Putin's Visit and Israeli-Russian Relations

A very interesting post from http://www.stratfor.com/  about Putin trying to drag the U.S. into a Middle East War. This follows this post about the Eurozone's problems. This follows this article about American energy independence and preventing money from going to hostile countries such as Iran and Venezuela. For more that you can do to get involved click HERE and read this very interesting book HERE!


Putin's Visit and Israeli-Russian Relations





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Stratfor

By George Friedman



Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Israel on June 25 for his first state visit since retaking the presidency. The visit was arranged in mid-May, and so at least part of the agenda was set, given events in Syria and Egypt. The interesting thing about Israel and Russia is that while they seem to be operating in the same areas of interest and their agendas seem disconnected, their interests are not always opposed. It is easy to identify places they both care about but more difficult to identify ways in which they connect. It is therefore difficult to identify the significance of the visit beyond that it happened.



An example is Azerbaijan. Russia is still a major weapons provider for Azerbaijan, but the Israelis are now selling it large amounts of weapons and appear to be using it as a base from which to observe and, according to rumors, possibly attack Iran. Russia, which supports Armenia, a country Azerbaijan fought a war with in the late 1980s and early 1990s and technically still is at war with, ought to oppose Israel's action, particularly since it threatens Iran, which Russia does not want attacked. At the same time, Russia doesn't feel threatened by Israeli involvement in Azerbaijan, and Israel doesn't really care about Armenia. Both are there, both are involved and both think Azerbaijan is important, yet each operates in ways that ought to conflict but don't.



The same is true in the more immediate case of Syria, where its downing of a Turkish plane has created an unexpected dynamic for this visit. To think about this we need to consider Russian and Israeli strategy and its odd lack of intersection in Syria.



Russia's Need for a U.S. Distraction

Russia has complex relationships in the region, particularly focused on Syria and Iran. Russia's interest in both countries is understandable. Putin, who has said he regarded the breakup of the Soviet Union as a geopolitical catastrophe, views the United States as Russia's prime adversary. His view is that the United States not only used the breakup to extend NATO into the former Soviet Union in the Baltics but also has tried to surround and contain Russia by supporting pro-democracy movements in the region and by using these movements to create pro-American governments. Putin sees himself as being in a duel with the United States throughout the former Soviet Union.



The Russians believe they are winning this struggle. Putin is not so much interested in dominating these countries as he is in being certain that the United States doesn't dominate them. That gives Russia room to maneuver and allows it to establish economic and political relations that secure Russian interests. In addition, Russia has tremendously benefited from the U.S. wars in the Islamic world. It is not so much that these wars alienated Muslims, although that was beneficial. Rather, what helped the Russians most was that these wars absorbed American strategic bandwidth.



Obviously, U.S. military and intelligence capabilities that might have been tasked to support movements and regimes in Russia's "near abroad" were absorbed by conflict in the Islamic world. But perhaps even more important, the strategic and intellectual bandwidth of U.S. policymakers was diverted. Russia became a secondary strategic interest after 9/11. While some movements already in place were supported by the United States, this was mostly inertia, and as the Russians parried and movements in various countries splintered, the United States did not have resources to respond.



The Russians also helped keep the United States tied up in Afghanistan by facilitating bases in Central Asia and providing a corridor for resupply. Russia was able to create a new reality in the region in which it was the dominant power, without challenge.



The Russians therefore valued the conflict in the Middle East because it allowed Russia to be a secondary issue for the only global power. With the war in Iraq over and the war in Afghanistan ending, the possibility is growing that the United States would have the resources and bandwidth to resume the duel on the Russian periphery. This is not in the Russian interest. Therefore, the Russians have an interest in encouraging any process that continues to draw the United States into the Islamic world. Chief among these is supporting Iran and Syria. To be more precise, Russia does not so much support these countries as it opposes measures that might either weaken Iran or undermine the Syrian government. From the Russian point of view, the simple existence of these regimes provides a magnet that diverts U.S. power.



Israel's Position on Syria

This brings us back to Putin's visit to Israel. From the Russian point of view, Syria is not a side issue but a significant part of its strategy. Israel has more complex feelings. The regime of Syrian President Bashar al Assad, while the Soviets were allied with it, represented a significant danger to Israel. With the fall of the Soviet Union, Syria lost its patron and diminished as a threat. Since then, the Syrians under al Assad had two virtues from the Israeli point of view. The first was that they were predictable. Their interests in Lebanon were built around financial and political goals that could be accommodated by the Israelis in exchange for limitations on the sorts of military activity that Israel could not tolerate. Furthermore, Syria's interests did not include conflict with Israel, and therefore Syria held Hezbollah in check until it was forced out of Lebanon by the United States in 2005.



The second advantage of the al Assad regime in relation to Israel was that it was not Sunni but Alawite, a Shiite sect. During the 2000s, Israel and the West believed the main threat emanated from the Sunni world. Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas were all Sunni. Over the past decade, a corrupt minority Alawite regime has appeared preferable to Israel than a coherent majority radical Islamist regime in the north. It wasn't certain how radical it would be, but at the same time there appeared to be more risk on the Sunni side than on the Shiite side.



Israel's position on the al Assad regime has shifted in the past year from hoping it would survive to accepting that it couldn't and preparing for the next regime. Underlying this calculus was a reconsideration of which regime would be more dangerous. With the withdrawal of the United States from Iraq and with Iran filling the vacuum that was left, Iran became a greater threat to Israel than Hamas and the Sunnis. Therefore, Israel now desires a Sunni regime in Syria that would block Iranian ambitions.



