As I previously wrote "Black Lives Matter"
is a hateful ploy and not the message of
MLK. (See 1 below.)
===
Could this be the basis of our anger and Trump's popularity? (See 2 and 2a below.)
===
As previously indicated after my review of Dennis Ross'' "Doomed To Succeed,"
Americans continue to have an affinity towards the relationship. (See 3 below.)
===
While I was out of town, the Imam I and a group of friends had lunch with passed
away. This from his charming wife: "With love and sadness, we have to report that our Imam
'Ali passed away on Sat. Feb. 27th.
His Janaazah (funeral service ) is planned for Tuesday March 1, 2016 at 1:30 at the Masjid on 34th
Street.
Thank you and keep us in your prayers.
Sakinah
===
Every time I receive my copy of "The Naval War College Review," I am reminded by the articles about
the dangers that exist in our world and why so many are directed at America.
Even after 7 plus years of Obama's attempt to demilitarize our nation, we still remain a global
and strategic power. Thus, one should not dismiss the external threats we face. Among the most
important, and in no particular order, are:
a) China's increasing military capability and expansion in the South China Sea
b) Cyber technology aimed at both our military and industrial capabilities.
e) ISIS and the spread of global Islamic Terrorism.
f) The potential for the crippling of our power grid which could bring our nation to its knees in a week
and place our military in a position of being unable to defend our shores.
g) Russia under Putin and his expansionary goals.
h) The decline in both our Navy and Maritime fleet and thus, our growing dependence on exports and
imports carried by others. Yes, the cost of maintaining both is high and we are not cost competitive
but in the event of a confrontation and/or challenge, one must remember China now controls over 50%
of the shipping tonnage going through the Panama Canal.
In the Winter 2016 Issue, I found several articles of interest pertaining to Chinese ambitions to exploit
and expand their influence in The South China Sea , "America's Security Role In The South China Sea,"
by Andrew S. Erickson, "Russian A2/AD In The Eastern Mediterranean - A Growing Risk," By
Jonathan Altman and "The U.S. Merchant Marine - Back To The Future," By Christopher J. Mc
Mahon.
When I think about Hillarious and Donald coping with the myriad of issues any president faces and
her pitiful and inept record of achievements and his own personality , I shudder at the prospect of future
challenges by our adversaries in any of the above areas of America's vulnerability.
Neither has an understanding of the military, neither have an appreciation of the challenges we could
face and our weakened ability to meet them and I seriously doubt whether the American people, divided
as we are, still possess the required fortitude.
We have, since the end of The Korean War, embraced a mind set that is willing to accept stalemate or
even defeat.
We no longer think of winning because we have placed ourselves increasingly under the wheels and
dictates of The U.N.
Our budget is skewed toward entitlements and creating large government dependent constituents and
our cumulative deficits are beginning to reach levels that restrain, if not entirely choke, the private
sector. This is reflected in our pitiful economic recovery.
We no longer are producing a qualified and educated work force, one that understands the subtleties
demanded of a free society's citizenry.
I know I dwell on the negatives and Buffet dwells on the positives, though, even he admits, he was taken
aback by our less than satisfactory economic recovery.
I have always approached life feeling confident I could cope with my victories. It is my defeats that
always give me pause.
I feared Obama's election and re-election would prove to be disastrous and I believe they have. What is
of greater concern is that Obama's failures will restrict even the most capable of successors and I do not
believe Hillarious and/or Donald measure up to the challenge though I believe Trump has proven to be
a brilliant campaigner in a most degrading, boorish and negative manner. As for Hillarious, anyone
who has shown such indifference and disregard for handling matters of national security and then
exploited her position for personal gain is undeserving of my vote for being an abject hypocrite and
believing she should even be elected president.
Therein, lies the two prong problem we face at this time in our nation's history. (See 4 below.)
===
When the Dow broke into the mid 16,000 area I concluded it was oversold and wrote that a rally, even
a dead cat one, was not far off and so it has come to be. I confess the rally, which is still ongoing, has
had stronger legs than I thought it might but we are living in a period of extremes.
As long as income growth remains subdued I would doubt the market would reach much into the 17000
range before re-testing. Meanwhile the stocks I mentioned (BAC, INTC, OPK, ABBV, MRK, MFC,
AAPL, FB etc.) have participated. They are, except for MRK, outside the bounds where I would chase.
===
Will Palestinians ever learn? Do they care that: They Have Raised Another Generation of Haters! (See 5
below.)
