Left-Wing Teachers Plan to ‘Occupy’ Justice Department to Defend Cop-Killer

by Education Action Group

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The memo has gone out, the date has been saved.

This coming Tuesday, radicals of all stripes will descend upon the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington D.C. to rally in support of convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Organizers are hoping to speak with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder about why Mumia should be set free. They’re also planning acts of civil disobedience to draw media attention to their cause.

Officially known as "Occupy the Justice Department," the event is endorsed by the usual group of malcontents, including "Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal" – a collection of left-wing teachers from across the country.

Among Mumia’s many well-wishers in the K-12 community is Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association President Bob Peterson, the entire Chicago Teachers Union, and the Rethinking Schools crew who produce anti-American lesson plans and teaching materials that are used in countless classrooms.

To understand why responsible Americans should find it troubling that Mumia has become a folk hero to much of the teaching community, a little background is in order.

Mumia was a founding member of the Philadelphia Black Panther Party, and was working as a cab driver in that city in 1981.

On the night of Dec. 9, his brother, William Cook, was pulled over by police for driving the wrong way on a one-way street without headlights. Mumia apparently came across the scene in his cab and claimed the officer was beating Cook with a flashlight.

Mumia injected himself into the struggle, which resulted in both the police officer and Mumia getting shot. The officer, Daniel Faulkner, died, and Abu-Jamal was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.

Three eyewitnesses testified that they saw Mumia shoot the officer. Another witness testified that he angrily confessed to the shooting in the hospital.

A gun registered to Mumia with five spent rounds was found at the scene, and bullet fragments in the cop's body were consistent with the type used in that weapon. Neither Mumia nor his brother chose to testify at the trial.

Abu-Jamal a left-wing cause célèbre

After years of left-wing activism on his behalf, Mumia's fortunes took an upswing five months ago when Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams dropped the death penalty against him.

Emboldened by their success, leftists have moved on to the next phase of their plan, as the organizers’ memo reveals: "Short term goal: release Mumia. Long term goal: end mass incarceration."

The memo then devolves into a greatest hits compilation of left-wing causes.

"Twenty-first century social movements around the world are illuminating the root causes of social crises, class inequality, bigotry, human rights violations, and environmental degradation," organizers write.

How predictable: The "Free Mumia" movement is just part of the left's larger efforts to delegitimatize America's free market economy. Mumia’s guilt or innocence is unimportant to these radicals. They’re only interested in his case because it serves as a useful cudgel that they can use to attack American capitalism. The leftists have determined that Mumia's race and religious beliefs (Islam) are useful in agitating a whole bunch of people and bringing them into their anti-American fold. Should Mumia ever be set free, they’ll just move on to the next cause on their list.

We mention all this to remind readers about the type of questionable people who are teaching our children, writing the textbooks, shaping the curriculum, and leading the teacher unions.

As the memo reads, "On that day (April 24), we will say that we are all Mumia."

They might as well say, "We are all murderers of police officers." How charming.

By the way, the reason the "occupiers" chose April 24 is that it’s Mumia’s 58th birthday. Or as respectable people prefer to call it: "Tuesday."

SOURCE: Breitbart.Com

Labor union sues Indiana, calls working alongside nonunion employees ‘slavery’

Published: 1:00 AM 04/22/2012
By David Martosko - The Daily Caller

In a lawsuit against three Indiana government officials, a labor union alleged on Wednesday that its constitutional rights under the Thirteenth Amendment — which outlawed “slavery” and “involuntary servitude” — are violated whenever its members are forced to work alongside nonunion employees.

The International Union of Operating Engineers, whose members work as heavy equipment operators, mechanics and construction surveyors, sued Indiana’s governor, attorney general, and labor commissioner in February, alleging that the state’s “right to work” law is unconstitutional.

Indiana’s law prohibits employers from making union membership a condition of getting or keeping a job. The union’s February lawsuit claimed the law violated its members’ Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of “equal protection” under the law.

But an amended complaint filed on Wednesday added a Thirteenth Amendment claim as well. The new lawsuit suggests that when nonunion employees earn higher salaries and better benefits because of the union’s negotiation on behalf of its members, the union has been forced to work for those nonunion employees for free.

And being forced to work without compensation, the union suggested in its revised lawsuit, is slavery.

“In this case, the Defendants have exacted compulsory service and/or involuntary servitude from the Union through the combination of the passage of the Right to Work law and the existing federal requirement of the duty of fair representation,” the amended complaint reads.

“Through these laws, the Union is compelled to furnish services to all persons in bargaining units that it represents, but it may not require payment for those services because of the Right to Work law. The statute also requires dues-paying union members to work alongside non-union personnel, and that is compulsory service and/or involuntary servitude within the meaning of the Thirteenth Amendment.”

Mackinac Center for Public Policy senior legal analyst Patrick Wright said on Friday that the union’s legal argument “expands the definition of chutzpah.”

“Compulsory membership and coerced dues and fees are the hallmarks of the union movement, yet they claim that giving workers more choice is an act of enslavement.”

Competitive Enterprise Institute labor policy counsel Vincent Vernuccio told the Mackinac Center that “it’s insulting to the great civil rights leaders to compare the new forced unionism movement to what civil rights leaders went through in the 1950s and 1960s.”

Including Indiana, 23 U.S. states have “right to work” laws in force.

SEE PAGE 26: Read the union’s “slavery” lawsuit against Indiana’s right-to-work law

Detainee Transfer Announced

U.S. Department of Defense

Critic's Notebook: Literature of 1992 L.A. riots is fragmented

Pieces by Nicole Sampogna, Lynell George, Richard Rayner and Wanda Coleman stand out, but the full picture seems incomplete.

Then Los Angeles Times cartoonist Paul Conrad's assessment of the verdict in the Rodney King case that led to rioting in Los Angeles. (Paul Conrad, Los Angeles Times / September 4, 2010)

By David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times Book Critic

April 22, 2012
One of my favorite pieces of writing to emerge from the 1992 Los Angeles riots is a poem by a writer named Nicole Sampogna, called "Another L.A." In it, the poet traces the odd dislocation of living on the Westside while so much of the city burns. "They send us home early, again," she begins, "supposedly for curfew sake, / but I know it's to beat the traffic." And then: "over there the smoke rises, / horns blare, streets scream, / shoot, loot, / bash windows, bash heads, / lights out / knocked out / by a black & white with a baton. / but, here / will the pizza man deliver after sunset?"

There it is, the dislocation that so often marks Los Angeles, and never more profoundly than when the not-guilty verdicts in the LAPD beating of Rodney King came down 20 years ago. Depending on where you lived or the part of town in which you found yourself, the atmosphere was static or chaotic, suspended or engaged. I remember, on the second afternoon of the conflagration, watching as a Fairfax district neighbor sunned herself on her small front lawn, while in the distance, sirens screamed. There's a metaphor in there somewhere, perhaps in the way it reflects Sampogna's sense of the city as disoriented, in which we connect (or don't) "to the other LA with the flip of a switch." How in such a place do we evoke the larger story? How do we find common ground?

This was the central question raised and left unanswered by the riots — and it remains essential to Los Angeles. But 20 years later, the shelf of books addressing the disaster is threadbare, conditional even, as if we've never figured out how to write about these events. Sampogna's poem appears in a small anthology called "The Verdict Is In," edited by Kathi Georges and Jennifer Joseph and issued by the San Francisco independent publisher Manic D Press. It's long out of print, as is Jervey Tervalon's 2002 collection "Geography of Rage: Remembering the Los Angeles Riots of 1992," which gathered recollections by 39 writers (disclosure: I am one of them) on the 10th anniversary of the tumult. On my desk are a handful of other titles that deal, in one way or another, with the upheaval: Wanda Coleman's "The Riot Inside Me," with its heartbreaking title essay, Lynell George's "No Crystal Stair: African-Americans in the City of Angels," which opens with the astonishing "Waiting for the Rainbow Sign."

"I've already seen the look," George writes of her passage through a city stunned by violence. "Driving through the Silver Lake hills to avoid Sunset Boulevard's panicked snarl, I climb along the incline. People are out jogging and walking their dogs, even though fires have moved closer, are no longer a distant TV hell. The higher I climb, the more I see residents take note of my car's make and color; they mentally record the license number, but more importantly my unfamiliar deep-brown face, any distinguishing marks. They look at me as if they will at any moment join together to form a human barricade if I make a wrong or abrupt move." In Granta, Richard Rayner offers this self-lacerating perspective: "Los Angeles was a lot like South Africa. The apartheid wasn't enshrined by law, but by economics and geography, and it was just as powerful. In Los Angeles I was afraid of blacks in a way I never had been. I behaved in a way that would have disgusted me in New York or London. I was a racist."

