Roy Moore vs Doug Jones….A fair and open solution

Alabama election for U.S. Senate December 12, 2017  

Until a few weeks ago the moral issues in this election were well defined. And based on the attitudes and beliefs of the majority of the citizens of Alabama Roy Moore was the overwhelming favorite  to win this Election.

Then, after the deadline  to change the ballot,  the Washington Post,[ now echoed by MSNBC, CNN, the New York Times, etc. has] publicized two serious allegations against the character of Judge Moore.

Most observers acknowledge that this is the proverbial "October surprise" hit job …serious charges made against a candidate just before an election when it will be nearly impossible to dispel negative aroma generated by accusations.

We believe that nearly all Alabama voters want to do the right thing. The question is: What is the right thing?

We propose a solution process which will:

 Enable citizens of Alabama to proceed with confidence that the outcome will be appropriate, no matter what the final outcome is in reference to these allegations made against Judge Moore;

Enable the voters of Alabama to make their choice solely on the basis of the differences in philosophy and policies of the two candidates;

Not reward political hit jobs ;

 Ensure that, if Judge Moore, has in fact been guilty of either of the two major allegations that he would not be permitted to serve as a senator from Alabama.

This “best outcome” can be achieved as follows:

Vote for Roy Moore.   AND

Continue with a thorough investigation

Have Gov. Ivey appoint an impartial group to hear the evidence and make a determination that would be binding on Judge Moore. [For example, the group could consist of Gov.Ivey and six other appointees drawn from the Alabama legislature. The standard would be somewhere between criminal law where it is "beyond a reasonable doubt" and civil law where it is ”predominance of the evidence". It would take five votes to determine probable guilt.]

Have Judge Moore sign a legal commitment to step down if he is found guilty of either of the two main accusations against him.

 Then the governor of Alabama will appoint a suitable replacement. If Judge Moore is cleared then an obvious political hit job will not be rewarded. [This would speed up the process and make it transparent.]

The investigation:

1. Leigh Corfman alleges she was 14 when she dated Moore. She alleges Roy touched her in a sexual way. The touching was over the clothes, and they stopped having contact after the event in question. To continue the investigation Leigh Corfman would be required to file a sworn statement and be subject to cross-examination on the details both by the state authorities and by judge Moore’s legal representation. Included would be all past actions of the complainant making complaints against others. The various legal documents she has sworn to and her divorces and bankruptcies. Etc.

What has been reported widely is that the complainant had at that approximate age drug and sex problems. Also what has been reported widely is that the complainant has history of making similar complaints against various clergymen. Also reported is that certain details of the complainant’s story such as the judge reaching her in her bedroom by telephone have been proven false.

2.  Beverly Young Nelson claims to have been sexually assaulted when she was 16. She says Moore gave her a ride home from her job as a waitress and then tried to force her into oral sex. She says the incident was violent, and she claims to have a high school yearbook that was signed by Moore, proving their involvement. Beverly Young Nelson’s is a more difficult case. Here is a case of really "she said". The yearbook signature should be turned over immediately for expert examination. If it is not Roy Moore's actual inscription then the second case is loses most of its credibility. If it is Judge Roy Moore's actual original signature it damages Judge Moore's credibility but it is not conclusive in regard to the allegations.

 A second idea for Governor Ivey  to consider,  which is  under Gov. Ivy’s complete control is the following:

       Have Sen. Luther Strange resign his seat immediately. The governor could then cancel the election and call for a new election while she makes an interim appointment to fill the unexpired portion (few weeks) remaining in the term. This would give her, the citizens of Alabama, and the nation time to respond to  the Washington Post’s  imposed crisis that has been thrust upon her state and the nation in an attempt to thwart the will of the citizens of Alabama.

Past history should cause every citizen of Alabama to approach the Judge Moore accusations with caution and concern

There is a pattern of last-minute political accusations appearing in the Washington Post in the New York Times. Recent examples include the charges against George W. Bush [that he evaded his required service in the National Guard]; Mitt  Romney [that he was a prep school bully who helped attack a kid who might have been perceived as gay; that he abused a family pet by carrying him in a kennel lashed to the luggage rack on top of a family vehicle]; John McCain [Cindy McCain engaged in criminal acts which violated United States narcotics laws].

Also there is the memory of this technique being used in an attempt to forestall the appointment to the Supreme Court of Clarence Thomas, and to disrupt the presidential campaign of Herman  Kane.

 Other Incidents of false accusations that destroyed careers and lives include:

 Tawana Brawley’s  rape allegations.  Brawley  gained notoriety in 1987–88 for falsely accusing four white men of having raped her. The charges received widespread national attention because of her age, the persons accused, and the state in which Brawley was found after the alleged rape. She was found in a trash bag, with racial slurs written on her body and covered in feces. Brawley's accusations were given widespread media attention in part from the involvement of her advisers, including the Reverend Al Sharpton and attorneys Alton H. Maddox and C. Vernon Mason.

The Duke University lacrosse team. In March 2006, Crystal Gail Mangum, a black student at North Carolina Central University  accused three white Duke University students – all members of the  men's lacrosse team – of raping her. The rape was alleged to have occurred at a party held at the house of two of the team's captains in Durham on March 13, 2006. Many people  commenting on the case,  stated  that the alleged rape was a hate crime. Duke lacrosse coach Mike Pressler was forced to resign.  Duke president Richard Brodhead canceled the remainder of the 2006 season. On April 11, 2007, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper dropped all charges and declared the three lacrosse players innocent of the rape allegations. Cooper stated that the players were victims of a "tragic rush to accuse”.

