•  North Korea Attacks South - Again
• Broke California Shelves Bond Sale
• Bye Bye To Fairy Tales At Disney
• Obama - NATO ABM Deal Abandons Israel
• IRS-Indian War In Florida
• Putin’s Russia Has Gone Rogue.
• Billions Voted To Settle Long Simmering Black, Indian Ag Suit
• WMR Contends Obama’s Anti-Depressants Threatens U. S.
• First New Exoplanet Found Outside Milky Way Galaxy
• Thousands Standing Around (TSA) Junk Touching Kafuffle
• China Slaps Obama on Trade
• Secret Contra War Redux Looms
• Obama’s Great Israeli Betrayal
• No Body Search for New House Speaker Boehner
• Horowitz Predicts Democrats Going Way of Whigs
• New California Pot Initiative Promised in 2012.
• Ireland Begs For Bailout: Who’s Next?

Obama’s position perilous says Pollster John Zogby noting his approval rating has plummeted to 39% the lowest yet.

In an unprovoked attack North Korean tanks fired on a disputed border island in the area of Inchon (now spelled Incheon) the site of the surprise September, 1950 amphibious assault that saved allied forces that were about to be pushed out off South Korea at Pusan.

Two South Korean Marines were killed and two score others hurt in this week’s attack when 200 artillary rounds were exchanged. SK scrambled F-16 fighters but there was no aerial combat. Civilian homes were struck and set ablaze. South Korea returned fire and it is unknown what casualties were (if any) in North Korea. International response has been flaccid.

On March 26, 2010 in adjacent waters in the Yellow Sea a South Korean Navy Corvette was sunk by a North Korean torpedo attack killing 46 sailors.

China has warned the U. S. Navy to stay out of the Yellow Sea declaring it sovereign waters. It is not known if the events are interconnected. Since the 1953 armistice ending the Korean War fighting China has maintained a solid alliance with North Korea. China and the Soviet Union “defended” North Korea after allied forces broke out of the Pusan perimeter having outflanked the North Koreans with the Inchon invasion and subsequent recapture of Seoul and both have remained stalwart allies since.

Just last week Western intelligence services appeared bamboozled by the disclosure of a major new and sophisticated North Korean uranium enrichment facility.  The disclosure, with implication for an expanded nuclear weapons program by the rogue nation undergoing a leadership change.

Most rational people puzzle over NKs ignoring its starving, freezing people while maintaining a well armed million man army that far out numbers SK and the 30,000 US troops in SK. Even without nuclear warheads NK could raze SK in a week with tens of thousands of long range artillery and missile salvoes plunging it into economic and social strife.

China is feigning upset but most believe the incidents were at least tacitly OKd by China that many see it as part of China’s new aggressiveness in the face of Obama’s limb Rodney King-like foreign policy. Japan is understandably alarmed. Obama refuses to permit US tactical nuclear weapons on SK soil.

Just a week after Obama returned from his failed Asian trip the Korean disaster exploded but, it wasn’t enough of a disaster to change Obama’s plans for the day - a trip to Kokomo, Ind., to talk about jobs and the economy and an interview with ABC’s Barbara Walters and he promised the U. S. would stand with SK.

Obama talked to South Korean President Lee Myung Bak but reportedly it was just more hot air except for a promise to sortie a carrier strike force into the region for joint exercises. The exercise will take place in the Yellow Sea where the attacks have occurred that could provoke China.

Obama was clearly not about to meet Japanese pressure for joint military action in support of Seoul or reinforce its fighting forces on the peninsula - even as a deterrent. The Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s second demand in a call to Obama after the North Korean attack was to convene an urgent UN Security Council meeting. That too went unheeded. The session France announced would take place Tuesday night was indefinitely postponed.

The Japanese prime minister told Obama that North Korea must not be allowed to get away with two armed attacks on the South in the space of eight months without a military response.  

South Korean stocks and bonds fell, while its won sank to a two-month low, after North Korea’s unanswered attack.

If no penalty is exacted from Pyongyang for its belligerent behavior, it will be encouraged to continue striking South Korea. But, Obama shows no fortitude to act to dissuade North Korea.

Iran will be encouraged by the Obama’s  inaction against North Korea to greater pugnacity against Israel whose position in the Middle East Iran sees as akin to that of South Korea in the Far East. Both are regarded in Iran as tied hand and foot by Obama and therefore in no position to defend themselves without the US sayso, and Obama is paralysed by dithering inaction.

