That said, I am sticking with my prediction that R and R win over O and B. Why? Because the elite media and press 'experts' are mostly located in New York and D.C. and simply hear their brethren, ie. the echo effect.
Second, Obama's campaign is being seen for what it is: sound, fury and emptiness. Like a movie set, there is nothing in the rear. All facade. Just a forum for a "Music Man" jazzing everyone up with a lot of horns blowing and then on to the next town blah blah blah.
Third, Obama is now seen based on having already been seen. In other words, he has been on center stage for three years and this campaign is a reminder of what a fraud he was in his first campaign and his record now proves no less.
Finally, Obama really is not likable. His toothy smile is false, his voice is sing song and what spews out of his mouth are empty words as Strassel points out in her latest op ed.
If Obama were a bit bigger you could say he was a darker version of Senator Claghorn!
It is because hope and change means more of the same that Obama will be defeated.
As Americans awake from their trance induced by Obama dust and listen to his words and measure them against his actions Obama will be beaten by his own words. (See 1 and 1a below.)
Ten reasons, and a bonus reason, to help you understand why Romney is so unlikable. (See 2 below.)
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The Fed can manipulate short rates and flood the market with money but eventually it boils down to an act of pushing on a string. I believe we are there. (See 3 below.)
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With world leadership and morality akin to what we are witnessing , no wonder ominous clouds are gathering! (See 4 and 4a below)
The news from Iran validates what I wrote about several months ago in my Middle East Update warning about their ability to increase their amount weapon grade nuclear material.
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This from a very old and dear friend and fellow memo reader who also happens to be a retired psychiatrist: "I just got back home from seeing the movie 2016 abut the reality of Obama.
I recommend everyone and encourage everybody to see it.
When the movie ended, people applauded and a black man shouted "I am black and we need to get Obama out of the White House!"
More comments from a friend and fellow memo reader who just saw 2016: " Tonight, I saw Dinesh D'Sousza's 2016. The first half was iffy, but the second half was very powerful. I'm totally buying the idea that Obama's second term would be about indulging his father's anti-colonialism obsession and bringing down America as we know it."
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A little tooth pulling humor:
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1)
How to Beat President Obama
The man who runs the American Crossroads Super PAC on targeting 'the persuadables' with precise messages on welfare, ObamaCare and the economy.
By JAMES FREEMAN
To political pros, they are known as "the persuadables." By Nov. 6, swing voters in a handful of states will decide whether to rehire Barack Obama. Right now, no one's studying these voters more closely than Steven Law, president of American Crossroads. Mr. Law, who aims to spend $300 million to defeat Mr. Obama and liberalism generally, likes what he sees.
The 52-year-old former Republican Senate aide says that centrist voters are moving away from the president. The sense that President Obama is "a fine person" but lacks the ability to solve the country's problems "has only widened and deepened with people in the middle." Undecided voters "are among the people who are the most sour about the economy and how Obama's doing his job," Mr. Law adds. Meanwhile, these voters see Mitt Romney as "a guy who fixes things."
Given that Mr. Obama holds slight leads in several national polls and in key battlegrounds, Mitt Romney seems a long way from closing the sale. But "we feel pretty optimistic," says Mr. Law. Polls have barely budged in recent months even though "President Obama and his various minions have dumped $100-plus million" of negative ads on Mr. Romney. Meanwhile, "public confidence in Obama's management of the economy has just cratered."
But now comes the second decision: Even if voters are willing to fire the president, is the challenger an acceptable alternative? Americans aren't so sure. Mitt Romney's task, especially at his party's convention starting Monday, is to define himself in a way that's "very different than the caricature" that appears in Obama attack ads.Assuming that's true, how do Republicans translate it into a Romney victory? Voters in presidential elections essentially face two decisions. The first is whether they're willing to replace the president. Americans seem to be moving toward a "yes" on that one. While Mr. Obama holds razor-thin leads in almost every swing state, his support is below 50% in all of them.
Mr. Law says Mr. Romney is fortunate that the president has focused on character assaults. If Democrats had persuaded voters that Mr. Romney's agenda was wrong for the country, the perception would be hard to change at this stage of the campaign. But, says Mr. Law, when Mr. Romney presents evidence that he's a "decent, competent, successful" person, the "negatives can fall away very quickly."
The persuadables encompass roughly 8% of American voters who call themselves undecided, plus perhaps another 3% on each side who are leaning toward one candidate but potentially available to the other side. Mr. Law is working on the people who swung left four years ago: "When we do focus groups, we only talk to people in the middle who voted for Obama in 2008 but are undecided."
Mr. Law says their votes this fall will be driven in part by the summer of 2011. "The debt-limit fight of last July was much more of an important catalytic moment in the progress of the Obama presidency than most people focus on. In our own polling and focus-group research, that was the inflection point at which people began to seriously doubt whether President Obama had the skills necessary to solve the most important problems." Swing voters viewed the Beltway stalemate, which culminated in a downgrade of the U.S. credit rating, as "a sour, lousy process," one that Mr. Obama "was an unhelpful part of."
The Crossroads chief believes that the president's greatest vulnerability is that he is "increasingly perceived as a deliverer of controversy. What he produces is controversy and fights and clashes. What he doesn't produce is the result that people want. And when people look at Romney they look at somebody who doesn't strike them as terribly ideological and if he has a fault, that's it, right?"
It may seem easy to dismiss all this as Republican spin. Mr. Law is, after all, the man who teamed with Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie to build the Super PAC that MSNBC loves to hate. But judging by the way Barack Obama is campaigning, he appears to concur with much of Mr. Law's analysis. The president's rhetorical attacks on business and the wealthy, and his promotion of loan subsidies for college students and higher spending generally, seem designed to turn out his base voters rather than persuade moderates that he can create jobs. Mr. Obama's television ads suggest that he is not so much hopeful of winning over undecided voters as he is trying to convince them to despise the challenger.
