Joys of Muslim Women

Joys of Muslim Women
by Nonie Darwish

________________________________

In the Muslim faith a Muslim man can marry a child as young as 1 year oldand
have sexual intimacy with this child. Consummating the marriage by 9.

The dowry is given to the family in exchange for the woman (who becomes his
slave) and for the purchase of the private parts of the woman, to use her as
a toy. Even though a woman is abused she can not obtain a divorce.

To prove rape, the woman must have (4) male witnesses.
Often after a woman has been raped, she is returned to her family and the
family must return the dowry. The family has the right to execute her (an
honor killing) to restore the honor of the family. Husbands can beat their
wives ‘at will’ and he does not have to say why he has beaten her.

The husband is permitted to have (4 wives) and a temporary wife for an hour
(prostitute) at his discretion.The Shariah Muslim law controls the private
as well as the public life of the woman.

In the West World (America) Muslim men are starting to demand Shariah Law so
the wife can not obtain a divorce and he can have full and complete control
of her. It is amazing and alarming how many of our sisters and daughters
attending American Universities are now marrying Muslim men and submitting
themselves and their children unsuspectingly to the Shariah law. By passing
this on, enlightened American women may avoid becoming a slave under Shariah
Law.

Ripping the West in Two. Author and lecturer Nonie Darwish says the goal of
radical Islamists is to impose Shariah law on the world, ripping Western law
and liberty in two. She recently authored the book, Cruel and Usual
Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law.

Darwish was born in Cairo and spent her childhood in Egypt and Gaza before
immigrating to America in 1978, when she was eight years old. Her father
died while leading covert attacks on Israel. He was a high-ranking Egyptian
military officer stationed with his family in Gaza . When he died, he was
considered a “shahid,” a martyr for jihad. His posthumous status earned
Nonie and her family an elevated position in Muslim society.

But Darwish developed a skeptical eye at an early age. She questioned her
own Muslim culture and upbringing. She converted to Christianity after
hearing a Christian preacher on television.

In her latest book, Darwish warns about creeping sharia law – what it is,
what it means, and how it is manifested in Islamic countries.

For the West, she says radical Islamists are working to impose sharia on the
world. If that happens, Western civilization will be destroyed. Westerners
generally assume all religions encourage a respect for the dignity of each
individual. Islamic law (Sharia) teaches that non-Muslims should be
subjugated or killed in this world.

Peace and prosperity for one’s children is not as important as assuring that
Islamic law rules everywhere in the Middle East and eventually in the world.

While Westerners tend to think that all religions encourage some form of the
golden rule, Sharia teaches two systems of ethics – one for Muslims and
another for non-Muslims. Building on tribal practices of the seventh
century, Sharia encourages the side of humanity that wants to take from and
subjugate others.
While Westerners tend to think in terms of religious people developing a
personal understanding of and relationship with
God, Sharia advocates executing people who ask difficult questions that
could be interpreted as criticism.

It’s hard to imagine, that in this day and age, Islamic scholars agree that
those who criticize Islam or choose to stop being Muslim should be executed.
Sadly, while talk of an Islamic reformation is common and even assumed by
many in the West, such murmurings in the Middle East are silenced through
intimidation.
While Westerners are accustomed to an increase in religious tolerance over
time, Darwish explains how petro dollars are being used to grow an extremely
intolerant form of political Islam in her native Egypt and elsewhere. In
twenty years there will be enough Muslim voters in the U.S. to elect the
President by themselves!Rest assured they will do so… You can look at how
they have taken over several towns in the USA..Dearborn Mich. is one… and
there are others…

I think everyone in the U.S. should be required to read this, but with the
ACLU, there is no way this will be widely publicized, unless each of us
sends it on! It is too bad that so many are disillusioned with life and
Christianity to accept Muslims as peaceful.. some may be but they have an
army that is willing to shed blood in the name of Islam.. the peaceful
support the warriors with their finances and own kind of patriotism to their
religion.. While America is getting rid of Christianity from all public
sites and erasing God from the lives of children the Muslims are planning a
great jihad on America ..
This is your chance to make a difference…! Pass it on to your email list
or at least those you think will listen..

Islamic mosque built at 9/11 Ground Zero

NEWS OUTRAGE!

Muslim business leader: ‘This has hand of the divine written over it’

---

Posted: December 17, 2009
8:10 pm Eastern

By Chelsea Schilling
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Wreckage from plane that hit the twin towers fell on the same building that may serve as an Islamic cultural center.

