Rep. Devin Nunes of Visalia, Calif., has come forward with a legislative remedy for the policies that have turned fertile fields into hollowed-out dust bowls in the name of "being green."
Nunes' Sacramento-San Joaquin Water Reliability Act goes to a vote in the House Wednesday and if it passes, it will guarantee that water the farmers paid for finally gets to the parched Central Valley. It will put an end to the sorry stream of shriveled vineyards, blackened almond groves and unemployed farm workers standing in alms lines for bagged carrots from China.
The insanity of the current policies against some of America's most productive farmers in one of the world's richest farm belts is largely the work leftist politicians from the wealthy enclaves of the San Francisco Bay Area. This group has exerted its political muscle on the less politically powerful region that produces more than half the fruits and vegetables consumed in the U.S. — with $26 billion in annual sales.
"The bill restores the flow of water and establishes a framework for meaningful environmental improvements. It is a repudiation of the left's assault on rural communities, which began with the decimation of the West's timber industry and now is focused on Central Valley agriculture," Nunes told IBD.
The stand-alone bill, H.R. 1837, marks the first time Central Valley water shortages and the federal role in creating them will be considered directly in Congress.
In the past, said Nunes' spokesman Andrew House, these water bills have been buried in omnibus spending legislation. Forcing politicians to stand up and be counted should end the backroom deals that benefit special interest groups.
House also said the bill has bipartisan support and should pass in the House. Maybe that's why the left is screaming bloody murder and rousting its environmental allies for a scare campaign about "agribusiness" and the supposedly omnipotent hand of "Big Almond."
In reality, even local environmental groups and the scientific community are on board, as well as the moderate Democratic Congress members whose districts are most directly affected by the policies.
That said, it might face a battle in the Democrat-controlled Senate, where both of California's senators — Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer — legislate as Bay Area Democrats. Their opposition stands in stark contrast to the absurdities the current policies have wrought. Here are five:
• Fresh water is dumped into the sea. Environmental rules force water-rich Northern Californian farmers to flush 70% of their fresh water into the ocean, supposedly to help the Delta smelt, instead of selling it to San Joaquin Valley farmers. The practice hasn't done a thing to help the smelt.
• Federal protection of non-native species. Yep, environmental laws as they stand protect non-native species such as the striped bass, at the expense of farmers.
• Expropriation without compensation. California farmers' water rights date back centuries. They are billed for 100% of the allocations, but their allotments can be as low as 9%, depending on what regulators rule.
• Fake endangered species numbers. While the federal government forces taxpayers to fund fish hatcheries to beef up endangered species, their numbers aren't counted even as they teem in California's streams.
• Junk science rewarded. A federal judge denounced the lies of Fish and Wildlife Service employees on the Delta smelt count. After that reprimand, they were last heard from getting "distinguished service" awards from their bureaucracy.
All of these follies and more will end with this bill. With California's water wars now a threat to America's food supply, both chambers should pass it.
Act of Valor opened last weekend to an enthusiastic response from movie-goers–it topped all films with a $24.5 million gross–but a less enthusiastic reaction from liberal critics and pundits. A common theme was that Act of Valor is propaganda. Thus, the Washington Postheadlined: “‘Act of Valor’ with real-life SEALs: new breed of war movie or propaganda?” Ann Hornaday wrote:
But the surprising, if not unprecedented, use of so many active-duty military personnel, as well as the filmmakers’ embedded access to training missions and material (including a nuclear submarine) have put “Act of Valor” in the crosshairs of critics who question whether the movie crosses the line between entertainment and propaganda, and whether the military should be in the movie business at all.
Ms. Hornaday’s article contains a number of howlers–I love her reference to “the Obama era of surgical warfare”–but she was far from the only one to float the idea that Act of Valor is propaganda. Other liberals have called the movie “a poor act of military propaganda, A display of heroism or American propaganda? a flashy piece of propaganda, Hollywood war propaganda, and the Pentagon’s amnesia-inducing propaganda. We could go on and on, but let’s close with this one: “Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Beast is asking whether Act of Valor is propaganda.”
