Steal their Thunder

Sultan Knish
LIBERAL CORPORATE TAXATION

Liberals whine incessantly about Citizens United and corporate personhood-- yet the signature achievement of their first administration in almost a decade, was to force everyone to pay taxes to corporations.

What's worse exactly? Corporate Personhood or Corporate Taxation?

When liberals whine about corporate control of politics, remind them that it was their party that created a tax to be collected directly by corporations for the profit of corporations.

No Republican president ever authorized corporations to collect taxes and use those taxes for their own profits, their own bonuses and their own golden parachutes.

It took a Democrat to do that. Forget corporate control of politics. Obama outsourced the functions of the IRS to his corporate donors. Call it the real Warren Buffet Tax.

Truly a signature achievement.




APPRECIATION

This week Rush Limbaugh dedicated about a half hour of his show to reading and discussing my article, "Why the Newsroom is Good for Republicans". It's a great honor and I would like to thank him and any new readers who have come here that way and hope they will stick around.

Helping Hezbollah

by IMED −
 
Hezbollah is at the nadir of its popularity. Tainted by its support for the murderous Syrian regime, the Iranian proxy finds itself on the wrong side of the so-called Arab Spring. Although the looming presence of its fearsome black-shirted militia has so far enabled it to dominate the Lebanese government, Hezbollah knows that brute force alone will not sustain its hegemony in the long term – a lesson currently being learned by its Ba’athist friends in Damascus. If Hezbollah is to consolidate its rule over Lebanon, it must command the loyalty of the country’s youth. And, having inherited the previous government’s five-year Education Sector Development Plan (ESDP), Hezbollah is in the ideal position to achieve this by embedding its own ideology into Lebanon’s education system.
Keen to support the strengthening of “students’ national identity and civic responsibilities” in a nation as perennially blighted by sectarian strife as Lebanon is the European Union, which has committed €3.8 million for the development of a citizenship education programme in Lebanese schools.

Arab-Israelis won't be able to fight their brothers

Israel's 5th column is raising its ugly head...the moment of truth arrived: they are NOT Israelis, they are part of the Palestinian nation...the Arabs lucky enough to hold Israeli citizenship want all the benefits but not the obligations, as long as they can side with their brothers, the enemy of Israel. They are hanging in there with the hope that their brothers will win the battle and Israel will either be dismantled or give in as a Jewish state. Otherwise, what is the reason for them staying in Israel a land they have no obligating to which they think its creation was a disaster-a nakba?

 

The Arabs say, the State must not put the Arabs' loyalty to the test...loyalty to whom? Hmmmmm. The moment of truth, which Israel had brushed under the carpet, or hid in the closet has come to haunt and Israel probably wishes this moment would have never arrived! NG

----
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4249047,00.html

 

Arab-Israelis won't be able to fight their brothers Op-ed: Israel's Arabs cannot serve in an occupying army at a time of war; national service also out of the question
Muhammad Halaila

 

We are a part of the Palestinian nation, and there is no way we will ever fight our Palestinian brothers.

 

As a resident of Majd al-Krum in the Galilee, I vehemently oppose the idea of recruiting Israel's Arabs to the IDF. Performing national service is also out of the question, because we believe that its purpose is to eventually lead us to serve in the army.

The tensions within the Plesner Committee bring to mind the Or Commission, which investigated the death of 13 of our brothers during the October 2000 events. The commission determined that the State must not put the Arabs' loyalty to the test.

Morsi: Looking Beyond the Islamist Identity

by Mohammed Dajani

For the next decade, think tanks in the United States and Europe will be analyzing why an Islamist won the Egyptian presidential elections. To save them the trouble, I will give them the simple answer: the Egyptian voters did not vote for Mohammed Morsi as an individual or for his election platform. They did not watch his interviews to see where he stands on Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, women, Christians, etc. Those were the concerns of the West, but they were not the concerns of the Egyptian voters. The Egyptian voters did not vote for the Muslim Brotherhood nor did they care what it stood for. The Muslim Brotherhood was and still is, like Hamas in Gaza, a small minority which has no mass appeal. Then how one can explain why they won? Quite simply, the Egyptian voter voted for Islam. The West is being perceived as waging a war against Islam, and so the response is to empower those who are carrying the banner of Islam.

The voting behavior of the Arab voter is emotional rather than rational. Campbell et al. in their book, The American Voter (1960), argued that ignorance and unreliability dominated the American (swing) voters. Likewise, this theory was true for the Palestinian elections of 2006 and the Egyptian elections of 2012, and accurately reflects the reality on the ground with regards to both elections. The Egyptian voter, like the Palestinian voter before him, is neither highly educated, nor is he a sophisticated rational voter. The West gave both voters more credit than they deserved. For instance, Western analysts explained the victory of Hamas as a rejection vote against the corruption of Fatah while in reality, that was far from the minds of the Palestinian voters. The Palestinian voters voted for Hamas because in their mind, they perceived themselves as voting for Islam and for those who were perceived as carrying the banners of Islam.

What to expect from Egypt's Morsi

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi
Ha'aretz

http://www.meforum.org/3274/egypt-morsi

 

What to make of Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi's election as president of Egypt? What seems to be the most likely outcome is something analogous to the "constitutional settlements" of the early Roman Empire. That is, the military, like the Emperor Augustus in antiquity, will entrust to itself management of foreign policy, while granting Morsi (and a parliament, if new elections are allowed) - akin to the Senate in Rome - considerable autonomy with regards to the direction of domestic affairs, even as the military has assumed control over the drafting of the constitution.

