Egyptian minister: Obama told me he is a Muslim

Depending on who you are, the news that Obama might tell an Egyptian minister that he's privately a Muslim and that he'll show the Muslim world how to deal with Israel is either a shock, or it just confirms what you already knew. I'm in the latter camp - I've suspected all along that he'd turn his back on Israel, and I think I'm being proven right. The buzz on the Arab street that Israel stands alone is bound to cause the Muslim world, combatively expansionistic by default, and obsessively hateful of Israel, to do rash things. Ever hear of Gog?

Obama, a 'Strategic Catastrophe' - Iran No Longer Israel's Greatest Threat

Although Israeli officials publicly play down the crisis in relations between Jerusalem and Washington, privately the language is much different. Sources close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describe Obama as a "strategic catastrophe" for Israel.

Officials in the Prime Minister's Office, speaking on condition of anonymity to the nation's top newspapers, see the Obama administration as a serious threat to the future of the State of Israel. On the record, Israel and the US have a "strategic partnership that is unbreakable"; off the record, the terminology is blunt to say the least.

"President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have drawn a clear line, supporting the Palestinian position at the expense of Israel," said one Netanyahu confidant. "It is insane, it is sick. Relations between Jerusalem and Washington are simply disastrous; the situation has never been so dangerous. This US President wants to establish a Palestinian state at any price and hand them Jerusalem on a silver platter."

Netanyahu has repeatedly distanced himself from such statements, but commentators say the government speaks with a forked tongue. "Israel's relations with the US are at a low point, and Obama poses a danger to Israel," wrote Nahum Barnea in the nation's biggest newspaper Yediot Ahronot.

The feeling among the Israeli public is that Obama is appeasing the Muslim world at the expense of Israel.

"The American President told me in confidence that he is a Muslim," said Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Nile TV. That could explain why Obama has instructed that the term "Islamic extremism" no longer be used in official government documents and statements.

Furthermore, the US is now accusing Israel of harming American interests in the Middle East. General David Petraeus, the head of US Central Command, said Israel's intransigence on resolving the conflict with the Palestinians is endangering US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Even the US Congress considers Obama's behavior toward Netanyahu humiliating. Three-quarters of the House of Representatives, 337 of 435 members, signed a bipartisan letter to Clinton expressing "deep concern over recent tension" between the two countries, and demanding that it be smoothed over quickly and in private.

"Obama is a real problem for Israel," a senior official told told Yediot. "He is Israel's biggest strategic catastrophe."

The newspaper also quoted another official who believes that for the first time Washington has switched sides. "The Obama White House is putting pressure only on Israel but does not expect anything from the Palestinians," he said. "These American demands are unacceptable."

"The Americans know very well that Israeli construction has always been happening in East Jerusalem and building in Jewish neighborhoods has never been frozen," said another official. "The Americans use excuses like [the Jewish neighborhood of] Ramat Shlomo and the Shepherd Hotel [another Jewish building project in East Jerusalem] to confront Netanyahu."

So during Passover, Netanyahu invited Nobel Prize-winning author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel to his private residence in Caesaria. He urged Wiesel, who is an American citizen, to make it clear to his good friend Obama how important Jerusalem is to the Jewish people.

"Jerusalem was, is and always will be the united capital of Israel," said Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat. "Construction in all parts of Jerusalem will continue."

According to a poll by the Independent Media Review & Analysis, 70 percent of Israeli Jews oppose a construction freeze in East Jerusalem, compared to only 19 percent who support it. The survey also found that 69 percent believe the division of Jerusalem with international control of the Old City would lead to ongoing conflict rather than peace.

Officials in Netanyahu's inner circle believe Obama's strategy is to force a change of government in Israel. By forcing Israeli concessions on the "settlement" issue, hawks could bolt the coalition, pushing Netanyahu into an alliance with the dovish Kadima party. Kadima is led by former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who, under the previous Olmert government, offered the Palestinians an independent state in 97 percent of the disputed territories with a capital in East Jerusalem.

Obama has been buoyed by his domestic success in passing the historic health care reform bill. And he may believe that he can extend that victory to the international arena by resolving the Middle East conflict. But if Obama continues to underestimate Israeli resolve on Jerusalem, his peace efforts are doomed to failure.

