Democrats: Call Joe Lieberman NOW Obama: a word meaning, “He Who Speaks with Forked Tongue”

Democrats: Call Joe Lieberman NOW

Obama: a word meaning, “He Who Speaks with Forked Tongue”
by Bill Levinson

At least that is what we would conclude based on its typical context. The latest communication from Barack Obama underscores the need for Democrats to find a qualified Presidential candidate between now and next Spring’s primary elections. It is eminently clear that none of the self-serving frauds who are currently running are qualified for any position of public trust or responsibility in the United States. The National Jewish Democratic Council has, in fact, openly set standards that disqualify Clinton, Obama, and Edwards right out of the starting box. The Republicans can and should cite this standard if Clinton, Obama, or Edwards becomes next year’s nominee.

The latest communication we received from Barack Obama’s campaign manager, David Ploufe, underscores Obama’s total lack of character, ethics, and integrity. He is nothing more than a big phony smile on top of an empty suit. At present, his chief supporter seems to be a scantily-clad woman with what looks like a ring or stud in her tongue who has a crush on Barack Obama whom, as we remember, is currently married to Michelle Obama. We are not interested in hearing anything he has to say about the issues, because we don’t believe anything he says. Although we don’t agree with Senator Lieberman on all the issues either, we respect him and we will certainly listen to what he has to say before deciding how to vote next year–if he becomes the Democratic nominee.

This is what we just received from David Ploufe in response to complaints about Obama’s ongoing association with and endorsement of racist and anti-Semitic individuals and organizations. These include Al Sharpton and his National Action Network, Allan Houston (who with a Knicks teammate said Jews were responsible for Jesus’ death), Jeremiah Wright, and MoveOn.org.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. We have a President who stubbornly refuses to end a war that has cost us thousands of lives and billions of dollars. We have a vice president who believes he’s completely above the law. And yesterday, the Supreme Court essentially threw out the Brown v. Board of Education ruling.

For the next 48 hours, we have a chance to define ourselves and our movement as a force for serious change and a new kind of politics.

We have highlighted Obama’s “cut, run, and show the terrorists our backs” statement that shows his total lack of fitness to protect the United States from its enemies. We have also established that Barack Obama is a liar (we assume that he approves everything Mr. Ploufe says) like his supporters at the National “Jewish” “Democratic” Council.

To anyone who would still claim there are few differences between Democrats and Republicans, consider this: but for a few incorrectly counted votes in Florida or a handful of votes in Ohio, we wouldn’t have the Supreme Court of the United States acting to undermine Brown v. Board of education today.

It is easy enough to tell when a NJDC blogger has lied; his words appear on NJDC’s blog. According to NJDC, Al Gore really won the 2000 election, and Elvis Presley is alive and well in a UFO. As is usual with both the NJDC and Barack Obama, there is a considerable discrepency with what they tell us and what the truth actually is. The U.S. Supreme Court did not overturn or undermine Brown vs. Board of Education, which makes it illegal for bigots to keep Black children out of white schools. The U.S. Supreme Court did exactly the right thing but, as is usual with both the National “Jewish” “Democratic” Council and Barack Obama, black is white, day is night, and so on. Or, to quote the witches in Macbeth, “Fair is foul and foul is fair.”

Supreme Court Rejects School Race Plans

Chief Justice John Roberts asserted in his majority opinion that by classifying students by race, the school districts are perpetuating the unequal treatment the Brown decision outlawed. “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” Roberts said.

…Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s only black member, wrote a separate opinion endorsing the ruling and taking issue with the dissenters’ view of the Brown case.

“What was wrong in 1954 cannot be right today,” he said. “The plans before us base school assignment decisions on students’ race. Because ‘our Constitution is colorblind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens,’ such race-based decisionmaking is unconstitutional.”

There seems to be an enormous difference with the truth (as shown above) and the image NJDC and Obama want to paint of racists standing at the schoolhouse door with attack dogs and fire hoses to keep Black children out. (Speaking of racists who stood in the schoohouse door, Obama signed a MoveOn.org fundraising letter for a genuine Ku Klux Klan Kleagle who once corresponded with the famous segregationist Theodore Bilbo.) For the record, we have never recognized the legitimacy of forced busing of students to achieve racial integration, and we support parents and communities that refuse to cooperate with such activities.

Now that we have established that both NJDC and Barack Obama have completely misrepresented the U.S. Supreme Court decision, we will cite the National Jewish Democratic Council’s standard under which Obama, Clinton, and Edwards are not qualified to hold public office.

