Dick Morris Calls Citizens to Action to Stop Granting Freedom to Terrorist, Oscar Lopez

“On Wednesday, January 5th, the U.S. Parole Commission is taking up the possible release of Oscar Lopez — the founder and leader of the Puerto Rican terrorist group FALN. Under Lopez, the FALN has carried out numerous terrorist bombings including the famous attack on Fraunces Tavern in New York City in which several police officers were killed.

When President Clinton offered Lopez clemency in 1999, if he agreed to refrain from violence, he refused and opted to stay in prison instead. To release this dangerous criminal in a bow to political correctness would to be to spit on the graves of his victims.

Time is urgent. Please immediately contact the Department of Justice and the United States Parole Commission. Contact information is below. Also, please call your Congressperson and Senators at 202-224-3121.

The inmate’s name is Oscar Lopez and his Federal Inmate number is 87651-024.”

  

The following is a review of Mr. Lopez’ activities in an article by Joseph F. Connor at Big Peace.

During the 1970s and 80s, this socialist revolutionary presided over a clandestine terror network that, among other things, attacked American civilians with over 130 bombs, proudly claimed responsibility for cold blooded murders, prostituted the Episcopal Church in Chicago and New York to cover and promote their terror activities and were trained by a surrogate of Castro’s Cuban Intelligence agency.

This terrorist is none other than FALN patriarch and co-founder Oscar Lopez Rivera (Federal Inmate 87651-024), who along with his Islamic contemporary Yasser Arafat, is one of the fathers of modern terrorism, pre-cursing the horrors of 9/11 and the world wide terror war we fight today.

Despite the propaganda by supporters claiming this group was “non violent,” Lopez’s Puerto Rican terrorist group, The Armed Forces for National Liberation (FALN) waged war against the citizens of the United States from 1974 to 1983, wounding scores and murdering six including my 33 year old father, Frank Connor, at the infamous January 24, 1975 lunchtime bombing of NYC landmark restaurant, Fraunces Tavern.  More than ironically, twenty six years later our father’s 41 year old god son Steve Schlag was killed in the north tower on 9/11 as my brother and I helplessly witnessed the attacks from our downtown offices; only blocks from both the World Trade Center and Fraunces.

Through dogged investigative work by the FBI, Chicago Police and NYPD, Lopez, like the other FALN members was apprehended, arrested, convicted and sentenced to 55 years in prison for the commission of Federal crimes.  Those crimes included carrying firearms during the commission of seditious conspiracy and interference with interstate commerce by violence, interstate transportation of firearms with intent to commit seditious conspiracy, interference with interstate commerce by violence and interstate transportation of a stolen vehicle.

As former FBI agent Rick Hahn points out in his upcoming book, Terror’s Dawn, “At trial, the jury deliberated less than six hours before delivering their verdict:  Guilty on all counts.  Lopez, claiming a “prisoner of war” position, refused to be present when the verdict was read. Less than three weeks later Lopez was sentenced.  In sentencing judge McMillan heaped his disgust upon him.  Perhaps recalling Lopez’ mendacity before the jury in his opening remarks, he referred to Lopez as “incorrigible” “unreconstructed” and “unfit.” “You are an un-rehabilitated revolutionary” McMillan said, “There’s no point in giving you anything less than a heavy sentence.”  With that, McMillan sentenced him to fifty five years.

Lopez responded angrily, saying: “…You can call me a terrorist, a criminal, whatever you want.  But this is a political trial, a lie and a farce.”  Maybe because there was no audience of supporters, Lopez didn’t threaten the judge or prosecutors as his fellow FALN members had.  The absence of supporters was likely due to the fact that McMillan did not give notice that the morning sentencing would take place until the evening before, leaving little time for word to spread.  In any case, for Lopez it was over.  Within days he would be moved to Leavenworth prison to serve his Federal sentence.”

But even Leavenworth would not deter Lopez.  In March 1983, three of the few remaining FALN terrorists attempted to break Lopez out of prison. Lopez had feigned illness, and was to be transferred to a hospital near the prison.   There the three terrorists would attempt an armed jailbreak of Lopez.

The FBI had been aware of the plot, and held Lopez at the prison itself. His three comrades, Edwin Cortez, Alejandrina Torres and a shadowy third conspirator, identified only as “Benjamin” returned to Chicago after the Chicago Task Force foiled the escape.  Cortez and Torres were arrested some months later after FBI surveillance caught them choosing their next bombing targets.  Despite his complicity in the escape plot, Lopez was not charged in the case.

But one escape attempt was not enough for Lopez.  In 1985, he began plotting with a small group of other individuals, including two members of “Prairie Fire”, a group with direct ties to the Weather Underground. The plan included flying a helicopter to the prison to affect Lopez’s escape.  Lopez’s list of materials to be used in the escape plot included grenades, rifles, plastic explosives, bulletproof vests, blasting caps and armor-piercing rockets. The FBI had known of the plot since the beginning, and made arrests in 1986.

For his troubles, Lopez was sentenced to an additional 15 years in prison.

Lopez was effectively locked up forever. Consequently, following the  “the economics of law enforcement” Lopez and his followers were not extradited to New York to face trial for the murders at Fraunces.

