RWC UNFILTERED 6-9-2011

• Jeep Gran Cherokee Most Dangerous
• Texas Governor Lambasted For Day of Prayer
• Debt To Exceed GDP Quicker Than Predicted
• Wal Mart of Weed- Pot Super Store Opens
• Muslim Group Runs Anti-Christian Ads
• Weiner Sexting Fully Exposed: GOP schadenfreude
• Recalled Councilman Lied on Resume
• U. S. Vs China War Plan
• Iran Sorties Attack Subs Into Red Sea.
• Not Even Assad’s Bribes Could Provoke Fight With Israel.

A non-profit safety group says the Chrsyler Corp’s JEEP GRAND CHEROKEE is unsafe as demonstrated by its crash tests showing an unusually high threat of fire due to the location of its gasoline tanks. The group contends the 1993-2004 models are biggest offenders. Chrysler those vehicles are no more fire dangerous that any other.

Disgraced New York Congressman Anthony Weiner (D) and his wife of little more than one year got good news at the worst possible time - she is pregnant. Weiner who repeatedly lied about sending lewd pictures of himself to at least six young women including a self-described porn star is increasingly being called on to resign. . Reportedly hundreds of photographs and messages sent to the women over the course of some months are involved

Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s (R) latest call for a day of prayer is being met by a chorus of boos from critics who say the potential presidential candidate is showing favoritism toward Christianity and violating the separation of church and state.A day of prayer and fasting on Aug. 6 to “seek God’s guidance and wisdom in addressing the challenges that face our communities, states and nation.” It is part of what is being described as a non-denominational, apolitical, Christian prayer meeting hosted by the American Family Association at Reliant Stadium in Houston.

Reuter/Ipsos polling released Wednesday contradicted several U. S. based polling firms claiming Obama’s approval rating continues a leads all challengers. An ABC/Washington Post poll found the exact opposite. Rueters is Euripean based and Ipsos is French and both tend to reflect Eurocentric views.

A recent Treasury report noted that national debt will exceed the size of the economy this year — a first since World War II. A year ago, the Treasury had estimated that notorious tipping point wouldn’t be hit until 2014.

Now the expectation is that total debt to GDP (Gross Domestic Product the total of all good and services produced) will top 102 percet this year, up from the earlier estimates

Why the change?

Two factors are likely the biggest cause.

First, the White House’s 2011 GDP estimate is $219 billion is lower today than it was a year ago. So debt as percentage of a lower number will always look higher.

Second, the debt grew larger because of a tax cut deal brokered by President Obama and Republicans last December. That deal will add an estimated $858 billion to the deficits over a decade — $410 billion of it in 2011 alone, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The tax cut package extended all the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for another two years, enacted a one-year Social Security tax holiday and reduced the estate tax.

Democrats and Republicans disagree on a lot, but both sides have indicated a desire to make the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent for at least the majority of Americans — a costly proposition.

And the GOP publicly says it will not consider tax increases as part of any deal to raise the debt ceiling.

In a week of miserable economic news Austan Goolsbee, President Barack Obama’s chief economist, is the fourth of Obama’s economic brain trust to resign from the administration and is returning to the University of Chicago, the White House announced. Gollsbee is the latest  from Obama’s erstwhile economic brain trust to quit..

Goolsbee, 41, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers since September, has been on leave from his post as an economics professor at the university’s Booth School of Business while working for Obama. He will be back in Chicago for the start of the school year, the White House said. No replacement was named.

The national consensus is Obama’s economics are a failure with 60% of Americans saying so and this may be just the most recent head to roll down the White House driveway.

Locals call it the “Wal-Mart of Weed” or “Home DePot.”

Seeking to capitalize on Arizona’s newly enacted medical marijuana law, a California-based company on Wednesday opened a superstore-sized garden center in Phoenix catering to those who want to grow their own cannabis.

“We sell everything but the plant itself,” said Dhar Mann, founder of weGrow, the company that began franchising its big-box stores with outlets in Oakland and Sacramento, California. “We sell the products and the services for people to safely and responsibly cultivate their medicine.”

The 21,000-square-foot store offers some 2,000 products, including soil, grow lights and irrigation trays, specially designed for effective marijuana growing, Mann told Reuters.

