Would-be illegal immigrants planning to cross the desert and enter the United States on foot are to be given hand-held satellite devices by the Mexican authorities to ensure they arrive safely. Those who get lost or fall sick during the dangerous four-day crossing will be able to activate the device, to alert frontier police on both sides of the border.

The satellite tracking service will require would-be illegals to register their intentions before setting off – a paradoxical move, given that secrecy is necessary for success – but Mexican authorities are predicting that about 200,000 devices will be handed out when the project is launched formally in the coming year.

“Our intention is to save lives,” said Jaime Obregon, the coordinator for the state commission for migrants in Puebla, the Mexican state which is behind the project. “There are lots of people looking to cross and we are working with the US authorities to make sure they do not die on the way.”

Between 20 and 30 migrants succumb to hellish temperatures and insect bites while trying to cross into Arizona every year. Heat exhaustion sometimes causes short-term memory loss, with trekkers wandering into the desert.

Hey look, I don’t want these people to die. And, I certainly understand why they’re trying to come here. But, for the Mexican government to be abetting this illegal behavior stinks to high heaven.

The Bush administration wants North Korea’s attention, so like a scolding parent it’s trying to make it tougher for that country’s eccentric leader to buy iPods, plasma televisions and Segway electric scooters.

The U.S. government’s first-ever effort to use trade sanctions to personally aggravate a foreign president expressly targets items believed to be favored by Kim Jong Il or presented by him as gifts to the roughly 600 loyalist families who run the communist government.

Kim, who engineered a secret nuclear weapons program, has other options for obtaining the high-end consumer electronics and other items he wants.

But the list of proposed luxury sanctions, obtained by The Associated Press, aims to make Kim’s swanky life harder: No more cognac, Rolex watches, cigarettes, artwork, expensive cars, Harley Davidson motorcycles or even personal watercraft, such as Jet Skis.

Oh yeah, they’ll be on the knees shortly begging us to stop these devastating sanctions.

U.S. stock futures pointed to a sharp sell-off on Wall Street on Wednesday after Democrats swept Republicans from power in the U.S. House of Representatives and an undecided Senate race fueled caution.

With control of the U.S. Senate likely to hinge on a ballot recount that could take weeks, analysts said investors would be pressed to sell stocks following a strong run-up made in anticipation of gridlock within Congress rather than the wider sweep garnered by the Democrats, who must now work with a Republican-controlled White House.

I think the Demcoratic pick ups last night are a mixed blessing. We have a god chance of being in an economic recession going into the 2008 Presidential elections, and guess who’s going to get the blame? That’s right, the party in control of Congress. Besides that, the GOP has gotten away from their message of small government and fiscal conservatism, and needed a trip to the woodshed to get them back on message. The Democratic majority won’t be sufficient to do anything anyway, so all in all last night may very well have been a good thing for the GOP instead of a bad thing.

I’m sure I’ll get flamed by people who think I’m being dishonest, but so what? Would I have preferred not to have lost seats in Congress? Of course. But I think the American people also need to be reminded  of how bad it is when the Demorats run the show, especially with a Presidential election only two years away.

Everybody has an opinion about next Tuesday’s midterm congressional election in the U.S. – including senior terrorist leaders interviewed by WND who say they hope Americans sweep the Democrats into power because of the party’s position on withdrawing from Iraq, a move, as they see it, that ensures victory for the worldwide Islamic resistance.

The terrorists told WorldNetDaily an electoral win for the Democrats would prove to them Americans are “tired.”

They rejected statements from some prominent Democrats in the U.S. that a withdrawal from Iraq would end the insurgency, explaining an evacuation would prove resistance works and would compel jihadists to continue fighting until America is destroyed.

They said a withdrawal would also embolden their own terror groups to enhance “resistance” against Israel.

“Of course Americans should vote Democrat,” Jihad Jaara, a senior member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group ( emphasis mine)and the infamous leader of the 2002 siege of Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, told WND.

Very interesting. Not only do these terrorists understand the Dems aren’t serious about fighting terrorism, but also they reject the silly argument that the Dems make about pulling out of Iraq ending the “insurgency” there. So, essentially these terrorists agree that the Democrats have no idea what they’re talking about. Of course, that’s not news to me, but if you’re one of those folks who believe otherwise, I’d start paying more attention.

I confess, I was surpised at what an adventurous, danger-filled life he lead, the things those oyster-eyes of his have seen. I learned a great deal I had never known about Obama. I think that after you hear about his disadvantaged upbringing and his sorrows, that you, too, will wish we could give him some sort of prize… other than the presidency, of course, since he’s way too liberal and has virtually no experience. And there’s that age thing, but I think I already covered that.

Obama was born in war-ravaged Honolulu in 1961 (what did I tell you?) His father was a Harvard economist, while his mother was an anthropologist from Kansas; yet despite this deprivation, Obama has gone on to be one of the most celebrated men of recent history.

He spent his formative years learning, teaching, and defending his ancestral manse from marauding members of the haole tribe, who frequently raided to capture slaves for the Dole Pineapple plantation — which still grew pineapples, rather the tourists, in those days of yore.

During this period, Obama was described by many as the mainstay of the community, the one to whom everyone turned for advice on minimum wage, military redeployment, and animal husbandry. But then, at age two, tragedy struck: Obama’s parents divorced. When Obama was six, his mother packed him off to the jungles of Indonesia, where he excelled in the simple but effective guerilla tactics that would later serve him so well as a statesman.

Rescued at age 10, when his mother returned to sanity and to Hawaii — deadly though it may be, he still called it home — he enrolled in the fifth grade.

We skip seven years, thankfully. I don’t know if my heartstrings can take much more of this. When next we intersect the Great Man, he has graduated high school and enrolled in a junior college in Los Angeles. But he never forgot his deep, ethinic roots. Many years after leaving, he said:

The irony is that my decision to work in politics, and to pursue such a career in a big Mainland city, in some sense grows out of my Hawaiian upbringing, and the ideal that Hawaii still represents in my mind.

King Kamehameha himself would have been proud of the Kenyan-Kansan-American Obama, spiritual heir to the island majesty.

But such genius could never be satisfied by the cramped confines of Occidental College. Bursting forth, like Minerva from the brow of Zeus — or was that Athena from the brow of Cicero? — Obama and his entourage transferred base of operations to the world-renowned Columbia University in New York City (Los Angeles not having been quite liberal enough).

Obama was a pioneer in more ways than two: he took a daring combination major of both political science and international relations, demonstrating the finely honed ability to juggle many more balls than most men can ever dream of handling. I should rephrase that, but I’m under a deadline here.

Surprisingly, considering the manifold difficulties and dangers faced first by the boy, then the man, Obama graduated with a B.A. But he was not content to rush immediately to Harvard Law, as so many other lesser men have done. Nay, Obama knew that the first duty of any man who has clawed his way out of the Honolulu ghetto was to give back to the community.

Heh heh, the ghettoes of Honolulu. I just love it. Better put your Presidential aspirations on the back burner, pal.

A firebrand civil rights lawyer who has defended Black Panthers and anti-war radicals was sentenced Monday to nearly 2 1/2 years in prison — far less than the 30 years prosecutors wanted — for helping an imprisoned terrorist sheik communicate with his followers on the outside.

Notice how the Associated Press refers to her as a civil rights attorney, when what she’s done her whole life was defend murderers and thugs.

Stewart has represented Black Panthers, leaders of the 1960s student activist group Weather Underground, a former mob hit man and a man accused of trying to kill nine police officers.

Stewart was convicted in 2005 of providing material support to terrorists. She had released a statement issused by one of her clients, Omar Abdel-Rahman, a blind sheik sentenced to life in prison for plotting to blow up five New York landmarks and assassinate Egypt’s president.

