Talk about Civil Rice! (See 1 below.)
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Arabs are good at terror and they are also good at verbalizing what they are going to do. I have no doubt they can up the ante because that is what occupies their every being but Israel can handle them and will if the world will sit back and allow it to happen, should they be attacked.
The only thing far too many Arabs understand is blood. The only thing that captures their attention is their own blood. They are political hemophiliacs (See 2 below.)
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Several days ago, when I was in Athens, we had a bad storm which knocked out my office TV so for the past few days I have not been watching the news. I also found out today I need to buy a new TV but have not, as yet, done so.
I finally caught a little news tonight and the country seems riled as statues are being torn down, police are standing by and people are actually talking about the nation's slave owning founders. I suspect Obama must be giddy over the fact that, while things have gone to hell, he is simply a side line observer of what he helped bring about The police are no longer respected, they are fearful, if they do their jobs, they will be sued and they have now become victims of violent crimes against their persons.
Relations between the races are at the lowest they have been since the Civil Rights days and it is all because Trump sought and captured the Duke vote and won over Hillary. The mass media are doing whatever they can to help Democrats who are plotting their 2018 victories so they can rule and Republicans are busy doing everything they can to make sure they are defeated.
When anarchy starts it can take on a life of its own. Eventually it will end after some out of hand insurrection occurs and we will look back and realize, again, the steep price paid for ubridled lawlessness.
I do expect things will get worse Rationalization will take over as a substitute for justifying whatever happens and insurrection on the part of various mayors (San Fran and Chicago etc.) will keep matters roiling.
I am not a legal scholar so perhaps the government has no constitutional right to deny payment to states and/or cities who both ignore the laws and claim their rights are superior. Logic would say if you want to obtain funds from me then you must pay a price. In this case, the price is you must do what we want or you do not have a right to the funds. Liberal judges rule to accomplish outcomes and disregard constitutional intent when it suits them . I find it hard to believe, however, the cities and states will prevail in the end but it will takes years, probably, before we know.
We are in fact re-fighting the civil war.
2017 will be known as The Summer of Discontent. (See 3 below.)
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Whatever blackmail solution comes of the N Korean confrontation it should not become the template for handling Iran. However, I fear it might. (See 4 and 4a below.)
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Dick
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1)Condoleezza Rice on Removing Civil War Monuments: 'Sanitizing History to Make You Feel Better Is a Bad Thing'
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stopped by “Fox & Friends” Monday morning to talk about her latest book, “Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom.” Part of that road, of course, involved slavery and the Civil War.
Co-host Brian Kilmeade came out of the gate strong:
"I want to talk about where your book starts, and that's our constitution [...] As an African-American woman, do you see yourself in this constitution?
Do you think that, when we look at nine of our first twelve presidents as slave owners, should we start taking their statues down and say, we’re embarrassed by you?”
In a word, “no,” said Rice.
"I am a firm believer in 'keep your history before you.' So I don't actually want to rename things that were named for slave owners. I want us to have to look at those names, and realize what they did, and be able to tell our kids what they did and for them to have a sense of their own history.”
Rice, currently a Senior Fellow at the Stanford School of Business, said, “When you start wiping out your history; sanitizing your history to make you feel better? It's a bad thing.”
She then took a quick trip through the constitution as it relates to blacks in America.
Noting that her ancestors were originally counted as three-fifths of a man, how her father faced trouble in 1952 trying to register to vote in Birmingham, Alabama, and how, in 2005, she stood in the Ben Franklin Room of the State Department and was administered an oath of office by “a Jewish woman Supreme Court justice, that's the story of America,” she said.
Rice said George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other slave owners were “people of their times.” “What we should celebrate is that from the Jeffersons and the Washingtons as slave owners,” she added, "look at where we are now.”
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2)Hezbollah head threatens Israel on Second Lebanon War anniversary
By: World Israel News Staff
“The Israeli enemy has reached the rock bottom, while we have reached the peak,” claims the head of the Hezbollah terror group.
On the anniversary of the Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah announced to his followers that Israel “fears” the Lebanon-based terror group’s growing power.
Addressing crowds on Sunday in a ceremony marking the 11th anniversary of what Hezbollah calls the “Divine Victory,” the Second Lebanon War in 2006, Nasrallah warned that the cost of an Israeli war on Lebanon would be “very high.” He called on “the Israeli enemy” to consider dismantling the Dimona reactor, which he has threatened to attack in the past.
“The sample which Israelis had seen during [the] July [2006] war, they will see it multiplied by 100 times in any future confrontation on all levels,” Nasrallah threatened.
Nasrallah said that despite the fact that 11 years have passed since that war, it is “still in the Israeli conscience,” and Israel is still studying the war and “looking deep into its lessons.”
“July war’s goal was to crush Hezbollah, but since that time the Israeli enemy has been talking about Hezbollah’s growing power, and this is an acknowledgment that the war had failed to reach its goal,” he asserted.
Hezbollah’s “power is growing every day and this is what both enemy and friend know and say,” he underscored. “Any new war, whatever its goals were, is not worth the cost which the Israeli enemy will pay.”
Nasrallah voiced satisfaction that Haifa’s ammonia tank is being emptied, calling on Israel to dismantle the Dimona reactor because “it is more dangerous.”
“Israel knows we can turn the reactor in Dimona from a threat to us into a threat against itself, with our missiles,” Nasrallah stated in February.
A year ago, Nasrallah threatened to use Israel’s chemical storage facilities and ammonia containers, which contain more than 15 thousand tons of gas, as a “nuclear bomb” against the Jewish state in the event of a future conflict.
“This would be exactly as a nuclear bomb, and we can say that Lebanon today has a nuclear bomb, seeing as any rocket that might hit these tanks is capable of creating a nuclear bomb effect,” he warned.
“We have to be powerful; the era when the Israeli enemy can threaten and carry out is over,” he declared. “The Israeli enemy has reached the rock bottom, while we have reached the peak.”
Hezbollah launched several rocket attacks on Haifa during the Second Lebanon War, but did not cause widespread damage.
The IDF has been training and preparing for a future war with Hezbollah, which currently has a stockpile of over 130,000 rockets – more than the combined arsenal of all NATO countries, with the exception of the United States.
“You don’t collect 130,000 missiles if you don’t intend to use them,” said Matthew Levitt, an expert on counter-terrorism and intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
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3) Statement by Attorney General Sessions on the City of Chicago’s Lawsuit Against the U.S. Department of Justice
Attorney General Jeff Sessions today issued the following statement on the city of Chicago’s lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice:
“No amount of federal taxpayer dollars will help a city that refuses to help its own residents.
“This administration is committed to the rule of law and to enforcing the laws established by Congress. To a degree perhaps unsurpassed by any other jurisdiction, the political leadership of Chicago has chosen deliberately and intentionally to adopt a policy that obstructs this country’s lawful immigration system. They have demonstrated an open hostility to enforcing laws designed to protect law enforcement — Federal, state, and local — and reduce crime, and instead have adopted an official policy of protecting criminal aliens who prey on their own residents. This is astounding given the unprecedented violent crime surge in Chicago, with the number of murders in 2016 surpassing both New York and Los Angeles combined. The city’s leaders cannot follow some laws and ignore others and reasonably expect this horrific situation to improve.
“The Mayor complains that the federal government’s focus on enforcing the law would require a ‘reordering of law enforcement practice in Chicago.’ But that’s just what Chicago needs: a recommitment to the rule of law and to policies that rollback the culture of lawlessness that has beset the city.
“This administration will not simply give away grant dollars to city governments that proudly violate the rule of law and protect criminal aliens at the expense of public safety. So it’s this simple: Comply with the law or forego taxpayer dollars.”
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4) Don’t Let Iran Copy North Korea and ‘Blackmail’ US Over Nukes, Former Seventh Fleet Commander Declares
By Ben Cohen
The former commander of the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet in the Pacific Ocean has warned of an even more dangerous nuclear crisis erupting with Iran than with North Korea.
“We don’t want to end up in the same situation with Iran, where we are being blackmailed,” Vice Admiral John Bird said on Tuesday.
Speaking on a conference call convened on Tuesday by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) — a Washington, DC-based think tank — that examined the Iranian and North Korean drives to obtain nuclear weapons, Vice Admiral Bird observed that recent US policy had “sent a signal to the world that if you have nuclear weapons, you are somewhat protected against us.”
Bird — who commanded the Japan-based Seventh Fleet in the Pacific from 2008-10 — asserted that a nuclear-armed Iran was a greater danger than North Korea, whose current nuclear saber-rattling has involved threats to launch nuclear-armed missiles at Guam and bury the “Japanese archipelago beneath the Pacific.”
Bird described the North Korean regime’s current position as a “defensive posture.” North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-un, is adamant that the possession of nuclear weapons is essential to his regime’s survival, but it’s not as likely to deploy them as Iran, Bird said.
“As crazy and wacky and murderous as Kim is, he will be rational in terms of regime survival,” Bird said. “Iran would be more aggressive and would want to carry out their threats against Israel and even the US.” Bird added that like North Korea, Iran could end up as “the land of lousy options if we don’t prevent them from getting nuclear weapons.”
Stephen Rademaker — who served as an assistant secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration — told the same call that “sanctions could be more effective against Iran than against North Korea — the ultimate hermit kingdom.”
Rademaker said that the ability to trade globally was a key component of the Iranian regime’s willingness to affirm the deal. Contrastingly, he said, North Korea regards integration into the global economy as a threat to the regime’s survival.
“Integration would open the eyes of (the North Korean) people to what they’ve been missing out on,” Rademaker said.
Comparing the Iran nuclear deal with the 1994 agreement reached between the North Koreans and the Clinton administration — which collapsed in 2002 when the Pyongyang regime exited the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) — Rademaker said that under the terms of both, “North Korea and Iran are in a better position to pursue nuclear weapons at the end than they are at the beginning.”
Even if the JCPOA survives its projected timeframe of fifteen years, all restrictions on Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons will be lifted in 2030. Both Bird and Rademaker were skeptical that either regime change or a radical turnaround in the postures of both regimes could be achieved by diplomatic means.
On the much-vaunted military cooperation between Iran and North Korea, particularly on ballistic missile development, Bird and Rademaker agreed that the US and its allies need to stringently monitor weapons and technology transfers between the two regimes. “We need to be watching to our full capabilities to see if North Korea is doing that with Iran and other bad actors,” Bird said. “It’s a real concern that North Korea will do that.”
Writing for the subscription-based NK News website, North Korea specialist Maria Rosaria Coduti noted on Tuesday that the international community has been aware since 2002 “that Pyongyang and Tehran have cooperated on missiles, as the resemblance between Iran’s Shahab-3 and the DPRK’s (North Korea’s) Nodong missiles makes clear.”
“There have been a lot of unconfirmed reports about the missile and nuclear program collaboration between the two states, as well as of Iranian missile experts stationed at a facility in North Korea near the Chinese border,” Coduti said.
Coduti observed that Iran “has strategic interests in cooperating with the DPRK” on military development. “Improved naval capabilities with sophisticated ballistic missiles enhance Tehran’s deterrent power toward the US both in terms of creating high costs for a military confrontation with Washington and in Iran’s ability to threaten U.S. ships in the Straits of Hormuz,” Coduti said. “And should Iran obtain a 2500-mile strike range, its capability to militarily threaten Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. will increase considerably.”
4a)Mossad chief to visit DC for talks on Iran and Syria
By HERB KEINON
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Israel has come out against the US and Russian brokered cease-fire in Syria, believing this will allow Iran to remain entrenched in the country. A blue-ribbon Israeli security delegation is expected to travel to Washington later this week for talks focusing on Iran and the situation in Syria.
The American website Axios reported on Sunday that the delegation will meet US National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, as well as Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell, special envoy for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt and other senior officials.
Powell, Greenblatt and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser, Jared Kushner, are expected to depart soon on a tour of the Middle East – including Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the US delegation will focus on trying to re-ignite the diplomatic process between Israel and the Palestinians.
But the talks in Washington, according to Axios, will not focus on the Palestinian issue, but rather on the situation in Lebanon and Syria.
Israel has come out against the US and Russian brokered cease-fire in Syria, concerned that this will allow Iran to keep its current military positions inside the country.
Haaretz reported that the delegation to the US will be headed by Mossad chief Yossi Cohen and include OC Military Intelligence chief Maj.- Gen. Herzl Halevi, as well as the director of the Defense Ministry’s political-security department, Zohar Palti.
Cohen briefed the cabinet on Sunday about Iran’s moves in the region, including its increasing entrenchment in southern Syria. He said Iran is moving in to fill vacuums in areas of the Middle East created by the retreat of Islamic State, and that its expansion in the region through proxies in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen is currently the central development in the Middle East.
The American website Axios reported on Sunday that the delegation will meet US National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, as well as Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell, special envoy for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt and other senior officials.
Powell, Greenblatt and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser, Jared Kushner, are expected to depart soon on a tour of the Middle East – including Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the US delegation will focus on trying to re-ignite the diplomatic process between Israel and the Palestinians.
But the talks in Washington, according to Axios, will not focus on the Palestinian issue, but rather on the situation in Lebanon and Syria.
Israel has come out against the US and Russian brokered cease-fire in Syria, concerned that this will allow Iran to keep its current military positions inside the country.
Haaretz reported that the delegation to the US will be headed by Mossad chief Yossi Cohen and include OC Military Intelligence chief Maj.- Gen. Herzl Halevi, as well as the director of the Defense Ministry’s political-security department, Zohar Palti.
Cohen briefed the cabinet on Sunday about Iran’s moves in the region, including its increasing entrenchment in southern Syria. He said Iran is moving in to fill vacuums in areas of the Middle East created by the retreat of Islamic State, and that its expansion in the region through proxies in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen is currently the central development in the Middle East.
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