Did Iran Kill Its Own Scientist? Dissidents hint Iran Orchestrated the killing of its Nuclear Scientist to Portray itself a Victim.

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The mysterious killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist this week has led to speculations about the real motives behind these coordinated operations. This latest is the fourth of its kind in the past two years.

As the news of the assassination broke out, a number of well-known pro-Iran lobbyists started to blame Israel, the U.S. and the main Iranian opposition group the Mujahedin-e Khalq, MEK, for the killing.

Richard Silverstein an American-Jewish blogger who supports Iran’s nuclear ambitions to be “legitimate” got the headlines in Iran’s state-run media. The assassination was a “joint Mossad-MEK operation,” he wrote. The story was based on an uncorroborated claim by his “confidential Israeli source”. A similar thing happened in November 2011 when an explosion at a base of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards killed 17 Guards members. Silverstein then claimed that explosion was a joint venture by the Mossad and MEK. His only proof was an unnamed Israeli source. When pressed whether his ‘source’ had ever broken such stories before? Silverstein replied “I’d rather not be more specific.”

Trita Parsi, a U.S.-based Iranian lobbyist with well-established links to Iran’s authorities, who helped the regime launching a massive campaign to maintain the MEK on U.S. Terror list last summer, was quoted in the Iran’s state-run media, parroting the claim of a joint Israel-MEK operation.

European Courts tasked with investigating the terror designation on MEK, having looked through all secret materials, did not find evidence linking the MEK with any violent acts since they had declared an end to military operations in 2001.

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Read More at OfficialWire By Abbas Rezai, OfficialWire

Where’s Newt? SC Campaign Stumbles Plague Gingrich

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Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich was greeted with a standing ovation when he was announced at a barbecue.

Too bad the former House speaker wasn’t around to see it.

He was inexplicably missing, and his absence forced the event’s moderator to ask awkwardly, “Can we check and see where the speaker is?”

It was just one in a string of clumsy, head-scratching events staged by the Gingrich campaign since the Republican primary moved to South Carolina, a state that the candidate says he must win if he wants a shot at the nomination.

The chain of slip-ups raises questions about the campaign’s staffing and organizational skills, issues that have haunted Gingrich during the 2012 race.

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Read More at OfficialWire By Julie Pace, OfficialWire

Time For More Eurofudge?

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The Euro-mess took another turn for the worse over the weekend following news that Standard & Poor’s has downgraded the debt of a flock of European countries, most notably France. Last night markets weakened across Asia as once again the rest of the world looked at Europe and wondered just how those people were going to get out of this debacle.

As Via Meadia readers know, while Franco-German politics are not the root cause of the eurozone’s woes, the deep division between Germany and France over the way a European monetary union should work is crippling the eurozone and has prevented a clear strategy from emerging to cope with the worsening, deepening and widening crisis.

France wants the ECB and the currency union to look like the French state writ large: a strong, centralized authority that supports the big corporations and banks at the heart of the French economy, eliminates the interest rate differential between Germany and France, and accepts external devaluation and internal inflation as reasonable ways to solve chronic budget and adjustment problems.

Germany wants a tight money policy for the eurozone, forcing reform and efficiency on “lazy” Club Med peoples through the impartial and predictable enforcement of firm and inflexible rules.

This is an old policy disagreement; what makes it important now is that overcoming the crisis in the eurozone requires Europe first to decide what kind of money it wants: a French or a German system. The danger of default, not merely in minor countries like Greece, but in large European economies like Italy and even, in a worst case scenario, France, pushes Europe toward answering the question it has long avoided: whose vision will shape Europe’s future?

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Read More at The American Interest By Walter Russell Mead, The American Interest

Ron Paul Matters

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WASHINGTON—Radical. Dangerous. Crazy. Unworthy of mainstream attention. Just too out there. And don’t forget about all those old racist newsletters.

That was the conventional Republican playbook on Ron Paul in December, when the eccentric 76-year-old Texas libertarian began showing the first real signs of traction in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

Plenty of conservatives could get their head around Paul’s doomsday pledge to drastically shrink the federal government. But his vow to completely upend American foreign policy, ending its role as “the world’s police officer” for being neither helpful nor affordable, whoa.

Add in Paul’s unbending opposition to the freedom-squelching Patriot Act and the U.S. war on drugs, all in the name of individual liberty, and the Republican establishment was in eye-rolling overdrive, with American conservative media outlets dutifully following suit.

No worries, Fox News reassured its viewers. If Ron Paul won Iowa, the Iowa caucuses would be meaningless. If Mitt Romney won, well, that’s different.

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Read More at thestar.com By Mitch Potter, thestar.com

New Poll Shows Gingrich Closing on Romney

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A Public Policy Polling poll shows Mitt Romney leading the pack — with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich closing the gap one week from the first-in-the-south presidential primary in South Carolina.

Polling data suggests that Romney’s slim leader status may be buttressed by the Palmetto State electorate’s current take on his ultimate electibilty in the 2012 national contest.

