All B-Cruz: married into the TPP/NAU establishment

Not a US citizen? No problem, it doesn't matter anymore! ¿No un ciudadano estadounidense? ¡No hay problema, no importa más!

If you consider yourself a Cruzer supporter watch where you step. If you think the "tea party" is your safe haven, you'll be disappointed when you find out it's just another appendage for GOP neocon leadership propaganda. 

The mouse trap is baited, don't lunge for the cheese. Promise us all you'll jump off a bridge after you support whom you thought was the 'lesser of two evils', when in fact there is no lesser! The Cruzer and an opponent  worship at other alters than you or me.

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Dr. Joel McDurmon

Mar 10, 2014

 

Good Fellas Blankfein, Goldman CEO and
Head Abortion Meister Buffett

During his CPAC speech this weekend, Senator Ted Cruz took shots at previous Republican presidential candidates Dole, McCain, and Romney, for lacking a “clear distinction” from big-government democrats. Well, I think Mr. Cruz has got some ‘splaining to do. It seems he’s just as married—literally—to the establishment as any of them.

A report from the ever-busy infowars.com reveals that Cruz’s wife, Heidi, has some rather behemoth credentials:

Cruz’s insider connection is a family affair. His wife, Heidi, is a Goldman Sachs vice president in Houston, Texas, according to her LinkedIn profile. She also served as an economic advisor for the Bush administration. In 2011, a Cruz campaign spokesman portrayed Heidi as “an expert on North American trade,” in other words she is savvy when it comes to globalist transnational trade deals like NAFTA, the single most destructive government move against the American worker in history.

She was also a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations (see her bio at Claremont McKenna College), a position that expired prior to her husband’s attack on the globalist organization.

The details come from a page listing Clermont-McKenna College’s Board of Advisors, on which Mrs. Cruz apparently served. In addition to being one of only three of W’s economic advisors,

She also served in the Administration as the economic director for the Western Hemisphere at the National Security Council at the White House, advising the President and then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. She also is a former director at the U.S. Treasury Department and was special policy assistant to Ambassador Robert B. Zoellick, then Chief U.S. international trade negotiator.

It also reveals that before Goldman Sachs, she worked for another tentacle of the vampire squid, JPMorgan, “focusing on international structured finance.”

None of this says “Tea Party,” “small government,” “sound money,” and contrary to Cruz’s latest pitch, it also does not much support “standing on principle”—unless that “principle” is fiat money, TARP bailouts, financing wars, revolving doors, etc.

Now perhaps Mrs. Cruz’s career is not representative of the Senator’s views. Or, if it is, perhaps the Senator has changed views in recent years. He did later blast the CFR, but that seems to have come only after his wife’s Term ended, and only when trying to present himself as a Tea Party candidate.

But Cruz has wasted no time showing us to his views. Only a day after falling a distant second behind Ran Paul (Paul 31%, Cruz only 11%) in the CPAC straw poll, Cruz took a swipe, albeit a weak one, at Paul. Breitbart.com reports that despite being a “big fan” of Rand Paul, Cruz stated, “I don’t agree with him on foreign policy.”

There’s no doubt Paul is not an imperialist or a warmonger, but he has certainly deviated from his father’s uncompromising non-interventionism. When Fox News Sunday asked about his foreign policy, Paul answered,

I see my foreign policy in the same line as what came out of, probably, the first George Bush. Henry Kissinger wrote something in the Washington Post two days ago [here] which I agree with. I see it coming out of the mainstream of the Republican position.

I opposed with real fervor the involvement of us in Syria, and that became the dominant position in the country—both Republican and Democrat. There’s not one Republican who’s saying we should put military troops in Crimea, in the Ukraine. So I think I’m right in the middle of that position.

And I think that those who would try to argue that somehow I’m different than the mainstream Republican opinion are people who want to take advantage for their own personal political gain. I’m a great believer in Ronald Reagan. I’m a great believer in a strong national defense. . . .

It’s perhaps not surprising then that in his sideswipe at Paul, Cruz didn’t really give any real specifics, just vague sentimental references:

U.S. leadership is critical in the world. I agree we should be reluctant to deploy military force aboard, but there’s a vital role, just as Ronald Reagan did. When Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an Evil Empire, when he stood in front of the Brandenburg Gate and said ‘Tear down this wall.’ Those words changed the course of history. The United States has a responsibility to defend our values.

Of course, Paul seems to share all of these platitudes: who doesn’t believe in “defending our values”? Who doesn’t believe in “U.S. leadership”? So as criticisms these fall flat.

The real questions are things like, “Do we need 800 international military bases to accomplish this?” “Do we need to maintain military bases in 63 countries?” “Do we need standing armies of 255,000 soldiers in foreign countries?” “Can anyone who believes in fiscal responsibility and small government seriously maintain $680+ billions each year in ‘defense’ spending?” And this is all not even considering the biblical doctrines regard the military and war (Paul has hinted at some. Cruz has not, as far as I know).

Since Paul shares the views Cruz mentioned, it seems that Cruz is either uniformed (unlikely), dishonest (harsh), or is engaging in careless political volleys.

Consider the results of CPAC, the latter seems most likely.

In fairness, Cruz was asked about Paul by an interviewer, so he had no choice but answer. But his answer is vague grandstanding on things Paul agrees with.

So, if we are to believe that Cruz’s answer distinguishes him from Paul somehow, then he must have very different definitions of “U.S. leadership” and “defending our values” than those articulated by Paul. For Cruz, these must be euphemisms for “imperialism” and “interventionism.”

If Cruz’s familial associations—Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, W, CFR— are any indication, then I think we know the answer. I suspect there is, therefore, some truth in Infowar.com’s conclusion:

Like the domestication of the Tea Party and the expulsion of its more purist liberty-minded activists, the Cruz the warrior pitted against the establishment motif is another slick subversion directed at the political elite’s most puissant opposition – the real Tea Party and a threatening number of patriot activists gnawing at the edges of the political establishment.

If Cruz gets more prominent for the 2016 primary, I suspect there will be an attempt to scrub these associations.

UPDATE: Paul fires back:

Many forget today that Reagan’s decision to meet with Mikhail Gorbachev was harshly criticized by the Republican hawks of his time, some of whom would even call Reagan an appeaser. In the Middle East, Reagan strategically pulled back our forces after the tragedy in Lebanon in 1983 that killed 241 Marines, realizing the cost of American lives was too great for the mission.

Without a clearly defined mission, exit strategy or acceptable rationale for risking soldiers lives, Reagan possessed the leadership to reassess and readjust.

Today, we forget that some of the Republican hawks of his time criticized Reagan harshly for this too, again, calling him an appeaser. . . .

How many leaders were as great as Reagan, willing to admit their mistakes, learn from them and put their country before their own reputation and legacy?

Today’s Republicans should concentrate on establishing their own identities and agendas, as opposed to simply latching onto Ronald Reagan’s legacy—or worse, misrepresenting it.

Source AmericanVision

Murders by Rulers Series: The Clinton's Body Count *incl. video* plus Pics

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Admin

Ether Zone  Here is the latest body count that we have. All of these people have been connected with the Clintons in some form or another. We have not included any deaths that could not be verified or connected to the Clinton scandals. All deaths are listed chronologically by date. This list is current and accurate to the best of our knowledge as of January 13, 1999 August 1, 2000.

Why Not One Governor Is Qualified to Be US President

 "If only we had a governor with the guts of a good sheriff."

Thursday, 19 February 2015

Written by  Selwyn Duke

Our Constitution has become a suicide pact.

That’s the view of Thomas Jefferson, expressed in an 1819 letter to jurist Spencer Roane, when he said “If this opinion be sound, then indeed is our constitution a complete felo de se” (suicide pact). The opinion Jefferson referred to is the legitimacy of judicial review, the idea, as he put it, that “gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres.” He warned that accepting such a doctrine makes “the Judiciary a despotic branch” that acts as “an oligarchy.”

That “opinion” has been accepted. The despotism has befallen us. The oligarchy reigns.

In recent times federal judges have ruled that Arizona must provide driver’s licenses for illegal aliens, states such as Utah and Alabama must allow faux marriage, and a Wisconsin voter-identification law is unconstitutional. 

