Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Happy Thanksgiving. Let's Hope You Survive The Feast.


If I were a cartoonist I would draw a picture of a grocery store and a display of turkeys.

In the Hate Trump Turkey bin, I would draw Turkey's with horns.

In the Love Trump Turkey bin I would draw turkeys with orange hair wearing a Red Cap.

No doubt, as families sit down today, to feast upon sumptuous Thanksgiving meals, many will
be at each other's throats. Far too many are capable of a friendly discussion among those holding opposite views points. We have lost the art of engaging in a rational discussion. Cell phones are now our main method of conversing and they have click buttons.

Perhaps there will come a time when Trump Haters will rid themselves of their affliction but I suspect matters will worsen before they get better. Why?  Because radical progressives were unable to accept their defeat in 2016 and now that they are losing the impeachment battle and their anger and fits of distemper will surely  increase.
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Finland tried it for a long time and then decided they could not afford this luxury. (See 1 below.)
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Building a wall (Sent to me by a dear friend and fellow memo reader.) (See 2 below.)
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DORIS
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1)BBC reported it. Why not the New York Times and Washington Post? NBC,CBS,ABC?????.
You may know this, but my question is…..How many heard about this on the mainstream media?  
https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2016/01/finland.jpg?resize=865,452Finnish Government  Collapses.....Why It Matters    

Don’t look now – seriously, the media really don’t want you to look – but Finland, the “Democratic” Socialists’ most favored nation, their example of the country America should emulate, just saw its government collapse and its Prime Minister and Cabinet resign due to the unsustainable costs of universal health care.  This happened in March.  Did you hear about it in the news?  Didn’t think so.

 This comes less than a year after Finland killed its experiment with a “universal basic income,” replacing it with mandatory job training and work requirements for people on government benefits.  

There’s more at the link, along with a few ironic tweets from Bernie Sanders, lavishing praise on Finland.  In one, he demands, “If Finland can provide everyone with health care, send everyone to college for free and provide affordable child care, why can’t the US?”   
Well, Finland can’t. 

  
Incidentally, I just checked Bernie’s two Twitter feeds, for Senator and Presidential candidate.  As expected, there was a lot of ranting against billionaires and millionaires (he is one of the latter, by the way, and somehow became one while he was a socialist “public servant,” as so many socialist public servants do), and about completing his mission to transform America with a lot of big government handout programs.  

But strangely, not a word about the collapse of the government of Finland due to the exact policies he’s espousing.  In fact, I scrolled all the way back to last week, and the word “Finland” never appeared – even though that’s obviously what he wants to transform America into.  But at least he can take solace in knowing that with people like him in Congress, he’s already made a lot of headway in turning the US into a place where the cost of government is unsustainable.
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2Border Wall Impressive work by contractor

This shows what can be done and how quickly it can be accomplished.

THE WALL WAS BUILT BY FISHER INDUSTRIES:

If you've been following "We Build the Wall" (private donations and on privately donated land), you're probably aware of this unbelievable project that the Army Corp of Engineers said couldn't be done (including 315 ft. of vertical grade from 18% to 31%).

Look at what the Fisher Company got done in 10 days!! No way our liberal press will ever show this.

Building this fence, in those conditions with the infrastructure in place is amazing. It proves things can happen quickly if people work together, but our Congress doesn't want this out!!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/aaihuiT
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Perhaps David Bossie's Thinking Is Taking Roots! Dershowitz and I Agree.


Why I stand outside the door to the gym and ogle.
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Trump Twitters because that is the way he communicates what he has to say with his constituents because the mass media refuses to report honestly.  Why?

I offer several reasons:

a) Like social departments at universities and colleges the mass media is loaded with radicals, liberals and those who hate our nation and want to bring it to it's knees.

b) Those who are employed  in the mass media have gone to colleges and universities where their professors are (see a above.)

c) They also are not schooled in the ways of former media icons like Eric Severied, Walter Cronkite, Jack Germond etc.

d) Once the mass media became acquired by large corporations they became purveyors of entertainment, not hard news.

