Conservatively Speaking 7-12-10

· Obama Dithering Provokes Saudis Nuclear Weapons Start

· Lebron Leaves “Mistake-by-the-lake” for Warmer Climate.

· Potheads Pouting About Field Poll

· Congresswoman Obamacare “Big Gamble”- Most Say Repeal It.

· U. S. May Be Forced to Strike Iran’s Nuke Plants

· Businesses Hoarding Cash Await Sign From Obama.

· Obama’s DOJ Sues Arizona Because….

· .50 cents Stamps: Post Office Losing $800,000 An Hour

· Norway and U. S. break up al Qaeda plot

· Replacing West Virginia’s Byrdman – “King of Pork”

· Saudi Says Iran Providing Safe Harbor for al Qaeda

· Half Rate Obama Poor On Economy

· U. S. Adds 3^rd Carrier Strike Force Opposite Iran

Looks like Iran is turning to China as its top military supplier worrying Russia that it could lose $1 billion for its sophisticated air defense system that the Chinese say theirs is as good.

After his June 29 talks with Barack Obama, Saudi King Abdullah decided not to wait for US sanctions to take effect on Iran but get the kingdom’s nuclear weapons program underway with all possible speed, helped by France.  The Saudi momentum is carrying Egypt and Jordan in its wake.

The Saudis have openly been urging a U. S. or Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities but sees only a dithering and naïve Obama it apparently sees as dangerous. Ironically the Saud kingdom finds itself between the same rock and hard place where Obama has maneuvered Israel – no longer able to rely on U. S. promises.

It is unclear what the exact dimension of France’s help will be but, it is clear the Saudi decision has altered the arithmetic of the entire Middle East.

Half of Americans reject Obama’s lawsuit against Arizona’s immigration law, with only a third supporting the move, according to a new Gallup poll.

Labron James abandoned the “mistake by the lake” as detractors are fond of calling Cleveland, Ohio for Miami to play professional basketball for the Heat. He arrived there to a giddy reception to be crowned one of three kings giving up his one-god status in the only town where he could literally walk on water across the semi-liquid Cuyahoga River that once caught fire.

Clevelanders are as despondent now as when the NFL Browns packed up and moved to Baltimore. Miami now has a new brag point in addition to being the world’s denture capitol.

By Saturday a giant billboard of LaBron that had been in Cleveland has been reduced to kindling.

As WWII era French General Charles de Gaulle said,”the graveyards are full or indispensible men.”

California potheads are sulking over results of a new Field Poll that shows while 75 percent of likely voters surveyed had heard of Proposition 19 that would legalize and tax marijuana , but 48 percent said they were likely to vote no.

Forty-four percent said they support legal pot, which would also allow pot to be regulated and taxed. Democrats were more likely than Republicans to support it, but nonpartisans were evenly split. The ballot measure is one of m ore than a dozen that are on the November, 2010 ballot.

The measure is being touted as a way for cash strapped California to get money to close its $20+ billion budget gap by legalizing and taxing marijuana. But, adding to the mopes analysis predict that the price of the weed will likely plummet from $300 to $30 an ounce negating any cash expectation and when enforcement and societal costs are added it could actually be a net loser.

Democrat U. S. from California Senator Barbara Boxer barely leads business executive Carla Fiorina 47-44% according to a Field Poll released last Thursday. The balance are mostly undecided with a handful behind other candidates.

Congresswoman Lois Capps (D) CA23 called Obamacare “a big gamble” during a meeting with physicians and other concerned heatlh professionals at Santa Barbara’s Cottage Hospital last week according to a front page story in Thursday’s Santa Barbara News Press..

Capps comment came after a physician asked her how she can be sure tha health care reform “is not a fatal move” that will “explode the cost of heatlh care and bring the system down.”

“I don’t have a lot of answers to your question because we have to see if it works,” said the septaugenerian Congresswoman ,” and if it isn’t working, it can be changed nothing is set in stone.”

Capps then admitted that “it is not the best bill. I know that. But we felt we had to pass a bill when we could.”

A senior physician told her “It is my opinion that you have been party to one of the most colossal mistakes our government has foisted upon the people of this country.”

Capps voted for what she now admits is a gamble and reportedly generally flubbed others answers from local physician questions.

Although cameras were banned reportedly a clandestine video exists.

