Racism Is Major Democrat Strategy. More.

• Harvard Alumni Predict Less Competitive U. S. in 3 Years
• Netanyahu Says Iran Readying For Nukes
  
  • Russia and U. S. VIE For Middle East Facilities
  • Racism Major Democrat Strategy
  • Turkey Leaves U. S. and Allies

Political recriminations continue in Pakistan following news reports that the government sought American assistance in staving off a potential military coup in exchange for purging the military and intelligence apparatus. Despite the questionable legitimacy of the memo on which the reports are based, the reports have ignited a public outcry and have fueled a power struggle between the military and Pakistan’s political leadership.

The U.S. economy will be less competitive in three years thanks to constant political bickering, faltering schools, and a convoluted tax code, a survey of Harvard Business School alumni finds.

Three quarters of the respondents see U.S. companies as less competitive in three years as emerging-market economies gain ground.

“The U.S. is losing ground to emerging economies, where low wages, increasingly skilled workers, growing markets and proximity to customers frequently trump traditional American strengths such as sophisticated infrastructure, a reliable legal system and effective macroeconomic policy,” he Wall Street Journal reports, pointing to the survey.

While calls have grown for the U.S. to stay out of the business sector, the Obama administration says government spending and influence is necessary if the country is to keep its edge.

A Commerce Department study finds government spending will be needed in infrastructure, education and research in the coming years.

“Some elements of the U.S. economy are losing their competitive edge, which may mean that future generations of Americans will not enjoy a higher standard of living than is enjoyed in the United States today,” the study presented to Congress finds, according to the AFP newswire.

“Common to all three pillars — research, education, and infrastructure — is that they are areas where government has made, and should continue to make, significant investments.”

The Commerce Department adds that the government doesn’t feel the need to intrude in areas where private investment thrives but rather, in areas where the private sector is tending to avoid.

“For a variety of reasons, the private sector under-invests in these areas, so the government needs to step in to bring investment up to the socially optimal levels.”

Oil prices are up 186% since Obama has been president and per gallon gasoline and fuel oil prices have increased proportionally.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Thursday night, Jan. 19 that Iran had decided to become a nuclear state. He urged action before it was too late to stop Iran completing the construction of a nuclear weapon. His statement at the end of a visit to Holland gave Gen Martin Dempsey, on his first visit to Israel as Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, the message he will be asked to take back to President Barack Obama. It also contradicted Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s statement that Tehran had not yet decided to go nuclear.

Netanyahu has kept the Iranian cards close to his chest. His statement therefore caught wrong-footed the Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who in the last 48 hours had asserted that Iran had not yet decided whether to build a nuclear bomb and there was still time for US-led sanctions to work.

Gen. Martin Dempsey begins his first visit to Israel as Chairman of the Joint US Chiefs of Staff amid a major falling-out between the two governments over the handling of Iran’s nuclear weapon potential. ilitary and Washington sources confirm that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands by the view that Iran is advancing its plans to build a nuclear bomb full speed ahead, undeterred even by the threat of harsher sanctions. Netanyahu therefore stands by his refusal of President Barack Obama’s demand for a commitment to abstain from a unilateral strike on Iran’s nuclear sites without prior notice to Washington.

The US president repeated this demand when he called the Israeli prime minister Thursday night Jan. 13. Netanyahu replied that, in view of their disagreement on this point, he preferred to cancel the biggest US-Israel war game ever staged due to have taken place in April. The exercise was to have tested the level of coordination between the two armies in missile defense for the contingency of a war with Iran or a regional conflict.

The prime minister was concerned that having large-scale US military forces in the country would restrict his leeway for decision-making on Iran.

an effort to limit the damage to relations with the US administration, Defense Minister Ehud Barak struck a conciliatory note Wednesday, Jan. 18, saying, “Israel is still very far from a decision on attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.”

Striking the pose of middleman, he was trying to let Washington know that there was still time for the US and Israel to reach an accommodation on whether and when a strike should take place.

ources doubt that President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu are in any mood to respond to Barak’s effort to cool the dispute. Obama needs to be sure he will not be taken by surprise by an Israel attack in the middle of his campaign for re-election, especially since he has begun taking heat on the Iranian issue.

