Guess Who? Trump Meets With Governors. More Embassies To Move To Jerusalem.

In May 1940, as Adolf Hitler and his Nazi war machine swept across Europe, one man stood between Hitler’s seemingly invincible army and crushing defeat. His name was Winston Churchill. In this week’s video, renown British historian Andrew Roberts explains why free people everywhere owe Winston Churchill a heartfelt "thank you." And: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvoMmxzmXts And again:: Trump made a sincere effort and met with State Governors to discuss and receive input regarding what can rationally be done to reduce shooting incidents.  Being a problem solver type I believe something will happen.  Whether it is a rational approach and/or an hysterical one will depend on how the mass media and extremists on both sides respond.  Would it not be rational to try and enforce the current laws already on the books before we add new ones.  I believe we think by drowning ourselves in laws we will get it right.  Time will tell.. Finally: This from a dear relative:  " I believe part of what is needed is for each school district to have an Organizational Ombudsman. Kids knew this was a loose cannon ready to explode. Ombudsman could have put some weight behind those views and helped the school board take action. police, FBI types are too removed. Can't rely on school counselors. " ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ There comes a time when looking behind the facade and glitz is revealing. Guess who? (See 1 below.)

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The recent shootings in Florida should have and could have been prevented but it is far more appealing to blame guns, NRA etc.  The far left want to end the 2d amendment as the initial effort to transform America into a socialist nation run by a central government controlled by fascists. (See 2 below.)

Even a tragedy can bring about cleverness: "If we arm teachers will the librarians get silencers?"
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Bibi predicts more embassies will move to Jerusalem. (See 3 below.)
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Dick
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1)      I'm the spokesperson for Weight Watchers but can't control my weight. 

I tell you how to run your marriage but I can't commit to marriage. 

I tell you how to raise your kids but I don’t have any. 

I am very spiritual, but don’t go to any church or identify as Christian. 

Even though I knew about Weinstein and the casting couch, I was silent, but I support the Me too movement. 

I am racist to the core, but blacks can’t really be racist, so that doesn’t count. 

 I’m black and female, so I check all the boxes. 

I praised Denmark for their Socialism, though I am a billionaire due to Capitalism, the economic system that allowed a dirt poor child from Mississippi to rise to world renowned fame and wealth. 

 The first time I openly endorsed a presidential candidate it was a black one, Obama. Before a black candidate, I was not political.  

Vote for me, and I will give you transformational change, the kind you got from Obama.

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2) A Failure of Law Enforcement

The FBI, Police and Parkland.

By  James Freeman

“We support the incredible men and women of law enforcement,” President Donald Trumpsaid this morning at the annual CPAC gathering of conservative activists, according to Fox News. This column is grateful for the many brave men and women who serve. But what seems nearly incredible is the cascade of failures by particular law enforcers prior to and during the Parkland massacre.

In Washington, a senior official at the relevant federal agency expresses concern about a lack of trust. The Journal reports:

“When I look through the prism of risk for our organization, I find the No. 1 risk for our organization is losing the faith and confidence of the American people,” said David Bowdich, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s acting deputy director.

He’s right to be concerned, and the American people have reason to wonder whether the bureau deserves their confidence. After ignoring a very specific tip last fall, the organization had another warning more recently. According to a report last week in the Journal:

On Jan. 5, the FBI received a call on a tip line from a person close to Nikolas Cruz, the 19-year-old charged in this week’s shooting, the bureau said in a statement on Friday. The caller provided information on “Cruz’s gun ownership, desire to kill people, erratic behavior and disturbing social-media posts, as well as the potential of him conducting a school shooting,” the FBI said.

On Thursday, the FBI official provided some context:

Mr. Bowdich said the tip line received 765,000 calls last year in addition to 750,000 online tips. Nine out of 10 tips don’t turn into fruitful leads, he said.

Many large commercial enterprises seem to have found ways to competently manage significant volumes of data about customers. Why can’t law enforcement? The FBI isn’t the only organization involved in this tragedy that seems to be due for a management overhaul. USA Today reports:

Broward County deputies received at least 18 calls warning them about Nikolas Cruz from 2008 to 2017, including concerns that he “planned to shoot up the school” and other threats and acts of violence before he was accused of killing 17 people at a high school.

The warnings, made by concerned people close to Cruz, came in phone calls to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, records show. At least five callers mentioned concern over his access to weapons, according to the documents. None of those warnings led to direct intervention.

In February 2016, neighbors told police that they were worried he “planned to shoot up the school” after seeing alarming pictures on Instagram showing Cruz brandishing guns.

About two months later, an unidentified caller told police that Cruz had been collecting guns and knives. The caller was “concerned (Cruz) will kill himself one day and believes he could be a school shooter in the making,” according to call details released by the Sheriff’s Office.

A second cousin asked police to take away Cruz’s guns after his mom died Nov. 1. “Nikolas is reported to have rifles and it is requested that (deputies) recover these weapons,” the dispatcher noted from the call.

Broward County law enforcers weren’t the only ones who didn’t act on leads. According to CNN:

Just months before Nikolas Cruz killed 17 at his former high school in South Florida, the host family who had taken him in immediately after his mother’s death warned local law enforcement that the 19-year-old had “used a gun against people before” and “has put the gun to others’ heads in the past,” according to records obtained by CNN...

CNN has obtained records from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office that detail deputies’ interactions with Cruz in the home where he lived for a few weeks in November, before he moved in with another family, the Sneads, and months before the massacre.

Even after all the failures to prevent the attack, local law enforcement also missed its chance to stop it in progress. Reports the Journal:

The sheriff’s deputy who was assigned to the Florida school where a gunman killed 17 people last week has left the force after evidence showed he stood outside the building where the shooting occurred rather than going in, Sheriff Scott Israel said Thursday.

“He never went in,” Sheriff Israel said, describing video footage of the scene he had watched.

The country is now engaged in a great debate over how to rewrite laws to prevent such horrific attacks in the future. But regardless of one’s proposed legislative solution, it will be useless if it is not faithfully and competently executed.

This column has long believed that the military, law enforcement and fire departments tend to work much better than other parts of government in part because of the exceptional people who choose to risk their lives for others and in part because, in contrast to the civil service, the consequences of failure are often catastrophic and immediate.

But in this case law enforcement didn’t work. Identifying and addressing the reasons for this failure should be the first response of federal and local government officials.

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3)

Cheering Trump, PM says other countries will soon move embassies to Jerusalem

“A ribbon-cutting ceremony is being planned for mid-May. Israel proclaimed independence on May 14, 1948. According to Channel 10 and Hadashot news, the ceremony could be held on May 14 to honor that date!”

Netanyahu says he'll 'personally thank' US president during their Washington meeting next week for planned May relocation of US mission.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said US President Donald Trump is “worthy of all praise” for his planned move of the US embassy to Jerusalem in May, and predicted that other countries would soon follow suit.

“We are in touch with other countries, and it’s only a matter of time before other countries join the US in moving their embassies to Jerusalem,” said Netanyahu at the weekly Likud faction meeting.

The prime minister said he would “personally thank” Trump during their meeting in Washington next week on behalf of Israel, declaring the US president “worthy of all praise” for the decision.

Netanyahu also said he would discuss Iran’s nuclear program during the White House meeting.

The US State Department notified Congress on Friday that the Jerusalem embassy would open in May to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Israel’s independence, speeding up the process by converting a building currently housing consular services into the embassy. The State Department confirmed the timing of the move.

“The embassy will initially be located in Arnona [in south Jerusalem], on a compound that currently houses the consular operations of Consulate General Jerusalem. At least initially, it will consist of the ambassador and a small team,” an official said on condition of anonymity.

Netanyahu is expected to invite Trump to Israel in May to inaugurate the new US embassy, Hadashot TV news reported on Saturday.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony is being planned for mid-May. Israel proclaimed independence on May 14, 1948. According to Channel 10 and Hadashot news, the ceremony could be held on May 14 to honor that date. (Israel celebrates its anniversary of independence according to the Hebrew calendar; Independence Day — Yom Ha’atzmaut — falls on April 19 this year.)
US President Donald Trump gives a thumbs-up as he walks to Marine One prior to departure from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, February 16, 2018, as he travels to Florida for the weekend. (AFP/Saul Loeb)

The prime minister on Sunday said the move would have “long-term implications.”

“This is a great moment for the citizens of Israel and a historic moment for the State of Israel,” Netanyahu told his ministers at the weekly cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem. “All the citizens of Israel will celebrate it together. It has long-term implications and great historic significance.”

The Palestinian Authority responded in anger to the news, saying “unilateral” moves would not contribute to achieving peace between the Palestinians and Israel.

Hamas, for its part, warned that the decision would lead to an “explosion” in the region.

