MFS - The Other News

                       Morning Posting.

• Syria Live Blog - June 22. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Libya Live Blog - June 22. Here (Al-Jazeera). 

• Yemen Live Blog - June 22. Here. (Al-Jazeera).

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan  today 5.1. More info here.

• Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 134.Source : Here .

                                                                      

• Japan : For the most accurate info on the nuclear disaster go to : Paul Langley's Nuclear History Blog.Here.

• Lid Ready to Blow on Obama Regime’s Mexican Gunrunning Scandal.(RightWingNews).Obama is shoving ATF chief Kenneth Melson under the bus in an attempt to avoid accepting responsibility for the appalling federal scheme to facilitate the smuggling by Mexican criminals of American weapons. Will it be enough? Darrell Issa doesn’t think so: A spokesman for House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa told The Daily Caller the congressman expects his investigations into the Justice Department’s gun walking programs to point to a much higher political appointee than acting ATF director Kenneth Melson. Melson is widely expected to resign some time in the next couple of days in the face of political pressure from Issa’s investigations into Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast Furious.Even if Melson resigns, Issa spokesman Frederick Hill said the Committee expects to find much more and continue with investigations. “The investigations are far from over,” Hill told TheDC. “It’s quite certain that Kenneth Melson was not the principal architect of this plan nor was he the only high-ranking official who knew about and authorized this operation.”If anything could be more appalling than the fact that these guns have gotten Americans killed, it could only be the Obama Regime’s apparent motive:ATF Agent John Dodson, testifying in front of the committee, said that in his entire law enforcement career, he had “never been involved in or even heard of an operation in which law enforcement officers let guns walk.” He continued: “I cannot begin to think of how the risk of letting guns fall into the hands of known criminals could possibly advance any legitimate law enforcement interest.”The obvious answer is that Gunwalker’s objective was never intended to be a “legitimate law enforcement interest.” Instead, it appears that ATF Acting Director Ken Melson and Department of Justice senior executives specifically created an operation that was designed from the outset to arm Mexican narco-terrorists and increase violence substantially along both sides of the Southwest border.Success was measured not by the number of criminals being incarcerated, but by the number of weapons transiting the border and the violence those weapons caused. An ATF manager was “delighted” when Gunwalker guns started showing up at drug busts. It would be entirely consistent with this theory if DOJ communications reflected the approval of the ATF senior officials they were colluding with — but as we know, Holder’s Department of Justice refuses to cooperate.The purpose was to create leverage to use against the Second Amendment. That is, our rulers facilitated the smuggling in an attempt to cause mayhem that could be used to attack the constitutional liberties they have sworn to uphold. “You never want a serious crisis go to waste,” said Obama henchman Rahm Emanuel. If the crisis isn’t there, make it.Obviously this dwarfs Watergate. Good thing for the Community Organizer in Chief that he’s still got the media that installed him in power on his side. But then, the media tried to suppress MonicaGate in the beginning. Sooner or later, reality has to be acknowledged.Hmmmmm......Thugocracy in motion stopped by a true patriot.Read the full story here.

• Our World: An Obama foreign policy.(JPost).By Caroline Glick. Robert Gates’s recent remarks signal that the president’s handling of US foreign affairs is about to undergo a dramatic transformation.Outgoing US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is worried about the shape of things to come in US foreign policy. In an interview with Newsweek over the weekend, Gates sounded the warning bells.In Gates’ words, “I’ve spent my entire adult life with the United States as a superpower, and one that had no compunction about spending what it took to sustain that position. It didn’t have to look over its shoulder because our economy was so strong. This is a different time.“To tell you the truth, that’s one of the many reasons it’s time for me to retire, because frankly I can’t imagine being part of a nation, part of a government... that’s being forced to dramatically scale back our engagement with the rest of the world.”What Gates is effectively saying is not that economic forecasts are gloomy. US defense spending comprises less than five percent of the federal budget. If US President Barack Obama wanted to maintain that level of spending, the Republican-controlled Congress would probably pass his defense budget. What Gates is saying is that he doesn’t trust his commander in chief to allocate the resources to preserve America’s superpower status. He is saying that he believes that Obama is willing to surrender the US’s status as a superpower.THIS WOULD be a stunning statement for any defense secretary to make about the policies of a US President. It is especially stunning coming from Gates. Gates began his tenure at the Pentagon under Obama’s predecessor George W. Bush immediately after the Republican defeat in the 2006 mid-term Congressional elections.Many conservatives hailed Obama’s decision to retain Gates as defense secretary as a belated admission that Bush’s aggressive counter-terror policies were correct. These claims ignored the fact that in his last two years in office, with the exception of the surge of troops in Iraq, under the guidance of Gates and then secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s foreign policies veered very far to the Left.To date, Obama’s only foreign policy that is distinct from Bush’s final years is his Israel policy. Whereas Bush viewed Israel as a key US ally and friend, from the first days of his administration, Obama has sought to “put daylight” between the US and Israel. He has repeatedly humiliated Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. He has abandoned the US’s quiet defense of Israel’s purported nuclear arsenal. He has continuously threatened to abandon US support for Israel at the UN.Not only has Obama adopted the Palestinians’ increasingly hostile policies towards Israel. He has led them to those policies. It was Obama, not Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas, who first demanded that Israel cease respecting Jewish property rights in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. It was Obama, not Abbas, who first called for the establishment of a Palestinian state by the end of 2011. It was Obama, not Abbas, who first stipulated that future “peace” negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians must be predicated on Israel’s prior acceptance of the indefensible 1949 armistice lines as a starting point for talks.All of these positions, in addition to Obama’s refusal to state outright that he rejects the Palestinian demand to destroy Israel through unlimited Arab immigration to its indefensible “peace” borders, mark an extreme departure from the Israel policies adopted by his predecessor.Aside from its basic irrationality, Obama’s policy of favoring the Palestinians against the US’s most dependable ally in the Middle East is notable for its uniqueness. In every other area, his policies are aligned with those adopted by his predecessor.Obama’s policy toward Libya is in many respects unique. It marks the first time since the War Powers Act passed into law 30 years ago that a US President has sent US forces into battle without seeking the permission of the US Congress. It is the first time that a president has openly subordinated US national interests to the whims of the UN and NATO and insisted on fighting a war that serves no clear US national interest.Notably, Gates has been an outspoken critic of the war in Libya. In interviews in March he said that Muammar Gaddafi posed no threat to US interests and that no vital US interests are served by the US mission in Libya.Yet even Obama’s Libya policy is not as sharp a departure from Bush’s foreign policy as his Israel policy is. Although Bush wouldn’t have argued that the UN gets to decide where US troops are deployed, he did believe that the US needed UN permission to deploy troops.Then there is Obama’s Afghanistan policy. When in 2009 Obama announced his surge and withdraw policy, Gates minimized the importance of Obama’s pledge to begin withdrawing US combat forces in July 2011. In recent months, Gates has joined US combat commanders in pleading with the White House not to begin the troop drawdown until next year. But to no avail.Not only is he unwilling to delay the withdrawal of combat troops. Obama is suing for peace with the Taliban. As Republican lawmakers have argued, there is no way the empowerment of the Taliban in Afghanistan can be viewed as anything but a defeat for the US.Gates’s successor at the Pentagon will be outgoing CIA Director Leon Panetta. US military and intelligence officers believe that Panetta’s chief mission at the Pentagon will be to slash US defense budgets. Since his appointment was announced, sources inside the military have expressed deep concern that the planned budget cuts will render it impossible for the US to maintain its position as a global superpower. More than anything else, Gates’ statements to Newsweek indicate that he shares this perception of Obama’s plans.To date, Obama’s stewardship of US foreign policy has been marked by gross naivete, incompetence and a marked willingness to demean and weaken his country’s moral standing in the world.Imagine what will happen if in the next year and a half Obama embarks on a course that makes his Israel policy the norm rather than the exception in US foreign policy.Read the full story here.

