-free-speech-for-all-cato-institute/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:18:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=47279</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Will the Supreme Court&#8217;s Citizens United decision destroy American democracy? You might think so given the responses of its critics. The Citizens United decision, far from signaling the fall of the republic, strengthens the First Amendment and freedom of speech.Let&#8217;s start with the facts of the case. Citizens United, a nonprofit political advocacy group, produced [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Will the Supreme Court&#8217;s Citizens United decision destroy American democracy? You might think so given the responses of its critics. The Citizens United decision, far from signaling the fall of the republic, strengthens the First Amendment and freedom of speech.Let&#8217;s start with the facts of the case. Citizens United, a nonprofit political advocacy group, produced a film called &#8220;Hillary: The Movie&#8221; about the current Secretary of State, who at the time was a presidential candidate. The movie did not reflect well on Ms. Clinton but did not explicitly advocate her defeat in the 2008 presidential contest. Citizens United planned to show the film in theatres, sell it as a DVD, and make it available on-demand on cable TV. The group also planned to run ads marketing the movie.What could be the problem with Citizens United&#8217;s plans? Supporters of Hillary Clinton would not like the movie, but the First Amendment protects all speech, especially criticism of powerful political figures.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11159">Free Speech for All | John Samples and Ilya Shapiro | Cato Institute: Commentary</a>.</p>
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		<title>Geithner&#8217;s New York Fed Pushed AIG To Keep Sweetheart Deals Secret &#8211; Huffington Post</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/geithners-new-york-fed-pushed-aig-to-keep-sweetheart-deals-secret-huffington-post/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=geithners-new-york-fed-pushed-aig-to-keep-sweetheart-deals-secret-huffington-post</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:24:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=45236</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[An arm of the Federal Reserve, then led by now-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, told bailed-out insurance giant AIG to withhold key details from the public about overpayments that put billions of extra tax dollars in the coffers of major Wall Street firms, most notably Goldman Sachs. The sordid tale unfolds in a series of e-mails [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>An arm of the Federal Reserve, then led by now-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, told bailed-out insurance giant AIG to withhold key details from the public about overpayments that put billions of extra tax dollars in the coffers of major Wall Street firms, most notably Goldman Sachs.</p>
<p>The sordid tale unfolds in a series of e-mails between the company and the New York Fed obtained by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and first publicly disclosed by Bloomberg News.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/414449;_ylt=AgWIaeQ5j8vieQKaehKKU9as0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNncmM5YjVnBGFzc2V0A2h1ZmZwb3N0LzIwMTAwMTA3LzQxNDQ0OQRjY29kZQNtb3N0cG9wdWxhcgRjcG9zAzQEcG9zAzEEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2tlBHNlYwN5bl9oZWFkbGluZV9saXN0BHNsawNnZWl0aG5lcnNueWY-">Geithner&#8217;s New York Fed Pushed AIG To Keep Sweetheart Deals Secret &#8211; Yahoo! News</a>.</p>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<title>Arab Royalty Fund Clinton Foundation in 2009 &#8211; Defense/Middle East &#8211; Israel News &#8211; Israel National News</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/arab-royalty-fund-clinton-foundation-in-2009-defensemiddle-east-israel-news-israel-national-news/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=arab-royalty-fund-clinton-foundation-in-2009-defensemiddle-east-israel-news-israel-national-news</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/arab-royalty-fund-clinton-foundation-in-2009-defensemiddle-east-israel-news-israel-national-news/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:15:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Arab]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[arab nations]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=45074</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[During U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton%u2019s first year in office, some of the heftiest contributions to her husband%u2019s charitable foundation came from royal families of Arab nations. The list of those who donated to the William J. Clinton Foundation in 2009 was released to the media last week. via Norway, Arab Royalty Fund Clinton [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>During U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton%u2019s first year in office, some of the heftiest contributions to her husband%u2019s charitable foundation came from royal families of Arab nations. The list of those who donated to the William J. Clinton Foundation in 2009 was released to the media last week.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/135390">Norway, Arab Royalty Fund Clinton Foundation in 2009 &#8211; Defense/Middle East &#8211; Israel News &#8211; Israel National News</a>.</p>
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		<title>Inside the Green Revolution – by Jacob Laksin</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/inside-the-green-revolution-%e2%80%93-by-jacob-laksin/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=inside-the-green-revolution-%25e2%2580%2593-by-jacob-laksin</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/inside-the-green-revolution-%e2%80%93-by-jacob-laksin/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 04 Jan 2010 05:17:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=44523</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Political dissident Amir Fakhravar discusses his brother’s arrest by the Iranian regime and the democratic uprising that threatens its rule. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-44525" title="091228211523IranProtestAPPhoto" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/091228211523IranProtestAPPhoto.jpg" alt="091228211523IranProtestAPPhoto" width="430" height="341" /></p>
