This past week was a tough one. A very treasured friend died because he was fearless and had an accident and the complications from it caused his death. He was born in Israel, moved to The United States after getting his medical degree and lived and practiced in Savannah, until he retired.He was also in a very high profile Israeli Military Unit, served with Netanyahu, who called his wife to express his condolence.My friend was a quiet man, always there when I called upon him to support my various endeavors and though I only knew him for ten years, his passing leaves a permanent void in my own life.---In December, I will have my sixth surgery on my left knee so I can, hopefully, return to playing tennis with my buddies.Knowing I was going to get a second opinion regarding my knee, a friend and fellow memo reader sent me some cartoons about aging.
I am also glad I do not live in California:http://www.infowars.com/obama-supporters-sign-petition-to-repeal-bill-of-rights/
Scroll way down and see the cartoons below.
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I understand 11 people were killed by guns in Chicago over the Fourth of July Weekend. I presume , though I do not know, a disproportionate number were black citizens and no one seemed to raise an eyebrow. Yet when an Hispanic, who was initially was deemed to be a Caucasian killed a black youth the press, media and high profile blacks and black local citizens jumped on him so the State of Florida was forced to prosecute.
The State Attorney conducted the trial in, what seemed to me, to be a desire to get it over with and most of his presentation made the defendant look less and less guilty. Harvard Professor, Dershowitz, seems to have concluded much the same. (See 1 below.)
Tom Sowell on Racism! (See 1a below.)
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Pipes sees Netanyahu turning left regarding diplomatic initiatives because Netanyahu seems convinced the current status quo is not sustainable. (See 2 and 2a below.)
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New York politics sinks to a new low as Spitzer's campaign is being challenged by the Madam from whom he procured his prostitute. (See 3 below.)
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Are Americans crazy as a Fox? Liberals and Obama love to hate Fox which claims to be "fair and balanced." A recent poll suggests most Americans get their news from Fox! Are Fox watchers, therefore, unbalanced? (See 4 below.)
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Another up date from Afghanistan. (See 5 below.)
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Dick
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1)
Alan Dershowitz: I Would Find Zimmerman 'Not Guilty'
The verdict is in from Alan Dershowitz: if the renowned Harvard Law professor were on the jury hearing the George Zimmerman murder trial, he would find the defendant not guilty.
"I would say there's reasonable doubt. I would say nobody knows who started the initial fight," Dershowitz told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.
"Remember, it's monumentally irrelevant who's morally guilty here."
Zimmerman, who identifies himself as Hispanic, is charged with second-degree murder in the death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed teenager in Sanford, Fla.
Zimmerman, a 29-year-old neighborhood watch volunteer for his community, says he shot Martin, 17, in self-defense during an altercation. But prosecutors charge that Zimmerman profiled the African-American youth as he walked back from a convenience store to the home of his father's fiancée.
"Whether or not Zimmerman was a racist and racially profiled and shouldn’t have been doing it and didn’t listen to police, that's all irrelevant in Florida law," Dershowitz said.
"The case begins when the first blow was struck, essentially. And we don’t know who struck the first blow. We don’t know if Trayvon Martin came out from behind of a dark area and jumped him and got him down.
"And as long as we don’t know that, [and] we don’t know whose voice it was who was yelling, 'Help me! Help me!' That's reasonable doubt."
He said reasonable doubt boils down to percentages.
"If you think it's 60 percent likely or 70 percent or even 80 percent likely that Zimmerman is guilty and doesn’t deserve self-defense, you have to acquit," Dershowitz said.
"It has to be much higher than that. It has to be certainly like 90 percent likely before you can say there's no reasonable doubt. So, if I were on the jury, I would find reasonable doubt."
But that doesn't mean Zimmerman is a choirboy, according to Dershowitz.
"I might not want to be friendly with George Zimmerman at the end of the case … I certainly would not declare him innocent. There's a big difference between declaring him innocent and declaring him not guilty," he said.
As to the possibility of violence in the streets should Zimmerman walk free, Dershowitz believes calm will prevail.
"The Martin family are very decent people. They seem to have, in every way, indicated that they would not want that kind of a response," he said.
"So, unless some irresponsible people come from out of town to try to stir something up, I don’t think we're seeing a Rodney King-type response."
Dershowitz said there are many differences between the cases of Zimmerman and King, who in 1991 was beaten by Los Angeles cops who were later acquitted — a verdict that sparked six days of riots in which 53 were killed.
"This is not a Rodney King case. Rodney King, you saw it on video. There was no justification for doing what they did to that poor man," Dershowitz said.
"In this case, it's very confusing. It's very conflicted … Self-defense is a very important principle in American law and people forget, too, that the government has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that he didn’t act in self-defense. They have to prove a negative beyond a reasonable doubt which is not easy to do."
The Zimmerman case could go to the jury as early as next week.
1a)Who Is Racist?
ByThomas Sowell
I am so old that I can remember when most of the people promoting race hate were white.
Apparently other Americans also recognize that the sources of racism are different today from what they were in the past. According to a recent Rasmussen poll, 31 percent of blacks think that most blacks are racists, while 24 percent of blacks think that most whites are racist.
The difference between these percentages is not great, but it is remarkable nevertheless. After all, generations of blacks fought the white racism from which they suffered for so long. If many blacks themselves now think that most other blacks are racist, that is startling.
The moral claims advanced by generations of black leaders -- claims that eventually touched the conscience of the nation and turned the tide toward civil rights for all -- have now been cheapened by today's generation of black "leaders," who act as if it is all just a matter of whose ox is gored.
Even in legal cases involving terrible crimes -- the O.J. Simpson murder trial or the charges of gang rape against Duke University students -- many black "leaders" and their followers have not waited for facts about who was guilty and who was not, but have immediately taken sides, based on who was black and who was white.
Among whites, according to the same Rasmussen poll, 38 percent consider most blacks racist and 10 percent consider most whites racist.
Broken down by politics, the same poll showed that 49 percent of Republicans consider most blacks racist, as do 36 percent of independents and 29 percent of Democrats.
Perhaps most disturbing of all, just 29 percent of Americans as a whole think race relations are getting better, while 32 percent think race relations are getting worse. The difference is too close to call, but the fact that it is so close is itself painful -- and perhaps a warning sign for where we are heading.
Is this what so many Americans, both black and white, struggled for, over the decades and generations, to try to put the curse of racism behind us -- only to reach a point where retrogression in race relations now seems at least equally likely as progress?
What went wrong? Perhaps no single factor can be blamed for all the things that went wrong. Insurgent movements of all sorts, in countries around the world, have for centuries soured in the aftermath of their own success. "The revolution betrayed" is a theme that goes back at least as far as 18th century France.
The civil rights movement in 20th century America attracted many people who put everything on the line for the sake of fighting against racial oppression. But the eventual success of that movement attracted opportunists, and even turned some idealists into opportunists.
Over the generations, black leaders have ranged from noble souls to shameless charlatans. After the success of the civil rights insurgency, the latter have come into their own, gaining money, power and fame by promoting racial attitudes and actions that are counterproductive to the interests of those they lead.
None of this is unique to blacks or to the United States. In various countries and times, leaders of groups that lagged behind, economically and educationally, have taught their followers to blame all their problems on other people -- and to hate those other people.
This was the history of anti-Semitic movements in Eastern Europe between the two World Wars, anti-Ibo movements in Nigeria in the 1960s, and anti-Tamil movements that turned Sri Lanka from a peaceful nation into a scene of lethal mob violence and then decades-long civil war, both marked by unspeakable atrocities.
Groups that rose from poverty to prosperity seldom did so by having racial or ethnic leaders. While most Americans can easily name a number of black leaders, current or past, how many can name Asian American ethnic leaders or Jewish ethnic leaders?
The time is long overdue to stop looking for progress through racial or ethnic leaders. Such leaders have too many incentives to promote polarizing attitudes and actions that are counterproductive for minorities and disastrous for the country.
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2)Is Netanyahu Turning Left?
By Daniel Pipes
2a)Anti-Semitic Hate for Kids . and Adults < Commentary Magazine
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By Daniel Pipes
With Syria and Egypt aflame, why is U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry returning to the Middle East for his sixth visit since February to focus on more Israeli-Palestinian shuttle diplomacy?
In part, because he and other liberals think that the Arab and Iranian (and now Turkish?) war on Israel boils down to an Israel-Palestinian conflict and therefore they over-emphasize this dimension; in part, too, because he subscribes to the liberal illusion that Israel-related issues constitute the “epicenter” of the region (as James L. Jones, then Obama's national security adviser, once put it), so their resolution must precede dealing with other Middle Eastern problems.
John Kerry seizing up Binyamin Netanyahu.
But there's another possible reason for Kerry's enthusiasm: he took the measure of Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and found him indeed serious about reaching an accord with the Palestinians, and not just pretending enthusiasm to please Washington.
This, anyway, is the thesis of David M. Weinberg of Bar-Ilan University writing in Israel Hayom: “Netanyahu has been making uncharacteristically passionate statements about the diplomatic process; statements that go beyond the expected chatter about Israel's desire to engage the Palestinians and negotiate a two-state solution.” Weinberg finds Netanyahu “desperate for diplomatic movement[, having] bought into the left-wing argument that the status quo is unsustainable.” Weinberg perceives preparations now underway for “a unilateral Israeli initiative to concede significant parts of Judea and Samaria.”
Why should Netanyahu, who emphatically did not campaign on this platform, make such plans? Weinberg looks mainly to domestic politics:
Netanyahu has no other national agenda item to sustain his prime ministership. He needs a new message that will reposition him as a leader in the public mind, and the Palestinian issue is all he's got to work with. The lead on economic and social matters has been grabbed by [political competitors Yair] Lapid and [Naftali] Bennett. There's little Netanyahu can do about the hot situation in Syria or Iran. His job is to react wisely and cautiously to developments on these fronts, not lead Israel into confrontation.
A unilateral Israeli withdrawal, Weinberg notes, “would blow the Lapid-Bennett alliance out of the water—something which is Netanyahu's highest political priority.” The prime minister would then “bask in the glow of praise of Washington and Tel Aviv elites,” pick up center- and left-electoral support, and presumably coast to another electoral victory.
This explanation does not convince me: Iran poses a potentially existential threat to Israel and coping with it quite suffices to “sustain his prime ministership.” The Israeli public is focused on Tehran, not Ramallah, and Netanyahu, who boasts that he spends 70 percent of his time on security issues, hardly needs diplomacy with Mahmoud Abbas to prove his leadership.
David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973), the standard against whom subsequent Israeli prime ministers judge themselves. Time magazine, Aug. 16, 1948.
Rather, his motives probably lie elsewhere: like other prime ministers of Israel, Netanyahu suffers from what I have dubbed the “Ben-Gurion complex,” a desire to go down in Jewish history as a renowned leader. (David Ben-Gurion oversaw the founding of modern Israel). In his third term and (after Ben-Gurion himself) the country's second-longest serving prime minister, Netanyahu is all the more susceptible to this aspiration.
Post-1948, the Ben-Gurion complex translates into ending the external threats to Israel. Unfortunately, this worthy ambition has inspired repeated duplicity and distortion. As I described the phenomenon in 2004, “First, every elected prime minister [since 1992, being Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, and Netanyahu] has broken his word on how he would deal with the Arabs. Second, each one of them has adopted an unexpectedly concessionary approach.”
Netanyahu made a campaign promise in 1996 that, were he in charge, Israel “will never descend from the Golan”; but a mere two years later he tried to offer Damascus the entire Golan territory in return for a mere slip of paper. (Had Netanyahu succeeded then, imagine the consequences today, what with Syria aflame and Al-Qaeda units approaching Israel's borders.) Fortunately, his cabinet colleagues obstructed him from implementing this folly.
Thanks to key cabinet members, Israel retains control of the Golan Heights, here looking into Syria territory.
These days, a center-left consensus intones that eliminating the external threat to Israel requires a two-state deal with the Palestinians. (I disagree.) Will Netanyahu turn to the left, defy his constituency and sign such an accord to win re-election? The pattern of wayward prime ministers plus Netanyahu's biography have caused me since 2009 to worry about such a betrayal of his mandate.
But perhaps we will be spared from learning an answer: Palestinian intransigence is annoying Kerry and might, yet again, take the diplomatic pressure off Israel.
Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org) is president of the Middle East Forum.
…. whenever Kerry does get back to wandering between Jerusalem and Ramallah, the same obstacles that have prevented peace will still be there. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas knows that if he does as Kerry bids and negotiates with Israel and signs an agreement ending the conflict, he will be running up against the Palestinian reluctance to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders might be drawn. But while the media continues to focus on the deadlocked talks about talks, they rarely devote much energy to determining what exactly is driving the Palestinian culture of rejection.
Part of the answer to that puzzle is supplied from those who, unlike the mainstream media, do pay attention to what is written and broadcast in the official Palestinian media run by Abbas’s PA. Those wondering why anyone would think Palestinians would reject peace offers including an independent state (as they have three times since 2000), could do no better than to view this PA TV excerpt brought to our attention from Palestinian Media Watch in which two little Palestinian girls area asked to a hateful poem that refers to Jews in the following manner:
“Most evil among creations, barbaric monkeys, wretched pigs,” condemned to “humiliation and hardship.”
It also went on to say the following about the Jewish presence in Jerusalem:
Jerusalem vomits from within it your impurity
Because Jerusalem, you impure ones, is pious, immaculate
And Jerusalem, you who are filth, is clean and pure.
