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January 2018

Hector Timerman´s Lament By Julian Schvindlerman see note please

The scoundrel and son of the scoundrel and liar Jacobo Timmerman is still described as a “human rights advocate” on Wikipedia….rsk

Former Argentine Minister of Foreign Affairs (2010-2015) Hector Timerman is now under house arrest. He is not in prison only because he is terminally ill and he was granted the privilege. He was accused of betraying his country by secretly negotiating a Memorandum of Understanding with the Islamic Republic of Iran together with other officials of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner´s government. Prosecutor Alberto Nisman denounced that the ultimate goal of that pact was to exculpate the perpetrators of the 1994 AMIA attack. Shortly before presenting his evidence to the National Congress, he was found dead with a shot in the temple. The Argentine Justice has just determined that he was murdered.

Mr. Timerman has responded to the charge of treason to the nation through his lawyers. He also reacted publicly, through letters, articles and interviews in which he sought to present himself as a victim — of the national political powers as well as of the local Jewish community.

In one of his most “dramatic” acts -a performance of feigned indignation, in fact- Timerman resigned as a member of AMIA, taking advantage of the indecision of the local Jewish authorities as to whether to expel him from the institution, or not. He was, after all, the acting Minister of Foreign Affairs of the country, and the community leadership feared for the repercussions of such a decision. In a letter sent to AMIA and DAIA (the political representation of the Jewish community) in April 2015, Timerman compared himself to Theodor Herzl:

“I have noticed with displeasure that the referents of AMIA and DAIA have fallen back into the vulgar accusation that every Jew who criticizes their actions, and they are not few, be branded with the worn-out argument of being ‘shameful Jews’. They should remember that the first Jew to be accused in such a way was Theodore Herzl, founding father of modern Zionism. It happened in 1898 when Karl Strauss accused him of hating the Jews so much that he wanted to eradicate them all from Europe. Since then, this accusation is valid only for those who believe they can measure the Jewishness of others.”

After his house arrest in December 2017, Timerman gave an interview to the leftist, pro-Kirchnerismo newspaper Página12 in which he once again underlined his Jewishness by presenting himself as a victim of historical prejudices. “It hits me twice because I am a Jew. Jews are often accused of double loyalty, as if we were second-class Argentines. It makes me go back to my childhood, when they pressured us asking us if we were loyal to Argentina or Israel. It is an infamy.”

Recently, Timerman reiterated his anguished protest in the opinion page of The New York Times in an article in which he defined himself as a “political prisoner” and a “target of the anger of the Jewish community.” He also claimed that the pact with Iran aroused “vindictive anger” against him. He accused the judge who ordered his house arrest to deny him medical attention in time, which “is like condemning me to death.” “Argentina´s Constitution does not permit the death penalty,” he said with a heavy-heart, “but with a judge like this, that is little guarantee.”

If You Hate America, Why Not Go Back to Your Country? by Majid Rafizadeh

No matter what the Islamists’ current status or situation, they would lash out at the US, the West and Americans. Meanwhile, American taxpayers were providing hundreds of thousands of dollars to them in scholarships, free accommodation, and often even a monthly stipend. By comparison, many American students struggle to pay their own tuition and housing; many graduate with debt.

Some believed that the US was simply supposed to do these favors for them for free of charge. Others argued that this was an opportunity to take advantage of America, and should be done for the sake of furthering Islamic political and religious views.

The US has been funding the lives of these extremists as they endanger our country and the lives of all Americans, and spread hatred towards America, Christianity, Judaism and the West. Is this how American taxpayers want their hard-earned contributions to be used?

When I first arrived in America, I would ask every extremist and fundamentalist Muslim I met: “How has your life been since you came to the United States?”

It was clear that their living standards were much better than back home. I knew well the lands they had come from, their economic standards and restrictions, their lifestyle, the social, and the religious, economic and political landscapes of the region.

They were surely about to say how much their lives had improved, and how grateful they were to be in a new, less restricted environment. Instead, they expressed anger and even hatred of their new country and its culture. What they could not put into words, was clearly written across their faces: revulsion and disgust.

