Iran Poses New Threat to Region and World

(Compiler's note: Must read and understand what is being said here with the potential impact.)

by Riki Ellison

Earlier this week, Iran launched a two stage solid fuel ballistic missile with a range of 1,200 miles making U.S. troops, bases, and allies in the Middle East most notably Israel vulnerable to threats, intimidation and influence from Iran and its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This display of provocation intended to engage the new administration under President-elect Obama follows the similar tactics of the President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev who set a precedent less than a week ago by threatening the deployment of ballistic missiles on its border if the new U.S. administration does not withdrawal from the agreements that would deploy missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The Iranian ballistic missile proliferation, demonstration and development – coupled with their quest for nuclear weapons – create an extremely unstable region that extends beyond the Middle East and into Europe.

Countries within the region will be forced to react to equalize the status quo and maintain stability. Their limited options are, to rely upon and request American security, match and deter the ballistic missile inventory of Iran, launch pre-emptive military action, or become nuclear.

Iran's technical development of two stage and solid fuel boosters with its ballistic missiles extends their range and technology today and in the future to influence, deter and threaten Europe and critical U.S. bases stationed in Europe.

It is clearly apparent for President-elect Obama and his new administration to have flexibility, tools and options to deal with Iran to maintain peace and stability in the Middle East. The current investment in missile defense capabilities must continue to be developed, tested and deployed from the European third site to the U.S. and regional missile defense assets to ensure security and stability for the Middle East.

Missile defense will supplement current and future diplomatic and threat reduction efforts as well as give insurance for protection and stability in case of failure of these efforts.

"The power holders in the new American government are trying to regain their lost influence with a tactical change in their foreign diplomacy. They are shifting from hard conflict to a soft attack," Hossein Taeb said, Deputy Commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps.

To be effective with soft power you need hard power assets in place.

Missile defense is a hard power asset.

Middle East Tops List of Joint Chiefs’ Concerns, Mullen Says

....The United States has between 70 and 80 percent of the military forces available focused on that area, Mullen told the group.....

Dallas ISD faulted for using fake Social Security numbers

Years after being advised by a state agency to stop, the Dallas Independent School District continued to provide foreign citizens with fake Social Security numbers to get them on the payroll quickly.

Some of the numbers were real Social Security numbers already assigned to people elsewhere. And in some cases, the state's educator certification office unknowingly used the bogus numbers to run criminal background checks on the new hires, most of whom were brought in to teach bilingual classes. ....

'Constitutional crisis' looming over Obama's birth location

By Bob Unruh

The California secretary of state should refuse to allow the state's 55 Electoral College votes to be cast in the 2008 presidential election until President-elect Barack Obama verifies his eligibility to hold the office, alleges a California court petition filed on behalf of former presidential candidate Alan Keyes and others.

The legal action today is just the latest is a series of challenges, some of which have gone as high as the U.S. Supreme Court, over the issue of Obama's status as a "natural-born citizen," a requirement set by the U.S. Constitution.

WND senior reporter Jerome Corsi even traveled to Kenya and Hawaii prior to the election to investigate issues surrounding Obama's birth. But his research and discoveries only raised more questions.

The biggest question is why Obama, if a Hawaii birth certificate exists, simply hasn't ordered it made available to settle the rumors.

The governor's office in Hawaii said there is a valid certificate but rejected requests for access and left ambiguous its origin: Does the certificate on file with the Department of Health indicate a Hawaii birth or was it generated after the Obama family registered a Kenyan birth in Hawaii?

Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro, has named two different Hawaii hospitals where Obama could have been born, while a video posted on YouTube features Obama's Kenyan grandmother Sarah claiming to have witnessed Obama's birth in Kenya.

The California action was filed by Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation on behalf of Alan Keyes, the presidential candidate of the American Independent Party, along with Wiley S. Drake and Markham Robinson, both California electors.

"Should Senator Obama be discovered, after he takes office, to be ineligible for the Office of President of the United States of America and, thereby, his election declared void, Petitioners, as well as other Americans, will suffer irreparable harm in that (a) usurper will be sitting as the President of the United States

, and none of the treaties, laws, or executive orders signed by him will be valid or legal," the action challenges.