 

A new Islamic mosque will open its doors just steps from Ground Zero where Muslim terrorists murdered 2,751 people in the name of Allah on Sept. 11, 2001 – and its leading imam, who conducts sensitivity training sessions for the FBI, has reportedly blamed Christians for starting mass attacks on civilians.

The five-story building at Park Place, just two blocks north of the former World Trade Center site, was the site of a Burlington Coat Factory. But a plane’s landing-gear assembly crashed through the roof on the day 19 Muslim terrorists hijacked the airliners and flew them into the Twin Towers in 2001.

Now Muslim worshippers currently occupy the building, and they plan to turn it into a major Islamic cultural center.

“The men and women stand up, raise their hands on either side of their head, murmur ‘Allahu akhbar,’ bow and kneel again,” reports Spiegel Online.

“Only in New York City is this possible,” Daisy Khan, executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, or ASMA, told the magazine. Khan is the wife of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, founder of ASMA.

They have leased the new prayer space as an overflow building for another mosque, Masjid al-Farah, at 245 West Broadway in TriBeCa, where Rauf is the spiritual leader.

The building – vacant since that fateful day when time stood still as millions of Americans grieved the loss of loved ones, friends, family members, co-workers and strangers – was purchased in July by real-estate company Soho Properties, a business run by Muslims. Rauf was an investor in that transaction.

Just down the street, the Museum of Jewish Heritage honors victims of the Holocaust, and St. Peter’s Church, New York’s oldest Catholic house of worship, is located around the corner.

Rauf has announced his plans to turn the building into a complete Islamic cultural center, with a mosque, a museum, “merchandising options,” and room for seminars to reconcile religions, “to counteract the backlash against Muslims in general, ” Speigel reports. The project may cost as much as $150 million.

Rauf told the New York Times purchasing the building “where a piece of the wreckage fell sends the opposite statement to what happened on 9/11.”

“It was almost obvious that something like this had to arise from the ashes of 9/11,” Khan told Spiegel. “In some way, this has the hand of the divine written over it. It’s almost as if God wanted to be involved.” 

(Story continues below)

Feisal Abdul Rauf

 

The move is supported by the city. The mayor’s director of the Office of Immigrant Affairs, Fatima Shama, told the Times, “We as New York Muslims have as much of a commitment to rebuilding New York as anybody.”

The city’s Department of Buildings records show the building has been the focus of complaints for illegal construction and blocked exits in the last year. Recent entries from Sept. 28 and 29, 2009, indicate inspectors have been unable to access the building. One complaint states, “Inspector unable to gain access – 1st attempt – No access to 5 sty building. Front locked. No responsible party present.” The second, just a day later, states, “Inspector unable to gain access – 2nd attempt – no access to building. No activity or responsible party. Building remains inaccessible at Park Place.”

Agency spokeswoman Carly Sullivan told the Times the complaints were listed as “resolved” under city procedures since the inspectors were unable to gain access.

Imam Rauf, born in Egypt, has written three books: “What’s Right with Islam: A New Vision for Muslims and the West,” “Islam: A Sacred Law” and “Islam: A Search for Meaning.”

WND reported in 2003 when, at least four times that year, the FBI’s New York field office held all-day sensitivity training sessions, not far from Ground Zero, featuring Rauf.

Speaking for about two hours each session, “he gave an overview of Islamic culture and some of the differences between what fundamentalist terrorist groups say are the teachings of the Quran and what he believes, as a student of religion, the Quran actually says,” said special agent James Margolin, spokesman for the FBI New York office.

Rauf asserted that the Quran “certainly doesn’t counsel terrorism, murder or mayhem,” Margolin said. And he said terrorists have misinterpreted the Quranic term “jihad” to mean violent, or armed, struggle against nonbelievers. Rauf claims it means internal struggle.

Rauf was invited to speak in Sydney, Australia, by Premier Bob Carr in 2004. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, he said the U.S. and the West must acknowledge the harm they’ve done to Muslims before terrorism can end.

He said the West must understand the terrorists’ point of view – and he blamed Christians for starting mass attacks on civilians.

“The Islamic method of waging war is not to kill innocent civilians. But it was Christians in World War II who bombed civilians in Dresden and Hiroshima, neither of which were military targets,” he said.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (center) poses in a photo with attendees at a 2006 Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. On the far left is Sultan Muhammad, communications coordinator for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Chicago. (photo: CAIR Chicago)

 

According to the report, Rauf said there would be little progress until the U.S. acknowledged backing dictators and the U.S. president gave an “America Culpa” speech to the Muslim world.

