GETTING RADICAL WITH THE RADICALS, The New Art of War

America is being messed with by the bullies of the Muslim world and not taking it like a man. Instead, the United States is turning into a bunch of sissies more worried about doing the ‘right-left’ thing than in doing what is truly best for our national security interests.

Al Qaeda has America on the defensive to their offensive. Since 9/11 it’s almost as if we’ve been cowering on the playground of their world.

It may be that former President George W. Bush and Co. went too far, at best astray, in their response to that fateful September day. What President Obama and Co. seems to want to do is to take a different but equally misguided tact.

W was and O is a boy on the hostile world playground. One became the bully in response to being bullied. That’s W. The other becomes the appeaser. Guess which one. Obama’s is not a conquering mentality, but rather one of make friends with the enemy. One wonders of the childhoods that led each president to their chosen modus operandii.

In reality, W and O aren’t really all that different. Both men operate from a position of insecurity. Maybe it’s the need to triumph over an insecure nature that becomes a part of the audacity that makes a man seek the highest office in the land.

Neither temper seems to have served our country; both are based on cowardice, a characteristic that doesn’t lend itself to the strong leadership skills or the extraordinary ingenuity that is needed at a time when the enemy we face is like none that we’ve faced before.

Now with yet another near miss in which a misguided American hater was willing to blow-up his man-parts in his hatred for America, our government rings not the New Year in, but rather wrings its hands in anguish. A staggering breach in the system allowed someone who had been identified on many fronts as a danger to American interests to board an airline and nearly blow the plane to smithereens.

In the aftermath, we struggle with the question of how to plug the hole in the system?

Up against the notion of blame, as such is the nature of our current politics ~ neither political party can bear to miss the opportunity to score political points against the other even when American lives are at stake ~ the powers that be seek answers.

Certainly, searching for the solution to the breach in the security system is important. But it is hardly the only consideration concerning our losing war on terrorism. In fact, with President Obama’s decision to move more troops into Afghanistan in his escalation of the war against terrorism, the question must be explored: Are the conventional standards we are using to fight the terrorists the proper protocol in these unconventional times?

America appears to be operating with one hand tied behind its back, hampered by an antediluvian set of international rules defined by the Geneva Convention when countries were our enemies not individual gangs who themselves honor no rules of engagement. Even General MacArthur agreed you cannot fight a war with one hand tied behind your back.

In this sense, America is its own worst enemy with its adherence to antiquated international laws further weakened by its need to be politically correct.

In America’s War on Terrorism there is a noticeable absence of ruthlessness, an underlying fear of consequences not necessarily the result of action. What America needs is a sincere change in the manner in which it fights. After all, a basic rule of war is to fight fire with fire ~ not only firepower!

As we remain bound by our adherence to convention, the terrorists laugh. Whose idea was it to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo) because it is an unpleasant place? Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old son of a wealthy Nigerian banker who was willing to blow himself up because of his hatred of America was trained by men released from Gitmo thanks to the absurd bellowing of the left for ‘politically correct’ unreasonableness.

It is time for America to stop worrying about convention, the Geneva or otherwise. It is past time for America to stop playing by rules that are stacked against it.

Does the vast and conventional American military industrial complex have too much influence, impeding innovation in the way we proceed against our Twenty-first Century enemy?

Why are we reluctant to use racial profiling when our enemy is so well-defined? For those who argue that racial profiling only increases the hostility of the hostile, ask how can you possibly further increase the hostility of the likes of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and company? Those Muslims who are our friends should be willing to do what they must to protect against the radicals and their reputation as a people.

Certainly we need to review the absurdity of the spectacle to be created by trying the captured enemy in civilian courts.

And squabble about our rights to privacy when a simple scan could be the difference between 230 people blown into the universe or not? Beam me up, Scotty!

The fact is that no matter how unpleasant, the United States must be willing to do anything and everything necessary to stop the terrorists. Such talk may not be politically correct, but it is correct ~ and the only way to proceed against our unconventional enemies.

Halli Casser-Jayne is the author of A YEAR IN MY PAJAMAS WITH PRESIDENT OBAMA, The Politics of Strange Bedfellows. You can read more of her opinions @ The CJ Political Report dot com.

BARACK OBAMA, HOW THE INCH STOLE CHRISTMAS

Our snowflake of a president, Barack Obama, all David Axelrod design and little substance, will get his present on Christmas Eve when the Senate votes to give him a holiday package neatly wrapped in lobbyist finery, the present inside alleged to be a health care reform package when the gift inside is nothing but a terrible fake.

President Obama will take his victory sleigh ride caroling to all gullible Americans what an achievement for them the alleged health care reform package is, a T’was the Night Before Christmas fish-tale of a story leaving Americans with visions of sugar plums and dreams of real reform dancing in their heads.

On health care, on financial, on immigration, on pharmaceuticals, on Gitmo, on Global Warming, on jobs reform we will wait because Obama is the Inch Who Stole Christmas. Our president is an underachiever, a non-leader who will settle for an inch rather than go the extra green mistletoe mile for the citizens of America that he represents. To Obama life is not just a compromise; it’s a give an inch or two or three or five golden rings.

The truth is America now has a president who refuses to take a Christmas tree stand on anything. Obama can tell a story all right, or left or whichever spirit of Christmas moves him at the moment, or is to his personal advantage. Can’t he just deck the halls with tales of holly-jolly-you-know-what!

“Pooh-Pooh to the Whos!" Grinch was grinch-ish-ly humming. "They're finding out now that no Christmas is coming! They're just waking up! I know just what they'll do! Their mouths will hang open a minute or two. Then the Whos down in Who-ville will all cry Boo-Hoo!"

In Obama’s little town -- the one called Washington not Bethlehem -- all stopped being merry and bright a long time ago. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is no Santa Claus and Nancy Pelosi is surely not Mrs. Santa.

Jingle and Jangle aka Obama’s Chief-of-Staff Rahm Emanuel (O Come, O come Emanuel) and chief advisor David Axelrod, both pa rum pum pum Bums! have SLAY-belled their little rotten Democratic elves in Congress into buying the phony reform package even though the gift to the American people is missing an essential part: the public option once promised to compete with the naughty and not so nice insurance companies.

God rest you merry gentlemen, you do nothing but dismay. Of course, it is hard to turn down gold, frankincense and myrrh is it not, Mr. Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska)?

And what of Joseph Lieberman who hails from that land known as Connecticut? He has a higher calling than the rest of Congress…the insurance companies: on Hartford, on Aetna, on Signa on Blue Cross.

Or Santa baby, Bart Stupak and his Pitt of an Abortion Amendment, hurry down the chimney tonight!

Minority leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner away in the manger across the aisle; Do you hear what I hear? The Repugnicans are lacking a star, a star dancing in the night with a tail as big as a kite, but they sure do know how to fight. Sing: NO to the world, Obama Lord has come. Let us trick the King!

While admitting that the health care industry in this country is in shambles, the Repugnicans would rather obstruct than construct a bipartisan solution to a devastating aspect of American society. Just in case you didn’t hear what I hear, not one ~ not ONE Republican will vote for reform.

Of course, they stood in the way of reform so that they wouldn’t have to vote for reform so that they can later say the bad reform package that they didn’t vote for was the Democrat's fault. And so that they can say that you’d better vote the Socialist Democrats out of Congress in the mid-terms because they are the bad guys, not us!

You better watch out, you better not cry, better not pout I'm telling you why. Santa Claus is coming to town. He's making a list and checking it twice; gonna find out who's naughty and nice. Santa Claus is coming to town tra la la.

On December 24, 2009, Christmas Eve, the worst piece of legislation in years, The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, will pass. Notwithstanding the abhorrent tactics of the Democrack-Up Party and those of the I-have-no-shame-obstructionist-Repugnicans, bah humbug! the truth is that President Obama will sing the glad tidings of the present of health care reform he has ordered up for his citizens this holiday season.

But the ‘present’ man is really the ‘present’ man. He will take his bows and brag that he got health care reform legislation passed when even Bill and Hillary Clinton couldn’t. He’ll say this even though those who follow politics closely know that President Obama was anything but present during the debate. As he did in the Illinois Senate when he avoided choice and voted ‘present’ 130 times, never once during this whole health care debacle did he put himself on the line for the welfare of the American people.

In the end, the 60 Democrats who came around did not do so for their constituents but for their party (and themselves). With Jack Frost nipping at their noses, they were suckered into the bad deal by the reality that if the Dems didn’t pass the legislation, as the ruling party they were through, not to mention their questionable leader Barack Obama.

Then all the reindeer loved him as they shouted out with glee, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, you'll go down in history! 

The question remains, Present Obama, as what?


Halli Casser-Jayne is the author of A YEAR IN MY PAJAMAS WITH PRESIDENT OBAMA, The Politics of Strange Bedfellows. For more of her opinions visit The CJ Political Report dot com.

OBAMA'S DREAM

After conducting one of the most inspiring political campaigns in American history, what we have in Barack Obama is a once inspiring candidate who has become an uninspiring president.

While some accuse President Obama of being cold and detached, his real problem is that he is no longer inspiring. When the illusion of the Klieg lights is gone, what we are left with is the reality of a man resourceful with the word but in every other way unimaginative.

He is everything but what he led us to believe. At his core he is practical, efficient, and proficient and that is good. But the sparkle that was the inspirational candidate, the dream maker, he sold to the sad song that is America’s current reality.

Perhaps what Barack Obama needs is to take a brush-up course in dream making; maybe an art class that inspires his imagination or a photography course that gives him a new perspective on the world. Perhaps he ought to study the great composers; there are none more creative than they. With their music, they created lasting dreams.

If nothing else, what President Obama needs to do is get on his hands and knees and pray to his higher power for some divine inspiration. Calling Reverend Wright?

President Obama has lost his heart. Unlike Bill Clinton, you sense he doesn’t feel your pain. Unlike Ronald Reagan who was able to convey the feeling that he was on your side, with President Obama you sense that he is on his own side.

There is no doubt these are tough times. There are few who don’t recognize that this country is in free-fall. The Twenty-first Century has not been kind to the United States. What could go wrong, did.

Think 9/11, the gas crisis, the rise in health care costs, the banking industry fiasco, the housing collapse, the U.S. automobile industry implosion, and, of course, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On the world stage America faces huge challenges. There is the disagreeable Kim Jong-il and the mad-as-a-hatter but cagey-like-a-fox Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to deal with. O where o where is Osama bin Laden? There is the ongoing challenge of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There is the ominous problem of the leaders of a malignant Russia once again trying to assert their ills on the human race. This problem our recent presidents seem to wish to ignore.

If we are honest with ourselves, this nation is losing its once stalwart position as the leader of the free world. If money rules, the economy of China puts ours to shame and it’s our shame that China owns us. That’s the world.

But what’s happening here at home in America’s house, is what really counts. In our house, all is not right. The president seems no less inspired in his solutions to our problems here at home even than those offered in his oddly-fashioned attempts to bring peace to the Middle East.

He addressed the troubled economy by doing the usual, bailing out the big boys and forgetting about the heart and soul of America, the Middle Class, or what’s left of it.

But now the mid-term elections loom and the practical Obama is looking at his sinking poll numbers. If President Obama dreams of keeping control of his house, then he can no longer ignore the hardships facing the Middle Class.

And so he offers a better-late-than-never but incredibly uninspired solution to the 17.5% unemployed that is nothing less than a tired old Twentieth Century way out of very real Twenty-First Century problems. Shades of 1950s President Eisenhower, Obama’s solution to creating jobs for the unemployed is an Ike retread: the re-building of America’s highways.

In 1950 oil was cheap, the air then clean, the family car a new idea. But in the Twenty-first Century are we not trying to get people out of the habit of driving cars and coerce them into using mass transit? Do we really need to sink our money and our labor into re-building roads when we could be revolutionizing our railroads by building new, environmentally friendly high-speed trains and tracks instead?

This ridiculous Ike throwback to shore up our infrastructure is nothing short of an insult to those without jobs. It is a thoughtless, short-term solution to a long-term problem if not checked. If nothing else it is Chain Gang mentality vs. the inspiring I’ve Been Working on the Railroad. Clearly, President Obama is no longer operating from divine inspiration.

One wonders if there was any real thought put into the solution. It seems more politically motivated than concern driven, except, of course, for his concern of a huge loss in the midterms.

When you consider the paltry collection of tax cuts he suggests (his moderates will like that) and his odd nod to his left in the offer of subsidies for energy-saving investments, his motivations become suspect.

In the hour of our need, Barack Obama offered much for Wall Street and little for the needy, only words, mere platitudes. He hasn’t presented even so much as a dream of a better day to the downtrodden, which makes me wonder what Martin Luther King, not a dreamer but a dream maker,  is thinking up there from his perch in the sky.

Opportunity squandered?

Halli Casser-Jayne is the author of A YEAR IN MY PAJAMAS WITH PRESIDENT OBAMA, The Politics of Strange Bedfellows. You can read more of her opinions at THE CJ POLITICAL REPORT DOT COM

THE GILO MONSTER, WHAT ABBAS DOESN'T GET

While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was sticking it to President Obama with the announcement that Israeli would be expanding the Gilo settlement in Jerusalem (See: below), it should be pointed out that he was also sending a very important message to the Palestinians.

Netanyahu has said all along that he wants to negotiate with the Palestinians. He wants to sit down for talks without pre-conditions. Of course, we all know that President Obama and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas have insisted on a complete halt of expansion of Israeli settlements in order to appease the Palestinians and Arab putting the oil-pressure on the U.S., as a pre-condition to talks.

But Netanyahu didn't give Obama what he wanted. He gave a lot, but it wasn't enough for Abbas or Obama.

So, Bibi announced that Israel would be expanding settlements in Gilo, located in East Jerusalem. This sent the American President into apoplexy. The infuriated Abbas now wants to declare a Palestinian State without the Israeli's agreement.

While you can be sure that Jewish haters in the UN might sanction such a move, most won't as it would completely eradicate the notion that the world body garners any significance.

The U.S., despite its "dismay" at Netanyahu's announcement, immediately said it would not.

So here's the bottom line: Bibi's message to Abbas is that the more the Palestinian's delay sitting down with Israel for talks, the less there will be to talk about. You can just hear Netanyahu saying: We will grow and your dream will shrink.

Are you listening Abbas? Obama?

ISRAEL'S NETANYAHU GIVES OBAMA THE FINGER

Yesterday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proved to the world Jewish community that President Barack Obama is no friend of Israel's. And the media seems to have missed what may be the most outrageous behavior of Obama's since becoming the President of the United States.

When Israel announced that it would move forward with the expansion of Gilo in Jerusalem, it knew full-well what Obama's reaction would be. The president went apoplectic.

Netanyahu's announcement on Gilo was Bibi's version of giving President Obama the finger. It was also Netanyahu's way of sending the signal that he thinks that POTUS is weak and can easily be trifled with.

But, more importantly, Netanyahu was showing the world Jewish community exactly where Obama stands in terms of his support of Israel.

True, the United States has never formally accepted Jerusalem as Israel's capitol, or formally accepted the unification of the city that was made possible by the Six-Day War. As much as the U.S. routinely protested settlement-building in the West Bank, it never made an issue about expanding neighborhoods in Jerusalem.

There stood a tacit agreement between Israel and its U.S. ally that Jerusalem was off the table as a bargaining chip between Israel and the Palestinians. And that’s where Obama parts company with his predecessors.

Which is why Netanyahu did what he did after his disastrous meeting with Obama last week in which POTUS apparently told the Prime Minister of Israel that he would no longer stand with Israel on ANY issue, including Jerusalem. The U.S. was now fully-backing the Palestinians...unless (my guess, of course) Netanyahu completely stopped the expansion of all settlements in the West Bank.

Netanyahu refused to budge and the Gilo announcement was the result of the outrageous pressure Obama has consistently placed on Israel while making ZERO demands on the Palestinians since becoming president.

Regardless of where anyone stands on the issue of expansion in the West Bank or in Jerusalem, one should be concerned over Obama's bullying of a long-time ally. Obama is not a mediator in this fight; he has taken the side of Israel's enemies: The Arabs (for oil), The Palestinians (to assuage al Qaeda), and in a de facto way, The Iranians (out of fear), by giving them the gift of time.

