Witchcraft: No Defense for It in Saudi Arabia

Do you remember Obama's infamous bow to Saudi Arabia? Going much further back in time, do you recall the Frank Sinatra 1957 hit "Witchcraft," which begins:

Those fingers in my hair
That sly come-hither stare
That strips my conscience bare
It's witchcraft

And I've got no defense for it
The heat is too intense for it
What good would common sense for it do?

Well, there is also "no defense for it" in Saudi Arabia. Although many in the West posit that all religions promote tolerance, love and understanding, consider the following item from Reuters published yesterday by The Jerusalem Post (http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=249247):

"Rights group Amnesty International has described as "deeply shocking" Saudi Arabia's beheading of a woman convicted on charges of "sorcery and witchcraft", saying it underlined the urgent need to end executions in the kingdom.

Saudi national Amina bint Abdul Halim bin Salem Nasser was executed on Monday in the northern province of al-Jawf after being tried and convicted for practicing sorcery, the interior ministry said, without giving details of the charges."

Just an isolated instance of injustice in the desert kingdom? Yeah, right. As reported by the Saudi Gazette less than three months ago (http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentID=20110921109257&archiveissuedate=21/09/2011):

"A Sudanese man was beheaded Monday in Madina after he was convicted of practicing sorcery, the Interior Ministry announced. Abdul Hamid Al-Fakki “practiced witchcraft and sorcery,” which are illegal under the Shariah law, said a ministry statement. Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under the Shariah law enforced strictly in the Kingdom."

Now consider that Harold Koh, the Legal Adviser of the Department of State, is alleged to have said, while addressing the Yale Club of Greenwich in 2007, that "in an appropriate case, he didn't see any reason why sharia law would not be applied to govern a case in the United States" (see: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/item_yyMKJnrmyV5g5MZlhheZOP;jsessionid=B3AF1EE6089A1D7DC426F0892160E371). It would be interesting to know what Koh regards as an "appropriate case."

In any event, as aptly suggested by the Sinatra lyrics, there is no defense for witchcraft in Saudi Arabia, and "common sense for it" in that country would indeed do no good.

The Next War: Hamas and Hezbollah Don't Hesitate to Use Human Shields

After some 20 rockets were fired from Gaza at civilian targets in southern Israel over the past weekend, the Israeli airforce retaliated during the hours of the night between Saturday and Sunday. The video above shows a weapons depot in Gaza being targeted by the IDF during this action. In the video, observe the two red circles: the upper red circle encloses civilian dwellings, whereas the lower red circle demarks the warehouse containing the weaponry, which included rockets. Note the secondary explosions as the munitions go up in flames.

Despite the precision of Israeli airforce attacks, there will inevitably be wounded civilians owing to the proximity of Hamas and Islamic Jihad weapons depots in Gaza, and of Hezbollah weapons depots in southern Lebanon, to civilian dwellings. Make no mistake about it: Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah welcome civilian casualties, in order to convince a gullible West of Israeli brutality.

Needless to say, Palestinian medical sources, crying crocodile tears, bitterly complained that one civilian had been killed and 13 others had been wounded during the Israeli raid (see: http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=248808).

Paul Krugman, "Depression and Democracy": No Mention of Anti-Semitism at The New York Times

Yet another instance of the pot calling the kettle black?

In his latest New York Times op-ed, "Depression and Democracy" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/opinion/krugman-depression-and-democracy.html?_r=1&ref=opinion), Paul Krugman tells us, "It’s time to start calling the current situation what it is: a depression." He goes on to express concern over Europe and the euro, and devotes much of the remainder of his opinion piece to the contention that democratic institutions are being undermined in Hungary:

"One of Hungary’s major parties, Jobbik, is a nightmare out of the 1930s: it’s anti-Roma (Gypsy), it’s anti-Semitic, and it even had a paramilitary arm. But the immediate threat comes from Fidesz, the governing center-right party.

Fidesz won an overwhelming Parliamentary majority last year, at least partly for economic reasons; Hungary isn’t on the euro, but it suffered severely because of large-scale borrowing in foreign currencies and also, to be frank, thanks to mismanagement and corruption on the part of the then-governing left-liberal parties. Now Fidesz, which rammed through a new Constitution last spring on a party-line vote, seems bent on establishing a permanent hold on power."

Sure, Paul is correct: Economic hardship spawns political radicalism. But why does he only focus on Hungary?

Elsewhere in Europe, under the ruling Islamist AK Party, Turkey has become the world leader in "imprisoned journalists" (http://archive.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=ipi-report-declares-turkey-world-leader-of-imprisoned-journalists-2011-04-08), while Turkish Kurds are denied their freedom, and women's rights are swept under the rug (e.g., murders of women have increased by 1,400 percent under the AK government, and only two of Turkey’s 26 ministers -- those responsible for education and women’s affairs -- are women). But why should Turkey trouble the "Conscience of a Liberal"? "Liberals" are apparently only concerned with injustices perpetrated by rightist, not Islamist, governments.

Much closer to home, Krugman is apparently indifferent to manifestations of anti-Semitism at his own newspaper (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-york-times-and-israel-bashing-yes.html). The publication of anti-Semitic, purportedly "moderated," online readers' comments by The Times, and the obsessive need of his newspaper's editorial department to regularly publish derogatory opinion pieces concerning Israel, lacking an iota of balance, are symptomatic of the "new" anti-Semitism of the left, which is also being fueled by economic decline.

It was remarkable how left-leaning columnists from The New York Times , including Krugman who visited the Zuccotti Park encampment of Occupy Wall Street (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/21/paul-krugman-visits-occup_n_1023812.html), pointedly refused to acknowledge the anti-Semitism being disseminated by this group (see: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/10/11/occupy-wall-street-has-an-anti-semitism-problem/). Is anti-Semitism less worrisome when it issues from the left?

Sorry, Paul, don't lecture me on anti-Semitism in Budapest, when it's right under your nose at The New York Times.

Thomas Friedman, "The Next First (and Only) 100 Days": Running Hot and Cold on Obama

Thomas Friedman has become a bit mercurial of late.

Less than three weeks ago, in a New York Times op-ed entitled "Go Big, Mr. Obama" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/opinion/friedman-go-big-mr-obama.html?ref=opinion), Friedman croaked paeans to the president:

"I voted for Barack Obama, and I don’t want my money back. He’s never gotten the credit he deserves for bringing the economy he inherited back from the brink of a depression. He’s fought the war on terrorism in a smart and effective way. He’s making health care possible for millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions, and he saved the auto industry. This is big stuff."

. . . .

Go big, Mr. President. You will win, and so will America."

Today, however, in "The Next First (and Only) 100 Days" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/opinion/sunday/friedman-the-next-first-and-only-100-days.html?ref=opinion), Friedman appears to reverse course and voices disappointment with Obama:

"If we had a stimulus focused on 21st-century jobs, and a credible long-term fiscal reform plan, it would unlock the scale of investment we need to revive the employment market today and address the future. If Obama ran on that big plan, he would win and have an electoral mandate to implement it in his only 100 days. Sadly, he seems intent on playing small ball. He is capable of, and the country needs, much bolder leadership.

Oh, well. There’s always the first 100 days of 2017."

Disappointed by Obama's "small ball," but always ready with his own nifty answers to revive America's ailing economy, Friedman, quoting Harvard labor economist Lawrence Katz, calls for the creation of "hubs":

"We need to think of the future middle class as being generated not by factories 'but by hubs,' argues Katz. These are networked urban areas like Austin, Silicon Valley and Raleigh-Durham, where people learn, imagine and create value rapidly by combining universities, high-tech manufacturers, software/service providers and highly nimble start-ups that collaborate and compete to invent things that make people’s lives more entertained, productive, healthy, educated and comfortable.

. . . .

To spawn more of these hubs, big and small, any stimulus should focus on building telecommunications and infrastructure to support networked cities and on getting more young people access to vocational or college training."

Hubs to support networked cities such as Austin, Silicon Valley and Raleigh-Durham? Sounds a bit utopian to me. I wonder who will create the networking for Chicago, Cleveland, Las Vegas, Atlanta and Philadelphia, where Americans are "most likely to be murdered, raped, robbed or have their car stolen" (see: http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/LifeStages/americas-dangerous-neighborhoods-areas-violent-crime/story?id=11803334).

If either Obama or Newt is elected in 2012, I propose investing in pubs, not hubs.

Maureen Dowd, "Fire and Ice": Fueling the Need for Clothespins

Who would ever imagine that Obama and Newt might cause a spike in the sale of clothespins in 2012?

In her Sunday op-ed entitled "Fire and Ice" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/opinion/sunday/dowd-fire-and-ice.html?ref=opinion), Maureen Dowd contemplates the possibility that Newt Gingrich will run against Obama in 2012:

"A match between Gingrich and Obama would be fascinating: two men who grew up without their hot-tempered, hard-drinking fathers, vying to be the nation’s patriarch.

The Drama Queen versus No Drama Obama. The apocalyptic prophet versus the ambiguous president."

A "Fascinating" match? It seems more like the plot of a stinker horror film, which shafts the entire audience.

Would someone please convince Chris Christie that there's still time for him to change his mind?

Clothespins? The next growth industry. Barring a miracle, most Americans will need to place them over their noses as they enter voting booths in 2012.

Barbara Walters Interviews Syrian President Bashar al-Assad: A "Disconnect"

Earlier this month, Barbara Walters of ABC News returned from an interview with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which began with a warm handshake, to a heroine's welcome on a special edition of "Nightline" (http://abcnews.go.com/International/defiant-syrian-president-bashar-al-assad-denies-ordering/story?id=15098612). Observing that "Barbara is the first American television journalist allowed access to the country since a nine-month old revolution began," Bill Weir asked 82-year-old Walters how Assad compares with Saddam Hussein, Qaddafi and Mubarak. Walters's response:

"He is not a grim, strong man the way Mubarak was. He is not a wild crazy person -- at least that's the way Qaddafi seemed to us. He is calm, he is soft spoken, he is articulate, he speaks very good English, there were no ground rules, he answered every question, but there is this disconnect, Bill, between what we hear about this country -- the reports that we have seen -- and what he says, and it's hard to put the two things together."

This is not Walters's first encounter with Assad. In 2008, Walters vacationed in Syria and had a "very long lunch" with Assad and his wife, some three years after Assad ordered the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut. Following her meal, Walters reported back on her impressions of the Assads at that time (http://newsbusters.org/blogs/justin-mccarthy/2008/07/07/barbara-walters-syrian-dicator-charming-intelligent):

"From my experience, he was a very intelligent, a well informed, thoughtful, we spoke perfect English, wants very much to have relations with this country, has some solutions for ending the war in Iraq. She was educated in England, worked in this country, speaks English the way I’m talking to you, lovely, intelligent. I don’t want people to say 'oh you’re brainwashed.' But that was not it. They just were very charming, intelligent. She has a cooperative, a group teaching children to be entrepreneurs with Harvard University, was raised in England, worked in this country. So this is not what we expected in terms of the leaders."

Do Walters's thoughts sound familiar to you? They should. They echo the sentiments of former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who, after meeting with Assad in Damascus in 2007, labeled Assad a "model Arab leader" (http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/03/assad_fooled_us_twice_shame_on.html).

Now consider Nicholas Kristof's most recent New York Times op-ed, entitled "Joining a Dinner in a Muslim Brotherhood Home" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/opinion/kristof-joining-a-dinner-in-a-muslim-brotherhood-home.html?hp#comments), in which Kristof describes his chatter over dinner with an educated, 24-year-old hostess, who seeks to allay Western anxiety over the Muslim Brotherhood's goals in Egypt, leading Kristof to conclude:

"So a bit of nervousness is fine, but let’s not overdo the hand-wringing — or lose perspective. What’s historic in Egypt today is not so much the rise of any one party as the apparent slow emergence of democracy in the heart of the Arab world."

On the basis of his dinner banter, Kristof would have his readership ignore the Brotherhood's long history of hostility to Western values, women's rights and religious freedom (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/12/nicholas-kristof-joining-dinner-in.html).

Meanwhile, in an article published in Asharq al-Awsat yesterday, Mahmoud Hussein, the Brotherhood's secretary-general, suggested that the Brotherhood would annul Egypt's peace treaty with Israel (http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/muslim-brotherhood-egypt-israel-peace-treaty-needs-to-be-reviewed-1.400541).

Barbara Walters on "Nightline" is now claiming that there is a "disconnect" between the current ruthlessness in Syria and the manner in which Assad perceives this barbarism. In fact, there is no such disconnect. Assad is a cold-blooded murderer and an accomplished liar. The only "disconnect" is to be found in gullible liberal media personalities, such as Walters and Kristof, and left-leaning politicians, such as Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry and Jimmy Carter, who, after being wined and dined by well-mannered persons with Western academic degrees and near perfect English in the Muslim Middle East, cannot comprehend how these people are capable of such boundless savagery.

Paul Krugman, "All the G.O.P.’s Gekkos": Was Obama the Beneficiary of a Gift That Should Have Been Reported to the IRS?

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "All the G.O.P.’s Gekkos" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/opinion/krugman-all-the-gops-gekkos.html?hp), Paul Krugman compares Mitt Romney’s lucrative business activity at Bain Capital with the greed and malfeasance of Gordon Gekko, the fictional antagonist in Oliver Stone's movie "Wall Street.” Acknowledging toward the end of his opinion piece that Romney is not a villain, Krugman concludes:

"The truth is that what’s good for the 1 percent, or even better the 0.1 percent, isn’t necessarily good for the rest of America — and Mr. Romney’s career illustrates that point perfectly. There’s no need, and no reason, to hate Mr. Romney and others like him. We do, however, need to get such people paying more in taxes — and we shouldn’t let myths about 'job creators' get in the way."

"Such people" should be paying more in taxes? I agree, and this includes persons such as Obama supporters George Soros and Jon Corzine.

And what about millionaire Barack Obama himself?

On the same day Obama purchased his Chicago mansion, the wife of convicted felon Tony Rezko bought the adjacent empty lot from the same seller, who wanted to sell both properties together. However, as reported by ABC News (http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4111483&page=1):

"While Rezko's wife paid the full asking price for the land, Obama paid $300,000 under the asking price for the house. The house sold for $1,650,000 and the price Rezko's wife paid for the land was $625,000.

Obama denies there was anything unusual about the price disparity. He says the price on the house was dropped because it had been on the market for some time but that the price for the adjacent land remained high because there was another offer."

"Nothing unusual about the price disparity"? As reported by The Washington Times in 2008 (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/nov/04/fbi-asked-questions-on-rezko-land-deal/?page=all), a Chicago real estate specialist claimed that the price paid by Rezko's wife for the adjoining property was excessive, whereas Obama paid significantly less than market value:

"A former Illinois real estate specialist says FBI agents have questioned him about a Chicago property that had been bought by convicted felon Tony Rezko’s wife and later sold to the couple’s next-door neighbor, Sen. Barack Obama.

. . . .

'Agents and I talked about payoff, bribe, kickback for a long time, though it took them only a short number of minutes of talking with me while looking at the appraisal to acknowledge what they already seemed to know: The Rezko lot was grossly overvalued,' Mr. Conner told The Washington Times Monday.

'Rezko paid the asking price on the same day Obama paid $300,000 less than the asking price to the same seller for his adjacent mansion,' he said. 'This begs the question of payoff, bribe, kickback.'

In a wrongful-termination complaint filed last month in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Mr. Conner said his appraisal of the Rezko property, held in Rita Malki Rezko’s name, was replaced with a higher one and he was fired when he questioned the document."

Let's ignore any possible allegation of a bribe or kickback and also not examine the question of how community organizer Barack Obama and his wife managed to finance a $1,650,000 house. Instead, let's focus on whether Obama received a gift, which went unreported to the IRS. According to the IRS (http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=108139,00.html#2), a gift is defined as "Any transfer to an individual, either directly or indirectly, where full consideration (measured in money or money's worth) is not received in return."

In 2005, when the Obama/Rezko real estate transaction was consummated, there was an annual exclusion of $11,000 to each donee. Did Obama receive a "gift" in excess of $11,000? Should a Form 709 have been filed by the Rezkos, listing Obama as a "donee"?

Meanwhile, a hypocritical Paul Krugman would only have us examine Republican avarice. The reality is that the stench of politics permeates both sides of the aisle.