In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, Bloomberg said he fully understood Israel’s actions. ”
“I think as a New Yorker, we’ve been attacked twice by al-Qaida itself,” said the mayor, who is Jewish. “We’ve seen enormous devastation and courage and after that you sort of feel you have a bond, if you will, for those who live in a dangerous world and subject to someone trying to kill them.”
“All Hamas has to do is stop sending rockets over to kill people and agree on the accords that were negotiated earlier and come to an agreement that is verifiable, durable and effective to stop people from being killed,” he added.
Ghazi Khanka:spokesman for the New York chapter of the American Muslim Alliance
Bloomberg “was elected as mayor of New York City and not of Tel Aviv. . . he said.news source
SANTA FE, N.M. — Gov. Bill Richardson’s gold-plated resume had never been tarnished as he moved up the political ladder from congressman and diplomat to governor.
But a day after backing out of consideration for U.S. commerce secretary, Richardson faced a murky political future as a grand jury probed a possible pay-to-play deal involving one of his big political donors.
Among the looming questions: Was a $1.5 million state contract awarded to that California donor in exchange for political contributions? And if so, how close was Richardson or his staff to any illicit dealmaking?
Richardson, who has hired a prominent white-collar attorney to represent him in the probe, declined to comment on the scandal Monday citing the ongoing investigation.
He has maintained he would be cleared in a grand jury probe, and said that stepping down from the Obama administration had pained him.
“Yesterday, I was hurting over this decision,” Richardson said Monday. “I lost a Cabinet appointment.”
“While this decision was a difficult one, I think it was the right thing to do,” Richardson said.
The inquiry is centered on Beverly Hills-based CDR Financial Products and its chief executive David Rubin. Rubin and CDR contributed $100,000 in 2003-2004 to Richardson political committees before and after CDR won a state contract to help finance $1.4 billion for highway and transportation projects. Source>>>
“Detroiters can’t afford to elect another dishonest person as mayor,” resident Christopher White said. “A candidate can no longer tell us how they grew up poor, how much they love Jesus or they’re running to save children. We need innovative solutions to fiscal challenges and a person who can best lay out a vision to move the city out of a state of paralysis.”
Other skill sets needed
Character looms large in almost every campaign — local or national — but it’s taken on such prominence in the first election after Kilpatrick that candidate Warren Evans said it’s become practically meaningless. The Wayne County sheriff said his focus is on highlighting his managerial skills to fix the city.
“Integrity is not going to fix the problems for Detroit,” Evans said. “There are other skills sets that are needed to go with that integrity to right the ship.”
Mayor Kenneth Cockrel Jr. set the tone, defining himself as anti-Kilpatrick in his first few days in office by deciding not to live in the Manoogian Mansion, eschewing a Navigator and traveling with fewer bodyguards. He also launched an investigation into the transfer of former mayoral appointees into permanent civil service jobs and tapped Saul Green and Joseph Harris to his Cabinet. Both have reputations as squeaky-clean reformers.
“People definitely want change,” Cockrel said. “To subject them to more of the same wouldn’t do anybody any good. That’s something we can’t afford any more of. (Integrity) has got to be more than trotting out some gimmick. I’m seeking to do the job the way it’s been done, an open and transparent government.” source
Ammunition Accountability Legislation Remember how Obama said that he wasn’t going to take your guns? Well, it seems that his allies in the anti-gun world have no problem with taking your ammo! The bill that is being pushed in 18 states (including Illinois and Indiana) requires all ammunition to be encoded by the manufacture a data base of all ammunition sales. So they will know how much you buy and what calibers.
Nobody can sell any ammunition after June 30, 2009 unless the ammunition is coded..
Any privately held uncoded ammunition must be destroyed by July 1, 2011. (Including hand loaded ammo.) They will also charge a .05 cent tax on every round so every box of ammo you buy will go up at least $2.50 or more! If they can deprive you of ammo they do not need to take your gun!Information
In the same grand chambers where the Ku Klux Klan once held sway, two black men will assume the most powerful positions in the Colorado General Assembly.
When the legislature convenes next week for its 2009 session, Peter Groff will again be elected Senate president, while Terrance Carroll will assume the post of speaker of the House.
Colorado is the first legislature in the nation to have two blacks holding the top posts at the same time.
Not Arkansas.
Not Michigan.
Not Mississippi.
Not Illinois, or South Carolina or any other state where blacks come much closer to being the demographic majority.
