The Hillary Letters - Hillary Clinton, Saul Alinsky correspondence revealed.

The Hillary Letters - Hillary Clinton, Saul Alinsky correspondence revealed. HT: FreeBeacon.

Previously unpublished correspondence between Hillary Clinton and the late left-wing organizer Saul Alinsky reveal new details about her relationship with the controversial Chicago activist and shed light on her early ideological development.

Clinton met with Alinsky several times in 1968 while writing a Wellesley college thesis about his theory of community organizing.

Clinton’s relationship with Alinsky, and her support for his philosophy, continued for several years after she entered Yale law school in 1969, two letters obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show.

The letters obtained by the Free Beacon are part of the archives for the Industrial Areas Foundation, a training center for community organizers founded by Alinsky, which are housed at the University of Texas at Austin.

The letters also suggest that Alinsky, who died in 1972, had a deeper influence on Clinton’s early political views than previously known.

A 23-year-old Hillary Clinton was living in Berkeley, California, in the summer of 1971. She was interning at the left-wing law firm Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein, known for its radical politics and a client roster that included Black Panthers and other militants.

On July 8, 1971, Clinton reached out to Alinsky, then 62, in a letter sent via airmail, paid for with stamps featuring Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and marked “Personal.”

“Dear Saul,” she began. “When is that new book [Rules for Radicals] coming out—or has it come and I somehow missed the fulfillment of Revelation?” Hmmmm......The Obama 'admin' Read the full story here.

Video - Steve Moore Demolishes the Argument for a Higher Minimum Wage in Under Two Minutes.

Video - Steve Moore Demolishes the Argument for a Higher Minimum Wage in Under Two Minutes. HT: Heritage.

The real minimum wage will be “zero” for individuals who lose their jobs as a result of the federal minimum wage increase, according to The Heritage Foundation’s Chief Economist Steve Moore.

“You know what the minimum wage is going to be for those people who lose their job? It’s going to be zero. Their wage is going to go from $7.50 to zero,” Moore said Thursday on CNN’s Crossfire.

Moore and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader joined CNN’s Van Jones and Newt Gingrich for the on-air debate, during which the panel argued about this week’s Congressional Budget Office report on the effects of increasing the federal minimum wage.

According to the CBO, a wage increase to $10.10 “would reduce total employment by about 500,000 workers” and could even put up to 1 million workers out of work.

Moore noted that raising the federal minimum wage would  exacerbate America’s existing unemployment problem.

“The reason Americans aren’t getting a raise right now is because [there are] 20 million Americans that are unemployed,” he said.

Arguing that rampant unemployment is the nation’s most pressing issue, Moore pushed for a dialogue on job growth policies rather than minimum wage. “I don’t think the government should set prices and I don’t think it should set wages,” he said.



The post Steve Moore Demolishes the Argument for a Higher Minimum Wage in Under Two Minutes (VIDEO) appeared first on The Foundry: Conservative Policy News from The Heritage Foundation.

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"The Alinsky Way" - Americans 'snapping' by the millions.

"The Alinsky Way" - Americans 'snapping' by the millions.(WND).Terrorism. Chaos. Fear of the future. In the age of Obama, America is undergoing a “fundamental transformation” - that much everyone knows.

But what few seem to realize about this transformation is that the sheer stress of living in today’s America is driving tens of millions to the point of illness, depression and self-destruction. Consider the following trends:

• Suicide has surpassed car crashes as the leading cause of injury death for Americans. Even more disturbing, in the world’s greatest military, more U.S. soldiers died last year by suicide than in combat;

• Fully one-third of the nation’s employees suffer chronic debilitating stress, and more than half of all “millennials” (18 to 33 year olds) experience a level of stress that keeps them awake at night, including large numbers diagnosed with depression or anxiety disorder.

• Shocking new research from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that one in five of all high-school-aged children in the United States has been diagnosed with ADHD, and likewise a large new study of New York City residents shows, sadly, that one in five preteens - children aged six to 12 - have been medically diagnosed with either ADHD, anxiety, depression or bipolar disorder;

• New research concludes that stress renders people susceptible to serious illness, and a growing number of studies now confirm that chronic stress plays a major role in the progression of cancer, the nation’s second-biggest killer. The biggest killer of all, heart disease, which causes one in four deaths in the U.S., is also known to have a huge stress component;

• Incredibly, 11 percent of all Americans aged 12 and older are currently taking SSRI antidepressants - those highly controversial, mood-altering psychiatric drugs with the FDA’s “suicidality” warning label and alarming correlation with school shooters. Women are especially prone to depression, with a stunning 23 percent of all American women in their 40s and 50s - almost one in four - now taking antidepressants, according to a major study by the CDC;

• Add to that the tens of millions of users of all other types of psychiatric drugs, including (just to pick one) the 6.4 million American children between 4 and 17 diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed Ritalin or similar psycho-stimulants. Throw in the 28 percent of American adults with a drinking problem, that’s more than 60 million, plus the 22 million using illegal drugs like marijuana, cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens and inhalants, and pretty soon a picture emerges of a nation of drug-takers, with hundreds of millions dependent on one toxic substance or another - legal or illegal - to “help” them deal with the stresses and problems of life.

By the way, things are no better over the pond - and may be worse, according to one major study that concluded almost 40 percent of Europeans are plagued by mental illness.

Note: This report is is excerpted from the April 2013 issue of WND’s acclaimed Whistleblower magazine, “STRESSED AND DEPRESSED: The unreported health crisis of the Obama era.”

What on earth is going on? Why isn’t medical science - and for that matter all of our incredible scientific and technological innovations in every area of life - reducing our stress and lightening our load? Why doesn’t the almost-magical availability of the world’s accumulated knowledge, thanks to the Internet, make us more enlightened and happy? Why is it that, instead, more and more of us are so stressed out as to be on a collision course with illness, misery, tragedy and death?
Most important, what can we do to reverse course? Fortunately, amazingly effective help is available - but more on that later.
‘He wants people to snap’
“Life is difficult,” wrote psychiatrist M. Scott Peck at the outset of his international best-seller, “The Road Less Traveled.” Stress, difficulties, disappointments, accidents, disease, misfortune, cruelty, betrayal - they’re unavoidable in this life.
Yet, during eras when society and families are stable, unified and fundamentally decent and moral - as, say, America during the 1950s - the stress level for each person is minimized, or at least not compounded by a perverse society. Conversely, when - as is the case today - we have widespread family breakdown, a depraved culture that mocks traditional moral values, a chaotic economy and disintegrating monetary system and a power-mad government dominated by demagogues and sociopaths, the normal stresses of life are greatly multiplied.
Thus it has come to pass that America, long the hope of the world, has grown increasingly dispirited and angry, which in turn breeds anxiety, fear, confusion, hopelessness and depression.
After all, let’s face the hard facts: We just re-elected perhaps the worst president in history, someone manifestly obsessed with dismantling traditional, free-market capitalist America and transforming it into a socialist nanny state. That in itself is highly stressful - at least for the roughly half the population that still understands socialism always leads to a profound loss of freedom and prosperity.
Then there’s today’s relentless economic pressures: high unemployment (the actual rate is at least double that of the “official” government rate), foreclosures and bankruptcies, a stagnant growth rate, 11,000 new people signing up for food stamps every single day, rising taxes for the entire middle class whose net worth is simultaneously shrinking, ever-higher prices for food, gas and other essentials - and overshadowing it all, a galactic national debt burden, courtesy of a wildly out-of-control government unrestrained by either the Constitution or common sense.
That, too, is very stressful. Top it all off with an administration continually abusing the public for the sake of enlarging and consolidating its political power - for instance, by purposely making the “sequester” cuts hurt Americans, even our active-duty soldiers, as much as possible.
Make no mistake: This sort of stress on Americans is not only intentional on the part of Team Obama - it is strategic. Remember, these people are revolutionaries (that is, engaged in “bringing about a major or fundamental change,” as Merriam-Webster puts it) and utterly committed to replacing one societal structure - America’s constitutional, limited-government, free-enterprise system - with another - a socialist, wealth-redistributionist system run by an all-powerful government.
Such a radical change cannot be accomplished while Americans are calm, happy, content and grateful for their blessings. Citizens must be unhappy and stressed out. Indeed, widespread popular discontent has always been the required fuel for leftist transformation.

Just reading a few pages into Saul Alinsky’s notorious “Rules for Radicals,” one encounters repeated confirmation that the very key to radical “change” is keeping the populace angry, encouraging their grievances, stoking their resentments and making sure they are continually upset. That is the primary psychological dynamic of “community organizing” - and America today is led by community-organizer-in-chief Barack Obama, a long-time master practitioner and instructor in Alinsky’s neo-Marxist agitation methods.

Top radio talker Rush Limbaugh recently picked up on this normally unspoken aspect of Obama’s modus operandi: “I think he wants people to snap,” opined Rush. “I think Obama is challenging everybody’s sanity. Obama [is] literally pushing people to snap, attacking the very sanity of the country.”
Commenting on Obama’s sudden obsession with employing every means possible to deny law-abiding Americans their constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear arms, Limbaugh exclaimed: “All of this is so in our face. Everything that people hold dear is under assault. Deliberately making people upset! This is not what presidents do.”
It’s not what presidents do - unless they happen to be leftist revolutionaries, in which case “deliberately making people upset” is precisely what they do to accomplish their intended “fundamental transformation.”
We need to realize that Americans could not have twice elected a leader as transcendentally unworthy of the presidency as Barack Obama without first having had their minds and hearts captured. Through constant leftist indoctrination, emotional manipulation, ruthless intimidation - and then being rewarded once they have “converted” - perhaps half of the American electorate has been programmed over the course of decades by a subversive school system and equally perverse “news” establishment. Truth be told, both institutions have become full-blown abominations, occupying as they do near-sacred stations of public trust in American civilization.
Of course, at the nuclear core of the myriad assaults on traditional America is the rejection (at least by society’s elites) of God and repudiation of the Judeo-Christian values that underpin Western civilization. This in turn has led to pervasive societal disintegration and a Pandora’s Box of almost unimaginable problems.
Unfortunately, despite our nation’s growing number of seriously troubled people, psychiatry provides little help. It has evolved in our secular, mechanistic culture to see virtually all mental, emotional and spiritual problems as genetic or physiological in origin. No longer is there any such thing as sin. Nothing is moral or spiritual. Good character, introspection, understanding, repentance and forgiveness, so vital to genuine healing, are now irrelevant. Just write a prescription.

Since the current research fad is to conclude (as the National Institute of Mental Health puts it) that “depressive illnesses are disorders of the brain,” psychiatry has come to rely heavily on altering our brain chemistry by (in the case of depression) tricking it into producing higher levels of neurotransmitters like serotonin and norepinephrine. But this forces us to ask an obvious question: What are you talking about? Do you really believe that the 23 percent of American women ages 40 through 59 currently on antidepressants ALL have defective or diseased brains?

Or, is it just possible that, rather than tens of millions of inexplicably damaged brains, much of today’s epidemic of “depression” and other “disorders” has a lot more to do with the prevalence of stress, pressure, confusion, cruelty, anger, injustice, temptation and corruption all around us - and our inability to deal with it without being infected and hurt by it?Hmmmm........"CHANGE" Obama Blames “Founding Fathers” For Making It Difficult For Him To “Bring Change”But..."I will keep plotting".Read the full story here.

Video: Stephen Coughlin exposes the Saul Alinsky underpinnings of Interfaith Outreach.

“One of the things Alinsky’s goal was to do is to take terms, sacred terms, sacred ideas, patriotic and religious, and redefine them without telling people …” HT: CounterJihadReport.

'Messiah' Obama quotes from Saul Alinsky's ‘Rules For Radicals’ to Israeli students, Book dedicated to Lucifer.

'Messiah' Obama quotes from Saul Alinsky's ‘Rules For Radicals’ to Israeli students, Book dedicated to Lucifer.(WND).
Quoting from book by Marxist rabble-rouser (street organizer), Saul Alinsky, ‘Rules For Radicals’ in his speech to Israeli students 21.03.2013. Real Clear Politics’ Mark Levin audio here.

He continued: “Speaking as a politician, I can promise you this: Political leaders will not take risks if the people do not demand that they do. You must create the change that you want to see.”

[...]

Israel is the most powerful country in the region, Israel has the unshakable support of the most powerful country in the world, Israel i snot going anywhere, Israel has the wisdom to see the world as it is, but, but this is in your nature, Israel also has the courage to see the world as it should be.

Channels theme of ‘Rules for Radicals’ book dedicated to Lucifer.

JERUSALEM – In his address in Jerusalem today, President Obama channeled Saul Alinsky, citing the radical community organizer’s defining mantra as he urged young Israelis to “create change” to nudge their leadership to act.

Obama told a crowd of college students at Jerusalem’s main convention center that Israel “has the wisdom to see the world as it is, but also the courage to see the world as it should be.”

One of Alinsky’s major themes was working with the world as it “is” to turn it into the world as “it should be.”

In his defining work, “Rules for Radicals,” which he dedicated to “the first rebel,” Lucifer, Alinsky used those words to lay out his main agenda. He asserted radical change must be brought about by working within a system instead of attacking it from the outside.Hmmmm....."By their fruits ye shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" ~ Matthew 7:16.Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News - What the main papers don't say.

  Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity situation Indonesia 5.8 - 5.6 ; New zealand 5.2 !More info here.

• 'We're throwing Israel under the bus'; Santorum blasts Obama's Iran policy, "Obama Wants Iran to Have a Nuke".(WJD).In what may be the harshest attack yet leveled against President Barack Obama's Iran policy, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum all but accused Obama of deliberately selling out Israel and the United States.Speaking on Thursday after a string of surprising primary victories over front runner Mitt Romney, Santorum - who may now be laying the groundwork for a general election run - opened up on the Obama administration in no uncertain terms.We're throwing Israel under the bus because we know we're going to be dependent upon OPEC. We're going to say, "Oh, Iran, we don't want you to get a nuclear weapon — wink, wink, nod, nod — go ahead, just give us your oil." Folks, the president of the United States is selling the economic security of the United States down the river right now.His attack is particularly interesting in that it appropriates one of the far-left's main talking points, that U.S. foreign policy is controlled by oil interests, and flips it on its head into a rightwing attack on dovish attitudes toward Iran.Read the full story here.

• Archbishop Dolan Betrayed by Obama.(NR).Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, head of the Archdiocese of New York, has now publicly criticized the Obama administration’s new HHS mandate. Specifically, he has stated that the President Obama betrayed a commitment made to him weeks ago in a personal meeting. CBS reports: Dolan said he met with the president weeks ago in the Oval Office to talk about the law. Dolan said the president gave his promise the provision would go away, but it hasn’t. “It seems to be at odds with very sincere assurances that he gave me, that he wanted to continue to work with the church in these endeavors and views and projects he shared a passionate interest in, so I can’t figure it out,” Dolan said.“When I left the Oval Office, where I was very grateful for his invitation to be there, I left with high hopes. That nothing his administration would do would impede the good work that he admitted and acknowledged in the church,” Dolan said. “And I’m afraid I don’t have those sentiments of hope now.”Hmmmm........Perhaps the scriptures have the answer?"O generation of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." ~ Matthew 12:34.Read the full story here.

• Obama to Announce Compromise (With Himself) Over Contraceptive Rule at Religious Institutions.(BigGovernment).The Washington Post, citing anonymous White House Sources, reports that President Barack Obama will announce a “compromise” today on the contraceptive rule for religious institutions that has outraged Americans across the political spectrum as a violation of religious freedom: President Barack Obama will announce a plan to accommodate religious employers outraged by a rule that would require them to cover birth control for women free of charge, according to a person familiar with the decision.Obama was expected to make the announcement at the White House Friday.The shift is aimed at containing the political firestorm that erupted after Obama announced in January that religious-affiliated employers had to cover birth control as preventative care for women. Churches and houses of worship were exempt, but all other affiliated organizations were ordered to comply by Aug. 2013.It is not clear with whom Obama has negotiated a “compromise”; it would appear he has simply compromised with himself, modifying his rule in a way he believes he can sell politically.The outrage is as much about the fact that the Obama administration tried to define what is, and is not, a religious institution as it is about the fact that it tried to impose its own dogmatic beliefs–in population control, among other things–on Catholics and other religious groups.Earlier this week, administration officials had signaled that the president might “compromise,” a prospect that was greeted with skepticism by religious leaders, who struggled to imagine a halfway point between religious freedom and state dictates on religious faith.The last, best word belongs to Charles Krauthammer, who writes today: To flatter his faith-breakfast guests and justify his tax policies, Obama declares good works to be the essence of religiosity. Yet he turns around and, through Sebelius, tells the faithful who engage in good works that what they’re doing is not religion at all. You want to do religion? Get thee to a nunnery. You want shelter from the power of the state? Get out of your soup kitchen and back to your pews. Outside, Leviathan rules.Hmmm......When Pres Obama says, "Everyone plays by the same set of rules," it means they conform to his rules. Read the full story here.
• Update: President Obama will speak today at 12:15 pm ET at the White House, likely to announce changes to his policy requiring Catholic institutions to provide free birth control to employees. I will try to live stream it for you.Update: sorry, I’m not able to live steam this event. No Carney briefing today.Source White house dossier.

