BOOKS Comments turned off

EVELYN GORDON: THEY MYTH THAT ABBAS FIGHTS TERROR

Posted By on October 11th, 2015

While Palestinians were killing four Israelis in back-to-back terror attacks last week, I received an email lauding Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for his vital role in fighting such terror. This email was parroting a very popular myth: that Abbas deserves the credit for the past several years of relative calm. Yet in reality, Abbas had nothing to do with producing this calm and little to do with maintaining it. And a simple year-by-year breakdown of the very numbers his cheerleaders cite to praise him is enough to prove it.

The myth relies on one completely true fact: Israeli fatalities have fallen dramatically since the height of the second intifada, from 452 in 2002 to 6 in 2013. But those who seek to credit Abbas for this development overlook two crucial details. First, almost three-quarters of this drop occurred even before Abbas replaced Yasser Arafat as PA president in November 2004. Israeli fatalities fell from their 2002 peak of 452 to 208 in 2003 and 117 in 2004; a cumulative decline of 74 percent. Yet during those years, Arafat was still in charge.

BOOKS Comments turned off

DISPATCHES FROM TOM GROSS

Posted By on October 11th, 2015

“Hung up on Israel: An explanation for the sincere” (& New Al-Quds rally tomorrow)
CONTENTS
1. Students honor a murderer
2. An email to Bard
3. Rare pro-Israel articles by non-Jewish writers
4. “Hung up on Israel: An explanation for the sincere” (By Jay Nordlinger, National Review, Oct 19, 2015)
5. “Animal Spirits: Israel and its tribe of risk-taking entrepreneurs” (By Luke Johnson, London Sunday Times, Oct 4, 2015)

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

‘OPEN THE BOOKS’ OVERSIGHT REPORT U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

Posted By on October 11th, 2015

http://www.openthebooks.com/.

Our OpenTheBooks Oversight Report is 40 pages and contains the hard facts of agency spending since 2000. Here’s a selection of findings…

ANSWERING FIVE QUESTIONS

1. If the EPA was one of the fifty states, where would it rank on annual budget? Last year, EPA would rank 42nd of the fifty states. In the last four years, EPA would rank as high as 38th.

2. If the EPA were a private law firm, where would it rank nationally? Last year, the 1,020 lawyers would rank EPA 14th largest in the country. In the last four years, it would rank as high as 11th.

3. If the EPA were a private foundation, where would it rank nationally? Ranked #1 – just since the year 2000, EPA has engaged in grant-making of over $72 billion. That’s twice as large as the total assets of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and 20X the distributed grants!

4. What percentage of EPA employees received a performance bonus last year? Nearly 80% of all EPA employees received a bonus in FY2014. Furthermore, 70% of the workforce makes over $100,000 per year.

5. Why are the EPA “Special Agents” equipped with military-style weapons? The EPA checkbook discloses purchases of millions of dollars spent on “guns and ammunition up to 300MM,” “camouflage and other deceptive equipment,” “night vision,” “unmanned aircraft,” “radar,” “body armor,” “surveillance equipment,” “mobile GPS monitors,” and “joint projects with Home Land Security,” and much more…

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Does EPA Need Guns, Ammo And Armor To Protect The Environment? 27 Comments BY STEPHEN MOORE

Posted By on October 11th, 2015

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-perspective/100815-774747-stephen-moore-does-epa-need-guns-ammo-to-protect-environment.htm#ixzz3oFsLAK1R Follow us:

The Environmental Protection Agency spent millions of dollars over the last decade on guns, ammo, body armor, camouflage equipment, unmanned aircraft, amphibious assault ships, radar and night-vision gear and other military-style weaponry and surveillance activities, according to a new report by the watchdog group Open the Books.

The report raises questions about why EPA’s enforcement division employs well-armed “special agents” who appear to be conducting SWAT-type operations on American businesses and households it suspects of wrongdoing. Read more at site….

BOOKS Comments turned off

Jamie Glazov Moment: What a Woman in Hijab is Really Saying to You

Posted By on October 11th, 2015

http://jamieglazov.com/2015/10/10/jamie-glazov-moment-what-a-woman-in-hijab-is-really-saying-to-you/

In this new Jamie Glazov Moment, Jamie discusses What a Woman in Hijab is Really Saying to You, unveiling the terrifying truth about what it really signifies.

Don’t miss this special Jamie Glazov Moment:And make sure to watch the special Jamie Glazov Moment in which Jamie discussed The “Not All Muslims Do That” Suicidal Charade, unveiling how a leftist malicious ploy masquerades as humanitarianism but deceives and destroys.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Turkey is the next failed state in the Middle East BY David P. Goldman

Posted By on October 11th, 2015

We do not know just who detonated the two bombs that killed 95 Kurdish and allied activists in Ankara Saturday, but the least likely conjecture is that President Erdogan’s government is guiltless in the matter. As Turkish member of parliamentLutfu Turkkan, tweeted after the bombing, the attack “was either a failure by the intelligence service, or it was done by the intelligence service.”

