Government Dirt

With riveting prose, a firm grasp on the issues and international experience to wit, Sarah Palin has electrified the electorate.

What more can be said, but ...

Thanks Maria Fotopoulos!

Ahmadinejad's remarks were deemed as a response to the allegations of US President Bush who claimed in his address just a few hours earlier that Iran's nuclear ambitions pose a threat to the world.

The Iranian President said Iran like other countries has an "inalienable" right to peaceful nuclear energy but said a few bullying world powers have tried to thwart Iran's program through political and economic pressure.

"A few bullying powers have sought to put hurdles in the way of the peaceful nuclear activities of the Iranian nation by exerting political and economic pressures against Iran and also through threatening and pressuring the IAEA," the UN nuclear watchdog.

"These are the same countries that are producing new generation of nuclear arms and no international organization is monitoring their program. The catastrophe in Nagasaki and Hiroshima was perpetrated by one of these powers," Ahmadinejad added.

Ahmadinejad stressed that such powers are not against a proliferation of nuclear weapons but they want to monopolize advanced technologies to use them as a tool to impose their own will on others.

"It is natural that the great Iranian nation will resist the bullying powers and will continue to defend their nuclear rights," remarked the president.

In his latest report to the IAEA's 35-member Board of Governors, the UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei once again verified Iran's non-diversion of declared nuclear material, adding that the UN agency has failed to discover any "components of a nuclear weapon" or "related nuclear physics studies" in Iran.

Ahmadinejad said his government has fully cooperated with IAEA inspectors, who he said should redirect their scrutiny to the world's declared nuclear powers.

ElBaradei praised Iran's cooperation and truthfulness about key aspects of its past nuclear activities in two of his recent reports - one in November and the other one in February.

"The Era of nuclear bombs has ended and those who are after such weaponry are losers", President Ahmadinejad told reporters during a press conference following his address to the 63rd UN General Assembly meeting in New York on Tuesday.

The Iranian president challenged the UN Nuclear Watchdog to report on the nuclear weapons of current nuclear weapon states and criticized major powers for stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.

Meanwhile foreign ministers from the six major powers canceled their meeting to discuss further sanctions against Iran after protests from Russia which has officially stated its opposition to further Iran sanctions.

The United States and its Western allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing a secret nuclear weapons program, despite the UN Nuclear Watchdog finding no evidence support the claim.

"We believe the nuclear issue is resolved and the ongoing hue and cry is just negative propaganda," press tv quoted Ahmadinejad as telling reporters.

US President George W. Bush has repeatedly threatened Iran, stating that "all options are on the table" if Iran continues its uranium enrichment program. Israeli officials, have also said explicitly that they would be prepared to carry out air strikes to end Iran's nuclear program.

Earlier in his address to the world leaders at the 63rd session of the UN General Assembly, the Iranian president criticized the UN Security Council's support for the Zionism under pressure from the United States and also its failure to end the US occupation of Iraq.

During his speech, Ahmadinejad slammed the "unjust (international) system" and urged respect for human dignity.

By Larry Hunter, Ph.D.

I'm a lifelong Republican - a supply-side conservative. I worked in the Reagan White House. I was the chief economist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for five years. In 1994, I helped write the Republican Contract with America. I served on Bob Dole's presidential campaign team and was chief economist for Jack Kemp's Empower America.

This November, I'm voting for Barack Obama.

When I first made this decision, many colleagues were shocked. How could I support a candidate with a domestic policy platform that's antithetical to almost everything I believe in?

The answer is simple: Unjustified war and unconstitutional abridgment of individual rights vs. ill-conceived tax and economic policies - this is the difference between venial and mortal sins.

Taxes, economic policy and health care reform matter, of course. But how we extract ourselves from the bloody boondoggle in Iraq, how we avoid getting into a war with Iran and how we preserve our individual rights while dealing with real foreign threats - these are of greater importance.

John McCain would continue the Bush administration's commitment to interventionism and constitutional overreach. Obama promises a humbler engagement with our allies, while promising retaliation against any enemy who dares attack us. That's what conservatism used to mean - and it's what George W. Bush promised as a candidate.

The Economist, not exactly a bastion of liberalism had something to say about McCain ... that you may not expect.

AS RECENTLY as a few months ago, it seemed possible to hope that this year’s presidential election would be a civilised affair. Barack Obama and John McCain both represent much that is best about their respective parties. Mr Obama is intelligent, inspiring and appears by instinct to be a consensus-seeking pragmatist. John McCain has always stood for limited, principled government, and has distanced himself throughout his career from the religious ideologues that have warped Republicanism. An intelligent debate about issues of the utmost importance—how America should rebuild its standing in the world, how more Americans could share in the proceeds of growth—seemed an attainable proposition.

It doesn’t seem so now. In the past two weeks, while banks have tottered and markets reeled, the contending Democrats and Republicans have squabbled and lied rather than debated. Mr McCain’s team has been nastier, accusing Mr Obama of sexism for calling the Republican vice-presidential candidate a pig, when he clearly did no such thing. Much nastier has been the assertion that Mr Obama once backed a bill that would give kindergarten children comprehensive sex education. Again, this was a distortion: the bill Mr Obama backed provided for age-appropriate sex education, and was intended to protect children from sex offenders.

These kinds of slurs seem much more personal, and therefore unpleasant, than the more routine distortions seen on both sides.

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12262173

The Obama campaign keeps claiming McCain has voted with President Bush 95 percent of the time. Is this true? Is this significant?

Yes, it's true, according to Congressional Quarterly's assessment of McCain's voting record.

Sen. Barack Obama has attempted to use the Arizona senator's voting record against him in statements like this:

Barack Obama (June 3): It's not change when John McCain decided to stand with George Bush 95 percent of the time, as he did in the Senate last year.

The claim is true. According to Congressional Quarterly's Voting Studies, in 2007 McCain voted in line with the president's position 95 percent of the time – the highest percentage rate for McCain since Bush took office – and voted in line with his party 90 percent of the time. However, McCain's support of President Bush's position has been as low as 77 percent (in 2005), and his support for his party's position has been as low as 67 percent (2001).

Democrats are, of course, attempting to make the case that a vote for McCain is a vote to continue the policies of Bush, whose approval ratings are, to put it charitably, not a political asset for McCain.

Is 95% "Significant"?

As for whether voting with Bush 95 percent of the time last year is "significant," that's a matter of opinion that we leave to readers to determine for themselves.

When doing so, they may wish to consider that Obama's votes were in line with the president's position 40 percent of the time in 2007. That shouldn't be terribly surprising. Even the Senate's Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, voted with Bush 39 percent of the time last year, according to the way Congressional Quarterly rates the votes.

By Dr. Joel Strom

The internet is full of op/ed written by opinion leaders who with both clarity and certainty believe that Barack Obama will be either good or bad for America, good or bad for Israel, and good or bad for our standing in the world. As for this commentator, I can no more predict whether Barack Obama will be a good President, a mediocre President or a poor President than the weatherman can predict tomorrow’s weather. I have no idea whether he will be good or bad for Israel for that matter. And with all due respect to thoughtful people who dot our political landscape, I just don’t see how they can be so certain about their convictions. After all, Barack Obama has no record in foreign policy by which we can remotely evaluate his abilities, tenacity or accomplishments. Contrasted to a Hillary Clinton, an Evan Bayh, Sam Nunn or even Joe Biden, Obama is a foreign policy neophyte whose professorial rhetoric might sound promising on the campaign trail. But when the chips are down and there is no time for thoughtful rumination, what will he do? Will he rise to become the next Harry Truman or fester in indecision to be the second term of Jimmy Carter?