In this sense, Israeli and Russian interests continue to diverge. At the same time, the Israelis are aware that they have very little influence over what happens in Syria. They are bystanders hoping that things work out for them. Whether they favor this or that faction in Syria matters little. Indeed, open Israeli support for any faction can hurt that side. Therefore, Syria is a demonstration of the limits of Israeli power. What happens in Syria matters a great deal, but Israel lacks the power and influence to have an impact.



Coinciding Interests

The Russians do have some power and influence. The weapons they supply to the Syrian government can help the regime survive. Their ability to block or circumvent sanctions helps both Iran and Syria. Russia cannot impose a solution, but it may be able to create the circumstances under which the United States is drawn in and diverted. At the same time, it must be remembered that Russia has its own problem with Islamic in the northern Caucasus. These groups are mostly Sunni, but there are a wide variety of Sunnis. While the Russians want to prevent a radical Sunni group in Syria, they could on this level live with a more moderate Sunni group if they cannot keep al Assad or his regime in power.



Putin's visit is intended to make the United States nervous and to try to lay the groundwork for shifts in Israel's relation to Russia that could pay off in the long run. The Israelis, however, do have things they need from Putin. They cannot control regime change in Syria, but to some extent Russia can. And here Israeli and Russian interests coincide. Israel would tolerate the survival of the al Assad regime as long as Syria does not become an Iranian satellite.



Russia could counterbalance Iran if al Assad's regime survived. If, on the other hand, his regime fell, Israel and Russia both have an interest in a moderate Sunni regime. This is where Russia must make a decision -- assuming it has the power to affect the outcome. In the long run, a moderate Sunni regime is in its interest. In the short run, it wants a regime that creates the greatest unease for the United States -- that is, either the al Assad regime as an Iranian asset or a radical Islamist regime.



There is a point where all this comes together. Turkey has decided, in response to the downing of its aircraft, to call a meeting of NATO. Turkey is not prepared to unilaterally intervene in Syria, but having lost an aircraft it could ask for a NATO intervention of some sort. Turkey has been hostile to al Assad from early on, and this gives it the opportunity to invoke the alliance under its common defense policy.



How NATO will respond is unknown, save that the rhetoric will be intense and the desire for combat restrained. Neither Russia nor Israel would be upset by a NATO intervention. From the Russian point of view, a NATO intervention involving large amounts of U.S. forces would be the best it could hope for, especially if NATO gets bogged down, as tends to happen in such interventions. From the Israeli point of view, having NATO take responsibility for Syria would be the best possible outcome by far.



Of course, this was not on the table when the Israeli-Russian meeting was set up. At that time, the meeting was meant to explore the differences on subjects such as Syria. But with recent events, the benefits of possible NATO involvement, however unlikely, are something that Russia and Israel agree on. Of course, neither is a member of NATO, and getting any NATO country to commit troops to Syria is unlikely. But what was likely to be a pointless discussion now has some point.



Israel would like Russia as a mild counterweight to the United States but without disrupting relations with the United States. Russia would like to have additional options in the Middle East beyond Iran and Syria but without alienating those states. Neither is likely. When we dig into the strange relationship between two countries deeply involved in each other's areas of interest yet never quite intersecting, an answer begins to emerge.



There is little conflict between Russia's and Israel's interests because neither country is nearly as powerful as it would like to be in the region. Russia has some options but nothing like it had during the Cold War. Israel has little influence in the outcome in Syria or in Egypt.



Still, it is in the interest of both countries to make themselves appear to be weightier than they are. A state visit should help serve that purpose.





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Sailer On Buchanan’s SUICIDE OF A SUPERPOWER: Bareknuckle Brawler and Wisest, Most Objective Man In American Public Affairs

A very interesting article from www.Vdare.com  about this book by Pat Buchanan. This follows this previous post about it.  This follows this post about Marco Rubio's DREAM Act. This follows this post about the Black Caucus hurting Black Americans with their immigration stand. This follows this post about how to Report Illegal Immigrants! For more that you can do to get involved click HERE and you can read another very interesting book HERE!

Sailer On Buchanan’s SUICIDE OF A SUPERPOWER: Bareknuckle Brawler and Wisest, Most Objective Man In American Public Affairs


http://www.vdare.com/articles/sailer-on-buchanan-s-suicide-of-a-superpower

By Steve Sailer
[See also: Buchanan's Suicide of a Superpower: Opening The Eyes Of Uninformed Patriots, by Alexander Hart]

Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025? Patrick J. Buchanan’s eleventh book, documents with vivid details and acute quotes how, among other globalist mistakes, state-sponsored demographic-replacement via mass immigration is undermining the social cohesion and trust that is absolutely required if Americans are to govern themselves in a Republic.

Buchanan is not upbeat in his assessment of the perils self-inflicted by America's "welfare-warfare state"—"Globalization dissolves the bonds of economic dependency that held us together as a people, as the cacophony of multiculturalism drowns out the old culture". But Suicide of a Superpower's very existence, much less its position on the bestseller lists, raises the cheering question of however Pat's career has survived since William F. Buckley Jr. issued a fatwa against him in 1991.

The same can't be said for several other conservative intellectuals decreed verboten by Buckley, such as the late Joe Sobran. So how has Buchanan managed to stay afloat in an age of politics by character assassination?

One thing to keep in mind about Pat's career: he's a great guy. He's one of the kindest, most considerate people in public life. (Full disclosure: Pat quotes me several times, citing my VDARE.com articles on the “racial ratio”—Affirmative Action beneficiaries vs. benefactors i.e. losers—and the real meaning of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores among others).

