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Enough! by Jim Fletcher

Posted By on February 20th, 2016

About 10 miles northeast of Jerusalem sits the Israeli community of Ma’aleh Michmas. To the international community, this place is a “settlement” (emphasis on the “sssss”). In the Bible, it is mentioned in 1 Samuel, Isaiah, and Ezra. The ancient Israelites fought the Philistines there.

This week, a resident of Ma’aleh Michmas fought modern enemies, the Palestinians, at a market, in the homeland of his forefathers.

Tuvia Yanai Weissman, a combat sergeant with the Nahal Brigade, was stabbed to death by two Arab teenagers as he intervened in an attack. The 21-year-old leaves behind a wife and baby.

The demons that walk up and down in the earth today manifest in myriad ways. For Yanai and Yael, the fiends have stolen their future. When Yanai heard the commotion at the market, he left his baby daughter, Neta, with his wife. He was stabbed as he tried to save others. At his funeral, Yael pierced the veil now between them:

“Give me the strength to look Neta in the eyes and tell her that everything will be fine. I promise to take care of her as best I can. I am sorry that we did not have a chance to realize our dreams.

“I love you and I already long for you.”

The young husband and father was taken to a hospital, where doctors tried for hours to save him. Incredibly, his murderers (I couldn’t care less that they are both 14) are being treated in two Jerusalem’s medical centers; Sha’are Tzedek and Hadassah Ein Karem.

I wish they weren’t. I have to be honest.

I wish the Weissmans were able to return home and spend the next 60 years together.

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A Terrorist Murder by Arabs but US Admin ‘Condemns’ ‘Attack’ ‘That Resulted in Death’By: Lori Lowenthal Marcus

Posted By on February 20th, 2016

Our deepest condolences for the death of humanity in the State Dept.’s alleged condolence note about a random attack on a random American in a random place.

Why is it that this U.S. Administration, including its leader, President Barack Obama, refers to the intentional murder of Jews in the most remote and passive of terms? No one murders Jews: an attack happens and later the unfortunate Jew dies.

No Jews are targeted because they are Jews: the victims – random ones, of course – just happen to be Jews.

And it’s gotten worse. Now the Israeli Jews, when they happen to die of some random attack, are not even Jews, but Israelis, unless they happen to live beyond the 1949 Armistice Line (the invisible Green Line) in which case they are neither Jew nor Israeli, but simply the maligned “settler” or, sometimes, only referred to as the other half of their dual nationality, such as American – as if they have no connection at all to the Jewish people or Israel, and as if those connections had nothing to do with their random death.

Take, just as the latest example, yesterday’s stabbing and murder.

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It’s a bipartisan issue: Palestinian statehood is a non-starter for foreseeable future Daniel Mandel & Morton Klein

Posted By on February 20th, 2016

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s position on this is well known ever since he stated as much last year, in the run-up to the Israeli elections.In a recent Knesset debate, despite the customary efforts of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Labor opposition leader Isaac Herzog to differentiate their political positions, it emerged that actually both oppose creating a Palestinian state under prevailing conditions.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s position on this is wellknown ever since he stated as much last year, in the run-up to the Israeli elections that confirmed him in office, but Herzog’s statement was new. Herzog said, “The vision of two states is not dead, but it won’t happen tomorrow, surely not as long as you and [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] are afraid to make a move.”

Two aspects of this statement are noteworthy.

First, Palestinians are not reconciled to the idea that a Jewish state can and will exist alongside a Palestinian one. This is reflected in Palestinian polling. A June 2015 Palestine Center for Public Opinion poll found that 49 percent of Palestinians seek a Palestine in place of Israel, while only 29% seek one alongside Israel – and even many of those who seek a neighboring state do not accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state: 88% of Palestinians say Jews have no rights to the land at all.

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New Jersey ‘college town’ aiding and abetting illegal aliens, radical IslamistsJim-Kouri

Posted By on February 20th, 2016

“There is a new bill that is a good first step — The ICE Agent Support Act of 2016 (S 2538) will push back, blocking current immigration lawlessness. It allows ICE agents to fine illegal aliens for ignoring orders to leave the country. New financial penalties will make disregarding orders to leave more painful and will also provide a new source of funding for the agency, actually rewarding ICE for doing its job.”

The New Jersey town in which many Princeton University faculty, staff and students reside, is intentionally seeking to aid and abet illegal aliens — including those from Muslim countries — to avoid arrests by federal, state and local law enforcement, according to Ms. Elisa Neira, the executive director of the Princeton, New Jersey, Human Services Department.

Neira’s department publishes advisories in both English and Spanish that encourages illegal aliens “to remain silent” if detained by federal (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), state or local law enforcement officials. It also provides advise on setting up a plan if confronted with law enforcement.

“The accompanying illustrations are designed to evoke fear on the part of illegal alien men, women and children. For example, the officers are drawn to resemble Nazi Gestapo agents — something Democratic politicians have called ICE and Border Patrol agents. The cartoonists have crossed the line between public assistance and vilifying American cops,” said former police detective and Marine intelligence operative Sanders Van Claymont. “The eight-page government funded document resembles anti-police propaganda that’s diametrically opposed to New Jersey’s ‘Officer Friendly’ school program,” Claymont added.

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ISIS Growing Presence in Libya Threatens Europe and the U.S. Rachel Ehrenfeld

Posted By on February 20th, 2016

http://acdemocracy.org/

The U.S. bombing of an ISIS training camp in Qasr Talel, Libya, today, killed 43 operatives, including their Tunisian leader, Noureddine Chouchane. This airstrike came shortly after leaks from the defense department that “the Obama administration has turned down a U.S. military plan for an assault on ISIS’s regional hub there,” the port city of Sirte.The U.S. involvement in Libya that begun with Operation Odyssey Dawn‘s airstrikes on Libya in March 2011 assisted Muslim Brotherhood affiliates efforts to oust Muammar Gadhafi.  The help to the anti-Gadhafi opposition resulted in a war-torn country with daily violent clashes. This gave al Qaeda’s adherents the opportunity “to establish well-armed, well-trained and combat-experienced militias,” concluded a report from the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress in August 2012.Libya became a fertile ground for ISIS.Libya’s coastline’s strategic importance as a stepstone to Europe was not wasted on ISIS. In January 2015, ISIS started to ship more than a million Muslim refugees to the Italian island of Lampedusa, just 162 nm from the Libyan coastline. This was followed by repeated calls for ISIS operatives to travel to Libya. Intelligence sources reported that “ISIS earns millions of dollars from taking part in the networks that smuggle migrants to Europe.”It is unknown the ISIS operatives arrived in Europe via Libya as refugees. Indeed, until yesterday, ISIS operatives who travelled to Libya, had the ability to travel to the U.S. from any
country in the  U.S.

https://visaguide.world/us-visa/nonimmigrant/visitor/visa-waiver-program

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Speak Loudly And Carry A Twig by Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on February 19th, 2016

Nations in the Middle East that once aligned with America are now indifferent. Interests who opposed the United States grow defiant. Fence-sitting countries that calibrated their policies to the perception of U.S. strength are leaning toward our adversaries. Chaos is the result.

The recent splashdown in the Straits of Hormuz of an Iranian missile near the USS carrier Harry S. Truman, along with the January 2016 detention and humiliation of a U.S. servicemen off Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf, is a reminder that the recent non-proliferation deal in no way mitigates Iranian hatred of the United States. The release of some $100 billion in impounded Iranian funds will only encourage these staged humiliations. Israel and the Sunni bloc fear tepid American reactions to Iranian provocations are harbingers of likely Iranian violations of the nuclear agreement.

Creating distance between America and its traditional ally Israel did not win over either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority. Violence against Jews spiked in 2015. Israel remains silent about its estrangement from America, on the expectation that any elected president in 2017 will be an improvement over Obama’s indifference and occasional hostility to the Jewish state.

Obama’s “special relationship” with Recep Erdogan’s Turkey proved an abject failure. Erdogan interpreted Obama’s coziness as a green light for a new Turkish Islamic state. Turkey itself stealthily is trying to use ISIS and other Sunni terrorists against Iranian-backed Shiite terrorists.

The American estrangement from the Gulf States is a result of near U.S. independence in gas and oil production, the collapse of the global oil market, and the Obama administration’s tilt toward Iran. That American realignment was interpreted in the Gulf as staged indifference to radical Shiite efforts to undermine the Gulf Sunni monarchies. Most Sunni states are prepping for the likelihood of a new Middle-East arms race in a soon to be nuclear neighborhood.

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Delusion Defined: President Obama Ignores ISIS in Libya By Tom Rogan —

Posted By on February 19th, 2016

President Obama claims he is leading and inspiring U.S. allies around the world. The opposite is true: The architecture of American-anchored global stability is collapsing, and our adversaries are advancing. Put simply, President Obama’s rhetoric of confidence is at war with a reality of chaos.

Just look at Libya. At a press conference on Tuesday, Obama was asked whether greater U.S. military force was necessary to dislodge ISIS from its Libyan headquarters in Sirte. He responded, “With respect to Libya, I have been clear from the outset that we will go after ISIS wherever it appears, the same way that we went after al-Qaeda wherever they appeared.” Yet as Nancy Youssef reports today at The Daily Beast, Obama has rejected Pentagon plans to smash ISIS’s Libya outpost. The dichotomy between the president’s rhetoric and reality could not be more dramatically clear.

Ignoring ISIS in Libya is a major strategic error. As I noted here in September 2014, Libya’s collapse into anarchy was a long time coming. But today, with a safe haven on the Mediterranean, ISIS is presenting an undeniable threat. That safe haven gives ISIS the facility to plan, prepare, direct, and launch attacks across the world. Recent ISIS attacks in Jakarta and Turkey, and the FBI’s inability to access Syed Farook’s iPhone in the San Bernardino shootings, illustrate the seriousness of this threat. As does the extreme concern of European governments (including Britain). It’s gambling with reality (or what Obama calls “strategy”) to assume that intelligence services can disrupt attackers. It’s also a gamble to assume that intelligence services have infinite resources to cover the full range of ISIS’s geographic empire.

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He Loves Her-He loves her not…. Sharpton Dismisses Talk of Clinton Endorsement after Meeting with Sanders By Brendan Bordelon

Posted By on February 19th, 2016

Washington, D.C. — It was meant to be Bernie Sanders’s chance to demonstrate his familiarity with the issues facing African Americans. But when Sanders met with civil-rights leaders at the National Urban League’s D.C. headquarters on Thursday, all eyes were on Al Sharpton.

The reverend had participated in a similar gathering with Hillary Clinton earlier in the week, and seemed to suggest then that Clinton had already earned his endorsement. “Only you know, and you’re not telling,” he said playfully, pointing to Clinton as they left their Harlem meeting on Tuesday.

That exchange gave the wrong impression, Sharpton says Thursday. “I told her and Sanders that I was not making an endorsement until after we have put forward what is in our interest as a community,” he tells National Review, saying he wants the issues to take precedence over the horse race — at least for now.

Still, it looks almost certain that Sharpton will endorse one of the two remaining Democratic candidates. And he made it abundantly clear Thursday that he plans to use his clout with the African American community on behalf of whomever he ultimately chooses to support. When National Urban League president Marc Morial stressed that the leaders in attendance represented non-partisan organizations that do not endorse a candidate, Sharpton was quick to add a caveat. “Even though each organization does not endorse, some of us may individually,” he said. He later told reporters he’d be making up his mind between Clinton and Sanders “in the next day or so.”

“He has the ear of black America,” says Dominic Hawkins, a Sharpton spokesman, pointing out that the reverend is syndicated in over 40 media markets, “including many in South Carolina.” Though he says Sharpton could still decide to forgo a “formal endorsement,” Hawkins promises that the reverend has every intention of using his public platform to influence the Democratic race’s outcome in South Carolina and beyond.

