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Schumer Has ‘Not Regretted’ Vote Against Iran Nuke Deal ‘a Single Day Since’ By Bridget Johnson

Posted By on September 27th, 2016

WASHINGTON — Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he’s never regretted — not “a single day” — voting against the Iran nuclear deal and ripped Mideast peace efforts that didn’t recognize the Palestinians’ true aims.

The senator likely to replace retiring Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) as the leader of Democrats in the upper chamber even called for an education campaign that teaches Americans about the anti-Semitism and violent rhetoric contained in Palestinian children’s textbooks.

In his speech Sunday at the Israeli American Council National Conference in D.C., Schumer spoke forcefully against allowing the United Nations to “ever” impose terms for a Mideast peace agreement.

The senator mocked Iranian President Hassan Rouhani for claiming at the UN General Assembly that “Zionist pressure groups” were behind anti-Iran sentiment and legal action.

Schumer gave exaggerated air quotes to emphasize the “Zionist pressure groups,” adding, “I think he’s talking about us.”

To Rouhani, Schumer replied: “Look no further than your own borders. You’ve earned the condemnation of the United States and the world when you have the human rights record that Iran has… when you harass the U.S. Navy, when you export weapons to Hezbollah to rain down on civilians, when you conduct ballistic missile tests and write ‘Israel must be wiped out’ on side of the missile.”

“You earn the condemnation of every decent human being when there are homosexuals hanging from cranes in your cities. Oh, no: ‘Zionist pressure groups’ are not responsible for anti-Iran sentiments in the U.S., or rulings against Iran from independent judiciaries.”

Schumer received a standing ovation for reiterating his opposition to the Iran nuclear deal and stressing, “I have not regretted that vote a single day since.”

“Many of us who opposed the agreement did so because we did not believe that Iran would moderate, and from all early indications the Iranian regime is not moderating — not if it continues its nefarious behavior in the region,” the senator added.

He said Congress should renew Iran sanctions “immediately” to keep the regime’s feet held to the fire. “Keep the sanctions act in place. Strengthen it!” he declared.

Schumer called the global boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel a threat to the Jewish state’s existence on par with the threat posed by Iran.

The senator recalled his college days fighting a “radical, militant, left-wing” Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)/Progressive Labor Party (PLP) anti-Israel alliance. Inviting the Israeli UN ambassador to come to Harvard to confront the SDS/PLP as anti-Semites, Schumer said, was one of his first political actions.

“Those who call for boycotts of Israel… are practicing, whether they know it or not, a modern form of anti-Semitism,” Schumer told the IAC crowd, stressing the BDS proponents’ goal “has nothing to do with this settlement or that settlement,” but “the elimination of the state of Israel.”

“We need to make that argument loudly and strongly and go against the BDS movement and call it for what it is — an anti-Semitic, not just an anti-Israel, movement,” he said.

He called for anti-BDS legislation in all states, like bills passed in New York and California.

While bad enough in the United States, Schumer emphasized that the BDS movement abroad is more virulent. “Europe has shown how anti-Israel and anti-Semitic the BDS movement really is,” he said. “Far-right parties are experiencing rebirth, and far-left parties like the Labour Party under Corbyn are increasingly anti-Israel. Terrorism and violence against Jews is on the rise, from vandalizing synagogues to the horrible attack on a Jewish grocery in Paris.”

“It is no wonder that last year France, home to the largest Jewish population in Europe, set a record for migration of their Jewish population to Israel. Unfortunately, anti-Semitism seems to be in far too many European homes.”

Schumer underscored that “when we look at foreign policy, we must remember one thing, as I have: the Jewish people can never put the fate of Israel in the hands of Europe in any way.”

On Mideast negotiations, Schumer said Palestinians must recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

He panned the suggestion that Israeli settlements stand in the way of a peace deal, reminding all what happened after Israeli forces evicted settlers from Gaza.

“What was the response of the Palestinian people? Rockets in Sderot three weeks later. Oh, no. It’s not the settlements that’s the reason there’s no peace.”

The Obama administration has consistently insisted that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are an impediment to the peace process. CONTINUE AT SITE

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Stiffening the American Spine Denmark’s former prime minister exhorts Americans to resist retreat. ‘Leading from behind’ may work with grazing sheep. It doesn’t in wolf country. By Josef Joffe

Posted By on September 27th, 2016

When you chance on a book by a former NATO chief, your eyes glaze over. Please, not another “Whither NATO?” or a compendium of boilerplate, stitched together by a ghostwriter. Yet crack open “The Will to Lead” by Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who also served as Denmark’s prime minister for eight years, and the glaze will vanish.

