Osawatomie, oh Osawatomie

By now you've probably heard about Obama's speech in Osawatomie Kansas, the other day.

Perhaps you've even heard about comparisons, fully intentional, to Theodore Roosevelt's "New Nationalism" speech.

Some of you more informed readers may have heard, or know, that the New Nationalism speech was the speech that Teddy gave to announce his break from the Republican Party, and the formation of the Progressive Party, that great stain on American History.

If you are truly an historian, you'll also know that the uniform understanding of Roosevelt's New Nationalism program was that it was an American Socialism.

And if you are exceptionally well informed, you may have even read some pundits referring to the editorial that was printed in the NY Times at that time describing Roosevelt's plans as "Super Socialism", and not favorably.

But let me give you some more information. In fact, here is how the NY Times editorial titled "Roosevelt's Super Socialism" concludes that day (September 30, 1913)

"Mr. Roosevelt's reconstitution of society would leave it inert by destroying individual initiative, hope, and ambition, which are the foundations of progress. It is a sterile system, yet being sterile, why has he constructed it? Because he knew that with his great skill, he could make this utopian dream attractive to that very considerable part of society which is the material with which agitators work- the discontented, the unsuccessful, the envious. And upon a Progressive Party thus assembled and fortified with delusions, he would rise again to power. It is as the basis of his ambition that he has formulated his plan. The fatal defect of it is that the American People are far too intelligent, they have too much common sense to be deluded by the shallow sophistries of the Roosevelt socialism. But the Colonel had to do something. His party is going to pieces."

Reread that paragraph. Does it sound like Obama and his ever decreasing poll numbers? Does it sound like the cynical way that the Obamites have tried to use the Occupy Wall Street movement?

Most interesting, does Obama think that Americans are too ignorant of their own history to know that he is now openly declaring himself a socialist in the later TR tradition?

What is fascinating about Obama is that even among the most egocentric, arrogant individuals in American society, those that run for or are elected President, he stands out.

Has there ever been a President who has compared himself so regularly to previous Presidents with delusions of grandeur? Wilson, Teddy AND Franklin Roosevelt, and most offensively, Lincoln?

Frankly, I don't know which I find more disgusting, Obama's now unabashed (although to me it was always so) embracing of socialism, or his assumption that we are all too stupid to see what he is doing.

Might we say now, once and for all, that Emperor Obama has no clothes?

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Obama's only policy

By Caroline Glick

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has explained repeatedly over the years that Israel has no Palestinian partner to negotiate with. So news reports this week that Netanyahu agreed that the 1949 armistice lines, (commonly misrepresented as the 1967 borders), will be mentioned in terms of reference for future negotiations with the Palestinian Authority seemed to come out of nowhere.

Israel has no one to negotiate with because the Palestinians reject Israel's right to exist. This much was made clear yet again last month when senior PA "negotiator" Nabil Sha'ath said in an interview with Arabic News Broadcast, "The story of 'two states for two peoples' means that there will be a Jewish people over there and a Palestinian people here. We will never accept this."

Given the Palestinians' position it is obvious that Netanyahu is right. There is absolutely no chance whatsoever that Israel and the PA will reach any peace deal in the foreseeable future. Add to this the fact that the Hamas terror group controls Gaza and will likely win any new Palestinian elections just as it won the last elections, and the entire exercise in finding the right formula for restarting negotiations is exposed as a complete farce..

So why is Israel engaging in these discussions?

The only logical answer is to placate US President Barack Obama.

For the past several months, most observers have been operating under the assumption that Obama will use the US's veto at the UN Security Council to defeat the Palestinians' bid next month to receive UN membership as independent Palestine. But the fact of the matter is that no senior administration official has stated unequivocally, on record that the US will veto a UN Security Council resolution recommending UN membership for Palestine.

Given US congressional and public support for Israel, it is likely that at the end of the day, Obama will veto such a resolution. But the fact that the President has abstained to date from stating openly that he will veto it makes clear that Obama expects Israel to "earn" a US veto by bowing to his demands.

These demands include abandoning Israel's position that it must retain defensible borders in any peace deal with the Palestinians. Since defensible borders require Israel to retain control over the Jordan Valley and the Samarian hills, there is no way to accept the 1949 armistice lines as a basis for negotiations without surrendering defensible borders.

SAY WHAT you will about Obama's policy, at least it's a policy. Obama uses US power and leverage against Israel in order to force Israel to bow to his will.

What makes Obama's Israel policy notable is not simply that it involves betraying the US's most steadfast ally in the Middle East. After all, since taking office Obama has made a habit of betraying US allies.

Obama's Israel policy is notable because it is a policy. Obama has a clear, consistent goal of cutting Israel down to size. Since assuming office, Obama has taken concrete steps to achieve this aim.

And those steps have achieved results. Obama forced Netanyahu to make Palestinian statehood an Israeli policy goal. He coerced Netanyahu into temporarily abrogating Jewish property rights in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. And now he is forcing Netanyahu to pretend the 1949 armistice lines are something Israel can accept.

Obama has not adopted a similarly clear, consistent policy towards any other nation in the region. In Egypt, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Libya, and beyond, Obama has opted for attitude over policy. He has postured, preened, protested and pronounced on all the issues of the day.

But he has not made policy. And as a consequence, for better or for worse, he has transformed the US from a regional leader into a regional follower while empowering actors whose aims are not consonant with US interests.

SYRIA IS case and point. President Bashar Assad is the Iranian mullahs' lap dog. He is also a major sponsor of terrorism. In the decade since he succeeded his father, Assad Jr. has trained terrorists who have killed US forces in Iraq. He has provided a safe haven for al Qaeda terrorists. He has strengthened Syrian ties to Hezbollah. He has hosted Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian terror factions.. He has proliferated nuclear weapons. He reputedly ordered the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Since March, Assad has been waging war against his fellow Syrians. By the end of this week, with his invasion of Hama, the civilian death toll will certainly top two thousand.

And how has Obama responded? He upgraded his protestations of displeasure with Assad from "unacceptable" to "appalling."

In the face of Assad's invasion of Hama, rather than construct a policy for overthrowing this murderous US enemy, the Obama administration has constructed excuses for doing nothing. Administration officials, including Obama's ambassador to Damascus Robert Ford, are claiming that the US has little leverage over Assad.

But this is ridiculous. Many in Congress and beyond are demanding that Obama withdraw Ford from Damascus. Some are calling for sanctions against Syria's energy sector. These steps may or may not be effective. Openly supporting, financing and arming Assad's political opponents would certainly be effective.

Many claim that the most powerful group opposing Assad is the Muslim Brotherhood. And there is probably some truth to that. At a minimum, the Brotherhood's strength has been tremendously augmented in recent months by Turkey.

Some have applauded the fact that Turkey has filled the leadership vacuum left by the Obama administration. They argue that Turkish Prime Minister Recip Erdogan can be trusted to ensure that Syria doesn't descend into a civil war.

What these observers fail to recognize is that Erdogan's interests in a post-Assad Syria have little in common with US interests. Erdogan will seek to ensure the continued disenfranchisement of Syria's Kurdish minority. And he will work towards the Islamification of Syria through the Muslim Brotherhood.

Today there is a coalition of Syrian opposition figures that include all ethnic groups in Syria. Their representatives have been banging the doors of the corridors of power in Washington and beyond. Yet the same Western leaders who were so eager to recognize the Libyan opposition despite the presence of al Qaeda terrorists in the opposition tent have refused to publicly embrace Syrian regime opponents that seek a democratic, federal Syria that will live at peace with Israel and embrace liberal policies.

This week Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held a private meeting with these brave democrats. Why didn't she hold a public meeting? Why hasn't Obama welcomed them to the White House?

By refusing to embrace liberal, multi-ethnic regime opponents, the administration is all but ensuring the success of the Turkish bid to install the Muslim Brotherhood in power if Assad is overthrown.

But then, embracing pro-Western Syrians would involve taking a stand and, in so doing, adopting a policy. And that is something the posturing president will not do. Obama is much happier pretending that empty statements from the UN Security Council amount to US "victories."

If he aims any lower his head will hit the floor.

OBAMA'S PREFERENCE for posture over policy is nothing new. It has been his standard operating procedure throughout the region. When the Iranian people rose up against their regime in June 2009 in the Green Revolution, Obama stood on the sidelines. As is his habit, he acted as though the job of the US president is to opine rather than lead. Then he sniffed that it wasn't nice at all that the regime was mowing down pro-democracy protesters in the streets of Teheran and beyond.

And ever since, Obama has remained on the sidelines as the mullahs took over Lebanon, build operational bases in Latin America, sprint to the nuclear finishing line, and consolidate their power in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On Wednesday the show trial began for longtime US ally former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and his sons. During last winter's popular uprising in Egypt, Obama's foes attacked him for refusing to abandon Mubarak immediately.

The reasons for maintaining US support for Mubarak were obvious: Mubarak had been the foundation of the US alliance structure with the Sunni Arab world for three decades. He had kept the peace with Israel. And his likely successor was the Muslim Brotherhood.