Michelle Obama is expected to announce a plan to put 5,000 salad bars in public schools. They expect as many as three students to use them. - Leno

Ireland has joined Greece on the world’s street corners begging for billions in bailouts, and the ripple is washing up against grossly mismanaged, debt ridden California

Last week about $700 million in municipal bond debt was shelved due to lackluster demand. In particular, California saw tepid demand for its latest sale of “revenue anticipation notes.” Tom Dresslar, a spokesman for the California State Treasurer, said, “The tax-exempt municipal bond market is a cold, cold world now, for issuers and taxpayers.” In the end, California decided to cancel a $267.3 million bond sale.

Despite the Fed’s quantitative easing policies, market forces are overpowering the Fed, causing Treasury bond yields to hit a three-month high last week. It appears that the Treasury bond bubble has been “popped.”

The good news is that these ongoing bond market woes are causing investors to return to stocks. That’s what fueled the market’s recovery on Thursday. We can also credit the General Motors IPO and the fact that traders are anticipating an early holiday season rally. The “January effect” now begins in late November, as a Santa Claus rally and year-end pension funding push the market consistently higher!

Saudi Arabian King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz flew to the U.S. Monday for medical treatment, raising the question that  if  U. S. health care system is so bad why a man who can go anywhere for care would risk it?

Once upon a time, there was a studio in Burbank that spun classic fairy tales into silver-screen gold.

But now the curtain is falling on “princess movies,” which have been a part of Disney Animation’s heritage since the 1937 debut of its first feature film, “Snow White.” The studio’s Wednesday release of “Tangled,” a contemporary retelling of the Rapunzel story, will be the last fairy tale produced by Disney’s animation group for the foreseeable future.

To appreciate what a sea change this is for the company, consider that a fairy tale castle is a landmark at Disney theme parks around the world and is embedded in the Walt Disney Pictures logo. Fairy tale characters from Disney’s movies populate the parks, drive sales of merchandise and serve as the inspiration for Broadway musicals.

Alas, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Ariel, Jasmine and the other Disney royals were all born in the 20th century. Now, different kinds of Disney characters are elbowing their way into the megaplexes and toy aisles, including Pixar’s “Toy Story” buddies Buzz Lightyear and Woody, Capt. Jack Sparrow from “Pirates of the Caribbean” and a platoon of superheroes from the recent acquisition of Marvel Entertainment.

Over the decades, Disney has benefited from the ticket sales and licensing revenue generated by such princess-driven properties as “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “Aladdin.” The studio’s most recent offering, however, was a clear disappointment. Although critically acclaimed, last year’s “The Princess and the Frog” was the most poorly performing of Disney’s recent fairy tales.

In the age of mega-franchises when movies need to appeal to a broad audience to justify a sizable investment, Disney discovered too late that “Princess and the Frog” appealed to too narrow an audience: little girls. This prompted the studio to change the name of its Rapunzel movie to the gender-neutral “Tangled” and shift the lens of its marketing to the film’s swashbuckling male costar, Flynn Rider.

Supporters of the mosque / community center near ground zero preach tolerance. Now comes a reverse opportunity with the idea of putting a gay night club next door. Islam prescribes death for homosexuals. Over 4,000 have been executed in Iran for homosexuality since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

By bowing to Ankara’s demand to omit Iran, Syria and their ballistic missiles as a threat from the NATO agreement to establish a missile shield base in Turkey, President Obama has devalued any US security guarantees offered Israel - as well as negating the shield’s avowed purpose. The missile shield and its location in Europe were conceived in the first place for detecting and defusing Iranian and Syrian ballistic missile before they reached Europe or the United States.

“For the first time we’ve agreed to develop a missile defense capability that is strong enough to cover all Nato European territory and populations as well as the United States,” Obama duplicitously declared Friday, Nov. 19, at the NATO summit in Lisbon.

Obama did not say against who or what. Neither did he reveal the full scope of US and NATO’s surrender to Turkey.

Military sources report that the covert clauses in the deal additionally provide for the missile base to come under the command of a Turkish general. President Abdullah Gul held out on this point in discussions with Obama and NATO leaders, following the lead given him by Prime Minister Tayyep Erdogan of Monday, Nov. 15: “Turkey would demand that NATO assign a Turkish commander to oversee the shield. Especially if this is to be placed on our soil…,” said Erdogan.

Turkey’s leaders are very close to the Iranian Islamic Republic’s extremist rulers and see nothing amiss in their deploying large portions of Iran’s missile arsenal on Syrian and Lebanese soil (in Hizballah’s keeping). A Turkish general in command of the NATO missile shield cannot be expected to regard threatening missile action by Iran, Syria or Hizballah in the same light as would President Obama or NATO Secretary-General Andres vog Rasmussen. He would simply follow the orders of his own prime minister.

The Women’s Football Alliance is holding tryouts for the 2011women’s professional football schedule. Teams include the: LA Amazons; Savannah Sabres; Bay Area Bandits, Boston Militia, Chicago Force, Dallas Diamonds, DC Divas, Kansas City Tribe, New York Sharks, Pittsburgh Passion, San Diego Surge. Philadelphia Liberty Belles, Columbus CometsLone Star Mustangs, St. Louis Slam, and the West Michigan Mayhem for a total of 62 teams in the US and Mexico playing full-contact American rules football.

A Florida Indian tribe is claiming its sovereign status trumps the IRS and is not cooperating to turn over financial records showing whether its members have paid their taxes or may have made improper deductions.

The IRS is dramatically expanding its tax investigation into the Miccosukees’ distribution of millions of dollars in yearly gambling profits to tribal members; the Internal Revenue Service is issuing summonses for all financial documents pertaining to the West Miami-Dade tribe.

The federal agency is seeking savings, checking, credit card and other financial account records from four major banking institutions that handle business for the 650-member tribe, dating from 2006 to 2009.

The scope of the IRS’ civil summonses far exceeds the agency’s recent demand for millions of dollars in unreported credit-card transactions generated by former tribal chairman Billy Cypress from 2003 to 2005 on gambling trips, restaurants and electronics.

While the new IRS summonses do not identify any tribe members by name, the scope is much broader because the requests are for ”all documents pertaining to the Miccosukee Tribe in any capacity,” according to court records.

The dispute opens up and increasingly rancorous matter of tribal sovereignty that was largely ignored until tribes entered into commercial gambling casinos reaping tens of billions of dollars attracting the attention of tax collectors and legislators.

As a sovereign nation, the tribe as an entity is not subject to taxes, though individual members must pay taxes on income from the tribe or any other source and are subject to criminal statutes.

An interesting wrinkle is the tribe’s claim that if it doesn’t complain it is being stolen from its nobody else’s business.

In 2005, the IRS launched the investigation into the Miccosukee Tribe’s distribution of gambling profits to members, which led to the deeper probe of Cypress and his use of credit cards for gambling trips to Las Vegas, Foxwoods, Conn., and Biloxi, Miss.

IRS agents who examined the tribe’s financial records concluded that Cypress ”misappropriated” the tribe’s money for his personal use — including making ”high-end purchases” — without reporting the income for tax purposes, or paying taxes according to court affidavits filed earlier this year.

Ironically native Americans are part of a lawsuit charging that they were cheated out of royalties for mineral, timber, fishing and others payments from tribal lands they contend were not paid or underpaid.

A federal judge ordered actor Wesley Snipes to surrender to authorities Friday so he can begin serving a three-year prison sentence for tax evasion-related crimes. Snipes had earned more than $38 million since 1999, but had filed no tax returns or paid any taxes. He’s been free on $1 million bail for over two years while appealing.

Vladimir Putin’s Russia is on the march as the most destabilizing - and reckless - great power on the world stage says Jeffrey T. Kuhner a radio talk show personality and a columnist at The Washington Times and WorldTribune.com.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia could have become a stable democracy at peace with its neighbors.

Instead, Putin is erecting a new soviet era style Great Russian empire. He has imposed a brutal police state at home. Journalists routinely are killed. Critics and dissidents are jailed. Media freedoms and opposition parties are under assault. A gangster elite runs the Kremlin, plundering the country’s vast wealth.

Russia has become a rogue state. Putin’s aim is to make Moscow the center of an anti-American, anti-Western axis. Russia has waged a genocidal war in Chechnya. It has de facto annexed the Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It has reduced Belarus to an economic vassal. It menaces the Baltic States. Moscow asserts a sphere of influence in Central Asia and the Caucasus. It has sold vital missile and nuclear technology to Iran’s mullahs. It has close ties with Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela.

Yet the Russian bear seeks an even bigger prize: Ukraine. This nation of 46 million, whose size is that of Germany and Britain combined, is of vital geopolitical importance - to both Russia and the West. Ukraine literally means borderland. Throughout the centuries, hostile neighbors - Russia, Poland, Lithuania - have sought to control Ukraine’s rich resources and minerals. Because of its geographic location, Ukraine’s fate has been to serve as a bridge between Asia and Europe; it straddles the civilizational fault line separating West and East. This is Ukraine’s curse and blessing.

Mr. Putin understands that his imperial ambitions ultimately can be achieved only if Ukraine is subjugated. Russia with Ukraine resembles America - a vast continental superpower. Without it, Russia is more like Canada - a large country mostly covered in snow.

Moreover, a democratic and prosperous Ukraine is a dagger aimed at the heart of the Putin regime. It will serve as a model for its northern Slavic cousins to imitate - a viable, attractive alternative to Mr. Putin’s barbarism. Hence, for Moscow, Ukraine must be smashed; its experiment in independence must be subverted.

Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, is a political battleground pitting pro-Russian forces against pro-Western nationalists. President Viktor Yanukovych is trying to roll back the clock to pre-Orange Revolution days. In 2004, backed by the Kremlin, he tried to steal the election, sparking street protests that culminated in the Orange Revolution. Earlier this year, he won elections - this time, fairly - on a platform of economic renewal and national reconciliation.

Mr. Yanukovych, however, has again proved the adage that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. He is a Russophile thug who is slowly forging an authoritarian state. His government has centralized power, repealing amendments to the constitution - without public debate or any kind of vote - that substantially weaken parliament. Media censorship is on the rise. Journalists critical of the regime have disappeared mysteriously. In recent regional elections, opposition parties were harassed. Ballot tampering and voter fraud were rampant.

Mr. Yanukovych’s base is in the Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine - the Sovietized industrial east. His Party of Regions seeks to make Russian an official language; in fact, its website refuses to use Ukrainian. He has put joining NATO and the European Union on the back burner - bowing to Moscow’s demands. Slowly, but surely, he is splitting Kiev from the West. In short, he is Mr. Putin’s poodle.

The result is that Ukraine is a sovereign country in name only. Moscow funds Mr. Yanukovych’s Party of Regions and numerous Ukrainian think tanks and media outlets. The Kremlin has issued thousands of Russian passports in the Crimea, thereby creating Russian “citizens” who in the future may need “protection” from imaginary threats in Kiev - repeating the pattern established in Georgia. Also, the lease for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, based in Sevastopol - set to expire in 2017 - was extended until 2042. Ukraine is being transformed into a Russian protectorate.

Mr. Putin despises Ukrainian nationalism. At a 2008 NATO meeting, the Russian strongman told then-President George W. Bush, “Ukraine is not a real country.” Rather, Mr. Putin said, it was a “gift” from Moscow, whose major territories formed part of czarist Russia. He publicly refers to Ukraine as “Little Russia.” His comments are not only insulting and disrespectful, but belligerent.

It is high time Washington takes notice. Obama’s efforts to press the “reset button” in relations with the Kremlin have failed, emboldening Mr. Putin’s fascist regime. Ukraine’s descent into Putinism would be a tragedy of historical proportions. Contrary to Moscow’s propaganda, Ukraine is not a regional outpost of Russian civilization; rather, it is part of the European main - a long-suffering nation with a distinct cultural identity rooted in Western values, a separate language and unique Slavic heritage.

Ukraine is the eastern ramparts of the West. It is a strategic bulwark against Russian expansionism. It is not “Little Russia” but a nation in its own right. America cannot turn a blind eye. We must slap the bear down and tell Mr. Putin unequivocally to keep his greedy paws off Ukraine.

NATO agreed to setup an anti-ballistic missile defense shield to protect Europe and the U. S. from missile strikes for a rogue nation (read Iran) is said to have the cooperation of Russia. There appears to be support a new START treaty with Russia that critics say is much more advantageous to Russia.

Black farmers and American Indians who say the United States discriminated against them and took their money for decades are a step closer to winning long-awaited government settlements.

Under legislation passed by the Senate on Friday, black farmers who claim discrimination at the hands of the Agriculture Department would receive almost $1.2 billion. American Indians who say they were swindled out of royalties by the Interior Department would split $3.4 billion. Both cases have languished for more than a decade, and plaintiffs say beneficiaries are dying off.

Obama praised the Senate for finally passing the bill and urged the House to move forward on it. He said his administration is also working to resolve separate lawsuits filed against the department by Hispanic and female farmers.

In the Indian case, which has been in the courts for almost 15 years, at least 300,000 Native Americans claim they were swindled out of royalties overseen by the Interior Department since 1887 for things like oil, gas, grazing and timber. The plaintiffs would share the settlement.

The government already has paid out more than $1 billion to about 16,000 black farmers, with most getting about $50,000. The new money is intended for people - some estimates say 70,000 or 80,000.

50% of Likely U.S. Voters think the tax cuts, scheduled to end December 31, should be extended for all Americans. Forty-four percent (44%), however, believe they should be extended for everyone except the wealthy. Pelosi appears to have convinced Obama and Reid to make the issue a class struggle to punish high income Americans. Some predict if they win unemployment could jump to 12 or even 13%.

 Wayne Madsen or WMR (Wayne Madsen Report) self-describes himself as being a latter-day Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson doing the “politically incorrect” and “politically embarrassing” stories and holding government officials accountable for their actions. Madsen recently said the November 10, 2010 Pacific contrail was in fact a missile launched from a Chinese submarine to embarrass the U. S. military.

He accuses Obama of taking mood altering anti-depressant drugs that he says accounts for Obama’s “weird behavior” and reports of behind the scene tirades. A Berlin Der Spiegel-Fritzl-Fuherer magazine has claimed Obama was using Fluoxetine (Prozac) and keeps it secret.

Fluoxetine (Prozac) is a powerful drug used to treat depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder. Its side effects include decreased sexual desire or ability; diarrhea; dizziness; drowsiness; dry mouth; flu-like symptoms (eg, fever, chills, muscle aches); increased sweating; loss of appetite; nausea; nervousness; runny nose; sore throat; stomach upset; trouble sleeping; weakness.

Madsen’s report, making the rounds on the internet, raises the specter of a 25^th Amendment crisis, i.e., that Obama’s increasingly detached-from-reality presidency has resulted in chaos in the White House. Madsen infers that all springs from his clinical depression.

The relevant provision of the 25^th Amendment says (upon) “declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”
 
White House leaks about the ineffectiveness of Obama’s presidency are expanding beyond the revelations attributed to a former high-level Obama administration insiders and which have been reported by a blogger named “Ulsterman” who says Obama acts completely disinterested. (Is) too self-involved, too bored by details, [and] too lazy to accomplish much of his presidential duties.

Some White House staffers have described a “reign of terror” in the White House over continued leaks and a troika of leadership that is making decisions without any input from the president. The troika reportedly consists of First Lady Michelle Obama, presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett, and the president’s mother-in-law, Marian Robinson, who resides in the White House.

Vice President Biden, under intense pressure from some Democratic Party officials and Cabinet members to invoke Article 25, Section 4 of the Constitution and have Obama temporarily or permanently removed as president because of his mental incapacity to fulfill his constitutional oath as president is reluctant to take such drastic action. Biden feels that the country would “become unglued” after such action and he doesn’t want to be the one who would be responsible for “picking up the pieces,” according to a source who works within Biden’s office.

Some staffers have said on deep background that the revelations by the ex-White House official to “Ulsterman” are not even half of the story about what is actually occurring in the White House.

Although some observers believe African-Americans would react negatively to the invocation of the 25th Amendment, WMR (Wayne Madsen Report) has learned that members of the Congressional Black Caucus would reluctantly go along with such a move. Many in their ranks, including outgoing House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers (D-MI) were outraged over Obama’s lack of interest in Haiti after that nation’s devastating earthquake. For many black caucus members, it was their first indication that there was something very wrong with Obama and his grasp of reality.

With Obama intent on running for re-election and seriously considering sending White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to replace former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, the potential Democratic challengers to Obama in 2012 are beginning to stir. WMR has learned that former DNC chairman Howard Dean is seriously considering a challenge to Obama as is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who will reportedly depart Foggy Bottom after Defense Secretary Robert Gates leaves his position, possibly in January, 2011.

 Recently Clinton has denied she will be a candidate in 2012. But, few believe that would still be operative if Obama succumbs politically or to a mental health or other crisis.

Several top Democrats consider Obama’s chances to keep the White House in 2012 as slim and they find it fanciful that White House policy adviser David Axelrod is moving back to Chicago to work on Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, an effort many Democratic officials find a “fool’s errand.”

Earmarks.  Pork barrel spending. Call it what you will. Congress views the recent elections as a mandate to cut government spending, and first on the list is a ban on allowing legislators to steer money to their favorite home projects. But voters aren’t quite as gung-ho.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that nearly half (48%) of Likely U.S. Voters favor a ban that prohibits all members of Congress from steering taxpayer money to pet projects in their home districts thirty-six percent (36%), however, oppose such a ban

A new planet discovered orbiting a bloated red star is the first world we know of that was born in another galaxy that once orbited the Milky Way and is now among a relative few orphan stars that orbit our galaxy. So the new exoplanet is technically not of another galaxy and, is the first found not of the Milky Way.

Since the mid-1990s astronomers have been adding to the list of known exoplanets, planets that exist outside our solar system. The nearly 500 exoplanets found so far all formed in our home galaxy, the Milky Way. Hardly anyone believes our Milky Way galaxy has a monopoly on planetary formation.

To keep this in perspective there are about 300,000,000, 000 (billion) stars in our own Milky Way galaxy which is a relatively small star collection, and at least 1,000,000,000,000 (trillion) in the Andromeda Galaxy our nearest galactic neighbor. The current best guess is there are 500,000,000,000 (billion) galaxies in the universe. So that would be…a lot.

In toto (in TO-to) adverb: Totally; as a whole. Etymology from Latin totus (total). First recorded use: 1639. Usage:”Garcia opposes lifting the embargo in toto.

A glaring back story of the “don’t touch my junk” kafuffle is the size and cost of The Transportation Safety Administration (TSA). It has grown from 16,000 employee a couple years ago to 40,000 today.  It recently reuniformed its force into blue shirts abandoning the white shirted uniforms.

In 2010 $700 million was allocated to electronically screen baggage; $300 million for enhanced passenger screening, and $150 million for railroad security grants. Overall an $800 million increase from 2009.

36,000 TSA employees got a $1,700 raise to bring their salary “in line” with comparable federal employees. Legislation overhauling the pay system for workers at the Transportation Security Administration would raise costs by about $700 million over five years, mainly due to salary increases, the Congressional Budget Office said in an estimate released Wednesday.

The Department of Homeland Security got $42,700,000,000 (billion) of which TSA gets $7,000,000,000 (billion). Human TSA scanners are paid from $23,000 to $40,000 a year.

Friday the former head of security for Israel’s El Al airlines calls the TSA  and DHS reactive and ineffective. EL AL screeners all have college degrees, are highly trained and personally interview every passenger before they can board a flight.

When ask if that wasn’t profiling he said they can call it whatever they want but it works.

EL AL has avoided attacks while U. S. airlines have been repeatedly and successfully compromised

Tourism experts say that Paris, France has a serious bedbug problem. When they heard about it, French people said it looks like 500 years of not showering has come back to literally bite us in the butt. - Conan

PRC Ministry spokesman Hong Lei accused the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission of having a “Cold War mentality” and of harboring a grudge against China. Hong said “stop interfering in China’s internal affairs and instead exert greater efforts to build mutual trust and cooperation between China and the U.S.,” in a statement posted on the ministry’s website.

Beijing that is in the catbird seat has repeatedly rejected U.S. accusations that its currency is undervalued, and it contends that a stronger yuan will not ease America’s yawning trade deficit. Chinese officials say globalization of production also has contributed to trade imbalances and the United States must solve its problems of unemployment, overspending and low savings.

The politically sensitive imbalance - America’s largest with any country - hit a monthly record of $28 billion in August and is running 21 percent higher than in 2009.

The commission said China’s ability to sell the United States four times as many goods as it imports from the U.S. is “a major drag” on the American economy, and it is. But, that begs the question of why China should do anything about it to its detriment especially while it has the U. S. in full retreat economically and militarily, and it can play Obama like a fiddle for at least two more years.

Two homosexual undertakers in the northwestern German city of Cologne are trying to tap into the gay market by selling coffins adorned with images of male nudes and in the rainbow colors symbolic of the gay community.

Tension on the Costa Rican-Nicaraguan border is a prelude to a renewed CIA- and Israeli-backed Contra War against the government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. Obama has sanctioned these acts on condition that his fingerprints can nay be traced

After successfully overthrowing Honduran President Manuel Zelaya last year, the is now swarming with current and ex-U.S. and Israeli special forces commandos and intelligence operatives who are gearing up for covert forays by U.S. and Israeli trained and equipped exiled Nicaraguan irregulars and mercenaries drawn from abroad.

Ex-CIA and Israeli Defense Force trainers are numerous in both countries, with proxies from Argentina, Colombia, Chile, and Peru being trained in guerrilla tactics, including sniper operations, planting and detonating explosives, automatic weapons firing training, and hand-to-hand combat,  to wage a new Contra War against Nicaragua. Some of the training is also being carried out in Jewish-owned military training complexes in Argentina.

In some cases, the training of the Nicaraguan neo-Contras is done under the guise of counter-narcotics operations and Honduran and Costa Rican police training. Costa Rica’s ambassador to the UN, Saul Weisleder, who, like Costa Rican Vice President Luis Lieberman Ginsburg Ginsburg, is an arch-Zionist and supporter of Israel, is in charge of stoking anti-NIcaragua tension with New York heavily Jewish-influenced media over the issue of a border dispute between Costa Rica and Nicaragua over disputed territory in the San Juan River.

The word from Central America is: it is not a question if the U.S. and Israel will launch a second Contra War against Nicaragua, but when.

USMC Colonel Ollie North was at the center of national attention during the Iran-Contra affair, a political scandal of the late 1980s. North was a National Security Council member involved in the clandestine sale of weapons to Iran, which served to encourage the release of U.S. hostages from Lebanon. North formulated the second part of the plan: diverting proceeds from the arms sales to support the Contra rebel groups in Nicaragua (funding to the Contras had been prohibited under the Boland Amendment amidst widespread public opposition in the US and controversies surrounding human rights abuses by the Contras). North was charged with several felonies and convicted of three, but the convictions were later vacated, and the underlying charges dismissed due to the limited immunity agreement granted for his pre-trial public Congressional testimony about the affair.

AAA is predicting that 42 million people will travel this year for Thanksgiving. Not only that - 30 million of them won’t be talking to each other by the time they reach their destination. - Fallon

It seems that Obama’s confrontational and accusatory attitude toward Israel during the last two years has encouraged the anti-Semites in the international community, who did not dare to reveal themselves during the Bush Administration. Now, they have surfaced and are making Israel the new scapegoat for all the evils in the world.

Furthermore, Obama et. al, has been an active participant in international bodies with bias against Israel which the Bush Administration refused to join or concur with. In some instances, the current Administration even consented to these bodies’ investigations of so-called Israeli “crimes.” But more cynically and morally repugnant, Obama has been using the threat of international isolation to pressure Israel into more concessions.

Otherwise, why would one of the assurances reportedly given by the US to Israel, in an effort to get the West Bank settlement freeze extended for 60 days, be an American commitment to use its veto to prevent UN recognition of a unilaterally declared Palestinian state? Under Bush and Clinton it was taken for granted that the veto would be used, as it was understood that any peace deal premised on the “two-state solution” would only be decided through negotiations.

Reportedly, Prime Minster Netanyahu also fears that as soon as any new 60-day freeze ends, and with the November US midterm elections over, Obama - with the help of the international community - will aim to force a permanent agreement on Israel by presenting a “take it or leave it peace plan.”

Such initiative would publicly support the Palestinian position that the 1967 borders should be the basis for a future Palestinian state, including a divided Jerusalem.

In the last two years, Israel has been under a new kind of attack on her legitimacy and on her right to exist. A campaign has been conducted where many of Israel’s enemies are employing legal tricks, through multinational and international bodies, to present Israel as an illegitimate pariah state that should be isolated like Apartheid South Africa.

Sadly, Obama was an active participant in these efforts until it recently felt the backlash from Jewish voters and has eased off before the midterm elections.

In May, the Obama Administration broke 40 years of US precedent and shamefully signed a unanimous resolution adopted at a meeting of the 189 signatories of The Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, singling out Israel’s atomic program without even mentioning Iran’s. The draft urged Israel to sign the NPT and put its nuclear facilities under UN International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.

 During the previous NPT conference in 2005, the Bush Administration refused to accept parts of the draft document that called on Israel to join the NPT and turned down the idea of holding talks in order to create a region free of nuclear weapons.

While Bush refused to join the UN Human Rights Council and lend it legitimacy, Obama’s first foreign policy decision was to join the Council, knowing that it has adopted more resolutions and decisions condemning the state of Israel than all others 191 UN members combined.

In August, under heavy Obama Administration pressure, Israel agreed for the first time ever to participate in a UN review panel investigating IDF actions in the Gaza-bound flotilla incident.

It appears that letting Israel feel isolated and alone while relying on the US as her only friend is Obama’s strategy to “deliver” Israel to the Arabs. However, recent polls reveal great support for Israel by the American people.

 American who care about Israel’s survival stood by Israel in the November midterm elections and only vote for the Republican Party, to deflect future US pressure by Obama. In the meantime, the Israeli government must wait for the impact of American voter’s verdict to develop against Obama and the Democratic Party.

 As Obama was in Lisbon jawboning NATO members to continue and in some cases increase support in Afghanistan. All the while Afghanistan’s President Karzai continues to be as nettlesome as U. S. VP Biden is thoughtless quipping it is “time for daddy to take off the trainers wheels.” At the center of the issue is Obama’s 2014 withdrawal date there that is widely seen as unwise, risky, and impossible.

Representative John A. Boehner, soon to be the unanimous GOP pick for Speaker of the House, has pledged to fly commercial airlines back to his home district in Ohio. But that does not mean that he will be subjected to the hassles of ordinary passengers, including the controversial security pat-downs.

As he left Washington on Friday, Mr. Boehner headed across the Potomac River to Reagan National Airport, which was bustling with afternoon travelers. But there was no waiting in line for Mr. Boehner, who was escorted around the metal detectors and body scanners, and taken directly to the gate.

There is apparently no truth to the rumor that some are repeatedly going to airports just for the full body search.

Bernie Madoff’s underpants were sold at an auction. They were from “Fraud of the Loom.” — Letterman

Conservative activist, best-selling author and red diaper baby David Horowitz tells Newsmax that the Democratic Party has been “seized by a religious cult” of leftists and will go the way of the 19th-century Whig Party - disappearing from the political scene.

The onetime Ramparts magazine editor who renounced his communist/radical roots when his bookkeeper was murdered reportedly by black panthers whom he supported and defended declares that giving terrorist suspects the rights of American citizens and trying them in civilian courts is “a form of national suicide” and says the tea party movement is a “huge development” that will keep Republicans true to conservative principles.

Horowitz is founder and president of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, founder of Students for Academic Freedom, and co-author of “The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party.”

“The Obama administration is a left-wing administration and therefore it believes that America is guilty. We’re the predators, and to atone for our sins we have to show people that we will bend over backwards - really it’s a form of national suicide - to demonstrate that we will give rights to people who want to kill us and have no rights as American citizens, and somehow demonstrate to the world that we’ve turned over a new leaf and we’re not going to be the bad guys anymore,” he says.