Indeed, such a settlement would work well for the military, because, despite its extensive control of the economy, the burden of resolving the economic crisis would ultimately rest in Morsi's hands. Currently, as Reuters reports, the country's depleted foreign reserves can only cover "three months of import coverage," while the local currency debt has increased to 600 billion Egyptian pounds ($99 billion), up from 500 billion before the unrest began in January 2011.

The International Monetary Fund has indicated that a $3.2 billion loan will only be granted if the country gets its finances in order, but the prospects of such a resolution appear to be bleak. Having Morsi take responsibility, therefore, can prove useful in directing potential civilian anger away from the military. On the other hand, the perception of a settlement between the military and the president could help to attract foreign investment.

Don't Blame SCOTUS, It Was the Obama ‘Bait and Switch'

Don’t Blame SCOTUS, It Was the Obama ‘Bait and Switch’

by FRANK SALVATO June 29, 2012

I have become increasingly depressed about the fact that "truth" has become subservient - if not non-existent - in our culture today, and especially in our political culture. The recent US Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare - or the Affordable Care Act, if you will - is a perfect example. While many on the Right, and people who I respect greatly, condemn the SCOTUS - and especially Chief Justice John Roberts - for their decision to uphold the individual mandate, not under the Commerce Clause but as a tax, they misdirect their ire. SCOTUS ruled constitutionally and honestly on the argument presented to them. The Right's anger - the American people's fury - should instead be directed at the Obama Administration and its Progressive minions for executing one of the most egregious "bait and switch" schemes ever perpetrated on the American people.

If you take a moment to think back to when Congress was debating Obamacare, you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a congressional Democrat or an Obama Administration mouthpiece that wasn't adamant in their denial that the Affordable Care Act was a tax. President Obama himself is quoted on numerous occasions as saying, without reservation and with clarity, that under no circumstances and in now way, shape or form, was his signature agenda item a "tax." And as we approached the vote on Obamacare in Congress, congressional Democrats, Obama Administration operatives, union activists and special interest groups flooded the media with specific declarations that stated clearly that the Affordable Care Act was not a tax. Bottom line, the American people were assured that this initiative was not a tax, "cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye." Well, everyone who ever made this claim lied, and it didn't take the SCOTUS ruling to prove it.

About those Jews...

Caroline Glick

June 29, 2012

 

So it works out that Iran's vice president really hates Jews. In fact, he hates Jews so much that even The New York Times reported it. On Tuesday, the Times published an account of Iranian Vice President Mohammad-Reza Rahimi's speech before a UN forum on fighting drug addiction in Tehran.

Rahimi claimed that Jews control the illegal drug trade. We sell drugs, he said, in order to fulfill what he said is a Talmudic writ to "destroy everyone who opposes the Jews."

He said that our conspiracy is obvious since, he claimed, there are no Jewish drug addicts.

He went so far as to promise to pay anyone who can find a Jewish drug addict.

As he put it, "The Islamic Republic of Iran will pay for anybody who can research and find one single Zionist who is an addict. They do not exist. This is the proof of their involvement in drugs trade."

Oops, sorry, he doesn't hate Jews. He hates Zionists.

Some of his best friends are Jews.

At least that is what the Times would have us believe. As reporter Thomas Erdbrink put it, "'Zionists' is Iran's ideological term for Jews who support the state of Israel.

He also helpfully noted, "More than 25,000 Jews live in Iran, and they are recognized as a religious minority, with a representative in Parliament."

Abdo’s Loyalty to Muslims Always Meant Disloyalty to Americans

Raymond Ibrahim

To anyone familiar with Muslim doctrine, Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo’s actions — from refusing to deploy to Afghanistan lest he kill fellow Muslims to plotting a terror attack to kill fellow Americans — make perfect sense and accord well with Islam’s dichotomous doctrine of wala wa bara, often translated as “loyalty and enmity.”

Built atop numerous Koran verses and backed by Sharia, wala requires Muslims to be loyal to fellow Muslims, and explains why Abdo refused to deploy to Muslim nations.
While loyalty may appear admirable, it has a flipside, bara, which requires Muslims to disassociate themselves from non-Muslims — to be disloyal to them (see al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri’s 60 page treatise titled “Loyalty and Enmity” in The Al Qaeda Reader for details).

 

For example, Koran 5:51 literally warns Muslims against “taking the Jews and Christians as friends and allies … whoever among you takes them for friends and allies, he is surely one of them,” i.e., he becomes an infidel; 58:22 states that true Muslims do not befriend non-Muslims — “even if they be their fathers, sons, brothers, or kin.”

Israelis live longer, less obese than OECD average

JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH

06/29/2012 

These were the results of the 2012 comparison of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development members.

Photo: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post

Israel’s population is younger, lives longer and is less obese than those of other OECD countries, but the rates of hospital beds, nurses and medical budgets are significantly lower than in its counterparts.
These were the results of the 2012 comparison of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development members, released for publication on Thursday.

Related:

• School climate can affect obese kids for life

The comparison of health characteristics and health systems – the second involving Israel since the Jewish state became a full-fledged OECD member in September 2010 – hints that the positive Israeli results are only somewhat connected to the country’s health system, while the negative ones are the result of government policy such as relatively low health expenditure and medical manpower rates. Nir Kaidar – who, along with Daniella Arieli and Dr.  Tuvia Horev, provided the Health Ministry statistics for the comparison – confirmed this. Other positive influences on Israeli health include the Mediterranean diet, climate, lifestyle and even religious observance.

