Saturday, April 19, 2008

The oh-so-high ethical standards of the Clintons


The National Center for Policy Analysis takes a closer look at the Clinton tax returns.

New York Senator Hillary Clinton and her husband spend a lot of time on the Presidential trail deploring the "wealthy" and "well-connected." As their newly released tax records for 2000 to 2007 show, they know of whom they speak, says the Wall Street Journal...

* The former, and perhaps future, first couple earned $109 million over the past eight years, putting them among the top .01 percent of taxpayers.
* The bulk of the Clintons' income came from speech-making ($51.9 million) and book-writing ($29.6 million).

It is understandable why the couple took so long to release their returns, and is still reluctant to release other information, says the Journal. Their political status has given them access to wealthy folks who've helped make them rich [, e.g.,]

* Bill Clinton raked in as much as $15 million working as an adviser and rainmaker for billionaire financier Ron Burkle's Yucaipa firm.
* The former President also took in $3.3 million in consulting fees from InfoUSA CEO Vinod Gupta, who has also helped fund Hillary Clinton's White House bid.

Meanwhile, the Clintons also made liberal use of the charitable deduction:

* They claimed $10.2 million in charitable giving over the eight years.
* Intriguingly, nearly all the donations went to the Clinton Family Foundation, which has disbursed only half the money.
* The Clintons can thus use the foundation for, strategic giving, such as the $100,000 it donated last year to a local South Carolina library -- the day after Hillary Clinton debated in that key primary state.

There are other examples of such politically targeted philanthropy and it's worth noting that most of the foundation's disbursements came only after Hillary announced her Presidential run, says the Journal.

Honestly. This is about as surprising as a Britney flashing "accident".

Hat tip: Arkancide

Look up 'useful idiot' in the dictionary and you'll see this picture

 
Haaretz:

The Islamic group's [Hamas] spokesman said that none of the eight gunmen who took part in the operation - code-named "Killing Field" - were killed.

"The Gaza Strip will remain a flaming stone that will crush the sick dreams of the Zionist enemy," the spokesman said.

Also yesterday, Hamas officials announced they would pick its representatives who will meet former U.S. president Jimmy Carter in Cairo, as Carter's entrance to the Gaza Strip had been prohibited by Israel. The former president is scheduled to travel to Damascus where he will meet with Hamas leader Khaled Mashal.

Update: Linked by Dr. Sanity's Carnival of the Insanities. Thanks!

Friday, April 18, 2008

Six degrees of Barack Obama


In truth, it doesn't take six degrees to connect Obama to a bunch of virulent racists, hate-mongers and deadly terrorists.


One or two degrees is about all it takes.

Linked by: Gateway Pundit. Thanks!

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Carter tries to mainstream Hamas


If Jimminy Carter gets his way, Hamas will soon become a mainstream part of American culture.

Hat tip: Reliapundit

True voodoo economics


US News & World Report:

Charlie Gibson of ABC News asked Obama twice why he wanted to raise capital-gains taxes since such a move would both 1) hit the middle class and 2) produce less government revenue.

Obama—who didn't seem to know that middle-class people pay capital-gains taxes, since he had just moments earlier promised not to raise taxes on people making under the $200,000-to-$250,000 range—gave this answer:

Well, Charlie, what I've said is that I would look at raising the capital-gains tax for purposes of fairness... [And as to higher rates bringing in less revenue], well, that might happen or it might not. It depends on what's happening on Wall Street and how business is going.... ...And if we can stabilize that market and we can get credit flowing again, then I think we'll see stocks do well, and once again I think we can generate the revenue that we need to run this government and hopefully to pay down some of this debt.

OK, let me get this straight: Obama thinks [the economy] may be heading into a near depression, and he wants to double a tax that might or might not, as he sees it, have a negative effect on economic activity, all for the sake of "fairness."

Lenin would be proud.

And, no, there is no racial taint whatsoever to the headline. It is based upon the contention that trickle-down economics, the basis for the incredible economic surge that we have experienced since Reagan's era, was "voodoo." No, Obama's brain-damaged form of socialism represents real voodoo economics.

