Wednesday, September 9th at 7:00 PM, Betts Library

We are having our first gathering at Betts Library (on Salina Street, just South of Seneca Turnpike) on Wednesday, September 9th at 7:00 PM.

Our purpose will be to determine how we can best make a difference in our community-- by turning the tide against out-of-control government. We believe that ordinary citizens, people just like us, can make an impact!

Join us. Bring a friend. Let others know about our blog. Let's build a coalition that can do something. Maybe we can take our turn as community organizers...

Appeasing Syria The Obama approach to the Arab world and to dictatorships is failing.

by Elliott Abrams

The Weekly Standard

The Obama administration has been trying out a new policy toward Syria since the day it came to office. The Bush cold shoulder was viewed as a primitive reaction, now to be replaced by sophisticated diplomacy. Outreach would substitute for isolation. Thus there have been six visits to Damascus by high-level administration officials, including two by George Mitchell. Moreover, the administration has signaled that its handling of export license applications for Syria will be more "flexible" than that of the Bush administration, which tried to deny every shipment it could.

Well, the returns are in. Within the past week, Iraq has withdrawn its ambassador from Damascus and accused Syria of involvement in terrorist incidents in Baghdad. Iraqi TV has also aired a confession by an accused al Qaeda terrorist, a Saudi who claimed he had been trained in Syria--by the Asad regime's intelligence services. Nor is this all. Syria continues to support Hezbollah's blocking of the formation of a government in Lebanon, backing Hezbollah in its demand for a "blocking third" that would prevent any decisions Hezbollah opposes in any new Cabinet. The Palestinian terrorist groups remain headquartered in Damascus, and under no visible restraints. And on August 19, President Bashar Asad paid a visit to President Ahmadinejad in Tehran, to showcase his support of the latter during the current Iranian political crisis.

None of this is new. Throughout the Iraq war, jihadis who wanted to go to Iraq to kill Americans
and Iraqis would not cross the Saudi/Iraqi, Jordanian/Iraqi, or Kuwaiti/Iraqi borders--all of which were carefully patrolled. No, they would fly to Damascus International Airport, where young Arab men with no papers, no destination, and no visible means of support were welcomed and guided onward to the Iraqi border. It is obvious that in a police state like Syria it would have been simple to police the airport; even the mere requirement that young men have valid visas would have slowed or stopped the flow of jihadis through Syria. But that, of course, was not what the regime had in mind, and as the Iraqi government has now publicly stated, Syria remains a haven for jihadis and terrorist organizations killing people in Iraq.

Watching the smiling Mitchell shaking hands with Asad, Syrians knew that any hope of American pressure for human rights progress was in vain as well. Neither Mitchell nor Obama has ever mentioned the subject publicly, and if Mitchell has asked Asad to release any particular political prisoners that fact has been kept secret. In fact the president of the Syrian Human Rights Organization, Muhanad Al-Hasani, was imprisoned on July 28, four weeks after Mitchell's last visit.

Syria is an excellent test case of the new Obama approach to the Arab world and to dictatorships that the Bush administration tried to isolate. The new policy is failing.



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This Week, It Was Scotland's Turn To Shame the West

By Dennis Prager

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Whenever I think that some Western country or institution has reached a low point, shortly thereafter, sometimes the very next week, another Western government or institution proves me too optimistic.

Last week, it was the news that the Yale University Press will not allow any picture of Muhammad to appear in its forthcoming book on the Muhammad cartoons controversy. Not only will Yale not print the cartoons that are the subject of the book, Yale will not print any picture of Muhammad, no matter how respectful, no matter that a believing Muslim drew it, and no matter how long ago it was drawn.

This week, it was Scotland's turn to shame Western civilization. And though it seemed impossible to outdo Yale, Scotland has.

The Scottish government released Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the one person convicted in the mass murder of 270 people when Pan Am flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988.

Read More at http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0809/prager082509.php3

Oy!bama may suffer real political damage among a core Democratic constituency if he continues his current policies

By Dick Morris & Eileen Mc Gann

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Jewish Democrats strongly agree with the Israeli position and disagree with President Obama's on issues such as a Palestinian state, settlement construction and trading land for peace. Does the president realize he's at risk of a break with an important part of his base?