In A Few Years China Will LIkely Be the Second-Most Important Country for Israel'

Barry Rubin

                                                                                                                                Shanghai, China

                There is a remarkable amount of interest in China about Israel and Jews, as I discovered during a trip to China sponsored by SIGNAL, the Sino-Israel Global Network and Academic Leadership.

 

                The most obvious reason is that the Chinese--one important official called it the "little superpower--perceive that Israel in particular and the Jewish people in general have been success stories. Ten or twenty years ago this would have been less unique in the world.  But now, sad to say, it stands out more because the United States and Europe, perhaps only temporarily, are not working very well.

 

                Of course, on a strategic level, Israel and China have some differing interests but these are less important than they may appear to be. China wants to have commerce with everyone, including Iran, and is protecting Syria in the international framework.

The media lie of “Jews only” roads in Israel

cif watch

The following is an English translation of an essay published in the Hebrew edition of Ha’aretz by Yishai Goldflam, director of Presspectiva – a site dedicated to ensuring accuracy and responsibility in the Israeli media.

Do there exist roads in Judea and Samaria that are designated for “Jews only”? Are Christians and Muslims really prohibited from traveling on roads across the Green Line?

This charge, which is often voiced in these parts, including in [Ha'aretz], provokes condemnation of Israel’s alleged racism — and is simply untrue. There appears to be a terminology confusion that produces a factual error that harms legitimate discussion and criticism of Israeli actions. 

Here are the facts: the state did, indeed, impose restrictions on certain roads in Judea and Samaria several years ago and did not allow Palestinians to travel on them, especially after the eruption of the second intifada. But most of the restrictions were already removed in 2009. Today, most West Bank roads are open to the majority of the Palestinian population. And even at the time those roads were restricted for Israeli use, they were never restricted to Israeli Jews alone. The  roads were open to all Israeli citizens – Muslims, Christians, Druze and Circassians. There was never a religious or ethnic-based separation on the roads of Judea and Samaria.

Hasbara: The Islamic Tradition [incl. Khaleel Mohammed]

by Petra Marquardt-Bigman
The Warped Mirror (A Blog of The Jerusalem Post)

http://cgis.jpost.com/Blogs/warpedmirror/entry/hasbara_the_islamic_tradition_posted

In remarks aimed at the Arab leaders who are meeting this weekend for the Arab League summit in Libya, Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki accused Israel of plotting "to change the identity of Jerusalem."

Mottaki claimed that "the recent developments and comments made over the past few months by the officials of the Zionist regime clearly show the seriousness of the occupiers' plot to give a Zionist identity to the first kiblah [direction Muslims should face during prayer] of Muslims."
Claims and accusations like these have of course often been used to incite violence fuelled by religious fervor. As Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti once explained, he relied on the same tried and trusted formula to ignite the so-called "Al-Aqsa intifada" in September 2000:

On the eve of Sharon's visit I participated in a TV panel, on a local TV station. I found this to be the right opportunity to call upon the public to go to Al Aqsa on the following morning because it is not possible for Sharon to arrive at the Temple Mount [...] 'just like that' and walk away peacefully. [...] I saw within the situation a historic opportunity to ignite the conflict. The strongest conflict is the one that initiated from Jerusalem due to the sensitivity of the city, its uniqueness and its special place in the hearts of the masses who are willing to sacrifice themselves [for her] with not even thinking of the cost."

How would demagogues like Mottaki and Barghouti respond if they were confronted with scriptural evidence from the Koran and traditional Muslim teachings that confirm the existence of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem and support the Biblical claim that the land of Israel was given to the Jews by God?

The Evils of the Muslim Brotherhood Evidence Keeps Mounting

Raymond Ibrahim
Investigative Project on Terrorism

http://www.meforum.org/3272/muslim-brotherhood-evils

Egypt's longtime banned Muslim Brotherhood—the parent organization of nearly every subsequent Islamist movement, including al-Qaeda—has just won the nation's presidency, in the name of its candidate, Muhammad Morsi. That apathy reigns in the international community, when once such news would have been deemed devastating, is due to the successful efforts of Muslim apologists and subversive agents in the West who portray the Brotherhood as "moderate Islamists"—irrespective that such a formulation is oxymoronic, since to be "Islamist," to be a supporter of draconian Sharia, is by definition to be immoderate.

Obama administration officials naturally took it a step further, portraying the Brotherhood as "largely secular" and "pluralistic."

Back in the real world, evidence that the Brotherhood is just another hostile Islamist group bent on achieving world domination through any means possible is overwhelming. Here are just three examples that recently surfaced, all missed by the Western media, and all exposing the Brotherhood as hostile to "infidels" (non-Muslims) in general, hostile to the Christians in their midst (the Copts) in particular, and on record calling on Muslims to lie and cheat during elections to empower Sharia:

IDF chief of staff-turned-vice premier: 'We are not bluffing'

Moshe Ya'alon tells Ari Shavit he is preparing for war. He suggests you do the same.

By Ari Shavit

Exactly seven years ago, I interviewed the chief of staff. On the eve of his retirement from the Israel Defense Forces, Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon spoke with an expressionless face against the Gaza disengagement, against a Palestinian state and against giving terrorism a “tailwind.” He predicted that Hamas would seize control of the Gaza Strip and that rockets would rain down on Israeli cities. But when, at the end of the interview, we were joined by the Israel Defense Forces spokeswoman and a Haaretz photographer, the chief of staff became a different person. As the photographer had him pose in his office, he started telling jokes.
 