Tom Watson, the Republican party nominee who is opposing Capps’s reelection said he was not invited to the event.

Forty-six percent (46%) of voters now describe the U.S. health care system as good or excellent, but that’s down from a recent high of 55% in late April/early May.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 22% view the current system as poor.

In July 2008, only 29% viewed the U.S. system as good or excellent, but those reviews climbed steadily last year as the health care debate began to rage.

Supporters of the new national health care plan have often looked north to Canada’s nationalized system as a model for what they have in mind, and 32% say Canada has a better health care system than the United States. But 51% disagree and think the United States has the better health care system of the two countries. Another 17% are not sure.

Nationwide 56% say Obamacare should be repealed. In Capps’ carefully gerrymandered “Ribbon of Shame” 23rd district fewer are so disposed. The District has 47% Democrat versus 27% Republican voters.

Nationally just 29% believe the Obama’s economic stimulus package has helped the economy while 43% believe it has hurt.

The United States may be forced to launch an attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities if diplomatic efforts and economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic fail, Sen. Joseph Lieberman said Wednesday after a meeting with Israeli officials in Jerusalem.

Appearing at a news conference with Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain, Lieberman was unusually harsh in his assessment of the Iranian threat. There is a broad consensus in Congress that military force can be used if necessary to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, he said.

Lieberman cited a recent set of sanctions Congress passed against Iran as a potential deterrent. But he insisted that the goal of keeping Iran from becoming a nuclear power will be accomplished “through diplomatic and economic sanctions if we possibly can, through military actions if we must,” according to The Associated Press.

Although U.S. officials often say no option should be taken off the table in relation to Iran’s nuclear program, this is one of the few times an official of Lieberman’s standing has explicitly used the term “military action” while in Israel, The Jerusalem Post reported.

The group also addressed President Barack Obama’s fence-mending meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the worsening situation with relations with Turkey, whose Islamic government is steadily moving away from the West to a closer relationship with Iran, according to experts. Turkey is one of the United States’ oldest and best allies, McCain said.

It should not go unremembered that Turkey was a U. S. enemy in World War I and remained tacitly neutral in World War II playing both sides against each other.

“Of course, we have been disappointed by the actions and words the Turkish government has used,” McCain said. “I hope that at some time the Turkish leadership would lower the rhetoric, reduce it, and try to solve differences in a quiet way.”

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, appearing with the three senators, said the meeting between Netanyahu and Obama had been “successful.”

But Barak didn’t shy away from the fact that relations between Israel and the Obama administration had been troublesome compared with relations under Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush. The Israeli ambassador to the United States recently told his fellow diplomats that a major shift is under way with Obama, who has made it a priority to improve relations with the Muslim world.

The United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States said Tuesday that the benefits of bombing Iran’s nuclear program outweigh the short-term costs such an attack would impose. In unusually blunt remarks, Ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba publicly endorsed the use of the military option for countering Iran’s nuclear program,

The Federal Reserve recently reported that America’s 500 largest nonfinancial companies have accumulated an astonishing $1.8 trillion of cash on their balance sheets. That is higher than it has been since the early 1960s when American optimism soared as we stood on the edge of the space age..

But, most corporations are not spending this money on new plants, equipment or workers. If they did millions of jobs would appear overnight. They are not because they are concerned about the anti-business attitude in the White House and Washington DC in general, and how much they will be taxes to pay back towering federal debt.

State and local governments will have to slash spending and raise taxes, which will produce a downward spiral of higher unemployment, slower growth, lower tax revenue and a larger deficit. When the stimulus money runs out at the end of this year, New York City schools will be forced to lay off 5,000 teachers. Multiply that example a thousand times to get a sense of what 2011 could look like.

Obviously the key to avoid a double dip recession in 2011-2012, nd a sustainable recovery and robust economic growth is to get companies investing in America. So why are they reluctant, despite having mounds of cash?

Economic uncertainty was the primary cause of their caution about the uncertainty surrounding regulations and taxes. Some have even begun to speak out publicly. Jeffrey Immelt, chief executive of General Electric, complained Friday that government was not in sync with entrepreneurs. Even Obama supporters are complaining about the myriad laws and regulations being cooked up in Washington.

Then there is November looming like a big black bird. If balance is restored in Congress then Obama can be restrained and hopefully some of his draconian fiats reversed. Maybe if that happens 2011 will not be as awful as many now fear. It will still be bad – but not awful. If November comes a cropper 2011-2012 could be disasterous as businesses hold their collective breath hoping for a new administration in 2013.

A field poll on California’s Governor’s race concluding July 4^th found Brown at 44 percent, Whitman at 43 percent. Another 13 percent are still either undecided or support other candidates

U. S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s lawsuit against the State of Arizona over its tough law designed to curb the consequences of illegal aliens crossing the open Mexican border has triggered something of a parlor industry to predict the outcomes. But, that does not appear to be cooling the ardor for strong laws against illegals in at least three other states. Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah, have already taken steps against illegal immigration, say that Arizona-style measures have a realistic chance of passing when their legislatures reconvene in 2011.

Holder is arguing that Arizona is usurping Federal authority over immigration policy while Arizona is arguing the federal government has failed to protect its citizens, and it had to act.

Whatever the outcome of the legal case, that will almost certainly wind up in the US Supreme Court, has more to do with national politics and national law or for that matter the U. S. Constitution.

Two Rice University researchers are calling on policymakers to encourage the transition from coal-based electricity production to a system based on natural gas through a carbon tax.

Such a mechanism would help limit carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. At the U. N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen last December, the United States pledged to reduce the 2005 levels of CO2 emissions by 17 percent by 2020.

Critics fear such taxes could shut down, electric service turning off 80% of coal fired electricity with nothing to replace it. An MIT report commended natural gas as a cleared alternative but said getting to the ,more than trillion cubis meters of natural gas in the lower 48-states woiuld require major changes in U. S. regulations and few believe that will happen given the current administrations and congresses political agenda.

The U.S. Postal Service wants to raise the price of a stamp by 2 cents to 46 cents–a 4.5 percent increase. But it needs to do a lot more to join the 21st century. It also wants to eliminate Saturday delivery, close low-volume post offices, open new outlets in shopping centers and other places where people normally shop, and broaden the merchandise beyond just shipping supplies.

Periodicals will get hit hard if the so-called indepdent postal commission approves the scheme to raise stamp prices.

The post office is projected to loose $800,000 a hour next year despite the increase as people pay bills over the phone and even send birthday cards via email virtually for free.

The increases will take effect in 2011 and keep the post office on track for the .50 cents postage stamp by 2013.

The Presbyterian Church (USA) one of the “mainline” Protestant denominations is once again embroiled in controversy for its stance against Israel. In the past, the denomination was at the forefront of the anti-Israel divestment movement. General Assembly the group has considered an array of resolutions and statements harshly critical of Israel. The Presbyterian USA sect has lost over 21% of its membership since 1960,

Three al Qaeda linked terrorists have been arrested in Oslo and Germany and charged with plotting a series of bombing attacks in Europe and the U. S. Reportedly they are part of a network that includes the botched Times Square bombing.

The arrests resulted from joint Norwegian – U. S. investigations.

The suspect arrested in Germany faces extradition to Norway where he will face indictment and trail along with the others.

The NRA is about to launch an ad on the internet critical of Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Kagan and comparing her statements on the 2^nd Amendment to those of Justice Sotomayor who also answered evasively then attacked it.

A special Senate election this November to replace the late Democrat Senator Robert Byrd is still awaiting the green light from West Virginia’s attorney general, but popular Democratic Governor Joe Manchin is the early leader in hypothetical matchups with two of his possible Republican opponents. He actually has two decisions to make including: calling the electiuon and running for Byrd’s seat himself. They are inextricably linked.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in West Virginia, taken Thursday night, shows Manchin with 53% support, while Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito earns 39% of the vote. Three percent (3%) prefer another candidate in the race, and five percent (5%) are undecided.

If former West Virginia Secretary of State Betty Ireland is his GOP rival, Manchin captures 65% voter support. Ireland picks up 26%. Three percent (3%) again like some other candidate, while six percent (6%) are undecided.

Yet while 77% of the state’s voters approve of the job Manchin is doing as governor, he would be running in a challenging political environment for any Democratic candidate.

Only 35% of voters in the state approve of how President Obama is doing his job, while 64% disapprove. Also voters West Virginia strongly favor repeal of the recently passed health care plan and oppose the Obama administration’s decision to challenge Arizona’s new immigration law in court.