<p>As a student dissident in Iran, <a href="http://fakhravar.com/">Amir Fakhravar</a> was jailed and tortured for his pro-democracy political activism. Since moving to the United States in 2006, he has continued to take part in Iran’s opposition movement. He serves as the secretary general of the <a href="http://www.cistudents.com/about/">Confederation of Iranian Students</a> and the president of the Iranian Enterprise Institute. Last week, Fakhravar’s 18-year-old-brother, Arash, was arrested by the Iranian regime. After three days of absence, the Fakhravar family learned that Arash had been arrested, beaten up and taken to the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Tehran, then placed in solitary confinement in an undisclosed location. Amir Fakhravar spoke to <em>Front Page</em> about his brother’s arrest, Iran’s growing “green revolution,” and the best strategy for ending the mullahs’ three-decade rule.</p>
<p><em><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-44528" title="art_amir_fakhravar_cnn" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/art_amir_fakhravar_cnn.jpg" alt="art_amir_fakhravar_cnn" width="292" height="219" /></em></p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Can you tell us what happened with your brother Arash? What do you know of his current whereabouts?</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar: </strong>Arash is in the very middle of this fight. He became politically active in high school and now he goes to all the anti-government demonstrations. My mother always says, “Please talk to him.” But my response is: This is what he has chosen. We need to pay the price for freedom. The day after the Ashura festival, the intelligence services called my mother in Tehran. They said, “We know all about your son. He’s been involved in protests, making videos. Be careful or they will arrest him.” The day after the phone call, they arrested him. My mother didn’t know anything for three days. She called the police, but they didn’t know anything. So she went to the Revolutionary Court with my sister and they saw him there. He was beaten up and blindfolded, wearing a bloody shirt and handcuffs. They tried to take a picture but could not. Right now, he is still in the hands of the Revolutionary Court.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img class="size-full wp-image-44531 aligncenter" title="DSC01294" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/DSC01294.JPG" alt="DSC01294" width="336" height="448" /><em>In the line of fire: Amir Fakhravar’s 18-year-old brother Arash is among the thousands of opposition demonstrators beaten up and arrested by the Iranian government.</em></p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> What are you doing to free Arash and what can those outside of Iran do to help?</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar: </strong>His best chance of survival is organizing a media campaign for his release. In Iran, my family cannot do anything. But from the outside we can do quite a lot. We created a <a href="http://www.facebook.com/people/Amir-Fakhravar/100000126867757">Facebook page</a> for him that now has 2,000 members. We can also write letters to the news media and human-rights groups to cover his case. This is probably the best thing we can do. We need to put more pressure on the government. They are afraid of free information.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Your brother, like you, is active in the “green revolution” in Iran. How do you see what is happening inside the country right now?</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar: </strong>What has happened is that something many thought was a small movement has become a revolution. After the summer election, the government tried to strike fear into the people, but millions came out into the streets in Iran’s major cities. After seven months, they are showing that they are not going to give up. The recent death of Ayatollah Montazeri was a good excuse for this new generation to oppose the government because he had fought [Ayatollah] Khomeini for twenty years. The latest demonstrations have taken place during the Ashura festival, which is a symbol of the Islamic Republic and Shiism. This is a sign that they want to get rid of the mullahs and they are not afraid anymore. [Politician and presidential challenger] Mir Hossein Mousavi has said it best: We are not leading these people. They are leading themselves.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> So where does the leadership come from?</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar: </strong>This movement doesn’t have a leader, but things like Facebook help. We use social media to help organize events inside Iran. For instance, we are planning a demonstration in February to coincide with the 31<sup>st</sup> anniversary of the Iranian revolution. Earlier this year, I was giving a speech before Congress and I said, “Iranians don’t want a war. All we need are cell phones, cameras and computers.” Some of the Senators laughed at that. But it has happened. We are close to a cyber revolution in Iran.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> What are the aims of this revolution? What do the participants hope to achieve?</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar: </strong>Most of the demonstrators are young – 70 percent are under the age of 35 – and they are not motivated by partisan politics. They are not communists or Marxists or monarchists; they are not involved with political parties and they don’t want to be. Via the internet, they know a lot about American culture – perhaps more than many people here – and they want the things it represents: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. They are secular and they want a country where Islam is kept separate from the government. A free, secular, democratic Iran – that is their dream</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> What do you make of the “<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/30/iran-protests">pro-government” rallies</a> that have been held in recent days? The government has tried to portray them as representing the true voice of the Iranian people.</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar: </strong>Actually,<strong> </strong>this what my brother was protesting when he was arrested. He was at a counter protest. For thirty years, the Iranian government has used petrodollars to create the illusion of popular support. These protests are designed to show that the government is strong and that it has real legitimacy. But the protests are staged. What happens is that the government will bus in people, usually poorer people from the countryside. They will give them food, and arrange for them to see the sites. For some of those people, it was their chance to see Tehran for the first time. They are being used to create these protests. But it’s not working. They had one of the pro-government protests in a big city near Tehran. Just 150 people showed up.