Monthly Archives: May 2011

Osama bin Laden knew big body count on level of 9/11 was needed to get U.S. forces to withdraw

May 11, 2011 – 11:18 pm

 

Osama bin Laden
 

Broadcast
As the U.S. fought wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bin Laden periodically released audio and video recordings (like this one, from 2007) calling for the destruction of America and its allies.

Kimberly Dozier of the Associated Press reported today in her article, “Bin Laden’s diary shows he eyed new targets, big body count” :

Deep in hiding, his terror organization becoming battered and fragmented, Osama bin Laden kept pressing followers to find new ways to hit the U.S., officials say, citing his private journal and other documents recovered in last week’s raid.

Strike smaller cities, bin Laden suggested. Target trains as well as planes. If possible, strike on significant dates, such as the Fourth of July and the 10th anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Above all, kill as many Americans as possible in a single attack.

Though he was out of the public eye and al-Qaida seemed to be weakening, bin Laden never yielded control of his worldwide organization, U.S. officials said Wednesday. His personal, handwritten journal and his massive collection of computer files reveal his hand at work in every recent major al-Qaida threat, including plots in Europe last year that had travelers and embassies on high alert, two officials said.

They described the intelligence to The Associated Press only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about what was found in bin Laden’s hideout. Analysts are continuing to review the documents.

The information shatters the government’s conventional thinking about bin Laden, who had been regarded for years as mostly an inspirational figurehead whose years in hiding made him too marginalized to maintain operational control of the organization he founded.

Instead, bin Laden was communicating from his walled compound in Pakistan with al-Qaida’s offshoots, including the Yemen branch that has emerged as the leading threat to the United States, the documents indicate. Though there is no evidence yet that he was directly behind the attempted Christmas Day 2009 bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner or the nearly successful attack on cargo planes heading for Chicago and Philadelphia, it’s now clear that they bear some of bin Laden’s hallmarks.

He was well aware of U.S. counterterrorist efforts and schooled his followers in working around them, the messages to his followers show. Don’t limit attacks to New York City, he said in his writings. Consider other areas such as Los Angeles or smaller cities. Spread out the targets.

In one particularly macabre bit of mathematics, bin Laden’s writings show him musing over just how many Americans he must kill to force the U.S. to withdraw from the Arab world. He concludes that the smaller, scattered attacks since 9/11 had not been enough. He tells his disciples that only a body count of thousands, something on the scale of 9/11, would shift U.S. policy.

The handwritten journal included significant dates bin Laden noted as preferred for attacking American targets, including the Fourth of July and the 10th anniversary of 9/11, a U.S. official said. He also schemed about ways to sow political dissent in Washington and play political figures against one another, officials said.

The communications were in missives sent via plug-in computer storage devices called flash drives. The devices were ferried to bin Laden’s compound by couriers, a process that is slow but exceptionally difficult to track.

Intelligence officials have not identified any new planned targets or plots in their initial analysis of the 100 or so flash drives and five computers that Navy SEALs hauled away after killing bin Laden. Last week, the FBI and Homeland Security Department warned law enforcement officials nationwide to be on alert for possible attacks against trains, though officials said there was no specific plot.

Officials have not yet seen any indication that bin Laden had the ability to coordinate timing of attacks across the various al-Qaida affiliates in Pakistan, Yemen, Algeria, Iraq and Somalia, and it is also unclear from bin Laden’s documents how much the affiliate groups relied on his guidance. The Yemen group, for instance, has embraced the smaller-scale attacks that bin Laden’s writings indicate he regarded as unsuccessful. The Yemen branch had already surpassed his central operation as al-Qaida’s leading fundraising, propaganda and operational arm.

Al-Qaida has not named bin Laden’s successor, but all indications point to his No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri. The question is whether al-Zawahri, or anyone, has the ability to keep so many disparate groups under the al-Qaida banner. The groups in Somalia and Algeria, for instance, have very different goals focused on local grievances. Without bin Laden to serve as their shepherd, it’s possible al-Qaida will further fragment.

British officials said the Americans had shared some information about the bin Laden cache but there had been nothing concrete yet to indicate his stamp on any of the recent terror attacks or plans in Britain — including a European plot last year involving the threat of a Mumbai-style shooting spree in a capital. Those officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence.

Britain’s two largest terror attacks and plots — the 2005 suicide bombings and the trans-Atlantic liquid explosive plot to blow up several airliners in 2006 — both had trails that led back to Pakistan and al-Qaida figures, but there was never a direct link to bin Laden himself.

Most of the recent plots, including the stabbing of a lawmaker last year, have been traced to al-Qaida in Yemen and specifically the radical American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, British officials have said.

One British official said counterterror authorities had not been tracking bin Laden as they had other terrorists deemed more directly involved in operations — which may have been a mistake, from what they are now learning from bin Laden’s own words.

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Kimberly Dozier can be reached on Twitter at kimberlydozier.

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Associated Press writers Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman in Washington, Paisley Dodds in London, Jamey Keaton in Paris and Al Clendenning in New York contributed to this report

Osama bin Laden
Naseer Ahmed / Reuters

The End
On May 1, 2011, President Obama announced that bin Laden had been tracked to a house in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he was killed by a team of Navy Seals. Here, men in Quetta, Pakistan, watch Obama deliver to the world the news of the terrorist leader’s death.

Read more:
President Obama Monitors the bin Laden Mission
Pete Souza / The White House

The White House, May 1, 2011
Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama, along with members of the national-security team, receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House on May 1, 2011. Please note: a classified document seen in this photograph has been obscured.

President Obama Monitors the bin Laden Mission
Pete Souza / The White House

Focus
President Obama listens during one of a series of meetings in the Situation Room of the White House discussing the mission against bin Laden on May 1, 2011. For 40 minutes, the President and his senior aides could do nothing but watch the video screens and listen to the operation and ensuing firefight on the other side of the world.


By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in President Obama | Comments (0)

Senator Pryor asks for Spending Cut Suggestions! Here are a few!(Part 47)

May 11, 2011 – 5:26 pm

Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:

Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Here are a few more I just emailed to him myself at 5:24 pm CST on May 11, 2011.

