DEMOCRATS for SALE

Follow the Money: Is Mayor Bloomberg’s Support for the Ground Zero Islamic Mosque Due to his Bloomberg LLC Expanding in the Middle East (Dubai)?

This is all starting to make sense. We knew that Bloomberg was very wealthy and most likely could not be bought by a group of people behind the Ground Zero Islamic Mosque who have little money. Now the truth comes out that his LLC is heavily invested in the Middle East in Muslim countries and light bulb goes off. Of course, Bloomberg would be for the Ground Zero Islamic Mosque for his own business interest.



Is this why he wanted a 3rd term so bad?

Bloomberg LLC sells its terminals from seven regional hubs: London, Sao Paolo, New York, San Francisco, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Sydney but the Dubai regional center will allow Bloomberg access to Islamic sharia based banking and monetary systems by developing a sharia compliant finance portal.



According to the regional head of Bloomberg LLC’s Middle East and South Asia centers, Max Linnington, “The region for us has seen explosive growth. For example, last year in the UAE, we grew our core business by 61 per cent. And already this year, we exceeded what we achieved in all of last year in the UAE. So we are selling a lot of Bloomberg terminals, basically.”

Mondo Frazier, Big Journalism, has been investigating the connection:

Does the Mayor’s unshakable support have anything to do with The Bloomberg (company) becoming a ‘single provider of information that caters to the Islamic business market’? A Bloomberg five-year business plan for an Islamic finance portal via a Bloomberg hub at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) is already a reality.

The puzzle pieces are beginning to fit. Bloomberg was pushing the ‘freedom of religion’ card too much when he didn’t do anything for St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church at Ground Zero. Ignored them like they don’t exist but his support for the Ground Zero Islamic Mosque project has been over the top. It also has led to people questioning what stake Bloomberg had in this Mosque Project.



Some of Bloomberg LP’s officials may hold some clues.

On October 2, 2009, The Dubai Chronicle reported Chairman and President of Bloomberg LP Peter T. Grauer met with UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum at Maktoum’s Emirate office. According to the Dubai Chronicle, Grauer gave a presentation of Bloomberg future expansion plans in the ‘area of business information’ in the United Emirates, North Africa, and India. Grauer stated the UAE was a great place to expand, the UAE’s “logistic facilities” the ‘biggest incentive for investors and companies to expand their businesses in the country and the region beyond’.

“Particularly since the meltdown of the western capitalist system, there has been an increasingly large focus on the virtues of Islamic finance. Today, there is no one single provider of information that caters to the Islamic finance market. So by Bloomberg being here, we are in the process of building out an Islamic finance product. We are very confident that we can build a product that meets the needs of the market right now.”



–Max Linnington, Regional Head of Bloomberg Middle East and South Asia on the company’s plan to build a Bloomberg hub in Dubai at the Dubai International Financial Centre(DIFC), October 29, 2009

Some details about the DIFC:

The DIFC is the world’s fastest growing international financial centre. It aims to develop the same stature as New York, London and Hong Kong.



It primarily serves the vast region between Western Europe and East Asia.

How much money does Bloomberg’s LLC stand to make off of his fnancial dealings in Dubai and other places in the Middle East?  Would say this is a definite conflict of interest and the calls for Bloomberg to step down as Mayor should begin immediately.  In fact, an investigation should be started to see if he used his position as Mayor to further his own LLC in the Middle East.

Mayor Bloomberg’s Middle East Business Interests

August 17, 2010 by Matthew J. O’Connor



‘Ground Zero Mosque Madness: NYC Mayor Bloomberg’s Bloomberg LLC expanding its financial center to a regional hub in Dubai’



New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is on record excoriating opponents of a new Islamic mosque scheduled to begin construction on September 11, 2011 in lower Manhattan. The proposed mosque’s site is two blocks from the former World Trade Center’s Twin Towers destroyed ten years previously on September 11, 2001 by Islamic jihadists.



Bloomberg’s demands of religious tolerance from his city’s citizens is inconsistent in a city with 100 mosques already in operation but with a school system that will not acknowledge Christianity or Christmas, or even allow the repairs necessary for the Greek Orthodox Church, St. Nicholas, to go forward nearly a decade after it was crushed by falling debris from the Twin Towers themselves.



Paralleling Mayor Bloomberg’s veiled insults towards those acutely aware of the historical Islamic conquest of non-Muslim lands by their building of mosques on top of or dominating a conquered people’s holy sites, is the concurrent Bloomberg LLC’s expansion of its Dubai financial center into a regional hub for the UAE.



Founded in 1981 by Michael Bloomberg, who privately owns 85% of the limited liability corporation, Bloomberg LLC is a dominant player in global financial software, data gathering and news, commanding one third of its market niche estimated at $16 billion dollars.



(snip)



Bloomberg LLC has news bureaus throughout the Gulf Corporation Counsel (GCC) and is opening offices in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Its new Dubai regional hub will cover financial news, analysis and data gathering throughout the Middle East and extend Eastwards across Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Indian subcontinent and Nepal.



Sharia banking does not pay interest but donates a percentage to Islamic interests around the globe, mostly centering on Islamic expansionism through building mosques, madrassas, Western law suits (lawfare) or more violently through Islamic jihadist terrorism.



