With much sadness, we inform you of the passing of Pulitzer award winning columnist Charles Krauthammer.
A feature-length tribute to his life, can be found HERE.
"Good luck with your eye surgery.
I think you are underestimating the strength of Trump (does not like to lose and this one too big)with Un. Don’t be swayed by the “No-Trumps”. We are not playing bridge. F------"
Back from surgery, no big deal. Will send for biopsy, thanks. Me
Back from surgery, no big deal. Will send for biopsy, thanks. Me
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Obama and "Up Chuck's" brand of government (presidential pen and cell phone) is autocratic, despotic and imperial. It is outside the scope of what The Founding Father's intended and is constitutionally dangerous.
History will show Obama was one of the most dangerous presidents our nation ever endured.
I have known Morris Dees, who founded Southern Poverty Law Center, for well over 40 years and I have watched his viral strain of liberalism transform into radicalism. (See 1 below.)
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A series of postings that deal with the immigration issues. Henninger, in particular, says replace the government with the free market. DUH! (See 2, 2a and 2c below.)
My friend and fellow memo reader offers his suggestion. (See2d below.)
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Bibi's wife indicted for charging state for food.
Bite down on that one.(See 3 below.)
And:
If ever a Senator was properly named, Flake wins hands down. (See 3a below.)
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McCabe pleads 5th which is his constitutional right. Others don't even show. (See 4 below.)
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Another rant. (See 5 below.)
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U.N head concerned about war but not about Human Right's bias. (See 6 below.)
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One's response to most things that happen in life involves a mind set.
I know this is harsh. I now this is not PC. I know it will never happen. However,i were we to equate illegal immigrants with people who break into our house, we would shoot them and this , quite likely, would reduce if not eliminate the problem. Short of that the legislative remedy should use this as a model around which we build a true, meaningful and humane solution.
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Eye surgery no big deal expect biopsy to be benign.
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Dick
________________________
1)The left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) recently targeted PragerU by adding our organization to their notorious “Hatewatch” Blog.
According to the SPLC, “PragerU seems to be yet another node on the internet connecting conservative media consumers to the dark corners of the extreme right.”
The SPLC demonizes any conservative individual or organization that poses a moral and intellectual threat to the Left. Their strategy is to undermine any legitimate voice they oppose by associating them with extremists like the KKK or the alt-right.
All those who oppose the Left – no matter how liberal, let alone conservatives – are “sexist,” “intolerant,” “xenophobic,” “homophobic,” “Islamophobic,” “racist,” “bigoted,” “antisemitic,” and “misogynist” — in other words, “haters” of one sort or another.
The Left does this because it is effective – the left-wing news media (essentially a redundant term) simply repeat it ad nauseam – and because the Left has no intellectual or moral arguments, the labels cover up the Left’s paucity of arguments.
And no one has more effectively mastered smearing the Left’s opponents than the Southern Poverty Law Center.
In addition, Facebook, Amazon, Google, YouTube, and Twitter all rely on the SPLC to help determine which organizations count as “hate groups.” That the leading tech companies trust and use SPLC is the main reason it is so important to expose the SPLC. Also, this clearly explains the reason as to why over 40 PragerU videos are still restricted on YouTube in an effort to silence our voice.
It’s now more important than ever for us to continue fighting back and reaching millions of Americans with our videos. Can we count on your support to help continue our impact?
Our founder Dennis Prager often says, “The decent never fight enough. That is why the indecent so often win.” PragerU is fighting back.
We recently launched a video exposing the Southern Poverty Law Center for who they truly are. This video already has over 4 million views, but it is imperative that we continue to reach more young people so that they can learn the truth about the SPLC.
PragerU has brought what we call “Americanism” and values such as goodness and kindness into millions of people’s lives.
________________________
1)The left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) recently targeted PragerU by adding our organization to their notorious “Hatewatch” Blog.
According to the SPLC, “PragerU seems to be yet another node on the internet connecting conservative media consumers to the dark corners of the extreme right.”
The SPLC demonizes any conservative individual or organization that poses a moral and intellectual threat to the Left. Their strategy is to undermine any legitimate voice they oppose by associating them with extremists like the KKK or the alt-right.
All those who oppose the Left – no matter how liberal, let alone conservatives – are “sexist,” “intolerant,” “xenophobic,” “homophobic,” “Islamophobic,” “racist,” “bigoted,” “antisemitic,” and “misogynist” — in other words, “haters” of one sort or another.
The Left does this because it is effective – the left-wing news media (essentially a redundant term) simply repeat it ad nauseam – and because the Left has no intellectual or moral arguments, the labels cover up the Left’s paucity of arguments.
And no one has more effectively mastered smearing the Left’s opponents than the Southern Poverty Law Center.
In addition, Facebook, Amazon, Google, YouTube, and Twitter all rely on the SPLC to help determine which organizations count as “hate groups.” That the leading tech companies trust and use SPLC is the main reason it is so important to expose the SPLC. Also, this clearly explains the reason as to why over 40 PragerU videos are still restricted on YouTube in an effort to silence our voice.
It’s now more important than ever for us to continue fighting back and reaching millions of Americans with our videos. Can we count on your support to help continue our impact?
Our founder Dennis Prager often says, “The decent never fight enough. That is why the indecent so often win.” PragerU is fighting back.
We recently launched a video exposing the Southern Poverty Law Center for who they truly are. This video already has over 4 million views, but it is imperative that we continue to reach more young people so that they can learn the truth about the SPLC.
PragerU has brought what we call “Americanism” and values such as goodness and kindness into millions of people’s lives.
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2)When Donald Trump tapped James “Mad Dog” Mattis to be his Secretary of Defense, conservatives cheered.
The decision sent a signal that, unlike the Obama administration, Trump was committed to defending America.
And when MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow made the mistake of crossing Mattis, the Secretary of Defense sent her running for the hills.
Washington has been consumed by the media’s fake outrage over Donald Trump enforcing immigration law.
