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Insider Report from NewsMax.com

katrina

Well-known member
Insider Report from NewsMax.com

Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories):
1. Bloomberg Serious About White House Run
2. Will Iran Deliver a Surprise on Aug. 22?
3. Murdoch Unlikely to Back Hillary in '08
4. Dean Battles Hillary for Party Control
5. Rush ‘Explains’ Bill Buckley on Bush
6. NewsMax Gets Noticed!
7. Harlem to Bill Clinton: Get Out
8. Charlie Crist Picks Up Key Endorsement in Florida
9. ‘Dallas’ Movie Filming in Florida
10. ‘Non-partisan’ Group Honors Bush Foe Murtha
11. We Heard: Donald Trump, Fidel Castro, More




1. Bloomberg Serious About White House Run

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will dispose of his multibillion-dollar business holdings next year by giving much of his fortune to charity and using some of the rest to fund a run for president as an independent, a source close to the mayor tells Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund.

But could a Bloomberg candidacy actually succeed?

“Certainly, dissatisfaction with both major parties is high, with large numbers of Americans viewing Republicans as unprincipled and less than competent and Democrats as feckless and unserious,” John Fund writes in the Wall Street Journal.

“Similar conditions gave rise to Ross Perot in 1992, and for a while the diminutive Texas billionaire was running first in the polls. He eventually won 19 percent of the national vote and helped Bill Clinton defeat the first President Bush.”

Bloomberg would hold several advantages over Perot, Fund notes. For one thing, he has actually won two elections, something Perot has never achieved.

As NewsMax reported, political strategist Dick Morris opined that Bloomberg can succeed where Perot failed because – thanks to his years dealing with the national press corps as mayor of the country’s biggest city – he knows how to handle himself in the public spotlight.

"That education makes it unlikely that he will implode with paranoia or be rattled by the antics of the party national committees, as Perot was,” Morris points out.

Also, Bloomberg would likely have even more money to spend than Perot. He was overheard saying he could put up “half a billion.” That’s almost as much as George Bush and John Kerry combined spent during the 2004 race.

According to Fund, the thinking is that a Bloomberg run as an independent would hurt the Democratic candidate more than the Republican.

“As the quintessential urban candidate, Mr. Bloomberg would likely appeal most to city dwellers, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic. Then there are his issue positions. Mr. Bloomberg has run and won twice as a registered Republican in New York, but he supports partial-birth abortion, gun control, and gay rights and opposes the death penalty.”

But the speculation about a Bloomberg run could turn out to be idle, according to Fund. “Bloomberg knows that the odds are against him: No modern third-party candidate has come close to winning, and even if one managed to poll close to 40 percent of the popular vote, it would be hard to carry a majority of the Electoral College.

“Thus, while the mayor could afford the stratospheric spending requirements of a national campaign, observers think that in the end the 64-year-old mayor is likely to skip the race.”

Not so fast, says Paul M. Weyrich, chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation and a NewsMax pundit.

Bloomberg “could decide that the climate is right” for a run as an independent, Weyrich writes.

“Half the country does not want Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, yet she is the likely Democratic nominee. More than half the nation loves John McCain, but most likely he will not be the GOP nominee. So Bloomberg, very much attracted to public service, may just say, ‘To heck with it.’

“Get those ‘Bloomberg for President’ bumper stickers rolling off the presses?”



2. Will Iran Deliver a Surprise on Aug. 22?

Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s announcement that his country would respond on August 22 to Western demands regarding Iran’s nuclear program has worried observers asking: Why that date?

Some of the speculation is troubling.

A report that appears on the Web site Zionist.com and a number of blogs speculate:

“Ahmadinejad is a strong believer in the Shiite tradition of a 12th imam, the so-called ‘hidden’ Imam Mahdi who Allah has miraculously kept alive since his disappearance in 874 A.D. As the story goes, Imam Mahdi will return at a time of great global chaos, oppression and bloodshed to usher in an era of (Islamic) justice.

“Ahmadinejad sees himself as Allah’s instrument to pave the way for Imam Mahdi.”

The report notes that August 22 of this year corresponds with the Islamic date of Rajab 28, the day Muslim warrior Saladin conquered Jerusalem from the Crusaders.

“Taken in conjunction with Ahmadinejad’s stated desire to see Israel destroyed, it hardly seems a coincidence,” the report states, speculating that Ahmadinejad could attempt to bring about Imam Mahdi’s return by attacking Israel.

The Web site freerepublic.com has a different take on the Iranian deadline, saying that August 22 corresponds to a date on the Muslim calendar called Lailat Al Israa, “when Muhammad ascended to heaven from the Al Aqsa mosque to receive the five daily prayers. Later, Al Aqsa came to represent Jerusalem.

“The Muslim commemoration is meant to be a night of struggle, accompanied by thunder and lightning … Ahmadinejad could be hinting to the West that he is preparing a major attack on Israel.”

Then again, the date could have been chosen simply because it corresponds with the last day of the Iranian month of Mordad.






3. Murdoch Unlikely to Back Hillary in '08

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch said it’s not likely – but “not impossible” – that he would back Sen. Hillary Clinton if she runs for president in 2008.

Curiously, the News Corp. chairman’s comments during an interview with PBS’ Charlie Rose came just three days after Murdoch hosted a fund-raiser for Clinton in New York.

That move seemed to indicate a warming of relations between Clinton and Murdoch – whose New York Post was harshly critical of Clinton when she ran for the Senate six years ago.

But he said his support was based on Hillary’s performance as a senator and he remained uncertain about her sincerity in seeking to soften her liberal reputation, the Financial Times reports.

“Has she suddenly become a moderate and a centrist in everything or is she the old Hillary Clinton? I don’t know,” Murdoch told Rose.

He also said that if Clinton were to square off against Republican Sen. John McCain in 2008, he would “probably support McCain.”

Asked directly if he would support Hillary for president, Murdoch said: “Unlikely. But not impossible … I’d be very surprised if I found myself doing that.”

He added that McCain “would be a fine president. I like him very much.”

In another troubling development for Clinton, a new WNBC/Marist poll of New York voters revealed that she trailed potential GOP candidate Rudy Giuliani by a margin of 52 percent to 43 percent in a head-to-head race for the White House in 2008, and lagged behind McCain by a 48 percent to 46 percent margin in the decidedly blue state.



4. Dean Battles Hillary for Party Control

We informed our long-time Insider Report readers that the real battle for Hillary Clinton in her quest for the White House will not be with conservative Republicans but leading members of her own party.

In fact, we named the so-called “Gang of Four” who have joined in a blood pact to stop Hillary no matter what. The members of the anti-Hillary gang: Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Al Gore, and Howard Dean.

Apparently, the liberal media couldn’t ignore this story any longer.

The liberal New Republic recently reported that National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and Sen. Hillary Clinton, are locked in a battle for supremacy within their party.

Dean supporters are unhappy with Clinton’s stand on Iraq and her cautious shift to the center, while at the same time they fear she is too polarizing to win a general election.

Clinton supporters question Dean’s competence in managing the DNC and believe his left-wing positions will turn off middle- and working-class voters.

The New Republic calls it “Hillary Clinton v. Howard Dean – The Grudge.”

“The schism between the two camps has its roots in Dean’s early 2003 discovery that running against Clintonism held a lot of appeal for Democratic primary voters,” Thomas B. Edsall writes in The New Republic.

“Many liberals were hungry for a politician who would tell them what they wanted to hear on Iraq, gay rights, and the role of religion in American life – and just as importantly, one who would denounce Democratic triangulators, equivocators, and compromisers.”

Later that year, Clinton struck back by launching a behind-the-scenes campaign to pressure fellow Democrats not to support Dean, who by then was the front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president.

As NewsMax reported at the time, Clinton aides began contacting party movers and shakers in a bid to discredit Dean and dispel the notion that he had the nomination sewn up.

As the split between Dean and Clinton widened after the 2004 election, Dean allies steadily attacked Hillary in the blogosphere. Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos called Clinton “a heartless, passionless machine, surrounded by the very people who ground down the activist base in the 1990s and have continued to hold the party’s grass roots in utter contempt.”

As NewsMax reported, soon after the election, the Gang of Four teamed up to elect Dean to head the DNC. Kerry even poured millions from his excess campaign funds to cement Dean’s position there.

Now, the gulf between the two camps has become so deep that Clinton is formulating a strategy to circumvent the DNC if she wins the Democratic Party’s nomination. “We are going to have our own field staff, starting way before the primaries begin, right through Nov. 7,” a Clinton strategist told Edsall.

