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Still the Law of the Land? - The Constitution - 0 views

www.constitution.org/...stlotl.htm Alexis-de-Tocqueville freedom-liberty Globalist-Elites The-Constitution
shared by Gary Edwards on 09 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 09 Jul 13
     
    Heritage Foundation white paper: Forward: The commemoration of the bicentennial of the United States Constitution should be an occasion of festivity tempered by solemn gratitude for the gift our Founding Fathers bequeathed to us. But if the Constitution is to survive as something more than an abstract symbol - a parchment counterpart of the Statue of Liberty - the celebration must also be the occasion for broadened public awareness of the principles of constitutional government. For the anniversary comes at a time of grave crisis in our constitutional history. The federal judiciary, originally designed as part of a carefully balanced mechanism in which it shared guardianship of the Constitution with the executive, the two houses of Congress, and the state governments, has gradually taken sole custody unto itself, proclaiming that its decisions and not the Constitution are the supreme law of the land. What is even more dangerous, the Supreme Court has, during the last two or three decades, become progressively more blatant in disregarding the Constitution and arriving at decisions on the basis of the justices' ideological predilections in regard to "social progress" and "human dignity." These usurpations are compatible neither with the idea of constitutional government nor with the ideal of a government of laws. All the essays in this volume are, in one way or another, addressed to this problem, its ramifications, and its implications. They are the product of long, deep, and careful research and reflection; but, though they are appropriately cast in the muted tones of scholarship, collectively they sound an alarm bell in the night. Every thinking and public-spirited American can learn from their message. For two centuries the Constitution has provided the American people with a framework of limited government, designed for liberty. It is up to us to preserve that framework for our posterity, even as the Founders created it for theirs. Next year we will celebr
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U.S. to Become Tax Debtors' Prison - 0 views

whiskeyandgunpowder.com/s-to-become-tax-debtors-prison tax-prison
shared by Gary Edwards on 11 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 11 Apr 12
     
    International Passports could be held in lew of back taxes if Senate Bill 1813, the deliciously named "Moving Ahead for Progressives" Act, gets through the House. excerpt: A bill authored by a Southland lawmaker that could potentially allow the federal government to prevent any Americans who owe back taxes from traveling outside the U.S. is one step closer to becoming law. Senate Bill 1813 was introduced back in November by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Los Angeles) to "reauthorize Federal-aid highway and highway safety construction programs, and for other purposes". After clearing the Senate on a 74 - 22 vote on March 14, SB 1813 is now headed for a vote in the House of Representatives, where it's expected to encounter stiffer opposition among the GOP majority. In addition to authorizing appropriations for federal transportation and infrastructure programs, the "Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act" or "MAP-21″ includes a provision that would allow for the "revocation or denial" of a passport for anyone with "certain unpaid taxes" or "tax delinquencies". Section 40304 of the legislation states that any individual who owes more than $50,000 to the Internal Revenue Service may be subject to "action with respect to denial, revocation, or limitation of a passport". The bill does allow for exceptions in the event of emergency or humanitarian situations or limited return travel to the U.S., or in cases when any tax debt is currently being repaid in a "timely manner" or when collection efforts have been suspended. However, there does not appear to be any specific language requiring a taxpayer to be charged with tax evasion or any other crime in order to have their passport revoked or limited - only that a notice of lien or levy has been filed by the IRS.
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Obama Stimulus Dollars Funded Soros Empire | The Soros Files - 1 views

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shared by Gary Edwards on 13 May 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 13 May 12
     
    excerpt: Newly recently released tax documents reveal how billionaire "philanthropist" George Soros expanded his U.S.-based empire by using funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the Obama stimulus. Soros and Obama worked hand-in-glove through the stimulus, which has been called the largest single partisan wealth transfer in American history. In 2010, tax records show that Soros, a convicted inside trader with extensive knowledge of the American financial system and government policies under Obama, deployed grantees from his Open Society Foundations1 to lobby for and acquire federal contracts for job training, green energy, and community redevelopment programs.  By gaining control over those resources, Soros advanced his agenda for "green economics," open borders, and increased government handouts. In short, he grew his empire, which includes much of the "progressive" movement in the U.S., as the federal government and Obama's political constituencies grew in power and influence. This report analyzes George Soros's grants to organizations in 2010.  The records show massive coordination of non-profit networks in the states and nationally.  Four powerful organizations and coalitions - The STAR Coalition, The Gamaliel Foundation, the Apollo Alliance, and Green for All - are given detailed scrutiny in this regard, with the involvement of Van Jones getting special mention. Jones is the former Obama "Green Jobs Czar" fired after information about his communist past surfaced through the work of anti-communist blogger Trevor Loudon and then-Fox News personality Glenn Beck.  The lobbying power of such efforts ensured that stimulus funds flowed from taxpayers into union coffers and into the hands of other activists who had been instrumental in putting President Obama into office. This report, "Obama Stimulus Dollars Funded Soros Empire," includes an analysis of how Soros-funded organizations and networks
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Liberals, Progressives and Socialists - Walter E. Williams - Page 1 - 1 views

townhall.com/...ls_progressives_and_socialists liberals walter williams
shared by Joe La Fleur on 09 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Paul Merrell on 09 Aug 12
     
    The Williams article does no more than to sing to the choir and certainly is no scholarly work. First he stuffs the Nazis into his own "socialist" bag, ignoring the fact that the "socialist" label in the party name was only window dressing for what was in reality a mix of fascism and capitalism, not socialism. Then he declares that "communists" in the Soviet Union were responsible for mass murders, blinking past the fact that the Soviet Union was communist in name only. It was a fascist state during the entire period when the mass murders there took place and wound up an oligarchy before it died. "Communist China" likewise was never a communist state. It began as a socialist state ruled by an oligarchy, became near-fascist under Chairman Mao, and returned to being an oligarchy after his death, but this time sprouting capitalist wings. (Nixon removing the U.S. trade barriers with China had a lot to do with this.) Having stuffed everything in sight into his "socialist" bag, deserving or not, and labeling *all* socialists as government mass murders, Williams takes the insurmountable mental leap to paint groups like the "NAACP, the National Council of La Raza, Green for All, the Sierra Club and the Children's Defense Fund" as mass murderers, apparently should their views ever become dominant in the U.S. (Williams provides no connective tissue for his illogic there.) Then to top it all off, the web site's editor slaps a title on the essay lumping liberals and progressives in with the socialists, so apparently liberals and progressives are potential mass murderers too, which is unmistakably his innuendo. Williams seems to have a problem with organizations working *through our legal system* to expand civil liberties and to raise ethnic minorities out of poverty. Love 'em or hate 'em, those are not groups of mass murderers. Williams has the right to dislike those organizations. He also has the right to make absurd arguments, which he has fully exercised. But he wa
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Libertarians, Progressives Poised To Redefine American Politics - 0 views

