Friday, December 30, 2016

Lame Duck vs The Year of the Rooster

Picture tweeted by the Russian Embassy in response to "expulsion"
Last week the White House felt it necessary to point out the United States only has “one president at a time.” But it's increasingly unclear if that's still Barack Obama.

Case in point the dispute over United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, which reiterated the Security Council′s "demand that Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.”

The measure passed 14-0, with the United States abstaining. Typically, the U.S. would use its veto power on a measure like this, upholding the long-standing American policy that the final settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian issue must take place between the parties involved and not be imposed from without.
The Chinese Honor Trump as the Mascot of the Lucky Year of the Rooster

However, the Obama administration chose to break with that policy. According to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power, Washington was sending a message that “the settlements must stop.” But she also confusingly said the historic policy break “does not in any way diminish the United States’ steadfast and unparalleled commitment to the security of Israel.” It is hard to believe that even she believes that.

Read the full article by James S Robbins at USA Today

Thursday, December 29, 2016

Mr Trump, Will you rid us of this meddlesome Kerry, Please as soon as possible

From the Daily Wire: 10 Lies Secretary of State Kerry Told During His Big Middle East Peace Speech

Photo by Bryan Thomas/Getty Images
December 28, 2016

On Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry gave a speech on his proposed plan for peace between Israelis and Arabs. His plan: blame the Jews, pretend that Palestinian terrorism and incitement isn’t representative of the actual Palestinian government, and then blather for 69 more minutes. His speech razed facts to the ground in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan.
Here were ten of the worst lies and lies-by-omission Kerry purveyed in his ode to lying and self-indulgence:

1. Equating Jewish Settlements and Palestinian Terrorism. Israel has been wracked by a wave of stabbings and shootings and rocket attacks from Palestinian terrorists over the last two years. Kerry spent a few minutes on that, but only in order to draw moral equivalence with Jews building additional bathrooms in East Jerusalem, the capital of Israel. “The truth is that trends on the ground, violence, terrorism, settlement expansion, and the seemingly endless occupation, they are combining to destroy hopes for peace on both sides,” Kerry said. This is nonsense. Before there were any Jewish settlements – when Israel did not control Judea, Samaria, or Gaza – the Palestine Liberation Organization called for the “liberation” of Palestine, meaning the complete destruction of Israel. The problem isn’t people building homes. It’s Palestinians murdering Jews, and refusing to accept that any home built by a Jew ought to exist in the Middle East.

2. “If The Choice Is One State, Israel Can Either Be Jewish Or Democratic. It Cannot Be Both.” This is patently absurd. There has been one state in the area between the Jordan and the Mediterranean for some 50 years. That state has been democratic. This lie rests on two absurd contentions: first, that if Israel were to annex all Judea and Samaria, Jews would be outnumbered by Arabs; second, that if Israel were to annex all lands, Israel would have to grant all Palestinian Arabs full citizenship or face status as an apartheid state. The first claim is simply false – Jews outnumber Palestinian Arabs outside of the Gaza Strip by a factor of two-to-one, and Jews now have the equivalent birth rate of Palestinian Arabs, and will soon have a higher birth rate, as Caroline Glick points out, meaning that Jewish majority status will increase, not decrease. Second, the United States does not offer citizenship to all the people living within its borders, or over territories over which it has sovereignty. Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic are governed semi-autonomously, but citizens of Puerto Rico cannot vote in presidential elections in the United States. Israel could easily grant green cards to Palestinian residents while also giving them local control of their governance without a national vote.

3. Peace Will Only Be Realized With a Palestinian Terror State. The notion that peace depends on the establishment of a Palestinian terror state – and that’s what will be established, given that the unity government of the Palestinians now includes Hamas and Islamic Jihad alongside Fatah – is asinine. Israel has had to blockade Gaza because Hamas controls it, and is attempting to take military shipments from Iran. Adding another Iran-backed terror proxy state to the Middle Eastern map is a great way to encourage a two-front war against Israel, given the presence of Hezbollahstan on Israel’s northern border.

4. “No American Administration Has Done More For The Security of Israel Than Barack Obama’s.” To put it mildly, LOL. LOLOLOLOLOL. Funny guy, this Kerry. Here’s a timeline of Obama’s “support” for Israel. That timeline doesn’t even include the Iran nuclear deal or the current UN resolution hubbub.