The poll released yesterday shows the former Massachussetts governor at 29 percent support, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 24 percent and a tight battle for third and fourth place with Texas Cong. Ron Paul at 15 percent and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum with 14 percent.

More so than PPP found in Iowa and New Hampshire, voters in South Carolina are concerned about whether the person they back can actually defeat President Barack Obama.

Fifty percent say they are concerned about that, and there is a strong feeling in South Carolina that Romney will be the nominee. Thirty-seven percent say they are more concerned about where the candidate they support stands on the issues.

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Read more at Newsmax.com HERE.

Sen. Rand Paul keeps his promise: refunds $500k to US Treasury

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In a political culture based largely on hollow promises, it’s nice to know that there are some in Washington determined to follow through on their commitments. On January 12 U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who was elected in 2010 on his promise to do his part to reduce federal spending by shrinking big government, announced that his Senate office would return a whopping $500,000 to the U.S. Treasury — federal funds left over from his official operating budget.

The money represents around 16 percent of Paul’s Senate office’s official budget.

“I ran to stop the reckless spending,” said Paul at a press conference announcing the return. “And I ran to end the damaging process of elected officials acting as errand boys, competing to see who could bring back the biggest check and the most amount of pork.”

What make’s Paul’s actions so refreshing is that he was able to record the half-million-dollar federal savings while pursuing one of the most energetic (albeit conservative) legislative agendas of any freshman U.S. Senator. Focusing on his promise of fiscal responsibility, the Kentucky Senator offered spending cut amendments to nearly every relevant bill that came across his desk, while still representing his own constituency’s needs — working, for example, to stop the Environmental Protection Agency’s assault on Kentucky’s crucial coal industry.

According to a press release from his Senate office, Senator Paul was one of the only legislators to produce an entire fiscally responsible blueprint for the federal government, “a promise he made while campaigning in 2010. His plan, introduced in the first few weeks of his term, would balance the federal budget in five years.”

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Read more at TheNewAmerican.com HERE.

Stopping the Obama bailout of the European Union

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It was bad enough when President Obama bamboozled Congress into passing a stimulus bill that didn’t produce any jobs, then increased the federal deficit in the 2012 omnibus spending bill, then raised the debt ceiling, then bailed out the big U.S. banks, then tried to bail out his pal Solyndra in an attempt to save it from bankruptcy, and then appointed a jobs czar who only creates jobs in China.

But it’s over the top when Obama told the European Council president and the European Commission president that “the United States stands ready to do our part” to bail out Europe.

Bailing out Europe is absolutely not any “part” of “our” duty; we’ve already bailed out Europe more times than it deserves. Obama didn’t give specifics, but he was probably referring to recent proposals to pour more U.S. cash into the International Monetary Fund to be used to bail out Europe.

On Dec. 16, the IMF board of governors adopted a proposal to double its resources from its current $375 billion to $750 billion. Of course, other IMF member-states thought that was a nifty idea, since it would mean that the United States would donate another $100 billion in addition to our present $108 billion stake in the IMF.

The U.S. is the biggest contributor to the IMF; we pay about 17 percent of its budget. A European default could make U.S. taxpayers liable for 17 percent of the IMFs liabilities.

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Read more at StatesmanJournal.com HERE.

This Is No Time For Mitt Romney’s Coronation

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With one caucus and one primary completed, there is a stampede of media analysts and Republican operatives rushing to proclaim Mitt Romney as the de facto Republican nominee. Despite the fact that only a fraction of the delegates have been chosen and voters in 48 states have yet to cast a vote, there is a definite push to call this political ballgame early.

Why the rush to crown a nominee? A prolonged primary battle with not harm Romney or whoever wins the nomination, it will only make the GOP nominee stronger. A hard fought Democratic Party campaign against Hillary Clinton in 2008 certainly helped Barack Obama become a better candidate.

In contrast, Republicans have not seen a vigorous nomination contest since the epic 1976 race between Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. Unfortunately, the GOP favors Establishment candidates who have previously lost and are running for the second or third time. Republicans like to clear the field for the candidate that insiders believe has earned a spot at the top of the ticket. This flawed strategy has given the party two nominees who were major losers: Bob Dole and John McCain.

Thus, we enter the 2012 contest with a front runner, Mitt Romney, who lost in 2008 and never stopped running for president. With a massive war chest and a plethora of party leaders pushing for his nomination, the Massachusetts flip-flopper has plenty of momentum. Media analysts and commentators are already claiming that the race is over and the country will be subjected to a Romney versus Obama race this fall.

At this point, it is way too early to end this primary contest. Voters in the South clearly think differently on most issues than the more liberal electorate in Iowa and New Hampshire. Usually, a moderate candidate like Romney would not do well in a conservative state like South Carolina; however, voters will be influenced by media coverage painting Romney as the eventual winner. Voters like to side with a winner and not “waste” their vote. Romney will also have a huge financial advantage and a Super PAC ready to spend $7 million touting his candidacy.

 Read More at Western Journalism By Jeff Crouere