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Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 05, 2014 35 Comments
Last week, Congress expedited a bill that gave $225 million to Israel for their missile defense system known as the Iron Dome. The bill passed through the House with a vote of 395-8 and was quickly passed through the Senate. According to CBS News:
The money will go to restocking Israel's Iron Dome, which has been credited with shooting down dozens of incoming rockets fired by Palestinian militants over three and a half weeks of war. The vote came two days after the Pentagon announced ammunition deliveries to the Jewish state and as a planned 72-hour cease-fire between Israel and Hamas unraveled almost as quickly as it began. Efforts in the Senate to approve the money stalled Thursday night after Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma sought cuts elsewhere in the budget to pay for the aid. Earlier, senators attempted to lump the Israel money into a broader spending bill that included border security and wildfire assistance money. That bill failed to get the necessary 60 votes on Thursday, and the House had little interest in it, anyway. Friday's separate Israel bill passed by voice vote.
Yet not everyone voted for the bill to provide funding to Israel's missile defense system. Eight members of Congress voted against the bill, four Republicans and four Democrats.

Posted by Bruce Carroll on August 05, 2014 9 Comments
Reports are coming from Afghanistan today about a brutal shooting of American military personnel at an Afghan-NATO training base in Kabul. From The New York Times:
A United States Army major general was killed on Tuesday by an Afghan soldier, shot at close range at a military training academy on the outskirts of Kabul, an official of the American-led coalition and Afghan media reported Tuesday. The officer was the highest-ranking member of the American military to die in hostilities in the Afghanistan war. The coalition official, who spoke on condition of anonymity and would not release the name of the major general, said an unspecified number of other service members of the American-led coalition and Afghan soldiers, including a senior Afghan commander were also shot. Their conditions were not known.
Martha Radditz from ABC News reports the American general killed would be the highest ranking casualty of the entire Afghanistan war. Other media reports say many more Americans were injured in the "insider attack."

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 05, 2014 13 Comments
We've been here before. The Jenin Massacre that wasn't. The Pallywood industry of deception. And a Western media that laps it all up without question when hostilities are active, and only in some cases bothers to look back later as the facts come out. In the current Gaza conflict, one of the biggest talking points, repeated endlessly by the media, anti-Israel groups, "human rights" groups, and the U.N., is that only a tiny portion, maybe 15% of deaths, were Palestinian combatants. That numbers game was put into play not by Israel, but by those against Israel. It's morbid to engage in these body counts, but it is the Palestinians and their advocates who put them in issue by claiming that the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths constitutes proof of a war crime. It doesn't, as disproportionate force is more than a number count, but in the public relations realm it matters. Slowly, as in past conflicts (including in Lebanon 2006), that statistic will be revealed to be a lie. That civilian deaths are a result of rockets launched from civilian areas is only part of the story. The Washington Post, to its credit, has two articles at least presenting the possibility that the media has been manipulated. In Reporters grapple with politics, erratic sources in reporting Israeli/Gaza death toll, WaPo examines the questionable civilian-to-combatant statistics used by Palestinians:

Posted by Amy Miller on August 04, 2014 7 Comments
Cities are well within their rights to spend taxpayer dollars to increase exposure and bring tourists to visit, but how would you feel if your city council voted to spend up to $100,000 of your money to bring one of the most controversial television shows currently on air to your neighborhood? That's exactly what the Santa Fe City Council wants to do. The Council is prepared to open its wallet (and its heart, if the love is there) to convince the producers of "The Bachelor" to bring the show to Santa Fe, in hopes that the show's popularity will tempt tourists and fans alike to visit. Via New Mexico Watchdog:
The New Mexico Tourism Department is considering spending $50,000 of its own money to try to bring the production crew of the show, which features one bachelor choosing a potential wife from a pool of 25 women, to Santa Fe.

Posted by Andrew Branca on August 04, 2014 41 Comments
Court room testimony took a dramatic turn today in the murder trial of Detroit homeowner Theodore Wafer for the front porch shooting death of Renisha McBride when Wafer took the stand to testify in his own behalf. Direct questioning was conduced by lead defense counsel Cheryl Carpenter.  (As usual for this trial we had no live video feed, so our observations are second hand and based on the outstanding live blogging of the trial by Detroit Free Press reporter Gina Damron and pictures by Detroit Free Press photographer Mandy Wright.) The defense did an excellent job of hitting all the key issues necessary for a robust narrative of innocence. Wafer describes his growing fear at hearing "indescribeably loud banging" [sic] on his front and side doors, banging that went on and grew more severe, to the extent that it was vibrating the floor of his home. He  described how one of his neighbors across the street had just a few months prior to the events on his porch had been forced to hold off three violent attackers with his handgun.  He recounted how his neighborhood had grown increasingly dangerous, and that he discovered various drug paraphernalia, including syringes, on his property on a monthly basis.  Just recently he'd had his car vandalized outside his home. In the fact of this growing lawlessness he'd acquired a pistol-gripped shotgun specifically for home defense, noting that he wasn't getting any younger and that he could not afford an alarm system.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 04, 2014 7 Comments
Once again we return to writing about Malmö, Sweden. Malmö, for us, has become something of the poster-child for Islamist anti-Semitic violence in Europe coupled with leftist tolerance and indifference, all in the name of hating Israel. From our archives: Recently there have been anti-Israel rallies in Malmö: It is not surprising that the anti-Semitic shame of Malmö egged on by anti-Israel hate in the streets has resulted in violence, from JTA via Haaretz, Rabbi attacked in Sweden, days after synagogue vandalized
A rabbi from the Swedish city of Malmo was attacked by men who hurled objects at him from a car and used anti-Semitic pejoratives. Rabbi Shneur Kesselman was assaulted on Saturday night along with a member of his congregation, the Sydsvenskan daily reported Sunday. The attack, which resulted in no physical injuries, came on the heels of vandalism against the southern city’s main synagogue on July 31, when unidentified individuals smashed three of the building’s windows by hurling objects at them.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 04, 2014 13 Comments
Live Video and Twitter feed at bottom of post Breaking reports out of Egypt indicate that the various "Palestinian factions" have agreed to a 72-hour unconditional truce. This was the original Egyptian proposal which was rejected by Hamas more than two weeks and over 1000 lives ago. Israel reportedly will agree, as it has multiple times before. Let's see if Hamas again uses the truce as an opportunity to launch more surprise attacks.

Posted by Amy Miller on August 04, 2014 64 Comments
Over the past few years, social conservatives have found their lifestyles (and in some cases, their livelihoods) under full assault by a very vocal, activist minority in the left. Progressive ire directed at the pro-life, pro-family, etc. crowd is nothing new, but with the advent of platforms like Twitter and Facebook, it's easier and faster to sling mud with few consequences. The Sunday Edition of the Dallas Morning News republished an essay by National Journal and Atlantic editor Jonathan Rauch about conservative Christians' "great secession" (his words, not mine) from the culture. Via the Dallas Morning News:
I am someone who believes that religious liberty is the country’s founding freedom, the idea that made America possible. I am also a homosexual atheist, so religious conservatives may not want my advice. I’ll give it to them anyway. Culturally conservative Christians are taking a pronounced turn toward social secession: asserting both the right and the intent to sequester themselves from secular culture and norms, including the norm of nondiscrimination. This is not a good idea. When religion isolates itself from secular society, both sides lose, but religion loses more.
Jonathan Rauch is a liberal. A gay, atheist liberal who writes for mainstream media outlets. But this article isn't about Jonathan Rauch, and it doesn't matter what he believes. The important thing to glean from articles like this one---even if something strikes a well-tuned nerve---is that there are people out there who aren't as gay, liberal, or faithless as Jonathan Rauch who are noticing these things too.