This is all terrific stuff, vivid and honest, which is what happens when writers enter their discomfort zones. And yet, what strikes me most is how, not unlike the city it describes, such material reveals itself to us in pieces — which are another metaphor. In that regard, it seems oddly fitting that the most comprehensive literary response to the riots remains Anna Deavere Smith's "Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992," a theater piece, written and performed by an outsider who channels the cacophony of voices at the city's heart.

Cacophony is one of the standard tropes by which we view Los Angeles, a city defined by its unknowability. But if that's part of the personality of the place, what I have in mind is something more specific, something about the fire this time. It's the difference between the 1992 riots and the Watts riots, which George referred to as "bold-faced, italicized," when I asked her recently for her thoughts.

In the wake of the Watts riots, Budd Schulberg helped to found the Watts Writers Workshop, mentoring African American writers such as Coleman, Quincy Troupe, Eric Priestley and the performance poetry group the Watts Prophets. In the wake of Watts, the city catalyzed around a variety of elements, not least the iconography of the fires, of L.A. turning inward to devour itself. "The city burning," Joan Didion wrote in her 1967 essay "Los Angeles Notebook," tracing the line of a more extensive history, "is Los Angeles's deepest image of itself: Nathanael West perceived that, in 'The Day of the Locust'; and at the time of the 1965 Watts riots what struck the imagination most indelibly were the fires. For days one could drive the Harbor Freeway and see the city on fire, just as we had always known it would be in the end."

No equivalent sense of history emerges when we think about 1992. Instead, we are left with fragments, snapshots, the loose tiles of what former Mayor Tom Bradley liked to call "the glorious mosaic," which the riots revealed to be a lie. That's true even of King's memoir "The Riot Within: My Journey From Rebellion to Redemption" (HarperOne: 245 pp., $25.99), which seeks to capitalize on the 20th anniversary of the riots but never offers a coherent point of view. It's unfair, perhaps, to expect this of King, who was thrust, or thrust himself, into a situation beyond his control. Nonetheless, it's also emblematic of the vagaries, the displacement, the lack of a collective vision, our inability even now to take a broad, inclusive perspective on the riots and what they mean.

All of this begs one last question: What, if any, responsibility does literature have to current events? It's a mistake to parse writing so overtly, to expect it to function as anything other than an oblique lens. And yet, it's also impossible not to think about E.M. Forster's "buzz of implication," the impression on a writer of his or her time and place.

Other books have touched on the 1992 riots; you can find a bibliography on the Internet. Most are academic or legal, but some are more than that: William T. Vollmann's "The Atlas," which features a brief essay about driving into L.A. on the night the fires erupted, or Michael Connelly's novel "The Concrete Blonde," in which a serial killer's victim is found beneath the ruins of a building that was burned. Even there, however, the riots exist on the periphery, as backdrop rather than centerpiece.

To some extent, that highlights the disposability of memory in Los Angeles, although more to the point is the diffusion with which we continue to approach this event. Either way, I keep coming back to Sampogna, to Coleman, George and Rayner, and their sense of "our (dis)connection," of the riots as a story we have never quite known how to tell.

david.ulin@latimes.com
One of my favorite pieces of writing to emerge from the 1992 Los Angeles riots is a poem by a writer named Nicole Sampogna, called "Another L.A." In it, the poet traces the odd dislocation of living on the Westside while so much of the city burns. "They send us home early, again," she begins, "supposedly for curfew sake, / but I know it's to beat the traffic." And then: "over there the smoke rises, / horns blare, streets scream, / shoot, loot, / bash windows, bash heads, / lights out / knocked out / by a black & white with a baton. / but, here / will the pizza man deliver after sunset?"

There it is, the dislocation that so often marks Los Angeles, and never more profoundly than when the not-guilty verdicts in the LAPD beating of Rodney King came down 20 years ago. Depending on where you lived or the part of town in which you found yourself, the atmosphere was static or chaotic, suspended or engaged. I remember, on the second afternoon of the conflagration, watching as a Fairfax district neighbor sunned herself on her small front lawn, while in the distance, sirens screamed. There's a metaphor in there somewhere, perhaps in the way it reflects Sampogna's sense of the city as disoriented, in which we connect (or don't) "to the other LA with the flip of a switch." How in such a place do we evoke the larger story? How do we find common ground?

This was the central question raised and left unanswered by the riots — and it remains essential to Los Angeles. But 20 years later, the shelf of books addressing the disaster is threadbare, conditional even, as if we've never figured out how to write about these events. Sampogna's poem appears in a small anthology called "The Verdict Is In," edited by Kathi Georges and Jennifer Joseph and issued by the San Francisco independent publisher Manic D Press. It's long out of print, as is Jervey Tervalon's 2002 collection "Geography of Rage: Remembering the Los Angeles Riots of 1992," which gathered recollections by 39 writers (disclosure: I am one of them) on the 10th anniversary of the tumult. On my desk are a handful of other titles that deal, in one way or another, with the upheaval: Wanda Coleman's "The Riot Inside Me," with its heartbreaking title essay, Lynell George's "No Crystal Stair: African-Americans in the City of Angels," which opens with the astonishing "Waiting for the Rainbow Sign."

"I've already seen the look," George writes of her passage through a city stunned by violence. "Driving through the Silver Lake hills to avoid Sunset Boulevard's panicked snarl, I climb along the incline. People are out jogging and walking their dogs, even though fires have moved closer, are no longer a distant TV hell. The higher I climb, the more I see residents take note of my car's make and color; they mentally record the license number, but more importantly my unfamiliar deep-brown face, any distinguishing marks. They look at me as if they will at any moment join together to form a human barricade if I make a wrong or abrupt move." In Granta, Richard Rayner offers this self-lacerating perspective: "Los Angeles was a lot like South Africa. The apartheid wasn't enshrined by law, but by economics and geography, and it was just as powerful. In Los Angeles I was afraid of blacks in a way I never had been. I behaved in a way that would have disgusted me in New York or London. I was a racist."

This is all terrific stuff, vivid and honest, which is what happens when writers enter their discomfort zones. And yet, what strikes me most is how, not unlike the city it describes, such material reveals itself to us in pieces — which are another metaphor. In that regard, it seems oddly fitting that the most comprehensive literary response to the riots remains Anna Deavere Smith's "Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992," a theater piece, written and performed by an outsider who channels the cacophony of voices at the city's heart.

Cacophony is one of the standard tropes by which we view Los Angeles, a city defined by its unknowability. But if that's part of the personality of the place, what I have in mind is something more specific, something about the fire this time. It's the difference between the 1992 riots and the Watts riots, which George referred to as "bold-faced, italicized," when I asked her recently for her thoughts.

In the wake of the Watts riots, Budd Schulberg helped to found the Watts Writers Workshop, mentoring African American writers such as Coleman, Quincy Troupe, Eric Priestley and the performance poetry group the Watts Prophets. In the wake of Watts, the city catalyzed around a variety of elements, not least the iconography of the fires, of L.A. turning inward to devour itself. "The city burning," Joan Didion wrote in her 1967 essay "Los Angeles Notebook," tracing the line of a more extensive history, "is Los Angeles's deepest image of itself: Nathanael West perceived that, in 'The Day of the Locust'; and at the time of the 1965 Watts riots what struck the imagination most indelibly were the fires. For days one could drive the Harbor Freeway and see the city on fire, just as we had always known it would be in the end."

No equivalent sense of history emerges when we think about 1992. Instead, we are left with fragments, snapshots, the loose tiles of what former Mayor Tom Bradley liked to call "the glorious mosaic," which the riots revealed to be a lie. That's true even of King's memoir "The Riot Within: My Journey From Rebellion to Redemption" (HarperOne: 245 pp., $25.99), which seeks to capitalize on the 20th anniversary of the riots but never offers a coherent point of view. It's unfair, perhaps, to expect this of King, who was thrust, or thrust himself, into a situation beyond his control. Nonetheless, it's also emblematic of the vagaries, the displacement, the lack of a collective vision, our inability even now to take a broad, inclusive perspective on the riots and what they mean.

All of this begs one last question: What, if any, responsibility does literature have to current events? It's a mistake to parse writing so overtly, to expect it to function as anything other than an oblique lens. And yet, it's also impossible not to think about E.M. Forster's "buzz of implication," the impression on a writer of his or her time and place.

Other books have touched on the 1992 riots; you can find a bibliography on the Internet. Most are academic or legal, but some are more than that: William T. Vollmann's "The Atlas," which features a brief essay about driving into L.A. on the night the fires erupted, or Michael Connelly's novel "The Concrete Blonde," in which a serial killer's victim is found beneath the ruins of a building that was burned. Even there, however, the riots exist on the periphery, as backdrop rather than centerpiece.

To some extent, that highlights the disposability of memory in Los Angeles, although more to the point is the diffusion with which we continue to approach this event. Either way, I keep coming back to Sampogna, to Coleman, George and Rayner, and their sense of "our (dis)connection," of the riots as a story we have never quite known how to tell.


Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times

Are Egypt’s Islamists Headed for a Collision with the Military?

Jacques Neriah, April 16, 2012

Vol. 12, No. 8 16 April 2012
Much has been written about a tacit agreement between the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) led by Field Marshal Tantawi and the Muslim Brothers. But as events leading up to the presidential elections began to unravel, it has become clear that no such arrangement was ever brokered between the two sides, and if it were, it is today null and void.
Fourteen months after the revolution it is an accepted fact that the Islamists have hijacked the revolution and have become the leading force in Egypt. They adopted a tactic to create the illusion that they would share power with the non-Islamic forces, but then went on to win 70 percent of the seats in parliament.
The current situation has been created by the inability of SCAF to rule Egypt since the end of the Mubarak regime. Their zig-zag policy, particularly towards the Islamists, has created a situation in which liberals and secular forces lost at each encounter.
The Presidential Election Committee has barred three leading candidates: former Minister for Intelligence Omar Suleiman, Salafi candidate Hazem Abu Ismail, and leading Muslim Brotherhood candidate Khairat el Shater. (The Brotherhood was careful to nominate an additional presidential candidate who qualified, Mohammad Morsi.)
Egypt is entering a period of political instability with dire consequences for its neighbors, first and foremost for Israel. The Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty could become a “scapegoat” to divert attention from unsolvable domestic economic problems, seeking to blame outside factors for Egypt’s deteriorating situation.


Was There Ever a Power-Sharing Deal?

Fourteen months after the popular uprising that brought down the Mubarak regime, Egypt is heading toward a head-on collision between the Islamic forces and the secular military apparatus that ruled Egypt since 1952, when a group of young officers led by Gamal Abdel Nasser revolted against the monarchy and toppled the regime.

Much has been written about a tacit agreement between the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) led by Field Marshal Tantawi and the Muslim Brothers.1 SCAF’s legitimacy to rule Egypt since the fall of Mubarak has been drawn from Egypt’s constitution. The Muslim Brothers, the historical rival of the military, formed the backbone of the opposition. The organization was declared an illegal political body for almost 70 years and, as a consequence, was banned from participating in any open political process, with its members ill-treated and jailed – most often without trial – under the umbrella of the Emergency Laws that governed Egypt.

The so-called “deal” was supposed to divide power between the two protagonists, whereby the Islamists would retain power in the legislative bodies, and the military, through their proxies, would keep control of the executive branch of government, first and foremost the presidency. But as events leading up to the presidential elections began to unravel, it has become clear that no such arrangement was ever brokered between the two sides, and if it were, it is today null and void.
Islamists Have Hijacked the Revolution

Indeed, the Muslim Brothers and the Salafists were the last to join the forces that toppled Mubarak. Fourteen months after the revolution it is an accepted fact that the Islamists have hijacked the revolution and have become the leading force in Egypt. They seem to have adopted a tactic whose purpose was to create the illusion that they would share power at all costs with the non-Islamic forces – the liberals and former military. The Islamists even declared they would not participate in the presidential election and would suffice with representation in the legislative bodies of Egypt. Operating under this cover, the Muslim Brothers conquered bastion after bastion of the Egyptian nation-state and succeeded in becoming the dominant force in the People’s Assembly and the Shura Council where, together with Salafists, they hold almost 70 percent of all seats, thus representing a formidable democratic force able to decide and promulgate laws as it pleases.
An Islamic President of Egypt?

The sudden decision of the Islamists to take part in the presidential elections is indeed a wake-up call for the military, the liberals, and the secular forces in Egypt.2 The grim possibility of a state where the Muslim Brothers and their Islamic allies would rule Egypt has become very likely and could be the worst nightmare for all democratic forces in Egypt, particularly the military, the liberals, and the 10 percent Coptic minority. Such an event would mean the rapid establishment of an “Islamocracy” and the beginning of the end of Egypt as a military society – a possibility that could affect not only the economic advantages of that class but mainly the personal freedoms guaranteed today by a pseudo-liberal constitution. All this could occur immediately, but it seems more likely that the Islamists’ approach will be gradual in order not to provoke a confrontation with the military before they consolidate their position within the state apparatus.

The military could not ignore the statement of Muslim Brotherhood candidate Khairat el Shater, who said that if he reached the presidency he would seek to reform government institutions and society on the basis of Islamic teachings. El Shater added that Egypt’s new government would exercise civilian oversight over the armed forces’ budget and their business interests. “It is not just taxing the military that is an issue. There is a problem of conscripts who are forced to work in army economic projects without payment. What about the land that the army controls for free? All these issues should be addressed by the new government.”3
The Military’s Inability to Rule

No doubt this situation has been created by the inability of SCAF to rule Egypt since the end of the Mubarak regime. Their zig-zag policy, particularly towards the Islamists, has created a situation in which liberals and secular forces lost at each encounter:

A) While allowing Egyptians to demonstrate and unprecedented freedom of speech, more than 12,000 people were jailed after summary trials before a military tribunal.4

B) The military encouraged the political participation and emancipation of women but instituted a very bizarre practice called “virginity tests” for all females arrested in demonstrations, which was ended only recently after the intervention of an Egyptian court.5

C) The military lost almost all control of the Sinai Peninsula to al-Qaeda and Bedouin collaborators. The gas pipeline between Egypt and Israel has been sabotaged 14 times in spite of Israel’s acceptance of the introduction of seven more battalions in Sinai to restore order. Sinai today is a safe haven for al-Qaeda operatives and the continuous attacks along the Israeli border are but one example of the loss of control by Egypt of part of its territory.

D) In the showdown with the U.S. over the issue of foreign-funded, pro-democracy NGOs, SCAF proved that it could bend. After the issue was raised in the media, SCAF finally agreed (after very clear threats from U.S representatives) to let most of the accused leave Egypt after the U.S. paid a ransom of $300,000 for each person. The NGO issue did not prove to be beneficial to SCAF domestically.6

E) After having failed to secure the Israeli Embassy in Cairo that was ransacked by soccer fans, SCAF finally accepted the return of the Israeli ambassador, ignoring the huge anti-Israel sentiment prevailing today in all political circles in Egypt.

F) Unlike the former regimes in Egypt, SCAF gave little weight to the possibility of the Islamists controlling the National Assembly. Instead, they most probably believed that the Egyptian electorate would vote for balanced participation in the legislative bodies. SCAF maintained a neutral attitude toward the election and refrained from intervening in the electoral process, as was the custom in Egypt for decades. To the military’s dismay, the Islamists won almost 70 percent of the seats.

G) Economically, Egypt is drifting towards disaster. The Egyptian economy is in shambles. Tourism is almost nonexistent in a country where the livelihood of one out of seven Egyptians is dependent on the tourism sector. Foreign currency reserves are almost depleted and are enough for less than three months of imports.7 Egypt desperately needs a loan from the IMF, but the Islamists argue that SCAF has no authority to agree to such a loan and that only a new government independent of SCAF control can negotiate such a deal.8

Finally, the issue of the presidential election illustrates more than any other example the short-sightedness and clumsiness of SCAF in governing Egypt. It is quite obvious that SCAF was taken by surprise by the decision of the Muslim Brothers and the Salafists to participate in the elections by presenting candidates for the presidency. But before doing so, the Muslim Brotherhood was dealt a blow when the Cairo Administrative Court ordered the suspension of an Assembly-appointed constitution drafting panel.9

At the same time, SCAF chose its alternative candidate – Omar Suleiman, 75, the former Minister for Intelligence and Mubarak’s vice president during his last days. In the reality of Egypt of 2012 it was the wrong choice: Presenting a figure who was part of the defunct and hated regime whose military was involved in the repression of Islamists, who was a prominent advocate of the Peace Treaty with Israel and was known for his close relations with the American administration, represented a red sheet in front of a bull.

The Islamists understood the choice as “an insult” aimed to restrain them and as an expression of the resolve of the military to maintain power in Egypt after the scheduled transfer of power on July 1. Moreover, Suleiman seemed to still be accepted by the liberals and the secular, thus becoming a formidable opponent in the race for the presidency.
Election Committee Bars Three Top Candidates

It took less than 48 hours for the People’s Assembly to adopt a law forbidding Suleiman from participating in the presidential race. The law could not be implemented without the approval of SCAF.10 However, the Islamists’ goal to bar Suleiman from running was attained by the very Presidential Election Committee set up by SCAF to filter candidates for the presidency. Suleiman was barred on a technicality: the 30,000 signatures needed to allow him to run were not collected from each of Egypt’s 15 directorates.11 It seems he was short by 1,000 signatures in one directorate.

Together with Suleiman, the committee barred two other prominent presidential candidates representing the Salafists and the Muslim Brothers on technical grounds: the mother of Salafist candidate Hazem Abu Ismail was declared to have had a U.S. passport (which was not allowed by the constitution) and the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Khairat el Shater was disqualified due to an indictment from which he has not yet been pardoned. Out of 23 candidates the committee barred 10, leaving 13 in the race, including former air force commander and Mubarak’s last prime minister Ahmad Shafik, and the head of the Muslim Brothers’ party, Mohammad Morsi. The 10 barred candidates still have 48 hours to appeal to the committee, which in turn will respond within 24 hours.

Fourteen months after the revolution, Egyptian society seems to be closer than ever to a head-on collision between the Islamists and the military. Egypt is entering a period of political instability with dire consequences for its neighbors, first and foremost for Israel. Whoever wins the elections on May 23-24 will have to devote most of his time to domestic issues and to the consolidation of power. This means that issues dealing with regional politics could be deferred to second place. A pro-military win would probably spark dissent and repression against the Islamists, whereas an Islamist as president would signify to Israel greater imminent danger to the Peace Treaty with Egypt. The issue of the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty could become a “scapegoat” to divert attention from unsolvable domestic economic problems, seeking to blame outside factors for Egypt’s deteriorating situation. On the other hand, the Muslim Brothers have a historical dispute to settle with their former oppressors – the military.

* * *

SOURCE: jcpa.org

Neil Heywood death: how news of an Old Harrovian's murder went straight to Barack Obama

The death in China of Neil Heywood, the British businessman, took on a series of dramatic twists yesterday as it was disclosed that President Barack Obama was taking personal interest in the alleged murder.

Mr Obama was informed of suspicions over Mr Heywood’s death within hours of a Chinese police chief walking into an American consulate and telling officials that the Briton was murdered Photo: Getty

By David Eimer in Dalian, Jason Lewis and Josie Ensor

9:00PM BST 21 Apr 2012

Mr Obama was briefed immediately on the suspected poisoning of the 41 year-old, which Chinese officials are linking to Mr Heywood’s powerful political allies, when American diplomats were told of the murder allegation.

Gu Kailai, Mr Heywood’s former business partner and the wife of Bo Xilai, a senior politician who had been tipped for the highest political office, is suspected of ordering the Briton’s murder in a case at the centre of a political storm in China. The couple have disappeared from sight as the Communist Party attempts to regain stability.

In a series of developments yesterday:
A dissident website that has revealed key details in the story was hacked, suggesting that the Chinese authorities want to clamp down on the flow of information.
One of Mr Bo’s allies at the top of the Chinese political establishment was facing fears that he too may be purged from the party.
Concern grew over the whereabouts of another European business partner of Mrs Gu, a French architect who has lived in London.
More claims emerged that Mr Bo and Mrs Gu had siphoned off vast amounts of wealth in corrupt business deals, in which it has been claimed Mr Heywood was enmeshed.
The couple’s Harrow and Oxford-educated son, Bo Guagua, was claimed to be plotting to move the family’s assets beyond the reach of authorities in case they seized them, while defying demands to return home from the US.

Mr Obama was informed of suspicions over Mr Heywood’s death within hours of a Chinese police chief walking into an American consulate and telling officials that the Briton was murdered.

Security guards surrounded the consulate as diplomats sought advice from their superiors in Washington.

Mr Obama learnt that Mr Heywood was being described as a murder victim before British officials told William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, about the development.

Sources in Washington last night said that for the American president to be so quickly informed of the death of a British citizen was almost unprecedented.

“This was a very high official with extraordinary intelligence,” John Tkacik, who worked for the state department in China for 20 years, said of Wang Lijun, the head of Chongqing police.

“In all of my experience, I can’t recall its equal.”

America is increasingly being drawn into the claims of murder and corruption that have rocked the Chinese establishment.

The hacking of the website Boxun.com, which has been a consistent source of information on the murder investigation, was blamed on the Chinese security services by the US-based dissidents who run it.

A senior Washington intelligence official, who analyses Chinese cyber activities on a daily basis, said: “There is no question that the Boxun denial-of-service attack was ordered by the authorities in Beijing. It has their fingerprints all over it.”

Also based in the US is Bo Guagua, 24, whose lavish lifestyle has been highlighted in official Chinese reports.

Despite his father’s official salary of £600 a month, he was educated at prep school and Harrow. He went to Oxford, from which he was rusticated, and now studies at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

Claims surfaced in Taiwan yesterday that Chinese diplomats had told the young Mr Bo to return home immediately, and that he was working on hiding the family’s gains from alleged corruption from the Chinese and American authorities. He is also reported to have hired private security.

Mr Heywood had told a friend he was instrumental in gaining Mr Bo the place at Harrow, and seems to be at the centre of the scandal rocking the Communist party.

When Mr Lijun arrived in an agitated state at the US consulate in Chengdu one night in February, he described a web of corruption and fear presided over by his boss, the Chongqing party chief Mr Bo.

The consulate was surrounded by local police, who wanted the Americans to hand Mr Wang over to Mr Bo’s enforcers. Eventually he was given to Chinese state police, leading to questions in the US over why he was not offered asylum.

Analysts believe Mr Heywood’s alleged killing is only the most public element of a bitter power struggle which has ended Mr Bo’s hopes of joining the nine-strong politburo which runs China.

Mr Bo rose to national prominence as mayor of Dalian before he was mayor of Chongqing. His wife, also scion of a Communist dynasty, was equally powerful and reports in Chinese state media have made claims of extraordinary levels of corruption and crime.

An unnamed man in Dalian, who was managing the couple’s overseas assets, died in suspicious circumstances, while the presumed suicide of a Chongqing investigator is also now being dealt with as murder.

Leaked party memos claim that Mrs Gu was behind these deaths, in addition to that of Mr Heywood.

The day before Mr Bo’s removal from office for “economic crimes”, one of his family’s close allies was arrested. Xu Ming, a Dalian-based billionaire, has not been seen since. There is speculation that Mr Heywood’s wife worked for him.

The scandal is also threatening Zhou Yongkang, the politburo security head and another ally of Mr Bo. Boxun reported he had been forced “to make tearful self confessions” to President Hu Jintao. His fate has yet to be decided.

The whereabouts of another European linked to Mrs Gu are also unknown. Patrick Devillers, an architect, helped her set up a company in Poole, Dorset. He grew up in Rainans, eastern France, where his father Michel said he had not seen him for three years. “We speak on the phone, but he doesn’t give me much news,” Mr Devillers said. “He’s a busy man with lots to do.”

In China, residents at the architect’s last known address, an apartment overlooking the Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing, claimed not to have seen him for years.

The Angdao law firm, where Mr Devillers was based, and which is believed to have been quietly run by Mrs Gu, would not comment on his whereabouts. Some workers said they thought he had moved back to France in 2008.

Mr Devillers is perhaps right to be wary: Mr Heywood’s wife and two children are coming to terms with him being the apparent victim of a cyanide poisoning plot.

There are even claims he was held down and forced to swallow the poison. Friends in China have found it strange that the Old Harrovian, who cultivated the image of an Englishman abroad by wearing a linen suit and driving a Jaguar with a 007 number plate, could be caught up in an international scandal.

In Dalian, where Mr Heywood settled on moving to China following a degree at Warwick University, Eddie Casey, 61, an Irish expat who ran a bar called the Tin Whistle, said: “He was a happy guy. He was very intelligent, always came in for the pub quiz and his team would win. He wasn’t a party guy. He’d have a couple of beers and then he’d say, ‘I’m going home’. The foreign community in Dalian was very, very small then and so we all knew each other.”

Nothing in Mr Heywood’s lifestyle or his business career pointed to fabulous wealth.

He reportedly left very little in his will and his wife is said to be struggling with the mortgage on their three-storey house in Beijing, as well their children’s £50,000-a-year fees at the Beijing branch of Dulwich College.

A former associate reportedly even had to pay for the family’s plane tickets to attend Mr Heywood’s memorial service in London.

“I knew he was involved with Bo Xilai,” said a friend. “The first time I met him he claimed he’d been instrumental in getting Bo’s son into Harrow, but that didn’t seem very remarkable. Now, when I read the stories saying he was a money launderer, that’s just mind boggling to me.”

A Shanghai-based businessman also said the story did not chime with the man he knew. “You meet people who have zeal in their eyes; Neil didn’t,” he said.

“He seemed easy-going and gave no indication that he was driven or ambitious. I got the impression that he was quite lost: a nice guy but a bit of a drifter really.”

The last time the businessman saw Mr Heywood was a month before his death at a regatta in Beijing. “We all sat on the grass watching the rowing. It was very pleasant and our kids got on well. We were going to arrange for the kids to play together again. But it never happened.”