• Obama Wants to Ban Guns in U.S. to Reduce Crime…in Mexico.(TGWP).By Andrea Ryan.In his latest Fast and Furious stonewalling before Congress, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder revealed Obama’s desire to sacrifice our Second Amendment rights…”to improve our relationship with Mexico and reduce their crime situation”.According to The Daily Caller, Last Thursday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to answer questions about his role in the deadly “Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal. However, instead of answers, Congress got more defiance, more arrogance, and more wasted time with an attorney general who clearly feels no sense of obligation to the American people or our rule of law. …In a rash attempt to deflect attention away from himself and his own irresponsibility, Holder let Congress know that the Obama administration is still working toward the day when it can reinstate former President Bill Clinton’s so-called “assault weapons” ban. According to Holder:“This administration has consistently favored the reinstitution of the assault weapons ban. It is something that we think was useful in the past with regard to the reduction that we’ve seen in crime, and certainly would have a positive impact on our relationship and the crime situation in Mexico.”It’s difficult to follow Holder’s logic here, but it goes something like this …The Obama administration — particularly Eric Holder’s Justice Department — oversaw an epic scandal whereby our own federal government illegally funneled thousands of firearms into the hands of Mexican drug lords. This contributed to the death of one U.S. Border Patrol agent and hundreds of Mexicans.Despite being head of the Justice Department and our nation’s chief law enforcement officer, Eric Holder claims he doesn’t know how or why this scandal occurred, or even who under his charge may have authorized it. He also refuses to turn over critical documents to congressional investigators that could help prevent something this tragic and corrupt from ever happening again.Therefore, Obama and Holder are confident that if they can ban a large number of the legal firearms that law-abiding Americans use every day for self-defense, hunting, and recreational and competitive target shooting, it will help solve Mexico’s crime problem.With Obama’s history of contempt for gun ownership why would this be a surprise? America’s 1st Freedom lists a few examples.Hmmm......Obama Blames “Founding Fathers” For Making It Difficult For Him To “Bring Change”But..."I will keep plotting"Read the full story here.

• ‘A Devil’s Triangle’ Author: Obama Contradicted on Iran by His Intelligence Directors.(BigPeace).Is the president trying to ignore global events in order to mask the fact he does not want America to be involved, therefore taking away Americans’ chance to be informed and cultivate their own opinion as to whether or not America needs to be involved in global events? The United States has global responsibilities and must keep an eye on the entire world; therefore, when the administration says America will pivot towards Asia, what are we pivoting away from? Author of “A Devil’s Triangle,” Peter Brooks, highlights the fact that the president claims Iran does not have the capability to attack the US yet his intelligence directors claim Iran is looking to and can attack homeland America. Is he misleading Americans or just clueless?You can hear Peter’s interview and today’s entire show at Secure Freedom Radio here.

• Book: Obama Tells Radical Community Organizer (and Former Boss) ‘I’m Still Organizing’.(BigGovernment).New York Times columnist Jodi Kantor’s book, The Obamas, tries very, very hard to paint a sympathetic picture of her eponymous subject matter–she gets her digs in against the supposedly racist tea party everywhere she can–but every once and a while the truth cracks through. Take this interview at the Texas Book Festival for example: The Obamas often don’t mingle freely – they often just stand behind the rope and reach out to shake hands but he sees Jerry Kellman, his old community organizing boss, and he’s so happy to see him he reaches across and pulls him in. And Obama says, “I’m still organizing.” It was a stunning moment and when [Kellman] told me the story, it had echoes of what Valerie Jarrett had told me once – “The senator still thinks of himself as a community organizer.” How fully has this guy resolved himself to what he’s really doing? On the one hand, he’s passing these backroom deals to pass health care reform, but on the other he’s telling his old boss he’s still a community organizer. I think that plays into what will happen in the 2012 race.Jerry Kellman was Barack Obama’s former boss, a student of Saul Alinsky’s in the 1970s, and a permanent fixture of the progressive left in Chicago.While some have downplayed Obama’s connections to Saul Alinsky, Kellman’s link is pretty easy to discern.Here he is talking about his relationship with left-wing activism, Alinksy and Obama in Illinois Issues, a student magazine, for example.Kellman drew a lot from Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation, including methods to analyze how power is obtained, and used this knowledge while taking on the mortgage banking industry on Chicago’s west side, in addition to other endeavors.Not surprisingly, Kellman has a signed copy of Barack Obama’s Dreams of My Father on his desk, with the message, “To Jerry, a friend and a mentor.”Some of us wish Obama had different friends and mentors.Hmmm...HAD or HAS?Read the full story here.

• Radioactive Leak at California Nuclear Plant: Almost Caused a Melt Down.(GR).The San Onofre nuclear power plant leaked radioactive gas last week when steam generating tubes ruptured. Indeed, hundreds of tubes at the San Onofre nuclear plant are experiencing problems. (To add insult to injury, a worker also fell into a nuclear refueling pool at San Onofre. He may have swallowed fuel particles in radioactive water.)James Chambers – a licensed nuclear reactor operator and whistleblower from San Onofre – says that the tube rupture was very significant. Nuclear activist Kevin Kamps says that there were a number of tube ruptures at San Onofre, which could have led to a cascade failure and a meltdown. He also said that the nuclear plants in the U.S. are getting old and breaking down, and that we’re in the “breakdown phase” of nuclear power in this country. But regulators are letting nuclear owners re-start nuclear power plants before really inspecting what went wrong or whether problems have been fixed.Hmmmm......It never 'blows' in California?Read the full story here.

• Obama decries ‘outrageous bloodshed’ in Syria as offensive on Homs kills hundreds.(AlArabiya).U.S. President Barack Obama has decried the “outrageous bloodshed” in Syria as government forces bombarded the city of Homs for the fifth day on Friday and residents expected a major push to subdue the center of revolt against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.Government troops trying to crush opponents of President Assad have killed at least 400 people in a relentless onslaught on Homs, opposition activists say. Rights groups estimate that more than 6,000 people have died in the nationwide crackdown since mid-March.In comments after White House talks with Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, President Obama also reiterated calls for Syrian President Assad to leave power.“We both have a great interest in ending the outrageous bloodshed that we’ve seen and see a transition from the current government that has been assaulting its people,” President Obama said.Assad, bolstered by Russian support, ignored appeals from world leaders to halt the carnage.In Homs, activist Mohammad Hassan said a brief respite in the shelling had allowed him to leave his basement and survey the extent of the damage.“There isn’t one street without two buildings or more that are badly damaged from the shelling,” he said by satellite phone.“We are hearing from ‘al-thouwar’ (revolutionaries) that a big attack could occur as early as Saturday,” he added.He said artillery barrages had been directed at Bab Amro, Inshaat, Khalidya and other districts of the city where rebels have been lying low while mounting hit-and-run guerrilla attacks on the rear of Assad’s troops.“Four tanks or armored vehicles were destroyed today on the edge of Bab Amro and some bread and medical supplies were delivered there for the first time in days by activists who crossed from Brazil Street,” Hassan said.Walid Abdallah, another activist in the city, said Alawite militiamen were playing a crucial support role for the attacking troops.“Districts such as al-Waer on the edge of the city have mostly been spared the shelling but it is now unsafe because the ‘shabbiha’ have begun raiding daily,” he said.“Homs has become the capital of the uprising. I am afraid the regime will continue shelling it to bits and turn it into another Hama,” he said, referring to the many thousands killed in the bombardment and subsequent overrunning of the city of Hama in 1982, under the rule of Assad’s late father, President Hafez al-Assad.“The Free Syrian Army has been preparing for an onslaught with booby traps and what have you,” Abdallah said.“A high level of social solidarity has also spread during the uprising in neighborhoods such as Bab Amro, al-Khalidya and beyond, and people have vowed to resist what they see as a sectarian onslaught.”Read the full story here.

• Report: Saudi Arabia to buy nukes if Iran tests A-bomb.(BLN).Source: MSNBC
  Saudia Arabia would move quickly to acquire nuclear weapons if Iran successfully tests an atomic bomb, according to a report.Citing an unidentified Saudi Arabian source, the Times newspaper in the U.K. (which operates behind a paywall) said that the kingdom would seek to buy ready-made warheads and also begin its own program to enrich weapons-grade uranium.The paper suggested that Pakistan was the country most likely to supply Saudi Arabia with weapons, saying Western officials were convinced there was an understanding between the countries to do so if the security situation in the Persian Gulf gets worse. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have denied such an arrangement exists.Iran, which follows the Shiite branch of Islam, and Sunni Saudi Arabia are major regional rivals.The Times described its source for the story as a “senior Saudi,” but gave no other details.Read the full story here.

• Egypt Coptic Christian priests charged with incitement in Maspero violence.(BM).CAIRO: Egyptian prosecutors announced they are investigating Coptic Priest Flopetair Gameel, Priest Metias Nasr and activist Ramy Kamel on Thursday for their alleged involvement in the violence outside the State TV building last October 9 that killed 27 people and left hundreds injured.The three accused arrived early Thursday morning for a full day of investigation and interrogation that ended around 7 PM local time.The three arrived with a defense team to face the charges that included “inciting violence against the armed forces, inciting violence and death against solders in the armed forces, participating with others in stealing armored military vehicles, promoting and inciting chaos, carrying weapons, inciting breaking into a governmental building (Maspero) and destabilizing public order.”The defendants denied all charges, pleading innocent. They are not being held during the investigation process.The case was initially going to be tried by a military court, but responding to appeals it was transferred to a civil court.The defendants called for the surveillance tapes from the state TV building to be included in the investigation as it shows they are innocent of any wrongdoing, they argued.The defendants also called for the summoning of army general Hamdy Bedeen and accused him of having a hand in the events.The defendants also called for lifting their names off of the no travel list as they are cooperating in the investigations.On October 9 in the early evening a march of mostly Coptic Christians calling for rights arrived at the state TV building and soon after police and military forces guarding the building used violence against the protesters thinking they planned to break into the building, which looks like a fortress with meters of barb wire, cameras and guards.The armed forces opened fire and ran over protesters with armored vehicles in the bloody violence.The Copts were protesting the burning of Church a week earlier in Aswan and demanded the removal of the governor.The Maspero events left a scare in the national psyche as tens of residents responded to the military after it claimed it was under attack and created street clashes that left more dead and injured.Hmmmm.....Anyone really thought they would NOT charge a Christian?Read the full story here.

• US calls on Saudi to release Ethiopian Christians.(BM).CAIRO: A United States congressional watchdog for global religious freedom has urged Saudi Arabia to release 35 Ethiopian Christians who were arrested while conducting a prayer meeting late last year in the ultra-conservative Gulf kingdom.They have been detained an held for more than two months.The bipartisan American Commission on International Religious Freedom demanded the Ethiopians be released.“Unless and until the Saudi government demonstrates some valid legal basis for imprisoning these individuals, they should immediately be set free and Saudi authorities should investigate allegations of physical abuse and degrading treatment by prison officials,” USCIRF Chairman Leonard Leo said in a written statement.Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that 29 of those arrested are women and were subjected to “arbitrary body cavity searches” while in custody.The Christians had gathered together to pray on December 15 at a private home of one of the Ethiopians, but police responded by raiding the house and arresting the group of Ethiopians, three of those jailed told HRW.“While King Abdullah sets up an international interfaith dialogue center, his police are trampling on the rights of believers of others faiths,” said Christoph Wilcke, senior Middle East researcher for Human Rights Watch. “The Saudi government needs to change its own intolerant ways before it can promote religious dialogue abroad.”In October, Saudi Arabia, together with Austria and Spain, founded the King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Center for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue, located in Vienna, and funded by Saudi Arabia.The Ethiopian men spent two days at al-Nuzha police station in Jeddah, after which the police transferred them to Buraiman prison. The women had already been transferred to Buraiman prison. Two of the women said that officials there forced the women to strip, and then an officer inserted her finger into each of the women’s genitals, under the pretext of searching for illegal substances hidden inside their bodies. She wore a plastic glove that she did not change, the women told the New York-based human rights organization.Officers also kicked and beat the men in Buraiman prison, and insulted them as “unbelievers,” the jailed Ethiopian man said.Both men and women complained of inadequate medical care and unsanitary conditions at Buraiman prison. There were too few toilets, they said. In the men’s wing, 6 of 12 toilets were reserved for Saudi inmates, while hundreds of foreign inmates were forced to share the remaining 6 toilets. One female detainee said she suffers from diabetes and was given an injection in the prison clinic that caused swelling, and has received no further medical attention.The Ethiopians, speaking via telephone from prison, said that about 10 days after being arrested, some in the group were taken to court, where they were forced to affix their fingerprints to a document without being allowed to read it. Officials told the group that they were being charged with “illicit mingling” of unmarried persons of the opposite sex.Some of the Ethiopians have been living in the kingdom for 16 years, while others are newer arrivals. Some of the women and men did not have valid residency papers, but all faced deportation, including those with valid papers, the jailed Ethiopian man said.In July 2006, the Saudi government promised that it would stop interfering with private worship by non-Muslims. In a “Confirmation of Policies,” a written document the Saudi government sent to the US government, Saudi Arabia said it would “guarantee and protect the right to private worship for all, including non-Muslims who gather in homes for religious practice,” and “ensure that members of the [religious police] do not detain or conduct investigations of suspects, implement punishment, [or] violate the sanctity of private homes.”In this document, the government also said it would investigate any infringements of these policies. Public worship of any religion other than Islam remains prohibited in the kingdom.“Saudi authorities have broken their promises to respect other faiths,” Wilcke said. “Men and women of other faiths have nowhere to worship in Saudi Arabia if even their private homes are no longer safe.”The Arab Charter of Human Rights, to which Saudi Arabia is a state party, guarantees “[t]he freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs or to perform religious observances, either alone or in community with others,” and prohibits “arbitrary arrest.”Saudi Arabia has no codified criminal law or other law that defines “illicit mingling.” In 2006, Shaikh Ibrahim al-Ghaith, the president of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, the religious police, told Human Rights Watch in an interview in Riyadh, “Mingling of the sexes is prohibited in public, and permitted in private unless it is for the purpose of corruption.”Human Rights Watch called on the Saudi authorities to release the 35 Ethiopian men and women immediately if there is no evidence to charge them with offenses that are recognizably criminal under international norms. Saudi authorities should also investigate their allegations of physical and sexual abuse and, if warranted, compensate them for arbitrary arrest and any mistreatment they endured, and to hold accountable any officials found to be responsible for these acts.Hmmmm........"Islamophobia".....Anyone?Read the full story here.

• Video - Ayman al-Zawahiri says Somali militant group al-Shabaab joins al-Qaeda ranks.(AlArabiya).Somalia’s militant group al-Shabaab have joined ranks with al-Qaeda, the terror network’s chief Ayman al-Zawahiri announced in a video message posted on jihadist forums on Thursday.“Today, I have glad tidings for the Muslim ummah (nation) that will please the believers and disturb the disbelievers, which is the joining of the al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen Movement in Somalia to Qaedat al-Jihad to support the jihadi unity against the Zionist-Crusader campaign and their assistants amongst the treacherous agent rulers,” said a bespectacled Zawahri in the video.“The jihadist movement is with the grace of Allah, growing and spreading within its Muslim nation despite facing the fiercest crusade campaign in history by the West,” said Zawahiri in the video released by al-Qaeda’s media arm As-Sahab.The video also featured al-Shabaab’s leader Ahmed Abdi Godane, also known as Mukhtar Abu Zubair. He addressed Zawahiri, saying: “We will move along with you as faithful soldiers.”“In the name of my mujahedeen brothers, leaders and soldiers... I pledge obedience,” Zubair said.“Lead us on the road of jihad and martyrdom, in the footsteps that our martyr Osama bin Laden had drawn for us,” he added, referring to al-Qaeda’s former leader who was killed last year in a covert U.S. raid on his hide-out in Pakistan.“Our brothers in the al-Shabaab al-Mujahedeen, were the rock... that stood in the face of the joint American-Ethiopian-Kenyan-crusade attack on Islam and Muslims in Somalia,” said Zawahiri.“It stamps Zawahiri’s authority on al-Qaeda and allows him to reinforce al-Qaeda’s preeminence at a time when it has been waning. Al-Shabaab’s acceptance under the al-Qaeda umbrella probably came with permission from Zawahiri for the group to launch external operations against the West,” he added.A new wave of recruitment in the Somali group could also be inspired by al-Shabaab’s new association with al-Qaeda.Zawahiri urged the al-Shabaab to treat Somalis with “leniency” and “humility” and to help them “solve their problems and fulfill their demands, especially those in need such as widows, orphans, the ill, the elderly and the poor” and to “spread justice.”He also appealed to the Islamist group “not to forget their imprisoned brothers and sisters held in the jails of the corrupt and oppressive crusaders and to capture crusaders and Zionists wherever they can to exchange them with Muslim prisoners.”Hmmmm.....the 'people' the Turkish IHH helps.Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                        Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Indonesia 5.3 and Turkey 5.4! More info here.

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

• Liveblogging the Anti-Durban Conference - Pajama's media here.

