Please don’t forward these pictures. Alleged Whistleblower Eric Ciaramella doesn’t want his name or picture to go viral.Please respect is Constitutional rights now that he has surfaced and come out of the Basement (bowels) of The Capitol Building.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
We cannot nation build when a nation is divided by hundreds of year's of tribal factions
We are now divided ourselves, in some part, because of our failure. GW never understood this.
This from a dear friend and fellow memo reader.(See 1, 1a and 1b below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Liberal Jews are learning the hard way why The Constitution supports one in protecting themselves. Seems they have been given a choice between turning the cheek and losing an eye or learning how to fight back and break knee caps. I have always advocated the latter.(See 2 and 2a below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
It is high time to put an end to Pelosi's bluff and nonsense. (See 3 and 3a below.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dick
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1)"...Despite a 16-year American effort to establish a government friendlier to Western interests, at a cost of more than $1 trillion and 5,000 American lives, Iraq’s leaders lined up in opposition to the American airstrikes and its security forces allowed the militias to reach the American diplomatic compound. Some people wearing the uniforms of the Iraqi security forces were even seen attacking the compound themselves.C----"
Pro-Iranian Protesters End Siege of U.S. Embassy in Baghdad
Iran’s ability to deploy militias to attack the American Embassy, with Iraqi support, made clear how much power it wields in Iraq.
By Falih Hassan and Alissa J. Rubin
BAGHDAD — After a second day of tense protests at the American Embassy in Baghdad, thousands of pro-Iranian demonstrators dispersed on Wednesday, ending a siege that had trapped American diplomats in the embassy compound overnight and winding down a potentially explosive crisis for the Trump administration.
The demonstrators had swarmed outside the embassy, chanting “Death to America!” Some tried to scale the compound’s walls, and others clambered onto the roof of the reception building they had burned the day before.
In contrast to Tuesday, when some demonstrators forced their way into the compound and set some of the outbuildings on fire, the crowd on Wednesday was smaller and no protesters breached the compound’s gates.
When the demonstrators — largely members of Iranian-backed militias angered by deadly American airstrikes over the weekend — reached the roof of the burned reception building on Wednesday, American security forces, including Marine reinforcements sent by the Pentagon the day before, fired tear gas to drive them back.
from this bridge.
TIGRIS RIVER
Satellite image by Maxar via Bing
TIGRIS RIVER
GREEN ZONE
U.S. Embassy compound
TIGRIS RIVER
The full withdrawal came after leaders of the Iranian-backed militias who had organized the demonstration called on the crowd to leave, and most gradually drifted away on foot or drove off in trucks.
The leaders later announced that their agreement to withdraw was conditioned on a commitment from Iraq’s prime minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi, to move ahead with legislation to force American troops to withdraw from Iraq.
Image
About 1,000 protesters gathered outside the embassy on Wednesday, many fewer than on Tuesday
Whether or not such a law comes to pass, the episode reflected the new reality in Iraq.
Iran’s ability to deploy militias to blockade American diplomats inside the embassy for most of two days made clear how much power they wield within the Iraqi government.
Despite a 16-year American effort to establish a government friendlier to Western interests, at a cost of more than $1 trillion and 5,000 American lives, Iraq’s leaders lined up in opposition to the American airstrikes and its security forces allowed the militias to reach the American diplomatic compound. Some people wearing the uniforms of the Iraqi security forces were even seen attacking the compound themselves.
The Iraqi government’s acquiescence raises the question of whether the continued American presence in Iraq is tenable.
The two-day standoff at the embassy evoked traumatic memories of earlier attacks on American diplomatic posts in Tehran and Benghazi, Libya, though it ended peacefully, without reports of deaths or injuries. But it was not likely to be the last word on the matter.
“This is one round of many rounds to come,” said Randa Slim, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington.
Image
Pro-Iranian militia members and their supporters burned an embassy reception building.Credit...Khalid Mohammed/Associated Press
Miscalculations by both the United States and Iran led to the standoff.
It began with a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base on Friday that killed an American contractor and wounded several Iraqi and American service members. The United States blamed Kataib Hezbollah, an Iraqi militia with close ties to Iran. The militia denied involvement in the rocket attack.
American forces retaliated with airstrikes on five sites controlled by the militia, in Syria and Iraq, on Sunday. The airstrikes killed at least two dozen people and wounded twice as many; Iran has put the death toll at 31.
Iran’s proxy militias seemed to think they could conduct hit-and-run attacks on military bases without fear of retaliation, and the United States thought it could punish them with sweeping airstrikes without consequence.
Both assumptions turned out to be wrong.
The American airstrikes, set off a broad outcry in Iraq that the United States seemed not to have anticipated and that now looks likely to precipitate an effort to expel all American forces.
On Tuesday, thousands of Iraqi militia fighters marched on the United States Embassy compound in Baghdad to protest the American strikes, and some of them forced their way through the outer wall. They did not attempt to breach the embassy itself.
The Iraqi authorities, who had prevented previous demonstrators from even entering the Green Zone that encompasses the embassy, allowed the protesters to approach the diplomatic compound unimpeded.
In recent months, in the face of antigovernment protests, it was Iraqi forces firing tear gas to dispel protesters. But this week, the Iraqi authorities left the task to the United States, rather than confront their own people.
The militias, although closely tied to Iran, are made up of Iraqis and fall under the umbrella of the Iraqi security forces, though they have a great deal of independence.
But the Trump administration sees both the killing of the American contractor and the attack on the embassy as the direct work of Iran.
“These are the kinds of tactics that they use,” Brian Hook, the administration’s special representative for Iran, said in an interview on CNN on Wednesday. “Forty years ago they stormed our embassy. And then here we are 40 years later and they’re directing these terrorist groups to then attack our embassy.”
President Trump tweeted Tuesday that Iran “will be held fully responsible for lives lost, or damage incurred, at any of our facilities.”
“They will pay a very BIG PRICE!" he said.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, responded on Wednesday, taunting, “You can’t do anything.”
Image
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, addressing a gathering in Tehran on Wednesday.
Iraqi militias played a crucial role in the fight against the Islamic State, or ISIS. While many of the armed groups, which are principally made up of Shiite Muslims, are backed by Iran, a Shiite theocracy at odds with the United States, the two powers had a common goal in their effort to defeat the Islamic State.
Once the Islamic State was largely demolished, however, the Iran-backed militias turned their attention to constraining United States activities in Iraq, especially after the Trump administration ratcheted up its sanctions against Iran.
The administration said that the militias had carried out 11 attacks on Iraqi bases housing American service members in just the past two months and that the airstrikes were a necessary deterrent to prevent further attacks.
There are about 30 militias under the banner of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, each answering to different leaders who do not always agree with one another. Neither the government nor any of the factions has the authority to corral all of them, making for a dangerous mix.
If the United States intended to send a message of deterrence with the airstrikes on Sunday, the Iraqi militias also had a message for the Americans.
Scrawled on a wall of the embassy was graffiti using a nickname for Qassim Suleimani, the leader of the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. “He passed through here,” the message said.
Some militia members hung a green banner with yellow writing on the burned embassy reception area saying “Popular Mobilization Commission,” the umbrella group for the militias, as if to remove any doubt about who was in charge.
Late Wednesday afternoon, the commission asked its members to end the protest “out of respect for the government’s sovereignty.”
The protesters’ message, it said, “has been heard.”
Image
Iraqi security forces standing guard in front of the embassy.
1a) Israel Leads Operations Against Iran From the Levant to Iraq
IPT News
The United States confirmed Sunday that it carried out airstrikes along the Syria-Iraq border against military positions belonging to Kataib Hizballah, a Shi'a militia affiliated with Iran. The strike comes shortly after Friday's deadly rocket attack on a Kirkuk-based installation killed an American contractor and injured several other U.S. soldiers and Iraqis. One U.S. source told Agence France Presse that Iranian-backed armed groups are more of a threat to American interests in the region than the Islamic State.
After the U.S. airstrike, pro-Iranian protesters, including Kataib Hizballah supporters, violently stormed the heavily fortified area around the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad causing two days of unrest and heightened tensions.
While U.S. military action against Iranian-affiliated targets marks a significant development, Israel continues to be a leader when it comes to offensive operations countering Iran's destabilizing regional activities.