Well, the movie is certainly pro-Seals. Whether that makes it propaganda, you can decide for yourself. What is funny about this, however, is that quite a few movies have been made about post-September 11 warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world. Virtually every one of them has been shameless propaganda. You probably didn’t see them–hardly anyone did, for the most part–so let’s call the roll of shame: Fahrenheit 9/11; Rendition; In the Valley of Elah; Why We Fight; Homecoming; The War Within; Lions For Lambs; Stop Loss; Redacted; No End In Sight; The Kingdom; and Home of the Brave. No doubt I’ve missed a few. These films were anti-war, anti-military propaganda. Audiences avoided them like the plague, but the Washington Post had no problem with anti-war propaganda, nor did any of the critics, pundits or news outlets linked above.
Countless anti-military movies can be made, and continue to be made, even though their backers must know that they are destined to lose money. But if they are countered by a single pro-military movie, liberals get out their cloves of garlic and crosses–no, wait, just the garlic–and try to ward off the evil spirit of “propaganda.” It is a humorous phenomenon, but not one that will influence American movie-goers in the slightest.
BY: -
The Obama administration’s proposed defense budget calls for military families and retirees to pay sharply more for their healthcare, while leaving unionized civilian defense workers’ benefits untouched. The proposal is causing a major rift within the Pentagon, according to U.S. officials. Several congressional aides suggested the move is designed to increase the enrollment in Obamacare’s state-run insurance exchanges.
The disparity in treatment between civilian and uniformed personnel is causing a backlash within the military that could undermine recruitment and retention.
The proposed increases in health care payments by service members, which must be approved by Congress, are part of the Pentagon’s $487 billion cut in spending. It seeks to save $1.8 billion from the Tricare medical system in the fiscal 2013 budget, and $12.9 billion by 2017.
Many in Congress are opposing the proposed changes, which would require the passage of new legislation before being put in place.
“We shouldn’t ask our military to pay our bills when we aren’t willing to impose a similar hardship on the rest of the population,” Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a Republican from California, said in a statement to the Washington Free Beacon. “We can’t keep asking those who have given so much to give that much more.”
Administration officials told Congress that one goal of the increased fees is to force military retirees to reduce their involvement in Tricare and eventually opt out of the program in favor of alternatives established by the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.
“When they talked to us, they did mention the option of healthcare exchanges under Obamacare. So it’s in their mind,” said a congressional aide involved in the issue.
Military personnel from several of the armed services voiced their opposition to a means-tested tier system for Tricare, prompting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey to issue a statement Feb. 21.
Dempsey said the military is making tough choices in cutting defense spending. In addition to the $487 billion over 10 years, the Pentagon is facing automatic cuts that could push the total reductions to $1 trillion.
“I want those of you who serve and who have served to know that we’ve heard your concerns, in particular your concern about the tiered enrollment fee structure for Tricare in retirement,” Dempsey said. “You have our commitment that we will continue to review our health care system to make it as responsive, as affordable, and as equitable as possible.”
Under the new plan, the Pentagon would get the bulk of its savings by targeting under-65 and Medicare-eligible military retirees through a tiered increase in annual Tricare premiums that will be based on yearly retirement pay.
Significantly, the plan calls for increases between 30 percent to 78 percent in Tricare annual premiums for the first year. After that, the plan will impose five-year increases ranging from 94 percent to 345 percent—more than 3 times current levels.
According to congressional assessments, a retired Army colonel with a family currently paying $460 a year for health care will pay $2,048.
The new plan hits active duty personnel by increasing co-payments for pharmaceuticals and eliminating incentives for using generic drugs.
The changes are worrying some in the Pentagon who fear it will severely impact efforts to recruit and maintain a high-quality all-volunteer military force. Such benefits have been a key tool for recruiting qualified people and keeping them in uniform.
“Would you stay with a car insurance company that raised your premiums by 345 percent in five years? Probably not,” said the congressional aide. “Would anybody accept their taxes being raised 345 percent in five years? Probably not.”
A second congressional aide said the administration’s approach to the cuts shows a double standard that hurts the military.
“We all recognize that we are in a time of austerity,” this aide said. “But defense has made up to this point 50 percent of deficit reduction cuts that we agreed to, but is only 20 percent of the budget.”
The administration is asking troops to get by without the equipment and force levels needed for global missions. “And now they are going to them again and asking them to pay more for their health care when you’ve held the civilian workforce at DoD and across the federal government virtually harmless in all of these cuts. And it just doesn’t seem fair,” the second aide said.
Spokesmen for the Defense Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff did not respond to requests for comment on the Tricare increases.
