Blake at 6 months!
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I sent this cartoon of Holder to Blake and he made a face and drooled see why! (See 1 below.)
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Blake wants to know when, if ever, will the Saudis man up? (See 2 below.)
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It's just the same old story and will always be because the sick world always needs a scapegoat! (See 3 below.)
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For those of you who have never been to or experienced Israel this video should wet your appetite.
Israel is no bigger than Rhode Island and yet is vast and varied in so many physical and cultural ways.
Arabs and Muslims cannot match what Israelis have done to this once barren land and rather than learn from Israelis and benefit from peace they want to destroy Israel.
The Israel you never see https://www.youtube.com/embed/tLgdb6r0MQ4?rel=0
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Prime Minister Cameron held a press conference today and said and did what one would hope our own leader could bring himself to say and do but Obama cannot because he lives on a different planet when it comes to radical Islamic terrorism.
Obviously Cameron's press conference irritated The White House and they decided to change Obama's schedule so he will be returning to D.C. sooner than planned after raising money and attending a wedding.
To paraphrase The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
ad :" A mind is a terrible thing to waste,' I submit : 'A lazy mind is a terrible thing to save.'
The White House also has dome some back pedaling and now we do have a strategy but of course no one knows what it is, not even Obama because GW and The Pentagon will not tell him.
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Dick
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1) Investors Business Daily: Holder forces Bank of America to
pay off left-wing community organizers
Extortion: Radical Democrat activist groups stand to collect millions from Attorney General Eric Holder's record $17 billion deal to settle alleged mortgage abuse charges against Bank of America.
Buried in the fine print of the deal, which includes $7 billion in soft-dollar consumer relief, are a raft of political payoffs to Obama constituency groups. In effect, the government has ordered the nation's largest bank to create a massive slush fund for Democrat special interests.
Besides requiring billions in debt forgiveness payments to delinquent borrowers in Cleveland, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Oakland, Detroit, Chicago and other Democrat strongholds — and up to $500 million to cover personal taxes owed on those checks — the deal requires BofA to make billions in new loans, while also building affordable low-income rental housing in those areas.
If there are leftover funds in four years, the settlement stipulates the money will go to Interest on Lawyers' Trust Account (IOLTA), which provides legal aid for the poor and supports left-wing causes, and NeighborWorks of America, which provides affordable housing and funds a national network of left-wing community organizers operating in the mold of Acorn.
In fact, in 2008 and 2009, NeighborWorks awarded a whopping $25 million to Acorn Housing.
In 2011 alone, NeighborWorks shelled out $35 million in "affordable housing grants" to 115 such groups, according to its website. Recipients included the radical Affordable Housing Alliance, which pressures banks to make high-risk loans in low-income neighborhoods and which happens to be the former employer of HUD's chief "fair housing" enforcer.
BofA gets extra credit if it makes at least $100 million in direct donations to IOLTA and housing activist groups approved by HUD.
According to the list provided by Justice, those groups include come of the most radical bank shakedown organizations in the country, including:
• La Raza (“The Race”), which pressures banks to expand their credit box to qualify more low-income Latino immigrants for home loans;• National Community Reinvestment Coalition, Washington's most aggressive lobbyist for the disastrous Community Reinvestment Act;• Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, whose director calls himself a "bank terrorist;"• Operation Hope, a South Central Los Angeles group that's pressuring banks to make "dignity mortgages" for deadbeats.Worse, one group eligible for BofA slush funds is a spin-off of Acorn Housing's branch in New York.
It's now rebranded as Mutual Housing Association of New York, or MHANY. HUD lists MHANY's contact as Ismene Speliotis, who previously served as New York director of Acorn Housing.
The recession has dried up funding for such groups. But Holder's massive bank shakedown could rebuild their war chests in a hurry.He's written back-door funding for Democrat groups into other major bank deals he's brokered, including the $13 billion JPMorgan Chase settlement and the $7 billion Citibank deal. They stand to reap millions more from those deals.
All told, Holder has shaken down the nation's largest banks for a whopping $128 billion, more than a 10th of a trillion dollars, and counting. Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo are reportedly in talks with Justice to settle additional mortgage cases.In effect, lenders are bankrolling the same parasites that bled them for the risky loans that caused the mortgage crisis. With new cash, they can ramp back up their shakedown campaign, repeating the cycle of dangerous political lending that wrecked the economy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------These settlements have little, if anything, to do with "justice" or restitution for innocent victims. In its 30-page "statement of facts," Justice couldn't provide a single shred of evidence of fraud against BofA. Nor could it ID a single "victim" by name.