Trump signed a new executive order to challenge a 1997 consent decree – the Flores decree – that forced children to be separated from their parents if the adults were prosecuted for illegal border crossings.
Since children can only be held for 20 days, Trump’s new order calls for families to be held together while they await criminal proceedings to be completed.
To expedite matters and get as many cases processed in the 20 day period while the administration challenges the Flores decree, the Trump administration is beefing up the legal resources to handle the caseload during the short time frame.
After 20 days, the children must be released, so the Obama policy of “catch and release” could return if the Trump administration doesn’t increase the number of immigration lawyers to process the cases.
So Secretary of Defense Mattis stepped up to the plate and sent Judge Advocate Generals (JAGS) to six cities in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico for a six month assignment to assist with prosecuting illegal border crossings.
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow pitched a fit about this decision.
But the Defense Department shut her down by releasing a statement that read:
“THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE HAS APPROVED A DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE (DOJ) REQUEST TO DETAIL 21 ATTORNEYS WITH CRIMINAL TRIAL EXPERIENCE TO DOJ FOR A PERIOD OF 179 DAYS. THE DOD ATTORNEYS WILL BE APPOINTED AS SPECIAL ASSISTANT UNITED STATES ATTORNEYS AND WILL WORK FULL TIME, ASSISTING IN PROSECUTING REACTIVE BORDER IMMIGRATION CASES, WITH A FOCUS ON MISDEMEANOR IMPROPER ENTRY AND FELONY ILLEGAL REENTRY CASES.”
SO THEY HYPED UP FAKE NEWS BY CLAIMING THIS WAS “UNPRECEDENTED” AND ONE STEP SHORT OF TRUMP DECLARING MARTIAL LAW.
LAW PROFESSOR ORRIN KERR – WHO ALSO WORKED IN THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA – POINTED OUT THIS WAS ACTUALLY A COMMON PRACTICE
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++SO THEY HYPED UP FAKE NEWS BY CLAIMING THIS WAS “UNPRECEDENTED” AND ONE STEP SHORT OF TRUMP DECLARING MARTIAL LAW.
LAW PROFESSOR ORRIN KERR – WHO ALSO WORKED IN THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA – POINTED OUT THIS WAS ACTUALLY A COMMON PRACTICE
2) Trump’s Immigration Choice
Does he want his border wall and a Dreamer solution, or not?
By The Editorial Board
President Trump on Wednesday walked back his policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the border that had united most of America in opposition. This may mitigate some self-inflicted political damage, but Congress ought to go further and pass a bill that fixes this and other immigration woes.
In classic Trumpian fashion, the President took credit for reversing a policy he had previously said he couldn't reverse. “We’ve dealt with a lot of different problems. This is one that has been going on for many decades,” Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office. “So we’re keeping families together and this will solve that problem. At the same time we are keeping a very powerful border and it continues to be a zero tolerance. We have zero tolerance for people that enter our country illegally.”
But this was a problem of his own creation, and “zero tolerance” is part of it. In May the Justice Department directed that all immigrants apprehended at the border be prosecuted as criminals. But a 1997 consent decree known as the Flores settlement prohibits the detention of children. So the Department of Health and Human Services took custody of the kids as their parents were charged and processed for deportation.
Homeland Security had previously kept families together in detention centers for a few weeks and then released them with ankle monitors. Restrictionists claimed letting immigrants go encouraged illegal immigration, though border apprehensions had been falling for years until a modest surge in recent months
About 2,300 kids have been separated from their parents since May, and pictures of caged toddlers and recordings of crying babies have resulted in the biggest public backlash of the Trump Presidency.
Mr. Trump’s executive order is clever in trying to duck the Flores settlement by assigning the Defense Department to house the detained families, presumably in barracks. Meanwhile, the order instructs the Attorney General to ask the court to “modify” the Flores settlement to allow other detention solutions that keep families together. All of this should get the traumatized toddlers out of the headlines.
But the President will face another defeat of his own making on Thursday if the House rejects a compromise immigration bill negotiated by GOP leaders. The bill tries to satisfy competing GOP factions by toughening enforcement while granting legal status to the 1.8 million so-called Dreamers who were brought here illegally as kids.
Restrictionists as ever are playing their “amnesty” song, though the bill fulfills all of Mr. Trump’s priorities including cutting family-based migration, ending the diversity lottery and authorizing $25 billion for a border wall. Their main gripe is that Dreamers could eventually qualify for green cards and thus have a pathway to citizenship. The claim is that this supposedly rewards “lawbreakers,” though someone else brought them here.
Even President Trump has endorsed a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers. Restrictionists also cavil that the bill doesn’t eliminate family-based migration in toto, but that isn’t a majority position even in the GOP. The bill re-allocates 88,000 visas for family preferences and the diversity lottery to Dreamers.
What the GOP restrictionists really want is to deport all illegal immigrants, no matter the harm to families or how long they’ve been here. They also want to reduce legalimmigration, as legislation sponsored by Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte would do. His bill includes an e-Verify mandate on employers, slashes family-based preferences and boosts interior enforcement. This is unacceptable to Members who represent immigrant communities or farm families that need more workers.
The leadership’s bill has a shot if Mr. Trump would offer some full-throated protection to Members against the restrictionists. The President huddled with Republicans on Tuesday and endorsed both bills, but that is a cop-out. It’s an excuse for conservatives to vote for Goodlatte, though they know it will fail.
If Mr. Trump wants a solution for Dreamers and his border wall, he needs to say publicly and clearly that the “amnesty” charge is a distortion. Otherwise he’ll get nothing and Democrats will run against GOP failure in November.
2a) A Spending Embarrassment
The GOP Senate gives Democrats more to cheer about.
By The Editorial Board
Republicans have had a rough week, mostly of their own making, and on Wednesday they added to their self-punishment with a spending fiasco in the Senate. Two GOP Senators blocked the Trump Administration’s rescissions package that would claw back $15 billion, much of which wasn’t even likely to be spent under current policy.
