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Honest Reporting Gives Its Dishonest Reporting Award for 2017. (See 1 below.)
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More Trump successes that the Hate-Trumpers are missing along with their mass media nerds.. (See 2 below.)
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Soon the rush will begin. (See 3 below.)
Meanwhile:
Hezballah is reaching here. (See 3a below.)
And:
Where have they gone? (See 3b below.)
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Next year, Trump and the Republicans have a full agenda and , because it is an election year and Schumer and Pelosi are going to continue causing Democrats to be obstructionists, very little will be accomplished. Screw the country full steam ahead.(See 4 below.)
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The end of my squeaky brake saga. (See 5 below.)
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Dick
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1) Dishonest Reporter of the Year Award 2017
While The Independent has not sullied itself quite as dramatically this year, its failure relates to the fundamentals of ethical journalism.
Where’s Your Correspondent?
That’s why stories have datelines. A dateline is a standard measure of media transparency, letting readers know where the story was written. Specifically, a dateline can shed light on the circumstances that the reporter works in, and sometimes the methodology behind the correspondent’s work. When several journalists in multiple locations are credited, an editor’s note should disclose who worked where.While journalists covering the Mideast can base themselves wherever they and their editors choose, correspondents still have a responsibility to “make the rounds” and spend time in the countries that are part of their beat. Seeing the situation first-hand, meeting the people face-to-face, sharing the experiences of individuals on both sides of the conflict is possible only by physically being there, even if only periodically.
In short, this often-overlooked disclosure allows readers to better judge the coverage for themselves.
The Independent relies heavily on ‘laptop journalists’ – reporters covering stories remotely – for many of its articles about Israel. Some articles are written from London by writers collecting info online, typically rehashing info originally reported in Israeli and Palestinian media, wire services, social media and press releases. Laptop journalists can literally write articles from anywhere in the world. With just a laptop and reasonable internet connection, reporters can write from the home or office, an internet cafe, airport lounge, bus or even a park bench.
Which raises the question: How can a writer sitting at home, whether in Beirut or London, possibly get the full picture using a computer or a telephone for his or her information?
The Independent’s Mideast correspondent, Bethan McKernan, is based in Beirut. The overwhelming majority of her articles about Israel, the Palestinians, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Turkey, Libya, and the Gulf states in 2017 had Beirut datelines.
McKernan filed a few reports from places like Raqqa and Yemen. We also found a handful of October reports with New York datelines (on issues like Palestinian unity talks, the Kurdish referendum,) and one with no dateline at all (an update on a police investigation of possible corruption by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu).
In July, Palestinians clashed with police in Jerusalem over the installation of security cameras at the Temple Mount, following the murder of two Israeli police officers. Jerusalem became a ground zero for the foreign press. We’d like to believe that McKernan was in Israel, but it’s not clear. For the period of time of July 19-27, the height of the Jerusalem tensions, none of McKernan’s reports had any dateline at all.
And in mid-February, eight other reports had no datelines which don’t suggest McKernan was necessarily in Israel at that time. There’s nothing ulterior about writing up a story from a Starbucks minutes away from Rio’s famed Copacabana beach — as long as reporters don’t misrepresent themselves by claiming or implying they were elsewhere, and that other reporters who helped out are also duly acknowledged.
Not being physically present in Israel would explain why McKernan relied on non-credible Palestinian sources in a November report about a cross-border terror tunnel destroyed by the IDF. According to McKernan, the tunnel’s reach into Israeli territory was just “an Israeli claim.” She also incorrectly reported that the tunnel was destroyed by jets firing missiles, which gave false credence to allegations that Israeli fire hampered Palestinian search and rescue efforts.
Any reporter working in Israel would have been far less likely to make such a mistake.
So why were there no datelines?
Omitting datelines would have required the approval of McKernan’s editors. And the likely reason they approved was that she works in Beirut. Any sign of an Israeli stamp in her passport, any selfie from Israel posted on social media, any indication in her writing that she passed through Israel would put her at risk. In a country where screenings of Wonder Woman were banned, no journalist wants to be summoned for questioning about why they were in Israel, who they met with and what they did. The story of Neda Amin — an Iranian feminist who blogged for the Times of Israel from Turkey and narrowly avoided being deported to Iran in August — is a cautionary tale for lots of writers who have personal or professional contacts with Israel.
