Nothing says leadership more than bravely standing up against a concern that’s not actually a problem. We’ve had a one-sided battle with Sharia Law in the U.S. No one is fighting for replacing U.S. law with an Islamic moral code, but nonetheless Republicans are heroically fighting against it. Same with aborted fetuses in commercial food stuffs: Not something that’s ever happened but earlier this year Republican freshman Oklahoma state senator Ralph Shortey had the temerity to introduce a bill to outlaw it.

Republicans love what they call “simple solutions” but it’s really just the easiest possible answer to a trumped up crisis. In short: busy work. America needs to streamline for the challenges of the future so we can remain competitive (blah blah blah). Yet Republican offers are akin to organizing all the paperclips in the office by color and size.

Republicans and bureaucracy are, after all, frenemies. Sure they tell the media they despise bureaucracy but secretly love it when it makes them appear to be doing something. Even better if it keeps them from doing anything difficult.

For example: We’re in the middle of an obesity epidemic. It’s the number two leading cause of preventable death in this country. The Center for Disease Control estimates 112,000 American deaths a year due to obesity, this is down from their previous estimate of 365,000 deaths from poor nutrition and physical inactivity. The CDC reports in 2008 Americans forked over $147 billion in medical costs on obesity. We’re dying and going broke from being too fat.

But what are Republicans trying to warn us against? Terrorism. China. Russia. Obamacare. ACORN. The New Black Panthers. The Fed. All of which cumulatively killed no Americans last year.

It’s (ironically) lazy to try to and scare Americans about some elusive menace in order to avoid the reality that we’ve become the proverbial elephants in our own living rooms.

Illegal immigration? Republicans say to secure the border—build a fence—arrest anyone who even looks illegal. Mitt Romney said Arizona’s infamous SB 1070 should be a model for the nation. Which would be something if Mexicans were still coming into the U.S. They’re not. Immigration from Mexico is now net zero. That is actually a way bigger problem than undocumented workers (whom we love in boom times for a way to circumvent the minimum wage and exploit a non-litigious underclass). It’s the fact we are no longer an attractive enough country to motivate Mexicans to come here.

But as we saw last week with the Supreme Court ruling on Arizona’s law, governor Jan Brewer’s just doubled down on a non-problem, “We cannot forget that we are here today because the federal government has failed the American people regarding immigration policy, has failed to protect its citizens, has failed to preserve the rule of law and has failed to secure our borders.”

For a party that likes to peddle free market and common sense they sure get a lot of traction ginning up irrational fears.

Our energy plan is stuck firmly in the last century, but that’s not the point the presumptive Republican nominee decided to make. In March Mitt Romney told Fox News President Obama "has done everything in his power to make it harder for us to get oil and natural gas in this country, driving up the price of those commodities in the case of gasoline." Gas prices were the thing Republicans were going to fix by paying attention to them! With little fanfare, gas prices are down now by the way. Production has increased overall under the Obama administration. Republicans managed to sound the alarm and assign blame for a symptom while steadfastly avoiding the cause entirely.

Think I’m way off here? Remember this is the party that in the wake of September 11th—an attack by citizens of Saudi Arabia, organized in Afghanistan by a leader hanging out in Lebanon—decided to invade (wait for it) Iraq.

Because things indirectly involved with real problems hate us for our freedoms.

Cross posted at TinaDupuy.com

Apparently, Bob Graham and Bob Kerrey think so.

“I am convinced that there was a direct line between at least some of the terrorists who carried out the September 11th attacks and the government of Saudi Arabia,” former Senator Bob Graham, Democrat of Florida, said in an affidavit filed as part of a lawsuit brought against the Saudi government and dozens of institutions in the country by families of Sept. 11 victims and others. Mr. Graham led a joint 2002 Congressional inquiry into the attacks.

His former Senate colleague, Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, a Democrat who served on the separate 9/11 Commission, said in a sworn affidavit of his own in the case that “significant questions remain unanswered” about the role of Saudi institutions. “Evidence relating to the plausible involvement of possible Saudi government agents in the September 11th attacks has never been fully pursued,” Mr. Kerrey said.

