www.rabbidov.com/fiorina
Now Carly Fiorina tells us that she regards Jesse Jackson with reverence, and she actually worked with Jesse Jackson.
And how many millions of dollars did she authorize for Jesse Jackson when she was CEO at Hewlett-Packard? (Hint: at least $15 million) Yet, minority business leaders themselves have been at the forefront of exposing that Jackson took the money and ran, focusing more on shaking down American corporations to finance his Rainbow Coalition/Operation PUSH gambits than actually to help African Americans, Latinos, and others gain access to meaningful employment in the high-tech community. California Republicans have to consider whether the state party needs a candidate who is so wrong for us at such a critical time. Certainly, Ms. Fiorina will scare and drive Jewish conservatives away from the party base at a time when we, perhaps more than other Californians, are so determined to see Barbara Boxer – uh, “Senator” Barbara Boxer (she worked very hard for the title, as we know) – returned to private life.
The Year 2010 is going to be a banner year throughout America for Republicans. Republicans are positioned to take back Democrats' United States Senate seats in Massachusetts, Nevada, Colorado, North Dakota, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Arkansas. New York may be in play, as may be Connecticut. And even in California, the Democrat seat is waiting for a GOP transition. California is reeling under the weight of three decades of liberal experimentation, dating back primarily to the years that Jerry Brown was governor (1975-1983) of California. This social experimentation has (i) paralyzed efforts within California to identify and expand energy-producing resources, (ii) granted unions massive domination and rule over the state’s governing process, and (iii) imposed tax-and-spend theories and practices that have driven wealth out of California in extraordinary numbers and at an extraordinary pace.
From driving out profitable businesses under the weight of "Workers Comp Gone Wild" and rising taxes and red-tape to spending liberally on government social services for illegal immigrants, California has subverted its envied position on the American and world stage. Now California's tragic social-engineering experiments have driven our Golden State, once the envy of all America, into a state that issues "I.O.U. drafts" because there is no cash left to pay our bills. Not every Californian is positioned to identify every underlying cause of the state's financial collapse from greatness, but Californians know that Democrats have presided over the state's demise. Against this socio-political background, Barbara Boxer has been a particularly significant embarrassment to the state, a remarkably ineffective representative in Washington.
As of this writing, she has been locked in polls for half a year with a statewide popularity rating of 46% -- a virtual political death sentence for an incumbent. (Incumbents whose popularity numbers plummet below 50% typically are defeated when an election ensues, as their insurgent challengers become known. Consider how Scott Brown picked up 30 points in two months on the well known Massachusetts Attorney-General, Martha Coakley, whom he defeated for the "People's Seat" in Massachusetts.)
The only reason that Boxer has lasted this long as a Senator -- three terms and eighteen years -- is that she has had a fascinating string of unbelievable good luck. In 1992 she was elected to the U.S. Senate by fewer than five percentage points, opposing a social conservative after a last-minute revelation that her formidable Republican opponent, Bruce Herschensohn, had attended a strip club. Her opponent never before had run an election race. In 1998 she again lucked-out, as the Republicans ran Matt Fong against her. You may remember Matt Fong – not. He had no presence, no charisma, and merely was a nice enough fellow who had been State Treasurer. If you are reading this, you could have beaten Matt Fong. And then more luck – the Republicans did it again in 2004, this time with former California Secretary of State Bill Jones standing in the opposing corner.
So Boxer has been in the U.S. Senate for eighteen years – three terms – by the greatest run of good fortune, being opposed by candidates who would not win. During those years, other major states have sent to Washington legislative powerhouses like Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer (New York), Barack Obama and Dick Durbin (Illinois), Ted Kennedy and John Kerry (Massachusetts), and California also has sent a powerhouse representative, Dianne Feinstein. By contrast, Boxer – uh, Senator Boxer – stands out remarkably as the one who remarkably does not stand out, except when she embarrasses herself and her constituents. Not to mention her 87 overdrafts, which put her among those miscreants in the center of the notorious House Bank Overdraft Scandal, leading her to tell the New York Times that "in painful retrospect, I clearly should have paid more attention to my account."
And now she reposes on the precipice of more luck. On the one hand, this stands to be the year that Boxer gets knocked out of the ring -- and not merely by a tepid TKO -- if Republicans oppose Boxer with a solid, politically experienced candidate with a proven record of effective public service and a demonstrated commitment to sensible conservative principles. Chuck DeVore is exactly such a candidate. By contrast, what a shame it would be for Republicans to lose this opportunity if they instead present voters with a political novice whose own record of disturbing naivete in the political arena, particularly on matters pertaining to the Mideast, depresses the party's chances.
Carly Fiorina is quasi-accomplished. For a time, she was CEO of Hewlett-Packard. On the other hand, she was booted out. The Hewlett-Packard Board paid her $42 million to leave immediately: $21 million in immediate payout and another $21 million in stock options. As news of her ouster reached Wall Street on the day she was removed from H-P, the company's stock shares rose more than ten percent in a matter of hours! Is this the best the GOP can offer Californians as an alternative to Boxer?
During her H-P tenure, Hewlett-Packard shares dropped 49% in value. She laid off more than 20,000 H-P employees and outsourced tens of thousands of American jobs overseas, cruelly stating: "There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore." See, e.g., Los Angeles Times, Aug. 6, 2008. Rich Heintz, editor of California Job Journal, wrote responsively in the San Francisco Chronicle: "This Marie Antoinette-inspired remark makes me wonder if HP hasn't already offshored its public relations department." When President George W. Bush briefly contemplated naming Fiorina (after her ouster), to head the World Bank, the Times of London pleaded against rewarding failure.
Where in the world does Fiorina stand on issues? Well, for starters, she hardly ever votes on election days. At least Barack Obama, as an Illinois legislator, would show up to vote "Present." Fiorina never showed up to vote most years. In the past decade, she voted only in 6 of 14 elections. The prior decade, she did not even vote at all. She might as well have voted "Absent."
So where does she stand? Really -- where does she stand, in her heart, in her mind (not in mere emergency talking points written by political professionals to salvage her miscues with damage control)? What does she know about world affairs in this terribly dangerous era, with America facing real threats from abroad?
Before we would elect a candidate to represent our views and beliefs in Washington for the next six years, we need to know whom we are contemplating. California Republicans have made mistakes like this before when, dazzled by the lure of running a mega-wealthy candidate with a big personal bankroll, the party ended up presenting California voters with an embarrassment of major proportions. Remember Michael Huffington? A one-term Congressional representative, he put $28 million of his own money into his -- unsuccessful -- run against Dianne Feinstein in 1994. In time, it emerged that his political agenda was quite mixed, going both ways, and that his brave conservative wife, Arianna, also had a mixed agenda. From the dust and shambles, we now have the Huffington Post, a radically liberal internet outlet. This is the price of a California Republican Party that runs candidates whose commitment to core Republican principles remains untested. We do not know this person, Carleton S. Fiorina, and she is hustling like crazy to stay one step ahead of us, the voters, who read a daily paper or an internet news site.
So what does Carly Fiorina believe? Does she understand the challenges in the Middle East? Does she understand Iraq and Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas? Can she see through the "rhetoric of peace" that Nasrallah or Ahmedinejad, Abbas or Assad may articulate in an English-language interview with Reuters -- and understand that the same person's Arabic interview with Al Jazeera is more telling? Does she "get" the dangers we face in the coming decade, as Iran assures us that they are not building a nuclear weapon -- even as they continue building?
I have become increasingly interested in and concerned with that question after seeing how many times her name has been cited with approval on websites and blogs dedicated to causes that oppose Israel and call for Israel's destruction. Just "Google" the search term: "Fiorina and Islam." On an Al Jazeera website, in an article titled “Islam – The Answer,” the executive director of the Australian Muslim Public Affairs Committee writes:
"In the immediate aftermath of September 11, Carly Fiorina, CEO of Hewlett-Packard, addressing an IT conference in Minnesota, extolled the importance of innovation and ideas to the technology industry she represents. She spoke of a civilization whose language became the universal language of much of the world; whose multicultural armies enabled peace and prosperity; whose commerce extended from the Americas to China and who, driven by invention, gave humanity the gifts of ‘algebra’ and ‘algorithms’. The society cured disease, carried out complicated surgical operations such as the removal of cataracts, and laid the foundations for modern medicine and physiology. Whilst most of the world was steeped in ignorance, fearful of ideas, this civilization kept knowledge alive and passed it on to others. That civilization, she told her audience, was the Islamic civilization up until the 17th century."
That speech’s full text is set forth on another website. These are Fiorina's words spoken only two weeks after 9-11:
"There was once a civilization that was the greatest in the world.
"It was able to create a continental super-state that stretched from ocean to ocean, and from northern climes to tropics and deserts. Within its dominion lived hundreds of millions of people, of different creeds and ethnic origins.
"One of its languages became the universal language of much of the world, the bridge between the peoples of a hundred lands. Its armies were made up of people of many nationalities, and its military protection allowed a degree of peace and prosperity that had never been known. The reach of this civilization’s commerce extended from Latin America to China, and everywhere in between.
"And this civilization was driven more than anything, by invention. Its architects designed buildings that defied gravity. Its mathematicians created the algebra and algorithms that would enable the building of computers, and the creation of encryption. Its doctors examined the human body, and found new cures for disease. Its astronomers looked into the heavens, named the stars, and paved the way for space travel and exploration.
"Its writers created thousands of stories. Stories of courage, romance and magic. Its poets wrote of love, when others before them were too steeped in fear to think of such things.
"When other nations were afraid of ideas, this civilization thrived on them, and kept them alive. When censors threatened to wipe out knowledge from past civilizations, this civilization kept the knowledge alive, and passed it on to others.
"While modern Western civilization shares many of these traits, the civilization I’m talking about was the Islamic world from the year 800 to 1600, which included the Ottoman Empire and the courts of Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo, and enlightened rulers like Suleiman the Magnificent.
"Although we are often unaware of our indebtedness to this other civilization, its gifts are very much a part of our heritage. The technology industry would not exist without the contributions of Arab mathematicians."
Coming a mere fortnight after September 11, 2001, that gushing, excessively saccharine and naively hagiographic overview of world events suggests to Jews exactly the kind of Republican we saw during the James Baker years. Just consider her words, her world view, reviewing her speech on the glory of Islam, line-by-line. Yes, Islam created a super-state that stretched across nations, from ocean to ocean. Does anyone besides Ms. Fiorina think that empire was built with mathematical insights? It was built with jihad and sword, intimidation and mass murder, mass beheadings and forced conversions of Jews and Christians. How can she be so remarkably ignorant of the abased and humiliated “dhimmi” status under which people of “different creeds” and “ethnic origins” lived within that orbit of Islam?
Nor can we attribute this ignorance to Jesse Jackson's influence on Fiorina. Fiorina's starry-eyed infatuation with Islamic civilization and culture is all her own. Speaking in Detroit on September 29, 2003, before ultimately beseeching "[m]ay the wisdom of the Prophet Muhammad inspire us," Fiorina said, inter alia:
* "The Islamic example has helped create a world where democracy and transparency and rule of law are empowering people and taking them to new heights."
* "I have not in my life heard a more eloquent speaker, or met a more committed person than Queen Rania of Jordan."
Queen Rania of Jordan, indeed, is deeply committed -- to attacking Israel. Even as she manipulates and is manipulated as a promotional weapon for whitewashing the second-class status of women throughout much of the Moslem world. The Queen attacked Israel for deaths during the war in Gaza that was prompted by incessant Hamas shelling of Israeli civilian centers in the communities of Sderot and Ashkelon. Australia Broadcasting Corp, transcript of interview, Jan. 6, 2009. She blames Israel for "human catastrophe" in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). United Press International, "Insider Notes," Apr. 17, 2002. She accused former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of "terrorizing the lives of many, many people" when Israel attempted to eradicate Jenin-centered terrorist bases in the West Bank. "Jordan's Queen Condemns Israeli Military Operation," Larry King Live (transcript), Apr. 15, 2002.
So Fiorina honestly is infatuated. In her book, reminiscing about her high school days in Ghana, she begins:
"I remember hearing, for the first time, Muslims pray, and how over time their sound evolved from being frightening in its strangeness to comforting in its cadence and repetition -- I would feel the same peace when I listened to the sound of summer cicadas around my grandmother's house. I grew to love being awakened in the morning by the sound of the devout man who always came to pray under my bedroom window."
Carly Fiorina, Tough Choices (Penguin Group/ Portfolio, 2006), p. 7. Thus, "Fiorina's starry-eyed infatuation with Islamic civilization and culture" is not hyperbole but a dominant key to understanding her. And, indeed, there are many wonderful aspects that can be found in all civilizations. Of course there are. But how many Christians and Jews -- and others -- died, how many Christian and Jewish -- and other -- societies were subjugated, and how many other peoples effectively were enslaved, further persecuted, and deprived of self-determination as Suleiman achieved the empire that Fiorina extols with starry-eyed wistfulness:
"It was a civilization that was able to create a continental super-state that stretched from ocean to ocean, and from northern climes to tropics and deserts. Within its dominion lived hundreds of millions of people, of different creeds and ethnic origins. One of its languages became the universal language of the world, the bridge between the peoples of a hundred lands. . . . Its writers created thousands of stories. Its poets wrote of love, when others before them were too steeped in fear to think of such things."
Yes, and it was -- and still is -- a world where Christians were subjugated as second-class. Even Jesse Jackson knows that Islam persecuted Jews horribly, unspeakably so. Jews were forced by that world of Islamic civilization into ghettoes (the "mellah"), centuries before Hitler and the Nazis. Moslem children were taught to throw rocks and shoes at Jews. Jews' clothing was regulated, down to the number of ells that Jews could wear in their turbans; no Jew’s turban could be thicker, more impressive than a Moslem’s. Jews were forced to wear badges of shame. Jews had to get off their animals if a Moslem pedestrian passed by because no Jew could be above a Moslem. In the world of Islamic civilization, it was illegal for a synagogue to stand taller than a mosque. The persecutions and tortures were unbearable, and they continued for centuries throughout the Arab-Islamic orbit. Is Ms. Fiorina seriously that naive? Where did she learn about the real world -- in a college philosophy class? How do voters effectively overcome such a person's naivete all these decades after Fiorina has been in public life, speaking to Arab financial powers throughout the world and profiting handsomely for Hewlett-Packard and her other interests from staking out a lifetime position of gushing approval of the Arab world? Yes, she has spoken out in gentle terms on the value that Arab women could add to Arab economies if only the women were granted more rights. But she never has spoken out on the subjugations of other social subgroups within the Arab world -- Christians, Jews, Baha'i, Berbers, Baluchis.
If it takes ten minutes to drive to a polling booth, ten minutes to vote, and ten minutes to drive back -- half an hour altogether -- that would mean that Fiorina had seven extra hours of spare time available to her life when she did not vote on fourteen election days these past twenty years. In those seven hours, she could have read Norman Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands. Or Bat Ye'or, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam (Associated University Presses, 1985). Or Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam (Princeton University Press, 1984). Or Joan Peters, From Time Immemorial (Harper & Row, 1984).
Instead, Fiorina praises the Arab Islamist armies that were comprised of peoples from other civilizations, telling us that they brought peace. If Arab Islamist armies were made up of peoples from other ethnicities, it was by conscription, compulsion, coercion, and subjugation – like the Greeks and Romans forcing captives to fight in their armies through subsequent adventures in other lands far from their native homes. The Arab Islamist military brought peace only as the Romans brought peace, as Genghis Khan brought security, as the Nazis under Hitler and the Communists under Stalin brought law-and-order, and as even the current mullahs of Iran offer peace and security, as does Hamas in Gaza.