And these are just a few examples of judicial usurpations that continue unabated and go unanswered. But the answer, which needs to be given first and foremost by governors, is simple:

“No.

No — I will not abide by the court’s unjust ruling. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land and, insofar as the central government or judiciary violates it, it renders itself illegitimate. As the governor of my state and head of its executive branch, I am charged with the enforcement of its laws. And we will recognize no more unconstitutional juridical or federal dictates.”

(Note: while my main focus here is our much abused judicial review, I’m advocating the same course with respect to all unconstitutional dictates.)

If this seems radical, note that even Abraham Lincoln agreed, saying in his first inaugural address, “If the policy of the government, upon the vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by the decisions of the Supreme Court … the people will have ceased to be their own masters, having to that extent resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.”

The process I’m advocating here is known as nullification. 

And should anyone still think it radical or unprecedented, know that we’d only be taking a leaf out of the Left’s book. Explanation?

What do you think “sanctuary cities” are?

They’re places where liberals have decided they’re simply going to resist federal immigration law.

What do you think is happening when states (e.g., Colorado) and leftist municipalities ignore federal drug laws? Nullification is happening.

Yet no matter how egregious, un-American, unconstitutional, and despotic the federal or judicial usurpations, the conservative response is typified by what Utah governor Gary Herbert said — feeling oh-so principled, I’m sure — after the federal faux-marriage ruling: “Ultimately we are a nation of laws and we here in Utah will uphold the law.” Yes, we’re supposed to be a nation subject to the rule of law.

Not the rule of lawyers.

And our governors are allowing subjection to the latter, feeling noble playing by rules the Left laughs at.

It’s not surprising that revolutionary spirit has been cornered by liberals. The only consistent definition of “liberal” is “desire to change the status quo” — it is revolutionary by definition. In contrast, the only consistent definition of “conservative” involves something antithetical to revolution: the desire to maintain the status quo. Of course, it completely eludes conservatives that today’s status quo was created by yesterday’s liberals. And one modern status quo is to lose culture-war and political battles to the Left. And, boy, do conservatives ever maintain that one. They’re like a guy who goes into a fight, gets poked in the eyes and kicked in the kneecaps, loses, and then the next time still thinks he’s got to follow Queensbury rules.

We hear a lot of talk about “states’ rights.” Ex-Texas governor Rick Perry was a good example of a big talker. 

But where’s the beef? Merely flapping lips doesn’t sink big-government ships. There have been nullification efforts by state legislatures, mainly regarding federal gun-control law, and many sheriffs across the country have vowed not to enforce such law. And Alabama’s Judge Roy Moore is currently defying a federal faux-marriage ruling. This is laudable, but why are the chief executives MIA? If only we had a governor with the guts of a good sheriff.

We’re meant to be a nation of states, not a nation state. But rights mean nothing if you’re not eternally vigilant in their defense, if you don’t actively stand against those who would trample them. In 2013, Attorney General Eric Holder threatened Kansas with legal action over a new anti-federal-gun-control state law. If the courts ruled against the state, what would Governor Sam Brownback do? Make some “principled” comments about the rule of law(lessness) and then assume the prone position?

This is why I say not one governor is truly qualified to be president: If a chief executive will not oppose federal tyranny while the head of a state government, why should we think he’d oppose federal tyranny once head of the federal government?

History teaches that entities don’t willingly relinquish power; it didn’t happen in 1776 and it won’t happen now. 

People are generally quite zealous about increasing their power, though. This returns us to the courts’ usurpations. Do you know where the power of “judicial review” came from? It was declared in the 1803 Marbury v. Madison decision — by the Supreme Court.

That’s right: the Supreme Court gave the Supreme Court the Supreme Court’s despotic power.

Of course, unilateral declarations of power are not at all unusual historically. It’s what happened whenever an agent of tyranny — whether it was a conquering king, communist force, or crime syndicate — took over. But these despotisms were enforced, as Mao put it, “through the barrel of a gun.” It wasn’t usually the case that the subjects rolled over like trained dogs lapping up lawyer-craft. Oh, it’s not that I don’t see the crafty lawyers’ position. I might like to crown myself Emperor of America, but, should I insist I possess this unilaterally-declared status with enough conviction, I may get a stay in a mental institution. The courts get to dictate to everyone else and spread insanity all the way around.

