Right Angle: Quien es Mas Malo? Bill Whittle Channel via YouTube, July 29, 2016
(Habla Espanol? No? No problema. — DM)
Archive for July 2016
Right Angle: Quien es Mas Malo?
July 29, 2016Welcome to the Communist Party, U.S.A.
July 29, 2016Welcome to the Communist Party, U.S.A., Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, July 29, 2016
Wearing a white pantsuit, Hillary Clinton plodded out on stage to accept the nomination that she had schemed, plotted, lied, cheated, rigged and eventually fixed a series of elections to obtain.
Then she claimed that she was accepting the nomination of a race she had rigged with “humility”.
Humility is not the first word that comes to mind when thinking of Hillary Clinton. It is not even the last word. It is not in the Hillary dictionary at all. But this convention was a desperate effort to humanize Hillary. Everyone, including her philandering husband and dilettante daughter, down to assorted people she had met at one point, were brought up on stage to testify that she really is a very nice person.
This wasn’t a convention. It was a series of character witnesses for a woman with no character. It was an extensive apology for the Left’s radical agenda cloaked in fake patriotism and celebrity adulation.
Sinclair Lewis famously said, “When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross”. More accurately, when Communism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. That’s what the Democratic National Convention was.
This night presented Hillary Clinton as all things to all people. She was a passionate fighter who found plenty of time to spend with her family. She is for cops and for cop-killers. She likes the Founding Fathers and political correctness. She wants Democrats to be the party of working people and of elitist government technocrats. And, most especially, she cares about people like you.
The convention, like everything about Hillary, was awkward and insincere.
There was Bernie glaring into the camera just as Hillary was thanking him for rallying a bunch of young voters whom she hoped to exploit. There was Chelsea Clinton reminding everyone that the Clintons are a dynasty and that everyone in it gets a job because of their last name, right before introducing her mother whose only real qualification for her belated entry into politics was her last name. And there was Jennifer Granholm who got an opportunity to have an incoherent public meltdown at the convention.
There’s the mandatory video explaining how Hillary Clinton personally hunted down Osama bin Laden while sitting in a chair. “She’s carrying the hope and the rage of an entire nation,” Morgan Freeman intones. Coming in November 2016. And Hillary Clinton will be played by Meryl Streep. Donald Trump is compared to Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. It’s rather obvious even to the handful of Hillary supporters that their candidate fits the Ratched role much better than Trump does.
The audience was told incessantly that Hillary Clinton loves small children. Once would have been enough. Twice would have been enough. By the millionth repetition, it seems more like Hillary is the witch trying to lure children into her gingerbread house.
Helping out with that task were a continuing parade of young female celebrities. If you thought that Elizabeth Banks and Lena Dunham were awkward, just wait for Katy Perry and Chloe Moretz urging their cohort to go out there and vote for Hillary right after a bunch of ex-military people claim that the woman who helped ISIS take over two countries and the Muslim Brotherhood even more countries than that will be good for national security.
General John Allen, formerly of the Marine Corps, currently employed by Qatar’s pet Brookings think tank, insisted that only Hillary Clinton could defeat ISIS. That’s like saying that only Mrs. O’Leary’s cow could put out the Great Chicago Fire which she started. Furthermore Qatar played a major role in the expansion of Islamic terrorism that helped culminate in the current crisis.
There were treasonous Republicans, confused celebrities and a weirdly lifelike Nancy Pelosi. There was yet another New York politician likely to be indicted, Andy Cuomo, trying much too hard. But topping them all was Hillary Clinton who was in her manic mode, trying too hard to be human, and failing.
Eyes wide, looking suspiciously from side to side, shrilly barking lines into the microphone that stripped them of their emotional context, Hillary delivered both sides of her personality in one speech.
And both sides of her agenda.
The radical agenda of the Left was clumsily cloaked in references to the Founding Fathers. The same group of people whose names the Left want to see ground into the dirt. Hillary’s call for collectivism, the insistence that none of us can do anything as individuals, was dressed up in E Pluribus Unum and the Founding Fathers.
Sinclair Lewis was almost right. When Communism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag.
The old Elizabeth Warren-Barack Obama theme of “You didn’t build that” had become Hillary’s theme once again. No one does anything on their own. It takes a village of bloated bureaucrats to do anything. And Hillary has to be appointed to run this village of bloated bureaucrats who, like her, never actually do anything but sing their own praises and then give themselves pay raises and more power to abuse.
Donald Trump, we are told, is a terrible person who actually believes in individualism. While good progressives like Hillary know that individualism is a pernicious lie told by running dog capitalists.
And Hillary will be a “a President for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents”. She’ll be such a good president that we won’t even need elections anymore. Just like the Democrats dispensed with them. There will just be one “village” under Hillary and Huma and the rest of their ridiculous neo-Reds.
Then Hillary will fix the economy by banning people from giving money to Republicans and promoting voter fraud. She will legalize illegal aliens to “grow our economy” by destroying still more American jobs. And she will see to it that companies “share profits” to working people. And by working people, she means the Clintons. College will be free. And the “super-rich” will pay for it all.
The “super-rich” are the really rich. Not flat broke paupers like the Clintons.