• Palestinians torch Obama photos in Ramallah.(Ynet).Palestinian protesters have denounced United States President Barack Obama for his opposition to their bid to win United Nations recognition of a Palestinian state. Dozens rallied on Thursday outside Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' office in Ramallah. They held up anti-Obama signs, including one reading "Obama the hypocrite" and another claiming the American president is siding "with killers against victims." The protesters also burned photos of the US president.Obama told the UN General Assembly on Wednesday that a state can only be established through negotiations with Israel. The US has said it would block the recognition request in the Security Council.The IDF and the police are gearing for the possibility that clashes will break out Friday after Muslim prayers. Police will decide later on Thursday whether to limit the entry of worshippers into the Temple Mount compound.A security source told Ynet that the alert level was very high, although the police did not have any concrete information on plans to ignite the situation. "Abbas' UN speech will be tomorrow evening, and they have no interest in inflaming the situation because problematic incidents will turn against them and prove they are incapable of running a state," the source said. "The goal is to see Friday's events end with the lowest number of casualties possible."Despite the optimistic estimates, the police view Friday as a test with a particularly explosive potential. The police will boost their forces on Friday, focusing on Jerusalem, the Jerusalem vicinity and the crossings to Israel from the territories. Another important center is the Temple Mount, where prayers could potentially develop into riots every Friday. Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch and Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino are expected to visit the area on Friday.  Despite estimates suggesting Abbas will succumb to diplomatic pressure, it appears the Palestinian Authority will go ahead with its plan to submit a bid for UN recognition at the Security Council on Friday. However, Palestinian sources estimated that if and when the proposal is rejected by the Security Council, a General Assembly debate will take place only weeks later.PLO Executive Committee Secretary-General Yasser Abed Rabbo, currently in New York, said in an interview on Thursday that the UN proposal will be submitted on Friday directly after Abbas' speech. Abed Rabbo stressed there has been no decision on an extension for the Security Council. He noted that more than 150 states will vote in favor of the Palestinian bid at the Assembly.Speaking to Ynet, a Palestinian source explained Abed Rabbo's statements saying that the Security Council president will forward the Palestinian proposal to a special committee after it is submitted on Friday. The source however noted that the US could still delay the proposal at the committee. "It very much depends on the Americans," the source said. "In Macedonia's case it took several months, whereas in Sudan's case it only took a few days." He said that if the Security Council delays the request, the Palestinians will turn to the General Assembly but could not give a timeframe. "The chances of this happening while the Palestinian delegation is still in New York this week are slim to none. I estimate the vote will take place in October or November."In his interview Thursday Abed Rabbo denied that efforts are being made for a meeting between Abbas and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but noted there was nothing wrong with such meetings. He added that Abbas had informed President Obama Wednesday on what will take place on Friday. Meanwhile, Hamas is still warning against the statehood bid. Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar said that if the international community recognizes Palestine as a UN member the Palestinians will no longer be able to engage in resistance against Israel. Another Hamas official said that Obama had given Abbas false promises and guarantees in order to maintain negotiations with Israel and prevent the Security Council bid.Read the full story here.More here.

• Elizabeth Warren: Obama Friend, Socialist, Class Warfare Practitioner.(OFB).Remember Elizabeth Warren? She was Obama's choice to head up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. However, she wasn't nominated because she is, among other things, an arrogant elitist liberal. In short, she's unlikable and her beliefs are un-American.These days, Warren is back in Massachusetts, attempting to defeat Senator Scott Brown in next year's election. That's where this bombshell of a video comes in :Here.

Transcript via CBS News:

Warren rejects the concept that it is possible for Americans to become wealthy in isolation.

"You built a factory out there? Good for you," she says. "But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did."She continues: "Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."These are Obama's friends. These are the ideologies he believes in.Hmmmm.....What is yours...will become mine!Read and see the full story here

• "Leopards don't loose their spots".Obama's UN Speech Continues His Diasterous Israel Policy.(YidWithLid).They say a leopard doesn't change his spots, well neither does this President. Those who though that the NY-9 election and recent polls would cause Obama to temper his one-sided policy regarding the Israeli/Palestinian dispute were very disappointing. It's not what he said that should be alarming to friends of Israel, its what he didn't say, namely that Israel needed to be recognized as the Jewish State. Oh he flirted around it sometimes, but carefully negotiated around stating it, an act of appeasement to those who would destroy Israel. It is that one recognition which keeps this 40 year dispute alive (remember before 1967 Judea, Samaria were part of Jordan and Gaza was part of Egypt).This is what the President actually said about recognition of Israel at the UN Today. Let us be honest with ourselves: Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it. Israel’s citizens have been killed by rockets fired at their houses and suicide bombs on their buses. Israel’s children come of age knowing that throughout the region, other children are taught to hate them. Israel, a small country of less than eight million people, look out at a world where leaders of much larger nations threaten to wipe it off of the map. The Jewish people carry the burden of centuries of exile and persecution, and fresh memories of knowing that six million people were killed simply because of who they are. Those are facts. They cannot be denied. The Jewish people have forged a successful state in their historic homeland. Israel deserves recognition. It deserves normal relations with its neighbors.Some will say "see he talked about the Jewish people, you can assume that's what he meant." Sadly in diplomacy as well as "Odd Couple" reruns, when you assume you make an ass of u and me.The avoidance of calling Israel the Jewish State was no accident. As recently as last month the President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas declared that he would never accept Israel as a Jewish State. For the naysayers who say why should the PA have to recognize the nature of the Israel. One reason is the UN who defines it that way. The original partition resolution passed by the UN in November 1947, UN Resolution 181 calls for dividing Palestine into Independent Arab and Jewish States. Israeli Prime Minister outlined it brilliantly in his speech before Congress at the end of May. He talked about how Israel has been ready to establish a Palestinian State for decades, but there has been one hold-up.“You see, our conflict has never been about the establishment of a Palestinian state. It has always been about the existence of the Jewish state. This is what this conflict is about....They were simply unwilling to end the conflict. And I regret to say this: They continue to educate their children to hate. They continue to name public squares after terrorists. And worst of all, they continue to perpetuate the fantasy that Israel will one day be flooded by the descendants of Palestinian refugees.” My friends, this must come to an end. President Abbas must do what I have done. I stood before my people, and I told you it wasn’t easy for me, and I said… "I will accept a Palestinian state." It is time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say… "I will accept a Jewish state."A few days before Netanyahu made his speech in the halls of Congress, President Obama gave his big Mid East peace speech. He spent much time telling Israel what she had to do, and included the controversial call for negotiations to start with recognition of Israel's return to the 1949 Armistice lines, but he didn’t address the fact that neither Palestinian President Abbas’ Fatah party and the Hamas party refuse to recognize Israel as the Jewish State. Today in front of the UN General Assembly he made the same mistake. I put forward a new basis for negotiations in May of this year. That basis is clear. It’s well known to all of us here. Israelis must know that any agreement provides assurances for their security. Palestinians deserve to know the territorial basis of their state.....We seek a future where Palestinians live in a sovereign state of their own, with no limit to what they can achieve. There’s no question that the Palestinians have seen that vision delayed for too long. It is precisely because we believe so strongly in the aspirations of the Palestinian people that America has invested so much time and so much effort in the building of a Palestinian state, and the negotiations that can deliver a Palestinian state.Again he fails to mention that the reason it has taken so long is the Palestinian refusal to accept the fact that the Jewish State of Israel has the basic right to exist. The simple truth is that with seven words, President Abbas can get what he wants "We Accept a Jewish State of Israel." Once he says that all the other issues will become much easier.But President Abbas will not make that declaration, and President Obama is satisfied with making demands of Israel while refusing to demand that the Palestinian side make the most basic of statements. Israel cannot negotiate with someone who does not believe that it should exist. And President Obama will never regain the trust of voters who support Israel as long as he continues to appease the Palestinians lack of this basic recognition.Hmmmm......You can't hide what's in your DNA.Read the full story here.

• Even Republicans Rejected Info About Obama’s Socialist Past.(RedState).What would you do if you knew the top Democrat running for president was lying about his past? That is the question I was faced with in 2008. I had met the young Barack Obama while he was a sophomore at Occidental College, and I knew that his commitment to socialism was deep, genuine and long-standing. See, http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/02/meeting_young_obama.html

I had been a leader of the Marxist students at Occidental College myself starting in 1976 when I founded the precursor of the Democrat Socialist Alliance on campus. The young Obama I knew was a Marxist socialist who would have been quite comfortable with Communist party members like his Hawaii mentor Frank Marshall Davis, retired domestic terrorists like Bill Ayers, or active socialist politicians like Illinois State Senator Alice Palmer.The Obama I knew was nothing like the life-long, pragmatic centrist that he was pretending to be in the 2008 presidential campaign. When I talked politics with the young Obama, he expressed a profound commitment to bringing about a socialist economic system in the U.S. – completely divorced from the profit motive – which would occur, in his lifetime, through a potentially violent, Communist-style revolution. In this context, I saw my report on young Obama as a key piece of evidence suggesting a profound continuity in his belief system. See, http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/12/obamas_missing_link_1.html

Although I was surprised by Barack Obama’s insistence on his mainstream ideological credentials, I was shocked that my attempts to spread the news about young Obama’s Marxism failed to gain any media traction during the 2008 presidential campaign with reporters, activists, or campaign staffs. Once I saw the significance of my face-to-face observations on the young Obama, I went out of my way to get my story on record with the Orange County Register. I tried to contact, among others, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, the folks behind the Swift Boat ads, and the McCain campaign.I thought I would get a phone call back from Fox News – someone, somewhere – and I still do not understand why no one seemed to catch on to the urgency of the situation. I understand I did not have audio tape of young Obama. I did not have any photos or home movies. Nevertheless, I was extremely active in the leftist politics and counter cultural milieu of Occidental College in the 1970s. As a younger man, I had earned a Ph.D. in political science from Cornell which, I would think, gave me some credibility in measuring young Obama’s ideological convictions. I quickly saw other people who had known the young Obama were featured in various news articles. It seemed to me I should have been just another interview for any journalist, producer or campaign consultant interested in checking out my story and testing it against the facts.In frustration, I was also posting what I knew on The Caucus Blog site at the New York Times. My expectation was someone from the Times would call me and follow-up on the leads I was sending out. Here is a sample of what I was doing in October 2008 to get the word out about Obama’s Marxist ideology. See, http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/debate-expectations-talking-up-the-town-hall/?scp=20&sq=Marxist%20occidental%20obama&st=cse

I even thought of scheduling my own press conference on the campus of Occidental College through their campus Republican club. Internally, I was conflicted by the urgency of what I knew and the sense it was best for the story to break out in a manner supportive of the McCain campaign. What shocked me about my experience in the summer of 2008 is that I thought my background as a Williams College political science professor, as a small business owner, and as a visible presence in the Orange County community would allow my message to immediately go to the very top of the McCain campaign. I thought my story would be welcomed by Fox News. Since then, things have slowly gotten better. My story on the young Marxist Obama has appeared in Michael Savage’s Trickle-Up Poverty, Paul Kengor’s Dupes, Stanley Kurtz’s Radical-In-Chief and Jack Cashill’s Deconstructing Obama.Read the full story here.

