BDS Advocates and Participants!
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More BDS efforts to create anti-Semitism on college campuses and to keep anti-Semitism alive and thriving. (See 1, 1a and 1b below.)
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I am re-posting this article by Pamela Geller pertaining to London. Why? Because Obama and New York's mayor, Bill de Blasio are heading us in the same direction. If not, why the desire to increase immigration from the Middle East without vetting? If not, why lying to America about the Iran Deal? If not, why the support of The Muslim Brotherhood while apologizing for American arrogance? (See 2 below.)
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Do these articles substantiate my previous posting that the Clinton Foundation is engaged in questionable practices? This action may not be technically illegal but it is questionable and seems to be another continuation of their arrogance and belief they can do what they wish because they feel they are above the law as Bernie keeps reminding us. (See 3 and 3a below.)
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This from a dear friend and fellow memo reader: "This a personal request to let you know how to support
Memorial Medical University Hospital in Savannah.
The Chatham County Hospital Authority members are selected by the Chatham County Commissioners.
The head of the Chatham County Commissioners has had a great deal of input into the current situation of Novant declining to continue its partnership with Memorial.
This means that the Children's Hospital is on hold, neo-natal care will be cut, our property taxes will rise, serious jobs will be lost and programs will be set back.
The solution is to VOTE for a new Chatham County Commissioner Head. I am highly recommending Tony Center.
Tony Center is a Democrat....there is no Republican running for this office. You need to ask for a Democratic ballot and vote for Mr. Center.
All Republicans running in the primary are unopposed and WILL be on the November ballot.
Early voting is going on now at Eisenhower next to the DMV center.
The primary date is May 24th.
Please help spread the word....... M---"
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I have said, time and again, lower federal courts, not the current Supreme Court, will save our Republic from Obama'a desire to wreck/destroy it. One more decision in furtherance of my belief. (See 4 below.)
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Dick
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++1) BDS Spreads Anti-Semitism Across U.S. Campuses
by Noah Beck
Special to IPT News
Special to IPT News
Anti-Semitic incidents seem to spring up each week on college campuses throughout the United States. According to a study, "The strongest predictor of anti-Jewish hostility on campus" is the presence of a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.
The greater the BDS activity, especially involving faculty members, the more likely anti-Semitic episodes become, said the study issued last month by the AMCHA Initiative, a non-profit organization dedicated to investigating, documenting, and combating anti-Semitism on U.S. campuses.
One recent example occurred on April 15, when the City University of New York Doctoral Students' Council passed a resolution calling for an academic boycott of Israel, 42-19. Weeks earlier, a CUNY professor and BDS advocate claimedthat the killing of Palestinians in Gaza "reflects Jewish values." On CUNY campuses, the New York Observer reports, Jewish students were harassed, with "Jews out of CUNY" uttered in at least one instance, and a professor who wears a yarmulke was called a "Zionist pig."
On April 21, two-thirds of a union representing about 2,000 graduate students at New York University voted to approve a motion to support a BDS resolution against Israel. The motion also urges the union and its affiliate, the United Auto Workers, to divest from Israeli companies. The resolution asks NYU to close its program at Tel Aviv University, claiming the program violates NYU's non-discrimination policy.
About a month earlier, NYU's Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), one of the main organizing forces behind the nationwide BDS campaign, hosted Israeli academic Ilan Pappé, described by Benny Morris as "one of the world's sloppiest historians."
"Pappé blamed Jews, perceived historically as evil, for antisemitism stating, 'The [Jewish] Israelis...are responsible for bringing antisemitism back.' He denied Jews self-determination and demonized Israel stating, 'evil Zionism will come to an end – all immoral regimes do' as well as suggested rich Jews should leave Israel as a process of 'decolonization.' He further demonized Israel throughout accusing Israel of carrying out 'ethnic cleansing' multiple times. Pappé delegitimized Israel consistently referring to Israel as a 'settler colonialist project,' ...[and] promoted BDS."
The Jewish Law Students Association at Harvard University and Harvard Hillel co-sponsored an event April 14 on "The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict & the U.S." During the question and answer session, Husam el-Qoulaq, an HLS student and head of SJP at the school, insulted Israeli Knesset Member Tzipi Livni by asking, "How is it that you are so smelly?... A question about the odor of Ms. Tzipi Livni, she's very smelly, and I was just wondering." The student's question resurrected the anti-Semitic stereotype of a "smelly/dirty Jew." Incredibly, some "progressive" HLS Jewish students later defended el-Qoulaq.
As BDS campaigns spread on campuses, anti-Semitic expression increasingly follows – from swastika-filled vandalism at UC Davis and Purdue University to student "debates" at Stanford University that implicitly dignify classical anti-Semitic tropes about Jews controlling the media and economy. Among other recent incidents:
According to AMCHA, 2016 already has seen 171 anti-Semitic/BDS incidents as of April 21. At this rate, 2016 will see a 36 percent increase in incidents over last year.
Faculty members have become increasingly active in BDS efforts and smears. During a talk at Vassar College in February, Rutgers professor Jasbir Puar accused Israel of harvesting Palestinian organs and conducting scientific experiments in "stunting" the growth of Palestinian bodies. Last month, 40 Columbia University professors signed a BDS petition. More recently, one pro-BDS professor even tried to link campus rape to Israel. As Rochester Institute of Technology lecturer A.J. Caschetta notes, "at a time when much of academe is jumping on the BDS bandwagon, there is little risk to academics who join the movement, whereas opposition to majority leftist positions often leads to a perilous path."