Half of Hillary’s new positions were things that she had rejected as too radical when Bernie proposed them. Now they’re not too radical anymore. Because the Democrats always keep turning Left.
Yesterday’s crazy radical idea is tomorrow’s Democratic slogan. Yesterday’s Alinsky disciple is tomorrow’s moderate Democrat. Yesterday’s Communist notion is tomorrow’s DNC speech.
And so Hillary Clinton embraced wealth redistribution and re-appropriation from people who aren’t her. She embraced it with verve and gusto. She pushed Communism dressed up in references to the Founding Fathers. It takes a village to take away all our political and economic freedoms.
Bernie Sanders lost, but he won. Or rather it didn’t matter which of them won since they both shared the same radical agenda. The only difference was that Bernie was willing to be honest about it.
Hillary wasn’t. Until now.
This was a speech that could have been given in Moscow during the Cold War. Instead it was delivered to an enthusiastic audience of Democrats who love the idea of taking away someone else’s money. Beneath all the distractions, the celebrities and family stories, is the fundamental idea that Hillary has more of a right to your money than you do because she is “humbly” more enlightened than you are.
There’s a name for that ideology. It comes with a hammer and sickle, with the color red, with gulags and firing squads, with little red books and big black prisons, and the death of the human soul.
Hillary made a mistake by wearing a white pants suit to her coronation. She should have worn red.
The dog that didn’t bark at the Democrats’ convention
July 29, 2016The dog that didn’t bark at the Democrats’ convention, American Thinker, Thomas Lifson, July 29, 2016
(The Clinton Cash video is available at Warsclerotic. It’s well worth watching.– DM)
If Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were covering the Democratic National Convention, he could title his account, “The Case of the Missing Claim.” There was a conspicuous absence amidst all the praise heaped on Hillary Clinton. Warner Todd Huston of Breitbart noticed:
After nearly three days of speeches and video propaganda one major part of Democrat Nominee Hillary Clinton’s life’s work has gone virtually unmentioned during the Democrat National Convention in Philadelphia. Even as speaker after speaker lauded Hillary’s career in public life, no mention of the Bill and Hillary Clinton Foundation has been uttered from the dais.
It is true that for years we have heard of the “wonderful work” the Clinton Foundation does… something about poor people, AIDS, and so forth. Best not to ask for any details, though. Haiti does not seem to have benefitted enormously from the billion dollars-plus said to have been raised for it.
Huston attributes the silence likely to: “the wild success of the documentary film Clinton Cash.”
Maybe that is the trigger. But this silence also indicates that the Dems realize that they have lost the argument on what used to be one of the biggest talking points of the Hillary-as-savior faction.
I think that the image of Clintons raising money ostensibly for poor people that ends up hiring private jets, luxury hotels, and paying political staff in the out years is fairly toxic for Hillary. She is so unlikable that people can actually believe that she might be a big phony when she claims to be devoted to helping the poor but just accidentally ends up fabulously rich and living the jet set high life.
The Democrats may have signaled their greatest vulnerability.
New York Times Hails ‘Our National Poet’ Obama’s ‘Stirring Valedictory Address’
July 29, 2016New York Times Hails ‘Our National Poet’ Obama’s ‘Stirring Valedictory Address’, MRC Newsbusters, Clay Waters, July 28, 2016
(All bold face type is in the original. Ain’t media love grand?– DM)
New York Times coverage of Night 3 of the Democratic National Convention could be characterized by an hour-long swoon over Barack Obama’s speech — pardon, his “stirring valedictory address.” Also, Democrats were (again!) finding their voice on gun control, and Bill celebrated Hillary, TMI-style, and Frank Bruni celebrated the president as “our national poet.”
Reporter Maggie Haberman, helping provide live nytimes.com coverage, was smitten by an introductory video: “Adam, as I watch this video, which is quite gauzy at points, it really does remind me that part of why Obama was re-elected in 2012, polls showed, was that a majority of people thought that his heart was in the right place and that he cared about people like them.”
During and after Obama’s speech Haberman hailed Obama’s style over any substance: “The man knows how to give a speech….It’s a dramatic moment….No matter what people think of Obama and Clinton, like them or don’t like them, the first black president just handed the baton to the first major-party female nominee in this country…..”
Jonathan Martin and Patrick Healy were no less laudatory in Thursday’s paper, “Obama Champions Optimism, Passing Baton to Clinton.”
President Obama delivered a stirring valedictory address at the Democratic convention Wednesday night, hailing Hillary Clinton as his rightful political heir and the party’s best hope to protect democracy from “homegrown demagogues” like the Republican Donald J. Trump.
Taking the stage to rapturous roars of “We love you” and “Yes we can,” Mr. Obama acknowledged that Democrats were still divided after a bruising nomination fight and that Mrs. Clinton had made “mistakes.”
….
President Obama’s eyes welled with tearsas he spoke of his faith in the American people and urged voters to transfer their trust to the woman he hoped would succeed him.
“Welled with tears” was a popular phrase in theTimes’ convention coverage. Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael Shear used it in “The Diagnosis: Disunity. His Remedy: ‘This Fighter.’”
Mr. Obama’s eyes welled with tears as he spoke of his faith in the American people and urged voters to transfer their trust in him to the woman he hopes will succeed him. “Time and again, you’ve picked me up and I hope, sometimes, I’ve picked you up, too,” he said. “Tonight, I ask you to do for Hillary Clinton what you did for me.”
It was Mr. Obama’s lyrical rejection of “a politics of cynicism” 12 years ago to the night, as the keynote speaker of the 2004 Democratic convention, that dazzled a national audience and thrust him into the spotlight, setting him on his path to two terms in the Oval Office.
Davis consistently hailed Obama, from before the beginning to the very end of his presidency.
In his 2004 convention speech, a testimonial to John Kerry, the Democratic nominee that year, Mr. Obama decried the “spin masters and negative-ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes,” and he foreshadowed the political theme that would ultimately carry him into the White House by urging “a politics of hope.”
Then as now, Mr. Obama was vouching for someone else, but what many Americans actually heard was a compelling argument for his own leadership.
White House reporter turned columnist Frank Bruni couldn’t stop quoting the chirpy, optimistic speech of President Obama, “our national poet,” in Thursday’s “Freedom From Fear.”
It’s hard, frankly, to stop quoting from his remarks because they amounted to one of the most moving, inspiring valentines to this country that I’ve ever heard, brimming with regard for it and gratitude to it.
We’re going to miss this man, America. Whatever his flaws, he’s been more than our president. Time and again, he’s been our national poet.
This coming from the same journalists who mocked Reagan’s optimism and spent decades criticizing America for racism, sexism, heartlessness, etc…
And Patrick Healy showed Bill Clinton getting up close and personal with Hillary in the icky “Words Depict Feminine Side of Candidate as Strength.”
He spoke of desiring her: her thick blond hair, her flowery white skirt, her magnetic personality.
He was almost titillating as he recalled chasing after her and getting close enough to “touch her back.”
He used intimate details to reveal her feelings about his three marriage proposals.
Healy portrayed Bill Clinton, womanizer extraordinaire, as doing his bit for feminism.
In doing so, Mr. Clinton began redefining the American presidency as a female institution.
A Clinton win in November would obviously give the country a female president. But for 227 years, the presidency has been associated with stereotypically male qualities — strength, resolve, fearlessness — and the embodiment of power in a deeply patriarchal political system….
….
Whether his speech causes people to see Mrs. Clinton differently — or makes people uncomfortable with the Clinton marriage all over again — will become clearer in time, not only through polls but also in the chatter among voters.
The gush got unbearable by the end.
Political wives often make their husbands sound like saints. Mr. Clinton made Mrs. Clinton sound likable, which is no small thing in politics.
“I married my best friend,” he said. “I have lived a long, full, blessed life. It really took off when I met and fell in love with that girl in the spring of 1971.”
His implication was obvious. America would really take off as well, if voters would just fall in love with that girl, too.
Veteran congressional reporter Carl Hulse’s column, “Gun Laws, Long Avoided, Return to the Agenda,” was devoted to the Democrats (this time for real!) finding “their voice” on gun control. On a busy day for politics, it somehow made the front of Thursday’s paper.
After treating gun control as political poison for two decades, Democrats led by Hillary Clinton are again vigorously championing new gun restrictions as a central element of their campaigns.
Hulse saw current events as helping the Democrats (as he so often does).
But a string of mass shootings involving high-powered weapons, rising anxiety about domestic terrorism, and killings of and by police officers have emboldened Democrats. They say the shootings are intensifying support for gun control, elevating weapons policy to a top-tier issue, with particularly strong appeal to suburban female voters.
Nothing about the spate of terror attacks helping Republicans on national security issues.
Citing polls showing strong support for new restrictions even among gun owners, gun control advocates believe the public is open to expanded background checks, new limits on gun purchases and more scrutiny of gun manufacturers and dealers. They intend to enthusiastically press the case in races across the country.
….
Given deep Republican resistance in Congress, major changes in gun laws anytime soon seem unlikely. But the convention is demonstrating that Democrats have recovered their voice on the issue.
Once again.
Time for Israel to Walk Away From US Aid
July 29, 2016Time for Israel to Walk Away From US Aid, Front Page Magazine, Caroline Glick, July 29, 2016
(Try again next year if Trump wins? — DM)
Originally published by the Jerusalem Post.
On Monday, acting head of the National Security Council Yaakov Nagel will sit down with his US counterpart, Susan Rice, and try to conclude negotiations about a new, multi-year defense assistance package.
We must all hope that he fails.
No clear Israeli interest will be advanced by concluding the aid deal presently on the table.
Indeed, the deal now being discussed will cause Israel massive, long-term economic and strategic damage. This is true for a number of reasons.
First, there is the issue of the deal’s impact on Israel’s military industries, which are the backbone of Israel’s strategic independence.
Under the current defense package, which is set to expire next year, a quarter of the US aid Israel receives is converted to shekels and spent domestically.
Reportedly, the deal now under negotiation will bar Israel from using any of the funds domestically.
The implications for our military industries are dire. Not only will thousands of Israelis lose their jobs. Israel’s capacity to develop its own weapons systems will be dangerously diminished.
Then there is the problem of joint projects.
Today, Israel receives additional US funds to develop joint projects, including the Iron Dome and David’s Sling short range missile and rocket defense programs. These programs were undertaken in response to threats that weren’t foreseen when the current deal was negotiated a decade ago.
According to reports, the deal now being negotiated denies Israel and the US the ability to fund jointly new projects or to provide supplemental funding for existing projects. All funding for all projects will be covered by the lump sum that is currently being negotiated.
Not only does this preclude new projects, it prevents Congress from exercising oversight over administration funding of existing joint projects with Israel. President Barack Obama has consistently tried to slash funding of missile defense programs, only to be overridden by Congress. Under the deal now on the table, Congress will be denied the power to override a hostile administration.
Given the obvious problems with the aid program currently being proposed by the Obama administration, there’s little wonder that until now, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly stated that if necessary, Israel is ready to wait for the next administration. Some argue that Netanyahu’s apparent newfound interest in concluding negotiations on Obama’s terms owes to his fear that this is the best offer Israel is likely to get. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump for various reasons, it is argued, will be less likely to offer significant increases in US military assistance.
Assuming this is accurate, the question becomes whether Israel has an interest in the assistance at all.
And so we come to the F-35.
For Israel, to a significant degree, the aid package on offer is about the F-35, the US’s fifth generation fighter, otherwise known as the Joint Strike Fighter.
Last month Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman and IAF Chief of Staff Brig.-Gen Tal Kelman flew to Texas to ceremonially “take possession” of Israel’s first two F-35s. Both aircraft are set to be delivered to Israel in December.
To date, the IAF has purchased 33 F-35s – all with US aid money. The IAF wants to purchase a total of 75 F-35s, which are supposed to replace the F-16s and the F-15s that the IAF currently fields.
As Liberman made clear during his visit, whether Israel purchases them or not is entirely dependent on the aid deal.
We should not take them. We should walk away.
And we should walk away even if we receive nothing in exchange for the planes we reject.
The F-35 is a disaster of epic proportions, for the US first and foremost. If Israel agrees to base its next generation fighters on the F-35, it will be a disaster for us as well. Although it is late in the game, we need to cut our losses.
To date, the F-35 has cost the US $400 billion.
That is twice what it was supposed to cost. The project is already four years behind schedule and still in development. It won’t be operational until May 2018 – at the earliest.
The F-35 is a jet that was developed by a committee and tasked with doing everything. So it isn’t surprising that it doesn’t work. In February, J. Michael Gilmore, the director of the Pentagon’s Operational Test and Evaluation office, submitted a scathing report to Congress on the F-35 program.
It is worth going through just a few of his findings.
The F-35’s calling card is its stealth capacity.
According to the engineers at Lockheed Martin, the JSF is supposed to be all-but-invisible to radar systems. Its stealth system is supposed to be far superior to the stealth capabilities of its third generation predecessors.
But at present, its stealth systems do not work, and it is unclear whether they will ever work as planned.
First there is the problem with the JSF’s cooling systems. The JSF is too hot. To prevent its single engine from melting down in flight, pilots are forced to open its weapons bays at high speeds and altitudes every 10 minutes. When the weapons bays are open, the stealth systems do not work.
Then there is the software. The F-35 is considered one big flying computer. It uses over 20 million lines of computer code. These codes are supposed to make it the most maneuverable and stealthy aircraft in history. The problem is that the codes are defective. The software programs that enable the plane to fly, maneuver, and engage in combat are all defective. So are the software programs that control the plane’s stealth capabilities.
And fixing them is not a simple process.
The fixed software systems can’t simply be attached to existing hardware – or to existing planes. The planes themselves have to be rebuilt to adjust to the new software. So the models that have already been produced, including the two F-35s that are set for delivery in December, will all have to be rebuilt before they will be combat ready.
And as a panel of US defense and aviation experts that convened in late February following the publication of Gilmore’s report noted, that too will take time and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Another major problem is that the F-35’s nerve center is dysfunctional and there is no clear path to fixing it. The F-35 is controlled by the Autonomic Logistics Information System. The ALIS is a central computer system, located in the US.
All F-35s all over the world will be required to log into the ALIS system to upload computer files after each flight and to check flight readiness. The ALIS is supposed to identify broken parts and help speed up repairs and handle mission data uploads.
ALIS has the capacity to prevent F-35s from taking off. ALIS can lock out pilots and ground crews if it sees danger. If this happens, maintenance technicians have to convince the computer that they either dealt with the issues the computer identified or that it was a false alarm.
Dan Grazier, a member of that panel, whose deliberations were reported by This Week, warned that this power renders the entire F-35 fleet vulnerable to hackers. If someone were able to convince the computer that something was wrong across the fleet, they might be able to keep all the F-35s grounded. Although the damage wouldn’t be permanent, it could continue long enough to cause the US or an ally to lose a battle or fail a mission.
For Israel, this vulnerability is prohibitive even if ALIS is ever made to work. The significance of ALIS control over all F-35s worldwide is that the US – and anyone able to hack the US system – will control the IAF. It will operate at the pleasure of the US government, and those able to hack US computers. They will be able to ground IAF planes whenever they wish.
This critical problem was acknowledged obliquely by Lt.-Col. Yotam, the commander of Israel’s first F-35 or Adir squadron, in an interview with Israel Defense in April.
Lt.-Col. Yotam said, “The maintenance concept of the Adir is based on international management and logistics in terms of spare parts and maintenance echelons.”
Israeli experts note that although in theory Israel will be able to crack the ALIS code and override it, it will take years to develop such a capacity. In the meantime, the IAF will become a contract employee of the US government whose operation is subject to US approval on a flight by flight basis.
The US Air Force, Marines and Navy are all trying to figure out how to deal with the deficiencies of the F-35. There is a vague hope that the US will develop a different fifth generation fighter.
More F-18s and A-10s will likely be ordered. Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work told Fighting Global that he foresees using the current batch of F-15s into the 2040s. In other words, the US Air Force will deploy 70-year-old planes alongside the defective F-35s.
This, of course, is a disaster for the US. And if Israel goes ahead with the F-35 project it will be an even bigger disaster for us.
Back when the Pentagon convinced the Shamir government to scrap the Lavi project and purchase the F-16, the argument that won the day was economic. The Lavi was simply too expensive.
Today, both economics and strategic arguments indicate that the opposite is the case, even if walking away involves ending US military aid.
If Israel cuts its losses and begins to develop a fifth generation jet fighter that meets its own specific needs, rather than one designed by a committee to meet other countries’ needs poorly, it will end up both far safer and far more prosperous than if it goes ahead with the F-35 project. It will produce a better plane, better suited for Israeli defense needs, and simultaneously stimulate the growth of Israeli military industries, providing jobs for thousands of Israelis.
If Israel walks away from the military assistance package currently under discussion, it will be in a position to sign joint development deals with the US and other governments on a project by project basis and so ensure that we develop the weapons systems we need, not the ones the US thinks we should have, as we need them. Just as India is investing billions of dollars in joint projects with Israel, so will the US in the future.
It is far from clear that the US can afford its $400b. white elephant. It is abundantly clear that Israel cannot afford it.
Whether or not a Trump or Clinton administration will be more forthcoming is really beside the point. The point is that the US aid deal is really a deal for Lockheed Martin, not for Israel. And we need to say no.
Odeh Adds Israel-Hating Lawyer, Fights Psych Evaluation
July 29, 2016Odeh Adds Israel-Hating Lawyer, Fights Psych Evaluation, Investigative Project on Terrorism, July 29, 2016
Editor’s note: For details on the Rasmieh Odeh case and the intense support behind her, see our series, “Spinning a Terrorist Into a Victim,” here.
As she fights to block a psychological examination by a government expert, convicted Palestinian terrorist Rasmieh Odeh added a new member to her defense team, one who shares her intense hatred for Israel.
Huwaida Arraf helped organize the 2010 flotilla aimed at breaking Israel’s blockade of Gaza by delivering humanitarian supplies. The blockade was implemented to prevent the Hamas government and other terrorists from smuggling materials that can be used to make bombs and rockets. The flotilla, and similar convoys which claimed to be delivering aid to Palestinians in Gaza, worked closely with Hamas officials in Gaza.
The flotilla ended in a violent confrontation on one ship after passengers attacked Israeli soldiers with knives, pipes and other weapons. Arraf was on a separate ship, but still is suing the Israeli government claiming mistreatment when the flotilla was intercepted. Among the allegations, her handcuffs were too tight.
Odeh, meanwhile, is trying to persuade a federal judge in Detroit to grant her a new trial for naturalization fraud. She was convicted in 2014, but an appeals court ruling could lead to a new trial in which jurors would hear Odeh’s claim that she suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), supported by her own psychologist’s testimony.
When applying for a visa to come to the United States, and later when she sought naturalization as an American citizen, Odeh failed to disclose her arrest, conviction and 10 year imprisonment in Israel for her role in a lethal 1969 Jerusalem supermarket bombing that killed two college students.
During her trial, immigration officials testified that Odeh never would have been allowed into the United States, let alone granted citizenship, had they been informed of her terrorist history.
Odeh claims the omission was unintentional, the result of PTSD she suffers from due to alleged torture while in Israeli custody. Her confession, she says, also was the result of the alleged torture.
There is no physical evidence for this claim, and it has been contradicted by records created at the time and by Odeh’s own testimony two years ago.
Such testimony was barred during the original trial, but the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in February that U.S. District Judge Gershwin A. Drain’s ruling was flawed. The appellate court remanded the case, saying there might be other reasons that are legally valid to exclude the PTSD testimony.
That will be determined at a hearing scheduled for Nov. 27. If Drain rules that the PTSD testimony should be heard, Odeh would get a new trial in January. If not, the conviction stands, pending another likely appeal.
But the judge who must decide whether such testimony is both relevant and valid should rely solely on the defense’s expert, Odeh’s attorneys argued in court papers last week.
Any additional mental evaluation carries “the grave risk … [of] a serious aggravation of her symptoms and the suffering they cause her,” the defense argued.
The government review is described as inherently hostile and “bent on” discrediting Odeh. This, the defense reply says, “will plunge [Odeh] to the depths of ghastly ‘flashback’ memories which have afflicted her life for all these years…”
The one opinion from their own psychologist, they argue, is sufficient.
A second opinion, prosecutors argued in requesting a second opinion, is necessary.
“At present,” they wrote, “the only information the Court has before it is the testimony of the defense expert herself based only on her own examination of the defendant. This Court cannot make an informed decision about the reliability and competence of the defense expert’s conclusions based on that expert’s word alone.”
Arraf is among the attorneys listed on the brief. She formally joined the defense team last week.
She served as interim board chair for the Free Gaza Movement, which advocates for a Palestinian right of return “without delay to their homes in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.” Creating such a right would threaten to flood Israel demographically, challenging its existence as a Jewish state.
Arraf advocates boycotts against Israel and calls the right of return “a matter of time.”
The flotilla’s objectives and actions were rejected by a United Nations investigative panel. This is striking because of the UN’s willingness to condemn Israel often, while overlooking tremendous human rights abuses elsewhere in the Middle East and throughout the world, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, China, Russia and more.
Last year, UN Watch director Hillel Neuer tallied UN condemnations, finding 61 targeting Israel, while the rest of the world garnered only 55 such statements.
In its report on the 2010 flotilla, the UN found that the six ships involved carried very little actual humanitarian aid supplies. “The number of journalists embarked on the ships gives further power to the conclusion that the flotilla’s primary purpose was to generate publicity,” it said.
In addition, “the flotilla rejected offers to unload any essential humanitarian supplies at other ports and have them delivered to Gaza by land. These offers were made even during the voyage.” Investigators found evidence that Hamas planned a reception for the flotilla.
In her lawsuit against the Israeli government, Arraf alleges she was “arbitrarily detained and forced to adopt a kneeling position while being hooded for an extended period of time and placed in handcuffs that were too tight.”
The UN report, however, called it “a dangerous and reckless act” to “deliberately seek to breach a blockade in a convoy with a large number of passengers.”
Worse for flotilla advocates, the UN acknowledged that “Israel faces a real threat to its security from militant groups in Gaza. The naval blockade was imposed as a legitimate security measure in order to prevent weapons from entering Gaza by sea and its implementation complied with the requirements of international law.”
That threat endures, as Hamas openly digs as many attack tunnels along its border with Israel as it can, at the cost of diverting materials that could be used to build housing for Palestinians and restore its crumbling infrastructure.
Arraf’s lawsuit claims the blockade is illegal despite the UN finding to the contrary.
Now she’s helping Odeh, convicted of killing two Israelis and more recently convicted of lying about it to U.S. immigration officials, argue that a wholly unsubstantiated claim – Odeh’s supposed torture in Israeli custody and resulting PTSD – should be accepted by the court and presented to a jury unchecked.
Prosecutors describe Odeh “as the principal architect” of the 1969 bombing which killed students Leon Kanner and Edward Joffe. And Odeh’s statements over time contradict the current defense claim that she is emotionally incapable of discussing it.
In her first trial, and in a 2004 documentary, Odeh presented dramatically different stories about the 1969 terrorist bombing, her role in it and her ability to remember it.
Naturalization forms ask whether the applicant has ever been arrested, convicted or imprisoned. The word “ever” is set off in bold, upper-cased letters. Barred by court rulings against invoking the PTSD claim, Odeh testified that she thought the word “ever” applied only to her life in the United States, and not before. Had she understood the questions better, she would not have hesitated to mention her Israeli record.
“It’s not [a] secret that I have been in the jail,” she testified. “Everybody knows.”
And while she says she has difficulty thinking about that trauma, she claims specific memory of her naturalization interview more than a decade ago.
The immigration official who interviewed Odeh testified that she clarifies for all applicants that the question applies to “anywhere in the world.” Odeh insisted she remembered the interview and this did not happen in her case.
She is equally adamant in claiming she is not guilty of the terrorist bombing. But in the documentary, which came out the same year Odeh applied for naturalization and claimed to have no arrest record, she visited with a co-conspirator in the 1969 Supersol bombing. Odeh sat and listened as her friend said it was Rasmieh who “dragged me into military work” and who was more involved than I was” in the grocery store bombing.
She described scouting the targeted supermarket in terms that matched the confession given to Israeli authorities. That confession, Cornell University Law Professor William Jacobson first noted, came a day after her arrest, long before the abuse she now alleges took place. Odeh says she broke after 25 days of torture.
But given the chance to make a torture allegation in 1969, Odeh’s father had little to say. An American consulate official who met with him while she was in custody reported “uncomfortable, overcrowded jail conditions, but he apparently [is] receiving no rpt [repeat] no worse than standard treatment afforded majority detainees at Jerusalem jail.”
In addition, Odeh discussed her role in the Supersol bombing, and in a second bombing at the British Consulate that caused only property damage, in a 1980 Journal of Palestine Studies article that remains online.
“Actually we placed two bombs,” she said, “the first was found before it went off so we placed another.”
Arraf posted on Twitter that she is “honored” to defend someone who killed two Israelis. That’s not surprising.
French Declare Barghouti ‘Honorary Citizen’ 48 Hours After Catholic Priest ‘Sacrificed’ by ISIS
July 29, 2016French Declare Barghouti ‘Honorary Citizen’ 48 Hours After Catholic Priest ‘Sacrificed’ by ISIS, Jewish Press, Hana Levi Julian, July 29, 2016
Terrorist leader Marwan Barghouti, remains wildly popular among Palestinian Authority citizens despite being imprisoned for life. Photo Credit: Flash 90
Just two days after two Da’esh (ISIS) terrorists ritually sacrificed an elderly Catholic priest by slitting his throat on the altar of his own church as he was serving Mass, the people of France has once again bestowed the title of “Honorary Citizen” upon another cold-blooded terrorist killer.
Palestinian Authority terrorist Marwan Barghouti is the darling of the movement to create a new Arab state nestled right up against the State of Israel. He is also popular on the Palestinian Authority street, where citizens still vote for him during elections though he is sitting in a jail cell. Hamas has attempted during every parlay with Israel to free him; but he is one of the terrorist prisoners least likely to ever be released.
The leader of the Tanzim paramilitary terrorist organization, Marwan Barghouti is serving five consecutive life sentences plus 40 years for the particularly brutal murders of five Israelis. Among the dead was a 3-year-old girl.
That doesn’t include the deaths of the “hundreds of civilians, both Israelis and citizens of other states,” that he is also responsible for, said Israeli Ambassador to France Aliza Ben-Nun (Bin Nun) in an open letter published in France.
This is the eighth time since 2009 that Paris has bestowed the honor upon Barghouti. No fewer than 20 cities in France have honored the child-killer with the title of “honorary citizen,” according to the French L’Humanite newspaper.
None have invited him to come live within their municipal boundaries, however.
Ben-Nun expressed “deep shock and worry” in her letter, saying that French officials who pay tribute to Barghouti are “not only guilty of supporting terrorism but also have denied values that are cherished in both France and Israel.”
There have been repeated struggles between Israel and France over the latter’s attempts to portray Barghouti as a folk hero, including one attempt this past spring by Paris to present the killer to the world as some sort of “Nelson Mandela.”
In fact, a Paris auction house was ordered to remove a painting in which the chief of the Tanzim terrorist organization was actually presented as a Palestinian Authority version of the South African president and leader. “Nelson Mandela was also called a terrorist in the 1950s,” wrote the artist in the inscription.
But the Paris government didn’t issue the order until the auction house received a letter from the Israeli embassy, expressing disapproval of the comparison made by the artist between Mandela and Barghouti. The letter pointed out that Mandela opposed violence; Barghouti, on the other hand, is a real terrorist and a convicted killer. He is serving five consecutive life sentences plus 40 years for the heinous murders he committed.
He’s the kind of terrorist who would fit right in with the bloodthirsty murderers who slaughtered the 84-year-old priest who was celebrating Mass at the altar of his church two days ago, and who forced his fellow priest to film the event as they did so.
Perhaps that’s why France again has awarded him the honor, so close to the barbaric murder of the gentle man of God in Normandy?
Equally strangely, both chambers of the Belgian Parliament voted in May 2016 to nominate Barghouti for the Nobel Peace Prize. A letter was sent to the Nobel Committee in which the killer was called a “peace activist and a key figure in Palestinian-Israeli settlement.”
In terrorist-besieged Belgium, this is akin to something like the Stockholm Syndrome.
One wonders whether any of the security officials in either of these countries have considered the message being sent to the world’s terrorist community — and it is a real community, make no mistake — and how that warm welcome gets played to the budding lone wolves being recruited online.
Could be the leadership may only be ‘talking the talk’ about declaring “war on terror” for the cameras.
If so, then it looks like Brexit came just in time.
#DemExit begins as Hillary Clinton coronation draws to close
July 29, 2016#DemExit begins as Hillary Clinton coronation draws to close, Washington Times,
Supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders cheer at a rally in Philadelphia on Thursday during the final day of the Democratic National Convention. (Associated Press)
A Pew Research Center survey this month found that 85 percent of Mr. Sanders’ supporters intend to vote for Mrs. Clinton, with 9 percent switching to Mr. Trump and 6 percent unsure whom they will back in November.
But Sanders supporters were skeptical of the polling and estimated that the number of defections among their ranks may be closer to 50 percent.
******************************
PHILADELPHIA — Hours after Hillary Clinton gave her speech Thursday accepting the Democratic presidential nomination and capping the national convention, thousands in the rank and file planned to quit the party in a #DemExit protest.
That is not the show of party unity Democratic officials hoped for coming out of the four-day convention, where they went to great lengths to quiet disgruntled supporters of Sen. Bernard Sanders and present an image of solidarity for the race against Republican nominee Donald Trump.
“It’s a dog-and-pony show,” Seamus Berkeley, a Sanders delegate from New Mexico, said of the convention. “They’re shutting opposition down and making it look like everyone is falling in line.”
From concerns over her environmental policy to the extent of her commitment to taxpayer-funded health care to her murky stance on the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade deal, Mrs. Clinton has not overcome the doubts of a number of Sanders delegates and supporters at the convention.
“I think she has work to do, and I think the party has some work to do to convince us that not only are they going to live up to that platform the party passed, but that they’ll work with us,” said Donna Smith, executive director of Progressive Democrats of America.
Rose Watson, 61, one of 200 Sanders volunteers credentialed for the convention, said they all were shut out after the first day.
The first day was when Mr. Sanders addressed the convention and party officials handed out signs for the audience to wave that said, “Stronger together.”
“If we’re so strong together, then why not let us back in the room?” said Ms. Watson, who plans to switch her registration from Democrat to independent.
Sanders backers were also stymied in their attempts to derail the nomination of vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine, angered by party officials’ clampdown on signs of protest within the convention hall and enraged by leaked emails in recent days showing that party officials conspired against Mr. Sanders’ campaign.
Ms. Watson said she would join a large contingent of Mr. Sanders’ delegates and supporters at the convention in what they have dubbed #DemExit — a Twitter campaign that has been masterfully promoted by Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein.
Ms. Stein aggressively wooed Sanders supporters during the convention, and many pro-Sanders demonstrators outside the convention and delegates inside the Wells Fargo Arena said they will vote for Ms. Stein in November.
Still, the Democratic faithful insist that Mrs. Clinton is on stronger footing after the convention and are optimistic that the party will coalesce behind her.
“There’s a lot of work to do,” said North Carolina delegate Marc Friedland.
He anticipated that the Clinton campaign would make a concerted effort to reach out to Mr. Sanders’ supporters. But he also said that the importance of party unity was often overemphasized in the media.
“We don’t want to leave anyone on the sidelines, but we’re not going to let them drag us backward,” he said.
Democratic strategist Brad Bannon said top-notch speeches from President Obama and other prominent Democratic leaders brought the party together at the convention. He predicted that Mrs. Clinton would get a bounce after Philadelphia.
“The difference between this convention and the Republican convention is that we have had really heavyweight speakers,” he said. “I noticed here that the mood got better every day, and its largely because of the speakers.”
Democratic consultant Craig Varoga agreed.
“Monday was Bernie Sanders’ night and everyone appropriately credited him for his great organizing, his victories and the fact that he generated millions of new voters,” he said. “The rest of the week has gone a long way to uniting everyone in the party in defeating Trump this November.”
Mr. Trump also experienced dissent within the party at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, especially from rival Sen. Ted Cruz, who refused to endorse him during a prime-time speech.
However, the rift among Republicans did not result in massive party defections.
The Clinton campaign mostly succeeded in putting on a show of unity. The outbursts from Sanders supporters were kept to a minimum after the first day. Mr. Sanders helped clear the way Tuesday to Mrs. Clinton’s uncontested nomination. Mr. Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden and vice presidential nominee Sen. Tim Kaine gave rousing speeches Wednesday. And Mrs. Clinton’s speech Thursday launched her into the general election race.
Democrats also got encouraging news in recent polls.
A Pew Research Center survey this month found that 85 percent of Mr. Sanders’ supporters intend to vote for Mrs. Clinton, with 9 percent switching to Mr. Trump and 6 percent unsure whom they will back in November.
But Sanders supporters were skeptical of the polling and estimated that the number of defections among their ranks may be closer to 50 percent.
“They need to be convinced, and Hillary has her work cut out for her to earn their votes,” said Chuck Pennacchio, a Sanders delegate to the convention from Pennsylvania.
White Noise? What White Noise?
July 29, 2016White Noise? What White Noise? Hot Air, Duane Patterson, July 29, 2016
I have no idea whether this video is on the up and up, but it seems genuine enough. This is a California Bernie Sanders delegate who has attended the Democratic Convention all week, allegedly, and like her fellow Bernie people, has been a little vocal in her anti-war, anti-Hillary, anti-establishment sentiments. When this woman and the rest of the Bernie delegation showed up early to claim their seats for the main event last night, Hillary Clinton riding in wearing her white pantsuit, with literally the only thing missing being the white steed on which to ride to the podium, the seats were already reserved by paid seat fillers wearing a Hillary shirt. The price to buy a crowd? $50 a person.
Where the Bernie people were crammed into was a pre-planned section by the DNC that happened to have a white noise generator behind them. That’s fancy talk for loudspeakers that are controlled by the convention sound board so that if there are any troublemakers booing or carrying on during Hillary’s speech, the speakers with canned crowd noise are instantly brought up to drown out the protesters.
Now when Hillary Clinton did mention having the need for having the strongest military in the world, you could hear the Bernie people starting to ramp up. But they instantly got drowned out. Now we know why.
Poor, delusional Bernie people. They never had a chance from start to finish. Never.
The fun part of this video is the first few minutes. If you want to pop the popcorn and enjoy all of it, be warned that the woman making the video gets a little more profane the more exasperated she gets.
(The video at the link does not embed. Here’s a YouTube version with essentially the same content. — DM)
MUST SEE! Clinton Praises Dictators but the Media Only Attacks Trump
July 29, 2016MUST SEE! Clinton Praises Dictators but the Media Only Attacks Trump, Constitution.com, Joe Scudder, July 29, 2016
While she criticizes Trump for it, Hillary Clinton praises dictators and even works with them.
As far as I can tell, only Russia Today has pointed out that Hillary Clinton praises dictators. They probably have an agenda but who doesn’t. Instead of worrying about the messenger, decide if the information is true.
Even if someone wants to believe Hillary’s accusations against Donald Trump are true, the difference would be that Clinton praises dictators who support Sunni terrorists. Trump praises leaders who fight terrorism.
That represents a clear choice, so expect the media to do all they can to obscure it.
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