Worst. President. Of all time. In a landslide.


This article says it all.

It puts a cherry on the top of a career that includes a horrific record as president: the human rights disasters occasioned by his failed policies in Iran and Nicaragua. The fall of the Shah and the rise of the Mullahs in Iran -- directly attributable to Carter - provided the central bastion for Islamofascism leading up to 9/11. His failure to support the Shah also emboldened the Soviets, who rolled into Afghanistan in 1979, correctly figuring that Carter would do nothing but bloviate using a whiny drawl.

Nice work, Mr. Peanut. It's just another volume destined for the Carter Presidential Library of Catastrophic Failures and Anti-Americanism located conveniently in downtown Tehran, Iran.

Update: SC&A: Jimmy Carter, a fool on a fool's errand (via Larwyn)

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

The Modern Democratic Mount Rushmore


The Modern Democratic Mount Rushmore features Carter, Obama, Wright and Farrakhan.

Democrats should be pretty proud of this posse.

Authorities to frog-march Franken?


Protein Wisdom notes that Al Franken's tax problems keep --er-- compounding.

Democratic Senate candidate Al Franken’s personal corporation didn’t file corporate income tax returns in California from 2003 to 2007.  He now owes more than $4,000 in back taxes, penalties and fees.  Franken campaign spokeswoman Jess McIntosh said if Franken’s business owes the money it will pay up, which is nice, given that it is illegal to not file or pay corporate taxes. 


Franken looks like he's been working out.
The AP adds:

AFI was in the headlines in recent weeks after it emerged that New York state had fined Franken $25,000 for failure to pay workers’ compensation insurance while employing people from 2002 to 2005. Franken paid the penalty and an $833 fine for failing to pay disability insurance.

Franken's a joke, but federal authorities aren't laughing.

Obama Akbar!


Gateway Pundit has the back-story.

Update: Some "US Muslim Groups Dissing Pope Benedict."

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

The swords


I'm hoping and praying that Vanderleun doesn't sue me for lifting his entire post. But it's too good to excerpt. Read it and email it to your friends. Especially your progressive friends.

In fact, upon reflection, it occurs to me that the entire thrust of both these Democrat campaigns is to obscure the fact that the primary and most immediate power of the Presidency is to draw and use the sword. The usual sheaf of tax, health, educational promises and policies depend on congressional review and approval. Those processes take up an inordinate amount of time to unfold, and are usually subject to endless equivocation and compromise. They might make your tomorrows brighter or darker, but they don't really have the power to make or ruin today.

Not so the use of the sword. It can be drawn and deployed within 15 minutes.

Let's review: The most powerful and rapidly deployable swords the USA has are aboard our ballistic missile submarines.

* We currently have 14 nuclear-powered SSBNs, each armed with 24 Trident II SLBMs.
* Each Trident II can carry "Up to eight W88 (475 kt) warheads (Mark 5) or eight W76 (100 kt) warheads (Mark 4)."
* The Hiroshima nuke delivered between 13 and 16 kilotons. One warhead from one Trident missile can deliver 475 kilotons.
* The range of a Trident II missile is thought to be 9,000 miles.
* It is also thought that the accuracy of these missiles is such that it can put one of its warheads on the roof of your house.
* An American President, as Commander-in-Chief, has about 2,700 of these swords at hand.
* And the authority to use them. At any time.

This is merely the most immediate and drastic way in which "U.S. Battle Space" can be deployed by the President of the United States. Other, more prosaic ways, can be glimpsed in the video above.

So, as a Democrat, you're telling me that you want to hand the swords to Barack Obama and/or Hillary Clinton? You need to start a War on Drugs inside your own home.

I understand that the SkyPie promises of these two give you that warm and fuzzy feeling, but perhaps you will excuse me if I'm not feeling all warm and fuzzy when it comes to handling the sword.

Hat tips: Don Surber and Larwyn

Great moments in Carter History #96: Honoring Pol Pot


Former President Jimmy Carter laid a wreath at Pol Pot's interment site.