Like his 15 FALN terrorist comrades, in 1999  Lopez was offered commutation of his 55 year sentence by the Clintons, with an assist from now Attorney General Eric Holder.   The escape attempt conviction, however, was not commuted and Lopez refused clemency for any of his crimes.  Lopez, like the other FALN members up to that time , refused to recognize the jurisdiction of the United States. Unlike 14 other FALN members who ultimately accepted Holder and Clintons’ clemency, he has rightly remained in prison a silent, remorseless martyr to his twisted cause.

In recent years parole has been a possibility, but Lopez has declined a hearing. Only now that his co-founder of the FALN terror network, Carlos Torres, was released in August 2010, (under curious terms having served only 38% of his sentence) is Lopez looking for release. As the last FALN member in prison I believe he sees himself as a martyr. He now wants to be released and return to Puerto Rico or even Chicago as some kind of hero.  Currently, among the FALN, only Lopez and fugitive convicted bomber, William Morales (living under safe haven in Castro’s Cuba) have not been released or offered full clemency for their horrific crimes.

Oscar Lopez and his equally sociopathic FALN followers are no heroes but rather terrorist thugs.  My family and all of America were blind-sided by Clintons’ 1999 release of the FALN  which effectively played Russian roulette with the lives of our citizens.  We as direct victims of the FALN’s reign of terror were given no notice of the clemency offer even after we read about it in the newspapers!  Only the terrorists refusal to accept clemency for 30 days allowed us the time to act against the Clinton / Holder politically motivated, craven grants.

This time it’s different. We can see it happening and we will not sit helplessly again as terror is unleashed.

Oscar Lopez is a sworn terrorist; unrepentant and dangerous.  Moreover, he has done nothing to assist the U.S. Government or its citizens to resolve unsolved FALN crimes, including the bombing of Fraunces Tavern where four died and scores were injured.  Many more were marked for life.  Is such an unremorseful, uncooperative terrorist worthy of benevolent consideration?  That will be the question before the parole panel and really the American public.

For the sake of all Americans especially for those who now have no voice and whose blood he has on his hands like Frank Connor, please join us in demanding of the Department of Justice, United States Parole Commission and your Congressmen and Senators (contact info below; please reference inmate number 87651-024) that Lopez remain in prison and complete his richly deserved sentence.

Eric Holder’s Department of Justice

askdoj@usdoj.gov

U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001

202-353-1555

United States Parole Commission

Chairman Isaac Fulwood, Jr.
US Parole Commission
5550 Friendship Blvd.
Suite 420
Chevy Chase, MD 20815-7286,

Phone (301) 492-5990

Fax (301) 492-5307

House of Representatives

https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

United States Senate

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

“Are We Still ‘the Home of the Brave’?” Dennis Prager Asks.

“No!” summing up his article into one word……but, as always, Dennis has a lot to say here for all Americans to read:

“Last week, the National Football League called off an NFL game because it was going to snow in Philadelphia. This has not happened before. American football is played under all weather conditions. That is part of its appeal. Snow, rain, freezing temperatures — nothing stops an NFL game.

But last Sunday, the NFL and Philadelphia city officials called off the Eagles-Vikings game because of an imminent snowstorm — in order to protect fans from having to drive at that time.

Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, wrote a scathing column for the Washington Times, indicting those who called off the game. He described it as an example of the “wussification” of America.

He was right.

Sadly, this risk-averse/avoid-pain mindset is overtaking America. Anything that entails risk is to be avoided and, when possible, banned. The breast cancer drug Avastin has just been banned by the FDA because of side effect risk to some patients. Yet terminally ill breast cancer patients who understand the risks have begged to be allowed to take the drug (even Europe allows it). Peanuts and peanut butter, particularly good sources of protein for kids (because kids actually like and therefore eat peanuts and peanut butter), are banned in more and more schools because of the risk (which is far less than being killed by lightning) that peanut-allergic students may die in schools that do not ban peanuts. Desperately needed nuclear power plants are shelved because of the infinitesimally small risk of nuclear waste radiation leakage. And now an NFL game is canceled because of the risk that some fans might get into auto accidents in a snowstorm.

Americans are becoming increasingly risk-averse.

Though Rendell is a Democrat, this risk aversion comes from the left, which has made it its mission to protect people from risk. Risk may lead to pain, and the Left dreams of a pain-free life.

The most left-wing institutions in America, our universities, are therefore the most pain- and risk-averse. That is the reason for speech codes on campuses: No student should have his or her feelings hurt or ever feel “offended.” Likewise, no Christmas trees are allowed, lest a non-Christian student feel not included.

That is why Yale University Press last year decided at the last minute to cancel inclusion of the Danish cartoons of Muhammad in the very book it was about to publish about the Danish Muhammad cartoons! Too risky. The liberal university now stands for avoiding pain much more than for freedom of speech.

I have a sad confession to make. Whenever I hear or sing the national anthem, I no longer fully believe its ending — “o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” We have many freedom-loving and brave Americans — just think of those in the armed forces. But overall, risk has been banned as Americans seek to be immunized against pain.

Needless to say, the liberal Philadelphia Inquirer supported the decision to cancel the football game. And so did some of my callers who think of themselves as conservative. But all those self-identified conservative callers who supported the decision were, I noted on air, under the age of 40.

I explained to them that they have grown up in a different America than I did. The idea of telling an American that a pro football game is canceled because he might drive in bad weather strikes a conservative over 40 as demeaning. But the young have been raised without monkey bars, dodge ball or seesaws, lest they fall and hurt themselves; without “Merry Christmas,” lest it offend; protected by parents and schools from experiencing the pain of a loss in sports; being told they are wonderful when they are not; and otherwise weakening them to the point where it seems perfectly natural to cancel a football game because fans may drive in bad weather.

