"A large contributing factor were the "sweetheart" deals...."
Absolutely.
Big Three management justified their own salary increases on the raises given to the UAW workers.
Janitors who were UAW members earned as much as $74,000.00 per annum and earned the jealousy of young entry-level engineers were earned less than they did.
U.S. Senator Carl Levin unsuccessfully sought heavy tariffs on Japanese imports to thwart the growing market share.
The Subaru and other Japanese imports of the 1960s were considered deathtraps and a joke among the auto experts. By the 1980s however, Japanese imported cars had a reputation for quality and affordability among U.S. consumers.
The 1980s were considered a glory decade for the auto industry in Detroit with record profits and Lee Iacocca being touted as a possible presidential candidate in 1984 and 1988. The generous collective bargaining agreements the UAW had with the Big Three led to long term pension and medical insurance trust obligations that came to destroy both GM and Chrysler during the G.W. Bush administration.
Many auto suppliers from Detroit, such as Lear Corporation, Collins & Aikman, Delphi and others who supplied automotive components such as seating and car interiors filed for bankruptcy as Mexican automotive factories produced the same components for far less cost.
Lear Corporation, a 10-billion per year revenue seating producer in the 1990s, saw all of its shareholder equity wiped out in a bankruptcy filing in the following decade.
The United Auto Workers and Intl. Brotherhood of Teamsters unions were during the 1950s and 1960s clearly the most politically influential labor unions in America and were largely run out of Detroit. The UAW was one of the few national labor unions not based in Washington D.C. - but in Detroit, and the Teamsters, despite being nominally headquartered at a 9-million-dollar building in the District of Columbia, was heavily controlled by its Detroit-based Local 299, headed by Jimmy Hoffa. Local 299 had the highest membership of any Teamster local in the U.S. and that local membership consisted heavily of over-the-road truckers hauling new automobiles.
Two events occurred which shattered the prominence of those two unions and Detroit's primacy as the center of industrial power in the Midwest:
(A) a little-known young business entrepreneur named Malcom Bricklin entered into a distributorship agreement with Subaru in the mid-1960s to import compact cars made in Japan into the U.S. consumer market - which led by the 1970s to Japanese automakers controlling an ever-widening share of the American market;
(B) the opening up of the Mexican labor force to U.S. automotive suppliers - aided by the North American Free Trade Agreement - led to the Big Three Detroit automakers outsourcing parts and components to Mexican factories - many owned by American businessmen - and causing the layoffs of UAW workers.
Detroit has declined from a population of 2 million in 1950 to less than 700,000 today - with the median value of a Detroit home currently about $10,000. The UAW today has lost hundreds of thousands of members since the late 1970s as well as political influence; Local 299 of the Teamsters likewise has only fraction of its 1970s era membership and the international union has lost the vast political clout it enjoyed under Jimmy Hoffa and Frank Fitzsimmons.
Detroit-based General Motors, once the largest company in the world, filed in 2008 (its 100th anniversary) for Chapter 7 bankruptcy with over 90 billion dollars in accrued debt; Chrysler, the nation's third-largest automaker, was purchased by foreign interests after its stock shares became worthless. Only Ford - through prudent family management and intensive cost-cutting measures - and without any federal loan bailout - survived along with its shareholders.
Detroit is America's most stark example of very extreme deindustrialization - and the noxious effect upon the public interest.
Theodore Roosevelt was a populist Republican that confronted the corporate trusts with antitrust legislation and targeted political corruption.
Both Trump and Roosevelt hailed from from New York City, were Ivy League educated and are not "traditional" Republicans. but rather they can be safely labeled as "outsiders".
It is the "outsider" perception of him that may propel Trump into the White House.
The Michigan Republican Party several years ago was instrumental in promoting Right-to-Work legislation that eventually passed the Michigan Legislature and was signed into law by Governor Snyder. The GOP in Michigan (as is Trump) is the darling of non-union workers.
The popularly-elected university boards in Michigan (Wayne State University, University of Michigan, Michigan State University) currently have Democratic majorities that have approved generous collective bargaining agreements with the unions representing the faculties.
At Wayne State University, for example, an 8-year collective bargaining agreement was approved by a board of governors with a Democratic majority just before the Right-to-Work law took effect.
At University of Michigan, student tuition rates rival those at America's elite private universities - even though U-M receives copious public funding, largely due to U-M's Board of Regents - with a Democratic majority - approving favorable collective bargaining contracts with the union representing faculty members. The Democratic Party state conventions in Michigan are usually replete with AAUP, American Federation of Teachers and other teacher's union members who either receive delegate seats or are campaigning for university board candidates that promote these unions' agendas
General Douglas Mac Arthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz - who disliked each other - both felt that the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima violated the ethical code they were taught as members of the U.S. Armed Forces as far as avoiding civilian casualties.
Most Americans feel that the fact an estimated 100,000 lives of U.S. servicemen were saved justified the A-bomb attacks at Hiroshima an Nagasaki.
Michigan has several hundred thousand Muslim-American citizens and the latest poll shows Trump behind Clinton by only 5% in Michigan - so it is conceivable that the Muslim vote may make a difference on Election Day in the Wolverine State.
"This situation has a historic parallel.....[i]n Europe, in particular, what transpired was a war between competing
interests to capture as much territory as they could....."
The 2003 invasion of Iraq had little to do with fear or genuine concern about purported "weapons of mass destruction" possessed by the Baathist regime in Baghdad - it had far more to do with the fact Iraq is one of the most strategic locations on Earth from a defense and foreign policy perspective:
(1) it had been under the Russian sphere of influence for decades and had the former Soviet Union to the north;
(2) it has Iran directly to the east;
(3) it has the oil-rich Persian Gulf states directly to the south;
(4) it has Israel to the west;
(5) it has substantial crude oil reserves.
The United States began covert operations against Saddam Hussein via executive order by President George H. W. Bush directed to the National Security Council and the CIA issued immediately after the close of the Persian Gulf War in 1991.
Shortly after the Baathist government in Baghdad collapsed, the Baathist regime's intelligence agency chief and Iyad Allawi - who would become a future Iraqi president - were transported to Langley, Virginia to restructure a new Iraqi government and intelligence service - along with a 3-billion dollar appropriation from U.S. Congress.
Congress also allocated 500 million dollars for the U.S. intelligence community to establish their own network of bases inside Iraq.
Same situation happened with Nazi Germany - the Nazi spymaster Reinhard Gehlen was not only not prosecuted by the Allies - but stayed on as the intelligence director of West Germany for over twenty years following the end of WWII and was relied on by the U.S. intelligence community for authoritative reports. His "Gehlen org " spy ring transmitted valuable intelligence on Soviet Union railway facilities and military installations until it was finally penetrated and broken up by the KGB.
West Germany became the host of 250.000 American military personnel during the Cold War as well as an industrial juggernaut that exported valuable products such as automobiles and machinery to the U.S. after the end of WWII. The U.S. also exploited Nazi missile technology not only for its NASA program - but also to establish its ICBM network
The U.S. and it allies saw the conquering of Iraq as an economic, military, and intelligence opportunism imperative - not as a concern over purported "weapons of mass destruction."
Iran and the U.S. are the main players in the Iraq "power play" today - as the Warsaw Pact and NATO was in Germany in the decades following WWII.
"1. Ban Muslims from coming to the United States."
This is debatable in a legal sense since person who are non-citizens and are outside U.S. borders do not have standing to challenge such discrimination in U.S. courts.
"2. Put mosques under surveillance."
There is nothing per se unconstitutional about placing a mosque under surveillance - even absence of suspicion of criminal conduct occurring.
However, such a policy would possibly run afoul of a law enforcement agency's internal operating guidelines - and the FBI certainly does have such guidelines that sets rules on when surveillance can commence and only when some credible information of possible criminal activity is brought to the Bureau's attention.
Secondly, a general imposition of mosque surveillance when other non-Muslim places of worship are ignored could give rise to a lawsuit under anti-discrimination laws due to "disparate treatment" of Muslims vs non-Muslims.
The Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati last year upheld the discrimination claim of a black Metro Detroit judge investigated and removed from the bench for misconduct where white judges allegedly committing the same acts were not investigated and charged.
"3. Put all Muslims in a federal database."
This would likely be struck down under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The Korematsu U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the internment of Japanese-American citizens is considered bad law today.
"4. Torture Muslim suspects.............."
Torture per se likely still violates the "shocking the conscience" standard of the substantive Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment and imposing it on Muslims alone or in a manner different than others likely violates the Equal Protection Clause of the same amendment.
"5.Take Muslim family members hostage to ensure good conduct."
Likely violates the "shocking the conscience" standard cited above as well as the Equal Protection Clause to the extent that Muslims were singled out for such treatment by the government."
(A) Bob Dylan never has recanted his support for the late Jewish extremist Meir Kahane;
(B) Dylan did convert to Christianity at one point - but later disavowed any ties to organized religion;
(C) Dylan has had a long and complex relationship with Israel and some of his songs have been revered by the West Bank Jewish settler movement - which he appears to favor.
The link to the article cited above suggests that Pres. Obama authorized the Tomahawk strike - so it appears that a captain did not order return fire while under attack - but proceeded a significant interval later and if they had the time to obtain presidential approval perhaps they should have made an effort to procure an AUMF from Congress.
Also, the allegation was that the radar stations were somehow implicated in the Tomahawk strike - however radar stations do not themselves launch the missiles at the U.S. destroyers and it is unclear what proof the U.S. has to suggest that the three radar stations in Houthi-controlled territory were actually involved in targeting U.S. Navy destroyers.
Don't you agree they need at least an "Authorization for Use of Military Force" from Congress to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles at the Houthi installations?
This incident is making conspiracy theorists wax eloquent and nostalgiac about Operation Northwoods - the Pentagon's 1960s false flag plan - nixed by JFK - to have a U.S. Navy ship explode off the Cuban coast so that the Castro government's patrols would board the boat to investigate and then blame the incident on Cuba, then also use the incident to warrant an attack on Cuba by the U.S.
The latest national poll - taken today by Los Angeles Times/USC Tracking - shows Trump leading Clinton by three percentage points.
Several national polling organizations in surveys taken yesterday as the "scandal" was breaking showed no appreciable change in numbers over prior recent polling results.
Additionally, Trump will likely engage in "damage control" during Sunday's debate.
One variant of this plan is a hybrid arrangement in which the area adopts elements of both a one-state and two-state solution and would resemble an arrangement akin to the European Union as exists today:
(1) the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel using pre-1967 "Green Line" borders would merge into an "economic union" as envisioned under the 1947 UN Partition Plan and have a single currency, no trade barriers, and a completely integrated economy;
(2) The West Bank and Gaza would unite into a single state having its own Palestine National Council as its governing body with its own national security forces partially integrated with Israeli security forces into a joint body to administer Palestinian-controlled areas with the current hated "Civil Administration" dissolved and the IDF withdrawing as an independent occupying force, including its oppressive military tribunal system of justice;
(3) Jerusalem to be under joint administration of Israel and Palestinian governments;
(4) Arabs and Jews would have free movement between the respective states and the choice of being citizens of either Israel or Palestine with both countries being fully sovereign and allaying concerns that Israel would lose its "Jewish" character.
This arrangement would be an economic boon to both sides and would inevitably lead to a lessening of tensions over time.
In what has become known as the "Third Intifada" or "Knife Intifada", the Palestinian activists responsible have, unlike the first two intifadas, succeeded in creating significant public discourse and dissent in the U.S. in opposition to Israeli government human rights violations.
Council on Foreign Relations memberThomas Friedman has cited this phenomenon:
This dissent has been manifested in several ways - including the controversies at the 2016 Democratic National Convention; this would include the burning of the Israeli flag outside the convention center and delegates inside with buttons labeled "Progressive for Palestine" and unfurling of the Palestinian flag without objection as Pres. Obama and Hillary Clinton addressed the convention attendees - this received heavy coverage in the Israeli media:
There have been severe criticisms of Peres - especially regarding his attitude toward Operation Cast Lead while he served in the largely ceremonial role as president of the State of Israel:
Thank you for the reference to the Shin Bet killing of Ayyash as the "trigger" for a wave of bus bombings that brought Netanyahu to power and a disintegration of the popularity of the peace process that PM Yitzhak Rabin had achieved via the Oslo Accords.
Most observers had felt that the assassination of Rabin would result in stronger public sentiment in Israel for the peace process with Rabin as his standard bearer as President Lyndon Baines Johnson was to JFK's legacy.
".....[h]e played a sinister role in proliferating nuclear arms to Israel."
Most Israelis would consider this his greatest legacy.
Peres forged close ties with French president Charles De Gaulle who initiated a joint atomic energy research program for peaceful purposes during the 1950s which gave Israeli nuclear scientists incidental access to reports of French physicists of atom bomb detonation testing occurring in the south Pacific Ocean. It was these reports that gave Israeli scientists the needed expertise to construct their own atomic weaponry in the late 1960s.
During the 1960s both DeGaulle and the Israeli civilian nuclear regulatory agency suspected that Israel was misusing the joint atomic research for creating weaponry and DeGaulle ended the joint research program as well as the French involvement in the design and construction of the Dimona nuclear facility in the Negev Desert.
There is little doubt that Peres will go down in history as one of Israel's greatest founding fathers and one who had a profound influence on Israel's success as a nation - but Israelis will consider his role in establishing a nuclear deterrent to Arab and Iranian aggression to be his most prominent achievement.
(A) The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 passed by U.S. Congress called for the U.S. to relocate its embassy to Jerusalem by 1999 - but was not implemented due to executive resistance from each presidential administration from its passage to the present;
(B) previously, Israeli PM David Ben-Gurion had declared Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel but this was rejected by the United Nations;
(C) in 2000, PM Ehud Barak was presented with an Israeli government sponsored study which concluded that the concept of establishing Jerusalem as Israel's undivided capital was not justified nor practically feasible;
(D) should Trump be elected and follow through on this campaign promise, the U.S. will be the only foreign country having an embassy located within Jerusalem - although the State Department has long maintained a consular office in Jerusalem.
Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK) - headed by Maryam Rojavi - is a Islamist group with Marxist leanings that has had a love-hate relationship with the U.S. government over preceding decades. Some have described their structure as a "cult".
During the 1970s the group was implicated in attacks on American servicemen and MEK supported the anti-Shah revolution in the latter part of that decade.
U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright declared the MKO a "foreign terror organization" (FTO) and froze their assets in the U.S. in an effort to appease Iranian leaders to ameliorate relations between the two countries. In 2012, Hilary Clinton rescinded this FTO designation and stories surfaced that MKO were receiving training by U.S. Army Signal Intelligence Corps personnel and engaging in covert operations against the Iranian government.
Here is a link to this group's extremely controversial history:
I find it very noteworthy that Radio Free Europe would now appear to join the pro-MKO bandwagon - especially given credible reports that the U.S. government during the Reagan administration had quietly leaked the identities of Communists secretly working in the Iranian government to that regime so that those suspected Marxists could be investigated and extirpated from their positions.
Is this part of a recent broad trend by the U.S. State Department to ally itself with groups previously designated as FTOs to counteract Islamic extremist elements - as it has done with the PKK in Syria?
"If the attack was deliberate, then the US government owes reparations to the families of those killed in the attack...."
When the Central Intelligence Agency inadvertently gave NATO forces "in error" inaccurate information that the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Belgrade was a military target, thus causing it in 1999 to sustain aerial U.S. Air Force bombardment, reparations in the millions of dollars were paid to the families of dead and, also the wounded, staffers at that diplomatic post.
Disciplinary action was also taken against CIA personnel involved in that debacle.
The "deliberateness" or "negligent" nature of the attack is not determinative of whether reparations should be paid - it is the good faith of the government responsible for the culpable conduct.
"Israel was not founded by right-wing ideologues......."
Ze'ev Jabotinsky was the leader of Revisionist Zionism and is considered the founder or the Irgun terror gang as well as a leader of the Herut Party - which in conjunction with other conservative parties in Israel held about one-third of the seats of the First Knesset.
In 1948, the right-wing Israelis in the Irgun were almost on the cusp of a civil war during the Altalena incident when an arms supply ship chartered by the Irgun was fired upon by Israel Defense Forces soldiers led by Yitzhak Rabin. Menachem Begin had commanded the Irgun at this juncture and stopped the bloodshed.
Jabotinsky's followers would coalesce after his 1940 death politically and would eventually form the Likud Party, which has dominated Israeli national politics since the late 1970s.
Right-wing ideologues such as PM Netanyahu - whose father Benzion Netanyahu was personal secretary to Jabotinsky - currently control the Israeli government.
Certain leaders of the kibbutz movement pushed their members toward Stalinist ideals; the Soviet collectivization of farms under Stalin had some semblance to the structure of kibbutzim in Israel and the British Mandate period.
However the Doctor's Plot and Prague Trial cases targeting Jewish citizens within the Soviet bloc cooled the enthusiasm that kibbutz leaders displayed toward Joseph Stalin's ideals.
A link to the history of Stalinist ideology on kibbutzim in Israel:
In Israel the Marxist-oriented parties have historically been the bulwark for peace and social equality between Arabs and Jews.
Tawfik Toubi, a 26 year old Christian Arab journalist from Haifa became a member of the First Knesset in 1949, elected under the Israel Communist Party slate - as was Meir Vilner, a signatory to the declaration of independence of Israel.
MK Toubi would become an unofficial liaison between the Israeli government and the P.L.O. and would sit in the Knesset well into the 1980s - he was the last surviving former member of the initial Knesset body when he died a few years ago.
MK Meir Vilner was stabbed by a right-wing Israeli extremist in 1967 over his opposition to Israeli's initiation of the Six-Day War.
Today, the Hadash Party is the entity that is Marxist in orientation holding seats in the Knesset. Hadash is composed of both Arabs and Jews. Dov Khenin, a Jewish lawyer and political scientist, is the sole Jewish MK currently serving in the Knesset under the Hadash ticket.
Immediately following the formation of Israel, a sizeable percentage of kibbutzes were ideologically Stalinst, but by the 1960s, most of these collective farms were no longer operated by Communist adherents. One kibbutz that was Stalinist during the 1960s was one in which U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders lived on - and which no doubt influenced his current political worldview.
There are heavy Marxist influences among Israeli Arabs today with cities such as Nazareth voting heavily for Communist candidates. The Marxist-themed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - listed by the U.S. State Department as a foreign terror organization - remains a prominent fixture among West Bank Palestinians with its late former leaders, Dr. George Habash and Abu Ali Mustafa, being glorified by all levels of Palestinian society.
".........there are no American troops in Syria, and nobody plans to send any."
This is incorrect.
President Obama has deployed 250 U.S. Special Forces troops to Syria and they are currently allied with Kurdish forces fighting ISIS.
Additionally, there are American "volunteers" that have been fighting with Kurdish units in Syria. Levi Shirley of Denver was recently killed in action in such a role.
The Metro Detroit area - and Michigan in general has taken in a relatively large number of Syrian refugees and there have been no adverse effects on the state economy as a private support network has helped these refugees.
The Muslim-majority Detroit enclave of Hamtramck has the official nickname "League of Nations" and has been a key location for incoming refugees from Syria. Hamtramck has distinguished itself from Detroit by a comparatively low crime rate, almost nonexistent blight, and a bustling business district alongside several mosques and community leaders have credited recent immigrants from Yemen, Bangladesh and other areas of Asia with these successes.
When the South Vietnamese government collapsed in 1975, the U.S. Air Force evacuated hundreds of Vietnamese children under Operation Babylift authorized by President Ford.
There is no reason the Obama administration should not incorporate a similar program for Syrian children - so incidents like the Alan Kurdi drowning can be avoided in the future. There is no danger in allowing entry to small children who are refugees.
PM Netanyahu has stated "tiny Israel" has no room to accept any refugees from Syria - however 2015 was a record years for the last 10 years for Jewish immigration into Israel under the Law of Return - also known as "aliyah"; 30,000 Jews made aliyah in 2015 with the enthusiastic encouragement of Netanyahu.
Labor Party Leader of the Opposition Isaac Herzog expressed support to accepting Syrian refugees into Israel.
".......'legality' often amounts to contrived rationalizations to gain moral high ground."
Yes. Under the "political question doctrine", the U.S. Supreme Court will not generally review issues of whether the president is acting lawfully under a Congressionally-sanctioned AUMF - although a member of Congress could conceivably try by suing the president as Sen. Barry Goldwater once did in a separate context to oppose President Carter's renunciation of U.S. sovereignty over the Panama Canal.
To the extent that Khorasan and other al-Qaeda-affiliated terror organizations - including the al-Nusra Front - exist within Syria , the 2001 AUMF authorizing military activity against the perpetrators of 9/11 shall give some arguable basis for the commander-in-chief to commit troops and air power to the region.
The "Authorization of Military Force" resolutions passed by United States Congress have been a legal cover for actions against al-Qaeda and other foreign terror organizations:
GOP Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette is positioning himself for a run for governor in 2018 with Snyder's lieutenant governor, Brian Calley, expected to be his chief opponent:
Decades ago, the Likud Party had a goal of eventually resettling Jewry in the Occupied Territories until a total of 750,000 in Jewish population resided in those areas.
The rationale behind this number is that this constituted a perceived "critical mass" of Jewish settlers which would give legitimacy to annexation of those areas into the State of Israel.
Currently, there are about 567,000 Jewish settlers in the Occupied Territories - the Likud historical goal is nearing reality.
Both PM Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman have in recent months expressed degrees of support for the Arab Peace Initiative endorsed by the Arab League - which former PM Ariel Sharon decried as a "non-starter" when initially announced in 2002:
PM Netanyahu faces intense international pressure from BDS and declining U.S. and European Union support as well as domestically from right-wing extremist elements fueled by Palestinian violence to seek a solution to the political impasse between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority.
This current visit by Eshki to engage in discussions with Gold is a very positive sign that could lead to a possible breakthrough on the Palestinian question - although it may not lead to anything, either.
Naming Schultz as an "honorary chair" will only inflame Sanders supporters at a time when Clinton badly needs them to win in November. An unbelievably bad move.
Almost as bad as Melania Trump plagiarizing Michelle Obama's speech word-for-word. If you are going to plagiarize a speech, at least let it be a fellow Republican - like possibly Laura Bush. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
No wonder the Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson is expected to receive a tenfold increase in votes this presidential cycle over the party's nominee in 2012 - it's hard to believe how bad the major parties have damaged their standing among the electorate this year.
"......the perpetrators of violence against Palestinian civilians and their property are rarely punished...."
Then-U.S. State Department official Robert Danin once wrote that official Likud Party policy conflicts with the implementation of a two-state solution envisioned by the Oslo Accords. That party policy calls for eventual annexation of the West Bank into Israel.
Violence against West Bank Arabs is tacitly promoted by the Likud-led government and the a large segment of the Israeli public. For instance:
(A) public donations for the legal defense fund of IDF Sgt. Elor Azarya - accused of killing an Arab in Hebron - now exceed $120,000.00;
(B) military prosecutors were reversed by IDF brass in their attempt to see Sgt. Azarya initially charged with murder;
(C) PM Netanyahu last year eulogized extremist Rabbi Moshe Levenger - once convicted of killing an Arab shopkeeper in Hebron - at his funeral as a "great example".
Violence against Arabs in the West Bank only promotes this Likud Party agenda.
(A) according to a Twitter report retweeted by Joshua Landis on his Syria Comment blog, the boy had an ID card claiming (falsely) that he was 19 - even though he was only 14 years of age and his identity was Abdullah Tayseer, a Palestinian;
(B) that same ID identifies him as a member of Air Force Intelligence - although his true affiliation was the al-Quds Brigade;
(C) the rebel that carried out the execution recently had his own brother killed by the opposing side, according to the Landis blog;
(D) a U.S. State Department spokesman said the U.S. considers the incident attributable to the specific rebel brigade and may cut off support to that unit - thus not imputing the execution to the Syrian rebel movement in general.
The federal government is subsidizing the security for the GOP convention to the tune of $50 million - including bulletproof vests, police overtime, box lunches etc.
It is important that the Republicans hold their convention in a "swing state" as they did with Michigan successfully in 1980 when the convention brought large amounts of revenue from out-of-state visitors coming to the convention as delegates. Michigan voted GOP that presidential cycle and Reagan was elected.
The Israeli government is controlled by its national security structure.
The story that has been splashed all over the media are the "Yitzhaki Files" - a dossier compiled against all 120 members of the Israeli Knesset - initiated without investigations and uncovering criminal evidence against dozens of members and also against at least eight cabinet ministers:
Fethullah Gulen's name surfaced in connection with a story about former CIA official Graham Fuller, who helped Gulen obtain political asylum in America after he had been indicted in Turkey.
Fuller had publicly disavowed a CIA link to a relative of the Boston bombers. FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds had related mismanagement as described in the article.
Mandatory drug sentencing laws passed in 1978 in Michigan caused state prison overcrowding.
Those charged with mere possession of a certain amount of narcotics faced a mandatory sentence of life in prison with no parole.
Eventually, however, due to the lobbying efforts of groups such as Families Against Mandatory Minimums, those laws were ameliorated to allow for parole after the serving of 20 years imprisonment.
Criminalizing those drivers who do not have auto insurance resulted in overcrowding in county jails since about 20% of all Michigan drivers and about 60% of all Detroit motorists do not carry car insurance. It is not uncommon to see vehicles on Detroit streets being operated with no license plates. Auto insurance for Detroit residents can cost up to $4,000 per annum, whereas the average home in Detroit sells for about $10,000 in most neighborhoods.
