Syria Preparing to Use Chemical Weapons; “Red Line” for US

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President Obama warned Syria on Monday not to use chemical weapons against its own people, vowing to hold accountable anyone who did, even as American intelligence officials picked up signs that such arms might be deployed in the fighting there.

The White House said it had an “increased concern” that the government of President Bashar al-Assad was preparing to use such weapons, effectively confirming earlier reports of activity at chemical weapons sites. The administration said it would take action if they were used, suggesting even the possibility of military force.

“Today I want to make it absolutely clear to Assad and those under his command: The world is watching,” Mr. Obama said in a speech at the National Defense University in Washington. “The use of chemical weapons is and would be totally unacceptable. If you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons, there will be consequences and you will be held accountable.”

Neither the president nor his aides would specify how the United States would hold Syrians accountable, but the White House confirmed that contingency plans had been drawn for direct action. The president’s statement amplified similar warnings issued by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton earlier in the day in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, which represents the interests of the United States in Damascus now that the American Embassy there has been closed.

“This is a red line for the United States,” Mrs. Clinton said. “I am not going to telegraph in any specifics what we would do in the event of credible evidence that the Assad regime has resorted to using chemical weapons against their own people. But suffice it to say, we are certainly planning to take action if that eventuality were to occur.”

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US Cigarette Smuggling Now a Multi-Billion Dollar Enterprise

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THE busy interstate highway that zips through Richmond, Virginia, and up to the crowded cities of the north-east has long been a conduit for handguns bought wholesale in Virginia and sold to drug-dealers in New York. Now I-95 is siphoning northwards another form of contraband: black-market cigarettes.

Because Virginia’s tobacco tax is the second-lowest in America, gangsters buy cigarettes there in bulk and sell them at enormous profit in New York and other high-tax states. At a minimum, they pocket a big chunk of the difference between what Virginia adds in tax—30 cents a packet—and the higher rates imposed elsewhere. New York’s tax, at $4.35 a packet, is the highest in the country.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives estimates that sales of illegal cigarettes cost government—local, state and federal—nearly $10 billion a year. For the smugglers, profits are better than those from cocaine, heroin, marijuana and guns, according to a report in September by the Virginia State Crime Commission. Moreover, the penalty for doing it—a maximum of five years in jail, under federal law—is considerably lighter than for selling drugs. If the smugglers were trafficking in heroin, they would face life in prison.

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After a Brief Hiatus, Gaza Tunnels Open for Business

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For eight days, the sounds of illegal commerce here at the ragged southern edge of the Gaza Strip were silenced by the pounding thrum of battle.

Israeli military jets bombed the sandy stretch of land just a center fielder’s throw from Egypt each day, hoping to collapse the underground avenues for food, cars, medicines and weapons that support Hamas’s rule in Gaza.

Ahmad al-Arja, a 22-year-old engineering student, was among the army of diggers forced to take the conflict off. But minutes after Israel and Hamas reached a cease-fire on the evening of Nov. 21, his boss was on the phone.

“He said, ‘Come on, count on God, and tomorrow morning, start digging,’ ” Arja recalled, as he began with his cousins the tedious, treacherous work of tunnel repair.

The business of Rafah is the tunnel network that circumvents the Israeli blockade of Gaza, and business once again is booming.

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How is Romney Dealing With the Election Loss?

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The man who planned to be president wakes up each morning now without a plan.

Mitt Romney looks out the windows of his beach house here in La Jolla, a moneyed and pristine enclave of San Diego, at noisy construction workers fixing up his next-door neighbor’s home, sending out regular updates on the renovation. He devours news from 2,600 miles away in Washington about the “fiscal cliff” negotiations, shaking his head and wondering what if.

Gone are the minute-by-minute schedules and the swarm of Secret Service agents. There’s no aide to make his peanut-butter-and-honey sandwiches. Romney hangs around the house, sometimes alone, pecking away at his iPad and e-mailing his CEO buddies who have been swooping in and out of La Jolla to visit. He wrote to one who’s having a liver transplant soon: “I’ll change your bedpan, take you back and forth to treatment.”

It’s not what Romney imagined he would be doing as the new year approaches.

Four weeks after losing a presidential election he was convinced he would win, Romney’s rapid retreat into seclusion has been marked by repressed emotions, second-guessing and, perhaps for the first time in the overachiever’s adult life, sustained boredom, according to interviews with more than a dozen of Romney’s closest friends and advisers.

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Syria’s Civil War a Cover for Killing Christians?

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A pair of car bombs that killed 38 people and reportedly injured 83 more in the mostly Christian and Druze town of Jaramana, Syria, has led some to allege the rebels are using the civil war to cover a more sinister campaign of slaughtering Christians.