On June 4, 2009, President Obama gave a speech to the Muslim world from Cairo, in which he stated:

I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles – principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings. … So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t. And I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.

Rauf praised Obama for “embracing Islam in the peacemaking process” in his speech to the Muslim world. He wrote in the Washington Post:

The historic significance of President Obama’s speech to the Muslim world in Cairo cannot be overstated. Never before has an American president spoken to the global Muslim community. His speech marked a major shift in American foreign policy. … In just a few sentences he demolished the phony theory of the ‘Clash of Civilizations,’ which insists that Islam and the West must always be in conflict. Instead, he declared the United States is not at war with Islam and outlined a plan for how the conflict can be resolved. … He captured the attention of Muslims because, unlike most politicians, he was willing to critique both his own country and Muslims where they fell short of their ideals.

In an interview with Beliefnet on Islam and America, a reporter asked Rauf, “Some Islamic charities are being investigated for terrorist ties. Have you seen what you consider to be reputable Islamic charities being financially damaged?”

“We believe that a certain portion of every charity has been legitimate,” he responded. “To say that you have connections with terrorism is a very gray area. It’s like the accusation that Saddam Hussein had links to Osama bin Laden. Well, America had links to Osama bin Laden – does that mean that America is a terrorist country or has ties to terrorism?”

In 2004, Rauf participated in a 30-second advertisement, broadcast on Arabic television, in which he apologized for alleged abuses at Abu Ghraib prison.

The Times reported Rauf said he believes “Islamic terrorists do not come from another moral universe – that they arise from oppressive societies that he feels Washington had a hand in creating.”

Readers of various blogs are outraged at the news of the mosque. Comments include the following:

• Muslims are doing this only to see if they get away with it. It’s the way Islam spreads in every country these days, like a cancer – through incremental totalitarianism. In this case, they’ll quietly open the mosque, then, as they get away with it, they’ll ramp up their outrages until someone finally points it out. At that time, their lawyers, backed by the ACLU and various liberal organizations, will pounce.

• This is not different than allowing the Nazis to establish their headquarters and propaganda office in NYC in 1938. How come people could tell right from wrong then and not now?

• What bonehead allowed this to happen?

• That’s disgusting. That truly is low. I feel bad for the people who lost family members.

• This is outrageous. I just don’t have word. 

• This is called “staging” for the KSM trial.

• You’ve got to be kidding me. If this is true, our beloved country is already gone. We no longer have the America I know and love.

• Who wants to bet this place becomes a “tourist attraction” for Muslims? This mosque will become one of Islam’s holiest shrines as it sits upon the site of their greatest modern military victory.

• Good idea. Maybe terrorists will be less likely to bomb this area if there’s a mosque there.

 

Welcome to the Democrat Party’s civil war

Lead Story

Welcome to the Democrat Party’s civil war

By Michelle Malkin  •  December 18, 2009 09:24 AM

Welcome to the Democrat Party’s civil war
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2009

Seems like only yesterday the Washington establishment had proclaimed the Death of the GOP. Pundits churned out public autopsy reports faster than the L.A. County Medical Examiner. Liberals gloated over the supposedly irreparable fissures between right-wing populists and Beltway Republican elites. Conservatism, we were told, was suffering brain death and heart failure. My, how quickly things – ahem — change.

Social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, the GOP leadership, Sarah Palin’s heartland supporters, conservative think-tank intellectuals, D.C. and Manhattan conservatives, Big Business and small-business conservatives, Joe the Plumber conservatives, and every stripe and flavor of conservative in between are all united against the Democrats’ proposed government takeover of health care. All.

It’s the Left, not the Right, cracking up. It’s the party donkey, not the elephant, now in a rabies-crazed frenzy. Funny, though, how internecine rancor on the Right always puts conservatism in its last, final, permanent death throes (again and again), but internecine warfare on the Left is merely a matter of healthy, principled disagreement.

Former Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean went on the “YEARRGGH!”-path again – dressed in Tea Party-esque drag – and exhorted the majority to “Kill the Bill” and start over with a public option. White House senior adviser David Axelrod – echoing criticism of Dean more commonly heard on the Right – promptly pronounced the Vermont liberal’s rantings “insane.” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs dismissed Dean as irrational. And this was just the left-wing Punch and Judy show preview.

