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2016

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Abbas Blames Israel for Death of American in Jaffa – ignored Biden’s call to condemn the terrorist attack in which American Taylor Force was murdered. By: Lori Lowenthal Marcus

By on March 10th, 2016

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Israel for a two day visit on Tuesday, March 8. Shortly after Biden’s arrival in the region the day before, American graduate student Taylor Force was murdered by a Palestinian Arab terrorist in Jaffa, just blocks away from where Biden was meeting at the Peres Peace Center in Tel Aviv.

On Wednesday, Biden joined with Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu at a press conference in Jerusalem. Both politicians condemned the terrorist attacks that took place in Israel the day before, with a special emphasis on the brutal murder of Taylor Force, the Texas-born Vanderbilt business school student and U.S. Army vet and West Point graduate.

Biden called on Mahmoud Abbas and the rest of the Palestinian Arab leadership and the entire international community to denounce terrorist attacks against Israelis, including the one in which Force was murdered, his wife was badly injured, and 11 others were wounded, according to the Jerusalem Post.

“Let me say in no uncertain terms: The U.S. condemns these acts and condemns the failure to condemn these acts,” Biden said.

But when Biden met with Mahmoud Abbas, the acting head of the Palestinian Authority, later in the day, Abbas pointedly did not do what Biden had insisted he should have done: he did not condemn the murders that Biden had condemned only hours before.

Instead, Abas offered condolence over the death of the American — as if the man died of some cause having nothing to do with Abbas — and then slid into assigning blame for the outrage. Not surprisingly, the Arab leader’s blame finger pointed only at Israel.

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It Is Time for a Remedial History Lesson for Political Candidates When Massive Debt Is the Central Pillar of a Nation’s Economy Its Very Survival Is in Jeopardy by Lawrence Kadish

By on March 9th, 2016

Major nations were brought to their knees when their economies unraveled. More than any constitutional crises, war, plague or immigrants at the borders, when massive debt is the central pillar of a nation’s economy its very survival is in jeopardy.

When nations engage in the political quick fix of borrowing to cover their budget deficits (defined as monetizing the debt), the results have been catastrophic.

Without the leadership and determination to grow our economy, enforce balanced budgets, an end the shortsighted policy of bonding out our budget deficits, the enormous national debt will only keep increasing. Government tax revenues will be offset by ballooning debt service payments that divert money away from education, Medicaid, and national defense. A desperate government will then look to run their printing presses at the Mint 24/7 to cover the shortages and hyperinflation will begin to devour our life savings. It is a threat as serious as the Great Depression.

Against the backdrop of venomous presidential primary races and fierce partisan warfare over the next Supreme Court nominee it is time for a remedial history lesson for America’s White House hopefuls.

The past repeatedly reminds us that major nations were brought to their knees when their economies unraveled. More than any constitutional crises, war, plague or immigrants at the borders, when massive debt is the central pillar of a nation’s economy its very survival is in jeopardy. Yet over the past decade here in America our political leaders have failed to grow our economy, borrowed to support wasteful programs, and thrown dollars at problems rather than make the difficult policy decisions required. As a result, our national debt has grown from $8.5 trillion in fiscal year 2006 to over $19 trillion today, an unsustainable debt that places our nation at risk to an historic financial meltdown.

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Iran: The Deep State Endures by Lawrence A. Franklin

By on March 9th, 2016

Western governments need to accept the harsh reality that the Islamic Republic of Iran remains a revolutionary regime. The IRGC has responsibility over all ballistic missile programs and research and development. The West also needs to internalize that all decisions over ballistic missiles and associated delivery systems, the pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability, export of the revolution, aggressive support of the Shi’a ascendency in the Gulf and militant acts of inhumanity towards their own people are made by the deep state.

In short, the Iranian regime is much more Islamic than a Republic. The regime’s most reviled and inveterate enemies remain Israel and the United States.

Those Iranians opposed to the existing order have been broken physically and psychologically by a combination of regime cruelty and lack of support from the world’s democracies.

Despite the voluminous and biased reporting about the conclusions that should be drawn from Iran’s recent Majles (Consultative Assembly) elections, the results signify next to nothing.[1] Hundreds of candidates are disqualified from running by the Council of Guardians (COG) if they are judged to be opposed to the current Islamic regime, or on grounds of “moral turpitude” and other reasons that would be irrelevant in a true democracy. When given the limited choice from a thoroughly vetted set of pro-regime candidates, all of whom favor Islamic rule, the people will always vote for the more “liberal” of the alternatives. This is hardly surprising in a country where the existing martial, theocratic order remains highly unpopular.

Whatever the balance in the Majles between hardliners and those members who may be a bit more flexible on some economic and social issues, it matters little. There will always be a significant number of deputies who are former IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) men, and who will hector a President’s cabinet members and political allies about decisions which run afoul of “deep state” institutions.[2]

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Trump stiffed casino builders as he spent $1 million per week on personal expenses by S.A. Miller

By on March 9th, 2016

Marty Rosenberg has sat across the negotiating table from Donald Trump, and he says it cost his business nearly a half-million dollars when the man who currently reigns as the Republican presidential front-runner didn’t live up to his end of the deal.

The year was 1990, and Mr. Trump’s newly constructed Taj Mahal hotel and casino was hurtling toward bankruptcy, while Mr. Rosenberg’s Atlantic Plate Glass (APG) and scores of other contractors who built the lavish megacasino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, waited for more than $60 million in overdue payments.
“We got to the end of the job, and I think he owed APG about $1.5 million,” Mr. Rosenberg recalled in a recent interview. “I was waiting for my check, and it didn’t come.”

Mr. Rosenberg, who was vice president of Atlantic Plate Glass at the time, helped form a committee of construction firms and suppliers stiffed by Mr. Trump. He then served as a member of the so-called Group of Seven leading the committee’s negotiations that resulted in the contractors getting partial payments.

Atlantic Plate Glass lost about $450,000 in the settlement, said Mr. Rosenberg, adding that his personal finances took a hit because of his minority stockholder stake in the firm, and that the company struggled but overcame the loss.

Others fared worse, he said, including smaller businesses that didn’t survive.

“From my experience, he is definitely ego-driven, disingenuous and will say whatever he has to say at the time,” Mr. Rosenberg, 73, said of the billionaire businessman. “Trump says whatever is on his mind at the time that will get him off the hook.”

Mr. Trump questioned Mr. Rosenberg’s motives for telling his story now. He said he didn’t remember Mr. Rosenberg, but he remembered the glass job at the Taj Mahal cost a total of about $10 million.

“To the best of my knowledge, I never even met him. Just another publicity-seeker,” Mr. Trump said in an email to The Washington Times.

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Add Another Yuuge Failure to Trump’s Pile: The Trump Network : Ian Tuttle

By on March 9th, 2016

In 2009, lots of people were feeling vulnerable. The housing bubble had burst, taking with it millions of jobs. Pensions had vanished. Stocks were slumping. For a shrewd businessman, it was the perfect time for a get-rich-quick scheme.

Enter Donald Trump.

In November 2009, Trump, boasting a Midas-gold tie, took the stage in front of several thousand fans at Miami’s Hyatt Regency to debut his latest venture: The Trump Network™, a multi-level marketing operation focused on nutritional supplements. Trump was, as ever, ebullient: “When I did The Apprentice, it was a long shot. This is not a long shot. . . . We are going to be the biggest in the industry.” The Trump Network’s motto was ubiquitous at the event: Discover the Difference between Opportunity and Success.

In reality, people were about to discover the fine line between a multi-level marketing strategy and a pyramid scheme.

In early 2009, Trump purchased Ideal Health, Inc., founded in 1997 outside Boston by Lou DeCaprio and brothers Todd and Scott Stanwood, who became Trump Network executives. They got to work selling two products: Donald Trump and nutritional supplements. “If you know anything about network marketing — and anything about the power of the Trump brand — you’ll know this is an extraordinary opportunity,” Scott Stanwood wrote on his LinkedIn page. Meanwhile, in a promotional video for the Trump Network, DeCaprio touted the “best nutritional formula in the world.”

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In Yet Another Secret Side Deal, Iran’s Nuclear Violations Won’t Be Publicly Disclosed By Fred Fleitz

By on March 9th, 2016

On Monday, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general Yukiya Amano explained what had up to this point been a mystery: namely, why its recent reports on Iran’s nuclear program have been so vague and contain such little data. As it turns out, under the Iran nuclear deal or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), there are now limitations on what the IAEA is allowed to report.

According to Amano, due to new U.N. Security Council and IAEA resolutions, the agency will only monitor and verify Iran’s compliance with its JCPOA commitments and will no longer provide broad reporting on its nuclear program. A December 15, 2015, IAEA Board of Governors resolution directed the organization to cease reporting on Iran’s compliance with its Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty obligations and past Security Council resolutions because the Board of Governors is no longer seized of this matter.

This also means that even though a December 2, 2015, IAEA report raised several serious unresolved questions about Iran’s nuclear weapons–related activities, the IAEA will no longer report on this issue because its Board of Governors closed the file on the possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program.

But it gets worse. Not only are the new IAEA reports much narrower in focus, they also omit important data on how Iran is complying with the nuclear deal itself.

Many experts were concerned at the vagueness of an IAEA report issued on January 16, 2016, which declared Iran had met the JCPOA’s “Implementation Day” requirements, allowing it to receive up to $150 billion in sanctions relief and other benefits. This was an atypical report for the IAEA which the Institute for Science and International Security said provided few details about the steps Iran took to comply with JCPOA requirements. For example, it lacked information on how much enriched uranium Iran allegedly sent to Russia, whether the IAEA monitored this transfer, and how much enriched uranium Iran may have kept in the country by converting it into uranium dioxide powder, a process that can be quickly reversed.

Experts were even more concerned by a February 26 report which left out important data needed to assess Iran’s compliance with the JCPOA such as the size of its enriched-uranium stockpile, how much uranium Iran is enriching, and details on its centrifuge research and development.

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On Not Forgetting Molly Norris Abandoned to her fate for violating Islamic blasphemy laws in America. Hugh Fitzgerald

By on March 9th, 2016

Reprinted from Jihad Watch.

In Argentina, in the time of the right-wing generals, many Argentinians were made to “disappear” – that is, they were killed for their political views, often in such grisly ways as being thrown out of airplanes. They became known, in Spanish, as “los desaparecidos” (“the disappeared ones”). But there is another set of “los desaparecidos” — people who all over the advanced Western world, that world which prides itself on its protection of free speech — have been threatened with death because of what they dared to say or write about Islam, and have been forced to go into permanent hiding, changing their identities, “disappearing themselves.” It’s a sign of the times that there is no general outrage, no marches in support of those threatened with death for speaking their mind about Islam, no political leaders in the United States reminding us in public of this campaign of Muslim intimidation, that has destroyed the lives of those who were brave enough to speak out about Islam who had to “disappear themselves.”

Do you remember Molly Norris? She was the Seattle cartoonist who suggested, as a response to the death threats against Lars Vilks and Kurt Westergaard, two cartoonists who had dared to depict Muhammad, that there be an “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” as a lighthearted sign of solidarity with the threatened cartoonists. For her pains, she received death threats from Muslims, and she was advised by the FBI to change her identity, as reported by Mark Fefer in the Seattle Weekly:

The gifted artist is alive and well, thankfully. But on the insistence of top security specialists at the FBI, she is, as they put it, “going ghost”: moving, changing her name, and essentially wiping away her identity. She will no longer be publishing cartoons in our paper or in City Arts magazine, where she has been a regular contributor. She is, in effect, being put into a witness-protection program–except, as she notes, without the government picking up the tab.

So Molly Norris no longer exists. But whatever name she now goes by, she can’t work as a cartoonist, because a cartoonist’s style is as recognizable as her handwriting – and in any case, what previous work, signed “Molly Norris,” could she submit in applying for jobs? Relatives and friends must worry about meeting with her, or communicating by phone or email, for they have to assume that Muslims determined to find Molly Norris will know who her relatives and friends were before she changed her identity and could conceivably be watching them, hoping they will lead to Molly Norris. She is “in effect, being put into a witness-protection program – except, as she notes, without the government picking up the tab.”

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Christ at the Checkpoint 2016: Still Demonizing Israel Why this year’s Christian anti-Semite confab is the most disturbing yet. Susan Warner

By on March 9th, 2016

Two years ago, in a news briefing, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) was among the first to sound the alarm that Evangelical Christians had launched an organized effort to abandon their long-held Biblical commitment to Israel: “Just when the annual ‘Israel Apartheid Week’ campaign will be hitting college campuses across North America this week, Palestinian Christians are hosting a five-day conference in Bethlehem which is expected to convey many of the same messages and aims of seeking to delegitimize Israel. What makes this “Christ at the Checkpoint” conference unusual is that it is largely an initiative of Christians from the Evangelical movement, whose ranks traditionally have held favorable views on Israel.”

Christ at the Checkpoint (CATC) is a biennial conference event held at Bethlehem Bible College in Bethlehem, Israel. In this, its fourth year, roughly 600 Christian pastors and leaders from a variety of nations will gather around the theme “The Gospel in the Face of Religious Extremism.”

Bethlehem Bible College is the host and sponsor. NGO Monitor said of the 2014 conference the CATC “seeks to advance the Palestinian nationalist agenda within Evangelical Christian churches, while simultaneously reviving theological anti-Semitic themes such as replacement theology.”

Replacement theology governs the Bethlehem College’s pro-Palestinian sympathies. It is a theology rooted in ancient Christianity. It falsely affirms that Christianity has replaced Judaism and Israel in God’s economy. The Christian Church is considered the “New Israel” or “the Israel of God.” For two thousand years, this theological stance has commonly misconstrued Bible narratives to defame Israel and the Jews.

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16-Year-Old Girl Converts to Islam, Plots to Bomb Jewish School Daniel Greenfield

By on March 9th, 2016

The Jihad Machine grinds on across the West. Muslim men use younger European girls in terror plots.

Danish prosecutors say a 16-year-old girl who was arrested in January was planning bomb attacks against a Jewish school in Copenhagen and another school in Denmark.

Prosecutors presented the preliminary charges against her and a 24-year-old man suspected of being her accomplice in a court hearing Tuesday in Holbaek, northwest of the Danish capital.

The AP report carefully avoids the I word and the M word. Just an inexplicable plot against a Jewish school by a 16-year-old for no apparent reason. Danish news however uses the M word.

The 15-year-old girl’s mother was strongly opposed that the daughter had converted.

The teenage girl had converted to Islam and the attack was being planned with a 24-year old Jihadist who had fought in Syria. The adult Jihadist had been in prison and is an Islamist, but the usual Islamic sources are claiming he’s just a “confused young man”. Because this is some sort of Monty Python skit.

The 24-year-old former Syria fighter among other things obtained bomb manuals. According to the prosecutor, the accused planned to commit terror against Sydskolen in Fårevejle and the Jewish private school Caroline School in Copenhagen.

Jewish parents of children Caroline School have previously expressed concern for their children’s safety in connection with the terrorist attack on the synagogue in Copenhagen last year.

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Why Netanyahu Stood Up Obama Obama’s final campaign against the Jewish State is underway. Daniel Greenfield

By on March 9th, 2016

On March 9, 2010, the headlines were chocked with outrage over Netanyahu’s “snub” to Obama. Six years later, almost to the day, the same rerun is playing on news networks across America.

The White House is outraged, shocked and infuriated by Netanyahu’s “snub.” Obama is depressed at the snub and gorging on a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Brownie Batter to get over the pain of a skipped meeting with the Israeli prime minister. Obama-Netanyahu meetups convey all the joy of a root canal and yet we’re supposed to believe that Obama was looking forward to this particular session with Netanyahu.

Obama and his media allies are assuming that everyone forgot the last time they put on the same production of “Fake Outrage Theater” on this same date for the same exact reasons. Like the PLO, Obama keeps picking fights with Israel while trying to make it look like he’s the real victim.

If you remember that Obama and Hillary Clinton put on their best fake outrage over a fake snub six years ago, then the latest fake snub headlines look ridiculously fake. Suddenly you can see that the actors on stage are just acting, the background is just cardboard, the puppets have strings and the magician is stuffing the colored handkerchiefs up his sleeve. It’s not Pallywood. It’s Obamawood.

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