I keep repeating and reminding my memo readers, the American Court system will ultimately save our Republic as it reminds us we are a nation founded upon the rule of law. More evidence of this came from a decision rendered today.
What the court decided is that what is explicitly stated -to quote Bill Clinton - 'is is is'
The decision leaves Democrats with no one to blame but themselves because they did not read the bill, they did not try and get support for the bill from Republicans and they rammed it arrogantly down an unhappy nation's throat. Now Democrats are left choking! (See 1 below.)
===
The U.N. has become more of an embarrassment than an effective organization. This should be evident even for those possessing a 'smidgen' of integrity and moral principles..
The U.N. is two faced when it comes to Israel, operates in a very UN- U.N like manner but then "what difference does it make."
Therefore, the comments of Sec. General Moon, should not come as a surprise nor the fact that Obama's Secretary of State has been instructed to link American support, against Israel, with Moon's comments, demands and strategy.
My advice to Netanyahu is to 'moon' them both because Israel will never be treated fairly by The U.N. or even handed by this Administration
Israeli should have learned by now, what Americans are also beginning to understand, anyone who trusts Obama does so at their peril. . (See 2 and 2a below.)
And if anyone believes matters will improve should Hillary become president, think again!
"My accomplishments as Secretary of State? Well, I'm glad you asked! My proudest accomplishment in which I take the most pride, mostly because of the opposition it faced early on, you know… the remnants of prior situations and mindsets that were too narrowly focused in a manner whereby they may have overlooked the bigger picture and we didn’t do that and I’m proud of that. Very proud. I would say that’s a major accomplishment."
--Hillary Clinton 11 March 2014
============================================================
Could someone please tell me what she just said?
Answer: Absolutely nothing because that is what she did.
===
Dick
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1)
Federal Appeals Court strikes blow to Obamacare
By Associated Press
A federal appeals court delivered a potentially serious setback to President Barack Obama's health care law Tuesday, imperiling billions of dollars in subsidies for many low- and middle-income people who bought policies.
The Obama administration immediately declared that those policyholders would keep getting financial aid for their premiums as it seeks review of the ruling. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the decision would have "no practical impact" on tax credits as the case works its way through further appeals.
In the case, decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, a group of small business owners argued that the law authorizes subsidies only for people who buy insurance through markets established by the states — not by the federal government.
A divided court agreed, in a 2-1 decision that could mean premium increases for more than half the 8 million Americans who have purchased taxpayer-subsidized coverage under the law. The ruling affects consumers who bought coverage in the 36 states served by the federal insurance marketplace, or exchange.
In Tuesday's ruling, two judges appointed by Republican presidents voted against the administration's interpretation of the law while one appointed by a Democratic president dissented. The Obama spokesman said the administration would seek a hearing by the full 11-judge court. The court has a majority of judges appointed by Democratic presidents, including four appointed by Obama.
The majority opinion concluded that the law, as written, "unambiguously" restricts subsides to consumers in exchanges established by a state. That would invalidate an Internal Revenue Service regulation that tried to sort out confusing wording in the law by concluding that Congress intended for consumers in all 50 states to have subsidized coverage.
In reaction, Justice Department spokeswoman Emily Pierce said the decision was incorrect, inconsistent with the intent of Congress, and at odds with the goals of the health care law.
The administration is expected to seek a hearing from the full 11-member appeals court.
The issue is crucial to the success of the health law because most states have been unable or unwilling to set up their own exchanges. The inaction stems in many instances from opposition by Republican governors to the Affordable Care Act.
The small business owners filing the lawsuit say the tax credits enacted by Congress were intended to encourage states to set up their own health benefit exchanges and that the penalty for not doing so was withdrawal of tax credits for lower-income residents.
Supporters of the act say the purpose of the tax credit was not to promote the establishment of state exchanges, but rather to achieve Congress's fundamental purpose of making insurance affordable for all Americans.
The case revolves around four words in the Affordable Care Act, which says the tax credits are available to people who enroll through an exchange "established by the state."
The challengers to the law say a literal reading of that language invalidates the IRS subsidy to people in the federal exchanges. The opponents say that people who would otherwise qualify for the tax credits should be denied that benefit if they buy insurance on a federally facilitated exchange.
"It is implausible to believe that Congress gave the IRS discretion to authorize $150 billion per year in federal spending, particularly when Congress had directly spoken to this issue," the challengers to the IRS subsidy said in a court filing. "Major economic decisions like these — indeed, any decisions granting tax credits — must be made unambiguously by Congress itself."
