TERROR SUSPECT IN IDAHO WON'T ADMIT HIS GUILT

Sometimes it's pretty predictable how these jihadists can plead in a trial. Case in point, the one arrested in Idaho (via The Jawa Report):

BOISE -- An Uzbekistan national arrested in Boise has pleaded not guilty in federal court to charges he conspired with a terrorist group on a scheme to use a weapon of mass destruction.

Fazliddin Kurbanov, 30, appeared before a federal judge at 8:30 a.m. He used an interpreter over the phone to communicate his not-guilty plea.

Kurbanov's trial is now set for July 2, 2013 [...]

Interesting that he can't/won't speak English, yet people like him are allowed to enter the country regardless.

RUSSIA SUPPLIES SYRIA WITH ANTI-SHIP MISSILES

Russia is still going down a very dark path:

WASHINGTON, May 17 (Reuters) - Russia has sent Syria advanced anti-ship missiles, U.S. officials told Reuters on Friday, bolstering Syrian defenses despite pleas from Washington and elsewhere to stop supplying President Bashar al-Assad's forces.

That's all one needs to know that Russia heading back to their old ways, and now it's made even worse by their collaborating with jihadists.

Will Liquefied Natural Gas Transform The American Economy Over The Next Ten Years?

Gradually, American fuel-providers, and trucking/transportation companies will be building the infrastructure for a complete switchover to LNG.

Will the result be a transformation of our economy similar to what happened in the 1990's with the Internet buildout?

From the New York Times:

Now the trucking industry, with its millions of 18-wheelers moving products like potato chips, underarm deodorant and copy paper around the country, is taking a leap forward in switching from petroleum to cleaner-burning natural gas. And if natural gas remains cheap, consumers may benefit again. 

This month, Cummins, a leading engine manufacturer, began shipping big, new engines that make long runs on natural gas possible. A skeletal network of refueling stations at dozens of truck stops stands ready. Major shippers like Procter & Gamble, mindful of both fuel costs and green credentials, are turning to companies with natural gas trucks in their fleets. 

And in the latest sign of how the momentum for natural gas in transportation is accelerating, United Parcel Serviceplans to announce in the next few days that it will expand its fleet of heavy 18-wheel vehicles running on liquefied natural gas, or L.N.G., to 800 by the end of 2014, from 112. The vehicles will use the new Cummins engines, produced under a joint venture with Westport Innovations. 

U.P.S., like the rest of the industry, still has a long way to go in the conversion, but the company hopes to make natural gas vehicles a majority of its new heavy truck acquisitions in two years. 

The company is benefiting from incentives provided by various states and the federal government, which offer tax credits and grants for installing natural gas fuel stations and using vehicles fueled by natural gas. 

“By us doing this it will help pave the way and others will follow,” said Scott Wicker, chief sustainability officer at U.P.S. 

“Moving into L.N.G. is a means to get us onto what we see as the bridging fuel of the future and off of oil,” he said. “It’s the right step for us, for our customers and for our planet.” 

The move could also cut the country’s oil import bill. There are currently about eight million heavy and medium-weight trucks consuming three million barrels of oil a day while traveling the nation’s highways. That is nearly 15 percent of the total national daily consumption and the equivalent of three-fourths of the amount of oil imported from members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. Roughly two-thirds of the diesel used as transportation fuel nationwide feeds three million 18-wheelers, the main trucks hauling goods over long distances. 

In the last four years, the natural gas shale drilling boom has produced a glut of inexpensive fuel, leading producers to argue that the country should wean its commercial and municipal transportation systems from a dependence on imported oil to domestically produced natural gas. 

It is cheaper, saving truckers as much as $1.50 a gallon, and it burns cleaner, making it easier to meet emissions standards. The domestic fuel also provides some insulation from the volatile geopolitics that can drive up petroleum prices.

From National Geographic:

Over the past year, Clean Energy Fuels opted to make the first move in this game, building 70 fueling stations in 33 states. Most of those are dormant, awaiting a major development that has been delayed, but is now expected later this year—the roll-out of the first generation of standard-size heavy-duty trucks specially equipped to run on natural gas. When those trucks hit the road, Clean Energy Fuels says, its new truck stops will open. 

"At the end of this year, you are coast to coast and border to border," the company's president and chief executive officer, Andrew Littlefair, said recently. "You have a nice skeleton and the work has just started." 

ENN has made its foray into the U.S. market quietly, partnering with a small Salt Lake City, Utah, company, CH4 Energy and operating under the name Blu. The company told Reuters it already has five stations in operation and is opening three more in the coming weeks. (See related: "Pictures: A Rare Look Inside China's Energy Machine.") 