SOURCE: UK Telegraph

What swing states? Senate majority hinges on red states and blue states

Posted by Aaron Blake
04:16 PM ET, 04/20/2012
Washington Post:

We live in a hyper-nationalized political environment these days, in which a Senate candidate’s prospects in a presidential election year depend heavily on how their party’s presidential nominee performs.

And yet, in 2012, the battle for control of the Senate will be fought largely outside the swing states.

Of the 10 Senate races rated as toss-ups by the Cook Political Report, only two take place in bona fide swing states — Nevada and Virginia — with the possible addition of Wisconsin (which hasn’t gone Republican in the last five presidential races but was close in 2004).

Almost all of the other toss-up races, meanwhile, will take place in either very blue states — Hawaii, Maine and Massachusetts — or pretty red states — Missouri, Montana, and North Dakota.

Meanwhile, the erstwhile big-time swing states — Florida, Ohio and to a lesser extent Michigan and Pennsylvania — are considered a part of the second tier of races. In other words, if the GOP wins these seats, they’ve definitely re-taken a majority in the Senate.

So what does this mean for the race going forward?

First, it means that we’re going to see a lot of uncomfortable maneuvering by candidates seeking to distance themselves from their party’s presidential candidate. And it won’t just be Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and former senator Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) separating themselves from President Obama; it will also mean Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) and former Hawaii governor Linda Lingle (R) trying to downplay their party affiliation in some of the bluest states in the country. Brown and Lingle will need lots and lots of Obama crossover voters, just like McCaskill, Tester and Kerrey will need lots of Romney crossover voters.

It also means that these candidates will largely have the airwaves to themselves. Since neither presidential campaign will likely spend much or any resources in these states — or even have their candidate visit — the Senate candidates have a better chance to get their own messages out. Without presidential race infrastructure in these states, the campaigns and state parties need to focus on getting ready for key Senate races. That puts a premium on the campaigns they will run, the money they will raise and the help they get from their parties.

And finally, it means local issues will matter. Sometimes we forget that a candidate’s position on the issues actually plays a role, and the issue matrix is different in every state. That goes double when the presidential race doesn’t really factor into your state. Even though people may still be watching the presidential race, the media will focus more on the Senate race than they otherwise would — especially if the Senate contest is hotly contested.

Even in today’s nationalized political environment, campaigns matter. And that will be even clearer in an election in which control of the Senate will be decided outside the swing states.

...

With that in mind, here's our latest ranking of the top 10 Senate seats, as usual ranked according to which are most likely to flip control in this year’s election.

To the line!

10. Wisconsin (Democratic-controlled): The Republican primary here shows no sign of settling down; Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) just endorsed former congressman Mark Neumann — another sign of conservative unhappiness with former governor Tommy Thompson. Meanwhile, businessman Eric Hovde has thrown a wrench in the GOP primary by plugging $1.75 million of his own money into the campaign in the first quarter. On the Democratic side, Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D) upped her fundraising big time, pulling in $2 million in the first quarter. Those are good signs for Democrats. (Previous ranking: 10)

9. Virginia (D): This race has gradually slipped down our list as other races have asserted themselves. But it’s not just that; it’s also the fact that former governor Tim Kaine’s (D) fundraising has consistently outpaced former senator George Allen’s (R). We expect this race to be very close, and nearly every pollster has borne that out. But fundraising says something about a campaign, and Kaine has built a $4.5 million to $2.6 million edge in cash on hand despite giving Allen a head start in the campaign. (Previous ranking: 8)

8. New Mexico (D): With Lt. Gov. John Sanchez out of the Republican primary here, former congresswoman Heather Wilson (R) is raking in cash. She took in nearly $760,000 in the first quarter of 2012, while Rep. Martin Heinrich (D) raised only $490,000. Heinrich still has a bit more cash on hand, and money for his primary rival, state Auditor Hector Balderas, appears to have all but dried up. But Wilson’s first-quarter win in the fundraising wars speaks to her formidable campaign. This is a marquee race. (Previous ranking: 9)

7. Nevada (Republican-controlled): This race has stayed tight for months, with Sen. Dean Heller (R) and Rep. Shelley Berkley (D) about neck and neck in cash on hand and polling. A potential shakeup could come from a House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations that Berkley used her position to help her husband’s heart-transplant practice succeed. Heller has so far stayed quiet on the issue, but the committee’s July decision could easily bring this issue to the fore. (Previous ranking: 7)

6. Massachusetts (R): Elizabeth Warren (D) continues to be a fundraising phenom in her campaign against Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.); she pulled in $6.9 million between January and March — a haul that nearly set the record for the first quarter of an election year. But the race for her is more about how she comes off and whether she can close the likeability gap with Brown. Of course, lots of money can help her make that happen. (Previous ranking: 6)

5. Montana (D): Rep. Denny Rehberg (R) finally matched Sen. Jon Tester (D) in fundraising in the first quarter of 2012 — both men raised $1.2 million — but the incumbent senator still has a wide cash lead. Polling suggests the race is within the low-single digits. That’s where it’s been and where it will stay all the way through November. Democrats are confident that Tester’s personal brand can overcome what will likely be an easy victory at the presidential level for Mitt Romney. That may depend on how effective a campaign Rehberg runs and how much of the vote the two libertarian candidates on the ballot take. Remember: The libertarian candidate took 10,000 votes in Tester’s last race, and he won by about 3,500 votes. (Previous ranking: 5)

4. Missouri (D): Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) had a huge first quarter, bringing in $2.3 million and far outpacing her top potential GOP rivals. It’s clear she’s not going without a fight. But this is just such a tough state for her. Even though former state treasurer Sarah Steelman (R) has barely raised any money, she still leads McCaskill 49 percent to 42 percent in the latest automated Rasmussen survey. McCaskill, who rarely cracks the low 40s in the polls, needs to raise her ceiling of support significantly. (Previous ranking: 4)

3. North Dakota (D): Rep. Rick Berg (R) is no John Hoeven. The latter cruised to an open seat victory in 2010 as a popular three-term governor, while Berg was just elected to his House seat in 2010, and Berg isn’t nearly as popular. But in a presidential year in North Dakota, he probably doesn’t need to be. Former state Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp (D) is a solid and credible candidate who will likely keep her side close enough to capitalize if Berg slips up. But Democrats almost certainly need Berg to make a mistake to win here. (Previous ranking: 3)

2. Maine (R): Former governor Angus King (I) is polling a huge — nay, massive — lead early in the race to replace retiring Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). The first public poll of the race showed King leading Republican Secretary of State Charlie Summers 56 percent to 22 percent, with Democratic former secretary of state Matt Dunlap at 12 percent. The only thing preventing us from moving this to No. 1 on the list is the chance — however slight — that King would struggle so mightily in this new era of political campaigning that he would blow the lead or that he would wind up caucusing with Republicans. Both are very unlikely. (Previous ranking: 2)

1. Nebraska (D) : Former senator Bob Kerrey (D) collected more than $900,000 in his first month as a candidate, and the Republican field to fill the seat of retiring Sen. Ben Nelson (D) is something short of stellar. And yet, this is Nebraska in a presidential year, which makes it a virtual impossibility that Democrats can win. The Republican primary, which is currently led by state Attorney General Jon Bruning, will get nasty, and Kerrey has a clear field on his side of the aisle. But it’s just hard to see how the math adds up for Kerrey in a state that Obama is likely to lose by double digits. (Previous ranking: 1)

Chris Cillizza and Rachel Weiner contributed to this report.

The Demonic Movement Behind Earth Day

Saturday, April 21, 2012

As "Earth Day" is upon us, let us look at the demonic and leftist philosophy which is driving this "Baalistic" ideology.

What seems to have a strangle hold on America and the world at present is the godless totalitarian socialistic environmental movement of today. This movement has halted progress and has laid shackles on the capitalistic freedoms at present here in America and in the world. As the environmentalist display their "Green Righteousness" and seek to practice at the same time a relative and godless philosophy when it comes to the Moral Laws of Nature and the Eternal Righteous Absolutes of forever, this "Green Righteousness" movement of environmentalism is seeking to impose its secular will on the world and all it's inhabitants.

The question at hand is, should we be conservative and conversationalist in the area that we live in? The rhetorical reply is, Yes... Of course! None of us will deny that. We all should do our part to make for a healthier and beneficial environment for all. In fact, many regulations have made America cleaner and better. In that we do not find any fault. What we do find fault with is the green fascist mandates that are crippling our society and shackling our freedoms. What is key for a true healthy society is not fascist green legislation, but the adherence to the moral laws that have been instilled into the creation by Almighty God the Creator.

"What is key for a true healthy society is not green legislation but the adherence to the moral laws that have been instilled into the creation by Almighty God"

Notice how hard core green groups such as PETA, Hollywood, the Music Industry, the ACLU and the American secular progressive Left are super radical on regulations on environmental issues and greenology, but are absolutely reprobate in social and sexual morality which has been the key vices which has laid waste this country and our present world (Isaiah 24:5,6; Romans 1:18-32).

The Two Hands of Greenology

In one hand, the radical environmentalist oppress with an iron fascist glove the mandates and oppressive green philosophy. On the other hand, they fight tooth and nail against the moral absolutes and the Eternal Righteousness of Almighty God. These two absolutes are crucial to produce a health society and culture. God’s Word states that the creation groans to be free and looks forward to that Day when it will be unleashed from the inhabitants of sinful man (Isa. 24:5,6, Romans 8:22).

Today's "Green Righteousness" is that attitude and spirit in which all is Machiavellian when done for the furtherance and protection of the earth (ones sensual harmony with the creation). It is this subjective sensual (5 senses driven) “wisdom” and perception which holds in high esteem the evolutionary philosophy of time and chance and valiantly condemns the Judean/Christian Laws of Nature and of Natures God (1 Cor. 1:18-32). Science and godless secular theories are it's dogmas and bible, and this fallen planet is its god (Rom 1:22-26). These seeks to be the world's savior and deliverer from its arch enemy, man. The radical environmentalist attitude and their green righteousness is manifested on how they serve and honor the environment (the creature and creation) and it’s “green” dogmas and mandates (Romans 1:18-32).

"They fight tooth and nail against moral absolutes and the Righteousness of Almighty God which are crucial to produce a health society and culture"

What is so astounding about this green philosophy is that while these seek to contain man tendencies to pollute, they are fighting an Eco – war against capitalism and man’s sovereignty here on earth. What is so hypocritical is that these individuals are the greatest polluters of all. Their social pollution of excess and the acceptance of all kinds of sexual deviance is far greater the destroyer of our world and humanity then their little green crusade.

The Social Pollution of Secularism

Let us take a look at the social pollution the secularist greener has contributed to just here in America in the last 50 years.

The withering attacks and devastating fallout from this tyrannical oppressor is formidable. These include 50 million abortions since 1973 (representing a generation of Americans annihilated!), a ravished and wasted society, numberless unwed mothers and fatherless children, broken homes, psychological (mental) and physiological problems, a “red-lining” national guilty conscience (yet a nation unable to blush), a divorce rate higher than 50%, HIV/ AIDS and its related devastation, countless STD’s, rampant teen and college age promiscuity and unwanted pregnancies, increasing rapes, violence and murders, sex-trafficking, child porn and porn addiction (i.e., 70% of the total internet given over to porn in support of a 4 billion dollar-a-year porn industry), drug addictions, alcoholism, mass poverty, trillions of dollars spent for unaccountable social programs, promotion in government schools, government funding, rampant adultery, prostitution, approved red light districts, increased acceptance and approval of the mental and physiological disorder known as sodomy (homosexuality),….and on and on! Sexual addiction is the master oppressor today of Adam’s fallen race (see Romans 1:18-32, 5:12-19). Drug addiction, alcoholism and barbiturate addiction pales in comparison to this reigning despot. No nation has ever recovered from this self-indulging and self-gratifying addiction. How will ours be any different?

The Victims of the Sexual Revelation

Unfortunately, the greatest victims of this oppressive tyrant are children. These are absolutely ravished by the horrific consequences that followed in the wake of this super tsunami called the Sexual Revolution of the 60’s. Women have also been shackled and enslaved in the repercussions from this decadent “Revolution.” There is nothing truly “liberating” about it at all. How could it be that the mothers (i.e., women) are the leading killing genocidal machines since 1973? A great number of women today in the U.S. are given over to reprobate practices of licentiousness, and have prostituted their bodies - and their humanity - to any individual in a vain attempt to satisfy their famished souls.Women have always been a good moral barometer in a given society. When they are degraded to base lewdness and licentious practices, a society suffers greatly. When women are at their lowest estate so also is the nation.

The Master Panderer and His Game Plan

Lucifer is the despotic tyrant and oppressor of Adam’s fallen race. He fully understands his unregenerate human slaves (Eph 2:1-3; Heb 2:14-15). He is the “supreme hunter” of souls (Isa. 14:16-17; Ezek. 28:19; Luke 4:5-6; 2 Cor. 4:34; 1 Peter 5:8). He fully comprehends the fallen nature of humanity and our sensual desires, which are governed and dominated by our 5 physical senses. He knows how to manipulate, entice, bait, snare and catch his prey for his twisted will (Eph 6:11-12). He has been an “active observer” of the sins of humanity for ~ 6000 years (see Gal 5:19-21), and he knows that once immoral lusts and sexual vices have taken hold and snared his prey, he’s accomplished his task.

God Calls Out To You

In these increasingly debauched and licentious days, Almighty God calls for all to be saved and delivered from the wrath to come (1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9). Have you received into your heart and life the Savior of the world - the Lord Jesus Christ - as your personal Savior from your transgressions against Almighty God and His righteousness?

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved (John 3:16-17).

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name (John 1:12).

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me (Rev. 3:20).

The only solution to the depraved and ever-growing lawlessness of the world we are living in today is found in the Person of Jesus Christ. He is the ONLY ONE who can rescue humanity from the end result of sin and lawlessness. May you place your trust and hope in Him today. You will never be the same!The

Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!

DJP I.F.

Edited by BEL I.F.

SOURCE: The Ignorant Fisherman

Spokesman: Bee Gee Robin Gibb wakes from coma

Posted on April 22, 2012 at 4:38am

LONDON (AP) — Robin Gibb's spokesman says the Bee Gees star has woken from a coma and is showing signs of recovery.

The 62-year-old singer fell into a coma last week after contracting pneumonia. Gibb was hospitalized last year for stomach and colon problems. He has not specified the exact nature of his illness — widely reported to be cancer — but told the BBC he had a growth on his colon that was removed.

Doug Wright on Saturday said that Gibb had been able to nod and communicate with his family members, who have surrounded his bedside for almost his entire stay in a central London hospital.

The Bee Gees — British-born, Australia-raised brothers Robin, Barry and Maurice Gibb — had a string of disco-era hits including "How Deep is Your Love" and "Stayin' Alive."

Nugent Ousted From Fort Knox Concert Line-Up

Posted on April 20, 2012 at 1:31pm by
Madeleine Morgenstern - The Blaze:

Ted Nugent has been booted from the line-up at an annual Fort Knox summer concert following his recent comments about President Barack Obama, a Fort Knox representative confirmed to The Blaze.

The decision to oust Nugent came after “recent disparaging remarks made against the commander in chief,” Ryan Brus of the Fort Knox public affairs office said.

Because the concert is taking place on a military installation, it “would be a conflict of interest since the military has the obligation to be apolitical,” he said.

Brus said they don‘t look at political or social views when booking performers but that Nugent’s comments about the commander in chief crossed the line.

Brus said Major General Jefforey Smith, commanding general at Fort Knox, made the final decision to cancel Nugent’s appearance.

Nugent was scheduled to be the June 23 concert’s opening act, according to the Louisville, Ky. Courier-Journal. Co-headliners REO Speedwagon and Styx remain scheduled to perform, according to a listing for the event on the Fort Knox Directorate of Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation website. The site says a “special guest” will be featured as well.

Brus said they are working on finding a replacement for Nugent.

Nugent said during an NRA convention last weekend that if the Obama is re-elected in November, “I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.” His remarks prompted a visit from the Secret Service on Thursday, with a spokesman for the agency saying after the interview that “the issue has been resolved” and no further action is anticipated.

Nugent said on Glenn Beck’s radio program Friday morning he was not yet aware of any cancellation, but said “there’s always that possibility.”

To hear Nugent’s entire provocative interview with Beck, click here.

U.N. floats tax hikes for industrialized countries

The tab for U.N.’s Rio summit: Trillions per year in taxes, transfers and price hikes

By George Russell
Published April 20, 2012
FoxNews.com

The upcoming United Nations environmental conference on sustainable development will consider a breathtaking array of carbon taxes, transfers of trillions of dollars from wealthy countries to poor ones, and new spending programs to guarantee that populations around the world are protected from the effects of the very programs the world organization wants to implement, according to stunning U.N. documents examined by Fox News.

The main goal of the much-touted, Rio + 20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, scheduled to be held in Brazil from June 20-23, and which Obama Administration officials have supported, is to make dramatic and enormously expensive changes in the way that the world does nearly everything—or, as one of the documents puts it, "a fundamental shift in the way we think and act."

Among the proposals on how the “challenges can and must be addressed,” according to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon:

--More than $2.1 trillion a year in wealth transfers from rich countries to poorer ones, in the name of fostering “green infrastructure, ” “climate adaptation” and other “green economy” measures.

