Have the terms "Holy Shit" and "Blow it out your ass" taken on new meaning ?

Al Qaeda is full of extremist's. Definitely this one takes things to the limit.

They are now packing explosives up their rectums so that they can breach security.
Al-Qaeda recently used this method to attack Saudi Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef, head of the kingdom's counter terrorism operations.


Watch CBS News Videos Online

A CBS/Fox report reveals the newest Al Qaeda revelation.

The Patron in Chief's Copenhagen Surge

Your president hard at work during the war. Once again Obama shows his confusion with priorities.

Chicago should be checking out what happened to Salt Lake City, after their Olympic sponsorship. The difference is Utah also has an oil based economy to prop it up Illinois doesn't.




Borrowed from American Thinker

By Lee Cary
Europe leans right. The U.S. leans left. Afghanistan hangs in the balance. And Obama goes to Copenhagen. What's up with that?

Patronage is what's up. And world class patronage at that.

The mayor's son learned the lesson of the father. In late August 1968, Chicago's Grant Park was a bivouac area for the Illinois National Guard. Green trucks, green tents, green fatigues everywhere, along with the debris of a brawl between Vietnam War protestors and the Chicago Police Department.

It happened as Hubert "the Happy Warrior" Humphrey, LBJ's vice president, was cruising to the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. Senator Eugene McCarthy, the peace candidate, would come in second. Senator George McGovern, third.

As the riot boiled outside the convention center, protestors threw human feces at the cops and the police busted heads with night sticks. Connecticut Senator Abraham Ribicoff, during his nomination speech for George McGovern, mentioned the violence going on outside the convention hall. In a very embarrassing moment for the Daley Machine, Ribicoff looked down at His Honor sitting in the front row and said that "with George McGovern we wouldn't have Gestapo tactics on the streets of Chicago."

Mayor Richard J. Daley's response was inaudible to the media microphones, but lip-readers later said that Daley used more than one expletive to make disparaging comments about Ribicoff's ancestry and his, Ribicoff's, particularly close relationship with his mother. When Ribicoff spoke down toward Daley the cameras caught Daley's reaction. He was apoplectic.

Daley's son, Richard R. Daley, learned a lesson from his father. Go with the political flow regardless of its direction because it's all about Chicago, not any political ideology. Left or right, all are precious in the Machine's sight -- as long as there's a money river to tap. So what if the political flow of the Democrat Party has turned decidedly left. Chicago is neither left nor right -- it's permanently Machine centered.

Daley the Younger called in his markers and drafted President Obama to go to Copenhagen and lobby on Chicago's behalf. Wherever he was born, Obama will now always be the favored son of the Machine. Obama original allegiance is to that Machine. He owes it. And it's payback time.

When Obama came to work as a young lawyer at Allison Davis' law firm, one that represented slum landlords like "Tony Rezko," Obama learned the lesson of "go-along-to-get-along" that his new boss had once learned. Davis learned not to cross the Machine. Davis, Rezko and current senior presidential advisor Valerie Jarrett were Obama's finance campaign committee in his run for the Senate. They're all serious contributors to the Machine.

Jarrett was the president of a property management firm that managed large Chicago Housing Authority properties. In other words, a city-designated slum landlord. Before that, she was Michelle's boss in the Office of the Mayor of Chicago -- that would be Richard the Younger. After that, she became Michelle's patroness at the University of Chicago Hospitals.

So, of course, the President has to go to Copenhagen to push for Chicago as the site for the 2016 Olympics. He is the duly elected Patron in Chief assigned to bring home the bacon. The closer. He says he's can now leave Washington because the campaign for healthcare reform in under control. Right. And the Cubs are destined to take the Series this year in four straight.

Chicago used to be known as the "City that Worked." Today it's the city that gives unpaid days off to its army of municipal employees because of its financial woes. To a strapped city budget, hosting the Olympics offers a veritable cornucopia of patronage.

Here's how it works. When Chicago gets the nod from the Olympic committee, the money river will start to flow like the Chicago River. Corporate sponsors, donors, federal grants, maybe some stimulus money - it'll take front-end loaders to keep up with the stream of greenbacks. On St. Patrick's Day, the Chicago River runs green with dye. By 2016, it'll be green with Benjamin's.

There'll be contracts to let. Contractors to hire. Road improvements. Venues to be constructed. Lake-front arcades to refurbish. Michigan Avenue decorations. Overtime for police officers. Extra meter maids to be hired. Union electricians and plumbers galore working 24/7. Street sweepers. Graffiti removal crews. Painters to decorate the fences erected to hide blighted areas as was done in advance of the 2008 Democrat Party Convention. Food service vendors. Vending machines to service. Security firms. A near endless list of recipients of Olympic-sized spending largess.

A money tsunami will wash over the Windy City. Hotels will be booked full. And, here's the real payoff: A percentage of all the money spent will be kicked-back into the coffers of the Daley Machine, siphoned off at all levels up the pyramid. Machine cogs from precinct block captains up to His Honor's inner circle will benefit. Their friends will get hired to do the work; those same friends will make contributions to their benefactors'campaigns out of appreciation. And Chicago's money woes will, for a time, disappear as America's Second City takes the Gold. Literally.

So, of course Obama has to go to Copenhagen. He has no choice. Sure, he's only talked to his Commanding General in Afghanistan once in the last seventy days, but the war there is small change compared to Chicago's bid for the Olympics.

One of the legacy news outlets quoted Valerie Jarrett as saying that the "dynamic duo" of Barack and Michelle would sway the Olympic Committee. How can a poor southern hemisphere city like Rio de Janeiro compete against the dynamic duo? Plus Oprah.

It's a done deal.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan can wait. They're not in the running for the Olympics anyway. Probably won't even send any athletes. Chicago comes first. It's about serious political patronage, not corny wartime patriotism.

And never mind that Chicago's citizens are equally split on whether or not they want to host the Olympics. They don't have a say in it. They're counting the cost and wondering what'll happen when their state income and property taxes go up, again. It's time they get with the program and go-along-to-get-along. After all, it's all about the Daley Machine and its scion, the Patron in Chief, bringin' home the bacon.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/09/the_patron_in_chiefs_copenhage.html at September 30, 2009 - 10:13:57 AM EDT

Polanski Crime Worse Than People Know

Borrowed from American Thinker and found after I wrote my article below

By Jack Cashill
[Caution: contains explicit reference to sexual acts which may disturb some readers]

The Hollywood left and their fellow travelers are, of course, appalled that director Roman Polanski has been arrested for his unpunished 1977 rape of a 13-year old. This should not surprise.

At the Academy Award show in March 2003, after an unendurable three hours of peace vamping-Hollywood would willingly go to war only if the enemy were the paparazzi--the gathered worthies surged to their feet to applaud Polanski, the surprise winner of the best director award for the Holocaust drama, The Pianist.

Polanski, however, couldn't quite make it to the Kodak Theater that evening. It seems that 25 years earlier the widowed husband of the late Sharon Tate had driven his Mercedes to LAX and left it in long term parking, very long term. He has not been back since. His new home, France, the country that gave us the term droit de seigneur, has proved more understanding.

Indeed, upon his arrest, one French minister was reported to have said, "This morning, There is a scary America that has just shown its face."

Days before the 2003 Oscars, Patrick Goldstein of The Los Angeles Times, the paper that had led the charge against child abuse (real or imagined) by priests and pre-school teachers, posed the question of whether "an artist's accomplishments should be judged against his misdeeds." Goldstein used the word "misdeed" more than once to describe the act that had caused Polanski to flee.

In the same article actor Warren Beatty called the same act a "personal mistake." Goldstein concludes that "we" always "forgive [artists] their transgressions" because, in the end, good art trumps bad behavior. And after all, as Washington wags might have put it, "This was just about sex."

Shortly before the Oscars someone had posted the grand jury testimony of the victim of that misdeed, Samantha Geimer, on the Internet. Hollywood gossips were upset--not with Polanski, but with the "smear" against him. The testimony, however, is worth revisiting, and it rings entirely true. Polanski tells much the same story in his autobiography, Roman, though he remains shocked that "I should be sent to prison, my life and career ruined, for making love." The description that follows is not for children.

The quintessential Valley girl, Geimer artlessly tells of how Polanski approached her and her divorced mom about taking photos of Samantha for a fashion magazine. Impressed and reassured by his celebrity, the mom agreed. After a couple of outdoor shoots, Polanski and the girl ended up alone at Jack Nicholson's house. Says Polanski, "I could sense a certain erotic tension between the two of us." At the time, Polanski was a worldly 43. Geimer was a 13 year-old seventh grader.

At Nicholson's otherwise empty house, Polanski plied Geimer with champagne and had her take her blouse off for a shot in the Jacuzzi. He then gave her a Quaalude. "Why did you take it?" asked the prosecutor. "I think I must have been pretty drunk or else I wouldn't have," Geimer answered. Now "kind of dizzy," Geimer still managed to resist Polanski's increasing demands. "I want to go home," she told him repeatedly. He would have none of it. Finally, he cornered her on a couch, put his head in her lap, and started performing "cuddliness" on her, her word.

"I was going, ‘No come on, stop it,' but I was afraid," Geimer continued. Polanski then "placed his penis in [her] vagina," but upon learning that she was not on the pill, the gentlemanly artist lifted her legs up further, "went through the anus," and climaxed therein.

A "misdeed" to be sure.

Jack Cashill researched this story for his 2007 book, What's The Matter With California.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/09/polanski_crime_worse_than_peop.html at September 29, 2009 - 01:43:11 PM EDT

On Polanski

I can't even begin to imagine how anyone in a healthy functioning society, can justify what Roman Polanski did. To a thirteen year old girl no less some forty some odd years ago.

Whether society has moved more toward a liberal Caligulian attitude or not towards sex. Polanski committed a sick and perverted act of violence against a child. He should be punished.

It does matter that the victim of this perversion wants it all to go away, that type of reaction should be expected. I feel for her and wish her peace.

It matters not that Polanski paid her off to win her decent of continuing to prosecute him or to gain her silence.

What matters the most is that Polanski committed what I consider to be a capital crime. Rape of a child!

No one should ever get away with this, no matter how much time has gone by.

The fact that Whoopi Goldberg has an opinion in support of Polanski is sick. With out ever hearing Goldbergs opinion I can tell you she is as perverted as he is.
To think that she in any way can make excuses for Polanski's behavior is simply perverted. Next she will be blaming the victim if she hasn't already.

I hope as the prosecution did with Bernie Madoff, Polanski is put in jail for the same amount of time. But in reality I know he won't be. The sicko's in Hollywood will speak out in Polanski's favor and try to sway public opinon toward sympathy for the rapist.

After all what he did happens everyday in Hollywood so whats the big deal?

The sad truth is that money will talk and in the end Polanski will probably be sparred a trip back to the United States.

Where is Al Queda when you need them? I have the perfect neighborhood to blow off of the face of the earth. And as for Whoopi, you sick *%#@.

Germans Go More Conservative and Anti Government

After Sunday's election, Germany's political landscape has been shaken up, perhaps for ever. Angela Merkel's conservatives will be able to form a coalition government with the business-friendly FDP, but the balance of power between the two parties has fundamentally shifted. And the once-powerful Social Democrats may never recover from their defeat.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has probably saved her chancellorship -- but the price that her conservatives will have to pay for it is high. The election result for the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), is lower than in 2005. Nevertheless, she can form a coalition government with the business-friendly Free Democratic Party because support for the FDP has increased in a way that until recently pollsters would scarcely have thought possible.

Just as in the European elections, we are seeing a splinter of the political scene. On the left, the far left gained, the Greens gain, the centrist-left collapsed, the center-right shrunk slightly, and the liberal party gained massively. The right (center-right + liberals) has grown, but not hugely.

Several things to take away from this in the time of an economic downturn:

First, the appeal of libertarian positions has grown. Even in Europe and Germany there has been an anti-government, anti-entitlement, pro-reform movement that is growing massively. We see this here in the tea party movement.

The response to the economic crisis has been more freedom and less government. Somehow government is getting the blame, at the ballot box, for the downturn.

Second, the center-left has lost credibility, but the numbers on the left are still large if you include the far-left. It is hard to imagine a victory of the German left without the Left Party, but it is also questionable whether this turns off swing voters between the center-right and center-left. Some on the American left will try to learn the lesson that they need to move to the left -- isn't that always the lesson? -- but one wonders if, like the SPD, the Democrats would suffer from highlighting their relationship with the far-left.

All in all, we are in a situation in which right-leaning parties are sweeping elections or performing at historic highs. These things happen in response to global events. It will be interesting to see if this pattern continues into the next year.

Obama the Gadfly !

Does anyone else get the impression that Obama doesn't like staying at the White House very much or for very long?

Or perhaps he knows for sure he's going to be a one term president so he is taking in as many junkets as possible while he can.

He gives off the appearance that he is on a trip to Disneyland not president of the United States.

Or maybe its just really about "denial".

Could it be that President Obama is actually feeling the pressure of his office and it is just too much for him? So he is leaving the real decision making up to someone else?

Attending the G20 recently is very important for him to do. If for nothing else but to show the U.S. solidarity.

But then intermittently dropping into the White House on his way to join his wife in Copenhagen for the Olympic vote and seeing the sites no doubt is lame. Say are the girls going and skipping school?

Obama is giving off the impression of being a gadabout celebrity, more concerned with his self image and self indulgence. Rather than the impression of a more stoic and concerned president of the United States dealing with tremendous issues on global scale and at home. The White House is where he should be right now.

After nine months Obama does not to have his priorities straight.

Our troubles at home

We are still in a severe economic stand still if not continuing decline on the brink of serious inflation. We still have three war fronts to deal with if you include the problems in Pakistan. Which are a culmination of, and lack of understanding what has happened in Afghanistan. We still have the largest unemployment numbers in more than 26 years.

Yet we have the president of the United States flitting about the world playing center stage celebrity and socialite. Leaving a carbon footprint bigger than Al Gore's exaggerated claims of global warming. We still have to resolve the "cap and trade bills" and "universal health care".

Obama puts in his prime time appearances for the cause, then off it is to some less than stellar gathering or night on the town. Rather than "blood, sweat and tears" to make his self declared reforms work.

Like his generally obscure explanations in his campaign promises for change, Obama only meets us halfway in his efforts to get anything done. He tokenizes, then leaves the foot work up to an invisible crew of enforcers. Is this intentional?

Yes in a way it is, but not for reason's as one would think for plausible denial. More so, for lack of competence as a leader and no real vision.

Obama is like a kid turned loose in a "Toys R. Us" for his first time alone with just himself, the toys, and a credit card. He runs up and down the isle but really doesn't have a clue what he is really looking for. Instead he just grabs at everything convenient. I find his behavior juvenile at best and at worst downright ignorant.

It is almost like every time he returns to the White House someone who is actually running the show hands him some cash and a plane ticket and says, "Here Barry why don't you take these and go off and enjoy yourself for awhile, we've got things covered here. Come back once you've had a good time. Otherwise you might be in the way.

Or maybe it's really Michelle, giving him the ole "Jewish princess" whine routine of "When are you going to take me to Miami? " What ever it is it leaves one with a very hollow feeling in the abdomen.

What kind of example of security does he think he is showing the American people?
None that's what! He is neither ignorant nor arrogant alone. He is both.

His mentality has now clearly developed a discernible pattern that frighteningly indicates it will not change for the rest of the time he is in office.

At first and up until recently he was still being given the benefit of the doubt. That he was just a freshman president and naive to the ways of one so high in office.

But now I can positively say he has proven that he is not cut out for his job. He is better suited to be celebrity show host, albeit radio announcer would not do him because there is not enough visual exposure.Obama loves the photo ops.

He belongs on late night t.v. perhaps cable where things could be vocally more risque and lots of profile shots.The type he likes to pose for. Perhaps they could talk about whether Michelle really grows "Arugula" in her organic garden and what shades of green it is.That pompous ass. Then he could smile that smile. The one that made him president and deceived half the country.

Obama demonstrates what people have most likely not seen in him when he was running for office. He has an obsessive compulsive behavioral pattern. Which surfaces when he is confronted with choices between, taking on serious life issues and attempting to deal with them, or shunning them for self aggrandizement instead. He always chooses the latter.

This behavior was first to me apparent when Obama invented his own non entity the "Office of the President Elect". It almost seemed like he was trying to role play rather than prepare for most probably the most demanding job in the world of politics.

It is frightening to imagine that perhaps Obama has actually got a handler who tells him his next move constantly. Because in reality he is totally innept at coping with the monumental responsiblities of his position. A handler is the only logical conclusion.

I have nightmares seeing Obama and his grandmother at home in Hawaii, and he being constantly shuffled out the door to play, while being patronized by his rather strict and racist matriarch . After which she turns to a house full of community elders come to visit, and says " he's a cute boy, well mannered, but not really all that swift".

More and more I see the future revelation that all of the criticism of George W. Bush's intelligence may be a wash when it comes to light about Obama's real intellectual and emotional coping skills.

I had to put my own personal observations aside in the beginning when I first saw Obama as a serious candidate for president, for fear of housing a self accusatory racism.

My gut told me Obama was all show and no go, and that he wasn't much more than a well rehearsed, mediocre, baseless character who looked good in a suit. There was something about his raised chin and tightly drawn lips that said "phony" to me. Kind of along the lines of a David Caruso expression.

But like everyone else I had to make sure I was not just going through an attitude maladjustment based on what the left has now emblazoned as Obama's battle cry of "racist" in defense of him when he screws up, or the White House policies meet virulent opposition.

"Hot Air" pointing to the same conclusions about Afghanistan. But wait it gets worse !

There were many articles on Friday and yesterday on the web, which indicated that my "So Hows that workin out for you POTUS", article was timely.

The point is not to say "I told you so" but more to enlighten people that Barack Obama at best has a very dangerous foreign policy. One that will inevitably get us deeper into a very long and protracted war, in South Western Asia, the Middle East and South Asia namely Korea.

Iran with the "bomb" changes the whole equation and once they have it there will be no turning the clock back.

Will Chavez ever get the bomb? No, even Iran isn't crazy enough, nor is Putin, to give a bowling pin like Chavez that type of opportunity. However Chavez will be strung along for his oil reserves and uranium! But North Korea is another story.

You would think that if anyone were to be the culprit for enlightening Kim Jong Il, to a nuclear future it would be China. Truth is China doesn't want Kim to have the bomb either. There are more negatives than pluses in China's own plan for the future than to see North Korea with nuclear warheads.

Unfortunately for all when Iran comes on line have no doubts that one of its first customers will be North Korea.

History reveals that all protracted wars are on mostly two fronts at the same time. There is a balance in such warfare for all of the aggressors in such strategy.

It is feasible to foresee that when Iran has the bomb and wants to begin and assert itself within the middle east, especially against Israel directly, instead of with surrogates like Hezbollah and Hamas, it will collaborate with the likes of whomever is running North Korea at the time.

As Iran gets closer to developing a deliverable system of short range nuclear warheads look for a fallout between north and south Korea. Also heavy troop movements from the northern regime toward their southern border. Even look for a possible intrusion and occupation of territory to the south of the 37th parallel.

What does that have to do with Afghanistan and McChrystal you say?

Its simple, we need to occupy Afghanistan and portions of Pakistan for the purpose of establishing permanent missile bases like the ones Obama just said he was reneging on for Poland.

Recent Article from "Hot Air"


McChrystal report officially backburnered now
posted September 26, 2009 by Ed Morrissey

After everyone else had heard what General Stanley McChrystal needs for his mission to succeed in Afghanistan, the Obama administration took official custody today of the report that requests a significant troop increase for the Af-Pak theater. However, Barack Obama will not officially get to see it for a while. The Pentagon says they will hold his request, officially, until Obama officially makes an official decision about the officially official policy he wants to officially pursue in the war:

The commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan has submitted a request for more troops, a spokesman said Saturday, but the Pentagon will hold it while President Barack Obama decides what strategy to pursue.

General Stanley McChrystal hand delivered his long-awaited request to U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen and NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Admiral James Stavridis, said spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Tadd Sholtis.

“At the end of that meeting General McChrystal did provide a copy of the force requirements to Admiral Mullen on the U.S. side and Admiral Stavridis on the NATO side,” Sholtis said after McChrystal returned from the meeting at an air base in Germany. …

The White House says it wants to review the entire strategy for the region before considering McChrystal’s request.

“Right now the focus is on the strategic assessment itself. It (the troop request) will be shelved until such time that the White House is ready,” a defense official said in Washington.

Er … what? Doesn’t the strategic assessment include required troop strengths? McChrystal’s report should be a key part of those considerations, since the strategic considerations rely on having the force strength required to support the strategy.

Shelving the request makes it clear that Obama and the White House want to conduct a political review of the mission. That’s not illegitimate; after all, part of the consideration has to be whether our allies have the political will to support us in the Af-Pak theater, as well as whether Americans have the political will to continue the fight. If neither exists, then the entire question of strategy is moot, and the focus will shift to retreat from the theater.

The problem with this is that the Obama administration has already had plenty of time for political calculation. They have been in office since January, and Obama campaigned for two years on the pledge to fight in Afghanistan with more resources and focus than the previous administration. The politics of the war have not changed much, at least in terms other than polling.

Obama wanted to be Commander in Chief, and he has had that role for eight months. The question of politics should have already been well settled by this time. So far he has done a good job of fighting the war in Afghanistan, but this very public vacillation undermines the projection of American strength in the region and encourages a defeatist attitude. It’s time to fish or cut bait on the politics and start seriously addressing the strategy, if we’re going to fight and win this war.

So how's that workin out for ya POTUS?

Obama Til End of Year

Back in June President Obama said Iran had until the end of the year to prove that its endeavors toward nuclear proliferation were for peaceful purposes in earnest. Well the end of the year is less than 100 days away, and it appears that the Iranian's have Mr. Obama stymied.

Obama is hooking up with his admirers over at the U.N., rather than finding a unilateral U.S. style solution to prevent Iran from developing more centrifuges and succeeding in creating the nuclear weapons grade plutonium. Barry will most probably try to sway his bud's there, now that he thinks he is world leader, to go along with any further suggestions for more sanctions on Tehran.

This reasoning is seriously flawed, and based on Obama's ego and delusional reasoning that the whole world looks to him for guidance.

If Iran continues to charge on with its development of nuclear fusion, which in all likely hood it will. Obama can fulfill his time table of words but not have to commit the U.S. to any serious change in its open door policy with Tehran. This will be accomplished by putting the ball in the court of the U.N. for them to deal with , while Obama continues to withdraw American troops from Iraq.

If the same thing were happening under the Bush administration you could bet that we would already have arranged for a remaining show of force of American troops in Iraq. Letting Iran know we were seriously considering an invasion of their southern region, in support of both Israel and the security of Baghdad.

I believe it is well within our capabilities to move into southern Iran, set up shop and say to them;

"You have a choice. Quit the nuclear shit now and we will pack up our tent and go home or continue and we will be sipping Indian Tea in Tehran in two weeks."

After all that was one of our major objectives in invading Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein. We wanted to be up Iran's anal cavity, with a primary purpose of preventing any nuclear growth. (Gee now the secrets out !). And to protect our future investment in untapped oil fields within Iraq's southern region.

Now along comes Obama, wins the election and jams a big fat wrench in the gears.

Al Queda and the Taliban had decided to make their stand in Baghdad, plus other strong holds of Iraq shifting major forces from both Iran and Afghanistan in the process. Also included were some devotees from Pakistan who have now returned to reek havoc as reestablishment of power takes place away from American troop threat.

Obama has played right into their hands, by thinking that his sweet talking words made any real progress with these centuries old masters of deceit. The Iranian leadership couldn't have had a better prayer answered from Allah than Obama. What timing.

No wonder Ahmadinejad welcomed him publicly with open arms before inauguration day. Iran has had his number well before the American people who voted for "The One" had a clue about his true character. The old adage "it takes on to know one" couldn't ring more true here.

So now what? Who's got who over a barrel of oil?

Well lets see . The Iranian people offered Obama an opportunity to support them as a force against Tehran without ever having to commit an American soldier, but he blew that off.

The threat of opening the northern Arctic seas and sinking some new technology in seeking oil off the Alaskan shelf was shut down by Congress, thereby causing the price to increase again and refilling Tehran's coffers. Hmmm that was smart.

With the shift away from Iraq from what was left of Al Queda and the Taliban mercenaries who went to fight, pressure is growing in Afghanistan presenting Obama with a real international policy decision.

Obama can see only negatives in continuing in Afghanistan. Thereby wearing the stigma of another Vietnam as a long and protracted war. Already, under his watch the casualty numbers have increased in notable proportion never having happened so greatly under the Bush administration.

Remaining would be the right thing to do, but he won't.

I revert back to my prediction months ago that pressure will continue with American covert support on the Taliban in Pakistan. This is also where the most important leaders left in Al Queda are planning their next move.

If Osama Bin Laden is alive he is there and he is very pleased with the play out now being presented to Obama.

A decision has to be made concerning our commitment to the Afghan leadership and it is more probable than not Obama will make the wrong one. Actually he won't be the one making the decision but neither will his military leadership.

Congress under the guidance of foreign policy idiots will pull the plug on Afghanistan and Obama will sign any declaration presented to him. He will then declare an inability to support Karzai any further without Taliban representation in his government.If Karzai concedes which he will Obama will declare an American withdrawal with honor.

The wheels are already in motion. Karzai is about to declare a thin victory in the most recent election and as is apparent a declaration of a fix is in by the opposition.

This little scandal is not going away and the pressure will increase for Karzai to open his parliament to Taliban representation . Obama will make his desire known that it is in the best interest of Afghanistan to include the Taliban for the sake of its people. Karzai's weak central government has no capability to control the outer regions with its under developed Army. Obama sees no advantage in remaining.

The scenario is already playing out to the benefit of Bin Laden, the Taliban and Tehran. The U. N. will also back the play. We will be leaving Afghanistan in number within the year.

This in turn relieves a large portion Iranian support now being given to the Taliban and Al Queda. Iran will be able to suppress a very real uprising within its country, and stop any threat of infrastructural collapse. Which had become apparent from its loses in Iraq and the present political disturbances from within its borders.

Iran can focus it efforts towards speeding up it centrifuge construction and its production of warhead grade nuclear material while continuing to throw curve balls at both the U.N. and Obama.

Obama can blame the U.N. for any failure to enforce stronger sanctions on Tehran. Thus proving he has completed his promise to put pressure on Tehran by the end of the year through the U.N. of which he is now head of its "what was it"? Ice cream distribution?

Israel will not be able to go it alone against Iran as much as they would like to. Russia is not going to back out of any support for Ahmadinejad, but in fact will increase its military supplies to Tehran and so will China.

Obama has displayed his weakness as the American leader which will leave the United States in a very vulnerable position in years to come with regards to the supply of oil.

Whomever is the next president of the United States, he or she will be having to deal once again with the problem of Pakistan and Afghanistan but only this time Al Queda and the Taliban will have established a much stronger footing thanks to Obama's misguided self worth.

What! Michael Moore speaking the truth! Barack Obama got many campaign contributions from Goldman Sachs True

St. Petersburg "Truth O Meter"

Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore has a new film coming out -- Capitalism: A Love Story -- and he appeared on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report to promote it.

The show's ironically conservative host, Stephen Colbert, defended capitalism and the bailouts of late 2008, which led to a mock debate between them.

At first, Wall Street was actually angry about the bailouts, Colbert claimed. "because it might come with strings attached," he explained. "But they forgave Obama when he didn't add any. Now all is forgiven."

"That's why you like Obama so much now?" Moore asked.

"I don't like Obama so much," Colbert said. "On this, I do. And your film is helping me like Obama, because you're a critic of his. You think he's in the pocket of guys like Goldman Sachs."

"I point out in the film that Goldman Sachs is his No. 1 private contributor," Moore answered. "But I voted for the guy. I'm still hopeful that he's going to do the right thing and side with us, and not Wall Street. But the jury's out on that."

We'll let you draw your own conclusions on their debate. We wanted to check Moore's statement about Obama's contributors and the financial services firm Goldman Sachs.

Obama made a big deal during the election that he didn't accept money from federal political action committees or lobbyists.

But laws require individuals to disclose their occupation and their employer when they donate to federal political candidates. We checked with the Center for Responsive Politics, a well-respected nonpartisan group that specializes in analyzing campaign data. Their numbers include contributions from employees and their immediate families.

Their analysis of the 2008 presidential campaign found that University of California employees were Obama's top donor, giving a collective $1.6 million. That system is run by the state of California, and hence is a public employer.

No. 2 was Goldman Sachs. Goldman employees gave Obama $994,795.

Obama's next biggest donors were the employees of Harvard University, Microsoft, Google, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Time Warner, the law firm Sidley Austin, and Stanford University. View Obama's complete list and amounts here. Incidentally, Goldman Sachs ranked No.4 on John McCain's list of employee contributions, at $230,095.

Moore said that Goldman Sachs is Obama's "No. 1 private contributor." The data shows that is correct. We rate his statement True.

Ensign receives handwritten confirmation

Cross posted at Politico
This doesn't happen often enough.

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) received a handwritten note Thursday from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff Tom Barthold confirming the penalty for failing to pay the up to $1,900 fee for not buying health insurance.

Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor and could face up to a year in jail or a $25,000 penalty, Barthold wrote on JCT letterhead. He signed it "Sincerely, Thomas A. Barthold."

The note was a follow-up to Ensign's questioning at the markup.

Once again VDH nails it: Sleeping Through Speeches

Taken from Pajama's Media

Posted By Victor Davis Hanson On September 23, 2009
The World’s President

The President’s UN* talk was more of the same, same old formula: Me, me, me / then Bush blew it / then I came /and, presto, the waters parted.

There is no need to listen to these speeches anymore:

Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, fellow delegates, ladies and gentleman: it is my honor to address you for the first time as the forty-fourth President of the United States. I come before you humbled by the responsibility that the American people have placed upon me; mindful of the enormous challenges of our moment in history; and determined to act boldly and collectively on behalf of justice and prosperity at home and abroad.

I have been in office for just nine months, though some days it seems a lot longer. I am well aware of the expectations that accompany my presidency around the world. These expectations are not about me….

I took office at a time when many around the world had come to view America with skepticism and distrust. Part of this was due to misperceptions and misinformation about my country. Part of this was due to opposition to specific policies, and a belief that on certain critical issues, America has acted unilaterally, without regard for the interests of others.

I think “acted unilaterally” does not refer to all the allies in Afghanistan and Iraq, but something like simply calling the Poles late at night to say the missile deal is off, and we’re cutting our own deal with Putin.

If Obama is right, and American exceptionalism is over, and we are just one of many, why, then, does he expect to garner the world’s attention and to seek the world’s limelight? What is it about America that gives him, the two-year Senate veteran, such prominence?

In fact, it is America’s 20th century of achievement, its wealth, its singular morality, its competence — all the things that Obama either takes for granted or snarls about — that alone explains everything from his enormous Air Force One to the influence he enjoys. Put mellifluous Obama as president of Sweden or Slovakia and the world, rightly or wrongly, snores. Obama tragically does not understand that America made him — he does not make America.

Here is the synopsis of the president’s speech: “Ok, I came in, dissed Bush, offered hope and change, and deigned to sacrifice myself, the smartest you’ll ever meet, for you, the world. So now we aren’t Bush’s America, but Obama’s America, and therefore I expect you to reciprocate in kind — since you only have one last chance to get a divine American president of my caliber.”

There must be some Microsoft automatic program that writes these speeches.

America’s College President

I wrote today [1] about Obama running the country as if he were an Ivy League president and we were his faculty.

If one wonders why Americans are asked to send in fishy people to the White House, or why the NEA now wants to correlate artistic grants to political obsequiousness, or why those who disagree are deprecated as mob like and worse, or why Eric Holder calls us “cowards,” or why Dr. Chu says we are like teenagers, the answer is that we are to be run like a campus, and Obama is our all-knowing paternalistic president.

Good Wars and Bad Wars

A year ago also I wrote [2] an article predicting that the Democrats’ good war/bad war prism was a profound mistake, and that if elected Obama was going to have a hard time matching campaign rhetoric with presidential decisions. The truth is that Afghanistan — no harbors, landlocked, next to nuclear Pakistan, terribly difficult terrain, opium, harsh winters, 7th century tribal infrastructure — was always the more difficult challenge than Iraq: on the gulf, oil-rich, some secular and educated segments of the population, flat and clear weather, strategic location.

I don’t think I wrote anything a year ago that would not be entirely applicable right now:

This political dilemma again was not new. Liberal Democrats in the summer and autumn of 2002 had sounded tough and aggressive about the looming Iraq war, as long as the perception of quick and easy victory was likely, and someone else (Commander-in-Chief George Bush) took the major responsibility for the conduct of the war should it become difficult and unpopular. Something similar was happening now with Afghanistan.

“Taking our eye off the ball,” and supposedly ignoring Afghanistan, were rather inexpensive ways of voicing partisan attacks on George Bush’s Iraq War. But now the Iraq War has been largely won (the number of U.S. soldiers who died in actual combat operations in Iraq in October 2008 was seven; more than forty Americans were murdered in Chicago each month on average in 2008). And after January 20, 2009, Commander-in-Chief Obama will have the responsibility for the costs and difficulties of the Afghan war he had been apparently eager to take on during the campaign against Senator John McCain.

Consequently, we may well see president-elect Obama’s once promised hawkishness dissipate. After all, many liberal hawks figured that they could issue their war cries without ever being forced to hold the reins of governance with commensurate responsibility, or, by that the time they were given responsibility, the Afghan war would be over.
Vowing to do what it takes in the good war by leaving Iraq—infusing more troops into Afghanistan, and occasionally invading Pakistan—was for candidate Obama always a rhetorical stance that proved both his anti-Iraq War bona fides and his larger credibility on matters of national security.

Eyes and Balls

Another counter-intuitive thought. Consider: as Iraq heated up, Afghanistan grew quiet, an oddity given the conventional wisdom that we had lost Afghanistan by losing in Iraq. Fatalities never exceeded 100 Americans a year from 2004-2006. Indeed in 2006 more were killed in December in Iraq (112) than during the entire year in Afghanistan (98). Yet if we took our eye off the ball, why would Afghanistan remain or grow quiet as Iraq heated up?

I think the answer is surely that Al Qaeda megaphones announced Iraq to be the main front in the war against the West. Thousands flocked there—and thousands were either killed, captured, or switched sides.

In other words, radical Islam between 2006-7 suffered a terrible defeat as its escalation in Iraq resulted in thousands killed. Polls showed radical drops in support for and popularity of bin Laden and his tactic of suicide bombing.

The Islamists, not us, “took their eye of the ball,” and as a result they shorted their jihad in Afghanistan. I would not quite call it the fly paper theory of a two-front war, but the diversions of terrorists to Iraq where they much more easily could be killed, given the nature of the war and the terrain, hurt al Qaeda and the Taliban alike in Afghanistan — far more than diversions of U.S. troops from Afghanistan (If in fact they were diverted. We forget the following statistic: In four years from 2001 through 2004, the United States lost a total of 161 troops, probably somewhere around 4 soldiers a month, or about the rate of many non-combat theater deployments. In other words, the front was quiet, and stayed quiet as a frustrated Al Qaeda turned toward Iraq where they and their allies killed 4,000 Americans, and probably lost nearly ten times that number.) Now they are desperate, and along with the Taliban think that the new administration simply will not stay the course, and so believe it is once more the time to pour it on to demoralize us further.

Note that our casualties were already spiking in Afghanistan even as more U.S. troops were diverted to it, suggesting, not just that the Taliban was laying low, hoarding resources and now reemerging, but that both sides now are turning to the once peripheral front after the decision in Iraq.

It would be tragically ironic that the miraculous American success in post-surge Iraq would lead to our depression in Afghanistan, while the humiliating defeat in Anbar and Baghdad of radical Islam would lead to its optimism for the second theater.

Some Controversial Outtakes

More on the trip

I can’t quite figure out what happened to our annual trip this year. Usually it does not sell out until May. By this week, we have only five slots left and the trip to the Danube and eastern front wars has only been announced for a little over a month. Perhaps the economy really is improving?

Obamania

I had a lot of fervent mail recently, actually quite scary. A couple of thoughts:

I think the key to stopping the Obama remaking of the U.S. is calm and reasoned analysis, since the American people are beginning to turn on his agenda. After 9 months they realize that there is no there there, just formulaic platitudes and the now tired rhetorical flourishes. Otherwise, the agenda is simply Jimmy Carter sanctimoniousness abroad, and Clinton’s first two failed years between 1993-4 at home.

But the antidote is to politely, but steadily point this out — the constant distortions, hypocrisies, and contradictions — without resorting to slurs and smears. If conservatives can stay cheery, optimistic and reasoned, the Obamians, as all fallen prophets, will become angrier, more self-righteous, and incoherent. There is no need for conspiracy theories, to banish the moderate conservatives, or to cannibalize one another; instead the Obama record is out there for all to see and examine. After all, we have a president who boasts that we are back on the UN human rights council, and then brags of our new multilateral equity — and then is followed by the likes of Gaddafi and Ahmadinejad who show us what the new unexceptional America’s peers to be are really like.

Little Green What?

Some bloggers sent me postings the other day about Charles Johnson’s Little Green Footballs website, and suggested that the site has changed—as in flipped sides. I have not followed the controversy, but I once rode a bike down in LA for an afternoon with Johnson and found him both a serious and bright guy with all sorts of original ideas about radical Islam and the anti-Enlightenment dangers it posed.

Out of curiosity I went to the site today. All I discovered different was a change in emphasis, but not necessarily attitude. He still is strongly anti-jihad; the difference is that he now worries just as much about creationism, paleo-right tribalism, and the white supremacists’ piggy-backing onto efforts to stop radical Islam. Those are legitimate worries for any liberal (as in 19th-century liberal) minded. Almost monthly I am smeared by the far far right for defending the Anglo-American effort in World War II or support for the melting-pot traditional of racial integration and intermarriage. So I understand some of his concerns.

Johnson, it should be remembered, did a masterful job of debunking the Rather nonsense, and in the dark days of 2001-2 of identifying the idiot fringe that appeased radical Islam. He was also always attuned to the anti-Semitic elements on both left and right that sought to blame Israel for our challenges in Iraq and elsewhere.

Sorry to those who wrote me, but I can no more get on the anti-Johnson bandwagon than I could the birth certificate allegations about Obama (why he won’t release his college transcripts is a far more interesting and valid inquiry).

_______________

* While Obama was praising the UN, the UN was showing America why most of us don’t want much to do with it. The Gaddafi and Ahmadinejad rambling hate-filled speeches were lunatic and nutty; but, remember, they are typical, not unrepresentative of the sort of leaders that the world outside the West so often produces these days. A Chavez, Kim Jong Il, Assad, or Mullah Omar would say about the same. Why would Obama wish to brag of returning to the human rights council given the creepy regimes on it? Watching the UN watch Ahmadinejad I was reminded of Europe circa July 1941. As Hitler swept through Russia, suddenly a Spain, a Sweden, a Turkey, a Romania, a Hungary, etc. as both Axis allies and as neutrals, all in varying ways were horse-trading with Nazi Germany for various trade deals, land grabs, and general profiteering. That the Wehrmacht slaughtered Jews by the thousands the day it entered Russia, mattered not at all; the Nazis looked like winners and it was time to cut deals. By 1944/5, the opposite was true: neutrals and formal allies were bailing and claiming they had been coerced, duped, had no choices, and were now our friends if not allies, after all. Take away oil, and Ahmadinejad and Gaddafi would be written off as two-bit psychopaths that no legitimate body would let in the service entrance.

Article printed from Works and Days: http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson

Obama Gives $400 K to Gaddafi Charity

Also posted at Gateway Pundit
Nice. Obama plans of gifting $400,000 to a Libyan Charity run by the Gaddafi family.
CBS2 Chicago reported:

The Obama Administration plans to give $400,000 in funding to a Libyan charity run by the Gadhafi family, and U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) wants the grant withdrawn.

The money would be divided between two foundations run by the family of Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi. A $200,000 share is set to go to the Gadhafi Development Foundation, which is run by Gadhafi's son, Saif, and another $200,000 are to go to Wa Attassimou, an organization run by Muammar Gadhafi's daughter, Aisha.