Location of Presidential Announcement Suggests Romney Needs American and Jewish Histories 101

Location of Presidential Announcement Suggests Romney Needs American and Jewish Histories 101

Below is NJDC’s statement this morning on former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

It is tough enough for Romney’s campaign to explain away his ever-changing views on social issues — now, he trips up his own considerable efforts to court Jewish political support.

####
National Jewish Democratic Council Decries Mitt Romney’s Embrace of Henry Ford

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: David Goldenberg

February 12, 2007

Washington, DC – The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) expressed its deep concerns today about Republican Mitt Romney’s decision to announce his candidacy for President from the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit, Michigan. Located on grounds formally owned by Ford, the museum is a testament to the life of Henry Ford, a notorious anti-Semite and xenophobe whose belief that Jews were second-class, inferior citizens were expressed in detail in his writings on his theory of Americanization. Ford was also bestowed with the Grand Service Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle by Adolph Hitler. [NJDC, as usual, omits little facts like the one that the award was for Ford’s industrial work, not for anti-Semitic activities.]

“NJDC is deeply troubled by Governor Romney’s choice of locations to announce his Presidential campaign. Romney has been traveling the country talking about inclusiveness and understanding of people from all walks of life. Yet he chooses to kick his presidential campaign on the former estate of a well-known and outspoken anti-Semite and xenophobe. Mitt Romney’s embrace of Henry Ford and association of Ford’s legacy with his presidential campaign raises serious questions about either the sincerity of Romney’s words or his understanding of basic American history,” said NJDC Executive Director Ira Forman.

…”Mitt Romney’s courtship of the Jewish community has primarily occurred within the realm of political fundraising. He will soon find out, however, that simple pro-Israel platitudes will only get him so far in the Jewish community. We hope that Mitt Romney will dedicate himself to learning American history – and especially the history of the American Jewish community,” Forman concluded.

Good. Ira Forman (the same individual who signed his name to a whitewash of MoveOn.org’s anti-Semitic hate speech, which was later found to include anti-Catholic hate speech and 9/11 denial as well) has just set a standard under the name, “National Jewish Democratic Council.” The standard says that appearing at the museum of a long-dead EX-antisemite who retracted and repudiated his offensive publications disqualifies a candidate for consideration. Under Ira Forman’s standards, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards are unfit to hold public office in the United States.

Clinton, Obama, and Edwards endorse living and unrepentant racist and anti-Semite

Senator Hillary Clinton (NY): “I have enjoyed a long and positive relationship with Reverend Al Sharpton and National Action Network, and I don’t ever remember saying “no” to them and I intend to remain their partner in civil rights as I clean the dirt from under the carpet in the oval office when I am elected President”

Senator Barack Obama (Ill): “Reverend Sharpton is a voice for the voiceless, and a voice for the dispossessed. What National Action Network has done is so important to change America, and it must be changed from the bottom up.”

Senator John Edwards: “I will work with National Action Network to fight poverty and seek justice for those marginalized in our society.”

Barack Obama with Live Anti-Semite and Racist

“NJDC is deeply troubled by Governor Romney’s choice of locations to announce his Presidential campaign. Romney has been traveling the country talking about inclusiveness and understanding of people from all walks of life. Yet he chooses to kick his presidential campaign on the former estate of a well-known and outspoken anti-Semite and xenophobe. Mitt Romney’s embrace of Henry Ford and association of Ford’s legacy with his presidential campaign raises serious questions about either the sincerity of Romney’s words or his understanding of basic American history,” said NJDC Executive Director Ira Forman.

The fact that Barack Obama campaigned at the headquarters of an active hate organization that was involved in the burning of a Jewish-owned store in Harlem (Freddy’s Fashion Mart) and appeared arm in arm with a well-known and outspoken anti-Semite (and racist who, unlike Ford, never repudiated his actions) raises serious questions about either the sincerity of Obama’s words or his basic ethics, character, and integrity.

Hillary Clinton with Live Anti-Semite and Racist

“NJDC is deeply troubled by Governor Romney’s choice of locations to announce his Presidential campaign. Romney has been traveling the country talking about inclusiveness and understanding of people from all walks of life. Yet he chooses to kick his presidential campaign on the former estate of a well-known and outspoken anti-Semite and xenophobe. Mitt Romney’s embrace of Henry Ford and association of Ford’s legacy with his presidential campaign raises serious questions about either the sincerity of Romney’s words or his understanding of basic American history,” said NJDC Executive Director Ira Forman.