It should not come as a surprise that a co-founder of the Hamas organization, Mahmoud al-Zahar, came out and said the following about the controversial Cordoba mosque, whose imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, refuses to identify Hamas as a terrorist organization, ”We have to build everywhere. In every area we have, [as] Muslim[s], we have to pray, and this mosque is the only site of prayer. We have to build the mosque, as you are allowed to build the church and Israelis are building their holy places.”



Considering that there are so few Muslims in Lower Manhattan and that they already have 100 mosques in New York City from which to choose, Al-Zahar’s reasoning is as specious as Mayor Bloomberg’s especially since the definition of what is considered “holy” needs to be examined.



For Americans in general and New Yorkers in particular, the site of the Twin towers and the memory of the nearly three thousand, who died in the worst domestic attack on US soil, is a holy site. For Muslims worldwide that attack and destruction represents the triumph of Islam, which makes Ground Zero “holy” in their eyes but a definite historical and psychological assault on US citizens.



By siding with Islamic expansionism through mosque building, New York Mayor, Michael Bloomberg’s insulting tirade against the Cordoba mosque’s detractors, calls into question his ethics in catering financially to an avowed enemy of Western civilization and democratic principles.

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Beck Says US Has ‘Wandered in Darkness’ Too Long

Conservative commentator Glenn Beck and tea party champion Sarah Palin appealed Saturday to a vast, predominantly white crowd on the National Mall to help restore traditional American values and honor Martin Luther King’s message. Civil rights leaders who accused the group of hijacking King’s legacy held their own rally and march.

While Beck billed his event as nonpolitical, activists from around the nation said their show of strength was a clear sign that they can make a difference in the country’s future and that they want a government that will listen and unite.

Palin told the tens of thousands who stretched from the marble steps of the Lincoln Memorial to the grass of the Washington Monument that calls to transform the country weren’t enough. “We must restore America and restore her honor,” said the former Alaska governor, echoing the name of the rally, “Restoring Honor.”

Palin, the GOP vice presidential nominee in 2008 and a potential White House contender in 2012, and Beck repeatedly cited King and made references to the Founding Fathers. Beck put a heavy religious cast on nearly all his remarks, sounding at times like an evangelical preacher.

“Something beyond imagination is happening,” he said. “America today begins to turn back to God.”

Beck exhorted the crowd to “recognize your place to the creator. Realize that he is our king. He is the one who guides and directs our life and protects us.” He asked his audience to pray more. “I ask, not only if you would pray on your knees, but pray on your knees but with your door open for your children to see,” he said.

A group of civil rights activists organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton held a counter rally at a high school, then embarked on a three-mile march to the site of a planned monument honoring King. The site, bordering the Tidal Basin, was not far from the Lincoln Memorial where Beck and the others spoke about two hours earlier.

Sharpton and the several thousand marching with him crossed paths with some of the crowds leaving Beck’s rally. People wearing “Restoring Honor” and tea party T-shirts looked on as Sharpton’s group chanted “reclaim the dream” and “MLK, MLK.” Both sides were generally restrained, although there was some mutual taunting.

One woman from the Beck rally shouted to the Sharpton marchers: “Go to church. Restore America with peace.” Some civil rights marchers chanted “don’t drink the tea” to people leaving Beck’s rally.

Sharpton told his rally it was important to keep King’s dream alive and that despite progress more needs to be done. “Don’t mistake progress for arrival,” he said.

He poked fun at the Beck-organized rally, saying some participants were the same ones who used to call civil rights leaders troublemakers. “The folks who used to criticize us for marching are trying to have a march themselves,” he said. He urged his group to be peaceful and not confrontational. “If people start heckling, smile at them,” Sharpton said.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia’s delegate to Congress, said she remembers being at King’s march on Washington in 1963. “Glenn Beck’s march will change nothing. But you can’t blame Glenn Beck for his March-on-Washington envy,” she said.

Beck has said he did not intend to choose the King anniversary for his rally but had since decided it was “divine providence.” He portrayed King as an American hero.

Sharpton and other critics have noted that, while Beck has long sprouted anti-government themes, King’s famous march included an appeal to the federal government to do more to protect Americans’ civil rights.

The crowd — organizers had a permit for 300,000 — was a sea of people standing shoulder to shoulder across large expanses of the Mall. The National Park Service stopped doing crowd counts in 1997 after the agency was accused of underestimating numbers for the 1995 Million Man March.

It was not clear how many tea party activists were in the crowd, but the sheer size of the turnout helped demonstrate the size and potential national influence of the movement.

Tea party activism and widespread voter discontent with government already have effected primary elections and could be an important factor in November’s congressional, gubernatorial and state legislative races.

Lisa Horn, 28, an accountant from Houston, said she identifies with the tea party movement, although she said the rally was not about either the tea party or politics. “I think this says that the people are uniting. We know we are not the only ones,” she said. “We feel like we can make a difference.”

Ken Ratliff, 55, of Rochester, N.Y., who served as a Marine in the Vietnam War, said he is moving more in the tea party direction. “There’s got to be a change, man,” he said.

Palin told the crowd she wasn’t speaking as a politician. “I’ve been asked to speak as the mother of a soldier and I am proud of that distinction. Say what you want to say about me, but I raised a combat vet and you can’t take that away from me.” It was a reference to her son, Track, 20, who served a yearlong deployment in Iraq.