It is shocking that the official media of the group that Kerry considers a partner for peace would be broadcasting hate and using children to do it. But, of course, as anyone who follows the PMW Website regularly knows, there is actually nothing unusual about the PA acting in this manner.
The PA media has broadcast a steady diet of hatred against Israel and Jews since its inception after the Oslo Accords brought it into existence with numerous examples of them employing children and broadcasts specifically aimed at youngsters to do so. One of the great tragedies of the last 20 years has been the way Israel’s supposed peace partners have sowed the seeds of future conflict by inculcating their youth with doctrines that treat Jews as subhuman monsters with no rights or claims upon the land that both sides claim as their own.
There will be those who will argue that similar hatred exists among Israelis as occasional incidents inside the green line and so-called “price tag” attacks on Palestinians in the territories indicate. But the difference between the two sides is actually illustrative of the way Israel has embraced hope for peace while Palestinians have not….
3)Spitzer to Face Prostitution Ringleader in Comptroller Bid
Former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who Sunday announced his candidacy for New York City comptroller, says he wants to help shape the city's budget and work on Wall Street accountability.
And in a bizarre twist, Spitzer, who resigned in 2008 after it became known he frequented prostitutes, will be running against libertarian Kristin Davis, the former Manhattan "Madam" who ran the high-class prostitution ring used by Spitzer and other high-powered clients, Breitbart reported.
Spitzer discussed his reasons for running during a round of television and radio interviews Monday. On CBS' "This Morning," he cited shareholder power, corporate governance, protecting pensions, and investing city money among his priorities.
"It's now five years later. I hope they [voters] look back at what I did as attorney general, as governor, as a prosecutor and say, 'Hey, this guy was ahead of the curve on Wall Street issues,'" he said.
"I want to do to that office what I did to the attorney general's office, re-envision it, re-imagine it."
Spitzer would have been aware he was running against Davis when he made his decision to join the race, Breitbart reported, as Davis announced her candidacy months ago.
"This is going to be the funnest campaign ever," said Davis, who went to prison for three months for her role in running the escort service, according to Breitbart.
"I've been waiting for my day to face him for five years," she reportedly told the New York Daily News. "I sat … in Rikers Island, I came out penniless and nothing happened to him. The hypocrisy there is huge."
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And in a bizarre twist, Spitzer, who resigned in 2008 after it became known he frequented prostitutes, will be running against libertarian Kristin Davis, the former Manhattan "Madam" who ran the high-class prostitution ring used by Spitzer and other high-powered clients, Breitbart reported.
Spitzer discussed his reasons for running during a round of television and radio interviews Monday. On CBS' "This Morning," he cited shareholder power, corporate governance, protecting pensions, and investing city money among his priorities.
"It's now five years later. I hope they [voters] look back at what I did as attorney general, as governor, as a prosecutor and say, 'Hey, this guy was ahead of the curve on Wall Street issues,'" he said.
"I want to do to that office what I did to the attorney general's office, re-envision it, re-imagine it."
Spitzer would have been aware he was running against Davis when he made his decision to join the race, Breitbart reported, as Davis announced her candidacy months ago.
"This is going to be the funnest campaign ever," said Davis, who went to prison for three months for her role in running the escort service, according to Breitbart.
"I've been waiting for my day to face him for five years," she reportedly told the New York Daily News. "I sat … in Rikers Island, I came out penniless and nothing happened to him. The hypocrisy there is huge."
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4)Gallup: Fox News Leading Single Source for News
By Jim Meyers
Overall, 55 percent of respondents say that television is their main source for news, while 21 percent rely on the Internet as their main source. Only 9 percent now cite newspapers or other print publications as their main source, and 6 percent say radio.
In the survey of more than 2,000 adults, 26 percent cite television as their main source without naming a particular network or station, and 4 percent cite local TV news, while 8 percent say they rely on Fox News as their main source, ahead of CNN at 7 percent.
Remarkably, just 1 percent cite ABC or NBC, and less than 0.5 percent name CBS. Among other cable sources, a scant 1 percent rely on MSNBC, CNBC, or PBS. Other respondents cited very small percentages of cable news stations.
"Internet/Computer/Online (non-specific)" is chosen by 18 percent of respondents as their main source, and 2 percent choose "Facebook/Twitter/Social media."
Just 6 percent cite nonspecific newspapers, and only The New York Times and Wall Street Journal are named by at least 1 percent of respondents.
Interestingly, only 1 percent say they don't follow the news.
