RWC Unfiltered 11-17-11

• Trump Calls Obama “Americans are lazy” Insult: Disgusting.
• What in Heaven’s Name is the Episcopal Church Socialist League?
• Iran Will Have 5 Nuke Warheads By April 2012.
• Mysterious Explosion at Iranian Guards Base Kills Commander
• Pelosi Stock Trade Immoral and Unethical But Not Illegal
• Jordan King Calls for Assad To Resign.
• Economics Rule Out Attack On Iran: Report Says
• Details of Iranian Explosion Consequence
• Russia Is Dying Out?
• Iran Says Mossad Killed Its Top Missile Expert

The uber liberal Washington Post erroneously reported that the Ford Theater, where Lincoln was assassinated, refused to sell Bill O’Reilly’s book KILLING LINCOLN. It is a good read.

Donald Trump says President Barack Obama’s recent statement that Americans have become lazy is “disgusting,” and somewhat ironic, considering the president spends his time campaigning and vacationing instead of tending to the nation’s business. The real estate mogul also told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren Tuesday Obama’s comment was especially “interesting” because of his lack of business acumen.

Obama gets break as OWS camps about to be labeled Obamavilles as in great depression era Hooversvilles. Americans now oppose OWS by TWO TO ONE. Halk of all Americans can not name even one Republican presidential candidates

From the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota comes news of a meeting of the “Episcopal Church Socialist League” at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on-the-Hill.

An announcement said “This group has grown organically at St. Paul’s out of a deep desire to ground the transformation of society both in the liturgical life of the church and her rich history in this area. Our next meeting will be on Monday, November 7th at 7:15pm at St Paul’s Episcopal Church on-the-Hill. All are welcome to come bring their ideas on what action they would like to see the ECSL engage in this upcoming year”

“Radical Hospitality,” and “We relish a good debate and a great vegan meal, or a BBQ in the summer. We engage in mission with our sister congregation El Santo Niño Jesus. We are learning still, after better than ten years, what that means to be brothers and sisters in Christ. Come learn with us.

It Is little wonder that this church sect is fast disappearing. In 1965 Episcopalians had 3, 615,000  now there are less than 1.9 million of us.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday the full extent of Iran’s nuclear program was not reflected in a recent U.N. report, which said that Tehran appeared to have worked on designing an atomic bomb.

According to a briefing given to a closed meeting of Jewish leaders in New York last Sunday, Nov. 13, the window of opportunity for stopping Iran attaining a nuclear weapon is closing fast, sources report. It will shut down altogether after late March 2012. The intelligence reaching Obama is that by April, Iran will already have five nuclear bombs or warheads and military action then would generate a dangerous level of radioactive contamination across the Gulf region, the main source of the world’s energy.

 Sunday, too, Obama said the sanctions against Iran had taken an “enormous bite” out of its economy. He also said that the “US is united with Russian and Chinese leaders in ensuring Iran does not develop an atomic weapon and unleash an arms race across the Middle East.”

He spoke after talking to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Hawaii about the new evidence submitted by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran was engaged in clandestine efforts to build a bomb.

 He said both shared the goal of keeping a bomb out of Iran’s hands.

As to sanctions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a news conference that sanctions against Iran had been exhausted and “now the problem should be solved though diplomatic channels.”

Analysts note that tough sanctions are pretty much off the table now. In any case, it is obvious that they failed to slow down Iran’s work on a bomb as confirmed by the latest IAEA report.

The road of diplomacy, favored by Moscow, has proved worse than ineffectual. Its only result was to buy time for Tehran to carry on with its military atomic project free of international pressure.

 Obama went on to say Sunday that, while his strong preference was to resolve the Iran issue diplomatically, “We are not taking any options off the table. Iran with nuclear weapons would pose a threat not only to the region but also to the United States.”

This was the first time the US president had called a nuclear-armed Iran a threat to the United States. Until now, official statements limited the threat to “America’s regional interests and influence.”

The Jewish leaders meeting Sunday were informed that the Obama administration had intelligence data that the US and Israel have no more than a couple of months left for striking down Iran’s military weapons development by force. This will not longer be viable after Iran is armed with five nuclear bombs or warheads.