Palin likened the rally participants to the civil rights activists from 1963. She said the same spirit that helped them overcome oppression, discrimination and violence would help this group as well.

“We are worried about what we face. Sometimes, our challenges seem insurmountable,” Palin said. “Look around you. You’re not alone.”

Beck paced on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and spoke through a wireless microphone headset. “For too long, this country has wandered in darkness. … Today we are going to concentrate on the good things in America, the things that we have accomplished — and the things that we can do tomorrow.”

In one of his many references to King, Beck noted that he had spent the night before in the same Washington hotel where King had put the finishing touches on his “I Have a Dream” speech.

Clarence B. Jones, who served as King’s personal attorney and his speechwriter, said he believes King would not be offended by Beck’s rally but “pleased and honored” that a diverse group of people would come together, almost five decade later, to discuss the future of America.

Jones, now a visiting professor at Stanford University, said the Beck rally seemed to be tasteful and did not appear to distort King’s message, which included a recommitment to religious values.

“I think it is the testimony to the power and greatness of the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. in enabling America to make a peaceful transition from apartheid and racial segregation to a multiracial society where Glenn Beck or anyone would hold a rally at the Lincoln Memorial,” Jones said in a telephone interview.

Beck had appealed to those attending not to bring signs with them. But Mike Cash, a 56-year-old Atlanta businessman, found a way around that. Over his polo shirt, he wore a T-shirt that read “Treat Obama like a used tea bag, toss him out now!”

“I wouldn’t have missed it (the rally) for anything,” said Cash, who drove up with his family. “We are here kind of protesting about our government, too. I’m a businessman and I’m worried about taxes going up.”

Many in the crowd watched the proceedings on large television screens. On the edges of the Mall, vendors sold “Don’t Tread on Me” flags, popular with tea party activists. Other activists distributed fliers urging voters “dump Obama.” The pamphlet included a picture of the president with a Hitler-style mustache.

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By Jillian Bandes

Americans for Prosperity’s Defending the Dream conference took place just one day before Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor rally, marking the biggest conservative weekend in D.C. since last year’s 9/12 March on Washington.

Social and economic conservatism have always gone hand in hand when it comes to right-wing politics. If Glenn Beck’s rally covers national greatness, Americans for Prosperity has taken care of the fiscal side of things.

Over 50 speakers covered topics such as “The Ticking Tax Bomb” and “The Amazing Power of Economics.” Radio show host Herman Cain, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, and Washington Post columnist George Will were three of the headliners, who spoke to 2400 conference attendees from across the United States.

When you leave here, I hope you leave here energized and determined to fight for these principles when you go back home, because there is an awful lot at stake right now,” said McDonnell.

The attendees were rowdy and motivated, and every single attendee at AFP who this reporter spoke to also planned on attending the Beck rally on Saturday.

“We believe in limited government, and the free market economy,” said Maria Green of Cornelius, North Carolina. She showed up at the conference as part of a home school group that brought liberty-minded high-schoolers to Washington to participate in both events. “We believe in the same thing that Americans for Prosperity believes in,” said Green.

Americans for Prosperity is “committed to educating citizens about economic policy and a return of the federal government to its constitutional limits,” according to its website, and has been attacked for the left as an organization that “bank rolls” the tea party. It’s true that the group has sponsored many events designed to educate and promote conservative ideology.

But the attendees who showed up at the events certainly weren’t there because they were being paid.

“I am 64 years old. I have never marched on anything before. I grew up in the 60’s, and I never marched,” said Sharon Michaels, of Sea Grove, North Carolina. “I was moved to march on 9/12, because our country is on such a destructive path, I fear for my children.”

This is Michaels’ second trip to D.C., where she is attending Beck’s rally in addition to the AFP conference. Defending the Dream was held at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park in northwest Washington.

Dick Morris echoed many speakers when he summarized his attitudes towards the current economic climate.

When the leaders of the big spenders in Washington says that he is going to solve our economic problems by increasing spending… it reminds me of the middle ages, when they used to say, ‘You have evil spirits inside you… and we have to remove half your blood,’” he said.

Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips touched on another theme — holding Republicans accountable after working to get them elected to Congress this November.

“Lets make sure that we, without any hesitation, on January 1 in 2011, lets make sure that …we hold whoever wins in November accountable on day one,” said Phillips. “President Reagan said ‘trust but verify.’ I say we just verify. I’m not in a very trusting mood these days.”

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This interview is part of an ongoing 2010 series of conversations with former Congressman and conservative icon Duncan Lee Hunter. The intent is to keep this rock ribbed conservative’s ideas in the public square which will hopefully influence the direction of the Republican Party, as well as inspire the American people to embrace his Reaganesque views on American life and politics. With any luck, Hunter will seek the presidency again in 2012, but for now he is concentrating on helping the GOP wrestle control of the Congress from the radical Pelosi brigades.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

This interview is part of an ongoing 2010 series of conversations with former Congressman and conservative icon Duncan Lee Hunter. Though he is in the final days of editing his new book on the Iraq War, he has been involved in a number of campaigns for conservative congressional candidates and is still keenly interested in getting his views out to the public. With any luck, Hunter will toss his hat back in the ring for the 2012 presidency, but for now he’s trying to reinvigorate the GOP with a return to Reaganism.

