Betty McCollum, "Why I won’t be attending Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech in Congress": The Stupidest Member of Congress?

On January 9, 2009, Ugly (in character) Betty McCollum, in a speech before the House of Representatives, declared:

"Despite the fact too many Israeli citizens are under great stress from Hamas rockets, these weapons do not represent an existential threat to Israel. Rather than a serious military challenge, these rockets are like a drug gang that uses drive by shootings as a tactic to terrify a neighborhood. When is the solution to this type of terror for authorities to lay waste to the neighborhood?"

Thousands of Hamas rockets and missiles fired at Israeli towns and cities are no more than a "tactic" intended to terrify a neighborhood? I don't know another member of Congress who is so vile and immoral.

Well, it's six years later, and McCollum is now telling us in a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Why I won’t be attending Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech in Congress" that she will refuse to listen to Israel's prime minister on March 3. McCollum writes:

"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in the midst of a heated reelection campaign. Yet he is traveling 5,900 miles to give a speech before a joint meeting of Congress on March 3 — just two weeks before Israelis go to the polls. House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), working with Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer, a former Republican political operative who renounced his U.S. citizenship, extended the invitation in a clear effort to undermine the president while the United States and its five partners engage in tough negotiations with Iran to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons — a national security priority I strongly support."

"Tough negotiations with Iran to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons"? In fact, Obama has consistently given in to Khamenei in order to obtain an agreement described by Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes's as "probably the biggest thing President Obama will do in his second term on foreign policy." Rhodes went on to characterize such a deal as the equivalent of healthcare for the president.

However, as observed today by Charles Krauthammer in a must-read Washington Post opinion piece entitled "The fatal flaw in the Iran deal," Obama is in fact conceding to the Iranians the right to manufacture atomic weapons and ICBMs:

"News leaked Monday of the elements of a 'sunset clause.' President Obama had accepted the Iranian demand that any restrictions on its program be time-limited. After which, the mullahs can crank up their nuclear program at will and produce as much enriched uranium as they want.

. . . .

Meanwhile, Iran’s intercontinental ballistic missile program is subject to no restrictions at all. It’s not even part of these negotiations."

Apparently, Obama is gambling that Khamenei will not attempt a covert break out under his watch, which ends in two years. From 2017, it becomes someone else's mess. And then, just maybe, Khamenei, who is ill with cancer, might be replaced by someone more "moderate." But given that Iran stones to death women accused of adultery, hangs homosexuals, persecutes Baha'is, oppresses Kurds, abuses Sunni Muslims, and brutally quashes political opposition, this is a gamble that even a fool would not accept.

McCullom further states:

"[T]he speaker of the House has provided the Israeli prime minister with a global platform to both attack our president and deliver a campaign message to voters at home."

It just doesn't occur to McCullom that Netanyahu does not intend to "attack" Obama. Rather, at a time when Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei continues to call for Israel's annihilation, Netanyahu has no choice but to address Congress and protest Obama's willingness to offer Iran the opportunity to manufacture nuclear weapons on a silver platter. But then what should we expect from a congresswoman who believes that Grad missiles aimed at Israeli civilians are not a "serious military challenge"? Maybe she believes that ICBMs with nuclear warheards aimed at Israel are just another nuisance?

A "campaign message to voters at home"? I know many Israelis who detest Netanyahu and would never vote for him, but still want him speaking before Congress. After all, their lives and those of their children are very much at stake.

Gail Collins, "Michele, Here’s the Bell": Red Herring

A definition of "red herring" from Merriam-Webster:

2. [from the practice of drawing a red herring across a trail to confuse hunting dogs]: something that distracts attention from the real issue.

What the heck is wrong with Minnesota? In ancient times, I used to like Walter Mondale, and going back to the stone age, I also cared for Hubert Humphrey. But that was then. Today, Minnesota has brought us the likes of Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum (who once compared Hamas rockets fired at Israel with "drive by shootings," see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2009/11/open-letter-to-congresswoman-betty.html) and Michele Bachmann to Congress.

Michele Bachmann of Tea Party fame will not be running for reelection in 2014. Do I care? No.

But Gail Collins cares, and so does Charles Blow.

Today, Collins, in a New York Times op-ed entitled "Michele, Here’s the Bell" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/opinion/collins-michele-heres-the-bell.html?_r=0), and Charles Blow, in a New York Times op-ed entitled "Bachmann Bows Out" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/opinion/blow-bachmann-bows-out.html), both get their knickers into a knot over Bachmann.

Sorry, but grumpy old man that I've become, I just don't give a damn. Why? Simple: There's still the Benghazi scandal, something which still demands answers, and whereas Obama is busy playing "What I don't know can't hurt me," and Hillary is in hiding deep underground until it all blows over, it just doesn't want to go away.

Yes, I know that I should not also be reading nefarious right-wing journals, but as Peter Wehner writes in The Weekly Standard (http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/they-ll-always-love-obama_729022.html):

"Take the New York Times. On May 17, in a story about how President Obama is trying to move beyond his current problems, the Times declared, 'In the last few days, the administration appears to have stopped the bleeding. The release of internal e-mails on Benghazi largely confirmed the White House’s account.'

Except it did no such thing. The White House’s account was that neither it nor the State Department made any substantive changes to the talking points related to the Benghazi attacks. We have irrefutable evidence—actual documents—that they did. The White House’s account was that a YouTube video critical of Muhammad sparked a spontaneous assault on the American diplomatic outpost in Benghazi. Except this is a fabrication. The White House’s account was that the administration had no idea Islamic terrorists were responsible for the attack until many days later. Except we have emails that prove high-ranking State Department officials knew Ansar al Sharia was involved within 24 hours of the attacks. The White House has not come clean on any of these matters."

And Colonel David Hunt writes in Breitbart (http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/05/29/Blame-the-President-for-Benghazi):

"When the American mission in Benghazi, Libya was attacked on September 11th, 2012, only one person had the positional authority, legal mandate, and communications apparatus to give the order to defend our personnel on the ground: the President of the United States.

The President did not give that order, and four Americans died in Benghazi that day. All the rest of the nonsense to which we have been treated–from prepared talking points, congressional hearings, and finally to the outright lies–matter not when compared to the ignominious moments in which the President of the United States refused to do his job.

That same day, two other American embassies in the Middle East were also under attack in Sana, Yemen and Cairo, Egypt. As a result, our intelligence systems were on high alert. When the calls, satellite and drone feeds, faxes, and reports began bombarding every command center from Germany to the United States, our nation, already at war for eleven years, was again under siege. Staffs from Africa Command, European Command, the National Military Command Center, the CIA Operations Center, the State Department Operations Center, and the White House Situation Room were fully operational.

. . . .

The road to that indecision is littered with policy and leadership failures that culminated in an American mission and clandestine CIA base being attacked and the murder of our Ambassador and three dedicated Americans doing their jobs. However, the one person responsible for it all is the one man who could have, but refused to, even try to stop the carnage... the President of the United States.

All the President had to say within the first two hours while being briefed by the Secretary of Defense was, 'Send in a response force.' This command, followed by his signature on a paper called Cross Border Authority, would have ordered the Department of Defense to do everything and anything to save lives in Benghazi, Libya."

Interesting. Hunt is saying more or less what that nasty neocon, Maureen Dowd, also concluded in The New York Times (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/05/maureen-dowd-when-myths-collide-in.html).

Yup, I'm waiting to learn hear what Obama and Hillary discussed that evening at 10 p.m. when those men were being butchered (see: http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2013/05/28/Krauthammer-Says-the-Obama-Clinton-10-00-PM-Phone-Call-May-Be-The-Biggest-Scandal-Of-All). Will we ever know? Not if Obama and friends, who once were committed to transparency in government, can help it.

The IRS and AP/Rosen scandals? Also frightening, but let's start with answers regarding Benghazi, where brave Americans were needlessly sacrificed so that Obama could be reelected without us ever knowing about the resurgence of al-Qaeda.

Roger Cohen's "The Real Threat to America": Thanks, Roger, for Letting Us Know

In an online op-ed in today's New York Times entitled "The Real Threat to America" (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/26/opinion/26iht-edcohen.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss), Roger Cohen would have us know, "it remains a mystery that the enemy — if as powerful as portrayed — has not contrived a single terrorist act on U.S. soil since 9/11."

Roger seems to have a very short memory. Months after becoming a U.S. citizen, Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomber, was given $15,000 and five days of explosives training by the Taliban earlier this year in order to plant a car bomb not far from the The New York Times building in Manhattan. When sentenced by a federal court, Shahzad declared that Osama bin Laden "will be known as no less than Saladin of the 21st-century crusade". He further declared: "Brace yourselves, because the war with Muslims has just begun. Consider me the first droplet of the blood that will follow."

Roger has also forgotten the attempts by al-Qaeda less than a month ago to send printer cartridges containing PETN, a highly powerful odorless military grade explosive, on flights to the U.S.

These two recent incidents are among those known to the public.

Cohen goes on to write: "America is a nation of . . . risk-taking." Notwithstanding Cohen's sensitivities involving full-body scanners, I think there are few Americans willing to take the risk of boarding a flight on which a determined enemy has hidden PETN.

Full-body scan or leave my family in an explosion at 30,000 feet? Sorry, Roger, if I choose life with the accompanying indignity.

[Query: Are op-eds at The New York Times subject to fact checks? Cohen's contention that "the enemy . . . has not contrived a single terrorist act on U.S. soil since 9/11" left me stupefied. Perhaps he reached this conclusion after speaking with Congresswoman Betty McCollum, who not long ago went on record as saying that "al-Qaeda no longer poses a threat to the United States" (http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2010/10/jg-caesarea-award-for-stupidest-member.html).]

54 Members of Congress and J Street Seek to Mislead Obama

Last week, two members of Congress, Keith Ellison (who claims King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is a visionary leader, notwithstanding the fact that his monarchy whips and imprisons women who are gang raped) and Jim McDermott, delivered a letter to President Obama, which asks for Israel to ease the "unabated suffering" of Gazan civilians. The letter was signed by a total of 54 members of Congress, including George Miller and Betty McCollum ("rockets are like a drug gang that uses drive by shootings as a tactic to terrify a neighborhood" and the solution is not "to lay waste to the neighborhood"), and was supported, inter alia, by J Street.

Although the letter seeks to strike a tone of balance by observing that Israeli civilians have also suffered from rocket attacks (Does this remind you of Goldstone?), the letter amounts to little more than a coarse attempt to pressure only Israel, and in order to achieve its goals, the Ellison/McDermott letter plays fast and loose with the facts.

Let's have a look at those facts:

The letter refers to a Hamas "coup" and tries to depict Gaza's civilians as the victims of the "coup".

Was there a "Hamas coup" in Gaza? No. If you ask Hamas, they will tell you that there was an attempted Fatah coup. Beyond question, there was a civil war, or Wakseh as it is known among Palestinians, beginning in late 2006 between Fatah and Hamas. Also beyond doubt, Hamas came to power in Gaza as a result of the January 2006 Palestinian elections, whereby Gaza's "civilians" supported an organization whose charter states:

"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."

"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up."

"There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

"After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion', and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying."

"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him."

Bottom line, Gaza's "civilians", who elected Hamas, cannot be held blameless for Hamas' terrorist actions, preordained by its charter, as the authors and signatories of this letter would have President Obama believe.

As noted earlier, the letter also states:

"We also sympathize deeply with the people of southern Israel who have suffered from abhorrent rocket and mortar attacks."

Excuse me, but aren't these congresswomen and congressmen, in their haste to appear unbiased, forgetting something?:

- No mention in this letter of the hundreds of Israeli civilians who lost their lives to Hamas suicide bombers, when the Gaza crossings were open, which is again being requested by Ellison & Co.

- No mention of Gilad Schalit, an Israeli soldier who was abducted by Hamas into Gaza in June 2006 and has never since seen the light of day or been visited by Red Cross officials.

- No mention that notwithstanding the fact that there have been fewer rocket and mortar attacks on southern Israel since Operation Cast Lead, the firing of missiles out of Gaza continues, i.e. attempts to kill Israeli civilians persist.

Ellison & Co. claim:

"lifting these [Israeli] restrictions will give civilians in Gaza a tangible sense that diplomacy can be an effective tool for bettering their conditions."

Oh, really. I always thought that diplomacy involves negotiations, which require both sides to make concessions. Here, the pressure is only being placed on Israel. Moreover, are Ellison & Co. really so naive as to believe that by providing, for example, free entry into and out of Gaza, Gaza's civilians will value the effectiveness of diplomacy, or, agree with Hamas that there was no need for concessions? Ellison & Co. obviously have no clue as to the workings of the Middle East mentality.

But before I take this to too great a length, let's suppose that Washington was under periodic rocket and mortar fire from Gaza and hundreds of Washingtonians had lost their lives to suicide bombers. Would these same members of Congress ask to provide Gaza Civilians with "plentiful and varied food", "access to fuel and spare parts", "prompt passage for commercial goods", and "easy movement for people into and out of Gaza"?

You know the answer. Ellison & Co. do, too.

Open Letter to Congresswoman Betty McCollum, Who Prides Herself on Her "Common Sense"

Betty McCollum from Minnesota's Fourth District was one of 36 members of Congress, all but three Democrats, who recently voted against the House resolution condemning the Goldstone report. According to her website, "Congresswoman McCollum brings a common sense, Minnesota perspective to her work".

On January 9 of this year, when Operation Cast Lead was underway, McCollum, in a speech before the House of Representatives, stated:

"Despite the fact too many Israeli citizens are under great stress from Hamas rockets, these weapons do not represent an existential threat to Israel. Rather than a serious military challenge, these rockets are like a drug gang that uses drive by shootings as a tactic to terrify a neighborhood. When is the solution to this type of terror for authorities to lay waste to the neighborhood?"

http://minnesotaindependent.com/22670/mccollum-votes-present-on-house-israel-resolution

McCollum claimed in her speech that "after 13 days of warfare it is reported by officials in Gaza that more than 750 people are dead, of which 40 percent are women and children." The Israeli Defense Forces at the end of the operation stated that of 1,166 Gazans who died in the operation, 709 were Palestinian combatants, 295 were male non-combatants, 49 were women and 89 were children.

My open letter to McCollum, who is shown in her website snuggling with Obama after Obama was awarded his "richly deserved" Nobel Peace Prize, appears below:

Betty,

When voting against the House resolution condemning the Goldstone report, you declared: "American-made white phosphorus shells were used by Israel in civilian areas causing horrible burns to Palestinian children, yet this resolution refuses to seek the truth?"

You want the truth? I also want the truth? Where were you when more than 10,000 mortar shells, rockets and missiles were fired from "civilian areas" in Gaza at civilians in southern Israel from 2001-2009? Did you ever visit the Israeli children who lost limbs from these attacks? Would you and your family be willing to live almost a decade under such fire? Think about it: Israeli children wet their beds rather than venture out of their safe rooms, because they had only 30 seconds from the sound of an alarm to return to safety.

Did you bother to read the entirety of the Goldstone Report? You obviously did not. Apparently it doesn't bother you that the members of this commission had already declared their enmity to Israel before the "investigation" had begun.

Does it bother you that the allegations of Hamas were accepted by the Goldstone commission without validation or verification? It was also alleged by Hamas that Israel is distributing aphrodisiac chewing gum in Gaza to subvert the morality of Gaza's youth. Shall we also seek the truth of this allegation?

Does it bother you that the charter of Hamas calls for the indiscriminate murder of all Jews?

Does it bother you that members of the rival movement of Hamas, Fatah, were murdered by Hamas before and during Operation Cast Lead? Some were thrown to their deaths from the tops of buildings.

Did you ever examine the casualty reports validated by Israel, or perhaps you don't believe the figures provided by American allies? Yes, civilians died - war is a terrible thing - but they were a fraction of the number of civilians who died in Iraq, Afghanistan and Serbia, owing to the measures taken by Israel to safeguard human lives.

Have you ever witnessed the aftermath of an "honor killing" in Gaza? Recently a Gaza man bludgeoned his daughter with an iron chain, because his daughter - a 27-year-old divorced mother of five - owned a cell phone and spoke to a man outside the family. Such murders go vitually unpunished by the authorities in Gaza, i.e. Hamas. These are the same authorities in whom Goldstone placed his trust.

You pride yourself on your "common sense"? You should be ashamed of yourself.