Obama’s Stunningly Silly Press Conference

A mere month away from America’s debt ceiling deadline, and Barack Obama continues to deliver no leadership, no details, and no solutions, instead falling back once again on blaming anyone but himself for the challenges facing the nation.

President Barack Obama’s June 29th press conference was a troubling mix of already oft-repeated platitudes alongside ample portions of impudent finger pointing at a Congress he described as less responsible than his own daughters. This from a president who has yet to offer up any recently specific economic or budget plan of his own, who has met only briefly with Congressional leaders over the past several months, and who most recently set a new POTUS record for most consecutive weekends on the golf course – thirteen.

Despite his well documented absence from the process of actual governing, Barack Obama persists in demanding the American public believe he has been working – and Obama will be the first one to tell them so. Wednesday’s press conference showed a seemingly bored and indifferent president annoyed at those who would dare question his own importance, question his ability, and offer up any solutions he deemed out of step with his own deeply entrenched far left ideology of ever bigger government, ever more burdensome regulations, and ever increasing taxes to pay for it all.

In the world of Obama, those who disagree with his views are either too stupid or too greedy. Never mind that this president so recently signed the wrong year in a guest book, or declared to an audience of military personnel that a decorated soldier killed in war back in 2006 to be alive and well in 2011. Never mind as well that in a time when so many Americans are suffering under the yoke of an economy that continues to lay off thousands of workers every week, the Obama White House spends hundreds of thousands on lavish state dinners, and trips abroad. The First Lady’s most recent excursion to Africa to have her photo taken with Nelson Mandela will set American taxpayers back a tidy sum of half a million dollars.

Even members of his own political party have been increasingly vocal in sharing concerns of Barack Obama’s refusal to do the actual work of president. It was a mere two months ago that Hillary Clinton’s own office leaked to the media a description of the Obama White House as “amateur hour”. Further descriptions of Obama as a leadership lightweight have also come from foreign leaders within Russia, France, and China.

Read more: http://socyberty.com/history/the-ulsterman-report-obamas-stunningly-silly-press-conference/#ixzz1QoaZjQv0

Read more: http://socyberty.com/history/the-ulsterman-report-obamas-stunningly-silly-press-conference/#ixzz1QoaWeyG8

Even Democrat Admits "Bewilderment" Over Bizarre Obama Press Conference

White House Press Secretary reduced to telling media Obama can in fact, "Walk and chew gum at the same time." Growing number of Republicans and Democrats remain unconvinced…

He had not held a press conference in over three months. Based on a performance roundly scorned by both media and politicians alike, perhaps President Obama’s handlers had a very good reason for keeping the president shielded from prolonged moments of open communication.

Predictably, Republicans are taking President Obama to task for offering up no solutions to the debt and economy. These same Republicans are also rebuking the president for his oft-repeated complaints that Congress needs to “get to work” in coming to an agreement on the debt ceiling crisis that is looming just a month away. To have a man who has spent 13 consecutive weekends golfing, and has only met sparingly with members of Congress over the course of several months, now demanding others “get to work” does indeed come off a bit less than…sincere.

Republicans are far from alone though in suggesting President Obama’s Wednesday press conference was a less than stellar moment for the nation’s CEO – a moment in fact when the president flubbed the age of his own daughter. A just published report in POLITICO shares the view of a senior Congressional Democrat as being “bewildered” while watching Obama’s press conference performance. This same Democrat suggested the president is living in a glass house, and would do well to cancel all future golf and vacation outings. (Obama is scheduled to leave for posh Martha’s Vineyard in the coming days for yet another vacation from a job so many even within his own political party claim he barely functions at.

Questions of Barack Obama’s abilities, or lack thereof, have reached such levels that White House Spokesman Jay Carney angrily stated to the press this week that the president can in fact “…walk and chew gum at the same time. “The laughter of the media at Carney’s remark is now suggestive of how a growing number are viewing Barack Obama himself - via the president’s inability to lead or even communicate effectively when he is not reading from a script, President Obama is now very much himself a sad punch-line.

If a new president is not elected in 2012 – the joke will ultimately be on America though…

Read more: http://socyberty.com/history/the-ulsterman-report-even-democrat-admits-bewilderment-over-bizarre-obama-press-conference/#ixzz1QoZSAPeu

Conspiracy of silence over four Iranian nuclear-capable missile tests

Our Iranian and intelligence sources offer details on the British Foreign Secretary William Hague's allegation Wednesday, June 29, that Iran has carried out secret tests of missiles capable of delivering a nuclear payload in breach of UN resolution 1929: Three of those tests, four in all, were carried out between October 2010 and February 2011and the fourth on Tuesday, June 28, in the course of the Prophet Mohammed war games currently in progress.
Iran is clearly continuing to upgrade and improve the accuracy of the missiles in its armory that are capable of delivering nuclear warheads.
It was the last test of the four that led Hague to break the Russian-imposed US-Israeli blackout on the critical tests, thereby leaving Iran free to push ahead at top speed with its program for attaining an operational nuclear weapon. Click here for debkafile's June 29 report of Hague disclosures.

debkafile's military and Moscow sources now report exclusively: In early October 2010, Russian intelligence learned that Iran was about to begin test launches of missiles for carrying nuclear warheads. They reported this to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

He then took three steps: He conveyed the information to US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and bound them to secrecy. With their pledges in hand, he used backdoor intelligence channels to persuade Tehran to refrain from bragging about its dramatic progress and keep the tests of the nuclear-capable missiles quiet in order to avert a world outcry against the violation of all their international commitments. The Iranians bought the deal.

In this way, the Russian leader raised a wall of silence around Iran's advances towards ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads and pre-empted condemnations, Security Council action, and other forms of American, European and Israeli action for keeping a nuclear bomb out of Iranian hands.

This was the last straw – at least for the British government. Hague in consultation with Prime Minister David Cameron went public about what Iran was really up to with a statement to parliament.

debkafile's military sources disclose that Iran has now tested two types of missile for carrying nuclear warheads: the Shahab-3 Kadar and the Sejjil – both powered with solid fuel and having a maximum range of 2,510 kilometers.
Two of the first three tests - one by Sejjil and one by Shahab-3 Kadar - were successful. A third apparently failed. Tuesday of this week the Iranians conducted another successful Shahab-3 test.

'Hundreds of thousands' of public sector workers strike

Pensions protest well supported, claim unions, as workers join picket lines outside schools and public buildings, while the government insists more people are turning up for work than expected

The leader of one of the four unions involved in a national strike has said that the government will be "proved wrong" in its predictions that few will walkout in protest at an overhaul of public sector pensions.

Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union said "hundreds and hundreds of thousands" were expected to take part in Thursday's strikes because the government was "failing to compromise" over pension reforms that he claimed were unfair and politically motivated.

Picket lines were mounted outside schools, government buildings, jobcentres and courts today by striking public sector workers in the biggest wave of industrial unrest since the coalition was formed.

Union leaders said early indications were that the 24-hour walkout by the National Union of Teachers (NUT), Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), University and College Union and the PCS, which between them cover 750,000 public sector workers, was being strongly supported.

A third of schools are expected to close and two-thirds of universities have cancelled lectures. Benefits will go unpaid, court cases will be postponed, police leave has been cancelled in London and airports are bracing themselves for backlogs at immigration.

But the decision to go out on strike while talks with the government are ongoing were criticised both by deputy prime minister Nick Clegg and Labour's Tessa Jowell as members up and down the country joined picket lines. Boris Johnson, the Conservative mayor for London, reiterated his call for strike laws to be tightened to take action to protect the public, as well as those workers who do not vote for strikes.

Francis Maude, cabinet office minister, insisted that early indications from airports and ports showed that fewer members were heeding the "inflamed call" for mass walkouts.

"More are turning up for work and we are maintaining a much better service than we expected to be able to," Maude told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

Maude and Serwotka became embroiled in a war of words over the airwaves this morning, as the government claims that the public sector pension schemes were "unaffordable" came under scrutiny.

The Conservative minister insisted that Lord Hutton, the former pensions secretary who drew up recommendations for reforms, had said "very clearly" that the status quo was "not tenable".

"You cannot continue to have more and more people in retirement being supported by fewer and fewer people in work," said Maude. Long-term reform is needed."

Pressed on the fact that Hutton's report made no such claim, Maude insisted that the fact was that the costs of pensions would become unaffordable unless changes were introduced.

Yet, Serwotka said that the Hutton report included a graph which clearly shows that the cost of the pension scheme is falling in terms of GDP.

Serwotka accused the minister of "floundering" when scrutinised about the government's plans.

"The National Audit Office, the public accounts committee, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, everybody accepts that's not the case. The cost is going to fall over the next 40 years. So it's not about affordability, so then they try to move the goalposts and say it's about being untenable," he said.

Serwotka said the government's "real agenda" was trying to create a "race to the bottom" on pensions.

"This is what it is really all about," he said. "You are trying to cut public sector pensions and the reason you are floundering this morning is that you are trying to mislead people." The cabinet was full of people like Maude, in a "very privileged position", trying to cut the pensions of public sector workers, said Serwotka.

"That is why hundreds of thousands of people are on strike, because it is unfair and unjust."

Maude condemned leaders taking members out on strike while colleagues were awaiting the outcome of the talks. Serwotka was "writing himself out of the script, when there is so much to talk about," he said.

But Serwotka fired back that the government had made clear that its mind was already made up: "Whenever I've asked him, will the government compromise on any of the central issues in the dispute – work up to eight years longer, pay 3% more, get a reduced pension and move the pensions indexation from RPI to CPI, which devalues pensions by 15% – he says on none of those will he move a jot. While we are talking, we are not negotiating."

Nick Clegg said he was disappointed that unions had gone ahead with strikes while negotiations were still going on.

"I think it's a real shame that there are strike today because there are talks which are actually ongoing between the government and the trade unions, I don't think the strikes help members of the trade union, I don't think it helps the public, I don't think they help the country at large. I think what everybody wants is for us to stick with it, carry on talking and sort this out."

Tessa Jowell, shadow cabinet office minister, also criticised the strikes.

"We're absolutely with the people of this country who should not have their services disrupted," she told BBC Breakfast.

"I'm critical of the way, as Labour is critical, of the way in which the government has handled this dispute, but these strikes today should not be taking place."

But ATL general secretary Mary Bousted said unions felt they had no choice because of the government's failure to conduct meaningful talks.

"We don't want to be on strike, and we wouldn't be on strike if the government had been prepared to do what they say they're going to do now, and that's negotiate," she told the BBC.

The valuation of the teachers' pension scheme (TPS) is two years overdue.

"How can I negotiate when I don't know the health or otherwise of my scheme?" she said. "And that's the cavalier and inept way that they have approached these negotiations. My union hasn't been on national strike throughout its history in 127 years. Do you think I would be here now if there was any other way?".

Kevin Courtney, deputy general secretary of the NUT, said the early indications were that "large numbers" of schools were affected by the action, around 80%.

"We realise that's very disruptive for parents," he said, "and we do regret that. We had hoped to reach a settlement before the industrial action, but the government isn't serious about talks."

Among the buildings being picketed was parliament, with strikers saying they hoped some leftwing MPs would refuse to cross the lines.

PCS members were stationed outside the Royal Courts of Justice – where the high court and court of appeal judges sit – in central London.

Union officials said court staff had joined the strike but they were unsure what affect the action would have on the running of the courts.

Unions were also targeting the headquarters of the education and business departments.

Police leave has been cancelled in London, where union leaders and thousands of activists will take part in a march, followed by a lunchtime rally in Westminster.

The TUC said today that millions of public sector workers were having to pay for the deficit that they did nothing to cause.

Brendan Barber, TUC general secretary, who is visiting picket lines in the south-west, will tell a rally in central London later in the day that it is "hardly surprising" that public sector workers' pay has been frozen while it was "bonuses as usual" in the financial sector.

"This is gold standard for unfairness."

California tells online retailers to start collecting sales taxes from customers

Reporting from Sacramento—

Shopping at Amazon.com Inc. and other major Internet stores is poised to get more expensive.

Beginning Friday, a new state law will require large out-of-state retailers to collect sales taxes on purchases that their California customers make on the Internet — a prospect eased only slightly by a 1-percentage-point drop in the tax that also takes effect at the same time.
Getting the taxes, which consumers typically don't pay to the state if online merchants don't charge them, is "a common-sense idea," said Gov. Jerry Brown, who signed the legislation into law Wednesday.

The new tax collection requirement — part of budget-related legislation — is expected to raise an estimated $317 million a year in new state and local government revenue.

But those taxes may come with a price. Amazon and online retailer Overstock.com Inc. told thousands of California Internet marketing affiliates that they will stop paying commissions for referrals of so-called click-through customers.

That's because the new requirement applies only to online sellers based out of state that have some connection to California, such as workers, warehouses or offices here.

Both Amazon in Seattle and Overstock in Salt Lake City have told affiliates that they would have to move to another state if they wanted to continue earning commissions for referring customers.

"We oppose this bill because it is unconstitutional and counterproductive," Amazon wrote its California business partners Wednesday. Amazon has not indicated what further actions it might take to challenge the California law.

Many of about 25,000 affiliates in California, especially larger ones with dozens of employees, are likely to leave the state, said Rebecca Madigan, executive director of trade group Performance Marketing Assn. The affiliates combined paid $152 million in state income taxes last year, she pointed out.

"We have to consider it," said Loren Bendele, chief executive of Savings.com, a West Los Angeles website that links viewers to hundreds of money-saving deals. "It does not look good for our business."

The larger bite from buyers' pocketbooks will be eased only a bit because California's basic sales tax rate also will drop to 7.75% on Friday when a 2-year-old temporary increase expires. The basic rate in the city of Los Angeles falls back to 8.75%.

Brown's signature on the budget bills is aimed at closing a loophole that freed Amazon and other out-of-state retailers from collecting sales taxes for California.

Not collecting sales taxes gave Internet retailers a competitive price advantage over California's small businesses such as independent booksellers and big-box retailers with a presence in the state, including Barnes & Noble Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Best Buy Co. and Target Corp.

"You can't give one segment of retail a 10% discount every day. It's just not fair," said Bill Dombrowski, president of the California Retailers Assn., a major player in a coalition of large and small stores supporting the legislation.

California's new requirement will generate badly needed state revenue and send a signal to Congress that "we want to see a national solution" to the issue of taxing Internet sales, Dombrowski said.

California is the seventh and largest state in the country to pass a law to collect taxes on out-of-state Internet sales. Illinois, Arkansas and Connecticut acted earlier this year, North Carolina and Rhode Island in 2009 and New York in 2008. Amazon sued to overturn the New York law and lost in the lower courts. The company is paying sales taxes into an escrow account pending an appeal.

Other states currently are considering similar sales tax collection bills.

California's new law was drafted to circumvent a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that sellers can't be forced to collect sales taxes unless they have a physical presence in the state.

The new statute would establish that presence in two ways: when sellers pay commissions to other Internet sites in California, known as affiliates, that refer buyers; and when sellers have a related company operating in the state.

Amazon has thousands of such affiliates in California. It also has related business operations that include Lab126 Inc. in Cupertino, which develops Kindle electronic book readers, and a Studio City office for its Internet Movie Database unit.

One affiliate, Ken Rockwell of San Diego, the owner of a 12-year-old photography website, said he planned to move out of state.

"Will it be Las Vegas or Scottsdale or Ensenada?" he said. "It's a question of where, not if."

Amazon ends deal with 25,000 California websites

Gov. Jerry Brown has signed into law California's tax on Internet sales through affiliate advertising which will immediately cut small-business website revenue 20% to 30%, experts say.

The bill, AB 28X, takes effect immediately. The state Board of Equalization says the tax will raise $200 million a year, but critics claim it will raise nothing because online retailers will end their affiliate programs rather than collect the tax.