“Progressive” blogger and Hollywood producer Jane Hamsher declared war on Sen. Joe Lieberman’s wife, Haddasah, to punish him for his opposition to Harry Reid’s massive Medicare expansion “buy-in” plan. Best known for disseminating an online image of Sen. Lieberman in blackface to support failed liberal challenger Ned Lamont in 2006 and for issuing a death threat to conservative author Kate O’Beirne (“the b*tch is dead meat”), Hamsher demanded that the Susan G, Komen breast cancer foundation fire Mrs. Lieberman from her role as a “global ambassador.”

“Progressive” documentarian Michael Moore one-upped Hamsher’s attack by threatening to boycott the entire state of Connecticut until it started a recall of Lieberman: “People of Connecticut: What have u done 2 this country? We hold u responsible. Start recall of Lieberman 2day or we’ll boycott your state,” Moore wrote on his Twitter account. Recalls, alas, are unconstitutional in Connecticut. Not that “progressives” would ever let any state or federal constitution get in the way of a bloody ideological vendetta.

Obama’s BFF and most frequent visitor, SEIU president Andy Stern, threw the president’s own words back at him in a cri de couer to Big Labor’s brothers and sisters: “President Obama must remember his own words from the campaign. His call of ‘Yes We Can’ was not just to us, not just to the millions of people who voted for him, but to himself.” And moving toward the middle, moderate Democrat Sen. Ben Nelson is having his own Joe Wilson moment. On Thursday, he announced he couldn’t support his colleagues’ abortion language “compromise,” which he said failed to restrict government funding for abortion services.

Meanwhile, House Democrats are blaming Senate Democrats and the White House for the legislative meltdown. The Nobel Peace Prize winner-in-chief himself has come under fire. Democrat Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin carped that “the Obama administration is sitting on the sidelines.” Democrat Rep. John Conyers of Michigan accused the White House of selling out to the insurance industry.

It all feels very 1990s – the period between 1992 and 1994, specifically – when liberals smugly declared the premature death of the GOP only to be walloped by the midterm conservative backlash. The ruling majority got greedy, overreached, and lost touch with average Americans. With the support of the public, Republicans united to slay Bill Clinton’s stimulus monstrosity and Hillary Clinton’s health care monstrosity. And the core differences between the parties could not have been clearer.

Then, as now, GOP strategists flirted with hapless “re-branding” programs in the wake of failed presidential campaigns. They bought into the public autopsy reports of their friends in New York City media green rooms and Georgetown parlors.

Then, as now, it took a grass-roots conservative groundswell to remind the Beltway bubble boys and girls that adhering to core fiscal conservative principles — lower taxes, less government more freedom – held the key to party unification and opened the door back to power.

And then, as now, conservative talk radio helped galvanize the revolt against a Democrat-spearheaded attempt at a government health care takeover. Local Seattle talk show host Kirby Wilbur’s huge protest against Hillary Clinton’s visit in July 1994 was the turning point. National media outlets could not ignore the public booing of the First Lady in the liberal Emerald City and the legislative doom it portended.

One major difference now is the vast proliferation of alternative media – through Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and Fox News – that has facilitated the spread of information about Democrats’ big government designs and given rise to Tea Party activism. The Right’s ability to change the narrative is greater than ever. The Democrat crack-up reminds us that there are no fait accomplis in politics. Political coroners, take heed.

This President Is No B+

December 18th, 2009

By Karl Rove, Wall Street Journal

 Obama Deserves Much Worse than a B+

Barack Obama has won a place in history with the worst ratings of any president at the end of his first year: 49% approve and 46% disapprove of his job performance in the latest USA Today/Gallup Poll.

There are many factors that explain it, including weakness abroad, an unprecedented spending binge at home, and making a perfectly awful health-care plan his signature domestic initiative. But something else is happening.

Mr. Obama has not governed as the centrist, deficit-fighting, bipartisan consensus builder he promised to be. And his promise to embody a new kind of politics—free of finger-pointing, pettiness and spin—was a mirage. He has cheapened his office with needless attacks on his predecessor.

Consider Mr. Obama’s comment in his interview this past Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes” that the Bush administration made a mistake in speaking in “a triumphant sense about war.”