And datelines are a damning footprint.
We’re not accusing Bethan McKernan of doing anything malicious. She’s probably not the only journalist doing this. And her editors would likely argue that it’s the done thing, and it’s a small price to pay for access.
But here’s the rub: Israel faced a lot of high profile snubs in 2017. UNESCO passed resolutions erasing historic Israeli ties to Jerusalem and Hebron. At a judo tournament in the United Arab Emirates, organizers barred Israelijudokas from wearing anything with Israel‘s name or flag, refused to display the Israeli flag or play the Israelinational anthem as is customarily done for medal winners. Israeli chess players were barred from an international chess tournament because it was hosted by Saudi Arabia. And 128 members of the UN General Assembly denounced US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel‘s capital.
And in 2017, The Independent scrubbed Israel from its datelines.
It’s time to open a conversation on this policy.
Correcting the Errors
If the Dishonest Reporter Award was given based solely on the number of corrections prompted by HonestReporting, The Independent would be the hands-down winner.
We got The Independent to make changes 16 times during 2017 and that doesn’t include instances where editors dug their heels in or errors that were corrected before HonestReporting became involved.
To be fair, The Independent’s editors were relatively quick to make fixes when HonestReporting brought irrefutable evidence to the table. But the fact that so many errors slipped through the net and were published at all is cause for serious concern.
Of course, the chances of getting it wrong are that much higher if your media outlet is pumping out Israel-related content.
The steady drip-drip of The Independent’s skewed news included:
– A deceptive headline about 2016 being the “deadliest year for West Bank children in a decade.”
– An op-ed diatribe based on fake facts.
– A report misrepresenting Israeli support for controversial Knesset legislation (which editors corrected in response to HonestReporting complaints).
– An overly simplistic graphic using casualty figures as moral barometer.
– An inappropriately opinionated reference to Israel’s Likud party (which editors corrected in response to HonestReporting complaints).
– A rose-colored headline heralding Hamas moderation, which looks odd in hindsight.
– An op-ed diatribe based on fake facts.
– A report misrepresenting Israeli support for controversial Knesset legislation (which editors corrected in response to HonestReporting complaints).
– An overly simplistic graphic using casualty figures as moral barometer.
– An inappropriately opinionated reference to Israel’s Likud party (which editors corrected in response to HonestReporting complaints).
– A rose-colored headline heralding Hamas moderation, which looks odd in hindsight.
– A column falsely claiming Israeli “dirty” weapons are responsible for causing cancer. The facts didn’t bear out the claim. Editors revised the sub-headline in a way that didn’t address the issue.
– Embedding a tweet calling for Israel’s destruction (which editors removed in response to HonestReporting complaints).
– An inappropriately opinionated reference to Israel’s security barrier (which editors removed in response to HonestReporting complaints).
– An inaccurate reference to the Western Wall as Judaism’s holiest site (which editors corrected in response to HonestReporting complaints).
– A report whitewashing Iranian extremism (which editors revised in response to HonestReporting complaints).
– A malicious photo slideshow lacking captions (which editors removed in response to HonestReporting complaints).
– An inappropriately opinionated reference to Israel’s security barrier (which editors removed in response to HonestReporting complaints).
– An inaccurate reference to the Western Wall as Judaism’s holiest site (which editors corrected in response to HonestReporting complaints).
– A report whitewashing Iranian extremism (which editors revised in response to HonestReporting complaints).
– A malicious photo slideshow lacking captions (which editors removed in response to HonestReporting complaints).
– A factually inaccurate reference to Gaza’s Rafah crossing (which editors revised in response to HonestReporting complaints).
– A report using the plight of the Rohingya in Myanmar to unfairly bash Israel based on dubious sources.
– An article inaccurately portraying the Balfour Declaration as the root of Palestinian victimhood. (Editors corrected a factual error in response to HonestReporting complaints, but didn’t address its larger problems.)
– A factually inaccurate reference to the Palestinian Authority’s envoy to Britain. Not only did editors not revise the article, The Independent went on to repeat the error.
