Apple Inc. is working on new versions of the iPhone that are aimed at slowing the advance of competing handsets based on Google Inc.’s Android software, according to people who have been briefed on the plans.
One version would be cheaper and smaller than the most recent iPhone, said a person who has seen a prototype and asked not to be identified because the plans haven’t been made public. Apple also is developing technology that makes it easier to use the iPhone on multiple wireless networks, two people said.
Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs, who remains involved in strategic decisions while on medical leave, aims to narrow the price gap that has made phones running Android more popular than iPhones. Google’s share of the global smartphone market more than tripled to 32.9 percent in the fourth quarter, eclipsing Apple’s 16 percent, according to Canalys.
Apple has considered selling the new iPhone for about $200, without obligating users to sign a two-year service contract, said the person who has seen it. Android phones sell for a range of prices at AT&T Inc., Verizon Wireless and other carriers, and typically come with agreements that include a fee for broken contracts. The iPhone 4, sold in the U.S. by AT&T and Verizon Wireless, costs $200 to $300 with a contract.
Natalie Kerris, a spokeswoman for Apple, declined to comment.
Apple, based in Cupertino, California, fell $3.62 to $354.54 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The stock has climbed 10 percent this year.
Smaller, Cheaper
While Apple has aimed to unveil the device near mid-year, the introduction may be delayed or scrapped, the person said. Few Apple employees know the details of the project, the person said. Apple often works on products that don’t get released.
The prototype was about one-third smaller than the iPhone 4, said the person, who saw it last year.
Apple can sell it at a low price mainly because the smartphone will use a processor, display and other components similar to those used in the current model, rather than pricier, more advanced parts that will be in the next iPhone, the person said. Component prices typically drop over time.
Apple is also working on a so-called dual-mode phone, two people said. This device would be able to work with the world’s two main wireless standards -- the global system for mobile communications, used by AT&T and overseas carriers such as Vodafone Group Plc, and code division multiple access, used by Verizon Wireless. It isn’t known whether Apple intended to include this capability in the cheaper iPhone.
Universal SIM
Apple is working on a technology called a Universal SIM, which would let iPhone users toggle between GSM networks without having to switch the so-called SIM cards that associate a phone with a network, according to one person. This would help cut the cost of distributing and managing millions of SIM cards.
The new features could also give Apple an advantage over mobile carriers in influencing customers. The device would be affordable without a carrier subsidy, so buyers wouldn’t need to agree to terms, such as termination fees, that carriers demand in exchange for subsidizing the cost of the phone.
Apple has also worked on redesigned iPhone software that would let customers choose a network and configure their device on their own, without relying on a store clerk or representative of a carrier, according to the person.
Margin Pressure Possible
Down-market moves by Apple are not unprecedented. In 2004, when sales of the original $299-plus iPod were still rising, the company introduced the $249 iPod Mini. In 2005, when the iPod mini was still a bestseller, Jobs discontinued it in favor of the cheaper iPod Nano. Apple began selling the last version of the iPhone, the 3GS, for just $49 in January -- though it required a two-year contract.
Price cuts and the absence of a carrier subsidy may put Apple’s margins under pressure, even as component prices decline. Still, Google’s Android operating system may suffer if Apple makes the iPhone more versatile and affordable.
The Google-backed operating system benefitted when Apple wasn’t available from Verizon Wireless. Verizon Wireless has begun selling the iPhone today.
To contact the reporters on this story: Peter Burrows in San Francisco at pburrows@bloomberg.net; Greg Bensinger in New York at gbensinger1@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net; Peter Elstrom at pelstrom@bloomberg.net.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Deep US-Saudi rift over Egypt: Abdullah stands by Mubarak, turns to Tehran
US-Saudi Arabia 
In better times
The conversation between President Barack Obama and Saudi King Abdullah early Thursday, Feb. 10, was the most acerbic the US president has ever had with an Arab ruler, debkafile's Middle East sources report. They had a serious falling-out on the Egyptian crisis which so enraged the king that some US and Middle East sources reported he suffered a sudden heart attack. Rumors that he had died rocked the world financial and oil markets that morning and were denied by an adviser to the ruling family. Some Gulf sources say he has had heart attacks in the past.
Those sources disclose that the call which Obama put into Abdullah, who is recuperating from back surgery at his palace in Morocco, brought their relations into deep crisis and placed in jeopardythe entire edifice of US Iran and Middle East policies.
The king chastised the president for his treatment of Egypt and its president Hosni Muhbarak calling it a disaster that would generate instability in the region and imperil all the moderate Arab rulers and regimes which had backed the United States until now. Abdullah took Obama to task for ditching America's most faithful ally in the Arab world and vowed that if the US continues to try and get rid of Mubarak, the Saudi royal family would bend all its resources to undoing Washington's plans for Egypt and nullifying their consequences.
According to British intelligence sources in London, the Saudi King pledged to make up the losses to Egypt if Washington cuts off military and economic aid to force Mubarak to resign. He would personally instruct the Saudi treasury to transfer to the embattled Egyptian ruler the exact amounts he needs for himself and his army to stand up to American pressure.
Through all the ups and downs of Saudi-US relations since the 1950s no Saudi ruler has ever threatened direct action against American policy.
A senior Saudi source told the London Times that "Mubarak and King Abdullah are not just allies, they are close friends, and the King is not about to see his friend cast aside and humiliated."
Indeed, our sources add, the king at the age of 87 is fearful that in the event of a situation developing in Saudi Arabia like the uprising in Egypt, Washington would dump him just like Mubarak.
debkafile's intelligence sources add that replacement aid for Egypt was not the only card in Abdullah's deck. He informed Obama that without waiting for events in Egypt to play out or America's response, he had ordered the process set in train for raising the level of Riyadh's diplomatic and military ties with Tehran. Invitations had gone out from Riyadh for Iranian delegations to visit the main Saudi cities.
Abdullah stressed he had more than one bone to pick with Obama. The king accused the US president of turning his back not only on Mubarak but on another beleaguered American ally, the former Lebanese Prime Minister Sa'ad Hariri, when he was toppled by Iran's surrogate Hizballah.
Our sources in Washington report that all of President Obama's efforts to pacify the Saudi king and explain his Egyptian policy fell on deaf ears.
Arab sources in London reported Tuesday, Feb. 8, that a special US presidential emissary was dispatched to Morocco with a message of explanation for the king. He was turned away. This is not confirmed by US or Saudi sources.
The initiation of dialogue between Riyadh and Tehran is the most dramatic fallout in the region from the crisis in Egypt. Its is a boon for the ayatollahs who are treated the sight of pro-Western regimes either fading under the weight of domestic uprisings, or turning away from the US as Saudi Arabia is doing now.
This development is also of pivotal importance for Israel. Saudi Arabia's close friendship with the Mubarak regime dovetailed neatly with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's alignment with Egypt and provided them with common policy denominators. The opening of the Saudi door to the Iranian push toward the Red Sea and Suez Canal tightens the Iranian siege ring around Israel.
Signs of friction between Washington and Riyadh were noticeable this week even before President Obama's call to King Abdullah. Some American media reported the discovery that Saudi oil reserves were a lot smaller than previously estimated. And Saudi media ran big headlines, most untypically, alleging the US embassy and consulate in Dahran were paying sub-contractors starvation wages of $4.3 a day for cleaning work and $3.3 a day for gardening work.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Egypt nears military coup. USS warships in Suez Canal
US warships 
USS Kearsarge with Marine helicopters
A fresh surge of popular anti-Mubarak protest ripping across Egypt Tuesday, Feb. 8 has brought the country closer to a military coup to stem the anarchy than at any time since the street caught fire on Jan. 25.
Vice President Omar Suleiman warned a group of Egyptian news editors that the only choice is between a descent into further lawlessness and a military takeover in Cairo. The distinguished political pundit of the 1960s and 1970s Hasnin Heikal saw no other way out of the crisis but a government ruling by the army's bayonets.
The arrival of US naval, marine and air forces in the Suez Canal's Greater Bitter Lake indicated that the crisis was quickly swerving out of control.
debkafile's military sources report that the American force consists of the USS Kearsarge Expeditionary Strike Group of six warships. Helicopters on some of their decks are there to carry and drop the 2,200 marines of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit which has been bolstered by two special operations battalions.
The flotilla has a rapid strike stealth submarine, the USS Scranton, which is designed to support special forces' operations.
The US strike force has taken up position at a strategic point opposite Ismailia between the west bank of the Suez Canal and its eastern Sinai bank. It is poised for rapid response in the event of the passage of about 40 percent of the world's marine freights through the Suez Canal being threatened or any other extreme occurrence warranting US military intervention.
For a few hours Tuesday, it looked as through Egypt was finally going back to normal after a two-week popular uprising. But then, suddenly, thousands again took to the streets and squares of Egyptian towns - from the Western desert on the Libyan border up to the northern Sinai town of El Arish in the east, recalling Hosni Mubarak's warning of chaos if he were to depart too soon.
Tuesday, the protesters mounted their biggest demonstrations of their campaign to oust Mubarak - in Cairo, Alexandria, the Delta Cities, the industrial belt around Mahalla-el-Kebir and the steel city of Heluan, shouting "Death to Mubarak!" and "Hang Mubarak!"
Although reforms and pay hikes have been pledged by the new Egyptian government, large groups of workers, mainly in Cairo, rebelled against state-appointed managements and set up "Revolutionary Committees" to run factories and other work places, including Egyptian state TV and Egypt's biggest weekly "Ros el-Yusuf."
The stock market and the pyramids remained closed and traffic blocked solid on the streets of Cairo.
Hey Barack, Resign Now, and Now Means Yesterday
While our nation languishes amidst record food and energy prices, unprecedented underemployment (including those excluded from the workforce) and economic stagnation, crippling regulations, and an administration in contempt of two court decisions, the media would rather distract us with the Islamist uprising in Egypt. It is imperative that we keep up the pressure on Obama and the Democrats by denying them the opportunity to preclude our attention from more relevant and ominous domestic problems. On the other hand, there is one salient question that we should excogitate from Obama’s handling of the Egyptian insurgency. If Obama is willing to listen to the protesters of a foreign country due to their grievances from high food and energy prices and an unresponsive government, shouldn’t he accede to the similar demands of his own citizens and resign immediately?