AJM: Today is primary day for a couple of States, Florida and Arizona, so we’ll find out if JD Hayworth can tack McCain or not. I don’t think he’s going to, unfortunately. Did you hear that McCain put $21 million into his primary campaign?

DH: No, I didn’t. That is an astronomical number. But let me tell you, there are two races that I’m involved in there, that I’ve really worked hard on. Those two races are Sydney Hay, running in Arizona 1. I really respect Sydney Hay. She’s a tremendous candidate, she’s a tremendous conservative, and she’s got a great chance of beating Ann Kirkpatrick – I think that’s the name of the Democrat incumbent. Then in the Tucson race, Jesse Kelly. A six foot eight Marine Corporal who was part of the historic march up to Baghdad in 2003. He’s running a wonderful campaign and I’ve been over a number of times to help Jesse. I’m very hopeful with respect to that campaign. And you know, I’ve also campaigned for Sam Crump; a good guy and another good conservative. But he has very few resources compared to some of the heavily moneyed guys who are running in that particular district in Arizona. But I like Sam.

AJM: Sam seems like a really good guy.

DH: Yeah. So those are three that I worked on and was involved in. So I’ve got my fingers crossed.

AJM: If we could get two out of those three, that’d be great (Ed. Note: Only one of the three won: Jesse Kelly in Az 8).

It’s funny. In Arizona 1, where you’ve endorsed Sydney, Sarah Palin has made a big to do about endorsing her opponent in the primary. So it’s you against Palin again. (laughs)

DH: Well, that’s too bad. You know, what’s interesting is that Sydney is a very well spoken, conservative leader. And the idea that Sarah Palin wouldn’t feel some empathy for this hard charging, conservative female candidate seems to me, unusual. I think Sarah Palin doesn’t know either one of the candidates, or she might have only been introduced to one of them. But nonetheless, Sydney Hay is every bit the conservative leader that Sarah Palin is.

AJM: Well I’ve got news for you, Sarah Palin is not all that conservative compared to the crowd you run around in. (laughs)

DH: Well, since she didn’t endorse Sydney Hay, I’m beginning to agree with you. (laughing)

AJM: Well she also made a big splash and campaign appearances endorsing McCain and several other less than conservative…

DH: Well who knows? You’ll have to ask Sarah Palin, or Palin’s campaign, why they would endorse against Sydney Hay. She’s a tremendous candidate and is THE proven conservative in that race.

AJM: And Jesse Kelly is THE conservative down in Tucson, what is that the 8th district?

DH: I don’t know, but it is the Tucson district.

AJM: Yeah, Tucson. And I believe he’s gotten into a little spat with Palin too over some of her endorsements. Now the Palin brigades, the folks who run the Palin 2012 websites, are trying to pretend Kelly is no conservative. That’s laughable. I think someone is out to sabotage the Hunter wing of the party, is my take on it.

DH: Well, I’m hoping that the true conservatives win. And that is Sydney Hay and Jesse Kelly.

AJM: All the establishment money is going to that state senator running against Kelly. The RNC and the local party bosses are dumping money into Kelly’s opponent. But I think Kelly is now ahead in the polls, so that’s a good sign.

DH: Yeah, that’s great news.

AJM: He reminds me a little of Gunny Pop, when he just talks off the top of his head, and he gets pretty passionate about things.

DH: Well, he’s also paid his dues. I mean here’s a guy that is from a large construction company family, who decided not to go the business route, but rather to join the US Marines and cram his 6’8” frame into an amtrac on this historic fight to Baghdad from the Kuwait border, as a rifleman in the Marine Corps. To me, that shows a lot of character. What the people should be looking for in these campaigns is character.

Anyone can take a poll and then say ‘I’m going to be for whatever reaches up to the sixty percent level in the polls and that’s going to be my principles.’ But the only way for the people to be ensured that principles, conservative principles, will be followed is by electing candidates of strong character, who will hold those positions come heck or high water.

Now a guy like Jesse Kelly, who fought his way up to Baghdad in a Marine platoon when he could have had a much more convenient, risk adverse life back in the States running a construction company, shows character.

AJM: Two other quick questions. You’re still involved with the ACU, you’re still on the board of directors?

DH: I don’t know if my position has expired or not. I haven’t told them I want off of it, but I don’t know if I’m still on the board. That may have expired with the last year I was in congress.

AJM: Well anyway, they have managed to push the gay agenda. Last year they had a booth set up for GOProud, kind of the successor organization to the Log Cabin Republicans. You know who those guys are.

DH: Yeah.

AJM: Anyway, this year, the ACU brought in GOProud, the gay rights organization, as an associate sponsor. And I’m thinking this is a bad trend. Seemingly, more and more Republicans are basically throwing their hands up and saying OK, the gay agenda is not controversial.

DH: I think the idea of having a political party, or in this case a political movement, defined by sexual activity is bad news. And it’s unacceptable to conservatism from my perspective.

AJM: So if you were still on the board and had to….

DH: I’d be dead set against it.

AJM: (laughs) Somehow I knew that.

DH: And since you brought that up, I AM going to contact them and tell them I’m strongly against it!

