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https://www.google.com/?gws_
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According to what I am hearing, Muslim prayer rugs and other items, that accommodate those participating in the Muslim Religion multi-times a day, are being eliminated in The White House.
Will this include the yellow print wall paper background that appears at many press conferences?
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I also hear the reason Trump has not appointed a V.A head is that he is interviewing executives of various health companies about their views of his proposing a joint approach with the private sector to address the many problems that deprive our veterans the care they deserve.
Yes, Trump will be an activist president and he will be taken to task by the mass media for being un-orthodox as well as those whose Trump's election remains a 'chicken' bone in their throat.
Trump is what the 'deplorables' sought and it appears this is what they are getting.
Also, Obama continues to spout he would have won had he run for a third term. If truth be told, Hillary ran as a feminine version of Obama. She embraced Obama's agenda and promised to continue his policies with some minor adjustments because she needed to appeal to and capture the Leftists in her Party and appease the different constituencies who historically and blindly follow Democrats wherever they take them.
Anti-Trumpers continue to hold onto the fact that Hillary garnered more votes. It remains their sole life preserver and allows them a comforting response to their rejection of The Constitution and Electoral Vote.
Trump may not be able to "Make America Great Again" but at least the prospects of our being worse and continuing to decline is fading.
Three weeks and counting.
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The article below supports my previous assertion Kerry remains a liar and Liberal Jews, even some of the brightest ones, bought Obama's lies. (See 1 and 1a below.)
http://wpo.st/Cu3P2
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Last memo of 2016.
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By: Lawrence Solomon
“(President Obama) called me into the Oval Office before the election and he said to me, ‘Alan, I want your support. And I have to tell you, I will always have Israel’s back.’ I didn’t realize that what he meant was that he’d have (Israel’s) back to stab them in the back.”
So spoke this week a livid Alan Dershowitz, the famed Harvard professor, legal scholar and criminal lawyer whose judgment American Jews have long trusted and respected. Dershowitz now realizes that Obama had repeatedly duped him, and that through his endorsements of Obama, Dershowitz in turn duped many American Jews, helping to secure Obama’s election and re-election.
Now Israel has been compromised as never before, with the United Nations through Obama’s maneuverings having declared that Jews have no right to live in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, which they have inhabited for the greater part of 3,000 years, and that Israel has no rights to its holiest sites, including the Western Wall and the Temple Mount.
Winning Jewish support wasn’t especially important to Obama and other Democrats in terms of votes — Jews represent just two per cent of the U.S. electorate, generally making their numbers inconsequential at the ballot box. But Jews are hugely important — even decisive — in their political giving. The Jewish two per cent — which is overwhelmingly liberal — accounts for about two-thirds of all donations received by the Democratic Party. Put another way, the Jewish two per cent donates twice as much to Democrats as the non-Jewish 98 per cent.
The importance of Jewish money to Democratic fortunes explains why Obama waited to make his moves against Israel until after his two presidential campaigns and the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, whom he hoped would preserve his legacy. If Jews understood his real intentions toward Israel, Obama knew, many would withdraw their financial support.
Obama’s prudent course — his only viable course — in realizing his desire to strip Israel of its paramount possessions, embodiment's of its heritage, was to keep his intentions secret, all the while upping his rhetoric that “no president has ever done more for Israel.” Obama also needed to maintain this public pretense to keep his fellow Democrats in the dark, most of whom would blanche at the thought of offending, and losing, their Jewish backers. The American public’s general sympathy for Israel, and general antipathy toward Palestinians, also made any prior anti-Israel coming out a non-starter.
Persuading Dershowitz — an important step to winning over the Jewish community — could not have been an easy feat. Shortly after Dershowitz’s first endorsement of Obama, in the 2008 presidential election, Dershowitz became alarmed at Obama’s apparent willingness to let Iran develop nuclear weapons, coming to believe that Obama’s policies were dangerous for Israel and that Obama could be “remembered in history as the Neville Chamberlain of the 21st century, the person who didn‘t see the greatest evil, didn’t recognize the greatest evil of the 20th century.”
Yet despite these concerns, coupled with pique that Obama had ties to anti-Semites and a staff that was hostile to Israel, Obama somehow managed to persuade Dershowitz that he would never, ever let Israel down. Dershowitz endorsed Obama for a second time and even campaigned for him against Mitt Romney, a true friend of Israel.
After Obama’s reelection, Dershowitz again had buyer’s remorse, becoming ever more forceful in his criticisms of Obama, calling him a bully and an inept negotiator, to the point that when they met Obama “won’t look me in the eye.” Yet Dershowitz continued to have faith in Obama’s good intentions.
Unlike America’s conservative Jews, most of whom saw Obama’s animus toward Israel early on — Obama combined a courtship of the Muslim states with deliberate slights of Israel and its prime minister — Dershowitz remained under Obama’s spell, seeing him as merely misguided, and persuadable.
The Dershowitz delusion persisted with Obama’s successor, Hillary Clinton, whom Dershowitz backed despite her own close and questionable associations, including Huma Abedin, an aide and travelling companion who had worked for a radical Muslim publication, and Sid Blumenthal, who fed Hillary with the bigoted material of his son, Max Blumenthal, “a despicable anti-Semite and a horrible person,” in Dershowitz’s estimation.
Related ‘It can either be Jewish or democratic. It cannot be both’: In parting shot, Kerry tears into Israel
With this week’s passage of the anti-Israel UN resolution, the Dershowitz infatuation with Obama is over. The famed criminal lawyer finally sees the evidence that had been in plain sight all along, and now understands the extent of Obama’s deception. It was “so nasty. He pulled a bait-and-switch,” Dershowitz laments, in explaining how Obama in private pretended that it was “the settlements deep in the West Bank” that were negotiable, not the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, so core to Judaism and to Israel’s heritage.
Dershowitz, and with him the great majority of America’s Jews, took the bait. The rest is history.
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Daily Wire
10 Lies Secretary of State Kerry Told During His Big Middle East Peace Speech
On Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry gave a speech on his proposed plan for peace between Israelis and Arabs. His plan: blame the Jews, pretend that Palestinian terrorism and incitement isn’t representative of the actual Palestinian government, and then blather for 69 more minutes. His speech razed facts to the ground in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan.
Here were ten of the worst lies and lies-by-omission Kerry purveyed in his ode to lying and self-indulgence:
1. Equating Jewish Settlements and Palestinian Terrorism. Israel has been wracked by a wave of stabbings and shootings and rocket attacks from Palestinian terrorists over the last two years. Kerry spent a few minutes on that, but only in order to draw moral equivalence with Jews building additional bathrooms in East Jerusalem, the capital of Israel. “The truth is that trends on the ground, violence, terrorism, settlement expansion, and the seemingly endless occupation, they are combining to destroy hopes for peace on both sides,” Kerry said. This is nonsense. Before there were any Jewish settlements – when Israel did not control Judea, Samaria, or Gaza – the Palestine Liberation Organization called for the “liberation” of Palestine, meaning the complete destruction of Israel. The problem isn’t people building homes. It’s Palestinians murdering Jews, and refusing to accept that any home built by a Jew ought to exist in the Middle East.
2. “If The Choice Is One State, Israel Can Either Be Jewish Or Democratic. It
Cannot Be Both.”
This is patently absurd. There has been one state in the area between the Jordan and the Mediterranean for some 50 years. That state has been democratic. This lie rests on two absurd contentions: first, that if Israel were to annex all Judea and Samaria, Jews would be outnumbered by Arabs; second, that if Israel were to annex all lands, Israel would have to grant all Palestinian Arabs full citizenship or face status as an apartheid state. The first claim is simply false – Jews outnumber Palestinian Arabs outside of the Gaza Strip by a factor of two-to-one, and Jews now have the equivalent birth rate of Palestinian Arabs, and will soon have a higher birth rate, as Caroline Glick points out, meaning that Jewish majority status will increase, not decrease. Second, the United States does not offer citizenship to all the people living within its borders, or over territories over which it has sovereignty. Puerto Rico is governed semi-autonomously, but citizens of Puerto Rico cannot vote in presidential elections in the United States. Israel could easily grant green cards to Palestinian residents while also giving them local control of their governance without a national vote.
3. Peace Will Only Be Realized With a Palestinian Terror State.
The notion that peace depends on the establishment of a Palestinian terror state – and that’s what will be established, given that the unity government of the Palestinians now includes Hamas and Islamic Jihad alongside Fatah – is asinine. Israel has had to blockade Gaza because Hamas controls it, and is attempting to take military shipments from Iran. Adding another Iran-backed terror proxy state to the Middle Eastern map is a great way to encourage a two-front war against Israel, given the presence of Hezbollahstan on Israel’s northern border.
4. “No American Administration Has Done More For The Security of Israel Than Barack Obama’s.”
To put it mildly, LOL. LOLOLOLOLOL. Funny guy, this Kerry. Here’s a timeline of Obama’s “support” for Israel. That timeline doesn’t even include the Iran nuclear deal or the current UN resolution hubbub.
5. Israeli Intransigence Is The Problem.
Nope. Not even close. In 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered 94.2 percent of Judea and Samaria to the Palestinians, a corridor that would link that territory to the Gaza Strip, land swaps that would increase Palestinian land holdings, a formula for division of Jerusalem. Abbas refused the deal. In 2000, Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered a similar deal. Yassar Arafat refused it. Palestinians have never accepted any deal offered by the Israelis. Israelis continue to offer. But the problem is clearly the mean, nasty Israelis. And by the way, that awful Netanyahu fellow offered to freeze settlements early in the Obama administration, and the Palestinians responded with violence.
6. Settlements Are Illegal.
No, they aren’t. Kerry declared over and over that Israelis settling east of the so-called green line are living there illegally. That’s patent nonsense. He also suggested that no Jews would be allowed to live inside a new Palestinian state, because Jews would object – ignoring, of course, that Palestinians would quickly murder any Jew remaining in a Palestinian state, and Jews have a slight objection to being murdered. Right now, over a million Arabs live inside Israel. Virtually no Jews live in the Muslim world because they were expelled, and quickly absorbed into Israel.
7. Equating Palestinian Government With Israeli Government.
Perhaps the most insane spectacle was Kerry suggesting that the Netanyahu government is beholden to the “most extreme elements” in Israeli politics, while pooh-poohing Palestinian government support for terrorism. Kerry suggested that Hamas was a troublesome rogue group as opposed to an integral part of the Palestinian unity government.
8. Israel As Purported Burden To The United States.
Kerry spent serious time talking about how the United States had subsumed its own interests in order to give military aid to Israel. Of course, the Obama administration has also given aid to the Palestinian unity terror government, and attempted to block weapons shipments in the middle of the Gaza terror war. And even the Obama administration says that such aid is good for the United States defense industry; a huge percentage of American aid to Israel is a subsidy to domestic defense contractors. Israel is America’s only democratic ally in the region.
9. The UN Resolution Changed Nothing.
Kerry kept stating that the UN resolution didn’t do much to change the status quo. That’s false. This UN resolution said that all territories outside the 1949 Israel armistice lines – the “Auschwitz borders” – are occupied, including Jerusalem and holy sites like the Western Wall. It calls for all settlements in those areas “flagrant” violations of international law. There’s a reason Kerry pushed this thing through: ofcourse it changes things.
10. The Obama Administration’s Maneuvers Help Peace.
This is the opposite of the truth. America’s position for two decades has been that it would not cram down a peace deal on the Israelis and Palestinians – all issues would have to be resolved through bilateral negotiations. By placing the onus for all concessions on Israel and making Israel subject to the possibility of blowback from the International Court of Justice, Obama just allowed Palestinians to abandon any pretense at negotiations and stand on their newfound “rights.”
Kerry’s speech was chock full of lies. But here’s the good news: nobody will remember it a month from now, just as nobody will remember John Kerry’s legacy beyond his slander of American soldiers in Vietnam.
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2)
Obama’s Regulations Aren’t the Only Trump Target
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act has multiplied audit costs for small firms and slowed IPOs—for what benefit?
President-Elect Donald Trump and Republican leaders in Congress have pledged to
repeal many regulations put in place by President Obama. This would be a good start, but
they need to go further. Overregulation didn’t start during the Obama administration.
In the spirit of bipartisanship and fostering economic and job growth, Mr. Trump and
Congress should remove all regulatory barriers needlessly obstructing America’s
entrepreneurs, consumers or investors, regardless of which party implemented them.
They can start with a law signed and implemented by President George W. Bush.
In 2002 the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, or Sarbox, was rammed through Congress and signed
by President Bush in response to the Enron and WorldCom accounting scandals. But its
regulatory burden has fallen heaviest on small and midsize public companies. As noted
in a 2011 report from President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness,
“Regulations aimed at protecting the public from the misrepresentations of a small
number of large companies have unintentionally placed significant burdens on the large
number of smaller companies.”
Academic studies and annual reports reveal that Sarbox has caused auditing costs to
double, triple and even quadruple for many companies. A 2009 study by the Securities
and Exchange Commission found that smaller public firms have a Sarbox cost burden
more than seven times those of large public companies.
Since Sarbanes-Oxley’s enactment, there has been a rush to the exits from U.S.
exchanges, and very slow traffic for initial public offerings. Yet Sarbox failed to catch
subprime mortgage shenanigans that led to the financial crisis, prompting analysts to
question the law’s worth even in its stated purpose of preventing financial fraud.
The recent stock-market surge obscures that over the past decade the number of firms
listed on U.S. exchanges has dropped dramatically. In 2001, the year before Sarbox
became law, there were more than 5,100 companies that investors could purchase on
exchanges such as Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange. By 2015 there were just
3,700—fewer than during the “bear market” year of 1975, when publicly traded stocks
numbered more than 4,700. Meanwhile, non-U.S. stock listings rose 28% from 1996 to
2012, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Another worrying sign is the ballooning size of IPOs in the U.S. In the early 1990s, Starbucks and Cisco Systems had IPOs raising less than $50 million, as did 80%
of companies launching IPOs at the time. Both firms’ market valuations were less than
$250 million when they went public. Entrepreneurs were able to get public capital to
grow their firms, and average investors were able to grow wealthy with the firms they
invested in.
A few years after Sarbox, however, 80% of firms launched IPOs greater than $50 million, according to the Obama Jobs Council report, and IPOs of greater than $1 billion
$16 billion and had an $80 billion market valuation before it went public in 2012. Many
speculate that Uber may not go public until it is worth more than $100 billion.
Yet there are two reasons for optimism. First, prominent Democrats, as well as
Republicans, have recognized the burden imposed by Sarbox and have expressed a
willingness to tackle the problem. In 2012 President Barack Obama signed the Jump start
Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, which exempts newly listed small and midsize
public companies from Sarbox’s internal control audits for five years after they are listed.
Second, Mr. Trump can do a lot administratively, thanks to a 2010 Supreme Court
decision. In Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board , the
court ruled that members of the PCAOB are subject to at-will removal by a majority of
members of the SEC. If the existing oversight board refuses to revise its accounting
standard to be in line with the statute and call for a simple “attestation” of internal
controls, instead of a full-blown audit, a 3-2 majority of SEC commissioners could fire
By saying his trademark phrase “you’re fired” to the PCAOB, Mr. Trump’s SEC could
clear a path of growth for U.S. firms to expand and tell thousands of workers, “You’re
hired.”
Mr. Berlau is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a Washington-
based free-market think tank. Mr. Cody is a former CEI research associate.
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3)
Free Speech and Anti-Semitism
Obama’s anti-Israel politics show the need for the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act.
President Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Sept. 30. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS
December began with the passage by the Senate of the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act
and ended with President Obama’s betrayal of the Jewish state. In a reversal of policy,
the U.S. failed to block a United Nations Security Council measure that is arguably the
most prejudicial U.N. pronouncement since the 1975 resolution declaring that “Zionism
is a form of racism and racial discrimination.” The president’s abstention aligns
America with the malefactors against whom the Senate is trying to raise awareness.
and ended with President Obama’s betrayal of the Jewish state. In a reversal of policy,
the U.S. failed to block a United Nations Security Council measure that is arguably the
most prejudicial U.N. pronouncement since the 1975 resolution declaring that “Zionism
is a form of racism and racial discrimination.” The president’s abstention aligns
America with the malefactors against whom the Senate is trying to raise awareness.
Let us take this step by step. The Senate passed the triple-A act in response to the
escalation of anti-Jewish hostility in America, especially on the fringes of politics and i
n institutions of higher learning. University administrators protested that the legislation
would stifle “freedom of speech.” Treating anti-Semitism as a problem of free speech
is like treating an outbreak of mumps as a problem of cosmetics. Responsible
authorities are required to check injurious epidemics.
escalation of anti-Jewish hostility in America, especially on the fringes of politics and i
n institutions of higher learning. University administrators protested that the legislation
would stifle “freedom of speech.” Treating anti-Semitism as a problem of free speech
is like treating an outbreak of mumps as a problem of cosmetics. Responsible
authorities are required to check injurious epidemics.
The Senate bill itself understates the problem by treating anti-Semitism under Title VI
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race,
color or national origin. Were anti-Semitism historically a matter of discrimination
alone, it could not have generated the extermination of the Jews of Europe or the
perpetual Arab war against Israel. Discrimination is merely one byproduct of anti-
Semitism, which in modernity is a political strategy, ideology and movement forged in
19th-century Europe, adapted by 20th-century Arabs, and now spreading in our midst.
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race,
color or national origin. Were anti-Semitism historically a matter of discrimination
alone, it could not have generated the extermination of the Jews of Europe or the
perpetual Arab war against Israel. Discrimination is merely one byproduct of anti-
Semitism, which in modernity is a political strategy, ideology and movement forged in
19th-century Europe, adapted by 20th-century Arabs, and now spreading in our midst.
Decades after World War II, the U.S. established the Holocaust Memorial Museum
presumably to warn against genocides like the mass murder of European Jewry. But the museum inadvertently subverted its purpose. The League for Anti-Semitism was
founded in Germany in the 1870s to oppose liberal democracy, which it called a Jewish
plot “to conquer Germany from within.” Tsarist Russia added “The Protocols of the
Elders of Zion” and accused Jews of wanting to conquer the world. Nazism added the
feature of Aryan supremacy. Nationalist movements adapted it to their specificities,
and so did internationalist movements, which is why one of their leaders called anti-
Semitism the “socialism of fools.”
presumably to warn against genocides like the mass murder of European Jewry. But the museum inadvertently subverted its purpose. The League for Anti-Semitism was
founded in Germany in the 1870s to oppose liberal democracy, which it called a Jewish
plot “to conquer Germany from within.” Tsarist Russia added “The Protocols of the
Elders of Zion” and accused Jews of wanting to conquer the world. Nazism added the
feature of Aryan supremacy. Nationalist movements adapted it to their specificities,
and so did internationalist movements, which is why one of their leaders called anti-
Semitism the “socialism of fools.”
The Arab League’s war against Israel opposed the principle of coexistence. Arab
leaders, having failed in their vow to push Israel into the sea, adopted the inverted
tactics of anti-Semitism by accusing Israel of displacing the Palestinians. Much of the subsequent convulsion and violence in the Arab world can be traced to that original
political sin of refusing coexistence.Protean anti-Semitism spans the political spectrum
and blames Jews for whatever they are said to represent. Long before the Holocaust,
anti-Semitism spawned its successor anti-Zionism. When the mufti of Jerusalem
instigated massacres of the Jews of Palestine in 1929, the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin
hailed them as harbingers of a Communist revolution, charging Palestinian Jews with imperialism and laying the groundwork for the Soviet-Arab alliance that later
dominated the U.N. Thus was a form of politics designed in Europe and organized
against Jews in their dispersion reorganized against Jews gathered in their homeland.
leaders, having failed in their vow to push Israel into the sea, adopted the inverted
tactics of anti-Semitism by accusing Israel of displacing the Palestinians. Much of the subsequent convulsion and violence in the Arab world can be traced to that original
political sin of refusing coexistence.Protean anti-Semitism spans the political spectrum
and blames Jews for whatever they are said to represent. Long before the Holocaust,
anti-Semitism spawned its successor anti-Zionism. When the mufti of Jerusalem
instigated massacres of the Jews of Palestine in 1929, the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin
hailed them as harbingers of a Communist revolution, charging Palestinian Jews with imperialism and laying the groundwork for the Soviet-Arab alliance that later
dominated the U.N. Thus was a form of politics designed in Europe and organized
against Jews in their dispersion reorganized against Jews gathered in their homeland.
Turning back to America, no one familiar with President Obama’s biography can be
surprised by his acquiescence in the anti-Jewish politics of grievance and blame.
Raised in, educated by, and exposed to the major forms of contemporary anti-Semitism,
he would have been remarkable to have escaped its effects. He attended school in
Indonesia where, according to Pew surveys, unfavorable views of the Jews are among
the highest in the Muslim world.
surprised by his acquiescence in the anti-Jewish politics of grievance and blame.
Raised in, educated by, and exposed to the major forms of contemporary anti-Semitism,
he would have been remarkable to have escaped its effects. He attended school in
Indonesia where, according to Pew surveys, unfavorable views of the Jews are among
the highest in the Muslim world.
This is the most obvious connection between his upbringing and his membership in the Chicago church of Jeremiah Wright, the pastor whose anti-Semitism he had to
repudiate in order to win the White House. No less important than either of these i
nfluences were his college years at Columbia in the early 1980s—when Prof. Edward
Said was sounding the pro-PLO drumbeat against Israel—and his association with the
anti-Zionist hard left in Chicago.
repudiate in order to win the White House. No less important than either of these i
nfluences were his college years at Columbia in the early 1980s—when Prof. Edward
Said was sounding the pro-PLO drumbeat against Israel—and his association with the
anti-Zionist hard left in Chicago.
In this respect the president is a faithful product of his education. His ruinous legacy underscores the importance of “Anti-Semitism Awareness,” whether or not passage of
the Senate’s act will be enough to arrest it. The current administration has courted the
favor of Israel’s pursuers in the hope of averting their enmity toward the U.S.
the Senate’s act will be enough to arrest it. The current administration has courted the
favor of Israel’s pursuers in the hope of averting their enmity toward the U.S.
In so doing, it has licensed an anti-Israel assault on the part of some Americans
beguiled by a similar fantasy and comforted by the knowledge that Israel, because it
can least afford to relax its military defenses against their common enemies, serves as
the West’s fighting front line. In like fashion, college administrators may be glad to
have Jews absorb campus discontent that might otherwise be directed at them.
beguiled by a similar fantasy and comforted by the knowledge that Israel, because it
can least afford to relax its military defenses against their common enemies, serves as
the West’s fighting front line. In like fashion, college administrators may be glad to
have Jews absorb campus discontent that might otherwise be directed at them.
These dodges failed before and will fail again. The Jewish people has proven its ability to remain morally intact—some say exceptional—through several millennia. America’s exceptionalism is still being tested, and its submission to anti-Semitism is not a good
sign. In failing to stand up to Israel’s and America’s common foes, President Obama
has failed the country that elected him its leader.
sign. In failing to stand up to Israel’s and America’s common foes, President Obama
has failed the country that elected him its leader.
Ms. Wisse, a former professor of Yiddish and comparative literature at Harvard, is the author of “Jews and Power” (Schocken, 2007).
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