The massive increases beginning next year appear timed to avoid upsetting military voters in a presidential election year, critics of the plan say.
Additionally, the critics said leaving civilian workers’ benefits unchanged while hitting the military reflect the administration’s effort to court labor unions, as government unions are the only segment of organized labor that has increased in recent years.
As part of the increased healthcare costs, the Pentagon also will impose an annual fee for a program called Tricare for Life, a new program that all military retirees automatically must join at age 65. Currently, to enroll in Tricare for Life, retirees pay the equivalent of a monthly Medicare premium.
Under the proposed Pentagon plan, retirees will be hit with an additional annual enrollment fee on top of the monthly premium.
Congressional aides said that despite unanimous support among the military chiefs for the current healthcare changes, some senior officials in the Pentagon are opposing the reforms, in particular the tiered system of healthcare.
“It doesn’t matter what the benefit is, whether it’s commissary, PX, or healthcare, or whatever … under the rationale that if you raise your hand and sign up to serve, you earn a base set of benefits, and it should have nothing to do with your rank when you served, and how much you’re making when you retire,” the first aide said.
Military service organizations are opposing the healthcare changes and say the Pentagon is “means-testing” benefits for service personnel as if they were a social program, and not something earned with 20 or more years of military service.
Retired Navy Capt. Kathryn M. Beasley, of the Military Officers Association of America, said the Military Coalition, 32 military service and veterans groups with an estimated 5 million members, is fighting the proposed healthcare increases, specifically the use of mean-testing for cost increases.
“We think it’s absolutely wrong,” Beasley told the Free Beacon. “This is a breach of faith” for both the active duty and retiree communities.
Congressional hearings are set for next month.
The Veterans of Foreign Wars on Feb. 23 called on all military personnel and the veterans’ community to block the healthcare increases.
“There is no military personnel issue more sacrosanct than pay and benefits,” said Richard L. DeNoyer, head of the 2 million-member VFW. “Any proposal that negatively impacts any quality of life program must be defeated, and that’s why the VFW is asking everyone to join the fight and send a united voice to Congress.”
Senior Air Force leaders are expected to be asked about the health care cost increases during a House Armed Services Committee hearing scheduled for Tuesday.
Congress must pass all the proposed changes into law, as last year’s defense authorization bill preemptively limited how much the Pentagon could increase some Tricare fees, while other fees already were limited in law.
Tricare for Life, Tricare Prime, and Tricare Standard increases must be approved, as well as some of the pharmacy fee increases, congressional aides said.
Current law limits Tricare fee increases to cost of living increases in retirement pay.
The Daily Caller has obtained a copy of a December 2011 bank statement mailed to Occupy Wall Street, the anti-capitalist protest group whose leaders’ rallying cry positions them as defenders of America’s less-privileged “99 percent.” But the organization’s bank balance in December may instead re-cast the occupiers as defenders of the $99,000.
The bank statement was mailed to the organization at a box rented in a UPS Store on Fulton Street in lower Manhattan. On the Dec. 30 closing date, Amalgamated Bank reported $99,549.58 in the account, including $23,120 in deposits during that month alone.
Amalgamated is owned by the Workers United labor union.
TheDC has also obtained copies of two December statement pages from a second bank account owned by an Occupy Wall Street-affiliated organization called Friends of Liberty Park. Those pages show records of nine checks and ten cash withdrawals, all signed by Pete Dutro, the group’s leader and Occupy Wall Street’s financial manager at the time.
While the materials clearly reflect two separate bank accounts, only the last two digits of their nine-digit account numbers are different. TheDC has redacted its copies of the documents to remove those account numbers.
Sources who provided TheDC with copies of the bank statements also provided a copy of meeting minutes from a Feb. 17 gathering of an Occupy Wall Street subgroup called “OWS Reform.” Notes taken during the meeting include an observation that the Friends of Liberty Park account “went from $310,168.74 at 12/01 to $147,040.15 at 12/30,” reflecting a loss of more than half the account’s value during the month of December.
“Why not call an independent auditor and have them go over the books?” the minutes ask. Criticizing the movement’s self-anointed finance officers, they complain that a lack of access to the movement’s bank accounts “gives them hierarchy in a supposedly leaderless movement.”
“The issue is people don’t trust accounting.”
Dutro, 36, is now a New York City tattoo artist. His LinkedIn profile lists “Finance at Occupy Wall Street” as a “former” occupation.