– A report using the plight of the Rohingya in Myanmar to unfairly bash Israel based on dubious sources.
– An article inaccurately portraying the Balfour Declaration as the root of Palestinian victimhood. (Editors corrected a factual error in response to HonestReporting complaints, but didn’t address its larger problems.)
– A factually inaccurate reference to the Palestinian Authority’s envoy to Britain. Not only did editors not revise the article, The Independent went on to repeat the error.
While we appreciate the corrections the editors made, the paper’s responsiveness leaves room for improvement.
Ben White
We’d be remiss not point out that The Independent also gives a soapbox to Ben White, a “journalist” so committed to his niche Israel-bashing agenda that he disregards reality to make his dubious points.
In 2017, readers of The Independent were treated to White’s shrill invective on Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Labor Party, the security barrier, Britain’s definition of anti-Semitism, the “Israeli apartheid” slur and British BDS.
White has also authored a number of books, whose titles make his views on the Mideast conflict all too clear, including “Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide,” and “Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy.” In May, White will release his next book, “Cracks in the Wall: Beyond Apartheid in Palestine/Israel.” No doubt, he’ll bash Israel from his soapbox at The Independent.
With such a body of work, what does it say about The Independent that he’s such a frequent contributor?
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Will this Dishonest Reporting award open a discussion about newspaper policies on datelines? Will The Independent cut down on its mistakes? Will editors bring more balance to the paper’s opinion section?
We can only see what unfolds in 2018.
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2)The Great Rules Rollback
2)The Great Rules Rollback
Reining in regulation is a major success of Trump’s first year.
By The Editorial Board
Amid the debate over tweets and tax reform, perhaps the most significant change brought by the first year of the Trump Presidency has been overlooked: reining in and rolling back the regulatory state at a pace faster than even Ronald Reagan. This is a major reason for the acceleration of animal spirits and faster economic growth in the past year.
A rules rollback is harder than it sounds because the inertial tendency of bureaucracies is to expand, and the modern administrative state has expanded almost inexorably under presidents of both parties. New rules are published in the Federal Register, and Barack Obama presided over six of the seven highest annual page counts ever. In 2016 his regulators left town with a record-breaking binge of 95,894 new pages, according to Wayne Crews, who tracks the administrative state for the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
George W. Bush wasn’t much better. His Administration added 79,435 pages in 2008, its most expansive regulatory year. By contrast in the first year of the Trump Presidency through Sept. 30, 45,678 pages were added to the Federal Register. Many were required to follow-up on legislation and rules from the Obama era, so the Trump trend is even better.
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Ten days after his inauguration, Mr. Trump issued an executive order directing his departments to scour the books for rules they could rescind or repeal without damaging the law. He also directed that for each single regulation issued, agencies should identify at least two for elimination. In one his best appointments, he named Neomi Rao to run the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs that must clear new rules.
The results have been impressive. Ms. Rao reported this month that through Sept. 30 the Trump Administration had taken 67 deregulatory actions but only three new significant regulatory actions. That’s a 22 to 1 ratio. She also reported that since fall 2016 more than 1,500 planned regulatory actions have been withdrawn or delayed. For fiscal 2018, the current agenda includes 448 deregulatory actions and 131 regulatory actions, a better than 3 to 1 ratio.
One reason for success is forcing agencies to abide by the Administrative Procedure Act, which outlines a public comment period for proper rule-making and which the Obama Administration routinely ignored. Last year Mr. Crews counted at least 480 Obama-issued executive orders and memoranda, and that’s not counting guidance, administrative interpretations and other bits of “regulatory dark matter” used to promulgate policy.
Democrats are now dismayed to learn that what can be done with the stroke of a pen can be undone. The Trump Administration has rescinded Education Department guidance on transgender bathrooms, as well as the 2011 “Dear Colleague” guidance that established kangaroo courts on campus to adjudicate sexual assault and harassment. It has negated Labor Department guidance that held businesses legally responsible for their franchisees’ wage-law violations, creating “enforcement traps waiting to spring,” in the words of the Chamber of Commerce.