Buchanan has made himself into exactly what you would want in a political intellectual: famously pugnacious in argument, but a gentleman who fights fair and feels the other side is entitled to its say. He wants to win arguments, but not suppress and personally destroy his opponents.

In his new book, Buchanan laments that in 21st Century America:



"The crudeness of our public debate is matched by its incivility. In politics it is insufficient to defeat an opponent. One must demonize, disgrace, and destroy him. The tradition of political foes being social friends when the sun goes down ... is passé. Today, we criminalize politics and go for the throat."[Links added]



Buchanan's genial honesty helps explain why relatively few liberal Bigfoot journalists have piled on to the two decade-long neocon jihad against him. They are ideologically closer to Buchanan’s neocon detractors, but they know from personal experience that Pat is the better man.

The subtitle of Buchanan's new book, Will America Survive to 2025?, pays tribute to Soviet dissident Andrei Amalrik's 1970 essay Will the Soviet Union Survive to 1984? (Notice the 14-year span in both.)

Amalrik predicted that a dragged-out Soviet war with China would unleash centrifugal nationalist energies and ultimately dismantle the Soviet empire's "prison house of nations."

As it turned out, the Russians blundered into war in Afghanistan rather than with China, and it took until 1991, not 1984, for the Soviet Union to dissolve into 15 countries. Nevertheless, as in horseshoes and hand-grenades, close counts when forecasting—so Amalrik deserves his renown.

In contrast to Amalrik, Buchanan's book does not explicitly predict that the U.S. will crack up. He merely concludes:



“American is entering a time of troubles. The clash of culture and creed are intensifying and both parties are perceived to have failed the nation…And the crises that afflict us—culture wars, race division, record deficits, unpayable debt, waves of immigration, legal and illegal, of people never before assimilated, gridlock in the capital, and possible defeat in war—may prove too much for our democracy to cope with. They surely will, if we do not act now.”



Clearly, our country does suffer from overstretch. The unsustainability of the bipartisan conventional wisdom of Invite-The-World, Invade-The-World, In Hock-To-The-World is obvious.

But what comes next is not. Buchanan sums up the unpredictability of the situation nicely:



"On the news of Burgoyne's defeat at Saratoga in 1777, which portended the loss of the North American colonies, John Sinclair wrote to Adam Smith in despair that Britain was headed for ruin.

"'There is a great deal of ruin in a nation,' replied Smith.

"We are severely testing Smith's proposition."



Buchanan is one of the few public figures to have taken our victory in the Cold War seriously. He'd dedicated his life to struggling against Communism and then, over a two-year stretch in 1989-1991, much of what he'd hoped for came true.

Most individuals in that situation would smugly keep on keeping on. But Buchanan quickly began advocating a new set of policies attuned to the post-Cold War world.

This has not, however, been a terribly respectable notion. He writes:



"From 1941 to 1989, America played a great role as the defender of freedom, sacrificing and serving mankind, a role of which we can be proud. But having won that epochal struggle, we found ourselves in a world for which we were unprepared. Like an aging athlete, we keep trying to relive the glory days ... As our rivals look to tomorrow, we live in yesterday."



As if trying to illustrate Buchanan's point about the pointlessness of contemporary games of empire, on Friday, October 14, President Obama announced to Congress that he was sending 100 armed U.S. troops to South Sudan, Uganda, the Central African Republic, and/or the Democratic Republic of the Congo to chase around the Lord's Resistance Army. America's newest and most random enemy ever is a gang of a few hundred juvenile delinquents who rape and pillage in the hinterlands. (Evidently, it takes a child to raze a village.)

An important element in Buchanan's good nature: he is one of the few pundits who will admit freely that his biases are tribal as well as ideological. Sportsmanship is one of Buchanan's defining traits. He's like a wise old Notre Dame fan who has no illusions that the Fighting Irish are more cosmically deserving of victory than the other football teams. But they're his team. Thus, he can discuss with perfect objectivity the prospects of other teams because he isn't the puerile kind of fan who furiously argues that his team should win. He just wants them to win.

Buchanan, advisor to three Presidents and winner of a New Hampshire presidential primary, has been "in the arena" (to use Teddy Roosevelt's phrase) since the 1960s. Active engagement for decades with the political process typically narrows the imagination and constricts the soul. (To see what I mean, just read skeptically Matt Bai's long, sympathetic article Does Anyone Have a Grip on the G.O.P.? on Republican Establishment operatives like William Kristol and Vin Weber in last week's New York Times Magazine.)

Buchanan's career in politics goes back to Richard Nixon's comeback in the mid-1960s. Unlike so many others, however, Buchanan has emerged from all those years and all those conflicts wiser, more judicious, more empathetic, more broadly informed, and more principled.

In contrast, neoconservatism, which strikes neutral observers as equally tribal in motivation, has unleashed so much violence over the last decade precisely because of its pretenses to universal benevolence. If you root for some other team than the neocons root for, well, that's not just an accident of birth, as Buchanan understands. Instead, to a neocon, rooting for the wrong team is proof that you are, as Richard Perle and David Frum used to say, evil.

Worse, you aren't supposed to get the joke when it comes to neoconservatism. If you realize why neocon claims to be repairing humanity are funny, you are worse than evil.

As Buchanan mentions in a brief aside:



"Neonconservatism, which shares attributes with the Trotskyism that is one of its roots, is one of the new ideologies to have seized the imagination of those seeking a cause ...



But, in Suicide of a Superpower, Buchanan isn't out to kick the neocons while they are deservedly down. He merely concludes, dryly:



"The conversion of George W. Bush to neoconservatism was not without consequence."



Buchanan's sportsmanship helps make him a strikingly unsentimental observer of American history. For example,



"No one would suggest the Indian wars were about equality. There were about conquest and subjugation."



He's glad his team won, but that doesn't justify spinning how it was done.

Similarly, Buchanan sees no reason to be furtive about the fact that House Republicans triumphed in 2010 "because white America came out to vote and minorities and the young stayed home." In Chapter 9, "The White Party," he explains in detail how the GOP (or, more properly, what Peter Brimelow calls “GAP”, Generic American Party) can win again in 2012 with the same dynamic.

As Buchanan argues, strategies aimed at turning out the Republican Party's white base are the best bet for winning in the short run. In the (very) long run, however, as Buchanan notes in his lapidary prose:



"Either the Republican Party puts an end to mass immigration, or mass immigration will put an end to the Republican Party."



To see how much the Establishment Republicans and Establishment Media don't want to talk about immigration, consider once again Bai's New York Times article about Washington G.O.P. insiders' views on Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and other candidates. Although there are 7,179 words in the article, not a single word is "immigration." And Bai published this after Rick Perry blew his lead in the race largely over immigration.

In contrast, in a subsection entitled "A Moratorium on Immigration," Buchanan offers a seven-point plan:



"A moratorium on new immigration until unemployment falls to 6 percent. To bring in foreign workers when 23 million Americans are still underemployed or out of work is to put corporate profits ahead of country."

Reform legal immigration in the long run to bring in those most easily assimilated.

Finish the fence.

Declare that there will never be an amnesty and begin deportations, starting with drunk drivers.

Congress should pass a law denying citizenship to anchor babies, and add an attachment that "the law is not subject to review by any federal court, including the U.S. Supreme Court."

Begin high profile immigration raids on egregious scofflaw employers.

Pass a constitutional amendment "making English the official language of the United States."

If not now, when?

One of Buchanan's important tactical points: in 2008, John McCain won only 45 percent of the Catholic vote, which comprised 27 percent of the electorate. He writes:



"If Republicans can raise their 2012 nominee's share of the Catholic vote from 45 to 52 percent—what Bush won against Kerry and the party won again in 2010—that seven-point gain would add more votes than going from 20 percent of the Jewish vote to 100 percent. Which one of these feats is easier for the party to accomplish?"



Buchanan, who is German Catholic on his mother's side and Scots-Irish on his father's, helped Reagan win over Reagan Democrats—typically, northern metropolitan Catholics.

But the plain fact is that the current generation of Republican strategists don't have much of a plan for benefiting this demographic (other than, apparently, putting them on the Supreme Court). Yet Obama's collapse in the polls with white Americans in mid-2009 coincided with his tangling with—and losing to—two stereotypical Reagan Democrats. As Buchanan says:



"If the GOP is not the party of New Haven firefighter Frank Ricci and Cambridge cop James Crowley, it has no future."



Notice that Obama's decision to nominate Sonia Sotomayor, who had voted to cheat Ricci out of his promotion because he's white, and Obama's imputation of racism to Crowley, weren't part of some brilliant Republican master plan. They were just gifts that fell into the G.O.P.'s lap. And they then paid off remarkably in Massachusetts later than year, when Republican Scott Brown won the late Ted Kennedy's Senate seat.

However, reviving the Reagan Democrat strategy—in essence, what VDARE.com calls “The Sailer Strategy”—does raises a tricky issue for Republicans that Buchanan doesn't dwell upon. Let me delve further into it.

The typical Republican voter's reaction to the election of a President with a black activist past to the White House has been to emphasize libertarian small-government ideology to ward off charges of “racism”, while trying to prevent the Obama-led Democratic Party from redistributing their wealth to its client constituencies. Thus, for example, Herman Cain has risen to near the top of the 2012 Republican pack at present by being a black Tea Party candidate.

The ire of Republicans has thus been directed toward schoolteachers and, to a lesser but growing extent, public safety employees. Big City workers like teachers and firemen, in the sort of jobs that require degrees or passing tests, both 1) use up a lot of tax dollars and 2) tend to be whiter than the cities they serve—making them a relatively safe target for Republicans terrified of accusations of racism.

But if the Republicans really are the "white party," as Democratic chairman Howard Dean gaffed, these white v. white conflicts are counter-productive. What’s needed, from a GOP/ GAP standpoint, is white solidarity.

Let's consider from a Buchananian perspective the latest article by the outstanding journalist Michael Lewis (Moneyball, The Blind Side, and The Big Short), is called "California and Bust" in the November issue of Vanity Fair.

Lewis is emerging as the voice of the "frequent flyer" class of Republican-leaning corporate middle managers. He tries to explain California's dire finances by focusing on the fire department in Vallejo, the San Francisco Bay Area municipality that famously managed to go legally bankrupt in May 2008.

Lewis has an entirely legitimate complaint about the fire department's pay. But it's also worth noting a fascinating fact about Vallejo that Lewis leaves out of his story: it's a perfect emblem of California not just because it's broke, but because it's so extraordinarily diverse.

Buchanan laughingly quotes Dan Quayle telling the Japanese that "diversity is our strength." Vallejo, therefore, ought to be the strongest city in America because it may have the most uniformly diverse population: 25 percent Asian (mostly Filipino), 23 percent Hispanic, 22 percent black, and eight percent multiracial. [VDARE.com note: Also 32.8 percent white, but that doesn't count towards diversity.]