The fact that Hillary Clinton campaigned at the headquarters of an active hate organization that was involved in the burning of a Jewish-owned store in Harlem (Freddy’s Fashion Mart) and appeared arm in arm with a well-known and outspoken anti-Semite (and racist who, unlike Ford, never repudiated his actions) raises serious questions about either the sincerity of Clinton’s words or her basic ethics, character, and integrity. We add that she has been accused of using the phrase “Jew bastard,” which has also been used by Sharpton’s entourage. There is controversy over whether she really used this slur, but her appearance with another bigot whose followers use this kind of language and worse makes the story more and not less believable.

We repeated Ira Forman’s statement twice for a reason: to underscore the importance of the Republican Party repeating it over and over, in the context of the pictures shown above, should Clinton, Obama, or Edwards become the Democrats’ nominee. We cannot overemphasize how devastating it is to judge someone by their own side’s standards, and the National Jewish Democratic Council has set a standard that disqualifies all three front runners. This is why it is so important for Democrats to contact Joe Lieberman (”Jew Lieberman” as they called him at MoveOn.org while trying to replace him with an unqualified individual like Ned Lamont) and encourage him to step into the race. Lieberman’s character, ethics, and integrity are, in contrast to those of Barack Obama, highly respected. The same applies to his standing on national security issues. Lieberman could win next November, and he is probably the only Democrat who can.

=============================================
Footnote:
David Ploufe’s fundraising pitch says, “We’re less than 10,000 donations away, and your donation will count towards the goal. Please make a donation during these critical final 48 hours:”

Our questions for Mr. Ploufe:

(1) If people donate money and later discover that Barack Obama consorts openly with, and/or endorses, prominent racists and anti-Semites like Al Sharpton, and hate groups like the National Action Network, will your campaign return their money?

(2) Do you or do you not believe that the people whom you are asking to donate money have a right to know that Obama appeared with and endorsed Al Sharpton and his National Action Network?

Posted by Bill Levinson @ 5:26 pm |

time-to-revolt.pdf From Amil Imani

Iran: It’s Time for a Progressive Revolution

By: Amil Imani

The thuggish revolution in Iran, better known as the Islamic Revolution of Iran, was anything but a progressive movement. This was a conscious assault on the 2500 year old Persian Empire and the progressive Iranian people in the twentieth century. This untimely revolution outrageously installed the most oppressive theocratic Islamic system known to the history of mankind. With that, it renewed an era of Islamic terrorism and the revival of its never-ending passion for world domination.

time-to-revolt.pdf

http://www.amilimani.com/index.php

Hamas Mouse Beaten To Death By Israeli

Israeli snaps after mouse calls him a terrorist

(AP)Hamas TV on Friday broadcast what it said was the last episode of a weekly children’s show featuring “Farfour,” a Mickey Mouse look-alike who had made worldwide headlines for preaching Islamic domination and armed struggle to youngsters.

In the final skit, Farfour was beaten to death by an actor posing as an Israeli official trying to buy Farfour’s land. At one point, Farfour called the Israeli a “terrorist.”

“Farfour was martyred while defending his land,” said Sara, the teen presenter. He was killed “by the killers of children,” she added.

The weekly show, featuring a giant black-and-white rodent with a high- pitched voice, had attracted worldwide attention because the character urged Palestinian children to kill Israelis. It was broadcast on Hamas- affiliated Al Aqsa TV.

Station officials said Friday that Farfour was taken off the air to make room for new programs. Station manager Mohammed Bilal said he did not know what would be shown instead.

Posted by Pat Dollard 7 Comments

Terror scare in Piccadilly Circus: Two linked vehicles, two explosive devices

http://michellemalkin.com/2007/06/29/terror-scare-in-piccadilly-circus/

The peasants are revolting

Thomas Lifson
The liberal media cannot believe that the immigration bill was defeated by people concerned about little things like mass violations of our sovereignty and rewarding law-breakers. It just has to be racism on the part of the unwashed. You know: the kind of people who don’t see the benefits for America in having cheap, hard-working nannies and gardeners, who don’t remember how serious the servant problem was before our amigos came here in search of their dreams without benefit of documentation.