A Senate procedural vote to move the rescissions package failed 48-50 after defections from Susan Collins of Maine and Richard Burr of North Carolina. From what we’ve heard Ms. Collins wanted to keep the money on ice so if it isn’t spent as part of its current program she could spend it later on other things. Finding fake “savings” to spend elsewhere is a bipartisan tradition. Ms. Collins has helped to defeat a health-care bill that reformed Medicaid, death-tax repeal, and now the rescissions package
Mr. Burr revolted over a line item about the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a rescission he wanted stripped from the package, and so he blocked even a debate. Mr. Burr could have moved to strike the item on the floor and he might have succeeded. The conservation program is largely a slush fund for government land grabs, but it’s politically untouchable because it reminds people of Old Faithful and camping trips.
Mr. Burr thus tanked a $15 billion package over a $16 million rescission, and only after putting his GOP colleagues on the record for a tough vote. The House narrowly passed the rescissions package, and many vulnerable Republican members now will be attacked by Democrats as having voted to slash spending without having accomplished any fiscal discipline that excites the right.
Congress’s window to pass rescission requests with a simple majority under the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 expires on Friday. As with other projects this Congress, the GOP almost succeeded, only to see it blow up at the eleventh hour thanks to self-serving Senators.
2b) Kids in Cages
There is a Trumpian solution to illegal immigration: Let the economy control it.
By Daniel Henninger
No doubt buried somewhere inside the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy on illegal border crossings is an important issue related to the rule of law or national sovereignty. Just don’t expect anything resembling serious thought to compete with images of kids in Border Patrol processing cages.
President Trump signed an executive order Wednesday ending the parental separations. Reassembling these families may slow the bleeding for Republicans, but it won’t solve anything related to illegal immigration.
In 1986, after a mighty legislative struggle during the Reagan administration, Congress passed the Simpson-Mazzoli Immigration Reform and Control Act. Its purpose was to control the flow of illegal immigrants into the U.S. More than 30 years later, we are putting them in holding pens.
For eight years, the U.S. had a liberal president in Barack Obama, and immigration remained a mess. Conservative talk radio turned it into a political weapon built around one word—“amnesty”—which has produced one thing: legislative gridlock.
With Mr. Trump, the U.S. has possibly the most restrictionist president since Republican Chester Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, banning immigrants from China as a threat to U.S. labor.
Mr. Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions, was the most restrictionist member of the Senate during the Obama years. Sen. Sessions’s communications director, Stephen Miller, is now President Trump’s primary adviser on immigration policy.
It remains a mess. Just maybe, we are doing something wrong.
A strong clue to what’s wrong emerged from Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s press conference at the White House this week. Well, it wasn’t a press conference. It was more like a Maoist struggle session, with few straight questions. Example: “President Trump has had a lot to say the last few days about immigration, but he’s offered no compassion to the families that are being separated. Do you know why that is?”
Still, a light went on when Secretary Nielsen said the separated children were being cared for by the Department of Health and Human Services. HHS was involved in this, too?
For more than 30 years, our “solution” to the illegal immigration problem has been to throw wave after wave of federal bureaucracies at it. What could go wrong? More accurately, how could it not get worse?
Among the proposals to emerge from the Senate this week were . . . build more detention facilities and hire 375 more immigration judges. That’s the answer: more swamp!
President Trump recognizes what a fiasco this approach is. Arriving Tuesday on Capitol Hill to meet with Republicans, he said: “It’s been a really bad, bad system, probably the worst anywhere in the world. We’re going to try and see if we can fix it.”
Mr. Trump’s well-known alternative is to build a wall between Mexico and the U.S. But another Trumpian solution is available: Let the American economy fix it.
During the Obama years, a recurring complaint by some conservatives was that illegal immigrants had taken jobs from unemployed Americans. Donald Trump, while running for president, could not have foreseen how his economic policies—a rollback of virtually the entire Obama regulatory regime and a large tax cut—would effectively eliminate this issue in 18 months.
Today there are more jobs available than there are unemployed people. The unemployment rate for black Americans 16 or older was 5.9% in May, the lowest since 1972. The overall unemployment rate, at 3.8%, is expected to fall further.
One reality remains, however: Thousands of American employers in agriculture, hospitality, construction, landscaping and manufacturing in virtually every U.S. state still need the kind of labor those immigrants provide, such as fixing roofs, cutting grass, cleaning hotel toilets, and sorting crabs and fish. In the Trump economy, most Americans don’t need to do this work. But someone’s gotta do it.
We have run the experiment on letting the federal bureaucracies solve the illegal-immigrant problem and have proved conclusively: They can’t. So why not give the market a chance to solve it?
Give these adults work visas that let them enter and exit the country at legal entry points as the labor market requires. A reason they bring their children with them is that if they leave the U.S. now, there is no legal way to re-enter for work.
Yes, there are details, but surely this market-based solution would be easier to administer than the never-ending travesty at the Mexican border.
El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras would benefit socially and politically if more of these working-class people could go home legally. What’s left behind there now are the dregs and gangs who drive constant streams of people north.
We can either let the world’s strongest economy control the immigration flow, or let politicians and bureaucrats keep trying. The latter will produce another bog of embarrassment, like the one we all stared at in Texas this week.
2c)The mainstream media, and "progressive" politicians are beside themselves in anger and wonderment about how our uncouth and inhumane President could institute a policy separating illegal immigrant children from their illegal immigrant parents.
There are a number of facts gone unnoticed in this firestorm:1. Of the approximately 12,000 illegal immigrant children under our
care, only approximately 2,000 crossed our border with their parents.
2. The abhorrent photos of distressed and captive children gone viral
were either staged, or taken in 2014 when the failed President Obama was
calling the shots.
3. When we arrest a person, a US Citizen, in this country and a child
is under their care, the child is removed to government care.
4. By definition, the parents who are here illegally are criminals.
5. "Child" is not a descriptive word for the make-up of this group.
Many are 14 years of age or older, and some are potentially members of the
MS-13 gang.
6. The living conditions and care given to these individuals are, in
most cases, the best conditions they have experienced in their lives. It
costs the taxpayers almost $35,000 per year to continue this program.
And, the solution is quite simple. If you don't want to have your child
taken from you, do not cross our border illegally.
This situation graphically demonstrates the need for a wall on our Southern
border. Most of these folks travelled all the way through Mexico, as illegal
aliens, before they got to our border. Mexico ignores this, and does no
enforcement, indeed, they encourage their own citizens to breach our borders
as a kind of relief valve for their own social disaster.
Our country needs to do several things.
First build a wall across our entire Southern border, excluding only those
areas made impassable by natural conditions.
Second, patrol the wall on our side. If someone climbs over it, detain them
and take them back across the border at the nearest gate. In East Germany
they would have shot them.
Third, establish a path to citizenship for those illegal aliens resident in
the United States who offer value to our Republic. Swiftly and decisively
deport the rest.
Fourth, put an excise tax of 15% on private funds sent to Mexico or Central
America. In a short time, that will pay for the wall, as President Trump
promised.
Fifth, in November, throw all of the noisy Progressives out of our
Congress.
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By YONAH JEREMY BOB
Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit filed an indictment on Thursday against the prime minister’s wife, Sara Netanyahu, for fraud with aggravated circumstances and breach of public trust in the “Prepared Food Affair” in an explosive development which shook the country.
When Leah Rabin was about to be indicted in 1977, then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin resigned from office due to his wife’s scandal.
The expectation is that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not considering such a move, but the indictment damages him politically in an atmosphere in which the Jerusalem Post recently reported he is likely to face an indictment announcement in the coming months or in early 2019.
Though the Post had learned around two weeks ago that an indictment would likely be coming down soon, there were continuous efforts to reach a plea deal down to the end, which left things up in the air and created an ongoing drama.
Other media had also reported in recent months that the actual indictment could be filed shortly after the Passover holiday, but then Netanyahu’s defense lawyers approached Mandelblit with a dramatic offer.
They offered to return some of the funds Netanyahu is accused of obtaining fraudulently and to take public responsibility, as long as she would not be slapped with any kind of criminal record.
Ultimately, despite media reports that a deal might be near, the Post’s sources proved correct that no deal was reached, leading to Thursday’s indictment in the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court.
The trial is expected to start after the fall Jewish holidays and Netanyahu is not expected to get jail time even if convicted, but it was important to Mandelblit that she be given a criminal record for her actions.
The indictment was also delayed from May until now following Nir Hefetz, a former close adviser to the Netanyahu family, providing new evidence against Sara Netanyahu. Although Hefetz is primarily a state’s witness against the prime minister for Case 4000 the Bezeq-Walla! Affair, he also provided material against Sara.
A pre-indictment hearing in January where Sara Netanyahu’s lawyers asked Mandelblit to reverse his preliminary decision in September 2017 to indict her, also had failed to sway him, though Mandelblit issued a statement at the time that he “had an open mind” to their arguments.
In the Prepared Food Affair, the attorney-general alleged that from September 2010 until March 2013, Sara Netanyahu acted in coordination with then-Prime Minister’s Office deputy director-general Ezra Seidoff to present the false misrepresentation that the Prime Minister’s Residence did not employ a cook, even though it did during that time.
According to the indictment, the two made this misrepresentation to circumvent and exploit regulations that stated, “in a case where a cook is not employed in the official residence, it is permitted to order prepared food as needed.” The two hoped to obtain state funding both for the cook at the residence and for prepared food orders. In this way, the two allegedly fraudulently obtained from the state NIS 359,000 in hundreds of prepared food orders.
The indictment states that Netanyahu regularly pressured Seidoff, house managers and others to obtain items for the residence whether they were authorized by law or not. As a result of these pressures, Seidoff sometimes procured items, such as the additional unauthorized prepared food items, despite earlier attempts to explain to her that there was no basis for the state to pay for such items. Also, Netanyahu ordered Seidoff, Naftali and other workers not to reveal the fraud to others.
Further, in 15 instances, invoices to chefs who were brought in from outside were falsified in order to circumvent limits on how much could be paid toward outside-chefs. Seidoff directed the chefs, the house managers and Netanyahus' secretaries to falsify the invoices in these 15 instances.
Charges against Netanyahu for these 15 instances were previously closed by Mandelblit as there was insufficient evidence to prove that she knew about Seidoff's and the others' actions.
The prosecution also indicted Seidoff on Thursday for the same offenses, while adding the offense of falsifying documents and with a total fraud amount of NIS 393,000.
Several other cases against Netanyahu were closed in September 2017, but one of them will also impact the indictment.
While Mandelbit closed the “Father Homecare Affair” case against Netanyahu due to the small amounts of money involved, evidentiary problems and the difficult emotional circumstances – it will impact the indictment.
In the affair, Netanyahu employed S and G for six days and five days respectively to care for her sick and now deceased father. While normally, her father had a different homecare arrangement, during those days that he was staying at the prime minister's residence, his regular arrangement was unavailable.
Netanyahu paid S for taking care of her father. However, in addition, S was paid by the state for providing cleaning services. G functioned as a substitute for S when S was unavailable. G was paid by the state for cleaning services.
Mandelblit said that since Netanyahu had paid S, was unaware of extra payments to S and that all of the state payments to S and G were small, he would not indict her, but that Netanyahu's pattern of problematic conduct in that case would serve as evidence in the Prepared Food Affair.
While Netanyahu was only indicted in the Prepared Foods Affair, Seidoff was also indicted in the Waiters Affair, in which the prime minister's residence in Jerusalem employed waiters over the weekend based on false misrepresentations, and the Electrician Affair, for employing Avi Fahima for electrician work at the prime minister's residence despite knowledge that employing him had been declared an illegal conflict of interest.
Responding to the charges, Netanyahu’s lawyer Yossi Cohen told the Post in January that Meni Naftali and other Prime Minister’s Residence managers like him, not Sara Netanyahu, are responsible for the food orders regarding which she is accused.
He said Netanyahu’s defenses regarding food orders made in 2010 and 2013, when Naftali was not at the Prime Minister’s Residence, were that those accusations related only to around NIS 134,000.
Naftali has already admitted to criminal wrongdoing in this area, so it is just a question of whether the court buys his story or Sara’s about her also being or not being involved. The 2011-2012 period in which he was house manager accounts for around NIS 225,000 of the charges.
Cohen further has said that number could be easily reduced to NIS 30,000-NIS 40,000, as many times when prepared food was ordered, the staff cook was sick, traveling or off for Shabbat.
Asked if he could prove this argument, Cohen said it is known that the cook was off work for these reasons, and that all he needs to do is raise doubt and force the state to prove that the cook was in fact working at the time. Since he said the state has no way to prove, for example, that the cook was working when around NIS 15,000 was charged for prepared food in January 2011, it cannot prove Netanyahu or anyone else improperly ordered prepared food.
Cohen said that if the charges only related to NIS 30,000-NIS 40,000 at most, they could be dropped as relating to an oversight or to a violation too small to be worth prosecuting.
Sources close to the case told the Post in September that though there was unanimity within the prosecution about indicting Mrs. Netanyahu in the Prepared Food Affair, there were differences of opinion within the prosecution about closing some of the other cases against her.
The Sara Netanyahu cases jumped into the headlines in February 2015 as part of a State Comptroller report and “Bottlegate” and other now closed cases becoming household names. It became a full criminal investigation starting in July 2015.
When Leah Rabin was about to be indicted in 1977, then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin resigned from office due to his wife’s scandal.
The expectation is that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not considering such a move, but the indictment damages him politically in an atmosphere in which the Jerusalem Post recently reported he is likely to face an indictment announcement in the coming months or in early 2019.
Though the Post had learned around two weeks ago that an indictment would likely be coming down soon, there were continuous efforts to reach a plea deal down to the end, which left things up in the air and created an ongoing drama.
Other media had also reported in recent months that the actual indictment could be filed shortly after the Passover holiday, but then Netanyahu’s defense lawyers approached Mandelblit with a dramatic offer.
They offered to return some of the funds Netanyahu is accused of obtaining fraudulently and to take public responsibility, as long as she would not be slapped with any kind of criminal record.
Ultimately, despite media reports that a deal might be near, the Post’s sources proved correct that no deal was reached, leading to Thursday’s indictment in the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court.
The trial is expected to start after the fall Jewish holidays and Netanyahu is not expected to get jail time even if convicted, but it was important to Mandelblit that she be given a criminal record for her actions.
The indictment was also delayed from May until now following Nir Hefetz, a former close adviser to the Netanyahu family, providing new evidence against Sara Netanyahu. Although Hefetz is primarily a state’s witness against the prime minister for Case 4000 the Bezeq-Walla! Affair, he also provided material against Sara.
A pre-indictment hearing in January where Sara Netanyahu’s lawyers asked Mandelblit to reverse his preliminary decision in September 2017 to indict her, also had failed to sway him, though Mandelblit issued a statement at the time that he “had an open mind” to their arguments.
In the Prepared Food Affair, the attorney-general alleged that from September 2010 until March 2013, Sara Netanyahu acted in coordination with then-Prime Minister’s Office deputy director-general Ezra Seidoff to present the false misrepresentation that the Prime Minister’s Residence did not employ a cook, even though it did during that time.
According to the indictment, the two made this misrepresentation to circumvent and exploit regulations that stated, “in a case where a cook is not employed in the official residence, it is permitted to order prepared food as needed.” The two hoped to obtain state funding both for the cook at the residence and for prepared food orders. In this way, the two allegedly fraudulently obtained from the state NIS 359,000 in hundreds of prepared food orders.
The indictment states that Netanyahu regularly pressured Seidoff, house managers and others to obtain items for the residence whether they were authorized by law or not. As a result of these pressures, Seidoff sometimes procured items, such as the additional unauthorized prepared food items, despite earlier attempts to explain to her that there was no basis for the state to pay for such items. Also, Netanyahu ordered Seidoff, Naftali and other workers not to reveal the fraud to others.
Further, in 15 instances, invoices to chefs who were brought in from outside were falsified in order to circumvent limits on how much could be paid toward outside-chefs. Seidoff directed the chefs, the house managers and Netanyahus' secretaries to falsify the invoices in these 15 instances.
Charges against Netanyahu for these 15 instances were previously closed by Mandelblit as there was insufficient evidence to prove that she knew about Seidoff's and the others' actions.
The prosecution also indicted Seidoff on Thursday for the same offenses, while adding the offense of falsifying documents and with a total fraud amount of NIS 393,000.
Several other cases against Netanyahu were closed in September 2017, but one of them will also impact the indictment.
While Mandelbit closed the “Father Homecare Affair” case against Netanyahu due to the small amounts of money involved, evidentiary problems and the difficult emotional circumstances – it will impact the indictment.
In the affair, Netanyahu employed S and G for six days and five days respectively to care for her sick and now deceased father. While normally, her father had a different homecare arrangement, during those days that he was staying at the prime minister's residence, his regular arrangement was unavailable.
Netanyahu paid S for taking care of her father. However, in addition, S was paid by the state for providing cleaning services. G functioned as a substitute for S when S was unavailable. G was paid by the state for cleaning services.
Mandelblit said that since Netanyahu had paid S, was unaware of extra payments to S and that all of the state payments to S and G were small, he would not indict her, but that Netanyahu's pattern of problematic conduct in that case would serve as evidence in the Prepared Food Affair.
While Netanyahu was only indicted in the Prepared Foods Affair, Seidoff was also indicted in the Waiters Affair, in which the prime minister's residence in Jerusalem employed waiters over the weekend based on false misrepresentations, and the Electrician Affair, for employing Avi Fahima for electrician work at the prime minister's residence despite knowledge that employing him had been declared an illegal conflict of interest.
Responding to the charges, Netanyahu’s lawyer Yossi Cohen told the Post in January that Meni Naftali and other Prime Minister’s Residence managers like him, not Sara Netanyahu, are responsible for the food orders regarding which she is accused.
He said Netanyahu’s defenses regarding food orders made in 2010 and 2013, when Naftali was not at the Prime Minister’s Residence, were that those accusations related only to around NIS 134,000.
Naftali has already admitted to criminal wrongdoing in this area, so it is just a question of whether the court buys his story or Sara’s about her also being or not being involved. The 2011-2012 period in which he was house manager accounts for around NIS 225,000 of the charges.
Cohen further has said that number could be easily reduced to NIS 30,000-NIS 40,000, as many times when prepared food was ordered, the staff cook was sick, traveling or off for Shabbat.
Asked if he could prove this argument, Cohen said it is known that the cook was off work for these reasons, and that all he needs to do is raise doubt and force the state to prove that the cook was in fact working at the time. Since he said the state has no way to prove, for example, that the cook was working when around NIS 15,000 was charged for prepared food in January 2011, it cannot prove Netanyahu or anyone else improperly ordered prepared food.
Cohen said that if the charges only related to NIS 30,000-NIS 40,000 at most, they could be dropped as relating to an oversight or to a violation too small to be worth prosecuting.
Sources close to the case told the Post in September that though there was unanimity within the prosecution about indicting Mrs. Netanyahu in the Prepared Food Affair, there were differences of opinion within the prosecution about closing some of the other cases against her.
The Sara Netanyahu cases jumped into the headlines in February 2015 as part of a State Comptroller report and “Bottlegate” and other now closed cases becoming household names. It became a full criminal investigation starting in July 2015.
3a) RINO Flake Continues To Obstruct Trump Nominees
President Trump has been dealing with obstructionism his whole time in office. Nominees have been getting held up by Democrats and Republicans alike. Senator Jeff Flake is a huge obstructionist from the right openly admitting why he is holding up Trump's judicial nominees.
According to The Daily Caller:
Outgoing GOP Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona is blocking votes on all of President Donald Trump’s appeals court nominees to secure concessions from Republican leaders on tariffs and Cuban travel restrictions.
Flake, a Trump antagonist who is not seeking reelection amid floundering popularity with Arizona Republicans, has not openly addressed the matter, though his seat on a closely divided Senate Judiciary Committee gives him significant leverage over judgeships.
Roll Call first reported that Flake halted a committee vote on Georgia Supreme Court Justice Britt Grant’s nomination to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the federal appeals court based in Atlanta. CNN confirmed late Wednesday that the senator will block all appeals court nominees to prompt discussions on relations with Cuba and the president’s escalating trade war with much of the industrial world.
Flake is one of 11 Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which issues recommendations on judicial nominees before a final confirmation vote. The GOP has a one-vote majority on the panel, making Flake’s cooperation essential if Republicans wish to process candidates.
Flake is failing politically, but it looks like he will do anything to obstruct while still in the Senate. His constituents should be disappointed that he is not working harder to get conservative judges on the federal courts.
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4)
McCabe Pleads 5th While Comey and Lynch Don’t Even Come to Senate Hearing
A Senate Judiciary Committee hearing designed to learn more about a federal report on the flawed investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails was stymied when one key witness refused to talk and two others did not even attend.
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who had sought immunity before he would discuss his role in the investigation, refused to testify after it was not granted. Instead, Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley said Monday that McCabe invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, The Washington Times reported.
Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former FBI Director James Comey were also invited to testify but did not attend. Grassley cited them both in his comments.
“Mr. Comey’s attorney tells us he is out of the country, although I saw he was in Iowa over the weekend. According to his Twitter feed, he seems to be having a wonderful time,” the Iowa Republican said.
“This is the second time since he was fired that Mr. Comey refused an invitation to testify here voluntarily. He has time for book tours and television interviews, but apparently no time to assist this Committee, which has primary jurisdiction over the Justice Department,” Grassley said.
In reference to Lynch, he said, “The need for transparency does not end when senior officials are fired or quit.”
Last week, the Justice Department’s Inspector General presented its report on the year-long FBI investigation into Clinton’s use of a private server while she was secretary of state. The report, which can be read at the Justice Department’s website, depicted a pervasive culture of bias against President Donald Trump at the FBI and Justice Department.
McCabe’s silence came as no surprise.
“If McCabe is not granted immunity, he will invoke his 5th Amendment privilege,” McCabe’s attorney, Michael Bromwich, had written to the committee. McCabe was fired over leaking material to the media.
Should the former leaders of the FBI be in jail for their actions?
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz and FBI Director Christopher Wray did appear before the Committee on Monday.
Wray was asked by Sen. Ted Cruz about a dispute between Comey and McCabe.
McCabe has said Comey approved McCabe’s leaks to the media. Comey has denied that.
“One or the other is not telling the truth. I don’t know which one,” the Texas Republican said.
Wray said he could not answer because the answer could impact an ongoing investigation.
Horowitz later said an investigation is underway into Comey’s actions, including his leaking of private memos and the leaking of other internal details to the media, The Chicago Tribune reported.
Grassley said he wanted to force Comey, Lynch and McCabe to testify but California’s Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the panel, prevented him from issuing subpoenas, according to BizPac Review.
“We changed our rules at the beginning of this Congress to ensure the Chairman and the Ranking Member could compel hearing testimony from important witnesses like these,” Grassley said. “Unfortunately, the Ranking Member refused to agree to compel any of them to be here today. That’s a shame because we should be asking them how all of this happened on their watch.”
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5)Perspective on shopping. Despite what you might believe about online shopping, 50% of millennials prefer to shop in store. This demographic is now a larger share of consumption than baby boomers, which is why brands target the 25-55 age group in most ads, and what shows they advertise on. In 2015 and after, restaurant spend is larger than grocery store spend. Visits to retail stores went from 34.3 billion in 2010 to 13.2 billion last year. Now you see why almost no shopping malls are being built, and so many are going under unless they reconfigure and replace big boxes with medical office, entertainment or restaurants. However, retail sales in total are up 17% in 5 years. Amazon is 44% of online sales volume. They took the volume from department stores and special\ty soft goods. 85% of millennials spend more on experiences than goods. For malls, mixed use developments still work, and food adds 12% to revenues and 35 more minutes to a shopper staying onsite. The best places for real estate owners and developers is now the south and west, not the northeast. Ft Worth and Atlanta are topping the list of best rent growth in commercial real estate.
The share of types of products sold online is: 78% of computers purchased, only 3% of home improvement products, which is why Home Depot is safe from Amazon, office products 35%, and jewelry 15%. Home improvement products are hands on purchases for the most part. There are too many critical variations to screws, plumbing parts, shades, electrical parts, etc. to do it online. Now 64% of online shoppers expect next day delivery if they order before 5 PM. 61% expect same day if they order before noon. However, immediate delivery does not work in most areas of the country due to distances or traffic issues. Logistics have really changed how people think about delivery, and that has all sorts of ramifications as to experiments about having the delivery person opening your door, in store pick up, drone delivery, etc. It also has huge ramifications for where warehouses are located, and robotics of warehouse picking, 24/7 operation and staffing of warehouses, and many other things. Clearly the post office with its unions and work rules can never compete for the immediate delivery service. How we shop and get delivery is changing dramatically. Home Depot has just committed $1.2 billion to build 170 new distribution hubs to reach 90% of the population in a day. That is where the logistics world is going.
Mid duration bonds have lost around 1.5% in value YTD, while longer dated bonds have lost around 3.5%. Equities are flat to positive on the YTD. Whatever yield you may get on bonds is often wiped out by loss of principal value. As bonds mature you get you principal, back, but you have a large loss on opportunity cost in exchange for a meager current return. Instead of maybe earning on average on equities, a compound annual return, with no current tax unless you do trades, on equities over time of 7%-9%, with one time cap gains treatment, you maybe earned 2.75% to 4% on bonds, which return is current, and fully taxable currently, unless they are munis.
Oil is dropping in price, now below $65 for US oil, and will possibly drop further as Saudi and Russia likely add over 1.5 million barrels a day, and US frackers continue to ramp up production, now exceeding 11 million barrels a day. The OPEC agreement might look like 600,000 a day, or some number like that, but the Saudis and Russians will likely cheat, as they often have done in the past. The Saudis know they need to get prices down. Gas prices will probably drop from here, and that will make voters, shippers and factories happy. Countries that are not based on the US dollar are getting creamed because oil is priced in US dollars, and as the dollar rises and oil prices rose, they could not afford it, and it has led to unrest in some places. More reason OPEC will force prices lower. US consumers win. It will have more impact than a few tariffs on soybeans and bourbon. The Feds will provide subsidies and price supports to farmers, so the hit will not be nearly as bad as the press makes it appear. Trump will hold out until the EU and Canada chicken out. The EU and Canada are in no position to let this go on for long. China, and theft of IP, is the real issue, are much tougher to resolve.
Permits to build new multifamily projects are dropping now. Many markets are close to fully built for the demand now. Starts are still up, but that is on older permits, so it is not that there are not a lot of new units still coming online.
The US trade deficit with Germany is $64 billion. Germany has a 164 billion Euro trade surplus with the rest of the EU, 36 billion with France alone. That means Germany essentially controls European trade. 50% of German GDP is exports. Now you know the real reason Merkel wanted all those low paid Muslims to get into Germany-ultra cheap labor to keep the export engine going. Yet Merkel says Germany will only get to 1.5% of GDP contribution to NATO in 2024, while other NATO countries are working to get to the 2% much sooner, or are already there, and the US taxpayer shoulders much of the cost. Trump had good reason to make it an issue. The EU has high tariffs on US cars---what is a major export of Germany-cars. Germany essentially controls the ECB board. They required many other EU countries to have austerity after the crash. That was needed, but it stifled the recovery in some parts of the EU, but not Germany. Trump is not off base in the trade fight with the EU. Germany set their tariffs to help Germany and fend off US auto and farm imports to Germany. The real risk of the tariffs is who blinks, and it is unlikely Trump. Germany has lived off the US taxpayer for 70 years, and it is time they paid their own way and we got a level playing field. Merkel may be out of office in a few weeks, so the EU is in no position for an all-out fight with the US.