But Obama didn't respond to his critics with a defense of a coherent policy. Because his early refusal to betray Mubarak was not a policy. It was an attitude of cool detachment.

When Obama saw that it was becoming politically costly to maintain his attitude of detachment, he replaced it with a new one of righteous rage. And so he withdrew US support for Mubarak without ever thinking through the consequences of his actions. And now it isn't just Mubarak and his sons humiliated in a cage. It is their legacy of alliance with America.

Recognizing that Obama refuses to adopt or implement any policies on his own, Congress has tried to fill the gap. The House Foreign Affairs Committee recently passed a budget that would make US aid to Egypt, Lebanon, Yemen and the PA contingent on certification that no terrorist or extremist organization holds governmental power in these areas. Clinton issued a rapid rebuke of the House's budget and insisted it was unacceptable.

And this makes sense. Making US assistance to foreign countries contingent on assurances that the money won't fund US enemies would be a policy. And Obama doesn't make policy - except when it comes attacking to Israel.

In an interview with the New York Times on Thursday, Muammar Qaddafi's son Seif al-Islam Qaddafi said he and his father are negotiating a deal that would combine their forces with Islamist forces and reestablish order in the country. To a degree, the US's inability to overthrow Qaddafi - even by supporting an opposition coalition that includes al Qaeda - is the clearest proof that Obama has substituted attitude for policy everywhere except Israel.

Acting under a UN Security Council resolution and armed with a self-righteous doctrine of "Responsibility to Protect" Obama went to war against Qaddafi five months ago. But once the hard reality of war invaded his happy visions of Lone Rangers riding in on white stallions, Obama lost interest in Libya. He kept US forces in the battle, but gave them no clear goals to achieve. And so no goals have been achieved.

Meanwhile, Qaddafi's son feels free to meet the New York Times and mock America just by continuing to breathe in and out before the cameras as he sports a new Islamic beard and worry beads.

If nothing else, the waves of chaos, war and revolution sweeping through Arab lands make clear that the Arab conflict with Israel is but a sideshow in the Arab experience of tyranny, fanaticism, hope and betrayal. So it says a lot about Obama, that eight months after the first rebellion broke in Tunisia, his sole Middle East policy involves attacking Israel.

Why do people complain about the media?

There is a fine line between a "conspiracy" and people with like ideas around the world, all following those ideas and defending them to their end.

We see that here in the US, with the seemingly coordinated "we need to spend more" or "Obama's policies prevented us from an even worse recession or depression".

These are simply the intellectual refusals of many supposedly smart people from giving up on the economic policies of John Maynard Keynes.

You've probably heard the term "Keynesian" economics thrown around recently. Keynes died in 1946 and the irony is that his theories were written in response to the Great Depression AROUND THE WORLD, NOT here in the US.

He basically said that the government needs to "prime the pump" when the private sector slows down. That spending is spending no matter where it comes from, even if it's imaginary money, printed by the government to inflate it's way out of trouble.

However, Keynes had no idea that his ideas would be taken to such absurd lengths - although he did claim, to some extent, that the war spending of WWII proved his theories.

By the time of his death, just after the war, he was already warning about the ridiculous lengths that his disciples were taking his theories.

The most well known of his disciples right now is Paul Krugman of the New York Times.

But most US Presidents of the 20th century have followed a basically Keynesian model.

The ultimate example of the Progressive media's being in the bag for Keynes, came just recently in Israel.

Yuval Steinitz, Israel's Finance Minister, and the overseer of the latest phase of Israel's "Economic miracle" (Israel is one of the few economies in the world that has fought the worldwide slump and whose economy continues to grow and expand robustly, largely due to incredible innovation) was getting ready for an interview with Israel's Channel 2 news Anchor Yonit Levy.

This is actually how the interview started. Oozing professional probity, Levy said, "I assume you came here armed with wonderful data about the drop in unemployment and rising economic growth, but I want to ask you, Mr. Steinitz if for all your data you've forgotten the people, you've forgotten an entire class of working people who can't live?"

"So, despite all facts to the opposite, I'm telling you things are not good." That is the essence of what she said.

You see it here now every day, and will see it even more in the coming days.

With the downgrade of the US credit rating by Standard and Poor's, you will hear the media say it really doesn't matter.

Of course, it matters. But worse, perhaps than the downgrade, which is epic, huge, an historical earthquake of biblical proportions, is that ALL the ratings agencies still have the US on negative watch, which means a 75% chance of further downgrade.

You have also seen this recently with the coordinated calling of the Tea Party "Terrorists".

There should be riots on the streets over this obscenity. Those that murder and blow up, mutilate, massacre, innocents in the streets are "miltiants" or "freedom fighters", but those that want less US debt are "terrorists"???????!!!!!!!!!!

When is a cut, not a cut?

I figured I had about 20 thousand dollars in "discretionary" spending last year. You know, for things like new computers, car repairs, vacations, enough food to make me obese, things like that.

So this year, I "budgeted" 21thousand 6 hundred dollars. That's an 8% annual growth rate.

But I had a chat with my accountant, and he reminded me that actually, I only earned about 12 thousand dollars LAST year in discretionary income.

That other 8 thousand? I put it on my credit card. BIG problem at 5% interest.

So, I promised him. I swear. I will cut my spending this year. I realize it's a big problem.

So, I figure, I'm going to "only" spend 20 thousand 4 hundred dollars this year. That's right. I am cutting 11% of my spending.

Wait, you ask. If you haven't spent it, and it's only a projection, and you're still going to spend more than you earned, and you're going to owe a lot more at the end of this year, than last year, HOW EXACTLY IS THAT A CUT?

Now you got it.

"Hoarders" has got it all wrong!

Have you seen any of those "hoarding" shows on A and E or the Discovery?

You know, the ones where someone who would be described colloquially as nutso, but who suffers from severe obsessive compulsive disorder has so much sh*t that there's no place to walk?

And yet, what do they all have in common? Even the ones who say, "I've got a problem. I'm going to lose my family", when it comes time to throw things away, they just can't. Everything is too valuable, or might have use sometime in the future.

Sound like anyone you know?

It seems to me, our government should be the star of the next 10 years of "hoarders" with each episode highliting another obscene federal program that is actually just covering up a pile of roaches, or a dead cat, or some rats, that have made a home in the hoarders pile. Let's start with the bridge to nowhere, turn right to the cowboy poetry festival, and then to some serious stuff like Obama-no care, and the Department of Education.

I think I crapped my pants.

Listening to "our" President tonight, I reached the boiling point.
The man who has amassed more debt than every President in American History combined, who passed the ultimate government TRILLION dollar boondoggle, who has grown government by more than 30% in TWO YEARS, now says debt is our problem!!!!!

But here's the chutzpah. The budget was due more than a year ago. The President never submitted it. When he FINALLY did, it was rejected, UNANIMOUSLY. That means his own party, STILL the majority in the Senate, rejected it.

What is also forgotten, is that the President demanded a straight up or down vote on raising the debt limit. This was also overwhelmingly rejected by his party.

Never before has there been a President who so consistently insults the intelligence of the American Public. And what's worse is that I fear he will get away with it.

What we can all learn from Thomas Voeckler

Some background, and yes, this post will serve a larger message.

For the few of you left who have been reading me for a while, you know that, despite my baseball background, the Tour de France is my favorite sporting event in the world.

I first fell in love with it the year that Greg LeMond burst on the scene. Not the first American to ride the Tour (Jonathon Boyer was, LeMond, really the second) he was the first to ride on a powerhouse French team, La Vie Claire, and of course the first to win.

In his first great year, the first American team rode (7 Eleven), and on that team was Eric Heiden (now Dr. Eric Heiden) who had shattered every speed skating record in the world, and won every speed skating medal in the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics. If you don't know him, it is hard to describe just how much of a sporting giant Heiden was. His victories are the equivalent of the man who wins the 100 meters, also winning the Olympic marathon.

Well, the first year Heiden raced, LeMond won, and Heiden couldn't even finish. This giant couldn't make it up the mountains and said, at the time, that nothing he had ever done could compare to the Tour. That was enough to reel me in.

Flash forward to this year. It was generally regarded that the Tour would be between Andy Schleck of Luxembourg, who was second the last two years, and Alberto Contador, the 3 time defending champion.

Also given some consideration was Cadel Evans, an Aussie who had also been the runner up twice in the past but who made the Tour his entire focus this year.

Others mentioned were Ivan Basso, the 2 time winner of the Giro d'Italia, the Italian equivalent of the tour, and perhaps an even harder race; Frank Schleck, Andy's older brother; Samuel Sanchez, the Olympic Road racing champion; Chris Horner, an American on the powerful Radio Shack team who had just won the Tour of California; Bradley Wiggins another multiple Olympic track champion on his best all time form; Jurgen Van den Broeck, a Belgian, and a few others.

In the tour, the winner has the best combined time over 21 stages, 3 weeks of racing an average of about 125-150 miles a day including all sorts of climbing, sprints, individual time trials, etc.

Generally, the best climbers start their careers as climbing specialists and develop their time trialing skills to become overall winners.

The lesser riders will go all out, sacrificing their bodies for one day, to try and win ONE stage of the race (each stage is considered a separate race by the international cycling organizations).

French cycling has suffered greatly since LeMond's mentor turned foe, Bernard Hinault, last won the tour in 1985.

Early in the race, Thomas Voeckler of the French Europcar team, went on a breakaway, and took the "yellow jersey", the maillot jeune, the race lead.

It's not unusual for a lesser rider to lead the race early on as the favorites actually don't WANT to lead, because of the greater responsibility it places on them.

Voeckler has been a journeyman pro for 10 years or so. His most famous moments came as a young cyclist, when, in a similar situation he held the yellow jersey over Lance Armstrong. In that year, 2000, however, there were no imaginings of victory and he held the jersey during stages that were flat, when everyone finishes together. On the one mountain stage, the famed "Plateau de Beille" in the Pyrenees, he lost more than 5 minutes to Armstrong (more than a miles ride on flat ground).

This year, a similar thing happened. Voeckler went on a breakaway in the 9th stage of the Tour. That was the stage in which the most horrific crash took place, with a TV car hitting two of the other breakaway cyclists.

From the beginning of his days in the yellow, Voeckler said he had no chance to win the race. More than that, he said that, with the upcoming Pyrenees, he would hold the yellow only a day or two.

And then a funny thing happened. He tried. There is an old saying in the Tour, the yellow jersey makes you ride like two men.
Well, Voekler not only stayed with the storied climbers over the iconic Col de Tourmalet, the Col d'aubisque but this time he was right there on the Plateau de Beille, where he had lost 5 minutes to Armstrong.

Every day, he assured the now crazed French that he could not win the race, but that he would honor the Yellow Jersey.

And he continued to fight.

They had said he could not do it in the Pyrenees. In fact, to the commentators, it was almost a joke. There were new reasons every day why he still wore the yellow. And every day, Thomas Voekler got on his bike and pushed himself to do things he didn't think he could.

And every day, he did.

They said that, of course, he made it through the steeper, but shorter climbs of the Pyrenees, but that the monsters of the Alps would destroy him. The leading commentator, Phil Liggett, who I love, actually said "When the Tour is over, you'll need binoculars to see Voeckler"

Yesterday's stage was called the queen of stages. The hardest stage in the history of this more than 100 year old race. 3 "Hor's Category Climbs" meaning so long and steep as to not be able to be classified by the international standards.

Starting with the absurd Col D'ignol, and ending with the iconic Col de Galibier.

And yet, there was Thomas, to the cries of "Allez Thomas" (Go Thomas) from the French crowds, literally grinding his way up, evening dropping the 3 time champion, Alberto Contador, on the last climb up the Galibier.

When the stage ended, he had maintained a 15 second lead and his face was wracked with pain.

Finally, today, on the final stage in the Alps, back over the Galibier and the even more famous Alpe D'Huez (where LeMond had made his name) bad luck came his way. I won't get into the racing strategy but he lost the lead and is now in fourth place.

The last time a French rider was as high as fourth in the Tour, was 1996, 15 year ago.

Voeckler, like the little engine that could, won over the hearts of the entire nation of France, and the entire cycling community. Even as one of his teammates and a fellow Frenchman, won the stage, Voeckler received the loudest cheers. It was said by the French, in their highest compliment, that he had defended the jersey with panache.

But more importantly, he won himself over. Every day he seemed as amazed as everyone else that he was able to match up with all of the prerace favorites.

There will be no trophy for Thomas Voeckler, at the end of the Tour de France, but there will be something more important.

In this day and age, we give trophies for everything. You finished 22d in the spelling bee in school? Here's your ribbon and certificate of achievement. Your little league team finished 9th? Take that trophy young man!

But Voeckler showed us all that it is the effort to achieve, the journey to success that is it's own reward. No trophy is necessary when you find that you can exceed even your own limitations simply by making the effort. When you aim for the best, and make your best efforts, you are always rewarded. It is the effort that matters. Eventually, the victories in life come.

ALLEZ THOMAS!

Ikhwan, Ikhwan, we got an Ikhwan

The Tipping Point: Embracing the Muslim Brotherhood

By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.

The Obama administration chose the eve of the holiday marking our Nation's birth to acknowledge publicly behavior in which it has long been stealthily engaged to the United States' extreme detriment: Its officials now admit that they are embracing the Muslim Brotherhood (MB or Ikhwan in Arabic). That would be the same international Islamist organization that has the destruction of the United States, Israel and all other parts of the Free World as its explicit objective.

On Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to downplay the momentousness of this major policy shift by portraying it during a stopover in Budapest as follows: "The Obama administration is continuing the approach of limited contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood that have existed on and off for about five or six years." In fact, as former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy points out in a characteristically brilliant, and scathing, dissection of this announcement, Team Obama's official, open legitimation of the Brotherhood marks a dramatic break from the U.S. government's historical refusal to deal formally with the Ikhwan.

To understand why the Obama administration's embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood is so ominous, consider three insights into the organization's nature and ambitions:

First, here's the MB's creed: "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope." (Source: Husain Haqqani and Hillel Fradkin, "Islamist Parties: Going Back to the Origins.")

Second, here's the Ikwhan's mission in America:

"A kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within, sabotaging its miserable house with their [i.e., Americans'] hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions." (Source: Muslim Brotherhood's "Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goals of the Group," entered into evidence by the Department of Justice in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terrorism-finance trial. Archived at the NEFA Foundation.)

Third, here are excerpts from the Muslim Brotherhood's "phased plan" for accomplishing that mission:

Phase One: Discreet and secret establishment of leadership.

Phase Two: Phase of gradual appearance on the public scene and exercising and utilizing various public activities. It greatly succeeded in implementing this stage. It also succeeded in achieving a great deal of its important goals, such as infiltrating various sectors of the Government.

Phase Three: Escalation phase, prior to conflict and confrontation with the rulers, through utilizing mass media. Currently in progress.

Phase Four: Open public confrontation with the Government through exercising the political pressure approach. It is aggressively implementing the above-mentioned approach. Training on the use of weapons domestically and overseas in anticipation of zero-hour. It has noticeable activities in this regard.

Phase Five: Seizing power to establish their Islamic Nation under which all parties and Islamic groups are united. (Source: Undated Muslim Brotherhood Paper entitled, "Phases of the World Underground Movement Plan." Archived at Shariah: The Threat to America.)

In short, the Muslim Brotherhood is deadly serious about waging what it calls "civilization jihad" against the United States and other freedom-loving nations in order to secure their submission to the Islamic totalitarian political-military-legal doctrine called shariah. The MB's goal in this country is to replace our Constitution with theirs, namely the Koran. And they regard this task as one commanded by none other than Allah. (For more details on the nature, ambitions and modus operandi of the Ikhwan, see the Team B II Report, Shariah: The Threat to America). To this end, as Andy McCarthy notes in the aforementioned essay, the MB's senior official, Supreme Guide Muhammad Badi, has effectively declared war on the United States.

Were there any doubt that legitimacy is what the Ikhwan is taking away from this gambit, consider this assessment from an expert in Islamic groups, Ammar Ali Hassan, cited by Associated Press: "...The Brotherhood will likely try to float ‘conditions' or ‘reservations' on any dialogue to avoid a perception that it is allowing the U.S. to meddle in Egypt's internal affairs. But in the end, the talks will give a boost to the group, he said, by easing worries some in the Brotherhood and the public have of a backlash if the Brotherhood becomes the dominant player in Egypt. ‘Now the Muslim Brotherhood will not have to worry [about] moving forward toward taking over power,' Hassan said."

Unfortunately, the U.S. government's dangerous outreach to the Ikhwan is not confined to Egypt but is systematically practiced inside the United States, as well. For example:

Muslim-American organizations identified in court by the U.S. government - and, in many cases, by the Muslim Brotherhood itself - as MB fronts are routinely cultivated by federal, state and local officials. Representatives of homeland security, Pentagon, intelligence and law enforcement agencies frequently meet with and attend functions sponsored by such groups.

MB-associated individuals are sent as our country's "goodwill ambassadors" to foreign Muslim nations and communities. MB-favored initiatives to insinuate shariah into the United States - notably, the Ground Zero Mosque and shariah-compliant finance, conscientious objector status for Muslim servicemen and stifling of free speech in accordance with shariah "blasphemy" laws - are endorsed and/or enabled by official institutions.

A blind eye is turned to the presence across the country of shariah-adherent mosques that incubate jihadism. A peer-reviewed study published last month in Middle East Quarterly determined that 81% of a random sample of 100 mosques exhibited such qualities - constituting an infrastructure for recruitment, indoctrination and training consistent with the Brotherhood's phased plan.

Under both Republican and Democratic administrations, individuals with family and other ties to the Muslim Brotherhood have actually given senior government positions. The most recent of these to come to light is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin (who also happens to be former Rep. Anthony Weiner's wife).

It seems a safe bet tha t, as Team Obama legitimates Muslim Brotherhood organizations and groups overseas, it will feel ever less constrained about further empowering their counterparts in the United States. If so, the MB will come to exercise even greater influence over what our government does and does not do about the threat posed by shariah, both abroad and here.

