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April 2016

POLITICS Comments turned off

The Case for a Really Open GOP Convention The man who defeated Wisconsin prosecutors now says party delegates have the right to choose any nominee they want, and they should use it. By Kimberley A. Strassel

By on April 9th, 2016

As the odds rise of a contested Republican presidential convention, Donald Trump’s and Ted Cruz’s camps are insisting that one of them must be the nominee. The Trump argument is that even if he falls short of the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the nomination, denying it to him at the convention would amount to antidemocratic theft. Mr. Cruz appears to think that finishing second means finishing first if the guy who beat him can’t win on the initial convention ballot.

Eric O’Keefe is here to say: whoa. The veteran Republican grass-roots activist sees a contested convention as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the delegates of a private political party to assert their power. The results of the GOP primaries are hardly representative of the party’s will, Mr. O’Keefe says, because state parties have been wrecked by domineering state legislatures. Why should Republicans bow down, for instance, to the results of state-mandated open primaries that allow liberal and independent voters to bum-rush what is supposed to be a private poll?

“There’s nothing that special or even good about the government-run primary process,” Mr. O’Keefe says. Relishing the opportunity for Republican delegates to stand up for themselves, he is gearing up a campaign to educate and encourage them to exercise their prerogatives at the convention and to ignore specious insistence that they follow some imaginary obligations.

“The delegates have been going to conventions for years and treating them like Super Bowl parties because there was nothing else to do,” he says. “But this year they have the opportunity to practice a great national tradition, to exercise their legal, historical right to defeat a man who opposes most of what they believe in, and instead nominate a candidate who represents them.”

As you might suspect, the “man” Mr. O’Keefe referred to is Donald Trump.

“I hate bullies, and of late I’ve come to hate them more,” Mr. O’Keefe says. “Trump means institutionalized bullying. Tyranny grows from ambitious people grabbing whatever levers of power are available.” CONTINUE AT SITE

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trying to Get Water to California but Torpedoed by Regulators The Obama administration and Dianne Feinstein keep blocking a private project to aid the still-parched state.By Allysia Finley

By on April 9th, 2016

Although El Niño has increased the snowpack in the Sierra Nevadas, the Golden State’s historic drought isn’t over. Yet the Obama administration has decided to block a privately financed project that could supply water to 400,000 Californians, even though the project has been approved by an alphabet soup of state and local agencies. The result will be to trap vast amounts of a precious resource beneath the Mojave Desert. Is water the new fossil fuel?

This tale of political and regulatory obstructionism begins in 1998, when Cadiz Inc., a Los Angeles-based company, developed plans for a groundwater bank and well-field on 70 square miles of private land overlying the base of the Mojave’s massive Fenner Valley and Orange Blossom Wash watersheds. Over centuries the aquifers there have amassed as much as 34 million acre feet of water, enough to sustain all of California’s households for several years.

However, tens of thousands of acre feet percolate into salty dry lakes and evaporate each year. Cadiz proposed capturing and exporting the groundwater to Southern California residents. The Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project could also help store occasional excess flows from the Colorado River that would otherwise drain to the Pacific Ocean.

Water experts such as those at the Public Policy Institute of California have recommended using groundwater banks to recharge aquifers during wet years and expand the state’s storage capacity. Relative to dams, storing water underground reduces evaporation and environmental harm.

None of this mattered to various green lobbies and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who complained that the water project would deplete mountain springs and harm wildlife. But environmental reviews by hydrogeologists confirm that the nearest spring—located 11 miles away and 1,000 feet above the aquifer—would not be affected. Nor would fauna, which don’t rely on groundwater. After an exhaustive review, the U.S. Interior Department approved the project in 2002, but Sen. Feinstein maintained her opposition. CONTINUE AT SITE

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

North Korea Says It Tested Engine for Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Outside experts skeptical about Pyongyang’s claims By Alastair Gale

By on April 9th, 2016

SEOUL—North Korea said it successfully tested a new engine of an intercontinental ballistic missile, the latest in a series of announcements that appear intended to suggest progress in its goal of building a nuclear-armed missile capable of hitting targets as far away as the U.S.

