Specter's Blog

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, August 27, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Election '08: The Obama camp tries to suppress a campaign ad and university archives linking the candidate to a '60s terrorist who hosted his first campaign fundraiser. Is he being "swiftboated," or is this a cover-up?

When Obama's association with William Ayers was raised at a Democratic debate this year, Obama replied: "This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood. . . . He's not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis."

Tuesday's release of papers from a Chicago school reform project known as the Annenberg Challenge shows once again Barack Obama has a problem with the truth.

The long-sought records that were kept under wraps at the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC), show that Obama and Ayers attended board meetings, retreats and at least one news conference as the education project got under way. The records also show the two continued to attend meetings together during the 1995-2001 operation of the program.

Clearly the relationship between Ayers and Obama is much deeper and longer than Obama admits. They in fact were partners in various entities and regularly exchanged ideas, including on how to turn Chicago schools into re-education camps to create a generation of social revolutionaries.

Tuesday's release of the papers of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge were sought by the National Review's Stanley Kurtz, who had met a stone wall erected by Obama's UIC friends. UIC temporarily closed the supposedly public archives after Kurtz inquired. Ayers, who has long taught there, may have had a hand in suppressing the documents showing Obama to be a liar.

The UIC records show that in the 1990s, Ayers was instrumental in starting the Annenberg Challenge, securing a $50 million grant to reform the Chicago Public Schools, part of a national initiative funded by Ambassador Walter Annenberg, who died in 2002.

Obama was given the Annenberg board chairmanship only months before his first run for office. He ran the fiscal arm that distributed grants to schools and raised matching funds. Ayers participated in a second entity known as the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, the operational arm that worked with grant recipients. They met and talked often.

When Obama first ran for office, articles in the Chicago Defender and the local Hyde Park Herald mentioned his Annenberg chairmanship among his qualifications.

During Obama's tenure as Annenberg chairman, Ayers' own education projects received substantial funding. As we've noted in our series, "The Audacity of Socialism," Ayers, now a tenured distinguished professor of education at UIC, works to educate teachers in socialist revolutionary ideology, urging that it be passed on to impressionable students.

One of Ayer's descriptions for a course called "Improving Learning Environments" says prospective K-12 teachers need to "be aware of the social and moral universe we inhabit and . . . be a teacher capable of hope and struggle, outrage and action, teaching for social justice and liberation."

The Annenberg papers are quite extensive — 132 boxes containing 947 file folders with 70 linear feet of material. They undoubtedly contain more surprises regarding Obama's relationship with Ayers, one of many relationships Obama has sought to hide.

Obama is actively trying to suppress a campaign ad by an independent group that notes Obama's long and intimate relationship with Ayers. The ad is put out by the conservative American Issues Project (AIP) and financed by Texas billionaire Harold Simmons.

Simmons was one of the main funders of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Democrats cry Obama is being "swift boated" and blame that examination of John Kerry for his loss, not his less than swift campaign.

The ad factually states: "Obama's political career was launched in Ayers' home. And the two served together on a left-wing board. Why would Barrack Obama be friends with someone who bombed the Capitol and is proud of it? Do you know enough to elect Barack Obama?"

We say not nearly enough. As columnist and political analyst Michael Barone points out, Obama has left no papers from his Illinois Senate days. Nor has he listed his law firm clients or provided more than one page of his medical records.

Obama has tried to distance himself from Ayers, his former campaign contributor and foundation colleague. When asked in the Pennsylvania debate if he could "explain that relationship for the voters and explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem?" Obama's lame response was that "the notion that somehow, as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old somehow reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense to me."

It makes sense to us. Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground organization that bombed the U.S. Capitol and Pentagon four decades ago, wasn't just a passing acquaintance to Obama.

When Obama was making his first run for the Illinois Senate, Ayers and terrorist wife Bernadine Dohrn had Obama to his house for a 1995 campaign event. Ayers also served with Obama on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago for three years and made a donation to the Friends of Barack Obama in 2001

The AIP ad has run about 150 times in markets in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and Michigan.

Obama campaign lawyer Robert Bauer has warned station managers suggesting their broadcast license might be at risk: "Your station is committed to operating in the public interest, an objective that cannot be satisfied by accepting for compensation material of such malicious falsity."

Bauer has also written twice to the Justice Department demanding "prompt action to investigate and to prosecute" Simmons and AIP for violation of campaign laws and individual contribution limits. The problem is that, as the Annenberg papers show, the ad is breathtakingly true and accurate.

The only thing needing investigating is why Obama is trying so hard to hide his past. Full disclosure is change we can believe in.

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, August 27, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Election '08: The Obama camp tries to suppress a campaign ad and university archives linking the candidate to a '60s terrorist who hosted his first campaign fundraiser. Is he being "swiftboated," or is this a cover-up?

When Obama's association with William Ayers was raised at a Democratic debate this year, Obama replied: "This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood. . . . He's not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis."

Tuesday's release of papers from a Chicago school reform project known as the Annenberg Challenge shows once again Barack Obama has a problem with the truth.

The long-sought records that were kept under wraps at the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC), show that Obama and Ayers attended board meetings, retreats and at least one news conference as the education project got under way. The records also show the two continued to attend meetings together during the 1995-2001 operation of the program.

Clearly the relationship between Ayers and Obama is much deeper and longer than Obama admits. They in fact were partners in various entities and regularly exchanged ideas, including on how to turn Chicago schools into re-education camps to create a generation of social revolutionaries.

Tuesday's release of the papers of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge were sought by the National Review's Stanley Kurtz, who had met a stone wall erected by Obama's UIC friends. UIC temporarily closed the supposedly public archives after Kurtz inquired. Ayers, who has long taught there, may have had a hand in suppressing the documents showing Obama to be a liar.

The UIC records show that in the 1990s, Ayers was instrumental in starting the Annenberg Challenge, securing a $50 million grant to reform the Chicago Public Schools, part of a national initiative funded by Ambassador Walter Annenberg, who died in 2002.

Obama was given the Annenberg board chairmanship only months before his first run for office. He ran the fiscal arm that distributed grants to schools and raised matching funds. Ayers participated in a second entity known as the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, the operational arm that worked with grant recipients. They met and talked often.

When Obama first ran for office, articles in the Chicago Defender and the local Hyde Park Herald mentioned his Annenberg chairmanship among his qualifications.

During Obama's tenure as Annenberg chairman, Ayers' own education projects received substantial funding. As we've noted in our series, "The Audacity of Socialism," Ayers, now a tenured distinguished professor of education at UIC, works to educate teachers in socialist revolutionary ideology, urging that it be passed on to impressionable students.

One of Ayer's descriptions for a course called "Improving Learning Environments" says prospective K-12 teachers need to "be aware of the social and moral universe we inhabit and . . . be a teacher capable of hope and struggle, outrage and action, teaching for social justice and liberation."

The Annenberg papers are quite extensive — 132 boxes containing 947 file folders with 70 linear feet of material. They undoubtedly contain more surprises regarding Obama's relationship with Ayers, one of many relationships Obama has sought to hide.

Obama is actively trying to suppress a campaign ad by an independent group that notes Obama's long and intimate relationship with Ayers. The ad is put out by the conservative American Issues Project (AIP) and financed by Texas billionaire Harold Simmons.

Simmons was one of the main funders of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Democrats cry Obama is being "swift boated" and blame that examination of John Kerry for his loss, not his less than swift campaign.

The ad factually states: "Obama's political career was launched in Ayers' home. And the two served together on a left-wing board. Why would Barrack Obama be friends with someone who bombed the Capitol and is proud of it? Do you know enough to elect Barack Obama?"

We say not nearly enough. As columnist and political analyst Michael Barone points out, Obama has left no papers from his Illinois Senate days. Nor has he listed his law firm clients or provided more than one page of his medical records.

