Democratic Leader Laughs at Idea That House Members Would Actually Read Health-Care Bill Before Voting On It

Steny Hoyer

Straight from CNS News: “House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that the health-care reform bill now pending in Congress would garner very few votes if lawmakers actually had to read the entire bill before voting on it.

“If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn’t read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes,” Hoyer told CNSNews.com at his regular weekly news conference.

Hoyer was responding to a question from CNSNews.com on whether he supported a pledge that asks members of the Congress to read the entire bill before voting on it and also make the full text of the bill available to the public for 72 hours before a vote.

In fact, Hoyer found the idea of the pledge humorous, laughing as he responded to the question. “I’m laughing because a) I don’t know how long this bill is going to be, but it’s going to be a very long bill,” he said.

“Members clearly–and staff and review boards, they read them in their entirety. They go over it with members, and members read substantial portions of the bill themselves, but the issue is–I don’t know who signed this (pledge), but frankly the opposition has been very vociferous, not of the verbiage and bill, but on the concept that it incorporates,” Hoyer said.

Let Freedom Ring, a Delaware-based conservative organization, is circulating a pledge that asks members of Congress to promise to read the entirety of the final text of a health-care reform bill before they vote on it. They also are asking that the full bill be made available for review by the public for 72 hours before Congress votes on it.

Colin Hanna, president of Let Freedom Ring, said Hoyer’s comment is evidence that lawmakers in Congress are “off-track.”

“It tells the American people how off-track our legislative process has become,” Hanna said. “I think if the framers of our Constitution ever saw an entire legislative body vote on a 1,500-page bill that no one had read, they would shudder–if not go into fits of apoplexy.”

Hanna said the pledge to read the full health-care bill–and all future bills–is one way for lawmakers to show that they are not casual in their commitment to constituents.

“We think the American public expects their legislators to know what’s in a bill before they support it, and we’re urging legislators to sign a pledge to that effect,” Hanna told CNSNews.com.

By signing the “Responsible Health-care Reform Pledge,” lawmakers commit to reading the entire bill and making it available to the public for three days before they cast their votes.

The pledge says, “I, (Name inserted here), pledge to my constituents and to the American people that I will not vote to enact any health-care reform package that: 1) I have not read, personally, in its entirety; and, 2) Has not been available, in its entirety, to the American people on the Internet for at least 72 hours, so that they can read it too.”

Earlier CNSNews.com stories revealed that few – if any –congressmen read the 1,550-page American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 or the 1,071-page American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 before voting on the bills.”

Selling access to top Obama officials and other VIPs? The Washington Post says, “No Problem!”

More Cap and Trade Garbage, From Rep. Joe Barton This Time

Al Gore: Climate-Change Fight Like Battle Against Nazis

I smite thee Nazis!

Straight from Fox News: “Al Gore on Tuesday compared the battle against climate change with the struggle against the Nazis.

The former vice president said the world lacked the political will to act and invoked the spirit of Winston Churchill by encouraging leaders to unite their nations to fight climate change.

He also accused politicians around the world of exploiting ignorance about the dangers of global warming to avoid difficult decisions.

Speaking at Britain’s Oxford University at the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment, sponsored by the Times of London, Gore said, “Winston Churchill aroused this nation in heroic fashion to save civilization in World War II.”

He added, “We have everything we need except political will, but political will is a renewable resource.”

Gore admitted that it was difficult to persuade the public that the threat from climate change was as urgent as the threat from Nazi Germany.”

Taliban Leader Wounded in Swat Valley Airstrike as U.S. Military Keeps Up Missile Attacks

Maulana Fazullah

Straight from Fox News: “The Taliban leader of the Swat Valley area, Maulana Fazullah, is critically injured from an air strike, a Pakistani military official confirmed to FOX News.

Suspected U.S. drones launched two missile attacks on Taliban targets in the South Waziristan tribal region on Wednesday, killing at least 45 militants in the latest in a barrage of strikes close to the Afghan border, intelligence officials said.

South Waziristan lies close to the Afghan border and is the stronghold of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud.

Pakistan’s military is also bombing and firing mortars at insurgent targets in the region, saying it is chipping away at Mehsud’s resistance before launching a ground offensive there to eliminate him. Mehsud is blamed for many of the bloodiest terrorist attacks in nuclear-armed Pakistan in recent years.

The first strike took place before dawn. A suspected U.S. drone fired six missiles at a mountaintop training camp in the Karwan Manza area of South Waziristan, killing 10 militants, the intelligence officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media. The nationalities and the identities of the slain men were not immediately known.

Hours later, 12 miles to the east, missiles believed fired from a U.S. drone hit four vehicles carrying Taliban militants, killing at least 35, including a key Taliban commander, one intelligence official said. He did not disclose the commander’s identity.

