Who is Nahdmi Auchi, who according to the British newspaper TimesOnline may have lent money through a company he controls in Panama to support a fundraiser for U.S. Senator Barack Obama in May 2005?
Who is Mr. Auchi? A British billionaire living in London, born in Iraq in 1937. And why would he, as it is alleged, lend money via a Panama company, Fintrade Services -- of which his wife, Ibtisam Auchi, is said to be a director -- to a freshmen U. S. senator from Illinois just a few months after he is sworn in as a very junior member of what was then a Democratic minority?
Who is Mr. Auchi, said to be the 279th richest man in the world, that he would provide through his overseas company wire transfers of $3,499,471 in April 2007, and another $200,000 in July 2007, to Antoin "Tony" Rezko, an indicted Chicago developer accused of defrauding Illinois citizens of at least $6 million? Rezko is a successful and veteran fundraiser for, among others, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and U.S. Senator Barack Obama.
Who is Mr. Auchi that he would be in business at least since 2003 with the Syrian-born American citizen Mr. Rezko, a man who is by the most forgiving accounts an undercapitalized Chicago developer; the same Mr. Rezko who proposed to the lionized British developer Mr. Auchi a joint development for a vacant a 62-acre tract along the Chicago River in downtown Chicago into which eventually Mr. Auchi invested, through his primary company, General Mediterranean Holdings (GMH), at least $170 million, sharing possession with the politically connected and pizza parlor-owning Mr. Rezko? Who is Mr. Auchi, who asserts through his company that the suggestion he transferred covertly at least $3.7 millions to Mr. Rezko is "ridiculous"? Who is Mr. Auchi when the "Motion for Issuance of an Arrest Warrant," presented by United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick J. Fitzgerald, advances the allegation that the reason for Mr. Rezko's surprising re-arrest and detention since January 28, 2008, was that Mr. Rezko was obtaining funds from overseas, overwhelmingly from Mr. Auchi's overseas company GMH, in an apparently nine-month-concealed scheme to avoid the scrutiny of the federal prosecutor.
Who is Mr. Auchi who has not commented publicly about the fact that the federal judge handling the case against Mr. Rezko, U.S District Judge Amy J. St. Eve, revoked the bond of Mr. Auchi's business partner Mr. Rezko and jailed him, even as the case is scheduled to go to trial in two weeks?
Who is Mr. Auchi who, knowing the sensitivity and alarm at Mr. Rezko's case around the Democratic campaign watchfires, has left it to GMH spokesmen to speak only generally and in banal syllables of the wire transfers -- "We are acting with complete transparency" -- while not addressing the suspicion that Mr. Rezko was using the money to prepare for flight?
Who is Mr. Auchi, who founded GMH in 1979 in Saddam's Iraq, that he would also lend an unknown amount of money recently to Christopher Kelly, a former fund-raising colleague of Mr. Rezko's, a man who is under indictment for impeding and obstructing the Internal Revenue Service investigation into how he sought to conceal his million-dollar gambling losses as a business expense of his suburban roofing company?
Who is Mr. Auchi that he traveled to Chicago in April 2004 to visit with Mr. Rezko, who in turn introduced him to Governor Blagojevich and other state officials, including it is alleged, the then-State Senator and Democratic Party candidate for the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama?Who is Mr. Auchi that he was barred from visiting the United States again in November 2005, having difficulties in obtaining a U.S. tourist visa perhaps because of his 2003 conviction in a French court, now under appeal, as part of a graft scandal connecting to French government officials dating back to the first Gulf War; and despite appeals to the State Department by Mr. Rezko and others, including, according to court documents filed by federal prosecutors, "certain Illinois government officials"?
Who is Mr. Auchi, who is lauded as Britain's Donald Trump, that he has involved himself with property discussions with prosaic Illinois politicians and alleged gamblers, defrauders and kickback-seekers, despite the fact he is a man who is presented by his attorneys as "one of Britain's wealthiest men," who, "has been a guest at the White House and met with two of the last three presidents"?
Who is Mr. Auchi who "was co-chair of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, is President of the Anglo-Arab Association, and has received numerous awards and honorary positions from heads of state, including Queen Elizabeth II, Pope John II, and King Abdullah II of Jordan," and who received a congratulatory greeting card in 1999signed by Tony Blair, William Hague, and Charles Kennedy, then the leaders of the major British parties, and some130 other British parliamentarians?
Who is Mr. Auchi -- in connection with whom is it alleged that two websites belonging to GMH holdings have deleted information on Mr. Auchi's April 2004 visit to Illinois when Mr. Auchi met and was photographed with Governor Rod Blagojevich; Illinois State Senate President Emil Jones Jr.; the Mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick; Mr. Auchi's business partner, Mr. Rezko, and, it is speculated, the then-State Senator and Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama?
Who is Mr. Auchi such that the British attorney Alisdair Pepper, who represents Mr. Auchi especially with regard Britain's stringent media laws, has recently sent warning letters to those, such as "RezkoWatch" blog and Larry Johnson of "No Quarter" blog, who have published remarks and questions about Mr. Auchi and his unclear and complex links to the troubled and castigated Mr. Rezko?
This is the same Mr. Rezko of whom the prominent presidential candidate Barack Obama told ABC This Week host George Stephanopoulos on January 27, 2008, the day before Mr. Rezko's re-arrest apparently because of Mr. Auchi's generous loans, "Tony Rezko was a friend of mine, a supporter, whom I had known for 20 years."
Who is Mr. Auchi with the sometimes unsubstantiated European newspaper comments about his activities before and after the two Gulf Wars -- including involvement with theFrench government scandals with oil giant TotalFinaElf, including long-standing involvement with European bank BNP Paribas; including unproven financial links with strongmen such as Saddam Hussein and Colonel Muammar Qaddafi?
Who is this Mr. Auchi who is characterized by a Baghdad political commentator as a "Saddam guy" from way back in the early days of the Baathists, who was not trusted by the Iraqi opposition to Saddam Hussein in London in December 2002, and who today is regarded as no friend of the Iraqi government or people, having failed to visit Baghdad once since its liberation despite seeking lucrative and controversial communications business opportunities in the new Iraq?
Who is Nadhmi Auchi, this colorful and proud billionaire, whose history and politics are now crashing into the robust and necessary inquiry about who is Barrack Obama? Who indeed?
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Obama’s Communist Mentor By: Cliff Kincaid
In his biography of Barack Obama, David Mendell writes about Obama’s life as a “secret smoker” and how he “went to great lengths to conceal the habit.” But what about Obama’s secret political life? It turns out that Obama’s childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, was a communist.
In his books, Obama admits attending “socialist conferences” and coming into contact with Marxist literature. But he ridicules the charge of being a “hard-core academic Marxist,” which was made by his colorful and outspoken 2004 U.S. Senate opponent, Republican Alan Keyes.
However, through Frank Marshall Davis, Obama had an admitted relationship with someone who was publicly identified as a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). The record shows that Obama was in Hawaii from 1971-1979, where, at some point in time, he developed a close relationship, almost like a son, with Davis, listening to his “poetry” and getting advice on his career path. But Obama, in his book, Dreams From My Father, refers to him repeatedly as just “Frank.”
The reason is apparent: Davis was a known communist who belonged to a party subservient to the Soviet Union. In fact, the 1951 report of the Commission on Subversive Activities to the Legislature of the Territory of Hawaii identified him as a CPUSA member. What’s more, anti-communist congressional committees, including the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), accused Davis of involvement in several communist-front organizations.
Trevor Loudon, a New Zealand-based libertarian activist, researcher and blogger, noted evidence that “Frank” was Frank Marshall Davis in a posting in March of 2007.
Obama’s communist connection adds to mounting public concern about a candidate who has come out of virtually nowhere, with a brief U.S. Senate legislative record, to become the Democratic Party frontrunner for the U.S. presidency. In the latest Real Clear Politics poll average, Obama beats Republican John McCain by almost four percentage points.
AIM recently disclosed that Obama has well-documented socialist connections, which help explain why he sponsored a ”Global Poverty Act” designed to send hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. foreign aid to the rest of the world, in order to meet U.N. demands. The bill has passed the House and a Senate committee, and awaits full Senate action.
But the Communist Party connection through Davis is even more ominous. Decades ago, the CPUSA had tens of thousands of members, some of them covert agents who had penetrated the U.S. Government. It received secret subsidies from the old Soviet Union.
You won’t find any of this discussed in the David Mendell book, Obama: From Promise to Power. It is typical of the superficial biographies of Obama now on the market. Secret smoking seems to be Obama’s most controversial activity. At best, Mendell and the liberal media describe Obama as “left-leaning.”
But you will find it briefly discussed, sort of, in Obama’s own book, Dreams From My Father. He writes about “a poet named Frank,” who visited them in Hawaii, read poetry, and was full of “hard-earned knowledge” and advice. Who was Frank? Obama only says that he had “some modest notoriety once,” was “a contemporary of Richard Wright and Langston Hughes during his years in Chicago...” but was now “pushing eighty.” He writes about “Frank and his old Black Power dashiki self” giving him advice before he left for Occidental College in 1979 at the age of 18.
This “Frank” is none other than Frank Marshall Davis, the black communist writer now considered by some to be in the same category of prominence as Maya Angelou and Alice Walker. In the summer/fall 2003 issue of African American Review, James A. Miller of George Washington University reviews a book by John Edgar Tidwell, a professor at the University of Kansas, about Davis’s career, and notes, “In Davis’s case, his political commitments led him to join the American Communist Party during the middle of World War II-even though he never publicly admitted his Party membership.” Tidwell is an expert on the life and writings of Davis.
Is it possible that Obama did not know who Davis was when he wrote his book, Dreams From My Father, first published in 1995? That’s not plausible since Obama refers to him as a contemporary of Richard Wright and Langston Hughes and says he saw a book of his black poetry.
The communists knew who “Frank” was, and they know who Obama is. In fact, one academic who travels in communist circles understands the significance of the Davis-Obama relationship.
Professor Gerald Horne, a contributing editor of the Communist Party journal Political Affairs, talked about it during a speech last March at the reception of the Communist Party USA archives at the Tamiment Library at New York University. The remarks are posted online under the headline, “Rethinking the History and Future of the Communist Party.”
Horne, a history professor at the University of Houston, noted that Davis, who moved to Honolulu from Kansas in 1948 “at the suggestion of his good friend Paul Robeson,” came into contact with Barack Obama and his family and became the young man’s mentor, influencing Obama’s sense of identity and career moves. Robeson, of course, was the well-known black actor and singer who served as a member of the CPUSA and apologist for the old Soviet Union. Davis had known Robeson from his time in Chicago.
