New York High Court Upholds Columbia University Takings

In today’s decision in Kaur v. New York State Urban Development Corp.>, The New York Court of Appeals (the state’s highest court) has upheld the condemnation of property in the Manhattanville area of New York City for transfer to Columbia University. This outcome is not surprising. In fact, I predicted it back in December. In the recent Atlantic Yards case, the Court of Appeals had already held that state and local officials could declare virtually any area “blighted” and thereby make it eligible for condemnation and transfer to favored private interest groups.
Nonetheless, there are several extremely troubling aspects of this case. As in Atlantic Yards, The court upheld an extremely dubious “blight” condemnation by applying a rule holding that any area could be declared blighted so long as it might be “underdeveloped.” Indeed, even the presence of “underdevelopment” (a phenomenon that occurs in almost every neighborhood at one time or another) need not actually be proven. Instead, the government need only show that there is “room for reasonable difference of opinion as to whether an area is blighted.” As the lower court opinion in Kaur pointed out, this kind of lax standard would allow the city to declare “[v]irtually every neighborhood in the five boroughs” blighted. And, as I pointed out in this post, the court’s position makes a mockery of the New York state constitution, which allows blight condemnations only in ““substandard and insanitary areas.”
Even worse, the Court of Appeals in Kaur brushed aside or completely ignored extensive evidence showing that the blight study justifying the condemnations had been rigged in Columbia’s favor and that Columbia itself was likely responsible for most of the “blighted” conditions. The key “blight” study was conducted by AKRF, a consulting firm hired by Columbia. As the lower court decision pointed out:

It is critical to recognize that [the state Economic Development Corporation’s] 2002 West Harlem Master Plan which was created prior to the scheme to balkanize Manhattanville for Columbia’s benefit found no blight, nor did it describe any blighted condition or area in Manhattanville. Instead... the Plan noted that West Harlem had great potential for development that could be jump-started with rezoning. It was only after the Plan was published in August 2002 that the rezoning of the “upland” area was essentially given over to the unbridled discretion of Columbia. In little more than a year from publication of the Plan, EDC joined with Columbia in proposing the use of eminent domain to allow Columbia to develop Manhattanville for Columbia’s sole benefit.
This ultimately became the defining moment for the end game of blight. Having committed to allow Columbia to annex Manhattanville, the EDC and [Empire State Development Corporation] were compelled to engineer a public purpose for a quintessentially private development: eradication of blight.
From this point forward, Columbia proceeded to acquire by lease or purchase a vast amount of property in Manhattanville. It is apparent from the record that ESDC had no intention of determining if Manhattanville was blighted prior to, or apart from Columbia’s control of the area.... Throughout this time Columbia not only purchased or gained control over most of the properties in the area, but it also forced out tenant businesses, ultimately vacating, in 17 buildings, 50% or more of the tenants. The petitioners clearly demonstrate that Columbia also let water infiltration conditions in property it acquired go unaddressed, even when minor and economically rational repairs could arrest deterioration. Columbia left Building Code violations open, and let tenants use premises in violation of local codes and ordinances by parking cars on sidewalks and obstructing fire exits, and maintaining garbage and debris in certain buildings over a period of years....
ESDC delayed making any inquiry into the conditions in Manhattanville until long after Columbia gained control over the very properties that would form the basis for a subsequent blight study. This conduct continued when ESDC authorized AKRF to use a methodology biased in Columbia’s favor. Specifically, AKRF was to “highlight” such blight conditions as it found, and it was to prepare individual building reports “focusing on characteristics that demonstrate blight conditions.”
This search for distinct “blight conditions” led to the preposterous summary of building and sidewalk defects compiled by AKRF, which was then accepted as a valid methodology and amplified by Earth Tech. Even a cursory examination of the study reveals the idiocy of considering things like unpainted block walls or loose awning supports as evidence of a blighted neighborhood. 