Other intelligence officials put the death toll as high as 50.

Independent verification of the casualties and the target was not possible because the region is remote, dangerous and largely inaccessible to journalists. U.S. officials do not publicly comment on the strikes.

The latest strike brings to six the number of suspected American missile attacks in South Waziristan in just over two weeks, an uptick that suggests Washington is also trying to kill or weaken Mehsud and his followers in the run-up to the Pakistani campaign.

Despite the apparent convergence of interests, Pakistan’s army insists it is not coordinating with the U.S. It says the American missile attacks are hurting its attempts to kill or capture Mehsud because they alienate local tribesman they are trying to enlist in their campaign against him.

The United States is believed to have launched more than 40 missile strikes against targets in the border area since last August that have killed several hundred people, according to a count by The Associated Press based on figures given by intelligence officials.

The Pakistani government routinely protests the strikes as violation of the country’s sovereignty and has publicly asked the United States to give them the technology to launch their own attacks. But many analysts suspect the government — which has received billions of dollars a year from the United States in aid since 2001 — secretly cooperates with them.

Pakistan launched the Swat Valley offensive more than two months ago after militants led by Maulana Fazlullah violated the terms of a peace deal. It claims to have nearly cleared the valley of militants, killing more than 1,500.

Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said Wednesday that according to “credible information” Fazlullah was wounded in a recent airstrike. Fazlullah’s capture or killing would be a major symbolic victory for the army and give a psychological boost to local residents fearful that the Taliban could re-emerge in Swat.

Abbas gave no more information about the circumstances involving Fazlullah’s wounding. A militant spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.”

Small Businesses Irate Over Climate Change Bill

McArthur's Bakery in St. Louis, Mo

Straight from Fox News: “The revolution will not be televised: it’s been blinking along on a giant bakery sign in St. Louis, Mo., instead.

Fed up with his congressman’s vote on a sweeping climate-change bill that passed the House of Representatives in late June, the proprietor of McArthur’s Bakery took to his street sign and posted a clear message to all passersby:

“Russ Carnahan voted to … close us and other … small business.”

David McArthur, vice president of the 52-year-old family operation, a Gateway City institution, is one of a growing number of business owners and taxpayers nationwide who are mobilizing against the so-called cap-and-trade bill, which would levy harsh fines on energy consumption that harms the environment.

McArthur told FOXNews.com that every aspect of his business relies on the forms of energy targeted by the American Clean Energy and Security Act, and that his congressman, Carnahan, was supporting “a direct tax increase on small business” by voting for it.

“We make (our product) with electricity, we bake it with gas, we refrigerate and freeze it with electricity and we distribute it with gas and oil,” said McArthur, who said he worries that high prices could cost his company up to $15,000 a year in an industry with a very tight margin for profit.

The legislation requires that the country reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent by 2020. Big energy plants and producers would have a cap on emissions like carbon dioxide, but could purchase “credits” from other companies that have met their reduction goals. The Obama administration says it will pump hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the plan would have a minimal effect on most taxpayers, costing an average family about 25 cents a day in its first years of implementation.

But the effect on small businesses could be wide-reaching.

“He’s killing small business — he’s killing us,” McArthur said of Carnahan, who was one of a majority of Democrats who voted for the bill in a closely fought 219-212 vote.

McArthur, who penned a scathing letter to Carnahan, is not alone in taking the message directly to his congressman. Dozens of small protests were organized at the end of June at federal buildings and outside the offices of national lawmakers who voted for the bill.

Mike Wilson, who led a protest in Cincinnati of about 100 people on June 27 across from the offices of Rep. Steve Driehaus, D-Ohio, said he was appalled by the 1,500-page legislation, which was fast-tracked by House leaders for a vote Friday. A 310-page amendment was slapped onto the bill Friday morning.

“It was, quite frankly, criminal passing a bill that you didn’t read,” said Wilson, founder of the anti-tax group Cincinnati Tea Party.

Wilson says he is part of a national movement opposed to the bill that was organizing protests from Napa to Nashville, and that will continue to assert pressure as the Senate prepares to vote on the bill later this year.

Crowds were not as large as those at the April 15 anti-tax Tea Party protests, from which the base of these rallies is being formed.

But the protesters aren’t the only ones monitoring how members of Congress are voting on the issue.

The National Federation of Independent Business and the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors announced they have started a public scorecard on how lawmakers vote on priority legislation for business owners — and are keeping a close eye on all the congressmen who have supported cap-and-trade.

The NFIB says escalating fuel costs are the second-biggest problem small business owners face, and argued that the legislation is putting a premium on alternative energy sources without considering the needs of entrepreneurs.

