http://frontpagemag.com/2013/ruth-king/hugo-chavezs-disastrous-legacy/ “A phony revolution may nonetheless be a durable one. If the Venezuelans who go to the polls give Chávez what he wants, they are likely to discover a paradox: They can bring about dictatorship through democracy, but not the reverse.” Steve Chapman, November 2007 It appears that Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez will soon slip […]
Is Saudi prince steering News Corp. coverage? Ever since Al Gore sold Current TV to Al Jazeera, the network founded and funded by the oil-rich emirate of Qatar, the former vice president has drawn continuous fire in conservative media. Fox News, the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal, for example, have all castigated […]
http://politicalmavens.com/ In an interview with Joshua Oppenheimer in this week’s Forward (Filming the Killing Fields), reporter Sheerly Avni asks why the director chose to focus on the killers instead of the victims in his new film, “Act of Killing,” about the massacres in Indonesia in 1965: Oppenheimer: “….I think the tradition of documentary films is […]
http://www.prudenpolitics.com/newsletter?utm_source=P&P%20Auto%201&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5778 Code Red: Washington put on full terror alert. The terror of horrific testosterone threatens to paralyze the nation’s capital. We haven’t seen fear like this since the capital expected the Confederate army to march down Pennsylvania Avenue after P.G.T. Beauregard and his men thrashed the Yankees good and proper at First Manassas. What’s got […]
http://melaniephillips.com/the-twilight-of-america I think this is what is called a slam dunk. Barack Obama has now proposed filling the three positions in the US administration most concerned with the security of the nation and the defence of the free world, those at State, Defence and the CIA, by three men who have all taken up positions […]
http://spectator.org/archives/2013/01/10/neo-conning-us-again
In Afghanistan, we cannot recommit ourselves to a“counterinsurgency” strategy that has already failed.
President Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai will meet later this week to discuss the terms of American withdrawal from the twelve-year long war in Afghanistan. Obama is moving forward with his scheduled removal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
The American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, reportedly wanted to keep the more than 60,000 U..S troops in country through this year’s fighting season. Nevertheless, the White House is going ahead with a withdrawal schedule that will reduce the force this summer and to leave only about 25,000-30,000 troops there by spring of next year, and as few as 3,000-4,000 by the end of next year.
That’s too much and too fast for the neocons. They who devised the “nation-building” strategy — and its military implementation,“counterinsurgency” — are rebelling against the idea.
In a Wednesday Wall Street Journal piece, two top neocons — Frederick and Kimberly Kagan — argue that we have to leave substantial forces in Afghanistan indefinitely or we will have wasted a decade of war. The Kagans were close advisers to Gen. David Petraeus when he was the commander in Afghanistan. They believe we need to recommit ourselves to the “counterinsurgency” strategy that has already failed.
The Kagans define success in Afghanistan as driving al Qaeda from the nation and preventing its return. They point out correctly that the “global al Qaeda movement” is headquartered in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region and is home to the largest concentration of regional and global Islamist terrorist organizations in the world.
The neocons attribute this to the fact that Pakistan “does not effectively govern, police, or control” the large area on its side of the border. They say that the Afghan government, though fighting hard in the region, hasn’t succeeded in controlling the larger area on its side of the border.
http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/novelists-view-world/2013/jan/10/why-jewish-panic-over-chuck-hagel/ WASHINGTON, DC, January 10, 2013 – Is Chuck Hagel an anti-Semite and is President Obama socking it to Jewish voters who gave him 70 percent of their love? First let’s be clear that the crossfire against President Obama’s choice for Secretary of Defense comes from all sides, Republicans, Democrats, Jewish Americans and Christian Americans. […]
“Some of My Best Friends are Antisemites”: Obama Nominates Hagel “Europe’s leaders—and all leaders—should strongly oppose antisemitism, which poisons public debates over the future of the Middle East.” –President George W. Bush, speaking at Whitehall Palace, London, on November 19, 2003. The most inane (and therefore most frequent) journalistic explanation of Obama’s nomination of “Chuck” […]
IRS watchdog urges Congress: Simplify tax code
Fox News
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
News
The country’s top taxpayer advocate urged Congress on Wednesday to simplify the tax code, saying it is the most serious problem facing taxpayers and that individuals and businesses spend about 6.1 billion hours annually complying with tax-filing requirements. [ Read more…
Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz2HZdEgIcT
Greens eye Obama hosting climate summit
The Guardian
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
News
Barack Obama may intervene directly on climate change by hosting a summit at the White House early in his second term, environmental groups say. Read more…
Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz2HZd4mszN
Lew’s loopy signature heading to dollar bills
Associated Press
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
News
Jack Lew’s nomination for treasury secretary means a new signature could soon be coming to the dollar bill. Not that you’ll be able to read it. Read more…
Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz2HZdPqIH9
www.navon.com Israeli elections hardly offer a chance to replace governments. This is because the Left is doomed to lose elections and because the Right is doomed to be denied victory. The Left had a stable majority in the Knesset between 1949 and 1977. Since then, the majority in the Knesset has gradually switched to the […]
