Beck says children who were murdered in Oslo were like the Hitler Youth

He trivialized the Holocaust yesterday when he said the children who were murdered in Oslo were like the Hitler Youth says the JIDF.

In March 1945, the Nazi regime ordered its press to publish a death toll of 200,000 for the Dresden raids. Death toll estimates as high as 500,000 have been given. An independent investigation commissioned by the city council in 2010 reported a maximum of 25,000 victims

...Well I agree with Beck there. Norway is the enemy to me. I wouldn't say the tactic used to kill them was prudent or rational. The actions were the ramblings of a psychopath, but I most certainly can make the intellectual leap that a higher power would do something like this through a very flawed person. I also would not of wanted to stop the bombing of Dresden during WWII

Weiner’s Exit Sets Off a Race to Be Israel’s Better Friend

The New York Times reports: AssemblymanDavid I. Weprin, the Democratic candidate to replace former RepresentativeAnthony D. Weiner in a special election on Sept. 13, is a Modern Orthodox Jew who keeps kosher, observes Shabbos and has been to Israel at least eight times. So it comes as a surprise that, at this early stage of the short campaign, New York’sNinth Congressional District finds itself talking about an unlikely subject - whether Mr. Weprin, who is unabashedly pro-Israel, is the best pro-Israel advocate.
Just as a May special election in a conservative district of western New York turned into an unexpected referendum on the Republican Party’s proposals aboutMedicare, the coming special election in a heavily Jewish district of Brooklyn and Queens is, at least for that district, emerging as a potential referendum onPresident Obama’s proposals about the Middle East.
“It will be a one-upsmanship on who is more pro-Israel,” said Chris Malone, an associate professor of political science at Pace University.
On Monday, former Mayor Edward I. Koch, a Democrat, endorsed the Republican candidate in the race,Bob Turner, a retired cable television executive, at a press conference at which he stood next to an Israeli flag. Mr. Koch has acknowledged that Mr. Weprin is a strong supporter of Israel, but argued that the election of Mr. Turner would serve as a rebuke to Mr. Obama for saying that Israel’s pre-1967 border should be the basis for a peace agreement.
Both Mr. Weprin, 55, and Mr. Turner, 70, have criticized the president’s position on Israel, and both promote their support for Israel on their campaign Web sites.
But Mr. Koch said that although he and Mr. Weprin had similar political ideals, he had concluded that Mr. Weprin could not be “an effective messenger” to Mr. Obama.
“I said to him that it’s not a personal matter, but I want you to understand that it’s an issue that’s bigger than you and that’s bigger than me,” Mr. Koch said. “The president is not likely to be offended or feel threatened by David Weprin, Democrat from Queens, saying something critical of him.”
What did Mr. Weprin think of the former mayor’s concern? “My first thought is to quote one of Mayor Koch’s famous lines: ‘That’s ridiculous!’ It’s just absurd.”
Mr. Weprin and Mr. Turner are vying to represent a New York City district that includes Forest Hills and Kew Gardens in Queens, as well as parts of Flatbush and Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn. The district is about one-quarter Jewish.
And Jewish voters are expected to be particularly important in the special election, which is likely to have low turnout, said Jerry Skurnik, a partner atPrime New York, a political consulting firm. Mr. Skurnik said that Jewish voters tended to vote in higher percentages than the general population, and he estimated that Jewish voters made up 30 percent to 35 percent of active voters in the district.
“You definitely can’t get wiped out in the Jewish vote and expect to win a district like this,” Mr. Skurnik said.
The district is solidly Democratic, but conservative by New York standards, and Mr. Turner won 40 percent of the vote when he ran against Mr. Weiner in 2010.
Assemblyman Weprin’s relationship with elements of the district’s diverse Jewish community is also complicated by his vote in Albany in favor of the legalization of same-gender marriage.
Dovid Z. Schwartz, an Orthodox Jewish activist from Kew Gardens, said of Mr. Weprin’s same-gender marriage vote, “To the mind of many people, the vote itself was the point of no return.” And Mr. Schwartz also argued that because Mr. Weprin is a “career political insider” and of the same party as Mr. Obama, he could not be a “fierce advocate” pushing back against the president’s Middle East policy.
“A vote against David Weprin would send a clear message to the administration that they cannot take the Jewish vote for granted,” Mr. Schwartz said.
But the Weprin campaign argued that Mr. Obama would be more likely to listen to criticism of his Israel position from a fellow Democrat. “If voters want to send a message to the president, they won’t do it by sending another rank-and-fileTea Party extremist Republican to Congress,” Mr. Weprin’s campaign manager, Jake Dilemani, said.
Mr. Weprin is supported by the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, also an Orthodox Jew, who said Israel was “the No. 1 concern among Jewish voters.” But Mr. Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, dismissed the strategy of voting for Mr. Turner to send a message to Mr. Obama as “a political game.”
“The record of David Weprin is such that there’s no choice,” he said.
Cynthia Zalisky, the executive director of the Queens Jewish Community Council, called the candidates “admirable,” but said that “how these candidates feel about Israel and the president’s concept of pre-1967 borders is going to resonate in this district.”
Both Mr. Turner and Mr. Weprin’s camps are trying to play down the importance of Israel as a campaign issue, while simultaneously burnishing their credentials on Israel.
In an e-mail, Mr. Turner’s campaign said its candidate was focused on “getting our economy moving again and creating jobs,” but it criticized Mr. Obama as being “no friend to Israel.”
Asked whether there was any difference between Mr. Turner and Mr. Weprin on Israel, Mr. Turner’s spokesman said: “David Weprin walks the party line. Israel is our strongest ally in the Middle East, and it is morally and historically wrong - and strategically unwise - to blame Israel for the lack of peace with thePalestinians. That is what President Obama has done, and David Weprin hasn’t said a peep about it.”
In a phone interview, Mr. Weprin said, “It is very important that the United States maintains that very special relationship they have with Israel, and I would be a strong advocate for that.”
When Mr. Weprin spoke to a senior center in Queens last week, he addressed his position on Israel, but fielded more questions on financial matters.
“Everybody’s mind is on the budget, the deficit, the debt ceiling, which we’re backing up against, and the potential cutting of Medicare andSocial Security,” he said. “I would say Medicare and Social Security cross all boundaries, all ethnic boundaries, and even all age groups.”
Dr. Malone, the Pace political scientist, predicted that other issues would indeed emerge in the campaign, but said the importance of the Jewish vote would remain.
“There’s bigger fish to fry,” he said, “as long as they’re fried kosher.”
{NY Times/Matzav.com Newscenter}