Making unpaid child support a felony in Michigan resulted in many parents being incarcerated, in addition to civil contempt of court charges to enforce payment
A large percentage of incarcerated citizens in Michigan are serving time for either drug possession, lack of auto insurance, or defaulted child support obligations.
The prosecution wanted to indict for murder but were overruled by military brass - as a result the maximum sentence Azarya faces is 20 years, but the reality is a conviction will result in only a fraction of that maximum term allowed by law.
The disturbing testimony of the ambulance driver and supporting video suggests that the knife was kicked into the immediate vicinity of Al-Sharif's corpse - clearly to help the sergeant manufacture a fraudulent self-defense argument based on the knife posing a putative danger to Azarya prior to the shooting death. That ambulance driver should have been charged with obstruction of justice.
Ironically, a judicial exoneration of Azarya here would give the Palestinian Authority more evidence to justify imposition of International Criminal Court jurisdiction against Israeli officials on the grounds that there is an insufficient judicial mechanism within Israel to punish war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Shi'ites comprise 15%-20% of the population of Saudi Arabia, however the number of Twelver Shi'ite adherents in Syria are only about 1% of Syria's 22 million people (I am unaware of any appreciable number of Alawite Shi'ites that are Saudi citizens). The two Shi'ites on the Saudi Shura Council do not represent a fair apportionment according to the religious Sunni/Shia demographics.
Additionally, earlier this year the Saudis executed prominent Shi'ite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, which exacerbated relations with Iran as well as with Saudi Arabia's minority Shia community.
The Saudi Arabian government may be more tolerant than ISIS with respect to Shi'ites - but significant oppression nevertheless exists in KSA.
The Israeli government recently celebrated officially the 85th anniversary of the Irgun (Etzel) terror gang that was implicated in the murder of hundreds of innocent Palestinian Arabs at Deir Yassin as well as other atrocities.
MK Tzipi Livni noted in a speech that her parents were imprisoned for their roles in that terror gang:
"In many ways, my identity was defined by the fact my parents were Etzel members...the system of values which directed them has become the personal education of each and every one of us - the children of the fighting family."
Here's the link on statements by Livni as well as PM Netanyahu honoring the "bold actions" of the Irgun:
With recent increases in settlement activity there is likely about 20,000 additional settlers since the B'tselem report was issued - giving the total settler population currently around 567,000. This leads me to believe that the cited 766,000 figure may be a typographical error.
The Libertarian Party presidential nominee, Gary Johnson, a former state governor, has been polling at between 5% and 12% - in prior U.S. presidential elections the Libertarian nominee has been lucky to come anywhere near !5 of the nationwide vote. Political experts have opined that disgust with the GOP have been a factor in these unusually high polling numbers and, further, the perception that Johnson is a credible candidate.
The U.S. Green Party has long had a commitment to including on its national platform to "serious reconsideration of the establishment of a single state from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River" for both Arabs and Jews.
The U.S. Green Party has been registering at between 2% to 5% in presidential polling this cycle.
These two minor parties are expected to make unprecedented gains in votes received in the 2016 presidential election this November over previous elections.
There are indications from Mateen's ex-wife that he was "bipolar".
In fact, mental illness has been implicated in a number of mass killings in the U.S.:
(A) Andrew Kehoe, a school board treasurer in Bath Township, Michigan, had a history of severe traumatic brain injury when he killed 38 schoolchildren in 1927 before killing his wife and himself;
(B) U.S. Marine Corps veteran Charles Whitman had a brain tumor the size of a walnut when he shot numerous persons at the University of Texas from a tower in 1966;
(C) James Huberty shot dozens in a McDonald's in San Ysidro, California in 1984 shortly after unsuccessfully trying to obtain mental health treatment and reporting hallucinations;
(D) Jared Loughner had clear signs of mental illness prior to going on his shooting spree in Arizona and killing a U.S. House member.
As the FBI investigation unfolds, it may become clearer whether or not a psychological disorder played a role in this tragedy.
The father of a victim blamed the Israeli government for the shootings and the father of an assailant (arrested by Israeli police) denounced the deadly attacks:
(A) I found it surprising that the assailants were arrested rather than shot dead - and then realized that they had been disguised as religious Jews - and therefore police likely were hesitant to use deadly force based upon this mistaken assumption;
(B) The Israeli government suspended the work permits of 204 of the arrestees' relatives so as to bar them from working in Israel and ordered the restriction of all Arabs from moving to and from Israel while observing Ramadan - this amounts to collective punishment proscribed under the Geneva Conventions;
(C) the attack was in cosmopolitan and relatively liberal Tel Aviv whereas recent knifings and car rammings seemed to more heavily target Jerusalem and areas in the Occupied Territories where tensions between Arabs and Jews have been more pronounced.
Graduate of Yale Law School, Legal Aid attorney.......
President Harry Truman had basically a high school education and his secretary of state, James Byrnes, had an 8th grade education and each were considered to be near great in their respective offices.
(A) he allowed, as defense minister, the overruling of IDF prosecutors by military brass in their desire to seek a murder indictment against Sgt. Elor Azarya - thus guaranteeing that any prison sentence Azarya may receive upon conviction will be relatively short and also giving Azarya's defense attorneys considerable leverage to negotiate a potential plea bargain to a lesser charge;
(B) Yaalon refused to permit an investigation into the use of the "Hannibal Directive" in Gaza in 2014 that had led to over 100 innocent Gazans being killed after a young IDF officer (related to Yaalon) had apparently been captured by Hamas fighters.
Yaalon's stance on "morality" is public relations bluster designed to appease the international community that Israel is a paragon of virtue and democracy. Avigdor Lieberman, on the other hand, has no compunctions about alienating that international community.
Israel has attempted to make Gaza uninhabitable by destroying civilian infrastructure and food supply sources - including the bombing of a biscuit factory - Gaza's largest private employer at the time - in 2014 during Operation Defensive Edge and killing 31,000 chickens by bulldozing a farm during Operation Cast Lead.
Paul Ryan's "disavowal" referenced above rings even more hollow when one hears his latest public statement indicating that he will vote for Trump in the general election.
General Giap of the North Vietnamese Army attempted to re-create Dienbienphu by attempting to overrun the USMC fire support base situated near the northwest corner of South Vietnam near the Laotian border. He failed and lost some 20,000 fighters chiefly due to heavy Arc Light B-52 strikes. Giap - who died recently at age 102 - felt he was going to be fired due to this debacle, despite his prior 1954 victory over the Frence at Dienbienphu.
Khe Sanh and the 1968 Tet Offensive by the NVA/VC however made the U.S. populace agonizingly aware of the war in Indochina and indirectly caused LBJ to withdraw his name from consideration for re-election that year.
Richard Nixon won election to the presidency on a platform of withdrawal of U.S. forces and "Vietnamization" - handing over the national defense of South Vietnam from largely U.S. control to that of ARVN.
ARVN collapsed in May of 1975 and the expected Soviet militarization of South Vietnam occurred with the Red Army leasing Cam Ranh Bay's base formerly housing American servicemen at a cost to the Kremlin of $200,000,000 per annum; today Cam Ranh Bay's installation is vacant after Russia could no longer afford the rent and the U.S. did not want it - or need it.
Vietnam is currently an ally of America with 20 billion per year in bilateral trade and the U.S. supplying the Communist government in Hanoi with arms to defend against possible problems with Red China over the South China Sea.
It took 1.3 million Vietnamese and U.S. servicemen's lives being sacrificed, but peace had finally been achieved in the region.
Not necessarily - not where the Israel Lobby is concerned, as they have rolled out the red carpet for paroled Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, as he resides with his wife in a lavish Manhattan apartment and has met with top Jewish-American leaders, while U.S. Representatives Jerold Nadler and Elliott Engel lobby the Obama administration to ease parole restrictions:
Lieberman's background for an Israeli politician is unusual in that he was born and raised in a Soviet-bloc country - Moldavia - speaks fluent Romanian, and identifies with Russian history and literature as his authority.
Moldavia during WWII had strong Nazi influences.
Lieberman's courtroom appearance during the homicide case of Sgt. Elor Azarya a few days prior to the announcement of his appointment as defense minister was cited by former Knesset member Uri Avnery as proof of parallels to 1930s Nazi Germany.
".......[n]o dominoes fell after we pulled out, except our Pol Pot forces put down by Vaetnam (sic)...."
This is absurd. The U.S. backed anti-communist Cambodian Gen. Lon Nol against the Khmer Rouge forces of Pol Pot until the collapse of the Cambodian government in April of 1975. The Khmer Rouge was allied with Red China - not the U.S.
One of the most absurd aspects of this controversy is that the YPG patches that U.S. Army Ranger units have been photographed sporting contain the red star symbol associated with Marxism.
Another absurd aspect is that some American soldiers were seen with the green YPJ patch associated with the female Kurdish units.
Some links to what has to be described as one of the most embarrassing episodes in the history of these elite commando soldiers who have traditionally been associated with their courageous historical battlefield fight against communism:
Col. Steve Warren of the U.S. Army just issued a statement calling the wearing of the YPG patch by its personnel both unauthorized and inappropriate, and also conveying that statement to Turkish officials who have complained.
Warren indicated corrective action has been taken.
It should be noted that those who praise the IDF brass and former Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon for the manslaughter prosecution of Azarya ignore the fact that military prosecutors were overruled by superiors in their decision initially - and correctly - to seek a murder indictment against the sergeant.
What was not covered by the American press was that former Yisrael Beiteinu (the political party led by Avigdor Lieberman) Member of Knesset sponsored a rally in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv last month attended by thousands to support Elor Azarya.
PM Netanyahu issued a statement before the rally calling for leniency for the soldier.
Some of the "highlights" of that gathering:
(A) attendees chanted "Death to Arabs";
(B) a flag was unfurled with the slogan "We are all with Kahane" underneath a drawing of the late extremist;
(C) a journalist covering the event was beaten;
(D) police arrested counter-demonstraors from the human rights group B'Tselem;
(E) a young woman created a stir - captured by photographers - by raising a placard with the words "Kill them all".
What has not been emphasized in the media the other half of the fallout of the Yaalon resignation - that Yaalon will likely be replaced in the Knesset by U.S.-born Rabbi Yehuda Glick, the right-wing extremist who seeks to rebuild the Third Temple.
Glick, a Likud Party member, survived an assassination attempt by a Palestinian earlier due to his promotion of the rebuilding of the Third Temple.
If he is eventually seated, he will first be forced to renounce his U.S. citizenship and shall become only the fifth American-born individual to sit in the Knesset. Rabbi Meir Kahane also renounced his U.S. citizenship and sat in the Knesset.
Uri Avnery, a 92-year old former Irgun member who served parts of three decades as an elected member of the Knesset, published an article yesterday lauding General Yair Golan for likening the current right-wing political events in Israel to 1930s Germany and concluding with the question whether he, Avnery, will be condemned to witness the same process twice in his life.
".......it may turn out to be a silver lining......"
Palestinians have actually praised Lieberman for his openness about his intent and motives about Arabs in the West Bank in Gaza. Some of his lurid comments:
(1) that he be willing would personally purchase bus transportation to take Palestinian prisoners and forcibly drown them in the Dead Sea;
(2) discussed beheading Palestinians as a form of punishment;
"There is no precedent in Israeli history to a defence minister in the image and behaviour of Lieberman......."
Lieberman's experience as a military leader was as a corporal who had been conscripted into the Israel Defense Forces. He has previously made public statements on national security matters that have made him the butt of jokes (e.g. "Nuke Gaza").
Lieberman does not even live in Israel, but in a West Bank settlement.
A court had once found him responsible for assaulting a 12-year old child. There have been ongoing criminal corruption probes of his political party which continue to the present.
The position of defense minister in the Israeli cabinet is often a stepping stone to the prime minister post - that is the prospect that many find disturbing as it appears PM Netanyahu believes that Lieberman would be an acceptable successor to himself once he, Netanyahu, leaves office.
The former Soviet Union supported the formation of Israel on the basis that it was believed it would be Marxist in orientation. PM David Ben-Gurion's Mapai Party had the hammer and sickle as its symbol and its kibbutzes were similar in structure to the Soviet Union's collective farms.
In later years, the Warsaw Pact countries played both sides of the fence, with Romania maintaining a tight relationship with the PLO and other Palestinian terror elements while at the same time maintaining friendly relations with Israel - this relationship was documented in the book Red Horizons authored by Lt. General Ion Pacepa, former chief of military intelligence during the Ceausescu dictatorship.
In the late 1980s, President Shimon Peres sought and received Soviet assistance in the war crimes prosecution of John Demjanjuk by emphasizing the defendant was a traitor to Marxism. In 1982, however, the Soviet Embassy in Beirut was shelled and invaded by IDF tanks during Operation Galilee and in 1988 the Soviet Union was one of the first countries to recognize the independent State of Palestine declared by the PLO.