The mover behind Clean Energy Fuels has been Pickens, who chairs the private equity fund BP Capital Management, which has significant holdings in companies focused on natural gas fracking (as well as an array of other energy investments). Pickens has been one of the most vocal proponents of switching to natural gas for transportation. (See related story: "Natural Gas Stirs Hope and Fear in Pennsylvania" and interactive "Breaking Fuel From the Rock.") 

Under the Pickens Plan, introduced in 2008 and refocused to emphasize natural gas rather than wind energy in 2010, Pickens has described the shift as a way to minimize U.S. reliance on imported oil, reduce pollution and fuel costs, generate jobs, and provide a "bridge" to greener fuels. "It's a helluva deal for the country," Pickens said in an interview with Bloomberg last year.

Another effect of the move to LNG by the Trucking/Transportation industry will be that America will be able to sell more of it's oil overseas. Already America's booming oil industry (fueled by Fracking in Texas and the Bakken Oil Field of Wyoming/Dakotas) has significantly decreased the Trade deficit: 

Record petroleum exports helped shrink the U.S. trade deficit in December to the smallest in almost three years as America moved closer to energy self- sufficiency, a goal the nation has been pursuing since the 1973 Arab oil embargo.

The gap narrowed 20.7 percent to $38.5 billion, the smallest since January 2010 and lower than any estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 73 economists, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. Oil exports climbed $11.6 billion. Another report showed wholesale inventories unexpectedly declined in December.

In addition to trimming the trade deficit, greater fuel autonomy helps boost household incomes, jobs and government revenue and makes American companies more competitive. An improving global economy, reflected by record exports to South and Central America, also means manufacturers such as Caterpillar Inc. will benefit. 

“The trend toward energy independence is there, and it is picking up,” said Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates LLC in Houston with more than 30 years of experience in refining and trading. “This bodes well for our economy. As our oil production increases, our reliance on other parts of the world for oil comes down.”

From CNBC: 

The Citi report, titled "Energy 2020: Independence Day," also projects a larger and quicker decline in demand for oil in the U.S. over the next decade or two, due to efficiency and the shift to cheaper natural gas.

For instance, Citi expects 30 percent of the U.S. heavy duty truck fleet to turn to natural gas-based fuel by 2015, well above the 10 percent it previously forecast. That would reduce diesel demand by an estimated 600,000 barrels per day. It also expects new automotive efficiency standards to reduce U.S. oil production by two million barrels per day, up from the one million forecast last year.

"Starting this year, North American output, as we indicate in this report, should start to have tangible impacts both on global prices and trading patterns, and will eventually turn the global geopolitics of energy on its head," the report said.

Morse surprised markets a year ago with a report that envisioned the U.S. as part of an energy independent North America. Since then, the view has become mainstream. The International Energy Agency forecast last fall that the U.S. will overtake Saudi Arabia and Russia as the top oil producer by 2017. The IEA also forecast that North America could become a net oil exporter by around 2030.

This Energy surplus will make manufacturing affordable in the United States once again: 

Steel makers, for example, benefit from both the lower cost of manufacturing and from strong demand for steel pipe used for oil and gas drilling. Companies in the steel rustbelt of Pennsylvania and Ohio are polishing up aging plants to replace coal with cheaper natural gas. Others are setting up shop closer to major gas distribution hubs like Louisiana, where steel giant Nucor is investing $750 million to fire up a new plant later this year.

Chemical, plastics and fertilizer makers, who rely on natural gas both as a raw material and an energy source, have also been expanding production. Last year,Dow Chemical announced a $4 billion investment in facilities, part of some $15 billion in expansion plans announced by Gulf Coast chemical makers.

And Vancouver-based Methanex Corp. decided last year to spend $425 million to disassemble an idled methanol plant in Chile and move it lock, stock and pipeline toLouisiana.

In December, economists with UBS bank tallied some $65 billion in announced construction of new plants related to cheaper natural gas, and said another 11 plants had been announced worth billions more.

As groundbreaking on these projects gets under way, the dividends from the energy boom will flow even further – to construction companies, engineering firms, materials and equipment suppliers and lenders who help finance the projects.

That, in turn, will help shore up state and federal budgets. The added revenue – from income taxes on new jobs created, corporate taxes on added oil and gas profits and state and federal royalty payments – could top $2.5 trillion through 2035, according to IHS Global Insight.

It seems that no matter what China does, no matter what the UN does, no matter what the Kyoto Treaty attempts to do, no matter what Barack Obama himself does, no one can keep the American economy down for long.

It's the creativity that comes from the Freedoms (which are protected, not created, by our Constitution) which allow us to implement all these new ideas and technologies, and make us, always, the most powerful economy and nation in the world.

WHAT DID HILLARY AND OBAMA DISCUSS AT 10PM ON 9/11/12?

ANDREW MCCARTHY/NRO:

 if I were investigating Benghazi, I’d be homing in on that 10 p.m. phone call. That’s the one between President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — the one that’s gotten close to zero attention. 

Benghazi is not a scandal because of Ambassador Susan Rice, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland, and “talking points.” The scandal is about Rice and Nuland’s principals, and about what the talking points were intended to accomplish. 

Benghazi is about derelictions of duty by President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton before and during the massacre of our ambassador and three other American officials, as well as Obama and Clinton’s fraud on the public afterward. 

A good deal of media attention has quite appropriately been lavished on e-mail traffic between mid-level administration officials in the days leading up to Sunday, September 16. That is the day when Ms. Rice, a close Obama confidant, made her appalling appearances on the Sunday-morning political shows. Those performances were transparently designed to mislead the American people, during the presidential campaign stretch run, into believing that an anti-Islamic Internet video — rather than a coordinated terrorist attack orchestrated by al-Qaeda affiliates, coupled with the Obama administration’s gross failure to secure and defend American personnel in Benghazi — was responsible for the killings.  

 ... I am puzzled why so little attention has been paid to the Obama-Clinton phone call at 10 p.m. on the night of September 11.... We have heard almost nothing about what Obama was doing that night. Back in February, though, CNS News did manage to pry one grudging disclosure out of White House mendacity mogul Jay Carney: “At about 10 p.m., the president called Secretary Clinton to get an update on the situation.” 

... Carney’s hand was forced by then-secretary Clinton. 

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January, she recounted first learning at about 4 p.m. on September 11 that the State Department facility in Benghazi was under attack. That was very shortly after the siege started. 

Over the hours that followed, Clinton stated, “we were in continuous meetings and conversations, both within the department, with our team in Tripoli, with the interagency and internationally.” It was in the course of this “constant ongoing discussion and sets of meetings” that Clinton then recalled: “I spoke with President Obama later in the evening to, you know, bring him up to date, to hear his perspective.” 

Yes, the 10 p.m. phone call. 

... We also know that at 8 p.m. Washington time, Hicks spoke directly with Clinton and some of her top advisers by telephone. Not only was it apparent that a terrorist attack involving al-Qaeda-affiliated Ansar al-Sharia was underway, but Hicks’s two most profound fears at the time he briefed Clinton centered on those terrorists: First, there were reports that Ambassador Stevens might be in the clutches of the terrorists at a hospital they controlled; second, there were rumblings that a similar attack on the embassy in Tripoli could be imminent, convincing Hicks that State Department personnel should evacuate. He naturally conveyed these developments to his boss, the secretary of state. Clinton, he recalled, agreed that evacuation was the right course. 

At about 9 p.m. Washington time, Hicks learned from the Libyan prime minister that Stevens was dead. Hicks said he relayed all significant developments on to Washington as the evening progressed — although he did not speak directly to Secretary Clinton again after the 8 p.m. briefing. 

That is the context of the 10 p.m. phone call between the president and the secretary of state. 

We do not have a recording of this call, and neither Clinton nor the White House has described it beyond noting that it happened. But we do know that, just a few minutes after Obama called Clinton, the Washington press began reporting that the State Department had issued a statement by Clinton regarding the Benghazi attack. In it, she asserted: 

Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. 

Gee, what do you suppose Obama and Clinton talked about in that 10 p.m. call?

IT WOULD APPEAR THAT OBAMA AND HILLARY ORIGINATED THE FALSE AND DELIBERATELY MISLEADING NARRATIVE DESIGNED TO SAVE THEIR POLITICAL ASSES.

DISGUSTING.

OF COURSE OBAMA CAN HOLD HIS OWN UMBRELLA...

... THANK ALLAH HE DOESN'T HAVE TO!

OBAMA IS EITHER AN EMPTY CHAIR OR A LIAR

NYT: IRS TOLD TREASURY ABOUT ITS ANTI-TEA PARTY VIOLATIONS BEFORE THE ELECTION - so... who told them to keep their mouths shut and hide it from the electorate?

NYTIMES:

The Treasury Department’s inspector general told senior Treasury officials in June 2012 he was auditing the Internal Revenue Service’s screening of politically active organizations seeking tax exemptions, disclosing for the first time on Friday that Obama administration officials were aware of the matter during the presidential campaign year.