Indeed, academics who buck this trend may be endangering their careers. At Connecticut College, one of the few professors who defended Andrew Pessin, who hasn't been in his classroom for the past year after a hate-filled campaign miscast his comments about Hamas as a smear on all Palestinians, says his stance cost him a promotion. Manuel Lizarralde, associate professor in Ethnobotany, wrote in a faculty-wide email Jan. 26 that the college "acted like vigilantes and found the perfect scapegoat," in Pessin.
Within days, Lizarralde said, he was called in by the administration for a scolding. Noting that he was recently denied promotion, Lizarralde suggested in a recent email that this was payback for his support of Pessin. Connecticut College has "a sense of racism since we are Latinos, Jews and advocate for social injustice...[and we] are being punished [for such activism]."
Responding to the negative media coverage generated by the Pessin case, Connecticut College President Katherine Bergeron published an email to the faculty March 28, in which she championed "the right of all its members to express their views freely and openly." She failed to explain how that principle applied to Pessin, who was hounded off campus for expressing his views, only to see them twisted and turned against him. She said that the school should promote "reasoned and informed debate about the most complex issues of our time," but Pessin's absence leaves the school with no pro-Israel voice. When asked about the contradictions between her email and the Pessin affair, she declined to comment.
Meanwhile, outrage against Connecticut College continues to build, with a petition to investigate the Pessin affair and revoke the school's accreditation now exceeding 1,500 signatures.
Just as the character assassination targeting the only pro-Israel voice at Connecticut College appeared as a total surprise, BDS campaigns to influence student government votes across the country pop up with minimal notice, just weeks before the vote, giving the opposition little time to organize. That strategy helped secure SJP a BDS victory at the University of Chicago undergraduate student government in March.
It failed to persuade the university's administration, though.
Who is funding BDS? Analyst Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies recently told members of Congress that former employees of Hamas-linked charities now work for the Illinois-based organization American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), which is "arguably the leading BDS organization in the US, a key sponsor of the anti-Israel campus network known as Students for Justice in Palestine." Schanzer noted that AMP provides money, speakers, training and even "apartheid walls" to SJP campus activists. More surprising, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund has given anti-Israel BDS organizations hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to the Shurat Hadin Israel Law Center.
On campus after campus, the BDS movement has proven itself to be well organized and determined to poison the minds of impressionable students against Israel. It will take an equally concerted and sustained effort to oppose BDS in academia.
Noah Beck is the author of The Last Israelis, an apocalyptic novel about Iranian nukes and other geopolitical issues in the Middle East.
1a) Irwin Cotler: Jews died at Auschwitz because of anti-Semitism, but anti-Semitism did not die there
I write at a historic moment of remembrance and reminder, of witness and warning. For we are on the eve of two historic anniversaries: the 80th anniversary of the coming into effect of the Nuremberg Race Laws, which served as prologue and precursor to the Holocaust; and the 70th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials — which served as the foundation for the development of contemporary international human rights and humanitarian law. This historic juncture of the double entendre of Nuremberg — the Nuremberg of jackboots and the Nuremberg of judgments — is the theme of an international legal symposium I’m attending at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. It will be followed on May 5 by the March of the Living, when 10,000 young people and survivors will march in remembrance, and in solidarity, from the gates of Auschwitz to Birkenau.
And so, we must ask ourselves two questions: What have we learned? What must we do? Those are big questions, but we have some of the answers already.
Lesson One: The Danger of Forgetting and the Responsibility of Remembrance
The first lesson is the importance of zachor, of remembrance of the victims defamed, demonized and dehumanized as prologue and justification for genocide, and where the mass murder of six million Jews, and of millions of non-Jews, is not a matter of abstract statistics.
As one says at such moments of remembrance, “Unto each person there is a name, each person has an identity, each person is a universe,” recalling that “whoever saves a single life it is as if he or she has saved an entire universe.” And so, the abiding imperative which we must imbibe and act upon: We are each, wherever we are, the guarantors of each other’s destiny.
Lesson Two: The Danger of State-Sanctioned Incitement to Hate and Genocide and the Responsibility to Prevent
The second enduring lesson is that the Holocaust succeeded not only because of the industry of death — of which the crematoria are a cruel reminder — but because of the Nazis’ state-sanctioned ideology of hate. It is this teaching of contempt, this demonizing of the other, this is where it all begins. As the Canadian Supreme Court affirmed, “The Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers — it began with words.” Indeed, it is this genocidal incitement — as the Supreme Court of Canada again affirmed in the Mugesera case — that constitutes a crime in and of itself, whether genocidal acts follow or not.
Lesson Three: The Danger of Old/New Anti-Semitism and the Responsibility to Combat
The third lesson is the danger of anti-Semitism, the oldest and most enduring of hatreds and the most lethal. If the Holocaust is a metaphor for radical evil, anti-Semitism is a metaphor for radical hatred.
From 1941 to 1944, 1.3 million people were murdered at Auschwitz — of whom 1.1 million were Jews — recalling Elie Wiesel’s dictum that “the Holocaust was a war against the Jews in which not all victims were Jews, but all Jews were victims.”