Just five percent (5%) of West Virginia voters now rate the economy as good or excellent, while 54% say it’s in poor shape.  Sixty-six percent (66%) believe the economy is in a recession, and 62% say things are getting worse.

Manchin said Friday he will decide and announce his decision soon and that he is inclined to run for the U. S. Senate. His decision is largely based on positive polling.

There are only 1.13 million total voters in all West Virginia smaller than many American cities of which 44% are registered Democrat and 30% Republican.

Stenosis (sti-NO-sis) , plural stenoses noun: A narrowing of a passage, vessel, or an opening in the body. Etymology From steno- (narrow, small) + -osis (condition). From Greek stenosis (a narrowing), from stenoun (to narrow), from stenos (narrow). “[The device] is placed onto a patient’s chest and a microphone picks up coronary sounds associated with stenosis, in which a patient’s arteries are clogged with plaque blocking blood flow to the heart.”

To the U.S. soldiers getting pounded with thunderous mortar rounds in their combat outpost near Kandahar, it seemed like a legitimate request: allow them to launch retaliatory mortar shells or summon an airstrike against their attackers. Our troops could literally watch their attackers trying to kill them but were impotent to defend themselves.

When the asked permission to defend themselves the response from headquarters — more than 20 miles away — was terse. Permission denied. Battalion-level officers deemed the insurgents too close to a cluster of mud-brick houses, perhaps with civilians inside.

Addressing concerns over such crippling “rules of engagement” will be among the most complicated initial tasks facing Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new commander of U.S. and NATO forces in the country.

At issue is a tactical directive issued last July by Petraeus’s predecessor, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, that limits the use of air and mortar strikes against houses unless personnel are in imminent danger. The directive requires troops to take extensive measures, including a 48-hour “pattern of life” analysis with on-the-ground or aerial surveillance, to ensure that civilians are not in a housing compound before ordering an airstrike.

Those who mucked about in rice patties fertilized by human excrement will recall similar dangers and frustrations and sops sitting in luxury in Washington DC fiddled with tactics while watching and awaiting the arrival of the light at the end of the tunnel. Then as now that light was the headlight on a locomotive hurtling toward us.

Agonizing absurdity.

Moneyline. Com reports Gluskin Sheff analyst David Rosenberg says the Dow could go to 5,000. “Bob Farrell believes a test of the March 2009 lows is likely,” Rosenberg points out. Gold will likely be 5,000 too,” Rosenberg says..

For the first time, Saudi Arabia has detailed that Iran has served as an Al Qaida base. The announcement is less than a revelation since Iran’s complicity with al Qaeda and terrorism maybe the worst kept of secrets.

Saudi authorities now openly accuse Iran of hosting the Al Qaida leadership for nearly a decade. to plan and finance Al Qaida attacks on the Saudi kingdom and other Gulf Cooperation Council states – that is new.

Saudi authorities said Iran was used as a launching pad for some of the worst attacks on the kingdom. This included the Al Qaida assault on Western compounds in Riyad in 2003, in which 27 people, nine of them Americans, were killed and 160 injured.

“The order to carry out these attacks came from within Iran,” the Saudi-owned A-Sharq Al Awsat daily said on June 22.

A-Sharq Al Awsat, based in London and owned by a senior member of the Saudi royal family, reported that Al Qaida operations chief Seif Al Adel ordered and directed the 2003 attack, which targeted a U.S. training mission of the Saudi military. The newspaper said Al Adel planned and directed the strike from Iran.

“Seif Al Adel gave the order to attack to Al Qaida fighter Turki Al Dandani, and this occurred during an encrypted telephone call between the two men that was intercepted by the relevant [Saudi] authorities,” the newspaper said.

Officials said Al Adel, in an attempt to recreate the air suicide attacks on the United States in 2001, recruited 105 Al Qaida agents to plan, finance and conduct the assaults on residential compounds around Riyad. They said Al Qaida sent 24 suicide attackers to blow themselves up in the compounds, including one allocated to Vinell Corp., which trained the Saudi Arabian National Guard. One of the 24 bombers survived the strike.

“Al Qaida sought to simulate the deadly Sept. 11 attacks via the Riyad compound bombings with regards to attacking numerous targets and synchronizing the timings of the attacks,” A-Sharq Al Awsat said.