This was a slap at every president who rallied the nation in dark moments, including Franklin D. Roosevelt (“With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph”); Woodrow Wilson (“Right is more precious than peace and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts”); and John F. Kennedy (“Any hostile move anywhere in the world against the safety and freedom of peoples to whom we are committed . . . will be met by whatever action is needed”).

Read More:

Obama’s Economic Illiteracy

December 18th, 2009

By Floyd and Mary Beth Brown, Expose Obama

 Obama’s Economic Recipe is Disastrous

Barack Obama is demonstrating just how little he understands basic economics. He believes growing the government at a rapid rate is what causes prosperity, declaring America must “spend our way out of this recession.” He also in recent weeks scolded “fat cat bankers,” telling them they need to loan more money out to get our economy going again. Obama’s economic illiteracy is plunging our country into economic ruin.

From bailouts, to company takeovers, health-care reform and stimulus bills: If it involves greater taxpayer involvement, Obama supports it.

When Obama reported that the Treasury had received back $200 billion in TARP funds, he declared that he planned to spend that money on a second stimulus while paying down the debt. This is patently untrue.

America will not be paying down any debt. The Senate is moving to raise the debt ceiling by over $1.8 trillion.  Actually, we will be borrowing a record sum, as Obama mortgages our future to “spend us out of this recession.”

The problem with his policy is that it doesn’t work. Government spending has never created prosperity. Every dollar the government spends must be taken from someone else. Government engages in wealth transfer not wealth creation. Borrowing money and running sizable deficits is transferring wealth from the future generation, which faces paying off Obama’s credit card. The bill must be paid someday. Obama is robbing future generations in order to support his binge spending.

Obama’s first stimulus was nothing more than a slush fund of money used by Democrats to support their liberal pet projects. Six million dollars’ worth of stimulus money lined the pockets of Democratic pollster Mark Penn who used it to create three jobs; $18 million from the stimulus went to fund Obama’s recovery website, which reported on jobs saved and stimulus money spent in congressional districts that do not exist. With that kind of success rate it should surprise no one that Obama’s approval rating has plummeted to 45 percent. American voters understand government spending is not the recipe for recovery.

Recently, Obama met with leading bankers, individuals he referred to as “fat cats.” In his meeting, Obama pushed these banks to lend more and loosen up their capital requirements on loans. Nobody is arguing that these banks need or deserve the outrageous bonuses they have been pocketing after Obama bailed them out with the taxpayers’ dime, but the idea that they need to lend more is nearly ludicrous.

The reason the housing market collapsed in the first place was because Congress pushed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to loan nearly half of their assets to families with incomes below the national median.

Coupled with the Community Reinvestment Act, which forced banks to make imprudent loans, overzealous lending created an artificial housing bubble that collapsed. After the CRA was expanded in 1995, bank loans going to low- and moderate-income families increased by 80 percent. These were the same banks that were later attacked for being predatory for taking undue risks. They were making poor loans, but it was at the behest of a federal government that was trying to artificially increase home ownership amongst people not equipped for the responsibilities of home ownership.

Fast forward back to today. Obama is now encouraging banks to make more loans, asking banks to take more risk. This is the same Obama who has criticized banks for making risky loans in the past. By creating business-climate uncertainty Obama is not helping our country to stabilize. Obama’s conflicting messages are confusing. Which “Obama” are banks suppose to listen to – the one who demonizes risky behavior, or the one who demonizes banks for sitting on their assets?

Obama’s meeting with bank leaders was simply political theatre as was his recent “jobs” summit. Jobs aren’t created by bureaucrats sitting around talking. They are created when people are free to innovate and create without undue fear of erratic government behavior. If the government would cut back on its wild spending, cut taxes and promote a stable regulatory environment, the private sector would start creating new jobs.

Fannie and Freddie back in the bailout line

Rick Moran

It appears that the $400 billion that taxpayers shelled out to keep mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from going under just isn’t going to be enough. This Bloomberg article by Dawn Kopeckie reports that the government will probably end up bailing Freddie and Fannie out for a second time to the tune of well over $100 billion:

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s federal regulator is renegotiating the companies’ financing plan with the U.S. Treasury Department and may seek an increase to their $400 billion federal lifeline before the end of the year, according to people familiar with the talks.Treasury and Federal Housing Finance Agency officials are also debating whether to lower the cost of the companies’ dividend payments on their borrowings from Treasury, according to these people, who requested not to be identified describing the internal deliberations.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the largest sources of mortgage money in the U.S., have used $111.6 billion of their $400 billion in backup financing in less than a year. The companies say their 10 percent annual dividend payment, which comes to about $5 billion apiece, costs more than either have earned in most years and adds to their draws on Treasury.

