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2016

Christie’s Bridgegate Maelstrom Opening statements in the trial suggest that Christie misled the public about his involvement and should have been charged. By Andrew C. McCarthy

The weekend’s terrorist attacks in New York and New Jersey were fortuitously timed for Garden State governor Chris Christie: Not only did he get to project steely determination in a sudden crisis; the jihad diverted attention from the explosive start of the Bridgegate trial. Opening to the New Jersey jury in the case against two of Christie’s most trusted (but now former) aides, a federal prosecutor argued that the governor knew about the 2013 lane shutdown at the George Washington Bridge while it was happening.

This contradicts Christie’s years of indignant (albeit likely false) insistence to the contrary. It also raises a question for the Obama Justice Department: If the governor knew of the partisan, retaliatory shenanigans being executed by his underlings, for his political benefit, and under circumstances in which he had the power to put a stop to them forthwith, why wasn’t he indicted along with his aides?

As readers of these columns know, I am not a Christie fan. In addition, I’ve found his claims of innocence in the Bridgegate scandal implausible from the start — based on both the circumstances and the governor’s economical approach to the truth when it comes to any of his administration’s foibles. Nevertheless, my many years as a prosecutor lead me to cut the governor some slack here, at least until we see the actual evidence.

In conspiracy cases, it is a commonplace for both defendants on trial and the prosecutor to take liberties in heaping blame on the dead and the missing — i.e., those who, though participants in the relevant events, are not present in court as defendants (e.g., fugitives, defendants whose cases are pending, and apparent participants whom the government has chosen not to charge, for reasons that can range from the obvious to the dubious). Political-corruption cases are no exception.

The dynamic is easy to understand. Piling ostensibly damning evidence on an uncharged person is a lay-up for the prosecutor. Since he is absent from the defense table, an uncharged man has no nettlesome lawyer fighting on his behalf to suppress the government’s evidence or at least minimize its impact. And while the defendants on trial may be damaged derivatively by that evidence (otherwise the prosecutor would not be offering it), they will not want to be perceived by the jury as taking on the defense of the uncharged person, so they don’t put up much of a fight. After all, the defendants on trial will inevitably seek to shift blame to the missing, uncharged person as well — to argue to the jury that the defendant is being scapegoated in order to protect some powerful missing person, or to obscure the prosecution’s investigative missteps that allowed the “real” culprit to slip the noose.

Since both sides of the case have motives to exaggerate the culpability of the missing, uncharged person, the lawyers’ opening comments have to be viewed with some skepticism. Rather than jumping to conclusions, it is better to wait for the witnesses’ testimony — to ask whether it is supported or contradicted by the paper trail of e-mails, sundry documents, and investigative reports.

Why FBI Suspects Keep Attacking Americans The reason our authorities don’t take pre-emptive action against Islamic terror — even after solid intelligence warnings. Matthew Vadum

Why does the Obama administration keep failing to thwart Muslim terrorist attacks in the U.S. after receiving apparently good intelligence warning of those attacks?

It turns out that Americans keep turning in budding Muslim terrorists to the Obama administration and the administration keeps on doing nothing. For example, the alleged mastermind of the weekend pressure-cooker bombing in New York City was turned in by his own father but the Federal Bureau of Investigation failed to do much of anything about him.

These intelligence failures have become a recurrent theme in the Obama era, with deadly results. Excluding the events of the last few days, there have been 89 Muslim terrorist plots and attacks in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001 and 25 of those have taken place since the beginning of 2015, according to David Inserra of the Heritage Foundation.

Counterterrorism expert Sebastian Gorka, vice president at the Institute of World Politics, blamed political correctness for the FBI’s inability to do something about Rahami before he acted.

“There are certain sensitivities,” Gorka said on the “O’Reilly Factor” last night.

“A certain political matrix is being forced upon our operators and investigators,” he said. Usually this kind of political pressure originates not from the FBI, but from the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, he said.

The FBI is also hindered by inadequate human resources, Gorka said. There are reportedly 900 active terrorist investigations in all 50 states and the bureau can only do so much, he said.

The FBI has indeed been handcuffed in terrorist investigations by President Obama whose administration has worked with terrorist front groups like the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The law enforcement agency has also become increasingly politicized in the Obama era.