The run of statements about technical breakthroughs started in March as Pyongyang ratcheted up its warlike rhetoric following international penalties imposed for its nuclear-bomb test and long-range rocket launch earlier in the year. They also coincide with anger from North Korea about annual military drills taking place in South Korea.

Outside experts have expressed skepticism about the claims, including that North Korea has built a nuclear device small enough to mount on a long-range missile.

The latest announcement said a test of a new high-power missile engine was made under the guidance of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the country’s main rocket launch site in its far northwest.

“The great success made in the test provided a firm guarantee for mounting another form of nuclear attack upon the U.S. imperialists and other hostile forces,” North Korea’s state news agency said in its account of the test. CONTINUE AT SITE

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Belgium Arrests Key Suspects in Brussels Attacks Mohamed Abrini has been one of Europe’s most-wanted terrorist suspects since Paris attacks in November By Julian E. Barnes, Laurence Norman and Gabriele Steinhauser

By on April 9th, 2016

BRUSSELS—Belgian police on Friday arrested Mohamed Abrini, one of Europe’s most-wanted terrorist suspects, and prosecutors said they were working to determine whether he was the third attacker at the Brussels airport in March.

According to two officials, Belgian authorities suspect Mr. Abrini was the sole surviving attacker who escaped from the national airport during the March 22 attacks, wearing a dark hat and a light-colored jacket. Thirty-two people were killed that day by suicide bombers at the airport and the Maelbeek subway station in central Brussels.

In all, five people were arrested on Friday, including a man Belgian officials detained in connection with the subway station attack, confirming for the first time that investigators believe a second person was involved at that site.

“The investigators are verifying whether Abrini can be positively identified as being the third person present during the attacks in Brussels National Airport, the so-called man with the hat,” said Eric Van Der Sypt, the spokesman for the prosecutors.

Prosecutors spoke with caution Friday night, a likely reflection of the fact that a man previously arrested on suspicion of being the third attacker, Faycal Cheffou, was later released after it was established he wasn’t at the airport on March 22.

The Belgian government’s security council met Friday evening to discuss the arrests and progress in the case. Belgium’s terror level was kept at one notch below its highest level.

If Belgian authorities can confirm that Mr. Abrini is the “man in the hat”—the focus of an intense search since then—and confirm the capture of the second alleged Maelbeek attacker, they will have resolved key remaining questions about the attacks. CONTINUE AT SITE

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BOOKS Comments turned off

Islam and 820,000 forgotten Jewish refugees Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

By on April 9th, 2016

The violent Islamic intolerance of the “infidel” was reflected by the highly-ignored and misrepresented persecution and expulsion of 820,000 Jewish refugees from Arab lands, which exceeded the scope of the Palestinian Arab refugees, occurred well before the 1948-49 Arab war on Israel, and persisted following the war.

On November 14, 1947, before the war, Egypt’s representative to the UN, Heykal Pasha warned: “The partitioning of Palestine shall be responsible for the massacre of a large number Jews…. It might endanger a million Jews living in Moslem countries… create an anti-Semitism more difficult to root out than the anti-Semitism which the allies were trying to eradicate in Germany….”

On February 19, 1947, before the war, Syria’s UN representative, Faris al-Khuri told the NY Times: “Unless the Palestine problem is settled [with no Jewish State], we shall have difficulty in protecting Jews in the Arab world.”

Before the November 1947 UN vote on the Partition Plan, Iraq’s Prime Minister, Nuri Said shared with Alec Kirkbride, the British Ambassador to Jordan, his plan to expel Jews from Iraq and threatened: “severe measures would be taken against all Jews in Arab countries.” On November 28, 1947, Iraq’s Foreign Minister told the UN General Assembly: “The partitioning of Palestine will cause the uprising of the Arabs of Palestine, and the masses in the Arab world will not be restrained.”

On March 1, 1944, Haj Amin al-Husseini, the top Palestinian Arab leader, incited in an Arabic broadcast from Nazi Germany: “Kill the Jews wherever you find them. It would please God, history and religion.” Jamal Al-Husseini, the acting Chairman of the Palestinian Arab Higher Command, threatened: “Palestine shall be consumed with fire and blood if the Jews get any part of it.”

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