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Key Democratic Senators:

Arkansas

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (18.70% Lifetime ACU rating)

DC Phone: (202) 224-4843

Local Phone: Dumas (870) 382-1023, Fayetteville (479) 251-1224, Little Rock (501) 375-2993, Jonesboro (870) 910-6896, Texarkana (870) 774-3106

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European officials stressed Monday they are likely to seriously consider new sanctions only at year-end, citing a December deadline, replacing President Barack Obama's September deadline, that has now been set to see if diplomacy with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad works.

The aricle is specific only on those sanctions which won't be imposed:

 ban on gasoline sales also is difficult to get through the Security Council because Chinese state companies this month began providing up to one-third of sales to Iran, filling in the market vacated by BP and Reliance of India.

A total embargo on Iranian oil -- which Israeli officials have suggested -- seems unlikely. U.S. law already forbids U.S. firms from buying Iranian oil, but Europe, Japan and China are big customers. Analysts say an embargo on Iranian oil would drive up prices and damage the global economy, unless a big producer such as Saudi Arabia made up the difference -- about 3% of world supply.

A U.N. tightening of an arms import ban on Iran would run up against the interests of a powerful sector of the Russian economy. "A lot of larger contractors in those sectors of the Russian economy don't have necessarily other extensive markets that they can easily go to," said Paul Saunders, executive director of the Nixon Center in Washington.

Because the Obama Adminsitration is not credible on the idea that it would ever use the military option, other nations reluctant to hurt their own economic interests don't worry about blocking lower level sanctions.  They don't have to worry about America escalating the confrontation because it is President Obama they are dealing with, and he cannot even bring himself to meet with his Afgan commander more than once in two-and-a-half months.

Already the voices urging a de facto surrender to Iran's ambitions are surfacing in the usual palces --the editorial pages of the New York Times for example.  "[T]he administration should seek a strategic realignment with Iran as thoroughgoing as that effected by Nixon with China," write Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett in today's paper, barely 72 hours after the president and his British and French allies demanded Iran comply with international law.

Secretary Gates has said that military action against Iran will only buy time, but time may be Israel's best ally right now as it watches the world roll over in a surprisingly swift resignation to the inevitability of Iranian nuclear weapons.

The lead editorial in today's Jerusalem Post calls for a response similar to that imposed on Cuba in 1962:

Iran's stratagem is to "engage" as it pushes ahead with its bomb, thereby making it hard for the international community to impose meaningful sanctions. Once it feels certain it has all the pieces of the nuclear weapon's puzzle in place - fuel, warhead, delivery system - it might offer Obama a stop just short of a test detonation, in return for a long list of Western concessions.

Anyway, the pace of economic sanctions is way out of sync with the progress the mullahs are making on their bomb. Even if Russia and China accepted a winter embargo on refined petroleum products entering Iran, is there any reason to imagine that the mere discomfort of the Iranian masses would take precedence for Khameini and Ahmadinejad over the bomb?

Obama should leapfrog over futile intermediate steps and place draconian sanctions on the table, now. To paraphrase John Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, this would mean that all ships and planes bound for Iran, from whatever nation, would be turned back.

Perhaps this prospect, coupled with a complete land, sea and air quarantine, can influence Iran's leaders to rethink their one-step-forward-two-steps-back strategy, and save humanity from an Iranian bomb.

Alas, President Obama wants very much to look and sound like President Kennedy, but it is highly unlikely that he will be acting like him anytime soon.  The appeasers don't want to force a confrontation over Israeli security, so if Israel genuinely fears the Iranian bomb on Iranian missiles --or some lesser WMD made in the secret facilites of Iran and smuggled via Syria to the Hezbollah forces on Israel's northern border-- it will have to arrange for the remedy by itself.  And soon. 

"...there is no language in the stimulus bill that says a patient can prevent something like an STD from appearing on their electronic health record. 
 
“The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) allows a doctor to use/share the information for any purposes that fall under ‘treatment, payment, and health care operations’ without the patients request,” she told CNSNews.com.
 
