**Bright skies ~ Mason

BRIGHT SKIES

BY HARRY MASON 

NEXUS Magazine
April - May 1997

http://www.cheniere.org/misc/brightskies1.htm

The Right To Discriminate

The Right To Discriminate
Walter E. Williams
Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Rand Paul of Kentucky, U.S. Senate hopeful, is caught up in a swirl of controversy in response to his comments on MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow Show." He has been dishonestly accused of saying he thinks that private businesses have a right to discriminate against black people. Here's a partial transcript of the pertinent question in the interview:

Maddow: "Do you think that a private business has a right to say, 'We don't serve black people'?" To which Paul answered, "I'm not, I'm not, I'm not in ... yeah ... I'm not in favor of any discrimination of any form."

The "yeah" was spun in the media as "yes" to the question whether private businesses had a right to refuse service to black people. Paul had told Maddow that while he supported the 1964 Civil Rights Act in general, he thought that provisions banning private discrimination might have gone too far.

Democrats launched an attack on Paul accusing him of being a racist. Republicans criticized and in the words of Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, Paul's "philosophy is misplaced in these times." He added that Paul has a libertarian perspective and "(has) a very, very strong view about the limitation of government intrusion into the private sector."

Should people have the right to discriminate by race, sex, religion and other attributes? In a free society, I say yes. Let's look at it. When I was selecting a marriage partner, I systematically discriminated against white women, Asian women and women of other ethnicities that I found less preferable. The Nation of Islam discriminates against white members. The Aryan Brotherhood discriminates against having black members. The Ku Klux Klan discriminates against having Catholic and Jewish members. The NFL discriminates against hiring female quarterbacks. The NAACP National Board of Directors, at least according to the photo on their Web page, has no white members.

You say, Williams, that's different. It's not like public transportation, restaurants and hotel service in which Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act "prohibits discrimination because of race, color, religion, or national origin in certain places of public accommodation, such as hotels, restaurants, and places of entertainment." While there are many places that serve the public, it doesn't change the fact that they are privately owned, and who is admitted, under what conditions, should be up to the owner.

If places of public accommodation were free to racially discriminate, how much racial discrimination would there be? In answering that question, we should acknowledge that just because a person is free to do something, it doesn't follow that he will find it in his interest to do so. An interesting example is found in an article by Dr. Jennifer Roback titled "The Political Economy of Segregation: The Case of Segregated Streetcars," in Journal of Economic History (1986). During the late 1800s, private streetcar companies in Augusta, Houston, Jacksonville, Mobile, Montgomery and Memphis were not segregated, but by the early 1900s, they were. Why? City ordinances forced them to segregate black and white passengers. Numerous Jim Crow laws ruled the day throughout the South mandating segregation in public accommodations.

When one sees a law on the books, he should suspect that the law is there because not everyone would voluntarily comply with the law's specifications. Extra-legal measures, that included violence, backed up Jim Crow laws. When white solidarity is confronted by the specter of higher profits by serving blacks, it's likely that profits will win. Thus, Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights represented government countering government-backed Jim Crow laws.

One does not have to be a racist to recognize that the federal government has no constitutional authority to prohibit racial or any other kind of discrimination by private parties. Moreover, the true test of one's commitment to freedom of association doesn't come when he permits people to associate in ways he deems appropriate. It comes when he permits people to voluntarily associate in ways he deems offensive.


http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2010/06/02/the_right_to_discriminate

Wartime Origins of Modern Income-Tax Withholding

States Delay Tax Refunds
"Procrastination is no longer just for the taxpayers who wait until the last moment to file their tax returns. Thanks to the economic downturn, at least a half-dozen cash-poor states are now delaying their tax refund checks." ( New York Times, Tuesday)

One more reason to ditch automatic withholding!

Wartime Origins of Modern Income-Tax Withholding
Milton Friedman Did Not Foresee the Long-Term Implications of the 1943 Tax-Withholding Law
by Robert Higgs
November 2007 • Volume: 57 • Issue: 9 •

Wars have always been the most important occasions for the introduction of new forms of taxation. At the outset of a war the state suddenly needs greatly increased revenues to pay for personnel and matériel to prosecute the war. Although governments typically increase the rates of existing explicit taxes and raise the rate of the hidden "inflation tax" by abruptly augmenting the money stock, these measures often prove insufficient, and other means must be devised to extract resources from the public quickly. One way to capture more revenue is to reduce tax evasion by seizing the people's earnings before the earners ever lay hands on them. This procedure has come to be known as tax withholding at the source, or simply withholding.

Precedents for withholding U.S. taxes go back as far as the War Between the States, when the Treasury withheld taxes owed by federal employees under the income-tax law adopted in 1862 until an 1864 amendment exempted federal salaries from taxation. The war-spawned income-tax law was repealed in 1872, and an income-tax law enacted in 1894 was quickly declared unconstitutional (but not because it taxed wages and salaries). Immediately after ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment and passage of income-tax legislation in 1913, taxes were withheld at the source. This system provoked so much complaint from employers, however, that even the secretary of the treasury, William Gibbs McAdoo, recommended its elimination, and in 1917 Congress withdrew its authorization. After passage of the Social Security Act in 1935, the payroll taxes it authorized were collected at the source, but income taxes still were not.

Before World War II individuals who owed federal tax on their income earned in a particular year paid the tax during the following year in quarterly installments. In those days relatively few people paid income taxes. As late as 1939 fewer than four million individual returns were filed, and the filers' total tax bill came to less than $1 billion, or less than 4 percent of their net taxable income. When so few people paid income tax and the amounts due in most cases were so small, the system of deferred payment imposed no great burden and gave rise to few taxpayer complaints.

Beginning in 1940, however, the tax burden increased enormously. As the government began to mobilize for participation in a gigantic global war, its revenue demands grew apace. Federal spending burgeoned from $9 billion in fiscal year 1940 to more than $98 billion in fiscal year 1945. Although the greater part of this spending upsurge was financed by borrowing, huge increases in tax collections also took place. In 1945, 50 million individual income-tax returns were filed, and the filers owed more than $19 billion, or almost 20 times the amount that Americans had coughed up for this tax just five years earlier.

Milton Friedman was an economist at the Treasury during the early part of the war. In his 1998 memoirs, Two Lucky People, written with his wife Rose, he observed: "It was clear to all of us at the Treasury, as we set out to multiply the amount of revenue to be collected from the personal income tax, that it would be impossible to do so unless we could develop a system to collect the taxes as the income was earned, not a year later."

The main problem connected with switching to a "pay-as-you-go" system was that when the switch was made, the taxpayers would have to pay two years' taxes in a single year­the amount due under the old system on the previous year's earnings and the amount due under the new system on the current year's earnings. Apart from the vociferous complaints such double-taxation was sure to produce, many people would simply be unable to make all the payments, especially when tax obligations were being increased drastically.

The transition problem sparked a great deal of debate in the government and among the public. Perhaps the leading proposal in 1942 came from Beardsley Ruml, the treasurer of R. H. Macy & Co., who was also the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Ruml proposed to "forgive" the previous year's tax liability completely when the switch to the pay-as-you-go system was made. The Treasury objected to allowing such a great amount of "forgiveness" and proposed an alternative, less-forgiving design.

After more than a year of wrangling in the bureaucracy and in Congress, the Current Tax Payment Act was signed into law on June 9, 1943. It provided for a complicated partial-forgiveness transition. As Friedman described it, the law basically "canceled . . . one year's tax obligations of $50 or less and 75 percent of the required tax on the lower of 1942 or 1943 income, requiring the remaining 25 percent to be paid in two equal annual installments." After the system became fully operational, employers withheld almost $8 billion for income taxes in 1944 and more than $10 billion in 1945.

Charlotte Twight, in a revealing chapter of her 2002 book, Dependent on D.C., shows that during the extended debate that preceded passage of the withholding law in 1943, its proponents used various tactics to misrepresent its workings, its consequences, and the government's reasons for seeking it. In particular, she documents that "the tax 'cancellation' was a sham and was understood to be a sham by a significant number of government officials involved in its passage."

The withholding system has remained in effect continuously ever since 1943, even though the war that prompted its creation ended 62 years ago, and the system's perpetuation has contributed greatly to nourishing the postwar Leviathan state. As Twight says, "Withholding is the paramount administrative mechanism that since 1943 has enabled the federal government to collect, without significant protest, sufficient private resources to fund a vastly expanded welfare state."


Reduces Taxpayer Awareness

The Treasury itself publicly acknowledges, in a fact sheet on the history of the U.S. tax system posted at its website, that wartime withholding not only "greatly eased the collection of the tax," but "also greatly reduced the taxpayer's awareness of the amount of tax being collected, i.e.[,] it reduced the transparency of the tax, which made it easier to raise taxes in the future." Some evidence: in 2005 more than 130 million individual income-tax forms were filed, yielding the federal government $1,108 billion in revenue, and of that amount, $787 billion, or 71 percent, came from withholding.

Friedman, who admitted being "one of the architects" of the Treasury's proposal for a withholding system, correctly noted in his memoirs that the system "would have been introduced had I been involved or not." Withholding was an essential element of the government's wartime revenue grab. "At the time," concluded Friedman, "we concentrated single-mindedly on promoting the war effort. We gave next to no consideration to any longer-run consequences. It never occurred to me at the time that I was helping to develop machinery that would make possible a government that I would come to criticize severely as too large, too intrusive, too destructive of freedom. Yet, that was precisely what I was doing."

