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Occupy Crowd Stabs Police Officer

At Occupy We are Smart

By: KIRSTAN CONLEY and CYNTHIA R. FAGEN

Some 800 Occupy Wall Street protesters began the New Year by trying to retakeZuccottiPark last night, starting a massive clash with police in which one officer was stabbed in the hand with a pair of scissors.

A suspect was arrested in the 11:30 p.m. incident, according to a law enforcement source.

Hundreds in the crowd of occupiers then surrounded the ambulance as it tried to leave with the wounded officer, the source said.

The officer, who was not identified, was taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition.

Shortly before midnight OWS protesters took to twitter to proclaim their assault on Zuccotti — from which they were booted by cops in November.

“Barricades being torn down at liberty [Zuccotti] park,” they wrote. “Happy New Years!!”

They later tweeted: “Big crowd at liberty square. We have taken back the park.”

Some 100 cops initially responded to the scene, including mounted police to maintain crowd control.

At one point, some of the protestors surrounded the circle of cops, before reinforcements were called in.

Police in riot gear started to attempt to clear the park at about 1:30 a.m. today.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/ows_mob_in_clash_with_cops_PWKCyTnw7qMpcg7VO9ovdO  

 

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California Gov. Jerry Brown brings 760 crazy new laws into the New Year

By Patrick McGreevy,Los AngelesTimes

December 31, 2011, 3:28 p.m.

Reporting fromSacramento—

Californians will no longer be able to carry handguns openly in public, buy alcohol at self-serve checkout stands or purchase shark fins for their soup under hundreds of new laws that take effect Jan. 1.

Other measures bar minors from tanning beds, allow students to be suspended for cyber-bullying and require booster seats for children in cars until they are 8 years old or at least 4 feet, 9 inches tall.

Despite another year of budget shortfalls, the 760 bills that Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law in 2011 included several that cost money. Among them: new funding for a bullet train and a campaign to boost enrollment for food stamps as the economy remains sluggish.

Some bills took effect immediately after the governor signed them. One allows an NFL stadium proposed for downtown Los Angeles to receive expedited legal review of any challenges over environmental issues. Another prohibits cities and counties from outlawing male circumcision.

Brown faced a backlash for signing some of the proposals, including one allowing illegal immigrants to receive private financial aid administered by California’s public colleges. (Another permitting access to taxpayer-provided aid takes effect in 2013.)

Known as the California Dream Act, the pair of measures drew fire from the public and some lawmakers who consider them unfair to students born in the United States. But Assemblyman Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) said his legislation recognizes the value of young people who graduate from high school in California regardless of where they were born.

“It’s important for California and the future of our economy to take advantage of the investment we have made in these young men and women,” Cedillo said.

Brown was also criticized for signing a law requiring public schools to include the contributions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in history lessons and instructional material, although new textbooks for lower grades are not planned for three years.

One of the most contentious issues was the ban on the open carrying of handguns, which put California in the minority of states that have adopted such restrictions. Some gun-rights advocates say the new law will not keep them from appearing in public with weapons that are not covered by the ban.

“Law-abiding citizens will start openly carrying unloaded long guns in public because their basic and fundamental civil right to self-defense, as enumerated in the 2nd Amendment, is clearly being infringed upon,” said Yih-Chau Chang, a spokesman for the firearms advocacy group Responsible Citizens of California.

Assemblyman Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada Flintridge) said he introduced the measure in response to law enforcement officials who felt that public safety was jeopardized by gun owners wearing firearms on their hips at coffee shops and other public venues as they called attention to a right to bear arms.

Laws taking effect also include:

Athlete safety: requires school districts to develop a process for identifying cases in which students suffer concussions in sports mishaps and require a parent to give written permission for the athlete to return to the lineup.

Audits: gives the state auditor broad new powers to investigate misuse of taxpayer funds by cities and counties, in response to the financial scandal in the city of Bell.

Autism: requires health insurers to include coverage for autism.