===
Dick
==============================================================
1)The Hateful Message of Black Lives
Matter
The words of the movement “Black Lives Matter” is reminiscent to the rhetoric of 1930s Germany where only “Aryan Lives” mattered. Let’s be clear: This rhetorical comparison is not correlated to the actions of the two movements. Both quotes imply that other lives don’t matter.
In Pre-WWII Germany the bigoted rhetoric against those who were not Aryan including, but not limited to, Jews and the disabled, created a divide that led to genocide. Though America is not on that course (thankfully), the hateful rhetoric behind “Black Lives Matter” underscores Benjamin Franklin’s prophetic message: United we stand, divided we fall. This hateful rhetoric exemplifies the latter.
Lives Matter. History has not always been kind to Blacks and other minorities. Jews suffered through exiles, crusades, pogroms, and the Holocaust (included the discriminatory Nuremberg Laws). Blacks suffered through slavery, lynching, and Jim Crow laws, which promoted segregation.
What’s thematic is differentiating between who’s human and who’s not. That theme is nothing but barbaric. I’m alive today because those in my family, especially my grandmother, survived Hitler’s slaughter-fest. My grandmother was in an orphanage when German soldiers approached and were about to take her into custody. However, due to logistical reasons they were unable to do so. The orphanage took action and a Christian family hid her on their farm in France. That Christian family believed this Jewish life mattered. There were people like this family known as Righteous Gentiles. They believed that innocent lives matter regardless of their background.
Last week Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke out in favor of Black Lives Matter. In response to someone erasing the words “black lives matter” and substituting “all lives matter” on the Facebook wall at its headquarters in Menlo Park, California, Zuckerberg remarked this action as a “deeply hurtful and tiresome experience for the black community and really the entire Facebook community.”
"'Black lives matter' doesn't mean other lives don't," Zuckerberg said. "It's simply asking that the black community also achieves the justice they deserve."
While understandable, Zuckerberg’s point is misguided and sleazy. In the 2016 presidential campaign, Black Lives Matter activists jeered at former Maryland Governor and Democratic candidate Martin O’Malley when he said, “All lives matter.”
It is no surprise Black Lives Matter reflects frustration among African-Americans and cause disruptions (like at an event featuring Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders). Big government has failed them, especially in inner-cities. During the riots in Baltimore last year regarding the death of Freddie Gray, who died in police custody, former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen wrote about the failure of inner city government policies.
Titled “The Baltimore Democrats Built”, Thiessen wrote why inner-city policies have failed everywhere. The title of his piece can be replaced with cities such as Chicago, Philadelphia, and Washington DC. “The mayor is a Democrat. Every member of the city council is a Democrat. The school system is run by Democrats (and their teachers union overlords),” Thiessen wrote.
Thiessen added, “O’Malley says recent events in Baltimore should serve as ‘a wake-up call for the entire country.’ He’s right about that. After five decades of virtually uninterrupted Democratic rule, Baltimore is an utter disaster. The left’s approach to poverty has failed.”
In an article in the New York Post last December, NYPD detective James Coll wrote:
On Aug. 28, the evening before a Black Lives Matter demonstration in St. Paul, Minn., Harris County Deputy Darren Goforth was killed pumping gas at a station in Texas by a man who shot him 15 times in the back. The murder didn’t stop participants from chanting, “Pigs in a blanket! Fry ’em like bacon!” the next day while a family grieved and a community searched for answers that never came.
A select category of political leaders has been unable to make a connection between the caustic oratory of some in the Black Lives Matter movement and recent violence perpetuated against the police. These same individuals have had much less difficulty, however, equating irresponsible words with the death tolls that have followed in other instances where they gain a political advantage.
Some call it unfair to blame the entire Black Lives Matter movement for the relative few who clutch their banner while calling for even more cop funerals. They miss the hypocrisy: There are police critics who paint all officers with the same broad brush. And they miss the point that ignoring the demagoguery has made hatred of the police acceptable to many and violence against officers appear necessary to some.
It is time to confront this bigoted, sadistic, and uncivilized movement that conservative radio talk show host Mark Levin labels, “a civil wrongs group… the old Black Panther movement.” History’s themes, such as bigotry, repeat themselves for better or worse.
=============================================================
2)https://www.truthorfiction.com/obscene-salaries/
2a) Last Chance for America?