The petition is a request for the Superior Court of California in Sacramento County to issue a peremptory writ barring Secretary of State Debra Bowen "from both certifying to the governor the names of the California Electors, and from transmitting to each presidential Elector a Certificate of Election, until such documentary proof is produced and verified showing that Senator Obama is a 'natural born' citizen of the United States and does not hold citizenship of Indonesia, Kenya or Great Britain."

It continues with a request for a writ barring California's electors from signing the Certificate of Vote until documentary proof is produced.

An Obama spokesperson interviewed by WND described such lawsuits as "garbage."

The popular vote Nov. 4 favored Obama over Sen. John McCain by several percentage points. But because of the distribution of the votes, Obama is projected to take the Electoral College vote, when it is held in December, by a 2-to-1 margin.

Named as defendants in the action are Bowen, Obama, vice president elect Joe Biden and the long list of California party electors.

Citing the constitutional requirement that a president be a "natural born" citizen, the case discusses other state and federal court cases regarding "aspects of lost or dual citizenship concerning Senator Obama. Those challenges, in and of themselves, demonstrate Petitioners' argument that reasonable doubt exists as to the eligibility of the Democratic Party’s nominee for President," the case said.

Get Brad O'Leary's blockbuster book detailing the agenda for the upcoming Obama White House, "The Audacity of Deceit."

"There is a reasonable and common expectation by the voters that to qualify for the ballot, the individuals running for office must meet minimum qualifications as outlined in the federal and state Constitutions and statutes, and that compliance with those minimum qualifications has been confirmed by the officials overseeing the election process," the complaint said, when in fact the only documentation currently required is a signed statement from the candidate attesting to those qualifications.

"Since [the Secretary of State] has, as its core, the mission of certifying and establishing the validity of the election process, this writ seeks a Court Order barring SOS from certifying the California Electors until documentary proof that Senator Obama is a 'natural born' citizen of the United States of America is received by her," the document said.

"This proof could include items such as his original birth certificate, showing the name of the hospital and the name and the signature of the doctor, all of his passports with immigration stamps, and verification from the governments where the candidate has resided, verifying that he did not, and does not, hold citizenship of these countries, and any other documents that certify an individual’s citizenship and/or qualification for office.

"To this date, in this regard, SOS has not carried out that fundamental duty."

The case said a simple attestation from the candidate or his party isn't sufficient.

"Historically, California Secretaries of State have exercised their due diligence by reviewing necessary background documents, verifying that the candidates that were submitted by the respective political parties as eligible for the ballot were indeed eligible. In 1968, the Peace and Freedom Party submitted the name of Eldridge Cleaver as a qualified candidate for President of the United States. The then SOS, Mr. Frank Jordan, found that, according to Mr. Cleaver's birth certificate, he was only 34 years old, one year shy of the 35 years of age needed to be on the ballot as a candidate for President. Using his administrative powers, Mr. Jordan removed Mr. Cleaver from the ballot. Mr. Cleaver unsuccessfully challenged this decision to the Supreme Court of the State of California, and, later, to the Supreme Court of the United States."

Similarly, in 1984, the Peace and Freedom Party candidate Larry Holmes was removed from the ballot.

The "certificate of live birth" posted by the Obama campaign cannot be viewed as authoritative, the case alleges.

"Hawaii Revised Statute 338-178 allows registration of birth in Hawaii for a child that was born outside of Hawaii to parents who, for a year preceding the child’s birth, claimed Hawaii as their place of residence," the document said. "The only way to know where Senator Obama was actually born is to view Senator Obama's original birth certificate from 1961 that shows the name of the hospital and the name and signature of the doctor that delivered him."

The case also raises the circumstances of Obama's time during his youth in Indonesia, where he was listed as having Indonesian citizenship. Indonesia does not allow dual citizenship, raising the possibility of Obama's mother having given up his U.S. citizenship.

Any subsequent U.S. citizenship then, the case claims, would be "naturalized," not "natural-born."

