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Archive for September 2015
Shana Tova Blessings to IDF Soldiers – YouTube
September 13, 2015House Passes Bill Blocking Obama from Lifting Iran Sanctions
September 12, 2015On Friday, Sept. 11, The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted down approval of the Iran Deal and voted to block implementation of the deal. By: Lori Lowenthal Marcus Published: September 12th, 2015
Source: The Jewish Press » » House Passes Bill Blocking Obama from Lifting Iran Sanctions
Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY-1)
Photo Credit: Facebook
At the very last minute the House of Representatives is acting as if the house is on fire. Finally.
First, the House voted on Friday – the day after the Senate seemed to hand the President a victory – against the approval of the Nuclear Iran Deal. The vote was 269 to 162.
The House also acted on a bill which was introduced by Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) and Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) on Wednesday, Sept. 9.
That bill, HR 3460, blocks U.S. President Barack Obama from in any way lifting sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program, or from releasing individuals from specially designated terrorist lists which would otherwise be released under the proposed terms of the Nuclear Iran Deal.
The bill not only seeks to prevent the president from lifting sanctions now, it seeks to prevent him from lifting them until the end of his term as president, which is January 21, 2017.
The bill passed by a vote of 247 to 186.
Following the passage of HR 3460, Congressman Zeldin said,
“The President must not lift sanctions on Iran to implement this fatally flawed deal. The leverage that brought the Iranians to the table was the sanctions relief. Negotiating away our leverage while leaving so much out of the agreement is a historic strategic mistake.
“Iran is the largest state sponsor of terrorism, actively working to overthrow foreign governments, while pledging to wipe Israel off the map and chanting Death to America in their streets. So much wasn’t even part of the negotiations, including Iran’s continued efforts to develop ICBMs, blow up mock U.S. warships and unjustly imprison American citizens, including a U.S. Marine, a Pastor and a Reporter.
“This is a fatally flawed deal that paves the path to worsening instability and turmoil in the Middle East and is on track to trigger a nuclear arms race in the region. Furthermore, Congress has not even received the entire agreement yet from the President, specifically the critical components of the deal that would outline the verification agreements entered into between the IAEA and Iran. The President says this deal is not based on trust; it is based on verification, but we don’t even know the full details of the verification regime. It’s unfortunate that some members of Congress choose party loyalty over national security. I also want to thank Congressman Roskam for his very thoughtful and determined effort with this noble cause.”
Congressman Roskam said, “This dangerous nuclear agreement is what happens when the Administration capitulates to the world’s leading state-sponsor of terrorism. Under no circumstances should Congress be complicit in giving Iran a $150 billion cash infusion to further fund attacks against the United States and our allies. That’s why today the House passed this important bill to prevent President Obama from lifting statutory sanctions against Iran under this deeply flawed deal. I want to thank Congressman Zeldin for his leadership on this issue critical to U.S. national security.”
The following is the text of the bill that was passed by the House on Friday, September 11.
A BILL To suspend until January 21, 2017, the authority of the President to waive, suspend, reduce, provide relief from, or otherwise limit the application of sanctions pursuant to an agreement related to the nuclear program of Iran. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SUSPENSION OF AUTHORITY TO WAIVE, SUSPEND, REDUCE, PROVIDE RELIEF FROM, OR OTHERWISE LIMIT THE APPLICATION OF SANCTIONS PURSUANT TO AN AGREEMENT RELATED TO THE NUCLEAR PROGRAM OF IRAN.
(a) IN GENERAL.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, prior to January 21, 2017, the President may not— (1) waive, suspend, reduce, provide relief from, or otherwise limit the application of sanctions described in subsection (b) or refrain from applying any such sanctions; or (2) remove a foreign person listed in Attachment 3 or Attachment 4 to Annex II of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action from the list of specially designated nationals and blocked persons maintained by the Office of Foreign Asset Control of the Department of the Treasury.