Ms. Rao is also requiring agencies to submit an annual “regulatory budget.” In fiscal 2018 the budget target is a net reduction in regulatory costs. This has been a goal of regulatory watchdogs for years because it forces agencies to think twice about proposing new rules. And if they do, then they need to eliminate regulatory costs somewhere else. If enforced with rigor, this could be the most important check on the bureaucracy since FDR invented the modern administrative state.
Congress has also helped with unprecedented use of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to nullify 14 Obama-era rules and one Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule promulgated under Richard Cordray. The CRA had only been used once before, in 2001 to nix a late Bill Clinton rule.
The 2017 list includes a regulation that would have imposed onerous disclosure requirements on mining and drilling companies operating overseas, carrying $700 million in initial costs and up to $590 million for annual compliance. Congress also nixed rules on education, public land and the use of family-planning funds. By eliminating these 14 rules, lawmakers spared Americans from $3.7 billion in costs and eliminated 4.2 million hours of paperwork, says the American Action Forum.
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The size of the economic impact of all this is hard to measure, though the Trump Administration projects the regulatory cost savings for the economy will be $9.8 billion over the next fiscal year. Mr. Crews has estimated that regulation took a $1.9 trillion annual toll on the economy last year.
But the far larger impact is lifting the pall of government hassle and arbitrary enforcement from business. In the Obama era, CEOs never knew when or how a federal agency might strike for political reasons, no matter the law. Simply lifting that constant fear has had a liberating effect on risk-taking and investment. The deregulation effort ranks with judicial confirmations and tax reform as the main Trump achievements of the year.
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3)
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| The Foreign Ministry is in contact with more than 10 countries from every continent on the globe that have expressed interest in following the US lead and moving their embassies to Jerusalem, Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said on Monday. Hotovely’s comments, in an interview on Reshet Bet, came following Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales decision to move his country’s embassy. He announced the move in a Facebook post on Sunday evening. “Today I spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” Morales wrote. “We spoke about the great relationships we have had as nations since Guatemala supported the creation of the State of Israel. One of the most relevant topics was the return of the Embassy of Guatemala to Jerusalem. I inform you that I have given instructions to the Chancellor [Foreign Minister] to initiate the process to make it possible. God bless you.” The decision comes three weeks after the United States decided to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move its embassy, and four days after Guatemala was one of only nine countries in the UN to vote against a resolution slamming the US move. That resolution passed 128 to nine, with 35 abstentions. Only three of the eight Central American countries voted against Israel at Thursday’s UN vote. Honduras, Guatemala’s neighbor to the east, with which Israel has strong ties, also voted against the measure and is widely believed to be a leading candidate to be the next country to announce it is moving its embassy as well. Netanyahu spoke of Guatemala’s move at the Likud faction meeting in the Knesset, saying he spoke Sunday night with Morales, who is an Evangelical Christian, thanked him for Guatemala’s support at the UN, and expressed hope he would follow in Trump’s footsteps. “From here I would like to say to the president of Guatemala, God bless you, my friend, President Morales,” Netanyahu said. “God bless both our countries – Israel and Guatemala. We are waiting for you here in Jerusalem.” Netanyahu said that Guatemala’s move was “only the beginning, and it is important,” and that “there will be other countries that will recognize Jerusalem and announce the transfer of their embassies to it.” Neither Netanyahu nor Hotovely would list the names of other countries which are considering the move, though Hotovely said that a number of them have a strong Christian base. Between 35% to 40% of Guatemala’s 16.6 million citizens are evangelical. Since Trump’s declaration on December 6, senior officials in the Czech Republic, the Philippines and Romania have mentioned the possibility of such a move or of recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Each of these countries abstained in the UN vote last Thursday. Morales, a former television personality, was elected in October 2015, and diplomatic officials here at the time predicted his presidency would lead to a strengthening of ties between the countries. Israel has long had good relations with Guatemala, though Morales has brought those ties to a new level. Guatemala was the first Latin American country to vote in favor of partition at the UN on November 29, 1947. Before his election, Morales had no government experience. Mattanya Cohen, Ambassador to Guatemala, told Army Radio that the move had to do with the large evangelical population in the country, and the developmental aid it gets from Israel. President Reuven Rivlin posted a tweet expressing Israel’s appreciation. “Guatemala has shown they know very well that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel,” he wrote. “I welcome their decision to bring their embassy to Jerusalem and thank them for their deep friendship. 3a) Feds: Hezbollah Recruited American to Be Sleeper AgentA Bronx man was allegedly part of the Lebanese terror group’s plan to have operatives ready in case of an emergency.By KATIE ZAVADSKI
When U.S. authorities allegedly discovered a Bronx man with terror training checking out potential targets in New York, they might have assumed he was inspired by ISIS.
Instead, it seems the city was facing a very unusual terror threat.
Ali Kourani was an alleged sleeper agent recruited by Hezbollah’s external terror arm, the Islamic Jihad Organization, or IJO.
It is claimed that his Hezbollah handler ordered him to surveil facilities belonging to the FBI and Army National Guard in New York City. He took detailed notes on security protocols at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
In interviews with the FBI after being “deactivated” from the terrorist group’s external operations wing, Kourani allegedly told the feds he was recruited because of Hezbollah’s interest in obtaining dual-citizen sleeper agents who could be activated in case of an emergency.
“Kourani believes that he was recruited to join the IJO in light of his education and residence in the United States, and in connection with efforts by the IJO to develop ‘sleepers’ who maintained ostensibly normal lives but could be activated and tasked with conducting IJO operations,” according to the complaint.
Kourani was arrested in June and his case highlights the complexities of dealing with an organization that is simultaneously the most powerful political force in Lebanon, an organized-criminal enterprise, an Iran-backed militia, a social-services provider, and a designated foreign-terrorist group.
Hezbollah has been at war with the United States longer than any other foreign terrorist organization. In the 1980s, its operatives killed more than 250 Americans in attacks on a U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Lebanon. Its operatives also attacked a U.S. military barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996. (Hezbollah also carried out attacks on Jewish targets in Buenos Aires in the 1990s, killing more than 100 people.) Kourani’s alleged involvement with Hezbollah began when he was just 16 years old. He allegedly received weapons and military training from the unit while still a teenager living in Lebanon, during a 45-day boot camp. “[H]e was permitted to attend because of his family’s connections to a high-ranking Hezbollah official,” according to the criminal complaint.
After the alleged Hezbollah training, Kourani immigrated to the U.S. in 2003, becoming a citizen in 2009. He pursued studies in biomedical engineering from the City University of New York, according to his LinkedIn profile, and earned an MBA from the for-profit Keller School for Management in 2013.
“Kourani allegedly told the feds he was recruited because of Hezbollah’s interest in obtaining dual-citizen sleeper agents who could be activated in case of an emergency.”
In the middle of his educational career in 2008, Kourani was recruited into Hezbollah’s external terror arm, the Islamic Jihad Organization or IJO, according to the complaint. He participated in their military training activities in 2011, and later gathered information—including on “specific security protocols; baggage-screening and collection practices; and the location of surveillance cameras, security personnel, law enforcement officers, and magnometers” at Kennedy Airport, according to his complaint.
IJO operatives with dual citizenship have been linked to a number of incidents in recent years, including a bus explosion in Bulgaria in 2012 and surveillance of Israeli tourists in Cyprus. Others have been arrested for possession of explosives.
Kourani has pleaded not guilty to all charges. According to the criminal complaint, Kourani spoke to the FBI multiple times over 2016 and 2017—including five interviews “after an attorney representing Kourani contact(ed) the FBI and explained [...] that Kourani wished to provide information to the FBI in hope of obtaining financial support and immigration benefits for certain of his relatives.”
Except the attorney apparently did not get an agreement from prosecutors that they would not use the interviews against Kourani.
“We are going to be filing a motion to suppress the statements that he made, which were involuntarily made as a result of deception by the FBI, that tricked him and his lawyer into giving up his right to remain silent,” Kourani’s current attorney, Alexei Shacht, told The Daily Beast.
Schacht did not represent Kourani during the initial FBI interviews.
He allegedly told the FBI about meeting with a handler who wore a face mask during their rendezvous, and told him “the less you know the better it is.” The handler instructed Kourani on various workarounds in case his U.S. passport was seized while traveling overseas—like having a passport card with which he could enter from Mexico or Canada. Kourani told the FBI that he was deactivated by the IJO in 2015, according to the complaint. His interviews with the Feds began just one year later, according to the complaint.