Then there is Ms. Fiorina’s paragraph extolling Arab writers who created thousands of stories, and Arab poets. Oh, for goodness sakes, every society that has words has stories ! What, then, is her point -- a point she was trying to make two weeks after 19 Arab Moslems, fifteen from Saudi Arabia, crashed aircraft into the World Trade Center, another into the Pentagon, and had another en route towards Washington, D.C.? What -- that Al Qaeda may be rooted in terror, mortal hatred of the West, and a compelling desire to destroy America . . . but at least they have good stories? And they can rhyme? Well . . .
Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
Christians also can compose poetry.
So can a Jew.
At some point, any serious analysis of Ms. Fiorina’s strange, infatuated world view of Islam’s contributions to the West comes down to three words: Gimme a break. And all this “when others before them were too steeped in fear to think of such things.”
So let us ask: And why were those "others" so deeply "steeped in fear"? Whom were they fearing? For goodness sakes, they were steeped in fear of "the poets." And of their weapons. And their leaders’ weapons. And their jihads.
This really is ridiculous. Carly Fiorina has made a career of trying to sell American business products to the Arab Islamic world. For that, she seems to have hit the right note, echoing the peaceful sounds of the cicadas at grandma's home. Yet, even there, we have news reportage that deeply pains the conscience. For example, the San Jose Mercury News broke the story that, on Fiorina's watch, Hewlett-Packard furtively sidestepped American government restrictions on trade with Iran and sold hundreds of millions of dollars of high-tech equipment to Iran through a Mideast distributor they quietly lined up.
For the United States Senate, of all places, her naivete is truly frightening at a time when we need strong leadership to know who Ahmedinejad, Nasrallah and other such tyrants are -- and the terrible dangers their regimes represent to America, its values, and its future. She may -- or may not -- be a suitable business leader for a company selling merchandise to the Arab world. Perhaps she would make an adept member of our foreign service attached to an American mission or embassy in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, or Saudi Arabia. But she would be an unmitigated disaster for California Republicans in the race against Boxer.
By contrast, we are offered the opportunity to support Chuck DeVore, an American patriot who served 24 years in the United States Army Reserve before retiring recently from the Army National Guard with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. In the aftermath of Scott Brown's exciting victory in Massachusetts, California Republicans increasingly are buoyed by the emergence of Chuck DeVore as a serious real Republican candidate for the seat. DeVore has been elected twice to the California State Assembly, increasingly emerging as a major conservative thinker with creative ideas to address serious problems. As California has faced terrible budget crises, with few ideas from the political world but the usual proposals to cut healthcare, education, and other important human services, while increasing taxes, DeVore has studied alternatives to traditional oil exploration and proposes that California consider slant-drilling off its coast, which would bring in enormous millions in licensing fees while dramatically minimizing adverse environmental impact. He has endorsed bold ideas for clean nuclear energy. He is fiscally conservative and sensible, compassionate yet aware of the limitations of runaway Big Government, having seen and fought against its devastating excesses in Sacramento.
His record of achievement and public service remarkably parallels many aspects of the Scott Brown phenomenon: from the two decades' service in the United States Army Reserve attaining the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, to the lonely years as a consistently principled voice in a State Assembly dominated by a majority Democrat Party that has driven the state to the brink of bankruptcy, to the down-to-earth campaign that has seen him driving his own vehicle up-down-and-all-throughout the state to address enthusiastic crowds eager to end the "same-old same-old" game of political musical chairs by which party insiders seek to make back-door political deals to assign a United States Senate seat that belongs not to them but to the people of the State of California.