2) It's Time for the Saudis to Stand Up
The Al Saud are the biggest regional target of ISIS, yet Riyadh seems paralyzed.
Now is the time for Saudi Arabia to man up.
There is broad agreement that the black-clad savages of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham pose a profound threat first to neighboring Arab regimes and only then to Europe and the United States. Yet amid the debate over how a reluctant U.S. or timid Europe should respond, there is no discussion of what Saudi Arabia should do. This is a remarkable omission that ought to shame the Saudis.
Saudi Arabia is the wealthiest country in the region. It has by far the largest air force, equipped with hundreds of U.S. and British advanced fighter aircraft. With its oil reserves and stature as the birthplace of Islam, the kingdom is an inevitable target for the rolling brigades of ISIS.
Jet fighters of the Saudi royal air force flying over the Riyadh military airport, Jan. 1, 2013 AFP/Getty Images
Moreover, the Saudis have ample reason not to want to be seen again as wards of the West, a fragile society requiring military protection from America which, under the Obama administration, may well not provide it. So why aren't well-trained Saudi pilots flying bombing runs over Mosul or against ISIS command and control centers in Syria? The problem is a failure of will even in pursuit of their own interests.
The House of Saud, which has ruled the kingdom off and on for more than 270 years, historically has survived by ducking and weaving, by seeking to avoid confrontations while trying to satisfy everyone. As a result the kingdom has been reliant on others—essentially the U.S.—for its security.
An ostrich strategy may no longer be viable. Given President Obama's ducking and weaving on Syria and his cozying up to Iran, Saudi Arabia's Shiite nemesis, the Saudis have ample grounds to conclude that the U.S. cannot be counted on as a reliable protector.
ISIS also poses a fundamental challenge to the House of Saud's legitimacy as ruler of Saudi Arabia. Since the 18th century, the Al Saud kings have justified their rule by claiming to be the protector and promoter of the one true Islam—the austere version preached by Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab, who joined forces with the Al Saud to conquer Arabia and return it to the Islam of the Prophet Muhammad. Now Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the commander of ISIS, declares the creation of an Islamic caliphate, in essence branding Saudi Arabia and the Al Saud as usurpers and himself as the protector of true Islam.
ISIS is thus a clear threat and the need to confront it is inevitable. Yet the royal family fears being seen by Saudis—particularly the Wahhabi religious establishment and young male fundamentalists—to be opposing what many see as the belated coming of an Islamic caliphate that the Al Saud rulers have failed to deliver.
At least 1,600 militant young Saudis, according to the Saudi interior ministry, have joined ISIS despite a royal decree imposing up to 20 years in prison for such behavior. Many more young Saudis are taking to social media to support the liberation of Mecca, Islam's holiest site, from the Al Saud. Hashtags like #TheAgeoftheISISConquest and #ABillionMuslimsfortheVictoryoftheISIS originate repeatedly from Saudi Arabia.
Some wealthy Saudis have provided financial support to ISIS. Some of these funders may be seeking to buy insurance against an ISIS victory, but others apparently share a desire for a Wahhabi resurgence in a kingdom that they see as corrupt and unjust—a kingdom in which royal rulers put their own profligacy ahead of the needs of Allah's flock. A Wahhabi resurgence that originates from outside the kingdom but is supported inside the kingdom is a serious threat—and another reason to confront the terrorist army. Internal Saudi support for the "caliphate" will only increase if ISIS grows.
King Abdullah, like President Obama, has so far been long on talk and short on action. Earlier this month he criticized religious scholars for their "laziness" and "silence" in failing to condemn ISIS terrorists. He called on Muslim leaders and scholars to "carry out their duty toward Allah Almighty and stand in the face of those trying to hijack Islam and [present] it to the world as a religion of extremism, hatred and terrorism." Weeks later the Saudi Grand Mufti, its senior religious scholar, finally declared that "extremism, radicalism and terrorism" have "nothing to do with Islam and are the enemy Number One of Islam."
The words are on target but the kingdom's only action so far has been donating $100 million to a United Nations Counterterrorism Center, a move unlikely to slow ISIS. Meanwhile, the Saudi air force that the U.S. has been helping to modernize since the late 1970s sits grounded.