The Obama administration and congressional and state legislative supporters of the Affordable Care Act say the challengers are failing to consider the words of the statute in its entirety.
"Congress did not provide that the tax credits would only be available to citizens whose states set up their own exchanges," says an appeals court filing by congressional and state legislative supporters of the Affordable Care Act. Congressional lawmakers and state legislators supporting the act said that limiting the subsidies to state exchanges could destabilize important aspects of the law, such as the individual mandate requiring most people to buy insurance.
The judges on the case were Thomas Griffith, an appointee of President George W. Bush; A. Raymond Randolph, an appointee of Bush's father; and Harry Edwards, an appointee of President Jimmy Carter, who dissented.
A lower court had ruled that the law's text, structure, purpose, and legislative history make "clear that Congress intended to make premium tax credits available on both state-run and federally-facilitated Exchanges."
But the appeals court concluded the opposite — that the letter of the law "unambiguously restricts" the law's subsidies to policies sold through exchanges established by the state.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2)Ban Ki-moon's Shameful Message in Israel's Hour of Need
It is hard to imagine two more unwelcome, uninvited visitors to Israel in the middle of a war against Palestinian terrorists than
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and US Secretary of State
John Kerry. But
even more unwelcome is that they are working together.Their common cause is that
although Israel has a right of self-defense in theory, Israel ought to be prevented from exercising this right in practice.
Events over the past week have provided
an extraordinary demonstration of this reprehensible nexus.
On
July 16, 2014, the
UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) issued a
report stating: “the
Israeli military delivered text messages to virtually all the residents of Ash Shuja’iyya and Az Zaitun neighborhoods
in eastern Gaza city, approximately 100,000 people,
warning them to leave their homes by 8 am today (16 July),
ahead of attacks to be launched in the area.” The Israel Defense Forces (
IDF) also made phone calls and distributed leaflets.
OCHA then describes what came next: “Subsequently, the
Palestinian Ministry of Interior in Gaza reportedly instructed
the residents to…not flee the area.” As a result, OCHA admits: “the
vast majority decided to stay.”
This story tells us both that
Israel adhered to the Geneva Conventiondemand of providing “effective advance warning” to civilians and that
Hamas violated the rule forbidding parties to “direct the movement of …civilians
in order to shield military objectives from attack.”
What was Hamas trying to protect when it used Palestinians as
human shields in Shuja’iyya?
The
IDF refers to Shuja’iyya as the Hamas’ “terror fortress” in the Gaza Strip. The IDF has
found more than ten openings to tunnels in Shuja’iyya and since July 8,
Hamas has fired over 140 rockets at Israel from this neighborhood alone. As IDF Chief of General Staff Benny Gantz put it: “Hamas has built
a war machine in residential areas.”
This is
another violation of the laws of armed conflict. By
deliberately locating its terrorist infrastructure in the midst of Shuja’iyya’s civilian population, Hamas violates the prohibition on “locating legitimate military targets within or near densely populated areas."
Following the warnings, the
IDF went into the Shuja’iyya neighborhood – and is still there – for the purpose of destroying the tunnels that have been
designed and used to attack Israeli civilians. This is Hamas’ most basic war crime of all. In the words of the
Geneva Conventions, civilians “shall not be the object of attack.”
On the night of July 19, 2014 in separate incidents in the Shuja’iyya area,
Israel lost 13 soldiers,
more soldiers in a single night
than Israel lost in the whole of the three week 2008-2009 ground offensive
Operation Cast Lead. These soldiers died in
an ambush.
An anti-tank mine. Trapped in a burning building.
The IDF affords us
the context.
They “encountered fierce Hamas fighting in the dense urban environment” as Hamas tried “to defend their tunnel infrastructure.”
In these circumstances,
Palestinian civilians who remained in Shuja’iyya – despite the warnings – died. Data on fatalities, in OCHA’s own words, are “preliminary and subject to change based on further verification,” so the number
of civilian casualties is unclear.
What is clear is the
outrageous reaction of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. On July 20, 2014 he said:
“dozens more civilians, including children, have been killed in Israeli military strikes in the Shuja’iyya neighborhood in Gaza.
I condemn this atrocious action.
Israel must exercise maximum restraint and do far more to protect civilians.”