The awarding of a peace prize to the American Jewish self-proclaimed intellectual Noam Chomsky, a strident critic of Israel and of American foreign policy, is drawing criticism in Australia.Peace Prize, announced Wednesday, says that Chomsky was chosen “for inspiring the convictions of millions about a common humanity and for unfailing moral courage.”

The citation for this year’s Sydney

Chomsky is part of the “new Leftist” favored by Obama, George Soros, Bill Ayers and the like.Chomsky get a $50,000 check too.

Chomsky is a holocaust denier variously claiming the Nazi campaign of genocide was a manufacturer hoax.

The MyPeace organization in Australia, says Jesus wasn’t God, but he was a good prophet of Islam. That’s just one of the messages the group is set to debut on Australian buses in September. And it’s just one of the messages already plastered on billboards around Sydney.

As CNS News reports, “roadside billboards in the metropolitan Sydney area carry one of four simple slogans: ‘Jesus: A Prophet of Islam,’ ‘Holy Qur’an: The Final Testament,’ ‘Muhammad: Mercy to Mankind’ and ‘Islam: Got Questions? Get Answers.’

A Catholic Bishop called the campaign anti-Christian. Reportedly one billboard was defaced.

Ourgoing SecDef Gates is ending his service  with a swam song in Iraq and Afghanistan trying to salvage something, maybe anything of America’s frayed and fumbling foreign policy. Few hitherto allies have confidence in America’s fortitude or commitment . Everywhere one looks there are distrurbing signs of disarray. Gates decision to abandon the F-22 super stealth fight in ravor of what can not be clearly seen as a flawed F-35 that Japan is rejected in favor of the 30-year-old FA-18.

New York Democrat Congressman Tony Weiner admitted that he had been lying about taking and sending lewd photographs of himself to several young women. He refused to resigns contending he has done nothing wrong or against his oath of office.Democrats are angry while Republicans are gloating.

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, herself the most unpopular member of Congress was ranting about the disclosure saying she may launch an investigation.

Weiner’s district could be one of two that New York State will lose due to decreased population in New York so, the issue of whether he will run or remain in office may be moot.

A Washington Post / ABC Poll among registered voters show Romney leading Obama (49-46%) and a vast number of people (59%( who disapprove of how Obama has handled the economy. The Osama bounce that Obama got after the killing of Osama bin Laden has entirely evaporated.

The story of Tuesday’s Hercules City Council recall election became a little weirder Monday, when one candidate to replace a councilman admitted he had padding his resume.

As it turns out, Gerard Boulanger was never elected to a local or regional government. Nor was it true that he had earned not only one college degree, but continued on to earn an MBA. The issue, he said, was a matter of translation.

In his native France, he had been selected to serve as a “grand elector,” or a position akin to the American Electoral College. The difference, however, is that there are 150,000 grand electors, and they cast votes for the 383-member senate.

What’s more, the work that he did for local governments in the Paris suburb he called home was not an elected position, it was a position with a political party.

Now the heat is off his opponent, the incumbent council member who tore up his recall notice during a televised council meeting.

A 38-year-old Utah man has been cited on a charge of disorderly conduct after paying for a disputed medical bill with 2,500 pennies. After asking Clinic staff members whether they accepted cash, the man dumped 2,500 pennies on the counter and demanded that staff count them.

Police reasoned that the incident upset staff because pennies were strewn about the counter and floor, and West’s action served “no legitimate purpose.” If found guilty the man could be fined 14,000 pennies.

The U.S. military is moving ahead with plans to develop integrated air and sea battle coordination plans that are aimed at countering China’s development of what the Pentagon calls area-denial and anti-access weapons. They include anti-satellite weapons, anti-ship ballistic missiles, advanced stealth fighters, highly-capable air defense systems and cyberwarfare capabilities.

The Pentagon’s AirSea Battle concept is mainly being developed in secret as part of a strategy to counteract China’s development of anti-access weapons that U.S. war planners fear will limit the military’s ability to respond to regional crisis, over Taiwan, on the Korean peninsula or further east in Iran.

Adm. Robert F. Willard, the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific first discussed some aspects of the concept in February when he said that in addition to closer Navy-Air Force coordination, the U.S. Marines will be added to defense and security scenarios for the Asia Pacific.

“This is a natural evolution, progression for us, as we advance our military capabilities, and I think it will only enhance the capabilities that we present to this region, the Asia Pacific, within U.S. Pacific Command,” Willard said.