How exactly does defending terrorists and killers constitute being a “civil rights lawyer”? And how did this piece of filth react to her sentence?

Lynne Stewart, 67, smiled, cried and hugged supporters after U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl pronounced the sentence.

Well, hell, I’d smile and cry for joy if I just got a slap on the wrist too. Not only that, but this dirtbag doesn’t even have to stay in prison while she’s conducting her appeal. What a travesty of justice.

Election officials say hundreds of potentially bogus registration cards, including ones for dead and underage people, were submitted by a branch of a national group that has been criticized in the past for similar offenses.

At least 1,500 potentially fraudulent registration cards were turned in by the St. Louis branch of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, leading up to Wednesday’s registration deadline for the Nov. 7 election, said Kim Mathis, chairwoman of the St. Louis City Board of Election Commissioners.

Invalid registrations solicited by ACORN workers included duplicate or incomplete ones, a 16-year-old voter, dead people registering, and forged signatures, Mathis said.

“Fifteen hundred may not sound like a lot, but it is a big deal and it disenfranchises the election process,” she said. “It’s time someone be prosecuted. There’s a lot of taxpayer dollars being wasted on this.”

Scott Liendecker, director of Republican elections for St. Louis, said his office will turn the matter over to the U.S. attorney’s office for possible prosecution once a final count of potentially fraudulent submissions is finished next week.

Mary Wheeler-Jones, the Democratic elections director, said she does not dispute the accusations against ACORN.

ACORN spokesman Brian Mellor told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which first reported the potential fraud, that prosecution could be warranted.

“We try very hard to monitor the employees, but there are chances of things slipping through,” Mellor said. He did not return calls from The Associated Press.

ACORN, founded in 1970, sends paid and volunteer workers around cities to sign up new voters. The group ran voter registration drives in Missouri and 16 other states this year. Similar allegations have been made in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Colorado, though no charges have been filed.

This year in Missouri, ACORN has turned in about 40,000 new voter registrations. Half of those were in St. Louis. The other 20,000 were collected in the Kansas City area, according to election officials.

Four ACORN workers were fired over a September 2003 incident after the St. Louis board pointed out more than 1,000 questionable new voter registration forms collected by ACORN.

ACORN registered more than a million U.S. voters in 2004, when it also had to defend itself against fraud allegations. That year, unreadable cards, duplicate registrations and other invalid or potentially fraudulent registrations turned up in Ohio, Minnesota, North Carolina and Virginia.

Just another reason why some sort of photo ID needs to be required to vote. But, don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen, as the liberals will claim that any such regulation is racist and “disenfranchises” minority groups. And it’s true. Dead blacks and Hispanics would no longer be permitted to cast ballots on Election Day!

Pretty amazing, huh? That alone would make the results completely useless. But how did these numbers even come about? Well, the researchers interviewed 1800 Iraqi families, from which they were able to actually confirm 527 deaths. They then extrapolated from there to get the outrageous figure of 600,000. Now, the website Iraqi Body Count keeps track of actual deaths reported by morgues, the military and the media, and reports a number of about 47,000, or less than 10% of what the Lancet researchers report. So, somebody is way off base here, and I don’t think it’s the people at Iraqi Body Count.

One of the many problems with the original study from 2004 was that deaths not actually due to the war were included as war deaths.

In addition, the study includes deaths that the researchers have arbitrarily determined were caused by the invasion but not caused by violence. If they are using the same criteria as the 2004 study, some of these causes of death include:

• Malnourishment due to bad economic conditions as a result of the invasion.

• Illness due to degraded health care infrastructure.

• Deaths due to domestic violence.

• Deaths due to criminal activity unrelated to the insurgency.

• And “… civilian deaths resulting from the breakdown in law and order, and deaths due to inadequate health care or sanitation.”

