Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Political Digest for May 17, 2011

I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree (or disagree) with every—or any—opinion in the posted article. Help your friends and relatives stay informed by passing the digest on.

The Coming Collapse of the American Republic
Info about my book. All royalties go to wounded veterans. Please forward and post where possible.

Armstrong Williams Radio Show appearance Tuesday afternoon
Thank you very much for agreeing to be a guest on The Armstrong Williams Radio Show Tuesday, May 17 at 4:30 PM EDT. The topic will be your new book. We broadcast daily on WGCV Radio in Columbia, WLMC Georgetown, SC, WCPK Chesapeake, VA, from 4-5:00 PM and Sirius/XM Satellite Radio New 128 daily from 7-8:00 PM. You may listen to our daily broadcast from 4-5:00 PM EDT on http://www.blogger.com/www.livestream.com/armstrongwilliams

Scottish Politics: Independence by Stealth
Excerpt: Was this a vote for leaving the union? Hardly. Neither independence nor the enhancements to devolution proposed in legislation currently wending its way through Westminster featured much in the campaign, which was dominated by public spending and the economy. Opinion surveys consistently suggested that support for independence was much lower than backing for the Scottish National Party (see chart).

The U.S.: Where Europe Comes to Slum
Excerpt: The newest slumlord in Los Angeles is a pillar of German capitalism. Earlier this month, the city attorney's office filed suit against Deutsche Bank, the world's fourth-largest bank, for letting many of the more than 2,000 L.A. homes it has foreclosed on descend into squalor and decay. A yearlong city investigation of the properties on which Deutsche Bank foreclosed turned up tenants compelled to live in crumbling apartments the bank would not fix, houses taken over by gangs, faucets from which water either wouldn't flow or wouldn't stop, and the occasional unidentified dead body. Nothing, in other words, that would be allowed to happen to bank holdings in Frankfurt, the neat-as-a-pin German city that is home to Deutsche Bank and much of the rest of German finance.

Thirteen killed as Israeli troops open fire on Nakba Day border protests
Syria trying to take the media's attention off its killings of its own people by creating violence that can be blamed on Israel. Will probably work given the bias of the media. ~Bob. Excerpt: Excerpt: Israeli troops opened fire on pro-Palestinian demonstrators attempting to breach its borders on three fronts, killing at least 13 people. Scores more were wounded at Israel's borders with Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. Clashes also erupted in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as Palestinians commemorated Nakba Day, the anniversary marking the 1948 war in which hundreds of thousands of people became refugees after being forced out of their homes. Thousands of Palestinian refugees in Syria marched towards the village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in 1967. At least four people were killed by Israeli troops as they crossed the border, Israel Radio reported. Up to 20 were injured, according to the Israeli Magen David Adom ambulance service.

The NLRB’s Ironic Lawsuit Against Arizona
Excerpt: While much of the nation’s attention in matters concerning the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has been rightly focused on the affairs of Boeing in South Carolina, the board has also been busy elsewhere. Last Friday they filed a lawsuit against the State of Arizona over the not yet enforced Proposition 113. In case you missed it, this legislation seeks to protect the rights of workers to have a secret ballot when deciding if they wish to unionize. The Arizona Republic is out this week with an excellent editorial which shreds the cover story being used to defend this action.

Allen West for President? Some Hope So
Excerpt: Allen West enlisted in the Army nearly 20 years ago, but these days, a growing number of Tea Partiers and conservative Republicans want to draft the black GOP lawmaker from Florida to run for president. West, the flat-topped retired lieutenant colonel and Tea Party favorite who boasted last year that he had a higher security clearance than President Barack Obama, has been getting a lot of love lately from Republican-oriented folks who aren’t impressed with the potential presidential pickings for 2012: Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, and Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and the rest.

Study: 1 million sex crimes by illegals: Researcher estimates more than 100 offenders crossing border daily
Excerpt: Based on a one-year in-depth study, a researcher estimates there are about 240,000 illegal immigrant sex offenders in the United States who have had an average of four victims each. Deborah Schurman-Kauflin of the Violent Crimes Institute in Atlanta analyzed 1,500 cases from January 1999 through April 2006 that included serial rapes, serial murders, sexual homicides and child molestation committed by illegal immigrants. She found that while the offenders were located in 36 states, most were in states with the highest numbers of illegal immigrants. California had the most offenders, followed by Texas, Arizona, New Jersey, New York and Florida.