• Obama's Black Support Plummets.(WhiteHouseDossier).The passion of African-American support for President Obama is falling, posing a major new threat to his prospects for reelection.According to a new ABC/Washington Post poll, the number of blacks who have “strongly favorable” views of Obama has dropped off a cliff, declining from 83 percent five months ago to 58 percent today.That blacks will support Obama in the end is unquestionable. Eighty six percent still view him at least somewhat favorably.But the Obama campaign desperately needs to bring core constituencies like African Americans to the polls in high numbers, and flagging enthusiasm will make the task more difficult and expensive.What’s more, key swing states like Ohio, Florida, North Carolina and many others have large black populations.Black leaders have been increasingly critical of President Obama for failing to stem the high and rising black unemployment rate. And Obama’s failure to weigh in on or try to prevent the execution yesterday of Troy Davis in Georgia – a black man whom some believe was may have been innocent and a victim of racism in the justice system – may hurt him as well.Hmmmm........"Pass the bill.........if you love me".Read the full story here.

• Obama Says He Wears Class Warfare Charges As A “Badge Of Honor”(WhiteHouseGov).Official transcript from last night’s speech:

. . . Nobody wants to punish success — that’s what you here when they try to respond to what should be some pretty obvious logic. Nobody wants to punish success in America. That’s what’s great about America — our belief that anybody can make if you try. Anybody can open a business, have a great idea, go out there and make millions, make billions. This is the land of opportunity. It’s why people came to New York. All I’m saying is that those who have done well, including the majority of people here tonight, we should pay our fair share in taxes. (Applause.) Contribute to the nation that made our success possible. Pass it on — pass on opportunity.And I think most wealthy Americans would agree if they knew that this would help us grow the economy and deal with the debt that threatens our future, and put people back to work.

See, I got some Amen’s right here.

AUDIENCE: Amen!

THE PRESIDENT: This is a completely unbiased sampling. (Laughter.)

Now, you’re already hearing the Republicans in Congress dusting off the old talking points. You can write their press releases. “Class warfare,” they say. You know what, if asking a billionaire to pay the same rate as a plumber or a teacher makes me a warrior for the middle class, I wear that charge as a badge of honor. (Applause.) I wear it as a badge of honor. (Applause.) Because the only class warfare I’ve seen is the battle that’s been waged against middle-class folks in this country for a decade now.Read and see the full speech here.

• Secret Fast and Furious Recordings Name Names (Holder and Burke among them).(BigGovernment).CBS News recently got their hands on secret recordings of conversations about Fast and Furious that took place between an ATF agent and a gun store owner, both of whom were located in the Phoenix area (and both of whom were thoroughly acquainted with Fast and Furious).The recordings captured agent Hope McAllister talking with Andre Howard, owner of Lone Wolf Trading Company, at a time when Howard was noticeably worried that Fast and Furious was going to become public knowledge or be put under the microscope of a congressional investigation. Howard especially feared that Senator Charles Grassley might push for an inquiry of some kind. Thus at least four times in the recordings he can be heard mentioning Grassley, and one of those four times it’s to say someone needs to tell Grassley “to sit [his] a—down.”What’s also interesting about the recordings is that although they were made in mid-March 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder’s name comes up quite a bit. And his name doesn’t come up because they’re afraid he’s going to find out about Fast and Furious but because he was the one they were counting on to deflect attention from it.In other words, he was well aware of the operation by mid-March 2011, and this is somewhat ironic because in answering questions from Congressman Darrell Issa on May 3 he said he only learned of Fast and Furious “over the last few weeks.” This means he led Issa to believe the earliest he knew anything about the operation was sometime in April. Yet on the recordings (from mid-March), it is clear Holder was the one Howard hoped would stop the investigative momentum by responding to a letter regarding Fast and Furious from the House Oversight Committee:

HOWARD: “Holder has to respond to this tomorrow.”

McALLISTER: “Yeah, he’s gonna respond.”

HOWARD: “I know he is. And I assure you the media isn’t gonna like his response, because basically it’s gonna mirror what he’s told Grassley.”

McALLISTER: “Yeah.”

HOWARD: “He can’t deviate.” (Italics added.)

As Howard continues to express concern over what Holder will say, Agent MacAllister tries to calm him by saying she believed Holder & Co. would “come out with [something a] little more um b—-y…than they [had] in the past.”In the next portion of the recording, former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke’s name is referenced. This is where agent MacAllister admits Burke had been more tenacious in handling Fast and Furious inquiries than Holder would be:

McALLISTER: “Well if, I mean, I’ve seen a rough copy of what our U.S. attorney here has sent up. Whether or not [Holder] has the balls to actually use it or not, I doubt it. But I mean, it’s pretty aggressive. The way I see it, our local U.S. attorney is extremely aggressive. [But] when it gets to D.C. …”

HOWARD: “Who, Emory [Hurley]?”

McALLISTER: “No, the U.S. attorney.”

HOWARD: “Burke, yeah, used to work under Clinton. …Talking about [Dennis] Burke?”

McALLISTER: “Mmm hmm.”

It’s somewhat surreal to hear Holder’s name, and to come to the immediate recognition that some of his answers to Issa don’t add up.And it strikes a strange chord within one’s psyche to hear Burke’s name thrown around as the go getter and the hard hitter on Fast and Furious, and then to remember he’s the one who denied victim of crime status to the family of U.S. Border Agent Brian Terry. (God bless the family of Brian Terry.)Hopefully these recordings will pull back the sheets on this massive cover-up once and for all.Read the full story here.

• House Republicans: We Trust Netanyahu More Than Obama.(NYTimes).When the Obama administration wanted to be certain that Congress would not block $50 million in new aid to the Palestinian Authority last month, it turned to a singularly influential lobbyist: Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.At the request of the American Embassy and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mr. Netanyahu urged dozens of members of Congress visiting Israel last month not to object to the aid, according to Congressional and diplomatic officials. Mr. Netanyahu’s intervention with Congress underscored an extraordinary intersection of American diplomacy and domestic politics, the result of an ever-tightening relationship between the Israeli government and the Republican Party that now controls the House.On Tuesday, one of President Obama’s potential rivals in 2012, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, delivered a speech in New York criticizing Mr. Obama’s stance toward Israel as “naïve, arrogant, misguided and dangerous.” Mr. Perry said that he would be a guest soon of Danny Danon, the hard-right deputy speaker of the Israeli Parliament.The relationship between the Israeli government and the Republican Party has significantly complicated the administration’s diplomatic efforts to avert a confrontation at the United Nations this week over the Palestinian bid for full membership as a state, limiting President Obama’s ability to exert pressure on Mr. Netanyahu to make concessions that could restart negotiations with the Palestinians.One of the members of Congress who attended the meeting with Mr. Netanyahu in August, Representative Michael G. Grimm of New York, a Republican, said that it was carefully explained to the delegation that the money would be used for training Palestinian police officers who work closely with the Israeli government.Mr. Grimm said he felt more comfortable receiving the explanation from the prime minister than from Obama administration officials.“I think the credibility is different,” he said, “in the sense that this is his country and he certainly would not support something that would have negative effects within his country.”Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the most powerful Jewish member of Congress, said the importance of the Israeli-American security connections was driven home during their August visit, during which a bus was bombed. “We saw U.S. taxpayer dollars in cooperation between American interest and Israeli interests toward the same end,” Mr. Cantor said.“We’re in it together.”Hmmmmm......By their fruits you will know them".Read the full story here.

• Senator Hatch Introduces Senate Bill To Defund U.N. If It Recognizes “Palestine” As a State.(Washington Examiner) — Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, introduced the Solidarity with Israel Act today, a bill that would defund the United Nations if that body votes to recognize Palestine as a state.“This vote undermines Israel’s security, and should the United Nations change Palestine’s current status, this legislation would prevent valuable American resources from funding the United Nations,” Hatch said. “Make no mistake, there will be consequences associated with efforts to undermine the security of America’s friends and allies.”The United States will veto any vote by the UN Security Council that recognizes Palestine as a state, but Hatch’s bill would pull funding if the General Assembly voted to classify Palestine as an “observer state,” which the United States cannot interdict.Read the full story here.

