I am off to Tybee with our only son and one of our four daughter's and their respective families including our two new granddaughters - Dagny and Stella.
You have a respite from my memos. Take advantage of it and stay informed from other sources.
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When you have no case, resort to theater and dramatics and when you have lost your chance of the higher charge seek a lower one so kangaroo justice is served! (See 1 below.)
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When your enemy has self-destructed that does not mean you are safe. It simply means you must prepare in a different manner. (See 2 below.)
Israel gives Egyptian military green light to clean out terrorists in Sinai? (See 2a below.)
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Plummeting? (See 3 below.)
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I have warned you of Islamist filtration before. Now another warning from a different source. (See 4 below.)
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Thumbnail synopsis of Egypt, why Morsi fell from power and the Sinai.
Morsi inherited problems as did Obama. Like Obama, Morsi made things worse and thus was thrown out but this will not happen with Obama. However, polls reflect Obama's popularity and trust has sunk and his ability to accomplish anything is slipping from his hands daily.
1) When Morsi aggregated authority to himself this created a problem because Egyptians revere their constitution.
Egyptians also respect their Judiciary which has historically played a powerful role. Morsi's undercutting of the judiciary created further angst among the Egyptian population.
2) Another factor was the breakdown of security and increased crime, theft etc. These conditions also threatened Morsi's authority and popularity
Morsi and the failure of The Muslim Brotherhood to bring about economic stability also undercut their collective ability to govern.
Finally, Morsi and The Muslim Brotherhood spent untold funds expanding their control of government thus under cutting their ability to provide services, fuel etc.
3) Finally, the military decided it was time to tell Morsi he had to either improve or leave. The street protests were orchestrated but the powder was there and the failure of The Muslim Brotherhood provided the match.
The Sinai picture is unstable and what the Muslim Brotherhood's next move remains unclear. Egypt's military has the go ahead from Israel to do what they feel they must.
Israel enjoys a good relationship with the current head of Egypt's military.
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Dick
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1)Why the Zimmerman Prosecutors Should Be Disbarred
By Jack Cashill
Toward the end of his closing statement on Thursday, Florida Assistant State Attorney Bernie de la Rionda posted a slide on a screen in a fifth-floor Seminole County courtroom.
"Which Owner would be more inclined to yell for help?" read the banner on the top of the slide. The slide was divided in two. On the left was a photo of George Zimmerman's Kel-Tec PF-9 9mm handgun, and on the right was a can of Arizona Watermelon Fruit Juice Cocktail. Beneath the photo of the gun was the question, "Who followed?" Under the can was the question, "Who ran?"
So absurd was de la Rionda's presentation, and the whole case for that matter, that the can was turned sideways so the label could not be read. Throughout the trial, prosecutors have called the drink "iced tea" lest the word "watermelon" be said in court. "F***ing" was okay. De la Rionda said it more times than the average rapper, but "watermelon," apparently because of its racial connotations, was not.
Hiding the word "watermelon" was the least of de la Rionda's dishonesties. This one slide had several built in. As to who ran, Martin had four minutes to run the 100 or so yards to the house he was visiting. When he attacked Zimmerman, he was still 70 or so yards from that townhouse. Do the math.
Then, too, from the day the State took over the case, prosecutors knew that Zimmerman was the one screaming for help. All evidence supported that save for the dubious identification by Martin's mother. If the State's jobs were to sow the seeds of reasonable doubt, one could forgive them this deception, but that's not the State's job. That's the defense's.
The State's job is to make the case for the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Fifty years ago, in Brady v. Maryland, the U.S. Supreme Court established that a prosecutor's responsibility was "to seek justice fairly, not merely win convictions by any means." In the case at hand, this meant that the State of Florida had the responsibility to share promptly all exculpatory evidence with the defense. It did not.
One substantial block of evidence that it kept to itself until a whistleblower alerted the defense was the content of Martin's cell phone. On Tuesday night of this week, phone expert Richard Connor made a detailed presentation. Although the jury was not present, the respective attorneys were, as were the media.
For dubious and probably reversible reasons, Judge Debra Nelson disallowed Connor's testimony, but prosecutors have known for many months about the downward spiral of Martin's life. In the course of his close, de la Rionda called Martin an "innocent young boy" and made several other allusions to that effect. He was intentionally deceiving the jury. Martin was neither little nor innocent.
Consider the following exchange from November 2011, three months before the shooting. After Martin told a female friend he was "tired and sore" from a fight, she asked him why he fought. "Bae" is shorthand for "babe."
MARTIN: Cause man dat nigga snitched on meFRIEND: Bae y you always fightinqq man, you got suspended?MARTIN: Naw we thumped afta skool in a duckd off spotFRIEND: Ohh, Well DameeMARTIN: I lost da 1st round :( but won da 2nd nd 3rd . . . .FRIEND: Ohhh So It Wass 3 Rounds? Damn well at least yu wonn lol but yuu needa stop fighting bae ForrealMARTIN: Nay im not done with fool..... he gone hav 2 see me againFRIEND: Nooo... Stop, yuu waint gonn bee satisified till yuh suspended again, huh?MARTIN: Naw but he aint breed nuff 4 me, only his nose
The fight followed the mixed martial arts (MMA) format. A day later, Martin would tell a friend that his opponent "got mo hits cause in da 1st round he had me on da ground nd I couldn't do ntn."
As the girl complained, Martin was "always" fighting. He was also something of a sadist. His opponent, after all, did not bleed enough. Why might this be relevant?
Jonathan Good, the closest of the eyewitnesses to the shooting, confirmed last week the testimony he gave on the night of the shooting, specifically that there was a "black man in a black hoodie on top of either a white guy ... or an Hispanic guy in a red sweater on the ground yelling out help," and that black man on top was "throwing down blows on the guy MMA [mixed martial arts] style." That is right: "yelling out help."
On January 6, 2012, Martin got into trouble at school again. When asked why, he told a friend, "Caus I was watcn a fight nd a teacher say I hit em." Said the friend, "Idk how u be getting in trouble an sh**." By this time, Martin's mother had thrown him out of the house for "fightn," and he had moved in with his aunt and uncle.
Martin's younger half-brother, Demetrius Martin, sent one of the more indicative messages. Last seen in the media crying as he remembered his brother during a "March for Peace," Demetrius asked Martin when he was "going to teach me to fight."
"This defendant didn't give Trayvon Martin a chance," said de la Rionda. No, it was the State of Florida, the Department of Justice, and even the president that didn't give Zimmerman a chance. Someone should pay.
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2)Israel to Revamp Army for New Risks
Nation to Cut Conventional Arms, Boost Technology in Recognition of Rivals' Reduced Ability to Invade
By
JOSHUA MITNICK
TEL AVIV—Israel's military plans to downsize its conventional firepower such as tanks and artillery to focus on countering threats from guerrilla warfare and to boost its technological prowess, in a recognition that the Middle East turmoil has virtually halted the ability of neighbors to invade for years to come.
The plan marks a sea change in Israel's decades-old outlook toward the main military threats it faces. Ever since it fought a multiple-front offensive by Arab armies in its 1948 war for independence, Israel's strategic planners and public have been dogged by fears of being overrun by enemy armies, with their backs to the sea.
Formidable militaries in Egypt and Syria, which fought together against Israel three times in a quarter century, are now mired in domestic unrest. The war against President Bashar al-Assad has worn down the Syrian army; Egypt's military is busy trying to stabilize the country amid a political crisis.
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said in public remarks that the army plans to be less dependent on heavy armaments. "In another few years we will see a different" Israel Defense Forces, he said. "Wars of military versus military—in the format we last met 40 years ago, in the Yom Kippur War—are becoming less and less relevant."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has often highlighted Israeli concerns about the rise of instability in the region since 2011. The new direction is significant because it underlines a new belief among Israeli military planners that the turmoil wreaked by the Arab Spring has eased some of the major risks to Israeli national security.
The army plans to cut thousands of career officers, shut ground-force units, eliminate air-force squadrons, and decommission naval ships over a period of five years, said an Israeli army spokesman who declined to provide more details.
The changes are part of a plan which will come up for parliamentary government approval in the coming months to cut about $830 million from the military budget. Israel's government has had to deal with an unexpectedly large budget deficit in 2013, because of overspending and lower-than-projected tax revenue. The military has come under pressure from the Israeli treasury and the public, which has come to view it as bloated, to chip in with cuts after years of spending increases.
Defense chiefs and military analysts said that the overhaul would focus on countering threats from guerrilla armies with rockets embedded in civilian areas, such as Hezbollah and Hamas—conflicts known as asymmetric warfare.
Instability in Egypt and Syria has prompted Israel to bulk up forces against cross-border terrorist attacks from small militias which have filled the power vacuum along the Sinai Desert and Golan Heights border regions.
Israel will also focus on cyberwarfare and confronting its arch-nemesis Iran, which it accuses of seeking to build a nuclear weapon.
Mr. Yaalon said future battles would be decided based on the IDF's technological superiority.
The military reform is the most ambitious overhaul plan since the 1990s, when then chief of staff Ehud Barak proposed a makeover that would make IDF a "small and smart army.'' The plan was never fully realized amid the exigencies of the Palestinian uprising.
Israel's 1979 peace treaty with Egypt led to a military downsizing that drastically reduced its defense expenditures from more than 25% of GDP to under 10%.
The working assumption of military planners over the past 30 years was that war with Egypt was highly unlikely for at least two years going forward, said Giora Eiland, a former major general and national security adviser, in an interview with Israel Radio.
The current overhaul adds another three years to the comfort zone for military planners. "To say that there isn't the possibility of a war with Egypt within the next five years is a pretty bold decision,'' he said.
The Arab Spring has accelerated a shift under way for decades in the Middle East, analysts said. Israel hasn't fought an all-out conventional war against a rival military since 1973. At the same time, the U.S.'s two wars in Iraq eliminated Baghdad's ability to threaten invasion from the east through Jordan.
"The announced changes are serious. A lot of the cuts will not be restored easily,'' said Gerald Steinberg, a professor of political science at Bar Ilan University. "The strategic situation has changed to a more significant degree than it was thought to have changed in the 90s. It's hard to imagine the type of the wars that were once fought.''
2a)Israeli green light for big Egyptian Sinai offensive, after Islamists fail to assassinate Egyptian general
Israel Thursday July 11 approved a major Egyptian offensive for curbing the mounting aggression in Sinai of armed Salafis gangs, Muslim Brotherhood raiders and Hamas terrorists. A day earlier, Egypt’s Second Army commander, Maj.-Gen. Ahmad Wasfi, who is assigned to lead the offensive, escaped unhurt from an attempt on his life. Some of his bodyguards and soldiers were killed.
Maj.-Gen. Wasfi arrived in Sinai just four days ago to set up headquarters in the northern town of El Arish. He was targeted for the first attempt by radical Islamists to murder a high-ranking Egyptian general. As a close associate of Defense Minister Gen. Fattah El-Sisi, Wasfi took part in the military coup which ousted President Mohamed Morsi in Cairo on July 3.
Around 30 Islamist gunmen laid in ambush for his convoy Wednesday. As the cars drove past Sheikh Zuwayed, southwest of El Arish, they came under a hail of RPG anti-tank rockets and explosive devices. A minivan then drove the length of the convoy shooting heavy machine guns and armor-piercing bullets, trapping the Egyptian troops and officers in the blazing vehicles and gunning down those who tried to escape.
A fierce shootout ensued in which a number of attackers suffered losses, Egyptian military sources say. The minivan’s driver was captured and is under interrogation.
Tuesday, at the same location, two buses carrying Colombian peacemakers serving with the multinational force-MFO at the Sheikh Zuwayed base were also waylaid and shot up.
Of deep concern to the Egyptian and Israeli high commands is the Salafist assailants’ prior knowledge of the timing and route taken by Gen. Wasfi’s convoy in Sinai, because it means that Islamist terrorists have penetrated Egypt’s military apparatus in Sinai and gained an inside track on its activities.
With Israel’s consent (in line with the 1979 peace treaty), the Egyptian army last week withdrew substantial strength from the Suez Canal towns of Port Said and Ismailia and deployed the troops in Sinai ahead of the offensive.
On the other side of the Sinai border, Israeli Defense Forces are heavily deployed along the Sinai and Gaza border fences and in the southernmost sector of Eilat.
They are on high alert on intelligence that the armed Islamists plan to retaliate for an Egyptian assault by attacking Israel.
There is also concern that such attacks would draw in radical Palestinian Hamas fighters. They have nothing to lose after their Muslim Brotherhood patrons in Cairo were overthrown and have little to expect from the army. Indeed, the generals in Cairo suspect Hamas of abetting the Brotherhood’s declared “uprising” by organizing a center of armed resistance in Sinai as its launching base for a combined Islamist revolt against the new regime in Egypt.
Their suspicions were confirmed by the placards of Mohamed Morsi alongside black al Qaeda flags affixed to the armed minivans used by the Salafists.
For some days, Egyptian troops have been working non-stop to block the smuggling tunnels between Sinai and the Gaza Strip used hitherto to secrete weapons and fighters into Gaza. But now, the Egyptians are concerned to cut down the traffic of fighting men and weapons moving in the opposite direction to reinforce the Sinai Salafists.
A senior Egyptian official said Thursday that at least 150 Ezz a-Din al-Qassam operatives (members of the Gaza-based Hamas military wing) were seen heading into Sinai via the tunnels. Over the past few days, Egyptian security forces have killed and arrested around 200 militants in the Sinai Peninsula, killed 32 Hamas operatives and arrested another forty-five.By joining up with fellow, Hamas hopes to salvage something from its debacle in Cairo. An attack on Israel or even the threat of terrorist operations may be used as the Palestinian radicals’ bargaining chip with the Egyptian army for improving their position.
By joining up with fellow groups, Hamas hopes to salvage something from its debacle in Cairo. An attack on Israel - or even the threat of terrorist operations - may be used as the Palestinian radicals’ bargaining chip with the Egyptian army for improving their position.
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3)Obama's foreign policy ratings plummet: Americans want a winner, not a weakling
By Peter Foster
(Peter Foster is the Telegraph's US Editor based in Washington DC. He moved to America in January 2012 after three years based in Beijing, where he covered the rise of China. Before that, he was based in New Delhi as South Asia correspondent. He has reported for The Telegraph for more than a decade, covering two Olympic Games, 9/11 in New York, the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, the post-conflict phases in Afghanistan and Iraq and the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan.)
A fascinating new poll is out today that shows Barack Obama's foreign policy approval rating has plummeted over the last two months.
On May 1 the Quinnipiac poll found that 47 per cent of Americans approved of Mr Obama's handling of foreign policy, while 43 per cent disapproved. Two months later the same pollster has Mr Obama running a 12-point negative rating – 52 per cent disapprove, compared with 40 that approve.
That's a sharp fall, given the fact that it comes after one of the busiest periods in Mr Obama's presidency for foreign policy. There was the shirt-sleeve summit with China's new president, the decision to do more in Syria, the announcement of talks with the Taliban and now, of course the coup-that-wasn't in Egypt.
The numbers are telling because they point to a central contradiction of the Obama presidency – how is it that man who expresses such a clear vision at home can look so muddled abroad?
The same polls shows that Obama is seen as "trustworthy" (50-44) by a majority of Americans, caring for the common man (52-45), and a strong leader (52-46) who also get's the thumbs-up for his handling of "terrorism" (52-43).
And yet those qualities don't translate into his foreign policy ratings, and the reason is that in that arena, Mr Obama has displayed none of those characteristics lately.
The frustration in Washington is not so much what Mr Obama has done in Egypt, or even for many in Syria, but the manner of his doing it.
The polls might show that Americans don't care about foreign policy – that they want out of Afghanistan and don't want to be too entangled in Syria, but as Bill Clinton rightly pointed out recently, that doesn't mean they don't want to see leadership.
This doesn't mean boots on the ground or needless wars – though the polls also shows 49-38 per cent support for cruise missile or drone attacks on Syrian government targets - but it does mean providing direction, setting a moral compass for others to follow.
It doesn't mean Mr Obama should be expected, or is able, to solve all these thorny problems, but he does need to pin his colours to the mast.
Mr Obama does this on domestic policy all the time, even though he knows actually achieving his goals on immigration or healthcare reform are incredibly difficult.
His favourite phrase is the "right thing to do", but on foreign policy there is only the "expedient thing to do", or more often a sense of "nothing to be done at all".
It's not that there's a serious majority of people who want to cut off US aid to Egypt, but Mr Obama hasn't even felt the moral obligation to condemn – in person and publicly – the killings in Cairo and urge the restoration of a real political process, as he has behind the scenes.
You could say this was just cosmetics, but the public face of the "Leader of the Free World", as we still see the US president, does matter.
This is not about having naive expectations, but matching the expectations of the American public, who for all their war-weariness still feel in their bones (like it or not) that America is there to make the world a better place.
Mr Obama is visibly weighed down by the limitations of what the US can do in Egypt or Syria, but then makes the mistake of project the burdens of his office to the American public and wider world when – as Clinton intuitively knows - they expect their president to be a winner, not a weakling.
I suspect these numbers reflect much of that.
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4) Islam Taking Root in America!
Warning! Islam taking root in America. Sharia Law soon to follow.
In an exclusive interview with America's second largest gospel radio network known as The Gospel Station Network (www.the gospelstation.com), international Christian broadcaster, Earl Cox, said American silence is rapidly allowing Sharia Law to take root in America. "Islamists are infiltrating almost every facet of American life from inside the US government to security agents at airports to waiters at fast food restaurants to students on campuses to trade union members and officials and everything place in between. As a result, the future of Judeo-Christian values is fading away," Cox said. He continued by pointing out the influence Islam is gaining on trade unions in America as evidenced by Tyson Foods several years ago when they succumbed to trade union pressure to eliminate a paid Labor Day holiday in favor of a paid Ramadan holiday at their plant in Shelbyville, Tennessee.
"The vast majority of Americans do not understand the goal of Islam and thus refuse to see this as a problem and the consequences will be dire," Cox said. He went on to express that it is his hope and prayer that the millions of Evangelical Christians in America will rise up and take a pro-active stand and vote in to office only those public officials who value freedom and democracy as established by our forefathers. “Freedom loving Americans who stand true to our Judeo-Christian values need to become active and vocal rather than remain passive and uninvolved,” Cox stated. "It is the intent of Islam to wipe every non-Muslim off the face of the earth. Islam’s values and America's traditional Judeo-Christian values are diametrically opposed to one another. One says 'Love your neighbor' and the other says 'if your neighbor is not a Muslim and will not convert to Islam, kill him.' If we continue to ignore the growth of Islam in America and if, for the sake of wanting to appear politically correct, we continue to appease and favor those who practice Islam, then we will eventually be doomed to wearing Burqas, Hijabs and Abayas," Cox said. “At the current rate of growth, those who practice Islam just may be positioned to elect an openly practicing Muslim to the Office of President of the United States by the year 2020.
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