www.mintpressnews.com/...180295 Libertarians progressives demographic-shift Republicans Democratic-party
shared by Paul Merrell on 04 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • As discontent with the “Big Two” grows, Libertarian and Progressive parties are exploding in America, especially among Millennials. It’s a shift that could redefine politics in the future.
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Beltway Foreign Policy Groups to Congress: Stay Out of the Way on Iran! « Lob... - 0 views

www.lobelog.com/ss-stay-out-of-the-way-on-iran war & peace Iranian-nukes-myth negotiations Congress Obama
shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • The November 24 deadline for Iran and world powers to reach an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program is quickly approaching.
  • If there is a deal on Nov. 24, the White House indicated, in an article authored by David E. Sanger in Sunday’s New York Times, that it would not seek an immediate vote on the agreement or sanctions relief, instead asserting that the administration can, and may need to, roll back some sanctions unilaterally as part of immediate sanctions relief guarantees in a possible agreement. Hawks in Congress may want to portray their position as representing the mainstream consensus but a letter signed by thirty-seven organizations and sent to members of Congress on Thursday offers some indication that many foreign policy groups in the beltway are concerned by Congress’ latest effort to meddle in the final weeks of sensitive diplomacy before the November deadline. The signatories—which include the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation; J Street; MoveOn.org; the National Iranian American Council; Progressive Democrats of America; the United Methodist Church and VoteVets— expressed “deep concern with inaccurate and counterproductive rhetoric from a handful of Members of Congress regarding possible outcomes of the current negotiations.”
  • They continue: Particularly irresponsible are threats to oppose any comprehensive agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear program that initially suspends US sanctions on Iran through lawful executive action. Congress’ authorization of the President’s power to suspend and re-impose US sanctions on Iran is clear and unmistakable in each piece of legislation it has passed on the subject. Use of these provisions by the President to implement the initial phase of an agreement that ensures Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon would reflect an affirmation, not a subversion, of Congress’ will. The echo chamber on Capitol Hill may give members of the House and Senate the impression that only the threat of military action or crushing sanctions are effective tools in bringing Iran to the negotiating table. (My colleague Ali Gharib and I discussed the disproportionate voice given to individuals from neoconservative organizations at congressional hearings on Iran in a July article in The Nation.)
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  • But the letter sent out on Thursday might give some congressional Democrats pause. Congress may lean hawkish but progressive groups in the beltway are throwing their weight behind the White House’s efforts to reach a diplomatic agreement on Iran’s nuclear program and are urging Congress to stay out of the way.
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Oct 14
     
    There's more behind this story than appears in its words. "Progressive" organizations have largely stood silent on the topic of war since Obama was elected because they are Obama fans and Obama has been anything but peaceful. But now they turn out because Obama needs Congress to stay out of the Iran situation until negotiations are complete and for some time afterward. The pressure on Congress to intervene is coming from the Israel Lobby. Keep in mind that it's been the consensus position of all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies for many years that Iran has no plans to create a nuclear weapon capability. Several Israeli intelligence and military leaders have said the same thing. The Iranian nukes myth is a propaganda theme of the ultra-right wing Israeli government leadership that has been used for several years in efforts to persuade the U.S. to invade Iran and bomb it back into the Stone Age. And their excuse for involving the U.S. military evaporates if the Obama Administration successfully negotiates an agreement with Iran that limits its lawful development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes that will safeguard from any change of mind in Iran on development of nuclear weapons via, e.g., production limits and on-site inspections. The counter-argument is that such an agreement would have to be ratified by the Senate on grounds that it would be a treaty. But that argument falls short of the mark because: [i] the Executive has always had the unfettered right to negotiate and sign treaties; [ii] the U.S. government is not bound by treaties unless and until the Senate ratifies the treaty; and [iii] Congress already explicitly gave Obama authority to impose and suspend economic sanctions at his discretion. Meanwhile, part of the interim agreement with Iran so that negotiations can take place is a promise by the Obama Administration that it would veto any legislation imposing further sanctions on Iran during the period of negotiation. Because of the Israel Lobby'
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How US Propaganda Plays in Syrian War - Consortiumnews - 0 views