It’s Colorado, where blacks make up only 4 percent of the population. Source>>>
A retired engineer from New Jersey whose clandestine activities went undetected for more than two decades pleaded guilty yesterday to a criminal charge accusing him of serving as an unregistered agent for Israel.
Ben-Ami Kadish passed classified documents to an Israeli handler between about 1980 and 1985, when he worked at a U.S. Army research and engineering center at the Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, N.J., authorities say.
Kadish, 85, will face a maximum term of five years in prison when he is sentenced by Manhattan U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III in February. The retiree acted out of a desire to help Israel, receiving only nominal gifts and family dinners in exchange for the 50 to 100 documents he shared, according to court papers filed by the government. more
ANTIOCH, Calif. - As more and more black renters began moving into this mostly white San Francisco Bay Area suburb a few years ago, neighbors started complaining about loud parties, mean pit bulls, blaring car radios, prostitution, drug dealing and muggings of schoolchildren.
In 2006, as the influx reached its peak, the police department formed a special crime-fighting unit to deal with the complaints, and authorities began cracking down on tenants in federally subsidized housing.
Karen Coleman and her husband, Thomas Coleman, Section 8 housing voucher recipients, look out the window of their home in Antioch, Calif., on Dec. 12. “A lot of people are moving out here looking for a better place to live,” said Karen Coleman, a mother of three who moved here five years ago from a blighted neighborhood in nearby Pittsburg. “We are trying to raise our kids like everyone else. But they don’t want us here.”
I posted this to get everyones feed back on this, and I am completely on Palestine’s side,
The civilized world is shocked and appalled by the Israeli attacks on the densely populated Gaza Concentration Camp that - so far – has left 282 Occupied Palestinians dead and 900 wounded (120 critically). No doubt this appalling death and injury toll will rise.
The ostensible excuse by Apartheid Israel for its actions – and the excuse given for racist US and racist White Australian support for Apartheid Israel’s actions – is the barrage of rocket and mortar attacks on nearby towns coming from the Gaza Concentration Camp (guarded by the Israeli Navy at sea, and on land by the Israeli Army and by the Egyptian Army under acute threat from nuclear terrorist, racist Zionist (RZ) rogue state Apartheid Israel).
Yet if one assesses from official Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs data how many Israelis have actually been killed by murderous Gaza rockets and mortars in the last eight (8) years the total comes to twenty three (23).
Without in any way diminishing these tragic deaths from morally wrong, idiotic, counterproductive Occupied Palestinian violence, one must put these violent Israeli deaths into the dispassionate context of HOMICIDE (as opposed to anti-Arab anti-Semitic, racist, holocaust-ignoring Western and Zionist propaganda about “genocidal threat” and “terror” from “Islamic terrorists”).
Each year in the State of Israel (average 2000-2008 population about 7 million) about 15 people out of every million (i.e. 15 x 7 = 105 Israelis) are murdered by fellow Israelis who go “mad” from ANGER, greed, lust, fear, jealous or whatever – as compared to about 56 deaths per million per year in the gun-toting US (and about 200 deaths per million per year for African-Americans).source
James Webb to the U.S. Senate, he found himself in the frigid interior of a Japanese prison.
A journalist at the time, he was working on an article about Ed Arnett, an American who had spent two years in Fuchu Prison for possession of marijuana. In a January 1984 Parade magazine piece, Webb described the harsh conditions imposed on Arnett, who had frostbite and sometimes labored in solitary confinement making paper bags.
“But, surprisingly, Arnett, home in Omaha, Neb., says he prefers Japan’s legal system to ours,” Webb wrote. “Why? ‘Because it’s fai r,’ he said.”
This spring, Webb (D-Va.) plans to introduce legislation on a long-standing passion of his: reforming the U.S. prison system. Jails teem with young black men who later struggle to rejoin society, he says. Drug addicts and the mentally ill take up cells that would be better used for violent criminals. And politicians have failed to address this costly problem for fear of being labeled “soft on crime.”
It is a gamble for Webb, a fiery and cerebral Democrat from a staunchly law-and-order state. Virginia abolished parole in 1995, and it trails only Texas in the number of people it has executed. Moreover, as the country struggles with two wars overseas and an ailing economy, overflowing prisons are the last thing on many lawmakers’ minds. more
Pakistan began moving thousands of troops from the Afghan border toward India, officials and witnesses said Friday, raising tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors and possibly undermining the U.S.-backed campaign against al-Qaida and the Taliban.
The country also announced that it was canceling all military leave in the aftermath of last month’s terror attack on the Indian financial capital of Mumbai.
India has blamed Pakistani militants for the terrifying three-day siege; Pakistan has demanded that India back this up with better evidence.
Pakistan’s latest moves were seen as a warning that it would retaliate if India launches air or missile strikes against militant targets on Pakistani soil - rather than as an indication that a fourth war was imminent between the two countries. Source>>>
The main blame lies at the foot of our government who continues to refuse to secure our borders and keep vicious animals like Julio Cesar Ramos out of our communities, even after they have been deported 12 times.
Paulette Locklear, 64, was a good samaritan in North Carolina who was just helping out who she thought was a poor man down on his luck. She gave him shelter and provided him work. It turns out that the man she was helping though was 12 time deported illegal alien Julio Cesar Ramos and she paid dearly for her generosity with her life after Ramos allegedly beat her to death. While some illegal aliens come to this country looking for work, it seems that more often than not they are taking advantage of Americans. Whether that be by beating them to death, taking their jobs or leeching off of our education and social services. more
When media reports emerged that al Qaeda’s second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, disparaged President-elect Barack Hussein Obama as a “house negro,” it angered many in the black community. However, it also struck a chord.
The Egyptian physician — who is reportedly Osama bin Laden’s confidant — actually used the phrase “house slave,” but it was later translated as “house negro.”
Al-Zawahiri said, “You [Obama] represent the direct opposite of honorable black Americans like Malik al-Shabazz or Malcolm X,” who “condemned the crimes of the Crusader West against the weak and oppressed, and he declared his support for peoples resisting American occupation.”
The al Qaeda leader said Obama, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice “confirmed” Malcolm X’s definition of a “house slave.” He was referring to Malcolm X’s distinction between slave-era “house Negroes,” who lived comfortably in the big house abetting white supremacy, and “field negroes,” who toiled in the fields under the whip, plotting resistance. source
WASHINGTON (AP) - In a gesture of forgiveness for a decades-old offense, President George W. Bush on Tuesday granted a pardon posthumously to a man who broke the law to supply aircraft to Jews fighting in Israel’s 1948 war of independence.
Charles Winters, a Miami businessman considered a hero in Israel, was listed in a batch of 19 pardons and one commutation that Bush issued before leaving for Camp David to spend the holidays. No high-profile lawbreakers were on the list.
Winters’ son, Jim, had found out about his father’s daring missions and imprisonment only after his death in 1984.
“I’m overwhelmed,” Jim Winters, a Miami maker of artistic neon signs, said in a telephone interview. “It happened 16 years before I was born. He went to jail and he didn’t want his kids to know. He was old-school and proud.”
Members of the Jewish community, who adorned his father’s funeral with blue and white flowers symbolic of the Israeli flag, filled in details about his father’s past. His obituary in The Miami Herald read, “Charles Winters, 71, aided birth of Israel.” Source>>>
An Ohio family whose members have served their friends and neighbors with food cooperative services involving bulk and discount supplies has been targeted in a raid
by armed law enforcement officers wearing black fatigues who forcibly rounded up the mom and 10 children and held them for six hours.
The raid prompted a complaint filed today on behalf of the family by the Center for Constitutional Law at the Buckeye Institute. It alleges authorities “made a haphazard unannounced entry into the property with guns drawn, as other officers surrounded the property, with guns drawn,” then “confiscated the family’s personal food supply, personal computers, and personal cell phones.”
The complaint names the Ohio Department of Agriculture, the Lorain County General Health District and the state’s attorney general. A spokeswoman at the Department of Agriculture said its officers were at the scene in an advisory role. A spokeswoman at the county health agency refused to comment except to explain it was a “licensing” issue regarding the family’s Manna Storehouse. Source>>>
The Muslim Brotherhood “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” — “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America,” by Mohamed Akram, May 19, 1991.source
A crumbling economy, more than 2 million constituents who have lost their jobs this year, and congressional demands of CEOs to work for free did not convince lawmakers to freeze their own pay.
Instead, they will get a $4,700 pay increase, amounting to an additional $2.5 million that taxpayers will spend on congressional salaries, and watchdog groups are not happy about it.
“As lawmakers make a big show of forcing auto executives to accept just $1 a year in salary, they are quietly raiding the vault for their own personal gain,” said Daniel O’Connell, chairman of The Senior Citizens League (TSCL), a non-partisan group. “This money would be much better spent helping the millions of seniors who are living below the poverty line and struggling to keep their heat on this winter.”
However, at 2.8 percent, the automatic raise that lawmakers receive is only half as large as the 2009 cost of living adjustment of Social Security recipients.