Obama has tried to distance himself from Ayers, his former campaign contributor and foundation colleague. When asked in the Pennsylvania debate if he could "explain that relationship for the voters and explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem?" Obama's lame response was that "the notion that somehow, as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old somehow reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense to me."

It makes sense to us. Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground organization that bombed the U.S. Capitol and Pentagon four decades ago, wasn't just a passing acquaintance to Obama.

When Obama was making his first run for the Illinois Senate, Ayers and terrorist wife Bernadine Dohrn had Obama to his house for a 1995 campaign event. Ayers also served with Obama on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago for three years and made a donation to the Friends of Barack Obama in 2001

The AIP ad has run about 150 times in markets in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and Michigan.

Obama campaign lawyer Robert Bauer has warned station managers suggesting their broadcast license might be at risk: "Your station is committed to operating in the public interest, an objective that cannot be satisfied by accepting for compensation material of such malicious falsity."

Bauer has also written twice to the Justice Department demanding "prompt action to investigate and to prosecute" Simmons and AIP for violation of campaign laws and individual contribution limits. The problem is that, as the Annenberg papers show, the ad is breathtakingly true and accurate.

The only thing needing investigating is why Obama is trying so hard to hide his past. Full disclosure is change we can believe in.

I happened to catch this clip on Fox and Friends very early this morning. It SHOULD go viral ASAP. It MUST go viral, so everyone NEEDS to email it to everyone you know … no matter what their political party leaning.

The democrats are above nothing when making it politically advantageous for themselves.

They did it with the war(s) and our troops. They did it with Homeland Security. They did it with the President’s firing of judges. They did it with a no name, non-covert CIA agent that only sought a name and publicity.

They are NOW doing it with our economy’s lifeblood.

These people are criminal …

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell asks that the Senate consider a bill to allow offshore drilling, but Democrats, led by Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO) object.

Sen. McConnell then asks if the bill could be triggered when gas reaches $4.50 per gallon, then $5 per gallon, then $7.50 per gallon, and finally $10 per gallon. All objected to.

So how high does the gas price have to be for Democrats to agree to more oil drilling?

Dems Against Drilling

Saving the Earth — from America’s domestic energy supply.

By Charles Krauthammer (NRO)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opposes lifting the moratorium on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and on the Outer Continental Shelf. She won’t even allow it to come to a vote. With $4 gas having massively shifted public opinion in favor of domestic production, she wants to protect her Democratic members from having to cast an anti-drilling election-year vote. Moreover, given the public mood, she might even lose. This cannot be permitted. Why? Because as she explained to Politico: “I’m trying to save the planet; I’m trying to save the planet.”

A lovely sentiment. But has Pelosi actually thought through the moratorium’s actual effects on the planet?

Consider: 25 years ago, nearly 60 percent of U.S. petroleum was produced domestically. Today it’s 25 percent. From its peak in 1970, U.S. production has declined a staggering 47 percent. The world consumes 86 million barrels a day; the United States, roughly 20 million. We need the stuff to run our cars and planes and economy. Where does it come from?

Places like Nigeria where chronic corruption, environmental neglect and resulting unrest and instability lead to pipeline explosions, oil spills, and illegal siphoning by the poverty-stricken population — which leads to more spills and explosions. Just this week, two Royal Dutch Shell pipelines had to be shut down because bombings by local militants were causing leaks into the ground.

Compare the Niger Delta to the Gulf of Mexico, where deep-sea U.S. oil rigs withstood Hurricanes Katrina and Rita without a single undersea well suffering a significant spill.

The United States has the highest technology to ensure the safest drilling. Today, directional drilling — essentially drilling down, then sideways — allows access to oil that in 1970 would have required a surface footprint more than three times as large. Additionally, the U.S. has one of the most extensive and least corrupt regulatory systems on the planet.

Does Pelosi imagine that with so much of America declared off-limits, the planet is less injured as drilling shifts to Kazakhstan and Venezuela and Equatorial Guinea? That Russia will be more environmentally scrupulous than we in drilling in its Arctic?

The net environmental effect of Pelosi’s no-drilling willfulness is negative. Outsourcing U.S. oil production does nothing to lessen worldwide environmental despoliation. It simply exports it to more corrupt, less efficient, more unstable parts of the world — thereby increasing net planetary damage.

Democrats want no oil from the American OCS or ANWR. But of course they do want more oil. From OPEC. From where Americans don’t vote. From places Democratic legislators can’t see. On May 13, Sen. Chuck Schumer — deeply committed to saving just those pieces of the planet that might have huge reserves of American oil — demanded that the Saudis increase production by a million barrels a day. It doesn’t occur to him that by eschewing the slightest disturbance of the mating habits of the Arctic caribou, he is calling for the further exploitation of the pristine deserts of Arabia. In the name of the planet, mind you.

The other panacea, yesterday’s rage, is biofuels: We can’t drill our way out of the crisis, it seems, but we can greenly grow our way out. By now, however, it is blindingly obvious even to Democrats that biofuels are a devastating force for environmental degradation. It has led to the rape of “lungs of the world” rainforests in Indonesia and Brazil as huge tracts have been destroyed to make room for palm oil and sugar plantations.

Here in the U.S., one out of every three ears of corn is stuffed into a gas tank (by way of ethanol), causing not just food shortages abroad and high prices at home, but intensive increases in farming with all of the attendant environmental problems (soil erosion, insecticide pollution, water consumption, etc.).

This to prevent drilling on an area in the Arctic one-sixth the size of Dulles Airport that leaves untouched a refuge one-third the size of Britain.

There are a dizzying number of economic and national security arguments for drilling at home: a $700-billion oil balance-of-payment deficit, a gas tax (equivalent) levied on the paychecks of American workers and poured into the treasuries of enemy and terror-supporting regimes, growing dependence on unstable states of the Persian Gulf and Caspian basin. Pelosi and the Democrats stand athwart shouting: We don’t care. We come to save the planet!

They seem blissfully unaware that the argument for their drill-there-not-here policy collapses on its own environmental terms.

The Trillion Dollar Secret
By John Riley
Chief Strategist
01/18/08

For the past year or so, the investment world has been wrapped up in their version of a steroid scandal - the sub-prime mortgage mess. Banks are taking write-offs in the tens of billions and estimates are that write-offs will reach as high as $100 billion before long. CEO’s are losing their jobs and having to settle for multi-million dollar pensions. (Don’t you feel bad for them?)

Who to blame for this mess will be the subject of a myriad of Congressional hearings in the future. After spending millions investigating the whole sub-prime disaster, they will come to this simple conclusion: lenders got too aggressive and borrowers got in over their heads. In other words, risky loans ended up being risky. What a surprise!

But there is a secret right in front of everybody that the Fed, Wall Street and the banking industry wants to make sure investors don’t notice. It is the incredible growth in derivatives. If you think the sub-prime problem is big, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

According to the Comptroller of the Currency, total Derivatives in the top 25 banks in the US amount to about 180 Trillion dollars. Not billion, trillion. 1000 times a billion.

Source: Comptroller of the Currency, 3rd Quarter 2007 Format: CIS

To put this in perspective, the US GDP for the 3rd quarter of 2007 was about 11 Trillion dollars. So they are playing a game with a pool of fictional money that is 16 times bigger than our economy.

Let that sink in.

Now that you are interested, here’s some background info so you can get a grasp on what is going on.

What are Derivatives?
Derivatives are private contracts (bets) between financial institutions. They can be on the direction of commodities, the stock markets or currencies, but the banks’ favorites are interest rates. (You can go to the Comptroller of the Currency website to get their quarterly reports and see for yourself what Wall Street hopes you never see.)