As a direct result of Obama’s assiduous depredation of the private sector, there are a record number of people who are unemployed or underemployed. For those who are lacking sufficient income, their most vital needs include food, energy, and health care are among Yet, this President has used every tool at his disposal (including illegal ones) to ensure that the cost of production or delivery of each vital sector of our economy has burgeoned exponentially.
Through this President’s continued support of ethanol mandates, subsidies, and tariffs, the price of essential food commodities has risen sharply, as corn is the antecedent of the food chain. Almost 40% of corn grown in this country is now used for an ineffective and potentially environmentally degrading fuel. In addition, the President has done everything in his power to mandate and subsidize the production and usage of under-performing and deleterious sources of energy. This, along with his slavish devotion to the Fed’s policy of quantitative easing (QE2), has artificially and gratuitously spiked the cost of food and energy commodities.
Incidentally, the most egregious threat to our energy independence and economic prosperity is Obama’s capricious assault on the energy sources that actually effectuate economic stability; oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear power. What is even more scandalous is that he is prosecuting this war on energy under the guise of global warming solutions, even as Americans are suffering under record cold temperatures. We are now confronted with an energy shortage during this critically frigid era, as a result of unconstitutional policies, that were implemented to stave off the contrived man-made hoax of global warming.
The impetus of Obama’s war on oil commenced last year when he imposed a devastating moratorium on all deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Even though a Louisiana District Court Judge extirpated the job killing, price hiking moratorium, the Obama administration continues to deny drilling companies their permits to resume their much needed oil production. In fact, last week, the District Court ruled that the administration is in contempt of the court’s preliminary injunction. So Mr. Obama, who is the real autocrat on the geopolitical scene?
Unfortunately, Obama’s nefarious assault on our energy production, job producers, and consumers has not ended with the Gulf moratorium. Obama’s alacrity to destroy the energy sector is not assuaged by merely denying us 220,000 barrels of oil per day from deep water drilling. The administration has also dramatically tamped down production in shallow waters and in drilling fields across Alaska and every other coastline. The Obama Interior Department, under the leadership of Ken Salazar, has imposed odious new regulations and has denied permits to shallow water drilling companies who develop vital natural gas reserves as well as oil.
These regulations, along with Interior Department land grabs, have artificially induced a shortage in natural gas that has created a state of emergency in New Mexico. Now, thousands of residents throughout the southwest are without power during this record cooling period due to global warming regulations. The sad irony is that we are experiencing this shortage despite the fact that we are the ‘Saudi Arabia of natural gas’.
Additionally, the EPA has rescinded their permits to Shell Oil for drilling operations in the Arctic waters of the Beaufront Sea in order to “analyze the effects of emissions from drilling ships and support vessels.” Also, in order to utilize the oil for domestic consumption, it must be refined. But, not only have we failed to construct a new oil refinery since the 70’s, Obama’s EPA is planning to regulate the few remaining functional refineries into oblivion.
If America is the ‘Saudi Arabia of natural gas’, it is the ‘Kuwait of coal production’. Yet, the Obama administration has done everything in its power to shut down coal production in West Virginia and other states. Do they really oppose coal mining because of environmental considerations? Then, why has Obama failed to support nuclear energy, which is clean, efficient, and cheap? In Obama’s world, coal is not the king of energy production; rather it is wind, solar, wind chips, ethanol, and dung.
The reality is that we have a shortage in democratic leadership, not in abundance of natural resources.
As Rush Limbaugh always says; ignorance is the most expensive commodity. The deficit in public accountability of Obama’s food and energy policies has led to the destruction of jobs, economic stagnation, and most importantly; regressive commodity hikes on those vulnerable citizens whom the progressives purport to protect.
These same people, who are unemployed due to socialism, are also forced to pay 50% more in health insurance premiums due to the Obama Care law that is being implemented in contravention of a federal court’s ruling and our sacred constitution. Where are the mass riots over Obama’s fuel and health care policies that have infringed upon our democratic institutions?
The media and the Democrats are focusing incessantly on the democratic crisis in Egypt while ignoring our own. At least Hosni Mubarak has some justification for high food prices, namely; Obama’s QE2 and ethanol policies that have harshly affected Egypt’s market for food. In regard to the subversion of democracy, well, Egypt has no democratic institutions or constitution for Mubarak to attenuate. What can we say of President Obama who has vitiated the democratic institutions and constitution of the freest society in the world?
To borrow a statement from Robert Gibbs; what part of resign now don’t you understand, Mr. President? Now, means yesterday! Or, do you harbor more sympathy for the Muslim Brotherhood than your own citizens?
Florida Gov. to Overhaul
Florida Gov. to Overhaul Medicaid, End Defined Benefit Plans for New Public Workers, Require 5% Contributions from Existing Employees
Florida Governor Rick Scott is planning sweeping changes that has public unions howling but corporations thrilled.
Budget Plans
- Cut property and corporate income taxes by $2 billion
- Transfer Medicaid recipients to managed-care plans
- Require existing public employees to contribute 5% of their salaries to the retirement system
- Put new public employees in 401K plans
The Wall Street Journal has more details in Florida Governor Seeks Cuts in Budget
Gov. Rick Scott called Monday for overhauling Florida's Medicaid program, curbing its pension system and trimming government services as he detailed a budget proposal he had promised would be full of big cuts.Battle shaping up over pension proposal
Mr. Scott proposed transferring Medicaid recipients to managed-care plans, a move he estimated would save about $2 billion a year on average.
The savings would come mainly from reduced administrative costs and cuts to reimbursement rates for providers, according to people familiar with the budget. Several Florida counties are already experimenting with such a system, and the governor would like to expand it statewide.
In one of his more controversial recommendations, the governor proposed pension-system changes that would require public employees to contribute 5% of their salaries to the retirement system and would direct new hires into 401(k)-style plans. He estimated the changes would save about $1.4 billion a year.
The Miami Herald has some additional details in Battle shaping up over pension proposal
Florida's pension system is currently funded by state and local governments contributing the equivalent of between 9 and 10 percent of an employee's income toward retirement. In the case of high-risk workers like police and firefighters, the percentage is higher.Right Moves
Scott has talked of a 5 percent buy-in by employees -- basically splitting the difference with the state.
"It's only fair that if you're going to have a pension plan, you're going to do just like the private sector does,'' Scott said.
These are exactly the right moves. I commend the budget plan. Scott's plan will put money in the hands of taxpayers via lower property taxes and require public union workers to pay their share.
Hopefully Governor Scott can get all of his proposals passed and other states follow.
Lawlessness spreads in N. Sinai as Hamas transfers al Qaeda cells
ntelligence updates reaching Israel reveal that Hamas plans to follow up its attack on the Egyptian-Israel-Jordanian gas pipeline Saturday, Feb. 5, with more large-scale operations against Israel, using Egyptian Sinai as its launching-pad.
Since the uprising began in Egypt two weeks ago, more than 1,000 Hamas gunmen have infiltrated North Sinai from the Gaza Strip and seized control of the region. They were followed by Al-Qaeda cells which redeployed from Iraq in the Gaza Strip. Hamas has established a command center in North Sinai for coordinating its operations with the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo.
Israeli officers serving in this border sector told debkafile's military sources that the situation there was getting dangerously out of control: Hamas was giving free rein to lawless elements – not only Bedouin smugglers but other international networks, some working hand in glove with Somali pirates to smuggle into Israel armed criminal gangs posing as asylum and job seekers, prostitutes and vast quantities of drugs.
Those sources believe that Hamas and al Qaeda terrorists are sneaking into Israel from Sinai under cover of the swelling illegal traffic.
Hamas' attack on the gas pipe near El Arish which cut supplies to Israel and Jordan proves to have been its opening shot. The investigation found that two separate Hamas teams, reaching their target in four new minivans, had conducted not one but two explosions – one hit the Sheikh Zuweid station and the second blew up a one-kilometer long section of the pipe. The Egyptians have not yet started repairs.
Sunday, Feb. 6, Egyptian soldiers caught another team of five armed men on their way to blow up the pipeline's southern section to keep it inactive for a lengthy period. Three were Palestinian Hamas terrorists from the Gaza Strip and two Bedouin hired as accomplices.
Monday, Feb. 7, a second armed attack on the Egyptian police station in El Arish turned out to have been carried out by an Al Qaeda-linked cell from the Gaza Strip.
debkafile's military sources report that Hamas and Mumtaz Durmush, head of Jaish al-Islam (The Army of Islam) which is linked to Al Qaeda, have struck a deal for Hamas to transfer the Islamists to Sinai and provide them with the weapons and explosives for attacking Israeli patrols along the Egyptian border and Egyptian security forces posted there.
Not only are those jihadist cells ranged on Israel's southern doorstep but it is only a matter of time before they walk through the door along with the Palestinian fundamentalists of Hamas, security sources ward.
Moving them south has given Hamas two benefits: the Jaish al-Islam hard core which challenged its rule of the Gaza Strip has been transferred outside the enclave and secondly, the Palestinian group has help for its attacks on Israel.
It is now confirmed that the 22 Hizballah terrorists, whose escape from a Cairo jail last week was organized by Hamas, were escorted to the Gaza Strip by a heavily-armed Hamas guard which Egyptian forces failed to intercept.
The breakout also released Muslim Brotherhood activists. For Lebanese Shiite group, its chief objective was the release of Sami Shehab, one of Hizballah's top operational commanders. His outfit has joined the Hamas-led front taking shape for a concerted terrorist campaign against.
A senior security source reported that the Egyptian strength, though reinforced by the two battalions of 800 soldiers which Israel permitted to enter the peninsula, is totally inadequate for extending control in all parts of the peninsula. Most of that strength has been deployed in Sharm el-Sheikh and along the eastern bank of the Suez Canal, leaving the Gaza Strip and the border with Israel at the mercy of terrorists and smugglers.
Although Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the outgoing Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi, commented on the turmoil in Egypt Monday, Feb. 7, neither referred to the dangerously out-of-control situation in Sinai nor did they mention the urgent need to address the threat to Israel's southern border.
Netanyahu recalled the 2009 demonstrations in Iran where, he said, unlike in Egypt, "there were no talks, the people were simply killed on the streets."
Gen. Ashkenazi spoke of the rise of radical strength in the region. He admitted that the IDF was taken by surprise by the uprising in Egypt but, he said, no intelligence service has a crystal ball.
debkafile's military sources note that no one needs a crystal ball to see the terror and lawlessness closing in on Israel from its border with Sinai. It is not 1,200 kilometers away like Iran, but already present under the noses of those speakers.
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Monday, February 7, 2011
It Takes Two Touchscreens: Sprint Launches Kyocera Echo
If your smartphone has one touchscreen too few, rejoice. Today Sprint launched the Kyocera Echo, a groundbreaking phone composed of two touchscreens. ~ The phone features two 3.5-inch LCD displays connected by an innovative hinge; the screens fold up in the manner of a netbook. The two screens can be used to run separate apps, or combined to run in “tablet mode” with both screens acting as a single display. The screens work in both portrait and landscape mode. Like the iPhone, the Echo employs an onscreen keyboard. Unlike the iPhone, it can be angled so that it looks like a mini-laptop, with the keys flat and the screen tilted. ~ The Echo’s operating system: Android 2.2, also known as Froyo. Its price: $200 with a two-year contract, available sometime this spring. Other features include a 5-megapixel camera with HD video recording and a charger that doubles as a battery pack. ~ The two-screen combination allows for some novel features. For example, you can watch one YouTube video in the first screen while queueing up a second video in the other display. You can run Twitter and Facebook simultaneously. You can check your e-mail while composing a text message. (Habitual multitaskers, your phone has arrived.) ~ However, Sprint said only a small number of apps would be able to play nicely with each other in this fashion at first. (The company calls such dueling apps “simultasking.”) ~ Clearly, developers are just beginning to explore the opportunities involved with two touchscreens. Sprint demonstrated a version of the Sims game that featured the controls on the bottom screen and the game on the top — kind of like the PlayStation Phone. The Echo’s most innovative apps are likely ahead of it, but we expect great things from this unusual device. ~ The Echo was launched amid much hoopla at a New York event featuring magician David Blaine doing tricks in a giant underwater tank. The connection? “Extreme multitasking can be magical,” explained Sprint CEO Dan Hesse. Given the muc... ...Less 
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IS IT possible for American policy to be more confused
On Saturday night, according to a report by the BBC's Jim Muir, Egyptian protesters were "…sleeping under the tracks of tanks to ensure that they could not advance."
To sleep in front of a tank's treads means a brave protester had an uncomfortable night. To sleep under a tank's treads means the protester won't wake up again and the undertaker needs to use a paint scraper and a vacuum cleaner to perform his duties. All of which means that in Egypt's current crisis the ever-liberal BBC editors are just as incompetent as Obama's diplomatic team.
I suppose it is metaphysically possible for American policy to be more confused, but how it could be is not readily discernible. The truth is that America lacks any level of influence over Egypt's future. We have slowly and willfully degraded our power to influence events there -- and across the Middle East -- for decades.
And while the Egyptian crisis drags on, it infects the region. Massive protests have already caused Yemeni President Saleh to say he won't stay in power beyond his present term and will not attempt to pass power on to his son. Jordanian King Abdullah -- the most westernized and influential Muslim ally we have in the region -- has fired his cabinet. And purportedly pro-American President Ali of Tunisia (a.k.a. Carthage) has fled the country when bloody riots reached the point at which he could no longer resist.
But don't we have a president who -- in his 2009 Cairo speech, by his charming personality -- restored American popularity and influence in the Muslim world?
I often write that Obama is not naïve or incompetent because his efforts to reduce us from superpower to also-ran are pursued with malice aforethought. In the Egyptian crisis, however, Obama's perverse intentions are trumped by his and his team's confusion and incompetence.
Last Tuesday night, President Obama said that the he sympathized with the Tahrir Square protesters and that a transition from Mubarak's regime "must begin now." Which, of course, the world and the Egyptian protesters took as a call for Mubarak to resign. On Friday, Obama said Mubarak should "listen" to the protesters and craft a way forward that is "meaningful and serious."
Oh, that word. When a liberal says "meaningful" he is speaking psychobabble, asking for something that makes people such as him feel good regardless of its merit. And when it's our chief diplomat Mizz Clinton, the psychobabble creates confusion even worse than what comes from the White House.
At a Munich conference last week, Hillary called upon new Egyptian Veep Omar Suleiman to lead the country peacefully into a democratic future. (So Mubarak is still out?) Which statement was concurrent with Islamic terrorists blowing up an Egypt to Israel gas pipeline in the Sinai. Her statement -- and Obama's from Tuesday -- were contradicted quickly by Frank Wisner, a U.S. special envoy to Egypt, who said that Mubarak "must stay in office" during the transition of power. (So Mubarak is still in?)
Clinton and the White House denied that Wisner was speaking for them. (So Mubarak is still out?)
Clinton also said, "The transition to democracy will only happen if it is deliberate, inclusive and transparent," and that "the status quo is simply not sustainable."
Oh, that other word. "Inclusive"? Of whom, precisely? Apparently, she means the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood.
The Washington Post reported that a council of Egyptian political leaders had refused to meet with Suleiman, as did leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and their pawn, former IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei. Hillary "…urged opposition leaders not to reject talks out of hand and warned that the alternative could be a takeover by radicals." Apparently the Brotherhood -- by cloaking itself in ElBaradei's unearned UN credibility -- has successfully achieved legitimate status in the State Department's eyes. For Islamic terrorist sponsors, the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood has been accepted by the international community is sufficient for them to turn Egypt into another Syria or Lebanon.
On Sunday, the Financial Times reported that Rashad Bayoumi, deputy head of the Muslim Brotherhood, met with Omar Suleiman. According to that report, Bayoumi "…told the Financial Times on Sunday that the group had decided to meet Mr Suleiman 'because we were given to understand that they are prepared to respond to all the demands of the uprising carried out by the youth.'" Suleiman could not have told that to Bayoumi without the military's acquiescence.
The only questions that remain are whether the Egyptian military will join in forcing Mubarak out and accept a radical regime in Mubarak's place. That they are willing to recognize the Muslim Brotherhood as one of the parties to the transition bodes ill for their willingness to prevent Egypt from sliding into the radical Islamic sphere.
Egypt is on the path that Turkey has followed since the advent of the Erdogan government. We should expect that a transitional government will be more Islamist and will -- like Erdogan's -- gradually become an Islamist government. But Egypt will be worse, and far more radical. It will -- unless the military prevents it -- become a sponsor of terrorism.
Egypt's military, even after three decades of U.S. military aid and training, is not Americanized. The Egyptian Arab culture is strong within it, and the military's primary goal will be to remain powerful. That will require it to accommodate the increasing radicalism of the government, just as Turkey's military did. The Egyptian military, like the rest in that culture, is susceptible of bribery. Money and power are the key.
The Muslim Brotherhood, and its international sponsors, are savvy enough to understand that. They are well aware of how successfully the once-westernized nation of Turkey has been turned into an Islamic state, though it is not -- at least yet -- an identifiable sponsor of terrorism. The Turkish flotilla incident, in which a ship tried to penetrate the Israeli blockade of Gaza and Israeli forces were attacked with loss of life when they stopped the ship, was a lesson learned in Turkey. Islamic terrorism doesn't always, as in Tehran in 1979, take over a nation suddenly. It can, as it has in Turkey, take root and grow slowly.
In a Meet the Press interview yesterday, Mohamed ElBaradei said he wanted Mubarak to suspend parliament and make way for a transitional regime to take over until an election is held. He quite apparently wants to run that transitional regime and remain in power after an election.
If ElBaradei has his wish, Egypt will be on Turkey's path. And there's nothing we can do to stop it.
Jed Babbin served as a Deputy Undersecretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush. He is the author of several bestselling books including Inside the Asylum and In the Words of Our Enemies.
Coming ME flashpoint: UN Hariri tribunal nears indictments
With no end of the Egyptian standoff in sight, a showdown in Lebanon looms large: Within days, the UN Special Lebanon Tribunal'sPretrial Judge Daniel Fransen is scheduled to publish indictments based on the findings of Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare's probe of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minster Rafiq Hariri in 2005, debkafile's intelligence sources report.
The court's accelerated schedule has caught suspects, chiefly security big shots of the Lebanese Shiite Hizballah, unprepared. There is not much it can do but openly flout the court's expected summons for their extradition by force of arms.
The international judges have jumped the gun not only for Hizballah but also for its bosses in Damascus and Tehran and even up to a point in Washington, which has supported the court's work but had hoped indictments would not be ready for some months. The last thing the Obama administration needs at this moment is a second Middle East bonfire.
But whether they like it or not, Monday, Feb. 7, the Special Tribunal held is first hearing in Leidschendam near The Hague.
It was called by STL President Antonio Cassese to address questions of legality and procedure raised by the pretrial judge Fransen. Monday's session was to withhold the names of individuals contained in the sealed indictment document Bellemare filed with Fransen on Jan. 17. This and future sessions will be held in public, so the full list of accused may be only be a week or ten days away from release.
This finds the carefully crafted plan put together by Iran, Syria and Hizballah to make sure that point was never reached coming undone at the seams: They managed to get rid of pro-Western Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri and replace him with Najib Miqati, friend to Hizballah and Syrian leaders, whose first task was to have been to disqualify the STL, nullify its indictments and sever ties with the tribunal. But their handpicked candidate for prime minister has not managed to form a government because of three obstacles:
1. Lebanese President Michel Suleiman insists he will only endorse a national unity administration, which would necessitate the participation of Saad Hariri's March 14 bloc.
2. Suleiman wants a March 14 candidate – not a Miqati man - appointed Interior Minister to head the most powerful government department which holds the levers of the national domestic security and intelligence services> He also has the authority to declare a national state of emergency.
3. Miqati is not eager to head a narrow-based government either, because it would expose him as a Syrian-Hizballah rubber stamp and he would be ostracized by the United States and much of the West.