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/our-economic-past-wartime-origins-of-modern-income-tax-withholding/

Re: [Fwd: Experts: Europe Will Push U.S. Back Into Recession]

Well, you know what an expert is - a guy from out of town.

Keith In Tampa wrote:

I wonder if this guy knows what he is talking about.  

 

"We were counting on a weak dollar and a strong European economy,” Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz says.....

 

That seems like a good thing to me....A stronger dollar against the Yen and Euro.....

 

 

On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 1:34 PM, dick thompson <rhomp2002@earthlink.net> wrote:

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[Fwd: Experts: Europe Will Push U.S. Back Into Recession]

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Rods from God

Space-launched darts that strike like meteors

By Eric Adams Posted 06.01.2004 at 4:30 pm

by John Macneill Space-based weapons have exceptionally disparate advantages and disadvantages: They are extremely powerful and difficult to defend against, but they're also expensive to launch and maintain and they're in constant motion above the Earth. John Macneill

View Photo Gallery

This technology is very far out—in miles and years. A pair of satellites orbiting several hundred miles above the Earth would serve as a weapons system. One functions as the targeting and communications platform while the other carries numerous tungsten rods—up to 20 feet in length and a foot in diameter—that it can drop on targets with less than 15 minutes' notice. When instructed from the ground, the targeting satellite commands its partner to drop one of its darts. The guided rods enter the atmosphere, protected by a thermal coating, traveling at 36,000 feet per second—comparable to the speed of a meteor. The result: complete devastation of the target, even if it's buried deep underground. (The two-platform configuration permits the weapon to be "reloaded" by just launching a new set of rods, rather than replacing the entire system.)


The concept of kinetic-energy weapons has been around ever since the RAND Corporation proposed placing rods on the tips of ICBMs in the 1950s; the satellite twist was popularized by sci-fi writer Jerry Pournelle. Though the Pentagon won't say how far along the research is, or even confirm that any efforts are underway, the concept persists. The "U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan," published by the Air Force in November 2003, references "hypervelocity rod bundles" in its outline of future space-based weapons, and in 2002, another report from RAND, "Space Weapons, Earth Wars," dedicated entire sections to the technology's usefulness.


If so-called "Rods from God"—an informal nickname of untraceable origin—ever do materialize, it won't be for at least 15 years. Launching heavy tungsten rods into space will require substantially cheaper rocket technology than we have today. But there are numerous other obstacles to making such a system work. Pike, of GlobalSecurity.org, argues that the rods' speed would be so high that they would vaporize on impact, before the rods could penetrate the surface. Furthermore, the "absentee ratio"—the fact that orbiting satellites circle the Earth every 100 minutes and so at any given time might be far from the desired target—would be prohibitive. A better solution, Pike argues, is to pursue the original concept: Place the rods atop intercontinental ballistic missiles, which would slow down enough during the downward part of their trajectory to avoid vaporizing on impact. ICBMs would also be less expensive and, since they're stationed on Earth, would take less time to reach their targets. "The space-basing people seem to understand the downside of space weapons," Pike says—among them, high costs and the difficulty of maintaining weapon platforms in orbit. "But I'll still bet you there's a lot of classified work on this going on right now."

The Rods are just one of the world's spookiest weapons. Launch the entire gallery of terrifying weapons here.

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-06/rods-god

The Rods from God

Are kinetic-energy weapons the future of space warfare?

BY Michael Goldfarb

June 8, 2005 12:00 AM

BY CHANCE, the same day that Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith was released in theaters across the country, the world learned of the Bush administration's plans to weaponize space. So while critics speculated about the parallels between the Evil Empire and the Bush administration, pundits debated the merits of "space superiority"--the allies it would alienate, the treaties it would violate, the billions it would cost. The irony was not lost on Teresa Hitchens, vice president of the Center for Defense Information, whose insistence that the world would not "accept the U.S. developing something they see as the death star," was carried in the pages of the New York Times.

Among the weapons the Air Force might deploy are space-based lasers, a space plane capable of delivering a half-ton payload anywhere in the world in 45 minutes, and the "rods from god." The rods are currently just a concept--and have been since the early 1980s--but, if the myriad technical and political hurdles to deployment could be overcome, the system could represent a tremendous leap forward in the military's ability to destroy underground, hardened facilities of the type that have allowed Iran and other rogue states to violate the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty with impunity.

HOW DO THE RODS WORK? The system would likely be comprised of tandem satellites, one serving as a communications platform, the other carrying an indeterminate number of tungsten rods, each up to 20 feet in length and 1 foot in diameter. These rods, which could be dropped on a target with as little as 15 minutes notice, would enter the Earth's atmosphere at a speed of 36,000 feet per second--about as fast as a meteor. Upon impact, the rod would be capable of producing all the effects of an earth-penetrating nuclear weapon, without any of the radioactive fallout. This type of weapon relies on kinetic energy, rather than high-explosives, to generate destructive force (as do smart spears, another weapon system which would rely on tungsten rods, though not space-based).