As Horne describes it, Davis “befriended” a “Euro-American family” that had “migrated to Honolulu from Kansas and a young woman from this family eventually had a child with a young student from Kenya East Africa who goes by the name of Barack Obama, who retracing the steps of Davis eventually decamped to Chicago.”
It was in Chicago that Obama became a “community organizer” and came into contact with more far-left political forces, including the Democratic Socialists of America, which maintains close ties to European socialist groups and parties through the Socialist International (SI), and two former members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), William Ayers and Carl Davidson.
The SDS laid siege to college campuses across America in the 1960s, mostly in order to protest the Vietnam War, and spawned the terrorist Weather Underground organization. Ayers was a member of the terrorist group and turned himself in to authorities in 1981. He is now a college professor and served with Obama on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago. Davidson is now a figure in the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, an offshoot of the old Moscow-controlled CPUSA, and helped organize the 2002 rally where Obama came out against the Iraq War.
Both communism and socialism trace their roots to Karl Marx, co-author of the Communist Manifesto, who endorsed the first meeting of the Socialist International, then called the “First International.” According to Pierre Mauroy, president of the SI from 1992-1996, “It was he [Marx] who formally launched it, gave the inaugural address and devised its structure...”
Apparently unaware that Davis had been publicly named as a CPUSA member, Horne said only that Davis “was certainly in the orbit of the CP [Communist Party]-if not a member...”
In addition to Tidwell’s book, Black Moods: Collected Poems of Frank Marshall Davis, confirming Davis’s Communist Party membership, another book, The New Red Negro: The Literary Left and African American Poetry, 1930-1946, names Davis as one of several black poets who continued to publish in CPUSA-supported publications after the 1939 Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact. The author, James Edward Smethurst, associate professor of Afro-American studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, says that Davis, however, would later claim that he was “deeply troubled” by the pact.
While blacks such as Richard Wright left the CPUSA, it is not clear if or when Davis ever left the party.
However, Obama writes in Dreams From My Father that he saw “Frank” only a few days before he left Hawaii for college, and that Davis seemed just as radical as ever. Davis called college “An advanced degree in compromise” and warned Obama not to forget his “people” and not to “start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that shit.” Davis also complained about foot problems, the result of “trying to force African feet into European shoes,” Obama wrote.
For his part, Horne says that Obama’s giving of credit to Davis will be important in history. “At some point in the future, a teacher will add to her syllabus Barack’s memoir and instruct her students to read it alongside Frank Marshall Davis’ equally affecting memoir, Living the Blues and when that day comes, I’m sure a future student will not only examine critically the Frankenstein monsters that US imperialism created in order to subdue Communist parties but will also be moved to come to this historic and wonderful archive in order to gain insight on what has befallen this complex and intriguing planet on which we reside,” he said.
Dr. Kathryn Takara, a professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa who also confirms that Davis is the “Frank” in Obama’s book, did her dissertation on Davis and spent much time with him between 1972 until he passed away in 1987.
In an analysis posted online, she notes that Davis, who was a columnist for the Honolulu Record, brought “an acute sense of race relations and class struggle throughout America and the world” and that he openly discussed subjects such as American imperialism, colonialism and exploitation. She described him as a “socialist realist” who attacked the work of the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Davis, in his own writings, had said that Robeson and Harry Bridges, the head of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and a secret member of the CPUSA, had suggested that he take a job as a columnist with the Honolulu Record “and see if I could do something for them.” The ILWU was organizing workers there and Robeson’s contacts were “passed on” to Davis, Takara writes.
Takara says that Davis “espoused freedom, radicalism, solidarity, labor unions, due process, peace, affirmative action, civil rights, Negro History week, and true Democracy to fight imperialism, colonialism, and white supremacy. He urged coalition politics.”
Is “coalition politics” at work in Obama’s rise to power?
Trevor Loudon, the New Zealand-based blogger who has been analyzing the political forces behind Obama and specializes in studying the impact of Marxist and leftist political organizations, notes that Frank Chapman, a CPUSA supporter, has written a letter to the party newspaper hailing the Illinois senator’s victory in the Iowa caucuses.
“Obama’s victory was more than a progressive move; it was a dialectical leap ushering in a qualitatively new era of struggle,” Chapman wrote. “Marx once compared revolutionary struggle with the work of the mole, who sometimes burrows so far beneath the ground that he leaves no trace of his movement on the surface. This is the old revolutionary ‘mole,’ not only showing his traces on the surface but also breaking through.”
Let’s challenge the liberal media to report on this. Will they have the honesty and integrity to do so?
In his books, Obama admits attending “socialist conferences” and coming into contact with Marxist literature. But he ridicules the charge of being a “hard-core academic Marxist,” which was made by his colorful and outspoken 2004 U.S. Senate opponent, Republican Alan Keyes.
However, through Frank Marshall Davis, Obama had an admitted relationship with someone who was publicly identified as a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). The record shows that Obama was in Hawaii from 1971-1979, where, at some point in time, he developed a close relationship, almost like a son, with Davis, listening to his “poetry” and getting advice on his career path. But Obama, in his book, Dreams From My Father, refers to him repeatedly as just “Frank.”
The reason is apparent: Davis was a known communist who belonged to a party subservient to the Soviet Union. In fact, the 1951 report of the Commission on Subversive Activities to the Legislature of the Territory of Hawaii identified him as a CPUSA member. What’s more, anti-communist congressional committees, including the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), accused Davis of involvement in several communist-front organizations.
Trevor Loudon, a New Zealand-based libertarian activist, researcher and blogger, noted evidence that “Frank” was Frank Marshall Davis in a posting in March of 2007.
Obama’s communist connection adds to mounting public concern about a candidate who has come out of virtually nowhere, with a brief U.S. Senate legislative record, to become the Democratic Party frontrunner for the U.S. presidency. In the latest Real Clear Politics poll average, Obama beats Republican John McCain by almost four percentage points.
AIM recently disclosed that Obama has well-documented socialist connections, which help explain why he sponsored a ”Global Poverty Act” designed to send hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. foreign aid to the rest of the world, in order to meet U.N. demands. The bill has passed the House and a Senate committee, and awaits full Senate action.
But the Communist Party connection through Davis is even more ominous. Decades ago, the CPUSA had tens of thousands of members, some of them covert agents who had penetrated the U.S. Government. It received secret subsidies from the old Soviet Union.
You won’t find any of this discussed in the David Mendell book, Obama: From Promise to Power. It is typical of the superficial biographies of Obama now on the market. Secret smoking seems to be Obama’s most controversial activity. At best, Mendell and the liberal media describe Obama as “left-leaning.”
But you will find it briefly discussed, sort of, in Obama’s own book, Dreams From My Father. He writes about “a poet named Frank,” who visited them in Hawaii, read poetry, and was full of “hard-earned knowledge” and advice. Who was Frank? Obama only says that he had “some modest notoriety once,” was “a contemporary of Richard Wright and Langston Hughes during his years in Chicago...” but was now “pushing eighty.” He writes about “Frank and his old Black Power dashiki self” giving him advice before he left for Occidental College in 1979 at the age of 18.
This “Frank” is none other than Frank Marshall Davis, the black communist writer now considered by some to be in the same category of prominence as Maya Angelou and Alice Walker. In the summer/fall 2003 issue of African American Review, James A. Miller of George Washington University reviews a book by John Edgar Tidwell, a professor at the University of Kansas, about Davis’s career, and notes, “In Davis’s case, his political commitments led him to join the American Communist Party during the middle of World War II-even though he never publicly admitted his Party membership.” Tidwell is an expert on the life and writings of Davis.
Is it possible that Obama did not know who Davis was when he wrote his book, Dreams From My Father, first published in 1995? That’s not plausible since Obama refers to him as a contemporary of Richard Wright and Langston Hughes and says he saw a book of his black poetry.
The communists knew who “Frank” was, and they know who Obama is. In fact, one academic who travels in communist circles understands the significance of the Davis-Obama relationship.
Professor Gerald Horne, a contributing editor of the Communist Party journal Political Affairs, talked about it during a speech last March at the reception of the Communist Party USA archives at the Tamiment Library at New York University. The remarks are posted online under the headline, “Rethinking the History and Future of the Communist Party.”
Horne, a history professor at the University of Houston, noted that Davis, who moved to Honolulu from Kansas in 1948 “at the suggestion of his good friend Paul Robeson,” came into contact with Barack Obama and his family and became the young man’s mentor, influencing Obama’s sense of identity and career moves. Robeson, of course, was the well-known black actor and singer who served as a member of the CPUSA and apologist for the old Soviet Union. Davis had known Robeson from his time in Chicago.
As Horne describes it, Davis “befriended” a “Euro-American family” that had “migrated to Honolulu from Kansas and a young woman from this family eventually had a child with a young student from Kenya East Africa who goes by the name of Barack Obama, who retracing the steps of Davis eventually decamped to Chicago.”
It was in Chicago that Obama became a “community organizer” and came into contact with more far-left political forces, including the Democratic Socialists of America, which maintains close ties to European socialist groups and parties through the Socialist International (SI), and two former members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), William Ayers and Carl Davidson.
The SDS laid siege to college campuses across America in the 1960s, mostly in order to protest the Vietnam War, and spawned the terrorist Weather Underground organization. Ayers was a member of the terrorist group and turned himself in to authorities in 1981. He is now a college professor and served with Obama on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago. Davidson is now a figure in the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, an offshoot of the old Moscow-controlled CPUSA, and helped organize the 2002 rally where Obama came out against the Iraq War.
Both communism and socialism trace their roots to Karl Marx, co-author of the Communist Manifesto, who endorsed the first meeting of the Socialist International, then called the “First International.” According to Pierre Mauroy, president of the SI from 1992-1996, “It was he [Marx] who formally launched it, gave the inaugural address and devised its structure...”
Apparently unaware that Davis had been publicly named as a CPUSA member, Horne said only that Davis “was certainly in the orbit of the CP [Communist Party]-if not a member...”
In addition to Tidwell’s book, Black Moods: Collected Poems of Frank Marshall Davis, confirming Davis’s Communist Party membership, another book, The New Red Negro: The Literary Left and African American Poetry, 1930-1946, names Davis as one of several black poets who continued to publish in CPUSA-supported publications after the 1939 Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact. The author, James Edward Smethurst, associate professor of Afro-American studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, says that Davis, however, would later claim that he was “deeply troubled” by the pact.