The Iran-Syrian-Hizballah alliance has consequently lost its race to beat the international Hariri tribunal to the draw. The court has begun its hearings, presenting them with a fait accompli.
Hizballah may still cast about for a fast worker to take over from Migati and rush a new government through or, alternatively, exercise force to seize control of Beirut and the government institutions and establish an alternative "Free Lebanon" administration that announce the severance ties with the STL.
These options are fraught with the threat of civil violence.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Women in the Cairo Street Scenes: a Troubling Photo Essay
For days now, the mainstream and leftstream media have been telling us that the Muslim Brotherhood is not dangerous, not radically Islamist—but that even if they are Islamist that they are popular amongst the people. Western leftists view the Brothers as engaged in a Hamas-like form of soup kitchen social work/theocratic totalitarianism, but who nevertheless have earned the right to be democratically voted into power by the people. They have been invited to join the negotiations with Mubarak's regime.
Short-sightedly, they claim that if we are serious about standing for democracy and the vote, that we have no choice but to support what may turn out to be an even worse tyranny than that of Mubarak’s.
Such journalists also claim that the Egyptian people in the streets are not “political,” that they are impoverished, broken, barefoot warriors who have heroically risen up for jobs, food, and an end to corruption and tyranny. Indeed, the people may not be “political”—but their heroism may end up benefiting those who, unlike themselves, are already organized militarily, economically, and ideologically—like the Muslim Brotherhood.
On the other hand, unorganized though they may be, the people may still have views and beliefs. According to a June, 2010 Pew opinion survey of Egyptians:
Fifty nine percent said they back Islamists. Only 27% said they back modernizers. Half of Egyptians support Hamas. Thirty percent support Hizbullah and 20% support al Qaida. Moreover, 95% of them would welcome Islamic influence over their politics….Eighty two percent of Egyptians support executing adulterers by stoning, 77% support whipping and cutting the hands off thieves. 84% support executing any Muslim who changes his religion…When this preference is translated into actual government policy, it is clear that the Islam they support is the al Qaida Salafist version.
When given the opportunity, the crowds on the street are not shy about showing what motivates them. They attack Mubarak and his new Vice President Omar Suleiman as American puppets and Zionist agents. The US, protesters told CNN’s Nick Robertson, is controlled by Israel. They hate and want to destroy Israel. That is why they hate Mubarak and Suleiman.
Is this Pew Center survey really true? What other indicators might we rely upon?
In the last week, we have seen massive coverage of the street uprising in Cairo on every major television channel and in print and Internet media of all political persuasions. No one has commented upon what the photos are showing us. Some say that a picture speaks a thousand words—and so it does. Follow along with me.
First, view these photos of Cairo University graduates in 1959, 1978, 1995, and 2004. Clearly, there is a progression—a regression really, in terms of women’s rights. Former women's gains have, increasingly, been washed away.
As you can see, despite the size of the picture, the female graduates in 1959 and 1978 had bare arms, wore short sleeved blouses, dresses, or pants, and were both bare-faced and bare-headed. By 1995, we see a smattering of headscarves—and by 2004 we see a plurality of female university graduates in serious hijab: Tight, and draping the shoulders.
Now, let’s look at the recent Cairo uprising photos through my eyes. No one has, as yet, commented upon the photos that they have chosen to run.
First, most photos show us mobs of mainly men marching, men at prayer, men shooting, running, falling, wounded in hospitals, standing atop tanks. These could be scenes from Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan. I am not suggesting that women rush out to join a promised American Nation of Islam style “Million Man March”—as women, they are horribly endangered among groups of men, which is why Muslim men argue that “their” family women must be veiled, sequestered, kept in purdah, strictly supervised, accompanied wherever they go by a male protector.
Muslim men know how licentious they truly are, what their view of all women (who are not their mothers) truly is, and how sexual repression, forced marriage, polygamy (a shortage of available wives for poor men), affects men who have been fired up by a mosque sermon or by a holy war to seize state power.
Women are also shorter, weigh less, and have rarely been trained in boxing, martial arts or weapons training compared to most men; most women cannot hold their own against one angry and determined man, certainly not against thousands of such men.
Yes, there are some female faces in the Cairo mob scenes, but understandably, they are in the minority.
While there are some—very few—female faces that are bare-faced and bareheaded, most women are wearing serious hijab: Pulled low and tight on their foreheads, tied under their chins, covering their necks, draping down to their shoulders.
And, yes, we also see women in niqab, face masks, dark, heavy-looking, with only a slit for their eyes. Were it not for that mere slit, she would be wearing an Afghan burqa or chadri, or a full Saudi covering.
My reading of these photos suggests that Egyptian women have already been Islamified. Whether they have done so to please their loving (or abusive) families or a favorite mullah, whether it was peer pressure from girlhood on that did it; or whether it was the teachings of the Muslim Brotherhood being preached in every mosque, on every media channel, and in school that did it, the fact is:
It is done. Women are veiled. Such women—and their fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons, will vote for the Muslim Brotherhood to run their country.
I wonder why no media have looked—really looked—at what the photos they themselves are running really tell us about who the “people” in the streets really are.
Prof. Chesler is an Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies at City University of New York. She is the author of 15 books and appears often in international media interviews. She lives in New York City.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/142158
Short-sightedly, they claim that if we are serious about standing for democracy and the vote, that we have no choice but to support what may turn out to be an even worse tyranny than that of Mubarak’s.
Such journalists also claim that the Egyptian people in the streets are not “political,” that they are impoverished, broken, barefoot warriors who have heroically risen up for jobs, food, and an end to corruption and tyranny. Indeed, the people may not be “political”—but their heroism may end up benefiting those who, unlike themselves, are already organized militarily, economically, and ideologically—like the Muslim Brotherhood.
On the other hand, unorganized though they may be, the people may still have views and beliefs. According to a June, 2010 Pew opinion survey of Egyptians:
Fifty nine percent said they back Islamists. Only 27% said they back modernizers. Half of Egyptians support Hamas. Thirty percent support Hizbullah and 20% support al Qaida. Moreover, 95% of them would welcome Islamic influence over their politics….Eighty two percent of Egyptians support executing adulterers by stoning, 77% support whipping and cutting the hands off thieves. 84% support executing any Muslim who changes his religion…When this preference is translated into actual government policy, it is clear that the Islam they support is the al Qaida Salafist version.
When given the opportunity, the crowds on the street are not shy about showing what motivates them. They attack Mubarak and his new Vice President Omar Suleiman as American puppets and Zionist agents. The US, protesters told CNN’s Nick Robertson, is controlled by Israel. They hate and want to destroy Israel. That is why they hate Mubarak and Suleiman.
Is this Pew Center survey really true? What other indicators might we rely upon?
In the last week, we have seen massive coverage of the street uprising in Cairo on every major television channel and in print and Internet media of all political persuasions. No one has commented upon what the photos are showing us. Some say that a picture speaks a thousand words—and so it does. Follow along with me.
First, view these photos of Cairo University graduates in 1959, 1978, 1995, and 2004. Clearly, there is a progression—a regression really, in terms of women’s rights. Former women's gains have, increasingly, been washed away.
As you can see, despite the size of the picture, the female graduates in 1959 and 1978 had bare arms, wore short sleeved blouses, dresses, or pants, and were both bare-faced and bare-headed. By 1995, we see a smattering of headscarves—and by 2004 we see a plurality of female university graduates in serious hijab: Tight, and draping the shoulders.
Now, let’s look at the recent Cairo uprising photos through my eyes. No one has, as yet, commented upon the photos that they have chosen to run.
First, most photos show us mobs of mainly men marching, men at prayer, men shooting, running, falling, wounded in hospitals, standing atop tanks. These could be scenes from Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan. I am not suggesting that women rush out to join a promised American Nation of Islam style “Million Man March”—as women, they are horribly endangered among groups of men, which is why Muslim men argue that “their” family women must be veiled, sequestered, kept in purdah, strictly supervised, accompanied wherever they go by a male protector.
Muslim men know how licentious they truly are, what their view of all women (who are not their mothers) truly is, and how sexual repression, forced marriage, polygamy (a shortage of available wives for poor men), affects men who have been fired up by a mosque sermon or by a holy war to seize state power.
Women are also shorter, weigh less, and have rarely been trained in boxing, martial arts or weapons training compared to most men; most women cannot hold their own against one angry and determined man, certainly not against thousands of such men.
Yes, there are some female faces in the Cairo mob scenes, but understandably, they are in the minority.
While there are some—very few—female faces that are bare-faced and bareheaded, most women are wearing serious hijab: Pulled low and tight on their foreheads, tied under their chins, covering their necks, draping down to their shoulders.
And, yes, we also see women in niqab, face masks, dark, heavy-looking, with only a slit for their eyes. Were it not for that mere slit, she would be wearing an Afghan burqa or chadri, or a full Saudi covering.
My reading of these photos suggests that Egyptian women have already been Islamified. Whether they have done so to please their loving (or abusive) families or a favorite mullah, whether it was peer pressure from girlhood on that did it; or whether it was the teachings of the Muslim Brotherhood being preached in every mosque, on every media channel, and in school that did it, the fact is:
It is done. Women are veiled. Such women—and their fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons, will vote for the Muslim Brotherhood to run their country.
I wonder why no media have looked—really looked—at what the photos they themselves are running really tell us about who the “people” in the streets really are.
Prof. Chesler is an Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies at City University of New York. She is the author of 15 books and appears often in international media interviews. She lives in New York City.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/142158
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Number of the Week: Businesses’ Unemployment Taxes Rise
37%: The rise in businesses’ unemployment-insurance payments in 2010.
The sheer depth and duration of the U.S. job-market slump has created all sorts of unique problems for the economy. Now, it’s hitting businesses in a new way, through the taxes they pay to support unemployment insurance.
In 2010, the amount employers paid into state unemployment-insurance funds rose 34% as a share of total wages, the Labor Department estimates. Total wages also rose a bit, so the sum private businesses paid out increased some 37%, to about $43 billion, data from the Commerce Department suggest. The payments are small as a share of total wages, amounting to less than 1%. But that can represent a much bigger chunk of profits.
