By Rick Rozoff - BLN Contributing Writer
Pentagon’s Christmas Present: Largest Military Budget Since World War II
Rick Rozoff
On December 22 both houses of the U.S. Congress unanimously passed a bill authorizing $725 billion for next year’s Defense Department budget.
The bill, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011, was approved by all 100 senators as required and by a voice vote in the House.
The House had approved the bill, now sent to President Barack Obama to sign into law, five days earlier in a 341-48 roll call, but needed to vote on it again after the Senate altered it in the interim.
The proposed figure for the Pentagon’s 2011 war chest includes, in addition to the base budget, $158.7 billion for what are now euphemistically referred to as overseas contingency operations: The military occupation of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan.
The $725 billion figure, although $17 billion more than the White House had requested, is not the final word on the subject, however, as supplements could be demanded as early as the beginning of next year, especially in regard to the Afghan war that will then be in its eleventh calendar year.
Even as it currently is, the amount is the highest in constant dollars (pegged at any given year’s dollar and adjusted for inflation) since 1945, the final year of the Second World War. With recent U.S. census figures at 308 million, next year the Pentagon will spend $2,354 for every citizen of the country at the $725 billion price tag alone.
Last year’s Pentagon budget, by way of comparison, was $680 billion, a base budget of $533.8 billion and the remainder for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. In July of this year Congress approved the 2010 Supplemental Appropriations Act which contained an additional $37 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Next year’s defense authorization of $725 billion compares to, according to the Center for Defense Information, a Pentagon budget of $444.6 billion in 1946; $460.4 billion in 1968, the highest yearly amount during the Vietnam War; and $443.4 billion in 1988, the highest during the eight years of the Ronald Reagan administration’s massive military buildup. (Numbers in 2004 constant dollars.) [1]
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates American military spending for 2009 to have accounted for 43 percent of the world total. Carl Conetta, co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives, earlier this year estimated the 2010 U.S. defense budget to constitute 47 percent of total worldwide military expenditures and to amount to 19 percent of all American federal spending.
In addition, Pentagon spending has increased by 100 percent since 1998 and “the Obama budget plans to spend more on the Pentagon over eight years than any administration has since World War II.” [2]
With 2.25 million full-time civilian and military personnel, excluding part-time National Guard and Reserve members, the Defense Department is the U.S.’s largest employer, outstripping Walmart with 1.4 million employees and the U.S Post Office with 599,000. [3]
“Add in what Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, and the Energy departments spend on defense and total US military spending will reach $861 billion in fiscal 2011, exceeding that of all other nations combined,” according to Todd Harrison, senior fellow for Defense Budget Studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. [4]
In April Robert Higgs of The Independent Institute advocated that the budgets – in part or in whole – of the departments of Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, Energy, State and Treasury and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) should be calculated in the real military budget, which would in 2009 would have increased it to $901.5 billion.
“Adding [the] interest component to the previous all-agency total, the grand total comes to $1,027.8 billion, which is 61.5 percent greater than the Pentagon’s outlays alone.”
His numbers are:
National Security Outlays in Fiscal Year 2009
(billions of dollars)
Department of Defense 636.5
Department of Energy (nuclear weapons and environmental cleanup) 16.7
Department of State (plus international assistance) 36.3
Department of Veterans Affairs 95.5
Department of Homeland Security 51.7
Department of the Treasury (for the Military Retirement Fund) 54.9
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (1/2 of total) 9.6
Net interest attributable to past debt-financed defense outlays 126.3
Total 1,027.5 [5]
The above-cited Carl Conetta stated at the beginning of this year that the 2011 Pentagon budget will mark a milestone in that “the inflation-adjusted rise in spending since 1998 will probably exceed 100% in real terms by the end of the fiscal year.
“Taking the 2011 budget into account, the Defense Department has been given about $7.2 trillion since 1998, when the post-Cold War decline in defense spending ended. Approximately $2.5 trillion of this total is due to spending above the annual level set in 1998. This added amount constitutes the post-1998 spending surge.”
Based on constant 2010 dollars, Conetta further details that the Ronald Reagan administration spent $4.1 trillion on the Defense Department, the Georgia W. Bush administration spent $4.65 trillion and “Barack Obama plans to spend more than $5 trillion.”
He also compares the two previous largest post-World War Two surges in U.S. military spending to the current one:
From 1958-1968: 43 percent
From: 1975-1985 57 percent
In regards to which he said, “the 1998-2011 surge is as large as these two predecessors combined.”
His calculations also include a growth in Pentagon contract employees of 40 percent since 1989, thereby freeing up uniformed service members for more direct combat roles.
The U.S. share of global military spending grew from 28 percent during the Cold War to 41 percent by 2006 and that of North Atlantic Treaty Organization member states, including the U.S., from 49 percent to 70 percent in the same period.
Contrariwise, the “group of potential adversary and competitor states has gone from claiming a 42% share to just 16% in 2006.
“Had Ronald Reagan – who is generally regarded a hawkish president – wanted to achieve in the 1980s the ratio between US and adversary spending that existed in 2006, he would have had to quadruple his defense budgets.
“And, of course, since 2006, the US defense budget has not receded, but instead grown by another 20% in real terms.
“By 2011, the United States will probably account for more than half of all global military spending calculated in terms of ‘purchasing power parity’ (which corrects for differences between national economies).” [6]
The defense authorization bill passed on December 22, despite its monumental and unprecedented size, has been routinely described in the American press as stripped-down, scaled-down and pared-down because an arms manufacturer or two, their lobbyists and obedient congresspersons didn’t get every new defense contract and weapons project they desired three days before Christmas.
The December 22 vote in the House was, as Associated Press accurately described it, conducted without debate or discussion – and “without major restrictions on the conduct of operations” – particularly in regards to the $158.7 billion for the military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, $75 million to train and equip the armed forces of Yemen for the counterinsurgency campaign in that country and $205 million more to fund Israel’s Iron Dome missile shield.
Regarding the first vote on December 17: “This year’s bill is mostly noteworthy for its broad bipartisan support during wartime….Unlike during the height of the Iraq War when anti-war Democrats tried to use the legislation to force troops home, the House passed the defense bill Friday with almost no debate on Afghanistan.” [7]
Aside from voting for the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy as a stand-alone measure, excising an amendment to allow abortions to be performed on military bases, and refusing reparations to victims of the World War Two Japanese occupation of the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam (apparently $100 million for the purpose was considered excessive in the $725 billion authorization), there was no meaningful dissent in either house of Congress.
Increasing the U.S. war budget to the highest level it’s been since the largest and deadliest war in history while no nation or group of nations poses a serious threat to the country, and to a degree where it effectively exceeds the defense spending of the rest of the world combined, is all in the proper order of things for the world’s sole military superpower.
1) Center for Defense Information
http://www.cdi.org/news/mrp/us-military-spending.pdf
2) Christian Science Monitor, March 29, 2010
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/David-R.-Francis/2010/0329/Defense-budget-After-Afghanistan-and-Iraq-withdrawal-a-peace-dividend
3) Christian Science Monitor, June 28, 2010
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/David-R.-Francis/2010/0628/Cuts-to-US-defense-budget-look-inevitable
4) Ibid
5) Robert Higgs, Defense Spending Is Much Greater than You Think
The Independent Institute, April 17, 2010
http://www.independent.org/blog/index.php?p=5827
6) Carl Conetta, Trillions to Burn? A Quick Guide to the Surge in Pentagon
Spending
Project on Defense Alternatives, February 5 2010
http://www.comw.org/pda/1002BudgetSurge.html
7) Associated Press, December 17, 2010
Showing posts with label Neo-Con. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Neo-Con. Show all posts
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
How Veterans Day Became A Farce
My children brought home the Scholastic News from school on Friday. For those who don’t know, it’s “America’s Leading News Source for Kids.” Its weekly editions are typically led by a theme, and students are encouraged to complete the exercises within. This one caught my eye: “Hi I’m Joe, I am a veteran. That means I was in a war. Meet my dog Benjamin. I’ll show you how he helps me everyday.”
On the front is a heartbreaking photo of a Marine with a “robot leg” in a wheelchair, his arm slung over a beautiful golden retriever. Inside, after more photos of the veteran and Benjamin, and the veteran and his young family, my child is asked, “how can we thank (soldiers)? … we can send them a care package!”
How about demanding they all come home now, legs intact? I think about this ruefully for a moment and realize that I had spent much of Veterans Day looking at photos of amputees.
FULL STORY
On the front is a heartbreaking photo of a Marine with a “robot leg” in a wheelchair, his arm slung over a beautiful golden retriever. Inside, after more photos of the veteran and Benjamin, and the veteran and his young family, my child is asked, “how can we thank (soldiers)? … we can send them a care package!”
How about demanding they all come home now, legs intact? I think about this ruefully for a moment and realize that I had spent much of Veterans Day looking at photos of amputees.
FULL STORY
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Neo Con Marco Rubio Headed To Israel
What is your first order of business after winning a Senate seat? Head to your bosses house of course and let them know of your unwavering allegiance.
Source
Senator-elect Marco Rubio (R) will head to Israel Sunday, reports Israeli news site Ynetnews.
More from the site:
With victory in the congressional elections less than a day old, Florida Senator Marco Rubio (Rep.) who considers himself a ‘Tea Party’ member, is set to arrive in Israel on Sunday. Rubio’s visit so soon after the election win is a move that strengthens assessments that the congress in its current form will continue where it left off – at least where Israel is concerned.
Rubio gave a speech on Israel in June to the Republican Jewish Coalition “about the need for the United States to stand with Israel without equivocation or hesitation,” criticizing the Obama administration’s handling of the U.S.-Israel relationship.
He also called on the U.S. to move its embassy to Jerusalem and said that the U.S. should not push Israel to a settlement freeze before negotiations. Like America, he said that Israel was an “exceptional” nation.
Neoconservatives loved it. Jennifer Rubin of Commentary called it the best speech on Israel “since George W. Bush went to the Knesset.”
His belief that the U.S. should support Israel unequivocally puts him squarely with Republican Party’s foreign-policy thinking on Israel.
Source
Senator-elect Marco Rubio (R) will head to Israel Sunday, reports Israeli news site Ynetnews.
More from the site:
With victory in the congressional elections less than a day old, Florida Senator Marco Rubio (Rep.) who considers himself a ‘Tea Party’ member, is set to arrive in Israel on Sunday. Rubio’s visit so soon after the election win is a move that strengthens assessments that the congress in its current form will continue where it left off – at least where Israel is concerned.
