UPDATE:
○ Obama on cusp of Iran victory | The Hill |
○ Obama gets Iran deal win as Senate Dems amass 34th vote | AP Breaking |
I watched a protest against the Iran deal in New York launched by the Stop Iran Rally Coalition with speakers Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman. Who is behind this organization?
Rally in NYC Against Iran Nuke Deal; Lieberman Calls on Sen. Gillibrand to ‘Change Her Vote’
Thousands of concerned New Yorkers gathered in midtown Manhattan on Tuesday evening, September 1 to rally in front of the offices of Senator Kirsten Gilllibrand, in a show of solidarity against the Iran nuclear deal that both chambers of Congress will be voting on in the weeks to come. As the crowd swelled at the well publicized rally organized by the Stop Iran Rally Coalition and the Jewish Rapid Response Coalition, long time Jewish activist Jeff Wiesenfeld welcomed the attendees as he served as the master of ceremonies for the proceedings.
“We are here tonight to show Senator Cory Booker, Congressman Jerry Nadler and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz that billions of unfrozen assets will end up in the hands of Iranian mullahs for the express purpose of killing and maiming innocent people,” declared Mr. Wiesenfeld in a voice reverberating with resoluteness.
The Iran nuclear deal is formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
“I know Gillibrand as she was an aide to former Senator Al D’Amato and let me tell you that she has betrayed the legacy of D’Amato and she has betrayed the people of New York,” he added.
The mere mention of Gillibrand’s name elicited a barrage of jeering and booing since she supports the deal, which would end sanctions against Tehran in exchange for a ten-year hiatus on nuclear development.
Wiesenfeld also exhorted Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to start “rounding up the votes” against the deal in Congress and to let the world know that this deal guarantees that that “the bomb will be delivered to Iran along with revenue to fund terrorism.”
Democratic Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Chris Coons of Delaware on Tuesday became the 32nd and 33rd senators to announce support for the deal, just one shy of the 34 votes needed to uphold an Obama veto of Republican legislation aimed at blocking the agreement.
“This agreement will substantially constrain the Iranian nuclear program for its duration, and compared with all realistic alternatives, it is the best option available to us at this time,” Casey said in a statement. In remarks at the University of Delaware, Coons said: “I will support this agreement despite its flaws because it is the better strategy for the United States to lead a coalesced global community in containing the spread of nuclear weapons.”
Earlier Tuesday Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, predicted that Obama would get to 34 votes by week’s end.
JBS coverage of the Rally To Stop Iran – July 22, 2015 plus photos
Well if the AIPAC Coalition invite idiots as speakers like Caroline Glick from Jerusalem and [senile or just Republican] Admiral ‘Ace’ Lyons to the protest in New York, the opposition deserves to lose decidedly. Take down the ‘Coal’ Koch Bros. and Adelson along with them please!
Adm. Ace Lyons accuses Obama/ Jarrett of imperiling America for Islamist means
Adm. Lyons claims Obama conceded America’s national honor in this surrender document. He seeks to defeat Obama’s Iran detente through Congressional override of Presidential veto. Lyons says only a military strike will pre-empt Iran from nuclear weapons.
Republican Jewish Coalition | RightWeb |
Imagine a world without American strength–what would it be? All of Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa could be under Nazi or Communist rule. America would be alone and the rest of the world would be in darkness.”[2]
“We fully embrace a pro-Israel foreign policy. … As the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel shares our values and is a bulwark against the forces of repression and anti-human rights regimes.”
These memes are at the heart of neoconservative ideology, and have been consistently repeated by its core representatives for decades. As Elliott Abrams, the Iran-Contra veteran who served in the George W. Bush National Security Council, once argued: “Since America’s emergence as a world power roughly a century ago, we have made many errors. But we have been the greatest force for good among the nations of the earth. A diminution of American power or influence bodes ill for our country, our friends, and our principles.”[4]
Midge Decter, Abrams’ mother-in-law and the spouse of neoconservative trailblazer Norman Podhoretz, clearly identifies the source of this belief in American exceptionalism: “In a world full of ambiguities and puzzlements, one thing is absolutely easy both to define and locate: that is the Jewish interest.
The continued security–and in those happy places where the term applies, well-being–of the Jews, worldwide, rests with a strong, vital, prosperous, self-confident United States.”[5]
Despite its clear connection to a much-maligned political ideology, the RJC has in recent years become a critical player in Republican Party politics, in part because of the support of mega-donors. In 2014, for example, the RJC hosted leading Republican Party presidential contenders at its convention in Las Vegas. The event, which one journalist dubbed the “Adelson Primary” because of the central role played by Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson,[6] included former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Ohio Gov. John Kaisch, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. “A single billionaire (Sheldon Adelson) held a cattle call, and potential Republican presidential candidates showed up,” NBC’s Chuck Todd said.[7]
Republican Jewish Coalition says it sees fundraising boom | WaPo – April 2015 |
Tension between the Obama administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has fueled a fundraising bonanza for a conservative advocacy group that serves as an influential hub of wealthy Jewish donors on the right.
The Republican Jewish Coalition — whose board includes casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and other GOP mega-donors — has brought in scores of new contributors alarmed by the open sparring between President Obama and Netanyahu over how to curb Iran’s nuclear capabilities, said Matthew Brooks, the RJC’s executive director.
“Our national fundraising has been exploding as a result of this,” Brooks said. “There are a lot of folks who are deeply troubled by the actions of this administration and the undermining of the relationship with Israel and with Prime Minister Netanyahu, and as a result, I think, they are engaged and energized in a way I have never seen before.”
The White House declined to comment. Obama has urged Republicans not to “politicize” the U.S.-Israeli relationship, stressing the “unbreakable bond” between the two countries.
…
In the 2012 cycle, the organization brought in $13 million and spent at least $4.5 million on ads opposing Obama’s reelection, according to tax records and campaign finance filings. An affiliated super PAC plowed an additional $1.8 million into anti-Obama spots, funded entirely by Adelson and his wife, Miriam.Most of the RJC’s political spending has been done through its nonprofit arm, allowing it to keep its backers’ names secret. But the coalition’s board of directors includes many of the wealthiest donors on the right, including billionaire hedge-fund executive Paul Singer, home builder Larry Mizel and Mel Sembler, former ambassador to Australia and Italy.
Counterterrorism Education Learning Lab (The CELL) – Founder Larry Mizel
In Neocons’ ‘Parallel Establishment,’ a Foundation Hides Its Israel Concerns | Mondoweiss |
Continued below the fold …
In Neocons’ ‘Parallel Establishment,’ a Foundation Hides Its Israel Concerns | Mondoweiss |
I bring this up because lately I took a look at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a little-known thinktank in Washington that is a pillar of that parallel establishment. The whole foundation is dedicated to fighting radical Islam and fostering democracy in the Middle East. Its website says that it is defending democracies “under assault by terrorism and militant Islamism.” There is very little on the website about Israel, and yet it is plain when you look into the group that support for Israel is at the heart of the group’s creation. In this sense, FDD is like Freedom’s Watch, the Ari Fleischer pro-Iraq war group I have written about. Freedom’s Watch purports to be all about America’s interests, and yet it is plain, even to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, which did the first story on the outfit last summer, that its board and staff are chiefly Jewish and that promoting a U.S. foreign policy that joins the U.S. at the hip with Israel in the fight against terrorism, starting with the Palestinians, is the group’s main objective.
I have criticized Freedom’s Watch for not being upfront about this aim. The same charge can be leveled at FDD. Go to the website and the group says it was started after 9/11 by “visionary philanthropists,” then gives as its board of directors just three names, Jack Kemp, Steve Forbes and the late Jeane Kirkpatrick. Three gentiles. But if you go to the organization’s latest 990 form, which it filed with the federal government because it is a 501c3 (forms collected by the great guidestar.org) there are more than 20 directors listed, and most of them have a strong Jewish interest.
Among the board members listed for 2005 are Michael Steinhardt, the co-owner of the New Republic who started birthright, the program to send Jewish kids to Israel for free; Roland Arnall, the ambassador to the Netherlands who co-founded the Simon Wiesenthal Center; Charles Bronfman, who started birthright with Steinhardt; Cheryl Halpern, who has been associated with the Republican Jewish Committee and WINEP, the pro Israel military thinktank; Tony Gelbart, who started Nefesh B’nefesh, an organization that urges American Jews to move to Israel; Larry Mizel, who started a Jewish museum in Denver; Leonard Abramson, founder of U.S. Healthcare and founder of a Jewish museum; and Lindsay Rosenwald, who is identified online as a member of the Republican Jewish Committee.
A small network is fostering widespread hatred of Islam inside US politics and public opinion
WTF why has a 9/11 Memorial to be linked to the Nazi Holocaust at Babi Yar in Ukraine?
It is a unique public landscape that serves as an active agent for culture and dialogue, and it functions as a vehicle for preserving, communicating and sharing the memory of historic traumas while providing conditions for healing traumatic wounds.
Mizel Museum, Denver Parks & Recreation and numerous community leaders are preparing for the next phase of development: The September 11 Memorial. Linking the memory of the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington to the memory of mass killings of Jews and others at Babi Yar began with a “memorial in transit” in August 2011 – the transportation of sixteen pieces of steel from the site of the World Trade Center in across the country to a new resting place in Denver.