I included this in Breaking News because is is new news, and to help focus attention on the urgency to reverse the massive illegal alien migration that together with socialist Democrat government spending is largely responsible for the tax hikes we will be paying.

Australia has real requirements for people who want to live and work there, just as the U.S. used to have, including financial responsibility.

The joke makes an important and serious point about the liberal Democrat view of violent crime, and does not imply there is anyting humorous about these serious violent crimes.

Liberals do not believe in individual rights or individual (personal) responsibility, and instead believe in "group rights" which cannot be invoked by any individual, and "group responsibility" which cannot be applied to any responsible individual.

In contrast, conservatives believe in both individual rights and individual (personal) responsibility.

Thus, conservatism is superior to and more practical than liberalism, AKA socialism and communism.

"Under Clinton, the US government respected Ramadan and wouldn't launch any attacks on Iraq during their holy month... but did that on Easter weekend. Go figure."

Thank you for these excellent examples of Fidel Castro's communist propaganda photos. Let's compare Castro's special "treatment" of Elian Gonzalez in these staged propaganda photos, and the treatment of the typical Cuban child, as exposed on TheRealCuba.com:

Elian Gonzalez sitting in a privileged seat next to dictator Fidel Castro, or under the thumb of Castro.

A large cake, presumably for Elian Gonzalez.

Elian Gonzalez standing in a privileged spot next to dictator Fidel Castro, or under the thumb of Castro.

The playgrounds that the regime has built for the foreign children staying at tourist hotels have all the toys that a child could dream.

Typical Cuban children have to make their own toys and use the streets as playgrounds, because there are no real playgrounds for them to play.

A park ride for a foreign child.

A rusty old military airplane park ride for a typical Cuban child.

A pool for foreign children.

Thank you very much for the link to the page with the photos of the Elian Gonzalez abduction raid. I am including those photos here in the reply, for all to see, to refresh everyone's memory of one more important reason to vote Republican.

These photos are from the page at:
http://www.hkpro.com/elian.htm

Note that although the BBC article was accompanied by photos, the BBC avoided including any of the series of seven pictures, snapped by Associated Press photographer Alan Diaz, of federal agents seizing 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez from the arms of his protector. These widely distributed images showed a terrified child confronted by a heavily armed, helmeted, goggled, body-armored commando whose HK MP-5 submachinegun was clearly pointed towards, and threatening and endangering Elian Gonzalez and his Cuban refugee protector in Lazaro Gonzalez's home in Miami where the federal assault took place. Elian's protector and retreated to the closet area of the bedroom, as he attempted to shield Elian from the attacking federal agents.

Also note how the BBC article neglects to mention that the abduction of Elian Gonzalez and deporting him to the communist dictatorship in Cuba under the Demcrat President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno was a significant factor that cost the Democrats the 2000 and ultimately the 2004 Presidential election. Thus, the Democrats' respect, admiration, sympathy, and support for communist dictator and mass murderer Fidel Castro cost the Democrats the Presidency, and Elian Gonzalez reshaped U.S. and World history. Also, although Elian's mother drowned in her attempt to liberate her son from Castro's communist dictatorship, and althouth Elian was sent back to the hell hole from which he had escaped, his mother did not die for nothing. The death of Elian's mother, and the deportation of Elian to Cuba, in effect, helped save the Earth. (This should make the liberals happy!)

This was one of several factors that combine to cost the Democrats the 2000 and ultimately the 2004 election. Bill Clinton's enthusiastic and activist support for dangerous, counter-productive gun control laws that targeted, punished, and endangered ordinary nonviolent citizens help bring out the pro-gun voters including the cross-over Democrat voters who vote Republican due to "gun control" laws.

A memorable photo of Bill Clinton, with a pose and a camera angle to remind us of his affair with Monica Lewinsky ("In your face!")

