Obama Kills pipeline
When President Barack Obama rejected the construction of the Keystone Pipeline on January 18, 2012, he did more than cancel a necessary construction project for our nation.
He vetoed thousands of American jobs, maintained our nation’s dependence on foreign oil and unnecessarily wounded our relationship with Canada, a country that provides 20 percent of America’s oil imports every year. At a time when over 13 million Americans do not have a job and the average price of gas is $3.69, the President’s decision to cancel the pipeline’s construction is inexcusable.
Sponsored by TransCanada Inc., one of the leading energy infrastructure companies in North America, the Keystone Pipeline was to be a 1,600-mile long conduit connecting the tar sands of Canada to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Not only would this extensive pipeline have decreased America’s dependence on foreign oil, it would have stimulated thousands of desperately needed American jobs.
According to TransCanada’s estimates, the pipeline would have created 20,000 jobs in both the construction and manufacturing sectors right away. Upon completion of the connection, the company also projected 465,000 American jobs would have been created along with an eventual $521 billion increase in the America’s Gross Domestic Product. Over 830,000 barrels of oil would also have been delivered to refineries across America per day, doubling the amount of oil we currently receive from Canada.
Yet with all those positive factors to the Keystone proposal, the President still chose to cancel the plan, needlessly damaging America’s friendly diplomatic relations with our neighbor to the north. A few days after the President’s rejection, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper responded by asking China if they would accept the crude oil we rejected.
In short, not only would the pipeline have helped thousands of Americans rejoin the workforce, but, more importantly, it would have helped bring some hope to the dismal American economic outlook. Despite that, President Obama killed the plan. Whether this was a political move to appease environmental lobbyists or a part of his 2012 campaign strategy, the President has unfortunately cost the American people some of the hope he claimed his administration would produce.
Sadly, I cannot say that I am surprised by the President’s decision. This is not the only time the President has rejected plans that would have helped create American jobs. In the past year, my Republican colleagues and I have become increasingly frustrated as we present the President and his Democratic allies in the Senate with jobs bills. There are now 28 jobs bills just sitting in the Senate, waiting for action.
I believe we can get America’s economy up and running again. But President Obama needs to support job-creating measures such as the Keystone Pipeline and the other 28 bills stuck in the Senate. Through positive action in Washington on these measures, I believe our nation can see the unemployment rate fall when millions of Americans go back to work. We can have better days ahead
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
The Curious Case of the Disappearing NYSE
In what I
would consider one of my top
5 economic pieces of this blog I tie the majority of the stock market's
movement NOT to profits, earnings or dividends (as it should be) but rather to
the volume of retirement dollars flooding the stock market. The ramifications,
of course, is "what will happen to stock prices when the baby boomers retire and
withdraw their trillions of dollars?"
Economics would tell us "go down" but what's funny is markets are not rational all the time. Matter of fact they can remain quit bubbly for extended periods of time. ESPECIALLY when the market participants (AHEM AHEM, COUGH COUGH - AMERICANS) are addicted to "high asset prices" because it fools them into thinking they don't have to work for a living. Asset prices just magically go up without the necessary production and profits to rationalize the price increases. And this can go on "forever" or at least until the delusional (and lazy, I might add) Americans retire.
We see this today where the dividend yield is still at a historic low going back to 1890 and the PE ratio is still above it's historic average of 15x's. The profits are simply not there to rationalize the lofty prices. However, there is something more amiss going on beyond the simple "retirement dollars flooding market" and it may not be obvious to the naked eye.
Volume.
With the DJIA breaking 13,000 and the economy showing signs of a tepid recovery, you would think the market would be doubly flooded with money. The monies flowing in from automotonic 401k retirement drones AND the new monies flowing in from people with new-found hope that the economy is indeed turning around and America has a future once again.
There's just one problem - the volume isn't there to support it.