Deport the Rahami Family It’s time to send Muslim terrorists a message. Daniel Greenfield

The Rahami family came to America from Afghanistan as refugees. They made life miserable for their neighbors. When the police tried to bring some order, they cried Islamophobia.

Two of the Rahamis have posted in support of the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda and other Islamic terror groups on social media. The third actually built and planted bombs to kill Americans. He terrorized two states, tried to kill and maim countless Americans and then shot it out with police.

Ahmad Khan Rahami, the central figure in the terror case, brought his wife here from Pakistan and she departed days before his attack. His mother left for Pakistan a few weeks before his bombing spree.

The media, eager for a story of redemption, has widely broadcast the claim that Mohammed Rahami, Ahmad’s father, told the FBI that he was a terrorist. But that was years ago. And Mohammed didn’t turn in his son because there was a terror plot, but because he attacked family members.

As Mohammed put it, “Because he doing bad. He stab my son and hit my wife. I put him in the jail.”

This wasn’t Mohammed Rahami being a good citizen. It was a dysfunctional oversized family of Muslim refugees causing problems for local law enforcement over their own internal disputes.

Ahmad stabbed his brother in the leg with a knife. His father told the FBI that Ahmad was a terrorist. Then he recanted the accusation and said that he had made it out of anger.

This wasn’t patriotism. It wasn’t helpful. It was selfish abuse of the system.

We get a lot of lectures from politicians about the contributions of Muslims, especially refugees, to America.

Here are the sum total contributions of the Rahami family to America. 29 wounded people in Manhattan. 1 wounded police officer in Linden, New Jersey. A chicken place that was the subject of disputes with law enforcement. A lawsuit against Elizabeth, New Jersey stemming from that chicken place, which threw around accusations of Islamophobia. Previous legal issues and a jail sentence for Ahmad over his family dispute. 1 assaulted police officer due to issues with the chicken place.

Then there’s Ahmad’s unwed girlfriend and his baby whose case will be wending through the courts.

Dangerous Mix of Truth and Fiction Pat Condell

This morning I took a look at this video, Israeli settlements, explained in 8 minutes by Johnny Harris. I found it to be a very dangerous mix of truth and fiction.

Colors show Areas A, B and C

First of all, it begins its narrative rather late in History, 1948, crediting the United Nations with trying to help Great Britain to solve the problem between the Jews and the Arabs. It totally leaves out the very necessary/important/crucial fact that Britain was mandated/instructed/given the areas by the League of Nations in 1922, on the condition that they, the British, facilitate the establishment of a Jewish State there, Transjordan- the area on both sides of the Jordan River. No surprise, but no mention is made of that fact and the British invention of Jordan* which was stage one of how the Brits sabotaged the assignment.

Another term/fact left out is that the Jordanians illegally occupied the so-called west bank after the 1949 ceasefire. It was only recognized by two countries, Britain and Pakistan.

Also, Johnny Harris skips the crucial fact that the 1967 Six Days War was a result of coordinated Arab threats and aggression against Israel by an alliance of four Arab countries, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Jordan, with the cooperation of the United Nations. He gives the impression that it was initiated by Israel. And of course he leaves out the background of constant terror against Jews by Arab even before the establishment of the State of Israel. According to International Law and historical precedent, border changes due to a defensive war are legal, and that is how the 1967 ceasefire lines should be seen.

In addition, the various villages, towns and cities where Jews live in Judea, Samaria, also the Golan and Jordan Valley (which Harris does not mention by name–another example of how he simplifies) were approved and/or established by the State of Israel.

Harris does mention that Arabs can drive on the new modern roads, but he leaves out that Jews are forbidden to drive on “Arab” roads. Also, he gives the distinct impression that only Arabs have to go through “checkpoints,” when all vehicles are stopped/checked, Jewish, too. We wait on the same lines. And those checks are to prevent terrorism and uninspected agricultural products from entering. Remember that if going into the USA, you can’t bring even an apple from abroad.

I do not have the time to go over every single false or misleading statement in these eight misleading minutes Harris has produced. I invite you to add more in the comments here. So, please do, thanks.