Let there be no mistake about it: Jews died at Auschwitz because of anti-Semitism, but anti-Semitism did not die there. As we have learned only too tragically, while it begins with Jews, it doesn’t end with Jews.
Lesson Four: The Danger of Holocaust Denial and the Responsibility to Repudiate False Witness
The Holocaust denial movement — the cutting edge of anti-Semitism old and new, is not just an assault on Jewish memory in its accusation that the Holocaust is a hoax and the Jews fabricated this hoax; rather, it constitutes an international criminal conspiracy to cover up the worst crimes in history. Simply put, the Holocaust denial movement whitewashes the crimes of the Nazis, as it excoriates the “crimes” of the Jews. And now, in an inversion of the Holocaust, Israel is labelled as a genocidal state, and the Jews are the new Nazis.
Lesson Five: The Danger of Indifference and Inaction in the Face of Mass Atrocity and the Responsibility to Protect
The fifth painful and poignant lesson is that these Holocaust crimes resulted not only from state-sanctioned incitement to hatred and genocide, but from crimes of indifference, from conspiracies of silence — from the international community as bystander. What makes the Holocaust, and more recently the Rwandan Genocide, so unspeakable, is not only the horror of the genocide itself — which is horrific enough — but that these genocides were preventable.
Let there be no mistake about it: indifference and inaction always mean coming down on the side of the victimizer, never on the side of the victim. In the face of evil, indifference is acquiescence, if not complicity in evil itself.
Lesson Six: The Danger of Impunity and the Responsibility to Bring War Criminals to Justice
If the last century — symbolized by the Holocaust — was the age of atrocity, it was also the age of impunity. Few of the perpetrators — including at the Nuremberg Trials — were brought to justice. Just as there must be no sanctuary for hate, no refuge for bigotry, there must be no base or sanctuary for these enemies of humankind. Impunity only emboldens and encourages the war criminals and war crimes.
Lesson Seven: The Danger of La trahison des clercs (The Betrayal of the Elites) and the Responsibility to Speak Truth to Power
The seventh lesson is that the Holocaust was made possible not only because of the “bureaucratization of genocide,” as Robert Lifton put it — and as the Nazi desk murderer Adolf Eichmann personified — but because of the trahison des clercs, the complicity of the elites, including physicians, church leaders, judges, lawyers, engineers, architects and educators.
Nuremberg crimes were also the crimes of the Nuremberg elites. It is our responsibility, then, to speak truth to power, to hold power accountable to truth. The double entendre of Nuremberg — of Nuremberg racism and the Nuremberg principles — must be part of our learning as it is part of our legacy.
Lesson Eight: The Danger of the Assault on the Vulnerable and Powerless and the Responsibility to Intervene
The eighth lesson concerns the vulnerability of the powerless and the powerlessness of the vulnerable. Indeed, it is revealing, as Prof. Henry Friedlander pointed out in his work The Origins of Nazi Genocide, that the first group targeted for killing were the Jewish disabled.
It is our responsibility, to give voice to the voiceless and to empower the powerless, be they the disabled, poor, elderly, women victimized by violence, or vulnerable children — the most vulnerable of the vulnerable.
Lesson Nine: The Danger of the Bystander Community and the Responsibility of Rescue
The ninth lesson is the remembrance and tribute that must be paid to the rescuers, the Righteous Among the Nations, of whom Raoul Wallenberg is metaphor and message, who demonstrated that one person with the compassion to care and the courage to act can confront evil, resist, and transform history. Tragically, the man who saved so many was not himself saved by so many who could have. We have a responsibility to help discover the fate of this great hero of the Holocaust, whom the United Nations called the greatest humanitarian of the 20th century. An International Scholars Roundtable, in May 2016, will attempt to do precisely that.
Lesson 10: The Legacy of Holocaust Survivors
We must always remember — and celebrate — the survivors of the Holocaust, the true heroes of humanity. For they witnessed and endured the worst of inhumanity, but somehow found, in the depths of their own humanity, the courage to go on, to rebuild their lives as they helped build our communities.
Together with them, we must remember — and pledge — that never again will we be indifferent to incitement and hate; never again will we be silent in the face of evil; never again will we indulge racism and anti-Semitism; never again will we ignore the plight of the vulnerable; and never again will we be indifferent in the face of mass atrocity and impunity.
We will speak up and act against racism, against hate, against anti-Semitism, against mass atrocity, against injustice, and against the crime of crimes whose name we should shudder to mention: genocide.
National Post
Irwin Cotler is professor of Law (emeritus) at McGill University and founding chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. He is co-chair, with Professor Alan Dershowitz, of the international legal symposium The Double Entendre of Nuremberg: The Nuremberg of Hate and the Nuremberg of Justice.
1b)Why Free Speech Matters on Campus
‘Safe spaces’ will create graduates unwilling to tolerate differing opinions—a crisis for a free society.
PHOTO: GETTY I
During college commencement season, it is traditional for speakers to offer words of advice to the
graduating class. But this year the two of us—who don’t see eye to eye on every issue—believe that
the most urgent advice we can offer is actually to college presidents, boards, administrators and faculty.
Our advice is this: Stop stifling free speech and coddling intolerance for controversial ideas, which are
crucial to a college education—as well as to human happiness and progress.
