Updated: The POTUS’s Plans For ‘Palestine’

Barack Obama, Foreign Aid, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Just War

Obama’s plans for Israel: “two states living side by side in peace and security – a Jewish State of Israel, with true security for all Israelis; and a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967, and realizes the potential of the Palestinian people. … The time has come to re-launch negotiations – without preconditions – that address the permanent-status issues: security for Israelis and Palestinians; borders, refugees and Jerusalem.”

QUESTION: Contiguous? How do you make the West Bank and Gaza contiguous without making Israel unconnected?

West_Bank__Gaza_Map_2007_Settlements.1912940

QUESTION: “Occupation that began in 1967”? As far as I recall, the 1967 war was a war of aggression begun by the Arabs and won by Israel. I lived through it.

Obama: “America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.”

Well, then, if “America” objects, then that’s all there is to it.

QUESTION: Why bring up “borders, refugees and Jerusalem” if the POTUS’ goal is not to get Israel to go back to the 1967 line, absorb self-styled Palestinian refugees (“right of return”), and divide the Jewish Capital?

All the stuff Obama liked about “Abdullah’s Plans for Israel.”

Update (Sept. 24): Conversely, I imagine that there are many countries that receive USAID but are not told what to do by Rome. The Arab countries, for example. Other than the staple stupidity about the need to democratize (and thus empower the Jihadi Muslim Brotherhood), I have never heard the US insist Egypt do this or the other. And why is aid to Israel always depicted in a different light than aid to other nations? Foreign aid is bad when given to Israel and to Egypt.

Barack's Banalities

Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, UN

He was elected based on his ability to sweetly say NOTHING MUCH AT ALL. True to character, Obama demonstrated, in the words of Ralph Nader, his prowess at “weak, waffling, wavering, and ambiguous” during his first address to the the UN.

Obama spoke for “the people of the world”: “they want change,” he declared. “Change We Can Believe In,” naturally. He warned his fellow con men and women against being “on the wrong side of history.” He heralded a “new era of engagement based on mutual interest and mutual respect”; warned against old habits; building walls instead of breaking them down; not being interconnected; hip to climate change and the imperative of economic justice. Blah, blah, blah.

Toughness he demonstrated by shaking a fleeting fist at North Korea and Iran and denouncing anti-Americanism (where did that come from?).

As expected, Barack The Banal waffled about the World As One. And he felt sufficiently at home to use a dread expression to described the “world order” America was demanding.

I almost forgot: Gadhafi clapped. Fidel Castro approved.

Barack’s Banalities

Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, UN

He was elected based on his ability to sweetly say NOTHING MUCH AT ALL. True to character, Obama demonstrated, in the words of Ralph Nader, his prowess at “weak, waffling, wavering, and ambiguous” during his first address to the the UN.

Obama spoke for “the people of the world”: “they want change,” he declared. “Change We Can Believe In,” naturally. He warned his fellow con men and women against being “on the wrong side of history.” He heralded a “new era of engagement based on mutual interest and mutual respect”; warned against old habits; building walls instead of breaking them down; not being interconnected; hip to climate change and the imperative of economic justice. Blah, blah, blah.

Toughness he demonstrated by shaking a fleeting fist at North Korea and Iran and denouncing anti-Americanism (where did that come from?).

As expected, Barack The Banal waffled about the World As One. And he felt sufficiently at home to use a dread expression to described the “world order” America was demanding.

I almost forgot: Gadhafi clapped. Fidel Castro approved.

The Price Of The Parasitical Class

Business, Debt, Government, Labor, Politics, Regulation, Socialism, Taxation, The State

Maybe the following sobering statistics will penetrate the thick skulls of those who crave the creation of new government departments filled with workers who are free to pay themselves very generous packages, out of tax dollars, while looking forward to retiring a decade sooner than the stiffs who support them; and providing, in return, that stellar service for which the US Postal Service has become famous. Ah, for a government job!

The obscene numbers come courtesy of the “The Free Enterprise Nation”:

• When wages and benefits are combined, federal civilian workers averaged $119,982 in 2008, twice the average compensation of $59,909 for private sector workers.
• A State of California retiree gets an annual pension of $500,000
• A driver’s education teacher in Illinois gets a $170,000 annual salary and $120,000 annual pension.
• In New York, some city workers amass more than $100,000 in overtime during their last year before retirement to create a monthly pension higher than their salary.
• 420 of Illinois’s physical education teachers, 332 English teachers and 94 driver’s education teachers make more than $100,000 a year, with salaries for each position topping out at more than $160,000 a year.
• A senior citizen in Houston, Texas would find their number of police officers has remained the same for six years running, despite a 40 percent budget increase to cover higher salaries, pension and healthcare benefits.
• A small business receiving an IOU in California might be surprised to learn that in 2008, 40 percent of Vallejo’s 613 employees had salaries greater than $100,000 a year, the same year the city filed for bankruptcy.
• In Fort Worth, Texas, one police chief recently retired at age 55 with a guaranteed annual pension of $188,692. His successor retired at age 52 with an annual pension of $113,614. In the Northeast, two University of Connecticut professors are currently collecting six-figure pensions while simultaneously collecting a six-figure salary.

There are 115 million workers in the private sector, a portion of whom carry 20 million of these pampered parasites on their backs. (Yes, Republicans: Your beloved police and military are numbered among them!)

ANY PUNDIT WHO preaches, as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow does nightly, more bureaucracies, should have to hear from YOU. Flood their miserable cable station with indignant letters.

“The Free Enterprise Nation” “is beginning a national effort to unite more than 5 million businesses with 115 million employees and everyday citizens to fight excessive government spending on a bureaucracy too big to sustain.”

The Free Enterprise Nation represents the economic interests of the businesses and employees who are taxed to provide government and public education employees higher wages and pension benefits, 10 to 25 years sooner, than can be provided in the private sector. The effort launched today with a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal to be followed by full-page ads in Inc., FORTUNE Small Business, Forbes, and Fast Co.