The Taliban: They're not that bad!; Hate Crimes Passes House Attached to Defense Bill; Bait and Switch

1) AP source: Obama focusing on al-Qaida, not Taliban WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is prepared to accept some Taliban involvement in Afghanistan's political future and will determine how many more U.S. troops to send to the war based only on keeping al-Qaida at bay, a senior administration official said Thursday. The sharpened focus by Obama's team on fighting al-Qaida above all other goals, while downgrading the emphasis on the Taliban, comes in the midst of an intensely debated administration review of the increasingly unpopular war. Yeah, the Taliban. They’re not that bad. They were only hiding Osama bin Laden and refused to extradite him. The Taliban is OWNED by Osama bin Laden! (see http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-18951967.html, October 2001 article: “WASHINGTON - Osama bin Laden has provided an estimated $100 million in cash and military assistance to the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan over the last five years, making bin Laden the single greatest supporter of the Afghan regime, according to intelligence information presented recently to President Bush and his senior national security advisers.”).  Bowing to the reality that the Taliban is too ingrained in Afghanistan's culture to be entirely defeated, the administration is prepared to accept some Taliban role in parts of Afghanistan, the official said. That could mean paving the way for Taliban members willing to renounce violence (there ARE no Taliban members willing to renounce violence!) to participate in a central government — the kind of peace talks advocated by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to little receptiveness from the Taliban. It might even mean ceding some regions of the country to the Taliban. See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091009/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_us_afghanistan Remember the Taliban’s surly comments about Obama calling some of them “moderate” back in March (see below)? “A moderate Taliban is one who has run out of ammunition”. - Michelle Malkin “Obama, in an interview with the New York Times, expressed an openness to adapting tactics in Afghanistan that had been used in Iraq to reach out to moderate elements there. "This does not require any response or reaction for this is illogical," Qari Mohammad Yousuf, a purported spokesman for the insurgent group, told Reuters when asked if its top leader Mullah Mohammad Omar would make any comment about Obama's proposal. "The Taliban are united, have one leader, one aim, one policy...I do not know why they are talking about moderate Taliban and what it means?" "If it means those who are not fighting and are sitting in their homes, then talking to them is meaningless. This really is surprising the Taliban." See: http://in.reuters.com/article/southAsiaNews/idINIndia-38433020090310 Remember Condoleeza Rice’s comments in September? "The last time we left Afghanistan, and we abandoned Pakistan," she said, "that territory became the very territory on which Al Qaeda trained and attacked us on September 11th. So our national security interests are very much tied up in not letting Afghanistan fail again and become a safe haven for terrorists.  "It's that simple," she declared, "if you want another terrorist attack in the U.S., abandon Afghanistan." See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/22/condoleezza-rice-if-you-w_n_294755.html 2) Taliban suicide attack kills 17 in Afghan capital: No kidding!!! Isn’t it ironic that this headline was right underneath Article #1 on the Yahoo News homepage? KABUL – A suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle outside the Indian Embassy in the bustling center of the Afghan capital Thursday, killing 17 people in the second major attack in the city in less than a month. The Afghan Foreign Ministry hinted at Pakistani involvement — a charge Pakistan denied. The blast occurred a day after the war entered its ninth year and as President Barack Obama was deliberating a request by the top commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal for up to 40,000 more troops. Opponents of a troop increase want to shift focus to missile strikes and special operations against al-Qaida-linked groups in Pakistan. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack — the second against the Indian Embassy in the past two years — and specified that the Indians were the target. See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091009/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan 3) Morning Bell: The Baucus Bait And Switch Throughout the health care debate, President Barack Obama repeatedly promised the American people that his health care plan “will help bring our deficits under control in the long term.” The problem is that the White House could not get the Congressional Budget Office to cooperate. Throughout the summer the CBO issued report after report showing that the versions of Obamacare working their way through Congress all added to the deficit. …Enter Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-MT) who was determined to manipulate the CBO’s scoring system as best he could and deliver a deficit neutral version of Obamacare. After months of working directly with CBO staff, Baucus scored a victory for Obamacare yesterday when the CBO released a preliminary analysis purporting to show that the Baucus bill would reduce deficits by a total of $81 billion over the next decade. The New York Times awarded Baucus with the headline that the White House has been searching for since the debate first began: “Health Care Bill Gets Green Light in Cost Analysis.” But this headline and the accompanying article are fundamentally dishonest. As the Politico reported yesterday: “While the media and lawmakers often shorthand a CBO letter as a “score” or “cost estimate,” today’s CBO letter is neither. Because the bill is still in “conceptual,” or layman’s terms, CBO’s letter today was a “preliminary analysis.” For it to be an official cost estimate, the bill has to be translated into legislative language.” Indeed, the CBO went to great pains to emphasize this fact in their letter to Congress: “CBO and JCT’s analysis is preliminary in large part because the Chairman’s mark, as amended, has not yet been embodied in legislative language.” But this isn’t even the most deceptive part of what the left in Congress is trying to pull on the American people. Not only does the Baucus bill not even really exist, just a Vapor Bill filled with conceptual language, it is about to be completely thrown out the window when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) merges it with the deficit busting HELP bill to move it to the Senate floor. Then the real deception begins. Majority Leader Reid will then move to proceed on a House passed TARP tax bill, completely gut it, and insert his version of Obamacare. After the Senate passes the bill it will go to the House where if it is approved without amendment, it can then proceed directly to President Obama’s desk for signing. Throughout this whole time, the White House and the left in Congress will be using headlines like the one from the New York Times this morning to claim that Obamacare will reduce the deficit. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Baucus bill is the only version of Obamacare to get anything close to a deficit neutral nod from CBO and even that is done through creative deception. When it is combined with these other bills, Obamacare is certain to become an even greater budget buster once again. But the left’s entire strategy is to move fast so that a true CBO cost estimate of what Congress is actually voting on never happens. See: http://blog.heritage.org/2009/10/08/morning-bell-the-baucus-bait-and-switch/ 3a) Reid ‘Likely’ to Make Entire Health Bill an Amendment to Unrelated Tax Bill That House Passed in March (CNSNews.com) -- A senior aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told CNSNews.com that it is “likely” that Reid will use H.R. 1586—a bill passed by the House in March to impose a 90-percent tax on bonuses paid to employees of certain bailed-out financial institutions—as a “shell” for enacting the final version of the Senate’s health care bill, which Reid is responsible for crafting. Under the procedure, the substance of House Resolution 1586 would be removed and replaced with the entire Senate health care package. The maneuver would initially require the support of 60 senators to vote for cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 1586 (i.e., end debate on the congressional procedure and move forward). …If the House were to then vote on the bill as passed by the Senate without amending it, it could be sent directly to the president for his signature without going through a House-Senate conference committee and another round of votes in each chamber. Concerning that point, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told CNSNews.com on Tuesday that he would not rule in or rule out the possibility of the House holding a direct vote on the Senate health care bill without amending it if it came to the House in the form of H.R. 1586.   The actual final text of the legislation will be determined by Reid himself, who will consolidate the legislation approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and the still-unapproved legislation from the Senate Finance Committee. Reid will be able to draft and insert textual language that was not expressly approved by either committee. People of Nevada (and the rest of the US)! Do you see this? SHARRON ANGLE NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT TO DEFEAT THIS ARROGANT SCHEMER!!! Please go to http://www.sharronangle.com/ and donate to Sharron’s campaign.  See: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/55081 4) 34 banks don't pay their quarterly TARP dividends The U.S. taxpayers' investments in smaller banks are increasingly at risk. In a sign that more banks are under great pressure from the recession, 34 financial institutions did not pay their quarterly dividends in August to the Treasury on funds obtained under the Troubled Asset Relief Fund (TARP). The number almost doubled from 19 in May when payments were last made, and also raised questions about Treasury's judgment in approving these banks as "healthy," a necessary step for them to get TARP funding. …Treasury has given $365 billion to 700 institutions from TARP. AIG, to which the government has pledged $180 billion, has accumulated $1.6 billion in unpaid dividends. And CIT, which received $2.3 billion from TARP, said in a regulatory filing that it is restructuring its debt and seeking approval from bondholders for a pre-packaged bankruptcy. If that happened, it would wipe out the entire government investment. See: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/banking/2009-10-07-banks-tarp-dividends_N.htm 5) Congress acts to extend hate crimes to cover gays WASHINGTON – The House voted Thursday to make it a federal crime to assault people because of their sexual orientation, significantly expanding the hate crimes law enacted in the days after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in 1968. With expected passage by the Senate, federal prosecutors will for the first time be able to intervene in cases of violence perpetrated against gays. Civil rights groups and their Democratic allies have been trying for more than a decade to broaden the reach of hate crimes law. This time it appears they will succeed. The measure is attached to a must-pass $680 billion defense policy bill and President Barack Obama — unlike President George W. Bush — is a strong supporter. The House passed the defense bill 281-146, with 15 Democrats and 131 Republicans in opposition. …Many Republicans, normally stalwart supporters of defense bills, voted against it because of the addition of what they referred to as "thought crimes" legislation (emphasis mine). "This is radical social policy that is being put on the defense authorization bill, on the backs of our soldiers, because they probably can't pass it on its own," House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said. GOP opponents were not assuaged by late changes in the bill to strengthen protections for religious speech and association — critics argued that pastors expressing beliefs about homosexuality could be prosecuted if their sermons were connected to later acts of violence against gays. …The federal government can step in after the Justice Department certifies that a state is unwilling or unable to follow through on a purported hate crime. See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091008/ap_on_go_co/us_gays_hate_crimes 6) Rangel Keeps Post but Support Softens WASHINGTON -- Democrats defeated the latest effort by Republicans to remove Rep. Charles Rangel from his chairmanship of the influential Ways and Means Committee, but couldn't stop Democratic defections in what had been a united party front. …The vote was the third effort by Republicans to remove Mr. Rangel from the helm of the tax-writing committee in the last year. …Although they lost on the House floor, Republicans are aiming to score political points by putting Democrats on the defensive and keeping Mr. Rangel's ethics issues in the news. Mr. Rangel stands accused of several ethical lapses, including failing to disclose income on a rental property in the Dominican Republic on official personal financial statements filed with Congress. He also used his House letterhead when asking for donations to an educational center in New York that bears his name. In August, Mr. Rangel amended his official personal financial statements to reveal a total of more than $500,000 in assets that he hadn't previously disclosed, as required. See: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125493970469271321.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLTopStories