Lawrence J. Haas : A Problematic Aid Package

Hailing the new 10-year, $38 billion Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and Israel on U.S. security aid, President Barack Obama couldn’t pass up the opportunity to chastise the Jewish state for failing to secure a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The U.S. commitment to Israel’s security, Obama said in a prepared statement as officials from both countries signed the agreement last week, “has been unwavering and is based on a genuine and abiding concern for the welfare of the Israeli people and the future of the State of Israel. It is because of this same commitment to Israel and its long-term security that we will also continue to press for a two-state solution … despite the deeply troubling trends on the ground that undermine this goal.”

Obama’s statement, and some of the terms of the memorandum, reflect everything that Israel’s supporters find so irritating about the administration – its condescension toward Israel, its confusion about the region and its ill-advised efforts to reshape U.S. relations with regional allies and adversaries.

Any new 10-year security agreement between the United States and its closest ally in that turbulent region should herald warm feelings and a hearty sense of accomplishment in both capitals, but the atmospherics around this agreement are fueling lots of resignation, bitterness and second guessing.

At first blush, the memorandum reflects the close ties between Washington and Jerusalem that long predate Obama. At $38 billion, or $3.8 billion a year for 10 years starting in 2018, it surpasses the $31 billion of its expiring predecessor and represents the single largest U.S. security package ever proffered for any nation.

But dig below the top-line numbers, and you find terms and restrictions that belie the boasts of Obama and other top U.S. officials about “unwavering” commitments and “genuine and abiding” concerns.

For starters, the new agreement includes $500 million a year for missile defense, which Washington has been providing outside its current package, not as part of it. If you add the $500 million to the current $3.1 billion annual payment, total annual U.S. security aid to Israel is $3.6 billion. Thus, the $3.8 billion annual payment under the new agreement represents only about a 5 percent increase – and that doesn’t account for inflation.

Dangerous Plans Hatched by Obama and UN for Refugee Resettlement President Obama’s going away gift to the American people: an open door to more refugees from terrorist-infested countries. Joseph Klein

President Obama’s State Department finally admitted the obvious regarding ISIS terrorists embedding themselves in the refugee flow from the Middle East. “I wouldn’t debate the fact that there’s the potential for ISIS terrorists to try to insert themselves, and we see that in some of the refugee camps in Jordan and in Turkey, where they try to insert themselves into the population,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said on “Fox and Friends” on September 21st. Then Kirby tried to assure Americans that the “vetting process, while not perfect, is a very, very stringent.”

The Obama administration cannot even properly handle immigrants due for deportation who are already in the country. How can we possibly believe that it can reliably vet individuals from Syria and other terrorist infested countries where comprehensive accurate data regarding such individuals are sorely lacking?

For example, according to a report released on September 19th by the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general, hundreds of immigrants were improperly granted citizenship despite missing fingerprint records. They were from “special interest countries” – countries of particular concern for national security reasons.

Nevertheless, President Obama is making the admission of more refugees and migrants his going away gift to the American people. He has announced that the United States will welcome even more refugees from around the world, increasing the number of people the U.S. receives by 40 percent over the next two years, to 100,000 in 2017. He also wants to admit more Syrian refugees in particular, which Hillary Clinton has already announced she would do if elected president.

A Wife For an Hour In Iran How the Islamic Republic is increasing its abuse of women — and using a religious cloak to do it. Dr. Majid Rafizadeh

Based on a recent Farsi-language news story, a man identified as Ahmad, a devout Muslim from the Islamic Republic, conducted sigheh, a “temporary marriage,” with a woman identifed as Elnaz.

Sigheh is allowed under Iran’s Islamic and Sharia law. After three days Ahmad allegedly stole money from Elnaz’s family and left her. After the marriage contract, it was revealed that he also has another wife and children. Elnaz cannot take him to the court, divorce him, or marry another person because the marriage was Islamic and legal. Iranian officials and media outlets are also blaming her for what happened to her.

Under Iran’s Islamic and Sharia law, there exist two kinds of halal (religiously permissible) marriages: permanent and temporary. The latter is called “sigheh” or “motaa” (enjoyment). Sigheh is a verbal contract that can last as long as desired; an hour, two hours, half day, a week, a year, or more. Although sigheh is sold to women as a real marriage and that the man will truly treat the woman as his wife, the real story is different. Normally, in such a contract, the man gives something to the women (money, place to sleep, etc.) in exchange for sex and complete control over her body and emotions.

Sigheh only increased after the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979. Intriguingly, Iranian leaders and Imams have their own Islamic justification for such an act. They argue that this tradition began with Muhammad during the wars he engaged in for several reasons, including that Muhammad’s troops were away from the wives for a long period and needed to release their sexual desires. As a result, Muhammad said that Allah allows temporary marriages. Iranian clerics also argue that many of Muhammad’s troops were killed during holy wars. Therefore, many women were left without husbands. The story goes that Muhammad allowed the men to temporarily marry as many women as they desired.

Protest Thugs and the Real Evil in Charlotte Nothing says “family man” like assaulting women and children. Daniel Greenfield

Keith Lamont Scott was scum.

He had been convicted of assault with a deadly weapon in two different states and convicted of assault in three states. He had been hit with “assault with intent to kill” charges in the 90s. His record of virtue included “assault on a child under 12” and “assault on a female.”

The media spin; “Family and neighbors call Scott a quiet ‘family man.’”

Nothing says “quiet” like “assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill” and nothing says “family man” like assaulting women and children.

Keith Lamont Scott, the latest martyr of Black Lives Matter and its media propaganda corps, was shot while waving a gun around. He had spent 7 years in jail for “aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.”

This vicious monster’s career of crime ended when he was shot by Brentley Vinson, an African-American police officer, protecting himself from the latest rampage by this “quiet family man.”

Brentley Vinson is everything that Scott isn’t. The son of a police officer, Brentley dreamed of following in his father’s footsteps. He used to organize his football team’s bible studies and mentored younger players. Former teammates describe him as a “great guy” with “good morals.” His former coach calls him a “natural leader” and says that, “We need more Brent Vinsons… in our communities.”

Except that Obama, Black Lives Matter, the media, the NAACP and everyone else going after this bright and decent African-American officer has decided that what we really need are more Keith Lamont Scotts. And the streets of Charlotte are full of “Scotts” throwing rocks at police, assaulting reporters and wrecking everything in sight in marches that are as “peaceful” as Scott was a “quiet family man.”

That’s what Hillary Clinton wanted when she tweeted that, “We have two names to add to a long list of African-Americans killed by police officers. It’s unbearable, and it needs to become intolerable.”

Muslim mayor of London to Americans: Get used to terrorism By Deborah C. Tyler

While visiting New York City on 9/21, London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan evidenced mild chagrin in saying terrorist attacks should be seen as “part and parcel of living in a big city.” He added, “It is a reality, I’m afraid, that London, New York, and other major cities around the world have got to be prepared for these sorts of things.”

Mayor Khan makes it clear that preparing for the sort of thing that causes streets to run with the blood of dozens of innocents should not involve a military response. He advocates police staying “in touch with communities” and “exchanging ideas and best practices.”

Two aspects of conditioned helplessness are being inflicted on the citizens of Europe and the USA, numbing and incapacitating them enough to surrender their national sovereignty and traditional ways of life to the deepening darkness of globalism. One aspect is the increasingly laughable harangue by left-wing politicians that patriotic people are racio/phobio/blah-blah-blahists suffering cases of blah-blah-blahism. Americans receive a new mental diagnosis every week, and they all indicate something very, very bad about us. President Obama doesn’t pass up a chance to insult the American people, preferably in front of an international audience. Hillary brought a bit of literary flair to her insults with the “basket of deplorables” remark. Shoulder to shoulder with the other prominent destroyers of great nation-states and proud developers of lawless tribal territories, Mayor Khan didn’t miss the chance to denigrate the tens of millions of Americans who support Donald Trump. Khan’s racist-shmacist in-your-face-ist shot was that the Trump movement is “driven by scapegoating.”

But there is a deeper, more psychologically crippling aspect to the mass psychology of globalist takeover then the vilification of patriots, and Khan has chosen to spearhead it. In his original learned helplessness experiments (now widely considered unethical), psychologist Martin Seligman electrically shocked dogs, which were divided into groups that could or could not do something to stop the shocks. The dogs for whom the shocks were inescapable developed what Seligman called learned helplessness. The most helpless dogs simply gave up, lay down, and whimpered.

The New York Bomber Was Not a Lone Wolf America’s latest terror attack shows why its preferred metaphor to describe terrorism is usually a contradiction in terms.By Matthew Levitt

It was no surprise that in the first hours after the New York and New Jersey bombing attacks, the culprit was widely suggested to be a “lone wolf.” The term, used to describe an individual inspired by others but acting on his or her own, has become the counterterrorism metaphor-of-choice in the age of the Islamic State.

It’s time, however, to put the lone-wolf metaphor, and its associated counterterrorism analysis, out to pasture.

It’s time, however, to put the lone-wolf metaphor, and its associated counterterrorism analysis, out to pasture. According to Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, we now live in a world where terrorism is “carried out by those who live among us in the homeland and self-radicalize, inspired by terrorist propaganda on the internet.”