Perhaps it needn’t be stated, but the power of judicial review isn’t in the Constitution. So is it any wonder that a federal court, concerned about Barack Obama’s comments relating to the judiciary, asked his administration in 2012 to submit a formal letter indicating whether or not it recognized the power? 

Judicial review, being an invention, is dependent upon the acquiescence of the other two branches of government.

Oh, and what is Obama’s actual position? He believes in the court’s power — when it serves his agenda. 

Otherwise, he’s willing to ignore court rulings himself, as he did when suing Texas over voter ID in 2013. (In fact, never mind the courts. Obama ignores duly enacted federal law he doesn’t like.)

The lesson?

We can even learn from Obama.

The idea of judicial review is thoroughly un-American. As Jefferson also pointed out, judges are not morally superior to anyone else, having “with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps.” Despite this, he wrote in his letter to Roane, while we’re meant to have “three departments, co-ordinate and independent, that they might check and balance one another,” judicial review has given “to one of them alone, the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others”; moreover, he continued, this power was given to the very branch that “is unelected by, and independent of the nation.” Jefferson then warned that this has made the Constitution “a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist, and shape into any form they please.” And our country is being twisted along with it as patriots twist in the wind.

Jefferson’s position is just common sense. We cannot be a government of, by, and for the people if nine unelected Americans in black robes can act as an oligarchy and impose their biased vision of the law on 317 million Americans. That is not what the Founding Fathers intended.  

Nonetheless, most conservatives are waiting for the next election or the next court ruling or the next president to right the ship, but they and their republic will die waiting when remedial action can be taken now. Nullification — when properly exercised, it’s a fancy way of saying “standing up for the law of the land.” Were I a governor, I’d tell the feds to pound sand and that if they didn’t like it, to send in the troops. I might ultimately end up in federal prison, but I’d light a fire and spark a movement — and become a hero and martyr to millions.

It’s waiting there for you, governors, glory and God’s work. We just need a leader, someone with greater passions for principle than “for party, for power.” It’s waiting.

Rise, American hero, rise.

via thenewamerican

Who Is the Ruler of Israel? by Uri Avnery

Posted By Uri Avnery On February 15, 2015 

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, of course.

Wrong

The real ruler of Israel is one Sheldon Adelson, 81, American Jew, Casino king, who was rated as the world’s tenth richest person, worth 37.2 billion dollars at the latest count. But who is counting?

Besides his casinos in Las Vegas, Pennsylvania, Macao and Singapore, he owns the U.S. Republican party and, lately, both Houses of the U.S. Congress.

He also owns Binyamin Netanyahu.

Adelson’s connection with Israel is personal. On a blind date, he fell in love with an Israeli woman.

Miriam Farbstein was born in Haifa, attended a prestigious high school, did her army service in the Israeli institute which deals with bacteriological warfare and is a multifaceted scientist. After an adopted son died of an overdose, she is devoted to the fight against drugs, especially cannabis.

Both Adelsons are fanatical supporters of Israel. Not just any Israel, but a rightist, supremacist, arrogant, violent, expansionist, annexationist, non-compromising, colonialist Israel.

Sheldon, Bibi & Miriam

In "Bibi" Netanyahu they found their man. Through Netanyahu they hope to rule Israel as their private fief.

To assure this, they did an extraordinary thing: they founded an Israeli newspaper, solely devoted to the furthering of the interests of Binyamin Netanyahu. Not of the Likud, not of a specific policy, but of Netanyahu personally.

Years ago I invented a Hebrew word for papers which are 

distributed for nothing. "Hinamon" translates, roughly, into "ragratis" or "gratissue" and was intended to denigrate. 

But I did not dream of a monster like "Israel Hayom" ("Israel Today") – a paper with unlimited funds, distributed every day for nothing in the streets and malls all over the country by hundreds, perhaps thousands of paid young persons.

Israelis love getting something for nothing. Israel Hayom is now the daily paper with the widest distribution in Israel. It drains readers and advertising revenue from its only competitor – Yedioth Ahronoth ("Latest News"), which held this title until then.