The absolutely predictable effect will be to undermine U.S. interests and allies in the Middle East and further catalyze the Brotherhood's campaign to insinuate shariah in the United States and, ultimately, to supplant the Constitution with Islamic law. Consequently, the Obama administration's efforts to "engage" the Muslim Brotherhood are not just reckless. They are wholly incompatible with the President's oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" and the similar commitment made by his subordinates.

These officials' now-open embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood constitutes a geo-strategic tipping point, one that must catalyze an urgent national debate on this question: Does such conduct violate their oath of office by endangering the Constitution they have undertaken to uphold?

At a minimum, such a debate would afford a much-needed opportunity to examine alternatives to the administration's present course - as well as the real risks associated with that its intensifying pursuit. For instance, one of the most astute American authorities on the Middle East in general and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular, Dr. Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute:

Rather than embrace the Brotherhood, the Obama administration should be seeking to ensure that the group cannot dominate Egypt. Most analysts agree that the Muslim Brotherhood is by far the best organized group in Egypt, but that it only enjoys perhaps 25 or 30 percent support. The secular opposition remains weak and fractured. If the Obama administration wishes to remain engaged in Egypt's future and shape the best possible outcome for both U.S. national security and the Egyptian people, it should be pushing for electoral reform to change Egypt's dysfunctional system to a proportional representation model in which the secular majority can form a coalition to check a Muslim Brotherhood minority for which true democracy is anathema.

The same goes for the enemy within. Instead of relying upon - let alone hiring - Muslim Brotherhood operatives and associates, the United States government should be shutting down their fronts, shariah-adherent, jihad-incubating "community centers" and insidious influence operations in America. By recognizing these enterprises for what they are, namely vehicles for fulfilling the seditious goals of the MB's civilization jihad, they can and must be treated as prosecutable subversive enterprises, not protected religious ones under the U.S. Constitution.

Let the debate begin.

Freedom House ranks the least (and most) free countries in the world

The Least Free, according to Freedom House?
Belarus
Burma
Chad
China
Côte d’Ivoire
Cuba
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Laos
Libya
North Korea
Saudi Arabia
Somalia
Sudan
Syria
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan
Tibet
South Ossetia
Western Sahara

Of the other middle East nations, all of them are ranked in the LOWEST category of "NOT FREE" except Lebanon which manages "Partly Free" largely because of it's acceptance of Christianity.

As for Israel? Suprise, it achieves the highest status of "Free" with a 1 (the highest and the same as the US) for political rights.

Oh, and in case you may wonder, the board of Freedom House is comprised of a wide variety of people, and a huge number of Arabs, so bias is not a question.

Does Glenn Beck know something we don't?

Nope, this isn't going to be what you think it is.

Here in NY we have some experience with a media personality leaving the conventional "system".

Actually 2 of them. The first was, famously, Howard Stern.

His show was syndicated all over but he broadcast from WXRK here in NY. Stern was a regular in the gossip columns, regularly appeared on Letterman and other NY shows.

Next was Chris Russo of WFAN, the sports talk station. Russo spent 15 years as the co-host of the "Mike and the Mad Dog" show. He and co-host Mike Francessa are credited with being really the popularizers of the sports talk format.

Both left commercial radio and signed highly publicized deals with Sirrus satellite radio.

After much publicity on their moves, they have both largely disappeared from public consciousness. When was the last time you saw either of them on a talk show, or with a book on the best seller list.

So, I was fascinated when Beck decided to leave Fox (or mutually decided - despite reports, I doubt, with his ratings, that he was fired.).

But he may have hit the mother lode. Why or how you ask?

Simple. He is starting his own internet broadcast.

That in and of itself, is something no one else has really done.

But more than that, he is charging only $4.95/month for his show.

That amount is low enough as to be no "barrier to entry" for the overwhelming majority of people. And barriers to entry are the first thing people look at when trying to decide the viability of a business.

It's such a low price that I can see people saying 'what the heck' I'll give it a try. And like so many automatic credit card charges, people tend to get lazy and let them keep going, particularly when it's that cheap.

So, why is he right? I honestly think he has hit a home run here.

If you think about the numbers, he averaged about 1.4 million viewers a day. If he merely holds on to 5% of that, the numbers are this, 70,000 viewers at $5/mo. (If they sign up for his higher level program of $9.99 you can double some the #'s) adds up to $350,000 a month. 4.2 million a year.

If he holds onto 10% of this audience, than he's REALLY doing well.

I think he may really be at the forefront of a new media. Even a pioneer.

Independence Day (an annual repost with edits)

Some may wonder what the real significance of July 4th, or Independence day is to the world, let alone the United States.

The 18th century was known as the Age of Revolutions, and for good reason. It was ended, really, with the Russian Revolution of 1917, but there were revolutions throughout the Western World in the century starting in 1775, indicating the ascendancy of the believers in Natural Law and the ascension of the promoters of this humanistic view, the "philosophes".

For the first time in history, there was talk among intellectuals of "human rights". Not the way we know them now, but that mankind had certain rights which could not be proscribed by legislatures, let alone kings.

More directly the entire concept of "divine rule" of a monarch was thrown into dispute and the idea that G*d had granted to man certain rights and that there were also natural laws or "laws of nature" that had to be obeyed were new and revolutionary.

These ideas had been fomenting and had been written about all over the world. They can be seen in the writings of Locke and Rousseau. Jefferson himself had written down many of the same ideas in his Constitution of the state of Virginia and Adams had copied them for Massachusetts.

But what separates the American Revolution was the writing of Thomas Jefferson.

The Declaration of Independence, heavily edited by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin and truncated by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, is considered by most historians to be the pre-eminent document of the "Age of Enlightenment".

It is brilliant in it's simplicity and it's execution.

"We hold these truths to be self evident..."

No need for discussion, all intelligent gentleman now understand that these truths are, and of right , ought to be, shared by all (white men, of course).

"...that all men are created equal"

No longer were there serfs and a monarch, but rather gentleman, all of whom had a right to express their opinions.

"...that they are endowed by their creator with rights..."

Rights are divinely granted but of this earth.

Below are the words that this country was founded upon.

Go to UShistory dot org to also read Jefferson's original version, his draft. You will see how the beauty was crafted, and the parts that, had they been allowed to remain, would have changed history.

Most important among these edits was the dis inclusion (the editing out by vote of the Continental Congress) of the following passages dealing with slavery. In order to ensure a unanimous vote, the bloc of Southern States demanded it's removal:

he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating
it's most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of
a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying
them to slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable
death in their transportations thither. this piratical warfare,
the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian
king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN
should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for
suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain
determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold
this execrable commerce ^ and that this assemblage of horrors might
want no fact of distinguished die

(Ironic that I wrote this 4 years ago for the first time. I think Michelle Bachmann ought to point this out to George Stephanapolous).

Read it, and appreciate it again, and the men and women who have died to protect these words and what they mean.

Now the text of the Declaration:

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

An Obama foreign policy

Caroline Glick

Outgoing US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is worried about the shape of things to come in US foreign policy. In an interview with Newsweek over the weekend, Gates sounded the warning bells.

In Gates' words, "I've spent my entire adult life with the United States as a superpower, and one that had no compunction about spending what it took to sustain that position. It didn't have to look over its shoulder because our economy was so strong. This is a different time.

"To tell you the truth, that's one of the many reasons it's time for me to retire, because frankly I can't imagine being part of a nation, part of a government... that's being forced to dramatically scale back our engagement with the rest of the world."

What Gates is effectively saying is not that economic forecasts are gloomy. US defense spending comprises less than five percent of the federal budget. If US President Barack Obama wanted to maintain that level of spending, the Republican-controlled Congress would probably pass his defense budget. What Gates is saying is that he doesn't trust his commander in chief to allocate the resources to preserve America's superpower status. He is saying that he believes that Obama is willing to surrender the US's status as a superpower.

THIS WOULD be a stunning statement for any defense secretary to make about the policies of a US President. It is especially stunning coming from Gates. Gates began his tenure at the Pentagon under Obama's predecessor George W. Bush immediately after the Republican defeat in the 2006 mid-term Congressional elections.

Many conservatives hailed Obama's decision to retain Gates as defense secretary as a belated admission that Bush's aggressive counter-terror policies were correct. These claims ignored the fact that in his last two years in office, with the exception of the surge of troops in Iraq, under the guidance of Gates and then secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, Bush's foreign policies veered very far to the Left.

Gates's role in shaping this radical shift was evidenced by the positions he took on the issues of the day in the two years leading up to his replacement of Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. In 2004, Gates co-authored a study for the Council on Foreign Relations with Israel foe Zbigniew Brzezinski calling for the US to draw closer to Iran at Israel's expense.

Immediately before his appointment, Gates was a member of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group. The group's final report, released just as his appointment was announced, blamed Israel for the instability in Iraq and throughout the Middle East. Its only clear policy recommendations involved pressuring Israel to surrender the Golan Heights to Syria and Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria to a Hamas-Fatah "national unity government."

