A response to the anti-American BS written by Ted Belman

Today, a virulently anti-American article written by Ted Belman was published on the Internet. Guess who published it?

Was it one of the usual suspects? Der Spiegel? The Guardian? Liberation? Le Monde?

Nope. The website on which it has been published is “the American Thinker”.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/11/the_unholy_usmuslim_alliance.html

Belman is a crappy writer biased in favor of the country where he lives (Israel); he’s a virulent enemy of anyone who doesn’t support a one-sided foreign policy in favor of Israel and continued wars with Muslim countries; and he has already submitted several biased, ridiculous, laughable articles to AT.

Nonetheless, this article is the worst one ever published on AT, because not only is it factually wrong, it also smears the US.

Belman accuses the US of maintaining an “unholy US/Muslim alliance” directed against Israel and believes that this alliance is motivated by greed and oil. (See below.)

Belman, parroting Avi Lipkin (an IDF spokesman), has accused the US of tolerating the Holocaust and of allying with the Arab world (whose oil was supposedly a key factor as early as the 1930s and the 1940s) to enable it. Furthermore, to Lipkin’s questions directed towards Americans, “And now you mean to say that it is going to happen again? You guys are going to sacrifice 5 million more Jews in Israel for the barrel of oil?”, he answered affirmatively, meaning that Belman believes the US plans to sacrifice 5 million Israeli Jews for a barrel of oil and allow a second Holocaust. The truth is that Israel is not threatened with a second Holocaust. Why? Because militarily, it’s the strongest ME country by far. It is the only ME country that possesses nuclear weapons; it has a missile defense system; and its conventional troops are far superior to those of its Muslim competitors. As a study by the Tel Aviv University admitted, “the strategic balance decidedly favors Israel”. Who the hell can threaten Israel, anyway? Egypt and Jordan are militarily weaker than the Jewish state, and they’ve signed peace-treaties with it. Saudi Arabia has offered to do so. The Palestinian Authority barely possesses a police, let alone an army that could threaten Israel. Syria no longer has a Soviet patron to resupply it (although Russia backs it), Iraq has been devastated by two Gulf Wars, and Iran is hundreds of miles away from Israel.

Belman falsely claimed that “The State Department negotiated UNSC Res. 242 at the end of the war, which allowed Israel to remain in occupation until she had an agreement for “secure and recognized borders.” But the Arabs refused to accept it.” This is also a lie. Resolution #242 does not Israel to continue the occupation of ANY Arab territories, under any circumstances; and it calls for “secure and recognized borders” for EVERY country in the Middle East, not just Israel. Furthermore, it calls on Israeli troops to withdraw from ALL territories occupied during the Six Day War (the English text of the resolution itself does not contain the definite word “all”, but it nonetheless means “all”; as was understood by all UNSC members at the time).

Belman also falsely claimed that after 1975, “the U.S., at first surreptitiously and then openly, backed the PLO. She saved them from Israel’s coup de gras in Beirut and enabled them to be welcomed in the United Nations and in the U.S.” This is utterly false. The US never backed the PLO and the only US President to ever meet with the PLO’s leader was Clinton.

Belman, who knows no shame and no moral limits, asked, “Remember how sick Rabin looked when he was forced to shake the hand of the arch-murderer Arafat on the White House lawn under the auspices of the smiling President Clinton?” Actually, Rabin was killed not by the “arch-murderer Arafat”, but by an Israeli, Yigal Amir, who admitted that he killed his own Prime Minister because of the Oslo Peace Accord. It is ridiculous and arrogant for Belman to use Rabin as a cover for his anti-American and anti-Arab BS.

Belman also lied that “While the U.S. maintains that the final agreement had to be negotiated between the parties, the U.S. puts a “gun” to Israel’s head during negotiations. The peace process is all about reaching an agreement predetermined by the Saudi/U.S. alliance.” Quite the contrary. Although successive Administrations have backed the PP, they accepted only agreements and proposals that are acceptable to Israel; no US Administration has ever pressured Israel to accept an agreement or proposal it didn’t like; and no US Administration has ever forced Israel to conduct policies Israel itself opposed. During the 2000 Camp David summit, the American delegation did not offer its own independent proposals, took clues from Ehud Barak, and coordinated with the Israeli delegation in advance. One of the American delegates to that summit, Aaron David Miller (an advisor of President Clinton), admitted that “we functioned as Israel’s lawyer”.