But if that diagnosis isn’t wrong, it is incomplete. The New York bomber may have been “self-radicalized,” but it’s very unlikely he was merely “inspired” by terrorist groups.

There’s no doubt the Islamic State has been exceedingly explicit, and calculating, in its calls for lone-wolf attacks. In an online e-book titled How to Survive in the West: A Mujahid Guide (2015) the group argued: “With less attacks in the West being group (networked) attacks and an increasing amount of lone-wolf attacks, it will be more difficult for intelligence agencies to stop an increasing amount of violence and chaos from spreading in the West.” The group’s call to action has been amplified, first, by its talent at promoting it through social media (the Mujahid guide was distributed widely on Twitter); and second, the authority lent to the group by virtue of its participation in the Syrian war and its purported re-establishment of the caliphate.

Clearly, this has had some effect. In recent years, the pool of potential homegrown terrorists has expanded: Today there are open investigations on about 1,000 potential homegrown violent extremists in all 50 states. And yet, not all of America’s radicalized individuals have been motivated by the Islamic State’s appeals for lone wolves. Ahmad Khan Rahani, the suspect believed to have been behind the bombings in New York and New Jersey, reportedly was inspired by the U.S.-born al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki — who was killed in 2011 by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen, but whose radical preaching lives on in online videos. He traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan, areas where al Qaeda and the Taliban are more prevalent than the Islamic State. A note apparently left by the bomber referred to Awlaki and the Boston Marathon bombers, who were also inspired by Awlaki.

Obama Insults Blacks — Again Black American have not fared well in the eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency. By Deroy Murdock

‘I will consider it a personal insult, an insult to my legacy, if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election,” a particularly hopped-up-looking President Obama shouted to the Congressional Black Caucus on Saturday night. “You wanna gimme a good sendoff? Go vote!”

First, just imagine the national burning and looting that would erupt, starting inside America’s newsrooms, if Donald J. Trump said he would consider it a “personal insult” if white people did not vote for him.

Second, how insulting!

Obama speaks about black people as if we were his servants, and he our master.

Black people owe Obama nothing. Au contraire, he owes black people plenty. Black voters turned out and backed him by 95 percent in 2008, according to the Roper Center. And then, in 2012, black support plunged — all the way down to 93 percent.

And in exchange for this blind loyalty, black folks got what from Obama? Very little. The promised land that many expected never arrived. In most cities, black neighborhoods still tend to be the go-to places for economic hardship, educational disadvantage, and crime.

Obama’s economic performance among black Americans has been highly mixed, at best, with recent bright spots overshadowed by years of abundant bad news. Since he became president, according to the latest-available data, here is how black Americans have fared on selected economic indicators:

Unemployment rate: Down 36.2 percent

Labor-force-participation rate: Down 2.1 percent

Proportion below the poverty line: Down 6.6 percent

Real median household income: Up 2.5 percent

Food Stamp participants: Up 58.2 percent

Home ownership: Down 9.5 percent

(For further details, please click here.)

The Sorry State of American Debate The upcoming face-off between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will just be a TV spectacle. Real debate takes place in governing (or at least used to) By Bryan Garsten

The first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is only days away. What can we hope for? A revealing gaffe, a zinger that hits home, a flash of true spontaneity or a glimpse of the real character of the candidates—these seem to be the most anyone is hoping for, and more than we are likely to get.

Debates, at their very best, are the diamonds of democratic politics—crystal clear in argument, sparkling with wit, free from the discolorations of petty self-interest and shaped to focus light on the great issues of the day. But diamonds are rare, and no one is expecting a jewel on Monday night. The problem isn’t only that our candidates are lackluster, tempting as that explanation may be. Nor does the fault lie mainly in the quality of the questions or the skill of the moderator. The forum itself is flawed. How many ways are there to say, “Vote for me”? That line will always be more advertisement than argument.

The first televised presidential debate, starring John Kennedy and Richard Nixon, aired 56 years ago on Sept. 26, 1960. People who listened on the radio thought Nixon won, but those who watched on TV thought Kennedy won, and the election was so close that the TV factor might have made a difference. But should it have? Did viewers learn something from the grainy, flickering black and white images on their tiny TVs that was really relevant to the question of which policy or person was best for the country?

The Kennedy-Nixon debate garnered mixed reviews, including severe criticism from establishment figures. The journalist Edward R. Murrow called it “a puny contribution, capsuled, homogenized, perhaps dangerous in its future implication.” The historian Henry Steele Commager responded with an essay entitled, “Washington Would Have Lost a TV Debate.” “The present formula of TV debate,” he remarked, “is designed to corrupt the public judgment and, eventually, the whole political process. The American Presidency is too great an office to be subjected to the indignity of this technique.” Though the televised debates returned and eventually became a regular part of the campaign, it is hard to think of even one that stands out as a model of informed and informative discourse.