“At a time when our nation faces near 10 percent unemployment and stalled economic growth, now is not the time to impose an $846 billion energy tax on small business,” wrote Susan Eckerly, senior vice president for public policy at the NFIB.

In the days since McArthur flashed his feelings on the bakery’s electronic billboard, he was contacted by Carnahan’s office and agreed to take the message down. He is happy to have a new line of communication to Carnahan, but he said that the current crisis is putting enough pressure on his business without added pressure from the bill.

“We have not had the ability to make money for the last three years,” McArthur said. “Another year and a 50-year icon in St. Louis is gone.”"

Hiding Unread Policy From The People

Nancy Pelosi

Straight from the Washington Times: “This weekend’s Fourth of July festivities celebrated the birth of representative government in America. As the Declaration of Independence set forth 233 years ago, our government derives its power from the consent of the governed. Such consent does not exist when legislation is purposely rammed through Congress so quickly that congressmen — let alone citizens — do not have time even to read it.

Welcome to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s House of Representatives. The “people’s House” is now a place where bills are voted on not only before legislators or the public have read them, but also before parts of the bills even have been written. Such was the case with a 300-page amendment to the cap-and-trade bill the House passed on June 26. The House leadership could not even produce this amendment on paper, in final form, before it was voted on.

In response to that and other recent outrageous infringements of real representative democracy, a group called Let Freedom Ring is pushing all 435 members of Congress and 100 senators to sign a pledge against such shenanigans on any health care reform bill Congress considers.

All 535 of them ought to do so.

The pledge, which can be found at www.pledgetoread.com, reads in part as follows: “I pledge to my constituents and the American people that I will not vote to enact any healthcare reform package that: 1) I have not read, personally, in its entirety; and 2) Has not been available, in its entirety, to the American people on the Internet for at least 72 hours, so that they can read it too.”

No simpler requirement for good government could be imagined. When what is at stake is a revolutionary change in the entire organization of 17 percent of the economy – not to mention the delivery of services that could mean the difference between life and death for millions of Americans each year – it is basic common sense to insist that our lawmakers know and understand what they are voting on – and that includes the fine print.

As it was put by Colin Hanna, president of Let Freedom Ring, “there is no rational reason for not signing the pledge.”

Unfortunately, Mrs. Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid say they can’t be bothered with such essentials. On June 25, both declined to promise to give the public a week to review any major health care reform. Mrs. Pelosi did not even respond to a question posed at a press briefing by Cybercast News Service about whether the Congressional Budget Office would have time to “score” the bill’s final price tag.

Such an attitude represents the height — or, rather, the depth — of irresponsibility.

It is an axiom in criminal court that “ignorance of the law is no excuse.” There certainly is no excuse for lawmakers to be ignorant of the laws they would force on the rest of us. That sounds almost criminal to us.”

Ben Bernanke: Federal Reserve audit would constitute “takeover” by Congress, threaten the “financial system, dollar and economy”

DeMint amendment to audit the Federal Reserve blocked by Senate Leadership

Cap and trade or Smoot-Hawley?

Hello, I'm Paul Krugman, Nobel prize winning economist, and I'm an IDIOT!

Straight from the Denver Post: “Emblematic of the problems buried in the flawed “cap and trade” bill is a provision that only came to light in the final moments of the House debate.

A last-minute amendment, inserted in the early morning hours on the day of the vote, would tax goods that we import from countries that are unwilling to adopt carbon-reducing measures. So, the question becomes: Should our nation really levy trade penalties on countries that don’t agree to limit their carbon emissions?

The provision is fraught with potential negative consequences. Some fear it’s the return of the Smoot-Hawley Act, which raised tariffs on imported goods to record levels in the 1930s. Others, however, argue the provision is absolutely necessary should the bill, sponsored by Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Edward Markey, D-Mass., become law.

President Barack Obama, who pushed hard for the Waxman-Markey legislation, has rejected the trade penalty measure. “At a time when the economy worldwide is still deep in recession and we’ve seen a significant drop in global trade, I think we have to be very careful about sending any protectionist signals out there,” Obama said.

We are inclined to agree with the president on this issue.

But if Obama thinks the provision could harm global trade, he also ought to realize the competitive disadvantage that Waxman-Markey creates at home. Because if it does become law, the U.S. may have no choice but to levy a carbon tariff.

Nobel-Prize winning economist Paul Krugman argues that Obama is making a mistake by rejecting what he calls “the border adjustment.”

The economist, a fierce advocate for “cap and trade,” says that without the tax, the environmental benefits of the bill will be undermined.

Companies, he argues, would stop buying U.S.-made goods, which would cost more due to the demands to limit greenhouse gas emissions in the production process. Instead, they would buy goods produced by countries that are not saddled with the extra expense and regulation.

“The truth is that there’s perfectly sound economics behind border adjustments,” Krugman argues, claiming that imposing tariffs for non-economic reasons, such as cutting carbon dioxide emissions, isn’t protectionism, but is simply leveling the playing field.

The argument, added to fears from industry that overseas competition would benefit at America’s expense as a result of cap and trade, should be a key part of the upcoming Senate debate on this bill.

Waxman-Markey’s tariff provision, as written, would begin imposing the tax in 2020. The president can waive the tariffs, but only if Congress approves the waivers.

Observers say the House bill wouldn’t have passed without the tariff, because industrial state lawmakers feared job losses.

Now that it’s out in the open, we hope the Senate can evaluate it carefully.

We oppose the bill because it relies far too much on theoretical clean-energy technology break-throughs to achieve the desired drops in greenhouse gas emissions. It also creates a new, complicated market for trading emissions that is susceptible to abuse.

It’s a hugely transformative measure — which would lower global CO2 emissions by only a few percentage points — that risks crippling our economy.“

North Korea Fired Improved Scud Missile

Kim Jong Il (image courtesy of Energy Tribune)

Straight from Fox News: “A barrage of ballistic missiles that North Korea test-fired over the weekend may have included a new type of a Scud with an extended range and improved accuracy that poses a threat to Japan, a South Korean newspaper reported Monday.

Pyongyang launched seven missiles into waters off its east coast Saturday in a show of force that defied U.N. resolutions and drew international condemnation.

On Monday, South Korea’s mass-circulation Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported the launches were believed to have included three Scud-ER missiles with a range of up to 620 miles.

The paper said the Scud-ER has a longer range and better accuracy compared with previous Scud series so is “particularly a threat to Japan.”

The Chosun Ilbo, citing a government source it did not name, said the other four missiles were two Scud-C missiles with a range of 310 miles and two medium-range Rodong missiles that can travel up to 810 miles.

Five of the seven missiles flew about 260 miles from an eastern coastal launch site and landed in one area, meaning their accuracy has improved, the paper said.

South Korea’s Defense Ministry said it could not confirm the report, saying details of the launches were still under investigation.

One Defense Ministry official told The Associated Press on Sunday that the missiles were likely capable of striking key government and military facilities in South Korea, and that they appeared to have traveled about 250 miles. The official spoke on condition of anonymity citing department policy.

The launches on July 4 — the U.S. Independence Day holiday — also appeared to be a poke at Washington as it moves to enforce U.N. as well as its own sanctions against the isolated regime for its May 25 nuclear test.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned they were “very destabilizing, potentially.”

But Vice President Joe Biden indicated the U.S. would not be baited by attacks on the day Americans celebrated their independence. On ABC, he described the flurry of rockets as “attention-seeking behavior.”

He added: “I don’t want to give the attention.”

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he is concerned about the missile tests, which defied Security Council resolutions. He told reporters Sunday that North Korea’s communist regime has closed all doors to communication and dialogue.

Officials at South Korea’s unification and defense ministries said Monday that Ban appeared to be emphasizing the launches would further deepen the North’s isolation. Nevertheless, the two Koreas have not severed all contact despite increasingly strained ties. They have held several rounds of talks on their joint factory park, the latest last week, and are still connected by several hot lines.

North Korean state media have not specifically mentioned the launches but boasted Sunday that the country’s military could impose “merciless punishment” on those who provoke it.

“Our revolutionary forces have grown up today as the strong army that can impose merciless punishment against those who offend us,” the North’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

The North has engaged in a series of acts this year widely seen as provocative. It fired a long-range rocket it said was a satellite in early April, and in late May it carried out its second underground nuclear test following the first in late 2006.

Another defense official said Monday that no signs of additional North Korean launches have been detected but that the South Korean military was closely monitoring the North’s military. He also spoke on condition of anonymity citing department policy.

The North has warned ships to stay away from a large area off the east coast until July 10, leading to concerns more missiles could be fired.”

Iran Warns of Action if Israel Attacks Nuke Sites

Iran President Ahmadinejad

Straight from Fox News: “Iran is ready to take “real and decisive” action if Israel attacks its nuclear facilities, a senior Iranian parliamentary official said Monday.

The remarks by Alaeddin Broujerdi, the head of Iran’s parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy, came after U.S. Vice President Joe Biden signaled that Washington would not try to prevent any such Israeli assault.

“Both the U.S. and Israel are aware of the consequence of an erroneous decision,” Broujerdi told reporters at the Iranian Embassy in Tokyo.

“I believe our response will be real and decisive,” Broujerdi said. He declined to elaborate.