(b) SANCTIONS DESCRIBED.—The sanctions described in this subsection are— 1) the sanctions described in sections 4 through 7.9 of Annex II of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action; and (2) the sanctions described in any other agreement related to the nuclear program of Iran that includes the United States, commits the United States to take action, or pursuant to which the United States commits or otherwise agrees to take action, regardless of the form it takes, whether a political commitment or otherwise, and regardless of whether it is legally binding or not.
(c) JOINT COMPREHENSIVE PLAN OF ACTION DEFINED.—In this section, the term ‘‘Joint ComprehensivePlan of Action’’ means the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, signed at Vienna on July 14, 2015, by Iran and by the People’s Republic of China, France, Germany, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States, with the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and all implementing materials and agreements related to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
Senate: your turn.
Not Satire (?) | Obama To Receive Second Nobel Peace Prize
September 12, 2015Obama To Receive Second Nobel Peace Prize, USA Today,
(It may — or may not — be a hoax. I have found no other such reports.
Update: Yep. It appears to be. Other articles by the same writer at the same source include Cynthia Francis, Wife of Pope Francis, Seeks Annulment To 38-Year Marriage. — DM)
(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
The Norwegian Nobel Committee, based in Oslo Norway, announced yesterday the name of their laureate for the 2015 Nobel Prize for Peace. President Barack Hussain Obama is their selection for this years prestigious award. With the Nobel Institutes selection, President Obama becomes the third man ever to win a Nobel Prize more than one time. He joins legendary physicist John Bardeen and brilliant chemist Fredrick Sanger, who were each awarded two Nobels in their respective fields.
President Obama’s first Nobel Peace Prize was awarded by the committee shortly after he took office in 2009. Viewed as contentious at the time, his selection as a laureate was described by the committee as being due to his creation in international politics of a new political climate which emphasized multilateralism and his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. Strong objections were raised at the time by many who were critical of the Nobel Committee’s choice of President Obama. Many argued that his selection so soon after having ascended to the Presidency was a political handout from the Norwegians. He had not been in a position to effect international diplomacy for any measurable time. Nor had he actually accomplished any action of note that had led to the spread of international peace. It seemed that he had been selected for no other reason than that he was elected to the Presidency.
Fast forward to the year 2015 and the Nobel Committee has once again selected President Obama, though this time he has had ample time and opportunity to make his mark upon the world stage. The Nobel Committee cited three separate contributing factors which led to their choice of President Obama a second time. The first was his for his leadership in brokering a diplomatic solution to the disarmament of chemical weapons in Syria. The second was for his strong commitment to drawing down the military presence of The United States in foreign countries, most notably Afghanistan and Iraq. The third was for his strong and continuing support of the United Nations and international law. Specifically his commitment to the U.N Assembly to move aggressively forward on U.N. resolution 21 and provide support for UNODA.
The peace prize will be awarded to President Obama on October the tenth of this year at the Nobel Institute’s Oslo headquarters. President Obama has expressed his gratitude to the Nobel Committee for their consideration of him as a laureate. He has subsequently pledged to donate the cash portion of the annual Nobel Prize to several charities that serve the domestic United States.
A rigged vote, no real debate
September 11, 2015A rigged vote, no real debate, Gatestone Institute, Alan M. Dershowitz, September 11, 2015
This has been a bad month for democracy, for serious debate and for the treatment of all Americans as equally capable of deciding important issue on their merits and demerits. Whether it also turns out to have been a bad month for peace and nuclear non-proliferation remains to be seen. But even those who support the deal should be ashamed of some of the undemocratic tactics and bigoted arguments employed to avoid a real debate and a majority vote.
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When I was growing up, “filibuster” was a dirty word. It was a tactic used by bigoted southern Senators to prevent the enactment of any civil rights legislation. I recall Senator Strom Thurman babbling on for 24 hours in an effort to keep the south racially segregated. We regarded the filibuster as the enemy of democracy and the weapon of choice against civil rights.
Yet, President Obama and his followers in the senate deployed this undemocratic weapon in order to stifle real debate about the nuclear deal with Iran and to prevent the up or down vote promised by the Corker bill. A President, who was more confident of the deal, would have welcomed the Lincoln-Douglas type debates that I and others had called for regarding the most important foreign policy decision of the 21st century. But instead of arguments on the merits and demerits of the deal, what we mostly got was ad hominems. Proponents of the deal trotted out famous names of those who supported the deal, without detailed arguments about why they took that position. No wonder so few Americans support the deal. According to a recent Pew poll approximately one in five Americans think the deal is a good one. The President had an obligation to use his bully pulpit to try to obtain majority support among voters. Not only did he fail to do that, he also failed to persuade a majority of senator and house members. So this minority deal will go into operation over the objection of majority of our legislators and voters.
One of the low points of this debate was a variation on the ad hominem fallacy. It was the argument by religious or ethnic identity. Supporters of the deal tried to get as many prominent Jews as they could to sign ads and petitions in favor of the deal. The implicit argument was, “See, even Jews support this deal, so it must be good for Israel,” despite the reality that the vast majority of Israelis and almost all of its political leaders believe the deal is bad for Israel.
The absolute low point in the non-debate was a New York Times chart, identifying opponents of the deal by whether they were Jewish or Gentile. The implication was that Jews who opposed the deal must be more loyal to their Jewish constituents or to Israel than Americans who supported the deal. But the chart itself made little sense. It turns out that the vast majority of democratic Congressmen who voted against the deal were not Jewish, and several of them represented districts in which less than 1% of the voters were Jewish. It is true that two out of the four democratic senators who voted against the deal were identified as Jews, but one of the non-Jewish Senators represents West Virginia where Jewish voters constituted less than one tenth of one percent of the voting population. Moreover, opposition to this deal is considerably greater among evangelical Christians than among Jews.
Identifying by their religion members of congress who voted against a deal that the Times strongly supported is, as the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting (Camera) aptly put it, more than a dog whistle; it is a bull horn. It plays squarely into anti-Semitic stereotypes of Jews having dual loyalty. Will the Times next identify bankers, media moguls, journalists and professors by their religious identity? Would the Times have done that for other ethnic, religious or gender groups?
This has been a bad month for democracy, for serious debate and for the treatment of all Americans as equally capable of deciding important issue on their merits and demerits. Whether it also turns out to have been a bad month for peace and nuclear non-proliferation remains to be seen. But even those who support the deal should be ashamed of some of the undemocratic tactics and bigoted arguments employed to avoid a real debate and a majority vote.
Satire but not funny|Kim Jong-un has replaced John Boehner as Speaker of the House
September 11, 2015Kim Jong-un has replaced John Boehner as Speaker of the House, Dan Miller’s Blog, September 11, 2015
(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
We have met the enemy and it is us: we have become too tired to be effective and hence are becoming indifferent. The charade on Capitol Hill continues, and not only about the nuke “deal” with Iran. Will the carnival end before it’s too late, or will Obama continue to win?
The House speaker is elected by all House members, not just those of the majority party. He need not be a member of the House. Boehner having resigned because a serious medical condition often reduces him to tears, one group of Democrats nominated Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to replace him. However, due to her support for Hillary Clinton, she fell out of favor with the White House so another group of Democrats nominated Kim Jong-un at Obama’s request. To avoid the appearance of confrontation, Republicans offered no candidates. Kim won by seventeen votes, becoming the first non-US citizen to hold the office thus far this month.
REPORTING FOR DUTY!
The current upset was precipitated by Republican members’ disagreements with Boehner and other party leaders about how best to deal with the catastrophic Iran nuke “deal” without unnecessarily offending the President. Kim Jong-un is expected to substitute his own brand of leadership for Boehner’s leadership through ambivalence.
A majority also deemed Kim the best qualified to negotiate with Dear Leader Obama on behalf of the House because, as the undisputed leader of a rogue nuclear nation himself, he should be able to pull not only Obama’s strings but also those of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Rogue Republic of Iran.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest declined comment on the situation beyond refusing to comment on whether Obama met privately with Kim to congratulate him. However, Obama is generally thought to have confirmed that He fully supports Kim’s way of governing his own Democratic Peoples’ Republic and — subject to the few pesky restraints still imposed by an antiquated Constitution that He has not yet found ways to sneak around — He does His best to emulate him. In that connection, Obama asked Kim for recommendations on antiaircraft guns to deal humanely with Jews and other traitors who oppose Him (Please see also, New York Times Launches Congress ‘Jew Tracker’ – Washington Free Beacon.)
