2011 May 14 - Headline News

No surprise here, but a recent Pew Research Poll shows that Republicans are more knowledgeable on almost all of today’s political issues. Of course, this is what happens when an entire voting bloc gets there news from Oprah, the View, or the Daily Show. Republicans scored better on 8/11 questions, with Democrats only doing much better in answering the percentage of obese people in the US. (This happened to be the only question I missed on their self-test, so the importance of the question as an issue of the day is obvious.) Democrats even lagged behind Independents on most of the questions.

So, who knows what?

1) What do Republicans have control over (House, Senate, Presidency): Reps 49% knew correct answer, Dems 33% (Personally, I’m in favor of pre-voting knowledge tests. You can’t answer that?)

2) What were Wisconsin Protests over? 70% Rep knew correct answer to just 58% Democrats (But I’m sure they supported the protests, for, ummm, whatever, okay?)

3) Most Electricity Come from (Coal): 44% Rep, 34% Dems

4) Who is Speaker of the House: 50% Rep, 42% Dems

You can read the rest here…

FLASHBACK Back in 2008, if you regularly listened to Rush Limbaugh instead of Queen Katie Couric you were…

Almost twice as likely to know who controlled the congress (83%-46)
almost twice as likely to know who Condi Rice was (71%-37%)
almost twice as likely to know who the PM of Britain was (41%-21%)
and 3.5 times more likely to know all three (36%-10%).

http://pollinsider.com/2011/04/10/pew-republicans-know-more-than-democrats-still/

May 14th, 2011

http://www.redcounty.com/content/you-thought-earmarks-were-banned-think-again

New York Times:

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates - Late one night last November, a plane carrying dozens of Colombian men touched down in this glittering seaside capital. Whisked through customs by an Emirati intelligence officer, the group boarded an unmarked bus and drove roughly 20 miles to a windswept military complex in the desert sand.

The Colombians had entered the United Arab Emirates posing as construction workers. In fact, they were soldiers for a secret American-led mercenary army being built by Erik Prince, the billionaire founder of Blackwater Worldwide, with $529 million from the oil-soaked sheikdom.

To view the Mercenary Contract, click here http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/CONTRACT.pdf?ref=middleeast

Mr. Prince, who resettled here last year after his security business faced mounting legal problems in the United States, was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to put together an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the U.A.E., according to former employees on the project, American officials and corporate documents obtained by The New York Times.

[the REST of the story....]
http://beforeitsnews.com/story/636/174/Blackwater_Founder_Building_Secret_Desert_Army.html

May 13, 2011

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Voters shows that only 23% believe the federal government today has the consent of the governed. Sixty percent (60%) do not think this is the case, while another 17% are undecided.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/may_2011/just_23_say_federal_government_has_consent_of_the_governed

This DAY in History:

May 14, 1948:
State of Israel proclaimed

On May 14, 1948, in Tel Aviv, Jewish Agency Chairman David Ben-Gurion proclaims the State of Israel, establishing the first Jewish state in 2,000 years. In an afternoon ceremony at the Tel Aviv Art Museum, Ben-Gurion pronounced the words "We hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine, to be called Israel," prompting applause and tears from the crowd gathered at the museum. Ben-Gurion became Israel's first premier.

In the distance, the rumble of guns could be heard from fighting that broke out between Jews and Arabs immediately following the British army withdrawal earlier that day. Egypt launched an air assault against Israel that evening. Despite a blackout in Tel Aviv--and the expected Arab invasion--Jews joyously celebrated the birth of their new nation, especially after word was received that the United States had recognized the Jewish state. At midnight, the State of Israel officially came into being upon termination of the British mandate in Palestine.

Modern Israel has its origins in the Zionism movement, established in the late 19th century by Jews in the Russian Empire who called for the establishment of a territorial Jewish state after enduring persecution. In 1896, Jewish-Austrian journalist Theodor Herzl published an influential political pamphlet called The Jewish State, which argued that the establishment of a Jewish state was the only way of protecting Jews from anti-Semitism. Herzl became the leader of Zionism, convening the first Zionist Congress in Switzerland in 1897. Ottoman-controlled Palestine, the original home of the Jews, was chosen as the most desirable location for a Jewish state, and Herzl unsuccessfully petitioned the Ottoman government for a charter.

After the failed Russian Revolution of 1905, growing numbers of Eastern European and Russian Jews began to immigrate to Palestine, joining the few thousand Jews who had arrived earlier. The Jewish settlers insisted on the use of Hebrew as their spoken language. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire during World War I, Britain took over Palestine. In 1917, Britain issued the "Balfour Declaration," which declared its intent to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Although protested by the Arab states, the Balfour Declaration was included in the British mandate over Palestine, which was authorized by the League of Nations in 1922. Because of Arab opposition to the establishment of any Jewish state in Palestine, British rule continued throughout the 1920s and '30s.

Beginning in 1929, Arabs and Jews openly fought in Palestine, and Britain attempted to limit Jewish immigration as a means of appeasing the Arabs. As a result of the Holocaust in Europe, many Jews illegally entered Palestine during World War II. Radical Jewish groups employed terrorism against British forces in Palestine, which they thought had betrayed the Zionist cause. At the end of World War II, in 1945, the United States took up the Zionist cause. Britain, unable to find a practical solution, referred the problem to the United Nations, which in November 1947 voted to partition Palestine.

The Jews were to possess more than half of Palestine, although they made up less than half of Palestine's population. The Palestinian Arabs, aided by volunteers from other countries, fought the Zionist forces, but by May 14, 1948, the Jews had secured full control of their U.N.-allocated share of Palestine and also some Arab territory. On May 14, Britain withdrew with the expiration of its mandate, and the State of Israel was proclaimed. The next day, forces from Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq invaded.

The Israelis, though less well equipped, managed to fight off the Arabs and then seize key territory, such as Galilee, the Palestinian coast, and a strip of territory connecting the coastal region to the western section of Jerusalem. In 1949, U.N.-brokered cease-fires left the State of Israel in permanent control of this conquered territory. The departure of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs from Israel during the war left the country with a substantial Jewish majority.

During the third Arab-Israeli conflict--the Six-Day War of 1967--Israel again greatly increased its borders, capturing from Jordan, Egypt, and Syria the Old City of Jerusalem, the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. In 1979, Israel and Egypt signed an historic peace agreement in which Israel returned the Sinai in exchange for Egyptian recognition and peace. Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed a major peace accord in 1993, which envisioned the gradual implementation of Palestinian self-government in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Israeli-Palestinian peace process moved slowly, however, and in 2000 major fighting between Israelis and Palestinians resumed in Israel and the occupied territories.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/state-of-israel-proclaimed