Floyd Brown, a longtime conservative strategist who heads the conservative National Campaign Fund, said he is target="_blank">launching an ad to expose Obama’s weakness on gang violence. See it here.

Chicago is a war zone with 32 Shot, 2 Stabbed, and 6 Dead – last weekend. One incident involved a man with an AK-47 semi-automatic assault rifle in a shootout with police. Friday night two teens were gunned down in front of a church. Police helicopters routinely patrol so-called “hot zones” where gang infestation is worst. The greatest of the mostly ethnic gang provoked and inflamed by hate mongering and is largely on Chicago’s south side exceeding anything experienced during the mob violence of the Al Capone era. It is a St. Valentine’s Day massacre every weekend.target="_blank">
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Hillary Clinton’s ill-advised threat that if she were in the White House she would nuke Iran if it attacks Israel, UAE, Saudi Arabia or Dubai broke new ground, and shocked many foreign policy experts as pugnacious. The U. S. has consistently said it will react aggressively to any such attack on Israel but has tempered such comments. Clinton’s overt threat raises questions of payback for millions in contribution to her husband’s library by Saudis, Dubai and IAE interests and her husband’s multi million lobbying contract with Dubai.

Heretofore Iran is known to have looked forward to another Clinton presidency or an Obama regime believing either would be more malleable as it seeks to delay any action to hinder its full speed quest for nuclear weapons.

The BBC reports that “The GAO is the audit and investigative arm of the US Congress. Its report said that more than six years after the 11 September 2001 attacks, the US still does not have a coherent plan to destroy the threat from Islamist militants. It said that both the US and Pakistan agree that “al-Qaeda had regenerated its ability to attack the United States and had succeeded in establishing a safe haven in Pakistan’s militant hotbed of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata)”.

A leading member of the American Jewish community told NEWSMAX this week to expect a U. S. attack on Iran this summer. Although Israel will not be directly involved it expects retaliatory strikes and heavy casualties and told Iran to expect a “prompt severe reaction … which will destroy the Iranian nation.” On Sunday Iran “abruptly cancelled” a meeting with the International Atomic Energy Agency that was set to investigate allegation Iran has already tried to make a nuclear bomb.”

FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress last week that the threat of intelligence-gathering by computer and other electronic means is expanding. “The threat of cyber-related foreign intelligence operations to the U.S. is rapidly expanding,” Mueller told a House Appropriations subcommittee. “The number of actors with the ability to utilize computers for illegal, harmful, and possibly devastating purposes continues to rise.”

Mueller said cyber intrusions beyond those carried out by non-government hackers have “compromised computers on U.S. government, private sector, and allied networks,” Mueller said. Mueller was testifying on FBI efforts to counter cyber threats during a budget hearing the Bureau’s request for $7.1 billion for fiscal 2009. FBI counter cyber efforts include disrupting computer attacks domestically. “The FBI’s intelligence and law enforcement role supports response to cyber events at U.S. government agencies, U.S. military installations, and the broader private sector,” he said. During a hearing in the Senate March 5, Mueller said the FBI has identified more than one million potential victims of “botnet cybercrime” as part of “Operation Bot Roast.”

The effort has targeted “botnets” or groups of compromised computers under the remote command and control of a computer hacker. Mueller did not mention specific countries, but other officials have said China’s intelligence services are known to use computer intrusions to download vast amounts of U.S. government information of intelligence and economic value.

To prepare for longer range missiles from Iran and Syria, Israel plans a major test of its Arrow-2 missile defense system. The Israel Air Force in cooperation with the United States would conduct the first test of Arrow-2 against a missile meant to simulate the extended-range Shihab-3 ballistic missile.

Israel’s intelligence community has detected Hizbullah military preparations throughout southern and central Lebanon in recent weeks. There is growing concern that such preparations are a precursor to war. In addition Syria and Iran have linked their missile development programs. Syria has been extending the range of its Scud-class missile arsenal to the point where U.S. interests could be threatened, Israeli is threatened as well as at least one other ally.