A listener who disagreed with me sent me an e-mail asking me how I would feel if my father drove to that game and died in an accident because emergency vehicles could not reach him in time. I responded by giving my correspondent my father’s e-mail address. I told him that I suspected that my father, who is a healthy 92 and fought for three years in World War II, would probably respond that he doesn’t recognize the America of today as the one he fought for 65 years ago.

That’s why the cancellations by the NFL and Yale University are important. Once the home of the brave, America is becoming the home of the risk-averse and the pain-avoiders. And when you are risk-averse, you are not only less brave, you are less free. With freedom comes pain, a price more and more Americans don’t want to pay.”

Comment:  With freedom, there is risk……but most guys are challenged by ‘risk’.   Gals want security…..therein lies the rub, as the great BARD wrote.   In a feminized society security abets the expansion of the State at the expense of nearly everything male, most of all, the  ‘individual’………. Dictatorships are inevitable without a strong countering code of  belief…..valuing the sacredness of the individual. 

Empty Head and Poisoned Pen of Bob Herbert at New York Times, A Priest of the Marxist ‘God’

“Get Ready For GOP Rerun” Bob Herbert opines in the New York Times”.   Dennis Prager discussed    Mr. Herbert’s column in his today’s Dennis Prager Radio Show:

“You just can’t close the door on this crowd. The party that brought us the worst economy since the Great Depression, that led us into Iraq and the worst foreign policy disaster in American history, that would like to take a hammer to Social Security and a chisel to Medicare, is back in control of the House of Representatives with the expressed mission of undermining all things Obama.

Once we had Dick Cheney telling us that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and belligerently asserting that deficits don’t matter. We had Phil Gramm, Enron’s favorite senator and John McCain’s economic guru, blithely assuring us in 2008 that we were suffering from a “mental recession.”

(Mr. Gramm was some piece of work. A champion of deregulation, he was disdainful of ordinary people. “We’re the only nation in the world,” he once said, “where all of our poor people are fat.”)

Maybe the voters missed the entertainment value of the hard-hearted, compulsively destructive G.O.P. headliners. Maybe they viewed them the way audiences saw the larger-than-life villains in old-time melodramas. It must be something like that because it’s awfully hard to miss the actual policies of a gang that almost wrecked the country.

In any event, the G.O.P. has taken its place once again as the House majority and is vowing to do what it does best, which is make somebody miserable — in this case, President Obama. Representative Darrell Issa, the California Republican who is now chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said recently on the Rush Limbaugh program that Mr. Obama was “one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times.” He backed off a little on Sunday, saying that what he really thinks is that Mr. Obama is presiding over “one of the most corrupt administrations.”

This is the attitude of a man who has the power of subpoena and plans to conduct hundreds of hearings into the administration’s activities.

The mantra for Mr. Issa and the rest of the newly empowered Republicans in the House, including the new Budget Committee chairman, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, is to cut spending and shrink government. But what’s really coming are patented G.O.P. efforts to spread misery beyond Mr. Obama and the Democrats to ordinary Americans struggling in what are still very difficult times.

It was ever thus. The fundamental mission of the G.O.P. is to shovel ever more money to those who are already rich. That’s why you got all that disgracefully phony rhetoric from Republicans about attacking budget deficits and embracing austerity while at the same time they were fighting like mad people to pile up the better part of a trillion dollars in new debt by extending the Bush tax cuts.

This is a party that has mastered the art of taking from the poor and the middle class and giving to the rich. We should at least be clear about this and stop being repeatedly hoodwinked — like Charlie Brown trying to kick Lucy’s football — by G.O.P. claims of fiscal responsibility.

There’s a reason the G.O.P. reveres Ronald Reagan and it’s not because of his fiscal probity. As Garry Wills wrote in “Reagan’s America”:

“Reagan nearly tripled the deficit in his eight years, and never made a realistic proposal for cutting it. As the biographer Lou Cannon noted, it was unfair for critics to say that Reagan was trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor, since ‘he never seriously attempted to balance the budget at all.’ ”

We’ll see and hear a lot of populist foolishness from the Republicans as 2011 and 2012 unfold, but their underlying motivation is always the same. They are about making the rich richer. Thus it was not at all surprising to read on Politico that the new head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Fred Upton of Michigan, had hired a former big-time lobbyist for the hospital and pharmaceuticals industries to oversee health care issues……………..

……..But that’s all water under the bridge. The Republicans are back in control of the House, ready to run interference for the rich as recklessly and belligerently as ever.”

Comment:  Please dear American citizens read Mr. Herbert’s article again   and hang on to its points by memory.    There is little truth to any sentence Mr. Herbert has written above.   There is inuendo galore and that is all.   Mr. Herbert has passion in his summaries which are merely age-old Marxist cliches against any group which  opposes  “Progressive” moves ‘forward’  toward  State micromanagement over  citizen lives.

Is  Bob Herbert a Marxist?    Yes, of course, for  “by his writings ye shall know his faith”.    

Does Bob Herbert believe he is a Marxist?   I would bet not.   He would claim to be a “Progressive”.   Marxism can occur only to foreigners across the seas.  

