Monday, June 30, 2014

Obama down by 9 Zip. Past Time for Israel to "Whack a Mole" and Take Off The Gloves!



I'm off to the gym after I send this and then going to play tennis.
===The Supreme Court has played' whack a mole' with Obama's domestic agenda.

Obama recently blamed Republican obstruction for causing him  to circumvent Congress in order to pass unconstitutional legislation. 

The arrogance and hubris of this disaster of a president knows no bounds.

So far in just the past few weeks the score is: Constitution 3 - Obama 0.

(Republicans are willing to negotiate immigration legislation but they have learned , as the nation finally has, Obama's word is meaningless. (See 1 below.)

In  foreign affair matters the score is worse: Islamist Radicals and Putin 6 Obama 0. (See 1a below.)

That said, there is not a 'smidgen' of truth to suggest Obama had anything to do with setting  the tone that has led to the various scandals that have engulfed his administration. No doubt it is because the stars are unaligned and all that  pollution from coal emissions.
===
Why The Bull still has legs! (See 2 below.)
===
My sentiments exactly.

It is time to deal Hamas a wipe out blow and bring those living in Gaza to their knees!

Carterites, Presbyterians and the rest of the 'anti-Israel  bleeders' will object to anything Israel does so ignore them  because  it is well past the  time for  Israel takes off the gloves, take restraint off the table and 'whack a mole' in earnest!!!!   (See 3 and 3a below.)
Dick
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) GOP warns Obama: Don't Overstep Executive Powers On Immigration


Conservatives railed at President Barack Obama's announcement Monday that he would  take executive action to reform the U.S. immigration system after hopes of passing legislation in Congress officially died.
Republican John Boehner, speaker of the House of Representatives, said the announcement was "sad" and "disappointing"  and warned that unilateral action was not a solution.

"In our conversation last week, I told the president what I have been telling him for months: the American people and their elected officials don't trust him to enforce the law as written," Boehner said in a statement. "Until that changes, it is going to be difficult to make progress on this issue... It is sad and disappointing that – faced with this challenge – President Obama won't work with us, but is instead intent on going it alone with executive orders that can't and won't fix these problems.

Boehner told Obama last week that his chamber would not vote on immigration reform this year, killing chances that a wide-ranging bill passed by the Senate would become law.

Republicans have seized on the Central American surge to criticize the president’s immigration policies.  Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith is warning Obama could face legal action is he goes too far on his own.

“If the president insists on enacting amnesty by executive order,” said Smith, “he will undoubtedly face a lawsuit and will find himself, once again, on the wrong side of the Constitution and the law.”

The collapse of the legislative process delivers another in a series of blows to Obama's domestic policy agenda and comes as he struggles to deal with a flood of unaccompanied minors largely from Central America who have entered the United States.

It also sets up a new battle with congressional Republicans, who accuse Obama of going beyond his legal authority to take executive action on issues such as gay rights and equal pay for women and men.

Obama chided House Republicans for refusing to bring immigration reform to a vote and said only legislation could provide a permanent fix to the problem.

"I take executive action only when we have a serious problem, a serious issue, and Congress chooses to do nothing. And in this situation, the failure of House Republicans to pass a darn bill is bad for our security; it's bad for our economy, and it's bad for our future," Obama said in the White House Rose Garden.

"America cannot wait forever for them to act. That's why today I'm beginning a new effort to fix as much of our immigration system as I can on my own, without Congress."

But Boehner, in his statement, fired back saying Obama caused the border crisis by his haphazard immigration policies.

"The president’s own executive orders have led directly to the humanitarian crisis along the Southern border, giving false hope to children and their families that if they enter the country illegally they will be allowed to stay," Boehner chided.

Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly also criticized Obama's actions, playing a video Monday night of Obama saying he would direct resources from the interior to the border.

"Well, why didn't you do that five years ago?" O'Reilly asked.

Obama didn't act until the "crescendo of criticism" began against him, O'Reilly said, noting that a recent joint raid with Mexican authorities freed 200 children being held against their will.

No such raids had happened previously, he said, because Obama reacts to crises rather than being proactive and preventing them.

Townhall.com's Mary Katherine Ham said Obama was following a familiar pattern.

"He gives a speech, he asks for a list of things he can do on his own," she told O'Reilly. "He says he's going to act on his own. He then makes fun of Republicans in Congress and then asks them for a bunch of stuff."

Some of Obama's ideas make sense, she said, but he trashes the people he is asking to help him.

Earlier Monday Obama directed Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson and Attorney General Eric Holder to move enforcement resources from the U.S. interior to the border to promote public safety. He said he asked his team to prepare recommendations on other actions he can take unilaterally by the end of the summer.

Monday was another chapter in a long-festering test of wills between Obama and Boehner about the direction the country should go. They have battled over healthcare, deficits, government spending and gun control. Compromises have been rare and could be even more elusive if Republicans increase their majority in the House in November elections and seize control of the Senate.

Boehner inflamed tensions with the White House last week by announcing he was considering a lawsuit charging the president with overstepping his constitutional boundaries with the series of executive actions he has pursued all year.

A Boehner spokesman said the two leaders spoke in person about immigration reform last week.
"Speaker Boehner told the president exactly what he has been telling him: the American people and their elected officials don't trust him to enforce the law as written," spokesman Michael Steel said. "Until that changes, it is going to be difficult to make progress on this issue."

Obama has pushed for years for reform that would create a path to citizenship for the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants within the United States. The U.S. Senate bill had such provisions, but Republicans in the House largely opposed them on the argument that they amounted to amnesty for people who had entered the country illegally.

His shift to executive action comes at a tricky time for the administration. The president sent a letter to Congress on Monday asking for additional resources to deal with the problem of unaccompanied minors entering the country and creating a humanitarian crisis.

Obama repeated on Monday that most of those children would be sent home.

That crisis and the death of reform legislation puts Obama in the awkward position of studying new ways to help the undocumented workers who have been in the country for years while getting tougher on juveniles who are entering now.

Not long ago the White House had held out hope that House Republicans would move on immigration reform this summer before November congressional elections. It delayed a review by the Department of Homeland Security over changes to U.S. deportation policy to give lawmakers space to pursue a legislative solution.

Many members of Congress have predicted that if legislation is not enacted this year, any new attempts would have to wait until 2017 after a new president takes office.


1a)  How Abbas Duped Kerry and Indyk

Kerry and Indyk failed to understand that no Palestinian leader has a mandate to make concessions to Israel as part of a peace agreement. Concessions would be tantamount to signing his own death warrant. Abbas is being denounced as a "traitor" for merely opposing the abduction of three Israeli teenagers.
The release of 78 prisoners, some with "blood on their hands," is seen as a major achievement for Abbas, who was never even asked to pay anything in return.
U.S. envoy to the Middle East Martin Indyk announced on June 28 that he was quitting his job "battered and unbowed."

But Indyk forgot to mention that he is also leaving his job after Palestinian Authority [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas succeeded in tricking him and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
Abbas has, in fact, emerged as the biggest winner from the nine-month peace talks, which ended in failure in late April. Abbas proved that it is easy to fool the Americans into thinking that he would be able to sign a peace agreement with Israel that included concessions unacceptable to most Palestinians.

Abbas managed to persuade the Americans that the release of Palestinian prisoners imprisoned by Israel before the Oslo Accords would enhance his standing among Palestinians and boost his chances of signing a peace agreement with Israel.

Kerry and Indyk were quick to buy Abbas's argument, and they exerted heavy pressure on the Israeli government to comply.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and PA President Mahmoud Abbas share a laugh in Ramallah on January 4, 2013. (Image source: U.S. State Dept.) Inset: The "battered and unbowed" U.S. special envoy Martin Indyk. (Image source: Aspen Institute/Flickr)

The Israeli government reluctantly approved the release of some 104 prisoners, including many with "blood on their hands."

During the nine months of the peace talks, Israel released 78 Palestinian prisoners in three stages, in the hope that this would boost the peace process with the Palestinians and enhance Abbas's credibility among his people.
The release of the prisoners is indeed seen as a major achievement for Abbas, who was never even asked to pay anything in return.

