By Dr. Avi Perry

The incoming elections in the US and the flashy rhetoric by Republican presidential candidates have stirred the question of nuclear Iran into the front page.

The Muslim Gulf states and Israel have added to the rumbling; they have sustained their pressure on the US administration, urging it to act, to stop Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons.

The Obama Administration has warned Iran: “pursuit of nuclear weapons is unacceptable; the US would use all means in its disposal, including force if necessary, to neutralize Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.” But to no avail.

Still, Iran keeps its macho talk loud and condescending.  Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has just issued a warning—Iran will not cave in to pressure; progress toward a nuclear bomb (he did not say “nuclear bomb”, but he definitely implied it) will not be brought to an end, no matter what sanctions the Americans or the EU impose on the Islamic Republic.

The Ayatollah is serious. Although macho talk in the Islamic Middle East is a standard adopted by all militant Islamic leaders, the Iranian government is flexing its muscles, flaunting its sharp teeth.

It believes that economic sanctions will hurt, but not as much as caving in to American demands. In a culture where false honor precedes anything that moves under the sun, where life without “honor” is far worse than death, where honor killing is a religious diktat, caving in to economic sanctions is equivalent to an unconditional surrender.

And surrendering to the “Great Satan” merely because life is a little tough is inexcusable, dishonorable behavior; it is treason that merits the death sentence.

The loud rhetoric from all sides has been underlined by considerable measures on the ground. The US has been and is about to keep on amassing a war machine in the Persian Gulf and on several islands within reach of Iran.

American, British and French warships and aircraft have been acting around the Persian Gulf and around Saudi air bases respectively, while the Saudis have reinforced their anti-missile defense gear and their delivery facilities around Saudi oil fields and along the Persian Gulf respectively.

Israel has been readying itself for war on all fronts. It has recently conducted large-scale military exercises, both defensive and offensive in nature, including the drafting of reservists under projected heavy missile bombardment of every town, road and base, as well as a large scale parachuting by over a thousand paratroopers, signaling a willingness to engage ground-troops on foreign soil in addition to relying on its air force and its rockets.

Iran has not been sitting idle either. They have announced the start of a three-week exercise in southern Iran and the Strait of Hormuz under war settings.

They seem to brace for a noteworthy retaliation with the objective of blocking the flow of oil out of the Gulf. In addition, they have been concocting terror attacks on soft Jewish and possibly other civilian targets throughout the world.

The American Administration is working hard at softening its seeming aim by masking its military buildup with wishful talking points. US Defense Secretary Panetta’s recent implications concerning Israel’s imminent attack plans are part of a grand-scale deception strategy.

They have been designed to refocus the Iranians on the most suspicious front rather than the one that would deliver the ultimate blow—the US military. It is obvious that if Israel embarks on a preemptive strike on the Iranian nuclear project, Iran will try to retaliate.

Retaliation will not be limited to hitting Israel. The Revolutionary Guards will attempt to attack American interests throughout the Middle East, thus provide a pretext for an American involvement in a large scale “defensive” war against Iran—a war that would be supported by the American public due to its defensive nature, a war that would boost Obama’s standing in the eyes of the American people, shortly ahead of the elections.

The scenario above may not necessitate an Israeli opening (of hostilities) since the Iranian regime is stuck in a macho syndrome, which blinds their rational reasoning.

They will miscalculate. They may initiate hostilities against US interests in the Persian Gulf in order to lay bare the risk associated with any American attempt to force them into submission by aggressive economic means.  

They do not believe that the US would retaliate by initiating an all-out-war in response. They view the US and President Obama as paper tigers. The Ayatollah will repeat the same mistake that Hezbollah had committed in 2006 when they kidnapped dead Israeli soldiers before Israel responded with an all-out-war they had not anticipated and had not wished for.

There is little doubt that a war with Iran can be avoided. There is high likelihood that the US will lead the effort even if Israel initiates the campaign.

There is little doubt that the US is hard at work preparing for war in the Persian Gulf. There is high likelihood that Iran will provide the American people with a sizzling justification by provoking the US and invite a massive retaliation.

There is no doubt. 2012 will see to a new Gulf war. This time, the Ayatollah will be the one to pay the price.

Source: Dr. Avi Perry

Editor’s Note: Dr. Avi Perry, a talk show host at Paltalk News Network (PNN), is the author of “Fundamentals of Voice Quality Engineering in Wireless Networks,” and more recently, “72 Virgins,” a thriller about the covert war on Islamic terror.

He was a VP at NMS Communications, a Bell Laboratories – distinguished staff member and manager, as well as a delegate of the US and Lucent Technologies to the ITU—the UN International Standards body in Geneva, a professor at Northwestern University, as well as an Intelligence officer at the IDF and the Israeli Government.

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By Alan Caruba

I have begun to think of the Republican campaign as a series of Looney Tunes cartoons being replayed again and again.

They are filled with a combination of laughs and the fantastical, self-defeating violence of Wily Coyote trying to catch the Roadrunner

As the primary season moves along, I sometimes think that far too many Republicans have temporarily lost their minds. Three years of Barack Obama will do that to you.

My response to the campaign thus far may have something to do with the fact that, like Reagan and others, I was once a Democrat and, to borrow a phrase from Paul, First Corinthians, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

These days, a lot of Republicans sound like a kid who sent Santa a list of toys he wanted and, even though he got most of them, he feels compelled to write and ask why he didn’t get all of them.

Granted that Republicans don’t have the most scintillating field of candidates, but most, including Donald Trump, have concluded that a guy that made millions as a successful venture capitalist, gave a couple of million away in charity just last year, has been a Governor, and hasn’t had a single hint of scandal in his life, might not be such a bad choice.

His opponents at this point include a guy who wants to start a Moon colony, is married to his third wife, left the Speaker’s position under a cloud of ethics impropriety, is given to saying genuinely bizarre and extremely nasty things with regularity, and would make the pathological narcissist in the White House look like a Boy Scout.