It might work. After the financial crisis, voters may be willing to dislike a wealthy financier. But Mr. Law is skeptical. "I don't think that the class-warfare push works as well right now as it did last year." He adds that, according to some of his group's recent research, "people seem to be increasingly in a mood for problems to get fixed. And the ideological filter or the class filter is becoming less interesting." Meanwhile, "Romney's best calling card is that he's somebody who dispassionately fixes problems."
Mr. Law thinks that the president's demand for higher taxes on the wealthy may benefit Republicans, because a big class war "may feel kind of irrelevant" to the working person who just wants the economy to improve.
The Crossroads chief says he was surprised when he recently tested an Obama ad called "The Choice" with swing voters. In the ad, Mr. Obama speaks directly to camera. In a calm and reassuring voice, the president claims that Mr. Romney wants to help the wealthy while the Obama plan is to make the rich pay more to fund education and other priorities. Mr. Law thought the ad might be a winner for the president. But voters told him they had heard it all before from Mr. Obama. "I was shocked," says Mr. Law.
"On the other hand swing voters are not necessarily fans of capitalism," he says. They tend to have negative views of big business in particular. Yet they trust Mr. Romney more than Mr. Obama on the economy, presumably because of his business background.
American Crossroads and other conservative groups enrage the left because they are able to raise unlimited funds and therefore match the spending power of unions. Mr. Law says he expects "rough parity" in this election, with the right and left each spending about $500 million through independent groups outside the two parties.
Left-leaning groups will likely continue to attack Mr. Romney for his business career and resulting wealth. But Mr. Law says his group doesn't plan to raise any personal issues, such as Mr. Obama's pre-presidential associations with radical figures. "We've never put a Jeremiah Wright thing in front of focus groups, but my sense is that people would heavily discount previous data. They're going to judge him from the last election and what he's done."
Swing voters are "resistant" to the idea that Mr. Obama is radical or ideological, although Mr. Law believes that the administration's relaxation of work requirements in federal welfare rules could change that perception. "You can tell they're landing punches," he says of the Romney campaign's recent effort to raise this issue.
But the punches have to be targeted very carefully. Recent focus groups have convinced Mr. Law that the issue is "definitely resonating now with swing voters, including those who were Obama voters in 2008." And yet, he adds, "We also picked up conflicting emotions: The economy is so lousy for middle-income Americans that the same people who chafe at the rise of welfare dependency under Obama don't automatically default to a 'get-a-job' attitude—because they know there are no jobs."
Mr. Law concludes that welfare reform could be a "powerful issue to talk about this fall, but it needs to be done sensitively. Right now it may be more of an economic issue than a values issue: In other words, more people on welfare is another disturbing symptom of Obama's broken-down economy, rather than an indictment of those who are on welfare or the culture as a whole."
Among the other campaign issues, "the mother lode is economic insecurity." That will be the focus of Crossroads advertising. New GOP vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan, with his history of promoting pro-growth tax reform, can help "add texture to a robust economic argument." The Ryan pick also symbolizes "a newfound aggressiveness with the Romney campaign, and that's very welcome."
What about the most controversial aspect of the Obama presidency? Mr. Law says that Republicans have to be careful not to assume that simply calling for the repeal of ObamaCare will move votes. Many voters have a vague sense that the 2010 law brings too much government into health care and that it passed "under unseemly circumstances," but they need to know the specific impact on their families before they will base their votes on it.
Mr. Law says the best opening for the GOP is to show that President Obama's promise that those who like their health plans can keep them "is patently false." With many employers now saying in surveys that they will drop coverage under the new law, there is now a concrete message for the GOP: "The health care that you currently depend on—and have at least a reasonably good feeling about—will not be there. You will be dumped in a government pool."
For older voters, he likes the Romney camp's focus on the planned reduction in Medicare spending growth that is contained in ObamaCare. There is also an opening to talk about the law's new rationing board, known as IPAB, or what Mr. Law calls "the board of unelected bureaucrats that can restrict seniors' care."
As for younger voters, Democrats are trying to figure out how to get them to show up as they did in 2008. A recent Crossroads TV ad targeting such voters asks, "What happened to Barack Obama?" As Mr. Law describes it, the spot contrasts the inspiring message of a 2008 Obama speech with the president's current habit of running "ads that independent news sources say are riddled with falsehoods."
Mr. Law expects Democrats to try to motivate youngsters by painting Mr. Romney as extreme on social and environmental issues. In contrast to 2008, Mr. Obama "is going to have to scare them somehow, not enthuse them."
To sum up, Mr. Obama is losing independents, his base is less enthusiastic, the economy stinks, and his re-election depends on his ability to convince people that a Massachusetts moderate is a right-wing ideologue. Also, Mr. Obama won't have the money edge that he enjoyed over John McCain in 2008.
Yet many polls still show the president with a lead—and an edge on the electoral map.
Mr. Law lays out the big caveat to any optimistic GOP scenario. "The toughest part of this election is that Obama can afford to lose Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina, Indiana and Florida and still win the election."
Those states often go Republican, but Mr. Obama won them in 2008. With fewer than 75 days before the election, Mr. Law says the Republicans must begin to move some of them into the Romney column, and he is encouraged by recent polling. "We've overrun their defenses in Indiana, but we're also breaching the walls in Virginia and North Carolina," he says. "We still have some distance to go in Florida and Ohio."
He also sees positive trends for Republicans in states that Mr. Obama should have been able to count on, such as Iowa. "Plus we are coming behind their flanks in Wisconsin," where Mr. Law sees Mr. Romney ahead, as well as in Michigan and Pennsylvania, where the challenger now is "just a few points behind."
"We're really starting to gain ground on the economy," says Mr. Law as he tries to turn the "persuadables" into the persuaded.
Mr. Freeman is assistant editor of the Journal's editorial page.
1a)
2) Now You Can understand why Mitt Romney is Unlikable!
