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Tom Friedman: Four Things Wanted from a Winning President

Cultural Intelligence
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American Voters: Still Up for Grabs

By

New York Times, January 21, 2012

A Washington Post-ABC News poll released on Friday found that two-thirds of Americans would consider voting for a third-party presidential candidate, while 48 percent definitely wanted a third party in the race. Now what does that tell you? It tells you that with the campaign about to go into full swing, as the president delivers his State of the Union address next week, voters are still casting about for a leader with a winning message. I can save both parties a lot of money. I am one of those voters, and I can tell you exactly for whom I want to vote — and I don’t think I’m alone.

I want to vote for a candidate who advocates an immediate investment in infrastructure that will create jobs and upgrade America for the 21st century — ultrafast bandwidth, highways, airports, public schools, mass transit — and combines that with a long-term plan to fix our fiscal imbalances at the real scale of the problem, a plan that could be phased in as the economy recovers.

. . . . . . . .

Second, I want to vote for a candidate who is committed to reforming taxes, and cutting spending, in a fair way. The rich must pay more, but everyone has to pay something. We are all in this together.

Third, I want to vote for a candidate who has an inspirational vision, not just a plan to balance the budget.

. . . . . . .

Finally, I want to vote for a candidate who supports a minimum floor of public financing of presidential, Senate and House campaigns. Money in politics is out of control today. Our Congress has become a forum for legalized bribery. Americans are losing faith in the instruments of government because they think the game is rigged by big money — and they’re right.

Any candidate with that four-part agenda would win — and so would the country, because he would win with a mandate to do what needs doing.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota:  Friedman makes four sensible points.  He has absolutely no clue what is going on outside the two-party tyranny, nor does he have any clue (or he is actively dishonest) with respect to everything that needs to happen to restore integrity to our electoral system–money is the LEAST of our problems in relation to ballot access and gerrymandering and electronic fraud– but his four points stand on their own as a useful contribution.  Learn more at We the People Reform Coalition.

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Eagle: Israel / Jews Discuss Assassination of Obama

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300 Million Talons...

Orders from Tel Aviv: Murder Obama

Alan Hart

VeteransToday, 21 January 2012

Have Israel’s “inner circles” discussed assassinating President Obama?

By Alan Hart

One man who apparently thinks the answer is “Yes” is Andrew Adler, the owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times.

Read detailed indictment and see the actual copy of the written call for donations to a fund for the assassination of the President.

Dear Jewish Times: Please Re-Think Call to Assassinate Obama

Dear Andrew Adler, As the editor of a mainstream Jewish publication, you have an awful lot of chutzpah to call for the assassination of the President of the United States by the Mossad. I hope this email reaches you before the Secret Service does!

. . . . . .

Personally, I have always disliked Israel, because I have always disliked injustice. But until recent years, this was not a high-priority issue for me. Now, after watching one Zionist outrage after another – the most important being the neocon-Zionist coup d’etat on 9/11/2001 and the ensuing war on Islam for Israel – I am committed to putting an end to Zionism.

Read  complete article, a second lengthy indictment of Zionism.

Jewish publisher is an idiot – but his hatred is shared by many

Chemi Shalev

Ha'aretz, 21 January 2012

Andrew Adler’s suggestion in the Atlanta Jewish Times that Israel assassinate President Obama is a blot both on Israel and on American Jews.

. . . . . . .

I know, and most of you know, that Adler’s crazy and criminal suggestions are not the ranting of some loony-tune individual and were not taken out of thin air – but are the inevitable result of the inordinate volume of repugnant venom that some of Obama’s political rivals, Jews and non-Jews included, have been spewing for the last three years.

Read full article.

Secret Service investigating Jewish newspaper column that discussed Obama assassination

Fox News, 20 January 2012

The Secret Service said it is looking into a recent op-ed from an Atlanta publisher that floated the idea of green-lighting Israeli Mossad agents to assassinate President Obama in order to improve Israel's security against enemies like Iran.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: The neo-fascist amoral government of Israel has created this monstrous diaspora of Jews who hate and act without thought–to distinguish them from loyal and thoughtful Jews we call them Zionists.  That mob appears to be going out of control.  We have always known of the naked amorality of the Israeli government–the atrocities committed against the USS Liberty will forever diminish every Jew and every US politician that participated in the cover-up.  We certainly hope the Secret Service and the State of Georgia bring the full power of the law against this criminal [he is at a minimum guilty of criminal solicitation to commit murder], but we also hope this opens the eyes of every US citizen–we have a cancer in our midst called Zionism.  It is–together with our corrupt Congress–a far greater threat than terrorism (a tactic) or Iranian nuclear weapons (a long way off) or cyber-war (a manufactured threat).

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Gary North: From Drudge on Lewinsky to SOPA in Congress

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Gary North

Victory on SOPA: Lessons Learned

“When we feel the heat, we see the light.”~ Senator Everett DirksenOn Wednesday, January 18, the forces of liberty gained a major political victory over the entrenched meddlers in Congress. The owners of a handful of popular Internet sites joined together to protest SOPA/PIPA. They blacked out their sites and provided information on the threat to Internet liberty this bill posed.

Before the day was over, a majority of our elected representatives were doing a superb imitation of the captain of the grounded Italian cruise ship. They abandoned ship as fast as he did, and for the same reason. (Note: the reason was not that they had slipped and fallen into the lifeboat, then to be carried to safety against their will.)

A few weeks before, the Senate version of the House's SOPA (Stop Online Piracy ACT) bill, called PIPA, was unanimously passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee. PIPA stands for the Protect IP [Intellectual Property] Act. It was non-controversial at the time. It was on a well-greased skid to passage.

Let us not be naive. SOPA/PIPA is a payback for to the entertainment industry's generous support of PACs and campaign donations. For a list of who got how much, click here.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) did object. He was not on the committee. He vowed to filibuster PIPA. So, Harry Reid announced that he would push it through. He vowed to introduce a 60-vote cloture motion to limit debate. Senator Reid said he would schedule the debate on January 24. There is a Website called Unanimous Consent. It tracks the fast-track bills. Here was its assessment on December 23.

PROTECT IP has 40 bipartisan co-sponsors in the Senate, which means that it could easily clear procedural hurdles to its passage. At this point, there is considerable momentum towards passage, but opponents have effectively used the internet to direct outrage about the bill towards Capitol Hill and organize opposition. The sooner supporters move on the bill, the more likely it will pass. The later opponents can push back the bill, the less likely it will pass. The more opponents stall, the more Senators will feel uncomfortable with supporting the bill and increase their support of an amendment or compromise. While it is less likely to stop the bill outright, opponents can significantly dilute the content of the bill or substitute a compromise measure.

If you want an overview of just how bad SOPA is, click here.

Read rest of article.

Phi Beta Iota:  Do not fail to read the rest of the article, with a discussion of Matt Drudge lecturing the National Press Club, and the implications all of this has for the immediate future.

See Also:

We the People Reform Coalition

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Chuck Spinney: Mike Lofgren on Taxation Reality, Media Ills

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Chuck Spinney

How the media enable the Republican tax agenda

By Mike Lofgren, Nieman Watchdog, Commentary, January 18, 2012

Mike Lofgren, the former Republican congressional staffer who recently decried the descent of the GOP into lunacy, blames the press for not holding politicians accountable for their budgetary flimflam in the service of the rich. The result: A miserably misinformed public.

The media doesn't seem to understand the basics about budgets — and the inescapable relationship between aggregate revenues, aggregate spending, and total deficits. Either that, or reporters just choose to play dumb. The end result is the same, however: Journalists don't probe deeply — or they probe when it is too late to matter — into budget proposals and their real-world consequences (as opposed to regurgitating the talking points politicians issue to “explain” them). They are also generally unaware of easily obtainable historical data and historical trends, and how these predict the likely outcome of current fiscal policy choices.

Read full article with graphics.

Phi Beta Iota:  There are exactly two honest plans out there, one is Ron Paul's Plan to Restore America and the other one is from We  the People Reform Coalition that adopts the Automated Payment Transaction (APT) Tax that REPLACES all other taxes, is super-progressive, and explodes the revenue pie by placing a TINY tax on all stock and currency transactions.  The media is partially corrupt, partially inattentive, and partially stupid.  Romney is a fraud, so is Obama, and if the theater plays out as we anticipate, Jeb Bush will rise from the ashes of the totally corrupt Republican Party–whether that will inspire a third wave that trashes the two-party tyranny remains to be seen.

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Review (Guest): World in Crisis – The End of the American Century

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Country/Regional, Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Public), Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle
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Gabriel Kolko

5.0 out of 5 stars Simplify, Simplify, Simplify,June 22, 2009<

By Tracy McLellan (Chicago) – See all my reviews

One could almost condense the whole of Kolko thought into a single sentence: “Political problems have political and social, not military solution.” He says this at least four or five times in the current volume, as he has even more often previously. A common criticism of Kolko is that he's repetitive. This doesn't speak to the fact that the deafening silence with which his work is greeted is a far harsher, and equally invalid, criticism. Kolko's alleged repetitiveness is more grasp of nuance and comprehensiveness than it is lack of imagination.

World in Crisis: the End of the American Century is an implicit rejoinder to what Kolko himself calls the lunatics in the Bush regime. It is the typically unique type of excellence in political observation I, at any rate, expect of Kolko. The essays in the current volume are a second, yet enduring draft of history reviewing the political turmoil of the last four or five years. They examine the financial crisis, US foreign policy, Israel, the current and historical US alliance system, US intelligence agencies, and other US policies. The essays have appeared previously on ZNet, […], Counterpunch, in anthologies, and elsewhere. All of them are updated for this book, because, as Kolko notes, they become obsolete almost as soon as they are published due to the accelerated trajectory of geopolitical, technological, financial, and sociological events.

Continue reading “Review (Guest): World in Crisis – The End of the American Century”

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Penguin: Gabriel Kolko on CIA’s Contradictions / Cassandras

10 Security, Blog Wisdom, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency, Officers Call
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Who, Me?

GABRIEL KOLKO is the leading historian of modern warfare. He is the author of the classic Century of War: Politics, Conflicts and Society Since 1914 and Another Century of War?. He has also written the best history of the Vietnam War, Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the US and the Modern Historical Experience.

Paid to be Ignored

The CIA’s Cassandras

GABRIEL KOLKO

Counterpunch, 20-21 January 2012

At no time has the U.S. based its foreign policies on facts — as opposed to its conceptions reliant on sheer wishes, interests, or pretensions, (its ambitions are often a mixture of all of these). Nor has it had fears that are warranted by reality. It has needs, whether economic or geopolitical. It has, however, often had the correct intelligence and the facts before it to warrant entirely different policies on its part.  At the same time as it gets into tenuous military situations, situations it is often destined to lose and pay a great deal for while in the process of doing so, it employs people to produce rational analyses—which it then ignores.  Why?

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota:  This is one of the longest, most cogent pieces we have seen on the internal and external contradictions inherent in the CIA archipelago of contrasting functions, values, and marginal outputs.  It is totally consistent with the many books reviewed here on intelligence.