• Shocking : Dept. of Defense Vindicates Fort Hood Killer.(Pajamasmedia).U.S. Army tacitly endorses a religiously bigoted position: it is fine for Muslim service members to kill non-Muslims, but killing Muslims is grounds for an honorable discharge.A shocking decision made by the secretary of the Army last month — in the case of an U.S. Army soldier with the 101st Airborne at Fort Campbell who refused to deploy to Afghanistan claiming that Islamic law prevented him from killing other Muslims — vindicates Fort Hood killer Major Nidal Hasan. He made identical claims and threatened that “adverse events” would occur if military officials didn’t accede to shariah principles.The subject of the Fort Campbell case is PFC Nasser Abdo, who was granted conscientious objector status last month, only to be brought up on charges last week — two days after being informed of the secretary of the Army’s decision — after child pornography was found on his government-issued computer. The news reports about Abdo’s arrest were the first to mention the Army recognizing him as a conscientious objector. After his arrest, Abdo is now claiming that the child porn charges are the Army’s way of retaliating against him.Abdo’s case has been championed by a number of media outlets, including Al-Jazeera and CNN. According to the Associated Press, in his claim for conscientious objector status, Abdo cited a number of Islamic scholars and Koranic verses in his defense:

I realized through further reflection that God did not give legitimacy to the war in Afghanistan, Iraq or any war the U.S. Army would conceivably participate in.

Abdo told Al-Jazeera:

I don’t believe I can involve myself in an army that wages war against Muslims. I don’t believe I could sleep at night if I take part, in any way, in the killing of a Muslim.

He also told ABC News:

A Muslim is not allowed to participate in an Islamicly unjust war. Any Muslim who knows his religion or maybe takes into account what his religion says can find out very clearly why he should not participate in the U.S. military.

In a perverse twist, the ABC News report noted that a website dedicated to his cause operated by his friends claimed that Abdo: … will be at danger of harassment and even death from his fellow soldiers, many of whom will be resentful of PFC Abdo’s religious beliefs and his desire to be discharged from the military.No mention was made by ABC News of the potential of harassment and death for non-Muslim soldiers if Abdo wasn’t granted conscientious objector status, as was the case at Fort Hood with Major Nidal Hasan.