A couple of weeks ago, NY Times writer Tom Freidman suggested that everyone should stop trying to mediate an end to the conflict between the Israeli's and Palestinians. His reason: the two parties weren't ready for a solution. I don't think this is true of the Israeli's. They have bent over backwards to make concessions to no avail.

One thing is certain, there can be no solution with the wrong mediator leading the negotiations, and that is absolutely, what we have here.

It is for this reason that if I were Netanyahu I would refuse to further conversations with Obama at the helm. But since, of course, this is unrealistic, Netanyahu instead gave the president of the United States the finger in his announcement that Israel would begin the expansion of Gilo.

After all, what could POTUS do? Have his press secretary come down on Israel? And that's exactly what Robert Gibbs did do.

But now Jews worldwide know exactly where President Obama stands. And it is not with Israel.

UPDATE: Iran says no to sending uranium abroad.

Halli Casser-Jayne is the author of A YEAR IN MY PAJAMAS WITH PRESIDENT OBAMA, The Politics of Strange Bedfellows. You can read more of her opinions @ http://www.thecjpoliticalreport.com
c. 2009 Reprints with permission.

SARAH PALIN ALMOST TAKES OFF HER FAMOUS GLASSES

Prettier than a political figure ought to be, Sarah Palin all but took off her glasses in an interesting but hardly seminal interview with talk show host Oprah Winfrey.

Oddly, it was as much Winfrey's interview as Palin's. And Winfrey seemed as taken with Gov. Palin as Palin’s conservative followers are.

But don’t kid yourselves; just as Sarah Palin was on Oprah Winfrey’s stage trying to rehabilitate her image with the American public, Winfrey was there to do the same. In fact, she started off her interview asking Palin if she had  felt snubbed by Winfrey during the elections and qualifying why Oprah had not interviewed Palin or Hillary Clinton during those contentious days.

Winfrey, of course, had not only endorsed then candidate Barack Obama for the post of president, but had actively campaigned for him. Winfrey stated her reason for not interviewing the other candidates  saying that since she had gone public with her Obama endorsement, she didn’t feel she should interview the other candidates.

Winfrey, did, however, turn her celebrated talk show into a platform for Barack Obama. But her ratings following the election took a decided hit. Many women didn’t cotton to Winfrey forcing her political views on them and some were upset that Winfrey hadn't backed either of the women candidates.

So Winfrey and Palin chatted away on today’s show, both seeking to rehabilitate themselves with their respective audiences, tackling an array of subjects from the aforementioned Oprah snub to whether Palin felt qualified for the job of vice-president – she never questioned her ability to do the job – to her teenage daughter’s pregnancy – Palin admits she wasn’t happy about the pregnancy as if any mother would be – to the now infamous Katie Couric interview that brought down Palin in the public’s eyes – Palin thought Couric was out to get her – to her learning that the child she was carrying was a Downe Syndrome child.

It was here Winfrey failed her audience. Palin was honest in saying what a trauma it had been to learn that she was carrying a special needs child. She admitted to experiencing a moment when she understood why a woman in that position would consider taking “the easy way out.” Winfrey didn’t press Palin, rabidly anti-abortion, any further.

Too bad, as the subject of abortion is very much on American’s minds these days with the Stupak Amendment to the health care bill, the most radical anti-abortion legislation in decades.

And didn’t the viewers want at least a taste of Palin’s intellect? In the spirit of the softball interview that it was – Winfrey suddenly the champion of women political candidates after the election that had two women running for the top political tickets without the talk show host’s endorsement – didn’t throw the curve.

Instead, Mary Hart Winfrey turned the conversation to Palin’s hunk of a husband, Todd. And then moved on to the must-ask question considering all the publicity he’s been getting, to the father of her grandchild, Levi Johnston, about to bare it all in Playgirl.

Although at first she said she wouldn’t talk about Johnston, who has been on a rampage against all things Palin since he and Bristol broke-up, she apparently couldn’t help herself and took Oprah’s bait, calling Johnston, first, “Ricky Hollywood,” and then “an aspiring Porn” star. I can just imagine Trip watching that footage in his teen years. Oy!

Of course, there was the proverbial footage of Palin being ‘just a mom,’ shuttling her daughter Piper trick-or-treating followed by footage of Palin working-out, then Palin making caramel apples with her kids. Yes, Sarah, we get it. You are not a bad mommy even though your teenage daughter was sexually active in high school and bore a child out-of-wedlock. By the way, the Palin’s two youngest daughters were in the audience – as props? – as the cameras recorded the adorable girls for all the world to see.

On the subject of losing the election, Palin admitted to disappointment, particularly since the McCain campaign wouldn’t give her a voice following McCain’s concession speech. Of course, who wouldn’t be disappointed? She said she so wanted to voice her hope that at the end of the day all American’s would come together in a bi-partisan love-fest, fat chance in these times, thanks, to Palin and the rest of our current cast of politicians.

Winfrey asked why Palin had quit her job as Alaska Governor. Palin suggested that it was impossible for her to do her job as she had prior to being named McCain’s running-mate, what with "Obama’s opposition researchers" up in Alaska looking for everything they could get on Palin. Of course, there are many governors who have lost national elections in America’s history and successfully fulfilled their obligation to their states.

Palin quoted her dad to help make her case for resigning from the governorship: “She’s not retreating, she’s reloading,” she quoted her father as having said.

And then, the question that everyone was waiting for, which, of course, Palin, would never answer honestly. “Have you given any thought to running for president in 2012?”
Blessed with a gorgeous smile, Sarah used it to her best advantage, but for those glasses, we missed the twinkle in her eye.

“You don’t need a title to make a difference,” the future Oprah? said.

Palin has yet to prove she's ready for political prime-time.

IT'S ABOUT OIL, STUPID and ALL THE SLICK PLAYERS

Rest assured that many Jews, American and Israeli, were thrilled when they learned that President-elect Barack Obama had picked Jewish Rahm Emanuel to be his chief-of-staff.

Notwithstanding the fact that Barack Obama, far from stupid, picked Rahm Emanuel at an opportune moment, just as the election was about to take place and Obama, who needed the Jewish vote, was having a difficult time closing the deal.

Emanuel, also not stupid, had worked for Bill Clinton and had been a Hillary supporter. And although Emanuel and Obama are both part of the Chicago gang, Emanuel stayed with Hillary until it was clear she wasn't going to be the Democratic Party's nominee. He's a most loyal fellow that Rahm Emanuel.

So about Emanuel and loyalty and influence. One wonders of the meshuganah position taken by the Obama administration on the issue of the Middle East. Was the new approach to Israel Obama’s idea and Emanuel was being the loyal soldier? Or was Emanuel part and parcel of the stupid, tough new approach to Israel? For that matter, how much of a hand did Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have in the failed approach? We'll have to wait to see, I guess, for one or the others' memoirs.

But here we are today, and the situation in the Israel vs. Palestinian long saga is a stupid mess. The Obama-Emanuel-Clinton approach to put the pressure on Israel backfired, although PM Bibi Netanyahu now insists that Israel's relationship with Washington isn't as bad as the press reports it is. I would guess the White House asked Netanyahu to push this stupid new meme in consideration for something else.
Because we all know that there is no love lost between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Obama administration. Whatever, another memoir is in the making.

So, here we are in this stupid mess. Obama's hapless foray into Middle East politics has only made matters worse. The Arabs are mad at us again, the Palestinian Authority’s President, Mahmud Abbas, is truly threatening to leave  (I say, truly, because Abbas has  said this before). But this time, his departure could leave a vacuum and give the stupid terrorist organization Hamas exactly what it wants, more power over the unfortunate Palestinian people than before.

So what next? NY Times reporter Tom Friedman suggests that it is time to back off from trying to get negotiations back on track as the two parties themselves seem disinterested in reaching peace.

Other scholars advocate helping the Palestinians economically so they will have an infrastructure from which to build a future and with it the psychological consequence of being proud of that structure, not to mention the base from which to form a nation.

I heartily agree with both approaches, particularly the last. The people who call themselves Palestinians, unlike the Jewish émigrés to the territory that is now Israel, seem incapable of understanding the need to build their infrastructure for their future state on their own, and sadly, are too often thwarted by their own (Hamas).
Where a true difference can be made, I suggest, is not by a U.S. intervention between the Israelis and Palestinians. but instead, by the real source of power in the region, the Arab nations.

The Arabs insist that they want a homeland for the Palestinians and that they want peace between the two old foes. Yet, they do nothing but offer stupid talk and insist upon Israel making all the sacrifices both in her land and in her security.

Why haven’t the allies ever asked the Arab nations to stand up and take responsibility for the Palestinians? There is an easy answer. The great and powerful United States and the other super powers are afraid to, stupidly intimidated by the oil rich nations who hold oil over us all, their weapon of mass destruction.

In fact, let’s call it what it is: the U.S. and its allies are engaged in an undeclared economic war with the oil rich Arabs. 9/11 was one of the battles of that war. Our strike on Iraq, a lame counter-move. The rise in oil prices in 2007/2008 an economic lob by OPEC and our current economic downturn the collateral damage of the last OPEC salvo.

The truth is that the Palestinians are their people, and the Arab Nations should have the responsibility of helping them have their own homeland, either by absorbing them within the borders of one of their countries, or giving them their own plot of land.
The West Bank is not the place for a Palestinian homeland; it simply isn’t going to work there and to think it ever will is just plain stupid.

For purely economic reasons, no American president wants to pressure the Arabs, even President Obama the man who got himself elected by promising us change we can believe in.

Instead, Rahm Emanuel and his President Obama have in their zealousness to try something new, victimized the victims, the Israeli’s, and missed the point entirely. New for the sake of new is meaningless. More importantly, did they really miss the point? Or are they, like their predecessors, too cowardly to address the reality?

And, by the way, forget health care for now. With 17.5% of Americans unemployed, why hasn’t Obama made job creation the number one issue on his plate, and the creation of a project to end our dependency on Arab oil, which would create new and sustainable jobs part of a jobs plan? This is not a stupid question.

There are TWO victims in this mess created by selfish heads of state and the Arab nations. Thanks to Mr. Obama and Rahm Emanuel’s tactics, we are all aware that one is the Palestinians. Their plight is the result of the world trying to right its wrong against the FIRST victims, the Jews and their struggle against Anti-Semitism.

It was the Jew’s victimization at the hands of anti-Semites as well as world guilt, that resulted in the people who call themselves Palestinians plight, leaving them with choices they were unwilling to make, including being magnanimous to a people long mistreated by the world.

Still, all of the history ignores the current fact that the Israeli’s are still victims, despised world-wide and by surrounding nations that refuse to recognize their existence. And with the equal goal of destroying The Jewish State.

Are Israeli's better off than the Palestinians? I’m not sure. Compare them to the kid who lives in a mansion and from the outside looks like she has it all. Only inside she’s being terrorized by an abusive father.

Which leaves us to the reality that the Palestinian’s own people, the Arabs, have only nominally stood up for their own and in many ways have contributed to their dilemma by refusing to offer those who don’t want to live in Israel a place in their rightful world.

Lately, the Saudi’s, the Jordanians and the Egyptians have been offering lip service to President Obama pretending to want to be a party in the solution of the Palestinian issue.

Of course, it’s all oil-derrick smoke and mirrors. Until we start putting the OIL-pressure on the Arabs nothing will change. What’s that old saying? If you keep on doing the same old thing the same old way you get the same old STUPID result.

As I said, it’s about oil, STUPID. President Obama and Rahm Emanuel know this because neither of the two men are, in fact, stupid?

OBAMA, HIGH ANXIETY AND MEL BROOKS

America is in the midst of a giant anxiety attack!

Really, it’s true. You can feel it. It’s palpable. You can see it in people’s face. No one is smiling anymore. No one is looking anyone in the eye. Run into an old friend at the supermarket and you get first, a furtive glance, then maybe a tentative hello, and finally, a pouring out of all the tumult in his life.

Stand in line at your local Wal-Mart, the place where the rich meet the poor these days, and listen to virtual strangers pour their hearts out. Everyone has a story about their spouse losing a job, or their investments going south, their kid or grand-kid not being able to find a job. They have to sell their home in a hurry because they are over-leveraged. Retirement isn’t happening any time soon.

So it is no surprise that exit polls in this off-year election showed that most people were casting their votes because of their pocket books and the fact that nothing was in them. Yes, according to the pollsters, mostly what is bothering American voters these days is their financial situation. All their woes stem from that.

Costs are rising, but investment income is down. If you run a small business, your accounts pay late. If you need a bridge loan from the bank, fer git about it! Insurance premiums continue to rise, fuel, too. Ten percent of Americans are out of a job, and that number is depressingly a low-ball figure. In other words, for Mr. and Mrs. Average Joe, life isn’t a box of chocolates, Forrest Gump.

Valium anyone?

How did this happen? Just a year ago Americans were filled with the newly-elected Barack Obama’s hope and dreams for a better future. Even if you weren’t a believer, you couldn’t help being hopeful that Mr. Obama would prove, finally, to be a new and different politician. Then, too, we’d been down so long there seemed no place to go but up. Of course, the bottom fell out and here we are.

Oxycontin, Rush Limp-baugh Limbaugh?

TARP saved the banks and Obama saved the auto industry, but ain’t anyone out there lookin’ out for the little people. And no one on Capitol Hill seems in much of a hurry to do so. Health Care reform legislation that was supposed to help you and me has been pared down to what amounts to insurance reform. And although President Obama promised us health care legislation by the early fall, Majority Leader Harry Reid now says no one should expect a vote in the Senate until 2010.

Here, have some Prozac.

Apparently, President Obama has. Our President, the one and only Barack Obama, once heralded as the great communicator, able to leap tall buildings in a single bounce seems anesthetized and is bizarrely missing from America’s conversation.

While the rest of us agitate, the president of the United States cogitates, and seems decidedly insensitive. Knock, knock, is anybody there? It’s no wonder voters said their votes weren’t a referendum on the president. What president would they referen-dumb? The skinny guy, who seems to come to life mostly while playing golf on Sunday afternoons or when he is courting his wife at chi-chi dinners? Hey, just a thought. Is Barack Obama depressed? He sure has the symptoms.

Maybe you should try Zoloft, Mr. President?

Because one can only wonder what happened to the electric candidate of the 2008 campaign. Mr. Kool seems to have turned into Mr. Cold and Uncaring. It’s as if the president is in some sort of stupor. He seems like an apparition of his old self. Where’s his spirit, his spunk, his force of character? To describe the president of the United States as detached seems an understatement. Clearly, he is missing in action (MIA).

I think Obama needs electric shock therapy to bring the man back from the dead. OK, give this guy a script for Cymbalta.

Or how about a session with Dr. Richard H. Thorndyke at the Psychoneurotic Institute for the Very, Very Nervous? We miss you, Mel Brooks. We really miss you, Barry O!

But, all kidding aside -- although I’m not kidding -- what’s the deal? Where did The Audacious Mr. Hope disappear? Has he become the boy in the bubble of the White House? Why does he seem so remote? What happened to the iconic dream weaver? Is he nothing but a dreamer? In the Illinois legislator Obama made a name for himself for too often voting ‘present’ rather than taking a hard stand. Is that because he isn’t present?

Have you ever tried Paxil, Mr. President?

Truly, this seems to be the winter of Obama’s disconnect and American’s discontent. Americans are anxious about how they’re going to pay their bills. How they’re going to afford the price of their newly-prescribed medicine. They’re holding their breath not only from worry but from fear of breathing our polluted air. The president has decided not to attend the global summit on climate change in Copenhagen. Instead, he plans to travel to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize for the peace we’re not even close to having and he’s not doing much to get.

Anxiety afflicts Americans. They worry. Is that crazy Ahmadinejad going to nuke us all? Or will it be Kim Jong-il who does us in? What happened to candidate Obama’s promise to get Bin Laden? Never mind the Taliban; by the time the president makes a decision to move more troops into Afghanistan, Bin Laden will have moved out of the region. And what about Iran and Obama? The Arabs and Obama? The Muslims and Obama?

I keep wondering: Why is Barack Obama so willing to talk to them, when he has so little to say to us, the anxiety-ridden Prozac Nation over which the seemingly depressed president presides?

c. 2009 Reprints with permission.