The only Administration of the last 49 years that even TRIED to pressure Israel to moderate its policies was the Bush Administration, which, however, capitulated to Ariel Sharon two times.

The most absurd part of Belman’s completely ridiculous article, however, is his implicit endorsement of Mordechai Nisan’s claim that “ the U.S. has long sided with the Arab world. (…) The U.S. arms Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the PA. Now she is also arming the Lebanese army, which is controlled by Hezb’allah. Who else but Israel is the target?”

The claim that the US has sided with the Arab world is utterly ridiculous. So is the companion claim that the US has sided with the Arabs against Israel. Every US Administration of the last 65 years, except the Eisenhower Admin, has backed Israel, often against Arab states, and always at the expense of America’s relations with the Arab world an America’s national interests.

Since 1967, the US has given Israel tens of billions of dollars for free. It gives Israel $3 bn per year, more than the amount received by any other FMF program beneficiary. This amounts to $500 per year per every Israeli. This largesse is suprising, given that Israel is a wealthy industrial state comparable with South Korea, with a per capita GDP of ca. $26000. Also, Israel, unlike all other recipients, receives in annually and can thus interest on it, and, again unlike all other recipients, is not required to spend all of it in the US. It is allowed to use 25% of the annual sum to finance its own defense industry. It is also never forced to account how the money is spent. Sometimes, it spends the money on bulldozers that raze Palestinian homes, or on the settlements that it builds in the ruins of already-razed Palestinian homes.

The US gives Israel intelligence information it denies to other countries, including NATO allies. Nonetheless, Israel believes the US is not generous enough, spies on the US, and has passed on American secrets to America’s enemies, including the Soviet Union. Jonathan Pollard did so in 1985 – at the same time that the Reagan Administration was negotiating with the Soviet Union on such important issues as intermediate-range ballistic missiles and the USSR’s abysmal human rights record. (AT has published several articles and blog posts calling on the US government to free Jonathan Pollard.)

Since 1982, the US has vetoed over 30 UNSC resolutions critical of Israel, thus vetoing more UNSC resolutions than all other permanent members of the UNSC combined.

In 1973, the US risked an Arab oil embargo (which devastated the US economy and seriously harmed other Western economies) by resupplying Israel during the Yom Kippur War to the tune of $2.2 billion in terms of free equipment delivered for free.

And regarding American arms sales, on which Belman commented that “The U.S. arms Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the PA. Now she is also arming the Lebanese army, which is controlled by Hezb’allah. Who else but Israel is the target?”, it must be underlined that the US annually sells Israel more weapons than it does to any Muslim country, and the weapons sold to Israel are always of higher quality than those concurrently sold to Muslim countries. Obama Administration officials have even publicly admitted that they sell weapons to Muslim states only if Israel approves, and only weapons inferior to those possessed or ordered by Israel.

For example, Israel has been allowed to buy dozens of F-35 jets, and was even offered F-22s (which no other country was even allowed to buy, and neither the DOD nor the Congress were even willing to consider allowing other countries to buy them). The best fighterplanes that the Bush and Obama Admininistrations have offered to Arab countries are F-15s, aircraft which first flew in 1974. No Arab country was ever offered F-35s or F-22s. Even such reliable longtime allies as Japan and Australia were not allowed to buy F-22s, while Britain was denied the source code for F-35s. Because Saudi Arabia wants modern, capable fighterplanes, it had to order EF-2000 Typhoon jets.

Israel has been allowed to buy high-quality weapons for decades, even though it has repeatedly transferred American weapons to America’s enemies, such as China, the deadliest foe of the United States.

So the accusation that the US is arming and has been arming Arab countries against Israel is ridiculous.

Belman complained about America’s ties to Turkey and Pakistan, and the muted criticism of how Saudi Arabia and Egypt treat Christians. Belman is blind to the fact that, with the exception of the alliance with Pakistan, all of these links are absolutely necessary. The US was right to bring Turkey into NATO, and it is right to back Turkey’s application to join the EU. Turkey is one of the most important allies the US has, unlike Israel.