Still, Steve Ellis, vice president of the budget watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense, said Congress should have taken the rare step of freezing its pay, as lawmakers did in 2000.
“Look at the way the economy is and how most people aren’t counting on a holiday bonus or a pay raise — they’re just happy to have gainful employment,” said Ellis. “But you have the lawmakers who are set up and ready to get their next installment of a pay raise and go happily along their way.”
Member raises are often characterized as examples of wasteful spending, especially when many constituents and businesses in members’ districts are in financial despair.
Rep. Harry Mitchell, a first-term Democrat from Arizona, sponsored legislation earlier this year that would have prevented the automatic pay adjustments from kicking in for members next year. But the bill, which attracted 34 cosponsors, failed to make it out of committee.
“They don’t even go through the front door. They have it set up so that it’s wired so that you actually have to undo the pay raise rather than vote for a pay raise,” Ellis said.
Freezing congressional salaries is hardly a new idea on Capitol Hill.
Lawmakers have floated similar proposals in every year dating back to 1995, and long before that. Though the concept of forgoing a raise has attracted some support from more senior members, it is most popular with freshman lawmakers, who are often most vulnerable.
In 2006, after the Republican-led Senate rejected an increase to the minimum wage, Democrats, who had just come to power in the House with a slew of freshmen, vowed to block their own pay raise until the wage increase was passed. The minimum wage was eventually increased and lawmakers received their automatic pay hike.
In the beginning days of 1789, Congress was paid only $6 a day, which would be about $75 daily by modern standards. But by 1965 members were receiving $30,000 a year, which is the modern equivalent of about $195,000.
Currently the average lawmaker makes $169,300 a year, with leadership making slightly more. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) makes $217,400, while the minority and majority leaders in the House and Senate make $188,100.
Ellis said that while freezing the pay increase would be a step in the right direction, it would be better to have it set up so that members would have to take action, and vote, for a pay raise and deal with the consequences, rather than get one automatically.
“It is probably never going to be politically popular to raise Congress’s salary,” he said. “I don’t think you’re going to find taxpayers saying, ‘Yeah I think I should pay my congressman more’.”
A banking giant is handing out £2.4billion in bonuses to its City workers just months after being bailed out by the U.S. government.
Beleaguered Wall Street firm Morgan Stanley is planning to pay its 5,000 London staff an average of just over £53,000 each, despite the current financial crisis.
It comes just a day after Goldman Sachs revealed it is paying a staggering £4.3billion in bonuses to its staff - despite posting its first quarterly loss in a decade. more
A Muslim woman arrested for refusing to take off her head scarf at a courthouse security checkpoint said Wednesday that she felt her human and civil rights were violated. A judge ordered Lisa Valentine, 40, to serve 10 days in jail for contempt of court
Valentine, who recently moved to Georgia from New Haven, Conn., said the incident reminded her of stories she’d heard of the civil rights-era South.
“I just felt stripped of my civil, my human rights,” she said Wednesday from her home. She said she was unexpectedly released after the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations urged federal authorities to investigate the incident as well as others in Georgia.
The group cited a report that the same judge removed a woman and her 14-year-old daughter from the courtroom last week because they were wearing Muslim head scarves more
In light of the Governments Great Idea of Bailing Out Wall Street!?!, Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac and increasing there debt as it is. One thing I found last night(09/30/08) while surfing the net looking at different things. I found this article .
Aside from the Greed of you know who, giving loans to people who can’t possibly afford payments on a Two Hundred Thousand Dollar home or greater. Then they want the Tax Payers To Bail Them Out. NO! I found a solution to where the Government can pay back some of the Trillions of Dollars in Debt they have gotten us in .
Stop giving ILLEGAL, Undocumented Aliens Benefits, or loaning money to countries when we are in such debt.. I mean if this is just what they spend in one year on Welfare(I’m assuming $, medical coverage, and Food Stamps, etc) alone and it adding up to $432 Million a Year just for that in one county. That is not including the other things they are given
Imagine (rough estimate) this is just a what if: all 3143+- U.S. Counites in the USA spent this amount that would equal= roughly about $135,777,600,000.00 on Those Here Illegally. Thats not including what is spent on US Citizens much and many undeserving who use The Welfare System (now called SSI) as a way of life for generations.