Cash withdrawals from the Friends of Liberty Park account in December totaled $115,500. While one $7,500 withdrawal was cryptically earmarked for “Edmonton” and another $17,000 was removed from the account for “kitchen” and “sanitation,” most of the expenses were for food and “petty [cash].”
Two withdrawal slips — one for $4,000 — included notes reflecting the the cash was for “bail.”
Expenses paid by check in December include $9,310 to two Manhattan churches for “housing” and $8,564 to Lisa Guido for “t-shirts.”
Guido, according to an October online profile of t-shirt printers in the Occupy movement, is the lead volunteer in the Occupy Wall Street Screenprinting Lab. Slogans on t-shirts displayed on a Flickr Web page belonging to the lab include “Corporations are not people,” “Don’t buy, Let’s occupy” and “Fight back world wide: Capitalism is the crisis.”
Friends of Liberty Park paid Dr. Shay K. Bey $508 on December 20 for what the check writer called “damaged property.” Bey lives in a historic building adjacent to Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem.
Another check, for $7,400, went to Zak Solomon Miller, a 2009 University of California Berkeley graduate whose Facebook profile identifies him as an Occupy Wall Street employee.
That check’s memo field describes the payment as being related to “GA” [general assembly] and “DA” [direct action] expenses on December 13. An online summary of that day’s Occupy Wall Street general assembly notes the approval of a $7,400 expenditure “for supplies for D17 [December 17, 2011] Action.”
On December 17, which marked the end of the Occupy movement’s first three months, New York City police arrested at least 49 protesters during that “action,” which organizers called a “re-occupy” rally. The Associated Press reported that protesters “scaled a chain-link fence or crawled under it to get to an Episcopal church-owned lot they want to use for a new camp site.”
As some protesters were arrested, the AP said, others “shouted obscenities and hollered: ‘Make them catch you!’”
During the same Dec. 13 Occupy Wall Street general assembly that funded the “direct action,” online records show, activists representing an “Occupy Farms” group proposed a $15,000 expenditure “for start up fund for the farm.” The meeting notes recorded that the proposal was “[t]abled by group due to lack of GA participants.”
But on Dec. 21, $15,000 was withdrawn from the Friends of Liberty Park account. The bank counter slip reflects that the money was for “GA proposals for … farms.”
The electronic newspaper The Daily reported on Dec. 15 that a group of Occupy activists had begun to cultivate land, commune-style, on a 56-acre former dairy farm in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains.
The $15,000 windfall, The Daily’s article said, “would be earmarked for farm tools, beds for 50 people and outreach funds to recruit other farms in other states, including Massachusetts and Florida.”
The two bank accounts reflected in the documents obtained by The Daily Caller are not the only ones the Occupy Wall Street movement has had. In October, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union was home to another Occupy account, also opened by Friends of Liberty Park.
The credit union made news when it decided to include Occupy Wall Street among the honorees at a 25th anniversary dinner partially underwritten by a $5,000 donation from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The Occupy movement has referred to bankers as “evil,” among other less polite adjectives.
According to the New York Post, Pete Dutro and another Occupy leader stayed at Manhattan’s $700-per-night W Hotel Downtown after police emptied Zuccotti Park in November. One of the hotel’s marketing slogans is “Unleash your inner Gordon Gekko.”
Dutro did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Pennsylvania man assaulted in October by a Muslim who was offended by his Halloween parade “Zombie Muhammad” costume said he has received hundreds of death threats after a judge dismissed his attacker’s criminal charges.
Ernest Perce told The Daily Caller that Talaag Elbayomy, a Muslim man, “grabbed me, choked me from the back, and spun me around to try to get my sign off that was wrapped around my neck.”
Elbayomy reportedly admitted to a police officer, Sgt. Bryan Curtis, that he attempted to rip Perce’s fake beard off, remove his “Muhammed of Islam” sign and choke him.
Perce said he believes Elbayomy thought it was illegal in the United States to insult Muhammad, as it is in countries whose governments are based on Sharia law.
Last week Judge Mark Martin sided with Perce’s attacker, saying in open court that Perce would be put to death in Muslim societies for showing disrespect to Muhammad. The judge dismissed the charges against Elbayomy.
“You’re way outside your boundaries of First Amendment rights,” the judge said during the trial.