Desiring to gain Obama’s total good will, Kim promised to have derogatory cartoons of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton painted on all future North Korean nukes and missiles just before they explode. In return, Obama promised to issue executive orders granting North Korea the permanent right to declassify any and all U.S. documents it sees fit pertaining to the security of the United States and to obtain copies, gratis, from the Government Printing Office.
House Speaker Kim Jong-un will next meet with Supreme Leader Khamenei in Tehran to make two common sense proposals, with which Khamenei is certain to agree:
First, Kim will propose that a group of highly regarded North Korean nuclear experts — under his personal guidance and supervision — conduct all nuke inspections in Iran and draw all conclusions concerning any past or present Iranian nuclear program based on them exclusively. Those conclusions will be drawn on behalf of, and in lieu of any conclusions drawn by, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The head of the IAEA, Yukiya Amano, immediately endorsed this plan as “splendid and totally consistent with any and all IAEA – Iran “secret deals.”
Second, Kim will propose that Khamenei promise not to nuke anyone until all sanctions have been permanently eliminated, unless he really wants to.
Obama is thought to have agreed with every aspect of the Kim plan and to have directed Secretary Kerry to tell Khamenei that if he agrees all sanctions will be eliminated permanently, via executive decree, and hence even more expeditiously than previously expected. Due to a successful Senate filibuster yesterday, Obama can issue the executive decree very soon; Today — Friday, September 11th — is being considered seriously due to the obvious symbolism of the date.
H/t Freedom is just another word
The inevitable success of Kim’s mission will result in a win-win situation for nearly everyone, particularly the financially strapped IAEA, and the true Peace of Obama will prevail throughout all parts of the world that He considers worth saving. Remember — it’s all for the Children!
Addendum
하원 의장 김정은 의 문 사랑하는 북미 친구 , 그것은 오바마 대통령 아래에서 당신의 인생 이 곧 Amerika 민주주의 인민 공화국 이 될 것입니다 무엇 에 미래의 삶을 위해 잘 준비 것을 진심으로 희망 합니다. 배리 와 나는 제출 된 것을 기쁘게 사람들을 위해 가능한 한 오랫동안 지배 구조 의 우리의 양식 에 서서히 적응 을 하기 때문에 전환이 원활 하게 하기 위해 함께 열심히하고 고통 일했다 .
Translation:
Statement of House Speaker Kim Jong-un
My dear North American friends, it is my sincere hope that your life under President Obama has prepared you well for your future life in what will soon become the Democratic People’s Republic of Amerika. Barry [a.k.a. Barack] and I have worked long and hard together to acclimate you gradually to our transformed and transformational form of governance and hence to make the transition as smooth and painless as possible for those pleased to submit. Now, we will accelerate the progress.
Conclusions
It does not have to be that way. Here, in closing, are a few words from Daniel Greenfield.
We don’t have to give in to despair. If we do, we are lost. Lost the way that the left is lost. Lost the way that the Muslim world is lost.
We are not savages and feral children. We are the inheritors of a great civilization. It is still ours to lose. It is ours to keep if we understand its truths. [Emphasis added.]
We are not alone. A sense of isolation has been imposed on us as part of a culture war. The task of reconstructing our civilization and ending that isolation begins with our communication. We are the successors of revolutions of ideas. We need to do more than keep them alive. We must refresh them and renew them. And, most importantly, we must practice them.
We are not this culture. We are not our media. We are not our politicians. We are better than that.
We must win, but we must also remember what it is we hope to win. If we forget that, we lose. If we forget that, we will embrace dead end policies that cannot restore hope or bring victory.
