Watcher's Council Nominations, 5/21/09

The Watcher's Council is a group of some of the most incisive blogs in the`sphere. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one of their own and one from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.

So, let's see what we have this week....and do check out the Watcher's take on the healthcare debate...


COUNCIL

Joshuapundit - Land For Peace, American Style

Bookworm Room - Has Obama already written the history books?

The Provocateur - Honeymoon’s Over: Now Obama Faces Reality

Right Truth - In the name of God

Rhymes With Right - How Much Medical Scrutiny Is Appropriate For A Potential Justice?

The Razor - The United States of California

The Glittering Eye - The Doomsday Industry

The Colossus of Rhodey - Another year comes to a close …

Wolf Howling - Candidate Obama versus President Obama In The War On Terror

Soccer Dad - Two state confusion

NON-COUNCIL

Submitted By: The Watcher - Reason Magazine - California’s Political/Journalistic Class = Fail

Submitted By: Joshuapundit - Michelle Malkin - California, The Poster Child For Dysfunction

Submitted By: Bookworm Room - National Review Online - Obama’s U.N. Mistake

Submitted By: The Provocateur - The New Ledger - The Media’s Broken Business Model

Submitted By: Right Truth - Renew America - The Seduction of Christianity

Submitted By: Rhymes With Right - Postmodern Conservative - Empathy Uber Alles

Submitted By: The Razor - AmSpecBlog - New York Times Finally Admits It Spiked Obama/ACORN Corruption Story

Submitted By: The Glittering Eye - The Volokh Conspiracy - Wikipedia: Who Runs the Place?

Submitted By: The Colossus of Rhodey - City Journal - Pedagogy of the Oppressor

Submitted By: Wolf Howling - Protein Wisdom - Cat Scratch Fever

Submitted By: Soccer Dad - Seraphic Secret - The New-Old War Against the Jews

Clinton Demands Settlement Construction Of All Types Cease

And by that she means everything.

"We want to see a stop to settlement construction, additions, natural growth - any kind of settlement activity," declared Clinton in some of the Obama administration's clearest comments to date on what it expects from Israel. She was speaking to Al-Jazeera in an interview, of which the State Department released a transcript on Wednesday.

In other words, if you live in Jerusalem, Efrat, Gush Etzion, Ariel or other any other Jewish communities the Palestinians want to occupy, you had better stop having kids and forget about getting permits for building an addition to your home. Now I realize that this is a pro-abortion administration, but still...

Needless to say, our Secretary of State had nothing to say about illegal Arab construction in places like East Jerusalem.

While this kind of Jew hatred is morally disgusting on her part, some things to consider; first, the fact that this was Hillary Clinton, who as Secretary of State under Obama has very little power and has been reduced to being an Obama mouthpiece when it's deemed necessary.Second, that this was done in an al-Jazeera interview broadcast to the Arab world with no formal indication this is anything more than rhetoric. And third, the Israelis are not going to abide by it even if it were, and Obama lacks the leverage to make them.

Remember what I said about Obama needing to provide some red meat for the Arab street for his big speech in Cairo June 4th? This is a sample, and something he can now just allude to with the barest of mentions without real substance.

I think a similar item is a story now going around that high officials in the Obama administration reportedly promised Jerusalem as their capitol to the Palestinians, along with a host of other goodies.

While President Obama might like these ideas, he understands politics if nothing else. There's no way Netanyahu would agree to it, nor would the members of his coalition...or the Israeli public. Formally announcing it as US policy in Cairo and attempting to force Israel to acquiesce would pretty much end any kind of harmonious relationship between the Obama administration and Israel, and end any type of leverage Obama might have on Netanyahu.

I frankly don't think Obama's that stupid, although I could certainly be unpleasantly surprised.

Like Hillary Clinton's nonsense, I think this is simply pure kabuki theater to put a nice spin on Obama's Cairo outing and hide the fact that nothing much is going to happen with the Palestinians in the near future.

4 Arrested in Plot to Blow Up NY Synagogues

Of course,as you can imagine, the suspects are all Evangelical Christians...okay, sarcasm off:

The FBI busted a homegrown terror cell late Wednesday night as the men sneaked around a Jewish temple in Riverdale planting what they thought was packages of C-4 explosives, sources told the Daily News.

The four African American men, three of whom were said to be jailhouse converts to Islam, also allegedly had what they believed was a working Stinger missile in their car.

Officials said they hoped to shoot down a plane at Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh in Orange County.

Jailhouse conversions to Islam, hmmm? They couldn't be some of the product of the Saudi financed wahabi imams sent to do missionary work by the Islamic Society of North America(ISNA) could they?

Do a search on this site under ISNA and settle back for some heavy reading to find out more about these folks.

I should mention that these creeps were arrested in an FBI sting due to the heroism of a fellow member of their mosque who turned informent and contacted the FBI when he learned that some of the members of his mosque were trying to obtain explosives.

A noble deed of merit, sadiq...and one that will help your fellow Muslims in the end, especially as more of you come forward.

California's Tax Revolt- The Peasants Have Risen

"California's a garden of Eden, it's a paradise to live in, or see. But believe it or not, you won't find it so hot, if you ain't got the do-re-mi.. - Woody Guthrie




Voters sent five out of six ballot propositions touted by Governor Schwarzenegger as a temporary fix to California's budget crisis crashing to defeat in yesterday's special elections by better than two to one majorities. The only one that passed was 1F, which mandated that state legislators cannot receive pay raises when there's a budget deficit.

The state now faces a $21.3 billion budget deficit...in the world's sixth largest economy.

The election was a farce, with unions and other special interests spending over $30 million to try and push these measures through. This time, the overburdened taxpayers in the state simply wouldn't buy it.

What happened to California? As Margaret Thatcher famously said, the problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money. That day is today.

The state is one of the highest taxed in the nation, and like several other states near to financial collapse is controlled by a dysfunctional Democrat-controlled legislature that persists in spending other people's money to buy votes from special interests, and they in turn are controlled by powerful public employee unions like the teachers and the SEIU.