Senator Rand Paul on Feb 7, 2011 wrote the article “A Modest $500 Billion Proposal: My spending cuts would keep 85% of government funding and not touch Social Security,” Wall Street Journal and he observed:

Here are some of his specific suggestions:

Labor
Agency/Program Funding Level Savings % Decrease
Labor $135.676 B $2.803 B 2%
In recent years, the Department of Labor has expanded substantially, with a large of amount of the increased funding coming from the expansion of unemployment benefits of up to 99 weeks. While this proposal exempts unemployment benefits from receiving funding cuts, the program will need to be reformed in the future, including a re-evaluation of the emergency unemployment benefits, as well as the extended unemployment benefits that provide up to 99 weeks – or nearly 2 years of unemployment benefits. Many economists have warned that prolonged unemployment benefits
can increase unemployment duration by delaying individuals’ incentive to search for work.
The proposal exempts the Employment and Training Administration (including UI benefits), Mine Safety and Health, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. However, this proposal eliminates all other Department of Labor programs.

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Gene Lyons: Tax Cuts always reduce tax revenues (Part 4)

May 11, 2011 – 3:45 pm

 Celebrate President Ronald Reagan’s 100th Birthday

Gene Lyons in his article ”The futility of reasoning with crazy,” April 27, 2011 makes this simple straight forward statement:

Also contrary to Republican mythology, the infamous Bush tax cuts did anything but increase revenue, as tax cuts never do. As Fiscal Times columnist Bruce Bartlett shows, federal revenues dropped from 20.6 percent of GDP in 2000 to 18.5 percent in 2007.

Liberals like Max Brantley and Gene Lyons really do believe that if taxes are raised on the rich you will get more revenues, and if they are lowered then you get lower revenues. I am going to blow up that theory today.

I am starting a new series  that breaks down Lyon’s claims and take a look at the cold hard facts and I noticed that today Max Brantley jumped on board with Lyons when he wrote:

She (Ruth Marcus) proceeds to correct Boehner on any number of factual mistakes, including the notion that economic growth doesn’t follow tax increases. See Bill Clinton, for one. And what about the idea that tax increases would increase the debt?

“A tax hike would wreak havoc not only on our economy’s ability to create private-sector jobs, but also on our ability to tackle the national debt.”

During the early 1980s, taxes were cut and public debt ballooned, from 26 percent of GDP in 1980 to 40 percent by 1986. In 1993, taxes were increased (and spending cut); debt as a share of the economy fell, from 49 percent to 33 percent. In 2001 and 2003, taxes were cut. By the time President Obama took office, debt had climbed to 40 percent of GDP.

William Niskanen and Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute wrote the paper “Supply-Side Tax Cuts and the Truth about the Reagan Economic Record,” Oct 22, 1996 and here is a portion of that paper:

Fable 2: The Reagan Tax Cuts “Caused” the Budget Deficit to Explode in the 1980s

Fifteen years ago, marginal tax rates and the progressivity of the tax system were dramatically reduced. Some suggested that these policies would so spur economic growth that tax revenue would actually increase. The outcome ofthat experiment is now a matter of record: not only did this response not occur, but the national debt quadrupled in the span of a dozen years.[25]

This is the most common and overly simplistic interpretation of the budgetary events of the 1980s. Further, it isfactually untrue that the Reagan tax cuts were a major cause of the budget deficits of the 1980s and the “quadrupling”of the debt. (In the 1980s the real debt doubled; it did not quadruple.) Real federal revenues grew at a faster pace afterthe Reagan tax cuts than after the Bush and Clinton tax hikes. From 1982 to 1989, they expanded by 24.1 percent.Over a comparable seven-year period, 1990-97, a period that accounts for both the Bush and the Clinton tax increases,real federal revenues will have grown by 19.3 percent (see Table 5). The lesson of the 1980s and 1990s is consistentwith the supply-side theory that there are behavioral and investment responses to changes in tax rates.

As a share of GDP, federal revenues fell from 20.2 percent in 1981 (the peak year for taxes as ashare of GDP in the post-World War II period) to a low of 18.0 percent of GDP in 1984, and rose back up to 19.2percent by 1989. This would suggest that the Reagan tax cuts were a small contributing factor to the increase in thebudget deficit over the course of the 1980s. From 1950 to 1995, federal receipts have averaged 18.4 percent of GDP.Hence, throughout most of the Reagan years and clearly by the end, taxes as a share of national output weresubstantially above the postwar average.

If the Reagan tax cut was not the major contributing factor to the increasing deficit in the 1980s, what was? Therewere two primary explanations: (1) a large and sustained defense build-up; and (2) the unexpected rapid decline ininflation and the recession in the early 1980s.

The Defense Buildup and the Deficit. Table 6 shows that the cumulative increase in defense spending from 1981 to1989 ($806 billion) was larger than the entire cumulative increase in the budget deficit ($779 billion) in those years.That is, if defense spending had been held to the rate of inflation from 1981 to 1989, the total real deficit would havefallen in the 1980s rather than risen. It is also true that the decline in the military budget accounts for almost the entirefall in the deficit from 1988 to 1996.