Kirk says the grants should be withdrawn in light of the recent return to Libya of Pan Am Flight 103 bomber Abdel Baset Megrahi. The terminally ill prisoner was released from in Scotland on compassionate grounds, and got a hero's welcome from Muammar Gadhafi and other Libyans upon his return.

Saif Gadhafi was involved in negotiating for Megrahi's release, and accompanied him back to Libya.

What we can look forward to with salaried doctors and dentists

A DENTIST told a misconduct hearing how banter with a young nurse led to sex in the office toilets.

Anthony Barton, 36, pranced around in his surgery in a leopard-print thong during eight years of `sexually-motivated behaviour' towards four dental nurses, it's claimed.

Twice-married Barton groped their bottoms, twanged their knicker elastic and tried to undo their bras through their tunics, the General Dental Council has heard.

But he insisted there was `nothing indecent' about his encounters with the nurse, Ms B, at his practice in Wigan.

"It started with a lot of banter," he said. "It lasted about six months, until the end of 2004.

"I never had sexual intercourse in the surgery. It was downstairs behind locked doors. It was in the toilet.

"We would do it when we thought we were alone. It happened only when we had the opportunity."

Barton admitted he was caught by another dental nurse in a compromising position with Ms B in his surgery, but he insisted his behaviour was not indecent.

"We were in a relationship," he said. "As it was after work, as I believed that nobody was present, I did not believe it was inappropriate at the time."

The panel has heard Barton grabbed nurses' bottoms and poked their breasts, but he said: "Sexual innuendo and that type of behaviour was commonplace within the practice.

"Everybody was involved in that type of behaviour." He said he felt he was `very easy going and friendly with these girls'.

But his easy-going attitude turned into `gratuitous groping' of three dental nurses and an `indecent' relationship with the fourth, it is claimed.

Apologising for his behaviour, Barton said: `Over the years I have been very guilty of getting far, far too close to all of my members of staff, far too friendly, far too close to them.

"In that friendship it led to banter. With lots of these girls, sexual banter.

"Looking back on the whole upset, I can see it was wholly inappropriate. I have looked back on this with regret and remorse. I am ashamed of my actions and the effect it has had on those around me, on the girls specifically."

Barton admits having a six-month affair with dental nurse Ms B, but denies having sex with her during surgery hours.

Barton further denies allegations that he touched Ms A, Ms C and Ms D and denies misconduct and that his fitness to practise is impaired.

Barton, of Walnut Farm, Runcorn Road, Warrington, resigned from the practice in August 2008.

He is now working at a surgery in Barnton, Cheshire.

If you are Jewish and you voted for Obama shame on you !

Nightmare of the month!

Being on a 5 hour flight across country with Muammar Gaddafi in the adjoining seat !

I didn't think it was possible for anyone else to be so full of himself more than Obama. Its obvious that the "French Connection" stops over in Libya. If this guy ain't high ! he should be.

Diplomats From 11 Countries Walk Out On Ahmadinejad’s Speech

Hat tip to nicedeb.com

I would call the guy a b.s. artist, but that would do a great disservice to b.s. artists.



Hot Air Reports:

The eleven, according to a European source: Argentina, Australia, Britain, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand … and the United States. I assume our guys wouldn’t have bolted without the White House’s approval, so kudos to The One for showing a bit of principle.

Honestly, I chalk it up to “me too-ism” more than principle, myself. After all, Obama wants to meet with this guy still, doesn’t he? At any rate, we do know that it was Canada, not the United States that lead the way on this one.

Greta interviewed a Canadian diplomat who walked out, tonight:

The Irony of E-Verify

Months and months after delays, and finally Congress passes legislation to enforce E-verify for federal contractors. Only to have it expire at the end of this month.

On September 8, the rule requiring E-Verify for federal contractors went into effect. A positive step forward for workplace enforcement, this rule shows that the federal government is dedicated to enforcing its own immigration laws. However, E-Verify's pending expiration--September 30--threatens this new rule. Consequently, Congress should reauthorize the E-Verify program.

Uncertainty over the future of E-Verify will only lead to confusion as the private sector attempts to understand its obligations under this new rule. Congress should clarify this matter by permanently authorizing the program and refining it in a way that encourages employer participation and improves accuracy. Additionally, it should support other effective workplace immigration enforcement tools such as Social Security No-Match.

Workplace Insecurity

E-Verify helps employers confirm that their newly hired employees are eligible to work in the United States by verifying their employment information through a web-based portal. The system compares this data to information in Social Security Administration (SSA) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) databases. It then issues either a confirmation or a non-confirmation. Non-confirmations can be resolved if an employee can later prove that there was a discrepancy in the system. If it is not resolved, a final non-confirmation is issued, and the employer is not allowed to hire the worker.

E-Verify is a tremendous success: Over 134,000 employers voluntarily use the program. Recognizing this success and the need for workplace enforcement across the federal government, the Bush Administration proposed a rule that would require federal contractors and subcontractors to use E-Verify. The rule was amended in November 2008 to require verification of both new hires and current employees working on federal contracts.

The rule was met with legal challenges and subsequently delayed into the Obama Administration, which then proceeded to postpone implementation four more times. Despite these delays, on September 8, the rule went into effect.

The Right Example

The federal contactor rule is important because it shows that the federal government is committed to following its own laws and that the private sector must eliminate its addiction to illegal labor. This restriction on illegal labor should equally apply when the federal government contracts work to other entities. E-Verify is the ideal system for the federal contractor rule because:

* It works. E-Verify is a tool that tackles the immigration problem by going to the heart of what draws illegal immigrants into the U.S.: finding employment. The program provides an incentive for illegal immigrants to return to their home countries without forced deportation. In the past year, the number of illegal immigrants in the United States has dropped by more than 1 million, and a number of these departures can be directly linked to increased workplace enforcement measures.
* It is cost-effective. E-Verify can be used in a cost-effective manner so that businesses regardless of size can check the legal status of their employees without breaking the bank. The software is free and the cost of the checks is low. In fact, DHS permits designated agents to process queries for companies at a cost of around $2 to $15 per employee.
* It is accurate. E-Verify can quickly and accurately determine the authenticity of the personal information and credentials offered by new hires. More than 96.9 percent of submissions receive an initial positive confirmation. The program also provides a process to correct erroneous initial findings, ensuring that those who can work legally are given an opportunity to resolve the discrepancy within a short period of time.

Time for Commitment

If Congress does not act to reauthorize E-Verify by September 30, the program will expire and this progress will be in vain. The lack of authorization sends a confusing message to the private sector regarding its obligations under the rule. Congress needs to send a clear message that E-Verify is here to stay. Congress should:

* Permanently authorize E-Verify and provide adequate funding. Unless Congress steps in, E-Verify will expire and the federal contractors provision, as well as the voluntary E-Verify usage, will be void.
* Reject DHS plans to abandon the amended No-Match rule. The Obama Administration announced plans to abandon Social Security No-Match. No-Match would have enabled SSA to send letters to employers who submitted 10 or more W-2s that could not be matched to SSA records or who have no matches for more than 0.5 percent of their workforces. Employers would have certain obligations once this information is received. While there were legal challenges to No-Match, DHS resolved these concerns in a supplemental rule, and there is every reason to believe that the judge would be forced to lift the stay if the matter is re-litigated. Congress should not only pressure DHS to move forward on No-Match but also enact legislation that would facilitate information sharing between DHS and SSA. Allowing this sharing and giving DHS the resources and authority to target large-scale employers in the sectors of the economy with large numbers of undocumented workers will make a major impact on the problem.
* Encourage DHS to Refine E-Verify. E-Verify is highly accurate, but it can always be improved. Nearly all erroneous tentative non-confirmations are the result of simple errors in the databases (such as misspelled names, maiden names, clerical errors in date of birth, missing date of birth, and, most commonly, missing naturalization data). Reducing these simple errors would be helpful in making the system even more accurate, and it would allow individuals to correct their own information outside of the workplace processes.
* Encourage state and local initiatives. Several states, such as Arizona, have made the use of E-Verify mandatory, which courts have found permissible. Efforts like these should be supported because they act as force multipliers in the nation's immigration enforcement effort.

Time for Assurances

The federal government and its contractors must demonstrate a commitment to the laws they are tasked to enforce. Such a commitment is vital to the preservation of immigration laws in the United States. However, without a firm pledge by Congress, the private sector will remain hesitant and cautious. It is time for Congress to reassure employers by renewing E-Verify.

Convergence the Challenge of Aviation Security

By Scott Stewart and borrowed from Stratfor.

On Sept. 13, As-Sahab media released an audio statement purportedly made by Osama bin Laden that was intended to address the American people on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. In the message, the voice alleged to be that of bin Laden said the reason for the 9/11 attacks was U.S. support for Israel. He also said that if the American people wanted to free themselves from “fear and intellectual terrorism,” the United States must cut its support for Israel. If the United States continues to support Israel, the voice warned, al Qaeda would continue its war against the United States “on all possible fronts” — a not so subtle threat of additional terrorist attacks.

Elsewhere on Sept. 14, a judge at Woolwich Crown Court in the United Kingdom sentenced four men to lengthy prison sentences for their involvement in the disrupted 2006 plot to destroy multiple aircraft over the Atlantic using liquid explosives. The man authorities claimed was the leader of the cell, Abdulla Ahmed Ali, was sentenced to serve at least 40 years. The cell’s apparent logistics man, Assad Sarwar, was sentenced to at least 36 years. Cell member Tanvir Hussain was given a sentence of at least 32 years and cell member Umar Islam was sentenced to a minimum of 22 years in prison.

The convergence of these two events (along with the recent release of convicted Pan Am 103 bomber Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and the amateurish Sept. 9 hijacking incident in Mexico using a hoax improvised explosive device [IED]) has drawn our focus back to the topic of aviation security — in particular, IED attacks against aircraft. As we weave the strands of these independent events together, they remind us not only that attacks against aircraft are dramatic, generate a lot of publicity and can cause very high body counts (9/11), but also that such attacks can be conducted simply and quite inexpensively with an eye toward avoiding preventative security measures (the 2006 liquid-explosives plot.)

Additionally, while the 9/11 anniversary reminds us that some jihadist groups have demonstrated a fixation on attacking aviation targets — especially those militants influenced by the operational philosophies of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) — the convictions in the 2006 plot highlight the fact that the fixation on aviation targets lives on even after the 2003 arrest of KSM.