The results are sometimes hilarious. Steve Gilbert of Sweetness & Light, with one of the best eyes for photography on the web, caught the Los Angeles Times in full sneer mode a couple of days ago. Today, he caught the Washington Post  blaming small town Americans from places

where men take their sons deer hunting and moms call out to one another in the supermarket in cheerful Southern drawls… [and] the highways leading out of the city have been colonized by the usual sprawl of Home Depot, PetSmart and OfficeMax big-box stores….

Once again, liberals who fashion themselves good people for their concern over the little guy can’t help displaying their disdain for those who shop at Wal-Mart.

Posted at 11:45 AM | Email | Permalink

Manmade Global Warming: The Real Assault on Reason

Manmade Global Warming: The Real Assault on

Reason

By Marc Sheppard

In the opening chapter of The Assault on Reason, its seldom reasonable author accuses the Bush administration of exploiting people’s fears “to short-circuit debate and drive the public agenda without regard to the evidence, the facts, or the public interest.” 
Shamelessly abusing lingering September 11^th and nascent Iraq anxieties, he argues that the roles of “reason, logic and truth” have been eroded from the American decision-making process.  This lack of focus and clarity, charges Al Gore, is personified by an administration that ignores expert advice, circumvents analysis and debate, and suppresses evidence to promote predetermined, agenda driven policies. 
What’s most confounding about these stinging allegations is that they were penned by the very same man whose Oscar awarded fear-exploitation-film proclaimed – in a gross distortion of prevailing evidence and facts — that:

“Humanity is sitting on a time bomb. If the vast majority of the world’s scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet’s climate system into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced — a catastrophe of our own making.”

Indeed, Gore’s cataclysmic forecasts of worldwide famine, rising sea-levels, vanishing species, et al, are themselves the very epitome of the same agenda-driven, illogical, expert advice cherry-picking, closed debate, unfounded fear-mongering he devotes the majority of his recent Bush-bashing book to deriding.
For over 15 years, Al Gore has painstakingly ravaged all non-anthropogenic (NA) climate change theories (solar, cosmic, volcanic, etc) along with those scientists advancing them.  During that same period, he has helped craft a worldwide global warming orthodoxy which holds the misdeeds of homo sapiens sacrosanct to its dogma and has pulverized anyone in its self-righteous path “without regard to the evidence, the facts, or the public interest.” (See Gore’s Grave New World)
Reason, Logic, Analysis and Debate   
Can there truly exist any reason in such visceral antagonism to natural causation hypotheses given that solar fluctuations throughout retrievable history (observed as sunspots, auroras, etc) tend to sympathize with available climate proxies (e.g. tree-ring chronologies, glacial core and sea sediment samples and other repositories of plant and animal materials)?
In his recent National Post essay, noted Paleoclimatologist R. Timothy Patterson lends voice to the countless researchers who suggest not:

“Our finding of a direct correlation between variations in the brightness of the sun and earthly climate indicators (called “proxies”) is not unique. Hundreds of other studies, using proxies from tree rings in Russia’s Kola Peninsula to water levels of the Nile, show exactly the same thing: The sun appears to drive climate change.”

Patterson cites numerous studies correlating variances in solar output with shifts in solar wind, which in turn impact upon galactic cosmic ray atmospheric penetration and, ultimately, cloud formation on Earth.  Increased solar output thereby warms the planet in 2 ways — by direct radiation and decreased cloud cover.  Conversely, when the sun is less bright:

“More cosmic rays are able to get through to Earth’s atmosphere, more clouds form, and the planet cools more than would otherwise be the case due to direct solar effects alone. This is precisely what happened from the middle of the 17th century into the early 18th century, when the solar energy input to our atmosphere, as indicated by the number of sunspots, was at a minimum and the planet was stuck in the Little Ice Age. These new findings suggest that changes in the output of the sun caused the most recent climate change.”

Is it logical, therefore, to disregard all possible forces beyond mankind-emitted CO2 based primarily on hypothetical computer models?  Or reasonable to brand those arguing the gas’s contribution or suggesting an alternate cause and effect relationship (oceans warmed by NA forces produce more CO2, rather than manmade CO2 causing the warming) as duplicitous shills of big oil interests?
Particularly when, as Patterson points out:

“By comparison [to solar influence], CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet’s climate on long, medium and even short time scales.”