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> How would you rate the Obama administration’s response to the protests in Iran? President Obama, for instance, has condemned the brutality of the regime, but the U.S. <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2009/12/31/a-new-way-on-iran-%e2%80%93-by-jacob-laksin/">has not meaningfully supported the opposition</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar</strong>: I think Obama just did not have any idea of what to do about Iran. So he decided that the U.S. would not become involved and would watch the situation unfold. This is not a football game, Mr. President. The Iranian government is killing the people, but during the past seven months the United States has done nothing positive to support them. It has done something negative, though. The Obama administration recognized the Ahmadinejad government as legitimately elected, which it is not. It also said it wanted to hold talks with Ahmadinejad. That was the wrong decision. It gave the regime legitimacy and hurt the democratic movement a lot.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>What should the administration do?</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar:</strong> First, it needs new advisors on Iran. Second, it needs to pass sanctions. By that I mean smart sanctions. The kind of targeted sanctions against the Revolutionary Guard that have been proposed will not be effective and will probably be watered down by China and Russia. Smart sanctions – on oil and gasoline – can help us. Petrodollars are the lifeline of the Iranian regime. If they can’t pay the salaries of the Revolutionary Guard, within two months they will be powerless because most of the Revolutionary Guard don’t believe in the mullahs. They believe in money. Right now, they are killing people for money. Take away the money away and you can collapse the regime.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Some observers have called for a preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. Do you think that’s the right strategy?</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar:</strong> Not right now. At this moment, I believe it would be unhelpful. When you have an army in the streets – like Iran’s new generation – it is a sign that the mullahs’ reign is over. A strike on Iran would allow the regime to play the victim and would give it legitimacy. That is the last thing we need. To those who support a strike, my message is: Give us time. This June, there were four million people on the street in Tehran. It was the biggest anti-government protest in Iran’s history. Even during the 1979 revolution, you did not see that many people in the street. This is the Iranians’ fight against the mullahs, and they believe they can bring them down. If they had a little help from free countries, especially the United States, they could succeed right now.</p>
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		<title>Charles Krauthammer: Hollow Words on Terrorism</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/charles-krauthammer-hollow-words-on-terrorism/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=charles-krauthammer-hollow-words-on-terrorism</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/charles-krauthammer-hollow-words-on-terrorism/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 03 Jan 2010 04:19:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[air]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=44605</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[WASHINGTON &#8212; Janet Napolitano &#8212; former Arizona governor, now overmatched secretary of homeland security &#8212; will forever be remembered for having said of the attempt to bring down an airliner over Detroit: &#8220;The system worked.&#8221; The attacker&#8217;s concerned father had warned U.S. authorities about his son&#8217;s jihadist tendencies. The would-be bomber paid cash and checked [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>WASHINGTON &#8212; Janet Napolitano &#8212; former Arizona governor, now overmatched secretary of homeland security &#8212; will forever be remembered for having said of the attempt to bring down an airliner over Detroit: &#8220;The system worked.&#8221; The attacker&#8217;s concerned father had warned U.S. authorities about his son&#8217;s jihadist tendencies. The would-be bomber paid cash and checked no luggage on a transoceanic flight. He was nonetheless allowed to fly, and would have killed 288 people in the air alone, save for a faulty detonator and quick actions by a few passengers.</p>
<p>Heck of a job, Brownie.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/01/02/war_what_war_99742.html">RealClearPolitics &#8211; Hollow Words on Terrorism</a>.</p>
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		<title>Security System Failed, Napolitano Acknowledges &#8211; NYTimes.com</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jlaksin/security-system-failed-napolitano-acknowledges-nytimes-com/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=security-system-failed-napolitano-acknowledges-nytimes-com</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jlaksin/security-system-failed-napolitano-acknowledges-nytimes-com/#respond</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:20:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=43825</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The secretary of homeland security, Janet Napolitano, said Monday that the thwarted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner represented a failure of the nation’s aviation security system, not the success she and other administration officials had portrayed in comments over the weekend. via Security System Failed, Napolitano Acknowledges &#8211; NYTimes.com.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The secretary of homeland security, Janet Napolitano, said Monday that the thwarted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner represented a failure of the nation’s aviation security system, not the success she and other administration officials had portrayed in comments over the weekend.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/us/29terror.html?_r=1&amp;hp">Security System Failed, Napolitano Acknowledges &#8211; NYTimes.com</a>.</p>
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		<title>Spinning a U.N. Failure – by Joseph Klein</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/joseph-klein/spinning-a-u-n-failure-%e2%80%93-by-joseph-klein/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=spinning-a-u-n-failure-%25e2%2580%2593-by-joseph-klein</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 22 Dec 2009 05:01:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=42787</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon claims that the Copenhagen climate conference was a success. 