I do believe he is a racist, and that he has molded his opinions from that social and economic base.   He likely was hired by the New York Times to perpetuate his prejudices…..a reaction of those with an abundance of ‘white guilt’.    By his writings one finds him a very, very limited man.  Read him for yourself!

Dennis Prager describes  this New York Times opinion man, Bob Herbert, as a columnist who “writes mostly the same column but in different words”.   (Can’t the same  be said of Nicholas Kristof, Paul Krugman, Tom Friedman,  and Frank Rich all “GREAT PUNDITS” spewing the same themes in different words?

My claim is Leftism to  Progressivism to  Marxism…..is a natural   continuum from Atheist-Liberal to Atheist Marxist State dictatorships.   It is an inevitable transition in traditional democratic societies, for the State gains power bit-by-bit as it is given more and more control over citizen lives in the name of good works.   Leftism-Progressivism-Marxism is a religion centered upon security and feelings, the natural proclivities of the human female.  

To the Athiest-Marxist it is one thing to believe in God……..it is quite another to BE GOD, the driving force behind the Liberal-to-Marxist normal, inevitable transition.

The Left is inherently and hysterically anti-intellectual, anti-curious, anti-individual, anti-risk, anti-liberty and invents its own logic to secure its political and religious control to become our new age GOD.

Dennis insists these people “mean well.”   I believe Dennis is being generous…….’some mean well’  would be more accurate”,  I believe Dennis believes…..but that is my guess.

In America, Marxism as a Religion is entering  every human activity and expression….sports, writing, art, politics learnings, military, science, economics, dining, interpreting every attitude including the rewriting of histories.

Obamarule over America….”Rarely Has So Much Been Spent So Wantonly!”

“Can the Spending Be Stopped?”  is the question headlining the following article at the New York Post:

“President Obama’s first two years in office were for the ages: Rarely has so much been spent so wantonly with so little discernible public benefit.

Nondefense discretionary spending accounted for $434 billion of the federal budget in 2008, without widespread deprivation or riots in the streets. This was the year that then-candidate Obama promised to scour the budget line by line for waste and said in one presidential debate that his program would be a net spending cut.

In 2010, such spending was $537 billion of the budget, a 24 percent increase. Throw in the stimulus and its $259 billion of discretionary spending — a category that excludes entitlements — and the run-up is much higher. Most departments saw double-digit increases, and some saw triple-digit increases. For the federal government, 2008-2010 were the fat years.

Obama’s personal style — emotionally buttoned up and physically fit — is utterly at odds with his sloppy governance. Congress passed bills without knowing what was in them, and took the recession as warrant to spend with no serious regard to merit or consequences. The resulting bursting-at-the-seams federal behemoth is about to have its turn on “The Biggest Loser.”

The election of 2010 wasn’t about the two parties getting along, although all things being equal many people would prefer that they did; it wasn’t about defeating incumbents, although many of them lost; it was about a simple three-word slogan that captured the essence of the Republican program: “Stop the Spending.”

Since the end of the Bush administration, the Democratic plaint has been that Republicans are shameless budget poseurs. They talk like fiscal hawks, but they never deliver. The Tea Party opposes government only in theory. This line of argument will soon be abandoned in favor of the charge that Republicans are waging a cruel assault on the federal budget.

This isn’t Tom DeLay’s GOP Congress, fat and happy in Washington. It’s fired with an ardor to deliver on its promise to limit government. Nearly 90 GOP caucus members are freshmen, shaped in the crucible of the Tea Party. In this context, Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan — who has a far-reaching plan to reform taxes and entitlements — is practically the establishment.

The first order of business is to take nondefense discretionary spending back to 2008 levels. A two-year rollback doesn’t sound overly ambitious, even though it would represent more than a 20 percent cut in spending. This would be a spectacular feat, less like turning an ocean liner around than throwing it in reverse and backing it up. Every inertial force in Washington will resist this change.

House Republicans will have to match their zeal with strategic canny. The larger argument over the size of government in this country is far from settled. The Republican political goal must be to make a government-cutting agenda seem reasonable and practicable rather than the obverse of Obama’s spending recklessness. The temptation will be to try to win everything in one big throw, in a confrontation over raising the debt ceiling or shutting down the government. These are significant points of leverage, but ones that must be handled with care lest Republicans repeat the Newt Gingrich shutdown debacle of the mid-1990s.

As long as Republicans carry the public argument, the vistas of the possible will widen. If President Obama is unlikely ever to pronounce “the era of big government is over” like Bill Clinton (prematurely) did in 1995, he can’t persist in a mindless cataract of red ink, either. He’ll have to offer his own version of spending cuts, or explain why tax increases are preferable. Even he will declare the status quo intolerable.

After a carnival of spending, it is the Lenten season. It is time to reflect on and repent of our excess. The question is no longer how much more, it’s how much less. The binge is over.”

Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review.

Stratfor Report: “Egypt and the Destruction of Churches”

Over the past few days, Christian churches have been attacked in at least two countries — Nigeria and Egypt — while small packages containing improvised explosive devices were placed on the doorsteps of Christian families in Iraq. Attacks against Christians are not uncommon in the Islamic world, driven by local issues and groups, and it is unclear whether these latest attacks were simply coincidental and do not raise the threat to a new level or whether they indicate the existence of a new, coordinated, international initiative. There is a strong case to be made for the idea that there is nothing new in all of this.