"Based on all of the above, it is the duty of the SOS to obtain proper documentation of Senator Obama's citizenship to confirm his eligibility for the office or the President of the United States," the case said.

Just this week, WND has reported on more than half a dozen other legal challenges have been filed in federal and state courts demanding Obama's decertification from ballots or seeking to halt elector meetings, claiming he has failed to prove his U.S. citizenship status.

Among the states where cases are being tracked are Ohio, Connecticut, Washington, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Hawaii, and there were reports of other cases being developed in Utah, Wyoming, Florida, New York, North Carolina, Texas, California and Virginia.

Click here for additional information.

Liberals clinically mad, concludes top psychiatrist

from WorldNetDaily

WASHINGTON – Just when liberals thought it was safe to start identifying themselves as such, an acclaimed, veteran psychiatrist is making the case that the ideology motivating them is actually a mental disorder

.

"Based on strikingly irrational beliefs and emotions, modern liberals relentlessly undermine the most important principles on which our freedoms were founded," says Dr. Lyle Rossiter, author of the new book, "The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness." "Like spoiled, angry children, they rebel against the normal responsibilities of adulthood and demand that a parental government meet their needs from cradle to grave."

While political activists on the other side of the spectrum have made similar observations, Rossiter boasts professional credentials and a life virtually free of activism and links to "the vast right-wing conspiracy."

For more than 35 years he has diagnosed and treated more than 1,500 patients as a board-certified clinical psychiatrist and examined more than 2,700 civil and criminal cases as a board-certified forensic psychiatrist. He received his medical and psychiatric training at the University of Chicago.

Rossiter says the kind of liberalism being displayed by both Barack Obama and his Democratic primary opponent Hillary Clinton can only be understood as a psychological disorder.

"A social scientist who understands human nature will not dismiss the vital roles of free choice, voluntary cooperation and moral integrity – as liberals do," he says. "A political leader who understands human nature will not ignore individual differences in talent, drive, personal appeal and work ethic, and then try to impose economic and social equality on the population – as liberals do. And a legislator who understands human nature will not create an environment of rules which over-regulates and over-taxes the nation's citizens, corrupts their character and reduces them to wards of the state – as liberals do."

Dr. Rossiter says the liberal agenda preys on weakness and feelings of inferiority in the population by:

• creating and reinforcing perceptions of victimization;
• satisfying infantile claims to entitlement, indulgence and compensation;
  
• augmenting primitive feelings of envy;
  
• rejecting the sovereignty of the individual, subordinating him to the will of the government.

"The roots of liberalism – and its associated madness – can be clearly identified by understanding how children develop from infancy to adulthood and how distorted development produces the irrational beliefs of the liberal mind," he says. "When the modern liberal mind whines about imaginary victims, rages against imaginary villains and seeks above all else to run the lives of persons competent to run their own lives, the neurosis of the liberal mind becomes painfully obvious."

Say Goodbye to BlackBerry? Yes He Can, Maybe

By JEFF ZELENY

WASHINGTON — Sorry, Mr. President. Please surrender your BlackBerry.

Those are seven words President-elect Barack Obama is dreading but expecting to hear, friends and advisers say, when he takes office in 65 days.

For years, like legions of other professionals, Mr. Obama has been all but addicted to his BlackBerry. The device has rarely been far from his side — on most days, it was fastened to his belt — to provide a singular conduit to the outside world as the bubble around him grew tighter and tighter throughout his campaign.

“How about that?” Mr. Obama replied to a friend’s congratulatory e-mail message on the night of his victory.

But before he arrives at the White House, he will probably be forced to sign off. In addition to concerns about e-mail security, he faces the Presidential Records Act, which puts his correspondence in the official record and ultimately up for public review, and the threat of subpoenas. A decision has not been made on whether he could become the first e-mailing president, but aides said that seemed doubtful.

For all the perquisites and power afforded the president, the chief executive of the United States is essentially deprived by law and by culture of some of the very tools that other chief executives depend on to survive and to thrive. Mr. Obama, however, seems intent on pulling the office at least partly into the 21st century on that score; aides said he hopes to have a laptop computer on his desk in the Oval Office, making him the first American president to do so.

Mr. Obama has not sent a farewell dispatch from the personal e-mail account he uses — he has not changed his address in years — but friends say the frequency of correspondence has diminished. In recent days, though, he has been seen typing his thoughts on transition matters and other items on his BlackBerry, bypassing, at least temporarily, the bureaucracy that is quickly encircling him.

A year ago, when many Democratic contributors and other observers were worried about his prospects against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, they reached out to him directly. Mr. Obama had changed his cellphone number, so e-mail remained the most reliable way of communicating directly with him.

“His BlackBerry was constantly crackling with e-mails,” said David Axelrod, the campaign’s chief strategist. “People were generous with their advice — much of it conflicting.”

Mr. Obama is the second president to grapple with the idea of this self-imposed isolation. Three days before his first inauguration, George W. Bush sent a message to 42 friends and relatives that explained his predicament.

“Since I do not want my private conversations looked at by those out to embarrass, the only course of action is not to correspond in cyberspace,” Mr. Bush wrote from his old address, G94B@aol.com. “This saddens me. I have enjoyed conversing with each of you.”

But in the interceding eight years, as BlackBerrys have become ubiquitous — and often less intrusive than a telephone, the volume of e-mail has multiplied and the role of technology has matured. Mr. Obama used e-mail to stay in constant touch with friends from the lonely confines of the road, often sending messages like “Sox!” when the Chicago White Sox won a game. He also relied on e-mail to keep abreast of the rapid whirl of events on a given campaign day.

Mr. Obama’s memorandums and briefing books were seldom printed out and delivered to his house or hotel room, aides said. They were simply sent to his BlackBerry for his review. If a document was too long, he would read and respond from his laptop computer, often putting his editing changes in red type.

His messages to advisers and friends, they say, are generally crisp, properly spelled and free of symbols or emoticons. The time stamps provided a window into how much he was sleeping on a given night, with messages often being sent to staff members at 1 a.m. or as late as 3 a.m. if he was working on an important speech.

He received a scaled-down list of news clippings, with his advisers wanting to keep him from reading blogs and news updates all day long, yet aides said he still seemed to hear about nearly everything in real time. A network of friends — some from college, others from Chicago and various chapters in his life — promised to keep him plugged in.

Not having such a ready line to that network, staff members who spent countless hours with him say, is likely to be a challenge.

“Given how important it is for him to get unfiltered information from as many sources as possible, I can imagine he will miss that freedom,” said Linda Douglass, a senior adviser who traveled with the campaign.

Mr. Obama has, for at least brief moments, been forced offline. As he sat down with a small circle of advisers to prepare for debates with Senator John McCain, one rule was quickly established: No BlackBerrys. Mr. Axelrod ordered everyone to put their devices in the center of a table during work sessions. Mr. Obama, who was known to sneak a peek at his, was no exception.

In the closing stages of the campaign, as exhaustion set in and the workload increased, aides said Mr. Obama spent more time reading than responding to messages. As his team prepares a final judgment on whether he can keep using e-mail, perhaps even in a read-only fashion, several authorities in presidential communication said they believed it was highly unlikely that he would be able to do so.

Diana Owen, who leads the American Studies program at Georgetown University, said presidents were not advised to use e-mail because of security risks and fear that messages could be intercepted.

“They could come up with some bulletproof way of protecting his e-mail and digital correspondence, but anything can be hacked,” said Ms. Owen, who has studied how presidents communicate in the Internet era. “The nature of the president’s job is that others can use e-mail for him.”

She added: “It’s a time burner. It might be easier for him to say, ‘I can’t be on e-mail.’ ”

Should Mr. Obama want to break ground and become the first president to fire off e-mail messages from the West Wing and wherever he travels, he could turn to Al Gore as a model. In the later years of his vice presidency, Democrats said, Mr. Gore used a government e-mail address and a campaign address in his race against Mr. Bush.

The president, though, faces far greater public scrutiny. And even if he does not wear a BlackBerry on his belt or carry a cellphone in his pocket, he almost certainly will not lack from a variety of new communication.