By Thomas Sowell
The "Super Tuesday" primaries may be a turning point for America -- and quite possibly a turn for the worse. After seven long years of domestic disasters and increasing international dangers, the next President of the United States will need extraordinary wisdom, maturity, depth of knowledge and personal character to rescue America.
Instead, if the polls are an indication, what we may get is someone with the opposite of all these things, a glib egomaniac with a checkered record in business and no track record at all in government -- Donald Trump.
If so, the downward trajectory of America over the past seven years may well continue on into the future, to the point of no return.
Democrat Susan Estrich says that it is "fun" watching Donald Trump. She may be able to enjoy the spectacle because Trump is Hillary Clinton's best chance of winning the general election in November. Even if the FBI's investigation leads them to recommend an indictment, the Obama administration is not likely to indict Hillary.
No doubt "The Donald" is entertaining, and he has ridden a wave of Republican voter anger against the Republican establishment, which has repeatedly betrayed them, especially on illegal immigration.
But these political problems are a sideshow, in a world where Iran is guaranteed to get nuclear weapons and North Korea, which already has them, is developing long-range missiles that can reach American cities. Iran is also developing long-range missiles.
Then there are the international terrorist organizations from the Middle East -- many sponsored by Iran -- whose agents have had easy access to the United States across our open border with Mexico.
We will need the cooperation of nations around the world to keep us informed of these terrorist organizations' activities, and to help disrupt the international money flows to terrorists.
Those nations know that helping the United States makes them targets of terrorism. So they have to weigh how much they can rely on America, before they risk their own national survival by cooperating with us against the terrorists.
Is Donald Trump someone who would inspire such confidence among leaders of other countries? Already Trump's irresponsible rhetoric has caused a backlash in Mexico and there has also been an attempt in Britain to ban him from setting foot on British soil.
We need all the allies we can get, from countries around the world, including Muslim allies in the Middle East. The last thing we can afford, at this crucial juncture in history is a president who alienates allies we have to have in a war against international terrorists.
On the campaign trail, Donald Trump's theatrical talents, including his bluster and bombast, may be enough to conceal his shallow understanding of very deep problems. But that will not cut it in the White House, where you cannot clown or con your way out of problems, and where the stakes are matters of life and death.
Trump's acting like a bull in a china shop may appeal to some voters but, in the world as it is, he may well cost us our last chance to recover from the great dangers into which the Obama administration has gotten this nation.
We already have an ego-driven, know-it-all president who will not listen to military or intelligence agency experts. Do we need to tempt fate by having two in a row?
Despite Donald Trump's string of primary vote victories, he has not yet gotten a majority of the Republican votes anywhere. But although most Republican votes are being cast against him, the scattering of that vote among so many other candidates leaves Trump with a good chance to get the nomination.
Everyone understands that the best chance for stopping Trump is for that fractured majority vote to consolidate behind one candidate opposed to him. But who will step aside for the good of the country?
When we think of American military heroes who have fallen on enemy hand grenades to save those around them, at the cost of their own lives, is it really too much to ask candidates -- especially those who present themselves as patriots -- to give up their one political chance in a zillion this year for the sake of the country?
Voters have a responsibility too. They might well ask themselves: Do I plan to use my vote to vent my emotions or to try to help save this country?