In response to this persistent threat, aviation security has changed dramatically in the post-9/11 era, and great effort has been undertaken at great expense to make attacks against passenger aircraft more difficult. Airline attacks are harder to conduct now than in the past, and while many militants have shifted their focus onto easier targets like subways or hotels, there are still some jihadists who remain fixated on the aviation target, and we will undoubtedly see more attempts against passenger aircraft in spite of the restrictions on the quantities of liquids that can be taken aboard aircraft and the now mandatory shoe inspections.

Quite simply, militants will seek alternate ways to smuggle components for IEDs aboard aircraft, and this is where another thread comes in — that of the Aug. 28 assassination attempt against Saudi Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. The tactical innovation employed in this attack highlights the vulnerabilities that still exist in airline security.
Shifts

The airline security paradigm changed on 9/11. In spite of the recent statement by al Qaeda leader Mustafa Abu al-Yazid that al Qaeda retains the ability to conduct 9/11-style attacks, his boast simply does not ring true. After the 9/11 attacks there is no way a captain and crew (or a group of passengers for that matter) are going to relinquish control of an aircraft to hijackers armed with box cutters — or even a handgun or IED. A commercial airliner will never again be commandeered from the cockpit and flown into a building — especially in the United States.

Because of the shift in mindset and improvements in airline security, the militants have been forced to alter their operational framework. In effect they have returned to the pre-9/11 operational concept of taking down an aircraft with an IED rather than utilizing an aircraft as human-guided missile. This return was first demonstrated by the December 2001 attempt by Richard Reid to destroy American Airlines Flight 63 over the Atlantic with a shoe bomb and later by the thwarted 2006 liquid-explosives plot. The operational concept in place now is clearly to destroy rather than commandeer. Both the Reid plot and the 2006 liquid-bomb plot show links back to the operational philosophy evidenced by Operation Bojinka in the mid-1990s, which was a plot to destroy multiple aircraft in flight over the Pacific Ocean.

The return to Bojinka principles is significant because it represents not only an IED attack against an aircraft but also a specific method of attack: a camouflaged, modular IED that the bomber smuggles onto an aircraft in pieces and then assembles once he or she is aboard and well past security. The original Bojinka plot used baby dolls to smuggle the main explosive charge of nitrocellulose aboard the aircraft. Once on the plane, the main charge was primed with an improvised detonator that was concealed inside a carry-on bag and then hooked into a power source and a timer (which was disguised as a wrist watch). The baby-doll device was successfully smuggled past security in a test run in December 1994 and was detonated aboard Philippine Air Flight 434.

The main charge in the baby-doll devices, however, proved insufficient to bring down the aircraft, so the plan was amended to add a supplemental charge of liquid triacetone triperoxide (or TATP, aptly referred to as “Mother of Satan”), which was to be concealed in a bottle of contact lens solution. The plot unraveled when the bombmaker, Abdel Basit (who is frequently referred to by one of his alias names, Ramzi Yousef) accidentally started his apartment on fire while brewing the TATP.
The Twist

The 2006 liquid-bomb plot borrowed the elements of using liquid explosives and disguised individual components and attacking multiple aircraft at the same time from Bojinka. The 2006 plotters sought to smuggle their liquid explosives aboard using drink bottles instead of contact lens solution containers and planned to use different types of initiators. The biggest difference between Bojinka and more recent plots is that the Bojinka operatives were to smuggle the components aboard the aircraft, assemble the IEDs inside the lavatory and then leave the completed devices hidden aboard multi-leg flights while the operatives got off the aircraft at an intermediate stop. The more recent iterations of the jihadist airplane-attack concept, including Richard Reid’s attempted shoe bombing and the 2006 liquid-bomb plot, planned to use suicide bombers to detonate the devices midflight. The successful August 2004 twin aircraft bombings in Russia by Chechen militants also utilized suicide bombers.

The shift to suicide operatives is not only a reaction to increased security but also the result of an evolution in ideology — suicide bombings have become more widely embraced by jihadist militants than they were in the early 1990s. As a result, the jihadist use of suicide bombers has increased dramatically in recent years. The success and glorification of suicide operatives, such as the 9/11 attackers, has been an important factor in this ideological shift.

One of the most recent suicide attacks was the Aug. 28 attempt by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to assassinate Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. In that attack, a suicide operative smuggled an assembled IED containing approximately one pound of high explosives from Yemen to Saudi Arabia concealed in his rectum. While in a meeting with Mohammed, the bomber placed a telephone call and the device hidden inside him detonated.

In an environment where militant operational planning has shifted toward concealed IED components, this concept of smuggling components such as explosive mixtures inside of an operative poses a daunting challenge to security personnel — especially if the components are non-metallic. It is one thing to find a quantity of C-4 explosives hidden inside a laptop that is sent through an X-ray machine; it is quite another to find that same piece of C-4 hidden inside someone’s body. Even advanced body-imaging systems like the newer backscatter and millimeter wave systems being used to screen travelers for weapons are not capable of picking up explosives hidden inside a person’s body. Depending on the explosive compounds used and the care taken in handling them, this method of concealment can also present serious challenges to explosive residue detectors and canine explosive detection teams. Of course, this vulnerability has always existed, but it is now highlighted by the new tactical reality. Agencies charged with airline security are going to be forced to address it just as they were previously forced to address shoe bombs and liquid explosives.
Actors

Currently there are three different actors in the jihadist realm. The first is the core al Qaeda group headed by bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. The core al Qaeda organization has been hit hard over the past several years, and its operational ability has been greatly diminished. It has been several years since the core group has conducted a spectacular terror attack, and it has focused much of its effort on waging the ideological battle as opposed to the physical battle.

The second group of actors in the jihadist realm is the regional al Qaeda franchise groups or allies, such as al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Jemaah Islamiyah and Lashkar-e-Taiba. These regional jihadist groups have conducted many of the most spectacular terrorist attacks in recent years, such as the November 2008 Mumbai attacks and the July 2009 Jakarta bombings.

The third group of actors is the grassroots jihadist militants, who are essentially do-it-yourself terrorist operatives. Grassroots jihadists have been involved in several plots in recent years, including suicide bomb plots in the United States and Europe.

In terms of terrorist tradecraft such as operational planning and bombmaking, the core al Qaeda operatives are the most advanced, followed by the operatives of the franchise groups. The grassroots operatives are generally far less advanced in terms of their tradecraft. However, any of these three actors are capable of constructing a device to conduct an attack against an airliner. The components required for such a device are incredibly simple — especially so in a suicide attack where no timer or remote detonator is required. The only components required for such a simple device are a main explosive charge, a detonator (improvised or otherwise) and a simple initiator such as a battery in the case of an electric detonator or a match or lighter in the case of a non-electric detonator.

The October 2005 incident in which a University of Oklahoma student was killed by a suicide device he was carrying demonstrates how it is possible for an untrained person to construct a functional IED. However, as we have seen in cases like the July 2005 attempted attacks against the London Underground and the July 2007 attempted attacks against nightclubs in London and the airport in Glasgow, grassroots operatives can also botch things due to a lack of technical bombmaking ability. Nevertheless, the fact remains that constructing IEDs is actually easier than effectively planning an attack and successfully executing it.

Getting a completed device or its components by security and onto the aircraft is a significant challenge, but as we have discussed, it is possible to devise ways to overcome that challenge. This means that the most significant weakness of any suicide-attack plan is the operative assigned to conduct the attack. Even in a plot to attack 10 or 12 aircraft, a group would need to manufacture only about 12 pounds of high explosives — about what is required for a single, small suicide device and far less than is required for a vehicle-borne explosive device. Because of this, the operatives are more of a limiting factor than the explosives themselves, as it is far more difficult to find and train 10 or 12 suicide bombers.

A successful attack requires operatives not only to be dedicated enough to initiate a suicide device without getting cold feet; they must also possess the nerve to calmly proceed through airport security checkpoints without alerting officers that they are up to something sinister. This set of tradecraft skills is referred to as demeanor, and while remaining calm under pressure and behaving normal may sound simple in theory, practicing good demeanor under the extreme pressure of a suicide operation is very difficult. Demeanor has proven to be the Achilles’ heel of several terror plots, and it is not something that militant groups have spent a great deal of time teaching their operatives. Because of this, it is frequently easier to spot demeanor mistakes than it is to find well-hidden explosives.

In the end, it is impossible to keep all contraband off aircraft. Even in prison systems, where there is a far lower volume of people to screen and searches are far more invasive, corrections officials have not been able to prevent contraband from being smuggled into the system. Narcotics, cell phones and weapons do make their way through prison screening points. Like the prison example, efforts to smuggle contraband aboard aircraft can be aided by placing people inside the airline or airport staff or via bribery. These techniques are frequently used to smuggle narcotics on board aircraft.

Obviously, efforts to improve technical methods to locate IED components must not be abandoned, but the existing vulnerabilities in airport screening systems demonstrate that emphasis also needs to be placed on finding the bomber and not merely on finding the bomb. Finding the bomber will require placing a greater reliance on other methods such as checking names, conducting interviews and assigning trained security officers to watch for abnormal behavior and suspicious demeanor. It also means that the often overlooked human elements of airport security, including situational awareness, observation and intuition, need to be emphasized now more than ever.

Two Prognostications !

Look for Bill Clinton to throw his hat in the New York Governors race ! or Obama appointing him to the U.N.

U.S. Chamber Loses PG&E As Member

PG&E Corp.(A California corporation) is leaving the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over objections to what its top executive called the chamber's "extreme position on climate change," CNN reported.

In a letter to the U.S. Chamber published on PG&E's blog, PG& E Chairman and Chief Executive Peter Darbee cited "fundamental differences" over climate change to explain why the company is pulling out of the organization, despite the Chamber's "long history as a positive force for America's businesses and its economy."

Here's the Letter synopsis

In the past several weeks, two high-profile companies - Duke Energy and Alstom - publicly gave up their membership in the American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy in protest over its opposition to federal climate change legislation.

Other companies that similarly favor climate change legislation faced uncomfortable questions this summer over their memberships in similar groups that have mounted aggressive campaigns to defeat pending climate bills.

Most responded to critics by pointing out that climate change is only one of many issues these organizations address.

Fair enough. But not every issue is created equal, and sometimes companies decide they have to take a more decisive stand on the really big ones.

Duke and Alstom made that decision. Now PG&E has as well.

In a letter to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, PG&E Chairman and CEO Peter Darbee cited "fundamental differences" over climate change to explain why the company is pulling out of the organization, despite the Chamber's "long history as a positive force for America's businesses and its economy."

The letter criticized the Chamber for taking an extreme position on climate change, which Darbee said does not represent the range of views among Chamber members. In particular, he took the Chamber to task for its recent demand that there be a "Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century" to challenge the science on climate change:

We find it dismaying that the Chamber neglects the indisputable fact that a decisive majority of experts have said the data on global warming are compelling and point to a threat that cannot be ignored. In our opinion, an intellectually honest argument over the best policy response to the challenges of climate change is one thing; disingenuous attempts to diminish or distort the reality of these challenges are quite another.

Darbee also drew a sharp contrast between the Chamber's approach and the constructive, consensus-driven positions forged by Edison Electric Institute and the U.S. Climate Action Partnership.

Instead, he said, "I fear it has forfeited an incredible chance to play a constructive leadership role on one of the most important issues our country may ever face."

Votes to Defund ACORN Are Just Political Cover, Republican Lawmaker Says

Although both the House and Senate have voted to de-fund the liberal activist group ACORN, it’s unlikely such a proposal will be enacted any time soon, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) told CNSNews.com.

If House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid really wanted to defund ACORN, “we could have done it yesterday,” Bachmann told CNSNews.com. “It isn’t that I’m saying these votes won’t result in ultimately defunding ACORN, but right now you’ve got a vote on a housing bill and a vote on an education bill. How’s that going to come together?”

(An amendment to strip ACORN of federal funding was attached to a larger student loan bill in the House and to a housing and transportation funding bill in the Senate. Bachmann questioned how amendments on two different bills in the two chambers would be reconciled. She says Democrats will try to strip the ACORN language from the larger bills, and therefore she advocates a separate, stand-alone bill to end all federal funding for ACORN.)

“My point I’m trying to make to people is: Yes, we have a vote. Let’s make sure it’s not a CYA (cover your ass) vote,” she continued. “Let’s make sure that it’s a real vote to defund ACORN. Until it’s on a bill that actually has a chance of passing and that the president is going to sign, this allegedly criminal enterprise is going to continue.”

Bachman is among the Republicans taking the lead in calling for more investigations into the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN), which was a strong supporter of President Barack Obama and other Democrats.

ACORN has been under fire after hidden camera videos surfaced showing ACORN officials appearing to advise a couple -- posing as a prostitute and pimp. The couple said they wanted to start a prostitution ring with underage girls. One ACORN official in Baltimore told the couple to lie about the prostitution for tax and other legal reasons.

That and other similar videotaped episodes prompted ACORN to fire at least four of its employees. The undercover investigation was conducted by James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles and was posted on Andrew Breibart’s BigGovernment.com. The video aired repeatedly on Fox News Channel.

The hidden-camera videos -- shot at ACORN offices in Baltimore, Washington, New York and two locations in California -- are the latest trouble for an organization that is under investigation for alleged voter registration fraud in the 2008 election. The Nevada Attorney General’s office indicted the organization on state charges.

The Obama presidential campaign boasted that ACORN’s political action committee endorsed its candidate in the Democratic presidential primary. The Obama campaign also spent $800,000 on a get-out-the-vote effort by Citizens Services Inc., a subsidiary of ACORN.

In an interview on ABC’s “This Week,” President Obama backed a probe into ACORN, in light of the hidden-camera videotape. “You know, what I know is, is that what I saw on that video was certainly inappropriate and deserves to be investigated,” Obama told George Stephanopoulos.

Asked if Obama would commit to cutting off funding for the group, Obama responded, “George, this is not the biggest issue facing the country. It's not something I'm paying a lot of attention to.”

Obama formerly worked as an attorney for Project Vote, a group under the ACORN umbrella. The Census Bureau announced last week that ACORN has been dropped from participation in the 2010 Census.

ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis, appearing on Fox News Sunday, said she was “outraged” by the hidden camera videos. “I was outraged by it. Everyone should be. And I can understand how the Congress was also.”

Lewis said ACORN continues to make sure “that all of our employees -- if they're too stupid to understand that they are not reaching professional standards, we terminate them.”

Asked if she hopes President Obama will veto any measure to strip federal funds for ACORN, Lewis responded, “Here's what we want. President Obama is a very smart, very thoughtful person. What he does is his decision. I would never presume to tell the president whether he should veto a bill or not.”

ACORN announced onWednesday that it will conduct an internal investigation.

The organization will work with its advisory council, which includes prominent supporters of President Obama, such as John Podesta, president of the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, and Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, to name an independent auditor and investigator, ACORN chief executive Bertha Lewis said in a written statement.

“CYA votes mean nothing" if don't actually defund ACORN, Bachmann said. Bachmann spoke to CNSNews.com shortly after participating in a health care panel at the weekend Values Voters Summit, sponsored by the conservative Family Research Council.

Obama's Slant on Lobbyists not a reality

Also printed in Salon

By Andy Kroll

At the end of this summer of discontent, of death panels and unplugging poor Grandma, of Birthers and astroturfers and rifle-toting picketers, the halcyon early days of the Obama administration feel increasingly like hazy, gilt-edged memories. The president's sprawling legislative agenda -- a healthcare overhaul, financial regulation reform, slashing wasteful military spending, and climate change legislation legislation -- is slowly grinding its way through the halls of Congress. Barack Obama's sheen, his administration's unflagging confidence, and all the bipartisan, post-racial aspirations have been replaced by the hard realities of Washington politicking. And with the media's lens more tightly focused than ever on Washington's every move and utterance 24/7, anything said a few months back feels like a lifetime ago.

One particular statement from distant April, however, bears revisiting. The president's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, then grasped not only the magnitude of what was being undertaken, but the raft of entrenched interests lining up in opposition. As he told the New York Times:

We're not taking on a fight; we're taking on a multiple-front fight because we've taken on a series of entrenched interests across the waterfront -- from education to health care, and the defense industry, and the lobbying industry as a whole … There will be a scorecard at the end of which ones we won and which ones we didn't, but every one of those policy challenges have been initiated by us.

Never short on chutzpah, Emanuel made it clear: it was Us vs. Them in a "multiple-front fight." A "scorecard at the end" would determine winners and losers. As a candidate on the campaign trail, Obama himself regularly decried the undue influence of moneyed interests and lobbyists. Announcing his candidacy on Feb. 10, 2007, for instance, he declared it "time to turn the page" on the "cynics, and the lobbyists, and the special interests who've turned our government into a game only they can afford to play." And on Jan. 21, 2009, the very day he came into office, Obama issued one of his first executive orders aiming to limit the influence of lobbyists in the new administration. He planned to "close the revolving door that lets lobbyists come into government freely, and lets them use their time in public service as a way to promote their own interests over the interests of the American people when they leave."

The new White House stood confident in those early months that it could take on "K Street" -- a street in the capital notorious for the density of its lobbying firms as well as Washington shorthand for their growing ranks. Tallied up today, however, the administration's seven-month scorecard tells a different story. Just as sweeping as the administration's packed domestic agenda has been the sheer force with which the lobbying industry and its clients have fought back, blocking, maligning or undermining its progress. In a Washington version of Newton's third law, the president's actions and those of his allies in Congress have elicited an equal and opposite reaction from opponents -- inside the Beltway and beyond it.

Spending eye-popping sums of money, deploying armies of lobbyists, dispatching grass-roots foot soldiers as agents of disruption, the special interests have fought fiercely to derail the White House reform agenda. It's now apparent that Obama and his advisors, including Rahm Emanuel, underestimated their strength. Even if Congress were to move in all four areas targeted for reform, the concessions already made, the softening of prospective regulations and restrictions, would likely signal a series of genuine victories for those special interests.

What does it mean when an intelligent, ambitious and well-liked president, who broke through one of the nation's most glaring racial barriers and enjoys majorities in both houses of Congress, can't overcome the deeply rooted interests that now seem thoroughly embedded in the American political system? A look at the unprecedented opposition to Obama's plans reveals why Rahm Emanuel might want to pocket that scorecard.

An opposition that knows no limit

The sheer presence of lobbyists cannot be underestimated. Case in point: the legislative battle over healthcare reform. As of mid-August, there were six lobbyists trying to influence healthcare legislation for every single member of the House and Senate, Bloomberg News reported.

That's 3,300 lobbyists working on a single issue (three times the number of defense lobbyists) with nearly three new lobbyists joining the fray each day. So far this year, $263 million (or more than $1 million a day) has been shelled out just for lobbying health-related issues, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Industry players have waged war to sway public opinion, spending $75 million on TV ads. Lawmakers up for election in 2010 have already seen $23 million flow into their nascent campaign coffers.

And the biggest spenders in healthcare lobbying aren't doling out their largesse to just anyone. Take Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the chairman of the influential Senate Finance Committee, leader of the bipartisan "Gang of Six" spearheading the Finance Committee's healthcare negotiations, and architect of that committee's much anticipated healthcare legislation. He's also one of the top five recipients of health industry-related money in Congress, pocketing $2.9 million in his career. For his 2008 reelection campaign, the unassuming Baucus took in $1.2 million from health industries, $690,050 of which came from health-related political action committees, the most for any Washington politician. Not that the six-term senator needed it: He steamrolled his opponent, an 85-year-old serial also-ran who'd lost 14 elections in 44 years and campaigned on a platform to turn the U.S. into a parliamentary system, by 48 percentage points.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the ranking Republican member of the Finance Committee, not surprisingly ranks among the top recipients of health-related money as well. He's received $2.1 million from health industry players. And yet another Senate Finance Committee member and Gang of Sixer, Sen. Kent ConradD-N.D., has likewise enjoyed a steady flow of donations to his political action committee from lobbyists working for the pharmaceutical and health-insurance industries.