What we have now is not a movement because we have not defined what it is we hope to win. We have built reactive movements to stave off despair. We must do better than that. We must not settle for striving to restore some idealized lost world. Instead we must dream big. We must think of the nation we want and of the civilization we want to live in and what it will take to build it.
Our enemies have set out big goals. We must set out bigger ones. We must become more than conservatives. If we remain conservatives, then all we will have is the America we live in now. And even if our children and grandchildren become conservatives, that is the culture and nation they will fight to conserve. We must become revolutionaries.
We must think in terms of the world we want. Not the world we have lost.
This is the America we live in now. But it doesn’t have to be.
It can be up to us, not to those who hate America and all for which she once stood.
A Prayer for 5776
September 11, 2015Source: Column One: A Prayer for 5776 – Opinion – Jerusalem Post
Caroline Glick
As we approach Rosh Hashana, the people of Israel need to recognize how lucky we are.
True, today, we find ourselves largely alone, set apart from our traditional partners in the Western world. But standing alone isn’t always the worst option. Today it is certainly not the worst option.
Over the past several years, we have witnessed the growing radicalization and fragmentation of the societies of neighboring lands. Sunnis fight Shi’ites and one another. Minority populations are slaughtered, enslaved and oppressed. Regimes fall, rise and fall again. Today, every Arab society is either in danger or at war. And in almost every case, it isn’t good fighting evil but varying degrees of evil and barbarism fighting one another.
From the PLO to Islamic State, through Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Assad regime in Syria, the ayatollahs of Iran, Hezbollah, the Erdogan regime in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and every single actor in the region resorts to some degree of torture and oppression.
And all do so while quoting the Koran.
Israel has responded rationally to the carnage at our doorstep.
We help where we can. For instance, we are assisting the Egyptian regime in its war against jihadist forces in Sinai. We support the Hashemite regime in Jordan. We provide humanitarian assistance to the victims of the bloodbath in Syria.
And we are securing our borders.
After we finished building the border fence with Egypt, we built one along the Syrian border. Now we are fencing off the border with Jordan.
These fences may not make good neighbors. But they do keep the bad ones at bay.
Similar rationality is in short supply today in Europe and among the smart set in America. Westerners are increasingly at a loss in the face of the break-up of societies throughout the Arab world.
Consider for instance Europe’s disoriented, confused response to the massive wave of refugees from Syria now washing onto its shores. Perhaps the most notable aspect of the unfolding drama is that it appears the Europeans only just realized that Syria has fallen apart.
The war in Syria broke out nearly five years ago.
Hundreds of thousands have already been killed in the conflict. Ten million people – nearly half of Syria’s pre-war population – have been displaced. For the past four years, millions of Syrians have been living in refugee camps in neighboring states – first and foremost in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.
Most of the refugees now arriving in Europe are coming from these camps, rather than directly from Syria. Rather than help them either resettle in the lands to which they fled, or take action on the ground in Syria to enable them to return to their homes, the Europeans largely ignored them.
Part of the reason Europe has ignored Syria, of course, is indifference. So long as it’s happening “over there,” the Europeans really couldn’t care less.
But indifference alone does not explain how Europe has been taken by surprise by a humanitarian disaster of the magnitude now unfolding at its borders.
Identity politics have played a key role in shaping Europe’s failed Middle East politics – in Syria and throughout the increasingly destabilized Islamic world.
Identity politics distinguish between various groups based on how they fall on a spectrum of “oppression.”
Western nations, led by Europe and the US, are all classified as “oppressors,” due to their “imperialist” past.
The Islamic world writ large is classified as “oppressed.”
All groups that receive “oppressed” status are immune from judgment, much less resistance from those who fall on the side of the “oppressors.”
Given this taxonomy, Europeans along with the sectors of American society that have embraced identity policies are incapable of recognizing, much less taking action against, radical Islamists.
Those who are oppressed by the “oppressed” of the Islamic world – the Yazidis, Christians and Kurds, for instance – can receive no sustained protection from their jihadist oppressors by the “Muslim-oppressing” West.
The immunity identity politics confers on “oppressed” population groups adheres even when those groups themselves engage in oppression.
There is, however, one group in the Islamic world that identity politics do not immunize from Western opposition. The West can oppose Arab regimes that wish to cooperate with the West in fighting against radical Islamists.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi for instance is a member of this group. Ever since he overthrew the US-supported Muslim Brotherhood regime two years ago, the US has kept him at arm’s length. Washington has imposed a partial weapons embargo and denied US support for its war against jihadist forces in Sinai.
Then there is Libya. Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi collaborated with the West against al-Qaida from 2004 until he was assassinated in 2011.
That year Gaddafi was overthrown by European forces backed by the US. The West overthrew Gaddafi in order “to prevent genocide.”
The chaos that ensued in Libya after his overthrow has in turn enabled al-Qaida and Islamic State to take over large swathes of the country.
The West has had nothing to say about this turn of events.
The tyranny of identity politics is not limited to its conferral of immunity on jihadists. Identity politics are a comprehensive, totalitarian world view that dictates responses in all areas of human endeavor.
For instance, the “Black Lives Matter” group in the US, which sanctions the murder of policemen, is given a pass by adherents of identity politics. Its followers view all blacks as oppressed. Police, who are perceived as agents of Western oppression, cannot expect sympathy when they are murdered.
In Britain, adherents of identity politics not only want to see Britain out of the Middle East, they support their country’s unilateral nuclear disarmament, because as they see it, Britain is unworthy of nuclear weapons due to its imperialist past.
A testament to the power of identity politics in Britain is the rise of Jeremy Corbyn. The radical Labor parliamentarian is expected to win the race for leadership of the party on Saturday.
Corbyn is a shining example of the type of leader produced by identity politics. He opposes British power. He is a foe of free markets and the British military. He supports Hamas and Hezbollah. He has led anti-Israel demonstrations and conferences organized by Islamist organizations. He has contributed to an organization led by a Holocaust denier and participated in its conferences.
And of course, he opposes Israel and Jews who support it.
That’s the thing of it. Identity politics define both Israel and Jews in the Diaspora as “oppressors.”
Many Israelis as well as Jewish organizations in the Diaspora have been trying for years to prove that this is untrue. Israel is after all the victim of both European and Islamic imperialists. Zionism is a national liberation movement.
But these protestations have made no impression on anyone. And this is to be expected. It isn’t possible to change Israel’s classification on the oppression scale, because the scale is completely arbitrary. Even worse, every attempt to question the arbitrary scale simply induces more hostility on the part of its adherents. Questioning whether oppressed groups are in fact oppressed is itself an act of oppression and further proof that those who question are indeed oppressors.
In other words, identity politics are a closed intellectual universe immune from all doubts, and logic.
According to media reports, British Jewry is in a state of panic at the prospect of Corbyn’s imminent takeover of the Labor Party. They understand that if he does win on Saturday, any residual influence they have over the second largest party in Britain will disappear. And the consequences of this loss of even a semblance of power will not be long in coming.
This week it was reported that during the past year the UK has seen a 93 percent rise in anti-Semitic attacks. This week’s brutal assault on a group of Orthodox Jewish teens in Manchester by three Muslim Jew-haters was just a particularly brutal example of what is now a daily phenomenon in Britain.
The violent demonstration against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu outside 10 Downing Street on Wednesday was similarly to be expected. Britain’s kid glove treatment of Muslim violence and racism empowered protesters to trample on the Israeli flag, and call for the destruction of Israel and for Netanyahu to be killed just meters away from where he was meeting with Prime Minister David Cameron.
As for the US, identity politics control the lives of university students from the moment they enter the gates of their campus until the moment they leave them. It is due to this stranglehold that anti-Semitism is now rampant in American academia.
Quite simply a university that subscribes to identity politics cannot accept that Jews are persecuted by the groups it has deemed oppressed.
Identity politics also has significant influence in left-wing ideological circles outside the classroom.
The most obvious testament to their power is President Barack Obama’s radical shift of US Middle East strategy.
The Obama administration’s animosity toward Israel is part and parcel of the world view that brought it to support Gaddafi’s overthrow and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. So, too, the administration’s refusal to take action to overthrow the Assad regime or destroy Islamic State in Syria and Iraq on the one hand, and its facilitation of Iran’s rise to regional hegemony and nuclear empowerment on the other, is a clear indication that identity politics play a key role in determining the administration’s foreign policy.
But there is still reason to hope that things can change in America. The fact is that two-thirds of Americans oppose Obama’s nuclear pact with the mullahs and support Israel. Obama has only been able to promote his radical agenda by pretending it isn’t his agenda.
As Israel seeks to secure and advance its interests in the identity politics-riven West, we must understand that our ability to impact the views of the other side is limited. The moment a society embraces identity politics, its members become incapable of rationally pursuing their own interests.
And consequently, they are lost to Israel.
As far as securing our relations with the US is concerned, we must take every opportunity to strengthen those who fight against identity politics and for rationality and reasoned analysis of reality.
And while we pray for their success, we need to recognize that this is America’s fight to win or to lose. We cannot fight it for the American people.
And so, just as we build fences along our borders, we need to prepare for the worst in order to secure our survival.
Israel’s greatest strategic asset is our willingness to see things for what they are. It is my prayer for the coming year that our vision becomes ever sharper and that through our moral and strategic clarity we rally the Americans and other like-minded nations to our side in our fight for ourselves and for the noblest attributes of humanity.
Paul Simon at Ground Zero- Sounds of Silence – Hebrew Subtitles – YouTube
September 11, 2015
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Senate Democrats sustain Iran nuclear deal, free Obama to lift sanctions
September 10, 2015Senate Democrats sustain Iran nuclear deal, free Obama to lift sanctions, Washington Times,
Democrats rallied behind President Obama Thursday, successfully filibustering to preserve the deal he and international leaders negotiated to curtail Iran’s nuclear program, clearing the way for the White House to lift sanctions on the Islamic Republic next week.
House Republicans were attempting a last-ditch effort to derail the deal, with a vote expected later in the day certifying that the president broke the law governing Congress’s review of the Iran deal. But Senate GOP leaders have rejected that avenue of attack, and Mr. Obama is expected to consider the Senate vote enough backing to move ahead next week.
“This is historic, this is grand, this is visionary,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat. “This is about peace.”
Opponents vehemently disagreed, predicting that a new arms race in the Middle East, and eventually war, would be the result of giving Iran access to tens of billions of dollars, lifting restrictions on conventional weapons and allowing the regime to retain the right to enrich nuclear material.
Public sentiment is adamantly opposed to the deal, according to polls, and a bipartisan majority in Congress voted to reject the agreement, including all Republican senators and four Democrats. But they were unable to surmount Democratic leaders’ filibuster, falling just two votes shy.
Under the terms of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, signed into law earlier this year, Mr. Obama was required to submit the final agreement to Congress, and give lawmakers 60 days to review it before he could unilaterally lift sanctions. Congress needed to pass a resolution of disapproval in order to stop him, but Thursday’s filibuster short-circuited that effort.
Republicans could try again next week, ahead of the Sept. 17 date when Mr. Obama says he’ll be able to lift sanctions, but there’s little chance any senators will change their votes barring overwhelming pressure.
Across the Capitol, House Republican leaders are trying a new tactic, having concluded that Mr. Obama didn’t submit to Congress some of the side-agreements involved in the Iran deal, so the 60-day clock hasn’t actually started.
In particular, the International Atomic Energy Agency has refused to share agreements it reached with Iran governing how inspections of the regime’s nuclear facilities will be done. Republicans said without seeing those agreements, it’s impossible to judge how easy it will be for Iran to backslide.
“No American citizen has read this entire agreement,” Rep. Mike Pompeo, Kansas Republican, told colleagues as he pleaded with them to stop the deal.
The House was slated to vote later Thursday on a resolution officially stating the president hasn’t complied with the law. On Friday, the House will vote on two other measures: One would direct the president not to lift sanctions until January at the earliest, and the other would officially approve the Iran deal — Republicans intend for that to fail.
Mr. Obama said Thursday that if Congress hadn’t backed him, he would have had no other option to stop Iran’s program other than to strike at its nuclear facilities.
“We can either prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon through diplomacy, or be left with a form of war,” the president said in answering questions about the deal on Quora.com. “Those are the options. As commander in chief, I have not shied away from using force when necessary, but I cannot in good conscience place the burden of war on our men and women in uniform without testing a diplomatic agreement that achieves a better result.”
Thursday’s vote was a major victory for Mr. Obama and his top lieutenants in Congress, Mrs. Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who corralled enough supporters to ensure Mr. Obama’s moves couldn’t be stopped.
New York Times Launches Congress ‘Jew Tracker’ – Washington Free Beacon
September 10, 2015New York Times Launches Congress ‘Jew Tracker’ List shows whether lawmakers are Jewish and how many Jewish constituents they represent
BY: Follow @Kredo0
September 10, 2015 3:54 pm
Source: New York Times Launches Congress ‘Jew Tracker’ – Washington Free Beacon
The New York Times has come under fire from Jewish organizations for launching a website aimed at tracking how Jewish lawmakers are voting on the Iran nuclear agreement.
The online chart, which tracks whether lawmakers who opposes the accord are Jewish, is being criticized as anti-Semitic in nature and an attempt to publicly count where Jews fall on the issue, which some have sought to turn into a debate about dual loyalty to Israel.
The feature, titled “Lawmakers Against the Iran Nuclear Deal,” includes a list of legislators currently opposing the deal.
Critics say the chart feeds into a larger narrative promulgated by the Obama administration that Jewish Americans oppose the deal because they feel that it would endanger Israel. The issue of dual loyalty—or claims that lawmakers are more loyal to Israel than America—has become a trademark criticism of administration supporters seeking to discredit opponents of the Iran deal.
“Though more Jewish members of Congress support the deal than oppose it, the Democrats against the deal are more likely to be Jewish or represent Jewish constituencies,” the Times writes on the site.
The article shows in graph form all lawmakers in the House and Senate who oppose the deal and whether they are Jewish. It also includes the composition of a lawmaker’s district, displaying the percentage of Jewish individuals they represent.
Jewish leaders criticized the Times for feeding into anti-Semitic stereotypes.
“It’s a grotesque insult to the intelligence of the people who voted for and will vote against [the deal],” said Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which combats anti-Semitism.
Cooper said it evokes images of “Jewish pressure” and “Jewish money” influencing the Iran vote.
This type of reporting “does a disservice to the issue and that’s the exact opposite job of the New York Times,” Cooper said. “They have some explaining to do. Why’d they do it? Shame on the New York Times for the timing and implications of this piece.”
A nationwide poll released this week found that a plurality of American voters, or 37 percent “see accusations of Jewish lawmakers having dual-loyalties on the Iran deal as anti-Semitic,” according to the findings, which were published by the Israel Project.
“This includes pluralities across all partisan and ideological lines,” the poll found. “Even among supporters of the deal, 37 percent view these accusations as anti-Semitic.”
“As a point of comparison, 35 percent said they saw the Confederate Flag as a symbol of racism in a New York Times poll in July 2015, a position that the paper vocally endorsed,” said Nathan Klein, lead pollster at Olive Tree Strategies, which conducted the poll on the Israel Project’s behalf.
One senior official with a Jewish organization based in Washington, D.C., expressed shock when sent a link to the Times feature.
“I guess we should be grateful the New York Times chose not to illustrate its Jew tracker by awarding a six-pointed yellow badge to every Jewish opponent of this catastrophic sellout.”
A New York Times spokesperson declined to comment on the criticism leveled against the website.
While other websites have made note of Jewish lawmakers both for and against the deal, the majority of these outlets are directed primarily at a Jewish-American audience.
John Kerry sings “Stand by Iran” (Capitol Steps Satire)
September 10, 2015John Kerry sings “Stand by Iran” (Capitol Steps Satire) via You Tube, December 10, 2013
(It’s nearly two years old but worth watching again. — DM)
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