Monday, January 25, 2016

Very Important If You Wish To Continue To Read These Memos! The Oscar and The Obama.

I received this from GOOGLE, Saturday!!!

Regrettably my Blog has been removed and now re-instated (Sorry, the blog at dick-meom.blogspot.com has been removed. This address is not available for new blogs.)

Why Google disables accounts

Google wants to ensure that everyone has a chance to safely and securely connect and communicate. To help preserve this environment, Google reserves the right to:
  • Suspend a Google Account from using a particular product or the entire Google Accounts system if there is a violation of the Google Terms of Service, product-specific Terms of Service (available on the product page), or product-specific policies.
  • Terminate your account at any time, for any reason, with or without notice.

This has become an increasing fact of life. Therefore, in the future, if you wish to continue reading  and/or have access to my memo, you will have to become pro-active. Why?  Because my memo list has grown beyond the daily limit GOOGLE allows.  This is due to the fact many of my friends and fellow memo readers have requested I add their friends  and now GOOGLE  frequently shuts me down, which is their legal right.

I moved to GOOGLE after YAHOO got too cumbersome and took too much time.

I have chosen to resolve this issue and I have three options.  I can pay to have access to a private site I can create.  I have never chosen to try and commercialize my memos with advertisers(not that I could even were I to try) and I cannot afford the cost of taking this approach without an income source.

Two other methods, and the ones I have chosen for those who wish to continue reading what I personally write and that which I post of what others write, along with the cartoons, is to offer you these alternative solutions.

You can click on my blog site, which is not case sensitive, as follows:   "http://dick-meom.blogspot.com/." Updated daily, and/or second, you can read same on my FACEBOOK page.  If you are not on and wish to be, just request that I befriend you and I will gladly do so.

I regret that this has happened because I know the saying "out of sight, out of mind" will, over time, reduce contact with many who I have come to know through the social media and yet, have never met.  Many of you send me your own postings, which I often repost and make comments which I often post without direct attribution to protect your own privacy. I hope you will continue.

I write these memos for several reasons.

First, I enjoy expressing myself and the freedom to do so has been a luxury which is one of the great God given rights we have/had in this great country.  This right is under attack. Most particularly on college campuses and the threat is spreading and could ultimately bring our nation to its knees and our freedom(s) to a halt. This is one of the subtle changes Obama has sought to impose because this is what I believe he and his fellow travelers and anarchists want and they have done so under the guise of protecting us from terrorism, which, of course, they refuse to call by its true name - radical Islamism, or is that an oxymoron?

Second, I do so for physical and psychological reasons.  Writing is a way of getting what is disturbing, is stuck in my craw, off my chest. I spend a great deal of time reading and observing. I try to be informed and to know what is going on so I can be a good and participating citizen.  I believe this is everyone's moral and civic responsibility, ie. be informed and participate.  Writing memos and LTE's are one of my best ways I can repay our nation for giving me freedom,and protecting its future for those who come after me. We have all benefited from being Americans and we owe it to future generations to preserve this blessed right and land.

Third, I write to try and educate those who may think otherwise that there is another way.  I am not so conceited to believe my way is the only way but experience has convinced me Conservatism is a good way and, often, far better than the way it is or is sought to be through Progressivism.  I also have learned from others the errors of my own thinking by the responses and comments I have received and hope I have freely admitted so when that occurs.

I find it interesting that technology has both expanded my freedom , widened my opportunity to impact , even with those, I may never physically meet, yet, it too imposes limitations and restrictions and, thus, I am left with diminished options.

I hope those who have enjoyed my memos will continue to avail yourself of them, will make the effort to do so and continue to comment when you feel  compelled. I know, over time, my number of readers will decline because the burden of keeping aware has shifted.  I also will miss the connections and interchange of ideas as that occurs .  

I first began writing memos when I began my career as a stock broker. I would dictate them to my secretary of over 25 years - Mary Penuel, of blessed memory.( I begin writing LTE's at thirteen.)  Then along came the computer, Mary retired and I retired, more or less.  So I have been writing memos since 1960 and will continue until my last breath. 