[26]Table 5Reagan Tax Cuts vs. Bush-Clinton Tax Hikes:Overall Real Revenue Growth
After Reagan Tax Cuts  After Bush-Clinton Tax Hikes 
Year Total Revenue* Percentage Change Year Total Revenue* Percentage Change
1982 738 1990 914
1983 684 -7.3 1991 895 -2.1
1984 730 6.7 1992 895 0.0
1985 777 6.4 1993 922 3.7
1986 790 1.7 1994 982 6.5
1987 854 8.1 1995 1,034 5.3
1988 877 2.7 1996 1,082 4.6**
1989 916 4.4 1997 1,090 0.7**
Total 24.1 19.3
Table 6Defense Spending and Deficits in the 1980s 
As % of GDP $ Billions Buildup
Year Defense Deficit Defense Deficit Defense Deficit
1981 5.3 2.7 134 79
1982 5.9 4.1 158 128 24 49
1983 6.3 6.3 185 208 51 129
1984 6.2 5.0 210 185 76 106
1985 6.4 5.4 227 212 93 133
1986 6.5 5.2 253 221 119 142
1987 6.3 3.4 273 150 139 71
1988 6.0 3.2 282 155 148 76
1989 5.9 2.9 290 152 156 73
Change1981-89 0.2 0.6 156 73 806 779
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Ronald Reagan | Comments (0)

Another Myth about Social Security (Part 3) (Dan Mitchell of Cato Institute discusses Social Security Myth)

May 11, 2011 – 3:21 pm

 

Author Biography

Eric Schurenberg is Editor-in-Chief of BNET.com and Editorial Director of CBS MoneyWatch.com. Previously, Eric was managing editor of MONEY. As managing editor, he expanded the editorial focus to new interests including real estate, family finance, health, retirement, and the workplace. Prior to MONEY, Eric was deputy editor of Business 2.0. He was also the managing editor of goldman.com, a Web site for Goldman Sachs Group’s personal wealth management business, and an assistant managing editor at Fortune magazine. Schurenberg has won a Gerald Loeb Award for distinguished business journalism, a National Magazine Award, and a Page One Award.

In his article “5 Social Security Myths That Have to Go, ” Schurenberg notes:

Social Security isn’t the only cause of America’s fiscal problems, but it is Exhibit A in why it is so hard to fix them. No serious solution to our debt can ignore a program that will tax and spend about 4.8% of GDP this year and account for about 20% of all federal spending-and that within a few decades will count almost a third of the population as beneficiaries. But whenever I write about Social Security here at CBS MoneyWatch, I’m always struck by how much disagreement there is about how the system really works.

A handful of misconceptions tend to crop up repeatedly-often having to do with that fiscal fun-house mirror, the Social Security trust fund. And despite the efforts of writers like Allan Sloan and experts like the Urban Institute’s Eugene Steuerle, the myths won’t die. This column won’t kill them either, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take a whack. Here goes:

Myth: Social Security is funded until 2037

 

The Social Security trust fund–the ledger on which Uncle Sam records the surplus taxes that the program has accumulated over the years–is large enough that the program need not ask for extra money to pay benefits until 2037, the year that the trust fund “runs dry” if nothing changes. But that’s not the same as being funded-at least not in a way that has any economic meaning.

As you may know, the trust fund is, for accounting purposes, assumed to be invested in IOUs from the U.S. Treasury. When Social Security needs money beyond what it expects to collect in payroll taxes, it can redeem some of these IOUs. But it’s not as if the trust fund is a giant 401(k). It’s more like access to a rich but cash-strapped daddy’s credit card.

What that means is that Social Security can get what it needs from Treasury without having to ask permission from Congress. But when it redeems one of these IOUs, the Treasury (just like Daddy) has to come up with the money the old-fashioned way, by raising taxes or, more likely, borrowing more.

Dolly Madison at Daily Kos seems to think that Social Security’s need for cash can be met from the interest credited to the trust fund-that is, with more IOUs. Allan Sloan disagrees:

You know, of course, why this wouldn’t work — at least, I hope you know. It’s because the U.S. government ultimately has to pay its bills with cash, not with its own IOUs. In the long run, you need cash — real money — not funny money.

“Fully funded” suggests that the money to maintain today’s benefits until 2035 is already locked up. It isn’t. Redeeming IOUs from the trust fund (and the income imputed to those IOUs) will only put another burden on taxpayers who are simultaneously paying for Medicare, interest on the debt, and all the other purposes of government. At some point, the total burden will be too much.

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Saving Social Security with Personal Retirement Accounts

There are two crises facing Social Security. First the program has a gigantic unfunded liability, largely thanks to demographics. Second, the program is a very bad deal for younger workers, making them pay record amounts of tax in exchange for comparatively meager benefits. This video explains how personal accounts can solve both problems, and also notes that nations as varied as Australia, Chile, Sweden, and Hong Kong have implemented this pro-growth reform. http://www.freedomandprosperity.org

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Social Security | Comments (0)

Gene Lyons: Tax Cuts always reduce tax revenues (Part 3)

May 11, 2011 – 11:12 am

In an interview by John Hawkins (16 September 2003) Milton Friedman said:

I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it’s possible. The reason I am is because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending. The question is, “How do you hold down government spending?” Government spending now amounts to close to 40% of national income not counting indirect spending through regulation and the like. If you include that, you get up to roughly half. The real danger we face is that number will creep up and up and up. The only effective way I think to hold it down, is to hold down the amount of income the government has. The way to do that is to cut taxes.

(R Row, from front to rear) Milton Friedman, George Shultz, Pres. Ronald Reagan, Arthur Burns, William Simon and Walter Wriston & unknown at a meeting of White House economic advisers.
(R Row, from front to rear) Milton Friedman, George Shultz, Pres. Ronald Reagan, Arthur Burns, William Simon and Walter Wriston & unknown at a meeting of White House economic advisers.

(Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)

 All these liberals are out their wringing their hands about these upcoming cuts in spending, and they want to figure a way to get us to pay more to the government. Milton Friedman shows today in this post why we need to go back to the three essential functions of government that the founding fathers had in mind.

I really enjoy responding to Gene Lyons’ articles. He is very entertaining with his articles and he is a good respresentative of the liberal point of view. Since I am a conservative, it is rare when we agree.

Gene Lyons in his article ”The futility of reasoning with crazy,” April 27, 2011 makes this simple straight forward statement:

Also contrary to Republican mythology, the infamous Bush tax cuts did anything but increase revenue, as tax cuts never do. As Fiscal Times columnist Bruce Bartlett shows, federal revenues dropped from 20.6 percent of GDP in 2000 to 18.5 percent in 2007.

I am starting a new series  that breaks down Lyon’s claims and take a look at the cold hard facts and I noticed that today Max Brantley jumped on board with Lyons when he wrote:

She (Ruth Marcus) proceeds to correct Boehner on any number of factual mistakes, including the notion that economic growth doesn’t follow tax increases. See Bill Clinton, for one. And what about the idea that tax increases would increase the debt?