When some of Abbas's advisors were asked why they were continuing with the U.S.-sponsored negotiations even though they knew Israel was not going to give them everything they were asking for, they pointed out that the effort was worthwhile even if it only led to the release of veteran prisoners.

In the end, the release of the prisoners brought about neither a peace agreement with Israel nor bolstered Abbas's standing among Palestinians. Moreover, the release of the prisoners does not seem to have increased the number of Palestinians who support the peace process with Israel.

A public opinion poll published last week shows that a majority of Palestinians now oppose a two-state solution and reject permanent acceptance of Israel's existence.

As for Abbas's standing among his people, it has become clear over the past few weeks that the PA president is being denounced as a "traitor" for merely opposing the abduction of three Israeli teenagers. Obviously, Palestinians have forgotten that Abbas managed to secure the release of prisoners incarcerated by Israel more than 20 years ago.

Apparently, Kerry and Indyk were convinced up to the last moment that Abbas would be able or willing to make concessions that were tantamount to signing his own death warrant.

Abbas was clever to pursue the negotiations until the end of the nine-month deadline set by Kerry in the hope that he would get the fourth and final batch of the 104 pre-Oslo prisoners.

Abbas, at the same time, wanted to give Kerry and Indyk a last-minute chance to force Israel to accept all his demands, namely a full withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines and the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

When Abbas realized that his scheme was not working, however, he embarked on a series of steps that caught the Obama Administration by surprise.

First, Abbas signed applications for Palestinian membership in 15 international treaties and conventions.
Second, he struck a unity deal with Hamas, which resulted in the establishment of a Palestinian "national consensus" government.

He seems to have gotten away with these two surprise moves, which were seen as severe blow to U.S. efforts to move forward with the peace process.

Abbas appears to be the only player who benefited from the botched U.S.-sponsored peace process. Not only did this peace process get 78 prisoners released, but it also paved the way for Abbas to embark on unilateral moves and wage a diplomatic war against Israel in the international arena.

As if that were not enough, the peace process eventually drove Abbas into the open arms of Hamas: Abbas would rather join forces with Hamas than succumb to U.S. pressure to reach a "treacherous" agreement with Israel.

Kerry and Indyk failed to understand that no Palestinian leader has a mandate to make real concessions to Israel as part of a peace agreement.

Instead, they chose to endorse the false assumption that Abbas would be able to deliver a deal. By doing so, they actually forced Abbas to mislead them into thinking that if only Israel released more prisoners, he would be able to make concessions. The question now is whether Kerry and Indyk will be prepared to admit that they were duped by the Palestinian Authority president. Probably not.


2)  Cumberland's Kotok: 6 Reasons Why Stocks Still Have Juice
By Dan Weil



With the S&P 500 standing within 1 percent of its record high, some financial commentators say the end of the five-year bull market is near.

David Kotok, chief investment officer of Cumberland Advisors, cites in his Market Commentary six factors that drove the market in the second quarter and why you should stick with stocks. 

1. The short-term interest rate remains near zero.

2. Although they were expected to rise, long-term government bond rates have fallen.

3. Inflation rates worldwide are at very low levels. "In Europe, the inflation rate is now recorded at 0.50 percent," he writes.

4. Central banks are continuing easy money policies. For instance, Kotok states, "Even though the Federal Reserve is tapering, it is still expanding excess reserves and acquiring assets on its balance sheet."

5. The federal deficit is still falling, from a[n annual] run rate of $1.4 trillion at its peak to an annualized run rate of $400 billion.

6. The trade deficit and current-account deficits are shrinking because of the growing U.S. energy self-sufficiency.

"The combination of these factors continues to support equity prices. On a comparative or relative basis, stocks still seem attractive," he insists.

"The bottom line is that the stock market is still in an uptrend."

The market's next move might depend on U.S. economic strength. GDP shrank 2.9 percent in the first quarter, but many economists expect it will expand more than 3 percent for the rest of the year.