If the researchers continued to include these non-war related causes of death, it would help explain why their numbers are so inflated. But the biggest reason why the numbers are so silly is that deaths of insurgents, Iraqi police, and Iraqi army personnel were all included as civilian deaths! How much more ridiculous can you get? All in all, the timing of the worthless study is designed to effect the November elections, and the media is complicit in the whole episode.

 

For months, Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been fending off accusations he bungled government programs and awarded jobs and contracts to contributors and cronies. But suddenly, one issue has cut through the clutter: a $1,500 gift to one of his daughters.

The check came from a lifelong Blagojevich friend, and it arrived soon after the friend’s wife got a state job.

The governor has said he is unsure whether it was a birthday gift for one daughter or a christening gift for another, but he insisted it had no connection to the job. At the same time, he acknowledged asking his chief of staff to help the woman.

With just weeks to go before Election Day, the $1,500 check has gotten voters’ attention in a way some of the other allegations — involving audits, contracts and bureaucratic procedure — haven’t.

“People think, `My kid never got $1,500; there must be something wrong here,’” said Cindi Canary, executive director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform.

Blagojevich, a Democrat running for a second term, got elected four years ago as a reformer promising to clean up state government, but his administration has been mired in controversy for doling out jobs and contracts to the politically connected.

The race is playing out against a backdrop of political corruption, with convictions at Chicago’s City Hall, an FBI raid on Cook County’s government offices and the recent sentencing of Blagojevich’s predecessor, Republican Gov. George Ryan, to more than six years in prison for graft.

Blagojevich’s GOP opponent, Judy Baar Topinka, is using the $1,500 check to paint him as corrupt. She is running an ad that shows Blagojevich fumbling to answer questions about the money. And at a recent debate, her supporters held up huge, fake checks and shouted, “Hooray for birthdays!”

While it is not illegal in itself for Blagojevich’s family to accept a gift from a friend, it would be if the money was a thank-you for the new job.

The governor’s office initially said the check was a gift for his older daughter, Amy, on her seventh birthday in 2003. Blagojevich later told reporters it might have been a gift for his younger daughter, Annie, who was christened about the same time.

Blagojevich said there is nothing odd about his close friend Michael Ascaridis giving such a large gift. At the same time, pleading a faulty memory, he would not say whether Ascaridis has given similar gifts in the past.

The fact that Blagojevich doesn’t remember whether the check was supposedly a birthday gift or confirmation gift for one of his kids strains all credulity. That’s a big gift for either of those, and I would certainly remember quite well if someone gave me a gift that large for one of my children.  Just another of the myriad reasons to throw Blago’s sleazy butt out in the street in November.

Falling gasoline prices helped brighten the mood of American consumers in September, sending a barometer of consumer sentiment higher than analysts expected.

The New York-based Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index rose to 104.5 from a revised reading of 100.2. in August. Analysts had expected the index to rise to 103. The reading, the highest since July’s 107, followed a big dip in August, when employment worries dragged down consumer sentiment.

The private research group’s Present Situation Index, which measures how shoppers feel now about economic conditions, rose to 127.7 from 123.9. Its Expectations Index, which measures consumers’ outlook over the next six months, rose to 89.0 from 84.4 last month.

“A more favorable assessment of current conditions coupled with a less pessimistic short-term outlook boosted consumer confidence this month,” said Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center, in a statement. But she cautioned that “…even though consumers’ concerns have eased, there is little to suggest a significant change in economic activity as we enter the final quarter of 2006.”

Falling gasoline prices are causing the average American to feel better about the economy, and will translate into a much smaller loss in the midterm elections than the pundits are predicting. If the Democrats think that this election is going to resemble the midterm election in 1994, I think they have another thing coming.

 

Before anyone starts taking our most recent ex-President too seriously, let’s review the bidding. Clinton wasn’t the President who ordered the armed forces to go after bin Laden without reservation, to get him “dead or alive.” He wasn’t the one who sent thousands of troops after al-Qaeda and nations that harbor and support terrorists

Instead, President Clinton responded to attacks on our troops in Somalia by withdrawing, and responded to attacks by al-Qaeda on our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya by bombing the aspirin factory of an innocent pharmaceutical firm in Sudan. He reacted to al-Qaeda’s bombing of the USS Cole by lobbing a few cruise missiles at empty tents in the desert. He turned down Sudanese offers to cooperate in tracking down and capturing bin Laden.

The bipartisan 9/11 Commission concluded that – far from doing more than anyone to kill the brutal murderer who now is the international face of terrorism – President Clinton had flatly refused to allow the military or CIA to kill Osama bin Laden. Clinton’s instructions were that bin Laden should be taken, if at all, alive not dead. CIA officials reported that this instruction cut the chance of success in half.

That is not to say that the Clinton Administration wasn’t in a better position to eliminate bin Laden. Evidence before the Commission showed that the Clinton Administration had live footage of Osama bin Laden at a camp in Afghanistan in the Fall of 2000, a year before the 9/11 attacks, but didn’t act. NBC’s Tom Brokaw, playing the tape on-air in 2004, noted rightly that this was an enormous opportunity lost. Having gotten bin Laden in your sights isn’t something to brag about if you weren’t willing to pull the trigger.

Clinton, like all presidents, had some top-notch advisers, including some thoughtful advisers on military and foreign affairs. But he is quintessentially a temporizer, one who always has had difficulty reaching a conclusion and sticking to it, and not someone who was terribly interested in either preserving our military power or using it effectively in world affairs. He’d much rather talk one on one with world leaders, persuaded he could convince them to do what he wanted by the concerted application of charm.

I suppose Clinton is hoping that nobody really remembers what actually happened. But, fortunately for the American people, he’s wrong in that regard.

“One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line.”
President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998.

“If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program.”
President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998.

“Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face.”
Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998.

“He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983.”
Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998

“[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq’s refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs.”
Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998.

“Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.”
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998.

“Hussein has … chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies.”
Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999.

“There is no doubt that . Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies.”
Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, Dec, 5, 2001.

“We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them.”
Sen. Carl Levin (d, MI), Sept. 19, 2002.

“We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country.”
Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002.

“Iraq’s search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.”
Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002.

“We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seing and developing weapons of mass destruction.”
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002.

“The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons…”
Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002.

“I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force — if necessary — to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security.”
Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002.

“There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years . We also should remember we have alway s underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction.”
Sen. Jay Rockerfeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002,

“He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do.”
Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002.

“In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons.”
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002

“We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction. “[W]ithout question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime … He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. And now he has continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction … So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real …
Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003.

Of course, now those same Democrats are claiming disingenuously that  President Bush lied about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction to get us into a war with Iraq! The Democrats are treating the American people like imbeciles. Don’t let them deceive you.

Mayor Richard Daley vetoed an ordinance Monday that would have required mega-retailers to pay their workers more than other employers after some of the nation’s largest stores including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. warned the measure would keep them from opening their doors within the city’s limits.

Supporters said the measure would guarantee employees a “living wage,” but in a letter to City Council members released Monday, Daley said the ordinance would drive businesses from the city.

“I understand and share a desire to ensure that everyone who works in the city of Chicago earns a decent wage,” Daley wrote. “But I do not believe that this ordinance, well intentioned as it may be, would achieve that end.”

The ordinance was approved by the council in late July and requires so-called “big box” stores to pay workers at least $10 an hour plus $3 in fringe benefits by mid-2010. The rules would only apply to companies with more than $1 billion in annual sales and stores of at least 90,000 square feet.

The minimum wage in Illinois is $6.50 an hour and the federal minimum is $5.15.

First off, Illinois already has a minimum wage significantly higher than the Federal rate. Second, the “living wage” bill is unfair because it is meant to specifically target Walmart, and other businesses would be exempt from the bill. Third, it would succeed in driving out jobs from the City of Chicago which Chicago can’t afford to lose. And fourth, there are people who just don’t deserve to get paid $10 per hour because they just aren’t worth that level of compensation, and it’s just plain wrong to mandate that a business pay those people more than they’re worth. Other than all of that, the “living wage” bill makes perfect sense!

