Saturday, January 28, 2012

Prayers for Bella Santorum

By Michelle Malkin  •  January 28, 2012 10:38 PM
MICHELLE MALKIN



Word came down tonight that Rick Santorum has canceled his Sunday campaign events to be with his 3-year-old daughter, Bella, who was admitted to Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia earlier today.
The Santorums have spoken movingly throughout their campaign about Bella, who was born with Trisomy 18, and recently had surgery.
The three-year-old daughter of Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum has been admitted to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the candidate has cancelled his Sunday morning campaign events to be at her side.
Santorum campaign spokesman Hogan Gidley said Saturday night that the former Pennsylvania senator and his wife, Karen, were with Bella at CHOP. Gidley said Santorum planned to return to campaigning as soon as possible in Florida, where the Republican primary is Tuesday.
Bella Santorum has Trisomy 18, a genetic condition caused by the presence of all or part of an extra 18th chromosome. Bella was not expected to survive until her first birthday and concerns over her health have canceled previous Santorum campaign events.
During his campaign, Santorum and his wife have spoken openly about the challenges and rewards of raising a child with such a condition.
The Santorums have six other children; they lost a baby boy, Gabriel, shortly after his birth in 1996. Bella was born in 2008; two years later, Santorum wrote about her in an Inquirer column.
“All children are a gift that comes with no guarantees,” he wrote. “While Bella’s life may not be long, and though she requires our constant care, she is worth every tear.”
Bella, whose full name is Isabella Maria Santorum, has become a symbol of his pro-life stance, as he claimed that most infants diagnosed in the womb with Trisomy 18 are aborted.
Please keep this beautiful little girl and her family in your thoughts and prayers.
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Posted in: 2012 Campaign,GOP

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Team Obama Getting Desperate, Plays The Kennedy Card…


WEASEL ZIPPERS

Another email gem from Team Obama.
From: Caroline Kennedy (info@barackobama.com)
Subject: My uncle Teddy
Date: January 28, 2012 1:46:38 PM EST
Drew –
Four years ago today, I joined my Uncle Teddy and thousands of excited students at American University to endorse Barack Obama as the next president of the United States.
Barack Obama had stirred something in young people and the young at heart. I saw the passion in my own teenage children, and I heard it from a different generation of people who said they felt like they did when my father ran for president.
We felt strongly that we needed to elect a president who urged us to believe in ourselves, who could tie that belief to our highest ideals, and who understood that together we can do great things.
Four years later, as I think about what first inspired me to support Barack Obama, I’m proud we have a president who has fought hard for the values Teddy held dear, and stood up on issues that matter.
How proud he would have been to see his candidate sign the Affordable Care Act into law as president, giving all Americans the security of knowing that their health care will be there when they need it most.
2012 election will be harder than the last. As you think about what role you can play this time, I want you to remember that when Teddy joined this campaign, it wasn’t just Barack Obama who drew him in.
It was you.
I’ll see you out there,
Caroline
Note:
OK, we now have "Uncle" Teddy called up from the dead (much like many of the democratic voters) to speak for Obama through his niece Caroline.  And we're just getting started folks!  I guess we could rule out any letters from Mohammad, but there are so many Obama can choose from to touch the hearts of Americans.  The next letter we can expect to hear from in support for Obama will probably be sent by a former President - Jimmy Carter.  Perhaps even Joe Biden could put in a "good" word for Obama.  Is there a famous golfer who would send out a letter?  











How a CIA Officer and Author Came to be Indicted


January 27, 2012

FAMILY SECURITY MATTERS

"Prior to publication of his book, The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA’s War on Terror, [John] Kiriakou submitted a draft manuscript in July 2008 to the CIA’s Publication Review Board (PRB). In an attempt to trick the CIA into allowing him to publish information regarding a classified investigative technique, Kiriakou allegedly lied to the PRB by falsely claiming that the technique was fictional and that he had never heard of it before."
 
A former veteran Central Intelligence Agency operations officer was charged this week with frequently disclosing classified intelligence to journalists, including the identity of a covert CIA officer and information revealing the identity and role of another CIA employee in classified activities, according to a U.S. Justice Department reported obtained by the National Association of Chiefs of Police.
 
