The Death of Israel

By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann

From Caroline Glick, deputy editor and op-ed writer for the Jerusalem Post, comes alarming news. An expert on Arab-Israeli relations with excellent sources deep inside Netanyahu's government, she reports that CIA chief Leon Panetta recently took time out from his day job (feuding with Nancy Pelosi) to travel to Israel to "read the riot act" to the government warning against an attack on Iran.

More ominously, Glick reports (likely from sources high up in the Israeli government) that the Obama administration has all but accepted as irreversible and unavoidable fact that Iran will soon develop nuclear weapons. She writes, "...we have learned that the [Obama] administration has made its peace with Iran's nuclear aspirations. Senior administration officials acknowledge as much in off-record briefings. It is true, they say, that Iran may exploit its future talks with the US to run down the clock before they test a nuclear weapon. But, they add, if that happens, the U.S. will simply have to live with a nuclear-armed mullocracy."

She goes on to write that the Obama administration is desperate to stop Israel from attacking Iran writing that "as far as the [Obama] administration is concerned, if Israel could just leave Iran's nuclear installations alone, Iran would behave itself." She notes that American officials would regard any harm to American interests that flowed from an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities as Israel's doing, not Iran's.

In classic Stockholm Syndrome fashion, the Obama administration is empathizing more with the Iranian leaders who are holding Israel hostage than with the nation that may be wiped off the map if Iran acquires the bomb.....

....All this means is that Israel's life is in danger. If Iran gets the bomb, it will use it to kill six million Jews. No threat of retaliation will make the slightest difference. One cannot deter a suicide bomber with the threat of death. Nor can one deter a theocracy bent on meriting admission to heaven and its virgins by one glorious act of violence ....

Is Barack Obama Crazy?

Letter from a friend

By Joseph Farah, editor and CEO of WorldNetDaily

I KNOW.

"Is Barack Obama Crazy?" is a pretty provocative subject for an email.

I admit, I don't know the answer to the question.

But, given Barack Obama's actions in the first few months of his administration, it's a valid question.

And so, the May issue of WorldNetDaily's acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine takes it on.

Let's examine some of the evidence:

• If you held a job and people were questioning your qualifications, and all you had to do to put an end to those questions, not to mention more than a dozen lawsuits filed against you, was to produce a valid birth certificate you claimed to possess, would you refuse to take that simple step? Or would you, as Obama has done, spend at least $1 million to fight the lawsuits? I think most people would agree that someone who chose the latter is either crazy or doesn't have a valid birth certificate.
  
  
• Let's say you got a job in which you succeeded someone with whom you disagreed passionately.Would you try to have that person prosecuted over those differences, knowing that some day, someone with whom you disagree would succeed you and possibly contemplate the same course of action? That's what Obama talked about doing in the case of his disagreement with George W. Bush over the practice of coercive interrogations – policies, I might point out, that were employed not just by his immediate predecessor, but by every war-time president in the history of the United States.
  
  
• Or what do you make of Obama's efforts to ban the use of the words "terror" and "terrorism" from his administration's lexicon? The administration prefers to call attacks on terrorists "overseas contingency operations." And terrorist attacks at home are referred to as "man-caused disasters." These new terms are apparently considered less offensive to terrorists.
  
  
• While there are hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens voluntarily serving in arms overseas, the Obama administration put out a report to law enforcement agencies throughout the country to be wary of returning veterans, because they might be more inclined to get involved in "right-wing extremist" activities.
  
  
• Obama presides – legitimately or illegitimately – over a nation founded on the ideals of "independence" and "national sovereignty." Yet, in a speech given in Prague, what was his prescription for making the world a better place? "All nations must come together to build a stronger, global regime," he said.
  
  
• How about his solution to an economic crisis spurred by too much indebtedness? More debt.
  
  
• Let's say you're the first black president. Do you appoint a black attorney general who indicts the people who just elected you as a "nation of cowards" on matters of race?
  
  
• Imagine appointing to a top policy position at the Defense Department, a columnist from the Los Angeles Times who believes U.S. policies were to blame for the 9/11 attacks by al-Qaida. That would be Rosa Brooks, who also previously referred to Obama's immediate predecessor as "our torturer in chief " and a "psychotic who need(s) treatment" while comparing Bush's arguments for waging a war on terrorism to Adolf Hitler's use of political propaganda.