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New Bill: Obama Wants "Absolute Control" Over Internet

Well, we're one big step closer to the North Korea-fication of the United States. If this gigantic power grab goes through, the President will literally have the ability to shut down the internet. Tech America says it would give the government "absolute power" over the internet, but the best part will be the unintended consequences. Liberals love those - government action creates unintended consequences, which require more government action which creates more unintended consequences... oooh, we're on the slippery slope now, kids.

Obama Internet "Kill Switch" Proposed

US President Barack Obama would be granted powers to seize control of and even shut down the internet under a new bill that describes the global internet as a US "national asset".

Local lobby groups and academics have rounded on the plan, saying that, rather than combat terrorists, it would actually do them "the biggest favour ever" by terrorising the rest of the world, which is now heavily reliant on cyberspace.

The proposed legislation, introduced into the US Senate by independent senator Joe Lieberman, who is chairman of the US Homeland Security committee, seeks to grant the President broad emergency powers over the internet in times of national emergency.

The internet is a dangerous place ... US Senator Joe Lieberman. Photo: AP

Titled "Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act", the bill stipulates any internet firms and providers must "immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed" by a new section of the US Department of Homeland Security, dubbed the "National Centre for Cybersecurity and Communications".

Lobby group TechAmerica told ZDNet it worried that the bill would give the US "absolute power" over the internet and create "unintended consequences".

One of Australia's top communications experts, University of Sydney associate professor Bjorn Landfeldt, railed against the idea, saying shutting down the internet would "inflict an enormous damage on the entire world".

He said it would be like giving a single country "the right to poison the atmosphere, or poison the ocean".

"All our financial systems, all our security systems ... we're so reliant on the internet that if you shut it down there's a question of whether society will continue to operate normally anywhere in the Western world," Landfeldt said in a phone interview.

"By doing this they would do the terrorists the biggest favour ever because they would terrorise the rest of the world".

Landfeldt said the US would be the only country in the world with the ability to shut down the internet. He said such a move would be extremely difficult for the US to justify to other nations.

"Unfortunately, too much of the core of the internet resides in the US - let's put it this way, they cannot shut down machines in Australia, but they can completely isolate us and shut down certain core functions like the DNS ... they can render the internet fairly useless for the rest of the world," he said.

Senator Susan Collins, co-sponsor of the bill, has said: "We cannot afford to wait for a cyber-9/11."

Lieberman argued the bill was necessary to "preserve those networks and assets and our country and protect our people".

He said that, for all its allure, the internet could also be a "dangerous place with electronic pipelines that run directly into everything from our personal bank accounts to key infrastructure to government and industrial secrets".

US economic security, national security and public safety were now all at risk from new kinds of enemies, including "cyber warriors, cyber spies, cyber terrorists and cyber criminals".

Geordie Guy, spokesman for the online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia, said governments around the world seemed terrified of some unidentified risk that they believe the internet poses.

"The proposal is from Joe Lieberman, a repeat offender on rights versus regulation, in a bill called Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010," he said.

"One wonders which nation Senator Lieberman considers the internet an asset of, and how proposing its destruction by presidential or homeland security order protects it.

"The internet is not a national asset of the United States, nor is it a media regulation problem of Australia. It is an international network used by millions upon millions of citizens and it needs to remain free and available."

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy did not respond to calls requesting comment.

Google, one of the world's biggest internet companies, declined to comment as it was not yet official US government policy.

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New GOP Video: What Took You So Long, Mr. President?

When I saw this video I first thought, "It's about time the GOP get tough with Obama on this." Then I started thinking about the fact that the GOP's critical response comes after 58 days of Obama doing less than jack squat - he's actually made the situation way worse. Then I thought that if the GOP had gone after Obama's jugular on this issue right off the bat, they'd be just as bad as the Democrats who were blaming Bush for Katrina and calling him non-responsive while it was still raining. Then I thought that, unlike Katrina, which was an act of God, Obama's gulf gusher has been caused by human error and poor regulation - and some of the blame can be laid right at the door of the White House. Guess you could say this video will make you think...

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Obama's Own Experts Call Drilling Ban "Crazy, Senseless Political Decision"

The deepwater drilling experts that President Obama consulted on his drilling ban and referenced in his announcement of the ban are now saying that they recommended nothing of the sort. Like all autocrats before him, our President Obama thinks he's the cat's meow. The smartest, strongest, most knowledgeable person in the room. Any room. And that means that in a roomful of industry experts, any industry, Obama knows best. Let's put aside Governor Jindal's troubles with a non-responsive bureaucracy. Forget how the Governor of Alabama says that the feds are making his job tougher. Never mind the devastated fishing, tourism, and drilling industries all across the Gulf. I don't think you need much more to go on than the accounts of these scientists to understand that our President doesn't care about the disaster, the cost in dollars or misery - what he cares about is gaining a political advantage.

