Friday, November 21, 2014

Disingenuous At Best, Constitutionally Illegal At Worst and Then Iran Is Next!

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I did not hear Obama's impassioned speech on immigration last night but from every indication it was a good one except for several facts.


First, it totally flew in the face of his previous comments that he did not have the authority to do what he has done so that made it insincere.

Secondly, it  sets a precedent that is dangerous in its total disregard of the constitutional process.

As Dana Perino noted, had he made the same speech and then said that he wanted Congress to come up with legislation he could sign it would have been the appropriate and constitutionally legitimate way to resolve this thorny issue but Obama chose to be confrontational, to throw down the gauntlet and invite a mud fight.

Finally, it disregards recent election results and the message the 'stupids' sent that they reject his presidency and his manner of running our nation.

Obama, obviously, is doing what he only knows to do - politicize everything he touches.

Obama thinks by picking a fight with Republicans he will force them to over react.  Obama 's decisions are rife with miscalculations and so it will be again.

Now Obama is  about to allow Iran to  come with a brief period of going nuclear. (See 1, 1a, 1b, 1c and 1d below.)


Prophecy fulfilled?

H.L Mencken wrote the editorial below while working for the Baltimore Evening Sun, which appeared in the July 26,1920 edition.

"As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people.  On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and complete narcissistic moron."

- H.L.  Mencken, the Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920

and

 the Canadian view (See 1c below.)
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Where is Obama's outrage when American are slaughtered?  All we get is platitudes and duplicitous urging of proportionality.  (See 2 below.)
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Dick
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1)RJC Statement Regarding Pres. Obama's Executive Action on Immigration 


The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) responded to President Obama's announcement of his administrative order making substantive changes in U.S. immigration policy. RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks said:

"RJC members hold a variety of views on whether and how immigration policy should be changed. Nevertheless, we are united in strong concern that President Obama has exceeded his legitimate authority by making such far-reaching changes unilaterally and in defiance of the constitutionally designated law-making organ of our government - the Congress.

"Although this concern unites Republicans, it should not be characterized as merely partisan. In fact, qualms have been voiced about the appropriateness of the President's action by observers who share his general outlook and his specific immigration policy aims: the editors of the Washington Post1National Journalcolumnist Ron Fournier2, and MSNBC commentator Lawrence O'Donnell3.

"We hope others who are inclined to welcome the results of the President's action will consider the arguments these allies of theirs have made about its broader negative ramifications.

"This action by the President sets a belligerent tone for the last two years of his presidency. When Congress rightly resists the President's diminishment of its constitutional prerogatives, the President will have only himself to blame."
Sources:
(3) http://www.mediaite.com/tv/odonnell-dems-wont-tell-me-legality-of-obama-immigration-action/


1a)
 

Less than a week before the deadline for Iran to reach a deal with the P5+1 powers over its nuclear program, the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog (IAEA) on Thursday blasted the Islamic republic for failing to come clean on the country’s nuclear program. Yukiya Amano, addressing the agency’s board of governors in Vienna, criticized the Islamic republic for having “not provided any explanations that enable the agency to clarify the outstanding practical measures.” Iran has for months been accused of stonewalling by Western officials – an IAEA report released in September concluded that not only was Tehran stonewalling on issues related to the possible military dimensions (PMDs) of its program, but were in fact destroying facilities in a way that “likely… further undermined the Agency’s ability to conduct effective verification.” Meanwhile, U.S. lawmakers continued to pile on support for increased congressional oversight of any deal with the Islamic republic. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fl.), chairwoman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, noted that the sanctions pushed through by lawmakers in Washington – which are widely credited with having brought Iran to the negotiating table – were “why Congress must have a say in any final agreement with Iran.” The subcommittee on Thursday heard testimony from several experts regarding negotiations with Iran, including former CIA chief Gen. Michael Hayden, who called for “more transparency” than Iran is presently providing on its past nuclear efforts. Subcommittee Ranking Member Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fl.) called for a deal that would “dismantle Iran’s centrifuge program to prevent Iran from become a threshold nuclear state, create robust verification and monitoring mechanisms to prevent undetectable breakout, force Iran to come clean on its past nuclear activities including possible military dimensions, and cover a long enough duration that the regime won’t simply wait it out.” In comments that appeared to be directed toward administration officials who had earlier this year launched a campaign seeking to brand Democrats supporting pressure on Iran as warmongers, Deutch concluded his opening remarks by saying, “Those of us who may question the merits of an inadequate deal are not on a march and do not advocate a march to war. We simply do not want to see an agreement that allows Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon right under our noses.”

1b)
Steinitz: Iran deal must prevent cooperation with North Korea
By HERB KEINON
If the Iranians get the right centrifuges, they will be two or three months away from nuclear weapons, intelligence minister warns.
 
With Israel concerned the world powers and Iran might indeed meet Monday’s deadline for a nuclear agreement, Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz called on Thursday for closing two huge loopholes that could enable Iran to race toward a nuclear weapon.

Steinitz, at a press briefing organized by the Israel Project, stressed two points he said were not the focus of the current talks and were considered secondary issues, “but if not properly handled may make any agreement meaningless.”

The first point is to prevent Tehran from including in the agreement permission to proceed with research and development of a generation of more advanced centrifuges. If these advanced centrifuges are indeed built, it would dramatically shorten the time it would take Iran to dash to the nuclear finish line, reducing the time needed to build a bomb after “breakout” from 12 months to two or three months.

“This loophole should be closed,” Steinitz said. “They can’t be permitted to complete research and development on more efficient centrifuges.”

The other loophole that needed to be addressed, he said, had to be to include measures preventing any nuclear cooperation with North Korea or other “rogue states.”

Steinitz said Israel was concerned about possible nuclear cooperation between Iran and North Korea. “If this loophole is not closed, and if Iran under an agreement can have some kind of research and development, knowledge exchange and participation in other countries like North Korea, then this is also the way to bypass an agreement by simply not doing it alone in Iran, but by cooperating with North Korea or other rogue countries.”

Not wanting to go into specifics, the minister said there were good reasons for Israel’s concern, adding that North Korea has been heavily involved in other clandestine and illegal nuclear projects in the region, specifically in Syria a few years back.

“We all know that Iran, Syria and North Korea are very close to each other.”

Steinitz repeated a message that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been voicing for weeks, urging the US and the other members of the P5+1 – Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany – not to sign a “bad deal” with Iran, even if that means that no agreement will be signed. The Iranians have made almost no concession on the core issue of giving up their ability to enrich uranium, Steinitz said.

Regarding the scenario that the November 24 deadline will pass without an agreement, and that – for the third time in a year – another deadline will be set, Steinitz said that while Israel “would not like it,” it would be preferable to an agreement that would enshrine Iranians status as a nuclear threshold state.

Rolling over the deadline would be helpful if the pressure on the Iranian economy would then be increased, he said. “You simply have to apply more pressure to help those inside Iran say, ‘We have no choice, we have to choose – if we want to save the economy, we have to give away the military nuclear infrastructure... We cannot have them both.’”


1c)  Six Final Conditions For A Deal With Iran
On Monday, the deadline for the negotiations between the P5+1 and Iran will expire. Throughout the past year, amid negotiations and extensions, Congress has laid out its views of what a good agreement with Iran would look like. 
We hope a good deal will be announced on Monday. We hope an agreement will be reached that dismantles Iran's nuclear infrastructure such that it is left without a pathway to a nuclear weapon. We hope Iran will come clean on its past weaponization efforts.

Yet, just today, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano 
said "Iran has not provided any explanations"  to enable the agency to clarify the outstanding issues surrounding the possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear program.

In any event,  we will be writing to you next week to express our views on an agreement, an extension, or the end of the current talks. Below are the six key conditions that Congress has laid out over the course of the last year.  

As always, we encourage you to stay up to date on Iran by visiting our website, and following us on Facebook and Twitter.

Sincerely,
Brad Gordon
Director, Policy & Government Affairs 
Marvin Feuer
Director, Policy & Government Affairs 
On Monday, the deadline for the negotiations between the 


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Iran must dismantle its centrifuge infrastructure such that it has no uranium pathway to a nuclear weapon

tions relief must be phased in gradually to allow time to judge Iranian compliance.
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Iran must dismantle its heavy water reactor at Arak, or convert it to a light water reactor, so that it has no plutonium pathway to a nuclear weapon.

iven decades of Iranian cheating, an agreement constraining Iran's nuclear program must be enforced for 
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decades, not years.
International inspectors must have timely access to any suspect location in order to detect Iranian cheating.
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Iran must fully explain its past weaponization efforts.
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Iran must fully explain its past weaponization efforts.
Iran must fully explain i


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Sanctions relief must be phased in gradually to allow time to judge Iranian compliance.

