“Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) recently repeated a debunked conspiracy theory that President Barack Obama was deploying a “secret security force” as part of the health care reform law, but he wasn’t sure if they were being trained with weapons or syringes. In a Friday interview, Christian radio host Janet Mefferd told the Texas congressman that the evidence of President Barack Obama creating a civilian security force and hoarding ammunition was adding up…………….”
This guy is a true-blue red-blooded schmuck. I recall Goh-mert once claimed that Hamas was getting their children born in the United States with the goal of planting their moles, hidden agents, here. He claimed he based that conclusion on the “confession” a pregnant Palestinian lady he met during a flight (to Texas). Thus the cerebral travails, trials, and tribulations of Gohmert-us Asinus Texacus. And just for that, we shall entertain him with one of my old favorite songs. Unfortunately it is unlikely to be one of Louie’s favorite songs.
“Although the US says it favors a state of Palestine, in fact it has been rather gleefully helping screw over the Palestinians since 1948 and has de facto gone along with virtually any new outrage the Israelis could think up to inflict on them, from putting the children of Gaza ‘on a diet’ to gradually usurping the best land and water resources on the West Bank. Whenever the international community tried to pressure Israel to stop, and to allow stateless Palestinians to have the basic rights of citizenship and property, the US used its veto at the UNSC to ensure the Palestinians were kept down. Now, for the sake of making sure no one recognizes Palestine as a state, the US has cut off its $22 million a year dues to Unesco and has lost its voting rights on the committee. This childish behavior, of taking your marbles and going home if you can’t win the playground game………………….”
It happened in 2011, toward the end of the first Obama term. I have noted here in the past that this administration (Obama) is more under the Israeli spell, nay influence, than any other in American history has ever been under the influence of a ‘foreign’ power. This UNESCO fiasco is just one example of trying to subvert international organizations, especially the United Nations and its affiliates. Clearly deliberately losing influence within the organization was a mistake. As Lyndon Johnson is quoted to have said (and I know I am paraphrasing LBJ here): it is better to be inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.
“In the wake of a forensics report claiming that Yasser Arafat was killed by radioactive material, the Palestinian committee investigating his death accused Israel on Friday of poisoning the Palestinian leader. Speaking at a news conference in Ramallah about the findings of Swiss and Russian experts who conducted tests on Arafat’s remains after exhuming his body last November, Tawfik Tirawi, head of the Palestinian committee, said reports from both groups confirmed that Arafat did not die of old age, illness or natural causes, but that he was poisoned……………”
By the time he died, Yasser Arafat was not a threat to Israel, if he ever was much of a threat. Before his death he was not a threat to anyone except some other Palestinian leaders. Does anybody outside Ramallah believe this new charge? Okay, does anybody outside Ramallah and the Arab League bureaucracy believe this? You would be surprised. It is a good thing they did not point the finger to his widow. Come to think of it………
“Iranian financial aid to Hamas seems to have renewed after the meeting, making it a pivotal turning point in Hamas’ attitude towards the Arab Spring, and to the civil war and Syria specifically. Since war broke out in Syria over two years ago, Hamas leadership chose to stand by the rebels and against Bashar Assad’s regime; subtle at first, Hamas later publicly protested the massacre the Syrian president had committed against his country’s civilians. Meanwhile, Hamas leader left Damascus and spread out in different Arab countries, including Qatar and Egypt, and it was often reported the Palestinian group is taking an active part fighting with the rebels and against Assad. Hamas turning its back on Syria – and by proxy on Iran and Hezbollah – didn’t come without consequences. In Tehran and Dahiya, connections with the group were severed and financial and arms support were ceased. Since then, Hamas leadership realized, it seems, it put its money on the wrong horse…………..”
So much for the fixed Islamist ‘principles’ of Hamas. It has been known for a few weeks now that Hamas has reversed gear, again, back into the Iranian-Syrian-Lebanese-Iraqi(?) axis. But that is okay. The Fatah oligarchs of Ramallah and Abu Dhabi will also gladly join the Iran-Syria-Lebanon axis if their other financial sources dry up. The Palestinian leaders have the usual things in common with other Arab leaders: greed and corruption. Oh, and they avoid elections. Strange how Hamas operatives were reportedly putting out word only a few months ago that their men were helping the Syrian rebels in battle against the Damascus regime. I had my doubts about that claim, I still do. Now, is it possible they might join Hezbollah fighters in supporting Bashar Al-Assad in battle?
