March 24, 2012
by Tim
Source:frontporchpolitics.com
There has been a lot of talk this year in regards to voter fraud and rigging of votes. It seems every election year this is the case. However rarely do we get blatant statements such as, “We don’t want people to see what actually goes into the caucuses.”
In the following clip Bryan Spencer talks about such rigging in St. Charles, Missouri.
He tells why the media was trusted to have cameras, but citizens were not allowed and how the police were notified in advance.
So what happened as a result? Well in case you missed it the following video shows exactly what took place. Missouri had actually anticipated that the majority of caucus goers would favor Ron Paul. According to Doug Tweed, “A pre-arranged delegate slate of Republican insiders would be voted on and declared won by acclamation, over the voices of protest by the attendees. If the majority didn’t like it they could complain. If the numbers were too great and the deception too obvious, the temporary chairman would provoke the crowd and by pre-arrangment police would be called in to shut down the event. The latter proved quite easy.”
They then announced that all video would be banned. Can you believe that? Even video cell phones. That is a First Amendment right and if they were honest that should have actually kept them from ever being declared to have rigged anything. However, in declaring that, the crowd was not happy and thus the police they had waiting were called in.
A former GOP County Chairman and Ron Paul supporter, who is handicapped, was in the process of giving instructions to Ron Paul supporters outside, telling them when and where to meet. The temporary chairman then followed him outside and had the police arrest him and escort him away in handcuffs.
The GOP voters, as a whole, are not happy with any of the candidates and have such let it be made known vocally and by the low voter turnout in the primaries. The GOP wants to force Mitt Romney on the GOP voters as their only choice and the GOP voters will once again, just as they did in 2008, “hold their noses and vote” the team’s jersey.
Tim Brown
FrontPorchPolitics.com
Monday, March 26, 2012
A day in the life of IDF reservists
22/03/2012
Author: Adam May
Source: www.idf.il
In recent months, Israel's long quiet border with Egypt has become an increasingly important area of focus for the IDF. Following the Eilat terror attack in August(2011), the threat of future terror attacks has led to the construction of a new fence with increased IDF presence stationed along the border. However, several times a year, instead of the typical group of soldiers this vital post is manned by an unusual blend of students, fathers, and even a rabbi.
For weeks at a time, a company of men from the Alon Reserve Division, take up their old uniforms, say goodbye to wives and children, and head out to their remote posts and long abandoned army lifestyle.
"It's not too hard to adjust to military life again, but it never feels right. You're here but the outside world keeps going," said SFC (res.) Oz Naor. "Everyone has their individual lives, important jobs, pregnant wives, their studies, a lot of responsibilities- but everyone comes anyway."
“You know why you are here”
Reserve duty is an integral part of life in Israel. After being released from the army and given a one-year break, citizens are assigned to a reserve company. Reservists meet often with their companies and have at least one extended training session or deployment a year until the age of 45. Three months ago, the men of this company received the letter informing them of their service- and then the preparations began. Bosses were called, arrangements were made, and households were prepared, all so these reservists can take up their post along the border and allow the active regular service forces the necessary time to train.
For Maj. (res.) Itamar Ben-Shefer, the commander of this particular reserve company, his job began six months beforehand. "As the company commander, your burden is obviously different," said Maj. Ben-Shefer. Not a day goes by without Maj. Ben-Shefer's phone ringing with army matters. In civilian life, Itamar studies while holding down a job, but these distractions can't get in the way of his service. "After the month is over I'll see if the girlfriend, job and studies are still waiting for me," Itamar said laughing. "When you are here, you just snap into it, only afterwards do you realize the damage, but once you are here you are focused."
And staying focused is essential. The company is responsible for a very volatile stretch of Israel's border, including Egypt, Gaza, and the busy Kerem Shalom crossing. From the company's hilltop position, you can see the nearby towns that dot the desert landscape. "There are towns on the map that are only 500 meters from the border we are responsible for defending. They can see the Gaza Strip. When you see something like that the mission becomes very clear, you know why you are here," said Maj. Ben-Shefer.
Maj. Ben-Shefer's company is always patrolling the border, 24/7. Many times a day, Maj. Ben Shefer will set out with scouts to survey the border. On the far side of the fence, Egyptian outposts tower over the hills while the silhouettes of Egyptian soldiers stand with their back towards Israel, scanning the desert for signs of terrorist activity. Humvees drive past barbed wire fences littered with the clothes of failed intruders, scanning the ground for the footprints of infiltrators.
Finding the balance
With an average age of 28, the difference between reservist and the average soldier is evident. "The soldiers are more responsible, they are at a different point in their lives. The big difference is the need for time to deal with the other parts of their life," says Maj. Ben-Shefer.
Rabbi Dan Segalis, who is both a father of 5 and head of his own Yeshiva, is the man responsible for this delicate balancing act. "My job is to schedule soldiers, to worry about manpower from both an army perspective and a personal one," says Rabbi Segalis. "I want to help make the soldier's life easier. You think about both the numbers that the company needs, and the names of the people who fill those numbers. You can't forget about the people themselves and their names."
While certainly not whom you would expect to find holding an outpost on the border, Rabbi Segalis has been at this for over 15 years. "Doing reserve service is never easy, but you deal with it. My students all enlist in the army, it's important to me to be a good role model," he said. "Reserve service is different, people are different, older. I have more maturity than I did. I have to be here and I want to be here. And that goes for everybody. Yes it's an obligation, but it's also an honor."