This afternoon, Carter laid a wreath at Pol Pot's grave, calling the dictator "a misunderstood genius who had the best interests of the Cambodian people in mind."

Line o' the Day: Blame Bush. Oh, and white mens' greed, too.

 
John Hinderaker at Powerline:

[Obama] converted to Christianity as an adult, specifically because he was drawn to Reverend Wright and the theology that Wright preached.

So it is rather stunning to hear Obama explain, in his own words and in his own voice, what it was about Wright that he found so compelling. In fact, it was Wright's denouncing Hiroshima and teaching that the world's problems are caused by "white men's greed" that, by Obama's own account, brought him to tears...

...Barack Obama is an extraordinarily divisive figure, not because of who he is, but because of what he says. Does he still find the claim that the "world in need" is caused by "white men's greed" to be credible? No Presidential candidate has run for office on an explicitly racist platform since the Democrats of the mid-19th century. But if Obama still endorses references to "white men's greed," as he did when he wrote Dreams From My Father, he is disqualified from office on grounds of racial divisiveness alone.

Great moments in Carter History #73: Meeting Dr. Mengele

 
Auschwitz Commandant Richard Baer (left) and Dr. Josef Mengele (second from left) meet with Jimmy Carter to pursue a peaceful final solution to the Jewish question in Europe.

Many criticized Carter's decision to meet with Dr. Josef Mengele in 1943. Carter, however, defended his actions. "I think it is absolutely crucial that in the final and dreamed-about and prayed-for peace agreement for Europe that the Gestapo be involved and that the SS will be involved," Carter told a Zyklon-B conference outside Auschwitz.

Carter aims to get Mengele to agree to a "peaceful resolution of differences, both with the Jews and also with Catholics, Gypsies and Gays."

Monday, April 14, 2008

Hey, kids: it's the Hillary Clinton Duck Destroyer™ Action Figure!


Why wait for Christmas? Your kids deserve the best -- and nothing is more historically accurate than the Hillary Clinton Duck Destroyer™ action figure!

Act now! Operators are standing by, poised to take your call!

Saddam Hussein's support for Al-Qaeda exposed

 
A few determined individuals have doggedly pursued the true history of Saddam Hussein. Roy Robison and Deroy Murdock, in particular, deserve attention for their incredible detective work that is only now attracting the kind of widespread attention it deserves.

Specifically, their discoveries shred the progressive fable that Saddam Hussein would not work with Islamic terrorists and Al Qaeda in particular. Murdock's Hussein and Terror website provides an excellent introduction to the topic.

But Robison's research and book -- Both in One Trench -- provide startling insights into the true connections between Hussein and terror. Captured Iraqi documents, analyzed by the Pentagon and only recently released for public consumption describe these links with copious clarity. Robison's most recent blog post summarizes some of the critical insights.

Those documents alone crush the arguments that Saddam would not work with Islamic terrorists. He most certainly would and did in operations in Somalia. These documents show the regime negotiating with leadership of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (which was already affiliated with Usama bin Laden...) and al Qaeda affiliate[s]...

[We believe Al Qaeda was directly behind the Mogadishu attacks on the U.S. because] a study of captured al Qaeda documents [describe] al Qaeda trainers in Somalia [who] claim that General Aideed was hunting them because of the attacks on the Americans....

...two days after Saddam ordered his intelligence service to hunt the Americans in Somalia using the Afghan jihad vets, Usama bin Laden's number two man Mohammed Atef called his top trainers to Pakistan and ordered them to Somalia to set up these terror training camps in Somalia.

...The big picture here is that al Qaeda, which these documents show was very short on cash for these operations likely went to the Saddam regime looking for financial support. Saddam liked the idea of attacking US forces in Somalia and approved the plan, issued the order and left it to his intelligence service to work out the specifics... And why would Saddam work with al Qaeda for this plan? Because the fighting was in Somalia. Two of his enemies (if you believe that he opposed Usama bin Laden) would be killing each other off and all he had to do was financially support al Qaeda. It was a win-win for Saddam.

Put simply, the more documents from this database that we uncover, the better we understand that Saddam was supporting Al Qaeda in every significant way possible.

In terms of generally supporting terror, this excerpt from the Pentagon report is a useful example.

Extract 2 is a response from the Iraqi Intelligence Service (nS) to a letter from Saddam asking for a list of weapons available in Iraqi embassies overseas.

[July 2002]

Subject: Weapons Information:
1. We would like to inform you of the following:
  Romania - Missile launcher and missile
  Athens [Greece] - Explosive charges
  Vienna [Austria] - Explosive charges, rifles with silencers, hand grenades, and Kalashnikov rifles
  Pakistan - Explosive materials ofTNT
  India - Plastic explosive charges and booby-trapped suitcases
  Thailand - Plastic explosive charges and booby-trapped suitcases
  Prague [Czech] - Missile launcher and missile
  Turkey - Missile launcher, missile, and pistols with silencers
  Sana'a [Yemen] - Missile launcher, missile, plastic explosives and explosive charges
  Baku [Azerbaijan] - American missile launcher, plastic explosives and booby-trapped suitcases
  Beirut [Lebanon] - American missile launcher, plastic explosives and booby-trapped suitcases
  Gulf nations - Explosive material outside the embassies
2. Between the year 2000 and 2002 ... explosive materials were transported to the embassies outside Iraq for special work, upon the approval of the Director of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. The responsibility for these materials is in the hands of heads of stations. Some of these materials were transported in the political mail carriers [Diplomatic Pouch]. Some of these materials were transported by car in booby-trapped briefcases.

Simply put, Hussein was linked to Al Qaeda, Hamas, Fatah and every terror group in between.

Why hasn't the mainstream media covered these amazing connections? For one, they prove Bush (and the leading Democrats of the day) were right in destroying Hussein's hotbed of terror. For two, the message doesn't fit the media's agenda, which is to elect Democrats. And for three, it proves -- beyond a shadow of a doubt -- that they have been utterly, completely and universally wrong on this war for over half a decade.

Larwyn's Link Explosion: Clintons can't agree on anything!


Lee Cary at American Thinker asks Norman Hsu Who?:

The list of benefactors from Hsu's fund-raising slash Ponzi scheme turned out to be a Who's Who among Democrat luminaries. The top three names suggest that Hsu was betting on a rollout of influence coming from a Clinton victory next November. As was widely reported, she received $850,000 in donations. As was not widely reported, nor recently noted when he became Client #9, former Gov. Eliot Spitzer received $72,600. He was the third highest recipient of Hsu money.

The second highest might have been the man that a Governor Spitzer would have appointed to complete a President Hillary Clinton's unexpired Senate term - New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, $86,600. And, oh, Fiona Ma, the California Assemblywomen who arranged for Raymond Chow to receive a "Certificate of Honor" from the City of San Francisco, also received Hsu & Associates money, $27,600 ($9,600 from Norm himself). Pure coincidence, surely. (When Senator Feinstein retires from the Senate might Ms. Ma run for her seat?)

Thomas Sowell outlines the message Republicans must take to the Black community:

The teachers' unions are just one of the sacred cow constituencies of the Democratic Party whose agendas are very harmful to blacks... Black voters also need to be told about the tens of thousands of blacks who have been forced out of a number of liberal Democratic California counties by skyrocketing housing prices, brought on by Democratic environmentalists' severe restrictions on the building of homes or apartments.

The black population of San Francisco, for example, has been cut in half since 1970-- and San Francisco is the very model of a community of liberal Democrats, including green zealots who are heedless of the consequences of their actions on others.

Then there are the effects of tort lawyers in raising prices, liberal judges turning criminals loose and other influential Democratic Party constituencies whose effects on blacks are strictly negative...

Anthony Cordesman's Nuclear Wake-Up Call:

Based on the best current knowledge of the Israeli and Iranian nuclear arsenals in the years after 2010, Cordesman concludes that a nuclear war between them would kill up to 800,000 Israelis and up to 28 million Iranians. Israel might just be able to recover as an organized society, but Iran would not.

