Female Obama supporter
This is the ad that should have aired…….
===
|
Also joining us were Avi Jorisch and his wife Eleana, Kim Strassel and her husband Matthew and another dear couple who have a home at Tybee but who also have a condo in the D.C. area because the wife has a thriving CPA practice there.
Avi believes Iran will be allowed to go nuclear He is an expert on money transfers .
Kim and Matthew and their three kids have become wonderful friends and we look forward to their visit sometime in mid April.
We are very proud of our grandson, Henry, who has distinguished himself in a variety of ways and should be graduating with honors.
===
What me worry? (See 1 and 1a below.)
===
What we will miss:
"Early Wake-Up: Prime Minister Netanyahu & Secret Service
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will deliver a live address during the morning’s General Session. While the session begins at 9:30AM there will be an additional Secret Service presence in place for the Prime Minister.
Please account for the added time it will take to pass through security, and be sure to arrive early at the Convention Center to avoid long lines.
Don’t forget your badge and government-issued photo ID!"
===
More random comments from the Conference:
'Do not expect final agreement with Iran. More likely to have a series of interim agreements extending beyond six months. Meanwhile, Iran will keep moving towards nuclear capability and Obama will allow it.'
'Negotiations have bought Iran time to keep cheating.'
'Sanctions and military threat taken off the table and now the 'sanctions' have become more like a penalty for bad behaviour.'
'Yes, Obama has options regarding Ukraine. ' He could bomb Assad.' He could do a myriad of things to demonstrate toughness but will not.'
'alQaeda is not dead. In fact it has more safe havens than ever.'
'80% of Israel's border with Syria now occupied by Assad's enemies and Israel has less knowledge about them and what it means in terms of the future.'
'Unlike Obama who took, and perhaps still does, a confrontational position with Netanyahu, Kerry has worked to produce things that Israel wants.'
'Obama now understands Netanyahu is the man he must work with because there is no other path.'
With respect to the last two random comments I believe Obama and Kerry are engaged in a bad cop good cop shtick and personally I would not trust either. Why? Because Obama is a liar, because Obama has proven unwilling to be confrontational, because Obama has proven himself to be weak and, thus, ineffectual. As for Kerry I do not believe he has the gray matter or strategic understanding it takes to be the equal of Sec. of State George Schultz or several of his predecessors Stettinius, Keenan, Acheson to name a few.(See 2 below.)
=== .
There is always a price to pay. Freedom often comes at a high cost. The question one must ask is it worth it? (See 3, 3a and 3b below.)
===
Weakness feeds bullies and the vacuum Obama has chosen to create is now being filled by Putin and others who are willing to press forward knowing Obama is their patsy.
Obama is driven by narcissism and his belief he can drink his own bath water. His unearned Nobel Peace Prize serves as the mistaken basis of his conduct in matters foreign and his thuggish Chicago and Muslim centered confused upbringing drives his domestic policies. He is a man of contrast - bold domestically yet weak overseas.
He is not what American needs as leadership but we are stuck with him for the next three years so it is up to Republicans to get their house in order and lead where they can and block and tackle where they can.
Are they up to it? They better be or they are doomed in terms of national office because the Far Left's appeal will continue to grow as our nation slides downhill into dependency and becomes more inhabited by takers.
What bemuses me about all of this is that the consequence of Obama's weakness has resulted in situations that leave little by way of options so the Liberal argument is 'what can we do that is rational/' Obviously, they want to begin the debate after the fact. One must never succumb by embracing what do we do now? because ' it is because of the way it never was.'
Had Obama been the president we needed he would not have begun by apologizing blah blah blah and we might not be where we are today - watching the Russian Bear bite Uncle Sam in the behind!
===
Off to Orlando in the morning and no memos until I return late Sunday if then.
Have a great weak as our weak president pirouettes!
===
Dick
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1)
This Georgian Army T-72 main battle tank illustrates gaps in Georgia's defenses uncovered by the 2008 war with Russia. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
3) Freedom Is Not Free
By Thomas Sowell
There may be something to the claim that all people want to be free. But it is a demonstrable fact that freedom has been under attack, usually successfully, for thousands of years.
More random comments from the Conference:
'Do not expect final agreement with Iran. More likely to have a series of interim agreements extending beyond six months. Meanwhile, Iran will keep moving towards nuclear capability and Obama will allow it.'
'Negotiations have bought Iran time to keep cheating.'
'Sanctions and military threat taken off the table and now the 'sanctions' have become more like a penalty for bad behaviour.'
===
|
'alQaeda is not dead. In fact it has more safe havens than ever.'
'80% of Israel's border with Syria now occupied by Assad's enemies and Israel has less knowledge about them and what it means in terms of the future.'
'Unlike Obama who took, and perhaps still does, a confrontational position with Netanyahu, Kerry has worked to produce things that Israel wants.'
'Obama now understands Netanyahu is the man he must work with because there is no other path.'
With respect to the last two random comments I believe Obama and Kerry are engaged in a bad cop good cop shtick and personally I would not trust either. Why? Because Obama is a liar, because Obama has proven unwilling to be confrontational, because Obama has proven himself to be weak and, thus, ineffectual. As for Kerry I do not believe he has the gray matter or strategic understanding it takes to be the equal of Sec. of State George Schultz or several of his predecessors Stettinius, Keenan, Acheson to name a few.(See 2 below.)
=== .
There is always a price to pay. Freedom often comes at a high cost. The question one must ask is it worth it? (See 3, 3a and 3b below.)
===
Weakness feeds bullies and the vacuum Obama has chosen to create is now being filled by Putin and others who are willing to press forward knowing Obama is their patsy.
Obama is driven by narcissism and his belief he can drink his own bath water. His unearned Nobel Peace Prize serves as the mistaken basis of his conduct in matters foreign and his thuggish Chicago and Muslim centered confused upbringing drives his domestic policies. He is a man of contrast - bold domestically yet weak overseas.
He is not what American needs as leadership but we are stuck with him for the next three years so it is up to Republicans to get their house in order and lead where they can and block and tackle where they can.
Are they up to it? They better be or they are doomed in terms of national office because the Far Left's appeal will continue to grow as our nation slides downhill into dependency and becomes more inhabited by takers.