The Saudis by their own estimates have at least 250 combat-ready aircraft, refueling planes, the U.S. Airborne Warning and Control System and at least 20,000 air-force personnel. While some Saudi airstrikes alone would not be militarily decisive, they would demonstrate that the self-proclaimed guardian of Islam is willing to stand up to Islamic zealots. Such action by the Saudis surely would make it easier for other Muslim countries and the West to take more resolute military action against ISIS.
Now is the time to confront ISIS in Syria and Iraq, not cower in Riyadh. Maybe if the Saudis man up, Mr. Obama and Congress will too.
Ms. House, a former publisher of The Wall Street Journal who won a Pulitzer Prize as a reporter for her coverage of the Middle East, is the author of "On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines—and Future" ( Knopf, 2012).
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3)--THE CONTINUING MENACE of ANTI-SEMITISM
The monumental tapestry triptych by Marc Chagall that hangs in the State Hall of the Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem hints at some of the artist’s memories, including some from his childhood in Vitebsk, Russia. But these float among images of Jewish history: of Moses with his tablets, of David with his harp. Images of wandering and vulnerability: a village burned, a dead body surrounded by six candles, standing in for 6 million. Images of return and security: pioneers, soldiers and a new flag among the nations.
The viewer is immersed in the sweep of a great, inexplicable story — of an ancient people seized by a sense of identity that has lasted four millennia, that has made foundational contributions to ethics, social justice and rational inquiry, and that has often been requited with suspicion and violence. Many Jews, religious or secular, embracing or resisting, feel the glory and burden of this history.
In a recent essay, Matti Friedman, a reporter for the Associated Press in Jerusalem between 2006 and 2011, recalls being forced to weave a different story: of Israeli oppression and Palestinian victimhood. He says his editors consistently spiked reporting inconsistent with this narrative, even when it included major news (such as details of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s peace offer). Friedman describes his superiors as “decent people” who used news coverage as “a weapon to be placed at the disposal of the side they like.” His evidence of bias is damning; his evidence of decency is thin.
Friedman blames this “severe malfunction” of journalism on the resurgence of an old pattern. Historically, Jews have been a stateless entity on which people have projected their anger and resentments. With the advent of a Jewish state, those projections are focused on Israel, which gets disproportionate (and disproportionately hostile) attention as the embodiment of colonialism and nationalism — things that European and American liberals find offensive.
“You don’t need to be a history professor, or a psychiatrist, to understand what’s going on,” says Friedman. “The descendants of powerless people who were pushed out of Europe and the Islamic Middle East have become what their grandparents were — the pool into which the world spits. The Jews of Israel are the screen onto which it has become socially acceptable to project the things you hate about yourself and your own country. The tool through which this psychological projection is executed is the international press.”
Friedman’s editors might protest that they are simply covering Israeli policy (which can be unwise) and Palestinian suffering (which is very real). But Friedman accuses the media of purposely slanting stories, in a way they would not (for example) about violence in Pakistan or the Congo. And there must be some reason. Many in the knowledge class have an inadequate understanding of and respect for history. In this case, they seem to think that traditional anti-Jewish attitudes have faded and that the memory of the Holocaust is overplayed (and used by Jews to provoke self-protective guilt). In fact, anti-Jewish attitudes remain deep and consistent, and the memory of the Holocaust is fading. Few take note of the genocidal promises of the Hamas charter or of Iranian clerics.
If you live entirely in the present, the state of Israel may seem more Goliath than David. If you have some sense of the past, it is a beleaguered island in a historical and geographical sea of violence. It is, in the words of British historian Paul Johnson, the “physical guarantee that another Holocaust would not occur.” And the creation and maintenance of this secular Zion have involved a series of sad compromises — walls and airstrikes and nuclear capabilities — required to maintain a Jewish state in a hostile neighborhood.
History matters, or at least it should. Detached from its story, Israel is a quarrelsome, flawed democracy on the edge of the Mediterranean. But Israel is its story — the story of slavery, statehood, expulsion, scattering, near-extermination and return. The story told by Chagall in 40 miles of thread.
This is not, for me, primarily a theological matter. It is not necessary to believe that the Jews are the chosen people to believe that they have been unfairly chosen for more than 2,000 years for persecution and murder — and have chosen themselves, by their unity and courage, to carry a hope and cause that transform their story into something universal. Even some Jews might prefer it otherwise — as Moses was reluctant to accept his calling. But it is hard to argue with a burning bush, or with history.
Read more on this issue:
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