--New carbon taxes for industrialized countries that could cost about $250 billion a year, or 0.6 percent of Gross Domestic Product, by 2020. Other environmental taxes are mentioned, but not specified.

--Further unspecified price hikes that extend beyond fossil fuels to anything derived from agriculture, fisheries, forestry, or other kinds of land and water use, all of which would be radically reorganized. These cost changes would “contribute to a more level playing field between established, 'brown' technologies and newer, greener ones."

-- Major global social spending programs, including a "social protection floor" and "social safety nets" for the world's most vulnerable social groups for reasons of “equity.”

--Even more social benefits for those displaced by the green economy revolution—including those put out of work in undesirable fossil fuel industries. The benefits, called “investments,” would include “access to nutritious food, health services, education, training and retraining, and unemployment benefits."

--A guarantee that if those sweeping benefits weren’t enough, more would be granted. As one of the U.N. documents puts it: “Any adverse effects of changes in prices of goods and services vital to the welfare of vulnerable groups must be compensated for and new livelihood opportunities provided."

Click here for the Executive Summary Report.

That huge catalogue of taxes and spending is described optimistically as “targeted investments in human and social capital on top of investments in natural capital and green physical capital,” and is accompanied by the claim that it will all, in the long run, more than pay for itself.

But the whopping green “investment” list barely scratches the surface of the mammoth exercise in global social engineering that is envisaged in the U.N. documents, prepared by the Geneva-based United Nations Environmental Management Group (UNEMG), a consortium of 36 U.N. agencies, development banks and environmental bureaucracies, in advance of the Rio session.

An earlier version of the report was presented at a closed door session of the U.N.'s top bureaucrats during a Long Island retreat last October, where Rio was discussed as a "unique opportunity" to drive an expanding U.N. agenda for years ahead.

Click here for more on this story from Fox News.

Under the ungainly title of Working Towards a Balanced and Inclusive Green Economy, A United Nations System-Wide Perspective, the final version of the 204-page report is intended to “contribute” to preparations for the Rio + 20 summit, where one of the two themes is “the green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication. ” (The other theme is “the institutional framework for sustainable development” –sometimes known as global environmental governance.)

But in fact, it also lays out new roles for private enterprise, national governments, and a bevy of socialist-style worker, trade and citizens’ organizations in creating a sweeping international social reorganization, all closely monitored by regulators and governments to maintain environmental “sustainability” and “human equity.”

“Transforming the global economy will require action locally (e.g., through land use planning), at the national level (e.g., through energy-use regulations) and at the international level (e.g., through technology diffusion),” the document says. It involves “profound changes in economic systems, in resource efficiency, in the composition of global demand, in production and consumption patterns and a major transformation in public policy-making.” It will also require “a serious rethinking of lifestyles in developed countries.”

As the report puts it, even though “the bulk of green investments will come from the private sector," the "role of the public sector... is indispensable for influencing the flow of private financing." It adds that the green economy model “recognizes the value of markets, but is not tied to markets as the sole or best solution to all problems.”

Among other countries, the report particularly lauds China as “a good example of combining investments and public policy incentives to encourage major advances in the development of cleaner technologies.”

Along those lines, it says, national governments need to reorganize themselves to " collectively design fiscal and tax policies as well as policies on how to use the newly generated revenue" from their levies. There, "U.N. entities can help governments and others to find the most appropriate ways of phasing out harmful subsidies while combining that with the introduction of new incentive schemes to encourage positive steps forward."

U.N. organizations can also “encourage the ratification of relevant international agreements, assist the Parties to implement and comply with related obligations...and build capacity, including that of legislators at national and sub-national levels to prepare and ensure compliance with regulations and standards."

The report declares that “scaled-up and accelerated international cooperation" is required, with new coordination at "the international, sub-regional, and regional levels." Stronger regulation is needed, and “to avoid the proliferation of national regulations and standards, the use of relevant international standards is essential” -- an area where the U.N. can be very helpful, the report indicates.

The U.N. is also ready to supply new kinds of statistics to bolster and measure the changes that the organization foresees—including indicators that do away with old notions of economic growth and progress and replace them with new statistics. One example: “the U.N. System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA), which will become an internationally agreed statistical framework in 2012."

These changes, the authors reassure readers, will only be done in line with the “domestic development agendas” of the countries involved.

“A green economy is not a one-size-fits-all path towards sustainable development,” an executive summary of the report declares. Instead it is a “dynamic policy toolbox” for local decision-makers, who can decide to use it optionally.

But even so, the tools are intended for only one final aim. And they have the full endorsement of U.N. Secretary General Ban, who declares in a forward to the document that “only such integrated approach will lay lasting foundations for peace and sustainable development," and calls the upcoming Rio conclave a "generational opportunity" to act.

Click here for the full report.

A Tennessee Fireman's Solution to Climate Change

Every former addict seems to remember the moment he decided to change: maybe he woke up in prison, or in the hospital; or maybe he injured someone, or lost his job. Whatever the cause, something forces him to accept that his actions have consequences, and that those consequences will lead to disaster for him and others if he doesn’t alter his behavior. Then, in the best of cases – and if it’s not too late – he fixes himself.

A recent poll by Yale and George Mason Universities shows that most Americans are at or near that point on climate change, with 72% of us seeing a link between extreme weather and our own actions. It’s a link that climate models have long predicted, and with the benefit of hindsight we see that even the earliest models have proven accurate over time.

At the same time, however, the denial machine is ratcheting up its disinformation campaign, and therein lies the problem. Every time someone validates or fine-tunes the science, ten or twelve well-funded and active propagandists pop up to distorting it – usually by twisting the attempts at fine-tuning into “proof” that the models are fundamentally useless, and then launching childish attacks on the scientists themselves.

This propaganda has already set us back two decades, during which the costs of dealing with climate change have risen and our chances of curtailing it have diminished. As crop failures mount and costs from damages rise, the denial machine will first continue to blame everything on nature, then it will pretend to be reconsidering its position in light of “new” evidence, and finally it will pretend this was all just an honest mistake – oops, sorry.

Well that doesn’t wash, because the evidence is there right now for anyone who does their homework, and it has been for some time. What’s also there is a very public record of who has been lying to the public and who hasn’t – and it’s time to start using this information to make the liars and shirkers pay.

Let’s take a page from those Tennessee firemen we heard about a few times last year – the ones who stood idly by as houses burned to the ground because their owners had refused to pay a measly $75 fee.

We can apply this same logic to climate change.

We know who the active denialists are – not the people who buy the lies, mind you, but the people who create the lies. Let’s start keeping track of them now, and when the famines come, let’s make them pay. Let’s let their houses burn until the innocent are rescued. Let’s swap their safe land for submerged islands. Let’s force them to bear the cost of rising food prices.

They broke the climate. Why should the rest of us have to pay for it?

Obviously, the ideal solution is to get our collective act together and prevent this from happening, but we need a fall-back – a mechanism that puts responsibility for damages on the shoulders of the shirkers and deniers who cause it and profit from it, and we need to build that mechanism before the damages materialize.

If the shirkers and deniers actually believe their propaganda, they’ll go along with this – because they only have to pay if they’re wrong and 98% of all climate scientists are right. (And what are the odds of that happening – nudge nudge, wink wink?)

I’m not the only one thinking along these lines, as Slayde Hawkins pointed out a few weeks ago in “Suing to Stop Climate Change”.

Some groups, she writes, have already tried suing oil companies under “public nuisance” laws, and a handful of cases are ongoing – but she says the chances of success look slim, because the US Supreme Court ruled that the US Environmental Protection Agency has responsibility for dealing with climate change.

If you want to sue someone, the court seems to be saying, sue the EPA. Well, why not sue the people who have been hobbling the EPA?

Beyond the jurisdictional issue – which can be corrected through legislation – we have the problem of how to assign damages, and this is a doozy. The models have proven incredibly accurate when it comes to projecting the overall rise in extreme events, they still can’t tell you exactly which specific storms arose from climate change and which would have happened anyway – and they probably never will. They also can’t tell us which company’s emissions caused which change in temperature – and that’s something they’ll never be able to do, because CO2 emissions all get mixed up in the air.

But they can tell us how many extreme events would happen each year on average without manmade greenhouse gasses, so we can see what percentage of the damage is caused by man and what percentage is caused by nature. This gives us a global amount of damage that can be attributed to man. We combine this with our transparent reckoning of who the bad guys are, and we have the beginning of our Tennessee fireman’s solution to climate change.

NOTE: After reading the comments, it’s clear I need to, well, clarify a few things.

First, I’m not advocating anyone go out and burn someone’s house down, just as the firemen didn’t burn anyone’s house down but rather withheld a service from people who didn’t pay their fair share. (A friend of mine did actually have his house burned down by a deranged animal rights activist, so I know there are crazies on both sides of this debate.)