In the Theater of the Absurd: US-NATO Support "Al Qaeda in Libya"
Excerpt: In the Theatre of the Absurd, anything is possible. However, this latest scenario in Libya has taken absurdity to a whole new dimension. A rag-tag bunch of armed, al-Qaeda affiliated tribesmen, being referred to as a ‘pro-democracy movement’ by British State TV (BBC) and other mainstream media outlets, are now being openly armed and trained by the French, British and American governments. This same Coalition of Crusaders, with the support of the Arab League, is fighting alongside the rebels, launching continual bombing raids on targets in Tripoli and beyond, including Muammar Qadhafi’s compound, in a brazen attempt to assassinate the man and re-colonise Libya. And what is the support inside Libya for this so-called ‘Libyan pro-democracy movement’? The answer is less than 2% of the entire Libyan population. One might have expected that the Western and Arab worlds would have offered Qadhafi and the Libyan armed forces assistance to deal with this al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) inspired insurgency. But no. Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, instead, Britain and the US, led by the clown Sarkozy, in what can only be described as a war mongering frenzy, launched an all out attack on Muammar Qadhafi, his family, and the Libyan people.

Did a Pakistani official sell info to CIA to settle in the West?
Did a Pakistani intelligence official sell the information about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden to the US last year to get millions of dollars and relocate to a western country with a new non-Pakistani passport? All those seeking to know the full facts of the Osama episode are looking for an answer to this question. President Barack Obama would not have agreed to go forward with the mission to kill Osama bin Laden had it not been for intense pressure from CIA Director Leon Panetta, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defence Robert Gates, administration sources have revealed. The advocates of the mission had “reached a boiling point”, because President Obama, hesitated for months and kept delaying the final approval. This delay was because of a close aide who suggested that this could damage him politically.

Obama Sends Wildfire Aid To Mexico, Not Texas
Excerpt: Just last month the U.S. sent two Air force cargo planes to help Mexico battle back wildfires in the northern part of it's country, fires that burned 386 square miles. It's a move that West Texas Congressman Francisco Canseco (R-Fort Stockton) thinks is a hypocritical one by the Obama administration as Texas has requested the same sort of federal aid but has been denied it.

Stalemate in Libya
Excerpt: As the war in Libya enters its third month, forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi have finally been pushed out of the rebel-held city of Misrata after a siege lasting for most of the conflict. But the fact that a reversal might take place at any time highlights an emerging truth about the NATO-led action: the only decisive blow that could be struck by the UN forces to end the conflict is the killing of Gaddafi. Meanwhile, members of the Obama administration will meet with the leadership of the Libyan National Transitional Council in Washington on Friday to underscore American support for the rebels. At the UN, Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has called for a ceasefire to address the massive humanitarian crisis caused by the war, especially in the city of Misrata. And despite claims from NATO that they are only hitting “military targets” in Tripoli, another air strike smashed an underground bunker in Gaddafi’s compound just hours after he made an appearance on Libyan television. (As I said weeks ago, Obama has to have Gaddafi killed. Can't have him living in some resort on stolen money. And mocking us when the "rebels" turn on us, as they will. ~Bob.)

Muslim Women Reformers
Interview about a new book. ~Bob

The Palestinians Manufacture Their Own “Catastrophe”
Excerpt: Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of Hamas in Gaza, told thousands of worshippers on Sunday May 15th to pray for the end of Israel, adding: “Palestinians mark the Naqba with great hope of bringing to an end the Zionist project in Palestine.” In a coordinated multi-front assault from Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, and Lebanon, tens of thousands of Arab protesters heeded the Hamas terrorist’s call. Marking Palestinian Nakba Day (the day of the “catastrophe,” as they like to refer to the day of Israel’s creation), they streamed en masse to Israel’s various borders, intending to infiltrate the Jewish State and wreak havoc. As many as 1,000 busloads of Lebanese and Palestinians living in Lebanon descended on the Israeli frontier where mobs began hurling rocks over the border. Carrying Palestinian flags and chanting “we want our land back,” many protesters approached the electric fence that separates Lebanon from Israel. (It was spontaneous. They just spontaneously decided to get on the 1,000 busses that spontaneously showed up. ~Bob.)