Another opponent—one whom nobody including himself—thinks could get elected seems to be in the race for the purpose of having one last hurrah, beating the drum for a few good ideas and a lot of really bad ones. Ron Paul has been in Congress since shortly after the last Ice Age ended and has sponsored only one bill that passed.

And, finally, there is Rick Santorum who is so infused with religious commitment that he reminds me of someone who was touted in a similar fashion, a former Sunday school teacher named Jimmy Carter.

All the religion in the world cannot substitute for the steely-eyed realism a President requires in a world filled with evil counterparts.

It’s the voters, however, about whom I worry. New Hampshire was expected to endorse Romney, but in South Carolina Republicans there gave the nod to Gingrich.

The Floridians came through with the unmistakable choice, based I am inclined to think on the many older and wiser citizens that live there though, in fact, he won all the demographic groups.

Ron Paul may be mildly amusing to some, but he cannot win. Santorum is a nice guy and, as the saying goes, nice guys finish last. And Newt Gingrich is like one of the Loony Tunes characters, the Tasmanian devil, going around wrecking the place and throwing bombshells that do nothing to advance the Republican and/or conservative agenda.

Too many Republicans appear to be waiting for a candidate who is perfection in every respect, political and personal, and in the real world few fit that description. America has had its shot at electing a “messiah” and it has turned out very badly.

As the rest of the primaries unwind, I anticipate that Mitt Romney will emerge as the party’s choice. I also expect a lot of pure nonsense about his being a Mormon, about the fact that he has not always hewed perfectly to conservative principles, and that he has—God forbid—actually changed his mind more than once or twice in the past.

Lost in all this blather is the fact that he is ideally prepared for the toughest job in the world and appears to have both feet planted firmly on the ground. I actually like the idea that he occasionally misspeaks, admits it, and then apologizes.

I hope that between now and the convention in Tampa, Republicans will regain their senses, their optimism, and their fighting spirit.

Rolling over for the worst President of the modern era because our candidate is not “perfect” is not an option.

Voting for a third party candidate is not an option.

Staying home on Election Day because “your guy” didn’t get the nomination is not an option.

The Republican compass has to point in only one direction and that is the resounding defeat of Barack Obama.

Source: Alan Caruba (C)

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By Jim Kouri

New York’s Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has increased security at the Israeli consulate, synagogues and other Jewish cultural institutions throughout all five boroughs of the city as a result of Iranian threats against Israel and the Jews.

Besides threats against Israel, Iran continues to accuse the U.S. government of plotting against their regime and warned officials in Washington, DC, that they will retaliate against any threat posed by the U.S. military.

According to NYPD Police Officer Edna Aguayo one of the most difficult targets to protect is the Mass Transit System. In the past when on high-alert heavily armed police and bomb sniffing dogs are posted outside potential targets.

In addition, random package checks are conducted at subway stations throughout the city.

White House officials believe Israel may be planning an attack on Iran’s nuclear program as early as this Spring. Should they strike, Iran has vowed to retaliate against Israel and its U.S. interests.

Israeli governmental buildings and Jewish soft targets like synagogues and community centers have been placed on high alert.

White House officials believe Israel may be preparing an attack on Iran’s nuclear program sites and Iran has vowed to retaliate against Israel and its U.S. interests.

The NYPD said it is increasing security at synagogues and other Jewish institutions after talks between President Barack Obama and Israeli officials about a possible attack to prevent the Iranians from constructing a nuclear weapon.

The city has invested millions of dollars in state-of-the-art equipment and vehicles. For example, as reported in the Examiner, the New York City Police Department’s acquisition of new, high-tech equipment will help police officers keep the city safe from terrorists: the NYPD’s Harbor Unit now possesses unmanned underwater drones to help bomb technicians and emergency services unit officers to detect suspected underwater explosives. 

The NYPD now possesses six underwater drones, with each costing between $75,000 and $120,000 depending on the drones’ capabilities.

These drones help to sweep the city’s waterways and bridges searching for possible bombs and IEDs (improvised explosive devices). In a recent  drone demonstration, NYPD officers easily tossed the lightweight – sixteen pound – submersible equipped with lights and sonar into the harbor and sailed it beneath the hull of a large commercial tanker docked close to the Kings County (Brooklyn) Army Terminal.

Source: Examiner

Editor’s Note: Israel must contend with rocket and bomb attacks almost on a daily basis. There is no way they will allow Iran to possess nuclear weapons. Credits: IDF/Israel

Jim Kouri, CPP, formerly Fifth Vice-President, is currently a Board Member of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, an editor for ConservativeBase.com, and he’s a columnist for Examiner.com. 

In addition, he’s a blogger for the Cheyenne, Wyoming Fox News Radio affiliate KGAB (http://www.kgab.com/). Kouri also serves as political advisor for Emmy and Golden Globe winning actor Michael Moriarty. 

He’s former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed “Crack City” by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s.

In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations.  He’s also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country.  

Kouri writes for many police and security magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, the Narc Officer and others. He’s a news writer and columnist for AmericanDaily.Com, MensNewsDaily.Com, MichNews.Com, and he’s syndicated by AXcessNews.Com.  

Kouri appears regularly as on-air commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Fox News Channel, Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, etc. You can reach him at Copmagazine@aol.com. 

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By Alan Caruba

A bit of Syrian history will prove useful as the world looks on while Syrians are slaughtered in the thousands to ensure that Bashar al-Assad, the son of the late Hafez al-Assad remains that nation’s dictator.

Hafez came to power in a bloodless military coup in 1970. A year later he assumed the presidency, beginning three decades of classic repression in which all enemies, real or imagined, were jailed or killed.

