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In the most recent edition two articles were of particular interest because of the time they began asking for documents and how they have been stonewalled by the Biden Administration. By the time they resolve these issues, and they will stay on them like a "bulldog," whatever results will be so beyond the time they began they will no longer be deemed relevant, important etc. This is a tragedy and another reason why Americans have distrust and contempt for their government.
Fitton sought pertinent FBI documents, pertaining to the spy operation against Trump, and his first request was in September 2019, under The Freedom of Information Act. Judge Nichols responded to another request for the same documents and gave the FBI until June 16 of this year to respond.
The second matter pertains to a suit against The State Department for documents pertaining to Hunter Biden's pursuits. This suit was filed February 11, 2022. The State Department acknowledged receipt of same Feb. 16, 2022 and asked for a ten day extension. Nothing has been presented as of the publication of "Verdict" volume 28, Issue 7 which was their July issue.
I chose not to practice law for several reasons among which were:
A) I am action oriented and have little patience with delay.
b) I like helping people and the "little guy" can't afford justice anymore. It is a high pocket, corporate legal world and no longer tends to serve the everyday "Joe."
c) To make living practicing law you have to specialize and my "people" specialty would have led to starvation or worse an early heart attack
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A few days ago I posted an article about Iranian hit squads that were in this country and capable of assassinating high public officials including Trump. Then Abe is killed.
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DAN BONGINO
Horror Overseas As Japan's Shinzo Abe Is Assassinated
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe shot dead at campaign event.
Biden sold a million barrel from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China-owned gas giant. Gavin Newsom admits CA paid for his security detail to travel to Montana and laughably claims "public safety" exception to law. Biden staffers left White House in year one at higher rate than Trump and Obama. LISTEN
Quote: "I worry about Trump, I worry about Obama. We can't have this chaos. We can't. And this stuff worries me all the time. Negative feedback be damned, I don't care...We can't have Trump getting hurt. We can't have Obama getting hurt. We gotta have these president regardless if we believe in their politics or not." - Dan Bongino
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Democrats want to keep mail balloting even though it heightens prospects of fraud. Oh I forgot, Democrats don't care about fraud as long as they win cause to them winning is everything. America be damned.
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State Hands GOP And Trump Major Win
By News Alerts
This is a major development!
It has just been learned that Wisconsin’s Supreme Court has officially ruled that absentee ballot drop boxes must now be placed only in election offices. This is a major loss to Democrats who have been fighting tooth and nail to take over Wisconsin.
According to The Hill, the Wisconsin Supreme Court did not answer the question if anyone other than the person casting the vote can submit his or her ballot by mail. Election officials are arguing that drop boxes are a secure and convenient way for voters to cast their ballots.
Furthermore, the court’s 4-3 ruling on this major decision has serious implications for the upcoming 2024 presidential election since Wisconsin is such an important battleground state that former President Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden by just 21,000 votes in 2020.
Absentee voting popularity exploded in 2020 because of the pandemic and Democrats are now trying to make that a permanent part of the U.S. voting process.
40% of all voters used mail in ballots in 2020 and it became a highly sensitive topic after Trump lost to Biden.
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The elites in The State Department have always been on the wrong side of the issue of what to do in The Middle East and how to relate to Israel. The "good ole boy" crowd who control The State Department are Ivy League blue bloods and their wrong headed decisions have cost a lot of red blooded American and Israeli lives.
I seriously doubt Dr. Biden's house call will amount to anything but more failed diplomacy.
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President Biden's July Middle East visit – nuts and bolts
By Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, "Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative"
*A major goal of President Biden's July, 2022 visit to the Middle East – in addition to increasing the Saudi and Emirati oil production – is the restoration of the US stature as a reliable strategic ally of the pro-US Arab regimes, and stop their drift toward Russia and China.
*At the same time, Biden pursues a JCPOA-like agreement with Iran's Ayatollahs and embraces the Muslim Brotherhood.
*However, the attempt to restore the US' strategic reliability, while aiming for a JCPOA-like accord with Iran's Ayatollahs and embracing the Muslim Brotherhood, constitutes a contradiction in terms, since all pro-US Arab regimes view Iran's Ayatollahs and the Muslim Brotherhood as lethal threats. Moreover, they are convinced that a JCPOA-like accord would bolster (as did the 2015 JCPOA) the Ayatollahs' regional and global subversion, terrorism, fueling of civil wars, drug trafficking, money laundering and the proliferation of advanced military systems to rogue entities in the Middle East and beyond.
They are also frustrated by the State Department's underestimation of the fanatic vision of the Muslim Brotherhood, and taking lightly its terror network throughout the Middle East and beyond (e.g., India and Thailand).
*Contrary to President Biden and the State Department establishment, the pro-US Arab regimes are fully aware that Iran's Ayatollahs are not amenable to peaceful coexistence with their Arab Sunni neighbors; neither to abandoning their fanatic, religious, imperialistic vision in return for a financial and diplomatic bonanza; nor to compliance with agreements. They have concluded that the rogue 43-year-old track record of Iran's Ayatollahs – since rising to power in February 1979 – is irreconcilable with good-faith negotiation.
*The visit may awaken Biden and Secretary of State Blinken – who have prodded Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt on account of human rights and their involvement in the Iran-fueled civil war in Yemen - to Middle East reality. The visit may alert them to the fact that the choice facing the US is not between Arab countries, which respect or violate human rights, but between pro-US and anti-US Arab countries, which violate human rights.
*President Biden's visit will reaffirm the return of the State Department – since January 2021 - to the center stage of US foreign policy-making, as it was until January 2017, notwithstanding Foggy Bottom's systematic blunders in the Middle East.
*For example, the State Department opposed the Abraham Accords, which were forged in defiance of its (Palestinian-centered) Middle East perspective. Thus, the Abraham Accords were concluded because their architects recognized the secondary role of the Palestinian issue in the Middle East. Therefore, they did not focus on the Palestinian issue, but on Arab national security and economic interests, in the face of lethal Iranian and Muslim Brotherhood threats, and the need to diversify/modernize the economy of the oil-producing countries.
*The Abraham Accords - similar to Israel's prior peace accords with Egypt and Jordan and consistent with intra-Arab priorities - bypassed the Palestinian issue, and therefore, avoided a Palestinian veto. On the other hand, the State Department establishment has ignored the wide gap between the Arab (supportive) talk and (harsh) walk on the Palestinian issue. Therefore, it has misconstrued the Palestinian issue as the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict, a core cause of Middle East turbulence and a crown-jewel of Arab policy-makers. Therefore, all State Department Israel-Arab peace proposals have failed, wrecked on the rocks of Middle East reality.
*Hence, the attempt to expand the scope of the Israel-Arab peace process, on the one hand, and the State Department's preoccupation with the Palestinian issue, on the other hand, constitute a thundering oxymoron.
*When assessing the validity of State Department proposals, which may be submitted during President Biden's visit, Israel should study additional examples of critical State Department blunders, such as its early embrace of Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat and Bashar Assad, as well as Foggy Bottom's reference to the eruption of the 2010-2011 turbulence/Tsunami on the Arab Street (which is still raging) as "Youth and Facebook Revolution" and "the Arab Spring." In addition, in 1948, the State Department ferociously opposed the establishment of the Jewish State, which it expected to be pro-Soviet, too weak to withstand Arab military offensive, undermining US national security interests and a burden for the US. In 1981 and 2007 the State Department brutally attempted to stop, and then condemned, Israel's bombing of Iraq's and Syria's nuclear reactors, which spared the US, the Middle East and the world at-large much devastation.
*President Biden may attempt to impose upon Israel a quid-pro-quo – consistent with the State Department's "Palestine Firsters" – requiring Israeli concessions to the Palestinians, in return for enhanced strategic cooperation with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries (which regard Palestinians as a role model of intra-Arab subversion, terrorism and ingratitude).
*President Biden and Secretary Blinken should be reminded that concessions to rogue entities whet their appetite and intensifies terrorism, as documented by the unprecedented waves of Palestinian terrorism following Israel's dramatic concessions in 1993 (Oslo Accord) and 2005 (disengagement from the Gaza Strip). Furthermore, Egypt (1950s), Syria (1966), Jordan (1970), Lebanon (1970s) and Kuwait (1990) made major civic and financial concessions to the Palestinians, which resulted in Palestinian terrorism against their Arab hosts, including civil wars in Jordan and Lebanon and Palestinian participation in Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
*President Biden will try to convince Israel to concede the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and allow the establishment of a Palestinian state. President Biden should be advised that based on the Palestinian rogue track record, a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River would doom the pro-US Hashemite regime east of the River. It would be replaced by a radical, anti-US regime, triggering an anti-US ripple effect into the Arabian Peninsula, toppling pro-US Arab regimes, transferring the supply of Persian Gulf oil to anti-US entities, and bolstering the geo-strategic stature of Iran's Ayatollahs, Russia and China at the expense of dire US interests.