With a mischievous smile on his face and a naughty twinkle in his eye, the tall, bespectacled officer had everyone roaring with laughter at ethnic jokes, accent jokes and small-town jokes. Suddenly he was no longer a tough chief of the General Staff in a starched uniform, but a delightful jester bursting with life. If I describe this scene to my readers, I said to the IDF spokeswoman, they will think I was on some sort of drug: No one will believe that behind the stone face that Chief of Staff Ya’alon puts on lurks this affable, free-spirited Bogie with a terrific sense of humor.

A great many things have been burned into people’s minds since that standup act on the 14th floor of the IDF tower in the Kirya defense headquarters in Tel Aviv. To the astonishment of many, Hamas did in fact seize control of Gaza and did indeed rain down rockets on Israeli cities. To the amazement of others, Ya’alon did not pursue a career as a school principal in the Arava, but pursued a political career and has even done well in politics. Within a few years, the dairy farmer from Kibbutz Grofit, north of Eilat, became one of the most right-wing leaders of the right wing.

Help the Jews to PROTECT their DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS by LEGAL and FAIR trial

Nurit Greenger

Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu has given in to Arab terrorism and is establishing, in the heart of Israel, under the nose of every Israeli-Jew, an Arab-Muslim-Nazi state.

What would his patriot brother, Yoni Netanyahu z"l, and his Zionist father, Benzion Netanyahu z"l, have said about this?

After much brouhaha about the eviction of good Jewish souls from their homes in the Ulpana neighborhood in Beit El, Samaria, Ulpana residents walked away like "meek" sheep! They gave up on their Don Quixote of La Mancha fight with the government of Israel windmills.

I am afraid that the next to go like meek sheep will be the good Jews of Migron, another Jewish community the Netanyahu government is after and is due for destruction.

No Arab ever owned any piece of land in Migron; and if Migron falls, we may say goodbye to all of Judea and Samaria.

COP: Obamacare After the Court

Amy Payne

June 28, 2012

The policy landscape will change dramatically after 10 a.m. today. If the Supreme Court does not strike down Obamacare in its entirety, Congress should move to repeal it. Americans support repeal of the health care law, as they have demonstrated in more than 100 polls since it passed in 2010. The infamous individual mandate is only the beginning of the problems Americans face under this law.  Most importantly, Americans need real health care reform, and we need to begin moving toward a patient-friendly system where people have the freedom to choose the care that is best for them.
Beyond the Individual Mandate
Over the past two years, Heritage has laid out the flawed policies of Obamacare, including the individual mandate to purchase health insurance, which is at the center of the law’s constitutional questionability.

Moshe Ya'alon: Strategic thinker and leader

ISI LEIBLER

Candidly Speaking: Ya’alon is perhaps the most understated minister in the government and is considered a highly untypical Israeli leader.

Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski

A recent interview by journalist Ari Shavit with former IDF chief of staff, now vice premier, Moshe Ya’alon, provides a fascinating insight into the thinking of one of Israel’s most sophisticated political leaders and covers the crucial challenges facing the nation. It deserves to be widely read.

Ironically, the extensive interview was published in the weekend magazine of Haaretz, the Israeli daily notorious for promoting the very views which Ya’alon’s interview devastatingly demolishes.

Coincidentally, precisely seven years ago I devoted a column to Ya’alon, describing him as one of the most adroit strategic thinkers to have headed the IDF. He was then accused of being disgruntled and embittered after his premature termination as chief of staff by then-prime minister Ariel Sharon in response to his fierce opposition to the withdrawal from Gaza – for which he was subsequently totally vindicated.

Ya’alon was retired in the wake of his successful military response to terror which demonstrated that, contrary to the mantras invoked by the bleeding-heart leftists, resolute military action can significantly neutralize terrorism. He was also proactive when he instituted dual-track initiatives of targeted assassinations and construction of the security fence, the combination of which effectively brought an end to the second intifada.

COP: Rep. West Statement on the United States Supreme Court Healthcare Ruling

 

(WASHINGTON)--- Congressman Allen West (R-FL) released this statement today after the United States Supreme Court announced it has ruled to uphold the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act:

 

"The United States Supreme Court has ruled to uphold the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act by extending the power of the United States Congress to tax Americans' behavior.  This is a sad day for Americans, as they will be taxed to pay for benefits they may not need or want as part of the insurance they are forced to buy. With this decision, Congress has been granted infinite taxation power, and there are no longer any limits on what the federal government can tax its citizens to do.  

The Ball is in Our Court

Sultan Knish

As the day of judgment approaches, half the country sits waiting for a small group of men and women to decide how many of our civil rights we get to keep. After two flawed decisions that draw not from the Constitution, but from policy and opinion, we wait hopefully for a third opinion that will set us free.

Today the Supreme Court is slightly tilted in our favor, which is to say that it has a few members who believe that the Constitution is more than blotting paper for their opinions, and that individuals and states have rights, rather than just being troublesome cogs in the mighty machine of the national policy apparatus bent on tackling one growing crisis or another.

How long will that tenuous state of affairs endure? Who knows. In the meantime we are caught between an omnipotent executive who believes that he is above the law, an unelected court which includes two of his appointees, one of them his lawyer, and a Congress which does little except spend gargantuan amounts of money. And our best bet is the court, because it is the hardest to bribe and some of its members believe in the law, rather than in the almighty policy ends that justify all means.

Barack Obama Muslim Brotherhood Obfuscations

ALYSSA A. LAPPEN June 27, 2012

In which a Congressional investigation is warranted.
When U.S. President Barack H. Obama Sunday phoned to personally congratulate Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood president-elect, Mohammed Mursi, he confirmed his view that its Cairo-based revolution represents a genuine "transition to democracy."

To many, that statement also confirmed the naïve fantasy world Obama instituted in the White House. In contrast, clear-sighted congressmen, statesmen, Egyptian liberals and activists, Islamic history scholars and more than a few journalists  realized from day one that the January 2011, Tahrir Square demonstrations would end with MB achievement of their 84-year dream --- to reinstate sharia in Egypt --- and that after gobbling the presidency they deceitfully claimed not to seek, the MB would launch an open phase in their perennial effort to impose universal Islamic law through a new global caliphate.

Obama's Sunday call, in reality, may have confirmed something far worse --- his full devotion to revolution, in the classical sense --- i.e. full-blown popular overthrow of government. The president long followed guiding socialist "lights," like the late Saul Alinksy, and his childhood mentor and hardened communist Frank Marshall Davis, whom some now claim was Obama's "real father." 
Has Obama now confessed --- or come as close as he will ever --- that his true sympathies lie both with full-blown revolution, and the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic supremacists, not with U.S. interests at all?

COP: How Unions Just Shot Workers in the Foot

Amy Payne

June 27, 2012
Union bosses are excited that they have prevented their members from getting raises.
It’s a bit mind-boggling, but that’s what happened. Last week, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) celebrated defeating a bill in the Senate that would have allowed raises, declaring that the legislation would have stripped workers’ “fundamental rights.” The union’s blog encouraged tweeting and sharing the “good news” on Facebook.

The RAISE (Rewarding Achievement and Incentivizing Successful Employees) Act, introduced this year by Senator Marco Rubio (R–FL), would lift the ceiling on unionized workers’ wages by allowing employers to pay individual workers more—but not less—than the union contract specifies. It was defeated in a 45-54 vote along party lines.

When you’re in a union, raises are usually all or nothing. They are not necessarily forbidden; the unions just have to sign off on them. Only about 20 percent of union contracts permit performance-based raises, less than half the rate in nonunion firms. This means 80 percent of workers can’t get an individual raise for doing good work—a raise must be negotiated for everyone. That certainly takes away the incentive to go above and beyond, because there are no performance-based bonuses or even merit increases.

The Incredible Shrinking US-Israel Security Cooperation

Shoshana Bryen
June 27, 2012 

If the Administration had wanted to make the point the Israel is a valued partner in counterterrorism activities, it could have insisted that Israel be there or else moved the meeting.

In light of increased sensitivity to intelligence leaks, it seemed innocuous – or even admirable – when the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) asked the Senate to remove a few words from the US-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act: the "sense of the Senate" part of the bill included the sentence, "Expand already close intelligence cooperation, including satellite intelligence, with the Government of Israel;" ODNI wanted the words "including satellite intelligence" to go.
An ODNI spokesman said it was "simply a matter of clarifying the intelligence aspects of the bill and being sensitive to the level of specificity of the language…nothing nefarious here, just more clear language."

Yeah, right.

Arab Apartheid Against Palestinians

Khaled Abu Toameh
June 27, 2012 

The plight of the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and other Arab countries has received little attention from the mainstream media in the West. Lebanon's apartheid laws deny Palestinians access to the majority of white collar positions in areas such as banking, medicine, management, law and education. Though born and raised in the country, they are denied political, economic and social rights.

The Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon are considered the worst in the region in terms of poverty, health, education and living conditions, according to a report published this week by the American Near East Refugee Aid [ANERA], one of the largest American not-for-profit organizations working in the Middle East.

This does not mean, of course, that Palestinians living in refugee camps in Jordan and Syria or other Arab countries are happy. But when it comes to Lebanon, the living conditions of the Palestinians are appalling.

It's Hard Out There for an Outsider

Sultan Knish

Elizabeth "Fauxcahontas" Warren told the Boston Globe last week that she wants to win the Senate race so that she can "bring an outsider’s perspective to solving the nation’s problems". And who better to bring an outsider's perspective than a Harvard professor, a member of the FDIC Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion and the chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel.

If a law professor who spent 15 years on and off government and quasi-government commissions and whose prescriptions have become policy, and who could raise 7 million dollars in a few months is an outsider, then who exactly is an insider?

When Warren's Cherokee claims became a little too embarrassing, The New Yorker ran an article asking, "Who is a Native American?" as if the question of who the hell were you parents were some imponderable paradox like "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" or "How much debt can government amass before Washington D.C. becomes a black hole whose gravitational pull will suck in the economies of the entire planet?"

The Brotherhood's Bait and Switch

• Frank Gaffney
   

Egypt’s newly elected president, Mohammed Morsi, says he will be a “leader for all Egyptians.” That sounds a lot like the sorts of lies his fellow Muslim Brothers have been telling for months, only to renege on them when they can. We ignore the true character and ambitions of the Brotherhood – in Egypt, elsewhere in the Mideast, in the wider world and here – at our extreme peril. 

In fact, the Brothers’ bait-and-switch gambits are standard operating procedure for their secretive organization. After all, from the Muslim Brotherhood’s inception in Egypt in 1928, it has been a revolutionary organization committed to the imposition worldwide of a totalitarian, supremacist Islamic doctrine they call shariah.


The unattractiveness of that brutally repressive agenda to non-Muslims and even many Muslims, has forced the group to operate largely in the shadows. It wages a stealthy, pre-violent “civilization jihad” to advance its goals until circumstances are ripe for conquest via violent jihadism.