While blacks such as Richard Wright left the CPUSA, it is not clear if or when Davis ever left the party.
However, Obama writes in Dreams From My Father that he saw “Frank” only a few days before he left Hawaii for college, and that Davis seemed just as radical as ever. Davis called college “An advanced degree in compromise” and warned Obama not to forget his “people” and not to “start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that shit.” Davis also complained about foot problems, the result of “trying to force African feet into European shoes,” Obama wrote.
For his part, Horne says that Obama’s giving of credit to Davis will be important in history. “At some point in the future, a teacher will add to her syllabus Barack’s memoir and instruct her students to read it alongside Frank Marshall Davis’ equally affecting memoir, Living the Blues and when that day comes, I’m sure a future student will not only examine critically the Frankenstein monsters that US imperialism created in order to subdue Communist parties but will also be moved to come to this historic and wonderful archive in order to gain insight on what has befallen this complex and intriguing planet on which we reside,” he said.
Dr. Kathryn Takara, a professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa who also confirms that Davis is the “Frank” in Obama’s book, did her dissertation on Davis and spent much time with him between 1972 until he passed away in 1987.
In an analysis posted online, she notes that Davis, who was a columnist for the Honolulu Record, brought “an acute sense of race relations and class struggle throughout America and the world” and that he openly discussed subjects such as American imperialism, colonialism and exploitation. She described him as a “socialist realist” who attacked the work of the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Davis, in his own writings, had said that Robeson and Harry Bridges, the head of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and a secret member of the CPUSA, had suggested that he take a job as a columnist with the Honolulu Record “and see if I could do something for them.” The ILWU was organizing workers there and Robeson’s contacts were “passed on” to Davis, Takara writes.
Takara says that Davis “espoused freedom, radicalism, solidarity, labor unions, due process, peace, affirmative action, civil rights, Negro History week, and true Democracy to fight imperialism, colonialism, and white supremacy. He urged coalition politics.”
Is “coalition politics” at work in Obama’s rise to power?
Trevor Loudon, the New Zealand-based blogger who has been analyzing the political forces behind Obama and specializes in studying the impact of Marxist and leftist political organizations, notes that Frank Chapman, a CPUSA supporter, has written a letter to the party newspaper hailing the Illinois senator’s victory in the Iowa caucuses.
“Obama’s victory was more than a progressive move; it was a dialectical leap ushering in a qualitatively new era of struggle,” Chapman wrote. “Marx once compared revolutionary struggle with the work of the mole, who sometimes burrows so far beneath the ground that he leaves no trace of his movement on the surface. This is the old revolutionary ‘mole,’ not only showing his traces on the surface but also breaking through.”
Let’s challenge the liberal media to report on this. Will they have the honesty and integrity to do so?
The Real Barack Obama By: Ronald Kessler
Michelle Obama’s comment that, for the first time in her adult life, she feels proud of America helps crystallize who Barack Obama is.
To be sure, the wife of a candidate is perfectly free to have views that are distinct from her husband’s. But on a matter that is so fundamental to one’s being as love of country, it is difficult to imagine that Michelle Obama would publicly twice make such a statement suggesting disdain for America unless she felt it comported with her husband’s views.
Equally important, her statement aligns perfectly with the hate-America views of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s minister, friend, and sounding board for more than two decades. On the Sunday following 9/11, Wright characterized the terrorist attacks as a consequence of violent American policies. Four years later, Wright suggested that the attacks were retribution for America’s racism.
“In the 21st century, white America got a wake-up call after 9/11/01,” Wright wrote in his church magazine Trumpet. “White America and the Western world came to realize that people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just ‘disappeared’ as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns.”
Wright has been a key supporter of Louis Farrakhan, and in December, honored the Nation of Islam leader for lifetime achievement, saying he “truly epitomize[s] greatness.”
Farrakhan has repeatedly made hate-filled statements targeting Jews, whites, America, and homosexuals.
Those who think two of the closest people to Obama could publicly make anti-America statements unless Obama himself felt that way, are fooling themselves. To date, Obama has proven himself to be nothing more than a great orator, rendering the statements of those around him even more important in illuminating his true character and agenda. During his Senate career, he skipped 17 percent of the votes and sponsored only one bill that became law. That bill was to promote “relief, security, and democracy in the Democratic Republic of Congo.”
Bereft of official accomplishments, Obama has distinguished himself mainly by being against measures that protect American security, such as finishing the mission in Iraq. If we were to leave Iraq quickly, as Obama vows he would do, it would become a launch pad for al-Qaida attacks on the U.S.
Obama avoided voting on extending the Protect America Act, thus putting America at risk when immediate interception of terrorist communications is required. Last August, Obama voted against a measure that would have allowed the U.S. to continue to monitor overseas conversations of terrorists like Osama bin Laden without first obtaining a warrant.
If his radical vote had prevailed, bin Laden would have been given the same rights as Americans.
To this day, Obama has not distanced himself from most of Rev. Wright’s comments. In a statement supposedly issued to address the matter, Obama ignored the point that his minister and friend had spoken adoringly of Farrakhan and that Wright’s church was behind the award to the Nation of Islam leader. Instead, as outlined in a Jan. 17 Newsmax article, he disingenuously claimed he thought the magazine bestowed the award on Farrakhan for his efforts to rehabilitate ex-prisoners.
Neither Wright’s encomiums about Farrakhan nor the Trumpet article mentions ex-prisoners.
Similarly, after John McCain’s wife Cindy responded to Michelle Obama’s remarks by telling a Wisconsin rally, “I have, and always will be, proud of my country,” Barack Obama told a radio interviewer that his wife did not say what people think she said. He then proceeded to rewrite her comments, claiming that she had meant she was encouraged by the “large numbers of people” who have gotten involved in the political process. Michelle Obama then made a similar revision of her remarks.
In her speech in Milwaukee, Michelle Obama said flatly, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country, and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.”
And what has been wrong with America up to now? That it gave Michelle the opportunity to attend Princeton and Harvard Law School? That it gave Barack Obama the chance to attend Columbia University and Harvard Law School and become a U.S. senator making more than $1 million a year from book royalties?
Was it that America stopped Nazi Germany from continuing to murder millions of Jews? That America has provided Africa and other countries with $15 billion to combat the spread of AIDS/HIV and that another $30 billion is on the way? That 46 percent of all Americans classified by the Census Bureau as poor own their own homes, 76 percent of them have air conditioning, and 75 percent of them have at least one car? Or that America allows us to express our views freely without fear of being put in jail, as is the case in Russia?
A lawyer, Michelle Obama is perfectly capable of expressing herself precisely. In fact, she spoke from a written speech.
Those who do not want to believe she meant what she said — and that Barack Obama could not be so close to Rev. Wright if he did not himself believe in much of what he has said — are in denial.
The real Barack Obama is starting to emerge, and for those of us who are grateful to America for everything it represents, it is not a pretty sight.
Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com. View his previous reports and get his dispatches sent to you free via e-mail.
To be sure, the wife of a candidate is perfectly free to have views that are distinct from her husband’s. But on a matter that is so fundamental to one’s being as love of country, it is difficult to imagine that Michelle Obama would publicly twice make such a statement suggesting disdain for America unless she felt it comported with her husband’s views.
Equally important, her statement aligns perfectly with the hate-America views of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s minister, friend, and sounding board for more than two decades. On the Sunday following 9/11, Wright characterized the terrorist attacks as a consequence of violent American policies. Four years later, Wright suggested that the attacks were retribution for America’s racism.
“In the 21st century, white America got a wake-up call after 9/11/01,” Wright wrote in his church magazine Trumpet. “White America and the Western world came to realize that people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just ‘disappeared’ as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns.”
Wright has been a key supporter of Louis Farrakhan, and in December, honored the Nation of Islam leader for lifetime achievement, saying he “truly epitomize[s] greatness.”
Farrakhan has repeatedly made hate-filled statements targeting Jews, whites, America, and homosexuals.
Those who think two of the closest people to Obama could publicly make anti-America statements unless Obama himself felt that way, are fooling themselves. To date, Obama has proven himself to be nothing more than a great orator, rendering the statements of those around him even more important in illuminating his true character and agenda. During his Senate career, he skipped 17 percent of the votes and sponsored only one bill that became law. That bill was to promote “relief, security, and democracy in the Democratic Republic of Congo.”
Bereft of official accomplishments, Obama has distinguished himself mainly by being against measures that protect American security, such as finishing the mission in Iraq. If we were to leave Iraq quickly, as Obama vows he would do, it would become a launch pad for al-Qaida attacks on the U.S.
Obama avoided voting on extending the Protect America Act, thus putting America at risk when immediate interception of terrorist communications is required. Last August, Obama voted against a measure that would have allowed the U.S. to continue to monitor overseas conversations of terrorists like Osama bin Laden without first obtaining a warrant.
If his radical vote had prevailed, bin Laden would have been given the same rights as Americans.
To this day, Obama has not distanced himself from most of Rev. Wright’s comments. In a statement supposedly issued to address the matter, Obama ignored the point that his minister and friend had spoken adoringly of Farrakhan and that Wright’s church was behind the award to the Nation of Islam leader. Instead, as outlined in a Jan. 17 Newsmax article, he disingenuously claimed he thought the magazine bestowed the award on Farrakhan for his efforts to rehabilitate ex-prisoners.
Neither Wright’s encomiums about Farrakhan nor the Trumpet article mentions ex-prisoners.
Similarly, after John McCain’s wife Cindy responded to Michelle Obama’s remarks by telling a Wisconsin rally, “I have, and always will be, proud of my country,” Barack Obama told a radio interviewer that his wife did not say what people think she said. He then proceeded to rewrite her comments, claiming that she had meant she was encouraged by the “large numbers of people” who have gotten involved in the political process. Michelle Obama then made a similar revision of her remarks.
In her speech in Milwaukee, Michelle Obama said flatly, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country, and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.”
And what has been wrong with America up to now? That it gave Michelle the opportunity to attend Princeton and Harvard Law School? That it gave Barack Obama the chance to attend Columbia University and Harvard Law School and become a U.S. senator making more than $1 million a year from book royalties?
Was it that America stopped Nazi Germany from continuing to murder millions of Jews? That America has provided Africa and other countries with $15 billion to combat the spread of AIDS/HIV and that another $30 billion is on the way? That 46 percent of all Americans classified by the Census Bureau as poor own their own homes, 76 percent of them have air conditioning, and 75 percent of them have at least one car? Or that America allows us to express our views freely without fear of being put in jail, as is the case in Russia?