So why do so many scientists continue to sing the Al Gore C-shanty?
Reid A. Bryson, the Emeritus Professor and founding chairman of the University of Wisconsin’s Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences knows a thing or two about the subject. As recipient of only the 30th PhD in Meteorology granted in the history of American education, he is often referred to as the father of modern scientific climatology, much as Al Gore ought be credited as the father of modern hysterical climatology. And, while the professor considers all the hype over Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) “a bunch of hooey,” he certainly appreciates that:

“There is a lot of money to be made in this. If you want to be an eminent scientist you have to have a lot of grad students and a lot of grants. You can’t get grants unless you say, ‘Oh global warming, yes, yes, carbon dioxide.’”

Given these patently extortive efforts to circumvent analysis and debate, how can the alarmist marching tune, “the debate is over,” possibly resonate as either reasonable or logical in anyone’s ears?
The Truth about the IPCC
Adding a false sense of legitimacy to the over-hyping of CO2′s potential greenhouse gas (GHG) effect on warming is the oft-Gore-quoted yet woefully compromised Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  These United Nations based “consensus builders” summarily dismiss solar activity in favor of more politically favorable culprits. 
One former member and current outspoken critic of the panel testified to its bias before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in May of 2001. As I wrote following the release of the Working Group I Summary in February of this year, Dr. Richard Lindzen swore that, based on his experiences as a member, the IPCC was actually created specifically to support negotiations concerning CO2 emission reductions and would accept no contrary findings from its members:

“…throughout the drafting sessions, IPCC ‘coordinators’ would go around insisting that criticism of models be toned down, and that ‘motherhood’ statements be inserted to the effect that models might still be correct despite the cited faults.  Refusals were occasionally met with ad hominem attacks. I personally witnessed coauthors forced to assert their ‘green’ credentials in defense of their statements.”

Perhaps it’s the IPCC’s assessment that they and only they already know the truth and can little afford allowing expert advice or facts to interfere with it.
To be sure, there’s nothing to be gained by blaming either NA forces or the most abundant of the atmosphere’s GHG’s – naturally occurring water vapor. Yet, there’s everything to be gained (fear yields regulation which, cleverly crafted, yields untold political power) by blaming a byproduct of human advancement – CO2.    Both the UN and their EU kick-line are all too well aware of this progression, as are their newly restored majority cheerleaders in the U.S Congress. 
It’s no wonder the rebuke of Carbon is such a high priority to them: Between corrupt cap and trade schemes and the specter of limitless U.N regulatory powers, Karl Marx himself couldn’t have envisioned a better potential wealth redistribution plan — truth be damned.
And the Consequences
Among the many “consequences” of Global Warming alarmists portend, perhaps the most dramatic and overly hyped is a catastrophic sea-level rise resultant to melting glaciers, mountaintops and icebergs.
Gore believers were outraged when this year’s IPCC Fourth Assessment cut previously inflated estimates of such rise completely in half.  But even these relaxed numbers now appear to have been cooked in order to promote predetermined, agenda driven policies.
Dr. Nils-Axel Mörner is the head of the Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics department at Stockholm University in Sweden and, unlike any of the IPCC report writers, a bona fide expert on sea level changes.  Dr. Mörner questions the IPCC use of computer based models to produce desired sea-level predictions which contradict the observable physical measurements of his fellow geologists.
Furthermore, the Doctor scathingly charged, in a recent interview, that the IPCC applied arbitrary “correction factors” to predictive data graphs, thereby artificially creating the illusion of uplift.  The models would then match their own sea level observations based on tide gauges which themselves were a deliberate fraud:

“IPCC chose Hong Kong, which has six tide gauges, and they chose the record of one, which gives 2.3 mm per year rise of sea level. Every geologist knows that that is a subsiding area. It’s the compaction of sediment; it is the only record which you shouldn’t use. And if that figure is correct, then Holland would not be subsiding; it would be uplifting. And that is just ridiculous. Not even ignorance could be responsible for a thing like that.”

Mörner describes myriad additional IPCC falsifications and even the destruction of a tree on a Maldive Island by IPCC hacks in an effort to suppress evidence that their sea-rise predictions were pure baloney. 
So much for regard to evidence, facts, and the public interest, huh Al?
The Architects of Anxiety and Fear
As fear of impending doom plays such a crucial role in hysteria-building, it’s no wonder that AGW has been blamed for everything from lighthearted Costa Rican Frog Die-Offs, Australian cockroach migration, Swedish beetle-infestation, Great Britain’s puffin decline, a rise in hay fever and even staff shortages at Bulgarian brothels to deadly serious outbreaks of Malaria, Dengue Fever, West Nile Virus and Cholera, the killer Indian Ocean tsunami, and even this week’s Lake Tahoe wildfires.
In fact, when U.N Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon wrote a WaPo piece this month actually blaming the genocide in Darfur on AGW, his was, not all that surprisingly, not the first.  In fact, back in April, Stephan Faris had suggested in an Atlantic Monthly article that:

“The violence in Darfur is usually attributed to ethnic hatred. But global warming may be primarily to blame.”