Yet I am struck by the close timing of events in three distant and dispersed countries. Certainly, Egyptian intelligence services are looking for any regional connections (e.g., whether Iraqi operatives recruited the Egyptian bomber). While there have been previous bombings in Egypt, they have focused on tourists, not churches. What is important is this: If the recent attacks are not coincidental, then a coordinated campaign is being conducted against Christian churches that spans at least these countries. And it is a network that has evaded detection by intelligence services.

Obviously, this is speculative. What is clear, however, is that the attack on a church in one country — Egypt — is far from common and was particularly destructive. Egypt has been relatively quiet in terms of terrorism, and there have been few recent attacks on the large Coptic Christian population. The Egyptian government has been effective in ruthlessly suppressing Islamist extremists and has been active in sharing intelligence on terrorism with American, Israeli and other Muslim governments. Its intelligence apparatus has been one of the mainstays of global efforts to limit terrorism as well as keep Egypt’s domestic opposition in check.

Therefore, the attack in Egypt is significant for no other reason than that it happened and represents a failure of Egyptian security. While such failures are inevitable, what made this failure significant was that it occurred in tight sequence with attacks on multiple Christian targets in Iraq and Nigeria and after a threat al Qaeda made last month against Egyptian Copts. This was a warning, which in my mind increases the possibility of coordinated action, but the Egyptians failed to block it.

Egypt’s Historical Significance

Egypt is the largest Arab country, with a population of about 80 million. Cairo is the historic center of Arab culture and served as the engine shaping the Arab response to the collapse of the British and French empires. Under Gamal Abdul Nasser, the political founder of the Pan-Arab (as opposed to Pan-Islamic) movement, Egypt was a radical, militarized engine in the region. When Egypt allied with the Soviet Union in 1956, it redefined the geopolitics of the Mediterranean region. When it switched alliances in the 1970s, geopolitics changed as well. More than any other Arab country, Egypt matters. When it is assertive, it frames regional politics. When it withdraws into itself, the region becomes prey to outside forces, Islamic and otherwise.

That last major move made by Egypt was signing a peace agreement with Israel in 1979 that demilitarized the Sinai Peninsula and removed the strategic threat to Israel’s south. This in turn freed Israel to focus its primary interests to the north and to develop its economy, leaving Syria isolated and dependent on Iran. The consequences of the treaty were enormous and have defined the geopolitics of the region for a generation.

The death of President Anwar Sadat in 1981 and the subsequent elevation of Hosni Mubarak to the position led to a period in which Egyptian national strategy was frozen into place. Egypt’s core relationship was with the United States. It was secure on all external fronts. However, as Sadat’s death showed, the treaty with Israel generated resistance inside Egypt. Whereas the Egyptian regime derived from a secular Arabist point of view, for which the peace with Israel posed ideological but not theological problems, the opposition, built around the Muslim Brotherhood, was Islamist and therefore opposed to the treaty on theological grounds.

The assassination of Sadat initiated a period of intense activity by Egyptian security forces to destroy the assassins’ organization as well as Islamist forces in the country that opposed the regime and the treaty with Israel. A combination of ruthless intelligence and security services, disorganization among the Islamists and deep divisions in Egyptian society reduced the Islamist threat to the regime to a weak political force and terrorism to a fairly rare occurrence.

It was this focus on internal security that froze Egyptian foreign policy into place. First, the internal situation towered in significance over foreign policy. Second, conducting a vigorous foreign policy in the face of internal terrorism was dangerous, if not impossible. Third, the fight against Islamic radicalism was an intelligence war, and Egypt needed the intelligence cooperation of other countries, particularly the United States and Israel. The internal threat not only froze Egypt’s foreign policy but also contributed to social and economic inequality.

As a result, Egypt appeared — from the outside at least — to have disappeared from history. News from Cairo galvanized the world from the 1950s to the 1970s, but by the 1980s, Egypt had ceased to be a player in the region. Even after 2001, when all American allies were mobilized in the war against militant Islam, Egypt’s role was to control its own terrorist movement. It achieved that, which was an enormous benefit to the United States. Had Egypt radicalized, it would have been a profound strategic challenge to the United States. Far from radicalizing, Egypt became the country neither the United States nor the Israelis had to worry about.

Egypt’s Current Climate

Mubarak is old and, by some accounts, suffering from cancer. He had hoped to have his son Gamal replace him, but this has run into resistance from the political and military apparatus that supports him and that derives from the regime Nasser founded. The regime has the support of some of the population, particularly government workers who make their living from it. At the same time, there are secularists who want to see a more liberal, business-oriented regime. The argument against them has been the threat of the Islamist radicals, who had been seen as a spent force.

That’s one reason the attack on a church in Egypt is important. The argument that the Islamist threat has been dealt with is challenged by the attack, and with it the argument that the continued focus on a security state is archaic. Should there be follow-on attacks, Mubarak’s policies become re-legitimized, and can be passed on to whoever follows him as Egypt’s leader.

And this brings us to the heart of the matter. It is unclear what is stirring beneath the surface of Egypt. Whatever it might be is by necessity cautious. But radical Islamism has caught the imagination of people in other Muslim and Arab countries, and it is unreasonable to assume that it has passed Egypt by. Indeed, it was very much there until Mubarak suppressed it, and it is unlikely to have gone away.