In addition there's education, social services, and law enforcement for thousands of illegal immigrants from the third world countries across the border. That tab alone is estimated at between $5 and $8 billion per year, depending on who's adding. When you import millions of poor people who consume more in services than they spend in taxes, it tends not to be good for your state's budget.


See the rest at the The Examiner..please click on it a few times and help throw a few bucks my way...every little bit helps

When Bibi Met Bammy - The Postgame Show

As I predicted, the first meeting between President Barack Obama ended with Netanyahu exchanging an innocuous statement of support for 'negotiations' with loopholes wide enough to drive a HumVee through for a basically innocuous statement by Obama that Israel ought to get on with the peace process, the other Arab nations should help, and if those naughty Iranians didn't stop their nuclear weapons program in a year, he was going to get really, really peeved.And look everybody! See what good friends we are and how committed I am to Israel's security?

That's the gist of it. And with nobody actually sure that anything was resolved, so the usual pundits are resorting to the time honored tradition of Making Stuff Up, with the content depending on their particular political persuasion.

As I see it, behind the smiles very little was really decided and the very basic disagreements between Israel and the Obama Administration remain pretty much unresolved...although both sides were willing to cover this with statements that meant very little in the real world.

Netanyahu chiefly wanted to discuss Iran, which he correctly sees as the key to peace and stability in the region and to take on the ridiculous notion promoted by Obama of linking dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions with the creation of a second Arab Palestinian state.

Obama's goal was to come up with some Israeli red meat for his forthcoming speech to the Muslim world in Cairo, perhaps by pressuring Netanyahu to recognize a two state formula for a Palestinian state based on the Saudi peace ultimatum....and to dissuade Netanyahu from taking out Iran's nukes.

While neither got what he wanted,Netanyahu likely came out slightly ahead, largely because he had the most ammunition for his arguments (probably including messages from Egypt's President Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah, both of whom he met with shortly before the trek to Washington) and because Obama's avenues for forcing Israel to do his bidding at this point are limited.

The Sunni Arab autocracies are absolutely appalled at the idea of a resurgent Shiite Iran armed with nukes, particularly the Saudis. The Eastern part of Saudi Arabia near the Persian Gulf is where Saudi oil is located, and it's mostly populated by Saudi Shiites who are treated as second class citizens. The Saudis are terrified that the Iranians could foment unrest there, or use their nuclear weapons to blackmail them and the other Sunni Persian Gulf Emirates by threatening to close down the narrow Shatt Al Arab and cut off oil shipments. During the G-20 summit in Europe, Obama attended ( site of the famous bowing incident) back in April, my sources tell me that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had a fairly forceful conversation with Obama on the sidelines about his Iranian non-policy.

The Egyptians and Jordanians are likewise concerned. Egypt's Hosni Mubarak worries that a nuclear armed Iran could empower Hamas and its parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, his main political opposition, at a time the aging Mubarak is attempting to hand over power to his son Gamal ( AKA 'Jack') without major domestic violence from an Iranian proxy. That's precisely why the Egyptians have cracked down on Hamas and the weapons smuggling from Iran in a huge way lately.

Aside from it's own Muslim Brotherhood problem, Jordan's King Abdullah and a Bedouin minority rule over a country that is 8o% Palestinian and live if fear of an Iran backed Palestinian Hamastan trying to destabilize Jordan as Arafat and the PLO once attempted to do back in 1970.

There's also the little matter of what amounts to a major collapse in Obama's Middle East policies.

His efforts to move Syria out of Iran's orbit has largely failed, as I or anyone else with knowledge of the region and the players could have told him. The original idea Obama had was to bribe the Syrians and moderate Hezbollah by increased Western recognition and by forcing Israel to give back the Golan heights.

Basher Assad deliberately torpedoed that by announcing that no talks with Israel would be held unless the Israelis agreed to pull out of the strategic Golan Heights beforehand. That's roughly equivalent to a real estate deal where one side signs over the deed to the other free and clear before any price or terms are discussed, and no Israeli government(or indeed anybody) would ever agree to that kind of precondition short of a complete military defeat.

Obama's attempt to move Syria closer to the West by midwifing a closer relationship with US 'ally' Turkey likewise failed and the Turkish-Syrian rapprochement Obama put together by promoting joint military exercises between the two and allowing massive arms sales by Turkey to Lebanon actually brought Turkey closer to Syria and Iran instead of the reverse.

As I write this, Syria and Hezbollah are hard at work rigging Lebanon's June 7th election to toss the rest of the pro-Western anti-Syrian parliament out of office and turn the country over to Hezbollah, along with the millions in aid and armaments both Obama and the Bush Administration sent there.

In Iran itself, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is expected to easily win the June 12th Iranian 'election' handily, and Iran just responded to President Obama's attempts at diplomatic engagement by testing an advanced ballistic missile capable of hitting Israel and southern Europe as well as US bases in the Middle East.

And I haven't even mentioned Pakistan and Afghanistan yet.

In other words, Obama has other things to worry about on the foreign policy front than a Palestinian state - especially with Hamas and Fatah still disunited and divided.

As far as pressure on Netanyahu, Obama's options are also limited.

While Obama and many of his appointees might not be particularly pro-Israel, Congress overwhelmingly is,and so is the American public. Congress will have to stand for re-election before Obama does, and it's unlikely that most of Congress would go along with an overt attempt to cut off military sales to Israel.Neither would US defense contractors, since most of the military aid to Israel is spent here.

What Obama may resort to is covert pressure, like non-support of Israel in the UN, a colder atmosphere emanating from the White House, a hold on funding for joint weapons projects like the Arrow Missile and a partial cut off of aid, like the F-22 fighter that Israel actually paid substantial money to the US to be privy to the technology and then got screwed out of. Since this is all likely to happen anyway given Obama's basic attitude towards Israel, they have very little to lose.