]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-42788" title="bankimooninkabul" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/bankimooninkabul.jpg" alt="bankimooninkabul" width="474" height="311" /></p>
<p>Contrary to what you may have heard, the just-concluded Copenhagen climate change conference was a huge success.</p>
<p>So suggested United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, when he met with reporters at the UN headquarters in New York on Monday, and gave a very upbeat assessment of the conference. He claimed that “the decisions made in Copenhagen fulfill in large part the benchmarks for success that I had laid down at the September 2009 Summit meeting here in UN headquarters.”</p>
<p>In support of that dubious claim, the Secretary General cited the so-called Copenhagen Accord, a toothless and vague set of aspirational goals brokered by President Obama in the waning hours of the conference with China and other major industrialized and emerging nations.</p>
<p>Even as he tried to put on a happy face, Ban Ki-moon did not deny that the negotiating process under UN auspices was unwieldy or that the Copenhagen Accord lacked any commitments on emission reductions and international verification procedures to ensure that countries like China were even meeting their voluntary targets.</p>
<p>I asked the Secretary General about the role that he personally played in trying to facilitate a deal. In his usual self-effacing manner, Ban Ki-moon said that “I think everybody has played an important role, not necessarily [just] myself.” He singled out President Obama for playing “a very important role at the last minute when this negotiation was stuck on important issues like verification and other mitigation target issues.” Of course, in reality the negotiations are still stuck on those very issues. All that was accomplished was a last-minute face-saving gesture.</p>
<p>One major advance of the Copenhagen conference, at least in Ban Ki-moon’s mind, was the ramping up of funding commitments by the developed countries to the developing countries. In a “show me the money” type of statement, the Secretary General said that “the deal is backed by money and the means to deliver it. You know that already $30 billion have been committed until 2012, and after that $100 billion annually up to 2020.”</p>
<p>It’s hard to spin this as a success, however. Wealth transfer of even a greater magnitude than this is all that China and the developing countries have been after, not truly solving in a practical manner any problems caused by global warming. This is on top of the billions of dollars of annual development aid going to many of these same countries. Their position is that, since the industrialized nations created the mess and benefited the most from the use of fossil fuels, the rich nations should make amends to the rest of the world that is supposedly suffering the consequences. What they don’t mention is that much of the world has been given a free ride on the technological advances paid for and developed in the West that have saved millions of lives and improved the standard of living all over the world.</p>
<p>Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is an earnest, well-meaning man who truly believes in the scare-mongering forecasts of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. However, we now know that those forecasts were based on manipulated data and one-sided analyses that excluded any dissenting views.</p>
<p>The science of climate change is far from settled. There is no cause to panic and destroy our economy to address problems that remain very much in dispute. And to claim, as Ban Ki-moon has, that the Copenhagen conference was a success is ultimately as false as much of the data that its participants have relied on to make their case.</p>
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		<title>Emperor Obama&#8217;s Health Bill Has No Clothes &#8211; by Dick Morris</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/dick-morris/emperor-obamas-health-bill-has-no-clothes-by-dick-morris/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=emperor-obamas-health-bill-has-no-clothes-by-dick-morris</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/dick-morris/emperor-obamas-health-bill-has-no-clothes-by-dick-morris/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 17 Dec 2009 05:02:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dick Morris]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=42164</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ObamaCare has been stripped of its most pernicious features. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-42165" title="obama-signs-paper" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/obama-signs-paper.jpg" alt="obama-signs-paper" width="467" height="344" /></p>
<p>Due to pressure from enraged Americans, the most pernicious features of Obama&#8217;s health care legislation have, for now at least, been stripped from his bill. This is no time for complacency, however, since the liberals are trying to push back and get the provisions back in.</p>
<p>As the bill now stands, it doesn&#8217;t have any teeth.</p>
<p>— Without the public option, the government does not have the <a style="padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-weight: normal! important; font-size: 100%! important; background-image: none; padding-bottom: 1px! important; color: darkgreen! important; padding-top: 0px; border-bottom: darkgreen 0.07em solid; background-color: transparent! important; text-decoration: underline! important;" href="http://frontpagemag.com/wp-admin/#" target="_blank">financial</a> clout to enforce the decisions of the new secretary of health about the protocols of care to be followed. The left had hoped that the federal public option insurance company would put the private firms out of business and leave a single, governmental payer in place.</p>
<p>This single payer could slice reimbursements to providers at will and bring them into line offering low cost, long waiting lists and rationed medical care. But with no expansion of Medicare to those over 55 and no federal public option, the secretary of health won&#8217;t have the power to force bad medical care down the throats of the American people.</p>