A lawyer, Michelle Obama is perfectly capable of expressing herself precisely. In fact, she spoke from a written speech.
Those who do not want to believe she meant what she said — and that Barack Obama could not be so close to Rev. Wright if he did not himself believe in much of what he has said — are in denial.
The real Barack Obama is starting to emerge, and for those of us who are grateful to America for everything it represents, it is not a pretty sight.
Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com. View his previous reports and get his dispatches sent to you free via e-mail.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Military Hopes to Bring Down Satellite By ROBERT BURNS
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon counted down Wednesday toward an unprecedented effort to shoot down a dying and potentially deadly U.S. spy satellite, using a souped-up missile fired from a ship in the Pacific.
The timing was tricky. For the best chance to succeed, the military awaited a combination of favorable factors: steady seas around the Navy cruiser that would fire the missile, optimum positioning of the satellite as it passed in polar orbit and the readiness of an array of space- and ground-based sensors to help cue the missile and track the results.
The operation was so extraordinary, with such intense international publicity and political ramifications, that Defense Secretary Robert Gates - not a military commander - was to make the final decision to pull the trigger.
The government organized hazardous materials teams, under the code name "Burnt Frost," to be flown to the site of any dangerous or otherwise sensitive debris that might land in the United States or elsewhere.
Also, six federal response groups that are positioned across the country by the Federal Emergency Management Agency have been alerted but not activated, FEMA spokesman James McIntyre said. "These are purely precautionary and preparedness actions only," he said.
High seas in the north Pacific posed the first obstacle as the USS Lake Erie prepared to launch a three-stage missile. Beyond a certain point, rough seas can interfere with the cruiser's launch procedures.
The plan was for the SM-3 to soar 130 miles to just beyond the edge of the Earth's atmosphere in an attempt to speed its non-explosive warhead directly into the satellite.
Early in the day, a senior military officer said it didn't look as if the weather would be good enough. That was shortly after the space shuttle Atlantis landed at 9:07 a.m. EST, removing the last safety issue for the military to begin determining the best moment for launch.
Another officer said hours later the weather was improving and might permit a launch by Wednesday night. Or the military could try again on Thursday or any day until about Feb. 29, when the satellite is expected to have re-entered the Earth's atmosphere.
The aim is not just to hit the bus-sized satellite - which would burn up upon re-entering the atmosphere anyway - but to obliterate a tank onboard that is carrying 1,000 pounds of hydrazine, a toxic fuel. The fuel, unused because the satellite died shortly after reaching orbit in December 2006 - could be hazardous if it landed in a populated area.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a health bulletin saying that the health risk from satellite debris was considered to be low. "However, CDC is encouraging health officials and clinicians to review information about the health effects related to hydrazine to prepare in case their communities are affected by satellite debris."
In a routine precaution, notifications have been issued worldwide to mariners and aviators to stay clear of an area in the Pacific where the satellite debris might fall. The military has calculated that the risk to aviation is so low that U.S. and international aviation officials have decided they are probably not going to reroute air traffic, a senior military officer said Wednesday.
The officer briefed reporters at the Pentagon on technical and logistical matters related to the effort. Under ground rules set by the Pentagon, the officer could not be identified by name.
The attempted shootdown, already approved by President Bush, is seen by some as blurring the lines between defending against a hostile long-range missile and targeting satellites in orbit.
Much of the equipment used in the satellite shootdown is part of the Pentagon's missile defense system, a far-flung network of interceptors, radars and communications systems designed primarily to hit an incoming hostile ballistic missile fired at the United States by North Korea. The equipment, including the Navy missile, has never been used against a satellite or other such target.
The three-stage Navy missile, the SM-3, has chalked up a high rate of success in tests since 2002 - in each case targeting a short- or medium-range missile. A hurry-up program to adapt the missile for this anti-satellite mission was completed in a matter of weeks; Navy officials say the changes will be reversed once this satellite is down.
Some people were skeptical.
"The potential political cost of shooting down this satellite is high," said Laura Grego, an astrophysicist with the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Whatever the motivation for it, demonstrating an anti-satellite weapon is counterproductive to U.S. long-term interests, given that the United States has the most to gain from an international space weapons ban. Instead, it should be taking the lead in negotiating a treaty."
Gates is being advised directly by Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, commander of U.S. Strategic Command. Gates was traveling to Hawaii on Wednesday to kick off a nine-day trip. Officials said his stop at U.S. Pacific Command was scheduled before it was known that the satellite shootdown could happen while he was there.
The military has hours each day to monitor a long checklist of technical factors and conditions before deciding whether to proceed with the missile launch. But there was a very narrow window - described by the senior military officers as "tens of seconds" - in which the missile must be launched in order to have the best chance of having the satellite debris land mainly in the Pacific.
Officials will know within minutes whether the missile has hit the satellite, but it will take a day or two to know whether the fuel tank has been destroyed, officials said.
Left alone, the satellite would be expected to hit Earth during the first week of March. About half of the 5,000-pound spacecraft would be expected to survive its blazing descent through the atmosphere and would scatter debris over several hundred miles.
The timing was tricky. For the best chance to succeed, the military awaited a combination of favorable factors: steady seas around the Navy cruiser that would fire the missile, optimum positioning of the satellite as it passed in polar orbit and the readiness of an array of space- and ground-based sensors to help cue the missile and track the results.
The operation was so extraordinary, with such intense international publicity and political ramifications, that Defense Secretary Robert Gates - not a military commander - was to make the final decision to pull the trigger.
The government organized hazardous materials teams, under the code name "Burnt Frost," to be flown to the site of any dangerous or otherwise sensitive debris that might land in the United States or elsewhere.
Also, six federal response groups that are positioned across the country by the Federal Emergency Management Agency have been alerted but not activated, FEMA spokesman James McIntyre said. "These are purely precautionary and preparedness actions only," he said.
High seas in the north Pacific posed the first obstacle as the USS Lake Erie prepared to launch a three-stage missile. Beyond a certain point, rough seas can interfere with the cruiser's launch procedures.
The plan was for the SM-3 to soar 130 miles to just beyond the edge of the Earth's atmosphere in an attempt to speed its non-explosive warhead directly into the satellite.
Early in the day, a senior military officer said it didn't look as if the weather would be good enough. That was shortly after the space shuttle Atlantis landed at 9:07 a.m. EST, removing the last safety issue for the military to begin determining the best moment for launch.
Another officer said hours later the weather was improving and might permit a launch by Wednesday night. Or the military could try again on Thursday or any day until about Feb. 29, when the satellite is expected to have re-entered the Earth's atmosphere.
The aim is not just to hit the bus-sized satellite - which would burn up upon re-entering the atmosphere anyway - but to obliterate a tank onboard that is carrying 1,000 pounds of hydrazine, a toxic fuel. The fuel, unused because the satellite died shortly after reaching orbit in December 2006 - could be hazardous if it landed in a populated area.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a health bulletin saying that the health risk from satellite debris was considered to be low. "However, CDC is encouraging health officials and clinicians to review information about the health effects related to hydrazine to prepare in case their communities are affected by satellite debris."
In a routine precaution, notifications have been issued worldwide to mariners and aviators to stay clear of an area in the Pacific where the satellite debris might fall. The military has calculated that the risk to aviation is so low that U.S. and international aviation officials have decided they are probably not going to reroute air traffic, a senior military officer said Wednesday.
The officer briefed reporters at the Pentagon on technical and logistical matters related to the effort. Under ground rules set by the Pentagon, the officer could not be identified by name.
The attempted shootdown, already approved by President Bush, is seen by some as blurring the lines between defending against a hostile long-range missile and targeting satellites in orbit.
Much of the equipment used in the satellite shootdown is part of the Pentagon's missile defense system, a far-flung network of interceptors, radars and communications systems designed primarily to hit an incoming hostile ballistic missile fired at the United States by North Korea. The equipment, including the Navy missile, has never been used against a satellite or other such target.
The three-stage Navy missile, the SM-3, has chalked up a high rate of success in tests since 2002 - in each case targeting a short- or medium-range missile. A hurry-up program to adapt the missile for this anti-satellite mission was completed in a matter of weeks; Navy officials say the changes will be reversed once this satellite is down.
Some people were skeptical.
"The potential political cost of shooting down this satellite is high," said Laura Grego, an astrophysicist with the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Whatever the motivation for it, demonstrating an anti-satellite weapon is counterproductive to U.S. long-term interests, given that the United States has the most to gain from an international space weapons ban. Instead, it should be taking the lead in negotiating a treaty."
Gates is being advised directly by Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, commander of U.S. Strategic Command. Gates was traveling to Hawaii on Wednesday to kick off a nine-day trip. Officials said his stop at U.S. Pacific Command was scheduled before it was known that the satellite shootdown could happen while he was there.
The military has hours each day to monitor a long checklist of technical factors and conditions before deciding whether to proceed with the missile launch. But there was a very narrow window - described by the senior military officers as "tens of seconds" - in which the missile must be launched in order to have the best chance of having the satellite debris land mainly in the Pacific.
Officials will know within minutes whether the missile has hit the satellite, but it will take a day or two to know whether the fuel tank has been destroyed, officials said.
Left alone, the satellite would be expected to hit Earth during the first week of March. About half of the 5,000-pound spacecraft would be expected to survive its blazing descent through the atmosphere and would scatter debris over several hundred miles.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Election 2008 (for short) By Tanner Stoker
Well, so far this year has been full of suprises, but for republicans, it ended the way it started, and for the democrats, well who knows. All I know is the longer it takes for them to nominate either Barack or Hillary the better. I still wish Mitt could have done better but hey, their's always 2012, and yes, he'll be running against a second term for Barack Obama. Some might say no way but its the simple truth. Republicans have no chance with the candidate they nominated. John McCain is to close to the liberals on to many issues and like they always say, if you put a liberal Republican against a liberal democrat, the democrat wins! Come November conservative republicans are going to stay home. Most of the blame could be placed on the preacher Mike Huckabee who if he had dropped out before Florida, Mitt Romnay would be our nominee and we would be looking towards a candidate which the conservative base can relate to. Though Barack has Zero experiance and no qualifications to be president, he has the ability of great speech and remember, this election is all about change and he is louder than any other candidate on that front although it might not be change for good. If John McCain picks a decent running mate, he'll have a slim chance against Barack. As republicans, we need to focus on winning seats in the house and the senate and electing state and local conservative leaders. That is our duty and only chance at keeping a say in anything. We must get involved in local elections even if we are not satisfied with the presidential election. We must Take a Stand against Liberalism and push Conservatism forward so we as Americans can remain safe and Free.
