COMMENTARY / OPINION
The “Reasonableness” Clause EXPLAINED [35:43] Caroline Glick
07/28/2023 – In my news analysis this week, I went through the uproar over the Knesset’s legislation of constraints on the Supreme Court’s power to overturn policies based on the “Reasonableness Clause.
I explained what the “reasonable clause is,” how it was invented, what the amended law will and won’t do and what it means for the Netanyahu government going forward.
I also described the likely impact of the law’s passage on the leftist insurrectionists in the streets, on the Supreme Court and on the Attorney General.
If you want to cut through the media hype and understand exactly what is going on in Israel’s fight over judicial reform, do not miss this show.
To watch the analysis on YouTube click below.
Time to Stop Toeing the Line Caroline Glick
07/28/2023 – Tablet online magazine hosted a symposium on the desirability of continued U.S. military aid to Israel and asked that I weigh in. To read the entire symposium, click here.
What follows is my article.
AT THE HEIGHT OF OPERATION PROTECTIVE EDGE, Israel’s seven-week war with Hamas in the summer of 2014, then President Barack Obama imposed an embargo on a shipment of Hellfire missiles to Israel after the Pentagon approved the transfer.
A senior Obama administration told the The Wall Street Journal at the time that Israel could no longer expect automatic resupply of critical munitions in wartime. The decision to embargo the Hellfire missiles, the official averred, amounted to “the United States saying ‘the buck stops here. Wait a second … It’s not OK anymore.’”
The embargo was spurred by an IDF artillery round that fell on a United Nations school Hamas was using as a missile launching site. As is its wont, Hamas placed civilians at the site to serve as human shields.
The Hellfire embargo was meant to teach Israel a lesson.
But what lesson? If the administration wanted Israel to minimize civilian casualties, Obama should have been happy to supply Israel with more Hellfire missiles. Unlike regular artillery shells, the precision guided Hellfire missiles minimize civilian casualties.
By embargoing the Hellfire missiles, Obama was ensuring that all things being equal, more civilians would die. And that was the point. By denying Israel access to Hellfire missiles in the middle of a war, Obama was forcing Israel to choose between fighting Hamas with “dumb” artillery rounds at the cost of more civilian casualties and more U.S. and international condemnation, or standing down.
Under the circumstances, the IDF General Staff might have been expected to reevaluate the desirability of maintaining Israel’s dependence on U.S. military assistance over time. But no such reassessment took place then, or since. Over the five decades since the U.S. transformed Israel into a U.S. client state through military aid, the handful of senior IDF officers who opposed the aid found themselves denied promotions, marginalized, and out of the IDF.
To be sure, U.S. military assistance to Israel has a lot to recommend it. $3.8 billion annually in free U.S. military platforms and munitions is a lot of money. True, it’s less than a sixth of Israel’s military budget and Israel would survive without it. But it’s still a lot of money.
What is the regime in Washington thinking when it comes to war with Russia? LEO HOHMANN
Viktor Orbán warns the West: ‘Russia cannot be defeated because it is a nuclear power.’ So what does Washington not understand?
JUL 31, 2023 – Russia would be forced to use nuclear weapons if a counter-offensive by the Ukrainian military was successful and led to the retaking of certain Russian territories, according to a post from Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council.
Medvedev made the comments on his Telegram channel.
“If we imagine that the Ukrainian offensive with NATO support was successful and they took part of our territory, we would have to resort to the use of nuclear weapons under the rules of the decree of the Russian President of 2 June 2020,” the former president said, stressing that Moscow will have no other choice.
Medvedev was likely referring to the 2020 Russian nuclear doctrine, which states that in case of an attack with conventional weapons that threaten the existence of the Russian nation, nuclear weapons can be used in response.
Here is Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, trying to explain the Russian position to his fellow NATO partners. It’s really not that hard to understand.
Vaetchanan – The Chosen People: Chosen for what? RABBI PESACH WOLICKI
JULY 28, 2023 – One of the most common phrases used to describe the People of Israel is “The Chosen People.” We find the first mention of this idea in this week’s Torah portion. The term “chosen” was not used for the people of Israel until this point.