consortiumnews.com/...propaganda-plays-in-syrian-war war & peace Syria White-Helmets propaganda U.S.-foreign-policy
shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • U.S. foreign policymakers have experimented at planting propaganda in social media and then citing it as evidence to support their goals, a process now playing out in the Syrian “regime change,” as Rick Sterling explains.
  • The major achievement of The Syria Campaign has been the branding and promotion of the “White Helmets,” also known as “Syria Civil Defense,” which began with a British military contractor, James LeMesurier, giving some rescue training to Syrians in Turkey with funding provided by the U.S. and U.K. The group stole this name from the REAL Syria Civil Defense as documented in this recent report from Aleppo. The “White Helmets” are marketed in the West as civilian volunteers doing rescue work. On Sept. 22, it was announced that the Right Livelihood Award , the so-called “Alternative Nobel Prize,” is being given to the U.S./U.K.-created White Helmets “for their outstanding bravery, compassion and humanitarian engagement in rescuing civilians from the destruction of the Syrian civil war.”  But the White Helmets are largely a propaganda tool promoting Western intervention against Syria. Unlike a legitimate rescue organization such as the Red Cross or Red Crescent, the “White Helmets” only work in areas controlled by the armed opposition. As shown in this video, the White Helmets pick up the bodies of individuals executed by the terrorists; they claim to be unarmed but are not; and they falsely claim to be neutral.
  • Many of the videos from Al Qaeda/terrorist-dominated areas of Syria have the “White Helmets” logo because the White Helmets work in alliance with these extremist groups as primarily a media marketing tool to raise public support for continuing the support to the armed opposition as well as the demonization of the Syrian government.  The Rights Livelihood press release said the White Helmets “remain outspoken in calling for an end to hostilities in the country.” But that is false, too. The White Helmets actively call for U.S./NATO military intervention through a “No Fly Zone,” which would begin with attacks upon and destruction of government anti-aircraft positions and aircraft. A Major Act of War Taking over the skies above another country is an act of war that would require a major U.S. military operation, according to senior American generals.
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  • The New York Times reported that in 2012 General Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the White House that imposing a no-fly zone in Syria would require up to 70,000 American servicemen to destroy Syria’s antiaircraft system and then impose round-the-clock control over Syrian airspace. General Carter Ham, former commander of the U.S. Africa Command who oversaw the aerial attacks on Libya in 2011, said on CBS News that “I worry sometimes that, when people say ‘impose a no-fly zone,’ there is this almost antiseptic view that this is an easily accomplished military task. It’s extraordinarily difficult. … “It first entails — we should make no bones about it. It first entails killing a lot of people and destroying the Syrian air defenses and those people who are manning those systems. And then it entails destroying the Syrian air force, preferably on the ground, in the air if necessary. This is a violent combat action that results in lots of casualties and increased risk to our own personnel.”
  • In other words, an appeal for a “no-fly zone” is not a call for a non-violent solution. It is seeking a bloody act of war by the United States against Syria, a nation that poses no threat to America. It also would almost surely be carried out in violation of international law since a United Nations Security Council resolution would face vetoes from Russia and probably China. Also, the White Helmets have never criticized or called for the end of funding to extremist organizations including Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate. On the contrary, White Helmets are generally embedded with this organization which is defined as “terrorist” by even the U.S., which is likely why the head of the White Helmets, Raed Saleh, was denied entry to the U.S. The foreign and marketing company origins of the White Helmets were exposed over 1½ years ago – and since then, writer Vanessa Beeley has revealed the organization in more depth in articles such as “Who Are the White Helmets?” and “War by Way of Deception.”  Despite these exposés, understanding of the White Helmets is limited, with many liberal and progressive people uncritically accepting the propaganda and misinformation about Syria. Much of the progressive media has effectively blocked or censored critical examinations amid a flood of propaganda about “barrel bombs” dropped by the “brutal dictator” and his “regime.” 
  • In the last week, Netflix started showing a 40-minute documentary movie about the “White Helmets” that amounts to a promotional video. A substantial portion of it takes place in Turkey where we see trainees in hotel rooms making impassioned phone calls to inquire about their families in Syria.  The “family values” theme is evident throughout, a good marketing angle. The political message of the video is also clear: after a bombing attack, “It’s the Russians …. they say they are fighting ISIS but they are targeting civilians.” The movie includes video previously promoted by the White Helmets such as the “Miracle Baby” rescue, an incident that may or may not have been staged. The video includes self-promoting proclamations such as “You are real heroes.” While no doubt there are some real rescues in the midst of war, many of the videos purporting to show the heroes at work have an unrealistic and contrived look to them as revealed here.
  • “Alternative media” in the West has echoed mainstream media regarding the Syria conflict. The result is that many progressive individuals and groups are confused or worse. For example, the activist group CodePink recently issued a media release promoting the Netflix White Helmets propaganda video. 
  • The White Helmets video is produced by Grain Media and Violet Films/Ultra-Violet Consulting, which advertises itself as a marketing corporation specializing in social media management, grant writing, crowd building and campaign implementation. The only question is who paid them to produce this video.  There is growing resistance to this manipulation and deception. In response to a petition to give the Nobel Peace Prize to the White Helmets, there is a counter petition at Change.org. Following the Right Livelihood Awards’ announcement, there will soon be a petition demanding retraction of the award to the White Helmets. The story of the White Helmets is principally a “feel good” hoax to manipulate public perception about the conflict in Syria and continue the drive for “regime change.” That’s why big money was paid to “Purpose” to “incubate” The Syria Campaign to brand and promote the White Helmets using Facebook, Twitter, etc. That’s why more big money was paid to create a self-promotional documentary. 
  • The judges at Rights Livelihood were probably influenced by the documentary since critical examination of facts around Syria is so rare. It’s a sad commentary on the media. As veteran war correspondent Stephen Kinzer recently wrote, “Coverage of the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the American press.”
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How "Progressives" and the American "Left" are Failing Over Syria - 0 views

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36077.htm war & peace Syria U.S. WMD progressives
shared by Paul Merrell on 04 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • And because Obama’s attack on Syria followed Bush’s logic, you’d assume that liberal, progressive, and other Left groups would do what they did when Bush went to war: denounce it unconditionally and organize against it. But that’s not what happened. Because this didn’t happen, less accurate information was made available to the public, and fewer public mobilizations have occurred, thus re-enforcing Obama’s ability to wage an aggressive war.
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POLITICS | As It Ought to Be - 0 views

asitoughttobe.com/...politics Obama neocons banksters war & peace progressives
shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Unfortunately, we can only go so far with this before realizing that the laugh is also on us. For just as the establishment right and center got Iraq and the economy wrong, the establishment left was indulging in its own fantasy world, and it was one which is now coming to bite us on the proverbial ass, namely the fantasy of Barack Obama. Plenty of ink has been spilled in recent weeks about “misjudgments” which caused the left to swoon over a candidate who rejected virtually the entirety of what the left (by any reasonable definition) believes.  And even more anguish is caused by the grim reality that Obama is now acting on his deepest beliefs: expanding the war on terror, torpedoing banking reform, extending Bush tax cuts, while demanding fiscal austerity in the midst of what appears to be a second great depression.
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Feb 14
     
    The "progressive" left slowly awakes to the fact that Obama is a long-time corporatist neocon. This article points to those few pundits on the left who saw who Obama's constituency really was before he ran for President. 
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Remarks by President Obama in Address to the United Nations General Assembly | The Whit... - 0 views