In March 2003, officials said, Al Adel sent orders from Iran to Al Dandani to immediately plan for an offensive against the Saudi royal family and the large Western presence in the kingdom. Two months later, the first major attacks, led by Al Dandani, took place, and in July he was killed in a suicide strike in the Saudi province of Al Jawf.

The latest details released by the kingdom disputed those first announced by the Saudi Interior Ministry in wake of the 2003 attacks. Riyad had asserted that 16 Al Qaida operatives participated in the May suicide attacks on the foreign compounds. The latest information said Al Qaida sent 24 operatives.

Officials said Al Qaida rushed in planning the 2003 attacks. They said the network had operated under the assumption that Al Qaida was being closely monitored in Saudi Arabia.

“The information received by A-Sharq Al Awsat attributes the haste in which the Riyad compound bombings terrorist operation was carried out to a belief that the Saudi security apparatus was closing in,” the newspaper said.

The Saudi disclosures appear to be an effort to increase pressure on Obama to stop dithering and act to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapon capacity or at least get out of Israel’s way and let them do it. The Saudi have already signaled it will provide a safe air corridor for Israeli planes.

Over the weekend Israeli sources said Obama

expects Israel to seek prior U.S. approval before attacking Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities. Few expect Obama to approve any such action regardless of the threat of an Iranian nuclear weapon.

Kib·itz (k b ts) intr.v. kib·itzed, kib·itz·ing, kib·itz·es Informal 1. To look on and offer unwanted, usually meddlesome advice to others.2. To chat; converse. Yiddish.

Just 28% of Americans think the economy is getting better, while 48% say it’s getting worse.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 50% of voters now view President Obama’s handling of the economy as poor. This is the president’s highest negative rating in this area since he took office in January 2009.

Thirty-six percent (36%) give Obama good or excellent marks for his handling of economic issues.

Just after his inauguration but before he had actually initiated any policies, 52% rated the president’s handling of economic matters as good or excellent, while only 25% viewed his performance in this area as poor.

A Boulder, Colorado woman was sentenced to 30-days in jail and fined $500 for duct taping her boyfriends dog upside down onto the side of a refrigerator to punish it for defecating on the rug. Of course the dog caused such a fuss police were called; she was arrested, and the dog was adopted and renamed Yoshi, which the new owners say is Japanese for good luck.

Washington has posted a third carrier opposite Iran’s shores. It is supported by amphibious assault ships and up to 4,000 Navy and Marine Corps personnel, bringing the total US strength in these waters to three carriers and 10,000 combat personnel.

The USS Nassau (LHA-4) Amphibious Ready Group 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, tasked with supporting the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet area of operations, is cruising around the Bab al-Mandeb Straits where the Gulf of Aden flows into the Red Sea. Its presence there accounts for Tehran announcing Sunday, June 27 that its “aid ship for Gaza” had been called off, for fear an American military boarding party would intercept the vessel and search it.  This would be permissible under the latest UN sanctions punishing the Islamic Republic for its nuclear program.

The third US carrier group to reach waters around Iran consists of three vessels:

1. The USS Nassau Amphibious Assault ship is not just an enormous landing craft for the 3,000 Marines aboard; its decks carry 6 vertical take-off AV-HB Harrier attack plans; four AH-1W Super Cobra, twelve CH-46 Sea Knight and CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters, as well choppers convertible to fast V-22 Osprey airplanes capable of landing in any conditions.This vast warship has 1,400 cabinets for sleeping the entire Marine-24th Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard.

2. The amphibious transport dock ship USS Mesa Verde which carries 800 Marines equipped for instantaneous landing.

3. The amphibious dock landing ship USS Ashland which carries 400 Marines and 102 commandos trained for special operations behind enemy lines.

The USS Ashland was the target of an al Qaeda Katyusha rocket attack in 2005 when it was docked in Jordan’s Aqaba port next door to the Israeli port of Eilat. One of the rockets exploded in Eilat airport. The ship exited harbor in time to escape harm.
These new arrivals are a massive injection of naval, air and marine muscle to the strength Washington has deployed in the Persian Gulf-Red Sea-Indian Ocean arena in recent months.

The USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group consisting of twelve warships is cruising in the Arabian Sea opposite Chah Bahar, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards biggest naval base not far from the Iranian-Pakistan border. It is there that most of Iran’s special commando units are housed.

Also posted in the Arabian Sea, further to the west, is the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Strike Group.