Halli Casser-Jayne is the author of A YEAR IN MY PAJAMAS WITH PRESIDENT OBAMA, The Politics of Strange Bedfellows. You can read more of her opinions @ http://www.thecjpoliticalreport.com

WHAT ROGER AILES US

America is a sick nation.

Not from the swine flu pandemic, although surely that doesn’t help, but the U.S. is afflicted with an even graver illness.  At the moment, it’s looking terminal. Health care reform and affordable medical treatment for everyone cannot come too soon.

Like most illnesses, no one is exactly sure when our patient contracted the disease. Sometimes, that’s not important; this time it is. If we can get to the source of this epidemic, we have a chance of preventing future outbreaks from happening.

Thus far, research points to May 15, 1940, the day Roger E. Ailes, the son of a factory worker, was born in Warren, Ohio. Apparently, Ailes was exposed to the AILE-ment when he was quite young. Although it remained dormant for a long time, the symptoms of Ailes’ disease erupted in 1967 when Ailes first met Richard M. Nixon. The disease known as Extreme-Partisanship, has progressed exponentially.

In 1968, Ailes joined Nixon’s presidential campaign. After leading Nixon to victory, Ailes’ symptoms became even more pronounced.

He founded Ailes Communications in New York. About the same time, one symptom, brain dysfunction escalated. Ailes became obsessed with right-wing politics, obsession as an addiction, being the major symptom of the disease.

Many credit Mr. Ailes with Ronald Reagan’s 1984 successful run for the American presidency. Reagan, history tells us, contracted the disease later in his life, in 1962, when he became rabid about his politics. No one is sure exactly from which carrier he contracted the AILE-ment.

But back to Ailes and how his disease manifested itself. No trick was too small for Roger Ailes. Obsessive partisanship exhibits itself through excessive measures. All reason is thrown out the window with this brain dysfunction. When there is no rationale, there is no underlying principle, only righteousness. Ailes hired New York Mad Man Philip Dusenberry to build the supporting ad campaign to further his cause and his candidate, Ronald Reagan.
 
Dusenberry created ads that seduced the public, infecting them with, according to unnamed sources, “swelling violin music and emotional, issue-free imagery of weddings, flag-raising, home-buying and peaceful, scenic vistas.” It was an alchemy to which many Americans succumbed, not understanding that they were being contaminated with a dose of Ailes’ AILE-ment that is highly contagious.

By 1988, Ailes was seriously ill with the AILE-ment. He helped George H. W. Bush defeat Michael Dukakis. Ailes and political guru, Lee Atwater, who had earlier contracted the AILE-ment, used race-baiting as a tactic to secure the win for their candidate. The subtle and undiagnosed disease was advancing rapidly in both men. Highly contagious, it often manifested itself in excessive meanness.

Radio personality, partisan and King of Mean, Rush Limbaugh, may still not know that he has the disease. But in 1991, Ailes exposed Limbaugh, who has the addiction gene (Oxycontin ring a bell?) to the AILE-ment. Together Ailes and Limbaugh worked on a TV show, but it was short-lived. Limbaugh, of course, has returned to radio where listeners are exposed to a daily dose of the AILE-ment at work.

Following his initial association with Rush Limbaugh, Roger Ailes’ disease went into remission. But in February 1996, Ailes symptoms returned. Rupert Murdoch of News Corporation hired Ailes to create Fox News Channel set to launch on October 7, 1996.

Ailes hired a coterie of right-wing broadcasters including Matt Drudge, Sean Hannity, Oliver North and Bill O’Reilly, all who had already contracted the AILE-ment. He also hired veteran broadcaster Geraldo Rivera who appears to have some resistance to the disease.

By now Ailes disease was full-blown. Did Ailes know that something was wrong? Perhaps as a cover-up, Ailes employed one of his New York Mad Men to create the slogan for Fox News Channel: ”fair and balanced reporting.” Of course, the AILE-ment prohibits fairness and balance because that’s exactly what the afflicted patient lacks as the insidious disease attacks the brain.  

Again, the disease is highly contagious. It has spread across the airwaves. Turn on MSNBC and there is as much obsessive partisanship there as on Fox News Channel. MSNBC has caught the fever!

The other cable network, CNN, is losing viewers daily. Apparently, the disease has not reached the pandemic stage at CNN. It therefore looks weird to the American viewing public, most who have contracted the AILE-ment and no longer relate well to reasonable discussion.

Apparently, only 9% of Americans have full immunity against the AILE-ment. A 2009 Gallup assessment has found an average of 36% of Americans consider themselves Democratic, 28% Republican and 37% call themselves independent, although when pressed to say which party they lean toward, 51% of Americans identify as Democrats, 39% as Republicans.

In other words, 91% of Americans have been exposed to the AILE-ment.

Another manifestation of the AILE-ment is that Americans no longer pledge allegiance to The United States of America, but to their respective parties, an AILE-ment that is quickly bringing America to its knees.

Currently, there appears to be no effective vaccination against the disease. And there isn’t likely to be one soon. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has apparently been exposed to the AILE-ment itself. And besides, the CDC has its hands full with the H1N1 Swine Flu pandemic, for which, thankfully, there is immunization.

Unfortunately, the CDC been unsuccessful in getting the vaccination to the people in a timely matter. They must be suffering from the characteristic brain dysfunction common from their exposure to the AILE-ment, apparently getting in their way of doing things reasonably.