www.whitehouse.gov/...nited-nations-general-assembly war & peace Obama-speech U.N. hypocrisy
shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Remarks by President Obama in Address to the United Nations General Assembly United Nations General Assembly Hall New York City, New York 10:13 A.M. EDT PRESIDENT OBAMA:  Mr. President, Mr. Secretary General, fellow delegates, ladies and gentlemen:  We come together at a crossroads between war and peace; between disorder and integration; between fear and hope. Around the globe, there are signposts of progress.  The shadow of World War that existed at the founding of this institution has been lifted, and the prospect of war between major powers reduced.  The ranks of member states has more than tripled, and more people live under governments they elected. Hundreds of millions of human beings have been freed from the prison of poverty, with the proportion of those living in extreme poverty cut in half.  And the world economy continues to strengthen after the worst financial crisis of our lives. 
  • And yet there is a pervasive unease in our world -- a sense that the very forces that have brought us together have created new dangers and made it difficult for any single nation to insulate itself from global forces.  As we gather here, an outbreak of Ebola overwhelms public health systems in West Africa and threatens to move rapidly across borders.  Russian aggression in Europe recalls the days when large nations trampled small ones in pursuit of territorial ambition.  The brutality of terrorists in Syria and Iraq forces us to look into the heart of darkness.
  • First, all of us -- big nations and small -- must meet our responsibility to observe and enforce international norms.  We are here because others realized that we gain more from cooperation than conquest. 
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  • Recently, Russia’s actions in Ukraine challenge this post-war order.  Here are the facts.  After the people of Ukraine mobilized popular protests and calls for reform, their corrupt president fled.  Against the will of the government in Kyiv, Crimea was annexed.  Russia poured arms into eastern Ukraine, fueling violent separatists and a conflict that has killed thousands.  When a civilian airliner was shot down from areas that these proxies controlled, they refused to allow access to the crash for days.  When Ukraine started to reassert control over its territory, Russia gave up the pretense of merely supporting the separatists, and moved troops across the border. This is a vision of the world in which might makes right -- a world in which one nation’s borders can be redrawn by another, and civilized people are not allowed to recover the remains of their loved ones because of the truth that might be revealed. America stands for something different.  We believe that right makes might -- that bigger nations should not be able to bully smaller ones, and that people should be able to choose their own future.
  • nd these are simple truths, but they must be defended. America and our allies will support the people of Ukraine as they develop their democracy and economy.  We will reinforce our NATO Allies and uphold our commitment to collective self-defense.  We will impose a cost on Russia for aggression, and we will counter falsehoods with the truth.  And we call upon others to join us on the right side of history -- for while small gains can be won at the barrel of a gun, they will ultimately be turned back if enough voices support the freedom of nations and peoples to make their own decisions. Moreover, a different path is available -- the path of diplomacy and peace, and the ideals this institution is designed to uphold.  The recent cease-fire agreement in Ukraine offers an opening to achieve those objectives.  If Russia takes that path -- a path that for stretches of the post-Cold War period resulted in prosperity for the Russian people -- then we will lift our sanctions and welcome Russia’s role in addressing common challenges.  After all, that’s what the United States and Russia have been able to do in past years -- from reducing our nuclear stockpiles to meeting our obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, to cooperating to remove and destroy Syria’s declared chemical weapons.  And that’s the kind of cooperation we are prepared to pursue again -- if Russia changes course. 
  • This speaks to a central question of our global age -- whether we will solve our problems together, in a spirit of mutual interest and mutual respect, or whether we descend into the destructive rivalries of the past.  When nations find common ground, not simply based on power, but on principle, then we can make enormous progress.  And I stand before you today committed to investing American strength to working with all nations to address the problems we face in the 21st century.
  • America is pursuing a diplomatic resolution to the Iranian nuclear issue, as part of our commitment to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and pursue the peace and security of a world without them.  And this can only take place if Iran seizes this historic opportunity.  My message to Iran’s leaders and people has been simple and consistent:  Do not let this opportunity pass.  We can reach a solution that meets your energy needs while assuring the world that your program is peaceful.  America is and will continue to be a Pacific power, promoting peace, stability, and the free flow of commerce among nations.  But we will insist that all nations abide by the rules of the road, and resolve their territorial disputes peacefully, consistent with international law. 
  • In other words, on issue after issue, we cannot rely on a rule book written for a different century.  If we lift our eyes beyond our borders -- if we think globally and if we act cooperatively -- we can shape the course of this century, as our predecessors shaped the post-World War II age.  But as we look to the future, one issue risks a cycle of conflict that could derail so much progress, and that is the cancer of violent extremism that has ravaged so many parts of the Muslim world. Of course, terrorism is not new.  Speaking before this Assembly, President Kennedy put it well:  “Terror is not a new weapon,” he said.  “Throughout history it has been used by those who could not prevail, either by persuasion or example.”  In the 20th century, terror was used by all manner of groups who failed to come to power through public support.  But in this century, we have faced a more lethal and ideological brand of terrorists who have perverted one of the world’s great religions.  With access to technology that allows small groups to do great harm, they have embraced a nightmarish vision that would divide the world into adherents and infidels -- killing as many innocent civilians as possible, employing the most brutal methods to intimidate people within their communities.
  • I have made it clear that America will not base our entire foreign policy on reacting to terrorism.  Instead, we’ve waged a focused campaign against al Qaeda and its associated forces -- taking out their leaders, denying them the safe havens they rely on.  At the same time, we have reaffirmed again and again that the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam.  Islam teaches peace.  Muslims the world over aspire to live with dignity and a sense of justice.  And when it comes to America and Islam, there is no us and them, there is only us -- because millions of Muslim Americans are part of the fabric of our country. So we reject any suggestion of a clash of civilizations. Belief in permanent religious war is the misguided refuge of extremists who cannot build or create anything, and therefore peddle only fanaticism and hate.  And it is no exaggeration to say that humanity’s future depends on us uniting against those who would divide us along the fault lines of tribe or sect, race or religion.
  • But this is not simply a matter of words.  Collectively, we must take concrete steps to address the danger posed by religiously motivated fanatics, and the trends that fuel their recruitment.  Moreover, this campaign against extremism goes beyond a narrow security challenge.  For while we’ve degraded methodically core al Qaeda and supported a transition to a sovereign Afghan government, extremist ideology has shifted to other places -- particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, where a quarter of young people have no job, where food and water could grow scarce, where corruption is rampant and sectarian conflicts have become increasingly hard to contain.   As an international community, we must meet this challenge with a focus on four areas.  First, the terrorist group known as ISIL must be degraded and ultimately destroyed.
  • The second:  It is time for the world -- especially Muslim communities -- to explicitly, forcefully, and consistently reject the ideology of organizations like al Qaeda and ISIL.
  • Later today, the Security Council will adopt a resolution that underscores the responsibility of states to counter violent extremism.  But resolutions must be followed by tangible commitments, so we’re accountable when we fall short.  Next year, we should all be prepared to announce the concrete steps that we have taken to counter extremist ideologies in our own countries -- by getting intolerance out of schools, stopping radicalization before it spreads, and promoting institutions and programs that build new bridges of understanding.
  • Third, we must address the cycle of conflict -- especially sectarian conflict -- that creates the conditions that terrorists prey upon.
  • The good news is we also see signs that this tide could be reversed.  We have a new, inclusive government in Baghdad; a new Iraqi Prime Minister welcomed by his neighbors; Lebanese factions rejecting those who try to provoke war.  And these steps must be followed by a broader truce.  Nowhere is this more necessary than Syria.  Together with our partners, America is training and equipping the Syrian opposition to be a counterweight to the terrorists of ISIL and the brutality of the Assad regime.  But the only lasting solution to Syria’s civil war is political -- an inclusive political transition that responds to the legitimate aspirations of all Syrian citizens, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of creed.
  • My fourth and final point is a simple one:  The countries of the Arab and Muslim world must focus on the extraordinary potential of their people -- especially the youth.
  • We recognize as well that leadership will be necessary to address the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis.  As bleak as the landscape appears, America will not give up on the pursuit of peace.  Understand, the situation in Iraq and Syria and Libya should cure anybody of the illusion that the Arab-Israeli conflict is the main source of problems in the region.  For far too long, that's been used as an excuse to distract people from problems at home.  The violence engulfing the region today has made too many Israelis ready to abandon the hard work of peace.  And that's something worthy of reflection within Israel.
  • Because let’s be clear:  The status quo in the West Bank and Gaza is not sustainable.  We cannot afford to turn away from this effort -- not when rockets are fired at innocent Israelis, or the lives of so many Palestinian children are taken from us in Gaza. So long as I am President, we will stand up for the principle that Israelis, Palestinians, the region and the world will be more just and more safe with two states living side by side, in peace and security. So this is what America is prepared to do:  Taking action against immediate threats, while pursuing a world in which the need for such action is diminished.  The United States will never shy away from defending our interests, but we will also not shy away from the promise of this institution and its Universal Declaration of Human Rights -- the notion that peace is not merely the absence of war, but the presence of a better life. 
  • Paul Merrell on 24 Sep 14
     
    Epic hypocrisy. He bows to international law while waging multiple wars in direct defiance of it. And that's just in the first few paragraphs. It gets worse the farther he gets in his speech.
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How the NSA Converts Spoken Words Into Searchable Text - The Intercept - 0 views

firstlook.org/...nition-snowden-searchable-text surveillance state NSA voice-to-text search
shared by Paul Merrell on 07 May 15 - No Cached
  • Most people realize that emails and other digital communications they once considered private can now become part of their permanent record. But even as they increasingly use apps that understand what they say, most people don’t realize that the words they speak are not so private anymore, either. Top-secret documents from the archive of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden show the National Security Agency can now automatically recognize the content within phone calls by creating rough transcripts and phonetic representations that can be easily searched and stored. The documents show NSA analysts celebrating the development of what they called “Google for Voice” nearly a decade ago.
  • Most people realize that emails and other digital communications they once considered private can now become part of their permanent record. But even as they increasingly use apps that understand what they say, most people don’t realize that the words they speak are not so private anymore, either. Top-secret documents from the archive of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden show the National Security Agency can now automatically recognize the content within phone calls by creating rough transcripts and phonetic representations that can be easily searched and stored. The documents show NSA analysts celebrating the development of what they called “Google for Voice” nearly a decade ago.
  • Though perfect transcription of natural conversation apparently remains the Intelligence Community’s “holy grail,” the Snowden documents describe extensive use of keyword searching as well as computer programs designed to analyze and “extract” the content of voice conversations, and even use sophisticated algorithms to flag conversations of interest. The documents include vivid examples of the use of speech recognition in war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in Latin America. But they leave unclear exactly how widely the spy agency uses this ability, particularly in programs that pick up considerable amounts of conversations that include people who live in or are citizens of the United States.
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  • The Defense Department, through its Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), started funding academic and commercial research into speech recognition in the early 1970s. What emerged were several systems to turn speech into text, all of which slowly but gradually improved as they were able to work with more data and at faster speeds. In a brief interview, Dan Kaufman, director of DARPA’s Information Innovation Office, indicated that the government’s ability to automate transcription is still limited. Kaufman says that automated transcription of phone conversation is “super hard,” because “there’s a lot of noise on the signal” and “it’s informal as hell.”
  • A 2008 document from the Snowden archive shows that  transcribing news broadcasts was already working well seven years ago, using a program called Enhanced Video Text and Audio Processing: (U//FOUO) EViTAP is a fully-automated news monitoring tool. The key feature of this Intelink-SBU-hosted tool is that it analyzes news in six languages, including Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Spanish, English, and Farsi/Persian. “How does it work?” you may ask. It integrates Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) which provides transcripts of the spoken audio. Next, machine translation of the ASR transcript translates the native language transcript to English. Voila! Technology is amazing. A version of the system the NSA uses is now even available commercially.
  • But even then, a newer, more sophisticated product was already being rolled out by the NSA’s Human Language Technology (HLT) program office. The new system, called VoiceRT, was first introduced in Baghdad, and “designed to index and tag 1 million cuts per day.” The goal, according to another 2006 memo, was to use voice processing technology to be able “index, tag and graph,” all intercepted communications. “Using HLT services, a single analyst will be able to sort through millions of cuts per day and focus on only the small percentage that is relevant,” the memo states. A 2009 memo from the NSA’s British partner, GCHQ, describes how “NSA have had the BBN speech-to-text system Byblos running at Fort Meade for at least 10 years. (Initially they also had Dragon.) During this period they have invested heavily in producing their own corpora of transcribed Sigint in both American English and an increasing range of other languages.” (GCHQ also noted that it had its own small corpora of transcribed voice communications, most of which happened to be “Northern Irish accented speech.”)
  • According to a 2011 memo, “How is Human Language Technology (HLT) Progressing?“, NSA that year deployed “HLT Labs” to Afghanistan, NSA facilities in Texas and Georgia, and listening posts in Latin America run by the Special Collection Service, a joint NSA/CIA unit that operates out of embassies and other locations. “Spanish is the most mature of our speech-to-text analytics,” the memo says, noting that the NSA and its Special Collections Service sites in Latin America, have had “great success searching for Spanish keywords.”
  • The Snowden archive, as searched and analyzed by The Intercept, documents extensive use of speech-to-text by the NSA to search through international voice intercepts — particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Mexico and Latin America. For example, speech-to-text was a key but previously unheralded element of the sophisticated analytical program known as the Real Time Regional Gateway (RTRG), which started in 2005 when newly appointed NSA chief Keith B. Alexander, according to the Washington Post, “wanted everything: Every Iraqi text message, phone call and e-mail that could be vacuumed up by the agency’s powerful computers.” The Real Time Regional Gateway was credited with playing a role in “breaking up Iraqi insurgent networks and significantly reducing the monthly death toll from improvised explosive devices.” The indexing and searching of “voice cuts” was deployed to Iraq in 2006. By 2008, RTRG was operational in Afghanistan as well.
  • VoiceRT, in turn, was surpassed a few years after its launch. According to the intelligence community’s “Black Budget” for fiscal year 2013, VoiceRT was decommissioned and replaced in 2011 and 2012, so that by 2013, NSA could operationalize a new system. This system, apparently called SPIRITFIRE, could handle more data, faster. SPIRITFIRE would be “a more robust voice processing capability based on speech-to-text keyword search and paired dialogue transcription.”
  • What’s less clear from the archive is how extensively this capability is used to transcribe or otherwise index and search voice conversations that primarily involve what the NSA terms “U.S. persons.” The NSA did not answer a series of detailed questions about automated speech recognition, even though an NSA “classification guide” that is part of the Snowden archive explicitly states that “The fact that NSA/CSS has created HLT models” for speech-to-text processing as well as gender, language and voice recognition, is “UNCLASSIFIED.”
  • Also unclassified: The fact that the processing can sort and prioritize audio files for human linguists, and that the statistical models are regularly being improved and updated based on actual intercepts. By contrast, because they’ve been tuned using actual intercepts, the specific parameters of the systems are highly classified.
  • The presidentially appointed but independent Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) didn’t mention speech-to-text technology in its public reports. “I’m not going to get into whether any program does or does not have that capability,” PCLOB chairman David Medine told The Intercept. His board’s reports, he said, contained only information that the intelligence community agreed could be declassified.
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The Liberal Apologies for Obama's Ugly Reign » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts,... - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...pologies-for-obamas-ugly-reign Auction 2016 Obaba-apologists Hillary Progressives banksters
shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Jun 15 - No Cached
  • My favorite story indicating the depth and degree of Obama’s loyalty to the wealthy Few comes from the spring of 2009. In his important book Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President (2011), the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind tells a remarkable story from March of 2009. Three months into Barack Obama’s supposedly progressive, left-leaning presidency, popular anger at Wall Street was intense and the nation’s leading financial institutions were weak and on the defensive in the wake of the financial collapse and recession they had created. The new president called a meeting of the nation’s top 13 financial executives at the White House. The banking titans came into the meeting full of dread. As Suskind noted: “They were the CEOs of the thirteen largest banking institutions in the United States… And they were nervous in ways that these men are never nervous. Many would have had to reach back to their college days, or even grade school, to remember a moment when they felt this sort of lump-in-the-throat tension…As some of the most successful men in the country, they weren’t used to being pariahs… [and] they were indeed pariahs. The populist backlash against the financial sector—building steadily since September—was finally beginning to cause grave discomfort on Wall Street. As unemployment ballooned and credit tightened, the country began to look inward, toward the origins of the panic and its disastrous consequences.”
  • In the end, however, the anxious captains of high finance left the meeting pleased to learn that Obama was totally in their camp. For instead of standing up for those who had been harmed most by the crisis—workers, minorities, and the poor – Obama sided unequivocally with those who had caused the meltdown. “My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks,” Obama said. “You guys have an acute public relations problem that’s turning into a political problem. And I want to help…I’m not here to go after you. I’m protecting you…. I’m going to shield you from congressional and public anger.” For the banking elite who destroyed millions of jobs in their lust for profit, there was, as Suskind puts it, “Nothing to worry about. Whereas [President Franklin Delano] Roosevelt had [during the Great Depression] pushed for tough, viciously opposed reforms of Wall Street and famously said ‘I welcome their hate,’ Obama was saying ‘How can I help?’” As one leading banker told Suskind, “The sense of everyone after the meeting was relief. The president had us at a moment of real vulnerability. At that point, he could have ordered us to do just about anything and we would have rolled over. But he didn’t – he mostly wanted to help us out, to quell the mob.” When “the bankers arrived in the State Dining Room,” Suskind notes, “Obama had them scared and ready to do almost anything he said…. An hour later, they were upbeat, ready to fly home and commence business as usual” (Confidence Men).
  • This remarkable episode happened in the White House in a time when, to repeat, the Democrats held the majority in both houses of Congress along with an angry populace ready with good reason for Wall Street and 1% blood. And what did the populace get from this seemingly progressive alignment of the stars? The venerable left liberal journalist William Grieder put it very well in a March 2009 Washington Post Op-Ed: “a blunt lesson about power, who has it and who doesn’t.” Americans “watched Washington rush to rescue the very financial interests that caused the catastrophe. They learned that government has plenty of money to spend when the right people want it. ‘Where’s my bailout,’ became the rueful punch line at lunch counters and construction sites nationwide. Then to deepen the insult, people watched as establishment forces re-launched their campaign for ‘entitlement reform’ – a euphemism for whacking Social Security benefits, Medicare and Medicaid.”
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The Dynastic Hillary Bandwagon » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...the-dynastic-hillary-bandwagon Auction 2016 Hillary Nader Soros Obama nepotism dynasties
shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • by RALPH NADER The Hillary Clinton for President in 2016 bandwagon has started very early and with a purpose. The idea is to get large numbers of endorsers, so that no Democratic Primary competitors dare make a move. These supporters include Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), financier George Soros and Ready for Hillary, a super PAC mobilizing with great specificity (already in Iowa). Given this early bird launch, it is important to raise the pressing question: Does the future of our country benefit from Hillary, another Clinton, another politician almost indistinguishable from Barack Obama’s militaristic, corporatist policies garnished by big money donors from Wall Street and other plutocratic canyons? There is no doubt the Clintons are syrupy political charmers, beguiling many naïve Democrats who have long been vulnerable to a practiced set of comforting words or phrases camouflaging contrary deeds.
  • Many Wall Streeters like Hillary Clinton. Expecting their ample contributions, and socializing with their business barons, it is not surprising that Hillary Clinton avoids going after the crooked casino capitalism that collapsed the economy, drained investors, pensions, jobs and taxpayer bailouts. Hillary Clinton is a far cry from the stalwart Senator Elizabeth Warren on this towering pattern of unaccountable corporate abuse.
  • A Clinton Coronation two years or more before the 2016 elections will stifle any broader choice of competitive primary candidates and more important a more progressive agenda supported by a majority of the American people.
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  • Maybe the sugarcoating is starting to wear. Columnist Frank Bruni, writing in the New York Times (Hillary in 2016? Not so Fast), reports her polls are starting to slump. Apparently, as Bruni suggests, she’s being seen as part of the old Washington crowd that voters are souring on. As I wrote to Hillary Clinton in early summer 2008, when calls were made by Obama partisans for her to drop out, no one should be told not to run. That’s everyone’s First Amendment right. However, not voting for her is the prudent decision.
  • Paul Merrell on 11 Nov 13
     