In Major Hasan’s case, the Washington Post reported just days after the Fort Hood massacre that he had warned his Army colleagues and supervisor at Walter Reed of “adverse events” if Muslims were not granted conscientious objector status. The warning occurred during a June 2007 Power Point presentation that was part of his psychiatric residency program. Major Hasan cited previous cases of Muslims murdering their fellow soldiers, spying against the U.S., deserting their units, and refusing to deploy as examples of the kinds of “adverse events” that would follow if the Army didn’t bow to the precepts of Islamic law.Some Muslim groups have disagreed with Major Hasan and PFC Abdo, such as the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, run by retired Navy Commander Zuhdi Jasser. And Muslim soldiers at both Fort Hood and Fort Campbell, as well as in Iraq and Afghanistan, are serving without any qualms.But as veteran Pentagon reporter Bill Gertz reported in the Washington Times in March 2010, groups such as the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA) have issued fatwas prohibiting Muslims from even serving as military contractors aiding U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the notorious Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) even went so far as to write a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates on behalf of another Muslim Army soldier stationed at Fort Hood claiming conscientious objector status on the same grounds as Hasan and Abdo.By granting PFC Abdo’s conscientious objector claim, the Army may have created trouble for themselves in the court martial of Major Hasan for the murder of his thirteen fellow soldiers at Fort Hood. Hasan’s attorney can now claim that by refusing to acknowledge Major Hasan’s claims under Islamic law as a conscientious objector and granting him an honorable discharge, the Army created irreconcilable conflict that prompted the Fort Hood massacre. And they can use the secretary of the Army’s decision in the Abdo case as proof.But they have also created a greater problem. By bowing to the dictates of Islamic law, which defines the killing of a Muslim by another Muslim without right as terrorism, the U.S. Army has tacitly endorsed a religiously bigoted position that it is perfectly fine for Muslim service members to kill non-Muslims, but killing their co-religionists is totally out-of-bounds and is grounds for an honorable discharge. Is any other religion granted such accommodation? Will this decision help or discredit those Muslims serving honorably with both their fellow soldiers and the Muslim community?Despite years of protestation by the U.S. government to the contrary, this decision vindicates all of these who have claimed that America is engaged in a war against Islam (including Osama bin Laden). The position that the Army now takes would also appear to acknowledge the classic Islamic doctrine of jihad that states that any incursion by non-Muslims into the lands of Dar al-Islam makes it an incumbent duty upon all Muslims everywhere to resist the “occupiers” — the position taken by al-Qaeda and every Islamic terrorist group on the planet.How did the Unites States Army arrive at such a convoluted, ill-informed, contradictory, and self-defeating policy? By listening to the very Islamic “outreach” partners they have falsely assumed are operating in America’s best interests.Hmmmmm......"I Will Stand with my Muslim Brothers"?Read the full story here.

• President Barack Obama's Complete List of Historic Firsts.(DougRoss).Yes, he's historic, alright.

• First President to Violate the War Powers Act

• First President to Orchestrate the Sale of Murder Weapons to Mexican Drug Cartels

• First President to Defy a Federal Judge's Court Order to Cease Implementing the 'Health Care Reform' Law

• First President to Require All Americans to Purchase a Product From a Third Party

• First President to Spend a Trillion Dollars on 'Shovel-Ready' Jobs -- and Later Admit There Was No Such Thing as Shovel-Ready Jobs

• First President to Abrogate Bankruptcy Law to Turn Over Control of Companies to His Union Supporters

• First President to Demand a Company Hand Over $20 Billion to One of His Political Appointees

• First President to Encourage Racial Discrimination and Intimidation at Polling Places

• First President to Arbitrarily Declare an Existing Law Unconstitutional and Refuse to Enforce It

• First President to Threaten Insurance Companies if they Publicly Speak out on the Reasons for their Rate Increases

• First President to Tell a Major Manufacturing Company In Which State They Are Allowed to Locate a Factory

• First President to Withdraw an Existing Coal Permit That Had Been Properly Issued Years Ago

• First President to Fire an Inspector General of Americorps for Catching One of His Friends in a Corruption Case

• First President to Propose an Executive Order Demanding Companies Disclose Their Political Contributions to Bid on Government Contracts

• First President to Golf 73 Separate Times in His First Two-and-a-Half Years in Office

But remember: he will not rest until all Americans have jobs, affordable homes, green-energy vehicles, and the environment is repaired, etc., etc., etc.Hmmmm......First non  eligible President.Read the full story here.

• General Motors Rapidly Becoming a Taxpayer-Funded, Disingenuous Leftist Entity.(Biggovernment).General Motors (GM) continues apace its government-backed conversion from a company existing to manufacture automobiles for money – into a fully-formed, Leftist ideological entity working as another wing of the Barack Obama Administration’s fundamental transformation of America.A de facto non-profit organization posing as a for-profit car joint. That seems less and less concerned with designing cars people want, and is instead looking to redesign the nation – with products and policies Americans have time and again demonstrated they don’t want anything to do with.How else to explain the continued expanded production of the expensive, unprofitable (yet heavily subsidized) and unpopular Chevy Volt?How else to explain Administration-appointee Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dan Akerson calling for a $1-per-gallon gasoline tax hike? Which would demonstrably hurt his supposed industry – but is proffered in the perverse hope of forcing people into the Volts they thus far have avoided like the Bubonic Plague?How else to explain the GM all solar-powered Volt plant? Solar paneling which cost $3 million to purchase and install – buy only saves them $15,000 a year in electricity.Let’s do the math, shall we?This means that for the plant to break even via savings on the green investment, it will have to operate – without solar fail, while making unprofitable cars no one wants – for two hundred years.But wait – the average solar panel lifespan is 20-25 years, after which you have to purchase them all over again. So you’ll have to refit the factory 8-10 times during that 200 years, at another approximately $3 million (plus inflation) a pop, so….Oh, and the panels are pretty much radioactive when spent, so getting rid of them ain’t cheap.But besides that….And on, and on and on the GM inanities go.And they are doing all of this with tens of billions of our dollars on the line.Money Obama once upon a time told us would return us a profit.A fairy tale Obama has now amended to:“The government will lose less than 20 percent of the $80 billion used to bail out the U.S. automobile industry.”Obama’s National Economic Council had the audacity to add:“The losses are less than the administration originally expected.”Again – as we just cited – the Administration was seven months earlier claiming we would make money.All of these distractions may explain the rash of recalls to which GM car buyers have been subject.The company is simply too busy saving the world to pay attention to the unimportant sidelight of making vehicles that don’t fall apart.So GM is to serve as Obama’s business model for his fundamentally transformed America.Broke and broken, unprofitable and unpopular.But engaging in all of the radical Leftist pet projects Obama wants – so none of that other stuff really matters.Behold Government Motors – quickly becoming the quintessential embodiment of the Obama Vision for America.Read the full story here.