“JERUSALEM—As part of their continuing efforts to bring peace to the conflict-stricken region, Israeli government officials announced today the construction of a new settlement on Palestinian lands where future peace talks can be held. “After years of failed diplomacy, it has become clear that we need to make a fresh start, and what better way to do so than by appropriating a small amount of Palestinian territory where Israeli citizens can live and negotiators from both sides can talk about a peaceful way forward?” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, referring to the civilian Jewish community that will be constructed in place of multiple razed city blocks in the West Bank. “With this new settlement in place, I believe that our prospects of peace and unity will be brighter than ever. In fact, we should build more settlements so there can be even more places to negotiate.” Netanyahu noted that any individuals currently living on the future site of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have exactly 36 hours to leave before they are forcibly removed….…………..”
It almost makes sense. Given the way things have gone these past few years, like declaring new illegal settlements on the eve of so-called “peace talks”, it is quite possible that Netanyahu will expropriate some more Palestinian lands in the name of peace. The term “chutzpah” seems to have been coined just to describe Netanyahu. Cheers
mhg
“The BBC has been ordered by an American court to surrender unused footage filmed for a documentary about former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to American victims of suicide bombings in Israel. In a ruling which raises questions about the ability of the American justice system to seize material held by media organisations outside the United States, a judge in New York said the Corporation was obliged to hand over outtakes from interviews with two Palestinian fighters. It now has until 1 October to lodge a further appeal or produce the material along with a sworn statement from a BBC employee confirming its authenticity. The Corporation said yesterday it was still considering the ruling…………..”
WTF does a court in New York have to do with the death of Arafat, who lived in Tunisia then Jericho then Ramallah, before dying in Paris? For that matter WTF do courts in New York have to do with affairs in the Middle East, outside Israel of course? To be even more specific, WTF does a court in New York have to do with, oh I dunno, the conflict between Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Ahmadinejad? And WTF does a court in New York care whether Prince Salman will ever become Saudi king and whether the next senior Saudi prince will die on schedule, right eight months after the last one departed and sixteen months after the one before the last one to die? For that matter WTF does a court in New York have to do with whether the prime minister of Bahrain is more of a thief than a faithful husband or both equally? And, a last shot (I promise), WTF does a court in New York have to do with such mundane things like whether Salafis shave their ‘private’ hair (they do but I can’t prove it yet) while letting their facial hair grow wild and free. There, that sounded almost like some kind of catharsis, didn’t it? Cheers
mhg [email protected]
“But the standard rationale for treating Jerusalem’s status as uncertain is that the partition plan designated it as an internationally ruled “corpus separatum.” Neither America nor anyone else is consistent on this point, either. In a last blast of imperialism, the corpus separatum was mapped to avoid Jewish or Muslim rule over Christian sites. ………….. I suspect that if Mitt Romney is elected, he will be absolutely irresponsible about cutting taxes on the rich and ballooning the deficit—but I don’t think he is reckless enough to move the American embassy to Jerusalem before a peace agreement. Doing so would remove the last shred of American credibility in the Arab world. It might very well ignite a new intifada, which—trust me—would not be healthy for those of us who live in Jerusalem. How many Americans will vote based on what the Democratic platform says about the Jerusalem? You can count them on your thumbs. This may be the most ideologically stark American election since 1932, if not since 1860. Most American Jews will vote for Obama. If they are worried about Israel, they will notice that Obama has upped funding for Israeli missile defense, vetoed U.N. resolutions criticizing Israel, and kept Benjamin Netanyahu from launching a disastrous attack on Iran. The minority of Jews who support Romney don’t care if the Democrats put the entire Israeli national anthem in their platform, in Hebrew. Most evangelicals will vote Romney, and are similarly unconcerned about whether “Jerusalem”—or “God”—is in the Democratic platform ……………..”
This whole quadrennial noise (it is just noise) in U.S. politics about Israel and Jerusalem is aimed at two American constituencies this fall. The first one, the Jewish voters, will continue to vote heavily Democratic, partly because they can smell demagoguery in disguise and their whole “modern” history screams against it (at least when it is non-Jewish demagoguery). Maybe a few elderly migrant voters in Florida can be terrified and swayed, which is one possibly useful target. The second receptive constituency is the Evangelicals and Bible-belters who will not vote for Obama in any case, even if his name were Jesus Holy Christ (with or without the ‘Obama’). Come to think of it, the same Evangelical Bible-belters would probably vote against Jesus Christ himself, once they see how he is dressed, how he speaks and, more important, what he preaches.
“Three French investigating magistrates will travel to Ramallah in the West Bank to exhume the remains of the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat so they can take tissue samples to determine what killed him. Mr Arafat died at the age of 75 in the Percy military hospital near Paris in November 2004 from an unexplained illness. There was no autopsy and the French doctors who treated him never announced the cause of his death. New evidence emerged from an investigation in July by the Al Jazeera TV network when the Institut de Radiophysique, in Lausanne, Switzerland, said it had discovered significant traces of the rare radioactive element polonium-210 on the late leader’s clothing and toothbrush provided by his wife…………”
I hear there was a joke (a bad joke) going around late in 1967, after the Israelis captured the West Bank. Someone speculated that maybe Easter would be cancelled that nest year because they had found………. Told you it was a bad joke. Back to Arafat: now, if I were irreverent and rude I’d speculate: suppose they try to exhume Arafat and the body isn’t there? What would that mean? But since I am not irreverent or rude, I shall not pose that question. Cheers
mhg [email protected]
“Zionist regime is an insult to independent nations: Ahmadinejad. Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the occupation of Palestine is a historical problem and the existence of the Zionist regime is an insult to freedom, justice and all independent nations. “The Europe and the US spend tens of billions of their wealth on the Zionists each year to help a criminal regime…continue its occupation [of Palestinian lands],” he said, addressing a convoy of pro-Palestinian activists in Tehran who are heading to al-Quds (Jerusalem) on Sunday.
He also slammed the Western states for showing no tolerance towards questioning the existence of Israel. “Despite all liberal claims of the Western states, nobody is ever allowed to ask a question or conduct a research on how the Zionist regime was established,”the president said…….” Oh oh, he is back, the maddest of lame ducks. And hinting about “research” into the Holocaust again. Some of his statements don’t help the Palestinian cause, on the contrary they can be harmful. Besides, they only divert attention from the West Bank issue to the Iranian nuclear program. Which is exactly what Netanyahu wants.I wonder if Bibi called him “Hey Mahmoud, we haven’t had one of your nuggets for some time…. how about you getting out a…….” Nah, highly unlikely. Cheers
mhg
“The widow of the late Yasser Arafat has said the resistance leader sacrificed their marriage and a relationship with the couple’s only daughter for the Palestinian cause. In a rare interview with CNN, Suha Arafat shed light on the difficulties of being married to a man she described as the “Nelson Mandela of the Arab world”, and said he pushed her away to focus on achieving an independent state. “Everyone was saying: ‘She left him’,” Mrs Arafat told CNN’s Connect the World show. “I had to leave because he obliged me to leave him because he said: ‘I am becoming the new revolutionary again’.” He paid for the cause, she said, “with his life”. “He did not see his daughter. He told us to go out because he did not want us to stay in Palestine.”…….”
I, and everyone I ever knew, always believed that Suha Arafat was the one who made the biggest ‘sacrifice’ in that marriage to Yasser Arafat. It was obvious (to put it delicately).
Just what the Palestinians need right now, another clown in the circus. There is the fundamentalist Hamas in Gaza, the impotent bickering PA in Ramallah, and now Suha Arafat representing the Palestinians from the comfort of maybe Paris (?). Yet she might liven things up a bit. She should liven up the West Bank political debate (Gaza is too Islamist fundamentalist for a Christian used to la vie en rose). Come to think of it, there is no political debate among Palestinians, life is simple: PA and Israel control the West Bank, Hamas controls Gaza. One thing is certain, she will be more outspoken than the tired men of Ramallah. Another thing for certain: she ain’t no La Pasionaria of Spain. Cheers
mhg
