BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

(repost from 2008) by Alan M. Dershowitz As Israel celebrates its [61st] birthday, the world should recognize the enormous gifts the Jewish state has given the world. Israel has exported more lifesaving medical technology to the far-flung corners of the earth than any nation of comparable size. It has done more to protect the environment, to promote literature, music, the arts and sciences, to spread agricultural advances and to fight terrorism within the rule of law. Israel has created a legal system that is the envy of the world, with a Supreme Court that is open to all with few, if any, restrictions on its jurisdiction. As America's most liberal Supreme Court Justice William Brennan observed when he visited Israel in 1988: "It may well be Israel, not the United States, that provides the best hope for building a jurisprudence that can protect civil liberties against the demands of national security. For it is Israel that has been facing real and serious threats to its securi...

Peter Berkowitz 's essay in the latest issue of the Weekly Standard provides good insight into what I think is the strategic irresponsibility of those in Israel's leadership who think that they can hold steady on a course that justifies failure on an a Palestine-Israel deal using Hamas and Iran as excuses. As things look today, the Likud Party and its chief, Benjamin Netanyahu , look like they are about to be given a stronger hand in the coming elections. And Netanyahu is pro-settlement, and in my view the continued expansion of settlements is the most toxic activity that is undermining the negotiations process and actually, in the long term, will assure a deterioration in America's support for Israel. Berkowitz points out : The major difference between the candidates went unaddressed at Herzliya. It concerns the future of Israeli settlements, the towns and cities built and populated by Israel in the territories it gained control over in 1967 in the Six Day War. While he...

by Amil Imani I am bombarded by hate and threats by the Allah-fearing fanatics, simply because I speak the truth about Islam. If telling the truth about Islam is Islam bashing, then mea culpa . Question: Does Islam get a pass because it is a religion? Who says Islam is a religion? Millions do? What is the evidence? The words of masses of brainwashed carriers of the Islamic virus, transmitted to them by their parents, are worthless as evidence. What counts is the irrefutable fact that this creed, claimed to be the one and only religion of Allah, has been and continues to be a source of great suffering for non-Muslims as well as the ignorant masses of Muslims themselves. I will share with you just a few of thousands of horrific things that Muslims do to people of other religions or those without any religion at all. In model Islamic states such as Saudi Arabia and Iran,[1] for instance, women don't dare complain about their Allah-decreed chattel status. If they protest in the least, ...

Menorah Lit at Polish Parliament This was a long time coming. As a great-granddaughter of Polish Immigrants who ran from religious persecution - this is wonderful event. A light of hope in some dim times for the Jewish people. Może Bóg Przynoszą Pokój do *Jews* Polski The Jewish community in Poland made history last week when Vice President Jaroslaw Kalinowski hosted a Chanukah menorah lighting in the Sejm, the Polish parliament. Poland has had a mixed history in its relationship with the Jews who settled there since the Dark Ages. Kalinowski lit the shamash candle last Monday night accompanied by Rabbi Shalom Stambler, co-director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Poland who organized the event, Chabad.org reported via Catholic World News Friday. "It is highly symbolic for Jews and non-Jews alike that the Chanukah candles could be illuminated from the very halls from which Polish laws are made," said Stambler. Jewish leaders noted that of late Poland has had a...

Good Riddance To Them All by Joseph L. Galloway There was little for the unindicted co-conspirators of the Bush administration to give thanks for this week as the clock winds down on the 14 months they have left in power. With former White House press secretary Scott McClellan spilling the beans on who told him to lie to the American people and cover up the White House’s responsibility for the criminal act of revealing the identity of a covert CIA officer, it clearly was time for some folks to begin drafting their requests for presidential pardons. McClellan, in a forthcoming book that will tell some, if not all, reveals that his 2003 statements absolving top White House aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby of any involvement in leaking the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame were untrue - and that the orders to make those statements came from President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, White House chief of staff Andrew Card, Rove and Libby. McClellan’s revelation makes it ab...

FUNNY, BECAUSE IT'S ALMOST TRUE. When I was writing and doing comedy there was one truism. No - it wasn't self-deprecation or making fun of others. It was the TRUTH. The truth, when pointed out with all its warts or put up close, under the microscope - is the funniest material you can ever hope to have. Just ask Larry David. That said, Andy Borowitz's piece below is hysterical, because it's almost true: Bush Gives Musharraf Tips on Eliminating Democracy ‘ Benefit From My Experience,’ President Tells Pakistani In what he described as “an emergency mission to help a key ally in the war on terror,” President George W. Bush flew to Islamabad today to give General Pervez Musharraf tips on how to eliminate democracy. Mr. Bush said he scheduled the trip just hours after General Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Pakistan and suspended elections “because when it comes to eliminating democracy, I thought my friend Pervez could benefit from my experience.” Speaking to...

THE ASSAULT ON REASON I just got a copy of this and barely started. (I tend to have 2-3 books on the go at any one time minimum) This piece is pure Gore. He mentions the silence of Bush's Senate. Yes, of course they were silent - they were power hungry, money mad yes-men. The current administration surrounded itself with armies of rubber stampers and sycophants. These people work for us - and we still have no idea what the truth is. Bush will say one thing and do another; just whatever is best for him and his buddies at the time. Gore's on the money about Internet Providers squelching information. Its already happening as I posted HERE . People who run sites are also filtering, deleting, promoting, squelching and spinning their information too. (Which is why I believe its so important to read every side of the aisle's opinion and think criticially not emotionally about them.) Please read this one, even if you aren't a Gore fan. He makes some fantastic points a...

HOLD THE MEDIA ACCOUNTABLE - THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE I've mentioned acerbic radio mouth - Imus and also how I used to be in 'show biz' in the last two posts. So let me segway to something I am behind in terms of the media in the U.S. - The RESTORATION OF THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE! - Barbara The Fairness Doctrine How We Lost it, and Why We Need it Back by Steve Rendall A license permits broadcasting, but the licensee has no constitutional right to be the one who holds the license or to monopolize a...frequency to the exclusion of his fellow citizens. There is nothing in the First Amendment which prevents the Government from requiring a licensee to share his frequency with others.... It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount. — U.S. Suprem e Court, upholding the constitutionality of the Fairness Doctrine in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 1969. When the Sinclair Broadcast Group retreated from pre-election plans to force...