Betrayed by both the United States and Russia, and faced with the emergence of a Kurdish state on its borders and the rise of Kurdish parties in the parliamentary opposition, Erdogan is cornered. At risk in the short-term is the ability of his AKP party to govern after the upcoming November elections. At risk in the medium term is the cohesion of the Turkish state itself.

BOOKS Comments turned off

The Warsaw ghetto uprising: Armed Jews vs. Nazis By David Kopel

Posted By on October 11th, 2015

““If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first,” says the Talmud. [Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin, folio 72a.] That is the best response to mass murderers — in 1943, today and always.”

During World War II, 30,000 Jewish partisans fought in Eastern Europe, in their own combat units. In Western Europe, where anti-semitism among the conquered gentile population was less severe, Jews were able to participate as individuals in the national resistance, rather than having to fight in separate units. For example, in France, Jews amounted to less than one percent of French population, but comprised about 15 to 20 percent of the French Resistance. One of the most successful battles of the Jewish resistance was the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Nearly every Jew who participated was eventually killed — but they were going to be killed anyway. By choosing to stand and fight, the Warsaw Jews diverted a significant amount of Nazis resources from battlefields elsewhere, thus hastening the Nazi defeat.

The following is a based on my forthcoming book “The Morality of Self-Defense and Military Action: The Judeo-Christian Tradition,” which will be published in 2016 by Praeger.

Before the war, about 10 percent of Poland’s population was Jewish. In the Middle Ages, Poland had been a welcoming, tolerant and free nation, and many Jews emigrated there. But when Poland regained its independence in 1919, thanks to the Versailles Treaty, the nation degenerated into a military dictatorship which encouraged anti-semitism.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Sen. Cruz issues statement on recent attacks against Israelis

Posted By on October 11th, 2015

The U.S. and International Community Must Hold Palestinians Accountable for Terror

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) submitted the following statement into the Congressional Record concerning the recent Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians:

“My thoughts and prayers are with the Israeli people who are enduring a new escalation of Palestinian terrorism.

“Last Thursday evening, a mother and father were murdered in front of their four children ages 9, 7, 4 and 4 months when Hamas terrorists opened fire on their car. A few days later, another Jewish family was walking in the Old City of Jerusalem after praying at the Western Wall when a Palestinian terrorist went on a stabbing attack. He murdered the father along with another courageous man who rushed to the scene to the family’s aid. Both men leave behind their wives and nine children. In addition to the four murdered, many more Israelis have been seriously wounded from car-ramming, rock-throwing, and brutal knife and screwdriver stabbing attacks in what appears to be a fresh horror—an epidemic of low-tech, brutal attacks by militants who are acting on their own initiative.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

China completes construction of lighthouses in disputed South China Sea

Posted By on October 10th, 2015

China has completed the construction of two lighthouses in the disputed South China Sea, the official Xinhua news agency reported, as tensions in the region mount over Beijing’s maritime ambitions.
A completion ceremony was held for the lighthouses on Cuateron Reef and Johnson South Reef in the Spratly islands, Xinhua said late on Friday. The United States and the Philippines have opposed the construction.

China claims most of the energy-rich South China Sea, through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year, and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have overlapping claims.
China said on Friday it would not stand for violations of its territorial waters in the name of freedom of navigation, as the United States considers sailing warships to waters inside the 12-nautical-mile zones around islands it has built in the Spratly chain.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

N. Korea parades missiles, drones in anniversary celebration, Eric Talmadge

Posted By on October 10th, 2015

“After his speech, thousands of soldiers held up colored cards to spell out “Songun politics” and “Defending our homeland.”
“Our revolutionary force is ready to respond to any kind of war the American imperialists want.”

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared Saturday that his country was ready to stand up to any threat posed by the United States as he spoke at a lavish military parade to mark the 70th anniversary of the North’s ruling party and trumpet his third-generation leadership.
The parade, which featured thousands of goose-stepping soldiers and military hardware including missiles and drones mounted on trucks, kicked off what is expected to be one of the North’s biggest celebrations ever — an attention-getting event that is the government’s way of showing the world and its own people that the Kim dynasty is firmly in control and its military a power to be reckoned with.
Kim, clad in black, walked down a red carpet and saluted his honor guard. He then walked up to a podium and waved to the troops taking part in the parade in Pyongyang’s Kim Il Sung Square. Visiting Chinese official Liu Yunshan stood clapping to Kim’s left, with senior North Korean officials on Kim’s right. Kim smiled as he spoke with Liu through an interpreter.

Kim then delivered a speech in which he said North Korea would stand up to the U.S., issuing the type of fiery rhetoric that is commonly used by the North.
“Our revolutionary force is ready to respond to any kind of war the American imperialists want,” said Kim, whose speech was interrupted by applause several times.
“Through the line of Songun (military-first) politics, our Korean People’s Army has become the strongest revolutionary force and our country has become an impenetrable fortress and a global military power,” he said.