Israel contemplated using nukes, Christians attacked in Iraq

It was feared that Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied that it has nuclear weapons, was ready to use them in 1980, according to a warning a British diplomat sounded in a previously secret cable, Reuters is reporting.

And, It’s getting increasingly dangerous for Christians to live in Iraq.

More on both stories at http://reportergary.com/.

Join me at 5 PM New York time Monday-Friday on News Talk Online at http://reportergary.com/.

Sanitation Dept slowdown may have clogged NYC streets - contributed to deaths

A shocking accusation from the New York Post.

The tabloid is reporting that it has learned that the bungled attempt to keep New York City's streets cleared of snow following Sunday's blizzard was the result of a work protest by the Sanitation Department.

See the full story at http://reportergary.com/?p=4499

Join me at 5 PM New York time Monday-Friday at http://reportergary.com/ for News Talk Online.

Forget a nuke attack, we fear terrorists

By GARY BAUMGARTEN

I remember as a child how we ran drills in school where we were told to put our heads between our legs – in preparation for a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union.

Even as an elementary school student, I wondered about the good this would do, except that it would mean that we wouldn’t have to actually see the end of our world as it imploded right in front of us.

FDR said during his first inaugural address that the “only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Yet we’ve failed to heed his wise words.

Today, it’s not the fear of nuclear weapons that grips the nation in panic. It’s the fear of terrorism.

A new Rasmussen poll finds that 73 percent of Americans surveyed fear terrorism more so than they do nuclear attack. This comes on the wake of the Senate’s ratification of the new START treaty – which allows for the verification by the Russians and the Americans of one another’s nuclear stockpiles.

Why the two issues are considered mutually exclusive is beyond me. My only fear with regards to Russia’s nukes is that some may get into the hands of non-government actors. That’s another way to describe terrorists.

Which means that the two are intertwined. If we fear terrorist attacks, we should even more so fear terrorists who attack with nuclear weapons.

The odd thing is that the fear of terrorism is overblown.

Far more people die each year in the United States of car accidents than terrorist attacks. Heck, far more die from the flu. But, I guess, these are considered acceptable deaths. A death of an American to heart disease or diabetes or cancer doesn’t matter as much as the death of an American to a terrorist attack.

So we don’t fear car crashes. We don’t put the kind of money we do into homeland security to cure cancer or prevent other killer diseases.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t take prudent steps to protect ourselves against attacks. Of course we should. But to have an inordinate fear of terrorism is less logical than having a greater fear of disease.

Could it be that we’ve mixed up our priorities here just a bit?

–

Gary Baumgarten is News and Programming director at the Paltalk News Network.

Cars buried in the snow, airports closed, State of Emergency declared in aftermath of Northeast’s blizzard

They weren’t kidding this time when they said it would be a real blizzard hitting the Northeast.

These cars are missing in action under the snow. It’s finally stopped snowing in New York City, where flights have been canceled at the Port Authority’s three airports. Train and bus service was canceled during the storm, as was the Minnesota Vikings away game at the Philadelphia Eagles – rescheduled to Tuesday night.

Whiteout conditions caused extremely dangerous driving conditions during the height of the storm – made worse by icing conditions on windshields limiting visibility even more so.

A State of Emergency has been declared in New Jersey, where officials are urging people to stay home and off the roads. But the suggestion is academic for most people – especially these folks whose cars are buried in the snow and whose unplowed lots mean they can’t travel even if they’d like to.

--

Watch for updates all day at http://reportergary.com/

My harrowing experience driving in the blizzard

By GARY BAUMGARTEN

Up to 20 inches of snow – depending on where you are. Gale force winds with gusts of up to 55 miles an hour.

“This really is dangerous,” summarized New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose city is in the storm’s bullseye.

Airports have been canceling flights. The Minnesota Vikings game at the Philadelphia Eagles was postponed to Tuesday due to the snow. All New Jersey Transit bus service has been canceled statewide. And Amtrak canceled all trains between New York and Boston.

I can attest to how dangerous it is, because I foolishly attempted to drive the Garden State Parkway through Monmouth County, New Jersey. In more than 40 years of driving – most of it in Michigan – I’ve never been frightened on the roadways before. Tonight, for the first time, I must admit I found myself fighting off panic.

Blinding conditions as the wind sent the snow flying horizontally, coupled with ice forming on my windshield and wipers, and no way to see a plowed shoulder to pull over to clear off the ice, made for a tense drive.

In one quarter mile stretch alone I saw three separate incidents where cars had slid or driven off the roadway – the latter something that wasn’t hard to do because of the near zero visibility.