(For those of you that are derivative experts, I am not going to go into an in-depth discussion of derivatives and all of their various types and uses. Nor am I going to get into the specific mechanisms of how they trade, how they are leveraged up to astronomical amounts and what notional means. This report is for investors, not derivative experts. It will be equivalent to explaining how a car works by saying your car goes when you hit the gas and stops when you hit the brakes. The details of how the gas pedal is attached to the linkage that controls the carburetor or how the brakes slow the car are left out and we completely ignored the transmission. If you want to learn the specifics of derivatives, the Comptroller of the Currency’s website is a good place to start.)

The scariest part of derivatives is their leverage. Like exchange traded options, derivative contracts can control assets for only a fraction of the contract value. The banks take the leverage to an extreme and have very little in assets backing up their derivative portfolios. According to the Comptroller, the top 25 banks have assets that only amount to about 6% of the Notional Value of their derivatives. JP Morgan, the biggest player in derivatives, has assets backing up its portfolio of only 1.60%.

What happens if the value of the portfolio were to change by 2%, what happens to the banks' assets? And with all of the recent scandals in Real Estate and other "creative strategies" the banks have been employing recently, how do we even know if their asset numbers are correct? Is it possible that the $1.40 Trillion in assets JP Morgan claims is somewhat less, thanks to writeoffs and bad real estate?

Derivatives have barely any regulation on them. For years, Congress tried and Greenspan stood in the way. Banks barely mention them in the annual reports except for a footnote.

Thanks to the lack of regulation, derivatives have grown dramatically. There has been a 473% increase in the Notional Value of derivatives at the top 25 banks since 1999.

And why not? They can produce billions in almost free revenues to the banks. Free revenues? Yes.

Source: Comptroller of the Currency, 3rd Quarter 2007 Format: CIS
JP Morgan is the biggest player in derivatives in the US.
They have only 1.60% of the derivatives backed by the bank's assets.

Why do Banks use Derivatives?
Here’s how they work. According to some sophisticated formulas and theories, if you make opposite bets with 2 different trading partners, you can capture the difference in the middle and get virtually risk free profits. If your 2 bets cancel each other out, then whatever is left over in the middle is profit, with zero risk.

Let’s say I bet with bank A that interest rates are going to go up. And I bet with bank B that they are going to go down. Both cancel each other out. But thanks to various strike prices and durations, we can get a small amount of difference in what I sell one contract for and what I buy the first one for. That difference is the whole game. The pennies I make in the middle are free. So I can keep them and make lots of money if I do it big enough.

According to the Comptroller, about 85% of all banks derivatives are this type. Which leaves 15% not. 15%, is not a lot, right. Not until you figure 15% of the 179 Trillion is $26.85 Trillion, still more than double the US economy! And more than double the amount of all the banks’ assets put together.

Here’s where the fun begins. Remember the example above? Well that is not really what they do. Some derivatives do not offset each other directly because the computer models tell them they may have some over correlations in other areas.

Let’s say that the bank wants to hedge the Yen against the Dollar. With one bank, they may sell the Dollar versus the Yen and with the other, buy the Dollar versus the… Euro. Euro? Maybe their computer Model has told them that buying the Euro might give them a small advantage, hedging the yen bet actually better than the yen itself.

Well you and I both know that this is foolish. The only thing that could possibly hedge the Yen bet would be the Yen. But their computer models are very sophisticated, working with all sorts of data input and constructing all sorts of scenarios to determine the least risky way to go.

Source: Comptroller of the Currency, 3rd Quarter 2007 Format: CIS
Since the end of 1999, the assets backing derivatives at the major banks has dropped from a shockingly low 11% to just about 6%. And the question you have to ask yourself - How much of those assets are real? How much of those assets are inflated real estate in New England or California? How much less is actually backing these derivatives?

What Could Go Wrong?
This is just what Long Term Capital (LTC) did back in the late 90’s. Remember them? They were the hedge fund that utilized the Black Scholes options model to run its derivative hedge fund to the point of bankruptcy. The fellas that ran LTC were only Nobel Prize winners (in economics) and the Black Scholes model was heralded as “the answer”. It is still used today.

What they failed to do was to have all of the bases covered. A funny thing happened - a sovereign nation wasn’t supposed to default on it debt. But Russia didn’t know the rules and so when they defaulted in the late 90’s, LTC went in the dumper.

These rules are going to become more important later on.

The Fed to the Rescue
So along came Alan Greenspan on his white horse to the rescue. He assembled a group of Wall Street bankers in a room and blessed the billions of dollars they each anteed up to help bail out LTC. It was about $100 billion total.

As Alan Greenspan told Congress months later in explaining why the Fed bailed out a private hedge fund, he told Congress that if he hadn’t, the entire financial structure of the US would have been in jeopardy. And this was just one little hedge fund with only about $100 billion. Imagine what damage JPMorgan could do with 92 trillion of derivatives.

So that brings us back to the rules and what is going on today.

Choice Between Two Bad Options
Without going into details, the US Dollar is toast. (Too much debt, out of control trade deficit, too much currency creation…) The housing market isn’t getting any better any time soon and the consumer is keeping his hands in his pockets. Along with that, overseas consumption is driving up inflation over here.

So with the sharp declines in the market and the obviously slowing economy, the Feds are looking to give us a present, a stimulus package. (read more about it in Irish Coffee)

The stimulus package is inflationary. It will kick the Dollar even further down. It will lower rates and everybody knows that is good for the economy and will save the day. (Not really, read article mentioned above)

But the Fed has to make a decision, lower rates and save the banks, but ignite inflation and kill the Dollar, or let the banks cave in under the weight of some bad derivatives but stave off inflation for a bit and protect the Dollar.

I think the Fed has determined that a bank failure would cause more damage to the economy than the collapse of the Dollar and higher inflation. I think they look at the decline of the Dollar so far and tell themselves, it hasn’t killed us yet.

Monetary World View
We’ve discussed this before (Money, Money) and its importance comes clear now. There are a number of economic theories that economists espouse. One that most of Wall Street and the Fed shares is their Monetary World View. Regardless of what you call it, it is the belief that interest rates control all things economic. Raise rates and the economy slows. Lower rates and the economy revives.

Without getting into the pro’s and cons, this is the basis for much of what they believe. And because of this, banks are comfortable putting trillions of dollars into interest rate strategies and derivatives that rely on this theory.

It is vitally important that the Fed continues to play the game as laid out by the Monetary World View. If they were to deviate, say raising rates to protect the Dollar at a time when the economy was slowing, it could be disastrous, since the banks would have been betting trillions on lower rates to rev up the economy. This then could put certain banks in jeopardy of failure as some have a little as 3% of their assets backing up the mountain of derivatives.

And forget about surprise moves. The Fed signals well in advance any expected turn in policy. A sudden shift could cause a bank to be left out on the wrong side of a $100 billion derivative. Big oops.

Conclusion
When thinking about the next Fed move, consider the implications of a 180 trillion dollar mistake. And even if you eliminate the derivatives that are netted out, that still leaves a pool more than double the size of the US economy.

Who is the Fed working for? Who is the Fed most concerned about? Who is the Fed likely to consider before making any moves. Given the choice between a Dollar crash or a major bank failure and closure, which do you think the Fed fears most? If you think the Fed doesn’t take the bank’s derivatives holdings into consideration, you have not been paying attention. It seems everything the Fed has been proposing since the summer is designed to throw the Dollar under the bus and let inflation run. All to protect the banks.

The sub-prime disaster is a drop in the bucket compared to the massive derivative monster in the banks. Don’t think the Fed doesn’t know this.

Investment Implications
Investors need to have exposure to investments that can benefit from higher inflation. These would include gold and commodities. TIPs could also benefit from higher inflation.

They also should hedge their Dollar positions with strategies to benefit from a declining Dollar.