“Martin’s decision effectively says that Muslims do not have to learn to accept blasphemy against their religion without violence.” Pence told TheDC. “Yet when you are a citizen of the USA, you accept our Constitution. Free speech is our foundation.” (RELATED: Judge dismisses charges against Muslim man who attacked atheist dress as ‘Zombie Muhammad’)
The same judge is also threatening Perce with contempt of court for making and sharing a recording of the courtroom hearing.
Listen to the courtroom proceedings:
Perce says he has received 471 threats against his life in the short time since his attacker was acquitted.
“People have said that they would kill me, rip my eyes out, run me over, shoot me and then laugh at me, since I have blasphemed Muhammad,” he told TheDC. “They say I will be found out and hung in front of my family.”
During his trial, Talaag Elbayomy claimed he never made physical contact with Perce, creating what Judge Martin called a he-said/she-said situation. Sgt. Curtis testified that Perce’s version of events was correct, but the judge ignored his testimony.
Judge Martin also refused to allow a video taken the night of the attack to be entered as evidence.
Perce told TheDC that he believes Martin did not allow the video to be shown in his courtroom because he “would be offended.”
In fact, Martin told Perce during the proceedings that “I’m a Muslim” and “I find it offensive.”
Perce says Martin held a copy of the Quran while admonishing him for disrespecting Muhammad with his costume. (Judge Martin has since denied being a Muslim.)
Martin’s threat of contempt charges came after Perce posted his own audio recording of the proceedings on YouTube.
Perce says the judge initially gave him permission to release it, but the court later instructed him to erase it.
He told TheDC that he wrote to Bonnie Snyder, administrative secretary of the Cumberland County District Court in Pennsylvania, explaining that “Judge Martin gave both parties the right/permission to record the proceeding on our cellular devices.”
Snyder denied this. “Are you instructing me via Judge Martin to destroy or delete and not use my audio recording?” he asked.
“Yes, since you were not authorized to make any recordings,” Snyder replied.
Perce said Judge Martin told him, “I will hold you in contempt of court under section 42 of the Judicial System” if he didn’t remove the audio from YouTube.
“He denies this now,” said Perce, “but this is what he told me.”
A radical Muslim group with ties to the Obama Administration will be featuring the head of the Democratic National Committee, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, as the keynote speaker for its annual fundraising banquet this coming April. By agreeing to partake in the event, Wasserman Schultz is helping to further this organization’s nefarious agenda of placing Islamists into positions of American power and influence. It is this stealth jihad which threatens our country not from abroad, but from within.
EMERGE USA was founded as a non-profit corporation in the state of Florida, in November 2006, under its original name, Center for Voter Advocacy (CVA). In 2009, CVA merged with a Texas entity founded by current EMERGE board member and project manager of Shell Oil in Houston, Afaq J. Durrani, called the Coalition of New American Communities (CONAC). Apart from EMERGE, CVA still exists as a separate Florida corporation.
According to the organization’s mission statement, “EMERGE [Empowering Motivating Educating Resourceful Grassroots Entities] aims to politically empower and train its constituents to be effective community organizers and work in coalitions to advance beneficial policies and legislation that help protect and enforce the rights afforded by the United States Constitution.”
The mission, as does their name, sounds like a patriotic one attached to a noble cause. However, the extremism exhibited by the leaders of the group paints an entirely different picture – one of an organization with a sinister motive to place radicals within key circles of political power.
On Saturday, April 21st, the head of the Democratic Party, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, will be addressing EMERGE. The theme of the event is “Investing in Tomorrow’s Leaders Today” and will include entertainment and a halal dinner. The previous year, former Florida Governor and U.S. Senator Bob Graham spoke in front of the group.
Wasserman Schultz likes to flaunt her Jewish identity and (false) pro-Israel persona, but how can she begin to do so, when the organization she will be addressing maintains staff who display animosity towards the Jewish state?
Laila Abdelaziz, the Field Coordinator of EMERGE, denounced Israel in a question she posed to President Obama, during a January 2010 town hall meeting he held in Tampa, Florida. “[W]hy have we not condemned Israel and Egypt’s human rights violations against the occupied Palestinian people, and yet we continue supporting them financially with billions of dollars from our tax dollars?” she belligerently asked.
Before coming to EMERGE, Abdelaziz was the Project Coordinator for United Voices of America (UVA), a group founded and headed by Ahmed Bedier. Bedier, who had previously been involved with the Hamas-related Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), was embroiled in controversy when he helped facilitate an October 2010 fundraiser for U.S. Senator Bill Nelson. According to Nelson, whom Abdelaziz was once a staffer for, when he learned about past anti-Israel statements Bedier had made, he returned a $500 campaign contribution that Bedier gave to him.
On the announcement showing Wasserman Schultz as EMERGE USA’s keynote speaker, the RSVP contact for the event is listed as one Rasheed Shihada. On Shihada’s Facebook site, apart from containing a long rant he authored against Christians, he displays on his homepage a video put out this month calling for support of Israeli prisoner Khader Adnan, who according to Israel is a “senior member” of the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
This is only the tip of the iceberg with regard to extremism at EMERGE.
The Vice Chairman and main face behind EMERGE is Khurrum Wahid, a practicing South Florida attorney. According to the Florida Bar, Wahid “has defended individuals charged with allegedly committing or conspiring to commit acts of terrorism…”
Some of Wahid’s clients include: Rafiq Abdus Sabir, who received a 25 year prison sentence for conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaeda; Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who was given a life sentence for being a member of al-Qaeda and for plotting to assassinate President George W. Bush; and Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan, who is awaiting trial for conspiring with others to funnel at least fifty thousand dollars to the Pakistani Taliban for the purpose of murdering American troops overseas.
Wahid, as well, created a legal fund for Tashnuba Hayder, a girl who had been identified by the FBI as a potential suicide bomber and who was later deported to Bangladesh, as she was considered an imminent threat to the security of the United States. Currently, Wahid is soliciting funds on his law office’s website for the defense of his client Hafiz Khan (above) and his son Izhar Khan, whom Wahid calls a “rising star.”
Prior to helping found EMERGE, Wahid was a legal advisor for CAIR National and a director of CAIR’s Florida chapter. In 2007 and 2008, CAIR was named by the U.S. Justice Department as a co-conspirator to the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas. At CAIR-Florida, Wahid had taken the place of Foad Farahi, an imam of a radical mosque, who the FBI has suspected of having had dealings with al-Qaeda operatives – “Dirty Bomber” Jose Padilla and Adnan Gulshair el-Shukrijumah – and who was arrested last month for “transportation violations.”
Wahid is the Registered Agent for another radical entity, the Islamic Foundation of South Florida (IFSF). The Executive Director of EMERGE, Nauman Sabit Abbasi, is the President of Public Relations for IFSF. The IFSF Youth Group is run by Abdur Rahman al-Ghani, a fan of Hizb ut-Tahrir, whose Facebook site is littered with fanatical anti-America, anti-Israel and Islamic supremacist language. This month, al-Ghani posted to his Facebook, “[Y]es, Allah (SWT) has Decreed that we will over-take the World in numbers…”
Wahid also spoke at a May 2010 event sponsored by the American arm of the South Asian Muslim Brotherhood (Jamaat-e-Islami), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), an organization that has been connected to the financing of both al-Qaeda and Hamas.
In May 2009, the former Executive Director and co-founder of EMERGE, Farooq Mitha, wrote an article asking the question, “What if Hezbollah gains influence in Lebanon?” In the piece, he speculates about how the U.S. will deal with groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, as they gain prominence and power in their territories. Mitha states, “It is impossible to imagine sustainable peace in the region without at least the implicit cooperation of these groups.”
While Mitha is careful to appear ambiguous regarding U.S. collaboration with these terrorist entities in print, he has himself spoken at a radical Muslim event – as have many of his EMERGE colleagues – sponsored by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). ISNA, like CAIR, was named by the Justice Department as a party to Hamas fundraising and is the largest Muslim Brotherhood organization in the United States and Canada.
In February 2011, Miha participated in an event sponsored by the Obama-linked Center for American Progress (CAP), a group exposed less than a year later as being a vehicle for anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statements and positions. Also participating was Khalilah Sabra, a representative from the Muslim American Society (MAS), a Muslim Brotherhood organization which has published numerous statements on the web calling for violence against Jews and cursing Jews and Christians.
Today, Mitha serves in the Obama Administration as the Special Assistant to the Director of the Department of Defense Office of Small Business Programs (DOD OSBP). As such, it would appear that Mitha exemplifies EMERGE’s goal of placing those associated with Islamists into high positions of influence.