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Will Ted Cruz’s Canadian Birth Prove to Be a Liability in a General Election? By Deroy Murdock

Posted By on February 19th, 2016

Saturday’s death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and the controversy over Senator Ted Cruz’s birth status could become a perfect legal and political storm.

If the Texas Republican were born to two Americans in Houston, his natural-born citizenship would be beyond debate. Conversely, if he were born to two non-Americans in Havana, his natural-born non-citizenship would be indisputable. But as someone born to an American mother and a Cuban father in Calgary, Canada, Cruz — at least for some — occupies a gray area.

This ambiguity means that one could argue that Cruz is constitutionally unqualified to become president of the United States. And Democrats sure can argue. So, if Cruz secures the Republican nomination, don’t be surprised if — soon after the GOP Convention — Democrats in every state file lawsuits to block Cruz’s access to general-election ballots.

“Even though the majority of lawyers who have studied the issue think Cruz is on solid legal ground, there are some cracks of uncertainty in that ground,” says one attorney familiar with the matter. “That sliver of doubt is enough to launch a lawsuit, regardless of the outcome.”

Thus, Republican lawyers will have to spend time, money, and mental energy in courtrooms from coast to coast to dismiss these suits. Even if most judges believe Cruz is natural-born, it takes only a couple of narrowly partisan or majestically open-minded judges to agree to hear such cases, take testimony, weigh both sides’ arguments, and noodle the matter for days or weeks. This could trigger breathless TV coverage, vitriolic debates, raucous protests, and a Ringling Bros. ambiance. Even if Democrats eventually lose, Cruz and the GOP could spend precious time discussing legal niceties rather than conservative reforms. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton (if she is on the Democrat ticket rather than in jail) could avoid defending Obama’s wreckage while, instead, Americans watch Republicans extinguish legal fires.

The worst-case scenario sounds preposterous — but so was the 2000 Florida recount.

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John Oliver Eviscerates the Facts on Voter ID By Christian Schneider

Posted By on February 19th, 2016

As Shakespeare wrote in King Lear, “Jesters do oft prove prophets.” But this maxim retains the possibility that the best jesters are also sometimes fools.

On Sunday, one of America’s most famous funnymen, Last Week Tonight host John Oliver, ridiculed states that would require voters to show picture identification to cast a ballot. Over the course of his 14-minute bit, Oliver pulled out every predictable talking point against voter ID, including the idea that “studies show” that such laws “disproportionately impact African-American and Latino voters.”

Naturally, Oliver’s frequently funny tirade was hailed by his progressive fans for doing all sorts of violence to an esoteric concept. (“John Oliver decimates public funding for stadiums! John Oliver decapitates patent trolling! John Oliver sets fire to, disembowels, then urinates on the pharmaceutical pricing framework!”)

On Tuesday, however, it was the state of Wisconsin that had the last laugh. Just one business day after Oliver predicted mass disenfranchisement due to voter-ID laws, Wisconsin held its first election with the voter-ID requirement. And according to a study by the University of My Eyeballs, turnout increased 55 percent statewide over the last similar spring-primary election.

In 2013 — the last contested statewide supreme-court election — around 364,000 voters turned out in Wisconsin. On Tuesday night, that number skyrocketed to about 564,000 voters. Even the 2011 Supreme Court primary, which took place during the electric Wisconsin public-union battle, drew only around 420,000 voters — well short of Tuesday’s total.

And the turnout bump wasn’t due to rural Caucasians flocking to the polls en masse. In the city of Milwaukee, which is 53 percent ethnic minority, the vote nearly doubled, from 34,000 to 65,000. Earlier, local election watchers had predicted a turnout of about 30,000.

Further, there were scant reports of people denied the right to vote on Election Day. One short story in a local Madison progressive paper reported that a college student was unable to vote because the student lacked an in-state driver’s license. What the story did not mention was that the student was entitled to cast a provisional ballot, which would have allowed him to prove his residency by Friday of this week.