The charges result from an investigation involving CIA Senior Operations Officer John Kiriakou that was triggered by a defense filing in January 2009, which contained classified information the defense had not been given through official government channels, and, in part, by the discovery in the spring of 2009 of photographs of certain government employees and contractors in the materials of high-value detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
 
The investigation revealed that on multiple occasions, one of the journalists to whom the 47-year old Kiriakou is alleged to have illegally disclosed classified information, in turn, disclosed that information to a defense team investigator, and that this information was reflected in the classified defense filing and enabled the defense team to take or obtain surveillance photographs of government personnel.
 
The journalists are not identified by name in court documents, but many believe that Kiriakou was a source for a June 2008 New York Times article written by Scott Shane.
 
There are no allegations of criminal activity by any members of the defense team for the detainees.
 
Kiriakou, of Arlington, Virginia, was a CIA intelligence officer between 1990 and 2004, serving at headquarters and in various classified overseas assignments. He was charged with one count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act for allegedly illegally disclosing the identity of a covert officer and two counts of violating the Espionage Act for the alleged illegal disclosure of national defense information to individuals not authorized to receive it.
 
Kiriakou was also charged with one count of making false statements for allegedly lying to the Publications Review Board of the CIA in an unsuccessful attempt to trick the CIA into allowing him to include classified information in a book he was seeking to publish.
 
CIA Officer Betrays Fellow Intel Agents
 
The four-count criminal complaint, which was filed Monday in the Eastern District of Virginia, alleges that Kiriakou made illegal disclosures about two CIA employees and their involvement in classified operations to two journalists on multiple occasions between 2007 and 2009.
 
In one case, revealing the employee’s name as a CIA officer disclosed classified information as the employee was and remains covert (identified in the complaint as “Covert Officer A”). In the second case, Kiriakou allegedly disclosed the name and contact information of an employee, identified in the complaint as “Officer B,” whose participation in an operation to capture and question terrorism subject Abu Zubaydah in 2002 was then classified. Kiriakou’s alleged disclosures occurred prior to a June 2008 front-page story in The New York Times disclosing Officer B’s alleged role in the Abu Zubaydah operation.
 
Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, who was appointed Special Attorney in 2010 to supervise the investigation, announced the charges with James W. McJunkin, Assistant Director in Charge of the Washington Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and they thanked the Central Intelligence Agency for its very substantial assistance in the investigation, as well as the Air Force Office of Special Investigations for its assistance.
 
“Protecting the identities of America’s covert operatives is one of the most important responsibilities of those who are entrusted with roles in our nation’s intelligence community. The FBI and our intelligence community partners work diligently to hold accountable those who violate that special trust,” said Mr. McJunkin.
 
The CIA filed a crimes report with the Justice Department on March 19, 2009, prior to the discovery of the photographs and after reviewing the January 19, 2009, classified filing by defense counsel for certain detainees with the militarycommission then responsible for adjudicating charges. The defense filing contained information relating to the identities and activities of covert government personnel, but prior to January 19, 2009, there had been no authorized disclosure to defense counsel of the classified information.
 
The Justice Department’s National Security Division, working with the FBI, began the investigation. To avoid the risk of encountering a conflict of interest because of the pending prosecutions of some of the high-value detainees, Mr. Fitzgerald was assigned to supervise the investigation conducted by a team of attorneys from the Southern District of New York, the Northern District of Illinois, and the Counterespionage Section of the National Security Division who were not involved in pending prosecutions of the detainees.
 
According to the complaint affidavit, the investigation determined that no laws were broken by the defense team as no law prohibited defense counsel from filing a classified document under seal outlining for a court classified information they had learned during the course of their investigation.
 
Regarding the 32 pages of photographs that were taken or obtained by the defense team and provided to the detainees, the investigation found no evidence the defense attorneys transmitting the photographs were aware of, much less disclosed, the identities of the persons depicted in particular photographs and no evidence that the defense team disclosed other classified matters associated with certain of those individuals to the detainees.
 
The defense team did not take photographs of persons known or believed to be current covert officers.
 
Rather, defense counsel, using a technique known as a double-blind photo lineup, provided photograph spreads of unidentified individuals to their clients to determine whether they recognized anyone who may have participated in questioning them. No law or military commission order expressly prohibited defense counsel from providing their clients with these photo spreads.
 
Upon joining the CIA in 1990 and on multiple occasions in following years, Kiriakou signed secrecy and non-disclosure agreements not to disclose classified information to unauthorized individuals.
 
Regarding Covert Officer A, the affidavit details a series of e-mail communications between Kiriakou and Journalist A in July and August 2008. In an exchange of e-mails on July 11, 2008, Kiriakou allegedly illegally confirmed for Journalist A that Covert Officer A, whose first name only was exchanged at that point, was “the team leader on [specific operation].” On August 18, 2008, Journalist A sent Kiriakou an e-mail asking if Kiriakou could pick out Covert Officer A’s last name from a list of names Journalist A provided in the e-mail. On Aug. 19, 2008, Kiriakou allegedly passed the last name of Covert Officer A to Journalist A by e-mail, stating “It came to me last night.” Covert Officer A’s last name had not been on the list provided by Journalist A. Later that same day, approximately two hours later, Journalist A sent an e-mail to the defense investigator that contained Covert Officer A’s full name. Neither Journalist A, nor any other journalist to the government’s knowledge, has published the name of Covert Officer A.
 
At the time of Kiriakou’s allegedly unauthorized disclosures to Journalist A, the identification of Covert Officer A as “the team leader on [specific operation]” was classified at the Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) level because it revealed both Covert Officer A’s identity and his association with the CIA’s Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation (RDI) Program relating to the capture, detention, and questioning of terrorism subjects. The defense investigator was able to identify Covert Officer A only after receiving the e-mail from Journalist A, and both Covert Officer A’s name and association with the RDI Program were included in the January 2009 classified defense filing. The defense investigator told the government that he understood from the circumstances that Covert Officer A was a covert employee and, accordingly, did not take his photograph. No photograph of Covert Officer A was recovered from the detainees at Guantanamo.
 
In a recorded interview last Thursday, FBI agents told Kiriakou that Covert Officer A’s name was included in the classified defense filing. The affidavit states Kiriakou said, among other things, “How the heck did they get him? . . . [First name of Covert Officer A] was always undercover. His entire career was undercover.” Kiriakou further stated that he never provided Covert Officer A’s name or any other information about Covert Officer A to any journalist and stated “Once they get the names, I mean this is scary.”
 
Regarding Officer B, the affidavit states that he worked overseas with Kiriakou on an operation to locate and capture Abu Zubaydah, and Officer B’s association with the RDI Program and the Abu Zubaydah operation in particular were classified until that information was recently declassified to allow the prosecution of Kiriakou to proceed.
 
In June 2008, The New York Times published an article by Journalist B entitled “Inside the Interrogation of a 9/11 Mastermind,” which publicly identified Officer B and reported his alleged role in the capture and questioning of Abu Zubaydah—facts which were then classified. The article attributed other information to Kiriakou as a source, but did not identify the source(s) who disclosed or confirmed Officer B’s identity. The charges allege that at various times prior to publication of the article, Kiriakou provided Journalist B with personal information regarding Officer B, knowing that Journalist B was seeking to identify and locate Officer B. In doing so, Kiriakou allegedly confirmed classified information that Officer B was involved in the Abu Zubaydah operation. For example, Kiriakou allegedly e-mailed Officer B’s phone number and personal e-mail address to Journalist B, who attempted to contact Officer B via his personal e-mail in April and May 2008. Officer B had provided his personal e-mail address to Kiriakou, but not to Journalist B or any other journalist. Subsequently, Kiriakou allegedly revealed classified information by confirming for Journalist B additional information that an individual with Officer B’s name, who was associated with particular contact information that Journalist B had found on a website, was located in Pakistan in March 2002, which was where and when the Abu Zubaydah operation took place.
 
After The New York Times article was published, Kiriakou sent several e-mails denying that he was the source for information regarding Officer B, while, at the same time, allegedly lying about the number and nature of his contacts with Journalist B. For example, in an e-mail dated June 30, 2008, Kiriakou told Officer B that Kiriakou had spoken to the newspaper’s ombudsman after the article was published and said that the use of Officer B’s name was “despicable and unnecessary” and could put Officer B in danger. Kiriakou also denied that he had cooperated with the article and claimed that he had declined to talk to Journalist B, except to say that he believed the article absolutely should not mention Officer B’s name. “[W]hile it might not be illegal to name you, it would certainly be immoral,” Kiriakou wrote to Officer B, according to the affidavit.
 