The McMartin case.The McMartin preschool trial was a day care sexual abuse case in the 1980s, prosecuted by the Los Angeles District Attorney . Members of the McMartin family, who operated a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, were charged with numerous acts of sexual abuse of children in their care. Accusations were made in 1983. Arrests and the pretrial investigation ran from 1984 to 1987, and the trial ran from 1987 to 1990. After six years of criminal trials all charges were dropped in 1990. Simultaneously throughout the country many ministers and others in contact with youth were unjustly accused in a wave of  day-care sex-abuse hysteria, a moral panic over alleged Satanic ritual abuse in the 1980s and early 1990s.

The mantra was: "believe the children". There were many witnesses. Before the McMartin's were cleared they lost their business; they l lost their home. Their daughter had her teaching license stripped from her. Their son became unemployable.  

Returning to Judge Moore vs Doug Jones

Buried in flurry of accusations made against Judge Moore in the media are the true issues that vitally affect the citizens of Alabama and of the United States.

These include Doug Jones past support and expected future support of policies which undercut American response to:

             North Korea’s growing threat to Japan, the Philippines in the homeland of the United States.

              Iran's growing threat to Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc. Iran’s expansion in the Middle East. Iran's growing  sponsorship of  terrorism in Africa and South America. Iran's direct threat of nuclear missile attack on Israel, Europe, and  the mainland of the United States.

               China's economic and military expansion not only in the Far East but into South America in the Middle East.

Doug  Jones’ past support and legal advocacy [as recently as 1989] for individuals and organizations who not only advocated but actually physically attacked Blacks and Jews.

Doug Jones’  active support of partial-birth abortion [which most of us find to be cold-blooded murder of innocent newborns].

But for the Grace of God — Iran in Syria and the Lessons for Israel

 Martin Sherman   November 24, 2017 

https://www.algemeiner.com/2017/11/23/but-for-the-grace-of-god-iran-in-syria-and-the-lessons-for-israel/

Only by resisting territorial concessions on the Golan, Israel prevented deployment of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards on the fringes of the Galilee; only by resisting territorial concessions in the “West Bank” can Israel prevent them from deploying on the fringes of Greater Tel Aviv.

Examples of horrible advice from the so-called experts:

“Israel has a strategic interest in disassociating Syria from the extremist axis that Iran is leading. Syria is not lost, Assad is western educated and is not a religious man. He can still join a moderate grouping.”

—  Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, chief of staff of IDF, Nov. 13, 2009.

“…we should not belittle the signals of peace coming from Syria.”

     — Ehud Barak, Israeli defense minister, Nov. 13, 2009.

“Syria is the key to regional change for us. If I was prime minister, I would pin all my hopes on Syria.”

Indeed, not only have the “top brass” of Israel’s security establishment been hopelessly and hazardously wrong in appraising Assad’s role as a peace partner, they have been equally wrong in predicting his imminent fall — see for example here,  here, here, here, here and here.

…

Just how appallingly wrong these assessments by the most senior echelons of the Israeli security establishment proved to be was driven home by a recent BBC report, indicating that the Iranian military is engaged in the construction of what appears to be a permanent military base in Syria. But more on these — and other — disturbing lapses in judgment a little later.

Permanent Iranian presence in Syria?

Based on satellite images commissioned by the BBC, the report suggests extensive ongoing construction between January and October this year, just outside a site used by the Syrian army near the town of El-Kiswah, 14 kilometers (8 miles) south of Damascus.

It comes on the heels of evermore disturbing accounts of the increasingly pervasive presence of Iranian forces throughout Syria — with Russian endorsement and US acquiescence — together with growing concern that Tehran will soon attempt to deploy both air and naval forces, including submarines and set up weapons production plants to supply its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah.

In the discussion of the ramifications of these revelations, attention appeared to focus mainly on two cardinal issues: (a) The significance for the completion of the “Shi’ite arc of influence,” stretching from east of the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean and the creation of a land-based logistical supply line from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon; and (b) the stern warnings issued by Israel that it would not permit an Iranian takeover of Syria, hinting that it would be prepared to use military force to prevent this.

However, there is another vital element germane to the expanding Iranian military presence in Syria — and one that has received remarkably little media attention. It is, however, one whose relevance Israel will ignore at its peril.

Inconvenient but incontrovertible fact

After all, as ominous as the current Iranian military deployment in Syria is, it might well have been far more menacing. Indeed, the fact that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is not perched on the Golan Heights, overlooking the Sea of Galilee, is solely because Israel did not fall prey to the seductive temptation of the land-for-peace formula, as urged by many, in both the international community and in its own security establishment (see introductory excerpts) — and did not cede the strategic plateau that commands the approaches to the entire north of the country.

One can only shudder with dread at the thought of the perilous predicament the country would be in, had it heeded the call from the allegedly “enlightened and progressive” voices, who — up until the gory events of the Syrian civil war that erupted in 2011 — hailed the British-trained doctor, Bashar al-Assad, as a moderate reformer, with whom a durable peace deal could be cut — if only an intransigent Israel would yield the Golan to his regime. 

Indeed, it is an inconvenient — albeit incontrovertible — fact that every time Israel has relinquished/abandoned territory, to Arab control, that territory has — usually sooner rather than later — become a platform from which to launch lethal attacks against Israel — almost immediately in Gaza; within months in Judea-Samaria; within years in south Lebanon and after several decades in Sinai, now descending into the depravity and brutality of a jihadi-controlled no-man’s land — with no good options on the horizon.