Crude Politics

The drilling experts speak out on the Obama deepwater moratorium.

Before the Obama Administration sweeps under the carpet the controversy over the drilling experts it falsely used to justify its moratorium, the incident bears another look. Not least because it underlines the purely political nature of a drilling ban that now threatens the Gulf Coast economy and drilling safety.

When President Obama last month announced his six-month deepwater moratorium, he pointed to an Interior Department report of new "safety" recommendations. That report prominently noted that the recommendations it contained—including the six-month drilling ban—had been "peer-reviewed" by "experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering." It also boasted that Interior "consulted with a wide range" of other experts. The clear implication was that the nation's drilling brain trust agreed a moratorium was necessary.

As these columns reported last week, the opposite is true. In a scathing document, eight of the "experts" the Administration listed in its report said their names had been "used" to "justify" a "political decision." The draft they reviewed had not included a six-month drilling moratorium. The Administration added that provision only after it had secured sign-off. In their document, the eight forcefully rejected a moratorium, which they argued could prove more economically devastating than the oil spill itself and "counterproductive" to "safety."

The Administration insisted this was much ado about nothing. An Interior spokesman claimed the experts clearly had been called to review the report on a "technical basis," whereas the moratorium was a "comprehensive" question. Obama environment czar Carol Browner declared: "No one's been deceived or misrepresented." Really? We can only imagine the uproar if a group of climate scientists had claimed the Bush Administration misappropriated their views.

We decided to call some of these experts ourselves. Their information, and concerns, are revealing.

The experts were certainly under the impression they were reviewing a comprehensive document, as some of the recommendations would take six months or even a year to implement. And the report they agreed to did address moratoria: It recommended a six-month ban on new deepwater permits. Yet Benton Baugh, president of Radoil, said that in at least two separate hour-and-a-half phone calls among Interior and the experts, there was no discussion of a moratorium on existing drilling. "Because if anybody had [made that suggestion], we'd have said 'that's craziness.'"

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Associated Press

Vessels operate near the Transocean Deepwater Discoverer drilling rig at the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Ken Arnold, an engineer and consultant, said the changes went beyond just the drilling moratorium. The Interior draft he looked at included timelines for each safety recommendation. The "bulk" of those recommendations, he explained, were all ones that could be done within 30 days. And most of the longer-term provisions would result in only "marginal increases in safety."

Yet when the final report came out, the timelines he saw had been removed, no doubt because they argued against the necessity of a six-month moratorium. Mr. Arnold adds that the Administration's decision to allow industry to continue drilling "gas injection wells"—which, he says, are no more risky than production wells—only shows the moratorium makes "no sense."

"This was a political call; this was not a technical call," says Mr. Arnold. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has since testified that the call was his. But Robert Bea, from the University of California at Berkeley, who also reviewed the report, told us Interior had sent him a letter that "stated clearly that [the moratorium] had been inserted at the request of the White House." Mr. Bea pointed out that the Department of Interior is more than equipped to target and shut down specific Gulf operations that might offer safety concerns. There was no call for a moratorium "for industry as a whole."

Ford Brett, managing director of Petroskills and also a reviewer, notes that the experts first went to the Interior Department with their concerns. "All they had to do was put out another press release—one sentence long—clarifying that we hadn't reviewed the drilling moratorium. . . .That didn't happen." Only then did the experts go public.

Matthew Kaminski and Joe Rago of the WSJ Editorial Board discuss the challenges in Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan, the Left's panning of Obama's BP speech, and the early-retiree fiasco.

As for Ms. Browner's claim that no one was "misrepresented," Mr. Brett disputes that. Several reviewers said they had, in fact, received "apology" notes from the Interior Department acknowledging the misrepresentation. "We did not mean to imply that you also agreed with the decision to impose a moratorium on all new deepwater drilling," read one.

All of this matters because it offers proof the moratorium was driven by politics, not safety. The drilling ban was not reviewed by experts, and was not necessary to satisfy most of the safety recommendations in Mr. Salazar's report. It was authored by political actors so Mr. Obama could look tough. A cynic might argue the ban was only added after review precisely because the Administration knew experts would refuse to endorse it.