• Palestinian Authority Reps Handing Out Maps Of “Palestine” At U.N. That Erases All Of Israel.(INN).Palestinian Authority representatives in the United Nations are handing out maps of “Palestine” that show it in place of all of Israel, including Tel Aviv, reports David Bedein of the Israel Resource Review.Bedein, who is currently in the United States, told Arutz Sheva: “They do not want a Palestinian state, but all of Palestine. The maps they hand out in their offices include all of ‘Palestine.’ They erase Israel completely in their maps.”Mahmoud Abbas is being disingenuous about his future plans, opined Bedein. “He wants the Palestinians to supplant Israel. He disseminates lies, as if he just wants Judea and Samaria. But this is really not the position of the PLO. Unfortunately, even the Yesha Council [an umbrella group for Jewish local leadership in Judea and Samaria — Ed.] does not stress the fact that he wants all of ‘Palestine.’”Bedein expressed his sorrow over the fact that Israel supports continued US and European assistance to the PA educational system even though it continues to call for Israel’s destruction. “The state of Israel continues to side with a continuation of US funding for the UNRWA education system without attaching any conditions, that it cease calling for the destruction of Israel in its schoolbooks.”Hmmmm......Obama and Erdogan their buddies.Read the full story here.

• Nervous Breakdown? 21 Signs That Something Big Is About To Happen In The Financial World.(BlacklistedNews).By Michael Snyder -Will global financial markets reach a breaking point during the month of October? Right now there are all kinds of signs that the financial world is about to experience a nervous breakdown. Massive amounts of investor money is being pulled out of the stock market and mammoth bets are being made against the S&P 500 in October. The European debt crisis continues to grow even worse and weird financial moves are being made all over the globe. Does all of this unusual activity indicate that something big is about to happen? Let's hope not. But historically, the biggest stock market crashes have tended to happen in the fall. So are we on the verge of a "Black October"?The following are 21 signs that something big is about to happen in the financial world and that global financial markets are on the verge of a nervous breakdown....

#1. We are seeing an amazing number of bets against the S&P 500 right now. According to CNN, the number of bets against the S&P 500 rose to the highest level in a year last month. But that was nothing compared to what we are seeing for October. The number of bets against the S&P 500 for the month of October is absolutely astounding. Somebody is going to make a monstrous amount of money if there is a stock market crash next month.Hmmm......Now go and read the other 20 indicators...is the end near?Read the full story here.

• Video - U.N. Amb. Susan Rice Outraged GOP Candidates Suggest American Aid To Palestinians Be Withheld.(TheHill).United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice on Wednesday accused GOP presidential candidates of “playing politics” with Israel.Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Perry both suggested this week that the U.S. should threaten to withhold aid from the Palestinian Authority over its expected United Nations request for statehood.“I think Gov. Perry ought to really consider the real-world implications of that for Israel. Because the security assistance that the United States provides the Palestinian Authority benefits Israel directly and Israelis are well aware of that,” Rice said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”Perry and Romney have criticized Obama for not showing Israel enough support, with Perry calling President Obama’s policy in the Middle East "naive and arrogant, misguided and dangerous." Rice, like others in the administration, pushed back against that characterization, defending Obama’s record of commitment to “to bringing the Palestinian and Israelis to a final agreement.”Rice said, “For those who want to play politics, they’ll play politics. But the reality is Israel has had no better partner than this administration.”Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to take his bid for statehood to the United Nations Security Council this week. The Obama administration opposes the action, warning that it would undermine direct Israel-Palestine negotiations. GOP candidates Romney, Perry and Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) have blamed the Obama administration for allowing the situation to get this far.Rice said a Security Council vote on Palestinian statehood will not succeed.The White House announced Tuesday evening that Obama would meet with Abbas on Wednesday prior to Obama’s General Assembly address, likely a final attempt to dissuade Abbas from the course of action.Read and see the full story here.

• Residents Evacuated As Strato Volcano Mount Tambora Activity Increases.(MyweatherTech).The status of the Mount Tambora volcano on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa has been raised to level III (Siaga) status forcing many residents in the surrounding hillsides to evacuate to lower ground.Mount Tambora, which is responsible for the largest and deadliest volcanic eruption in recorded history, started showing signs of awakening in April. But in early August, it spewed thick white smoke 20 meters (66 feet) into the sky. Seismic activity has increased significantly during September, with between 12 and 16 earthquakes being recorded on a daily basis.An eight-kilometre exclusion zone has been set up by Indonesian authorities over fears there will be toxic gas as a direct result of the increased activity.Hundreds of families in the villages and hamlets that lay between 5 to 10 kilometers (3 to 6 miles) from the peak have decided to move after an increase in earthquakes beneath the volcano. Some farmers, however, who have spent most of their lives living on the slopes of the volcano, remain unfazed despite the warnings from authorities.The federal Disaster Mitigation Coordinating Agency (BNPB) also has met with leaders of the three districts surrounding Mount Tambora – Bima, Dompu and Sumbawa. Two villages, Pancasila and Doro Pet, are particularly vulnerable as they are located within 5 kilometres (3 miles) of the volcano’s peak which has a height of 4,300 meters (14,100 feet), making it the tallest in the Indonesian archipelago.Tambora’s eruption of April 10, 1815, killed at least 71,000 and as many as 92,000 people. Around 11,000 were killed directly by the eruption and the remaining 60,000 or more died in the aftermath from starvation and disease as the eruptive fallout ruined the agricultural crops of the region.The 1815 eruption is estimated to have had a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) value of 7, the only such explosion since the Hatepe eruption in New Zealand in 180 AD and only the fifth known in human history.The explosion of Indonesia’s Tambora volcano in 1815 had an impact on climate worldwide throughout 1816. Credit NASA / SINC. The eruption caused significant global climate anomalies such as the phenomenon known as a “volcanic winter.” In 1816, Europe and North America suffered massive crop failures and the worst famine of the 19th century due to the dust and sulfur emitted by the volcano in what became known as the “year without a summer.”Although there is a possibility that an explosion of the same scale could happen again, residents seem optimistic given that the volcano has erupted three times since 1815 but none of those events has achieved a VEI value of more than 2.Read the full story here.

• Video - Levi’s springs from Its Progressive Closet: Jeans ad Pro-Revolution w Message to Rioting MARXISTS, “GO FORTH 2011”.(PumaByDesign).

THE BLAZE

“…But if the images weren’t surprising enough, how about the narration (which is a recitation of parts of Charles Bukowski’s poem, The Laughing Heart)?

‘Your life is your life. Don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission. Be on the watch. There are ways out. The gods will offer you chances. Know them. Take them. Your life is your life. Know it while you have it. You are marvelous. The gods wait to delight in you.’

 When watching the Vid the following quotes:

And all that while showing scenes of rioting. Is it not obvious what message the ad is sending?”

00:36 “You can’t beat death but you can beat death in life…sometimes..”

00:48 “You are martyrs, the Gods wait to delight in you.”

Is Levi’s promoting Satanism. At the beginning of both videos, one sees a fallen angel aka black angel, the angel of despair, thus representing Satan and evil but then Progressives have willingly accepted evil. These video are offensive in every way.No wonder the UK banned this ad. Levi Jeans is openly condoning chaos, riots, anarchy, economic and global collapse.How ironic it is that just a month ago, Levi’s postponed the release of the video in the UK for fear of causing more riots, yet they aired the American version during a football game in the United States the other night at the same moment Progressives converged upon Wall Street looking for an opportunity to create chaos?Read and see the full story here.

• Obama Calls for All Countries to Stand Up for Rights of Gays and Lesbians in Address to UN General Assembly.(Towleroad).From President Obama's speech to the UN General Assembly today: 

And to make sure our societies reach their potential, we must allow our citizens to reach theirs. No country can afford the cancer of corruption. Together, we must harness the power of open societies and open economies. That is why we have partnered with countries from across the globe to launch a new partnership on Open Government that helps ensure accountability and empower citizens. No country should deny people their rights, the freedom of speech and freedom of religion, but also no country should deny people their rights because of who they love, which is why we must stand up for the rights of gays and lesbians everywhere. And no country can realize its potential if half its population cannot reach theirs. This week, the United States signed a new Declaration on Women’s Participation. Next year, we should each announce the steps we are taking to break down the economic and political barriers that stand in the way of women and girls. This is what our commitment to human progress demands.Hmmmm.......A pitty his best buddy erdogan has a different opinion:"Access to gay organizations’ sites barred in Turkish Parliament".Read the full story here.

• U.S. Lawmakers Will See Gruesome Reality of China’s One-Child Policy.(CNSNews).A congressional hearing Thursday on China’s “one-child” policy will include documented cases of coercion and abuses by Chinese population control officials, accompanied by graphic images of abused victims and damaged or demolished homes of policy “violators.”The information was compiled by a Chinese national and will be submitted by women’s rights advocate Reggie Littlejohn, as part of her testimony before the U.S. House Foreign Relations subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights.Others testifying before the hearing, led by subcommittee chairman Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.Y.), include Chai Ling, founder of All Girls Allowed, a group opposing the one-child policy, as well as two Chinese victims of forced abortions.The hearing marks the 31st anniversary of the launch of China’s controversial population limitation policy, which the communist government says has prevented more than 400 million births since being introduced.Read the full story here.

