JULIA GORIN: MURDER AND CORRUPTION IN KOSOVO? YOU DON’T SAY

http://www.juliagorin.com/wordpress/?p=2899

It Still Won’t Keep Maddie Albright from Getting her War-begotten Goodies

No sooner did I blog about the multiple-stabbing “suicide” of Kosovo’s privatization czar, and no sooner did I read that “Albright Capital Management has bid for the privatisation of Kosovo’s most profitable company PTK” (note: “The telecoms infrastructure that PTK today owns was initially funded by the citizens of all of Serbia before it was seized without any reparations”), than I was forwarded the following update:

Firm Eyes Kosovo’s Contested State Telecom (Aug. 30)

Kosovo is preparing to sell a majority stake in its state-owned post and telecom company PTK, a deal that could yield as much as €600 million ($753 million) for Europe’s newest and poorest country.

The bidding, set to begin next month [September], has attracted interest from European and Turkish phone operators, as well as from an investment company headed by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who was a major backer of Kosovo in its war against Serbia. Already, however, the sale process has been clouded by corruption allegations, legal challenges, and the death of the state privatization agency’s chief, Dino Asanaj. In June, his body was found in his apartment in Kosovo’s capital city of Pristina, with 11 stab wounds. Authorities say he committed suicide.

Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008, is an economic basket case. National unemployment stands near 45 percent, and per capita income hovers around $7,000, the lowest in Europe. The International Monetary Fund this year approved a $134 million bailout for the country and urged its government to raise more money by selling a stake in profitable PTK. “We expect big impacts on the economy and the telecommunication sector on the one hand, and at the same time we want to signal foreign investors that Kosovo is an attractive country to invest and do business [in],” Economy Minister Besim Beqaj says.

The government has tried, and failed, to privatize PTK before. An attempt launched in 2010 fell apart last year following a corruption investigation at the company. And earlier asset sales were tainted by accusations of wrongdoing: At the time of his death, privatization chief Asanaj faced investigation for allegedly demanding a bribe from purchasers of a privatized hotel property.

WES PRUDEN: GOD, JEWS AND GOOD OLE BUBBA

http://www.prudenpolitics.com/newsletter?utm_source=P&P%20Auto%201&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4425 Bill Clinton did what he set out to do, and did it well. He brought the attention and focus of the Democrats, if only briefly, squarely back to his favorite person: “Don’t you wish I was the man at the top of the ticket?” Nobody honks, wonks and bonks quite like the ravisher-in-chief. The […]

CLIMATE DEPOT: OBAMA GOES FULL WITCHCRAFT BY TELLING VOTERS THEY CAN “DO SOMETHING” ABOUT WILDFIRES, DROUGHTS AND FLOODS

http://www.climatedepot.com/a/17370/Obama-goes-full-witchcraft-by-telling-voters-they-can-do-something-about-droughts-and-floods-and-wildfires–Climate-Depot-Responds

Obama goes full witchcraft by telling voters they ‘can do something about’ droughts and floods and wildfires — Climate Depot Responds

Climate Depot’s Morano reminds voters: ‘Acts of the UN and the U.S. Congress or EPA, cannot control the weather’

President Barack Obama’s Democratic National Convention speech declared that American voters can “do something about” extreme weather by supporting his re-election.

Obama: “And yes, my plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet – because climate change is not a hoax. More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They’re a threat to our children’s future. And in this election, you can do something about it.” (For full Obama speech text see: President Obama’s Speech: Full Text From the Democratic National Convention – September 6, 2012)

Climate Depot response:

“President Obama — who once declared his presidency would result in ‘the rise of the oceans beginning to slow’ — now wants us to believe voters can help regulate the weather by supporting his re-election. Obama’s declaration that “you can do something about” droughts and floods and wildfires is akin to medieval witchcraft. For any confused voters out there, Climate Depot reminds them that acts of the United Nations and the U.S. Congress or EPA, cannot control the weather. The president of the United States may be able to command great armies, but he cannot control the climate or command better weather. (For more on global warming activists seeking to control the weather, see here.)

Even Nancy Pelosi recognizes Obama cannot control the weather. (See: Nancy Pelosi: Obama can’t control the weather — ‘Whether it rains or not is not in the president’s control’ – ‘The Democratic leader said the weather is ‘a higher power’ that the president can’t control. ‘There are some decisions that are made from a different place and whether it rains or not is not in the president’s control.’)