Israel is preparing to face repercussions for escalating strikes against Iranian targets in neighboring countries. Israel "will regret" its attacks, which "will not pass without a response," a senior adviser to Iran's supreme leader warned earlier this month. These threats were issued amid alleged Israeli airstrikes in Damascus that reportedly killed three pro-Assad foreign operatives, likely of Iranian origin.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights last week reported another missile strike targeting an Iranian-affiliated militia operating on the Syria-Iraq border. A Hizballah-run military site reportedly was also targeted. Israel is suspected of recently escalating strikes against increasingly emboldened Iranian proxies and partners around Syria's eastern border and even inside Iraq itself. Expanding operations against Iran to Iraq signals a major regional development.
In 2015, Israeli airstrikes in the Syrian Golan killed 11 members of the Hizballah-Iranian axis, including senior Hizballah leaders and an Iranian general who were attempting to set up a base of terrorist operations to target Israel. Since then, Israel has waged a multi-faceted campaign, including kinetic military strikes, against Iranian regime targets across the Middle East. Most reporting of Israeli strikes abroad over the past few years centered on operations in areas bordering the Jewish state: Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza. Iraq, however, does not neighbor Israel and is a central battleground for US-Iranian competition.
Iran continues to exploit instability in Iraq to secretly move ballistic missiles into the country in an effort to strengthen its regional capabilities, American intelligence and military officials say. The United States recently has bolstered its capabilities to counter Iranian threats, sending an additional 14,000 soldiers to the region since May. But this build-up has largely failed to deter Iran from expanding its footprint throughout Iraq and the region. Large stockpiles of sophisticated Iranian missiles threaten American troops and the security of key allies, including Israel and Gulf states. Even short-range rockets based in Baghdad, with a range of 600 miles, could hit Jerusalem.
Iran disguises its destabilizing presence and activities in other countries as part of its hybrid-warfare strategy to minimize the chances for direct retribution. In September, Iran launched missiles against Saudi oil facilities – for which the Yemen-based Houthi insurgent group falsely claimed credit. The missiles' flight path was programmed in a deceptive manner to make it appear as if they were launched outside Iran. At the time, Israel treaded cautiously to allow for a robust response from the international community. That response never came.
Now, Israeli officials are concerned that Iran may try to get away with a similar strike against Israeli targets, according to Israel's Channel 12 News. Most of Iran's efforts to challenge Israel have been covert, usually through the use of terrorist proxies in Gaza or Syria. But Iran repeatedly has demonstrated that it is willing to directly confront Israel in military clashes. For several years, Israel has focused on punishing Iran for entrenching its forces in Syria, in an effort to consolidate a land bridge from Iran through Syria to Lebanon. But the key to Iran's plan runs through Iraq – a predominately Shi'a Arab country which Iran uses to transfer advanced weaponry to Hizballah and other militant partners.
Israel has set red lines throughout the Syrian civil war, focused on preventing "game-changing" weapons from landing in Hizballah's hands and a permanent Iranian military presence in Syria. Initially Israeli leaders never clearly drew their red lines in the sand – whether they would not tolerate Iranian entrenchment in all of Syria or only near the Israeli border. Israeli military Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi clarified last week that Israel's red line even includes Iraq, in a speech delivered at Herzliya's Interdisciplinary Center.
In the past, Israeli officials sought diplomatic initiatives with the United States and Russia to negotiate a potential buffer zone free of an Iranian presence. But it is increasingly clear that Israel is largely left on its own to counter Iran's spread throughout the Levant region, even if other actors like the U.S. strike Iranian affiliates sporadically.
"It would be better if we weren't alone," Kochavi said. The United States only targeted Kataib Hizballah in Iraq because the terrorist group's missile attack killed a U.S. citizen. For Kochavi and other Israeli military figures, more direct confrontations with Iran are expected into the new year.
1b) Pompeo speaks with Netanyahu following attack on US Embassy in Baghdad
By OMRI NAHMIS
"The Secretary and Prime Minister reaffirmed the unbreakable bonds between the United States and Israel," US State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus added.
WASHINGTON - Following the attack on the US Embassy in Baghdad, Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and with The Prime Minister of Iraq and Emir of Qatar on Tuesday via phone.