My associate, Judy Hartley, graciously published my dictated memos for me as a birthday gift and now, if Google, permits, they should remain on my web page for posterity. (There was an hiatus for many years because I  did not begin a web page since I did not know how and then my son showed me and I have been assisted by my computer guru - Paul Laflamme.)

Good luck, thanks for your loyalty and comments and, as Dean Martin used to say, keep those cards coming.

Dick
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MEMO:

The Oscar Committee has created a new category entitled: Color versus Talent.  Instead of an Oscar, the new statute will be made of plastic and will be an image of Obama..

The purpose of the award is to appease those malcontents whose sensibilities have been hurt, who grew up believing affirmative action was a constitutional entitlement and to keep a segment of our population from rioting and burning down more towns and businesses.

As i noted in a previous memo, I thought  "Concussion" was an Oscar quality film but it did not make the cut, nor Will Smith's performance, who, in my opinion, was excellent and of Oscar quality.

I submit, often times acts that deserve recognition do not get their due and prejudice could be the reason but, more than likely, there are other reasons.  Black Americans have used their being slighted most effectively and certainly Obama has carried the tactic to a new and divisive level.  As for myself it is wearing thin.  Perhaps I have turned into a racist.  I think not but there comes a time when overworking a pique can become a turn off and I believe that time, for me, is fast approaching. On the other hand freedom of speech and protest is a constitutional right and how I react is also my right.

I have lived to see a number of presidents  elected and serve.  Many have sought to appease adversaries. It seldom, if ever, works. Carter blew it with the Iranians, Kennedy stood tall against Khrushchev, Reagan brought Russia to its knees and helped free East Germany, Bush '41 stopped Saddam in Kuwait, Clinton caved  with respect to N Korea and look where we are? G.W made his share of mistakes but he confronted those who attacked us on 9/11 and then Obama came along and gave the keys to the vault away at every turn.

I cite these events because the Oscar Committee succumbed to pressure and resorted to appeasement.  If their choices were based on prejudice that is one thing but I would argue the vast majority of those who vote in The Oscar parade are certified liberal and have demonstrated their objectivity based on past votes and selections. As black Americans have gained prominence in Hollywood there has been a significant increase in the number of Oscars and recognition they have deservedly received. 

When you suit up and play in the game. it seems to me. you must also learn to take the knocks and rejections but neither does that mean you must remain silent. I suspect this episode shall pass given time but at some point so must caving to those engaged in racial hijacking. It is time to quit pandering and appeasing to the likes of Jesse Jackson , Al Sharpton and those who continue to play race cards in order to gain undeserved booty and if their rejection is truly unfair it is time for them to suck it up and re-engage. (See articles regarding appeasement 1, 1a and 1b below.)
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Most of my Liberal friend have responded to Benghazi in one of two ways:

a) It is a ploy by Republicans to continue their attacks on Obama and Hillarious

and/or

b) There was no way these four could have been saved.

I have just seen the film "13 Hours."  It is about what actually took place and I commend it to those with strong stomachs and a disgust that this administration failed to act.  For those who resort to denial, I seriously doubt facts will move them


One can only speculate that Obama was more concerned about winning re-election than saving American lives by denying terrorists existed and thus the video narrative became the talking piece that sent Ms. Rice to five talk shows and for Hillarious to lie to the families of those killed when she reported the truth to her daughter and Turkish Diplomats.

Only yesterday Hillarious, while campaigning, declared she was the only one with experience to save lives.  The woman, like Joe McCarthy as in the words of Attorney Joseph Welch "has no shame." (See another way to lie 2 below.)
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Sen. Perdue is catching hell for blocking a Federal District Judge appointment.  Apparently, in Sen. Perdue's eyes and judgment,  this nominee is another radical who is very much in line to wage war against those who disagree with his views regarding immigration and the need to overhaul our existing laws which are not being enforced.

Obama has another year to stuff the government with extremists who are in sync with his thinking and Republicans will be castigated for blocking them.  (See 3 below.)
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Dick
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Appeasing Iran hurts us in Iraq, too


By Max Boot and Michael Pregent 
Max Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Michael Pregent is a retired U.S. Army intelligence officer and an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute.

