FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

U.S. Deploys Tanks to Bolster Force in Europe Army restocks Cold War-era Dutch depot as deterrent to Russia By Julian E. Barnes

Posted By on December 16th, 2016

EYGELSHOVEN, Netherlands—The U.S. Army reopened a Cold War-era storage facility here on Thursday and began restocking it with tanks, part of the American effort to return heavy weaponry to Europe in the face of Russia’s military buildup.

The U.S. Army is moving to put in place congressionally approved military forces in Europe, including rotating a heavy brigade into Europe beginning in January. In early spring, units from North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies will begin moving into the Baltic states.

“Three years ago, the last American tank left Europe; we all wanted Russia to be our partner,” said Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the commander of U.S. Army Europe. “My country is bringing tanks back…as part of our commitment to deterrence in Europe.”

The annual defense authorization act, passed by Congress with veto-proof majorities, approved a $3.4 billion spending plan to boost European defenses including reopening or creating five equipment-storage sites in the Netherlands, Poland, Belgium and two locations in Germany.

The Obama administration pushed for the European defense provisions, though President Barack Obama hasn’t yet signed the act. The incoming Trump administration has signaled it wants a more cooperative relationship with Russia, but hasn’t made clear if President-elect Donald Trump would try to alter or adjust the current plan for boosting European defenses.

U.S. and Dutch officials noted that the storage facilities are well away from NATO’s border with Russia, in part to ensure they aren’t seen as provocative and don’t violate the alliance’s agreement with Russia not to permanently station large forces on the border.

But Gen. Tom Middendorp, the Dutch chief of defense, said the new facility is a sign that NATO will stand together.

“We are taking proportionate and measured steps to defend our alliance,” he said. “We want to make sure we are sending a clear signal to Russia that we will not accept any violation of NATO’s territorial integrity.” CONTINUE AT SITE

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Mau-Mauing the Trump Electors Progressives misread Hamilton to overrule democratic norms.

Posted By on December 16th, 2016

Even before taking the oath of office, Donald Trump has achieved the impossible—driving liberals to the original text of the Constitution. This strange new respect for the Founders will only last until the President-elect nominates a new Supreme Court Justice, and too bad it arrives as an assault on the Electoral College to elect someone other than Mr. Trump.

This organized political campaign is being conducted in the name of Alexander Hamilton, and not merely because of the Broadway musical. In Federalist No. 68, Hamilton wrote that the Electoral College “affords a moral certainty, that the office of president will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.”

Progressives are invoking this line to claim Mr. Trump lacks such qualifications. And they are calling on those they call the “Hamilton electors” to vote for Hillary Clinton or somebody else when they meet on Dec. 19. The immediate goal is to peel away 37 from Mr. Trump’s 306-vote majority and deny him 270 votes.

This gambit is being promoted by supposedly lucid Members of Congress, liberal columnists, left-leaning constitutional scholars and Hollywood celebrities. OK, maybe the last group is not-so-lucid, but remnants of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign are also on board. GOP electors report being bombarded with tens of thousands of emails and phone calls.

There is an originalist constitutional case that the electors are supposed to act as an deliberative body who can exercise their own “discernment,” as Hamilton put it. They could vote for anyone they choose.

But the Electoral College as the framers conceived it was never meant to be independent of the popular will. The framers had tremendous respect for the judgment of the people, and the electors aren’t supposed to be de novo second guessers. There have been 150 faithless electors in U.S. history, and only nine since World War II.

The historical record suggests that discernment was meant to be triggered only in exceptional circumstances when new information about a President-elect’s “qualifications” unknown to voters emerged after the general election. Nobody can claim that Americans didn’t understand the nature of Donald J. Trump when they voted.

There have been no revelations. The Russian hacking only divulged material about Mrs. Clinton and the conduct of her staff, not Mr. Trump’s fitness. Some Hamilton renegades claim a vote for Mrs. Clinton is legitimate because she won the popular vote, but everybody knew the electoral rules in advance.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Donald Trump Taps One of His Lawyers as Ambassador to Israel David Friedman makes reference to moving U.S. embassy to Jerusalem By Damian Paletta

Posted By on December 16th, 2016

WASHINGTON—President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday said he would nominate his longtime friend and lawyer David Friedman to be the U.S. ambassador to Israel, assigning a key confidant to a central diplomatic post.

Mr. Friedman, in a statement, said he was honored by the appointment and he looked “forward to doing this from the U.S. embassy in Israel’s eternal capital, Jerusalem.”