His power came from the way he packed the government with family members and those from his minority Alawite sect, a Shiite group in a majority Sunni nation.

The last time Syrians tried to rise up in opposition to Hafez was in 1982 and he slaughtered thousands in the city of Homa. Hafez ran a secular government and ran into problems when he joined his fellow Arabs in the wars against Israel. In 1967, the Israelis took control of Syria’s Golan Heights during the Six-Day War. Strategically important to protect a swath of northern Israel, the Heights were never returned.

The war was a turning point in the Middle East insofar as Israel also took control of the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula from Egypt as well as the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan. Israel later signed a peace treaty with Egypt, returned the Sinai, gave the Gaza to the Palestinian Authority, and occupied the West Bank, but chose not to formally annex it despite its historic connection as Israel’s provinces of Judea and Samaria. Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994.

While all this was going on Hafez al-Assad had turned his attention to Lebanon that had a decade’s-long civil war. In 1976, in the name of peace-keeping, he put his troops there and they remained until the assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri on October 20, 2004. The Lebanese rose in opposition, forcing Syria to withdraw its troops in 2005.

If all this seems convoluted, it is! That only thing to keep in mind is that Syria has been in the grip of the Assad family now with Bashar al-Assad having been immediately put in power following his father’s passing.

Dictatorship is the family business and, while the present opposition is generating a fair amount of hope, fear, and consternation throughout the Middle East, the best efforts of Arab League diplomacy and the typically useless fulminations of the United Nations have achieved a big fat zero since the insurgency began ten months and five thousand dead Syrians ago.

The latest word is that the uprising has reached the outskirts of Damascus and some analysts are suggesting the Syrian military, those loyal to Assad, is overstretched, but he has three big aces in his hand and two of them are Russia and China, both of whom have promised to veto any United Nations resolutions condemning Syria.

He also has Iran to supply him with guns and bullets. Iran has been a longtime ally of Syria and has been a major supporter of Hezbollah, the Palestinian organization headquartered in Syria and in political control of Lebanon as Syria’s and Iran’s proxies.

So, as uprisings go, young Assad seems to have learned well how to put them down by killing as many of his countrymen as necessary.

His neighbor, Turkey, is flailing around for any kind of a policy and the rest of the Middle East is well aware that the United States of America, led by Barack Obama, has provided the same level of indifference to Syria’s people as he did when the Iranians filled the streets to protest their ayatollahs.

In just three years the U.S. has become a very weak player in the Middle East despite having a carrier task force parked near the Strait of Harmuz. We are out of Iraq and will be out of Afghanistan by next year. Our only real ally, Israel, has been treated with complete disdain. If you want to see what a failed foreign policy looks like, look at Obama’s.

Source: Alan Caruba (C)

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By Liberty Counsel Action

Washington, D.C. – The Susan G. Komen Foundation announced today that it has bowed to the pressure of the pro-abortion lobby.

And will again fund the largest abortion provider in the country, Planned Parenthood, undermining Komen’s stated mission of “fighting to save lives, empower people, ensure quality care for all and energize science to find the cures.”

After receiving a letter from U.S. Senators, including pro-abortion advocates John Kerry, Al Franken, and others, Komen back-peddled its decision to stop funding an organization that conducts procedures that are actually linked to increasing the risk of breast cancer, according to an article written by obstetricians and gynecologists, Induced Abortion and Breast Cancer.

The reversal comes on the heels of news that Komen’s donations jumped 100% after deciding to defund Planned Parenthood, the nation’s leading abortion provider that is currently under criminal investigation in multiple venues.

Liberty Counsel Action is encouraging its members to cancel any checks and credit card contributions made in the wake of Komen’s initial decision to defund Planned Parenthood and asking any pro-life participants in Komen’s June 2 Global Race for the Cure run in Washington, D.C. to withdraw.

Matt Barber, Vice President of Liberty Counsel Action, says that anyone who sincerely wants to contribute to the fight against breast cancer has dozens if not hundreds of other options from hospitals to other nonprofit organizations, but Komen should be off the list.

“It’s a sad day for those who both seek a breast cancer cure and who respect the dignity of all human life,” said Barber. “Susan G. Komen for the Cure should recognize that abortion is not a cure for anything.  Perhaps they should change the name to Susan G. Komen for the Cause.

What a tragic paradox. There is mounting medical evidence that indicates abortion significantly increases the risk for breast cancer.”

Calling Komen’s decision “the coward’s way out,” Barber said that the decision to once again partner with Planned Parenthood was nothing more than capitulation to “tremendous left-wing political pressure.” 

“They have chosen death over life – cancer over cure,” said Barber. “Instead of showing courage, they caved. Komen is now part of the breast cancer problem rather than the solution.” 

Source: Liberty Counsel Action

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By Jeff Lukens,

Barack Obama has gone from the “one we’ve been waiting for” to the one we can’t wait to kick out.

No one ever thought one man could bring the nation to its knees, but here he is living in the White House. And on our knees we have been praying for the day that he leaves.

The audacity of a president hell-bent on destroying our great nation has truly been a stunning spectacle to observe. No lie is too ridiculous to tell about anyone who opposes him.

With a compliant media behind him, the smears this Demagogue-in-Chief promises to unleash on his opponent this fall could divide the county so badly that it becomes ungovernable.

The societal tensions Obama promised to ease have worsened by his politics of envy. The racial healing he promised has been made worse.

Despite overwhelming opposition, he forced a health plan on the people that few want.

He has trampled on the Constitution, and infringed on powers granted to Congress. He has bailed out auto companies, investment bankers and insurance companies. He has given Constitutional rights to terrorists.

Obama’s greatest transgression, however, has been the explosion of government spending to the point where we are enslaved to a mountain of debt that can never be repaid. He has given us $1.6-trillion deficits, and will have added more than $6 trillion to the debt by the end of his term.

He has risen the percentage of GDP consumed by government to 25 percent. And all his spending has stimulated nothing.

If you believe what the government reports, total unemployment is currently 15.2 percent as measured by U-6. During Obama’s tenure, true unemployment has been running greater than 20 percent and is near Depression Era levels. In sum, Obama’s presidency has hastened a financial disaster upon the nation.

Obama calls his policies “transformation.” In an earlier age, they would have been considered something akin to treason. Our enemies could not have planted someone to have caused more damage. And now, with financial collapse on the horizon, our very way of life is threatened.

Altogether, Barack Obama will probably go down in history as the worst president of all time. Until now, historians have long given that dubious distinction to James Buchanan, who left office to Abraham Lincoln as the nation was falling apart and headed toward civil war.

It is no exaggeration to say the 2012 election is every bit as important as was the 1860 election. James Buchanan at least had good intentions.

The same cannot be said for Barack Obama. His intent is not to build up, but only to tear the nation down, and then to cover his tracks. There is no other way to explain his actions.

Millions of Americans, however, have finally had enough. A counterrevolution is rising to a level rarely seen in our history. There hasn’t been this intensity of grassroots activity since the abolitionist movement of the 1850s.

People are making themselves visible in the community. They are organizing rallies and call-in campaigns. They are studying the Constitution, and will not be silenced by charges of racism or any other falsehood uttered by the Left.

And when the new president is sworn in, collective relief will be felt across the land. But the long and hard road to recovery will have only begun. Whether America avoids financial collapse will be uncertain for years to come.

For a government that borrows 36 cents of every dollar it spends, the math is simple. We will need real cuts to the federal budget near 36 percent to survive.

Factor in modest economic growth and perhaps the cuts could be 30 percent. But failure to make real cuts on this scale risks runaway inflation and disaster. Any way you look at it, people’s pain will be deep, and it will be real.

With Obama gone and the threat of reprisals removed, people will begin to talk, and eventually the truth about Obama’s mysterious past will come out.

What was hidden, scrubbed, and not vetted in 2008 — including his grades, his college records, his passport, his personal associations, and yes, even his birth — will all be exposed. It is all just a matter of time. The duplicity and deceit to be uncovered will shock even his most ardent supporters.

Who knows? A pariah status could very well attach itself to Obama on a level reserved for few individuals in American history.

Obama could be regarded as the Benedict Arnold of our time. The masses may come to shun him, and rightly so. If there is poetic justice in this world, this will be his legacy.

November is not just another election; it is a seminal moment in American history. If Obama is re-elected, expect ObamaCare to stay, the debt to crush us, our defenses to be laid bare, Iran to get the bomb, and at least two liberals to be named to the Supreme Court.

If Obama is re-elected, America as we know it will be gone forever.

Collapse will be certain.

For true hope and true change, perhaps we should try returning to a limited Constitutional government. We all need to be involved. Whether or not we can turn around the disaster Barack Obama has foisted upon us hinges first on removing him from office.

Now is the time to go about the work of doing just that. This is the year, folks. Buckle up. It’s going to be a rough ride.

Source: New Media Journal

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By Alan Caruba

As a book reviewer I receive countless requests to read books and, when I received one regarding “Kosher Jesus” by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, I was intrigued by the title. In addition to fathering nine children, the rabbi has written 27 books, is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and the profile on his website is filled with achievements and encomiums

I was, quite frankly, floored by his book. As a longtime informal student of world religions, I found his comparisons between the biblical and historical Jesus impressive.

As word of this book gets out, I suspect he will be contested by Christians because he meticulously reclaims the historical Jesus as quintessentially Jewish without a hint of the Christology that was applied to his life following his death at the hands of the Romans.

With some irony, it is another rabbi, Immanuel Schochet, who recently issued a letter banning anyone from reading “Kosher Jesus”, calling it heretical. Rabbi Boteach replied saying that “America is not Iran and rabbis in the American Jewish community are not the Revolutionary Guard.” Well said!

Debuting officially on February 1st, I suspect Rabbi Boteach is going to come in for a world of disputation from elements of the both the Jewish and Christian communities.

Their problem will be that Rabbi Boteach is a serious student of the Torah, the Talmud (rabbinical analysis and commentary on the Torah), and the New Testament.

His book is testament (no pun intended) to his central assertion that Jesus was a charismatic rabbi, a Jew preaching exclusively to Jews at a time when Israel was seeking to throw off the occupation of the greatest pagan power of his era, the Roman Empire.

Indeed, their rebellion would culminate in the destruction of the Second Temple and the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Jews in 70 CE.

Rabbi Boteach dissects the gospels, all written well after the death of Jesus, and the writings of Saul of Tarsus, saying in effect, that Christianity wrongly asserts that the Covenant and laws of Judaism had been replaced by a religion based entirely on faith in the belief that Jesus died for the sins of the world and accepting him as a personal savior removes one’s personal responsibility to live a holy life, a righteous life, and one that accepts the Torah as God’s word and law.

Among Jewish and Christian martyrs who died for their faith, Rabbi Boteach places Jesus as the best known Jew in the world. He condemns the New Testament for seeking accommodation with the Roman Empire, composed of idol-worshipping pagans, by turning the historical Jesus into an enemy of Judaism and thereby letting loose two thousand years of anti-Semitism.

The rabbi is not seeking to convert Christians to Judaism and notes several times that Judaism does not proselytize. “Theologically, Christians and Jews think differently about the nature of the world.”

Instead, he seeks to restore Jesus “to his authentic Jewish roots” to “allow a new era of Jewish-Christian reapproachement to begin.” Indeed, in the wake of the Holocaust and the reestablishment of the nation of Israel, it is clear this change has been occurring.

In a time of resurgent Islamism, Rabbi Boteach rightly says that “Jews and Christians have so much in common, we must unite behind our democratic values, defend the embattled State of Israel, and participate in a unified front against those who have vowed to defeat us.”

