Denis McDonough, "Occupation That Has Lasted for 50 Years Must End": Obama Hatchetman Spews Poison at J Street Conference

Did you ever collect coins as a child? Buffalo nickels? Indian Head pennies? Well, if you scratch the rocky soil of the West Bank, you will find other coins dating back some two thousand years: coins minted by the Hasmonean dynasty following the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid Empire, coins minted by Herod during his rule of the Kingdom of Judea; coins from the first Jewish revolt against the Romans with inscriptions reading "The Freedom of Zion; and coins from the subsequent Bar Kokhba revolt against the Romans, bearing the inscription "Year One of the Redemption of Israel." Yes, the land comprising the West Bank was the heart of the ancient Jewish homeland for millennia.

Yesterday, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, speaking at a J Street conference in Washington, said of the West Bank:

"An occupation that has lasted for 50 years must end."

But what didn't Obama's hatchetman say?

• Did he mention historic Jewish ties to the land compromising the West Bank? Not a chance.

• Did he mention that the West Bank was occupied by Israel after Jordan attacked Israel during the 1967 Six Day? Not a chance.

• Did he mention that Palestinian suicide bombers crossed from the West Bank into Israel a decade ago and killed hundreds of Israeli civilians? Not a chance.

• Did he mention the danger of Iranian-made missiles being fired from the West Bank at Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Netanya and Haifa? Not a chance.

Me? I favor a two-state solution, i.e. the creation of an independent Palestinian state that will live in peace and prosperity alongside Israel. But for there to be such a Palestinian state, both Fatah and Hamas must recognize Israel's right to exist. Hamas must repeal its charter, which rejects a negotiated settlement with Israel and calls for the murder of all Jews, not just Israelis. Fatah, among other things, must make certain that the minds of Palestinian children attending West Bank schools are not poisoned by textbooks expressing incitement against Israel and the foulest forms of anti-Semitism. And without a doubt, the West Bank must be demilitarized.

McDonough? A pity he is not demanding that Iranian calls for the annihilation of Israel must end before any nuclear arrangement with Khamenei is signed. Meanwhile, the Iranian press is gleefully reporting his J Street commentary.

Back in October 2000, Ze'ev Schiff, an Israeli journalist for the left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz, said of Arafat in an article entitled "Some Lessons from the Riots," written after the onset of the Second Intifada:

"He has brought us back to recognize our strategic reality: Israel is still a nation at was, and it needs to behave like one when it weighs its options and considers the limits of its concessions."

Sadly, this reality has not changed.

Dana Milbank, "Obama is President Passive over the Veterans Affairs scandal": Obama Is "President Passive" . . . Period

"All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!'"

- Howard Beale, "Network" (1976)

Are you "mad as hell"? Well, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough says President Obama is "madder than hell," but he sure as hell doesn't appear that way. Actually, it seems that the lives of veterans don't have value for the Obama administration.

Just another "political football" or "bogus" scandal? I don't think so.

In his latest Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Obama is President Passive over the Veterans Affairs scandal" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-obama-is-president-passive-over-the-veterans-administration/2014/05/21/4cc2d534-e12f-11e3-9743-bb9b59cde7b9_story.html?hpid=z2), Dana Milbank observes:

"Over the weekend, the president’s chief of staff assured the public that Obama was 'madder than hell' about what happened at the Department of Veterans Affairs, but in person Obama didn’t seem very angry. Like VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, Obama wasn’t entirely convinced something bad had happened.

'If these allegations prove to be true, it is dishonorable,' he said. 'If there is misconduct, it will be punished.'

. . . .

But there are no 'ifs' about it: Numerous inquiries and leaked memos over several years point to “gaming strategies” employed at VA facilities to make wait times for medical appointments seem shorter — and these clearly aren’t limited to those reported in Phoenix; Albuquerque; Fort Collins, Colo.; and elsewhere. Lawmakers in both parties have spoken of a systemic problem at the agency, and the American Legion, citing 'poor oversight,' has called for Shinseki’s resignation — the first time it has made such a gesture in more than 70 years."

Wow, Milbank is finally waking up to the fact that Obama is a crafty orator, but an incompetent administrator?

Why does he think that the president should behave differently with respect to VA Secretary Eric Shinseki than with former Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius?

But more to the point, has the American people finally woken up to the fact that the emperor has no clothes?

Maybe, just maybe, we will find out in November.

Washington Post, "White House Knew IRS Probe Findings Earlier": No One Bothered to Tell Obama, Too Busy Improving His Swing

As reported by The Washington Post in an article entitled "White House knew IRS probe findings earlier" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-knew-irs-probe-findings-earlier/2013/05/20/56598718-c17e-11e2-ab60-67bba7be7813_story.html?hpid=z2#), written by Zachary A. Goldfarb and Juliet Eilperin:

"White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler told White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and other top officials about the IRS findings nearly a month ago, press secretary Jay Carney said Monday. Ruemmler decided the information should not be transmitted to the president because the IRS inspector general’s report was not finished, he said.

'The judgment of the White House counsel was that this is not a matter that she should convey to the president,' Carney told reporters during a tense news briefing. 'This is not the kind of thing, when you have an ongoing investigation or an ongoing audit, that requires notification to the president, because what is important is that we wait until that kind of process is completed before we take action.'

The new account goes well beyond what officials had said as recently as Sunday, when senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said in television interviews that the White House did not know the results of the inquiry until the inspector general’s report was released last week. Carney had said previously that Ruemmler was told 'only about the fact that the IG was finishing a review' of the IRS’s conduct, and he portrayed it as a 'normal sort of heads-up' notification."

Or, Ruemmler told McDonough, and both decided not to inform Obama of the investigation or its bombshell results, because the president was too busy playing golf with Tiger Woods. Yeah, right.

If this was indeed the case, both Ruemmler and McDonough should be fired for displaying astonishingly poor judgment.

And Obama should resign for incompetent management of his staff.

It will be a carnival when Ruemmler and McDonough are ultimately questioned by the House.