Across America, college campuses are increasingly sanctioning so-called “safe spaces,” “speech codes,
“trigger warnings,” “microaggressions” and the withdrawal of invitations to controversial speakers. By
doing so, colleges are creating a climate of intellectual conformity that discourages open inquiry,
debate and true learning. Students and professors who dare challenge this climate, or who accidentally
run afoul of it, can face derision, contempt, ostracism—and sometimes even official sanctions.
The examples are legion. The University of California considers statements such as “America is the
land of opportunity” and “everyone can succeed in this society, if they work hard enough” to be
microaggressions that faculty should avoid. The roll of disinvited campus speakers in recent years
continues to grow, with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education identifying 18 attempts to
intimidate speakers so far this year, 11 of which have been successful. The list includes former
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who is scheduled to give the commencement address at Scripps
College this weekend. Student protests have vilified her as a “genocide enabler” and 28 professors
have signed a letter stating they will refuse to attend.
Colleges are increasingly shielding students from any idea that could cause discomfort or offense. Yet
without the freedom to offend, freedom of expression, as author Salman Rushdie once observed,
“ceases to exist.” And as Frederick Douglass said in 1860: “To suppress free speech is a double wrong.
It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.”
When a professor last year decided to write online about the trend toward intolerance on campuses, he
did so under a pseudonym out of fear of a backlash. “The student-teacher dynamic,” he wrote, “has
been reenvisioned along a line that’s simultaneously consumerist and hyper-protective, giving each and every student the ability to claim Grievous Harm in nearly any circumstance, after any affront.”
We believe that this new dynamic, which is doing a terrible disservice to students, threatens not only
the future of higher education, but also the very fabric of a free and democratic society. The purpose of
a college education isn’t to reaffirm students’ beliefs, it is to challenge, expand and refine them—and
to send students into the world with minds that are open and questioning, not closed and self-righteous. This helps young people discover their talents and prepare them for citizenship in a diverse, pluralistic democratic society.
American society is not always a comfortable place to be; the college campus shouldn’t be, either.
Education is also supposed to give students the tools they need to contribute to human progress.
Through open inquiry and a respectful exchange of ideas, students can discover new ways to help
others improve their lives.
The importance of such inquiry is obvious in science. Thanks to the freedom to make and test
hypotheses, we have discovered that the Earth is round, how gravity works, the theory of relativity,
and many other monumental scientific achievements. The ability to challenge the status quo leads to
unimaginable innovations, advances in material well-being and deeper understandings of the natural
world. But this principle doesn’t just apply to biology, chemistry, physics and other scientific fields.
Whether in economics, morality, politics or any other realm of study, progress has always depended
upon human beings having the courage to challenge prevailing traditions and beliefs. Many ideas that
the majority of Americans now hold dear—including that all people should have equal rights, women
deserve the right to vote, and gays and lesbians should be free to marry whom they choose—were
once unpopular minority views that many found offensive. They are now widely accepted because
people were free to engage in a robust dialogue with their fellow citizens.
We fear that such dialogue is now disappearing on college campuses. As it fades, it will make material
and social progress that much harder to achieve. It will also create graduates who are unwilling to
tolerate differing opinions—a crisis for a free society. An unwillingness to listen to those with differing
opinions is already a serious problem in America’s civic discourse. Unless colleges reverse course,
that problem will worsen in the years ahead, with profoundly negative consequences.
Administrators and faculty must do more to encourage a marketplace of ideas where individuals need
not fear reprisal, harassment or intimidation for airing controversial opinions. These members of
campus leadership would be wise to look at the University of Chicago’s Statement on Principles of
Free Expression, which paraphrases the wise words of the university’s former president, Robert M.
Hutchins: “without a vibrant commitment to free and open inquiry, a university ceases to be a
university.”
The continued march of justice and progress depends on free speech, open minds and rational
discourse. Colleges and universities—and those who hold their degrees—have helped lead the way for
most of this nation’s history. The well-being of future generations of Americans depends on the
preservation of that great legacy.
Mr. Bloomberg, the founder of Bloomberg LP, was mayor of New York City from 2002-13. Mr. Koch is
the chairman and CEO of Koch Industries Inc.
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The Islamization of Britain made an immense advance this week, as a Muslim with extensive ties to jihadis and Islamic supremacists, Sadiq Khan, was elected mayor of London, just as London buses are set to carry ads proclaiming the “glory of Allah.”
It’s a sign of the times – and a sign of things to come. Is anyone really surprised? That a man such as Sadiq Khan, who has shared a platform with open Jew-haters, could still be elected mayor of London, is an indication of how far gone Britain already is. In Sadiq Khan’s campaign, his opponents brought up his close ties to jihadis, Islamic supremacists and Islamic Jew-haters as a blot on his record. Soon enough in Britain, however, that sort of thing will be a selling point for candidates appealing to an increasingly Muslim electorate.
It’s a sign of the times – and a sign of things to come. Is anyone really surprised? That a man such as Sadiq Khan, who has shared a platform with open Jew-haters, could still be elected mayor of London, is an indication of how far gone Britain already is. In Sadiq Khan’s campaign, his opponents brought up his close ties to jihadis, Islamic supremacists and Islamic Jew-haters as a blot on his record. Soon enough in Britain, however, that sort of thing will be a selling point for candidates appealing to an increasingly Muslim electorate.