• Dutch Euro-parliamentarians Blast Turkey.(Expatia).The conservative VVD, senior partner in the Dutch coalition government, has launched a fierce attack on Turkey in the European Parliament.The leader of the VVD delegation, Hans van Baalen, said Turkey had disqualified itself as a potential EU member state with remarks made on Sunday by its deputy prime minister, Besir Atalay. He warned that Turkey would freeze its ties with the European Union if Cyprus occupied the rotating presidency of the EU in the second half of 2012 as planned.MEP Van Baalen pointed out that Turkey has been illegally occupying northern Cyprus since 1974 and has blocked every attempt at reconciliation between the Greek and Turkish communities. Turkey also refuses to normalise relations with the Greek part of the island.The VVD wants the European Commission to ask the Turkish government to explain this behaviour.Turkey has for many years been a candidate for EU membership but negotiations have been difficult, partly because of Ankara’s stance on Cyprus.Hmmmm.....Is it contagious to be around Geert Wilders?Read the full story here.

• US President Obama cares about Turkey; Congress angry.(TodaysZaman).A lengthy meeting between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and US President Barack Obama in New York, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, confirms the progress made over the last year between the two countries after the row over Iran's nuclear ambitions.The Obama administration apparently takes Turkey into serious consideration in crafting its foreign policy, as evidenced by the fact that the meeting was called for by the American side. US presidents rarely grant meetings at the UN assembly, attended by nearly 200 leaders. Dr. Bülent Alirıza from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) notes that Obama has a very exclusive relationship with Erdoğan and that he views the Turkish prime minister as an ideal partner in improving ties with the Islamic world. A recent article in The New York Times mentioned that Obama and Erdoğan have spoken on the phone nine times in the past year and that only British Premier David Cameron has had the opportunity to communicate with the US president as frequently.The hot issue for discussion in the meetings and phone calls between Erdoğan and Obama, including the most recent one in New York, is Israel Syria.The Obama administration has given the green light to the lease or sale of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to Turkey, pending approval by the US Congress. The Turkish side is hopeful that there will be no problem with this deal, despite visible opposition and anger in Congress. On this matter Erdoğan says that the American side will work to resolve the Predator issue. However, analysts and experts are not optimistic, given Congress’ known conservative stance. Meanwhile, reports indicate that negotiations on stationing a certain number of drones in Turkey subsequent to the US withdrawal from Iraq are making progress. It has been argued that, technically, Congress is not authorized to block this initiative.(King Obama Again sidestepping Congress).In a letter addressed to President Obama, 12 Democratic and Republican senators supporting Israel called on him to back Israel in the UN summit, adding that they were uncomfortable with Erdoğan’s anti-Israel discourse after the publication of the Palmer Report. In the letter, they also stressed that the US would not remain indifferent to any attempts to delegitimize Israel in international venues. In a separate letter to Obama, drafted by seven senators before his meeting with Erdoğan, it was argued that Turkey has moved to a policy of enmity and confrontation with Israel, and Obama was asked to initiate a diplomatic offensive against Turkey to reverse the process.Unlike the previous administration, Obama views Turkey as a leader in its region, says expert Mathew Duss from the Center for American Progress (CAP). Duss also notes that Washington believes that Erdoğan is seeking to promote his image in the region through opposition to Israel. However, it appears that Obama did not raise this issue in the meeting. The American administration, welcoming Turkey’s decision to approve the installation of a radar system in Kürecik, Malatya province, as part of a NATO anti-missile shield project, offered its thanks to the prime minister at the meeting. Meanwhile, the Turkish delegation reportedly urged the US side not to refer to the installation as American radar, which is confusing in technical terms and offensive to the Turkish government.In a press statement made after the meeting, Erdoğan, while acknowledging that the radar system was made in the US, noted that it would be under NATO command. Washington seems opposed to Turkey’s demand not to communicate the intelligence to be collected through the system to Israeli authorities.Hmmmm......Turkey dictating US policy.Read the full story here.

• Obama's buddy sends Turkish warships towards Cyprus in oil exploration dispute.(TodaysZaman).Turkish warships have set out for the Mediterranean at a time when Turkey and Greek Cyprus are deadlocked over possible deposits of oil and natural gas off the coast of the island.Three warships set sail from İstanbul through the Dardanelles, heading for the Aegean, the Cihan news agency reported on Wednesday. The warships’ activity was interpreted as a sign that Turkey is ready to live up to its pledge and prepare for its own drilling in the company of warships in the debated waters around Cyprus.According to Greek Cypriot presidential advisor Ertan Ersan, Chief of General Staff Necdet Özel and Turkish Land Forces Commander Gen. Hayri Kıvrıkoğlu said that Turkey would start drilling within a week, Turkish media reported on Wednesday. Özel reportedly indicated that “the Greek Cypriots would not dare to escalate the tension,” as he proposed that Turkey would start drilling since it is the country’s right to do so. Kıvrıkoğlu expressed the belief that Greek Cypriots would not make “a crazy move that would escalate the crisis.” Ersan had talks with the generals earlier this week.The countries have been exchanging warnings since the Greek Cypriots announced during the summer that they were planning to conduct oil and gas exploration in the seabed Turkey considers disputed territory, but the actual kickoff for the Greek Cypriot drilling that came on Monday proved the debate could turn into a crisis that might even involve a military showdown.The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC) announced on Tuesday that it was setting up a monitoring committee that would observe developments on a Greek Cypriot oil platform that was set up recently and is expected to yield results within a few weeks. The committee is expected to issue daily reports on exploration activities while Turkish warships and aircraft keep the zone under surveillance with respect to Greek Cypriot territorial rights.“The drilling process has been started by Noble Energy on the basis of the agreement with the Republic of [Greek] Cyprus,” Greek Cypriot deputy government spokesman Christos Christofides was quoted as saying by Reuters on Tuesday, confirming that the Greek Cypriot administration feels justified in carrying out the drills unilaterally.“By ignoring the rights and interests of the Turkish Cypriots they are sabotaging the search for a solution based on the principles and framework accepted by the United Nations,” İrsen Küçük, the Turkish Cypriot prime minister, was quoted as saying in the same report.The platform of US-based Noble Energy was set up over the weekend, deepening the crisis between the Turkish and Greek sides, as Turkey vowed to cooperate with the KKTC to sign its own continental shelf delineation agreement in the event the other side of the island went ahead with its drilling project. Turkey considers seabed deposits oil and natural gas a common wealth for the entire island, both communities of which have been engaged in UN-led reunification talks that are expected to be finalized by October.However, the hydrocarbon debate seems to have undermined both parties’ readiness for a just solution to the separation that goes back almost four decades.Cyprus has been divided between Turkish and Greek sides since 1974, when the Turkish military intervened in an Athens-backed coup to reunite the island with Greece. Although the KKTC is recognized as a state only by Turkey, Greek Cyprus has enjoyed the benefits of EU membership since 2004 and is readying for its term in the EU rotating presidency in the summer of 2012.Intergovernmental bodies headed by the UN expect the two communities to come to an agreement on reunification before the Greek Cypriot presidency of the EU begins in July 2012. Turkish officials consider the presidency ample reason to freeze negotiations with the European bloc if a solution is not devised by then.Hmmmm.....No wonder Obama and Erdogan had such smiling faces at the UN,lets start a war with Israel?Read the full story here.

• Pakistani Court Orders Ban On Facebook, Websites Over Blasphemous Content.(Memri).The Lahore High Court has ordered the Pakistani ministry of information and technology to block access to all websites for spreading religious hatred, according to a Pakistani daily.Justice Azmat Saeed, however, made it clear that no search engine, including Google, would be blocked, according to a report in The Express Tribune daily.The order came on a petition seeking a permanent ban on social networking website Facebook for allegedly hosting a competition featuring blasphemous caricatures of Islamic figures, the report noted.Requesting that Facebook and other such websites be "permanently banned," the petitioner said that Islamic values were being derogated in the name of freedom of information and consequently hurting the feelings of millions of Muslims. According to the report, Muhammad & Ahmad, a public interest litigation firm, filed the petition on behalf of Advocate Muhammad Azhar Siddique.Read the full story here.

• Satellite UARS on collision course with Earth on September 23, 2011.(Space).NASA doesn’t know where it will impact?A dead NASA satellite will plummet to Earth on Friday (Sept. 23), and while the U.S. space agency doesn’t know exactly where pieces of the massive spacecraft will hit, one thing is certain: North America is in the clear.NASA’s Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, or UARS, is set to make an uncontrolled re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere on Friday. However, it is still too early to tell exactly where the 6.5-ton spacecraft will fall. Scientists will likely have a much better idea of where the debris will land about two hours before the impact, NASA officials said.Scientists at NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office estimate that at least 26 large pieces of the bus-size satellite will endure the scorching heat of re-entry. Approximately 1,170 pounds (532 kilograms) of material are expected to reach the ground, NASA officials said. Read the full story here.