Amen to that!

“Kosher Jesus” will not be an easy book for Christians to read because it rebuts much of what the New Testament has to say about Jesus. It eviscerates the claims of the gospel writers and of Paul, an apostle who never knew the Jesus he promoted as part-god, part-human, a distinctly pagan belief. The Romans routinely believed their emperors were gods. The Greek pantheon of gods had distinctly human characteristics and failings.

“Restoring his Jewish identity makes (Jesus) available to us as a flesh-and-blood hero who fought for what is right, in place of a celestial icon utterly detached from human experience”, says Rabbi Boteach.

The perfection attributed to Jesus, the rabbi notes, is comparable to that attributed to the Buddha and, in the Hindu faith, to Krishna. Humanity longs for such perfection, but Judaism believes that we achieve righteousness in our struggle to do the right thing, by our acts, not by faith alone.

Jews know it is human to fail and that is why God offers redemption. Indeed, the word “Israel” means “he who wrestles with God.”

I recommend “Kosher Jesus” to anyone who wrestles with God, who wrestles with their human imperfections, and who strives to live a righteous life.

Source: Alan Caruba (C)

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By Jim Kouri

In the midst of a contentious GOP presidential race, the threat of a government shutdown and continued fears of another economic downturn, Attorney General Eric Holder’s latest politically-driven mission has garnered very little attention: Holder promises to use the Justice Department to conduct a  nationwide  examination of voting laws enacted by states — with special concern about laws that require voters to show identification in order to participate in an election, according to a report by a Beltway watchdog group. 

The Attorney General, in a speech, stated that “all citizens should be automatically registered to vote” and is critical of voter ID laws passed in Arizona, Texas and other states. 

In fact, Holder has put the wheels in motion for a series of DOJ federal lawsuits against states that attempt to require photo identification before a person is allowed to vote.

A Washington, DC-based group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption revealed that it obtained records detailing communications between the Obama Department of Justice and Estelle Rogers, a former ACORN attorney currently serving as Director of Advocacy for the ACORN-connected organization Project Vote.

The successful non-profit, public-interest organization — Judicial Watch — is investigating the DOJ’s partnering with Project Vote on a national campaign to use the National Voting Rights Act (NVRA) to register more individuals on public assistance, widely considered a key voting demographic for the Obama 2012 campaign.

In the past, President Obama worked for Project Vote as a trainer and organizer. According to the records obtained by Judicial Watch through its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed on August 19, 2011, “civil rights groups” discussed Section 7 of National Voting Rights Act, which requires states to offer voter registration services at all public assistance agencies.

The groups included Project Vote, the American Association of People with Disabilities, Demos, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Brennan Center for Justice, the Fair Elections Legal Network, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense Fund, and Paralyzed Veterans of America.

On March 29, 2011, Estelle Rogers and the “voting rights groups” that met with Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli on March 17, 2011, providing recommendations for strengthening “compliance with the NVRA.

The recommendations stated “we are grateful that you have invited us to continue this dialogue on the Department’s [DOJ's] role in providing guidance to states, and we would be happy to supply any additional information you need.”

The records also detail an effort by Rogers to secure jobs for three individual applicants for positions with Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section, the department within the DOJ responsible for enforcing the National Voting Rights Act:

* “ In a February 23, 2010 email to Chief of the DOJ’s Voting Section, Rogers wrote, “I want to heartily recommend two candidates to you. [NAMES REDACTED]” In an April 20, 2010, email, Rogers stated, “I look forward to continuing to work with you, Chris. And please let me know if you need any more feedback regarding hires.”
 

* In a December 7, 2010 email, Rogers wrote, “I’d still love to talk for real, but in the meantime, the main reason I called is that you have an applicant for the [REDACTED] position [REDACTED] qualifies her beautifully for your position, and I hope you will give her every consideration. [REDACTED] So she would be a great fit, and I recommend her without reservation. Please let me know if I can tell you more. And give me a call if you possibly can.”
 

* In a July 13, 2010, email to Herren and DOJ political appointee Julie Fernandes, Rogers references NVRA litigation and she informs Herren that she will be bringing Niyati Shah to a meeting at the DOJ. Shah “will be working on a lot of the litigation we’ll be telling you about,” Rogers writes.

Rogers also indicated Nicole Kovite Zeitler, director of Project Vote’s public agency registration project, would also attend the meeting.

As reported by The American Spectator’s Matthew Vadum, Zeitler “manages Project Vote’s efforts to advocate for enforcement of Section 7 of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 through technical assistance and litigation across the country,” according to her bio on Project Vote’s website.

As Director of Advocacy for Project Vote, Estelle Rogers — a former attorney for ACORN, which was besieged with charges of corruption and fraud before declaring bankruptcy in November 2010 — is a primary contact person on policy matters at Project Vote on both state and federal levels and has been actively involved in voter registration issues.

By threatening lawsuits under Section 7 of the NVRA, Project Vote has aggressively sought to force election officials in various states to increase the registration of people receiving public assistance.

On June 20, 2011, Rogers and the ACLU co-wrote a letter to the DOJ, asking the department to block Florida’s new election integrity law (H.B. 1355). Florida has since withdrawn its application to the DOJ for “preclearance” of the law, and has taken its case to court instead.

On August 4, 2011, Judicial Watch obtained documents from the Colorado Department of State showing that ACORN and Project Vote successfully pressured Colorado officials into implementing new policies for increasing the registration of public assistance recipients during the 2008 and 2010 election seasons.

Following the policy changes, the percentage of invalid voter registration forms from Colorado public assistance agencies was four times the national average. Project Vote also sought a “legislative fix” to allow people without a driver’s license or state identification to register to vote online.