The UK banned me from the country. It is already acting like a de facto Islamic state. Did anyone really think that the notoriously anti-Semitic UK would vote for Khan’s opponent, Zac Goldsmith — a Jew? London has already been overrun – voter fraud in Muslim precincts is rampant. Not that they will really need it soon. London’s Muslim population is 1.3 million and growing.
The Muslims who voted for Sadiq Khan did not reject his extremist ties and supremacist rhetoric, dispelling the notion that most Muslims are moderates and do not adhere to the Sharia, or support extremism. Apparently, they are not “Uncle Toms,” as Sadiq likes to call moderate Muslims.
At the same time, many Jews were prohibited from voting. Even the Chief Rabbi of London was turned away – leading to the Chief Executive of one London borough having to resign. Innumerable voters throughout the London Borough of Barnet – where much of the British Jewish community lives today – were prevented from voting by a suspicious and never-explained “error” at the area’s polling stations.
This is no surprise. Sadiq Khan has shared platforms with Muslim Jew-haters who want to “drown every Israeli Jew in the sea.” According to investigative journalist Soeren Kern: “In 2008, Khan gave a speech at the Global Peace and Unity Conference, an event organized by the Islam Channel, which has been censured repeatedly by British media regulators for extremism. Members of the audience were filmed flying the black flag of jihad while Khan was speaking.”
The election of Sadiq Khan is a cautionary tale for any nation that is importing a large Muslim population. The media and political elites have been scrubbing and whitewashing Islam since 9/11, and so people not just in London, but all over the West, are generally woefully ignorant as to the supremacist nature of this ideology. And so we have tried to run bus campaigns increasing awareness of the dangers of sharia and Islamic supremacism, and always we are met with resistance — sharia enforcement in the West.
Even now, an Islamic supremacist group is running an Allah Is Greater campaign in London, just two days after the election of Khan. The slogan “Subhan Allah” – Glory be to Allah” is acceptable, yet an ad that Christian groups tried to run featuring the Lord’s Prayer was banned. And what is missing from all the reportage about the new ad campaign is the supremacist nature of the phrase “Glory to Allah” – often mistranslated as “Glory to God” by Western media outlets. This phrase is derived from the same tradition as “Allahu akbar,” which rather than meaning “God is Great” as the mainstream media claims, actually means “Our god – Allah — is greater” – greater, that is, than yours.
And now fresh on the heels of jihad election, a notorious Islamic group is plastering the sides of London buses, the same buses that were bombed in the July 7, 2005 Islamic attacks, with posters blaring “Glory to Allah.” Indeed. These days are days of triumph for Islamic imperialists and sharia enforcers across the UK. Mind you, I contacted the London bus outdoor advertising agency, asking them to run ads that my organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), has prepared containing actual Muhammad quotes.
I have not, however, heard back from them. No surprise. To learn who rules over you, simply find out whom you cannot criticize. This is essentially soft sharia enforcement: the prohibition of any criticism of Islam and of anything offensive to Islam and Muslim sensibilities.
The same thing is happening in the United States today as well. While America sleeps, the Left and its Islamic supremacist allies are working hard to render the First Amendment a dead letter. The stakes couldn’t be higher. You can’t criticize Muhammad, even by quoting him directly. You can’t criticize Islam. You can’t criticize prominent Muslims. You can’t draw cartoons of Muhammad.
This is the situation in Britain today, and in the United States also. It is all so utterly absurd, but not so much as the non-believers who submit and adhere to this oppression and supremacism – how many non-Muslims in London, heedless of the consequences and besotted by political correctness and multiculturalism, voted for Sadiq Khan?.
This is the islamization of London and the United Kingdom. Soon will follow the criminalization of free speech. The election of Sadiq Khan and the “Glory to Allah” ads on London buses herald the beginning of a very scary, dark period in British history. It may indeed be the last period of Britain as the home of free people. Free people who willingly chose their own destruction.
Pamela Geller is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of PamelaGeller.com and author of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance
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3)
Clinton Charity Aided Clinton Friends
A $2 million commitment arranged by the nonprofit Clinton Global Initiative in 2010 went to a for-profit company part-owned by friends of the Clintons
The Clinton Global Initiative acts as a matchmaker to arrange monetary commitments, often to nonprofits, that
address global challenges. Here, former President Bill Clinton speaks at its February meeting in New York. PHOTO:
BRENDAN MCDERMID/REUTERS
The Clinton Global Initiative, which arranges donations to help solve the world's problems,set up a
financial commitment that benefited a for-profit company part-owned by people with ties to the
Clintons, including a current and a former Democratic official and a close friend of former President
Bill Clinton.
ve tve the world’problems, set up a financial commitment that benefited a for-profit company part-owned by people with ties to the Clintons, including a current and a former Democratic official and a close friend of former President Bill Clinton.
The $2 million commitment was placed on the agenda for a September 2010 conference of the Clinton
Global Initiative at Mr. Clinton’s urging, according to a document from the period and people familiar
with the matter.
Mr. Clinton also personally endorsed the company, Energy Pioneer Solutions Inc., to then-Energy
Secretary Steven Chu for a federal grant that year, said people with knowledge of the endorsement.
