Louisiana - Trump Helps Flood Victims, Obama Plays Golf

When you go to Louisiana, one thing that strikes you immediately is how the entire state is affected by water and by rivers. The Ouchita cuts through the state from the north, the Red River transects the entire state from the Shreveport in the northwest as it runs into the Mississippi and the two rivers meet a few miles above Baton Rouge, flowing into the Mississippi as it surges towards New Orleans and the Gulf.

The water has meant commerce,fishing, farmlands and wealth for Louisiana. And it has also meant death, destruction and heartbreak when the rains come, the levees overflow and the rivers unleash their destructiveness.

This is such a time for people in the north central part of the state where the rivers meet. Almost 80,000 people have lost their homes, disaster is widespread and many people have seen most of what theyown washed away.

At a time like this , what people most need next to promises of food,shelter and medical relief that might be a while in showing up (particularly in a state like Louisiana where corruption is not unknown) is a sense that they're not alone, that someone ha seen and understood what they're going through and has made a personal commitment to help.

Donald Trump and Mike Pence landed in flood stricken Baton Rouge today on Trump's private plane. They actually brought truckloads of badly needed supplies with them and helped in the unloading themselves.

And to say that people were cheered and gratified to see them is an understatement



To those who might think this was nothing but a political stunt,you might remember that Louisiana is a red state certain to vote for Trump/Pence anyway, and that both men completely changed their schedules, cancelling a major event in New York to be here.

This reminds me of how Eleanor Roosevelt behaved during the Depression. As a former Hull House volunteer, she understood human suffering. She didn't go on luxurious taxpayer funded vacations, host lavish parties in the White House or strut around in designer gowns. Instead, she went to Appalachia, to the worst slums in America, to the hard hit Dustbowl regions and to anywhere she felt the American people needed to realize first hand and in person that someone in Washington understood what they were going through, that someone cared and was trying to help. Whatever you might think of her politics, her heart was never in doubt in the least, and a shining beacon to the American people during dark times.

What Trump was doing was acting like a president, and anyone aware of the huge amounts he raises and gives to charity isn't going to be surprised that his natural innate compassion made this instinctive for him.

That's something that's been missing in DC for some time.

And the man who actually has the job of president? Well, he has important business to attend to in Martha's Vineyard:

 
Fore!

DHS Head Jeh Johnson did finally make it down there for a press conference...and not in the flood area, either. when reporters started shouting questions at him about why the president wasn't coming, his response was classic. He explained to them that he would be briefing the president and said several times, "The president can't be everywhere."

Indeed. And I just just imagine the briefing:

Johnson: "There's sure is a lot of water in Louisiana."

Obama: "Ssssh! Quiet! Watch me sink this putt..."


This is by no means unusual for this president. He's made a practice his entire administration of ignoring disasters, unless there was some political payoff ala' Sandy Hook. Residents of Kentucky, Oklahoma, Nashville, and North Texas among others can testify to that.

And remember  the Gulf Oil Spill, and the almost farcical delay of the Obama Administration to do anything about it for weeks? When even a Democrat-for-life like James Carville starts screeching at you on national TV to get off your behind and do something, you know there's a problem.

 Actually, to be fair, the president did do something. After delaying any response at all for weeks, he finally ordered the shut down of dredging protective sand berms designed to keep the oil off the coasts after Governor Jindall got tired of waiting for authorization and went ahead and authorized dredging the sand berms on his own to try and protect Louisiana's coastline and fishing industry. And there was a lot of behind the scenes action. I'm still wondering what ultimately happened to that $20 billion dollar escrow account 'controlled by a third party' that the president extorted out of British Petroleum.

The bottom line is that Obama doesn't care unless there's a political fodder in it for him. Simple as that. Ironic that someone who keeps mouthing pretend teleprompter scripts about his compassion for his fellow Americans has so little of it in reality.

How The Clintons Exploited Disaster In Haiti For Profit

In January of 2010, Haiti, already one of the world's poorest countries was hit with a massive earthquake that devastated it, followed by a horrendous cholera epidemic.

While a number of people (and countries, including a certain so-called 'racist, apartheid state' went to succor the Haitians out of humane motives, there were others who saw the disaster as an opportunity for sheer profit and exploitation.

The Wall Street Journal's  Mary Anastasia O'Grady has a superb column on how Bill Clinton was put in charge of all USAid and UN relief to Haiti thanks to the influence of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and how he used that position to channel millions into the Clinton Foundation:

Peter Schweizer’s new book, “ Clinton Cash,” has stirred up media and public interest partly by making the point that most of the dealings of Bill and Hillary Clinton have been with poor countries with a weak rule of law. The U.S. legislation cited above singles out Haiti.

There could hardly be a better example of Clinton machinations undermining development. Congress is partly to blame and now seeks to make amends.

The U.S. Founding Fathers went out of their way to establish a republic guided by the rule of law and not the rule of men. If there is a singular principle that has set the U.S. apart from countries south of the Rio Grande it’s the checks and balances that protect against caudillo power.

Yet in the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake, while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, the Obama administration and Congress gave Bill Clinton carte blanche in handling hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars flowing to Haiti for recovery and reconstruction. This translated into enormous political power for the former president in the poorest country in the hemisphere, making him a de facto cacique.