Ban Ki-moon said nothing about Hamas having failed to protect Palestinian civilians. He said nothing about
Hamas having put Palestinian civilians directly in harm’s way. In fact he said nothing
about any “atrocious action” by Hamas. He also made
no demand that Hamas “restrain” itself from fulfilling its stated goal, namely, that
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist
until Islam will obliterate it.”
For the UN,
no move that Israel makes short of surrender to the Palestinian mob,
will ever be sufficient.
When Palestinian civilians did heed Israel’s warnings and did not die, on July 16, 2014
OCHA complained “the
relocation experience has been…traumatic…Women have reported
stress due to their inability to maintain…modesty norms…[in] overcrowded spaces...”
Five million Israelis have just seconds to run for a bomb shelter and save their lives.
Older people have died from heart failure when the sirens go off. Small
children flee rockets raining down on their kindergartens and
spend hours trapped between four walls day after day. Let alone the
parents and brothers and sisters of the 50,000 plus heroic young men and women on the front lines who spend every waking minute
dreading a phone call, haunted by the prospect of kidnapping by very real monsters.
The truth is
the UN doesn’t give a damn about the suffering of Israelis.
On
July 18, 2014 the giant
UN apparatus assembled in Geneva for the world press. There was
OCHA, and the World Food Programme (WFP), the World Health Organization (
WHO), UNICEF, and the UN Palestinian refugee agency
(UNRWA). Not one of these organizations said one word about Israelis.
This is not merely indifference;
it is gross negligence and collaboration. On July 17, 2014
UNRWA confessed to “discovering” rockets in one of their schools, then refused to make the photographs public, and promptly
gave the rockets back to the rocketeers – or as UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness delicately called them, “
the local authorities.”
UNRWA had the audacity to claim “this incident is the first of its kind…”knowing full well that Hamas has directly involved UNRWA schools in its war crimes before – with video evidence over the past decade to prove it.
Canadian reporter Patrick Martin happened to be
visiting UNRWA’s Fakhoura School on July 15, 2014 and described the experience this way: “Heading toward the exit,
we were overwhelmed by the jet-like sound of two rockets being launched from somewhere near the school.
Hamas, or some militant group, clearly is
hoping the Israelis won’t strike at the launchers…because they’re close to the school.” He adds that the kids were enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the weaponry; “
as the Hamas-made missiles screamed off into the sky...the kids all cheered,” and
one boy identified the make and model as the kind aimed at Tel Aviv.
Israelis, by contrast, are not cheering Palestinian civilian deaths.
On
June 20, 2014, the
UN Secretary-General gave a
major speech on UN action on Syria and
unashamedly declared: “Since June last year…the
United Nations has not been issuing any statistics of death tolls. It is
impossible and very sad and tragic to count all these dead bodies.” The UN does not count Syrian dead because it’s too sad,
but throwing around unverified numbers of Palestinian civilian casualties serves a more palatable political endgame.
When Ban Ki-moon comes knocking, therefore, his bona fides are non-existent. So why is Secretary Kerry by his side?
On
June 20, 2014,
responding to a question from
CNN’s Wolf Blitzerabout Palestinian civilian casualties, Prime Minister
Netanyahu said that
Israel is “trying to be as pinpointed as we can.” Shortly
thereafter, Secretary Kerry was caught on camera by Fox News talking to an aide who was apparently briefing him on the CNN conversation. Kerry reacted
“It’s a hell of a pinpoint operation.”
Set aside the
273 civilians across Pakistan,
Yemen and Somalia, who have been
killed unintentionally during the Obama administration’s limited endeavors to reduce terrorism. Think back to the
President’s speech on America’s right to self-defense in the context of Syria –
a country not on the U.S. border and
not posing an imminent threat to three-quarters of the American population. Addressing the nation on September 10, 2013, Obama declared
“the United States military doesn’t do pinpricks.”
One rule for Israel and another for everybody else, evidently appeals to both the UN and the Obama administration
. A shameful scheme in Israel’s hour of need.
Anne Bayefsky is director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust. Follow her @AnneBayefsky.
2a)
Israel - The Final Solution
Op-Ed: Want Proportionality? Give Israel 22
|
Countries
Spare us the pieties and righteous indignation
|
of Europe. The final solution turned out to be
|
Israel and they can't handle it.
|
Gaza IS the two-state solution and Hamas is the
|
result.