This book reads like a letter to an American friend, written by a “European classical liberal who has always counted on American leadership.” On the cusp of a new administration, this European doesn’t pine for yet another pledge of American allegiance. Instead he exhorts the U.S. “not to abandon its vital role as champion of freedom and guarantor of the global order.”

He sees the “global village” burning while its inhabitants bicker. So “we need a policeman to restore order; we need a fireman to put out the fire; we need a mayor, smart and sensible, to lead the rebuilding.” That sums up the role the U.S. ditched after World War I—and brilliantly reclaimed after World War II.

Why the alarm? Because, as Mr. Rasmussen writes, neo-isolationism, economic as well as strategic, is on a roll on both sides of the ocean. TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, is on the way to the morgue, as may be TPP, the Pacific version. Under Barack Obama, the U.S. has pulled out of Iraq while downscaling in Afghanistan. He has turned away from old allies in the Middle East, working hard to secure a nuclear deal with the theocrats of Iran. He has given the Russians an all but free ride in Ukraine and in Syria.

When Mr. Obama trumpeted the “audacity of hope,” he forsook the first rule of statecraft: It is better (and cheaper) to man the lines than to return. Being there deters; pulling out suggests indifference, if not an invitation to rivals. “Leading from behind” may work with grazing sheep. It does not in wolf country.CONTINUE AT SITE

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Transcripts Show ISIS Influence on Orlando Gunman Omar Mateen cited the death of an Islamic State leader as a motivation for the June massacreBy Dan Frosch and Nicole Hong

Posted By on September 27th, 2016

Holed up in an Orlando nightclub and surrounded by police, Omar Mateen told a hostage negotiator that he was angry about the death of a top Islamic State operative, according to recently released transcripts of their phone conversations during Mateen’s massacre earlier this year.

The new details of the conversations, released by Orlando Police last week, show Mateen had more than a passing interest in Islamic State, counterterrorism experts said. He specifically singled out the death of Abu Wahib, one of the more visible leaders of the terror group, as one of the main motivations for his attack. Abu Wahib was killed in an airstrike in Iraq just weeks before Mateen opened fire at the Pulse nightclub in June in an attack that killed 49 people and wounded 53. Mateen died in a shootout with police.

“Yo, the airstrike that killed Abu Wahid a few weeks ago—That’s what triggered it, okay?” he told the police negotiator, an apparent reference in the transcript to the Islamic State commander.

Abu Wahib, whose real name is Shaker Wahib al-Fahdawi, was known as one of the group’s more Internet-savvy leaders, often appearing in propaganda videos.

Only an “avid consumer” of Islamic State propaganda would know when Abu Wahib was killed, said Seamus Hughes, the deputy director of George Washington University’s Program on Extremism.

“This isn’t somebody who decided that night he was going to wrap his personal grievances around ISIS,” Mr. Hughes said.

Islamic State supporters in the U.S. more commonly cite as inspirations people like Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi or Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born al Qaeda recruiter who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2011. While talking to the 911 operator the night of the Orlando shooting, Mateen also pledged allegiance to Mr. Baghdadi, according to a partial version of transcripts released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in June.

It is unclear when precisely Mateen, 29, was radicalized, though he had aroused the FBI’s suspicion after making claims of ties to terrorists in 2013.

At a hearing before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday defended his agency’s handling of probes into Mateen, as well as into Ahmad Khan Rahami. Mr. Rahami is awaiting trial on charges he placed bombs around New York and New Jersey earlier this month that injured 31 people.

Mr. Comey was repeatedly pressed by lawmakers about whether the FBI should have investigated longer before closing its probes into Mateen and Mr. Rahami, which took place well before their deadly attacks. Mr. Comey acknowledged that in the case of Mateen, agents had not searched his online activity for indications of radicalization.

In the series of phone calls with the negotiator during the Orlando massacre, Mateen also railed against U.S. airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, saying they were killing women and children.

“What am I to do here when my people are getting killed over there. You get what I’m saying?” he said.

Mateen’s constant references to U.S. airstrikes are a “basic regurgitation of the propaganda he’s consuming,” said Brig Barker, a retired FBI special agent who focused on counterterrorism. CONTINUE AT SITE

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Fact-Checking Lester Holt Here’s the legal back story on that stop-and-frisk ruling.

Posted By on September 27th, 2016

We told you Tuesday that Donald Trump was right when he pushed back on debate moderator Lester Holt over “stop and frisk” policing. But the story deserves a more complete explanation, not least because the media are distorting the record.

Mr. Trump invoked stop and frisk as a way to “take the gun away from criminals” in high-crime areas and protect the innocent. That provoked Mr. Holt, who said that “stop and frisk was ruled unconstitutional in New York.” Mr. Trump then noted that the ruling in the case came from a “very against police judge” who later had the case taken away from her. Mrs. Clinton then echoed Mr. Holt.

Here’s what really happened. The federal judge in the stop-and-frisk case was Shira Scheindlin, a notorious police critic whose behavior got her taken off the case by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The appellate court put it this way:

“Upon review of the record in these cases, we conclude that the District Judge ran afoul of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges . . . and that the appearance of impartiality surrounding this litigation was compromised by the District Judge’s improper application of the Court’s ‘related case rule’ . . . and by a series of media interviews and public statements purporting to respond publicly to criticism of the District Court.”

The court then remanded the case to another judge who would not present an appearance of bias against the police. In a follow-up opinion, the appellate judges cited a New Yorker interview with Judge Scheindlin that included a quote from a former law clerk saying “what you have to remember about the judge is that she thinks cops lie.”

This is an extraordinary rebuke by a higher court and raises doubts that the merits of her ruling would have held up on appeal. As Rudolph Giuliani makes clear nearby, the judge’s ruling of unconstitutionality applied only to stop and frisk as it was practiced in New York at the time. Such police search tactics have long been upheld by higher courts.

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James Comey’s Clinton Immunity More questions about the FBI’s special handling of the email case.

Posted By on September 27th, 2016

FBI Director James Comey appears Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee, where he’ll get another chance to explain his agency’s double standard regarding Hillary Clinton. His probe of the former Secretary of State’s private email server is looking more like a kid-glove exercise with each new revelation.

House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz on Friday disclosed that the FBI granted immunity to Mrs. Clinton’s top aides as part of its probe into whether Mrs. Clinton mishandled classified information. According to Mr. Chaffetz, this “limited” immunity was extended to former chief of staff Cheryl Mills and senior adviser Heather Samuelson, in order to get them to surrender their laptops, which they’d used to sort through Mrs. Clinton’s work-versus-personal emails.

Why the courtesy? “If the FBI wanted any other Americans’ laptops, they would just go get them—they wouldn’t get an immunity deal,” Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan told Politico. He’s right. The FBI merely had to seek a subpoena or search warrant. By offering immunity, the FBI exempted the laptops and their emails as potential evidence in a criminal case.

Beth Wilkinson, who represents Ms. Mills and Ms. Samuelson, says the immunity deals were designed to protect her clients against any related “classification” disputes. This is an admission that both women knew their unsecure laptops had been holding sensitive information for more than a year. Meanwhile, Mr. Comey also allowed Ms. Mills and Ms. Samuelson to serve as lawyers for Mrs. Clinton at her FBI interview—despite having been interviewed as witnesses and offered immunity.

The FBI also offered immunity to John Bentel, who directed the State Department’s Office of Information Resources Management; to Bryan Pagliano, Mrs. Clinton’s IT guru; and to an employee of Platte River Networks (PRN), which housed the Clinton server. Usually, the FBI only “proffers” immunity deals in return for genuine information. In this case the FBI seemed not to make any such demands. The deals also did not include—as they often do—requirements that the recipients cooperate with other investigating bodies, such as Congress.

Meantime, the FBI waited until late Friday to dump another 189 pages of documents from its investigation, including notes from interviews with Ms. Mills and Ms. Samuelson, Mr. Pagliano, Clinton confidante Huma Abedin, and Platte River Network employees. They raise even more questions.

Was the FBI concerned that Ms. Mills in the fall of 2013 (after Congress began investigating the Benghazi attacks) called Mr. Pagliano to ask about software that could be used for “wiping computer data”? Or that a Platte River Networks employee, after getting instructions from Ms. Mills to begin deleting Clinton emails more than 60 days old, entitled the resulting work ticket the “Hillary coverup operation”? Or that a PRN employee was instructed by the company’s lawyer “not to answer any [FBI] questions related to conversations with” David Kendall, Mrs. Clinton’s personal lawyer?