Baby food: bans stores from selling expired infant food and formula.

Bail: requires that people extradited to California to face criminal charges face $100,000 in bail in addition to any bail already issued for the underlying offense.

Ballot measures: requires all ballot initiatives and referenda to be decided in November general elections, which typically have higher turnout — and more liberal voters casting ballots — than do June primaries. Excludes measures placed on the ballot by the Legislature.

Beer: bars the importation, production and sale of beer to which caffeine has been directly added as a separate ingredient, in response to incidents in which young people have been hospitalized with severe intoxication after drinking the beverages.

Bullet train: provides $4 million for planning work on a section of a high-speed rail system proposed between Los Angeles and San Diego.

Child actors: streamlines the process for obtaining state permission for minors to work in the entertainment industry by allowing parents to get temporary permits online rather than through the mail.

Clemency: requires governors to give prosecutors a chance to weigh in at least 10 days before acting on requests for commutation of prison terms. The law was proposed after former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger acted on his last day in office to reduce a prison sentence for the son of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez.

Cyber-bullying: allows schools to suspend students for bullying classmates on social networking sites such as Facebook.

Development projects: grants large construction projects chosen by the governor faster judicial reviews of environmental challenges.

Dream Act: The portion of the California Dream Act taking effect this year makes illegal immigrants accepted at California public universities and community colleges eligible for privately funded scholarships administered by the schools.

Drugs: outlaws the supplying of a drug or compound containing dextromethorphan to a person younger than 18 without a prescription.

Drunk drivers: authorizes courts to revoke, for up to a decade, the driver’s license of any person convicted of three or more DUIs in a 10-year period. Another law bars police agencies that set up drunk-driving checkpoints from impounding cars from sober but unlicensed drivers if there is a legal driver available to take the wheel.

Elder abuse: allows wage garnishments against anyone convicted of elder abuse or financial abuse of a dependent adult.

Farmworkers: requires that, if the Agricultural Labor Relations Board refuses to certify an election because of employer misconduct, the affected labor organization shall be certified as the exclusive bargaining representative.

Food stamps: eliminates the requirement that food stamp recipients be fingerprinted to prevent fraud. Another law calls for state agencies to promote more enrollment in the federal food stamp program.

Foster care: allows foster care for eligible youths to extend beyond age 18, up to age 21, when the Legislature provides the money. Another measure requires California State University campuses and community colleges to give foster youths priority to enroll in classes.

Gas pipelines: mandates automatic shut-off valves and improved maintenance in vulnerable sections of pipelines, in response to the deadly explosion in San Bruno in 2010.

Human trafficking: requires large retailers and manufacturers to publicly report what steps they take to make sure those providing their supplies and products are not engaging in slavery and human trafficking.

Infused drinks: allows bars to infuse alcohol with fruits and vegetables for use in cocktails.

Insurance: prohibits doctors, when treating workers’ compensation patients, from prescribing drugs in which they have a financial interest.

Iran: mandates that the state’s pension boards divest their funds from companies that are part of the defense or nuclear industries in Iran.

Job applicants: bars employers from using credit reports in deciding whether to hire someone.

Labor: prohibits local officials from banning union labor agreements for publicly funded construction projects.

Lap-Bands: requires periodic inspections of outpatient surgery centers that perform Lap-Band operations and other procedures. The law is a response to the 2007 death of singer Kanye West‘s mother after liposuction and breast augmentation surgery at a Westside clinic

 

Libraries: restricts the privatization of public libraries by requiring that they continue to pay government-scale wages.

Lying politicians: forces elected officials to forfeit office if convicted of falsely claiming they have been awarded military decorations.

 

Marijuana: gives cities and counties clearer authority to regulate the location and operation of medical marijuana dispensaries. Another law creates new penalties for the possession of synthetic cannabis products, which have been sold in convenience stores and tobacco shops.

Maternity leave: requires employers to maintain and pay for health coverage while women are on maternity leave.