That statement is certain to reverberate throughout the Middle East. The existing U.S. embassy in Israel is in Tel Aviv. Mr. Trump has said he wants to move it to Jerusalem, a pledge that former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush also made during their campaigns but eventually backed away from.

Liberal-leaning U.S. Jewish groups quickly lined up against the nomination. The lobbying group J Street said it “vehemently opposed” Mr. Friedman’s nomination and warned that he lacked any diplomatic or policy credentials and is “beyond the pale” of American views in the Middle East.

“This nomination is reckless, putting America’s reputation in the region and credibility around the world at risk,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, the group’s president.

Palestinians have warned that moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem would make it more difficult to broker a resolution between the Israelis and Palestinians, and it has been perpetually delayed since a 1995 congressional legislation authorized the embassy to be moved there.

But Mr. Friedman’s selection could signal that Mr. Trump is planning to take a more assertive posture with the Palestinians. Mr. Friedman is known for making provocative statements about issues in the Mideast, even making an unsubstantiated claim in October that Hillary Clinton’s top aide, Huma Abedin, had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Many Republicans have repudiated this claim, but it became a popular accusation on social media and was embraced by Mrs. Clinton’s opponents.

Mr. Friedman is a founding partner of the law firm Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman LLP, specializing in bankruptcy law. He had his bar mitzvah in Jerusalem 45 years ago, the Trump transition team said.

MEDIA, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Media Game: Creating the Hound Pack of the Day by Yves Mamou

Posted By on December 16th, 2016

To be published on the front page of your own newspaper, to open the news on your own television program, you must bring the “kill news”, the news that kills all others, and – more importantly – the news that all other media will copy and paste.

Journalists are obsessed with creating the hound pack of the day and then enjoying lead hound status. In hound-pack logic, there can be only ONE news item a day – repeated and reprinted infinitely.

Poverty can make a headline when data is officially released, but who cares about what poor people think?

The problem begins when people not on the radar screen become the majority of the population and when this majority of the population become “dissidents”. Then, when the invisible people (in the media sense of the term) engage themselves in the democratic process and protest with a vote, it sounds like a bomb: No one saw it coming! No one could have predicted it!

According to the media, the only poor who need help, support, audience are immigrants. Other people who are poor, especially the whites, do not, for the media, exist. And if they did protest, presumably they would have no right to….

“Representing the middle and working classes as “reactionary,” “fascist”, is very convenient. This avoids asking critical questions. When someone is diagnosed as fascist, the priority becomes to re-educate him, not to question the economic organization of the territory where he lives.” – Eric Guilluy, Le Point

Trump understood this disconnect [of the people from the media] well. During the campaign, in fact, Trump spoke to very few of the media: He made himself a media – tweeting every day, obliging mainstream media to amplify his words. The more the lying media treated him as a liar, the more he was trusted.

Sulzberger also launched an appeal to the “loyalty” of Times subscribers – because thousands of people abruptly cancelled their subscriptions. The disaffection with biased information is growing, and fewer and fewer people are ready to subscribe to propaganda, especially when the facts on the ground so visibly contradict it.

Do you know why Google is investing millions of dollars in perfecting a self-driving car? Not for safety, not for easier driving; they are doing it because it is stupid to let millions of people concentrate on a road instead of on surfing the internet.

It is a “zero sum” game: each second on Facebook is stolen from a newspaper or television station.

Democracy depends for its survival that journalists do correctly the job for which they are paid: reporting facts and not stigmatizing people who do not resemble themselves. It is not the “noble” duty of journalists to prevent things from happening. Just report facts and propose analyses, and let people think for themselves.

New media are appearing on the web: Breitbart in the US, Riposte Laïque in France and many dozens in Europe. Their audience consists of millions of readers.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

To the Muslim Brotherhood: Quit Shouting Islamophobia and Quit Attacking Muslim Families by Saied Shoaaib

Posted By on December 16th, 2016

Islamists, including Majzoub, have a long history of dragging prominent people and organizations into their arguments about extremism, terrorism and radicalization. These Islamists do not use their influence to drain the resources of Islamic terrorism in Canada and elsewhere, nor do they seek to stop young Canadians from joining ISIS. They do not use their knowledge or money to dismantle the infrastructure of extremism, nor do they attempt to dismantle the historical and religious arguments in favor of terrorism. Rather than do any of this, they instead make it their priority to intimidate, harass or sue those who speak out against Islamist extremism and its accompanying terrorism.