According to US State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus, in his conversation with the Israeli Prime Minister, Secretary Pompeo thanked Netanyahu "for Israel's unwavering commitment to countering Iran's malign regional influence and its condemnation of the December 31 attack on the US Embassy in Baghdad."
"The Secretary and Prime Minister reaffirmed the unbreakable bonds between the United States and Israel," Ortagus added.
It is the second time that Pompeo and Netanyahu have discussed the situation with Iran this week. The two spoke on the phone on Monday as well.
In his conversation with Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi, Pompeo condemned "in the strongest possible terms, the December 31 Iran-backed terrorist attack on US Embassy Baghdad," the State Department said. "Secretary Pompeo noted the measures the Government of Iraq has taken to improve the security situation and stressed the Government of Iraq's obligation to prevent further attacks against our diplomatic mission," the statement reads.
Pompeo discussed the attack with Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, and "expressed appreciation for Qatar's solidarity in the face of Iran's malign regional influence."
Secretary Pompeo also canceled his planned visit to Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Cyprus. Pompeo decided to postpone because he was needed in Washington to continue monitoring the ongoing situation in Iraq, the State Department announced.
According to US State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus, in his conversation with the Israeli Prime Minister, Secretary Pompeo thanked Netanyahu "for Israel's unwavering commitment to countering Iran's malign regional influence and its condemnation of the December 31 attack on the US Embassy in Baghdad."
"The Secretary and Prime Minister reaffirmed the unbreakable bonds between the United States and Israel," Ortagus added.
It is the second time that Pompeo and Netanyahu have discussed the situation with Iran this week. The two spoke on the phone on Monday as well.
In his conversation with Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi, Pompeo condemned "in the strongest possible terms, the December 31 Iran-backed terrorist attack on US Embassy Baghdad," the State Department said. "Secretary Pompeo noted the measures the Government of Iraq has taken to improve the security situation and stressed the Government of Iraq's obligation to prevent further attacks against our diplomatic mission," the statement reads.
Pompeo discussed the attack with Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, and "expressed appreciation for Qatar's solidarity in the face of Iran's malign regional influence."
Secretary Pompeo also canceled his planned visit to Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Cyprus. Pompeo decided to postpone because he was needed in Washington to continue monitoring the ongoing situation in Iraq, the State Department announced.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2)
Jewish Leaders Raise Alarm Over Growing Trend of Anti-Semitic Attacks
NEW YORK—The spate of anti-Semitic acts carried out over the past few months across the New York metropolitan area is unprecedented, Jewish leaders say, with one calling the violent nature of the incidents “fundamentally alien to the American experience.”
In interviews with The Epoch Times, Jewish leaders shared what they believe the attacks have stemmed from, and why they are occurring. They noted the increasing degree of polarization within our society and spoke about strengthening hate crime laws to deter targeted acts, as well as community and government responsibility to ensure safety.
A former Israeli justice minister says that she’s “deeply concerned” over the “rise in anti-Semitic attacks in New York and around the world.”
“All people of conscience must be outraged by the fact that 75 years after the Holocaust, Jews are once again being targeted at prayer and in the streets,” former Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked told The Epoch Times.
Meanwhile, lawmakers are urging New York’s governor to declare a state of emergency over the string of anti-Semitic crimes and to deploy the National Guard to patrol Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods.
On Dec. 30, a man was charged with federal hate crimes for stabbing five people who were celebrating Hanukkah at a rabbi’s home north of New York City, in the Orthodox Jewish community of Monsey in Rockland County, New York. Authorities said they found handwritten journals containing anti-Semitic references in the home of the suspect, who was identified as 37-year-old Grafton Thomas.
Thomas, who has pleaded not guilty to five state charges of attempted murder and one count of burglary, is facing five counts of obstructing the free exercise of religious beliefs by attempting to kill with a dangerous weapon and causing injuries. He was arrested in New York City within hours of the attack.
The rampage, carried out with a machete, was just the latest in a flurry of attacks in the New York area. Earlier in December, a shooting at a kosher supermarket in New Jersey left two Hasidic Jews dead, and in a separate incident in November, a man was stabbed while walking to a synagogue in the Monsey area.