AJM: Please do. Send them an open letter so we can publish it. Hit old Keene across the head. I don’t know what hell he’s thinking anymore. He used to be such a rock ribbed conservative.

DH: I don’t know if Keene is still involved. Keene’s now become one of the heads of the National Rifle Association. I don’t know if he still has the ACU.

AJM: Keene’s part of the NRA?

DH: Yeah, I think so. So before we do this interview hammering him for this, let’s find out what he’s doing first. (laughs)

AJM: (laughing) Alright. But I’m pretty sure Keene is still at the ACU. But I’ll send you an email confirming that. I don’t want you to chew his head off if he wasn’t part of the GOProud decision. But you can still kick him in the butt for supporting Romney last time too.

My last question is on Tom Tancredo. Have you been following his soap opera there in Colorado?

DH: No, I haven’t been following any of that. I’ve got a book to finish!

AJM: Well after the primary, I believe it was after the primary, he decided he jump in as the conservative gubernatorial candidate on the Constitution Party ticket. That’s causing big waves in Colorado, and the problem with Colorado, lately anyway, is the state of the GOP there has been a lot like the state of the GOP in California: dysfunctional and back biting against conservatives. So it’s been a mess.

DH: That sounds like politics as usual. (laughing)

AJM: It does!

DH: OK. Well listen. I don’t know anything about the state of the Colorado GOP or Tom’s motivations. But here is what I would say – I’ll repeat to you what I told you early on. And that is that the democrat operatives hope that the Tea Party movement, which Tancredo has been a part of, will become a party movement, manifested in conservative 3rd Party candidates on ballots at the state and national level across the country.

That allows the Democrats to divide and conquer. So there’s two ways the Tea Party movement can go. One way, is to work to add a conservative dimension, more conservative strength to the Republican Party in the upcoming elections. The other way is to pull away resources and voters from the Republican Party and leave a weakened party that can easily be beaten by Democrats at the polls. The Democrat leadership prefers the latter.

AJM: Of Course!

DH: Remember when I told you this about 6 months ago?

AJM: Oh yeah, I remember. I tend to agree with that. Now the difference between me and you – aside from me being an independent – regarding our opinions on this, is that at some point, whether it’s the state party or the national party, at some point if the GOP goes to far left, at what point does the GOP take responsibility for burning their own damn bridge?

DH: Well, when you say the GOP, there is no giant entity behind a stage curtain somewhere. There is no grand Wizard of Oz that can be blamed. The GOP is millions of good Americans who have a set of principles they would like to see followed in government. And so the idea that there is any benefit in fracturing the GOP rather than strengthening it in a conservative way is disserving all the good people that make up the Republican Party. So the idea of abandoning ship, at that point – if I describe the emergence of the Tea Party movement as a third party, complete with candidates on ballots throughout the country, if that is a dream of the Democrat leadership, Nirvana for them is a Republican Party that has been so diminished and so deserted that is offers no resistance in these political battles!

If you are like an army that is outnumbered and you’re trying to figure out how good you’re going to do after you shoot everybody in your third platoon. That means you’re going to be worse off, not better.

AJM: I understand. But when I said “at what point does the GOP take responsibility” for it, I meant the GOP leadership. I didn’t mean the rank and file. Because the rank and file, easily 70% of the Tea Party movement are GOPers; disgruntled perhaps. The other 30% are independents and libertarians. So the Tea Party, to a large degree, is the conservative wing of the GOP electorate.

DH: Yes, we’ve been over this. My point is when you are in a heated battle, I don’t think it serves our purpose in the battle to spend our time trying to figure out when to give up and retreat. I think at this point we have to move forward to victory. And you don’t inspire your troops by assuring them every five minutes that you are about to abandon them. That’s not the way to inspire them, so let’s think positive.

AJM: Especially now. I think 2010 could be a big positive, DUE to the Tea Party movement to a large degree, moving in conjunction with the GOP moving slightly to its right again. But I see buffoons like Michael Steel and Mitch McConnell and some of the things they say. You know darn well they, along with McCain will be pushing amnesty coming right up, as soon as the elections are over. It gets frustrating, to say the least.

DH: I know. But I’ve seen Steele and McConnell both do very admirably in a number of areas, and holding a tough course on things like border control and national security. We’ve all got plusses and minuses. Some more than others.

AJM: I don’t know if Steele’s got any plusses, frankly.

DH: I’ve seen Steele makes some good speeches.

AJM: He does talk well, I’ll give him that. It’s what he says.

DH: Well, he’s not a legislator, so he doesn’t get to vote. But my point is, let’s press ahead in an optimistic, positive and conservative way. I’ve never seen a good military leader who spends all of his time complaining about the personalities in his force that don’t work well. The ones that are most effective are the ones who leverage the strong leaders in their units. And that is what we have to do.

I think it’s interesting. Here we’ve got guys like Jesse Kelly, right?

AJM: Yep.

DH: And Nick Popaditch, enlisted guys in the Marine Corps, with a good chance to win congressional races. That means we have a new ‘greatest generation’ coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan that is going to populate the pool of political leaders who will take our country in the right direction. But my point is, instead of sitting around and trashing the guys who haven’t done as well as you think they should do, what we ought to be doing is charging and leading with these other folks.