"I'm 83 and I'm Tired"
I'm 83. Except for brief period in the 50's when I was doing my National Service, I've worked hard since I was 17. Except for some serious health challenges, I put in 50-hour weeks, and didn't call in sick in nearly 40 years. I made a reasonable salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, it looks as though retirement was a bad idea, and I'm tired. Very tired.
I'm tired of being told that I have to "spread the wealth" to people who don't have my work ethic. I'm tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.
I'm tired of being told that Islam is a "Religion of Peace," when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family "honor"; of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren't "believers"; of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for "adultery"; of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur'an and Shari'a law tells them to.
I'm tired of being told that out of "tolerance for other cultures" we must let Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries use our oil money to fund mosques and madrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in Australia , New Zealand, UK, America and Canada, while no one from these countries are allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia or any other Arab country to teach love and tolerance.
I'm tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate.
I'm tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses or stick a needle in their arm while they tried to fight it off?
I'm tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of all parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught. I'm tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.
I'm really tired of people who don't take responsibility for their lives and actions. I'm tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-whatever for their problems.
I'm also tired and fed up with seeing young men and women in their teens and early 20's be-deck them selves in tattoos and face studs, thereby making themselves un-employable and claiming money from the Government.
Yes, I'm damn tired. But I'm also glad to be 83. Because, mostly, I'm not going to have to see the world these people are making. I'm just sorry for my granddaughter and their children. Thank God I'm on the way out and not on the way in. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A lot is being said in the media about Mitt Romney not being "likeable" or that he doesn't "relate well" to people. Frankly, I struggled to understand why. So after much research, I have come up with a Top Ten List to explain this "unlikeablility."
Top Ten Reasons To Dislike Mitt Romney:
1. Drop-dead, collar-ad handsome with gracious, statesmanlike aura. Looks like every central casting's #1 choice for Commander-in-Chief.
2. Been married to ONE woman his entire life, and has been faithful to her, including through her bouts with breast cancer and MS.
3. No scandals or skeletons in his closet. (How boring is that?)
4. Can't speak in a fake, southern, "black preacher voice" when necessary.
5. Highly intelligent. Graduated cum laude from both Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School ...and by the way, his academic records are NOT sealed.
6. Doesn't smoke or drink alcohol, and has never done drugs, not even in the counter-culture age when he went to college. Too square for today's America?
7. Represents an America of "yesterday", where people believed in God, went to Church, didn't screw around, worked hard, and became a SUCCESS!
8. Has a family of five great sons....and none of them have police records or are in drug rehab. But of course, they were raised by a stay-at-home mom, and that "choice" deserves America 's scorn.
9. Oh yes.....he's a MORMON. We need to be very afraid of that very strange religion that teaches its members to be clean-living, patriotic, fiscally conservative, charitable, self-reliant, and honest.
10. Pundits say because of his wealth, he can't relate to ordinary Americans. I guess that's because he made that money HIMSELF.....as opposed to marrying it or inheriting it from Dad. Apparently, he didn't understand that actually working at a job and earning your own money made you unrelatable to Americans.
11. Bonus reason - cannot shoot hoops!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3)Newsmax's Hym an: Stock Pullback Is Political Suicide for Obama
By Forrest Jones
The Federal Reserve will stimulate the economy and pump up stock prices because not acting will send equities falling and hurt President Barack Obama's re-election chances, said Sean Hyman, editor of Newsmax's Ultimate Wealth Report newsletter and a Moneynews.com contributor.
Since the Great Recession, the Fed has twice stimulated the economy by buying Treasury holdings and mortgage-backed securities held by banks, a monetary-policy tool known as quantitative easing that pumps liquidity into the economy to encourage investing and hiring.
As a side-effect to such action, stock prices rise. So expect the Fed to soon return with a third round of quantitative easing, a policy that many economists oppose on the grounds that it plants the seeds for inflation down the road.
Stock prices have been gaining in recent weeks, with the S&P 500 hitting a four-year high recently in anticipation of more stimulus. Expect that rally to continue if the Fed acts.
"I think that markets will continue to go higher," Hyman told CNBC.
"Certainly we've been overbought for a while, so we could see a pullback in the near term, I am not saying that can't happen but still, countries around the world are stimulating," Hyman said.
Other central banks will take steps to stimulate their economies as well, including the European Central Bank (ECB) and the People's Bank of China.
"The ECB is going to stimulate, China is going to stimulate and the U.S., of some sort, is going to stimulate, so I think that's bullish for stocks."
At the Fed's two-day policy meeting that began July 31, several board members expressed a willingness to stimulate the economy if it doesn't show marked signs of improvement going forward.
Since that meeting, however, retail sales have beaten expectations, as have consumer-sentiment figures and industrial-production numbers. Some Fed officials have said more stimulus measures may not be necessary.
Still, expect the Fed to act in order to support its ideological ally in the White House.
"If there was no stimulation from the market, I do believe you would see a stock-market pullback, but that's a huge gamble," Hyman said. "If you have stocks pull back, politically that's going to be suicide for Obama, who is trying to get re-elected."
GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has said he would replace Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke if elected. Monetary-stimulus measures weaken the dollar in order to jolt the economy, which Romney opposes.
"I would like to select ... a new person to that chairman position, someone who shared my economic views, someone that I thought was sympathetic to the needs of our nation and I want to make sure that the Federal Reserve focuses on maintaining the monetary stability that leads to a strong dollar, and confidence that America is not going to go down the road that other nations have gone down to their peril," Romney said, according to Fox Business Network.
About: Sean Hyman
Sean Hyman is a member of the Moneynews Financial Brain Trust. He is also the editor of Ultimate Wealth Report
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4) World Leaders Ignore International Law
By Eli E. Hertz
The U.S. Administration, the European Union, the United Nations, and Russia’s decision to rewrite history by labeling the Territories ‘Occupied Territories,’ the Settlements as an ‘Obstacle to Peace’ and ‘Not Legitimate,’ thus endowing them with an aura of bogus statehood and a false history. The use of these dishonest loaded terms, empowers terrorism and incites Palestinian Arabs with the right to use all measures to expel Israel.