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Given decades of Iranian cheating, an agreement constraining Iran's nuclear program must be enforced for decades, not years.

1d)
By Marc Patrone, Sun News network
 America is on the edge of a second revolutionary war.
    

It may not be bloody like the first one, but it will be hugely important.
   

Some might suggest it’s more a civil war, but with liberty and the constitution hanging in the balance, revolution seems a more appropriate comparison.
   

There are no British troops or monarchy to fight this time.
   

The ‘shot heard around the world’ wasn’t fired from a musket, it came from the ballot box.
   

Americans have taken a long hard look at the kind of fundamental transformation promised by Barack Obama and the Democrat party and they want nothing to do with it.
   

The Republican victory suggests Americans are more than just unhappy with the direction the country is headed.
Such was the devastating scope of the electoral debacle for the Democrats that it appears Americans are mobilizing for war against the Obama agenda.
   

They are only now truly beginning to understand the threat to liberty he presents.
   

What’s so deeply troubling, albeit not entirely unexpected, is the disdain, arrogance and contempt  with which this president dismissed the results.
   

“So to everyone who voted, I want you to know I hear you. To the two-thirds of voters who chose not to participate in the process yesterday, I hear you, too,” he said.
   

Meaning what?
   

He seems to be suggesting that by not voting, the majority of Americans agree with what he’s doing.
   

Terrifying? You bet.
   

It’s taken six years, but the ugly truth about Obama’s contemptuous attitudes toward the people who elected him twice is becoming all too evident.
   

Lame duck? Guess again.
   

The man probably realizes that a chance to remake the U.S. according to his far left view of the world may not come around again.
   

His time is running out. Obama’s ‘nuclear’ option is amnesty for millions of illegals.
   

He expects those illegals will become dependents of the state, thus stacking the electoral deck in favour of Democrats by promising the new ‘wards of the state’ a suite of entitlements.
   

The depth of this destructive agenda is clear, rip off trillions in wealth (which Obama believes was stolen anyway)  and give it to those whom he considers ‘victims’ of capitalism.
   

The beneficiaries will naturally reward the progressive left with voter support into perpetuity. Viola, the progressive dream of a one-party state is realized.
   

This has been decades in the making. The left has infiltrated, corrupted, and subverted the institutions that had, up to now, served as pillars supporting freedom, democracy, and prosperity.
   

The bulk of what was once a free and independent media has been reduced to little more than an arm of the Democrats.
That tens of millions of Americans are flocking to Fox News, Conservative talk radio and online news sites is heartening but doesn’t change the fact most TV, print media outlets are in an advanced state of putrid, cancerous liberal rot.
   

The same cancer has undermined the school system, ‘big labour,' the environmental movement, and the Hollywood culture machine.
   

Even capitalism itself has succumbed to the lure of easy government money, power and cronyism.
   

So who is left to fight for freedom? The rest of America.
   

Obama will attempt to ram through amnesty, climate change, wealth redistribution and he will ignore the constitution to do it.
Republicans have assured Obama impeachment is off the table. And so the battle lines are drawn.
   

Fasten your seat belts Canada, we’re about to get a front-row seat to the battle for the soul of America and indeed the free world.
   

Let’s hope that, as in the first revolutionary war, that the right side wins.
   

If it doesn’t, we all lose.
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2)

Responding to the slaughter

By Caroline Glick

Har-Nof-shul-massacre
 
 
What we are seeing in Jerusalem today is not simply Palestinian terrorism. It is Islamic jihad. No one likes to admit it. The television reporters insist that this is the worst possible scenario because there is no way to placate it. There is no way to reason with it.
 
So what else is new?
 
 
The horrible truth is that all of the anti-Jewish slaughters perpetrated by our Arab neighbors have been motivated to greater or lesser degrees by Islamic Jew-hatred. The only difference between the past hundred years and now is that today our appeasement-oriented elite is finding it harder to pretend away the obvious fact that we cannot placate our enemies.
 
No “provocation” by Jews drove two Jerusalem Arabs to pick up meat cleavers and a rifle and slaughter rabbis in worship like sheep and then mutilate their bodies.

No “frustration” with a “lack of progress” in the “peace process,” can motivate people to run over Jewish babies or attempt to assassinate a Jewish civil rights activist.

The reason that these terrorists have decided to kill Jews is that they take offense at the fact that in Israel, Jews are free. They take offense because all their lives they have been taught that Jews should live at their mercy, or die by their sword.
 
They do so because they believe, as former Jordanian MP Ya’qub Qarash said on Palestinian television last week, that Christians and Muslims should work together to forbid the presence of Jews in “Palestine” and guarantee that “not a single Jew will remain in Jerusalem.”

Our neighbors are taught that Muhammad, the founder of Islam, signed the treaty of Hudaybiyah in 628 as a ploy to buy time during which he would change the balance of power between his army and the Jews of Kuraish. And 10 years later, once his army gained the upper hand, he annihilated the Jews.

Throughout the 130-year history of modern Zionism, Islamic Jew-hatred has been restrained by two forces: the desire of many Arabs to live at peace with their Jewish neighbors; and the ability of Israeli authorities and before them, British authorities, to deter the local Arab Muslims from attacking.

The monopoly on Arab Muslim leadership has always belonged to the intolerant bigots. Support for coexistence has always been the choice of individuals.

Haj Amin el-Husseini’s first act as the founder of the Palestinian Arab identity was to translate The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and serialize them in the local press.

During the Arab jihad of 1936-1939, Husseini’s gangs of murderers killed more Arabs than the British did. He targeted those who sought peaceful coexistence with the Jews.

His successor Yasser Arafat followed his example.

During the 1988-1991 Palestinian uprising, the PLO killed more Palestinians than the IDF did. Like Husseini, Arafat targeted Palestinians who worked with Israel.

Since Israel imprudently embraced Arafat and the PLO in 1993 and permitted them to govern the Palestinians in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, and exert direct influence and coercive power over the Arabs of Jerusalem, the Palestinian Authority’s governing institutions have used all the tools at their disposal to silence those who support peaceful coexistence with Israel, and indoctrinate the general public in Islamic and racial Jew-hatred.

Much has been made of the recent spike in incitement of violence by Palestinian leaders led by Arafat’s successor Mahmoud Abbas. But the flames Abbas and his comrades are throwing would not cause such conflagrations if they hadn’t already indoctrinated their audience to desire the destruction of the Jews.

You cannot solicit murder among those who haven’t been taught that committing murder is an act of heroism.

Today Israel must take swift, effective action to stop the slaughter. The damage that has been done to the psyches of the Arabs of Jerusalem and their brethren in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, cannot be repaired in a timeline relevant to the task of preventing the next massacre.

This means that for the time being, on the tactical level, Israel’s only play is strengthening its deterrence.

Israel faces two major constraints in meeting this challenge.

First, the European Union and the Obama administration, as well as the US foreign policy elite, are obsessively committed to a policy of empowering the Palestinians against Israel.
 
The Spanish parliament’s decision to go ahead with its planned vote to recognize the “State of Palestine,” just hours after the massacre at the Bnei Torah Kehillat Yaakov synagogue in Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighborhood shows that the EU’s dedication to strengthening the Palestinians against Israel is entirely unrelated to events on the ground.

They don’t care who the Palestinians are or what they do. For their own reasons they have made supporting the Palestinians at Israel’s expense their top foreign policy priority.
 
Similarly, US President Barack Obama couldn’t contain his compulsion to pressure Israel even in his statement condemning the massacre. Even there, Obama called on Israelis and Palestinians equally to restrain themselves.

Obama’s unabated hostility toward Israel was brought to bear on Tuesday afternoon when the State Department restated its rejection of Jewish property rights in Jerusalem and its desire to see the homes of terrorist murderers left intact for the welfare of their terror-supporting families.

On Tuesday, Israel’s social media outlets were filled with angry rebukes of Western media outlets from CNN to MSNBC to CBS, to the BBC. All these networks, and many others, did everything in their power to explain away the synagogue slaughter as just another instance of a cycle of violence. That is, they all sought to frame the discussion in a way that would lead their viewers to the conclusion that the slaughter of praying rabbis was justified.

While appalling, the coverage was not the least surprising. The Western elite media’s devotion to their false narrative of Israeli culpability for all the problems in the region is absolute. Networks would rather wreck their professional reputations than tell the truth.

Together with the EU, the American policy elite and the Obama administration, the media place Israel’s leaders in a bind. Every step they take to defend the country and protect the rights of Jews meets with automatic and libelous condemnation.

The other impediment Israel faces in deterring anti-Jewish violence against its citizenry is its own weakness. Since the inception of the phony peace process, Israel has continuously rewarded the Palestinians for their murderous violence against its citizenry.

From Israel’s transfer of control over all the Palestinian population centers in Judea and Samaria, to its forcible expulsion of its own people from Gaza, to its repeated releases of terrorists from prison, to its continued transfer of hundreds of millions of shekels in tax revenues to the PA, Israel has showed the Palestinians at every turn that far from being punished for murdering Jews, they will be rewarded for doing so.

Given the US and European support for the Palestinians, Israeli declarations that there will be no future releases of terrorists have no credibility. If terrorists aren’t killed on the spot, they can assume that they will eventually be released; if not in exchange for an Israeli hostage, Israel will release them in an attempt to placate the White House.

But even with these constraints on its actions, Israel can take steps to deter its hate-filled enemies from attacking.

Since the current campaign of murder is being carried out by terrorists largely acting on their own accord, the measures Israel adopts to stop the attacks should be directed primarily against individual terrorists. As for action against the PA, it needs to be credible, consistent and directed to where it will hurt Palestinian leaders the most: their wallets.

With regard to the individual terrorists, the government has made much of its intention to destroy the homes of terrorists. While it sounds good, there is limited evidence of the effectiveness of this punitive measure, which is a relic of the British Mandate.

Rather than destroy their homes, Israel should adopt the US anti-narcotics policy of asset seizure.

All assets directly or indirectly tied to terrorists, including their homes and any other structure where they planned their crimes, and all remittances to them, should be seized and transferred to their victims, to do with what they will.

If Israel hands over the homes of the synagogue butchers to the 24 orphans of Rabbi Moshe Twersky, Rabbi Kalman Levine, Rabbi Aryeh Kupinsky and Rabbi Avraham Goldberg, not only will justice be served. The children’s inheritance of the homes of their fathers’ killers will send a clear and demoralizing message to other would-be killers.

Not only will their atrocities fail to remove the Jews from Israel. Every terrorist will contribute to the Zionist project by donating his home to the Jewish settlement enterprise.

Just as Israel has repeatedly buckled under US pressure to release terrorists from jail, so it has bowed to US pressure to continue to fund the PA by transferring the tax revenues it collects on goods imported to the PA.

Assuming that the government is too weak to stand up to the Americans, at a minimum it can see that the money is properly used.

To that end, the Knesset should pass a law permitting Israeli terror victims to sue the PA for actual and punitive damages in Israel courts. The sums awarded to the victims should be taken from the tax revenues Israel collects for the PA. The law should apply retroactively to all victims of Palestinian terror carried out since the establishment of the PA in May 1994.

Not only should the law permit Israeli terror victims to sue the PA. It should dictate actions the Justice Ministry must take to assist them in bringing suit.

Israel should also revoke citizenship and residency rights not only from terrorists themselves, but from those who enjoy citizenship and residency rights by dint of their relationship with the terrorists.

Wives who received Israeli residency or citizenship rights though marriage to terrorists should have their rights revoked, as should the children of the terrorists.

Since Tuesday’s massacre, aside from Abbas’s phony condemnation, the Palestinian leadership and public from Fatah to Hamas have been unanimous in their praise for the atrocity.

Today Israel is powerless to influence the hearts of our Arab neighbors. But we can influence their minds. We can deter them from attacking us.

The actions set forth above: asset seizure, revenue seizure and citizenship/residency abrogation for terrorists and their dependents are steps that Israel can take today, despite the hostile international climate.

If the government and Knesset adopt these measures, they will rectify some of the damage Israel has inflicted on itself by showing the Palestinians over two decades that they will be rewarded for their aggression.

If our leaders fail to take these or similar actions, and suffice with complaining about incitement, their condemnations of the murder of Jews will ring as hollow as those sounded by the BBC, Obama and Abbas.
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