In office, Gates openly opposed the option of the US or Israel attacking Iran's nuclear installations. He rejected Israel's repeated requests to purchase weapons systems required to attack Iran's nuclear installations. He openly signaled that the US would deny Israel access to Iraqi airspace. He supported American appeasement of the Iranian regime. And he divulged information about Israel's purported nuclear arsenal and Israeli Air Force rehearsals of assaults on Iran.

A month before Russia's August 2008 invasion of US ally Georgia, Gates released his National Defense Strategy which he bragged was a "blueprint for success" for the next administration. Ignoring indications of growing Russian hostility to US strategic interests - most clearly evidenced in Russia's opposition to the deployment of US anti-missile batteries in the Czech Republic and Poland and in Russia's strategic relations with Iran and Syria - Gates advocated building "collaborative and cooperative relations" with the Russian military.

After Russia invaded Georgia, Gates opposed US action of any kind against Russia.

GIVEN THIS track record, it was understandable that Obama chose to retain Gates at the Pentagon. To date, Obama's only foreign policy that is distinct from Bush's final years is his Israel policy. Whereas Bush viewed Israel as a key US ally and friend, from the first days of his administration, Obama has sought to "put daylight" between the US and Israel. He has repeatedly humiliated Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. He has abandoned the US's quiet defense of Israel's purported nuclear arsenal. He has continuously threatened to abandon US support for Israel at the UN.

Not only has Obama adopted the Palestinians' increasingly hostile policies towards Israel. He has led them to those policies. It was Obama, not Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas, who first demanded that Israel cease respecting Jewish property rights in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. It was Obama, not Abbas, who first called for the establishment of a Palestinian state by the end of 2011. It was Obama, not Abbas, who first stipulated that future "peace" negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians must be predicated on Israel's prior acceptance of the indefensible 1949 armistice lines as a starting point for talks.

All of these positions, in addition to Obama's refusal to state outright that he rejects the Palestinian demand to destroy Israel through unlimited Arab immigration to its indefensible "peace" borders, mark an extreme departure from the Israel policies adopted by his predecessor.

Aside from its basic irrationality, Obama's policy of favoring the Palestinians against the US's most dependable ally in the Middle East is notable for its uniqueness. In every other area, his policies are aligned with those adopted by his predecessor.

His decision to surge the number of US forces in Afghanistan was a natural progression from the strategy Bush implemented in Iraq and was moving towards in Afghanistan.

His use of drones to conduct targeted killings of terrorists in Yemen and Pakistan is an escalation not a departure from Bush's tactics.

Obama's decision to gradually withdraw US combat forces from Iraq was fully consonant with Bush's policy.

His decision to engage with the aim of appeasing the Iranian regime while supporting the adoption of ineffective sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council is also a natural progression from Bush's policies.

His bid to "reset" US relations with Russia was largely of a piece with Bush's decision not to oppose in any way Russia's invasion of Georgia.

Obama's courtship of Syria is different from Bush's foreign policy. But guided by Rice and Gates, Bush was softening his position on Syria. For instance, Bush endorsed Rice's insistence that Israel remain mum on the North Korean-built illicit nuclear installation at Deir-A-Zour that the Air Force destroyed in September 2007.

As for Egypt, as many senior Bush administration officials crowed, Obama's abandonment of 30-year US ally Hosni Mubarak was of a piece with Bush's democracy agenda.

Obama's policy toward Libya is in many respects unique. It marks the first time since the War Powers Act passed into law 30 years ago that a US President has sent US forces into battle without seeking the permission of the US Congress. It is the first time that a president has openly subordinated US national interests to the whims of the UN and NATO and insisted on fighting a war that serves no clear US national interest.

Notably, Gates has been an outspoken critic of the war in Libya. In interviews in March he said that Muammar Gaddafi posed no threat to US interests and that no vital US interests are served by the US mission in Libya.

Yet even Obama's Libya policy is not as sharp a departure from Bush's foreign policy as his Israel policy is. Although Bush wouldn't have argued that the UN gets to decide where US troops are deployed, he did believe that the US needed UN permission to deploy troops.

TO A degree, it is the basic incoherence of Obama's Libya policy that puts it in line with all of his other foreign policies except Israel. Those policies - from Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay - are marked by inconsistencies. Like Libya, there is a strong sense that Obama's foreign policy to date has not been guided by an overarching worldview but rather spring from ad hoc decisions with no guiding conceptual framework.

But if Gates's words to Newsweek are any indication, all of this may be about to change. If Gates believed that Obama would continue to implement the policies of Bush's last two years with minor exceptions while sticking it to Israel, he would likely not have spoken out against Obama's policies so strongly. Apparently Gates believes that Obama's foreign policy is about to undergo a radical transformation.

And this would make sense, particularly if, as Obama has said a number of times, he is more committed to transforming America than winning a second term in office.

Until the Republicans won control of the House of Representatives last November, Obama was able to concentrate on passing his domestic agenda. Obama's willingness to lose the elections in order to push through his radical health care reform package demonstrated his commitment to implementing his policies at all costs.

With the Republicans in charge, Obama can't even pass his 2011 budget let alone his far reaching plans to transform US immigration policy, labor policy, environmental policy and Social Security.

In these circumstances, the only place where the power of the presidency gives him wide-ranging freedom of action to transform the US is foreign affairs.

What Gates's fiery departure indicates then is that for the rest of his term, Obama's entire foreign policy is liable to be as radical a departure from Bush's foreign policy as his Israel policy is. The war in Libya is a sign that things are changing. The fact that in recent months even Gates has taken to attacking Obama's Iran policy as too soft, further attests to a radicalization at work.

Then there is Obama's Afghanistan policy. When in 2009 Obama announced his surge and withdraw policy, Gates minimized the importance of Obama's pledge to begin withdrawing US combat forces in July 2011. In recent months, Gates has joined US combat commanders in pleading with the White House not to begin the troop drawdown until next year. But to no avail.

Not only is he unwilling to delay the withdrawal of combat troops. Obama is suing for peace with the Taliban. As Republican lawmakers have argued, there is no way the empowerment of the Taliban in Afghanistan can be viewed as anything but a defeat for the US.

Gates's successor at the Pentagon will be outgoing CIA Director Leon Panetta. US military and intelligence officers believe that Panetta's chief mission at the Pentagon will be to slash US defense budgets. Since his appointment was announced, sources inside the military have expressed deep concern that the planned budget cuts will render it impossible for the US to maintain its position as a global superpower. More than anything else, Gates' statements to Newsweek indicate that he shares this perception of Obama's plans.

To date, Obama's stewardship of US foreign policy has been marked by gross naivete, incompetence and a marked willingness to demean and weaken his country's moral standing in the world.

Imagine what will happen if in the next year and a half Obama embarks on a course that makes his Israel policy the norm rather than the exception in US foreign policy.

Losing His Religion: A Pentagon terror scare and a media taboo.

By JAMES TARANTO

There was a terror scare at the Pentagon this morning. As CBS News reports, it started when the U.S. Park Police "came upon" 22-year-old Yonathan Melaku wandering around Arlington National Cemetery, which was closed. "The Park Police then launched a search for a vehicle, which was found near the Pentagon."

A search of the car turned up "no suspicious items," but Melaku told the cops "that he was carrying explosive materials." They checked his backpack and "found what appeared to be an unknown quantity of ammonium nitrate," a chemical "that is widely used in fertilizers and can be used in explosives with the correct concentration."

We learn from the CBS story that Melaku is a lance corporal in the Marine Reserves. The Associated Press adds that he is a naturalized American citizen, originally from Ethiopia. CBS also reports that "Melaku was carrying a notebook that contained the phrases 'al Qaeda,' 'Taliban rules' and 'Mujahid defeated croatian forces' when he was detained," but "that the suspect is not thought to have been involved in a terrorist act or plot."

All of which raises an obvious question--but one that goes unanswered in the reports from CBS and AP, as well as others from ABC News and the Washington Post. We could only find one news organization that had the answer: Fox News Channel, which reports that Maliku is Muslim.

Now, it's possible that Fox simply got a scoop here, but our guess is that this fact was omitted from the other reports because of the politically correct taboo against making a connection between Islam and terrorism. It's analogous to the case we cited Monday in which the Chicago Tribune refused to mention the race of the members of "groups of youths" who had been attacking people in a downtown neighborhood, but it's worse. Whereas race is not necessarily relevant to the motive of the Chicago attacks, religion almost always is when a Muslim commits an act of terrorism or a related crime.

These politically correct strictures are not applied in a consistent or reciprocal fashion. If Maliku were a Christian and had been arrested outside an abortion clinic, you can bet his religion would have been widely reported. And the press sensationalizes "hate crimes" by whites against blacks or non-Muslims against Muslims.

One possible explanation is the man-bites-dog theory of news: that those types of crimes get more attention because they're unusual. But that doesn't hold up. Remember last August when a Muslim taxi driver was stabbed in New York? It was a sensational story that the New York Times used to further its narrative that anti-Muslim bigotry was behind opposition to the Ground Zero mosque. But the Times deeply buried the real man-bites-dog element: The suspect turned out to be a volunteer for a nonprofit that supported the mosque.