Willard noted that China’s new anti-ship ballistic missile is one concern that is spurring the AirSea Battle concept. “AirSea Battle [Concept] has many aspects to it. I’m excited about the prospects of achieving more out of these two services than we’ve been able to achieve in the past,” he said.

Willard noted that the Marines added to the concept what “will be an enhancement to our joint force writ large.” The Marines could be called on to eject Chinese forces from disputed islands in the region, U.S. defense officials said.

Other elements of the strategy call for bolstering defenses on the key U.S. base of Guam and developing closer ties to India.

The concept was outlined in the 2010 US Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), that stated the “Air Force and Navy together are developing a new joint air-sea battle concept for defeating adversaries across the range of military operations, including adversaries equipped with sophisticated anti-access and area denial capabilities.”

The integration of capabilities will include closer coordination in the air, sea, land, space, and cyberspace domains.

Former Australian Navy Commodore Sam Bateman, an analyst with the Maritime Security Program at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said the concept is similar to LandSea concepts developed against the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

“The possibility of increasing competition and even conflict between China and the U.S. is the most worrying scenario in the Asia-Pacific,” Bateman said. “Events over the past year with Beijing’s response to U.S. naval exercises in the Yellow Sea and differences of view between Beijing and Washington over the South China Sea have confirmed the possibility of increasing competition.”

China’s PLA Daily, the official military newspaper, said of the concept that “it looks like the United States, by developing and gradually arming its armed forces with a series of new operational platforms and weapons carriers, will be able to change the battle doctrine for the 21st century.”

The newspaper quoted left-wing financial magnate George Soros as saying that “a declining superpower losing both political and economic dominance but still preserving military supremacy is a dangerous mix.”

“This means that while the US air-sea battle threatens the world with war, it constitutes the same threat to the United States,” the newspaper said.

China has been expanding  its reach well outside its terrotrial waters going deep into the South Pacific

An online auction of “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski’s personal belongings generated $232,246 to compensate his victims and their families, the U.S. Marshals Service said on Friday. Kaczynski is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for a string of bombing that killed two and injured many more. He was something of a prodigy entering Harvard at age 16-years graduating and entering the University of Michigan in mathematics.

The Iranian Navy has deployed attack submarines into the Red Sea in response to the latest International Atomic Energy Agency’s report accusing Iran of nuclear work with “possible military purposes.”  It was also a pointed comment on the controversy in Israel over whether or not to go for the military option. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad then delivered his most uncompromising statement yet on Iran’s nuclear program, calling it “a train with no brakes or reverse gear.”

Iran claims its submarines had long-range capabilities without specifying how many or what types had been sent to the Red Sea. Western sources estimate that two vessels of the Qaem type defined as “semi-heavy.” Information about this submarine is sparse in the West: It is thought to be a multi-task 1,000-ton submarine capable of firing missiles from deep water with room for naval commando units trained to raid strategic targets. Clearly these are offensive weapons with no peaceful purpose.

Shortly after Tehran’s submarine announcement, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called a news conference in which he presented Iran’s nuclear case in exceptionally categorical and inflexible terms. After dismissing the UN watchdog’s report as “lacking legal credibility,” he declared: “The nuclear issue is like a train which has no brakes and no reverse gear, which means there will be no compromise.”

IAEA chief criticized Iran Monday, June 6, for not cooperating with international nuclear experts at the start of a weeklong board meeting in Vienna.

This too was Tehran’s reply the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, whose key findings were published on June 3:  “By April 2011, Iran had accumulated a quantity of U-235 that can be enriched in short order to sufficient 90 percent (weapons grade) uranium for producing four nuclear bombs, steadily stockpiling the material in secret from 2008.”

The Iranians felt bound to respond to the information that the Israeli Navy has taken delivery - or will shortly - of two new Dolphin submarines armed according to foreign sources with nuclear missiles. The arrivals will expand Israel’s nuclear-capable sub fleet to five - or a 66% increase.

Ahmadinejad’s hardnosed comments were aimed too at Washington, where German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Barack Obama held talks inter alia on the nuclear issue and agreed to pile more sanctions on the Islamic Republic if it continued to forge ahead with its nuclear weapons program.