In comments about last week’s near total acquittal of a terrorist he adds: “This is just one of the many catastrophes they’ve dreamed up for us.”

Never the shrinking violet Sarah Palin the former Alaska Gov. blasted the media covering Joe Miller’s Alaska Senate campaign, calling them “bastards” and suggesting that the initials CBS stand for “Corrupt Bastards Club.” Substitute “Arrogant” and “Nasty” and you can cover all three hitherto major networks.

Oakland marijuana entrepreneur Richard Lee said today that his bankroll is depleted and the next California pot legalization measure may have to depend on other donors. But in an interview, Lee said he is determined that marijuana will be on the California ballot again in 2012 despite the defeat of Proposition 19.

Lee, who founded Oakland’s renowned pot trades school, Oaksterdam University, and heads a network including a medical marijuana dispensary, nursery and media company, donated $1.3 million to qualify Proposition 19 for the ballot and another $200,000 to the election campaign.

“We just need to do some research and see why people voted ‘no,’” Lee said after the initiative lost by a 54 to 46 percent just weeks after polls showed California voters poised to legalize marijuana for recreational use. “We did get more votes than (gubernatorial candidate) Meg Whitman. And she spent more than $140 million. We need to look at the bright side.”

Lee said Proposition 19 showed that Californians increasingly support legalizing marijuana but “just didn’t like the details of the initiative.”

Proposition 19 would have legalized possession of an once or more of marijuana and permitted small household cultivation for adults over 21. It would have allowed cities and counties to tax and regulate retail pot sales - but specified no taxes. Yet while Prop 19 went down to defeat, voters approved more than a dozen local California measures calling for marijuana taxes.

In a statement he put out on election night, Lee vowed that “we will be coming back, stronger than ever” with a redrafted pot legalization measure in 2012.

For over a decade Border’s bookstore has anchored the center of the downtown business district in Santa Barbara. Now It is closing its three story location while keeping another store open in nearby Goleta. Its third floor was devoted to music and has increasingly been empty as online downloading has pushed aside CDs. Diagonally across the street is Barnes and Nobles which is in a hostile buyout battle amid tepid profits and is rumored to be closing too. On the other end of town is the last independent bookstore - Chaucers — that appears to be holding its own by pandering to the overwhelmingly liberal local community.

The so often fiercely independent Irish appears to be set to go hat-in-hand to ask for a multi-billion euro bailout from the EU and the IMF. Ireland is finalizing a four-year plan to cut its budget deficit grudgingly following in the English, Scots and Welsh who are unanimous in backing an austerity plan to bring its runaway budget under control.

Turning to the EU and IMF for help is a reversal for the Irish government, which earlier this week denied such a package was being negotiated or was necessary.

European Union finance ministers were to hold a conference call to address the imminent bail-out request. Ireland is currently spending about 19bn euros (£16bn; $26bn) more than it receives in taxes and revenues, but its crisis-hit banks also need a massive injection of back-up funds.

The Sunday Times speculated that the Republic’s bail-out package would be worth up to 120bn euros.

This compares with the 110bn euros Greece is set to receive over three years.

A Quinnipiac University poll shows by 49 percent to 43 percent, poll respondents say Obama shouldn’t be re-elected in 2012. If a contest were held today with Republican rival Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, Obama is supported by 44 percent of those surveyed and Romney by 45 percent.

In a race with former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, Obama garners 46 percent to Huckabee’s 44 percent. Obama does the best in a race against former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, winning 48 percent to 40 percent.

Soldier were returning from Afghanistan on a charter flight. All the troops went through a security check as they left Baghram Air Field. They all passed through full body scanners and had their bags inspected by bomb-sniffing dogs.

But, when the plane stopped in Indianapolis after a nonstop flight to drop 100 National Guard members off so some could replane for home the local TSA said all the armed soldiers needed to be searched again.

It’s probably important to mention that  ALL were carrying weapons actual assault rifles, and some were also carrying pistols,”

None of the weapons were loaded. But when one TSA agent found nail clippers on one  soldier, blammo, gone, confiscated

The soldier reported the TSA agent said: You can’t take those on the plane. They can be used as a weapon.

The soldier then pointed out the obvious. EVERYONE had a pistol or assault rifle the agent said…  Yeah but you can’t use it to take over the plane. You don’t have bullets.

The soldier gave up the nail clippers, but kept his assault rifle. The TSA agent was happy.

Tens and even hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have and are being spent on those infamous full body scanners for airports — turns out one of the scanner lobbyists is Linda Daschle, wife of former Democratic Senator Tom Daschle who has recently been named as a candidate for a top job in Obama’s coterie.