• SCOTUS Unanimous In Delivering A Big Victory For Freedom, Federalism and the Tenth Amendment.(InfidelBloggers).Goldwater Institute - Groundbreaking US Supreme Court decision on the Tenth Amendment. Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court issued one of the best and most important decisions ever on federalism. The Court unanimously held that not just states but individuals have standing to challenge federal laws as violations of state sovereignty under the 10th Amendment. This decision is as radical in the direction of liberty as the New Deal was radical in the direction of socialism. Click here to read the decision.In short, freedom advocates like us just got a green light from the USSC to bring more cases under the 10th Amendment. This will have huge—positive—implications for freedom so long as the current constitution of the court holds.Here is our favorite passage: “Federalism secures the freedom of the individual. It allows States to respond, through the enactment of positive law, to the initiative of those who seek a voice in shaping the destiny of their own times without having to rely solely upon the political processes that control a remote central power.” We will put this precedent to work immediately when we file our opening brief in the Obamacare lawsuit Monday, and also in our defense of Save Our Secret Ballot against the NLRB challenge, and many more cases to come.One other important note: Sometimes little cases make big constitutional law. This case involved a woman who was prosecuted under federal law for harassing her husband’s girlfriend—not the set of facts ordinarily creating an important precedent. Some of our cases, too, are seemingly “little” but with big principles at stake.Freedom is making strides in the courtroom, and we’ll do our best to keep that momentum going. Thank you for your support that makes it possible.Read the full story here.

• Obama Omits “Creator” When Citing “Inalienable Rights” Of LGBTs.(CNS News) — In a statement released Friday, President Barack Obama declared that “LGBT persons are endowed with” what he called “inalienble rights,” but ommited the word “Creator” from what clearly was an allusion to the famous language of the Declaration of Independence.The president’s June 17 statement was in response to a U.N. resolution on human rights, sexual orientation and gender identity.“(T)his marks a significant milestone in the long struggle for equality, and the beginning of a universal recognition that LGBT persons are endowed with the same inalienable rights — and entitled to the same protections — as all human beings,” the statement said.The Declaration of Independence reads: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”Friday’s statement was the third time this year that the president has used the “inalienable rights” language and omitted the word “Creator.”Hmmmmm.....There can be only one 'God' in the room according to him?Read the full story here.

• Gunwalker: From Obama’s Inauguration to Issa’s Report.(PajamasMedia).The terrible gun policy and administration lies that have led to the scandal of scandals.Major scandals don’t always have the most dramatic beginnings. Andrew Johnson was impeached for replacing the sitting secretary of war; Richard Nixon’s collapse started with a breaking and entering. Bill Clinton’s infamy was guaranteed for quibbling over the definition of a common verb.It now appears that high-ranking officials in the Obama administration may be writing the end of their careers and risking a life behind bars by arguing about the technical definition of “walking” firearms.“Gunwalker” now involves the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF); its parent agency, the Department of Justice (DOJ); the Department of Homeland Security (DHS); and the White House itself. But to understand the depth of the scandal you must return to its roots at the beginning of the Obama adminstration.Within weeks of President Obama’s inauguration in January of 2009, newly installed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Attorney General Eric Holder began to craft the meme that Mexican drug cartel violence was rooted in what they view as lax American gun laws. By February 4, we were hearing the infamous “90 percent lie,” the administration’s false accusation that 90 percent of the guns used in cartel crime could be traced to U.S. gun shops.The assertion was not based upon the total percentage of civilian-origin firearms captured from Mexican cartels and traced back to U.S. gun shops, but upon the small percentage of weapons that the Mexican government saw markings on which indicated they could have come from or through the States. Only this much smaller percentage of guns were sent to the ATF for tracing. Unsurprisingly, a large percentage of guns with U.S. markings did come from the U.S., but they were a small fraction of the total number of guns confiscated by Mexican authorities.How large was the discrepancy between the Obama administration’s lie and reality?After the Obama administration was firmly rebuffed, they were forced to publicly withdraw their call for a reinstatement of the ban in March, though they still pushed the 90 percent lie.The eventual — perhaps inevitable — death of a U.S. Border Patrol Agent killed by criminals armed with at least two “walked” AK-pattern semi-automatic rifles finally shut the program down in December of 2010. The shooting death of an American cop was the final straw for the ATF whistleblower who exposed the program, which may also have contributed to an estimated 150 or more Mexican police and soldier shootings, and many of civilians. Had a whistleblower come forward earlier, all might have been alive today.You can read more about the timeline of what happened after Gunwalker was exposed on several blogs (this is a good rundown), and you will find calls for those responsible for this nightmare to be removed from office. Acting ATF Director Ken Melson will be the first official likely dismissed as a result of Gunwalker, but there are significant indications that more senior administration officials knew about and perhaps have lied about their knowledge of the program.This operation could not have taken place without the cooperation of the Department of Homeland Security — DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano should bear responsibility for her agency’s actions. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has apparently lied to Congress about when he knew of Gunwalker, and considering the scope of the operation it is implausible that he was not involved in its implementation.It is only reasonable to believe that knowledge of this operation did not stop with cabinet-level officials. If the directors of so many executive branch agencies were involved in this scandal, as it appears they might have been, it is plausible that knowledge of this scheme — perhaps the origination? — came directly from the White House.Under Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution, any person who levies war against the United States or adheres to its enemies by giving them aid and comfort is guilty of the act of treason. Gunwalker supplied narco-terrorists on our southern border with thousands of firearms.Less dramatic, but more damning, is the fact that those that authorized this operation betrayed our ally Mexico, and are arguably accessories to more than 150 shootings of Mexican law enforcement officers and soldiers.The Constitution puts no one above the law. If Melson, Napolitano, Holder, Obama and their staffs were complicit in a plot to arm narco-terrorists that led to hundreds dead and wounded, they must face justice.Hmmmmm.....Thugocracy in motion.Read the full story here.