I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

I don't know if any of these actions mean the president is crazy. But I do know they mean he is dangerous to the security and prosperity of the nation.

For a more complete diagnosis, I refer you to the May issue of WND's acclaimed Whistleblower magazine, titled NARCISSIST IN CHIEF: Experts explain what makes Barack Obama tick.

(Compiler's note: I've read the bullets above and believe the title of this entry represents a valid question.)

Supervisor Asks Woman To Take Down American Flag

(Compiler's note: If this supervisor doesn't want to see the American flag, she should return to the country from which she came here. The real question -- is the supervisor an illegal alien? Such people need NOT seek employment with this company.)

MANSFIELD (CBS 11 News) ―

Click to enlarge

Is it okay to show your patriotism at the office?

For one Arlington woman, the answer was "no" after she hung an American flag in her office just before the Memorial Day weekend.

Debbie McLucas is one of four hospital supervisors at Kindred Hospital in Mansfield. Last week, she hung a three-by-five foot American flag in the office she shares with the other supervisors.

When McLucas came to work Friday, her boss told her another supervisor had found her flag offensive. "I was just totally speechless. I was like, 'You're kidding me,'" McLucas said.

McLucas' husband and sons are former military men. Her daughter is currently serving in Iraq as a combat medic.

Stifling a cry, McLucas said, "I just wonder if all those young men and women over there are really doing this for nothing."

McLucas said the supervisor who complained has been in the United States for 14 years and is formerly from Africa. McLucas said the supervisor took down Debbie's flag herself. ....

Russia fears Korea conflict could go nuclear

By Oleg Shchedrov

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is taking security measures as a precaution against the possibility tension over North Korea could escalate into nuclear war, news agencies quoted officials as saying on Wednesday.

Interfax quoted an unnamed security source as saying a stand-off triggered by Pyongyang's nuclear test on Monday could affect the security of Russia's far eastern regions, which border North Korea.

"The need has emerged for an appropriate package of precautionary measures," the source said. ....

Obama Integrates Security Councils, Adds New Offices: Computer, Pandemic Threats Addressed

By Spencer S. Hsu

President Obama announced yesterday that he will merge the staffs of the Homeland Security Council and the National Security Council to speed up and unify security policymaking inside the White House.

The combined national security staff, about 240 people, will report to national security adviser James L. Jones.

The White House also will add new offices for cybersecurity, for terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction, and for "resilience" -- a national security directorate aimed at preparedness and response for a domestic WMD attack, pandemic or natural catastrophe, officials said. ....

Internet warfare: Are we focusing on the wrong things?

(Compiler's note: I've provided just a little insight into an absolutely must read article. It is long, but worth your time.)

By Jaikumar Vijayan

.... More than seven years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, there's widespread consensus that federal efforts to secure cyberinfrastructure are bogged down by a lack of vision, planning and leadership. While the government has struggled to come up with a cohesive national strategy for defending its interests on the Internet, threats in cyberspace have continued to grow and today pose a grave risk to national and economic security.

Adversaries, which include unfriendly governments and militaries, intelligence agencies, organized criminals groups and hactivists, have by most accounts already penetrated U.S government and private networks or are actively engaged in doing so.

Most of the efforts appear to be focused on leeching away secrets from public and private IT sectors for profit and for espionage. A report released in March by the University of Toronto and think tank The SecDev Group showed how a group with apparent ties to China has systematically breached systems in more than 100 countries, apparently for espionage purposes. At the same time, the potential for attackers to disrupt vital networks and systems in critical infrastructure areas such as banking and power is growing daily.

.... "Our digital infrastructure has become the most important underpinning of U.S. national and economic security," says Amit Yoran, former director of the National Cybersecurity Division at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

....The NSA, which is in charge of the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), has been jostling for broader control of the federal information security agenda. But while almost everyone acknowledges that the NSA can bring the skills, the experience and the clout needed for the job, the prospect of a spy agency running the domestic cyberagenda is not sitting well with most.

