Posts

Egyptian Opposition Leader Ahmed Said: US Ignored Warnings on Brotherhood (+video)

/2 Comments/in , /by

photo credit: cjcs

Washington has failed to heed warnings from inside Egypt about the true intentions of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptian opposition leader Ahmed Said tells Newsmax in an exclusive interview.

“Unfortunately the United States was not listening,” Said told Newsmax. Said, a former member of the Egyptian parliament, heads the Free Egyptians Party, a staunchly pro-Western, pro-democratic political party.

“I was a member of parliament for the past five months before the parliament was dissolved, and I have met with several congressional delegations and met with Sens. John McCain and John Kerry — and I don’t think they’re really listening, to be very honest

Said, whose group is among the many opposing Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, the first elected head of state in the country’s history, tells Newsmax.TV that Egyptians hoped that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney would be elected to the White House last month because of his tough foreign policy positions.

“The United States has a reputation of only respecting those in power who think they are strong — and people were hopeful, to a certain extent, that if Romney took over, he would be more aggressive with respect to dealing with human rights in Egypt and things like that,” he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Senator Presses Geithner on Plan to Raise $100B for Global Green Fund

/1 Comment/in , /by

photo credit: center for american progress

(CNSNews.com) – Ahead of the next big international climate meeting, U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) has asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner how the administration proposes the raise contributions to a $100 billion climate fund to which the U.S. signed up three years ago.

In a letter to Geithner Tuesday Vitter, the incoming ranking member on the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works, said he was “interested to ascertain how Treasury plans on finding the lion’s share of an additional $100 billion, to give away to foreign nations while we continue to run deficits in excess of $1 trillion.”

At a climate conference in Copenhagen in December 2009, the U.S. and other developed nations agreed to put together a global fund to help developing countries curb greenhouse gas emissions and cope with phenomena blamed on climate change, such as droughts and rising sea levels.

Subsequently established in 2011, the “Green Climate Fund” (GCF) is meant to raise $100 billion a year from public and private sources by 2020.

At the climate conference beginning next Monday in Doha, Qatar, developing nation representatives and environmental advocates are hoping for progress in discussions on how the money will actually be raised.

Read more from this story HERE.

Sen. Vitter Alleges Obama Administration Hiding Internal Discussions on Carbon Tax

/1 Comment/in , , /by

photo credit: miiler_centerSen. David Vitter (R-La.) accused the Obama administration on Tuesday of shielding possible discussions on a carbon tax from the public.

Vitter, a top Republican on the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works, sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner alleging the administration is hammering out details for a carbon tax proposal.

Vitter questioned Treasury’s denial of a Freedom of Information Act request from the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute think tank. The think tank sued Treasury last week for not releasing emails from the agency’s Office of Energy and Environment that contained the word “carbon.”

“A plan to tax carbon would inevitably be a tax on the public, so, by definition, every responsive record would on its face significantly inform the public,” Vitter wrote.

A Treasury official told The Hill that the agency had not received Vitter’s letter.

Read more from this story HERE.

GOP Lawmakers Blast Obama Over Release of Iraqi Terrorist

/3 Comments/in , , /by

photo credit: isafmediaRepublicans on the Hill are blasting President Obama for failing to stop the Iraqi government from releasing a Hezbollah commander suspected in the killing of five Americans.

The State Department confirmed Friday that Iraqi officials released Ali Mussa Daqduq, despite repeated pleas from the Obama administration to keep him in custody. Even Vice President Joe Biden made a personal entreaty as recently as Tuesday, a White House official told POLITICO.

Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham said the release shows America’s influence is waning because of Obama’s “failed foreign policy.”

“The United States now has so little influence that it could not prevail upon the Iraqi government to extradite Daqduq to the U.S. to stand trial for his crimes,” they said in a joint statement.

Over in the House, the chairs of the Armed Services, Intelligence, Judiciary, and Foreign Affairs committees blamed Obama for turning over Daqduq to Iraqi authorities in the first place and for failing to secure a long-term cooperation agreement with Iraq that also may have averted his release.

Read more from this story HERE.

Senator Inhofe Says Obama Won’t Release Regulatory Agenda Because of ‘Terrible’ Impact on Jobs

/2 Comments/in , /by

President Obama will not comply with a federal law requiring him to release his regulatory agenda because he doesn’t want Americans voters to know the “terrible cost” it would have on the economy should he win re-election — include the loss of an estimated 887,000 jobs annually, says Sen. James Inhofe, ranking Republican on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Inhofe cites the Regulatory Flexibility Act that requires federal agencies to assess the impact of their regulations on small businesses. He says Obama failed to comply with the law twice over the past year – specifically the April and October deadlines.