I'm guessing if 15 of the 19 hijackers had been Saudis and not Iraqis, we would've invaded...oh wait.

Democracy is okay only when it doesn't threaten the royal families of the Middle East, I guess:

Saudi Arabia has moved decisively to bolster Bahrain's embattled royal family, sending military forces across the causeway linking the two kingdoms after violent weekend pro-democracy protests by Shia demonstrators all but overwhelmed police.

Although the deployment on Monday was at Bahrain's request and came under the guise of the Gulf Co-operation Council, whose other members also sent troops, it marked another stage in Saudi Arabia's reluctant emergence as the key regional policeman, at a time when the Arab world faces unprecedented turmoil.

Confirming local media reports, Nabeel al-Hamer, a former Bahrain information minister, said the reinforcements were already in place. "Forces from the Gulf Co-operation Council have arrived in Bahrain to maintain order and security," he said.

"GCC forces will arrive in Bahrain today to take part in maintaining law and order," the Gulf Daily News reported. "Their mission will be limited to protecting vital facilities, such as oil, electricity and water installations, and financial and banking facilities."

The deployment followed clashes in Bahrain on Sunday that injured dozens of people in what was one of the most violent demonstrations since troops killed seven protesters last month.

Responding to demands for more democracy and an end to sectarian discrimination, Crown Prince Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, has promised national dialogue, enhanced powers for parliament, electoral reform, and a nationwide referendum on any new deal.

But opponents, including the largest Shia party, Wefaq, remain sceptical. Wefaq said today it had held talks with the prince about a national dialogue. But it deplored the GCC intervention, reportedly saying a deployment of Saudi troops would be an occupation and amount to a declaration of war.

With U.S. gas prices above the $3 level, the conservative echo chamber is in overdrive. While the Heritage Foundation warns "Obama will make you pay more at the pump" and Americans for Limited Government decries "Obama's war on energy," Brent Bozell's Media Research Center simply asks, "How does Obama plan to raise prices?" Of course, as Paul Krugman pointed out this week, stagnant production and accelerating global demand for oil as the world recovers from the 2008 economic meltdown have much more to do with price increases at the pump. That, and oilman turned President George W. Bush's utter failure to "jawbone" his friends in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia into opening the spigots.

On May 7, 2001, Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer was asked "does the President believe we need to correct our lifestyles to address the energy problem?" Fleischer's infamous response made clear energy conservation was off the table for President Bush:

"That's a big no. The President believes that it's an American way of life, and that it should be the goal of policy makers to protect the American way of life."

Instead, George W. Bush promised to get biblical on OPEC.

His pledge to persuade, cajole and other twist arms dated back to his first run for the White House in 1999. As oil prices rose to the then-alarming level of $30 that December, then Governor Bush said President Clinton "must jawbone OPEC members to lower prices." At a New Hampshire Republican debate the next month, Bush claimed the mantle of the Great Persuader. Contending that his days in the West Texas oil fields made him uniquely qualified for the task, Bush proclaimed:

"What I think the president ought to do is he ought to get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say we expect you to open your spigots...And the president of the United States must jawbone OPEC members to lower the price...

...I used to be in the oil business. I was little oil -- really little oil. And so I understand the -- I understand what can happen in the marketplace."

By June 2000, the Bush jawbone pledge became a standard on the stump. As the New York Times reported, Bush foreshadowed future expenditures of political capital he would fail to accumulate:

"I would work with our friends in OPEC to convince them to open up the spigot, to increase the supply," Mr. Bush, the presumptive Republican candidate for president, told reporters here today. "Use the capital that my administration will earn, with the Kuwaitis or the Saudis, and convince them to open up the spigot."

That November, of course, the American people were persuaded. Despite Bush's own personal record of busts and bailouts in the business, his family's close ties to Prince Bandar and the Saudi royal family, Americans must have reasoned, should count for something.

As it turned out, not so much.