<p>— Relatively few new people will get health insurance. The costs of coverage are too high, the subsidies too shallow and the punitive fines too low to force people to buy <a style="padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-weight: normal! important; font-size: 100%! important; background-image: none; padding-bottom: 1px! important; color: darkgreen! important; padding-top: 0px; border-bottom: darkgreen 0.07em solid; background-color: transparent! important; text-decoration: underline! important;" href="http://frontpagemag.com/wp-admin/#" target="_blank">policies</a> they don&#8217;t want and think they don&#8217;t need. What young, childless couple is going to pay 8 percent to 12 percent of their income for insurance rather than just pay the $1,000 fine for not having coverage? Oddly, this bill is really just a tax on the uninsured.</p>
<p>— Without the feared flood of new patients into the system, the rationing that threatened may not be as bad as it once seemed. With only a few newly insured people, the long waiting lists and shortages of medical personnel Massachusetts is experiencing under Romney-care may not happen nationally.</p>
<p>— The cuts in Medicare are to be proposed by a special <a style="padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-weight: normal! important; font-size: 100%! important; background-image: none; padding-bottom: 1px! important; color: darkgreen! important; padding-top: 0px; border-bottom: darkgreen 0.07em solid; background-color: transparent! important; text-decoration: underline! important;" href="http://frontpagemag.com/wp-admin/#" target="_blank">commission</a> in the Executive Branch akin to the federal base-closing commission that decides which military bases to shutter. But then they will have to be approved each year by Congress. A former secretary of health and human services under a Republican president told me recently that he expects that the cuts will be vetoed by Congress each year and never really take effect.</p>
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<p>He says that the <a style="padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-weight: normal! important; font-size: 100%! important; background-image: none; padding-bottom: 1px! important; color: darkgreen! important; padding-top: 0px; border-bottom: darkgreen 0.07em solid; background-color: transparent! important; text-decoration: underline! important;" href="http://frontpagemag.com/wp-admin/#" target="_blank">savings</a> won&#8217;t materialize and the additional costs of Obama&#8217;s program will just be financed through even more deficit spending. He cites, for example, the refusal of Congress each year to approve the automatic 6 percent cut in physicians&#8217; fees that the legislative branch has laid over for each of the past five years.</p>
<p>What&#8217;s left is a bill that expands Medicaid to cover more of the poor and working poor. It requires that all states cover everyone making 150 percent or less of the poverty level. This will end the practice of many states of restricting Medicaid, in effect, to the elderly in nursing homes.</p>
<p>Arkansas, for example, only covers up to 17 percent of the poverty level (about $4,000 of income). Under the new law, anyone in the state whose income is less than about $27,000 will have to be covered. This provision will, of course, mean much higher state <a style="padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-weight: normal! important; font-size: 100%! important; background-image: none; padding-bottom: 1px! important; color: darkgreen! important; padding-top: 0px; border-bottom: darkgreen 0.07em solid; background-color: transparent! important; text-decoration: underline! important;" href="http://frontpagemag.com/wp-admin/#" target="_blank">taxes</a> throughout the South and in Texas, California, Pennsylvania and Florida, states will low Medicaid thresholds.</p>
<p>The rest of the bill is essentially a consumer protection statute that bars insurers from denying coverage to anyone and stops them from charging more for those who are sick. Both the expansion of Medicaid and this reform of insurance company practices could have been achieved in considerably less than the 2,000 pages of dead trees that this bill consumed.</p>
<p>There are still bad parts of the legislation:</p>
<p>— Medicare Advantage, an important program for 10 million elderly, will be gutted and replaced by Medigap insurance, which is more limited in coverage, higher in cost and more profitable to the AARP.</p>
<p>— Medical devices — from pacemakers to automated wheelchairs — will still be taxed, and sick people will be forced to pay higher taxes and deduct fewer of their medical costs.</p>
<p>— Reimbursements under Medicare are likely to continue to drop, forcing more and more providers to refuse to treat patients under the program.</p>
<p>But Obama is left with the symbol of a victory but not much substance. He will still sign the bill — if it ever passes — with great fanfare, but the substance of the legislation will be painfully thin.</p>
<p>We haven&#8217;t dodged the bullet yet. The Left is still to be heard from. But the momentum against the bill and the focus on its worst provisions is paying off.</p>
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		<title>Shakedown in Copenhagen &#8211; by Joseph Klein</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/joseph-klein/shakedown-in-copenhagen-by-joseph-klein/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=shakedown-in-copenhagen-by-joseph-klein</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/joseph-klein/shakedown-in-copenhagen-by-joseph-klein/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:00:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=41858</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The UN-sponsored climate change conference is rife with fraud and hysteria.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-41859" title="49_united_nations_climate_change_conference__copenhagen_2009__cop15" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/49_united_nations_climate_change_conference__copenhagen_2009__cop15.jpg" alt="49_united_nations_climate_change_conference__copenhagen_2009__cop15" width="500" height="333" /></p>