Trump’s December declaration recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and announcing plans to relocate the embassy there was met with Israeli praise and worldwide condemnation. That same month the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a resolution condemning the administration’s move and calling on countries not to move their diplomatic missions to the city.

Relations between the US administration and the PA have been strained since Trump’s December 6 announcement.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas and senior PA officials have since stated that the US was no longer qualified to play any role in a Middle East peace process because of its “bias” in favor of Israel, and the PA has refused all substantive contacts with the Trump administration.

Times of Israel staff and AP contributed to this report.

3a) The Palestinian Leadership Is The Problem, Not The Solution

By Danny Dannon (Israel's Amb. To The U.N.)

Addressing the United Nations Security Council a few days ago, Mahmoud Abbas, the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, claimed to seek broad international support for a new negotiating mechanism with Israel. In reality, Abbas’s visit to New York was a unilateral declaration by the Palestinians that when it comes to possible peace with Israel, their current leadership is no longer seeking a solution, but rather has become the problem.

In recent weeks, statements made by Abbas have veered dangerously into the realm of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Speaking in January, Abbas claimed that the Zionist movement, which was founded to further the millennia-old dream of returning the Jewish people to their historic homeland, was in fact a colonialist plot. He even went as far as to claim that Jews welcomed anti-Semitism as an excuse to advance their national goals.

These are not the words of a Palestinian leader ready to accept the legitimacy of the world’s only Jewish state and enter into serious negotiations. Coupled with his latest declarations that he is now boycotting American mediation and is instead seeking new mediators, the chairman of the PA has all but confirmed that his ultimate goal is to ensure a state of prolonged and unresolved conflict.

Supporters of the Palestinians defend these hateful statements by Abbas as the words of a discouraged leaders dealing with the consequences of new Israeli and American policies. The truth is, however, that nothing has changed that would prejudice the outcome of possible future negotiations and would justify such extreme actions by Abbas.

We will always insist on Israeli sovereignty over a united Jerusalem, but even fair-minded observers would agree that under any possible agreement, the city would be recognized internationally as our capital and all embassies would move to their rightful home. Subsequently, the attempts by Abbas to lay the blame for the diplomatic impasse on the Americans’ recent announcement amounts to nothing more than a poorly constructed straw-man argument raised as an excuse to avoid the negotiating table.

This begs the question: What has changed to lead to such an about-face by a leader often touted as a Palestinian moderate who seeks a peaceful future for his people?The truth is that all we have seen now is Abbas speaking his mind openly and loudly while portraying the same messages and policies that he has long espoused to domestic and Arab audiences.

In September 2015, as violence was surging in the region, Abbas fanned the flames further by claiming that Jews were not welcome on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, as they would desecrate the holy site with their “filthy feet.” A few month later, in a speech to European parliamentarians, Abbas repeated a vile blood libel accusing rabbis of seeking to poison Palestinian drinking wells. This should perhaps not come as any surprise seeing that in his 1984 dissertation, Abbas made the dubious claim of a “secret relationship between Nazism and Zionism.”

While many have portrayed him as a leader seeking an historic reconciliation with Israel, Abbas has consistently rejected possible peace deals over the past two decades.Analysts have noted that at the Camp David summit in 2000, Abbas was one of the Palestinian leaders urging Yasser Arafat to reject the unprecedented offer made by Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Once he succeeded Arafat as the head of the PA, Abbas went on to reject another generous offer by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and then left proposals by US Secretary of State John Kerry unanswered.

The latest amplification by Abbas of his views, which deny the legitimacy of Israel as the state of the Jewish people, and his insistence on avoiding direct negotiations should leave no doubt. When it comes to seeking a better future for our region, the role of the current generation of Palestinian leadership is over.

Israelis are an optimistic people. We weathered four bloody wars with Egypt while waiting for a leader of Anwar Sadat’s caliber to come forward and courageously visit Jerusalem. It took decades of talks with Jordan until the time was right for King Hussein to enter into what he rightly called a “peace of the brave” with Israel.

We have no doubt that the day will come when the Palestinian people will be blessed with such leadership as well. This will be a leadership that ends the despicable practice of incentivizing murder by paying monthly salaries to terrorists. It will be a leadership that educates its people towards tolerance instead of peddling in anti-Semitism. Finally, it will need to be a leadership that recognizes that Israel is, and always will be, the national homeland of the Jewish people.

We eagerly await the day when this new Palestinian leadership will take the reins of power and bring the hope of a better future for their people. Until that day comes, Israel will continue to defend itself on every battlefield and in every international forum.

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