That said, I would  like to see Trump , when he talks to large audiences,  follow the advice of Karl Rove and focus on his vision of the kind of America he wants, what he seeks to accomplish should he be re-elected and emphasize the need to have a Congress that he can work with and make compromises that are favorable for the nation.

It appears black voters are beginning to understand if Trump is a racist, as progressive radicals would have them/you believe, he has done a lousy job .  Why? Because he has reduced their  poverty numbers, provided them jobs, fought illegal immigration, passed laws that reduced incarceration for minor crimes etc.  Perhaps, as David Bossie told me, blacks will wise up and break their enslaved ties to the Democrat Party and save the nation  from another radical Democrat presidency.

Robinson & Eberle, RCP
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Eventually black Americans will achieve the level of acceptance they demand and when that happens they will beheld to the same standards as everyone else.  That may turn out to be something they will regret or it might make them better citizens.  Time will tell.

In the case of Israel, certain Arab nations are also finally coming around.

Top Arab Figures From 15 Countries Meet to Say 'No' to BDS
Times are changing: Arab journalists also visit Israel Read right-arrow.png

Hamas has yet to get the word. (See 1 below.)
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Both BIBI and Trump are being crucified on trumped up charges for political reasons according to Dershowitz.

I have said and believe no less. 

As long as hatred drives politics in both America and Israel, China and Russia and other assorted adversaries will continue to be advantaged.

We continue to pay a high price to please our prejudice based on ignorance and lack of ability to reason.(See 2 below.)
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DORIS
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1)  IAF hits Hamas targets after rocket fire from Gaza

Military says multiple airstrikes in southern Gaza Strip destroy Hamas posts, a weapons manufacturing facility. No injuries reported.

Israeli aircraft attacked several sites for Gaza’s Hamas rulers early Wednesday in response to rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave.


The Israeli military said the targets of the multiple airstrikes in the southern Gaza Strip included a weapons manufacturing facility. There were no reports of injuries.

The airstrikes came shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to “respond vigorously to any attack.”

“If someone in Gaza thinks that he can raise his head after Operation Black Belt, he is sorely mistaken,” Netanyahu said in a statement, referring to two days of intense fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants two weeks ago that was the worst such cross-border conflict in months.

Late Tuesday, the Israeli military had said it identified two projectiles fired from the Gaza Strip, with missile defenses intercepting one.

The rockets attack was the second incident this week and rattled the shaky ceasefire brokered by Egypt and the UN earlier this month that ended the latest round of fighting with Palestinian militants.

The flare-up was triggered when Israel eliminated a senior Islamic Jihad commander in Gaza. The militant group launched hundreds of rockets at Israel in response.

Unofficial ceasefires have led to months of calm between Israel and Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007.
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2)Trump and Netanyahu: Both Being Investigated for Made-Up Crimes

There are striking similarities, as well as important differences, between the investigations being conducted against American President Donald J. Trump by the US Congress, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was just indicted.
The most striking similarity is that both are being investigated for actions that their legislatures have not explicitly made criminal. Moreover, no legislature in any country governed by the rule of law would ever enact a general statute criminalizing such conduct. The investigations of these two controversial leaders are based on using general laws that have never previously been deemed to apply to the conduct at issue and stretching them to target specific political figures.

Netanyahu has been indicted for bribery on the ground that he allegedly agreed to help a media company in exchange for more positive coverage and/or less negative coverage. There are disputes about the facts, but even if they are viewed in the light least favorable to Netanyahu, they do not constitute the crime of bribery.

Nor would the Knesset ever enact a statute making it a crime for a member of Knesset to cast a vote in order to get good media coverage. If such a law was ever passed, the entire Knesset would be in prison. Politicians always seek good coverage and many vote with that in mind. Some even negotiate good coverage in advance of voting. That is why they have press secretaries and media consultants.

Nor could a reasonable statute be drafted that covered Netanyahu's alleged conduct, but not that of other Knesset members who bartered their votes for good coverage. That is why no legislature in a country governed by the rule of law has ever made positive media coverage the "quid" or "quo" necessary for a bribery conviction, and that is why the bribery indictment of Netanyahu should not be upheld by the courts.