...."If there's a fire on the Internet, who's the fire department?" he asks. In the event of an Internet crisis, there is no single entity that either the federal government or private industry can depend on to coordinate a response. "There's no one you can simply pick up the phone and speak with,"... mplementing such a capability is not going to be easy, says Paul Kurtz, former special assistant to the president and senior director for critical infrastructure protection on the White House's Homeland Security Council.

....Another reminder is an experiment conducted in March 2007 in which the Idaho National Laboratory showed how it could reduce a power turbine to a smoking, shuddering, metal-spewing mess simply by executing malicious code on the computer controlling the system.

.... Develop an offensive capability

Patti Titus, the previous chief information security officer at the Transportation Security Administration, is among a growing number of executives arguing for the development of deterrent capabilities in cyberspace. "What we need to say is, 'We are the U.S., and if you mess with us, you'd better be careful,'" says Titus, who is currently chief information security officer at Unisys Corp.

For too long, the country has been focusing on building a defensive capability that has done little to stop adversaries from infiltrating government networks, supply chain and distribution systems, she says. "It's time to come up with some way of launching back at those that mean to do harm," Titus suggests.....

Israel Ties 2 Nations to Iran’s Uranium

JERUSALEM (AP) — Venezuela and Bolivia are supplying Iran with uranium for its nuclear program, according to a secret Israeli government report obtained Monday by The Associated Press. ....

North Korea Issues Heated Warning to South

(Compiler's note: This is a must read.)

By Blaine Harden

TOKYO, May 27 -- North Korea announced Wednesday that it is no longer bound by the 1953 armistice that halted the Korean War, the latest and most profound diplomatic aftershock from the country's latest nuclear test two days earlier.

North Korea also warned that it would respond "with a powerful military strike" should its ships be stopped by international forces trying to stop the export of missiles and weapons of mass destruction. ....

The Vindication of Carbon Means The Vindication of Human Freedom

By: Robert D. Brinsmead

Isn't it time that we expose the reality of climate change alarmism?

The evidence is piling up every day that the world is now getting cooler instead of warmer, the oceans are now cooling instead of warming, the ice is returning to the Arctic rather than receding, the sea ice in the Antarctic is at record levels, and that rising sea levels have moderated. The sun has recently gone into a less active phase of fewer sun-spots, and the ocean decadal currents have changed from a warming to a cooling phase.

Before too long the global warming scare will be as dead as the scares about the Y2 bug or acid rain. Beyond all this alarmism about global warming or ocean acidification, we need to see that on a deeper level it is a debate about carbon, and when we dig into that level of the debate we will finally see that behind the demonization of carbon and CO2, it is all about an attack on humanity itself.....

“Red Eye” demolishes Olbermann for comparing Cheney to terrorists

A Letter to Rupert Murdoch on the Obama Birth Certificate Question

(Compiler's note: The following -- must read -- is a letter written by John D. Hemenway, Esq. that was sent to NewsCorp CEO Rupert Murdoch via certified mail.

by John D. Hemenway, Esq.

Fox News has been a shining beacon for fair and balanced news coverage – however, they seem to be avoiding the Obama birth certificate question. Why? ....

Click on the title above to read the letter.

Disputations: The Real Threat of EMP

by Roscoe G. Bartlett
A response to "The Newt Bomb

To the Editor of the New Republic

I was shocked to read Michael Crowley's "The Newt Bomb" (June 3). It is a disservice to TNR readers and unworthy of its reputation for political commentary based upon solid journalism.

TNR readers should wonder as I do why Mr. Crowley failed to report that "The United States is highly vulnerable to attack with weapons designed to produce electromagnetic pulse [EMP] effects" according to a key finding in the final report, "America's Strategic Posture," by the bipartisan Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States chaired by William J. Perry, President Clinton's secretary of defense. Quoting from both the report and its executive summary, the commissioners wrote, "We note also that the United States has done little to reduce its vulnerability to attack with electromagnetic pulse weapons and recommend that current investments in modernizing the national power grid take account of this risk."

In addition, this report noted, "Prior commissions have investigated U.S. vulnerabilities and found little activity under way to address them." And furthermore, "EMP vulnerabilities have not yet been addressed effectively by the Department of Homeland Security. Doing so could take several years."

Lastly, the report warned of the potential for wasting $11 billion in taxpayers' money allocated to SMART Grid investments under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus bill. Specifically, "Unless such improvements in the electric grid are focused in part on reducing EMP vulnerabilities, vulnerability might well increase."

The reporter was aware, but failed to inform TNR readers, that the Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, Congressman Bennie Thompson (D-MS), has been actively working to incorporate prevention and mitigation against EMP damage by the Department of Homeland Security.

As a scientist and engineer with 20 patents now serving my 18th year on the House Armed Services Committee, I have reviewed the threat from EMP with America's leading scientists, defense officials, and military officers. Members of Congress from both parties have been working together responding to years of documented efforts and discussions about how to develop and employ EMP by potential adversaries, including Iran, China, and North Korea.

It's a pity that TNR readers were diverted with bread and circuses rather than informed about a serious national security threat.

Sincerely,
Roscoe G. Bartlett

Roscoe G. Bartlett is a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives, representing the 6th district of Maryland since 1993.

Michael Crowley Responds:

My article did not dismiss the potential for a serious EMP attack. Indeed, I cited experts recommending prudent steps to protect the national infrastructure. But I found few mainstream analysts who think a massive EMP attack is an imminently likely scenario. And despite the apparently good-faith warnings of people like Congressman Bartlett, the issue has clearly been hijacked and exaggerated by people advancing pre-existing agendas like missile defense and pre-emptive military action. Bartlett's unhappiness is better directed at those opportunists, not at TNR.

Opposition building to Waxman/Obama carbon tax

Late Thursday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the 900+ page Cap and Trade Carbon Tax bill by a vote of 33-25.

For the complete list of Congressmen who voted to raise your energy taxes and my detailed report, click on the title above.

Tenth Amendment Movement Aims to Give Power Back to the States

by FoxNews

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
-- U.S. Constitution, Tenth Amendment

Fed up with Washington's involvement in everything from land use to gun control to education spending, states across the country are fighting back against what they say is the federal government's growing intrusion on their rights.

At least 35 states have introduced legislation this year asserting their power under the Tenth Amendment to regulate all matters not specifically delegated to the federal government by the Constitution. ....

New Border Requirements Bolster Security, Ease Traffic

by Seattle Times

Amid the economic crisis and other issues affecting the day-to-day lives of Americans, it is easy to forget about terrorism and the threats that led to a new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and a slew of new security measures.

Add worries that new border document requirements are going to impact the Pacific Northwest economy, and it is no wonder that the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) is making some Washington state residents nervous. As WHTI nears a June 1 implementation deadline, it is worth cutting through the rhetoric and reminding ourselves why WHTI was enacted and why it will bring new efficiency to the border.

While our law-enforcement relationship with Canada is excellent, it is simply unacceptable to leave pre-9/11 loopholes in place at our borders — land, sea, or air. That is why Congress in 2004 ended the exemption that allowed American and Canadian citizens, and those falsely claiming to be such, to enter the U.S. without secure identification.

Maintaining the ability for cross-border traffic in locations such as the Blaine, Point Roberts, Lynden and Sumas ports of entry to flow freely is an economic imperative. Border communities have rightfully complained that ports of entry often do not have enough lanes and inspectors to keep wait times to acceptable levels.

So Congress stepped in to ensure that DHS and Department of State changed the rules only once significant money had been invested to modernize travel documents and border infrastructure. In addition, the stimulus bill enacted in February contained hundreds of millions of dollars to improve ports of entry, including money for ports in Washington. Several ports of entry are also being rebuilt to handle the expected increase in travel related to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

WHTI is part of the solution, designed around the concept that shaving even a few seconds off each inspection will help reduce gridlock at the land border. So DHS and the State Department built a cheaper, easier-to-carry passport card that can be used instead of a traditional passport for crossing land borders. By including a vicinity Radio Frequency Identification Device chip, the card links to secure databases, allowing border officers to determine a traveler's citizenship and identity before the car stops in front of their booth. Officers can read multiple cards simultaneously, including an entire car full of people. Our busiest 39 ports of entry will have the equipment in place to read these cards by June 1.....