In the last few years, America has been slowly awakened to the level of Marxism taught in American classrooms. From the of taking public school students to Cuba and the NEA’s reccommendation of Saul Alinsky to the most recent revelation of the University of Missouri’s “Introduction to Labor Studies” taught by two Marxists who, in addition to allegedly giving a Communist organizer two hours of class time to recruit, also shared the finer points of industrial sabotage and cat electrocutions.

Excerpt: This month’s successful kill/capture mission in Abbottabad, Pakistan, which resulted in the death of the World’s Most Wanted Terrorist and in the recovery of a treasure trove of intelligence (and of pornography - gotta love those radical fundamentalists’ aversion to hypocrisy!) has naturally increased national and media interest in the elite special operations professionals who carried out this operation. While the information being reported by various media outlets and individuals has often missed the accuracy bulls-eye by quite a bit (yet again demonstrating that life imitates the Onion), enough accurate-ish information has apparently been revealed to the public by the usual suspects - the administration and those members of Congress who hold security clearances because of the voters’ actions rather than for any personal character qualities they may actually possess - that some units within, and affiliated with, JSOC are reportedly being forced to consider adapting their Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) — not to mention the fact that some operators are now concerned for the safety of their families (more on this later).

Homophobic Barbarians: 10 Reasons Every Gay American Needs to Support the War Against Islamofascism
Excerpt: For all the screaming about intolerance and bigotry against gays here in America — driven by many people’s objection to changing the definition of the centuries-old institution of marriage — many so-called liberals don’t seem to notice the actual intolerance and murder being meted out on gays in Muslim countries. Homosexuals living in Muslim countries suffer dire consequences for coming out including whipping, banishment, humiliation and even death by stoning, hanging or familial stabbing in accordance with Islamic law. Homosexuals in the Muslim culture are encouraged to commit suicide rather than bring shame on their families. While the biggest argument regarding homosexuals in America today revolves around which political party gets to invite them to gala events, gays in the Muslim world are fighting for their very lives. Instead of rallying against the Islamization of the West and the homophobia that comes with it, the Left spends its time identifying conservative “hate groups,” none of which include Muslims who hate homosexuals. There is always the possibility that American gay rights activists haven’t heard of the many atrocities perpetrated on homosexuals by Islam due to the deafening silence of the old media on anything that can be construed as criticism of the ‘religion of peace.’ I aim to change that. The following are ten reasons gays need to join the fight to beat back the growing Islamofascist threat.

London 'sleeper cell' told to carry out wave of terror attacks by Bin Laden before his death
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1387332/Osama-Bin-Laden-dead-London-sleeper-cell-told-carry-attacks-death.html
Easier there, as the UK has a larger Muslim population, percentage wise. Excerpt: A group of terrorists who trained in Somalia returned to Britain to carry out a wave of attacks which were demanded by Osama Bin Laden before his death. The gang, dubbed the 'London Boys', were taught by a top Al-Qaeda explosives expert in the war-torn country and include Reza Afsharzadegan, a former IT student from Ladbroke Grove, West London. He is married with a child and moved to Britain as a young boy from Iran.

Afghan intelligence: Taliban using child bombers
Evil in the name of God. ~Bob. Excerpt: The orders from their religious teacher were clear: Go to Afghanistan, strap on a suicide vest and kill foreign forces. With that, 9-year-old Ghulam Farooq left his home in Pakistan with three other would-be boy bombers and headed into eastern Afghanistan. They were told there would be two members of the Taliban waiting for them at the Torkham border crossing in Nangarhar province. Instead, members of the Afghan intelligence service who had been tipped to the boys' plans arrested them at the border. "Our mullah told us that when we carried out our suicide attacks, all the people around us would die, but we would stay alive," Farooq said Saturday, sitting inside a juvenile detention facility in the Afghan capital.

Turned over to kin after elopement, Baghpat women killed by mothers
Excerpt: Two Muslim women in an Uttar Pradesh town, 40 km east of Delhi, allegedly killed their daughters because they had eloped and married migrant Bihari Hindu labourers, police said.
The victims had sought police protection after they returned to their homes in Baghpat earlier this week, but the subdivisional magistrate sent them home to reconcile with their mothers.

Pray for Britain
Excerpt: Seems to me that this will place Britain at the forefront of economic disadvantage. You know, back in the day we had a similar problem like this where politicians ignored the people, and I think we rather pushed back against that sometime around 1776. Perhaps after a few years, we’ll see a repeat of that, but this time in Britain, rather than a colony.