<p>The United Nations-sponsored global change conference in Copenhagen is turning into a shake-down of the West by developing countries. It is also a typical display of hysteria manufactured by UN bureaucrats to justify their sinecures.</p>
<p>“Decades of effort will come down to this one critical week,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told reporters assembled for a press briefing on December 14<sup>th</sup> just before his departure for Copenhagen. “Seldom in history has a choice been so clear. We can move toward a future of sustainable green growth, or we can continue down the road to ruin.”</p>
<p>To show how seriously the United Nations establishment is taking this conference, its leadership has arranged a huge field trip for its bureaucrats to Copenhagen. The spokesperson for the Secretary General said there are 477 staffers from UN Secretariat units and 309 more from 19 specialized agencies and related organizations in Copenhagen. It may be no exaggeration to say that the transportation and feeding of nearly 800 UN bureaucrats – not to mention all the UN member state representatives, academics and hangers-on attending the two-week conference – is causing more carbon gas emissions than some countries experience in a year.</p>
<p>One leading theme of the Copenhagen conference is to obtain major funding commitments from developed countries to help the developing countries deal with climate change. “Looking ahead, we need greater clarity on a robust finance package for the middle and longer-term”, said Ban Ki-moon. “It is essential that we leave Copenhagen with a clear understanding of how we will meet the financing challenge through 2020.”</p>
<p>Some $10 billion in funds annually, up to 2020, is already on the table, but the Secretary General is looking for way more. So is China, the largest emitter of carbon gasses and an economic powerhouse in its own right. China has made clear during the conference that it still regards itself as a developing country and demands a free pass for its actions, even as it insists on severe restrictions on Western economies and trolls for hand-outs from what may turn out to be the most massive wealth transfer scheme in history.</p>
<p>We are not just talking about providing energy-efficient technology and technical assistance to truly poor economies, or financial aid to low-lying island and seacoast countries or agriculture-based economies, to enable them to adapt to the impacts of climate change. Those can be constructive measures. What some developing countries (and China) are demanding amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars of reparations for the alleged sins of economically prosperous countries. A commitment to solving their own pollution problems is not on the agenda. Nor is accountability for the monies they will receive.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia has taken the shake-down to a new level, complaining that its economy will suffer very serious harm from any global pact that curbs demand for its oil. Therefore, it is demanding access to UN funds that are supposed to help countries adapt to climate changes from global warming, such as the rise in sea levels and extreme weather. &#8220;I&#8217;m surprised to see that developed countries expect they can get away with the things they want without giving equal treatment to what we want,&#8221; said Saudi Arabia’s lead climate negotiator earlier this year in the lead-up to Copenhagen.</p>
<p>Lest anyone question the agenda of the Copenhagen conference, a generous dose of hysteria is on offer as a distraction. The conference started off with a video setting the stage for urgency to deal with a problem that its sponsors have been hyping as a looming catastrophe. The video recalled the 1964 Lyndon Johnson-Barry Goldwater presidential campaign of the Johnson ad featuring a little girl picking flowers just before a nuclear bomb explosion. This time, the video featured a little girl running from the surging waters supposedly unleashed by man-made global warming and trying to climb a tree as her only temporary safe refuge. Hysterical appeals to emotion have replaced discussion of objective facts and reasoned expert opinions presented by all sides of the climate change issue.</p>
<p>The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was supposed to bring together the world’s best scientists with expertise in climate change who would follow the evidence, wherever that may lead.  But the environmental panel had an ideological agenda. It produced a report with the participation of 2,500 scientists from 130 countries that was meant to “shock people, governments into taking more serious action,” in the words of the panel’s chairman.</p>
<p>As it turned out, the panel’s report was contaminated with fraudulent scientific research. As we now know from leaked e-mails exchanged by scientists who already had their minds made up without first dispassionately assessing all of the evidence, the data underlying the report was deliberately manipulated. The opinions of scientists dissenting against the conventional wisdom, which held that man-made global warming was an imminent existential danger, were suppressed. In spite of all the doubts raised by these revelations, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon still insists that “the science is clear and settled” and that those who continue to question the conventional wisdom are “wrong.”</p>
<p>To enforce the conventional wisdom, armed UN security officers were deployed to make sure that no dissenting voices were heard in the inner sanctums of the Copenhagen conference.  In one outrageous instance, they intervened to stop aggressive questioning of Stanford University Professor Stephen Schneider, a senior member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change who was promoting his book during a press conference. The questions had to do with Climategate.</p>
