". . . a republic, if you can keep it."
I’m putting this up in honor of our newly appointed secretary of state.
For more about Vince Foster’s death, click here.
Also, click here to learn about the SCORES of Clinton investigators, bodyguards, lovers, journalists, donors, partners, and associates who’ve committed suicide, died in small plane crashes, or under suspicious circumstances.
“LONDON – U.S. President-elect Barack Obama proclaimed himself ‘very impressed’ with the Arab League’s peace plan when he discussed it with President Shimon Peres during a brief visit to Israel four months ago, Peres said Tuesday.
Peres, who had just arrived in London for an official visit, made the comment in interviews to be published in the British media. He was responding to questions about whether he thought Obama would advance the Middle East peace process in general and the Arab League’s plan in particular.
But he denied a Sunday Times report earlier this week which claimed that Obama had said Israel would be “crazy” to reject the Arab initiative.
On Monday, former American envoy to the Middle East Dennis Ross, who has been advising Obama on the subject, also denied reports that Obama had said while visiting Israel in July that he supported the Arab initiative and would base his own diplomatic policy on it.
The plan, originally proposed by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in 2002 and later adopted by the Arab League, states that Israel would receive full relations with the entire Arab world in exchange for a full withdrawal from all the territory it captured in 1967, including East Jerusalem, plus a solution to the refugee problem. The Bush Administration has said it views the plan positively, but its own road map peace plan and the understandings reached at last year’s Annapolis summit have served as the basis of its diplomatic program.” (Read more from Haaretz.com)
I predict AIPAC will mobilize monstrous opposition to any hint of support for the Arab peace plan in our government or media. They will try to kill it the same way they killed Bush’s much more modest “Road Map.”
Russian warships were recently deployed to Venezuela to coincide with President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to Caracas — the first ever by a Russian president. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Russia’s deployment of the naval squadron was “not a provocation,” but rather “an exchange between two free countries.”
Peter Brookes, a senior fellow for national security affairs at The Heritage Foundation, says Russia is signaling it has interests in Latin America.
“I think it’s to strategically distract the United States. I think it’s a bit of payback for American warships which went into the Black Sea — which Russia considers a Russian lake — during the Georgian crisis a few months ago,” he contends. “So I think that there’s a lot of symbolism here in terms of this ship visit. I think it also says that Russia sees itself as a world power; it’s not just a regional power.” (Read more from OneNewsNow.com)
There’s one word our war-mongering politicians, and their enablers in the press hate: BACKLASH.
– GM’s new propaganda video “GM (GM) says we still don’t get it. If we don’t save them, they’re gonna nuke the economy to all hell. In case dire warnings of billions and billions in losses aren’t enough to freak you out, the company has posted a scare-video on YouTube, complete with ominous music and the kind of overwrought imagery you might got during a preview for 60 Minutes.”
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– Chrysler leaders get millions “As Detroit’s crumbling auto industry asks Congress for a bailout, Chrysler is in the awkward position of paying about $30 million in retention bonuses to keep top executives while the company cuts thousands of jobs. Chrysler owes the bonuses under its contracts with about 50 executives, based on a retention incentive plan crafted early last year by former German parent DaimlerChrysler, when it was preparing to sell the Chrysler unit.”
– What Toyota knows that GM doesn’t “Do you know how many hourly jobs GM has laid off from 2006 to July 2008? . . . . 34,000 . . . And now, they’re talking about another 5,500 . . . . they’re asking you and your government for a bailout to end their troubled, outdated, low quality, wasteful production system. . . . OK, here’s a better question. How many hourly jobs has Toyota’s American production system laid off in the same time frame? Zero. That’s right. ZERO. . . . Toyota has halted production at its Texas and Indiana plants for the past 3 months. But the 4,500 people who work at those plants have not been laid off. . . . Toyota has a special culture, deep-rooted values, and respect for their workforce. Toyota’s tradition is to NOT lay off employees during hard times. This tradition hasn’t really been put to the test until now. And Toyota has stuck to its guns and its values.”
– Auto Workers Union Rules Out Concessions To Help Detroit Bailout “With the House of Representatives pledging an aid package for the auto industry, the United Auto Workers (UWA) union fanned the flames a bit by refusing to grant any concessions in a bailout of the big 3 Detroit automakers. UAW president Ron Gettelfinger adamantly stated that the auto industry’s woes could be laid at the feet of the stumbling U.S. economy overall: The US United Auto Workers (UAW) union has ruled out concessions – at least for the time being – to help rescue the ailing Detroit-based car industry.”
– GM and Ford To Get Rid of Some Private Planes They Don’t Like Totally Need…Maybe “Even though GM CEO Rick Wagoner and Ford CEO Alan Mulally are required by their companies to fly by private aircraft for security reasons, they think they may be able to part with their private jets. Of course this has nothing to do with their recent excursion to Washington to beg for money. Wilkinson said the decision to return the leased corporate jets was made before this week’s hearings and that the company in September returned two other of the seven jets it had at the beginning of the year.”
– Video: Fords Super-Advanced new assembly plant (in Brazil)
– America’s Other Auto Industry “There is such a thing as a profitable car maker in this country. . . . These are the 12 ‘foreign,’ or so-called transplant, producers making cars across America’s South and Midwest. Toyota, BMW, Kia and others now make 54% of the cars Americans buy. The internationals also employ some 113,000 Americans, compared with 239,000 at U.S.-owned carmakers, and several times that number indirectly.”
– U.S. Auto Sales down 30-50% from last year “U.S. auto makers continued to post sharp sales declines in November as General Motors Corp. reported a 41% plunge and lowered its fourth-quarter production forecast, underscoring why the struggling auto maker and its Detroit rivals are seeking federal assistance to help them through the current environment. . . . The dour numbers, coming on the back of October’s moribund results, also saw Ford Motor Co. post a 31% decline and Toyota Motor Corp. report a 34% decrease. Chrysler LLC, a private company controlled by private-equity group Cerberus Capital Management LP, saw its sales skid 47%.”