Obama Tries to Put Foreign Tax Law Above U.S. Tax Law

by Dan Mitchell 

Earlier this year, President Obama’s IRS proposed a regulation that would force banks in America to report any interest they pay to accounts owned by non-resident aliens (that’s the technical term for foreigners who don’t live in the U.S.).

What made this regulation so bizarre, however, is that Congress specifically has exempted these account from taxation for the rather obvious reason that they want to attract this mobile capital to the American economy.

Indeed, Congress repeatedly has ratified this policy ever since it was first implemented 90 years ago.



So why, you may be asking, would the IRS propose such a regulation? After all, why impose a regulatory burden on a weakened banking sector when it has nothing to do with enforcing American tax law?

The answer, if you can believe it, is that they want American banks to help enforce foreign tax law. And the bureaucrats at the IRS want to impose this burden even though the regulation is completely contrary to existing U.S. law.

Not surprisingly, this rogue behavior by the IRS already has generated considerable opposition. Senator Rubio has been a leader on the issue, being the first to condemn the proposed regulation.

Both Senators from Texas also have announced their opposition, and the entire Florida congressional delegation came out against the IRS’s regulatory overreach.

And now we have two more important voices against the IRS’s rogue regulation.


The Chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee in charge of the IRS, Congressman Charles Boustany of Louisiana, just sent a very critical letter to Treasury Secretary Geithner, and these are some of his chief concerns.

If the regulation were to take effect, it would not only run counter to the will of the Congress, but would potentially drive foreign investments out of our economy, hurting individuals and small businesses by reducing access to capital.  I write to request that IRS suspend the proposed regulation. …As the Internal Revenue Code imposes no taxation or reporting requirements on this deposit interest, the proposed regulation serves no compelling tax collection purpose.  Instead, it is my understanding that the IRS seeks this new authority to help foreign governments collect their own taxes abroad.  …It is disappointing to see the IRS once again try to impose unnecessary regulations and costs on U.S. banks. To attract investment of foreign dollars into the U.S. economy, the Internal Revenue Code generally exempts these deposits from taxation and reporting requirements.  These foreign investments in turn help to finance a variety of products essential to economic growth, such as small business loans and home mortgages.  Imposing reporting requirements on these deposits through regulatory fiat threatens to drive significant investments out of our economy by undermining the rules Congress has set in place specifically to attract it, and at exactly the time when our economy can least afford it.

But criticism is not limited to Capitol Hill. The Center for Freedom and Prosperity has spearheaded opposition from think tanks, taxpayer organizations, and public policy groups.
And now the business community has become involved. Here’s some of what the Chamber of Commerce recently said, and you can click this PDF file (USCC S1506) to read the entire letter.

Given the fragile state of America’s economic recovery, it is disturbing to see actions by the Treasury that could jeopardize deposits at U.S. banks and credit unions held by nonresident aliens. These deposits, which are not subject to U.S. taxes, are at risk of being abruptly withdrawn and future deposits deterred, which could lead to a reallocation of deposits out of the U.S. banking system and, thus, reduce lending to businesses. Furthermore, complying with the proposed regulation places additional reporting requirements and expenses upon financial firms. Without any real benefit stemming from the collection of this information, imposition of this reporting requirement seems to be a solution in search of a problem.

This may seem like an arcane issue and international tax matters often are not terribly exciting, but a couple of minutes of watching this video will make you realize there are some very important principles at stake.






Only the IRS could manage to combine bad tax policy, bad regulatory policy, bad human rights policy, and bad sovereignty policy into one regulation.

Big Government

Obama campaign organizing against gun owners

By Chris Cox

If there is one thing America has learned over the course of Barack Obama’s presidency, it’s that where he falls short as a president, he excels as a politician. He is a master at using identity politics and class warfare to divide Americans and solidify his base of support. However, the Obama campaign’s latest attempt to spread fear and loathing among the masses falls flatter than his poll ratings.

Last week the president’s campaign launched AttackWatch.com, a website ostensibly aimed at countering anti-Obama “smears” with “facts.” In reality, the site is a thinly veiled attempt to spread misinformation and whip up anger against anyone who disagrees with Obama.

Visitors to the site are asked to submit a detailed report of any “attacks” on President Obama to his campaign. Obama supporters are also urged to give his campaign the private email addresses of anyone they know “who needs to know the facts” so the campaign can send those dissenters an email message.

This attempt by Obama to create an online enemies list must be another example of his incredible web savvy the media keeps telling us about — Obama’s 21st century rendition of President Nixon’s paranoia.

The site also includes Obama’s best effort to portray himself as a friend of gun owners, and declares at the top of its Second Amendment page, “President Obama believes in common sense gun control laws compatible with Second Amendment rights.”

As gun owners and freedom advocates know, whenever a serial anti-gunner like President Obama says he wants common sense gun control, you can be sure that gun-ban policies are around the corner. Former President Clinton used this same “common sense” rhetoric to help sell his gun ban in 1994.

Thank you for the offer, Mr. President, but the Second Amendment and our Bill of Rights already contain enough common sense and your editing isn’t needed here.

As for proof that Obama supports the Second Amendment, the site repeats his claims from the 2008 campaign, when he said: “There’s nothing I will do as president of the United States that will in any way encroach on the ability of sportsmen to continue that tradition.”

Apparently, our president still doesn’t understand that the primary function of the Second Amendment is to protect the fundamental and individual right of all law-abiding Americans to keep and bear arms in order to defend ourselves, our families, our property, our communities and our country. It is not to protect “sportsmen.”

It’s understandable that Obama would have to go back to his 2008 campaign to find anything that remotely resembles pro-gun rhetoric, because his more recent actions have put his antipathy for the Second Amendment on full display.

In addition to appointing two Supreme Court justices with clear records of contempt for our right to keep and bear arms, Obama has also stacked his administration with anti-gun zealots like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Attorney General Eric Holder and far too many “czars” who are lifelong opponents of legal gun ownership.

You won’t find this on AttackWatch.com, but the Obama administration also launched an initiative to ban the importation of popular sporting and defense shotguns. You know … because he cares so much about sportsmen.

 The site also displays a photo of former U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, splashed in angry red to portray him as an enemy “attacker,” and claims he is spreading false rumors that Obama would use the coming U.N. Arms Trade Treaty to impose restrictions on law-abiding gun owners.

What Obama doesn’t tell you is that his administration changed the official U.S. position on the treaty from strong, unwavering opposition, to support for the treaty if passed by “consensus.” And in a 2010 speech to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, his under secretary for arms control told the audience: “We will work between now and the U.N. Conference in 2012 to negotiate a legally binding arms trade treaty, and we’ll need your help in achieving it. We have made that a fundamental policy commitment.”

NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action has been warning Americans about this U.N. gun control scheme for more than 15 years. We’ve monitored every treaty proposal to date, and there is no doubt that what is taking shape at the U.N. is an all-out attack on the constitutional freedom of American gun owners. An attack the Obama administration has made a “fundamental policy commitment.”

The reason President Obama is so anxious to create a smoke-and-mirrors pro-gun record is because he knows that gun owners are motivated voters with the power to shape an election. And in 2012, we’re going to make Obama stand on his actual record on gun rights — not let him hide behind a few sound bytes and half-truths on a web page.

If that lands us on the Obama campaign’s enemies list, then so be it. In fact, I hope they put us at the top.

Chris W. Cox is the Executive Director of the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) and serves as the organization’s chief lobbyist.

Daily Caller

Black Pastor Sues Obama & Democratic Party for Racism

September 25, 2011
By Ann-Marie Murrell

I recently interviewed a man who is suing the Obama administration for racial discrimination–against white people.  Normally I wouldn’t describe anyone by their skin color, but it’s interesting to note in this instance that the man filing the lawsuit is Black.

Reverend Wayne Perryman began the lawsuit (case C11-1503)  because he was fed up with all the rhetoric coming from the left, blaming all of Obama’s failures on race.  Perryman and journalist Robert Parks began researching the Democrat Party and became enraged when they noticed the Democrat Party—via their website–was whitewashing their own history.

On the archived Democrat.org site—which has since been scrubbed– they gave a brief acknowledgment that their party was formed over 200 years ago.

  

Over two hundred years ago, our Party’s founders decided that wealth and social status were not an entitlement to rule.

 That was it—no mention of any of their mistakes—including the fact that also over 200 years ago, the Democrat Party blocked all efforts by Republicans to abolish slavery.

When challenged, they added the following paragraph to the history portion of their website:

Change is the inescapable driver of history in the United States. Our party’s founders believed then, just as we do now, that being a Democrat means meeting the challenges of changing times so that all Americans can prosper. That’s why the people of this county have always turned to Democrats when times got tough.

In addition to trying to re-write history regarding Democrats and slavery, they are also trying to hypnotize people into believing the Democrats were instrumental in Civil Rights—not mentioning anything about all the efforts they made to BLOCK all of the Republicans efforts toward Civil Rights:

Democrats are unwavering in our support of equal opportunity for all Americans. That’s why we’ve worked to pass every one of our nation’s Civil Rights laws, and every law that protects workers. Most recently, Democrats stood together to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act.

 On every civil rights issue, Democrats have led the fight. We support vigorous enforcement of existing laws, and remain committed to protecting fundamental civil rights in America.

 This is a blatant lie, and Reverend Wayne Perryman and Robert Parks have called them on it.

“Rev. Sharpton said we never got our ‘40 acres and a mule’, wrote Parks in his legal brief to the courts.

”Yes, we did, and they were taken away by a Democrat.”

From Parks’ legal brief:

On January 12, 1865, General Sherman and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton went to meet with twenty Black community leaders in Savannah, Georgia to discuss freedom and reparations for former Black slaves.… By June 1865, over 40,000 former slaves were settled on 40-acre tracts of land. Over 400,000 acres were allocated. In September of 1865, Democrat President Andrew Johnson reversed Field Order No. 15, issued special pardons, and returned the land to former slave owners.’ The Republicans gave, yet a Democrat took it away.

Part of the lawsuit is to ensure the Democrat Party is portraying their history truthfully and factually.  Rev. Perryman writes:

Modern-day Democrats must stop preaching that they are the compassionate party of black people and confess that it was their predecessors who started many of the racist practices that we are now trying to eradicate. History clearly shows two things: (1) that the roots of racism grew deep in the hearts and souls of the Democrats and (2) without the past efforts of the Radical Republicans and the Abolitionists, the Civil Rights Legislation of the sixties would not have been possible. Republicans laid the foundation for civil rights by passing legislation and instituting programs that Democrats’ were adamantly opposed to, such as:

  

1.      The Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 to abolish slavery.

  

2.      The Civil Rights Act of 1866 to give Negroes citizenship and protect freed men from Black Codes and other repressive legislation.

  

3.      The First Reconstruction Act of 1867 to provide more efficient Government of the Rebel- or Democrat-controlled states.

  

4.      The Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 to make all persons born in the United States citizens. Part of this Amendment specifically states “No State shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; or deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

  

5.      The Fifteenth Amendment of 1870 to give the right to vote to every citizen.

  

6.      The Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 to stop Klan terrorists to terrorized black voters, Republicans, white teachers who taught blacks, and Abolitionists.

 7.      The Civil Rights Act of 1875 to protect all citizens in their civil and legal rights and to prohibit racial discrimination in places of public accommodation.

  

8.      Freedmen’s Bureau was a social program established by Republicans to feed, protect, and educate the former slaves.

  

9.      The 1957 Civil Rights Act and the 1960 Civil Rights Act were signed into law by President Eisenhower who also established the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in 1958, a commission that was rejected by Truman during his administration.

 10. The 1964 Civil Rights Act which key Republicans pushed law through while key Southern Democrats like Al Gore Sr. debated against its passage. More Republicans (in percentages) voted for this law than Democrats.”

Parks says, “They are ashamed of their past and do not want Blacks to look under the hood of their history.”
Case in point, President Woodrow Wilson is a hero to the Democratic Party but Parks says there is much about Wilson’s racist-driven presidency that he “didn’t learn in college.”

“Wilson allowed various officials to segregate the toilets, cafeterias, and work areas of their departments. One justification involved health:  White government workers had to be protected from contagious diseases, especially venereal diseases, that racists imagined were being spread by blacks. In extreme cases, federal officials built separate structures to house black workers. Most black diplomats were replaced by whites; numerous black federal officials in the South were removed from their posts; the local Washington police force and fire department stopped hiring blacks. Wilson’s own view, as he expressed it to intimates, was that federal segregation was an act of kindness.”

 “Suppose a Republican president had done all that in the past. Democrats would raise hell,” said Parks, adding, “You can Google ‘Woodrow Wilson Segregationist.’  Democrats did not count on the internet to give people access to truth.  Many Democrats don’t want to deal with me when I ask them about Wilson. Why?”

The Amicus Curiae ends with this:  “Since the DNC sees fit to distort and cover-up their true racist history to cause black Americans to feel good towards them, I say to the Democrat Party like Rev. Jesse Jackson said to George W. Bush: ‘Come clean!’  No matter what, the Democratic Party owns its racist history and must admit to black Americans the truth.”

The Patriot Update

Obama Does 'Rich Man, Poor Man'

September 28, 2011
By Jeffrey Folks

On September 25, addressing a DNC event in San Jose, California, the president recited a litany of liberal values dear to his heart: everything from increased spending on education to further subsidies for clean energy.  But the main thrust of his remarks, his "particular vision of what America should be," centered on what he called "the values of shared prosperity."  It is a "big, generous, optimistic" America that Obama says he represents.  Who can argue with that?

That vision of America, the ideal of opportunity and hope, sounds inspiring until one considers what really Obama has in mind.  Shared prosperity, as it turns out, does not mean greater prosperity for all.  It means less for those who have worked hard, applied their talents, and saved, and more government benefits for those who have failed to apply themselves and have spent all that they have earned.  It means that wealth will be taken by way of higher taxes from those who have sacrificed the most and labored the hardest, and redistributed to those who have squandered one opportunity after another over the course of a lifetime. 

Sharing the wealth, and attacking those who refuse to share, is so much a part of Obama's political DNA that he could not resist making the case for higher taxes, even in the company of some of Silicon Valley's wealthiest citizens.  Obama was speaking at the private residence of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, with LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and other wealthy executives and entrepreneurs in attendance.  The Silicon Valley crowd seemed not at all averse to sharing the wealth, though one suspects that many of them were more interested in the rewards of crony capitalism.

What Obama has in store for the rich of Mountain View, however, is not more opportunity for wealth-creation.  It is much higher taxes for those who are not paying their "fair share," as he sees it.  It's hard to say what a "fair share" would amount to, in his estimation, since the top 1% of earners already pay 38% of federal taxes, according to the National Taxpayers Union.  Perhaps the top earners should be paying 50% or 70% of federal taxes.  But to accomplish that would bankrupt even the über-rich of Silicon Valley.

There are 412 billionaires in America, entirely too many for the president's taste.  Fortunately, Obama and his billionaire buddy Warren Buffett can breathe easy -- their numbers are declining fast.  More billionaires now live in Moscow than in New York.  The world's richest man is not an American; it is Carlos Slim Helu of Mexico.  Two hundred and fifty-eight of these villains reside in Asia, double the number of five years ago.  

With the help of new taxes to pay for Obama's reelection, we might just be able to create more billionaires in India than in the U.S.

But it's not just billionaires who need to pay more.  It's millionaires as well.

As of 2011, 27% of the world's millionaires lived in the U.S.  That sounds good until you notice that 15% reside in Japan, a country with only 38% of our population.  The expansion of wealth in China is even more remarkable.  China, which now boasts 1,300,000 millionaires, recently overtook Japan in total GDP and is projected to overtake the U.S. by 2025.

And, yes, China does boast about the number of millionaires it has created -- something America has not done since Obama entered office.  What Obama has done is berate the rich, not boast of their accomplishments.  And he has done this for crass political gain.

Unfortunately, the uncertainty that Obama has created regarding wealth-creation is the primary factor behind our current economic malaise.  His politics of class warfare have frightened rich individuals and corporations into being extremely cautious with their investments, and lack of new investment has resulted in economic stagnation.  As long as the president continues to attack the rich, there will be no new jobs created, regardless of how many speeches he makes or how much he proposes spending on temporary jobs.

This is not the time for the president of the United States to be attacking the rich, not when our economic standing is in doubt.  What's at stake is not just the fate of billionaires and millionaires, but also the fate of what Obama so patronizingly likes to call "ordinary folks."  Obama wants to turn these middle-class Americans against the rich in the 2012 election, but what he doesn't tell them is that it's those same rich investors who helped create their jobs.

It takes a significant capital investment to create a thriving business -- the kind of business that creates jobs for those with no capital of their own.  According to businessmart.com, the minimum investment to acquire a McDonald's franchise is $250,000 of non-borrowed money.  By definition, then, it would seem that all McDonald's franchisees are wealthy individuals or have access to the accumulated wealth of others (family, friends, or whatever).  But these evil rich types, as Obama would have it, create dozens of jobs at each franchise location.  The same is true of every small business owner in America.

But Obama wants government to seize the profits that create permanent jobs and use them for temporary government jobs and unemployment benefits.  In his June 29 news conference, President Obama insisted that businesses "could afford to pay more" in taxes.  "They want to be able to do whatever they think is going to maximize their profits," he complained.  This is probably the hundredth time Obama has stated that profits are unimportant, and it shows how little he knows about business.  For most businesses, profit margins are extremely thin, and any increase in marginal costs threatens their survival.

Just to spell it out for our spender-in-chief, failure to "maximize profits" can and does lead to bankruptcy.  It is that small margin of profit that determines whether a business will expand and hire new workers or fail and lay off existing employees.  It is the wealth produced by well-run businesses that creates jobs.  Every dollar that government seizes from businesses or business owners, or from investors, is a dollar that is not available for expansion.  Last year, for the top 10% of earners, that was $2.8 trillion in total state, local, and federal taxes collected.  How many start-ups could be funded with even a small fraction of that tax revenue?  

Ideas have consequences, and Obama's campaign of class warfare has already produced damaging results.  

One consequence is that business owners are not willing to risk their capital in an environment in which the president is proposing ever-higher taxes and more regulation.  The White House likes to point out that corporations have record amounts of cash on their books -- as much as $2 trillion according to the president, who can't seem to understand why these funds haven't been put to work to create jobs.  The reason, as business leaders have been insisting for years now, is Obama himself. 

Jeffrey Folks is author of many books and articles on American culture, with the most recent being Heartland of the Imagination (2011).

American Thinker

Germany To Obama: Butt Out, Your Comments Are ‘Arrogant’, ‘Absurd’, And ‘A Cheap Search For A Scapegoat’

Posted by Niccolo Machiavelli Sep 28th 2011 at 6:21 am in Economy, Europe, Featured Story

Berlin,  which swooned over Barack Obama in 2008,  is getting tired of the President’s lectures.  On Monday, at a campaign fundraiser in California,  Obama took aim at Europe declaring that their inaction over the debt crisis was “scaring the world.” The Europeans, he said, “have not fully healed from the crisis back in 2007 and never fully dealt with all the challenges that their banking system faced. It’s now being compounded by what’s happening in Greece.” He continued: “They’re going through a financial crisis that is scaring the world, and they’re trying to take responsible actions, but those actions haven’t been quite as quick as they need to be.”

Obama to Europe:  get your house in order!

Err, you are lecturing us about debt? is the cry heard in Germany.  The left-of-center Der Spiegel reports that Obama’s harsh lecture about Europe’s debt crisis is being denounced as “arrogant” and “absurd” in by the left, right, and center Germany.  Here’s a summary of media comments about Obama’s remarks from today, Wednesday, September 28.  His approval numbers may even be lower in Germany than here in the United States.

The mass-circulation Bild writes:
“Obama’s lecture on the euro crisis … is overbearing, arrogant and absurd. … In a nutshell, he is claiming that Europe is to blame for the current financial crisis, which is ’scaring the world.’ Excuse me?”

“The American president seems to have forgotten a few details. The most important trigger of the financial and economic crisis was US banks and their insane real-estate dealings. The US is still piling up debt … The American congress is crippled by a battle between the right and the left. The banks are gambling just as recklessly as they did before the crisis. The president’s scolding is a pathetic attempt to distract attention from his own failures. How embarrassing.”

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:
“One needs to remember the context within which Obama’s scolding of the Europeans took place. It was an event where the president was raising money for the Democrats and where he wanted to explain to voters why the US economy is much worse off than he and his economic experts had believed until recently. Hence his criticism of the EU was simple electioneering.”

“The problem, however, is that the US president is absolutely right. For far too long, the Europeans — including the Germans — treated the financial crisis as a purely American problem. They have still found no solution for their own debt crisis. Now Europe’s problems are having a negative impact on growth and jobs around the world, including in the US. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Europe is threatening Obama’s already precarious chances of reelection in 2012. That is something that surely does not leave Obama cold. In that respect, it doesn’t help much to point out that, once the Europeans have got their house in order, the financial markets will return their attention to America’s debt crisis and its ailing political system. Financially, Europe is currently the most dangerous place in the world.”

The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:
“Dark clouds have gathered over the American president. The gloomy state of the economy is putting a dampener on Obama’s future prospects. The optimism of the past is gone, replaced by a cheap search for a scapegoat.”

“Obama thinks he has found one. He blames the Europeans for reacting too late to the debt crisis. We Europeans are apparently taking on too little new debt to get out of the crisis. But we are already feeling the wonderful effects of borrowing too much money.”

The financial daily Handelsblatt writes:
“That’s not how friends talk to each other. That applies particularly to friends who have themselves failed to get a handle on their own, self-made crisis. Barack Obama governs a country where, despite billions in state aid, the economy is stagnating, companies refuse to invest despite calls for patriotism, and which gets embroiled in one political trench war after another … Now this country is dispensing advice, suggestions and finger-pointing.”

Big Peace

Don’t Blame ObamaCare: ‘NBC Nightly News’ Freaks Out Over Rise In Health Costs

Posted by John Nolte Sep 28th 2011 at 3:20 pm in Healthcare, NBC, News, media bias 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

In a single year, health care premium costs have jumped 9% and nowhere in this report does the NBC Nightly News bother to look at the reasons why. All they appear to be doing is trying to scare people … right into the arms of the federal government and ObamaCare.

Furthermore, at no time does NBC even float the idea that maybe, just maybe, the very idea of ObamaCare – the inevitable burdens, costs and mandates just a year or so away  – might have something to do with this jump in the cost of premiums.

My favorite part of the report, however, is when they announce that 31% of those covered by health insurance pay the first thousand dollars of their health care costs out of their own pocket.

Well, gasp and egads.

As far as I’m concerned, out-of-pocket costs are mostly a good thing. And I say that as someone who regularly pays upwards of  $10,000 a year in co-pays and deductibles. But as someone who puts the well-being of his country over his own selfish interests, I realize that one component in bringing down the artificially-inflated cost of  health care is to have the customers incentivized to shop around a little bit — create something along the lines of a free market atmosphere. As things stand now, there’s no benefit to doing that because insurance pays for everything. But if, for instance, you have to pay for your own MRI, you might actually make a few phone calls.


Why is it that every other technology in America gets cheaper by the year, but not health care?  Computers, televisions, and DVD players are all so ridiculously cheap today that welfare recipients own them. Moreover, some health care actually is getting cheaper. Lasik eye surgery is much more affordable than it was a decade ago. So is plastic surgery. The reason for this is that most insurance companies don’t cover these procedures which forces providers (who face the same red tape and malpractice costs) to compete for customers.

That’s the beauty of the market at work. An MRI, however, remains outrageously expensive. Why? Because health insurance removes the market incentive. There’s also the odious trial lawyer lobby blocking legal reform and the crushing burden of  government red tape EVERYWHERE.

But does NBC even bother to look at WHY there’s this rise in premium costs? No. Obviously, they’re afraid of what they might discover – and worse, what they might have to pass on to their viewers. So instead, at the very end of their report, they pretend that ObamaCare has nothing to do with any of this because it hasn’t really kicked in yet. The dishonest message being: Don’t blame Our Precious One and ObamaCare might just make it all better! 

Worse still, the entire tone and subtext of this report is modulated to make it sound as though paying for your own health care is some kind injustice. It’s also fear-mongering and borderline hysterical.

Remember, Leftists like NBC News never let a crisis go to waste.

Big Journalism

Predicting Obama

September 27, 2011
By J.R. Dunn

It doesn't pay to be too exact with predictions. Nostradamus could have told you this -- all six of him, one after the other. The predictions of the Nostradami were set in the form of quatrains so ambiguous as to mean anything. The most famous is the one supposedly referring to the rise of Hitler. It's spelled "Hister," which happens to be an old name for the Danube, and really does read as if something is going on involving a river.  But that matters not at all.  It's close enough, so it "proves" that Nostradamus foresaw Hitler four centuries previously.  If you set it down artfully enough, you just can't lose.

I wish I'd remembered that back in 2008. In late August, I was bold enough, thanks to the fact that McCain had surpassed Obama in virtually all the polls (something that Mac haters tend to forget) to predict that he'd take the election. But events intervened in the form of the financial collapse (triggered in large part by Charles Schumer, another little item that went down the memory hole) and McCain fell behind, never to catch up.

Fortunately, Hugh Downs was around to take the hit. He had an ad selling orthopedic shoes or some damn fool thing that was ubiquitous on AT at the time, designed in such a way that it dominated whatever page it appeared on. So a lot of people made a connection between Downs and my prediction, and many are convinced to this day that he predicted the defeat of Obama, even though Snopes.com features a page debunking the story.

My next prediction in re Obama was more discreet, if not quite in the Nostradamian mode.  I made it repeatedly, in a number of columns dealing with the One.  I didn't think to put it into quatrains, which I will do next time. With variations, it went like this: Obama will spend the last two years of his term dealing with the problems he creates in his first two years.

A little banal, perhaps? After all, it's true to some extent of any president. All of them have to do some fancy stepping to correct early errors. But here's the thing: all other presidents have had some record of achievement, some accomplishments to ease the sting of the inevitable failures. What I was saying is that Obama would lack anything of the sort. That there would be no accomplishments, in the accepted meaning of the term, for him to fall back on. That he would have nothing but problems, and problems rooted in his own actions.

And behold... I say unto you, has it not come to pass?

Let's take a look at the record.

The Stimulus -

Roots: I am the 21^st century FDR. Really...

A magnificent achievement: at last, after nearly a century of abuse and misuse, final and irrefutable proof of the emptiness of the Keynesian full-employment theory. Unfortunately, Obama was trying to prove the exact opposite, and spent $800 billion to do it.

Results: It worked so well he wants to do it again.

Electric cars -

Roots: Environmentalist boondoggle #1.

Hundreds of millions in incentives, subsidies, and tax breaks to prove what the critics knew all along: that go-carts can't compete with the IC engine.

Results: Someday, somebody will come up with a cheap, lightweight battery that will hold a charge good for a couple hundred mile trip. But someday will be too late for Barack Obama.

The Gulf Shutdown -

Roots: Weaning the country from oil addiction, the Obama way.

More O cleverness. Shut down oil drilling in the Gulf for "safety reasons" in the wake of the BP disaster and then -- just don't let it start up again! Nobody will ever figure it out, even after gas hits four bucks a gallon.

Results: Massive unemployment in the Gulf and the aforementioned gas prices.

Obamacare -

Roots: The final keystone in the glorious structure of the New Deal.

What was supposed to be his trademark reform, the program that was to make him into an FDR for the 21^st century, has turned into a running sore, a constant headache and source of anxiety, with several adverse court decisions leading up to the inevitable Supreme Court date.

Results: A progressive breakdown of the national health-care system and a sense of disgust affecting every last citizen equally.

Fast and Furious -

Roots: Obama's debt to the anti-handgun crowd.

People are dead. More will die in the days to come. In a more decent world (e.g., the one I grew up in) somebody would break down and talk out of pure shame. Not this bunch.

Results: The scandal that will mark Obama's tenure as firmly as Teapot Dome. Somebody's going to do heavy time.

Solyndra -

Roots: O's attempt to fulfill the Green agenda, come hell or high water.

A half a billion loan to a company that the Pythoness of Delphi foresaw would go bust in 600 B.C. And now the chief execs are taking the Fifth. It doesn't get better than this.

Results: Hell and high water.

Light Squared -

Roots: A payoff to two heavyweight 2008 supporters.

Nicely played. A part of the spectrum kept quiet for defense purposes turned over to a big Obama donor on behalf of yet another big Obama donor. Then they try to force the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to back them up on it. It would have worked if Rahm was still on call.

Results: Subpoenas all around. This story will peak just about the time O is trying to get his campaign in gear.

The Tea Parties -

Roots: Barack Obama.

What other president ever got the placid, moderate middle class so riled up as to embark on a mass movement? O always insisted he wanted to get everyone involved.  He did. Good for him.

Results: The loss of the House, the upcoming loss of the Senate, and the Oval Office. 
We can add another that remains nameless, though related to the several of the above - his general handling of the recession. Recovery from a recession is no mystery.  It has been accomplished dozens of times in as many countries.  In the U.S., Andrew Mellon created the blueprint in beating the 1920 recession on behalf of Warren Harding by lowering taxes, easing credit, and assuring business of a stable environment.  Both Reagan and Bush 43 repeated the feat.  But Obama could not leave it at that.  It had to be done his way.  He yearns for actual secular sainthood, in a way that normal people cannot begin to grasp. This is why he continues interfering, with his stimuli, his jobs bills, his tax proposals.  It must have dawned on some of staff -- perhaps even his yes-men economists -- that every time he makes a proposal, it is immediately followed by a slump.  People hear him and panic.  The best thing to do is keep him quiet by whatever means.

Together these errors planted at the early stages of Obama's term are strangling his administration and rendering it difficult, if not impossible, for his reelection campaign to begin gaining traction.  Obama couldn't have done a better job of crippling himself if he'd planned it.  And there may yet be more to come.  Several other megaton-scale time bombs are even now ticking away. One or more are likely to go off during the upcoming year.

The Auto Bailout - Somehow GM and Chrysler manage to stagger on like Karloff escaped from the tomb, even amid refusals to honor warranties, $5,000 union signing bonuses, and the fact that nobody wants their damned cars. This situation is getting ripe. Watch for some action next spring.

Napolitano - She's nearly gone tilt several times already -- after the attempted underwear bombing where "the system worked," for one example -- but she's managed to slip through every time. It would nice if she were to blow up before O left.  Like, say, on November 3, 2012.

Iraq and Afghanistan - And Libya, and Pakistan... The modern liberal method of handling military challenges is to do everything halfway and with great reluctance and then whine that they were right all along when it doesn't work. O has maintained this tradition. It would be a good thing if his successor did not have to pay the price.

Supreme Court Appointments - Even the most avid legacy media outlets have ceased their attempts to promote Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor as millennial female versions of Oliver Wendell Holmes. There is simply no way to make such claims work.  While there is no reason to believe that a blowup is imminent, there is something about the current Court situation that really starts the prophetic lobes tingling.

Some of these will not go off on his watch. Some will hold off to plague his successor.  But most will continue unwinding over the next few months and on into the year to come, even as O seeks to persuade the voters of his unmatched competence, capability, and foresight, to impress them with his achievements, and thrill them with visions of more to come.  As it stands, this would be a difficult trick for a political champion of the stature of a Reagan or a Roosevelt.  With Obama, it has the aura of pure futility.

Obama is a man caught in a process, one that will continue to unfold from now until Election Day.  He is about to learn that the curve of fate has two sides, that he that goes up the one must go down the other, and it is given to no man to escape the curve once his trip has begun. Like all unworthy claimants to the role of man of destiny, he thought he was immune. He is about to learn otherwise.

That prediction you can take to the bank. 


American Thinker

Despotism Breeds Federal Paranoia

September 27, 2011
By Hugh de Payns

Any environment where secrecy and social and political control are the operating parameters can breed paranoia.  Mere intellectual curiosity can be seen dangerous and treasonous.  It does not have to be the extreme behavior of the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia or the angry jealousy of Soviet Russia.

During the summer of 2009, we saw this with the White House healthcare "snitch site" (flag@whitehouse.gov) where citizens were encouraged to turn in information -- or people -- who were reporting "lies" about ObamaCare. Eventually -- largely due to public outcry and immense amount of deliberately false and frankly riotous commentary rammed into the site -- it was pulled down.  To date there is not a general feeling of comfort about what the government has done with the data that was presented to them.

Not learning from their earlier mistake, recently Team Obama launched attackwatch.com.  If you follow the link, you will notice the address is "my.barackobama.com."  How touching, how personal, and how very, very creepy.  It quickly became a laughingstock, derided even by the Washington Post.  So far the result seems to be more embarrassing exposure, leading to a truck load of deliberately false information being sent into the site.  I have reported several attacks, mostly involving rumors being spread by animals during a trip to the zoo.  Strangely, each time I report a rumor, I get directed to a donation screen and a paid for by Obama for America logo.  It seems that they value the information a whole lot less than my money, which I will not give up freely.

Such Orwellian conduct has now reached the Federal Reserve.  This past weekend, Zerohedge.com reported that the Fed now wants to get in on the big brother act and listen in on what is being said.  Yet, instead of asking for information that might lead them to being labeled as paranoid Nazis, the Federal Reserve will now be casting a large net and actively start trolling for troublemakers.  Of course, about 60 minutes spent searching for news and commentary on the Federal Reserve would also be effective, but apparently The 
 Bernank is just too lazy or too busy spending our money to take the time.  According to Zerohedge:

Said otherwise, the Fed has just entered the counterespionage era and will be monitoring everything written about it anywhere in the world. After all, why ask others to snitch for you and anger everyone as Obama found out the hard way, when you can pay others to create the supreme FIATtack Watch^TM using money you yourself can print in unlimited amounts. And once the Internet is completely "transparent", the Fed will next focus on telephone conversations, and finally will simply bug each and every otherwise "private" location in the world. Because very soon saying that "printing money is treason" will be treason, and such terrorist thoughts must be pre-crimed before they even occur...

All we can say is we welcome our new Chairsatan Voldemort overlord. For it is truly he who must not be named henceforth.

Beyond Ron Paul, Rand Paul, and Rick Perry, a growing number of other conservative public figures are beginning to not only raise question about the practices of the Federal Reserve, but also its very legitimacy.  A program like this erodes even further our trust in the Federal Reserve.

The recent FOIA requests by Bloomberg finally uncovered the staggering amount of American taxpayer money that was spent by the Federal Reserve -- in secret mind you -- during 2008-2009.  Basically, the Fed spent 1.2 trillion taxpayer dollars with no accountability, no oversight, and no vote by elected representatives.  

Such behaviors are entirely outside of the American experience and do not fit with the worldview of a large majority of our citizens.  Yet, our Congress allows this to happen.  Why?  Just who is in charge here?

If this activity bothers you, it should.  If it does not, I suggest a thorough reading of history until you make the connections and then you too can begin to become unsettled.  Then, kindly call your elected representatives.  

A helpful link to do so is attached here. This monitoring program by the Federal Reserve needs to be snuffed out quickly.

What we are seeing now is nothing but naked paranoia by the administration and the banking cartel.  A cartel that is entirely unaccountable to the legislative process, and is now running our currency -- and our sovereignty -- into the ground. 

Having lost the messaging, having lost the narrative, having lost some of their secrecy, and now having lost the confidence of our citizens, these malignant forces are left with the only tool available: fear.

American Thinker

Since Friday’s Statehood Request, Palestinian Actions Show They Have No Desire to Make Peace

Posted by Jeff Dunetz Sep 27th 2011 at 5:58 am in Israel, Middle East 

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas got a standing ovation from the UN General Assembly after his speech asking the body for a unilateral declaration of Statehood on Friday. Since the mission of the United Nations is to maintain peace throughout the world, the members of the UNGA must be convinced that the Palestinian Authority, President Abbas and his ruling party Fatah are ready to make peace.

Sadly, just about every action the PA President and his Party has taken since Friday morning indicates their continuing lack of desire to negotiate a peace settlement. Even worse the mainstream media is reporting none of it.

• Action One: Abbas’ request for statehood did not ask for a return to the 1949 armistice lines commonly known as the “pre-1967 borders,” he asked for a return to the original 1947 UN Partition Lines.

This is what the Abbas request letter said about borders:

This application for membership is being submitted on the Palestinian people’s natural, legal and historic rights and based on United Nations General Assembly resolution 181 (II) of 29 November 1947 as well as the Declaration of Independence of the State of Palestine of 15 November 1988 and the acknowledgement by the General Assembly of this declaration in resolution 43/177 of 15 December 1988.

The only one of those documents he refers to which speaks to geographic boundaries is resolution 181, the original UN Partition plan.  In that document the boundaries looked like this:

A man serious about peace would not have made that demand.

• Action Two: Continuing the Palestinian Tradition of saying one thing to the non-Muslim world and another to everyone else,  when Abbas was speaking to the UN, a  trusted adviser and member of the Fatah Party central committee was saying something else (note Abbas is also the head of the Fatah Party). On the Al Jazeera Arabic language network Abbas Zaki not only expressed his hatred for the American and Israeli leaders, but explained that a return to the 1967 boarders was just a first step.

The settlement should be based upon the borders of June 4, 1967. When we say that the settlement should be based upon these borders, President [Abbas] understands, we understand, and everybody knows that the greater goal cannot be accomplished in one go.
If Israel withdraws from Jerusalem, evacuates the 650,000 settlers, and dismantles the wall – what will become of Israel? It will come to an end.

Action Three-”Abbas high-tails out of Dodge” In one of the more dramatic parts of Netanyahu’s UN Speech, he offered to begin negotiations right away:

In two and a half years, we met in Jerusalem only once, even though my door has always been open to you. If you wish, I’ll come to Ramallah. Actually, I have a better suggestion. We’ve both just flown thousands of miles to New York. Now we’re in the same city. We’re in the same building. So let’s meet here today in the United Nations. Who’s there to stop us? What is there to stop us? If we genuinely want peace, what is there to stop us from meeting today and beginning peace negotiations?

And I suggest we talk openly and honestly. Let’s listen to one another. Let’s do as we say in the Middle East: Let’s talk “doogri”. That means straightforward. I’ll tell you my needs and concerns. You’ll tell me yours. And with God’s help, we’ll find the common ground of peace.

Rather than run to make peace, Abbas “high-tailed it out of Dodge” and went home (and when he got home there were demonstrations of love and peace).

Source 0f and More Pictures at Challah Hu Akbar

• Action Four-No Quartet Talks! The International Quartet (The EU, UN, Russians and Americans) made a new proposal to resume peace talks:

the Quartet proposed the following: a “preparatory meeting” between the parties within a month to agree to an agenda and a “method of proceeding in the negotiation.” The two sides will commit that the objective is to “reach an agreement within a time frame agreed to by the parties but not longer than the end of 2012.”

Israel said yes, the Palestinian Authority said NO

Today is just the third day since the Palestinians asked the UN for a unilateral non negotiated acknowledgement of Statehood.  Unfortunately everything they have done during the past three days indicates they have no desire for peace. None of this will ever be discussed in the mainstream media, or recognized by the UN.  Their interests are described in this video from Latma TV:



Big Peace

WSJ: Only 11% of Enlisted Military Recruits Came from Poorest U.S. Neighborhoods

Posted by Sun Tzu Sep 27th 2011 at 4:42 pm in Soldiers

The WSJ destroys the myth that the military is comprised primarily of poor people with no other career options:

It should no more be necessary to write this article than to prove that there were Jews killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11. And yet the mythology refuses to die. Just last week, two well-educated and well-known writer acquaintances of mine remarked in passing on the “fact” that those who serve in the U.S. military typically have no other career options. America’s soldiers, they said, were poor and black.

They don’t mean this to denigrate their service—no, they mean it as a critique of American society, which turns its unemployed into cannon fodder. Especially today with high unemployment, the charge goes, hapless youths we fail to educate are embarking on a one-way trip to Afghanistan.

These allegations—most frequently leveled at the Army, the military’s biggest service and the one with the highest casualty rate—are false.

In 2008, using data provided by the Defense Department, the Heritage Foundation found that only 11% of enlisted military recruits in 2007 came from the poorest one-fifth, or quintile, of American neighborhoods (as of the 2000 Census), while 25% came from the wealthiest quintile. Heritage reported that “these trends are even more pronounced in the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program, in which 40% of enrollees come from the wealthiest neighborhoods, a number that has increased substantially over the past four years.”

Indeed, the Heritage report showed that “low-income families are underrepresented in the military and high-income families are overrepresented. Individuals from the bottom household income quintile make up 20.0 percent of Americans who are age 18-24 years old but only 10.6 percent of the 2006 recruits and 10.7 percent of the 2007 recruits. Individuals in the top two quintiles make up 40.0 percent of the population, but 49.3 percent of the recruits in both years.”

Big Peace

NYT Sunday Review Pushes Old “Billionaires Run the Tea Party” Lie

Posted by Warner Todd Huston Sep 27th 2011 at 12:10 pm in Democrats/progressives, Editorialism, Mainstream Media, New York Times, Old media, Print Journalism, Tea Parties, conservatives, journalism, media bias, newspapers 

It is a lie that serves as the left’s basic narrative for the birth of the tea party movement and this weekend it was The New York Times’s turn to push that lie claiming that the tea party is “led by veteran conservative activists and bankrolled by billionaires.” This bull hockey (yes, I said bull hockey) can’t be debunked enough, because to undermine the legitimacy of the tea party movement, extremists and left-wingers pretend to be journalists push this lie for all its worth.



Left-wing Georgetown Professor Michael Kazin, who masquerades as a history professor by day, penned this latest piece for the Times pushing the left’s favorite false narrative about the tea party movement. The piece lamented the loss of the spirit of activism and protest in the American left and revealed a taxpayer-funded professor longing for the violent anarchist protests of the early 20th century.

Kazin cries that the left has lost its umpf and wails that “the tea party rebellion” has instead come to the fore:

“Instead, the Tea Party rebellion — led by veteran conservative activists and bankrolled by billionaires — has compelled politicians from both parties to slash federal spending and defeat proposals to tax the rich and hold financiers accountable for their misdeeds.”

Of course, his blithe claim that “the tea party” is run and funded by the rich and powerful in conservative circles is simply untrue. It is a claim repeated over and over again by the left and its handmaidens in the Old Media.

The truth is that “the tea party” is no single entity funded by billionaires and run by long-time conservative activists. This is a lie that reflects what some call “projection” because it is the left that operates this way. Left-wingism in America is a top down, big money game and always has been. There are no true grassroots efforts on the left. The tea partiers, however, are not like that and never have been.


Firstly, the real truth is that there is no such thing as “the” tea party. Tea party groups are usually small, rarely interconnected, and barely funded by anyone — even their own members, unfortunately. Also, there is no true national organization that can legitimately claim to “be” the tea party, though many are out there trying to urge activism.

So, where does this “billionaires funding the tea party” claim come from? Mostly from two groups. One is Americans for Prosperity and the other is Freedom Works. Both are most certainly heavy activists, both have a large bankroll behind them (one is funded now by the dreaded Koch Brothers), both have big name conservative activists working for them, and both most certainly do coordinate with tea party groups.

But neither actually run any tea party groups. Cooperating with is not the same as running. And more importantly, both were around long before the Tea Party movement started.

Additionally, both were taken by surprise by the fervor of the tea party movement and both had to hustle to catch up with the movement. Far from controlling the tea party movement, both AFP and Freedom Works were swept along with it.

I have worked with both organizations and did so before the tea party movement began. I was also involved with the group that started the first big tea party event in Chicago. So, I know first hand how little the big money and the big names in conservative activism had to do with the tea party movement.

Many of these folks were certain that the tea party would be a flash in the pan that would have no sticking power. They were surprised when the opposite happened and were left on the outside looking in at the beginning.

Few tea party groups have much by way of money. Almost every tea party activist is a true grass roots organizer working out of pocket, for the cause, with only their fervor for America and their principles guiding them. There is no “billionaire” buying them lunch, much less footing the bills for their groups.

So, whenever you see this lie that the tea party is “led by veteran conservative activists and bankrolled by billionaires” know that this is the way the left is attempting to control the narrative. It is a lie, certainly, but, as most leftists believe, the more you yell out the lie, the more people that will come to believe it. So, when you see this lie, debunk it, won’t you?

Big Journalism

Cop-Killer Troy Davis Got More Coverage Than Border Agent Brian Terry

September 26, 2011
M Catharine Evans

The mainstream media provided hour-to-hour details on the fate of an American cop-killer which led to "I am Troy Davis" t-shirt protests across the Atlantic, but has blacked out one of the worst government scandals in U.S. history involving dead Americans and Mexicans.

All major media outlets covered the execution of cop-killer Troy Davis last week. In unbelievable contrast, there has been little mention of the murder of innocent U.S Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry (see his memorial page here) whose murder has been tied to the ATF's Fast and Furious operation.

In 1991 Davis was tried and convicted of the 1989 killing of Mark MacPhail (see his memorial page here) an off-duty police officer outside a Burger King in Savannah, Georgia. After 22 years and countless local and federal delays Davis was put to death by lethal injection on September 21.

Unlike Davis, Agent Terry didn't have 22 years to fight for his life or get his affairs in order. Thanks to the Obama administration's deadly Fast and Furious program, no one knows what Terry's last words might have been. The agent's life was snuffed out in an instant by guns illegally trafficked through straw buyers in the U.S. to Mexican drug cartels.

Davis also garnered worldwide attention from Pope Benedict to Amnesty International whose representatives were interviewed on all major networks. Former President Jimmy Carter, Hollywood celebrities and anti-death penalty activists tweeted, emailed and sent letters to Georgia's Governor Sonny Perdue pleading for Davis' life. The Vatican's U.S. envoy delivered a message that might have come in handy before the ATF's 2009 Gunwalking operation got under way.

"The pope continually exhorts all people, and especially those men and women who serve in government, to recognize the sacredness of all human life," wrote Monsignor Martin Krebs.

Brian Terry gave his life for his country. Was his life not "sacred" enough for the mainstream media?  If Terry's death had happened under George W. Bush's watch, would this Fast and Furious cover-up be allowed to continue? The Terry family deserves answers.

Read more M. Catharine Evans at Potter Williams Report

American Thinker

Obama Is Dangerous for Peace

September 26, 2011
By James Lewis

The president of the United States has just destroyed the longest-lasting peace treaty in the Middle East.  That Nobel Prize-winning treaty between Egypt and Israel was destroyed by Obama in broad daylight, right in front of God and everybody, with stunning audacity.

The White House kept repeating the message that Mubarak must resign, and "now means now."  This is simply unprecedented, even during the height of the Cold War.  American presidents don't demand in public that their crucial allies resign. It is a diplomatic insult of unprecedented proportions.

And yet -- Obama said nothing when Iran's genocide-threatening regime killed and tortured thousands of demonstrators at the start of Obama's administration.  He has said nothing about Syria's Assad sending tanks to fire on rebels in the city of Homs.  He said nothing when the Saudis sent troops into Bahrain to violently suppress protests.  Indeed, the White House has actively aided repression by regimes much worse than Mubarak was -- regimes in Yemen, Somalia, and Iran.

So what's going on?  Was it just another opportunistic chance for Obama to parade his overweening ego?  Or was it more sinister?

Mubarak was the thirty-year strongman who preserved the single biggest pillar of Middle East peace, the Egypt-Israel peace treaty.  USA Today predicted that the peace treaty was in danger when Mubarak fell.  Everybody knew.  The Israelis kept telling Obama, and the Egyptians and Saudis must have done that as well.  The Saudis, who are now facing a nuclear Iran fifty miles away, are walking away from their decades-long alliance with the United States.  Nobody trusts American guarantees anymore.

Obama did it, knowing that the Arab world would break down into near-universal civil war.  The so-called "Arab Spring" is a fraud.  What we are seeing is an "Pan-Arab Civil War," from Tunisia to Yemen.  Every country is in deep trouble, and Prof. Niall Ferguson, who has been warning about this catastrophe all along, now believes that famine and social warfare will come to Egypt and the others.  They can no longer pay for the massive food imports they need to survive.  Local capital has fled to safer places.

The Middle East has been "community disorganized."  This is straight out of Saul Alinsky: community agitators destabilize communities so that they can push the remnants into whatever shape they want.  The people who die are just too bad.

This is so shocking, and so contrary to Obama's "peace" rhetoric, that few Americans can believe their own eyes, seeing that the biggest pillar of Middle East peace has been smashed right before them.  This can only be a knowing move on the part of the Obama administration.  Everybody who remembered the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty had to know.

Obama has now demanded that Israel retreat to its 1949 ceasefire lines --- which he lied about as the "1967 borders."  Those 1949 lines would set Israel back to three large wars ago.  It would turn Israel into one of those famous gerrymandered districts that look like a wriggling salamander.

Those borders are indefensible, and they therefore would drive Israel into its ultimate defensive weapon: nuclear war.  The radical leftist fantasy of threatening Israel with destruction runs into that brute fact: with its back to the wall, Israel would use nukes in self-defense.  You cannot drive a nuclear power into a corner without it resorting to war.

The overthrow of Mubarak has destabilized the entire Middle East.  Indeed, this Pan-Arab Civil War has already taken more lives than the Japanese tsunami...and it threatens to get worse.  After half a century of warm and friendly relations, Turkey is now threatening naval war against Israel in the eastern Mediterranean.

This is exactly how Iran fell back into its medieval tyranny in Jimmy Carter's time -- and don't doubt that that calamity was triggered by Carter and his NSC henchman Zbigniew Brzezinski.  A million people died in the Iran-Iraq war that followed the radicalization of Iran.  Thousands of innocent Green Revolution demonstrators are still dying today in the regime's horrific prisons and torture chambers.

The U.S. Sixth Fleet has kept the peace in the Mediterranean for sixty years.  When the Sixth Fleet was doing its job, no American ally like Turkey would ever have threatened naval war against another ally like Greece or Israel.  Turkey has warships, but nothing compared to the Sixth Fleet.  It therefore follows that Obama is not allowing the USN to interfere with the Turkish naval threat.

For thirty years the Egypt-Israeli Peace Treaty sustained the fragile peace in the Middle East.  Everything positive in Arab-Israeli relations was based on it.  Stable relations between Israel and Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, and even Syria were all based on that solid-looking Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty.

Then Mr. Obama tore it all down, right in front of our eyes.

Israel is now surrounded by countries that used to be at peace, but which are now talking war.  They are armed with high-tech missiles: tens of thousands of scud missiles in Syria; forty thousand missiles of various types in Lebanon controlled by Hezbollah, and therefore by Iran; thousands of Grad and more primitive missiles in Gaza.  If the PA declares a state, it will try to import even more offensive missiles, just like Hamas did in Gaza.

Finally, Iran now has IRBMs and the first ICBMs with nuclear weapons coming soon, which can easily strike Israel -- but Iran can also strike U.S. military bases and naval vessels within a radius of 1,000 miles and more, not to mention the nations of southern and eastern Europe.  Once developed, Iranian ICBMs can reach the United States, China, and Russia.

The President of the United States has therefore destabilized the Middle East in the most dangerous way, and he has done so in broad daylight.  And yes, people are already dying in the tens of thousands -- so far, 90 percent Muslims. But others may start dying soon.

Even now, American armed forces are in secret combat in Yemen, Libya, and Somalia, and elsewhere, to keep things from completely falling apart.  U.S. soldiers are facing daily death to keep Obama's China shop from shattering.

Obama knows that he's pulled the rug out, and U.S. forces are now engaged in unknown numbers of Muslim countries to try to shape the outcome.

And yet America's political pundits have watched it happen, and they mostly have kept silent as the grave.  Nobody wants to say out loud what's obvious.  That is the power of audacity.  Obama's overthrow of Middle East peace is so shocking that no pundit even wants to call it what it is.  American Jews has been silent.  The left and Europe are pretending it didn't happen.  The "neocons" are silent so far.  (But Michael Ledeen is writing a Broadsides book about it.)

This is the biggest news not fit to print in the New York Times.  It's the biggest public secret in the world.  But open your eyes, and you'll see it.

Any sane observer has to wonder why the president did that.  The pillar of Middle East peace, what there was of it, is now weakened, maybe fatally.  It has to come from the combatants.  It took three major wars to bring about that treaty.

After Sadat was assassinated, his vice president, Hosni Mubarak, took over instead, and kept the peace with Israel intact for thirty years.  Israel ceded the entire Sinai Desert to Egypt in return for that peace -- the biggest piece of land ever at stake in Arab-Israeli struggles.  The Sinai is a huge land buffer, and when you're at war with a neighbor, you want to have plenty of land between you and your enemies.  So Israel traded land for peace.

Obama has "community disorganized" the Middle East, and he did it knowing what would happen.  If you think our other at-risk allies aren't watching -- Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Saudi Arabia, Poland -- well, think again.  If the United States stabs Egypt and Israel in the back, all the others are looking for safety. 

 The Saudis are getting their own nukes.  So will Japan and South Korea.  Poland has signed a local self-defense treaty with former Soviet colonies.

So much for Obama, the Prince of Peace and Compassion, not the mention the Messiah of Hope and Progress.  V.I. Lenin famously said that things have to get worse before they can get better.  The only trouble is that Lenin only made things worse.  That is why the Soviet Union gave up seventy miserable years after Lenin.

This is the biggest foreign policy gamble by any American president, ever.

Obama is dangerous for peace.

American Thinker