    Nice rundown by Ralph Nader of Hillary Clinton's many sins against the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party base. On the Clinton dynasty issue, Nader might have noted that daughter Chelsea married a former Goldman Sachs bankster in 2010, now a partner in a hedge fund. Chelsea for President in Auction 2020?
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General Reports Progress in Inherent Resolve Operations > U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE > ... - 0 views

www.defense.gov/...in-inherent-resolve-operations war & peace Syria ISIL mustard-gas WMD
shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Aug 15 - No Cached
  • The Iraq Security Forces are making daily progress in Ramadi during a difficult counterattack against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the chief of staff of Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve said today. Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Killea, briefed the press here on operations in Iraq and Syria and ongoing discussions with Turkey about their support in the campaign against ISIL.
  • Killea also provided an update on the Aug. 11 mortar attack against the Kurdish Peshmerga that, according to press reports, involved a chemical agent. Preliminary field tests show the presence of sulfur mustard, he confirmed, but full testing will take a few more weeks. In the meantime, forces in Iraq and Syria “really don't need another reason to hunt down ISIL and kill them wherever we can and whenever we can,” Killea said. But, he added, any indication of the use of a warfare agent reinforces the coalition position that ISIL is an abhorrent group that will kill indiscriminately without a moral or legal code or restraint. A couple of days after the attack, Killea said, “we were able to … take fragments from some of those mortar rounds and do a presumptive field test on those fragments and they showed the presence of HD, or what is known as sulfur mustard. That is a class-one chemical agent.” Such a presumptive test is not conclusive, he added, and the results indicate only the presence of that chemical. “It doesn't tell us anything more than that. So it is going to take us a couple of weeks to do the full testing on those fragments to figure out what was contained in or on those mortar rounds before we make a determination on exactly what it was, potentially how much it was and maybe even where it came from,” the general said.
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The Left Ought to Worry About Hillary Clinton, Hawk and Militarist, in 2016 | The Nation - 0 views

www.thenation.com/...inton-hawk-and-militarist-2016 Auction 2016 war war & peace Hillary
shared by Paul Merrell on 28 May 14 - No Cached
  • When it comes to Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy, start first by disentangling the nonsense about Benghazi—a nonexistent scandal if ever there was one—from the broader palette of Clinton’s own, relatively hawkish views. As she consolidates her position as the expected nominee in 2016, with wide leads over all the likely GOP challengers, it ought to worry progressives that the next president of the United States is likely to be much more hawkish than the current one. Expect to be deluged, in the next few weeks, with news about Hard Choices, the memoir of her years as secretary of state under President Obama, to be released June 10. But we don’t need a memoir to know that, comparatively speaking, two things can be said about her tenure at the State Department: first, that in fact she accomplished very little; and second, that both before her appointment and during her service, she consistently came down on the hawkish side of debates inside the administration, from Afghanistan to Libya and Syria. She’s also taken a more hawkish line than Obama on Ukraine and the confrontation with Russia.
  • Commentators were observing that in an administration where all power and decision making were gravitating toward the White House, Clinton and I represented the only independent “power center”, not least because…we were both seen as “unfire-able.” [page 289] Gates confirms that he and Clinton lined up with the hawks against the doves on Afghanistan
  • In the brief excerpt that’s been released by her publisher, Clinton notes that as secretary of state she “ended up visiting 112 countries and traveling nearly one million miles.” But what, if anything, did she accomplish with all that to-ing and fro-ing? Not a lot. She largely avoided the Israel-Palestine tangle, perhaps because she didn’t want to risk crossing the Israel lobby at home, and it’s hard to see what she actually did, other than to promote the education and empowerment of girls and women in places where they are severely beaten down. And, while it’s wrong (and really silly) to call Clinton a neoconservative, she’s more of—how to put it?—a “right-wing realist” on foreign policy, who often backed military intervention as a first or second resort, while others in the White House—especially Obama’s national security staff and Vice President Biden’s own aides, were far more reluctant to employ the troops. In that vein, it’s useful to explore the memoirs of Robert Gates, who was secretary of defense under George W. Bush and then, inexplicably, under President Obama, too. In Duty: Memoir of a Secretary at War (which could also be the subtitle of Clinton’s own memoir), Gates says several times that he and Clinton saw eye to eye. (This has also been extensively documented by Bob Woodward, if more narrowly focused, in his 2010 book, Obama’s Wars.) In Duty, Gates says that he formed an alliance with Clinton because both he and her had independent power bases and were, in his words, “un-fireable”
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  • And Gates says that on the crucial decision to escalate the Afghan war in 2009 and then to slow the drawdown in 2010, he and Clinton were on the same side:
  • Paul Merrell on 28 May 14
     
    Criticism of Hillary from the progressive side: even more prone to use military intervention than Obama and pro-military/industrial complex, with some evidence to back those classifications. The problem, of course, is that public wishes bedamned, both the Republicans and Democrats will select candidates representing the War Party then present the choice of evils as their campaign theme. Either way, the War Party wins unless a winning third party candidate miraculously emerges. Such is the state of democracy in the American republic.   
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Russia: With Progress On Nuclear Program, Iran Could Join SCO | EurasiaNet.org - 0 views

www.eurasianet.org/72336 Iran Russia SCO membership de-dollarization
shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Iran may be admitted into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization this summer if it makes progress in resolving disputes over its nuclear program, Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, has said. It already seems clear that India and Pakistan, who have both long sought SCO membership, will be admitted at the organization's summit this July in Ufa, Russia. Iran -- which also has been trying for years to enter the SCO -- has been hampered by the fact that it is under international sanctions related to its nuclear program.  But when a senior Iranian official, Ali Akbar Velayati, visited Moscow in late January, he reportedly gained the Kremlin's approval for SCO membership. "Velayati’s Moscow trip might signal that some kind of a significant change in relations is about to take place. Iran’s Mehr News reported that in Moscow, Velayati was able to secure Putin’s approval for Iran to 'upgrade its status' in the SCO," noted regional analyst Alex Vatanka. "As an observer state in SCO, Iran has since 2005 unsuccessfully sought to obtain full membership in the organization, but perhaps the Russians are about to entertain the idea of Tehran joining the alliance. Along these lines, the state-run Iranian media have been busy hyping the prospects of an SCO membership for Iran."
  • n comments made Febrary 27, Lavrov elaborated on Iran's SCO prospects, and tied them directly to the nuclear program. "We are preparing to host the SCO summit in Ufa whose participants will discuss ways to deepen and flesh out cooperation projects in the SCO. The issue of expanding the SCO will also be on the agenda," he said. "I hope that progress in resolving the Iranian nuclear problem will allow us to consider this application as well. The SCO accession process is rather lengthy. A prospective member country will have to sign and ratify 20-30 SCO documents. But there is every reason to believe that a political decision on launching the SCO expansion process will be made in Ufa. We have reached consensus on this issue with our Chinese colleagues and other members of the Organisation." Iran is currently negotiating with six world powers, including Russia and China, on a deal on its nuclear program. One wonders if SCO membership is one of the carrots being dangled in front of Tehran?
  • In any case, Iran's Fars news agency welcomed Lavrov's comments, and promoted the SCO in somewhat more aggressive, anti-American terms than China and Russia normally do: "As it stands, the SCO has started to counterbalance the US role in Asia. The organization is strengthening because the American policy towards Asia has been excessively tough and is aimed at suppressing their interests," the agency reported. "By giving green light to the admission of [new members], the SCO shows that it is organizationally developing and capable of upgrading itself and rejecting exhausted norms. Russia actively supports Iran’s membership because it will give a new lease of life to the most powerful organization in Eurasia, turning it into the center of power in global politics."
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Hillary Clinton, With Little Notice, Vows to Embrace an Extremist Agenda on Israel - 0 views