This is something Israeli policy makers dare not disregard. For as dangerous and detrimental as the outcomes of previous withdrawals proved to be, they are likely to pale into insignificance compared to consequences of territorial concession in Judea-Samara (a.k.a. the “West Bank”).  

Compounding the gravity

Indeed, even the Golan, with all its vital strategic significance, cannot match the importance of the highlands of Judea-Samaria, commanding Israel’s urban megalopolis in the coastal plain. As I have pointed out elsewhere, any forces deployed on these highlands command all of the following: major airfields (civilian and military) including the country’s only international airport; major sea ports and naval bases; vital infrastructure installations (power transmission, water systems, and communication networks); main land transport routes (road and rail); principal power plants; the national parliament and most government ministries; crucial centers of civilian administration and military command; and 80% of the civilian population and the commercial activity in the country.   

Significantly, all of these strategic objectives will be within easy range of weapons being used today against Israel from territories previously relinquished to Arab control.

Compounding the gravity of any threat entailed in Israel yielding sizeable portions of Judea-Samaria to the Palestinian-Arabs are reports of renewed ties between Iran and Hamas, purported to be “stronger than ever.”  

An Iranian proxy overlooking Tel Aviv?

Addressing journalists in Gaza last August, Hamas leader Yehiyeh Sinwar declared that the terror group had restored relations with Iran after a five-year rift, due to Hamas’ refusal to support Assad, and is using its newfound financial and military aid to gear up for new hostilities against Israel. According to Sinwar, “Today, the relationship with Iran is excellent, or very excellent,” adding that Iran is “the largest backer financially and militarily” of the organization’s military wing.

Clearly, were Israel to withdraw from Judea-Samaria, there is little that it could do to curtail the spread of Iranian influence. Indeed, without the IDF to prop up the corrupt kleptocracy of Fatah, it is more than likely that Hamas, increasingly an Iranian proxy in the mold of Hezbollah — despite being on opposite sides of the Sunni-Shia divide — could mount an effective challenge for power. This could be done either via the ballot (a recent Palestinian poll shows that Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh would trounce Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas) or by the bullet — as it did in in Gaza in 2007, and could well do again in Judea-Samaria, especially if bolstered by Iranian backing

Accordingly, just as it was only Israel’s resistance to territorial concession on the Golan that prevented the deployment of Iranian Revolutionary Guard on the fringes of the Galilee, so only by resisting territorial concessions in the “West Bank” can Israel prevent Iranian Revolutionary Guard (or any other Jihadi elements) from deploying on the fringes of greater Tel Aviv.

Assessing new “peace initiatives”: Rank is no recommendation

These are the grim realities that any future “peace initiative” must take into consideration.

This caveat takes on special significance in light of rumors that a new “peace” initiative is currently brewing within the Trump administration, seemingly enamored with the allure of cutting “the ultimate deal.”

In this regard, Israel must internalize the lessons of the past and robustly resist pressures to relinquish further territory to Arab control. In particular, it must be wary of counsel from individuals and organizations, who have demonstrated, consistently and conclusively that — no matter what their past experience and seniority — their judgement cannot be trusted (see introductory excerpts). After all, as the past clearly indicates, when assessing such initiatives, rank is rarely any recommendation.

Indeed, not only have the “top brass” of Israel’s security establishment been hopelessly and hazardously wrong in appraising Assad’s role as a peace partner, they have been equally wrong in predicting his imminent fall — see for example here,  here, here, here, here and here.

Israel can ill afford such lapses in judgement when it comes to making fateful decisions regarding concessions in Judea-Samaria that would critically imperil the vast majority of the nation’s population.  

With this in mind, it cannot for a moment forget what — but for the grace of God — our fate in the Golan would have been.

This article  appears this week on the following sites (in alphabetical order):

ALGEMEINER:   https://www.algemeiner.com/2017/11/23/but-for-the-grace-of-god-iran-in-syria-and-the-lessons-for-israel/

ISRAELI FRONTLINE:  http://www.israelifrontline.com/2017/11/fray-grace-god-iran-syria-lessons-israel.html

ISRAEL NATIONAL NEWS: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/21314

ISRAEL NEWS ONLINE: https://israelnewsonline.org/into-the-fray-but-for-the-grace-of-god-iran-in-syria-the-lessons-for-israel/#.Whcrr0qWY2x

ISRAEL RISING: (To be posted) 

ISRAPUNDIT: https://www.israpundit.org/into-the-fray-but-for-the-grace-of-god-iran-in-syria-the-lessons-for-israel/

JERUSALEM HERALD  https://www.jerusalem-herald.com/single-post/2017/11/24/INTO-THE-FRAY-But-For-the-Grace-of-G-d—Iran-in-Syria-The-Lessons-for-Israel

JEWS DOWN UNDER : https://jewsdownunder.com/2017/11/24/fray-grace-god-iran-syria-lessons-israel/

MEDIUM  https://medium.com/@martinsherman/into-the-fray-but-for-the-grace-of-god-iran-in-syria-the-lessons-for-israel-2894c6f4dd8a

JEWISH PRESS: (To be posted)

Martin Sherman is the founder and executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.

Anatomy of a Smear by Rabbi [ @ Rabbi Rick Jacobs]

Anatomy of a Smear by Rabbi  [@  Rabbi Rick Jacobs]

By Rabbi Pruzansky

As if on order, no sooner had I written “Life with a Smear” when we were presented with a real life example of a smear – a deliberate and conscious attempt to manipulate and distort the words of a public figure in order to shame her, force an apology, get her fired and ruin her life and career – all for the purpose of gaining some petty, partisan, political advantage.