AJM: Agreed. But how about this though? As soon as the 2010 elections are over, replacing Steele? Let’s get another Atwater in there. Let’s get another Haley Barbour in there: Somebody who doesn’t stick their foot in their mouth every other day.

DH: Listen. My son called for Steele’s resignation. He was the first guy to call for his resignation when Steele said we should leave Afghanistan. Duncan took him to task and, I thought, did the appropriate thing. I read about that in the papers and I thought he did the appropriate thing. After he called Steele out, a number of other people followed. But the Hunter’s don’t pile on.

AJM: I understand.

DH: There is better things to do, more positive things I can do, so I’m not interested in piling on and being one more guy after three thousand kicks, to be the 3001st kick. (laughs)

AJM: (laughing). Speaking of kicks, at least call up Tancredo and kick him.

DH: I haven’t paid any attention to that saga, but I gave you my position on these 3rd party runs. They are the heartfelt dream of Pelosi and Obama.

AJM: But you know Tom pretty well.

DH: Yes, I know him.

AJM: Call him and give him a talking to.

DH: OK. I don’t know if I can do that. One thing I do know: All politicians are independent contractors. They’ve all got the right to run anywhere they want to.

AJM: There you go. It’s one of the beauties of America, I reckon.

DH: (laughing) If you can be stopped from running for president, I might not be able to run (laughs). We’ve all got a right to follow our dreams and pursue happiness. It’s a God given right.

AJM: Absolutely. We’ll keep pushing right through 2010, and then we can talk about long term strategies afterwards.

DH: For today, let’s keep our fingers crossed for Jesse Kelly, Sydney Hay and all the real conservative candidates running out there.

AJM: Absolutely. Talk to you next time.

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US Saw Drill Ban Killing Many Jobs

by Stephen Power & Leslie Eaton

The Wall Street Journal

Monday, August 23, 2010

Senior Obama administration officials concluded the federal moratorium on deepwater oil and gas drilling would cost roughly 23,000 jobs and freeze up to $10.2 billion in oil-industry investment, according to previously undisclosed documents detailing their internal debates.

Critics of the moratorium, including Gulf Coast political figures and oil-industry leaders, have said it is crippling the region’s economy, and some have called on the administration to make public its economic analysis. A federal judge who in June threw out an earlier six-month moratorium faulted the administration for playing down the economic effects.

After his action, the documents show, administration officials considered alternatives but chose to impose a new drilling moratorium after concluding the industry lacked viable strategies for containing another major spill. Officials also expressed doubts internally about the reliability of the equipment the industry uses to prevent blowouts.

The administration hadn’t previously disclosed its estimates of the economic effect of the controversial halt, ordered after the April explosion at a Gulf of Mexico well. The documents doing so were filed in a New Orleans federal court by the Justice Department earlier this week as part of the latest round of litigation over the moratorium.

Spanning more than 27,000 pages, they provide an unusually detailed look at deliberations about how to respond to the legal and political opposition to the moratorium. Among the disclosures:

The new top regulator or offshore oil exploration, Michael Bromwich, told Interior Secretary Ken Salazar that continuing the moratorium “will have a significant economic impact on direct and indirect employment in the oil and gas industry, as well as other secondary economic consequences.” The July 10 memo cited an analysis by Mr. Bromwich’s agency that said a six-month halt would result in “lost direct employment” affecting approximately 9,450 workers and “lost jobs from indirect and induced effects” affecting about 13,797 more. The analysis assumed that direct employment on rigs affected by the moratorium would “resume normally once the rigs resume operations.”

A top science adviser at Interior worried in late June that BP PLC, the primary owner of the well that blew out, had an “unrealistically optimistic” corporate culture. After working with BP in Houston on spill response, Marcia McNutt, director of the U.S. Geological Survey, told Mr. Bromwich that BP officials “seem to hope for the best and plan for the best.”

William Hauser, chief of the regulations and standards branch of what was then called the Minerals Management Service, outlined the risks of various drilling activities in an email to colleagues and said: “The more I write this stuff the more I believe we can/should/could regulate/stop activities through a prudent management process versus a moratoria scheme. I guess the moratoria approach is necessary because the MMS cannot be trusted to regulate.” He couldn’t be reached for comment Friday. A spokesman for BP said it wasn’t familiar with what Ms. McNutt said in her memo but said that “BP is committed to the highest engineering, operating and safety standards” and “continuously improving our operations and learning from this tragic accident.”

Ms. McNutt didn’t respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for Interior declined to comment on the documents. An American Petroleum Institute spokesman said they show “the government itself understood there would be significant impacts felt throughout the region.”

The administration has said in court filings that the economic effect of suspended drilling wasn’t as severe as the industry asserted. In a filing with federal court in the Eastern District of Louisiana on June 23, the day after a judge overturned the initial six-month moratorium, Justice Department attorneys said it affected 33 deepwater wells, “less than 1% of the existing structures in the Gulf dedicated to oil exploration and production.”

Although some have predicted the halt would cause a mass flight of drilling rigs to other parts of the world, so far, 31 of the 33 deepwater rigs that were operating in the Gulf when the Deepwater Horizon exploded remain.

Some industry experts now say an exodus is unlikely because companies have few other promising reservoirs where they can immediately transfer rigs.