During most campaign cycles, someone will write an essay comparing the disappointing pettiness of modern debates to the great Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, a series of daylong exchanges in various towns around Illinois during the contest between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas for a Senate seat. (Lincoln lost.) Whereas in modern televised debates, a candidate often has just 90 seconds for an answer, those debates gave each speaker 90 minutes for a single response. Audiences stood all day in the late summer sun to listen to intricate arguments about matters of national importance, such as the extension of slavery into the western territories. Our attention spans on the couch at home don’t compare very well.

Donald Trump Promises Deregulation of Energy Production Republican presidential nominee vows to end ‘all unnecessary regulations’ By John W. Miller

PITTSBURGH—Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump promised sweeping deregulation of natural-gas, oil and coal production as part of an “America-first energy” plan.

Speaking on Thursday to a conference of 1,500 gas-industry executives, managers and salespeople, Mr. Trump said he would lift restrictions on America’s “untapped energy—some $50 trillion in shale energy, oil reserves and natural gas on federal lands, in addition to hundreds of years of coal energy reserves.”

He promised to end “all unnecessary regulations, and a temporary moratorium on new regulations not compelled by Congress or public safety.”

Mr. Trump named an $850 million coal export terminal in Washington, a $3 billion Northwest gas pipeline and a $6.8 billion gas-export terminal as examples of the fossil-fuel projects that have been rejected by regulators or withdrawn by supporters since 2012. A recent tally found about $33 billion in projects have been derailed by regulations, grass-roots opposition and falling energy prices, a figure that Mr. Trump cited in his speech.

Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has called for investment in renewable energy and steep reductions in U.S. carbon emissions as part of an effort to address global warming.

The development of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has stimulated gas drilling throughout the Marcellus and Utica shales, creating tens of thousands of jobs, and offering new business opportunities for suppliers. For example, U.S. Steel Corp. expanded its business making steel pipes and tubes used in gas drilling. But the shale-gas industry has suffered since 2014, when energy prices started declining. CONTINUE AT SITE

Muslim Brotherhood Regains Foothold in Jordan’s Parliament But small number of seats won by its political alliance in Tuesday’s elections gives movement little influence in shaping policy By Suha Ma’ayeh in Amman and Rory Jones in Tel Aviv

The Muslim Brotherhood won seats in Tuesday’s Jordanian parliamentary elections, a mostly symbolic victory that revives the movement’s presence in the country’s legislature for the first time in nearly a decade.

Results of the of the vote were disclosed on Thursday.

The Islamic Action Front, the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, won eight seats and its political supporters took another seven, making for an alliance of 15 out of the 130 lawmakers in the lower house of Jordan’s parliament. But the alliance’s small numbers would limit its influence in shaping policy or opposing laws promoted by the government.

Governing powers would continue to reside largely with Pro-western monarch King Abdullah II. While usually drafted by the government, the country’s laws must be endorsed by both houses of Parliament.

“Still,” said Oraib al-Rantawi, director of the Al Quds Center for Political Studies in Amman, the Muslim Brotherhood “will create controversy and stimulate heated discussions.”

King Abdullah earlier this year dissolved parliament, swore in a new government and named former foreign minister Hani Mulki prime minister in a bid to bolster confidence in government among Jordanians.

Despite those changes, voter apathy was apparent this week, with just 37% of the country’s 4 million eligible voters casting ballots.

The country is struggling with a range of domestic issues including stagnant economic growth and the cost of absorbing more than 650,000 United Nations-registered Syrian refugees into its population of roughly 8.1 million.

Unemployment for Jordanians under age 30, who comprise more than 70% of the country, has hit 30%, according to a 2015 report by the International Labor Organization. A lack of prospects for youth has led many to consider joining the Islamic State militant group and has aided in the proliferation of extremist ideologies, U.S. officials have said.

The Muslim Brotherhood had campaigned on a message of relative political moderation and fielded a slate of candidates that included Christians and women. “We are the only bloc in parliament who ran on a platform with a program, and we will forge alliances with others,” said Ali Abu al-Sukkar, Islamic Action Front’s deputy head.

Election laws this year were revised to stipulate parliamentary candidates would no longer be listed as unaffiliated individuals and instead would be required to appear on slates defined by political party, geography or a loosely defined political agenda.

Those changes were aimed at encouraging party politics, but people generally voted according to family and community ties.

The composition of new parliament is dominated by tribal candidates and businessmen local to voting districts, in similar fashion to the previous assembly. CONTINUE AT SITE