Thanks to Clinton’s war chest – she already has $22 million in the bank that could be used in a presidential run – she is prepared to reject public financing during the primaries and general election, according to Edsall. This would enable her campaign to keep the field staff from the primaries on her payroll during the general election instead of shifting it to the DNC, as previous candidates have done.

Also, NewsMax reported in March that longtime Clinton aide Harold Ickes was launching a massive data mining project in a bid to get the Democratic vote out in 2006 and 2008 - a direct snub to Dean, whose job it is to run his party's turnout machine.

“So who will win the showdown between Howard and Hillary? In both the long term and short term, the odds favor Clinton and her allies in the party’s more moderate wing,” Edsall writes.

Dean supporters will likely be unable to come together behind a single candidate, he adds, while “there is probably only one candidate Dean could ever truly back, and he is sitting out this race.”

That candidate is Howard Dean.






5. Rush ‘Explains’ Bill Buckley on Bush

Rush Limbaugh sounded off against what he calls the “Drive-By Media” after “CBS Evening News” aired an interview with conservative icon William F. Buckley.

When the interview with Thalia Assuras aired on July 22, Assuras said: “Buckley finds himself parting ways with President Bush, whom he praises as a decisive leader but admonishes for having strayed from true conservative principles.”

What Buckley actually said was: “I think Mr. Bush faces singular problems best defined, I think, as the absence of effective conservative ideology.”

Rush went on the attack two days later on his radio show.

“This is not the first time that Mr. Buckley has been highlighted by the Drive-By Media in his disagreements with President Bush,” he told listeners.

“But all [Buckley is] saying is that Mr. Bush is a Republican, but he is not the leader of a movement…

“We have a Republican president who is conservative on some things and others he’s not. He’s going about his job in his own way. That certainly is no crime, but to the Drive-By Media, why, why, that would be an indictment.

“He’s lost his wheels as a conservative because they are interested in conservatism losing its wheels. They are interested in conservatism falling apart because they know conservatism is the foundation and the dynamic of the Republican Party.

“So when you have somebody as powerful as Mr. Buckley saying it, they get all excited and they start panting, ‘The Republican Party is about to fall apart! Bill Buckley says so. We’ve got it on tape.’”

The bottom line on the Drive-By Media, according to Rush: “Go out and find any conservative to rip Bush, and that just relieves them of the need to do it themselves.”




6. NewsMax Gets Noticed!

NewsMax.com is not sitting like couch potatoes waiting for the world to find out about us.

We are marketing NewsMax across the World Wide Web -- and attracting millions of new visitors, helping to make us one of the leading news sites in America.

And we have the numbers to prove it!

According to new figures from Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance, NewsMax.com is the No. 1 advertiser among World and Local News Web sites. For the week ending June 25, some 31,260,000 NewsMax.com impressions appeared online – pages that load with a NewsMax banner, link or other tool, driving visitors to the NewsMax site.

That accounted for a remarkable 44.9 percent of all world and local news advertising impressions in the U.S., and was double the number of the No. 2 advertiser, Traffic.com at 22.9 percent. The No. 3 spot went to HuffingtonPost.com with a 7.1 percent share of impressions; Microsoft Corporation had 5 percent; and DrudgeReport.com had 4.2 percent.

Make sure you are part of the NewsMax revolution. If you would like to advertise on NewsMax – from a simple text link or a banner campaign, or even an ad in our popular print magazine, just check out our media kit – Go Here Now.




7. Harlem to Bill Clinton: Get Out

When Bill Clinton decided to locate his offices in Harlem after he left the White House, residents thought the move would give the African-American Manhattan neighborhood a big boost.

It has – and now some residents want Clinton to pack up and move out.

Several dozen residents recently protested outside Clinton’s 125th Street office building, saying rents have nearly doubled in Harlem since Clinton relocated there in 2000, the Web site bet.com reports.

A one-bedroom apartment that formerly rented for $800 a month now rents for $1,400.

And the price of a fully renovated townhouse is now at least $4 million, compared to $400,000 for a brownstone house in 2001, according to The Washington Post.

The Harlem Tenants Council, which organized the protest, said soaring costs have driven black residents out of the neighborhood.



8. Charlie Crist Picks Up Key Endorsement in Florida

Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist has won another key endorsement in his bid to capture the Republican nomination for governor in the Sunshine State.

Members of the Cuban American Veterans Association announced their support for Crist at a July 22 meeting in Miami.

State Senator Alex Villalobos and Representatives J.C. Planas and Julio Robaina, as well as more than 60 Cuban American veterans, joined Crist at the meeting.

"I understand the commitment and sacrifice Cuban Americans have made in service to this country and am honored and humbled to have their support," said Crist.

Jose Martory, president of the Cuban American Veterans Association, added: “We as veterans are proud to come together and endorse Charlie Crist, the next governor of the state of Florida. Charlie Crist is a decent, honorable man that will lead this state into the future."

The Charlie Crist for Governor Campaign has already been endorsed by, among others, Senator Mel Martinez, Congressmen Mario Diaz-Balart and Jeff Miller, the Police Benevolent Association, the Fraternal Order of Police, the Florida Association of State Troopers, and the Florida Nurses Association as well as 46 members of the Florida Legislature and 28 county sheriffs.

In other good news for the Crist campaign, a new poll shows that he would fare significantly better than GOP rival Tom Gallagher, the state’s chief financial officer, when facing either of the two leading Democratic candidates.

In a match-up between Crist and Congressman Jim Davis, Crist led 49 percent to 39 percent with 12 percent undecided, according to the poll of likely Florida voters by Strategic Vision, LLC.

Gallagher, on the other hand, barely led Davis, 40 percent to 39 percent.

When matched up against State Senator Rod Smith, Crist again got 49 percent of the vote, while Smith garnered 41 percent. Meanwhile Gallagher and Smith were dead even at 40 percent each.

Recently, a group of Republican state legislators issued a statement urging Gallagher to drop out early for the sake of party unity. Florida is considered a must-win state for Democrats who want to re-capture the White House in 2008.



9. ‘Dallas’ Movie Filming in Florida

Film executives in Dallas are furious that the big-screen version of the classic TV show “Dallas” will be shot in Florida instead of the Big D.

The film is scheduled to begin shooting later this year in Jacksonville. Officials there offered the filmmakers a 15 percent refund of all money spent on production, according to Florida’s Boca Raton News.

Also, John Travolta – who will reportedly play sly patriarch J.R. Ewing in the movie – has a home nearby.

The Dallas Film Commission has called the decision to shoot in Florida “a horrible black eye to the state of Texas,” and is trying to convince 20th Century Fox to change its plans.

Film Commission Director Janis Burklund had stated in June that at least part of the movie would be shot in Dallas.



10. ‘Non-partisan’ Group Honors Bush Foe Murtha

The Center for National Policy bills itself as a “non-partisan, non-profit” organization, but the group has bestowed an honor on one of the Bush administration’s staunchest critics, Rep. John Murtha.

In announcing that the Pennsylvania Democrat would receive the CNP’s Edmund S. Muskie Distinguished Public Service Award on July 20, the organization stated:

“The Center for National Policy is pleased to honor Congressman Murtha for his lifetime of patriotic service to our nation. From his 37 years as a Marine officer, including two years in Vietnam, earning two purple hearts -- and through his 16 terms in the House of Representatives representing the people of Johnstown, Pa. -- Congressman Murtha's career has been a powerful example of the kind of public service personified by the late Senator Ed Muskie.

“Congressman Murtha's dedication to keeping America's military strong, to supporting military families and his courageous decision to voice an alternative policy for Iraq in the face of strong political opposition -- has earned Congressman John Murtha the 2006 Edmund S. Muskie Distinguished Service Award.”

Does Murtha’s “patriotic service” and “dedication to keeping America’s military strong” include his call in January for young men and women not to join the military?

Asked during an interview on “ABC’s Nightline” if he would join the military today, the combat veteran said: “No.”

Interviewer Jack Donovan said: “I think you’re saying the average guy out there who’s considering recruitment is justified in saying, ‘I don’t want to serve.’”

Murtha replied: “Exactly right.”

More recently, Murtha resorted to a personal attack on White House adviser Karl Rove, saying: “He’s sitting in his air-conditioned office on his big fat backside saying, ‘Stay the course.’”

The Washington, D.C.-based CNP, founded in 1981, says on its Web site that the organization is dedicated to “engaging our nation’s leaders with practical solutions on global security.”

The group has been critical of security lapses in both the Clinton and Bush administrations, and its board has included former GOP members of Congress.

But it has named its award after Muskie, the vice presidential running mate of ultra-liberal George McGovern, and its honoring of Murtha demonstrates its dissatisfaction with the Bush administration’s policy in Iraq.


11. We Heard…


THAT Donald Trump and two of his children contributed a total of $50,000 in late June to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

It was the first time since the 2000 election cycle that the real estate tycoon contributed to the Democrats’ House committee. He donated $1,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee last year.

“Democratic sources said the contributions were unsolicited, but noted that Trump is close to longtime Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y.,” the publication Roll Call reported.

On the “Contributor Employer Break-Out” listing on PoliticalMoneyLine.com, which indicates where DCCC contributions from employers originated, the Trump Organization is ranked fifth in donations to the DCCC in June – behind “N/A,” “Self-Employed,” “Blank” and “Information Requested.”


THAT Fidel Castro “went ballistic” when an American reporter asked him a question about a dissident that he won’t allow to leave Cuba.

Castro was in Cordoba, Argentina, for a meeting of Mercosur, the South American regional trading bloc, which began July 20.

Juan Manuel Cao, a reporter with Channel 41 in Miami, asked Castro at a meeting with journalists if he would allow Dr. Hilda Molina to leave Cuba to be with her son in Argentina.

Dr. Molina was a leading figure in the development of Cuba’s state-run health-care system, and a delegate to Cuba’s National Parliament.

She founded the International Center for Neurological Restoration in 1988, but resigned in 1994 after learning that the center was going to treat only foreigners paying U.S. dollars. She also quit the Communist Party.

Dr. Molina’s son left Cuba in the early 1990s and is living in Argentina with his wife and two sons, but the Castro regime refuses to allow Molina and her mother to travel there to be with her son and grandsons.

When reporter Cao asked the Cuban dictator about Molina, “Castro went ballistic,” according to the Web site therealcuba.com.

He called the reporter a “mercenary” sent by the CIA, the Miami Herald reported.

When another reporter asked Castro if he was going to a rally that night planned by his friend Hugo Chavez, Fidel said he didn’t know because “this guy may try to throw a bomb and kill me,” referring to Cao.

Miguel Cossio, Channel 41 news director, said: “We deny that our journalists are being manipulated by anyone.”


THAT Lithuania’s former ambassador to the U.S., Vyguadas Usackas, is among a group of countrymen who have been denied a visa by Russia to visit a Siberian region where many Lithuanians died in exile under Stalin’s regime.

The Council of Lithuanian Youth Organizations (LiJOT) wanted to send a group of young people, along with Usackas, to the Krasnoyarsk region, where Lithuanians were brought to do forestry work in 1948. The workers were put up in stables, and some 50 died and are buried in a cemetery in the area.

LiJOT announced on July 21 that the Lithuanians had been refused Russian visas for unknown reasons.

“We anticipated visiting the deportation place of my father, grandparents and thousands of other victims of Stalinism,” said Usackas.

“I am very disappointed, but really not surprised, by such a decision by Russian authorities, which proves their inability and unwillingness to truly address their Bolshevik past.”

LiJOT plans to ask Lithuanian authorities to intervene.

But Audronius Azubalis, deputy chairman of the Lithuanian parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, said: “Maybe by refusing to issue visas Russia is just starting to deny Stalin and his collaborators’ crimes against mankind.”


THAT the company that presented President Bush with a pair of red, white, and blue wingtip shoes won’t be making them available to the general public.

The Port Washington, Wisc.-based Allen-Edmonds Shoe Corp. – whose shoes have been worn by the last five presidents – presented the wingtips to Bush during a July 11 visit.

They actually made two pairs in his size, 10-D, in case one fit wasn’t perfect.

“We’ve had a number of inquiries through our retail stores and customer service center that have indicated strong interest in buying the same shoes, and we’ve just elected not to do that,” Mark Birmingham, chief operating officer of Allen-Edmonds, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

“We think that would take away from the gift that we gave to President Bush.”

Bush said he plans to wear the patriotic shoes “for a lot of Fourth of Julys.”



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