Rubio gave a speech on Israel in June to the Republican Jewish Coalition “about the need for the United States to stand with Israel without equivocation or hesitation,” criticizing the Obama administration’s handling of the U.S.-Israel relationship.
He also called on the U.S. to move its embassy to Jerusalem and said that the U.S. should not push Israel to a settlement freeze before negotiations. Like America, he said that Israel was an “exceptional” nation.
Neoconservatives loved it. Jennifer Rubin of Commentary called it the best speech on Israel “since George W. Bush went to the Knesset.”
His belief that the U.S. should support Israel unequivocally puts him squarely with Republican Party’s foreign-policy thinking on Israel.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Why Is Jew Neo Con Jonah Goldberg Still Alive?
FULL ARTICLE WITH LINKS
I'd like to ask a simple question: Why isn't Jonah Goldberg dead?
I'm not threatening Jonah Goldberg. Rather I am paraphrasing Goldberg’s own published threat to Julian Assange, in a column Goldberg wrote last week entitled "Why is Assange Still Alive?" My intention, in the following paragraphs, is to suggest to poor Jonah how it might feel to have someone publicly wish him harm, and muse about method.
The next two paragraphs reflect what Jonah wrote, with my humble alterations.
In case you didn't know, Goldberg is a neoconservative commentator behind the propaganda who helped justify the invasion of Iraq, a massive – and massively unsuccessful – effort to find WMD and create a US friendly and reliable democracy where none stood before, as a US-controlled military buffer between Israel and her nemesis Iran. In a series of essays, speeches and books, he published thousands upon thousands of falsehoods and misleading talking points regarding the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Military and other government officials insist that neoconservative pundits who have no military experience and exhibit markedly dual national loyalties are doing serious damage to American national security and have frankly, gotten people killed, including brave Americans who've risked their lives and destroyed their futures based on the lies these neoconservatives told over and over again.
Even Goldberg agrees. He said in 2006 that Iraq was a mistake. After he enthusiastically cheered and relentlessly promoted (but refused to physically serve in) the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, that unwarranted war indeed has been shown to be a terrible mistake, and an openly criminal act committed by the U.S. government. A mistake we now know for sure, thanks to Wikileaks and the dedicated efforts of Julian Assange and his team. The documents that now have Jonah Goldberg in such a tizzy prove we killed (and recorded the deaths of) nearly 100,000 civilians, even as we swore we didn’t keep tabs on how many or which Iraqis were killed.
Jonah Goldberg accuses Assange of recognizing that "innocent people might die as a result of the "collateral damage" of his work [at Wikileaks]." I accuse Jonah Goldberg of not only knowingly encouraging the death of Iraqi innocents and American soldiers, but of publicly backing away from his advocacy years later when it became popular to do so.
The differences between Jonah Goldberg and Julian Assange are legion. Assange is a courageous iconoclast, brilliant, angry, driven and effective. Goldberg is an idiotic, chicken-hearted coward with limited talent in his chosen field. When he calls for the assassination by those employed by or ostensibly on the side of the US government, as he did publicly a few days ago, it tells us more about Goldberg’s own concerns and lack of character than Assange’s alleged "crimes" against the corporate state.
As Glenn Greenwald has noted, Jonah’s irresponsible plea to the dark world of government assassins, obsessive misfits and politically inspired sociopaths, is rhetorically withdrawn after the initial excitement of the headline. Jonah considers, in the end, his murder-fantasy of Julian Assange wouldn’t make much difference anyway in the age of the Internet. Now, I wonder why that is?
Is it possible that the same medium that makes Jonah’s inanity readily available for the neoconservative-leaning mouth-breathers also provides information that could be useful and valued to others who live in the United States and around the world? Already, the Chinese government has referenced Wikileaks in pointing out US hypocrisy in demanding human rights for some Chinese while instructing its own soldiers in a country those soldiers are occupying specifically for human rights and democracy, no less, to look the other way as Iraqis are beaten, locked up, raped and tortured because of their ethnicity, religion, political views or sheer bad luck.
I'd like to ask a simple question: Why isn't Jonah Goldberg dead?
I'm not threatening Jonah Goldberg. Rather I am paraphrasing Goldberg’s own published threat to Julian Assange, in a column Goldberg wrote last week entitled "Why is Assange Still Alive?" My intention, in the following paragraphs, is to suggest to poor Jonah how it might feel to have someone publicly wish him harm, and muse about method.
The next two paragraphs reflect what Jonah wrote, with my humble alterations.
In case you didn't know, Goldberg is a neoconservative commentator behind the propaganda who helped justify the invasion of Iraq, a massive – and massively unsuccessful – effort to find WMD and create a US friendly and reliable democracy where none stood before, as a US-controlled military buffer between Israel and her nemesis Iran. In a series of essays, speeches and books, he published thousands upon thousands of falsehoods and misleading talking points regarding the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Military and other government officials insist that neoconservative pundits who have no military experience and exhibit markedly dual national loyalties are doing serious damage to American national security and have frankly, gotten people killed, including brave Americans who've risked their lives and destroyed their futures based on the lies these neoconservatives told over and over again.
Even Goldberg agrees. He said in 2006 that Iraq was a mistake. After he enthusiastically cheered and relentlessly promoted (but refused to physically serve in) the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, that unwarranted war indeed has been shown to be a terrible mistake, and an openly criminal act committed by the U.S. government. A mistake we now know for sure, thanks to Wikileaks and the dedicated efforts of Julian Assange and his team. The documents that now have Jonah Goldberg in such a tizzy prove we killed (and recorded the deaths of) nearly 100,000 civilians, even as we swore we didn’t keep tabs on how many or which Iraqis were killed.
Jonah Goldberg accuses Assange of recognizing that "innocent people might die as a result of the "collateral damage" of his work [at Wikileaks]." I accuse Jonah Goldberg of not only knowingly encouraging the death of Iraqi innocents and American soldiers, but of publicly backing away from his advocacy years later when it became popular to do so.
The differences between Jonah Goldberg and Julian Assange are legion. Assange is a courageous iconoclast, brilliant, angry, driven and effective. Goldberg is an idiotic, chicken-hearted coward with limited talent in his chosen field. When he calls for the assassination by those employed by or ostensibly on the side of the US government, as he did publicly a few days ago, it tells us more about Goldberg’s own concerns and lack of character than Assange’s alleged "crimes" against the corporate state.
As Glenn Greenwald has noted, Jonah’s irresponsible plea to the dark world of government assassins, obsessive misfits and politically inspired sociopaths, is rhetorically withdrawn after the initial excitement of the headline. Jonah considers, in the end, his murder-fantasy of Julian Assange wouldn’t make much difference anyway in the age of the Internet. Now, I wonder why that is?
Is it possible that the same medium that makes Jonah’s inanity readily available for the neoconservative-leaning mouth-breathers also provides information that could be useful and valued to others who live in the United States and around the world? Already, the Chinese government has referenced Wikileaks in pointing out US hypocrisy in demanding human rights for some Chinese while instructing its own soldiers in a country those soldiers are occupying specifically for human rights and democracy, no less, to look the other way as Iraqis are beaten, locked up, raped and tortured because of their ethnicity, religion, political views or sheer bad luck.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Don't Think For A Second That The Neo Cons Didn't Know What Would Happen In Iraq
Anyone with any knowledge of Iraq knew that it would not be able to sustain itself if Suddamn Hussein was removed from power. Cheney is caught here in rare form, telling the common sense truth about what a US led invasion of Iraq would lead too.
So basically they knew what would happen, the trillions of dollars wasted, the thousands of US men killed and the MILLIONS of Iraqi civilians as this occupation turned quickly into a "quagmire". Yet they lied to the public to gain support and did it anyway.
Traitors.
So basically they knew what would happen, the trillions of dollars wasted, the thousands of US men killed and the MILLIONS of Iraqi civilians as this occupation turned quickly into a "quagmire". Yet they lied to the public to gain support and did it anyway.
Traitors.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Rand Paul Officially Kisses The Neo Con Ring - Told Ya So
When Rand first announced his candidacy I was thrilled. My first thoughts were "wow we are going to have a Ron Paul clone in the Senate this is fantastic" sadly though over the last year my joy has turned to sorrow on this matter as more and more evidence has come out pinning Rand Paul as nothing but an opportunist snake in the grass, here is yet another piece of damning evidence.
_________________________________________________________________________________
One faction of the GOP that has remained particularly wary of Rand Paul's Senate candidacy are neoconservatives who are still angry about his father Ron Paul's criticism of Israel and his disdain for Bush-era military adventurism.
In the past, Rand has echoed his father's views, opposing the Iraq War, and from the neocon point of view, the Paul family's isolationism is as whacked out as anything hatched by the anti-war left.
Now, it turns out, Rand is looking to mend fences. He made a quiet pilgrimage and met privately with some of Washington's most influential neocons, as well as the pro-Israel lobby, delivering them a not-too-subtle message: Never mind my father's views, you guys can trust me now.
The episode is buried in Jason Zengerle's big new profile of Rand in GQ Magazine:
At a private office in Dupont Circle, he talked foreign policy with Bill Kristol, Dan Senor, and Tom Donnelly, three prominent neocons who'd been part of an effort to defeat him during the primary. "He struck me as genuinely interested in trying to understand why people like us were so apoplectic," Senor says of their two-hour encounter. "He wanted to get educated about our problem with him. He wasn't confrontational, and he wasn't disagreeable. He didn't seem cemented in his views. He was really in absorption mode."
The following month, he met with officials from the powerful lobbying group AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee), which has frequently clashed with Ron Paul over what the group views as his insufficient support of Israel. Paul, according to one person familiar with the AIPAC meeting, "told them what they wanted to hear: 'I'm more reasonable than my father on the things you care about.' He was very solicitous."
But some neocons still remain highly wary of Rand. Michael Goldfarb, who still works closely with Kristol, tells me that Rand's summit with the neocons has "dampened some of the concern" but that neocons remain split over whether Rand can be trusted.
"While there was once pretty much universal hostility to Paul among neoconservatives, there's now a split, with some folks inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt and others still convinced he's his father's son," Goldfarb says. "Those folks aren't likely to change their minds until he starts casting votes on national security and defense issues."