In the hope of attenuating the military’s opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood rise, the latter has utilized myriad subterfuges. In previous rounds of elections, the Brotherhood promised that it would not seek a parliamentary majority. Then, it did. It promised not to run a candidate for president. Then, it actually ran two of them.

Founding National Myths

Fabricating Palestinian History

by David Bukay
Middle East Quarterly
Summer 2012, pp. 23-30 (view PDF)

http://www.meforum.org/3273/palestinian-founding-national-myths

The vast literature proving the historic Jewish connection to the Land of Israel has been extensively manipulated and distorted as part of the Palestinian politics of nationalism. Propaganda, indoctrination, and socialization, both domestically and internationally, are essential parts of the strategy and tactics of asserting Palestinian nationhood and statehood. By appropriating to themselves the values, traditions, and historical facts that belong to the Jews, Palestinians have managed to fabricate a "legitimate" history and political traditions out of nothing while denying those of Israel.

The Palestinian Nation-building Strategy

A Palestinian flag emblazoned with "Jesus." Not even Jesus's origin as a Jew is safe from the Palestinian fabrication of their history. While Jesus was certainly viewed for centuries as a Muslim prophet (along with Abraham and Moses), only recently has he become a model Palestinian shahid, a martyr to their cause.

Nation-building often involves the invention of foundation myths although these normally require a certain relationship to historic facts, however tenuous. Palestinian leaders, under the leadership of Yasser Arafat and his successors, adopted a different tack: stealing the enemy's heritage, history, and values, and denying its legitimacy as a people and a state. The Palestinian objectives are to disqualify Israel's historical standing and to inherit its belongings by delegitimizing and even dehumanizing its national identity and personality.

Muslim Brotherhood Draws Up Plans to Islamize Egypt

Posted by Ryan Mauro 

The Muslim Brotherhood leadership in Egypt held a secret meeting last week in anticipation of Mohammed Morsi’s expected presidential victory. According to the Arabic report, discovered by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, the leaders drew up the “Jazira Plan” to Islamize Egypt and pave the way for the resurrection of the Caliphate.

The “Jazira Plan” was personally approved by Mohammed Badi, the Supreme Leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the report states. Among the first steps is to “replace the nation anthem with the so-called anthem of the Islamic Caliphate.” Police uniforms will be swapped out for “Islamic garb.” The Ministry of Information will be disbanded and replaced by a new office that will “publish Islamic heritage only” and regulate the culture. The memorization of Quranic verses will be required for students to advance academically.

The name of the plan is telling. Jazira is Arabic for “island” or “peninsula.” The report states that it is referring to the entirety of the Arabian Peninsula. This is not a plan for Egypt; it’s a regional plan. If the report is accurate, the Muslim Brotherhood is already thinking ahead towards a Caliphate.

This isn’t news to close observers of the Brotherhood. One of the group’s spokesmen said in February, “Concerning the Islamic caliphate, this is our dream, and we hope to achieve it…our first goal is the renaissance of Egypt, then the Arab world and then the Islamic world. This will come gradually.”

32 Grieving Parents with Absolute Moral Authority over Obama

Stella Paul

I know you're busy writing to your friends to ask them to skip your birthday present this year and send the cash to Obama, but I just want to interrupt you for a minute to introduce you to 32 parents who probably won't be fundraising for Obama anytime soon.

 

Kent and Josephine Terry are the parents of slain Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who sacrificed his life protecting ours.  Last week, they spoke up for the first time with a message to Obama, who has asserted executive privilege to hide documents on Operation Fast and Furious.

 

When asked what they'd say to Obama and Eric Holder, Kent Terry replied, "I probably couldn't say on camera what I'd like to say to them.  But I'd say get their heads out of their butt anyway."

 

(Please don't share this quote with the "important" gay activists whom Obama invited to the White House, where they ran riot, kissing and exposing their middle digits to Reagan's portrait.  They might get too excited.)

 

Brian Terry was murdered in December 2010 with guns from Obama's Fast and Furious program, which is politely (and fictitiously) described as a botched gun-tracing operation.  Somehow this "botching" resulted in the most violent Mexican drug cartels being armed with thousands of assault weapons, which they used to slaughter 300 Mexicans and Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

It does not remain to be seen

Ruthie Blum

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Israel this week, just as Egypt announced the victory of Mohammed Morsi in its first “civilian” presidential election. The fuss made over the former — bordering on fawning — temporarily drowned out “concerned reactions” in relation to the latter. But the bottom line regarding both is that Israel is screwed, no matter what pomp, circumstance, or spin it engages in to buy time before genuinely grasping how alone it really is in the world right now. It is facing a nuclear Iran bent on its destruction; it is watching as each country in its immediate neighborhood is becoming Islamized (even its former buddy, Turkey); it is hearing a self-imploding Europe accuse it of being at the root of all problems in the Middle East; and last but certainly not least, it is prey to all of the above without America’s embrace.

Birthplace of Christ Used in Bid for Palestinian Statehood

Christine Williams

The issue is not genuinely about a two-state solution – as many are fooled into believing. Lethal opposition to the State of Israel remains fierce. This tiny democracy, Israel, which lives by individual freedoms, equal justice under law and respect for universal human rights, is an affront to these autocratic regimes.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), will soon decide whether to honor the Palestinian application to award The Church of the Nativity the designation of a World Heritage Site—a title reserved for locations considered to have outstanding Universal Value.
The World Heritage Committee is now meeting in Saint Petersburg, Russia, presumably to decide to whom to award the Church of the Nativity, said to be the birthplace of Christ, as well as the Pilgrimage Route in Bethlehem.

Here is where it gets problematic: although only applicants recognized as having an independent state are eligible for consideration, the Palestinians are being considered even though they do not meet that qualification.

This ambitious move by the Palestinian Authority [PA] started in February 2011; Palestinian Tourism Minister Khulud Daibes was explicit about the motive: "The timing is crucial for us; it is part and parcel of our plan to end the (Israeli) occupation and build the institutions of the state of Palestine."
The drive to have the Church of the Nativity recognized as a global heritage site is nothing short of offensive. Christians have been driven out of their ancestral lands; Palestinians have shown nothing but hostility to both Christians and Jews. Moreover, Christ himself was a Jew.

COP: Time and Again, Maraniss Conceals Obama's Socialist Roots

Jack Cashill

 

"I'm not writing it as a fact-checker.  I'm writing it as an historian," griped David Maraniss on CNN about the first volume of his new book, Barack Obama: The Story.  "Other people for ideological reasons are pouncing on that part of what my book is, but in fact I'm trying to tell the truth." 

In fact, Maraniss is less an historian than a predictably liberal Beltway journalist, one whose own ideology consistently subverts the truth.  The distortions are many and significant.  In his account of each phase of Obama's early life -- Hawaii, Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago -- Maraniss repeatedly conceals the evidence of Obama's socialist roots to make him appear more of a centrist than he actually was or is.

The sleight-of-hand begins with Maraniss's discussion of Obama's Hawaii mentor, Frank Marshall Davis.  Predictably, Maraniss introduces Davis as "a black journalist, poet, civil rights activist, political leftist, jazz expert."  True, Maraniss adds, Davis "had been under surveillance by the Honolulu bureau of the FBI because of his past associations with the Communist Party," but in progressive circles this qualifier would be read like a tribute.

Given the depth of his research, Maraniss had to know what he was hiding.  "Here are the facts and they are indisputable," writes historian Paul Kengor in his soon-to-be released book, The Communist -- Frank Marshall Davis: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mentor: "Frank Marshall Davis was a pro-Soviet, pro-Red China, card-carrying member of Communist Party (CPUSA).  His Communist Party card number was 47544."

Why The Newsroom is Good News for Republicans

Sultan Knish

The last time Aaron Sorkin had a high-profile political television show, liberals used it to cope with the decline and fall of the Clinton Presidency and the long winter of the Bush Years. The West Wing was a coping mechanism for the death of a liberal dream, and so is The Newsroom. Both are an escape into fantasy to avoid dealing with the harsh reality.

On an episode of Seinfeld, George is stung by an insult but is unable to think of a retort, so he spends days trying to come up with the perfect comeback, until he finally thinks of it and travels around the country to get the chance to deliver it. The Newsroom, set in the past, and jumping in right before the political balance tilted toward the Republicans in the mid-term elections, is the same thing.

The Newsroom is Sorkin's sad attempt to win an argument by rewriting history and coming up with all the comebacks that his side couldn't think of two years ago. It's the sad and pathetic spectacle of an ideology creating its own fantasy version of its reality in which it won the argument.

Freedom and Constraints

HERBERT LONDON 

In a nation obsessed with creativity, freedom is the exalted position. For freedom gives meaning to our actions. Yet it is the defect of ideology to assume action is reducible to one simple principle, a uniquely explanatory element. In reality, freedom is a complex and composite affair.

While freedom is often reduced to choice - a means to achieve our goals - in cultural terms freedom is defined negatively i.e., non-compulsion from without and self determination from within. However, freedom can exist in a culture with normative judgment and moral constraints. The newly liberated contend freedom means unbound without reference to ontological claims. But this is absurd. Freedom is defined by boundaries.

Camus, in The Stranger maintained that there isn't justice (read: freedom) without limits. Those who believe you are free to do whatever you like invariably strike the walls of licentiousness. Freedom is inhibited by responsibility, morality and law. The focus on autonomous choice ends up with a normative account of the human good.

Top Soviet-bloc defector: Marxism infecting U.S.

By Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa
Editor’s note: Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa is the highest-ranking Soviet-bloc official ever to defect to the West. In December 1989, Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu was executed at the end of a trial whose accusations came almost word-for-word out of Pacepa’s book, “Red Horizons,” subsequently republished in 27 countries. 

After President Carter approved his request for political asylum, Pacepa became an American citizen and worked with U.S. intelligence agencies against the former Eastern Bloc. The CIA has praised Pacepa’s cooperation for providing “an important and unique contribution to the United States.”
A few weeks ago I read “America’s Marxist Picnic,” a touching story by WND’s David Kupelian, which illustrates how much the U.S. government hated Marxism a generation ago.

David’s father was one of America’s top rocket scientists, and he became deputy undersecretary of defense for strategic and theater nuclear forces under Ronald Reagan. During the 1970s, however, the U.S. government considered withdrawing his top secret security clearance because some informer had reported that, during his teen years, his mother had attended an Armenian church picnic where a pro-Soviet speaker gave a talk.

That story moved me. My father also worked for America – not as a top rocket scientist, but as service manager of the General Motors affiliate in Romania. Working for America became a crime when the communists took over Romania at the end of WWII and my father was soon killed by the Red Army.

Today the Communist Party is abolished in Romania, which re-became a trustworthy ally of the U.S.. Meanwhile, the formerly cursed Communist Party USA is throwing its full support to the current president of the United States.

I wrote to David. That’s how this interview was born.

Misunderestimating the Muslim Brotherhood: Media Malfeasance at its Most Malignant

 MahdiWatch.org
Last year, after the outbreak of the "Arab Spring" across North Africa (come to think of it--wouldn't that make it an "African Spring?"), the vast majority of media commentators and "analysts" regaled us with glowing (indeed, fawning) accounts of all those putative Tom Paines and assumed John Adamses tweeting from Tunis, Benghazi and Cairo who would, we were assured, soon usher in the long-expected Arab democracies which had so long stymied by secular dictators.  As for the Arab world's major Islamic political party, the transnational Muslim Brotherhood--well, those dapper chaps in their expensive suits with their advanced degrees were just the Ben Franklins of the ummah, content to stay aloof from elective office, especially in the most-populous Arab country, Egypt, and instead influence events from the sidelines--knowing that they were not really all that popular in the Arab street.

Here are some examples of such Pollyannish, indeed ignorant, thinking--from folks deemed "experts" by the media:

There is an "exaggerated fear that militant Islamists might fill a void left by an ousted President Hosni Mubarak"--Chris Harnisch, "al-Qaeda [sic] expert" and former VP Dick Cheney staffer; "Fears of a Muslim Brotherhood Takeover of Egypt are Overblown," "The Daily Caller," 1/31/2011

"I think it is very unlikely that there would be an Islamist president in Egypt....if you ask the Muslim Brotherhood their goal, they say it is not to establish and Islamic state but rather to function within a democratic system."--Michelle Dunne, Editor of the Arab Reform Bulletin at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, quoted in a Voice of America interview, May 23, 2011

"[T]he argument that a transition to democracy in Egypt will lead to an Islamist takeover doesn't seem to hold much water"--Adam Serwer, "Poll: No Constituency for Muslim Brotherhood Takeover in Egypt," "The Washington Post," Feb. 10, 2011

After an Israeli Strike on Iran

Daniel Pipes
The Washington Times

http://www.meforum.org/pipes/11528/israeli-strike-on-iran

[N.B.: This version differs slightly from the Washington Times text]

How will Iranians respond to an Israeli strike against their nuclear infrastructure? The answers to this prediction matters greatly, affecting not just Jerusalem's decision but also how much other states work to impede an Israeli strike.

Analysts generally offer up best-case predictions for policies of deterrence and containment (some commentators even go so far as to welcome an Iranian nuclear capability) while forecasting worst-case results from a strike. They foresee Tehran doing everything possible to retaliate, such as kidnapping, terrorism, missile attacks, naval combat, and closing the Strait of Hormuz. These predictions ignore two facts: neither of Israel's prior strikes against enemy states building nuclear weapons, Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007, prompted retaliation; and a review the Islamic Republic of Iran's history since 1979 points to "a more measured and less apocalyptic—if still sobering—assessment of the likely aftermath of a preventive strike."

The authors, Michael Eisenstadt and Michael Knights of the Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy.

Those are the words of Michael Eisenstadt and Michael Knights of the Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy, who provide an excellent guide to possible scenarios in "Beyond Worst-Case Analysis: Iran's Likely Responses to an Israeli Preventive Strike." Their survey of Iranian behavior over the past three decades leads them to anticipate that three main principles would likely shape and limit Tehran's response to an Israeli strike: an insistence on reciprocity, a caution not to gratuitously make enemies, and a wish to deter further Israeli (or American) strikes.

Brotherhood Victory Opens Door for Islamists

IPT News
June 26, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3644/brotherhood-victory-opens-door-for-islamists

Islamists across the globe are hailing the victory of Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammad Morsi in Egypt's presidential election, particularly Hamas and even traditional Egyptian rivals like Iran.

In the meantime, as Israeli and American officials have responded optimistically but cautiously to Morsi's wishy-washy statements on Middle East peace, some American Islamist officials have already started a propaganda campaign celebrating the Islamist victory.

During his victory announcement, Morsi pledged to be a "president for all Egyptians" and to honor international treaties, code for preserving Egypt's cold peace with Israel. But within hours, Iran's Fars News Agency claimed that his government would "revise the Camp David treaty" in favor of a "policy based on equality, since we are not weaker than them in any field."

Fars also quoted Morsi as saying that the move would be coupled with better relations with the Iranian Islamic Republic, Egypt's traditional rival in the Middle East and Israel's most vocal enemies. The new relationship would "create a balance of pressure in the region," Morsi said, in what seemed a veiled threat against Western interests and the Jewish state.

Reinvigorated Islam

Reinvigorated Islam

by AMIL IMANI June 26, 2012

Trauma, viruses, or bacteria cause the death of a biological entity.  Viruses and bacteria are major killers of human beings and present great challenges to medicine.  They can be deadly and have the uncanny ability to mutate.  Yet they are there for their mission of ending life.

Life exists due to balance: body and soul, good and evil, and life and death.  This holds true even to the lesser foundations of our lives, and how we spend our time.  The small, seemingly trivial ripples that we create each day eventually build into a wave -- the wave of mankind.  The moment a new entity is formed, an array of forces work to end it.  Death, in effect, is pre-birth.  Without death, everything freezes in place.  Death often provides the raw material for the new birth.  The death and decay of a tree, for instance, supplies the needed nutrients for the seed to grow; the Newtonian physics' obsolescence provided the foundation for Einstein's relativity theory.

Death and renewal are also fundamental to religion.  It is for this reason that many religions promised renewal in the person of a savior.  The Jews, for instance, expect the Messiah; the Christians long for the second coming; and some Muslims pray for the appearance of the Mahdi, while other Shia Muslims supplicate God for the return of Imam Hussein.