From at least November 2007 through November 2008, Kiriakou allegedly provided Journalist A with Officer B’s personal contact information and disclosed to Journalist A classified information revealing Officer B’s association with the RDI Program. Just as Journalist A had disclosed to the defense investigator classified information that Kiriakou allegedly imparted about Covert Officer A, Journalist A, in turn, provided the defense investigator information that Kiriakou had disclosed about Officer B. For example, in an e-mail dated April 10, 2008, Journalist A provided the defense investigator with Officer B’s home phone number, which, in light of Officer B’s common surname, allowed the investigator to quickly and accurately identify Officer B and photograph him. Both Officer B’s name and his association with the RDI Program were included in the January 2009 classified defense filing, and four photographs of Officer B were among the photos recovered at Guantanamo.
 
In the same recorded interview with FBI agents last week, Kiriakou said he “absolutely” considered Officer B’s association with the Abu Zubaydah operation classified, the affidavit states. Kiriakou also denied providing any contact information for Officer B or Officer B’s association with the Abu Zubaydah operation to Journalists A and B prior to publication of the June 2008 New York Times article. When specifically asked whether he had anything to do with providing Officer B’s name or other information about Officer B to Journalist B prior to the article, Kiriakou stated “Heavens no.”
 
As background, the affidavit states that sometime prior to May 22, 2007, Kiriakou disclosed to Journalist C classified information regarding Officer B’s association with Abu Zubaydah operation, apparently while collaborating on a preliminary book proposal. A footnote states that Journalist C is not the coauthor of the book Kiriakou eventually published.
 
Prior to publication of his book, The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA’s War on Terror, Kiriakou submitted a draft manuscript in July 2008 to the CIA’s Publication Review Board (PRB). In an attempt to trick the CIA into allowing him to publish information regarding a classified investigative technique, Kiriakou allegedly lied to the PRB by falsely claiming that the technique was fictional and that he had never heard of it before.
 
In fact, according to a transcript of a recorded interview conducted in August 2007 to assist Kiriakou’s coauthor in drafting the book, Kiriakou described the technique, which he referred to as the “magic box,” and told his coauthor that the CIA had used the technique in the Abu Zubaydah operation. The technique was also disclosed in the June 2008 New York Times article and referred to as a “magic box.”
 
In his submission letter to the PRB, Kiriakou flagged the reference to a device called a “magic box,” stating he had read about it in the newspaper article but added that the information was “clearly fabricated,” as he was unaware of and had used no such device. The affidavit contains the contents of an August 2008 e-mail that Kiriakou sent his coauthor admitting that he lied to the PRB in an attempt to include classified information in the book. The PRB subsequently informed Kiriakou that the draft manuscript contained classified information that he could not use, and information regarding the technique that Kiriakou included in the manuscript remained classified until it was recently declassified to allow Kiriakou’s prosecution to proceed.
 
Upon conviction, the count charging illegal disclosure of Covert Officer A’s identity to a person not authorized to receive classified information carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, which must be imposed consecutively to any other term of imprisonment; the two counts charging violations of the Espionage Act each carry a maximum term of 10 years in prison; and making false statements carries a maximum prison term of five years. Each count carries a maximum fine of $250,000.
 
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and is a columnist for The Examiner (examiner.com) and New Media Alliance (thenma.org).  In addition, he's a blogger for the Cheyenne, Wyoming Fox News KGAB (www.kgab.com). Jim Kouri also serves as political advisor for Emmy and Golden Globe actor Michael Moriarty.



Panetta on bin Laden's hideout: Someone had to know

January 27, 2012 6:19 PM


CBS News)  
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta still believes someone in authority in Pakistan knew where the most wanted terrorist in the world was hiding. Bolstering his hunch, he tells Scott Pelley, were intelligence reports of Pakistani military helicopters passing over the compound in Abbottabad, where Navy Seals found and killed Osama bin Laden last year. Panetta also discusses the military budget, Iran and his new job heading up the U.S. military in a "60 Minutes" profile to be broadcast Sunday, Jan. 29 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
"I personally have always felt that somebody must have had some sense of what-- what was happening at this compound. Don't forget, this compound had 18 foot walls....It was the largest compound in the area. So you would have thought that somebody would have asked the question, 'What the hell's going on there?'" Panetta tells Pelley.
Pakistan was not made aware of the U.S. raid on the compound. Panetta explains why. "We had seen some military helicopters actually going over this compound. And for that reason, it concerned us that, if we, in fact, brought [Pakistan] into it, that-- they might...give bin Laden a heads up."
Pressed by Pelley as to whether he knows for sure that the government of Pakistan knew where bin Laden was, he answers, "I don't have any hard evidence, so I can't say it for a fact. There's nothing that proves the case. But as I said, my personal view is that somebody somewhere probably had that knowledge," Panetta says.
Panetta also acknowledged that Shikal Afridi, the Pakistani doctor conducting health tests in the village in an effort to collect DNA and verify bin Laden's presence, was in fact working for the U.S. Afridi was arrested and charged with treason by the government of Pakistan. "I'm very concerned about what the Pakistanis did with this individual...who in fact helped provide intelligence that was very helpful with regards to this operation," says Panetta. "He was not in any way treasonous towards Pakistan...Pakistan and the United States have a common cause here against terrorism...and for them to take this kind of action against somebody who was helping to go after terrorism, I just think is a real mistake on their part," he tells Pelley. Watch an excerpt