The prevailing religious interpretation of groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and its adherents is that anyone who objects to their interpretation of Islam is to be considered a disbeliever. Because of their disbelief, they deserve to be killed in the present life and should then suffer the punishment of Allah in the next life. If killing them in this life is not an option, then spreading hate and anger against them is acceptable.

The other main problem the Parliamentary action against “Islamophobia” is that it gives the false impression that groups such as the Canadian Muslim Forum or the Muslim Brotherhood can speak for Muslims. In fact, they do not. In the UK, it was recently revealed that only about 2% of UK Muslims feel that the Muslim Council of Britain represents them.

It is not just that they have extremist literature in Canadian schools and mosques, it is that in some instances they have nothing but extremist literature. The Ottawa Public Library, for instance, has nothing but extremist literature in its Arabic language collection.

The first victims of this will be secular and modernist Muslims who oppose extremism — and their families.

Islamist front groups in Canada and the West have dragged the media and the political “elites” into their extremist messaging. Rather than learning about why extremism and terrorism come out of their religion, Islamists instead concentrate on preventing the victims of their violence from speaking out. They do this by shouting “Islamophobia” at every opportunity, and do so most loudly at modernist or secular Muslims.

The Parliament of Canada, for example, passed an “anti-Islamophobia” motion on October 26, 2016. Samer Majzoub, the president of the Canadian Muslim Forum, was the person behind the Parliamentary petition against “Islamophobia”; it generated some 70,000 signatures. The sponsor of the motion in the House of Commons was MP Frank Baylis.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

FBI: American Jews Most Targeted Minority for Hate Crimes in 2015

Posted By on December 16th, 2016

American Jews account for a shockingly disproportionate number of hate crime victims, according to 2015 FBI statistics. The Bureau defines a hate crime as “an offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or gender identity.”

The FBI reported that of the 1,244 reported victims of hate crimes last year, 664, or 53.4%, were Jewish. By comparison, there were 257 victims of anti-Muslim hate crimes, or 20.7% of the total figure.

Indeed, in 2015 there were more Jewish victims of hate crimes in the U.S. then all of the other victims of religious groups combined

Yet, this conclusion is not reflected in U.S. news media coverage—or popular perception—of hate crime victims. Mark Perry, a scholar at the Washington D.C.-based think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI), noted:

“According to a Google news search for the term ‘hate crimes’ along with the name of each of those three groups [Muslims, Blacks and Jews], there are 164,000 results for ‘hate crimes’+black, 134,000 results for ‘hate crimes’ + Muslims and only 36,400 results for ‘hate crimes’+Jews.”

“Based on news reports,” Perry stated, “you would think that blacks were 4.5 times more likely than Jews to be victim of a hate crime and that Muslims were almost 4 times more likely than Jews to be a hate crime victim.” However, “adjusting for the population size of each group (42.75 million blacks, 5.7 million Jews and 3.3 million Muslims), the hate crime victimization rates last year per 100,000 population were 11.6 for Jews, 7.8 for Muslims and 4.1 for blacks… . Therefore, American Jews were nearly three times more likely than blacks to be a victim of a hate crime last year, and 1.5 times more likely than a Muslim to be a hate crime victim.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Smart technology can get us to the 21st-century infrastructure we need :Chuck Brooks

Posted By on December 16th, 2016

America has a history of creating infrastructure milestones that have led to significant prosperity and national advantages. Dating back to the advent of the transcontinental railroad and moving forward through the Rural Electrification Act, the Interstate Highway System to the deployment of the ARPANET, these milestones have created competitive advantages that continue to this day.
During the 1950s and 1960s, our nation was transformed by explosive growth in our nation’s public infrastructure ecosystem. That ecosystem allowed America to prosper by bridging communities and creating regional pockets of innovation. Coupled with the Space Race with the Soviet Union, the 20th-century infrastructure ecosystem helped make America a technological superpower.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

l What Is an NGO? How Do They Demonize Israel? By Alex Grobman, PhD

Posted By on December 16th, 2016

Articles about Israel frequently mention the term nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which play an inordinate role in shaping the way Israel is portrayed in the media. Few people know why NGOs exist, how they function, the underlying motivation of each organization or how they are funded.

The UN uses the term to differentiate between government institutions and private organizations. An article published by Harvard University Law School described some of the positive contributions NGOs have made: the collapse of apartheid regime in South Africa, the overthrow of the dictatorship in Chile, the political revolution in the Philippines, the demise of the Communist governments in Central Europe;, the establishment of an international treaty outlawing land mines and the creation of an international criminal court.