5. Israeli Intransigence Is The Problem. Nope. Not even close. In 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered 94.2 percent of Judea and Samaria to the Palestinians, a corridor that would link that territory to the Gaza Strip, land swaps that would increase Palestinian land holdings, a formula for division of Jerusalem. Abbas refused the deal. In 2000, Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered a similar deal. Yassar Arafat refused it. Palestinians have never accepted any deal offered by the Israelis. Israelis continue to offer. But the problem is clearly the mean, nasty Israelis. And by the way, that awful Netanyahu fellow offered to freeze settlements early in the Obama administration, and the Palestinians responded with violence.

6. Settlements Are Illegal. No, they aren’t. Kerry declared over and over that Israelis settling east of the so-called green line are living there illegally. That’s patent nonsense. He also suggested that no Jews would be allowed to live inside a new Palestinian state, because Jews would object – ignoring, of course, that Palestinians would quickly murder any Jew remaining in a Palestinian state, and Jews have a slight objection to being murdered. Right now, over a million Arabs live inside Israel. Virtually no Jews live in the Muslim world because they were expelled, and quickly absorbed into Israel.

7. Equating Palestinian Government With Israeli Government. Perhaps the most insane spectacle was Kerry suggesting that the Netanyahu government is beholden to the “most extreme elements” in Israeli politics, while pooh-poohing Palestinian government support for terrorism. Kerry suggested that Hamas was a troublesome rogue group as opposed to an integral part of the Palestinian unity government.

8. Israel As Purported Burden To The United States. Kerry spent serious time talking about how the United States had subsumed its own interests in order to give military aid to Israel. Of course, the Obama administration has also given aid to the Palestinian unity terror government, and attempted to block weapons shipments in the middle of the Gaza terror war. And even the Obama administration says that such aid is good for the United States defense industry; a huge percentage of American aid to Israel is a subsidy to domestic defense contractors. Israel is America’s only democratic ally in the region.

9. The UN Resolution Changed Nothing. Kerry kept stating that the UN resolution didn’t do much to change the status quo. That’s false. This UN resolution said that all territories outside the 1949 Israel armistice lines – the “Auschwitz borders” – are occupied, including Jerusalem and holy sites like the Western Wall. It calls for all settlements in those areas “flagrant” violations of international law. There’s a reason Kerry pushed this thing through: of course it changes things.

10. The Obama Administration’s Maneuvers Help Peace. This is the opposite of the truth. America’s position for two decades has been that it would not cram down a peace deal on the Israelis and Palestinians – all issues would have to be resolved through bilateral negotiations. By placing the onus for all concessions on Israel and making Israel subject to the possibility of blowback from the International Court of Justice, Obama just allowed Palestinians to abandon any pretense at negotiations and stand on their newfound “rights.”
Kerry’s speech was chock full of lies. But here’s the good news: nobody will remember it a month from now, just as nobody will remember John Kerry’s legacy beyond his slander of American soldiers in Vietnam.

Monday, December 26, 2016

Trump In Position To Reshape Judiciary With 100+ Vacancies

December 25, 2016
http://talk.baltimoresun.com/topic/277497-trump-in-position-to-reshape-judiciary-with-100-vacancies/
Quote
Donald Trump is set to inherit an uncommon number of vacancies in the federal courts in addition to the open Supreme Court seat, giving the president-elect a monumental opportunity to reshape the judiciary after taking office.The estimated 103 judicial vacancies that President Obama is expected to hand over to Trump in the Jan. 20 transition of power is nearly double the 54 openings Obama found eight years ago following George W. Bush’s presidency.

Confirmation of Obama’s judicial nominees slowed to a crawl after Republicans took control of the Senate in 2015. Obama White House officials blame Senate Republicans for what they characterize as an unprecedented level of obstruction in blocking the Democratic president’s court picks. The result is a multitude of openings throughout the federal circuit and district courts that will allow the new Republican president to quickly make a wide array of lifetime appointments.

State gun control laws, abortion restrictions, voter laws, anti-discrimination measures and immigrant issues are all matters that are increasingly heard by federal judges and will be influenced by the new composition of the courts. Trump has vowed to choose ideologues in the mold of the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative icon — a prospect that has activists on the right giddy.

Thursday, December 22, 2016

Be infromed, read all of the following.

Maybe the wtp GOP might want tp take a stand - I post the article and my response....