“It actually says that the patient may request a restriction, but the provider does not have to comply with that restriction. It’s a toothless ‘right,’” said Katz.

"Until now, the only mistake Honduras made was to exile Zelaya instead of trying him for his crimes.  The fact that Honduras had operated normally, allowing full constitutional protections for its citizens while Zelaya blathered about the “coup” presented an embarrassing situation for the US.  They tried to treat Micheletti as a man bent on seizing power, when Micheletti replaced the real culprit in this crisis.

This changes that situation.  At best, it puts Micheletti on the same level as Zelaya, as least temporarily.  It certainly gives the Obama administration another argument for its full-throated support of Zelaya over the last few weeks.  It will make it more difficult for Honduras’ defenders in Congress to argue against that White House policy now.  Given that American pressure or a lack of it could make the difference in Honduras, that may be a very costly suspension of civil liberties for the Micheletti government.

I would remind Ed that Micheletti could only achive same-level status with Zalaya by pilfering the central bank, abetting drug cartels, crushing employment by literally buying support of the unions, etc.... but he already knows that.  Before today, Mary O'Grady could write,

"A transparent election is the path to political stability endorsed by the Free World. It is unseemly and churlish for the U.S. to threaten that process. Does Mr. Obama treasure kind words from Hugo Ch?vez that much? If so, we're all in trouble." 

With ObamaCare in a Hole, Will the White House Stop Digging?
By Clark S. Judge, managing director, White House Writers Group, Inc.
 
Increasingly in Washington over the last few weeks, we have heard this assessment of the president’s health care upheaval prospects: Something will pass, because the president and his party have such large majorities (nearly 60 percent) in both chambers of Congress that it is inconceivable that they could not bludgeon their way to the necessary majorities.  But victory will be the product of power, not debate – and it will cost them control of the House in the next election.
 
The problem for the president is that he has lost the health care debate.  No one in either party or in the media has dared speak this fact as of now, but it is inescapable.
 
Let’s review the bidding:

• Cost:  The president said the upheaval would cost nothing.  The Congressional Budget Office put a trillion-dollar-plus price tag on it.  Others have since confirmed their assessment.
• Taxes: The president said only those making more than $250,000 per year would pay more.  As details have emerged, virtually every American will be paying additional taxes to fund this new federal health care behemoth.
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"The second lie is that nuclear weapons release giant sums of radioactive fallout. To use even one of them would destroy the environment and give millions of people cancer. This is complete folly. For proof, one need only look to actual history. The most nuked spot on earth is, far and away, the desert of Nevada. The United States detonated over 1,021 individual nuclear devices in the Silver State in the second half of the twentieth century. Over a thousand. Sixty-five short miles away lives American’s playground city of Las Vegas. There are no three-eyed fish or giant city-eating lizards there, unless you’re into that sort of thing, in which case talk to the floor manager at Caesars…" 

If you are looking for the easiest steps to take, donate to the NRCC.org and the NRSC.org.  The August fundraising results have Congressional Democrats scared.  Additional donations to two challengers --Republican Danny Tarkanian is taking on Harry Reid in Nevada and GOPer Tom Lucero is challenging first term lefty Democrat Betsy Markey in Colorado-- send two more messages.

Beyond that, take this article on the proposed massive cuts to Medicare --$500 billion in cuts to Medicare!-- and send it to every senior citizen you know, along with the list below of "Blue Dog" Democrats in the House and Democratic Senators who are up for re-election in the Senate and urge your older friends to call, write and e-mail.

Finally, stand with Israel since President Obama won't.  Support the Republican Jewish Coalition, even if you aren't Jewish.  

Here's the list of Democrats that worried seniors should contact to urge a no vote on Obamacare:

Key Democratic Senators:

Arkansas

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (18.70% Lifetime ACU rating)

DC Phone: (202) 224-4843

Local Phone: Dumas (870) 382-1023, Fayetteville (479) 251-1224, Little Rock (501) 375-2993, Jonesboro (870) 910-6896, Texarkana (870) 774-3106

Link to E-mail 
Read More...