Clearly the rods are a first-strike, offensive weapon. The nation's aging fleet of ICBMs, and its more modern Ohio-class submarines--each carrying 24 Trident missiles--will serve as an adequate nuclear deterrent well into the 21st century, but nuclear weapons cannot deter rogue states from developing their own nuclear arsenals.

Iran has used deeply buried facilities, such as the one in Natanz, to shelter its nuclear program from an assault similar to Israel's raid on Iraq's Osirak facilities. This has limited America's options for intervention. A conventional attack on such facilities might succeed in setting the Iranian program back a few years, but due to the presumed dispersal of equipment over a number of sites across the Islamic Republic, only good intelligence and a great deal of luck would eliminate the threat entirely. And while a nuclear attack could be tactically successful, it is politically unviable. A few well-placed tungsten rods, however, would guarantee the destruction of the targeted facilities (assuming timely and accurate intelligence).

OF COURSE THE RODS would not be a panacea for proliferation. It is hard to imagine how the "rods from god" would alter the equation in North Korea, which possesses thousands of rockets and artillery pieces capable of hitting Seoul in retaliation for any perceived act of aggression by the United States. But no other rogue state can hold a gun to the head of the international community the way North Korea can. Absent such a non-nuclear deterrent, rogue states such as modern-day Iran and Saddam-era Iraq have employed hardened, underground bunkers (note the recent discovery of a large, underground insurgent lair in Anbar) as their primary defense against American air superiority.

There are a number of interest groups working to stymie plans to build either a new generation of fission bombs or space-based weapons (see here, and here). These groups present reasonable arguments against both strategic avenues. For instance, if the administration starts production on a newly designed nuclear weapon, it would likely be in violation of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. Furthermore, such weapons run the risk of mitigating the military's well-founded fear of launching a nuclear first-strike.

The arguments against space weapons range from the practical--they will be extremely expensive to build and maintain, and they may not work--to the ideological. Teresa Hitchens simply maintains that, "The world will not tolerate this." John Pike, of globalsecurity.org, speculates that the likelihood of the rods, or any other system, being deployed in space over the next decade were "next to nil." The reason, he explains, is that the military appears to be putting very little money into the research and development of such systems--though the military's immense classified budget could in theory be hiding some of the evidence.

Pike offered another interesting explanation for why the rods may remain on the drawing board--the GBU-28. The GBU-28 was designed to destroy underground bunkers, but there have been doubts about whether it can actually penetrate Iran's buried facilities. Pike says they would--"like a hot knife through butter"--and that this misperception may have been intentionally fostered: "to lull the mullahs into a false sense of security."

THE RODS may indeed be more science fiction than science. They are at least 10 years away from being operational, and the cost of launching heavy tungsten rods into orbit would be, well, astronomical. Other financial challenges include the satellite's "absentee-ratio," which refers to number of satellites, or in this case bundles of rods, which would be necessary to assure proximity to the target.

Furthermore, it may be necessary to slow substantially the rods' rate of speed to prevent them from vaporizing on impact--though retrorockets might offer a solution to this problem. Simply attaching a tungsten rod to the tip of an ICBM would overcome many of these hurdles, but would create another serious problem: the need to involve the Russians and Chinese, who might detect such a launch and mistake it for an American nuclear attack on their own territories.

Whether the Air Force does ultimately pursue this particular platform to fulfill its vision of American space superiority is a decision that should not be taken lightly. There are a great many obstacles to getting a tungsten rod into space and bringing it back down on the nuclear facilities or command centers of our enemies. Such obstacles range from our continued reliance on unreliable intelligence to the probability that our enemies would adapt to the new technology. Nevertheless, it's likely that space will be weaponized. The only question is whether the U.S. Air Force or the People's Liberation Army will be at the vanguard of the revolution.

Michael Goldfarb is an editorial assistant at The Weekly Standard.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/700oklkt.asp

Geologists study giant Guatemala sinkhole left in wake of Tropical Storm Agatha

Scientists are studying how exactly the giant, cylindrical Guatemala sinkhole was formed, and how to prevent more. Meanwhile, the US is joining relief efforts to help the thousands left homeless by Tropical Storm Agatha.

• 

Workers from Guatemala's emergency management services (CONRED) monitor a giant sinkhole caused by the rains of Tropical Storm Agatha in Guatemala City Tuesday.

Daniel LeClair/Reuters

By Sara Miller Llana, Staff writer / June 2, 2010

Cartagena, Colombia

Geologists are studying the giant Guatemala sinkhole that swallowed a Guatemala City street intersection during Tropical Storm Agatha on Saturday with an eye toward how to prevent a similar tragedy.