Belman also lied that “the Turkish Muslims slaughtered one and a half million Christian Armenians during WWI, to little Western condemnation. This silence gave Hitler confidence twenty years later that he could slaughter the Jews.” The West has repeatedly condemned Turkey, and this genocide remains one of the reasons why Turkey hasn’t been admitted into the EU yet. Plus, this massacre had nothing to do with the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany. Hitler was motivated by his own racist ideology, and Nazi camps were killing people even as late as 1944.

Belman also lied that “Recently, Turkey turned Islamist and aligned itself with Iran, Hezb’allah, and Hamas, but still President Obama stands by Turkey.” Turkey is a strictly secular state (although the AKP party sympathizes with Muslim countries), and has remained such a country to this day. The Constitution of Turkey is proof of this, as is the continued veneration of Turkey’s first president, Ataturk.

Belman also made another slanderous accusation against the US: “President Obama’s much-pursued Muslim outreach merely makes public what has been a covert reality for American policy for a hundred years.The Islamic countries can do no wrong. They have all the oil and money. Israel can do no right. They are a pain in the globalist’s butt.” No American official has ever said that. Nor has any prominent American politician ever said that. Moreover, politicians of both parties are biased in favor of Israel, because they know the political fact that if they don’t reflexively back Israel regardless of Israeli policies, they can’t win elections.

Belman concluded his article with these words:

“Avi Lipkin understands this. He is advocating for an alliance between Israel and the Evangelical Christians as a bulwark to the plans of the unholy American/Muslim alliance. Only with such an alliance can America and Israel, as we know them, be saved.”

Actually, Mr Belman, America doesn’t need you as a savior. Not you, a guy who has written slanderous anti-American vitriolic comments that are more fit for the Pravda, the Global times and Der Spiegel than for AT. Not you, a virulent enemy of the United States who hates anyone who doesn’t believe that the US shouldn’t reflexively favor Israel against the Muslim world. Not you, an enemy who has spit on the US despite the fact that America has been extremely generous towards the US for the last 59 years.

Everyday you should be thanking the US that it still backs your country.

The US can reform itself without you, and will surely do well without you.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/11/the_unholy_usmuslim_alliance.html

The mindset of Obama Admin officials

Certain comments by the NATO SACEUR, Admiral James Stavridis (USN), indicate the mindset of Obama Admin officials, their worldview, their pacifist beliefs.

Stavridis, commenting on the NATO Strategic Concept before it was officially unveiled in Lisbon, said:

“I believe that we will not deliver security from the barrel of a gun as we move forward in the 21st century.”

So NATO’s top military officer has proclaimed that NATO cannot defend itself at the barrel of a gun.

That is a ridiculous statement. The ONLY way to protect any country, let alone the 28 members of the NATO alliance, is at the barrel of a gun.

Britain is now free only because of the guns of its troopers, including the guns of its RAF Hawker and Supermarine aircraft which won the BOB. France is now free only because of the guns of the Allied troopers who liberated it in 1944. Etc.

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=59225

James Antle never ceases to lie on behalf of Mitch Daniels

It seems James Antle is a fan of Mitch Daniels. No surprise – both of them are strident liberals masquerading as conservatives.

http://spectator.org/archives/2010/11/10/mitch-the-knife/1

Antle has been propagating the lie that Mitch Daniels has balanced Indiania’s state budget and that now, the Hoosier state has a budget surplus. It doesn’t. As of today, Indiana has a $1 bn yearly budget deficit.

Antle has been trying to portray Mitch Daniels as an economic conservative, which he isn’t. Daniels is a fierce AGW proponent who has proposed such ludicrous schemes as pumping CO2 underground and other politically-correct anti-AGW programs.

Antle has tried to defend MD’s call for “a truce on social issues with liberals so that we can get along” by claiming that Mitch Daniels is pro-life and opposed to same-sex marriage. The truth is that if he really was, he would’ve fought for the rights of unborn children and against SSM, instead of proposing a truce (which would be a capitulation). Liberals don’t need, and don’t want, any “truce on social issues” because they’ve already enforced their policies on the US. Abortion-on-demand, without any significant limitations (not even parental consent or parental notifications) is the law of the land. Gay marriage is the law of several states. The DOMA has been ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge in Massachusetts (Joseph Tauro). The DADT policy has been ruled unconstitutional by another federal judge, and the Congress plans to repeal it. Federal funds are being used to finance abortions and ESCR.

The worst part of MD’s policy agenda is cutting the defense budget, a policy which Antle has endorsed. Antle wrote in his AmSpec propaganda article about MD that:

“He told the Weekly Standard, of all places, that military spending would have to be cut. “When Bush arrived we were spending $300 billion on national defense, and he thought that was plenty,” Daniels said. “Now it’s what, $800 billion?”"

Firstly, Bush did not believe that the defense budget he inherited from Clinton was enough. His pre-election and post-election speeches and press notices, as well as his actual budgetary policies, prove that. Bush has repeatedly said that the FY2001 budget was inadequate. No wonder, then, that he increased defense spending.

Secondly, the defense budget is currently $534 bn (for FY2011, Obama has proposed $549 bn). Even total military spending of the US was only $664 bn as of FY2010. So MD’s claim that America’s “defense spending” or “military spending” amounts to $800 bn per year is totally false. America has never had a defense budget (or military budget) that big. Not last fiscal year, not ever.

Thirdly, the FY2001 defense budget was (rightly) judged as inadequate by leftists, centrists, and rightwingers alike as of 2000 and 2001. The then-chairman of the House Budget Cmte., John Kasich, a critic of defense spending, said “We need to put more money into the Pentagon” and said that the DOD’s annual budget should be increased by $50 bn in 2000 dollars. The leftist Brookings Institution called for the DOD’s budget to be increased by $100 bn in 2000 dollars. Then-presidential candidate George W. Bush and then-VP candidate Dick Cheney promised to increase the DOD’s warchest. Clinton’s own Joint Chiefs of Staff believed the defense budget was vastly inadequate and called for significant defense spending hikes.

Fourthly, America cannot afford defense cuts. The defense budget ($534 bn) constitutes only 3.65% of GDP and only 14.87% of the federal budget. The US military cannot cope with less money – it’s impossible. The US military needs to replace the vast majority of its equipment with new weapons, properly compensate and treat its personnel, maintain the necessary bases properly, and conduct military operations.

Traitor Daniels and Traitor Antle have called for deep defense cuts at the same time that young Americans are fighting in Afghanistan to defend their asses.

No real conservative would ever vote for Mitch Daniels.

http://spectator.org/archives/2010/11/10/mitch-the-knife/1

7,000 viewers!

7,000 viewers!

James Antle lies on behalf of Mitch Daniels

W. James Antle seems to be a fan of Mitch Daniels.

Recently, he’s written a ridiculous propaganda column on behalf of the current governor of Indiana. (http://spectator.org/blog/2010/11/05/mitch-daniels)

This column (and the associated blog post) constitute yet another BS article and BS blog post by James Antle.

Antle wrote in his blog post:

“My cover story on Mitch Daniels should be online at some point in the near future, but I’ll weigh in with a few observations. He is pro-life and believes marriage should be between a man and a woman. His record is generally quite conservative, with the few blemishes being on taxes rather than social issues. And he does understand that when it comes to restoring the country to solvency, solving the entitlements crisis is more important than cutting the defense budget (though all spending needs to remain on the table).”

No, Mr Antle, Mitch Daniels is NOT pro-life – he’s a pro-abortion liberal who has called for “a truce” with the Dems on social issues so that the he can work with them to gut the military. And such a “truce” would be fake, because the Dems don’t need any “truce”. They’ve already accomplished almost all of their goals on social issues. Abortion on demand, without any limitations (not even a ban on transporting minors across state lines and not spousal notification) is the law of the land, as SCOTUS ruling. The Defense of Marriage Act has been ruled unconstitutional by federal courts; ESCR is financed by the federal government; 2 activist judges nominated by Obama have been confirmed to the SCOTUS; the Pledge of Allegiance and the 10 Commandments have been banned from the public square; and the Senate plans to repeal the DADT policy during the lame-duck session.

It is also untrue that Daniels is conservative on taxes and spending. Daniels is a tax-hiker (he has increased taxes on cigs), believes in AGW, and has spent taxpayers’ money on “renewable en.” projects. One AmSpec commenter has written that „Pawlenty is a an AGW proponent and “My Man Mitch” is supporting all kinds of renewable energy schemes and he is for constructing pipelines throughout Indiana to collect CO2 for burial in southern oil wells.” (http://spectator.org/blog/2010/11/03/why-it-cant-be-sarah-palin)

Most worringly, Daniels has called for radical cuts of defense spending, which would utterly wreck the military and invite war against the US while not balancing the budget. (The defense budget is so small that even abolishing the DOD altogether would not balance the total federal budget.) Also, Mitch Daniels, who claims he’s a “numbers’ guy”, has proven that he knows nothing about defense spending. He claims it’s $800 bn per year. Actually, it amounted to $534 bn in FY2010, and together with the FY2010 GWOT supplemental, it constituted only $664 bn in FY2010, a paltry 4.5% of GDP.

Daniels is a strident liberal, and so is James Antle, who has praised him. Nominating Daniels for the presidency or the vice presidency would be a heinous betrayal of every conservative principle that Ronald Reagan espoused.

PS: Why can’t the US military afford any defense budget reductions?

Because the DOD budget is already too small (it constitutes a paltry 3.65% of GDP and just 14.87% of the federal budget), inadequate to provide for a strong defense, and America’s enemies (Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and Venezuela) are arming themselves to the teeth. They’re itching for a war.

Severely reducing defense spending would mean a weak, totally decrepit, totally impotent US military that would be utterly unable to defend the US even from Iran, let alone NK or China. The US military nowadays uses weapons produced during the 1950s, the 1960s and the 1970s, while America’s enemies are arming themselves with 1990s’ and 2000′s Russian, Chinese and native weaponry (Su-30s, Su-35s, Su-35BMs, J-10s, JF-17s, Sovremenny class vessels, etc.).

Also, the mathematical reality is that cutting defense spending is NOT necessary, nor would it significantly reduce the defense budget. Defense spending constitutes only 14.87% of the total federal budget, and the GWOT supplemental less than 4%. 81.5% of the total federal budget is purely civilian spending. That is the spending which must be radically reduced. Even a TOTAL ABOLITION of the defense budget ($534 bn in FY2010, $549 bn proposed for FY2011) would not even HALVE the budget deficit, let alone balance the budget. Even with the DOD completely abolished, you would still have had an almost $800-bn-dollar budget deficit in FY2010.

The budget could be easily balanced if the Congress bothered to dramatically reduce bloated domestic spending (entitlements, subsidy programs, welfare programs, etc.). And it is the ONLY way to balance the budget.

http://spectator.org/blog/2010/11/05/mitch-daniels

UPDATE: Yesterday, an AmSpec commenter by the name of Sandy agreed with me about Mitch Daniels, writing:

“

Zbigniew Mazurak- I am with you all the way, particularly with respect to the defense issue. At a time when America’s enemies are ramping up, and our current president is apologizing for how bad America is, the last place to cut the budget is in defense. After Clinton all but decimated our military, equipment,and weapons, we went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq “with the army that we had” rather than with the army that the world’s superpower should have had. We are lucky we did as well as we did, and that credit goes to our finest and bravest, working on shoestrings.

I am please that Daniels has been saying what he has, as we have the chance to “vet” him before he throws his hat in the ring. So far he has-

Peed on the Social conservatives in calling for a “truce” on social issues. We just threw out many immoral social engineers, that have worked diligently to denigrate the traditional morals this country was founded on. It is the 60′s “if it feels good do it” hippies that are now in power in Washington. Pro-life rhetoric has not decreased, it has been very loud and very vocal in this election cycle particularly. Same sex marriage has been voted down in almost every state by that states voters over the past few years, except of course in Daniels ID.

Peed of the National defense conservatives, for the reasons I listed above.

Peed off the fiscal conservatives with his support for a VAT.

Peed off the Tea Party people with his comment about the Republicans running some bad candidates. I wonder who he means- no doubt O’Donnell, Angle, Buck and Miller. I suspect he would have been on board with the elite class in DC who shunned Rubio for Crist. No doubt he would prefer Murkowski to Miller.

There really aren’t many more segments of the voting public that he can appeal to, except of course the Progressives. His positions all lean that way.”