Israel fears Iran is developing nuclear weapons to target the Jewish state. Iran denies it is pursuing an atomic arsenal, saying it only wants to produce nuclear power.

Israel’s government has said it would prefer to see Iran’s nuclear program stopped through diplomacy, but that it cannot rule out a military strike.

In an interview on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, Biden was asked whether the U.S. would stand in the way if Israel — viewing the prospect of an Iranian nuclear bomb as a threat to the existence of the Jewish state — decided to launch a military attack.

“Look, we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do,” he said.

Broujerdi also defended a recent crackdown on protesters following Iran’s presidential election.

Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has said the June 12 election, in which incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared winner, was illegitimate and marred with fraud. Riots and protests have followed, although Iran’s restrictions on media coverage have made it difficult to confirm some reports.

Broujerdi said Iranian police had merely acted to restore order, and accused Mousavi of instigating the protests.

“There is no confusion. It is (now) a totally peaceful situation in Iran,” he said. Broujerdi is visiting Japan as chairman of the Iran-Japan Parliamentary Friendship League.

The Guardian Council, Iran’s top electoral oversight body, pronounced the election results valid last week. Ahmadinejad is set to be sworn in later this month for a second four-year term.”

White House Silent as North Korea Launches Missiles on U.S. Independence Day

Biden may not know how to shut his mouth, but I do!

Straight from Fox News: “The Obama White House has made clear in the past its impatience with North Korea for the communist country’s provocative rhetoric and displays of firepower, but so far Saturday, the administration — possibly by design — has remained silent on Korea’s latest missile barrage.

North Korea launched seven mid-range missiles off its eastern coast, presumably timed to coincide with the United States’ Independence Day. It was a show of firepower that echoed a North Korea’s missile launch three years ago that also fell on the Fourth of July holiday.

U.S. officials have said they don’t expect a launch anytime soon of long-range missiles capable of hitting U.S. soil. Even so, the latest round of missiles is in violation of a U.N. resolution and drew global expressions of condemnation and concern.

In Washington, the White House had no immediate comment. But two senior officials in President Barack Obama’s administration, speaking in advance of the launches, told the Associated Press that any reaction was likely to be muted to avoid giving attention to Pyongyang or antagonize it. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Washington, however, continues to move to enforce U.N. as well as its own sanctions against the isolated regime for its May 25 nuclear test.

The number of missiles launched Saturday was the same as in the 2006 launch, though back then, North Korea also launched a long-range rocket that broke apart and fell into the ocean less than a minute after liftoff.

South Korea said Saturday’s missiles likely flew more than 250 miles, apparently landing in waters between the Korean peninsula and Japan. South Korean officials the launches came throughout the day and were part of military exercises. The North, which had warned ships to stay away from waters off the east coast through July 10, also fired what are believed to have been four short-range cruise missiles Thursday.

Speculation had been building for weeks that the launches were coming. The key question has been whether the North might fire an intercontinental ballistic missile, as it vowed to do in late April.

South Korea and Japan both condemned the launches, with Tokyo calling them a “serious act of provocation.” Britain and France issued similar statements.

Russia and China, both close to North Korea, expressed concern over an “escalation of tension in the region,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement after a meeting in Moscow.

North Korea has engaged in a series of acts this year widely seen as provocative. It fired a long-range rocket it said was a satellite in early April, and in late May it carried out its second underground nuclear test following the first in late 2006.

The country has also stoked tensions with rival South Korea and last month threatened “thousand-fold” military retaliation against the U.S. and its allies if provoked.

In addition, North Korea convicted two American journalists last month and sentenced them to 12 years hard labor for illegally entering the country. It is also holding a South Korean worker for allegedly denouncing its political system.

The secretive communist country is believed undergoing a political transition in which 67-year-old leader Kim Jong Il appears to be laying the groundwork to transfer power to one of his sons. Kim himself took over from his late father, the country’s founder.

Despite a Japanese newspaper report last month that one might be launched toward Hawaii in early July, U.S. officials have noted no such preparations, which are complex, usually take days and are often observable by spy satellites. Still, that hasn’t stopped Washington from boosting missile defenses as a precaution.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency suggested launch activity may be winding down, at least for now. It reported late Saturday, citing an unidentified military official, that the North was pulling personnel from its missile launch site and allowing ships to sail again off the coast. The Defense Ministry said it could not confirm the report.

North Korea’s state news agency did not mention the launches, so it was hard to grasp Pyongyang’s true intentions. Officials and analysts, however, said they showed the country remains happy to stand up to the international community and appears unwilling to give in to efforts to punish it.

“I think it’s a demonstration of their defiance and rejection of the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874, for one thing, and to demonstrate their military power capabilities to any potential adversaries” as well as potential customers for its weapons, said Daniel Pinkston, a Seoul-based analyst for the International Crisis Group think tank.

Pinkston also said that there was “certainly a political aspect connected” to the launches and that July 4 was perhaps a “symbolic date,” suggesting the timing was not a coincidence.

Resolution 1874, which was approved last month and which condemned the North’s nuclear test, was the third to be passed by the U.N. Security Council against the country since 2006. All three ban North Korea from launching ballistic missiles.

A senior official in South Korea’s presidential office said that while the launches were part of military exercises, “North Korea also appeared to have sent a message to the U.S.,” though he did not elaborate.

Analysts have said North Korea’s saber rattling is partially aimed at pressuring Washington to engage in direct negotiations. North Korea is believed to desire diplomatic relations and a peace treaty to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War.

Obama’s administration has offered dialogue, but it says North Korea must return to stalled international talks on its denuclearization and stop engaging in what Washington sees as provocative behavior threatening allies South Korea and Japan.

Paik Hak-soon, an expert on North Korea at the Sejong Institute, a think tank near Seoul, rejected the idea that the North chose July 4 to confront or annoy the U.S. on its national day.

He said the launches were more likely a warning to the international community against enforcing U.N. sanctions, which call for searches of North Korean ships suspected of carrying banned items, such as nuclear or missile parts.

He said North Korea will continue to carry out more missile and nuclear tests in the future, as long as relations with the U.S. and South Korea remain tense.

“The structure of confrontation is there, intact,” he said.”

Biden: ‘We Misread How Bad the Economy Was’

Biden can't keep his mouth shut!

Straight from Fox News: “The Obama administration “misread” the depth of the economic troubles it inherited and still expects more new jobs in the long term as the spending pace from the $787 billion stimulus plan quickens, Vice President Joe Biden said.

Republican congressional leaders expressed disappointment about the impact of stimulus spending. “I’m very skeptical that the spending binge that we’re on is going to produce much good and, even if it does, anytime soon,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said in a statement Sunday.

“I think the economy is just as likely to begin to recover on its own, wholly aside from this, before much of this has an impact.”

Biden, in an interview that aired on ABC’s “This Week,” said the 9.5 percent unemployment rate is “much too high.” The administration had predicted unemployment would stay below 8 percent with its stimulus plan.

“The figures we worked off of in January were the consensus figures and most of the blue chip indexes out there,” Biden said. “We misread how bad the economy was, but we are now only about 120 days into the recovery package.”

He cited the economic conditions inherited from the Bush administration. “It’s now our responsibility. So the second question becomes … is it the right package given the circumstances we’re in? And we believe it is the right package given the circumstances we’re in.”

While Biden argued that more jobs will be created in the coming months, House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said the GOP had wanted the bill to focus on small businesses and helping people keep more of what they earned.

“This was supposed to be about jobs, jobs and jobs. And the fact is it turned into nothing more than spending, spending and more spending on a lot of big government bureaucracy,” Boehner said.

Even House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said no one is satisfied with the results of the stimulus so far. “But we believe the stimulus was absolutely essential,” he said.

Biden noted that the plan was set up to spend the money over 18 months. Major programs will take effect in September, including $7.5 billion for broadband Internet service, plus new money for high-speed rail and the nation’s electrical grid, he said.

Biden said it’s premature to say whether the country will need a second stimulus package.

Other issues Biden discussed during his ABC interview:

–Asked whether the United States would put the lives of U.S. troops on the line should violence flare up again in Iraq, he said “no.” The U.S. still plans to withdraw all troops by 2011, Biden said. “We believe the Iraqis will be fully capable of maintaining their own security.”

–Biden said if the Iranian government seeks to engage in a dialogue with the United States, the U.S. will engage. “The offer’s on the table.”

–Biden said Israel has the right to pursue a different course of action on Iran than the U.S. does. “Look, Israel can determine for itself — it’s a sovereign nation — what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else.”

–On North Korea’s Saturday launch of missiles, he said such actions appear to be efforts to seek attention. “The question is, is there anything that we should do about it?” Arguing that the U.S. policy has been correct so far, he said, “We have succeeded in uniting the most important and critical countries to North Korea on a common path of further isolating North Korea.”

–The Obama administration is “well on the way” to resolving a dispute between CIA Director Leon Panetta and National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, Biden said. The conflict centers on Blair’s effort to choose his own representatives at U.S. embassies instead of relying only on CIA station chiefs. “He declined to give details.”

Veteran Whose American Flag Was Vandalized Gets Replacement From Iraq

Official Seal of Awesomeness

Straight from Fox News: “Patrick Best, after serving with the Army for two tours in Iraq, brought home an American flag that once flew over his base near Mosul, but he wasn’t sure what to do with it — until he heard about Ed Jordan.