The Week That Was: 2011-05-14 (May 5, 2011)
As always, there are some good articles in here. Ron P. Excerpt: Quote of the Week: “A lie gets halfway around the world before truth has a chance to get is pants on.” Winston Churchill.  In the past two weeks several reports were produced by the orthodoxy insisting that consequences of human-caused global warming are more dire than previously estimated – that is, than projected in the 2007 UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Consistent with the Quote of the Week, these new, non-scientific claims were quickly repeated by many news organizations. Two of these reports are briefly discussed below: the one agriculture production and the one the Arctic.

Enter Unit 8200: Israel arms for cyberwar
Excerpt: Amid mounting tensions in the Middle East, Israel's outgoing internal security chief, Yuval Diskin, says the Jewish state has been the target of attempted cyberattacks on key state infrastructure. The attacker's identity was not disclosed, if indeed it is known. But the apparently unsuccessful attempts may have been retaliation by Iran for recent cyberattacks, blamed on Israel, on Tehran's contentious nuclear program. (Maybe the Israelis really did write the Stuxnet virus. I've been thinking it was either us, India or the Chinese. This throws additional light on the possibilities. Ron P.)

Germans Delve into Sins of Nazi Grandparents
Excerpt: Rainer Hoess was 12 years old when he found out his grandfather was one of the worst mass murderers in history. His boarding school's gardener, an Auschwitz survivor, beat him black and blue after hearing he was the grandson of Rudolf Hoess, commandant of the death camp synonymous with the Holocaust. "He beat me, because he projected on me all the horror he went through," Rainer Hoess said, with a shrug and a helpless smile. "Once a Hoess, always a Hoess. Whether you're the grandfather or the grandson — guilty is guilty." Germans have for decades confronted the Nazi era head-on, paying billions in compensation, meticulously teaching Third Reich history in school, and building memorials to victims.

Worth Reading: Establishment Blues
Excerpt: I don’t want to make this a habit, and I suspect he doesn’t either, but Paul Krugman and I are once again in (very) partial agreement. We both think the American elite has intellectually and morally lost its way, and we agree that the problems our country faces today have more to do with elite breakdown than popular stupidity. We locate the blame somewhat differently within that elite; Krugman splits the blame between George W. Bush and the economic policy makers of the Clinton/Obama administrations. I think the rot goes deeper and has spread out more widely. But the United States today — in both parties, in the corporate and business worlds, in academia and among the intelligentsia, in religion and in many other fields — does not have the strong and thoughtful leadership that we need. That is not what the elite thinks, by and large. To listen to many bien pensant American intellectuals and above-the-salt journalists, America faces a shocking problem today: the cluelessness, greed, arrogance and bigotry of the American public.

The Arizona Republic: Proposition 113 Lawsuit a Huge Disservice
Excerpt: Rather, the NLRB lawsuit over Arizona's Proposition 113 is a vestige of the administration's close ties to Big Labor, which remains committed to the dream of radically reforming federal labor law in its favor . . . and, conversely, crushing any impediments erected by the various states that stand in the way of that mission. The agency announced last week it is suing Arizona over a new state labor law that merely underscores the state's commitment to a worker's right to a secure, secret vote on whether to organize in the workplace. Another lawsuit, to be filed against a similar state law in South Dakota, is imminent. Lawsuits against South Carolina and Utah are in the hopper. The secret vote has been a cornerstone of the nation's labor laws since the great reforms of the 1930s.

Beyond the Lunatic Fringe
Excerpt: The most disheartening aspect of the 2012 election cycle (so far) has been Donald Trump's effort to press the "birther" argument, claiming that President Barack Obama may not have been born in Hawaii in 1961 but somewhere else—Kenya, perhaps. A survey in February recorded that 51% of GOP primary voters believed Mr. Obama to be a non-native son. In a victory for common sense, support for the position plummeted with the recent release of Mr. Obama's long-form birth certificate. Liberals should avoid crowing too loudly, though, since they have their own share of nutters. In 2007, pollster John Zogby asked Democratic voters about the terrorist attacks of 9/11; 42% of respondents said that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney either allowed the attacks to happen or deliberately caused the attacks to happen, presumably for political gain or to reap a financial windfall by waging a war for oil in the Middle East. To Jonathan Kay, Birthers and Truthers are flipsides of the same coin. "Like an earthquake, 9/11 produced a great fissure through the heart of America's political center," he writes in "Among the Truthers." "It is not just politics that separates these two camps, but the very manner by which they answer fundamental questions about the world." A Canadian who is an editor and columnist at the National Post, Mr. Kay decided to criss-cross America and meet Truthers of all stripes.