It's the latest chapter in Rand Paul's extreme makeover: From neo-isolationist to neocon in 60 seconds!
_________________________________________________________________________________
One faction of the GOP that has remained particularly wary of Rand Paul's Senate candidacy are neoconservatives who are still angry about his father Ron Paul's criticism of Israel and his disdain for Bush-era military adventurism.
In the past, Rand has echoed his father's views, opposing the Iraq War, and from the neocon point of view, the Paul family's isolationism is as whacked out as anything hatched by the anti-war left.
Now, it turns out, Rand is looking to mend fences. He made a quiet pilgrimage and met privately with some of Washington's most influential neocons, as well as the pro-Israel lobby, delivering them a not-too-subtle message: Never mind my father's views, you guys can trust me now.
The episode is buried in Jason Zengerle's big new profile of Rand in GQ Magazine:
At a private office in Dupont Circle, he talked foreign policy with Bill Kristol, Dan Senor, and Tom Donnelly, three prominent neocons who'd been part of an effort to defeat him during the primary. "He struck me as genuinely interested in trying to understand why people like us were so apoplectic," Senor says of their two-hour encounter. "He wanted to get educated about our problem with him. He wasn't confrontational, and he wasn't disagreeable. He didn't seem cemented in his views. He was really in absorption mode."
The following month, he met with officials from the powerful lobbying group AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee), which has frequently clashed with Ron Paul over what the group views as his insufficient support of Israel. Paul, according to one person familiar with the AIPAC meeting, "told them what they wanted to hear: 'I'm more reasonable than my father on the things you care about.' He was very solicitous."
But some neocons still remain highly wary of Rand. Michael Goldfarb, who still works closely with Kristol, tells me that Rand's summit with the neocons has "dampened some of the concern" but that neocons remain split over whether Rand can be trusted.
"While there was once pretty much universal hostility to Paul among neoconservatives, there's now a split, with some folks inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt and others still convinced he's his father's son," Goldfarb says. "Those folks aren't likely to change their minds until he starts casting votes on national security and defense issues."
It's the latest chapter in Rand Paul's extreme makeover: From neo-isolationist to neocon in 60 seconds!
Friday, September 3, 2010
Jew Human Trafficker Big GOP Donor
A business owner indicted for the human trafficking of 400 laborers from Thailand is a frequent donor to the Republican Party and recently waged war against other companies involved with hiring illegal immigrants.
The Associated Press reports that according to the allegations, "the recruiters lured the workers with false promises of lucrative jobs, then confiscated their passports, failed to honor their employment contracts and threatened to deport them."
The FBI considers this the largest human-trafficking case in US history, and those indicted face maximum sentences of five to 70 years in prison, the Justice Department confirmed to AP.
The man at the helm is Mordechai Orian, 45, President and CEO of the Los Angeles-based Global Horizons Manpower Inc., a labor contracting group. Five of his affiliates and contractors were also charged in the scheme.
Orian gave tens of thousands of dollars to the National Republican Congressional Committee on eight occasions between 2004 and 2006, according to the election records database Newsmeat. His largest contribution of $11,000 came on July 13, 2006. Orian also gave $2000 to the GOP-affiliated Restore America PAC twice in that period.
During those years the Republican-led Congress debated and sought to pass a major immigration reform bill that involved, among many other things, an expanded guest-worker program. The legislation ultimately failed.
In 2006, Global Horizons was implicated for violating labor laws and underpaying 88 Thai workers. Orian initially denied the charges but ultimately settled the case for $300,000.
In 2007, Orian legally -- and unsuccessfully -- went after a rival labor contractor, J&A Contracting, to whom he had lost one of his biggest clients. According to Fortune magazine, he claimed it was because J&A "provides cheaper, illegal workers, scooping workers up on street corners by the vanload and delivering them to farms." He also claimed he had "evidence of falsified Social Security cards" as proof.
In what now appears to be a twisted irony, Orian at the time presented himself as a moral crusader against illegal immigration. His lawyer then, David Klehm, told Fortune the lawsuit would reflect a new era of accountability for employers when it comes to workers.
The Associated Press reports that according to the allegations, "the recruiters lured the workers with false promises of lucrative jobs, then confiscated their passports, failed to honor their employment contracts and threatened to deport them."
The FBI considers this the largest human-trafficking case in US history, and those indicted face maximum sentences of five to 70 years in prison, the Justice Department confirmed to AP.
The man at the helm is Mordechai Orian, 45, President and CEO of the Los Angeles-based Global Horizons Manpower Inc., a labor contracting group. Five of his affiliates and contractors were also charged in the scheme.
Orian gave tens of thousands of dollars to the National Republican Congressional Committee on eight occasions between 2004 and 2006, according to the election records database Newsmeat. His largest contribution of $11,000 came on July 13, 2006. Orian also gave $2000 to the GOP-affiliated Restore America PAC twice in that period.
During those years the Republican-led Congress debated and sought to pass a major immigration reform bill that involved, among many other things, an expanded guest-worker program. The legislation ultimately failed.
In 2006, Global Horizons was implicated for violating labor laws and underpaying 88 Thai workers. Orian initially denied the charges but ultimately settled the case for $300,000.
In 2007, Orian legally -- and unsuccessfully -- went after a rival labor contractor, J&A Contracting, to whom he had lost one of his biggest clients. According to Fortune magazine, he claimed it was because J&A "provides cheaper, illegal workers, scooping workers up on street corners by the vanload and delivering them to farms." He also claimed he had "evidence of falsified Social Security cards" as proof.
In what now appears to be a twisted irony, Orian at the time presented himself as a moral crusader against illegal immigration. His lawyer then, David Klehm, told Fortune the lawsuit would reflect a new era of accountability for employers when it comes to workers.
John Hagee: Tea Partyin American Heretic
SOURCE
By Harmony Daws
2 Sep 10
Conservative star Glenn Beck’s recent “Restoring Honor” event was attended by perhaps hundreds of thousands and covered by major media. Mega-pastor John Hagee was among the religious leaders who spoke; he led a closing prayer to the “God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” and asked forgiveness of America’s sins. “Through moral and spiritual compromise,” the Zionist leader prayed, “we have allowed our nation to conform to the ways of the world by rejecting the Word of God.” Yet few evangelical pastors have more grossly betrayed the Bible than John Hagee.
Hagee has “made it a practice for 25 years not to target Jews for conversion.”At his Christians United for Israel rallies, he forbids mention of the name of Jesus, in praise or prayer. And although betraying this central tenet of Christianity, the heretical pastor remains popular. Although so controversial that John McCain distanced himself from Hagee’s endorsement in 2008, Hagee appears influential among Tea Partiers. In 2006, Barna polls reported Hagee was regarded by Pentecostals as one the top ten spokesmen for Christianity. Glenn Beck, who is riding a wave of tremendous popularity, has promoted Hagee’s book Can America Survive? 10 Prophetic Signs That We Are the Terminal Generation. This month the book is number seven on the New York Times political bestsellers list. Hagee can be seen on YouTube listing all ten of the signs in conversation with Beck.
It is not surprising that Beck provides a platform to the arch Christian Zionist, as he himself panders to the Anti-Defamation League. Earlier this month Beck related the Biblical fact that Jews were responsible for Jesus’ death. Jumped on by ADL for what it regards as “anti-Semitism,” Beck backtracked. “ I strongly believe that it is a historical fact that the Romans, not the Jews, put Jesus to death…” Beck says he wants to dialogue with ADL so that he can better understand the “injustices” (online hate speech, Christian “homophobia,” criticism of Israel?) that “ADL is fighting.”
In his Beck-blessed bestseller, Hagee says the one thing we won’t survive is rejecting Israel, “the only nation created by an eternal covenant with God.” Hagee says Jews have a divine mandate to possess Palestine and America will be destroyed if we attempt to force a return of any land to the dispossessed Arabs. He compares American pressure on Israel to withdraw from illegal settlements to British attempts to appease Hitler. “God promises that all nations that use their influence to divide the land of Israel will be brought to a swift and severe judgment.” (p. 27)
Because Hagee’s theology lines up with the most zealous, anti-peace right-wingers in Israel, it is no surprise that rabidly anti-Gentile, anti-Palestinian settlers and rabbis receive tremendous financial support from his coffers. Christian Zionists yearly funnel more than a million dollars into their coffers. In fact, they directly contribute to the persecution of the approximately 15,000 Messianic Jewish Christians who live in Israel today. They live “under the perpetual wrath of the haredim, who for the most part alienate and discriminate against them…”
Hagee has even contributed $500,000 of evangelical donations to the city of Ariel, which is noted for its particular persecution of Messianic believers. (See, Jews Against Jesus)
[Recently] Hagee was the guest of honor of the city of Ariel. The pro-settler news outlet Arutz Sheva described the "tribute ceremony" by Hagee's supporters in the sports hall named in his honor. "Hundreds of Ariel residents, led by city officials and Mayor Ron Nachman, were moved by the outpouring of love from the Christian friends of Israel and responded in kind with warm applause and embraces, which reached a peak with the singing of the Israeli and U.S. anthems."
During the gathering, Pastor Hagee delivered an aggressive and patriotic address supportive of the State of Israel and decrying the U.S. government's policy of pushing Israel to make security concessions to the Arabs that threaten its existence. "The Land of Israel is the country and the land of the Jews," Hagee said fervently. He earned loud applause when he declared: "We believe that the Jews are the chosen people, God's beloved, and that Jerusalem will be united forever and not divided, under Jewish sovereignty.” (Ha’aretz .com)
Hagee’s donations also go to Gush Katif, Jewish settlers who resist territorial compromise and land withdrawals. They also go to Young Israel, which Richard Silverstein describes as “one of the most virulent U.S. Orthodox groups supporting the most extreme of the settlers and settlements.” Silverstein reports this about two other recipients of Hagee’s largesse:
"Shurat Ha-Din is an Israeli-American group using 'lawfare' to wage war against the Arab world. It sues Arab banks alleging that they accept deposits from militant groups in violation of U.S. law. The group also hosts “Intellitours” to Israel which include meetings with Shin Bet assassins who’ve perpetrated targeted assassinations.
"Nefesh B’Nefesh resettles new immigrants who make aliya. It makes a special point of directing these immigrants to West Bank settlements and subsidizes their lives there. In effect, this is yet another means of providing ideological and financial support to the settler movement."