In fact, driving blind is not an overstatement. I actually missed my exit, though I was creeping along on the shoulder at less than 5 miles per hour. I concluded that the exit ramp hadn’t been plowed and if there were tire tracks in the snow I was oblivious to it.

Driving on surface streets, where there are street lights, lit store signs and landmarks – not to mention parking lots you one can pull into to clear the ice from the windshield – was a bit safer way to travel – though not really advisable.

A normally 20 minute drive lasted two hours – and that wasn’t the end of the ordeal as I had to shovel a spot clear in order to park when I reached my destination – that alone took an additional 20 minutes.

And at the time of this writing the bulk of the snow hasn’t even fallen yet!

–

Gary Baumgarten is director of News and Programming at the Paltalk News Network.

When the house burglar is your bank

By Huro Kitty/Flickr

By GARY BAUMGARTEN

We’ve reported before about robo-signing of foreclosures – banks moving to repossess homes automatically - without properly reviewing the case. But what the New York Times is reporting today is pretty amazing.

According to the paper, homes, including those that have been paid off, have been mistakenly repossessed by banks. Who have then broken into the houses, tossed out all the owner’s possessions and have changed the locks. All without first notifying them that they were being evicted.

The story gives an example of a woman who went to the family’s vacation chalet only to find everything – including the ashes of her deceased husband – discarded. She had been behind in her mortgage payments – but was trying to get a loan modification when her property was seized.

She’s now suing Bank of America. But is this the best way to hold a bank accountable?

If the neighborhood junkie breaks into one’s home and steals the jewelry and the TV, the cops will try to arrest him an and put him in jail. But how do you arrest a bank?

This opens a whole new set of arguments with regard to the Citizens United case – in which the Supreme Court ruled that, when it comes to First Amendment rights, corporations are like people.

Well, maybe they do have rights like people. But, then, what about theirresponsibilities?

If one is to argue that financial compensation satisfies those whose homes have been snatched away from them – their personal belongings tossed out – why then do we throw criminals in prison? Why not just make them compensate their victims like the banks?

Cases like these should be enough to remind judges that repossessions should not be handled pro-forma. The courts are there to protect the rights of us all. Not just the banks. Judges have to be ever vigilant to ensure that the process that led to people losing their homes was proper – and not just take the word of the financial institution. If they don’t – abuses like this will continue.

–

Gary Baumgarten is the news and programming director at the Paltalk News Network.

If you think liberals are pissed at Obama now, just wait

White House photo by Pete Souza

By GARY BAUMGARTEN

After any first term midterm “shellacking” – to use President Obama’s words – the occupier of the Oval Office always moves a bit more toward the opposition party’s viewpoint in the hopes that he can redeem himself in the eyes of the voters in order to get re-elected. President Obama did so when he folded on the extension of tax cuts to the very rich (he supported them for two years) in order to get congressional Republicans to approve an extension of unemployment benefits (for 13 months).

The White House has been hurriedly meeting with its liberal base to try to convince it that he’s not abandoned them. But there’s unease over the administration’s failure to promise that Obama won’t go along with Social Security cuts proposed by Republicans and recommended by his bipartisan debt reduction commission.

There are actually those who are suggesting that Social Security be eliminated entirely – though that’s not a likely scenario.

The thing that proponents of SSI cuts fail to recognize is that Social Security is not an entitlement. It’s a federal retirement insurance plan. In order to qualify, you have to pay into it.

Baby boomers who are reaching retirement have done just that. Most of them working around 45 years. Contributing through payroll deductions to the plan. And now, there are those in Congress who would rip their promised returns from their aging hands.

That’s something that amounts to thievery.

The government is looking at Social Security because of the economic downturn. There have to be cuts, many argue. And they have to come from someplace. But here’s the thing. That economic downturn has taken away from many reaching the end of their working cycle most, if not all, of their retirement funds. So, more and more Americans are finding that they are relying on Social Security benefits just to survive.

There are some things the president can do to anger liberals that he can get away with. Because he knows that they won’t entirely abandon him. Not when a Sarah Palin, a Mike Huckabee, a Newt Gingrich or a John Bolton is the potential alternative. But messing with people’s Social Security? That wouldn’t just piss off the liberals. It would piss off an entire generation of people. People who won’t forget such a transgression in 2012.

WikiLeaks attorney expects Assange to be charged with espionage

By Takver/Flickr

By GARY BAUMGARTEN

A California attorney who does pro bono work for WikiLeaks says she expects the U.S. government to charge the website’s founder, Julian Assange, with espionage.

Speaking on The People Speak show on Paltalk.com and BBS Radio, Julie Turner said she anticipates an indictment will be issued in Virginia where the federal court is known to be conservative and is less likely to have a broad interpretation of the First Amendment. Her comments give insight into the defense that may be mounted for Assange if he is charged.