theintercept.com/...-an-extremist-agenda-on-israel Auction 2016 Greenwald Hillary Israel-lobby
shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • Photo: Alex Brandon/APFormer President Bill Clinton on Monday met in secret (no press allowed) with roughly 100 leaders of South Florida’s Jewish community, and, as the Times of Israel reports, “He vowed that, if elected, Hillary Clinton would make it one of her top priorities to strengthen the U.S.-Israel alliance.” He also “stressed the close bond that he and his wife have with the State of Israel.” It may be tempting to dismiss this as standard, vapid Clintonian politicking: adeptly telling everyone what they want to hear and making them believe it. After all, is it even physically possible to “strengthen the U.S.-Israel alliance” beyond what it already entails: billions of dollars in American taxpayer money transferred every year, sophisticated weapons fed to Israel as it bombs its defenseless neighbors, blindly loyal diplomatic support and protection for everything it does? But Bill Clinton’s vow of even greater support for Israel is completely consistent with what Hillary Clinton herself has been telling American Jewish audiences for months. In November, she published an op-ed in The Forward in which she vowed to strengthen relations not only with Israel, but also with its extremist prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
  • Her comments on Israel have similarly contained implicit criticisms of Obama’s foreign policy: namely, that he has created or at least allowed too much animosity with Netanyahu. In her Forward op-ed, she wrote that the Israeli prime minister’s “upcoming visit to Washington is an opportunity to reaffirm the unbreakable bonds of friendship and unity between the people and governments of the United States and Israel.” She pointedly added: “The alliance between our two nations transcends politics. It is and should always be a commitment that unites us, not a wedge that divides us.” And in case her message is unclear, she added this campaign promise: “I would also invite the Israeli prime minister to the White House in my first month in office.” Last month, Clinton wrote an even more extreme op-ed in the Jewish Journal, one that made even clearer that she intends to change Obama’s policy to make it even more “pro-Israel.” It begins: “In this time of terrorism and turmoil, the alliance between the United States and Israel is more important than ever. To meet the many challenges we face, we have to take our relationship to the next level.”
  • “With every passing year, we must tie the bonds tighter,” she wrote. Tie those bonds tighter. Thus: As part of this effort, we need to ensure that Israel continues to maintain its qualitative military edge. The United States should further bolster Israeli air defenses and help develop better tunnel detection technology to prevent arms smuggling and kidnapping. We should also expand high-level U.S.-Israel strategic consultations. As always, there is not a word about the oppression and brutality imposed on Palestinians as part of Israel’s decadeslong occupation. She does not even acknowledge, let alone express opposition to, Israel’s repeated, civilian-slaughtering bombing of the open-air prison in Gaza. That’s because for Clinton — like the progressive establishment that supports her — the suffering and violence imposed on Palestinians literally do not exist. None of this is mentioned, even in passing, in the endless parade of pro-Clinton articles pouring forth from progressive media outlets.
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  • Clinton partisans — being Clinton partisans — would, if they ever did deign to address Israel/Palestine, undoubtedly justify Clinton’s hawkishness on the ground of political necessity: that she could never win if she did not demonstrate steadfast devotion to the Israeli government. But for all his foreign policy excesses, including on Israel, Obama has proven that a national politician can be at least mildly more adversarial to Israeli leaders and still retain support. And notably, there is at least one politician who rejects the view that one must cling to standard pro-Israel orthodoxy in order to win; just yesterday, Donald Trump vowed “neutrality” on Israel/Palestine. As I noted a couple of weeks ago, Clinton advocates are understandably desperate to manufacture the most trivial controversies because the alternative is to defend her candidacy based on her prior actions and current beliefs (that tactic was actually pioneered by then-Clinton operative Dick Morris, who had his client turn the 1996 election into a discussion of profound topics such as school uniforms). If you were a pro-Clinton progressive, would you want to defend her continuous vows to “strengthen” U.S. support for the Netanyahu government and ensure that every year “we must tie the bonds tighter”?
  • Paul Merrell on 20 Feb 16
     
    Glen Greenwald (a Jew) tackles Hillary's promise to increase support for Israel's right-wing government, at the expense of Palestinian liberty. With friends like Israel, who needs enemies?
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Senate Democrats Pushed for IRS Tea Party Snooping Before Criticizing It - Brian Walsh ... - 0 views

www.usnews.com/...snooping-before-criticizing-it IRS IRS-gate
shared by Gary Edwards on 15 May 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 15 May 13
     
    Democrats caught red handed pushing the IRS to audit, harass and delay efforts to establish Constitutional Patriot and Jewish Homeland non profit groups.   The Democrats political efforts behind the IRS's blatant violation of these American citizens 4th Amendment Right to organize and assemble dates back to the 2009 Supreme Court decision known as "Citizens United". In "Citizens Untied", the court ruled that corporations are people, and thus are entitled to 1st Amendment Rights.  Including full participation and monetary contributions in political campaigns. this ruling was further confirmed when the Supreme Court overturned a century old Montana Law prohibiting corporate spending in that State's elections.   The "Citizens United" ruling so upset Obama and the Socialist Party that he publicly scolded the Supreme Court justices during a State of the Union address.  The Progressives rightfully feared that corporations would ppour "unregulated independent expenditures" into newly formed Tea Party Patriot based non profits.  Unable to overturn Citizens United, the Dems called on the IRS and a host of other government bureaucracies to block, harass and slow down the funding of their political opposition. this article exposes the same Dem clowns who are now crying foul as the same tyrants who kicked off the IRS led effort to slow down the Tea Party Patriot opposition movement.   How the Jewish Homeland groups got into the IRS gun sights is still a mystery, but one thing is known:  With the election of Obama in 2008, the IRS moved from targeting non profit Muslim Groups as possible terrorist funding organizations, to targeting Tea Party Patriot movements.  Maybe that's also when they took on Jewish Homeland groups?  excerpt: "With Washington gripped by a trio of exploding scandals this week - from Benghazi to government spying on news outlets to thug tactics by the Internal Revenue Service - Senate Democrats seem to be hoping that if they just yell lou
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HBL - The Harry Binswanger List - 0 views

www.hblist.com/specifics.htm Harry-Binswanger Ayn-Rand-Libertarian Principles-and-Specifics 2012-elections
shared by Gary Edwards on 04 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 04 Jan 13
     
    WOW!  Renown Ayn Rand expert, Harry Binswanger, discusses the 2012 election big media accusation that Romney is "short on specifics".  (Not that Obama ever provided anything close to a specific explanation, but there it is.)  In his discussion, Harry describes exactly how to present "principles" that then can be easily connected to "specifics".   Incredible read. excerpt: "Here's a sample of what an ideal candidate would say, first in terms of principles: "The only proper function of government is to protect individual rights, and the only way rights can be violated is by the initiation of physical force. Under my administration, we will return to the original American system in which the government uses its physical force only in retaliation against those who initiate its use in violation of individual rights. The fundamental right is the right to life, and its corollaries include the right to private property, without which no other rights are possible." He could then go on to name policy goals that represent mid-level abstractions: "Entitlement programs are the initiation of force; they seize the property of some to provide unearned benefits to others. This is immoral; it is a legalized equivalent of theft. Thus, I will drastically cut entitlement spending-whether "discretionary" or not. Another area of initiated government force is regulation. Regulation by its nature is preventive law, interfering with the lives of the innocent in order to (supposedly) prevent the guilty from acting. This is force initiated against the innocent, so I will drastically cut the number and scope of regulations over the same 4 years." Now the real fun comes when, having established this context, he gets to specifics: "My first budget will cut funds for all departments, except Defense, to 15% below what they received the previous year. This is an across-the-board cut, not something to become the subject of infighting among departments. Then in my next budget I will cut 15%
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