Skip to next paragraph

• 
  Photo Gallery
  Guatemala sinkhole

Related Stories

• Tropical Storm Agatha floods kill 150, cause giant sinkhole in Guatemala City
• Guatemala City sinkhole so big, so round it 'doesn't seem real'
• Giant sinkhole in Guatemala City: It can be fixed
• 
  
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At 66-feet wide and 100-feet deep, the almost perfectly cylindrical hole so far has left more questions than answers.

"I can tell you what it's not: It's not a geological fault, and it's not the product of an earthquake," David Monterroso, a geophysics engineer at Guatemala's National Disaster Management Agency, told the Associated Press. "That's all we know. We're going to have to descend."

IN PICTURES: Guatemala sinkhole

While the Guatemala City sinkhole swallowed an entire three-story building, no one is listed as dead as a result. Residents in the area have moved out and scientists are studying the structural integrity of the hole and surrounding soil, in case it should widen. Meanwhile, the nation is turning its attention to relief operations, in the wake of Tropical Storm Agatha that left more than 180 dead and thousands homeless throughout Central America.

Rains this week will complicate the clean-up and recovery, but Cecilio Martinez, of World Vision in Guatemala City, says that residents who had been in shelters are beginning to return to their homes.

"This morning we are delivering food to those affected," says Mr. Martinez, by phone from Guatemala City. He says they will also be heading out to the most impacted areas, such as Chimaltenango, to deliver supplies needed like food and blankets. Dozens of roads and bridges have been damaged, slowing the relief efforts.

US helicopters help

US Southern Command's (SOUTHCOM) Joint Task Force Bravo deployed four military helicopters yesterday from the Soto Cano Air Base in Honduras to support the disaster relief efforts. They are conducting aerial assessments and transporting relief supplies to hard hit areas.

In Guatemala, 152 were reported as dead, with 100 still missing. Chimaltenango, west of Guatemala City, was among the worst hit, as landslides buried entire communities. Sixty people were reported dead there.

Nearly 125,000 people were evacuated in Guatemala.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2010/0602/Geologists-study-giant-Guatemala-sinkhole-left-in-wake-of-Tropical-Storm-Agatha

Obama's Mideast Strategy Implodes

Another misstep by Bibi—bringing Gaza back into focus—has tanked Washington's plan to stop Iran, advance peace talks, and heal the region.

Jim Watson / AFP-Getty Images

The flotilla raid was a debacle.

It seems an especially hopeless task to declare that conditions in the Mideast have reached a new low of hopelessness, but that is where we are, and the first step toward any future hope must be to acknowledge its present absence. The deadly Mavi Marmara confrontation is a particular blow to President Barack Obama, the would-be grand strategist of the Mideast. Eighteen months ago, Obama had wanted to get all the cylinders of change working in his favor. He had sought a regional strategy that would alter the underlying dynamic by winning back the favor of the Arab and Muslim nations, bringing everyone on board against Iran and its nuclear program, and forging ahead on peace between the Israelis and Palestinians as a way of making it all come together. In other words, turning a negative spiral into a positive one.

In recent weeks Obama had seemed to be making some progress, however meager. Months of painstaking diplomacy had achieved a measure of consensus over new U.N. sanctions against Iran, with Russia's and China's grudging compliance. "Proximity talks," employing former senator George Mitchell as middleman, were about to begin. But once again, an unforeseen incident—unforeseen, that is, except by those who planned it—has overturned all those calculations. The Mavi Marmara debacle has done more than further aggravate the mistrust between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (recall their blowup half a year ago over the abrupt announcement of new settlements during Vice President Biden's visit) and distracted everyone once again from Iran. It has reminded all these would-be strategists that the issue they most wanted to go away—Gaza, and all that it means politically and morally—is back again, and it may be here to stay for a long while.

Even as international inspectors are declaring that Iran now has enough fuel for two nuclear weapons, nations and NGOs that are attempting to dilute or derail those sanctions have a grand new diversion. With the U.N. Security Council calling for a "sustained and regular flow of goods and people to Gaza," the headlines are almost certain to be dominated by American and international pressure on Israel to end its blockade of the territory. Turkey, which has led the effort to compromise with Tehran over the handling of its uranium stock as an alternative to sanctions, suddenly has a new bully pulpit, given that most of the dead aboard the Mavi Marmara seem to have been Turks (though a dispatch from the Middle East Media Research Institute, the monitoring group, indicated that some on board may have been militants). Beyond that, the reemergence of Gaza as issue No. 1 serves as a bitter reminder that running a peace process with a Palestinian who controls only the West Bank (and barely that)—President Mahmoud Abbas—is almost certainly folly.

