This memo was finished before I left.
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.jpg)
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The U.N. continues to appoint less than objective personnel who have a proven bias against israel for sensitive positions. What's new?
However, could have been worse. They could have appointed my fraternity brother - the despicable and flagrantly biased, Richard "Andy" Falk! (See 1 below.)
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The insincerity of Hillary is so blatant even a blind person should be able to see it, smell it and feel it.
As she seeks the Democrat nomination she is conflicted by the schism within the party.
She must not appear too hawkish but then she can't align herself with Obama's fecklessness.
Hillary is expert at double speak but the public is also not deaf. Dumb maybe but not deaf or blind!
It will be interesting watching Hillary thread the political needle of her far left party, which is increasingly becoming more radical , currently headed by a failed president whose poll numbers are sinking..
Stay tuned and bless her'hugging' heart!
Obama may have to kiss Hillary's two faces but I suspect Michelle will not be so inclined.
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This is an old speech delivered by Judge Napolitano, when Peter Schiff ran for the Senate and subsequently lost.
That said, I am posting it because it is an excellent review of how far The Commerce Clause has drifted from what was intended for our Founders.
http://www.youtube.com/watch_
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Obama keeps running from the truth but he cannot hide from the truth. (See 2 below.)
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Community Organizer pictorial just missing Michelle Nunn's picture. (See 3 below.)
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China's credit slow down concerns Stratfor. (See 4 below.)
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Bullets fly between Israel and America but will Obama allow them to continue?.
Does Netanyahu's mission to protect his nation fly in the face of Obama's desire to allow The U.S. to be invaded and thus embarrassing Obama?
Netanyahu has balls and Obama claims brains are enough but in reality lacks both. (See 5 below.)
===
Dick
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1)
William Schabas - head of new UN Gaza commission
- and the anti-Israel NGO Network
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Jerusalem - On August 11, 2014 the UN Human Rights Council appointed William Schabas, a Canadian Professor, to head the latest "inquiry" on alleged human rights violations in the Gaza conflict.
Prof' Schabas's record is riddled with anti-Israel biases, included repeated calls for prosecuting Israeli official for alleged "war crimes" at the International Criminal Court. He has also served as legal counsel to Ireland's Amnesty International branch, which has consistently shown a deep hostility towards Israel. Amnesty Ireland has repeated called for an arms embargo on "both sides" (July 14, 2014) denying Israel the right to defense against terror, and comparing legitimate Israeli responses to the aggression of Hamas. On August 6, 2014 its activists marched on the streets of Dublin demanding that the US to "stop arming Israel."
Shawan Jabarin, an alleged senior PFLP activist and director of Al Haq, a central NGO involved in the lawfare strategy of attacking Israel by exploiting international judicial frameworks. In a 2009 blog post Schabas wrote: "Shawan Jabarin, the director of Al Haq ...has been refused the right to leave the Occupied Territory to travel to the Netherlands to receive the Guezen Medal, on behalf of his organizations... Shawan is a great friend of the Irish Centre for Human Rights...." In 2010 blog post entitled: "Shawan Jabarin and Canada's Rights and Democracy", Schabas refers to Shawan Jabarin as "my dear friend".
Schabas has participated in a number of Al Haq conferences; in July 2012, Schabas participated
in a conference organized by Al Haq and Diakonia entitled: "Annexation Wall: Lessons Learned and Future Strategy". In November 2005 Schabas participated in an Al Haq panel entitled: "From Theory to Practice: Upholding International Humanitarian Law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory."
Schabas has also defended Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadenijad, stating that his repeated calls to "wipe Israel off the map," do not constitute a "call for genocide," but are simply "political views." He also defended Human Rights Watch and its director Kenneth Roth, for neglecting to take any action on this issue, despite the criticism leveled at the organization for ignoring Iran's incitement to genocide.
Schabas also authored the foreword for a volume entitled "Is there a court for Gaza: A Test Bench for International Justice," in which he endorsed the discredited 2009 Goldstone report, and repeated his call for ICC prosecution of Israelis.
Schabas's biases were particularly evident during the "Russell Tribunal on Palestine," (RToP) session in October 2012. The tribunal was widely recognized as a kangaroo court labeling Israel as an "apartheid state" as part of the 2001 Durban strategy of demonization. In this event, Schabas stated his desire to see Prime Minister Netanyahu stand before the International Criminal Court (ICC), He then explained this as related to the January 2009 Gaza conflict, during which Ehud Olmert, and not Netanyahu, was Prime Minister.