Dr. Gershon Baskin - originally a New York resident and anti-Vietnam War activist - has been the single person that has most successfully advanced the peace process with the Palestinians.
In 1988 he initiated a dialogue between retired Israeli intelligence officials, on one hand, and PLO representatives in London which would eventually form the framework of the 1993 Oslo Accords - although Rabin, Peres and Arafat were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, it was Baskin, as a private citizen, who commenced the dialogue and acted as an outside advisor until the agreement was reached.
Dr. Baskin was later recruited by Netanyahu to obtain the release of Cpl. Gilad Shalit after years of unsuccessful negotiations by the Israeli Foreign Ministry. In four months that included face-to-face negotiations with Hamas leaders, Baskin negotiated an agreement that resulted in Shalit's release.
Baskin's name is relatively unknown outside Israel, but it has been he - not Bill Clinton - who can be credited with some degree of success in achieving progress toward peace between Jews and Palestinians.
One can actually go back to 1998 when elements within the Likud Party pressured Netanyahu to stop Israel's performance under the Wye River Memorandum, which had been the instrument to implement the Oslo II agreement.
The Wye River Memorandum had enjoyed broad-based support within the Israeli populace and should have been a stepping stone toward a final status accord between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
Michael Moore has not criticized those in Obama administration even though EPA regional administrator Dr. Susan Edman was forced to resign and the FEMA national director denied requests from Governor Snyder for financial assistance.
Recent probes into the Flint crisis have substantiated culpable conduct as well as deficient leadership at the federal, state, and local levels.
Governor Snyder has recently paid an $800,000 retainer to a prestigious Michigan law firm using taxpayer monies to defend him against possible civil liability or criminal charges arising from the Flint situation.
At the most recent state GOP convention in Lansing in April of this year, Snyder did not mention the Flint crisis - although Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette again promised to "let the chips fall where they may" in his investigation of the crisis.
It appears from the most recent reports that Badreddine was not specifically targeted but rather routine battle shelling of Damascus International Airport caused his death.
One media source has reported that the chief judge of the military tribunal recommended the prosecution and defense enter plea bargain negotiations and warned the prosecution of the "weakness" in their case.
The tribunal denied a defense request to release Sgt. Azarya for upcoming Independence Day.
Detroit has had Muslim mayors in its suburbs since the 1960s:
(1 ) Jamiel (Jim) Jabara was elected mayor of Plymouth in 1968;
(2) in 2001, the City of Wayne elected Abdul (Al) Haidous as mayor - he now sits on the Wayne County Board of Commissioners;
(3) in 2017, the City of Hamtramck will hold a mayoral election and it is widely expected that a Muslim candidate will be elected to lead its Muslim-majority City Council.
(1) McCain and Obama were in a virtual dead heat in presidential polling until the time of the stock market meltdown in August of 2008 - Obama at that point ran up an 8-point lead in the polling;
(2) Reagan was so unpopular at the end of 1982 - largely due to the ongoing economic recession - that there were those in the Republican National Committee that privately considered opposing his re-nomination in 1984;
(3) Reagan immediately after the Democratic National Convention in 1984 polled about 10% behind Walter Mondale and was suffering from a "gender gap" effect that was exacerbated by the historic naming of Geraldine Ferraro as Mondale's VP running mate;
(4) VP George H.W. Bush trailed Michael Dukakis in double-digits throughout much of 1988 - until Dukakis was ridiculed over the Willie Horton prison furlough fiasco and his membership in the ACLU by GOP campaign genius Lee Atwater;
(4) Pres. George H.W. Bush was considered largely unbeatable by many observers in early 1992 after the successful conclusion of the Persian Gulf War and his aggressive ongoing war on the Colombian drug cartels.
Trump cannot be ruled out as a viable nominee by a long shot.
The nebulous "State Secrets Doctrine" - created by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 1953 decision - applies to CIA torture methods and prohibits judicial review.
Torture not only violates the U.S. Constitution - but is of questionable effectiveness.
"Hamas has easily survived the decapitation of many of its leaders..........."
Israel's own anti-terrorism experts had opined that the 2005 targeted killings of political section leaders Sheikh Yassine and Dr. Rantissi would actually strengthen Hamas:
(1) it would lend more unrestrained power to the more militant armed al-Qassam wing of Hamas;
(2) it would cause greater cohesion with other radical militant groups within Gaza such as Islamic Jihad.
Another issue that should be addressed is the potential of the U.S. Armed Forces confronting Syrian Arab Army - or worse - Russian soldiers which could provoke a major international incident.
The precedent of Turkey shooting down a Russian jet already exists and the proliferation of U.S. Special Forces troops in combat situations increases the likelihood of confrontation - especially if the U.S does not coordinate its troop movements with the Syrian government and the Kremlin.
During the Operation Cast Lead incursion into Gaza, an Arab woman waving a white flag was shot in the temple and died, but the responsible IDF soldier was charged with manslaughter and later pled to negligent homicide and received a lenient sentence during his court martial - whereas a soldier in a separate incident who stole and used a Gazan's credit card received a 7-month jail term, largely because an Israeli financial institution was concurrently victimized by the unauthorized use.
The above-referenced Gaza homicide incident was covered in the 462-page Goldstone Commission report as characterized as credible proof a war crime and crime against humanity.
The crime of voluntary manslaughter is defined at law as a homicide committed during the heat of passion before there has been time to allow the "blood to cool" by an individual where a reasonable person would have motivated to kill under the same circumstances.
The case involving IDF soldier Elor Azraya does not involve such facts:
(1) Cpl. Azraya appeared completely calm on all videotape versions published;
(2) a soldier - especially a medical corpsman such as Cpl. Azraya - who kills an arrestee cannot be held "reasonable" under any circumstances.
The actions of Cpl. Azraya - whose identity has been censored by the Israeli government but leaked out via blogs - would have likely in any similar situation in the U.S. been charged with "open murder" leaving discretion to a judge or jury to decide whether to convict of either murder or manslaughter.
There are many Jewish-American groups that have been openly critical of the conduct of the Jewish National Fund in evicting Palestinian families from their East Jerusalem homes:
V.P. Joseph Biden addressed the bus bombing briefly in a speech to J-Street - but rebuffed Netanyahu by comparing himself (Biden) to 30-year-old leftist Labor Party member of the Knesset and Netanyahu critic Stav Shaffir, whom he asked to stand for applause. Biden indicated he was first elected to the U.S. Senate at age 29 and held similar progressive views Ms. Shaffir.
Biden drew applause as he indicated he hoped the Israeli government would eventually adopt Ms. Staffir's views as its official policy.
Ms. Staffir along with Daphni Leef had been leaders of the J-14 social reform movement in Israel.
The Saudis have about $10 trillion total investment inside the United States.
To give one the idea of the impact a financial impact could have on the U.S., the same $10 trillion figure represented the decline in value of publicly traded corporate securities in the U.S. following the 2008 financial meltdown
The U.S. Treasury securities identified in the article can be easily liquidated and transferred out of America.
The Saudis also own large blocks of shares in blue chip stocks in the U.S. that could be fairly easily liquidated.
Saudi Arabia could also retaliate by initiating an oil embargo on the U.S. which has supplied about 28% of petroleum consumed in the U.S. in recent years. Gasoline prices tripled virtually overnight when an oil embargo was placed against the U.S. following U.S. support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War.
Progressive liberal activism is zealously advocated in Ann Arbor, Michigan where the Green Party in voting precincts often outpolls Republicans.
Nevertheless, certain religious denominations - such as Quakers - have been at the forefront there of liberal causes such as Palestinian self-determination. Black Baptist ministers there have been vocal on progressive civil rights issues such as curtailment of police brutality.
-tried to pass the Equal Rights Amendment but lost;
-tried to oppose the federal death penalty law eventually signed by G.H.W. Bush but lost;
-tried to keep Medicaid-funded abortions but lost;
-tried to decriminalize marijuana but lost;
-tried to oppose U.S. involvement in Afghanistan but lost;
-tried to get the Iranian hostages released but failed;
-entered the U..S. into WWI;
-entered the U.S. in the Vietnam War;
-entered the US in the war in Kosovo;
-inaugurated Operation Mongoose to destabilize a popular socialist regime in Cuba;
-failed to close Guantanamo detention facilities;
-failed to pass effective gun control legislation.
Liberal Democrats in the U.S. have been ineffective at attempts to pass much progressive legislation and further have not hesitated to voluntarily enter military conflict or covert action situations to promote a foreign policy agenda.
A recent lawsuit against the Muslim-majority City of Hamtramck alleges that the Arab-American community's businesses were targeted for investigation by law enforcement in a offensively discriminatory manner and with use of racial slurs:
".........but discussions were frozen in late March when Labor leader Isaac Herzog was linked to a preliminary investigation into party financing."
Leader of the Opposition Herzog has claimed that the corruption investigation in question had its origin in Likud Party activists trying to discredit him:
The right-wing Jewish Homeland Party of Avigdor Lieberman is NOT part of the Netanyahu coalition and that is the chief reason that there is only a 61-seat coalition majority in the current Knesset. Lieberman's party leaders have also been under a corruption investigation that was made public shortly before the last Knesset election; this investigation had been labeled political by Jewish Homeland Party leaders and was credit with Likud being the beneficiary of crossover voting at the expense of Lieberman's party in the last Knesset election.
Mr. Sanders is substantially accurate the 10,000 estimate of "casualty" figures during the 2014 Operation Defensive Shield incursion into Gaza.
The commonly accepted definition of "casualty" incudes wounded as well as fatalities. According to the Gaza Health Ministry figures published by Ma'an News Agency in January of 2015, the number of Gazan wounded was 10,626 during that incursion - in addition to the approximately 2,000 killed as a result of hostile action.
Former Kach Party leader and self-described "right-hand man" to slain Jewish extremist MK Meir Kahane, Baruch Marzel, has been reported to have appeared on a video at the killing site shaking hands with the smiling IDF shooter - Elor Azraya
The Israel Supreme Court in 2015 upheld the dismissal of a wrongful death action in the Rachel Corrie case using the doctrine that the IDF is immune from civil liability for deaths occurring in a combat zone:
However, the family of Briton Thomas Hurndall received a $1.5 million-dollar settlement where the British government applied diplomatic pressure upon the Israeli government where an IDF sniper shot an International Solidarity Movement volunteer to death in the Gaza Strip - this was the same organization that Corrie had belonged to.
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"A large contributing factor were the "sweetheart" deals...."
Absolutely.
Big Three management justified their own salary increases on the raises given to the UAW workers.
Janitors who were UAW members earned as much as $74,000.00 per annum and earned the jealousy of young entry-level engineers were earned less than they did.
U.S. Senator Carl Levin unsuccessfully sought heavy tariffs on Japanese imports to thwart the growing market share.
The Subaru and other Japanese imports of the 1960s were considered deathtraps and a joke among the auto experts. By the 1980s however, Japanese imported cars had a reputation for quality and affordability among U.S. consumers.
The 1980s were considered a glory decade for the auto industry in Detroit with record profits and Lee Iacocca being touted as a possible presidential candidate in 1984 and 1988. The generous collective bargaining agreements the UAW had with the Big Three led to long term pension and medical insurance trust obligations that came to destroy both GM and Chrysler during the G.W. Bush administration.
Many auto suppliers from Detroit, such as Lear Corporation, Collins & Aikman, Delphi and others who supplied automotive components such as seating and car interiors filed for bankruptcy as Mexican automotive factories produced the same components for far less cost.
Lear Corporation, a 10-billion per year revenue seating producer in the 1990s, saw all of its shareholder equity wiped out in a bankruptcy filing in the following decade.
Absolutely.
The United Auto Workers and Intl. Brotherhood of Teamsters unions were during the 1950s and 1960s clearly the most politically influential labor unions in America and were largely run out of Detroit. The UAW was one of the few national labor unions not based in Washington D.C. - but in Detroit, and the Teamsters, despite being nominally headquartered at a 9-million-dollar building in the District of Columbia, was heavily controlled by its Detroit-based Local 299, headed by Jimmy Hoffa. Local 299 had the highest membership of any Teamster local in the U.S. and that local membership consisted heavily of over-the-road truckers hauling new automobiles.
Two events occurred which shattered the prominence of those two unions and Detroit's primacy as the center of industrial power in the Midwest:
(A) a little-known young business entrepreneur named Malcom Bricklin entered into a distributorship agreement with Subaru in the mid-1960s to import compact cars made in Japan into the U.S. consumer market - which led by the 1970s to Japanese automakers controlling an ever-widening share of the American market;
(B) the opening up of the Mexican labor force to U.S. automotive suppliers - aided by the North American Free Trade Agreement - led to the Big Three Detroit automakers outsourcing parts and components to Mexican factories - many owned by American businessmen - and causing the layoffs of UAW workers.