Mubarak asks World leaders to save him

ISRAEL MATZAV
by Carl in Jerusalem
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Egyptian daily Ruz al-Yusuf reported on Saturday that former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has asked nine World leaders to intervene to allow his family to leave Egypt and to save his life.
In the letters, which were most likely addressed to the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Lebanon, the ailing Mubarak pleaded with the leaders to mount pressure on Egyptian authorities to allow his two sons, Gamal and Alaa – who are also facing trial – and his wife to leave the country without being sent to jail.

Mubarak also reportedly plead with American officials to dissuade Egyptian authorities from sentencing him to death, claiming that the current rulers of Egypt and his historic rivals – the Muslim Brotherhood – will not allow the court to acquit him.
Well, I hope he's not expecting Obama to save him


Note:
See: 

'Egypt's Mubarak asked world leaders to save him from execution 



Netanyahu takes a page out of Sharon's book, threatens to fire ministers

ISRAEL MATZAV
By Carl in Jerusalem
Sunday, January 29, 2012

You may recall that when Ariel Sharon was Prime Minister, and he could not get his cabinet to vote in favor of expelling all the Jews from Gaza, he fired ministers and got himself a new cabinet. Binyamin Netanyahu has apparently learned from Sharon. He is about to do the same thing over the issue of 'illegal outposts.'
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to inform Likud ministers on Sunday that any Likud minister who votes for the Outpost Law will be fired from government.

The bill, authored by Minister Zevulun Orlev (Jewish Home), would forbid eviction and demolition orders for Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria that have stood for four years and have at least twenty families.

It also stipulates that all petitions disputing land claims must be proven through accepted evidentiary means in a court competent to hear the case. Should such a claim be found valid the court would be directed to order monetary compensation or alternative grant of land for the plaintiff.

Netanyahu, who has pointedly refused to bring the law to the Ministerial Committee on Legislation for several weeks in fear it will pass over his objections, wishes to ensure the law fails in the Knesset plenum.

Without the backing of the Ministerial Committee, laws generally fail to garner sufficient support to be passed into law. But Netanyahu and his office are painfully aware that many Likud ministers and faction heads intend to back the law, irrespective of his position.

Orlev is expected to put the Outpost Law on the Knesset agenda even without the Ministerial Committee's endorsement, on Monday.

Observers say the Outpost Law would could then be brought to a vote in the plenum as early as Wednesday. Nor, they say, will Netanyahu likely be able to convince Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin to refuse to bring the law to a vote.

Rivlin has gone on record saying that "one way or another" the community of Migron, which the bill seeks to save (among others), will be legalized.

Orlev is well aware that his bill has strong support among Likud lawmakers and other MKs in the ruling coalition who see it as a way to stop further demolitions of Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria.

According to a recent poll 67% of the Likud-base supported the Outpost Law, while only 26% opposed it and 7% held no opinion.

When asked whether Likud ministers or faction members opposing the Outpost Law would cause them to vote against them in the coming Likud primaries 45% answered in the affirmative, 38% said it would have no impact, and 22% said they were unsure.

However, more telling was that 32% of the Likud base said, were Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to champion the Outpost Law, they would seriously consider transferring their support to his Israel Beiteinu faction in the next elections, if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu opposes it and the threatened communities are uprooted.

Analysts say, with Likud primaries just around the corner, that Likud lawmakers find themselves faced with a double edged sword vis-a-vis the Prime Minister and Likud base.
Netanyahu backed a proposal by Benny Begin to move Migron in order to avoid the need for this law.

Moshe Feiglin should be all over this issue. It's a winner for him. The Likud primaries are Tuesday. Hmmm.



