... like the Darfur region of Sudan. It is important to read this entire NYT article on the impact of Major-General Scott Gration on the Obama administration's policy towards the genocidal government in Khartoum. You need to read it for yourself, because it is carefully balanced and subject to distortion if I pick out too many quotes about Gration himself. But it is disturbing on multiple levels: 1) The continuing and apparently expanding use of US military personnel in diplomatic roles. To a greater extent than most previous administrations, President Obama appears to be relying upon military rather than diplomatic personnel to make critical assessments and carry out foreign policy. 2) The lack of transparency in our new foreign policy: On Monday, the administration unveiled a new policy in Sudan, outlining an effort that officials said was aimed at ending the mass human suffering there, promoting a definitive peace and preventing Sudan from serving as a haven for terrorists. T...

... the forced sterlization of over 3,400 Native American women between 1973-1976 by the US government. Watch the video (but don't bother with the sound, the sound track is atrocious): No: I don't buy the death panels argument, except to the extent that we already have end-of-life judgments being influenced by bureaucrats in private insurance, Medicare, and the VA every day. But we need a reminder that no matter who is making health care decisions--and, given the structure of our society there will be a bureaucrat, public or prvate, involved somewhere--there is a compelling need to avoid individual tragedies becoming systemic failures that lead to things like this. [h/t Next Free Voice ]

Hube, it's your fault--you got me started on this one with this post: Both Iran and its Hamas proxy in Gaza have been busy this Christmas week showing Christendom just what they think of it. But no one seems to have noticed. On Tuesday, Hamas legislators marked the Christmas season by passing a Shari'a criminal code for the Palestinian Authority. Among other things, it legalizes crucifixion. Hamas's endorsement of nailing enemies of Islam to crosses came at the same time it renewed its jihad. Here, too, Hamas wanted to make sure that Christians didn't feel neglected as its fighters launched missiles at Jewish day care centers and schools. So on Wednesday, Hamas lobbed a mortar shell at the Erez crossing point into Israel just as a group of Gazan Christians were standing on line waiting to travel to Bethlehem for Christmas. The source is Caroline Glick, in the Jerusalem Post , which is a truncated version of a larger story that first ran in Palestine Media Watch , and w...

I spent some time thinking about this one. Dave Krikorian, the independent scoring well in the polls in Ohio's 2nd, has put out a new flyer about his opponent, Jean Schmidt. Here [h/t to Independent Political Report ] is the text of the flyer: Representative Jean Schmidt has taken $30,000 in blood money to deny the genocide of Armenian Christians by Muslim Turks. "The Armenian genocide has been a prelude to the horrors which followed: the two world wars, innumerable regional conflicts and deliberately organized campaigns of extermination that have ended the lives of millions of believers." Pope John Paul II (September 26, 2001) "At this time she does not have enough information to characterize these deaths as genocide, especially when those responsible are long dead." Jean Schmidt's office (March 29, 2007) "Like the genocide of the Armenians before it, and the genocide of the Cambodians which followed it--and like too many other such persecutions of ...

Folks, I am sorry, I am still new at this so if the spacing or scope of the document is not correct, I apologize. I am not opposed inter-Americanism or pan-Americanism and I never really have been. I like the idea of an "empire of liberty" that Jefferson said his principles would bring about. I think it is the best and most socially responsible model out there for the development of trade agreements. That being said, that model is opposed to our managed free trade agreements in NAFTA and CAFTA which both 1.) create net job loss in the intended countries are fueling immigration, 2.) create jobs on one end, for one class, in the social scale, but are non-reciprocal agreements that do not promise jobs in this country and 3.) create political tensions in each region they are enacted in. Much like Roman trade agreements that assure stability by protecting the propertied classes, NAFTA and CAFTA fuel the problems of immigration normal North Americans are forced to deal with. I am s...