In his July 10 memo, Mr. Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, which replaced the Minerals Management Service, said “some form of a temporary pause in drilling would be reasonable and appropriate,” to allow time for improvements in workplace and drilling safety, blowout-containment capability and the capacity to respond to a deepwater spill.

He outlined options for Secretary Salazar to consider, including: allowing drilling to resume; issuing a new order to suspend drilling until Nov. 30; or prohibiting certain deepwater drilling while allowing companies “an early exit from the moratorium based on the achievement of specified requirements” on workplace and drilling safety, blowout containment and spill response.

Two days later, July 12, Mr. Salazar issued a new order banning most new deepwater drilling activities until Nov. 30, replacing the May 28 order struck down by federal Judge Martin Feldman in June. To address some of Judge Feldman’s problems with the May order, Mr. Salazar cited new evidence regarding safety concerns, shortcomings in industry equipment to control blowouts, and spill-response capabilities strained by the BP spill.

In recent weeks, opponents of the drilling ban in Congress have urged the chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer, to disclose an economic analysis of the impacts of the moratorium. Ms. Romer, who is leaving her administration job in two weeks, couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Sen. David Vitter (R., La.,), a critic of the moratorium, said the actions “were not balanced and thought out to begin with.”

Mr. Bromwich has said the administration hopes to be able to end the moratorium before Nov. 30. He said his recommendation would depend on what he learned from experts in a series of public hearings over the next few weeks.

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You expect Republican politicians to criticize Democratic administrations and vice versa. But when Democrats start criticizing Democratic administrations, that is news. Someone once said that the headline “Dog bites Man” is not news, but “Man bites Dog” is. We are now starting to get “Democrat bites Democrat” news.

Long-time Democratic pollsters Patrick Caddell and Douglas Schoen last week took on one of President Barack Obama’s most bitter betrayals of his campaign rhetoric and the high hopes of people who voted for him.

Their op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal dealt with race, and it pulled no punches: “Rather than being a unifier, Mr. Obama has divided America on the basis of race, class and partisanship. Moreover, his cynical approach to governance has encouraged his allies to pursue a similar strategy of racially divisive politics on his behalf.”

Cynical? This man with the lofty rhetoric and sermonizing style? Only if you follow his deeds, instead of his words.

Part of the polarization that Barack Obama has caused among the American public has been due to the fact that some people do not look behind rhetoric and symbolism. Such people are prime candidates to become part of the Obama cult. Those who look only at deeds tend to become critics. But those who closely follow both his words and his deeds are the most outraged of all, because of the gross contradictions between those words and those deeds.

Caddell and Schoen go all the way back to Jeremiah Wright in tracing Barack Obama’s actual track record when it comes to race. That Obama spent 20 years in the church of a man preaching racial hate should have told us all we needed to know.

That Obama as President of the United States, on nationwide television, could attack a white policeman who arrested his friend Henry Louis Gates, while admitting that he didn’t know the specifics, should have alerted even those who had bought the excuses about Jeremiah Wright.

Caddell and Schoen also mention the refusal of Obama’s Justice Department to prosecute black thugs who stationed themselves outside a voting place to intimidate whites who came there to vote. It was caught on tape but the career Justice Department attorney who handled the case was told to drop it– and resigned rather than be part of a sordid coverup.

Now, Caddell and Schoen argue, the Obama administration’s coming to the rescue of illegal immigrants in Arizona is more of the same race-based politics, in this case to win the Hispanic vote.

What Barack Obama and his followers want is called “comprehensive immigration reform.” What that amounts to is some form of amnesty up front, combined with a promise to strengthen the border later. That political game has been played for years, and it has roped in some weak-kneed Republicans, as well as being a mainstay of Democratic politics.

Regardless of what immigration policy anyone believes in, the government cannot carry out that policy until after it has first gained control of the borders. Regardless of what Washington politicians may say about how many immigrants should be allowed into the country, or on what basis, none of that matters when the real decision is in the hands of innumerable other people, who can simply climb over a fence along the border and come on in whenever they feel like it.

Even if they get caught, the most that is likely to happen to them is that they get sent back to try again later. In many cases in the past, they have been issued legal documents ordering them to appear in court– and were released inside the United States. Why anyone would think that people who disregarded the border and the fence would take a piece of paper more seriously defies logic.

That doesn’t mean that Washington politicians were stupid. They were political, which is worse. The point was to win Hispanic votes, even though not all Hispanics believe in open borders.

President Obama would rather have an issue with which to win the Hispanic vote than to have a bipartisan bill that would simply take control of the borders. Such a bill would help the country but that obviously takes a back seat in an election year. Even some members of Obama’s own party are uneasy with such cynicism.

Democrats Bite Democrats: Part II

Rumors of Congressional Democrats privately expressing disapproval of the Obama administration’s actions and policies have been given more credence by such things as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s public criticism of White House spokesman Robert Gibbs. But when two long-time Democratic pollsters, Patrick Caddell and Douglas Schoen, called President Obama “cynical” and “racially divisive,” that was a dramatic statement. It was like saying that the emperor has no clothes.

A much more rhetorically subdued but nevertheless devastating implicit criticism of current government spending policies came from an even more unlikely source: the Congressional Budget Office, whose director is a Democrat.