The company, whose business plan was to insulate people’s homes and let them pay via their utility
bills, received an $812,000 Energy Department grant. Mr. Chu, now a professor at Stanford University,
said he didn’t remember
The Clinton Global Initiative is a program of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation. The
foundation has been a focus of criticism this political season over donations received from
and that could be affected by decisions she would make as president. The foundation has said it “has
strong donor integrity and transparency practices.”
The Clinton Global Initiative’s help for a for-profit company part-owned by Clinton friends poses a
different issue. Under federal law, tax-exempt charitable organizations aren’t supposed to act in
anyone’s private interest but instead in the public interest, on broad issues such as education or poverty.
“The organization must not be organized or operated for the benefit of private interests,” the Internal
Revenue Service says on its website.
Energy Pioneer Solutions was founded in 2009 by Scott Kleeb, a Democrat who twice ran for
Congress from Nebraska. An internal document from that year showed it as owned 29% by Mr. Kleeb;
29% by Jane Eckert, the owner of an art gallery in Pine Plains, N.Y.; and 29% by Julie Tauber
McMahon of Chappaqua, N.Y., a close friend of Mr. Clinton, who also lives in Chappaqua.
Owning 5% each were Democratic National Committee treasurer Andrew Tobias and Mark Weiner, a
supplier to political campaigns and former Rhode Island Democratic chairman, both longtime friends
of the Clintons.
The Clinton Global Initiative holds an annual conference at which it announces monetary commitments from corporations, individuals or nonprofit organizations to address global challenges—commitments on which it has
acted in a matchmaking role. Typically, the commitments go to charities and nongovernmental
organizations. The commitment to
Energy Pioneer Solutions was atypical because it originated from a private individual who was making
a personal financial investment in a for-profit company.
Asked about the commitment, foundation officials said, “President Clinton has forged an
amazing universe of relationships and friendships throughout his life that endure to this
day, and many of those individuals and friends are involved in CGI Commitments because
they share a passion for making a positive impact in the world. As opposed to a conflict of interest, they share a common interest.”
A spokesman for Mr. Clinton, Angel Urena, said, “President Clinton counts many CGI participants as friends.” Mrs. Clinton’s campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment.
A Clinton Foundation spokesman, Craig Minassian, called the commitment an instance of “mission-driven investing…in and by for-profit companies,” which he said “is a common
practice in the broader philanthropic space, as well as among CGI commitments.” Of
thousands of CGI commitments, Mr. Minassian cited three other examples of what he
described as mission-driven investing involving a private party and a for-profit company
such as Energy Pioneer Solutions.
Ms. Eckert, one of those identified as a 29% owner of Energy Pioneer Solutions in 2009,
didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Ms. McMahon, listed as another co-owner, said in an interview she didn’t know how the commitment to the company came to be made as she wasn’t involved. Ms. McMahon, 56
years old, described Mr. Clinton as “a family friend.”
Mr. Kleeb, who is the company’s chief executive as well as founder, said Ms. McMahon
recruited Mr. Weiner as an investor. Mr. Weiner has a company, Financial Innovations Inc.,
that makes campaign souvenir items such as coffee mugs and pens. Mrs. Clinton’s current
and 2008 presidential runs have paid Mr. Weiner’s firm about $4.2 million, federal reports
show.
Mr. Weiner was among the first state Democratic officials to endorse Mr. Clinton for the presidency some 25 years ago. He has been a major donor to the Clinton Foundation and
also to the campaign of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, another Clinton friend, foundation
and Virginia records show. Mr. Weiner declined to be interviewed.
The other 5% investor, Mr. Tobias, has been the Democratic National Committee treasurer
since 1999. He said he spent $450,000 for equity in Energy Pioneer Solutions and lent it
$650,000.
“With my modest initial investment, I wound up owning a small percentage of the
company,” Mr. Tobias said in an email. “It grew, because ultimately, between loans and
equity investments, I’ve wound up putting a little more than $1 million into this effort.”
Mr. Tobias, a best-selling personal-finance writer and long-standing Clinton Global
Initiative member, said he invested “because I would love to see the world more energy
-efficient and hoped to make some money doing that.” Records of the Clinton Foundation
show he has given it between $250,000 and $500,000, the same donation level shown for
Mr. Weiner.
Mr. Weiner.
The company’s Mr. Kleeb said he knew the DNC treasurer from his own runs for office
and invited him to invest. Mr. Kleeb won Democratic nominations in Nebraska for the U.S.
and invited him to invest. Mr. Kleeb won Democratic nominations in Nebraska for the U.S.
House in 2006 and the Senate in 2008, but lost. His wife, Jane Kleeb, led opposition to the
Keystone XL Pipeline and now heads a group called Bold Alliance opposing large fossil-
fuel projects.
The Clinton Global Initiative, at a Sept. 23, 2010, gathering in New York, announced a $2
million commitment to Energy Pioneer Solutions from Kim Samuel, a Canadian academic, philanthropist and a director and owner of the Samuel Group of Companies,
which includes steel businesses. She appeared on stage.
Julie Tauber McMahon, shown at an event in New York in 2014, owned 29% of Energy Pioneer Solutions. PHOTO: NICHOLAS HUNT/PATRICK MCMULLAN
A spokesman for Ms. Samuel, a
longtime member of the Clinton Global Initiative, said she ultimately chose not
to give the full $2 million.
This is a “personal financial matter and
a personal investment,” said her spokesman,Alan Peck. “Following the
initial September 2010 announcement
and subsequent due diligence, the
actual investment was $500,000 made
by Ms.Samuel to Energy Pioneer
Solutions on July 25, 2011.”
actual investment was $500,000 made
by Ms.Samuel to Energy Pioneer
Solutions on July 25, 2011.”
Mr. Tobias, the Democrats’ treasurer,
said in an email a day after a Journal
interview that he, too, contributed to
the commitment. The 2010 announcement of it cited only Ms. Samuel.
the commitment. The 2010 announcement of it cited only Ms. Samuel.
Mr. Kleeb said the commitment announced was achieved, and he raised $2 million. He
didn’t specify where the money came from.
The commitment was a late addition to the agenda for the September 2010 conference,
internal Clinton Foundation documents reviewed by the Journal show.
According to one document, about two weeks before the conference, Ms. Samuel
contacted an official in the Clinton Foundation’s commitments office and said Mr. Clinton
wanted to feature her commitment to Energy Pioneer Solutions at that month’s gathering.
Ms. Samuel’s spokesman didn’t respond to a question about that.
One of Mr. Clinton’s top advisers at the time, Doug Band, tried to prevent the commitment
from being added to the agenda as an onstage event in the weeks prior to the conference, according to a document reviewed by the Journal.
The commitment was entered into a database on the Clinton Global Initiative website. A
few months later, it was removed.
The reason was to avoid calling attention to Mr. Clinton’s friendship with one company
co-owner, Ms. McMahon, and to protect the integrity of Mr. Clinton and the Clinton
Global Initiative, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Clinton Foundation spokesman said the information was withheld at the request of Ms. Samuel, the announced provider of the commitment. Her spokesman didn’t respond to a
question on that.
After the Journal asked about the absence from the database, the Clinton Foundation said it was making a policy change and would publish all previously unpublished commitments
and all future ones.
Scott Kleeb, shown in 2008, founded Energy Pioneer Solutions. PHOTO: NATI HARNIK/ASSOCIATED PRESS
At the U.S. Energy Department, which
had a grant program to encourage
innovative approaches to weatherizing
low-income people’s homes, giving a
grant to a for-profit company was rare
but permitted, said T.J. Hansell, a
former contractor to the agency who
worked on the program. An Energy Department spokeswoman declined to comment.
An Energy Department news release in
2010 announcing a grant to Energy
Pioneer Solutions called it “a women-owned small business,” repeating language in the
company’s application, which the Journal obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
Mr. Kleeb, the company’s founder and 29% owner, didn’t respond to a question on why it described itself as women-owned.
On occasion, Mr. Clinton has trumpeted the company’s work. Speaking in 2011 to an
Omaha-based syndicated radio show called The Todd-N-Tyler Radio Empire, Mr. Clinton
said: “There’s a group there called Pioneer Energy Solutions that retrofits housing—
they’re in and out in a day…Eight hours and they’re out of there.”
Mr. Clinton also cited the operation, without naming the company, in his 2011 book “Back
to Work.”
Mr. Tobias, the Democratic treasurer, said he discussed Energy Pioneer Solutions
frequently with Mr. Clinton. “I wasn’t surprised that President Clinton was psyched about
the potential for EPS and making America’s housing stock more efficient, cutting CO2
emissions and lowering consumers’ energy bills,” Mr. Tobias said.
Energy Pioneer Solutions has struggled to operate profitably. It lost more than $300,000 in
2010 and another $300,000 in the first half of 2011, said records submitted for an Energy Department audit. Mr. Kleeb noted that losses are common at startups.
The audit found deficiencies in how the company accounted for expenses paid with federal
grant money, Energy Department records show. The company addressed the deficiencies,
and a revised cost proposal was approved in 2011, said an Energy Department spokeswoman, Joshunda Sanders.
Recently, Mr. Kleeb laid off most of his staff, closed his offices, sold a fleet of trucks and
changed his business strategy, promising to launch a national effort instead. “We are right
now gearing up to start under this new model,” he said.
Asked if Energy Pioneer Solutions has ever broken even, Mr. Kleeb said, “We’re at that
stage…We are expanding and doing well. We have partnerships, and it’s good.”
—Rebecca Ballhaus and Peter Nicholas contributed to this article.
3a)Hillary’s Latest Scandal: She And Bill Siphoned $100 Mil From Mideast
Leaders
3a)Hillary’s Latest Scandal: She And Bill Siphoned $100 Mil From Mideast
Leaders
A new report from the Daily Caller News Foundation says that Persian Gulf states and their leaders donated $100 million to HIllary and Bill Clinton's controversial Clinton Family Foundation. (AP)
· Scandal: A new investigation reveals that Bill and Hillary Clinton took in at least $100 million
from Middle East leaders. Can such a financially and ethically compromised candidate truly function
as our nation’s leader?
The investigation by the Daily Caller News Foundation has uncovered a disturbing pattern of the
Clintons’ raising money for the Clinton Foundation from regimes that have checkered records on
human rights and that aren’t always operating in the best interests of the U.S. By the way, the $100
million we mentioned above doesn’t appear to include another $30 million given to the Clintons by
two Mideast-based foundations and four billionaire Saudis.