Reliance on the Internet for news is far more prevalent among younger Americans — 27 percent of those 18 to 29 years old and 28 percent of respondents age 30 to 49 use online resources as their main source for news, compared to 6 percent of those 65 and older.
Republicans are more likely than Democrats or independents to turn to TV for their news, and "Fox News is a clear driver of Republicans' higher tendency to turn to television, with 20 percent versus 6 percent of independents and 1 percent of Democrats naming it as their main news source," Gallup reports.
Two-thirds of core Fox News viewers identify themselves as Republican, and 94 percent identify themselves as, or lean Republican. By contrast, 63 percent of core CNN viewers identify or lean Democratic.
Other findings of the poll include:
Television is America's main source for news about current events, and Fox News is the leading single source for news, an eye-opening new Gallup poll reveals.
Overall, 55 percent of respondents say that television is their main source for news, while 21 percent rely on the Internet as their main source. Only 9 percent now cite newspapers or other print publications as their main source, and 6 percent say radio.
In the survey of more than 2,000 adults, 26 percent cite television as their main source without naming a particular network or station, and 4 percent cite local TV news, while 8 percent say they rely on Fox News as their main source, ahead of CNN at 7 percent.
Remarkably, just 1 percent cite ABC or NBC, and less than 0.5 percent name CBS. Among other cable sources, a scant 1 percent rely on MSNBC, CNBC, or PBS. Other respondents cited very small percentages of cable news stations.
"Internet/Computer/Online (non-specific)" is chosen by 18 percent of respondents as their main source, and 2 percent choose "Facebook/Twitter/Social media."
Just 6 percent cite nonspecific newspapers, and only The New York Times and Wall Street Journal are named by at least 1 percent of respondents.
Interestingly, only 1 percent say they don't follow the news.
Reliance on the Internet for news is far more prevalent among younger Americans — 27 percent of those 18 to 29 years old and 28 percent of respondents age 30 to 49 use online resources as their main source for news, compared to 6 percent of those 65 and older.
Republicans are more likely than Democrats or independents to turn to TV for their news, and "Fox News is a clear driver of Republicans' higher tendency to turn to television, with 20 percent versus 6 percent of independents and 1 percent of Democrats naming it as their main news source," Gallup reports.
Two-thirds of core Fox News viewers identify themselves as Republican, and 94 percent identify themselves as, or lean Republican. By contrast, 63 percent of core CNN viewers identify or lean Democratic.
Other findings of the poll include:
- 32 percent of college graduates and 27 percent of those with a post-graduate degree rely on the Internet for their news, compared to just 13 percent of those with a high school education or less. Even among college graduates, only 7 percent cite print as their main source for news;
- Two-thirds of core Fox News viewers are 50 or older, compared to 35 percent of CNN-oriented news consumers.
- Fox News viewers are much more likely than core CNN viewers to attend church weekly and earn $75,000 or more a year.
- 79 percent of Fox News viewers describe their political views as conservative, 17 percent as moderate, and 2 percent as liberal. Among CNN viewers, 21 percent are conservative, 51 percent moderate, and 26 percent liberal.
- Nearly all Fox viewers — 97 percent — disapprove of the job President Barack Obama is doing, as do 40 percent of CNN viewers.
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- 5)Dear Friends and Family,Another week has passed meaning I will be returning home in about 24 weeks. That’s like…just around the corner (unless you are here which makes it as far away as the next millennium). My nights seem to go by pretty fast as I have the routine down. However, I don’t have a lot of human interaction as I work when most sleep.For those who care what goes on in Afghanistan, the peace process still is at a standstill. None of the sides want to talk and everybody’s feelings get hurt. The good news is that all sides seem “slightly” interested in talking but no one wants to blink first. Eventually they will have to but time is aplenty (in their minds) before 2014 ends and the U.N.-mandated, NATO-led Operation Enduring Freedom officially ends.Ollie North has come and gone. Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham have come and gone. I did see Ollie but didn’t have the time to hang with him like I did 2 years ago when I escorted him. I tried to avoid Senator McCain. Last time I saw him it cost me $2,300 (I say that jokingly as I like him, but thanks to my good friend Steve Green, it did cost me $2,300 to attend the fundraiser). The good news about writing a check like that…all the great mail you get from every conservative candidate and organization in the U.S. For my Democrat friends, I get your mail also as my contributions to several of our leading local Dems put me on those lists.Speaking of mail…it seems to never get here. I’m not blaming any of you for not sending anything, it’s the system in Afghanistan. I am waiting on several packages that have not quite arrived to me yet. They’re all going to get here tomorrow…maybe.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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