In a statement issued by Open Doors, USA, the human rights group reports that the Syrian government is placing the blame for the attack on “terrorists.” Yet the statement also says the residents of the Damascus suburb haven’t joined the fighting on either side.

Although the rebels have denied involvement in the attacks on Christian neighborhoods, Open Doors believes the attacks are aimed at Christians, rather than supporters of Assad’s government.

For some, however, this attack was personal. A Syrian-American who has asked not to be named to protect relatives still living in Syria says the twin car bombings claimed the lives of family members.

“The explosions in Jaramana killed my uncle’s father in-law and another uncle’s wife’s cousin,” the Syrian-American said. He says the intended targets of the attacks are obvious.

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Conservatives Ready For ‘Sneaky Treaties’

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Back in September, 36 Republicans in the Senate signed on to a letter requesting that no treaties be brought up for consideration during the precious few days of the lame duck session.

“The writers of the Constitution clearly believed that all treaties presented to the Senate should undergo the most thorough scrutiny before being agreed upon,” they wrote in a Sept. 20 letter to Senate majority and minority leaders Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

“The American people will be electing representatives and senators in November, and new representatives carrying the election mandate should be afforded the opportunity to review and consider any international agreements that are outstanding at the time of their election.”

The signatories promised to oppose efforts to consider any treaty brought for consideration.

Fast-forward two months, and the Senate has begun consideration of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a United Nations treaty that faces heavy opposition from conservative groups and received only one committee hearing, back in July.

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The GOP’s Weakest Leg

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photo credit: kazvorpal

The Republican coalition is often described as a three-legged stool made up of foreign policy, social issue and fiscal conservatives. It’s an apt metaphor because it captures the fact that all three legs need to be secure in order for the party to keep from collapsing.

For most of the last two decades, foreign policy (strong defense) and social (traditional values) conservatives have at various times been blamed for Republican defeats. But fiscal conservatism (lower and fewer taxes; less government spending) has always escaped from Republican losses unscathed.

2012 produced a different outcome. Everyone agrees that the 2012 election was about the economy, and that Republicans suffered a drubbing.

I’m a fiscal conservative who believes in lower taxes and entitlement program reform. But politically, these issues appear to be the weakest leg of the Republican coalition. The public is more than willing to raise taxes on the rich, and they don’t want cuts in Social Security and Medicare.

Despite the unpopularity of these ideas, various Republican office holders and pundits continue to blame social issues for election defeats.

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Rand Paul Promotes Bill To ‘End Abortion On Demand Once And For All’

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Republican Senator Rand Paul says he wants to pass a Life at Conception Act to “end abortion on demand once and for all.”

Senator Paul, R-KY, recently recorded a message for the National Pro-Life Alliance (NPLA), talking about the legislation, which would declare unborn babies legal persons from the moment of conception and give them Constitutional protections.

The senator says Congress can legislatively overturn the Supreme Court‘s Roe v. Wade decision by passing a “personhood” law called the Life at Conception Act.

The law would establish that human life begins at conception, and extend 14th Amendment protection to babies in the womb.

Justice Harry Blackmun wrote in the 1973 ruling that if a fetus can be defined as a person, the “right” to abortion “collapses, for the fetus’s right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment.”

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Norquist: Resurgent Tea Party Will ‘Dwarf’ First Wave

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Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, predicted on Friday that an upcoming “Tea Party second wave” will “dwarf” the first wave that propelled Republicans into the majority in the House during the historic 2010 midterm elections.

In an interview with “The Victoria Taft Show,” Norquist said the fiscal cliff negotiations and President Barack Obama’s second term will lead to a movement that will revolt against a government that spends, regulates, and taxes too much.

“We are about to have a Tea Party second wave that will dwarf the first wave and that is because while ‘spend too much’ brought the Tea Party into existence, we’re about to walk into ‘spend too much, regulate too much, and tax too much, all together,'” he speculated.

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Firefighter Fired for Installing Barack Obama Toilet Paper in Firehouse Bathroom

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A Florida firefighter is out of a job after putting toilet paper with President Barack Obama’s face in his fire department’s bathroom.

Clint Pierce, who admitted placing the Obama toilet paper in the restroom as a “gag,” had until 5:00 p.m. Friday to turn in his badge after the city of Pompano Beach, Fla. determined his joke was a disrespectful repeat offense, according to a report from the Sun Sentinel.

The Oct. 19 incident marked the third time Pierce brought political props onto city property, after he was told to stop.

“It was clearly a case of insubordination,” city spokeswoman Sandra King said Friday, according to the paper. “He had a similar situation of posting political messages on city property and he was given a free pass at that time and told to cease and desist and he did it again and really exacerbated the situation.”

Fire Chief Harry L. Small determined that Pierce’s actions showed “tasteless and disrespectful treatment” of President Obama and “caused significant divisiveness within the department and community.”

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