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Friday that Syria had pledged to step up border patrols and work with the Lebanese army to stop the flow of weapons to Hezbollah.

Annan also said that he had asked Syrian President Bashar Assad to use his nation’s influence to help win the release of three Israeli soldiers held by Lebanese and Palestinian militants allied with Damascus.

According to Annan, Assad said at a meeting in Damascus that Syria will boost the number of its guards along the Lebanon-Syria border and establish joint patrols with the Lebanese army “where possible.”

Well, talk about the fox guarding the henhouse. Most of Hezbollah’s rockets which were fired at Israel from across the Lebanese border actually came from the Syrians in the first place!

The great majority of rockets fired at Israel came from Syria. They included:

• Grad-type 122mm Katyusha, range 30 km., warhead 30 kg.
• Improved Grad 122mm Katyusha, range 50 km., warhead 30 kg.
• “220mm rocket,” range 70 km (probably Syrian-manufactured Russian “Ouragan” Multiple Launch Rocket System [MLRS])
• “B302″ 302mm rocket, range 100 km, warhead 175 kg. (probably Syrian-manufactured Chinese WS-1 MLRS).

The head of IDF Military Intelligence, Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin, told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on August 24 that with the exception of the long-range Iranian Zelzal missiles, most rockets fired by Hizballah at Israel were taken from the Syrian arsenal rather than from Iran.² However, debris from an Iranian-made 240mm Fajr 3 with a range of 45 km has also been identified. IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on August 16 that Israel was “successful in destroying 90 percent of [Hizballah's] long-range rockets.”³

 

Asking the Syrians  to prevent Hezbollah from rearming itself is laughable, and only a buffoon like Kofi Annan would believe that this deal makes any kind of sense.

 

The war started in Aitta Shaab, where Hizbullah fighters stole across the border and kidnapped two Israeli soldiers one month ago. When it ended at 8am yesterday morning – and not a minute earlier – the tiny town bore fearful testament to Israel’s wrath.

The town centre was utterly destroyed, reduced to a line of disembowelled buildings cloaked in ashen dust. Gigantic craters pitted the roads. Scorched vehicles slouched in the gutters.

Yet for the townspeople who slowly trickled home, many to decimated homes, the bombs had failed to obliterate one thing – a defiant sense of victory.

“I feel joy,” said Ibrahim Awada, whose grocery store had been flattened, house destroyed and three neighbours killed. “These buildings can be rebuilt. All I care is that Hizbullah defeats Israel.”

Police officer Sameeh Srur embraced Hizbullah fighters, kissing them on both cheeks. “Yes, it looks like Leningrad,” he said, referring to the Soviet city that braved the brutal German siege during the second world war. “But we brought the Israelis to their knees here. This shows that Hizbullah is the strongest army in the Middle East.”

One would suspect that since the damage to their country far exceeds that of Israel, and the loss of life on their side also far exceeds that in Israel, that they would have some understanding that they are the big losers here. But, whatever helps you sleep at night. However, it seems that the Iranians, as crazy as they are, have a much more realistic view of the situation, and understand that they have miscalculated and lost badly.

While the damage caused Israel’s military reputation tops Western assessments of the Lebanon war, DEBKAfile’s Iranian sources report an entirely different perception taking hold in ruling circles in Tehran.

After UN Security Council resolution 1701 calling for a truce was carried Friday, Aug. 11, the heads of the regime received two separate evaluations of the situation in Lebanon – one from Iran’s foreign ministry and one from its supreme national security council. Both were bleak: their compilers were concerned that Iran had been manipulatively robbed of its primary deterrent asset ahead of a probable nuclear confrontation with the United States and Israel.

While the foreign ministry report highlighted the negative aspects of the UN resolution, the council’s document complained that Hizballah squandered thousands of rockets – either by firing them into Israel or having them destroyed by the Israeli air force.

The writer of this report is furious over the waste of Iran’s most important military investment in Lebanon merely for the sake of a conflict with Israeli over two kidnapped soldiers.

It took Iran two decades to build up Hizballah’s rocket inventory.

DEBKAfile’s sources estimate that Hizballah’s adventure wiped out most of the vast sum of $4-6 bn the Iranian treasury sunk into building its military strength. The organization was meant to be strong and effective enough to provide Iran with a formidable deterrent to Israel embarking on a military operation to destroy the Islamic regime’s nuclear infrastructure.

To this end, Tehran bought the Israeli military doctrine of preferring to fight its wars on enemy soil. In the mid-1980s, Iran decided to act on this doctrine by coupling its nuclear development program with Israel’s encirclement and the weakening its deterrence strength. The Jewish state was identified at the time as the only country likely to take vigorous action to spike Iran’s nuclear aspirations.

Four to six billion dollars in  military expenditures gone in a few weeks, with nothing to show for it huh? Oh well, easy come easy go. One wonders how much more money Iran will continue to spend on Hezbollah when the most recent ceasefire dies off and the shooting starts up again. The more the better I say.

 

Cynthia McKinney, the fiery Georgia congresswoman known for her conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11 attacks and the scuffle she had earlier this year with a U.S. Capitol police officer, lost a runoff election Tuesday for her district’s Democratic nomination.

Attorney Hank Johnson, a former county commissioner, won the nomination with 59 percent of the vote, surpassing McKinney by more than 11,000 votes.

McKinney, her state’s first black congresswoman, has long been controversial. Her suggestion that the Bush administration had advance knowledge of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks helped galvanize opposition and she lost her seat in 2002, but won it again two years ago.

In her latest brouhaha in March, she struck a Capitol police officer who did not recognize her and tried to stop her from entering a House office building.

A grand jury in Washington declined to indict her, but she was forced to apologize before the House. She drew less than 50 percent of the vote in last month’s primary.

While it was useful for a while to have an absolute imbecile like her around, as it refelected so poorly on the Democratic Party, in the long run it’s a liability for the nation as a whole, and for her constituents. Good riddance to bad garbage as the saying goes.

And, Joe Lieberman has lost the Democratic primary in CT. While I like Lieberman, and it bothers me that the Democrats are so intolerant of anyone that doesn’t toe the party line, it’s good news for the GOP. Lieberman will run as an independent, and in a three way race the odds are good that the GOP candidate can win, or Lieberman will be re-elected. In either case, the Dems lose a seat in the Senate.

Congress passed major pension legislation designed to assure American workers, including millions of baby boomers nearing the end of their working careers, that the pensions they have been promised will be there when they retire.

The Senate, in its last vote before adjourning for a four-week summer break, approved the 900-page bill that compels employers with defined-benefit pension plans to meet their funding obligations and seeks to prevent companies from terminating plans and shifting the financial burden to the taxpayer. The House passed the bill last week.

The 93-5 Senate vote late Thursday on the pension bill came shortly after the Senate fell four votes short of the 60 needed to advance a Republican-crafted package that combined an estate tax cut with a federal minimum wage increase.

Republican leaders, unsuccessful earlier this year in moving an estate tax cut through the Senate, tried to attract Democratic votes by linking it to a package of popular middle-class tax breaks and the offer to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour over three years.

Democrats, backed by unions pushing for what would be the first increase in the minimum wage in nine years, overwhelmingly rejected the deal.

You’d think the labor unions would support a minimum wage hike strongly enough that they’d go along with the compromise, and you’d think the Democrats, who like to pretend that they’re the party of the “common man”, would as well. But, then again, the unions and the far left-wing have such tight control over the Democratic Party that the idea of doing anything that they’re opposed to, even if it makes good sense from both a political and practical standpoint, is not possible. So if you want to know who to blame this November for the failure of a minimum wage bill to pass, blame the Democratic Party and make them pay for their callowness.