The typical justification for declining to identify criminal suspects as Muslim or black is that it is an effort to counter invidious stereotypes. We're not sure it is even effective at that. The day after the 2009 Fort Hood massacre, we were at a lunch when we received a news-alert email that eight people had been injured in a shooting at an Orlando, Fla., office building. We mentioned this to our table mates, and one asked: "Was it a Muslim?"

The email didn't say, but it turned out the attack fit a different stereotype: the disgruntled former employee going postal. When news organizations evade facts that fit what they see as undesirable stereotypes, they train news consumers to fill in the blanks even when the stereotypes do not apply.

Obama’s knack for handcuffing peace

By HERB KEINON
10/06/2011

If you want to know what the Palestinians are going to do tomorrow, just listen to what US President Barack Obama says today


If you want to know what the Palestinians are going to do tomorrow, just listen to what US President Barack Obama says today. In May 2009, after the first meeting in the White House between Obama and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the US leader made a comment that set the tone for the next couple of years and pretty much killed any chance of negotiations: Settlements must stop.

“Settlements have to be stopped in order for us to move forward,” he declared.

The Palestinians, who until that point had never made a total settlement freeze – including in areas beyond the Green Line in Jerusalem – a condition for negotiations, heard Obama and pounced. If this was what the American president was saying, how could they ask for anything less?

Or, as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said himself in a Newsweek interview in April, “It was Obama who suggested a full settlement freeze. I said OK, I accept. We both went up the tree. After that, he came down with a ladder and he removed the ladder and said to me, jump.”

And then again in September 2010, at the UN General Assembly, Obama addressed the Israeli- Palestinian issue just as the 10-month Netanyahumandated settlement freeze was about to come to an end. “We have travelled a winding road over the last 12 months, with few peaks and many valleys,” he said.

With his distinctive soaring rhetoric, Obama declared, “The conflict between Israelis and Arabs is as old as this institution. And we can come back here next year, as we have for the last 60 years, and make long speeches about it. We can read familiar lists of grievances. We can table the same resolutions. We can further empower the forces of rejectionism and hate. And we can waste more time by carrying forward an argument that will not help a single Israeli or Palestinian child achieve a better life.

“Or,” he went on, “we can say that this time will be different – that this time we will not let terror, or turbulence, or posturing, or petty politics stand in the way. This time, we will think not of ourselves, but of the young girl in Gaza who wants to have no ceiling on her dreams, or the young boy in Sderot who wants to sleep without the nightmare of rocket fire.

“This time, we should draw upon the teachings of tolerance that lie at the heart of three great religions that see Jerusalem’s soil as sacred. This time we should reach for what’s best within ourselves. If we do, when we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations – an independent, sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel.”

And that was it – all of a sudden September 2011 became a magic deadline for declaring a Palestinian state.

True, Netanyahu had said after meeting Abbas in Washington a few weeks before Obama’s UN address that he believed “we should make every effort to reach an historic compromise for peace over the coming year.” But it wasn’t until Obama spoke of Palestine as a new member of the UN by 2011 that this date suddenly became a benchmark.

For instance, since that speech, the EU has consistently set September as a deadline of sorts, including referring to a “framework agreement by September 2011” in a statement released as recently as May 23 by the heads of the EU countries – a statement notable for the degree to which it seemed completely divorced from reality.

Does anyone really think a framework agreement is going to be reached by that date, what with the sides not even directly speaking to each other at this point? Still Obama said September 2011, and neither the Europeans nor the Palestinians are going to appear less Catholic than the Pope.

The Europeans put this deadline in their statements, and the Palestinians have expressed their determination to fulfill Obama’s prophecy in September by asking for UN recognition of a Palestinian state – whether that recognition means anything or not, and regardless of the consequences. Obama set the bar, and the Palestinians are not going to lower it; rather, they will do whatever they can to jump over – even if there is no landing pit on the other side.

And then the pattern of Obama making declarations and the Palestinians adopting those declarations as their tactics repeated itself again last month.

In his State Department speech on the Middle East on May 19, a day before Netanyahu was due in town, Obama said that “while the core issues of the conflict must be negotiated, the basis of those negotiations is clear: a viable Palestine, and a secure Israel.

“The United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine.

“The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.” Obama also laid out his policy toward the sequencing of negotiations, essentially adopting the Palestinian position by saying that the “two wrenching and emotional issues” of the future of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees should be deferred and discussed after questions of territory and security were addressed.

With that speech, Obama struck a third time. If Obama said that the basis of negotiations should be the 1967 lines, and that Jerusalem and refugees should be deferred to a later date, then who were the Palestinians to quibble? And, indeed, they did not quibble. In fact, clutching those parameters to his breast is exactly what Palestinian senior official Saeb Erekat did Tuesday during a speech at the Saban Center of the Brookings Institution in Washington.

According to The Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl, Erekat “staked out a new position” in his speech, saying that talks would only commence if Netanyahu formally accepted Obama’s 1967-lines parameters, something Netanyahu has made abundantly clear he has no intention of doing.

If Netanyahu “wants to be a partner he has to say it: Two states on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps,” Erekat said. “He has a choice.” Erekat said that without that declaration, there would be no talks, and the PA would go ahead with its UN push.

“I have no quarrel with the United States,” Erekat stated. “If Mr. Netanyahu says he accepts the two-state solution on the 1967 lines with agreed swaps, he’s on.”

There’s the pattern: Obama makes a declaration – one Israel cannot accept – and it becomes the newest Palestinian prenegotiating position. But when the Palestinians take up this position – knowing full well it is a source of US-Israeli friction – it seems meant not to promote a solution, butto chip away at Israeli-US government ties.

Erekat, Diehl said, “left little doubt that he was staking out a position in response to the Obama administration’s efforts to restart negotiations – a position that appears aimed less at advancing the process than at deepening the discord between the Israeli and US governments.”

Erekat’s comments, moreover, come at a time when the operative assumption in Jerusalem is, and has been for months, that Abbas has no desire in the world to negotiate with Netanyahu.

Indicative of this assumption is a diplomatic cable that arrived in the Foreign Ministry this week from a senior diplomatic official in Washington who met with a senior Palestinian official stationed there. The cable made clear that the Palestinian official believed Abbas was intent on going to the UN in September, and that he had decided to “abandon the process,” and had “no intention of returning to negotiations.” The cable also said that at this point in time Abbas was primarily concerned about his historical legacy.

What Obama does with his various declarations is give Abbas the cover to stay away from negotiations, while blaming Israel for his own rejectionist stance.

Just as Netanyahu could not, for a variety of reasons – political and ideological – declare another settlement moratorium, forcing Obama to have to backtrack on that demand, it is also unlikely he will now accept a return to negotiations based on the 1967 lines, with mutually agreed upon swaps, unless some very significant “sweeteners” are thrown into the mix: such as Palestinian recognition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, a formula that would imply an abandonment of the Palestinian dream of a “right of return.”

But the chances of that happening are slim indeed. Concerned with his legacy, Abbas is not eager to go down in the Palestinian history books as the one who closed the door to the descendents of Palestinian refugees “returning” to Haifa, Jaffa and Safed.

The negotiations, therefore, remain stymied, and Obama has uncovered an uncanny ability – with his declarations – to handcuff the very diplomatic process he is trying to push forward.

Something you'll never see anywhere else...

in the Arab world, but certainly do every year in Israel. Now, why is Code Pink protesting Israel?

'It's worth being gay'
By YONI COHEN
10/06/2011
From street parades to beach parties, there's something for everyone at the all-accepting Tel Aviv Gay Pride 2011.

The slogan for this year's Tel Aviv Gay Pride events is “It’s worth being gay!” And indeed, it looks like it'll be worth attending as the 2011 Pride Parade, the central event of the celebrations, is set to be as big and impressive as ever.

The huge street parade set to take place on Friday, is expected to be attended by thousands of locals and tourists, and will culminate with a beach party. The parade will begin in Gan Meir at around 1:30 p.m., pass through Bograshov and Ben Yehuda Streets and end at Gordon beach.

Though the parade is the main event, the weekend's festivities will kick off on Thursday night with "Sunset Beach Cocktail" party located on the southern part of the Tel Aviv beach close to the David Intercontinental hotel in Clara, a trendy open air mega bar. The leading DJs in town will come together to host the official opening of Pride Weekend.

On Friday morning from 10:00 a.m to 12:00 p.m. there will be a two-hour Gay City Tour, which will explore the heart of Tel Aviv, telling the story of the LGBT community. Pre-booking is necessary: telavivgayvibe..com, Starting point: Meir Tower Herzl corner of Ahad Ha’am.

For those in search of something a little more upbeat, MTV will be putting on a crazy drag celebration hosted by TLV’s most favored drag queens, performing the hottest MTV hits. Gan Meir. 10:00 a.m. till 1:30 p.m.

Some of the best DJs in town and international guests will keep the beach party going until 6:30 p.m. Performers include Lovegang (Hamburg), Erez B.I., Samuel Blacher, Israel Aharoni, Ziona Patriot, Offir Malol, Shimai (Barcelona), Oscar Loya (Berlin) and many more.