On Saturday, as Mr. Obama broadcast the weekly Democratic radio address, it came with a twist. For the first time, it was also videotaped and will be archived on YouTube.

Faster, Please!

from PajamaMedia

Now he’s had his first real intelligence briefing, and it was probably an eye-opener, because it’s quite a scene out there. I hope he’s got someone close to him with the wit and the nerve to tell the president-elect that the intelligence community is also a mess, and that he can be morally certain the real world is even worse than the one he’s just been briefed about.

The real world is so frightening that I can’t imagine Hillary Clinton will be foolish enough to accept the job of secretary of state; anyone who takes that job is almost certain to fail. How can anyone believe that he or she has a good chance of dealing with:

–the expanding anti-American alliance, now including Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Ecuador, China, North Korea and Syria (remember that the “Axis of Evil” had only three charter members);

–the global financial/economic crisis, which is almost surely in a relatively early stage;

–allies wimping out all over. No one seems to have the stomach (and none has the wherewithal) to mount a more aggressive campaign in Afghanistan, which Obama has promised to do.

And that’s only the top of the list. The Iranian nuclear project is still there, simmering away, as the mullahs almost daily threaten the destruction of Israel and the United States. Iran claims to have tested yet another (long-range) missile, and shown us photographs. The State Department, as always, clicked its tongue, but since so many of these proclamations have proven false in the past, there’s no reason I know of to take this one any more seriously than the earlier hoaxes.

What IS clear about Iran could and should be good news for Obama and his team (whoever they are): the regime shows every sign of being in a paranoid panic over the hatred the Iranian people feel for the mullahs. Hence we have recently seen a huge drill in the major cities, wherein tens of thousands of security forces rehearse their actions in the event of an insurrection; new repression against major non-Persian ethnic groups, including a ban against the use of the Azeri language; and a mounting tempo of executions.

Yet so far as I can tell, neither Bush nor Obama has the slightest intention of supporting democratic revolution in Iran, which is the key ingredient to any successful American policy in the region. Both Bush and Obama insist on seeing Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan as separate policy matters, a failure of strategic vision that lies at the heart of our failed war plan for Iraq in the first place, and which deflected our attention from Afghanistan long enough to permit the Taliban and its Iranian supporters to rebuild their forces.

Until our policy makers finally come to terms with the hard truth that we are in a regional war, and that it has to be waged on a regional scale, we will fail to win the overall struggle. Yes, Iraq looks good today, and although there is still a curious unwillingness to say it in Washington, we defeated al Qaeda in Iraq. But it can all come apart quite quickly if we “declare victory and go home,” because the Iranians and the Syrians will step up the terror war in Iraq.

It will be interesting to see who Obama picks to “manage” the Iranian time bomb. My guess is that he will take people who have been wrong from the beginning. I’m betting that he will find people from the Carter years, the ones who favored the fall of the shah and rather liked the Ayatollah Khomeini.

Any takers?

Obama Warned Of Huge al Qeada Threat

Barack Obama is being given ominous advice from leaders on both sides of the Atlantic to brace himself for an early assault from terrorists.

General Michael Hayden, director of the CIA, this week acknowledged that there were dangers during a presidential transition when new officials were coming in and getting accustomed to the challenges. But he added that no “real or artificial spike” in intercepted transmissions from terror suspects had been detected.

President Bush has repeatedly described the acute vulnerability of the US during a transition. The Bush Administration has been defined largely by the 9/11 attacks, which came within a year of his taking office.

His aides have pointed to al-Qaeda’s first assault on the World Trade Centre, which occurred little more than a month after Bill Clinton became President in 1993. There was an alleged attempt to bomb Glasgow airport in Gordon Brown’s first days in Downing Street and a London nightclub attack was narrowly thwarted.
Related Links

Lord West of Spithead, the Home Office Security Minister, spoke recently of a “huge threat”, saying: “There is another great plot building up again and we are monitoring this.”

Intelligence chiefs on both sides of the Atlantic have indicated that such warnings refer more to a general sense of foreboding than fear of an imminent or specific plan.