Loosening up lawmakers with lobbying and campaign donations is one way in the door; having worked for them doesn't hurt, either. According to the Sunlight Foundation, five former Baucus staffers -- two of whom are former chiefs of staff -- now lobby or work for major players in the healthcare debate, including the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (which outright opposes the House's promising healthcare legislation that includes a public option) and drug makers Wyeth, Merck and AstraZeneca. Similarly, all but one of the Finance Committee's 10 Republican members have ties to former staffers now lobbying for healthcare-related companies and organizations.

Perhaps, then, it's not so surprising to learn that none of the Big 3 -- Baucus, Grassley or Conrad -- backs a true public option in healthcare legislation, arguably the only way to keep insurers honest, ensure competition, and lower costs. Before the August recess, Democrats had hoped Grassley might come on board with healthcare legislation, giving the Obama administration the bipartisan imprimatur it sought. Grassley had other ideas, and spent his recess propagating the myth that the House was trying to "pull the plug on Grandma." He was even more forthright in a fundraising letter, declaring, "I am and always have been opposed to the Obama Administration's plans to nationalize health care. Period."

Baucus and Conrad, meanwhile, back a nonprofit co-op model, a pseudo-public option that, while successful in a handful of settings nationwide, would, most experts believe, likely fail dismally in any competition with heavyweight private health insurers. Indeed, an early outline of Baucus's long-awaited legislation lists Elizabeth Fowler, the senator's chief health aide, as the apparent author; Fowler, it turns out, formerly worked as an executive for Wellpoint, a big-time health insurer that -- you guessed it -- opposes a true public option.

Nor has the White House withstood the pressure of the deep-pocketed health industries. Before the August congressional recess, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius broke new ground, declaring that a public option was "not the essential element" of a healthcare overhaul. By then, the Obama administration had already made its "secret," backroom deal with top drug company representatives. In exchange for early support for its reform agenda, the White House agreed to limit how much (via drug price negotiations and industry rebates) Big Pharma would have to decrease the cost of its products, now borne by taxpayers, to $80 billion over 10 years. The deal was a coup -- for the drug makers. After all, the total sales of the top five U.S. pharmaceutical companies alone totaled almost $660 billion in the past half decade, more than eight times the agreed-upon cost savings.

Healthcare may be the most striking example of what's been going on in Obama-era Washington, but this sort of lobbying onslaught actually extends to Obama's whole agenda. Almost 2,400 lobbyists are, for instance, working on financial industry-related issues like the White House's proposed financial-regulation and consumer-protection reforms. Influential players, among them the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable, have already spent a staggering $222 million on lobbying in just the first half of 2009. The Chamber of Commerce, in particular, ranks first this year in finance-related lobbying (total spending: $26.2 million; total number of lobbyists employed: 167). A senior director for the Chamber of Commerce, which vehemently opposes a White House-proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency that would consolidate authority over credit cards, mortgages, loans and other consumer products into one centralized regulator, pulled no punches in a comment offered to Reuters: "We are working to kill the bill."

In fact, Wall Street's lobbying battle against increased financial regulation has been so powerful and smothering that, one year after the financial crisis began, plenty of experts already foresee future crises like the one in our not-so-distant past. Of the mega banks on Wall Street, MIT professor and former International Monetary Fund chief economist Simon Johnson says, "They will run up big risks, they will fail again, they will hit us for a big check."

On the Waxman-Markey climate bill, the first in U.S. history to tackle global warming, opponents have thrown everything but the classic kitchen sink at lawmakers to persuade them to drop their support. One of the heaviest hitters, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy (ACCCE), an umbrella advocacy group representing mining, coal, manufacturers and other energy interests, has spent nearly $12 million since 2008 lobbying against climate change efforts. But the 2,800 lobbyists weighing in on the Waxman-Markey bill in Washington -- more than 75 percent representing industry interests -- are only the tip of a rapidly melting iceberg.

The American Energy Alliance, headed by oil lobbyist Thomas Pyle, has hit the road with its "American Energy Express" bus tour visiting county fairs, horse shows and baseball games in coal-friendly Midwestern and Appalachian states, claiming that Waxman-Markey is actually a national energy tax that would eliminate jobs. The ACCCE has also hired a firm specializing in astroturfing -- that is, in creating or funding phony grass-roots organizations or networks -- to put together "America's Power Army," a 225,000-strong volunteer network to spread misinformation at the town-hall meetings of congressional representatives and other forums.

The anti-Waxman-Markey warfare reached a new low when one sleazy D.C. lobbying firm, showing the lengths to which opponents will go, fabricated letters opposing the bill and sent them to members of Congress. A congressional investigation found that Bonner and Associates, a specialist in grass-roots/astroturf campaigns working for ACCCE, forged more than a dozen separate letters and sent them to Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Va., and several other congressmen. The purported authors of the phony letters ranged from an American veterans' organization and the American Association of University Women to a Hispanic advocacy group, Creciendo Juntos, and the NAACP. But their message was the same: Fight Waxman-Markey, it will cost us jobs.

The F-22's false promise

In April, Defense Secretary Robert Gates signaled the Obama administration's new philosophy on military spending by announcing an array of notable budget cuts intended to curtail or eliminate some of the unsuccessful or unnecessary weapons systems that litter the Pentagon's bloated budget and reflect the previous administration's military excesses. "We must reform how and what we buy," Gates explained, "meaning a fundamental overhaul of our approach to procurement, acquisition and contracting."

In Gates' crosshairs were projects like the F-22 Raptor jet fighter, a Cold War relic that's run wildly over-budget and never flown a mission in Iraq or Afghanistan; the VH-71 presidential helicopter, which Obama specifically insisted he didn't want or need; the C-17, a transport plane Gates said the country already had enough of; and the Army's lackluster Future Combat Systems modernization program, the brainchild of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. After years of excessive military spending, Gates' plan to trim these wasteful projects (though, sadly, not the defense budget in toto) potentially presented a stark change of fortune to defense contractors and corporations accustomed to the beneficence of Washington's lawmakers.

In response, the defense industry and its lobbyists mobilized. Six months later, as new defense legislation staggers through Congress, just north of 1,000 defense-related lobbyists are hard at work. This year $62 million has been spent on Pentagon lobbying efforts. In particular, Lockheed Martin, the F-22's main manufacturer, has sunk almost $7 million into lobbying in 2009, in part through a campaign targeting lawmakers with F-22 manufacturing sites in their states, while extolling the number of jobs an F-22 program would create. Lockheed even launched a faux-grass roots Web site, PreserveRaptorJobs.com, to drum up public support for the plane. (It has since been taken down.)

Obama, however, stood firm. Even after House lawmakers tried to restore F-22 funding, the president insisted that he'd veto any bill with more of the planes in it. This was made crystal clear in a "Statement of Administration Policy" (SAP) on the House defense appropriations bill. The plane's loyal supporters like Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., and Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., got the message and left the F-22 on the cutting-room floor.

But the question remains: How pyrrhic was the administration's F-22 "victory"? Gates has, as a start, agreed to order four more of the useless F-22s at a cost of $351 million a pop -- they are included in the 2009 supplemental defense bill -- and he plans to more than double the future run of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, a cumbersome, accident-prone, prohibitively expensive plane like the F-22. It will surprise no one that the F-35 is also made by Lockheed -- and it is easy to imagine that the F-35 commitment could, in fact, have been a corporate trade-off for the lost F-22, which Lockheed still hopes to sell abroad with the Senate's help.

And what about those other projects eyed by Gates: the VH-71 helicopter or the C-17 transport? The Obama administration, by all evidence, seems to be wilting in its defense of their termination. (That the second most powerful Pentagon official, William Lynn, is a former lobbyist for defense contractor Raytheon undoubtedly doesn't help.) The same SAP with the F-22 veto is noticeably softer on the VH-71, saying only that "the President's senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill," but stopping short of insisting that the helicopter must go. As for the C-17, any kind of administration recommendation is MIA in the SAP.

"Gates and Obama got tough on the F-22, and in Congress the porkers backed off, and Murtha even took the F-22s he had in his bill out," Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information and a former Capitol Hill staffer for three decades, told TomDispatch. "But in the same bill, Murtha also packed in more C-17s, more presidential helicopters, more F-35 engines, challenging Gates and Obama. They need to understand that they need to put up a fight."

If not Obama, then who?

Rahm Emanuel knew back in April that the administration was entering the ring, but how ready have Obama and his team been to duke it out on all fronts? On paper, Obama has appeared ready enough. In his moving address to Congress last week, for instance, he not only emphasized the need for a public option in healthcare reform, but directly debunked the "bogus claims" being used to attack his healthcare reform vision.

His actions, though, have been less reassuring. While committing his administration to the Afghan war, the president has appeared unwilling to fight defense boondoggles down the line, as he did in the case of the F-22, and he's been less than forceful in defending sorely needed financial reforms -- like those for the $592 billion over-the-counter derivatives market -- in the face of Wall Street's lobbying clout.

Once again, this isn't entirely surprising: For all the talk of the flood of small, individual donations to Obama's historic 2008 election campaign, its coffers overflowed with money from financial powerhouses like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase and corporations like General Electric, Google and Microsoft. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Obama still ranks near the top among all recipients when it comes to contributions from the health, defense, financial and energy industries.

The same goes for Obama's staff. In an interview with Politico.com, Bill Moyers put it vividly. "I think Rahm Emanuel, who is a clever politician, understands that the money for Obama's reelection would come primarily from the health industry, the drug industry and Wall Street, and so he is a corporate Democrat who is destined, determined that there would be something in this legislation," Moyers asserted, that will appease those powerful interests.

If the president's sprawling agenda has revealed anything, it's the extent to which private industries and their foot soldiers on K Street and Capitol Hill influence -- and in some cases dictate -- American policymaking. Right now, about 12,500 federally registered lobbyists make their trade in Washington, but believe it or not, they're only a small slice of the pie. James Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University, tells TomDispatch that the number of people in the political advocacy business who aren't registered -- the astroturfers, public relations firms, and strategy groups, among others -- number anywhere from 90,000 to 120,000. Conservatively speaking, that adds up to 168 influence peddlers for every member of Congress.

Now you know the players. The teams, uneven as they may be, are on the field. So take out that scorecard. Beating the Washington influence machine, flush with cash, amply staffed and relentless in its mission, will be no small feat for Obama's team. And if they fail, then it will be possible to say that no matter who's voted in, it's the influence machine that rules Washington.