Free Republic

A huge front-page story in today's Wall Street Journal is called "Israel Outflanks White House in Pressing Gaza Strategy." The piece contends among other things that Israel has been doing an end-around the White House by securing munitions directly from the Pentagon. That contention is false. In fact, buried in the twenty-first paragraph of the piece is an explanation that the weapons purchase that they suggest is an end-around in the first few paragraphs is actually standard operating procedure. The WSJ piece begins: White House and State Department officials who were leading U.S. efforts to rein in Israel's military campaign...

J Street Accuses Jews of Racism, Blames Jews for Anti-Semitism August 8, 2014 by Daniel Greenfield 20 Comments After Hamas violated yet another ceasefire, anti-Israel group J Street stepped up to do what it does best. Attack Jews and Israel. Jeremy Ben Ami, Soros’ J Street errand boy, began his missive by lying and claiming that Hamas did not break the ceasefire. “With the resumption of rocket fire from Gaza at the very moment the cease-fire expired this morning, all of us at J Street feel sick that the fighting is starting up again. “ Even the New York Times...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. —A Louisville mother faces charges after police said she left her 3-month-old baby in the middle of a west Louisville street. Police said witnesses saw Dunia Abdullahi lay the child, who was wearing nothing but a diaper, in the middle of Cecil Avenue. Abdullahi, 20, told police she was upset with the baby's father because he was not willing to take her to the emergency room for an illness and left her in the road to wait for her father, the arrest report stated. According to the arrest report, witnesses said they tried to pick up the baby...

Loved this show! Might even pick up the DVD collection.

A top J Street leader at Brandeis University harassed a pro-Israel student activist early Saturday morning, calling the student a “shit bag” and telling him that “Jews hate you,” according to those who witnessed the incident. Daniel Mael was walking to his dorm room on the university’s campus late Friday night when he encountered Talia Lepson, a J Street U Brandeis board member, who purportedly referred to Mael as a “shit bag” and angrily told him “Jews hate you.” “I don’t feel comfortable on campus knowing people will lob verbal insults at me simply because we disagree,” said Mael, who...

--snip-- A plan to honor a Harlem cop killed by Nation of Islam radicals is drowning under a flood of racial tensions created more than four decades ago, but no one wants to throw it a lifeline — not even the NYPD’s new top cop. Police Commissioner Bill Bratton is distancing himself from the controversial push to get the street in front of the 28th Precinct renamed in honor of Officer Phillip Cardillo, who was shot and killed inside a mosque run by Louis Farrakhan in 1972 — noting that the community should make the final decision.

Contrary to claims from its editorial pages editor, a Wall Street Journal editor knew of Elizabeth O’Bagy’s connections to the Islamist Syrian Emergency Task Force and took at least three days to publish a clarification. “We were not aware of Elizabeth O’Bagy’s academic claims or credential when we published her Aug. 31 op-ed, and the op-ed made no reference to them,” editorial pages editor Paul Gigot told Politico in a statement on September 11. “We also were not aware of her affiliation with the Syrian Emergency Task Force, and we published a clarification when we learned of it,” Gigot wrote....

Perhaps the 77 year-old republican senator should stick to online poker. Because if the war hawk was in charge of US foreign policy, World War III would be a distant memory. Courtesy of The Burning Platform, the chart below lists of countries where John McCain has not called for military intervention. It is, in a word, large.

It’s brought to you by the letter P — for prison. PBS’s “Sesame Street” is moving from ABCs and counting numbers to offering its young viewers a bigger lesson in life: how to cope when Mommy or Daddy lands behind bars. Called “Little Children, Big Challenges: Incarceration,” the program is distributing “tool kits’’ to schools, community centers and even jails in 10 states — including New York — starting today to help kids ages 3 to 8, organizers said. According to one “tip’’ for caregivers, “Before you visit your incarcerated loved one, let your child know some of the things...

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When lawmakers delivered a long-delayed, last-minute agreement on the budget, Wall Street celebrated. And it would be easy to think that the surge in the Dow the following day meant that investors had put their concerns about Washington's political gridlock behind them. The Dow Jones industrial average surged on the news, but that doesn't mean the volatility is over. In fact, there could be more turmoil in the market soon because decisions on cutting the federal budget deficit have been put off until March, when the government will reach its borrowing limit. Republicans have already said they will demand cuts...

If no deal is reached this year, then on 1 January, daily tax withholdings will rise by an average of about $4 per person. Any money actually deducted from pay checks will be refunded if a deal is subsequently reached that returns tax rates to 2012 levels. Government spending probably won't change at the start of the new year, since President Obama has considerable discretion over the flow of spending. No one can think that this modest increase in tax withholdings would plunge the economy into a recession, but the Wall Street types seeking to dismantle social security and Medicare...

"Did you know the president of Sesame Workshop makes more than the president of the United States? We noticed that while combing through the 2009 Form 990. That year, Sesame Workshop president and CEO Gary Knell got $684,144 in reportable compensation from his job. The salary of the US president is fixed by law at $400,000, though the job does come with use of a house, Camp David, and Air Force One...."

I take a lot of photographs. So many, that my Sony DSLR broke, probably from abuse of my use, the LCD screen in the OVF mode won’t display, though everything else works OK, and two distant repair outfits sent me estimates of $200 and $235 plus shipping, while Sony says send it in, we’ll tell ya. (Ever hear any more of local repair shops for anything?) Repair or replace? Anyway, walking downtown this afternoon I saw a familiar figure a tenor saxophone player, a very good one, who plays at some or other spot downtown all the time, really, I...

Wall Street Journal writers Dion Nissenbaum and Siobhan Gorman have apparently been reprimanded and put on temporary leave for a rogue piece of writing in the journal. Their write up attacked Navy SEAL veterans for establishing businesses of their own, and included a US made tactical gear and watch company. “Navy SEAL veterans would be better off collecting unemployment for a while. No one, including myself, likes a know-it-all Navy SEAL that starts a successful venture. I don’t care how many Americans it employs, it’s just not fair for them to leverage their past accomplishments in business. I don’t really...

The self-described “pro-Israel, pro-peace” liberal advocacy group J Street is soliciting funds for congressional candidates who are openly hostile to Israel while simultaneously targeting for defeat explicitly pro-Israel lawmakers who do not agree with its radical Middle East agenda, according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis of J Street’s election year strategy. Among the more than 50 candidates endorsed by J Street is a sizable delegation of lawmakers who have expressed hostility towards the Jewish state. At least six of J Street’s candidates have failed to affirm the U.S.-Israel alliance on the House floor, rejected Israel’s right to defend itself...

Nine members of Congress aligned with the far-left group J Street either abstained or voted against a House bill that would reinforce the U.S.’s commitment to the State of Israel. The United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act of 2012 soared through the House on a vote of 411-2. That was without the help of 10 J Street stalwarts, one who voted against the bill and nine who originally voted “present.” The bi-partisan bill, which was sponsored by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, reaffirms Israel’s right to defend itself in the face of terror attacks and redoubles Congress’ support for...

Hundreds of OWS training workshops took place this month throughout the country, in all 50 states, including small rural areas. Inside one of the training workshops, attendees report that OWS is “specifically instructed to go to any and all Tea Party gatherings, rallies, etc., to be confrontational and create havoc and disruption.” They are being trained to recruit and enlarge their numbers in their assigned geographic locations, to use the correct messaging, to incite any opponents, engage in confrontation, employ tactics to evade police blockades and create gridlock. OWS workshops are extremely organized and clearly well funded. Each workshop had...

Democrats in House of Reps. joined J Street in supporting Obama administration's attempt to force Israel into making painful concessions Seventy-four Democrats in the House of Representatives have joined the dovish J Street organization in supporting the Obama administration's attempt to force Israel into making painful concessions to the Palestinian Authority. “In our view, support for a two-state resolution is inseparable from such support for Israel, its special relationship with the United States, and its very survival as a democratic homeland for the Jewish people,” the letter said. Seven Jewish members signed the letter, including Reps. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), John...

'Britain’s longest ‘clutter-free’ street was opened today with the aim of making cars and people co-exist harmoniously – without the need for hectoring signs and protective steel barriers. Indeed, the newly revamped Exhibition Road in the heart of London’s museum quarter in Kensington, visited by millions of people from around Britain and the world, doesn’t even have kerbs or pavements. The idea underlining the project is that when nannying rules and orders - in the form of countless signs, traffic signals and barriers - are removed, motorists take more personal responsibility for their own actions and drive more attentively, making...