"No question": Schakowsky describes "violent crime scene" photos of bin Laden
If this was a “crime scene,” is Rep. Schakowsky (D-USSR) going to turn Obama in for ordering the hit? ~Bob. Excerpt: After viewing photos of a dead Osama bin Laden, U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky said there's "no question" in her mind that they should not be released to the general public because of their graphic nature. "These are pictures of a violent crime scene. This is a dead person. A dead Osama bin Laden," she said.

Donald Trump won’t run for president in 2012
Democrats weep. It was all about his ego and getting publicity for his TV show all along. ~Bob.

Comet Theory Comes Crashing to Earth
Excerpt: “It is an impossible scenario,” says Mark Boslough, a physicist at Sandia Laboratory in Albuquerque, N.M., where he taps the world’s fastest computers for nuclear bomb experiments to study such impacts. His computations show the debris from such a comet couldn’t cover the proposed impact field. In March, a “requiem” for the theory even was published by a group that included leading specialists from archaeology to botany. Yet, the scientists who described the alleged impact in a hallowed U.S. scientific journal refuse to consider the critics’ evidence — insisting they are correct, even though no one can replicate their work: the hallmark of credibility in the scientific world. (...) Such intransigence has been seen before in other cases of grand scientific claims. Sometimes those theories were based on data irregularities. Other times, the proponents succumbed to self-delusion. But typically, advocates become so invested in their ideas they can’t publicly acknowledge error. (The “Allen West” mentioned in this story not only isn’t the congressman, he isn’t even “Allen West.” You’ll have to read this to believe it. It seems climate science isn’t the only field where questionable results can be found, but only AFTER they’ve been funded and published. Ron P.)

Hate the twisty bulbs? ESL’s coming soon
Excerpt: The light generation process is similar to a cathode ray tube (CRT) but lacks magnetic or electrostatic deflection. Just wait, somebody will figure out a yoke coil for these bad boys and a way to hack the power supply to modulate video and we’ll have little live video pictures of the sun or some other star on the phosphor screens. Or, we’ll all get to claim we have miniature particle accelerators in our ceiling. Amuse your guests with a Geiger counter capable of recording Beta and X-rays. Don’t freak out though, we’ve been doing the same thing for half a century with bigger, badder CRT’s in TV sets. Beats having a mercury hazard around.

Supreme Court Won't Revive Torture Lawsuit
Excerpt: The case involved five terrorism suspects who were arrested shortly after 9/11 and said they were flown by a Boeing Co. subsidiary to prisons around the world where they were tortured. A divided 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco cited national security risks in dismissing the men's case last year. The terror suspects sued Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen Dataplan in 2007, alleging that the extraordinary rendition program amounted to illegal "forced disappearances." They alleged that the San Jose-based subsidiary conspired with the CIA to operate the program. A trial court judge quickly dismissed the lawsuit after the Bush administration took over defense of the case from Chicago-based Boeing and invoked the state secrets privilege, demanding a halt to the litigation over concern that top secret intelligence would be divulged. (There are TWO bits of good news here. First is the headline. Second is that Justice Kagan recused because she had worked on the case at the DOJ. Ron P.)

Egypt's Transition Emboldens Brotherhood
Excerpt: Much of the idealism and the promise of unity that emerged from the massive populist uprising that captivated Egypt and swept longtime President Hosni Mubarak from power in February seems to have been lost. In the three months since, the Muslim Brotherhood—an Islamist movement that was banned under the previous regime—has grown more confident and has shed layers of its past façade, as it prepares for Egypt's important parliamentary elections in September. The group has grown increasingly bold—announcing that it would raise its target for the number of seats it would contest in elections to 45-50% and forming a coalition with Egypt's hardcore Islamists. Both of these changes appear to be in direct contravention with earlier promises made by the Brotherhood in the immediate aftermath of the January 25th revolution.