Author: Adam May
Source: www.idf.il
In recent months, Israel's long quiet border with Egypt has become an increasingly important area of focus for the IDF. Following the Eilat terror attack in August(2011), the threat of future terror attacks has led to the construction of a new fence with increased IDF presence stationed along the border. However, several times a year, instead of the typical group of soldiers this vital post is manned by an unusual blend of students, fathers, and even a rabbi.
For weeks at a time, a company of men from the Alon Reserve Division, take up their old uniforms, say goodbye to wives and children, and head out to their remote posts and long abandoned army lifestyle.
"It's not too hard to adjust to military life again, but it never feels right. You're here but the outside world keeps going," said SFC (res.) Oz Naor. "Everyone has their individual lives, important jobs, pregnant wives, their studies, a lot of responsibilities- but everyone comes anyway."
“You know why you are here”
Reserve duty is an integral part of life in Israel. After being released from the army and given a one-year break, citizens are assigned to a reserve company. Reservists meet often with their companies and have at least one extended training session or deployment a year until the age of 45. Three months ago, the men of this company received the letter informing them of their service- and then the preparations began. Bosses were called, arrangements were made, and households were prepared, all so these reservists can take up their post along the border and allow the active regular service forces the necessary time to train.
For Maj. (res.) Itamar Ben-Shefer, the commander of this particular reserve company, his job began six months beforehand. "As the company commander, your burden is obviously different," said Maj. Ben-Shefer. Not a day goes by without Maj. Ben-Shefer's phone ringing with army matters. In civilian life, Itamar studies while holding down a job, but these distractions can't get in the way of his service. "After the month is over I'll see if the girlfriend, job and studies are still waiting for me," Itamar said laughing. "When you are here, you just snap into it, only afterwards do you realize the damage, but once you are here you are focused."
And staying focused is essential. The company is responsible for a very volatile stretch of Israel's border, including Egypt, Gaza, and the busy Kerem Shalom crossing. From the company's hilltop position, you can see the nearby towns that dot the desert landscape. "There are towns on the map that are only 500 meters from the border we are responsible for defending. They can see the Gaza Strip. When you see something like that the mission becomes very clear, you know why you are here," said Maj. Ben-Shefer.
Maj. Ben-Shefer's company is always patrolling the border, 24/7. Many times a day, Maj. Ben Shefer will set out with scouts to survey the border. On the far side of the fence, Egyptian outposts tower over the hills while the silhouettes of Egyptian soldiers stand with their back towards Israel, scanning the desert for signs of terrorist activity. Humvees drive past barbed wire fences littered with the clothes of failed intruders, scanning the ground for the footprints of infiltrators.
Finding the balance
With an average age of 28, the difference between reservist and the average soldier is evident. "The soldiers are more responsible, they are at a different point in their lives. The big difference is the need for time to deal with the other parts of their life," says Maj. Ben-Shefer.
Rabbi Dan Segalis, who is both a father of 5 and head of his own Yeshiva, is the man responsible for this delicate balancing act. "My job is to schedule soldiers, to worry about manpower from both an army perspective and a personal one," says Rabbi Segalis. "I want to help make the soldier's life easier. You think about both the numbers that the company needs, and the names of the people who fill those numbers. You can't forget about the people themselves and their names."
While certainly not whom you would expect to find holding an outpost on the border, Rabbi Segalis has been at this for over 15 years. "Doing reserve service is never easy, but you deal with it. My students all enlist in the army, it's important to me to be a good role model," he said. "Reserve service is different, people are different, older. I have more maturity than I did. I have to be here and I want to be here. And that goes for everybody. Yes it's an obligation, but it's also an honor."
Do Jews Dominate in American Media? And So What If We Do?
February 17, 2008
by Philip Weiss
Source: Mondoweiss
At least a half dozen times in recent months, the suggestion has come from serious people that Jews predominate in the American media--that if we are not dominant, we are a major bloc. In a Yivo event on Jews in journalism I've blogged about, a questioner said that Jews' outsize proportion in the media has granted us "a large influence over power." In his groundbreaking paper on the New York Times's role in shaping American policy toward Israel, Jerome Slater spoke of "religious beliefs and identifications" that affected the Times, and cited former executive editor Max Frankel's admission in his memoir (one also cited by Walt and Mearsheimer): "I was much more deeply devoted to Israel than I dared to assert."
Lately broadcast reporter John Hockenberry related that he wanted to do a piece on the hijackers' motivation after 9/11 but that NBC executive Jeff Zucker scotched the notion:
"Maybe," Zucker said, "we ought to do a series of specials on firehouses where we just ride along with our cameras. Like the show Cops, only with firefighters."... [H]e could make room in the prime-time lineup for firefighters, but then smiled at me and said, in effect, that he had no time for any subtitled interviews with jihadists raging about Palestine. [Weiss's emphasis]
Then last month at a forum at the Nixon Center, former Bushie Dov Zackheim said, Jews don't dominate the policy-making process, but the media is a different story...