Posted by Bruce Carroll on August 04, 2014 15 Comments
Things just aren't good on any front involving the relationship between the United States and Russia. The nearly-hot war between Russia and Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea and the downing of Malaysian Flight 17 are capturing the main headlines. But there's other grim news as well. First, the landmark arms control agreement signed by Reagan and Gorbachev seems to be falling apart thanks to Russian aggression.
The United States has concluded that Russia violated a landmark arms control treaty by testing a prohibited ground-launched cruise missile, according to senior American officials, a finding that was conveyed by President Obama to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in a letter on Monday. It is the most serious allegation of an arms control treaty violation that the Obama administration has leveled against Russia and adds another dispute to a relationship already burdened by tensions over the Kremlin’s support for separatists in Ukraine and its decision to grant asylum to Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor. At the heart of the issue is the 1987 treaty that bans American and Russian ground-launched ballistic or cruise missiles capable of flying 300 to 3,400 miles. That accord, which was signed by President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, helped seal the end of the Cold War and has been regarded as a cornerstone of American-Russian arms control efforts.
And now, even scientific and mutual defense cooperation between Russian and American nuclear scientists is decaying.

Posted by David Gerstman on August 04, 2014 13 Comments
Last week's ceasefire between Israel and Hamas prompted a number of similarly themed observations. https://twitter.com/MsIntervention/status/494995494230171650 Similar tweets appeared here and here and here and here. What did Hamas gain by agreeing to the ceasefire to the terms of Thursday night's ceasefire when it rejected the same terms more than two weeks earlier? What did it gain by continuing to lose fighters and resources? It now appears, as Elder of Ziyon shows, that the reason Hamas agreed initially to the ceasefire was to carry out Friday's attack that killed three Israeli soldiers.
Clearly the ceasefire provided the opportunity Hamas wanted to perform this operation. Their acceptance of the cease-fire - including the terms that IDF soldiers can keep their positions, which Hamas knew were near a hidden tunnel entrance - can only be described as a well-planned ruse for this attack, Hamas' most sought-after prize. These were not conditions that Hamas would normally accept. Hamas' claim that this occurred before the ceasefire is a lie, as the reports of heavy clashes in Rafah all started at 9:30, not 7:30 as Hamas says.

Posted by A.F. Branco on August 04, 2014 1 Comment

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Posted by Andrew Branca on August 03, 2014 23 Comments
Tomorrow marks the start of the third week of the second degree murder trial of Detroit homeowner Theodore Wafer for the front porch shooting death of Renisha McBride in the early morning hours of November 2, 2013.  This past week saw the milestone of the prosecution resting and the start of the defense presenting its case. In preparation for the Court coming back into session tomorrow morning with the continuation of the defense's narrative of innocence to the jury we thought it might be useful to provide a brief recap of what's happened to date, highlighting notable events and observations.

Background

The undisputed facts of the case are that Renisha McBride was driving her car the night of November 1 while under the influence of some multiple of the state's allowable blood-alcohol limit, as as with active marijuana in her system. She crashed her car, disabling it, and apparently striking her head on the windshield.  She abandoned the crash site and essentially disappeared for the next several hours. Around 4:30 a.m. on the morning of November 2 Theodore Wafer was awoken from sleep by McBride banging on his front door.  The defense claims the banging was alarmingly vigorous, and that there were similar sounds coming from other exterior doors and windows of the house.  The state claims McBride was merely knocking on his door in a normal manner in order to seek assistance.  Wafer, unable to immediately find his cell phone, retrieved his home-defense shotgun, a pistol-gripped Mossberg 12 gauge loaded with #4 shot.  He approached the locked front door of his home, unlocked and opened it. He then discharged the shotgun through his locked screen door. The shot struck McBride in the face, mortally wounding her.  Wafer located his cell phone, called 911, and police were on the scene within a few minutes. The state's narrative of guilt presents Wafer as a man who acted unreasonably to the presence of a 19-year-old black woman who was simply seeking assistance after a car accident. The defense's narrative of innocence presents Wafer as a homeowner awoken from sleep by noises reasonably consistent with a possible burglary attempt--his immediate neighborhood experiences some hundreds of burglaries and other violent felonies each year--and who fired in reasonable fear of death or grave bodily harm and from within his "castle" when suddenly confronted by the erratically behaving McBride. Key to the defense's narrative in it's opening statement is that the hole in the screen of the screen door could only be positioned as found if McBride had used so much force on the screen door that the screen was knocked out of position prior to the shot being fired.
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