And ironically, the more the covert pressure on Israel is increased and security cooperation and coordination lessens, the less leverage Obama is going to have on Israel. They will simply ramp up their already formidable domestic arms industry,and improvise or buy what spare parts they need for US gear under the table from places like Canada, India or Germany. That's what they did before, when the French cut off all arms shipments right before the`67 War.

And in the last analysis, if things get too dicey, Obama will simply have alienated another US ally, who may very well go looking for some new best friends.

Both Netanyahu and Obama know all this, which is why Netanyahu came away from their meeting without promising to evacuate Jews from Judea and Samaria ( AKA the West Bank) or overt support for a Palestinian State. Instead he mouthed a desire for further negotiations, which was meaningless because Israel still insists on the Roadmap obligations of the Palestinians being carried out - which isn't going to happen anytime soon-and because he still insists that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state, which will also never happen anytime soon.

On the other hand, Netanyahu did not get a commitment out of Obama to deal with Iran in any meaningful way. What Obama essentially told him was that he'll take another look at things at year's end and see where they are, which meant absolutely nothing, except that the US is prepared to accept a nuclear Iran if it means being able to extricate US forces from Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest of the Middle East. Iran is not going to be any more interested in curbing their nuclear weapons program in December than they are now.

Likewise, Obama did not get what he wanted from Netanyahu. He obviously was unable to get a commitment out of the Israeli leader not to settle Iran's nuclear threat himself, which is why he's resorted to having people like Joe Biden and CIA chief Leon Pannetta play boogyman with threats about what might happen if Israel decided to take out Iran's nukes.

And since Netanyahu refused to provide any red meat for Obama to throw to the Arab street, President Obama decided to provide some himself, contradicting Netanyahu and explicitly issuing a statement that the Palestinians need not recognize Israel as a Jewish State.

That won't make front page news here, but you can bet it will in Cairo and Ramallah.Which was entirely Obama's intention .

Land For Peace...American Style

" Never ask a friend to buy a horse you wouldn't buy yourself" - (Loose translation of an old Yiddish proverb)

Apply the principles urged on Israel to the United States, and you end up with a scenario something like this:

The new final settlement conference between the US, Mexico, and the Aztlánistas is scheduled for late June. The agreement promises a new chapter in the relationship between the countries -- and new hope for Aztlánista refugees yearning for self-determination and a state of their own.

For years, there has been ongoing hostilities, massive illegal immigration and ongoing terrorism on the border. While there are many troublesome issues, new attitudes on both sides of the conflict may mean that peace is finally within reach.

The new status quo will probably look very much like the plan made by New Aztlán advocates like MEChA (and prominent American academics), tempered with the peace plan promoted by Mexican President Calderon. Other Latin American countries have endorsed the plan.

What the Aztlánistas want is final status on a state of their own with contiguous borders, New Aztlán, to consist of the American territories of California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. The capital of the new regime will, of course, be traditionally Aztlánista Los Angeles.

All non-Mexican settlements and American settlers would be evacuated outside these borders to the original pre-1836 lines, with some modifications, perhaps, to reflect demographics. Part of Northern California, for instance, could be traded for land in southern Nevada, eastern Louisiana, Colorado or Utah as part of a final agreement.

A key demand for the Mexicans and the Aztlánistas is justice for the descendants of the refugees and their descendants dating from the original American-Mexican conflict. They demand a full right of return for these refugees and their descendants to Mexican lands still in the hands of the US. The plan's supporters insist upon a right to settle in the US for those Mexicans dubbed "illegal aliens" who have been victimized by what both the Mexicans, th einternational community and the Aztlánistas denounce as the apartheid border wall and restrictive US immigration policies.

The proponents of the plan also demand (1) the agreement must have a deadline for implementation; (2) all checkpoints within New Aztlán, (especially on the current borders) are to be removed to allow the Aztlánistas freedom of movement; and (3) US occupation of New Aztlán must end during the interim before the final settlement agreement is implemented.

The Aztlánistas are also demanding full sovereignty and control over historic US sites like the Grand Canyon, the Alamo, and Yosemite.

An important part of the agreement is that all Mexican and Aztlánista prisoners currently in American custody, who the Aztlánistas consider to be freedom fighters, will be repatriated to Aztlánista territory.

In exchange for this, the Mexicans, Latin American Nations and Aztlánistas promise to recognize the remainder of American territory as the sovereign United States. These parties have agreed to renounce illegal immigration, terrorism and to dismantle the drug cartels currently operating out of Mexican and Aztlánista territory.

The problems of a final solution to this problem should not be underestimated. Right wing ultra-nationalist settlers who consider these territories part of their historic homeland, regardless of international law, populate much of the area in question. Resettling them in the United States within the pre-conflict borders will entail considerable trouble and expense for the US.

In the territories on the North Bank (AKA Texas) in particular, opposition to a proposed land for peace settlement is particularly widespread, not least when it comes to control of the Alamo, which many settlers consider one of the most important sites in their history. The Aztlánistas are insisting on total control of the Alamo as part of their State, claiming that according to their traditions, Aztlánista hero General Santa Ana tied his horse there before ascending to heaven.

There are also questions of what kind of control the Mexican government and the Aztlánistas have over groups like the Zetas and MS13 (who are actually mostly Salvadorans), who have yet to commit to being part of any settlement and questions of the proponents' ability to prevent illegal immigration to the US.

Obviously the International community will have to provide substantial amounts of aid to both Calderon and to the Aztlánistas as part of a package in order to bolster America's new peace partners. American critics of the peace negotiations have pointed out that such aid in the past has largely ended up in the hands of corrupt Aztlánista politicians, and the money has been used in the past to fund drug cartels and terrorists organizations like the Zetas. But experts agree that continued foreign aid would undoubtedly be the necessary "price for peace" on the part of the US.

As the Aztlánista population grows, time is running out for a comprehensive settlement. American President Obama has pointed out that the Latino "demographic bomb" will leave Americans with the option of either being a minority in their country or foregoing democracy and permanently occupying the southern territories.