Detroit has declined from a population of 2 million in 1950 to less than 700,000 today - with the median value of a Detroit home currently about $10,000. The UAW today has lost hundreds of thousands of members since the late 1970s as well as political influence; Local 299 of the Teamsters likewise has only fraction of its 1970s era membership and the international union has lost the vast political clout it enjoyed under Jimmy Hoffa and Frank Fitzsimmons.
Detroit-based General Motors, once the largest company in the world, filed in 2008 (its 100th anniversary) for Chapter 7 bankruptcy with over 90 billion dollars in accrued debt; Chrysler, the nation's third-largest automaker, was purchased by foreign interests after its stock shares became worthless. Only Ford - through prudent family management and intensive cost-cutting measures - and without any federal loan bailout - survived along with its shareholders.
Detroit is America's most stark example of very extreme deindustrialization - and the noxious effect upon the public interest.
Theodore Roosevelt was a populist Republican that confronted the corporate trusts with antitrust legislation and targeted political corruption.
Both Trump and Roosevelt hailed from from New York City, were Ivy League educated and are not "traditional" Republicans. but rather they can be safely labeled as "outsiders".
It is the "outsider" perception of him that may propel Trump into the White House.
The Michigan Republican Party several years ago was instrumental in promoting Right-to-Work legislation that eventually passed the Michigan Legislature and was signed into law by Governor Snyder. The GOP in Michigan (as is Trump) is the darling of non-union workers.
The popularly-elected university boards in Michigan (Wayne State University, University of Michigan, Michigan State University) currently have Democratic majorities that have approved generous collective bargaining agreements with the unions representing the faculties.
At Wayne State University, for example, an 8-year collective bargaining agreement was approved by a board of governors with a Democratic majority just before the Right-to-Work law took effect.
At University of Michigan, student tuition rates rival those at America's elite private universities - even though U-M receives copious public funding, largely due to U-M's Board of Regents - with a Democratic majority - approving favorable collective bargaining contracts with the union representing faculty members. The Democratic Party state conventions in Michigan are usually replete with AAUP, American Federation of Teachers and other teacher's union members who either receive delegate seats or are campaigning for university board candidates that promote these unions' agendas
General Douglas Mac Arthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz - who disliked each other - both felt that the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima violated the ethical code they were taught as members of the U.S. Armed Forces as far as avoiding civilian casualties.
Most Americans feel that the fact an estimated 100,000 lives of U.S. servicemen were saved justified the A-bomb attacks at Hiroshima an Nagasaki.
Michigan has several hundred thousand Muslim-American citizens and the latest poll shows Trump behind Clinton by only 5% in Michigan - so it is conceivable that the Muslim vote may make a difference on Election Day in the Wolverine State.
"This situation has a historic parallel.....[i]n Europe, in particular, what transpired was a war between competing
interests to capture as much territory as they could....."
The 2003 invasion of Iraq had little to do with fear or genuine concern about purported "weapons of mass destruction" possessed by the Baathist regime in Baghdad - it had far more to do with the fact Iraq is one of the most strategic locations on Earth from a defense and foreign policy perspective:
(1) it had been under the Russian sphere of influence for decades and had the former Soviet Union to the north;
(2) it has Iran directly to the east;
(3) it has the oil-rich Persian Gulf states directly to the south;
(4) it has Israel to the west;
(5) it has substantial crude oil reserves.
The United States began covert operations against Saddam Hussein via executive order by President George H. W. Bush directed to the National Security Council and the CIA issued immediately after the close of the Persian Gulf War in 1991.
Shortly after the Baathist government in Baghdad collapsed, the Baathist regime's intelligence agency chief and Iyad Allawi - who would become a future Iraqi president - were transported to Langley, Virginia to restructure a new Iraqi government and intelligence service - along with a 3-billion dollar appropriation from U.S. Congress.
Congress also allocated 500 million dollars for the U.S. intelligence community to establish their own network of bases inside Iraq.
Same situation happened with Nazi Germany - the Nazi spymaster Reinhard Gehlen was not only not prosecuted by the Allies - but stayed on as the intelligence director of West Germany for over twenty years following the end of WWII and was relied on by the U.S. intelligence community for authoritative reports. His "Gehlen org " spy ring transmitted valuable intelligence on Soviet Union railway facilities and military installations until it was finally penetrated and broken up by the KGB.
West Germany became the host of 250.000 American military personnel during the Cold War as well as an industrial juggernaut that exported valuable products such as automobiles and machinery to the U.S. after the end of WWII. The U.S. also exploited Nazi missile technology not only for its NASA program - but also to establish its ICBM network
The U.S. and it allies saw the conquering of Iraq as an economic, military, and intelligence opportunism imperative - not as a concern over purported "weapons of mass destruction."
Iran and the U.S. are the main players in the Iraq "power play" today - as the Warsaw Pact and NATO was in Germany in the decades following WWII.
"These policies are unconstitutional."
"1. Ban Muslims from coming to the United States."
This is debatable in a legal sense since person who are non-citizens and are outside U.S. borders do not have standing to challenge such discrimination in U.S. courts.
"2. Put mosques under surveillance."
There is nothing per se unconstitutional about placing a mosque under surveillance - even absence of suspicion of criminal conduct occurring.
However, such a policy would possibly run afoul of a law enforcement agency's internal operating guidelines - and the FBI certainly does have such guidelines that sets rules on when surveillance can commence and only when some credible information of possible criminal activity is brought to the Bureau's attention.
Secondly, a general imposition of mosque surveillance when other non-Muslim places of worship are ignored could give rise to a lawsuit under anti-discrimination laws due to "disparate treatment" of Muslims vs non-Muslims.
The Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati last year upheld the discrimination claim of a black Metro Detroit judge investigated and removed from the bench for misconduct where white judges allegedly committing the same acts were not investigated and charged.
"3. Put all Muslims in a federal database."
This would likely be struck down under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The Korematsu U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the internment of Japanese-American citizens is considered bad law today.
"4. Torture Muslim suspects.............."
Torture per se likely still violates the "shocking the conscience" standard of the substantive Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment and imposing it on Muslims alone or in a manner different than others likely violates the Equal Protection Clause of the same amendment.
"5.Take Muslim family members hostage to ensure good conduct."
Likely violates the "shocking the conscience" standard cited above as well as the Equal Protection Clause to the extent that Muslims were singled out for such treatment by the government."
Several points:
(A) Bob Dylan never has recanted his support for the late Jewish extremist Meir Kahane;
(B) Dylan did convert to Christianity at one point - but later disavowed any ties to organized religion;
(C) Dylan has had a long and complex relationship with Israel and some of his songs have been revered by the West Bank Jewish settler movement - which he appears to favor.
Some links:
link to timesofisrael.com
link to loonwatch.com
@William:
The link to the article cited above suggests that Pres. Obama authorized the Tomahawk strike - so it appears that a captain did not order return fire while under attack - but proceeded a significant interval later and if they had the time to obtain presidential approval perhaps they should have made an effort to procure an AUMF from Congress.
Also, the allegation was that the radar stations were somehow implicated in the Tomahawk strike - however radar stations do not themselves launch the missiles at the U.S. destroyers and it is unclear what proof the U.S. has to suggest that the three radar stations in Houthi-controlled territory were actually involved in targeting U.S. Navy destroyers.
Don't you agree they need at least an "Authorization for Use of Military Force" from Congress to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles at the Houthi installations?
Remember the Maine!
This incident is making conspiracy theorists wax eloquent and nostalgiac about Operation Northwoods - the Pentagon's 1960s false flag plan - nixed by JFK - to have a U.S. Navy ship explode off the Cuban coast so that the Castro government's patrols would board the boat to investigate and then blame the incident on Cuba, then also use the incident to warrant an attack on Cuba by the U.S.
The latest national poll - taken today by Los Angeles Times/USC Tracking - shows Trump leading Clinton by three percentage points.
Several national polling organizations in surveys taken yesterday as the "scandal" was breaking showed no appreciable change in numbers over prior recent polling results.
Additionally, Trump will likely engage in "damage control" during Sunday's debate.
One variant of this plan is a hybrid arrangement in which the area adopts elements of both a one-state and two-state solution and would resemble an arrangement akin to the European Union as exists today:
(1) the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel using pre-1967 "Green Line" borders would merge into an "economic union" as envisioned under the 1947 UN Partition Plan and have a single currency, no trade barriers, and a completely integrated economy;
(2) The West Bank and Gaza would unite into a single state having its own Palestine National Council as its governing body with its own national security forces partially integrated with Israeli security forces into a joint body to administer Palestinian-controlled areas with the current hated "Civil Administration" dissolved and the IDF withdrawing as an independent occupying force, including its oppressive military tribunal system of justice;
(3) Jerusalem to be under joint administration of Israel and Palestinian governments;
(4) Arabs and Jews would have free movement between the respective states and the choice of being citizens of either Israel or Palestine with both countries being fully sovereign and allaying concerns that Israel would lose its "Jewish" character.
This arrangement would be an economic boon to both sides and would inevitably lead to a lessening of tensions over time.
In what has become known as the "Third Intifada" or "Knife Intifada", the Palestinian activists responsible have, unlike the first two intifadas, succeeded in creating significant public discourse and dissent in the U.S. in opposition to Israeli government human rights violations.
Council on Foreign Relations memberThomas Friedman has cited this phenomenon:
link to nytimes.com
This dissent has been manifested in several ways - including the controversies at the 2016 Democratic National Convention; this would include the burning of the Israeli flag outside the convention center and delegates inside with buttons labeled "Progressive for Palestine" and unfurling of the Palestinian flag without objection as Pres. Obama and Hillary Clinton addressed the convention attendees - this received heavy coverage in the Israeli media:
link to commondreams.org
link to israelnationalnews.com
link to breakingisraelnews.com
There have been severe criticisms of Peres - especially regarding his attitude toward Operation Cast Lead while he served in the largely ceremonial role as president of the State of Israel:
link to muftah.org peace/#-V-yT2CTCfcs
Thank you for the reference to the Shin Bet killing of Ayyash as the "trigger" for a wave of bus bombings that brought Netanyahu to power and a disintegration of the popularity of the peace process that PM Yitzhak Rabin had achieved via the Oslo Accords.
Most observers had felt that the assassination of Rabin would result in stronger public sentiment in Israel for the peace process with Rabin as his standard bearer as President Lyndon Baines Johnson was to JFK's legacy.
".....[h]e played a sinister role in proliferating nuclear arms to Israel."
Most Israelis would consider this his greatest legacy.
Peres forged close ties with French president Charles De Gaulle who initiated a joint atomic energy research program for peaceful purposes during the 1950s which gave Israeli nuclear scientists incidental access to reports of French physicists of atom bomb detonation testing occurring in the south Pacific Ocean. It was these reports that gave Israeli scientists the needed expertise to construct their own atomic weaponry in the late 1960s.
During the 1960s both DeGaulle and the Israeli civilian nuclear regulatory agency suspected that Israel was misusing the joint atomic research for creating weaponry and DeGaulle ended the joint research program as well as the French involvement in the design and construction of the Dimona nuclear facility in the Negev Desert.
There is little doubt that Peres will go down in history as one of Israel's greatest founding fathers and one who had a profound influence on Israel's success as a nation - but Israelis will consider his role in establishing a nuclear deterrent to Arab and Iranian aggression to be his most prominent achievement.
Several points:
(A) The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 passed by U.S. Congress called for the U.S. to relocate its embassy to Jerusalem by 1999 - but was not implemented due to executive resistance from each presidential administration from its passage to the present;
(B) previously, Israeli PM David Ben-Gurion had declared Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel but this was rejected by the United Nations;
(C) in 2000, PM Ehud Barak was presented with an Israeli government sponsored study which concluded that the concept of establishing Jerusalem as Israel's undivided capital was not justified nor practically feasible;
(D) should Trump be elected and follow through on this campaign promise, the U.S. will be the only foreign country having an embassy located within Jerusalem - although the State Department has long maintained a consular office in Jerusalem.
Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK) - headed by Maryam Rojavi - is a Islamist group with Marxist leanings that has had a love-hate relationship with the U.S. government over preceding decades. Some have described their structure as a "cult".
During the 1970s the group was implicated in attacks on American servicemen and MEK supported the anti-Shah revolution in the latter part of that decade.
U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright declared the MKO a "foreign terror organization" (FTO) and froze their assets in the U.S. in an effort to appease Iranian leaders to ameliorate relations between the two countries. In 2012, Hilary Clinton rescinded this FTO designation and stories surfaced that MKO were receiving training by U.S. Army Signal Intelligence Corps personnel and engaging in covert operations against the Iranian government.