FHFA spokeswoman Stefanie Mullin, Treasury spokeswoman Meg Reilly, Freddie Mac spokesman Doug Duvall and Fannie Mae spokesman Brian Faith declined to comment.

The financing plan instituted for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac requires them to reduce their $1.57 trillion combined mortgage portfolios by 10 percent annually starting next year and caps their debt issuance at 120 percent of their assets.

Why can’t these guys get their act together? A big part of the problem is that the Obama administration is using the mortgage giants as a backstop for refinancing loans from homeowners who are already in trouble:

The companies are an integral part of President Barack Obama’s housing-relief plan and have been pushed by the government to help more homeowners modify or refinance their loans to more affordable terms to curb foreclosures. The government-sponsored enterprises, or GSEs, own or guarantee about $5.5 trillion of the $11 trillion in U.S. residential mortgage debt.”With the GSEs being used as public policy tools, it is impossible to quantify with certainty what losses might be in a stress scenario, as the rules of the game might keep shifting,” Setia said.

About 50% of consumers who have taken advantage of government refinancing packages are already behind in their mortgage payments again. This will almost certainly pressure Treasury officials to unilaterally, and without congressional approval, give Fannie and Freddie the extra cash.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/12/fannie_and_freddie_back_in_the.html at December 18, 2009 – 12:17:19 PM EST

Dean: I Won’t ‘Vigorously’ Back Obama Re-election Bid

Published on NewsBusters.org (http://newsbusters.org)

By Mark Finkelstein

Created 2009-12-17 08:11

Pour some more butter on the popcorn . . .

Yesterday, Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs took shots [1]at Howard Dean and his opposition to ObamaCare, suggesting the good doctor didn’t know what he was talking about.

It was payback time this morning, as Dean announced that he would “not vigorously” back Pres. Obama’s re-election bid.

The former DNC Chairman expressed his tepid support for Obama, Part Deux on today’s Morning Joe in response to new poll data [2] indicating Pres. Obama’s popularity, and public support for ObamaCare, have fallen to all-time lows.

Joe Scarborough suggested that Dean would be accused of dragging down his party and helping Republicans.

HOWARD DEAN: Look, here’s the thing: every politician says this and I hesitate to do it because they all say it, but sometimes the country’s more important than either party.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Amen.

DEAN: I’m going to support President Obama when he runs for re-election. Not vigorously.  I’m going to vote for him.

Scarborough can be heard bursting into laughter off-camera.

DEAN: I am, I am.

SCARBOROUGH: “Not vigorously.”  Boy, I can almost feel the confetti [presumably from GOP victory celebrations] falling on my head here!

My two cents:  the MSM has largely been portraying Dean as a principled progressive opponent of ObamaCare.  I say that good old personal spite might also be motivating Doc Dean.  Remember that it was the very same Robert Gibbs who, during the 2003 Dem presidential primary campaign, was behind a TV ad [3] showing OBL and suggesting Dean was incapable of protecting American’s national security.  PBO has also hurt Dean’s feelings, snubbing him [4] for the HHS Secretary post which many Dems felt was his due

Iranian forces take over Iraq oil well

1 hr 23 mins ago

NASIRIYAH, Iraq (AFP) – Iranian forces took control of a southern Iraqi oil well on a disputed section of the border on Friday, US and Iraqi officials told AFP.

“There has been no violence related to this incident and we trust this will be resolved through peaceful diplomacy between the governments of Iraq and Iran,” a US military spokesman told AFP at Contingency Operating Base Adder, just outside the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah.

“The oil field is in disputed territory in between Iranian and Iraqi border forts,” he said, adding that such incidents occur quite frequently.

An official of the state-owned South Oil Co in the southeastern city of Amara, and west of the field, said: “An Iranian force arrived at the field early this morning (Friday).

“It took control of Well 4 and raised the Iranian flag even though the well lies in Iraqi territory,” the official added.

“An oil ministry delegation is to travel to the area on Saturday to assess the situation.”

The national security council was due to hold an emergency meeting on Friday chaired by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Iraqi state television said quoting the minister of state for national security, Shirwan al-Waili.

The council also groups the ministers of interior, defence, foreign affairs, justice and finance.