“A tax hike would wreak havoc not only on our economy’s ability to create private-sector jobs, but also on our ability to tackle the national debt.”

 

During the early 1980s, taxes were cut and public debt ballooned, from 26 percent of GDP in 1980 to 40 percent by 1986. In 1993, taxes were increased (and spending cut); debt as a share of the economy fell, from 49 percent to 33 percent. In 2001 and 2003, taxes were cut. By the time President Obama took office, debt had climbed to 40 percent of GDP.

Michael Griffith in his article “The Facts about Tax Cuts, Revenue and Growth notes: .

Reagan Tax Cuts: In 1994 President Clinton’s own Council of Economic Advisers stated: “It is undeniable that the sharp reduction in taxes in the early 1980s was a strong impetus to economic growth.” 

The Reagan tax cuts were followed by a sharp increase in revenue. Total federal revenue, including income tax revenue, rose every year from 1983 to 1988, after a dip in 1982 (due at least in part to the recession of that year–the recession began in December 1980 and ended in November 1982).  From 1982 to 1989, i.e., when Reagan budgets were in operation, total federal revenue rose from $618 billion to $991 billion. (And herein by “in operation” I mean in effect for at least 10 months of a given year.) 

Let’s look at what happened to federal income tax revenue under Reagan from 1983 to 1989, bearing in mind that Reagan slashed income tax rates across the board:

1983 — $326 billion

1984 — $355 billion

1985 — $396 billion

1986 — $412 billion

1987 — $476 billion

1988 — $496 billion

1989 — $549 billion

Why did the deficit increase under Reagan? The defense dept was built up and Congress increased spending in other areas of the federal government too.

Brian Reidl has noted:

In the 1980s, President Reagan successfully terminated only 12 of the 94 programs he proposed be eliminated. Congress would often block the terminations by negotiating slight reductions and lengthy phaseouts, waiting a few years for the President’s focus to shift elsewhere and then restoring the programs to their original funding.30

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What Brantley and Lyons do not understand is very simple: We have a spending problem in Washington, not a lack of taxs!!!

There is a film series from 1980 that you simply have to check out. Today I have included some comments from Milton Friedman from his Film Series “Free to Choose: Episode 10 How to Stay Free,” which addresses several issues concerning how to control our spending.  

Lawrence E. Spivak: Let’s go back to Jefferson. You say cut the functions of central government to the basic functions advocated by Jefferson which was what? Defense against foreign enemies, preserve order at home, and mediate our disputes. Now, can we do that in the complicated, the complex world we live in today, without getting into very serious trouble.

Friedman: Suppose we look at the activities of government in the complex world of today. And ask to what extent has the growth of government arisen because of those complexities? And the answer is, very little indeed. What is the area of government that has grown most rapidly? The taking of money from some people and the giving of it to others. The transfer area. HEW, a budget 1_1/2 times as large as a whole defense budget. That’s the area where government has grown. Now, in that area, the way in which technology has entered has not been by making certain functions of government necessary, but by making it possible for government to do things they couldn’t have done before. Without the modern computers, without modern methods of communication and transportation, it would be utterly impossible to administer the kind of big government we have now. So I would say that the relation between technology and government has been that technology has made possible big government in many areas, but it’s not required it.

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There are so many excuses to raise government spending and taxes but we need to get back to the kind of government the founding fathers had in mind.

________________________________

Milton Friedman rightly said back in 1980 that we would much better off with a balanced budget amendment that would force government to live within their means. (Since then Friedman has called for an amendment that would limit the amount the government can tax and tie it to percentage of GNP.)

Friedman: Criminal tax evasion in Britain, laws and regulations defied in the U.S. It’s nothing to celebrate. The hopeful thing is that throughout the free world the public is coming to recognize the dangers of big government and is taking steps to control it. But it will be no easy task to cut government down to size. Today in country after country the strongest special interest has become the entrenched bureaucracy. Whether at the national or at the local level. In addition, each of us gets special benefits from one or another governmental program. The temptation is to try to cut down government at someone else’s expense while retaining our own special privileges. That was a stalemate. The right approach is to tackle head on the explosive growth in government spending. Lets give the government a budget the way each of us has a budget. A movement in this direction is already underway in the U.S. with the many proposals for Constitutional Amendments limiting government spending. Several states have already adopted such an amendment. There is strong pressure for a similar amendment at the federal level. Those amendments would force government to operate within a strict budget. Each special interest would have to compete with other special interests for a larger share of a fixed pie instead of all of them being able to join forces at the expense of the taxpayer.

This is an important step, but it is only a first step. No piece of paper by itself can solve our problems for us.



 

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman | Comments (0)

Ronald Wilson Reagan (Part 82) (1981 Orsini McArthur murder case Part 6)

May 11, 2011 – 10:38 am

Picture of Nancy and Ronald Reagan at the Stork Club in New York City.
(Picture from the Ronald Reagan Library)

Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan at the “Stork Club” in New York City. (Early 1950s)

From Oct. 28, 1980, here is part 2 of the Carter-Reagan Presidential Debate, as taped from CBS. Amazing how things have changed…and yet stayed the same…in almost 30 years!!!
 
I never imagined that I would be posting Ronald Wilson Reagan part 82 today when I first started it around Feb 6 which was Reagan’s 100th birthday, but the response has been so overwhelming that I must keep this series going. Just today I saw a clip called “The Reagan Revolution” which is a cartoon that teaches kids about our past history. Jason Tolbert reported that Mike Huckabee is involved in putting this series together and I like the idea a lot.
 
Oct 21, 1984 Presidential Debate President Reagan v. Walter Mondale

Eastern Europe

MR. KALB: A related question, Mr. Mondale, on Eastern Europe. Do you accept the conventional diplomatic wisdom that Eastern Europe is a Soviet sphere of influence? And if you do, what could a Mondale administration realistically do to help the people of Eastern Europe achieve the human rights that were guaranteed to them as a result of the Helsinki accords?