Schabas's decision to participate in the RToP demonstrates the depth of his hostility to Israel and willingness to exploit a pseudo-judicial framework in order to advance this goal. RTop consisted of "jurors" and "witnesses"- all of whom with extensive histories of Israel-bashing, included Schabas.
Among other aspects shown in NGO Monitor's extensive research, we found that:
NGO Monitor strongly condemns the appointment of Schabas' based on this history and his participation in the hate-filled RToP. NGO Monitor calls on all UN member states to demand his immediate dismissal.
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NGO Monitor, an independent research institution, was founded in 2002 in the wake of the World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa. At this conference, 1,500 NGOs formulated the "Durban Strategy" which aims to isolate Israel through measures such as boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns, lawfare, delegitimization and demonization.
NGO Monitor (www.ngo-monitor.org), is the leading source of expertise on the activities and funding of political advocacy NGOs involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict. NGO Monitor provides detailed and fully sourced information and analysis, promotes accountability, and supports discussion on the reports and activities of NGOs (non-governmental organizations) claiming to advance human rights and humanitarian agendas.
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2) Obama: Iraq Troop Withdrawal NotMy Responsibility
By Melissa Clyne
President Barack Obama now says predecessor George W. Bush and his administration were
responsible for the 2011 withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, according to The Washington Times. Despite couching the "full removal of U.S. forces from Iraq" as the White House’s having made good on a 2008 Obama promise to do just that — it was a key talking point in his campaign speeches — the president is now back-stepping, according to the Times. "Now, however, with the terrorist force the Islamic State running roughshod through Iraq, capturing key territory, slaughtering Christians and promising to 'raise the flag of Allah at the White House,' Mr. Obama has begun to adjust the narrative," Ben Wolfgang of the Times wrote.
On Saturday, the president presented reporters with the newest iteration of his story, the Times
said, when asked if he had any second thoughts about pulling all ground troops out of Iraq. "What I just find interesting is the degree to which this issue keeps on coming up, as if this was my decision," Obama said, according to the newspaper. "Under the previous administration, we had turned over the country to a sovereign, democratically elected Iraqi government. "So let’s just be clear: The reason that we did not have a follow-on force in Iraq was because the Iraqis — a majority of Iraqis — did not want U.S. troops there, and politically they could not pass the kind of laws that would be required to protect our troops in Iraq. So that entire analysis is bogus and is wrong. But it gets frequently peddled around here by folks who oftentimes are trying to defend previous policies that they themselves made." The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack wrote that Obama made troop withdrawal a key platform issue in his 2012 re-election bid, quoting from a foreign policy debate between Obama and GOP nominee Mitt Romney. Obama "told the American people he didn’t support leaving any troops in Iraq," wrote McCormack. "Every time you've offered an opinion, you've been wrong," Obama scolded Romney in that debate. "You said that we should still have troops in Iraq to this day." The National Journal’s Ron Fournier took to Twitter to mock Obama’s malleable position on the troop withdrawal, first posting Obama’s words in 2011, and thenSaturday’s statement in which he denied responsibility for the decision. "A promise he kept, and he’s running from it?" Fournier tweeted, adding the hashtag #Ownit.
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3)
ORGANIZER AND EX SECRETARY OF STATE. CAN YOU PICK OUT OUR IMPOTENT LEADER
WHEN HE WAS UNDER THE TUTLEIDGE OF A CARD CARRYING COMMUNIST. DO YOU
RECOGNIZE HILLARY WHO WAS ALSO TUTORED BY ALINSKY? FOR THE SLOW READERS
WHO VOTED TWICE FOR AN IMPOTENT NARCISSIST DOES HILLARY LOOK GOOD TO YOU????...........BILL ROHLFS..........FLORIDA
        
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4) China's Credit Slowdown Raises Concerns About Overall Economic Health
New economic data released by China's National Bureau of Statistics on Aug. 13 shows the supply of credit to the
Chinese economy expanded by only $44.3 billion in July, the slowest pace in almost six years. To be precise, credit expanded at the slowest pace since October 2008, the month after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and the month before the Chinese government launched an economic stimulus program that sheltered China's economy from the worst effects of the global financial crisis. That program also locked China into a growth model grounded in the intimate bond between government-led credit expansion and housing and infrastructure construction -- one that the Chinese government is now struggling, against time and at the risk of crisis, to escape.
The dramatic and widely unexpected drop in Chinese credit supply in July has raised concerns that the economic
"recovery" China seemed poised to make starting in June -- when aggregate financing in China hit a whopping $320 billion, which was more than seven times greater than July's figure -- has been nipped in the bud. There are also concerns that the coming months will bring even worse news from the world's second-largest economy. These concerns are aggravated by anecdotal reports repeated in mainstream news media saying July's decline is the result of the policy-driven credit tightening by the government and also reflects a drop in Chinese enterprises' demand for new loans. If the latter is the case, it raises important questions about the underlying health and trajectory of China's economy.
Declines in demand for loans are nothing new; they have been cited in the past to explain temporary drops in Chinese
credit growth. This time around, however, these declines come against a backdrop of several months of sustained and decidedly not policy-driven declines in home sales, home prices and housing construction activity across major Chinese cities. That context -- the inevitable slowdown of China's once frenzied property markets that consumed the lion's share of China's post-2008 lending -- adds a new dimension to reports of a slowdown in loan demand.
In short, it raises a question: Is what happened in July merely another turn in the cycle of credit expansion and tightening
that has come to characterize China's economic policy of gradually reining in the investment boom of 2009-2010 that has been in place since late 2011? Is it the beginning of something different? In other words, has something in China's underlying economic conditions changed, now forcing a more fundamental shift in the Chinese government's core economic policy?
The answer, as with most things in China, is that it's complicated. At least one reason for the decline in July's credit
growth seems to be a dramatic contraction in shadow loan devices such as banker's acceptance notes and trust loans, perhaps emblematic of greater traction in authorities' ongoing efforts to crack down on lending off the balance sheet by banks and informal lending by non-bank entities. This suggests the slowdown is at least partly driven by government policy rather than by a major drop-off in loan demand. Also, it supports expectations, fostered by China's central bank itself, that the government's overall policy on credit has not changed and that with shadow lending now under better control, China's normal credit supply from state-controlled banks will pick back up in August. This expectation for August is supported by the Chinese government's recent moves to relax lending controls on regional banks in an effort to reverse the ongoing downturn in the housing sector.
However, the housing downturn will continue. This much is certain, not only because prices and activity must inevitably
come down from the unsustainable heights of recent years, but also because this is what the Chinese government ultimately wants: a housing sector geared toward actual homebuyers rather than credit-fueled speculators. This managed slowdown is only just beginning, but it is accelerating. In July, home sales nationwide fell by 17.9 percent from the year before, the steepest decline in years and the capstone to seven straight months of negative growth.
Home prices are falling, too, albeit less dramatically. In the coming months and years, the Chinese government will work
to manage the decline in home prices and construction activity to prevent too dramatic a drop-off -- and the financial and fiscal crises this would give rise to -- but it will not attempt to revitalize the sector entirely. This represents a subtle structural shift in the Chinese economy. Housing construction and related industries will remain the backbone of China's economy for the foreseeable future, but they will no longer be the growth engines they were between 2009 and 2011.
The slowdown in the housing sector does suggest the knot between credit expansion, housing construction and overall
industrial activity, which drove Chinese economic growth after 2009 and that has held the economy more or less together since 2011, is unraveling. But what happened in July does not mark the end of credit, or rather credit expansion and government-led investment as the key drivers of overall economic activity. Barring a highly unlikely rejuvenation of China's export sector, Chinese economic growth will continue to be a function of state-led credit expansion and investment in infrastructure development for many years to come. This is because China's effort to "rebalance" toward greater dependence on domestic consumption -- the process that, China's leaders hope, will eventually ease the overreliance on state-led investment -- is still in its infancy. Household consumption remains far too weak to support overall economic growth. With exports unlikely to recover significantly any time soon, and until consumption rises to levels more comparable with advanced industrial economies -- a process that could take a decade or more -- the Chinese government has little choice but to continue fueling the country's economy through credit and investment. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5)
Israel Outflanks White House in Pressing GazaStrategyWhite House Now Scrutinizing Israeli Requests for Ammunition
Benjamin Netanyahu, left, looks on as President Barack Obama speaks at the White House in March. Bloomberg
News
White House and State Department officials who were leading U.S. efforts to rein in Israel's military
campaign in the Gaza Strip were caught off guard last month when they learned that the Israeli military had been quietly securing supplies of ammunition from the Pentagon without their approval. Since then the Obama administration has tightened its control on arms transfers to Israel. But Israeli and U.S. officials say that the adroit bureaucratic maneuvering made it plain how little influence the White House and State Department have with the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu —and that both sides know it.
The munitions surprise and previously unreported U.S. response added to a string of slights and
arguments that have bubbled behind the scenes during the Gaza conflict, according to events related by senior American, Palestinian and Israeli officials involved. More Coverage
In addition, current and former American officials say, U.S.-Israel ties have been hurt by leaks that they believe were meant to undercut the administration's standing by mischaracterizing its position and delay a
cease-fire. The battles have driven U.S.-Israeli relations to the lowest point since President Barack Obama took office. Now, as Egyptian officials shuttle between representatives of Israel and Hamas seeking a long-term deal to end the fighting, U.S. officials are bystanders instead of in their historic role as mediators. The White House finds itself largely on the outside looking in.
U.S. officials said Mr. Obama had a particularly combative phone call on Wednesday with Mr.
Netanyahu, who they say has pushed the administration aside but wants it to provide Israel with security assurances in exchange for signing onto a long-term deal.
As a 72-hour pause in the fighting expired at midnight Wednesday, a senior Hamas official said negotiators agreed to another cease-fire, this one of five days. There was no immediate confirmation
from Israel or Egypt.
The frayed relations raise questions about whether Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu can effectively work together. Relations between them have long been strained over other issues, including Mr. Obama's
outreach to Iran and U.S.-backed peace talks with the Palestinians.
Today, many administration officials say the Gaza conflict—the third between Israel and Hamas in
under six years—has persuaded them that Mr. Netanyahu and his national security team are both reckless and untrustworthy.
Israeli officials, in turn, describe the Obama administration as weak and naive, and are doing as much
as they can to bypass the White House in favor of allies in Congress and elsewhere in the administration. While Israeli officials have privately told their U.S. counterparts the poor state of relations isn't in Israel's interest long term, they also said they believed Mr. Netanyahu wasn't too worried about the tensions. The reason is that he can rely on the firmness of Israeli support in Congress, even if he doesn't have the White House's full approval for his policies. The prime minister thinks he can simply wait out the current administration, they say. "The allegations are unfounded," said Israel's ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer. "Israel deeply appreciates the support we have received during the recent conflict in Gaza from both the Obama administration and the Congress for Israel's right to defend itself and for increased funding of Iron Dome."
A senior Obama administration official said the White House didn't intend to get into a "tit for tat" with
the Israelis when the war broke out in Gaza. "We have many, many friends around the world. The United States is their strongest friend," the official said. "The notion that they are playing the United States, or that they're manipulating us publicly, completely miscalculates their place in the world."
American officials say they believe they have been able to exert at least some influence over Mr.
Netanyahu during the Gaza conflict. But they admit their influence has been weakened as he has used his sway in Washington, from the Pentagon and Congress to lobby groups, to defuse U.S. diplomatic pressure on his government over the past month. 
Israeli soldiers fire a mortar toward the Gaza Strip. Reuters
Tensions really started to flare after Israel launched Gaza ground operations July 17 and the civilian
death toll started to rise sharply, prompting U.S. officials to complain that Israel wasn't showing enough restraint. Israeli officials rejected that notion, saying Hamas was using civilians as human shields.
U.S. officials say Mr. Netanyahu told them he was interested in a cease-fire from the start, but the two
sides clashed over the process of achieving one and the players who would take part.
Bracing for a longer military campaign than expected, Israel approached the Defense Department
within days of the start of the ground fighting to request money for more interceptors for the Iron Dome, which shoots down rockets aimed at population centers.
After consulting with the White House, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told aides to submit a
proposal to Congress for $225 million.
Within the administration, the request was deemed noncontroversial because the Iron Dome was
defensive and couldn't be used in Gaza ground fighting, U.S. officials said. In meetings at the Pentagon, the State Department and the White House, Israeli officials told the Americans Israel had enough Iron Dome interceptors for the current Gaza operation, but wanted to replenish its stocks, according to U.S. officials who attended. So with Israel's consent, the administration didn't seek immediate emergency funding, Pentagon officials said, adding that they expected Congress to approve the request sometime in the fall.
Unknown to many policy makers, Israel was moving on separate tracks to replenish supplies of lethal
munitions being used in Gaza and to expedite approval of the Iron Dome funds on Capitol Hill.
On July 20, Israel's defense ministry asked the U.S. military for a range of munitions, including
120-mm mortar shells and 40-mm illuminating rounds, which were already kept stored at a pre- positioned weapons stockpile in Israel.
The request was approved through military channels three days later but not made public. Under the
terms of the deal, the Israelis used U.S. financing to pay for $3 million in tank rounds. No presidential approval or signoff by the secretary of state was required or sought, according to officials.
A U.S. defense official said the standard review process was properly followed.
While the military-to-military relationship between Israel and the U.S. was operating normally, ties on
the diplomatic front were imploding. For the Americans, they worsened dramatically on July 25, when aides to Secretary of State John Kerry sent a draft of a confidential cease-fire paper to Mr. Netanyahu's advisers for feedback.
The Americans wanted the Israelis to propose changes. The U.S. didn't intend or expect the draft
paper to be presented to the Israeli cabinet, but that was what Mr. Netanyahu did. U.S. officials say Mr. Netanyahu's office breached protocol by sending back no comments and presenting the paper to the cabinet for a vote. The paper was also leaked to the Israeli media. U.S. officials say they believe the Israeli government publicly mischaracterized Mr. Kerry's ideas with the intent of buying more time to prosecute the fight against Hamas because Israeli officials were angry over outreach by Mr. Kerry to Qatar and Turkey.
Israel and Egypt had sought to sideline Qatar and Turkey—two countries that backed Hamas—rather
than increase their influence. U.S. officials say Mr. Kerry reached out to the two because they had leverage with Hamas that would be critical to getting the group to agree to another cease-fire.
From Israel's perspective, Mr. Kerry's cease-fire draft reflected an approach "completely out of sync
with Israel, not just on a governmental level but on a societal level," said Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. under Mr. Netanyahu.
"The best thing that Kerry can do is stay out... We need time to do the job, we need to inflict a painful
and unequivocal blow on Hamas. Anything less would be a Hamas victory," Mr. Oren said.
The watershed moment came in the early morning in Gaza July 30. An Israeli shell struck a United
Nations school in Jabaliya that sheltered about 3,000 people. Later that day, it was reported in the U.S. that the 120-mm and 40-mm rounds had been released to the Israeli military.
"We were blindsided," one U.S. diplomat said.
White House and State Department officials had already become increasingly disturbed by what they
saw as heavy-handed battlefield tactics that they believed risked a humanitarian catastrophe capable of harming regional stability and Israel's interests. They were especially concerned that Israel was using artillery, instead of more precision-guided
munitions, in densely populated areas. The realization that munitions transfers had been made without their knowledge came as a shock.
"There was no intent to blindside anyone. The process for this transfer was followed precisely along
the lines that it should have," another U.S. defense official said.
Then the officials learned that, in addition to asking for tank shells and other munitions, Israel had
submitted a request through military-to-military channels for a large number of Hellfire missiles, according to Israeli and American officials.
The Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency, or DSCA, was about to release an initial
batch of the Hellfires, according to Israeli and congressional officials. It was immediately put on hold by the Pentagon, and top officials at the White House instructed the DSCA, the U.S. military's European Command and other agencies to consult with policy makers at the White House and the State Department before approving any additional requests.
A senior Obama administration official said the weapons transfers shouldn't have been a routine
"check-the-box approval" process, given the context. The official said the decision to scrutinize future transfers at the highest levels amounted to "the United States saying 'The buck stops here. Wait a second…It's not OK anymore.' " White House and State Department officials were worried about public reaction.
The Palestinians, in particular, were angry, according to U.S. diplomats.
"The U.S. is a partner in this crime," Jibril Rajoub, a leader in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's
Western-backed Fatah party, said of the decision to provide arms to Israel during the conflict.
Even as tensions with the White House and the State Department were spilling over, Israeli officials
worked to expedite the Iron Dome money on Capitol Hill.
Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona said Israeli officials told lawmakers the money was urgently
needed because they were running out of interceptors and couldn't hold out for a month or more.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said Congress's goal in approving the money
quickly on Aug. 1 was to send a message to the administration to stop calling Israel out about civilian casualties. A senior Republican congressional aide said Israeli officials told senators they wanted the money sooner rather than later. He said Israel's main purpose in accelerating the vote in Congress to before legislators' August recess was to provide an overwhelming "show of support" for the military operation.
The last straw for many U.S. diplomats came on Aug. 2 when they say Israeli officials leaked to the
media that Mr. Netanyahu had told the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, that the Obama administration was "not to ever second-guess me again" about how to deal with Hamas.
The White House and State Department have sought to regain greater control over U.S.-Israeli policy.
They decided to require White House and State Department approval for even routine munitions requests by Israel, officials say.
Instead of being handled as a military-to-military matter, each case is now subject to review—slowing
the approval process and signaling to Israel that military assistance once taken for granted is now under closer scrutiny.
A senior U.S. official said the U.S. and Israel clashed mainly because the U.S. wanted a cease-fire
before Mr. Netanyahu was ready to accept one. "Now we both want one," one of the officials said. A top Israeli official said the rift runs deeper than that. "We've been there before with a lot of tension with us and Washington. What we have now, on top of that, is mistrust and a collision of different perspectives on the Middle East," the official said. "It's become very personal."
—
Joshua Mitnick contributed to this article.
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