All told, it’s a lot of money.
“These regimes are buying access,” Patrick Poole, a national security analyst who regularly writes for
PJ Media, told the DCNF. “You’ve got the Saudis. You’ve got the Kuwaitis, Oman, Qatar and the UAE
(United Arab Emirates). There are massive conflicts of interest. It’s beyond comprehension.”
Well, maybe not, given that Clinton, during her four-year tenure as secretary of state, used a clearly
illegal private email server which is now under investigation by the FBI. Her open e-mail system likely
was hacked by Chinese, Russian and perhaps other spy agencies, say cyberespionage experts. Such
negligence would seem to disqualify her from ever holding a sensitive foreign policy post in the
government again.
Meanwhile, former U.S. Attorney Joseph E. diGenova told the Caller that he believes the FBI has
launched a second, possibly more serious investigation into possible political corruption involving
the Clinton Foundation. This is potentially explosive, given that the Clintons seem to have run their
charity in a way that lines their own pockets.
The question is an open one: Did the oil-rich Mideast nations give lavishly to the Clinton Foundation
in an effort to influence future U.S. policy? And what about Bill Clinton’s business partnership with
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai’s authoritarian ruler, from 2003 to 2008? Clinton
took away some $15 million in “guaranteed payments” from the deal, his tax records show.
A picture of extraordinary greed is emerging from both Clintons in the years after they hold the
highest posts in the U.S. government.
In just the past three years, after her stint as the nation’s top diplomat, Hillary Clinton spoke to
dozens of deep-pocket firms on Wall Street, typically charging $250,000 a pop to hear her wit and
wisdom — despite her bitter condemnations of Wall Street during her campaign.
All told, she took in an estimated $22 million from these speeches — an extraordinary amount, given
the growing consensus among foreign-policy thinkers that Clinton was one of the worst secretaries
of state ever.
So why would Arab potentates and Wall Street magnates alike pony up so much money for the
Clintons? Is it because they believe so strongly in the philanthropic mission of the Clinton Family
Foundation? Or is it that they hoped to have influence on a future Hillary Clinton presidency, which
would of course feature First Gentleman Bill Clinton?
Remember, a Hillary Clinton presidency once looked like a sure thing. Now, given the growing
possibility that she could be charged for criminal negligence for putting secret material on a private
server, or perhaps even be charged with corruption, Clinton has far more serious problems than just
getting elected. Her biggest problem may be staying out of prison.
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4)
Vindicating Congress’s Power of the Purse
Obama said ‘so sue me.’ The House did, and Obama just lost.
President Obama in the Oval Office of the White House on May 11. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS
John Boehner isn’t popular with conservatives these days, but the former House Speaker deserves an
apology from those who derided his lawsuit challenging President Obama’s usurpation of legislative
power. Mr. Boehner went ahead despite skeptics from the left and right, and on Thursday the House
won a landmark victory on behalf of Congress’s power of the purse.
Federal Judge Rosemary Collyer handed down summary judgment for the House, ruling that the
executive branch had unlawfully spent money on ObamaCare without congressional assent. Judge
Collyer noted that Congress had expressly not appropriated money to reimburse health insurers under
Section 1402 of the Affordable Care Act. TheAdministration spent money on those reimbursements
anyway.
“Paying out Section 1402 reimbursements without an appropriation thus violates the Constitution,”
Judge Collyer wrote. “Congress authorized reduced cost sharing but did not appropriate monies for it,
in the FY 2014 budget or since. Congress is the only source for such an appropriation, and no public
money can be spent without one”
Judge Collyer takes 38 pages to eviscerate the Administration’s claim that it can infer an
appropriation if Congress has merely authorized a program.
Congress authorizes all sorts of programs without spending money on them in one year or another.
Presidents before Mr. Obama have understood that no money can be spent without an express
appropriation.
The ruling is a vindication of the separation of powers under the Constitution, which in Article I
gives Congress sole power over spending. This is a crucial check on tyranny. If a President can
combine the legislative power to spend with the power to execute the laws, he can ignore Congress
and govern by whim.
This is what Mr. Obama has attempted to do in his second term, famously claiming “I’ve got a pen
and I’ve got a phone.” He taunted Congress by saying, “so sue me,” and then he called the suit a
“stunt.”
Oddly, he was joined in his contempt for Congress by conservatives like radio talker Mark Levin, the
self-styled constitutionalist who called the House lawsuit a “very risky and foolish move” that would
somehow empower Mr. Obama. Some smarter conservatives warned that a spending fight is political,
and not something for the judiciary to settle. In most cases we’d agree. But Mr. Obama’s spending
usurpation is so blatant that the House had an obligation to pursue every possible avenue to protect
its rights.
The executive branch and state governments routinely sue to vindicate their constitutional powers.
Why shouldn’t the House be able to sue to defend its powers against a lawless President? Judge
Collyer’s ruling is the third this year to rebuke Mr. Obama’s abuses of power, following the Fifth
Circuit Court of Appeals on immigration and the Supreme Court’s stay on his Clean Power Plan.
The Administration will no doubt appeal Judge Collyer’s ruling to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals,
important to the outcome. The stakes of this presidential election keep rising—for the powers of
Congress as much as for who will run the executive branch.
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