Republican rivals are accusing him of being soft on Iran.  And while the economy is the dominant election issue, a majority of Americans disapprove of his handling of Iran’s nuclear ambitions by a margin of 48 to 33 percent according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll this week.

Wednesday (Thursday morning Israel time), President Obama responded by reiterating that he has been clear since running for the presidency that he will take “every step available to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

Echoes of Barak’s arguments were heard in the words of US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Wednesday night: “We are not making any special steps at this point in order to deal with the situation. Why? Because, frankly, we are fully prepared to deal with that situation now.”

Panetta went on to say that Defense Minister Barak contacted him and asked to postpone the joint US-Israeli drill “for technical reasons.”

Before he took off for a short trip to Holland, Netanyahu instructed Barak and IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz not to deviate in their talks with Gen. Dempsey from the position he took with the US president, namely, no commitment for advance notice to Washington about a unilateral strike against Iran.

The Israeli prime minister is convinced that, contrary to the claims by US spokesmen and media, that current sanctions are ineffective insofar as slowing Iran’s advance toward a nuclear weapon and the harsher sanctions on Iran’s central bank and oil exports are too slow and will take hold too late to achieve their purpose.

In any case, say Israeli officials, Washington is again signaling its willingness to go back to direct nuclear negotiations with Tehran, although past experience proved that Iran exploits diplomatic dialogue as grace time for moving forward on its nuclear ambitions.

US spokesmen denied an Iranian report that a recent letter from the US president to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei proposed opening a direct channel for talks.

Still those reports persist. American and European spokesmen were forced to deny a statement by Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi Wednesday on his arrival in Ankara that Iran and the big powers are in contact over the revival of nuclear negotiations.

Netanyahu fears that dialogue between Iran and the five powers plus Germany (the P5+1) will resume after bowing to an Iranian stipulation that sanctions be suspended for the duration of the talks. Once again, Tehran will be enabled to steal a march on the US and Israel and bring its nuclear weapon program to conclusion, unhindered by economic constraints.

Reportedly Obama sent a personal letter to Iran’s leaders asking for a private meeting. Obama denies it but cynics say it is likely because it comports with his helter skelter Rodney King –like foreign policy,

Russia, defying a revolt against the regime of President Bashar Assad, plans to modernize a major naval facility in Syria which would mean access to the Mediterranean Sea. . Officials said the Russian Navy has deployed hundreds of personnel to upgrade the Syrian port of Tartous. They said the project was meant to ensure that Tartous could accommodate all size and shapes of ships including its air craft carriers dramatically shifting the balance of power in the region.

The Russian Navy maintains about 600 officers and sailors at Tartous. They said Tartous marked the only fulltime Russian Navy port outside Russia.

“Moscow is planning to modernize the facility to accommodate large warships, including missile cruisers and even aircraft carriers after 2012,”

Simultaneously the U. S. Defense Department has been awarding contracts for construction work at the Al Udeid air base in Qatar. On Jan. 17, the Pentagon awarded a $27.8 million contract to Contrack International for the expansion and upgrade of Al Udeid, which contains the Air Force operations command for the Gulf region.

“The award will provide for the construction services at Al Udeid Base, Qatar,” the Pentagon said.

Contrack, based in McLean, Va., bested four other contractors for the project, under the auspices of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Officials said the construction contract was expected to be completed by April 13, 2013.

“Nine bids were solicited, with five bids received,” the Pentagon said.

Under the project, the U.S. military has extended the runway at Al Udeid, now the longest in the world to accommodate such U.S. aircraft as the B-2 bomber and the C-17 strategic air transport.

Contrack has maintained several major construction projects in the Gulf. They included the Science and Technology Park in Qatar and buildings for the U.S. Navy in Bahrain.

Japan imports almost all of its oil from the Middle East.

The U.S. military maintains only limited access to facilities in Turkey, a report said.The American Enterprise Institute determined that the U.S. military could not rely on facilities in Turkey for regional operations, articularly an attack on Iran.

An American cargo plane takes off from Incirlik Air Force Base in southeastern Turkey. /AFP

In a Republican presidential debate in South Carolina on Jan. 16, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said that he had lived in Turkey while serving as a pilot in the U.S. Air Force and that the country had moved “far away” from where it was back then.

Perry, who has dropped out of the GOP race, came under fire from the government of Turkey when he said in the debate that the current government, led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist Justice and Development Party, is in the hands of “what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists” and that the country should have its membership in NATO reconsidered.

In a report titled “Questions For Strategy, Requirements For Military Forces,” AEI said most of the U.S. military presence in Turkey was at the Incirlik Air Force Base. In all, the U.S. military deploys 1,500 troops at Incirlik, the report said. An unspecified number of U.S. personnel also served at NATO’s air operations facility in Izmir.

The report listed U.S. military deployment that could be assigned to any war against Iran. AEI said Qatar contained 7,500 U.S. troops; Baharin, 5,000 soldiers, and Kuwait, 23,000. The United Arab Emirates is said to contain 3,000 U.S. military personnel. The report said Oman also contained an unspecified U.S. presence with “limited access agreement to air bases until 2020.”

Just be thankful you weren’ t paying income tax in 1945, when the country’ s top earners doled 94 percent of their salaries over to the government, mostly to recoup costs incurred from the war effort. Taxation rates for the highest income brackets hovered between 82 and 92 percent until 1963 when JFK rolled back those rates.

Tour boats were buzzing with activity Thursday as sightseers spotted dozens of killer whales cruising the Southern California coast.

Whale-watching vessels reported seeing 20 to 40 of the marine mammals, also known as orcas, swimming up the coast from Dana Point to Long Beach.

It’s not uncommon for killer whales to roam Southern California waters in search of sea lions and other prey, according to the experts who track and identify them. Seeing them in such numbers, however, is unusual.

When the modern incarnation of U.S. income tax was introduced in 1913, the word “lawful” was included in the text, referring to the kind of revenue that could be taxed. With the loose definitions of that term under question, the government deleted the word in a 1916 amendment. As a result, many bootleggers and criminals who had previously evaded the law were jailed on tax evasion. Ask Al Capone.

The Democrats are settling on one major election strategy: Portray opposition to President Obama as a form of racism.

In a nutshell, the liberal argument is that conservative dissent from Mr. Obama’s social democratic agenda — Obamacare, the nearly $1 trillion stimulus and Dodd-Frank — is driven not by the color of the president’s politics, but the color of his skin.

This line of attack first began several years ago. It was introduced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who compared critics of Mr. Obama’s health care overhaul to the defenders of “slavery” and “Jim Crow.” In other words, dislike for socialized medicine is akin to nostalgia for white supremacy.

According to liberal Democrats, it can’t possibly be for legitimate reasons. The fact that government-run health care causes rationing, inevitably leads to higher taxes and lower quality care, imposes a multitrillion-dollar entitlement the nation cannot afford, and dangerously expands the power of the state to make life-and-death decisions regarding the health of citizens and their families — all of this, for the left, is merely an intellectual cover for racial hostility against a black president. That the same arguments were rightly leveled against President Bill Clinton — who is white — during the 1993 debate over Hillarycare is irrelevant; nothing can stand in the way of the Democrats’ conservatives-are-racist narrative.

The latest assaults, however, go one step further: Any criticism of the president’s big-government policies is a sign of subtle bigotry.

During Monday’s GOP presidential TV debate in South Carolina, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was scolded by liberal moderator Juan Williams for referring to Mr. Obama as the “food stamp president.” To his credit, Mr. Gingrich did not back down. He rightly pointed out that record numbers of Americans are now on food stamps due to the president’s welfare liberalism. Moreover, Mr. Gingrich also argued that the culture of government dependency — and the endemic poverty it breeds — has disproportionately affected minorities. Instead of charging that such claims “belittle the African-American community,” as Mr. Williams said, Mr. Gingrich retorted that free-market capitalism — the stress on self-reliance, hard work and entrepreneurship — offers the only true path to prosperity for all Americans, especially impoverished blacks.

The problem is not a racist America — it’s a statist America. The Republican crowd roared, giving Mr. Gingrich a standing ovation. For the left, it was an angry expression of the lingering desire to restore the old Confederacy and politically lynch a black man.

“Well, we know what is going on. And the people that don’t hear it don’t want to hear it,” said MSNBC host Chris Matthews. “You cannot argue a person into it. You cannot tell a person that is code, because the people that don’t want to hear that it’s code will say it’s not and the people that clearly hear that it’s code will. It’s not something that you can argue with a person.”