I don't know that anyone has visited the simple question raised by these statements: Do Jews dominate the media? This is something I know about personally. I’ve worked in print journalism for more than 30 years. I’ve worked for many magazines and newspapers, and for a time my whole social circle was editors and writers in New York. I don’t know television. I don’t know Washington journalism well. I don't know the west coast. My sample is surely skewed by the fact that I’m Jewish and have always felt great comfort with other Jews. But in my experience, Jews have made up the majority of the important positions in the publications I worked for, a majority of the writers I’ve known at these place, and the majority of the owners who have paid me. Yes my own sample may be skewed, but I think it shows that Jews make up a significant proportion of power positions in media, half, if not more.
Before considering what this means, let me make my experience concrete:
My serious journalism began at the Harvard Crimson in the 70s. A friend said the paper was a Jewish boys club; it was dominated by middle class Jews-- as apparently today there are a lot of Asians. Many of these Jews are now powerful presences in the media. Zucker is one of them. My first paying job was in Minneapolis. Five Harvard guys started a weekly; four of them were Jewish, including the publisher paying our meager salaries. I remember our editor walking the halls parodying the jingle we had on the radio. The jingle went: "We’ve got the news, we’ve got the sports…" He sang it as “We’ve got the Jews, we’ve got the sports.” Funny.
I was hired by a Jewish editor at my next job, the Philadelphia Daily News in 1978, and when I started freelancing in 1981, Jewish Harvard friends got me work at the Columbia Journalism Review and the Washington Monthly. A gentile brought me in at Harper’s and the New Republic. It was at the New Republic, a launching pad for any number of highly-successful journalists, that I briefly associated with Marty Peretz, and did a story for him mocking the United Nations, whose judgment he seeks at every turn to nullify because the U.N. is critical of Israel.
Fast forward. In New York, I have worked for a dozen magazines. Most of my editors have been Jewish. Both my book publishers were Jewish. At one point at one publishing house, the editor, his boss, and her boss were all Jewish, and so was the lawyer vetting the work—I remember her saying she would never travel to Malaysia because of the anti-Semitic Prime minister. Oh--and the assistant editor was half-Jewish.
I should point out that I have worked with many gentile editors and writers, and I have never been aware of any employment discrimination against them (though I may not be the best source). In fact, at Spy, the three top editors were all non-Jews and when I used the epithet WASP it was removed from my copy. But that is the exception. Generally it’s been Jews Jews Jews. When I hear NPR do a piece with its top political team and both are Jews... when a Jewish friend calls me and gossips about lunches with two top news execs at major publications who are both Jewish and who I’ve known for 20 years... when a Jewish editor friend tells me that Si Newhouse would be disturbed if Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter-- who has done such courageous work against the Iraq war-- did anything to expose the Israel lobby... and when I say that my income has been derived overwhelmingly from Jewish-owned publications for years—this is simply the ordinary culture of the magazine business as I know it.
I have some ideas why Jews have predominated, but that’s not the purpose of this posting. Last year Senator Russ Feingold, buttonholed on CSPAN about why so many speakers on air were Jewish, said, “Well, we’re good at talking…” That'll do for now.
The real issue is, Does it matter? Most of my life I felt it didn't. It’s just the way it is, at this point in history. It will change (as Clyde Haberman pointed out at that Yivo event). Jews are the latest flavor of the establishment. In his landmark book, The Jewish Century, Slezkine reports that Jews were the majority of journalists in Berlin and Vienna and Prague, too, in the late 1800s, if I remember correctly.
Now I think it does matter, for two reasons. Elitist establishment culture, and Israel. As to elitism, I worry when any affluent group has power and little sense of what the common man is experiencing. I feel the same discomfort with my prestige-oriented "caste" that E. Digby Baltzell did with his calcified caste, the WASPs--when he called for an end to discrimination against Jews in the early '60s. The values of my cohort sometimes seem narrow: globalism, prosperity, professionalism. In Israel the values are a lot broader. None of my cohort has served in the military, myself included. A lot of our fathers did; but I bet none of our kids do. Military service is for losers--or for Israelis.
So we are way overrepresented in the chattering classes, and way underrepresented in the battering classes. Not a great recipe for leadership, especially in wartime.
Then there’s Israel. Support for Israel is an element of Jewish religious practice and more important, part of the Jewish cultural experience. Even if you're a secular Jewish professional who prides himself on his objectivity, there is a ton of cultural pressure on you to support Israel or at least not to betray Israel. We are talking about a religion, after all, and the pressures faced by Jews who are critical of Israel are not that different from what Muslim women who want greater freedom undergo psychically or by evangelical Christians who want to support gay rights. It is worth noting that great Jewish heretics on the Israel question suffer anger or even ostracism inside their own families. Henry Siegman talked about this on Charlie Rose once, I recall--that even close family were not speaking to him over Israel. And I have seen this for myself on numerous occasions. There is not a lot of bandwidth on this issue. Conversations about Israel even inside the liberal Jewish community are emotionally loaded, and result in people not speaking to one another. I lost this blog at a mainstream publication because the editor was Jewish and conservative on Israel and so was the new owner, and the publisher had worked for AIPAC. And all of them would likely call themselves liberal Democrats.
As former CNN correspondent Linda Scherzer has said, "We, as Jews, must understand that we come with a certain bias ...We believe in the Israeli narrative of history. We support the values that we as Americans, Westerners, and Jews espouse. Thus, we see news reporting through our own prism."
There are many American Jewish journalists who have done great independent work re Israel/Palestine. Richard Ben Cramer and the late Robbie Friedman leap to mind. But both these guys are exceptional, and had to overcome/ignore a ton of pressure that most of us would quail under. They had to step outside the Jewish family to do their work...
The result is that Americans are not getting the full story re Israel/Palestine. Slater says this dramatically in his paper--that the Times has deprived American leadership of reporting on the moral/political crisis that Israel is undergoing, one that Haaretz has covered unstintingly. At Columbia the other night, Jew, Arab and gentile on a panel about the human-rights crisis in Gaza all said that Americans are not getting the full story. Ilan Pappe has marveled in his book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, that the Nakba is all but unmentioned in the U.S.--while Haaretz has sought at times to document it, for instance a former officer saying in 2004 that if he had not helped to destroy 200 villages in southern Israel in '48, there would be another million Palestinians in Israel. To repeat Scherzer's admission: "We believe in the Israeli narrative of history..."
Why does the American press behave differently from the Israeli press? I think the answer is guilt. The Jewish cohort of which I am a part has largely accepted the duty that Max Frankel felt, of supporting Israel. This duty is rarely interrogated, and yet consciously or not we all know that American public opinion/leadership is critical to Israel's political invulnerability; and we think that if we take their fingers out of the dike, who knows what will happen. That is a ton of responsibility. This responsibility is not executed with special care. Generally, my cohort hasn't been to Israel, hasn't seen the West Bank. But they do feel kinship with Israeli Jews, and--above all--have guilt feelings about the Holocaust, or the American Jewish silence about it during the event, the Jewish passivity; and they are determined not to be passive during Israel's neverending existential crises. And thus they misunderstand Israel and fail to serve their readers.
by Philip Weiss
Source: Mondoweiss
At least a half dozen times in recent months, the suggestion has come from serious people that Jews predominate in the American media--that if we are not dominant, we are a major bloc. In a Yivo event on Jews in journalism I've blogged about, a questioner said that Jews' outsize proportion in the media has granted us "a large influence over power." In his groundbreaking paper on the New York Times's role in shaping American policy toward Israel, Jerome Slater spoke of "religious beliefs and identifications" that affected the Times, and cited former executive editor Max Frankel's admission in his memoir (one also cited by Walt and Mearsheimer): "I was much more deeply devoted to Israel than I dared to assert."
Lately broadcast reporter John Hockenberry related that he wanted to do a piece on the hijackers' motivation after 9/11 but that NBC executive Jeff Zucker scotched the notion:
"Maybe," Zucker said, "we ought to do a series of specials on firehouses where we just ride along with our cameras. Like the show Cops, only with firefighters."... [H]e could make room in the prime-time lineup for firefighters, but then smiled at me and said, in effect, that he had no time for any subtitled interviews with jihadists raging about Palestine. [Weiss's emphasis]
Then last month at a forum at the Nixon Center, former Bushie Dov Zackheim said, Jews don't dominate the policy-making process, but the media is a different story...
I don't know that anyone has visited the simple question raised by these statements: Do Jews dominate the media? This is something I know about personally. I’ve worked in print journalism for more than 30 years. I’ve worked for many magazines and newspapers, and for a time my whole social circle was editors and writers in New York. I don’t know television. I don’t know Washington journalism well. I don't know the west coast. My sample is surely skewed by the fact that I’m Jewish and have always felt great comfort with other Jews. But in my experience, Jews have made up the majority of the important positions in the publications I worked for, a majority of the writers I’ve known at these place, and the majority of the owners who have paid me. Yes my own sample may be skewed, but I think it shows that Jews make up a significant proportion of power positions in media, half, if not more.
Before considering what this means, let me make my experience concrete:
My serious journalism began at the Harvard Crimson in the 70s. A friend said the paper was a Jewish boys club; it was dominated by middle class Jews-- as apparently today there are a lot of Asians. Many of these Jews are now powerful presences in the media. Zucker is one of them. My first paying job was in Minneapolis. Five Harvard guys started a weekly; four of them were Jewish, including the publisher paying our meager salaries. I remember our editor walking the halls parodying the jingle we had on the radio. The jingle went: "We’ve got the news, we’ve got the sports…" He sang it as “We’ve got the Jews, we’ve got the sports.” Funny.
I was hired by a Jewish editor at my next job, the Philadelphia Daily News in 1978, and when I started freelancing in 1981, Jewish Harvard friends got me work at the Columbia Journalism Review and the Washington Monthly. A gentile brought me in at Harper’s and the New Republic. It was at the New Republic, a launching pad for any number of highly-successful journalists, that I briefly associated with Marty Peretz, and did a story for him mocking the United Nations, whose judgment he seeks at every turn to nullify because the U.N. is critical of Israel.
Fast forward. In New York, I have worked for a dozen magazines. Most of my editors have been Jewish. Both my book publishers were Jewish. At one point at one publishing house, the editor, his boss, and her boss were all Jewish, and so was the lawyer vetting the work—I remember her saying she would never travel to Malaysia because of the anti-Semitic Prime minister. Oh--and the assistant editor was half-Jewish.
I should point out that I have worked with many gentile editors and writers, and I have never been aware of any employment discrimination against them (though I may not be the best source). In fact, at Spy, the three top editors were all non-Jews and when I used the epithet WASP it was removed from my copy. But that is the exception. Generally it’s been Jews Jews Jews. When I hear NPR do a piece with its top political team and both are Jews... when a Jewish friend calls me and gossips about lunches with two top news execs at major publications who are both Jewish and who I’ve known for 20 years... when a Jewish editor friend tells me that Si Newhouse would be disturbed if Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter-- who has done such courageous work against the Iraq war-- did anything to expose the Israel lobby... and when I say that my income has been derived overwhelmingly from Jewish-owned publications for years—this is simply the ordinary culture of the magazine business as I know it.
I have some ideas why Jews have predominated, but that’s not the purpose of this posting. Last year Senator Russ Feingold, buttonholed on CSPAN about why so many speakers on air were Jewish, said, “Well, we’re good at talking…” That'll do for now.
The real issue is, Does it matter? Most of my life I felt it didn't. It’s just the way it is, at this point in history. It will change (as Clyde Haberman pointed out at that Yivo event). Jews are the latest flavor of the establishment. In his landmark book, The Jewish Century, Slezkine reports that Jews were the majority of journalists in Berlin and Vienna and Prague, too, in the late 1800s, if I remember correctly.
Now I think it does matter, for two reasons. Elitist establishment culture, and Israel. As to elitism, I worry when any affluent group has power and little sense of what the common man is experiencing. I feel the same discomfort with my prestige-oriented "caste" that E. Digby Baltzell did with his calcified caste, the WASPs--when he called for an end to discrimination against Jews in the early '60s. The values of my cohort sometimes seem narrow: globalism, prosperity, professionalism. In Israel the values are a lot broader. None of my cohort has served in the military, myself included. A lot of our fathers did; but I bet none of our kids do. Military service is for losers--or for Israelis.
So we are way overrepresented in the chattering classes, and way underrepresented in the battering classes. Not a great recipe for leadership, especially in wartime.
Then there’s Israel. Support for Israel is an element of Jewish religious practice and more important, part of the Jewish cultural experience. Even if you're a secular Jewish professional who prides himself on his objectivity, there is a ton of cultural pressure on you to support Israel or at least not to betray Israel. We are talking about a religion, after all, and the pressures faced by Jews who are critical of Israel are not that different from what Muslim women who want greater freedom undergo psychically or by evangelical Christians who want to support gay rights. It is worth noting that great Jewish heretics on the Israel question suffer anger or even ostracism inside their own families. Henry Siegman talked about this on Charlie Rose once, I recall--that even close family were not speaking to him over Israel. And I have seen this for myself on numerous occasions. There is not a lot of bandwidth on this issue. Conversations about Israel even inside the liberal Jewish community are emotionally loaded, and result in people not speaking to one another. I lost this blog at a mainstream publication because the editor was Jewish and conservative on Israel and so was the new owner, and the publisher had worked for AIPAC. And all of them would likely call themselves liberal Democrats.
As former CNN correspondent Linda Scherzer has said, "We, as Jews, must understand that we come with a certain bias ...We believe in the Israeli narrative of history. We support the values that we as Americans, Westerners, and Jews espouse. Thus, we see news reporting through our own prism."
There are many American Jewish journalists who have done great independent work re Israel/Palestine. Richard Ben Cramer and the late Robbie Friedman leap to mind. But both these guys are exceptional, and had to overcome/ignore a ton of pressure that most of us would quail under. They had to step outside the Jewish family to do their work...
The result is that Americans are not getting the full story re Israel/Palestine. Slater says this dramatically in his paper--that the Times has deprived American leadership of reporting on the moral/political crisis that Israel is undergoing, one that Haaretz has covered unstintingly. At Columbia the other night, Jew, Arab and gentile on a panel about the human-rights crisis in Gaza all said that Americans are not getting the full story. Ilan Pappe has marveled in his book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, that the Nakba is all but unmentioned in the U.S.--while Haaretz has sought at times to document it, for instance a former officer saying in 2004 that if he had not helped to destroy 200 villages in southern Israel in '48, there would be another million Palestinians in Israel. To repeat Scherzer's admission: "We believe in the Israeli narrative of history..."
Why does the American press behave differently from the Israeli press? I think the answer is guilt. The Jewish cohort of which I am a part has largely accepted the duty that Max Frankel felt, of supporting Israel. This duty is rarely interrogated, and yet consciously or not we all know that American public opinion/leadership is critical to Israel's political invulnerability; and we think that if we take their fingers out of the dike, who knows what will happen. That is a ton of responsibility. This responsibility is not executed with special care. Generally, my cohort hasn't been to Israel, hasn't seen the West Bank. But they do feel kinship with Israeli Jews, and--above all--have guilt feelings about the Holocaust, or the American Jewish silence about it during the event, the Jewish passivity; and they are determined not to be passive during Israel's neverending existential crises. And thus they misunderstand Israel and fail to serve their readers.
Feeding The Homeless BANNED In Major Cities All Over America
March 24, 2012
By The Economic Collapse
Source:OpEd News
What would you do if you came across someone on the street who had not had anything to eat for several days? Would you give that person some food? Well, the next time you get that impulse you might want to check if it is still legal to feed the homeless where you live.
Sadly, feeding the homeless has been banned in major cities all over America. Other cities that have not banned it outright have put so many requirements on those who want to feed the homeless (acquiring expensive permits, taking food preparation courses, etc.) that feeding the homeless has become "out of reach" for most average people. Some cities are doing these things because they are concerned about the "health risks" of the food being distributed by ordinary "do-gooders." Other cities are passing these laws because they do not want homeless people congregating in city centers where they know that they will be fed. But at a time when poverty and government dependence are soaring to unprecedented levels, is it really a good idea to ban people from helping those who are hurting?
This is just another example that shows that our country is being taken over by control freaks. There seems to be this idea out there that it is the job of the government to take care of everyone and that nobody else should even try.
But do we really want to have a nation where you have to get the permission of the government before you do good to your fellow man?
It isn't as if the government has "rescued" these homeless people. Homeless shelters all over the nation are turning people away each night because they have no more room. There are many homeless people who are lucky just to make it through each night alive during the winter.
Sometimes a well-timed sandwich or a cup of warm soup can make a world of difference for a homeless person. But many U.S. cities have decided that feeding the homeless is such a threat that they had better devote law enforcement resources to making sure that it doesn't happen.
This is so twisted. In America today, you need a "permit" to do almost anything. We are supposed to be a land of liberty and freedom, but these days government bureaucrats have turned our rights into "privileges" that they can revoke at any time.
The following are some of the major U.S. cities that have attempted to ban feeding the homeless....
Philadelphia
Mayor Nutter recently banned feeding homeless people in many parts of Philadelphia where homeless people are known to congregate....
"Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter has announced a ban on the feeding of large numbers of homeless and hungry people at sites on and near the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
"Mayor Nutter is imposing the ban on all outdoor feedings of large numbers of people on city parkland, including Love Park and the Ben Franklin Parkway, where it is not uncommon for outreach groups to offer free food.
"Nutter says the feedings lack both sanitary conditions and dignity."
Orlando
Last June, a group of activists down in Orlando, Florida were arrested by police for feeding the homeless in defiance of a city ordinance....
"Over the past week, twelve members of food activist group Food Not Bombs have been arrested in Orlando for giving free food to groups of homeless people in a downtown park. They were acting in defiance of a controversial city ordinance that mandates permits for groups distributing food to large groups in parks within two miles of City Hall. Each group is allowed only two permits per park per year; Food Not Bombs has already exceeded their limit. They set up their meatless buffet in Lake Eola knowing that they would likely be arrested as a result."
Houston
Down in Houston, a group of Christians was recently banned from distributing food to the homeless, and they were told that they probably would not be granted a permit to do so in the future even if they applied for one....
"Bobby and Amanda Herring spent more than a year providing food to homeless people in downtown Houston every day. They fed them, left behind no trash and doled out warm meals peacefully without a single crime being committed, Bobby Herring said.
"That ended two weeks ago when the city shut down their "Feed a Friend" effort for lack of a permit. And city officials say the couple most likely will not be able to obtain one.
"'We don't really know what they want, we just think that they don't want us down there feeding people,' said Bobby Herring, a Christian rapper who goes by the stage name Tre9."
Dallas
Dallas has also adopted a law which greatly restricts the ability of individuals and ministries to feed the homeless....
"A Dallas-area ministry is suing the city over a food ordinance that restricts the group from giving meals to the homeless.
"Courts dismissed Dallas' request for a summary judgment last week, saying the case, brought up by pastor Don Hart (in video above) may indeed be a violation of free exercise of religion, as protected by the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the blog Religion Clause reported.
"In the court filing, the ministry leaders argue that their Christian faith requires them to share meals with the homeless (Jesus did!) and that the requirement that even churches and charities provide toilets, sinks, trained staff and consent of the city keeps them from doing so."
Las Vegas
A few years ago, Las Vegas became the first major U.S. city to specifically pass a law banning the feeding of homeless people....
"Las Vegas, whose homeless population has doubled in the past decade to about 12,000 people in and around the city, joins several other cities across the country that have adopted or considered ordinances limiting the distribution of charitable meals in parks. Most have restricted the time and place of such handouts, hoping to discourage homeless people from congregating and, in the view of officials, ruining efforts to beautify downtowns and neighborhoods.
"But the Las Vegas ordinance is believed to be the first to explicitly make it an offense to feed 'the indigent.'"
That law has since been blocked by a federal judge, and since then many U.S. cities have been very careful not to mention "the indigent" or "the homeless" by name in the laws they pass that are intended to ban feeding the homeless.
New York City
New York City has banned all food donations to government-run homeless shelters because the bureaucrats there are concerned that the donated food will not be "nutritious" enough.
Yes, this is really true.
The following is from a recent Fox News article....
"The Bloomberg administration is now taking the term 'food police' to new depths, blocking food donations to all government-run facilities that serve the city's homeless.
"In conjunction with a mayoral task force and the Health Department, the Department of Homeless Services recently started enforcing new nutritional rules for food served at city shelters. Since DHS can't assess the nutritional content of donated food, shelters have to turn away good Samaritans."
Can you believe that?
The bureaucrats are officially out of control.
In America today, it seems like almost everything is illegal.
One church down in Louisiana was recently ordered to stop giving out water because it did not have a government permit.
Well, I don't know about you, but I sure am going to give a cup of cold water to someone if they need it whether I have a permit or not.
It is as if common sense has totally gone out the window in this nation.
Over in New Hampshire, a woman is being sued for planting flowers in her own front yard.
This is the kind of thing that makes me glad that I have moved to a much more rural location. People in the country tend to be much more relaxed.
Sadly, those who love to micro-manage others continue to get the upper hand in America. Back in January, 40,000 new laws went into effect all over America. The politicians continue to hit us with wave after wave of regulations and laws with no end in sight.
All of this is making America a very unpleasant place in which to live.
By The Economic Collapse
Source:OpEd News
What would you do if you came across someone on the street who had not had anything to eat for several days? Would you give that person some food? Well, the next time you get that impulse you might want to check if it is still legal to feed the homeless where you live.
Sadly, feeding the homeless has been banned in major cities all over America. Other cities that have not banned it outright have put so many requirements on those who want to feed the homeless (acquiring expensive permits, taking food preparation courses, etc.) that feeding the homeless has become "out of reach" for most average people. Some cities are doing these things because they are concerned about the "health risks" of the food being distributed by ordinary "do-gooders." Other cities are passing these laws because they do not want homeless people congregating in city centers where they know that they will be fed. But at a time when poverty and government dependence are soaring to unprecedented levels, is it really a good idea to ban people from helping those who are hurting?
This is just another example that shows that our country is being taken over by control freaks. There seems to be this idea out there that it is the job of the government to take care of everyone and that nobody else should even try.
But do we really want to have a nation where you have to get the permission of the government before you do good to your fellow man?
It isn't as if the government has "rescued" these homeless people. Homeless shelters all over the nation are turning people away each night because they have no more room. There are many homeless people who are lucky just to make it through each night alive during the winter.
Sometimes a well-timed sandwich or a cup of warm soup can make a world of difference for a homeless person. But many U.S. cities have decided that feeding the homeless is such a threat that they had better devote law enforcement resources to making sure that it doesn't happen.
This is so twisted. In America today, you need a "permit" to do almost anything. We are supposed to be a land of liberty and freedom, but these days government bureaucrats have turned our rights into "privileges" that they can revoke at any time.
The following are some of the major U.S. cities that have attempted to ban feeding the homeless....
Philadelphia
Mayor Nutter recently banned feeding homeless people in many parts of Philadelphia where homeless people are known to congregate....
"Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter has announced a ban on the feeding of large numbers of homeless and hungry people at sites on and near the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
"Mayor Nutter is imposing the ban on all outdoor feedings of large numbers of people on city parkland, including Love Park and the Ben Franklin Parkway, where it is not uncommon for outreach groups to offer free food.
"Nutter says the feedings lack both sanitary conditions and dignity."
Orlando
Last June, a group of activists down in Orlando, Florida were arrested by police for feeding the homeless in defiance of a city ordinance....
"Over the past week, twelve members of food activist group Food Not Bombs have been arrested in Orlando for giving free food to groups of homeless people in a downtown park. They were acting in defiance of a controversial city ordinance that mandates permits for groups distributing food to large groups in parks within two miles of City Hall. Each group is allowed only two permits per park per year; Food Not Bombs has already exceeded their limit. They set up their meatless buffet in Lake Eola knowing that they would likely be arrested as a result."
Houston
Down in Houston, a group of Christians was recently banned from distributing food to the homeless, and they were told that they probably would not be granted a permit to do so in the future even if they applied for one....
"Bobby and Amanda Herring spent more than a year providing food to homeless people in downtown Houston every day. They fed them, left behind no trash and doled out warm meals peacefully without a single crime being committed, Bobby Herring said.
"That ended two weeks ago when the city shut down their "Feed a Friend" effort for lack of a permit. And city officials say the couple most likely will not be able to obtain one.
"'We don't really know what they want, we just think that they don't want us down there feeding people,' said Bobby Herring, a Christian rapper who goes by the stage name Tre9."
Dallas
Dallas has also adopted a law which greatly restricts the ability of individuals and ministries to feed the homeless....
"A Dallas-area ministry is suing the city over a food ordinance that restricts the group from giving meals to the homeless.
"Courts dismissed Dallas' request for a summary judgment last week, saying the case, brought up by pastor Don Hart (in video above) may indeed be a violation of free exercise of religion, as protected by the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the blog Religion Clause reported.
"In the court filing, the ministry leaders argue that their Christian faith requires them to share meals with the homeless (Jesus did!) and that the requirement that even churches and charities provide toilets, sinks, trained staff and consent of the city keeps them from doing so."
Las Vegas
A few years ago, Las Vegas became the first major U.S. city to specifically pass a law banning the feeding of homeless people....
"Las Vegas, whose homeless population has doubled in the past decade to about 12,000 people in and around the city, joins several other cities across the country that have adopted or considered ordinances limiting the distribution of charitable meals in parks. Most have restricted the time and place of such handouts, hoping to discourage homeless people from congregating and, in the view of officials, ruining efforts to beautify downtowns and neighborhoods.
"But the Las Vegas ordinance is believed to be the first to explicitly make it an offense to feed 'the indigent.'"
That law has since been blocked by a federal judge, and since then many U.S. cities have been very careful not to mention "the indigent" or "the homeless" by name in the laws they pass that are intended to ban feeding the homeless.
New York City
New York City has banned all food donations to government-run homeless shelters because the bureaucrats there are concerned that the donated food will not be "nutritious" enough.
Yes, this is really true.
The following is from a recent Fox News article....
"The Bloomberg administration is now taking the term 'food police' to new depths, blocking food donations to all government-run facilities that serve the city's homeless.
"In conjunction with a mayoral task force and the Health Department, the Department of Homeless Services recently started enforcing new nutritional rules for food served at city shelters. Since DHS can't assess the nutritional content of donated food, shelters have to turn away good Samaritans."
Can you believe that?
The bureaucrats are officially out of control.
In America today, it seems like almost everything is illegal.
One church down in Louisiana was recently ordered to stop giving out water because it did not have a government permit.
Well, I don't know about you, but I sure am going to give a cup of cold water to someone if they need it whether I have a permit or not.
It is as if common sense has totally gone out the window in this nation.
Over in New Hampshire, a woman is being sued for planting flowers in her own front yard.
This is the kind of thing that makes me glad that I have moved to a much more rural location. People in the country tend to be much more relaxed.
Sadly, those who love to micro-manage others continue to get the upper hand in America. Back in January, 40,000 new laws went into effect all over America. The politicians continue to hit us with wave after wave of regulations and laws with no end in sight.
All of this is making America a very unpleasant place in which to live.
Egypt military hits out at Muslim Brotherhood
12 hours ago
Aljazeera
Source: Yahoo News Maktoob
Egypt's ruling generals have lashed out at the Muslim Brotherhood over its questioning of the military's continued support of the cabinet, while urging the Islamists "to look to the future with the spirit of cooperation."
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces [SCAF] in a statement on Sunday expressed "extreme indignation" over Brotherhood comments that questioned its motives in supporting the government, which the Islamists accuse of stalling the revolution that toppled President Hosni Mubarak.
The SCAF also called "on all to be aware of history's lessons, to avoid past mistakes we do not want to see repeated, and to look to the future with the spirit of cooperation."
In a statement read out by Egyptian state television, it expressed "grave resentment" toward charges by the leading Islamist group that cast doubts upon "the performance and the patriotism of the government, the independence of the supreme constitutional court and influence on the neutrality of its verdicts". It said all such charges "are lies and biased accusations".
'Warning'
The SCAF urged the Muslim Brotherhood to "understand history lessons" in a veiled reference to the group's clash with late President Gamal Abdel Nasser shortly after the 1952 revolution.
The Brotherhood, whose political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party won a crushing victory in parliamentary elections, had issueda statement accusing the government of stalling reforms. It said the government's performance had been the "biggest failure", pointing to unrest, judicial interference, stalling of reforms, fuel shortages and dwindling foreign reserves.
In a statement posted on its website, the Freedom and Justice Party said the presidential elections due in May could be rigged to benefit a "certain candidate" it did not identify. It added that the party is studying proposals to field its own candidate, reversing an earlier decision not to do so.
The Freedom and Justice Party has been pressuring the military to sack the cabinet and appoint an FJP-led government.
But the SCAF, which took power after the popular uprising, has stood by the cabinet and its head Kamal Ganzuri.
"When we called for the resignation of the government, its head refused, and this was unfortunately supported by the military council," the Brotherhood said in its statement.
"If anyone intends to recreate the former corrupt regime with new faces, the people are willing to move in order to revive their revolution and protect their ship from sinking at the hands of people with no sense of responsibility," it said.
Last month, a lawsuit was brought before the supreme constitutional court arguing that the parliamentary election was unconstitutional due to its complex voting system.
The Islamists said they fear the military council could push through this lawsuit should they insist on Ganzuri's removal.
Aljazeera
Source: Yahoo News Maktoob
Egypt's ruling generals have lashed out at the Muslim Brotherhood over its questioning of the military's continued support of the cabinet, while urging the Islamists "to look to the future with the spirit of cooperation."
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces [SCAF] in a statement on Sunday expressed "extreme indignation" over Brotherhood comments that questioned its motives in supporting the government, which the Islamists accuse of stalling the revolution that toppled President Hosni Mubarak.
The SCAF also called "on all to be aware of history's lessons, to avoid past mistakes we do not want to see repeated, and to look to the future with the spirit of cooperation."
In a statement read out by Egyptian state television, it expressed "grave resentment" toward charges by the leading Islamist group that cast doubts upon "the performance and the patriotism of the government, the independence of the supreme constitutional court and influence on the neutrality of its verdicts". It said all such charges "are lies and biased accusations".
'Warning'
The SCAF urged the Muslim Brotherhood to "understand history lessons" in a veiled reference to the group's clash with late President Gamal Abdel Nasser shortly after the 1952 revolution.
The Brotherhood, whose political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party won a crushing victory in parliamentary elections, had issueda statement accusing the government of stalling reforms. It said the government's performance had been the "biggest failure", pointing to unrest, judicial interference, stalling of reforms, fuel shortages and dwindling foreign reserves.
In a statement posted on its website, the Freedom and Justice Party said the presidential elections due in May could be rigged to benefit a "certain candidate" it did not identify. It added that the party is studying proposals to field its own candidate, reversing an earlier decision not to do so.
The Freedom and Justice Party has been pressuring the military to sack the cabinet and appoint an FJP-led government.
But the SCAF, which took power after the popular uprising, has stood by the cabinet and its head Kamal Ganzuri.
"When we called for the resignation of the government, its head refused, and this was unfortunately supported by the military council," the Brotherhood said in its statement.
"If anyone intends to recreate the former corrupt regime with new faces, the people are willing to move in order to revive their revolution and protect their ship from sinking at the hands of people with no sense of responsibility," it said.
Last month, a lawsuit was brought before the supreme constitutional court arguing that the parliamentary election was unconstitutional due to its complex voting system.
The Islamists said they fear the military council could push through this lawsuit should they insist on Ganzuri's removal.
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