Had Al Gore been president when the 9-11-2001 terrorist attack occurred, he probably would have taken the same approach that Bill Clinton took after previous attacks - and acts of war - against the World Trade Center, two U.S. embassies in Africa, the USS Cole Navy Ship, and other targets. He probably would have ordered the FBI investigate these actos of war as ordinary crimes.

Therefore, Ellian Gonzalez and American firearm owners from both political parties helped save the U.S. and the world from the dangers and ravages of another Democrat presidential administration.

Reason Magazine recounts the machinegun raid in April, 2000, to snatch Elian Gonzalez from his loving guardians to deport him to the evil communist dictatorship of Fidel Castro:

http://reason.com/0007/fe.cf.reading.shtml

Reading Elian

The camera doesn’t lie. But it will confess to just about anything.

By Charles Paul Freund

On the morning of April 22, Attorney General Janet Reno and other Justice Department officials woke to a very big problem: a series of seven pictures, snapped by Associated Press photographer Alan Diaz, of federal agents seizing the country’s most celebrated 6-year- old, Elian Gonzalez. Television and the Internet displayed images of a terrified child confronted by a heavily armed, helmeted, goggled, body-armored commando whose weapon was clearly pointed in the boy’s direction.

<snip>

Janet Reno and her allies used a variety of approaches in their attempt to change the meaning of the raid imagery and mitigate its impact. In fact, they may have broken new strategic ground in this field. Here’s a quick rundown of their major efforts.

<snip>

http://reason.com/0007/fe.cf.reading.shtml

As expected, the communist sypmathizers and supporters within the western and the U.S. press tried to minimize the impact of the photographic evidence against the Clinton administration and Janet Reno:

<snip>

The New York Times did not use the image inside the house but used the picture of Elian being transported from the home by an INS agent, Betty Mills. One interesting twist is that the Times opted to correct the "red-eye" of the subjects' eyes. The Los Angeles Times, using a similar image taken by their staff photographer, Carolyn Cole, did not remove the red-eye.

<snip>

http://legacy.poynter.org/centerpiece/052400.htm
Is Seeing No Longer Believing?
Elian Gonzalez Photos Examined
By KENNY IRBY
Poynter Visual Journalism Group Leader

http://frontpagemag.com/articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=2952

Beat the Press

By Chris Weinkopf

FrontPageMagazine.com | May 1, 2000

"ONE OF THE BEAUTIES OF TELEVISION," Attorney General Janet Reno recently told a news conference, "is that it shows exactly what the facts are." Beauty, as the cliché goes, is in the eye of the beholder. Facts are beautiful only to those with little to fear from them. For law-breakers and tyrants, they are unpleasant and irksome, a nuisance to be quashed at any price.

<snip>

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2000/07-31-2000/vo16no16_elian.htm

Vol. 16, No. 16
July 31, 2000

Such Genteel Storm Troopers!

by William F. Jasper

Federal agents are claiming that they politely and delicately removed Elian from the Gonzalez home, but witnesses and photographic evidence tell another story.

<snip>

I searched, but could not find any remaining posted copies of the Alan Diaz photos of the raid and abduction of Elian Gonzalez. I have the set of photos in archive, but it would take some time to locate them. If anyone has the photos or links to the photos, please consider posting them here. Thank you.

President Bush can save time by simply writing the check from U.S. taxpayer's money to the Swiss bank accounts of the leading Arab terrorists.

It appears that Yasser Arafat interpreted the "West Bank" as the "Bank of the West"! Although Arafat is gone, the corruption remains. We are dealing with hardcore terrorists and enemies of the U.S., Israel, and western civilization.

Any money sent to Arab terrorists in Arab-occupied Jewish land or elsewhere may be used to fund the next 9-11 terrorist attack against the U.S.

Here are a few links with information on the "Palestinian" Arab corruption and Swiss bank accounts:

Search for "Arafat Swiss bank account":
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Arafat+Swiss+bank+account

Arafat 'Diverted $300m of Public Money to Swiss Bank Account'
Telegraph - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
November 9, 2003
http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/launder/regions/2003/1109swiss.htm

More than $300 million (£176 million) of Palestinian Authority funds were diverted by Yasser Arafat into a previously undisclosed Swiss bank account and the money can no longer be traced, according to a damning American television report to be broadcast today. The CBS network's 60 Minutes, a respected investigative programme, claims that missing Palestinian funds were held in Switzerland in an account set up in the name of a British Virgin Island company. The account has since been closed.

The revelation follows the disclosure by the International Monetary Fund in September that Mr Arafat had diverted more than £560 million of Palestinian Authority funds from 1995 to 2000. The new report coincides with a BBC documentary, also to be screened tonight, which claims the Palestinian Authority is paying members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an armed militia responsible for carrying out suicide attacks against Israelis, up to $50,000 (£29,000) a month.

Arafat's Swiss Bank Account
by Issam Abu Issa
http://www.meforum.org/article/645

Yasir Arafat and the Palestinian Authority are known internationally for the violence between Israelis and Palestinians. As ruinous as that violence has been, another cancer permeates Arafat's administration; its name is corruption. From firsthand experience, I understand just how deep it is. Here is what I know.

<snip>

Over the course of fifteen meetings, I became better acquainted with Arafat and grew increasingly concerned with his leadership style. Arafat and top PA officials did not respect the rule of law; many were corrupt. Arafat believed neither in separation of powers nor in checks and balances. His animosity toward accountability thwarted efforts to establish a responsible leadership. By 1996, Palestinians in the PA were saying they had traded one occupation for two, the one by Israel and the one by Arafat and his cronies.

Rather than use donor funds for their intended purposes, Arafat regularly diverted money to his own accounts. It is amazing that some U.S. officials still see the Palestinian Authority as a partner even after U.S. congressional records revealed authenticated PLO papers signed by Arafat in which he instructed his staff to divert donors' money to projects benefiting himself, his family, and his associates.[3]

<snip>

Arafat's men flagrantly displayed corruption. Arriving penniless in Gaza and the West Bank from exile in Tunisia, many PLO members amassed wealth, built villas in Gaza, Ramallah, Amman, and other places, and sent their children to the best schools in the United Kingdom and the United States. Hisham Makki, former head of the Palestine Broadcasting Services, assassinated in January 2001, earned a monthly salary of $1,500 but became a millionaire within a few years. Immediately after his assassination, Arafat froze Makki's personal bank accounts, estimated at $17 million. Makki was alleged to have taken bribes and sold government-owned equipment. However, it was rumored that he had a dispute with another PA official over the sharing of profits gained on illegal business transactions. His assailants, believed to be members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a shady group affiliated with Fatah, have never been caught.[6]

<snip>

Arafat's corruption reached its peak in 1999 via the monster of "twelve security forces that nobody could control,"[8] in addition to the disorganized Tanzim (Fatah's militia). He played these services off each other, never allowing a subordinate to gain power. Between 1995 and 2000, Arafat's thugs beat up at least eleven elected members of the 88-member Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) because they voiced views in private and in public that were opposed to Arafat's on how the PA is run. The victims included PLC Human Rights Committee head Qaddoura Fares, Azmi ash-Shoaibi, Abdul Jawad Saleh, Hatem Abdul Kader, among others. Arafat wanted to terrorize and silence his critics. Indeed, one of his favorite slogans was Dimuqratiyat al-Banadiq (Democracy of the Guns). Arafat believes true power lies in force, whether directed against Israelis or against his own people.

<snip>

At the end of 1997, when the PA Auditor's Office released its end of the year financial report, $326 million—43 percent of the annual budget—was "missing."[10] Only 57 percent of the budget was accounted for, spent on security forces (35 percent), office of the president (12.5 percent), and public allocation (9.5 percent). A special committee appointed by the PLC conducted an investigation and released a report accusing the PA of financial mismanagement. The findings of this panel exposed many official misgivings and abuses such as the use of government money for personal purposes by ministers Nabil Sha'ath, Talal Sidr, and Yasir Abd Rabboh; excessive expenditure on rent, salaries, and cost of travel in various ministries; receipt of bribes by ministry officials in the Ministry of Civil Affairs; illegal and unreported collection of taxes by the Ministry of Postal Services; granting illegal customs exemptions on cars, furniture, and material donations entering the PA, etc. It concluded that anyone involved in corruption should be taken to court, regardless of his position as minister, undersecretary, or director-general. The report demanded the ouster of at least two ministers: civil affairs minister Jamil at-Tarifi, and planning and international cooperation minister Nabil Sha'ath.[11]

The PLC voted 51-1 in favor of dissolving Arafat's appointed 18-member limited self-rule cabinet. Sixteen ministers gave letters to Arafat signaling readiness to resign if asked. But Arafat confirmed the corrupt ministers in their positions rather than firing them. Additionally, PLC member Haider Abdel Shafi resigned due to "frustration with the performance of the PLC and with the executive's total lack of concern for its recommendations," and added, "The PLC is a marginal body and not a true parliament."[12]

Even as the PLC committee was conducting its investigation, Arafat appointed Tayeb Abd al-Rahim, general secretary of the Presidential Office, to make a detailed inquiry into acts of corruption. His report remains secret.
<snip>

[3] "Scandalous PLO Letters Authenticated by Congressional Task Force," Manfred and Anne Lehmann Foundation (New York), at http://www.manfredlehmann.com/sieg429.html.
[6] Khaled Abu Toameh, "Corrupt Palestinian Officials Said Fleeing in Fear for Their Lives," The Israel Report, Jan./Feb. 2001, at http://www.christianactionforisrael.org/isreport.
[8] Mahmoud Abbas, ex-Palestinian prime minister, quoted in Newsweek, June 21, 2004.
[10] The Washington Post, Dec. 2, 1998.
[11] PLC Special Committee Report (The Corruption Report,) May 1997, at http://www.jmcc.org/politics/pna/plc/plccorup.htm; Stacey Lakind and Yigal Carmon, "The PA Economy," The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Inquiry and Analysis Series, no. 11, Jan. 8, 1999, at http://www.memri.org/bin/opener.cgi?Page=archives&ID=IA1199.
[12] Arjan El Fassed, "Cement and Corruption," The Electronic Intifada, June 11, 2004, at http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article2813.shtml.

Who will get Arafat's millions?
Wife is fighting Palestinian officials for assets, Arab TV reports
San Francisco Chronicle
Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service
Sunday, November 7, 2004
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/11/07/MNGU49NGHN1.DTL

Ramallah, West Bank -- The wife of Yasser Arafat was locked in a bitter dispute with Palestinian officials over the fate of his vast secret fortune as the Palestinian leader lay apparently near death in a French hospital, according to a report on the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera.

Arafat's secret assets have been estimated at anywhere between $200 million (Forbes magazine) and $6 billion (U.S. and Israeli intelligence). Forbes listed him ninth in its ranking of the world's wealthiest heads of state -- even though he is a ruler without a country and many of his people are refugees.

In Paris, the struggle over Arafat's hidden millions threatened to overshadow his final days. His wife, Suha Arafat, hopes to inherit at least part of his fortune. But, according to Al-Jazeera, Palestinian leaders demand that it be handed over to the Palestinian people.

The assets are managed in a complex network of bank accounts, holding companies and stocks whose details are known only to his closest confidant, financial adviser Mohammed Rashid.

Suha Arafat has access to some of the money, but apparently even she does not know all the ins and outs of the secret accounts. Al-Jazeera reported that she asked Rashid to make out a list of Arafat's assets and that he refused, saying he would report only to the Palestinian Authority.

According to Al-Jazeera, Arafat had written a will leaving at least some of his fortune to his wife and their 9-year-old daughter Zahwa, but other reports said Arafat has no will, leaving most of his fortune in the hands of Rashid.