Article - NJ SPOTLIGHT

IMMIGRATION ACTIVISTS URGE NJ COUNTIES NOT TO COOPERATE WITH FEDS

They fear greater push to find and deport undocumented immigrants when Trump becomes president

Edison Hernandez, an undocumented immigrant, says he's preparing for tougher immigration enforcement by the Trump administration.
Advocates for immigrants’ rights are urging New Jersey towns and counties to resist pressure to cooperate with federal enforcement efforts that are expected to increase under the Trump administration.
Supporters of about two dozen groups belonging to the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice gathered at the College of New Jersey in Ewing on Saturday for a day-long summit to discuss ways of responding to the threat of more detentions and deportations of undocumented immigrants when President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.
They called on counties to reject any more requests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to deputize local authorities in detaining undocumented immigrants under Section 287g of the Immigration and Nationality Act which allows the federal government to enter into such agreements with state and local law-enforcement agencies.
Such agreements already exist in Hudson and Monmouth Counties, while one is being considered in Salem County, activists said.
Although it’s unclear whether Trump will follow through on campaign promises to deport all of the estimated 11 million to 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., deport only those with criminal records, or build a wall along the US-Mexican border, advocates such as the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and the American Friends Service Committee urged supporters to prepare for a more aggressive federal policy on immigration enforcement.
Although recent reports have suggested that Trump has softened an earlier pledge to eject all undocumented immigrants, activists still fear more deportations than under President Obama, whose administration deported some 2.5 million undocumented immigrants between 2009 and 2014, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
The detention or deportation of millions more immigrants would be beyond the current capacity of the federal immigration authorities unless they enlist the support of local law enforcement, said Ari Rosmarin, Public Policy Director of the ACLU of New Jersey.
“The Trump administration is going to need a lot of boots on the ground to do its dirty work,” he told the conference.
It’s possible that the new administration will begin deporting undocumented immigrants if they are arrested on suspicion of a crime, rather than waiting for a conviction, and may press for longer prison terms for convicted criminals who are also found guilty of immigration violations, he said.
The new administration may also step up its efforts to identify undocumented immigrants by using E-Verify, a government-run, internet-based system that allows employers to check whether a job applicant is eligible to work in the United States, Rosmarin said.
He argued that advocates for New Jersey’s estimated 450,000 undocumented immigrants should assume that Trump’s campaign pledges to crack down on illegal immigration will become policy. “We should not take them for anything but what they are saying,” he said.
Undocumented immigrants who would be vulnerable to any new crackdown include Esperanza Del Barrera, 58, a native of Peru, who has over-stayed the visa on which she came to the United States four years ago.
Del Barrera, who lives in Newark and works as a babysitter, said she came to the U.S. to be with her two daughters, who also overstayed their visas and remain undocumented.
She said on the sidelines of the conference that she has become more worried about the threat of deportation since the election of Donald Trump but has faith that she and her daughters will be able to stay in the United States. She chose to attend the conference and speak to a reporter because, like many other undocumented immigrants, she wants to argue for the right to remain in the country.
“For me particularly, since I’m fighting this fight, I am not afraid,” Del Barrera said, through a translator. “But I’m afraid for my daughters’ lives because they live in the shadows.” She declined to be photographed.
Activists are also concerned about the fate of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an Obama administration initiative that allows about 750,000 “dreamers” --young undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children -- to defer deportation for a renewable period of two years, during which they can continue to live and work legally in the United States. ;
US Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) told the conference that if Trump acts on a campaign promise to end DACA, it would subject the young people to the threat of deportation and cause billions of dollars in economic damage to the U.S. companies that employ them.
“By dismantling the program, the president-elect would strip these young people of their jobs, their education, their communities, their future, and their faith and trust in the government of the land they have come to know and love,” Menendez, the son of Cuban immigrants, said. “They are Americans in every way except for a piece of paper.” ;
In a possible reprieve for DACA, it would be protected by the Bridge Act, bipartisan legislation introduced on Friday in the U.S. Senate. The bill, cosponsored by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, would allow young immigrants who have qualified for DACA to stay in the United States for three years if the program is canceled. ;
The Trump transition team did not respond to questions on whether the new administration will increase use of the 287g rule to enlist state and local agencies to work with ICE or end DACA.
Any decision to scrap the DACA program could have dire consequences for Edison Hernandez, an undocumented immigrant from Uruguay, whose 16-year-old daughter qualifies for the program.
Hernandez, 51, who lives in Elizabeth, said his daughter was born in Uruguay two years before he and his wife moved to the United States. They also have a 12-year-old son who was born in the United States and so is a U.S. citizen.
Hernandez, a construction worker who supports the immigrants’ rights nonprofit Make the Road New Jersey, said he is bracing for more deportations under the new administration.
“As an organization, we are preparing for the worst,” he said, through a translator. “If there are deportations, we are preparing to defend ourselves.”;
Hernandez said he would like to become a U.S. citizen but does not know how he could do so. “There would have to be an immigration reform legislation passed to allow me to adjust my status and eventually become a citizen,” he said.
Meanwhile, Menendez is urging Jeh Johnson, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, to end the 287g rule before the end of the current administration.
While Johnson did not give a commitment on that request, Menendez said he will continue to press to end the program because of concern that it could be used by the Trump administration to crack down on illegal immigration.
“How that might be used by the next administration is really consequential,” he said, to applause from the approximately 140 conference attendees.
Advocates urged the public to call on county authorities to end their cooperation with ICE or not to begin it.
“The biggest pressure has to be at the freeholder level,” said Johanna Calle, program coordinator for the alliance. “If you are a resident of Hudson County, Monmouth County, Salem County, and this is something that concerns you, call your freeholders, call your county executives, let them know that this is not something that you want your money going into.”;
She said the 287g program uses county staff and other resources, paid for by local tax dollars, to do the work that would normally be done by federal immigration officers.
Counties that have agreed to work with ICE are not compensated by the federal government but may be reluctant to cut those ties if they also rent space in county jails to house immigrant detainees -- a service for which some get paid millions of dollars by ICE, Calle said.
The possibility of losing federal revenue also applies to “sanctuary cities” such as Newark and Princeton which have said that they will not cooperate with federal policy that aims to detain or deport undocumented immigrants, she said.
“A lot of cities and counties, with the threat of the federal government defunding their agencies because they do sanctuary-city policies -- they are going to have to decide whether they can find other ways to get paid if they no longer participate in these programs,” she said.

A Concerned Citizen:
"My comment - During the Obama administration’s tenure, over 300 cities have provided safe haven for illegal immigrants, and at least 170,000 convicted criminal illegal immigrants who have been ordered to be deported remain at-large. Sanctuary cities are dangerous to both law enforcement efforts and reducing illegal immigration.
Ending these policies does not require new laws on the books - enforce our current laws and ensure local law enforcement jurisdictions work collaboratively with federal immigration authorities regarding criminal illegal immigrants.
One of the arguments to sanctuary cities is the possible division of families. After the tragic murder of Kathryn Steinle in San Francisco in April 2015 her family will never be able to get back together - whereas the illegal immigrants family members are still are alive. She is far from being the only victim of a crime committed by a criminal illegal immigrant.
Three people were killed and dozens of others were injured when Denis Yasmir Amaya Rodriguez, an illegal immigrant, crashed a bus full of volunteers on their way to assist folks impacted by a flooding event in New Orleans . And this accident could have absolutely been prevented and now their families will have a permanent separation.
Anecdotal info is one thing but from the GAO comes the following : ..." illegals and non-citizens make up 3% and 8% of the population, respectively, but commit at least 22% to 37% of the murders. Illegals likely commit murder at about 10 times the rate of all U.S. inhabitants. he Government Accountability Office has data that show otherwise. Here is the leading sentence from a 2011 GAO report (GAO-11-187, Criminal Alien Statistics, March 2011).
“The number of criminal aliens in federal prisons in fiscal year 2010 was about 55,000, and the number of SCAAP criminal alien incarcerations in state prison systems and local jails was about 296,000 in fiscal year 2009 (the most recent data available), and the majority were from Mexico.”;
(SCAAP is the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program and in this context means “illegal aliens” – a GAO term meaning “Noncitizens whom ICE verified were [or whom states and local jurisdictions believe to be] illegally in the United States at the time of incarceration”.)
As for those federal prisoners, the GAO states, “In fiscal year 2005, the criminal alien population in federal prisons was around 27 percent of the total inmate population, and from fiscal years 2006 through 2010 remained consistently around 25 percent.”;
Guess who is paying for their residence in prisons. Might be cheaper to send them home - even if their own country won't take them back.
Per the GAO, “as of fiscal 2009, the total alien – non-U.S.-citizen – population was about 25.3 million, including about 10.8 million aliens without lawful immigration status.”;
Since the population of the U.S. was about 306.8 million in 2009, non-citizens comprised 8.25% of the population and illegal aliens about 3.52%. (Recall that they represented 25% of the federal prison population then, and almost 39% in 2013.)
How many crimes did they commit? Almost three million."
Sanctuary cities - counties, states and now colleges - are in direct conflict with federal law. Worse still, these cities are actively releasing criminal illegal immigrants back into our communities instead of working with federal officials to deport them or lock them up.
I didn't know we had a choice to decide what laws are to be followed.
Cut federal funding when there is clear violation of the law and making our communities more dangerous rather than safer. Falling short of enforcing our laws designed to protect innocent American civilian lives is an absolute nonstarter.
Gloucester County officials need to ensure that these illegal policies are stopped and needs to ensure our safety for every American - it has to be their absolute top priority otherwise vote them out of office - because they are acting criminally."
jscheidell@comcast.net

No one wants advice -- only corroboration."
-- John Steinbeck,

jscheidell@comcast.net

Sunday, December 18, 2016

Happy Holidays!


Opinions everybody can have one.



If you have a hobby or personal interest, you might at times look for other diversions. The elections being over has led to interests outside the verdict of the votes. The interests of reporters have grown to: what is, or are, the elected doing, has the elected done what was said are the plans, how can we make our venue attention getting? Who did Trump meet with?
That would be interesting, if more to the point, if we were to learn what counsel or ideas were exchanged and what decisions were made? Privacy is ever important to keep private but opinionated statements away from those who would have us believe their thoughts or desires. Obviously the subjects chosen to provide speculative interests’ will reveal little because one simple sentence will lead to innuendos and guessing along the lines of criticism so the readers, listeners, and watchers will be enthralled with the guesses. When will the opinions be pushed aside and facts be announced without slants?
What are the facts? Facts no longer seem to matter to the anti-Trump media. We hear or see little concerning facts of the war on ISIS.  How many workers have truly left the work force? Is the National debt effecting our country or is it a myth? What is happening to the health insurance for the working families? Why are we worried about thespians lecturing a vice president when they are obviously far removed from the real world of going to work or looking for a lob? Pick a channel or read a paper. The major part is opinion based on twisting of statements or a mayor wanting to gain favor by declaring sanctuary. The media should be shouting the mayor of a sanctuary city is working against law.
A recent concern has been aired that the cultural media is producing false headlines on the internet. At this time telling the truth will make a difference.

NOT Verified on SNOPES or otherbut sites. But !

Regardless of the followings accuracy, it is about times that we, American Citizens show our distaste for the NFL. Do not watch any football games for the next two weeks. TV revenues will drop and salaries will be threatened just like those players threaten respect for our national flag.

Retired Marine Col. Jeffery Powers wrote to the NFL commissioners the following;


Commissioner,

I’ve been a season pass holder at Yankee Stadium, Yale Bowl and Giants Stadium.

I missed the ’90-’91 season because I was with a battalion of Marines in Desert Storm. 14 of my wonderful Marines returned home with the American Flag draped across their lifeless bodies. My last conversation with one of them, Sgt Garrett Mongrella, was about how our Giants were going to the Super Bowl. He never got to see it.

Many friends, Marines, and Special Forces Soldiers who worked with or for me through the years returned home with the American Flag draped over their coffins.

Now I watch multi-millionaire athletes who never did anything in their lives but play a game, disrespect what brave Americans fought and died for. They are essentially spitting in the faces and on the graves of real men, men who have actually done something for this country beside playing with a ball and believing they’re something special! They’re not! My Marines and Soldiers were!

You are complicit in this! You’ll fine players for large and small infractions but you lack the moral courage and respect for our nation and the fallen to put an  immediate stop to this. Yes, I know, it’s their 1st Amendment right to behave in such a despicable manner.

What would happen if they came out and disrespected you or the refs publicly?

I observed a player getting a personal foul for twerking in the end zone after scoring. I guess that’s much worse than disrespecting the flag and our National  Anthem. Hmmmmm, isn’t it his 1st Amendment right to express himself like an idiot in the end zone?

Why is taunting not allowed yet taunting America is OK? You fine players for wearing 9-11 commemorative shoes yet you allow scum on the sidelines to sit, kneel or pump their pathetic fist in the air. They are so deprived with their multi-million dollar contracts for playing a freaking game!

You condone it all by your refusal to act. You’re just as bad and disgusting as they are. I hope Americans boycott any sponsor who supports that rabble you call the NFL. I hope they turn off the TV when any team that allowed this disrespect to occur, without consequence, on the sidelines. I applaud those who have not.

Legends and heroes do NOT wear shoulder pads. They wear body armor and carry rifles.

They make minimum wage and spend months and years away from their families. They don’t do it for an hour on Sunday. They do it 24/7 often with lead, not footballs, coming in their direction. They watch their brothers carted off in pieces not on a gurney to get their knee iced. They don’t even have ice! Many don’t have legs or  arms.

Some wear blue and risk their lives daily on the streets of America . They wear fire helmets and go upstairs into the fire rather than down to safety. On 9-11, hundreds vanished. They are the heroes.

I hope that your high paid protesting pretty boys and you look in that mirror when you shave tomorrow and see what you really are, legends in your own minds. You need to hit the road and take those worms with you!

Time to change the channel.

Powers originally sent his letter to former Florida congressman Allen West. West then posted the letter to his news website.

As of last week, at least 18 NFL players had protested the anthem by either kneeling during the anthem or raising their fists, according to USA Today Sports.

If you agree with what he said, please pass this on.