RT Did Obama edit History?

Even four weeks later, President Barak Obama’s Cairo speech is still reverberating in Washington, D.C. To his credit, the president used the speech to shatter an ugly myth when he confronted Holocaust denial.

But unfortunately, President Obama’s speech actually reinforced other dangerous myths about Israel’s history and the true obstacles to peace in the Middle East.

Last Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu stepped up to set the record straight. And last week, two Democratic senators—Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada and Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey—added their voices to the chorus of correction. Taking on a popular president from your own party is never easy. It is therefore of great significance that these two Democrats felt the need to clarify that when it comes to the specifics of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the president does not speak for the party.

Nearly two weeks ago, Democratic Majority Leader Sen. Reid, sent a letter to President Obama. Reid politely reminded the president of the real threats to peace in the Middle East. In Cairo, President Obama glossed over the long history of Palestinian rejection of Israel’s right to exist. Sen. Reid wrote, “I believe that negotiations will be successful only with a renewed commitment from the Palestinians to be a true partner for peace.”

In Cairo, President Obama largely ignored the leading role of Iran in fueling the conflict with Israel. Sen. Reid wrote that the peace process must not “take away from your commitment to deal with the ongoing threat from Iran. Iran has continued to call for Israel’s destruction while repeatedly defying the international community with its nuclear program.”

The following day, Sen. Menendez went to the floor of the Senate to deliver a 13-minute speech on Israel. While not mentioning President Obama by name, he issued a powerful rebuttal of the myths that the president seemed to embrace. In Cairo, the president suggested that Israel’s right to exist is based upon Jewish suffering in the Holocaust.

In response, Sen. Menendez walked through the over 3,500-year-old connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. “Let’s be very clear,” Menendez stated, “the Holocaust is not the main justification for Israel’s existence.”

While in Cairo, President Obama stated that Palestinian “dislocation” was a result of “Israel’s founding.” Sen. Menendez noted that, “the more than 700,000 Palestinians who left Israel were refugees of a war instigated by Arab governments bent on seizing more land for themselves. ” Sen. Menendez also mentioned that 750,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries were absorbed by Israel, a fact absent from the president’s speech.

While the president downplayed the threat from Iran, Menendez highlighted it. Iran, he stressed, is not a just a “potential threat” to Israel’s existence—it is a present threat to Israel’s existence though its arming and funding of Hamas and Hezbollah. Sen. Menendez was clear that “under no circumstances whatsoever can we allow that conventional threat to become a nuclear one.”

We live in a time when Israel’s enemies are aggressively seeking to delegitimize her by rewriting both the history of the Jewish people and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In such a climate, even people sympathetic to Israel are sometimes swayed. It is thus good indeed to see Israel’s friends on both sides of the aisle step up and correct the record. Thank you, Sen. Reid and Sen. Menendez, for your leadership and your friendship on this issue. Your services to the truth and to Israel are deeply appreciated.

To watch the video of Sen. Menendez’s compelling speech on Capitol Hill, click below.

Resources:
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Obama administration to seek ratification of the United Nations CRC.

Monday June 22nd in a Harlem middle school, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice told a group of 120 students that administration officials are actively discussing “when and how it might be possible to join” (that is, ratify) the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). As before, she also communicated what a disgrace it is that the U.S. would stand with only Somalia against such a widely-accepted treaty.

This is the first direct public statement by the Obama administration that it will seek ratification of the UN CRC.

If the United States Senate were to ratify the UN CRC, then under Article VI of our Constitution, that treaty would become “the supreme law of the land,” essentially self-executing. In a nation of laws such as ours, we would be obligated to implement every part of it in very short order. But the world doesn’t understand why we would “stand with Somalia” in refusing to pass all those restrictive laws in one broad stroke.

Standing with Somalia, incidentally, is not at all what we are doing. Somalia has no formal government, else they would probably have ratified the treaty themselves before now. Somalia is not taking any stand, and they are not with us. As has happened so often in history, and usually to our credit rather than shame, the United States is standing alone.

But are the 192 nations of the “choir” doing what they would ask us to commit ourselves to? Certainly not. In every case, they have chosen to exempt themselves from some aspect or other of this exhaustive “agreement.” Ironically, it seems to be an agreement to which no one can quite agree.

Like in World War I trench warfare, our opponents have “sent up a balloon” to see if it will draw fire. If things remain quiet, they will proceed with their plans to push for ratification of the CRC in the U.S. Senate.

To discourage them from doing so, we need to make sure that our voices are heard with unmistakable clarity. We must let the Obama administration know that we oppose this anti-family, anti-American treaty.

Here’s what we need you all to do:

1. Call the White House comments line at 202-456-1111. Tell them you heard the administration wants to ratify the CRC, and you strongly oppose this giving away of U.S. sovereignty to the UN. Also keep in mind that this treaty gives the government jurisdiction to override any decision made by any parent if the government thinks that a better decision can be made—even if there is no proof of any harm.

2. Call Ambassador Susan Rice’s office at the United Nations. Tell her that you want her to represent the United States to the world rather than trying to get the United States to go along with international law initiated by the UN. The US Mission at the United Nations can be reached at 212-415-4000 (press 6 to leave your message). This number has been disconnected through our efforts. You can also contact the Public Diplomacy Office at 212-415-4050. We are no longer urging calls to the U.S. office at the United Nations.

3. Contact your Senators and urge them to oppose ratification of this treaty. (Find your Senators’ contact information by typing your zip code into the box here.) Ask them also to defeat it once and for all by cosponsoring SJRes 16 – the Parental Rights Amendment.

Take action friends and lets see the bill get amended before we lose the right altogether.

2012 is coming; its time for a “new” Republican Party

MadMikesAmerica says that if the Republicans can’t change their policy then maybe they should change their logo.  (See above).

But what about rebranding?  Lessons learned from the Obama campaign show that the Republicans have got to get into social marketing.

Dollars in conventional advertising alone did not create the massive gulf in why people felt  a part of where Obama was going, Ads and TV are necessary too. Although I know a lot of SMM guru’s will come back and say its all about inbound marketing or online marketing.
A  percentage – yes thats true.  Hillary Clinton ran a conventional ad campaign and ran hard against Barak Obama to the end.
To reach all generations will demand a new skill set in marketing and advertising. There is a massive paradigm shift taking place where the age of information is no longer limited to the networks, to television and certainly not to radio or newspaper. The age of txt, IM, SMS is not new, it has been used for years, but now politicians are seeing that there is a way to reach out to grassroots, millions of people, especially the internet generation. These are not just young adults in college but many businessmen and women have accepted the 24/7 approach to receiving news, email, messages, even paperwork via pda’s blackberry’s and iphone’s are the norm.

The next Republican candidate that wants to be taken seriously by the people of the United States is going to have to implement a few things.

* Money: Obama raised so much money online that he did not have to use Federal Matched funds. Money drives the ability to generate unique marketing opportunities. Despite what people say that its all about the message – if you can not afford to get the message out to the masses you have already lost. Raising money offline and online is going to be a make or break situation. The DMC already have this skill set and know exactly how to turn this on.

* Social Awareness: it goes without saying that the new Republicans will need facebook, twitter, friendfeed, and  websites that look as though they were designed in 2012 not 2000 and most of all they need content! Listen to what people are saying and reply, become part of the conversation in society. Become part of the viral movement. Remember in 2012 you may be the underdog!  This is not the place to write anti-government speeches, but an opportunity to be positive and speak the truth.

* Website: content, content, update. And update often, use landing pages so that people can be followed up. Plus it gives the opportunity to get ground support in areas where candidates will be campaigning. Learn from the marketing gurus that use landing pages to point people to the next level.
Check out; David Meerman Scott – World Wide Rave or Seth Godwin – Tribes to see where the next level of communication is going. (If your reading this later than 2009 then input what the new books are!)

* Email: The Obama campaign used email blasts to reach out to followers in every city and state, selectively, not just blasted nationwide. This way when the tour pulls into a city or state, everyone knows what is happening for them alone.

* RSS: blogs/feeds updates daily on where the campaign is going, interaction with local people, interviews from the road, etc.

* Video: You Tube is easy to upload up to. Create professional videos that are both personal and informative.  people want to see what you have to say as much as listen to what you are saying. If the video message is a unique message then the opportunity for these to go viral and become more than a campaign message.

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Spend , Spend, Spend, the stimulus is about spending!

 

President Obama says the Stimulus is about spending.

There are numerous articles on the breakdown of the Stimulus package detailing the amounts of dollars given to each group. 

Ideas change from spending to tax cuts.  In a speech at George Mason University on Thursday, President Obama summed it up  “There is no doubt that the cost of this plan will be considerable. It will certainly add to the budget deficit in the short term. But equally certain are the consequences of doing too little or nothing at all.”  

On Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama said. “Americans across this country are struggling, and they are watching to see if we’re equal to the task before us. Let’s show them that we are. And let’s do whatever it takes to keep the promise of America alive in our time,” 

One department that has doesn’t care whether the Democrats or Republicans are in leadership,  is the Congressional Budget Office. (CBO) They report that only $26 billion of the stimulus is going to be spent this year, another $110 billion will be spent next year. That means that only 16% of the budget has been spent.

The Stimulus was supposed to be a jolt to the economy,   like a “crash cart” in an ER room – lets charge the paddles and  power the economy into a restart, not a trickle down effect.  

An interesting fact was brought up by Sen. John Thune of South Dakota. “We borrowed $800 billion dollars between the Revolutionary War and the presidency of Jimmy Carter and we are going to borrow that amount in one fell swoop.”

Changeover to Digital TV and Converter boxes.
Will this create new spending? Is the point of the new $650 million for converter boxes to provide a shot in the arm for converter box makers? I am sure that this is one industry that everyone is worried about, right?  Wouldn’t  the workers prefer to have the $50 go towards possibly upgrading their Tv sets? instead of leaving people with the idea that the old is the way forward.

Clean Energy.
As part of the creation of clean energy we should be investing in Solar, Wind and Nuclear power, but when only 2% is earmarked and only 1/7th of 2% is going to be spent over 2 years it doesn’t seem  like any stimulus.  But wait,  lets make sure we buy the government new cars and new computers immediately as that will be an immediate boost – not to America but to foreign economy in the area of “imports”.

Originally born in England, this economic change looks to be about moving jobs into certain areas than free enterprise and financial growth and is more of a resemblance to being a socialist state than democratic. This will be an interesting year!

What GOP Leaders deem wasteful in Senate stimulus bill

Do we need a stimulus bill that is full of wasteful spending?

As a business owner or a private individual, when you look at all the money going into the stimulus you have to ask yourself why is there so much additional unnecessary spending attached to the stimulus bill.
For example how will building a new Homeland Security building affect the economy?  Surely if there is a need for that doesn’t Homeland Security have a budget from the government for new buildings? This isn’t a stimulus package, its a “I want package that the tax payer will pay off forever”.  They are talking  1 trillion dollars, will that amount ever be paid back?  

What about the new jobs being created.
One in Five new jobs will be in a government position at a cost of over $200,000 per job, and the public are being told this is a good deal.  I am glad that the companies I work with don’t have to spend that amount of money per person to get  new employees.  Why is this being pushed through, why isn’t anybody speaking up who is noticing these things, and lets not even start about talking about “earmarked” money .

I totally agree with a stimulus package – but one that generates a turn over in the economy, strengthens banks and mortgage companies and lending societies, a stimulus that does create jobs but not at a cost of $200,000+ per job. 

Ok enough from me lets see some facts:

Reported by CNN: On Monday, Congressional Republican leaders put out a list of what they call wasteful provisions in the Senate version of the nearly $900 billion stimulus bill that is being debated:

The Senate is currently the nearly $900 billion economic stimulus bill.

• $2 billion earmark to re-start FutureGen, a near-zero emissions coal power plant in Illinois that the Department of Energy defunded last year because it said the project was inefficient.

• A $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film.

• $650 million for the digital television converter box coupon program.

• $88 million for the Coast Guard to design a new polar icebreaker (arctic ship).

• $448 million for constructing the Department of Homeland Security headquarters.

• $248 million for furniture at the new Homeland Security headquarters.

• $600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees.

• $400 million for the Centers for Disease Control to screen and prevent STD’s.

• $1.4 billion for rural waste disposal programs.

• $125 million for the Washington sewer system.

• $150 million for Smithsonian museum facilities.

• $1 billion for the 2010 Census, which has a projected cost overrun of $3 billion.

• $75 million for “smoking cessation activities.”

• $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges.

• $75 million for salaries of employees at the FBI.

• $25 million for tribal alcohol and substance abuse reduction.

• $500 million for flood reduction projects on the Mississippi River.

• $10 million to inspect canals in urban areas.

• $6 billion to turn federal buildings into “green” buildings.

• $500 million for state and local fire stations.

• $650 million for wildland fire management on forest service lands.

• $1.2 billion for “youth activities,” including youth summer job programs.

• $88 million for renovating the headquarters of the Public Health Service.

• $412 million for CDC buildings and property.

• $500 million for building and repairing National Institutes of Health facilities in Bethesda, Maryland.

• $160 million for “paid volunteers” at the Corporation for National and Community Service.

• $5.5 million for “energy efficiency initiatives” at the Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration.

• $850 million for Amtrak.

• $100 million for reducing the hazard of lead-based paint.

• $75 million to construct a “security training” facility for State Department Security officers when they can be trained at existing facilities of other agencies.

• $110 million to the Farm Service Agency to upgrade computer systems.

• $200 million in funding for the lease of alternative energy vehicles for use on military installations.

Stimulus, yes we know about it, where is it?

 

Stimulus - where is it?

The Senate is set to take up the debate on the plan today and Republicans insist it won’t go through in its current form. 

“It’ll need to change if it’ll do any good. I mean, things like $150 million honey bee insurance and $650 million to buy government employees cars is not what the American public had in mind,” McConnell said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” 

 

Guess what  – we didn’t think the “stimulus plan”  was about buying Government employees cars either.  Lets see, most of the banks that are in trouble are in that dilemma because of the housing market and foreclosures, etc.  Wasn’t the idea to bail them out so that the homeowners could get relief too. Now we have everybody and their dog jumping on the bandwagon of government money for stimulus. Even the porn industry went cap in hand for their share.

There are still lots of banks in trouble, thousands of people losing their homes everyday, but I am glad to see that important things like $650 million worth of government cars is high on the stimulus list. Oh that is very important to the economy.

I said to my friend and colleague Angela Stevens at radio station WGTS in DC that we will soon see the true value of President Obama’s plans when we see what “bills” he signs within the first few weeks of office.  Lets see how many stimulus bills are actually doing some good today…wait a minute my Mac is working on all the search engines……still waiting.

Ok,  times up results = None. #Fail.

 

Fortunately there are people who are interested in helping people stay in their homes, there are people who are moving forward and sharing their knowledge and showing people what to do practically to not only stay alive in the economy but be able to make money.  ISn’t that what stimulus is about moving forward, making money, making the economy better for everyone.    Jeff Kaller , James Smith,  etc,  my friends you have my vote!