Here are some of the Orthodox pro-settler groups receiving money from Hagee:
Gush Katif, $200,000
Young Israel, $150,000
Shurat Ha-Din, $100,000
Nefesh B’Nefesh, $1,000,000
Ariel (settlement), $500,000
Gush Etzion, $150,000
Far right-wing sentiment and the violent, racial/religious supremacism of the Talmud have motivated many murderous statements by respected rabbis in Israel. (See our last two articles.) Real bloodshed is resulting from their vitriol. Jewish terrorist Yakov Teitel has been indicted for the murders of a Palestinian taxi driver and Palestinian shepherd; for the attempted poisoning of Palestinian village residents; and for attempting to murder the son of a Messianic family in Ariel by sending them an explosive disguised as a Purim gift. Teitel is a follower of Rabbi Shapira, whose King’s Torah justifies the killing of non-Jews. (See, Homicidal Rabbi Finds Wide Support in Israel) Dov Lior, another radical rabbi and friend of Shapira, has instructed IDF soldiers, “There is no such thing as civilians in wartime… A thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew’s fingernail!” Lior does advocate keeping a few non-Jews alive: captured militants who could be used for live human medical experiments! Journalist Daniel Estrin says Rabbi Lior remains “a respected figure among many mainstream Zionists.”
In addition to violating the Biblical mandate to preach the gospel to everyone, Hagee disobeys another important, clearly stated command: to make donations first to the “household of faith”—not unbelieving Jews who persecute Christians. Hagee supports right-wing rabbis and Zionist education—not mercy to displaced Palestinians or defense of Jewish Christians in Israel!
Also, Hagee supports an undivided Jerusalem, which would mean kicking out East Jerusalem’s Arab inhabitants whose ancestors lived there for millennia. “If America puts pressure on Israel to divide Jerusalem we are following the blueprint of the Prince of Darkness,” the pastor has said.
Thus Hagee, alleged representative of Christianity, wages war not only against fellow believers, the Bible and Palestinians—but any possibility of a two-state solution providing Arab autonomy. This means he is against the Mideast peace process itself.
By Harmony Daws
2 Sep 10
Conservative star Glenn Beck’s recent “Restoring Honor” event was attended by perhaps hundreds of thousands and covered by major media. Mega-pastor John Hagee was among the religious leaders who spoke; he led a closing prayer to the “God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” and asked forgiveness of America’s sins. “Through moral and spiritual compromise,” the Zionist leader prayed, “we have allowed our nation to conform to the ways of the world by rejecting the Word of God.” Yet few evangelical pastors have more grossly betrayed the Bible than John Hagee.
Hagee has “made it a practice for 25 years not to target Jews for conversion.”At his Christians United for Israel rallies, he forbids mention of the name of Jesus, in praise or prayer. And although betraying this central tenet of Christianity, the heretical pastor remains popular. Although so controversial that John McCain distanced himself from Hagee’s endorsement in 2008, Hagee appears influential among Tea Partiers. In 2006, Barna polls reported Hagee was regarded by Pentecostals as one the top ten spokesmen for Christianity. Glenn Beck, who is riding a wave of tremendous popularity, has promoted Hagee’s book Can America Survive? 10 Prophetic Signs That We Are the Terminal Generation. This month the book is number seven on the New York Times political bestsellers list. Hagee can be seen on YouTube listing all ten of the signs in conversation with Beck.
It is not surprising that Beck provides a platform to the arch Christian Zionist, as he himself panders to the Anti-Defamation League. Earlier this month Beck related the Biblical fact that Jews were responsible for Jesus’ death. Jumped on by ADL for what it regards as “anti-Semitism,” Beck backtracked. “ I strongly believe that it is a historical fact that the Romans, not the Jews, put Jesus to death…” Beck says he wants to dialogue with ADL so that he can better understand the “injustices” (online hate speech, Christian “homophobia,” criticism of Israel?) that “ADL is fighting.”
In his Beck-blessed bestseller, Hagee says the one thing we won’t survive is rejecting Israel, “the only nation created by an eternal covenant with God.” Hagee says Jews have a divine mandate to possess Palestine and America will be destroyed if we attempt to force a return of any land to the dispossessed Arabs. He compares American pressure on Israel to withdraw from illegal settlements to British attempts to appease Hitler. “God promises that all nations that use their influence to divide the land of Israel will be brought to a swift and severe judgment.” (p. 27)
Because Hagee’s theology lines up with the most zealous, anti-peace right-wingers in Israel, it is no surprise that rabidly anti-Gentile, anti-Palestinian settlers and rabbis receive tremendous financial support from his coffers. Christian Zionists yearly funnel more than a million dollars into their coffers. In fact, they directly contribute to the persecution of the approximately 15,000 Messianic Jewish Christians who live in Israel today. They live “under the perpetual wrath of the haredim, who for the most part alienate and discriminate against them…”
Hagee has even contributed $500,000 of evangelical donations to the city of Ariel, which is noted for its particular persecution of Messianic believers. (See, Jews Against Jesus)
[Recently] Hagee was the guest of honor of the city of Ariel. The pro-settler news outlet Arutz Sheva described the "tribute ceremony" by Hagee's supporters in the sports hall named in his honor. "Hundreds of Ariel residents, led by city officials and Mayor Ron Nachman, were moved by the outpouring of love from the Christian friends of Israel and responded in kind with warm applause and embraces, which reached a peak with the singing of the Israeli and U.S. anthems."
During the gathering, Pastor Hagee delivered an aggressive and patriotic address supportive of the State of Israel and decrying the U.S. government's policy of pushing Israel to make security concessions to the Arabs that threaten its existence. "The Land of Israel is the country and the land of the Jews," Hagee said fervently. He earned loud applause when he declared: "We believe that the Jews are the chosen people, God's beloved, and that Jerusalem will be united forever and not divided, under Jewish sovereignty.” (Ha’aretz .com)
Hagee’s donations also go to Gush Katif, Jewish settlers who resist territorial compromise and land withdrawals. They also go to Young Israel, which Richard Silverstein describes as “one of the most virulent U.S. Orthodox groups supporting the most extreme of the settlers and settlements.” Silverstein reports this about two other recipients of Hagee’s largesse:
"Shurat Ha-Din is an Israeli-American group using 'lawfare' to wage war against the Arab world. It sues Arab banks alleging that they accept deposits from militant groups in violation of U.S. law. The group also hosts “Intellitours” to Israel which include meetings with Shin Bet assassins who’ve perpetrated targeted assassinations.
"Nefesh B’Nefesh resettles new immigrants who make aliya. It makes a special point of directing these immigrants to West Bank settlements and subsidizes their lives there. In effect, this is yet another means of providing ideological and financial support to the settler movement."
Here are some of the Orthodox pro-settler groups receiving money from Hagee:
Gush Katif, $200,000
Young Israel, $150,000
Shurat Ha-Din, $100,000
Nefesh B’Nefesh, $1,000,000
Ariel (settlement), $500,000
Gush Etzion, $150,000
Far right-wing sentiment and the violent, racial/religious supremacism of the Talmud have motivated many murderous statements by respected rabbis in Israel. (See our last two articles.) Real bloodshed is resulting from their vitriol. Jewish terrorist Yakov Teitel has been indicted for the murders of a Palestinian taxi driver and Palestinian shepherd; for the attempted poisoning of Palestinian village residents; and for attempting to murder the son of a Messianic family in Ariel by sending them an explosive disguised as a Purim gift. Teitel is a follower of Rabbi Shapira, whose King’s Torah justifies the killing of non-Jews. (See, Homicidal Rabbi Finds Wide Support in Israel) Dov Lior, another radical rabbi and friend of Shapira, has instructed IDF soldiers, “There is no such thing as civilians in wartime… A thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew’s fingernail!” Lior does advocate keeping a few non-Jews alive: captured militants who could be used for live human medical experiments! Journalist Daniel Estrin says Rabbi Lior remains “a respected figure among many mainstream Zionists.”
In addition to violating the Biblical mandate to preach the gospel to everyone, Hagee disobeys another important, clearly stated command: to make donations first to the “household of faith”—not unbelieving Jews who persecute Christians. Hagee supports right-wing rabbis and Zionist education—not mercy to displaced Palestinians or defense of Jewish Christians in Israel!
Also, Hagee supports an undivided Jerusalem, which would mean kicking out East Jerusalem’s Arab inhabitants whose ancestors lived there for millennia. “If America puts pressure on Israel to divide Jerusalem we are following the blueprint of the Prince of Darkness,” the pastor has said.
Thus Hagee, alleged representative of Christianity, wages war not only against fellow believers, the Bible and Palestinians—but any possibility of a two-state solution providing Arab autonomy. This means he is against the Mideast peace process itself.
American Deaths Surpass Highest Annual Rate Ever, US Media Silent
A total of 323 US soldiers have been killed in the Afghan war this year, compared to 317 for all of 2009, according to figures based on the independent icasualties.org website.
Foreign forces suffered a grim spike in deaths last month as the Taliban insurgency intensified, with NATO confirming on Wednesday that a sixth US soldier was killed on one of the bloodiest days this year.
At 490, the overall death toll for foreign troops for the first eight months of the year is rapidly closing in the number registered in all of 2009, which at 521 was a record since the start of the war in late 2001.
In all 1,270 American troops have lost their lives, out of 2,058 foreign military fatalities, since the conflict began with the US-led invasion of Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington in 2001.
US President Barack Obama on Tuesday warned that the United States faced a "very tough fight" in Afghanistan, with more casualties and "heartbreak" to come.
"We obviously still have a very tough fight in Afghanistan," Mr Obama told troops in Texas as the United States marked the formal end of combat operations in Iraq.
"We have seen casualties go up because we are taking the fight to al-Qaeda and the Taliban," Obama said. "It is going to be a tough slog."
Military leaders say the spike in deaths reflects the injection of additional troops into the Afghan theatre, which leads to a higher number of battlefield engagements with Taliban-led insurgents.
US General David Petraeus, the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said Tuesday that deployments would reach their full strength of 150,000 within days.
In recent months Taliban improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have become the biggest killers of US and NATO troops as the insurgents adapt their battlefield techniques to counter Western forces' heavier armour.
IEDs are easy and cheap to produce, often using ammonium nitrate fertiliser produced in Pakistan and trucked across the border into Afghanistan, officials say. The bombs are difficult to detect, often buried by roadsides and remotely detonated to devastating effect.