Unless the coming conference ends up with major concessions by the Americans, an intensified cycle of violence is almost guaranteed. The Aztlánistas will become more radicalized as they lose hope of reaching a comprehensive settlement.

But if a final settlement can be agreed on, we may very well be on the verge of a final two-state solution in the region., and a land for peace agreement is an essential step towards that goal. Proponents of a two-state solution have pointed to Oslo and the Gaza disengagement by Israel as examples of how such a plan can work if it is properly implemented with the support of the international community.

Most experts in the field contend that the two-state solution is the only hope of ending the conflict and preserving America's character as a democratic state.



( This piece originally appeared in slightly different form in that fine publication American Thinker. As always, a shout out to editor extraordinaire Larrey Anderson who contributed to whatever merits the piece has. Any defects, of course, are mine)

The Must Reads Are Up!

Today's Must reads are up...and there's some tasty and vital stuuf there, so partake.

If any members of Joshua's Army run across something you'd like included here, please e-mail me the link so I can take a look at it. Selah.

(graphic courtesy of The Webdesign Guru)

The Torture Controversy

Amidst the huge controversy surrounding the story on the so-called torture memos, the bedrock issues are being almost entirely ignored in favor of political theater. And the potential for harm is enormous.

After promising not to indulge in revenge politics like some downscale banana republic after a change in leadership, President Obama suddenly decided to do exactly that, opening the way for prosecution of Bush Administration officials based on the release of some previously classified memos regarding what are referred to as 'enhanced interrogation techniques' like waterboarding.

This is something new in American politics, something we haven't seen before. Even after the Civil War and Lincoln's assassination, Jefferson Davis was never tried for treason and got off with a short spell of imprisonment at Fort Monroe. Former Union Army officers who fought on the rebel side like Robert E. Lee or James Longstreet were never even tried or imprisoned at all, and even a revenge crazed Congress under control of the Radical Republicans never considered it.

A responsible Chief Executive with an honest disagreement on a previous national security policy might have issued confidential guidelines to the agencies concerned about changes he wanted implemented. But Obama obviously has decided to throw some red meat to his angry left base in the form of a few Bush Administration Justice Department lawyers and functionaries.

I'm not sure he realizes that the witch-hunt can hardly stop there. What about the senior members of the Bush Administration who knew what was going on? For that matter, what about Ex-President and ex-Vice president Bush and Cheney? Are we going to haul them into court? And what about members of Congress like Speaker Nancy Pelosi? She was a member (don't laugh) of the House Intelligence Committee and sat in on the super-secret briefings after 9/11 where waterboarding and enhanced interrogation techniques were discussed and approved. Under pressure, she finally admitted she heard something about waterboarding but claims not to remember exactly what she heard ... although other Congressmen who were in the same briefings recall things very differently. As it stands now, she keeps changing her story, an admission in itself by the Democrats that they might just have jumped the gun.

If we're going to start Stalinist-style show trials on how al-Qaeda terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were interrogated, there some Democrats in Congress who also deserve to be in the dock as accessories. The flimsy excuse of not knowing what they were approving may have worked politically when it came to explaining why they voted for the Iraq War, but it won't fly as a legal defense if policy is going to be criminalized when there's a change of parties in Washington.

While the political fallout from prosecuting members of the former administration over policy differences is serious enough, the national security aspect is downright scary.

Releasing the memos publicly accomplished two things immediately. First, it gave our enemies an exact knowledge of exactly how far our interrogations are allowed to go, which means that even where we have probable evidence that a captured jihadi has first hand knowledge of an imminent strike, there's absolutely no weapons the interrogator has to use when questioning him except perhaps trying to bribe him with an extra portion of lamb kibbeh for dinner.

That's precisely why ex-VP Dick Cheney formally requested that all of the memos be released publicly, so the American people can see the sort of intelligence we obtained by the enhanced interrogation techniques. It took fifteen minutes of waterboarding to break Khalid Sheik Muhammad, and it likely prevented a planned strike on Los Angeles as well as revealing a great deal of al-Qaeda's inner workings that enabled us to cripple them and successfully prevent another 9/11.

Second, the effect on personnel like CIA agents who actually interrogate terrorists and attempt to get intelligence from them has been profound. They now know that the White House is more concerned about legal and Constitutional rights for non-citizen jihadis and political posturing than it is about making a serious attempt to find out what these people might know, and none of them is going to risk being prosecuted by doing more than going through the motions. One can hardly blame them.Political theater aside, the question remains unanswered: how are we prepared to deal with someone in our custody that likely has knowledge of an impeding attack?

The problem with most physical torture is that it can be incredibly inefficient much of the time. Given an individual with a sufficiently strong will, it can take hours, days, months or even years to accomplish the desired end.

Combining the administration of drugs like sodium penathol, baradanga, and sodium amytal with a skilled interrogator is normally quicker, more efficient and easier on the basement janitorial crew afterwards. It also eliminates the nasty problem of false confessions and information that tends to go with the territory when you get your answers by using an electric drill on somebody's hands. However, there's no doubt that waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques can work quite well, especially when a threat is imminent and time is of the essence. And they're useful tools as psychological threats to promote cooperation, even if the techniques themselves aren't used.

What is really needed is exactly what the Obama Administration has made a conscious decision to avoid providing -- a clear, covert policy that can be invoked when information is needed quickly and American lives are at stake. Covert, because part of the psychological effect on terrorists necessarily consists of their not being quite sure exactly how far we might go. Making the policy public gives the jihadis an edge they frankly don't deserve when it comes to resisting interrogation techniques.

One important tool we're not using at all is the technique of humiliation. We are, after all, dealing with an honor/shame culture, and one that relies on the promise of the Islamic version of paradise in exchange for being a martyr in the jihad against the infidels as a primary recruiting tool. Eliminating that payoff with, say, the threat of an execution followed by a pigskin burial might work wonders when it comes to loosening tongues.