via matzav.com

It is a shame that good people will be overlooked in the Democratic party because of Obama. Let's hope this won't be necessary in the future.

Nuclear Cooperation between Argentina and Iran?

an ineffective foreign policy... obviously! The Ladies are all smiles, but they bite and scratch when backs are turned.
Kirchner and Clinton... Ha ha ha ha ha.....

With the help of Venezuela, there is reason to believe that Argentina is cooperating with Iran on its the nuclear issue in a deal that involves Argentina's willingness to drop the accusations against Iran for the 1994 bombing in return for business.

In a confidential letter that was sent by Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who chairs the House Foreign Relations Committee, to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Ros-Lehtinen sought to establish "status of any possible economic projects Argentina may be engaged in with Venezuela that may involve Iran." Ros-Lehtinen also sought to establish "the extent of any nuclear cooperation that may be at play between Argentina, Venezuela and Iran." The letter was co-signed by Florida's Republican Congressmen Connie Mack and David Rivera. "We are writing to express our concerns about information that our offices have received about potential efforts by Iran of nuclear cooperation with Argentina, using Venezuela as its intermediary," the three legislators wrote.
The existence of economic projects linking Iran, Venezuela and Argentina have long been known. Univision, a Spanish-language television network in the United States, mentions that, in the framework of this cooperation, Venezuela has launched a program for the development of at least 200 "socialist factories" through agreements with Iran and Argentina -- mainly food processing plants and industrial equipment factories. Although the funding involved about $300 million, most of these factories have not been built and, very likely, will never be built. The suspicion is that financial resources have been diverted for different purposes: in particular that the so-called agricultural program is a cover-up operation to hide payments that have nothing to do with food factories.
In the past, Argentina and Iran maintained a nuclear cooperation agreement that, under pressure from U.S. President George Bush, was suspended in the early 1990s by then-President Carlos Menem, But more recently, Iran has become interested in acquiring scientific know-how and technology from the Argentine nuclear program. The Miami Herald reports that in 2007 Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had asked Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, on a personal basis, to to use his good relations with Argentine President Cristina Fernandez Kirchner to convince her to restart nuclear cooperation with Iran. Further, the website La Patilla published information about a meeting on February 6, 2010 between the Venezuelan vice President Elias Jaua and the Argentinean Planning Minister, Julio De Vido, close assistant to President Fernandez Kirchner, in which they discussed nuclear cooperation. Though the evidence implicating Argentina with Iran in nuclear development is yet not clear, last April the Argentinean paper Perfil reported that in a meeting last January with Iran's ally, Syrian President Bashar Assad, the Argentinean Foreign Minister, Hector Timerman, offered to drop investigations in Iran relating to the 1994 bombings in Buenos Aires against the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA). In return, it seems, Timerman's desire was to deepen economic relations between Buenos Aires and Teheran.
According to Perfil, Syria then passed the Argentinean FM's offer to Iran. In a leaked cable quoted by the newspaper, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi allegedly told the Iranian President that "Argentina is no longer interested in solving those two attacks, but in exchange prefers improving its economic relations with Iran."
The AMIA bombing
This year marks the 17^th anniversary of the AMIA bombing, which killed 87 people and injured more than 100, in 1994. Argentina was also hit by a terrorist attack in 1992; the bombing targeted the Israel Embassy in Buenos Aires, killed 29 people and wounded 242. In both events, Hezbollah and Iran are suspected of having perpetrated the terrorist attacks. To date, however, there has been no justice.. The person believed to be the bombings's planner is Ahmad Vahidi, the current Iranian Defense Minister, who recently visited Bolivia after a controversial official invitation by Bolivian President Evo Morales.
The Iranian government recently said that is offering its help to "uncover the truth" behind the AMIA bombing. The Iranian Foreign Ministry wrote in a statement that "the ministry denounces the fact that the truth about the criminal action has become the target of plots and political games and that Argentine officials at the time, whose illegal actions have been disclosed and convicted by the court in this regard, misled judicial investigation and set the stage for the escape of real culprits behind the atrocity from the hands of justice through pointing a finger of blame at a number of nationals of the Islamic Republic of Iran."
Despite these hypocritical remarks, and despite the fact that Iran says that the Argentinean justice leveled false allegations against Hezbollah and Iran, the current Argentinean government thanked Iran for offering its help. Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman said that Iran's offer is "an unprecedented and very positive step." The Associated Press reported that Iran, which denies that Iranian citizens were involved, is even preparing its own report on the bombing and wants to begin a dialogue with the Argentines to help solve the case. Given the fact that in the past the Iranian government has accused the "Zionists" of perpetrating the 1994 bombing, the report will most likely bring paradoxical allegations that the "Jews" committed the attack against the Jewish center in Buenos Aires.
Still, the Argentinean FM Timerman said he is optimistic that Iran will help solve the case: "There is sufficient evidence to bring to trial various Iranian citizens, and we want to see if, through this dialogue, they will understand that we all have to submit ourselves to justice." As some Argentinean media recently put it, Buenos Aires is apparently more interested in pursuing a rapprochement with Tehran, with all the good business that will follow, than pursuing the cause of justice. It is clear from Timerman's words of appeasement that even a country such as Argentina, which suffered from terrorist attacks inspired by Iran, is willing to turn the page and open its doors to doing business with the Ayatollahs. What then are the chances for trade and military sanctions against Iran to succeed?
Iran looks to diversify allies in Latin America
The worries expressed by Ros-Lehtinen and her colleagues only add another tessera to the mosaic that Iran is preparing south of America's doorstep. In response, the U.S. State Department answered Ros-Lehtinen with the following statement: "We have no evidence to support the claim that Venezuela serves as an interlocutor between Iran and Argentina on nuclear issues, nor that Argentina is granting Iran access to its nuclear technology. Argentina has long maintained a constructive position at the International Atomic Energy Agency with respect to Iran's nuclear program". There is no reason, unfortunately, to be reassured by the words of the State Department.
Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-Israeli political analyst, points out that, as Iran's staunchest ally in Latin America, Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez, was diagnosed with a cancer, which means that the Venezuelan President might move further down in his alliance with Iran on its priority list. Chavez's illness may be why Iran could try to forge a strong alliance with another important Latin American country:: Argentina. Although it is not yet clear whether Argentina is sending nuclear technology to Iran with the help of Venezuela, it is a reality that Teheran wants to diversify its relations in Latin America away from Venezuela.
For now, the Argentinean government is responding exactly as Iran wishes, as can bee seen in the Argentinean FM's warm and friendly statements on Iran's cooperation in the case of AMIA. Argentina is not just helping the mullahs' regime by opening new doors in Latin America, it is also whitewashing Iran's terrorist record, would leave hundreds of victims and their families permanently deprived of justice.

via hudson-ny.org

What incentive could the United States give Argentina to keep her from working with Iran? Follow the money! Good foreign policy would be to engage with Argentina as opposed to directly with terrorist groups.
image via hillary.foreignpolicy.com