Thursday, July 31, 2014

Border Patrol agents and their children have contracted scabies, lice, or chicken pox from illegal aliens and are in danger of contracting TB per IG report. Agents spend own money to buy food for illegals. No instances of Border Patrol misconduct despite claims by ACLU and other grps.

.
7/31/14, "Homeland Security Report Confirms Diseases Spreading at Border Facilities," Breitbart, Kerry Picket

"The Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General released a memo on Thursday confirming the problem of communicable diseases that are being spread throughout detention centers.

The OIG outlined a two-week report from the beginning of the month on the detention of Unaccompanied Alien Children. According to DHS IG John Roth’s memo to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson, the IG office continues to make unannounced site visits to numerous detention centers along the southern border where Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are temporarily sheltering UACs.

The IG says they did not observe any misconduct or inappropriate conduct of DHS employees during their unannounced visits and did not receive any new complaints during their random interviews of UACs. However, the IG office stressed the problem of communicable diseases that are being spread at the detention centers.

Many UAC and family units require treatment for communicable diseases, including respiratory illnesses, tuberculosis, chicken pox, and scabies,” the IG report said. “UAC and family unit illnesses and unfamiliarity with bathroom facilities resulted in unsanitary conditions and exposure to human waste in some holding facilities.” The report continued:
Contract cleaners and OHS employees are working to maintain sanitary conditions. DHS employees reported exposure to communicable diseases and becoming sick on duty. For example, during a recent site visit to the Del Rio USBP Station and Del Rio Port of Entry, CBP personnel reported contracting scabies, lice, and chicken pox. Two CBP Officers reported that their children were diagnosed with chicken pox within days of the CBP Officers’ contact with a UAC who had chicken pox. In addition, USBP personnel at the Clint Station and Santa Teresa Station reported that they were potentially exposed to tuberculosis. 
A senior spokesman for the CDC told Marc Siegel at Slate.com that HHS is spearheading medical services for facilities in southwest Texas and Arizona. According to Slate, it takes two to three weeks “for a vaccine to confer protection, [so] more cases of flu are likely within the centers. It is also possible that the disease will spread to the local community and beyond.”

Additionally, the IG report says that DHS employees are “donating clothing, toys, and games to UAC and family units,” as well as buying food “with their own money, to supplement contract food supplies.”"

--------------------------------------------

7/31/14, "Border agents cleared of civil rights complaints from illegal immigrant children," Washington Times, Stephen Dinan

"Internal investigators have already dismissed most complaints of civil rights violations against immigration agents handling the surge of illegal immigrant children on the border, the Homeland Security Department inspector general said in a new report Thursday that details near-heroic efforts agents and officers are making.

In its first report since the surge, the IG said agents have contracted everything from scabies and lice to chicken pox, including bringing the disease home to their own children, as they care for the children. Investigators also said they saw instances of agents and officers spending their own money to buy toys, clothing and food for children and families.

The report largely clears immigration authorities of dozens of complaints of civil rights violations detailed in a complaint last month from the American Civil Liberties Union and other immigrant-rights advocates.

Of the 116 complaints the ACLU filed, the IG has dismissed 78 of them. The other 38 are still under review.

Investigators said in addition to looking at the old complaints, they made 87 unannounced visits to 63 sites including border entry points, Border Patrol checkpoints, holding facilities where children are being kept and the new facility in New Mexico specifically designed to detain illegal immigrant families.

They found no evidence of misconduct, and none of the children they randomly interviewed reported problems, the IG said." via Mark Levin show

=============================

Retired Border Patrol agent Zach Taylor tells what's going on at the former US southern border. published 7/19/14



.

Crowdfunding an Iron Dome for Israel!

.
7/31/14, "Crowdfunding an Iron Dome," Pamela Geller

"Let's stop a rocket and help Israel buy more Iron Dome anti-missiles. Calgary, Alberta Canada Community." StopARocket Indiegogo.com




Stop A Rocket







===========================

Comment: I was so happy to see this at PamelaGeller.com because I was just wondering how I could contribute to Israel.


.
Let’s stop a rocket and help Israel buy more Iron Dome anti-missiles (thanks to Kathy Shaidle)
Calgary, Alberta, Canada Community
- See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2014/07/crowdfunding-iron-dome.html/#sthash.vg3Bdbu3.dpuf
Crowdfunding an Iron Dome!
Crowdfunding an Iron Dome!

2014 Gaza war creating new Middle East alliance supporting Israel, most Arab states actively support Israel over Hamas-CNN

.
7/31/14, "This time, Gaza fighting is 'proxy war' for entire Mideast," CNN, Josh Levs

"The conflict raging in Gaza is different this time . While Hamas' rocket attacks and Israel's military actions may look familiar, they're taking place against a whole new backdrop.

"This is unprecedented in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict," says CNN's Ali Younes, an analyst who has covered the region for decades

"Most Arab states are actively supporting Israel against the Palestinians -- and not even shy about it or doing it discreetly."

It's a "joint Arab-Israeli war consisting of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia against other Arabs -- the Palestinians as represented by Hamas."

As the New York Times put it, "Arab leaders, viewing Hamas as worse than Israel, stay silent."

One of the outcomes of the fighting will likely be "the end of the old Arab alliance system that has, even nominally, supported the Palestinians and their goal of establishing a Palestinian state," Younes says.
.
"The Israel-Hamas conflict has laid bare the new divides of the Middle East," says Danielle Pletka, vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. "It's no longer the Muslims against the Jews. Now it's the extremists -- the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, and their backers Iran, Qatar and Turkey [and the US, UN, and EU] -- against Israel and the more moderate Muslims including Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia."


"It's a proxy war for control or dominance in the Middle East," says CNN's Fareed Zakaria.


To understand why and what all this means, we need to begin with understanding of Hamas.


Hamas, which has controlled the Palestinian government in Gaza for years, is an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood. To many Americans, the brotherhood is familiar for its central role in the power struggle for Egypt. But it's much larger than that.


"The Muslim Brotherhood is international, with affiliated groups in more than 70 countries, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE," says Eric Trager of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.


The Arab Spring showed the region that uprisings can lead to the Brotherhood gaining power. So it's a threat to the governments it opposes.

"Israel's ongoing battle against Hamas is part of a wider regional war on the Muslim Brotherhood," says the Soufan Group, which tracks global security. "Most Arab states share Israel's determination to finish the movement off once and for all, but they are unlikely to be successful."


"From the perspective of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE and some other Arab states, what the Israeli Prime Minister is doing is fighting this war against Hamas on their behalf so they can finish the last stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood," Younes says.


"Arab governments and official Arab media have all but adopted the Israeli view of who is a terrorist and who is not. Egyptian and Saudi-owned media are liberal in labeling the Muslim Brotherhood as 'terrorists' and describing Hamas as a 'terrorist organization.' It's a complete turnabout from the past, when Arab states fought Israel and the U.S. in the international organizations on the definition of terrorism, and who is a terrorist or a 'freedom fighter.'"

Egypt


Egypt's new President vowed during his campaign that he would finish off the Muslim Brotherhood. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the former military chief, deposed Egypt's first freely elected leader, President Mohamed Morsy of the Muslim Brotherhood, last year following mass protests against Morsy's rule. El-Sisi was elected officially in June.


"In Egypt you have a regime that came to power by toppling a Muslim Brotherhood government," says Trager. "It's therefore in an existential conflict with the Brotherhood. So it doesn't want to see Hamas, the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood, emerge stronger in a neighboring territory."

Egypt also has another reason to stand against Hamas: rising violence and instability in Sinai, the northern part of Egypt that borders Israel and Gaza. Hamas' network of tunnels includes some in and out of Egypt used to smuggle goods include weapons for attacks on Israeli civilians.


The new Egyptian government has been "cracking down aggressively since it removed the brotherhood from power," Trager says.

El-Sisi closed the border crossings between Egypt and Gaza, which has helped block Hamas militants from escaping or smuggling in more weapons during Israel's onslaught. But it also has contributed to the humanitarian crisis of people trapped in Gaza.


Egypt proposed a cease-fire, and Israel quickly accepted it -- indicating that it contained the terms Israel was looking for, analysts say. Hamas rejected it. While Egypt has worked furiously to try to broker a truce in the past, Cairo this time shows little rush to change its proposal to one much more favorable to Hamas, analysts say.


Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan


The monarchies of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan have called on Hamas to accept the cease-fire proposal as is.

"We condemn the Israeli aggression and we support the Egyptian cease-fire proposal," Jordan's King Abdullah said last week.


Countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE are "challenged by Islamists who come to power via the ballot box rather than through royal succession," says Trager.


"So these countries have been directly supportive of the coup in Egypt because it removed elected Islamists and therefore discredited that model."

Saudi Arabia is "leading the charge," partly through backing the coup and financing state media reports that attacked the brotherhood, says Younes.


"Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE all see the destruction of Hamas as of benefit to their internal security as well as to regional stability."


"The Saudis and the Egyptians are now more scared of Islamic fundamentalism than they are of Israel," says Zakaria.


"The Saudi monarchy is more worried about the prospects of Hamas winning, which would embolden Islamists in other parts of the Middle East, and therefore potentially an Islamist opposition in Saudi Arabia."


But Hamas is not alone.

Turkey and Qatar


Turkey and Qatar remain supportive of Hamas.


Qatar supported Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood government, and built "an Egypt-centric Al Jazeera network that became known for its strongly pro-Muslim Brotherhood line," says Trager.


Qatar also funds many Muslim Brotherhood figures in exile, including Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal, who is believed to have orchestrated numerous Hamas terrorist attacks.


"I think this is a case of a country with a lot of money to burn making a certain calculation in 2011 that made a lot of sense at the time: that the Brotherhood was the next big thing that was going to dominate many of the countries of the region," says Trager. "Realistically, it made sense to bet on it."


Turkey has "more of an ideological sympathy with the Brotherhood," he says.

Last week, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke with CNN, accusing Israel of "genocide."


"Erdogan has tried to use the cause of the Brotherhood to bolster his own Islamist credentials at home," says Trager. Last year, Erdogan cracked down on mass demonstrations in his country.


Iran and Syria


Iran has long supported Hamas, supplying it with weapons. And Meshaal used to be based in Syria.


But that changed. In 2012, Meshaal left Syria as the country's civil war deepened -- a decision believed to have caused a breakdown in his relationship with Iran as well, says Firas Abi Ali, head of Middle East and North Africa Country Risk and Forecasting at the global information company IHS. Tehran is aligned with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime.