The comment was written on November 6th, 2010, 10:54AM.
UPDATE: As of FY2010, the federal government maintained 2,001 subsidy programs, ranging from the food stamp program to subsidies for ethanol producers, corn growers, and Amtrak. Why do politicians continue to single out the DOD for spending cuts, rather than these subsidy programs? Because they depend on them (and the constituencies which benefit from them and will vote against any politician who opposes these 2,001 subsidy programs). AT contributor John Watson has written that:

“We are facing deficits that can and will cripple our nation if not addressed. Perhaps our new Congress should look at cutting subsidies as part of our efforts to reduce our spending and thus our deficit. As of January, there are now more than 2,000 federal subsidies. Many, if not most, are imprudent or even absurd in today’s world. In May, we provided a subsidy of over $140 million to Brazilian cotton farmers.

The government subsidizes products that cannot survive on their own, such as ethanol, bio fuels and wind farms, to name a few. When these products are ready for prime time on their own, they will supplant other fuels via the free market, but now, without subsidies, these technologies are prohibitively expensive. Hiding their true costs in subsidies is dishonest, in that we all pay for it in increased government spending, more taxation and higher deficits.”

(http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/11/subsidies_and_the_deficit.html)

Sarkozy says that Western media are biased against Russia

Oh boy. Sarkozy is such a desperate pro-Russian appeaser that he will not refrain from saying ANYTHING to appease Moscow.

I’ve recently found the videoclip posted below. It’s from a December 2007 press conference, during which Sarkozy claimed that the Western media are biased against Russia. He also claimed that the 2007 Russian parliamentary election was fair.

Sarkozy lied. The truth is that almost all Western media (except FN and a few newspapers) are biased in favor of Russia. They never criticize Russia, always present it in a positive light, and always present the West (or the US) as the culprit/aggressor/troublemaker.

And only a blind person (e.g. a pro-Russian appeaser) could seriously claim that the 2007 Russian parliamentary election was fair. Most Russian parties didn’t even bother to partake in it. The results were fabricated by the Kremlin.

Mitch Daniels is a strident liberal

Absurdingly, now that conservatives have won the 2010 election by a landslide, the American Spectator is talking about Mitch Daniels as a possible GOP presidential candidate and even claimed that this week is “Mitch Daniels’ moment”.

I hope Daniels does run, because he would split the GOP’s moderate vote, not the conservative vote, but I hope he doesn’t win the nomination, because he’d be an abysmal nominee and an equally abysmal president.

Daniels is a strident liberal, not a conservative. He’s not even a fiscal conservative.

Daniels has called on Republicans to dump and betray the conservative principles that Ronald Reagan espoused. He has failed to balance Indiana’s state budget, which continues to post a deficit after a deficit. He has raised taxes on cigarettes. He has endorsed the Global Warming myth and, according to one AS commenter, he “is supporting all kinds of renewable energy schemes and he is for constructing pipelines throughout Indiana to collect CO2 for burial in southern oil wells.”

He has also called for deep reductions of defense spending, singling it out for cuts, while proving how ignorant he is about this spending category. Specifically, he said, “We’re going to have to cut drastically national defense. How much is annual defense spending today, $800 billion?”

The answer is that FY2010 defense spending (he uttered his stupid remark during FY2010) amounts to $534 bn and constitutes a paltry 14.87% of the federal budget, and a microscopic 3.65% of GDP. If one adds the annual costs of the Iraqi war and the Afghan war to that, you get $664 bn, which constitutes just 18.5% of the total federal budget and 4.5% of GDP.

During the entire Cold War, except FY1948, the US spent more than 3.65% of GDP on defense. Yet, Daniels believes that a 3.65%-of-GDP defense budget is unaffordable. It is not.

America does not need yet another RINO presidential candidate.

John Stossel reveals himself as an opponent of a strong defense

Oh boy. John Stossel, the popular TV anchor/columnist has revealed himself as an opponent of a strong defense.

An avowed libertarian who would like to see the federal government abolished, he has recently written a column full of glaring factual errors, which the HumanEvents.com mag of course published. (Apparently, Pat Buchanan is on vacation.)

The column’s URL is http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=39727.

Stossel has falsely claimed that “during 6 of the 8 years of Bush’s tenure, his party controlled the Congress”. Actually, the GOP controlled the Congress only from January to summer 2001, and from 2003 to 2007. During the summer of 2001, Jim Jeffords jumped into the Democrats’ arms, and consequently, the Senate jumped into the Dems’ hands.