A UN report in June noted an "alarming" 94 percent increase in IED incidents in the first four months of this year compared to 2009.
Washington said in July that it was supplying an additional three billion dollars worth of equipment - and about 1,000 experts - to counter the Taliban's expertise in making IEDs.
In the latest incident NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed that a sixth US soldier died on Tuesday, killed in an insurgent attack in the Taliban heartland in the south of the country.
This followed the previously announced deaths on Tuesday of another five US soldiers, four of them killed in a roadside bomb attack.
On Monday, eight NATO troops - seven Americans and an Estonian - were killed in bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan.
Twenty-five Americans have died since Friday.
Icasualties.org is constantly updating its figures as soldiers wounded in battle die of their injuries after they have been evacuated from Afghanistan, sometimes days or weeks later.
Foreign forces suffered a grim spike in deaths last month as the Taliban insurgency intensified, with NATO confirming on Wednesday that a sixth US soldier was killed on one of the bloodiest days this year.
At 490, the overall death toll for foreign troops for the first eight months of the year is rapidly closing in the number registered in all of 2009, which at 521 was a record since the start of the war in late 2001.
In all 1,270 American troops have lost their lives, out of 2,058 foreign military fatalities, since the conflict began with the US-led invasion of Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington in 2001.
US President Barack Obama on Tuesday warned that the United States faced a "very tough fight" in Afghanistan, with more casualties and "heartbreak" to come.
"We obviously still have a very tough fight in Afghanistan," Mr Obama told troops in Texas as the United States marked the formal end of combat operations in Iraq.
"We have seen casualties go up because we are taking the fight to al-Qaeda and the Taliban," Obama said. "It is going to be a tough slog."
Military leaders say the spike in deaths reflects the injection of additional troops into the Afghan theatre, which leads to a higher number of battlefield engagements with Taliban-led insurgents.
US General David Petraeus, the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said Tuesday that deployments would reach their full strength of 150,000 within days.
In recent months Taliban improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have become the biggest killers of US and NATO troops as the insurgents adapt their battlefield techniques to counter Western forces' heavier armour.
IEDs are easy and cheap to produce, often using ammonium nitrate fertiliser produced in Pakistan and trucked across the border into Afghanistan, officials say. The bombs are difficult to detect, often buried by roadsides and remotely detonated to devastating effect.
A UN report in June noted an "alarming" 94 percent increase in IED incidents in the first four months of this year compared to 2009.
Washington said in July that it was supplying an additional three billion dollars worth of equipment - and about 1,000 experts - to counter the Taliban's expertise in making IEDs.
In the latest incident NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed that a sixth US soldier died on Tuesday, killed in an insurgent attack in the Taliban heartland in the south of the country.
This followed the previously announced deaths on Tuesday of another five US soldiers, four of them killed in a roadside bomb attack.
On Monday, eight NATO troops - seven Americans and an Estonian - were killed in bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan.
Twenty-five Americans have died since Friday.
Icasualties.org is constantly updating its figures as soldiers wounded in battle die of their injuries after they have been evacuated from Afghanistan, sometimes days or weeks later.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Female Patriot Hits Jew Senator Carl Levin In The Face With A Pie
(You other treasonous bastards better take heed while all you are hit with is pies.)
BIG RAPIDS, Mich. – A woman identified as an anti-war protester hit U.S. Sen. Carl Levin in the face with an apple pie during the Armed Services Committee chairman's meeting with constituents in northern Michigan, authorities said Monday.
The senator took a question near the end of the Monday morning meeting in Big Rapids from a man who said he was a student, Levin's office said in a news release. The man read a long statement, then a woman came up and hit Levin with a pie.
Big Rapids police arrested Ahlam M. Mohsen, 22, of Coldwater on a felony charge of stalking, as well as misdemeanor counts of assault and disorderly conduct. She has no listed telephone number in Coldwater.
Mohsen told the Big Rapids Pioneer she hoped "to send a message that liberals and Democrats are just as implicated in the violence (of war) as the Republicans."
Mohsen was one of three protesters arrested in January 2009 after a sit-in at Levin's office in Lansing, according to Michigan State University's campus newspaper. She told the newspaper then that the group wanted the United States to begin cutting military and other support to Israel and call for an investigation of Israeli war crimes.
The earlier arrest, plus the escalation to a physical assault, formed the basis for the stalking charge, Officer Erik Small told The Associated Press. He said Mohsen was being held without bond and was expected to be arraigned Tuesday.
Police said the man who read the statement before Mohsen hit Levin with the pie and a woman who videotaped the attack also could face charges. Police do not have the videotape, Little said.
Levin appeared to take the pie toss in stride.
"They didn't hurt me, but they hurt their cause even more than their own extreme words had already done," he said in a statement.
The constituent meeting was sponsored by the Mecosta County Democratic Party. The city of about 10,000 is 50 miles north of Grand Rapids and 150 miles northwest of Detroit.
BIG RAPIDS, Mich. – A woman identified as an anti-war protester hit U.S. Sen. Carl Levin in the face with an apple pie during the Armed Services Committee chairman's meeting with constituents in northern Michigan, authorities said Monday.
The senator took a question near the end of the Monday morning meeting in Big Rapids from a man who said he was a student, Levin's office said in a news release. The man read a long statement, then a woman came up and hit Levin with a pie.
Big Rapids police arrested Ahlam M. Mohsen, 22, of Coldwater on a felony charge of stalking, as well as misdemeanor counts of assault and disorderly conduct. She has no listed telephone number in Coldwater.
Mohsen told the Big Rapids Pioneer she hoped "to send a message that liberals and Democrats are just as implicated in the violence (of war) as the Republicans."
Mohsen was one of three protesters arrested in January 2009 after a sit-in at Levin's office in Lansing, according to Michigan State University's campus newspaper. She told the newspaper then that the group wanted the United States to begin cutting military and other support to Israel and call for an investigation of Israeli war crimes.
The earlier arrest, plus the escalation to a physical assault, formed the basis for the stalking charge, Officer Erik Small told The Associated Press. He said Mohsen was being held without bond and was expected to be arraigned Tuesday.
Police said the man who read the statement before Mohsen hit Levin with the pie and a woman who videotaped the attack also could face charges. Police do not have the videotape, Little said.
Levin appeared to take the pie toss in stride.
"They didn't hurt me, but they hurt their cause even more than their own extreme words had already done," he said in a statement.
The constituent meeting was sponsored by the Mecosta County Democratic Party. The city of about 10,000 is 50 miles north of Grand Rapids and 150 miles northwest of Detroit.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Rand Paul Threatens GQ Magazine Over Expose
Source
Rand Paul's camp is firing back at GQ reporter Jason Zengerle and the magazine for a piece detailing the Kentucky Senate candidate's "kooky" behavior in college.
"We are investigating all our options - including legal ones," Paul spokesman Jesse Benton told Politico. "We will not tolerate drive-by journalism by a writer with a leftist agenda."
Zengerle, in a piece posted online Monday, described Paul's 2½ years at Baylor University. The Senate hopeful attended — but didn't graduate from — the Texas school before eventually attending medical school at Duke. Zengerle wrote that during Paul's tenure at Baylor, he "wasn't your typical Baylor student."
Indeed, Zengerle describes Paul's membership in the NoZe brotherhood, a secret society comprising more liberal students at the predominantly conservative Baptist university. The NoZe brotherhood was behind pranks and a satirical newspaper that wouldn't seem out of place at most universities.
But Zengerle also describes a troubling incident involving Paul that goes beyond typical campus jokes.
He quotes an anonymous woman who claims that Paul and one of Paul's fellow NoZe members blindfolded her, tied her up and put her in a car.
First, she says, Paul and the other man tried forcing her to take bong hits in his apartment. Next, they drove her to a creek and made her bow down to "Aqua Buddha" — supposedly their God. (Not surprisingly, she says Paul was smoking pot, too).
"They never hurt me, they never did anything wrong, but the whole thing was kind of sadistic," she told GQ. "They were messing with my mind. It was some kind of joke."
GQ Editor-in-Chief Jim Nelson, in a statement, defended the piece against charges of "drive-by journalism."
"We've vetted, researched, and exhaustively fact-checked Jason Zengerle's reporting on Rand Paul's college days, we stand by the story, and we gave the Paul campaign every opportunity to refute it," Nelson said. "We notice that they have not, in fact, refuted it."
It's not uncommon for politicians to shoot the messenger after an unflattering story. And media-bashing can go over well with voters, especially on the right.
After a rough May interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow over his controversial civil rights views, Paul said: "I need to be very careful about going on certain networks that seem to have a bias."
So far, the Paul camp hasn't specified inaccuracies in the GQ piece. If it's factually correct, then there probably wouldn't be grounds for a suit. (A GQ spokeswoman told The Upshot that there had been no legal action as of early afternoon Tuesday Eastern time).
Benton did not immediately respond to The Upshot's request for comment on whether the campaign believes the piece is inaccurate and on what grounds they'd consider legal action.
Rand Paul's camp is firing back at GQ reporter Jason Zengerle and the magazine for a piece detailing the Kentucky Senate candidate's "kooky" behavior in college.
"We are investigating all our options - including legal ones," Paul spokesman Jesse Benton told Politico. "We will not tolerate drive-by journalism by a writer with a leftist agenda."
Zengerle, in a piece posted online Monday, described Paul's 2½ years at Baylor University. The Senate hopeful attended — but didn't graduate from — the Texas school before eventually attending medical school at Duke. Zengerle wrote that during Paul's tenure at Baylor, he "wasn't your typical Baylor student."
Indeed, Zengerle describes Paul's membership in the NoZe brotherhood, a secret society comprising more liberal students at the predominantly conservative Baptist university. The NoZe brotherhood was behind pranks and a satirical newspaper that wouldn't seem out of place at most universities.
But Zengerle also describes a troubling incident involving Paul that goes beyond typical campus jokes.
He quotes an anonymous woman who claims that Paul and one of Paul's fellow NoZe members blindfolded her, tied her up and put her in a car.
First, she says, Paul and the other man tried forcing her to take bong hits in his apartment. Next, they drove her to a creek and made her bow down to "Aqua Buddha" — supposedly their God. (Not surprisingly, she says Paul was smoking pot, too).
"They never hurt me, they never did anything wrong, but the whole thing was kind of sadistic," she told GQ. "They were messing with my mind. It was some kind of joke."