Now, Syria -- Israel's neighbor to the north -- is locked in a brutal, multiparty civil war, with Islamist extremists hoisting severed heads onto poles. The war, believed to have killed more than 115,000 people, is just one of the many developments emphasizing how many "fault lines" there are in the region, Richard Haass, president of Council on Foreign Relations, told "CNN Tonight."


"There's fault lines within the Palestinians between Hamas and the other part of the Palestinian Authority. You have Sunnis vs. Shia. You have Iran vs. Saudi Arabia and the Arabs. You have secularists vs. people who embrace religion in the political space."


The Palestinian Authority

Paying a price for all this is another key player: Fatah, the Palestinian faction that controls the West Bank. Fatah and Hamas have long fought each other, but earlier this year made another effort at a unity government.


Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who is in charge of the government in the West Bank, "seems politically exhausted by all the twists and turns he has made in search of a durable solution," the Soufan Gruop says. "And the one chance of reasserting his authority through a unity government that would have forced Hamas into a subordinate and less militant role has now disappeared. He must now watch helplessly as protests in the West Bank undo whatever progress he had made towards a two-state solution." via Free Rep.

==============================

US fails to back Israel in UN Security Council vote:

7/28/14, "UN Security Council calls for immediate Gaza ceasefire," dw.de/un, AP, AFP, Reuters

"The statement was passed unanimously, with all 15 Security Council members voting in favor of the statement....This came just hours after US President Barack Obama spoke via telephone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling on him to work for a sustainable ceasefire.

In a statement, the White House said Obama had "made clear the strategic imperative of instituting an immediate, unconditional humanitarian ceasefire that ends hostilities now and leads to a permanent cessation of hostilities based on the November 2012 ceasefire agreement."...

===============================

Obama admin. backs Islamic terrorists:

7/28/14, "US and Egypt find themselves at odds once again," Jerusalem Post, Zvi Mazel

==============================

Map of Israel's Sunni and Shia neighbors:





=======================

.

US embassy in Tel Aviv cancels tourist visa applications, reduces staff claiming security concerns. Does US fear Hamas attack? To obtain US entry Israelis should simply get visa to Honduras or Guatemala, hop a train to the US, tell border patrol in Spanish that gangs are bad at home, you'll be welcomed in for as long as you wish to stay!

.
7/30/14, "US Embassy in Tel Aviv Severely Restricts Visas for Israelis," Israel National News, Tova Dvorin

"Tourist visa process cancelled until further notice, embassy announces. Is it a matter of security, or discrimination?"

"The US embassy in Tel Aviv has cancelled tourist visa applications for Israelis, according to a statement on its official website, in a move it claims is a matter of staffing and security.
  
"Due to the current security situation in Tel Aviv, U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv remains open but is operating at reduced staffing until further notice, and has canceled routine visa application processing and American Citizen services," the statement says. "Emergencies involving an American citizen and visa applications will be considered on a case by case basis."

The statement surfaces in the midst of both souring US-Israel relations and an already-pressured visa crisis, which has seen the visa process for Israelis grow more and more difficult over the past year.

In April, US Secretary of State John Kerry announced an internal review into claims that hundreds of young Israelis were being barred from entering the US for political reasons.

An initial investigation found that the rejection rate of visa applications for young Israelis ages 21-26 had doubled, from 16% in 2009 to 32% in 2014; Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro stated that the visa crisis is close to coming to an end several days later [in April 2014]. 

"The department will take immediate steps to increase the number of young Israelis that can travel to the US according to our immigration laws," Shapiro wrote, in a Facebook post.

"The law dictates that applicants must prove that they intend to return to Israel in making the request, and that the visa does not allow recipients to stay beyond the designated time period or to work legally in the US," he said. "But we are aware of the fact that although two-thirds of young applicants receive visas, some people harbor a misconception that young Israelis are not welcome in the USA."  

"Surely that's not true," he continued. "Israel is one of the US's closest allies, and we welcome all networking between Israelis and Americans, including visits to the United States."

Israeli officials have yet to respond to the letter, which responds to earlier claims that political motivations were at stake in the visa rejections.

Earlier this year, Israeli security officials also claimed they were being targeted by the US, and that hundreds of defense officials were turned away from making important visits to Washington.

Major Israeli politicians claimed in May that the US had been "humiliating" them during the visa application process for years [since at least 2011], according to a report in Yediot Aharonot, and had been forced to endure long wait times for acceptance and allowed only brief visits 

to their alleged ally." via Pamela Geller

==============================

Free Republic commenter to above article:

"Israelis that want to visit the US have to do it the official way preferred by Washington. First, get a visa to Honduras or Guatemala. When you arrive there, walk over to Mexico and hop on La Beastia. At the last stop, hop over to Border Patrol, tell them in Spanish you are 14 and persecuted. When Israelis do this, not only will they be here in the US, but they will get a ride to various cities around the country free of charge, an $800 EBT for vacation money, drivers license, housing, food. Plenty of health care should the need arise..."...

"13 posted on 7/30/2014, 3:20:41 PM by C210N (When people fear government there is tyranny; when government fears people there is liberty) " 



.