Yedioth reacted furiously. It became a ferocious enemy of Netanyahu. Yossi Werter, a commentator of the center-left Haaretz (which has a far lower circulation) even believes that the present election boils down to a contest between the two papers.

That is vastly exaggerated. Judged by political and social content, there is little to differentiate the two. Both are super-patriotic, warmongering and rightist. That is the journalistic recipe for attracting the masses anywhere in the world.

Yedioth is owned by the Moses family, a business-minded clan. The present, third-generation publisher is Arnon ("Noni") Moses, the publicity-shy boss of a large economic empire based on the paper. The paper serves his business interests, but he has no special political interests.

Adelson is unique.

In Israel, betting is forbidden by law. We have no casinos, and secret gambling dens are raided by the police. In our early youth we were taught that casino moguls are bad people, almost like arms merchants. They take the money off poor addicted people, throwing them into despair, even suicide. See Dostoyevsky.

Israelis read Israel Hayom (it’s something for nothing, after all), but they don’t necessarily like the man and his methods. So some members of the Knesset were encouraged to enter a bill forbidding gratis newspapers altogether.

Netanyahu and the Likud party did everything to obstruct this bill. But in the preliminary vote (necessary for private members’ bills) they were beaten in an amazing way. Even members of Netanyahu’s governing coalition voted for it. The cameras caught Netanyahu literally running in the Knesset plenum hall to gain his seat before the voting started.

The vote was 43 to 23. Almost half the Likud members absented themselves. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and his party voted for the bill. So did ministers Ya’ir Lapid and Tzipi Livni.

From the preliminary vote to the final adoption, such a bill has to pass several stages. There was plenty of time to bury it in one of the committees. But Netanyahu was furious. A few days after the vote, he dismissed Lapid and Livni from the cabinet, causing the government coalition to break up and the Knesset to disperse.

Why did Netanyahu do such a foolish thing less then half way through his (third) term of office? There can be only one logical explanation: he was ordered to do so by Adelson, in order to prevent the adoption of the law.

If so, Adelson is now our chief lawmaker. Perhaps he is also our chief government-maker.

Money plays an ever-increasing role in politics. Election propaganda is made on television, which is very expensive. Both in Israel and the U.S., legal and illegal funds pour into the campaign, directly and indirectly. Corruption is abetted or tolerated by the courts. The very rich (known euphemistically in America as the "wealthy") exercise undue influence.

In the last U.S. presidential elections, Adelson poured rivers of dollars into the contest. He supported Newt Gingrich, and then Mitt Romney, with huge sums of money. In vain. Perhaps Americans don’t like to be ruled by captains of casinos.

For the next U.S. presidential elections, Adelson has started early. He has summoned to his Las Vegas casino HQ all leading Republican candidates, to grill them on their allegiance to him – and to Netanyahu. Nobody dared to refuse the summons. Would a Roman senator refuse the summons of Caesar?

In Israel, such rituals are superfluous. The Adelsons – both Miri and Sheldon – know who their man is.

The Israel Hayom newspaper is, of course, a big propaganda machine, totally devoted to the re-election of Netanyahu. All quite legal. In a democracy, who can tell a newspaper whom to support? We are still a democracy, for God’s sake!

It seems to be strange for a country to allow a foreigner, who never lived in the country, to have such enormous power over its future, indeed, over its very existence.

That’s where Zionism comes in. According to the Zionist creed, Israel is the state of the Jews, all the Jews. Every Jew in the world belongs to Israel, even if temporarily residing somewhere else. A few days ago, Netanyahu publicly claimed to represent not just the State of Israel but also the entire "Jewish People". No need to ask them.

Accordingly, Adelson is not really a foreigner. He is one of us. True, he cannot vote in Israel, though his wife probably can. But many people, including himself, believe that he, being a Jew, has a perfect right to interfere in our affairs and dominate our lives.

For example, the appointment of our ambassador in the U.S. Ron Dermer is an American, born in Miami, who was active in Republican politics. To appoint an American functionary of the Republican Party as ambassador of Israel to a Democratic administration may seem strange. Not so strange if Netanyahu acted under the orders of Sheldon Adelson.

It was Adelson who prepared the witches’ brew that is now endangering Israel’s lifeline to Washington. His stooge, Dermer, induced the Republicans in Congress – all of them dependent on Adelson’s largesse or hoping to be so – to invite Netanyahu to give an anti-Obama speech before both Houses.

While this intrigue was in preparation, Dermer met with John Kerry but did not tell him of Netanyahu’s coming. Neither did Netanyahu inform President Obama, who, in a fury, announced that he would not meet with the Prime Minister.

From the point of view of Israel’s vital interests, it is sheer madness to provoke the President of the United States of America, who controls American’s flow of arms to Israel and the American veto power in the UN. But from the point of view of Adelson, who wants to elect a Republican president in 2016, it makes sense. He has already threatened to invest unlimited sums of money to prevent the reelection of any Senator or Representative who is absent from Netanyahu’s speech.

We are nearing open warfare between the Government of Israel and the President of the United States.

Is someone playing roulette with our future?

Read more by Uri Avnery

• Splendid Isolation – December 19th, 2014
• The Israeli Plebiscite – December 5th, 2014
• A Decent Respect for the Opinions of Mankind – October 20th, 2014
• Crusaders and Zionists – October 10th, 2014
• Israel’s Hannibal Procedure – September 12th, 2014

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via antiwar.com

REVIEWING THE RHODES LEGACY

Bill Clinton meeting JFK. Clinton attended Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, won another scholarship to the Jesuit Georgetown University and then went to Yale. Talk about a chosen one.

REVIEWING THE RHODES LEGACY

By William F. Jasper

"In America, where idealism is the yardstick used to judge a generation's collective virtue, Rhodes scholars are its masters," says Rhodes scholar Peter Beinart. "They are chosen as much for their public-spiritedness as for their academic prowess. Not all want to run for elective office, but the bulk think their talents can be most fully realized through public service. Like Clinton, my peers believe earnestly in government. Above all, they believe in themselves in government."

Senator Ted Cruz “Honored” to Hang Out with War Criminal Henry Kissinger

Melissa Melton
The Daily Sheeple
February 2nd, 2015

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, (then the person in the picture needlessly adds a few more words as if the point wasn’t already hammered home by the picture merely existing in the first place).

Senator Ted Cruz uploaded this image to his official Facebook page on January 29th of himself having coffee with Henry Kissinger with the tagline, “Honored to share a few moments with Dr. Kissinger and hear his thoughts on the challenges facing our nation.”

 

Honored, huh? I’m sure he was.

It has been widely reported in the alternative media just how phony Senator Cruz is. The man was a Bush lawyer and advisor with a Goldman Sachs/Council on Foreign Relations/Bush advisor wife (who just so happened to co-write the CFR’s blueprint for the North American Union). Cruz has even argued in his own amicus brief to the Supreme Court that assault weapons bans in certain states are “reasonable regulations”.

When you straight up admit your wife belongs to a “pit of vipers” who are “working to undermine our national sovereignty” and then tell everyone you are “honored” to hang out with cold-blooded war criminal scumbag murderers…

Here was my reply:

And, as if all that weren’t bad enough, the guy acts about as fake as a three-dollar bill on the 32nd day of February:

The presidential election might as well be a kiddie pool. The turds float to the top. Your choices are those turds. That’s the nature of modern American politics at the federal level.

Until more people realize this, nothing is ever going to change.

Delivered by The Daily Sheeple

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Contributed by Melissa Melton of The Daily Sheeple.

Melissa Melton is a writer, researcher, and analyst for The Daily Sheeple and a co-creator of Truthstream Media with Aaron Dykes, a site that offers teleprompter-free, unscripted analysis of The Matrix we find ourselves living in. Melissa also co-founded Nutritional Anarchy with Daisy Luther of The Organic Prepper, a site focused on resistance through food self-sufficiency. Wake the flock up!

Republican Scott Walker is More of the Same: Pro-War, Neoconservative, Corporatist...anti-American

It should come as no jolt that Walker swings with the neoconservative and Zionist wing of the Republican Party. Any candidate who's never had his own boots on the ground as a veteran has little hesitation to send others off to die for himself. No, Gov. Walker is not of the Americanist cloth. 

Gov. Scott Walker says he has the utmost gratitude and respect for the women and men who wear the uniform in service of our country. However, the governor's record on issues that affect veterans tells a different story.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scott Walker seeks to deflate the GOP’s libertarian streak

posted at 3:31 pm on February 1, 2015 by Noah Rothman

One of the major takeaways from the Des Moines Register poll of the GOP primary electorate that found Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker surging ahead of the pack in the Hawkeye State is his apparent appeal to both the Republican Party’s conservative and moderate wings.

“A majority think he’s got the right balance between conservative and moderate,” said Ann Selzer, president of the respected firm that conducted this poll.

“Caucus-goers deciding on the basis of a candidate’s values put him in second place, and he’s in first place with those who say electability is more important.”

It is a safe bet to assume that any candidate who can appeal to both of these elements of the GOP coalition is on track to win the party’s nomination. In the process of appealing to these groups, however, Walker is alienating the GOP’s rising libertarian wing.

On both the foreign affairs front and in regard to domestic policy, Walker is far from the ideal candidate to capture the support of younger voter who does not identify as Republican but is nevertheless increasingly suspicious of the government’s ability to effect positive change at home and abroad.

In an appearance on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, Walker, buoyed by his performance in the latest DMR poll, adopted a hawkish position on ISIS that even many of the GOP’s stalwart interventionists are hesitant to adopt: A willingness to use American combat troops to destroy the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

“I think we need to have an aggressive strategy anywhere around the world,” Walker said. “I think anywhere and everywhere, we have to go beyond just aggressive air strikes,” said Walker. “We have to look at other surgical methods. And ultimately we have to be prepared to put boots on the ground if that’s what it takes.”

“Boots on the ground in Syria? U.S. boots on the ground in Syria?”
“No, I don’t think that is an immediate plan, but I think anywhere in the world–”
“But you wouldn’t rule it out?”
“I wouldn’t rule anything out. I think when you have the lives of Americans at stake and our freedom loving allies anywhere in the world, we have to be prepared to do things that don’t allow those measures, those attacks, those abuses to come to our shores,” said Walker.

Not ruling “anything out” when it comes to combat troops in Iraq and Syria is expressly ruling that option in. America’s indigenous partners on the ground in Iraq are either too weak (the Iraqi Security Forces) or underequipped and ill-trained (the Kurdish Peshmerga) to be relied upon to liberate the massive, ethnically diverse portions of Iraq currently suffering under ISIS occupation.

In Syria, the “moderate rebels” who the administration would deploy against ISIS but would also decline to attack Bashar al-Assad’s forces do not exist. The vetting and training of relatively pro-Western rebel groups is a process that will stretch well into a prospective Walker presidency, and he has now signaled that he would likely abandon that convoluted course entirely.

The prospect of sending American troops back to Iraq and into an entirely new theater of operations in Syria will not only make Democrats in the United States nervous but will turn off the GOP’s ascendant libertarian faction.

On the domestic policy front, too, Walker has embraced some approaches that make those who are most concerned about government overreach apprehensive. Some on the right have come to suspect that Walker’s commitment to shrinking local government might not extend well beyond curtailing the power of public sector unions to influence policy.

In November, Walker backed a proposal to impose blanket drug testing on welfare beneficiaries in the Badger State – a proposal that sounded at the time to be almost certainly unconstitutional. Several court rulings have set the precedent that holds that “suspicionless” drug tests cannot be imposed on state residents merely because they intend to take advantage of existing government programs.

What’s more, as Reason’s Nick Gillespie observed, a program of mandatory drug testing is generally ineffective and a waste of tax dollars.

If a recent program in Missouri is any indication, Wisconsin will be collecting urine by the bucketful to catch very few bad actors (and that assumes smoking dope, say, should be a reason to pull somebody’s benefits). Last year, Missouri started testing suspected drug users (note: suspected, meaning there was at least some hypothetical reason to think a person was using drugs). The state ended up spending $500,000 to test 636 people, of which 20 were found to be using. So around 3 percent of suspects tested positive and each test cost around $786. Before courts ruled Florida’s drug-testing regime illegal, the Sunshine State spent $115,000 on piss tests and ended up coughing up $600,000 in reimbursements to applicants who had been denied benefits.

In Walker’s most recent State of the State address, he expanded on the details of his plan to drug test welfare recipients but failed, as the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported, to outline how that program would be funded.

[T]he governor offered no details on how the state would cover the costs of that or the testing or whether he expected it to cost the state money overall, as a similar program did in Florida, or save tax dollars. The budget, he said in a statement, would also drop to four years from five the limit on how long a recipient could be in the Wisconsin Works, or W-2, program, the replacement in this state for traditional welfare.
…
Opponents like Shilling say that no state tests for drugs in the successor to the food stamps program known in Wisconsin as FoodShare. They say if implemented over potential federal objections, the proposal could cost Wisconsin employers a credit on their federal taxes as well as cause a loss in federal money for FoodShare.

Republicans who contend that Walker’s plan on this front is not designed to appeal to fiscal but social conservatives have a lot of ammunition available to them in order to support that claim. The only group of Republicans who can be expected to enthusiastically back this legally and financially dubious proposal are just the kind of Republicans who deliver caucus victories to GOP candidates in states like Iowa.

None of this is to say that Walker’s viability as a presidential candidate is in any way diminished. His formidability has been demonstrated in his three statewide victories in only four years, and in a purple state, no less. Many will agree with Walker’s policy preferences on both of these issues, but they do create a space for libertarian figure to oppose both him and the direction that he would take the party he seeks to lead. Enter Sen. Rand Paul…
via hotair.com

Experts to Scrutinize Israel Lobby During April 10 Conference at National Press Club

WASHINGTON, Dec. 17, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Register online for "The Israel Lobby: Is It Good for the US?" today at http://IsraelLobbyUS.org

"The Israel Lobby: Is It Good for the US?" is an all-day conference which will take place April 10 in the National Press Club ballroom in Washington, DC.  Questions will be addressed by experts of all ages and backgrounds from academia, government, independent research organizations and alternative news media shut out of public discourse.  The conference is co-sponsored by the American Educational Trust's publication Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA) and the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, Inc (IRmep).


Hundreds of organizations lobbying for Israel behind the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) continue to push for U.S. economic warfare and military actions against Iran. Most Americans support negotiations to resolve questions over Iran's civilian nuclear program and oppose efforts to torpedo diplomacy.  Americans also overwhelmingly (63.9%) believe Israel is a Middle East nation with nuclear weapons.

Recent passage of the US-Israel Strategic Partnership Act of 2014 gives Israel expanded rights to U.S. weapons stockpiles, diplomatic support, additional foreign aid and future visa-free entry, despite Israel's long history of espionage against the United States.  Yet six in ten Americans, advised that the U.S. gives Israel over $3 billion annually (9% of the foreign aid budget and more than any other country), believe such aid is "too much."

Pro-Israel donors and political action committees are working hard to ensure that when Americans head to the polls to choose a president in 2016, both candidates will be Zionists.  Delegates who oppose special pro-Israel planks in conventions are shut down by rigged votes.

How did Israel lobbying organizations become so influential in America? Are U.S. and Israeli interests, as claimed by the lobby, truly "the same"? Does Israel's strategic value drive massive U.S. aid, or is it mostly the influence of Israel's lobby in this country? What laws govern lobbying for a foreign government, and are they enforced? Why is ongoing economic, military, industrial and nuclear espionage by Israeli spies working with American supporters almost never punished? 

How big, in terms of revenue, activists and organizations, is the lobby today? How are lobby operatives targeting critics and pro-Palestinian activists on campus? Are qualified government appointees blacklisted if they do not espouse sufficiently pro-Israel views? How can Americans who do not believe in massive aid, pro-Israel slogans, activities and policies become enfranchised?

The conference includes luncheon and is open to members of the public and news media who register in advance.

Register online today at http://IsraelLobbyUS.org  and follow us on Twitter @IsraelLobbyUS

WRMEA is a magazine published 8 times yearly by the American Educational Trust which focuses on news and analysis from and about the Middle East and U.S. policy in the region.

IRmep is a Washington, DC-based nonprofit researching U.S. Middle East policy formulation and how warranted law enforcement and civil action can improve outcomes.

SOURCE Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy
via prnewswire.com