A phone survey (sponsored by the Traditional Values Coalition and conducted by Global Marketing Research Services on July 22-24) of 500 American Jews who self-identified as Democrats exposes broad disagreement with Obama's Middle East policies.

Asked to choose between the Obama view that "if Israel could settle its dispute with the Palestinian refugees and give them a nation of their own, that the Arabs would live in peace with Israel" and the Israeli government view that "the Arabs will never live in peace with Israel and that giving them a nation of their own will just make them stronger," Jewish Democrats sided with the Israeli view by 52 percent to 20 percent.

On the contentious issue of construction in existing West Bank settlements, Democratic Jews also sided with Israel more than with Obama. The survey asked for agreement with Obama when he "says that it is very important that Israel not expand its settlements on the West Bank so as not to alienate the Palestinians," or with Israel that "it should be allowed to build new homes in existing settlements but not to start new ones" — and got 52-37 backing for the Israeli view.

Democratic Jews still strongly back Obama in general, with 92 percent reporting that they approve of the job he is doing as president. But 44 percent feel that "Obama is naive in thinking he can make peace with the Arabs," while only 37 percent disagree.

Nearly half of Jewish Democrats still reject the idea that Obama is biased against Israel: In all, 49 percent said he wasn't and 16 percent said he was — but a significantly large number, 35 percent, said they were undecided.

By 58-16, Jewish Democrats agree that "Obama is doing a good job of promoting peace in the Middle East." But they share Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's skepticism about trading land for peace, the cornerstone of the "road map" to a settlement laid out in the 1990s.

Only 27 percent feel that "President Obama is right that Israel should agree to let the Palestinians form their own country and return the West Bank to them. This would defuse the hatred in the Middle East, reduce terrorism and help America, the Palestinians, and Israel live in peace."

But 55 percent disagree, preferring the statement: "President Obama is naive in thinking that the Palestinians would make peace, whatever they say. They will just use the new land as a base to attack Israel like they did in Gaza."

On the issue of Iran, Jewish Democrats are confused. While they agree, by 67-8, that "if Iran gets nuclear weapons, it will use them to destroy Israel," only 14 percent said it was "very likely" that "Israel could be destroyed by an Iranian nuclear attack in the next 10 years." Another 37 percent called it "somewhat likely" and 40 percent said "unlikely."

Only 40 percent said they thought Obama is doing a good job in his efforts to "stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons." At the same time, by 15-62, they disagree that "Israel should bomb Iran to stop them from developing nuclear weapons."

Yet, only 38 percent felt that there "is a real chance that Iran can be stopped from developing a bomb without an Israeli attack."

Jewish Democrats heartily approve of Israel and most of its policies and emphatically reject any moral equivalence between the Jewish state and the Palestinian refugees:

• 92 percent have a favorable opinion of Israel; just 17 percent have a positive view of the Palestinian refugees.
• By 81-6, they agree that "Israel is a democracy and has a free political system."
• They agree that "it is very important that Jews have a country of their own, considering their history of persecution" by 86-7.
• Emphatically, by 9-75, they reject the claim that "Israel has become a bully, pushing its Arab neighbors around."
• By 14-55, they disagree with the accusation that "the Israeli Army and Mossad are guilty of human-rights abuses." Rather, they say by 59-14 that "the Israeli Army and Mossad go out of their way to avoid hurting civilians."
• Asked if "Israel is always trying to grab more land and throw out the Palestinians who live there," Jewish Democrats disagree by 11-73. And they also disagree with the charge that "Israel is intolerant of its neighbors and does not do enough to get along with them in peace" by 13-70.

The pro-Israeli mindset of Jewish Democrats is most evident on the basic question of who's to blame for the Arab-Israeli conflict. By 60-20, they agree that "if the Arabs lay down their weapons, there would be no more war. It is just their desire to destroy Israel that creates the conflict." Likewise, they agree by 83-6 that "if Israel were to lay down its weapons, the Arabs would destroy it."

The fervency of their support for Israel suggests that Obama may suffer real political damage among a core Democratic constituency if he continues his current policies.

The Michigan Example: How government investment in business failed to create jobs.