So in the Quayle-echoed conventional wisdom, which Lewis doesn't dare challenge directly, Vallejo should be paradise. After all, as one resident told Lewis, Vallejo is “a boat ride to San Francisco. You throw a stone and you hit Napa.”

And Vallejo has already arrived at that long-awaited nirvana of a Benetton commercial come to life, an entire city out from under the iron fist of White Majority Rule.

But instead, as Buchanan's framework would predict, Vallejo epitomizes dysfunctionality. Suicide of a Superpower devotes several pages to liberal Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam's landmark survey of 40 American communities:



"After thirty thousand interviews, Putnam concluded that ethnic and racial diversity devastates communities. In diverse communities, people not only do not trust strangers, they do not trust their own kind. They withdraw into themselves, they support community activity less, they vote less."



There are several obvious reasons why diversity diminishes community effectiveness.

First, as Buchanan notes, "Anyone who has been in a debate on a racially charged issue like the false allegations of the rape of a black woman by members of the Duke lacrosse team knows how fast the room temperature can rise." Few people combine Buchanan's good manners with his ability to not take matters personally, so they'd rather stay home than debate in a diverse setting.

Second, immigrants from corrupt countries like Mexico and the Philippines expect public affairs to be crooked and ineffectual, so they organize their lives around their clans and don't try hard to be good citizens.

Third, and most fundamentally, diverse people, by definition, want diverse results—so they are more likely to wind up at loggerheads than a homogenous people.

Diversity thus makes public affairs ripe for exploitation by highly unified groups, such as, in Lewis' article on California, the prison guard's union and local firemen. Lewis's reporting on how Vallejo's fire department is an island of cohesion in a sea of anomie is excellent. Vallejo's fire chief Paige Meyer recalls that when he was a young lifeguard: "He started talking to firefighters and found that 'they all absolutely loved what they did. You get to go and live and create a second family.[VDARE.com note: I. E. A Band of Brothers.] How can you not like that?'”

Moreover, because the vibrant residents of Vallejo tend to set their houses on fire more frequently than the duller residents of less diverse Northern Californian communities, the Vallejo FD attracted some of the most gung-ho firefighters from all over the region.

Not surprisingly, the Vallejo fire department—a rare institution in Vallejo with a high degree of what Putnam calls "social capital," or espirit de corps among its employees—managed to outmaneuver the divided and listless citizenry in grabbing a slice of the pie bigger than could be afforded by the populace's mediocre ability to generate wealth.

Of course, one of the most important services to the Republic the aroused citizens of the Tea Party can perform is to do what wasn't done in Vallejo: to subject government employee contracts to the gimlet eye.

But on the other hand, white firemen and cops are the archetypal Reagan Democrats. So, it doesn't make sense for the GOP to declare total war on a crucial segment of swing voters.

Republicans need to offer Reagan Democrats something in exchange.

Fortunately, there's an obvious, principled solution that would be a political winner for Republicans: in return for not letting public employee unions loot the public purse, protect white government employees from racial discrimination by Democrats.

If you want a cost-effective government, don't pay the employees too much and don't make them hire deadwood just because of the color of their skin.

That's a winning electoral proposition.

Buchanan also observes that polls show that young people, a demographic that Republicans lost badly in 2008, are more highly averse to affirmative action than are older voters.

To an old cynic like me, racial preferences for African-Americans seem to be unavoidable. But we can't afford to continue to lavish it on the ever-growing number of immigrants. So it's easy for me to forget that young idealists tend to find the very existence of quotas unjust. It is, after all, contrary to all that content-of-their character rhetoric.

There’s a perfect opportunity for Republicans to make these points: protest the current discrimination ruling against the Fire Department of New York—which, you might remember, sacrificed 343 men on 9/11. A Clinton-appointed judge threw out the hiring of hundreds of new firemen because whites had studied how to put out fires too hard.

That's racist!

With Obama in the White House, the public is getting sick of accusations of “racism”. The FDNY is a place to make a stand.

But is even one Republican talking about the FDNY? They're still too worried about being called “racist” to dare raise it.

In fact, it was a Bushbot Republican Affirmative Action-appointment, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, who filed this ludicrous case back in the carefree days of 2007.

It's time for the Republican Party to wake up the fact that it's 2011 now.

In summary, Buchanan, who has always pictured himself as a bare-knuckled brawler, is now perhaps the wisest, most objective-minded man in American public affairs. That's a tremendous personal accomplishment.

It's also, as Pat would be the first to admit, a little scary in what it says about our civic life.

Steve Sailer (email him) is movie critic for The American Conservative. His website www.iSteve.blogspot.com features his daily blog. His book, AMERICA’S HALF-BLOOD PRINCE: BARACK OBAMA’S "STORY OF RACE AND INHERITANCE", is available here.]

SCOTUS On Arizona’s SB 1070: A Victory…If Immigration Patriots Can Make It One

A very interesting post from http://www.vdare.com/ about an attempt to use 1070 to improve immigration enforcement. This follows this post about attempts to stave off amnesty.  This follows this post about Marco Rubio's DREAM Act. This follows this post about the Black Caucus hurting Black Americans with their immigration stand. This follows this post about how to Report Illegal Immigrants! For more that you can do to get involved click HERE and you can read this very interesting book HERE!