The FBI documents also disclose that Mr. Pagliano admitted to having, at the beginning of Mrs. Clinton’s tenure, several conversations with unnamed State Department official(s) who expressed concern that her private server posed “a federal records retention issue,” and that it was likely transmitting classified information. When Mr. Pagliano relayed these concerns to Ms. Mills, she ignored them. CONTINUE AT SITE

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MY SAY: NOTHING HAPPENED

Posted By on September 27th, 2016

Last night Trump got a C and Hillary got a B. He lost big opportunities to smash her arguments and challenge her integrity when he got on the defensive. But he didn’t erupt or insult.
She was smug and loaded for bear with the help of Lester Holt’s obvious bias.
Remember 2008? She won every debate with Barack Obama on policy, his inexperience, “training on the job” jabs, and his inability to handle the three o’clock A.M. call. She even threw in the race card when she opined that “white working class men” were more likely to vote for her. And she lost the primary and he won the election.
Those who prefer Trump still do and those who prefer Hillary still do. We’ll see what the poll weevils will say.

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Hinde Street #antisemitism in the Methodist Church : David Collier

Posted By on September 27th, 2016

I have been to your church several times this week in an effort to engage with people over the ‘you cannot pass today’ exhibition. The Church decided to use a replica of an Israeli security checkpoint to deliver a message about ‘bringing down walls’.http://david-collier.com/?p=2305

Last night I was also at the circle discussion, that spoke about building bridges between the communities. I always try to reach out, try to understand. My learning process doesn’t include vocally arguing my case, but rather engaging and listening to others, absorbing their message (without confrontation) and trying to build a picture of what it is I see. There are three central points I would like now to get across:
The humanitarian safari park

The exhibition came about because one of the people involved with the church, Katherine Fox, had recently returned from a three-month humanitarian mission in Bethlehem.

Katherine did not go to Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan nor Libya. The reason she did not go to these places is because it is generally too dangerous and there is no similar industry to any of these life threatening areas. Only inside Israel does this type of tourism occur. It is safe to view the humanitarian situation in Israel precisely because it does not involve the dangers that exist elsewhere. I have written on this subject before.

If you had listened to Katherine speak last night, you would hear she was instructed to propagate the information. To return from the safari park and record events as if she had been into a jungle. It is part of the process, part of the industry. You get to go, provided on your return, you hold ‘x’ number of events that perpetuate the myths and convert others to the cause.

You also only get to see what they want you to see. You are on a journey with a clearly laid out path. If for example Katherine had spent three months in Ramallah, she’d be wondering what all the fuss is about . These trips are well choreographed. Your hand is held from the time you arrive to the time you leave.

So the question then becomes, is ‘bringing down the wall’, a message of peace or one of war. Is the church assisting those who seek a peaceful solution, or inadvertently helping to perpetuate a conflict, assisting in spreading the hatred?
The greatest straw man of all

The entire discussion always circles around one single straw man argument. Some suggest that the attack on Israel is dripping with antisemitism, and the offended humanitarians argue in response that they are not antisemitic.

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Jihadists Target Spain “The actions of your ancestors are the reason for our actions today.” by Soeren Kern

Posted By on September 27th, 2016

The Islamic State document said that since the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition in 1478, Spain “has done everything to destroy the Koran.” It said that Spain tortured Muslims, including burning them alive. Therefore, according to the Islamic State, “Spain is a criminal state that usurps our land.” The document calls on jihadists to “reconnoiter airline and train routes for attacks.” It also calls on followers to “poison food and water” with insecticides.

“We will kill any ‘innocent’ Spanish infidel we find in Muslim lands, and… whether we are European in origin or not, we will kill you in your cities and towns according to our plan.” — Islamic State document, May 30, 2016.

“We will recover al-Andalus, Allah willing. Oh dear Andalus! You thought we forgot about you. I swear by Allah we have never forgotten you. No Muslim can forget Córdoba, Toledo or Xàtiva. There are many faithful and sincere Muslims who swear they will return to al-Andalus.” — Islamic State video, January 31, 2016.

“Spain is the land of our forefathers and we are going to take it back with the power of Allah.” — Islamic State video, January 7, 2016.

Islamic militants are stepping up a propaganda war against Spain. In recent months, Islamic State and other jihadist groups have produced a flurry of videos and documents calling on Muslims to reconquer al-Andalus.

Al-Andalus is the Arabic name given to those parts of Spain, Portugal and France occupied by Muslim conquerors (also known as the Moors) from 711 to 1492. Many Muslims believe that territories Muslims lost during the Christian Reconquest of Spain still belong to the realm of Islam. They claim that Islamic law gives them the right to re-establish Muslim rule there.

A recent Islamic State document includes a list of grievances against Spain for wrongs done to Muslims since the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa on July 16, 1212, when the Christian forces of King Alfonso VIII of Castile routed the Almohad Muslim rulers of the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula. More than 100,000 Muslims were killed in the battle, which was a key victory in the Catholic Monarchs’ “Reconquista” of Spain.

The document said that since the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition in 1478, Spain “has done everything to destroy the Koran.” It said that Spain tortured Muslims, including burning them alive. Therefore, according to the Islamic State, “Spain is a criminal state that usurps our land.” The document calls on jihadists to “reconnoiter airline and train routes for attacks.” It also calls on followers to “poison food and water” with insecticides.

The document concludes: “The actions of your ancestors are the reason for our actions today.”

On July 15, 2016, Islamic State released its first propaganda video with Spanish subtitles. The high quality of the Spanish translation, both in writing and in syntax, led some analysts to conclude that that the translator’s mother tongue is Spanish and that the subtitling may even have been done inside Spain.

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Turkey: Land of Mosques, Prisons and the Uneducated by Burak Bekdil

Posted By on September 27th, 2016

“[I]n spite of dire predictions by secularists, the [ruling] AKP did not introduce conspicuous efforts to Islamize Turkey. But since 2011, this has changed.” — Svante E. Cornell, in “The Islamization of Turkey: Erdogan’s Education Reforms.”

In 2014, Turkey’s government introduced a scheme which forcibly enrolled about 40,000 students at Islamic “imam schools,” and granted permission for girls as young as 10 to wear Islamic headscarves in class.

A new study by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development found that 43% of Turkish women aged between 15 and 29 were neither working nor receiving education.

One way the rise of Islamist authoritarianism in a country can be seen is by the rise in the number of mosques, religious schools and prisons — coupled with a sharp decline in the quality of education. Turkey is no exception.

Most recently, the Turkish government said that it would build 174 new prisons, increasing capacity by 100,000 convicts. This is Turkey’s reply to complaints that six convicts must share a cell built for three. Convicts say they must sleep in turns in their bunk beds.

Before that, Turkey’s government released nearly 40,000 convicted criminals, in order to make space for tens of thousands of suspects, including journalists, businessmen and academics, detained after the failed coup of July 15.

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Ending the Palestinian Exception Is the U.S. finally ready to lay the “two-state solution” to rest? Caroline Glick

Posted By on September 27th, 2016

Ahead of Monday night’s first presidential debate, Rudolph Giuliani – former New York mayor and Republican nominee Donald Trump’s current adviser – spoke at the Israeli American Council’s annual conference. Four days of intense debate preparation with Trump preceded the talk. Giuliani insisted the time has come for the US to “reject the whole notion of a two-state solution in Israel.”

It can only be hoped that regardless of who prevails in November, Giuliani’s statement will become the official position of the next US administration.
In his speech before the UN General Assembly last week PLO and Fatah chief and unelected Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said many things to drive home the basic point that he is not interested in peace with Israel. He is interested in destroying Israel. But one particular demand stands out.

It stands out not because it is new. It isn’t new.

Abbas says it all the time and his advisers say it all the time. They say it to Palestinian and international audiences alike, and it always is met with support or at least sympathy.

Abbas demanded that Israel stop arresting Palestinian terrorists and release all Palestinian terrorists from its prisons. That is, he demanded that Israel allow thousands of convicted terrorists to walk free and refrain from doing anything to interfere with terrorists engaged planning and carrying out the murder of its citizens.

The overwhelming majority of Palestinians support this demand. And so does the US government.

During US Secretary of State John Kerry’s failed peace process in 2013-14, President Barack Obama and Kerry embraced Abbas’s demand that Israel release 104 terrorist murderers from its prisons as a precondition for agreeing to negotiate with the Jewish state.

Bowing to US pressure, Israel released 78 terrorists from its jails in three tranches. Ahead of the fourth scheduled release, Abbas and his advisers bragged that they would cut off talks with Israel as soon as the last group of terrorist murderers were released.

That is, they admitted that the negotiations, such as they were, were nothing more than a means to achieve the goal of freeing murderers.