It seemed they were comfortable disclosing their true feelings in Farsi or Arabic about the US, Americans, the West, Christians, and Jews. As we had all come from, grown up in, and worked in the same region, many of them mistakenly assumed that we both shared the same hate-filled views. Once they discovered that was not the situation, some even tried to reshape my views: as I was new to the country, I probably did not yet understand.

Everything in this country, they patiently explained, was kufr: blasphemy, filthy, infidel. They went on harshly to criticize American culture and the Western lifestyle. Their list of complaints was unending: how men and women dress, how people interact, how people work and celebrate life, go to parties, date, marry, dance, drink — there did not seem one aspect of American life that did not enrage them.

Shred the Veil By Eileen F. Toplansky

In the 2014 book Princess: More Tears to Cry by Jean Sasson, the protagonist, Princess Sultana Al’ Sa’ud of Saudi Arabia, recounts how “to this day there are teenage Saudi boys living in Riyadh who, taught by their fathers and the clerics, consider women to be second-class citizens and cast stones at what they consider to be an offensive sight – an unveiled female face.”

The princess asserts that it is her “sincere wish that the day will come when … an uncovered face will not cause violence in the street.” She declares that “nothing reveals more to [her] of a young woman’s personality than the will to fight against any injustice against women, and certainly something as personal as the face veil, which is not required by the Islamic faith, as all those who are truly familiar with our holy book will know.”

She relates a tale of a young girl in a poor hamlet in Al-Kharz who aspired to be a doctor. As she was the last of four daughters, this resulted in her father saying to his wife, “I divorce you” three times (Quran 2:222-286), and the deed was done. The baby’s mother, who had just given birth, witnessed her now ex-husband grab the newborn baby, shouting that he was going “to bury [her] alive in the desert.” He wanted to take the “infant into the desert, where he would have scooped sand with his hands until he had created a hole large enough to hold a tiny baby, and then he would have pushed that sand over the baby so that she would have sucked sand rather than air into her lungs until she had died an agonizing death.” He then “shouted for his three older daughters to line up and wait for his return as he was going to throw those three in the village well.”

Fortunately, an uncle to the little baby intervened and asked that the father pass the newborn to him; instead, the newborn was “tossed on the dirt floor” while her father left. Since her father did not insist upon custody of his daughters, the unwanted child had a sliver of a chance at life. In Saudi Arabia, “if a man claims custody from the first day of a child’s birth, no one will defy the father.” Had the infant’s father “demanded guardianship, no one would have stood in his way,” and he would have murdered all his daughters.

Iranians Are Revolting Against the 2009 Sharia-Based Green Movement, Too By Andrew G. Bostom

I was interviewed Wednesday, January 3, 2018 about the ongoing demonstrations in Iran by Audrey Russo.

In the interview, I elaborated on why these nationwide demonstrations differ, dramatically, from what I have come to refer to as the 2009 Green Movement .

The Green Movement’s chief ideologues — political leader Mir Hossein Mousavi and “spiritual guiding force” Ayatollah Montazeri (d. 2009) — were both full-throated, bigoted Shiite Sharia supremacists, who were pro-Iranian nukes (Mousavi helped godfather Iran’s nuke program; Montazeri affirmed it till his death in December, 2009), virulently anti-Western, and anti-“infidel.” Each also, sadly, championed Iran’s annihilationist, Shiite Islamic Jew-hatred. Ayatollah Montazeri, to his unique, and lasting shame, was the main contemporary Iranian clerical “revivalist” of the odious Shiite doctrine of najis. The doctrine dehumanizes non-Muslims as physically, politically, and spiritually “impure,” and in Iran has historically, through the present, made their very existence parlous.

Indeed, as I also pointed out during the interview, the elections of Rouhani in 2013 and 2017 represents the triumph of the Soylent Green ideology because Rouhani shares the views of Mousavi and Ayatollah Montazeri. As Iranian journalist Borzou Daragahi acknowledged in a January 3, 2018 essay, even amongst Iranian youth, “many of those who took to the streets in the 2009 ‘Green’ uprising … are sitting these protests out. They stood in long lines in 2013 and 2017 to elect Rouhani.”