Turner said the government will argue that Assange is not a journalist and that WikiLeaks is not a news organization  in order to avoid the prospect of bringing similar charges against the New York Times and other news entities that reported on the material posted by WikiLeaks.

Turner said, initially, the New York Times “roundly rebuked WikiLeaks and Julian Assange” until U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, “made the point that maybe the New York Times is guilty.”

“I suspect the U.S. government will try to distinguish Mr. Assange from the New York Times,” by arguing that he is not a journalist, she said.

–

Gary Baumgarten is news and programming director at the Paltalk News Network.

With peace talks dead, U.S. pushes for indirect Middle East negotiations

ISRAEL TODAY

JERUSALEM - So much for Israel’s grand experiment of halting Jewish construction for 10 months leading to a renewal of direct and meaningful peace negotiations with the Palestinians. As of this week, even the U.S. had to admit that the peace process in its current form isn’t going anywhere, and Washington promptly returned to pushing indirect talks.

U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell arrived in Israel on Monday to press for a return to indirect talks that would aggressively address the core issues of the conflict first, so that the two sides could quickly sign an agreement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was pleased the U/S. was finally waking up to the fact that the core issues must be addressed instead of wasting time on temporary gestures like a Jewish building freeze.
However, Netanyahu made clear at a Globes Business Forum just before Mitchell arrived that Israel insists the first core issues to be addressed must be recognition of Israel as the Jewish state, security, and the so-called “Palestinian refugees.”

The Palestinians want to start with discussing final borders, but Israel is wary of doing so since once the Palestinian leadership gets the borders it wants and Jerusalem has no more cards to play, it is unlikely to be flexible on the issues of most important to Israel.

But things likely won’t even reach that point, as the Palestinian Authority this week expressed its extreme displeasure with the direction the Americans are going, and insisted that it will not return to any form of peace talks until Jews stop building in Judea, Samaria and the eastern side of Jerusalem.

The Bethlemem-based Ma’an news agency reported that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and many of his top advisors determined on Sunday to reject U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s proposal for indirect talks unless they are preceded by a new Jewish building freeze.

The Palestinians have made a halt to Jewish building their new red line, and that position has been almost irrevocably bolstered by America’s pressure last month for Israel to implement a second freeze, pressure that Washington eventually dropped after realizing the Palestinian would not respond favorably.

All of this is actually playing into the Palestinians’ hands by providing them an excuse to fully reject the US-led peace process and seek recognition for a unilateral declaration of independence.

Top Palestinian officials have begun lobbying European governments to recognize a sovereign Palestinian state immediately. “Palestine” has already been officially recognized by Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. If the European Union were to do the same, the Palestinians would have the votes they need in the UN to declare statehood.

Will the New York Times get caught in the snare of the WikiLeaks probe?

By Chris Martin/Flickr

By GARY BAUMGARTEN

Attorney General Eric Holder said it again today. There’s an ongoing investigation, he said in answer to a reporter’s question, into the WikiLeaks publishing of confidential State Department documents. He declined to comment on an ongoing investigation.

The follow up question that wasn’t asked (and if it were it might not have been answered) should have been, “is the New York Times a target of that probe?” U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democrat-turned-independent from Connecticut, has already called for an investigation of the Times.

That leads to another question. What would the Times be investigated for exactly?

No one has thus far suggested that the Times was complicit in either the procuring of the State Department cables or their initial publication. What the New York Times, and other news organizations, did was report on what WikiLeaks had published.

So why would a U.S. senator call for an investigation?

It becomes more than a little disquieting whenever officialdom goes after those who report the news. In fact, it’s darn right un-American. It’s not just happenstance that the Founding Fathers placed freedom of the press as part of the First Amendment.

Of course, this is far from the first time that the weight of the government has been brought to bear on the New York Times. The most obvious comparison was the government’s unsuccessful attempt to suppress publication of the Pentagon Papers. More recently, Judith Miller, then a reporter at the New York Times, refused to reveal her source in the CIA leak that outed Valerie Plame as a CIA agent and spent three months in jail in contempt of court.

One can debate and argue the judgment of the Times in covering this story I suppose. And it’s fine for Lieberman and even Holder to use their  positions in government as a bully pulpit to chastise those who are reporting daily what WikiLeaks has been posting. But a government investigation? Designed to do what? Intimidate?

It’s enough to make the Founders squirm. And congratulate one another if you believe they are watching – for being so smart to make protection of the press their first order of business as a newly formed Congress.

–

Gary Baumgarten is the news and programming director at the Paltalk News Network.