...But Cordesman adds that Israel would need to keep a reserve strike capability to ensure no other power can capitalize on Iran's strike.?This means Israel would have to target key Arab neighbors, and in particular Syria and Egypt. Were this escalation to take place, up to 18 million Syrians and tens of millions of Egyptians could also die.

The Cordesman report goes on to list the oil wells, refineries and ports along the Gulf that could also be targets in the event of a mass nuclear response by an Israel convinced that it was being dealt a potentially mortal blow. Such a nuclear exchange might not be Armageddon for the human race; it would certainly be Armageddon for the global economy.

• Gateway Pundit notes there is a fine line between genius and insanity -- and that line is the split between husband and wife Clinton.

Hillary Clinton said she opposed the Dubai Ports deal... -- Her husband was getting paid tens of thousands of dollars to support it.

Hillary Clinton said she opposed Colombian free trade agreement. -- Her husband was getting paid tens of thousands of dollars to support it.

But, the latest Clinton controversy is the most outrageous:

Hillary Clinton said she opposed the slaughter of Tibetan protesters. --Her husband received hundreds of thousands by the company that posted the photos of the Most Wanted Tibetan activists on their internet page.

• Gaius observes that Joe Klein will be savaged for telling the truth:

Joe Klein at Time will doubtless raise even more fury than he usually does over on the hard left with his latest post. He makes a number of points contradicting the analysis today by The Politico which pretty well savaged Obama as unelectable...

...There are a lot of people who are not at all amused with Obama's condescending dismissal of small town America. Just as there were a lot of people seriously angered by Obama's pastor and his anti-America screeds. The latter was not quite as personal as Obama's disdain for average Americans. The personal slight are harder to get around...

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Obama's spiritual advisor spews hatred for the founding fathers

 
Many have counseled silence for Pastor Wright on all topiques controversiale (that's not a French phrase -- I just made it up, like any other unedjicated, small-town hilljack would). But Wright hasn't gone to ground. He's decided to really stir things up.

...America’s founding fathers “planted slavery and white supremacy in the DNA of this republic,” and adding that Thomas Jefferson wrote, “ ‘God would punish America for the sin of slavery.’ I guess that makes Thomas Jefferson unpatriotic...”

Actually, Wright, you need to read a little American history before you spout these ridiculous falsehoods.

Many of America's founding fathers battled fiercely to outlaw slavery in the Declaration of Independence.

In the north, the antislavery movement began to gain momentum as early as 1773. In Rhode Island, Reverend Samuel Hopkins [Ed: a founding father], became the leader of the antislavery movement. He utilized his position as minister of the First Congregational Church of Newport to preach against the evils of slavery. Reverend Hopkins took the issue to another level by going door-to-door amidst church members and neighbors and pleaded for the release of their slaves. In Philadelphia, with the arrival of Thomas Paine [Ed: one of the leaders of the Independence movement], the antislavery movement took another leap forward as Paine’s first tract entitled “African Slavery in America” was published...
.
In 1774, the delegates to the First Continental Congress together pledged to abolish the importation of slaves to America.

The Founding Fathers present as delegates included:

* John Adams [Massachusetts]
* Samuel Adams [Massachusetts]
* John Dickinson [Pennsylvania]
* Joseph Galloway [Pennsylvania]
* Patrick Henry [Virginia]
* John Jay [New York]
* Richard Henry Lee [Virginia]
* Phillip Livingston [New York]
* Thomas Mifflin [Pennsylvania]
* Peyton Randolph [Virginia]
* Roger Sherman [Connecticut]
* Charles Thompson [Pennsylvania]
* George Washington [Virginia]

Hopkins, of course, was a founding father who led the abolitionist movement.

But despite this number, several Southern states -- whose economies were predicated upon slave labor -- refused to ratify the Declaration of Independence so long as it outlawed slavery.

Edward Rutlege, among others, demanded that slavery remain unaddressed in the Declaration of Independence.