McCain VP Names Floating Around By Rush Limbaugh
RUSH: Kelly in Denver, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.CALLER: Rush, thank you very much for taking my call. It's an honor to talk to you.RUSH: Thank you, sir, el mucho.CALLER: (laughs) A little nervous today. Proud member of the cutting edge. Over the last few weeks, it just seems like you're not saying something. You've got something in the back of your mind or maybe right on the front of your mind, but you're not saying it yet. I talked with the owner of the company that I work with -- RUSH: You mean "the guy who lays people off" -- CALLER: No, no, no, no.RUSH: -- quote, unquote, Governor Huckabee?CALLER: No, sir. I am an independent contractor, so... But you said several times in the last few weeks that we had to endure a Carter to get a Reagan, and you sort of leave it hanging for us to ponder and think about. I'm just wondering if something like this might be in play. I don't know what the relationship is between Newt Gingrich and John McCain. But is there a possibility if McCain -- well, McCain's going to win the nomination for us -- of a McCain-Gingrich ticket?RUSH: Um... (sigh) I don't think it's in the cards. Here are the names. I'll tell you the names I'm hearing. I'm hearing at the top of the list Tim Pawlenty, the governor of Minnesota. That's a liberal state and McCain would want to win it. I'm hearing Mark Sanford, South Carolina. That might be problematic because McCain carries grudges and Mark Sanford did not endorse him in 2000 in South Carolina, and it was huge there. He was in Congress. Charlie Crist, governor of Florida, who wants it so bad -- he wants it so bad! -- and he's owed because the Drive-Bys, the political pundits are saying, "If it weren't for Crist's endorsement of McCain on the Saturday before the election, McCain would have lost to Romney." A lot of people are putting credence in that. You know, Romney had a ten-point lead in Florida, and on that Saturday before the election McCain came out with a lie about Romney and the "timeline." Crist came out and endorsed him. With some voters in Florida, Crist is pretty popular because he's trying to cut property taxes and so forth. So he's on the list. But McCain may not need Florida. I'll tell you somebody else on the list is Richard Burr, a senator from North Carolina, but McCain doesn't need North Carolina. I'll tell you.... I'm going to give you a name that would make me jump for joy. It's not going to happen because he's not been...Bobby Jindal. I did an interview with Bobby Jindal. He is the next Ronald Reagan, if he doesn't change. Bobby Jindal, the new governor of Louisiana is the next Ronald Reagan. He's young. He was just sworn in for his first term. He's the guy that beat the liberal Democrat machine throughout Louisiana. He did it on 100% conservatism. We interviewed him for The Limbaugh Letter about three issues ago. In fact, I am hereby ordering the editrix of The Limbaugh Letter, Diana Schneider to make -- since it's a past issue -- the interview with Bobby Jindal in The Limbaugh Letter available at RushLimbaugh.com this afternoon. You can send it up to Koko as a PDF file or text or whatever you want. This guy could be the next Ronald Reagan. If McCain chose him, here's a Southern state; this is Louisiana, but I think he may be too conservative for McCain. That depends on who they think McCain will need or want, but Jindal is very young, and he's only in his first year as governor and doesn't really have... He came from the House of Representatives. Also being talked about is Haley Barbour, the governor of Miss'ssippi, but it is said by those in touch with the conventional wisdom that Haley's got too many lobbyist ties for McCain. These are some of the names. There are others that I can't think of right off the top of my head, but they're out there. But I don't think it would be Newt.CALLER: Well, Newt is the guy that I was thinking could probably be the next Reagan.RUSH: Yeah, a lot of people are harboring fantasies about Newt.CALLER: I haven't read his new book yet.RUSH: Well, I got a couple of copies in the backseat of the car.
Michelle Obama Slams America, Says Husband Can Save Its Soul By Rush Limbaugh
RUSH: Here is Michelle Obama. This is yesterday in Madison, Wisconsin, at a Barack Obama campaign event, a portion of her remarks.MRS. OBAMA: What we've learned over this year is that hope is making a comeback. It is making a comeback, and let me tell you something, for the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country, and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment. I've seen people who are hungry to be unified around some basic, common issues, and it's made me proud.RUSH: Now, this, folks, is unhinged. I mean, I have had heard some female commentators today, "I totally understand what she's talking about. She's black; she's African-American." Let's see, "for the first time in my adult lifetime I'm really proud of my country." She and her husband are in the upper 1% of wage earners in this country. Where did she go to school? She went to, I think, Harvard, Yale or whatever. They went to private schools. They are millionaires. They live in the suburbs. I don't think he marched at Selma. I don't think he got beat upside the head. I don't think Bull Connor turned the fire hose on him. I don't think dogs were unleashed on Barack Obama. She, Mrs. Obama did not experience any of the 1950 segregation. To say something like that and to get a complete pass; people acting as though this is something unique and revelatory, that this is some special couple. Did she not feel proud about the Berlin Wall coming down? Has she not felt proud about the way we came together after 9/11? It is unbelievable to me that -- and this goes to the root, I think, of some of the things we discuss here frequently, and that is people taking this country for granted, not having any understanding what it took to get this country where it is. Here are two relatively young people, who grew up after a road had been paved for them. They have nothing in the world to be miserable about. He is running for the presidency of the United States. He ran for the Senate and made it. They have nothing in the world to be miserable or unhappy about or embarrassed about when it comes to this country. It is just outrageous for this kind of thing to be stated. The sad thing is it's going to resonate with a lot of people because over the years many Americans have been told from grade school on up how unfair, how unjust, how racist, how sexist, how bigoted this country is. Look at Oprah Winfrey. Does Oprah not make her proud? Oprah's success, the movies, the TV show, how can that not make her proud? Oprah is a black woman as is Michelle Obama. By the way, there's something else I had in the stack yesterday, didn't have a chance to get to it so I saved it for today, and it has to do with the fact that she said, "Only Barack Obama can fix America's soul. Only Barack Obama can fix America's broken soul." Now, Michelle Malkin had a great reaction to this. Can you imagine if Huckabee or if Mitt Romney or if McCain, or any Republican presidential candidate came out and said, "America's soul is broken, and only Huckabee can fix it, or only McCain can"? There would be an outcry from the separation of church and state crowd. And of course the soul, whether you people want to admit this or not, is a religious concept in many ways and in most ways. So now we're getting religion mixed into all of this from Barack Obama, and his wife says this is the first time in her life she has been proud of this country. Doesn't it just grate on you that liberals in general are not proud of their country, period? Doesn't it grate on you that they're embarrassed; that they hate the country; that they dislike it, and now she comes out with this kind of comment and all these people sitting around and hoping for whatever, are swooning and fainting?
Castro Resigns as President, Cuban Commander-in-Chief By Michael Smith and Laura Zelenko
Feb. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Fidel Castro resigned as president and commander-in-chief of Cuba, after almost 50 years as the country's leader, the official daily Granma said.
``I neither will aspire to nor will I accept, the position of president of the council of state and commander-in-chief,'' Castro wrote, according to Granma in its online edition. ``My only desire is to fight as a soldier for my ideas.''
Castro, 81, the world's longest serving president, seized power in Cuba almost a half-century ago promising liberty and economic justice only to turn the Caribbean island into a communist bastion and a flashpoint of the Cold War.
The resignation should be ``the beginning of a democratic transition for the people of Cuba,'' President George W. Bush said in a news conference in Kigali, Rwanda, and promised U.S. help. The international community should support ``free and fair elections, and I mean free and I mean fair, not these kinds of staged elections that the Castro brothers try to foist off.''
Raul Castro has been acting president since July 2006, when Fidel handed control to him after undergoing surgery to treat an intestinal ailment. Castro failed to attend the May Day parade in Havana last year, missing the celebration for only the third time since taking power in 1959.
By June, though, he was well enough to meet with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for six hours.
Castro, a lawyer by training, ruled the nation of 11 million people since the 1959 revolution. He boosted literacy and health care for the island's poor, while imprisoning thousands of dissidents, seizing private property and sparking an exodus of Cubans who braved treacherous, shark-infested waters on rickety, homemade boats to flee for the U.S.
Cold War
The Cuban leader took his place on the world stage at the height of the Cold War by making his country an outpost of the Soviet Union only 90 miles (145 kilometers) from Florida. In Latin America and Africa, Castro gave military and political support to revolutionary groups and Marxist governments for more than three decades after taking power.
He pushed the superpowers toward nuclear war in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and turned the nation into the region's strongest military power until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
``This proves just how courageous he is,'' former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze said in a telephone interview. ``I'd say he is still very confident that the course he has set will continue even after he's gone.''
Unrepentant Revolutionary
Projecting the image of an unrepentant revolutionary dressed in green military fatigues, Castro was a stubborn nemesis for U.S. presidents, from Dwight Eisenhower to Bush. His regime survived a U.S.-sponsored invasion, known as the Bay of Pigs, and at least eight assassination plots. President John F. Kennedy imposed the embargo in 1962, which was tightened by successive U.S. leaders, depriving the country of its largest trade partner and starving the economy of dollars.
The loss of Soviet aid plunged Cuba's economy into a deep depression, forcing Castro to ration food and order people to ride bicycles to save gasoline. In recent years, Castro recovered from the loss of his Soviet patron to antagonize the U.S. once again. Castro has also inspired a new generation of Latin American leaders, including Chavez.
Bush drew up a plan to force Castro from power and tightened the embargo in 2004.
In the past decade, Castro's health deteriorated. In 2004, he made international headlines when he tripped and fell at a graduation ceremony, breaking his left knee and suffering a hairline fracture in his upper right arm.
Soviet Support
At the peak of his power in the 1960s through the 1980s, Castro used his clout and backing from the Soviet Union to aid leftist revolutionary groups, including sending troops to help Marxist governments in Angola, Grenada and Nicaragua.
The bearded Cuban leader communicated best to vast crowds, giving speeches that might last six hours. He often toured Havana in an open military jeep, clutching a Cohiba cigar.
After Cuba plunged into financial ruin following the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, Castro found ways to mitigate the loss of Soviet aid and the U.S. embargo. He generated foreign exchange by allowing Spanish-built hotels, filled with European tourists, to line the country's resort beaches.
He also cultivated his relationship with Venezuela, the largest oil exporter in the Americas.
``Castro managed to survive all the catastrophes that Cuba faced: droughts, financial and economic isolation, riots,'' said Wilson Borja, an opposition Colombian lawmaker who met with Castro three times.