And actually following through a few times would get around and undoubtedly impact recruiting for people like al-Qaeda in a significant way.

Of course, to use techniques like that, we actually have to admit we are in a war. As far as I'm concerned, we still haven't.

( This piece originally appeared in slightly different form in that fine publication American Thinker. As always, a shout out to editor extraordinaire Larrey Anderson who contributed to whatever merits the piece has. Any defects, of course, are mine)

Israel To Build A New Community in The Jordan Valley

I had to chuckle at this one...on the same day Bibi Netanyahu meets with Barack Obama, Israel announces a brand new community is going to be built at Maskiot, the first one in the Jordan Valley in 26 years!

A tender was issued recently to build 20 new residential units, and according to the report, construction was due to commence immediately.

An adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the move at Maskiot proved Israel was tightening its hold on the West Bank.

"With the decision coming while Netanyahu is visiting Washington, only one message comes out of this visit: Israel will continue its old policy and will not abide by the international will and give the Palestinians their national rights," Sabri Saidam said.

Located behind a hill and off of a rural road, Maskiot housed only a small Orthodox pre-military academy until the arrival of the Shirat Hayam families, the first of whom came early in 2007 and settled in two empty structures belonging to the school. Although the site has been designated as a settlement since the mid-1980s, it has only been used for educational purposes and no permanent community had ever been established there.

Heh!

Most of the first residents will be families uprooted from Shirat Hayam in Gaza, who have been living in trailers ever since.

There's an untranslatable Hebrew word 'davka' that loosely means 'in spite of ', or in modern Hebrew parlance "in your face". I think we have an example here. And maybe an indication that Bibi Netanyahu is going to Washington with a pretty strong hand, as I surmised...

'Soaking The Rich' Doesn't Increase Tax Revenues

Today's WSJ has an interesting piece by economist Artur Laffer ( inventor of the Laffer Curve) and Stephan Moore, the senior economics writer for the Wall Street Journal. It's premise? Increasing taxes on 'the rich' actually decreases revenues...because the rich leave and go to other low tax jurisdictions, taking their businesses and the properity they create with them:

With states facing nearly $100 billion in combined budget deficits this year, we're seeing more governors than ever proposing the Barack Obama solution to balancing the budget: Soak the rich. Lawmakers in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York and Oregon want to raise income tax rates on the top 1% or 2% or 5% of their citizens. New Illinois Gov. Patrick Quinn wants a 50% increase in the income tax rate on the wealthy because this is the "fair" way to close his state's gaping deficit.{...}

Here's the problem for states that want to pry more money out of the wallets of rich people. It never works because people, investment capital and businesses are mobile: They can leave tax-unfriendly states and move to tax-friendly states.

And the evidence that we discovered in our new study for the American Legislative Exchange Council, "Rich States, Poor States," published in March, shows that Americans are more sensitive to high taxes than ever before. The tax differential between low-tax and high-tax states is widening, meaning that a relocation from high-tax California or Ohio, to no-income tax Texas or Tennessee, is all the more financially profitable both in terms of lower tax bills and more job opportunities.

Updating some research from Richard Vedder of Ohio University, we found that from 1998 to 2007, more than 1,100 people every day including Sundays and holidays moved from the nine highest income-tax states such as California, New Jersey, New York and Ohio and relocated mostly to the nine tax-haven states with no income tax, including Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire and Texas. We also found that over these same years the no-income tax states created 89% more jobs and had 32% faster personal income growth than their high-tax counterparts.

Did the greater prosperity in low-tax states happen by chance? Is it coincidence that the two highest tax-rate states in the nation, California and New York, have the biggest fiscal holes to repair? No. Dozens of academic studies -- old and new -- have found clear and irrefutable statistical evidence that high state and local taxes repel jobs and businesses.

Most of these states have additional reasons for the properous and productive to flee aside from just outrageous taxes. Regulations, red tape and permits - with, of course high govenrment fees- for starting a business also contribute to people voting with their feet.So do high property taxes and a generally dclining quality of life.

In California, the State legislature has been almost completely dysfunctional as huge chunks of the state budget are simply squandered for special intersts. For instance, huge dollar amounts supposedly being spent for things like education have actually gone to simply enrich the public employee unions on whom the Democrats who control the state depend on at election time. As a consequence California has the unfortunate distinction of being number three in the country in terms of the dollar amount spent per pupil and number forty nine down on the list when it comes to test scores.

What's left when the most properous and mobile people leave states like California and New Jersey is a declining core of middle class, older taxpayers who can't or won't leave for one reason or another to carry the load.

And that's not exactly a recipe for prosperity or fiscal health.

Obama At Notre Dame

The idea of the most radically pro-abortion and pro-infanticide presidents in America's history being honored by a Catholic university strikes me as fairly kinky, even though I'm neither a Catholic or someone who believes abortion should be outlawed in all circumstances.

As you can see, there were a number of protestors who felt the same way, even though the University did its best screen them and keep them from attending.

In the president's speech he called for a fair-minded debate on abortion, but his words, as usual, contrast with his record and his positions.

So do Notre Dame's for that matter, apparently. And a quick look at the University's Trustees Board reveals a number of connections with Chicago politics and the Democratic party.

As a side note, Notre Dame's Alumni Association has confirmed $13.9 million in witheld donations. This was a pretty expensive fee for a commencement speaker.

An Excellent Commentary On The Pope's Holy Land Visit...

...by blogpal, author and Women in Green leader Naomi Ragen:

The Pope's recent visit to Bethlehem was one of the most blatant displays of capitulation to terrorism that has been seen in recent years. How well I remember the way Christians were treated by Arafat's henchmen, including Mahmoud Abbas his right hand man, during the Intifada. The Christian community was decimated, and is now only twenty percent of the population, when it was once the majority. Christian girls were kidnapped, raped, and forced to convert to Islam. Christians were kicked out of their homes by gunmen, who used Christian neighborhoods to set up sniper nests from which they shot into Jewish homes in Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood, and passing cars on the road (Dr. Shmuel Gillis, on whom I patterned the hero of my book, The Covenant, was killed on his way home from treating cancer patients at Hadassah Hospital by such a sniper.)