SCOTUS On Arizona’s SB 1070: A Victory…If Immigration Patriots Can Make It One




http://www.vdare.com/articles/scotus-on-arizona-s-sb-1070-a-victory-if-immigration-patriots-can-make-it-one

By Washington Watcher
Some supporters and opponents of SB 1070 have claimed the Supreme Court’s ruling was a victory. And some supporters and opponents have also claimed it was a defeat. This is to be expected, as the ruling was mixed. (There’s speculation that Justices Roberts and Kennedy went relatively weak on this to give them cover—because they intend to overturn Obamacare on Thursday!)

My view: to adapt Ben Franklin, immigration patriots have a victory—if they can make it one.

The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the most controversial aspect of the legislation: Section 2(B), which requires police to look up the immigration status of suspected illegal aliens whom they encounter in the course of law enforcement. (However, it did not preclude future litigation on the application of the law, specifically on racial profiling. While this is unfortunate, it was not unexpected.)

Additionally, the Supreme Court overturned



Section 3, which criminalizes at the state level the federal crime of unlawful presence.

Section 5(C), which creates criminal penalties illegal aliens for illegal aliens who solicit or perform jobs. (But last year the court upheld state laws criminalizing the employment of illegals).

Section 6, which authorizes local police to make warrantless arrests of those they believe have committed deportable offenses.

Observant readers will note that there were only two sections and two subsections that the Court actually ruled on. But there are nine Sections of SB 1070 (technically twelve, but three are rhetorical or procedural.) The district and appellate court, whose findings the Supreme Court was reviewing, did not issue injunctions against the entire bill. Thus many important parts of SB 1070, including provisions to outlaw sanctuary cities, to crack down on illegal alien gangs and human smugglers, and to strengthen already existing laws against illegal employers, were never at issue.

Thus, even if each section were equal, it is obviously wrong to state, as some news sites are reporting, that the Court struck down “three quarters of Arizona's infamous SB 1070”—over half of the law was not even contested at the Supreme Court level.

Of course, one cannot deny that the three provisions that the court overturned would have helped fight illegal immigration on the state level.

So it is not altogether surprising that some immigration patriots are discouraged, although Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith seemed excessively distressed. He is quoted as saying:



“Unfortunately, under this Administration, today’s ruling essentially puts an end to immigration enforcement since the states no longer can step in and fill the void created by the Obama administration.”

[Smith on Arizona Supreme Court Ruling, June 25, 2012]



Treason Lobbyists like MALDEF president Thomas A. Saenz [Email him] made pretty much the same point (except he thinks it’s a good thing):



“This outcome is a resounding victory for the Constitution as the Court majority affirms longstanding law on the breadth of exclusive federal authority in the area of immigration regulation.” Saenz called the ruling a “Resounding Defeat for Arizona “

[MALDEF Responds to Supreme Court Decision in Arizona Case, June 25, 2012]



But, while there are many parts of SB 1070, the heart of the bill has always been Section 2(B)—empowering the police. President Obama himself attacked the bill almost solely over that provision, most notably when he pretended that grandparents taking their kids to get ice cream would be victimized:



“You can imagine if you are a Hispanic American in Arizona, your great grandparents might have been there before Arizona was even a state, but now suddenly if you don’t have your papers and you took your kid out to get ice cream you’re going to be harassed—that’s something that could potentially happen. That’s not the right way to go.” [President Obama Says Arizona’s “Poorly-Conceived” Immigration Law Could Mean Hispanic-Americans Are Harassed, ABC News, April 27, 2010]



And some Treason Lobby activists are indeed furious that this is still intact. Phoenix-based Latino agitator Salvador Reza complained:



“It’s a partial victory for the Obama administration, but for the people, for the Latinos in Arizona, it’s not…it’s terrible for us. Every policeman can question you after they stop you for a traffic stop. They’re doing it on an everyday basis right now.”

[Arizona immigration decision: Activists split on split decision, Reid Epstein, Politico, June 25, 2010]



From the patriot side, Russell Pearce (whom I believe will be returned to the Arizona State Senate this fall) effectively agreed:



“I’m very happy. They upheld the most compelling piece…Section 2(b). The other sections were just icing on the cake, they were not critical, they were just nice to have" Russell Pearce: SB 1070 decision a “huge win”, By Alex Seitz-Wald, Salon.com, June 25, 2012



(Of course, in an extraordinary move, the Obama Administration has sought to nullify SCOTUS’ decision on Section 2(B) by announcing it will not actually deport illegals turned over to it under the provision. But even apart from the dubious legality of this move, I believe it will backfire. Just wait until some unfortunate American is killed by the first illegal alien caught under Section 2(B) and released by Obama—which will inevitably, and tragically, occur).

So this is why I think that, while the SCOTUS ruling is not an unambiguous victory, it could be—if immigration patriots can just build from it:



First, just sending a loud message that illegals are not welcome has a serious effect.

Long before SB 1070 went into effect, illegals began leaving Arizona. Pro-amnesty groups are trying to spin the Supreme Court ruling as a message to illegals that the federal government will now protect them from mean old states like Arizona. But if the illegals believe people like Phoenix agitator Salvador Reza—“it’s terrible for us”—they might well, to use Mitt Romney’s term (which he conspicuously not repeated since he won the nomination), “self-deport”



Secondly, states can now craft bills that will have a serious impact on illegals and be immune from litigation.

MALDEF’s Saenz said that “the decision sends a strong warning to any states or localities that have enacted or that may be considering enacting their own immigration regulation schemes.”

Bunk! States can look at this decision as a road map to how they can pass ACLU-proof legislation.

As the heroic Kris Kobach noted:



The best way to think about it is to step back and look at what the Supreme Court has done in the last two years. In May of 2011, the Supreme Court sustained Arizona’s Legal Arizona Workers Act, which made Arizona the first state in America to require all employers to use E-Verify to verify the legality of the workforce. And now the Supreme Court has upheld the central provision of SB1070. Those are really the two biggest tools in the toolbox for what a state can do. There are only three states that have done both of those things: Arizona, Alabama and South Carolina…The two biggest hammers remain within the states’ prerogative, so I think the path ahead is one in which now the other states have a very clear signal because of these two cases coming out of Arizona.

[Q&A: Kris Kobach, the Legal Mind Behind Arizona’s Immigration Law, by Adam Sorensen, Time, June 26, 2012]



Kobach is, as usual, right.

However, there is a real danger that state legislators will be swayed by propaganda by groups like MALDEF, and by pessimism from Lamar Smith, to the effect that they are now powerless to fight illegal immigration. In that case, they won’t do anything.

It may be cliché to say “perception is reality.” But when it comes to which side won the SB 1070 ruling, the cliché is right.

"Washington Watcher" [email him] is an anonymous source Inside The Beltway

Dining and Drugs: The Surprising Correlation

An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about preventing drug use in children. This follows this post about Iran and Egypt in the news.  For a free magazine subscription or to get this book for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886-8632.

Dining and Drugs: The Surprising Correlation

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article by Good News Editor





The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University has documented the importance of family dinners and their correlation with lessened drug and alcohol abuse.



The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University has documented the importance of family dinners and their correlation with lessened drug and alcohol abuse.



Their findings revealed that the more often children and teens eat dinner with their families, the less likely they are to smoke, consume alcohol or use drugs. Compared to children who have fewer than three family dinners per week, children who have frequent family dinners are:



• At 70 percent lower risk for substance abuse.



• Half as likely to try cigarettes.



• Half as likely to be daily cigarette smokers.



• Half as likely to try marijuana.



• One third less likely to try alcohol.



• Half as likely to get drunk monthly.



• Likely to get better grades in school.



• Less likely to have friends who drink alcohol and use marijuana.



• 40 percent more likely to say future drug use will never happen.



If there were a magic wand that could be waved to reverse the trend of substance abuse in youth, a key ingredient would be to make sure every child had dinner with his or her parents at least five times a week. Setting aside a minimum of a half hour—an hour being better—would produce noticeable results.

.

Amnesty Defense Plans in Motion: Rally To Us‏

A very interesting post from http://www.alipac.us/ about attempts to stave off amnesty. This follows this post about Barack Obama going against the Supreme Court ruling on 1070.  This follows this post about Marco Rubio's DREAM Act. This follows this post about the Black Caucus hurting Black Americans with their immigration stand. This follows this post about how to Report Illegal Immigrants! For more that you can do to get involved click HERE and you can read this very interesting book HERE!

ALIPAC Amnesty Defense Plans in Motion: Rally To Us‏

Today we must rally and charge against Obama's dictatorial decree that is the Dream Act Amnesty we have defeated together many times.




Over 59% of Americans oppose the Dream Act Amnesty concept with only 22% supporting, according to a Rasmussen poll from 2007. There is a lot of propaganda being spread now that is designed to get you to lie down and submit, and if you fall for it, we are all doomed.



Come rally with us ALIPACers, and let us get on the phones today! We must call today as if a vote on Amnesty legislation could happen at any moment! The Amnesty traitors are hoping that you will grumble under your invisible yoke of slavery and then go back to sleep after Obama's orders.



Rise up and move as one!



TO THE SENATE!



We have a tough battle ahead in the US Senate! It is filled with arrogant Amnesty supporters like Harry Reid who were elected by illegal alien voters pouring out of the Nevada casinos into the voting booths. Many will not listen and those of you in California have it bad.



We need to saturate the US Senate with calls, emails, faxes, and letters today, demanding action against Obama's dictates and his Amnesty orders.



Step 1: Call US Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Jim DeMint (R-SC) and ask them to lead the charge.



Sample Message: "I'm calling/writing to ask Senator ________ to lead an effort to use the US Constitution to assert the supremacy of Congress and stop Obama's unlawful Amnesty orders that bypass the Congress, our elections, the public, and the Constitution. Americans should not suffer under a dictatorship, and we should not suffer any form of Amnesty for illegal aliens like the one Obama has created by fiat!



Senator Jim DeMint (SC)

167 Russell Senate Office Building

United States Senate

Washington, DC 20510

DC Phone: 202-224-6121

DC Fax: 202-228-5143

Email http://www.demint.senate.gov/public/...islationIssues



Senator Jeff Sessions (AL)

Washington, D.C.

326 Russell Senate Office Building

Washington, DC 20510 -0104

DC Main: (202) 224-4124

DC Fax: (202) 224-3149

Email http://www.sessions.senate.gov/publi...fficeLocations





Step 2: Please contact the 2 US Senators from your state with a similar call followed by a written version. When you are done calling your US Senators, then please call as many US Senators as you have time for today.



US Senate Contact Info List

http://www.senate.gov/general/contac...nators_cfm.cfm



Step 3: Make sure you help us saturate the US Senate today. Always remember when so many of us called against Amnesty in 2007 we shut down the US Capitol phone system! The lawmakers certainly remember. Also, make sure that you have bombarded your state lawmakers with the poll and messages we gave you yesterday. Today, Americans in all states are thinking about the US Supreme Court ruling and how they want their state to stand up like Arizona. Here is yesterday's alert, please make sure you have saturated your state lawmakers with appeals to stand up against illegal immigration on the state level...