The most vulnerable time in Egypt is the period before Mubarak leaves the scene. No firm new government will be in place, no dynamic leadership will be provided. If the radical Islamists assert themselves now, they could well draw down the wrath of the security services. In that case, they would be no worse off than they were before. But if the impending succession crisis divides an already sclerotic state, it might open the door to a resurgence of radical Islamism.

Egypt’s Political Future

This, in turn, would introduce two possibilities. In one, Egypt enters a period of internal strife and instability and the regime fails to suppress the Islamists but the Islamists fail to take power. In the other, a massive Islamist movement repudiates the Nasserite heritage and establishes an Islamic republic in Egypt. There are many countervailing forces to the second scenario, but it is not an impossible scenario in the long run, even if instability is probably the most Islamists can hope for. And there is, of course, a third scenario — an orderly succession.

Let’s consider for a moment what an Islamist Egypt would mean. The Mediterranean, which has been a strategically quiet region, would come to life. The United States would have to reshape its strategy, and Israel would have to refocus its strategic policy. Turkey’s renaissance would have to take seriously a new Islamic power in the Mediterranean. Most important, an Islamist Egypt would give dramatic impetus to radical Islam throughout the Arab world. One of the linchpins of American and European policy in the region would be gone in a crucial part of the world. The transformation of Egypt into an Islamist country would be the single most significant event we could imagine in the Islamic world, beyond an Iranian bomb.

If this were happening in most other countries, it would be a matter of relative unimportance. But Egypt used to be the dominant Arab power, and the last 20 years have been, in my view, an abnormal period. Egyptian inwardness has been driven by an effective effort to repress radical Islamists. It has taken all of the regime’s energy. But the internal dynamic in Egypt is certainly changing as the succession approaches, and the recent church attack was a rare failure of Egyptian security. If such failures were to continue, it would be difficult to predict the outcome.

For a country as important as Egypt, it is a matter to be taken seriously. It is certainly not clear how significant the attack on the church was, whether it is the beginning of something bigger. At this point, however, anything out of the ordinary in Egypt must be taken seriously, if for no other reason than because this is Egypt, Egypt matters more than most countries, and Egypt is changing.

“Egypt and the Destruction of Churches: Strategic Implications is republished with permission of STRATFOR.”

Note:   Stratfor is an excellent source for up-to-date reviews of world crises  without strident political twistings.   Please check out the website for more information.

Lefty “Fems” Organize “Prudes for Punishment” to Make Navy Captain Pay!

ABC is on the prowl.   Bad words  occurred on ship a couple years ago.   President Obama, they say, has wanted to clean up the air about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.    Some second in command guy of the air craft carrier, Enterprise, became to enterprising and put together a raunchy video together  for some guy entertainment.    ABC insists an old man shouldn’t have done that.   He should set an example for the rest of the crew…….(Which is, in truth, probably EXACTLY what he did).   I wonder what these snoops at ABC do creeping around Afghanistan for scoops.

The Captain  has distrubed the Obama constituency combine, ABC infers.  Their president must do something,,,,,it infers.   An investigation has begun.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/navy-investigate-carrier-captains-lewd-videos/story?id=12523339

I am not so sure the military should be so bigotted as to punish a Navy officer for saying words about gays used ubiquitously by gays in their communities.

Instead shouldn’t he be reminded that the wusses at ABC would go into a snit?

Wuss George Stephanopoulos Upset over Raunchy Videos on Carrier ‘Enterprise’

Poor George.  Here he is interviewing hoping to stir the fangs of a female pilot who once  formerly stirred up in her training days.   George seems to be after blood, military blood.    Raunchy videos with raunchy words had appeared on an American air craft carrier where thousands are housed.  Can you imagine that?

“Lady” George infers he wants a clean up.   Carrie Nation of 2010 with nothing better to do.  

“A series of raunchy videos created and distributed aboard an aircraft carrier have been taken out of context, a former female Navy pilot said today.

The Navy is investigating the videos, which feature the ship’s then-No.2 officer, Capt. Owen Honors, and other sailors aboard the USS Enterprise using profanity and mocking references to homosexuality.

RAUNCHY VIDEOS MADE ABOARD THE USS ENTERPRISE COULD COST COMMANDER HIS JOB!”   

 Click below to find out more about the feminizing of the American Navy by banning ‘hurt feelings’.   A Lady pilot, less wussy than George, seems to be more mature…..see what you think!

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/navy-videos-context-female-navy-flier/story?id=12527090

Lee Feran and Kirit Radia were responsible for writing the article, “Raunchy Videos….” at ABC News…..found at Drudge Report.   I am curious to know whether they were looking for a scoop to nail someone.  

Every adult American should question the wisdom of making female every corner of American life, especially the military just to satisfy leftwing priorities pandering to their victimhood crowds.   Every gay adult should be offended far less by the vulgarity of the officer’s videos that by the pandering from the feminizing Left.

Grow up, America or we won’t have any ‘men’ left to defend us.

Obama’s Plan to Socialize America and How to Stall and Stop It

by Chris Salcedo at Pajamas Media:

“How do you know when your pasta is cooked? A storied measure of how to determine if the pasta is right to eat is to throw a noodle or two against the wall. If the pasta sticks, it’s ready.

This was the Obama administration’s plan when he took office on the first week in January of 2009. The only difference was that Mr. Obama wasn’t trying to determine the fitness of his policy for digestion in the body politic. Instead his noodles, varied and numerous as they were, represented every Marxist-Leninist idea ever thought up in a liberal think tank. The “policy pasta” was flying fast and furiously with executive orders, left-wing legislation, and appointments of anti-American hacks in key positions of authority within our government.