And yet, it is the Bush administration’s alleged use of fear to further its agenda that Gore’s book targets when the author cites Barry Glassner, a professor of sociology at the University of Southern California, who:

“argues that there are three techniques that together make up ‘fearmongering’: repetition, making the irregular seem regular, and misdirection. By using these narrative tools, anyone with a loud platform can ratchet up public anxieties and fears, distorting public discourse and reason.”

Say, Al, how about the repetition of the counterfeit phrase “the science is settled,” when in fact thousands of papers are published on the subject each year? Or, perhaps, making the irregular concept of a gas essential to life on Earth (CO2) actually representing a life-adverse pollutant seem regular? Or how about the misdirection of claimed “consensus” among panelists when scientists with reasoned yet contrarian evidence, facts and theories are systematically denounced, defunded, demoted and, ultimately, demonized?
Are these not the same narrative tools for ratcheting up anxieties and fears and distorting public discourse that you speak of, Al – with which you and your doomsday legions launch your own implacable assaults on reason each and every day?
Note: Emphasis added throughout.
Email Marc Sheppard

Man Sexually Assaulted in Pakistan After Refusing to Convert to Islam

No Compulsion In Religion Alert from Pakistan. From Christian Today (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

Lawyers in Pakistan are investigating a report that up to 30 men tortured and gang-raped a young Christian man for refusing to convert to Islam.The victim is seriously injured and unable to move, Release International’s partner in Pakistan has reported. However, according to the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS) the police are keeping him locked up and have denied him medical treatment.

The police are also refusing to register the rape following a counter-claim made by his principal attacker – “a man of influence”, Release International has told Christian Today.

According to CLAAS, the Christian was invited to a game of cricket. A quarrel broke out and he was beaten up. Later that evening, the father of one of the Muslims asked the Christian over to his house.

Joseph Francis, the National Director of CLAAS, explained: “When he entered the drawing room, he found it filled with unknown people. They began to beat him severely. They threatened him with dire consequences if he did not accept Islam. After his refusal, they committed sodomy with him one by one for the whole night.”

Francis said that they later threw their victim out on the street unconscious.

CLAAS has visited the victim and his family. They believe the counter accusation that he stole money and a mobile phone is false. They say the charges were drawn up by the attacker, who has used his influence to put pressure on the authorities.

“We’re deeply concerned about the growing number of attacks against Christians in Pakistan,” says Release International’s CEO Andy Dipper. “We are receiving reports of rape, abductions and forced conversion. Pakistan is becoming an increasingly difficult place for Christians to live.

“To make matters worse, the government is pushing through a law which could impose the death penalty for any Muslim man who converts to Christianity – and life imprisonment for any woman.”

Iran’s Gas Riots

Iran’s Gas Riots
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
FrontPageMagazine.com | June 29, 2007
This week’s gasoline riots in Tehran were entirely predictable. They are also the clearest measure we have seen in recent times of the remarkable fragility of Iran’s Islamic regime.

Predictable, because they have been debated publicly in Iran for weeks and delayed several times, for fear of adverse public reaction.

A measure of the regime’s fragility because large numbers of Iranians have braved repeated threats to protest gas rationing and price hikes in one of the world’s largest petroleum exporting countries

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power in August 2005 on promises that he would put more of Iran’s oil revenue on the tables of ordinary Iranians.

During the election campaign two years ago, he toured Iranian cities and towns, promising a new high school here, a municipal swimming pool there, a new factory, a new gymnasium, rural development, whatever.

Until now, he has been unable to deliver on those promises, squandering Iran’s windfall oil profits on public subsidies to such un-Iranian groups as Hezbollah and Hamas. People know this, and they resent it. And that is what ultimately led to this week’s gas riots, with petrol stations set ablaze in Tehran and in cities across Iran.

So far, the economic vulnerability of the regime has not translated into regime-threatening political vulnerability; but just wait, says one prominent Iranian businessman encountered in London, who sees similarities in what is happening in Iran today with the final years of the former shah.

