Wasington - Tea party-backed Republican Sen. Rand Paul favors cutting U.S. aid to Israel as part of a deficit-driven effort to slash government spending by $500 billion this year, drawing criticism from Democrats and Republicans who argue the U.S. must be unwavering in its support for the longtime Mideast ally.

The freshman Kentucky lawmaker unveiled his budget proposal this week that would make significant cuts in education, housing and energy while reducing money for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq by $16 billion. Paul's plan also would cut some $20 billion in overseas aid, and he said he wants to eliminate the $3 billion the United States provides to Israel annually in foreign military assistance.

"The overwhelming majority of Americans agree with Senator Paul - our current fiscal crisis makes it impossible to continue the spending policies of the past," Paul spokesman Gary Howard said in a statement responding to the criticism. "We simply cannot afford to give money away, even to our allies, with so much debt mounting on a daily basis."

Kuwait's ruler is giving 1,000 dinar ($3,559) grants and free food coupons for every citizen of his nation. The state news agency KUNA reported Monday that Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah has decided to hand out the gifts for all the 1 million Kuwaiti citizens.

According to the AP, the decision covers newborns until Feb. 1. It excludes 2.2 million foreigner workers. The food program is expected to offer free staples such as rice, eggs and milk until March 2012.

Kuwait will next month mark the 50th anniversary of independence, 20th anniversary of liberation from Iraqi occupation under Saddam Hussein and the fifth anniversary of the emir's ascendance to power.

The American government secretly backed leading figures behind the Egyptian uprising who have been planning "regime change" for the past three years, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

The American Embassy in Cairo helped a young dissident attend a US-sponsored summit for activists in New York, while working to keep his identity secret from Egyptian state police.

On his return to Cairo in December 2008, the activist told US diplomats that an alliance of opposition groups had drawn up a plan to overthrow President Hosni Mubarak and install a democratic government in 2011.

The secret document in full

He has already been arrested by Egyptian security in connection with the demonstrations and his identity is being protected by The Daily Telegraph.

Here is the secret document sent from the US Embassy in Cairo to Washington disclosing the extent of American support for the protesters behind the Egypt uprising.

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 CAIRO 002572 SIPDIS FOR NEA/ELA, R, S/P

AND H NSC FOR PASCUAL AND KUTCHA-HELBLING E.O. 12958: DECL:

12/30/2028 TAGS: PGOV, PHUM, KDEM, EG SUBJECT: APRIL 6 ACTIVIST ON HIS

U.S. VISIT AND REGIME CHANGE IN EGYPT REF: A. CAIRO 2462 B.

CAIRO 2454 C. CAIRO 2431 Classified By: ECPO A/Mincouns

20th Century Mubarek Commits 21st Century Sin

Will U.S President Obama Take Action and Demand Mubarek Open his Net Borders?

"The whole dam thing has been shut down!" screamed a mad as hell Egyptian in the massive protest crowd today! Large parts of the Internet essentially went dark about midnight Egypt time after the government of President Hosni Mubarak, a longtime ally of Washington, ordered service providers and cell phone companies to shut down. "Under Egyptian legislation the authorities have the right to issue such an order and we are obliged to comply with it," Vodafone, one of the largest cell phone carriers, in Egypt, said in a statement.

The oppressive Mubarkek has committed a cyber-mortal sin in trying to cut people off from what has become their personal cyber lives. Facebook and Twitter have become personal extensions of the 21st century citizen. But Muburek, being that he is over 80 years of age, does not seem to understand what century he's living in and thus will pay the ultimate price for this cyber-sin. He's done!

After all, this is about social networks that are beyond the reach of Mubarak and Mubarek doesn't get it.

Here's what fiscal fraud Paul Ryan (R-WI) said about Social Security in his State of the Union rebuttal.

This is a future in which we will transform our social safety net into a hammock, which lulls able-bodied people into lives of complacency and dependency.

Turns out, when Ryan was an able-bodied young lad, he used that hammock to pay for his college education. (h/t Gottalaff)

On the day Paul Davis Ryan was born in 1970, President Richard Nixon unveiled his record-setting $200.8 billion federal budget proposal for the upcoming year - a budget that included a large increase in Social Security payments. [...]

One day as a 16 year old, Ryan came upon the lifeless body of his father. Paul Ryan, Sr. had died of a heart attack at age 55, leaving the Janesville Craig High School 10th grader, his three older brothers and sisters and his mother alone. It was Paul who told the family of his father's death. [...]

With his father's passing, young Paul collected Social Security benefits until age 18, which he put away for college.

College costs have skyrocketed since Ryan entered Miami University in 1988, yet Ryan wants to slash the very system that he benefited from because it produces "dependency."

Figures. This is a guy who requires his staffers to read Atlas Shrugged, and we now know that Ayn Rand was a big welfare queen herself.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced its decision to grant non-regulated status for alfalfa that has been genetically engineered to be resistant to the herbicide commercially known as Roundup.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) today announced its decision to grant non-regulated status for alfalfa that has been genetically engineered to be resistant to the herbicide commercially known as Roundup.

"After conducting a thorough and transparent examination of alfalfa through a multi-alternative environmental impact statement (EIS) and several public comment opportunities, APHIS has determined that Roundup Ready alfalfa is as safe as traditionally bred alfalfa," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said. "All of the alfalfa production stakeholders involved in this issue have stressed their willingness to work together to find solutions. We greatly appreciate and value the work they've done so far and will continue to provide support to the wide variety of sectors that make American agriculture successful."

After releasing a final EIS in December 2010, USDA took another step to ensure that this issue received the broadest examination before making its final decision. USDA brought together a diverse group of stakeholders to discuss feasible strategies for coexistence between genetically engineered (GE), organic, and other non-GE stakeholders. The stakeholders helped to identify areas of consensus; issues where the group disagreed and opportunities for further dialogue exist; and areas where USDA could - or should - play an important and helpful role.

Concerns about the Muslim Brotherhood

Israel is watching developments in Egypt with concern. The government is standing by autocratic Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, out of fear that the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood could take power and start supplying arms to Hamas.

Israel is usually a country where politicians have an opinion on any topic, and vociferously so. But in recent days, Israel's leadership has been unusually silent on a certain question. No one, it seems, is willing to make an official comment on the ongoing unrest in Egypt, where protesters have been holding anti-government rallies. It's not because Israel does not care about the riots ravaging its southern neighbor -- on the contrary, Israeli news channels, normally prone to parochialism, have been closely following recent events in the Arab world, from Tunisia to Lebanon.

Since the horrors of World War II, people in the U.S. have feared that one day our intelligence community would create an organization to spy upon innocent citizens, collecting and storing information about them for some devious purpose like the Nazi Gestapo or SS once did. Some people believe that day has come.

An article published on Dec. 20, 2010, by the Washington Post stated "a vast domestic intelligence apparatus" was in the process of being expanded. The story, the result of a multi-month investigation included almost 100 interviews and 1,000 documents. It reported that the federal government was working to consolidate the manpower of the FBI, local police, state Homeland Security officials and military criminal investigators in their efforts to fight terror at home.

The initiative, Top Secret America, is composed of 3,984 federal, state and local agencies, of which at least 934 have been created since Sept. 11 because of their involvement in counterterrorism, the Post reported.

According to the Post, each agency has their own jurisdiction and is charged with certain tasks regarding counterterrorism operations. Working collaboratively, these agencies will collect, store and analyze information gathered on thousands of U.S. citizens and legal residents, most of whom have no criminal record.

"I'm kind of scared about getting naked again in my own home because some nerdy little NSA analyst has the government's permission to see through walls. Next thing you know, they're going to be sticking chips in our babies' heads in order to know all things at all times," said Andrew Dixon, freshman biological and agricultural engineering major.

Not only has the workforce expanded, but they now have new toys as well. Military-grade hardware has migrated from the front lines to the homefront in efforts to eradicate homegrown terror. Police departments, state branches of the FBI and other law enforcement agencies use equipment such as infrared scanners, hand-held fingerprint scanners, Predator drones equipped with real-time, full-motion video cameras and biometric identification machines to observe and catalogue "suspicious activity," the Post reported.

Wikipedia deleted the page about Rahm Emanuel's father in 2008. Makes you wonder.

Washington D.C. - Note from Publisher: In an effort to assist our government in keeping information "transparent", we are publishing this important article by Wayne Madsen, on the father of Rahm Emanuel. You won't find his bio on wikipedia, or any where else easily accessed. It has been deleted.

Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel held a top position in our country's leadership and his example of ethics and integrity is of the highest importance. This is not diminished regardless of his aspirations to leave the national spotlight and become the mayor of Chicago.

But, it seems, some secrets must just be harder to share. This revealing article will leave you with a better understanding of why no one wants to talk about Benjamin Emanuel. And why they should.
- Bonnie King

A well-placed British source informed WMR that Rahm Emanuel's father, Benjamin Emanuel, specialized in the terrorist bombings of buses carrying British troops and policemen during the British Mandate in Palestine.

British MI-6 files contain information on the elder Emanuel's participation in the terrorist activities of Irgun Zvai Leumi, a Jewish terrorist organization that targeted British forces, UN officials, and Palestinian Arabs in the lead up to Israeli independence in 1948.

Benjamin Emanuel, a Jew from Russia whose real name was Ezekiel Auerbach, was arrested by British police for terrorist activities in the months prior to Israeli independence. Many of the British policemen killed by Emanuel and his Irgun colleagues between 1947 and 1948 had been transferred to Palestine upon Indian and Pakistani independence in 1947. Irgun saw the increase of British policemen from the Indian subcontinent as a major threat.