Israeli control of the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria deters rogue entities and advances US interests; the proposed Palestinian state would radicalize the region, undermining US interests.
*Israel will be asked to authorize a US Consulate in Jerusalem, acting as the US Embassy to the Palestinian Authority. Such a demand would be in violation of the US 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act, which defines Jerusalem as the undivided and exclusive capital of Israel. It would be interpreted – regionally and globally – as succumbing to Arab/Muslim pressure, thus further eroding the US posture of deterrence.
*When considering President Biden's demands for Israeli concessions, Israel's Prime Minister Lapid should study the conduct of previous Israeli Prime Ministers, who fended off US Presidential pressure, experienced a short-term setback in the US-Israel relationship, but gained in long-term US strategic respect for defiance of odds and adherence to a principle-driven stance.
*While expressing much respect to President Biden and Secretary Blinken and their demands, Israeli leaders should realize that the US democracy features Congress as a co-equal, co-determining branch of government, the most authentic representative of the American people, the most powerful legislature in the world, which has the power to both propose and dispose in the areas of foreign and defense policies, and has expressed its deep reservations with regard to US policy on Iran (e.g., Democratic Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Robert Menendez' February 2022 floor speech). While most US Presidents have pressured Israel, Congress has been a systematic supporter of enhancing the mutually-beneficial US-Israel strategic and commercial cooperation.
Yoram will be available for speaking engagements in the US during August 25 - September 20, 2022: Impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Israel's national security; US benefits outweigh foreign aid to Israel; Iran - negotiation or confrontation? President Biden's Middle East policy; US pressure - testing US realism and Israeli leadership; 400-year-old roots of US-Israel kinship; Myth of Arab demographic time bomb; Arab talk vs. Arab walk on Palestinians; Is the Palestinian issue the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict and a core cause of regional turbulence? Islamic terrorists bite the hands that feed them; Middle East reality vs. Western conventional wisdom, etc.
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Major media outlets ignored eyewitness testimony on the death of Shireen Abu Akleh
Shoddy investigations jumped to premature conclusions.
By Karen Bekker
Nearly two months after Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot and killed in Jenin, the Palestinian Authority finally released the bullet that killed her. Abu Akleh was shot on May 11 during an IDF raid that followed a surge of terror attacks, leading to enormous controversy over who was responsible: Israeli soldiers or the Palestinian terrorists they were fighting.
An analysis of the bullet was performed over the July 4 weekend under the supervision of the U.S. State Department in hopes of finding an answer. But the analysis found that the bullet was too badly damaged to reach any conclusions as to which side had fired it.
As a result, many questions about Abu Akleh’s death still remain unanswered. However, this has not stopped major media outlets from jumping to conclusions.
Before the bullet was handed over for examination, CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post all conducted purportedly thorough investigations that concluded Israeli soldiers in military vehicles were responsible for killing Abu Akleh. CNN’s investigation, bylined by no fewer than ten journalists, was the most problematic. Without sufficient evidence, it concluded that Israel had intentionally targeted Abu Akleh. But CNN was not alone, because all three investigations failed to review contemporaneous accounts of the incident from two Palestinian journalists who were with Abu Akleh at the time of her death.
Abu Akleh was part of a group of four journalists when she was shot. This group included Shatha Hanaysha and Ali Samoudi. Both Hanaysha and Samoudi spoke with Arabic news outlets about the event, and their statements indicated the presence of Palestinian gunmen at the scene.
On the day the shooting occurred, Hanaysha told Al Jazeera that, during the exchange of fire, “we were standing across from a building with snipers.” She also said that people pointed at the building in question, indicating that shots had been fired from that direction. Hanaysha claimed the snipers were Israeli. But if the only Israeli soldiers were the ones in or next to the military vehicles 200 meters—roughly two city blocks—away, as reported by CNN, the Times and the Post, who were the gunmen Hanaysha saw?