MR. MONDALE: I think the essential strategy of the United States ought not accept any Soviet control over Eastern Europe. We ought to deal with each of these countries separately. We ought to pursue strategies with each of them, economic and the rest, that help them pull away from their dependence upon the Soviet Union.

Where the Soviet Union has acted irresponsibly, as they have in many of those countries, especially, recently, in Poland, I believe we ought to insist that Western credits extended to the Soviet Union bear the market rate. Make the Soviets pay for their irresponsibility. That is a very important objective — to make certain that we continue to look forward to progress toward greater independence by these nations and work with each of them separately.

MR. NEWMAN: Mr. President, your rebuttal.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. I’m not going to continue trying to respond to these repetitions of the falsehoods that have already been stated here. But with regard to whether Mr. Mondale would be strong, as he said he would be, I know that he has a commercial out where he’s appearing on the deck of the Nimitz and watching the F – 14’s take off. And that’s an image of strength — except that if he had had his way when the Nimitz was being planned, he would have been deep in the water out there because there wouldn’t have been any Nimitz to stand on — he was against it. [Laughter]

He was against the F – 14 fighter, he was against the M – 1 tank, he was against the B – 1 bomber, he wanted to cut the salary of all of the military, he wanted to bring home half of the American forces in Europe. And he has a record of weakness with regard to our national defense that is second to none.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hear, hear!

THE PRESIDENT: Indeed, he was on that side virtually throughout all his years in the Senate. And he opposed even President Carter, when toward the end of his term President Carter wanted to increase the defense budget.

MR. NEWMAN: Mr. Mondale, your rebuttal.

MR. MONDALE: Mr. President, I accept your commitment to peace, but I want you to accept my commitment to a strong national defense. [Applause] I propose a budget — I have proposed a budget which would increase our nation’s strength, in real terms, by double that of the Soviet Union.

I’ll tell you where we disagree. It is true over 10 years ago I voted to delay production of the F – 14, and I’ll tell you why. The plane wasn’t flying the way it was supposed to be; it was a waste of money.

Your definition of national strength is to throw money at the Defense Department. My definition of national strength is to make certain that a dollar spent buys us a dollar’s worth of defense. There’s a big difference between the two of us. A President must manage that budget. I will keep us strong, but you’ll not do that unless you command that budget and make certain we get the strength that we need. You pay $500 for a $5 hammer, you’re not buying strength.

MR. NEWMAN: I would ask the audience not to applaud. All it does is take up time that we would like to devote to the debate.

Mr. Kondracke, your question to Mr. Mondale.
Use of Military Force

MR. KONDRACKE: Mr. Mondale, in an address earlier this year you said that before this country resorts to military force, and I’m quoting, “American interests should be sharply defined, publicly supported, congressionally sanctioned, militarily feasible, internationally defensible, open to independent scrutiny, and alert to regional history.” Now, aren’t you setting up such a gauntlet of tests here that adversaries could easily suspect that as President you would never use force to protect American interests?

MR. MONDALE: No. As a matter of fact, I believe every one of those standards is essential to the exercise of power by this country. And we can see that in both Lebanon and in Central America.

In Lebanon, this President exercised American power, all right, but the management of it was such that our marines were killed, we had to leave in humiliation, the Soviet Union became stronger, terrorists became emboldened. And it was because they did not think through how power should be exercised, did not have the American public with them on a plan that worked, that we ended up the way we did.

Similarly, in Central America: What we’re doing in Nicaragua with this covert war — which the Congress, including many Republicans, have tried to stop — is finally end up with a public definition of American power that hurts us, where we get associated with political assassins and the rest. We have to decline, for the first time in modern history, jurisdiction in the World Court because they’ll find us guilty of illegal actions. And our enemies are strengthened from all of this.

We need to be strong, we need to be prepared to use that strength, but we must understand that we are a democracy. We are a government by the people, and when we move, it should be for very severe and extreme reasons that serve our national interests and end up with a stronger country behind us. It is only in that way that we can persevere.

It has been 150 years since the beginning of the Civil War that started in April of 1861 at Ft Sumter.

Siege of Petersburg

1865

Soldiers in the trenches before battle, Petersburg, Va., 1865.

Photograph Courtesy of the National Archives & Records

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Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Mary Lee Orsini