Together, all this points to the pitfalls of developing a grand strategy for a region whose key players have little desire to take part in that strategy. This latest incident was clearly orchestrated by anti-Israel organizations. But let's face it: Netanyahu and his cabinet allowed themselves to be baited. They have shown again and again, despite U.S. efforts to keep them focused on the Iran peril, that they are hopelessly unable to compromise on their political hobbyhorses regarding the Palestinian issue, even for the sake of what they call "the existential threat" of Iran. The Israeli Defense Forces seems incapable of comprehending the concept of counterinsurgency or even good publicity in an era when their nation's very legitimacy depends on good PR. An editorial in Tuesday's Haaretz newspaper may have said it best: "It seemed no one could resist the temptation to show the Israel Defense Forces' strength in a place the IDF should not have been in the first place. Because the question was not who would win the confrontation, but who would win more public opinion points. In this test, Benjamin Netanyahu's government failed completely. Israel let its policy of maintaining the siege on Gaza become an existential matter. This policy boomeranged and cost Israel its international legitimacy."

Perhaps not just yet. The irony is that, Iran aside, Israel is as secure militarily as it has ever been. No rival nation's military can come close to challenging it; and the security fence, as well as improved intelligence-gathering in the West Bank, have reduced suicide attacks to a new low. But diplomatically there is no clear way forward, and the demographic and nuclear clocks are both ticking louder. As the dream of peace dies, the old question at the heart of Israel's occupation of the West Bank is growing more pressing: how can Israel retain its Jewish identity if it intends to rule territorially over millions of Palestinians into the indefinite future? How can Israel ensure its future existence if Iran moves, stealthy step by stealthy step, toward a nuclear-weapons capability? How can Obama prevent a regional nuclear-arms race that would ensure the entire Middle East remains in permanent proximity to Armageddon?

None of these questions can be answered unless the key players agree on a strategy going forward, beginning with the American president and the Israeli prime minister. And that is what, at present, seems most hopeless of all.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/01/a-regional-strategy-implodes.html

U.S. officials take custody of man removed from flight

U.S. officials take custody of man removed from flight

Aircraft of the Mexican airline Aeromexico are seen at the Mexico City international airport, Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2007. (AP / Iyari Tirado Burnat)

Updated: Wed Jun. 02 2010 11:13:21 AM

The Canadian Press

Montreal — A man whose presence on a transcontinental flight last weekend caused the plane to be grounded in Montreal has been abruptly shipped to the United States.

Abdirahman Ali Gaal is now being questioned by American security officials. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security confirms Gaal was handed over to them by Canadian officials Tuesday.

"Mr. Gaal, a legal permanent resident (of the U.S.), was returned to the United States where he is currently being questioned by DHS," department spokesman Matt Chandler wrote in an email.

The man had been scheduled to appear before Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board Wednesday morning in Montreal.

But the Canada Border Services Agency said that, on Tuesday at 4 p.m., it turned him over to U.S. authorities.

Gaal had been held since the weekend at an immigration detention centre, as he was declared inadmissible to Canada.

Gaal was originally detained on an Aeromexico flight from Paris to Mexico City on Sunday afternoon.

The flight made a sudden stop in Canada after American officials asked that it be diverted away from the U.S.

Gaal was apparently on a U.S. watch list.

Those who witnessed Gaal's arrest on Sunday's Aeromexico flight said he offered no resistance when six police officers approached his seat.

http://montreal.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100602/mtl_gaal_100602/20100602/?hub=MontrealHome

Troubled Vets 'ICEd,' Booted From US

May 26, 2010

Military.com|by Bryant Jordan

A former Marine and Gulf War veteran may soon be boarding a flight to Jamaica -- the ticket cost picked up by the U.S. government.

But Rohan Coombs, who came to the U.S. from Jamaica as a child, is not looking forward to the return trip. He's being deported.

Coombs is not alone. By some estimates, 3,000 to 4,000 veterans are awaiting deportation, and the deportations have been going on since a 1996 law made it easier for the U.S. to boot out foreign nationals, including legal permanent residents – "green-card" holders – who served in the military if they commit crimes. Collectively, they've been dubbed "Banished Veterans" by those who say that vets – even those who have committed crimes – deserve better than to be booted from the country they served.

Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, called the 1996 legislation "a terrible law that has very un-American consequences." He said the law is particularly unfair when it comes to veterans who arrived in the U.S. as children, who grow up not knowing any language but English and knowing only the U.S. as home.

Related video:

"It seems to me they should not have the threat of deportation," Filner said. "I would say give them citizenship based on the fact they served in our armed forces. It seems a commons sense thing to me."
 
"I come at it from a legal, moral and ethical background," retired Army Maj. Gen. Alfred Valenzuela, former deputy commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, told Military.com. "If you commit a crime, you pay your dues. Having said that … if you've served your country, I think you are due a certain right, if you will, [to be allowed to stay in the United States]."

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency responsible for deporting illegals, does not see it that way.

"ICE respects the service all provide to our country. However, anyone not here legally or those who have [legal permanent residence] status and commit a criminal act can be subject to removal proceedings from the U.S.," Brandon Alvarez-Montgomery, a spokesman for the agency, told Military.com in an e-mail. "ICE understands the hardship some may face, and we prioritize our cases on criminal acts. Each case is individual. As a law enforcement agency, ICE enforces the laws as they are written, not [arbitrarily]."