"In the third and fourth quarters, we should see [strong] growth, but anything that calls that into question . . . will be a problem," David Donabedian, chief investment officer of Atlantic Trust, tells The Wall Street Journal
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3)-

Not the Moment for “Restraint” Against Hamas





In a sentiment that was echoed across the Israeli political spectrum, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed today that “Hamas will pay” for the murders of three Israeli teenagers kidnapped two weeks ago. What exactly Netanyahu meant by this phrase isn’t yet known. But given the track record of both Israel and the Palestinians and the efforts by President Obama to head off any tough action by Netanyahu the leaders of the terror group may not exactly be shaking in their boots.


In the wake of the discovery of the victims’ bodies, anger against the Islamist terror group is widely felt and it is likely that Netanyahu’s government will have wide political leeway to hit Hamas hard, both in the West Bank and Gaza. But, the question facing Israel is not so much whether to launch air strikes at Hamas headquarters or to round even more of their supporters. Rather, it is whether if, after an interval of a week or two, Hamas is still functioning and is still part of the ruling coalition of the Palestinian Authority. If, after absorbing a pounding from the Israeli army, the Islamist movement’s leadership can claim that it not only shed more Jewish blood but also survived another Israeli counterattack, then despite all of the fearsome rhetoric coming out of Jerusalem, Hamas will have won.

President Obama’s condemnation of the deaths of the three Israeli teens was appropriate but it was accompanied by the standard call for “all sides to exercise restraint.” Which is to say that the U.S. is making it clear to the Israelis that anything beyond a minimal retaliation that will not make a difference will be condemned as worsening the situation. But, like all past efforts to enforce restraint on Israel, such counsel merely ensures that this tragedy will be played out again and again.
It must be understood that while the gruesome crime committed against three teenagers may damage Hamas’ already shaky reputation in the West, the willingness of the group to commit this atrocity may increase its popularity among Palestinians. In the last year, Hamas’ political stock has fallen as the cash shortfall caused by its rift with Iran and the closing of smuggling tunnels to Egypt undermined its ability to maintain local support. Where once it was seen as a viable alternative to the Fatah kleptocracy that rules over the West Bank, it is now seen as merely an Islamist version of the same corrupt model. Its willingness to maintain a rough cease-fire with Israel along the border with Gaza also robbed of its mantle as the standard-bearer of the struggle against the Jewish state. It was for these reasons that it was forced to sign a unity agreement with Abbas’ Fatah.
Should a determined Israeli offensive take out some of its leadership and undermine its capacity to function, perhaps that decline will continue. But Hamas and its backers also know that violence has always been the main factor legitimizing Palestinian political parties. Should the kidnapping lead to another round of violence in which Hamas could portray itself as the true defender of Palestinian honor, then the incident could give it a new lease on life even as its members duck for cover.
That may incline some to counsel Israelis to avoid what in the past has been considered a “disproportionate” response to Palestinian provocations. Since Israeli attacks may actually undermine Abbas and boost Hamas, some (especially in the United States) may advise Netanyahu to make some noise but then get back to business as usual as quickly as possible lest a new counter-terror campaign serve to create a new generation of terrorists.
While that line of reasoning may sound logical, it would be a mistake. Israel needs to do more than launch some symbolic strikes that will do nothing to assuage Israeli anger while doing nothing to deter Palestinians from emulating this horrific deed. Nothing short of a stroke that will decapitate the leadership of this group will convince the Palestinians that Hamas has made a mistake.
As a poll I discussed last week showed, the vast majority of Palestinians want the struggle against Israel to continue but they don’t want to personally pay the price of that conflict. Making the vast majority of Palestinians pay for Hamas’ outrages would deepen their bitterness against Israel and lead to charges of collective punishment. But if, instead, Israel makes Hamas’ leaders pay in such a measure as to make it difficult if not impossible to carry on then perhaps Netanyahu can thread the needle in between an escalation and a weak non-response.
It may be that Israel’s options are limited by political realities and Hamas’ ability to withstand attacks. But no matter what choices Netanyahu makes, “restraint” will be merely an invitation for Hamas to repeat this crime again in the future.

3a)  Where Are The Palestinian Mothers?


A culture that celebrates kidnapping is not fit for statehood.

By Bret Stephens 


In March 2004 a Palestinian teenager named Hussam Abdo was spotted by Israeli soldiers behaving suspiciously as he approached the Hawara checkpoint in the West Bank. Ordered at gunpoint to raise his sweater, the startled boy exposed a suicide vest loaded with nearly 20 pounds of explosives and metal scraps, constructed to maximize carnage. A video taken by a journalist at the checkpoint captured the scene as Abdo was given scissors to cut himself free of the vest, which had been strapped tight to his body in the expectation that it wouldn't have to come off. He's been in an Israeli prison ever since.

Abdo provided a portrait of a suicide bomber as a young man. He had an intellectual disability. He was bullied by classmates who called him "the ugly dwarf." He came from a comparatively well-off family. He had been lured into the bombing only the night before, with the promise of sex in the afterlife. His family was outraged that he had been recruited for martyrdom.

"I blame those who gave him the explosive belt," his mother, Tamam, told the Jerusalem Post, of which I was then the editor. "He's a small child who can't even look after himself."

Yet asked how she would have felt if her son had been a bit older, she added this: "If he was over 18, that would have been possible, and I might have even encouraged him to do it." In the West, most mothers would be relieved if their children merely refrained from getting a bad tattoo before turning 18.

I've often thought about Mrs. Abdo, and I'm thinking about her today on the news that the bodies of three Jewish teenagers, kidnapped on June 12, have been found near the city of Hebron "under a pile of rocks in an open field," as an Israeli military spokesman put it. Eyal Yifrach, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Fraenkel, 16, had their whole lives ahead of them. The lives of their families will forever be wounded, or crippled, by heartbreak.

What about their killers? The Israeli government has identified two prime suspects, Amer Abu Aysha, 33, and Marwan Qawasmeh, 29, both of them Hamas activists. They are entitled to a presumption of innocence. Less innocent was the view offered by Mr. Abu Aysha's mother.

"They're throwing the guilt on him by accusing him of kidnapping," she told Israel's Channel 10 news. "If he did the kidnapping, I'll be proud of him."

It's the same sentiment I heard expressed in 2005 in the Jabalya refugee camp near Gaza City by a woman named Umm Iyad. A week earlier, her son, Fadi Abu Qamar, had been killed in an attack on the Erez border crossing to Israel. She was dressed in mourning but her mood was joyful as she celebrated her son's "martyrdom operation." He was just 21.

Here's my question: What kind of society produces such mothers? Whence the women who cheer on their boys to blow themselves up or murder the children of their neighbors?

Well-intentioned Western liberals may prefer not to ask, because at least some of the conceivable answers may upset the comforting cliché that all human beings can relate on some level, whatever the cultural differences. Or they may accuse me of picking a few stray anecdotes and treating them as dispositive, as if I'm the only Western journalist to encounter the unsettling reality of a society sunk into a culture of hate. Or they can claim that I am ignoring the suffering of Palestinian women whose innocent children have died at Israeli hands.

But I'm not ignoring that suffering. To kill innocent people deliberately is odious, to kill them accidentally or "collaterally" is, at a minimum, tragic. I just have yet to meet the Israeli mother who wants to raise her boys to become kidnappers and murderers—and who isn't afraid of saying as much to visiting journalists.

Because everything that happens in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is bound to be the subject of political speculation and news analysis, it's easy to lose sight of the raw human dimension. So it is with the murder of the boys: How far will Israel go in its retaliation? What does it mean for the future of the Fatah-Hamas coalition? What about the peace process, such as it is?

These questions are a distraction from what ought to be the main point. Three boys went missing one night, and now we know they are gone. If nothing else, their families will have a sense of finality and a place to mourn. And Israelis will know they are a nation that leaves no stone unturned to find its missing children.

As for the Palestinians and their inveterate sympathizers in the West, perhaps they should note that a culture that too often openly celebrates martyrdom and murder is not fit for statehood, and that making excuses for that culture only makes it more unfit. Postwar Germany put itself through a process of moral rehabilitation that began with a recognition of what it had done. Palestinians who want a state should do the same, starting with the mothers.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No comments: