#CriticalAnalyst

The neoconservatives were impressed by Israel's modernism, but they assumed that it could be copied over to their neighbors and came to resent Israel as an obstacle for not playing a more meaningful role in their grand theory of history.

2012-02-18T00:34:00.001-05:00

(...While outwardly the progressives see Israel as very modern, they reject it for not possessing the most vital element of modernism. Transnationalism.)

Shimon Peres, was quickly voted out despite wearing the cloak of martyrdom and has been relegated to a ceremonial office which allows him to explain his vision of the New Middle East dominated by nanotechnology and free trade zones to foreign visitors who are impressed by this visionary.

#ThinkProgress: Virginia Poised To Enact 'State-Sponsored Rape' Law Forcing Women To Be Vaginally Probed Before Abortions

2012-02-17T22:15:00.001-05:00

(scare tactics:tasteless)

served with that special sauce!

...mmm mmm good

Norman Finkelstein slams the BDS movement calling it 'a cult' [UPDATED because Youtube keeps on censoring this]

2012-02-16T13:48:00.000-05:00

Holocaust denier Norman Finkelstein admits that the BDS'ers (boycott, divest, sanctions) want to eliminate Israel. That doesn't mean that he doesn't support BDS ....however the law does not say occupied. It says disputed. Jordan was the only historical occupier within the former British mandate of Palestine. Finkelstein likes to hear the sound of his own voice. Perhaps he is starting to realize that his position has some flaws in it, but the foundation of his argument is still false. Further there was never a border to partition the former mandate of Palestine, so what was the partition? ...and who cares about Mao?

(mondoweiss.net) I've earned my right to speak my mind, and I'm not going to tolerate what I think is silliness, childishness, and a lot of leftist posturing.
I mean we have to be honest, and I loathe the disingenuous. They don't want Israel. They think they are being very clever; they call it their three tier. We want the end of the occupation, the right of return, and we want equal rights for Arabs in Israel. And they think they are very clever because they know the result of implementing all three is what, what is the result?
You know and I know what the result is. There's no Israel! And if you don't want the same framework then stop talking about the law and stop trying to be so clever. Because you're only so clever in your cult. The moment you step out you have to deal with Israeli propaganda. And here they have a case.
They say no they're not really talking about rights. They're talking about they want to destroy Israel. And in act I think they're right I think that's true. I'm not going to lie. But this kind of duplicity and disingenuous, "oh we're agnostic about Israel." No you're not agnostic! You don't want it! Then just say it! But they know full well: If you say it you don't have a prayer reaching a broad public. Because that's where the public is right now.
I support the BDS. But I said it will never reach a broad public until and unless they're explicit in their goal. And their goal has to include the recognition of Israel or it's a nonstarter. It won't reach the public because the moment you go out there Israel will start to say what about we and they won't recognize our right and in fact that's correct. You can't answer the Israelis on that because they're making a statement that's factually correct. It's not an accidental and unwitting omission that BDS does not mention Israel. You know that and I know that
It's not like they're "oh we forgot to mention it." They won't mention it because they know it will split the movement. Cause there's a large segment of the movement that wants to eliminate Israel.
You talk about BDS they make all these claims about their victories. All their claims. You know what? You use these ten fingers? These more than suffice to count all their victories. There are superfluous fingers here to count all their victories. It's a cult! Where the guru says we have all these victories and everyone nods their head and no one sits down to do the arithmetic on their own.
Yes it's had some victories no question about it. But the way people promote it as if it's proven itself and we're on the verge of a victory of some sort. It's just sheer nonsense. Its a cult. And I personally am tired of it.
There's no Israel. That's what it's really about. And you think you're fooling anybody. You think you're so clever that people can't figure that out for themselves? No they understand the arithmetic perfectly well. Are you going to reach a broad public which is going to hear the Israeli side 'they want to destroy us?' No you're not. And frankly you know what you shouldn't. You shouldn't read a broad public because you're dishonest. And I wouldn't trust those people if I had to live in this state. I wouldn't. It's dishonesty.

End Illegal Occupation Of Malibu By Imperialist Sean Penn

2012-02-15T07:17:00.001-05:00

(Sean Penn should return his Malibu estate to the Mexicans – Telegraph Blogs)(israellycool.com)(image: gothseanpenn) His continued occupation of Malibu is an unacceptable mockery of national self-determination. The Mexicans owned that stretch of real estate well into the early 19th century and it was stolen by the Americans in a naked act of imperialist aggression. America’s claim over Malibu is tenuous and rooted in patriarchy. Sean Penn’s house is a mocking reminder of that brute chauvinism, with its high white walls and spacious interiors. Its swimming pool is an insult to the honour of the Mexican people.

Wonder why when you go online and meet people it seems so Gay?

2012-02-15T06:58:00.001-05:00

(thenextweb.com)(image) The Wall Street Journal studied a week of Foursquare check-ins, and found that from 100 categories women were most likely to check-in to cosmetic shops, doctors’ offices, educational venues and shops. Men? Well, apparently gay bars and tech-startups had the highest proportion of men, whilst travel and airports also featured highly. Yeah... maybe the gay marriage issue wasn't getting the momentum you thought it was... you just don't talk to people in reality... that's all.

Who guards us from the Guardian's guardian?

2012-02-14T22:09:00.000-05:00

(StoneGate) Julian Assange, was plunged into anti-Semitic row as he told a journalist he thought a Jewish conspiracy was being worked against him, which "included" the Guardian's editor Alan Rusbridger. When told Rusbridger was not Jewish, Assange reportedly noted that Rusbridger was "sort of Jewish" because he was related to David Leigh, a Jewish journalist. How do his views and convictions possibly filter down to the way he runs Wikileaks? As it took Helen Thomas close to six decades to come out about her true feelings, this is something that perhaps one can only speculate about.

Who guards us from the Guardian's guardian?

Experts say Iran has 'neutralized' Stuxnet virus

2012-02-14T19:02:00.001-05:00

(Reuters via JPost)Iranian engineers have succeeded in neutralizing and purging the computer virus known as Stuxnet from their country's nuclear machinery, European and US officials and private experts have told Reuters.
The malicious code, whose precise origin and authorship remain unconfirmed, made its way as early as 2009 into equipment controlling centrifuges Iran is using to enrich uranium, dealing a significant but perhaps temporary setback to Iran's suspected nuclear weapons work.
Many experts believe that Israel, possibly with assistance from the United States, was responsible for creating and deploying Stuxnet. But no authoritative account of who invented Stuxnet or how it got into Iran's centrifuge control equipment has surfaced.
US and European officials, who insisted on anonymity when discussing a highly sensitive subject, said their governments' experts agreed that the Iranians had succeeded in disabling Stuxnet and getting it out of their machinery.

Oliver Stone's son embraces Muhammed

2012-02-14T17:06:00.001-05:00

(Tel Chai Nation) Media silent on Oliver Stone: Sean Stone is a graduate of history from Princeton University and has collaborated on many of his father's projects such as the 2004 Alexander. (image PressTV) Oliver Stone told how he supports Ron Paul, just like Bill Ayers. Now, his son, who's making a documentary in Iran, has converted to Islam: According to the Persian service of the Fars News Agency, Stone adopted the name Ali upon becoming a Shiite Muslim. “The conversion to Islam is not abandoning Christianity or Judaism, which I was born with. It means I have accepted Muhammad and other prophets,” Stone told AFP.

Feds Argue Using a Fake Name Can Deprive You of Rights

2012-02-14T12:48:00.001-05:00

(WSJ) Does using a fake name when you sign up for a cellphone plan mean the government can get information from your phone without a warrant?
That’s one argument the Department of Justice is making in an Arizona case – that using a false name is fraud and means you don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Such a stance might raise questions about the widespread practice of using pseudonyms to sign up for services online. But legal experts said it’s unlikely a court would take the argument that far.
The case, which the Journal first covered in an article last year, involves the use of a cellphone-tracking device called a stingray to find a mobile broadband card that the government says was being used to file fraudulent tax returns.
The government conceded in the case that the use of the stingray was intrusive enough qualify as a search under the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. But in a court filing on Jan. 27, the government argues that the defendant, Daniel David Rigmaiden, doesn’t have standing to bring a Fourth Amendment claim because the broadband card, service and computer were purchased under false names and the apartment was rented using the name of a dead person and a fake ID.
Courts recently have found that a warrantless search is OK if the person used fraud to get the thing being searched, said Susan Freiwald, a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law. In one example, the defendant had bought a computer with a stolen credit card and the person who actually owned the card consented to the search. In another, the defendant was receiving mail addressed to an alias he used only as part of a fraud.
But other cases have found that people still have a reasonable expectation of privacy – and thus can’t have their property searched without a warrant – even if they are using an alias.
“It’s not against the law to use a fake name,” said Adam Candeub, director of the Intellectual Property, Information and Communications Law Program at Michigan State University. The use of a fake ID and signing of a lease might be a different matter, though. “It can be fraudulent if you are entering into a contract under a fake name, but if it is a simple retail transaction the law is not clear,” he said.
Ms. Freiwald said that although prosecutors have argued repeatedly that using an alias diminishes a person’s Fourth Amendment rights, “it would be too large an encroachment on both privacy rights and the rights of free speech if the mere use of a pseudonym were enough to deprive someone” of Fourth Amendment protections.

they do have a point. if the property can not be proven to be owned by the alleged then how is it unlawful search and seizure... and another problem would be what if a mistake is made? It would seem that the loophole the FEDS think they have could really self destruct on them.

Palestinian Authority Admits Hacking Websites Critical of Mahmoud Abbas

2012-02-14T12:22:00.001-05:00

A free press is not exactly convenient for Palestine...

(challahhuakbar) On January 28, InLightPress, a website that has a run a number of articles critical of Mahmoud Abbas’ rule and general corruption within the Palestinian Authority, was hacked. At the time I wrote that “I am certain that the “political destination” referred to by InLightPress is the office of Mahmoud Abbas.”

After a few days of being offline the site returned and unleashed a scathing press release. InLightPress said that the attack on its website was “treacherous barbarism,” and that they believe that “the attack came from the Palestinian Authority with the approval of President Abbas.” According to InLightPress, Mahmoud Abbas set up a “crisis cell” headed by Sabri Saidam, former head of the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology, to carry out the attack.

Just a couple of days after returning InLightPress was hacked again and I once again said that “The order to bring down this site was ordered by Mahmoud Abbas himself.”

On February 6,InLightPress returned, and released a new statement regarding the hacking of their website, in which they said that “we now know who they are, and why they did it, and they know that we will not stop.” Hours after this statement was released, InLightPress was under attack again.
On February 9, InLightPress reported that users in Palestinian territory, unclear if it included Gaza, could not access their website as Mahmoud Abbas had ordered the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology to block access to the site. On February 12, Amad also reported that access to its website from Palestinian territory had been denied. In response to the incident Victor Shikhman asked Hussein Ibish of the American Task Force of Palestine to comment.

@VictorShikhman I don't approve of that or several other free speech violations under the PA in recent years.
— Hussein Ibish (@Ibishblog) February 12, 2012
Now, InLightPress is running what they call an “exclusive” interview with an official from the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology. According to the official, InLightPress, and other sites “broadcast sedition and lies to break up the structure of Palestinian society.” As a result, the official said that “It is our right to defend ourselves against this malicious and suspicious campaign.” The official also said that the attacks against Mahmoud Abbas are coming at a bad time because the Palestinians are seeking to wage a diplomatic campaign against Israel. When asked whether the Palestinian Authority was concerned about possible lawsuits, the official responded by saying that there is “no law in Palestine criminalizing this work.”

Rachel’s Tomb, Cave of the Patriarchs cut from heritage list

2012-02-14T07:31:00.001-05:00

(Israel Hayom) Moshe Dayan and the temple mount all over again. It isn't pragmatic to deny your heritage because it pisses other people off. It's your bowl of Soup Essau, not mine. What makes you think anyone will like you now? Bibi's office insists omission stems from logistical considerations

#OWS Video: #OccupyCPAC Goons Rail Against Racist, Genocidal America

2012-02-13T19:40:00.003-05:00

Some Occupy Goons thought they were schooling CPACers on America’s racist and genocidal history, prompting one conservative to the question why they would protest Republicans instead of the Democrat party which has the true history of racism in this country (Image via The Blaze)(Left-Wing Institute For Civil Discourse)

Nasrallah: Iran has been giving us material support since 1982

2012-02-13T16:55:00.001-05:00

Right Said Fred says:
I'm too sexy for my Turbin... Too sexy for my Turbin!

(Carl) Hezbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah has told his people that Iran has given Hezbullah material support since 1982 - and has demanded nothing in return. The second half of that statement is an exaggeration: Hezbullah thugs helped put down the Iranian revolution in 2009 and are currently in Syria helping their old friend Bashar al-Assad out.

(CalevBenYefuneh)(Israel bombed its own embassies to "tarnish Iran's friendly ties with the host countries)
A Reuters report some hours ago quoting the Iranian government-controlled Islamic Republican News Agency said the Iranians reject as "sheer lies" accusations that they were involved in today's bomb attack on the Israeli embassy in India. The Ayatollah-rich regime's ambassador to New Delhi, Mehdi Nabizadeh, said:

"Any terrorist attack is condemned (by Iran) and we strongly reject the untrue comments by an Israeli official. These accusations are untrue and sheer lies, like previous times."

CNN Tilts East: Fires 4 Jewish Journalists in Jerusalem

2012-02-13T09:37:00.001-05:00

(americanthinker.com)CNN has reportedly fired most of the Jews in its Jerusalem bureau, cutting half the bureau, but leaving Arab workers, and reviving charges of CNN's pro-Arab slant.
CNN denies the charges, claiming a budgetary down-sizing, but two producers in the CNN Jerusalem office confirmed that four of the eight-person bureau, all Jews, were told they were being fired, leaving only one Jewish producer.

We strongly reject any suggestion that the reorganization in the Jerusalem bureau is in any way based on the small number of contract employees concerned being Israeli, particularly given CNN's long history of working with locals in the region, declared a CNN spokesman, cited by Media-bistro.

Media Bistro, Dreuz.info and several Israeli media sources confirmed that CNN had fired Jewish workers with between ten and 25 years of experience. But several of the sources suggested that CNN's was not so much anti-Jewish as pro-Arab.
"They are moving more and more of their activities to the Gulf," said an ex-CNN correspondent who asked not to be quoted on the record, and, in fact,. CNN made Abu Dhabi its fourth global hub in late 2009, along with New York, London and CNN headquarters in Atlanta. Sources in the foreign press in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv said that other media were cutting back in Jerusalem, and following the money and moving resources to the Gulf. CNN seems to be leading the pack, hosting many shows out of its new studios in Abu Dhabi City as well as CNN's Arabic shows from Dubai City also in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
So economic considerations, alongside politics may explain the Jerusalem dismissals, but they sit in the long shadow of CNN's record of sucking up to Arab extremists - - like Saddam Hussein and Yasser Arafat, and trying to ingratiate itself with both.
Well after the Gulf war, CNN's news director Eason Jordan admitted trading soft coverage of Saddam in return for exclusive access in Iraq. So it might be a good idea to be wary of CNN claims of not discriminating against Jews or sucking up to Arabs.
CNN has often belittled terror attacks on Israelis, as in the 2011 murder of the Fogel family (i.e.the stabbing murder of both sleeping parents, a four year-old, an eleven-year-old and the beheading of a three-month old baby). CNN described the massacre as "what the Israeli army calls a 'terrorist attack'."
Israel protested CNN's report at the time, and CNN did not respond publicly. On other occasions, CNN's top reporters and commentators have minimized Iran's nuclear plans, suggested that Arab-Islamic terror is a minor problem or that Arab-Islamic terror is equivalent to Jewish or Christian terror. Christiane Amanpour's series "God's Warriors" compared Arab terrorists to Jewish settlers and Christian preachers.
For his part, Fareed Zakaria has spent the best part of the last three years in the psychological state of denial, repressing the idea that Iran wants atomic weapons. Zakaria praised Barack Obama's original idea of engaging Iran, and he recently criticized President Obama for putting pressure on Iranian leaders who really just want to be talked to, Zakaria said. The host of CNN's GPS show said that even if Iran got nuclear weapons it was not a big problem, because Iran's leaders were rational.
CNN is supposed to cover events on this planet, and instead of firing its Jewish employees perhaps it should jettison some of its space cadets. Whatever CNN claims, it is time to realize that CNN does not really stand for Cable News Network, but rather Certainly Not News

Israeli Embassies Targeted in Terror Attacks in Georgia and India

2012-02-13T09:30:00.002-05:00

(israellycool.com) In late January, an Iranian linked terror cell, which planned to target Israelis and Jews, was exposed in Azerbaijan. During his recent trip to the United States, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that Israel was concerned that Hezbollah would provoke Israel through an attack in order to distract the world’s attention from Syria. A French intelligence report stated a similar belief. On Friday, a Senior official in Hezbollah said on Al-Manar TV that “Israel can never be calm. Hezbollah will avenge the murder of the blessed Mughniyeh even it takes 100 years.”
Yet, Sunday’s Israel Hayom reported that “An Israeli defense source told Israel Hayom that the defense establishment is not on any special alert” for the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh.
Today, Israeli missions in Georgia, and India were targeted in terrorist attacks.