Jordan, who served in the Marines in the 1950s, had displayed an American flag in front of his Dallas home until Monday, when it was torched by vandals, according to local media reports. When Best heard about the vandalism, he knew his flag should go to Jordan.

“It needed a home, and he had a home that needed a flag. So it was just very simple to connect the two together,” Best told WFAA.

Jordan said he’d been planning on getting a replacement but didn’t expect one like this.

“It has that much more meaning to know that somebody you’ve been praying for, this flag was flying over them,” Jordan told WFAA.

Best’s new mission is to spend time in Coppell, Texas, with his family, the station reported — and Jordan’s new mission is to find a bigger flag pole.”

US forces launch S. Afghan operation 48 hours after withdrawal from Iraqi cities

Marines take the fight to the Taliban

Straight from the Debka File: “Operation Strike of the Sword was launched in the small hours of Thursday, July 2, against Taliban strongholds in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, by 4,000 US Marines and 650 Afghan troops, thereby underscoring US president Barack Obama’s switch of military emphasis from Iraq to Afghanistan. On June 20, more than 130,000 US troops pulled out of Iraq’s cities.

The US-Afghan force, backed by armor and helicopters, faced little resistance in the first stage of its advance on the important Taliban stronghold, which is located in the world’s largest opium poppy growing area. DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the Taliban, forewarned of the coming offensive, used the tactics it employs against the Pakistani army, which is to avoid pitched battles with large US or Pakistan forces. They prefer to hit and run where least expected and incur minimal casualties.

This tactic has denied the Pakistani army, albeit aided by US spy drones, victory in the second month of its campaign to root the Taliban out of the northern Swat Valley. It will make the coming Pakistani offensives with US military support against two more fronts, the Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud’s stronghold in South Waziristan and Pakistani Kashmir, even more complicated.

A statement on the Helmand operation by Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson stressed the difference between the Pakistan and Afghan warfronts:

“Where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces.”

The American force, in other words, has not embarked on an in-and-out operation before moving on to other fronts, but intends to stay put until the province is purged of insurgents and rehabilitated before handing it over to the central Afghan government in Kabul.

DEBKAfile’s sources point to only two of the difficulties facing the planned handover: Afghanistan is short of troops for taking and holding the province, and Afghan security forces have a propensity for squabbling amongst themselves over territory and influence. Three days ago, a clash between rival Afghan security forces in the town of Kandahar left eight men dead including the local police chief.”

By-the-mile road tax could replace by-the-gallon federal fuel tax

System test in Oregon

Will this not place an undue burden on those that live in the western United States where everything is quite spread out and sparsely populated? What about those Americans that choose to live within rural areas within their own state? Think of this tax more as a penalty on those Americans that choose not to live within one of the big cities.

Straight from the Kansas City Star: “The year is 2020 and the gasoline tax is history. In its place you get a monthly tax bill based on each mile you drove — tracked by a Global Positioning System device in your car and uploaded to a billing center.

What once was science fiction is being field-tested by the University of Iowa to iron out the wrinkles should a by-the-mile road tax ever be enacted.

Besides the technological advances making such a tax possible, the idea is getting a hard push from a growing number of transportation experts and officials. That is because the traditional by-the-gallon fuel tax, struggling to keep up with road building and maintenance demands, could fall even farther behind as vehicles’ gas mileage rises and more alternative-fuel vehicles come on line.

The idea of shifting to a by-the-mile tax has been discussed for years, but it now appears to be getting more serious attention. A federal commission, after a two-year study, concluded earlier this year that the road tax was the “best path forward” to keep revenues flowing to highway and transportation projects, and could be an important new tool to help manage traffic and relieve congestion.

The decision by the 15-member National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission was unanimous, which surprised Robert Atkinson, the group’s chairman. But he said it became clear as the commission’s work progressed that a road tax on miles traveled was the best option.

“If you’re committed to the system being improved then it was a no-brainer,” he said.”

White House Press Secretary Robert Gates FINALLY gets grilled by the Press Corps

CIA Crucified Captive In Abu Ghraib Prison – by Sherwood Ross

Sherwood Ross has worked as a publicist for Chicago; as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News and workplace columnist for Reuters.

Straight from CLG: “The Central Intelligence Agency crucified a prisoner in Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, according to a report published in The New Yorker magazine.

“A forensic examiner found that he (the prisoner) had essentially been crucified; he died from asphyxiation after having been hung by his arms, in a hood, and suffering broken ribs,” the magazine’s Jane Mayer writes in the magazine’s June 22nd issue. “Military pathologists classified the case a homicide.” The date of the murder was not given.

“No criminal charges have ever been brought against any C.I.A. officer involved in the torture program, despite the fact that at least three prisoners interrogated by agency personnel died as a result of mistreatment,” Mayer notes.

An earlier report, by John Hendren in The Los Angeles Times, indicated other torture killings. And Human Rights First says nearly 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hendren reported that one Manadel Jamadi died “of blunt-force injuries” complicated by “compromised respiration” at Abu Ghraib prison “while he was with Navy SEALs and other special operations troops.” Another victim, Abdul Jaleel, died while gagged and shackled to a cell door with his hands over his head.” Yet another prisoner, Maj. Gen. Abid Mowhosh, former commander of Iraq’s air defenses, “died of asphyxiation due to smothering and chest compression” in Qaim, Iraq.

“There is no question that U.S. interrogations have resulted in deaths,” says Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU. “High-ranking officials who knew about the torture and sat on their hands and those who created and endorsed these policies must be held accountable. America must stop putting its head in the sand and deal with the torture scandal.” At least scores of detainees in U.S. custody have died and homicide is suspected. As far back as May, 2004, the Pentagon conceded at least 37 deaths of prisoners in its custody in Iraq and Afghanistan had prompted investigations.

Nathaniel Raymond, of Physicians for Human Rights, told The New Yorker, “We still don’t know how many detainees were in the black sites, or who they were. We don’t fully know the White House’s role, or the C.I.A.’s role. We need a full accounting, especially as it relates to health professionals.”

Recently released Justice memos, he noted, contain numerous references to CIA medical personnel participating in coercive interrogation sessions. “They were the designers, the legitimizers, and the implementers,” Raymond said. “This is arguably the single greatest medical-ethics scandal in American history. We need answers.”

The ACLU obtained its information from the Pentagon through a Freedom of Information suit. Documents received included 44 autopsies and death reports as well as a summary of autopsy reports of people seized in Iraq and Afghanistan. An ACLU statement noted, “This covers just a fraction of the total number of Iraqis and Afghanis who have died while in U.S. custody.” (Italics added).

Torture by the CIA has been facilitated by the Agency’s ability to hide prisoners in “black sites” kept secret from the Red Cross, to hold prisoners off the books, and to detain them for years without bringing charges or providing them with lawyers.

Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, denounced the Obama administration for considering “prevention detention,” The New Yorker’s Mayer wrote. Roth said this tactic “mimics the Bush Administration’s abusive approach.”

From all indications, CIA Director Panetta has no intention of bringing to justice CIA officials involved in the systematic torture of prisoners. Panetta told Mayer, “I’m going to give people the benefit of the doubt…If they do the job that they’re paid to do, I can’t ask for a hell of a lot more.”

Such sentiments differ markedly from those Panetta wrote in an article published last year in the January Washington Monthly: “We either believe in the dignity of the individual, the rule of law, and the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, or we don’t. There is no middle ground.”

One way to discern who really runs a country is to look to see which individuals, if any, are above the law. In the Obama administration, like its predecessors, they include the employees of the CIA. Crucifixions they execute in the Middle East differ from those reported in the New Testament in at least one important respect: Jesus Christ had a trial.”

The Pirate Bay Sold To Software Company, Goes Legal

AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Straight from Torrent Freak: “Software company Global Gaming Factory X (GGF) says it is in the process of acquiring The Pirate Bay and file-sharing technology company Peerialism. GGF claims to have the biggest network of internet cafés and gaming centers in the world.

The changeover of ownership is scheduled for August 2009, whereby GGF will take over the operation of the site.

The company says that after it has completed the acquisition it will launch new business models so that copyright owners get paid, which is clearly a huge diversion from TPB’s previous modus operandi.

“We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site,” said Hans Pandeya, CEO GGF.

“The Pirate Bay is a site that is among the top 100 most visited Internet sites in the world. However, in order to live on, The Pirate Bay requires a new business model, which satisfies the requirements and needs of all parties, content providers, broadband operators, end users, and the judiciary,” said Pandeya.

“Content creators and providers need to control their content and get paid for it. File sharers’ need faster downloads and better quality,” he added.

GGF will acquire the site’s domain names and sites for SEK 60,000,000 ($7.8 million) – SEK 30,000,000 in cash and the rest in newly issue shares.

File-sharing technology company Peerialism will also be acquired by GGF for a total of SEK 100 million, of which at least SEK 50 million will be in cash.

According to GGF, Peerialism has developed a new P2P distribution technology which will be used on The Pirate Bay. The technology is said to be backwards-compatible with BitTorrent although details are scarce at the moment.

At the time of writing, shares in GGF are up 155% – this will quickly become outdated, so check here for latest stats.

This is breaking news and this article will be updated constantly – please keep checking back.”