Obama was following a blueprint laid out by Cloward and Piven. The two professors, at Obama’s Columbia University, created a plan to socialize America by overwhelming the system with government spending and entitlement demands. The strategy worked, to a large degree. Flat-footed from their consecutive defeats in the ’06 and ’08 elections, Republicans found themselves unprepared and seemingly uninterested in opposing Obama. Many went out of their way to appeal to Obama’s sense of reason  Still others tried to find a middle ground with our inexperienced president to try and temper his large lurch to the left. Others were content to get out of the way and lick their wounds.

Democrat strategist James Carville declared the GOP was dead as a viable American party for decades to come. Indeed, the GOP’s prospects looked bleak. Then something amazing happened … America got sick, and yes, tired of being that way. The people’s stomach was turning from the indigestible dish that Obama had served up. It was an extreme left-wing casserole of high unemployment, out-of-control government spending, and appeasement of America’s adversaries around the world. The people, through a healthy dose of therapeutic Tea, began to fight back. And this Tea Party breathed new life into the limp and lifeless Republican Party.

Newly invigorated by the growing unpopularity of Mr. Obama and the leaders in the left-wing Congress, Republicans found their voice and rediscovered their reasons for being. I say rediscovered because the platform was always there. It took a healthy dose of patriotic caffeine provided by the Tea to clear their eyes so they could see it. The GOP has always been and should continue to be the party of the people, a conservative party that stands up for limited government, strong national defense, and a shot at prosperity for all.

This platform is anathema to the Obama, Reid, and Pelosi agenda that’s designed to weaken America and usher in a new era of 2nd world status for our people. With the historic 2010 elections, Republicans were given a second chance to live up to their conservative roots and be the party that will once again fight to keep our light of freedom ablaze for all the world to see.  But they must be willing to do something that up until this point they’ve been unwilling to do: beat the president at his own game.

The GOP ought to adopt the “Spaghetti Strategy.” Republicans now control the purse strings in the House of Representatives. They have increased power in the Senate. Though they do not have a majority, they do have a crop of so-called moderate Democrats. Experience tells us there is no such thing. These so-called moderates were all too willing to sell America into socialism when their socialist president was popular and they were not up for re-election. In 2012, that’s not the case. Many of these Democrats are up for re-election. And in typical Democrat fashion, they’ll be motivated in saving their own hides and distancing themselves from their leftist president.

Republicans ought to use the next two years to send cost-cutting, government-reducing, pro-American legislation to the president’s desk. They ought to do it weekly! The conservative pasta should fly now. If the pasta sticks, meaning if the president signs them into law, great! America wins and the 20% of Americans, Obama’s base, who identify themselves as liberals lose. If the pasta doesn’t stick, or Obama uses the veto pen, great! The 80% of Americans who do not identify themselves as liberal galvanize in further opposition to this president, making it likely he sees only one term. This is only one part of the strategy. We will need to have more cooks in the kitchen if America is to survive Mr. Obama’s first term.

The president has begun to use his office to impose his policies on the American people. He failed to win support from our elected branch of government for his more controversial plans. So Mr. Obama has begun utilizing his appointees to cram his book-learned policies down America’s throats. It doesn’t seem to matter to him that left-wing policies have never succeeded in creating prosperity anywhere on Earth they are tried. He pushes ahead anyway. The power grabs we’ve seen from the FCC (net neutrality), Medicare (“death panels”), and the EPA (imposing economically destructive cap and trade) are just the beginning. With the recent recess appointment of James Cole to the deputy attorney general post, the American people can be assured we’ll continue to see the appointment of left-wing lackeys into key positions within our government.

To go against the president on these appointments and polices is a fool’s errand. His accomplices in the press will provide the president with all the cover he needs. To date, the American press has shown little interest in vetting these people or their polices. Why should the people expect the fourth estate to behave any differently in the next two years? The GOP should target the appointees themselves. Every time one of these stooges tries to implement a controversial policy, they ought to be dragged in front of a congressional committee. They ought to be made to answer for their actions on a weekly basis if necessary. The policies they are imposing on the American people are grave and far-reaching. They ought to be made to justify them in front of the people’s elected representatives.  And they ought to be made to do so every time they try and implement one of those controversial policies.

I can remember the early days of the Obama presidency. It was very difficult to keep track of the constant left-wing barrage of policies, laws, and appointees. Complicated and massive 2,700 page bills were designed to hide the president’s intentions until it was too late. But the people found out his intentions and elected a Congress to oppose the Obama agenda. Today, the Republican Party says they’ve learned their lesson. They say they will listen to “We the People.” We’ll see. But wouldn’t it be grand if the GOP’s words end up being true?  It would mean that the people finally have their advocates in positions of power. And if that’s the case, the shouts toward the White House would ring, “It’s America’s turn, Mr. President.” We’ll now see how you like playing defense for two years.  Who knows, in an unguarded moment, the TV cameras may catch a glimpse of you as you realize that America will not give up without fighting your dark designs and agenda.

You might start to feel as we have felt these last few years; you know that sick feeling in your stomach? We got it when we realized how your policies were designed to harm our country. You will get it when you realize that all of your socialist dreams for America or the dreams of your father for America are crumbling under the weight of a renewed American patriotism. If the GOP can deliver, it will be a rather delicious irony.  The American people would finally have a chance to impose something on you for a change, Mr.  President.”