Israel’s Dolphin subs are manufactured in German shipyards. The chancellor agreed to speed up delivery of the last two Israel commissioned and made the gesture of easy terms of payment, despite the economic crisis besetting Europe.

The way Tehran announced the Red Sea deployment of its submarines indicated an intention to push the radius of its defense lines farther from home waters in the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea in case of military attack on its nuclear program.

Military sources reckon that Iran will next send the submarines through the Suez Canal up to Syria’s naval base of Latakia on the Mediterranean.

Five months ago, Iran sent two warships, one of them bearing missiles for its Lebanese proxy Hizballah, along the same route to the same destination. The Egyptian military junta permitted the warships to pass through Suez just a week after Hosni Mubarak was ousted as president, signaling clearly that Cairo was turning a new leaf in relations with Tehran and its Palestinian ally, Hamas, after years of animosity with Mubarak’s Egypt.

Six days after those first warships docked in Syria, on Feb. 26, Moscow agreed to sell Syria advanced Yakhont SS-N-26 sea missiles. Every Israeli effort, backed by Washington, to discourage the Russians from letting Syria have those weapons was rebuffed. They may well arrive in Syria at the same time as the Iranian subs.

The interconnection of these steps was underscored two days later, on Feb. 28, when the commander of the Iranian Navy, Adm. Habibollah Sayyari, arrived in Latakia, inspected a guard of honor and declared that Iran had acquired its first Mediterranean base.

Neither the United States nor Israel reacted to these strategic milestones. The second round of Iranian warships, the submarines, heading through the Suez Canal to Syria, may also go without response. 

Susurrus (soo-SUHR-uhs) noun: A whispering or rustling sound. Etymology from Latin susurrus (whisper, humming), from susurrare (to whisper or hum), of imitative origin. Earliest documented use: 1826.

Beleagured Syrian President Bashar Assad’s security machine is creaking judging by its failure to raise thousands of Palestinian and Syrian volunteers to brave the Israeli troops manning the Golan Sunday, June 5 - three weeks after his success in staging the first mass border incursion. intelligence sources reveal that even the few hundred willing to turn out demanded a fee: $1,000 for every demonstrator who managed to cut a piece of razor wire from the Israeli border fence - and exorbitant fee in Syrian terms - and $10,000 for the families of volunteers shot by Israeli troops before they reached their goal.

Syrian state TV reported 20 killed and 277 injured in clashes with Israeli border troops - figures which are not reliably confirmed.

Assad’s home front is sinking fast, which was why he tried to stage a piece of nation-cementing drama on the Israeli border. He hoped the Golan dead would outnumber the many hundreds killed in his three-month crackdown on the protest movement against his regime and is therefore likely to keep on trying.

Sunday alone, scores died in Syrian tank-backed attacks on protesters in northwest Syria who are now using live fire against his troops. sources report that Syrian security agents captured by protesters were hanged in broad daylight from electricity poles on city high streets Sunday, June 5, causing troops and police to flee in panic. 

“We are deeply troubled by events that took place earlier today in the Golan Heights resulting in injuries and the loss of life,” the State Department said in a statement.

“We call for all sides to exercise restraint. Provocative actions like this should be avoided. Israel, like any sovereign nation, has a right to defend itself,” the US statement added.

Just 24 percent of likely voters agree with President Barack Obama’s political views, a number identical to those of House Republicans and Democrats, a new Rasmussen Reports poll shows.

The president’s numbers are the worst since last August.

A nationwide telephone poll showed that 54 percent think Obama’s political views are more liberal than theirs, 13 percent more conservative, and 24 percent about the same.

The number of people viewing the president as more liberal has been in the mid-50s since last August, climbing to 61 percent in February. Another poll finds Romney best Obama 49% to 46%.

However, members of Congress fare no better. The Rasmussen poll found that just 24 percent held the same political views of the average Republican and Democrat.

For the first time, the poll found that voters feel the agenda of congressional Republicans is “nearly as extreme as that of Democrats in Congress.”

Obama is viewed as qualified to be president by 54 percent, while GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is the only Republican to poll as well on that question.

The poll also found that for the second week in a row, a generic GOP candidate edges out Obama 45 to 42 percent in a potential matchup.

The survey of 1,000 likely voters was conducted on June 2-3 by Rasmussen Reports with a sampling margin of plus or minus 3 percent.