The other day, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely purported to “disrespect” and “outrage” “all of American Jewry” (these are actual quotes from her critics) by articulating basic truths of which most American Jews are aware. Asked why there is a disconnect these days between much of American Jewry and Israel on diplomatic issues, and how such matters as the “Kotel” controversy have angered such a large part of American Jewry, she answered that Israel is the homeland of all Jews, “of all streams,” and every Jew should come live here and thereby influence Israeli society. But, she added, most American Jews are “not understanding the complexities of the region,” as they are –and here are the phrases that allegedly ticked off the self-appointed leaders of the branches of American Jewry that are in such a steep decline – “people that never send their children to fight for their country, most of the Jews don’t have children serving as soldiers, going to the Marines, going to Afghanistan, going to Iraq. Most of them have quite convenient lives. They don’t know how it feels to be attacked by rockets.”

If we parse her words fairly and objectively, it is clear that her sentiments are true and indisputable. Most American Jews do not have children serving as soldiers, Marines, in Afghanistan or Iraq. That is obvious, and I would speculate that most American Jews don’t even know someone who serves in the American military or served in Iraq or Afghanistan. (I do – a young former congregant was a Marine who fought during some of the harshest combat in Fallujah, Iraq, and I was proud to officiate at his wedding at which he wore his full dress uniform, replete with sword, and of course a good number of chaplains.) But most don’t, and that is true today of most Americans.

This is not because American Jews are selfish, uncaring, unpatriotic or disloyal. In truth, we are underrepresented in the American military according to our percentage of the population, but that has to do mostly with the underrepresentation of particular socio-economic brackets in the American military and the underrepresentation in the military of sections of the country where most Jews live. The higher socio-economic bracket to which one belongs and the more liberal the area of the country in which one lives, we find the lower the rate of participation in the military. This is true for Jews and non-Jews. We can quibble whether this should be so but not whether it is so. It is, and so it has been since the United States abolished the draft 45 years ago. (Parenthetically, only 25 % of the current members of Congress have served in the military, compared to close to 80% of the congressmen in the 1970’s.)

What Tzipi Hotovely said is absolutely true.

But this is how a smear works: Rick Jacobs, the leader of Reform Judaism who has become an open foe of a strong, proud, traditional Israel, castigated her for being “ignorant and ill-informed,” because, as he said, “my father served with distinction” in the American army. Indeed – we honor his father’s service! – but she did not say that Jews have never served in the American military (“never send” is not the same as “never sent,” and even that phrase was clarified), but rather that most Jews “don’t” serve in the American military. Note the verbal legerdemain – pretending her remarks were a blanket statement about the past rather than a comment on the present. That is rank dishonesty, and he should be ashamed of himself for engaging in it.

The point is not whether his father served or even whether he served (I assume he didn’t; he and I both came of age after the United States switched to an all-voluntary military). When there was a draft, Jews were drafted and served like any other citizen; American Jews fought in World War II in a greater proportion than our share of the population. I’ve walked the grounds of the American military cemetery at Normandy. The Stars of David that mark the graves of the dead American-Jewish soldiers stand out, if only because the thousands of crosses are arranged so neatly. But they are there, in almost every row. She was speaking about current events, how most American Jews today are detached from a military life, and how that surely taints their views on Israel where fighting in the military in an existential conflict that will not end is part of life and the expectation of almost every teenager. And she is correct – so correct that I would be curious to learn how many of her critics, or her critics’ children, have fought in the American military.

Here’s another shameful smear: the accusation that she was disrespecting all those young American Jews who go to Israel and enlist in the IDF. Again – smear. Distortion. Misrepresentation. Lie. And this is how it works – did she mention lone soldiers? Did she mention the IDF? Of course not. Look at both her words and the context. In our community, many dozens of youngsters over the years have enlisted in the IDF, and we are proud of all them. But have any of them fought in Afghanistan or Iraq? Not to my knowledge…   So this is a blatant effort to willfully distort her words. She made no reference to the IDF – so how can she be accused of disrespecting those who fight in the IDF? But this is how the smear game works – more verbal sleight-of-hand – denouncing someone for what was said and is true by attributing to them things that were not said and are false.

There are two real problems at play here, and Minister Hotovely is responsible for neither of them. The officialdom of the heterodox movements is uncomfortable, even resentful, of a successful woman who is proudly Jewish, proudly religious, proudly traditional, proudly Israeli and proudly right-wing.  She undermines several of their persistent narratives about Orthodoxy and traditional life in Israel. Seeing the Deputy Foreign Minister of Israel wearing a shaitel must gall them. Too bad – for them.

And the bigger problem is this: with the heterodox movements in a free fall, both in terms of raw numbers as well as influence in American politics because of their persistent liberal bias, they need an enemy to energize their base. They need periodically – these days, it’s every few weeks – to find a scapegoat, an accusation, an insult or a cause to get their people riled up. It can be the Haredim to whom they attribute all sorts of mischief and ill-will. It can be the Kotel, where suddenly – literally, suddenly, after many decades – the status quo of exclusively traditional prayer bothers them. It is as if they woke up one day and realized – or contrived – that the status quo must bother them. It can be the non-acceptance of their conversions, their rabbis, or their modes of worship in one form or another. It can be the growth of the settlements or a forceful response to Arab terror or Gazan rockets. But it is always something.