The Court of Appeals decision completely ignored the fact that Columbia may well have created much of the “blight” that justified the condemnation transferring property to the university. On the issue of the objectivity of the AKRF study, the Court of Appeals opinion claimed that the mere fact that AKRF was employed by Columbia does not disprove the validity of its conclusions, and also notes that those conclusions were validated by a later study conducted by another firm. It does not consider the evidence cited by the lower court showing that the methdologies of both studies were deliberately biased in Columbia’s favor.
It is perhaps worth noting that AKRF was also the firm that conducted an equally dubious blight study justifying the Atlantic Yards takings. In that case, the blight study and takings were heavily influenced by politically influential developer Bruce Ratner, the originator of the development project in question.
The Court of Appeals also makes much of claims that the Columbia project will produce important public benefits by creating jobs and other economic payoffs. However, there is little if any proof that the condemnation of these particular properties (which are only a small part of the total area where Columbia wants to build) is actually needed to produce those benefits. Moreover, as I point out in this article, private interest groups and local governments routinely inflate such estimates because once the property is condemned, they are not legally required to actually produce the economic gains that supposedly justified the condemnation in the first place. Based on past experience, it would not be at all surprising if Columbia ultimately fails to produce more than a small fraction of the benefits it now predicts.
The problem of over-broad definitions of blight is hardly limited to New York. It is present in numerous other states too, including many that have enacted post–Kelo eminent domain reform laws. Nonetheless, the Atlantic Yards and Kaur cases set a new low in this field. Not only has the New York Court of Appeals applied an extraordinarily broad definition of blight, it has also endorsed blight designations based on studies that are probably rigged in favor of private interests who benefit from condemning the areas in question. Moreover, it has opened the door to condemnations based on the presence of “blight” created by the very people who will get to own the property after it is taken.

via volokh.com

too many loop holes for anyone to take anything away

Posted via email from noahdavidsimon's posterous

Turkey told to stop blocking YouTube

YouTube is blocked in Turkey.

On Tuesday, Europe's main human rights and security body, of which Turkey is a member, ordered the Turks to unblock YouTube.

Europe’s main human rights and security body told Turkey Tuesday to stop blocking Google’s video-sharing website YouTube and thousands of other sites banned under its Internet law. The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said the law, introduced in 2007, has been expanded to bar over 5,000 sites in the past two years and is severely damaging freedom of expression and information rights. Turkey initially passed the law to restrict access to pornography and other content it deemed harmful to children. The Vienna-based, 56-nation OSCE says the law has now been used to go far beyond that. Turkey, an OSCE member, first started blocking YouTube in 2008 after it ruled that some videos posted on the site were insulting to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the modern republic. The Turkish government has also cited offences including child pornography and encouragement of suicide for blocking websites. The OSCE said its media freedoms chief Dunja Mijatovic had written to Turkey’s foreign minister to complain about new restrictions introduced earlier this month that have hampered access to other Google services such as its instant translation site and web traffic tracker. Mr Mijatovic said the alleged reason behind the block was an unsettled tax row between Turkish authorities and Google but that this matter was not covered in the original law.

Wouldn't it be great if ordinary Turks got to see those Mavi Marmara videos?

via israelmatzav.blogspot.com

http://www.theJIDF.org is also blocked in Turkey

Posted via email from noahdavidsimon's posterous

Rand Paul The Myth vs. Reality

As you know, Rand is Ron Paul's son and he's also the GOP nominee in Kentucky

Those that thought the Conservatives catering to Hezbollah in Michigan wasn't Anti-Antisemitism, I'm certain will be sympathetic to Rand Paul.

Rapists have mothers too….

The court errupted as Nagi’s mother also began yelling in defence of her son, and one the victims present retorted: “You weren’t there!”

Who Allowed These People to Settle in Australia?

After sentencing, the family of the HIV-positive sexual predator hurled abuse at the young women, calling them liars and protesting his innocence.

Australia: Hassan Nagi HIV Positive Muslim Taxi Driver & Multiple Rapist sentenced as Hags in Bags leap to his defense outside Court.

via sheikyermami.com

Posted via email from noahdavidsimon's posterous

בייה ✡ Israel launches new spy satellite to watch Iran

On Tuesday night, Israel launched a new spy satellite, the Ofek 9. The Ofek 9 is to be used mainly to keep an eye on Iran.

The Defense Ministry issued a statement saying the satellite was launched late Tuesday from the Palmachim air force base on Israel's coast south of Tel Aviv. An hour later, after the satellite completed its first circuit, the ministry said it had achieved its proper orbit, describing it as "a surveillance satellite with advanced technological capabilities."
Defense officials said Ofek 9 is a spy satellite with a high resolution camera. It would join two other active spy satellites in the Ofek series already orbiting the earth. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because details were not made public, said the three satellites would give Israel considerable coverage of sensitive areas.
Addition of a new satellite gives Israel the capability of sending space-borne cameras over sensitive areas more frequently. One of Israel's main targets for spy photos is Iran, because of its nuclear program.

via israelmatzav.blogspot.com

JStreetJive: J Street, the JCRC and the ADL Present Stephen Lynch, Gaza's Man in Congress

 Partners in Shame

Only the Boston Jewish Community Relations Council could conceive an event honoring Stephen Lynch, Democratic Congressman representing a melange of rough and tumble blue collar voters along with upscale suburbanites.  Aside from the obvious in-their-pocket J Street politicians like Keith Ellison, Donna Edwards and Maurice Hinchey, Lynch is probably the most squishy congressman on the terrorist threat to Israel.
Recently, Lynch has become so extreme on the subject of Gaza, that he has laid virtually all the blame on Israel for the (phony) "humanitarian" crisis culminating in the Gaza flotilla incident three weeks ago.  As a preface to his skewed view of the Gaza situation , he - along with 2 other Massachusetts congressmen - was one of only 36 nay votes that refused to condemn the incredibly biased UN Goldstone Report.
On the subject of Israel defense funding, however, he scores relatively high marks.  Anyone representing heavily Jewish Needham, would be unelectable were he to oppose defense aid to Israel.   The only congressmen consistently voting against funding for Israel are the usual suspects: John Conyers (representing Dearbornistan, Michigan), Dennis Kucinich (who never saw an Islamic terrorist he couldn't "understand"), the ever bizarre Ron Paul, and California's Pete Stark (representing San Francisco's east bay - enough said?.
And so, onto the bimah of Temple Beth Shalom in Needham strode Congressman Lynch sponsored by the JCRC of Greater Boston with its Director, Nancy Kaufman, seated prominently next to him.   Lynch has also refused to add his signature to the Poe-Peters letter affirming Israel's right of self defense in the wake of the Gaza blockade incident.  To date, 315 members of Congress have signed the letter.
Watch the video of Congressman Lynch press the Palestinian position, blaming the violence that ensued following the flotilla interdiction solely on the Israelis.
 


According to Lynch, Gazans dream of "coming to America" and "freedom".  Strange, every other credible report has Gazans dreaming of destroying Israel and the Jews.  I guess Mr. Lynch could only find idealists cast as Jefferson and Madison.
  He then joins the international chorus by insisting on an "investigation."  Of course, he does not demand an international commission to investigate the Turkish and IHH role in preparing their Shaheeds for martyrdom.   The Q & A portion is audio only (apologies), but suffice it to say that, in spite of the sponsorship of J Street/JCRC, among others, there was significant pushback from the audience, to their credit.


Regarding the question about prosecuting U.S. citizens who participate in "humanitarian" missions to Gaza (aid - in virtually any form  - to terrorist groups is a felony and was affirmed by a recent Supreme Court decision), Lynch chose not to reply.
To this point, in attendance was Jeff Klein, who, in his own words, has "left the Jewish race to join the humans".  He urged Lynch to cease all aid to Israel and is currently spearheading a "Jewish" boat project from Boston to Gaza to break the blockade and make it possible to ship any and all goods into the Hamas weapons depot.  Klein may be an extreme case, but the roots of betrayal intertwine at J Street and it would seem, now among Jews in leadership positions. Boston is now vying for number one with San Francisco as one of the worst examples of Jewish steadfastness and honesty.

NormanF said...

This is how American Jews pay back Israel: by appearing openly with and endorsing the positions of its adversaries. I don't think they have truly learned what history was supposed to have taught them in all the Holocaust museums they constructed. The only lesson appears to be its easy to have sympathy for dead Jews and the living? Well, let's just say they deserve to ganged upon for not agreeing to be dead, too. Really a shame with J Street and JCRC and the ADL whom you think would get it. They don't.  

via jstreetjive.com

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu

First the Green Revolution in Iran turned out to be run by a man who was as bad as the established regime and now Turkey supposedly has a resurfacing opposition to the Islamists,

Turks Turn on Islamist Government?
Gaza flotilla backfires at home.
BY Adam Brickley weeklystandard.com
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu is probably the happiest man in Turkey right now. He's just inherited the leadership of the country's secular socialist opposition, and now he's reaping the benefits of an incredibly boneheaded move by the "moderate" Islamists who run the country.

A recently released poll shows the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan slipping out of first place for the first time in years. Instead, Kılıçdaroğlu's Republican People's Party (CHP) has inched to a razor-thin lead. If these numbers were to hold through next year's election, the AKP's Sunni Islamism will be dealt a heavy repudiation -- as Kılıçdaroğlu is a member of the minority Alevi religious sect. He could also be Turkey's first Kurdish Prime Minister -- depending on whether or not one considers his Zaza ethnicity to be a Kurdish subgroup or a separate people (either way he's not an ethnic Turk).

Now, this success is partly due to the fact that Kılıçdaroğlu is enjoying a surge of personal popularity as he tries to modernize the party founded by Kemal Ataturk. However, it also appears that Erdogan's heavy support of the Gaza "aid" flotilla has blown up in his face -- and that his gradual Islamization of the government may have reached a point where the public is ready to pull the plug.

To be fair, Kılıçdaroğlu has joined Erdogan in heavily condemning the Israeli raid on the flotilla -- but he has also blasted Erdogan for needlessly provoking Israel. So, now that the prime minister has marched into a full-blown religious confrontation with the Jewish state, the electorate is opting for a more fair-minded leader who concerns himself with national interest over religious zealotry.

The Franklin Prophecy

here is my ancestor Soloman Isaacs. 

Solomon Isaacs was related to the most powerful, respected Sephardic families in America through his marriage to Elkalah Kursheedt, granddaughter of Gershom Mendes Seixas, "The Patriot Rabbi," and his sister Frances's marriage to the copper magnate Harmon Hendricks. (Seixas was one of the few clergymen invited to officiate at George Washington's inauguration and was a trustee of Columbia College.) Apprenticed to his brother-in-law, Isaacs learned all aspects of copper manufacturing, from appraising foreign metals to understanding the processes of refining and rolling. His expertise and ability to supervise engineers and mill hands led to a partnership with Hendricks, who reactivated the defunct Soho Copper Works in New Jersey. Isaacs was entrusted with Hendricks's longstanding account with Paul Revere & Sons. The firm also supplied Robert Fulton with copper for his pioneering steamboats and the United States Navy with copper sheathing for warships.

via thejewishmuseum.org

Without my family the Revolution would not of had any metal.

so my Jewish ancestor was friends with George Washington and Paul Revere.  This painting was in my family when I was growing up.  Sol here married the granddaughter of the rabbi during the Revolution.

...but now my enemies in the Arab world are changing documented U.S. history.  BTW... Jewish geneology is well documented. 

"The Franklin Prophecy", sometimes called "The Franklin Forgery", is an antisemitic speech falsely attributed to Benjamin Franklin, warning of the supposed dangers of admitting Jews to the nascent United States. The speech was purportedly transcribed by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney during the Constitutional Convention of 1787, but was unknown before its appearance in 1934 in the pages of William Dudley Pelley's pro-Nazi weekly magazine Liberation. (Pinckney wrote that he had kept a journal of the Convention, but it has never been found, and Pelley's claims that it was printed privately, and that the Franklin Institute has a manuscript copy, are unsubstantiated.)
Despite having been repeatedly discredited since its first appearance, the "prophecy" has proved a remarkably durable canard, returning most recently as a popular internet hoax promulgated on Usenet groups and antisemitic websites, where it is presented as authentic. On February 18, 1998, a member of the Fatah Central Committee revived this myth and mistakenly referred to Franklin as a former President of the United States.^[1] Osama Bin Laden has even used this canard briefly in his October 2002 "Letter to the American People."^[2] While its author is not known, many who have investigated the "prophecy" suspect Pelley of having penned it himself.
The U.S. Congress report Anti-Semitism in Europe: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on European Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Relations (2004) states:

This article, which thoroughly documents the history of
the transparent fraud known as the Franklin "Prophecy", appeared almost forty-five years ago in the April-May 1954
issue of Facts, a publication of the Anti-Defamation League. At the time, the authors wrote "This 20-year-old anti-Semitic hoax is circulating again." Today, more than sixty-five years after it was manufactured, the "Prophecy" it is still circulating, a staple of anti-Semitic propaganda. It can be found on a number of web sites maintained by haters and hate-groups. The article is, therefore, still timely and instructive

Another anti-Semitic hoax on history, of a piece with that incredible forgery, The Protocols of The Learned Elders of Zion, but not as widely distributed nor as successful in creating the pogrom atmospheres that were the achievements of the Protocols, is a speech attributed to Benjamin Franklin during the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The anti-Semitic movement, which founded the hoax, calls it the Franklin Prophecy — ascribing to Franklin a dire warning that unless Jews were expelled from the new nation by Constitutional decree they would ultimately immigrate in great numbers to the detriment of the Christian population.

Of course, no such speech was ever made. But the hoaxers sought to impart an aura of historical credibility to the fake by claiming that the speech is quoted in a "private diary" of Charles Pinckney, Revolutionary leader who was delegate from South Carolina to the Constitutional Convention. They also maintain that the diary is now in the possession of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, a bald lie which Henry Butler Allen, director of the Institute, has often refuted. Allen says that "historians and librarians have not been able to find [the diary] or any record of it having existed."

A copy of the forgery was anonymously circulated through the mails this month [May 1954] on stationery captioned WAR DEPARTMENT, OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF STAFF. The envelope bore a May 3 postmark from Atlanta, Ga. This is the latest in a series of recent incidents that suggest another revival of the Prophecy. A copy was picked up earlier this year at a Tampa, Fla., bus stop, and there have been recent distributions of it in Nebraska, Pennsylvania and Alabama.

via adl.org

The Franklin "Prophecy" is a classic anti-Semitic canard that falsely claims that American statesman Benjamin Franklin made anti-Jewish statements during the Constitutional Convention of 1787. It has found widening acceptance in Muslim and Arab media, where it has been used to criticize Israel and Jews...^[3]

Franklin was, in fact, a friend to the Jews of 18th-century America,^[4] and contributed toward the building of Philadelphia's first permanent synagogue.^[5]
There have been similar false antisemitic quotations attributed to George Washington which have been debunked. In fact, in 1790, in a marked sign of religious tolerance, Washington sent a letter to the Jewish community in Rhode Island, writing "May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.

via en.wikipedia.org

here are what  jewwatch.com says Benjamin Franklin said about George Washington.

"I fully agree with General Washington, that we mustprotect this young nation from an insidious influence and impenetration.The menace, gentlemen, is the Jews.
"In whatever country Jews have settled in any greatnumber, they have lowered its moral tone; depreciated its commercialintegrity; have segregated themselves and have not been assimilated;have sneered at and tried to undermine the Christian religionupon which that nation is founded, by objecting to its restrictions;have built up a state within the state; and when opposed havetried to strangle that country to death financially, as in thecase of Spain and Portugal.
"For over 1,700 years, the Jews have been bewailingtheir sad fate in that they have been exiled from their homeland,as they call Palestine. But gentlemen, did the world give it tothem in fee simple, they would at once find some reason for notreturning. Why? Because they are vampires, and vampires do notlive on vampires. They cannot live only among themselves. Theymust subsist on Christians and other people not of their race.
"If you do not exclude them from these United States,in their Constitution, in less than 200 years they will have swarmedhere in such great numbers that they will dominate and devourthe land and change our form of government, for which we Americanshave shed our blood, given our lives our substance and jeopardizedour liberty.
"If you do not exclude them, in less than 200 yearsour descendants will be working in the fields to furnish them substance, while they will be in the counting houses rubbing theirhands. I warn you, gentlemen, if you do not exclude Jews for alltime, your children will curse you in your graves.
"Jews, gentlemen, are Asiatics, let them be born wherethey will nor how many generations they are away from Asia, theywill never be otherwise. Their ideas do not conform to an American's,and will not even thou they live among us ten generations. A leopardcannot change its spots. Jews are Asiatics, are a menace to thiscountry if permitted entrance, and should be excluded by this Constitutional Convention."

via jewwatch.com

 ...every document refutes this.  Our founding fathers loved the Jewish people.  In fact Hamilton was a Jew from the Bahamas... who was probably related to Sol.  Thomas Jefferson was no Christian himself and followed a world view that was deist.  Thsee types of guys were enlightened minds.  Jefferson even read a Quran and knew exactly what kind of hate was in there so he could understand the Barbary Pirates.  There founders of America would of never said such things.

How European Tolerance Islamized Turkey and http://xrl.us/ObamaTurkey

Cartoon In Saudi Daily: An Increasingly Exposed Israel Fans Flames Of War In Kurdistan To Strike At Turkey Source: Al-Watan, Saudi Arabia, June 21, 2010 via thememriblog.org

This week Turkish forces invaded Iraq and its warplanes bombed 7 Kurdish villages killing a teenage girl and wounding her mother and 3 year old sister. A week ago Iran had done the same things, killing a 14 year old girl and a 45 year old woman. There are no shouts of protest. No worldwide demonstrations. The Obama administration and the media did not deliver any lectures on disproportionate force. Not even when Erdogan vowed to drown the Kurdish rebels "in their own blood". Instead Ambassador James J. Jeffrey slavishly rushed to assure Turkey's Thug in Chief Erdogan that the PKK was also America's enemy and promised to "urgently" review any request for help against them. No such help was offered to the Kurds, whose villages were being bombed from the sky using planes sold to Turkey by the United States. Despite the fact that Iraqi Kurds, unlike Turkey, supported the US liberation of Iraq. Because that's what friends of the United States get from the Obama Administration. A kick in the face. And what our enemies get is a slobbering kiss on the cheek.

via Daniel Greefield via docstalk.blogspot.com

As part of its demagogic assault on Israel, the Islamist regime has now claimed that Israel is fomenting a coup within Turkey. I can state for a fact that this isn't true. There will be no coup for several reasons: the armed forces are intimidated by verbal attacks and arrests, its leaders don't want to set off a civil war, and they know that no Western government-and especially the United States-would support them.

What's really happening is a coup against the armed forces through lies, arrests, and political pressure by the Islamist regime. But that doesn't mean the generals and soldiers are happy with the destruction of the republic created by Kemal Ataturk and of Turkish democracy in general.

 via rubinreports.blogspot.com

Another discontented institution the regime wants to crush is the Foreign Ministry. Now several retired ambassadors have publicly complained about how demagogue-in-chief Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is pursuing against them. They watch in sadness as the Islamist regime throws away decades'-old connections with the West in pursuit of his effort to be Iran's number-one ally.

via rubinreports.blogspot.com

For months and up to the very last minute, Obama privately encouraged Erdogan to negotiate with Iran for some kind of deal. This was a terribly stupid thing to do since Obama should have understood that Erdogan is now very close to Tehran. But the Turkish prime minister was eager to play an important international role and to help his friends in Tehran, as well as scoring points with the United States.

via rubinreports.blogspot.com

The PKK is a terrorist organization, but it is not our enemy and it does not have anything to do with us. Any reason for providing aid to Turkey against the PKK ended with the Cold War. Especially considering Turkey's shakedown of the US during the Kosovo operation and its refusal to support US forces in the liberation of Iraq. The United States has no reason to provide military assistance to a regime that is not willing to do the same.
While the US has consistently backed Turkey against the PKK-- the Turkish regime has in response accused the US of supporting the PKK in order to divide Turkey. Ankara knows very well that this is a lie, but it is part of a domestic campaign aimed at demonizing the US. Just as the chairman of the ruling AKP Islamist party, Hüseyin Çelik, has accused Israel of being behind the PKK bombing in İskenderun (legally Syrian territory, in practice occupied Kurdistan) in order to continue the regime's campaign of hateful incitement. (This is particularly ironic as Turkey is actually using Israeli drones against the Kurdish rebels, and Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu helped Turkey capture PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.) Further exploiting the more recent Istanbul bus bombing for all it's worth, Erdogan accused everyone from the media to his own political opposition of being tied up with the attacks.
The hypocrisy here is rather pungent as bus bombings were a common tool of the Hamas terrorist organization, which is closely supported by Erdogan. As a radical Islamist, Erdogan's ties to terrorism run deep. Not only was he personally jailed, but Erdogan and his AKP party are tied up with Yassin Qadi, a Saudi businessman who was marked by the US Treasury as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist"who funneled millions of dollars to Osama bin Laden. Cuneyt Zapsu, a co-founder of the AKP party and an Erdogan advisor, meanwhile only passed along 300,000 dollars to Al Queda, through Qadi.
Meanwhile in a country where members of a Kurdish youth choir as young as 12 were arrested and faced years in prison for singing a Kurdish folk song, that also happens to be the anthem of the anthem of Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government at the San Francisco International Music Festival in 2007-- Al Queda openly publishes its own magazine, "Kaide" out of an office in the middle of Istanbul. This is no accident. Erdogan claims there's no such thing as Islamic terrorism, just as he claimed that there's no such thing as genocide by Muslims, when he welcomed Sudan's mass murdering leader, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who is wanted for crimes against humanity. What Erdogan has done is legitimize Muslim terrorism and genocide. Even as he rants about Kurdish attacks on Turkey.
It's understandable why Erdogan and his regime would be worried about the Kurds. Turkey occupies and rules over 12 million of them. And those are the official statistics of a regime which at one time actually criminalized any attempt to list separate Kurdish populations. Suggesting that the real numbers may be far higher. But the real question is why we should care. Erdogan and the AKP are pushing Turkey on an anti-American path. Meanwhile the Kurds are vital to stabilizing Iraq. Which suggests that perhaps we should be focusing more on the rights of the Kurds, than the demands of the Turks.
But the US and Europe have turned a blind eye to everything Turkey does. Even when Erdogan openly threatened to ethnically cleanse Armenians again, if they complained about Turkey's original genocide of their people, in the presence of UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Nor did Brown raise the subject with Erdogan. Unlike when Israeli soldiers board a Turkish boat sent to aid Hamas, are stabbed and beaten and defend themselves, then the British government quickly demanded answers from Israel. That is because like every Islamist regime, Turkey gets a free pass to do whatever it likes, whether it's occupying Cyprus, invading Iraq and bombing villages there, or imprisoning 12 year olds for singing folk songs. And Turkey's pipeline power doesn't hurt either, as Europe finds itself on the wrong end of energy based hydraulic despotism.
Germany may keep Turkey out of the EU, not that Europe would have survived more than a decade of a state of affairs in which a Muslim population in the tens of millions, half of whom earns 20 dollars a month suddenly had access to every country in the EU. But the apologetics being penned for Turkey in the Western media claiming that Turkey's move to the Islamist camp is the act of a spurned EU lover, have it wrong. This was a long range and well financed effort accomplished by the same Saudis who funded Al Queda. Turkey once made the transition from Imperialism to Fascism. Now it is going from Fascism to Islamism.
Meanwhile European humanitarians and American liberals will continue vocally denouncing Israel for every talking point sent their way by Hamas. But suppose they spare a glance for 12 million Kurds living under Erdogan's oppression. Or its Armenians who dare not lift their heads. Or the continuing occupation of Cyprus. Or perhaps the ongoing imprisonment of Leyla Zana, who on becoming the first woman elected to the Turkish parliament was sentenced to ten years in jail for taking her oath in Kurdish. Despite winning the Sakharov Prize and being nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize, Zana is still in jail today. Perhaps in between declaring boycotts against Israel (though of course they oppose collective punishment) such "luminaries" as Ken Loach, John Berger, Iain Banks, Eve Ensler and Danny Glover might give a thought for her, and for what an actual totalitarian regime that occupies the lands of other people and suppresses their identities looks like.
But of course that would require integrity, which is in rather short supply among those folks. That is the same reason why human rights has become a sham. Why genocide could go on in the Sudan, while human rights groups panhandling for donations in Saudi Arabia, have focused mainly on raving and ranting against Israel. It's why the Human Rights Council at the UN features such notable defenders of human rights as Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Russia. And why Erdogan feels free to conduct a state of terror at home, and even invade Iraq, because he knows that he will never be held accountable for it.

via Daniel Greefield via docstalk.blogspot.com

 We showed the Turkish that they could fool us for decades. 

Turkish guest workers saw this all firsthand. Which made the idea that Turkey had to be secular in order for Turks to benefit from the modern world seem all the more absurd. That sort of thinking might have made sense back in the day when Her Majesty's Armies were administering an empire, but not when Islamist preachers were hectoring the masses and jeering at returning soldiers in the heart of her kingdom.

via sultanknish.blogspot.com

CHP (The Republican People’s Party) : created
in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, is now
led by Mr. Kemal Kilicdaroglu. It has been a stronger centre-left
party since its fusion, in February 1995, with the then main left-wing
party SHP. The fusion has however prompted many ex-SHP politicians to defect
from the CHP party and join the DSP ranks. Many blamed the former for not being left-wing enough: Mr. Baykal, leader of CHP until May 2010, was indeed in favor of liberal economic policies and of the Customs Union in general. Following the general elections of April 1999, CHP - which obtained only 8.7% of the votes - disappeared from the Parliament for the first time in its history. ex-leader Mr. Baykal was seen as the responsible of this defeat and he lost the control of the party after the Extraordinary Grand Congress of CHP and he resigned. During the elections of 2002, ex-leader Mr. Baykal re-gained his seat and they were able to get 19.39% of the votes, thus became the second and the main opposition party in the parliament. In 2007 they joined their forces with DSP and got 20,88% of the votes, bringing in 112 deputies. After the elections, members from DSP have left the party and returned to their original party. via allaboutturkey.com

Turkish politicians from the Republican People’s Party and the ruling Ak Party fight during a debate last May in the Turkish parliament in Ankara

via ayekikan.wordpress.com

AKP (Justice
and Development Party) : Founded in 2001 as a pro-Islamist party by
Mr. Erdogan and
Mr. Gul, AKP gradually gained higher votes in
each local and general elections surprising other political parties. In 2002
they won 34,3% of the total votes and became as the first party from the polls, with
Abdullah Gül first as the Premiere, then Tayyip Erdogan after
his political ban ended. All three coalition parties eliminated.
CHP emerged as main opposition. For the first time in almost two decades,
AKP ended up forming a single-party government.
AKP rejects the "Islamist" label and claims that it is a
pro-Western mainstream party with a "conservative" social agenda but also a firm
commitment to liberal market economy and European Union membership. In the elections of 2007 they got 46,58% of the total votes and won the elections for the second time, bringing in 341 deputies.  via allaboutturkey.com