• Obama's Food Police in Staggering Crackdown on Market to Kids.(HumanEvents)By Audrey Hudson. Tony the Tiger, some NASCAR drivers and cookie-selling Girl Scouts will be out of a job unless grocery manufacturers agree to reinvent a vast array of their products to satisfy the Obama administration’s food police.Either retool the recipes to contain certain levels of sugar, sodium and fats, or no more advertising and marketing to tots and teenagers, say several federal regulatory agencies.The same goes for restaurants.It’s not just the usual suspected foods that are being targeted, such a thin mint cookies sold by scouts or M&Ms and Snickers, which sponsor cars in the Sprint Cup, but pretty much everything on a restaurant menu.Although the intent of the guidelines is to combat childhood obesity, foods that are low in calories, fat, and some considered healthy foods, are also targets, including hot breakfast cereals such as oatmeal, pretzels, popcorn, nuts, yogurt, wheat bread, bagels, diet drinks, fruit juice, tea, bottled water, milk and sherbet.Food industries are in an uproar over the proposal written by the Federal Trade Commission, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.“The most disturbing aspect of this interagency working group is, after it imposes multibillions of dollars in restrictions on the food industry, there is no evidence of any impact on the scourge of childhood obesity,” said Dan Jaffe, executive vice president of the Association of National Advertisers.The “Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children, Preliminary Proposed Nutrition Principles to Guide Industry Self-Regulation Efforts” says it is voluntary, but industry officials say the intent is clear: Do it, or else.“When regulators strongly suggest a course of action, it’s treated as a rule, not a suggestion,” said Scott Faber, vice president of federal affairs for the Grocery Manufacturers Association. “Industry tends to heed these suggestions from our regulators, and this administration has made it clear they are willing to regulate if we don’t implement their proposal.”Beth Johnson, a dietician for Food Directions in Maryland, said many of the foods targeted in this proposal are the same foods approved by the federal government for the WIC nutrition program for women, infants and children.“This doesn’t make any sense whatsoever,” Johnson said. “It’s not going to do anything to help with obesity. These are decisions I want to make for my kids. These should not be government decisions.”Hmmmmm......Dictatorship or Democracy?Read the full story here.

• Mark Levin explains America to Fareed Zakaria.(TheRightScoop).FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN.So we could use the ideas of social media that were actually invented in this country to suggest a set of amendments to modernize the Constitution for the 21st Century. Such a plan is not unheard of in American history. After all, the delegates in Philadelphia in 1787 initially meant not to create the constitution as we now know it, but instead to revise the existing document, the Articles of Confederation. But the delegates saw a disconnect between the document that currently governed them and the needs of the nation, so their solution was to start anew. I'm just suggesting we talk about a few revisions.

LEVIN: No you’re not. The Constitution has already been shredded almost beyond recognition, and you want to finish the job.Read and see the full video story here.

• Stunner: Glitch in Obamacare allows middle class to receive Medicaid.(DougRoss).Medicaid, the health care program for the poor and indigent, is already bankrupting states. And that's before the "bug" actuaries just discovered in the thousands of pages of law called Obamacare, which no one bothered to actually read.President Barack Obama's health care law would let several million middle-class people get nearly free insurance meant for the poor, a twist government number crunchers say they discovered only after the complex bill was signed.The change would affect early retirees: A married couple could have an annual income of about $64,000 and still get Medicaid... Up to 3 million more people could qualify for Medicaid in 2014 as a result of the anomaly. That's because, in a major change from today, most of their Social Security benefits would no longer be counted as income for determining eligibility. It might be compared to allowing middle-class people to qualify for food stamps.Medicare chief actuary Richard Foster says the situation keeps him up at night... "I don't generally comment on the pros or cons of policy, but that just doesn't make sense"......Governors have been clamoring for relief from Medicaid costs, complaining that federal rules drive up spending and limit state options... Medicaid is a safety net program that serves more than 50 million vulnerable Americans, from low-income children and pregnant women to Alzheimer's patients in nursing homes. It's designed as a federal-state partnership, with Washington paying close to 60 percent of the total cost...."The fact that this is being discovered now tells you, what else is baked into this law?" said [Former Utah governor Mike] Leavitt, who served as Health and Human Services secretary under President George H.W. Bush. "It clearly begins to reveal that the nature of the law was to put more and more people under eligibility for government insurance."Of course it does.Everyone with half a brain knows that Obamacare was simply a stepping-stone on the road to Soviet-style single-payer health care, which is bankrupting countries all across Europe as we speak.Read the full story here.

• Bolton: We don’t negotiate with Taliban until we defeat them.(TheRightScoop).The Obama administration is now trying to negotiate peace with the Taliban in what are being dubbed as preliminary talks. John Bolton says whether they are preliminary, low-level, or whatever, it’s a mistake to talk to the Taliban. He goes on: "The only time to talk to the Taliban is after they are on their backs, after we’ve defeated them."Bolton says that the Taliban aren’t stupid and will just wait for the administration to leave, no matter what they agree to do. But what Bolton really believes is that this is going to be used as justification to announce a major draw down in troops from Afghanistan. Considering how desperate Obama is to win the next election with an economy that is stagnant and with such high unemployment levels, it makes sense that he will try to curry favor with the American people by bringing some of the troops home. That’s about all he’s got left in his arsenal and I’m not sure even that is enough to make him competitive.Bolton also weighs in on the current GOP field, noting that none of them have impressed him on foreign policy.Read and see the full story here.