Why might they be sitting out these protests? Unlike in 2009, the current protests are revolutionary.

They are directed at uprooting the entire Shiite theocratic system that was Iran’s form of governance (notwithstanding invasion and internal conflict in the 18th Century) from its founding by Shah Ismail in 1501 through 1925. Iran underwent a forced secularization/Westernization under the authoritarian Pahlavi Shahs from 1925 until 1979. The return of Shiite theocratic rule upon Khomeini’s ascension to power through his retrograde “revolution” had restored the theocratic norms of the 16th through the early 20th Centuries.

What were those (i.e., 1501-1925) “norms?” As characterized by the renowned Persianophilic scholar E.G. Browne in 1924: “The Mujtahids [an eminent, very learned Muslim jurist/scholar who is qualified to interpret the law] and Mulla [a scholar, not of Mujtahid stature] are a great force in Persia and concern themselves with every department of human activity from the minutest detail of personal purification to the largest issues of politics.”

FBI Opens New Investigation Into Clinton Foundation By Debra Heine

The Justice Department has opened up an new investigation into the Clinton Foundation to see if it conducted “pay-to-play” politics or other illegal activities while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, The Hill reported on Thursday.

FBI agents from Little Rock have already interviewed at least one witness, according to the report.

The Hill’s John Solomon reported that the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said “the probe was examining whether the Clintons promised or performed any policy favors in return for contributions to their charitable efforts or whether donors promised to make donations in hopes of government outcomes.”

The probe may also examine whether any tax-exempt assets were converted for personal or political use and whether the Foundation complied with applicable tax laws, the officials said.

One witness recently interviewed by the FBI described the session to The Hill as “extremely professional and unquestionably thorough” and focused on questions about whether donors to Clinton charitable efforts received any favorable treatment from the Obama administration on a policy decision previously highlighted in media reports.The U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Arkansas is Cody Hiland, who is a veteran of the Huckabee administration.

“He was working for Mike Huckabee back in the days when the Clinton machine was trying to take Huckabee out as governor,” Fox News political editor Chris Stirewalt said Thursday night on Fox News@Night. “This is some old blood-feud stuff,” he added.

“If this prosecutor out in Little Rock wants to take a good look at what the Clintons were doing and what was going on, I don’t think there’s probably much to stop him,” Stirewalt said. “We remember Peter Schweizer’s book (Clinton Cash),” he continued. “We reported on it, the New York Times reported on it, others reported on it — that had a lot of stinky stuff in it. It seemed inappropriate.” CONTINUE AT SITE

ELECTIONS ARE COMING: JOSH MANDEL DROPS OUT OF RACE AGAINST DEMOCRAT SHERROD BROWN IN OHIO

The Ohio state treasurer who was pressing forward with a well-funded challenge to incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) dropped out of the race today, citing his wife’s health issues.

Josh Mandel challenged Brown’s Senate seat back in 2012, but lost with 45 percent of the vote. Some polls over the past year showed Mandel with the lead in a head-to-head rematch with Brown, in a race rated as leaning toward the Dems.

Mandel, a 40-year-old Marine Corps veteran, issued a statement noting that his campaign has been “on a path to defeating Sherrod Brown this November,” including by being “the top fundraising Republican challenger in the country.”

The candidate said he “recently learned” that his wife, Ilana, “has a health issue that will require my time, attention and presence. In other words, I need to be there.” The two were married in 2008 and have three children together.

“Understanding and dealing with this health issue is more important to me than any political campaign. For as long as that takes, whether it is months or years, it is important that I heed my dad’s advice and be there for my wife and our kids,” Mandel continued. “After recent discussions with our family and healthcare professionals, it has become clear to us that it’s no longer possible for me to be away from home and on the campaign trail for the time needed to run a US Senate race.”

The Republican called it “a difficult decision for us, but it’s the right one.”