If you look at the volume of the NYSE, it's cratering. It's lower than it has been in over a decade
This doesn't jive with the prices we see in the market. In basic economic theory, the more trading volume there is in a market, the higher prices should be in that is shows a demand for those stocks. Additionally, with increased volume comes increased "liquidity" which in itself provides a premium that should translate into higher prices. We are now getting the opposite.
So what is happening?
Well, your humble Captain has a theory.
The reason volume is tanking is because, despite what heavily-spun news you might hear about GDP, consumer confidence, the reality is that the economy still sucks. Unemployment, though down, is still 2 full percentage points above the WORST it ever was under George Bush. If you want to consider the "underemployment" argument, that many people have left the labor force, you could argue unemployment is closer to 11%. Additionally, even with today's revision of 3% RGDP growth, it's nothing compared to the booming quarters we had after most recessions (even the hated, incompetent,evil puppy-kicker GW managed a quarter above 6%). Also delivering a dose of realistic doom to the economy is the massive amounts of debt we have. And finally, unemployment is particularly high amongst the youth, who are not only necessary to bail out older generations via their public pensions, but whose retirement dollars are also necessary to keep the 401k Bubble/Ponzi scheme going as well. But just like the housing market, you need jobs in order to afford a house. And so, I'm sure if you looked at it, a huge reason for the lower volume is the lack of "new blood" entering the retirement/401k market, plus the fact people just don't plain have the disposable income to afford IRA contributions.
While this explains the collapse in volume, it doesn't explain why prices are still so high. And here is the nefarious side of the theory:
Something nefarious is going on.
When you see Apple with a market cap of 1/2 trillion dollars, you start to wonder why Apple is so valuable. And as it turns out it's because hedge funds and mutual funds all want to own Apple. No real financial reason for it, hedge fund managers, mutual fund managers and other incompetent perma-bubble Wall Street dolts like shinny new electrical doo-dads just like their spoiled brat, humanities-majoring children at home in Connecticut do. But what this shows you (or at least alludes to) is that it is institutions, not individuals, that are accounting for the majority of the buying and selling of the stocks. You also throw in electronic trading programs or "computerized trading" and it's no longer real investors with real money, as much as it is a potentially rigged beast of its own trading on itself.
It reminds me of a now-deceased publication called "Lake Minnetonka Magazine." This magazine was basically the socialite magazine for Minneapolis' uber-rich western suburb. Here is where Cargill, Carlson Companies and many more firms are based, as well as the hundreds of trust-fund babies these empires spawned. The magazine itself though was a self-absorbed love fest within itself. Written by the trustfunders about the trustfunders and all the parties they went to and who bought what Italian car or what worthless trophy wife opened up what worthless trinket shop with her hubby's money. Essentially it was a club or an entity that didn't produce anything and when its founder (ahem ahem-Tom Petters) was arrested for what was then the largest fraud in the history of the US (soon to be outdone by Bernie Madoff), the magazine went bye bye (ironically, shortly after, there were a LOT of for sale signs on the prestigious Lake Minnetonka, what handsome, dashing, chiseled motorcycle riding, fossil-hunting, bad-boy economist would have predicted that!).
In short, the stock market is being artificially inflated, if not, limped along, by the sanctimonious (or perhaps, oblivious) yutzes trapped in their own nepotistic, inbred echo chamber called "The East Coast." They trade amongst themselves, they believe that the stock market is a finite, mathematical beast that can be predicted. They have NEVER seen a real stock market crash, as they're perpetually bailed out by Dotcom Bubble after Housing Bubble after QE-LXI Bubble. They are truly oblivious to all the work, toil, labor and entrepreneurialism that gives those worthless pieces of paper (they so love to trade and sell and take commission on) value.
The question is if you wish to join this little clique or social party. Do you want to "hang" with all the fake and plastic of the paper-rich, asset-poor, and soon to be bankrupt class? Then by all means, throw that $16,500 max of your money into an inflated stock market every year. You'll be one of the cool people. But if you're more like me and want to hang out with your non-stab-you-in-the-back buddies at a reasonably priced bar, entertained with good intelligent conversation, and darn fine food, you may want to look elsewhere and hang out where there is real value.