<p>Apparently, this global warming alarmist found the questions too hot to handle. Professor Schneider refused to comment on the leaked e-mails. When he ran out of his talking points in response to questions from a skeptical film maker named Phelim McAleer who was pressing for some honest answers, the professor called for armed guards to intervene. The guards obliged by threatening the film maker, ordering him to stop filming and to stop asking any more questions.</p>
<p>“These questions should be answered,” said McAleer. “The attempts by UN officials and Professor Schneider’s assistant to remove my microphone were ham-fisted but events took a more sinister turn when they called an armed UN security officer to silence a journalist. This is a blatant attempt to stop journalists doing journalism and asking hard questions. It is not the job of armed UN security officers to stop legitimate journalists asking legitimate questions of senior members of the UN’s IPCC.”</p>
<p>This is not the first time that the UN blueshirts have been called in to muzzle dissent. Last month, the United Nations security department in New York detained a leading UN critic, Anne Bayefsky, and then escorted her out of the building after stripping her of her accreditation pass.</p>
<p>In dismissing the global warming skeptics, Ban Ki-moon said that “climate change is real, we are the primary cause, and it is up to us – here and now – to deal with it. Nature does not negotiate.”</p>
<p>Climategate is proving one law of nature: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The truth is pushing back against the forces of the climate change “consensus.”</p>
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		<title>The Flight from Fiscal Responsibility – by Tony Blankley</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/tony-blankley/the-flight-from-fiscal-responsibility-%e2%80%93-by-tony-blankley/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-flight-from-fiscal-responsibility-%25e2%2580%2593-by-tony-blankley</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 07 Dec 2009 05:04:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Blankley]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=40857</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Paying the price for deficits, debts and the falling dollar.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-40860" title="makemoneyduringworldwideeconomiccollapsedepressionrecession-main_Full" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/makemoneyduringworldwideeconomiccollapsedepressionrecession-main_Full.jpg" alt="makemoneyduringworldwideeconomiccollapsedepressionrecession-main_Full" width="424" height="315" /></p>
<p>Regularly reading the <a style="padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-weight: normal! important; font-size: 100%! important; background-image: none; padding-bottom: 1px! important; color: darkgreen! important; padding-top: 0px; border-bottom: darkgreen 0.07em solid; background-color: transparent! important; text-decoration: underline! important;" href="http://frontpagemag.com/wp-admin/#" target="_blank">Financial</a> Times (Britain&#8217;s leading financial daily) can put an American in a fighting spirit. At least, it puts this American (transplanted former Englishman and naturalized American citizen that I am) in such a disposition.</p>
<p>I have in mind, this time, an article in Monday&#8217;s edition by Jeffrey Garten, titled &#8220;We must get ready for a weak-dollar world.&#8221; The article makes two broad assessments:</p>
<p>1) &#8220;The two most significant structural consequences of the recent financial debacle are the massive deficits and debts of the US and the shift of economic power from west to east. There is only one effective way for governments to address the combined impact of both: press for a sea change in currency relationships, especially a permanently and greatly weakened dollar.&#8221;</p>
<p>2) &#8220;The issue is no longer whether the dollar is in long-term decline but which of two options will be taken. Should Washington and other capitals calmly and deliberately manage the transition to a new era, or, by default, should they let the market do it, with the risk of massive financial disturbances. Today, governments have a choice. Soon they may not.&#8221;</p>
<p>What I don&#8217;t like about the article is that it is — from an American point of view — defeatist and that objectively, it may turn out to be true.</p>
<p>But before contesting the latter point — that such decline is inevitable — it is vital to understand that a weak dollar driven by permanently excessive public debt directly threatens not only our prosperity but also our sovereign ability to protect our liberty in this heartless world. There is no better evidence of such a possible American future than the event 53 years ago this month that put paid to British pretensions to greatness and independence — the Suez crisis of 1956.</p>
<p>Briefly in 1956, when Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the British- and French-owned Suez Canal, Britain took understandable offense and <a style="padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-weight: normal! important; font-size: 100%! important; background-image: none; padding-bottom: 1px! important; color: darkgreen! important; padding-top: 0px; border-bottom: darkgreen 0.07em solid; background-color: transparent! important; text-decoration: underline! important;" href="http://frontpagemag.com/wp-admin/#" target="_blank">organized</a> its retaking. Allied with Israel and France, Britain arranged for Israel to invade Sinai, after which Britain and France militarily intervened with the intent to have the world agree to let them continue to manage the canal.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for Britain, U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower disapproved of the effort. (He was up for re-election, and the Soviets had just invaded Hungary. Ike didn&#8217;t like being surprised by America&#8217;s closest ally, Britain, and he didn&#8217;t want the Third World to see America as complicit with colonialism.) Also, unfortunately for Britain, though it still had the army, navy and obligations of a great power, it relied on America for financial help.</p>