Along with his brother John, [Edward] Rutledge represented South Carolina in the Continental Congress... Like other Southern planters, Rutledge did not want the American Revolution to change the basic social structure of the South. He worked to have African Americans expelled from the Continental Army, and led the successful effort to have wording removed from the Declaration of Independence that condemned slavery and the slave trade...

Thus, in order to create the United States, the abolitionist founders compromised with the Southerners. But the founders weren't finished.

Once the Constitution of the United States was in place, the Federal Government in 1787 passed the Northwest Ordinance outlawing the institution of slavery where many of the new states would be formed. The Founding Fathers passed this law and it was to this law that Abraham Lincoln referred throughout his Presidency.

Put simply, Wright is either a serial purveyor of falsehoods or completely ignorant of American history. I suspect the former, as he has sided before with the enemies of civilization and virulent racists.

As for America's punishment for slavery: some would consider the 700,000 killed during the Civil War a devastating measure of punishment.

The scope of Wright's false assertions are astounding: from the government's invention of HIV to positioning the founding fathers as creating the DNA of white supremacy. That Obama relied upon this loser for 20 years, listening to his idiotic fabrications, tells us all we need to know.

Hillary Clinton's extreme gun-control makeover

 
Before: The New York Times, May 9, 1999:

Stepping up the Clinton Administration's campaign against gun violence, Hillary Rodham Clinton used an emotional White House ceremony today to call on Americans to press Congress to ''buck the gun lobby'' and pass several gun control measures.

...The Senate is to begin debate next week on a number of gun control measures, some of which mirror proposals offered recently by President Clinton. ''The senators need to hear from all of us,'' Mrs. Clinton said... "[from those] who will stand behind political leaders who are brave enough to buck the gun lobby, wherever that may take us, so that they will vote for the measures that we know will save lives.''

After: The New York Times, April 12, 2008:

“I disagree with Senator Obama’s assertion that people in our country cling to guns and have certain attitudes about immigration or trade simply out of frustration,” she said.

She described herself as a pro-gun churchgoer, recalling that her father taught her how to shoot a gun when she was a young girl and said that her faith “is the faith of my parents and my grandparents.”

For the 471st time, I ask you: is there anything the Clintons wouldn't say or do to regain power? If so, I'd like to know what it is.

Another UN Scandal: Carbon offset market bogus from day one!


Executive Summary: the UN has facilitated a "fraudulent" market worth tens of billions of dollars that was justified by a critical report; this report was authored by the very project developers and "auditors" who would profit from the report's publication. This appears to be a major UN scandal that could surpass the Oil-for-Food Program in terms of total economic impact.

This weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported that the multibillion-dollar experiment created to control global warming is faltering as officials questions the program's efficacy.

[Companies] ...can pay for the right to pollute by buying "carbon credits," essentially permission slips to spew carbon dioxide. Sale of the credits is supposed to help fund clean-air projects in China and other developing countries that would otherwise be too costly to build...

...U.N. regulators are... concerned that some independent auditors of these projects, who are responsible for vetting their environmental legitimacy, have been letting project developers push through ventures of questionable environmental value.

...Developing-world projects like [wind farms and palm-oil plants] are part of the burgeoning global carbon trade [which] last year was worth 40.4 billion euros...

The carbon market was created by the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 global treaty underlying environmental rules...

A dozen or so project developers, most based in Europe, dominate the business. Among the largest is EcoSecurities...

Three auditors dominate the business... Det Norske Veritas, Tüv Süd AG, ...and SGS Group...

Let's hit the pause button right there. Those company names sound familiar.

Let's rewind to the year 2000. The World Rainforest Movement published a bulletin ("Sinks that stink") decrying the emerging carbon trade as suffering "the taint of intellectual corruption". In effect, the WRM and other evironmentalists assert that the entire carbon market is a "scam", "fantasy", "fiction", "nonsense", "fraudulent" and worse.