The Jewish People’s Right to the Land of Israel
The “Mandate for Palestine” & the Law of War
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, United States President Barack Obama, and the European Union Foreign Affairs Chief Catherine Ashton became victims to the ‘Occupation’ mantra their own organization has repeated over and over in their propaganda campaign to legitimize the Arab position.
Continuous pressure by the “Quartet” (U.S., the European Union, the UN and Russia) to surrender parts of the Land of Israel are contrary to international law as stated in the “Mandate for Palestine” document, that in article 6 firmly call to “encourage … close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.” It also requires, under Article 5 of the Mandate to “seeing that no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of the government of any foreign power.”
Any attempt by the World Leaders to negate the Jewish people’s right to Palestine – Eretz-Israel, and to deny them access and control in the area designated for the Jewish people by the League of Nations, is a serious infringement of international law, and as such - illegitimate.
International Law - The “Mandate for Palestine”
The “Mandate for Palestine” an historical League of Nations document, laid down the Jewish legal right under international law to settle anywhere in western Palestine, the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, an entitlement unaltered in international law. Fifty-one member countries – the entire League of Nations – unanimously declared on July 24, 1922:
“Whereas recognition has been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.”
On June 30, 1922, a joint resolution of both Houses of Congress of the United States unanimously endorsed the “Mandate for Palestine”:
“Favoring the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.
“Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. That the United States of America favors the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which should prejudice the civil and religious rights of Christian and all other non-Jewish communities in Palestine, and that the holy places and religious buildings and sites in Palestine shall be adequately protected.” [italics in the original]
Law of War - Arab Unlawful Acts of Aggression in 1948
Six months before the War of Independence in 1948, Palestinian Arabs launched a series of riots, pillaging, and bloodletting. Then came the invasion of seven Arab armies from neighboring states attempting to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state in accordance with the UN’s 1947 recommendation to Partition Palestine, a plan the Arabs rejected.
The Jewish state not only survived, it came into possession of territories – land from which its adversaries launched their first attempt to destroy the newly created State of Israel.
Israel’s citizens understood that defeat meant the end of their Jewish state before it could even get off the ground. In the first critical weeks of battle, and against all odds, Israel prevailed on several fronts.
The metaphor of Israel having her back to the sea reflected the image crafted by Arab political and religious leaders’ rhetoric and incitement. Already in 1948 several car bombs had killed Jews, and massacres of Jewish civilians underscored Arab determination to wipe out the Jews and their state.
6,000 Israelis died as a result of that war, in a population of 600,000. One percent of the Jewish population was gone. In American terms, the equivalent is 3 million American civilians and soldiers killed over an 18-month period.
Israel’s War of Independence in 1948 was considered lawful and in self-defence as may be reflected in UN resolutions naming Israel a “peace loving State” when it applied for membership at the United Nations. Both the Security Council (4 March, 1949, S/RES/69) and the UN General Assembly (11 May, 1949, (A/RES/273 (III)) declared:
“[Security Council] Decides in its judgment that Israel is a peace-loving State and is able and willing to carry out the obligations contained in the Charter …”
Arab Unlawful Acts of Aggression in 1967
In June 1967, the combined armies of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan attacked Israel with the clear purpose expressed by Egypt’s President: “Destruction of Israel.” At the end of what is now known as the Six-Day War, Israel, against all odds, was victorious and in possession of the territories of Judea and Samaria [E.H., The West Bank], Sinai and the Golan Heights.
International law makes a clear distinction between defensive wars and wars of aggression. More than half a century after the 1948 War, and more than four decades since the 1967 Six-Day War, it is hard to imagine the dire circumstances Israel faced and the price it paid to fend off its neighbors’ attacks.
Who Starts Wars Does Matter
Professor, Judge Stephen M. Schwebel, past President of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) states the following facts:
“The facts of the June 1967 ‘Six Day War’ demonstrate that Israel reacted defensively against the threat and use of force against her by her Arab neighbors. This is indicated by the fact that Israel responded to Egypt’s prior closure of the Straits of Tiran, its proclamation of a blockade of the Israeli port of Eilat, and the manifest threat of the UAR’s [The state formed by the union of the republics of Egypt and Syria in 1958] use of force inherent in its massing of troops in Sinai, coupled with its ejection of UNEF.
“It is indicated by the fact that, upon Israeli responsive action against the UAR, Jordan initiated hostilities against Israel. It is suggested as well by the fact that, despite the most intense efforts by the Arab States and their supporters, led by the Premier of the Soviet Union, to gain condemnation of Israel as an aggressor by the hospitable organs of the United Nations, those efforts were decisively defeated.
“The conclusion to which these facts lead is that the Israeli conquest of Arab and Arab-held territory was defensive rather than aggressive conquest.”
Judge Sir Elihu Lauterpacht wrote in 1968, one year after the 1967 Six-Day War:
“On 5th June, 1967, Jordan deliberately overthrew the Armistice Agreement by attacking the Israeli-held part of Jerusalem. There was no question of this Jordanian action being a reaction to any Israeli attack. It took place notwithstanding explicit Israeli assurances, conveyed to King Hussein through the U.N. Commander, that if Jordan did not attack Israel, Israel would not attack Jordan.
“Although the charge of aggression is freely made against Israel in relation to the Six-Days War the fact remains that the two attempts made in the General Assembly in June-July 1967 to secure the condemnation of Israel as an aggressor failed. A clear and striking majority of the members of the U.N. voted against the proposition that Israel was an aggressor.”
Israel Has the Better Title to the Territory of Palestine, Including the Whole of Jerusalem
International law makes it clear: All of Israel’s wars with its Arab neighbors were in self-defence.