“President Obama is refusing to comply with the law that requires him to publish forthcoming regulations because he doesn’t want the American public to know the terrible cost of the regulatory barrage he plans to unleash in a second term,” Inhofe said. “So instead of being honest with the American people about what’s in store if he wins, he’s been trying to hide the fact that he intends to move forward with a slew of rules that will destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs and dramatically raise the cost of energy on American families.”

The Oklahoma senator sent a letter to the president Sunday asking him to publish the administration’s agenda before Oct. 31.“Businesses and communities need to understand the future regulatory landscape,” he wrote.

The projected loss of 887,000 jobs annually is from a National Economic Research Associates report last month. The international economic firm in its 129-page report states the coal industry would be hit hard and the job losses would continue through 2034.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Administration Mandates Oil Firms Hire Sea Turtle Observers

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo credit: spakattacksThe Department of Interior (DOI) is requiring private oil companies to hire marine mammal and sea turtle monitors if the companies are granted a lease to drill offshore. A marine mammal observer’s job is to watch for whales, dolphins, and similar sea creatures and to advise on minimizing the underwater noise created by offshore drilling, which can affect the sea mammals.

The DOI announced in a press release last week that it will open up 20 million acres in the Western Gulf of Mexico for an oil and gas lease sale to be held Nov. 28, which is part of the administration’s “Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2012–2017 (Five Year Program).”

The terms of the sale, which were finalized by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), include several environmental safeguards.

“These terms include measures to protect the environment, such as stipulations requiring that operators protect biologically sensitive features and provide trained observers to monitor marine mammals and sea turtles to ensure compliance and restrict operations when conditions warrant,” the release said.

“Every time we do a sale we do an environmental analysis and in that we list the terms to protect the environment,” said John Filostrat, of the BOEM Public Affairs Office. “One of those terms is requiring operators to observe marine mammals when they’re conducting operations.

Read more from this story HERE.

Issa Investigates Project Gunrunner

/2 Comments/in /by

Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) is set to issue a number of subpoenas to federal officials who have ties to “Fast and Furious,” a secret program run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) that put thousands of semi-automatic firearms into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.

Fast and Furious was a new addition to the ATF’s now-defunct “Project Gunrunner” program. It authorized (“pressed” is probably a more accurate word) U.S. gun stores located near the Mexican border to sell thousands of semi-automatic firearms to suspected and known straw-purchasers (those who buy guns for someone who can’t do so legally). The idea, apparently, was that the guns would lead the ATF to the heads of the cartels.

This program didn’t make headlines until Dec. 14, 2010. That day, during a late-night shootout between the U.S. Border Patrol and armed Mexican illegals in a remote canyon near Nogales, Ariz., 41-year-old federal agent Brian Terry was shot and killed. The U.S. Border Patrol agents had initially used beanbag rounds against the illegals. This loss of a federal agent in a beanbag-versus-rifle shootout should have been controversial enough — but the fact that agent Terry was killed by a firearm the ATF had “walked” across the border should have put this ill-considered program on every cable news network. Ditto for the fact that, as the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, a cartel arsenal recently captured in Mexico also contains guns from the sting.

But aside from CBS News, the mainstream media hasn’t been all that interested in investigating, and the Obama administration has been stonewalling. Two ATF agents — John Dodson, who is stationed in Phoenix, and Darren Gil, who was forced to retire as the agency’s attaché in Mexico City — became whistleblowers. Both Dodson and Gil have made the scandal public by speaking to CBS and other news outlets. Both agents say the orders for the program to send guns quietly into Mexico came from way over their heads, but neither knows how high up. Just where the idea began is what Representative Issa is hoping to discover.

Representative Issa’s investigation has been so stymied by the Obama administration that on June 3, some 31 congressional Democrats wrote to the president to urge him to end the administration’s stonewalling on the Fast and Furious program. In the letter, spearheaded by Rep. Jason Altmire (D., Pa.), the lawmakers called the uncooperative tactics “extremely troubling” and found the Justice Department’s failure to provide information to congressional investigators “equally troubling.” They say Americans deserve “prompt and complete answers.”

Read More at National Review By Frank Miniter, National Review