But why? WRM states:

...some of the most polluting countries are trying to find ways out of their commitments, using potential loopholes in the Protocol which may allow them to plant millions of hectares of trees in Southern countries as a substitute for cutting emissions at [the] source...

in order to assess the scientific validity of this approach, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) appointed a panel to put together a Special Report on Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry. The report, released in May, has disappointed many activists by giving a "scientific" stamp of approval to a carbon market which would generate profits for a small number of mostly Northern companies and consultants...

...one of the reason's for the report's failure is, sadly, surely quite simple: some of the authors (and the companies they work for) will benefit financially from having drawn the conclusions they drew... [just] a few examples:

Pedro Moura-Costa, another important author of Chapter 5, is a UK-based executive of Ecosecurities..

Gareth Philips..., another Lead Author of Chapter 5, works for Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS) Forestry of Geneva...

The bulletin concludes:

These and many other authors and editors of the IPCC Special Report on Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry had vested interests in reaching unrealistically and unjustifiably optimistic conclusions about the possibility of compensating for emissions with trees. They should therefore have been automatically disqualified from serving on an intergovernmental panel charged with investigating impartially the feasibility and benefits of such "offset" projects...

That's where I've heard of EcoSecurities and SGS before.

In short, the very authors of the original UN climate report that justified the carbon market were themselves poised to profit from that market. And, now, the UN does business directly with firms like Ecosecurities and SGS, enriching the authors of the original report!

Furthermore, the project developers and the "auditors" co-wrote the chapter justifying the carbon offset market! In what other field -- aside from the UN, that is -- would companies and their "auditors" both be permitted to conspire in such a fraudulent manner?

If any of us thought the corruption in the UN ended with the "Oil-for-Food" scandal, it appears we were all sadly mistaken. The UN has no right doing business with any of these firms. By continuing to do so, they are reinforcing America's image of the organization: that it is utterly useless and thoroughly infested with corrupt officials.

Related: The World Rainforest Movement, which buys into anthropogenic global warming (note: I do not) runs a website completely devoted to monitoring the carbon offset trade: SinksWatch.org.

Update: Linked by Pajamas Media. Thanks!

Jimmy Carter wants (another) meeting with Hamas

 
Barack Obama's church isn't the only unlikely American institution to grant a forum to Hamas terrorists.

Jimmy Carter still intends to meet with Hamas leaders in Syria.

Former President Jimmy Carter is reportedly preparing an unprecedented meeting with the leader of Hamas, an organization that the U.S. government considers one of the leading terrorist threats in the world. ...Deanna Congileo, Carter’s press secretary... did not deny that the former president is considering visiting Meshal.

...“It’s about par for the course from President Carter, demonstrating a lack of judgment typical of what he does," said John Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. "To go to Syria to visit Hamas at this point is just an ill-timed, ill-advised decision on his part... When you put the prestige of a former president of the United States in a meeting with one of its terrorist leaders, you’re giving it a legitimacy and currency it never had,” said Bolton.

But Ibrahim Hooper, communications director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a non-profit advocacy group, said Carter's efforts demonstrate he's a true partner in peace.

Not to worry. It turns out such a meeting really isn't unprecedented. Carter admits to ABC News that he's been visiting with Hamas leaders -- in secret -- for quite some time.

I've been meeting with Hamas leaders for years," Carter said...

"I think that it's very important that at least someone meet with the Hamas leaders to express their views...

The State Department says it has twice advised Carter against meeting with Hamas, which has ruthlessly murdered scores of Israeli and American civilians.

Meanwhile, the Israeli government has officially told Carter to go pound sand.

[Olmert says] his schedule won't permit a meeting with the notorious terrorist apologist. An aide says "Draw your own conclusions."

Carter must be stopped -- by threat of prosecution, if necessary -- from granting "Presidential credibility" to an organization of murderous thugs who have a single goal for the Middle East. That goal is stated quite clearly in their charter: genocide -- out-and-out ethnic cleansing.

This time Carter has gone too far.

Update: Carter indicates he will not endorse a candidate until the Democratic National Convention. This begs the question: will Hamas leaders get seats to the Presidential Box similar to the ones Michael Moore received in 2004?