Stossel has also falsely claimed that the SS program and the Medicare program combined, plus the military budget, are the two biggest items in the federal budget. The SS program is, of course, by far the biggest single item in the federal budget (its FY2010 cost was $696 bn and its proposed FY2011 budget is $730 bn), and together with the Medicare program (whose FY2010 cost was $452 bn), they constitute the biggest item, bar none. That is true.

But Stossel ws wrong to classify the military budget among the two biggest items, because its FY2010 amount was $696 bn (of which only $534 bn was spent on defense), while FY2010 welfare spending (including the FY2010 cost of the Medicaid program, which was $290 bn) was $888 bn. The truth is that the second-largest category in the federal budget after the two biggest entitlement programs is welfare spending.

Also, Stossel complained, “And when was the last time you heard tea partiers complaining about the exploding military budget?”

Hey Johnny, what “exploding military budget” are you talking about? The US doesn’t have such a military budget. The defense budget rose from FY2009 to FY2010 by a few percent in real terms, and the proposed FY2011 defense budget (not yet approved by the Congress) would increase annual defense spending only by 1.8% in real terms, if it is approved by the Congress as proposed by the Executive. And the Senate and House Appropriations Committee have actually recommended budgets several billion bucks smaller than what the Executive has proposed, which means the defense budget will likely not grow at all this fiscal year.

From FY2007 (when the Dems took over the Congress from Republicans) to FY2010, the defense budget grew only slightly, from $475 bn to $534 bn, by about 12.4% in real terms over a 3-year-period.

America’s defense spending is even more meager if measured as a %age of GDP, the most objective measure. During this entire decade, from FY2001 to FY2010, defense spending has always remained below 4% of GDP. The FY2010 defense budget constituted 3.65% of GDP; the proposed FY2011 defense budget. In FY2002-FY2003 it was some 3.3%-3.7% of GDP. During the FY1998-FY2001 period it constituted 3.0% of GDP.

Even if the costs of the Iraqi war and the Afghan war are counted, total military spending STILL constituted only 4.5% of GDP and only 18.5% of the total federal budget in FY2010. The proposed FY2011 federal budget would reduce the military’s share to about 18.0% of the tota federal budget.

The military budget is a small part of total annual federal spending and constitutes a microscopic percentage of GDP. No honest person can claim that the US has an “exploding military budget”. The only people who claim that it does are liars like Stossel and people who don’t know what they’re talking about.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=39727&page=3&viewID=1615832

About Tuesday’s election

On Tuesday, the American people said “NO!” to the Democrats and their failed policies.

They spoke loudly and clearly.

The Democrats suffered an embarrassing defeat they deserved: they lost no fewer than 60 House seats, no fewer than 6 Senate seats, and most state houses.

But Republicans would be mistaken to interpret the result of the election as a “vote of confidence” for them, or “a vote of forgiveness”, or a license to resume the failed statist policies they implemented during the Bush era. If Republicans hope to win future elections, they must implement a conservative agenda, including low taxes, tax reform, limited government, a strong national defense, tort reform, privatization and ending pork projects.

They also must not obey their utterly discredited establishment (including Mitch McConnell, Karl Rove and Eric Cantor), which is responsible for the GOP’s 2006 and 2008 defeats.

They should also reject the Democrats’ “benevolent” offers to work together. Big Government, statism and socialism are irreconcilable with limited govrnment and capitalism.

Nonetheless, let’s celebrate. On Tuesday, “freedom” won. Tea Partiers won. Conservatives won.

Palin has proven that you can see Russia from Alaska

The media never cease to lie that Sarah Palin has claimed that she can see Russia from her house. The truth is that Palin never said so; Tina Fey did (while impersonating Palin).

However, Palin did claim that you can see Russia from a certain part of Alaska, and that claim is correct. Alaskans have sent Palin dozens of pictures proving that it’s correct. Here’s one of them:

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs774.snc4/67464_461073128587_24718773587_5406073_804894_n.jpg

It was posted in a FB note written by Palin, and in that note, Palin added the following description of the picture:

“On the left of the photo is Little Diomede, behind it is Big Diomede, and to the right of them you can see the Russian mainland. Photo of Lynn Nelson.”

(http://www.facebook.com/#!/notes/sarah-palin/alaskas-position-on-the-globe-yes-you-can-see-russia/449392518434)

So yes, you can see Russia (specifically, the Big Diomede Islands and the Chukotka Peninsula, both of which are part of the Russian Federation) from Alaska.