Europe is in an uproar. Frankfurt, Germany is
|
rioting, along with France, the UK and in other
|
places where it’s Springtime for Hitler all over
|
But even over here in America the streets are filling up with hateful marches and slogans against the Jewish State.
|
Much of this is triggered by Muslims who arrive
|
here with a grudge and stay with a grudge. But
|
also…television termite Jon Stewart sleeps
|
comfortably in his own bed but can find no
|
heart for a million Jewish children who must
|
spend half their lives running for cover as
|
rockets keep raining down from Gaza.
|
Thousands of Israeli children have been so
|
traumatized over the years from relentless
|
bombardment that they’re afraid to leave their
|
Television imbecile Geraldo Rivera has likewise
|
been heard from – a self-proclaimed “passionate
|
Zionist” so long as the Jewish State refrains
|
Over there in Europe once again it’s
|
Kristallnacht. It is a safer world when that
|
continent goes bonkers over soccer, a game
|
where nothing happens for 90 minutes and
|
people think it’s exciting. Yes, it’s Springtime
|
for Germany for winning the World Cup, and
|
it’s Springtime for Europe whose multitudes
|
are back on the streets howling bitterly because
|
this time around, unlike the 1930s and 1940s,
|
the Jews are fighting back.
|
OMG – they have a country!
|
The final solution turned out to be the Land of
|
Israel and it is driving them crazy.
|
These mobs are the “humanitarians” – the
|
good, the noble, the refined who chant “Peace.”
|
Israel gave peace a chance. Instead, the Jewish
|
State got more than 1,000 rockets a year since
|
she gave away Gaza to the Arabs in 2005.
|
Gaza IS the two-state solution and Hamas is the
|
So please spare me the pieties and the righteous indignation of those “good people” protesting throughout Europe against
|
Israel’s defensive operations in Gaza.
|
Now you’re up and about? Now you speak?
|
Where were you when, throughout the years,
|
thousands of Jihadist bombs fell on Israel? The
|
streets of Europe were empty. There were no
|
pictures in the newspapers of grieving Jewish
|
mothers and fathers. You called it “peace” as
|
long as the Arabs were doing the killing and the
|
Jews were doing the dying.
|
All was well with the world.
|
Suddenly, as Israel answered back, you found
|
your CAUSE – and how self-righteous you are in
|
You are the best and the brightest of Europe.
|
You are educated. You attended the finest
|
schools. You care for the birds, the bees, the
|
bears, the trees. You favor free speech and
|
freedom of religion. Strange it is, that the one
|
and only place in the Middle East that shares
|
your world-view, is Israel, and it is Israel that
|
Israel is a Jewish State. Is that your problem? At
|
the first hint of Jewish self-defense, how quickly
|
you show your true colors.
|
I’ve seen the photos of your candlelight vigils
|
along the streets and boulevards of Europe, all
|
of it, all these tears, in the service of those
|
terrorists whom you call your brothers. Indeed
|
you are related to Hamas (and Fatah) as once
|
before, a mere generation ago, you were related
|
to Hitler’s storm troopers.
|
touching – and disgusting. Your hypocrisy is
|
transparent and nauseating.
|
You speak of disproportion. You want
|
proportion? Give Israel 22 countries. There’s
|
plenty of “proportion” coming from your BBC,
|
which delights in presenting one side of the
|
story and picks up where Der Sturmer left off.
|
Now, with this type of “news,” we know how
|
Europe was conditioned for a Holocaust.
|
Already we see nights of broken glass. Thank
|
you, Europe, for reminding us why America was
|
discovered just in time and why Israel was
|
redeemed many generations too late. You dare
|
judge Israel? In your deportations, your
|
expulsions, your forced conversions, your
|
inquisitions, your pogroms, finally your
|
Holocaust you have no moral authority over
|
Israel or even within your own borders.
|
You gave all that up from 1492 to 1942 and
|
To those on the Left who sought Peace, well
|
dear Peace Lovers – Peace brought this on.
|
“Land for Peace” and “Painful Concessions”
|
made this war. As for those “innocent civilians”
|
in Gaza, they were given a choice and they
|
chose Hamas. They chose this pestilence.
God bless the IDF! Go Israel!
|
Jack Engelhard writes a regular column for
|
Arutz Sheva. Engelhard wrote the int’l
|
translated into more than 22 languages and
|
turned into a Paramount motion picture
|
starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore.
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment