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Ruth King

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Clinton’s Email Jeopardy Aides shouldn’t take the fall for her self-serving actions.

By on March 5th, 2016

Hillary Clinton’s Super Tuesday victory gives her a clear path to the Democratic presidential nomination, but Bernie Sanders has never been her biggest obstacle to the White House. Her real liability is an email scandal that has put her in legal jeopardy.

Camp Clinton is arguing that the State Department’s Monday release of the final batch of emails ends the controversy over her private server. Yet that release is merely the end of one judicially mandated exercise overseen by a bureaucracy friendly to the former Secretary of State. The real action is in the courts, the FBI and Justice Department.

But even the friendly State Department review has been damaging. Of 30,000 emails Mrs. Clinton turned over to State, we now know that 2,093 were classified as “confidential” or “secret.” Another 22 were classified “top secret”—and State withheld their contents from public release. Mrs. Clinton keeps claiming these were “retroactively” classified, but that’s been vigorously disputed by intelligence community members, who note that at least some of the top-secret emails refer to intelligence projects classified from the beginning.

The latest release provides fresh evidence that Mrs. Clinton knew her server held national secrets. In one email from April 2012, aide Jake Sullivan forwarded Mrs. Clinton a blog post from a jihadist group. Mrs. Clinton replied: “If not classified or otherwise inappropriate, can you send to the NYTimes reporters who interviewed me today?”

The fact that Mrs. Clinton had to ask if this one was classified suggests she knew that people were sending sensitive information to her unsecure server. The new email dump also shows then-Sen. John Kerry sending Mrs. Clinton intelligence he’d obtained from top Pakistani generals.

There’s more to come. Federal judges have spent the past year doing what the State Department wouldn’t—that is, upholding the Freedom of Information Act. Judge Emmet Sullivan recently granted Judicial Watch discovery into whether State and Mrs. Clinton deliberately thwarted FOIA laws. CONTINUE AT SITE

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Ruthie Blum: Ignorance- The True Cost of Higher Education

By on March 5th, 2016

During several sleepless nights, watching loops of 24-hour news broadcasts devoted to the U.S. presidential race, I noticed certain themes that otherwise might have escaped my attention. One was the claim that first-time voters are “too young to remember” the scandals surrounding former president Bill Clinton and wife Hillary’s behavior during the period that the couple occupied the White House.

This assertion was like a hidden key to unlocking another phenomenon related to Americans in the age group under discussion and the surrounding culture’s attitude toward them. I am talking about the latest “radical chic” on campuses across the country — fever-pitched anti-Israel activism.

At both Ivy League and state schools, accusing the Jewish state of war crimes against the “oppressed Palestinian people” is the current ticket to peer acceptance. Campaigning for boycott, divestment and sanctions against “Israeli apartheid” is so popular that anything from complaints about high tuition and student loans to criticism of professors and guest lecturers has become part and parcel of the movement.

The response of university administrators and faculty has been to cower and hold meetings with student-body representatives to discuss free speech. So rampant has this scenario become that alumni are starting to wake up and take measures, among them threats to cease donating money to their alma maters.

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MELANIE PHILLIPS: HOW THE WEST UNDERMINES ISRAEL’S SURVIVAL

By on March 5th, 2016

I raised one that has long been bothering me – whether Western secular values were undermining the ability of the Jewish people to survive.
At Jewish Book Week in London a few days ago, I took part in a panel discussion about the most pressing questions facing Jews today.

I raised one that has long been bothering me – whether Western secular values were undermining the ability of the Jewish people to survive.

Across the West, there has been a terrifying rise in anti-Jewish feeling. This is fueled by an unprecedented campaign of lies and libels against Israel aimed at destroying it through delegitimization.

This campaign displays the same signature motifs of classic Jew-hatred that go back through the centuries.

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Connecticut College Anti-Semitism Continues; Some Faculty Speak Out by Noah Beck

By on March 5th, 2016

A Connecticut College professor has told colleagues that his school has grown so hostile toward Jews that he can no longer recommend Jewish students or professors study or teach at the college.

“In my opinion, this harassment of Jews on campus in the name of fighting for social justice should end; immediately,” wrote Spencer J. Pack, an economics professor, in a faculty-wide email.
His comments were triggered by the smear campaign that pro-Palestinian students successfully waged against a pro-Israel professor, resulting in his indefinite leave from campus, and a more recent push to malign Birthright (a program enabling student travel to Israel) by plastering the campus with posters. The posters reportedly intimidated Jewish or pro-Israel students and faculty, while attempting to poison the minds of uninformed students and faculty with vicious falsehoods about Israel. The posters were put up by Conn Students in Solidarity with Palestine (CSSP), whose faculty adviser, Eileen Kane, runs the school’s Global Islamic Studies program.

Kane’s Global Islamic Studies program also invited Palestinian-American poet Remi Kanazi to speak at Connecticut College on April 12. Kanazi, who is scheduled to give a “poetry performance,” is on the organizing committee of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel and listed among its endorsers. His strategy has been to connect anti-Israel politics with popular urban struggles.

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He is one of Israel’s top soldiers, but to his friends he is a traitor By Josh Jackman,

By on March 5th, 2016

Israel’s highest-ranking Muslim soldier has described how he endeavours to make his service a source of pride to his father, despite many treating him as a traitor.

Growing up in the village of Reineh in the Galilee – where many believe he has betrayed Arab-Israelis – Major Alaa Waheeb said he never imagined he would be part of the Israeli Defence Forces, let alone go on to become its most-decorated Muslim.

The major was speaking while in Britain for a tour of communities organised by the grassroots group Zionist Federation.

But the soldier, who has served as a platoon commander and was an operations officer in the Gaza brigade during the disengagement in 2005, could not even speak Hebrew until he was 18.

At his high school, he was told that “serving in the IDF is not the way of the Muslim religion”. He said it was only the intervention of his father which caused him to perform “a 180-degree change from where I was,” and join the army.

“If there’s one thing that I want to say, it’s that my dad was the one who wanted me to join the IDF. My dad always told me to be a soldier.

“He was born in Syria and brought to Israel as a small child. He and his family lived in Yavne’el, a small town with many religious Jews. That’s why he had so many Jewish friends, why he then joined the Israeli police, and why he told me to join the army.

“I was wondering, ‘what does he want from me?’ and I told him: ‘I have nothing to look for in the IDF’.”

But eventually, at the age of 18, Major Waheeb was convinced. Nearly two decades later, he said his decision was still unpopular with some.

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EU businesses demand ‘made in occupied territories’ labels on Israeli settlement products By Efrat Forsher

By on March 5th, 2016

The European Union plans to step up its anti-Israel boycott measures and require farmers based beyond the Green Line to clearly label produce as coming from “the occupied territories,” Israel Hayom learned Thursday.

Farmers in the Jordan Valley were recently informed by two companies that export their produce to the EU that the new directive will take effect in mid April.

One Israeli exporter told Israel Hayom that since the EU made the decision to label settlement products, many clients across Europe have made arrangements to implement the directives.

EU guidelines have left the exact nature of product labeling to the discretion of each member state. For the most part, settlement products imported to the EU are repackaged upon arrival at their destination, and a small sticker is added indicating the West Bank as the goods’ point of origin.

According to the exporter, he was recently approached by several German supermarket chains which told him that Israeli manufacturers must now label their products prominently to indicate to consumers that they were “manufactured in territories occupied by the Israeli government.”

Some German clients have decided to cease importing settlement goods altogether, he said.

Israel Hayom has learned that last week, the Dutch Agriculture Ministry informed importers that settlement products must be clearly labeled before leaving Israel.

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DOV LIEBER: ‘PALESTINIAN’ TEXTBOOKS- NO ISRAEL, MARTYRDOM PRAISED

By on March 4th, 2016

‘No education toward 2 states in Palestinian textbooks,’ report finds

Israel is routinely left off maps, Israeli cities are said to be in Palestine, martyrdom is celebrated, and there is not a single mention of the Holocaust in more than 70 official Palestinian Authority textbooks, Israel Radio reported Tuesday.

The state radio’s Palestinian affairs correspondent, Gal Berger, said he looked over textbooks for grades 1-12 with a diverse range of subjects, including history, geography and Islamic studies, and found what he indicated was a systematic blurring out of Israel’s existence.

“In the textbooks of the Palestinian Authority,” he said, “there is no education towards two states or a Palestinian state [alongside Israel] within ’67 lines.”

In the Palestinian history books for grades 10-12, there are full chapters dedicated to World War II but no mention of the Holocaust, Berger reported. “For a student in this [Palestinian education] system,” said Berger, “it is as if the Holocaust never happened.”

In his examination of the Islamic studies textbooks, Berger found excerpts that celebrated martyrdom, including a fourth grade textbook that invites the children to write about a Palestinian martyr of their choice.

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DJT the SOB Trump is not ‘crude but effective’; he’s just crude. By Kevin D. Williamson

By on March 4th, 2016

‘He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.” That observation is attributed (possibly erroneously) to Franklin D. Roosevelt, expressing his feelings about Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza García. That’s the American version of “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” and it has produced mixed results as a foreign-policy guideline: Saddam Hussein, the Afghan muhajideen, and the Pakistanis were our sons of bitches right up until they weren’t. Moammar Qaddafi was our son of a bitch for about five minutes, and a fat lot of good it did him.

Strange thing: A fair number of purported Republicans annoyed at enemy-of-my-enemy thinking as a rule of thumb for international affairs have embraced it as a model for choosing a president. This isn’t going to work out well for them.

Donald Trump is not your son of a bitch. He’s just a son of a bitch.

To long for a strongman to rule over us with a whip hand is unworthy of Americans, but Americans are human beings, too, and they suffer from a common human affliction: They desire to be dominated by a strong man. The man on the horse offers them protection for their vulnerability, direction for their directionlessness, strength for their weakness. All he demands in return is servility, which devotees of Der Apfelstrudelführer — singing hilariously homoerotic hymns to his purported status as “alpha male” — are all too happy to provide.

It has provided an embarrassing display: Ann Coulter, who affirmed that she’d be happy to support Trump even if he “wants to perform abortions in White House” — actual quote, there — huffed that Marco Rubio was being unseemly when he criticized her man on his own terms. Sean Hannity, who purported to be a Catholic, repeated ancient Martin Luther-era slanders against the papacy and the Catholic Church when the pope seemed to criticize the great man.

“Abject” is not a strong enough word for Laura Ingraham’s performance. Point to Trump’s corruption and his support of odious politicos ranging from Chuck Schumer to Nancy Pelosi to Harry Reid to Herself, and they’ll scoff: “He was a businessman — what do you expect?” Well, George Soros is a businessman, too — what do you expect? Point to Trump’s inconsistencies — the so-called conservative does not believe in free enterprise, property rights, the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, or the rest of the Bill of Rights — and people who denounce George Will for once having had dinner with Barack Obama when he was president-elect will weep that you’re a “purist.”

Donald Trump has lied about practically everything a human being can lie about — ask his wives and children — but he did tell the truth about one thing: He really could shoot people down on Fifth Avenue (assuming that the TV tough guy actually knows how to operate a firearm) and none of these unsouled minions would bat an eye, their eyes being exhausted from batting them at Der Apfelstrudelführer.

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Donald ‘D-Minus’ Trump: Headed to a Courtroom Near You By Deroy Murdock

By on March 4th, 2016

Donald “D-minus” Trump won big on Tuesday evening, but lost big on Tuesday morning. Before scoring victories in seven primaries, Trump suffered a legal setback that could explode in his face later this election year.

Donald “D-minus” Trump won big on Tuesday evening, but lost big on Tuesday morning. Before scoring victories in seven primaries, Trump suffered a legal setback that could explode in his face later this election year.

A four-judge Appellate Court panel in Albany rejected Trump’s motion to dismiss Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s (D., N.Y.) $40 million fraud lawsuit on behalf of some 5,000 students who spent up to $35,000 at Trump University. They learned little, and now ask — as Billy Joel once did — “Is that all you get for your money?” The judges unanimously cleared this case for trial. Thus, the potential Republican presidential nominee soon could address twelve Manhattan jurors under oath, rather than 12,000 Michigan voters under blue skies.

“I’ve won most of the lawsuits,” Trump told CNN February 25. “I could settle it right now for very little money, but I don’t want to do it out of principle.”

However, the Washington Post gave Trump’s denial three out of four Pinocchios for being “mostly false.” Trump has won specific court rulings. Regardless, he faces three suits that denounce him for highly shady business practices.

New York State’s case accuses Trump of “engaging in persistent fraudulent, illegal and deceptive conduct in connection with the operation of Trump University.”

Specifically, Schneiderman states that Trump & Co. “used the name ‘Trump University’ even though they lacked the charter necessary under New York law to call themselves a University.” State officials told them in 2005 that they were breaking the law. Nonetheless, “Trump University did not change its name until May 2010 and never received a license to operate in the state. As a result, many students believed they were attending a University, when they were not.”

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UN Passes Toughly Worded Piece of Paper against North Korea Why the Security Council’s latest sanctions resolution will be unlikely to deter Pyongyang. by Joseph Klein

By on March 4th, 2016

The United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution on March 2nd that imposes tough new sanctions and tightens some of its existing measures against North Korea (the DPRK). Resolution 2270 (2016) is the Security Council’s strongest response to date to the rogue North Korean regime’s ongoing nuclear and ballistic missile-related test activities in violation of a series of prior Security Council resolutions. The triggering events leading up to this latest resolution were North Korea’s January 2016 nuclear test and February rocket launch. These provocations were too much even for China, North Korea’s closest trading partner, which cooperated constructively with the United States to reach consensus on the resolution’s text after several weeks of negotiations.

President Obama issued a statement following the vote that highlighted his belief in the importance of the resolution: “Today, the international community, speaking with one voice, has sent Pyongyang a simple message: North Korea must abandon these dangerous programs and choose a better path for its people.”

In reality, the latest resolution is just a piece of paper that is unlikely to change North Korea’s behavior. U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, acknowledged that “the true measure of Resolution 2270 will be whether the rigor with which states implement these sanctions matches the rigor we can anticipate the DPRK will apply to attempting to evade them – that’s what they do.”

In fact, unless the United States and its principal allies in the Asian Pacific region and elsewhere are prepared to vigorously enforce the resolution’s terms, including broader restrictions on trade and financial transactions, a more comprehensive arms embargo and the new mandatory cargo inspection regime, North Korea will be more emboldened than ever. Just hours after the Security Council passed Resolution 2270, North Korea showed what it thought of the resolution by firing six short-range projectiles into the sea.

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