President Obama, fresh off the implementation of the nuclear accord and a prisoner swap, may want to believe that Iran is, as he suggested to NPR a year ago while discussing what it would take to get a deal done, now on its way to becoming “a very successful regional power” that will abide “by international norms and international rules.” This flies in the face of Iran’s long record of making war on Americans, using the same tactics time after time.

On Jan. 20, 2007, a dozen or so Iraqi militants wearing military uniforms and driving black GMC Suburbans drove into the Karbala provincial government headquarters in a brazen attempt to kidnap U.S. soldiers. One U.S. soldier died in a gun battle. Four others were seized by the attackers and murdered during the course of a pursuit by U.S. forces.

Coalition forces subsequently captured two leaders of an Iranian-backed terrorist group called Asaib Ahl al-Haq (AAH, or League of the Righteous), the brothers Qais Khazali and Laith Khazali, who under interrogation revealed direct involvement by Iran’s Quds Force in planning the attack. A Lebanese Hezbollah operative closely linked to the Quds Force, Ali Musa Daqduq, was subsequently captured and linked to the attack as well in spite of his attempts to pretend that he was deaf and mute.

Two years after the Karbala attack , in 2009, Laith Khazali was freed as part of a prisoner exchange with Iranian-backed Shiite militants who had kidnapped five British men in Iraq and killed four of them. Qais Khazali was freed in 2010 and Daqduq in 2012.

Today the Khazali brothers are back running AAH, which is more powerful than ever and appears to be back to its old tricks. On Jan. 16, a group of militants driving SUVs and wearing military uniforms kidnapped three Americans in Baghdad. At least two of the men were apparently working as trainers for the Counter Terrorism Service, Iraq’s elite special operations unit, which is not only the most effective part of its military (it led the recent assault on Ramadi) but also virtually the only part of it not infiltrated by Shiite militias. Various media outlets are reporting that the Americans were taken to Sadr City, a Shiite stronghold, and that AAH is most likely responsible, possibly in coordination with another Iranian-backed militia, Saraya al-Salam.

AAH is a wholly owned subsidiary of Iran’s Quds Force. It is inconceivable that it could kidnap and hold Americans — a course of action with significant international repercussions — without at least the acquiescence, and probably the active support, of Tehran. Yet the Obama administration is doing all it can to obfuscate that reality. Reuters cited “U.S. government sources” in reporting that “Washington had no reason to believe Tehran was involved in the kidnapping and did not believe the trio were being held in Iran, which borders Iraq.”

Why would Iran need to bring the hostages to its own territory when it already controls much of Iraq? And what kind of evidence would U.S. officials accept as proof of Iranian involvement? Presumably nothing less than intercepts of Iranian officials talking to the kidnappers, but our enemies have gotten cannier about communications security since Edward Snowden’s revelations about U.S. wiretapping capabilities, so such proof may never be forthcoming.

If another news report is to be believed, the administration is pretty sure who is responsible for the kidnapping but just won’t say so in public. CBS News reports: “Officials in Washington had hoped the Iranian government would tell the militia group to hold off because of all the negotiations surrounding the prisoner swap that saw the release of five Americans. The State Department source said the fear was that one of the groups might have ‘gone off the reservation.’ ”

If accurate, this is an incredible revelation: It suggests that the U.S. government had some advance warning of the danger of Americans being kidnapped in Iraq but chose to ignore it in the hopes that Iran would restrain its proxies. The notion that AAH has “gone off the reservation” represents, of course, nothing more than wishful thinking on the part of an administration that is deeply committed to a policy of rapprochement with Iran.

The United States has become dependent on Iran not just in carrying out the nuclear deal that will form the core of Obama’s foreign policy legacy. It is also dependent on Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Iraq for fighting the Islamic State. While the United States insisted that Shiite militias stay off the front lines in the battle of Ramadi, whose population is entirely Sunni, it has generally preferred to turn a blind eye to the growing power of the militias.

The cost of this cavalier attitude has already been considerable. As Reuters notes: “In allowing the Shiite militias to run amok against their Sunni foes, Washington has fueled the Shia-Sunni sectarian divide that is tearing Iraq apart.” Indeed, the power of the Shiite militias leads many Sunnis to embrace the Islamic State as the lesser evil.
Now we are seeing another possible ramification of Washington’s acquiescence to the Iranian power grab. It will make the U.S. military far less likely to try to rescue the three U.S. hostages even if it can develop actionable intelligence on their location, because any rescue attempt would put U.S. troops into direct conflict with Iranian proxies. That would endanger the safety of all U.S. personnel in Iraq and risk collapsing Obama’s entire strategy of outreach to Iran.

Instead of a rescue attempt, expect the administration to attempt another deal like the one that led this month to the release of five American hostages in return for seven Iranians convicted of acquiring sensitive military technology. The problem with such deals is that they only encourage more hostage-taking — as the kidnapping in Baghdad, on the very day when the nuclear deal was being implemented, should make clear.


1a)

Where Does All That Aid for Palestinians Go?

An outsize share of per capita international aid, even as the Palestinian Authority funds terrorists.

 ByTzipi Hotovely 
One often-cited key to peace between Israel and the Palestinians is economic development. To that end, there seems to be broad agreement about the importance of extending development aid to help the Palestinians build the physical and social infrastructure that will enable the emergence of a sustainable, prosperous society. But few have seriously questioned how much money is sent and how it is used.

Such assistance will only promote peace if it is spent to foster tolerance and coexistence. If it is used to strengthen intransigence it does more harm than good—and the more aid that comes in, the worse the outcome. This is exactly what has been transpiring over the past few decades. Large amounts of foreign aid to the Palestinians are spent to support terrorists and deepen hostility.

For years the most senior figures in the Palestinian Authority have supported, condoned and glorified terror. “Every drop of blood that has been spilled in Jerusalem,” President Mahmoud Abbas said last September on Palestinian television, “is holy blood as long as it was for Allah.” Countless Palestinian officials and state-run television have repeatedly hailed the murder of Jews.

This support for terrorism doesn’t end with hate speech. The Palestinian regime in Ramallah pays monthly stipends of between $400 and $3,500 to terrorists and their families, the latter of which is more than five times the average monthly salary of a Palestinian worker.

According to data from its budgetary reports, compiled in June 2014 by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the PA’s annual budget for supporting Palestinian terrorists was then roughly $75 million. That amounted to some 16% of the foreign donations the PA received annually. Overall in 2012 foreign aid made up about a quarter of the PA’s $3.1 billion budget. More recent figures are inaccessible since the Palestinian Authority is no longer transparent about the stipend transfers.

Embarrassed by public revelations of the misuse of the foreign aid, in August 2014 the Palestinian Authority passed the task of paying stipends to terrorists and their families to a fund managed by the Palestine Liberation Organization, also led by Mr. Abbas. Lest there be any doubt as to the purely cosmetic nature of the change, Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah made assurances as recently as September 2015 that the PA will provide the “necessary assistance” to ensure these terror stipends.
This procedural ruse apparently calmed the consciences of donor governments that continue to transfer aid. It is difficult to think of another case in which such a forgiving attitude would be taken regarding foreign aid to an entity that sponsors terror.

This situation is particularly disturbing given the disproportionate share of development assistance the Palestinians receive, which comes at the expense of needy populations elsewhere. According to a report last year by Global Humanitarian Assistance, in 2013 the Palestinians received $793 million in international aid, second only to Syria. This amounts to $176 for each Palestinian, by far the highest per capita assistance in the world. Syria, where more than 250,000 people have been killed and 6.5 million refugees displaced since 2011, received only $106 per capita.

A closer look at the remaining eight countries in the top 10—Sudan, South Sudan, Jordan, Lebanon, Somalia, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo—is even more alarming. CIA Factbook data show that these countries have a combined population of 284 million and an average per capita GDP of $2,376. Yet they received an average of $15.30 per capita in development assistance in 2013. The Palestinians, by comparison, with a population of 4.5 million, have a per capita GDP of $4,900.

In other words, though the Palestinians are more than twice as wealthy on average than these eight countries, they receive more than 11 times as much foreign aid per person. The Democratic Republic of Congo is a case in point: Its 79 million people have a per capita GDP of $700, yet they receive only $5.70 in aid per person.

Between 1993 (when the Oslo Process began) and 2013, the Palestinians received $21.7 billion in development assistance, according to the World Bank. The Palestinian leadership has had ample opportunity to use these funds for economic and social development. Tragically, as seen in Hamas-run Gaza, it prefers to use the funds on its terrorist infrastructure and weaponry, such as cross-border attack tunnels and the thousands of missiles that have rained down in recent years on Israel.

In Judea and Samaria, the “West Bank,” the situation is equally disturbing. Aside from funding terrorists and investing in hate speech, the PA stubbornly refuses to remove hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from “refugee” rosters, deliberately keeping them in a state of dependence and underdevelopment for no purpose other than to stoke animosity toward Israel.

It is difficult to come away from these facts without realizing the deep connection between the huge amounts of foreign aid being spent, the bizarre international tolerance for patently unacceptable conduct by the Palestinians and the lack of progress toward peace on the ground.

Donors to the Palestinians who support peace would do well to rethink the way they extend assistance. Money should go to economic and civic empowerment, not to perpetuate a false sense of victimhood and unconditional entitlement. It should foster values of tolerance and nonviolence, not the glorification and financing of terrorism.

Ms. Hotovely is the deputy foreign minister of Israel.


1b)

Obama's Syria Diplomacy is Doomed to Fail

by A.J. Caschetta
The Hill


Originally published under the title "Syrian Diplomatic Push Doomed to Fail."
The Obama administration will spend its final year attempting "to de-escalate the conflict in Syria...through a political transition." This effort to impose adiplomatic solution on Syria will be lauded as a great success by the State Department and recognized for the failure it is destined to be by nearly everyone else. John Kerry may get his temporary cessation of killing, but not of hostilities. He may preside over grave and haughty signing ceremonies, but few of the parties will abide by the promises they make.

An admirable impulse to own the moral high ground, never "stoop to the enemy's level" and exercise all diplomatic efforts before, during, and after a war has taken hold of all levels of the US government, but the results are often counterproductive.

Diplomacy only succeeds when backed by a credible threat of force, and few believe that the U.S. will exert anything beyond the bare minimum in Syria. The president has somehow failed to learn the most important piece of advice Machiavelli gave to the prince – "it is better to be feared than loved."
The United States has lost its capacity to inspire fear.
In Syria the US lost its capacity to inspire fear in 2013 after Assad was allowed to cross with impunity Obama's "red line" on the use of chemical weapons. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel recognized the harm that would come from failure to follow through on the threat, but his advice to bomb Damascus was rebuked, leading to his departure from the administration.
World War II was the last large-scale conflict to end in unconditional surrender. With the advent of the United Nations, conflicts have ended through diplomacy, which is to say that one side of a conflict has either agreed to compromise, pretended to compromise or was forced to compromise. Unless one side is defeated, or convinced that defeat is inevitable, the conflict persists. The UN has become a great facilitator of stalemates.
Any UN-imposed diplomatic intermission, like one in late December between Assad and rebels allowing evacuation of civilians from three towns, may offer the virtue of a temporary cessation of violence, but diplomacy alone can never create peace. On rare occasions when both sides of a dispute are willing to compromise, as in the voluntary separation of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, peace can be authentic and lasting. More often though, one side is unwilling to compromise, resulting in a situation like Korea, where nearly 30,000 US troops have enforced a precarious peace for half a century. Another model is Vietnam, where the Paris Peace Accords led to an agreement that was breached even before the last US helicopter left Saigon. And then there is Israel, capable but diplomatically unwilling to eliminate the threat from its belligerent neighbors. The UN is able to create the illusion of peace but unable to alter conditions that lead to war, especially as in Syria where all the combatants are intransigent. Only the U.S. wants an agreement, any agreement.
The Obama administration's diplomatic efforts have everywhere been dismal.

In spite of great expectations to the contrary, the Obama administration's diplomatic efforts have been dismal, from its failure to secure an effective Status of Forces agreement with the Iraqi government (depicted by the press as a campaign promise kept) to its obsequious JCPOA with Iran (depicted by the State Department as an important breakthrough), thanking Iran for taking care of the U.S. sailors they held hostage. It negotiated arguably the two worst prisoner exchanges in the history of prisoner exchanges: five American citizens held hostage for the crime of being American traded for seven convicted criminals who happened to be Iranian. Before that it was five top Taliban commanders traded for Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl – hailed by Susan Rice in 2014 as "a young man...who served with honor and distinction," charged in 2015 with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy and facing a General Court Martial in 2016. At a very strange Rose Garden announcement with Bergdahl's very strange parents, Obamacalled it "a good day." It wasn't.

Any UN-approved, John Kerry-led State Department initiative in Syria, like the one Kerry announced in his January 13 speech to the National Defense University, will likely lead to another bad day, with US enemies strengthened and US influence weakened. Since none of the major parties currently has much cause to fear the US, look for an emboldened Assad and increased Russian and Iranian influence. Rather than the demise of ISIS, expect a further marginalization of the Kurds and Israelis. For the next president's sake, for everyone's sake, let's hope no one draws any more red lines.
A.J. Caschetta is a senior lecturer at the Rochester Institute of Technology and a Shillman-Ginsburg fellow at the Middle East Forum.
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2)
PMW           
Bulletin    
Jan. 24, 2016
Op-ed in official PA daily:
US suspected of causing the 9-11 attacks
to create anarchy in Arab world
 d
US used 9-11 to "create an imaginary enemy called 'terror'"
"[The US] cultivated the idea until it ripened
into what is known today as the Islamic State organization"
US goal: "The US will distance Arab states from each other,
and uproot the idea of unity between them"

Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik
An op-ed in the official PA daily accuses the US of being behind all the turmoil and civil wars in the Muslim and Arab world, even the Sunni-Shiite fighting. Moreover, the writer claims that this turmoil, which the US is allegedly orchestrating, is the direct result of the 9-11 attacks on the US. The US utilized this attack to create "an imaginary enemy called 'terror,' and it supervised the cultivation of the idea until it ripened into what is known today as the Islamic State organization," the writer states. Moreover, the writer claims that the evidence and facts indicate that the US itself is the number one suspect in the 9-11 bombings.
The accusation that the US is behind all the crises and wars in the Middle East, sometimes in collaboration with Israel, has been voiced often in the official PA daily and documented byPalestinian Media Watch, as well as the claim that US and Israel are behind and controlling the Islamic State terror organization.
The following is a longer excerpt of the op-ed claiming the US is responsible for the regional unrest in the Middle East:
Headline: "A dynamo whose owners are hidden"
Op-ed by Dr. Osama Al-Fara in his regular column

"The US invented the idea of creative anarchy in the [Middle East] region, which began with its war against Iraq, of which it pulled out only after ensuring that the sectorial fire burning there would consume all of it, and afterwards it used its technological capabilities to create a game of dominoes in the region. The same US has indeed succeeded in convincing the world that the Islamic extremism is what threatens world security and peace. In order to do this, it used the events of Sept. 11, 2001, even though that event raised many questions that place the US in the defendant's seat, as was exposed later in a series of facts and reports. However, out of this event the US succeeded in creating an imaginary enemy called 'terror,' and it supervised the cultivation of the idea until it ripened into what is known today as the Islamic State organization.
There is no doubt that the US is still holding many of strings of the game, and its main goal is to spill oil on the fire that is burning in the region, of which it is clearly the sole beneficiary. This is so because the fighting raging in the region provides the appropriate land for redrawing the map of the region, which will use sectarianism to determine the geographic borders of its states, on the basis of studies prepared years ago. In this way, the US will distance Arab states from each other, and uproot the idea of unity between them. Naturally, it will not find a better chord than the Sunni-Shiite conflict on which to play the tune of the next war in the region. Moreover, the fire burning in the region has even turned the wheels of the traditional American arms industry in an unprecedented way, while the US pays no price for the anarchy it has created in the region. This is so as the 'terror' has not reached its [the US'] yard as has happened in the European states, and it  [the US] has not been forced to open its gates to the immigrants who have flocked to Europe."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 21, 2016]
"Creative Anarchy" or "constructive anarchy" are terms coined by former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2006 to describe the initial stage in the political reconstruction of former dictatorships as part of the Anglo-American roadmap for a "New Middle East."