U.S. Private Sector Adds 250,000 Jobs in December Businesses hired to keep up with holiday demand By Imani Moise

Hiring at private U.S. employers grew more than expected in December, according to a report, as the busy holiday shopping season prompted businesses to hire in order to keep up with demand.

Firms across the country added 250,000 workers to their ranks in December, according to payroll processor Automatic Data Processing Inc. and forecasting firm Moody’s Analytics.

Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected the addition of 195,000 jobs.

The November total was revised down to 185,000 from 190,000.

The ADP report is based on private-payroll data in addition to government data.

“Robust Christmas sales prompted retailers and delivery services to add to their payrolls,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics.

“We’ve seen yet another month where the labor market has shown no signs of slowing,” vice president and co-head of ADP Research Institute Ahu Yildirmaz.

Growth was driven by small businesses which added more than double their monthly average for the past six months.

The ADP report comes ahead of the monthly jobs report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday. The BLS report is expected to show slower growth in employment in December compared to the strong gains seen in November. Economists expect nonfarm jobs to rise by 180,000 for December, compared with 228,000 the prior month.

Some Good Jobs News The black jobless rate falls to its lowest ever in the Labor statistics.

Friday’s Labor Department report on the December jobs market was mostly ho-hum, with the economy creating 148,000 net new jobs and the unemployment rate staying flat at a low 4.1%. But one more hopeful figure leapt out at us and a few others: The unemployment rate for black Americans fell to its lowest rate ever at 6.8%.

That’s right. The jobless rate for African-Americans hasn’t been lower since 1972, the earliest date we could find in the Bureau of Labor Statistics data tables. The jobless rate for blacks has always been substantially higher than for whites, and it tends to fall faster later in the economic cycle as growth picks up steam. The black jobless rate fell into the 7%-8% range in 1999-2000, before the dot-com bubble burst, and briefly in 2007 before the financial panic. But it climbed back to as high as 16.8% in 2010 before a long, slow decline as the economy recovered.

The rate has fallen especially fast the last couple of years, and in December fell another 0.4 percentage points. That big a fall might be a statistical anomaly that bounces back up in future months, but the downward trend is as clear as the political and economic message: Get the economy growing faster, and everyone will benefit.

Haley Thanks UN Ambassadors for Standing With US on Jerusalem

JNS.org – Two weeks after the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution criticizing the American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley hosted a reception on Wednesday for the 64 other countries that refused to back the measure.

The “Friends of the US” reception was held for the ambassadors of the eight countries (including Israel) that voted against the resolution in addition to the US, the 35 countries that abstained, and the 21 whose envoys did not show up for the vote.

“It’s easy for friends to be with you in the good times, but it’s the friends who are with you during the challenging times that will never be forgotten. Thank you to the 64,” Haley said at the reception, before reading the list of countries.

The event also included a video message from President Donald Trump.

“Rest assured that your actions on Thursday, December 21, will go down as a very important date, [and] were noted and greatly appreciated,” Trump said. “The United States remains committed to achieving lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians. There’s no reason that peace should not be entered into. We will continue to work with the partners like you to ensure a peaceful and prosperous future for the region, for the people, for the world.”

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon posted on Facebook, “I was honored to take part in a reception hosted by Ambassador Nikki Haley for the countries that stood by the US during the UN vote on Jerusalem. The leadership shown by the US unveiled the hypocrisy of the Palestinians, who speak of peace while doing all they can to avoid negotiations….We thank Ambassador Haley and the American people for their strong stance on behalf of truth and historical justice.”

US Freezes $125 Million Funds for Palestinian Refugees: Report

The United States has frozen $125 million in funding for a UN agency that provides aid to Palestinian refugees, Axios news site reported on Friday, citing three unidentified Western diplomats.https://www.algemeiner.com/2018/01/05/us-freezes-125-million-funds-for-palestinian-refugees-report/

The diplomats said funding, a third of the annual US donation to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, was supposed to be delivered by Jan. 1 but was frozen until the administration of US President Donald Trump finishes its review of US aid to the Palestinian Authority, Axios reported.