A big reason why those experts would have balked is because they recognize that the moratorium is indeed a threat to safety. Mr. Arnold offers at least four reasons why.

The ban requires oil companies to abandon uncompleted wells. The process of discontinuing a well, and then later re-entering it, introduces unnecessary risk. He notes BP was in the process of abandoning its well when the blowout happened.

More

• BP Agrees to $20 Billion Fund
• U.S. Response to Spill Falters
• Obama Address Gets Low Marks
• BP Investors Hope Pressure Will Ease
• Inspector General Slams 'Backwards' MMS Probe
• Congress to Scrutinize Another BP Rig
• Fight Erupts Over Oil Trial Venues

The ban is going to push drilling rigs to take jobs in other countries. "The ones that go first will be the newest, biggest, safest rigs, because they are most in demand. The ones that go last and come back first are the ones that aren't as modern," says Mr. Arnold.

The indeterminate nature of this ban will encourage experienced crew members to seek other lines of work—perhaps permanently. Restarting after a ban will bring with it a "greater mix of new people who will need to be trained." The BP event is already pointing, in part, to human error, and the risk of that will increase with a less experienced crew base. Finally, a ban will result in more oil being imported on tankers, which are "more likely" to spill oil than local production.

All this is even before raising ban's economic consequences, which already threaten tens of thousands of jobs. This is why Louisiana politicians are now pleading with the Administration to back off a ban that is sending the Gulf's biggest industry to its grave.

"Mr. President, you were looking for someone's butt to kick," said Lafourche Parish President Charlotte Randolph, recently. "You're kicking ours." The sooner the Administration climbs down from this pointless exercise, the better for a Gulf that needs real help.

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Obama's Big Government Failure Raises Questions

The disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and the thoroughly inept response of Obama's super-hyper-active federal government seems like prima facie evidence that not only can government not solve all our problems, it is seemingly helpless in the face of a deepwater oil leak. Of course, for a logical person, that leads directly to the question "why would the Obama administration approve this kind of a disaster-waiting-to-happen?" Good luck finding the answer to that one.

In the meantime, we can busy ourselves with other questions this raises, like "why would Obama go on two vacations in the middle of an event he likens to 9/11?" and "why does he seem more focused on advancing his cap and trade legislation than fixing the problem?" and my personal favorite, "would he have been more helpful if the Gulf states were run by Democrats?"

In the end, we can probably only give a firm answer to one pretty simple question that a lot of Americans are asking, - "would Obama try to capitalize on the misery of Americans (and maybe even make it worse) just for political gain?" The answer to that one is obvious.

59 Days Into Oil Crisis, Gulf Coast Governors Say Feds Are Failing Them

Eight days ago, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal ordered barges to begin vacuuming crude oil out of his state's oil-soaked waters. Today, against the governor's wishes, those barges sat idle, even as more oil flowed toward the Louisiana shore.

"It's the most frustrating thing," theRepublican governor said today in Buras, La. "Literally, yesterday morning we found out that they were halting all of these barges."

Watch "World News" for David Muir's report from Louisiana tonight.

Sixteen barges sat stationary today, although they were sucking up thousands of gallons of BP's oil as recently as Tuesday. Workers in hazmat suits and gas masks pumped the oil out of the Louisiana waters and into steel tanks. It was a homegrown idea that seemed to be effective at collecting the thick gunk.

"These barges work. You've seen them work. You've seen them suck oil out of the water," said Jindal.

Coast Guard Orders Barges to Stop

So why stop now?

"The Coast Guard came and shut them down," Jindal said. "You got men on the barges in the oil, and they have been told by the Coast Guard, 'Cease and desist. Stop sucking up that oil.'"

A Coast Guard representative told ABC News today that it shares the same goal as the governor.

"We are all in this together. The enemy is the oil," said Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Dan Lauer.

But the Coast Guard ordered the stoppage because of reasons that Jindal found frustrating. The Coast Guard needed to confirm that there were fire extinguishers and life vests on board, and then it had trouble contacting the people who built the barges.

Louisiana Governor Couldn't Overrule Coast Guard

The governor said he didn't have the authority to overrule the Coast Guard's decision, though he said he tried to reach the White House to raise his concerns.

"They promised us they were going to get it done as quickly as possible," he said. But "every time you talk to someone different at the Coast Guard, you get a different answer."