Professor, Judge Schwebel, wrote in What Weight to Conquest:
“(a) a state [Israel] acting in lawful exercise of its right of self-defense may seize and occupy foreign territory as long as such seizure and occupation are necessary to its self-defense;
“(b) as a condition of its withdrawal from such territory, that State may require the institution of security measures reasonably designed to ensure that that territory shall not again be used to mount a threat or use of force against it of such a nature as to justify exercise of self-defense;
“(c) Where the prior holder of territory had seized that territory unlawfully, the state which subsequently takes that territory in the lawful exercise of self-defense has, against that prior holder, better title.
“… as between Israel, acting defensively in 1948 and 1967, on the one hand, and her Arab neighbors, acting aggressively, in 1948 and 1967, on the other, Israel has the better title in the territory of what was Palestine, including the whole of Jerusalem, than do Jordan and Egypt.”
“(b) as a condition of its withdrawal from such territory, that State may require the institution of security measures reasonably designed to ensure that that territory shall not again be used to mount a threat or use of force against it of such a nature as to justify exercise of self-defense;
“(c) Where the prior holder of territory had seized that territory unlawfully, the state which subsequently takes that territory in the lawful exercise of self-defense has, against that prior holder, better title.
“… as between Israel, acting defensively in 1948 and 1967, on the one hand, and her Arab neighbors, acting aggressively, in 1948 and 1967, on the other, Israel has the better title in the territory of what was Palestine, including the whole of Jerusalem, than do Jordan and Egypt.”
“No legal Right Shall Spring from a Wrong”
Professor Schwebel explains that the principle of “acquisition of territory by war is inadmissible”must be read together with other principles:
“… namely, that no legal right shall spring from a wrong, and the Charter principle that the Members of the United Nations shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State.”
Simply stated: Arab illegal aggression against the territorial integrity and political independence of Israel, cannot and should not be rewarded.
Professor Julius Stone, a leading authority on the Law of Nations, stated:
“Territorial Rights Under International Law…. By their [Arab countries] armed attacks against the State of Israel in 1948, 1967, and 1973, and by various acts of belligerency throughout this period, these Arab states flouted their basic obligations as United Nations members to refrain from threat or use of force against Israel’s territorial integrity and political independence. These acts were in flagrant violation inter alia of Article 2(4) and paragraphs (1), (2), and (3) of the same article.”
Thus, under international law Israel acted lawfully by exercising its right to self-defence when it redeemed and legally reoccupied Judea and Samaria, known also as the West Bank.
Legalities aside, before 1967 there were no Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and for the first ten years of so-called occupation there were almost no Jewish settlers in the West Bank. And still there was no peace with the Palestinians. The notion that Jewish communities pose an obstacle to peace is a red herring designed to blame Israel for lack of progress in the ‘Peace Process’ and enable Palestinian leadership to continue to reject any form of compromise and reconciliation with Israel as a Jewish state.
4a)Sadly, in facing Iran, Israel is on its own and can't rely on US
By David Wurmser 
Over the last few weeks, I have read with great curiosity statements by a parade of Israeli experts and former officials, all of whom assert with considerable confidence that at the end of the day, the United States is committed to denying Iran a nuclear capability, and that when the moment of truth arrives, Washington will act – unilaterally if necessary.
Having served in the previous White House – an administration generally accused of being too much the cowboy rather than being timid – and having been charged primarily with following Iran policy and even coordinating it with European capitals, I fear these Israeli officials are misguided. In the post I held, it became clear to me that the Bush administration would leave office in early 2009 having left the Iran portfolio open and unfinished, and that the following administration could in no way go where President Bush dared not venture.
Since 2003, the political opposition in Washington flatly rejected the very concept of preemptive war. Indeed, this rejection of preemption as legitimate became the eclipsing idea on foreign policy and battle cry for the opposition as it geared up for 2006 congressional and 2008 presidential elections. Along the way, rejection or preemption and unilateral action became the defining elements in the DNA of the democrats' foreign policy establishment. But if the views of the Democratic establishment were all that constituted opposition to preemptive action, I would have had more confidence leaving office that this was an issue which either my remaining colleagues, or the following administration, would take care of.
But it wasn’t so. There was just as determined opposition from just about every quarter. In virtually every negotiation in which I was involved, my interlocutors in European capitals were laser-focused on securing from us a commitment that any move by them to toughen their policies on Iran would not be understood, or manipulated, into eventually legitimizing a military action against Iran.
Even the 2005 turnabout on Libya and the following agreements on North Korea were aggressively pursued and then posited by certain European diplomats as evidence that diplomacy can solve such problems and that preemptive military actions do more harm than good. In the background lurked always the nervousness that the United States might again “go off the rails,” and preemptively strike Iran.
More disconcerting, however, were those moments when it could no longer be denied that Iran respected agreements and the diplomatic process which produced them about as much as it upheld the finer points of diplomatic immunity in 1979. Those moments occurred almost like clockwork leading up to every September’s IAEA Board of Governor’s meeting from 2002 to 2007, when Iran was “boxed in” or told its case would be referred to the United Nations Security Council. These were moments of truth: diplomacy and pressures, including sanctions, were either going to produce a change in Iranian policy, or the international community, in unity, would move to the next level of confrontation. But every August, when it was inescapable that Iran had no intention of budging, the international community faced a choice: escalate or acquiesce in Iran’s new level of atomic mastery.
Like clockwork, the diplomats punted, digested the new level of nuclear mastery in Iran, and focused not on answering the choice Iran had forced on them, but instead turned their attentions primarily on formulating a somewhat tougher position which, though utterly inadequate to stop Iran, was calibrated mostly to deflate any momentum building within the U.S. administration to a more robust policy. In short, the international community had a containment strategy; not of Iran, but of U.S. hardliners they feared would push the United States into a preemptive war to stop Iran’s nuclear power.
No appetite for preemption
Again, were the international diplomats only joined by the U.S. opposition party in opposing a more muscular response, it was my impression that a preemptive U.S. attack on Iran might still have been possible. But most unnerving was that most of the established bureaucracy within Washington, as well as half of the Republican establishment, was as determined as the opposition to prevent the United States from acting preemptively. Consistently, our diplomatic and security structures produced analysis after analysis “proving” that diplomacy was working, or that Iran had no intention of pursuing a nuclear option – the most famous incident of which was the infamous autumn 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, muchly revealed portions of which asserted Iran had abandoned a nuclear option, but less leaked portions of which were exposed by some in the press to have essentially concluded the opposite.
Some officials who had served in the Bush administration took to referring to this episode as a “soft coup” by leaders of the intelligence and diplomatic bureaucracy (though not by its rank and file intelligence officers, whose professionalism would have prevented them from asserting something so contradicted by indications) against the elected officials they did not trust. The 2007 NIE, however, served the same role as last-minute diplomatic initiatives did in so many of the previous rounds of potential escalation with Iran.
The period of September 2007 was another moment in which Iran had maneuvered itself into a moment of truth for the international community, and again that community – rather than force the choice on Iran – instead retreated into dedicating its full efforts to puncturing the momentum building within the Bush administration toward a more robust policy. In short, for the bureaucracy, and for many Republican officials within the administration, terminating the danger that “hardliners” would convince President Bush to act preemptively became the highest priority, not actually halting Iran.
For the opposition in Washington, the international community of diplomats, the Washington established bureaucracy, and even for half the Republican party, the end was always the same: prevent the hardliners from prevailing. The means were consistent: public press leaks about the “crazies” in the White House, leaks from within the intelligence community that Iran was not pursuing a bomb at this point, scholars and experts being mobilized to pronounce that “hardliners” in Iran were losing ground to “moderates” who were about to prevail and abandon the nuclear program, diplomats yielding to slightly tougher policies with promises of more to come to prove the moribund diplomatic process still had life, and so forth. And the message was the same to the targeted “hardliners” too: Hold your fire, give diplomacy a bit more time, because it is working, and Iran is budging, or its leadership is changing. And if it does not work in the end, then the whole world will be behind preemptive action. Trust us. But Iran never budged or changed, the international community never really rallied, and the West never acted. And Iran came to understand the nuclear program is not a genuine Western red-line.
No Plan B
Again, this was the history of the last five years of an administration accused of first shooting in a trigger-happy way, and only then gathering the facts. And even in that administration, it was clear to me as early as 2006 that the United States was not going to act to halt Iran. Simply, the political and bureaucratic establishments in Washington, the international community, and even many Republicans, viewed Iran’s nuclear program – as undesirable as it was – as a lower order of threat than the danger of preemptive action. And unless there was a president willing to act on a deep conviction to preempt and thus to buck the Washington establishment, the bureaucracy, the international community and even many in his own party, Washington would remain paralyzed.
Later in 2010, in an amicable chat with one of my successors in the new Obama administration, I listened to him explaining to me how the policy he was crafting – eerily identical to the ones pursued cyclically in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and so on by the administration I was in – was this time going to work, and would, this time bring even Moscow along (strangely forgetting that Moscow already had come along in UNSC resolutions in 2006 in order not to lose its role and influence on the matter). At the end, I asked simply: “if the policy doesn’t work, what is your backup plan?” There was no answer; while he noted the failure of sanctions and pressure were possible, and indeed admittedly even likely, no Plan B was fathomable to him. He could only contemplate more of the same since at some point, “some pressure must work.”
It was, as the great American baseball figure Yogi Berra once said, “déjà vu all over again.” In short, all the factors I witnessed from 2002-2007, when I was deeply involved in the Iran portfolio, had not changed. All but one, that is: In the new administration, there were no more “crazy” hardliners against whom to act. Nobody argued with conviction the imperative of preemption. Washington was at last unified — with the administration and the bureaucracy agreeing without internal dissent — and aligned with the international community that while it would be awful if Iran went nuclear, a preemptive action against Iran was still worse.
Thus, to the bandwagon of Israeli analysts who simply cannot believe that the United States would balk at stopping Iran when it became clear there was no alternative to preemptive action other than acquiescence, I can only say that I have all my life counted on the greatness of America and its tradition of doing the right thing, if even at the last moment. But right now, the cavalry is not going to ride to Israel’s side, even at the last moment. There is nobody of influence within the establishment or bureaucracy in Washington, let alone abroad, seriously arguing for preemptive action, nor are there any factors in the next half year – or even longer – which will change that. While America is not done as the great superpower, we have again become a sleeping giant, like the 1930s in terms of proactive foreign policy. Something much worse and more personally affecting will have to afflict the United States before it acts preemptively stop Iran or other extremely dangerous nations from building armies to threaten and pursuing the most destructive weapons. Until then, sadly, our allies are on their own.
David Wurmser served as Middle East adviser to former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, as special assistant to John R. Bolton at the State Department and as a research fellow on the Middle East at the American Enterprise Institute.
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5)Has the old media worm turned against Obama? By Lee Cary The answer, in a word, is "No."
The old media worm has not turned against Obama, despite the much-publicized Newsweek cover featuring the president's photo with the caption, "Hit the road, Barack."
The cover set off a flurry of fireworks from leftist websites. For example, The Daily Beast logged the outrage coming from several liberal outlets, as well as comments from some conservative sources, including the American Thinker's editor, Thomas Lifson.
Writing for The Maddow Blog, a near-apoplectic Steve Benen wrote:
Benen entitled his piece "Where political journalism must not go" and wrote that "... Ferguson's piece represents political journalism at its most atrocious." He adds, "What Ferguson and Newsweek published isn't journalism; it's a joke."
His criticism represents a rendition of an old saying which, in the Maddow Blog case, should read, "Throw a handful of stones into a pack of liberal columnists, and the ones that yelp loudest are the ones that got hit."
Betrayal, especially by a supposedly like-minded colleague, leaves a bruise. Hence Benen's adolescent criticism in calling Newsweek and its writer "a joke." He really means "insult" (to him and those like him) rather than "joke," since they're not laughing.
(As an aside, one wonders why the Maddow blog piece didn't accuse Newsweek of displaying a racist cover. "Hit the Road Jack" is a Ray Charles song, performed here. Go here for the lyrics. Do you suppose that the racist charge would have come had the picture and caption appeared on the cover of, say, National Review?)
Then, on the heels of Newsweek's apparent desertion from the legion of Obama-fawning news outlets, there came an unflattering photograph of Obama with his face hidden behind a teleprompter screen in Reuters. That got attention, too.
USA Today ran a story entitled "Obama has millions of fake Twitter followers." It begins with:
Add to those examples of an old media that shows signs of becoming more critical of Obama, the verbal spanking that CNN's Anderson Cooper recently gave to the DNC chair, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, albeit delivered in genteel language.
So is this the beginning of a groundswell of Obama-critical journalism coming from the liberal media? Or merely a few anomalies, mostly designed to attract more viewers?
Are some liberal editors and pundits imagining a President Romney and hedging their bets on the election's outcome, just as some campaign donors on Wall Street contribute to both parties?
To paraphrase Aristotle, "a few swallows don't make a summer," and a few examples of less biased media reporting are not evidence of a solid trend.
Like the campaign donors on Wall Street who contribute to both parties, are some liberal editors imagining a President Romney and hedging their bets on the election's outcome?
Past behavior is often the best predictor of future behavior. After John Kerry lost in 2004 to George W. Bush, the New York Times focused on the "flip-flop." Damien Cave wrote, in his December 26, 2004 piece entitled "Flip Flopper," that "[n]ever, perhaps, has such a silly word had such an impact on a presidential campaign."
So the election in 2006 was all about a silly word with a big impact. Really? What does that lead us to expect from that paper if Barack Obama loses the election? How about an article lede reading, "Never has such an innocent sentence like 'You didn't build that' had such an impact"?
If Obama loses, the old liberal media will catalogue the reasons for his fall.
But we shouldn't expect any confession that they intentionally misrepresented him for six years, from 2006 to 2012. There will be no admission of their failure to do journalistic due diligence concerning his background and qualifications to become president. Nor a collective stomach-pumping to purge their Kool-Aid-invoked reporting on him as president.
The old media's postmortem on an Obama loss is more likely to blame racism, the extremist conservative blogosphere, the radical Tea Party, dissention within the Obama campaign staff, and a bad economy that will remain Bush's fault at least as long as former Secretary of State Madeline Albright can talk.
So the answer to the question as to whether or not the old media worm has turned against Obama is -- the worm squirmed some, but it has not turned. Any of their aggravation that may be directed toward him will pertain not to his statist intentions, but to his political implementation. In short, a failure in action -- not motive.
Meanwhile, the Romney folks are sharp enough to know that the old media worm will never fully turn in their direction should they usher in the next presidential administration.
But it remains to be seen if they realize that the media calculus -- to use one of Obama's favorite words -- has irrevocably shifted. Both the liberal and conservative wings of the new internet media are here to stay. In fact, they're both in their pre-elementary school years, with much more growth and development ahead.
We'll know if a potential Romney administration understands this when we see the gathering of White House correspondents at the initial briefing called by the new regime.
Will the camera show the same ol' herd of sheep, but now with a hostile intent? For they will have been sheared in an Obama loss, too.
Or will representations from the new media also be invited, and one or two perhaps even be seated in the front row, where Helen Thomas used to perch?
Will a few Thomas Lifson-types be there? Along with representatives from sites like The Daily Beast and the Daily Kos?
That gathering, if it comes, will tell us much about what to expect from Washington going forward.
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6)Obama Demands Race-Based School Discipline
By Joy Pullmann
President Barack Obama recently signed an executive order hiring race-sensitive bureaucrats to hold meetings and mandate racial discipline quotas.
The order charges his new racial justice team, in part, with "promoting a positive school climate that does not rely on methods that result in disparate use of disciplinary tools." In plain English, that means that if different races have different incidences of disciplinary action, those of a favored race who act worse will be punished less, or those of a disfavored race who act better will be punished more, or both.
It's true that a higher percentage of black students than white students receive school discipline such as suspensions or expulsion. A recent, representative study of nearly half the country's school districts found that 17.3 percent of black students were suspended in 2009-10, whereas 4.7 percent of whites and 7.3 percent of Latinos were. Only 2.1 percent of Asians were suspended that year. The black graduation rate is 64 percent. For whites, it's 82 percent, and for Asians, it's 92 percent.
Given these and similar statistics on practically every measure of academic success and self-discipline, the president wants to require schools to punish equal proportions of white and black students, regardless of how individual students behave. That will mean overlooking infractions by black students or punishing more white students for pettier infractions.
Punishing students differently based on skin color -- that's not racist?
The president's reasoning is utterly incoherent: the superior performance of Asian students must indicate that schools are racist against whites, according to his thinking. Requiring equal discipline outcomes as the president desires would punish good behavior by white, Asian, and Latino students and reward bad behavior by black students. That is just a horrific moral example, teaching students that rewards and punishment should be dictated by race, which you cannot control, instead of behavior, which you can.
The president's policies would perpetuate a victim mentality among minority students -- and such a mindset victimizes no one more than those who hold it. A person who believes that her unhappiness is someone else's fault will be demoralized or motivated to act out against those she thinks have oppressed her, rather than inspired to rise above her circumstances.
That will accelerate the cycle of futile violence and lack of academic ambition already roiling urban schools. Black high school students are 60 percent more likely than whites, and more than twice as likely as Asians, to be in a physical fight on school property, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
The CDC lists risk factors for violent behavior, including family instability, poor self-control, antisocial beliefs and attitudes (such as, perhaps, "everyone's out to get me because of my race"), low parental education and income, low parental involvement, and poor academic performance.
All these behaviors also correlate with something more prevalent among blacks than any other major U.S. group: single motherhood. Two-thirds of black children live with a lone parent. Children of single mothers are more likely to drop out of school, never attend college, and learn less. They are more likely to be aggressive, depressed, and distressed. These children have been irrevocably harmed by their own parents, not by school discipline policies.
Eliminating racial disparities requires race-blindness so all people will rise on their own merits and know they can do so, not giving children a free ride for failure. The real tragedy is that while the president attempts to mandate injustice through race-based school discipline quotas, he refuses to address black Americans about what gives their children the best chance at a good life: an intact family.
Joy Pullmann is managing editor of School Reform News and a research fellow in education at The Heartland Institute.
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7) Morsi to shop for nuclear-capable missiles in Beijing en route for Tehran. Netanyahu, Obama meet Sept. 27
Chinese Dong-Feng 21 nuclear capable missiles
The White House has fixed an appointment for President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to hold talks on Sept. 27. Netanyahu will spend ten days in the United States, during which he will address the UN General Assembly and launch Israel’s counter-attack on the virulently anti-Semitic themes of Iran’s official anti-Israel propaganda.
This timeline indicates that the prime minister is inclined to accommodate President Obama by delaying once again an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program until after the US presidential election on Nov. 6.
It stands to reason that Netanyahu would not fix a date with Obama to take place after an attack, or that the president would receive him. That being the case, there will not be much for them to talk about.
Obama stood up to the blasts from a number of influential American editorial writers and strategic analysts who urged him to offer Israel a solemn commitment for a pre-emptive American offensive against Iran from the Knesset podium, as a means of holding the Netanyahu government back from military action in the fall of 2012. Another suggestion was for the president to formally notify the US congress of his plans for military action if Iran persisted in speeding the development of ifs nuclear weapon capacity.
Obama rejected both suggestions – and Iran continued to accelerate its advance towards a nuclear weapon undisturbed.
Thursday, diplomats close to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, disclosed that Iran had installed another 1,000 uranium enrichment machines in its fortified underground facility at Fordo, and was expanding its production of 20-percent refined uranium.
Experts not bound by the IAEA’s diplomatic constraints report that enrichment climbed to 30 percent some months ago and was now on the way to 60 percent. At least 3,000 centrifuges were now spinning at Fordo.
Israel recently passed information to Washington that Iran had already developed a radioactive (dirty) bomb.
Yet US official spokesmen keep on intoning that there is still room for diplomacy - even after all the parties admitted that the Six Power talks with Tehran broke down irretrievably weeks ago. And Friday, Aug. 24, seven hours of argument between the IAEA and Iranian representatives failed to dent Iran’s implacable opposition to any reduction in its nuclear drive or the slightest transparency.
One can only conclude that, even after Iran has the bomb, the mantra “there is still room for diplomacy” will continue to issue from official US mouths and the Washington-Tehran dialogue drag on, possibly through new channels, as it does with Pyongyang.
After they meet, the US President may reward the Israeli Prime Minister with a marginally more assertive statement about Iran as a sort of consolation prize for his restraint. But that will not change the fact that neither has raised a finger to halt a nuclear Iran, both preferring to bow to domestic political pressures and considerations.
Their inaction has given two Middle East leaders a major boost for progress on their own nuclear initiatives.
Last March, Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who was recently appointed head of general intelligence, travelled secretly to Beijing and returned with Chinese President Hu Jintao’s consent to sell Saudi Arabia nuclear-capable CSS-5 Dong-Feng 21 MRBM ballistic missiles. He also agreed to send over Chinese nuclear engineers and technicians to help Saudi Arabia develop uranium enrichment and other nuclear production capacities.
This work is already in progress at the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology near Riyadh.
In the last few weeks, Saudi Crown Prince Salman launched negotiations with Tehran on a non-aggression pact and other understandings covering bilateral cooperation behind America’s back on such issues as Syria.
It should be obvious from this development alone that the Middle East nuclear race, which both President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu admitted would be triggered by a nuclear Iran, unless preempted, is in full flight, a fact of which they have neglected to inform the general public in both countries.
But there is more.
After less than three months in office, the Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi is following in Saudi footsteps: He will kick off his first foreign trips next month with a visit to Beijing, where he hopes to take a leaf out of the Saudi nuclear book. He then touches down in Tehran, ostensibly to attend the Non-Aligned Organization’s summit opening there on Sept. 26, but meanwhile to cultivate ties with Tehran for common action in the Middle East.
He has laid the ground for this by proposing the creation of a new “contact group” composed of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey to disentangle the Syrian conflict – again behind America’s back.
The optimistic presumption that the Egyptian president will have to dance to Washington’s tune to win economic assistance is proving unfounded.
And Obama’s hands are tied.
In June 2009, he bound his administration’s Middle East policy to mending American ties with the Muslim Brotherhood. Today, he can hardly starve the new Cairo administration of financial aid.
And the Egyptian president is riding high. Believing he can get away with it, he may even proclaim from Tehran that the two nations have decided to resume diplomatic relations after they were cut off for 31 years.
This chain of events confronts Israel with three strategic predicaments:
1. Even if Riyadh, Cairo and Tehran are unable to come to terms in their first efforts at understanding, the fact remains that Saudi Arabia and Egypt have set their faces toward détente with Iran.
2. Saudi Arabia and Egypt are on the road to a nuclear weapon although Egypt is still trailing far behind.
3. In the five weeks remaining before the Obama-Netanyahu meeting, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and China will be moving forward vigorously toward their strategic, military and nuclear goals, while the US and Israel will be stuck in the doldrums of their interminable argument over who goes first against Iran – if at all.
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