Israel’s false friend
Melanie Phillips:
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, is one of a (small) minority of Conservative Cabinet ministers – let alone if you include the LibDems in the Coalition – who is a staunch Atlanticist and well-disposed towards Israel. It is an open secret that his hawkish views on foreign affairs do not coincide with those of David Cameron. So it was to be expected that, as the guest of honour at the annual dinner of the Board of Deputies of British Jews last night, he would present himself as a friend of Israel. And he acordingly declared that Britain was a friend of Israel.
Methinks he did protest far too much. For his speech was full of easy platitudes. It was a kind of check-list of all the buttons that he knew he had to press to curry favour with that audience.
And then there was this
[...]
My Rebuttal to a Progressive who Admonished Me to Play Nice ….
Stop Shouting!
The following rebuttal is mine alone. I do not speak for my husband, for my friends, for my children, but solely for myself.
I am tired of being told to sit down and shut up.
I am tired of being told what I can and can not say.
What is “acceptable”, while my ideas and values are mocked and trampled.
Enough. I have had enough.
I remained stoic when your acolytes spit on my car and called my husband a “baby killer” when I crossed through your phalanx at Walter Reed to take my children for medical care. I refused to respond as you smashed your fists into the hood of my car, destroyed my mirrors with bottles and keyed my doors in California, my children mute and terrified as you screamed your hate and bile.
[...]
HT Linda
How Discover Magazine Carefully Keeps Readers in the Dark About Intelligent Design
ENV:
Discover Magazine has a penchant for misleading its readers about intelligent design (ID). Last year it touted Ken Miller’s response to me on Michael Behe’s arguments for irreducible complexity in blood clotting as an “intelligent design fail,” even though Ken Miller had blatantly misrepresented Behe’s arguments. (Miller still hasn’t replied to my refutation of his arguments.) Now, in its October 2010 issue, Discover Magazine was able to combine multiple errors about the nature of ID science and law in one single paragraph. Quite an accomplishment! Here’s the statement:
[...]
Ground Zero mosque seeks $5 million in public funds
Ethel C. Fenig:
While you’ve been assaulted and/or exposed to radiation at the airport to thwart a terrorist attack on your flight by some members of an unknown religious, national or ethnic group, the developers of the Ground Zero mosque in lower Manhattan have been busy applying for $5 million in federal grant money for its construction.
[...]
Reflections On An Ailing Society
by Victor Davis Hanson:
Warren Buffet is once more calling for higher tax rates, in advising the Congress to revoke the Bush-era tax rates and apparently to return to those of the Clinton administration — reminiscent of the elder Gates touring the country stumping for a reinstatement of a substantial inheritance tax. Aside from the fact that the deficit is not due to falling revenues, but almost entirely a result of astronomical federal spending increases since 2000, this bromide is quite pathological, this peddling of elixirs that the sellers do not drink.
[...]
IRS to Jewish group: ‘Does your organization support the existence of the land of Israel?’
POLITICO:
A Pennsylvania Jewish group that has claimed the Internal Revenue Service is targeting pro-Israel groups introduced in federal court today a letter from an IRS agent to another, unnamed organization that tax experts said was likely outside the usual or appropriate scope of an IRS inquiry.
“Does your organization support the existence of the land of Israel?” IRS agent Tracy Dornette wrote the organization, according to this week’s court filing, as part of its consideration of the organizations application for tax exempt status. “Describe your organization’s religious belief sytem toward the land of Israel.”
[...]
Robert Pape: Blaming Suicide Bombings on the “Occupation”
by Jared Sorhaindo, FrontPage:
In support of his thesis, Pape noted that the world’s leading suicide bombers between 1980 and 2003 were the Tamil Tigers, a secular Marxist group in Sri Lanka. Furthermore, he argued, Hezbollah has not committed a single suicide bombing since Israel withdrew from Southern Lebanon in 2000. Yet Pape’s premise is fallacious, as it presumes that Syrian troops, which were stationed in Lebanon until the Cedar Revolution of 2005—five years after Israel’s withdrawal—were not occupation forces. Given the massive demonstrations against the Syrians and their constant interference in Lebanese affairs—including a possible role in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, which sparked the revolution—Pape proffers a selective definition of “occupation.”
Pape’s thesis also ignores massive Iranian support for Hezbollah and the terrorist organization’s possible role in Hariri’s assassination. Earlier this month, this ostensibly benign army undertook a simulated takeover of Lebanon should the international tribunal investigating Hariri’s assassination find Hezbollah culpable. Pape thereby employs a double-standard: Israeli troops are foreign occupiers, while Arab troops occupying Arab countries are ignored.
[...]
Financial jihad at Ground Zero
By Doug Hagmann:
Prepare to be righteously outraged.
As if it isn’t enough that slumlord and terrorist apologist Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his cadre of associates are rubbing salt in a still-gaping American wound through his plans to erect an iconic symbol of Islamic conquest in the shadows of the former World Trade Center, the Cordoba Initiative (as it was once known) is asking you, the American taxpayer, to subsidize it.
[...]
Giving Thanks for Obama
By Christopher Chantrill:
Have you heard the one about the guy from the lefty “reality-based community?” He could discern reality only when it knocked him upside the head. And that’s the story of the Obama administration thus far.
It’s not easy to admit it, but in 2008 we needed the Democrats to run the national security apparatus for four years. Americans needed Democrats to confront reality on the war on terror. It’s one thing to yell lefty slogans from the sidelines. It’s another thing to formulate and execute national security policy from inside the federal government. Whatever it cost, we Americans had to put Democrats in power and let reality knock them upside the head.
After two years of Obama, we all — even Democrats — know the following realities. On Iraq: right war or wrong war, the issue is still Iran. On Gitmo: yeah, you try to close it, pal. On hard power/soft power: yeah, you try to cuddle up to thug dictators and see how much good it does you. On civilian trials for terrorists: all it takes is one juror…
After two years, the whole Democratic critique of Bush’s foreign policy lies in ruins. Thanks Obama — we needed that.
[...]
New FBI hate crime stats show Jews still much more likely than Muslims to be victim of hate crime assault
By Caroline May – The Daily Caller:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s most recent hate crime statistics, released Monday, show that crimes committed due to racial biases are the most prevalent and that — despite a great deal of rhetoric to the contrary — for crimes committed due to a religious bias, it is still safer to be Muslim than it is to be Jew.
According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program in 2009 there were 8,336 victims of hate crimes. 48.8 percent of those victims were targeted because of a racial bias, 18.9 percent because of a religious bias, and 17.8 percent because of a bias against a person’s sexual orientation.
There were 4,057 victims of racially motivated hate crimes. Over 70 percent of those victims were targeted because of an anti-black bias. The second highest group targeted because of race were victims of an anti-white bias (16.5 percent).
Of the 1,575 victims of a religious bias, over 70 percent were victims of an anti-Jewish bias. The second highest group, at 8.4 percent, were the victims of an anti-Muslim bias.
[...]
November 23, 2010 The voter fraud hall of shame: Milwaukee voter fraud conviction makes ACORN’s 2010 total at least 15
By Matthew Vadum – The Daily Caller:
Yet another former ACORN employee was convicted of voter fraud last week. This brings the total number of convictions for former workers from the embattled group to at least 15 so far this year.
Kevin L. Clancy of Milwaukee pleaded guilty last week to participating “in a scheme to submit fraudulent voter registration applications,” according to Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen. Clancy admitted to filing multiple voter registration applications for the same individuals and registering himself and other voter registration canvassers to vote multiple times while working on an ACORN voter drive.
Clancy received a 10-month prison term for his crime. Clancy’s sentence will begin when he completes another sentence he is currently serving for armed robbery.
“The integrity of elections is dependent upon citizens and officials insisting they be conducted lawfully,” Van Hollen said. “Wisconsin’s citizens should not have to wonder whether their vote has been negated or diminished by illegally cast ballots.”
So far 2010 has been a banner year for ACORN voter fraud prosecutions…
[...]
It’s the Saudis, stupid
Melanie Phillips:
That fine journalist John Ware has performed yet another important public service with his expose on BBC One’s Panorama tonight of the hatred and sedition with which children are being indoctrinated in some British Muslim schools.
[...]
The US Navy, China and the New Theater of War
by Taylor Dinerman:
The US Navy’s aircraft carriers are the not only symbols of America’s global undisputed naval power but in fact are one of the most important reasons that the US really is, in spite of all the talk about American decline, the only superpower on Earth. The airpower they provide can not only be used to strike land targets, but their aircraft can be used to sink any ships the the US government decides it wants to sink. This capability is the essence of seapower.
[...]
Incentive To Poverty
The View from 1776:
Democrat/Socialist Party cant about sticking up for the little guy boils down to party leaders’ blunt declarations of intent to redistribute wealth and income, the road to impoverished equality.
Charles Murray (Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950–1980) observed that the poor are poor, not stupid. When politicians provide them ways to live a reasonably comfortable life without working, they won’t work. When people don’t work, production lags or declines, dragging down the standard of living. More mouths to feed, less with which to feed them.
We saw the consequences in the 1960s and 70s, epitomized in President Jimmy Carter’s suggestion that we settle down and become used to the social and economic malaise besetting us. Welfare rolls had ballooned and President Johnson’s Great Society benefits made it a paying proposition for irresponsible males to father as many illegitimate children as possible, abandoning the mothers, rationalizing that unmarried mothers could collect higher welfare payments than would be available to a married family. Going on welfare became a socially acceptable career choice, actively encouraged by welfare workers in places like New York City.
Ironically, liberal-progressive icon Daniel Patrick Moynihan forewarned us in 1965 that family life was disintegrating under the hammer blows of the welfare state. Liberal-progressives paid little heed. Bill Ayers, Weather Underground terrorist, shortly thereafter enunciated the New Left paradigm: family life is to be subordinated to the idealism of the socialistic collective (or, more often, to self-centered hedonism).
[...]
The War on Conservative Teachers
by Al Katman, FrontPage:
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is having considerable success in its drive to organize American college and university faculty members. Often the Union is able to gain a toehold at a university by organizing a portion of the faculty. The Union will hold multiple elections, and after each vote it loses winnow out those segments of the faculty who voted against having to join a union, until it comes up with a subset of the faculty who vote to turn the university into a Union Shop.
[...]
Debbie Schlussel Stands Up for Persecuted Christian Teachers – in America
by Jamie Glazov, FrontPage:
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Debbie Schlussel, a conservative political commentator, radio talk show host, columnist, and attorney. Visit her website at debbieschlussel.com.
FP: Debbie Schlussel, welcome to Frontpage Interview.You have recently launched a federal lawsuit against Imad Fadlallah, a Muslim individual who was, until July, the principal of Dearborn’s Fordson High School.
Tell us what the lawsuit is about.
Schlussel: Two teachers at Dearborn’s Fordson High School, Bryan Purcell and Georgene Stergalas, were repeatedly harassed by the then-Muslim principal Imad Fadlallah. (He has since been replaced by another Muslim principal.) As we’ve noted in the press release announcing the lawsuit, it was clear that the harassment was brought because these teachers are Christians and not Muslims and because the principal wanted to replace Christian teachers with teachers who are Muslims, Arabs, or Arab Muslims.
[...]
Why North Korean strike will not trigger world war three
Telegraph [UK]:
Even though the fighting in Korea has all the elements needed to spark off the next world war – weapons of mass destruction, hostile superpowers, and a failing, nuclear-armed regime – it is improbable that apocalypse is around the corner in East Asia.
[...]
More evidence of the brilliance of Obama’s geopolitical vision
Moronic new video: Iran, North Korea, Cuba indict U.S. for human rights abuses
Democratic Internet censorship
By THE WASHINGTON TIMES:
Al Gore’s most famous claimed invention, the Internet, has become a thorn in the side of the left. Online shopping protects consumers from having their pockets picked by the tax man. News and discussion forums have debunked various frauds from global warming to red-light cameras. Now congressional Democrats are leading the charge to give Washington a say in which websites ought to exist.
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved legislation that would give the attorney general a virtual blank check to shut down any Internet site that he claims “has no demonstrable commercially significant purpose or use” other than copyright infringement. Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, introduced the bill handing the Obama administration the power to pull the plug on websites that contain no actual illegal material. It is sufficient that a site be declared guilty of “provision of a link or aggregated links to other sites” for a compliant judge to issue a take-down order. Bureaucrats at the Federal Trade Commission earlier this year claimed websites like the Drudge Report “use” copyrighted material by providing links to stories and that such sites might be taxed.
Were the attorney general to share this view, such sites could be taken down without a hearing or appeal. If that sounds a bit like how the Chinese government silences websites critical of the authoritarian regime, that’s because the mechanisms Mr. Leahy would put in place are very similar. I
[...]
The UK’s Selective Application of the Universal Jurisdiction Law
by Soeren Kern:
During his first official visit to Israel, British Foreign Secretary William Hague on November 3 publicly promised to make it safe for Israeli leaders to travel to Britain without the risk of being detained on allegations of war crimes. Hague made the commitment after Israel unilaterally suspended the annual UK-Israel Strategic Dialogue — a forum meant to symbolize close ties between the two countries — to protest the abuse of the British legal system by activists pursuing an anti-Israel political agenda.
The long-running dispute over Britain’s controversial law on universal jurisdiction, which allows pro-Palestinian activists to bring private prosecutions against visiting Israeli dignitaries, came to a head on November 1, when Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor cancelled a planned visit to London after receiving information that he might be facing a lawsuit or an arrest warrant upon arrival in Britain.
Meridor was notified that he may face charges connected to his alleged role in the Israeli commando raid on the Gaza-bound ship Mavi Marmara on May 31, 2010. The Israeli raid resulted in the deaths of nine Turkish activists who were attempting to break a blockade on the Gaza Strip.
After a warrant, however, for former Israeli Foreign Misister Tzipi Livni’s arrest was issued in December 2009, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu characterized the situation in Britain as an “absurdity.” In a statement, Netanyahu said: “We will not accept a situation in which [former Israeli Prime Minister] Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni will be summoned to the defendants’ chair. We will not agree to have Israel Defence Force soldiers, who defended the citizens of Israel bravely and ethically against a cruel and criminal enemy, be recognized as war criminals. We completely reject this absurdity taking place in Britain.”
[...]
Second U.S. company gets stem cell go-ahead
Reuters:
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the second human trial of human embryonic stem cells — this one testing cells in people with a progressive form of blindness, the company said on Monday.
Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology said it would start testing its stem cell-based treatment on 12 patients with Stargardt’s macular dystrophy.
It is the second trial of human embryonic stem cells to be approved by the FDA this year. Last month Geron Corp enrolled the first patient in its study using the cells in people whose spinal cords have been crushed.
[...]
This is sick and I am in a position to say so as my spinal cord was crushed in a car accident 25 years ago and I would never want nor accept treatment from a process devised from the cold-blooded murder of another human being. Our brave new world of medical research is no less than its Nazification. There has never been a success using embryonic stem cells whereas there has been success after success using perfectly acceptable adult stem cells so this entire crusade is a perverse exercise is playing God [Baal] and its altar is crimson with the blood of innocent babies.