In the meantime, enjoy the decline!
Economics would tell us "go down" but what's funny is markets are not rational all the time. Matter of fact they can remain quit bubbly for extended periods of time. ESPECIALLY when the market participants (AHEM AHEM, COUGH COUGH - AMERICANS) are addicted to "high asset prices" because it fools them into thinking they don't have to work for a living. Asset prices just magically go up without the necessary production and profits to rationalize the price increases. And this can go on "forever" or at least until the delusional (and lazy, I might add) Americans retire.
We see this today where the dividend yield is still at a historic low going back to 1890 and the PE ratio is still above it's historic average of 15x's. The profits are simply not there to rationalize the lofty prices. However, there is something more amiss going on beyond the simple "retirement dollars flooding market" and it may not be obvious to the naked eye.
Volume.
With the DJIA breaking 13,000 and the economy showing signs of a tepid recovery, you would think the market would be doubly flooded with money. The monies flowing in from automotonic 401k retirement drones AND the new monies flowing in from people with new-found hope that the economy is indeed turning around and America has a future once again.
There's just one problem - the volume isn't there to support it.
If you look at the volume of the NYSE, it's cratering. It's lower than it has been in over a decade
This doesn't jive with the prices we see in the market. In basic economic theory, the more trading volume there is in a market, the higher prices should be in that is shows a demand for those stocks. Additionally, with increased volume comes increased "liquidity" which in itself provides a premium that should translate into higher prices. We are now getting the opposite.
So what is happening?
Well, your humble Captain has a theory.
The reason volume is tanking is because, despite what heavily-spun news you might hear about GDP, consumer confidence, the reality is that the economy still sucks. Unemployment, though down, is still 2 full percentage points above the WORST it ever was under George Bush. If you want to consider the "underemployment" argument, that many people have left the labor force, you could argue unemployment is closer to 11%. Additionally, even with today's revision of 3% RGDP growth, it's nothing compared to the booming quarters we had after most recessions (even the hated, incompetent,evil puppy-kicker GW managed a quarter above 6%). Also delivering a dose of realistic doom to the economy is the massive amounts of debt we have. And finally, unemployment is particularly high amongst the youth, who are not only necessary to bail out older generations via their public pensions, but whose retirement dollars are also necessary to keep the 401k Bubble/Ponzi scheme going as well. But just like the housing market, you need jobs in order to afford a house. And so, I'm sure if you looked at it, a huge reason for the lower volume is the lack of "new blood" entering the retirement/401k market, plus the fact people just don't plain have the disposable income to afford IRA contributions.
While this explains the collapse in volume, it doesn't explain why prices are still so high. And here is the nefarious side of the theory:
Something nefarious is going on.
When you see Apple with a market cap of 1/2 trillion dollars, you start to wonder why Apple is so valuable. And as it turns out it's because hedge funds and mutual funds all want to own Apple. No real financial reason for it, hedge fund managers, mutual fund managers and other incompetent perma-bubble Wall Street dolts like shinny new electrical doo-dads just like their spoiled brat, humanities-majoring children at home in Connecticut do. But what this shows you (or at least alludes to) is that it is institutions, not individuals, that are accounting for the majority of the buying and selling of the stocks. You also throw in electronic trading programs or "computerized trading" and it's no longer real investors with real money, as much as it is a potentially rigged beast of its own trading on itself.
It reminds me of a now-deceased publication called "Lake Minnetonka Magazine." This magazine was basically the socialite magazine for Minneapolis' uber-rich western suburb. Here is where Cargill, Carlson Companies and many more firms are based, as well as the hundreds of trust-fund babies these empires spawned. The magazine itself though was a self-absorbed love fest within itself. Written by the trustfunders about the trustfunders and all the parties they went to and who bought what Italian car or what worthless trophy wife opened up what worthless trinket shop with her hubby's money. Essentially it was a club or an entity that didn't produce anything and when its founder (ahem ahem-Tom Petters) was arrested for what was then the largest fraud in the history of the US (soon to be outdone by Bernie Madoff), the magazine went bye bye (ironically, shortly after, there were a LOT of for sale signs on the prestigious Lake Minnetonka, what handsome, dashing, chiseled motorcycle riding, fossil-hunting, bad-boy economist would have predicted that!).