In addition to pursuing public agency registration cases in Missouri, Ohio, Indiana, Georgia, and New Mexico, Project Vote and the NAACP filed a lawsuit on April 19, 2011, against the State of Louisiana alleging violations of the NVRA. Less than three months later, on July 12, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division/Voting Section sued Louisiana on the same grounds, claiming that “Louisiana officials have not routinely offered voter registration forms, assistance and services to the state’s eligible citizens who apply, recertify or provide a change address for public assistance or disability services.”

The DOJ also sued the State of Rhode Island on March 11, 2011, alleging violations of the NVRA.

The lawsuit led to policy changes intended to increase the number of voter registration applications processed by “public assistance and disability service officers.”

These two lawsuits, filed within five months of each other, are the first such lawsuits filed by the DOJ since 2007.

Project Vote and the “community organization” ACORN have both been linked to massive voter registration fraud. A total of 70 ACORN employees in 12 states have been convicted of voter registration fraud.

And as documented in a July 2009 report by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, of the 1.3 million registrations Project Vote/ACORN submitted in the 2008 election cycle, more than one-third were invalid.

Moreover, Project Vote’s “Field Director,” Amy Busefink, who handled the online registration campaign for Colorado, entered an Alford plea to two gross misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit the crime of compensation for registration of voters in Nevada while working for ACORN.

(An Alford plea is a guilty plea, where the defendant does not admit the act or assert innocence, but admits that sufficient evidence exists with which the prosecution could likely convince a judge or jury to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.)

“It is an affront to the rule of law and a threat to the integrity of our elections that the ACORN-front Project Vote is coordinating with the Holder Department of Justice on voting law,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

“Now we know why the Holder DOJ never bothered to fully investigate voter registration fraud by Project Vote/ACORN – because Project Vote and the Department of Justice seem to have implemented a joint litigation strategy in the run up to the 2012 elections,” said Fitton.

Source: Examiner

Editor’s Note: Special thanks to Jill Farrell, director of public affairs for Judicial Watch” for her valuable input and assistance with this story.

When members of a militant group attempted to intimidate white voters, Holder’s DOJ couldn’t care less. Credits: Newsbusters/DotPenn.com

Jim Kouri, CPP, formerly Fifth Vice-President, is currently a Board Member of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, an editor for ConservativeBase.com, and he’s a columnist for Examiner.com. 

In addition, he’s a blogger for the Cheyenne, Wyoming Fox News Radio affiliate KGAB (http://www.kgab.com/). Kouri also serves as political advisor for Emmy and Golden Globe winning actor Michael Moriarty. 

He’s former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed “Crack City” by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s.

In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations.  He’s also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country.  

Kouri writes for many police and security magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, the Narc Officer and others. He’s a news writer and columnist for AmericanDaily.Com, MensNewsDaily.Com, MichNews.Com, and he’s syndicated by AXcessNews.Com.  

Kouri appears regularly as on-air commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Fox News Channel, Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, etc. You can reach him at Copmagazine@aol.com. 

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By Farid A. Khavari

As corruption is all about money and power, ridding of corruption is no easy task.

The fact is that power attracts money, money leads to political power, and this in turn breeds into a vicious cycle of corruption.

A corrupt society cannot last forever without suffering gradual economic and social declines with no gains for the public.

Since the long-term interest of the majority of the people is at stake, sooner or later, members of society would strive towards creating a corruption-free economy.

However, to come to this realization, they must first be aware of it.

On the other hand, reforming any rigid system involving different groups with vast financial interests can be a very difficult, if not an impossible task.

Since these interest groups are heading towards their limits, demands for reform will become an inevitable issue as we are witnessing already in Miami-Dade County and elsewhere in the nation.

For instance, the Occupy movement is one of these phenomena. The question becomes ‘how one should handle this matter without causing too much friction in terms of loss of time, energy and resources, avoiding the potential resistance of all involved special interest groups?’

Since power attracts money, and money leads to power, the main task would be to devise a system that separates these two self-attracting elements from the politics. 

Then neutralize each other’s influence on the other the same way as we have come to the realization to keep religion separate from politics.

If we give some thoughts to how corruption is created, it becomes very clear that everyone of us have been involved in some way to keep corruption alive.

In other words, it’s not just the politicians who are or can be corrupt, but also those who help them to get elected are somehow a part of it, either knowingly or unknowingly.

The fact that one cannot truly know anything substantive about the character of a politician with whom they have not spent any time, or know very little about, and yet they support the politicians because of the power of media, advertisements, or party loyalty, essentially are complicit in the corruption.

How?

Money buys the media support and public relations, the advertisements, and the party support, which in turn gets politicians voted into the office by poorly informed or ignorant voters.

Since favors must be returned for the money spent, corruption is created. As this process continues, it leads to further forms of corruption that were discussed in articles I and II of this series.

Corruption is not always tangible like when money changes hands upon the completion of a transaction or a promise for a certain action. It also happens in an intangible way.

This occurs when steps are taken in form of recommendations or incomplete or biased reporting of the media in favor of one or another politician with very little regard to the qualifications of those candidates or politicians.

Again, it is safe to assume that this is still an action that can be taken to be a favor expecting some type of return.

Therefore, the first step towards rooting out corruption in Miami-Dade County or anywhere else would be sifting through the election process. To achieve this goal, it would require that:

1) The people are made aware of the issues and the capabilities of the political candidates as well as their background which would include being aware of their education and fields of expertise.

In addition, the candidates should be required to present their detailed political agenda to the voters and to the media, which ideally would be “unbiased” but could also be “corrupt.”

2) Candidates should all equally be able to access public financing and not raise donations from lobbying and special interest groups. The yardstick to measure the qualification of candidates should not be the funds they raise, but their agenda.

3) The media should be obligated to give an equal space or time to all candidates without favoring one against another. They should be obligated to give objective reporting.