A number of parties will pump on well into the early hours of Saturday morning. Evita, popular with tourists and locals alike, will be hosting its very own Parade Party, bringing the trash back to the dance floor. Evita bar, 31 Yavne St.

For those that still have energy left on Saturday, the 6th Tel Aviv LGBT International Film Festival will be opened with a party named "We Will Rock You!" Three Israeli divas - Talula Bonet, Oshree, Betty Licious - will be rocking one stage. The music will be provided by DJs Mikey Hefez, Mikka Shmikka & Adi Dgani, and straight from Berlin DJ Metzgerei. ZIZI, 7 Karlibach St. 10:30 p.m. .

The pride weekend events, which cost a total of some 300,000, are mainly being organized by Tel Aviv's municipality as well as volunteers from the community.

Over 5,000 tourists were expected to arrive from overseas just to join in the celebrations, said Shai Doitsh, "Tel Aviv Gay Vibe" Brand Manager and national board member of the LGBT Aguda.

Doitsh also explained that the municipality and all other bodies are fully supportive of the events and he believes that support will only increase from year to year.

In fact, many of Tel Aviv's residents support the pride celebrations, as well as the city's mayor, Ron Huldai. He recently said that "the gay community serves as a true example of tolerance and openness, and even lights the way for other groups in Israel."

The Real Story

Those of you who have read my blog know that I have zero love for Sarah Palin. In fact, I don't like, or dislike her.

I AM fascinated by the mainstream media's obsession with her, but that is not the point.

She has no, zero, nada, zilch, bearing or effect on my life. She will never hold national office, so what do I care about her or anything she says. Frankly, she's an idiot.

However, I am more interested in the lambasting of her "Paul Revere" comments, by that same media.

Sorry to say but Sarah's comments about warning the British not to disarm the Americans, and ringing bells and firing warning shots is correct.

The media's apparent belief that it was Paul Revere who actually rode from Lexington to Concorde and put up some lanterns in the old North Church is from the Longfellow poem, NOT history. (There was a lantern put up in the church, but that was to signal across Boston Harbor to Charlestown).

So, for those who don't know.

Revere was a silversmith by trade. And a fairly successful one at that. He also tried his hand at dentistry and a few other things, but the smithing business he got from his father.

He had been involved in the agitation against the British Army Regulars, the royal governor and the crown for some time. In fact, he frequently used his presses to help create the images that went on some of the pamphlets of the day.

He was a member, and leader, of a group known as the "Sons of Liberty".

The Sons had established a warning system. Why?

Two of the most offensive policies to the Bay Colony's residents in that time was the commonplace breaking in of their homes by the British regulars to "impress" American boys into the British army, and also to confiscate weapons, which the British knew could be used against them.

This is the VERY reason that the 2d and 4th amendments were added to the constitution (Right to bear arms in a militia, and the restraint against illegal search and seizures).

In the leadup to the ride, British General Gage had received instructions from the crown to DISARM the rebels and arrest their leaders, in particular, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock.

Remember your history. Samuel Adams known as the "Father of the Revolution".

Revere, along with William Dawes, was dispatched on two separate routes from Lexington to Concorde by Dr. Joseph Warren, to warn Hancock and Adams and to help them escape.

On the way, Revere was joined by Dr. Samuel Prescott, who was on his way back from seeing his fiancee.

Revere and Dawes were both captured by the British on the way back from Lexington. Apparently, Dawes was something of an actor and convinced the British to release him immediately, pretending to be a drunk, or some such thing.

Prescott continued on the ride to Concorde.

Along the route, both the orinal route ridden by Revere and Dawes, and later the route ridden by Prescott and at least a dozen, and as many as 40, other riders (we don't know exactly how many) bells rang out and warning shots were fired to warn of the coming British Regulars.

Under questioning by the British, Revere warned them of the dire consequences that would be suffered if they tried to disarm the "Sons of Liberty" or the other Patriots, or if they detained Hancock and Adams.

As a note, two of the riders that we know of were a woman, and even more fascinating, because of the white washing of African American History, was a 9 year old African American rider named Abel Benson.

Now, if you don't believe me, here's a blurb from the History Channel (Discovery Networks) website:

"Paul Revere would be surprised that he receives sole credit for the midnight ride. In addition to Dawes and Prescott, dozens of other men helped spread the word that night. Still, some historians think Revere deserves the credit. Through his networking and leadership skills, he basically built the massive communications machine that made the night of April 18 a success. Revere started other express riders on their way before leaving Boston, and he also alerted others along his journey. They too began riding, or shot guns and rang church bells to alert the community. Revere covered 13 miles in less than two hours, but he was not working alone."

So I ask you, who is a fool here? Sarah, or the people who think the history of the United States was written by a poet in days leading up to the Civil War, 80 years after the event?

If you want a moderately accurate accounting of the ride, go to the Paul Revere House's website. Obviously, it will emphasize Revere's role, but a more complete picture will be available.

Finally, this is in no way to minimize Revere. He was an incredible Patriot, the ride was largely from a system he designed, and he had to navigate his way through the British troops even to begin his ride. But should he be the only one who is remembered? No. And should Sarah be pilloried for getting it right?

Where Obama is Leading Israel By Caroline Glick

In the aftermath of US President Barack Obama's May 19 speech on the Middle East, his supporters argued that the policy toward Israel and the Palestinians that Obama outlined in that speech was not anti-Israel. As they presented it, Obama's assertion that peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians must be based on the 1967 lines with agreed swaps does not mark a substantive departure from the positions adopted by his predecessors in the Oval Office.

But this claim is exposed as a lie by previous administration statements. On November 25, 2009, in response to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's acceptance of Obama's demand for a 10-month moratorium on Jewish property rights in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, the State Department issued the following statement: "Today's announcement by the Government of Israel helps move forward toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements."

In his speech, Obama stated: "The United States believes... the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states."

That is, he took "the Palestinian goal" and made it the US's goal. It is hard to imagine a more radically anti-Israel policy shift than that.

And that wasn't Obama's only radically anti-Israel policy shift. Until his May 19 speech, the US agreed with Israel that the issue of borders is only one of many - including the Palestinians' rejection of Israel's right to exist, their demand to inundate Israel with millions of foreign Arab immigrants, their demand for control over Israel's water supply and Jerusalem - that have to be sorted out in negotiations. The joint US-Israeli position was that until all of these issues were resolved, none of them were resolved.

The Palestinians, on the other hand, claim that before they will discuss any of these other issues, Israel has to first agree to accept the indefensible 1967 boundaries as its permanent borders. This position allows the Palestinians to essentially maintain their policy of demanding that Israel make unreciprocated concessions that then serve as the starting point for further unreciprocated concessions.

It is a position that is antithetical to peace. And on May 19, by stipulating that Israel must accept the Palestinian position on borders as a precondition for negotiations, Obama adopted it as US policy.

SINCE THAT speech, Obama has taken a series of steps that only reinforce the sense that he is the most hostile US president Israel has ever faced. Indeed, when taken together, these steps raise concern that Obama may actually constitute a grave threat to Israel.

On Friday Yediot Aharonot reported on the dimensions of the threat Obama may pose to the Jewish state.. The paper's account was based on administration and Congressional sources.. The story discussed Obama's plans to contend with the Palestinian plan to pass a resolution at the UN General Assembly in September endorsing Palestinian statehood in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

According to Yediot, during his meeting with Obama on May 20, Netanyahu argued that in light of the Palestinians' automatic majority support at the General Assembly, there was no way to avoid the resolution.

Netanyahu reportedly explained that the move would not be a disaster. The General Assembly overwhelmingly endorsed the PLO's declaration of independence in 1988.

And the sky still hasn't fallen.

Obama reportedly was unconvinced. For him, it is unacceptable to be in a position of standing alone with Israel voting against the Palestinian resolution. Obama's distaste for standing with Israel was demonstrated in February when a visibly frustrated US Ambassador Susan Rice was forced by Congressional pressure to veto the Palestinians' Security Council draft resolution condemning Israel for refusing to prohibit Jews from building in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.

Yediot's report asserts that Obama refused to brief Netanyahu on the steps his administration is taking to avert such an unpalatable option. What the paper did report was how George Mitchell - Obama's Middle East envoy until his resignation last week - recommended Obama proceed on this issue.

According to Yediot, Mitchell recommended that Obama work with the Europeans to draft a series of anti-Israel resolutions for the UN Security Council to pass. Among other things, these resolutions, which Mitchell said would be "painful for Israel," would include an assertion that Jewish building in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria is illegal.

That is, Mitchell recommended that Obama adopt as US policy at the Security Council past Palestinian demands that Congress forced Obama to reject just months ago at the Security Council. The notion is that by doing so, Obama could convince the Palestinians to water down the even more radically anti-Israel positions they are advancing today at the UN General Assembly that Congressional pressure prevents him from supporting.

Since General Assembly resolutions have no legal weight and Security Council resolutions do carry weight, Mitchell's policy represents the most anti-Israel policy ever raised by a senior US official. Unfortunately Obama's actions since last week suggest that he has adopted the gist of Mitchell's policy recommendations.