Without naming names or making political charges, the Congressional Budget Office last week issued a report titled “Federal Debt and the Risk of a Fiscal Crisis.” The report’s dry, measured words paint a painfully bleak picture of the long-run dangers from the current runaway government deficits.

The CBO report points out that the national debt, which was 36 percent of the Gross Domestic Product three years ago, is now projected to be 62 percent of GDP at the end of fiscal year 2010– and rising in future years.

Tracing the history of the national debt back to the beginning of the country, the CBO finds that the national debt did not exceed 50 percent of GDP, even when the country was fighting the Civil War, the First World War or any other war except World War II. Moreover, a graph in the CBO report shows the national debt going down sharply after World War II, as the nation began paying off its wartime when the war was over.

By contrast, our current national debt is still going up and may end up in “unfamiliar territory,” according to the CBO, reaching “unsustainable levels.” They spell out the economic consequences– and it is not a pretty picture.

Although Barack Obama and members of his administration constantly talk about the so-called “stimulus” spending as creating a demand for goods that is in turn “creating jobs,” every dime they spend comes from somewhere else, which means that there is less money to create jobs somewhere else.

There is no reason to believe that all this runaway spending is creating jobs– on net balance. The fact that the unemployment rate remains stuck at nearly 10 percent belies the idea that great numbers of jobs are being created– again, on net balance.

White House press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ recent rant against Rush Limbaugh for criticizing the bailout of General Motors went on and on about how this bailout had saved “a million jobs.” But where does Gibbs think the bailout money came from? The Tooth Fairy?

When you take money from the taxpayers and spend it to rescue the jobs of one set of workers– your union political supporters, in this case– what does that do to the demand for the jobs of other workers, whose products taxpayers would have bought with the money you took away from them? There is no net economic gain to the country from this, though there may well be political gains for the administration from having rescued their UAW supporters.

The same principle applies to money that came from selling government bonds, thus adding to the national debt. People who bought those government bonds had other things they could have invested in, if those government bonds had not been issued.

As the Congressional Budget Office puts it, if the national debt continues to grow out of control, a “growing portion of people’s savings would go to purchase government debt rather than toward investments in productive capital goods such as factories and computers; that ‘crowding out’ of investment would lead to lower output and incomes than would otherwise occur.”

Just paying the interest on a growing national debt can require higher tax rates, which “would discourage work and saving and further reduce output,” according to the CBO.

It would probably do no good to send Robert Gibbs– or Barack Obama, for that matter– a copy of the government’s own Congressional Budget Office report. Spending vast sums of money in politically strategic places helps the Obama administration politically, and that is obviously their bottom line.

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Hey Joe and the Democrats … It’s the ECONOMY stupid!

Vice President and head Democrat cheerleader Joe Biden said on Friday to his fellow Democrats at the Democratic National Committee gathering at Union Station in St. Louis, MO that, ” the death of the Democratic Party have been greatly exaggerated.” Biden claimed that the day after the 2010 midterm elections that Democrats would still control the US House and Senate. Biden also stated, “If it weren’t illegal, I’d make book on it.” 

What do you expect me to say … “I don’t think he [Obama] is ready and the Presidency is something that lends itself to on the job training”.

Wanna bet Joe?  But then again, what is Biden going to tell Democrats, the  truth? Biden certainly is not going to ask Democrats to look at the Congressional Generic Ballot polls and tell them that they are a record 12 points behind Republicans. Hey Joe, have you taken a look at your old Senate seat in Delaware lately, Republican Mike Castle is up 49% to 37% over Democrat Chris Coons. I guess Democrats are also supposed to disregard all of the polls as well. The polls that are a reflection of the American voter.

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. admonished Democrats on Friday to shake away their pessimism about the fall elections, arguing that the prospect of historic losses would be minimized because the Republican Party has been overtaken by extreme candidates and stale ideas.

Hmm, Biden claims Republicans have been taken over by extremists. Maybe Biden would like to take a good look at some real extremists? So is the American voting public extremists too who are against Obamacare, out fo control spending and the manner in how Obama and the Democrats controlled Congress have handled the economy?

“The reports of the death of the Democratic Party have been greatly exaggerated,”Mr. Biden said, paraphrasing Mark Twain as he addressed party leaders here. “The day after the election, there will be a Democratic majority in the House and a Democratic majority in the Senate. If it weren’t illegal, I’d make book on it.”

As the Democratic National Committee gathered for its summer meeting at Union Station in St. Louis, anxiety marked a stark change for a party that had reveled in back-to-back election cycles that produced control of Congress and the White House. Democrats acknowledged the difficult political climate, but they said that their candidates could benefit from Republican shortcomings.

As No Quarter reminds us, professional political predictor extraordinaire Charlie Cook has Democrats loosing at least 35 to 45 seats in the US House of Representatives.  All signs point to a GOP take over of the House and Democrats are not just going to lose seats because that is what happens to the party in control in an off year election. This is historic as never has a Party in control of the Presidency, House and Senate so defied the will of the people. The only reason why Democrats might retain the US Senate is to win 10 seats is unheard of and EPIC. Look for Republicans to also gain a majority of the Governorships in 2010.

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August 21, 2010

Dear Nancy Pelosi.

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