Amazon has already emailed its termination of its affiliate advertising program with 25,000 websites. The letter says, in part:

(The bill) specifically imposes the collection of taxes from consumers on sales by online retailers - including but not limited to those referred by California-based marketing affiliates like you - even if those retailers have no physical presence in the state.

We oppose this bill because it is unconstitutional and counterproductive. It is supported by big-box retailers, most of which are based outside California, that seek to harm the affiliate advertising programs of their competitors. Similar legislation in other states has led to job and income losses, and little, if any, new tax revenue. We deeply regret that we must take this action.

The new law won't affect customers, Amazon said, but added that the immediate termination of the affiliate program also applies to endless.com, myhabit.com and smallparts.com.

(Full disclosure: I have a personal website that has been an Amazon affiliate. It made $2 last quarter. That is not 30% of my income.)

Almost all the California Amazon affiliates have fewer than 75 employees and a large percentage have no employees, according to Rebecca Madigan executive director of the Performance Marketing Association, a Camarillo-based nationwide trade association.

"This law won't impact Amazon that much but it is a crisis for website owners who make revenue by placing ads on their websites for thousands of online retailers," Madigan said. "Most of them don't have a physical presence in California."

California Retailers Association stated: "We thank Governor Jerry Brown and the leaders in the California State Legislature who have demonstrated their leadership and commitment to California businesses by passing and signing e-fairness into law. Small and large businesses across the state have been held at a major disadvantage by the current law that out-of-state online companies like Amazon.com and Overstock.com have exploited for years. This has cost us jobs and revenues."

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1992 ruled that states cannot tax businesses that aren't physically within their boundaries. Such taxes would regulate interstate commerce, which is a federal government prerogative.

However, New York in 2008 passed a law to require companies with online affiliate advertising programs to collect sales tax for sales through those affiliates based in New York. Since then Rhode Island, North Carolina, Illinois, Arkansas and Connecticut passed similar laws.

Amazon is suing New York over the law, and the Performance Marketing Association is suing Illinois.

Amazon affiliate Keith Posehn, owner of zorz.com in San Diego, said he had affiliate advertising agreements with more than 70 companies and these programs were 35% of his company revenue before the California legislature passed a similar bill last year. Then-Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed that bill.

"We got 70 termination letters in one night before he vetoed it," Posehn said. After that, he started changing his business away from affiliate advertising and has started a new mobile application company.

"I have pitched investors and several question the wisdom of staying in California," Posehn said. "Some venture capitalists are very keen on placing startups outside California because start-up costs are less."

However, another Amazon affiliate, Glenn Richards, an independent recording artist in Orange County (MightyFleissRadio.com), is angry with Amazon and its head Jeff Bezos.

"I think that Amazon.com's decision to throw their affiliates, (including myself) under the bus is a national disgrace," Richards said. "Jeff Bezos should be ashamed of his conduct. His bully boy practice and tactics of extinguishing small business in California should be (condemned). Small business has no power...and no hope to confront Internet giants like Amazon.com."

Board of Equalization Member George Runner blasted Brown for signing the law. "Even as Governor Jerry Brown lifted his pen to sign this legislation, thousands of affiliates across California were losing their jobs. The so-called 'Amazon tax' is truly a lose-lose proposition for California. Not only won’t we see the promised revenues, we’ll actually lose income tax revenue as affiliates move to other states."

Mark Halperin, editor-at-large for Time, called President Obama “a dick”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/58098.html

Obama may be losing the faith of Jewish Democrats Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/57983.html#ixzz1Qf75jmug

David Ainsman really began to get worried about President Barack Obama’s standing with his fellow Jewish Democrats when a recent dinner with his wife and two other couples — all Obama voters in 2008 — nearly turned into a screaming match.

Ainsman, a prominent Democratic lawyer and Pittsburgh Jewish community leader, was trying to explain that Obama had just been offering Israel a bit of “tough love” in his May 19 speech on the Arab Spring. His friends disagreed — to say the least.

One said he had the sense that Obama “took the opportunity to throw Israel under the bus.” Another, who swore he wasn’t getting his information from the mutually despised Fox News, admitted he’d lost faith in the president.

If several dozen interviews with POLITICO are any indication, a similar conversation is taking place in Jewish communities across the country. Obama’s speech last month seems to have crystallized the doubts many pro-Israel Democrats had about Obama in 2008 in a way that could, on the margins, cost the president votes and money in 2012 and will not be easy to repair.

“It’s less something specific than that these incidents keep on coming,” said Ainsman.

The immediate controversy sparked by the speech was Obama’s statement that Israel should embrace the country’s 1967 borders, with “land swaps,” as a basis for peace talks. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seized on the first half of that phrase and the threat of a return to what Israelis sometimes refer to as “Auschwitz borders.”

Obama’s Jewish allies stressed the second half: that land swaps would — as American negotiators have long contemplated — give Israel security in its narrow middle, and the deal would give the country international legitimacy and normalcy.

But the noisy fray after the speech mirrored any number of smaller controversies. Politically hawkish Jews and groups such as the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Emergency Committee for Israel pounded Obama in news releases. White House surrogates and staffers defended him, as did the plentiful American Jews who have long wanted the White House to lean harder on Israel’s conservative government.

Based on the conversations with POLITICO, it’s hard to resist the conclusion that some kind of tipping point has been reached.

Most of those interviewed were center-left American Jews and Obama supporters — and many of them Democratic donors. On some core issues involving Israel, they’re well to the left of Netanyahu and many Americans: They refer to the “West Bank,” not to “Judea and Samaria,” fervently supported the Oslo peace process and Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and believe in the urgency of creating a Palestinian state.

But they are also fearful for Israel at a moment of turmoil in a hostile region when the moderate Palestinian Authority is joining forces with the militantly anti-Israel Hamas.

“It’s a hot time, because Israel is isolated in the world and, in particular, with the Obama administration putting pressure on Israel,” said Rabbi Neil Cooper, leader of Temple Beth Hillel-Beth El in Philadelphia’s Main Line suburbs, who recently lectured his large, politically connected congregation on avoiding turning Israel into a partisan issue.

Some of these traditional Democrats now say, to their own astonishment, that they’ll consider voting for a Republican in 2012. And many of those who continue to support Obama said they find themselves constantly on the defensive in conversations with friends.

“I’m hearing a tremendous amount of skittishness from pro-Israel voters who voted for Obama and now are questioning whether they did the right thing or not,” said Betsy Sheerr, the former head of an abortion-rights-supporting, pro-Israel PAC in Philadelphia, who said she continues to support Obama, with only mild reservations. “I’m hearing a lot of ‘Oh, if we’d only elected Hillary instead.’”

Even Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who spoke to POLITICO to combat the story line of Jewish defections, said she’d detected a level of anxiety in a recent visit to a senior center in her South Florida district.

“They wanted some clarity on the president’s view,” she said. “I answered their questions and restored some confidence that maybe was a little shaky, [rebutted] misinformation and the inaccurate reporting about what was said.”

Wasserman Schultz and other top Democrats say the storm will pass.

They point out to anyone who will listen that beyond the difficult personal relationship of Obama and Netanyahu, beyond a tense, stalled peace process, there’s a litany of good news for supporters of Israel: Military cooperation is at an all-time high; Obama has supplied Israel with a key missile defense system; the U.S. boycotted an anti-racism conference seen as anti-Israel; and America is set to spend valuable international political capital beating back a Palestinian independence declaration at the United Nations in September.

The qualms that many Jewish Democrats express about Obama date back to his emergence onto the national scene in 2007. Though he had warm relations with Chicago’s Jewish community, he had also been friends with leading Palestinian activists, unusual in the Democratic establishment. And though he seemed to be trying to take a conventionally pro-Israel stand, he was a novice at the complicated politics of the America-Israel relationship, and his sheer inexperience showed at times.