• Are You Ready For a World Governed by Islamic Law ???(BarracudaBrigade).Are you ready for a world dominated by Islamic law? On July 9, the international political group Hizb ut-Tahrir will meet for the “UK Khilafah Conference” in London. During the gathering, meetings will focus upon ways in which a caliphate can be instituted. As The Blaze explained back in February, a caliphate is an Islamic state that draws its authority from, and is based upon, Sharia law.Hizb ut-Tahrir, which stands for the “Party of Liberation” in English, is an international political organization that seeks one, unified Muslim state that is dominated by Muslim law. This particular group stands firmly planted against the United States, accusing the Super Power of colonization, among other offenses.Additionally, the group would like to see Israel, which it deems “illegal,” be dismantled.Hmmmmm.....Watch the vid and look out for the words, “An Islamic call spanning the globe.” Read and see the full story here.

• Jacob Zuma snubs Michelle Obama during First Lady's South Africa visit.(Telegraph).Clayson Monyela, spokesman for South Africa’s foreign office, said that since Mrs Obama is not a head of state or cabinet minister, there was no onus on Mr Zuma to meet her.South Africa President Jacob Zuma has snubbed the visiting Michelle Obama by sending his prisons minister to meet the first lady at the airport and failing to see her during her three-day stay.Mr Zuma was out of the country for the first day of Mrs Obama's second solo trip abroad on Tuesday and although he returned on Monday night, aides said he was "not available" to meet her.Instead, he arranged for Corrective Services Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula to greet her on her arrival in Pretoria on Monday night, and one of his three wives, Nompumelelo Ntuli-Zuma, to meet her briefly on Tuesday.Mrs Obama, her daughters Sasha and Malia and her mother Marian Robinson, were also granted a rare audience with 92-year-old former president Nelson Mandela at his Johannesburg home.Her visit to South Africa is aimed at advancing her international youth engagement agenda as well as highlighting Mr Obama's support for "democracy, development and economic opportunities across Africa".But it coincides with a cooling in relations between South Africa and the United States. Last week, President Jacob Zuma issued a sharp riposte to an appeal by Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, to African leaders to help remove Libya's Col Muammar Gaddafi."We strongly believe that the (UN Security Council) resolution is being abused for regime change, political assassinations and foreign military occupation," he told parliament the day after Mrs Clinton's speech.South African officials insisted that Mr Zuma was simply busy – and Mrs Obama had rejected the offer of a meeting at 9am on Wednesday because she was making a speech in Soweto.Zizi Kodwa, Mr Zuma’s spokesman, refused to discuss the president’s appointments in the coming days, but said his diary was full and could not easily be changed.Clayson Monyela, spokesman for South Africa’s foreign office, said “It’s totally wrong to suggest this is a snub,” he said. “If Mr Zuma or the International Relations minister were in the country they would have met her. We recognise this is a historic visit and that’s why she has been welcomed by senior cabinet ministers.”Hmmmmm.......Read the full story here.

• Sharia rejects the foundational principle of American law.(CreepingSharia).There are four salient points about Islamist ideology, and whoever would be our next president would do well to master them.

First, it is not a fringe movement. It is mainstream Islam, the Islam that is propagated in American mosques, just as it is propagated in foreign capitals from northern Africa to eastern Asia, and from Ankara to Dar es Salaam. Minimizing it as if it were just the doctrine of al-Qaeda or Iran’s mullahs is foolish. Those factions are more brutal tactically, but strategically, they are no different — no more hostile to Western liberalism — than reputedly “moderate” groups that seek to impose sharia but are content to proceed incrementally.

Second, while religion is what makes sharia binding, the substance of sharia is not primarily, or even mostly, about spiritual life. It governs matters that, in the West, are considered secular concerns: civil and criminal law, economics and finance, the use of force, privacy, sexual preferences, social interaction between men and women, etc. Consequently, when a politician insists that American principles of religious liberty forbid us from inquiring into a Muslim’s beliefs, he is not just insulating spiritual principles; he is removing from scrutiny a plethora of matters that are not controlled by religion in pluralistic societies.

Third, a defining principle of sharia to which this mainstream interpretation of Islam adheres is that there can be no separation of mosque and state — of religious doctrine and civil society. It is not just that sharia features laws that are different from American laws; it is that this dominant form of Islam does not allow the Muslim to say, “Sharia is just for my private spiritual life, and I can otherwise ignore it — or at least put it aside — where it conflicts with laws in the secular sphere.” Where there is a conflict between American law and sharia, this mainstream interpretation of Islam calls for the Muslim to follow sharia and to labor to make sharia the law of the land.

Fourth, the divergence between sharia and American constitutional law is fundamental and unbridgeable. Apologists for Islam try mightily to obscure this fact. They pretend not only that a reformist brand of Islam is more prevalent than it actually is, but that, in this sugary “moderate” creed, sharia has no existence other than as an aspirational guide to private spirituality. This badly misses the point. The issue for America is not who is right about sharia; it is that most Muslims in the world accept the Islamist interpretation of sharia propounded by influential Muslim clerics and reject the smiley-face sharia on offer from Western politicians. When a woman is convicted of adultery in a country where sharia is binding, they don’t throw aspirations at her. They throw stones.

This widely accepted interpretation of sharia rejects the foundational principle of American law, that we are free to govern ourselves as we choose, irrespective of any religious code. Sharia rejects freedom of conscience (apostates from Islam face ostracism and death); freedom of speech (speech critical of Islam is considered blasphemy and punishable by death — and truth is not a defense); equality under the law (sharia systematically discriminates in favor of men over women and Muslims over non-Muslims); Western notions of privacy (homosexuality is a capital offense under sharia, which also rigorously regulates social interaction between the sexes in a manner that segregates and often oppresses women); the protection of private property (sharia nominally protects private property but the owner is considered a mere custodian of property that actually belongs to Allah, such that its use can be dictated by the Islamic state); and economic liberty (sharia condemns the charging of interest and agglomerations of wealth, which are seen as the exploitation of the have-nots by the haves). Moreover, sharia encourages both the use of violence when necessary to compel fidelity to Islamic norms and lying if it is helpful in advancing the mission of spreading Islam.A president cannot stick his head in the sand about that, under the guise of religious tolerance, and simultaneously preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.Read the full story here.