Read It Now: The Possible/Probable Main Crisis for 2012
Excerpt: Save this note. Last year I predicted that Egypt’s instability might well be the big story of 2011. Why wait until December? The central scenario for the Middle East in 2012: Hamas attacks Israel with mortars, rockets, a few missiles, and a few attempts at cross-border attacks. Israel counterattacks into the Gaza Strip. What does Egypt do? (The author has laid out some possible scenarios, none of them appealing. Ron P.)

Pakistan's Nuclear Surge
Excerpt: Even in the best of times, Pakistan’s nuclear-weapons program warrants alarm. But these are perilous days. At a moment of unprecedented misgiving between Washington and Islamabad, new evidence suggests that Pakistan’s nuclear program is barreling ahead at a furious clip. According to new commercial-satellite imagery obtained exclusively by Newsweek, Pakistan is aggressively accelerating construction at the Khushab nuclear site, about 140 miles south of Islamabad. The images, analysts say, prove Pakistan will soon have a fourth operational reactor, greatly expanding plutonium production for its nuclear-weapons program. (…) Unlike Iran, which has yet to produce highly enriched uranium, or North Korea, which has produced plutonium but still lacks any real weapons capability, Pakistan is significantly ramping up its nuclear-weapons program. Eric Edelman, undersecretary of defense in the George W. Bush administration, puts it bluntly: “You’re talking about Pakistan even potentially passing France at some point. That’s extraordinary.” (From 1945 to 1989, we faced down “godless communists,” and succeeded in the end. But, because they were “godless,” they were—or at least acted like they were—rational. Their moves made sense to us, our counter-moves made sense to them. Once religious motivations enter the picture, none of that is necessarily true any longer. If this world “needs to be destroyed to make way for the next”…. Ron P.)

Obama's immigration hypocrisy
excerpt: Barack Obama's immigration speech in El Paso May 10 was an exercise in electioneering and hypocrisy. Hypocrisy, because while Obama complained about "politicians" blocking comprehensive immigration bills, he was one himself.
In 2007, when such a bill had bipartisan backing from Senate heavyweights Edward Kennedy and Jon Kyl, Sen. Obama voted for union-backed amendments that Kennedy and Kyl opposed as bill-killers. In 2009 and 2010, President Obama acquiesced in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's decision to pass cap-and-trade and bypass immigration and in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's decision not to bring an immigration bill to the floor. Both times the votes were probably there to pass a bill. Obama didn't lift a finger to help. But that didn't stop the president, who's constantly calling for civility, to heap scorn on those seeking stronger enforcement. "They'll want a higher fence. Maybe they'll need a moat," he said to laughter from the largely Latino audience. "Maybe they'll want alligators in the moat. They'll never be satisfied."

Dems' thuggery knows no bounds
Excerpt: Orrin Hatch, the senior senator from Utah, didn't mince words the other day on Hugh Hewitt's national radio show. The Democrats, he said, "play politics very, very tough, they play it well, and they don't give a damn about what's right and what's wrong."
He was speaking about battles in Washington, but an even more vivid example can be found in Wisconsin, where the Democrats are still trying to overturn the 2010 elections.

Obama official won’t provide information about executive order on transparency
Tell me this is an anti-Obama spoof. Please. ~Bob.

Excerpt: There is a close contest under way to choose the most embarrassing aspect of our Libyan misadventure: Is it the utter fecklessness of American and NATO power in the field, the murkiness of the result being sought, or the wider incoherence of the Obama administration’s perspective on the “Arab Spring,” one day declaring that Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak is “not a dictator,” demanding his ouster the next, and then going on to declare hands-off in Syria because its bloodthirsty ruler, Bashar Assad, is a “reformer”? The Obama administration can at least claim that a certain amount of opacity or ambiguity is necessary in dealing with a region of such immense instability and political immaturity. The intellectual class that had come to regard Qaddafi as a more or less normal ruler with potentially reasonable or liberal inclinations has no such excuse, and their self-deception has had the consequence of enabling the policy incoherence of our political leaders.

The Foreign Policy Elite and Bureaucracy Starts Parting Ways with Obama
Excerpt: Perhaps the most important policymaking development of the last month has been President Barack Obama's increasingly visible loss of a lot of the foreign policy elite, including considerable segments of the State and Defense departments. Why this is happening is one of the most interested-and highly neglected-stories of this period.

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