 
On July 2, 1982, in the late afternoon, the victim was found shot to death in her western Little Rock home. That afternoon at about 4:20 p.m., a neighbor saw a car with no license plate and with a homemade delivery sign in the window pull into the victim’s driveway. She observed a black man, carrying flowers, emerge from the car and hand the flowers to the victim. The black man was Larry McClendon, one of the accomplices. She then saw the driver of the car, a white male, get out of the car and walk toward the door. The white male was Eugene “Yankee” Hall, the other accomplice. Later she saw the two men drive away. At trial she identified McClendon’s car as the one she had seen. Shortly thereafter the victim’s husband arrived home and, being unable to locate his wife, called the police. During a search of the house, the victim’s body was found in an upstairs closet. At the victim’s feet was a flower arrangement. The crime scene investigation [***9] revealed three bullet holes; one in the hallway, one in the closet where the body was found, and one in the body of the victim. The principal witness for the State was Eugene “Yankee” Hall. His testimony about his and appellant’s participation in the murder was corroborated by the testimony of various witnesses and physical evidence found at the scene of the bombing and the scene of the shooting. Hall testified that he had met appellant in the Spring of 1982 and had spent several nights at her house. During the following weeks the [**249] two of them conspired to kill Alice McArthur. In May of 1982 he and appellant purchased an explosive contained in a shampoo bottle, made a bomb, and placed it in the victim’s car where it exploded without seriously injuring her. Parts of a shampoo bottle containing the high explosive Torvex were recovered from the bomb scene at the McArthur home. Two witneses identified appellant as the woman who accompanied Hall when he [*353] bought the explosive. They identified appellant’s automobile as the vehicle in which the pair was traveling. Evidence introduced at trial reflected that a telephone call made to the seller of the explosive [***10] from a bait shop on the day of the purchase was billed to appellant’s telephone number. Another witness testified that appellant had told her several days before the bombing incident that a bombing would occur.Hall stated that, after the bombing failed to kill Mrs. McArthur, he agreed with appellant to a contract murder of the victim for $ 25,000 to be paid by the victim’s husband, the trigger to be pulled by Larry McClendon. Appellant gave him $ 325 for expenses. Hall testified that appellant agreed to obtain the murder weapon. Circumstantial evidence corroborated Hall’s testimony that the murder weapon was obtained by appellant. A ballistics expert testified that the three bullets were fired from a short barreled revolver and were a unique Federal type bullet manufactured between 1956 and 1975. Dr. Wulz, a witness for appellant, stated that he and appellant had been engaged in a continuing romantic relationship for several years and that he had owned an eleven or twelve year old .38 caliber revolver. He further testified that he discovered the pistol was missing about a week prior to the murder. The ballistics expert testified that the three bullets retrieved from the crime [***11] scene were the same type as those in a box of shells which Wulz had kept at home and had delivered to the prosecutor Hall further testified that appellant had devised the scheme for him and Larry McClendon to pose as a florist delivery service and that appellant had made the florist delivery sign. Hall testified that on the day of the murder he and McClendon went to Phillips Wrecker Service in North Little Rock to get the florist delivery sign out of a car that he had been driving. An employee of the wrecker service corroborated this fact. Hall testified that on the day of the murder he purchased a flower arrangement and removed the license plate from McClendon’s car before putting the floral delivery sign in the car window. An employee of Leroy’s Florist at Cantrell and Kavanaugh in Little Rock testified that she prepared the flower arrangement found at the [*354] murder scene. Before Hall picked up the flower arrangement, he telephoned appellant, and appellant telephoned the victim’s residence to make sure she was home. Evidence was introduced to corroborate Hall’s testimony that appellant telephoned the victim the afternoon of the murder. The record reflects that a [***12] tracing device, or trap, along with a microcassette tape recorder, had been placed on the McArthur telephone. A transcription of the telephone tape recovered from the home the day of the murder established that a telephone call made to the victim at 1:59 p.m. had been made from appellant’s residence. The caller asked for “Mama.” Two witnesses identified the voice of the caller as the voice of appellant. This corroborated Hall’s testimony that appellant telephoned the victim the afternoon of the murder to determine if she was home. Soon after the telephone call to appellant’s home, appellant drove by Hall and McClendon on her way to a pre-arranged appointment with her attorney, Bill McArthur, the victim’s husband. Two witnesses from the McArthur law firm testified appellant had made an appointment for 4:00 that afternoon. As she passed Hall and McClendon, she got a go ahead sign from Hall. After the murder, Hall threw the gun and florist sign in the Arkansas River. He then telephoned appellant who told him she had been unable to get the payoff money that day. Within a few days after the murder, appellant told Larry Burge, an acquaintance, that she had received an anonymous [***13] telephone [**250] tip that Larry McClendon had killed Alice McArthur. At appellant’s request, Burge relayed this information anonymously to the sheriff, who verified receiving it. The next day appellant again contacted Burge, telling him she had received more information about the murder and had made notes on this information. The notes were written down on yellow pieces of paper. At appellant’s request Burge agreed to pose as an anonymous caller and relate to her the information she had written down. Burge made the call, naming McClendon as the man who fired the gun and stating that McClendon had been seen with a white man earlier in the day. Appellant tape recorded this message and, on the pretext of having received the call from an anonymous source, took the tape to the sheriff. At trial [*355] Burge identified the yellow pages as the notes written in appellant’s handwriting and given to him by her for the purpose of making his call. These three yellow pages were removed from appellant’s person the night she was arrested. Since the staged anonymous call, based on notes prepared by appellant, was information only a person involved in the murder would know, this [***14] evidence corroborated Hall’s testimony that appellant conspired with him to commit murder.

 

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Ronald Reagan | Comments (0)

2007 Interview with Jane Felix-Browne concerning her husband Omar bin Laden (pictures included)

May 11, 2011 – 8:18 am

 

Jane Felix-Browne, a 51-year-old grandmother and parish councillor from Cheshire has married a son of Osama bin Laden after a holiday romance
 
 
Jane Felix-Browne
 
A British divorcee said Wednesday she has married Omar bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader’s fourth son, after they met in Egypt last fall.Jane Felix-Browne, a 51-year-old grandmother from Moulton, Cheshire, in northwestern England, told British media she met bin Laden, 27, while riding a horse near Egypt’s Great Pyramid and they married in April. The Times and Sun newspapers, which initially reported the story, said she was in Egypt for medical treatment for multiple sclerosis at the time.

The couple has held Islamic marriage ceremonies in both Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Felix-Browne said. She said she is his second wife

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In a July 11, 2007 interview with The Times, “Briton marries bin Laden’s son,” David Brown reported:
 
A British woman has married a son of Osama bin Laden after a holiday romance and is to apply for a visa so that he can visit Britain, The Times has learnt.

Jane Felix-Browne, a 51-year-old grandmother and parish councillor from Cheshire, has until now kept her marriage to Omar Ossama bin Laden, 27, secret from everyone apart from her immediate family and close friends. But she has now agreed to speak about her relationship with bin Laden’s fourth eldest son.

“It would be nice if, like any other married woman, I could stand up and say this is my husband and this is his name, but I have to be realistic about things,” she told The Times. “I hope people don’t judge me too harshly. I married the son, not the father.” 

Mrs Felix-Browne says she is aware that some people will be hostile to her marriage. Among the numerous terrorist plots linked to her new father-in-law are the London suicide bombings on July 7, 2005, the July 21 plot, and the recent attempted attacks in London and Glasgow. “I just married the man I met and fell in love with – to me he is just Omar,” she said. “I hope that people will take a step back and think what it was like when they fell in love. He is the most beautiful person I have ever met. His heart is pure, he is pious, quiet, a true gentleman, and he is my best friend.”

Mrs Felix-Browne, who has been married five times previously, met Mr bin Laden in Egypt in September while undergoing treatment for multiple sclerosis. She says that their fairytale romance began when her future husband saw her riding a horse near the Great Pyramid. They were married in Islamic ceremonies in Egypt and Saudi Arabia and are awaiting permission from the authorities in Riyadh to make their marriage official.

Mrs Felix-Browne is still coming to terms with the practical difficulties of being the daughter-in-law of a man with a $25 million (£12.5 million) bounty on his head. “Omar is wary of everyone. He is constantly watching people who he feels might be following him. Not without reason he is fearful of cameras. He is the son of Osama,” she said. “But when we are together he forgets his life.”

Mrs Felix-Browne already knew some members of the bin Laden family through her Islamic marriage to a Saudi man in London when she was 16. She believes that she actually met Osama bin Laden at a party in London in the 1970s.

Omar bin Laden left Saudi Arabia as a child when his father was expelled for his extremist beliefs, his wife said. Living in exile in Sudan and then Afghanistan, he saw at first hand the creation of al-Qaeda and its techniques. Mrs Felix-Browne said: “I never had any problem with his past. Omar did not do anything wrong. He was a child when he was in Afghanistan.”

She said that her husband left Afghanistan before the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001. However, some reports claim that he split from his father only after the attack on New York and an argument about tactics.

Mrs Felix-Browne insisted: “He last saw his father in 2000 when they were both in Afghanistan. He left his father because he did not feel it was right to fight or to be in an army. Omar was training to be a soldier and he was only 19.

“He told me he has had no contact with his father since the day he left him. He misses his father. Omar doesn’t know if it was his father who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. I don’t think we will ever know.”

Apart from their religion the couple appear to have little in common. She has three sons and five grandchildren and is a respected parish councillor in the village of Moulton. She has had various jobs, including restoring houses and aircraft, and is a keen rider and scuba diver.

He works as a scrap metal dealer in Jedda and is one of at least 17 children fathered by bin Laden. His father’s reputation means that he has been ostracised by the wealthy and powerful bin Laden family and is under surveillance by the security services in Saudi Arabia.

Mrs Felix-Browne, who now uses the Islamic name Zaina Mohamad, says that she speaks to her husband for several hours every day over the internet or by telephone. During their conversations she refers to him repeatedly as “Habibi”, the Arabic for “my love”. She said: “I find it very difficult to live without him and I know he does too. But really we have the most normal life possible.”

She was aware before her marriage that her husband already had another wife and a two-year-old child. “I haven’t seen her but I have spoken to her for about an hour on the telephone,” she said. “She is fine about it.”

Mrs Felix-Browne was initially reluctant to discuss her new husband but news of their relationship inevitably began to leak out in Britain and the Middle East. “I don’t want any of my family distressed or upset by my actions,” she said. “I know that for everybody who likes me there will probably be a million enemies.”

Now she hopes that Mr bin Laden will come to Britain. “He would like to spend quite a bit of time here,” she said. “There is no reason why he should not come to live, but I don’t think he would like the weather.”

Mrs Felix-Browne said that the couple hoped to use their position to help to heal the wounds caused by her father-in-law. “All we want is peace in this world and I will do all I can to promote it.”

Mrs Felix-Browne, who has been married five times previously, met Omar Ossama bin Laden in Egypt in September 2006

Mrs Felix-Browne, who has been married five times previously, met Omar Ossama bin Laden in Egypt in September 2006

 
 
Mrs Felix-Browne met Mr bin Laden in Egypt in September
 
Jane Felix-Browne says that their fairytale romance began when her future husband saw her riding a horse near the Great Pyramid
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in President Obama | Comments (1)

Hamza bin Laden wants to keep his father’s family business of terror going

May 11, 2011 – 7:59 am
Osama's youngest son, Hamza, is believed to have escaped the compound where his terror fiend dad was killed by SEALs.

AP
Osama’s youngest son, Hamza, is believed to have escaped the compound where his terror fiend dad was killed by SEALs.

Osama bin Laden’s youngest known son — a budding teen terrorist groomed since childhood to wage jihad — likely escaped from the Pakistani compound where his father was killed by Navy SEALs.

Pakistani authorities say Hamza bin Laden, 19, has been unaccounted for since the May 1 raid in which his father, an older brother and two trusted family friends were killed.

Word of Hamza’s disappearance came as one of the older of bin Laden’s 20 or so children, Omar, yesterday blasted the United States for a “criminal mission” that “obliterated an entire defenseless family.” Omar threatened to sue while demanding proof that his father died.

Hamza’s mother, a Saudi named Khairiah Sabar, is one of three bin Laden wives who had been living in the Abbottabad compound. She, along with the other survivors, are in Pakistani custody.

Sabar told Pakistani authorities she hadn’t seen her son since the assault, London’s Daily Telegraph newspaper reported.

After the successful assault, the White House initially reported Hamza had been killed, but later said it was another son, Khalid, 24, who died.

Pakistani authorities confirmed that one household member is missing.

Hamza was implicated in the 2007 assassination of Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who had written that the young bin Laden was organizing one of “four suicide bomber squads” targeting her.

While Hamza’s whereabouts were being questioned, bin Laden’s son Omar, in a statement posted on jihadi Web sites, accused the United States of having the “goal of killing and not arresting” his father.

The terror scion, 30, who in 2007 married a 54-year-old Briton, blasted “those forces [that] carried out their criminal mission and obliterated an entire defenseless family,” according to the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute.

Omar said the burial at sea of his father was “unacceptable humanely and religiously,” and the son threatened “to follow that crime through the American and international justice [systems] in order to determine the true fate of our vanished father.”

And in a separate statement to The New York Times, Omar wrote: “I Omar Ossama Binladin and my brothers the lawful children and heirs of the Ossama Binladin (OBL) have noted wide coverage of the news of the death of our father, but we are not convinced on the available evidence in the absence of dead body, photographs and video evidence that our natural father is dead.”

Omar also wrote the Times, “If he has been summarily executed, then we question the propriety of such assassination.”

Omar added, “As he [President Obama] condemned our father, we now condemn the president of the United States for ordering the execution of unarmed men and women.”

Meanwhile, the FBI and Homeland Security said there could be terror strikes by “lone wolves” to avenge Osama’s death.

Also, federal prosecutors said Rageh Ahmed Mohammed Al Murisi, a Yemeni who tried to barge into the cockpit of a Chicago-to-San Francisco flight Sunday night, was trying to bring the plane down.

An undated Al Jazeera television picture purportedly shows Hamza bin Osama bin Laden.

Reuters
CROWN PRINCE OF TERROR?: An undated Al Jazeera television picture purportedly shows Hamza bin Laden, one of the sons of Osama bin Laden, displaying what the Taliban claimed is wreckage from a US helicopter near Ghazni.
President Obama said no Americans were harmed in the operation. Three adult males were also killed in the raid, including one of bin Laden’s sons, whom officials did not name. One of bin Laden’s sons, Hamza, is a senior member of al-Qaida. U.S. officials also said one woman was killed when she was used as a shield by a male combatant, and two other women were injured.
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in President Obama | Comments (1)

Senator Pryor asks for Spending Cut Suggestions! Here are a few!(Part 46)

May 11, 2011 – 7:35 am

Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:

Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Here are a few more I just emailed to him myself at 7:34am CST.

Senator Rand Paul on Feb 7, 2011 wrote the article “A Modest $500 Billion Proposal: My spending cuts would keep 85% of government funding and not touch Social Security,” Wall Street Journal and he observed:

Here are some of his specific suggestions:

Justice


Agency/Program Funding Level Savings % Decrease
Justice $22.867 B $9.057 B 28%


In recent decades, the Department of Justice has expanded far beyond its traditional role, pushing aside many of the law enforcement activities that were originally designated to state and local governments. In addition, the department
has become an avenue to channel politically popular law enforcement funding and grants to states, many of which  are consistently highlighted by government auditors such as GAO for their incessant amount of waste, fraud, and abuse. The proposal reduces the department back to FY2008 levels, and completely eliminates the Office of Justice Programs.


Office of Justice Programs: Eliminated


The Office of Justice Programs does not directly carry out law enforcement or justice activities, rather OJP performs studies on the pressing crime-related challenges that confront the justice system and provides grants to try and help cities and counties reduce their crime rates. In effect, OJP has evolved into a multi-billion dollar subsidy to the budgets of local governments.

Since 1996, GAO has had strong concerns over OJP’s ability to monitor the use of grants given to cities and counties and if they have been used properly. Some programs, like “neighborhood watch” have little to no impact on crime
rates. In addition, GAO has also determined their evaluation process on the effectiveness of the programs needs to be reformed. The value of these programs is hard to prove because of the difficulty in showing the programs were the direct cause of any decrease in crime.
Each state, county, and city communities and police departments are forced to address many different forms of crime. The federal government can set guidelines on how to address criminal issues, but only the states and local communities can determine what the best way to counter and deter violence and crime.

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Kate Middleton and Prince William: Marriage made in Heaven? (Part 20)

May 11, 2011 – 7:26 am

 

The Royal Wedding Ceremony of William and Kate Live part 3/4

photo

Prince Harry and The Lady Louise Mountbatten-Windsor

Prince Harry and The Lady Louise Mountbatten-Windsor – the daughter of The Earl and Countess of Wessex – travel in the carriage procession to Buckingham Palace from Westminster Abbey following the wedding service of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, 29 April 2011.

I really do wish Kate and William success in their marriage. I hope they truly are committed to each other, and if they are then the result will be a marriage that lasts their whole lifetime. Nevertheless, I do not think it is best to live together before marriage like they did, and I am writing this series to help couples see how best to prepare for marriage.
 
Tiffany Stuart wrote a great article, “Six-Month Security:Living together was a farce, a halfhearted commitment with a huge ‘Exit’ sign looming over it,” Focus on the Family. I will be dividing the article into four parts. Here is the third part:  

A Suffering Relationship

Not only did my relationship with Derek suffer because of my fears, my relationship with my mom suffered too. I was afraid I’d hear, “I told you so,” if I was honest about my insecurity. I hid behind an “everything’s fine” facade. I was determined to make living together work — even if it was a mistake.

My mom’s words haunted me. “You can’t try it on before you buy it; it’s not a dress.” Although I wasn’t walking with God at the time, I knew enough Scripture to feel guilty and ashamed. But I justified it because I wanted to make sure the two of us were compatible before we said “I do.” After all, I knew that more than half of all marriages end in divorce. I didn’t want the “D” tattoo if our relationship didn’t work out.

A month into our lease, Derek and I bought an Alaskan Eskimo puppy. A way to keep Derek, I thought. But weeks later, the shy puppy we picked out was still acting skittish. He started biting. So, we gave him away.

So much for “our” dog — and my security.

Even though I wanted a commitment from Derek, my commitment was conditional and temporary. I gave my body and my resources, but withheld my heart.

I longed for intimacy and relationship, but living together didn’t satisfy. It’s like planning a vacation to Hawaii, envisioning sunny, white beaches and then arriving to trash-lined shores and overcast skies. One is a dream. The other is a disappointing reality.

Despite our struggles, Derek and I eloped around the time our lease expired. Fifteen years and two children later, we’re still together.

Nevertheless, Derek and I still regret living together. We missed out on the honeymoon experience. We regret sharing our meals, our households, and our bodies prior to being emotionally and spiritually committed as husband and wife. We started our marriage with a past. It took me years of marriage to trust Derek’s real and lifelong commitment.

Someday I plan on sharing this with our children. It won’t be easy. However, I believe they deserve the truth. I hope they will understand why we regret our decision and why God’s design for a man and a woman is marriage.

 

Weekend to Remember Story – Dennis Rainey

Tim Hawkins – “Some Songs Should Be One Verse”

Revelation (Biblical Numbers 4 of 4)-Dr Adrian Rogers

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers | Comments (0)