After his arrest, his cousin Ibrahim—with whom Kourani had been living—told the press that he’d been aware of an ongoing investigation.
“I say maybe they came for Ali because always they called him, they came to him, talked to him, but I didn’t know nothing about what for,” Ibrahim said. “I know he’s my cousin, but if he did something, he has to pay.”
Ibrahim’s phone no longer accepts incoming calls, and attempts to reach him were unsuccessful. Kourani’s contacts on social networks now tell The Daily Beast they barely knew him.
Prosecutors slammed Kourani with an eight-count indictment, alleging everything from providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization to obtaining citizenship “to facilitate an act of transnational terrorism.”
Kourani’s arrest came on the heels of massive law enforcement investigations into Hezbollah’s drug trafficking activities in Latin America. The DEA-led effort to stem Hezbollah’s influence was known as Project Cassandra, but ran up against the Obama administration’s plan to improve relations with Iranand slow its nuclear program.
It is Hezbollah’s very nature that makes defining it, and evaluating approaches, so difficult. It is a designated foreign terrorist organization in the United States. Israel views it as a serious security threat, and its operatives are running vast criminal networks in Latin America. But Hezbollah is also the most powerful political actor in Lebanon, and provides social services. It even holds about 10 percent of seats in the country’s parliament.
At the same time, its militias are fighting Iran’s battles in Iraq and Syria. The exact nature of the linkages between Iran and Hezbollah’s leadership is unknown, but the Shia group certainly takes Tehran’s guidance under close advisement.
“The political activity is the extracurricular,” said Jonathan Schanzer, a fellow at the neoconservative Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. “Their goal first and foremost is to be an expeditionary arm of the Iranian regime, and their goals are military in nature.”
Not all governments agree. While the U.S. has designated Hezbollah a foreign terrorist organization, the European Union differentiates between its military and political wings.
“Hezbollah has multiple parts, and multiple interests and objectives,” Matthew Levitt, a fellow at the Washington Institute and author of Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God, told The Daily Beast. “You can’t separate the wings from the body.”
Some members of the organization rotate through its different components, and its official statements don’t differentiate between Hezbollah’s different capabilities, Levitt said.
“I think we’ve seen breadcrumbs leading up to this moment, and there have been continuing arrests of Lebanese nationals providing support to Hezbollah,” Schanzer added.
Indeed, in addition to the Hezbollah operatives implicated in arms- and drug-smuggling operations in Latin America, the Department of Justice has prosecuted individuals for providing money, weapons, and equipment to the organization.
There are no indications that Hezbollah had immediate plans for an attack on U.S. soil. Indeed, Kourani allegedly disclosed these schemes after he was already deactivated by the IJO.
But experts worry that such sleepers could be activated in retaliation for U.S. activity that runs counter to Hezbollah’s—or Iran’s—interests.
“The Iranians are almost certainly casing targets on a regular basis here in the United States, and they have operatives,” Schanzer said. “Whether they are [the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps] or Hezbollah, I don’t see much of a difference.”
3b)
UNRWA Refugees: Where have They Gone?
Palestinian refugees are a slippery population -- but when 285,535 of them go missing from a small country such as Lebanon, it should raise eyebrows.
UNRWA in Lebanon reports on its website that 449,957 refugees live under its protection in 12 camps, but a survey by Lebanon's Central Administration of Statistics, together with the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, could only find 174,535. The Lebanese government said the others "left." Okay, maybe they did -- Lebanon constrained them viciously, so it would make some sense. What does NOT make sense, then, is the UN giving UNRWA a budget based on nearly half a million people when, in fact, there are far fewer than a quarter of a million. Who is paying and who is getting the money?
We are and they are.
The UNRWA website shows a budget of $2.41 billion combined for FY 2016 and 2017. The U.S. provides more than $300 million to UNRWA annually, about one-quarter of the total. In August 2017, UNRWA claimed a deficit of $126 million. A former State Department official said the budget shortfalls are chronic but that "the funds seemed eventually arrive" after pressing others for more money -- some of that additional money is from the U.S.
American funding for UNRWA is problematic itself because the organization is inextricably intertwined with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon; see here, here and here. And specifically for Lebanon, the connection goes as far back as 2007. But stay with the "floating" population problem for a moment.
The huge discrepancy in Lebanon suggests that UNRWA may have trouble counting refugees in the West Bank, Jordan, Gaza, and Syria as well. (We'll give them a pass on Syria for now.) The problem is not new, but that Palestinian agencies were running the census may help the United States overcome its own long-term obstinacy when it comes to counting and paying.
Ten years ago, a forum on Capitol Hill, then-Rep. Mark Kirk called for an international audit of UNRWA. Kirk admitted he was unsuccessful in generating demand among his colleagues despite such accounting anomalies as a $13 million entry for "un-earmarked expenses" in an audit conducted by UNRWA's own board. An amendment to the 2006 Foreign Assistance Act had called for $2 million in additional funds for UNRWA, specifically for an investigation of finances, but the amendment was withdrawn at the request of the State Department.
As a Senator, Kirk offered an amendment calling for the State Department to provide two numbers to Congress: the number of Palestinians physically displaced from their homes in what became Israel in 1948, and the number of their descendants administered by the UNRWA. The State Department denounced the amendment, saying, "This proposed Amendment would be viewed around the world as the United States acting to prejudge and determine the outcome of this sensitive issue."
Far from prejudging the outcome, a review of the number of Palestinian "refugees" in the world and the world's obligation to them would provide an honest basis from which to make policy.
In 1950, the UN defined Palestinian "refugees" as people displaced from territory that had become Israel after having lived there for two years or more -- this is distinct from every other population of refugees that must be displaced from their long-term homes. Furthermore, Palestinians are the only "refugee" group that hands the status down through generations, until there is a resolution of the status of the original group -- which is why they are governed by UNRWA; all other refugees are under the care of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which has a mandate to settle refugees so they can become citizens of new countries. UNRWA, naturally, produces the only population of refugees that grows geometrically over time rather than declining as the original refugees die and their children are no longer stateless.
(See Vietnamese refugee resettlement for an example of how this works for others.)
The original population of refugees was estimated at 711,000 in 1950. Today, there appear to be 30-50,000 original refugees remaining, and UNRWA claims to care for 4,950,000 of their descendants. But 285,000 of them appear to have disappeared from Lebanon.
It has long been understood that there is an undercount of deaths in UNRWA refugee camps -- to admit a death means UNRWA loses that member in the accounting for the international community. It also wreaks havoc with Palestinian insistence that there are 6 million refugees (not UNRWA's 5 million) and that a million people are not registered, but should still have a "right of return" to homes their parents, grandparents or great-grandparents claim to have had inside the borders of Israel.
The numbers game also exists with people who do not live in refugee camps. The Palestinian Authority counts as residents 400,000 Palestinians who have lived abroad for over a year, and according to Deputy Palestinian Interior Minister Hassan Illwi, more than 100,000 babies born abroad are registered as West Bank residents -- both in contravention of population-counting norms. Jerusalem Palestinians are double-counted – once as Palestinian Authority residents and once as Israeli Palestinians. The PA, furthermore, claims zero net out-migration; Israeli government statistics differ.
How many Palestinians would there be in these territories if a proper census was taken? How many "refugees" would disappear from UNRWA rolls as they did in Lebanon? How might that affect the budget?
Can we please find out?
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As the Fed starts to unwind QE and the ECB is getting closer to doing the same, we wonder, did QE really make a difference, or did it just inflate asset values due to ultra-low interest rates without really stimulating GDP growth at all, or not much. Depends who you ask, but it would seem that it did not do much for GDP growth just based on the numbers, and that it took major policy changes by the new administration and changes in policies in the EU to make a noticeable change in GDP growth. GDP stumbled along for all the years of Obama and began to really grow consistently in Q2 2017. By then QE was stopped and about to be would down. Therefore it seems that the real key to economic growth is not the Fed and interest rates, but the regulatory and tax rules, and government attitude toward business and regulation. Under Obama there was a continuous flood of new regs which cost the operators of companies hundreds of billions to comply with, which was funding that could have much better gone to salaries, dividends and capital expenditure. If you just look at JP Morgan, they added 38,000 compliance officers who were all non-revenue producing and a major drag on loan officers being able to get loans processed. Ordinary operating companies were paying lawyers to deal with filings and interpreting regs instead of using those funds to grow the business. Taxes were the highest in the world, so we had numerous companies moving operations and headquarters offshore. Due to the weak economic outlook we would have had under Hilary continuing the over regulation and nil hope for tax cuts, there was little to no incentive to make major capital investments. Thus not only was growth stymied, but new technologies were not put in place so productivity lagged.
Now we see the stock market taking off to new records, capital expenditure once again happening, and new business start-ups growing again after eight years of decline. Consumer spend on Christmas rose 4.9% vs 3.7% last year. Increased spend was up and down the whole income range as opposed to just upper income people. Consumer credit is also increasing which shows the increased consumer confidence. If things go as I expect, and as new Fed and private forecast suggest, 2018 should see major growth of GDP and increased capital investment. There is very clearly a major shift in business executives’ optimism for the economy. All of the objective surveys by business associations show this shift being material. Consumer sentiment is higher than at any time since 2000, and you will see that in retail sales numbers for December including the big week after Christmas being above forecasts. Passing the tax bill before Christmas will add a bit to that growth as people now are sure they will get some more in their paychecks and several companies already announced large bonuses. The media may continue to push the Dems narrative that the tax reform was just for the wealthy, but when the money shows up in paychecks, although not big dollars, it will change the narrative. If more large employers announce bonuses related to the tax cuts for companies, as is likely, then the narrative really changes. That will cause more consumer spending than would otherwise be the case in Q1.
So it would seem that just cutting rates did not have the desired impact on the economy due to the over regulation and high taxes. They surely were helpful and maybe prevented a worse crash, but they were not the stimulus for consumers nor for companies that was hoped. You do not make large capital investments if the savings on interest is eaten by new regulation and general pessimism about the economy. You do not make new investments nor build new buildings if it is so costly due to regulation and delay that the cost of capital savings are offset by government fiat. You do not invest if you expect GDP to continue to grow at only 2% for the next 10 years, as was forecast by most economists before the election.
It is hard to know how much QE helped in the EU and Japan, and how much was due to changes in regulation. In Japan under Abe there has been a major effort to do various things to lessen regulation and to provide a much more positive business environment. I don’t have much knowledge of Japanese regs, so it is not possible for me to comment in any detail, but that economy is now growing better than at any time in 20 years. Again, it was the pro-business policies of Abe, that likely had more to do with the growth than QE by the BOJ.
It is hard to know exactly how much QE really made a difference or not, but the evidence seems to show that it did not do much for GDP, and the political factors of tax cuts, pro-business policies and massive deregulation were far more influential. Online sales were up 18% and online may have risen to 15% or more of total Christmas sales. Retail stocks are up materially, and when earnings come in AMZN and WMT along with MA and VISA should show very strong results. This will help drive a continuation of a rising stock market. Bitcoin, on the other hand, has shown how risky it is with a collapse of the value last week and the coming wipe out of several of the newer startups. This is dot com 2 coming your way. Hopefully most people will stay away and there will not be collateral damage.
Now that tax reform is done, the next battle is the budget and defense spending. Then we have immigration, DACCA, and infrastructure. Since the Dems are required on all of these, we can expect a major fight on everything, and a good outcome on little.
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5) Ms.Mary T. Barra, CEO 12/27//2017
General Motors
300 Renaissance Center
Detroit, Mi 48265
Dear Ms Barra
I do not mean to be a pest but I thought you might like to
know I made contact with Ms. Danielle and I explained my problem and she said
she promised to call back Thursday, after she
talked with the local dealer and someone higher up in your own organization. I have yet to hear from her so, as far as I am
concerned, I will not pursue the matter.
Wishing you and yours a Healthy New Year. As for myself, I hope mine will be healthy as
well, just a little squeaky and disappointed but then dealing with car
manufacturers and dealers has never proven to be one of my favorite past times.
Sincerely,
Richard E Berkowitz
6 Pineside lane
Savannah, Ga. 31411
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