An explosion tore through an Israeli diplomat’s car in the vicinity of the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi, India, Monday. One woman was injured.
Initial details suggest that the injured woman is the wife of an Israeli diplomat for the Defense Ministry’s mission. The explosion apparently took place after she dropped of their children off at a local preschool. She suffered minor injuries and was rushed to a nearby medical center for treatment.

By Joji Philip Thomas

Explosives were also found near the Israeli Embassy building in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. The device was neutralized safely.
Ynet now reports that:

Indian media outlets reported that two bikers were tailing the car driven by the Israeli diplomat’s wife in New Delhi and that at one point one of them “hurled something at the car,” which exploded shortly after.

According to Yaakov Katz:

Neither of these appear to serve as the required Casus belli needed to initiate a war against Hezbollah, if it was the one behind the attacks.
On the other hand, Israel will have to consider the implication of ignoring the attacks and what that will do to the deterrence it has tried to create vis-à-vis Hezbollah following the Second Lebanon War in 2006.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued the following statement on the attacks.

In recent months we have witnessed several attempts to attack Israeli citizens and Jews in several countries, including Azerbaijan, Thailand and others. In each instance we succeeded in foiling the attacks in cooperation with local authorities. Iran and its proxy Hezbollah were behind all of these attempted attacks. Today we have witnessed two additional attempted terrorist attacks on innocent civilians, the first against an Israeli woman who was wounded in New Delhi and the second against a local employee of the Israeli Embassy in Georgia. Iran is behind these attacks; it is the largest exporter of terrorism in the world. The Government of Israel and the security services will continue to act together with local security forces against such acts of terrorism. We will continue to take strong and systematic, yet patient, action against the international terrorism that originates in Iran.

Analysis of the projection: Media Matters had the influence over the media

2012-02-13T09:05:00.001-05:00

(Inside Media Matters: Sources, memos reveal erratic behavior, close coordination with White House and news organizations « By Tucker Carlson, Vince Coglianese, Alex Pappas and Will Rahn » The Daily Caller) David Brock was smoking a cigarette on the roof of his Washington, D.C. office one day in the late fall of 2010 when his assistant and two bodyguards suddenly appeared and whisked him and his colleague Eric Burns down the stairs.
Brock, the head of the liberal nonprofit Media Matters for America, had told friends and co-workers that he feared he was in imminent danger from right-wing assassins and needed a security team to keep him safe.
The threat he faced while smoking on his roof? “Snipers,” a former co-worker recalled.
“He had more security than a Third World dictator,” one employee said, explaining that Brock’s bodyguards would rarely leave his side, even accompanying him to his home in an affluent Washington neighborhood each night where they “stood post” to protect him. “What movement leader has a detail?” asked someone who saw it.
Extensive interviews with a number of Brock’s current and former colleagues at Media Matters, as well as with leaders from across the spectrum of Democratic politics, reveal an organization roiled by its leader’s volatile and erratic behavior and struggles with mental illness, and an office where Brock’s executive assistant carried a handgun to public events in order to defend his boss from unseen threats.
Yet those same interviews, as well as a detailed organizational planning memo obtained by The Daily Caller, also suggest that Media Matters has to a great extent achieved its central goal of influencing the national media.
Founded by Brock in 2004 as a liberal counterweight to “conservative misinformation” in the press, Media Matters has in less than a decade become a powerful player in Democratic politics. The group operates in regular coordination with the highest levels of the Obama White House, as well as with members of Congress and progressive groups around the country. Brock, who collected over $250,000 in salary from Media Matters in 2010, has himself become a major fundraiser on the left. According to an internal memo obtained by TheDC, Media Matters intends to spend nearly $20 million in 2012 to influence news coverage.
Donors have every reason to expect success, as the group’s effect on many news organizations has already been profound. “We were pretty much writing their prime time,” a former Media Matters employee said of the cable channel MSNBC. “But then virtually all the mainstream media was using our stuff.”
The group scored its first significant public coup in 2007 with the firing of host Don Imus from MSNBC. Just before Easter that year, a Media Matters employee recorded Imus’s now-famous attack on the Rutgers women’s basketball team, and immediately recognized its inflammatory potential. The organization swung into action, notifying organizations like the NAACP, the National Association of Black Journalists, and Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, all of which joined the fight.
Over the course of a week, Media Matters mobilized more than 50 people to work full-time adding fuel to the Imus story. Researchers searched the massive Media Matters database for controversial statements Imus had made over the years. The group issued press release after press release. Brock personally called the heads of various liberal activist groups to coordinate a message. By the end of the week, Imus was fired.
Media Matters soon became more sophisticated in its campaigns against non-liberal cable news anchors. Lou Dobbs, then of CNN, was a frequent target.
“As part of the Drop Dobbs campaign,” explains one internal memo prepared for fundraising, “Media Matters produced and was prepared to run an advertisement against Ford Motor Company on Spanish Language stations in Houston, San Antonio, and other cities targeting its top selling product, pick-up trucks, in its top truck buying markets.”
Ford pulled its advertising from Dobbs’s program before the television ad aired, but Media Matters kept up its efforts, working primarily with Alex Nogales of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, and with the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and other self-described civil rights groups.
In November of 2009, Dobbs left CNN. “We got him fired,” says one staffer flatly.
“Certainly Media Matters deserves a lot of credit for the work they did,” Nogales said in an interview. “They’re very effective.”
Glenn Beck, the former Fox News Channel host, drew the ire of a wide spectrum of liberal groups while his program aired nationally. But according to several people who watched the process from the inside, it was Media Matters that orchestrated much of the opposition to Beck.
“We called it ‘fingerprint coverage,’” explains one former staffer, “where you know it was the result of your work.” As an example, he cites the left-wing group Color of Change, co-founded by the controversial former White House “green jobs” czar Van Jones, which received much of the credit for pressuring advertisers to drop their sponsorship of Beck’s show. But in fact, he says, Media Matters developed the campaign that cowed Beck’s sponsors.
Media Matters, according to its 2010 tax filing, gave a $200,000 grant to Citizen Engagement Laboratory, Color of Change’s parent group. The purpose of the grant, according to the document, was for a “campaign to expose Glenn Beck’s racist rhetoric in an effort to educate advertisers about the practices on his show.”
High profile though these victories against conservatives were, Media Matters has perhaps achieved more influence simply by putting its talking points into the willing hands of liberal journalists. “In ‘08 it became pretty apparent MSNBC was going left,” says one source. “They were using our research to write their stories. They were eager to use our stuff.” Media Matters staff had the direct line of MSNBC president Phil Griffin, and used it. Griffin took their calls.
Stories about Fox News were especially well received by MSNBC anchors and executives: “If we published something about Fox in the morning, they’d have it on the air that night verbatim.”
But MSNBC executives weren’t the only ones talking regularly to Media Matters.
“The entire progressive blogosphere picked up our stuff,” says a Media Matters source, “from Daily Kos to Salon. Greg Sargent [of the Washington Post] will write anything you give him. He was the go-to guy to leak stuff.”
“If you can’t get it anywhere else, Greg Sargent’s always game,” agreed another source with firsthand knowledge.
Reached by phone, Sargent declined to comment.
“The HuffPo guys were good, Sam Stein and Nico [Pitney],” remembered one former staffer. “The people at Huffington Post were always eager to cooperate, which is no surprise given David’s long history with Arianna [Huffington].”
“Jim Rainey at the LA Times took a lot of our stuff,” the staffer continued. “So did Joe Garofoli at the San Francisco Chronicle. We’ve pushed stories to Eugene Robinson and E.J. Dionne [at the Washington Post]. Brian Stelter at the New York Times was helpful.”
“Ben Smith [formerly of Politico, now at BuzzFeed.com] will take stories and write what you want him to write,” explained the former employee, whose account was confirmed by other sources. Staffers at Media Matters “knew they could dump stuff to Ben Smith, they knew they could dump it at Plum Line [Greg Sargent’s Washington Post blog], so that’s where they sent it.”
Smith, who refused to comment on the substance of these claims, later took to Twitter to say that he has been critical of Media Matters.
Reporters who weren’t cooperative might feel the sting of a Media Matters campaign against them. “If you hit a reporter, say a beat reporter at a regional newspaper,” a Media Matters source said, “all of a sudden they’d get a thousand hostile emails. Sometimes they’d melt down. It had a real effect on reporters who weren’t used to that kind of scrutiny.”
A group with the ability to shape news coverage is of incalculable value to the politicians it supports, so it’s no surprise that Media Matters has been in regular contact with political operatives in the Obama administration. According to visitor logs, on June 16, 2010, Brock and then-Media Matters president Eric Burns traveled to the White House for a meeting with Valerie Jarrett, arguably the president’s closest adviser. Recently departed Obama communications director Anita Dunn returned to the White House for the meeting as well.
It’s not clear what the four spoke about — no one in the meeting returned repeated calls for comment — but the apparent coordination continued. “Anita Dunn became a regular presence at the office,” says someone who worked there. Then-president of Media Matters, Eric Burns, “lunched with her, met with her and chatted with her frequently on any number of matters.”
Media Matters also began a weekly strategy call with the White House, which continues, joined by the liberal Center for American Progress think tank. Jen Psaki, Obama’s deputy communications director, was a frequent participant before she left for the private sector in October 2011.
Every Tuesday evening, meanwhile, a representative from Media Matters attends the Common Purpose Project meeting at the Capitol Hilton on 16th Street in Washington, where dozens of progressive organizations formulate strategy, often with a representative from the Obama White House.
In the past several years, Media Matters has focused much of its considerable energy on the Fox News Channel. The network, declares one internal memo, “is the de facto leader of the GOP and it is long past time that it was treated as such by the media, elected officials, and the public.” At the end of September 2009, Burns made the case publicly in an interview on MSNBC.
Fox, he said, “is a political organization, and their aim is to destroy a progressive policy agenda.”
Less than a month later, in language that could have been copied directly from a Media Matters press release, White House communications director Anita Dunn leveled almost precisely the same charge, dismissing Fox as “more a wing of the Republican Party.”
Were the lines of attack coordinated? “To my knowledge, there wasn’t coordination,” says a source. But at times there has seemed to be a kind of mind meld between the Obama political team and Media Matters.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, for example, author Jerome Corsi wrote a highly critical book about the Democratic candidate, titled “The Obama Nation.” The Obama campaign responded immediately with a detailed memo. The title of that memo, “Unfit For Publication” (a play on Corsi’s 2004 book, “Unfit for Command,” about then-presidential candidate Senator John Kerry), was the same title used by Media Matters just weeks before in a similar memo about the same book.
The irony of Brock’s relationship with the White House is that at certain points he has been openly hostile to Barack Obama, especially in conversations in social settings. Described by some who know him as a passionate and emotional Hillary Clinton supporter, many Democrats believe Brock maintained regular contact with the highest levels of Clinton’s campaign and its advisers.
As late as 2010, Brock was still exchanging personal emails with longtime Hillary Clinton consigliore Sidney Blumenthal, in which the two seemed to grouse about Obama and bond over their shared connection to Hillary.
The intensity of the 2008 campaign, say those who knew Brock at the time, seemed to exacerbate his bouts of what appeared to be mania, a condition from which he had apparently suffered for some time. In 2002, the Drudge Report reported that Brock had “suffered a breakdown” the year before and was treated in the psychiatric ward of Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington.
During a 2008 meeting of the left-wing umbrella group Democracy Alliance outside San Diego, Brock’s unusual behavior drew considerable attention. According to a fellow attendee, “David completely lost his shit. He started getting incredibly aggressive. He alienated important people in the progressive movement, like John Podesta [of the Center for American Progress] and Anna Burger [of the Service Employees International Union]. Lots of drama. There were a lot of conversations about David’s mental health.”
Two years later, at another Democracy Alliance meeting shortly after the 2010 election, Brock behaved in a way one prominent liberal who was there described as “erratic, unstable and disturbing.” Brock’s aggression, this person said, was “hard to ignore and noticed by a number of people,” generating “quite a bit of concern” about his condition. A number of demonstrably odd media appearances Brock made around this time only reinforced those concerns.
All of this, sources say, has caused anxiety for prominent Democrats. Brock’s profile has risen recently, mostly due to American Bridge 21st Century, the political action committee he founded and runs. Brock boasted loudly and in public that American Bridge would be an answer to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads GPS, a claim some found unsettlingly grandiose.
At some point, Brock received a prescription for his condition. “Some days he’d come in and you could tell he was on his meds because he would just sit in his office alone and not engage with staff,” says a coworker. Other days, “he’d be intensely engaged. He’d get manic, very reckless and grandiose. You’d see this level of self-confidence in him that would spiral.”
Last spring, some at Media Matters headquarters and in other parts of the progressive world were caught off guard by an interview Brock gave to Ben Smith at Politico, in which he promised to wage “guerrilla warfare and sabotage” against Fox News. “It was insane,” says a coworker. “David was totally manic at the time. We were all shocked.”
Friends say Brock, who has publicly admitted drug use in the past, was working obsessively and staying out late with compatriots. “They’d close [local bars] and party till six in the morning,” said one.
A number of people in Brock’s orbit believe he was regularly using illegal drugs, including cocaine. “It’s not like he was trying to keep it a secret,” says a female friend of Brock’s.
Sources back at the Media Matters offices describe an atmosphere of tension and paranoia. “Many of us lived in fear that at any point we could be fired,” one said. Brock believed he had received credible death threats, and employed a two-man security detail, at least one of whom was armed and acted as his driver. A new security system was installed in his house. He became concerned that one of his bodyguards was plotting against him.
By 2010, Brock’s personal assistant, a man named Haydn Price-Morris, was carrying a holstered and concealed Glock handgun when he accompanied Brock to events, including events in Washington, D.C., a city with famously restrictive gun laws. Price-Morris told others he carried the gun to protect Brock from threats.
Late in 2010, other Media Matters employees learned about Price-Morris’s gun, and he was fired due to their objections. No public announcement was made.
According to one source with knowledge of what happened next, Brock was “terrified” that news of the gun would leak. “George Soros and a lot of groups connected to gun control are funding this group, and they wouldn’t be too happy that an employee of Media Matters was carrying a gun, especially when it was illegal in D.C.”
Meanwhile, Brock became rigid and harsh with his employees — “viciously mean,” in the words of someone who witnessed it. “He spent a lot of time ripping up researchers. It was abusive. I never understood why more people didn’t quit.” One staffer recalls Brock saying he would like to fire a researcher for being physically repugnant. “David definitely does not like ugly people.”
At times, Brock would become crazed with intensity, “obsessively” involving himself in research: “There was a point at which he would pore over every single piece of research we put out, 10 or 15 dense items a day. He would line-item all of it.”
David Saldana, the former deputy editorial director at Media Matters, concedes that under Brock’s leadership, “there were very harsh penalties for getting things wrong. And justifiably so. … There was no room for weakness. Things had to be gotten right.”
The atmosphere in the office was considerably more tolerant on non-editorial matters. “There were these two folks who got caught [having sex] in the communications war room on the weekend,” said one employee.
“People came in, and lo and behold there were two of their colleagues doing the nasty on a desk.” Neither one was fired.
Follow Tucker and follow Vince on Twitter

Now consider what Media Matters did with the toxic libel that some Americans support Israel over the United States. Remarkable that this kind of hatred was controlled from the top.

Elbit Systems announced Sunday that it stands to lose close to $65 million from yearly profits for 2011 due to the Defense Ministry’s decision in December to stop the delivery of sophisticated intelligence systems to the Turkish Air Force.

2012-02-12T15:47:00.001-05:00

El means G-d or the name of a pagan God. So the company means God-Op?

(spacewar.com)

(anneinpt.wordpress.com) Further fallout from Israel’s deteriorating relationship with Turkey has hit the Israeli defence firm Elbit.

Elbit Systems announced Sunday that it stands to lose close to $65 million from its yearly profits for 2011 due to the Defense Ministry’s decision in December to stop the delivery of sophisticated intelligence systems to the Turkish Air Force.
According to Elbit’s announcement to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, it was still in talks with Defense Ministry director-general Udi Shani about receiving compensation for the ministry’s decision to nix the deal just weeks before planned delivery.
In December, defense officials said that although Israel was working to improve ties with Ankara, the ministry “responsible for every product that receives an export license” and that it could not currently permit the delivery of the intelligence- gathering systems to Turkey.
“This has to do strictly with this system and should not impact the overall ties between the countries,” an official said.
The $140 million deal, signed in 2009, was for the sale of the advanced infrared Lorop camera and associated equipment. Developed by Elbit subsidiary El-Op, the camera is installed in a pod which can be carried on combat aircraft. The systems were supposed to be delivered to Turkey in the coming months.

....then Turkey torpedoes Israeli participation in NATO exercise, NATO reconsiders, Turkey bashes Israel

Turkey succeeded in thwarting the navy’s participation in Active Endeavor, it has, however, failed to prevent Israel from upgrading its ties with NATO. Defense officials said this week that the sides were on the verge of signing a new cooperation agreement that would lead to a significant upgrade in relations.
…
Israel is also considering a request by NATO to open an office at its headquarters in Brussels. Defense officials said that the offer was still open and that it was being “positively considered” by the government.
It also appears that Israel’s un-invitation is being reconsidered by NATO.

NATO said Friday it is considering an Israeli offer to contribute a warship to the alliance’s naval patrol in the Mediterranean, despite Turkey’s opposition.
…
Israel is a member of the Mediterranean Dialogue, a NATO outreach program with seven friendly nations bordering on that waterway. Romero said the alliance is prepared to enhance practical cooperation with all partner nations in the region, including Israel.
Some NATO governments have opposed past attempts to forge closer cooperation with Israel, saying that could hurt the alliance’s relations with other Muslim states, including Afghanistan, which remains NATO’s top operational priority.

Boston Herald: Kevin Youkilis Is Getting Married To Tom Brady's Sister

2012-02-12T13:49:00.001-05:00

(deadspin.com)Holy alleged eugenics, Boston! A sister of Boston's resident best athlete (sorry, JaJuan Johnson) is getting married to its resident Greek god (sorry, Niko Koutouvides), if this story is true, anyway.

(jewishjournal.com)The Youkilis family name has an unusual history from his entry on Wikipedia. His Jewish great-great-great-grandfather, a native of 19th-century Romania, moved to Greece at the age of 16 to avoid conscription at the hands of the notoriously anti-Semitic Cossacks. He became homesick, however, and returned to Romania after a couple of years, although he changed his surname from “Weiner” to the Greek name, “Youkilis”, to avoid army and jail. Some researchers make use of distinctive surnames to identify distinct ethnic populations, the Youkilis surename was definitely a curveball for Kevin.

“People have come up to me and starting speaking Greek to me and I don’t speak it,” Youkilis said. “I feel bad. Ever since I was in Lowell (Class A), people have thought I was Greek. People shout at me, ‘I’m Greek, you’re Greek.’ But I’m not.”
Youkilis is the son of a Romanian Jewish jewelry wholesaler, who Youkilis has described as a

“well-known third baseman in the Jewish Community Center fast-pitch softball league.”

He's a Greek God? Someone didn't tell some people in liberal Boston

Omar Barghouti and OWS: They can colonize our lands, but they can never colonize our minds

2012-02-12T12:59:00.001-05:00

The Oakland, Calif., chapter of the Occupy movement overwhelmingly endorsed a proposal in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.

(mondoweiss.net) Last Saturday, Omar Barghouti stopped in Oakland, CA as part of his current West Coast tour. The lecture was billed as "Occupy Wall St., not Palestine," and Barghouti made the case that it makes "perfect sense to think of Israel as part of the global one-percent in War Inc." He touched on the relationship between U.S. and Israeli weapons manufactures, suggesting that Israel's behavior as a "garrison state" enables more customers for U.S. produced weapons.

...but the Barghoutis are the 1 percent ruling elite in the West Bank

(en.wikipedia.org)Omar Barghouti (born 1964) is a founding committee member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) who is currently studying for a masters degree in philosophy at Tel Aviv University. He was born in Qatar, grew up in Egypt and later moved to Ramallah (West Bank) as an adult.

(Front Page) Omar Barghouti is a distant cousin of Marwan Barghouti and Mustafa Barghouti. Marwan Barghouti is a major terrorist leader serving five life sentences for numerous murders. Mustafa Barghouti was a Soviet-educated Communist leader and a candidate for the presidency of the Palestinian Authority.... Bashir Barghouti, was a leading Jordanian Communist who served as the Minister of Industry in the Palestinian Authority. Another of the bunch, Mohammed Barghouti was the Minister of Labor.

(standwithus.com)Barghouti claimed that Israel constantly violates international law and committed “willful acts of genocide” during its war against Hamas from December 2008 to January 2009, and he cited the UN Goldstone report as proof. He didn’t mention the human rights of the Israelis, who were unrelentingly assaulted by over 7,000 rockets launched by Hamas, which necessitated the war, or that the Goldstone Report itself said it had “proved nothing” and was discredited by the world’s liberal democracies for being hopelessly biased and unreliable. He also neglected to tell audiences that Judge Goldstone himself retracted key accusations in the UN Report....He charged that Israel “steals” Palestinian water, when in fact, Israel is giving some of its own water to Palestinians—40 percent more water than it promised to give in the 1993 Oslo Accords ....Barghouti claimed that in 1948 and after, Israel destroyed tens of thousands of Palestinian books in order to commit a “cultural massacre” and “Judaize Palestine.” In fact, Barghouti’s source reveals that Israel collected books from abandoned Palestinian libraries to save them from destruction in the chaos during and after the 1948 War, and it painstakingly catalogued and stored them. They are available in Israeli libraries for all researchers to use.

Watching movies, religiously

2012-02-11T14:42:00.001-05:00

By REUTERS via Jerusalem Post

#CriticalAnalyst didn't LIE! The #PROOF is now in the newspapers @JIDF @NLITVIN

2012-02-11T03:22:00.001-05:00

(naomilitvin.com) Noah: I am opposed to the "equivalence" of Gender Engineering. No one wanted to hear my point of view in NY and LA. Visual arts were the only way I could express myself because you create the context. Obviously I hated abstract art for this reason... and years later I learned that most of abstract expressionism was sponsored by governments to take the narrative out. Censorship is used by leftist establishment to silence masculine voices opposed to feminism. Ironically the feminists are also radicals that were silenced, but now they control the system through opaque ideology. Feminism is a wink wink joke that the establishment has accepted as a tool to contain society "Bulls." The CIA also was funding Clement Greenberg and Jackson Pollock for similar reasons. The difference between me and Alex Jones is I think about this kind of stuff. Narrative is dangerous to establishment institutions. It isn't that art makes radicals... rather it is that radical speakers are forced into art.

sounds crazy? sounds conspiratorial... how could I make those claims? maybe because I was an artist who had inside information before the newspapers did. So how much integrity did I have? check it out.... I was right!!!!!

(Modern art was CIA 'weapon' - World - News - The IndependentModern art was CIA 'weapon' - World - News - The Independent) For decades in art circles it was either a rumour or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art - including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko - as a weapon in the Cold War. In the manner of a Renaissance prince - except that it acted secretly - the CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years.

The connection is improbable. This was a period, in the 1950s and 1960s, when the great majority of Americans disliked or even despised modern art - President Truman summed up the popular view when he said: "If that's art, then I'm a Hottentot." As for the artists themselves, many were ex- com- munists barely acceptable in the America of the McCarthyite era, and certainly not the sort of people normally likely to receive US government backing.
Why did the CIA support them? Because in the propaganda war with the Soviet Union, this new artistic movement could be held up as proof of the creativity, the intellectual freedom, and the cultural power of the US. Russian art, strapped into the communist ideological straitjacket, could not compete.
The existence of this policy, rumoured and disputed for many years, has now been confirmed for the first time by former CIA officials. Unknown to the artists, the new American art was secretly promoted under a policy known as the "long leash" - arrangements similar in some ways to the indirect CIA backing of the journal Encounter, edited by Stephen Spender.
The decision to include culture and art in the US Cold War arsenal was taken as soon as the CIA was founded in 1947. Dismayed at the appeal communism still had for many intellectuals and artists in the West, the new agency set up a division, the Propaganda Assets Inventory, which at its peak could influence more than 800 newspapers, magazines and public information organisations. They joked that it was like a Wurlitzer jukebox: when the CIA pushed a button it could hear whatever tune it wanted playing across the world.
The next key step came in 1950, when the International Organisations Division (IOD) was set up under Tom Braden. It was this office which subsidised the animated version of George Orwell's Animal Farm, which sponsored American jazz artists, opera recitals, the Boston Symphony Orchestra's international touring programme. Its agents were placed in the film industry, in publishing houses, even as travel writers for the celebrated Fodor guides. And, we now know, it promoted America's anarchic avant-garde movement, Abstract Expressionism.
Initially, more open attempts were made to support the new American art. In 1947 the State Department organised and paid for a touring international exhibition entitled "Advancing American Art", with the aim of rebutting Soviet suggestions that America was a cultural desert. But the show caused outrage at home, prompting Truman to make his Hottentot remark and one bitter congressman to declare: "I am just a dumb American who pays taxes for this kind of trash." The tour had to be cancelled.
The US government now faced a dilemma. This philistinism, combined with Joseph McCarthy's hysterical denunciations of all that was avant-garde or unorthodox, was deeply embarrassing. It discredited the idea that America was a sophisticated, culturally rich democracy. It also prevented the US government from consolidating the shift in cultural supremacy from Paris to New York since the 1930s. To resolve this dilemma, the CIA was brought in.
The connection is not quite as odd as it might appear. At this time the new agency, staffed mainly by Yale and Harvard graduates, many of whom collected art and wrote novels in their spare time, was a haven of liberalism when compared with a political world dominated by McCarthy or with J Edgar Hoover's FBI. If any official institution was in a position to celebrate the collection of Leninists, Trotskyites and heavy drinkers that made up the New York School, it was the CIA.
Until now there has been no first-hand evidence to prove that this connection was made, but for the first time a former case officer, Donald Jameson, has broken the silence. Yes, he says, the agency saw Abstract Expressionism as an opportunity, and yes, it ran with it.
"Regarding Abstract Expressionism, I'd love to be able to say that the CIA invented it just to see what happens in New York and downtown SoHo tomorrow!" he joked. "But I think that what we did really was to recognise the difference. It was recognised that Abstract Expression- ism was the kind of art that made Socialist Realism look even more stylised and more rigid and confined than it was. And that relationship was exploited in some of the exhibitions.
"In a way our understanding was helped because Moscow in those days was very vicious in its denunciation of any kind of non-conformity to its own very rigid patterns. And so one could quite adequately and accurately reason that anything they criticised that much and that heavy- handedly was worth support one way or another."
To pursue its underground interest in America's lefty avant-garde, the CIA had to be sure its patronage could not be discovered. "Matters of this sort could only have been done at two or three removes," Mr Jameson explained, "so that there wouldn't be any question of having to clear Jackson Pollock, for example, or do anything that would involve these people in the organisation. And it couldn't have been any closer, because most of them were people who had very little respect for the government, in particular, and certainly none for the CIA. If you had to use people who considered themselves one way or another to be closer to Moscow than to Washington, well, so much the better perhaps."
This was the "long leash". The centrepiece of the CIA campaign became the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a vast jamboree of intellectuals, writers, historians, poets, and artists which was set up with CIA funds in 1950 and run by a CIA agent. It was the beach-head from which culture could be defended against the attacks of Moscow and its "fellow travellers" in the West. At its height, it had offices in 35 countries and published more than two dozen magazines, including Encounter.
The Congress for Cultural Freedom also gave the CIA the ideal front to promote its covert interest in Abstract Expressionism. It would be the official sponsor of touring exhibitions; its magazines would provide useful platforms for critics favourable to the new American painting; and no one, the artists included, would be any the wiser.
This organisation put together several exhibitions of Abstract Expressionism during the 1950s. One of the most significant, "The New American Painting", visited every big European city in 1958-59. Other influential shows included "Modern Art in the United States" (1955) and "Masterpieces of the Twentieth Century" (1952).
Because Abstract Expressionism was expensive to move around and exhibit, millionaires and museums were called into play. Pre-eminent among these was Nelson Rockefeller, whose mother had co-founded the Museum of Modern Art in New York. As president of what he called "Mummy's museum", Rockefeller was one of the biggest backers of Abstract Expressionism (which he called "free enterprise painting"). His museum was contracted to the Congress for Cultural Freedom to organise and curate most of its important art shows.
The museum was also linked to the CIA by several other bridges. William Paley, the president of CBS broadcasting and a founding father of the CIA, sat on the members' board of the museum's International Programme. John Hay Whitney, who had served in the agency's wartime predecessor, the OSS, was its chairman. And Tom Braden, first chief of the CIA's International Organisations Division, was executive secretary of the museum in 1949.
Now in his eighties, Mr Braden lives in Woodbridge, Virginia, in a house packed with Abstract Expressionist works and guarded by enormous Alsatians. He explained the purpose of the IOD.
"We wanted to unite all the people who were writers, who were musicians, who were artists, to demonstrate that the West and the United States was devoted to freedom of expression and to intellectual achievement, without any rigid barriers as to what you must write, and what you must say, and what you must do, and what you must paint, which was what was going on in the Soviet Union. I think it was the most important division that the agency had, and I think that it played an enormous role in the Cold War."
He confirmed that his division had acted secretly because of the public hostility to the avant-garde: "It was very difficult to get Congress to go along with some of the things we wanted to do - send art abroad, send symphonies abroad, publish magazines abroad. That's one of the reasons it had to be done covertly. It had to be a secret. In order to encourage openness we had to be secret."
If this meant playing pope to this century's Michelangelos, well, all the better: "It takes a pope or somebody with a lot of money to recognise art and to support it," Mr Braden said. "And after many centuries people say, 'Oh look! the Sistine Chapel, the most beautiful creation on Earth!' It's a problem that civilisation has faced ever since the first artist and the first millionaire or pope who supported him. And yet if it hadn't been for the multi-millionaires or the popes, we wouldn't have had the art."
Would Abstract Expressionism have been the dominant art movement of the post-war years without this patronage? The answer is probably yes. Equally, it would be wrong to suggest that when you look at an Abstract Expressionist painting you are being duped by the CIA.
But look where this art ended up: in the marble halls of banks, in airports, in city halls, boardrooms and great galleries. For the Cold Warriors who promoted them, these paintings were a logo, a signature for their culture and system which they wanted to display everywhere that counted. They succeeded.
* The full story of the CIA and modern art is told in 'Hidden Hands' on Channel 4 next Sunday at 8pm. The first programme in the series is screened tonight. Frances Stonor Saunders is writing a book on the cultural Cold War.
Covert Operation
In 1958 the touring exhibition "The New American Painting", including works by Pollock, de Kooning, Motherwell and others, was on show in Paris. The Tate Gallery was keen to have it next, but could not afford to bring it over. Late in the day, an American millionaire and art lover, Julius Fleischmann, stepped in with the cash and the show was brought to London.
The money that Fleischmann provided, however, was not his but the CIA's. It came through a body called the Farfield Foundation, of which Fleischmann was president, but far from being a millionaire's charitable arm, the foundation was a secret conduit for CIA funds.
So, unknown to the Tate, the public or the artists, the exhibition was transferred to London at American taxpayers' expense to serve subtle Cold War propaganda purposes. A former CIA man, Tom Braden, described how such conduits as the Farfield Foundation were set up. "We would go to somebody in New York who was a well-known rich person and we would say, 'We want to set up a foundation.' We would tell him what we were trying to do and pledge him to secrecy, and he would say, 'Of course I'll do it,' and then you would publish a letterhead and his name would be on it and there would be a foundation. It was really a pretty simple device."
Julius Fleischmann was well placed for such a role. He sat on the board of the International Programme of the Museum of Modern Art in New York - as did several powerful figures close to the CIA.

I think apologies are in order to me. Hello... Seattle?

Moses would be pissed. Ten Commandments was recieved in what we now call a bad neighborhood

2012-02-09T18:11:00.001-05:00

A no-man's land with no one in charge.

Armed beduin in Sinai kidnapped two police officers and 17 soldiers, Egypt's Al Ahram reported, in the latest in a series of kidnappings by beduin in the Sinai peninsula.
The kidnapping took place in northern Sinai in reaction to the killing of a man that was attempting to smuggle tobacco into bordering Israel, "official sources" told the Egyptian newspaper.
Security in the Sinai peninsula has deteriorated since the overthrow of former president Hosni Mubarak, as beduin long-complaining of neglect from Cairo have kidnapped tourists, foreign workers and taken over a seaside resort, holding the employees hostage.
The natural gas pipeline to Israel and Jordan has also been bombed at least 12 times in the past year, though in that development the Egyptian authorities have hired beduin tribesman to provide security.
Last week, beduin kidnapped two American women in an apparent attempt to hold them for ransom, only to release them to army authorities a few hours later.
While the Egyptian army did not comment on the conditions of the women's release, a beduin source said the authorities had agreed to a demand to free four fellow tribesmen from police custody in exchange for the two tourists.
Israel agreed after Mubarak was deposed that Egypt could station troops in Sinai for the first time since the Camp David accords were implemented.

Brazil's President in Cuba: Business Yes, Dissidents No

2012-02-08T18:19:00.001-05:00

(Anna Mahjar-Barducci)Human rights activists had high expectations for Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's first official visit to Cuba last January 30. Rousseff visited Cuba just few days after the international media reported that Brazil was distancing itself from Iran over the Iranian regime's human rights abuses. Further, just a week before her arrival to Cuba, the Brazilian government gave a visa to a Cuban opponent and blogger, Yoani Sanchez, raising hopes that Rousseff would show some support to dissidents. Many therefore thought that the Brazilian president would have taken a public stand against human rights violations perpetrated by the Castro's dictatorship, but that turned out to be just wishful thinking.
Although Rousseff once said she "prefer[red] a million critical voices over the silence of the dictatorships," in Cuba the Brazilian President preferred business. Rousseff refused to meet Yoani Sanchez or other Cuban dissidents, and focused in promoting bilateral trade. The Americas Society website reports that trade between the two Latin American countries increased 31% from 2010 to 2011, reaching $642 million last year. The Brazilian government is opening a $350 million credit line to Cuba to finance food purchases, and another $200 million to purchase agricultural equipment. Moreover, Brazil's development bank, Odebrecht, is investing in the Cuban sugar industry and also helping to finance an $800 million plan to renovate the port of Mariel, hoping to transform it into one of the most important hubs in Latin America that could be of use to Cuba's nascent oil industry. The Miami Herald's Cuban Colada blog stated that Cuba confirmed the presence of reserves of up to 20 billion barrels of crude oil in waters off the Gulf of Mexico; and the Brazilian oil company Petrobras is negotiating with Cuba for offshore exploration rights. Oil was evidently more attractive than human rights. Reuters sarcastically commented that Rousseff made her first visit to Cuba with capitalism on her mind.
Rousseff, who was a leftist guerrilla fighter inspired by Fidel Castro's communist revolution, nevertheless found the time to criticize the US prison camp at Guantanamo and the US trade embargo against Cuba, but apparently felt it was not relevant to discuss the condition of dissidents in Cuba. According to a recent Human Rights Watch report, the Cuban government relies on beatings, short-term detentions, forced exile and travel restrictions to repress virtually all forms of political dissent. In January, the Cuban dissident Wilman Villar died in custody after a 50 day hunger strike. The Buenos Aires Herald mentioned that Villar's death created pressure on Rousseff to raise human rights issues with Cuban leaders, but that she was unlikely to do so publicly.
Reuters notes that Rousseff's trip to Cuba was made just before a visit in Washington set for next month, and mentioned that the decision raised some eyebrows, given Brazil's recent confrontations with the United States over trade. Brazil's economy is one of the fastest growing in the world. In the last few years, in spite of the world's crisis, Brazil's GDP kept growing at an average rate of more than 5%. As the seventh largest economy by GDP, with a population nearing 190 million, Brazil understandably aspires to become a world power and a regional giant. The last two Brazilian presidencies, however, former President Lula da Silva's and Rousseff's, have coupled this legitimate aspiration to an ideological confrontation with the US.
The Americas Society website suggests that Brazil's strategic trade and investments in the Caribbean, and elsewhere in the developing world, are part of the government's global strategy. Matthew Taylor, a Brazil specialist at the American University's School of International Service, commented that Rousseff's policy is to grow Brazil's "soft power" on the international scale to raise Brazil's role in the world. As Taylor told the Wall Street Journal, "Brazil is taking on a bigger role in the hemisphere in terms of aid and finance."
Brazilian commentators, however, mentioned that precisely because Brazil is becoming a raising power, it would have been better for Rousseff not to visit Cuba at this moment. The visit actually provoked strong criticism both in Brazil and worldwide. The Brazilian diplomat Marcos Azambuja wrote that if Brazil wanted to do business with Cuba, he should have sent high government officials, but that Rousseff herself should have not gone. "A [Presidential] visit to Cuba has its price to pay," he wrote, mentioning that even if Rousseff's intentions were only to do business, the end result is that she paid tribute to the failed policies of the Cuban regime.
(IMAGE VIA AJ)

Compromises, Compromises...

Why Same-Sex Marriage Bans Qualify as Sex Discrimination

2012-02-08T14:10:00.001-05:00

(Volokh.com) Today’s Ninth Circuit decision striking down California’s Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage is unpersuasive because it claims that the law fails to meet even minimal “rational basis” scrutiny. Eugene Volokh does a good job of explaining why. But there is an alternative constitutional rationale for striking down same-sex marriage bans that avoids this problem. Proposition 8 is an example of sex discrimination, and must be evaluated under the higher standards of scrutiny applied to gender discrimination by the Supreme Court.
Although the sex discrimination argument has been advanced by several academic advocates of gay marriage, nonacademics tend to be skeptical because the same-sex marriage bans seem to be targeted against gays, not men or women. Hostility towards gays is certainly part of the motivation for bans on same-sex marriage. But that does not prevent these laws from qualifying as sex discrimination. In terms of the way the law is actually structured, a same-sex marriage ban in fact discriminates on the basis of gender rather than orientation. And it is perfectly possible to discriminate on the basis of sex even if the motivation for doing so is something other than sexism.
Consider the hypothetical case of Anne, Bob, and Colin. If same-sex marriage is forbidden, Anne is allowed to marry Colin, but Bob cannot do so. This is so even if Anne and Bob are identical in every respect other than gender. Bob is denied the legal right to marry Colin (and all other men) solely because he is a man. Denial of a legal right solely on the basis of gender is the very essence of sex discrimination.
By contrast, sexual orientation actually has no effect on the way the law operates. Anne is still allowed to marry Colin, even if one of them happens to be gay or lesbian. Bob is denied that right regardless of his sexual orientation. There are actually lots of real world cases where gays or lesbians have entered into opposite-sex marriages, such as the famous example of former New Jersey Governor James McGreevey, a closeted gay man who was married to a woman for many years. McGreevey’s marriage was not illegal, even if his actions were morally dubious.
All of this simply underscores the reality that a ban on same-sex marriage discriminates on the basis of gender rather than orientation – even if the motivation for the discrimination is hostility towards gays and lesbians. Under the Supreme Court’s approach to sex discrimination, any “statutory classifications that distinguish between males and females” are subject to heightened judicial scrutiny. A ban on same-sex marriage pretty obviously “distinguish[es] between males and females.”
Although a ban on same-sex marriage qualifies as sex discrimination, it is not automatically unconstitutional. Since the 1970s, the Supreme Court has taken the view that laws that discriminate on the basis of sex do not violate the Constitution if they can pass “intermediate scrutiny,” which requires them to be “substantially related” to an “important state interest.” If opponents of same-sex marriage are right to claim that Western civilization will fall into deep decline if the practice is allowed, that would be enough to pass the test. Ditto if they can show that same-sex marriage somehow inflicts severe harm on children. But any such arguments would be subject to detailed judicial scrutiny. They would have to be backed by real evidence, and could not pass muster just by being minimally plausible, as under the “rational basis” test.
Some originalists might reject my argument on the grounds that sex discrimination itself is not really banned by the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. I criticized such arguments in this post. For a much more comprehensive rebuttal, see this important recent article by Steven Calabresi and Julia Rickert.
A more moderate originalist critique of my position might hinge on the idea that the framers of the Amendment would not have thought of a same-sex marriage ban as sex discrimination. But it is not hard to figure out that a law under which a legal right is dependent on gender discriminates on the basis of sex. The Framers surely thought that this was justifiable sex discrimination. But that does not mean that it isn’t sex discrimination at all. If asked whether marriage laws circa 1868 limited the right to marry on the basis of gender, most people at the time would surely have said yes. And, as in the case of occupational discrimination against women, the Framers’ view that this form of sex discrimination is constitutionally permissible hinged on dubious factual assumptions that we are not bound by today.
In sum, a ban on same-sex marriage easily qualifies as sex discrimination and is therefore subject to heightened judicial scrutiny. Whether it could withstand such scrutiny is a question I leave to others, though I am skeptical about its chances.
UPDATE: Many commenters seem to be assuming that, in order for a law to qualify as sex discrimination, it has to be motivated by hostility to men or women. Not so. As the Supreme Court puts it, a law can qualify as unconstitutional sex discrimination so long as it is a”statutory classification… that distinguish between males and females.” Similarly, a racial classification counts as racial discrimination for constitutional purposes even if the motives behind it are benign.
It is also not true that a ban on same-sex marriage avoids qualifying as sex discrimination because it affects members of both genders. It still denies rights to both men and women solely on account of their sex. The fact that Bob cannot marry Colin solely on account of gender is not somehow “balanced” by the fact that Anne is similarly forbidden to marry Carol. Similarly, a law banning interracial marriage still qualifies as race discrimination even though both blacks and whites are barred from marrying members of the other racial group.

you can slice it how you like it, and call it what you want it... but I don't see the existential need for gay people to protect themselves from unwanted accidental pregnancy within the contractual union. It doesn't matter if it is because of gender or orientation... this is a label. It doesn't matter if the cup is half full or half empty... the point is there is a need for a cup to hold water. The real world application invokes a real need for aid to those that have a unique problem that Gay people don't have.

Reversing the Reconquista

2012-02-07T20:31:00.001-05:00

(Gates of Vienna) Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for uploading this video:The CBN report below examines the ongoing re-Islamization of the Iberian Peninsula, as evidenced by the accelerating immigration of Muslims into Spain — and the exodus of well-educated middle-class Spaniards from the country. Based on recent surveys, most of the new arrivals have no intention of assimilating, but owe their primary loyalty to the Ummah. Absurd Lies about Cordoba Spain - Islamic Inquisition

Israeli hacker strikes back, publishes Saudi card details [Flickr]

2012-01-10T23:25:44-08:00

simonstudionyc posted a photo:

h/t @TheJewess:(REDRAW)

A solution to Austria's blonde jokes crisis [Flickr]

2012-01-05T07:39:53-08:00

simonstudionyc posted a photo:

Look Into My Eyes You Are Under My Hypnotic Control (Simply Jews)(REDRAW) Read this:

Heard the one about the blonde in Austria? Well from tomorrow it will be a criminal offence if you have – and that’s no joke. The country has outlawed gags about blondes as part of the fight against terrorism. Officials fear that marginalised blondes – furious at being portrayed as stupid – could take revenge on society.
And heed this part particularly:

Offenders could be sentenced to two years’ jail.

Talal Twitter [Flickr]

2011-12-22T01:15:44-08:00

simonstudionyc posted a photo:

(REPLAY)Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, an investor in some of the world's top companies, has bought a stake in Twitter for $300 million, gaining another foothold in the global media industry.

Bend Over Obama [Flickr]

2011-12-21T10:36:25-08:00

simonstudionyc posted a photo:

Kim Jong Il In Heaven

Loudspeaker Mosque [Flickr]

2011-12-19T16:21:45-08:00

simonstudionyc posted a photo:

(REPLAY) I knew that the Muslims claim to have been in the forefront of science, but I had no idea they had invented loudspeakers - even before Mohammed was born!

Obama's self destruct button [Flickr]

2011-12-15T06:45:07-08:00

simonstudionyc posted a photo:

(REDRAW) The Pentagon initially wanted to send a special forces team to recover the drone. Obama shot down that suggestion. Then the Pentagon offered up Plan B ,blow it to kingdom come. FOX News reports that there was third option and Obama struck that down also. Obama refused all three of those options and now Iran and China have a brand spanking new fully functional top secret US RQ 170 Sentinel Drone.

Pink Woman and dog [Flickr]

2011-12-04T17:08:58-08:00

simonstudionyc posted a photo:

(Redraw)

the rich and greedy take advantage by exploiting their connections with government to get bailouts, subsidies, and special treatment [Flickr]

2011-11-25T02:34:23-08:00

simonstudionyc posted a photo:

ReDraw

Human Shield Nuke [Flickr]

2011-11-19T09:35:23-08:00

simonstudionyc posted a photo:

Hundreds of students on Tuesday formed a human chain around the uranium conversion plant in central Iran, in a demonstration staged by students to show that Iranians were ready to sacrifice their lives if the nuclear sites were attacked by Israel.(REDRAW)

fix a flat [Flickr]

2011-11-19T09:28:42-08:00

simonstudionyc posted a photo:

Oneal Ron Morris took a look and went to work. Not on a tire. But on the backside of a Miami Gardens woman who was seeking the derriere of her dreams. Instead, she got a tush full of toxins. (REDRAW)

million 2 one then rockets [Flickr]

2011-11-01T05:52:51-07:00

simonstudionyc posted a photo:

Rockets continue to fall in South, ceasefire reported
what cause did they have to shoot rockets right after the trade? Hamas called a cease fire so Israel would not retaliate... (REDRAW)

Mecca Poop [Flickr]

2011-10-27T22:41:58-07:00

simonstudionyc posted a photo:

Mubarak teaches US Marines:

Don’t spit toward Mecca.

Don’t piss or poop toward Mecca.

Don’t sleep with your boots toward Mecca

(Diana West) (h/t Bare Naked Islam) Shafiq_Mubarak is a contractor hired by the Marine Corps Center for Advanced Operational Culture Learning to help implement “the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, the winning of hearts and minds.” According to the North County Times,

Mubarak and Tremore spent hours walking troops through the nuances of meetings, or “shuras” with key local leaders. Both stressed the importance of those meetings. …

Mubarak taught the troops the proper way to sit during a shura. He told them they should plan on at least 30 minutes for an initial meeting, and that they should always finish their tea and eat any food presented. And that includes all the intestinal parasites. “If you don’t, that means to them that you don’t trust them, or think what they are giving you is poison or is unclean,” he said. Mubarak also said the Marines should never spit or urinate to the west, the direction of Mecca that Muslims in Afghanistan face when they pray. In addition, when sharing a base with Afghan army troops, Marines shouldn’t sleep with their feet pointed west, because that also is considered offensive, he said.

Burka Blow [Flickr]

2011-10-24T19:52:10-07:00

simonstudionyc posted a photo:

(Eye) Belgium has implemented a ban on the wearing of the burka since the 23rd of July this year. It was the reason why two policemen, who spotted a woman wearing the burka, stopped her and asked for her ID papers. Her husband, angry that the police dare stop his wife, physically attacked one of the policemen while informing his wife to go home.

Piss Bag [Flickr]

2011-10-09T01:02:29-07:00

simonstudionyc posted a photo:

This news is only a harbinger of the new austerity measure to come: The Dutch national railway has an unusual solution for passengers who need the bathroom on a train line designed without them: plastic bags. The bags have a cup-shaped plastic top and contain a highly absorbent material that turns urine into a gel-like mixture. After use the bags can be sealed and thrown in the trash. (REDRAW)

LightSquared's GPS Request Jeopardizes National Security [Flickr]

2011-09-29T17:41:39-07:00

simonstudionyc posted a photo:

Over the last thirty years the US has spent more than one hundred billion dollars building and operating the GPS system. To put this investment at risk -- especially to please a campaign contributor -- will have lasting effects on both US national security and America's international position. REDRAW

Hugo Chavez in hospital 'for kidney failure' [Flickr]

2011-09-29T17:41:37-07:00

simonstudionyc posted a photo:

(Telegraph.co.uk) The leftist, staunchly anti-US stalwart Chavez went into the Military Hospital in Caracas on Tuesday morning, the report on the newspaper's website said, citing anonymous sources with knowledge of the case. "He was in fairly serious overall condition," a source told the Miami-based Spanish-language daily. "When he arrived, he was in quite serious shape and that is why he was brought in for emergency care." Venezuela's Information Minister Andres Izarra appeared to deny the report in a posting on the micro-blogging website Twitter. "Those who should be admitted are the journalists of the Nuevo Herald, except into a madhouse (instead of a hospital)," Izarra tweeted, without providing further details. On Sunday, Chavez sought to assure Venezuelans he was healthy, telling them that cancer-fighting chemotherapy treatment has not left him with any debilitating side effects.

Erdogan [Flickr]

2011-09-27T16:42:10-07:00

simonstudionyc posted a photo:

Erdogan says Israel will not be able to move in the eastern Mediterranean as it wishes.
...oh and don't forget about those Turkish warships that are being built domestically. oh joy! (Hurriyet)...in the mean time Turkey acts like it is being diplomatic with it's other neighbors. It does not seem like the Arabs think so. noah.simonstudio.com/2011/09/guess-who-was-missing-when-e...

Obama [Flickr]

2011-09-24T17:25:33-07:00

simonstudionyc posted a photo:

Change

stabbing iPod [Flickr]

2011-09-21T22:15:56-07:00

simonstudionyc posted a photo:

A 19-year-old Maryland college student was charged Friday with fatally stabbing her roommate inside their dormitory-style apartment after the two women argued about music playing from an iPod, police said.

Echo Valley [Flickr]

2011-09-21T22:15:54-07:00

simonstudionyc posted a photo:

Already an old story, but being the sick guy that I am... I'm going to post it, because it amused me! ...and I'm a horrible mean spirited shallow person. Echo Valley was not wearing a seatbelt, thus she was ejected from her car as a result of the collision. She died at the scene. According to a friend, she did not wear seatbelts while driving because of her large breasts. The irony is she died by being rear ended. She was married to James C. Stone, the former president of Alpha Health Services in Post Falls, Idaho. Stone was sentenced to a three-year term in prison and ordered to pay $170,000 in restitution in 2007 for stealing money from his employees’ pension plan. Believe it or not she was 57 years old when she died.