===============================================3)
|
The American public remains strongly pro-Israel, with even those aged 18-29 saying they are more sympathetic to Israel than the Palestinians by a more than 2:1 margin, according to a Gallup poll released Monday. According to the annual survey of American's sympathies in the Middle East conflict, 62 percent of the public say their sympathies lie more with Israel than the Palestinians, and only 15% say they are more sympathetic to the Palestinians. This 47 point difference is the third largest gap in the last 15 years of polling on the matter. During the seven years of the Obama Administration, marked by patches of high tension between Jerusalem and Washington, the percentage of those expressing more sympathy for Israel went from 59% in 2009 to 64% in 2013, and has remained steady at 62% over the last three years. According to Gallup's summation of the findings, “Americans have become more sympathetic toward Israel over the past 15 years, and that more pro-Israel view held steady in the past year. While Republicans show extraordinarily high support for Israel -- an affinity evident at the Republican presidential debate in Houston last week, where every candidate professed his strong support for the Jewish state -- the majority of Democrats and independents are also on the same page.” There is a significant difference of support along party lines, with 79% of Republicans saying they sympathize more with Israel, as opposed to 53% Democrats and 56% Independents. Among the Democrats, 23% voice more support for the Palestinians, as opposed to only seven percent among Republicans. Amid oft heard voices saying that Israel is losing the support of the college-aged youth, the Gallup poll shows that even among the 18-29 year old demographic there is considerably more support for Israel than the Palestinians, with 54% saying they are more sympathetic to Israel, and 23% to the Palestinians. Support for Israel increases significantly among those 50 and older, with those numbers being 72% more sympathetic for Israel, and 10% for the Palestinians. The poll showed that Protestants are more sympathetic than Catholics, 72% vs. 58%; with those professing no religion sympathizing the least with Israel over the Palestinians: 41% to 29%. When asked their overall views of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, 71% of the public said they have a favorable view of Israel, compared to only 19% who said they have a favorable view of the Palestinian Authority. The poll also asked about support for the creation of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, with 44% in favor, and 37% opposed. Although this is up from the 42% who said they were in favor last year, it is a steep decline from the 51% who said they were in favor when Obama came into office in 2009, and an even further drop from the peak of 58% favoring a Palestinian state in 2003. The poll was based on telephone interviews conducted February 3-7 among a random national sample of 1,021 adults. The poll has a ±4 percentage point margin of error. ============================================================================================= |
By Michael Shapiro
In announcing his dangerous plan to close Guantanamo earlier this week, President Obama argued, “I don’t want to pass this problem on to the next president, whoever it is.” If only he felt this way about other more pressing challenges facing our country. Here’s a quick list of just some of the problems this president will pass on to his successor:
1. ISIS
The president has repeatedly failed to develop a clear strategy to defeat—not contain—ISIS. Perhaps it’s no surprise from a president who called this terrorist organization the “JV team” and, even in the wake of Paris and San Bernardino, insisted that his approach was working. Just this month, the administration missed a congressionally mandated deadline to present a plan to counter the threat radical Islamic terrorism poses to our homeland. The president can try to blame Congress all he wants, but ultimately it’s the duty of the commander-in-chief to lead our nation in defeating threats to our national security.
The president has repeatedly failed to develop a clear strategy to defeat—not contain—ISIS. Perhaps it’s no surprise from a president who called this terrorist organization the “JV team” and, even in the wake of Paris and San Bernardino, insisted that his approach was working. Just this month, the administration missed a congressionally mandated deadline to present a plan to counter the threat radical Islamic terrorism poses to our homeland. The president can try to blame Congress all he wants, but ultimately it’s the duty of the commander-in-chief to lead our nation in defeating threats to our national security.
2. Obamacare
Obamacare simply isn’t working. Double-digit premium increases are hurting families who were promised cost savings of $2,500 annually, while exchanges in states across the country are collapsing under their own weight. Countless small businesses attempting to avoid some of the law’s burdensome regulations have been forced to cut back worker hours, reduce wages, and eliminate employee-sponsored benefits—all just to keep their doors open. And, meanwhile, thousands of hardworking Americans have been kicked off their health care plans altogether, preventing them from seeing their preferred physician.
Obamacare simply isn’t working. Double-digit premium increases are hurting families who were promised cost savings of $2,500 annually, while exchanges in states across the country are collapsing under their own weight. Countless small businesses attempting to avoid some of the law’s burdensome regulations have been forced to cut back worker hours, reduce wages, and eliminate employee-sponsored benefits—all just to keep their doors open. And, meanwhile, thousands of hardworking Americans have been kicked off their health care plans altogether, preventing them from seeing their preferred physician.
3. A Sluggish Economy
Seven years of President Obama’s policies have led to one of the slowest economic recoveries in American history. Rather than work with Congress to rein in spending, cut taxes, and pay down the debt, the president jammed through a massive new entitlement program and an $830 billion stimulus package. Today, the results speak for themselves: Stagnant wages, weak job growth, millions of Americans still unemployed and millions more living in poverty. These are not signs of economic recovery—they are signs of a weak economy held back by the federal government.
Seven years of President Obama’s policies have led to one of the slowest economic recoveries in American history. Rather than work with Congress to rein in spending, cut taxes, and pay down the debt, the president jammed through a massive new entitlement program and an $830 billion stimulus package. Today, the results speak for themselves: Stagnant wages, weak job growth, millions of Americans still unemployed and millions more living in poverty. These are not signs of economic recovery—they are signs of a weak economy held back by the federal government.
4. A Dangerous Iran Deal
Dangerous aspects of the president’s nuclear agreement with Iran will take root over the next several years. The $100 billion in sanctions relief granted to Tehran will be used to fund terrorism against the West, as even the president acknowledges. The U.N. conventional arms and ballistic missile embargoes on Iran will be lifted in just five and eight years, respectively, followed by the removal of key nuclear enrichment restrictions soon after that.
Dangerous aspects of the president’s nuclear agreement with Iran will take root over the next several years. The $100 billion in sanctions relief granted to Tehran will be used to fund terrorism against the West, as even the president acknowledges. The U.N. conventional arms and ballistic missile embargoes on Iran will be lifted in just five and eight years, respectively, followed by the removal of key nuclear enrichment restrictions soon after that.
5. A Broken VA
To this day, the president has not proposed a comprehensive plan to fix the VA despite new problems and scandals being uncovered seemingly every week, like a crisis hotline that goes straight to voicemail or falsifying records to make it look like our vets are getting care right away when in reality they are waiting weeks. The president appears content with leaving this task for his successor. That’s a shame.
To this day, the president has not proposed a comprehensive plan to fix the VA despite new problems and scandals being uncovered seemingly every week, like a crisis hotline that goes straight to voicemail or falsifying records to make it look like our vets are getting care right away when in reality they are waiting weeks. The president appears content with leaving this task for his successor. That’s a shame.
============================================================================
5)The Knife and The Message: the Roots of The New Palestinian Uprising
From the Palestinian “Stab a Jew” Guide
There is incitement that is done by the [Palestinian] leadership and you see it in the Palestinian media. Other than that I don’t see a source that is guiding the terrorism.
– Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, IDF Chief of Staff
Executive Summary
The latest wave of Palestinian violence against Jews is something new, an insidious wave of seemingly un-orchestrated attacks, perpetrated by unlikely assailants, and generally untraceable to any particular organization. They were also characterized by brutality, viciousness and randomness, and the purposeful use of the knife, to drive home the intent of bringing a new and unrelenting wave of slaughter to the Jews; a message to all Israelis that neither they, nor their children, will ever be able to live in this land in peace.
As this document will show, the Palestinian president and those under his authority are indeed instructing young Palestinians what to do. Not sending them into battle as soldiers, but goading them into action through deliberate messaging, distortion and fabrication, sometimes stated openly by senior Palestinian officials, but mostly insidiously, aimed at keeping the conflict alive and portraying the Palestinians as the victims in a whitewash of terror.
There is a guiding hand in all this, the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian faction that leads it, Fatah. What is being witnessed today is the end-game of a strategy adopted by Fatah in 2009 and culminating in Mahmoud Abbas’ speech to the UN General Assembly on September 30, 2015, when he announced that the Palestinians are no longer bound by the Oslo (peace) Accords.
A television broadcast that sends a youth on his/her mission of death is part of a carefully calibrated policy of incitement and cynicism, which has brought the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a new level, one that generates terror without fingerprints, but which adroitly serves Fatah’s strategy of an endless war of attrition, by varying means, against Israel.
While the current wave of violence has succeeded in placing the Palestinian issue back on the international agenda to some degree, it has lost the Palestinians a valuable asset: the Israeli political center. Israelis have lost trust in the Palestinians and their leaders, even those Israelis who believe that Israel should relinquish the territories as part of a peace agreement between the sides.
No society can live in fear and with anarchy at its doorstep, where suspicion lurks at every turn.
And no society can live with and tolerate the hatred being spewed against them, via social media and other means, with calumnies and lies reminiscent of the dark days that led to even darker days in the not-too-distant past of the Jewish people.
Israel will learn and adapt to this new situation as it has done in the past. The question is whether the Palestinian leadership will do the same and come around to understanding that the monster they have created, a generation of children led to believe in the culture of death, is not in their own best interest.
Israel can control the damage, but only Fatah and the PA can end it, and it is they, the Palestinian leadership, who have to do so if the path to negotiation and conciliation is to be opened again, and this endless and senseless wave of violence extinguished.
* * *
Notes
1 Raoul Wootliff, “Videos teach would-be Palestinian attackers ‘how to stab,’” Times of Israel, October 15, 2015, http://www.timesofisrael.com/videos-teach-would-be-palestinian-attackers-how-to-stab/
2 Yoav Zitun, “Eisenkot: IDF searching for every possible solution to tunnel problem,” Ynetnews, February 9, 2016, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4764074,00.html
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