I used the analogy of Tennessee firemen because their actions were roundly lauded by aficionados of the Tea Party, who don’t like the idea of someone getting something for nothing. I don’t advocate their inaction, but it will be interesting to see how people who supported them view this scenario.

The people who owned the houses committed no crime — they just decided to save $75 by not paying the fire protection fee. They took a risk, and they suffered the consequences.

We might argue that people who do nothing about climate change are also committing no crime — they have just decided to save a few bucks by not reducing their emissions. They have taken a risk, but they have also dumped the downside on the rest of us. What’s worse, it’s a dumb risk — one that you could argue faces 50:1 odds against winning (based on the overwhelming consensus among climate scientists on this), but which has a marginal payoff at best.

Since people are taking risks that impact the rest of us, doesn’t it make sense to ask how the innocent should be made whole if things go awry? Also, how do we differentiate between people who were acting in good faith but were swayed by deceit and people who were obfuscating the truth?

If the denialists or whatever you want to call them really are acting in good faith, they won’t object to this even if they are wrong, because it only applies to people who can be shown to be disseminating patently and demonstratively false information. It’s also, obviously, an unworkable mechanism, but I thought maybe it would spark some interesting comments on how best to deal with externalities and the tragedy of the commons. Perhaps now?

SOURCE: Forbes 4/19/2012 @ 9:47AM

Ex-Democrat congressman to begin prison sentence

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 20, 2012 at 10:18 AM ET
Former La. Congressman to Begin Prison Sentence

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A former Louisiana congressman convicted of taking bribes will have to begin serving a 13-year prison sentence within two weeks.

Democrat William Jefferson was convicted in 2009 but has been free on bond while appealing his case. The case drew headlines when FBI agents found $90,000 cash hidden in Jefferson's freezer.

Last month, a federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., upheld all but one of the 11 counts on which Jefferson was convicted. At a status hearing Friday in federal court in Alexandria, the judge ordered Jefferson to turn himself in to U.S. Marshals by May 4 to serve the sentence.

The judge is recommending Jefferson serve his time at a prison camp near New Orleans.

Jefferson's lawyer said an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is under consideration.

China military warns U.S. of armed confrontation

By Amrutha Gayathri
April 21, 2012 4:56 AM EDT
International Business Times:

A top military publication in China has warned that the US may be risking an armed confrontation by undertaking a joint military exercise with the Philippines amid maritime tensions between Manila and Beijing over a disputed shoal in the South China Sea.

The military drills involving nearly 7,000 US and Philippine forces, which began in the South China Sea Monday, has intensified the standoff between the Philippines and China over the Scarborough Shoal, also known as the Panatog Shoal.

Although the drills, meant to improve security, are happening in a different region, to the southwest of the disputed rocky reefs, Beijing registered its protest right when it began.

Though the military newspaper commentary is different from a government caveat, it is the sternest warning from Chinese authorities yet pertaining to the territorial dispute surrounding Scarborough shoal.

"Anyone with clear eyes saw long ago that behind these drills is reflected a mentality that will lead the South China Sea issue down a fork in the road towards military confrontation and resolution through armed force," the People's Liberation Army newspaper said, according to a Reuters report.

"Through this kind of meddling and intervention, the United States will only stir up the entire South China Sea situation towards increasing chaos, and this will inevitably have a massive impact on regional peace and stability."

The Philippines pulled out a warship, replacing it with a coast guard vessel, to "de-escalate the situation" over Scarborough area off the country's northwestern coast, President Benigno Aquino III said Monday, reported the Associated Press.

Rejecting a Philippine proposal for a peaceful and diplomatic solution for the shoal dispute, China dispatched a military vessel to the South China Sea Thursday, according to report by the China Daily.

Beijing's move signals its determination to protect its maritime interests, dealing a severe blow to the Philippine call for peace.

Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Raul Hernandez Friday said that China's move was seen as an escalation of the standoff, which began April 10, when two Chinese ships thwarted the Philippines' effort to arrest several Chinese fishermen accused of illegal entry and poaching near the Scarborough area.

China's growing maritime influence in the region has neighboring nations including Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan worried over territorial confrontations.

China claims almost the entire South China Sea, including what is recognized by the UN as the Exclusive Economic Zone of other neighbors, according to reports.

China asserts that the islands and waters of the South China Sea, which Manila now calls the West Philippines Sea, were first discovered in the 13th century by a Chinese emperor. Though a Chinese spokesperson recently denied historicity as the reason for the claim, he maintained that China had "indisputable sovereignty" over all the islands and waters in the South China Sea.

"China's position on the South China Sea issue is consistent and clear. China has indisputable sovereignty over islands in the South China Sea as well as their adjacent waters," China's Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hong Lei said during a press meet Feb. 29.

Analysts say South China Sea is increasingly being seen as a region akin to the Persian Gulf. "Aside from the issue of sovereignty, energy security is also a major factor behind these competing claims," veteran Filipino journalist Chito Sta. Romana wrote recently. He said the growing tensions between China and the US in the Asian region provided a "strategic context that complicates the regional situation." It was "difficult to expect an end to this diplomatic tug-of-war in the near future," he added.

Homes abandoned amid riot warnings in Chicago

WND EXCLUSIVE
Homes abandoned amid riot warnings in Chicago
Obama has ties to radicals plotting chaos for NATO summit
Published: Apr. 22, 2012
by Aaron Klein

In a sign of what may be coming, residents of a Chicago condo building located near the site of next month’s NATO summit have been asked to leave for the event or risk being caught in a storm of rioters.

WND first reported in August 2011 that radicals, some with ties to President Obama, were planning to riot during the NATO summit.

FOX Chicago News reported the people living in the 17-floor Library Tower building at 520 South State Street were warned in a letter from condo management that “we are STRONGLY recommending that all residents find places to stay during the conference from May 18 through May 21.”

The letter specifically warned of riots:

“In the event of a riot or the potential of one near the building, all access doors will be locked including the garage door,” the letter continues. “For everyone’s safety, we will be instructing anyone in the building to stay in his or her unit.”

While NATO summits often attract crowds of thousands of protesters, the national Occupy movement may add even more chaos to the expected mass protests.

Chicago will be the first American city other than Washington to host a NATO gathering.

Such meetings have previously drawn mass protests that turned violent.

The 1999 WTO event in Seattle devolved into widespread rioting in which more than 40,000 protesters, some using violent tactics, descended on the city, prompting police to use tear gas and rubber bullets. The clash became known as “The Battle of Seattle.”

Preparing for outbreaks, the Chicago Sun-Times In July 2011 quoted Superintendent of Police Garry McCarthy as saying he was prepping 13,000 officers under his command for mass arrests of protesters.

“We have to train for mass arrests,” McCarthy said. “We have to train 13,000 police officers in arrest procedures and containment procedures. At the same time, we will not stop patrolling the city.”

In response, radical groups held a press conference that month in downtown Chicago demanding permits to march during the world summit in May.

Joe Iosbaker of the United National Antiwar Committee, one of the groups planning protests, warned, “The wars and economic policies of the NATO and G8 nations are not just and will be met by protest.”

Iosbaker is a University of Illinois-Chicago office worker and a union steward for his SEIU local. His home was raided by the FBI last September reportedly as part of a terror probe investigating material support for jihadist groups.

Obama has ties to many of the activists groups being investigated in that FBI probe.

WND reported Iosbaker and his wife, Stephanie Weiner, worked as leaders of the Chicago New Party, a controversial 1990s political party that sought to elect members to public office with the aim of moving the Democratic Party far leftward. The ultimate goal was to form a new political party with a socialist agenda.

WND previously reported on evidence from the New Party’s own newsletters showing Obama was a member of the New Party.

Another group at that press conference planning to protest at the May summits is Code Pink.

Code Pink’s co-founder, Jodie Evans, was a fundraiser and financial bundler for Obama’s presidential campaign.

Also planning protests is Tom Burke of the so-called Committee to Stop FBI Repression, which has been leading activism against the FBI’s reported ongoing terror probes of Chicago and Minnesota anti-war groups.

Burke, a former school custodian who is now a stay-at-home father, belongs to the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, a group mentioned in subpoenas and search warrants issued in the same FBI terror probe.

WND reported on Obama’s other ties to the activist groups at the heart of the FBI terror probe, including Hatem Abudayyeh, the executive director of the Arab American Action Network, or AAAN.

WND was first to report that Obama, while serving as a paid director of the far-left nonprofit Chicago Woods Fund, provided two grants to the AAAN.

Obama served at the Woods Fund alongside Weather Underground terrorist-group founder Bill Ayers.

AAAN was founded by a longtime Obama associate, Columbia University Professor Rashid Khalidi. Khalidi’s wife, Mona, is president of the Arab American Action Network.