That is why even an apology from Tzipi Hotovely, which she proffered because that is the way the smear game is played (and shame on the Prime Minister for not standing behind her), will not suffice for the complainants. They want her and her kind out! It is not her but what she stands for that irritates them. She is a constant reminder of what they too could have – with their children and grandchildren – if only they would return to the honest study of Torah and the true observance of mitzvot. That is why they seem to be perpetually aggrieved and always cross about something going on in Israel.

When many Israelis speak of “American Jewry,” they conjure to themselves a benign image of Jews who proudly love and support Israel, feel a deep emotional bond, and constitute a solid bloc of the type of encouragement and cooperation that one can expect from family. Would that it were so – but those days are long gone, sadly. Most American Jews today are unaffiliated – they do not identify as Orthodox, Reform or Conservative. They don’t feel that bond with Israel that their parents and certainly their grandparents did, most by far have never even visited Israel, and the ranks of American Jewry (including the heterodox movements) have been decimated by intermarriage that has obviously sapped their identification with Jews and the Jewish State. And the heterodox movements are permeated with Western ideas and values that occasionally conflate with Jewish ideas and values, but not always, and they can by and large no longer tell the difference.

The cause of Israel struggles today on college campuses because too many young Jews are cut off from their Jewish identity. The more the Jew is disengaged from Judaism, Torah, mitzvot and Jewish values, the more he or she will be disengaged from Israel. It is a tragic but accurate formula – that is why Minister Hotovely was banned by a “Jewish” group from speaking at Princeton – but there is little that Israel can do to reverse that trend. Identification and support for Israel will result from an enhanced sense of Jewish identity but those young Jews who are estranged from Israel have already embedded another identity and set of values and priorities. That is what has to be reversed and at this the heterodox movements are ill-equipped as they have long fostered an alienation from Torah.

That is why they force themselves to be outraged, manufacture slights and insults, and are avid players of the “Gotcha Game,” in which they monitor every single word of their targets in order to find the one word that they can wrench from context, cast in the most negative light or otherwise twist and falsify – all so that they can show relevance to their dwindling flock and their fellow travelers in the secular media. This is the smear game in action.

It would be edifying if Israelis truly understood what is happening in American Jewish life, paid less attention to the instigators of insincere indignation, and more attention to those Jews whose Jewish children and grandchildren will be building Torah, supporting Israel, making aliya and preserving the future of the Jewish people. And, of course, it would be an absolute delight if all Jews – of every stripe and background – did the same, and in so doing brought the era of redemption closer.

Gov. Kay Ivey has in her hands the ability to alter for the better the very dangerous trajectories that our nation is now facing…



POSTING NOTE: This letter was written by the father of one of the members of a  our  editorial board. Identification of the writer and of the recipient has been removed 

 This letter is being posted as an example of respectful conversation, directed to achieving a fair and reasonable solution to a situation   where  the actual truth  is unknowable the short run but can  probably be sorted out,  given due diligence and time for an adequate investigation..

Gov. Kay Ivey has in her hands the ability to alter for the better the very dangerous trajectories that our nation is now facing…

I cannot overstate the importance of  the coming Alabama senatorial election to the well-being of the United States and of  the world

Currently Russia and Iran are on a drive to control the Middle East.

 North Korea is on a drive to obtain nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them which imperil Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and the United States mainland

China seeking economic and military expansion throughout the Far East.

And Iran and China are expanding their activities in South America. 

 This means that Gov. Kay Ivey has in her hands the ability to alter for the better the very dangerous trajectories that our nation is now facing.

               

• 
  
•         I  have read a lot about the Judge Moore case . Obviously, everything I read, Pro or con is hearsay. I have nothing to offer publicly on this matter, but you might find some of my thinking useful to you in formulating your own approach to Judge Roy Moore and the election in Alabama which will take place in approximately three weeks.
• 
  There is a lot of noise and talk about multiple accusers. Many deal with the accusation that he approached younger women. When I graduated high school in New York in 1948 several of the girls in my graduating class got married immediately after graduation. Their ages ranged from 16 to 18. One of the girls married a popular teacher who was a World War II veteran probably 10 to 12 years older than her. Since they kept their relationship away from the school and it was done with the parents knowledge there was no scandal or even question. From my days in the military in the South girls getting married at 15,16, 17, 18 was common.
• 
  
•          My personal situation is relevant to my observations. I met my wife when she was 17 years  + 3 weeks old. At that time I was 26 1/2 years old. I was a captain in the Army medical service. Previously I had been an infantry officer and an infantry enlisted man. I had my PhD and  had taught at a major university.
• 
  
•         We met on a train during a winter  snow storm. Her father, spotting my uniform, approached me for information concerning the train’s  schedule. Her mother then joined the conversation. Then the girl who was later to become my wife came over and her parents introduced us. We rode together for approximately 12 hours. She told me about her high school cheerleading and about her summer camp counselor experience. I told her bits and pieces about the Army.
• 
  
•          During the next three years we corresponded and [with her parents permission] we "dated" which consisted of dining together for about one week per year when I visited the city at which he attended college as  she completed her freshman, sophomore and junior years at college. 
• 
  
•          After about 21 days together [or three years, calendar time] I proposed and she accepted. We spoke to her parents that night and obtained their blessing. Now, we have been married for 56+ years, have three adult children and seven grandchildren. The oldest grandchild is 22 years old and studying for her PhD in psychology. Our youngest grandchild is seven years in elementary school.
• 
  