And what was this supposed code? Mr. Matthews said that the Republican primary represents a “receding white culture of the past trying to reclaim something.” Former President Jimmy Carter agreed. He condemned Mr. Gingrich for using phrases like “food stamp president” and his calls for a stronger work ethic among the poor, saying such statements are deliberately “appealing to the wrong element in South Carolina.”

Hurling the racism charge has been used by liberals for years as an ideological stick to bludgeon conservative critics. In our time, it is the equivalent of previously being called a witch or heretic: a libelous smear that, if it sticks, results in social ostracism. Yet, the fact that liberals are now repeatedly — and blindly — resorting to it is a sign of desperation. It shows they are unable to defend Mr. Obama’s abysmal record. His presidency has been an utter failure.

This presidency has been totally inept, especially for blacks. The black unemployment rate is at its highest in more than 30 years. Unemployment for black males hovers near 20 percent — approaching Great Depression levels. For black male teenagers, it is more than an astounding 40 percent. Instead of restoring economic recovery and focusing on urban blight and the loss of manufacturing and blue-collar jobs, the Obama administration has been obsessed with other priorities: Obamacare, cap-and-trade legislation, amnesty for illegal immigrants and spending billions on the green economy. This may resonate with trendy academic liberals, but it has done nothing for the besieged black community.

Hence, progressives have only one option left: Play the race card. They are also using it against his likely Republican opponent, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. In a recent Op-Ed piece for the New York Times, liberal writer Lee Siegel argues that Mr. Romney has a secret weapon in a general election campaign: his race. According to Mr. Siegel, “The simple, impolitely stated fact is that Mitt Romney is the whitest white man to run for president in recent memory.” That’s right: Mr. Romney embodies white Anglo-Saxon culture and — through his business experience, large and seemingly idyllic family, and defense of bourgeois values — represents the “cultural alternative to America’s first black president.” In short, Mr. Siegel is essentially saying a vote for Mr. Romney is a manifestation of racism — a desire by white America to reassert itself.

For decades, the postmodern left has embraced identity politics. They view America as an irredeemably evil nation, an aggregation of oppressed groups victimized by the white power structure. Mr. Obama’s presidency represents the logical culmination of identity politics. It is a kind of liberal fascism — everything is viewed through the lens of race. People are not distinct individuals; rather, they are members of an ethnic or racial tribe. The irony is as leftists run around screaming bigotry at every conservative in sight, they are revealing their own perverse obsession with race. The only racism they are exposing is their own.

Yet, Mr. Obama is a socialist bent on transforming America. This is why he has lost Middle America. By charging racism, the left is only further polarizing our nation along ideological and racial lines.

Israel leads the world in the number of scientists and technicians in the workforce, with 145 per 10,000, as opposed to 85 in the U.S., over 70 in Japan, and less than 60 in Germany. With over 25% of its work force employed in technical professions. Israel places first in this category as well.

China has taken full advantage of the U.S. financial meltdown and the slowdown in its space activities over the past several years.

Now, the Obama administration is locked in an internal debate over restrictions on the U.S. response.

In 2010, China included in its 12th Five-Year Plan, an ambitious multi-year space program aimed at dominating manned and unmanned space launches.

Last year, China conducted 19 space launches, including sending into orbit its first unmanned space station, the Tiangong-1, and subsequently a docking spacecraft and a number of military global positioning satellites (GPS).

An Israeli company was the first to develop and install a large-scale solar-powered and fully functional electricity generating plant, in southern California’s Mojave desert.

A simulation by leading Israeli researchers has again pointed to heavy U.S. pressure on the Jewish state not to attack Iran. This raises questions about whether Obama wants to await Iran’s announcement tat it has a nuke and that effectively neutralizes an attack.

The Institute for National Security Studies conducted its second simulation of an Iranian nuclear weapons breakout and its impact on the Middle East. The latest simulation, which took place in October and released three months later, concluded that the United States would threaten a downgrading of relations should Israel launch a military strike on Iran.

“In the simulation, the U.S. administration exerted heavy behind-the-scenes pressure on Israel not to wage a military strike against Iran, with an implied threat that an Israeli action would harm U.S.-Israel relations,” INSS said. “In an attempt to persuade Israel not to take military action, the United States suggested examining the possibility of a formal defense pact and/or of including Israel as a member of NATO.”

In a report entitled, “Iran: A Strategic Simulation,” organizers Yoel Guzansky and Yonathan Lerner assigned roles to researchers to play representatives from China, Egypt, Europe, Iran, Israel, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States. The simulation began with a scenario in which Iran tested its first nuclear weapon in January 2013.

“The assumption was that Iran carried out the test when it had a partial operational nuclear arsenal,” the report said. “The response that most — though not all — of the actors reached was that a wide scale military attack against Iran is not in order. The major powers even invested much effort in an attempt to prevent Israel from acting alone against Iran.”

The mock Iranian nuclear test sparked a flurry of diplomatic initiatives. For example, Russia proposed a defense alliance with the United States that would allow Iran to keep its nuclear weapons. Israel, which has not acknowledged its purported nuclear arsenal, was said to have expressed interest while the United States opposed the Kremlin’s plan.

The simulation also envisioned a nuclear race to match Iran’s new capabilities. INSS determined that Saudi Arabia was most likely to acquire a nuclear weapons arsenal.

“It appears that Saudi Arabia, perhaps more than any other actor in the Middle East, has the ideological-strategic motivation and the economic ability to examine the nuclear route, and it is reasonable to assume that it will do so by means of outside aid and/or acquisition of an off-the-shelf deterrent,” the report said.

Israel did not attack Iran after its nuclear test. Instead, the simulation envisioned an Israeli decision to accelerate its missile defense program and form an alliance with the United States.

INSS said the simulation demonstrated that any willingness by the United States and other Western states to attack Iran would drop sharply once Teheran tests a nuclear weapon. The report said Iran would also continue its nuclear program on the assessment that neither Washington nor Jerusalem would launch a strike.

“In our assessment, the actual likelihood of an attack on Iran once Iran is in possession of proven nuclear capability decreases dramatically, although not entirely eliminated,” the report said. “In Iran’s assessment, the United States does not intend to take military action against Iranian nuclear facilities and will even pressure Israel, together with other players, not to attack.”

Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Teheran has overseen the launch of uranium enrichment at the Fordow plant outside Qom. The underground facility, disclosed by the West in 2009, is located in the side of a mountain and is said to be immune to aerial bombing.

“The IAEA can confirm that Iran has started the production of uranium enriched up to 20 percent in the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant,” IAEA said on Jan. 9.

The UN agency, which plans to visit Iran later this month, said all nuclear material in Fordow remained under IAEA’s “containment and surveillance.” The statement did not elaborate, but said Iran was operating IR-1 centrifuges in the facility.

About 350 centrifuges were detected by IAEA in Fordow, diplomats said. At Iran’s main uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, about 8,000 centrifuges were operating.

Diplomats said Fordow was too small to serve as an industrial nuclear fuel facility. They said the 20-percent enrichment meant that Iran could quickly produce weapons-grade uranium in the hardened tunnel ringed by air defense batteries.

“When you enrich to 20 percent, there is no possible reason for that if you’re talking about a peaceful program,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. “So it generally tends to indicate that you are enriching to a level that takes you to a different kind of nuclear program.”

Britain, Israel and the United States were said to be cooperating in efforts to sabotage Iran’s nuclear weapons sector. On Jan. 11, a department director at Natanz, identified as Mustafa Ahmadi Roshan, was killed by a magnetic bomb attached to his car. Over the last two years, at least two senior Iranian nuclear scientists were killed and another injured in similar attacks.

With an aerial arsenal of over 250 F-16s, Israel has the largest fleet of the aircraft outside of the US.

Israel, the 100th smallest country, with less than 1/1000th of the world’s population, can make claim to the following:

· the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world.

· more scientific papers per capita than any other nation by a large margin -109 per 10,000 people;

· the largest number of startup companies in the world;Israel is ranked #2 in the world for venture capital funds right behind the US.

· and Israel is ranked #2 in the world for venture capital funds right behind the US.

France is threatening to withdraw from Afghanistan.

Joe Paterno, the former Penn State football coach, has died. He succumbed to complications of lung cancer and a broken hip. The 85-year-old Paterno, who was fired Nov. 9 in the wake of a child sex abuse scandal at the university, has been in the hospital this week because of complications from chemotherapy.