Former U. S. President Carter is in the region and has been sternly warned about interfering and encouraging Hamas, Hizbullah or their backers in Syria and elsewhere. Carter choses to ignore warnings of the harm he can do, and the warnings of U. S., Israeli and others.

“No one seems to know what Carter thinks he is doing. But, he is damned foolish and what he is doing I dangerous,” undisclosed U. S. sources said.

Colonel Kaddafi’s Libya has been caught red handed for secretly trying to buy 500,000 Chinese made Ak-47 assault rifles and 10 million rounds of ammunition from Italian gangsters for the purpose of distributing them to terrorists elsewhere. Wiretaps learned China sold the weapons for $80 each but the final price was $125 by the time government officials were paid off and other gangsters skimmed off money. Kaddafi is notorius for clandestine support of terrorists. Libya said the weapons for its use but that amounts to 5 weapons per active duty and reserve soldier.

Chinese civilians migrating to places like Europe, Africa and the U. S. are expected to keep their eyes open, and report to Chinese intelligence when asked about what they see and maybe working on. It’s understood that such cooperation is necessary to protect kin back in China. In dangerous places cooperation (spying) ensures access to Chinese government protection in the event of unrest in their new homeland.

The Chinese government can lean pretty hard on countries that allow local Chinese to be molested. For example, when Islamic militants raided Chinese brothels in Pakistan last year, the Pakistani government was persuaded to crack down on the militants, killing hundreds of them. The Chinese brothels have been left alone since then and continue to funnel profits back to the communist government.

China’s foreign exchange reserves (foreign currency and deposits held by Chinese banks) are now over $1.6 trillion. That’s an increase of over 40 percent in the last year. Apparently, China has become the place to park your money. This includes dirty money owned by criminal organizations, dictators and all manner of shady operators.

The U.S. State Department said on Thursday it had advised former President Jimmy Carter, 83, against meeting the leader of the terrorists group Hamas in Syria this week. Israel also expressed concern over such a meeting. Carter, singlehandedly created today’s Iran, and facilitated the problems in the region and world is ignoring both appeals in favor of his own misguided view of the world. In his 2006 book Carter described Israeli policy in the occupied territories as “a system of apartheid” and is hypercritical of U. S. foreign policy.

There’s a lot of debate about George Bush’s legacy these days. Remember the spin surrounding the administration’s recently renewed efforts on the Middle East peace process? That was all about trying to bring one positive event to Bush’s legacy. Admittedly he hasn’t spent much time brokering peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, but that’s only because he’s been busy orchestrating war in Afghanistan and Iraq. A president only has so much time in a day. While others ruminate about Bush’s replacement, I’m delving into more concrete things, like the Bush Library at Southern Methodist University. What will go into that library? What will best represent the Bush Legacy? I have some suggestions.

I’d break it down into “rooms,” the first being The 9-11 Room. That was truly a watershed event, an opportunity both for domestic unity after a tainted election and unprecedented international cooperation. Instead President Bush very quickly reduced it to one giant photo op. Remember that photo of Bush at Ground Zero, holding a megaphone in one hand with his other arm around the shoulders of one of New York City’s finest? The firefighter in the photo is just one of the many men and women who spent days and nights breathing in the acrid smoke and sifting thorough the still-smoldering debris. The photo would certainly illustrate the President’s solidarity with these heroes. But there’s another story he wants to avoid. It’s the story of how the government suppressed the danger of breathing the air in New York in the days following the attacks. In 2006, ninety people died of illnesses tied to 9-11 recovery efforts; that’s up from about twenty. It’s a story about forgotten people, once hailed as heroes, suffering with chronic illnesses and slowly dying in obscurity with little support from the government they so willingly believed in and selflessly served.