When the 75-year-old Palestinian leader was flown to a military hospital outside Paris on Oct. 29, Suha Arafat took control of his medical care, although the couple have lived apart for nearly four years.

Thirty years younger than Arafat, the Christian, Sorbonne-educated Suha Tawil married the Palestinian leader in a secret ceremony in 1992 in Tunisia, where she worked for the Palestine Liberation Organization. After Arafat's return to the Palestinian territories in 1994, she played the part of Palestinian first lady, but spent most of her time in Paris. She left the family's home in Gaza in January 2001 and took Zahwa to Paris, where they have lived ever since at the five-star Bristol Hotel.

French officials earlier this year began investigating the transfer of $11.5 million from Swiss bank accounts to accounts in France controlled by Suha Arafat.

"What is so strange for the Palestinian president to send any amount of money to his family and his wife, who is protecting the Palestinian interests abroad, and the money came and will come legally?" she told an interviewer from Al-Hayat, an Arab-language newspaper published in London.

With Arafat apparently near death, questions linger about what has happened to the billions in aid money from the international community to build the nascent Palestinian state. Many suspect that Suha Arafat's luxurious lifestyle -- as well as the cars, villas and expensive education of other prominent Palestinian families -- was bought with cash stolen from international donors and tax revenues.

In 1997, the Palestinian Authority's own officials found that $323 million -- more than a third of the total budget -- had gone missing. The International Monetary Fund said last year that $750 million had been "diverted" from the Palestinian budget up to the year 2000.

Identifying Arafat's personal fortune and separating it from numerous secret bank accounts in the name of the PLO and Fatah, his political faction, will be no easy task.

Jean-Claude Robard, a Swiss investment adviser, told Al-Jazeera that Arafat opened his first secret bank account in 1965 with a $50,000 check from the emir of Kuwait. Since then, Robard said, Arafat has set up other accounts in Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands. Robard said Arafat also owns a number of hotels and holiday resorts in Spain, Italy, France, Switzerland and Austria and is the main shareholder in two cellular telephone companies operating in Tunisia and Algeria.

After the Oslo peace accords were finalized in 1994, tax and customs revenues collected by Israel on Palestinian salaries and goods were transferred to a personal account in Arafat's name held at an Israeli bank branch in Tel Aviv. Between 1996 and 2000, Israel paid more than $500 million in tax revenues on oil sales alone into Arafat's personal account, according to a report by the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth.

In December 2002, an Israeli accountant named Ozrad Lev said in an interview with the Israeli daily Maariv that he was involved in the illegal transfer of $300 million in Palestinian funds to Arafat through a secret Swiss account. The funds were transferred from an official Palestinian account at a branch of the Arab Bank in Ramallah by Arafat and one of his top aides, said Lev. He also said he helped open and manage the Swiss account with Yossi Ginossar, a former Israeli security official with widespread Palestinian business dealings who died earlier this year.

Lev told Maariv that the account was opened at the Swiss bank Lombard Odier & Cie in April 1997 using copies of Arafat's personal documents, including his passport. The account was opened in the name of a front company, Ledbury, which was later changed to Crouper.

Two years ago, American accountant Jim Prince told CBS' "60 Minutes" that part of the Palestinian leader's wealth was in a secret portfolio worth close to $1 billion, with investments in companies such as a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Ramallah, a Tunisian cell phone company and venture capital funds in the United States and the Cayman Islands. Although the money for the portfolio came from public funds, including Palestinian taxes, virtually none of it was used for the Palestinian people; it was all controlled by Arafat, Prince said, adding that none of these dealings was made public.

Al-Jazeera said some of Arafat's businesses are in partnership with Arab politicians, former officials and entrepreneurs, including Rifaat Assad, a brother of the late Syrian President Hafez Assad, and Barzan Al-Takriti, a half-brother of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Al-Takriti now is under arrest in Baghdad.