*British invention of Jordan- rule of this new invented country called Jordan was given to the Hashemites from Mecca, Saudi Arabia. There was no history of such a country/people until Britain created them to block Jewish settlement of the area.

Obama’s 2016 UN Speech, Proof of His Failures Pat Condell

Soon after POTUS aka Barack Hussein Obama was elected President of the United States he was awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize, not actually for anything he had done, but for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”. There were great expectations from the man of a white American mother and black African (Kenyan) father, the first non-Caucasian to be elected President.

Yesterday, Obama made his last speech to the United Nations General Assembly as American President, and he didn’t have much good to say about the state of the world.

The speech – described by White House officials as a capstone of his foreign policy – left few major powers unscathed. He criticized France for its targeting of traditional Muslim dress, Russia for its quest to “recover lost glory through force,” China for denying democracy to its people and Israel for its continued “occupation and settlement of Palestinian lands.”

theblaze.com
But Obama spent little time on any single conflict, instead speaking in general terms of the dangers facing an international system he has long advocated as the guarantor of world peace. There are “deep fault lines in the existing international order,” exposed by the turbulent forces of globalization, he warned. Jerusalem Post

I guess you can say that means he has admitted that he had failed miserably, although I don’t think that he actually admitted any responsibility. I guess he won’t be returning his Nobel Peace Prize… What do you think?

College Academic Who Dreams of Israel’s Demise Takes US Students on Free “Trip of a Lifetime”

“It is essential to talk about Israel/Palestine, considering that Israel is the world’s largest recipient of US aid…

I dream of a binational secular democratic state in Israel/Palestine that provides equal rights to all citizens and inhabitants of the Holy Land (Jewish Israelis and Palestinian Christians and Muslims) regardless of ethno-religious affiliation.

I believe that we can and will realize this within our lifetime.”
[Emphasis added, here and below]

The words are those of Swarthmore College visiting professor in Peace and Conflict Studies (and class of ’06 graduate) Sa’ed Atshan [pictured], quoted in the Summer 2016 Swarthmore College [alumni] Bulletin that I finally got around to reading today, having flicked through the class notes a fortnight or so ago.

It’s on a profile of Atshan on page 8 by one Michael Agresta, demonstrating how Atshan, an Arab Quaker who attended Ramallah Friends School, “balances scholarship and peace activism”.

Inter alia:

“Atshan’s most recent foray beyond the ivory tower is the inaugural Swarthmore College Israel/Palestine Study Trip, but he has long worked to build bridges from academia to the front lines of social justice and peace activism. As a graduate student at Harvard, he organized a similar spring break study trip to Israel/Palestine; the program has endured and is in its eighth year. He has also partnered in projects with Human Rights Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees….’

On page 15 is a cross-referenced report by one Carrie Compton headed “Trip of a Lifetime”. Illustrated, as you can see here, by, respectively, “Rainbow in Jericho; Palestinian potter; Lunch in Hebron; Dome of the Rock”, it tells us:

‘Over winter break, 19 students from Sa’ed Atshan ’06’s Israeli-Palestinian Conflict class spent 10 days in that region of the Middle East, meeting with top humanitarian figures on all sides of the conflict. The journey was free for the entire class, thanks primarily to funding from an anonymous donor.

Though the trip occurred during a break in the academic year, the students found it as demanding as any other Swarthmore experience.

Palestinians: “The Mafia of Destruction” by Khaled Abu Toameh

Hamas and Palestinian Authority (PA) officials have turned medical care into a business that earns them hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. This corruption has enabled top officials in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to embezzle millions of shekels from the PA budget.

In 2013, the PA spent more than half a billion shekels covering medical bills of Palestinians who were referred to hospitals outside the Palestinian territories. However, no one seems to know exactly how the money was spent and whether all those who received the referrals were indeed in need of medical treatment. In one case, it appeared that 113 Palestinian patients had been admitted to Israeli hospitals at the cost of 3 million shekels, while there is no documentation of any of these cases. Even the identities of the patients remain unknown.

Hajer Harb, a courageous Palestinian journalist from the Gaza Strip, says she is now facing charges of “slander” for exposing the corruption. She has been repeatedly interrogated by Hamas. The PA regime, for its part, is not too happy with exposure about the scandal.

Gaza’s hospitals would be rather better equipped if Hamas used its money to build medical centers instead of tunnels for smuggling weapons from Egypt to attack Israel.

Question: How do Palestinian patients obtain permits to receive medical treatment in Israeli and other hospitals around the world? Answer: By paying bribes to senior Palestinian officials in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Those who cannot afford to pay the bribes are left to die in under-equipped and understaffed hospitals, especially in the Gaza Strip.

Yet, apparently some Palestinians are more equal than others: Palestinians whose lives are not in danger, but who pretend that they are. These include businessmen, merchants, university students and relatives of senior Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas officials, who receive permits to travel to Israel and other countries under the pretext of medical emergency.

Many Palestinians point a finger at the PA’s Ministry of Health in the West Bank. They argue that senior ministry officials have been abusing their powers, in order to collect bribes both from genuine patients and from other Palestinians who only want medical permits in order to leave the Gaza Strip or the West Bank. Thanks to the corruption, many real patients have been denied the opportunity to receive proper medical care in Israel and other countries.

Where Does Black Lives Matter’s Anti-Semitism Come From? by Philip Carl Salzman

Black Lives Matter has been guided to anti-Semitism by the concept of “intersectionality, which argues that all oppressions are interlinked and cannot be solved alone. Thus, women can never be treated fairly if blacks face racial prejudice, and the disabled are not given sufficient support to be equal to the abled, and unless the Palestinians are liberated from the Israelis, and the Israelis are liberated from their lives and their home.

“Intersectionality” urges us to view the world as divided into a conspiracy of oppressors and an agony of oppressed, and reduces people to a number of categories, such as gender, sexuality, race, nationality, religion, capability, etc. Differences, such as sexism, racism, nationalism and ability — as opposed to what we have in common — are reinforced.

Supporters of “intersectionality” cheer terrorists when they murder Jews. To them, that is just “social justice” at work.

The recently published platform of Black Lives Matter (BLM) states that Israel is responsible for “the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people,” and “Israel is an apartheid state … that sanction[s] discrimination against the Palestinian people.” These statements are anti-Semitic not only because they are false and modern versions of tradition anti-Semitic blood libel, but also because BLM selectively chooses the Jewish State out of all the states in the world to demonize. What has inspired BLM to engage in this counter-factual, anti-Semitic rant? BLM has been guided to anti-Semitism by the concept of “intersectionality.”

“Intersectionality” is the idea that all oppressed peoples and categories of people share a position, and by virtue of that fact are potential allies in the struggle against their oppressors.

“Intersectionality” is a concept used to describe the ways in which “oppressive institutions” (racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, xenophobia, classism, etc.) are interconnected and cannot be examined separately from one another. The concept is credited to the legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, writing in 1989, but it is only in recent years that it has escaped academia and swarmed into the streets.

“Intersectionality” has, however, been extended beyond individuals to types of oppression. The argument, as above, is that all oppressions “interconnected and cannot be examined separately.” Thus, women can never be treated equally or fairly, if blacks face racial prejudice, and the disabled are not given sufficient support to be equal to the abled, and unless the Palestinians are liberated from the Israelis, and the Israelis are liberated from their country, their lives and their home. To make the point, the Israelis are accused of having had a hand, direct or indirect, in the oppression of blacks, women, and the disabled everywhere. So much oppression, intersectionists apparently think, can be traced back to the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and the International Jewish Conspiracy.

How Some Muslim Nations are Forging a Real Peace with Israel by Abigail R. Esman

It was a customary political gesture, the welcoming of a foreign leader on Sept. 7 by local dignitaries in The Hague. Benjamin Netanyahu, on a two-day state visit to The Netherlands, was being introduced around the room, shaking hands with Dutch parliamentarians, when he reached Tunahan Kuzu, the Turkish-Dutch founder of the pro-immigration, pro-Islam Denk (“Think”) party. Directing his gaze straight at the Israeli president, Kuzu pointed to the Palestinian flag pin he sported on his lapel, and placed his hands pointedly behind his back.

Netanyahu nodded his understanding and moved on.

If Kuzu’s gesture was meant to insult the Israeli leader, it backfired. Instead, he came under fire from both fellow members of parliament and the press, who accused him of disrespect, lack of professionalism, and anti-Semitic behavior.

But his critics missed an even larger point: those like Kuzu, and gestures like the one he made, are becoming outdated. Rather, in the larger picture, even some of Israel’s most stalwart opponents are starting to change course, with some discouraging Western calls for economic sanctions (like the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction, or BDS, movement), and others even engaging in joint military exercises with the Jewish state.

Unsurprisingly, American politicians have taken the lead in this. Just days after the episode in The Hague, for instance, U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi put the kibosh on a planned BDS event scheduled for Sept. 16 on Capitol Hill. Several U.S. states have passed anti-BDS bills throughout the past year, and in signing the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 in February, President Obama declared, “I have directed my administration to strongly oppose boycotts, divestment campaigns, and sanctions targeting the State of Israel.”

But more unexpected have been the military cooperation exercises involving less Israel-friendly countries. In August, Pakistan and the UAE both joined Israel and the U.S. Air Force in exercises at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. Israel and Jordan also recently participated in joint exercises with the U.S..

Much of this new military cooperation results from concerns within the region of the growing threat of Iran, Commander Jennifer Dyer, a retired naval intelligence officer, explained in a recent e-mail exchange. “Obviously, the joint participation with Muslim countries is a step beyond participating with NATO. Politically, it’s new territory,” she observed. “The growing concern in Sunni nations about Iran is, of course, the big driving factor.”

As an example, she noted that the chief of staff of Pakistan’s army warned in January that “Pakistan would ‘wipe Iran off the map’ if Iran threatened Saudi Arabia,” and that Sudan cut ties with Iran at around the same time. (For its part, Israel has since begun a campaign encouraging the U.S. and other Western nations to repair relations with the African country.)

Federal judge chastises State Department for slow-walking Clinton emails By Rick Moran

A federal judge angrily denounced the Justice Department for not leaning on the Department of State to release some Hillary Clinton emails in a more timely manner.

U.S. district judge Richard Leon, who is overseeing the release of the emails under the Freedom of Information Act, warned DoJ that the government appears to be withholding information from voters in advance of the election.

Washington Times:

Judge Leon, who has earned a reputation as a funny but caustic jurist, particularly when he finds government bungling, said the Justice Department, by not forcing the State Department to cooperate better, is risking its own storied reputation.

He specifically called out the federal programs branch that acts as the lawyer for the rest of the government, and the head of that division, Marcia Berman. Ms. Berman wasn’t in the courtroom Monday, but has been a frequent figure at the courthouse over the last year as the administration has had to defend its handling of Mrs. Clinton’s emails.

Mondays’s case, filed by the Daily Caller News Foundation, concerned documents detailing Mrs. Clinton’s access to top secret programs. The State Department said it has found more than 1,000 documents dealing with the subject, but said it would take nearly a month to process 450 unclassified documents, and couldn’t say how long it would take to process the classified ones.

The case is one of dozens pending where the department has been accused of slow-walking, keeping information out of public view for far longer than is allowed under the Freedom of Information Act.

The State Department says it is overwhelmed by the requests and its own limited budget and manpower. Officials also say the Clinton emails are complicated because they involved classified information that requires a stricter, more time consuming process to clear for the public.

But the government has also been reluctant to divulge important details. At one point on Monday the government lawyer on the case, Jason Lee, said he didn’t know how many pages were in the documents, sparking the judge’s ire.

Judge Leon ordered a faster production of the 450, and when Mr. Lee said they would do their best, Judge Leon pounced.

“Do better than your best. Do it,” he ordered, then proceeded to scold the government for its bungling, and said it was something other judges at the courthouse had noticed.

“You have a client that, to say the least, is not impressing the judges on is court … at being all that cooperative,” he said. “This way of doing business needs to stop.”

There has never been a State Department so politicized as this one. Political appointees are bound not by their oaths, but by their loyalty to the Obama administration.

Over the past few years, several judges hearing FOIA cases have excoriated the State Department for dragging its heels in releasing pertinent documents. These are not isolated incidents. They point to a pattern of foot-dragging designed to run out the clock on the Obama administration’s and Hillary Clinton’s wrongdoing.

It appears that, despite the remonstrances from judges, the State Department is succeeding.