GQ Editor-in-Chief Jim Nelson, in a statement, defended the piece against charges of "drive-by journalism."
"We've vetted, researched, and exhaustively fact-checked Jason Zengerle's reporting on Rand Paul's college days, we stand by the story, and we gave the Paul campaign every opportunity to refute it," Nelson said. "We notice that they have not, in fact, refuted it."
It's not uncommon for politicians to shoot the messenger after an unflattering story. And media-bashing can go over well with voters, especially on the right.
After a rough May interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow over his controversial civil rights views, Paul said: "I need to be very careful about going on certain networks that seem to have a bias."
So far, the Paul camp hasn't specified inaccuracies in the GQ piece. If it's factually correct, then there probably wouldn't be grounds for a suit. (A GQ spokeswoman told The Upshot that there had been no legal action as of early afternoon Tuesday Eastern time).
Benton did not immediately respond to The Upshot's request for comment on whether the campaign believes the piece is inaccurate and on what grounds they'd consider legal action.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Afghan War Logs Reveal CIA Role In Civilian Deaths
Source
Shum Khan, a man both deaf and dumb, lived in the remote border hamlet of Malekshay, 7,000ft up in the mountains. When a heavily armed squad from the CIA barrelled into his village in March 2007, the war logs record that he "ran at the sight of the approaching coalition forces … out of fear and confusion".
The secret CIA paramilitaries, (the euphemism here is OGA, for "other government agency") shouted at him to stop. Khan could not hear them. He carried on running. So they shot him, saying they were entitled to do so under the carefully graded "escalation of force" provisions of the US rules of engagement.
Khan was wounded but survived. The Americans' error was explained to them by village elders, so they fetched out what they term "solatia", or compensation. The classified intelligence report ends briskly: "Solatia was made in the form of supplies and the Element mission progressed".
Behind the military jargon, the war logs are littered with accounts of civilian tragedies. The 144 entries in the logs recording some of these so-called "blue on white" events, cover a wide spectrum of day-by-day assaults on Afghans, with hundreds of casualties.
They range from the shootings of individual innocents to the often massive loss of life from air strikes, which eventually led President Hamid Karzai to protest publicly that the US was treating Afghan lives as "cheap". When civilian family members are actually killed in Afghanistan, their relatives do, in fairness, get greater solatia payments than cans of beans and Hershey bars. The logs refer to sums paid of 100,000 Afghani per corpse, equivalent to about £1,500.
US and allied commanders frequently deny allegations of mass civilian casualties, claiming they are Taliban propaganda or ploys to get compensation, which are contradicted by facts known to the military.
But the logs demonstrate how much of the contemporaneous US internal reporting of air strikes is simply false.
Last September there was a major scandal at Kunduz in the north of Afghanistan when a German commander ordered the bombing of a crowd looting two hijacked fuel tankers. The contemporaneous archive circulated to Nato allies records him authorising the airstrike by a US F-15 jet "after ensuring that no civilians were in the vicinity". The "battle damage assessment" confirmed, it claims, that 56 purely "enemy insurgents" had died.
Media reports followed by official inquiries, however, established something closer to the real death toll. It included 30 to 70 civilians.
In another case the logs show that on the night of 30 August 2008, a US special forces squad called Scorpion 26 blasted Helmand positions with multiple rockets, and called in an airstrike to drop a 500lb bomb. All that was officially logged was that 24 Taliban had been killed.
But writer Patrick Bishop was embedded in the valley nearby with British paratroops at their Sangin bases. He recorded independently: "Overnight, the question of civilian casualties took on an extra urgency. An American team had been inserted on to Black Mountain … From there, they launched a series of offensive operations. On 30 August, wounded civilians, some of them badly injured, turned up at Sangin and FOB Inkerman saying they had been attacked by foreign troops. Such incidents gave a hollow ring to ISAF claims that their presence would bring security to the local population."
Some of the more notorious civilian calamities did become public at the time. The logs confirm that an entirely truthful official announcement was made regretting the guidance system failure of one "smart bomb". On 9 September 2008 it unintentionally landed on a village causing 26 civilian casualties.
The US also realised very quickly that a Polish squad had committed what appeared to have been a possible war crime. On 16 August 2007 the Poles mortared a wedding party in the village of Nangar Khel in an apparent revenge attack shortly after experiencing an IED explosion.
It is recorded under the heading: "Any incident that may cause negative media". The report disclosed that three women victims had "numerous shrapnel wounds … One was pregnant and an emergency C-section was performed but the baby died". In all, six were killed. The Polish troops were shipped home and some eventually put on trial for the atrocity. After protests in their support from a Polish general, the trial has apparently so far failed to reach a conclusion.
But most of the assaults on civilians recorded here, do not appear to have been investigated. French troops "opened fire on a bus that came too close to convoy" near the village of Tangi Kalay outside Kabul on 2 October 2008, according to the logs. They wounded eight children who were in the bus.
Two months later, US troops gunned down a group of bus passengers even more peremptorily, as the logs record.
Patrolling on foot, a Kentucky-based squad from 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, known as "Red Currahee", decided to flag down the approaching bus, so their patrol could cross the road. Before sunrise, a soldier stepped out on to Afghanistan's main highway and raised both hands in the air.
When the bus failed to slow – travellers are often wary of being flagged down in Afghanistan's bandit lands – a trooper raked it with machine-gun fire. They killed four passengers and wounded 11 others.
Some of the civilian deaths in the list stem from violent actions by US special forces attempting to hunt down Taliban leaders or al-Qaida incomers. In a typical case, last November, the army files record a demonstration by 80 angry villagers who broke an armoured car window in the village of Lewani. A woman from the village had been killed in an assault by the shadowy Task Force 373.
The influence of the then new commander, General Stanley McChrystal, can be seen, however. Brought in last year with a mission to try to cut the number of civilian casualties, he clearly demanded more detailed reporting of such incidents.
The Lewani file is marked with a new "information requirement" to record each "credible allegation of Isaf [the occupying forces] … causing non-combatant injury/death".
McChrystal was replaced last month, however, by General David Petraeus, amid reports that restraints aimed at cutting civilian deaths would be loosened once again.
The bulk of the "blue-white" file consists of a relentless catalogue of civilian shootings on nearly 100 occasions by jumpy troops at checkpoints, near bases or on convoys. Unco-operative drivers and motorcyclists are frequent targets.
Each incident almost without exception is described as a meticulous "escalation of force" conducted strictly by the book, against a threatening vehicle.
US and UK rules require shouts, waves, flares, warning shots and shots into the engine block, before using lethal force. Each time it is claimed that this procedure is followed. Yet "warning shots" often seem to cause death or injury, generally ascribed to ricochets.
Sometimes, it seems as though civilian drivers merely failed to get off the road fast enough. On 9 July 2006 mechanic Mohamad Baluch was test-driving a car in Ghazni, when the Americans rolled into town on an anti-IED "route clearance patrol".
The log records: "LN [local national] vehicle did not yield to US convoy … Gunner on lead truck shot into the vehicle and convoy kept going out of the area." The townspeople threw rocks at the eight departing armoured Humvees. Baluch ended up in hospital with machine-gun bullets in his shoulder.
Shum Khan, a man both deaf and dumb, lived in the remote border hamlet of Malekshay, 7,000ft up in the mountains. When a heavily armed squad from the CIA barrelled into his village in March 2007, the war logs record that he "ran at the sight of the approaching coalition forces … out of fear and confusion".
The secret CIA paramilitaries, (the euphemism here is OGA, for "other government agency") shouted at him to stop. Khan could not hear them. He carried on running. So they shot him, saying they were entitled to do so under the carefully graded "escalation of force" provisions of the US rules of engagement.
Khan was wounded but survived. The Americans' error was explained to them by village elders, so they fetched out what they term "solatia", or compensation. The classified intelligence report ends briskly: "Solatia was made in the form of supplies and the Element mission progressed".
Behind the military jargon, the war logs are littered with accounts of civilian tragedies. The 144 entries in the logs recording some of these so-called "blue on white" events, cover a wide spectrum of day-by-day assaults on Afghans, with hundreds of casualties.
They range from the shootings of individual innocents to the often massive loss of life from air strikes, which eventually led President Hamid Karzai to protest publicly that the US was treating Afghan lives as "cheap". When civilian family members are actually killed in Afghanistan, their relatives do, in fairness, get greater solatia payments than cans of beans and Hershey bars. The logs refer to sums paid of 100,000 Afghani per corpse, equivalent to about £1,500.
US and allied commanders frequently deny allegations of mass civilian casualties, claiming they are Taliban propaganda or ploys to get compensation, which are contradicted by facts known to the military.
But the logs demonstrate how much of the contemporaneous US internal reporting of air strikes is simply false.
Last September there was a major scandal at Kunduz in the north of Afghanistan when a German commander ordered the bombing of a crowd looting two hijacked fuel tankers. The contemporaneous archive circulated to Nato allies records him authorising the airstrike by a US F-15 jet "after ensuring that no civilians were in the vicinity". The "battle damage assessment" confirmed, it claims, that 56 purely "enemy insurgents" had died.
Media reports followed by official inquiries, however, established something closer to the real death toll. It included 30 to 70 civilians.
In another case the logs show that on the night of 30 August 2008, a US special forces squad called Scorpion 26 blasted Helmand positions with multiple rockets, and called in an airstrike to drop a 500lb bomb. All that was officially logged was that 24 Taliban had been killed.
But writer Patrick Bishop was embedded in the valley nearby with British paratroops at their Sangin bases. He recorded independently: "Overnight, the question of civilian casualties took on an extra urgency. An American team had been inserted on to Black Mountain … From there, they launched a series of offensive operations. On 30 August, wounded civilians, some of them badly injured, turned up at Sangin and FOB Inkerman saying they had been attacked by foreign troops. Such incidents gave a hollow ring to ISAF claims that their presence would bring security to the local population."
Some of the more notorious civilian calamities did become public at the time. The logs confirm that an entirely truthful official announcement was made regretting the guidance system failure of one "smart bomb". On 9 September 2008 it unintentionally landed on a village causing 26 civilian casualties.
The US also realised very quickly that a Polish squad had committed what appeared to have been a possible war crime. On 16 August 2007 the Poles mortared a wedding party in the village of Nangar Khel in an apparent revenge attack shortly after experiencing an IED explosion.