First there was his speech before AIPAC. Among other things, Obama used the international campaign to delegitimize Israel's right to exist as a justification for his policies of demanding that Israel capitulate to the Palestinians' demands, which he has now officially adopted as US policy.

As he put it, "there is a reason why the Palestinians are pursuing their interests at the United Nations. They recognize that there is an impatience with the peace process - or the absence of one. Not just in the Arab world, but in Latin America, in Europe, and in Asia. That impatience is growing, and is already manifesting itself in capitals around the world."

From AIPAC, Obama moved on to Europe. There he joined forces with European governments in an attempt to gang up on Israel at the G8 meeting.

Obama sought to turn his embrace of the Palestinian negotiating position into the consensus position of the G8. His move was scuttled by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who refused to accept any resolution that made mention of borders without mentioning the Palestinian demand to destroy Israel through Arab immigration, Israel's right to defensible borders, or the Palestinians' refusal to accept Israel's right to exist.

If Harper had not stood by Israel, the G8's anti-Israel resolution endorsing the Palestinian negotiating position could have formed the basis of a US-sponsored anti-Israel Security Council resolution.

Israelis planning their summer trips should put Canada at the top of their lists.

THE FINAL step Obama has taken to solidify the impression that he does not have Israel's best interests at heart, is actually something he has not done. Over the past week, Fatah leaders of the US-backed Palestinian Authority have made a series of statements that put paid any thought that they are interested in peace with Israel or differ substantively from their partners in Hamas.

At the Arab League meeting in Qatar on Saturday, PA President Mahmoud Abbas said the Palestinian state "will be free of all Jews."

Last week the US-supported Abbas denied the Jewish connection to the land of Israel and claimed absurdly that the Palestinians were 9,000 years old.

Equally incriminating, in an interview last week with Aaron Lerner from the IMRA newsgathering website, Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath said that now that Hamas was the co-leader of the PA with Fatah, responsibility for continuing to hold IDF St.-Sgt. Gilad Schalit hostage devolved from Hamas to the PA. And the PA would continue to hold him hostage.

Shaath's statement makes clear that rather than moderating Hamas, the Fatah-Hamas unity deal is transforming Fatah into Hamas.

And yet, Obama has had nothing to say about any of this.

Obama's now undeniable antipathy for Israel and his apparent willingness to use his power as American president to harm Israel at the UN and elsewhere guarantee that for the duration of his tenure in office, Israel will face unprecedented threats to its security. This disturbing reality ought to focus the attention of all Israelis and of the American Jewish community. With the leader of the free world now openly siding with forces bent on Israel's destruction, the need for unity has become acute.

MADDENINGLY, HOWEVER, at this time of unprecedented danger we see the Israeli media have joined ranks with Kadima in siding with Obama against Israel in a joint bid to bring down Netanyahu's government. Yediot Aharonot, Maariv, Haaretz, Channel 2, Channel 10, Army Radio and Israel Radio's coverage of Netanyahu's visit and its aftermath was dominated by condemnations of the prime minister, and praise for Obama and opposition leader Tzipi Livni, who called for Netanyahu to resign.

The fact that polling data showed that only 12 percent of Jewish Israelis regard Obama as pro-Israeli and that the overwhelming majority of the public with an opinion believes Netanyahu's visit was a success made absolutely no impression on the media. The wall-to-wall condemnations of Netanyahu by the Israeli media lend the impression that Israel's leading reporters and commentators are committed to demoralizing the public into believing that Israel has no option other than surrender.

Then there is the American Jewish leadership. And at this critical time in US-Israel relations, the American Jewish leadership is either silent or siding with Obama. Right after Obama's shocking speech on May 19, the Anti-Defamation League released a statement endorsing it. Stand With Us congratulated Obama for his AIPAC speech.

With the notable exceptions of the Zionist Organization of America and the Committee for Accuracy in Middle Eastern Reporting in America (CAMERA), leaders of American Jewish organizations have refused to condemn Obama's anti-Israel positions.

Their silence becomes all the more enraging when placed against the massive support Israel receives from rank-and-file American Jews. In a survey of American Jews taken by CAMERA on May 16-17, between 75% and 95% of American Jews supported Israel's position on defensible borders, Jerusalem, Palestinian "refugees," Palestinian recognition of Israel's right to exist and the right of Jews to live in a Palestinian state.

The refusal of most American Jewish leaders, the Israeli media and Kadima to condemn Obama today makes you wonder if there is anything the US president could do to convince them to break ranks and stand with Israel and with the vast majority of their fellow Jews. But it is more than a source of wonder. It is a reason to be frightened. Because Obama's actions over the past two weeks make clear to anyone willing to see that in the age of Obama, silence is dangerous.

The "Arab Spring" continues to look a lot like winter

By Kristen Chick

CAIRO— (TCSM) An attack by Muslims on two churches in Cairo led to sectarian clashes that claimed at least 12 lives, a reminder that Egypt's religious rift has continued to widen since the successful uprising that pushed Hosni Mubarak from power.

The violence in the Cairo neighborhood of Imbaba, declared in the 1990's to be "liberated" from the Egyptian state by Islamist militants, also highlights the growing role the salafis, a small and strident Muslim sect, are playing in exacerbating sectarian tensions. The salafy strain of Islam, which feeds most militant Sunni movements, was publicly repressed under Mubarak and has been taking advantage of the more open environment since his downfall.

"There is no security in Egypt," says Rober, a 23-year member of the Virgin Mary church, which was largely reduced to a smoldering hulk after it was set alight Saturday night. He stood in a burned-out stairway and watched as a woman walked past, weeping. "This is only the beginning. I'm afraid for my sister, for my mother, from the salafis."

On Sunday, stories of what happened Saturday night varied wildly in Imbaba's maze of dirt alleyways. The sprawling neighborhood on the west side of the Nile is poor and mostly Muslim, but has large pockets of Coptic Christians, who account for as much as 10 percent of Egypt's population. The sectarian violence also left at least 232 injured and saw police and army forces move into the area and impose a curfew. They blocked access to the St. Mina church, where the violence began.

Christian witnesses say St. Mina was attacked by a group of armed salafis carrying Ak-47s and throwing Molotov cocktails on Saturday. The witnesses say the attackers accused the church of abducting a woman who had converted from Christianity to Islam, and also destroyed a nearby Christian apartment building and a Christian-owned shop before setting the Virgin Mary church on fire.

The violence started when rumors spread that Christians had abducted a woman who had converted to Islam and married a Muslim man, and were holding her inside St. Mina church. Christians said the rumor was false, and there was no such woman. Alleged female conversions and abductions have been a flashpoint for sectarian tensions for years.

Last year Camillia Shehata, the wife of a Coptic priest, allegedly disappeared for days. Muslims claimed the church had abducted her when she tried to convert to Islam. Salafis have continued to hold protests demanding her "release."

That storyline spawned violence in Iraq, where a group associated with Al Qaeda attacked a church, killing dozens, and called for attacks on churches in Egypt. One did come, on a church in Alexandria on Jan. 1. An apparent suicide bomber killed more than 20 Christians, though no group ever claimed responsibility for the bombing and it was unclear if it was related to the issue of Camillia Shehata.

Christians have faced discrimination, particularly in the application of justice when they face sectarian attacks. Mubarak's regime refused to acknowledge a sectarian dimension to such attacks. And sometimes authorities imposed forced reconciliation instead of bringing Muslim attackers to justice.

ACCOUNTS
Muslims in the area say that the Christians were armed and attacked first. An Egyptian Army officer standing guard Sunday said that when he arrived Saturday, there were no salafis but two groups of men were fighting each other, and that weapons were fired from within the church. The clashes ran from about 8:30 on Saturday night until early the next morning local time.

Father Mattias Elias, priest of the Virgin Mary church for more than 30 years, says "salafi terrorists" set the church on fire. "We have faith and hope (that) G0d will change what is happening. But practically, we need leadership from the Army, the security forces," he says, sitting in a burned-out former sanctuary, next to the gutted baptismal room where the fire killed a church employee.

The walls and ceiling of the room are blackened, a ceiling fan's blades melted into haunting shapes. A partially burnt altar curtain sits in the corner with children's Bible story books. Acrid smoke hangs in the air.

Hossam Bahgat says the attempt to break into a church to rescue an alleged hostage is "unprecedented." Bahgat runs the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a group that has documented sectarian attacks for years. He also says it is "disturbing" that Christians reportedly used violence in response to the attack. The sentiment that seems to be growing among the Christian community is that "they are going to use force to protect themselves if the state continues to fail to protect them."

"This is why I think we're seeing this time such a strong response from the Supreme Council of Armed Forces and the Cabinet," he says. "They seem to finally realize that the number one priority now, as far as the sectarian violence is concerned, is physical protection of individuals, communities and places of worship."

ARRESTS
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the military government running Egypt, said it had arrested 190 people in connection with the attacks and would try them in military courts "as a deterrent to all those who think of toying with the potential of this nation." Egypt's prime minister delayed a trip to the Gulf to hold an emergency cabinet meeting and Egypt's justice minister announced Egypt would use an "iron hand" against those trying to "tamper with the nation's security."