Hanaysha’s story changed when she spoke to CNN. She asserted there were no Palestinian gunmen in the area, and did not mention snipers. CNN, in turn, claimed their investigation offers “evidence—including two videos of the scene of the shooting—that there was no active combat, nor any Palestinian militants, near Abu Akleh in the moments leading up to her death.”
Why did Hanaysha change her story? None of the ten CNN journalists who worked on the investigation seem to have asked her. Yet CNN’s conclusion that Israel “targeted” Abu Akleh was in large part based on Hanaysha’s statement to that effect.
As for Samoudi, he was shot just before Abu Akleh was killed. The same day, he was interviewed by Arabic-language news outlet The Arabic Post. CAMERA has translated his comments: “We heard the sound of bullets pouring on us from the direction where the occupation’s soldiers were concentrated. They were on the rooftops of the buildings in front of us.”
Like Hanaysha, Samoudi told his interviewer, “There were no resistance warriors, militants or stone throwers; because we were in an open area.” But again, if the only IDF soldiers were two blocks away, then who was on the rooftops of the buildings in front of Samoudi?
The logical inference is that they were Palestinian gunmen who Samoudi and Hanaysha mistook for Israelis.
The New York Times spoke extensively to Samoudi. Yet Samoudi somehow failed to tell the Times what he told The Arabic Post. Instead, the Times wrote that “the evidence reviewed by the Times showed that there were no armed Palestinians near [Abu Akleh] when she was shot.”
The Times was aware of Samoudi’s earlier statements about gunmen on the roofs of buildings. Yet a Times editor told CAMERA that Samoudi’s earlier comments had been “ruled out.” The editor did not say why. The Times seems to have relied on the absence of video evidence, writing, “While no video has emerged that shows the fatal moment, video taken in the seconds before and after her killing shows no armed Palestinians in her vicinity.” Of course, just because gunmen or snipers whose presence was attested to by eyewitnesses were not captured on video doesn’t mean they weren’t there.
The Washington Post’s investigation is perhaps the strangest. The Post spoke to both Hanaysha and Samoudi. Hanaysha does not seem to have told the Post what she told Al Jazeera, and Samoudi does not seem to have told The Washington Post what he told The Arabic Post. Instead, he told The Washington Post that “the shots seemed to come from the military vehicles.” The Washington Post, like the Times, does not seem to have asked Samoudi about his earlier comments. Yet the Post itself acknowledged that two subsequent bursts of gunfire “point to a shooter in a different location from the first two bursts, [forensic analyst Steven] Beck said, estimating they may have been fired from roughly 10-30 meters (32-99 feet) away from the journalists.”
The Washington Post stated that researchers from Carnegie Mellon said, “The third and fourth bursts indicate a second shooter, but they could not determine this person’s distance from the journalists because of the videos’ poor audio quality.”
Nonetheless, The Washington Post still concluded that its analysis “found no evidence of a firefight in the moments before Abu Akleh was killed.”
This is possible, but the Post nonetheless confirmed that there were other gunmen in the area and ignored its own witnesses’ prior statements. It’s worth noting that some at The Washington Post reached their conclusions about Israel’s guilt before any investigation had been undertaken at all.
Given that the ballistic evidence was inconclusive, people should be wary of reaching any reliable conclusion about who shot Abu Akleh. And even if the bullet was fired by the IDF, the likelihood that Palestinian gunmen were in close proximity is directly relevant to whether her shooting was accidental or not. So why did these news outlets ignore the contemporaneous accounts of eyewitnesses? And will any of them follow up now?
The likelihood that there were Palestinian gunmen in the area doesn’t necessarily mean that the bullet that killed Abu Akleh was fired by one of them. It’s most likely that it will never be conclusively proven who shot her. It seems clear, however, that the most likely scenario is that Abu Akleh was accidentally killed in a crossfire. This is a tragedy, but shoddy investigations designed to reach predetermined conclusions about her death serve no one, including Abu Akleh.
Karen Bekker is the assistant director of the media response team at CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, a media-monitoring, research and membership organization devoted to promoting accurate and balanced coverage of Israel and the Middle East.
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