At the 2007 AIPAC Policy Conference, Obama professed his love for Israel but then seemed, - to some who were there for his informal talk - to betray a kind of naivete about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians: “The biggest enemy” he said, using the same rhetoric he applied to American politics, was “not just terrorists, it’s not just Hezbollah, it’s not just Hamas — it’s also cynicism.”

At the next year’s AIPAC conference, he again botched the conflict’s code, committing himself to an “undivided Jerusalem” and then walking it back the next day.

Those doubts and gaffes lingered, even for many of the majority who supported him.

“There’s an inclination in the community to not trust this president’s gut feel on Israel and every time he sets out on a path that’s troubling you do get this ‘ouch’ reaction from the Jewish Community because they’re distrustful of him,” said the president of a major national Jewish organization, who declined to be quoted by name to avoid endangering his ties to the White House.

Many of Obama’s supporters, then and now, said they were unworried about the political allegiance of Jewish voters. Every four years, they say, Republicans claim to be making inroads with American Jews, and every four years, voters and donors go overwhelmingly for the Democrats, voting on a range of issues that include, but aren’t limited to Israel.

But while that pattern has held, Obama certainly didn’t take anything for granted. His 2008 campaign dealt with misgivings with a quiet, intense, and effective round of communal outreach.

“When Obama was running, there was a lot of concern among the guys in my group at shul, who are all late-30s to mid-40s, who I hang out with and daven with and go to dinner with, about Obama,” recalled Scott Matasar, a Cleveland lawyer who’s active in Jewish organizations.

Matasar remembers his friends’ worries over whether Obama was “going to be OK for Israel.” But then Obama met with the community’s leaders during a swing through Cleveland in the primary, and the rabbi at the denominationally conservative synagogue Matasar attends — “a real ardent Zionist and Israel defender” — came back to synagogue convinced.

“That put a lot of my concerns to rest for my friends who are very much Israel hawks but who, like me, aren’t one-issue voters.”

Now Matasar says he’s appalled by Obama’s “rookie mistakes and bumbling” and the reported marginalization of a veteran peace negotiator, Dennis Ross, in favor of aides who back a tougher line on Netanyahu. He’s the most pro-Obama member of his social circle but is finding the president harder to defend.

“He’d been very ham-handed in the way he presented [the 1967 border announcement] and the way he sprung this on Netanyahu,” Matasar said.

A Philadelphia Democrat and pro-Israel activist, Joe Wolfson, recalled a similar progression.

“What got me past Obama in the recent election was Dennis Ross — I heard him speak in Philadelphia and I had many of my concerns allayed,” Wolfson said. “Now, I think I’m like many pro-Israel Democrats now who are looking to see whether we can vote Republican.”

That, perhaps, is the crux of the political question: The pro-Israel Jewish voters and activists who spoke to POLITICO are largely die-hard Democrats, few of whom have ever cast a vote for a Republican to be president. Does the new wave of Jewish angst matter?

One place it might is fundraising. Many of the Clinton-era Democratic mega-donors who make Israel their key issue, the most prominent of whom is the Los Angeles Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban, never really warmed to Obama, though Saban says he will vote for the Democrat and write him a check if asked.

A top-dollar Washington fundraiser aimed at Jewish donors in Miami last week raised more than $1 million from 80 people, and while one prominent Jewish activist said the DNC had to scramble to fill seats, seven-figure fundraisers are hard to sneer at.

Even people writing five-figure checks to Obama, though, appeared in need of a bit of bucking up.

“We were very reassured,” Randi Levine, who attended the event with her husband, Jeffrey, a New York real estate developer, told POLITICO.

Philadelphia Jewish Democrats are among the hosts of another top-dollar event June 30. David Cohen, a Comcast executive and former top aide to former Gov. Ed Rendell, said questions about Obama’s position on Israel have been a regular, if not dominant, feature of his attempts to recruit donors.

“I takes me about five minutes of talking through the president’s position and the president’s speech, and the uniform reaction has been, ‘I guess you’re right, that’s not how I saw it covered,’” he said.

Others involved in the Philadelphia event, however, said they think Jewish doubts are taking a fundraising toll.

“We’re going to raise a ton of money, but I don’t know if we’re going to hit our goals,” said Daniel Berger, a lawyer who is firmly in the “peace camp” and said he blamed the controversy on Netanyahu’s intransigence.

© 2011 POLITICO LLC

'Warning to Assad: Attack us, we'll hit you personally'

Israel reportedly sent message through Ankara following intelligence reports of unusual troop, missile movement, Kuwaiti paper reports.

Talkbacks (1) Israel sent a message to Syrian President Bashar Assad in recent days, warning him that if he started a war with the Jewish state in order to divert attention from domestic problems, Israel will target him personally, Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida reported on Tuesday.

According to the report, the personal warning was sent through Turkey following intelligence reports of unusual Syrian troop movements, including the moving of long-range ballistic missiles that could be used to target Israel.



The report added that the IDF has increased its preparedness on the northern border out of fear that Hezbollah may attempt to stage another kidnapping of soldiers or civilians along the Lebanese border.

Last month, following deadly attempts to breach Syria's border with Israel, US-based Syria experts accused the Assad regime of being behind the Naksa Day protests on the Israeli border in order to distract from the prolonged uprising challenging Syria's rulers.

“It’s almost a cliché – this is what he always does. He’s under pressure at home, so he deflects attention,” Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said. During the 2006 Second Lebanon War, “it was by rallying the people around resistance to Israel, and this time it’s with the Palestinian cause. This is not going to work.

Government sources on various continents also accused Assad of at least enabling, if not spurring the deadly protests that turned into the most volatile clashes on the Golan border since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Thomas Sowell Thomas Sowell Is Democracy Viable?

The media have recently been so preoccupied with a Congressman's photograph of himself in his underwear that there has been scant attention paid to the fact that Iran continues advancing toward creating a nuclear bomb, and nobody is doing anything that is likely to stop them.

Nuclear weapons in the hands of the world's leading sponsor of international terrorism might seem to be something that would sober up even the most giddy members of the chattering class. But that chilling prospect cannot seem to compete for attention with cheap behavior by an immature Congressman, infatuated with himself.

A society that cannot or will not focus on matters of life and death is a society whose survival as a free nation is at least questionable. Hard as it may be to conceive how the kind of world that one has been used to, and taken for granted, can come to an end, it can happen in the lifetime of today's generation.

Those who founded the United States of America were keenly aware that they were making a radical departure in the kinds of governments under which human beings had lived over the centuries -- and that its success was by no means guaranteed. Monarchies in Europe had lasted for centuries and the Chinese dynasties for thousands of years. But a democratic republic was something else.

While the convention that was writing the Constitution of the United States was still in session, a lady asked Benjamin Franklin what the delegation was creating. "A republic, madam," he said, "if you can keep it."

In the middle of the next century, Abraham Lincoln still posed it as a question whether "government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth." Years earlier, Lincoln had warned of the dangers to a free society from its own designing power-seekers -- and how only the vigilance, wisdom and dedication of the public could preserve their freedom.

But, today, few people seem to see such dangers, either internally or internationally.

A recent poll showed that nearly half the American public believes that the government should redistribute wealth. That so many people are so willing to blithely put such an enormous and dangerous arbitrary power in the hands of politicians -- risking their own freedom, in hopes of getting what someone else has -- is a painful sign of how far many citizens and voters fall short of what is needed to preserve a democratic republic.

The ease with which people with wealth can ship it overseas electronically, or put it in tax shelters at home, means that raising the tax rate on wealthy people is not going to bring in the kind of tax revenue that would enable wealth redistribution to provide the bonanza that some people are expecting.

In other words, people who are willing to give government more arbitrary power can give up their birthright of freedom without even getting the mess of pottage. Worse yet, they can give up their children's and their grandchildren's birthright of freedom.

Free and democratic societies have existed for a relatively short time, as history is measured -- and their staying power has always been open to question. So much depends on the wisdom of the voters that the franchise was always limited, in one way or another, so that voting would be confined to those with a stake in the viability and progress of the country, and the knowledge to cast their vote intelligently.

In our own times, however, voting has been seen as just one of the many "rights" to which everyone is supposed to be entitled. The emphasis has been on the voter, rather than on the momentous consequences of elections for the nation today and for generations yet unborn.

To those who see voting as more or less just a matter of self-expression, almost a recreational activity, there is no need to inform themselves on both sides of the issues before voting, much less sit down and think beyond the rhetoric to the realities that the rhetoric conceals.

Careless voters may be easily swayed by charisma and rhetoric, oblivious to the monumental disasters created around the world by 20th century leaders with charisma and rhetoric, such as Hitler.

Voters like this represent a danger of terminal frivolity for freedom and democracy.

Tearful Glenn Beck Describes How He And His Family Were Attacked In New York Park

“These people were some of the most hateful people I have ever seen,” said a distraught Glenn Beck this morning as he described an altercation he and his family had last night while watching a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps in New York’s Bryant Park. Explaining that a group of people yelled at his family, took pictures of them, and kicked a cup of wine onto his wife, Beck said that his security team feels that, had he reacted poorly, things might have “gone off.”

“I swear to you I think, if I had suggested, and I almost did, “Wow, does anybody have a rope? Because there’s tree here. You could just lynch me.’ And I think there would have been a couple in the crowd that would have.”

Beck took particular exception with Gawker (he didn’t name the website although he clearly described this post) for posting pictures of his family.

The Invisible Palestinians CarolineGlick.com

Sunday was the first day of Sgt. Gilad Schalit's sixth year in captivity. Schalit was kidnapped on June 26, 2006 and has been held hostage by Palestinian terrorists affiliated with Hamas in Gaza ever since.

For five years, Schalit has been held incognito. His terrorist captors have permitted him to send but one letter to his family and released but one video of Schalit over this entire period. He has been denied visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross. He was clearly emaciated in the video.

Over the past five years, Hamas has engaged in periodic indirect negotiations with Israel through a German mediator and others. While their demands have varied from time to time, essentially they want Israel to release around 1,500 terrorists from its prisons in exchange for Schalit. And they want the terrorists to be released to their homes in Judea and Samaria and Gaza where they can pick up killing Jews where they left off.

And it isn't only Hamas demanding these things. In an interview with IMRA news agency on May 25, Fatah negotiator Nabil Shaath said that the Fatah supports Hamas's demands. Shaath explained that once the Fatah-Hamas unity government is formed Schalit will become the responsibility of the unified Palestinian Authority.

The Palestinian Authority will continue to hold Schalit hostage and demand that Israel release thousands of terrorists as ransom for his release. As he put it, "We have 7,000 political prisoners in Israel by design - taken by the Israeli authority. They have to be also freed."

So the Palestinian leadership from Fatah and Hamas alike are unified in their view that it is perfectly acceptable to hold Schalit captive. As far as they are concerned, it is acceptable to stand in breach of international law and basic standards of humanity in order to extort Israel to free mass murderers from prison. And it is acceptable to the Palestinians for these murderers to return to their work killing as many Jews as they can get their hands on.

It is hard to think of a more despicable comment on the state of Palestinian society than their wall to wall support for the taking and holding of hostages or their desire to see mass murderers released from jail. A person could be forgiven for thinking that on the fifth anniversary of Schalit's abduction that the media would be full of articles describing in detail the evil that is Hamas and Fatah which celebrate Schalit's victimization and the suffering of his family.

But that person would be wrong. The media coverage of the fifth anniversary of Schalit's kidnap devoted no attention to his Palestinian captors. In fact, if a person were simply going by what he learned from the Israeli media over the past several days, he would likely believe that either Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is hiding Schalit in his cellar, or that Netanyahu is colluding with Hamas to keep Schalit captive in Gaza.

Aping the increasingly grotesque genre of reality television shows, local celebrities and washed-out headline-starved failed former security brass got together with Yediot Aharonot and put on a reality TV stunt for the public to mark the anniversary.

One after another these supposedly concerned citizens walked into a knock-off solitary confinement cell furnished with a dirty toilet and television cameras. The beautiful ones sighed, cried, kicked, and whined for an hour apiece. Their performances were broadcast live on Yediot's Ynet news portal.

Channel 2 rebroadcast the highlights on the evening news.

The purported goal of the campaign was to "raise public awareness," about Schalit's plight. As if the Israeli public isn't aware of his plight. For the overwhelming majority of Israelis, the mention of Schalit's name evokes profound concern and sorrow.

BUT THEN, Yediot knows that. And raising public awareness was not the goal of their televised pimping of Schalit's suffering with the help of shameless celebrities and far-left retired generals. Their goal was to turn the public against Binyamin Netanyahu - Schalit's imaginary jailer.

This message was delivered not only by the likes of radical failed Shin Beit chiefs Ami Ayalon and Carmi Gillon. It was delivered by Gilad Schalit's father Noam Schalit at his press conference on Sunday.

Noam Schalit declared, "Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, you do not have the right to sentence Gilad to death. The weakness and the stubbornness you are showing in this crisis is an immediate danger for Gilad's life and health. More than that, it is a danger for the values of the State of Israel, on which generations of Israelis were raised."

There is no doubt that Noam Schalit is acting as he is because he wants to get his son home alive. But there is also no doubt that by pressuring Netanyahu and the government and accusing them of being responsible for his son's captivity, Noam Schalit is only making things worse.

Hamas wants to destroy Israel. Its terrorists in prison want to destroy Israel.

Hamas's leaders view Schalit's illegal incarceration and the anguish it causes in Israel as a source of pride for the movement and Palestinian society as a whole. It views the release of terrorists as a means of strengthening the jihadist movement politically and militarily.

Every time Noam Schalit blames the government for his son's plight and demands that our leaders free terrorists to bring him home, he strengthens Hamas's negotiating position.

On Sunday, Netanyahu admitted that the pressure worked. Netanyahu did in fact agree to what had been Hamas's demands for the release of more than a thousand terrorists for Schalit and Hamas didn't even bother responding to the offer.

On Monday, Hamas said that Netanyahu's offer was too low.

With Noam Schalit and the media in its court, Hamas knows there is no reason to rush into anything. So its leaders raised the price still further.

SINCE SCHALIT was first kidnapped, his family has repeatedly invoked the plight of IAF navigator Col. Ron Arad who was taken hostage by Shi'ite terrorists when his plane crashed in Lebanon in 1986. Arad has been held hostage for the past quarter century.

The Schalits say their pressure campaign against the government is fuelled by their desire to prevent their son from sharing Arad's fate.

These statements show that the Schalits fundamentally misunderstand what happened to Arad and what is happening to Gilad. It wasn't for lack of will that Israel has failed to bring Arad home. Arad disappeared because Israel never had good intelligence information about his whereabouts.

If it had, Arad would have been rescued, dead or alive. According to recently retired IDF chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the same has been the case with Schalit.

In their refusal to recognize that they are hurting their son by directing their anger at the government rather than the Palestinians and their international supporters, the Schalits are unconscionably egged on by the media. As Yediot marked the fifth anniversary of Gilad's internment with their celebrity solitary confinement stunt, Maariv marked the fifth anniversary by interviewing 25 celebrities about their activism on behalf of Schalit.

All these celebrity attacks on Netanyahu are consistent with the past five years of media coverage of Schalit's confinement. It is also consistent with their past coverage of the captivity of every other IDF hostage taken by Arab terrorists in recent years.

THE SCHALIT family's counterproductive behavior is the result of a combination of desperation, ignorance and manipulation by PR agencies. But what explains the media's behavior? Why are they helping Hamas? Some media critics attribute their behavior to journalistic laziness and a desire to create sensational stories that will sell newspapers. No doubt there is some of that at work.

But lazy reporters and editors in search of screaming headlines have other options.

They could pit Noam Schalit against the father of one of the victims of the murderers whose release the Schalits and their supporters are demanding. That would make colorful page 1 copy.

The media could have a reporter spend an hour researching the Israeli and international self-described human rights community's silence on Schalit's plight and the shameless absence of any concerted demand by the self-proclaimed human rights community for his immediate release. Over the weekend, Israeli and international "human rights" groups B'Tselem, Amnesty International, Israel; Bimkom; Gisha; Human Rights Watch; International Federation for Human Rights; Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Gaza; Physicians for Human Rights, Israel; Public Committee Against Torture in Israel; and Yesh Din all got together to release a statement about Schalit. They failed to call for his immediate release.

Certainly a banner headline reporting this outrage would have sold papers.

All of these stories and journalistic stunts are low-cost and would sell newspapers.

And at a minimum, none of them would harm Schalit's chances of getting released.

Yet the media have opted to sell the tale of the government's culpability for his suffering due to its failure to bow to Hamas's ever-escalating demands.

The media's behavior is puzzling not merely because they have options besides supporting Hamas. It is puzzling because their obsessive coverage of Schalit arguably hurts their tireless efforts to sell the public on the notion that it is a terrific idea to give Judea and Samaria and parts of Jerusalem to Schalit's captors. By reminding the public of Schalit, the media are also reminding the public that the Palestinians are not interested in peace and that they use the land Israel gives them to attack us. That is, their Schalit campaign undermines their appeasement campaign.

Finally, their demand that Netanyahu "release" Schalit is alienating their readers.

In the face of their intense campaign, "for Gilad" according to a poll published last month by Maariv, only 41 percent of the public agrees with their surrender at all cost strategy and 51 percent opposes it.

So by any rational measure, the media are acting against their own interests by pushing the pro-Hamas line. The only explanation that remains is irrational. But it is also consistent with the media's serial irrationality on everything concerning Israel's relationship with the Arab world generally and the Palestinians in particular.

The explanation is that like the rest of the Left - in Israel and worldwide - the media hold Israel responsible for Hamas's imprisonment of Schalit because they perceive the Arabs generally and the Palestinians specifically as objects rather than actors. The only actors they see are Israel and the US.

Just as the international Left sends ships to aid and comfort Palestinian terrorists in Gaza to fight the so-called "occupation" which ended six years ago, so the Israeli media says the government is holding Gilad Schalit hostage. In both cases, the Palestinians are invisible, and inert.

To its credit, after five years of inaction, last Thursday, the Red Cross finally asked Hamas to prove Schalit is still alive. Gazans reacted to the move by attacking the Red Cross office in Gaza.

This major story received little mention in the media. And that makes sense. How can they cover a story about a group of people they can't be bothered to notice?

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Mrs. Obama’s South Africa Trip Cost Taxpayers Over $500,000

First Lady Michelle Obama’s trip to South Africa and Botswana last week cost taxpayers well over half a million dollars, possibly in the range of $700,000 or $800,000, according to an analysis by White House Dossier.

Many of the trip’s expenses cannot be obtained with specificity, including the cost of local transportation for the first lady, Secret Service protection, the care and feeding of staffers, and pre-trip advance work done by administration officials in South Africa.

But it is possible to estimate some of these costs and put a price tag on one of the major expenses – her transportation to and from southern Africa and her trips between cities there.

While the goals of her journey – “youth leadership, education, health and wellness” in southern Africa, according to the White House – are laudable, many may question whether such an expensive outreach overseas by the president’s wife is worthwhile given the threat of the ballooning federal debt to the economy.

This is particularly true given that the trip, while featuring many official events, also included tourist components such as visits to historical landmarks and museums, a nonworking chance to meet Nelson Mandela that Mrs. Obama described as “surreal,” and a safari. Mrs. Obama also brought along her mother, her daughters and two of their cousins – the children of her brother Craig Robinson.

In a conversation last week with a South African online newspaper, U.S. Embassy Spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau made clear that the trip was partially a personal pilgrimage for the first lady.

“She’s coming on this trip to talk about women’s development and youth development, and South Africa is a leader in that, not only on the continent but globally,” said Trudeau. “A visit to South Africa is important for them as a family. She’ll be visiting many Struggle-era landmarks, including the Apartheid Museum (and) the Hector Pieterson Memorial.”

Based on the plane’s tail number and a description of it in a press pool report, it’s clear Mrs. Obama flew over and back on a C-32, a specially configured military version of the Boeing 757 that also ferries the vice president on occasion and is sometimes known as “Air Force Two.”

According to publicly available Defense Department figures, DOD charges other federal agencies $12,723 an hour to cover expenses for the use of a C-32. Based on the distance traveled and the flight speed of the plane, this adds up to about $430,000 for use of the aircraft alone.

Perhaps the best estimate of the other costs involved in such a trip comes not from official sources but from a reporter, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post. In a 2002 article, he wrote that his reporting had found that a single presidential fundraising trip within the United States by then-President George W. Bush could cost close to $100,000 for items like staff, Secret Service and advance work.

While the first lady would certainly have a smaller retinue than a president, it seems very safe to say that a weeklong trip by Mrs. Obama to a high-crime country like South Africa would involve at least the expense of a single domestic trip by a president ten years ago, and probably much more.

In addition, a military cargo plane typically accompanies a first lady on overseas trips to bring cars and other gear. It is not clear if a cargo plane also went along on this trip, but if it did – as is likely – it could easily have added another $200,000 to the cost, based on Defense Department rates for cargo planes.

Mrs. Obama’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Pro-Palestinian flotilla activists armed with poison chemicals for Israeli troops

Contrary to the purportedly peaceful nature of the flotilla setting out this week to break Israel's Gaza blockade, Israeli intelligence sources reported Monday, June 27, that some of the activists aboard the boats are extremists who are perfectly willing to forcibly resist efforts to intercept them and are ready to kill Israeli servicemen coming on board.
Senior officials in Jerusalem who briefed reporters Monday night reported information received that the organizers of the flotilla had laid in a store of poisoned chemicals aboard the ten or so vessels in the flotilla for use against Israeli troops boarding them. They are quoted as saying they had no problem with spilling the blood of Israeli soldiers.
Another falsehood exposed is the Turkish IHH's statement that its members had withdrawn from the expedition. This turns out to be a deliberate red herring. Not only are IHH Islamic fundamentalists aboard but also likeminded Arab and other nationals. In fact, Israeli intelligence had identified at least two Hamas supporters - Amin Abu Rashd, one of the Dutch organizers of the flotilla and former head of a Hamas "charity" foundation in Holland which the Dutch security authorities shut down after discovering it was funding terrorist operations. The other one is Mohammed Ahmad Hanoun, head of another fund for terrorists called ABSPP.
Earlier Monday, the Israeli defense cabinet approved the navy's plan for preventing the flotilla from reaching Gazan shores by "firm and determined action."

Iran poised to hit back for US-Turkish attack on Syria. Iron Dome battery moved to Haifa

Iran's large-scale Great Prophet Mohammad War Games 6 was launched Monday, June 27, ahead of a Turkish operation against Syria's Assad regime which is anticipated by its military and Revolutionary Guards chiefs. debkafile reports Tehran expects the Turkish army to have US air and naval support in case of Iranian reprisals against them both.
Israel has responded to Iran's military exercise and the spiraling regional tension by positioning one of its new Iron Dome rocket interceptor batteries in the northern city of Haifa.

Last week, Iranian warships and submarines deployed in the Red Sea tracked the movements of two big US aircraft carriers, the USS Enterprise and USS George H. W Bush, which crossed each other in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on June 21 heading in opposite directions through this strategic chokepoint between the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean.
The USS Enterprise, the world's largest aircraft carrier, was on its way from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean via the Red Sea and Suez Canal, while the USS George H.W. Bush, the US Navy's newest carrier with the greatest fire power of any of its warships, left the Mediterranean and headed in the opposite direction for the Persian Gulf with a crew of 9,000 and 70 fighter bombers.
On the same day, Iranian naval surveillance picked up the arrival of the Los Angeles-class USS Bremerton nuclear-powered attack submarineoff Bahrain opposite Iran.

Strategists in Tehran see danger in these crisscross movements by US war fleets. According to our military sources, the Enterprise, which is older, slower and has less fire power than the Bush, was moved to the Mediterranean because there it is supported by American air bases scattered across western and central Europe, whereas the Bush was consigned to waters opposite Iranian shores because it is virtually a single-vessel fighting machine capable of operating without support.
The Iranian exercise has two primary objectives:

1. To spread Iran's ballistic missiles to their maximum operational extent in support of Iran's signals to Washington and Ankara in the past two weeks warning that an attack on Syria by a US-backed Turkish or NATO force would spark Iranian missile reprisals against Turkish and US military targets on Turkish soil and other parts of the Middle East.

2. Iran has fanned its fighting forces out across the country, with the densest concentrations on its Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea coasts, ready to repel any American attack that might follow an Iranian missile assault on US, Turkish or allied targets.

The ground-air-naval exercise is scheduled to last 10 days – unusually long for a military drill – so that Iran stands ready for a decision in Washington and/or Ankara to attack Syria.
The announcement of the exercise by Revolutionary Guards Aerospace Force commander Gen. Amir-Ali Hajizadeh Sunday, June 26, made Tehran's intentions clear: He said the exercise was being staged in response to the "growing US military presence in the region" and noted that the missiles practiced would include the Saijil and the Fateh 110.
He did not need to spell out the facts that the Saijil-2 has a range of 2,000 kilometers and can reach any point in the Middle East and further - up to the Black Sea region, for instance, where US air and naval units are posted; or that the improved Fateh 110 has been supplied to Syria and Hizballah for use against Israel.
Iran would expect to be joined by both in any military flare-up.

BachmannSays Nation 'Cannot Afford' Second Obama Term

Rep. Michele Bachmann, stressing her Iowa roots and appealing directly to Tea Party voters, came out swinging Monday as she formally launched her campaign for president.

Buoyed by a strong showing in several recent polls, the Minnesota congresswoman cast her campaign as the voice for "constitutional conservatives" looking for a government that lives within its means while giving the private sector the room to grow. She launched a broadside against President Obama for racking up too much debt while stimulating too little job growth and vowed to make him a "one-term president."

"We cannot afford four more years of Barack Obama," she declared, later adding: "We can win in 2012 and we will win."

In her announcement, Bachmann described a special bond with Iowa, the nation's leadoff caucus state. She held the kickoff in her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa, and called herself a "descendent of generations of Iowans," saying the state is where she learned "everything I needed to know." She also appealed to another vital primary constituency, calling herself part of the Tea Party movement and defending it as a cross-section of Republicans, independents and disaffected Democrats.

Trying to show she has what it takes to not just win primaries but take on the president, Bachmann pulled no punches in attacking the Obama administration as she wove in details about her personal life and convictions. As she spoke about faith and family, she also accused the president of failing to revive the economy and putting far too much on the nation's credit card.

"We can't continue to rack up debt. ... We can't afford the unconstitutional health care law that will cost us too much and deliver too little. We can't afford four more years of failed leadership here at home and abroad," she said. "We can't afford four more years of millions of Americans who are out of work. ... And we can't afford four more years of a foreign policy with a president who leads from behind and who doesn't stand up for our friends like Israel."

Still, Bachmann said in an interview with The Associated Press that her bid to unseat Obama is not "personal."

The nothing-personal message was a departure from her 2008 comments questioning whether Obama had "anti-American" views. She has said she wishes she framed her criticism differently. In her announcement, Bachmann said the country's problems have been caused by the policies of both parties and made an appeal for unity.

Bachmann, who filed her papers to run for president two weeks ago, plans to head next to the early primary states of New Hampshire and South Carolina.

The Iowa Democratic Party quickly put out a statement Monday morning assailing Bachmann's presidential bid, chastising her for supporting Republicans' budget plan which would overhaul Medicare.

"With candidates like Michele Bachmann, the choice couldn't be clearer -- do Iowans want to double down on the flawed economic policies that cost us millions of jobs and almost sent us into a second Great Depression or do they want to continue down the path to recovery that has taken us from massive job losses to 15 straight months of private sector job growth and a focus on strengthening the middle class?" party Chairwoman Sue Dvorsky said.

But the congresswoman has been surging in recent polls. A key Iowa poll over the weekend showed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with 23 percent support and Bachmann with 22 percent among those who said they were likely to vote in the nation's first Republican nomination contest. The top five included Georgia businessman Herman Cain, at 10 percent, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, with 7 percent each.

Speaking Sunday to hundreds at a local ballroom, Bachmann effusively mentioned her Iowa roots.

"We need more Waterloo. We need more Iowa. We need more closeness, more families, more love for each other," she told her enthusiastic crowd.

The audience soaked it up.

"She's one of `us.' There are too many of `them' in Washington and not enough of `us,"' said insurance salesman David Alderman. "I think she's got star power. She's a frontrunner right now."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/06/27/bachmann-2012-bid-not-personal-against-obama/#ixzz1QUdat2uZ

Bachmann won't take Fox host's apology

Via POLITICO's Jennifer Epstein, Michele Bachmann isn't accepting an apology from Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace for asking her yesterday, "Are you a flake?"

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ABC News' Jon Karl, who's been getting face-time with Bachmann in Waterloo in advance of her formal campaign announcement, played a clip of the web video in which Wallace said, "I messed up. I'm sorry."

When Karl asked if she accepts the apology, Bachmann brushed aside the question this way: "I think that it's insulting to insinuate that a candidate for president is less than serious."

Trying the question again, Bachmann replied, "Those are the small issues. I'm focused on the big ones."

The episode is an unusual moment of conflict between a Republican candidate for 2012 and Fox, and is a stark contrast to the relationship Sarah Palin, with whom Bachmann is often compared to, has with the network.

The full video that was posted Sunday of the Wallace apology had him saying, "A lot of you were more than perturbed, you were upset and felt that I had been rude to her. And since in the end it's really all about the answers and not about the questions. I messed up. I'm sorry. I didn?t mean any disrespect."

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/57826.html#ixzz1QTl0Pw1x

Some claim reports of racist Peoria mob are exaggerated

PEORIA —

Allegations of racist threats and mob-style intimidation in a West Bluff neighborhood Friday captured national attention over the weekend, but some say the claims were exaggerated.

A group of 50 or so young people was walking down Thrush Avenue toward Sheridan Road about 10:50 p.m. Friday, concerning some residents.

Paul Wilkinson, who has lived on Sheridan for 11 years, says the group was blocking four lanes of traffic, fighting and yelling racist comments at neighbors.

"They were yelling 'We're gonna kill all the white people. This is our neighborhood,'" Wilkinson, 45, said.

He emailed his account of the incident to several City Council members and one local blogger. The report at The Peoria Chronicle website was quickly picked up by dozens of other sites, including the widely read online news site The Drudge Report with the headline "Pandemonium in Peoria: Mob yells 'Kill all white people.'"

Some residents, unaware of the media attention, confirmed Sunday there was a crowd in the street Friday, but said that race was not involved. A police report on the incident does not even mention the word race.

Police responded to Thrush on Friday night on a report of fireworks and fighting but found neither of those activities occurring, a police report stated. The group dispersed in multiple directions when an officer arrived. No one was arrested.

Khalid Davis, who lives on Thrush, said the group blocked a few cars but was very orderly. He witnessed no fights and called the racist allegations a "heck of an exaggeration."

"If I heard them screaming any such thing, I would have called police immediately," said Davis, 62.

Wilkinson, the president of the Altamont Park Neighborhood Association, said Sunday the neighborhood has seen its share of problems with drugs and guns in his 11 years there, but the problems have visibly increased as of late. He said police recommended residents stay inside and keep their doors locked.

The effects of the allegations were evident in the neighborhood Sunday. A police nuisance abatement truck called the Armadillo, outfitted with cameras, was parked on the side of Thrush.

Peoria City Councilwoman Barbara Van Auken said Sunday she is outraged by Wilkinson's allegations.

Van Auken, who has known Wilkinson for six years, said he's had a history of "wildly exaggerating" reports, many of them involving race. And police are well aware of it.

"We have some very gullible new council members who were dumb enough to believe him," she said, declining to name names.

Wilkinson said he met with Councilwoman Beth Akeson following his email and spoke to Councilman Chuck Weaver over the weekend. Weaver told the Journal Star he planned to meet with the mayor about the incident.

Van Auken said there are few, if any, racial tensions in the neighborhood where the incident occurred.

"It's a national embarrassment now," she said.

Mayor Jim Ardis was unaware Sunday evening of the national attention the issue had caused. He called it "concerning" but said he did not think Peoria was unique when it came to such incidents.

Ardis said he wasn't sure to what extent the reports were accurate.

"Not knowing all the details, it's surprising that it's caught national attention," he said.

In the meantime, police have increased patrols in the area, and Ardis, who is out of town, expects more reports on the incident to be available when he returns Wednesday.

Kenny Rogers, who has lived on Sheridan for 10 years, called police Friday after he saw the group "hollering" and stopping traffic on the street. He did not hear anyone yell that they wanted to kill white people.

Rogers says the crowd was running wildly around yards and porches. It was the largest Rogers, 38, had ever seen in the neighborhood.

"They were doing a show of force," he said, "to show everybody, 'Hey, this is their hood.'"

Michael Boren can be reached at 686-3194 or mboren@pjstar.com.

Israeli scientists develop 'virtual cane'

Hebrew University unveils innovation which could significantly improve orientation, mobility of sight-impaired people

Shai Zamir

Published: 06.27.11, 13:29 / Israel News

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Yissum Research Development Company Ltd, the technology transfer company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem presented a major new innovation – a virtual cane that will significantly improve the orientation and mobility of sight-impaired people.

The new device can assist blind people in estimating the distance and height of various obstacles. The invention was patented by Yissum, which is now seeking strategic partners for further development.

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Dr. Amir Amedi from the Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada (IMRIC) and at Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences (ELSC) at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his team recently developed the device to help in spatial navigation for the blind.

Unlike a white stick that can give the blind input from only a meter away, the device can function at a much shorter distance and up to some 10 meters in all directions. Dr. Amedi said the device can also distinguish between smiling and sad faces and can be used for research on how the brain flexibly changes upon receiving input and on brain reorganization in the blind.
Amedi added that the blind user functions like a dolphin or bat, with sonar-type signals reacting to surroundings.

The invention, which was unveiled at the Presidential Conference last week, functions as a virtual flashlight and can replace or augment the classic white cane. The virtual cane emits a focused beam towards surrounding objects, and transmits the information to the user via a gentle vibration, similar to a cell phone vibration.

A Yissum press release noted that the cane incorporates several sensors that estimate the distance between the user and the object it is pointed at. This allows the blind person to assess the height and distance of various objects, reconstruct an accurate image of the surroundings and navigate safely.

The virtual cane is extremely small, easy to carry, accurate, can function for up to 12 hours and is easy to charge. Using the device is highly intuitive and can be learnt within a few minutes.

Yaacov Michlin, CEO of Yissum said, "Dr. Amedi's promising invention can endow visually impaired people with the freedom to freely navigate in their surroundings without unintentionally bumping into or touching other people and thus has the potential to significantly enhance their quality of life." Yissum is a Research Development Company of the Hebrew University and was founded in 1964 to protect and commercialize the Hebrew University’s intellectual property.

Obama puts Israel-Palestinian issue on hold for his second term

Barack Obama has decided to shelve any serious effort to generate Israel-Palestinian negotiations for at least two years, debkafile's exclusive sources report from Washington. "It's a second term issue," he is quoted as telling his advisers. Only in November 2012 will he know if he is returned for another term as president and then too is unlikely to get back to the Israeli-Palestinian issue for several more months – "depending largely how the Arab Revolt" goes, according to a senior administration official.
Conscious of this delay, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas convened the PLO Executive Committee in Ramallah Sunday, June 26, with a request to endorse his application to the UN General Assembly in September for recognition of a Palestinian state. After the endorsement was in his pocket, he announced he would turn to the UN only if talks with Israel were not revived before September.

Abbas is fully aware of the Obama administration's objections to his unilateral application to the UN and its commitment to veto any UN Security Council motion approving Palestinian membership of the world body. The Palestinians also know they risk losing their $600 million aid package from America if their UN initiative goes forward.
In line with the extended timetable, the White House sent two senior officials, Special Adviser Dennis Ross and Special Middle East Envoy David Hale to Jerusalem and Ramallah earlier this month to set up a ceremonial launch of Israel-Palestinian negotiations on a date before September and keep them going at a very low key thereafter. This was decided after both Abbas and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu quietly agreed to get back to the negotiating table.

Netanyahu is keeping this development under his hat, not sharing the information even with his closest advisers. In fact, our sources report, the prime minister has taken over in person all of Israel's contacts with the White House in Washington, sidelining even his most trusted aide Yitzhak Molcho, who was spoken for Netanyahu in these contacts until now. The senior members of his bureau are being kept at arm's length from the prime minister's high-wire diplomatic moves, including his newly appointed National Security Adviser Brig. (Res.) Yaacov Ami-Dror. Exchanges with Washington and the Palestinians are now handled exclusively by Netanyahu and in secrecy.
Our sources also disclose that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has been co-opted to this discreet venture as a senior player.
The role Obama has awarded him, officials in Washington, Jerusalem and Ankara report to debkafile's sources, is to stand in for him in the next couple of years and keep the ball rolling between Netanyahu and Abbas until a serious peacekeeping bid is restarted. To carry out this function, the Turkish prime minister has initiated steps for mending relations with Israel and putting an end to the rancor caused by the deaths of nine pro-Palestinian Turkish activists whose vessel Israeli commandos raided on its way to break the Gaza blockade.
Turkey's withdrawal from a repeat of that expedition scheduled for this month was one of those steps.
All three parties are trying to put the close military, strategic and intelligence bonds Israel and Turkey enjoyed for decades back on the old footing.

Greece Deputy PM Warns Of Tanks In The Streets, Mass Suicides, If Second Bailout Voted Down By Greek Parliament

With just days left until the crucial vote on passing the Greek mid-term austerity package, the assured destruction rhetoric used by the Greek status quo has hit fever pitch. Just to make sure the message is not lost on the broader population that Europe's banks will not admit defeat in a vote that could end the kleptocratic cartel's hegemony for ever, Greece's Deputy Prime Minister Theodoros Pangalos has blasted suggestions that it would be better for his country to abandon the euro and return to the drachma as an "immense stupidity". He didn't stop there. For dramatic impact, the Greek vice PM also said that the country would devolve into complete anarchy, with tanks roaming the streets, a population on the verge of civil war, with mass suicides, just for dramatic impact, should bankers not get their way. More or less in line with the Hank Paulson script that is regurgitated every few years when the Ponzi system is on the verge of imploding yet again.

From AFP:

"Those who say this are extremely stupid. While they may be analysts, university professors or economists, saying that is an immense stupidity," Pangalos told daily Spanish newspaper El Mundo in an interview published Sunday.

Debt-wracked Greece has been told by European peers that it cannot hope to continue receiving aid from a 110-billion-euro rescue package agreed with the EU and the IMF last year without biting budget reforms and privatisations.

The Greek parliament will vote on an austerity package this week but some economists have argued that Athens needs to restructure its debt and leave the euro to become economically competitive again.

"Returning to the drachma would mean that on the following day banks would be surrounded by terrified people trying to withdraw their money, the army would have to protect them with tanks because there would not be enough police," said Pangalos.

"There would be riots everywhere, shops would be empty, some people would throw themselves out the window ... And it would also be a disaster for the entire European economy."

And since we continue to live in bizarro world, the inverse truth is that this is likely a far more accurate description of reality should the mid-term package be voted through in just a few day, although with the country on a general 2 day strike beginning Tuesday, everyone will be able to celebrate with the bankers right in front of the Athens parliament once again.