Next, comes The Protect America Room with a copy of the U.S.A. Patriot Act, signed into law on October 26, 1991. This historic document marks the birth of the all-out attack on our Constitutional rights, giving the government unprecedented powers to search telephone, e-mail, medical and financial records without a court order all in the name of fighting terrorism. Let’s not forget the Protect America Act of 2007, a law that legitimizes Bush’s illegal wiretapping of his own citizens. According to the ACLU’s web site, it allows for the “massive, untargeted collection of international communications without court order or meaningful oversight by either Congress or the courts.” It’s still unclear which version of the act will be included, the one with or without retroactive immunity for the telecom giants that helped Bush before there was actually a law authorizing the wiretapping. While the bill has been passed without telecom immunity, our imperial president has stated that he will veto that version.

The War on Terror Room would come next. President Bush likes to call himself a “war president.” That timeless photo of the now-free Iraqis toppling Saddam’s statue would have to be included. However, the administration should refrain from using actual war photos. It’s never good to show people on either side being blown up by roadside bombs and/or shot. Instead, they can include a film clip time line of the speeches leading up to the Iraq war…the inspirational ones incorporating the 935 lies Bush and the key members of his administration told to justify the war. The Center for Public Integrity has already done all the work at http://www.publicintegrity.org! Bush should avoid any mention of the other war zone, Afghanistan, and the dismal effort made to capture the real architect of the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

The Domestic Policy Room would have its own Veto Zone. The President can tout his tax cuts for the richest Americans, while the poor and middle class stagger under a sagging economy of his creation. In the Veto Zone, Bush can showcase his tough stand against the “fiscally irresponsible” expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act. This law would have provided health care coverage to 3.9 million uninsured children at an additional cost of $34.5 billion dollars over five years (an increase that would be covered by a 61-cent increase in the cigarette tax and other tobacco taxes). In contrast, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated the monthly cost of the Iraq war to be as high as $12 billion. The total cost of the Iraq war could run up to $3 trillion. Do the math and determine who is truly fiscally irresponsible.

The misinformed won’t stop there. The Disaster Response Room will feature that powerful 2005 Hurricane Katrina speech where Mr. Bush says “the Gulf Coast must be rebuilt with an eye toward wiping out the persistent poverty and racial injustice plain to all in the suffering of the black and the poor in Hurricane Katrina’s wake.” It’s 2008 and many are still displaced and waiting to go back home. Others have given up entirely on ever returning to their home state. Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation is doing more to build affordable housing in New Orleans than our own government. Instead, abandoned buildings are being purchased for conversion to high priced condos. The same thing is happening in Mississippi, where areas are turning into casino havens for the rich. The Bush administration’s version of the war on poverty is displacing and dispersing the poor throughout the rest of the country to fend for themselves.

Don’t forget The Interrogation Room. Here the torture techniques encouraged by this administration, continually honed at Guantanamo Bay and applied to extreme at Abu Ghraib will be hailed as powerful tools in the war on terror. It smacks of hypocrisy that George Bush once cited Saddam Hussein’s cruelty as a justification for removing him from power. Of course, our president doesn’t see himself in that light. He believes it’s his destiny is to bring freedom and democracy to the Middle East, one way or another. He answers to a higher power. The end justifies the means.

Finally, let’s finish the library with The Congressional Mastery Room. The bully president will be shown brazenly breaking many national and international laws and still escaping impeachment, while simultaneously holding a Democratic Congress hostage and preventing any legislation that might actually benefit the American people from becoming law.

Maybe my reasoning is flawed. But why would Americans want to give a third term to the most unpopular administration in American history? While many Americans still envision John McCain as the straight talking, special interest-disdaining maverick candidate of the 2000 election season, the fact is that he’s never really been any of those things. To make it worse, he’s even changed his position on the issue of waterboarding. Why? Now 71 and perhaps sensing his “running” days are coming to an end, he is John McCain, candidate for President of the United States and it is now or never. Be afraid. Be very afraid. A vote for John McCain is a vote for George W. Bush and a McCain win is akin to giving our current imperial president an undeserved third term.

Marching in step with the Bush war doctrine

Mr. Bush recently stated that the GOP will prevail in the 2008 election so that we can continue what he no doubt feels is the good fight in Iraq. If this is the case, then Bush’s worldwide aggression is in good hands. John McCain is a full-fled