It is recorded under the heading: "Any incident that may cause negative media". The report disclosed that three women victims had "numerous shrapnel wounds … One was pregnant and an emergency C-section was performed but the baby died". In all, six were killed. The Polish troops were shipped home and some eventually put on trial for the atrocity. After protests in their support from a Polish general, the trial has apparently so far failed to reach a conclusion.
But most of the assaults on civilians recorded here, do not appear to have been investigated. French troops "opened fire on a bus that came too close to convoy" near the village of Tangi Kalay outside Kabul on 2 October 2008, according to the logs. They wounded eight children who were in the bus.
Two months later, US troops gunned down a group of bus passengers even more peremptorily, as the logs record.
Patrolling on foot, a Kentucky-based squad from 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, known as "Red Currahee", decided to flag down the approaching bus, so their patrol could cross the road. Before sunrise, a soldier stepped out on to Afghanistan's main highway and raised both hands in the air.
When the bus failed to slow – travellers are often wary of being flagged down in Afghanistan's bandit lands – a trooper raked it with machine-gun fire. They killed four passengers and wounded 11 others.
Some of the civilian deaths in the list stem from violent actions by US special forces attempting to hunt down Taliban leaders or al-Qaida incomers. In a typical case, last November, the army files record a demonstration by 80 angry villagers who broke an armoured car window in the village of Lewani. A woman from the village had been killed in an assault by the shadowy Task Force 373.
The influence of the then new commander, General Stanley McChrystal, can be seen, however. Brought in last year with a mission to try to cut the number of civilian casualties, he clearly demanded more detailed reporting of such incidents.
The Lewani file is marked with a new "information requirement" to record each "credible allegation of Isaf [the occupying forces] … causing non-combatant injury/death".
McChrystal was replaced last month, however, by General David Petraeus, amid reports that restraints aimed at cutting civilian deaths would be loosened once again.
The bulk of the "blue-white" file consists of a relentless catalogue of civilian shootings on nearly 100 occasions by jumpy troops at checkpoints, near bases or on convoys. Unco-operative drivers and motorcyclists are frequent targets.
Each incident almost without exception is described as a meticulous "escalation of force" conducted strictly by the book, against a threatening vehicle.
US and UK rules require shouts, waves, flares, warning shots and shots into the engine block, before using lethal force. Each time it is claimed that this procedure is followed. Yet "warning shots" often seem to cause death or injury, generally ascribed to ricochets.
Sometimes, it seems as though civilian drivers merely failed to get off the road fast enough. On 9 July 2006 mechanic Mohamad Baluch was test-driving a car in Ghazni, when the Americans rolled into town on an anti-IED "route clearance patrol".
The log records: "LN [local national] vehicle did not yield to US convoy … Gunner on lead truck shot into the vehicle and convoy kept going out of the area." The townspeople threw rocks at the eight departing armoured Humvees. Baluch ended up in hospital with machine-gun bullets in his shoulder.
Monday, July 19, 2010
By Deception Thou Shalt Do War
The Radical "Muslim" Group That Threatened South Park Creators Was Founded and Run by Joseph Cohen, a Former Israeli Radical Who Used to Live in a Settlement in the West Bank. Fundamentalist Jews who pretend to be Radical Muslims, a growing problem...
Jon Stewart, shame on you. You’re a propaganda spewing puppet and you’re no better than Glenn Beck.
South Park ran an unedited image of Muhammad in 2001 in an episode called “Super Best Friends“… and nothing happened.
In fact, the episode had been on the South Park website for viewing at any time for the past few years (they just removed it)… and nothing happened.
For 4 seasons they had that image in their opening segment for every single show… and nothing happened.
So for years on end no Muslim group, “radical” or otherwise, has threatened Matt and Trey or Comedy Central about the image of Muhammad that has been available for all to see every single day.
All of a sudden last week a group called “Revolution Muslim” threatened violence against Comedy Central if they aired an image of Muhammad which forced Comedy Central to censor the show and now you have even liberals talking about those “radical Muslims” and their threats of violence. Karl Rove couldn’t have done it any better.
Problem is, Revolution Muslim was started and run by a “converted” Israeli settler who studied at an orthodox rabbinical school in Israel before becoming a settler in the occupied territories.
You don’t think an orthadox Israeli settler would have any desire to see progressive Americans start to hate “radical Muslims” do you? You think “Revolution Muslim” helps or hurts the Israeli PR campaign after Operation Cast Lead and the Goldstone Report?
Here’s the research your team should have done before you went out and spun-up the neoconish ”radicalized Muslim” hype for your progressive audience…
“Revolution Muslim” is always there to say just the wrong thing to make Americans hate “Radical Muslims”. They praised the killing of Daniel Pearl with a childish puppet show. They sent “Get Well” wishes to the guy who shot those 13 people at Fort Hood.
Yousef al-Khattab, 41, a radical Muslim in the borough of Queens who runs RevolutionMuslim.com, claims on the site that the soldiers massacred at the Texas base deserved to be massacred, and he insists the victims are in “eternal hellfire.” As for the suspected gunman — Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan — Al-Khattab hails him as a hero. Fox News
You can count on “Revolution Muslim” to say the wrong thing at the right moment to get Americans to hate all those “radical” Muslims.
But the only thing is… “Revolution Muslim” (his creative fake “Scary American Terrorist” website) was started and ran by a man named Yousef al-Khattab. Yousef al-Khattab was born Joseph Cohen, in Brooklyn, New York. He was jewish. But not just jewish, he was a settler who went to Palestine to live on the illegal Israeli settlements.
Joseph Cohen isn’t alone though. There is another “radical Muslim” convert from Judaism (the original fake “scary American Terrorist“) who makes sure that “radical” Muslims are hated in America, his name is Adam Pearlman and he went by the “radicalized” Muslim name “Adam Gadahn“. Adam Pearlman is actually the grandson of a member of the board of directors of the Anti-Defamation League (at least he was on the board… Dr. Carl Pearlman died in 1998).
Gadahn grew up on a goat farm in rural Riverside County and moved to Santa Ana to live with his grandparents, the late Dr. Carl Pearlman and his wife, Agnes, in the mid-1990s. It was here that he learned of Islam via the Internet and later fell in with a radical sect at the Islamic Society of Orange County OC Register
And the funny thing is, after all that hate speech and those calls to violence, Cohen never got arrested. Hell, even Fox News knew exactly where he was. Guns, death threats, and all the rest and amazingly Yousef al-Khattab (Joseph Cohen) was never arrested.
A New York City bicycle cabbie who mocked the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl and posted a prayer on the Web calling for the murder of Jews is now sending a ‘Get Well Soon’ message to the suspected Fort Hood gunman, the New York Post reported.
After growing up in a jewish neighborhood in New York and attending a orthodox rabbinical school in Israel, Joseph Cohen went to live in a settlement in the West Bank to help steal Palestinian land from Palestinians.
His story is that he “converted” to Islam after meeting someone in a chat room. You know what “settlers” are like in the occupied territories don’t you Mr. Stewart? Ever see that video of them beating the old Palestinian woman with a baseball bat?
Ever see that video Mr. Stewart? If not, take a look here. This video was released by B’Tselem (an Israeli peace organization).
Al-Khattab has claimed that he has nothing to do with the site anymore but the person he founded it with left prior to all of this earlier this month. al-Khattab claims to have quit the site in late Dec. last year. His partner who started it with him also claims to have quit the site earlier this month. I guess no one wanted to go to jail for issuing death-threats over the internet. But someone did it.
I find it funny that after being born and raised as a jewish person, after attending orthodox rabbinical school in Israel, and after being radical enough to move to occupied territories in Palestine to live as a settler (the most hard-core of Israeli Zionists), ALL OF A SUDDEN Joseph Cohen dropped all of that teaching and suddenly became a “radical Muslim’ after a chat in a chat room. He became a “radical Muslim” then just HAPPENED to move back to the city he lived in before… Brooklyn, N.Y.
Anybody believe that crap? Jon Stewart does. So much so he mocks “radical Muslims” for threatening South Park.
Now, go here and watch Jon Stewart joke and make derogatory comments about the group that threatened the creators of South Park for showing the image of Muhammad on their recent show. Then he thanks all the “other” religions for not behaving like the “Radical Muslims” did when Stewart makes fun of their religion. He then shows clip after clip showing how they have made fun of Jewish people without anyone threatening violence.
Radical Muslim is a COINTELPRO site, run by a “converted” jewish settler pretending to be a “radical Muslim”. He is the ONE Muslim that complained about the South Park episode… an ex-radical Israeli settler, Mr. Stewart…
FULL STORY WITH LINKS HERE
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Accomplishments of a Pro-Israel Champion
Republican Congressmale Mark Kirk is showing his marxist roots once again. First we saw him try and ram through "assault weapons" ban of 2008, now he is seen practicing the neo conservative ritual of kissing
His website
Accomplishments of a Pro-Israel Champion
Upgrading U.S.-Israel Missile Defense Cooperation
Congressman Kirk led the bipartisan effort to secure “Eyes in the Sky,” real-time satellite early-warning data, for the State of Israel. With access to “Eyes in the Sky,” Israel’s warning time of an Iranian missile launch grew from less than one minute to a full 11 minutes.
In 2008, Kirk led a bipartisan effort to deploy the X-Band AN/TPY-2 radar system to Israel. The radar, America’s most advanced system, doubledIsrael’s intercept range – giving the Jewish state at least two engagement windows to bring down an Iranian salvo.
Earlier last year, Kirk helped reverse the Administration’s cuts to Israel’s Arrow-3 upper tier missile defense system – securing full funding for the program to continue.
The Leader on Stopping Iran’s Nuclear Program
In 2005, Congressman Kirk became the first member of Congress to propose a gasoline restriction as the most effective way to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. In 2005 and 2006, Kirk introduced bipartisan resolutions calling for an international gasoline restriction. In 2007, he authored the Iran Sanctions Enhancement Act to extend current U.S. sanctions to the provision of gasoline.
Last year, Congressman Kirk authored the Iran Diplomatic Enhancement Act, expanding economic sanctions against Iran to include refined petroleum producers, suppliers, carriers and insurers. This legislation as incorporated into Chairman Berman’s Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act. Kirk is also the lead cosponsor of the Frank-Kirk Iran Sanctions Enabling Act of 2009, which would authorize state and local governments to direct divestiture from, and prevent investment in, companies with investments of $20,000,000 or more in Iran’s energy sector.
