Hillary phoned the president's office shortly after a Supreme Court Justice died. “I need to
talk to the president right now, it’s an emergency!”, exclaimed Hillary.
After some cajoling, the president's Assistant agreed to go wake him up.
“So, what is it that’s so important that it can’t wait until morning?”,
grumbled Trump.
“A Supreme Court Justice just died, and I want to take his place,” begged
Hillary.
“Well, it’s OK with me if it’s OK with the mortuary.”, replied President
Trump as he hung up.
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Do Jordan's actions match their words? (See 1 below.)
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A friend and fellow memo reader wrote this. (See 2 below.)
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More on Trump's climate decision. Hysteria reigns, facts mean nothing once again. Israel knows all about this. That is what Oren's interview was all about.
Trump does not ignore climate. He simply rejected an agreement pertaining to climate that was economically unfair. He is willing to negotiate an agreement that has better terms for American job creation. Naturally our allies are against an act that reduces their economic benefits. They do not like their climate candy being taken away from them. That said, their arguments miss the mark if facts are used to measure them. That is why they resort to hysteria and, of course, the mass media and Democrats are using his rejection to win political points and stir emotions.(See 3 below.)
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This from a long and dear friend who also happens to be an internationally known criminologist as well as a fellow memo reader: https://theconversation.com/
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Rep. Schiff is another Schumer. Both are slimy enough to need seat belts on their chairs.(See 4 below.)
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Dick
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1) Jordan's approach on terrorists brings ties with Israel into question
Relatives of the seven Israeli schoolgirls killed by Jordanian terrorist Ahmed Daqamseh in 1997 hold photos of the victims during a demonstration in front of the Jordanian Embassy in Ramat Gan, Israel.
Credit: Flash90.
On the surface, Israel and Jordan appear to have peaceful, productive and sometimes even friendly relations. Their 1994 peace treaty and deepening economic ties—including a 15-year, $10 billion natural gas deal inked in 2016—seem to indicate that all is well between the neighbors.
Jordan’s recent treatment of the cases of anti-Israel terrorists, however, has tested the Hashemite kingdom’s relationship with Israel and may reveal seething animosity beneath the surface—at least within the Jordanian population.
Two incidents last week—the early release of convicted murderer Ahmed Daqamseh, a Jordanian soldier who massacred seven Israeli schoolgirls in 1997, and Jordan’s refusal to honor a U.S. extradition request for Palestinian terrorist Ahlam Tamimi—have brought the strength of the Israeli-Jordanian relationship into question. Jordan’s refusal to cooperate with Israeli interests in these situations might be understood as cold or even hostile behavior toward the Jewish state.
“It is shocking that [Jordanian leader] King Abdullah would permit this unrepentant and unrehabilitated killer to be released from prison,” Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, president of the Tel Aviv-based civil rights organization Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center, told JNS.org. “His father made such a big ceremony out of personally apologizing to the parents of the schoolgirls he murdered and swore that Daqamseh would serve out his life in jail. Apparently these were just empty words that have now been disregarded. It’s an indication that Jordan is drifting further and further away from the democratic West and into the camp of the Middle East extremists that are overwhelming the regime.”
Darshan-Leitner added that releasing a murderer of Jewish children such as Daqamseh “is not a political concession to maintain governmental stability. It’s an outrage that should have been fought by the Israeli government and Jewish organizations worldwide.”
Indeed, the Jordanian government is cognizant of the need to maintain political stability against the backdrop of ongoing political upheaval throughout the Middle East, which has seen long-established regimes swiftly overturned in popular uprisings since late 2010.
Further, the majority of Jordan’s population remains of Palestinian origin, and despite the existence of a formal government-to-government peace treaty with Israel, the Jordanian public harbors an enduring and deep-seated resentment toward Israel.
This dynamic was apparent in the dramatic moments following Daqamseh’s release from prison. Daqamseh, who had received a life sentence in a Jordanian military tribunal, was freed early after several years of intensive lobbying efforts by Jordanian lawmakers. As the Mercedes carrying Daqamseh arrived in his home village after the release, ecstatic supporters crowded around the vehicle and greeted the convicted murderer of children with triumphant chants of “Allahu akbar!” (God is greater).
Throughout his imprisonment and following his release, Daqamseh himself has remained unrepentant and has called for the elimination of “the Zionist entity.”
Meanwhile, the Jordanian government refused America’s request to extradite Tamimi, citing a domestic court ruling that forbids the extradition of Jordanian nationals. Like Daqamseh, Tamimi shows no remorse for her deadly terrorism.
Israel jailed Tamimi for her role in the Sbarro pizza restaurant terror attack in Jerusalem in August 2001—a bombing that killed 15 people, including seven children and a pregnant woman, and injured more than 130. Both Israelis and Americans were among those killed.
Granted safe haven in Jordan following her release as part of the controversial 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas, Tamimi—operating out of the Jordanian capital of Amman—now hosts a Hamas-affiliated television show, which she has used as a platform to boast about her involvement in the murder of Jews and to incite hatred against Israel.
Regarding Jordan’s refusal to extradite Tamimi, Darshan-Leitner said, “It makes no sense that Jordan relies so heavily on American military support for its survival, and at the same time would refuse the request and provide this mass murderer safe haven.”
Sarah Stern, founder and president of the Washington, D.C.-based Endowment for Middle East Truth think tank, said the extradition issue “is not just a matter of justice, it’s a matter of national security.”
“Tamimi is instructing people how to commit acts of terrorism on a television show that is broadcast into homes throughout the world,” Stern told JNS.org. “If we are allowing people like Tamimi to literally get away with murder, and implying that the lives of certain American citizens are less important than others, that says something very ambiguous about our resolve in this fight against radical Islamic terrorism.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) meets with Jordan’s King Abdullah at the Royal Palace in Amman Jan. 16, 2014.
Credit: Kobi Gideon/GPO/Flash90.
Yet Mideast expert Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, said that despite the recent events seemingly revealing Israeli-Jordanian tension, their ties are too crucial to be undermined by these incidents.
“The relations between Israel and Jordan have become of increased strategic importance to both sides,” Schanzer told JNS.org. “Intelligence and defense cooperation have deepened over the years. And after the incident last week in the skies over Syria, it is now clear that the two neighbors will also likely have to work together in the near future to coordinate missile defense cooperation.”
In the incident Schanzer referred to, Israel reportedly intercepted a Syrian anti-aircraft missile Friday by utilizing the Arrow long-range missile defense system, marking that system’s first operational use in its 17 years of existence.
“Yes, there is still anti-Israel sentiment that exists in Jordan and the Arab world, and this individual (Daqamseh) who was responsible for mass murder was celebrated by some in Jordan, but I think it’s safe to say that the government of Jordan is not celebrating him and will do its best to clamp down on whatever incitement follows his release,” Schanzer said. “Jordan’s relationship with Israel is extremely important to the kingdom, especially as it is also connected to Jordan’s relationship with the U.S., and Jordan greatly depends on the U.S.”
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2) When the Left Turns on Its Own
By Bari Weiss
Bret Weinstein is a biology professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., who supported Bernie Sanders, admiringly retweets Glenn Greenwald and was an outspoken supporter of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
You could be forgiven for thinking that Mr. Weinstein, who identifies himself as “deeply progressive,” is just the kind of teacher that students at one of the most left-wing colleges in the country would admire. Instead, he has become a victim of an increasingly widespread campaign by leftist students against anyone who dares challenge ideological orthodoxy on campus.This professor’s crime? He had the gall to challenge a day of racial segregation.
A bit of background: The “Day of Absence” is an Evergreen tradition that stretches back to the 1970s. As Mr. Weinstein explained on Wednesdayin The Wall Street Journal, “in previous years students and faculty of color organized a day on which they met off campus — a symbolic act based on the Douglas Turner Ward play in which all the black residents of a Southern town fail to show up one morning.” This year, the script was flipped: “White students, staff and faculty will be invited to leave campus for the day’s activities,” reported the student newspaper on the change. The decision was made after students of color “voiced concern over feeling as if they are unwelcome on campus, following the 2016 election.”
Mr. Weinstein thought this was wrong. The biology professor said as much in a letter to Rashida Love, the school’s Director of First Peoples Multicultural Advising Services. “There is a huge difference between a group or coalition deciding to voluntarily absent themselves from a shared space in order to highlight their vital and under-appreciated roles,” he wrote, “and a group or coalition encouraging another group to go away.” The first instance, he argued, “is a forceful call to consciousness.” The second “is a show of force, and an act of oppression in and of itself.” In other words, what purported to be a request for white students and professors to leave campus was something more than that. It was an act of moral bullying — to stay on campus as a white person would mean to be tarred as a racist.
Reasonable people can debate whether or not social experiments like a Day of Absence are enlightening. Perhaps there’s a case to be made that a white-free day could be a useful way to highlight the lack of racial diversity, particularly at a proudly progressive school like Evergreen. Yet reasonable debate has made itself absent at Evergreen.
For expressing his view, Mr. Weinstein was confronted outside his classroom last week by a group of some 50 students insisting he was a racist. The video of that exchange — “You’re supporting white supremacy” is one of the more milquetoast quotes — must be seen to be believed. It will make anyone who believes in the liberalizing promise of higher education quickly lose heart. When a calm Mr. Weinstein tries to explain that his only agenda is “the truth,” the students chortle.
Following the protest, college police, ordered by Evergreen’s president to stand down, told Mr. Weinstein they couldn’t guarantee his safety on campus. In the end, Mr. Weinstein held his biology class in a public park. Meantime, photographs and names of his students were circulated online. “Fire Bret” graffiti showed up on campus buildings. What was that about safe spaces?
Watching the way George Bridges, the president of Evergreen, has handled this situation put me in mind of a line from Allan Bloom’s book “The Closing of the American Mind.” Mr. Bloom was writing about administrators’ reaction to student radicals in the 1960s, but he might as well be writing about Evergreen: “A few students discovered that pompous teachers who catechized them about academic freedom could, with a little shove, be made into dancing bears.”
At a town hall meeting, Mr. Bridges described the protestors as “courageous” and expressed his gratitude for “this catalyst to expedite the work to which we are jointly committed.” Of course, there was also pablum about how “free speech must be fostered and encouraged.” But if that’s what Mr. Bridges really believes, why isn’t he doing everything in his power to protect a professor who exercised it and condemn the mob that tried to stifle him?
The Weinstein saga is just the latest installment in a series of similar instances of illiberalism on American campuses. In March, a planned speech by Charles Murray at Middlebury ended with the political scientists escorted off campus by police and his interviewer, Professor Allison Stanger, in a neck brace. In April, a speech at Claremont McKenna by the conservative writer Heather Mac Donald had to be live streamed when protestors blocked access to the auditorium.
Shutting down conservatives has become de rigueur. But now anti-free-speech activists are increasingly turning their ire on free-thinking progressives. Liberals shouldn’t cede the responsibility to defend free speech on college campuses to conservatives. After all, without free speech, what’s liberalism about?
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3) Why Trump made the right decision
I have read the LA Times editorial and excerpts from the NY Times…and have seen and heard the hysteria on CNN, MSNBC and the mainstream media re: Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord. They all are universal in their emotional opinion that we will now destroy the planet.
Here’s what I’d like someone to explain to me, why this makes sense to you: If we had decided to stay in the accord, the best estimate, which Obama disclosed, is that with full compliance we would have reduced global warming by .17 of 1 degree. And to accomplish that, it is estimated that we would lose 6.5 million industrial jobs , experience $3 trillion lost GDP and a reduction of $7000 in household income. And that’s while China, the world’s worst polluter would be allowed to double their coal production and increase their emissions for the next 13 years. And other major polluters, like India would not participate unless they received $billions of aid from developed countries ( can you say U.S. taxpayers?). The tax structure of the accord is meant to strangle the U.S. GDP to benefit other countries at our expense.
As an analogy, what if I asked you to go on a stringent diet to lose weight and that you’d have to only eat very expensive foods that would cost you a lot of money, pay into a fund to pay for other dieter’s food and that after 20 years if you followed the diet completely, that you’d lose .17 of one pound. Seem like a good deal to you?
This decision to cancel was not a climate change denial, it was because it was a bad deal.
The hysteria try to scare everyone by saying that the U.S. is the second largest polluter., as if we are ignoring the issue. Of course the U.S. pollutes. It’s because we have the largest economy( and highest standard of living as a result). The reality is that the U.S. has done the best job of reducing its carbon footprint and emissions than any of the other major developed countries and our levels are back to 1992 levels. Economic success and innovation are the engines which drive environmental improvement. Our energy production costs have been reduced significantly, while countries who are screaming their objections to our decision, like Germany, have increased their emissions and energy costs.
Yes….solar energy costs have come way down and because of that, production and use have gone up….and it’s created lots of additional jobs. That’s good. And the media hysteria are accusing the decision to drop the accord of killing this growing industry. Ask yourself….why has it been growing? Because of an accord? No ……Capitalism has accomplished it. And as the technology and production efficiencies continue to bring costs down, they’ll compete more favorably against other forms of traditional energy and the sales and corresponding new jobs will continue to grow. That industry does not need an accord to make it grow…the market will do that.
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4) Fox News: Rep. Schiff's Office Was Told About Unmasking Subpoenas 24 Hours in Advance
The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), lamented to a sympathetic media Thursday that Rep. Devin Nunes issued subpoenas to three former Obama administration officials without consulting the minority and for no other reason than that the officials were part of the Obama administration. But according to Fox News' James Rosen, Schiff's staff was given a day's notice about the subpoenas.
On Wednesday, the House Intelligence Committee issued seven subpoenas related to its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and Team Obama's potentially illegal surveillance of Americans. Four of the subpoenas are related to the Russia collusion aspect of the investigation and three -- Samantha Power, Susan Rice, and John Brennan -- pertain to the Obama administration's unmasking activities.
According to Fox News, House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes went ahead with the latter three subpoenas after being stonewalled for months by the National Security Agency. Nunes has been seeking documents in the unmasking scandal since March 1.
"It's very, very slow. It's a slow process to get the IC to get us all of the documents," Nunes said.
On Thursday, Schiff complained on both MSNBC and CNN that he was caught off guard by Nunes' three subpoenas. Schiff also grumbled that Nunes' involvement in the Russian investigation "clearly violated the terms of his recusal.
"I don't know what the chairman has in mind, again, because we weren't consulted, or why the chairman was picking these three people apart from the fact that they were part of the Obama administration," Schiff told CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer. "If there's a problem getting information from the agencies, I'm not aware of it. That problem hasn't been shared with us," Schiff said. "The necessity of subpoenas hasn't been shared with us."
Schiff told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell that the subpoenas went out without consultation with the minority. "I only learned about this late the night before, and that is a problem," he said.
“These were sent out unilaterally by the chairman,” Schiff added, “and they are part of the White House's desire to shift the attention away from the Russia probe and onto the attention of unmasking.”
But on Fox News' Special Report Thursday evening, James Rosen reported that "Schiff's staff later acknowledged to Fox News that they had been informed of the unmasking subpoenas on Tuesday -- some 24 hours before their issuance."
Rosen said the disagreement "underscored the partisan rancor that has hampered the panel's probe of two intertwined controversies."
More than anything else, it seemed to underscore one side's willingness to stretch the truth in order to score political points.
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