The phone rang and Obama told Netanyahu that Israel must lose. Israeli Left is stunned to learn that PLO is irrelevant, their beloved Obama backs genocidal Islamic Hamas terrorists, is no disinterested isolationist but entirely driven by adoration of Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic terrorism

.
7/29/14, "Israel, Hamas and Obama's foreign policy," Caroline B. Glick, Jerusalem Post

"Americans need to be alarmed by what Obama’s actions on behalf of Hamas reveal about the general direction of American Middle East policy under his leadership.

When US President Barack Obama phoned Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday night, in the middle of a security cabinet meeting, he ended any remaining doubt regarding his policy toward Israel and Hamas. 

Obama called Netanyahu while the premier was conferring with his senior ministers about how to proceed in Gaza. Some ministers counseled that Israel should continue to limit our forces to specific pinpoint operations aimed at destroying the tunnels of death that Hamas has dug throughout Gaza and into Israeli territory. 

Others argued that the only way to truly destroy the tunnels, and keep them destroyed, is for Israel to retake control over the Gaza Strip. 

No ministers were recommending that Israel end its operations in Gaza completely. The longer our soldiers fight, the more we learn about the vast dimensions of the Hamas’s terror arsenal, and about the Muslim Brotherhood group’s plans and strategy for using it to destabilize, demoralize and ultimately destroy Israeli society. 

The IDF’s discovery of Hamas’s Rosh Hashana plot was the last straw for any Israeli leftists still harboring fantasies about picking up our marbles and going home. Hamas’s plan to use its tunnels to send hundreds of terrorists into multiple Israeli border communities simultaneously and carry out a massacre of unprecedented scope, replete with the abduction of hostages to Gaza, was the rude awakening the Left had avoided since it pushed for Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza.

In other words, in their discussion Sunday night, Netanyahu and his ministers were without illusions about the gravity of the situation and the imperative of winning – however defined. 

But then the telephone rang. And Obama told Netanyahu that Israel must lose. He wants an unconditional “humanitarian” cease-fire that will lead to a permanent one.

And he wants it now. 

And by the way, the eventual terms of that cease-fire must include opening Hamas-controlled Gaza’s borders with Egypt and Israel and ending Israel’s maritime blockade of the Gaza coast. That is, the cease-fire must allow Hamas to rebuild its arsenal of death and destruction quickly, with US political and financial support. 

Until Obama made the call, there was lingering doubt among some Israelis regarding his intentions. Some thought that US Secretary of State John Kerry might have been acting of his own accord last Friday night when he tried to force Israel to accept Hamas’s cease-fire terms. 

But then Obama made his phone call. And all doubts were dispelled. 

Kerry is just a loyal steward of Obama’s foreign policy. 

Obama is siding with Hamas, and its Muslim Brotherhood patrons in Qatar and Turkey, against Israel, and its Sunni Arab supporters – Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. 

It is Obama who demands that Hamas have open borders so it can resupply, and receive billions of dollars – starting with an immediate cash injection of $47 million from US taxpayers – so it can pay North Korea for more missiles and import building materials to reconstruct its tunnels. 

The fact that the US’s current preference for genocidal, Jew-hating jihadists over the only liberal, pro-American, stable US ally in the Middle East is a White House position, rather than that of a rogue Secretary of State was actually exposed even before Obama’s phone call. 

Sunday CNN’s Candy Crowley interviewed Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes. She asked him what the administration thinks Israel can do to prevent civilians from being killed in Gaza beyond what it is already doing. Rhodes replied, “I think you can always do more.” 

In other words, Rhodes said that no matter what precautions Israel takes to try to minimize Palestinian civilian deaths in Gaza, the administration will never be satisfied. The White House will never acknowledge that Israel is in the right, or that it is fighting a moral war against a barbaric foe. 

And since the administration will never be satisfied, Israel can expect to be condemned by various UN bodies, including the Security Council, because no matter what it does to try to earn the support of the administration, it will never receive such support. 

The discovery that the Obama administration is entirely in Hamas’s corner hit all of Israel hard. But it hit the Left the hardest. Few on the Right, which recognized Obama’s hostility from the outset of his presidency, were surprised. 

As for political leaders, the government cannot risk giving the administration justification for its anti-Israel policies, so senior ministers have all said nothing. 

Consequently, the harshest criticisms of the administration’s pro-Hamas position were heard from quarters where rarely a peep of criticism for Obama has been heard. 

The Israeli Left went ballistic. 

Haaretz, the far-left broadsheet that has seldom taken issue with even the harshest rejections of Israel’s rights, went bananas after its reporter Barak Ravid received the details of Kerry’s cease-fire agreement. As Ravid put it, Kerry’s document, “might as well have been penned by Khaled Mashaal. 

It was everything Hamas could have hoped for.” 

Ravid continued, “What Kerry’s draft spells for the internal Palestinian political arena is even direr: It crowns Hamas and issues Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with a death warrant.” 

And that is really the crux of the issue. The crowd at Haaretz is far more wedded to the PLO and Mahmoud Abbas than it is to the government of Israel. And the (Obama) administration’s support for Hamas exposed the PLO as an irrelevance. 

As the paper’s Amos Harel wrote the next day, Kerry’s pro-Hamas behavior convinced the Egyptians and other actors that the (Obama) administration is continuing its secret love affairs with the Muslim Brotherhood in the region.”

The Left understands that the (Obama) administration’s behavior has destroyed it. 

Leftists can no longer say that Israeli territorial withdrawals will win it international support. 

They can no longer say that Israel will receive US support if it places the security of Palestinian civilians above the security of its own civilians and military forces. 

They can no longer say that the PLO is the answer. 

The Israeli Left has been Obama’s ace in the hole since he first ran for office, fresh from the pews in Jeremiah Wright’s anti-Semitic church. They were the grease in the wheels that legitimized the administration’s anti-Israel pressure group J Street. They were the ones who could be counted on to tell the US media and the American Jews that Netanyahu is to blame for Obama’s hostility.

Yet, rather than backtrack, and try to save the Israeli Left, the (Obama) administration doubled down on Monday, releasing a series of statements condemning the Israeli media’s condemnations of Kerry’s pro-Hamas position.

By Monday afternoon, the administration went so far as to say that by criticizing Kerry, Israel’s media were endangering their country’s alliance with the US. 

In other words, through his actions, Obama demonstrated that his love affairs with the Muslim Brotherhood in the region,” are so central to his foreign policy calculations that he is willing to destroy the Israeli Left in order to strengthen the Brotherhood. 

And this leads us to the larger point about Obama’s foreign policy, which his Sunday night telephone call to Netanyahu revealed. As rattled as Israelis are over Obama’s decision to support Hamas against Israel, Netanyahu made clear in his remarks Monday night that Israel has no choice but to keep fighting until we defeat this barbaric enemy. 

Netanyahu didn’t mention Obama, but it was obvious that he was respectfully refusing to hand Israel’s head on a platter to Hamas’s friend in the White House. 

And while it is hard for Israel to ignore Obama, it is impossible for Americans to ignore him. He runs their foreign policy. 

Americans are the ones who need to be most alarmed by what Obama’s actions on behalf of Hamas reveal about the general direction of American Middle East policy under his leadership. 

For the past five years, Americans from all quarters have concluded that the manifold failures of Obama’s Middle East policies – from  

Iraq to Iran, 
Libya, 
Afghanistan, 
Egypt, 
Syria, 
Israel, 
the Palestinian Authority and beyond – 

owe to a combination of Obama’s personal disinterest in foreign affairs and his presumed preference for withdrawal and isolationism over engagement. 

Obama himself has often encouraged this perception with his endless golf games and his talk about fighting 

“the war at home.” 

Obama’s open, public engagement in Hamas’s war against Israel shows that 

the popular assessment is wrong

Obama is as involved in the Middle East as all of his immediate predecessors were. He is personally leading US policy on every front. Kerry is not an independent actor. 

The problem is that in every war, in every conflict and in every contest of wills that has occurred in the Middle East since Obama took office, he has sided with Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, 

against America’s allies.
.
Under Obama, America has switched sides."

"The writer is the author of The Israeli Solution: A One- State Plan for Peace in the Middle East." via Free Rep.

===============================

The UN Ambassador of Obama's heart:

6/6/13, "Samantha Power and the UN are a perfect match," UK Mail Online, Phillips Blog, Melanie Phillips

"And so it came to pass. Samantha Power has finally made it into the top tier of the Obama administration.

Power is reputed to be one of President Obama’s closest advisers. Until now, she was the relatively lowly director of multilateral affairs at the National Security Council. With her reported imminent appointment as the US Ambassador to the United Nations, what I predicted at the beginning of the Obama presidency has now happened: that in a second term, he would promote to the front rank those who were so extreme and so dangerous to the well being of America and the civilised world, that in his first term, so as not to frighten the horses, he would keep them in the lower ranks out of sight.

Well, we should all be frightened by Samantha Power.

She is the living embodiment of the way in which ‘human rights’ have morphed into their absolute opposite, and instead of providing a protection against tyranny have been turned into the anvil upon which freedom and justice are being smashed.

A supposed expert on genocide, having argued that nations have a moral obligation to prevent it, she was asked in 2002 as a ‘thought experiment’ what she would advise the US President to do about the Israel-Palestinian problem ‘if one party or another [starts] looking like they might be moving toward genocide’. She responded to this already disturbingly loaded question:

‘...what we need is a willingness to put something on the line in helping the situation. Putting something on the line might mean alienating a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import; it may more crucially mean sacrificing — or investing, I think, more than sacrificing — billions of dollars, not in servicing Israel’s military, but actually investing in the new state of Palestine, in investing the billions of dollars it would probably take, also, to support what will have to be a mammoth protection force, not of the old Rwanda kind, but a meaningful military presence. Because it seems to me at this stage (and this is true of actual genocides as well, and not just major human rights abuses, which were seen there), you have to go in as if you’re serious, you have to put something on the line.
‘Unfortunately, imposition of a solution on unwilling parties is dreadful. It’s a terrible thing to do, it’s fundamentally undemocratic. But, sadly, we don’t just have a democracy here either, we have a liberal democracy. There are certain sets of principles that guide our policy, or that are meant to, anyway. It’s essential that some set of principles becomes the benchmark, rather than a deference to [leaders] who are fundamentally politically destined to destroy the lives of their own people. And by that I mean what Tom Friedman has called “Sharafat.” [Sharon/Arafat] I do think in that sense, both political leaders have been dreadfully irresponsible. And, unfortunately, it does require external intervention’ [my emphasis].

Clearly, despite the careful nods to a (disgusting) moral equivalence Power was not talking about invading the disputed territories beyond Israel’s borders to prevent the Palestinians from committing genocide or major human rights abuses against Israel by wiping out the Jewish national homeland -- an aim to which their leadership remains committed in word and deed.

No, she was talking about invading Israel to prevent a genocide, or major human rights abuses, (her language wasn’t clear, but the point is the same), against the Palestinians -- something which, in any rational universe, not only could not possibly be laid at Israel’s door but also held out the possibility that Israel might commit atrocities against people who themselves make Israel the victim of precisely such atrocities (and indeed, commit them regularly against other Palestinians).

She also suggested that defending Israel was not a cause that should be dear to all Americans and indeed all decent people everywhere, nor that the great majority of Americans do indeed thus support Israel, but that the only people who might be alienated by invading Israel would be American Jews who exercised tremendous political and financial power over American politics.

Subsequently she said of these comments that she couldn’t remember what she had said and didn’t understand what she had meant.

Maybe a clue lies in what she told the New Statesman during Obama’s first presidential campaign:

'So much of it is about: "Is he going to be good for the Jews?" ' 

Or when she bemoaned the tendency of US policymakers

‘to defer reflexively to Israeli security assessments, and to replicate Israeli tactics…’

Failing to understand herself seems to be a persistent problem beyond this amnesia about her own bigotry. In March 2008, she called Hillary Clinton

‘a monster...the amount of deceit she has put forward is really unattractive.’

Later she said of these remarks:

‘Of course I regret them... I can’t even believe they came out of my mouth.’ 

Here are some of her other activities to date.

In April 2003 she signed a Statement on Cuba, initiated by the Democratic Socialists of America member Leo Casey calling for the lifting of trade sanctions against Cuba.

Along with Susan Rice (the former UN ambassador, now appointed Obama’s National Security Adviser, heaven help us) and Hillary Clinton, the former Secretary of State, Power is considered a key architect of the disastrous Libyan intervention.

And despite her advocacy of attack or invasion to prevent threatened genocides, she has sneered at concerns about the race to build a nuclear bomb by Iran, which has repeatedly threatened genocide against the Jews of Israel, as a figment of the war-mongering Republican imagination.

Samantha Power and the UN are thus a perfect match."



.

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

George W. Bush presents Oct. 2001 photo to Derek Jeter at farewell game in Texas

.












7/30/14, "New York Yankees Derek Jeter, left, and former President George W. Bush greet each other during a ceremony honoring Jeter before a baseball game against the Texas Rangers Wednesday, July 30, 2014," in Arlington, Texas, AP











7/30/14, "43rd US President George W. Bush waves at New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter (2) during a pre game ceremony before the game at Globe Life Park in Arlington on Wednesday, July 30, 2014. (Vernon Bryant/The Dallas Morning News)," "Looking for Jeter's potential heir? Rangers' Elvis Andrus just might fit the bill," Dallas Morning News, Evan Grant. Yankees lose to Texas 3-2.

Oct. 30, 2001, Derek Jeter to Pres. Bush before he threw ceremonial first pitch at World Series game 3 in New York City,  

""Don't bounce it, they'll boo you," Bush remembers him saying."....Final 2-1 Yankees over Diamondbacks


"President Bush with a presentation to Derek Jeter. A signed photo of them together before Game 3 of the 2001 World Series." Jeff Wilson, Fort Worth Star-Telegram twitter



.

Ted Cruz put hold on Obama State Dept. nominees until questions were answered about $47 million US taxpayer dollars being shipped to Hamas terrorists-Debbie Schlussel

.
7/24/14, "MENSCH: Ted Cruz Blocks State Dept Nominees Over Aid to HAMAS, Grounded Flights to Israel," DebbieSchlussel.com

"Ted Cruz is truly the only Republican with any balls (for the record, it’s a foregone conclusion that no Dems have any) and the only one who deserves the GOP Presidential nomination in the near future. He demonstrates his courage time and again no matter the issue. And this time, he’s doing so by putting a hold on all Obama State Department nominees, until the Obama Administration answers questions regarding why it is sending $47 million in additional funds to HAMAS and why it grounded Israeli flights in a manner that can only have been meant to hurt Israeli tourism.

As you may know, despite HAMAS’ daily rocket barrage on Israel, your tax money is going to fund at least $47 million in aid to HAMAS from the United States. Just like the millions the Bush Administration sent to Hezbollah-controlled South Lebanon (all of which was doled out by Hezbollah) when Hezbollah went to war against Israel in 2006, the Obama Administration insists on showering your money on HAMAS in an identical fashion. 

And as for the Obama FAA diversion of all flights to Israel this week, here’s a tip: despite the rockets falling, I’d feel safer landing in Israel at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport than I would at any airport in the United States. Israel, for instance, doesn’t have the laser pointer problems. By the way, have you ever tried landing in Ukraine? Or Nigeria? Or Yemen? Uh-huh, those places are soooooo safe. Right?

Yesterday, my friend Paul Teller, Cruz’s Deputy Chief of Staff, sent me this press release:

"UNITED STATES SENATE"

"Sen. Ted Cruz Press Office

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Catherine Frazier: 202-228-7561
July 23, 2014 

Cruz: I Will Hold All State Department Nominees Until Questions Are Answered About Israeli Flight Ban

WASHINGTON, D.C. –U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, announced that he will hold all State Department nominees until the Obama Administration answers questions about its unprecedented decision to cancel flights to Israel, while at the same time announcing continuing aid that will be funneled to the terrorist organization, Hamas.

Earlier today, Sen. Cruz questioned whether the FAA’s decision to ban all U.S. flights to Israel amounted to an economic boycott

of the nation and asked that five questions about the ban be answered. When asked about his remarks, a State Department spokesperson said the questions were “offensive and ridiculous.”

Serious questions were asked about the nature of a decision that handed Hamas a public relations victory and will cost Israel billions of dollars,” said Sen. Cruz. “The only thing ‘offensive’ about this situation is how the Obama Administration is spurning our allies to embolden our enemies; the only thing ‘ridiculous’ is the administration’s response to basic questions. Until the State Department answers my questions, I will hold all State Department nominees.”

The five questions Sen. Cruz is asking are below:

Was this a political decision driven by the White House? For instance, who was this decision made by – a career official, a political appointee, or someone else (at the FAA, State Department or White House)?

If the FAA’s decision was based on airline safety, why was Israel singled out when flights would be permitted into Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen?

What was the FAA’s ‘safety’ analysis that led to prohibiting flights to Israel, while still permitting flights to Ukraine—where a commercial airline flight was just shot down with a BUK missile?

What specific communications occurred between the FAA and the White House? And the State Department? Why were any such communications necessary, if this was purely about airline safety?
Was this a safety issue, or was it using a federal regulatory agency to punish Israel to try to force them to comply with Secretary Kerry’s demand that Israel stop their military effort to take out Hamas’s rocket capacity?

The full statement Sen. Cruz released earlier today, asking if the FAA ban amounted to an economic boycott of Israel may be viewed at http://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=1593.###"

Right on, brother! This guy is a mensch."

=======================

Map of Israel's Sunni and Shia neighbors:




=======================

Comment: Regarding the term "Republican," meaning holding principles in opposition to those of the Democrat Party which you aren't embarrassed about and won't relinquish to become a member of the UniParty, Ted Cruz is one of few today who qualify. The Republican Party basically ceased to exist after Nov. 2008 except as a group that collects $1 billion every 4 years running a losing candidate. The George Bush crowd wasn't and isn't Republican and in any case deliberately destroyed the Republican Party. The US hasn't had an actual Republican president since Reagan which is mainly Reagan's fault. He knew George Bush was a vicious person but made him VP anyway.




International Union head says Qatar is "a slave state," nothing being done to correct it, 90% of Qatar work force is immigrant, Amnesty Int. says workers treated like 'animals,' hundreds die on construction sites-AFP

.
6/6/14, "Unions slam 'slave state' Qatar, up World Cup campaign," AFP, Jonathan Fowler, Geneva

"International unions on Thursday slammed 2022 World Cup host Qatar over the treatment of migrant laborers and condemned what they call the systematic exploitation of workers at sporting events worldwide.

"Qatar is a slave state," said Sharan Burrow, head of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

Speaking on the sidelines of the annual congress of the International Labour Organization (ILO) -- the UN's labour agency-- Burrow said little real action had been taken to improve labourers' working conditions. "We haven't unearthed the worst of it yet," she said.

Migrants, mostly from South Asia, form over 90 percent of the labour force in Qatar, where 88 percent of the population is from outside the country. Human rights campaigners Amnesty International say they are treated like "animals," with hundreds dying on construction sites. The ITUC warns that at current rates, as many as 4,000 might be killed by the time the tournament kicks off.

The energy-rich emirate is also facing swirling claims that corruption played a role in the surprise decision by world football's governing body FIFA to name it host of the 2022 showcase. "The danger now is that the corruption issue -- which is very serious of course -- is going to overshadow the situation of workers on the ground," Burrow warned.

Long-running concerns have been given fresh impetus by the World Cup drive and Qatar's breakneck economic development.
Burrow said workers' living conditions in Qatar were all too often squalid, with inadequate food and medical care.

Qatar's "kafala" visa-sponsorship system handcuffs foreigners to their local employer. South Asian workers pay middlemen huge sums to win a work permit, and fear that complaining will mean getting fired and deported -- if their employer even agrees to an exit visa.

Domestic workers, mostly women, who suffer abuse also struggle to free themselves from employers.

"How can we allow, as human beings, that Qatar can have a World Cup when they are still abusing domestic sector and contract workers," said Myrtle Witbooi, chair of the International Domestic Workers Network. The International Transport Federation has also filed a complaint against Qatar Airways at the ILO over its treatment of white-collar employees."...


.

Media "death count" instead of actual reporting encourages Hamas "dead baby" strategy which it has used continuously since 2005-Alan Dershowitz

.
7/15/14, "Media death count encourages Hamas to use human shields," Alan Dershowitz, Jerusalem Post opinion

"By emphasizing the comparative body counts without providing the reasons for the disparity, the media plays into the hands of Hamas, and encourages that terrorist organization to continue to pursue its dead baby strategy.

The media loves to count the dead bodies on each side of a conflict. It’s much easier to count than to explain. Hamas knows this. That’s why they employ what has come to be known as the dead baby strategy”.

Hamas’ strategy since Israel left Gaza in 2005 has been exactly the same. The media response has been exactly the same. And Hamas will continue to employ a strategy that causes many Palestinian civilians to die as long as the media keeps up its thoughtless body count. 

Here’s the way it works: Hamas deliberately fires its rockets from densely populated civilian areas, using hospitals, disability centers, mosques and schools as launching sites. This puts Israel to the tragic choice of either allowing the rockets to endanger its civilians or to destroy the rocket launchers, thereby risking civilian casualties among Hamas’ human shields. Often Israel chooses to forgo attacking military targets, so as not to put Palestinian civilians at risk. Sometimes it has no choice, because the rocket fire against its civilians is persistent. Palestinian civilians are killed despite Israel’s best efforts precisely because Hamas wants civilians to be killed, especially if these civilians are children, women or the elderly. Hamas stands ready to parade these human shields in front of the media which is eager to show the dead and count the bodies. 

Hamas could easily reduce the death and injury toll among its civilians, by simply allowing them to go underground into tunnels and shelters which abound throughout Gaza. But Hamas has a deliberate policy of refusing to allow civilians to enter the tunnels or shelters. They reserve these places of refuge for their fighters and commanders, which explains why so few Hamas fighters have been killed. If Hamas were to reverse its policy and allow civilians into the shelters while requiring its fighters to stay above ground, the ratio of civilians to fighters killed would dramatically change. That is why in each of the wars between Hamas and Israel there have been more Palestinian than Israeli civilian deaths and injuries. It is part of Hamas’ dead baby strategy and it works, because the media facilitates it.  
 

The media also emphasizes the fact that thus far no Israelis have been killed by Hamas rocket fire. Indeed some media and international organizations seem implicitly to be condemning Israel for protecting the lives of its own citizens, by repeatedly pointing out that none have died, while Palestinian deaths have reached nearly 200. The reason there have been no Israeli deaths so far is because Israel spends hundreds of millions of dollars trying to protect its civilians, while Hamas spends its resources deliberately exposing its civilians to the risks of Israeli counterattacks.  Israel has built shelters all throughout the country and has spent a fortune on the Iron Dome system. The results have been impressive, though many Israelis suffer from trauma, shock and the inevitable long term consequences of being exposed to constant rocket fire.

How many times have you heard, seen or read the body counts:  nearly 200 Palestinians dead, no Israelis dead. This is usually accompanied by an accusation that Israel is violating the international law requirement of “proportionality.” This is a misuse of the term, which has a precise meaning in international law that reflects a broader morality. Under international law, a nation has the right to attack military targets. Period! It doesn’t matter whether the rockets coming from these launchers have as yet succeeded in their task of killing civilians. There can be no doubt under international law that rocket launchers, and the fighters who employ them are legitimate military targets. Israel is therefore entitled to attack these targets, even if no Israeli civilians have been killed, so long as it can do so without causing disproportionate civilian casualties. 

This rule was not addressed to an enemy that deliberately uses human shields to protect its military targets
and combatants against legitimate attacks. Proportionality is not judged by the number of civilians actually killed by Hamas rockets, but rather by the risks posed to Israelis. These risks have been diminished, but not eliminated by the Iron Dome system. They have also been considerably diminished by Israel’s counterattacks on the missile launchers and those who employ them. Without these counterattacks, it is highly likely that more Hamas missiles would have made it through the Iron Dome system which has been approximately 85% effective. Israel has every right under the rules of proportionality to attack these military targets, so long as they take reasonable efforts to reduce civilian casualties. They have done so by leafleting, by calling, and by other methods of warning civilians to leave target areas. Hamas leaders, on the other hand, have urged, and sometimes compelled, their civilians to remain in harm’s way as human shields.

The media, by emphasizing the comparative body counts without providing the reasons for the disparity, play into the hands of Hamas and encourage that terrorist organization, to continue to pursue its dead baby strategy. So the next time those in the media promote a body count without explanation, they should point a finger at themselves for contributing to this deadly count.".

==================

Washington Post Editorial Board notes deadly tactics of Hamas:

7/15/14, "Hamas is playing a dangerous game with Gazan lives," Washington Post Editorial Board  


===================

On one side, the US government, Turkey, Qatar, the EU, Arab League, UN, and NY Times. On the other side, Israel, Egypt, the Saudis, Emiratis, Jordanians, Palestinian Authority, and the majority of Americans especially Republicans:
.
7/28/14, "Even Gaza Truce Is Hard to Win, Kerry Is Finding," NY Times, Michael R. Gordon

"Humanitarian aid was to be delivered during the pause, and the United States, Turkey, Qatar, the European Union, the Arab League and the United Nations pledged to “address the needs of the people of Gaza.”"... 

========================= 

July 2014 Pew Poll finds support for Israel has continued to grow among all Americans especially Republicans, 1978-2014:

7/15/14, "As Mideast Violence Continues, a Wide Partisan Gap in Israel-Palestinian Sympathies," people-press.org. (Pew Research)

















"As violence between Israel and Hamas shows no signs of abating, the sympathies of the American public continue to lie with Israel rather than the Palestinians."...

New national survey by Pew Research Center was conducted July 8-14 among 1,805 adults.
.
======================

Comment: Television networks and channels get well deserved credit for "death counts" but one outlet I've listened to for many years doesn't get enough credit. I'd like to give special mention to ABC Radio Networks and the local outlets it feeds for the most vicious, hateful coverage 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for decades. 


.