Here is a link to this group's extremely controversial history:
link to cfr.org
I find it very noteworthy that Radio Free Europe would now appear to join the pro-MKO bandwagon - especially given credible reports that the U.S. government during the Reagan administration had quietly leaked the identities of Communists secretly working in the Iranian government to that regime so that those suspected Marxists could be investigated and extirpated from their positions.
Is this part of a recent broad trend by the U.S. State Department to ally itself with groups previously designated as FTOs to counteract Islamic extremist elements - as it has done with the PKK in Syria?
"No oil in Syria either."
This is inaccurate - crude oil plays a major role in Syria's civil war - and vice versa:
link to thearabweekly.com
link to theguardian.com
"If the attack was deliberate, then the US government owes reparations to the families of those killed in the attack...."
When the Central Intelligence Agency inadvertently gave NATO forces "in error" inaccurate information that the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Belgrade was a military target, thus causing it in 1999 to sustain aerial U.S. Air Force bombardment, reparations in the millions of dollars were paid to the families of dead and, also the wounded, staffers at that diplomatic post.
Disciplinary action was also taken against CIA personnel involved in that debacle.
The "deliberateness" or "negligent" nature of the attack is not determinative of whether reparations should be paid - it is the good faith of the government responsible for the culpable conduct.
"Israel was not founded by right-wing ideologues......."
Ze'ev Jabotinsky was the leader of Revisionist Zionism and is considered the founder or the Irgun terror gang as well as a leader of the Herut Party - which in conjunction with other conservative parties in Israel held about one-third of the seats of the First Knesset.
In 1948, the right-wing Israelis in the Irgun were almost on the cusp of a civil war during the Altalena incident when an arms supply ship chartered by the Irgun was fired upon by Israel Defense Forces soldiers led by Yitzhak Rabin. Menachem Begin had commanded the Irgun at this juncture and stopped the bloodshed.
Jabotinsky's followers would coalesce after his 1940 death politically and would eventually form the Likud Party, which has dominated Israeli national politics since the late 1970s.
Right-wing ideologues such as PM Netanyahu - whose father Benzion Netanyahu was personal secretary to Jabotinsky - currently control the Israeli government.
Certain leaders of the kibbutz movement pushed their members toward Stalinist ideals; the Soviet collectivization of farms under Stalin had some semblance to the structure of kibbutzim in Israel and the British Mandate period.
However the Doctor's Plot and Prague Trial cases targeting Jewish citizens within the Soviet bloc cooled the enthusiasm that kibbutz leaders displayed toward Joseph Stalin's ideals.
A link to the history of Stalinist ideology on kibbutzim in Israel:
link to academia.edu
In Israel the Marxist-oriented parties have historically been the bulwark for peace and social equality between Arabs and Jews.
Tawfik Toubi, a 26 year old Christian Arab journalist from Haifa became a member of the First Knesset in 1949, elected under the Israel Communist Party slate - as was Meir Vilner, a signatory to the declaration of independence of Israel.
MK Toubi would become an unofficial liaison between the Israeli government and the P.L.O. and would sit in the Knesset well into the 1980s - he was the last surviving former member of the initial Knesset body when he died a few years ago.
MK Meir Vilner was stabbed by a right-wing Israeli extremist in 1967 over his opposition to Israeli's initiation of the Six-Day War.
Today, the Hadash Party is the entity that is Marxist in orientation holding seats in the Knesset. Hadash is composed of both Arabs and Jews. Dov Khenin, a Jewish lawyer and political scientist, is the sole Jewish MK currently serving in the Knesset under the Hadash ticket.
Immediately following the formation of Israel, a sizeable percentage of kibbutzes were ideologically Stalinst, but by the 1960s, most of these collective farms were no longer operated by Communist adherents. One kibbutz that was Stalinist during the 1960s was one in which U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders lived on - and which no doubt influenced his current political worldview.
There are heavy Marxist influences among Israeli Arabs today with cities such as Nazareth voting heavily for Communist candidates. The Marxist-themed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - listed by the U.S. State Department as a foreign terror organization - remains a prominent fixture among West Bank Palestinians with its late former leaders, Dr. George Habash and Abu Ali Mustafa, being glorified by all levels of Palestinian society.
".........there are no American troops in Syria, and nobody plans to send any."
This is incorrect.
President Obama has deployed 250 U.S. Special Forces troops to Syria and they are currently allied with Kurdish forces fighting ISIS.
Additionally, there are American "volunteers" that have been fighting with Kurdish units in Syria. Levi Shirley of Denver was recently killed in action in such a role.
Here are some links:
link to nytimes.com
link to nytimes.com
link to nbcnews.com
link to chicagotribune.com
Re: Detroit's "inner city".
The Metro Detroit area - and Michigan in general has taken in a relatively large number of Syrian refugees and there have been no adverse effects on the state economy as a private support network has helped these refugees.
The Muslim-majority Detroit enclave of Hamtramck has the official nickname "League of Nations" and has been a key location for incoming refugees from Syria. Hamtramck has distinguished itself from Detroit by a comparatively low crime rate, almost nonexistent blight, and a bustling business district alongside several mosques and community leaders have credited recent immigrants from Yemen, Bangladesh and other areas of Asia with these successes.
Some links:
link to telegraph.co.uk
link to nytimes.com
link to michiganradio.org
When the South Vietnamese government collapsed in 1975, the U.S. Air Force evacuated hundreds of Vietnamese children under Operation Babylift authorized by President Ford.
There is no reason the Obama administration should not incorporate a similar program for Syrian children - so incidents like the Alan Kurdi drowning can be avoided in the future. There is no danger in allowing entry to small children who are refugees.
"How many have Israel taken in?"
PM Netanyahu has stated "tiny Israel" has no room to accept any refugees from Syria - however 2015 was a record years for the last 10 years for Jewish immigration into Israel under the Law of Return - also known as "aliyah"; 30,000 Jews made aliyah in 2015 with the enthusiastic encouragement of Netanyahu.
Labor Party Leader of the Opposition Isaac Herzog expressed support to accepting Syrian refugees into Israel.
".......'legality' often amounts to contrived rationalizations to gain moral high ground."
Yes. Under the "political question doctrine", the U.S. Supreme Court will not generally review issues of whether the president is acting lawfully under a Congressionally-sanctioned AUMF - although a member of Congress could conceivably try by suing the president as Sen. Barry Goldwater once did in a separate context to oppose President Carter's renunciation of U.S. sovereignty over the Panama Canal.
To the extent that Khorasan and other al-Qaeda-affiliated terror organizations - including the al-Nusra Front - exist within Syria , the 2001 AUMF authorizing military activity against the perpetrators of 9/11 shall give some arguable basis for the commander-in-chief to commit troops and air power to the region.
An excellent point.
The same logic obtains for U.S. involvement in Afghanistan - did the Taliban ask for America to come in and fight al-Qaeda? No.
International law scholars have debated the question:
link to americansc.org.uk
Are they "reliable"?
"Life will get exciting if the Syrian SAM light up US aircraft. Even more exciting if they fire on them."
A U.S. drone aircraft has previously been shot down over Latakia:
link to bbc.com
The "Authorization of Military Force" resolutions passed by United States Congress have been a legal cover for actions against al-Qaeda and other foreign terror organizations:
link to whitehouse.gov
link to time.com
link to newrepublic.com
GOP Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette is positioning himself for a run for governor in 2018 with Snyder's lieutenant governor, Brian Calley, expected to be his chief opponent:
link to ourmidland.com
link to grandhaventribune.com
Decades ago, the Likud Party had a goal of eventually resettling Jewry in the Occupied Territories until a total of 750,000 in Jewish population resided in those areas.
The rationale behind this number is that this constituted a perceived "critical mass" of Jewish settlers which would give legitimacy to annexation of those areas into the State of Israel.
Currently, there are about 567,000 Jewish settlers in the Occupied Territories - the Likud historical goal is nearing reality.
The positive news is that Israeli leaders are beginning to see an advantage to implementation of the Arab Peace Initiative:
link to jta.org
Both PM Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman have in recent months expressed degrees of support for the Arab Peace Initiative endorsed by the Arab League - which former PM Ariel Sharon decried as a "non-starter" when initially announced in 2002:
link to timesofisrael.com
PM Netanyahu faces intense international pressure from BDS and declining U.S. and European Union support as well as domestically from right-wing extremist elements fueled by Palestinian violence to seek a solution to the political impasse between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority.
This current visit by Eshki to engage in discussions with Gold is a very positive sign that could lead to a possible breakthrough on the Palestinian question - although it may not lead to anything, either.
Naming Schultz as an "honorary chair" will only inflame Sanders supporters at a time when Clinton badly needs them to win in November. An unbelievably bad move.
Almost as bad as Melania Trump plagiarizing Michelle Obama's speech word-for-word. If you are going to plagiarize a speech, at least let it be a fellow Republican - like possibly Laura Bush. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
No wonder the Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson is expected to receive a tenfold increase in votes this presidential cycle over the party's nominee in 2012 - it's hard to believe how bad the major parties have damaged their standing among the electorate this year.
"......the perpetrators of violence against Palestinian civilians and their property are rarely punished...."
Then-U.S. State Department official Robert Danin once wrote that official Likud Party policy conflicts with the implementation of a two-state solution envisioned by the Oslo Accords. That party policy calls for eventual annexation of the West Bank into Israel.
Violence against West Bank Arabs is tacitly promoted by the Likud-led government and the a large segment of the Israeli public. For instance:
(A) public donations for the legal defense fund of IDF Sgt. Elor Azarya - accused of killing an Arab in Hebron - now exceed $120,000.00;
(B) military prosecutors were reversed by IDF brass in their attempt to see Sgt. Azarya initially charged with murder;
(C) PM Netanyahu last year eulogized extremist Rabbi Moshe Levenger - once convicted of killing an Arab shopkeeper in Hebron - at his funeral as a "great example".
Violence against Arabs in the West Bank only promotes this Likud Party agenda.
Several points:
(A) according to a Twitter report retweeted by Joshua Landis on his Syria Comment blog, the boy had an ID card claiming (falsely) that he was 19 - even though he was only 14 years of age and his identity was Abdullah Tayseer, a Palestinian;
(B) that same ID identifies him as a member of Air Force Intelligence - although his true affiliation was the al-Quds Brigade;
(C) the rebel that carried out the execution recently had his own brother killed by the opposing side, according to the Landis blog;
(D) a U.S. State Department spokesman said the U.S. considers the incident attributable to the specific rebel brigade and may cut off support to that unit - thus not imputing the execution to the Syrian rebel movement in general.
The federal government is subsidizing the security for the GOP convention to the tune of $50 million - including bulletproof vests, police overtime, box lunches etc.
It is important that the Republicans hold their convention in a "swing state" as they did with Michigan successfully in 1980 when the convention brought large amounts of revenue from out-of-state visitors coming to the convention as delegates. Michigan voted GOP that presidential cycle and Reagan was elected.
Re: "Actual democracy"
The Israeli government is controlled by its national security structure.
The story that has been splashed all over the media are the "Yitzhaki Files" - a dossier compiled against all 120 members of the Israeli Knesset - initiated without investigations and uncovering criminal evidence against dozens of members and also against at least eight cabinet ministers:
link to timesofisrael.com
link to knesset.gov.il
link to knesset.gov.il
This gives police leverage over the Knesset.
Fethullah Gulen's name surfaced in connection with a story about former CIA official Graham Fuller, who helped Gulen obtain political asylum in America after he had been indicted in Turkey.
Fuller had publicly disavowed a CIA link to a relative of the Boston bombers. FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds had related mismanagement as described in the article.
Worthy of note is a long history of speculation of the full extent of Fethullah Gulen's ties to the Central Intelligence Agency:
link to dailysabah.com
link to boilingfrogspost.com
link to kurdishaspect.com
Surprisingly, the Kurds have a history of a close relationship with Israel and its government:
link to theguardian.com
link to meforum.org
An estimated 100,000 Kurdish Jews reside in Jerusalem.
Mandatory drug sentencing laws passed in 1978 in Michigan caused state prison overcrowding.
Those charged with mere possession of a certain amount of narcotics faced a mandatory sentence of life in prison with no parole.
Eventually, however, due to the lobbying efforts of groups such as Families Against Mandatory Minimums, those laws were ameliorated to allow for parole after the serving of 20 years imprisonment.
Criminalizing those drivers who do not have auto insurance resulted in overcrowding in county jails since about 20% of all Michigan drivers and about 60% of all Detroit motorists do not carry car insurance. It is not uncommon to see vehicles on Detroit streets being operated with no license plates. Auto insurance for Detroit residents can cost up to $4,000 per annum, whereas the average home in Detroit sells for about $10,000 in most neighborhoods.
Making unpaid child support a felony in Michigan resulted in many parents being incarcerated, in addition to civil contempt of court charges to enforce payment
A large percentage of incarcerated citizens in Michigan are serving time for either drug possession, lack of auto insurance, or defaulted child support obligations.
Here are additional links to the day's testimony:
link to imemc.org
link to israelnationalnews.com
The prosecution wanted to indict for murder but were overruled by military brass - as a result the maximum sentence Azarya faces is 20 years, but the reality is a conviction will result in only a fraction of that maximum term allowed by law.
The disturbing testimony of the ambulance driver and supporting video suggests that the knife was kicked into the immediate vicinity of Al-Sharif's corpse - clearly to help the sergeant manufacture a fraudulent self-defense argument based on the knife posing a putative danger to Azarya prior to the shooting death. That ambulance driver should have been charged with obstruction of justice.
Ironically, a judicial exoneration of Azarya here would give the Palestinian Authority more evidence to justify imposition of International Criminal Court jurisdiction against Israeli officials on the grounds that there is an insufficient judicial mechanism within Israel to punish war crimes and crimes against humanity.
"The differences are quite vast."
Shi'ites comprise 15%-20% of the population of Saudi Arabia, however the number of Twelver Shi'ite adherents in Syria are only about 1% of Syria's 22 million people (I am unaware of any appreciable number of Alawite Shi'ites that are Saudi citizens). The two Shi'ites on the Saudi Shura Council do not represent a fair apportionment according to the religious Sunni/Shia demographics.
Additionally, earlier this year the Saudis executed prominent Shi'ite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, which exacerbated relations with Iran as well as with Saudi Arabia's minority Shia community.
The Saudi Arabian government may be more tolerant than ISIS with respect to Shi'ites - but significant oppression nevertheless exists in KSA.
The Israeli government recently celebrated officially the 85th anniversary of the Irgun (Etzel) terror gang that was implicated in the murder of hundreds of innocent Palestinian Arabs at Deir Yassin as well as other atrocities.
MK Tzipi Livni noted in a speech that her parents were imprisoned for their roles in that terror gang:
"In many ways, my identity was defined by the fact my parents were Etzel members...the system of values which directed them has become the personal education of each and every one of us - the children of the fighting family."
Here's the link on statements by Livni as well as PM Netanyahu honoring the "bold actions" of the Irgun:
link to knesset.gov.il
The human rights organization B'tselem reported as of May 2015 there were an estimated 547,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem:
link to btselem.org
With recent increases in settlement activity there is likely about 20,000 additional settlers since the B'tselem report was issued - giving the total settler population currently around 567,000. This leads me to believe that the cited 766,000 figure may be a typographical error.
This is already occurring.
The Libertarian Party presidential nominee, Gary Johnson, a former state governor, has been polling at between 5% and 12% - in prior U.S. presidential elections the Libertarian nominee has been lucky to come anywhere near !5 of the nationwide vote. Political experts have opined that disgust with the GOP have been a factor in these unusually high polling numbers and, further, the perception that Johnson is a credible candidate.
The U.S. Green Party has long had a commitment to including on its national platform to "serious reconsideration of the establishment of a single state from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River" for both Arabs and Jews.
The U.S. Green Party has been registering at between 2% to 5% in presidential polling this cycle.
These two minor parties are expected to make unprecedented gains in votes received in the 2016 presidential election this November over previous elections.
Jewish MK Zehava Gal-on, formerly of the Soviet Union, spoke out in opposition to this "anti-terror" legislation:
"It is delusional to think that we can continue to rule over another nation after so many years and everything will continue to be calm."
An Arab MK speaking on the Knesset floor compared the legislation to the panic of the French in Algeria or U.S. in Vietnam.
Here's the link:
link to knesset.gov.il
There are indications from Mateen's ex-wife that he was "bipolar".
In fact, mental illness has been implicated in a number of mass killings in the U.S.:
(A) Andrew Kehoe, a school board treasurer in Bath Township, Michigan, had a history of severe traumatic brain injury when he killed 38 schoolchildren in 1927 before killing his wife and himself;
(B) U.S. Marine Corps veteran Charles Whitman had a brain tumor the size of a walnut when he shot numerous persons at the University of Texas from a tower in 1966;
(C) James Huberty shot dozens in a McDonald's in San Ysidro, California in 1984 shortly after unsuccessfully trying to obtain mental health treatment and reporting hallucinations;
(D) Jared Loughner had clear signs of mental illness prior to going on his shooting spree in Arizona and killing a U.S. House member.
As the FBI investigation unfolds, it may become clearer whether or not a psychological disorder played a role in this tragedy.
"Defense Minister Eli Ben-Dahan rebuked Huldai....."
Actually, Avigdor Lieberman serves as defense minister and Ben-Dahan is deputy defense minister of Israel.
The father of a victim blamed the Israeli government for the shootings and the father of an assailant (arrested by Israeli police) denounced the deadly attacks:
link to upi.com
Several points:
(A) I found it surprising that the assailants were arrested rather than shot dead - and then realized that they had been disguised as religious Jews - and therefore police likely were hesitant to use deadly force based upon this mistaken assumption;
(B) The Israeli government suspended the work permits of 204 of the arrestees' relatives so as to bar them from working in Israel and ordered the restriction of all Arabs from moving to and from Israel while observing Ramadan - this amounts to collective punishment proscribed under the Geneva Conventions;
(C) the attack was in cosmopolitan and relatively liberal Tel Aviv whereas recent knifings and car rammings seemed to more heavily target Jerusalem and areas in the Occupied Territories where tensions between Arabs and Jews have been more pronounced.
Graduate of Yale Law School, Legal Aid attorney.......
President Harry Truman had basically a high school education and his secretary of state, James Byrnes, had an 8th grade education and each were considered to be near great in their respective offices.
Several other points on Moshe Yaalon:
(A) he allowed, as defense minister, the overruling of IDF prosecutors by military brass in their desire to seek a murder indictment against Sgt. Elor Azarya - thus guaranteeing that any prison sentence Azarya may receive upon conviction will be relatively short and also giving Azarya's defense attorneys considerable leverage to negotiate a potential plea bargain to a lesser charge;
(B) Yaalon refused to permit an investigation into the use of the "Hannibal Directive" in Gaza in 2014 that had led to over 100 innocent Gazans being killed after a young IDF officer (related to Yaalon) had apparently been captured by Hamas fighters.
Yaalon's stance on "morality" is public relations bluster designed to appease the international community that Israel is a paragon of virtue and democracy. Avigdor Lieberman, on the other hand, has no compunctions about alienating that international community.
Overall, an excellent analysis.
Israel has attempted to make Gaza uninhabitable by destroying civilian infrastructure and food supply sources - including the bombing of a biscuit factory - Gaza's largest private employer at the time - in 2014 during Operation Defensive Edge and killing 31,000 chickens by bulldozing a farm during Operation Cast Lead.
Paul Ryan's "disavowal" referenced above rings even more hollow when one hears his latest public statement indicating that he will vote for Trump in the general election.
"Can Khe Sanh hold?"
An excellent point.
General Giap of the North Vietnamese Army attempted to re-create Dienbienphu by attempting to overrun the USMC fire support base situated near the northwest corner of South Vietnam near the Laotian border. He failed and lost some 20,000 fighters chiefly due to heavy Arc Light B-52 strikes. Giap - who died recently at age 102 - felt he was going to be fired due to this debacle, despite his prior 1954 victory over the Frence at Dienbienphu.
Khe Sanh and the 1968 Tet Offensive by the NVA/VC however made the U.S. populace agonizingly aware of the war in Indochina and indirectly caused LBJ to withdraw his name from consideration for re-election that year.
Richard Nixon won election to the presidency on a platform of withdrawal of U.S. forces and "Vietnamization" - handing over the national defense of South Vietnam from largely U.S. control to that of ARVN.
ARVN collapsed in May of 1975 and the expected Soviet militarization of South Vietnam occurred with the Red Army leasing Cam Ranh Bay's base formerly housing American servicemen at a cost to the Kremlin of $200,000,000 per annum; today Cam Ranh Bay's installation is vacant after Russia could no longer afford the rent and the U.S. did not want it - or need it.
Vietnam is currently an ally of America with 20 billion per year in bilateral trade and the U.S. supplying the Communist government in Hanoi with arms to defend against possible problems with Red China over the South China Sea.
It took 1.3 million Vietnamese and U.S. servicemen's lives being sacrificed, but peace had finally been achieved in the region.
Some links on how the Israeli Lobby "rolled out the red carpet" for paroled spy Jonathan Pollard to thwart the deleterious efforts of the Deep State:
link to theamericanconservative.com
link to forward.com
link to forward.com
link to forward.com
".......[t]he Deep State does as it pleases...."
Not necessarily - not where the Israel Lobby is concerned, as they have rolled out the red carpet for paroled Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, as he resides with his wife in a lavish Manhattan apartment and has met with top Jewish-American leaders, while U.S. Representatives Jerold Nadler and Elliott Engel lobby the Obama administration to ease parole restrictions:
link to theamericanconservative.com
link to newsweek.com
link to forward.com
link to forward.com
link to forward.com
Lieberman's background for an Israeli politician is unusual in that he was born and raised in a Soviet-bloc country - Moldavia - speaks fluent Romanian, and identifies with Russian history and literature as his authority.
Moldavia during WWII had strong Nazi influences.
Lieberman's courtroom appearance during the homicide case of Sgt. Elor Azarya a few days prior to the announcement of his appointment as defense minister was cited by former Knesset member Uri Avnery as proof of parallels to 1930s Nazi Germany.
".......[n]o dominoes fell after we pulled out, except our Pol Pot forces put down by Vaetnam (sic)...."
This is absurd. The U.S. backed anti-communist Cambodian Gen. Lon Nol against the Khmer Rouge forces of Pol Pot until the collapse of the Cambodian government in April of 1975. The Khmer Rouge was allied with Red China - not the U.S.
Re the "infamous" YPG patches:
One of the most absurd aspects of this controversy is that the YPG patches that U.S. Army Ranger units have been photographed sporting contain the red star symbol associated with Marxism.
Another absurd aspect is that some American soldiers were seen with the green YPJ patch associated with the female Kurdish units.
Some links to what has to be described as one of the most embarrassing episodes in the history of these elite commando soldiers who have traditionally been associated with their courageous historical battlefield fight against communism:
link to rudaw.net
link to sputniknews.com
link to trtworld.com
Col. Steve Warren of the U.S. Army just issued a statement calling the wearing of the YPG patch by its personnel both unauthorized and inappropriate, and also conveying that statement to Turkish officials who have complained.
Warren indicated corrective action has been taken.
It should be noted that those who praise the IDF brass and former Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon for the manslaughter prosecution of Azarya ignore the fact that military prosecutors were overruled by superiors in their decision initially - and correctly - to seek a murder indictment against the sergeant.
What was not covered by the American press was that former Yisrael Beiteinu (the political party led by Avigdor Lieberman) Member of Knesset sponsored a rally in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv last month attended by thousands to support Elor Azarya.
PM Netanyahu issued a statement before the rally calling for leniency for the soldier.
Some of the "highlights" of that gathering:
(A) attendees chanted "Death to Arabs";
(B) a flag was unfurled with the slogan "We are all with Kahane" underneath a drawing of the late extremist;
(C) a journalist covering the event was beaten;
(D) police arrested counter-demonstraors from the human rights group B'Tselem;
(E) a young woman created a stir - captured by photographers - by raising a placard with the words "Kill them all".
Pictures paint a thousand words:
link to timesofisrael.com
link to electronicintifada.net
link to loonwatch.com
What has not been emphasized in the media the other half of the fallout of the Yaalon resignation - that Yaalon will likely be replaced in the Knesset by U.S.-born Rabbi Yehuda Glick, the right-wing extremist who seeks to rebuild the Third Temple.
Glick, a Likud Party member, survived an assassination attempt by a Palestinian earlier due to his promotion of the rebuilding of the Third Temple.
If he is eventually seated, he will first be forced to renounce his U.S. citizenship and shall become only the fifth American-born individual to sit in the Knesset. Rabbi Meir Kahane also renounced his U.S. citizenship and sat in the Knesset.
"......some people in a Berlin bunker in 1945."
Uri Avnery, a 92-year old former Irgun member who served parts of three decades as an elected member of the Knesset, published an article yesterday lauding General Yair Golan for likening the current right-wing political events in Israel to 1930s Germany and concluding with the question whether he, Avnery, will be condemned to witness the same process twice in his life.
".......it may turn out to be a silver lining......"
Palestinians have actually praised Lieberman for his openness about his intent and motives about Arabs in the West Bank in Gaza. Some of his lurid comments:
(1) that he be willing would personally purchase bus transportation to take Palestinian prisoners and forcibly drown them in the Dead Sea;
(2) discussed beheading Palestinians as a form of punishment;
"There is no precedent in Israeli history to a defence minister in the image and behaviour of Lieberman......."