Craig Shagin, a Pennsylvania attorney who is representing Coombs, agrees that wearing a military uniform "doesn't give [vets] the right to violate anything. They should be punished the same as you or me."

Coombs, who arrived in the U.S. at age 9, slipped into some bad ways after he was discharged from the Marine Corps in 1994, says his fiancée, Robyn Sword of Stanton, Calif. In March 2008, she said, Coombs was arrested for selling marijuana. Shagin said the charge is considered trafficking, one of the offenses ICE may use to begin deportation proceedings.

"But it's about loyalty. That's what's so infuriating to me," he told Military.com. "If we support troops because they're loyal to us, we should be loyal to them. It's a question of standing by people who are standing by us, even when they're down, when they're not perfect, even when they are bad human beings."

In many of the cases, veterans say they believed their service made them U.S. citizens, or the fact they arrived in the U.S. as children.

Since January, the rules on servicemembers becoming U.S. citizens have been amended to expedite the process, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Military members now serving, or who have served since Sept. 11, 2001, may apply immediately for citizenship. The rule extends to those who served in the selected and ready reserve, in addition to active-duty members.

For immigrants who served during peacetime, the revision rolled back the time requirement for naturalization from three years to one year, according to DHS.

Army Reserve Lt. Col. Margaret Stock, who testified before Congress on the issue in 2008, said the Army is taking steps to help its newest immigrant members become citizens. Under the Army program, immigrant troops will have their citizenship by the time they leave basic training, said Stock, who works on immigration policy issues for the Army.

The Navy is moving in the same direction, according to Stock, and these programs will prevent future immigrant veterans from being vulnerable to deportation.

But for those who served yet never gained citizenship, nothing has changed.

The Banished Veterans site includes stories of veterans dating back to the Vietnam War era who have been deported already or are facing deportation because of certain crimes, many of them related to drug use after they left the military.

One is former Army Spc. Rudi Robinson. Born Udo Ackermann to a German prostitute and an African-American soldier in 1955, he was adopted by the Robinsons, another African-American GI and his wife, at age 3. Robinson didn't learn that he was adopted until he was 17, just before going into the Army. He had legal problems in the Army that resulted in a court-martial, he said, but then straightened out and finished off his time with an honorable discharge.

But later troubles with drugs and petty theft resulted in jail terms and, after serving time in 2003, he was deemed deportable under the 1996 law and sent to Germany. He didn't speak the language and by then he had lived in the United States for more than 40 years. Today, Robinson operates a shelter Streetlytes, a charity he founded in 2007 that provides food, clothing and emotional support to London's homeless.

His success aside, Robinson believes it was just wrong to deport him from the only country he ever knew, depriving him of years with his children and grandchildren. His father died and he was not able to come back for the funeral. He faces the same prospect when his mother, now 89, dies.

"I don't want to come out like a victim. I'm a survivor," he said. "I turned my life around. I just want the opportunity to go back and see my kids. I would like to have my U.S. citizenship. I believe I deserved it a long time ago. I believe I should have had it when I was adopted by American parents."

Retired general Valenzuela, himself the son of Mexican immigrants to the U.S., believes the U.S. needs to re-examine the deportation cases it has made against veterans. "They should be considered to be brought back to the United States for all the rights that they have earned."

"I would say we owe it to them, we owe it to the country … to sit down on a case-by-case basis and see how we can accommodate and help them, rather than just banish them and deport them."

http://www.military.com/news/article/troubled-vets-iced-booted-from-us-.html?ESRC=eb.nl&ESRC=navy.nl

[Fwd: There's a need worldwide to spread Obamacare wherever it can be instituted...]

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Republicans Jump Out To Historic Lead In Gallup Generic Ballot

 

Republicans Jump Out To Historic Lead In Gallup Generic Ballot

Gallup's generic polling shows the number of voters saying that they would vote for Republicans rising three points from last week, while the number saying they will vote for Democrats dropped four points.  The 49%-43% lead for the Republicans is the largest that the pollster has ever recorded for the party.  Moreover, Democratic enthusiasm for voting this fall fell a point, while enthusiasm among Republicans stayed about fifteen points higher.  This indicates an even wider lead for Republicans once Gallup imposes a likely voter screen this fall.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/generic_congressional_vote-901.html

It's been around 9% on Rasmussen's more accurate "Likely" voters for months.

To understand what that means, even with the historical incumbent advantage, statistically, it would mean the Republicans would get 55% of the House.

If one adds the "enthusiasm" gap, it would be more.

And if one eliminates the incumbent advantage, not likely historically, the Democrats would be lucky to get 25% of the House.