•          Also relevant is how the media uniformly treated these age differences as "true romance". For example when Charlie Chaplin married his fourth wife, Oona O’Neill in June 1943, this was the media account: “ Charlie Chaplin  at last found true happiness, and it seems they [Oona  and Charlie] both found their soul mates, despite the fact that Oona was only 18, and Charlie was 53. They met when Charlie Chaplin considered her for a part in an unmade film, Shadow and Substance (during 1942) and were inseparable from then on. She supported Charlie totally throughout a particularly harrowing court case in the 1940’s and when he was exiled from the U.S. in 1952. They eventually made their home in Switzerland. Together Oona and Charlie Chaplin had eight children (Geraldine, Michael, Josephine, Victoria, Eugene, Jane, Annette and Christopher).”
• 
  
•          You may remember the McMartin case. There the mantra was: "believe the children". There were many witnesses. Before the McMartin's were cleared they lost their business; they l lost their home. Their daughter had her teaching license stripped from her. Their son became unemployable. Simultaneously throughout the country many ministers and others in contact with youth were unjustly accused in a wave of hysteria.
• 
  As an advisor to [DELEATED ]Company corporate legal I advised [and they implemented] the following policy. Take all accusations seriously. Refer all accusations for a full and thorough investigation by an impartial outside law firm. If the accusations are upheld then be firm and uniform in applying punishment. If the accusations are deemed sincere but not provable, separate the parties.
• 
  Although today's mantra is" believe the women” approximately 50% of the accusations proved to be false. This includes several cases where there were multiple women with similar accusations and all appeared believable at first presentation.
• 
  Some were made as a result of a failed romantic relationship. Others were made when one of the parties, felt slighted, betrayed or deceived in terms of promotion and/or recognition.
• 
  The uniform quality was that the female accusers nearly all were "very believable". Thus, Sen. Graham or Mitch McConnell or any other legislator or columnist saying that he/she found the women believable is ridiculous.
• 
  Basically, the actual charges boil down to the words of two women.
  What is interesting is that neither woman has signed a sworn statement which would subject her to perjury if the statement is false.
• 
  Since this is obviously a political hit job, it should not be rewarded. Also, if the charges are true then judge Roy Moore should not serve in the Senate. However, there is much that is riding on the political makeup of the Senate. This includes vital issues like North Korea, Syria, Iran, etc. The importance of these issues far exceed the "moral issues" associated with any individual. I believe that the best outcome would be achieved as follows:
• 
  Vote for Roy Moore.
• 
  Continue with a thorough investigation
• 
  Have Gov. Ivey appoint an impartial group to hear the evidence and make a determination that would be binding on Judge Moore.
  Have Judge Moore sign a legal commitment to step down if he is found guilty of either of the two main accusations against him. Then the governor of Alabama will appoint a suitable replacement. If Judge Moore is cleared then an obvious political hit job will not be rewarded. [This would speed up the process and make it transparent.]
• 
  To continue the investigation Leigh Corfman would be required to file a sworn statement and be subject to cross-examination on the details both by the state authorities and by judge Moore’s legal representation. Included would be all past actions of the complainant making complaints against others. The various legal documents she has sworn to and her divorces and bankruptcies. Etc.
• 
  What has been reported widely is that the complainant had at that approximate age drug and sex problems. Also what has been reported widely is that the complainant has history of making similar complaints against various clergymen. Also reported is that certain details of the complainant’s story such as the judge reaching her in her bedroom by telephone have been proven false.
• 
  Beverly Young Nelson’s is a more difficult case. Here is a case of really "she said". The yearbook signature should be turned over immediately for expert examination. If it is not Roy Moore's actual inscription then the second case is loses most of its credibility. If it is Judge Roy Moore's actual original signature it damages Judge Moore's credibility but it is not conclusive in regard to the allegations.
• 
  
• 
  
•       The second idea for Governor Ivey  to consider,  which is  under Gov. Ivy’s complete control is the following:
• 
  
•        Have Sen. Luther Strange resign his seat immediately. The governor could then cancel the election and call for a new election while she makes an interim appointment to fill the unexpired portion (few weeks) remaining in the term. This would give her, the citizens of Alabama, and the nation time to respond to  the Washington Post’s  imposed crisis that has been thrust upon her state and the nation in an attempt to thwart the will of the citizens of Alabama.
• 
  
• 
  

 TO Rep. Betty McCollum: Lets take  some time away from the "moral outrage" being expressed against Judge Roy Moore and take congressional action against the PA’s use of American aid to actively incite Palestinian youth to murder Jews.

While  legislators rush to the media  to voice negative judgment concerning Judge Roy Moore, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) has introduced legislation to protect Palestinian murderers under the age of 18 from arrest, Rep.McCollum’s bill  characterizes young terrorists as “Palestinian children” and contends that their arrest by the Israeli army constitutes “abuse.”

Those who would be protected in their actions against Israeli civilians by Rep. Betty McCollum include:

16-year-old Morad Abdullah Adais.   On Jan. 17, 2016, Adais broke into the home of Dafna Meir, in the town of Otniel, armed with an 8-inch knife. Adais, who was 16, later described proudly what he did next:

“I plunged the knife into her so deeply that most of it was inside her body. She started screaming, the children saw me and also started screaming, then I stabbed her in her upper body another three or four times. She tried to fight me and tried to take the knife from me. The two children who were there were still screaming, but she continued to resist, so I pushed her, and overpowered her.”