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This is, to say the least, a complex diplomatic situation. Wonder how we're going to handle it:

A ranking Saudi diplomat told NBC News that he has asked for political asylum in the United States, saying he fears for his life if he is forced to return to his native country.

The diplomat, Ali Ahmad Asseri, the first secretary of the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles, has informed U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials that Saudi officials have refused to renew his diplomatic passport and effectively terminated his job after discovering he was gay and was close friends with a Jewish woman.

In a recent letter that he posted on a Saudi website, Asseri angrily criticized his country’s “backwardness” as well as the role of “militant imams” in Saudi society who have “defaced the tolerance of Islam.” Perhaps most provocatively of all, he has threatened to expose what he describes as politically embarrassing information about members of the Saudi royal family living in luxury in the U.S.

If he is forced to go back to Saudi Arabia — as Saudi officials are demanding — Asseri says he could face political persecution and even death.

“My life is in a great danger here and if I go back to Saudi Arabia, they will kill me openly in broad daylight,” Asseri said Saturday in an email to NBC.

David DeGraw: Will Americans passively accept the slow death of debt slavery?

Grist: Brits mad, and worried about BP bashing

Lawyers, Guns & Money: Morbidly comic soccer nationalism at a fever pitch

Just An Earth-Bound Misfit: Surpassing the Chimperor

Corrente: Dems to unemployed: Go die!

Helena Cobban: Clumsy disinformation on Saudi Arabia?

Well, sort of:

Concerns over peak oil — that moment when oil demand exceeds global oil supply — has produced little more than a disdainful eye roll from Saudi Arabia. After all, the largest oil producer in the world has far more pressing problems — like peak demand, for example.

In fact, Saudi leaders are so worried that demand for oil could peak in the next decade they’ve done the unexpected — and slightly ironic — by calling for an economy that includes renewable energy. It’s an interesting reversal coming from a country that has poo-pooed investments in renewable energy in the past.

Let’s not forget Saudi Arabia — along with OPEC, the oil cartel it’s a member of — was a major opponent of greenhouse-gas reduction proposals during the climate summit in Copenhagen last year. At the time, OPEC’s chief said oil-producing countries should be compensated for lost revenues if any agreement coming out of Copenhagen leads to cuts in the use of oil. No, really.

Earlier this month, OPEC producers had the gall to ask the world to give them more clarity and certainty about long-term oil demand in order to justify additional investment in new production capacity, according to the Petroleum Economist. As Robert Rapier over at R-Squared notes, that’s simply not the way the world works. The best any business can do is try and estimate where demand will end up and then make decisions from there.

Now, the renewable energy that so worried Saudi Arabia before has suddenly become a worthy investment. The country is starting its first carbon-capture project and is investing in other industries including aluminum and steel in an effort to diversify its heavily crude-focused economy, according to a Bloomberg report. Mohammad al-Sabban, oil minister adviser and the lead negotiator at the climate talks, said the country is working to become the top exporter of energy, including alternative forms such as solar power.

Saudi Arabia is growing annually at about 4.2%, and needs jobs for the influx of foreign workers (estimated at about 7.5 million currently). They are reaching out to the private sector to provide those jobs, both through alternative energy and tourism.

Oh, the irony that Saudi Arabia is recognizing the need for alternative forms of energy more readily than our Republican Party.

Gee, why wouldn't the U.S. want to drive the Arab world crazy by saying one thing and allowing another? Why would Obama want to mess up a sweet deal like that?

JERUSALEM — Senior Israeli officials accused President Obama on Wednesday of failing to acknowledge what they called clear understandings with the Bush administration that allowed Israel to build West Bank settlement housing within certain guidelines while still publicly claiming to honor a settlement “freeze.”

The complaint was the latest in a growing rift between the Obama administration and the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over how to move forward to achieve peace in the Middle East.

[...] The Israeli officials said that repeated discussions with Bush officials starting in late 2002 resulted in agreement that housing could be built within the boundaries of certain settlement blocks as long as no new land was expropriated, no special economic incentives were offered to move to settlements and no new settlements were built.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity so that they could discuss an issue of such controversy between the two governments.