Mr. Clinton loves to paint himself as a third-world redeemer, as he did in an interview in Africa with an NBC reporter that aired last week. The reporter asked about charges that the Clinton Foundation’s practice of pulling in big money from governments and wealthy donors during Hillary’s tenure as secretary of state was a conflict of interest. Mr. Clinton countered that he’s helping the poor.

As an NBC narrator described Clinton Foundation activities, the former president and his daughter were shown fitting locals with hearing aids. Pravda could not have crafted a better piece of propaganda.

Yet peel back the veneer of “charity” and one finds that the Clinton way has inflicted egregious harm on the poor in developing nations because it has undermined respect for the rule of law that is so necessary for economic growth. If a former president of the U.S. flouts anti-corruption protocols, why should the locals get hung up on them?

Haitians learned about Mr. Clinton’s affinity for cronyism after he used the Marines to restore deposed Haitian strongman Jean Bertrand Aristide to power in 1994. As I have documented in this column, “friends of Bill” subsequently were awarded, in secret, a sweetheart deal from the state-owned monopoly phone company, Haiti Teleco, that gave them a substantial edge over the prevailing, mandated long-distance rates set by the Federal Communications Commission.

Within two weeks of Haiti’s January 2010 earthquake, the word had already gone out from the State Department that Bill Clinton would be in charge of U.S. reconstruction efforts. “That means,” one individual told me and I reported in a Jan. 25, 2010 column, “if you don’t have Clinton connections, you won’t be in the game.”

The “game,” as my source called it, meant securing hundreds of millions of dollars in no-bid contracts from the State Department’s U.S. Agency for International Development and grants from multilateral institutions like the InterAmerican Development Bank, which gets the bulk of its funding from the U.S.

The Clintons deny that Bill’s power over State’s purse was used to secure donations to the Clinton Foundation. But at least two contributors who gave more than $1 million as I described in a March 9 column, including the InterAmerican Development Bank, benefited from U.S. earthquake aid.

There’s a lot that didn’t get done. In the north of the country, the Clinton-proposed Caracol Industrial Park was supposed to feature some 40 buildings for apparel assembly supporting up to 65,000 jobs. It remains a mystery why there are still only three buildings in full operation and only 5,000 jobs, despite plenty of tenant interest.

Haitians are reluctant to criticize the Clintons publicly because of their power. “No one wants to be on the wrong side of the next president of the United States,” one Haitian told me during a visit I made to the country in December.

More at the link.

By the way, not all the Haitians were as quiet about this plundering as the person Ms. O'Grady spoke to. On several occasions, there have been massive protests over the billions in aid money and relief funds stolen via the Clinton Foundation while Mr. Bill was running things. And Congress is finally starting to look into this, although I doubt much will come of it in the end, unfortunately.





It takes a special class of people to exploit human misery for personal profit in this manner. No more need be said.

Wrap Up On The Fort Hood Shootings

According to what Army Secretary John McHugh told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, investigators are still trying to discover why Ivan Lopez, an Iraq War veteran shot and killed three people and wounded 16 others at Texas’ Fort Hood before committing suicide — and they haven't ruled out terrorism yet.

“We’re going to keep an open mind. … Possible extremist involvement is still being looked at very, very carefully,” Army Secretary John McHugh said.

McHugh also told the committee that while Lopez served four months in Iraq, he never saw combat and was never wounded in action. His military assignment was with a logistics and support unit. In spite of that, he was in process of being psychoanalytically evaluated for Post traumatic Stress Disorder and had been fully examined a month before the shooting. He had reported a traumatic brain injury upon his return to the US, had a number of mental health issues and was receiving psychiatric help for depression and anxiety.

Another possible clue to what happened is that Lopez was taking Ambien for a sleep disorder.

Zolpidem Tartrate, which is Ambien's real name is a fairly controversial medication. It can have a number of side effects that could be relevant, such as inducing sleepwalking where people perform their daily tasks with no memory of doing so,increased irritability, increased impulsive behavior, altered thought patterns, and decreased libido. This is especially true if it's abused by the user and the prescribed dosage is exceeded, something that's also not unknown since that can provide a narcotic high. And Ambien if abused can become addictive.

This line of reasoning leads to other questions. Lopez used a Smith and Wesson .45 in the shooting , a personal firearm he had recently purchased. How did he pass the screening during the waiting period? If Lopez was being treated for mental disorders by the Army, it appears that the Army doesn't share this information. That's a large loophole that definitely ought to be closed, and it can easily be done confidentially, with a list that can be accessed during background checks for firearms purchases.

Most of the wounded victims of the shooting have been moved to stable condition, but three remain critical.

Fort Hood Shooting Update

 

The Fort Hood shooting incident is over, and we have a few more facts to deal with.

There was only one shooter in spite of earlier reports of two gunmen. He was a 34-year-old enlisted Army soldier, Ivan Lopez, who killed three of his fellow soldiers and wounded 16 others before turning his weapon, a .45 caliber automatic, on himself and committing suicide.All the victims are military personnel and their names are being withheld until the families are notified.

According to Lt. Gen. Mark Milley, the commanding general at Fort Hood, Lopez, an E-4 who transferred to the Army from the Puerto Rican Army National Guard, served four months in Iraq back in 2011 and was currently in the process of being examined for post-traumatic stress disorder, He added that while Lopez had not yet been officially diagnosed for PTSD, he was receiving treatment for depression and anxiety, had what was described as 'a self-reported traumatic brain injury' and had not been physically wounded in combat.


Exactly what happened isn't totally known at this time, but according to Army investigators, the incident began when the shooter, who was assigned to the 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) fired shots at soldiers in the 1st Medical Brigade by the motor pool, perhaps after an altercation. He then left that building,drove to another building on post, went inside and again started shooting.At that point he was confronted by an armed MP, put the gun to his head and shot himself.

Lopez was in uniform and was armed with a single 45-caliber Smith & Wesson that was his own personal firearm, not military issue. Reportedly he had just recently purchased the gun, so this may not have exactly been a spur of the moment thing.

Tragic...simply tragic.

Malaysian PM: "Flight 370 Crashed With No Survivors" ( And What They're Not Telling You)

 

Today, Malaya's Prime Minister Najib Razak announced in a press conference today that said that he was briefed by Britain's Air Accident Investigations Branch on data from Inmarsat, the satellite company that provided data used in the search for the missing plane. It showed that Flight 370's last position was in the Indian Ocean, due west of Perth, Australia.

"This is a remote location, far from any possible landing sites,'' Mr. Najib said. "It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that, according to this new data, Flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean."

A text from the airline to the victim's families put it this way: “We deeply regret that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board have survived.”

Given the fuel capacity, the chances are that they're correct, although as yet no wreckage or debris has been found. And, as Prime Minister Razak himself said, there are still numerous questions about what happened.

The one thing that's clear is how little we know, but that's largely because we're looking not at the facts we know for sure and how they might fit together.

I recently received an e-mail from one of my sources that, combined with a few other known facts, gives us a fairly plausible line of inquiry to follow.

That this was an attempted hijacking of some sort is pretty obvious by now. As I wrote previously, For a modern airliner to simply disappear like this is almost unheard of, because of the modern tracking technology involved. Aside from the routine radar and satellite tracking, every airliner contains a flight recorder and a transponder which emit electronic signals, as well as an emergency location beacon, a highly durable electronic signaling device to enable an airliner to be quickly located if something unexpected occurs.

Apparently, the transponder which identifies the flight and provides heading and altitude data was deliberately switched off shortly after that last known last radio contact with the jet, when co-pilot Fariq Ab Hamid said "all right, good night," to air traffic controllers.

This is totally against procedure. Someone did it for a reason, and that person had to have been in the cockpit at that exact time, which means it was either co-pilot Fariq Ab Hamid, the pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah or an unknown third party.

Not only that, but later on, someone in the cockpit turned off the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS). This system sends out electronic pings to satellites and continued to do so after Flight 370 disappeared from the air traffic controller's radar. That's how we know the plane changed course and headed west. If it wasn't turned off, it would have continued to send out signals no matter where the plane was - in the air or on the ground. The last contact came from Thai military radar at 2:15 AM local time.

There are also other signals, from the radar altimeter and weather radar. These could also have been disabled, but a prudent pilot wouldn't have done so, first because they came in handy in certain situations and second because while they send out signals, they're difficult to distinguish from other planes if Flight 370 was on established commercial flight paths. Think of a bunch of cars on the highway at night. They all have their headlights on, but it's hard to pick out an individual auto on a highway, as opposed to one car on a small street at night. There's also the fact that various governments might not want to necessarily reveal any signals they got from these sources because it could reveal their electronic intel collection methods.

My friend Sara Noble over at the Independent Sentinel has a piece worth reading that draws on a story from the UK Independent that the plane slipped under Pakistani radar and is sitting somewhere under Taliban control, covered by radar-absorbent camouflage netting. It could be, although a 777-200 requires a runway length of 3,300 to 5,000 feet or so (1,000 to 1,500 meters) at least to land under most conditions. That's between over half a mile and almost a mile in length, and a decent landing field that covert might have been hard to find but not impossible - unless the Taliban either had help or we're not talking about the Taliban at all. Or even a landing, since as I originally thought, Flight 370 succumbed to a 'work accident' and crashed en route to wherever it was headed.

So let's take this to the next step. Who might have wanted to hijack this particular Boeing 777-200? And why?

While the use of Flight 370 as a terrorist weapon is certainly possible, 9/11 showed that it was just as easy to hijack a plane filled with highly combustible jet fuel, smash it into something and cause a great deal of damage and death. So I rate the motive of hijacking the plane for use as a flying bomb unlikely. Moreover, if the plane did land and is being converted into a terrorist weapon, it might not make it to target since every military in the region is watching for it and the minute it surfaces it will likely attract something like a HellFire missile fairly quickly.

So let's look further at what other reason there might have been to hijack Flight 370,and who might have been involved.

We know that this plane was originally bound for China and was loaded with Chinese nationals.We also know that the pilot (and possibly the co-pilot) were fanatic devotees of Anwar Ibrahim, a hard line Islamist with major ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and who was endorsed when he ran for prime minister in Malaysia by none other than Brotherhood leader Sheikh Youseff Qaradawi. Ibrahim lost the election and was later jailed for 5 years for sodomizing one of his aides (homosexuality is illegal in Malaysia) which infuriated his supporters.

I've already said why I believe  hijacking Flight 370 for use as a 'flying bomb' is unlikely. The only way that could have happened is with Pakistan's connivance (the idea of a Boeing 777-200 'slipping under Pakistani radar' is ridiculous), which is certainly possible if somewhat unlikely. But if the plane wasn't hijacked for use as a terrorist bomb, what was the motive for doing it?

Again, remember that Flight 370's passengers were primarily Chinese.

Most of you will be unaware of the low level jihad being waged in Western China by the Uighers, Chinese Muslims who  seek to establish a sharia state  and who have committed a number of terrorist attacks against Han Chinese nationals.

Given the Islamist orientation of the pilot and co-pilot, I feel fairly certain that the idea here was to fly to Pakistan and ransom the plane and the passengers to China for cash, either to support the Uigher jihad or other Islamist causes. The ransom demanded could easily have been in the tens of millions.

What ultimately happened to Flight 370? Pure speculation on my part, but when the truth comes out if it ever does, I think we'll find that one of these scenarios occurred:

(A) The plane was unable to land as planned and crashed where the authorities are saying it did or somewhere else,either from lack of fuel or from a 'work accident' in midair.

(B) The plane landed successfully, the ransom demands were submitted and the Chinese refused to deal. So the plane was destroyed and the passengers killed, either on the ground or in the air.

(C) The announcement of the crash was a hoax designed to take the spotlight off this story, because ransom negotiations are continuing.

If scenarios B or C are the way things went down, the motivation of the authorities to simply treat this as a mysterious crash and move on are obvious.

My thanks to the Warlord for providing a needed missing piece here.

The Mysterious Case Of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH 370

 

Saturday, a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 did something almost unheard of in modern times..it simply vanished.

Flight MH 370 was en route from Kuala Lampur, Malaysia to Beijing,China with 239 passengers. It never arrived, there's no indication so far what happened to it and a wide scale international search is underway.

For an airliner to simply disappear like this is almost unheard of, because of the modern tracking technology involved. Aside from the now routine radar, every airliner contains a flight recorder and a transponder which emit electronic signals, as well as an emergency location beacon, a highly durable electronic signaling device to enable an airliner to be quickly located if something unexpected occurs.

And if trouble occurred in midair en route, the pilot would normally communicate with the control tower, either by voice radio or electronic distress signal. Whatever happened had to have occurred instantaneously.

Ever odder, the plane appears to have changed course without notifying authorities, turning west. It's possible the pilot was attempting to return back towards Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) or to Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah (SAAS) Airport to the northwest. The plane was last seen above the small island of Pulau Perak, miles off course. Even if there was a mechanical failure that necessitated aborting the flight and making an emergency landing, normal procedure is to radio it in, or at least activate the electronic distress signal.

No debris has been found either, which is also highly unusual. An Air France jet was lost in similar circumstances over the Atlantic in 2009, but debris was spotted the next day. It took a year and a half to locate the flight recorders and remains of the fuselage on the ocean floor,but that was in much deeper water. The waters off Vietnam and in the Malacca straits in the area in question are much shallower and the waters are much clearer, and in this case not even any of the normal debris has been found yet.

Another occurrence that has attracted attention is that two Iranians, 19-year-old Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad and 29-year-old Delavar Seyed Mohammadreza were traveling together on the plane with stolen passports and travel documents that would have allowed them to proceed from Beijing to Europe. According to Interpol, the two men knew each other and had traveled to Malaysia from Tehran using their Iranian passports, but obtained stolen Italian and Austrian passports,both of which were reported stolen by the real owners in Thailand.

This appears to be merely a coincidence. Both men were planning on relocating to Europe, had tickets purchased in Kuala Lumpur for their journey to Beijing and Amsterdam and planned to travel together. Nourmohammadi planned to proceed from Amsterdam to Frankfurt, Germany, where his mother lives and Seyedmohammaderza's intended final destination was Copenhagen, Denmark.

Stolen passports are a fairly common item in that part of the world, and these were probably purchased on the black market for cash.There is a large expatriate Iranian community in Kuala Lumpur.According to initial reports, the price for these was $10,000 American.

That doesn't rule out terrorism in the least,but it does rule out these two as active participants.

Here are the things that immediately strike me:

The plane had to have disintegrated in a matter of seconds in order for the pilots not to have time to communicate by voice or activate the electronic distress signal. A massive mechanical failure that involved a crash to the ground or into the water would have triggered electronic sensors because of the rapid decompression

The cost of the airline tickets to Europe and the stolen passports is fairly prohibitive for a couple of average Iranian would be asylum seekers,especially since one of them was 19 years old. Kuala Lumpur is an international city and one of the transit points for the drug trade from Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia and the Golden Triangle. Stolen passports are also used in the drug trade, especially by couriers. It is not outside the realm of possibility in the slightest that the two Iranians were either knowingly or unknowingly being used as couriers, and that a rival syndicate found out about it and decided to take action to keep the merchandise from being delivered. The fact that the two Iranians were able to find and purchase stolen passports so easily in a city unknown to them is another clue.

So is the fact that, according to the U.K. Daily Mail, at least five ticketed passengers failed to board the plane, though it's unclear if any of those individuals tried to check luggage for the flight or if any bags under their names were removed from the aircraft before it left Malaysia.

The two Iranians may have been transporting something other than drugs, knowingly or unknowingly - like volatile chemicals or explosive components. This could have been a 'work accident'.

The tickets for the two Iranians were purchased - in cash - in Thailand at the resort of the resort of Pattaya from a Thai travel agent on March 1 by an Iranian businessperson she knew only as 'Mr. Ali'.
According to what the travel agent told the Finncial Times, She had booked them on other airlines but those reservations expired and on March 6, Mr Ali had asked her to rebook them.

This sparks my interest because it comes right out of the terrorism 101 textbook - establish a relationship with a local travel agent willing to book flights for cash on short notice, no questions asked...and then do flights as dry runs to test airport security measures and to get jihadis familiar with the layout of targeted planes.

As a matter of fact al-Qaeda has used this tactic several times.

This could very easily have been such a dry run that ended up lowing up in someone's face a little prematurely. It would certainly be interesting to have authorities investigate 'Mr. Ali' thoroughly to see whom he's really is and look at other airline tickets he's purchased. And let's also remember that the tickets and the stolen passports both came from Thailand. I doubt that's a coincidence.

The final possibility I see (and an unlikely one) is either massive pilot error or a sudden mechanical failure that exploded the plane (probably the fuel tanks) in mid air.The pilot in question, Fariq Abdul Hamid has 18 years of experience and the Boeing 777 has an excellent safety record, although of course anything can happen

For now, what happened to Flight MH 370 remains a mystery, but I think that when we find out what happened I wouldn't be surprised to find the answer along these lines.

6.3 Earthquake Hits Iran's Bushehr, 4 Dead

A 6.3 earthquake that killed four people struck Bushehr this morning, the site of Iran's Russian built nuclear reactor.

While the Red Cross said that two villages near the nuclear site were heavily damaged, the Russians claim the nuclear site itself is undamaged.

"The earthquake in no way affected the normal situation at the reactor. Personnel continue to work in the normal regime and radiation levels are fully within the norm," Russian state news agency RIA quoted an official at Atomstroyexport as saying.

Of course, the Russians said everything at Chernobyl was just fine too..

I received an e-mail from one of my sources claiming that what happened was not a natural earthquake but a limited underground test of a nuclear trigger mechanism that went badly. No way to confirm that, but I'll throw it out there for what it's worth.

Iran's nuclear facilities have never been vetted for safety by the IAEA, since the entire project was clandestine and illegal according to the non-proliferation treaty Iran signed. Iran also does not belong to the Convention on Nuclear Safety, which was put in place to improve safety standards after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

Iran's the only country that doesn't belong, and for obvious reasons - the last thing they want is for their nuclear installations to be inspected, especially their nuclear weapons facilities.

Obama Uses Sandy Scam To Request $13B In Additional Funding For 'Storms To Be Named Later'

 

President Obama is using the Sandy disaster as a wedge to get Congress to OK $13 billion in additional funding...not for Sandy relief, but literally, 'for storms to be named later'.

The breakdown is interesting. The biggest items aren't for things like flood prevention ( a paltry $150 million) or even Corps of Engineers  Investigations ($ 30 million) to see how to prevent future disasters like Sandy.

Here are the big ticket items. Let's look at them one by one. And remember,money is fungible. Once it's appropriated, it can be used anywhere. :

Department of Housing and Urban Development Community Planning and Development, Community Development Fund, $ 2 billion.

HUD is an especially bottomless pit. While I'm certain the Obama Administration can come up with a glib explanation, 'community development' isn't about disaster relief. The money, however, can be used for anything from voter registration and 'community organizing' by the new heirs to ACORN, loan grants to people whom otherwise wouldn't qualify, HUD salaries, facilities and hiring, anything you could imagine.

Department of Transportation Federal Transit Administration, Public Transportation Emergency Relief Program $ 5.5 billion

Hey, let's use some of the taxpayer's money to bail out Amtrack, the California Bullet train and other scams backed by well-connected Democrat donors!Great idea. Tell Geithner to fire up his computer and digitize another Five and a half bil!

Department of Commerce National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Operations, Research, and Facilities, $ 360 million.

How much of this is for actual testing and research on storms like Sandy and how much of it is for outside projects that have nothing to do with disaster relief?

Corps of Engineers Construction $ 3,820 billion

Legitimate on its face, except when you remember that this money is for 'storms to be named later'. How much of this is for improvements in things like levees and runoffs that are needed NOW and how much of it is just another slush fund, to be diverted elsewhere?

Environmental Protection Agency State and Tribal Assistance Grants $610 million.

The only thing I can see this money legitimately being used for - maybe-is improvement in sewage facilities and storm drainage, and the latter ought to come under the previous category anyway . Again, remember that this is for disasters that haven't happened yet.

Even putting the best face on it, at least $8.5 billion of the requested $13 billion looks like sheer slush fund heaven, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find that a good part of the rest of it is too.We are, after all, dealing with a fiscally irresponsible president and administration of historical proportions.

The worst part is whom actually suffers, the victims of Sandy.

Governor Christie and the president got a nice photo-op out of it, one that may even have been something of a game changer right before the election. But the truth is that relief assistance is trickling in a lot more slowly than it should, many of the victims of Sandy are still homeless and in want and now that it's out of the headlines, the media caravan has moved on and isn't covering the story.

By loading the Sandy relief bill with this kind of lard, the assistance to the victims of Sandy is only going to be delayed further. And an additional political benefit for this president, one I'm sure he's counting on, is the ability to slam Republicans for 'obstructionism and playing politics while people are suffering' if they dare to demand an honest accounting of where this $13 billion in non-Sandy spending is actually going.

Despicable, yes, but that's how President Obama and his friends play the game.

Never waste a good crisis, right Mr. President?

Sandy Aftermath - People Trading Gas For Sex!

Apparently the President Obama's photo-ops aren't doing anything to get people gas, food, power and shelter.So a new ummm, market has apparently been created - gas for sex, which I could have rhymed but decided not to:

Long gas stationlines and empty gas pumps have plagued drivers across New York and New Jersey since Superstorm Sandy slammed into the East Coast last Monday, leaving a gas shortage across the region.

Stories of price gouging and fights at gas stations have also been commonplace. But now it seems people — men in particular — are finding new ways to take advantage of gas-seeking Tri-State residents: Sex.

Men have been taking to the personals on Craigslist, trading gasoline for sex. Some of the ads on NewYork.Craigslist.org read as follows:

 What Would you do for gas?? m4w – 30 Let’s help each other …………………?

 gas4sex- m4w 35 – 6 foor 1 225 Italian workout good looking looking to hang out I have 5 gallons of gas




Reminds me of an old bumper sticker that I'll forbear reminding you of.

Sandy Ain't No Nice Girl; 30 Dead,7 Million Without Power

Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc throughout a major portion of the East coast, with New York City being particularly hard hit.

The Big Apple was hit with a record 13-foot wall of water that flooded lower Manhattan. The subways were flooded, including the Queens Midtown and the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel pictured above, and heavy rains and 90 mph winds took a toll on the city's power grid. A fifty foot strip was ripped out of Atlantic City's famous Boardwalk.In Maryland, at least 100 feet of a fishing pier at the beach resort of Ocean City was destroyed.

At least half a million people along the East Coast have been ordered to evacuate, including 375,000 from parts of New York City.

Might I add that if you've been ordered to evacuate, take it seriously and be safe.

All public transit has been shut down in most of the New York metro area and much of New Jersey, the schools and the NYSE are closed and damage is estimated to be as much as $20 billion.

Fires in New York City were also a problem in spite of the wet weather because firemen were unable to get to fire areas due to the unprecedented flooding. More than 50 homes were destroyed in Breezy Point, Queens.

The storm is now gradually lessening and moving inland.

Obama Shamed; Forced By Romney's Trip To Stop Campaign,Fly To Storm-Hit Louisiana

Now here's something different. Here we have a presidential candidate who actually shamed a sitting president into doing the right thing.

This morning after the Republican convention in Tampa finished, Mitt Romney changed his schedule, got on a plane with Ann Romney and headed towards the flood damaged areas in Louisiana to tour the area and meet with first responders. The situation there isn't like Katrina, but there's has been massive amounts of flood damage, the levees were topped in several areas and almost a million people are still without power.

President Obama had never been there during the crisis, and according to the linked ABC News story, the White House told them the president had no plans to visit the stricken Gulf areas. In fact, he was scheduled to be campaigning and fundraising in Ohio.





But as pictures of Governor Romney and his wife started hitting the news wires and raising certain, shall we say, questions, Mitt Romney's action reminded Barack Obama what a president does and shamed him into cancelling his own schedule and finally making a trip to Louisiana.

Romney had changed his schedule to head to the affected town outside New Orleans while Obama, who has yet to visit the Tropical Storm Isaac zone, headed off to Texas to campaign.

But the Obama campaign said today, in a terse statement, that the President would now visit the flood-stricken state early next week.

'In light of the President’s travel to Louisiana to meet with local officials and view ongoing response and recovery efforts to Hurricane Isaac, President Obama will no longer travel to Cleveland, Ohio on Monday, September 3,' the statement read.

By the way, Louisiana is a solid Red State Governor Romney is all but certain to carry, while the campaign stop he cancelled to go to Louisiana was in Virginia a battle ground swing state. He went to Louisiana not for politics, but because he felt it was the right thing to do.

President Obama's cynical turnaround, on the other hand, was based on nothing but politics.If Mitt Romney hadn't gone to Louisiana, there's no doubt President Obama would have ignored the stricken area, just as he has every other disaster that has hit a Red state area during his time in office.

Does anyone really, in their heart of hearts want Barack Obama in the White House for another four years?

Why?

Romney Heads To Storm Ravaged New Orleans - Where Obama Has Yet To Appear

Fresh off his acceptance speech at the Republican convention, Mitt Romney will be visiting the storm-affected areas in New Orleans today.

While it's not Katrina, Isaac has done plenty of damage and there have been record flood levels that topped the levees in several areas.Almost a million people remain without power.

A Romney aide told ABC News that Romney will “join Gov. Jindal and will meet with first responders, thank them for their work and see areas impacted by the storm in LaFitte, La.”

Jindal cancelled his plans earlier this week to attend the Republican National Convention after Hurricane Isaac moved up the Gulf Coast and wreaked damage across Louisiana. Two deaths have been reported in Louisiana as a result of the storm and widespread damage and flooding. The storm hit on the seven-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

According to the ABC News story, Governor Romney had been planning this trip during the convention and had scheduled the trip to occur as soon as the convention ended.

President Obama, meanwhile is out campaigning. The White House has not announced any plans for the president to visit the hard hit area.

Figuring out why President Obama is giving the storm hit Gulf Coast a miss is actually pretty easy.

He knows he isn't going to carry the Red states of Alabama, Mississippi, or Louisiana, and therefore touring these areas isn't a priority for him. What votes he will get in these states will come predominantly from black voters, and his thinking likely is that he doesn't have to do anything much to get them anyway.

This president behaved similarly during his term when it came to Kentucky, Nashville, northern Texas and other disaster areas located in Red states.

It's the Chicago way. No political payback, and it's off the radar.

As Isaac Moves Into The Gulf, Will The GOP Cancel Its Convention?

The polls remain pretty much neck and neck, and the nation was waiting to see what Mitt Romeny had to say to them in a widely anticipated acceptance speech.

And then Isaac, a tropical storm that has built into a force 1 hurricane hit.

The worry isn't that the storm would hit the Tampa-St. Petersburg area, but that it will rain devastation on other areas on the Gulf Coast, most likely on Mississippi and New Orleans just as the convention gets started in Tampa Bay.

Aside from the fact that a hurricane will almost certainly suck all the oxygen out of the news cycle and eclipse the GOP convention, ( and quite rightly), one has to consider the effect of the juxtaposition of a hurricane's devastation and people launching balloons and wearing funny hats in the Tampa Bay Convention Center.

Not only that, but you can count of the Obama Media to draw parallels between Isaac and the last big hurricane to hit the area Katrina. And of course, the Republican who was in the White House then.

President Obama could certainly be relied on to take advantage of this by making a high profile tour of the area, something he's rarely seen fit to do when it came to other disasters.

Ideally, one would hope both parties could set aside politics and work together at a time of disaster and work together in unison to overcome it.

That is probably too much to hope for, but for their part I hope the Republicans will at least consider postponing their convention until we see which way the wind blows..literally. A GOP oriented drive to aid hurricane victims if that's what it comes to wouldn't hurt either if they are shut out of participation in disaster relief by the White House.

But the convention needs to be postponed. It's not only the smart thing to do politically, it the right thing to do.

Huge Fire In Jerusalem Quelled - 4 Palestinians Arrested for Arson

(Photo: Michal Ben-Naim)


Two large fires that broke out near Moshav Even Sapir in the Jerusalem area and in the eastern Carmel are have now been reported contained.

Over 40 firefighting squads from Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh and two airplanes were involved in putting out the blaze.

Acting Jerusalem Police Commissioner Menny Yitzhaki said that four Palestinians have been arrested in connection with the fire. Since the blaze was set at multiple locations, the authorities investigating the cause are almost certain arson was involved.

And of course, the Palestinians have a track record in these matters.

Again, that cultural difference....

More Mystery Iran Disasters - Major Fire At Isfahan Refinery, Huge Blast At Revolutionary Guards Base

Iran is finally reporting on a major fire and explosion that took place yesterday at its Isfahan refinery, the second largest in the country.

According to the official account,a malfunction at the refinery caused a leakage of cooling water from its generators, causing a power outage and blackout.One pereson was reported killed.

The official story is that there was no explosion, and that fires were caused by workers burning off excess oil and gas in pipelines to prevent one from happening. However, Iranian dissidents reported a loud explosion at the refinery, and the fact that one person was killed would seem to support that.Various eye-witnesses reported seeing flames and thick smoke covering the area.

There was a major power outage as a result according to the Iranian Mehr news agency.

One of the Iranian regime's weak points is its refinery capacity. Major damage to a refinery like the one at Isfahan is going to have an impact not only in terms of capacity but in terms of the amount of refined fuel the regime is going to have to import, for which it has to pay in hard currency.

This isn't going to do the rial any good..it's dropped from an official rate of $1,300 hundred to the dollar to $1,500 to the dollar in a matter of weeks, and refined fuels trades are conducted in dollars.

Another reliable source of mine reported a major explosion at a Revolutionary Guards base in Kerman,the headquarters for the Guard’s operations in the East, near the Afghan border. No details yet,but I'm told it was quite a large blast.Probably just a coincidence, no?

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What They're Not Telling You About The Earthquakes In Turkey

As you may have heard, Southeastern Turkey was rocked yesterday by massive 7.2-magnitude quake that has killed nearly 300 people. Hundreds of buildings are down and there are still many victims buried beneath the rubble.

Israel's president Shimon Peres called Turkey's President Abdullah Gul to offer his condolances and the help of Israel's expert rescue teams, who are only about 90 minutes away from the quake site by air. Gul refused. Instead, Turkey accepted help from Iran and Azerbaijan and refused all international help except from those two countries.

To find out why, we merely need to look at a map. The epicenter and hardest hit area is near Ercis, in the mountainous area inhabited primarily by guess who - the Kurds!

The same people the Erdogan regime has been steadily oppressing for some time.

And that's exactly the area where the Turks want no one seeing anything but the Iranians, who have their own issues with the Kurds! What a coincidence, eh?

Could it be that Turkey doesn't want any international observers getting a look at what's been going on there, or talking to the local people? Are they afraid of what they might find out? Are they worried about the Kurds gathering international attention and sympathy?

And would Turkey be perfectly fine with a few less Kurds around anyway?

Three guesses.

UPDATE: More on this from my pal Greg over at Rhymes With Right .

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Hypocrisy In Action - Obama And The Hurricane of Hype

Much is being made of President Obama for cutting short his highly expensive vacation on Martha's Vineyard to 'take command' during Hurricane Irene's nudge of the East Coast.

Based on some of what I'm seeing from his allies in the press, they'd like to see him get the Medal of Honor for simply doing what is normally part of a president's job description.

As various news outlets mentioned, it was the president's political advisers who suggested that it would be prudent for him to cut short his five star stay at the Vineyard ( which already wasn't polling well in a country wracked by recession and unemployment) to be in DC to deal with Hurricane Irene. With the rain promising poor weather for golf and boating, the president obviously thought it best to comply and turn yet another crisis into an opportunity.

Unfortunately, Irene didn't exactly live up to expectations. Most New Yorkers simply laughed at Mayor Bloomberg's shrill orders to evacuate, with even the denizens of some nursing homes and residents of low lying areas like Coney Island and Rockaway telling the mayor 'faggeddaboudit'.

Residents of Florida and the Carolinas who had actually lived through real hurricanes giggled a the dinosaur media's earnest reports of deadly 35 MPH winds, and the Atlantic City casinos announced business as usual come Monday.

In the end Irene was classified a s category 1 'hurricane' one step above a garden variety tropical storm. It amounted to a heavy rainstorm, minor damage in some harbor areas, some flooding, some power outages and yes, a few deaths, most of them caused by falling trees or tree limbs, fallen live wires or by traffic accidents linked to things like traffic signals going dead because of the power outages.

Not nothing, but hardly the apocalypse.

President Obama was indeed present, although after a careful look I can't find any mention of his actually doing anything besides making a few statements in that hopey-changey baritone of his. But before we start passing out medals, let's take a look back to see how how President Obama has dealt with similar emergencies in the past.

For instance, shortly after President Obama was elected, there was a major ice storm in Kentucky in 2009 that took out the power, blocked roads and cost the lives of 54 people, many of them children and senior citizens. At least a million Americans were without power or heat in the dead of winter, and President Obama and FEMA were nowhere to be found for over a week, after a number of fatalities had occurred. I particularly remember that during this period, the president was mainly concerned with his Superbowl party in his toasty warm office. How about 'Obama dozed and the people froze' for a slogan?

Then there were the horrendous Nashville floods of May 2010 that left whole parts of the city underwater, led to a number of deaths when people were trapped by the rising waters and caused well over a billion dollars in damages. Not only was President Obama nowhere to be found, he didn't even feel that disaster merited a mention.

In September of 2010, Tropical Storm Hermine tore through North Texas, leaving eight dead, over 200 homes destroyed and thousands of citizens without water or electricity. Governor Rick Perry made a formal request to the president to declare North Texas a disaster area and get FEMA involved.President Obama simply denied his request, which meant Texas got no FEMA aid whatsoever.

And then of course, there was the Gulf Oil Spill, and the almost farcical delay of the Obama Administration to do anything about it for weeks. When even a Democrat-for-life like James Carville starts screeching at you on national TV to get off your behind and do something, you know there's a problem.

Actually, to be fair, the president did do something. After delaying any response at all for weeks, he finally ordered the shut down of dredging protective sand berms designed to keep the oil off the coasts after Governor Jindall got tired of waiting for authorization and went ahead and authorized dredging the sand berms on his own to try and protect Louisiana's coastline and fishing industry. And there was a lot of behind the scenes action. I'm still wondering what ultimately happened to that $20 billion dollar escrow account 'controlled by a third party' that the president extorted out of BP.

Now, all this leads us to another question....why is the president so anxious to appear to be 'in command' of Hurricane Irene after essentially ignoring all these other disasters?

There's a one word answer - politics.

President Obama, like the fictional Mayor Joe Quimby of Simpson's fame has an aide whispering in his ear 'elections are coming up.' And that makes all the difference.It's what he cares about, his entire frame of reference.

Another difference worth noting is that the four incidents I mentioned involved Red states - Kentucky, Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama - all states the president is fairly unpopular in and has little or no chance of ever carrying.

Now Irene, which affected those eastern seaboard Blue states like New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Connecticut and carried in 2008 and states he needs to carry again to have any chance of winning. And they're also a rich source of donations for Obama's re-election campaign. Rest assured that those Blue states will get all of the president's attention and the FEMA aid they need.

So much for this president being the president of all the people.

It's one thing to disagree with someone's politics. It's quite another to find his actions and his sense of himself despicable on almost a daily basis.

-Selah -

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Huge Forest Fire Near Jerusalem; Arson Suspected

A huge forest fire near Jerusalem is reported as contained after menacing Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem and burning about 150 dunams of forest land.

Eight people – five firefighters and three employees at Yad Vashem who assisted in containing the fire around the museum – were treated for smoke inhalation by Magen David Adom. Four were sent to the hospital.

After the Carmel fires last year, the Israelis were much better prepared for this one, even with a second fire going on in the Golan Heights centered around the Ein Tina nature reserve. The Israelis invested a substantial amount in new equipment and training after the deadly arson fueled Carmel fire last year.

According to Jerusalem Fire and Rescue Services spokesman Asaf Abras, the Jerusalem fire started simultaneously in four different places, which pretty much means it was almost certainly set deliberately.

Now who do you suppose might have done such a thing? Three guesses.


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Breaking - Japan Rocked By New 7.4 Quake: Tsunami Warning Issued

Japan's northeastern coast has suffered another earthquake, this one centered about 25 miles (40 kilometers) under the water and off the coast of Miyagi prefecture. The quake was measured at 7.4 magnitude. As a comparison, last month's quke was a 9.0-magnitude.

The quake was felt as far away as Tokyo, where buildings shook for about a minute.

Japan's government meteorological bureau has issued a tsunami warning.

Workers battling to control the stricken Fukushima Daiishi nuclear plant on Japan's northeast coast were ordered to evacuate after the quake.

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Graphic Video Of Tsunami Hitting Japan

An incredibly sad video of the tsunami hitting. You actually see people trying to escape from the incoming wave. And unfortunately, I don't think they all made it.

Life is a very fragile thing.

האמנות ברוך אתה, הו אדוני אלוהינו מלך העולם, דיין האמת

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