The boost in businesses’ tax bill has two main sources: Businesses automatically pay more when the ratio of laid-off to employed workers rises, and states are cranking up tax rates to replenish unemployment-insurance funds. Those mechanisms are typically designed to kick in with a large lag, so they shouldn’t hit businesses when they’re down. But the current slump has lasted so long that the tax increases are coming at a time when many businesses are still struggling to recover.
Even with the higher tax payments, states’ insurance funds are falling deeper into the hole as they pay out benefits to millions of unemployed, often with money borrowed from the federal government. The Office of Management and Budget estimates that by 2013, state unemployment trust funds will be about $90 billion in debt, up from about $3 billion at the end of the 2009 fiscal year. So businesses should expect the tax bill to keep rising.
Hamas blows up Egypt-Israel-Jordan gas pipeline. Supply cutoff indefinite
The pipeline supplying Egyptian gas to Israel and Jordan was blown up near the North Sinai town of El Arish early Saturday Feb. 5. Egyptian state TV reported "terrorists" had carried out the attack which caused a huge explosion and fire. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu conferred urgently with Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau and energy firms over the abrupt cutoff of 25 percent of Israel's gas needs and ordered security beefed up at energy installations.
The Egyptian and Israeli accounts are contradictory.
An Israeli official spokesman said the explosion was nowhere near the Israeli section of the pipeline and closer to the Jordanian branch. The Egyptian spokesman spoke only of supplies to Israel which he said had been suspended as a precaution because there had been several smaller explosions along the pipe.
The Israeli Infrastructure Ministry spokesman reported that Egyptian gas, which covers 25 percent of Israel's needs, had been cut off at 0900 Saturday morning. He did not foresee regular power supplies being disrupted.
debkafile's counter-terror sources report that the attack on the El Arish gas facility was planned on military lines by a special Hamas team which infiltrated Sinai from Gaza last week. It was a major Hamas operation against on Israel (which incidentally supplies most of the Gaza Strip's power), and blatant Palestinian interference in Egypt's domestic unrest. It was also a fiasco for the joint IDF-and Egyptian military effort to police Sinai during the turbulence in Egypt and secure this strategic peninsula against destabilization by terrorists.
Muslim Brotherhood spokesmen in Cairo were quick to attach responsibility for the pipeline attack on disaffected Bedouin – a clumsy attempt, say debkafile's sources, to clear their offshoot, Hamas, of blame for a well-planned act of which they must have had prior knowledge.
Jordan is badly hit by the loss of Egyptian gas which covers 80 percent of its energy consumption. The Hashemite kingdom will have to resort to the far more expensive heavy oil and diesel to keep its power supply running and raise fuel prices after the king yielded to Islamist-back protesters' demands to reduce prices.
The close rapport between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Palestinian and Lebanese terrorist organizations came to light earlier in the Hizballah-led operation to release Lebanese Hizballah, Palestinian Hamas and Egyptian Brotherhood convicts from Wadi Natrun jail north of Cairo Sunday, Jan. 30, first revealed by debkafile.
While the Hamas and Hizballah escapees headed for Sinai and Gaza, the MB activists made straight for the hubs of disturbance in Egypt. (Click here for this story.)
The embattled Mubarak administration in Cairo may well find it politic to indefinitely put off repairing the pipe and restoring supplies to Israel for two reasons:
1. The incident will support Mubarak's argument that his immediate departure as demanded by Obama would throw Egypt into chaos – and not only Egypt, but resonate devastatingly across the entire region. Not just Israel, but its second peace partner, Jordan, is badly hit too by the loss of Egyptian gas which covers 80 percent of its energy consumption. Amman will have to convert to the far more expensive heavy oil and diesel to keep its power supply running. Fuel prices will have to be raised shortly after the king dropped them to quell the Islamist-back protests shaking the kingdom.
2. Some of the opposition factions backed by the US for a role in future government, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, are fiercely opposed to Egypt's peace relations with Israel which he has promoted for 32 years. The sale of Egyptian gas to Israel has come under constant attack in the street, which has accused the government of undercutting world prices and defrauding the Egyptian treasury.
The Mubarak regime and Egyptian army may want to show they respect popular opinion and are not American or Israeli pawns by not repairing the pipeline and keeping the gas supply to Israel cut off.
debkafile reports that the Israeli Infrastructure Ministry's assurance that no power disruptions were foreseen glosses over the serious repercussions of the loss overnight of a quarter of Israel's gas consumption for manufacturing electricity and its lack of gas reserves.
Israel's power stations will have to switch immediately from gas to heavy oil or coal, a complicated technical process that will have a bad effect on the environment. Energy officials told debkafile Saturday that the power stations affected are Hadera, Haifa (which is partly gas-fueled) and the Tel Aviv Reading facility which was only recently converted to gas. All Israel's emergency electricity stations are also powered by gas.
Therefore, the Infrastructure Ministry's assurance may have been premature.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
US response to Egypt draws criticism in Israel
JERUSALEM (AP) - President Barack Obama's response to the crisis in Egypt is drawing fierce criticism in Israel, where many view the U.S. leader as a political naif whose pressure on a stalwart ally to hand over power is liable to backfire.
Critics - including senior Israeli officials who have shied from saying so publicly - say Obama is repeating the same mistakes of predecessors whose calls for human rights and democracy in the Middle East have often backfired by bringing anti-West regimes to power.
Israeli officials, while refraining from open criticism of Obama, have made no secret of their view that shunning Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and pushing for swift elections in Egypt could bring unintended results.
"I don't think the Americans understand yet the disaster they have pushed the Middle East into," said lawmaker Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who until recently was a Cabinet minister and who is a longtime friend of Mubarak.
"If there are elections like the Americans want, I wouldn't be surprised if the Muslim Brotherhood didn't win a majority, it would win half of the seats in parliament," he told Army Radio. "It will be a new Middle East, extremist radical Islam."
Three decades ago, President Jimmy Carter urged another staunch American ally - the shah of Iran - to loosen his grip on power, only to see his autocratic regime replaced by the Islamic Republic. More recently, U.S.-supported elections have strengthened such groups as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Palestinian territories and anti-American radicals in Iran.
"Jimmy Carter will go down in American history as 'the president who lost Iran,'" the analyst Aluf Benn wrote in the daily Haaretz this week. "Barack Obama will be remembered as the president who 'lost' Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt, and during whose tenure America's alliances in the Middle East crumbled," Benn wrote.
Israel has tremendous respect for Mubarak, who carefully honored his country's peace agreement with Israel after taking power nearly 30 years ago.
While relations were often cool, Mubarak maintained a stable situation that has allowed Israel to greatly reduce its military spending and troop presence along the border with Egypt.
He also worked with Israel to contain the Gaza Strip's Hamas government and served as a bridge to the broader Arab world. Israeli leaders have said it is essential that whoever emerges as Egypt's next leader continue to honor the peace agreement.
For more than a week, Egyptians fed up with deepening poverty, corruption and 30 years of Mubarak's autocratic rule have massed across the country to demand his ouster. The backlash has forced Mubarak to announce he won't run in September elections, but that has not appeased protesters, who want him out now.
In the course of the turmoil, the Obama administration has repeatedly recalibrated its posture, initially expressing confidence in Egypt's government, later threatening to withhold U.S. aid, and lastly, pressing Mubarak to loosen his grip on power immediately.
"We want to see free, fair and credible elections," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Wednesday. "The sooner that can happen, the better."
Critics say the U.S. is once again confusing the mechanics of democracy with democracy itself.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed similar sentiments this week when he warned that "if extremist forces are allowed to exploit democratic processes to come to power to advance anti-democratic goals - as has happened in Iran and elsewhere - the outcome will be bad for peace and bad for democracy."
So far, no unified opposition leadership or clear program for change has emerged in Egypt. Historically the leading opposition in Egypt has been the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that favors Islamic rule and has been repressed by Mubarak throughout his tenure.
Many young people see the former director of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency, Mohammed ElBaradei, as Egypt's democratic hope, but critics say he is out of touch with Egypt's problems because he has spent so many years outside of the country.
The calls for democracy inside Egypt have put the U.S. in an awkward position of having to balance its defense for human rights with its longtime ties to an authoritarian regime that has been a crucial Arab ally.
In Israel, critics say the U.S. has suffered a credibility loss by shaking off Mubarak when his regime started crumbling.
"The Israeli concept is that the U.S. rushed to stab Mubarak in the back," said Eytan Gilboa, an expert on the U.S. at Bar-Ilan University.
"As Israel sees it, they could have pressured Mubarak, but not in such an overt way, because the consequence could be a loss of faith in the U.S. by all pro-Western Arab states in the Middle East, and also a loss of faith in Israel," he said.
Raphael Israeli, a professor emeritus of Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, echoed a widely felt perception that before the unrest erupted, the Obama administration paid only lip service to the lack of human rights in Mubarak's authoritarian regime.
"If Obama were genuinely concerned with what is going on in Egypt, he should have made the same demands two years ago (when he addressed the Muslim world in Cairo) and eight years and 20 years ago. Mubarak didn't come to power yesterday."
"As long as there are no problems, the oppression works," Israeli said. "If the oppression doesn't work, suddenly it becomes urgent. That's unacceptable."
Egypt now fears Obama a 'Manchurian President'
'They are trying to understand why he is acting against U.S. interests'
Top members of the Egyptian government say they feel betrayed by President Obama, charging that he is acting against American interests.
"Mubarak's regime feels Obama is pushing the advancement of the Muslim Brotherhood against U.S. interests," said WND's Jerusalem bureau chief and senior reporter Aaron Klein. "They are genuinely trying to understand why Obama is seemingly championing the anti-regime protests."
Klein said that a top Egyptian diplomat with whom he has developed a rapport over the last few years asked him earlier this week to explain Obama's motivation to support the opposition to Mubarak.
"I told him none of this should be a surprise," said Klein, "that the Obama administration has developed an extensive relationship over the last few years with allies of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Get the comprehensive probe that exposes Obama's Marxist, anti-American past – and present, in "Manchurian Present."
"That my investigating has proven that Obama has been closely associated throughout his political career with radical-left elements who have long petitioned for policies many believe are aimed at weakening the American enterprise both domestically and internationally."
"The Egyptian diplomat seemed surprised," said Klein. "I told him this material was thoroughly documented in my latest book."
The diplomat requested 20 copies of Klein's New York Times bestselling book investigating Obama, "The Manchurian President: Barack Obama's ties to communists, socialists, and other anti-American extremists."
The diplomat said he would deliver the book, which was co-authored by Brenda J. Elliott, to senior officials in Mubarak's embattled government.
Obama in recent days urged Mubarak to give up power in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood forms the main opposition.
Mubarak has been a staunch U.S. ally and a recipient of billions of dollars in military aid. His regime has long been considered a stabilizing force in the Arab world.
The Obama administration's support for the unrest is strikingly reminiscent of Jimmy Carter's support of the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, which marked the birth of modern Islamist expansion.
Some Muslim clerics are already calling the riots in Egypt simply an extension of 1979's Islamist conquests.
"Thirty-one years after the victory of the Islamic Republic, we are faced with the obvious fact that these movements are the aftershocks of the Islamic revolution," said Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, as reported by Iran's Radio Zamaneh. "The fate of those who challenge [our] religion is destruction."
Speaking of media and government leaders, Khatami added, "They want to highlight the labor, liberal and democratic issues, but the most important issue, which is the religious streak of these protests, [is] being denied."
The leader of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood, Hammam Saeed, warned that the unrest in Egypt will spread across the Mideast until Arabs succeed at toppling leaders allied with the United States.
"The Americans and Obama must be losing sleep over the popular revolt in Egypt," Saeed said at a sympathy protest held outside the Egyptian Embassy in Amman. "Now, Obama must understand that the people have woken up and are ready to unseat the tyrant leaders who remained in power because of U.S. backing."
And on the Internet, the Middle East Media Research Institute reports, prominent Salafi cleric Abu Mundhir Al-Shinqiti issued a fatwa on the website Minbar Al-Tawhid Wal Jihad encouraging the protests in Egypt, claiming Islamist jihadis are now on the verge of a historic moment, an "earthquake" he likened to the Sept. 11 attacks in New York City.
Obama pushes Egyptian 'reform'
According to a senior Egyptian diplomat speaking to WND, a former U.S. ambassador to Egypt, Frank Wisner, specifically told Mubarak on Tuesday the U.S. would not continue to support his rule and he must step down.
Hours later, Mubarak announced he would not seek another term in office.
The Obama administration dispatched Wisner to Egypt last weekend to report to the State Department and White House a general sense of the situation in the country.
WND broke the story yesterday that the Egyptian government has information Wisner secretly met earlier this week with a senior leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Issam El-Erian.
The Muslim Brotherhood seeks to spread Islam around the world, in large part using nonviolent means. Hamas and al-Qaida are violent Brotherhood offshoots.
Muslim Brotherhood declares war on U.S.
Prominent U.S. commentators also have been claiming the Muslim Brotherhood is a moderate organization and denying there is any Islamist plot to seize power.
Last Friday, President George W. Bush's former press spokeswoman, Dana Perino, told Fox News, "Don't be afraid of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. This has nothing to do with religion."
Bruce Reidel, a former CIA analyst and adviser to President Obama, wrote a Daily Beast article in which he claimed, "The Egyptian Brotherhood renounced violence years ago. … Its relative moderation has made it the target of extreme vilification by more radical Islamists."
Reidel's assertion the Brotherhood renounced violence, however, is contradicted by its own statements in recent months, including a call to arms against the West.
In November, the Brotherhood's new supreme guide, Muhammad Badi, delivered a sermon entitled "How Islam Confronts the Oppression and Tyranny."
"Resistance is the only solution," stated Badi. "The United States cannot impose an agreement upon the Palestinians, despite all the power at its disposal. [Today] it is withdrawing from Iraq, defeated and wounded, and is also on the verge of withdrawing from Afghanistan because it has been defeated by Islamist warriors."
Badi went on to declare the U.S. is easy to defeat through violence, since it is "experiencing the beginning of its end and is heading toward its demise."
Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center, noted Badi's speech showed "the likelihood that more Brotherhood supporters in the West will turn to violence and fund-raising for terrorism."
Frank Gaffney, president of the American Center for Security Policy, takes it a step further.
"In short, the Muslim Brotherhood – whether it is operating in Egypt, elsewhere in the world or here – is our enemy," he wrote.
Obama quietly builds ties to Muslim Brotherhood
Klein reported for WND yesterday that Obama and top administration officials have troubling relationships with the Muslim Brotherhood and its worldwide allies.
Muslim Brotherhood members were reportedly invited to attend Obama's 2009 address to the Muslim world from Cairo. Khaled Hamza, editor of the Muslim Brotherhood website, confirmed at the time that 10 members of the Brotherhood's parliamentary bloc received official invitations to attend Obama's historic speech.
Also in 2009, the Egyptian daily newspaper Almasry Alyoum ran a report claiming Obama had met with U.S. and European-based representatives of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood that year
According to the report, the Brotherhood members requested that news of the meeting not be publicized. They expressed to Obama their support for democracy and the war on terror.
The newspaper also reported Brotherhood members communicated to Obama their position that they would abide by all agreements Egypt has signed with foreign countries, implying that if they took power in Egypt they would continue that country's peace treaty with Israel.
Besides contact with the Muslim Brotherhood itself, there have been reports the past two years of behind-the-scenes contact with Hamas, which was founded as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas maintains a close alliance with the Brotherhood; the Brotherhood's new leader, Muhammad Badi, serves as a de facto lead spiritual guide for Hamas.
Top leaders of Hamas in Gaza claimed to WND several times they passed messages to Obama through dignitaries who visited the Gaza Strip, including Jimmy Carter and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., – both of whom have a close relationship with the White House.
Kerry, for example, reportedly accepted a letter for Obama from Hamas leaders in Gaza during a February 2009 visit to U.N. installations in the coastal territory.
U.N. relief agency chief in Gaza Karen Abu Zayd told the BBC the Hamas letter had been received by his agency and passed on to an unnamed American official.
In November, 2008, WND first quoted Hamas officials stating they would be sending a letter to Obama.
Immediately after that month's elections, Ahmed Yousef , Hamas' chief political adviser in Gaza, called Obama's win a "historic victory" for the world and told WND that Hamas was sending a letter of congratulation to the president-elect.
Obama ties to Brotherhood's U.S. allies
It is not just Obama's reported contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood and the group's allies in the Middle East that are of concern.
The Obama administration also has evidenced a working relationship with several U.S.-based Islamist organizations that are listed by the Brotherhood as "likeminded" organizations.
One such group is the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA, a radical Muslim group that was an unindicted co-conspirator in a scheme to raise money for Hamas.
ISNA was named in a May 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document – "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America" – as one of the Brotherhood's likeminded "organizations of our friends" who shared the common goal of transforming countries into Muslim nations.
The White House relationship with ISNA began even before Obama took office. One week before the presidential inauguration, Sayyid Syeed, national director of the ISNA Office for Interfaith and Community Alliances, was part of a delegation that met with the directors of Obama's transition team. The delegation discussed a request for an executive order ending "torture."
ISNA President Ingrid Mattson represented American Muslims at Obama's inauguration, where she offered a prayer during the televised event.
Mattson also has represented ISNA at Obama's annual Ramadan dinners, including the last such event in which Obama announced support for the rights of Muslims to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque two blocks from the site of the 9/11 attacks.
In June 2009, Obama's top aide, Valerie Jarrett, invited Mattson to work on the White House Council on Women and Girls, which Jarrett leads.
That July, the Justice Department sponsored an information booth at an ISNA bazaar in Washington, D.C.
Also that month, Jarrett addressed ISNA's 46th annual convention. According to the White House, Jarrett attended as part of Obama's outreach to Muslims.
ISNA sponsored a February 2010 question-and-answer session in which Obama's top adviser on counter-terrorism, John Brennan, came under fire for controversial remarks to Muslim law students.
Read more: Egypt now fears Obama a 'Manchurian President' http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=258937#ixzz1Cti45LHy
Top members of the Egyptian government say they feel betrayed by President Obama, charging that he is acting against American interests.
"Mubarak's regime feels Obama is pushing the advancement of the Muslim Brotherhood against U.S. interests," said WND's Jerusalem bureau chief and senior reporter Aaron Klein. "They are genuinely trying to understand why Obama is seemingly championing the anti-regime protests."
Klein said that a top Egyptian diplomat with whom he has developed a rapport over the last few years asked him earlier this week to explain Obama's motivation to support the opposition to Mubarak.
"I told him none of this should be a surprise," said Klein, "that the Obama administration has developed an extensive relationship over the last few years with allies of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Get the comprehensive probe that exposes Obama's Marxist, anti-American past – and present, in "Manchurian Present."
"That my investigating has proven that Obama has been closely associated throughout his political career with radical-left elements who have long petitioned for policies many believe are aimed at weakening the American enterprise both domestically and internationally."
"The Egyptian diplomat seemed surprised," said Klein. "I told him this material was thoroughly documented in my latest book."
The diplomat requested 20 copies of Klein's New York Times bestselling book investigating Obama, "The Manchurian President: Barack Obama's ties to communists, socialists, and other anti-American extremists."
The diplomat said he would deliver the book, which was co-authored by Brenda J. Elliott, to senior officials in Mubarak's embattled government.
Obama in recent days urged Mubarak to give up power in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood forms the main opposition.
Mubarak has been a staunch U.S. ally and a recipient of billions of dollars in military aid. His regime has long been considered a stabilizing force in the Arab world.
The Obama administration's support for the unrest is strikingly reminiscent of Jimmy Carter's support of the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, which marked the birth of modern Islamist expansion.
Some Muslim clerics are already calling the riots in Egypt simply an extension of 1979's Islamist conquests.
"Thirty-one years after the victory of the Islamic Republic, we are faced with the obvious fact that these movements are the aftershocks of the Islamic revolution," said Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, as reported by Iran's Radio Zamaneh. "The fate of those who challenge [our] religion is destruction."
Speaking of media and government leaders, Khatami added, "They want to highlight the labor, liberal and democratic issues, but the most important issue, which is the religious streak of these protests, [is] being denied."
The leader of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood, Hammam Saeed, warned that the unrest in Egypt will spread across the Mideast until Arabs succeed at toppling leaders allied with the United States.
"The Americans and Obama must be losing sleep over the popular revolt in Egypt," Saeed said at a sympathy protest held outside the Egyptian Embassy in Amman. "Now, Obama must understand that the people have woken up and are ready to unseat the tyrant leaders who remained in power because of U.S. backing."
And on the Internet, the Middle East Media Research Institute reports, prominent Salafi cleric Abu Mundhir Al-Shinqiti issued a fatwa on the website Minbar Al-Tawhid Wal Jihad encouraging the protests in Egypt, claiming Islamist jihadis are now on the verge of a historic moment, an "earthquake" he likened to the Sept. 11 attacks in New York City.
Obama pushes Egyptian 'reform'
According to a senior Egyptian diplomat speaking to WND, a former U.S. ambassador to Egypt, Frank Wisner, specifically told Mubarak on Tuesday the U.S. would not continue to support his rule and he must step down.
Hours later, Mubarak announced he would not seek another term in office.
The Obama administration dispatched Wisner to Egypt last weekend to report to the State Department and White House a general sense of the situation in the country.
WND broke the story yesterday that the Egyptian government has information Wisner secretly met earlier this week with a senior leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Issam El-Erian.
The Muslim Brotherhood seeks to spread Islam around the world, in large part using nonviolent means. Hamas and al-Qaida are violent Brotherhood offshoots.
Muslim Brotherhood declares war on U.S.
Prominent U.S. commentators also have been claiming the Muslim Brotherhood is a moderate organization and denying there is any Islamist plot to seize power.
Last Friday, President George W. Bush's former press spokeswoman, Dana Perino, told Fox News, "Don't be afraid of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. This has nothing to do with religion."
Bruce Reidel, a former CIA analyst and adviser to President Obama, wrote a Daily Beast article in which he claimed, "The Egyptian Brotherhood renounced violence years ago. … Its relative moderation has made it the target of extreme vilification by more radical Islamists."
Reidel's assertion the Brotherhood renounced violence, however, is contradicted by its own statements in recent months, including a call to arms against the West.
In November, the Brotherhood's new supreme guide, Muhammad Badi, delivered a sermon entitled "How Islam Confronts the Oppression and Tyranny."
"Resistance is the only solution," stated Badi. "The United States cannot impose an agreement upon the Palestinians, despite all the power at its disposal. [Today] it is withdrawing from Iraq, defeated and wounded, and is also on the verge of withdrawing from Afghanistan because it has been defeated by Islamist warriors."
Badi went on to declare the U.S. is easy to defeat through violence, since it is "experiencing the beginning of its end and is heading toward its demise."
Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center, noted Badi's speech showed "the likelihood that more Brotherhood supporters in the West will turn to violence and fund-raising for terrorism."
Frank Gaffney, president of the American Center for Security Policy, takes it a step further.
"In short, the Muslim Brotherhood – whether it is operating in Egypt, elsewhere in the world or here – is our enemy," he wrote.
Obama quietly builds ties to Muslim Brotherhood
Klein reported for WND yesterday that Obama and top administration officials have troubling relationships with the Muslim Brotherhood and its worldwide allies.
Muslim Brotherhood members were reportedly invited to attend Obama's 2009 address to the Muslim world from Cairo. Khaled Hamza, editor of the Muslim Brotherhood website, confirmed at the time that 10 members of the Brotherhood's parliamentary bloc received official invitations to attend Obama's historic speech.
Also in 2009, the Egyptian daily newspaper Almasry Alyoum ran a report claiming Obama had met with U.S. and European-based representatives of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood that year
According to the report, the Brotherhood members requested that news of the meeting not be publicized. They expressed to Obama their support for democracy and the war on terror.
The newspaper also reported Brotherhood members communicated to Obama their position that they would abide by all agreements Egypt has signed with foreign countries, implying that if they took power in Egypt they would continue that country's peace treaty with Israel.
Besides contact with the Muslim Brotherhood itself, there have been reports the past two years of behind-the-scenes contact with Hamas, which was founded as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas maintains a close alliance with the Brotherhood; the Brotherhood's new leader, Muhammad Badi, serves as a de facto lead spiritual guide for Hamas.
Top leaders of Hamas in Gaza claimed to WND several times they passed messages to Obama through dignitaries who visited the Gaza Strip, including Jimmy Carter and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., – both of whom have a close relationship with the White House.
Kerry, for example, reportedly accepted a letter for Obama from Hamas leaders in Gaza during a February 2009 visit to U.N. installations in the coastal territory.
U.N. relief agency chief in Gaza Karen Abu Zayd told the BBC the Hamas letter had been received by his agency and passed on to an unnamed American official.
In November, 2008, WND first quoted Hamas officials stating they would be sending a letter to Obama.
Immediately after that month's elections, Ahmed Yousef , Hamas' chief political adviser in Gaza, called Obama's win a "historic victory" for the world and told WND that Hamas was sending a letter of congratulation to the president-elect.
Obama ties to Brotherhood's U.S. allies
It is not just Obama's reported contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood and the group's allies in the Middle East that are of concern.
The Obama administration also has evidenced a working relationship with several U.S.-based Islamist organizations that are listed by the Brotherhood as "likeminded" organizations.
One such group is the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA, a radical Muslim group that was an unindicted co-conspirator in a scheme to raise money for Hamas.
ISNA was named in a May 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document – "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America" – as one of the Brotherhood's likeminded "organizations of our friends" who shared the common goal of transforming countries into Muslim nations.
The White House relationship with ISNA began even before Obama took office. One week before the presidential inauguration, Sayyid Syeed, national director of the ISNA Office for Interfaith and Community Alliances, was part of a delegation that met with the directors of Obama's transition team. The delegation discussed a request for an executive order ending "torture."
ISNA President Ingrid Mattson represented American Muslims at Obama's inauguration, where she offered a prayer during the televised event.
Mattson also has represented ISNA at Obama's annual Ramadan dinners, including the last such event in which Obama announced support for the rights of Muslims to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque two blocks from the site of the 9/11 attacks.
In June 2009, Obama's top aide, Valerie Jarrett, invited Mattson to work on the White House Council on Women and Girls, which Jarrett leads.
That July, the Justice Department sponsored an information booth at an ISNA bazaar in Washington, D.C.
Also that month, Jarrett addressed ISNA's 46th annual convention. According to the White House, Jarrett attended as part of Obama's outreach to Muslims.
ISNA sponsored a February 2010 question-and-answer session in which Obama's top adviser on counter-terrorism, John Brennan, came under fire for controversial remarks to Muslim law students.
Read more: Egypt now fears Obama a 'Manchurian President' http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=258937#ixzz1Cti45LHy
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Marc Faber Calls Bernanke A Liar, Thinks US Inflation Is Running Up To 8%
Marc Faber is on a roll these days. The Gloom, Doom and Boom report author, who recently made headlines after calling Obama a whore minutes ahead of the president's SOTU address, proceeds to go on a truthiness rampage, and with his now traditional grin, proceeds to call Satan Bernanke a "liar" to the entire CNBC Europe audience. In addition to making his thoughts clear on the topic of inflation (5-8%), he also observes where the Egyptian riots will strike next: "You may not have a problem in Saudi Arabia and in the Emirates, in Kuwait and Qatar, because there the governments can heavily subsidize food if they want to. But I am worried that what has happened in Egypt will happen in Pakistan... I think Egypt is a reminder to people that politics, and social events, and geopolitics have a meaningful effect on asset markets. The developed markets have way outperformed, and now I think that it may be a wake up call that the US outperforms emerging economies for a while." As for inflation "The annual cost of living increases are more than 5% today and the BLS is continuously lying about the inflation rate, including Mr Bernanke, he's a liar. Inflation is much higher than what they publish. I think that inflation is between 5% and 8% per annum in the US, and in Western Europe, a little bit lower, also 4-5% per annum." Oh yeah, Pakistan has nukes.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Bernanke's Poverty Effect
Foodstamp Recipients Jump by 400K In November, Hit New Record Of 43.6 Million
soon everyone will be on foodstampsMuch has been said about Bernanke's wealth effect and how it impacts a whopping 1% of the US population (traditionally, those very same bail out recipients who would be insolvent had Gen Ben not rescued the entire financial system at the expense of the DXY, which at last check was below 77 again). Unfortunately, a little less time has been spent discussing the equal and opposite effect: that of the poverty effect. Luckily, every month we get an update on this just as useful metric. And as of November, the SNAP program had 43.6 million participants, an increase of 400k from October, and a 14% increase, or 5.3 million from a year prior. We are confident that this 15% of the US population will be delighted to know that their rapidly diminishing dollars will end up acquiring increasingly less and less stuff.
Central Banks Are Destroying The Middle Class' Standard Of Living
Recently, BOE(bank of england) head Mervyn King came out with a very surprising warning to his compatriots, accompanied with an apology that our own Ben Bernanke will never offer, namely: "I sympathise completely with savers and those who behaved prudently now find themselves among the biggest losers from this crisis." Of course, the US central bank believes it has completed its third mandate job now that the US stock market, not to mention commodities, are starting to be reminiscent of the parabolic phase of the Harare stock market. But back in Europe, even as the EURUSD is surging (killing the dollar, and the primary driver behind US stocks) now that it is accepted that the continent will proceed with its latest full on ponzi scheme and have the EFSF acquire insolvent bonds, even as the ECB proceeds to raise rates, things are getting worse. This is precisely what King warned about in a speech that not surprisingly got absolutely no coverage in the US. Luckily, here is Simon Black's take on the very surprising speech by King which confirmed that the only beneficiaries of Bernanke's policies continue to be the top 1% that make up the financial oligarchy.... as always.
A stern warning from a central banker, by Sovereign Man
Mervyn King is Britain’s chief central banker and a key figure in the global financial system. Last week, after surprising reports surfaced that the British economy had once again contracted in the 4th quarter of last year, King delivered a stern, sobering message to his country:
- “In 2011, real wages are likely to be no higher than they were in 2005… One has to go back to the 1920s to find a time when real wages fell over a period of six years.”
- “The Bank of England cannot prevent the squeeze on real take-home pay that so many families are now beginning to realise is the legacy of the banking crisis and the need to rebalance our economy.”
- “The squeeze on living standards is the inevitable price to pay for the financial crisis and subsequent rebalancing of the world and UK economies.”
- Furthermore, inflation may rise “to somewhere between four per cent and five per cent over the next few months.”
- “The idea that the MPC could have preserved living standards, by preventing the rise in inflation without also pushing down earnings growth further, is wishful thinking.”
- “[U]npleasant though it is, the Monetary Policy Committee neither can, nor should try to, prevent the squeeze in living standards, half of which is coming in the form of higher prices and half in earnings rising at a rate lower than normal.”
- “I sympathise completely with savers and those who behaved prudently now find themselves among the biggest losers from this crisis.”
To summarize, one of the world’s leading central bankers has looked his country in the eye and admitted that he is completely powerless to prevent the inevitable decline in living standards that will result from years of reckless behavior.
It’s amazing that someone in his position would be so terse, so direct in his appraisal of the situation; by nature of their positions, central bankers are serial liars who must continually deceive the public in order to set expectations and carry out their agenda.
King’s statement may be a sign that England is finally on its last leg. Fiscally, the country is in a similar situation as the US and Europe– in debt up to its eyeballs, hemorrhaging cash, and quickly losing the confidence of the international community.
Unlike Europe, the US, and even Japan to a degree, England lacks reserve currency status in any measure that matters… so without a line of foreigners to buy its debt regardless of the fundamentals, the UK has been forced into its day of reckoning before the others.
Meanwhile, Europe and the US continue to spin unjustified confidence; Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy have pinkie-sworn that they will not let the euro fail, and Barack Obama’s State of the Union address provided a temporary ‘feel-good’ blip that the government is going to fix everything.
People should not be fooled, however, into thinking that the US, Europe, Japan (and those nations which depend heavily upon them) will fare any better than England.
Because of its place in the global pecking order, England has less control over its financial destiny and has had to face the music first, but it will not be the only member of the Western hierarchy to fall.
Europe is in a desperate situation to continue bailing out bankrupt members of the eurozone even though the price tag will soon become larger than the monetary union can possibly bear, all while stimulus pressures and strained pension programs create challenges even for the ‘healthy’ euro nations.
Meanwhile in the US, the government plans to continue running trillion dollar deficits for the next several years with no end in sight to runaway spending, not even considering the upcoming carnage that will occur when cities and states start to go bust, or social security runs out of money.
Japan is probably in the worst shape of all, simultaneously suffering both a fiscal and demographic crisis. Japan’s debt, well over 100% of its GDP, has already been downgraded by the rating agency monkeys, and its population is slowly disappearing due to low birth rates and inhospitable immigration policy.
The best case that these countries can hope for is to suffer the same fate as England: a significant reduction in standard of living.
There is an opportunity now, however, for everyone to assess their basic vulnerabilities and take steps to mitigate what may lie ahead. This may include seeking work overseas, expanding a business to broader services in new markets, moving assets to safer jurisdictions, reducing system dependency, etc.
A stern warning from a central banker, by Sovereign Man
Mervyn King is Britain’s chief central banker and a key figure in the global financial system. Last week, after surprising reports surfaced that the British economy had once again contracted in the 4th quarter of last year, King delivered a stern, sobering message to his country:
- “In 2011, real wages are likely to be no higher than they were in 2005… One has to go back to the 1920s to find a time when real wages fell over a period of six years.”
- “The Bank of England cannot prevent the squeeze on real take-home pay that so many families are now beginning to realise is the legacy of the banking crisis and the need to rebalance our economy.”
- “The squeeze on living standards is the inevitable price to pay for the financial crisis and subsequent rebalancing of the world and UK economies.”
- Furthermore, inflation may rise “to somewhere between four per cent and five per cent over the next few months.”
- “The idea that the MPC could have preserved living standards, by preventing the rise in inflation without also pushing down earnings growth further, is wishful thinking.”
- “[U]npleasant though it is, the Monetary Policy Committee neither can, nor should try to, prevent the squeeze in living standards, half of which is coming in the form of higher prices and half in earnings rising at a rate lower than normal.”
- “I sympathise completely with savers and those who behaved prudently now find themselves among the biggest losers from this crisis.”
To summarize, one of the world’s leading central bankers has looked his country in the eye and admitted that he is completely powerless to prevent the inevitable decline in living standards that will result from years of reckless behavior.
It’s amazing that someone in his position would be so terse, so direct in his appraisal of the situation; by nature of their positions, central bankers are serial liars who must continually deceive the public in order to set expectations and carry out their agenda.
King’s statement may be a sign that England is finally on its last leg. Fiscally, the country is in a similar situation as the US and Europe– in debt up to its eyeballs, hemorrhaging cash, and quickly losing the confidence of the international community.
Unlike Europe, the US, and even Japan to a degree, England lacks reserve currency status in any measure that matters… so without a line of foreigners to buy its debt regardless of the fundamentals, the UK has been forced into its day of reckoning before the others.
Meanwhile, Europe and the US continue to spin unjustified confidence; Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy have pinkie-sworn that they will not let the euro fail, and Barack Obama’s State of the Union address provided a temporary ‘feel-good’ blip that the government is going to fix everything.
People should not be fooled, however, into thinking that the US, Europe, Japan (and those nations which depend heavily upon them) will fare any better than England.
Because of its place in the global pecking order, England has less control over its financial destiny and has had to face the music first, but it will not be the only member of the Western hierarchy to fall.
Europe is in a desperate situation to continue bailing out bankrupt members of the eurozone even though the price tag will soon become larger than the monetary union can possibly bear, all while stimulus pressures and strained pension programs create challenges even for the ‘healthy’ euro nations.
Meanwhile in the US, the government plans to continue running trillion dollar deficits for the next several years with no end in sight to runaway spending, not even considering the upcoming carnage that will occur when cities and states start to go bust, or social security runs out of money.
Japan is probably in the worst shape of all, simultaneously suffering both a fiscal and demographic crisis. Japan’s debt, well over 100% of its GDP, has already been downgraded by the rating agency monkeys, and its population is slowly disappearing due to low birth rates and inhospitable immigration policy.
The best case that these countries can hope for is to suffer the same fate as England: a significant reduction in standard of living.
There is an opportunity now, however, for everyone to assess their basic vulnerabilities and take steps to mitigate what may lie ahead. This may include seeking work overseas, expanding a business to broader services in new markets, moving assets to safer jurisdictions, reducing system dependency, etc.
Health Care Unconstitutional: Obama Sedition?
Yes, that's a strong word.
The White House officials said that the ruling would not have an impact on implementation of the law, which is being phased in gradually. (The individual mandate, for example, does not begin until 2014.) They said that states cannot use the ruling as a basis to delay implementation in part because the ruling does not rest on "anything like a conventional Constitutional analysis." Twenty-six states were involved in the lawsuit.
So now we have a White House that has declared its intent to ignore a declaratory judgment.
The Administration has no right to do this.
Obama's White House has exactly two options:
- Comply with the ruling. This means that any and all activity authorized or mandated by the Statute cease now.
- File an appeal and ask for a stay pending its hearing. If said stay is granted, then the ruling is held pending consideration.
That's it.
Folks, this is clear. The Judge in question, Judge Vinson, in fact sets forth exactly this in the opinion:
(5) Injunction
The last issue to be resolved is the plaintiffs’ request for injunctive relief enjoining implementation of the Act, which can be disposed of very quickly. Injunctive relief is an “extraordinary” [Weinberger v. Romero-Barcelo, 456 U.S. 305, 312, 102 S. Ct. 1798, 72 L. Ed. 2d 91 (1982)], and “drastic” remedy [Aaron v. S.E.C., 446 U.S. 680, 703, 100 S. Ct. 1945, 64 L. Ed. 2d 611 (1980) (Burger, J., concurring)]. It is even more so when the party to be enjoined is the federal government, for there is a long-standing presumption “that officials of the Executive Branch will adhere to the law as declared by the court. As a result, the declaratory judgment is the functional equivalent of an injunction.” See Comm. on Judiciary of U.S. House of Representatives v. Miers, 542 F.3d 909, 911 (D.C. Cir. 2008); accord Sanchez-Espinoza v. Reagan, 770 F.2d 202, 208 n.8 (D.C. Cir. 1985) (“declaratory judgment is, in a context such as this where federal officers are defendants, the practical equivalent of specific relief such as an injunction . . . since it must be presumed that federal officers will adhere to the law as declared by the court”) (Scalia, J.) (emphasis added).
Except in this case The White House has now declared its intent to intentionally disobey the law as declared by the court.
There is no reason to conclude that this presumption should not apply here. Thus, the award of declaratory relief is adequate and separate injunctive relief is not necessary.
Well, as of today, there is such a reason to so conclude.
The Plaintiffs need to make their way back to court this morning and file an emergency request for both an injunction and a citation of contempt of court against the members of The Obama Administration, including President Obama personally, Kathleen Sebelius and The Internal Revenue Service, all of which are staffing up for and acting as if this law remains in full force and effect.
This is now a full-blown Constitutional Crisis. The Executive's willful, intentional and publicly-stated refusal to honor a declaratory judgment is an open act of willful and intentional violation of The Separation of Powers in The Constitution and, if combined with the use of or threat of use of force as is always present when government coercion is employed, treads awfully close to the line, and may cross it, of 18 USC Ch 115 Sec 2384, to wit:
If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
The exercise of power by the Executive and Judicial branch, under which the Internal Revenue and Health and Human Services operate, inherently constitutes the use of force.
When such is used to "prevent, hinder or delay the execution of any law of The United States" the parties that have done so, it can be argued, have engaged in a Seditious Conspiracy.
By the way, Mark Levin pretty much sees it this way too. I agree with him, but I'll go further - unless the Obama Administration either stands down now or files an appeal and seeks a stay and stands down until said stay is granted, if it is, then they have indeed crossed the line.
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