Amen! Pelosi clearly has more scientific acumen than President Obama.

Despite President Obama’s claims, Co2 is not controlling temperatures and current global temperatures are well within natural variability. In addition, the latest scientific studies and data reveal that droughts, floods and wildfires and extreme weather are not currently unusual or unprecedented.”

DAVID GOLDMAN: GOD…THE AFTERTHOUGHT PLEASE READ ****

God, the Afterthought http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2012/09/06/god-the-afterthought/2/ The Democratic Party didn’t quite succeed in banning God from its platform, but it did its best to ensure that no-one would listen to him by putting a liberal clergyman who talks about anything except God in front of a deserted stadium. That checked the God box without allowing the Maker […]

SETH J. FRANTZMAN : A REVIEW OF RUTHIE BLUM’S BOOK “TO

The Islamification of Middle Eastern governments was helped along by the White House and the State Department, writes Ruthie Blum. www.jpost.com/ On the night of April 24, 1980, American special forces gathered in the cold desert of Iran waiting to be joined by other American forces that were being helicoptered in. A combination of bad […]

CAROLINE GLICK: GOD, JERUSALEM AND AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2012/09/god-jerusalem-and-american-for.php?utm_source=MadMimi&utm_medium=email&utm_content=God%2C+Jerusalem+and+American+foreign+policy&utm_campaign=20120907_m113448193_God%2C+Jerusalem+and+American+foreign+policy&utm_term=Continue+Reading___

Throughout his presidency, Barack Obama and his supporters have been dogged by criticism of his position on Israel. From the very outset of his tenure in office, critics and supporters alike have not been able to shake the sense that Obama is deeply hostile to the Jewish state.
Obama and his supporters have responded to every criticism of his treatment of Israel by pulling out a list. Every time his record on Israel is criticized, Obama and his supporters pull out a list of the things he has done for Israel. Just this week, in an op-ed in The New York Times, Democratic donor Haim Saban pulled out the list to justify his support for Obama.

Op-Ed: Lara’s Lies – Or How Peace Now Sees the IDF: Phyllis Chesler ****

http://www.phyllis-chesler.com/1092/lara-friedman-peace-now

A fundraising brochure from Americans for Peace Now just arrived in the mail. The cover quotes Lara Friedman, their Policy and Government Relations Director. She states:

“Sometimes the Zimmermans of the world turn out to be Jewish and/or Israeli. Their actions bring shame to all of us and are a stain on our community, our religion, and the Jewish state.” Shame on you, Lara Friedman!

Friedman equates the Israel Defense Force, (the IDF), WITH a 28-year-old neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman, who is neither Jewish nor Israeli, BUT who is, in fact, a multi-racial Hispanic.

American.Zimmerman is the Sanford, Florida man charged with second degree murder in the tragic shooting of 17-year-old African-American teenager, Trayvon Martin, on February 26, 2012. Zimmerman has not yet been tried or found guilty–except in the media.

Within weeks, President Obama said that “If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon. I think that Trayvon’sparents are right to expect that all of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness this deserves and we are going to get to the bottom of exactly what happened.”

The IDF, several oceans away, are hereby implicated by Friedman in the assassination of the President’s (imaginary) son.

Egypt: The Muslim Brotherhood Bomb? by Raymond Stock

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3333/egypt-muslim-brotherhood-bomb “We [Egyptians] are ready to starve in order to own a nuclear weapon that will represent a real deterrent and will be decisive in the Arab-Israeli conflict.” — Dr. Hamdi Hassan, Spokesman, Muslim Brotherhood Parliamentary Caucus, 2006 When Egypt’s first civilian, democratically elected dictator,[1] Mohamed Mursi became his country’s first head of state to […]

The Libya We Fought For Or Is Libya the New Iraq? by Daniel Greenfield

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3329/libya-iraq In Benghazi, a car bomb aimed at Libyan intelligence officials shook a crowded street. It’s not the first car bomb to strike Libya after the fall of Gaddafi. Benghazi has its own insurgency and remains a flashpoint for the looming civil war that no one is talking about. Postwar Libya has not received the […]

RUTHIE BLUM; FAYYAD’S BLOOD SOAKED OVERDRAFT

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=2527 Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is in a real pickle these days. This is not because the Democratic National Convention ended up having to overturn its initial omission of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in its platform – though that might have felt to him like the icing on his otherwise collapsing cake. Indeed, […]