As of September 2008 when this was written, the total U.S. federal debt was approximately $9.7 trillion[2], about $31,700 per capita (that is, per U.S. resident). United States public Debt
Today the U.S. National Debt is:
The Outstanding Public Debt as of 16 Dec 2008 at 08:47:33 PM GMT is:
$10,611,303,871,718.65
The estimated population of the United States is 305,286,594
so each citizen’s share of this debt is $34,758.50.
The National Debt has continued to increase an average of $3.60 billion per day since September 28, 2007!
“ (a) The Department of the Treasury is an executive department of the United States Government at the seat of the Government.
(b) The head of the Department is the Secretary of the Treasury. The Secretary is appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.
A private investigator has released to WND (WorldNetDaily) an affidavit(pdf) that casts doubt on whether Barack Obama’s family lived at the address listed in the published notice of his birth in 1961. Jorge Baro was hired by WND to investigate issues related to Obama’s birth amid allegations the Democrat does not meet the constitutional requirement that a president be a “natural born citizen.” Baro’s affidavit documents an interview his staff conducted with Beatrice Arakaki, who has lived at 6075 Kalanianaole Highway in Honolulu since before Obama was born.
In Hawaii, WND was able to locate at the Honolulu public library microfilm of a notice placed in the Sunday Advertiser Aug 13, 1961. The announcement in the “Births, Marriages, Death” section read: Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama, 6085 Kalanianaole Hwy., son, Aug. 4.
Arakaki told Baro’s investigators she had no recollection of Obama being born or of the family living next door having a black child to a white mother. Baro sent investigators back to Honolulu to explore records regarding current residents of Kalanianaole Highway and to track down residents back to 1961. Baro’s investigators were unable to locate any current or past resident of Kalanianaole Highway who could recall Obama or his family living at the address listed in the Sunday Advertiser announcement. FULL STORY>>>
Wow angry and outraged? Would that be considered a “wave of hate”? Anger and outrage at American citizens not of Hispanic descent no doubt. I’m sure Muñoz will put this anger and outrage and hate on the back-burner to work together with local government that may not agree with her view of reconquista.
Those opposed to amnesty obviously find that Muñoz simply cannot live up to some diplomatic position with as hate-filled a viewpoint as she has for America and it’s people.
“Her affiliation with La Raza taints her ability to represent the broader national interest,” [Bob Dane of FAIR] said. “La Raza exists as a way to systematically dismantle enforcement and any semblance of discipline in the immigration system. Are we to believe that she is going to distance herself in her new role to represent the broader national interest?”
No we are not expecting Cecilia Muñoz to distance herself. She has a clear agenda that she has been pushing for nearly two decades because of perceived racism from a sole individual decades ago.More
Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) — Latin American and Caribbean leaders gathering in Brazil tomorrow will mark a historic occasion: a region-wide summit that excludes the United States.
Almost two centuries after President James Monroe declared Latin America a U.S. sphere of influence, the region is breaking away. From socialist-leaning Venezuela to market-friendly Brazil, governments are expanding military, economic and diplomatic ties with potential U.S. adversaries such as China, Russia and Iran.
“Monroe certainly would be rolling over in his grave,” says Julia Sweig, director of the Latin America program at the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington and author of the 2006 book “Friendly Fire: Losing Friends and Making Enemies in the Anti-American Century.”
The U.S., she says, “is no longer the exclusive go-to power in the region, especially in South America, where U.S. economic ties are much less important.”
Since November, Russian warships have engaged in joint naval exercises with Venezuela, the first in the Caribbean since the Cold War; Chinese President Hu Jintao signed a free-trade agreement with Peru; and Brazil invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a state visit. Source>>>
GERMANY — Thousands of Brandenberg residents could come under suspicion for being neo-Nazis or right-wing sympathisers because of the letter or number combinations on their licence plates.
The authority warns of licence plate codes that indicate an “anti-democratic mindset.” Examples of telling letter combinations include “HJ” (Hitler Youth) “NS” (National Socialism) and “KZ” (concentration camp).
Number combinations that have recently been identified include “18″ which represents the first eight letters of the alphabet, or “AH” for Adolf Hitler, “88″ stands for “HH,” or “Heil Hitler,” and the number “14,” which alludes to a fourteen-word (German) slogan uttered by an American neo-Nazi leader. SOURCE>>>
“WE MUST SECURE THE FUTURE FOR OUR PEOPLE AND THE FUTURE OF OUR WHITE CHILDREN.”
“God Promised That These Things Would Not Come Upon You Nor Would The Real Antichrist Appear Until The Lord Permits It And All (everyone) Will Know When. . . .”
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A private investigator has released to WND (WorldNetDaily) 