Asked what he would have done if he was able to pull the knife from Meir’s body, the Palestinian teenager said, “I would have continued stabbing her, and if I saw another Jew I would stab and murder him.”

Meir left behind six children, ages 4-17. They’re also minors.

“Teenager” Mohammed Nasser Tra’ayra .  On June 30, 2016, Tra’ayra broke into the bedroom of a 13-year-old girl named Hallel Yaffa Ariel, in the town of Kiryat Arba.  Tra’ayra, viciously stabbed Hallel again and again. Then he stabbed two other Israelis whom he encountered. Hallel’s father shot and killed Tra’ayra. Presumably, McCollum would regard the shooting as “settler violence” against a “Palestinian child.”

If Tra’ayra had not been killed, and Israeli soldiers arrested him, that would have zero or constituted illegal and abusive detention, according to the McCollum bill.

"16-year-old fire bomb thrower" On Dec. 25, 2014 two young Palestinians decided that they would try to burn some Jews to death. They positioned themselves on the road to the Israeli town of Ma’ale Shomron. Along came an automobile with an 11-year-old girl riding in the front passenger seat. The two attackers—one of them a 16-year-old “child”—threw rocks and firebombs at the car.

The car exploded in flames. Eleven-year-old Ayelet Shapiro jumped out, her entire body on fire. Her father’s quick action to smother the flames saved Ayelet’s life, but she suffered third-degree burns to her face and upper body, meaning years of painful surgery and skin grafts, and a lifetime of severe scars and emotional trauma.

How were the attackers caught? Israeli security personnel went into the nearby Palestinian Arab village of Azun, detained suspects, questioned them and  pinpointed the perpetrators. None of which would have been possible under the McCollum bill.

Yes, the Israeli army does arrest a significant number of Palestinian minors. That’s because a significant number of Palestinian minors engage in terrorism. In the past two years, there have been at least 79 terrorist attacks carried out by Palestinians from the ages of 8-17, according to the watchdog group Human Rights Voices.

The real abuse that Betty McCollum is hiding   is that  American aid is being openly used by the Palestinian Authority to help finance the PA’s constant program  to incite minors to engage to murder Jews. “We are so proud that  the backbone of this uprising are the youth of Palestine,” the PA’s U.N. representative, Riyad Mansour, declared during the recent wave of Palestinian stabbing attacks.

But don’t take Mansour’s word for it. Morad Abdullah Adais, the 16-year-old who butchered Dafna Meir in front of her children, told investigators that he was inspired to murder her after watching a PA television program depicting Israelis as cruel oppressors of the Palestinians.

 Lets take  some time away from the "moral outrage" being expressed against Judge Roy Moore and take congressional action against the PA’s use of American aid to actively incite Palestinian youth to murder Jews.

THE BIN LADEN DOCUMENTS REVEAL CIA/OBAMA  SPIN OF INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENTS

Stephen Hayes  Weekly Standard Magazine  11-20-17

http://www.weeklystandard.com/spinning-the-bin-laden-documents/article/2010416

Ned Price is not happy.

The former CIA analyst and National Security Council official was at the center of the Obama administration’s efforts to mislead the American people about the continuing threat from al Qaeda and its affiliates and about the rogue states whose support allowed it to regain its strength and expand. With the release on November 1 of 470,000 documents, images, videos, audio, and computer files captured during the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, the fact that the Obama administration politicized this intelligence became indisputable and the brazenness of its effort clear.

Those responsible are understandably nervous, and they’re lashing out. Ned Price, now an NBC News analyst and a fellow at the New America Foundation, is leading the way. “The newly-released documents don’t tell us anything we didn’t already know,” he tweeted almost as soon as the documents were released. The claim is absurd.

Did we know the contents of Osama bin Laden’s 228-page handwritten journal? Did we know that he first spoke of striking America in the mid-1980s? Did we know he wanted to boycott American apples?

Did we know that bin Laden was surprised by the ferocity of the American response to 9/11 or that he had a subordinate translate Bob Woodward’s book Obama’s Wars so that he might better understand the new U.S. president? Did we know bin Laden’s thoughts on the Arab Spring as it unfolded? Did we know bin Laden sometimes issued statements based on his dreams?

Did we know, as Thomas Joscelyn put it in these pages last week, the extent to which bin Laden “remained an active manager of his far-flung network until his dying day, receiving updates from loyalists around the globe. Groups such as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and al Shabaab in Somalia all sought and received his guidance”?

The U.S. intelligence community had released only 571 of the captured documents between May 2015 and January 2017. The nearly half-million documents just released by the CIA tell us countless things we did not know. We’d never heard bin Laden’s own explanation for how he became a “committed” Muslim or that he credits a prominent Turkish Islamist for his theological evolution. We’d never seen the adult face of Hamza bin Laden—Osama’s heir, whom al Qaeda is grooming for a senior leadership post.

We now have many more details of al Qaeda’s support from Iran. We didn’t know, for instance, that the Iranian regime, which had alternately harbored and detained Abu Musab al Zarqawi, was supposedly surprised when the founder of Al Qaeda in Iraq chose to return to Iraq and fight upon his release.

We have new insights into the ties between the leadership of al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban.

We even learned that bin Laden took in American pop culture as he condemned it and that someone in his compound had a copy of the popular “Charlie Bit My Finger” YouTube video downloaded on a computer.

We learned all this in just one week. Terrorism researchers and scholars will be studying this new information for years in order to gain a fuller understanding of bin Laden and al Qaeda.

Why would Ned Price say something so demonstrably false?