(From The Wall Street Journal) A central belief in Washington and most state capitals nowadays is that government should "invest" in certain businesses—"clean tech," say, or manufacturing—to drive job creation. We hope it all turns out better than it has in Michigan.

For the past 14 years, Lansing politicians have offered $3.3 billion in tax credits through the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and spent another $1.6 billion in outlays to create and retain jobs. The subsidies have ranged from tax breaks for Hollywood, to money for new industrial plants, to millions for TV ads starring Jeff Daniels and Tim Allen talking about business and tourism in the state.

It's one of the largest experiments in smokestack chasing in American history, but one thing it hasn't done is create jobs. An exhaustive new 100-page study by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a Michigan think tank, has reviewed where all the money has gone and what came of it. The study finds that for every 100 jobs that were promised with these tax credits over 14 years, only 29 arrived. Dare we call this cash for clunkers?

Economist Michael Hicks, a business school professor at Ball State, calculated the rate of return on the corporate tax credits. He found that for every $1 million in tax credits awarded, there were 95 lost manufacturing jobs in the counties where the companies were located—a result that is "strongly statistically significant." There was no gain in personal income in these counties. Perhaps more jobs would have been lost without the credits, but what is undeniably clear is that the businesses that got the government loot were not magnets for other employers.

Many of these handout programs were started in 1995 by former Republican Governor John Engler, who we criticized at the time in "A Governor's Gimmick." They have since been expanded 18 times under current Governor Jennifer Granholm. Two of the most celebrated initiatives were the Michigan 21st Century Jobs Fund and the Broadband Development Authority. Ms. Granholm's vision was that these grants and credits would create 500,000 jobs and $440 billion in new investment by 2010.

Liberals cheered this "progressive" alternative to tax cutting. But the jobs lured to Michigan were so few that the programs were killed in 2007. The broadband program's legacy was $14.5 million of bad loans eaten by taxpayers. Then State Senate Majority Leader Ken Sikkema, an original supporter of the telecom program, called it "one of the biggest flops in state government."

An even bigger flop might be the Michigan Film Office. The program provides movie producers a 42% tax credit for rolling the cameras in Michigan. But because the credits are "refundable," they are mostly cash subsidies to the film industry to make movies. The Michigan Senate Fiscal Agency recently found that "if a film production company spent $10.0 million in Michigan, the State will gain less than $700,000 in income and sales tax revenues but will pay out about $4 million to the production company." So in a state with the highest unemployment rate in the nation at 15%, taxpayers last year gave out $48 million in subsidies to Hollywood millionaires.

Why doesn't this kind of industrial policy work? One reason is that the subsidies have to be financed by somebody, which means raising taxes more broadly on the rest of the state. The subsidized businesses may bring a few jobs, but the overall employment and investment impact is miniscule at best.

In Michigan these programs were responsible for 0.25% of all new jobs created in the last decade, according to the study. Meanwhile, in 2007 Michigan raised business taxes by $1.4 billion on other firms to pay for many of Ms. Granholm's favored companies. Despite all the giveaways, Michigan was recently ranked as having the third most antibusiness climate among states, in a survey of executives by CEO magazine. If Michigan had simply cut taxes for every business, as Mr. Engler did in the 1990s when the state briefly led the nation in new jobs, it's a good bet unemployment would be lower.

When Ms. Granholm gave her state of the state address earlier this year, she crowed about the similarities between the Michigan and Obama Administration strategies of using tax subsidies to aid favored businesses. "President Obama's priorities are nearly identical to ours," she declared, and we can only hope the results won't be.

U.S. unemployment rate jumps to 26-year high of 9.7%

By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. unemployment rate jumped to a 26-year high of 9.7% in August as nonfarm payrolls fell by 216,000, the 20th consecutive monthly decline, the Labor Department estimated Friday.

U.S. payrolls have dropped by 6.9 million to a total of 131.2 million since the recession began in December 2007, the government data showed. Unemployment has increased by 7.4 million during the recession to stand at 14.9 million.

The 216,000 decline in payrolls was close to market expectations of a 233,000 drop, but the unemployment rate rose higher than the 9.5% level expected. The unemployment rate was 9.4% in July.

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