The New American Elite - by Alan Caruba


SATURDAY, JANUARY 28, 2012

The New American Elite

By Alan Caruba
WARNING SIGNS
The only constant in the life of individuals and nations is change. Since the beginning of the last century, the process or rate of change has accelerated with the invention and availability of a myriad of machines, technologies that have altered the lifestyle of Americans as well as of millions around the world.

Let me put it in personal terms. When I was born in the late 1930s, my Mother washed the family laundry by hand and hung it out to dry on sunny days or in the basement of our home if it was raining. We were not poor. We were middle class. My Father was a Certified Public Accountant and we lived in a spacious suburban home in an upscale New Jersey community. Mass produced washers and dryers would arrive after the end of World War Two.

The differences between lower economic classes, the middle class, and upper classes were well defined back then. All, however, generally held the same values regarding societal institutions such as marriage, religion, national pride. Those values have eroded since the 1960s and Charles Murray, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, whose new book, “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010” ($27.00, Crown Forum) tells you how and why. 

Murray takes the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 21, 1963 as the starting point, noting, for example, that “Not only were Americans almost always married, mothers normally stayed at home to raise their children. More than 80 percent of married women with children were not working outside the home in 1963.”

“Part of these widely shared values lay in the religiosity of America in 1963” and Murray compares this to a 1963 Gallup poll in which “Only one percent of respondents said they did not have a religious preference, and half said they had attended a worship service in the previous seven days. These answers showed almost no variations across classes.”

“The racial differences in income, education, and occupations were all huge, noted Murray. “The civil rights movement was the biggest domestic issue of the early 1960s…” By 1963, “Poverty had been dropping so rapidly for so many years that Americans thought things were going well.”

The changes in values that many Americans deplore today were coming. “The first oral contraceptive pill had done on the market in 1960 and its use was spreading widely.” Murray points out that “The leading cohorts of the baby boomers were in their teens by November 21, 1963, and, for better or worse, they were going to be who they were going to be. No one understood at the time what a big difference it could make if one age group of a population is abnormally large. Everyone was about to find out.”

“This book,” wrote Murray, “is about the evolution in American society that has taken place since November 21, 1963, leading to the formation of classes that are different in kind and in their degree of separation from anything that the nation has ever known.”

The culture that Americans shared uniquely and in contrast to much of the world, warns Murray “is unraveling” as “America is coming apart at the seams—not the seams of race or ethnicity, but of class.”

Murray defines the new upper class “as the most successful five percent of adults ages 25 and older who are working in managerial positions, in the professions (medicine, the law, engineering and architecture, the sciences, and university faculty), and in content-production jobs in the media.”

“As of 2010, about 23 percent of all employed persons aged 25 or older were in these occupations, which means that about 1,427,000 persons constituted the top 5 percent. Since 69 percent of adults in these occupations who were ages 25 and older were married in 2010, about 2.4 million adults were in new-upper-class families as heads of households or spouse.” That’s a very small slice of 330 million Americans. 

They are not the “millionaires and billionaires” that President Obama is always blathering about. They are the new “establishment” that determine much about the nation’s culture, economy, and future.

To boil down Murray’s extensive research and reporting, that top 5 percent are largely isolated from the rest of the population because they tend to live where their counterparts live and interact mostly with one another in all aspects of their lives. They are the new “elite.” 

“Rolling back income inequality won’t make any difference in the isolation of the new upper class from the rest of America.” They are wealthy by most standards and Murray expects them to become wealthier over time. Thus, all the talk of “fairness” and “a fair share” is meaningless. 

“Fairness” as many point out, is just another word for “class warfare.” It has always been the siren call of communism.

Efforts in America and in Europe to create “fairness” in the form of our “entitlement” programs and the extensive European socialism have reached a point where they threaten to collapse our own and the economies of many European nations.

Murray says “We have been the product of the cultural capital bequeathed to us by the system the founders laid down; a system that says people must be free to live life as they see fit and to be responsible for the consequences of their actions; that it is not the government’s job to protect people from themselves; that it is not the government’s job to stage-manage how people interact with one another. Discard the system that created the cultural capital, and the qualities we have loved about Americans will go away.”

The system, of course, is free-market capitalism, deregulation, and lower marginal income tax rates, all within the context of the U.S. Constitution. It is under attack by the President of the United States and a cohort of civil service and industrial unions, along with liberal members of Congress.

It is why the Republican primaries have been, in part, a desperate effort to educate Americans to the reason America is in peril and why Americans must strive to restore the values that were shared on November 21, 1963.

© Alan Caruba, 2012