In short, the stock market is being artificially inflated, if not, limped along, by the sanctimonious (or perhaps, oblivious) yutzes trapped in their own nepotistic, inbred echo chamber called "The East Coast." They trade amongst themselves, they believe that the stock market is a finite, mathematical beast that can be predicted. They have NEVER seen a real stock market crash, as they're perpetually bailed out by Dotcom Bubble after Housing Bubble after QE-LXI Bubble. They are truly oblivious to all the work, toil, labor and entrepreneurialism that gives those worthless pieces of paper (they so love to trade and sell and take commission on) value.
The question is if you wish to join this little clique or social party. Do you want to "hang" with all the fake and plastic of the paper-rich, asset-poor, and soon to be bankrupt class? Then by all means, throw that $16,500 max of your money into an inflated stock market every year. You'll be one of the cool people. But if you're more like me and want to hang out with your non-stab-you-in-the-back buddies at a reasonably priced bar, entertained with good intelligent conversation, and darn fine food, you may want to look elsewhere and hang out where there is real value.
In the meantime, enjoy the decline!
“Who’s calling?” “The Conservatives.”
Now, we’ve had some highly publicized disagreements with Elections Canada in the past, so the campaign leadership made it clear to everyone before they stepped into the building that accountability standards were to be incredibly high. We added new language to our volunteer and employee agreements, and even had an in-house independent accountability officer available to us at all times.
Have we been accused of being aggressive and rough-and-tumble in the past? Of course. Did we go after Liberal leaders with everything we had? You bet. But did the campaign organize a widespread voter suppression exercise in the 2011 campaign? No way.
And yet, in a matter of only a few days, we’ve gotten to a place where any misleading or erroneous call by a campaign or individual anywhere in the country during 2011 federal election is being treated as the work of Conservative masterminds. But some things don’t add up.
There seem to be three sets of allegations being made:
1. specific allegations about riding-level activity—mostly in the Guelph area—in which seemingly misleading information went out to voters in a very targeted way;
2. complaints from voters in several ridings who got some sort of notification that their polling station had changed in the waning days or hours of the campaign;
3. vague allegations of harassing phone calls from opposition campaigns (mostly Liberal campaigns in Toronto).
On the first point, the only information I have is what I have read in the media. It appears that Elections Canada is investigating, and that a campaign aide has resigned. This leads me to believe that something was definitely amiss in Guelph; if that’s true, I hope those responsible are caught. Goodness knows Elections Canada will let us know of progress, either through official channels or through Postmedia, as it is wont to do.
On the second point, things get tougher. The allegation seems to be that we organized a widespread campaign to confuse Liberal voters into going to the wrong place, and thus get them to give up on voting altogether. The Toronto Star cites three call centre “whistleblowers” who seemed to have known on election day that they were directing people to the wrong voting stations. Of course, in the same breathless article, the three call centre employees also report that: call centre employees sometimes changed scripts on their own, without the knowledge of their superiors or the party; the callers were clearly instructed to identify themselves as representatives of the “Conservative Party of Canada;” some of their co-workers decided on their own to falsely say they were calling from Elections Canada.
To sum up, then, the allegation is that the Conservative Party used its official call centre to attempt to misdirect non-CPC voters to polling stations across town, while telling them the Conservative party is responsible for the message. As a strategy, it seems preposterous. It just doesn’t make any sense.
The third allegation is that Conservatives organized a number of “harassing” phone calls to Liberal supporters in a number of ridings, sometimes posing as “Liberal” operatives. These were supposedly intended to annoy Liberal voters, to make them angry and turn them off the otherwise seaworthy Ignatieff ticket.
The following is a list of specific allegations and complaints; these are in the words of my friends in the LPC, so I am not making them up:
- calling people at mealtimes;
- mimicking accents;
- treating people rudely;
- calling on the Sabbath;
- calling late at night or early in the morning;
- pronouncing Guy Gallant in an anglicized manner;
- jamming a Cambridge fax machine with calls; and,
- my personal favourite, calling Dr. Carolyn Bennett by the name of “Doctor Carolyn Bennett.”
One other helpful reminder: the Liberal party of Canada debuted a new “national” database system for the 2011 campaign, one that was finally going to compete with CIMS. Given the number of complaints about Liberal contact lists and irregularities, it’s probably time to ask the LPC about how it handled the data and parceled it out to call centres.
Oh, and those CPC people that were impersonating Liberals? Here’s a great passage from Postmedia’s February 24 story that shows the depth of the deception:
Then, on the afternoon of April 11, a phone in Volpe’s own campaign phone bank rang. Volunteer Marsha Sands described the call in an affidavit.I added the emphasis above. Let me get this straight: the best quote we have to show that Conservatives were impersonating Liberal campaign workers is one in which they identify themselves as Conservatives?
“I picked it up and said hello several times. No voice responded but I could hear voices in the background. I then said, ‘Hello, speak please. You’ve called me.’
“A female voice, soft and young-sounding, said, ‘Are you going to vote for Joe Volpe in the up and coming election?’ I responded, ‘Who are you? Where are you calling from?’ several times.
“The caller said, ‘The Conservatives.’ I said ‘What? Who are you?’ Response: ‘Um, we are conducting a survey.’ “
And have you checked the alleged riding lists for these abuses? Niagara Falls? Haldimand-Norfolk? St. Paul’s?! Um, we won Haldimand-Norfolk by 13,000 votes and Rob Nicholson beat the Liberal candidate in Niagara Falls by 18,000. We weren’t even close in St. Paul’s.
I realize this looks like I’m excusing some of the questionable behavior I’m hearing about. I’m not. If there was wrongdoing, I agree with everything the Prime Minister has said—the facts should be given to Elections Canada and they should investigate.
I don’t dismiss the possibility of individuals acted on their own to skirt the rules. But I also know that it wasn’t just Liberal or NDP supporters who received inaccurate information on polling day. On a day when probably a combined 20 million GOTV calls go out from the campaigns, mistakes happen.
There are also instances of Conservative supporters receiving irritating or “harassing” calls, which we believe came from the opposition campaigns. And given the number of polling station location changes made by Elections Canada, which we had to tell our supporters about, it’s no wonder that mistakes were made. For instance, our best information tells us the RMG calls from Thunder Bay were made to people we thought were Conservative supporters.
We are being accused of behaving with both Machiavellian brillance and Keystone Kops ineptitude: impersonating Liberals by identifying ourselves as Conservatives and suppressing votes by calling candidates by their actual names. It’s time to step back, and rely on facts.
Oh, and how about that Adam Carroll…?
Jason Lietaer is a political strategist and communicator who wishes he was golfing. He ran the Conservative party’s war room during the 2011 campaign. Follow him on Twitter: @jasonlietaer.
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Here Comes Obama's 3 AM Phone Call
By James LewisIn the next 60 days Obama's presidential career will finally meet that concrete wall of reality. He will either fail or survive. Trouble is, he might take many innocent people with him if he fails.
So far, the most hyped-up and unqualified president in US history has shown no capacity at all to act, in the face of a do-or-die challenge. This is the ultimate test of character, the one that John F. Kennedy met well enough in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. This is the test that Jimmy Carter failed so miserably that Ronald Reagan beat him handily in the following election. This is the same test of reality that every single Democratic Administration has tried to avoid; it's the reason why Bill Clinton refused to do anything about Osama Bin Laden when he had four separate chances to take him out.
This time, abject apologies to ranting Pakistani mobs will not make a smidgen of difference. Even Axelrod's disinformation campaigns can't save Obama now, because that 3 am phone call is almost sure to come by April Fool's Day of 2012, when the real fool will stand revealed to the world.
On or about April 1 of 2012, that 3 AM phone call will reach the White House. We know what it will be -- which is itself a sign of stunning incompetence in this White House. None of this information should ever be public. Ever.
But this administration has chosen its Secretary of Defense to publicly leak the most closely guarded secret of Israel's back-against-the-wall defense against Iranian nuclear weapons.
Such public leaks amount to near treason in time of war. Imagine if someone leaked General Eisenhower's plans for the D-Day invasion in June of 1944. FDR would have fired them instantly, or if they were foreigners he would have felt justified to have them killed. Hundreds of thousands of American and Allied lives were at stake on D Day. In Israel today, hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives are at stake. Don't expect countries fighting for their national survival to act any differently.
The Israelis have now publicly retaliated against the Panetta leak. They have accused General Dempsey, our top general, of publicly taking the Iranian side in the confrontation. But General Dempsey is not the target. The General knows better. The real target is his boss in the White House.
This is the moment every sane person knew had to come, ever since Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski knowingly allowed the radical suicide regime of Ayatollah Khomeini to overthrow the modernizing Shah of Iran. That was the single most self-destructive decision by any American President in modern history.
Jimmy Carter empowered the first Islamic throwback regime since Kemal Ataturk modernized Turkey in the 1920s.
Since Khomeini, Islamic radicalization has only accelerated, culminating in the 9/11/01 attack on New York City. Obama's equally suicidal "Arab Spring" has now brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power in Egypt, instead of our long-time ally Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak's predecessor Anwar Sadat was assassinated by the Muslim Brotherhood, and Obama knowingly chose to support Sadat's assassins.
So much for America's loyalty and word of honor.
Now Egypt is in economic and political despair, along with the other "Arab Spring" countries. The Saudis are ordering their own nuclear weapons, because they cannot trust the United States to protect their vital interests any more.
Obama thrives on crisis and chaos. He is a gambler and a con artist who follows Napoleon's slogan of "audacity, audacity, always audacity." But Napoleon met his Moscow winter and his Waterloo. The only question is when Obama will crash into his own brick wall of reality.
April Fool's Day would be a very suitable target date for the coming Iranian nuclear crisis. The Administration has already started to undermine Israel's case for defending itself by claiming, dontchaknow, that the Iranians are not making nukes after all. They are just making highly enriched uranium, folks. Nothing to worry about. False alarms, all you fools! It's just that Zionist plot again.
Obama's string puppets at J Street and other Soros fronts are bound to start anti-Israel propaganda again, aided by the New York Times and its ilk. But the Iranians just said (again!) that they are bound and determined to "wipe Israel off the map."
It will make no difference. The Israelis are sensitive to hate propaganda by the international left, except when survival is at stake. Then they act to survive. That used to be US policy as well, until the fantasy-ridden Democrats took over the country. Today Obama is cutting our defense budget and reducing US nuclear weapons to the lowest level ever, even while nuclear proliferation breaks out all over the world. Good timing, BHO.
The conventional wisdom is that Israel must attack Iranian nuclear sites soon, because Ahmadinejad is moving his nuclear industry into deep mountain tunnels on an emergency basis. Once his nuke industry is deeply bunkered it is essentially invulnerable to conventional weapons. It is the point of no return.
The conventional wisdom also claims that Israel cannot maintain a long-term bombing campaign. Only the United States can do that. But the US is refusing to be the cop on the block, leaving the defense of the world's biggest oil supply to ... nobody. No one else has the power to do it. Which is why the Saudis are nuking up.
Israel will act as in defense of its right to live. The left will predictably turn reality upside-down, the way it always does. They keep their brains in the darkest place they can find. Nothing will change those facts.