Chris Salcedo is a former anchor, news reporter and current talk show host.

Socialist Europe Confiscating PRIVATE Pension Funds

This European raid on  private pension funds article was found at Drudge Report and written by Mark Hemingway of the Washington Examiner:

“The U.S. isn’t the only place that’s facing a major pension fund crisis. The Christian Science Monitor has this alarming report:

People’s retirement savings are a convenient source of revenue for governments that don’t want to reduce spending or make privatizations. As most pension schemes in Europe are organised by the state, European ministers of finance have a facilitated access to the savings accumulated there, and it is only logical that they try to get a hold of this money for their own ends. In recent weeks I have noted five such attempts: Three situations concern private personal savings; two others refer to national funds.

The most striking example is Hungary, where last month the government made the citizens an offer they could not refuse. They could either remit their individual retirement savings to the state, or lose the right to the basic state pension (but still have an obligation to pay contributions for it). In this extortionate way, the government wants to gain control over $14bn of individual retirement savings.

The article goes on to detail other pension grabs in Bulgaria, Poland, France and Ireland. Obviously, this is a cautionary tale for America. If fiscal austerity becomes a real issue in the U.S. the way that it’s been reaching critical mass in Europe — don’t think that U.S. lawmakers regard your either your personal wealth or money they might owe you as sacrosanct. Government has a habit of looking out for itself.”

Comment:  Dear Fellow Americans, Is there  an Obama Marxist State in Your Future?

Why Can’t Democrats Get Americans to Hate the Wealthy?

“Personal well-being overshadows income inequality”….by Michael Barone at the Washington Examiner:

“Consider one conundrum in American politics. Income inequality has been increasing, according to standard statistics. Yet most Americans do not seem very perturbed by it.Barack Obama may have been elected president after telling Joe the Plumber that he wanted to spread the wealth around. But large majorities in polls approved when Obama and congressional Democrats abandoned oft-repeated campaign promises to raise taxes on high earners in the lame duck session.

Why don’t voters care more?

One reason is that economic statistics can miss important things that affect people’s lives. Wages may not have risen much since 1973, but that’s partly because the tax code encourages increased compensation in the form of benefits, including health insurance. And it’s partly because the Consumer Price Index overstated the effect of inflation in the 1970s, making 1973 wages look higher in “real dollars.”

Another is that inflation indexes can’t fully account for product improvement and technological progress. I bought my first electronic calculator in 1970 for $110. Today you can buy the same gadget for $1.99 at your local drug store. The consumer electronics widely available today at declining prices simply didn’t exist in the 1980s.

In addition, as George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen writes in the American Interest, “The inequality of personal well-being is sharply down over the past hundred years and perhaps over the past twenty years as well.” Bill Gates may have a bigger house than you do. But you have about the same access to good food, medical care and even to the Internet as he does.

Or consider something as prosaic as food. The supermarkets of the 1960s and 1970s didn’t come close to matching the amazing selection of produce, meats and exotic foods as you find in supermarkets today — and not just in high-income neighborhoods but in modest-income places all over the country.

Or clothing. Stores like Walmart, Target and Kohl’s sell good quality clothes at astonishingly low prices; you can outfit a kid in school clothes for $100 or so a year. Presidential candidate John Edwards claimed to have seen a little girl shivering in the winter because her parents could not buy a coat; you can get one for $5 at the Salvation Army.

It’s a widespread assumption in some affluent circles that ordinary Americans are seething with envy because they can’t afford to shop regularly at Neiman Marcus or Saks Fifth Avenue. My sense is that most Americans just don’t care. They’re reasonably happy with what they’ve got, and would like a little more.

So I am inclined to agree with Cowen when he writes, “The broader change in income distribution, the one occurring beneath the very top earners, can be deconstructed in a manner that makes nearly all of it look harmless.”

Cowen is worried that high earners in financial industries benefit hugely when they bet correctly but are sheltered from losses by government bailouts when they bet wrong. It’s a problem that the financial regulation bill passed by the outgoing Congress addressed but, in his opinion and those of many others I respect, did not solve.

But there’s little evidence that most Americans begrudge the exceedingly high earnings of the likes of Steve Jobs, Steven Spielberg or J.K. Rowling. We believe they have earned their success and don’t see how taking money away from them will make the rest of us better off.

We already take quite a bit. Current tax rates mean that the top 1 percent of earners account for 40 percent of federal income tax revenue — a higher percentage than in many Western European countries. Higher tax rates would probably produce more tax avoidance — rich people can adjust their affairs — and lower revenues than forecast by static economic models.

Of course, not everyone is well off in a nation where unemployment has been 9.4 percent or higher for the past 19 months. And I suspect that most Americans would be thrilled to get a 13th month of pay. But they’re not seething with envy at those who are better off.

So who does? One example is the cartoonist and author Garry Trudeau, a college classmate of George W. Bush, who has been spewing contempt for the Bushes for 40-some years. The strongest class envy in America, it turns out, may be the resentment of those who were one club above you at Yale.

Michael Barone,The Examiner’s senior political analyst, can be contacted at mbarone@washingtonexaminer.com. His column appears Wednesday and Sunday, and his stories and blog posts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com.

Comment:   Michael Barone’s articles are always a good read.