Volunteers Needed to Prep for Supreme Court Ruling on Arizona's Law





Do not be dismayed and do not wait for some talking head on your TV screen to tell you it is time to move. The elites have that locked down this time and it is up to us!



Rally ALIPACers! Let's get on the phones together today by the thousands!



William Gheen and The ALIPAC Team

http://www.alipac.us/





PS: Your feedback, suggestions, questions, concerns, and updates on your progress are welcome at this activism support link....

ALIPAC Amnesty Defense Plans in Motion: Rally To Us!



(TOP OF ANNOUNCEMENTS BOX AT ALIPAC.us)

Sharia in action: Saudi man beheaded for witchcraft, sorcery

A very interesting post from www.jihadwatch.org about the Saudis beheading a man for witchcraft. This follows this post about Shi'ites in Saudi Arabia cheering the death of the Prince. This follows this article about American energy independence and preventing money from going to hostile countries such as Iran and Venezuela. For more that you can do to get involved click HERE and read this very interesting book HERE!

Sharia in action: Saudi man beheaded for witchcraft, sorcery


Imam Rauf, call your office. Somehow the Saudis have gotten the crazy idea that Sharia is not compatible with Western pluralistic values. "Saudi man beheaded for witchcraft, sorcery," by Douglas Stanglin for USA TODAY, June 19 (thanks to all who sent this in):



A Saudi man was beheaded today on charges of sorcery, witchcraft and owning talismans, Arab News reports, quoting the Saudi Interior Ministry.

Muree bin Ali Al-Asiri also admitted to "committing adultery with two women," the ministry says, according to the Saudi Press Agency. He was executed in the southern Najran province.



The BBC reports that a Saudi woman was executed for committing sorcery and witchcraft in December, and a Sudanese man was executed in September, despite calls by Amnesty International for his release.



The BBC's Arab affairs editor, Sebastian Usher, notes that Saudi Arabia's powerful conservative religious leaders strongly back the harshest punishment for anyone suspected of acts of sorcery, including fortune-telling and faith-healing.





Once again we see the mainstream media terming strict Sharia adherents "conservative," while simultaneously labeling Sharia opponents "conservative" as well.

Posted by Robert

Watching Iran

An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about Iran and Egypt in the news. This follows this post about Christianity's reputation.  This follows this post about handling a divorce.   For a free magazine subscription or to get this book for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886-8632.

Watching Iran

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad



Source: Wikimedia CommonsBeyond Today Media spends time focusing on the Middle East for good reason. It is a focal point of both current international affairs and Bible prophecy. What happens in the Middle East has long-term implications.



Of late we have published several articles in our magazine, The Good News, detailing the statements and intents of Iranian leaders such as Mahmoud Ahmanidijad. We often get complaints that we run too many negative articles on the threat of a nuclear Iran or another war in the Middle East. "What does this have to do in a publication that is supposed to be about "good news!" Fair enough, but it is something you need to understand. Events in these nations are impacting your life—and the more you know the better you will be able to deal with future events.



The problem with watching events in Iran is we do not have enough on-the-ground information to fully grasp the reality of the threat. Since 1981 the United States has not had an official presence in the nation, the takeover of our embassy finished that off. Language, religion and culture are completely different from the West. Iran pursues a secretive approach that conceals a lot of information. When a nation is that furtive it is because there is something to hide.



The public statements are enough to scare you. Iran says they want to destroy the State of Israel. They threaten America because of its support for Israel. It is known they are building a nuclear weapon and have threatened to use it. What more needs to be known? Those who fail to listen to tyrants and take them at their word usually regret the decision.



The Wall Street Journal today quotes Arab expert Bernard Lewis on this point:



Particular importance should be attached to the policies, and perhaps still more the attitudes, of the present rulers of Iran, who seem to be preparing for a final apocalyptic battle between the forces of God and of the Devil"—meaning themselves and the West, respectively. "They see this as the final struggle of the End of Time and are therefore undeterred by any level of slaughter and destruction even among their own people. 'Allah will know his own' is the phrase commonly used, meaning that among the multiple victims God will recognize the Muslims and give them a quick pass to heaven (Notes On A Century)



Wishful thinking, called "whistling past the graveyard," in another context does not create a safe world. Evil plans are in the working. It is important to know what and why.



In Iran the fact is that people who do not think like you and I believe it is their God-ordained duty to wage war on and kill in the name of their faith. Reason and discussion based on Western ideals or Christian principles mean nothing. When they develop a weapon that will further their goals they will use it. It is folly to ignore this reality.



God tells His servants to stand as a watchman upon the walls of the city and give warning of approaching calamity.



"Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 'Son of man, speak to the children of your people, and say to them: "When I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from their territory and make him their watchman"'" (Ezekiel 33:1-2 [1] Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

[2] Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman:





See All...).



Read the whole prophecy. It urges not only the watchman to sound an alarm but the people to heed the message and "turn and live."



America and Great Britain in particular are asleep on this issue. Another attack is building. The signs are there in the headlines and events we can read and discern. It will come when least expected and this time could be more deadly than any previous.



The message you read and hear from Beyond Today media is meant to warn an instruct. We explain why our world has it problems, and we give you the individual biblical instruction that shows how to avoid the personal pot holes of misery. It is all based in God's guidebook, the Bible.



We make no apologies for sounding an alarm. We hope you take the time to listen.







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