The United States is the only nation with the power to knock down the Iranian threat with reasonable safety to itself and other countries. We have done it before. If Israel acts without our active help, the risks of great casualties on all sides will be much, much greater. In 1973 Golda Meir came close to using Israel's own nuclear arsenal when invading tank divisions from Egypt threatened to overrun Israel's cities. That decision was barely averted when Israeli tanks broke through the Egyptian lines.
Obama is by far the most mentally fixated president in the nuclear age. Nobody else has come even close to having his mental blinders, not even Jimmy Carter. Obama has little regard for human life, which is why he whipped up regional chaos in the "Arab Spring," by demanding the resignation of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak. Obama is happy to empower radical Islamist regimes, just like Jimmy Carter. With a solid phalanx of media liars, Obama has been able to evade responsibility for three years of solid misgovernment in foreign and domestic affairs.
But the coming crisis cannot be evaded. Obama and his propaganda media will spin and spin -- before, during, and after the coming crisis between Israel and Iran. Obama wanted above all to force Israel to retreat back to 1948 or face a nuclear Iran. It was a choice between slow genocide and fast genocide.
It looks like Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, the left and the right of Israel's parliament, called Obama's bluff. No American president has ever allowed an international crisis to come so close to the brink. Obama has now allowed the Middle East to deteriorate so far that he has lost control. He now owns whatever is going to happen. His fingerprints are all over it.
Around April 1, the biggest fool of the 21st century will stand revealed to the world.
After that, the American people will have to decide.
This time, abject apologies to ranting Pakistani mobs will not make a smidgen of difference. Even Axelrod's disinformation campaigns can't save Obama now, because that 3 am phone call is almost sure to come by April Fool's Day of 2012, when the real fool will stand revealed to the world.
On or about April 1 of 2012, that 3 AM phone call will reach the White House. We know what it will be -- which is itself a sign of stunning incompetence in this White House. None of this information should ever be public. Ever.
But this administration has chosen its Secretary of Defense to publicly leak the most closely guarded secret of Israel's back-against-the-wall defense against Iranian nuclear weapons.
Such public leaks amount to near treason in time of war. Imagine if someone leaked General Eisenhower's plans for the D-Day invasion in June of 1944. FDR would have fired them instantly, or if they were foreigners he would have felt justified to have them killed. Hundreds of thousands of American and Allied lives were at stake on D Day. In Israel today, hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives are at stake. Don't expect countries fighting for their national survival to act any differently.
The Israelis have now publicly retaliated against the Panetta leak. They have accused General Dempsey, our top general, of publicly taking the Iranian side in the confrontation. But General Dempsey is not the target. The General knows better. The real target is his boss in the White House.
This is the moment every sane person knew had to come, ever since Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski knowingly allowed the radical suicide regime of Ayatollah Khomeini to overthrow the modernizing Shah of Iran. That was the single most self-destructive decision by any American President in modern history.
Jimmy Carter empowered the first Islamic throwback regime since Kemal Ataturk modernized Turkey in the 1920s.
Since Khomeini, Islamic radicalization has only accelerated, culminating in the 9/11/01 attack on New York City. Obama's equally suicidal "Arab Spring" has now brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power in Egypt, instead of our long-time ally Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak's predecessor Anwar Sadat was assassinated by the Muslim Brotherhood, and Obama knowingly chose to support Sadat's assassins.
So much for America's loyalty and word of honor.
Now Egypt is in economic and political despair, along with the other "Arab Spring" countries. The Saudis are ordering their own nuclear weapons, because they cannot trust the United States to protect their vital interests any more.
Obama thrives on crisis and chaos. He is a gambler and a con artist who follows Napoleon's slogan of "audacity, audacity, always audacity." But Napoleon met his Moscow winter and his Waterloo. The only question is when Obama will crash into his own brick wall of reality.