• Palestinian Unity Announcement Canceled Over Hamas-Fatah Split.(GulfNews).Gaza: The spring winds of unity seem to have blown over for Palestinians who had been hoping to shut the door forever on political divisions in their midst. Although yellow Fatah flags are not as hard to find in the Gaza strip as they once were, little else has changed.The planned announcement of a Palestinian unity government, which was supposed to happen in Cairo on Tuesday, has been delayed after Fatah and Hamas failed to agree on a mutually agreeable candidate.Fatah nominated Salam Fayyad, an internationally respected former World Bank economist who currently heads the Palestinian government in the West Bank, to the post. Hamas, which seized the Gaza Strip from Fatah forces in 2007, has rejected Fayyad, accusing him of cooperating with Israel in a blockade of the enclave.Hamas had announced previously that it would not accept Fayyad for the post since Fatah had rejected Hamas' nomination of Jamal Al Khodary."Both sides are solidly entrenched in their positions ahead of the government formation talks in Cairo," Yasser Al Wadia, president of the Palestinian Independent Personalities told Gulf News. Both sides are trying to stake their positions to maximise their gains ahead of talks, he explained.Read the full story here.

• Saudi Sheikh Warns that Using Ethanol is a Sin.(InfidelBloggers).A prominent Saudi scholar has issued a warning to youths studying abroad against using ethanol in their cars since they could be committing a sin.According to this report in Al Arabiya, using ethanol is a sin because it contains alcohol: Sheikh Mohamed Al-Najimi, member of the Saudi Islamic Jurisprudence Academy, based his statement on a saying by the prophet that prohibited all kinds of dealings with alcohol including buying, selling, carrying, serving, drinking, and manufacturing, the Saudi newspaper Shams reported Thursday.The article notes that this is not an official fatwa and just a personal opinion that should be studied more.Maybe it's just a coincidence that Saudi Arabia is the world's major oil producing country and holds a vast reserve of oil.So we'll just offer our own positions regarding biofuels.

It's a sin that American consumers are sending their money to repressive regimes around the world because we're held hostage by foreign oil.

It's a sin that Americans die in foreign conflicts to protect these foreign oil reserves.

It's a sin that Americans continue to be forced to use dirty fossil fuels rather than cleaner burning renewable fuels like ethanol.

It's a sin that Americans aren't fully employed working on building a vibrant renewable fuel industry for a stronger America.Hmmmm......Considering the number of Muslims roughly 1.5 Billion that might lower the price of petrol if they don't use Ethanol.Read the full story here.

• "Return to Sender - Undeliverable mail".A foolish letter from ‘wise men’ on the Middle East.(IsraelMatzav).The letter's signers include Zbigniew Brzezinski, Lee Hamilton, Frank Carlucci, Thomas Pickering, Sandra Day O’Connor, and James Wolfensohn, among others, and was apparently initiated by former Republican Congressman Lee Hamilton (Indiana), who is signed on the cover letter that accompanied it.The letter blames Israel entirely for the current impasse in 'negotiations,' and calls for imposing a 'settlement' on Israel. It sets out the following six points.Given this analysis that Israel is to blame for -everything, the proposed framework is logical. There are six points.

(1) “The United States will oppose any effort to challenge or undermine the legitimacy of the State of Israel within internationally recognized borders,” which suggests that we will not oppose undermining Israel today or tomorrow, when it has no such borders.

(2) “The United States will work for the establishment of a sovereign and viable Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, subject only to agreed, minor and equal land swaps to take into account areas adjoining the former Green Line heavily populated by Israelis .  .  .” President Obama’s suggestion of using the 1967 lines as a base was not enough, and the United States should further undermine Israel’s negotiating position by demanding that any swaps be “minor” and that any settlement not right on the Green Line, such as Ariel (population 18,000), be abandoned.

(3) Any solution to the refugee problem cannot flood Israel with Arabs and destroy its character as a Jewish state, so that “proposals for unlimited entry of Palestinian refugees into the State of Israel will be opposed by the United States.” But this formulation of course suggests that proposals for “limited entry” would not be opposed, meaning that an Israeli policy of refusing any such entry is likely to be viewed as obstructionist—yet another Israeli obstacle to peace.

(4) As part of a peace agreement, “the United States will support the presence of a U.S.-led multinational force to oversee security provisions and border crossings.” It is a surprise to see this proposal for yet another overseas military commitment at a time when there is so much pressure for withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan and Iraq and cuts in the defense budget. And given the nature of the terrorist threat to Israel, how an effective multinational force could be organized is mysterious. In an analogous situation, the international force in Lebanon has failed completely to restrain or disarm Hezbollah.

(5) Jerusalem will be divided between Israel and Palestine and “each side” will control its own holy places. Among many other problems, what this means for the Christian holy places and the entire Armenian Quarter is not specified.

(6) “The United States will encourage the reconciliation of Fatah and Hamas on terms compatible with these principles and UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338.” So there is no precise call for Hamas to adhere to the Quartet Principles, requiring it to abandon terrorism, recognize Israel’s right to exist, and adhere to previous agreements. Instead, the United States will move from treating Hamas as a terrorist group, which it is a crime to support, to “encouraging” Fatah to reconcile with it.