Lastly, a big problem at a major bank could happen at anytime, but I highly doubt it will. Still, having a hedge position on the US markets is advisable. I think it will take a long time to unwind any problems at the banks and the unwinding could put a long term strain on the US stock markets. Longer term hedges like bear market funds should be a better long term choice to profit from the market decline.

A scene from the recent Colorado senate debate. The man reading from the resolution is Republican Bob Schaffer, the man standing to his left and looking uncomfortable is Democrat Mark Udall. Given the state of public opinion, I’m not sure how smart it is to remind voters that your opponent eventually came around to seeing the war as a mistake while you never did, but as a bit of political theater, I dig it. A lot.

Probably won’t do much good, though.

ABC News

July 5, 2008

The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program — a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium — reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.

The removal of 550 metric tons of “yellowcake” — the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment — was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam’s nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.

What’s now left is the final and complicated push to clean up the remaining radioactive debris at the former Tuwaitha nuclear complex about 12 miles south of Baghdad — using teams that include Iraqi experts recently trained in the Chernobyl fallout zone in Ukraine.

“Everyone is very happy to have this safely out of Iraq,” said a senior U.S. official who outlined the nearly three-month operation to The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

While yellowcake alone is not considered potent enough for a so-called “dirty bomb” — a conventional explosive that disperses radioactive material — it could stir widespread panic if incorporated in a blast. Yellowcake also can be enriched for use in reactors and, at higher levels, nuclear weapons using sophisticated equipment.

The Iraqi government sold the yellowcake to a Canadian uranium producer, Cameco Corp., in a transaction the official described as worth “tens of millions of dollars.” A Cameco spokesman, Lyle Krahn, declined to discuss the price, but said the yellowcake will be processed at facilities in Ontario for use in energy-producing reactors.

“We are pleased … that we have taken (the yellowcake) from a volatile region into a stable area to produce clean electricity,” he said.

The deal culminated more than a year of intense diplomatic and military initiatives — kept hushed in fear of ambushes or attacks once the convoys were under way: first carrying 3,500 barrels by road to Baghdad, then on 37 military flights to the Indian Ocean atoll of Diego Garcia and finally aboard a U.S.-flagged ship for a 8,500-mile trip to Montreal.

And, in a symbolic way, the mission linked the current attempts to stabilize Iraq with some of the high-profile claims about Saddam’s weapons capabilities in the buildup to the 2003 invasion.

Accusations that Saddam had tried to purchase more yellowcake from the African nation of Niger — and an article by a former U.S. ambassador refuting the claims — led to a wide-ranging probe into Washington leaks that reached high into the Bush administration.

Tuwaitha and an adjacent research facility were well known for decades as the centerpiece of Saddam’s nuclear efforts.

Israeli warplanes bombed a reactor project at the site in 1981. Later, U.N. inspectors documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had been stored in aging drums and containers since before the 1991 Gulf War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the official said.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have guarded the 23,000-acre site — surrounded by huge sand berms — following a wave of looting after Saddam’s fall that included villagers toting away yellowcake storage barrels for use as drinking water cisterns.

Yellowcake is obtained by using various solutions to leach out uranium from raw ore and can have a corn meal-like color and consistency. It poses no severe risk if stored and sealed properly. But exposure carries well-documented health concerns associated with heavy metals such as damage to internal organs, experts say.

“The big problem comes with any inhalation of any of the yellowcake dust,” said Doug Brugge, a professor of public health issues at the Tufts University School of Medicine.

Moving the yellowcake faced numerous hurdles.

Diplomats and military leaders first weighed the idea of shipping the yellowcake overland to Kuwait’s port on the Persian Gulf. Such a route, however, would pass through Iraq’s Shiite heartland and within easy range of extremist factions, including some that Washington claims are aided by Iran. The ship also would need to clear the narrow Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf, where U.S. and Iranian ships often come in close contact.

Kuwaiti authorities, too, were reluctant to open their borders to the shipment despite top-level lobbying from Washington.

An alternative plan took shape: shipping out the yellowcake on cargo planes.

But the yellowcake still needed a final destination. Iraqi government officials sought buyers on the commercial market, where uranium prices spiked at about $120 per pound last year. It’s currently selling for about half that. The Cameco deal was reached earlier this year, the official said.

At that point, U.S.-led crews began removing the yellowcake from the Saddam-era containers — some leaking or weakened by corrosion — and reloading the material into about 3,500 secure barrels.

In April, truck convoys started moving the yellowcake from Tuwaitha to Baghdad’s international airport, the official said. Then, for two weeks in May, it was ferried in 37 flights to Diego Garcia, a speck of British territory in the Indian Ocean where the U.S. military maintains a base.

On June 3, an American ship left the island for Montreal, said the official, who declined to give further details about the operation.

The yellowcake wasn’t the only dangerous item removed from Tuwaitha.

Earlier this year, the military withdrew four devices for controlled radiation exposure from the former nuclear complex. The lead-enclosed irradiation units, used to decontaminate food and other items, contain elements of high radioactivity that could potentially be used in a weapon, according to the official. Their Ottawa-based manufacturer, MDS Nordion, took them back for free, the official said.

The yellowcake was the last major stockpile from Saddam’s nuclear efforts, but years of final cleanup is ahead for Tuwaitha and other smaller sites.

The U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency plans to offer technical expertise.

Last month, a team of Iraqi nuclear experts completed training in the Ukrainian ghost town of Pripyat, which once housed the Chernobyl workers before the deadly meltdown in 1986, said an IAEA official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decontamination plan has not yet been publicly announced.

But the job ahead is enormous, complicated by digging out radioactive “hot zones” entombed in concrete during Saddam’s rule, said the IAEA official. Last year, an IAEA safety expert, Dennis Reisenweaver, predicted the cleanup could take “many years.”

The yellowcake issue also is one of the many troubling footnotes of the war for Washington.

A CIA officer, Valerie Plame, claimed her identity was leaked to journalists to retaliate against her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, who wrote that he had found no evidence to support assertions that Iraq tried to buy additional yellowcake from Niger.

A federal investigation led to the conviction of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice

ABC News

July 5, 2008

The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program — a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium — reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.

The removal of 550 metric tons of “yellowcake” — the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment — was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam’s nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.

What’s now left is the final and complicated push to clean up the remaining radioactive debris at the former Tuwaitha nuclear complex about 12 miles south of Baghdad — using teams that include Iraqi experts recently trained in the Chernobyl fallout zone in Ukraine.

“Everyone is very happy to have this safely out of Iraq,” said a senior U.S. official who outlined the nearly three-month operation to The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

While yellowcake alone is not considered potent enough for a so-called “dirty bomb” — a conventional explosive that disperses radioactive material — it could stir widespread panic if incorporated in a blast. Yellowcake also can be enriched for use in reactors and, at higher levels, nuclear weapons using sophisticated equipment.

The Iraqi government sold the yellowcake to a Canadian uranium producer, Cameco Corp., in a transaction the official described as worth “tens of millions of dollars.” A Cameco spokesman, Lyle Krahn, declined to discuss the price, but said the yellowcake will be processed at facilities in Ontario for use in energy-producing reactors.

“We are pleased … that we have taken (the yellowcake) from a volatile region into a stable area to produce clean electricity,” he said.

The deal culminated more than a year of intense diplomatic and military initiatives — kept hushed in fear of ambushes or attacks once the convoys were under way: first carrying 3,500 barrels by road to Baghdad, then on 37 military flights to the Indian Ocean atoll of Diego Garcia and finally aboard a U.S.-flagged ship for a 8,500-mile trip to Montreal.

And, in a symbolic way, the mission linked the current attempts to stabilize Iraq with some of the high-profile claims about Saddam’s weapons capabilities in the buildup to the 2003 invasion.

Accusations that Saddam had tried to purchase more yellowcake from the African nation of Niger — and an article by a former U.S. ambassador refuting the claims — led to a wide-ranging probe into Washington leaks that reached high into the Bush administration.

Tuwaitha and an adjacent research facility were well known for decades as the centerpiece of Saddam’s nuclear efforts.

Israeli warplanes bombed a reactor project at the site in 1981. Later, U.N. inspectors documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had been stored in aging drums and containers since before the 1991 Gulf War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the official said.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have guarded the 23,000-acre site — surrounded by huge sand berms — following a wave of looting after Saddam’s fall that included villagers toting away yellowcake storage barrels for use as drinking water cisterns.

Yellowcake is obtained by using various solutions to leach out uranium from raw ore and can have a corn meal-like color and consistency. It poses no severe risk if stored and sealed properly. But exposure carries well-documented health concerns associated with heavy metals such as damage to internal organs, experts say.

“The big problem comes with any inhalation of any of the yellowcake dust,” said Doug Brugge, a professor of public health issues at the Tufts University School of Medicine.

Moving the yellowcake faced numerous hurdles.

Diplomats and military leaders first weighed the idea of shipping the yellowcake overland to Kuwait’s port on the Persian Gulf. Such a route, however, would pass through Iraq’s Shiite heartland and within easy range of extremist factions, including some that Washington claims are aided by Iran. The ship also would need to clear the narrow Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf, where U.S. and Iranian ships often come in close contact.

Kuwaiti authorities, too, were reluctant to open their borders to the shipment despite top-level lobbying from Washington.

An alternative plan took shape: shipping out the yellowcake on cargo planes.

But the yellowcake still needed a final destination. Iraqi government officials sought buyers on the commercial market, where uranium prices spiked at about $120 per pound last year. It’s currently selling for about half that. The Cameco deal was reached earlier this year, the official said.

At that point, U.S.-led crews began removing the yellowcake from the Saddam-era containers — some leaking or weakened by corrosion — and reloading the material into about 3,500 secure barrels.

In April, truck convoys started moving the yellowcake from Tuwaitha to Baghdad’s international airport, the official said. Then, for two weeks in May, it was ferried in 37 flights to Diego Garcia, a speck of British territory in the Indian Ocean where the U.S. military maintains a base.

On June 3, an American ship left the island for Montreal, said the official, who declined to give further details about the operation.

The yellowcake wasn’t the only dangerous item removed from Tuwaitha.

Earlier this year, the military withdrew four devices for controlled radiation exposure from the former nuclear complex. The lead-enclosed irradiation units, used to decontaminate food and other items, contain elements of high radioactivity that could potentially be used in a weapon, according to the official. Their Ottawa-based manufacturer, MDS Nordion, took them back for free, the official said.

The yellowcake was the last major stockpile from Saddam’s nuclear efforts, but years of final cleanup is ahead for Tuwaitha and other smaller sites.

The U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency plans to offer technical expertise.

Last month, a team of Iraqi nuclear experts completed training in the Ukrainian ghost town of Pripyat, which once housed the Chernobyl workers before the deadly meltdown in 1986, said an IAEA official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decontamination plan has not yet been publicly announced.

But the job ahead is enormous, complicated by digging out radioactive “hot zones” entombed in concrete during Saddam’s rule, said the IAEA official. Last year, an IAEA safety expert, Dennis Reisenweaver, predicted the cleanup could take “many years.”

The yellowcake issue also is one of the many troubling footnotes of the war for Washington.

A CIA officer, Valerie Plame, claimed her identity was leaked to journalists to retaliate against her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, who wrote that he had found no evidence to support assertions that Iraq tried to buy additional yellowcake from Niger.

A federal investigation led to the conviction of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice

Where no enemy has gone before [Good rip on leftist media]
Renew America ^ | June 11, 2008 | Erik Rush

There's an axiom in Recovery (as in from addiction) circles which asserts that addictions are but symptoms of deeper emotional or psychological problems. Leaving aside the debate as to whether this holds water, I submit that the tremendous success of Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama is but a symptom of the broader disease: The establishment media (which includes broadcast news and print sources as well as the entertainment media) has finally subverted enough of the collective mind of America to usher in the era of socialism toward which the far Left has been maneuvering us for the last 40 years.

Like the seizure that alerted Sen. Ted Kennedy's doctors that he was suffering from a grave condition, it is just a symptom — albeit a very nasty one.

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals..."



- "Agent K," from the film Men in Black

Being convinced that the Republican Party is to blame for taking us to places we would rather not and shouldn't have gone, and that the George W. Bush presidency was a mistake that never should have happened, Americans are now shambling, glassy-eyed and drooling toward "Change," too transfixed by the captivating ultraviolet glow to hear the crackle of those who burst into nothingness in line ahead of them.

They have no idea what they've bought into, of course, the magnitude of the lies and the peril which awaits. They do not fathom that they are accepting a fundamental change in the paradigm of our social system from one in which the industrious and principled prosper versus one in which the indolent and capricious prosper.

As regards the political continuum in modern America, over the past 40 years the Democrat Party leadership transmogrified from elitist liberals into socialists. In the last 20, the Republican Party leadership became liberals, and the media has been a prime mover in this transformation. Having themselves been manipulated by those in the press to heed them rather than their constituents and conservative elements within the party leadership (which had brought past success), eunuchs in the GOP, driven by fear for their image and personal self-interest, sold America out to deviant parasites.

The walking mediocrities among the far Left (politically-active ideologues) and duped middle class voters believe the playing field will be "leveled" for them and "the downtrodden" once the faceless "rich" are brought under their leaders' sway. There is nothing in the historical record that indicates that they will have anything to look forward to but misery, abuse and pain, but logic is immaterial. By design, the power brokers of the far Left appealed to their emotions, not their intellect.

The power brokers and their operatives (such as those in the press, for example) believe that they will be among the unassailable elite. Once again, despite the historical record, they don't believe they will ever be counted among those who, in a fit of melancholy, climb into the trunk of an automobile and shoot themselves repeatedly in the head, as so many prominent figures in far Left regimes wind up doing.

Just a few of the dangerously dishonest representations in which the press has engaged over the last eight years:

• Television news bureaus withheld the more gruesome 9/11 footage — too graphic for their audiences, of course. The same criteria somehow doesn't apply to video of terrorists killed by American troops in Iraq. This was the beginning of their systematically propagandizing Americans into forgetting 9/11.
  
  

   

• Engendering sympathy for retrograde culture (at which they have excelled for some time) and radical Islamist killers are among other wild subjectivities put forth by the press concerning the War on Terror in general.
  
  

   

• The Iraq campaign was supposed to be over in half an hour. The scope and the frequency of the falsehoods, minimizations, manipulations and exacerbations conveyed by the press to Americans in this area are too numerous to address.
  
  

   

• Slandered, maligned and generally demonized President Bush and the Republican Party — unfortunately, with their help — on a scale never seen previously.
  
  

   

• Exhibited barefaced partiality for Sen. Barack Obama during the Democrat Party's primary process, evidenced by their downplaying glaring and perilous deficiencies in the candidate.
  
  

   

• The press knows that Mexican drug lords essentially own the U.S. — Mexico border. American women are being abducted from our southern border towns and spirited away south of the border to face unimaginable fates. Atrocities reminiscent of the Mongol invasion of China are taking place along the border every day. How many Americans (who don't live in border towns) are aware of these occurrences?
  
  

   

• While the far Left escalates its quest to stamp out Christianity in America, the religion is literally exploding in Asia and Africa, where believers hold to their faith despite persecution Christians have not experienced since the time of ancient Rome. One example is the genocide in Darfur, Sudan; the press conveniently neglects to include this component in its coverage of the crisis.
  
  

For better or worse, we have this thing called the First Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits government infringement upon the activities of the press. Little did the founders of our nation know that it would one day face a universally treasonous press that would, hell-bent on societal suicide, focus its energies toward bringing America to ruin.

Were the extent of the media's manipulation of information to the political gain of the far Left in America known, it might well lead to the storming of news bureaus across the country. A conservative individual with, say, George Soros's resources could take care of America's "press problems" fairly handily. This columnist has intellectually considered certain initiatives; unfortunately, addressing them here would be imprudent.

Although it does bear mentioning that the First Amendment only applies to the government abridging the freedom of the press — not the people...

I’m not going to rattle on in my usual ‘domestic oil drilling’ rant. You’ve heard it all …

I just want to repeat how the American public is being allowed … ENCOURAGED to believe the price they are paying at the gas pump is because of the greedy oil companies … When in reality, it is the restrictions, regulations, and political and junk-science ideology of Congress that are directly effecting, and continuing to effect, prices.

The American public NEEDS to hear the truth …

Fortune talks to Sens. Orrin Hatch and Wayne Allard about the roadblocks to oil shale production.

By Jon Birger

NEW YORK (Fortune) — You’d think this would be oil shale’s moment.

You’d think with gas prices topping $4 and consumers crying uncle, Congress would be moving fast to spur development of a domestic oil resource so vast - 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil shale in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming alone - it could eventually rival the oil fields of Saudi Arabia.

You’d think politicians would be tripping over themselves to arrange photo-ops with Harold Vinegar (whom I profiled in Fortune last November), the brilliant, Brooklyn-born chief scientist at Royal Dutch Shell whose research cracked the code on how to efficiently and cleanly convert oil shale - a rock-like fossil fuel known to geologists as kerogen - into light crude oil.

You’d think all of this, but you’d be wrong.

Last month, the U.S. Senate’s Appropriations Committee voted 15-14 to kill a bill that would have ended a one-year moratorium on enacting rules for oil shale development on federal lands (which is where the best oil shale is located). Most maddening of all - at least to someone like myself not steeped in the wacky ways of Washington - the swing vote on the appropriations committee, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., voted with the majority even though she actually opposes the moratorium.

“Sen. Salazar asked me to vote no. I did so at his request,” Landrieu told The Rocky Mountain News. A Landrieu staffer contacted by Fortune doesn’t dispute this, but notes that Landrieu did propose a compromise which Republicans rejected.

Arghh!

She was speaking of U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., who has emerged as the Senate’s leading oil shale opponent. Salazar inserted the aforementioned moratorium into an omnibus spending bill last December, and in May he proposed a new bill that would extend the moratorium another year.

Salazar’s efforts have essentially pulled the rug out from under Shell (RDSA) and other oil companies which have invested many, many millions into oil shale research since the passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which established the original framework for commercial leasing of oil shale lands. (Last year, oil shale represented Shell’s single biggest R&D expenditure.)

Salazar says he’s simply trying to slow things down in order to ensure environmental considerations don’t get trampled in the rush to turn western Colorado into a new Prudhoe Bay. But, ironically, his bid to extend the moratorium comes at a time when his fellow Senate Democrats have been blasting Big Oil for not reinvesting enough of their profits into developing new sources of energy.

I recently spoke with Republican U.S. Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Wayne Allard of Colorado, the two lawmakers working hardest to end the oil shale moratorium. Here are some excerpts from the interviews:

Fortune: Why do you consider developing oil shale such a high priority?

Sen. Hatch: We have as much oil in oil shale in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado as the rest of the world’s oil combined. Liberals and environmentalists can talk all they want about wind, solar and geothermal - all of which I’m for - but last time I checked, planes, trains, trucks, ships and cars don’t run on electricity. 98% of transportation fuel right now is oil. Ethanol is the only real alternative, and we’re seeing that ethanol has major limitations.

It’s pathetic. Environmentalists are very happy having us dependent on foreign oil. They’re unhappy with us developing our own. What they forget to say is that shipping fuel all the way from the middle east has a big greenhouse gas footprint too.

Fortune: Any hope of changing Sen. Salazar’s mind? After all, he says he’s not opposed to oil shale production in principle.

Sen. Allard: His mind seems pretty set. His argument is, if we delay this, it gives us an opportunity to phase it in gradually. But he’s got it turned around. We need the rules and regulations in place first. When the oil companies go to bid on their leases, they need have some idea what their royalties might be and what their remediation requirements might be [for restoring the land at spent drilling sites].

Fortune: Have you talked to Shell about this?

Sen. Allard: We have, and they’ve indicated a great deal of frustration. They’ve put it this way: Look, we can’t continue to invest millions and millions of dollars in this kind of research without seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.

Fortune: Sen. Salazar insists he just wants to take things more slowly.

Sen. Hatch: Sen. Salazar and the Colorado governor [Democrat Bill Ritter] say they don’t want it to happen too fast. Well, the existing law that I sponsored [which became part of the 2005 energy act] makes it abundantly clear that each governor gets to decide how quickly developments should move forward in their respective states. [Salazar and Ritter] know that. What they’re really doing is making sure that the governor of Utah and the governor of Wyoming never gets to make that decision for themselves.

Fortune: One of Sen. Salazar’s environmental concerns involves water and the big draw on local water supplies required for oil shale production. Based on my reporting in western Colorado last year, this seems like a legitimate concern. What’s your take on this?

Sen. Hatch: Let’s compare it to ethanol. Corn needs about 1,000 barrels of water for the energy equivalent of a barrel of oil. That’s a crazy amount of water, but it’s worked out alright so far because corn is grown in rainy areas, for the most part. But if you want to increase the amount of ethanol, you’re going to have to go to irrigation, and then there will be major water limits on how much we can afford to grow.

On the other hand, the Department of Energy estimates that oil shale will require three barrels of water for every barrel of oil.

Fortune: Of course, water is a lot scarcer in western Colorado than it is in Iowa.

Sen Hatch: It is, but remember the oil companies are going to use and recycle the water. And while we’re on the environmental impact, let’s talk about land use and wildlife habitat. One acre of corn produces the equivalent of 5 to 7 barrels of oil. One acre of oil shale produces 100,000 to 1 million barrels.

Fortune: With gasoline at $4, why this isn’t this more of a front-and-center issue for consumers and voters?

Sen. Hatch: I’m generally the last guy to lambaste the media, but generally you do not hear these facts. We’re sending $600 billion annually to enemies of our country. If one acre of oil shale produces 1 million barrels of oil, that’s 1 million barrels that we would not be importing from Russia and the Middle East. People are going to go berserk when they find out that all along we had the capacity, within our own borders, to alleviate our dependency in an environmentally friendly way.

Ironically, the local governments in Colorado’s oil shale areas do support oil shale development, but it’s being stopped by the ski-resort elites. A couple months ago, an article came out about how the city of Aspen was being besieged with building applications equating to about $2 million in development a day. Now if those nice, rich people in Aspen really cared about the environment, they might save an acre or two of those beautiful forests they’re building on and support some oil-shale development in the not-so-nearby and not-so-beautiful oil shale areas of Colorado.

Fortune: Has oil shale development always been a partisan issue or is this something new?

Sen. Allard: It is something new. The issue with the Democrats now is they want to cut off any source of carbon. And there are those in the Senate who believe the more expensive you make gasoline, the less driving people do and you force conservation by making driving so expensive people can’t afford it.

If everybody in America saw this video -- that really makes it clear, in his own words, how much Barack Obama despises white people -- he'd lose in a landslide.

Nods to RWN

I saw this video about six months ago, it's all I need to know about the man.

I’m not going to rattle on in my usual ‘domestic oil drilling’ rant. You’ve heard it all …

I just want to repeat how the American public is being allowed … ENCOURAGED to believe the price they are paying at the gas pump is because of the greedy oil companies … When in reality, it is the restrictions, regulations, and political and junk-science ideology of Congress that are directly effecting, and continuing to effect, prices.

The American public NEEDS to hear the truth …

Fortune talks to Sens. Orrin Hatch and Wayne Allard about the roadblocks to oil shale production.

By Jon Birger

NEW YORK (Fortune) — You’d think this would be oil shale’s moment.

You’d think with gas prices topping $4 and consumers crying uncle, Congress would be moving fast to spur development of a domestic oil resource so vast - 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil shale in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming alone - it could eventually rival the oil fields of Saudi Arabia.

You’d think politicians would be tripping over themselves to arrange photo-ops with Harold Vinegar (whom I profiled in Fortune last November), the brilliant, Brooklyn-born chief scientist at Royal Dutch Shell whose research cracked the code on how to efficiently and cleanly convert oil shale - a rock-like fossil fuel known to geologists as kerogen - into light crude oil.

You’d think all of this, but you’d be wrong.

Last month, the U.S. Senate’s Appropriations Committee voted 15-14 to kill a bill that would have ended a one-year moratorium on enacting rules for oil shale development on federal lands (which is where the best oil shale is located). Most maddening of all - at least to someone like myself not steeped in the wacky ways of Washington - the swing vote on the appropriations committee, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., voted with the majority even though she actually opposes the moratorium.

“Sen. Salazar asked me to vote no. I did so at his request,” Landrieu told The Rocky Mountain News. A Landrieu staffer contacted by Fortune doesn’t dispute this, but notes that Landrieu did propose a compromise which Republicans rejected.

Arghh!

She was speaking of U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., who has emerged as the Senate’s leading oil shale opponent. Salazar inserted the aforementioned moratorium into an omnibus spending bill last December, and in May he proposed a new bill that would extend the moratorium another year.

Salazar’s efforts have essentially pulled the rug out from under Shell (RDSA) and other oil companies which have invested many, many millions into oil shale research since the passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which established the original framework for commercial leasing of oil shale lands. (Last year, oil shale represented Shell’s single biggest R&D expenditure.)

Salazar says he’s simply trying to slow things down in order to ensure environmental considerations don’t get trampled in the rush to turn western Colorado into a new Prudhoe Bay. But, ironically, his bid to extend the moratorium comes at a time when his fellow Senate Democrats have been blasting Big Oil for not reinvesting enough of their profits into developing new sources of energy.

I recently spoke with Republican U.S. Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Wayne Allard of Colorado, the two lawmakers working hardest to end the oil shale moratorium. Here are some excerpts from the interviews:

Fortune: Why do you consider developing oil shale such a high priority?

Sen. Hatch: We have as much oil in oil shale in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado as the rest of the world’s oil combined. Liberals and environmentalists can talk all they want about wind, solar and geothermal - all of which I’m for - but last time I checked, planes, trains, trucks, ships and cars don’t run on electricity. 98% of transportation fuel right now is oil. Ethanol is the only real alternative, and we’re seeing that ethanol has major limitations.

It’s pathetic. Environmentalists are very happy having us dependent on foreign oil. They’re unhappy with us developing our own. What they forget to say is that shipping fuel all the way from the middle east has a big greenhouse gas footprint too.

Fortune: Any hope of changing Sen. Salazar’s mind? After all, he says he’s not opposed to oil shale production in principle.

Sen. Allard: His mind seems pretty set. His argument is, if we delay this, it gives us an opportunity to phase it in gradually. But he’s got it turned around. We need the rules and regulations in place first. When the oil companies go to bid on their leases, they need have some idea what their royalties might be and what their remediation requirements might be [for restoring the land at spent drilling sites].

Fortune: Have you talked to Shell about this?

Sen. Allard: We have, and they’ve indicated a great deal of frustration. They’ve put it this way: Look, we can’t continue to invest millions and millions of dollars in this kind of research without seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.

Fortune: Sen. Salazar insists he just wants to take things more slowly.

Sen. Hatch: Sen. Salazar and the Colorado governor [Democrat Bill Ritter] say they don’t want it to happen too fast. Well, the existing law that I sponsored [which became part of the 2005 energy act] makes it abundantly clear that each governor gets to decide how quickly developments should move forward in their respective states. [Salazar and Ritter] know that. What they’re really doing is making sure that the governor of Utah and the governor of Wyoming never gets to make that decision for themselves.

Fortune: One of Sen. Salazar’s environmental concerns involves water and the big draw on local water supplies required for oil shale production. Based on my reporting in western Colorado last year, this seems like a legitimate concern. What’s your take on this?

Sen. Hatch: Let’s compare it to ethanol. Corn needs about 1,000 barrels of water for the energy equivalent of a barrel of oil. That’s a crazy amount of water, but it’s worked out alright so far because corn is grown in rainy areas, for the most part. But if you want to increase the amount of ethanol, you’re going to have to go to irrigation, and then there will be major water limits on how much we can afford to grow.

On the other hand, the Department of Energy estimates that oil shale will require three barrels of water for every barrel of oil.

Fortune: Of course, water is a lot scarcer in western Colorado than it is in Iowa.

Sen Hatch: It is, but remember the oil companies are going to use and recycle the water. And while we’re on the environmental impact, let’s talk about land use and wildlife habitat. One acre of corn produces the equivalent of 5 to 7 barrels of oil. One acre of oil shale produces 100,000 to 1 million barrels.

Fortune: With gasoline at $4, why this isn’t this more of a front-and-center issue for consumers and voters?

Sen. Hatch: I’m generally the last guy to lambaste the media, but generally you do not hear these facts. We’re sending $600 billion annually to enemies of our country. If one acre of oil shale produces 1 million barrels of oil, that’s 1 million barrels that we would not be importing from Russia and the Middle East. People are going to go berserk when they find out that all along we had the capacity, within our own borders, to alleviate our dependency in an environmentally friendly way.

Ironically, the local governments in Colorado’s oil shale areas do support oil shale development, but it’s being stopped by the ski-resort elites. A couple months ago, an article came out about how the city of Aspen was being besieged with building applications equating to about $2 million in development a day. Now if those nice, rich people in Aspen really cared about the environment, they might save an acre or two of those beautiful forests they’re building on and support some oil-shale development in the not-so-nearby and not-so-beautiful oil shale areas of Colorado.

Fortune: Has oil shale development always been a partisan issue or is this something new?

Sen. Allard: It is something new. The issue with the Democrats now is they want to cut off any source of carbon. And there are those in the Senate who believe the more expensive you make gasoline, the less driving people do and you force conservation by making driving so expensive people can’t afford it.

WASHINGTON, June 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — RNC Press Secretary Alex Conant released the following statement today:

“Barack Obama routinely rails against lobbyists and corporate insiders, yet his campaign is stocked with both. Now it turns out that the man leading his vice presidential selection team is receiving highly questionable loans. With millions of Americans struggling to pay their mortgages, it raises serious questions about Obama’s judgment when we learn members of his campaign leadership are receiving favors that the average American would never get. With Obama discussing the economy today, he needs to stand up and address the mortgage scandals within his campaign.”

During His Presidential Campaign, Barack Obama Has Criticized CEO Compensation And Countrywide Financial:

Obama: “[I]f you’re a Wall Street CEO today, it doesn’t seem to matter whether you’re doing a good job or a bad job for your shareholders and workers: You’ll be rewarded either way.” (Sen. Barack Obama, Press Conference, 4/11/08)

Obama: “And so these are the folks who are responsible for infecting the economy and helping to create a home foreclosure crisis. Two million people may end up losing their homes. … Here’s the thing, though: When Countrywide Financial engineered a sale of its company, the two CEOs, the two people in charge of the company got $19 million bonuses. So they get a $19 million bonus while people are at risk of losing their home. What’s wrong with this picture?” (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks At A Campaign Event, Lancaster, PA, 3/31/08)

But Jim Johnson, A Former CEO Of Fannie Mae And Top Obama Campaign Adviser, Received Special Loans From Countrywide:

Jim Johnson, A Former CEO Of Fannie Mae Chosen To Lead Obama’s Vice Presidential Search Committee, Received Special Loans From Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo. “Countrywide Financial Corp. makes mortgage loans through a vast network of offices, brokers and call centers. But a few customers have gotten their loans a special way: through Countrywide Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo. These borrowers, known internally as ‘friends of Angelo’ or FoA, include two former CEOs of Fannie Mae, the biggest buyer of Countrywide’s mortgages, say people familiar with the matter. One was James Johnson, a longtime Democratic Party power and an adviser to Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign, who this past week was named to a panel that is vetting running-mate possibilities for the presumed nominee.” (Glenn R. Simpson and James R. Hagerty, “Countrywide Friends Got Good Loans,” The Wall Street Journal, 6/7/08)

– While CEO Of Fannie Mae, Johnson And Mozilo Worked Closely And Maintained A “Close Friendship.” “From 1991 to 1998, Mr. Johnson served as CEO of the Federal National Mortgage Association, also known as Fannie Mae, which worked closely with Countrywide, one of the nation’s leading lenders and loan servicing companies. In 1996, Mr. Johnson named Mr. Mozilo as chairman of Fannie Mae’s national advisory council. A 1999 article in the American Banker said the two men had a ‘close friendship.’” (Josh Gerstein, “Top Talent Scout For Obama Tied To Subprime Lender,” The New York Sun, 6/9/08) Hidden List

“Property Records Show Mr. Johnson Has Received More Than $7 Million In Loans From Countrywide Since 1998, The First Coming In The Waning Days Of His Fannie Mae Tenure.”(Glenn R. Simpson and James R. Hagerty, “Countrywide Friends Got Good Loans,” The Wall Street Journal, 6/7/08)

– At Least Two Of The Mortgages Were At Rates “Below Market Averages.” “The Journal said at least two of the mortgages, among a series of loans made available to people Countrywide officials called ‘friends of Angelo,’ were at rates below market averages, though it is difficult to predict a market rate without access to nonpublic information about a borrower’s credit history and other factors that can reduce interest charges on a loan.” (Josh Gerstein, “Top Talent Scout For Obama Tied To Subprime Lender,” The New York Sun, 6/9/08) Hidden List

As Recently As 2003, Johnson Has Praised Mozilo’s Leadership Of Fannie Mae, Calling It “Remarkably Impressive.” “Since leaving Fannie Mae, Mr. Johnson has lavished praise on Mr. Mozilo’s performance, calling it ‘remarkably impressive’ in a 2003 interview with BusinessWeek. ‘By strengthening servicing in good times, Countrywide has done a brilliant job of insulating itself for the down cycle,’ Mr. Johnson told Fortune in 2003.” (Josh Gerstein, “Top Talent Scout For Obama Tied To Subprime Lender,” The New York Sun, 6/9/08)

– NOTE: “In Recent Months, The Job Has Been Looking Less Than Brilliant, As Countrywide Reported Billions In Losses, Much Of It From So-Called Subprime Loans Made To Borrowers Unqualified For Typical Loans.” (Josh Gerstein, “Top Talent Scout For Obama Tied To Subprime Lender,” The New York Sun, 6/9/08) Hidden List

NOTE: Johnson Is Also A Bundler For Obama’s Presidential Campaign And Has Committed To Raising $100,000 To $200,000.(Obama For America Web site, www.barackobama.com, Accessed 5/19/08)

SOURCE Republican National Committee

So here we see Barack Hussein the Liar Obama’s plan for Iraq. Nothing about consulting with leaders on the ground over there. A wreckless “Diplomatic Surge” in the region, which more than likely means talking to Iran without pre-conditions. And these war criminals…I guarantee you he’s not talking about any Jihadis.

You can find the PDF file for this by clicking here.

UPDATE: It went back up on YouTube, I grabbed it, so now I permanently own that thing…

The story goes like this…in January of 2007, Barack “Hussein the Liar” Obama said “You can’t throw thirty thousand troops into Iraq and win this thing”….basically (paraphrasing here)…then, just today, David Axel-grease-my-rod, his chief campaign guy comes on Morning Joe and says “He never said that…”

Liars simply cannot get away with this EDIT in this day and age…check it out…

YOUTUBE YANKED THE VIDEO

World Net Daily:

An organization dedicated to the mission of protecting and defending individual freedoms and rights under the U.S. Constitution is criticizing presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama for promising to cut, and possibly gut, U.S. military defense spending.

The Center for Individual Freedom, a non-partisan, non-profit, has posted one version of a YouTube video of Obama “inexplicably” pledging” to “unilaterally jeopardize American military superiority.”

“When you find yourself in a hole, just keep digging,” the organization said in its accompanying commentary. “That appears to be the logic of Sen. Barack Obama, who already finds himself in the proverbial hole on defense and national security issues. At this pace, he’ll reach China by November.”

The organization said the Obama video, which originally was posted online by BarackObamadotcom in late 2007 but has been reproduced in other versions too, he tells an audience at a group called Caucus4Priorities he would cut “tens of billions of dollars” in spending.

This would come at a time “when our armed forces are already stretched and in need of new weapon technologies and armor,” said CFIF.

The original video is here:

He also guarantees he will “cut investments in unproven missile defense systems,” and he “will not weaponize space,” and that “unnecessary” spending will be eliminated.

“Most alarmingly, however, Sen. Obama literally promises to ’slow development of future combat systems,’” CFIF said.

“Think about the frightening implications of this pledge for a moment.

“Future combat systems are the cornerstone of American military modernization and superiority. As America fights the war on terror and deters potential military aggression by rogue nations cross the world, advanced combat systems provide us with better equipment, unmatched situational awareness and communication systems that result in American battlefield domination. Other ascendant nations such as China and Russia seek to match our prowess, but we continue to outpace them,” CFIF said.

It cited new satellite technology that “allows us to pinpoint and eliminate the enemy, unmanned drones that promise amazing advances in battlefield safety and effectiveness, bunker-buster weapons that penetrate deep into the caves in which remote terrorists hide and communications systems that allow lightning-quick troop deployment and rescue missions.”

“They ultimately protect the lives and health of our troops, just as they protect us,” CFIF said. “Despite this, Sen. Obama bizarrely pledges to jeopardize our battlefield superiority.”

The group cited the nation’s stealth aircraft, which penetrated Saddam Hussein’s air defenses, precision-guided weaponry that has reduced harm to non-combatants and the Strategic Defense Initiative, “which forced Mikhail Gorbachev’s negotiating hand and helped end the Cold War.”

Obama uses the speech to emphasize that he is “the only major candidate who opposed this war from the beginning.”

He says:

Thanks so much for the Caucus4Priorities, for the great work you’ve been doing. As president, I will end misguided defense policies and stand with Caucus4Priorities in fighting special interests in Washington.

First, I’ll stop spending $9 billion a month in Iraq. I’m the only major candidate who opposed this war from the beginning. And as president I will end it.

Second, I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending.

I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems.

I will not weaponize space.

I will slow our development of future combat systems.

And I will institute an independent “Defense Priorities Board” to ensure that the Quadrennial Defense Review is not used to justify unnecessary spending.

Third, I will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons. To seek that goal, I will not develop new nuclear weapons; I will seek a global ban on the production of fissile material; and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert, and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenals.

“In what realm does Sen. Obama’s ideology dwell, that he would expect his promises to somehow endear him to American swing voters?” CFIF asked. “What makes Sen. Obama’s statement most perplexing is the fact that he already faces an uphill battle to convince American voters that he won’t be the second coming of Jimmy Carter in undermining our military forces.”