Inmate Screening Put to Test in Texas

by Houston Chronicle

Texas prisons are test-driving the Obama administration’s planned nationwide immigration screening and are relaying for the first time the digital fingerprints of roughly 1,500 arriving inmates each week to the Department of Homeland Security.

The statewide screening at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s 24 facilities will likely extend to the nation’s 1,200 state and federal prisons and 3,100 local jails during President Barack Obama’s first term — all part of a high profile crackdown on criminal aliens who have committed serious crimes such as major drug offenses, murder, rape, robbery and kidnapping while living illegally inside the United States.

The cost to federal taxpayers is about $200 million this year and could grow to $1.1 billion by 2013, a fivefold increase in barely four years.

California is expected to be the next state to participate.

“We’re accelerating (screening) because it works,” says Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, a former federal prosecutor and two-term governor of Arizona. “Our goal is looking at the public-safety aspects of illegal immigration.”....

Tested Early by North Korea, Obama Has Few Options

by New York Times

Facing the first direct challenge to his administration by an emerging nuclear weapons state, President Obama declared Monday that the United States and its allies would “stand up” to North Korea, hours after that country defied international sanctions and conducted what appeared to be its second nuclear test. Mr. Obama reacted to the underground blast as White House officials scrambled to coordinate an international response to a North Korean nuclear capacity that none of his predecessors had proved able to reverse. Acutely aware that their response to the explosion in the mountains of Kilju, not far from the Chinese border, would be seen as an early test of a new administration, Mr. Obama’s aides said they were determined to organize a significantly stronger response than the Bush administration had managed after the North’s first nuclear test, in October 2006. Speaking in the Rose Garden after returning to the White House from Camp David and meeting with his top aides in the Oval Office, Mr. Obama vowed to “take action” in response to what he called “a blatant violation of international law” and the North’s declaration that it was repudiating past commitments to dismantle its nuclear program. But as they had meetings every few hours — including a lengthy session in the Situation Room on Monday evening — some of Mr. Obama’s aides acknowledged that the administration’s options were limited. Much depends, they said, on the new president’s ability to persuade Russia and China to go significantly beyond the strong condemnations that they issued Monday against North Korea, their former ally and a vestige of cold-war communism. “I think we were all impressed with the fact that the Russians and the Chinese denounced this so strongly,” Rahm Emanuel, Mr. Obama’s chief of staff, said in a telephone call. Yet turning that into effective action will prove a challenge. Efforts by the Clinton administration to entice the North to halt its weapons program by providing it with oil and nuclear power plants, and by the Bush administration to push the country to collapse and then to try to seize its leaders’ assets, all failed. ....

Intelligence Centers' Growth Concerns Civil Libertarians

by Des Moines Register

Authorities arrested Michael Bauman in March, seizing computers and guns at his Rock Rapids home. They alleged he had threatened to blow up a television relay tower, burn down businesses and kill police officers.

A week later, Iowa authorities issued public statements to dispel a hoax spread by text and e-mail. It included a warning about a planned gang initiation at an unspecified Wal-Mart store in which three women or girls would be shot.

Both cases were handled with help from the Iowa Intelligence Fusion Center, a Des Moines hub for the sharing of information among local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. About 70 fusion centers have been established nationwide with federal assistance since 2006, including ones in every state and in every major city, according to the US Department of Homeland Security.

The idea is that analysts "fuse" together law enforcement intelligence to address gaps in information sharing. But civil libertarians are wary of the growth of fusion centers. They say the centers raise serious privacy issues at a time when new technology, government powers and the war on terrorism are combining to encroach on Americans' privacy at an unprecedented level.

The Iowa Intelligence Fusion Center includes six regional field offices and employs 33 people. It is operated by the Iowa Department of Public Safety's Intelligence Bureau, which has had a statewide network to coordinate information with state and local law enforcement agencies since 1984.

"Thoughtful analysis about risks to our communities helps elected officials and homeland security leaders better utilize limited financial resources to make effective decisions about public safety matters and threats to the homeland," said Russell Porter, the director of Iowa's Intelligence Fusion Center, in testimony in April to the US House Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment.....