After Jindal strenuously made his case, the barges finally got the go-ahead today to return to the Gulf and get back to work, after more than 24 hours of sitting idle.

Fifty-nine days into the crisis, it still can be tough to figure out who is in charge in Louisiana, and the problem appears to be the same in other Gulf Coast states.

In Alabama today, Gov. Bob Riley said that he's had problems with the Coast Guard, too.

Riley, R-Ala., asked the Coast Guard to findocean boom tall enough to handle strong waves and protect his shoreline.

The Coast Guard went all the way to Bahrain to find it, but when it came time to deploy it?

"It was picked up and moved to Louisiana," Riley said today.

The governor said the problem is there's still no single person giving a "yes" or "no." While the Gulf Coast governors have developed plans with the Coast Guard's command center in the Gulf, things begin to shift when other agencies start weighing in, like the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

"It's like this huge committee down there," Riley said, "and every decision that we try to implement, any one person on that committee has absolute veto power."

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Obama's Neverending Recession: Dozens of Banks Missing TARP Payments

With the latest news that 68 banks - all "too big to fail" 18 months ago- are at least two quarters behind in the repayment of their TARP funding, maybe it's time that the idea of the government propping up failed businesses with taxpayer funds gets another look. And while we're at it, does anyone know when Obama's Recession will finally pass muster and become a legitimate depression?

More Than 90 Banks Miss TARP Payments

More than 90 U.S. banks and thrifts missed making a May 17 payment to the U.S. government under its main bank bailout program, signaling a rising number of lenders are struggling to meet their obligations.

The SNL Financial statistics show 91 banks missed their dividend payment under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

The statistics, compiled by SNL Financial from U.S. Treasury data, showed 91 banks and thrifts skipped the May dividend payment under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. It was the first missed payment for 23 of the banks; for the others, it was at least their second miss.

The number of banks missing their TARP payments rose for the third straight quarter. In February, 74 banks deferred their payments; 55 deferred last November.

SNL Financial's analysis found 20 banks have missed four or more payments since the program began in 2008, while eight banks have missed five payments.

Under the TARP program, the U.S. Treasury invested in preferred shares issued banks looking for funds. The banks were to make regular dividend payments to the Treasury, and have the right to repurchase the shares at some point in the future.

While many of the largest U.S. banks easily repaid billions in TARP aid, more than 600 smaller banks still hold $130 billion from the program, created at the height of the financial crisis.

In some cases, small banks are renegotiating the repayment terms. Midwest Banc Holdings [MBHI 0.02 -0.004 (-16.67%) ], for example, agreed to swap $84.8 million in preferred shares issued under the TARP program in 2008 for $15.5 million in common shares. That would have meant an 80 percent loss for the government—and the U.S. taxpayer—on the initial investment. But the swap was contingent on the bank raising more private capital, which it failed to do. Regulators seized the bank in May.

The next quarterly TARP payments to the U.S. Treasury are due by August 16.

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BP Chairman Creates His Own Man-Made Disaster

How's this for a want ad? Wanted: British multi-national conglomerate seeks one telegenic, well-spoken public relations executive who can explain things and not talk down to people. Our ideal candidate does not automatically elicit reactions of rage from brief exposure to questions, and doesn't think business owners, property owners, and coastal southerners are "little people."

I wonder why they can't seem to fill that spot?

BP comment about 'small people' causes anger

NEW ORLEANS – The BP chairman's comment that the oil giant cares about "the small people" received an icy reception on Wednesday from residents along the Gulf Coast.

BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg told reporters in Washington: "I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don't care, but that is not the case with BP. We care about the small people."

Justin Taffinder of New Orleans was not amused.

"We're not small people. We're human beings. They're no greater than us. We don't bow down to them. We don't pray to them," Taffinder said.

Svanberg is Swedish, and his comments may have been an unintentional slight. But coastal residents are angry over the oil spill disaster and at BP CEO Tony Hayward's comments that he "wants his life back."

Terry Hanners, who is retired from state and federal law enforcement and has a small construction company in Gulf Shores, Ala., said the "small people" remark revealed something about BP's frame of mind.

"These BP people I've met are good folks. I've got a good rapport with them," said Hanners, 74. "But BP does not care about us. They are so far above us. We are the nickel-and-dime folks of this world."

Asked about the BP chairman's remark, BP spokesman Toby Odonetold The Associated Press in an e-mail that "it is clear that what he means is that he cares about local businesses and local people. This was a slip in translation."

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