The Rise of Unchecked Presidential Power
By Robert Eugene Simmons Jr.:
Never in the history of man has a government with highly centralized powers and minimal checks and balances ended well. Today, the executive branch in the USA has the power to do almost anything it wants. The legislature is all but powerless, having ceded all their authority to the executive-appointed bureaucracy. The judicial branch is still alive and kicking feebly, but the death or retirement of one conservative justice will put a stop to that. The law enforcement political appointees have become arbitrary in their enforcement of the law and politically motivated. Never has America faced such troubling times. All of this has been accomplished slowly and cautiously to avoid raising the alarm, because the powers involved definitely do not want to raise that alarm.
[...]
Obama’s Power-Mad Cell Phone Czar
by Michelle Malkin, FrontPage:
America is in debt past its eyeballs. Unemployment remains stuck near double digits. Small and large businesses, unions and insurers are clamoring for Obamacare waivers in droves. Jihadists are making a mockery of homeland security. And border chaos reigns. So, what’s one of the Obama administration’s top domestic policy agenda items this month? Combating distracted drivers.
What? You missed the Million Anti-Distracted Drivers Protest March on Washington and the Great Grassroots Groundswell for federal intervention on our highways and byways? Don’t worry. You weren’t the only one.
[...]
Portugal next as EMU’s Máquina Infernal keeps ticking
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard:
So with some trepidation, let me point out that Portugal will have a current account deficit of 10.3pc of GDP this year, 8.8pc in 2011, and 8.0pc in 2012, according to the OECD. That is to say, Portugal will be unable to pay its way in the world by a huge margin even after draconian austerity.
This is the worst profile in Europe. It requires a drip-feed of external funding that can be shut off at any moment, and undoubtedly will be unless the global economy goes full throttle into another boom. Or as the IMF puts it, “the longer the imbalance persists, the greater the risk the adjustment will be sudden and disruptive”.
[...]
Audacious: Ground Zero Mosque Applies for $5M Federal Grant
FOX:
Developers of the controversial Park51 Islamic community center and mosque located one tenth of a mile from Ground Zero earlier this month applied for roughly $5 million in federal grant money set aside for the redevelopment of lower Manhattan after the attacks of September 11th, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
The audacious move stands to reignite the embers of a divisive debate that dominated headlines surrounding the 9th anniversary of the attacks this fall, say people vested in the issue.
[...]
The Holocaust Denial/Minimization Industry Attacks Us All
AT letter to the editor:
This is for Norman Finkelstein and by extension everyone who applauds him at his events.
I’m not here to debate his stance on Israel and Zionism – there is really only one thing that I want address within this letter. My issue with Finkelstein and his supporters is nothing more than a simple number.
No, it’s not six million, as in six million murdered Jews, killed during the Holocaust – a fact that Finkelstein casts doubt upon by referring to “six million” in quotation marks. Finkelstein has also gone on record that Holocaust denier David Irving – who believes there were no gas chambers and that Auschwitz was a “tourist attraction” – is an “indispensable” historian. No, this isn’t some unbelievable fiction from George Orwell’s 1984; this is actually what this man thinks.
Nor is the number 2,000, as in the nearly 2,000 years since Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews were forced to flee their ancient homeland. The desire to return home has been expressed during Jewish festivals, in Jewish prayers three times daily and in countless other customs, many centuries prior to the rise of modern Zionism.
Finkelstein would have everyone that attend his rallies believe that the state of Israel is a modern colonial invention fueled by Holocaust guilt, rather than the truth which is the exact reverse – that the Holocaust was a disaster fueled by a lack of an independent Jewish homeland.
[...]
Bombshell evidence may make Waters an ethics nightmare for Dems
by Ed Morrissey:
Apparently, the Charlie Rangel ethics trial was just the warm-up act. The New York Times reported over the weekend that the House Ethics Committee suddenly postponed the trial of Maxine Waters on ethics violation because it found more evidence of direct intervention by her office to benefit the bank in which her husband owned a substantial interest. According to new e-mails uncovered by the committee, her chief of staff directly coordinated with other members of the House Financial Services Committee on behalf of OneUnited:
[...]
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