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There's just so much garbage in this clip, it's hard to sort it all out. But garbage it is and sort we must. I think that it's instructive to remember as we wade through this textbook example of fallacious logic that Newt Gingrich is considered the great scholar of the GOP. No wonder the GOP doesn't seem able to think their way out of the tea bag they put themselves in.

Still holding the talking points given to him by the Bush administration's Revisionist History Tour™, Newtie tries to muddy the waters by simultaneously claiming that the Clinton and Obama administrations did or do not take the War on Terror™ as seriously as the Bush administration, but also find that the tactics used by the Bush administration in their pursuit of against terrorism are so acceptable that they haven't tried outlawing them yet. HUH????

(S)ince 1993 when seven people were killed at the World Trade Center, we’ve had two cycles. We had a Clinton administration that thought this was a criminal problem, that issued -- that refused to allow the CIA and the FBI to cooperate, that refused to pressure Saudi Arabia or Yemen to go after people who were killing our folks. And then you had a Bush administration that said this is a war.

Hmm...interesting revisionism. Let's recall, Newtie, that the Clinton administration actually caught and prosecuted the "blind sheik" responsible for the 1993 WTC bombing, unlike the Bush administration, who declared war on a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and killed millions of Iraqis but left Osama Bin Laden uncaught. That's a successful strategy, innit?

WALLACE: I want to ask you about one other aspect of this. Pelosi says even if she was briefed on this that there was nothing she could do because these were classified briefings. She and the Republican chairman of the committee got this information. There’s nothing they could do.

You as House speaker received these kinds of briefings back in the ‘90s. If you objected to a secret operation, was there something you could do?

GINGRICH: Sure. I mean, the first thing you do is call the president and tell him you will feel compelled to pass a law cutting off the money. I mean, there are lots of things you can do if you want to do it. The Congress is pretty powerful if it wants to be.

And second, you know, they’ve had control since January of 2007. They haven’t passed a law making waterboarding illegal. They haven’t gone into any of these things and changed law. In fact, they’ve had several -- they -- recently, you find that Attorney General Holder’s own Justice Department is saying, “Well, you know, some of these memos are actually right. They’re not wrong.”

Um, Newt? You do know that waterboarding is already illegal, don't you? Oh great historian of the GOP, can you tell me what happened to those Japanese soldiers who waterboarded American GIs during WWII? So Congress should make waterboarding illegal again otherwise they condone the act? Astonishing lack of logic there.

So this is -- what we’re seeing now in a very sad way is as bitter a partisan attack on the Bush people as we’ve seen since the McCarthy era. The degree that they’re putting specific people at risk for criminal prosecution is unprecedented in modern America.

Never let be said that today's GOP isn't the most persecuted bunch of privileged white folk in the history of mankind. Jeez. Here's another way to look at it, Newt: Specific people are at risk for criminal prosecution because of THEIR UNPRECEDENTED CRIMINAL ACTS. "Rule of Law" party, my aunt Fanny.

Which brings me to my final point, the implied slur against AG Eric Holder for his firm's representation of Yemeni detainees at Gitmo. Somehow this is siding with terrorists to actually respect our legal system. While Holder himself did not actually work on those Gitmo cases, the fact remains--and I'm sure that this comes as a shock to Gingrich--but not all attorneys think their clients are innocent. They are just interested in making sure that justice is served by a fair trial.

Obviously, the concepts of fairness and justice are alien to Gingrich.

Transcripts (courtesy of CQ Politics) below the fold

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And were wondering why:

Millions of people across the Middle East and Asia have lost access to the internet after two undersea cables in the Mediterranean suffered severe damage.

Huge numbers in Egypt and India were left struggling to get online as a result of the outage, when the major internet pipeline between Egypt and Italy was cut.

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) throughout the region, including those in United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, also reported problems. International telephone calls, which have also been affected, are being rerouted to work around the problem.