Because he loved your forefathers, He chose his descendants after him; and He took you out before Him with his great strength from Egypt. – Deuteronomy 4:37
To be “chosen” means to be singled out. But the purpose for which God chose Israel is not mentioned. The obvious question, then, is, “chosen for what?” A few chapters later, when this idea is mentioned for the second time, this question is answered.
For you are a holy people to the Lord, your God; the Lord, your God, chose you to be for Him a treasured people [heb. ‘am segula’] from all the peoples that are on the face of the earth. – Deuteronomy 7:6
[Ed.: One additional interpretation is that the Jews were chosen to receive the Torah and to live by (keep) its principles.]
Douglas Macgregor – 400,000 Troops Advancing Straight to Kyiv [24:39] Douglas Macgregor Col
No Way Out By James Howard Kunstler
July 29, 2023 – “…you put me right smack in the middle of the Diversion Agreement that I should have no role in… and you say Your Honor, don’t pay any attention to that provision not to prosecute?” — Federal Judge Maryellen Noreika
Of course, Hunter Biden’s fur-lined, gold-plated plea deal on firearm and tax charges got torn up this week by Federal Judge Maryellen Noreika, who discovered a sneakily hidden bit of legerdemain in it that would have left the First Son off-the-hook for any possible future charges such as a FARA rap for peddling his father’s influence to Ukraine, China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Romania, and who knows how many other foreign governments for zillions of dollars.
One thing the legal fireworks on Wednesday seemed to indicate is that the weaponization of the DOJ does not extend to every last court in America, not even the one in the Biden family fiefdom known as Delaware. The hearing left the lead US attorney in the case, David Weiss, looking like a chump hung out to dry — trying to pretend that there were “ongoing investigations” in the case when he was actually working overtime to shut them down. It’s rumored that the rascally, discarded plea deal was cooked up by alpha blobette, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaca herself, the Blob’s consiglieri. Nice try, Sugar, but no cigar.
Lisa Monaco is in place, you see, as AG Merrick Garland’s puppeteer. For more than a decade Ms. Monaco has chiefly served as Barack Obama’s “fixer,” the clean-up gal who makes problems magically go away. The problem here is that sooner or later news will enter some legal channel that Mr. Obama was not unaware of all the grifting going on around his vice-president’s family, and might himself be inculpated as an accessory to acts of treason.
The former president suddenly has another new problem: the family’s onetime personal chef, Tafari Campbell, 43, was found dead around 10:00 o’clock Monday morning in the Edgartown Great Pond off the Obama’s Martha’s Vineyard estate after a paddle-board accident. Mr. Tafari allegedly fell off the board and… thrashed a bit… then just disappeared… a hundred feet off-shore in eight feet of water, according to another paddle-boarder as yet unidentified who was either with Mr. Tafari or who happened to witness the accident around 7:45 Sunday evening July 23. Somebody, also unnamed, then made a 911 from the Obama house. Who was that? Early reports said that the Obamas were not home at the time.
A later report said that Mr. Obama might have been present at the estate that evening without Michelle. Was he Mr. Tafari’s paddle-board companion? Did he make the 911 call? Mr. Tafari was reportedly no longer in the Obama’s employ and was writing a book about his experiences as the first family’s cook. One reported morsel attributed to the book is that Barack and Michele Obama almost never had meals together. What else was in it? Possibly Mr. Tafari had a book deal. Has anyone located the editor and asked to see the manuscript or interviewed him/her/they about what’s in it? Mr. Tafari, who had videotaped his lap-swimming abilities previously, and was considered an able swimmer, was supposedly just visiting Martha’s Vineyard for the weekend. How did he get through the Obama’s Secret Service security to go paddle-boarding if the Obamas were out for the evening? Did he lug his own paddle-board to the scene, or borrow one from the Obama’s equipment shed? Who let him in there? My goodness, what a busy gal Lisa Monaco must be these days. So much that needs a good fixing!