<p>Britain could not maintain its currency, the pound sterling, at the pound&#8217;s needed reserve currency value of $2.80 without American help. Also, Britain needed petroleum, which was being cut off by the Suez crisis.</p>
<p>The &#8220;genial&#8221; Eisenhower (who had worked side by side with British Prime Minister Anthony Eden when Eden was top foreign policy aide to Winston Churchill during World War II) had had enough. He instructed his treasury secretary, George Humphrey, to sell off the pound, break the British currency and economy and refuse to sell Britain any American oil (which we then had in abundance) until Britain gave up its military action.</p>
<p>And so effectively ended the British empire, not at the hands of an enemy, but by the ungentle touch of its closest ally, <a style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; FONT-WEIGHT: normal! important; FONT-SIZE: 100%! important; BACKGROUND-IMAGE: none; PADDING-BOTTOM: 1px; COLOR: darkgreen! important; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: darkgreen 1px dotted; BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent! important; TEXT-DECORATION: none! important" href="http://frontpagemag.com/wp-admin/#" target="_blank">the United States<img style="display: inline! important; left: 1px; float: none; margin: 0px; width: 10px; position: relative; top: 1px; height: 10px; border-width: 0px; padding: 0px;" src="http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/2_bing.gif" alt="" /></a>, to whom its weak currency and debt-ridden economy was perennially dependent.</p>
<p>Eden had a nervous breakdown and retired from government. That December, his replacement, Harold Macmillan, commented to U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles:</p>
<p>&#8220;The British action (at Suez) was the last gasp of a declining power. &#8230; Perhaps in 200 years, the United States (will) know how we felt.&#8221;</p>
<p>Well, here we are, 147 years shy of that predicted American comeuppance date of A.D. 2156. And now the stately British Financial Times is suggesting that the United States may be imminently vulnerable to a not-so-friendly China playing Ike&#8217;s role of spoiler of American sovereignty to our role as the dear old broke Britain of 1956.</p>
<p>That is why the United States should not accept the shrewd but not yet inevitable prognosis of the Financial Times. In the next few years — and starting immediately, while our gross domestic product is still bigger than the combined economies of China, Japan, Germany and Russia — we must start radically cutting our spending until our fiscal condition supports a strong dollar and low <a style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; FONT-WEIGHT: normal! important; FONT-SIZE: 100%! important; BACKGROUND-IMAGE: none; PADDING-BOTTOM: 1px! important; COLOR: darkgreen! important; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: darkgreen 0.07em solid; BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent! important; TEXT-DECORATION: underline! important" href="http://frontpagemag.com/wp-admin/#" target="_blank">taxes</a>.</p>
<p>It is an open political question whether the majority of Americans love our country, our children and our grandchildren enough to take the painful sacrifice (vast reductions in entitlement benefits) it will take to guarantee our sovereign and prosperous future.</p>
<p>But we are being given that rare chance to glimpse into our near future and see what will befall our children after the past 40 years of spending excess compounded by this latest year of spending madness. What a fine theme for the 2010 election cycle.</p>
<p>But are we Americans still brave enough to remain free? My guess is that neither the two major political parties nor the majority of the public loves America enough to campaign and vote on the hard, bitter truth about our condition.</p>
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		<title>Investors.com &#8211; Surge Or Vietnam</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jlaksin/investors-com-surge-or-vietnam/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=investors-com-surge-or-vietnam</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:53:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[afghan war]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=40024</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Afghanistan: The month before the one-year anniversary of his inauguration, the president has finally settled on the strategy for what he called a &#8220;war of necessity.&#8221; But leaving, not winning, is the goal.How often in history, if ever, has a British defense secretary slammed a U.S. commander in chief for indecisiveness? Britain&#8217;s Bob Ainsworth last [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Afghanistan: The month before the one-year anniversary of his inauguration, the president has finally settled on the strategy for what he called a &#8220;war of necessity.&#8221; But leaving, not winning, is the goal.How often in history, if ever, has a British defense secretary slammed a U.S. commander in chief for indecisiveness? Britain&#8217;s Bob Ainsworth last week blamed the lack of clear direction from the U.S. as responsible for the British public&#8217;s dwindling support for the Afghan war.Ainsworth, a former auto plant union official, is no right-wing hawk. At a town hall meeting last month, notorious British pacifist Bruce Kent of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament demanded he hold &#8220;talks with the Taliban in neutral countries and talk about their aims&#8221; and said not all Taliban are &#8220;fanatical maniacs.&#8221; Partially agreeing, Ainsworth said, &#8220;Not all the Taliban are fanatical maniacs, but some of them are, and are not reconcilable.&#8221;This is what President Obama is counting on — as many as 10,000 added European and other NATO troops from a European public, and their representatives, who believe in Taliban &#8220;moderates.&#8221;</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=514004">Investors.com &#8211; Surge Or Vietnam</a>.</p>
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