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3)  LET’S HEAR IT FOR SENATOR PERDUE
When Democratic presidents nominate leftist minority group members to the federal bench, it’s win-win for them. Either they get a leftist confirmed plus the right to brag about how much they’re doing for minorities or the Democrats can castigate Republicans for being mean to minorities.
The nomination of Dax Lopez to the federal district court for the Northern District of Georgia is a classic example. Lopez is Hispanic (and Jewish too). But Sen. David Perdue stood up to the pressure to rubber stamp his nomination and blocked it.
Now Perdue is feeling the backlash, as is clear from this article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The Hispanic National Bar Association has blasted Perdue, as has the Anti-Defamation League. And the Democrats, of course, are playing this for all they think it’s worth. Antonio Molina, the caucus chair of the Democratic Party of Georgia sniffed:
These kinds of partisan games only reinforce what we already know about the GOP—there is no room at their table for Latinos. They’ve now gone from blocking commonsense immigration reform and opportunity for DREAMers to depriving Georgia of a talented legal mind for no other reason than his association with the Latino community.
But should Lopez be confirmed? In my view, the Democrats are lucky that any Obama nominees are being taken up in his lame duck year. Indeed, I believe that Republicans should have enforced a strong presumption against any judicial confirmations in response to President Obama’s lawless executive amnesty.
That aside, Perdue was right to block this particular nominee. Why?
First, he and fellow Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson received many letters from state legislators and law enforcement officials opposing Lopez’s nomination. In fact, the sheriffs of Georgia’s second and third most populous counties (Gwinett and Cobb) opposed it. So did the State Senate Majority Whip and State Senate Majority Caucus Chairman.
Second, Lopez is a radical who favors lawlessness as a means to accomplish his policy preferences. He served on the Board of Directors of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials (GALEO). Lopez says that GALEO is “an organization very near and dear to my heart.”
During Lopez’s time on the GALEO board, this outfit, among other leftist positions:
Applauded the Fulton County Sheriff for refusing to cooperate with ICE on deportations.
Supported Obama’s unlawful executive orders on illegal immigration and amnesty.
Opposed Georgia’s voter identification law.
Opposed Georgia’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Lopez also took a lead role in slandering opponents of illegal immigration. He researched, wrote, and edited a GALEO White Paper that attacked groups such as the Center for Immigration Studies, claiming that their views are “strikingly similar” to those of “racial separatists.” He singled out one anti-illegal immigration activist in part for saying “there is no universal civil right to live in the United States.”
Cobb County Sheriff Neil Warren noted GALEO’s strident lawlessness in his letter opposing Lopez’s nomination. He wrote:
In my 38 years of law enforcement service in Cobb County Georgia, including 11 years as Sheriff, I have never seen an organization work harder against the interest of our state. GALEO has called for law enforcement to turn a blind eye towards criminals that have illegally penetrated our borders and then perpetrated crimes against the very citizens I am sworn to protect.
Third, Lopez likes receiving preferential treatment because of his ethnicity. A vocal supporter of race-based affirmative action for his entire public life, I’m told that he has said his LSAT score was low and he would never have been admitted to Vanderbilt Law School but for the preference he received as a Hispanic.
Fourth, Lopez believes strongly in judicial activism. Speaking about federal judges during the 1960s, Lopez reportedly said:
The simple answer to how these judges became the unsung heroes of the [c]ivil rights movement is that judges have the power not only to talk about change, they can actually ORDER change…and what they did is that through the Courts they provided non violent forum [sic] to address injustice which led to real change, nonviolent revolution. . . .
These were the original activist judges, judges that applied all of the law, not just the portions they felt supported their own prejudiced views.
If confirmed, Lopez would almost surely strive to become a “hero” by applying “all of the law” to advance his revolutionary agenda, especially when it comes to illegal immigration.
Senator Perdue will be roundly condemned in the mainstream media and in other liberal circles for standing against Lopez’s confirmation. The Democrats will use this to raise money to try and defeat him when he stands for re-election.
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