Medical consent: gives children 12 and older the authority to get medical care for the prevention of sexually transmitted disease, including the HPV vaccine, without parental consent.

Missing persons: requires law enforcement agencies to submit a missing persons report to the state attorney general when the person being sought is 21 or younger, a change from the current cutoff age of 16.

Needles: empowers cities and counties to allow pharmacists to furnish a customer with up to 30 hypodermic needles and syringes without a prescription. Another law permits the state Department of Public Health to allow select groups to provide hypodermic needles and syringe exchange services in any area where it determines that conditions exist for the rapid spread of HIV.

Presidential primary: moves the state’s presidential primary election from February to June and consolidates it with the statewide primary election to save $100million.

Prison phones: makes it a crime for cell phones to be smuggled into state prisons and allows increased time behind bars for inmates caught with them.

Prostitution: imposes a special court fine of $25,000 on defendants convicted of prostitution involving a minor.

Protests: makes it a misdemeanor to create a disturbance on or next to an elementary or middle school campus where the action threatens the physical safety of students.

Puppies: outlaws the selling of live animals on any street, sidewalk, parking lot or other public right-of-way.

Raves: requires any state agency that plans an event with more than 10,000 people on state property to conduct a threat assessment before the event.

Recycling: establishes as state policy that 75% of solid waste should be diverted from landfills to recycling and other processes by 2020.

Restaurants: may use up their supplies of shark fins — a delicacy in Chinese cooking — purchased before Jan. 1. After that, sale and possession of shark fins will be illegal.

Saving parks: allows nonprofits to take over the operation of state parks that otherwise would be closed because of budget problems.

Senior care: mandates that residential care facilities for the elderly notify residents within 10 days if the state determines that a serious health and safety violation occurred at the facility.

Sexual orientation: encourages state university systems to collect data on students’ sexual orientation and encourages the legislative analyst to use it to recommend improvements in the quality of life for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students.

Student government: authorizes illegal immigrants who are students to receive grants, fee waivers and reimbursement for serving in student government at public colleges.

Tax break: provides a tax credit to California farmers for the cost of fresh fruit and vegetables donated to California food banks.

Work rules: establishes an employee’s right to as many as three days of bereavement leave within three months following the death of a spouse, child, parent, grandchild, sibling or domestic partner.

Wine: provides a special permit that makes it easier forCalifornia firms to sell wine over the Internet, by phone or by direct mail.

 http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-new-laws-20120101,0,4146983.story?page=3&utm_medium=feed&track=rss&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20MostEmailed%20%28L.A.%20Times%20-%20Most%20E-mailed%20Stories%29&utm_content=Google%20Reader&utm_source=feedburner

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The Corruption of the Green Industry

GodFather Obama

By: Elmer Williams

 The Obama  has done its part to prop up the green industries. Every time
you look at the news you are hearing this administration given money to another
one of Obama’s cronies. Most of us are very familiar with the Solyndra $535
million scandal, but there are many more. We keep hearing people tell us how
the future is with green jobs. My question to the entire green community is why
so many green companies are receiving money, and yet they have still failed to survive.

I will be interested to see if some one will ever go to jail for ripping off the taxpayer’s. Steven Chu the Energy Secretary did not believe that he and this administration had really done anything wrong. That along should send an alarm signal that he is absolutely corrupt, and he should be prosecuted. You do not need to be a financial wizard to see all the reasons that the Department of Energy should not have approved this loan. ([i])“White House logs revealed that Solyndra
executives and investors held four separate visits the week before the company
received its cut of your stimulus cash. Those meetings all took place while a
White House budget analyst warned in an email that, “this deal is not ready for
prime time.”

We are supposed to believe that there was no cronyism involved in this loan. The American people should be looking at why Martha Stewart went to jail. We should ask ourselves, “how much is enough”, until we get feed up.  How can we stand
by and allow these corrupt Devils to continue to steal us blind. These people
are so bold that now they don’t even make an attempt to hide their corruption.
These people are like a cheap whore on crack who does not even attempt to act
embarrassed. Congress and the White House should be ashamed of themselves, but people with no souls have no shame.  

 George Kaiser the majority holder at Solyndra and Obama bundler used the tax code to his advantage. Look at what one article had to say about Kaiser. ([ii]) “Kaiser has built his fortune in part through shrewdly playing the Internal Revenue
Code. In one six year period, during which he increased his net worth enough to
land him on the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, Kaiser reported
taxable income to the Internal Revenue Service just once, totaling
$11,699–equivalent to a full-time hourly wage of $5.62.” What happen to the millionaires and billionaires paying their fair
share?

 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of Bobby and nephew of John, also owns BrightSource another green company. I don’t want anyone to jump to conclusions but his company received a $1.4  loan guarantee or bailout if you please. I said 1.4 billion. I’m sure that he did all the right things to earn this loan. This is not a form of
paying Mr. Transparent President for raising money for is presidential bid.
This was another risky loan that should have never been made, but you know it’s
just the people’s money, so it is okay to waste it.

 

([iii])“In 2010, BrightSource, whose largest shareholder is Kennedy’s VantagePoint
Partners, was up to its eyes in $1.8 billion of debt obligations and had lost
$71.6 million on its paltry $13.5 million of revenue.” Why
don’t these corrupt individuals handle their finances like this? They make poor
investment after poor investment with no regard for the American’s people’s
money. It is all about these soulless characters becoming rich at all cost.
They know that all this “green” talk is not profitable. However it appeases the
tree huggers who worship at the foot of “Mother Earth”. Whatever Happen To
COMMON SENSE?

Why don’t Al Gore, Obama, and any other politician who believe that investing in the renewable energy is good. Spend fifty percent of their own income yearly. They will not do this because they are nothing but a bunch of charlatans. I am convinced that either these people are complete idiots, or they are purposely stealing the American people blind. Don’t they care that their kids and grandkids will be enslaved to the debt that they have created?

Abound Solar which is also a green company, they will receive a $400 million loan that is guaranteed. Pat Stryker who owns Bohemian Companies and is also a major investor in Abound Solar. It just so happens, that Pat Stryker bundle $87,500 to the President in 2008. I’m sure that this was not the reason that Abound received this loan. This is just a mere coincident. Are you out of you freaking mind?

  [i] The Washington Times, By: http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/conscience-conservative/2011/nov/5/obamas-solyndra-fiasco/

 [ii] By Bill Allison
Oct 13 2011, http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/2011/barack-obamas-other-billionaire-how-george-kaiser-turned-oklahom/

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The kids won’t eat from Michelle Obama’s lunch menu

 

By: Michelle Malkin

The road to gastric hell is paved with first lady Michelle
Obama’s Nanny State intentions. Don’t take my word for it. School kids in Los
Angeles have blown the whistle on the east wing chef-in-chief’s healthy lunch
diktats. Get your Pepto Bismol ready. The taste of government waste is
indigestion-inducing.

According to a weekend report by the Los Angeles Times, the
city’s “trailblazing introduction of healthful school lunches has been a
flop.” In response to the public hectoring and financial inducement of
Mrs. Obama’s federally subsidized anti-obesity campaign, the district dropped
chicken nuggets, corn dogs and flavored milk from the menu for “beef
jambalaya, vegetable curry, pad Thai, lentil and brown rice cutlets, and quinoa
and black-eyed pea salads.”

Sounds delectable in theory. But in practice, the initiative
has been what L.A. Unified’s food services director Dennis Barrett plainly
concludes is a “disaster.” While the Obama administration has
showered the nation’s second-largest school district with nutrition awards,
thousands of students voted with their upset tummies and abandoned the program.
A forbidden-food black market — stoked not just by students, but also by
teachers — is now thriving. Moreover, “(p)rincipals report massive waste,
with unopened milk cartons and uneaten entrees being thrown away.”