These proposals would cause the president political damage, not political risk. Further damage would be caused were he ever to adopt not only these positions but in addition the threatening attitude that is proposed. In his cover letter, Lee Hamilton explains: Prospects for the implementation of these principles depend entirely on an understanding by both parties that there are consequences for their rejection. .  .  . In his speech, President Obama omitted reference to consequences. We believe the cost-benefit calculations of neither party will be changed without that understanding.So these are not to be American proposals, but an American ultimatum to Israel. It is striking that the toughest language, about “consequences” and changing Israel’s “cost-benefit calculations,” is found not in the letter to the president but only in the introductory description from Lee Hamilton. Whether all of the signers agree with this approach cannot be certain, but it must be assumed that all of this was hashed out in advance.The analysis and the proposals made in this letter reveal that many of America’s most experienced former senior officials now blame Israel alone for the freeze in Middle East peace negotiations. And they believe that Israel should be forced into compromises and sacrifices under enormous American pressure, even if the vast majority of Israelis oppose them and view them as dangerous. This is, to use State Department terminology, “deeply disturbing,” even if the likelihood that any president would accept this advice is small. Here's where I break with Elliott. Elliott is dismissive of the possibility that President Obama could ever adopt this letter as policy.But is the likelihood that the President might accept this advice really small? If God forbid Obama is re-elected, come January 20, 2013, he would have four years in office during which no real political damage could be done to him. He would never have to stand for re-election again. Sure, the Democrats could be punished at the polls in a 2014 midterm election, but we've already seen that in 2010, and it didn't seem to bother Obama too much.Could Obama adopt this strategy of imposing a settlement in 2013? You bet he could - and I'd bet he would.Hmmmm......I totaly agree that he would adopt this strategy of imposing a settlement, i only wonder if he will wait till Jan 2013.Read the full story here.

• The Modern day "Greek Tragedy".Who do we sue?(KleinVerzet). This week saw a good post about the continuing Greek drama on DDS (NL). It sketches out te likely end-game of the drama unfolding. Not surprisingly, it is the ultimate 'beneficial crisis' scenario, where the de facto political EUnion is established at the cost of impoverishing all of Europe (except the slime of course).It goes something like this: The longer the Greeks fail to sanitize their debt, the more it will weigh on the ECB balance. Greece is now mostly lending to pay off maturing debt. Since no market party will loan Greece the money (for evident reasons) they turn to the lender of last resort, the ECB. And thus the Greek debt is slowly siphoned away from commercial banks and into the ECB books. The extra loan of 12 billion approved last week will thus increase the amount of (quite worthless) Greek paper on the ECB balance from 49 billion to 61 billion.The moment the full Greek debt is on the ECB books (which is the moment all those stupid, malign bankers have got themselves free of Greek debt paper) will be the moment to convert the debt to Eurobonds. This will allow the Greek government to sanitize their debt in one fell swoop, while the call for stricter controls on member state government spending will be abused to ram through the political union that is the ultimate aim of the EUnion from its inception. Effectively, the richer, more disciplined member states, like Germany, The Netherlands and the UK, will pay for the deficits of the weaker brethren for decades to come.This scenario explains the dithering of the EUnion council. They can afford to wait. It is in their interest to wait. Greece will not default, it will be bailed-out until such time that all of its debt is on the ECB books. That will be the opportune time to cement the EUnion as a political entity.And then it will be you and I, who will pay for the Greeks (and the Spanish, and the Irish, and the Portuguese, and the Italians, and the Belgians and the French) for years and years to come. And Our Father only knows what moronic initiatives will be deployed by the EP and their new-found mandate under a political union. But it'll cost us, on top of everything else.It is quite incomprehensible that German, Scandinavian, British and Dutch politicians do not put a stop to this. Once again there's a strong whiff of treason in the air. By going along with this they are not serving the peoples they were sworn to serve, they are serving the enemy of these peoples.With Andrew Lilico, we must seriously ask ourselves: So, whom do I sue? Article 125 of the EU Treaty states:

The Union shall not be liable for or assume the commitments of central governments, regional, local or other public authorities, other bodies governed by public law, or public undertakings of any Member State… A Member State shall not be liable for or assume the commitments of central governments, regional, local or other public authorities, other bodies governed by public law, or public undertakings of another Member State

Everyone knows that this Treaty article was violated by the Greek, Irish and Portuguese bailouts. Indeed, senior French politicians have not been shy of spelling matters out. For example, in May last year, French Europe Minister Pierre Lallouche cheerfully declared: “De facto, we have changed the treaty”. Again, Christine Lagarde – now favourite for the IMF job – stated last December: “We violated all the rules because we wanted to close ranks and really rescue the euro zone…The Treaty of Lisbon was very straight-forward. No bailout.”Now if, say, Greece and Ireland default, then bureaucrats and politicians will have lost lots of my money doing something forbidden by ratified international treaty. Can I sue them, to get some of it back?Read the full story here.

• Europe's 'powers' Growing larger and larger.(KleinVerzet).And it is not over yet. While the world is watching with bated breath as Greece is slowly burning to the ground, the EUro-slime are preparing a set of legislation that will remove even more powers from our own governments, from ourselves. Via WfW:

* A financial transaction tax which will allow the EU to raise its own tax, even set its own tax rates, without democratic oversight.

* Finalisation of the EU's takeover of asylum rules. This means that we won't be able to set our own asylum policy.

* The economic governance package. This sees the EU having oversight of member state treasury decision. It demands budget approval ahead of the government presenting its Budget to the Dutch people.

* Endorsement of EU Treaty change to allow for future economic bailouts of other EU countries. This would see us liable for massive unknown future costs running into billions.

* Informal agreement of Croatia joining the EU. This would see another four and half million people given access to the UK, Germany and Holland.
Hmmmm........New world order anyone?Read the full story here.