And then there was the siege of the Church of the Nativity. The priests and children held hostage by Arafat's gunmen. The church desecrated. Priests holding up signs at the windows to Israeli soldiers "Please help us!"

The Pope, standing side by side with Abbas, chose to forget these things. His words: "Mr. President, the Holy See supports the right of your people to a sovereign Palestinian homeland in the land of your forefathers, secure and at peace with its neighbors, within internationally recognized borders."

This is the voice of a religious leader, a moral force in the world? For choosing to forget all that happened to Christians in one of Christianity's holiest sites, he has chosen the way of appeasement, not peace. Of cowardly acquiescence to evil, instead of forthright defense of the helpless. He has nothing to teach us Jews. Indeed, he has nothing to teach Catholics. The only people who may learn from him are Muslim terrorists. And the lesson is clear. The leader of the Catholic world --once again-- in the face of evil, has decided to side with the oppressors against the oppressed.

One would think a German Pope would have something wiser to impart.

Well said, Naomi. The irony of this Pope standing next to Arafat's Holocaust denying number two in Bethlehem,where Abbas and Arafat presided over the decimation of a once majority Christian town is a permanent stain on the Church.

Pope Benedict may not have consciously decided to side with th eoppressors against the oppressed, but he has decided to accomodate, appease them and not confront them -which amounts to the same thing.That kind of moral deliquency is exactly how Pius XII dealt with the Nazis.

Benedict macula Templum per dedecus...

Watcher's Council results, 5/15/09

The Council has spoken! A complete rundown of the voting tallies is here.



A hard drive crash on the Watcher's Council site? Not a problem, as the Council and the Watcher did an incredible job and rose above it to complete this week's competition...

The winning entry in the Council category this week was yours truly here at Joshuapundit with The Two State Solution Fallacy , which is pretty self-explanatory. My piece got lost in the hard drive crash SNAFU, but my fellow Council members tracked it down and honored me by making it this weeks' winner.

In second place by a nose was a fine piece by Hube over at The Colossus of Rhodey, Star Trek as Socialist Utopia . Haven't seen the movie yet, but I hear it's killer.


Also getting votes were Right Truth for Barack Stewie Obama, Wolf Howling with Casual Marxism & Supreme Court Nominees? , Soccer Dad for The purple prose of cairo ( which gets this week's cleverest title award) and
Bookworm Room for The inevitable result of identity politics .


In the Non-Council category, the winner was Infidel Bloggers Alliance for Obama’s “Blood Tax” .

In second place, we had a four way tie between The Optimistic Conservative for Charging the Chokepoints , Christopher Caldwell in Prospect Magazine for Fear Masquerading as Tolerance , Zhudi Jasser @ The Huffington Post with Getting Real On Shariah? and Elizabeth Sauls @ The Beufort Observer with Presidential Sleight of Hand Keeps Reporter Befuddled

As always, congratulations not only to the winners but to the participants.

My Latest Is Up At American Thinker

My latest is up at American Thinker, entitled "Land For Peace, American Style"...

Obama And Israel - When Bibi Met Bammy

With Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu scheduled to come to the White for the first time next week, there's been a great deal of speculation regarding the Obama Administration's new strategy in the Middle East the future of the US -Israeli relationship and what it signifies for both countries in the future.

There's a new game shaping up in the Middle East, and the pieces are moving with astounding speed.

It's not an exaggeration to characterize the Obama Administration as the most anti-Israel in American history. Many of President Obama's closest advisers, with the possible exception of Dennis Ross can be characterized by hostility to the Jewish state and the belief that the US pressuring Israel to retreat to the pre-1967 borders and using that territory to create a Palestinian state - regardless of its attributes or character - in the soonest time possible while distancing the US from its long standing alliance with Israel is the surest way to curry favor in the Muslim world.

President Obama has made the new attitude in the White House towards Israel clear in a number of ways. Israel has systematically been cut out of the security coordination with the US it enjoyed in earlier days, with the most recent example being Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller's call for Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty, a violation of a US-Israeli agreement that goes back forty years to the Nixon Administration. Under that agreement, the US agreed not to press Israel at the UN or elsewhere for transparency or inspections of its nuclear program and Israel agreed not to test a bomb or declare that it had developed a bomb.

Then there was the nomination of the anti-Israel Chas Freeman to an influential post the Durban II controversy and America’s joining of the the United Nations Human Rights Council — a group that basically is controlled by the Organization of Islamic Conference and obsessively focuses on demonizing Israel at the hands of paragons of human rights like Saudi Arabia and Libya.

Obama's NSA Adviser ( and de facto Secretary of State) General Jim Jones was widely quoted as telling a European foreign minister that America will take a more “forceful hand” towards Israel than previous administrations. And over at the AIPAC convention, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel cornered three hundred of AIPAC's top donors in a closed room and told them that if Israel expected any US help with Iran, they had better cave in to the Saudi Peace ultimatum, while Vice President Joe Biden addressed the convention and said that Israel had better 'stop building settlements' and essentially prepare to submit to Obama's diktats for a Palestinian state.

And to top it all off, Obama went public today. warning Israel not to 'surprise him' with an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. This is just the latest in a series of signals designed to show Israel that the Obama Administration is more than prepared to appease Iran at Israel's expense.

With all this in mind, what is the May 18th meeting between Bibi Netanyahu and Barack Hussein Obama likely to be like? What's going to happen when Bibi meets Bammy?

Unlike Obama, Bibi Netanyahu is a trained diplomat and what we'll likely see is one of two scenarios with the same end result. If things are really contentious behind the scenes, look for a low profile meeting like the one that occurred with Israeli President Shimon Peres last week - no photo-ops, no press conferences, and no joint speeches or statements.