Gerald M. Steinberg, the president of NGO Monitor, which documents questionable funding and actions of many Israeli NGOs, explains that NGOs are established ostensibly to focus on human rights and legal, environmental and media issues. Those involved in Israel have clear political agendas, with legal NGOs using lawfare having the most profound influence.

The NGOs are in the vanguard of the organizations demonizing Israel such as BDS and Breaking the Silence and promoting anti-Semitism. In their reports and public statements, and with their clout in the UN, the media and the academic and diplomatic world, many NGOs misrepresent facts to advance their objectives without any external accountability.
Lawfare

Lawfare is a weapon used in U.S. and European courts to initiate civil law suits and criminal investigations to thwart Israel’s ability to fight terror by accusing her of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity.” Brooke Goldstein, director of the Lawfare Project notes, “The object is as much to win a public relations victory as a court case.”

By framing political attacks in legal terms, Steinberg and Anne Herzberg, NGO Monitor’s Legal Advisor, assert that NGOs attempt to create “a veneer of credibility and expertise for their claims. Since 2001, this process has repeated itself numerous times—Jenin in 2002, the ICJ [International Court of Justice] case against Israel’s security barrier in 2004, the 2006 Lebanon War and the 2010 Gaza flotilla.”

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

J Street freaks out over Trump’s excellent pick for ambassador to Israelby Paul Mirengoff

Posted By on December 16th, 2016

When J Street expresses outrage at your choice for ambassador to Israel, there’s very good reason to think you made a good pick. So it is with David Friedman, Donald Trump’s selection for that post.

Friedman, a bankruptcy attorney, is a long-time friend of the president-elect. He served on Trump’s Israel advisory committee during the campaign.

Friedman’s views on Israel are sound and will be a breath of fresh air. He does not believe Israeli settlements are an obstacle to peace (they are an excuse) and he says that a “two-state solution” is not a priority for the U.S. (why should it be?).

Friedman predicts that, as ambassador to Israel, he will be working from Jerusalem. He calls that city “Israel’s eternal capital.”

Presidential candidates routinely speak in favor of moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It is, after all, Israel’s capital and therefore the seat of its government.

No president has moved the embassy. Donald Trump seems prepared to do so. His selection of Friedman reinforces this impression.

Here is a 16-point position paper that Friedman co-wrote for the Trump campaign. I can barely find an unsound sentence in it.

Highlights include:

A Trump Administration will ensure that Israel receives maximum military, strategic and tactical cooperation from the United States, and the MOU will not limit the support that we give. Further, Congress will not be limited to give support greater than that provided by the MOU if it chooses to do so. Israel and the United States benefit tremendously from what each country brings to the table — the relationship is a two way street [note: and it ain’t J Street].

The U.S. should veto any United Nations votes that unfairly single out Israel and will work in international institutions and forums, including in our relations with the European Union, to oppose efforts to delegitimize Israel, impose discriminatory double standards against Israel, or to impose special labeling requirements on Israeli products or boycotts on Israeli goods.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Teen made up story about anti-Muslim attack on subway By Tina Moore and Shawn Cohen

Posted By on December 15th, 2016

The Muslim teen who claimed three drunks taunted her as a “terrorist” on a Manhattan subway train now admits she lied to cops — and was arrested on Wednesday.

Yasmin Seweid, 18, is charged with obstructing governmental administration and filing a false report, according to a high-ranking police source.

Both charges are misdemeanors punishable by up to a year in jail.

Seweid, who lives in Nassau County, had claimed the hateful drunks shouted, “Trump! Trump!” and called her a “terrorist” as they tried to steal her headscarf. “Go back to your country!” she said they shouted during the supposed Dec. 1 attack.

But when cops tried to confirm her story by checking surveillance video, they determined that her story didn’t add ups

Hate-crimes investigators called the Baruch College business major in on Wednesday to work on another sketch of her “attackers,” and confronted her with the inconsistencies, another source said.

That’s when she cracked, admitting she had been out late drinking with friends and made up the attack story to distract her angry father, sources said.

Seweid had been having problems with her strict-Muslim Egyptian family in North New Hyde Park because she is becoming “westernized,” one source said. Those problems were aggravated when they learned she was dating a Catholic, the source said.

Seweid was released without bail early Thursday morning after her arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court.
Modal Trigger
Yasmin Seweid leaving court.Photo: Steven Hirsch

She left with her father and escorted by court officers.

A young man threw a dark jacket over her head — with her once-long hair shorn by a buzz cut — and then helped her into a black SUV before they drove off.

Neither Seweid nor her Legal Aid attorney, Benjamin J. West, would comment, and she did not speak inside the courtroom either.