What bemuses me about all of this is that the consequence of Obama's weakness has resulted in situations that leave little by way of options so the Liberal argument is 'what can we do that is rational/' Obviously, they want to begin the debate after the fact. One must never succumb by embracing what do we do now? because ' it is because of the way it never was.'
Had Obama been the president we needed he would not have begun by apologizing blah blah blah and we might not be where we are today - watching the Russian Bear bite Uncle Sam in the behind!
===
Off to Orlando in the morning and no memos until I return late Sunday if then.
Have a great weak as our weak president pirouettes!
===
Dick
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1)
5 Reasons War in Ukraine Should Worry You
Three days after Russian diplomats assured the West that Russia will not invade Ukraine, Russia ... invaded Ukraine.
Conflict in Ukraine began Tuesday, with an announcement that Russia would begin war games on the Ukrainian border, involving three Russian armies, 150,000 troops, 200 combat aircraft and helicopters, and more than 2,000 tanks, armored personnel carriers, and other pieces of "military hardware." Over the ensuing days, it evolved rapidly into an armed takeover of crucial military installations, airports, and communications centers around the Russian military base in Sevastopol, leased from Ukraine in the Crimea. Russia's parliament has authorized a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, putatively to protect ethnic Russians living in the country. Ukraine has responded with military mobilization and a warning that further incursions by Russian troops will amount to a declaration of war.
Last week, New York Times columnist Helene Cooper took a look at goings-on in Ukraine and opined on Meet the Press that "at the end of the day it's not the No. 1 priority for the United States."
That's not exactly accurate, though. To investors at least, events in Ukraine could matter very much.
Here are a few ways how.
Oil companiesLargely dry on the oil front, Ukraine is believed to have ample reserves of natural gas, particularly in shale formations, and in offshore regions surrounding the Crimea. Major exploration companies including Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS-A ) and Chevron Corp.(NYSE: CVX ) have signed agreements to conduct exploration in the country, whileExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM ) is believed to be close to signing an agreement of its own.Bloomberg puts the value of these agreements at upwards of $10 billion -- all now at risk from conflict in the country.
Steelmakers
ArcelorMittal (NYSE: MT ) , the world's largest steelmaker by revenues, has significant operations in Ukraine, including the Kryvyi Rih steel plant in Dnepropetrovsk. With 8 million tons of annual production capacity, this mill is Ukraine's largest, and one of the biggest steel producing plants in Europe. Its location in the Ukrainian east, however, where pro-Russian rallies have been taking place, puts this production at risk -- potentially disrupting world steel supplies and driving up prices.
ArcelorMittal (NYSE: MT ) , the world's largest steelmaker by revenues, has significant operations in Ukraine, including the Kryvyi Rih steel plant in Dnepropetrovsk. With 8 million tons of annual production capacity, this mill is Ukraine's largest, and one of the biggest steel producing plants in Europe. Its location in the Ukrainian east, however, where pro-Russian rallies have been taking place, puts this production at risk -- potentially disrupting world steel supplies and driving up prices.
Airplane makersUkraine is an important market for foreign commercial aircraft. Ukraine International Airlines has four Boeing (NYSE: BA ) 737-900s on order for its fleet. UTair-Ukraine (a subsidiary of Russia's UTair Airlines) is an even bigger customer -- one of Boeing's best in the CIS, and has 40 Boeing new 737s on order. As a rule, big sales contracts like this include a clause releasing parties from their obligations in the event of a "force majeure" -- and one big reason for invoking such a clause is the outbreak of war. A war between two countries in which Boeing's buyer operates could be especially disruptive.
As a matter of fact, should the conflict in Ukraine widen, we could see force majeure clauses invoked by a whole host of companies operating in Ukraine, suppliers and buyers alike.
Consumer goodsAny number of consumer goods count Ukraine as an important market. Western purveyors of detergent, toothpaste, food goods, and so on, all operate within Ukraine, and many own subsidiaries in the country. To cite just one example, Mondelez International (NASDAQ:MDLZ ) , the snacks business that spun off from Kraft in 2012, produces 6,000 tons of Vedmedik Barni cookies in the country annually. Mondelez has also significant holdings among Ukrainian producers of candy, chocolate, chewing gum, and even coffee.
Military suppliersThere's an old saying in military circles that "generals are always fighting the last war." That's largely because it takes a conflict to expose the gaps in a country's defenses.
Six years ago, Russia's short, victorious war in Georgia in 2008 nevertheless uncovered a glaring deficiency in the Russian armed forces' lack of drones -- which Georgia used to great effect in the early days of the conflict. In recent years, Russia has embarked upon an ambitious program to beef up its drone forces, buying some drones from Israel, and building more of its own. The country claims a drone fleet of 500 aircraft today and says it's investing $9 billion in research and acquisitions to further develop its capabilities.
Flip to the other side of the border, and Ukraine's military boasts some 4,000 main battle tanks and 1 million soldiers in the reserve forces. That sounds good on paper, but it wasn't enough to deter Russia from aggression last week. Why not? Two-thirds of Ukraine's tanks are in mothballs, and its active-duty military comprises only about 160,000 soldiers, mostly ill-equipped with Soviet Army castoffs. The country's air defenses, too, proved incapable of preventing Russia from flying thousands of troops into Crimea to occupy the peninsula last week -- so already deficiencies are showing up in Ukraine, before even a shot has been fired in anger.
It's too late for Ukraine to fix these problems now. But farther down the road, after the conflict reaches its conclusion, there will be a reassessment of military capabilities by both sides, and new markets for defense contractors to begin plugging the gaps.
This Georgian Army T-72 main battle tank illustrates gaps in Georgia's defenses uncovered by the 2008 war with Russia. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Conflict is eternal, and defense stocks will never let you down
One of the dirty secrets that few finance professionals will openly admit is the fact that dividend stocks as a group handily outperform their non-dividend paying brethren. The reasons for this are too numerous to list here, but you can rest assured that it’s true. However, knowing this is only half the battle. The other half is identifying which dividend stocks in particular are the best. With this in mind, our top analysts put together a free list of nine high-yielding stocks that should be in every income investor’s portfolio. To learn the identity of these stocks instantly and for free, all you have to do is click here now.