Upholding a conviction based on positive media coverage would endanger both the freedom of the press and democratic processes of governance. Prosecutors should stay out of the interactions between politicians and the media unless specifically defined crimes, as distinguished from arguable political sins, are committed, and no one should ever be prosecuted for actions that were never made criminal, and would never be made criminal, by the legislature.

President Trump is also being investigated for alleged bribery. Originally the Democrats thought they could impeach him for non-criminal conduct, such as alleged maladministration, abuse of office or immoral conduct. I think they have now been convinced by me and others that no impeachment would be constitutional unless the President were found guilty of the crimes specified in the Constitution, namely, "treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors." So the Democratic leadership has now settled on bribery as an offence for which they can impeach President Trump. The problem with that approach -- similar to the problem with the Israeli approach against Netanyahu -- is that it is simply not a crime for a President to use his power over foreign policy for political, partisan or even personal advantage. Imagine Congress trying to pass a law defining what would constitute a criminal abuse of the foreign policy power, as distinguished from a political or moral abuse.

Presidents have even engaged in military actions for political gain. They have given aid to foreign countries to help themselves get elected. They have appointed ambassadors based not on competence but on past and anticipated future political contributions. None of these has ever been deemed criminal, and Congress would never dream of enacting a criminal statute that sought to cover such conduct.

Could it carve out a specific crime based on seeking personal political advantage rather than partisan political advantage? I doubt it. But even if it could parse such a statute, it has not done so. And if it has not done so, neither Congress nor prosecutors can seek to criminalize the exercise of a President's foreign policy power on the ground that they do not like the way he used it or even if he abused it.

The central aspect of the rule of law is that no one may be investigated, prosecuted or impeached unless his conduct violates pre-existing and unambiguous prohibitions. Neither Congress nor prosecutors can make it up as they go along, because they, too, are not above the law.

Now to the differences. Israel is a parliamentary democracy in which the Prime Minister can be removed by a simple vote of no confidence. There is no requirement of, or need for, an impeachment mechanism. The United States, on the other hand, is a Republic with separation of powers and checks and balances. The Framers, led by James Madison, saw the impeachment power as central to preserving our Republic and not turning it into a parliamentary democracy. That is why they rejected a proposal that would have permitted impeachment on the ground of "maladministration." Such an open-ended criteria, according to Madison, would have resulted in a situation in which the President served at the will of Congress. That is why Madison insisted on the specific criteria for impeachment that the Framers ultimately accepted.

Although the differences between Israel and the United States are significant, they share in common the rule of law. Under the rule of law, properly applied, neither Netanyahu nor Trump should be deemed guilty of bribery.

Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School and author of The Case Against the Democratic House Impeaching Trump, Skyhorse Publishing, 2019, and Guilt by Accusation, Skyhorse publishing, 2019.
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Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Israeli Success Comes At A Price. 3 Op Eds. An Albatross Named Pelosi.

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Our Atlanta friends having dinner in Savannah at Cotton and Rye. On left Me,  Don Heroman, Susan Hamilton on right Bob Hamilton, Lynn and Ann Heroman.
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Israel's success comes at a price. (See 1 and 1a below.)

And:

Three op eds:
Main Street by Salena Zito: Dr. Laura's Lasting Truths
Victor Davis Hanson: Are thought crimes impeachable?Oberlin College Student Erect Monument to Fallen Palestinian Terrorists - Read More
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BIBI does not have to step down according to Israel's Atty. Gen. (See 2 below.)
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Several years ago Democrats captured The House and those who voted for them did so because they were convinced Democrats  were best suited to address the nation's pressing problems.

In the last two years they have become obsessed with and focused on impeaching Trump and have ignored legislation that would improve trade, resolve immigration issues, pass a budget that would  begin the move toward a balanced one, do something about high drug costs and the opiod epidemic among other issues.