This despite a massive increase in spending on nutritional
improvements — from $2 million to $20 million alone in the last five years on
fresh produce.

This despite a nearly half-billion-dollar budget shortfall
and 3,000 layoffs earlier this year.

Earlier this spring, L.A. school officials acknowledged that
the sprawling district is left with a whopping 21,000 uneaten meals a day, in
part because the federal school lunch program “sometimes requires more
food to be served than a child wants to eat.” The leftovers will now be
donated to nonprofit agencies. But after the recipients hear about students’
reports of moldy noodles, undercooked meat and hard rice, one wonders how much
of the “free” food will go down the hatch — or down the drain. Ahhh,
savor the flavor of one-size-fits-all mandates.

There’s nothing wrong with encouraging our children to eat
healthier, of course. There’s nothing wrong with well-run, locally based and
parent-driven efforts. But as I’ve noted before, the federal foodie cops care
much less about students’ waistlines than they do about boosting government and
public union payrolls.

In a little-noticed announcement several months ago, Obama
health officials declared their intention to use school lunch applications to
boost government health care rolls. Never mind the privacy concerns of parents.

Big Government programs “for the children” are
never about the children. If they were, you wouldn’t see Chicago public school
officials banning students from bringing home-packed meals made by their own
parents. In April, The Chicago Tribune reported that “unless they have a
medical excuse, they must eat the food served in the cafeteria.” The
bottom line? Banning homemade lunches means a fatter payday for the school and
its food provider.

Remember: The unwritten mantra driving Mrs. Obama’s federal
school lunch meddling and expansion is: “Cede the children, feed the
state.” And the biggest beneficiaries of her efforts over the past three
years have been her husband’s deep-pocketed pals at the Service Employees
International Union. There are 400,000 workers who prepare and serve lunch to
American schoolchildren. SEIU represents tens of thousands of those workers and
is trying to unionize many more at all costs.

In L.A., the district’s cafeteria fund is $20 million in the
hole thanks to political finagling by SEIU Local 99. The union’s left-wing
allies on the school board and in the mayor’s office pressured the district to
adopt reckless fiscal policies awarding gold-plated health benefits to
part-time cafeteria workers in the name of “social justice.” As one school
board member who opposed the budget-busting entitlements said: “Everyone
in this country deserves health benefits. But it was a very expensive proposal.
And it wasn’t done at the bargaining table, which is where health benefits are
usually negotiated. And no one had any idea where the money was going to come
from.”

Early next year, Mrs. Obama will use the “success”
of her child nutrition campaign to hawk a new tome and lobby for more money and
power in concert with her husband’s re-election campaign. It’s a recipe for
more half-baked progressivism served with a side order of bitter arugula.

http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2011/12/21/michelle_obamas_unsavory_school_lunch_flop

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Is the Lefts Economic Plan Good

By: Armstrong Williams

Naturally I disagree
with much of the opposition and my well-meaning colleagues on the left in
regards to Keynes and his school of economics. Many in this school of thought
cannot accept the fact that Keynesian economics has never worked; it did not
work in the depression nor has it worked any time since then. The only time
stimulus has “worked” is after the economy has already recovered and
then becomes overheated by the stimulus. Keynesian economics is an excuse for
politicians to buy off special interest and voters with other people’s money.
Let me address some of the opposition’s specific points.

First, stimulus
spending creates jobs. False: stimulus spending financed by taxes substitutes
relatively inefficient government spending for private spending, in other words
government spending “crowds out” private spending. The opposition may
disagree that public spending is less efficient but the recent analysis of the
government spending does not support their point of view.

Second, many will
tell you that it is not taxation but debt that is financing the government
spending; thus it is not crowding out private spending. I maintain that
government debt crowds out private borrowing and investment. Many of my
anti-capitalist colleagues say that government spending is not crowding out private
investment because interest rates are low. Therefore there is plenty of money
to finance private investment. Unfortunately, in an attempt to protect
depositors, and the government guarantee of such deposits, the bank regulators
have increased the credit underwriting requirements on banks. Consequently,
they are not lending to small and medium sized businesses.

Interest rates are
low because the Fed is printing money and as a result significantly increasing
the money supply thereby making money less expensive. The irony of artificially
low interest rates is that it reduces the income of pensioners and savers. This
in effect shifts money and consumption from savers and transfers it to the
government who is borrowing at artificially low rates.

The business
community realizes that the increased money supply is financing government
spending and the private sector must eventually pay the piper. Consequently,
the business community is not investing as much as it might because it is
concerned about inflation and higher future taxes to pay for the borrowing.
Since business investment takes time for a return, the business man making an
investment now expecting a return 2 or 3 years from now knows that his taxes
are going to be increased with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts and the 3.8%
new Obama care tax on unearned earnings. Thus the businessman is not investing
today because he knows his return is being significantly reduced 2 years from
now.

Third, their argument
of skyrocketing business investment is based on historically low investment in
2009 created by the worst recession since the Great Depression. Investors in
2011 are merely “catching up.” Investment is not above the trend
line.

Fourth, the left’s
idea to stimulate the economy through a tax credit for firms that increase
employment shows a fundamental lack of understanding of why companies increase
employment. Jobs are a by-product of increased sales and revenues. Companies do
not like to hire employees. They are expensive, require management and cannot
be easily laid off in the event of incompetence or loss of business. Companies
increase employment because they have additional business that needs to be
processed, and they cannot process it through overtime or increased capital. No
businessman in his right mind would hire someone merely because labor is 10%
cheaper because of tax credits. He would only increase employment if that is
his only alternative to process additional business. If he has additional
business, then he will hire additional employees regardless of the 10% credit.
Therefore the credit is an inefficient way to increase employment and waste of
taxpayer money.

Fifth, their plan for
a serious budget reduction in the future does not work without a big initial
down payment in spending cuts. Today’s Congress cannot bind future congresses,
and Congress has been notoriously unreliable with respect to the fiscal
management of the country’s finances. Only a naive observer of America’s
today’s political environment could believe that congress will constrain
spending to bring the deficit under control when the economy improves. The only
point that the left may have is that fiscal stimulus may have a small temporary
benefit when the money is originally spent, but the extent of the benefit
depends on how the money is spent, e.g. infrastructure, tax rebates, government
program, etc., and technical arguments about the multiplier effect of the
spending. However, it has a negative impact when it is finally paid for.

http://townhall.com/columnists/armstrongwilliams/2011/12/29/the_economy_through_the_eyes_of_the_opposition

 

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Is Obama’s foreign policy good for America?

By Caroline B. Glick

In recent months, a curious argument has surfaced in favor
of US President Barack Obama. His supporters argue that Obama’s foreign policy
has been a massive success. If he had as much freedom of action on domestic
affairs as he has on foreign affairs, they argue, his achievements in all areas
would be without peer.

Expressing this view, Karen Finney a former Democratic
spokeswoman who often defends the party in the US media told the Huffington
Post, “Look at the progress the president can make when he doesn’t have
Republicans obstructing him.”

According to a Gallup poll from early November, the US
public also believes that Obama’s foreign policy has been successful. Whereas
67 percent of Americans disapproved of Obama’s handling of the economy and the
federal budget deficit, 63 percent of Americans approved of his terrorism
strategy. So too, 52 percent approved of his decision to remove US forces from
Iraq. In general 49 percent of Americans approved of Obama’s handling of
foreign affairs while 44 percent disapproved.

These support levels tell us a great deal about the
insularity of the American public. For when one assesses the impact to date of
Obama’s foreign policy it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that if the US
public was more aware of the actual consequences of his policies, his approval
rating in foreign affairs would be even lower than his approval rating in
domestic policy. Indeed, a cursory examination of the impact so far of Obama’s
foreign policies in country after country and region after region indicates
that his policies have been more damaging to US national interests than those
of any president since Jimmy Carter. And unlike Obama, Americans widely
recognized that Carter’s foreign policies were failed and dangerous.

The failure of Obama’s foreign policies to date has been
nowhere more evident than in the Middle East.

Take Iraq for instance. Obama and his supporters claim that
the withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq is one of his great accomplishments.
By pulling out, Obama kept his promise to voters to end the war in “a
responsible manner.” And as the polling data indicate, most Americans are
willing to give him credit for the move.

But the situation on the ground is dangerous and getting
worse every day. Earlier this month, just ahead of the departure of the last US
forces from Iraq, Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki visited with Obama at
the White House. Immediately after he returned home, the Shiite premier began a
ruthless campaign against his Sunni coalition partners in a no-holds barred bid
to transform the Iraqi government and armed forces into partisan institutions
controlled by his Dawa Party.

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Forces commanded by Maliki’s son arrested and allegedly
tortured several of the Sunni Vice President Tariq al Hashimi’s bodyguards.
They forced the guards to implicate Hashimi in terror plots. Maliki
subsequently issued an arrest warrant for Hashimi. So too, he issued an arrest
warrant for the Sunni Deputy Prime Minister Saleh Mutlaq and fired him without
permission from the Iraqi parliament.

Hashimi and Mutlaq are now in hiding in Erbil. Maliki is
demanding that the Kurdish regional government extradite them to Baghdad for
trial.

Maliki’s actions have driven Sunni leaders in the Sunni
provinces of Diyala, Anbar and Salahadin to demand autonomy under Iraq’s
federal system. He has responded by deploying loyal forces to the provinces to
fight the local militias.

The situation is so explosive that three prominent Sunni
leaders, former prime minister Ayad Allawi, who heads the Iraqiya party,
Parliament Speaker Osama Nujaifi, and Finance Minister Rafe al-Essawi published
an op-ed in the New York Times on Tuesday begging Obama to rein in Maliki in
order to prevent Iraq from plunging into civil war.

Then there is Egypt. Obama’s decision in February to abandon
then president Hosni Mubarak, the US’s most dependable ally in the Arab world
in favor of the protesters in Tahrir Square was hailed by his supporters as a
victory for democracy and freedom against tyranny. By supporting the protesters
against the US ally, Obama argued that he was advancing US interests by showing
the Muslim world the US favored the people over their leaders.

Ten months later, the Egyptian people have responded to this
populist policy by giving jihadist parties a two-thirds majority in Egypt’s
parliamentary elections. For the first time in thirty years, the strategic
anchor of US power in the Arab world — the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty — is
in danger. Indeed, there is no reason to believe it will survive.

According to the Gallup poll, 48 percent of Americans
approve of Obama’s handling of the war in Afghanistan and 44 percent
disapprove. Here too, it is far from clear what there is to approve of. Against
the public entreaties of the US commanders on the ground, Obama is carrying
through on his pledge to withdraw all US surge troops from Afghanistan by the
US presidential elections in November. In the meantime, the US is engaged in
negotiations with the Taliban. The purpose of these negotiations is to reach a
political agreement that would set the conditions for the Taliban to return to
power after a US pullout. That is, the purpose of the talks is to set the
conditions for a US defeat in Afghanistan.

The administration hails its success in overthrowing Libyan
dictator Muammar Qaddafi without sacrificing a single US soldier. And
certainly, this was a success. However, Qaddafi’s opponents, who are now taking
charge of the country, are arguably worse for the US than Qaddafi was. They
include a significant number of al Qaida terrorists and are dominated by
jihadist forces. Attempts by the NATO-backed provisional government to convince
them to disarm have failed completely.

Since Qaddafi was overthrown, large quantities of advanced
weapons from his arsenal — allegedly including stockpiles of weapons of mass
destruction — have gone missing. Significant quantities of Libyan
shoulder-to-air missiles have made their way to Gaza since Qaddafi’s overthrow.

In Syria, while the administration insists that dictator
Bashar Assad’s days in power are numbered, it is doing essentially nothing to
support the Syrian opposition. Fearing the instability that would ensue if a
civil war were to break out in Iran’s Arab protectorate, the US has chosen to
effectively sit on its hands and so cancel any leverage it ought to wield over
the shape of things to come.

As to Iran, Obama’s policies have brought about a situation
where the regime in Teheran does not fear a US military strike on its nuclear
installations. Obama’s open opposition to the prospect of an Israeli strike
against Iran’s nuclear installations has similarly convinced the regime that it
can proceed without fear in its nuclear project.

Iran’s threat this week to close the Straits of Hormuz in
the event that the US imposes an embargo on Iranian oil exports is being widely
characterized by the US media as a sign of desperation on the part of the
regime. But it is hard to see how this characterization aligns with reality. It
is far more appropriate to view Iran’s easy threats as a sign of contempt for
Obama and for US power projection under his leadership.

If Iran’s ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons are thwarted,
it will be despite Obama, not because of him.

Then there is the so-called peace process between Israel and
the Palestinians. Due to Obama’s unbridled hostility towards Israel, there is
no chance whatsoever that Israel and the PLO will reach a peace deal for the
foreseeable future. Instead, Fatah and Hamas have agreed to unify their forces.
The only thing standing in the way of a Hamas takeover of the PLO is the US
Congress’s threat to cut off US aid to the Palestinian Authority. For his part,
Obama has gone out of his way to discredit the Congressional threat by serving
as an indefatigable lobbyist for maintaining US financial support for the PA.

Of course, the Middle East is not the only region where the
deleterious consequences of Obama’s foreign policy are being felt. From Europe,
to Africa, to Asia, to Latin America, Obama’s determination to embrace US
adversaries like Vladimir Putin and Hugo Chavez has weakened pro-US forces and
strengthened US foes.

So how is that that while Carter was perceived by the
majority of the American public as a foreign policy failure, a large plurality
of Americans views Obama’s foreign policy as a success?

Obama’s success in hiding his failures from the American
public owes to two related factors. First, to date the US has not been forced
to contend directly with the consequences of his failures.

Carter’s failures were impossible to ignore because the
blowback from his failures was immediate, unmistakable and harsh. His betrayal
of the Shah of Iran led directly to the takeover of the US Embassy in Teheran
and the hostage crisis. Carter could not spin to his advantage the daily
stories about the hostages. He could not influence CBS evening news anchor
Walter Cronkite’s decision to end every broadcast by reminding viewers how many
days the hostages had been in captivity.

So too, the consequences of Carter’s weakness in confronting
the Soviet Union were impossible to ignore or minimize with images of Soviet
tank columns invading Afghanistan dominating the news.

To date, Obama’s foreign policy failures have yet to explode
in a manner that can make the average American aware of them.

Then too, Obama and his advisors have been extremely adept
in presenting his tactical achievements as strategic victories. So it is that
the administration has successfully cast the killing of Osama bin Laden as a
strategic victory in the war on terror. Obama has upheld the mission, as well
as the killing of al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki as proof of his competence in
securing US interests. And to a large degree, the US public has accepted his
claims.

Because it is impossible to know when Obama’s failures will
begin to directly impact the America people, it is possible that he will not
pay a political price for them in the 2012 elections. Be that as it may, the
Republican presidential contenders would provide an invaluable service to both
themselves and the American public as a whole if they make exposing Obama’s
disastrous stewardship of US foreign policy a central plank of their campaigns.

At a minimum, forewarned is forearmed. And the dimensions of
Obama’s failures are so enormous, that it is clear that the American people
will suffer their consequences for years to come.

 

http://jewishworldreview.com/1211/glick123011.php3