On national security, DeVore would not permit terrorists like the Nigerian "underwear bomber," who tried to commit a horror in the skies above Detroit, to be coddled by civilian attorneys in civilian legal procedures who immediately advise their clients of "Miranda rights" and to refuse to talk to national security officials. Rather, Chuck DeVore would have terrorists tried within the military legal-justice arena, a concept so sensible in dealing with terrorists who are at war with America. On Middle East issues, he has written a deeply contemplative analysis, reflecting unusually intense and direct experience and awareness. Perhaps no other United States Senator or other national political representative has written more thoughtfully, from personal experience and observation, on the Middle East from his own pen. He knows the Middle East, has lived and studied there, knows the Arab world and knows Israel. His Position Paper on Israel and the Middle East is impressive and compelling.
DeVore has raised more than $1.2 milion in campaign funds from more than 20,000 donors who have come to support him through his website at http://www.chuckdevore.com/ . He has been endorsed by United States Senator Jim DeMint, almost 60% of all California elected Republicans including Congressional Representative Tom McClintock, and a wide range of traditional California Republican advocates. Perhaps this effort and lineup help explain why DeVore is running neck-and-neck with his two opponents in the GOP primary, as pollsters like Rasmussen Reports gauge relative strength in the line-ups against Boxer.
In the aftermath of Scott Brown's come-from-nowhere victory, from 30 points behind, over Martha Coakley in Massachusetts, Chuck DeVore emerges for serious California Republican voters as a profoundly viable, deeply serious candidate who can defeat the pretenders in the GOP primary, then surge from that round to defeat Barbara Boxer in November. We need the commonsense ideas and practical hands-on knowledge of world affairs, the demonstrated patriotism, and creative solutions to economic challenges at home that Chuck DeVore offers.
Guest Comment:If you think that Barbara Boxer is not your Senator then vote Chuck DeVore...
Chuck DeVore formally is issuing this Position Paper on Israel and the Middle East. This is a major position paper and a significant breakthrough, staking out some of the strongest positions ever before laid out by a serious contender for a major party’s nomination for a national office. Please note that, among many other points, Chuck DeVore:
*Uses the terms “Judea and Samaria” repeatedly, to validate Jewish life in Judea and Samaria.
*Sets forth the legitimacy of “Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria” – and uses exactly that legitimizing language – leaving their final status to the parties for negotiation, while explicitly stating substantively that they are not “obstacles to peace,” are not “illegal,” and are not the real issue at the core of the Mideast conflict.
*Forthrightly tackles the “Refugee issue” on several fronts, including (i) setting the issue in the historical context of all the other population exchanges that have been resolved and disappeared, (ii) including on the table the more-than-equally compelling issue of the 800,000 North African Jews who were expelled from Arab countries and whose property was seized by Arab governments, and (iii) explicitly rejecting any notion that Israel should be allowing any of them to enter Israel’s borders.
*Beyond merely asserting that America should move our embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, goes the extra step and expresses serious concern that American Presidents from both parties have delayed for fifteen years implementing the move.
*Rejects those who would impose on Israel any freeze on building homes in Greater Jerusalem.
*Calls on the Palestinian Authority to turn over to American legal authorities those people residing within the “West Bank” and Gaza who have murdered Americans.
*Not only deems Hamas an unacceptable negotiating party but also identifies the need for the Palestinian Authority to become more worthy of negotiating by dealing with its internal issues of instability and corruption.
*Unequivocally supports Israel’s prosecution of “Operation Cast Lead” against Gaza terrorism and uses the strongest of language in condemning the “Goldstone Report” as a “biased invective and therefore a useless document.”
*Opposes continued U.S. allocations of hundreds of millions of dollars annually to the virulently anti-Israel and anachronistic UNRWA.
*States that the Palestinian Authority must recognize the legitimacy of the State of Israel to exist as a Jewish State.
*States that any Palestinian Arab polity, if one ever emerges on the “West Bank,” must be demilitarized. * States that Jerusalem must remain united and the indivisible capital of Israel and rejects pressure on Israel to withdraw from any community anywhere in Greater Jerusalem.
*Calls for a firm embargo against Iran and condemns American corporations that furtively by-pass embargo rules and supply high technology to Ahmadinejad’s Iran through third-party agents.
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Shalom,
Nurit
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