“In my own recollection, I cannot recall a time in America where we’ve seen as many acts of violent anti-Semitism that we have seen,” Allen Fagin, executive vice president and chief professional officer of the Orthodox Union (OU), told The Epoch Times.
OU, one of the largest Orthodox Jewish organizations in the nation, is headquartered in New York. Roughly a third of the population of New York’s Rockland County is Jewish, including a large enclave of Orthodox Jews who live in secluded communities.
“There’s been anti-Semitism for thousands of years and that is almost a permanent condition of the Jewish people,” Fagin said. “But what we’ve seen in the last period of months is an increase in violent criminal activity.”
Fagin added that there is something that has “loosened those bonds of constraint.”
According to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, there have been 13 anti-Semitic attacks in New York since Dec. 8, 2019.
On Dec. 27, the New York City Police Department said it would step up patrols in heavily Jewish neighborhoods in the borough of Brooklyn, following at least eight anti-Semitic incidents in two weeks. In an official statement, Cuomo also said that he’s directing state police to “increase patrols and security in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods across New York State.”
Targets, Again
The shocking nature and the sheer number of anti-Semitic attacks has also caught the attention of top Israeli officials, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Dec. 30 condemning the recent displays of anti-Semitism.
Shaked, via text message, said “we must combat all forms of anti-Semitism, whether from the far-right, far-left, or radical Islamists,” adding that it is inconceivable these kinds of attacks are still taking place today and are increasing around the world.
She called on all governments and municipalities to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism, “as President Donald Trump did through his recent Executive Order.”
Adopting the definition would “provide physical security to Jewish communities, and … swiftly prosecute all anti-Jewish hate crimes to the full extent of the law,” Shaked said.
The State of Israel, she added, “will always stand with Jewish communities and democratic governments around the world in the fight against anti-Semitic hate.”
Cuomo, meanwhile, called the Monsey rampage “an act of domestic terrorism that sought to incite hate and generate fear.”
A ‘Different Kind of Ferocity’
Jewish leaders said they haven’t seen such levels of violent anti-Semitic acts before, and in such quick succession. The president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, who is Jewish,wrote on Twitter, “Attacks on Jewish New Yorkers were reported almost every single day this past week.”
In prior cases of hate crimes, individuals often copy the behavior of others, but there are more complicated and “pervasive underlying causes” that need to be examined, Fagin said.
“Why these attacks? Why now? And why with a fundamentally different kind of ferocity than we have seen previously,” he said. “It’s one thing to scrawl a swastika on a sidewalk … another to walk into a place of worship and kill people.”
“This is something that is so fundamentally alien to the American experience that I think everyone is trying to understand—where does this come from?”
Over the past few years, hate crime incidents overall have steadily increased, according to data from the FBI.
Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president at the New York Board of Rabbis, told The Epoch Times there is a general lack of civility and lack of respect for people deemed different, calling it a “disease has spread into too many places and too many people.”
“There is intolerance for difference, and unfortunately, the Jews have been on the front lines of these attacks throughout history,” Potasnik said in a previous interview. “We are often depicted as being on the other side, we walk on a different path than everybody else, and because of that, we are subjected to this hatred that doesn’t go away.”
Combating Hate
In wake of the string of attacks, four Orthodox Jewish lawmakers signed on Dec. 29, 2019, a joint letter to Cuomo, urging the governor to declare a state of emergency and to “deploy the New York State Police and the New York National Guard to visibly patrol and protect Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods throughout our state.”
In the letter, the lawmakers wrote that anti-Semitic hate crimes have risen to “frighteningly high numbers” in the past few months and that Orthodox Jews have been targeted “with a rash of violence unseen in modern history.”
They also asked Cuomo to appoint a “special prosecutor for purposes of investigating and prosecuting perpetrators of anti-Semitic violence.” Lawmakers said that the prosecutor should “immediately assume control of cases already under the jurisdiction of local district attorneys.”
“Simply stated, it is no longer safe to be identifiably Orthodox in the State of New York. We cannot shop, walk down a street, send our children to school, or even worship in peace,” they wrote. The letter was signed by New York state Sen. Simcha Felder, New York state Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein, New York City Councilman Chaim Deutsch, and New York City Councilman Kalman Yeger.
According to Fagin, part of the solution to ending the attacks is more police protection and stronger laws that make hate crimes the “first priority in how they’re dealt with and how they are prosecuted, as well as the punishments given to perpetrators.”
Potasnik, meanwhile, cast some of the blame on new bail reform laws passed in April 2019, noting that some of the perpetrators in the recent spate of attacks have been quickly released without bail. The legislation was estimated to cause at least a “40 percent reduction overall in the state’s pretrial jail population,” according to the Vera Institute of Justice.
“I don’t think that was the purpose of the legislation,” Potasnik said, referring to the quick catch and release of the perpetrators.
While there is a role for the government to play in increasing security and protection, Fagin said the Jewish community also has an obligation to do “everything possible to protect ourselves.”
That includes, for example, making sure their institutions have the physical surroundings and equipment necessary to secure physical premises. Those attending services should also have training in how to deal with emergency situations, including training on active-shooter situations, he said.
“This is the responsibility of not just the government, but the responsibility of our communities as well.”
Follow Bowen on Twitter: @BowenXiao_
2a) On Rudy Giuliani being more Jewish than George Soros
By Rabbi Prof Dov Fischer
NEW YORK (VINnews) — During an appearance on on WOR AM radio’s “The Answer”, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was asked about the recent uptick in ant-Semitic attacks on New York’s Jewish community, including the brutal stabbing attack in Monsey that occurred over Chanukah.
2a) On Rudy Giuliani being more Jewish than George Soros
By Rabbi Prof Dov Fischer
NEW YORK (VINnews) — During an appearance on on WOR AM radio’s “The Answer”, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was asked about the recent uptick in ant-Semitic attacks on New York’s Jewish community, including the brutal stabbing attack in Monsey that occurred over Chanukah.
Giuliani didn’t mince words in his response, making it clear that in his view, some of the responsibility lays on the shoulders of Mayor Deblasio.
Giuliani especially took issue with Deblasio’s attempt to shift the blame onto Presient Trump’s shoulders. “He’s the mayor of the city of New York,” Giuliani said. “He is in charge. And isn’t it fascinating that all of these communities that have been victimized by anti-Semitism …all of these communities, they love the president. They are his greatest supporters. You’re the mayor, you’re responsible, do your job.”
Giuliani went on to blast Deblasio, saying that he failed to take valuable lessons from the Holocaust.
“It’s hard to say in a nice way, [but] he’s probably the worst mayor in my lifetime. He’s a failure as a leader, he does exactly the opposite. You’re supposed to take responsibility as a leader, and he forgot, or maybe he never learned, the great lessons of the Holocaust.”
Giuliani continued, “The two great lessons of the Holocaust are: ‘Never forget, and ‘Never ignore.’ Never ignore means you have to stand up to the first act of anti-Semitism.”
The former mayor said that unlike Deblasio, he would’ve addressed the problem head on, at the first sign of anti-Semitism.
“Do you know how much it’s up this year? It’s up 29 percent, anti-Semitic acts. That is extraordinary. I started Compstat with [ex-police commissioner] Bill Bratton. If I had seen it up 2 percent, that’s when I would have acted. Not at 10 percent, not at 15 percent, not at 20, and by the time you’re at 29, this is going to be very very hard to turn around.”
Giuliani added that the rise in anti-Semitism has nothing to do with the White house.
“That has nothing to do with Bill Clinton, he was president when I was president [sic] and it has nothing to do with Donald Trump. It has to do with you and the minute you think it doesn’t, you become a bad mayor, and he has become a very, very ineffective mayor in so many ways, but this is one that I think is inexcusable.”
Giuliani seemed to be extra hurt by Deblasio’s insistence on rolling back many of the measures put in place by the former mayor which really helped fight crime.
“This man has broken my heart. He’s ruined things that I worked 24 hours a day, and my staff worked 24 hours a day, tremendous battles,” he said.
The comments from Giuliani come a week after he caused controversy by commenting in a New York Magazine interview that he was “more of a Jew” than George Soros.
Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer
The writer is adjunct professor of law at two prominent Southern California law schools, Senior Rabbinic Fellow at the Coalition for Jewish Values, congregational rabbi of Young Israel of Orange County, California, and has held prominent leadership roles in several national rabbinic and other Jewish organizations. He was Chief Articles Editor of UCLA Law Review, clerked for the Hon. Danny J. Boggs in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and served for most of the past decade on the Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Council of America. His writings have appeared in The Weekly Standard, National Review, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Jerusalem Post, American Thinker, Frontpage Magazine, and Israel National News. Other writings are collected at www.rabbidov.com .
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3) The Dangers of Elite Groupthink
The Washington Post recently published a surprising indictment of MSNBC host, Stanford graduate and Rhodes scholar Rachel Maddow.
Post media critic Erik Wemple wrote that Maddow deliberately misled her audience by claiming the now-discredited Steele dossier was largely verifiable -- even at a time when there was plenty of evidence that it was mostly bogus.
At the very time Maddow was reassuring viewers that Christopher Steele was believable, populist talk radio and the much-criticized Fox News Channel were insisting that most of Steele's allegations simply could not be true. Maddow was wrong. Her less degreed critics proved to be right.
In 2018, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), and the committee's then-ranking minority member, Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), each issued contrasting reports of the committee's investigation into allegations of collusion between Russia and Donald Trump's campaign team and the misbehavior of federal agencies.
Schiff's memo was widely praised by the media. Nunes' report was condemned as rank and partisan.
Many in the media went further. They contrasted Harvard Law graduate Schiff with rural central Californian Nunes to help explain why the clever Schiff got to the bottom of collusion and the "former dairy farmer" Nunes was "way over his head" and had "no idea what's going on."
Recently, the nonpartisan inspector general of the Department of Justice, Michael Horowitz, found widespread wrongdoing at the DOJ and FBI. He confirmed the key findings in the Nunes memo about the Steele dossier and its pernicious role in the FISA application seeking a warrant against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
In contrast, much of what the once-praised Schiff had claimed to be true was proven wrong by Horowitz -- from Schiff's insistence that the FBI verified the Steele dossier to his assertion that the Department of Justice did not rely chiefly on the dossier for its warrant application.
When special counsel Robert Mueller formed an investigatory team, he stocked it with young, progressive Washington insiders, many with blue-chip degrees and resumes.
The media swooned. Washington journalists became giddy over the prospect of a "dream team" of such "all-stars" who would demolish the supposedly far less impressively credentialed Trump legal team.
We were assured by a snobbish Vox that "Special counsel Robert Mueller's legal team is full of pros. Trump's team makes typos."
Yet after 22 months and $32 million worth of investigation, Mueller's team found no Russian collusion and no evidence of actionable Trump obstruction during the investigation of that non-crime. All the constant media reports that "bombshell" Mueller team disclosures were imminent and that the "walls are closing in" on Trump proved false.
Mueller himself testified before Congress, only to appear befuddled and almost clueless at times about his own investigation. Many of his supposedly brightest all-stars, such as Lisa Page, Peter Strzok and Kevin Clinesmith, had to leave his dream team due to unethical behavior.
In contrast, Trump's widely derided chief lawyers -- 69-year-old Ty Cobb, 78-year-old John Dowd, and 63-year-old radio and TV host Jay Sekulow -- stayed out of the headlines. They advised Trump to cooperate with the Mueller team and systematically offered evidence and analyses to prove that Trump did not collude with the Russian to warp the 2016 election. In the end, Mueller's "hunter-killer team" was forced to agree.
When the supposed clueless Trump was elected, a number of elites pronounced his economic plans to be absurd. We were told that Trump was bound to destroy the U.S. economy.
Former Princeton professor and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman insisted that Trump would crash the stock market. He even suggested that stocks might never recover.
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said Trump would bring on a recession within a year and a half.
The former head of the National Economic Council, Steven Rattner, predicted a market crash of "historic proportions."
In contrast, many of Trump's economic advisers during his campaign and administration, including outsider Peter Navarro, pundit Steven Moore, former TV host Larry Kudlow and octogenarian Wilbur Ross, were caricatured.
Yet three years later, in terms of the stock market, unemployment, energy production and workers' wages, the economy has been doing superbly.
The point of these sharp contrasts is not that an Ivy League degree or a Washington reputation is of little value, or that prestigious prizes and honors account for nothing, or even that supposed experts are always unethical and silly.
Instead, one lesson is that conventional wisdom and groupthink tend to mislead, especially in the age of online echo chambers and often sheltered and blinkered elite lives.
We forget that knowledge can be found at all ages, and in all places. And ethics has nothing to do with degrees or pedigrees.
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author of "The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won," from Basic Books. You can reach him by e-mailing authorvdh@gmail.com.
3a)
Pelosi’s Rolling Impeachment
Republicans dismiss her tactic. But why would they assume she wants a trial?
By Kimberley Strassel
Republicans dismiss Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s refusal to transmit the impeachment articles to the Senate as a weak stunt. They do so at the peril of both the Constitution and President Trump. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell may be a master tactician, but Mrs. Pelosi is no slouch.
It’s now been more than a week since the House impeached Mr. Trump, and Mrs. Pelosi has yet to name impeachment managers or formally send over the paperwork. Democrats claim they are delaying in the name of “fairness,” withholding the articles until Mr. McConnell agrees to new witnesses and evidence in a Senate trial. Republicans are ridiculing the tactic, pointing out that Mrs. Pelosi has no authority to dictate the form of a Senate trial and no leverage over Mr. McConnell.
Both points are true but irrelevant. Republicans err in thinking Mrs. Pelosi’s goal is to craft a Senate trial to her liking—and even in presuming Mrs. Pelosi wants a trial at all.
How would it benefit Democrats for the Senate to conduct an efficient and solemn proceeding? The House inquiry was a farce, riddled with procedural gamesmanship and shifting definitions of “high crimes.” A serious Senate trial would only further highlight the weakness of the House case. It would also require Democratic presidential contenders including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar to abandon the stump and return to Washington for most of January, on the eve of the crucial Iowa caucuses—or else shirk their senatorial duty.
Mrs. Pelosi has understood from the start that the inevitable outcome was acquittal. There won’t be 20 Republican votes to remove Mr. Trump from office. So why hasten the president’s vindication? If the goal of this exercise all along was to damage Mr. Trump’s prospects for re-election, why wouldn’t Democrats want to hold an unconsummated impeachment over his head for as long as politically possible?
Think of it as “rolling” impeachment. Every day the Senate doesn’t hold a trial, Mrs. Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are free to argue that the process is rigged. They are already claiming that the Senate’s Republican “jurors” have abandoned impartiality, are actively working with Mr. Trump to cover up his crimes, and are afraid to hold a trial.
This bears no relation to reality and is the height of cheek given the House circus. But it’s fodder for the press corps and it may resonate with some voters. More important, it puts daily pressure on Senate Republican moderates to break with Mr. McConnell. Only this week, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski—solid as a bowl of jelly—said she was “disturbed” by Mr. McConnell’s discussions with the White House over the impeachment process.
As long as the Senate doesn’t hold a trial, Democrats have time to find yet more “evidence” that Mr. Trump is guilty of abusing his power. Witness Mr. Schumer on Monday, highlighting new emails that purport to show military aid was suspended not long after Mr. Trump’s now famous July call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The emails add nothing of substance to the broader case, but they prompted the media to produce another round of dark headlines about Mr. Trump.
And as long as the Senate doesn’t hold a trial, Democrats can add additional “crimes” to their case against the president. House lawyers this week argued in federal court that former White House counsel Don McGahn must be forced to testify to the House. They told the court the House may “recommend new articles of impeachment” if Mr. McGahn’s testimony included evidence that the president obstructed special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
How long will this charade go on? As long as Democrats can get away with it. Given their impeachment irregularities to date, it’s not hard to imagine Mrs. Pelosi sitting on her impeachment articles through next fall’s election campaign. That would deny Mr. Trump the ability to say he’d been acquitted, even as it assured a constant stream of negative, ever-evolving impeachment coverage.
The risk to Democrats is that the public loses tolerance for a cynical partisan ploy that makes a mockery of Congress’s constitutional duty. But Ms. Pelosi knows the press will dutifully peddle her “fairness” line, and at least for now she can use the delay to energize her base and further damage the president. If the public tide shifts, she can always change course.
No comments:
Post a Comment