April Fool's Day would be a very suitable target date for the coming Iranian nuclear crisis. The Administration has already started to undermine Israel's case for defending itself by claiming, dontchaknow, that the Iranians are not making nukes after all. They are just making highly enriched uranium, folks. Nothing to worry about. False alarms, all you fools! It's just that Zionist plot again.
Obama's string puppets at J Street and other Soros fronts are bound to start anti-Israel propaganda again, aided by the New York Times and its ilk. But the Iranians just said (again!) that they are bound and determined to "wipe Israel off the map."
It will make no difference. The Israelis are sensitive to hate propaganda by the international left, except when survival is at stake. Then they act to survive. That used to be US policy as well, until the fantasy-ridden Democrats took over the country. Today Obama is cutting our defense budget and reducing US nuclear weapons to the lowest level ever, even while nuclear proliferation breaks out all over the world. Good timing, BHO.
The conventional wisdom is that Israel must attack Iranian nuclear sites soon, because Ahmadinejad is moving his nuclear industry into deep mountain tunnels on an emergency basis. Once his nuke industry is deeply bunkered it is essentially invulnerable to conventional weapons. It is the point of no return.
The conventional wisdom also claims that Israel cannot maintain a long-term bombing campaign. Only the United States can do that. But the US is refusing to be the cop on the block, leaving the defense of the world's biggest oil supply to ... nobody. No one else has the power to do it. Which is why the Saudis are nuking up.
Israel will act as in defense of its right to live. The left will predictably turn reality upside-down, the way it always does. They keep their brains in the darkest place they can find. Nothing will change those facts.
The United States is the only nation with the power to knock down the Iranian threat with reasonable safety to itself and other countries. We have done it before. If Israel acts without our active help, the risks of great casualties on all sides will be much, much greater. In 1973 Golda Meir came close to using Israel's own nuclear arsenal when invading tank divisions from Egypt threatened to overrun Israel's cities. That decision was barely averted when Israeli tanks broke through the Egyptian lines.
Obama is by far the most mentally fixated president in the nuclear age. Nobody else has come even close to having his mental blinders, not even Jimmy Carter. Obama has little regard for human life, which is why he whipped up regional chaos in the "Arab Spring," by demanding the resignation of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak. Obama is happy to empower radical Islamist regimes, just like Jimmy Carter. With a solid phalanx of media liars, Obama has been able to evade responsibility for three years of solid misgovernment in foreign and domestic affairs.
But the coming crisis cannot be evaded. Obama and his propaganda media will spin and spin -- before, during, and after the coming crisis between Israel and Iran. Obama wanted above all to force Israel to retreat back to 1948 or face a nuclear Iran. It was a choice between slow genocide and fast genocide.
It looks like Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, the left and the right of Israel's parliament, called Obama's bluff. No American president has ever allowed an international crisis to come so close to the brink. Obama has now allowed the Middle East to deteriorate so far that he has lost control. He now owns whatever is going to happen. His fingerprints are all over it.
Around April 1, the biggest fool of the 21st century will stand revealed to the world.
After that, the American people will have to decide.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/here_comes_obamas_3_am_phone_call.html#ixzz1nlev7WBP
Tuesday, 28 February 2012
February 25, 2012
The liberal Jackboot
The wing-nuts questioned why firearm enthusiasts hated the registry?Not that the Tories are going to do anything about the warrant-less search and seizure parts of C68. Oh, no. You have no rights when there may be the tinkling of an idea that a firearm may be somehow involved. Even if, you know, one isn't.
Where are last weeks defenders of warrant requirements now?
I truly hope this 'free' and law-abiding citizen sues the pants off of everyone involved. Then I hope that they are left destitute and lose what-ever certifications these social scientists had.
Oh, but it's alright though, it's for the children, “Our community would have an expectation if comments are made about a gun in a house, we’d be obligated to investigate that to ensure everything is safe.”
Cause, you know, if you aren't with them, you're with the child pornographers, or something like that.
Update: Ezra: h/t Occam
Posted by lance at February 25, 2012 1:24 AM
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