Well 4 lies in the Fauqa Field, part of a cluster of fields Iraq unsuccessfully put up for auction to oil majors in June. The field has estimated reserves of 1.55 million barrels.

The field is about 500 metres (yards) from an Iranian border fort and about 1 kilometre from an Iraqi border fort, US Colonel Peter Newell said, adding that it falls on the Iraqi side of a border agreed between the two countries.

There are five other similar fields that also fall into disputed territory, he said.

“What happens is, periodically, about every three or four months, the oil ministry guys from Iraq will go … to fix something or do some maintenance. They’ll paint it in Iraqi colours and throw an Iraqi flag up.

“They’ll hang out there for a while, until they get tired, and as soon as they go away, the Iranians come down the hill and paint it Iranian colours and raise an Iranian flag. It happened about three months ago and it will probably happen again.”

He added that the Iraqis are “very concerned about the Iranians pulling oil out of fields underneath Iraq.”

Iran has prevented Iraqi oil officials from reaching the well in the past, an industry source said. The Iraqis have accused Iran of firing on their people, something Tehran has denied.

There have been a number of meetings in recent years aimed at reaching agreement on border fields, so far without success.

Health-care bill wouldn’t bring real reform– Howard Dean Jumps The Obamacare Ship

Health-care bill wouldn’t bring real reform

By Howard Dean
Thursday, December 17, 2009; A33

If I were a senator, I would not vote for the current health-care bill. Any measure that expands private insurers’ monopoly over health care and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real health-care reform. Real reform would insert competition into insurance markets, force insurers to cut unnecessary administrative expenses and spend health-care dollars caring for people. Real reform would significantly lower costs, improve the delivery of health care and give all Americans a meaningful choice of coverage. The current Senate bill accomplishes none of these.

Real health-care reform is supposed to eliminate discrimination based on preexisting conditions. But the legislation allows insurance companies to charge older Americans up to three times as much as younger Americans, pricing them out of coverage. The bill was supposed to give Americans choices about what kind of system they wanted to enroll in. Instead, it fines Americans if they do not sign up with an insurance company, which may take up to 30 percent of your premium dollars and spend it on CEO salaries — in the range of $20 million a year — and on return on equity for the company’s shareholders. Few Americans will see any benefit until 2014, by which time premiums are likely to have doubled. In short, the winners in this bill are insurance companies; the American taxpayer is about to be fleeced with a bailout in a situation that dwarfs even what happened at AIG.

From the very beginning of this debate, progressives have argued that a public option or a Medicare buy-in would restore competition and hold the private health insurance industry accountable. Progressives understood that a public plan would give Americans real choices about what kind of system they wanted to be in and how they wanted to spend their money. Yet Washington has decided, once again, that the American people cannot be trusted to choose for themselves. Your money goes to insurers, whether or not you want it to.

To be clear, I’m not giving up on health-care reform. The legislation does have some good points, such as expanding Medicaid and permanently increasing the federal government’s contribution to it. It invests critical dollars in public health, wellness and prevention programs; extends the life of the Medicare trust fund; and allows young Americans to stay on their parents’ health-care plans until they turn 27. Small businesses struggling with rising health-care costs will receive a tax credit, and primary-care physicians will see increases in their Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates.

Improvements can still be made in the Senate, and I hope that Senate Democrats will work on this bill as it moves to conference. If lawmakers are interested in ensuring that government affordability credits are spent on health-care benefits rather than insurers’ salaries, they need to require state-based exchanges, which act as prudent purchasers and select only the most efficient insurers. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) offered this amendment during the Finance Committee markup, and Democrats should include it in the final legislation. A stripped-down version of the current bill that included these provisions would be worth passing.

In Washington, when major bills near final passage, an inside-the-Beltway mentality takes hold. Any bill becomes a victory. Clear thinking is thrown out the window for political calculus. In the heat of battle, decisions are being made that set an irreversible course for how future health reform is done. The result is legislation that has been crafted to get votes, not to reform health care.

I have worked for health-care reform all my political life. In my home state of Vermont, we have accomplished universal health care for children younger than 18 and real insurance reform — which not only bans discrimination against preexisting conditions but also prevents insurers from charging outrageous sums for policies as a way of keeping out high-risk people. I know health reform when I see it, and there isn’t much left in the Senate bill. I reluctantly conclude that, as it stands, this bill would do more harm than good to the future of America.

The writer is a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee and was governor of Vermont from 1991 to 2002.