The latest press attacks on Trump are about the illegal kids. The law is clear. Obama just did not enforce it. Trump did not send these kids over the border. He did not invite mothers to drag their kids from Honduras across Mexico to the border. If they were really fleeing gangs they could have stayed in Mexico where they fit in culturally and language far better. They come because Obama made it clear -come over and we will take care of you and your kids for free, plus we will even give you welfare and schooling, and free medical care. Then we will turn you and the kid loose and you are in permanently with no risk of deportation. So of course they flocked across. 90% of the kids in the Texas shelter are unaccompanied, so the narrative about kids “ripped from the mothers” is pure politics by the Dems. The ranchers along the border who have to travel around their ranches armed, think Trump is exactly right. Interviews with border patrol agents reveal that many are not really the parents of the kids, but are stand ins acting as parents, and some even have been found with notes with the script of what to tell the agents and press how they are fleeing gangs and can’t go home. Much of this is a sham pushed by Dems and activists. They play a recording of crying kids. Kids cry even at home. Now Trump is enforcing the law to make it clear that game is over, so stay away. You go to jail and your kids go elsewhere. MS-13 uses the kids sent across alone as recruits since they are often sent to their illegal cousins or uncles, and left to fend for themselves. MS 13 served as family for these kids. 33% of the MS 13 kids arrested in a recent arrest program are unaccompanied minors. That is how MS 13 grew under Obama to be the violent gang it has become. The press of course is piling on with ridiculous claims of concentration camps, kids kept in cages, “ripping kids from their mothers arms”, and all sorts of holier than thou false claims. Bottom line, they are all illegally crossing the border, and they need to be disincentivized to do so. Brexit, the end of Merkel’s reign about to happen, the barring of refugees in Hungary and Poland, and now Italy, should clearly demonstrate that wat Trump is pushing is not racist, not unique to him, and is one of the reasons why people voted for him. The press can make all the noise and fake news it wants, but there is a real problem, and the Dems refuse to vote for real solutions because it makes great press for them. They prefer to stage photo ops and press conferences, and even curse at him, instead of voting for solutions. It was worse under Obama. The kids and families were kept in squalid conditions, and some kids were deported. Parents crossing with kids went up from 14,000 in 2014 to 75,000 in 2017 because they heard about the policy of catch and release, and all the welfare benefits. Trump did not create this problem, but the press is happy to ignore what happened under Obama. If Trump just ended the policy by fiat, the real problem remains unresolved, which is exactly what Schumer wants, which is why he says Trump can just sign it away. This is far from over since Schumer is going to stop any legislation from passing.
According to Pew Research, nearly 67% of Americans are tired of the news. Between the attacks on Trump for meeting with Kim, and possibly really averting a nuclear showdown, and DeNiro, Griffin, and others screaming obscenities about the president and Melania, and the press trying to make believe the IG report showed nothing important, the public seems fed up with the media according to the polls. I believe all the cursing of Trump, the fake news, the grand standing by CNN and NBC and ABC talking heads, and now the false moralizing about the kids crossing the border, is going to backfire on them and accrue to Trump’s and the Republicans benefit. In the end nearly everyone has a job, they have more income, their home value is higher than ever, their 401K is doing great, and they feel more secure with the N Korea summit and the pro cop and pro-military policies. All you need to do is watch what is happening in Germany and Europe to see how the voters react to excessive immigration. It is about to cause a major disruption in the politics of the EU. We need much more immigration to keep economic growth rising, but we do not need hundreds of thousands of unskilled and children crossing the border. That does little for the economy other than cost us all sorts of payouts of entitlements and other support programs, and major burdens on schools that have to cope with non-English speaking kids who had little schooling before, as opposed to creating skilled taxpayers. The attacks on Trump for meeting Kim ignore Regan meeting Gorbachov, Nixon opening China, Obama meeting Castro, and Clinton sitting with Arafat. Trump has made it clear, human rights comes second after stopping the threat of nuclear war. Regan made the end of the cold war the priority, not the gulags. Obama ignored the political prisoners in Cuba. Obama embracing the mullahs ignored the human rights issues in Iran and the spread of terror throughout the region. Only Trump gets castigated for doing the exact same as Obama, Clinton, Regan and Nixon.
6) UN head says Israel, Hamas on 'brink of war'
The UN secretary-general said that the recent escalation in Gaza is “a warning to all how close to the brink of war the situation is.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the escalation of violence in Gaza is “a warning to all how close to the brink of war the situation is.” He urged Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers to recommit to the ceasefire that ended their 2014 war.
The UN chief said in a report to the Security Council obtained Monday by The Associated Press that he was “shocked” by the Israeli Defense Forces’ use of live fire since border protests began in Gaza on March 30. He said its military has “a responsibility to exercise maximum restraint” except as a last resort.
Confronted by thousands of rioting Gazans, including armed Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists attempting to overrun the border fence separating Israel from Gaza Strip, Israel used a variety of measures, including, in some cases, live fire.
Preventing a mass infiltration of armed terrorists seeking to kidnap or kill IDF soldiers or civilians was seen by Israel as justification for using such aggressive means.
The IDF said that it did not target paramedics and journalists embedded with the rioters, many of whom were found to be affiliated with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terror groups.
However, Gueterres questioned Israeli actions.
“The killing of children, as well as of clearly identified journalists and medical staffers by security forces during a demonstration, are particularly unacceptable,” Guterres said. “They must be allowed to perform their duties without fear of death or injury.”
Guterres also warned that actions by Hamas and other terrorist groups not only risk Palestinian and Israeli lives but “efforts to restore dignity and the prospects of a livable future for Palestinians in Gaza.” He cited rockets fired at Israel and attempts to breach the Gaza-Israel fence by some protesters.
“I unequivocally condemn the steps by all parties that have brought us to this dangerous and fragile situation,” the secretary-general said.
The rioters have pressed demands for a “right of return” for descendants of Palestinian refugees to ancestral homes in what is now Israel. More than 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled after Palestinians and Arab states launched a war on Israel in rejection of the 1947 UN Partition Plan that sought to create a Jewish and Palestinian state in Israel.
Two-thirds of Gaza’s 2 million residents are descendants of refugees.
Israel pulled out its military and evacuated all Jewish communities from the Gaza Strip in 2005. In 2007, Hamas wrested control of the coastal enclave from the Palestinian Authority in a violent coup.
Guterres said that “only by changing the reality on the ground — by recognizing and addressing the plight of Palestinians in Gaza, ensuring that all sides recommit to the 2014 cease-fire understandings, and supporting Egyptian-led efforts to restore control of the legitimate Palestinian government in Gaza — can we preserve the possibility of a viable, independent and fully representative Palestinian state and avert another disastrous, lethal conflict.”
Guterres said Israel’s May 30 decision to advance, approve and issue tenders for some 3,500 housing units in Judea and Samaria was “the largest batch of advancements at one time since June 2017,” adding that it creates “yet more obstacles” to a two-state solution.
The UN secretary-general did not mention as “obstacles” Palestinian incitement, the violent rift between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas that has prevented democratic elections since 2007
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