And if, heaven forbid, the incumbent in this anti-incumbent year was a disadvantage, which is rather unlikely, but who knows, the Democrats would be lucky to get 5% of the House.

And I wouldn't bet the Ranch it won't get worse as the coasts of the Eastern US are covered in oil with Obama taking full responsibility, after supporting offshore drilling, and after being BP's favorite poltitician for financial gifts.  And anything else that could go  wrong.

Gonna be some fun congressional hearings compared to the last 2 years, you betcha.

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VERY QUIETLY OBAMA'S CITIZENSHIP CASE REACHES THE SUPREME COURT

Now, will they have the guts to act on this?

 

WYOH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

VERY QUIETLY OBAMA'S CITIZENSHIP CASE REACHES THE SUPREME COURT

AP - WASHINGTON D.C.

In a move certain to fuel  the debate over Obama's qualifications for the presidency, the group "Americans for Freedom of Information" has Released copies of President Obama's college transcripts from Occidental College . Released today, the transcript school indicates that Obama, under the name

Barry Soetoro, received financial aid as a foreign student from Indonesia as an undergraduate. The transcript was released by Occidental College in compliance with a court order in a suit brought by the group in the Superior Court of California. The transcript shows that Obama (Soetoro) applied for financial aid and was awarded a fellowship for foreign students from the Fulbright Foundation Scholarship program. To qualify, for the scholarship, a student must claim foreign citizenship.

This document would seem to provide the smoking gun that many of Obama's detractors have been seeking. Along with the evidence that he was first born in Kenya and there is no record of him ever applying for US citizenship, this is looking pretty grim. The news has created a firestorm at the White House as the release casts increasing doubt about Obama's legitimacy and qualification to serve as President; article titled, "Obama Eligibility Questioned," leading some to speculate that the story may overshadow economic issues on Obama's first official visit to the U.K. In a related matter, under growing pressure from several groups, Justice Antonin Scalia announced that the Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to hear arguments concerning Obama's legal eligibility to serve as President in a case brought by Leo Donofrio of New Jersey. This lawsuit claims Obama's dual citizenship disqualified him from serving as president. Donofrio's case is just one of 18 suits brought by citizens demanding proof of Obama's citizenship or qualification to serve as president.

Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation has released the results of their investigation of Obama's campaign spending. This study estimates that Obama has spent upwards of $950,000 in campaign funds in the past year with eleven law firms in 12 states for legal resources to block disclosure of any of his personal records. Mr. Kreep indicated that the investigation is still ongoing but that the final report will be provided to the U..S. Attorney general, Eric Holder. Mr. Holder has refused to comment on the matter...

        

LET OTHER FOLKS KNOW THIS NEWS, THE MEDIA WON'T!

While I've little interest in getting in the middle of the Obama birth issue, Paul Hollrah over at FSM did so yesterday and believes the issue can be resolved by Obama answering one simple question: What passport did he use when he was shuttling between New York , Jakarta , and Karachi ?

So how did a young man who arrived in New York in early June 1981, without the price of a hotel room in his pocket, suddenly come up with the price of a round-the-world trip just a month later?

And once he was on a plane, shuttling between New York, Jakarta, and Karachi , what passport was he offering when he passed through Customs and Immigration?

The American people not only deserve to have answers to these questions, they must have answers. It makes the debate over Obama's citizenship a rather short and simple one.

Q: Did he travel to Pakistan in 1981, at age 20?

A : Yes, by his own admission.

Q: What passport did he travel under?

A: There are only three possibilities.

    1) He traveled with a U.S... Passport,

    2) He traveled with a British passport, or

    3) He traveled with an Indonesia passport.

Q: Is it possible that Obama traveled with a U.S. Passport in 1981? 

A: No. It is not possible. Pakistan was on the U.S... State Department's "no travel" list in 1981.

Conclusion: When Obama went to Pakistan in 1981 he was traveling either with a British passport or an Indonesian passport.

If he were traveling with a British passport that would provide proof that he was born in Kenya on August 4, 1961, not in Hawaii as he claims. And if he were traveling with an Indonesian passport that would tend to prove that he relinquished whatever previous citizenship he held, British or American, prior to being adopted by his Indonesian step-father in 1967.

Whatever the truth of the matter, the American people need to know how he managed to become a "natural born" American citizen between 1981 and 2008..

Given the destructive nature of his plans for America, as illustrated by his speech before Congress and the disastrous spending plan he has presented to Congress, the sooner we learn the truth of all this, the better.

If you Don't care that Your President is not a natural born Citizen and in Violation of the Constitution, then Delete this, and then lower your American Flag to half-staff, because the U.S. Constitution is already on life-support, and won't survive much longer.

If you do care then Forward this to as many patriotic Americans as you can, because our country is being looted and ransacked!

 

Please use Bcc (blind copy) in all your emails. And, delete my name and addy before sending.....thanks!!!!!