During the late 1970s, he reminded me, the Iranian economy, flush with cash from high oil prices, was beset by high inflation, just as it is now. The shah’s answer was to find a few businessmen who had raised prices and throw them in jail, he said.

In April, the Research Center of the Iranian Majlis ( the rough equivalent of our Congressional Research Service) announced that inflation had risen by a stunning 22.4% for the calendar year that ended on March 21, and projected 24% inflation for the current year.

That is an unbelievably bad performance of what is supposed to be a populist government, especially when coupled to double-digit unemployment and the growing scarcity of foreign investment as the U.S.-led sanctions begin to bite.

Just as the former shah, the current regime is also seeking scapegoats: the United States and Israel (surprise, surprise). To make their case more convincing, they have singled out an Iranian businessman who fled the country on February 21, who was recaptured by Iranian intelligence agents three weeks later in a brazen extraterritorial operation in Oman.

Shahram Jazayeri was a cause celebre in Iran by the time he was dragged out of a small tourist hotel in Khasab, an Omani port in the Strait of Hormuz on March 14. Before fleeing Iran, he was sentenced to fourteen years on corruption charges,

Jazayeri made it known at the time that he had documents implementing family members of the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, in business deals described by the court as corrupt. “That connection to the House of the Leader – the very summit of the state – made him radioactive,” Iranian analyst Shahriar Ahy told me.

Jazayeri’s family, whom I contacted in Canada not long after he was recaptured and tortured in Evin prison in Tehran, insisted that he had been framed and that his extensive network of businesses was legally sanctioned by the Iranian authorities. They insisted that he still hoped the courts would exonerate him. Fat chance.

Ayatollah Khomeini, the figurehead who spearheaded the shah’s overthrow, liked to say that the revolution wasn’t about the price of watermelons. It was his way of saying that the Iranian people would endure all kinds of economic hardship, if they identified with the regime.

But this week’s gasoline riots show that Iranians do care about the price of watermelons – at least, when they can see just how rich their country ought to be (because of high oil prices), and how little of that wealth is trickling down to them.

Consider this, the Iranian businessman in London told me.

When Iranians travel to Dubai, they are humiliated. They fly out of Mehrebad airport in Tehran, which was constructed some 45 years ago, and land in a modern, state-of-the-art fantasy-world in Dubai. To make the insult even more grating, unlike their native land, Dubai has no oil.  No oil, and yet they are so rich!

The only reason Dubai is prosperous and Iran remains mired in poverty comes down to effective leadership – and the lack of it. And Iranians can see this every time they travel to the UAE.

Working quietly behind the scenes, the Bush administration has won agreement from bankers in Dubai to stop clearing Iranian government financial transactions. Because Dubai has become the economic lifeline connecting Iran to the outside world, this has been a major blow to the regime.

Just last week, sources in London told me, the British government agreed to a U.S. request to put pressure on the HSBC bank to stop clearing Iranian government financial transactions as well. Since HSBC handles approximately 50% of Tehran’s remaining international business, this is an additional heavy blow.

And the economic pressures are about to expand. While in London this week, I learned of a British government proposal, now being discussed as a draft United Nations Security Council Resolution, that would ban Iranian government-owned ships and aircraft from international travel.

According to Lloyd’s List of London, the proposed UNSC resolution, as currently drafted by Britain, would prohibit Iranian ships not only from landing at foreign ports but from transiting international waters. That is an extremely far-reaching sanction that would cut off an estimated 40% of Iran’s daily oil exports, at least in the short run.

The British measure “would effectively strip Iran of the right of innocent passage, enshrined in the United Nationals Law of the Sea Convention,” Lloyd’s List wrote on June 27

The most immediate target of these latest sanctions would be the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC), which operates a fleet of around thirty <http://www.nitc.co.ir/aboutus.htm&gt;  Very Large Crude Carriers.

Iran could eventually contract with other shipping companies to lift their oil, but they would then have to compete with other exporters in the Persian Gulf and most likely would have to offer significant price incentives to get their oil on board.

All of this points to one simple fact, as far as U.S. policy toward Iran goes: financial sanctions have proven to be a far more effective tool than political pressures or political inducements, as fashioned by the State Department.

This regime in Tehran has never ceased a single act of bad behavior because the West has offered it a bribe. On the contrary: the greater the bribes, the more bad behavior we have seen.