Halli Casser-Jayne is the author of A YEAR IN MY PAJAMAS WITH PRESIDENT OBAMA, The Politics of Strange Bedfellows. To read more of her opinions visit http://www.thecjpoliticalreport.com
c. 2009 All rights reserved.

SEN. BYRD, DIRTY MONEY & THAT OL' COMPANY STORE

Here’s a dirty little secret: The worst thing to ever happen to the State of West Virginia may be its venerable Senator Robert. C. Byrd.

While surely there is no nicer, kinder, smarter, caring but misguided man on Capitol Hill than West Virginia’s senior senator, aka the pork barrel king, Robert C. Byrd, in large measure is responsible for the fact that West Virginia ranks 49th in per capita income, can boast that Huntington West Virginia has the poorest health ranking in the country, ranks 51st of 51 states and territories who have students completing a bachelor’s degree, ranks 48th of 50 states where people have achieved a high school diploma.

On the other hand, surprisingly, West Virginia is not in the top ten states with the highest unemployment. Through Sept. 12 of this year, the state had taken 86,752 initial claims for benefits, up about 64 percent from the same point last year. Surely, this is not something to be proud of, but West Virginia has always suffered from job shortage.

And that brings me to the reason why Robert Byrd isn’t necessarily the best thing that ever happened to West Virginia.

Think coal and you’ll understand where I’m going. West Virginia is coal country and King Coal has had no better friend than the esteemed Senator. Coal has barely kept West Virginia afloat or mountaineers employed at a rate equal to that of the rest of the country. It has kept the mountain state next to last in per capita income. Yes, West Virginians are dirt-y coal poor.

But coal has made Senator Byrd a very powerful man, while it has kept most of the state stuck in a time warp. (Coal hasn’t hurt Senator Rockefeller, either). Travel to southern West Virginia where the mines thrive and you’ll feel like you’re in the depression-ridden 1920’s. Men old at age 40 sit on dilapidated porch swings tied to their oxygen tubes, their lungs riddled with black lung disease. If they wanted to, they can’t get another job because there are no other jobs in their part of the state, really, in the state at large.

Thanks to Byrd and all the other politicians in West Virginia funded by King Coal, there has been very little effort to change the dynamics of the state’s commerce. Even as the mines are automated, and mining jobs become scarcer by the day, West Virginia’s piece of the Federal pie most often goes to mining, or other projects that please the mine companies. The state’s coffers are filled with the dirty money of the coal industry, as are the deep pockets of the politicians running the state.

Recently, West Virginia hit pay dirt when Senator Byrd managed to bury more than $4.6 billion in money for the coal industry into a Senate version of the economic stimulus package. Last year Senator Jay Rockefeller added $2.8 billion for the coal industry in the massive Wall Street bailout, a dirty shame.

Imagine if in his over fifty years in the Senate, Byrd had put his efforts to bringing real commerce to The Mountain State. Instead, he is mostly responsible for pork projects like fisheries throughout the state that employ only a few. Only recently he brought the FBI, Coast Guard and the National Wildlife Training Center to the Eastern Panhandle, which, by the way, the rest of West Virginia doesn’t even consider part of its state. Here it is 2009, and not much has changed in West Virginia in half a century.

You could probably say the same thing for the rest of the coal producing states. No fewer than 25 states produce coal, which not only generates income, jobs and tax revenue, but provides a disproportionately large share of their energy. Yet, what was once a gift horse is now an albatross around the coal-producing states. Coal is dirty in every way: for our air, for our heating, for our politicians.

If you live as long as Senator Byrd, 91 years, you’re bound to see changes. And whether Senator Byrd, the State of West Virginia or King Coal likes it or not, the change is now. Coal is under fire by the environmentalists, as well it should be.The United Nations Climate Change Treaty was adopted in 1992. It committed the world to “avoiding dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate system.” Yet, since that time, greenhouse-gas emissions have continued to rise.

The United States has proved to be the biggest foot-dragger, snubbing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and refusing to implement any effective domestic emissions controls.For these dirty truths, you can thank Senator Byrd and the leaders in the other coal producing states. Again, their power is fired by King Coal.

As we head into the global summit in Copenhagen in December to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the U.S. is once again the focus of unease. American politics remain strongly divided over climate change – though President Barack Obama has new opportunities to break the coal-jam…but for Senator Byrd and the other leaders of the coal-producing states who stand in his way.

Sadly, President Obama has announced he will not speak in Copenhagen, but will instead collect his Nobel Prize in Oslo, where he says he will address climate change, in deference to Senator Byrd and his coal-powered associates?Robert Byrd, of course, has done much good for his state. But he sold his soul to the company store a longtime ago. Nevertheless, he may be finally seeing through the dirty smoke hovering over the Blue Ridge Mountains and the land he claims to love.

In a recent coal-dust-up with the Massey Energy Company, the largest producer of Central Appalachian coal -- led by the unrelenting villainous character Don Blankenship -- over the refusal of the company to pay to move an elementary school in the contamination field of a Massey project, Byrd spit coal fire at Massey for what he called Massey’s "disregard for human life and safety."

"Let me be clear about one thing -- this is not about the coal industry or their hard-working miners," Byrd said. "This is about companies that blatantly disregard human life and safety because of greed. That is never acceptable."

Byrd, by the way, the son of a coal minor, added, "At a time when coal is under such close scrutiny, coal companies operating in West Virginia should be working together to put their best foot forward.”

Not completely un-self-serving, but proof that at, 91, Senator Robert C. Byrd is not too old to learn dirty new tricks.coal,