In 2008, the United States approved an Israeli request for bunker-busters capable of destroying underground facilities, including Iranian nuclear weapons sites. Officials said delivery of the weapons was held up by the administration of President Barack Obama.
Since taking office, Obama has refused to approve any major Israeli requests for U.S. weapons platforms or advanced systems. Officials said this included proposed Israeli procurement of AH-64D Apache attack helicopters, refueling systems, advanced munitions and data on a stealth variant of the F-15E.
"All signs indicate that this will continue in 2010," a congressional source familiar with the Israeli military requests said. "This is really an embargo, but nobody talks about it publicly."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Bob Gleanter3083 ||
03/19/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Sounds like a French business development opportunity to me.
What accounts for the relentless drive to ram ObamaCare through every procedural obstacle, regardless of the political cost? Ideological zeal, from Obama himself above all, is part of the explanation, but it isn't sufficient. One can, after all, be ideologically committed to a goal without falling into a self-defeating obsession.
There seems to be an emotional desperation at work here. The legislative success of ObamaCare has become so tied up with Obama's sense of himself that he feels he must push ahead--and to some extent, the leaders in Congress feel the same way. Obama is not the calm rationalist he seemed during the campaign. But while there's a place for passion in politics, to be governed by a politician who fails to govern his passions is a frightening and creepy experience.
But should we be surprised? This was the candidate who created a cult of personality, who told us he represented the "New Politics," who was going to eschew politics-as-usual, and who would be post-partisan, post-racial, and post-ideological. Now he's a handful of votes away from a humiliating defeat. No wonder it's desperation time. His possible failure would not be a mere political failure; it would be the obliteration of his own mythology.
Should he squeak it out, Obama's "victory" would come with a heavy price. Gone is the image of a policy sophisticate (try watching that Bret Baier interview a few times without wincing). Gone is the "moderate" moniker. And gone is the notion that he'd usher in a new era of less contentious and less corrupt politics. (It's a new era, perhaps, but hardly a better one.) There is no mistaking now the depth of the campaign deception. The public has figured out what he is all about. And increasingly, they dislike what they see.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/19/2010 09:12 ||
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As fascist as he is, Soetoro approaches things more like a Lenin than a Mussolini.
Mussolini was imbued with the Cesarian tradition hence the white horse and all the military trappings. Lenin was the leader of the Party he had no desire to show himself as a military leader. As long as the party had total control he didn't care particularly about the military or its trappings.
That's Zero. He does not see the need for the military to directly oppress the masses. He will do that with regulations and edicts and decrees using the various police forces (IRS, FBI, INS, etc.) to enforce his will.
Until the people rise to take back their liberty by force this will be a bloodless "coup of the bureaucrats and lawyers". I have heard too many people who don't care about any of this as long as they aren't directly AND NOTICEABLY effected. Increasing prices on everything due to fees, taxes and regulations are not noticeable to the proles.
#3
Obama is not the calm rationalist he seemed during the campaign.
I find this statement's main assumption misleading. Many of his ideas were irrational. He is merely a "calm irrationalist", and too many people bought it. Hook, line, and sinker. I don't know why they bought it, but they did. Maybe it was panic setting in at the start of this depression, sorta like the kind that led to Hitler being installed when he promised to fix their broken economy and restore nationalistic pride.
I looked at Obama during the Campaign. And I listened to him. My judgment then and my judgment now is: "He's a Mouth."
I liked George Bush. We all have faults, but George W. was very Texas. W was someone I felt sure would stand his ground and had principles he wouldnt deny or betray.And he MEANT what he said even if he mangled the words. I trusted the MAN.
Obama is a Mouth.
Obama is a Mouth...and the people who voted for him are delusional suckers.
#12
PRES-YEAR 2012 POTUS BAMMER TERM > Besides serious Congressional, Mainstream resistance agz His POTUS legislations back home, the Bammer also has ISRAELI-ARAB/MUSLIM FLASHPOINT OVER AL-AQSA MOSQUE CONTRUX, ISRAELI-IRAN WAR THREAT, + NEW ISLAMIST, OTHER INSURGENCIES BREAKING OUT IN AFRICA + SOUTH ASIA [Cold War-style Radic Islam "attacking where the US = US-NATO/ALLIES are NOT]. There's also IRAN threatening to expand its NucEnrichment + produc "DUAL-USE" CAPABLE CHINESE, NORTH KOREAN LR + TAC MISSLES.
I'M NOT CONVINCED THE HEALTHCARE BILL WAS THE BAMMER'S SOLE REASON FOR CANCELING HIS ASIA-GUAM TRIP UNTIL THIS JUNE.
* US-JAPAN ROW oer OKINAWA MARINE BASES > Many Japanese want ALL US BASES out of Japan, not just Okinawa, but Tokyo Govt [also includ TAIWAN] wants the US Bases to stay as hedge agz China = until such time Japan is trusted and legally allowed to possess its own STRATEGIC NUCLEAR ARENAL, which China + other regional Asian Nations don't want to see occur.
E. g. WMF > JAPAN'S 200-MILE EEZ ZONE AROUND THE RYUKYU ISLANDS INDIRECTLY GUARANTEES JAPANESE MILITARY PROTECTION OF TAIWAN [+ SOUTH KOREA], AND OBSTRUCTS CHINA'S PLAN FROM ENTERING THE NORTH PACIFIC.
INTEHWESTING > Before WW2, the US chose to NOT fortify GUAM [+ Philippines] out of fear of further harming US-JAPANESE RELATIONS, a fear which did NOT stop Japan from dev its MAJOR BASES IN MICRONESIA. Now, vee CHINA, "ISLANDS" are at the crux of GEOPOL INSECURITY IN THE NORTH PACIFIC.
GUAM-CNMI-MICRON, + NON-US ISLANDS DEEMED BY MISC PERTS AS BEING GEOLOGICALLY PART OF THE MARIANAS???
To defeat the US ala TAIWAN [or even KOREAS, SOUTH CHINA SEAS, ETC], CHINA MUST MILITARILY OR GEOPOL DEFEAT THE US IN GUAM-WESTPAC + AS FAR AWAY AS HAWAII IFF NEED BE.
#13
CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > CHAIRMAN MAO, WHAT DO YOU THINK - "PEOPLE'S WAR" IN THE 21ST CENTURY!?
and
SAME > THE PANICKY EAGLE CIRCLES THE DRAGON: US POLICY DEMANDS THAT THE CHINESE PEOPLE BE KEPT POOR. Rising China = the ECON TRUBLED, WEAKENING USA must find a way to either DESTROY CHINA'S RISE, or else SLOW IT TO A DEBILITAING CRAWL???
* WMF > CHINA'S FOREIGN SECRET FRONT AGZ THE US: A LARGE NUMBER OF ASIAN NATIONS STRATEGICALLY OR TACITLY SUPPORTED BY CHINA.
Excuse me, but it is embarrassingreally, embarrassing to our countrythat the president of the United States has again put off a state visit to Australia and Indonesia because he's having trouble passing a piece of domestic legislation he's been promising for a year will be passed next week. What an air of chaos this signals to the world. And to do this to Australia of all countries, a nation that has always had America's back and been America's friend.
How bush league, how undisciplined, how kid's stuff.
You could see the startled looks on the faces of reporters as Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, who had the grace to look embarrassed, made the announcement on Thursday afternoon. The president "regrets the delay"the trip is rescheduled for Junebut "passage of the health insurance reform is of paramount importance." Indonesia must be glad to know it's not....
Thursday's decision followed the most revealing and important broadcast interview of Barack Obama ever. It revealed his primary weakness in speaking of health care, which is a tendency to dodge, obfuscate and mislead. He grows testy when challenged. It revealed what the president doesn't want revealed, which is that he doesn't want to reveal much about his plan. This furtiveness is not helpful in a time of high public anxiety. At any rate, the interview was what such interviews rarely are, a public service. That it occurred at a high-stakes time, with so much on the line, only made it more electric.
I'm speaking of the interview Wednesday on Fox News Channel's "Special Report With Bret Baier."...
...the Baier interview was something, and right from the beginning. Mr. Baier's first question was whether the president supports the so-called Slaughter rule, alternatively known as "deem and pass," which would avoid a straight up-or-down House vote on the Senate bill. (Tunku Varadarajan in the Daily Beast cleverly notes that it sounds like "demon pass," which it does. Maybe that's the juncture we're at.) Mr. Obama, in his response, made the usual case for ObamaCare. Mr. Baier pressed him. The president said, "The vote that's taken in the House will be a vote for health-care reform." We shouldn't, he added, concern ourselves with "the procedural issues."
Further in, Mr. Baier: "So you support the deem-and-pass rule?" From the president, obfuscation. But he did mention something new: "They may have to sequence the votes." The bill's opponents would be well advised to look into that one.
Mr. Baier again: So you'll go deem-and-pass and you don't know exactly what will be in the bill?
Mr. Obama's response: "By the time the vote has taken place, not only will I know what's in it, you'll know what's in it, because it's going to be posted and everybody's going to be able to evaluate it on the merits."
That's news in two ways. That it will be postedone assumes the president means on the Internet and not nailed to a telephone poleshould suggest it will be posted for a while, more than a few hours or days. So American will finally get a look at it. And the president was conceding that no, he doesn't know what's in the bill right now. It is still amazing that one year into the debate this could be true....
Mr. Baier forced him off his well-worn grooves. He did it by stopping long answers with short questions, by cutting off and redirecting. In this he was like a low-speed bumper car. In the end the interview seemed to me a public service because everyone in America right now wants to see the president forced off his grooves and into candor on an issue that involves 17% of the economy. Again, the stakes are high. So Mr. Baier's style seemedthis is admittedly subjectivenot rude but within the bounds, and not driven by the antic spirit that sometimes overtakes reporters. He seemed to be trying to get new information. He seemed to be attempting to better inform the public.
Presidents have a right to certain prerogatives, including the expectation of a certain deference. He's the president, this is history. But we seem to have come a long way since Ronald Reagan was regularly barked at by Sam Donaldson, almost literally, and the president shrugged it off. The presidentevery presidentworks for us. We don't work for him. We sometimes lose track of this, or rather get the balance wrong. Respect is due and must be palpable, but now and then you have to press, to either force them to be forthcoming or force them to reveal that they won't be. Either way it's revealing.
And so it ends, with a health-care vote expected this weekend. I wonder at what point the administration will realize it wasn't worth itworth the discord, worth the diminution in popularity and prestige, worth the deepening of the great divide. What has been lost is so vivid, what has been gained so amorphous, blurry and likely illusory. Memo to future presidents: Never stake your entire survival on the painful passing of a bad bill. Never take the country down the road to Demon Pass.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/19/2010 06:38 ||
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thanks, Peggy. Now where's your apology for being a Obama-twit in the campaign? Where's your grovelling begging for forgiveness, cuz until we get that, STFU
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/19/2010 7:31 Comments ||
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How bush league, how undisciplined, how kid's stuff.
Welcome to Chicago politics and alleyway thuggery Peggy. That Hope and Change bumper sticker hard to remove was it?
#4
Peggy Noonan tends to get captured by conventional wisdom now and then, but she usually comes to her senses before too long--and she never was in the tank for Obama the way Chris Buckley and so many of the Palin-bashers were. Even if she had been remember Luke 15:7. Mock not those who repent, but welcome them home. Successful politics, like successful preaching, is about winning converts, not burning heretics.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/19/2010 9:26 Comments ||
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The president said, "The vote that's taken in the House will be a vote for health-care reform." We shouldn't, he added, concern ourselves with "the procedural issues."
Im gonna have to agree with the President on this one. As rotten as the process has been its the substance that that really reeks. The announcement of this procedural maneuver may have been played as a double head-fake. Clearly, if Pelosi needs this to pick off a couple of the retard votes she will. But most likely the Demon Pass Play was floated as a last second diversion. And if they pass this boondoggle with a straight vote the slobbering press will drone on how the Dems ended up taking the "high road".
Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias calls President Obama his "mentor." Obama's longtime friend and protégé, he once seemed destined to follow Obama's course of a meteoric and unscrutinized rise in the political world.
But it was not to be. Giannoulias, having just become the Democrats' nominee to fill Obama's old U.S. Senate seat, now faces the imminent collapse of his family's bank -- the one where he recently served as a vice president -- after he and family members took millions out of it in dividends. The loans he made to mafia figures are being picked over again by the press. His friends and donors are getting themselves arrested for -- of all things -- bank fraud.
In a year that has seen President Obama demonize the banking sector, decrying "fat-cats who are getting rewarded for their failure" and declaring that "bankers don't need another vote in the United States Senate," will Illinois Democrats become nervous enough to dump Giannoulias from their ticket?
Giannoulias, who worked at his family's Broadway Bank until 2006, admits now he bet big on risky construction loans. He increased them six-fold during his tenure, to $356 million, according to FDIC filings.
Partly as a result, Broadway is on the verge of seizure by the Feds. Just as the bank was reaching its most difficult period -- between 2007 and 2008 -- Giannoulias and his family pulled out more than $70 million in dividends. They could pocket $15 million more in federal tax refunds if the bank fails.
Broadway's unsavory customers are another headache for Giannoulias, who was personally involved in making $11 million in loans to Michael "Jaws" Gioranago. The bank's stringent lending standards allowed a federal prisoner to co-sign a multi-million dollar loan for this convicted bookmaker and prostitution ring promoter. Broadway also lent $10 million to Boris Stratievsky, later convicted as the "professor of money-laundering" for the Russian mob.
Tony Rezko, Obama's famous real estate "advisor," was another valued customer. Long before he wrote bad checks on his Broadway account to pay off $450,000 in gambling debts, Rezko would twice convince Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, D, to appoint Alexi's brother, Demetris, to the Illinois Finance Authority. Demetris, also an executive at the bank, is heavily involved in the kind of left-wing and anti-Israel activism that Broadway funds with grants, such as the "Electronic Intifada."
Giannoulias recently had to dump the campaign contributions of another Broadway customer and longtime family friend -- Nick Giannis, owner of the Boston Blackies restaurant. According to the Chicago Tribune, Giannis and his son were arrested just last week for a $1.9 million check-kiting scheme.
Earlier this month, when Giannoulias visited Washington, the White House offered a minimal statement of support and no promises to campaign for him. Obama, who tried to get another candidate into the race, may be reconsidering this whole "protégé" thing.
Meanwhile, Chicagoans hear buzz about how the state party could dump Giannoulias for a more electable Democrat, and that would be...who knows?
But isn't it interesting the number of glowing profiles of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and his family in recent weeks? You know, the kind of stories that often precede candidacies?
Would Rahm want to run? Could he, at this late date? If ever there was a man to accomplish such a feat, it's him. If ever there was a place, it's Chicago.
If Giannoulias runs into Rahm in a gym shower in the next few weeks, he'll know his political goose is cooked.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/19/2010 00:00 ||
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Rahm won't run.
You heard it here first.
Why?
He'd lose.
Big.
Rahm is toxic. One can only imagine the fun the Pub senate election committee could have drawing up ads against him. He'd become a punching boy for the health care reform, immigration reform, TARP, cap and trade and everything else Obama has done so far.
It would be a classic case of psychological transference.
Rahm didn't get this far by choosing losing battles. He won't run.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/19/2010 8:43 Comments ||
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My predication, Emanuel will soon experience a well deserved.... "Et tu, Brute" moment.
#2
Will it be a violent revolution? No. It will be done through the interpretation of the original document that has guided us for 220 years the Constitution.
But what do you do when those in power, those who want the power and legitimacy of the Constitution but none of the limits of it, decide they don't need no stinking Constitution [particularly the one most of us can read in basic colloquial English] processes to impose what they want?
We are in the middle of a bloodless coup by the bureaucrats and "the Party".
They don't need any more laws if this health care abortion passes. They will have all that they need for the czars and bureaucrats to impose anything on us. See what the EPA plans for cap & trade, no congress necessary. Once they get going there will be no easy rolling back of the disaster. Too many 'pubs are just as down with the elite coup as the donks are to really overturn things as long as the mafia don in the WH has the control of the bureaucracy. Wait until his troops start deeming the FEC.
#4
So Obama is the great unifier because everyone is pi$$ed with what he and fellow travelers are doing? That could be his legacy in 2012 along with destroying the Democratic Party for years to come. The 2010 elections will be very interesting. If I sense things right, I think the Democratics and many incumbents will suffer decimation at the polls.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