1a)
Obama's botched foreign policy -- a mess worse than Jimmy Carter's
Leaders of other countries don’t respect President Barack Obama, said 53 percent of respondents in Gallup’s annual World Affairs poll, conducted Feb. 3-6. That only 53 percent of Americans think this is an indictment of the news media’s coverage of foreign affairs.
1a)
Obama's botched foreign policy -- a mess worse than Jimmy Carter's
By Jack Kelly
Leaders of other countries don’t respect President Barack Obama, said 53 percent of respondents in Gallup’s annual World Affairs poll, conducted Feb. 3-6. That only 53 percent of Americans think this is an indictment of the news media’s coverage of foreign affairs.
He would lead the world by “deed and example,” not try to “bully it into submission,” Sen. Barack Obama wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine in 2007.
In a major foreign policy speech in 2008, Mr. Obama said he would focus on “ending the war in Iraq responsibly; finishing the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban; securing all nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue states; achieving true energy security; and rebuilding our alliances to meet the challenges of the 21st century.”
The key elements of his foreign policy were to be a “reset” of relations with Russia, and outreach to Muslims.
To symbolize “reset,” when they met in Geneva, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with a red plastic button modeled on the “easy button” in the Staples ads.
“I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world,” Mr. Obama said in a much ballyhooed speech in Cairo in June, 2009.
No president has talked the talk so well, but walked the walk so badly.
The plastic button Ms. Clinton gave Mr. Lavrov was supposed to say “reset” in English and Russian. But “peregruzka” means “overcharged.” Relations went downhill from there.
To appease Russia, President Obama cancelled a ballistic missile defense treaty with Poland and the Czech Republic. But the more concessions he made, the more contempt with which he was treated by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
His Russian policy has been a total failure. But it hasn’t backfired as much as has Mr. Obama’s “outreach” to Muslims:
• Iran is closer than ever to a nuclear weapon. Mr. Obama weakened economic sanctions as a gesture of goodwill, so now the mullahs have the money to finish the job.
• Saudi Arabia is so angered by Mr. Obama’s appeasement of Iran it refused a seat on the U.N. Security Council; so frightened by it the Saudis are talking quietly with the Israelis about joint military action.
• In what had been our foremost Arab ally, Egypt, the president’s dalliance with the Muslim Brotherhood has alienated both the military and the people.
• Mr. Obama waged war of dubious legality to oust Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, an evil, mean, nasty, rotten guy, but not, since 2005, a threat to the United States. (He gave up his nuclear weapons program because he was afraid what happened to Saddam Hussein might happen to him.)
In the chaotic aftermath, al-Qaida has established a stronghold there. An al-Qaida affiliate murdered U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.
• Seventy percent of the 2,313 Americans killed in Afghanistan died after President Obama escalated the war. They died in vain. The Taliban is expected to take over when U.S. troops leave.
• The fighting in Iraq was over when Barack Obama took the oath of office. His inept diplomacy and premature withdrawal of all U.S. troops permitted an al-Qaida resurgence there.
• Worldwide, al-Qaida is as great a threat today as it was in 2001, the director of national intelligence told Congress last month.
• Peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians have gone nowhere, which is nothing new. But Barack Obama is the first U.S. president to lose the trust of both Israelis and Palestinians.
• More than 130,000 people have been killed in the civil war in Syria. President Obama threatened to intervene militarily on one side, then, after pressure from the Russians, in effect switched to the other, to the dismay of our European allies.
Because he so often has “led from behind,” blustered and retreated, our enemies don’t fear our president; our allies don’t trust him; neither do they respect him.
American influence has shrunk along with the president’s stature. During the crisis there, Ukraine’s defense minister refused to accept calls from our secretary of defense.
Not even the hapless Jimmy Carter made so big a mess. Relations have soured even with Canada, which is tired of being jerked around on the Keystone pipeline.
It’s time the news media noticed.
Jack Kelly, a former Marine and Green Beret, was a deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration.
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2) Abbas representative calls
2) Abbas representative calls
murderer of mother and children
"a brave, heroic fighter"
Abbas also sends wreath to honor
suicide bomber who killed 8
PA official at military funeral for suicide bomber:
"We are determined to honor our Martyrs"
by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik
The Palestinian Authority recently held a military funeral for terrorist killer Sarhan Sarhan, who murdered a mother and her two children and two other Israelis in Kibbutz Metzer in 2003. Israel recently transferred his remains to the PA.
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas sent a representative who glorified the murderer of children as "a brave, heroic fighter." The official PA daily reported that "at the end of the burial ceremonies, Tulkarem District Governor Abdullah Kamil delivered a eulogy and farewell speech on behalf of President Mahmoud Abbas":
"We part today from a brave, heroic fighter who fell defending Palestine, itsland, its people and the land of Jerusalem."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 25, 2014]
Abbas' representative further honored the killer, stating that "today we escort this great heroic Martyr like a bridegroom. [He] who sacrificed his life for Palestine." He added that all the terrorists whose remains are being transferred by Israel to the PA "will be escorted as bridegrooms, as this heroic Martyr was escorted."
Palestinian Media Watch reported earlier this year that Abbas honored released murderers, calling them "heroes" four times in the same speech.
At terrorist Sarhan's funeral, the procession shouted anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish cries promoting violence:
"Sarhan, rest in peace, we will continue the struggle!"
"With soul and with blood we will redeem you, Sarhan!"
"Oh prisoners, we are united, and we have defeated the enemy!"
"Millions of Martyrs (Shahids) are marching to Jerusalem."
[Al-Fajer TV (local independent Palestinian station), Feb. 24, 2014]
The funeral procession also shouted an altered version of the infamous cry "Khaibar, Khaibar, oh Jews! The army of Muhammad will return!" in reference to the last Jewish village defeated by Muhammad's army whose defeat marked the end of Jewish presence in Arabia in 628. While the original saying promises a future return of Muhammad's army, the funeral-goers modified it, indicating that this return is already happening now:
"Khaibar, Khaibar! Oh, Jews, the army of Muhammad has begun to return."
[Al-Fajer TV (local independent Palestinian station), Feb. 24, 2014]
At the recent PA military funeral for suicide terrorist Ragheb Jaradat, who killed 8 people in a suicide bombing on a bus in Israel on April 10, 2002, a wreath from Mahmoud Abbas was placed on the grave to honor the suicide bomber. District Governor of Jenin Talal Dweikat participated and reiterated the PA's determination to honor terrorists:
"We are determined to honor our Martyrs - those who sacrificed their blood for our people and for our cause. Today we are gathering, from all [of our people's] groups, to attend this Martyr's funeral - Martyr Ragheb Jaradat who sacrificed his blood for the Palestinian nation and for the Palestinian cause."
[Ma'an, independent Palestinian news agency, posted to YouTube on Feb. 26,
2014]
PA TV reporter at the funeral:
"A public procession which many attended and an impressive military procession, this is the sight at the funeral of [he] who is more noble than all of us, Martyr Ragheb Jaradat. In this scene, our people our trying to express [their] highest esteem to those who sacrificed their pure souls for the homeland."
[Official PA TV, Feb. 26, 2014]
Click to see more examples of PA and Fatah's glorification of murderers.
The following is a longer excerpt from a broadcast from terrorist Sarhan Sarhan's funeral:
Al-Fajer TV broadcast the funeral of terrorist Sarhan Sarhan, posted on YouTube Feb. 24, 2014.Footage of the funeral procession with Fatah flags flying and the truck carrying Sarhan's remains with PA Security Forces' personnel sitting in it.
Song played at the funeral:
"Fatah man with Kalashnikov (assault rifle), Only you please me, the man with Kalashnikov!"
Shouts during the funeral:
"Sarhan, rest in peace, we will continue the struggle!"
"Oh prisoners, we are united, and we have defeated the enemy!"
"With soul and with blood we will redeem you, Sarhan!"
"Millions of Martyrs (Shahids) are marching to Jerusalem."
Tulkarem District Governor Abdullah Kamil marches at the head of the procession, arm in arm with the killer's father.
Announcer: "As we cry, [you should] laugh. You are now the bridegroom of the Dark-Eyed (i.e., virgins of Paradise)."
More shouts from the procession: "Khaibar, Khaibar! Oh, Jews, the army of Muhammad has begun to return."
A speaker near the grave: ""Our ray of light today is in the words of the representative of his Excellency President Mahmoud Abbas, Tulkarem Governor Abdullah Kamil."
Tulkarem District Governor Abdullah Kamil: "In the name of Allah the Merciful. Allah said: 'And never think of those who have been killed in the cause of Allah as dead. Rather, they are alive with their Lord, receiving provision.' (Quran, Sura 3:169, translation Sahih International)
Masses of the heroic Palestinian people wherever you are, members of our nation, today we escort this great heroic Martyr like a bridegroom. [He] who sacrificed his life for Palestine... [Behold], here he is returning today and once again our masses are proving that they are committed to the promise and the oath, and they continue on the journey of sacrifice and giving."
Tulkarem District Governor Abdullah Kamil in an interview after the funeral: "All our Martyrs who were buried in the 'numbered cemeteries' (i.e., Israeli cemeteries for terrorists and enemy soldiers) will certainly return and be buried in a manner that befits them, in an Islamic manner. They will be escorted as bridegrooms, as this heroic Martyr was escorted."
[Al-Fajer TV (local independent Palestinian station),
posted on YouTube on Feb. 24, 2014]
Sarhan Sarhan - member of the terrorist organization the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades (Fatah's military wing). On Nov. 10, 2002, he entered Kibbutz Metzer in northern Israel and murdered Revital Ohayon, her sons Noam and Matan (aged four and five), Tirzah Damari, and kibbutz secretary Yitzhak Dori. Sarhan was killed by an Israeli army force on Oct. 4, 2003 and his body was transferred to the PA on Feb. 23, 2014.
The Cemeteries for Enemy Casualties are two burial sites maintained by the Israeli army for burying the bodies of enemy soldiers as well as terrorists. They are fenced and well-marked. Graves have markers instead of gravestones. Burial is temporary, on the assumption that the bodies will eventually be returned to their countries of origin. No ceremony is held. The bodies are buried in numbered caskets, after their identities have been documented.
The following is a longer excerpt from the official PA daily's article on Sarhan's funeral:
Headline: "Martyr (Shahid) Sarhan Sarhan was escorted to burial in the Tulkarem refugee camp."
"Sarhan Burhan Sarhan's father did not expect the occupation authorities to hand over his son's body ten hours before his daughter's betrothal ceremony. He said that six months ago, the occupation authorities erased his son's name twice in a row from the lists of the first and second phases of the release of Martyrs' remains, and this [was done] moments before they [the remains] were handed over to the [other [Martyrs'] families. Later, the Center for the Defence of the Individual organization called him personally and informed him of the decision to hand over his Martyr son Sarhan at 8:30 exactly, yesterday evening. [He noted that the occupation authorities] chose the right time to make the family's life miserable and deprive the family of the joy of their daughter's betrothal, so that [the joy] would be replaced by memories of their son Sarhan's Martyrdom death [when he] was assassinated by occupation forces in the city of Tulkarem on October 4, 2013 [sic] (should be 2003, -Ed.) for his having been responsible for the operation in the Metzer settlement that brought about the death of 6 Israelis.
At the end of the burial ceremonies, Tulkarem District Governor Abdullah Kamil delivered a eulogy and farewell speech on behalf of President Mahmoud Abbas, in which he said: 'We part today from a brave, heroic fighter who fell defending Palestine, its land, its people and the land of Jerusalem.' He declared that the Palestinian leadership, headed by the President [Abbas], has devoted great attention to the matter of returning the Martyrs' remains, and has succeeded in marking many achievements in this area."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 25, 2014]
The following are different news items on the reception of the remains of terrorist Ragheb Jaradat, whose body was transferred by Israel to the PA on Feb. 25, 2014 and the military funeral he was given by the PA:
District Governor of Tulkarem Abdullah Kamil lays a wreath on terrorist Jaradat's casket during the ceremony held when the PA received his remains from Israel:
Writing on wreath: "Never think of those who have been killed in the cause of Allah as dead. Rather, they are alive with their Lord, receiving provision." (Quran, Sura 3:169, translation Sahih International)
Dedicated by Dr. Abdallah Kamil, District Governor of Tulkarem, to the soul of heroic Martyr (Shahid) Ragheb Ahmad Jaradat."
[Al-Fajer TV (local independent Palestinian station),
posted on YouTube on Feb. 25, 2014]
During the funeral, a wreath was laid on the grave on behalf of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
Writing on wreath: "President of the State of Palestine - Mahmoud Abbas, 'Abu Mazen.'"
[Dunya Al-Watan (independent Palestinian news agency), Feb. 26, 2014]
District Governor of Jenin Talal Dweikat, speaking at the funeral: "We are determined to honor our Martyrs - those who sacrificed their blood for our people and for our cause. Today we are gathering, from all [of our people's] groups, to attend this Martyr's funeral - Martyr Ragheb Jaradat who sacrificed his blood for the Palestinian nation and for the Palestinian cause."
[Ma'an, independent Palestinian news agency,
posted on YouTube on Feb. 26, 2014]
Ragheb Jaradat - a suicide bomber who blew himself up on bus 960 in northern Israel on April 10, 2002, killing 8 people. Israel transferred Jaradat's body to the PA on Feb. 25, 2014.
Official PA TV News reported on the funeral of terrorist Ragheb Jaradat whose body was transferred by Israel to the PA on Feb. 25, 2014.
PA TV reporter: "Martyr (Shahid) Ragheb, who was killed as a Martyr in 2002 in Haifa as a result of an operation (i.e., terror attack) he carried out that led to the death and injury of dozens of Israelis, his pure body was kept in the numbered cemeteries (i.e., Israeli cemeteries for terrorists and enemy soldiers) and [now] his body is being buried according to Islamic law."
Photo of the military funeral held for Jaradat attended by a military guard of honor.
PA TV reporter about funeral of suicide bomber Ragheb Jaradat: "A public procession which many attended and an impressive military procession, this is the sight at the funeral of [he] who is more noble than all of us, Martyr Ragheb Jaradat. In this scene, our people our trying to express [their] highest esteem to those who sacrificed their pure souls for the homeland."
[Official PA TV, Feb. 26, 2014
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Thomas Sowell
There may be something to the claim that all people want to be free. But it is a demonstrable fact that freedom has been under attack, usually successfully, for thousands of years.
The Federal Communications Commission's recent plan to have a "study" of how editorial decisions are made in the media, placing FCC bureaucrats in editorial offices across the country, was one of the boldest assaults on freedom of the press. Fortunately, there was enough backlash to force the FCC to back off.
With all the sweeping powers available to government, displeasing FCC bureaucrats in editorial offices could have brought on armies of "safety" inspectors from OSHA, audits from the Internal Revenue Service and many other harassments from many other government agencies.
Such tactics have become especially common in this administration, which has the morals of thugs and the agenda of totalitarians. They may not be consciously aiming at creating a totalitarian state, but shameless use of government power to crush those who get in their way can produce totalitarian end results.
The prosecution of Dinesh D'Souza for contributing $20,000 to a political candidate, supposedly in violation of the many campaign finance laws, is a classic case of selective prosecution.
Thugs who stationed themselves outside a polling place in Philadelphia to intimidate white voters were given a pass, and others accused of campaign finance violations were charged with misdemeanors, but Dinesh D'Souza has been charged with felonies that carry penalties of years in federal prison.
All of this is over a campaign contribution that is chicken feed, compared to what can be raised inside of an hour at a political fundraising breakfast or lunch.
Could this singling out of D'Souza for prosecution have something to do with the fact that he made a documentary movie with devastating exposures of Barack Obama's ideologies and policies? That movie, incidentally, is titled "2016: Obama's America," and every American should get a copy of it on a DVD. It will be the best $10 investment you are ever likely to make.
It doesn't matter what rights you have under the Constitution of the United States, if the government can punish you for exercising those rights. And it doesn't matter what limits the Constitution puts on government officials' power, if they can exceed those limits without any adverse consequences.
In other words, the Constitution cannot protect you, if you don't protect the Constitution with your votes against anyone who violates it. Those government officials who want more power are not going to stop unless they get stopped.
As long as millions of Americans vote on the basis of who gives them free stuff, look for their freedom -- and all our freedom -- to be eroded away, bit by bit. Our children and grandchildren may yet come to see the Constitution as just some quaint words from the past that people once took seriously.
The arrogance of arbitrary power is not confined to the federal government. An egregious case in Massachusetts involves a teenage girl from Connecticut named Justina Pelletier, who was being treated for a rare disease by doctors at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.
When her parents brought this 15-year-old girl to an emergency room in Boston, the doctors there decided that her problem was not medical but psychological. When the parents objected, and sought to take her back to the doctors who had been treating her at Tufts University, the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families charged the parents with "medical child abuse," and were granted legal custody of the teenager.
Once given arbitrary power over Justina, the DCF bureaucrats kept her all but isolated from her parents for more than a year. To add insult to injury, a judge issued a gag order, forbidding the parents from discussing the case publicly.
Only after Megyn Kelly on the Fox News Channel brought this case to national attention did the Massachusetts bureaucrats back off and turn the teenager's medical care back to the doctors at Tufts University. Whether her parents will get to see their daughter freely again is still up in the air.
Arbitrary power is ugly and vicious, regardless of what pious rhetoric goes with it. Freedom is not free. You have to fight for it or lose it. But is our generation up to fighting for it?
3a)Putin Invades Crimea: Obama Hardest Hit?
By Walter Russell MeadMEAD
The foundations of Obama’s foreign policy have taken a serious beating over the weekend, with his desire to see a nuclear-free world perhaps one of the biggest casualties.
As President Obama scrambles for some kind of a response to Russia’s moves in Ukraine, the stakes for the President and his foreign policy could not be bigger. Putin’s Crimean adventure isn’t just a blow to American plans for Ukraine; it shakes the foundations of the President’s world strategy and in a worst-case scenario could fatally weaken President Obama at home.
Behind the scenes, we are told, the White House spin machine is telling friendly reporters (of which there are many, though perhaps not so many as in 2009) that, in essence, Vladimir Putin has fallen into a trap. “I’ve got him where I want him,” as the hunter said when the bear chased him up a tree.
There is a sense in which this is actually true; Putin is leading Russia down a dead end and the creation of a corrupt, authoritarian and brutal state resting on the exploitation of hydrocarbons will over time weaken and marginalize Russia in world affairs. As a further step down that dark road, the Ukrainian invasion deepens the historical crisis of modern Russia and makes positive progress both more difficult and less likely. There are two kinds of state-building autocrats. Some throttle freedom and succeed in building a strong and modernizing state; names like Kemal Ataturk, Augusto Pinochet and Lee Kwan Yew come to mind. Others throttle freedom and have nothing to show for it—people like Juan Peron, Benito Mussolini, and Slobodan Milosevic. Putin is increasingly likely to go down in history as a failed state builder, a man who took Russia down the wrong path and who added to the burden of Russian history.
But those are long term considerations that, unfortunately for the diligent White House staffers working to spin the next news cycle, won’t help the President now. In the short term President Putin has put President Obama in an ugly spot. President Obama’s foreign policy depends on three big ideas: that a working relationship with Russia can help the United States stabilize the Middle East, that a number of American adversaries are willing to settle their differences with us on the basis of compromises that we can accept, and that President Obama has the smarts to know who we can trust.
Putin’s attack on Ukraine calls all three propositions into question. What Obama’s belief in the possibility of deals with countries like Russia and Iran leaves out is that some countries around the world may count the reduction of American power and prestige among their vital interests. They may not be hampering and thwarting us because we are unnecessarily and arbitrarily blocking their path toward a reasonable goal; they may be hampering and frustrating us because curbing our power is one of their central objectives. This is not necessarily irrational behavior from their point of view; American power is not a good thing if you hate the post-Cold War status quo, and it can make sense to sacrifice the advantages of a particular compromise with the United States if as a result you can reduce America’s ability to interfere with your broader goals.
If that is true, our adversaries might still reach and even keep certain agreements with us, but they would be constantly looking to damage us. Russia’s goals in Syria, for example, might well include the ‘rational’ goals that President Obama thinks could form the basis of a compromise agreement—the defeat of Sunni jihadism, protection of Russian civilians and economic interests in the country and so on—but could also include the goal of using the Syrian war as a method of scoring both propaganda and realpolitik victories against the United States. America is more important to Russia than Syria is; Putin could rationally believe that his interest in weakening America was more important than some of his other interests in Syria. Lucy doesn’t have to be motivated by Iago-like irrational malice when she pulls the football away from Charlie Brown; there can be valid reasons why she wants Charlie Brown flat on his back.
Iran, too, may have rational interests that Obama hasn’t fully taken on board. One of Iran’s objectives in entering talks with the United States over the nuclear issue at a time when the Shiite theocracy appears to be tightening its hold across the Fertile Crescent might be to drive a wedge between the United States and its Sunni allies.
Washington’s flat-footed, deer-in-the-headlights incomprehension about Russia’s Crimean adventure undermines President Obama’s broader credibility in a deeply damaging way. If he could be this blind and misguided about Vladimir Putin, how smart is he about the Ayatollah Khamenei, a much more difficult figure to read? President Obama is about to have a difficult meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu in which he will tell Netanyahu essentially that Israel should ground its national security policy on the wisdom of President Obama and his profound grasp of the forces of history. The effect will be somewhat undermined by President Obama’s failure to understand the most elementary things about Vladimir Putin.
With Hitler-style lies blasting from the well-tuned Russia propaganda machine (attacks on ethnic Russians! mass flight of refugees! fascism!) and armed soldiers backing up thugs in Crimea and elsewhere, President Putin is not exactly looking like a partner for peace at the moment—and Obama’s decision to work with him isn’t making President Obama look like a foreign policy genius.
Prime Minister Netanyahu—and many other world leaders—will be looking at President Obama with cold and calculating eyes. They can see that he turned to Russia for help when his Syrian red line policy collapsed; they can see that he is betting heavily that Russia will help him with Iran, both in the negotiations and at the UN Security Council. They observe how Washington was flabbergasted and stunned by the events in Ukraine, and they are likely to conclude that President Obama’s Middle East policy is in much worse shape than he thinks.
Both friends and foes are also probably thinking today that President Obama is going to have less control over the future of American foreign policy than he might like. The Republicans seem increasingly poised to capture the Senate in 2014 and unless Elizabeth Warren sprints past Hillary Clinton in the Democratic race for 2016, the next US President, whether Democrat or Republican, will likely take a tougher line on international issues than President Obama does. Obama might hope that this will make other countries more willing to sign agreements with him because he might offer them a better deal than they could hope from his successor, but they are just as likely to draw the opposite conclusion. Deals with Obama, they may think, won’t stick because his successors won’t want to honor them.
Ukraine is a particularly tough problem for President Obama because it points to one of the weak spots in the Wilsonian-Jeffersonian foreign policy synthesis he seeks to build. As a Wilsonian, Obama wants to change the world. He wants international relations to be built on the foundation of international law. He wants nuclear weapons first controlled, then reduced and finally abolished. He wants human rights to be observed around the world. But as a Jeffersonian, he believes, deeply, that excessive American commitments and activism beyond our frontiers endanger both the peace of the world and our freedoms at home. He wants to cut back, he wants to avoid war, and he wants America to meddle less and pay less.
He wants, in other words, to pay less into the international system, and take more out.
There is nothing wrong with this as a goal. It is a perfectly rational thing to desire. But the pursuit of it can lead to some strange places, and President Obama is in one of them today.
Here’s the rub. When Ukraine escaped from the Soviet Union in 1990, Soviet nukes from the Cold War were still stationed on Ukrainian territory. After a lot of negotiation, Ukraine agreed to return those nuclear weapons to Russia in exchange for what (perhaps naively) its leaders at the time thought would be solid security guarantees from the United States and the United Kingdom. The “Budapest Memorandum” as this agreement is called, does not in fact require the United States to do very much. We can leave Ukraine twisting in the wind without breaking our limited formal obligations under the pact.
If President Obama does this, however, and Ukraine ends up losing chunks of territory to Russia, it is pretty much the end of a rational case for non-proliferation in many countries around the world. If Ukraine still had its nukes, it would probably still have Crimea. It gave up its nukes, got worthless paper guarantees, and also got an invasion from a more powerful and nuclear neighbor.
The choice here could not be more stark. Keep your nukes and keep your land. Give up your nukes and get raped. This will be the second time that Obama administration policy has taught the rest of the world that nuclear weapons are important things to have.
The Great Loon of Libya gave up his nuclear program and the west, as other leaders see it, came in and wasted him.
It is almost unimaginable after these two powerful demonstrations of the importance of nuclear weapons that a country like Iran will give up its nuclear ambitions. Its heavily armed, Shiite-persecuting neighbor Pakistan has a hefty nuclear arsenal and Pakistan’s links with Iran’s nemesis and arch-rival Saudi Arabia grow closer with every passing day. What piece of paper could Obama possibly sign—especially given that his successor is almost certainly going to be more hawkish—that would replace the security that Iran can derive from nuclear weapons? North Korea would be foolish not to make the same calculation, and a number of other countries will study Ukraine’s fate and draw the obvious conclusions.
President Obama is an articulate, thoughtful man. Anybody who doubts it should read his interview with Jeffrey Goldberg at Bloomberg News, where the President of the United States offers up an intellectually serious, robust and closely reasoned defense of his overall foreign policy. But it’s not clear that his worldview meshes well with the way the world actually works.
While the outcome of crises like this one are impossible to predict and the President could still conceivably turn things around, President Obama’s personal prestige and political authority are balanced on a knife edge. Like JFK after the Bay of Pigs, like Lyndon Johnson after the Tet offensive, like Harry Truman after North Korea attacked the South, like Dwight Eisenhower when the Soviets rolled into Hungary and Ike stood helplessly by, like Ronald Reagan when Iran-Contra blew up in his face, at the moment President Obama has what appears to be a big, fat, ugly, icky and stinky foreign policy fiasco on his hands.
Now as this list shows, foreign policy flops aren’t all that rare; every American president since FDR has had at least one big one. Foreign policy is much, much harder than it looks and only the luckiest of presidents can hope to make it to the finish line without an embarrassing fiasco or two. President Obama is in good company today, and almost every American president must sooner or later learn to cope with these meltdowns. It goes with the job.
Foreign policy flops don’t have to be politically fatal. Jimmy Carter, Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson all either lost re-election bids or dropped out to avoid humiliating losses after big overseas setbacks, but George W. Bush was re-elected long after Iraq had turned sour, nothing could derail Dwight Eisenhower and President Kennedy’s re-election looked to be building momentum at the time of his death.
In looking back at the record of presidential foreign policy misfires, they seem to divide into two categories. Some, as when the Soviets shot down an American U-2 spy plane in Soviet airspace and used the incident to embarrass President Eisenhower, don’t have a lot of impact. These are seen as errors in execution of a policy that is fundamentally sound. As long as there aren’t too many of them and they aren’t too costly, presidents usually manage these reasonably well.
It is the failures that raise basic questions about a president’s ability to do the job, or that appear to demonstrate that his policies are fatally flawed that hurt most. Jimmy Carter’s failure to rescue the hostages cemented the public impression that he was out of his depth and helped open the door to Ronald Reagan. The shock of the Tet offensive, despite ending with a military defeat of the North Vietnamese, convinced a critical mass of the public that Lyndon Johnson’s entire Vietnam strategy was flawed. By 2005/6, the failure to pacify Iraq following the failure to find WMD in the country fatally weakened George W. Bush’s authority and popularity.
This is President Obama’s chief political risk as the Ukraine crisis continues. If the American public comes to see this as just another case of horrible foreigners doing horrible things in a faraway place, Russia’s Crimean romp will only have a limited effect on the President’s authority and popularity. But if the public sees the Russian rampage as decisive evidence that President Obama is too naive, too passive and too, well, Carteresque, then his presidency could be holed below the waterline, and he could lose much of his ability to shape perceptions and policy on a range of other issues at home and abroad.
The specter of Jimmy Carter, temporarily but not permanently banished by the successful raid on Bin Laden, is what has haunted this president’s foreign policy from the beginning. President Obama’s mix of Wilsonian aspirations and Jeffersonian caution is closer to Jimmy Carter’s basic worldview than to that of any other modern president. So far, President Obama and his team have managed to fend off the specter of Carterization, mostly by managing events more successfully than the Carter team could do, but also because American power in the world today is much greater than it was in the Carter years and we enjoy a larger margin of error.
The Obama administration is now being challenged, and not only in Crimea. Both friends and foes around the world (and in the United States) increasingly see a Georgia peanut farmer when they look towards the Oval Office. If President Obama allows that impression to become irremovably fixed, he and the nation he leads have some ugly times ahead.
The question, of course, is what do you do next? I will be back later this week with some thoughts on this difficult subject. Meanwhile, keep your eyes on Ukraine. As I wrote in an essay last year, the events in Ukraine show us world history being made. Unfortunately, world history isn’t always very nice.
3b)Ukraine crisis: sanctions won’t worry Vladimir Putin
Russia holds the trump cards to prevent us from challenging its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Given its gas supplies, Moscow has its thumb on our economic throat
By Liam Halligan
"There will be significant costs and consequences” following Russia’s intervention in Crimea. So said William Hague, the foreign secretary, on Monday. But what can the West actually do to challenge Vladimir Putin’s Russia? How far are we prepared to go to determine the future of a small, sun-kissed territory that juts out from southern Ukraine?
Crimea lies at the heart of a region that is, and has always been, hugely strategic. This picturesque peninsula has seen centuries of conquest, be it at the hands of Greeks or Scythians, the Byzantines or the British. It was the importance of the Black Sea ports to the grain trade, after all, that provoked the Anglo-Russian Crimean War under Queen Victoria.
Today, too, the economic and geopolitical stakes in Crimea are sky-high, if not focused on agriculture (although Ukraine is once again among the world’s top grain producers). It’s the West’s fear of a resurgent Russia that now prevails, fuelling our determination to contain the old Cold War enemy. Mixed into this complex post-Soviet rivalry, as well, are nagging concerns about West European energy security and the systemic fall-out if a near-bankrupt Ukraine defaults on its sovereign debt.
The West’s response to Russia’s Crimean adventures has so far centred on rhetoric and symbolism. The likes of the US, Germany and Britain are threatening to boycott the G8 summit in June, set to be hosted in Russia. Along with Mr Hague’s strong words, the UK has also cancelled a visit by the Earl of Wessex to Sochi, which he was due to undertake next week as patron of the British Paralympic Association.
Like Mr Hague, US Secretary of State John Kerry has condemned Putin’s “brazen act of aggression”, warning of harsh retaliation in the form of a diplomatic and economic squeeze. While there has been no detail, such measures would presumably include visa bans, asset freezes and restrictions on Russian investment and trade with the West – actions that would no doubt provoke an instant tit-for-tat response. But, as a document seen yesterday in Downing Street made clear, Britain is very wary about introducing any sanctions.
Although sanctions are theoretically possible, given that Russia, unlike the Soviet Union, isn’t an economic island isolated from the rest of the world. It is, in contrast, more or less integrated into global commerce and, from the chaos of the early Nineties, has grown into the world’s eighth-largest economy. On what economists called a PPP basis, in fact, adjusting currencies for purchasing power, Russia is the sixth biggest economy on earth, well ahead of the UK and France.
A few days into this crisis, economic sanctions against Russia hardly seem necessary, as the markets are doing the work of those wanting to pressurise Putin. The main Russian stock market index plunged 12 per cent yesterday, wiping out $58.4 billion of shareholder value, more than was spent on the Sochi Olympics. State-owned companies such as Gazprom and financial services monolith Sberbank were particularly badly hit.
The rouble has also plunged in recent days, with Russia’s Central Bank being forced to raise interest rates “temporarily” from 5.5 per cent to 7 per cent. Among currency dealers, rumours abound that Russia sold more than $10 billion of its dollar reserves yesterday, in an attempt to prop up the rouble.
Satisfying as that may be to Western diplomats, economic sanctions will be extremely difficult to impose on Russia and are, for all their symbolism, likely to be counterproductive. For one thing, as is clear to anyone who knows Russia’s commercial landscape, many large and powerful Western companies have invested heavily in this vast, resource-rich country and won’t want their interests harmed.
Post-Soviet Russia has attracted huge foreign direct investment, going way beyond oil and gas. Western car-makers, retailers and household product companies have piled in, keen to tap into Europe’s second most valuable retail market and Russia’s highly educated and relatively cheap workforce. The likes of VW, Ford, Renault and German engineering giant Liebherr have invested billions in production facilities. Other thoroughbred Western corporates such as Pepsi, Unilever, Procter & Gamble and Boeing are also heavily committed – all of which will seriously complicate any attempt to impose economic sanctions on Russia.
Western energy security also looms large, of course. Russia is the world’s third-largest oil producer. Any hint that the flow of Russian crude might be interrupted would cause havoc on global markets. In recent days, as the sanctions rhetoric has cranked up, oil prices have spiked at $2-$3 a barrel. This can only harm Western crude importers such as the UK.
Disruption to natural gas could be even more troublesome, given that Russia is the world’s largest exporter, supplying more than a third of Western Europe’s gas. So Moscow has its thumb on our economic throat. The situation is complicated by the fact that Ukraine hosts a network of Soviet-era pipelines that supply over half the gas Russia sends to the European Union.
Since 2006, Moscow has twice cut off supplies to Ukraine due to payment disputes – with the knock-on effect of halting gas to Western Europe. During the most recent episode, in 2009, European gas prices spiked a painful 20 per cent in a fortnight, causing howls of protest from Western firms and households.
Gas prices on wholesale forward markets jumped ominously yesterday, by up to 7 per cent, even though this year’s mild winter means Europe’s gas inventories are relatively high. Western political analysts, meanwhile, claim that discoveries of shale oil and gas in the US and central Europe mean Russia’s energy grip has been loosened. But such production methods are not only extremely expensive and controversial; the day they’ll deliver game-changing output on to global energy markets remains some way in the future. For now, Russia still holds considerable energy leverage that it could wield in response to any economic sanctions. This reality, combined with protests from powerful Western businesses, means our politicians will struggle to even contemplate the use of draconian sanctions.
Another tool in Moscow’s anti-sanctions armoury is its own fiscal strength. While the Russian economy has lately slowed, with growth currently bumping along at 1.5 per cent, it has expanded tenfold in dollar terms since the late Nineties. This has allowed Putin to pay off almost all the country’s debts – gross government liabilities are less than 10 per cent of GDP, by far the lowest of any major economy, and in net terms Russia is one of the world’s few sovereign creditors. In addition, Moscow has reserves totalling $450 billion, the world’s fourth-largest haul.
As such, Russia holds most of the cards when it comes to rescuing Ukraine from its budgetary predicament. Long before the Kiev protests began, the Ukrainian economy was in trouble. World prices for steel, its biggest export, had fallen by half since 2011. Successive governments, trying to placate a restive electorate, spent heavily, resulting in large budget deficits. Ukraine has been borrowing from private creditors at increasingly onerous interest rates and almost a quarter of the $40 billion total must be repaid over the next 12 to 18 months.
Russia will be a big part of the solution to the restoration of financial stability in Kiev, in turn preventing a Ukrainian default from potentially sparking a systemic crisis that could easily affect the West. Before Christmas, Moscow agreed to earmark $15 billion to buy newly issued Ukrainian sovereign debt over the next two years, so allowing Kiev to roll over its obligations. Having bought an initial $3 billion slice, the Russians have shelved successive purchases, leaving Ukraine’s solvency swinging like a Sword of Damocles over global financial markets.
The EU has talked about “putting a financial package on the table”. Kerry has told the world “a big carrot” is in the works. Yet little Western cash has emerged. Remember, also, that this crisis has its immediate origins in the decision of former Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovych to reject a European trade deal, not least because the EU was seen as unwilling to provide financial support.
Even if a catastrophe is averted in Crimea, and Russia and the West pull back from the brink, Kiev needs $15-$20 billion to avoid financial implosion – and Russia looks like the only realistic source of such funds.
“We’re very concerned about any possibility of a further move by Russia in other parts of Ukraine,” William Hague said yesterday. This is a legitimate position. The trouble is that when it comes to statecraft and diplomacy, money talks. And, unfortunately for the West, the Russians have the cash.
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