Overthrow Trujillo
While still in school, the future Cuban leader joined 1,200 men who set out to invade the Dominican Republic and overthrow dictator Rafael Trujillo. The Cuban navy turned the expedition back.
After General Fulgencio Batista staged a coup in 1952 and canceled elections, Castro challenged him in court, lost and began a six-year effort to oust him.
On July 26, 1953, Castro led about 165 men in an attack on an army barracks, hoping to spark a popular uprising. The troops killed eight of Castro's men and executed scores. The survivors fled and were later captured and tried.
Batista released Castro in 1955 as part of a general amnesty. Castro went into exile in Mexico, where he joined forces with Argentine communist revolutionary Ernesto ``Che'' Guevara. In 1956, Castro and Guevara crossed the Caribbean with about 80 men on a yacht called the Granma to start a guerrilla campaign against Batista. Cuban forces killed all but 12 on landing.
Castro's Retreat
Castro retreated into the Sierra Maestra mountains with the survivors, rallied popular support and, at the age of 32, drove Batista into exile on Jan. 1, 1959.
Over the next two years, Castro transformed Cuba into a communist dictatorship, seizing land and nationalizing sugar mills, ranches and oil refineries owned by U.S. interests. His government imprisoned or killed political opponents and declared the country atheist.
On Sept. 29, 1960, amid the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, Castro embraced Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in the Theresa Hotel in New York's Harlem when the two visited the city for a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. The gesture deepened the rift with the U.S., which imposed the trade embargo.
Under Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, the U.S. made clandestine efforts to remove Castro. From 1960 to 1965, the Central Intelligence Agency mounted at least eight assassination plots, according to the 1975 report of a U.S. Senate committee headed by Democratic Senator Frank Church of Idaho.
Poisoned Cigar
The plots included lacing Castro's cigars with a botulinum toxin and enlisting Mafia bosses Sam Giancana and Santo Trafficante Jr. to have someone add poison to one of Castro's drinks, the report said.
President Kennedy authorized the Bay of Pigs invasion. On April 17, 1961, refugees armed by the CIA staged an amphibious landing at the bay on the island's southwest coast with the goal of sparking an uprising. Castro's forces killed more than 100 invaders and captured more than 1,100
Eighteen months later, in October 1962, photographs taken by a U.S. spy plane showed Castro had allowed the Soviet Union to build nuclear-missile bases in Cuba. The discovery marked the start of the Cuban Missile Crisis, 13 days during which the world stared down ``the gun barrel of nuclear war,'' in the words of Kennedy speechwriter Theodore Sorensen.
Kennedy imposed a naval quarantine to block Soviet ships and said the U.S. would regard a strike by Cuba as a Soviet attack. As Soviet ships cruised toward Cuba, Kennedy ordered nuclear weapons loaded onto aircraft.
On the 12th day of the confrontation, Kennedy wrote to Khrushchev offering assurances that the U.S. wouldn't invade Cuba, eliminating Castro's stated reason for the missiles. The next day, Radio Moscow broadcast a statement by the Soviet leader that the weapons would be dismantled.
To contact the reporters on this story: Michael Smith in Santiago at mssmith@bloomberg.net
``I neither will aspire to nor will I accept, the position of president of the council of state and commander-in-chief,'' Castro wrote, according to Granma in its online edition. ``My only desire is to fight as a soldier for my ideas.''
Castro, 81, the world's longest serving president, seized power in Cuba almost a half-century ago promising liberty and economic justice only to turn the Caribbean island into a communist bastion and a flashpoint of the Cold War.
The resignation should be ``the beginning of a democratic transition for the people of Cuba,'' President George W. Bush said in a news conference in Kigali, Rwanda, and promised U.S. help. The international community should support ``free and fair elections, and I mean free and I mean fair, not these kinds of staged elections that the Castro brothers try to foist off.''
Raul Castro has been acting president since July 2006, when Fidel handed control to him after undergoing surgery to treat an intestinal ailment. Castro failed to attend the May Day parade in Havana last year, missing the celebration for only the third time since taking power in 1959.
By June, though, he was well enough to meet with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for six hours.
Castro, a lawyer by training, ruled the nation of 11 million people since the 1959 revolution. He boosted literacy and health care for the island's poor, while imprisoning thousands of dissidents, seizing private property and sparking an exodus of Cubans who braved treacherous, shark-infested waters on rickety, homemade boats to flee for the U.S.
Cold War
The Cuban leader took his place on the world stage at the height of the Cold War by making his country an outpost of the Soviet Union only 90 miles (145 kilometers) from Florida. In Latin America and Africa, Castro gave military and political support to revolutionary groups and Marxist governments for more than three decades after taking power.
He pushed the superpowers toward nuclear war in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and turned the nation into the region's strongest military power until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
``This proves just how courageous he is,'' former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze said in a telephone interview. ``I'd say he is still very confident that the course he has set will continue even after he's gone.''
Unrepentant Revolutionary
Projecting the image of an unrepentant revolutionary dressed in green military fatigues, Castro was a stubborn nemesis for U.S. presidents, from Dwight Eisenhower to Bush. His regime survived a U.S.-sponsored invasion, known as the Bay of Pigs, and at least eight assassination plots. President John F. Kennedy imposed the embargo in 1962, which was tightened by successive U.S. leaders, depriving the country of its largest trade partner and starving the economy of dollars.
The loss of Soviet aid plunged Cuba's economy into a deep depression, forcing Castro to ration food and order people to ride bicycles to save gasoline. In recent years, Castro recovered from the loss of his Soviet patron to antagonize the U.S. once again. Castro has also inspired a new generation of Latin American leaders, including Chavez.
Bush drew up a plan to force Castro from power and tightened the embargo in 2004.
In the past decade, Castro's health deteriorated. In 2004, he made international headlines when he tripped and fell at a graduation ceremony, breaking his left knee and suffering a hairline fracture in his upper right arm.
Soviet Support
At the peak of his power in the 1960s through the 1980s, Castro used his clout and backing from the Soviet Union to aid leftist revolutionary groups, including sending troops to help Marxist governments in Angola, Grenada and Nicaragua.
The bearded Cuban leader communicated best to vast crowds, giving speeches that might last six hours. He often toured Havana in an open military jeep, clutching a Cohiba cigar.
After Cuba plunged into financial ruin following the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, Castro found ways to mitigate the loss of Soviet aid and the U.S. embargo. He generated foreign exchange by allowing Spanish-built hotels, filled with European tourists, to line the country's resort beaches.
He also cultivated his relationship with Venezuela, the largest oil exporter in the Americas.
``Castro managed to survive all the catastrophes that Cuba faced: droughts, financial and economic isolation, riots,'' said Wilson Borja, an opposition Colombian lawmaker who met with Castro three times.
Overthrow Trujillo
While still in school, the future Cuban leader joined 1,200 men who set out to invade the Dominican Republic and overthrow dictator Rafael Trujillo. The Cuban navy turned the expedition back.
After General Fulgencio Batista staged a coup in 1952 and canceled elections, Castro challenged him in court, lost and began a six-year effort to oust him.
On July 26, 1953, Castro led about 165 men in an attack on an army barracks, hoping to spark a popular uprising. The troops killed eight of Castro's men and executed scores. The survivors fled and were later captured and tried.
Batista released Castro in 1955 as part of a general amnesty. Castro went into exile in Mexico, where he joined forces with Argentine communist revolutionary Ernesto ``Che'' Guevara. In 1956, Castro and Guevara crossed the Caribbean with about 80 men on a yacht called the Granma to start a guerrilla campaign against Batista. Cuban forces killed all but 12 on landing.
Castro's Retreat
Castro retreated into the Sierra Maestra mountains with the survivors, rallied popular support and, at the age of 32, drove Batista into exile on Jan. 1, 1959.
Over the next two years, Castro transformed Cuba into a communist dictatorship, seizing land and nationalizing sugar mills, ranches and oil refineries owned by U.S. interests. His government imprisoned or killed political opponents and declared the country atheist.
On Sept. 29, 1960, amid the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, Castro embraced Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in the Theresa Hotel in New York's Harlem when the two visited the city for a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. The gesture deepened the rift with the U.S., which imposed the trade embargo.
Under Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, the U.S. made clandestine efforts to remove Castro. From 1960 to 1965, the Central Intelligence Agency mounted at least eight assassination plots, according to the 1975 report of a U.S. Senate committee headed by Democratic Senator Frank Church of Idaho.
Poisoned Cigar
The plots included lacing Castro's cigars with a botulinum toxin and enlisting Mafia bosses Sam Giancana and Santo Trafficante Jr. to have someone add poison to one of Castro's drinks, the report said.
President Kennedy authorized the Bay of Pigs invasion. On April 17, 1961, refugees armed by the CIA staged an amphibious landing at the bay on the island's southwest coast with the goal of sparking an uprising. Castro's forces killed more than 100 invaders and captured more than 1,100
Eighteen months later, in October 1962, photographs taken by a U.S. spy plane showed Castro had allowed the Soviet Union to build nuclear-missile bases in Cuba. The discovery marked the start of the Cuban Missile Crisis, 13 days during which the world stared down ``the gun barrel of nuclear war,'' in the words of Kennedy speechwriter Theodore Sorensen.
Kennedy imposed a naval quarantine to block Soviet ships and said the U.S. would regard a strike by Cuba as a Soviet attack. As Soviet ships cruised toward Cuba, Kennedy ordered nuclear weapons loaded onto aircraft.
On the 12th day of the confrontation, Kennedy wrote to Khrushchev offering assurances that the U.S. wouldn't invade Cuba, eliminating Castro's stated reason for the missiles. The next day, Radio Moscow broadcast a statement by the Soviet leader that the weapons would be dismantled.
To contact the reporters on this story: Michael Smith in Santiago at mssmith@bloomberg.net
Does Balkanization beckon anew? By Michael Savage
When the Great War comes, said old Bismarck, it will come out of "some damn fool thing in the Balkans."
On June 28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip shot the archduke and heir to the Austrian throne, Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo, setting in motion the train of events that led to the first world war.
In the spring 1999, the United States bombed Serbia for 78 days to force its army out of that nation's cradle province of Kosovo. The Serbs were fighting Albanian separatists of the Kosovo Liberation Army, or KLA. And we had no more right to bomb Belgrade than the Royal Navy would have had to bombard New York in our Civil War.
We bombed Serbia, we were told, to stop the genocide in Kosovo. But there was no genocide. This was propaganda. The United Nations' final casualty count of Serbs and Albanians in Slobodan Milosevic's war did not add up to 1 percent of the dead in Mr. Lincoln's war.
Albanians did flee in the tens of thousands during the war. But since that war's end, the Serbs of Kosovo have seen their churches and monasteries smashed and vandalized and have been ethnically cleansed in the scores of thousands from their ancestral province. In the exodus, they have lost everything. The remaining Serb population of 120,000 is largely confined to enclaves guarded by NATO troops.
"At a Serb monastery in Pec," writes the Washington Post, "Italian troops protect the holy site, which is surrounded by a massive new wall to shield elderly nuns from stone-throwing and other abuse by passing ethnic Albanians."
On Sunday, Kosovo declared independence and was recognized by the European Union and President Bush. But this is not the end of the story. It is only the preface to a new history of the Balkans, a region that has known too much history.
By intervening in a civil war to aid the secession of an ancient province, to create a new nation that has never before existed and, to erect it along ethnic, religious and tribal lines, we have established a dangerous precedent. Muslim and Albanian extremists are already talking of a Greater Albania, consisting of Albania, Kosovo and the Albanian-Muslim sectors of Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia.
If these Albanian minorities should demand the right to secede and join their kinsmen in Kosovo, on what grounds would we oppose them? The inviolability of borders? What if the Serb majority in the Mitrovica region of northern Kosovo, who reject Albanian rule, secede and call on their kinsmen in Serbia to protect them?
Would we go to war against Serbia, once again, to maintain the territorial integrity of Kosovo, after we played the lead role in destroying the territorial integrity of Serbia?
Inside the U.S.-sponsored Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the autonomous Serb Republic of Srpska is already talking secession and unification with Serbia. On what grounds would we deny them?
The U.S. war on Serbia was unconstitutional, unjust and unwise. Congress never authorized it. Serbia, an ally in two world wars, had never attacked us. We made an enemy of the Serbs, and alienated Russia, to create a second Muslim state in the Balkans.
By intervening in a civil war where no vital interest was at risk, the United States, which is being denounced as loudly in Belgrade today as we are being cheered in Pristina, has acquired another dependency. And our new allies, the KLA, have been credibly charged with human trafficking, drug dealing, atrocities and terrorism.
And the clamor for ethnic self-rule has only begun to be heard.
Rumania has refused to recognize the new Republic of Kosovo, for the best of reasons. Bucharest rules a large Hungarian minority in Transylvania, acquired at the same Paris Peace Conference of 1919 where Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina were detached from Vienna and united with Serbia.
Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two provinces that have broken away from Georgia, are invoking the Kosovo precedent to demand recognition as independent nations. As our NATO expansionists are anxious to bring Georgia into NATO, here is yet another occasion for a potential Washington-Moscow clash.
Spain, too, opposed the severing of Kosovo from Serbia, as Madrid faces similar demands from Basque and Catalan separatists.
The Muslim world will enthusiastically endorse the creation of a new Muslim state in Europe at the expense of Orthodox Christian Serbs. But Turkey is also likely to re-raise the issue as to why the EU and United States do not formally recognize the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Like Kosovo, it, too, is an ethnically homogeneous community that declared independence 25 years ago.
Breakaway Transneistria is seeking independence from Moldova, the nation wedged between Rumania and Ukraine, and President Putin of Russia has threatened to recognize it, Abkhazia and South Ossetia in retaliation for the West's recognition of Kosovo.
If Putin pauses, it will be because he recognizes that of all the nations of Europe, Russia is high among those most threatened by the serial Balkanization we may have just reignited in the Balkans.
On June 28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip shot the archduke and heir to the Austrian throne, Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo, setting in motion the train of events that led to the first world war.
In the spring 1999, the United States bombed Serbia for 78 days to force its army out of that nation's cradle province of Kosovo. The Serbs were fighting Albanian separatists of the Kosovo Liberation Army, or KLA. And we had no more right to bomb Belgrade than the Royal Navy would have had to bombard New York in our Civil War.
We bombed Serbia, we were told, to stop the genocide in Kosovo. But there was no genocide. This was propaganda. The United Nations' final casualty count of Serbs and Albanians in Slobodan Milosevic's war did not add up to 1 percent of the dead in Mr. Lincoln's war.
Albanians did flee in the tens of thousands during the war. But since that war's end, the Serbs of Kosovo have seen their churches and monasteries smashed and vandalized and have been ethnically cleansed in the scores of thousands from their ancestral province. In the exodus, they have lost everything. The remaining Serb population of 120,000 is largely confined to enclaves guarded by NATO troops.
"At a Serb monastery in Pec," writes the Washington Post, "Italian troops protect the holy site, which is surrounded by a massive new wall to shield elderly nuns from stone-throwing and other abuse by passing ethnic Albanians."
On Sunday, Kosovo declared independence and was recognized by the European Union and President Bush. But this is not the end of the story. It is only the preface to a new history of the Balkans, a region that has known too much history.
By intervening in a civil war to aid the secession of an ancient province, to create a new nation that has never before existed and, to erect it along ethnic, religious and tribal lines, we have established a dangerous precedent. Muslim and Albanian extremists are already talking of a Greater Albania, consisting of Albania, Kosovo and the Albanian-Muslim sectors of Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia.
If these Albanian minorities should demand the right to secede and join their kinsmen in Kosovo, on what grounds would we oppose them? The inviolability of borders? What if the Serb majority in the Mitrovica region of northern Kosovo, who reject Albanian rule, secede and call on their kinsmen in Serbia to protect them?
Would we go to war against Serbia, once again, to maintain the territorial integrity of Kosovo, after we played the lead role in destroying the territorial integrity of Serbia?
Inside the U.S.-sponsored Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the autonomous Serb Republic of Srpska is already talking secession and unification with Serbia. On what grounds would we deny them?
The U.S. war on Serbia was unconstitutional, unjust and unwise. Congress never authorized it. Serbia, an ally in two world wars, had never attacked us. We made an enemy of the Serbs, and alienated Russia, to create a second Muslim state in the Balkans.
By intervening in a civil war where no vital interest was at risk, the United States, which is being denounced as loudly in Belgrade today as we are being cheered in Pristina, has acquired another dependency. And our new allies, the KLA, have been credibly charged with human trafficking, drug dealing, atrocities and terrorism.
And the clamor for ethnic self-rule has only begun to be heard.
Rumania has refused to recognize the new Republic of Kosovo, for the best of reasons. Bucharest rules a large Hungarian minority in Transylvania, acquired at the same Paris Peace Conference of 1919 where Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina were detached from Vienna and united with Serbia.
Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two provinces that have broken away from Georgia, are invoking the Kosovo precedent to demand recognition as independent nations. As our NATO expansionists are anxious to bring Georgia into NATO, here is yet another occasion for a potential Washington-Moscow clash.
Spain, too, opposed the severing of Kosovo from Serbia, as Madrid faces similar demands from Basque and Catalan separatists.
The Muslim world will enthusiastically endorse the creation of a new Muslim state in Europe at the expense of Orthodox Christian Serbs. But Turkey is also likely to re-raise the issue as to why the EU and United States do not formally recognize the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Like Kosovo, it, too, is an ethnically homogeneous community that declared independence 25 years ago.
Breakaway Transneistria is seeking independence from Moldova, the nation wedged between Rumania and Ukraine, and President Putin of Russia has threatened to recognize it, Abkhazia and South Ossetia in retaliation for the West's recognition of Kosovo.
If Putin pauses, it will be because he recognizes that of all the nations of Europe, Russia is high among those most threatened by the serial Balkanization we may have just reignited in the Balkans.
Monday, February 18, 2008
The house refuses to pass the Security Bill and goes on Vacation!
Radio Address by the President to the Nation
Contact: White House, Office of the Press Secretary, 202-456-2580
WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 /Christian Newswire/ -- The following text is of a radio address by President Bush to the nation:
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. At the stroke of midnight tonight, a vital intelligence law that is helping protect our nation will expire. Congress had the power to prevent this from happening, but chose not to.
The Senate passed a good bill that would have given our intelligence professionals the tools they need to keep us safe. But leaders in the House of Representatives blocked a House vote on the Senate bill, and then left on a 10-day recess.
Some congressional leaders claim that this will not affect our security. They are wrong. Because Congress failed to act, it will be harder for our government to keep you safe from terrorist attack. At midnight, the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence will be stripped of their power to authorize new surveillance against terrorist threats abroad. This means that as terrorists change their tactics to avoid our surveillance, we may not have the tools we need to continue tracking them -- and we may lose a vital lead that could prevent an attack on America.
In addition, Congress has put intelligence activities at risk even when the terrorists don't change tactics. By failing to act, Congress has created a question about whether private sector companies who assist in our efforts to defend you from the terrorists could be sued for doing the right thing. Now, these companies will be increasingly reluctant to provide this vital cooperation, because of their uncertainty about the law and fear of being sued by class-action trial lawyers.
For six months, I urged Congress to take action to ensure this dangerous situation did not come to pass. I even signed a two-week extension of the existing law, because members of Congress said they would use that time to work out their differences. The Senate used this time productively -- and passed a good bill with a strong, bipartisan super-majority of 68 votes. Republicans and Democrats came together on legislation to ensure that we could effectively monitor those seeking to harm our people. And they voted to provide fair and just liability protection for companies that assisted in efforts to protect America after the attacks of 9/11.
The Senate sent this bill to the House for its approval. It was clear that if given a vote, the bill would have passed the House with a bipartisan majority. I made every effort to work with the House to secure passage of this law. I even offered to delay my trip to Africa if we could come together and enact a good bill. But House leaders refused to let the bill come to a vote. Instead, the House held partisan votes that do nothing to keep our country safer. House leaders chose politics over protecting the country -- and our country is at greater risk as a result.
House leaders have no excuse for this failure. They knew all along that this deadline was approaching, because they set it themselves. My administration will take every step within our power to minimize the damage caused by the House's irresponsible behavior. Yet it is still urgent that Congress act. The Senate has shown the way by approving a good, bipartisan bill. The House must pass that bill as soon as they return to Washington from their latest recess.
At this moment, somewhere in the world, terrorists are planning a new attack on America. And Congress has no higher responsibility than ensuring we have the tools to stop them.
Thank you for listening.
END
Contact: White House, Office of the Press Secretary, 202-456-2580
WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 /Christian Newswire/ -- The following text is of a radio address by President Bush to the nation:
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. At the stroke of midnight tonight, a vital intelligence law that is helping protect our nation will expire. Congress had the power to prevent this from happening, but chose not to.
The Senate passed a good bill that would have given our intelligence professionals the tools they need to keep us safe. But leaders in the House of Representatives blocked a House vote on the Senate bill, and then left on a 10-day recess.
Some congressional leaders claim that this will not affect our security. They are wrong. Because Congress failed to act, it will be harder for our government to keep you safe from terrorist attack. At midnight, the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence will be stripped of their power to authorize new surveillance against terrorist threats abroad. This means that as terrorists change their tactics to avoid our surveillance, we may not have the tools we need to continue tracking them -- and we may lose a vital lead that could prevent an attack on America.
In addition, Congress has put intelligence activities at risk even when the terrorists don't change tactics. By failing to act, Congress has created a question about whether private sector companies who assist in our efforts to defend you from the terrorists could be sued for doing the right thing. Now, these companies will be increasingly reluctant to provide this vital cooperation, because of their uncertainty about the law and fear of being sued by class-action trial lawyers.
For six months, I urged Congress to take action to ensure this dangerous situation did not come to pass. I even signed a two-week extension of the existing law, because members of Congress said they would use that time to work out their differences. The Senate used this time productively -- and passed a good bill with a strong, bipartisan super-majority of 68 votes. Republicans and Democrats came together on legislation to ensure that we could effectively monitor those seeking to harm our people. And they voted to provide fair and just liability protection for companies that assisted in efforts to protect America after the attacks of 9/11.
The Senate sent this bill to the House for its approval. It was clear that if given a vote, the bill would have passed the House with a bipartisan majority. I made every effort to work with the House to secure passage of this law. I even offered to delay my trip to Africa if we could come together and enact a good bill. But House leaders refused to let the bill come to a vote. Instead, the House held partisan votes that do nothing to keep our country safer. House leaders chose politics over protecting the country -- and our country is at greater risk as a result.
House leaders have no excuse for this failure. They knew all along that this deadline was approaching, because they set it themselves. My administration will take every step within our power to minimize the damage caused by the House's irresponsible behavior. Yet it is still urgent that Congress act. The Senate has shown the way by approving a good, bipartisan bill. The House must pass that bill as soon as they return to Washington from their latest recess.
At this moment, somewhere in the world, terrorists are planning a new attack on America. And Congress has no higher responsibility than ensuring we have the tools to stop them.
Thank you for listening.
END
illegal Immigration
"Tina Griego, journalist for the Denver Rocky Mountain News wrote a column titled, "Mexican visitor's lament" -- 10/25/07. She interviewed Mexican journalist Evangelina Hernandez while visiting Denver last week. Hernandez said, "They (illegal aliens) pay rent, buy groceries, buy clothes...what happens to your country's economy if 20 million people go away?"
That's a good question and it deserves an answer. Over 80% of Americans want secured borders and illegal migration stopped. But what would happen if all 20 million vacated America?
In California, if 3.5 million illegal aliens moved back to Mexico, it would leave an extra $10.2 billion to spend on overloaded school systems, bankrupted hospitals and overrun prisons.
It would leave highways cleaner, safer and l ess congested. Everyone could understand one another as English became the dominate language again.
In Colorado, 500,000 illegal migrants, plus their 300,000 kids and grand-kids would move back "home," mostly to Mexico.
That would save Coloradans an estimated $2 billion annually in taxes that pay for schooling, medical, social-services and incarceration costs. It means 12,000 gang members would vanish out of Denver alone.
Colorado would save more than $20 million in prison costs, and the terror that those 7,300 alien criminals set upon local citizens. Denver Officer Don Young and hundreds of Colorado victims would not have suffered death, accidents, rapes and other crimes by illegal's.
Denver Public Schools would not suffer a 67 percent drop out/flunk out rate via thousands of illegal alien students speaking 41 different languages. At least 200,000 vehicles would vanish from our grid locked cities in Colorado.
In Florida, 1.5 million illegal's would return the Sunshine State back to America, the rule of law and English.
In Chicago, Illinois, 2.1 million illegal's would free up hospitals, schools, prisons and highways for a safer, cleaner and more crime-free experience.
If 20 million illegal aliens returned "home," the U.S. economy would return to the rule of law. Employers would have to hire legal American citizens at a living wage.
Everyone would pay their fair share of taxes because they wouldn't be working off the books. That would result in an additional $400 billion in IRS income taxes collected annually, and an equal amount for local state and city coffers.
No more push '1' for Spanish or '2' for English.
No more confusion in American schools that now must content with over 100 languages that degrade the educational system for American kids. Our overcrowded schools would lose more than t wo million illegal alien kids at a cost of billions in ESL and free breakfasts and lunches.
We would lose 500,000 illegal criminal alien inmates at a cost of more than $1.6 billion annually. That includes 15,000 MS-13 gang members who distribute $130 billion in drugs annually would vacate our country. In cities like L.A., 20,000 members of the "18th Street Gang" would vanish from our nation.
No more Mexican forgery gangs for ID theft from Americans. No more foreign rapists and child molesters. Losing more than 20 million people would clear up our crowded highways and gridlock. Cleaner air and less drinking and driving American deaths by illegal aliens.
Over $80 billion annually wouldn't return to their home countries by cash transfers. Illegal migrants earned half that money untaxed, which further drains America's economy.
At least 400,000 anchor babies would not be born in our count ry, costing us $109 billion per year per cycle.
At least 86 hospitals in California, Georgia and Florida would still be operating instead of being bankrupted out of existence because illegals pay nothing via the EMTOLA Act. Americans wouldn't suffer thousands of TB and hepatitis cases rampant in our country brought in by illegal's unscreened at our borders.
Our cities would see 10 million less people driving, polluting and grid locking our cities. It would also put the "secular progressives" on the horns of a dilemma; illegal aliens and their families cause 11 percent of our greenhouse gases.
Over one million of Mexico's poorest citizens now live inside and along our border from Brownsville, Texas to San Diego, California in what the New York Times called, el-colonias or new neighborhoods. The trouble is, those living areas resemble Bombay and Calcutta where grinding poverty, filth, diseases, drugs, crime s, no sanitation and worse. They live without sewage, clean water, streets, electricity, roads or any kind of sanitation. The New York Times reported them to be America's new Third World inside our own country.
Within 20 years, at their current growth rate, they expect 50 million residents of those colonias. (I've seen them personally in Texas and Arizona; it's sickening beyond anything you can imagine.) By enforcing our laws, we could repatriate them back to Mexico.
We invite 20 million aliens to go home, fix their own countries and/or make a better life in Mexico.
We invite a million people into our country legally more than all other countries combined annually We cannot and must not allow anarchy at our borders, more anarchy within our borders and growing lawlessness at every level in our nation.
It's time to stand up for our borders, our language and our culture, and our way of life."
That's a good question and it deserves an answer. Over 80% of Americans want secured borders and illegal migration stopped. But what would happen if all 20 million vacated America?
In California, if 3.5 million illegal aliens moved back to Mexico, it would leave an extra $10.2 billion to spend on overloaded school systems, bankrupted hospitals and overrun prisons.
It would leave highways cleaner, safer and l ess congested. Everyone could understand one another as English became the dominate language again.
In Colorado, 500,000 illegal migrants, plus their 300,000 kids and grand-kids would move back "home," mostly to Mexico.
That would save Coloradans an estimated $2 billion annually in taxes that pay for schooling, medical, social-services and incarceration costs. It means 12,000 gang members would vanish out of Denver alone.
Colorado would save more than $20 million in prison costs, and the terror that those 7,300 alien criminals set upon local citizens. Denver Officer Don Young and hundreds of Colorado victims would not have suffered death, accidents, rapes and other crimes by illegal's.
Denver Public Schools would not suffer a 67 percent drop out/flunk out rate via thousands of illegal alien students speaking 41 different languages. At least 200,000 vehicles would vanish from our grid locked cities in Colorado.
In Florida, 1.5 million illegal's would return the Sunshine State back to America, the rule of law and English.
In Chicago, Illinois, 2.1 million illegal's would free up hospitals, schools, prisons and highways for a safer, cleaner and more crime-free experience.
If 20 million illegal aliens returned "home," the U.S. economy would return to the rule of law. Employers would have to hire legal American citizens at a living wage.
Everyone would pay their fair share of taxes because they wouldn't be working off the books. That would result in an additional $400 billion in IRS income taxes collected annually, and an equal amount for local state and city coffers.
No more push '1' for Spanish or '2' for English.
No more confusion in American schools that now must content with over 100 languages that degrade the educational system for American kids. Our overcrowded schools would lose more than t wo million illegal alien kids at a cost of billions in ESL and free breakfasts and lunches.
We would lose 500,000 illegal criminal alien inmates at a cost of more than $1.6 billion annually. That includes 15,000 MS-13 gang members who distribute $130 billion in drugs annually would vacate our country. In cities like L.A., 20,000 members of the "18th Street Gang" would vanish from our nation.
No more Mexican forgery gangs for ID theft from Americans. No more foreign rapists and child molesters. Losing more than 20 million people would clear up our crowded highways and gridlock. Cleaner air and less drinking and driving American deaths by illegal aliens.
Over $80 billion annually wouldn't return to their home countries by cash transfers. Illegal migrants earned half that money untaxed, which further drains America's economy.
At least 400,000 anchor babies would not be born in our count ry, costing us $109 billion per year per cycle.
At least 86 hospitals in California, Georgia and Florida would still be operating instead of being bankrupted out of existence because illegals pay nothing via the EMTOLA Act. Americans wouldn't suffer thousands of TB and hepatitis cases rampant in our country brought in by illegal's unscreened at our borders.
Our cities would see 10 million less people driving, polluting and grid locking our cities. It would also put the "secular progressives" on the horns of a dilemma; illegal aliens and their families cause 11 percent of our greenhouse gases.
Over one million of Mexico's poorest citizens now live inside and along our border from Brownsville, Texas to San Diego, California in what the New York Times called, el-colonias or new neighborhoods. The trouble is, those living areas resemble Bombay and Calcutta where grinding poverty, filth, diseases, drugs, crime s, no sanitation and worse. They live without sewage, clean water, streets, electricity, roads or any kind of sanitation. The New York Times reported them to be America's new Third World inside our own country.
Within 20 years, at their current growth rate, they expect 50 million residents of those colonias. (I've seen them personally in Texas and Arizona; it's sickening beyond anything you can imagine.) By enforcing our laws, we could repatriate them back to Mexico.
We invite 20 million aliens to go home, fix their own countries and/or make a better life in Mexico.
We invite a million people into our country legally more than all other countries combined annually We cannot and must not allow anarchy at our borders, more anarchy within our borders and growing lawlessness at every level in our nation.
It's time to stand up for our borders, our language and our culture, and our way of life."
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