Over the past six moths, as UN sanctions have slowly begun to bite, the State Department continued to hold out hope that the economic “pain” could be ended, if only the regime would suspend its uranium enrichment program.

Until now, the regime has said no. To show their resolve, Iran’s leaders chose instead to impose gasoline rationing, to spread the coast of sanctions across the population.

For the first time, the law of unintended consequences is working in the West’s favor. The popular reaction to the gas rationing has shown the regime’s vulnerability.

Now we need to take the next step and provide serious aid and political support to the pro-democracy forces inside Iran as they step forward to confront the regime.

The alternative to doing so will be war.

America Needs Another Ronald Reagan

America Needs Another Ronald Reagan
Politics Slater Bakhtavar June 28, 2007
The closer we approach the 2008 elections, the more apparent it becomes America needs another Ronald Reagan. Someone everyone knows, someone everyone likes, someone who is conservative and someone who can both win the election and manage to hold the Presidency for eight years. The next President should be very expressive and persuasive in front of the camera. He should emanate confidence, and appeal to women voters. He should be someone in the public eye and yet he should not be involved in the Washington mess. Fortunately, a candidate who exemplifies those profound qualities has emerged– Republican candidate Fred D. Thompson. Thompson has not officially joined the electoral race but he is already ruffling the GOP presidential field. The conspicuous benefits for Thompson becoming the President are on the surface. One of his subtle advantages is that he is not a hidebound career politician and has enjoyed a competent career as a lawyer, an actor, and as a politician, of course. His career as a lawyer gives him credibility as a professional. His political career gives him knowledge of power and makes him appreciate federalism and the Constitution. His acting career gives him “immediate face/name recognition” among voters. Moreover, as the long-running NBC television series Law & Order, that he was a star of, was especially popular among women, a Thompson race would smooth the gender gap which is prevalent in the GOP. He is a lawyer, an actor and a former Republican senator from Tennessee. Thompson is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and he takes part in researching national security and intelligence as a Visiting Fellow with the American Enterprise Institute. Thompson is a public speaker of the Washington Speakers Bureau, and an analyst for ABC News Radio. In addition, he publishes a blog and podcast daily on the ABC Radio web site. Thompson was a senator from 1994 to 2003. His record in the Senate shows that he was on the right side of every significant issue. Being a Chairman of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs he voted for national-debt reduction, efforts to privatize elements of Social Security and other problems. He was strongly for the legislation in the interest of free enterprise. He opposed many tax measures and was against the growth in social-welfare programs. He sustained the “decentralization and disfranchising of unconstitutional government programs” and an amendment to prohibit flag burning. Being, a strong conservative, he opposed partial-birth abortion, and cloning. Most importantly, Thompson was and up to this time is steadfastly supporting democratic initiatives in the Middle East. What is astounding is that although being conservative Thompson is liked “by people on both sides of the aisle”. He is also well liked in the Senate, even though he has been out of it for several years. He exudes poise, buoyancy, confidence and leadership which people seek in a President, especially today. He has a realistic and trustworthy seize of national-security issues necessary for a President, predominantly in the light of the terrorism threat. Fred Thompson certainly cares about the future of the country and the people and he is clearly vigorous and active enough to make a Presidential run. What is of abundant paramountacy is that Fred understands the everyday American and they understand him. He has stalwart bipartisan appeal and he is open for the efficacious advancements still he is a firm conservative. Fred Thompson has collected in himself the best leadership qualities of the past Presidents: tenacity of Harry Truman, perseverance of Franklin D. Roosevelt, charisma and charm of John F. Kennedy, and communication skills of Ronald Reagan. Thompson is expected to announce whether he is joining the electoral race sometime in July. All facts are telling he will join the game, however his decision cannot be predicted. Up to August, the voters should hold their breath waiting for his decision to come and repeat what Ronald Reagan once so eloquently said “how can a President, not be an actor?”
Slater Bakhtavar is president and founder of Republican Youth of America, a frequent commentator and respected analyst on foreign policy issues and an attorney with a post-doctoral degree in International law.

Kill the Bill: Shamnesty showdown Update: Telephone system has shut down Update: Video of Kennedy’s “Gestapo” diatribe Update: Reid attacks talk radio Update: VICTORY! Roll added Update: Goat of the day–Sen. Sam Brownback Switchback

http://michellemalkin.com/2007/06/28/kill-the-bill-shamnesty-showdown/