Lieberman's experience as a military leader was as a corporal who had been conscripted into the Israel Defense Forces. He has previously made public statements on national security matters that have made him the butt of jokes (e.g. "Nuke Gaza").
Lieberman does not even live in Israel, but in a West Bank settlement.
A court had once found him responsible for assaulting a 12-year old child. There have been ongoing criminal corruption probes of his political party which continue to the present.
The position of defense minister in the Israeli cabinet is often a stepping stone to the prime minister post - that is the prospect that many find disturbing as it appears PM Netanyahu believes that Lieberman would be an acceptable successor to himself once he, Netanyahu, leaves office.
The former Soviet Union supported the formation of Israel on the basis that it was believed it would be Marxist in orientation. PM David Ben-Gurion's Mapai Party had the hammer and sickle as its symbol and its kibbutzes were similar in structure to the Soviet Union's collective farms.
In later years, the Warsaw Pact countries played both sides of the fence, with Romania maintaining a tight relationship with the PLO and other Palestinian terror elements while at the same time maintaining friendly relations with Israel - this relationship was documented in the book Red Horizons authored by Lt. General Ion Pacepa, former chief of military intelligence during the Ceausescu dictatorship.
In the late 1980s, President Shimon Peres sought and received Soviet assistance in the war crimes prosecution of John Demjanjuk by emphasizing the defendant was a traitor to Marxism. In 1982, however, the Soviet Embassy in Beirut was shelled and invaded by IDF tanks during Operation Galilee and in 1988 the Soviet Union was one of the first countries to recognize the independent State of Palestine declared by the PLO.
Dr. Gershon Baskin - originally a New York resident and anti-Vietnam War activist - has been the single person that has most successfully advanced the peace process with the Palestinians.
In 1988 he initiated a dialogue between retired Israeli intelligence officials, on one hand, and PLO representatives in London which would eventually form the framework of the 1993 Oslo Accords - although Rabin, Peres and Arafat were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, it was Baskin, as a private citizen, who commenced the dialogue and acted as an outside advisor until the agreement was reached.
Dr. Baskin was later recruited by Netanyahu to obtain the release of Cpl. Gilad Shalit after years of unsuccessful negotiations by the Israeli Foreign Ministry. In four months that included face-to-face negotiations with Hamas leaders, Baskin negotiated an agreement that resulted in Shalit's release.
Baskin's name is relatively unknown outside Israel, but it has been he - not Bill Clinton - who can be credited with some degree of success in achieving progress toward peace between Jews and Palestinians.
One can actually go back to 1998 when elements within the Likud Party pressured Netanyahu to stop Israel's performance under the Wye River Memorandum, which had been the instrument to implement the Oslo II agreement.
The Wye River Memorandum had enjoyed broad-based support within the Israeli populace and should have been a stepping stone toward a final status accord between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
Michael Moore has not criticized those in Obama administration even though EPA regional administrator Dr. Susan Edman was forced to resign and the FEMA national director denied requests from Governor Snyder for financial assistance.
Recent probes into the Flint crisis have substantiated culpable conduct as well as deficient leadership at the federal, state, and local levels.
Governor Snyder has recently paid an $800,000 retainer to a prestigious Michigan law firm using taxpayer monies to defend him against possible civil liability or criminal charges arising from the Flint situation.
At the most recent state GOP convention in Lansing in April of this year, Snyder did not mention the Flint crisis - although Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette again promised to "let the chips fall where they may" in his investigation of the crisis.
It appears from the most recent reports that Badreddine was not specifically targeted but rather routine battle shelling of Damascus International Airport caused his death.
Thousands have reportedly attended his funeral.
Here's a link to his background:
link to washingtonpost.com
It was the Washington Post:
link to timesofisrael.com
Pres. Bush reportedly personally pre-approved the operation.
One media source has reported that the chief judge of the military tribunal recommended the prosecution and defense enter plea bargain negotiations and warned the prosecution of the "weakness" in their case.
The tribunal denied a defense request to release Sgt. Azarya for upcoming Independence Day.
Detroit has had Muslim mayors in its suburbs since the 1960s:
(1 ) Jamiel (Jim) Jabara was elected mayor of Plymouth in 1968;
(2) in 2001, the City of Wayne elected Abdul (Al) Haidous as mayor - he now sits on the Wayne County Board of Commissioners;
(3) in 2017, the City of Hamtramck will hold a mayoral election and it is widely expected that a Muslim candidate will be elected to lead its Muslim-majority City Council.
Several points:
(1) McCain and Obama were in a virtual dead heat in presidential polling until the time of the stock market meltdown in August of 2008 - Obama at that point ran up an 8-point lead in the polling;
(2) Reagan was so unpopular at the end of 1982 - largely due to the ongoing economic recession - that there were those in the Republican National Committee that privately considered opposing his re-nomination in 1984;
(3) Reagan immediately after the Democratic National Convention in 1984 polled about 10% behind Walter Mondale and was suffering from a "gender gap" effect that was exacerbated by the historic naming of Geraldine Ferraro as Mondale's VP running mate;
(4) VP George H.W. Bush trailed Michael Dukakis in double-digits throughout much of 1988 - until Dukakis was ridiculed over the Willie Horton prison furlough fiasco and his membership in the ACLU by GOP campaign genius Lee Atwater;
(4) Pres. George H.W. Bush was considered largely unbeatable by many observers in early 1992 after the successful conclusion of the Persian Gulf War and his aggressive ongoing war on the Colombian drug cartels.
Trump cannot be ruled out as a viable nominee by a long shot.
The nebulous "State Secrets Doctrine" - created by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 1953 decision - applies to CIA torture methods and prohibits judicial review.
Torture not only violates the U.S. Constitution - but is of questionable effectiveness.
Here are some links:
link to commondreams.org
link to lfb.org
"Hamas has easily survived the decapitation of many of its leaders..........."
Israel's own anti-terrorism experts had opined that the 2005 targeted killings of political section leaders Sheikh Yassine and Dr. Rantissi would actually strengthen Hamas:
(1) it would lend more unrestrained power to the more militant armed al-Qassam wing of Hamas;
(2) it would cause greater cohesion with other radical militant groups within Gaza such as Islamic Jihad.
Both these events had occurred as predicted.
Another issue that should be addressed is the potential of the U.S. Armed Forces confronting Syrian Arab Army - or worse - Russian soldiers which could provoke a major international incident.
The precedent of Turkey shooting down a Russian jet already exists and the proliferation of U.S. Special Forces troops in combat situations increases the likelihood of confrontation - especially if the U.S does not coordinate its troop movements with the Syrian government and the Kremlin.
During the Operation Cast Lead incursion into Gaza, an Arab woman waving a white flag was shot in the temple and died, but the responsible IDF soldier was charged with manslaughter and later pled to negligent homicide and received a lenient sentence during his court martial - whereas a soldier in a separate incident who stole and used a Gazan's credit card received a 7-month jail term, largely because an Israeli financial institution was concurrently victimized by the unauthorized use.
The above-referenced Gaza homicide incident was covered in the 462-page Goldstone Commission report as characterized as credible proof a war crime and crime against humanity.
The crime of voluntary manslaughter is defined at law as a homicide committed during the heat of passion before there has been time to allow the "blood to cool" by an individual where a reasonable person would have motivated to kill under the same circumstances.
The case involving IDF soldier Elor Azraya does not involve such facts:
(1) Cpl. Azraya appeared completely calm on all videotape versions published;
(2) a soldier - especially a medical corpsman such as Cpl. Azraya - who kills an arrestee cannot be held "reasonable" under any circumstances.
The actions of Cpl. Azraya - whose identity has been censored by the Israeli government but leaked out via blogs - would have likely in any similar situation in the U.S. been charged with "open murder" leaving discretion to a judge or jury to decide whether to convict of either murder or manslaughter.
There are many Jewish-American groups that have been openly critical of the conduct of the Jewish National Fund in evicting Palestinian families from their East Jerusalem homes:
link to jta.org
link to michigandaily.com
V.P. Joseph Biden addressed the bus bombing briefly in a speech to J-Street - but rebuffed Netanyahu by comparing himself (Biden) to 30-year-old leftist Labor Party member of the Knesset and Netanyahu critic Stav Shaffir, whom he asked to stand for applause. Biden indicated he was first elected to the U.S. Senate at age 29 and held similar progressive views Ms. Shaffir.
Biden drew applause as he indicated he hoped the Israeli government would eventually adopt Ms. Staffir's views as its official policy.
Ms. Staffir along with Daphni Leef had been leaders of the J-14 social reform movement in Israel.
'......[w]ill it be said that at least, gas and ovens were not in use?"
No, because poison gas has been deployed by Israel against civilians in Gaza:
link to worldbulletin.net
link to vtjp.org
It is very difficult - although not impossible - to obtain a pre-judgment sequestration of a defendant's assets in a United States District Court.
However, I am sure even the remote possibility of such a court order is likely to send the Saudis scrambling to protect their interests.
The Saudis have about $10 trillion total investment inside the United States.
To give one the idea of the impact a financial impact could have on the U.S., the same $10 trillion figure represented the decline in value of publicly traded corporate securities in the U.S. following the 2008 financial meltdown
The U.S. Treasury securities identified in the article can be easily liquidated and transferred out of America.
The Saudis also own large blocks of shares in blue chip stocks in the U.S. that could be fairly easily liquidated.
Saudi Arabia could also retaliate by initiating an oil embargo on the U.S. which has supplied about 28% of petroleum consumed in the U.S. in recent years. Gasoline prices tripled virtually overnight when an oil embargo was placed against the U.S. following U.S. support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War.
Progressive liberal activism is zealously advocated in Ann Arbor, Michigan where the Green Party in voting precincts often outpolls Republicans.
Nevertheless, certain religious denominations - such as Quakers - have been at the forefront there of liberal causes such as Palestinian self-determination. Black Baptist ministers there have been vocal on progressive civil rights issues such as curtailment of police brutality.
Liberal Democrats in the U.S.:
-tried to pass the Equal Rights Amendment but lost;
-tried to oppose the federal death penalty law eventually signed by G.H.W. Bush but lost;
-tried to keep Medicaid-funded abortions but lost;
-tried to decriminalize marijuana but lost;
-tried to oppose U.S. involvement in Afghanistan but lost;
-tried to get the Iranian hostages released but failed;
-entered the U..S. into WWI;
-entered the U.S. in the Vietnam War;
-entered the US in the war in Kosovo;
-inaugurated Operation Mongoose to destabilize a popular socialist regime in Cuba;
-failed to close Guantanamo detention facilities;
-failed to pass effective gun control legislation.
Liberal Democrats in the U.S. have been ineffective at attempts to pass much progressive legislation and further have not hesitated to voluntarily enter military conflict or covert action situations to promote a foreign policy agenda.
A recent lawsuit against the Muslim-majority City of Hamtramck alleges that the Arab-American community's businesses were targeted for investigation by law enforcement in a offensively discriminatory manner and with use of racial slurs:
link to wxyz.com
".........but discussions were frozen in late March when Labor leader Isaac Herzog was linked to a preliminary investigation into party financing."
Leader of the Opposition Herzog has claimed that the corruption investigation in question had its origin in Likud Party activists trying to discredit him:
link to jewishnews.co.uk
link to thejc.com
The right-wing Jewish Homeland Party of Avigdor Lieberman is NOT part of the Netanyahu coalition and that is the chief reason that there is only a 61-seat coalition majority in the current Knesset. Lieberman's party leaders have also been under a corruption investigation that was made public shortly before the last Knesset election; this investigation had been labeled political by Jewish Homeland Party leaders and was credit with Likud being the beneficiary of crossover voting at the expense of Lieberman's party in the last Knesset election.
Mr. Sanders is substantially accurate the 10,000 estimate of "casualty" figures during the 2014 Operation Defensive Shield incursion into Gaza.
The commonly accepted definition of "casualty" incudes wounded as well as fatalities. According to the Gaza Health Ministry figures published by Ma'an News Agency in January of 2015, the number of Gazan wounded was 10,626 during that incursion - in addition to the approximately 2,000 killed as a result of hostile action.
Former Kach Party leader and self-described "right-hand man" to slain Jewish extremist MK Meir Kahane, Baruch Marzel, has been reported to have appeared on a video at the killing site shaking hands with the smiling IDF shooter - Elor Azraya
Good luck!
The Israel Supreme Court in 2015 upheld the dismissal of a wrongful death action in the Rachel Corrie case using the doctrine that the IDF is immune from civil liability for deaths occurring in a combat zone:
link to theguardian.com
However, the family of Briton Thomas Hurndall received a $1.5 million-dollar settlement where the British government applied diplomatic pressure upon the Israeli government where an IDF sniper shot an International Solidarity Movement volunteer to death in the Gaza Strip - this was the same organization that Corrie had belonged to.