While Debbie Wasserman Schultz speaks to EMERGE USA’s audience this April, the group will no doubt benefit both financially and politically from her performance. As prominent figures, such as Wasserman Schultz, willingly address their group, leaders of EMERGE will continue to infiltrate and have an open door into American seats of power, thereby helping to bring about America’s destruction from within.
Monday's German parliamentary vote on the second bailout package for Greece has been overshadowed by a rift within Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right coalition about the wisdom of granting fresh aid, with Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrichsaying Greece should be encouraged to leave the euro.
In an interview with SPIEGEL published on Monday, Friedrich said: "Greece's chances to regenerate itself and become competitive are surely greater outside the monetary union than if it remains in the euro area." He added that he did not support a forced exit. "I'm not talking about throwing Greece out, but rather about creating incentives for an exit that they can't pass up." It was the first time a member of the German government called on Greece to leave the currency.An opinion poll published in Bild am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday showed a majority of Germans agrees with Friedrich, a member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union.
According to the survey conducted by pollster Emnid, 62 percent said they wanted parliament to vote "no" on Monday afternoon. Only 33 percent were in favor. Almost two-thirds said they were convinced that Greece can't be rescued from state bankruptcy. The parliament is all but certain to back the €130 billion ($175 billion) package because the opposition Social Democrats and Greens have said they will side with the coalition and vote in favor of the aid.
Friedrich's comment brought him criticism from his coalition partners as well as the opposition.
Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, a member of the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), the junior partner in Merkel's coalition, told the newspaper Die Welt on Monday: "I don't understand the political speculation about a Greece outside the euro zone. What has been negotiated and agreed should apply, on both sides."
The parliamentary group leader of the opposition Green Party, Jürgen Trittin, described Fredrich's comments as "absurd" and called on Merkel to restore order in her ranks. "I ask myself how much longer the chancellor wants to keep on watching the goings-on in her coalition," he told the public radio station Deutschlandfunk.
"It's a difficult matter and no one knows if it will succeed," said Trittin, referring to the bailout. "But if we don't take this step today, failure is guaranteed."
The Social Democrats issued a statemented saying: "The CSU is completely out of control."
German media commentators are divided on Greece. But the mass-circulation Bildnewspaper, a reliable barometer of German public sentiment, comes out strongly against it on Monday. It runs the banner headline "STOP!" on its front page and appeals to German lawmakers not to pass the bailout. It also features short statements from leading German economists saying the fresh aid won't solve Greece's problems and calling for the country to leave the euro.
In an editorial, Bild writes:
"Against its better judgment, Europe is pouring money into a bottomless barrel. Europe can only master this crisis if it does what most experts have long been demanding. The Greek economy can only become competitive and resume growth with its own currency -- not with the strong euro. Continuing with the old recipes won't work. That is why today's parliamentary vote will be bad for Greece, bad for Germany and bad for Europe."
The left-wing Berliner Zeitung writes:
"Let's remain realistic. Greece won't manage to get back on its feet even with the second bailout package. The planned debt cut won't be enough, the reforms aren't getting underway and the country is breaking down under the weight of the austerity programs. Even Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble doesn't rule out that new bailout packages will be needed soon. Greece lacks an important instrument for restoring its health: it's own currency. If Athens had one, the country could devalue its money in order to become cheaper in the world market. A weak currency can work like a huge economic stimulus program."
"A Greek exit from the euro zone would not end the EU's solidarity with Greece. That's because Greece could still count on help from its EU partners. The rescue could end up being cheaper and -- far more importantly -- less painful for the Greeks."
The conservatve Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:
"If Greece quits, it will fall back 12 years into the year 2000 -- and how many years would the other members of the euro zone go back in time? They would deliver three-fold proof that they're firstly not capable of objectively assessing a country's application to join (which would make any future expansion of the euro zone questionable), secondly that they're incapable of even getting a small partner through (let alone a slightly bigger country one day) and thirdly that they can't make the realization of their political visions irreversible."This wouldn't just cause Schadenfreude among the global competitors but raise the question wether membership of the EU itself is final or if it wouldn't be wise for some countries to orientate themselves elsewhere such as Moscow or Tehran.
"And once the permanence of the EU has been rocked to its foundations, this part of the world wouldn't fall back to 2011 or 2001 but to the years 1991, 1981 or even further back."
Posts
All Comments