DID GEITHNER KNOW.
DID JARRETT?
DID DALEY?
DID OBAMA?
DID PLOUFFE?

SUBPOENA THEM ALL AND PUT THEM ALL UNDER OATH AND FIND OUT.

IOW:

WHAT DID THEY KNOW AND WHEN DID THEY KNOW IT.

OBAMA, THE IRS, THE DOJ, AND SEAL TEAM SIX

Clarice Feldman

Ace of Spades:"As Jim Geraghty said: To hear Obama and his Media Fan Club tell it, the only part of government he directs is Seal Team 6."

Tweet of the week: "... like calling police brutality "horrible customer service."

IRS Commissioner at hearing: "We provided horrible customer service here. I will admit that. Horrible customer service."

TWEET OF THE WEEK:

Sean Hackbarth @seanhackbarth

@BrianFaughnan This is like calling police brutality "horrible customer service."

10:36 AM - 17 May 2013

OBAMA SILENT AS ERDOGAN VOICES HIS SUPPORT FOR HAMAS

At the White House visit Tayyip Erdogan's now made, the Turkish premier went unchallenged by Obama:

President Barack Obama stood silent today when Turkey’s Islamist prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised to boost the jihadi government in Gaza with a visit to blockaded enclave.

“Most probably I would be visiting Gaza in June,” he said according to the translation service provided by the White House.

He said he would also visit the competing Palestinian-Arab government in the West Bank [Judea/Samaria], located around Jerusalem.

“I place a lot of significance in this visit [to Gaza] in terms of peace in the Middle East, and this visit in no way means favoring one or the other,” he said.

The Gaza government is run by Hamas, a jihadi affiliate of Egypt’s new Muslim Brotherhood movement. Hamas frequently launches terror attack against Jews in Israel, and is classified as a terrorist group by Obama’s deputies.

The numerous attacks, and Hamas’ lack of recognition by other governments, have prompted Israel to keep an arms embargo around the enclave. Israel, however, provides civilian aid and electricity to the inhabitants of the enclave.

Obama did not respond to Erdogan’s comments about Gaza and Hamas, but he repeatedly praised Erdogan’s policies.

Even worse, since that also suggests he's fine with Erdogan reverting Turkey to sharia-based policies. This visit Erdogan made to the White House is a perfect embarrassment for everybody.

WHY BASSELEY NAKOULA WAS REALLY JAILED

Caroline Glick reminds everybody of the real reasons the Coptic film producer behind the anti-Muhammed filming was sent to jail:

Nakoula Basseley Nakoula has been sitting in a US federal prison in Texas since his photographed midnight arrest by half a dozen deputy sheriffs at his home in California for violating the terms of his parole. As many reporters have noted, the parole violation in question would not generally lead to anything more than a court hearing.

But in Nakoula's case, it led to a year in a federal penitentiary. Because he wasn't really arrested for violating the terms of his parole.

Nakoula was arrested for producing an anti- Islam film that the Obama administration was falsely blaming for the al-Qaida assault on the US Consulate in Benghazi and the brutal murder of US ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans on September 11, 2012. Obama and his associates falsely blamed Nakoula's film — and scapegoated Nakoula — for inciting the al-Qaida attack in Benghazi because they needed a fall guy to pin their cover-up of the actual circumstances of the premeditated, eminently foreseeable attack, which took place at the height of the presidential election campaign.

With the flood of scandals now inundating the White House, many are wondering if there is a connection between the cover-up of Benghazi, the IRS's prejudicial treatment of non-leftist nonprofit organizations and political donors, the Environmental Protection Agency's prejudicial treatment of non-liberal organizations, and the Justice Department's subpoenaing of phone records of up to a hundred reporters and editors from the Associated Press.

There's plenty more there, and here's an extra report on how the IRS targeted conservatives for completely trivial reasons while giving liberals a free pass.

TURKEY PLANS TO SUE ISRAEL AT ICC, AND BRING FATHER OF FLOTILLA MEMBER TO WHITE HOUSE

Michael Rubin at Commentary earlier found that Turkey's sick premier Erdogan intends to file litigation against Israel at the ICC, effectively breaking their reconcilation agreement with Israel in classic taqqiya style.

Now, Erdogan even plans to bring the father of a flotilla fiend on a visit to the White House to help spew their sick jihadist agenda. His record also includes being quite fine with one of his advisers supporting an al-Qaeda financier, and even before he rose to dominance, Turkey refused to acknowledge or apologize for their slaughter of Armenians in WW1. Yet Obama's quite fine with welcoming him to the White House, where Erdogan will undoubtably exploit every opportunity to attack Israel.