If Netanyahu feels like he emerges with something significant,he may be willing to horsetrade an innocuous statement of support for the 'two state solution' for it, but with enough loopholes so that it doesn't commit him or Israel to anything major..in which case, we'll see a photo-op and a chance for Obama to mouth a few cliches about what a good friend he and his administration are to Israel. This is the more likely scenario, for reasons I'll go into later.

Obama may attempt to get Netanyahu to accede to his demands by threatening to reduce Israel's military aid,cut off Israel's loan guarantees (which cost the US nothing but allow Israel to borrow money at more favorable rates). He may very well brandish the huge majority of the American Jewish vote he got ,or even threaten to revoke Israel's favored nation trading status. He will probably link any assistance on Iran's nuclear weapons with Israeli acquiescence to a Palestinian state on the entire West Bank even if it's ultimately Hamas run.

What Obama really wants is some raw Israeli meat to throw at the Arabs when he addresses the Muslim world in Cairo on June 4th, and he expects Netanyahu to provide it - or else.

But the truth of the matter is, in one of those details that change history, Obama may have overplayed his hand.

When push comes to shove, Congress is still mostly pro-Israel..because enough American Jews who are silly Leftys on other issues aren't willing to pull the plug on Israel in the last analysis. And because there's another huge group of American supporters of Israel, evangelical Christians as well as a lot of people who aren't evangelicals but understand that Israel is our friend and ally and the Arabs and Iran mostly aren't.

These Congressmen will have to stand for re-election before Obama does, and the last thing most of them will want to do is alienate the pro-Israel vote, even in an anti-Israel Obama administration.Obama might target fundraising for pro-Israel groups, but he'd have to significantly alter the law to really effect it. Nor do I think Congress would go along with cutting off Israel's aid entirely.


Oddly enough Obama may have overplayed his hand with the Arabs too. The Arabs, particularly the Saudis are absolutely appalled at the idea of an Iran with nukes. The Eastern part of Saudi Arabia near the Persian Gulf is where the oil is, and it's mostly populated by Shiites who are treated like an underclass there.The Saudis are terrified of the idea that the Iranians might foment unrest there, or use it to blackmail them.

During that summit in Europe Obama attended ( site of the famous bowing incident) back in April, my sources tell me that King Abdullah actually had a fairly forceful conversation with the Chosen One on the sidelines about his Iranian non-policy...to no avail. Egypt's Hosni Mubarak feels the same way, because he's going to be dealing with Hamas' parent organization the Muslim Brotherhood, which is his main political opposition, and he's trying to hand over power to his kid Gamal ( AKA 'Jack') without worrying about an Iranian proxy. That's precisely why the Egyptians have cracked down on Hamas and the weapons smuggling from Iran in a huge way lately.

Prior to meeting with Obama, Bibi Netanyahu met with both Jordan's King Abdullah and Mubarak, and he may have some interesting things to say to President Obama about how the other Arab nations feel about a nuclear Iran and a Palestinian state that might become an Iranian proxy.

Obama also has learned a few things lately as well. His gambit to Syria has largely failed. Initially Obama and his minions in DC held out the hope of moving Syria away from Iran and moderating Hezbollah by forcing Israel to give back the Golan heights, but the Turkish-Syrian rapprochement Obama put together by promoting joint military exercises between the two and allowing massive arms sales by Turkey to Lebanon was a dismal failure and actually brought Turkey closer to Syria and Iran instead of the reverse.

Syrian and Hezbollah are gleefully employed rigging Lebanon's June 7th election to toss the rest of the pro-Western anti-Syrian parliament out of office and turn the country over to Hezbollah, along with the millions in aid and arms deal both Obama and the Bush Administration spent there. And on June 12th, Mahmoud AHmadinejad is expected to win the Iranian 'election' handily.

Needless to say, the Saudis, Egyptians and other Sunni autocracies are less than pleased with this. So thanks to his own ineptitude, Obama has other things to worry about than a Palestinian state - especially with Hamas and Fatah still disunited and divided.


With Obama adamantly opposed to assisting Israel with Iran and Turkey more firmly in the Islamist camp every day, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Saudis gave some covert assistance to Israel in knocking out Iran's nukes when it comes to that. The path to Bushehr and Arak may very well involve a flight over Saudi territory...without the Saudis' 'knowledge', of course. Shimon Peres and Saudi King Abdullah supposedly had a clandestine meeting the other day, although Abdullah denied it after the story slipped out. They may very well have been discussing this if they met.

Afterwards the Sunni autocracies will squawk a great deal about 'Zionist aggression', but behind the scenes they will collectively heave a huge sigh of relief.

Meanwhile the Israelis have been extensively practicing long distance mid air refueling, dogfights in heavy formation against MIG-29's the mainstay of Iran's air force, and mounting strikes on Iranian weapons convoys bound for Hamas at distances as far afield as Sudan.

Faced with the fact that they are facing a basically unfriendly administration and that Obama is likely going to do little to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, the Israelis will likely do what they have to do on Iran and inform the US shortly before the attack begins. Then they will rope-a-dope and wait things out until 2012, like they did with Carter.

Life in Israel with the threat of Iranian nukes hanging over them would be intolerable. I doubt that the present Israeli government is under any illusions about that, and will do something about it.

If Obama attempts to initiate a major cut off of military aid, it's a problem for Israel in the short term, since right now a lot of Israeli gear is US made but not an insurmountable one. Israel got along just fine without US arms prior to Nixon, who was truly the first US president who really made Israel an ally and gave them significant military gear.

Israel's weapons industry is also much farther along now than it was then, and a cutoff in US military aid, aside from adding to unemployment here in America would simply give them an impetus to make more of their own gear.