In 2009, the House passed two key Iran-related Kirk amendments: one prohibiting Export-Import Bank financing of projects controlled by companies providing gasoline to Iran, and another requiring the Securities and Exchange Commission to publicly disclose business dealings with or in Iran conducted by U.S.-listed companies.
Keeping Taxpayer Money Away from Hamas and Hezbollah
Congressman Kirk authored appropriations language mandating a first-ever comprehensive review by the Government Accountability Office of Cash Assistance and Emergency Cash Assistance programs run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
Kirk also ordered an Inspector General investigation into reports that more than $140,000 was provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development to the Hamas-controlled Islamic University in Gaza. He later authored appropriations language tightening anti-terror vetting language to include institutions that have terrorist trustees—thereby closing the funding loophole to Islamic University.
Did You Know – Combating Global Anti-Semitism and Holocaust Denial
In the 1980s, Mark Kirk served as staff director for the Congressional Human Rights Caucus and became a leading organizer for the Soviet Jewry movement. More than 20 years later, Congressman Kirk remains a leading voice on Capitol Hill in the fight to combat global anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.
After his election to Congress, Mark Kirk joined his long-time friend, the late-Congressman Tom Lantos, as a co-chair of the Congressional Task Force on Anti-Semitism.
Here are just a few examples of Congressman Kirk’s work to fight global anti-Semitism and combat Holocaust denial.
* Congressman Kirk was one of only three members of Congress who called on the National Institutes of Health to investigate allegations of anti-Semitism and discrimination.
* Congressman Kirk was one of the first members of Congress to condemn the President of Belarus for anti-Semitic comments. He alos introduced legislation to combat rising incidents of anti-Semitism in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
* Congressman Kirk led an effort to condemn Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s call to “wipe Israel off the map” – introducing a resolution urging the U.N. Security Council to charge Ahmadinejad under genocide conventions.
* Congressman Kirk helped lead the effort to open the Holocaust archives in Bad Arolsen, Germany – starting with a letter-writing campaign to members of the International Commission of the International Tracing Service. In April 2007, the Hastings-Kirk resolution passed the House. After months of bipartisan work, the archives were opened in 2008. Congressman Kirk continued to press for speedy access for survivors and researchers.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Hillary Clintons Latest Lies
by Paul Craig Roberts
The BBC reported on July 4 that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the US ballistic missile base in Poland was not directed at Russia. The purpose of the base, she said, is to protect Poland from the Iranian threat.
Why would Iran be a threat to Poland? What happens to US credibility when the Secretary of State makes such a stupid statement? Does Hillary think she is fooling the Russians? Does anyone on earth believe her? What is the point of such a transparent lie? To cover up an act of American aggression against Russia?
In the same breath Hillary warned of a “steel vise” of repression crushing democracy and civil liberties around the world. US journalists might wonder if she was speaking of the United States. Glenn Greenwald reported in Salon on July 4 that the US Coast Guard, which has no legislative authority, has issued a rule that journalists who come closer than 65 feet to BP clean-up operations in the Gulf of Mexico without permission will be punished by a $40,000 fine and one to five years in prison. The New York Times and numerous journalists report that BP, the US Coast Guard, Homeland Security, and local police are prohibiting journalists from photographing the massive damage from the continuing flow of oil and toxic chemicals into the Gulf.
On July 5 Hillary Clinton was in Tbilisi, Georgia, where, according to the Washington Post, she accused Russia of “the invasion and occupation of Georgia.” What is the point of this lie? Even America’s European puppet states have issued reports documenting that Georgia initiated the war with Russia that it quickly lost by invading South Ossetia in an effort to destroy the secessionists.
It would appear that the rest of the world and the UN Security Council have given the Americans a pass to lie without end in order to advance Washington’s goal of world hegemony. How does this benefit the Security Council and the world? What is going on here?
After President Clinton misrepresented the conflict between Serbia and the Albanians in Kosovo and tricked NATO into military aggression against Serbia and after President Bush, Vice President Cheney, the secretary of state, the national security advisor and just about every member of the Bush regime deceived the UN and the world that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, thus finagling an invasion of Iraq, why did the UN Security Council fall for Obama’s deception that Iran has a nuclear weapons program?
In 2009 all sixteen US intelligence agencies issued a unanimous report that Iran had abandoned its weapons program in 2003. Was the Security Council ignorant of this report?
The International Atomic Energy Agency’s weapons inspectors on the ground in Iran have consistently reported that there is no diversion of uranium from the energy program. Was the Security Council ignorant of the IAEA reports?
If not ignorant, why did the UN Security Council approve sanctions on Iran for adhering to its right under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty to have a nuclear energy program? The UN sanctions are lawless. They violate Iran’s rights as a signatory to the treaty. Is this the “steel vice” of which Hillary spoke?
As soon as Washington got sanctions from the Security Council, the Obama regime unilaterally added more severe US sanctions. Obama is using the UN sanctions as a vehicle to which to attach his unilateral sanctions. Perhaps this is the “steel vice of oppression” of which Hillary spoke.
Why has the UN Security Council given a green light to the Obama regime to start yet another war in the Middle East?
Why has Russia stepped aside? At Washington’s insistence, the Russian government has not delivered the air defense system that Iran purchased. Does Russia view Iran as a greater threat to itself than the Americans, who are ringing Russia with US missile and military bases and financing “color revolutions” in former constituent parts of the Russian and Soviet empires?
Why has China stepped aside? China’s growing economy needs energy resources. China has extensive energy investments in Iran. It is US policy to contain China by denying China access to energy. China is America’s banker. China could destroy the US dollar in a few minutes.
Perhaps Russia and China have decided to let the Americans over-reach until the country self-destructs.
On the other hand, perhaps everyone is miscalculating and more death and destruction is in the works than the world is counting on.
Like the Gulf of Mexico.
The BBC reported on July 4 that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the US ballistic missile base in Poland was not directed at Russia. The purpose of the base, she said, is to protect Poland from the Iranian threat.
Why would Iran be a threat to Poland? What happens to US credibility when the Secretary of State makes such a stupid statement? Does Hillary think she is fooling the Russians? Does anyone on earth believe her? What is the point of such a transparent lie? To cover up an act of American aggression against Russia?
In the same breath Hillary warned of a “steel vise” of repression crushing democracy and civil liberties around the world. US journalists might wonder if she was speaking of the United States. Glenn Greenwald reported in Salon on July 4 that the US Coast Guard, which has no legislative authority, has issued a rule that journalists who come closer than 65 feet to BP clean-up operations in the Gulf of Mexico without permission will be punished by a $40,000 fine and one to five years in prison. The New York Times and numerous journalists report that BP, the US Coast Guard, Homeland Security, and local police are prohibiting journalists from photographing the massive damage from the continuing flow of oil and toxic chemicals into the Gulf.
On July 5 Hillary Clinton was in Tbilisi, Georgia, where, according to the Washington Post, she accused Russia of “the invasion and occupation of Georgia.” What is the point of this lie? Even America’s European puppet states have issued reports documenting that Georgia initiated the war with Russia that it quickly lost by invading South Ossetia in an effort to destroy the secessionists.
It would appear that the rest of the world and the UN Security Council have given the Americans a pass to lie without end in order to advance Washington’s goal of world hegemony. How does this benefit the Security Council and the world? What is going on here?
After President Clinton misrepresented the conflict between Serbia and the Albanians in Kosovo and tricked NATO into military aggression against Serbia and after President Bush, Vice President Cheney, the secretary of state, the national security advisor and just about every member of the Bush regime deceived the UN and the world that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, thus finagling an invasion of Iraq, why did the UN Security Council fall for Obama’s deception that Iran has a nuclear weapons program?
In 2009 all sixteen US intelligence agencies issued a unanimous report that Iran had abandoned its weapons program in 2003. Was the Security Council ignorant of this report?
The International Atomic Energy Agency’s weapons inspectors on the ground in Iran have consistently reported that there is no diversion of uranium from the energy program. Was the Security Council ignorant of the IAEA reports?
If not ignorant, why did the UN Security Council approve sanctions on Iran for adhering to its right under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty to have a nuclear energy program? The UN sanctions are lawless. They violate Iran’s rights as a signatory to the treaty. Is this the “steel vice” of which Hillary spoke?
As soon as Washington got sanctions from the Security Council, the Obama regime unilaterally added more severe US sanctions. Obama is using the UN sanctions as a vehicle to which to attach his unilateral sanctions. Perhaps this is the “steel vice of oppression” of which Hillary spoke.
Why has the UN Security Council given a green light to the Obama regime to start yet another war in the Middle East?
Why has Russia stepped aside? At Washington’s insistence, the Russian government has not delivered the air defense system that Iran purchased. Does Russia view Iran as a greater threat to itself than the Americans, who are ringing Russia with US missile and military bases and financing “color revolutions” in former constituent parts of the Russian and Soviet empires?
Why has China stepped aside? China’s growing economy needs energy resources. China has extensive energy investments in Iran. It is US policy to contain China by denying China access to energy. China is America’s banker. China could destroy the US dollar in a few minutes.
Perhaps Russia and China have decided to let the Americans over-reach until the country self-destructs.
On the other hand, perhaps everyone is miscalculating and more death and destruction is in the works than the world is counting on.
Like the Gulf of Mexico.
Dumbass Sarah Palin Pulls Out Some Serious Doublespeak
So the question is what would President Palin do about illegal immigration. While Oreilly leads her in the direction she agrees to send troops to secure the border.
Now she claims that she would have every mexican here illegally report in and send in a form. Now would you deport these ILLEGAL immigrants who have already broken the law to come here? Not in President Palin's world, you issue these immigrants greencards and send them on their merry way like this guy.
I post this of course to show people the true nature of Sarah Palin. For regular readers I wholeheartedly apologize for having to not only listen to neo con entertainer bill oreilly, but to sit through and listen to the absolutely ridiculous, mindless blather that flows from palins mouth.
Now she claims that she would have every mexican here illegally report in and send in a form. Now would you deport these ILLEGAL immigrants who have already broken the law to come here? Not in President Palin's world, you issue these immigrants greencards and send them on their merry way like this guy.
I post this of course to show people the true nature of Sarah Palin. For regular readers I wholeheartedly apologize for having to not only listen to neo con entertainer bill oreilly, but to sit through and listen to the absolutely ridiculous, mindless blather that flows from palins mouth.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)