Further, the media should provide space or time to the candidates to correct any misrepresentations made by the media.

4) A popular public Web site should be created where the candidates could present their views of the issues and topics of their concern and agenda as well as having critics give their objective opinions of those views.

5) Ethnic media should be made by law accessible to all candidates regardless of their background and language barriers.

Although, the implementation of these steps would help drastically to resolve some of the major problems leading to corruption, we must make sure that the corruption never takes over the political process once the candidate has been elected into the office.

Until we understand all problems involved that lead to corruption, we will never be able to deal with them in an effective way.

How to Combat Corruption once the Candidates are in Office?

We need to introduce a series of other measures to make sure that the elected officials would be free from all the temptations and dubious activities that would foster corruption.

The following is a list of suggested measures:

1)    Incompetence, dishonesty and greed: These are the chronic symptoms of politicians that do not have the necessary economic knowledge. They do not understand that running an economy is vastly different than running a business.

In business one strives to minimize the cost, and maximize the profits. To run an economy of a county like a business would be disastrous.

When one balances a budget by cutting cost and without increasing revenues, you end up with a vicious cycle of unemployment, homelessness, and poverty.

In order to run an economy we need to optimize our benefits by implementing policies that decelerate all types of costs. This is not simply a hollow theory; it is the only way to achieve this goal. We will discuss this issue more thoroughly in future articles.

2) Politicians’ ineptness and corruption in feeding cronyism, nepotism, favoritism and unfair treatments of different interest groups for personal gains.

Even if an elected politician is honest and has integrity, the system turns him into a corrupt person unless the attraction and the temptation of financial gains and the power of money are eliminated from the equation.

This could be achieved when lobbying money is replaced with public financing and a fair economic system is introduced. It should be clear that in a political world, in which power attracts money, and money buys power, honesty and integrity will always remain strangers.

3) Lobbying groups: Any lobbying that is accompanied with money sets the foundation for corruption because favors must be returned for the monies received. You simply end up with legalized bribery.

There is a good reason why a growing number of people consider themselves among the 99% of desperate and frustrated societal members as compared to the elite 1%.

Regardless of the exact numbers, it would be safe to say that the overwhelming majority of the people that consider themselves among the 99% of the population do not benefit from the lobbying money.

On the other hand, why should lobbying exists only for certain special interest groups who cough up big money, and then impose their wills on the rest of us?

To resolve this matter, we should again encourage public financing and outlaw lobbying money, big contributions, and even limit the usage of personal funds of the candidates and politicians themselves.

4) Unrealistic demands of the Union Leaders: Generally two major problems exist with the union leaders with regard to setting the tone for corruption:

a) When the union leaders enter a deal with a candidate/politician to deliver the respective members’ votes in exchange for a better position for the union leader with higher pay without giving a single thought as to where the funds should come from, and/or

b) Demanding special concessions in the form of benefits and financial gains for the union members in the form of higher salaries, better pension, etc. in exchange for their votes without giving a single thought as to where the funds should come from.

In order to resolve this problem, we have to create a fair capitalistic economic system that provides economic security. In other words, a system that serves the general public as opposed to one that serves the richest elite of society.

To learn more about the features of a “general capitalistic system,” which I call it “Zero Cost Economy” or “Carefree Economy,” the readers should visit .

5) Removal of the financial power from the political power: Neither the mayor nor any of the deputies should have the power to decide about contract assignments.

Otherwise, this would immediately lead to corruptive practices like nepotism such as the case with Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez and his two sons, Carlos Jr. and Julio, which we’ve discussed already in Part One.

Further, county contracts must be divided according to some kind of formula among all the companies of that county in accordance to some guidelines that take into account the qualifications of the vendors so that different ethnic groups and other participants obtain their fair share of the work.

In order to neutralize the corruptive temptation of the elected officials involved, the task should be given to reputable and professional residents of the county, who would be willing to take over this task by receiving compensation for the services rendered.

These professionals should be selected randomly from reputable and professionals of the related field and would function as a blind committee. This group could be created from the qualified applicants.

This would help to get rid of favoritism, nepotism, and cronyism to some extent and possibly eliminate it altogether.

Certainly, cases like Mayor Gimenez and his sons, and recommendations such as those made by the former chairman of the Miami-Dade Ethic Commission, Robert Myers would never occur, and cronies such as Mayor Gimenez deputies, Genaro Iglesias and Robert Bryson would not be able to serve Mayor Gimenez and his sons interests.

This was covered in Part Two.

When cronies cannot serve to make financial gain, their existence would become unnecessary. Consequently, the county would save more money from the salaries of un-needed deputies and their staff members.

Sooner or later, cronyism and nepotism would become an extinct species.

6) Eliminating arbitrary setting of the salaries for the government employees: It is simply absurd that a secretary in government makes $150,000 and spends the time enjoying “Miami Spice” with her boss.

(See Part Two of this series of articles) Government jobs must be compensated similar to those in the private sector.

To weed out inefficiency in the government jobs, payments must be based on a low fixed weekly or monthly payments, plus compensation per piecework.

This method would make employees work harder to make more money, and those that are less efficient would be on their way out.

This concept would not only make the government increasingly efficient, but also reduce the size of the government, and thus reducing the cost drastically. With this method, there won’t be too much room for “favoritism.” (With regard to this issue, please see Part One.)

Further, balancing the budget would no longer be a nightmare for an incompetent mayor. Due to increasing revenues and decreasing expenses, the property taxes could be reduced just through this measure.

7) Promoting qualification over ethnic influences: As when a matter of life and death is at stake, never a person in distress would question about the ethnicity of the surgeon, who is about to perform the lifesaving surgery.

Similarly, the voters should not care about a candidates’ ethnical background and any other personal issues as long as he/she has the needed qualifications for that position, and can save the economic well-being of this county. The only factors that count are the following:

The candidate is qualified, meaning that he/she understands the problems and has solutions to implement, and he/she cares about all the residents of that county without tilting towards one or another ethnic group within that county.

The negative impacts of the drive to elect a candidate with a certain ethnicity as opposed to the candidate’s qualifications and interest in the wellbeing  of constituents would be very far reaching.

For one, the negative effects of an incompetent elected government official would hurt the people of his/her ethnic group from which that politician was elected.

On the other hand, if this practice of candidate selection becomes the norm to follow, then another ethic group may find the overhand, when their population overwhelms that of the other group.

The worst part of this practice is that the community would be deprived of a competent politician, and would end up promoting corruption in the form of favoritism, which would divide the community as whole.

8) Have the community involved in deciding to allow insourcing companies to invest in Miami-Dade County. This would help negate the temptation to accept any kind of monetary compensation, especially if it’s turned over to the reputable professionals of the county with no direct and immediate interest in the sought after enterprises.

Keep in mind, our primary goal should always be to make sure that the companies operating in Miami-Dade County are owned and operated by the people that live in the county and the generated revenue remains in the county.

9) One simple act of corruption promotion is the recommendation of media without knowing the candidates very well, and basing decisions on an hour or two of superficial interviews with the candidates by the board of editors that ask questions without the expertise to follow up answers.

Should this practice be exercised by the media, it requires that the session prior to their recommendation should be a public affair, in which public could watch the event and be able to judge the credibility and competence of the interviewers and the board of editors of the related media.

10) Biased reporting, false advertising and unethical campaigning all are major contributions to political corruption. What can one expect from a candidate who has been pushed into the office with dubious and questionable and unethical methods?

To avoid this practice, and make the candidates concentrate on issues, it should be imposed on those who choose this method to be obligated to offer a free space or spot for response or rebuttal by the opposing candidate.

This step would weed out a big number of candidates with dubious and unethical character immediately. Decency would return to the government.

Corruption is rooted far deeper in the community than those explained, but these initial steps are the most necessary ones to be taken in order to bring back sanity to our political and electoral process and much needed economic security for all residents of this great county.

Editor’s Note: Farid A. Khavari, Ph.D., is a noted economist and author of nine books, including the classic Environomics and his latest, Towards a Zero-Cost Economy. You can reach him at faridkhavari@bellsouth.net

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By Alan Caruba

The sixteen names of the scientists who jointly signed the article in The Wall Street Journal, “No Need to Panic About Global Warming”  on January 27th are mostly unknown to the general public. Perhaps the best known would be Harrison H. Schmidt, a former Apollo 17 astronaut and U.S. Senator. Others might recognize Burt Rutan, an aerospace engineer and designer of Voyager and SpaceShip One.

Moreover, not only were the signers distinguished scientists, but they came from places like Paris, France and Cambridge, England, Jerusalem, Israel, and Geneva, Switzerland. Mostly climatologists and meteorologists, some were physicists and astrophysicists.

Antonio Zichichi, one signer, is president of the World Federation of Scientists. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the combined credentials of these men represent some of the best minds on planet Earth in their respective fields.

What brought them together?

On the surface it was just another of the countless articles that have been published over the years as scientists of real merit and courage took on the juggernaut of those for whom global warming had become a vast flow of government and foundation funding.

The effort was to “prove” that carbon dioxide (CO2) was building up in the atmosphere and would soon incinerate Earth by trapping the heat from the sun. It had not done that in the 5.4 billion years of the Earth’s existence, but the “warmists” claims came day after day and year after year.

They permeated every aspect of society and you can go into any school in America and find textbooks still selling this garbage.

Until, that is, 2009 when thousands of emails between the small clique of scientists working for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were leaked on the Internet and it became clear that even they knew the Earth had entered a cooling cycle around 1998.

The challenges to their bogus computer “models” were coming like cannon balls against their academic castles in America and England.

Starting in 2008, The Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based 27-year-old, non-profit research organization, sponsored four international conferences on climate change, attracting the top scientists and world leaders courageous enough to speak out against the global warming hoax.

The momentum of opposition began to build against those who, from the late 1980s had warned that, in Al Gore’s words, “the world has caught a fever.”

The Wall Street Journal article said, in the plainest language, that candidates for public office “in any contemporary democracy…should understand that the oft-repeated claim that nearly all scientists demand that something dramatic be done to stop global warming is not true.”

In fact, scientists had been signing petitions opposing the global warming hoax for a very long time. The problem was that the mainstream media either paid them no attention or dismissed them as “skeptics” and “deniers”.

With a light touch, the Wall Street Journal article noted that “Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over ten years now.”

It wasn’t as if the warmists did not know it. It was more like they regarded it as a problem to be solved by changing references to global warming to “climate change.”

Their current dying gasps have to do with warnings about “extreme climate events” that have been occurring for eons; tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, floods and earthquakes; now all routinely attributed to too much carbon dioxide.

The article calmly said, “The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant.” Indeed, more CO2 in the atmosphere is a good thing, aiding increasing crop growth and healthier forests and jungles worldwide.

Someone needs to tell that to the Environmental Protection Agency that is striving mightily to shut down coal-fired energy plants for emitting CO2.

Add their efforts to do the same to a wide swatch of American industry and you get an agency that is in great need of being abolished.

“There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to ‘decarbonize’ the world’s economy.

In time, historians may look back and conclude that the January 27th article was, in fact, global warming’s death certificate, signed by an international group of scientists who could not be disputed no matter how many times the warmists jump up and down and cry that the sky is falling.

It has taken a very long time for most of the public to come to the conclusion that they have been the object of an elaborate hoax.

In America polls demonstrate that global warming is at the very bottom of their concerns these days.

In time, wind and solar power, electric cars, biofuels, and other environmental delusions will join that list.

Source: Alan Caruba (C)

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