Also, one thing the Israelis know how to do is improvise. In the past, they astounded visiting military visitors by doing things like attaching a captured Soviet T-64 cannon to a Brit Centurion tank chassis with American electronics and making all work somehow. They will do it again, and simply work towards being more self sufficient or buy parts under the table form places like Canada, India or Germany. That's what they did before, when DeGaulle cut them off right before the`67 War.

There's also the very real possibility that seeing the writing on the wall, Israel is already looking for some new best friends.Sad, but things go that way sometimes.

Another thing in Israel's favor is that Iran is their major military threat. If they do things right and take out a lot of Iran's oil infrastructure as well as its nukes, Hezbollah and Hamas will not be funded like they are today. And even if Obama does start giving Hamas and Hezbollah top of the line stuff ( he's already started with Hezbollah, via the Lebanese Army) the Israelis have had to deal with enemies before that outnumbered them and were better weaponed than they were and have come out on top. Having nowhere to run to and something to fight for is a pretty powerful edge.

Ultimately, it's all in G-d's hands, and that does make me optimistic - especially given what the Jews and Israel have already somehow survived. If nothing else, at least this time they can defend themselves if they have the will. Or, as they say in Israel, ye heye beseder - it will all work itself out.

Sorry about the Light Blogging!

My apologies for the light blogging the last few days...some people say that there's a woman to blame, but I know it's my own damned fault! Or something...

Nancy Pelosi Lies For The Third Time About Her CIA Briefing..

If you watch this, it's pretty obvious that Pelosi is lying through her teeth.

Plus, Pelosi acknowledged publicly for the first time today that she was aware that detainees were being waterboarded as long ago as 2003 when a member of her staff was part of a briefing in February of that year in which the CIA was revealed that waterboarding was part of those enhanced interrogation techniques.

Meanwhile the Obama Administration formally denied ex-Vice President Dick Cheney's request to declassify and publicly release those two CIA reports documenting the effectiveness of the IET program, including the valuable intel learned using the techniques.

Obama is in a bind, thanks to Pelosi. The Angry Left is screaming for the heads of Bush Administration officials on a platter, an doriginally Obama was just fine with that - untilk he discovered that his own Speaker of the House and who knows who else are going to go down as well if he starts putting together any Soviet -style show trials.

Of course, all this could have been avoided if there was any sense of principle in the White House. All Obama had to do from from Day One was to commit to no prosecution of former Bush Administration officials on this issue and stick to it.

The 'Cycle Of Violence' In Gaza And How It Works

A very clever lil' vid!

(hat tip to Carl)

The Pope Calls For Palestinian State, Criticizes Israel's Security Barrier

Pope Benedict continued his dhimmitude and appeasement today, posing for Fatah created photo-ops in Bethlehem, calling for a second Arab Palestinian state and criticizing Israel's security barrier, saying "it is tragic to see walls still being erected...I I have seen, adjoining the camp and overshadowing much of Bethlehem, the wall that intrudes into your territories, separating neighbours and dividing families."

While he called for Palestinians to avoid the temptation for violence, he hypocritically neglected to mention that the security barrier was built precisely to prevent that very thing at the hands of the Palestinians.

I was prepared to give Benedict a pass on his lackluster remarks at Vad Yashem yesterday - after all, everyone knows that only Muslims merit apologies from the Vatican and this Pope, not Jews, and I expected nothing else from him.

But Pope Benedict knew full well to whom he was speaking to today, in a place where Palestinian Muslims have driven out Christians en masse, and established a government based on sharia law that holds the few remaining Christians in contempt. In an even more monstrous irony,Benedict praised Fatah capo del tutti Mahmoud Abbas and promised him support in creating that state...overlooking the fact that Abbas was Arafat's second in command during the period when Palestinian Christians were driven out, and the Church of the Natrivity, exactly where Benedict was standing, was invaded by Arafat's thugs...

Whatever personal feelings he claims to have about Jews, Benedict has firmly aligned himself with Israel enemies - and with the enemies of the Church he claims to represent.

Such an attitude merits nothing but contempt.

*************************

(A bit of fact checking...the first story linked to in this piece is from the British Telegraph and, as you might expect contains a number of errors and shadings of the truth.

Israels' security barrier was not 'deemed illegal in international law', but the subject of a highly controversial verdict by the International Court of Justice that Israel does not recognize ( neither does the US) and allowed no witnesses to appear on Israel's behalf; second, the wall was not completed 'on the grounds it deters suicide bombings and other security threats'. In fact it has, and any idiot comparing the amount of homicide bombings now as opposed to before the wall's completion ought to be honest enough to admit the fact - but then, this is the Brit press.

Third, there's no evidence whatsoever that the denizens of the Aida refugee camp where this photo-op was held are 'Palestinian families driven from their homes through the creation of Israel in the second half of the 20th century'.Many Arabs chose to leave Israel voluntarily, either to get out of a war zone created by themsleves and their Arab 'brothers'when they attempted to destroy Israel, or at the express instructions of the leaders. The radio transcripts from Radio Cairo and Radio Amman urging civilians to leave so that the Arab armies could enjoy an unimpeded massacre of the Jews still exist. For that matter, according to Jordanian law anyone residing in the West Bank 'who is not a Jew' was a Jordanian citizen - which led to the bizarre situation of citizens of a sovereign nation being coinsidered' refugees' on the UN's tab! And finally, a number of indigent Arabs claimed refugee status after 1948 in order to get free food and lodging - something even the head of UNRWA admited at time.

I suspect, as usual, this had to be cleared with Fatah before it was printed. Selah)

It's Started:Government Okays Newspaper Bailout

I guarantee you, this will be the first of many. The Left is going to use your tax dollars to prop up their propaganda outlets.

Washington's Democrat governor Christine Gregoire just approved a 40% tax cut for newspaper printers and publishers. Fortunately, it came too late to save the grossly misnamed Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which printed its final edition earlier this year and was converted to an Internet-only publication.

Look for the New York Times and the Boston Globe to be next.

I have an idea that could simplify things. Let's just have one newspaper, give it to Pinch Sulzberger to run and call it Pravda.