Trump has reminded Pelosi and her slaves of they need to press forward and earn their salaries.  You would think the mass media would be writing a few lines about this circumstance but if they did it would be embarrassing so they remain silent.

What we are witnessing are political lunatics in pursuit of a president they hate who is different than most and accomplishing a great deal that has needed correcting for decades.

I submit, in 2020 the nation can only move forward if Trump has a Congress he can work with because China and Russia continue to inch forward. Time is not on America's side and Democrats are frittering it away in senseless pursuits driven by hatred, misplaced jealousy and an inability to accept their defeat at the polls in 2016.

To re-elect Trump and leave him with an albatross named Pelosi on his back is ridiculous.
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 DORIS
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1)

Led by high tech, Israeli exports to hit record of $114B in 2019

Exports comprise 30% of Israel’s economic activity. Economy Ministry: Growth led by the high tech sector such as software, computing, and research and development services.

Led by high tech, Israeli exports to hit record of $114B in 2019
Israel’s exports, a key economic growth driver, are expected to grow to a record $114 billion in 2019 from $109 billion last year, government data showed on Sunday.

According to the Central Bureau and Statistics and Economy Ministry, Israeli goods and services exports stood at $84 billion over the first nine months of the year, up 4.6% from January-September 2018.

 The Economy Ministry said the increase this year stems mostly from a nearly 12% rise in services exports, with growth led by the high tech sector such as software, computing, and research and development services.

The gain in services has more than offset weakness in goods exports, which have been hurt this year by slowing global trade, a weak diamond market, and a strong shekel currency ILS.
Exports comprise around 30% of Israel’s economic activity.

Overall, exports to the European Union – Israel’s largest trading partner – rose 4.8% this year, led by the UK, Spain, Poland, and Belgium. Exports to the United States – the largest export market by country – rose 2% while exports to India grew 9%. Exports to Asian markets including China and Japan fell this year.

The gain in services has more than offset a drop in goods exports, which have been hurt this year by slowing global trade, a weak diamond market, and a strong shekel currency.

 1a) Why European opposition to Israel should not be dismissed

The re-establishment of the Jewish state and its astonishing success seems to have provided a new outlet for European anti-Semitism.

A symbolic coincidence occurred earlier this month. In the same morning that Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists pounded Israeli towns with rockets, the European Court of Justice affirmed a European Commission special labeling requirement for Jewish-owned businesses in the West Bank.

While these two events are unrelated, the juxtaposition of two assaults on Jewish sovereignty is indicative of the current state of Judaism, and the threats it faces: The jihadi one is a tactical threat that puts the lives of individual Jews in great danger, but it poses a strategic threat to neither Judaism nor the Jewish State. The European action, on the other hand, does not put any Jewish lives in direct danger, but it represents a strategic threat that is part of a string of European anti-Israel measures.

The history of Europe and Jewry has often been fraught. The acrimonious relationship dates back to the ancient Greek and Roman invasions of Judea, which were followed by European Jews’ centuries-long general refusal to assimilate out of existence. Tensions have since evolved. When Europe was more religious, it often deployed religion as the currency of its opposition to Jews. When Europe turned more secular, many came to oppose Jews through a more national and ethnic opposition to Judaism. Toward the end of the 19th century, this new form of Jew-hatred got a name: Anti-Semitism.

Today, while many European countries are strong allies of Israel, the re-establishment of the Jewish state and its astonishing success seems to have provided a new outlet for European anti-Semitism. Indeed, it is hard to explain the European product-labeling directive on its merits, as it inflicts more damage to Palestinians than it does to Jewish-owned businesses in the West Bank. Those businesses employ Palestinians and some of them mentor Palestinians. European efforts to sabotage Palestinian employment in Jewish-owned businesses do not end with the product-labeling decree and stand in sharp contrast to the U.S. policy of encouraging coexistence and business cooperation. For example, Europeans spent ample funds and political resources to pressure SodaStream to close its West Bank factory. Europe was successful, and hundreds of Palestinians lost their jobs as a result.

Europeans claim that such actions are meant to help Palestinians. The notion that a European would know what is better for an individual Palestinian is regrettably a recurring theme in Europe’s disruptive intervention in Israeli-Palestinian affairs. Many European countries support NGOs and U.N. agencies, such as UNWRA, that promote Palestinian victimhood and rob Palestinians of opportunities to reap the benefits of the Start-up Nation next door. Perhaps even worse, many European countries supported or abstained from ludicrous UNESCO resolutions implying that Jews and Christians have no historical connections to Jerusalem.
The repeated rounds of attacks from Palestinian terrorists, such as the current one, will be contained. The repeated rounds of political hostility from Europe, on the other hand, requires more attention than is currently given.

Indeed, it is time for Europe to end its intervention in Israeli-Palestinian affairs and focus its energy and capital on its own problems. There are no shortage of those: Europe’s conflict with radical Islam, the debate about the essence of Europeanism, the potential secession of EU member-states, Europe’s battle with home-grown terrorism, as well as the long list of unresolved intra-European conflicts that were temporarily shoved under the rug.

Projecting or blaming Israel will not make European problems go away. In fact, it might awaken them: If the EU insists that Psagot winery needs to remove from its labels “made in Israel,” then some might argue that the EU should also prohibit wine produced in Italian-controlled South Tyrol from being labeled “made in Italy.” Similarly, the EU might preclude wine made in Corsica from being labeled “made in France,” and in Catalonia from being labeled “made in Spain.”

No matter what the EU says, the reality remains that Psagot, as well as the dozens of other West Bank wineries, continue to produce superb Israeli wine that reap award after award in international tasting competitions. Perhaps instead of escalating the feud with the Jewish state, EU politicians and bureaucrats should change course and benefit from the great blessings that are coming out of Israel.
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2)Attorney General: PM Doesn't Have to Step Down Now Despite Indictments

Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit ruled that Benjamin Netanyahu can continue serving as a caretaker prime minister, despite his indictments. The A-G sidestepped whether Netanyahu can be disqualified from forming a coalition, saying the question at this point is hypothetical.

Meanwhile, Avigdor Liberman signalled that he won't support any Knesset effort to grant immunity to Netanyahu. Without the support of Israel Beiteinu's eight MKs, such legislation has little to no chance of passing.

With indictments stemming from three different investigations, I wrote a background piece to help you better understand what's going on: The Charges Against Benjamin Netanyahu Explained.

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Monday, November 25, 2019

Obama and Trump - Contrasted. Happy Thanksgiving.


In the previous memo I sent on Tuesday before Thanksgiving, I purposely posted two op eds that followed each other.

One, by David Swerdlik,  white washed Obama to the degree one would never know he was black.

 The one by Victor Hanson portrayed Trump as he is - a brawler and unorthodox president who
"...seems to prefer winning ugly than losing nobly." Totally out of character with far too many Republicans. 

Many times I re-read what I post to make sure I catch the essence of what the writer intended.  What I conclude from these two op eds is the following:

Obama: He is still being judged by what he said when he should be judged by what he did or failed to do which did not accord with what he said, ie. "you can keep your doctor."

Trump:  Judge him not by what he says but what he does. If you do, you will find Trump has done more or tried more to keep his campaign promises than any contemporaneous president.


We are still some 11 months from the 2020 election but I believe the Schiff-Pelosi 'impeachment act' has, as I thought it would, at least, fizzle and, at worst, boomerang.

The way Schiff conducted the investigation, the manner in which he denied the "rule of  law" and the inability of Schiff's handpicked and mostly biased, Democrat witness sympathizers to convince the public Trump should be impeached.

I have no doubt, as Democrat House Members go home, I believe they will get an ear full for their brazen impeachment efforts and failure to earn their salaries passing needed legislation and addressing issues that scream for resolution and compromise. (See 1 below.)
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1)

Washington Post: ‘Obama Is A Conservative’

With the former president recently making public comments triggering to the radical left — including that all that hashtag “woke” activism isn’t actually activism — The Washington Post felt compelled to give Americans on the left side of the aisle a little more “perspective” on the man whose legislative legacy Donald Trump has almost completely wiped out. The reason Democratic presidential candidates have been struggling so hard to figure out how to discuss Barack Obama, David Swerdlick writes for the Post, is that Obama isn’t what they think he is.

“Perspective: Democratic presidential candidates still can’t figure out how to talk about the most popular figure in their party, [Swerdlick] writes, and there’s a simple reason,” the Post tweeted Sunday. “Barack Obama is a conservative.”

Perspective: Democratic presidential candidates still can’t figure out how to talk about the most popular figure in their party, @Swerdlick writes, and there's a simple reason.
Barack Obama is a conservative. https://t.co/45gsMfhQ2c
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 22, 2019
As Swerdlick highlights, Obama has tweaked some of his fellow progressives in recent public comments about the flawed assumptions and approaches of Democrats and their supporters.
“This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically woke and all that stuff, you should get over that quickly,” the former president told a group of young activist at an Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago in late October. “The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws.”

As if that wasn’t enough to outrage the permanently outraged, Obama added a sobering reality check to those increasingly steering the party toward more overtly socialist policies: The Democratic presidential candidates would be wise to come back more to the center because “[t]his is still a country that is less revolutionary than it is interested in improvement.”

It’s becoming increasingly clear, writes Swerdlick, that the leading Democratic contenders “can’t quite figure out how to talk about the most popular figure in their party,” which poses a major problem because he “casts a long shadow over the 2020 primary campaign”:

Preserving Obama’s legacy is the heart of former vice president Joe Biden’s pitch to voters — which has allowed his rivals to mark him as complacent. More left-leaning candidates, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), say the next president needs to do more to push for health-care reforms and combat income inequality — but lately, she’s struggling to sell her proposals. Onetime Obama Cabinet secretary Julián Castro has ripped his former boss’s record on immigration and deportation. Meanwhile, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg raced to have a reporter correct a story that misquoted him citing “failures of the Obama era.” Sen. Kamala Harris (Calif.) said in Wednesday’s debate that it’s crucial to “rebuild the Obama coalition” because “that’s the last time we won.” Picking and choosing which parts of Obama’s tenure to embrace, and how firmly to embrace them, has become a delicate game in the primary season.
So why are they struggling to much to frame both their praise and criticism of The One? Because none of them have accepted what Swerdlick believes to be the hard truth about Obama.

“It’s because the former president, going back at least to his 2004 Senate race, hasn’t really occupied the left side of the ideological spectrum,” he insists. While he was of course no Republican, “Obama never dramatically departed from the approach of presidents who came before him.”

“There’s a simple reason: Barack Obama is a conservative,” Swerdlick declares. His “evidence,” that while Obama embraced left-wing positions like the Paris climate accords, Dodd-Frank, pro-choice policies, and same-sex marriage (after opposing it), his “constant search for consensus” ultimately made him be “conservative” on key domestic initiatives, like Obamacare and gun control, and foreign policy…

The underlying concept for his signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act, with its individual mandate, was devised by the right-wing Heritage Foundation and first implemented at the state level by Mitt Romney, then the Republican governor of Massachusetts. Obama wanted to protect Americans from the effects of a prolonged recession, so he agreed, in one of his defining votes as a senator, to a bailout of banks — and as president, he prioritized recovery over punishing bankers for their role in the financial crisis. In his first inaugural address, he affirmed the power of the free market “to generate wealth and expand freedom.”

Until the Sandy Hook tragedy in 2012, Obama studiously avoided any push for gun control. Indeed, in his first term, he signed laws that loosened restrictions on bringing firearms to national parks and on Amtrak. Though cast as a “dithering” peacenik who led “from behind,” he stuck with his thesis that the imperative “to end the war in Iraq is to be able to get more troops into Afghanistan,” and he prosecuted a drone war in Somalia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen.
Obama was a “conservative” in the end, suggests Swerdlick, because he “believes, fundamentally, that the American model works — even if it hasn’t been allowed to work for everyone.”
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