Millionaire businessman Ned Lamont opened a double-digit lead over veteran Sen. Joe Lieberman less than a week before Connecticut’s Democratic primary, according to a poll released Thursday.

Lamont, a political novice, had support from 54 percent of likely Democratic voters in the Quinnipiac University poll, while Lieberman, now in his third term, had support from 41 percent of voters. The sampling error margin was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

A similar survey July 20 showed Lamont with a slight advantage for the first time in the campaign.

“Senator Lieberman’s campaign bus seems to be stuck in reverse,” poll director Douglas Schwartz said. “Despite visits from former President Bill Clinton and other big-name Democrats, Lieberman has not been able to stem the tide to Lamont.”

Lieberman, 64, one of the Senate’s most well-known Democrats and his party’s nominee for vice president in 2000, has been harshly criticized in Connecticut for his support of the Iraq war and his perceived closeness with President Bush.

Lamont, 52, who owns a successful cable television firm, has been able to tap into rank-and-file Democratic voters’ frustration with Lieberman as well as his personal wealth, contributing $3 million to his campaign.

“Although we realize the only vote that counts is Aug. 8, we hope this energizes our base,” said Liz Dupont-Diehl, a spokeswoman for the Lamont campaign.

Why is this good news, you may ask? Well, it’s because Lieberman will then be forced to run as an independent, and will very likely win re-election under those circumstances. The end result will be that the Democrats will lose a seat in the Senate. Of course, it serves the Democrats right for failing to support an upstanding, dedicated man like Lieberman, and they deserve to pay the price for their bad behavior.

 

 

Republican leaders are willing to allow the first minimum wage increase in a decade but only if it’s coupled with a cut in future inheritance taxes on multimillion-dollar estates, congressional aides said Friday.

A package GOP leaders planned to bring to a vote Friday or Saturday in the House also would renew several popular tax breaks, including a research and development credit for businesses, and deductions for college tuition and state sales taxes, said a spokesman for House Majority Leader John Boehner.

The wage would increase from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour, phased in over the next three years, said Kevin Madden, the aide to Boehner, an Ohio Republican.

The maneuver is aimed at defusing the wage hike as a campaign issue for Democrats while using its popularity to spur enactment of the Republican Party’s long-sought goal of permanently cutting taxes on millionaires’ estates.

This is an excellent strategy as long as the GOP really sticks to their guns. There’s no sense in giving the Democrats in Congress something for nothing, and the death tax is completely wrong, and should be eliminated altogether. Estates have paid taxes already on whatever is in them, and somebody should not be taxed again on the same assets simply because they died.

Another way to look at it is that an increase in the minimum wage is essentially a tax increase on businesses, especially small ones which may not have the financial wherewithal to absorb such a tax.  Cutting estate taxes would be a boon to those small businesses, and a relatively fair trade.  If the Democrats want to be able to show their constituents something of value when midterm elections roll around they should take this deal before it goes away. Otherwise, the GOP will be able to say they tried to make a deal to raise the minimum wage and the Democrats killed it off.

 

Israel pounded suspected Hezbollah positions across Lebanon on Thursday, extending its air campaign a day after suffering its highest one-day casualty toll since its military offensive began. An Israeli Cabinet minister said lack of agreement on a cease-fire gave Israel permission to press deeper to wipe out the Islamic militant group.(emphasis mine)

Notice also how the AP refuses to call Hezbollah a terrorist group, which is plainly what they are.

On Wednesday, a high-level Mideast conference in Rome ended in disagreement, with most European leaders urging an immediate cease-fire, but the U.S. willing to give Israel more time to punish the guerrilla group. (emphasis mine)

If you follow the AP’s coverage of the Middle East, none of this shoddy reporting should be too much of a surprise, but I often feel that it’s necessary to try to keep the AP honest by pointing these things out.