 Sunday GOP Presidential aspirants talked tough about Iran at their debate.

Military and intelligence sources refute the wild rumors alleging that the American CIA or Israeli Mossad was responsible for the massive explosion Saturday at a Revolutionary Guards base west of Tehran in which Iran’s missile chief Brig. Hassan Moghadam was killed.

While both organizations have formidable capabilities which Iran has experienced in the past, there is no way -  even with a UAV - they could have hit a single missile warhead in the middle of a Guards base at the very moment that IRGC chiefs were gathered around considering how best to improve its precision.

 All the evidence garnered in the two days since the attack indicates that a single warhead blew up by accident while it was being handled,  rather than by sabotage.

Neither Israel nor the U. S. are commenting. Iran says the incident that killed 18 was an accident, It took place at a military base 23 miles from Tehran where missiles are being developed.

The Persian Gulf is the warmest sea. In the summer its temperature reaches 35.6 degrees centigrade over 96 degrees Fahrenheit

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; failed presidential candidate Senator Kerry bought stock in initial public offerings (IPOs) that earned hefty returns while they had access to insider information that would have been illegal for an average citizen to trade with - even though it’s perfectly legal for elected officials, CBS’s “60 Minutes” reported Sunday night.

In a piece relying on data collected from the conservative Hoover Institution, “60 Minutes” revealed that elected officials like Pelosi are exempt from insider trading laws - regulations that carry hefty prison sentences and fines for any other citizen who trades stocks with private information on companies that can affect their stock price.

In the case of elected officials - this secret information ranges from timely details on lucrative federal contracts to legislation that can cause companies’ stocks to rise and fall dramatically.

75% of those named for gaming the system are Democrats. Republican John Boehner was cited but that was quickly proved wrong.

Although not illegal it is at least unethical and immoral.

How do they get away with it? Lawmakers have exempted themselves from the felony laws that would put every other citizen in prison and in fact have.

A Monday poll puts Gingrich ahead of Romney and in first place both are in the  Low to mid 20 percentiles while Cain has slipped to a distant third at just 14%. And Paul has moved up,

A popular German radio show host has been fired for claiming the holocaust was a PR stunt. His statement came just days after a neo-Nazi group gunned down over a dozen citizens including a law enforcement officer. The victims were all Turkish Muslim shopkeepers and the killing continue a decade long resurgence of neo-Nazi ideology.

Government officials are now talking about benning a neo-Nazi party, the NPD, after a previous attempt failed in 2003 on legal grounds.

Media at the weekend speculated about the existence of a “Brown Army Faction” — a far-right version of the now-defunct far-left Red Army Faction that killed more than 30 people between the 1970s and 1990s.

About 400 billion gallons of water is used worldwide each day. In the early 80s I contributed to a study that said water would become the oil of the 21^st century.

Jordan’s King has called on Syrian Dictator Assad to resign making him the first miiddle  east leaders to do so. More than 3,500 Syrians have been killed in fighting between Assad’s forces and anti-government forces.

The Hashemite kingdom is under fire for not supporting Muslim radicals against its Jewish neighbors.

Jordan, like Egypt has a treaty with Israel, and that chaffs those who want to see the jewish state wiped out.

Sherlock Holmes NEVER said, “Elementary, my dear Watson.”

Obama has “delayed” the building of an oil and natural gas pipeline from Alberta to the Gulf Coast. That delay will also delay the employment of 20,000 to as many 100,000 Americans - many of them veterans.

In addition Canada now says it will sell its oil to China. The proposed pipeline would have shifted America’s oil dependency away from the Middle East and into the Midwest.

Most analyst expect that domestic gasoline prices will rise to $4.50 peer gallon by Spring 2012. Analyst predict that with the Canadian pipeline could reduce gasoline costs by $2 per gallon.

During the chariot scene in “Ben Hur,” a small red car can be seen in the distance (and Heston’s wearing a wrist watch).  

The international community has been deterred from an attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, a report said.

A report by a leading Israeli investment company concluded that an attack on Iran by either Israel or the United States was not feasible.

Clal Finance, in a report titled “The Iranian Issue Through Economic Eyes,” said any war on Iran would endanger the global energy market as well as trade.

“Unfortunately, it appears that a nuclear Iran is the most reasonable scenario,” the report said. Some think Obama has already accepted that.

The report, released on Nov. 10, cited repercussions from any attack on Iran. They included Iranian missile attacks as well as operations by such proxies as Hamas, Hizbullah and Islamic Jihad.

Author Amir Kahanovich said the international community, strapped by the economic crisis, could respond with sanctions. Kahanovich, chief economist at Clal, said Iran was prepared to fire missiles as well as order strikes by its proxies.

The number of possible ways of playing the first four moves per side in a game of chess is 318,979,564,000. Then it gets complex.

Brig. Hassan Moghadam, head of Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) missile development and sections of its nuclear program, was killed in one of the two consecutive explosions that hit two IRGC bases 46 kilometers west of Tehran Saturday, Nov. 12. The official fatality figure is 32.  Fourteen hours after explosions blasts could still be heard and fires raged.  Sources report the bases are located in Malard, a town in the Shahryar district. The Moadarres facility was the first to be hit, while the second and bigger blast occurred at Amir-al-Mo’menin.

 Their force was such that the Iranian Red Crescent (Mudlim Red Cross) rushed 45 ambulances to the two facilities plus 23 buses converted to first-aid vehicles and a helicopter to evacuate the critically injured.

 However, only six rescue workers were given access to the Moadarres base and none were permitted to enter Amir-al-Mo’menin because of the facility’s sensitivity.

 Fourteen hours after the explosions, the blasts continued and fires raged.  Surrounding streets were closed and reporters kept away from the scene.

 Our sources report increasing evidence that the first explosion was caused by a failed effort to mount a possible nuclear warhead on a Shahab-3 intermediate-range missile.

It was powerful enough to shatter windows and damage shops in Tehran. People gathering on street corners wondered if Israel had attacked Iran’s nuclear sites or destroyed Revolutionary Guards missile bases.  They recalled Supreme Ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s threat Thursday, Nov. 10 to take the war to the streets of Tel Aviv if Tehran was attacked.

 IRGC spokesman, Brig. Ramedan Sharif, sharply denied what he said was speculation that the military base was linked to Iran’s nuclear program. “This blast is not related to any nuclear tests,” he said in response to widespread rumors. He insisted the explosion had occurred at an ammo store which was part of the Guards’ “self-sufficiency” system, a term they apply to their munitions plants and the factories manufacturing missile components.

 The Iranian authorities, after raising the fatality figure to 32, withheld information on the injured, most of which where transferred to IRGC rather than civilian hospitals. Some may have been foreign engineers or scientists whose presence Tehran is anxious to conceal.

The Emergency Council which deals with extraordinary happenings liable to affect the regime’s stability met in emergency session Saturday night.

Earlier Saturday, reports on the two huge explosions at two separate military bases west of Tehran killing dozens of Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), wounding many more and trapping an unknown number under rubble.

 In Tehran, 40 kilometers away, windows were shattered and damage caused vehicles and shops. The blasts were heard in Tehran’s center.

 Mideastern and Iranian sources report that the explosions may have been part of a series carried out by Iranian dissident groups last month.

 The suspicion of sabotage was strengthened by the occurrence Friday of a big fire at a Tehran warehouse used according to our sources by the IRGC for crowd dispersal gear.

The ammo base blown up Saturday in the town of Malard in Shahryar district contained large quantities of rubber bullets, tear gas and other ordnance. A short time later, the second explosion hit a light arms depot at a military camp of Bidganeh several kilometers away. That both were accidents is hardly credible.

The two blasts were confirmed by the Iranian lawmaker Hossein Garussi without further details.

 Tehran recently broke up an armed dissident group called Oghab. Three members were executed and the others were allowed to flee the country. An organization of that name operates in the United States, but its leader denied involvement in any sabotage operations inside Iran.

The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin in World War II killed the only  elephant in the Berlin Zoo.

About 10,000 Russians are leaving the country every month and have been for the last decade. Roughly 1.25 million Russians have left the country in the last 10 years, the exodus is so large, it’s comparable in numbers to the outrush in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution.

They don’t leave like their predecessors of the Soviet 1970s and ’80s, with no intention to return. They don’t sell their apartments, dachas and cars. They simply lock the door, go to the airport and quietly leave.

The reasons are varied. Some, like Irtenyev, chafe at life under Putin’s rule, which seems all but certain to continue with the prime minister’s expected return to the presidency next year. But for many others, economic strictures are the prime motivation. With inflation on the rise, and the country’s GDP stuck at an annual 3% growth rate the last three years - compared with 7% to 8% before the global economic crisis - Russians are feeling pinched.

Experts believe that 100,000 to 150,000 people now leave the country annually and warn that the exodus reached dangerous dimensions in the last three years.

“People are going abroad for better college education, for better medical help, for better career opportunities, believing they will come back someday, but very few actually do,” said Dmitry Oreshkin, a political analyst with the Institute of Geography. “The intellectual potential of the nation is being washed away, as the most mobile, intelligent and active are leaving.”

“The worst thing is that people who could have played a key role in the modernization campaign proclaimed by the Kremlin are all leaving,” Gudkov said. “But it appears that the Kremlin couldn’t care less if the most talented, the most active Russians are emigrating, because their exodus lifts the social and political tension in the country and weakens the opposition.”

“A majority of those who want to leave the country are already quite successful in Russia,” Fyodorov said. “They simply want to live even better and try something new.”

“However, I must admit that life in Russia has not been really improving in the last three years, and that of course applies pressure and encourages talk of leaving,” he said. “But that is much more connected with economic crisis problems and consequences rather than politics.”

About 20% of Russians are thinking about leaving the country and trying their luck abroad, according to various Russian polling agencies, from the independent Levada Center to the Kremlin-friendly VTsIOM. Among 18- to 35-year-olds, close to 40% of respondents say they’d like to leave.

Coupled with a declining birth rate already below the level needed just to replace deaths and Russia is on the threshold of unsustainability that will have profound consequences inside and outside Russia.

Today Show Weatherman Willard Scott was the first Ronald McDonald.

Iran has reported the loss of a senior military commander.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Gen. Hassan Moghaddam was killed in an explosion at a military base southwest of Teheran on Nov. 12.

IRGC said Moghaddam, who began his career in 1986, was the leader in the military’s missile program.

Iranians carry pictures and the coffin of Hassan Moghaddam through the streets of Teheran on Nov. 14. /Jamejam Online/Ebrahim Norouzi/Reuters

“IRGC will not forget his effective role in the development of the country’s defense and his efforts in launching and organizing artillery and missile units,” IRGC said on Nov. 13.

Moghaddam was one of 17 casualties in an explosion at an IRGC base near Bidganeh. At first, IRGC said the explosion was accidental, but later Western media asserted that Israel’s Mossad espionage agency was behind the attack. Moghaddam was believed to have played a leading role in Iran’s effort to design a nuclear warhead for Shihab-3.

On Nov. 14, Iranian sources told the British newspaper Guardian that Israel was believed to have masterminded the attack on the IRGC base. Earlier, IRGC said the explosion had stemmed from the accidental detonation of a munitions depot.

“Because of his [Moghaddam's] role, the enemy always wanted to identify and eliminate him,” IRGC Brig. Gen. Abbas Khani said.

Officials said Moghaddam, buried on Nov. 14, was a major developer of Iran’s Shihab-3 intermediate-range ballistic missile. They said Moghaddam,

close to Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, founded the nation’s ballistic missile program, including IRGC’s munitions development unit.

“He was the founder of IRGC’s surface-to-surface missile systems,” IRGC Gen. Mustafa Izadi said.

Yesterday America’s debt hit an astonishing FIFTEEN TRILLION DOLLARS. If you laid one dollar bills end to end, you could make a chain that stretches from earth to the moon and back again 200 times before you ran out of dollar bills! One trillion dollars would stretch nearly from the earth to the sun. It would take a military jet flying at the speed of sound, reeling out a roll of dollar bills behind it, 14 years before it reeled out one trillion dollar bills.

California would impose $2 billion in mid-year “trigger” cuts next month, including reductions to K-12 schools, under a new revenue forecast issued Wednesday morning by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. The LAO also said the deficit for the year beginning July 1, 2012 would be nearly $13 billion