Because the other thing we learned by studying these newly released documents is that the narrative of bin Laden and al Qaeda carefully created by the Obama administration—that of an isolated, impotent jihadist leader detached from his deteriorating terror network and at odds with the regime in Iran—was deeply misleading.

* *

Price sells himself as a disinterested intelligence professional and a partisan of only the truth. He made news at the outset of the Trump administration when he wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post announcing his resignation from the CIA. The headline: “I didn’t think I’d ever leave the CIA. But because of Trump, I quit.”

In the piece, Price described the importance of an impartial intelligence community, dedicated to providing unvarnished analyses to the country’s leading policymakers, and made a strong case that we ought to be concerned about Trump’s eagerness to set aside the concerns of U.S. intelligence professionals on Russian meddling in the 2016 election. And he denounced as inappropriate Trump’s comments at the CIA in the opening days of his administration”:

Standing in front of a memorial to the CIA’s fallen officers, he seemed to be addressing the cameras and reporters in the room, rather than the agency personnel in front of them, bragging about his inauguration crowd the previous day. Whether delusional or deceitful, these were not the remarks many of my colleagues and I wanted to hear from our new commander in chief.

Price wrote that intelligence professionals are “taught to tune out politics” and insisted that his decision to quit “had nothing to do with politics.” But he had left out an important detail. A little more than six months earlier, he had contributed $5,000 in support of Hillary Clinton. The Post updated his op-ed with a clarification: “This column should have included a disclosure of donations made by author Edward Price in support of 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. In August, Price gave a total of $5,000 to the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party.”

For reporters who had dealt with Price in the three years he had been detailed to the NSC from the CIA, his politics came as no surprise. As NSC spokesman, Price worked at the center of the Obama administration’s national-security spin machine, a fact illuminated in the much-discussed 2016 profile of deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes in the New York Times Magazine. Together, the two carefully cultivated an echo chamber of Obama loyalists in the media, who could be counted on to amplify White House messaging, praise the president’s initiatives, and defend him whenever necessary.

So it was business as usual for Price when the CIA released the Abbottabad documents, and he rapidly laid out a counternarrative on Twitter:

CIA released what it claims are the final public files from Bin Laden’s lair. I’m all for transparency, but this isn’t about that.

In January, [the director of national intelligence], which led the declassification effort, released what it said was the final tranche of Bin Laden files.

The DNI-led review was overseen by career intel officials, who concluded that, w[ith] the Jan[uary] files, all those of public interest were released.

But a funny thing happened when CIA Director Pompeo came into office. I’m told he re-launched a review of the files.

In doing so, he took officers away from important missions to pore—and re-pore—over the millions of documents.

How can we be sure this was a CIA effort? Unlike previous releases, today’s files are hosted on CIA.gov, not the DNI site.

Why would he do that? It seems he’s convinced the unreleased files would tie al-Qa’ida to Iran.

He said as much at the gathering of a conservative group, [the Foundation for Defense of Democracies], opposed to the Iran deal in September.

As luck would have it, CIA provided an advance copy of today’s files to Long War Journal, this group’s publication.

The ploy is transparent despite the fact that the newly-released documents don’t tell us anything we didn’t already know.

What’s not as transparent are the motives of Pompeo, the administration’s leading and most influential Iran hawk.

But these moves suggest he’s reverting to the Bush administration’s playbook: Emphasize terrorist ties as a rationale for regime change.

Price wrote this tweetstorm up as an article for the Atlantic several days later, but the incoherence remained. In one section, he allowed that “it’s impossible to discern Pompeo’s exact motives in this latest release,” only to declare a few sentences later that he, Ned Price, had managed the impossible and could see the CIA director’s exact motives. “Pompeo is playing politics with intelligence,” Price wrote, “using these files in a plot to bolster the case against Iran by reinvigorating the debate on its terrorist ties.”

* *

For years, the Obama White House resisted calls to release the bin Laden documents. The self-proclaimed “most transparent administration in history” gave a series of convenient and self-contradictory reasons for its refusal to share the collection.

At times, we were told the documents couldn’t be released because the information was too sensitive and valuable to make public. At others, however, the administration asserted that there wasn’t much to the cache and what remained unreleased was mostly jihadist detritus that wouldn’t interest anyone.

Sometimes the explanations came from the intelligence agencies; sometimes they came from the National Security Council. In most cases, however, the answers were plainly coordinated. White House officials were copied on emails from the intelligence agencies and vice versa. Ned Price helped direct these efforts.

The January 2017 DNI release that Price holds up as definitive was called “Closing the Book on Bin Laden.” But it covered just 571 documents from the vast Abbottabad collection—a tiny fraction. The accompanying press release claimed that the newly released batch of documents “mirrors themes in previous releases,” among them bin Laden’s “hatred, suspicion of Iran.” It is true that this is what previous ODNI releases claimed. But it just isn’t true that this is what the Abbottabad documents show.

In one previously released document, bin Laden credited Iran for serving as the “main artery” for the strengthening and growth of al Qaeda.

And a document released earlier this month—one we never would have seen if Price had gotten his way—expands on this earlier knowledge. This 19-page report, authored by a senior al Qaeda operative, says that the Iranian regime provided “Saudi brothers” in al Qaeda “everything they needed,” including “money, arms,” and “training in Hezbollah camps in Lebanon, in exchange for striking American interests in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.” And a video made public as part of the latest release shows Hamza bin Laden reciting his wedding vows—alongside several senior al Qaeda operatives—in Iran.

In 2015, during the intense debate over the Iran nuclear deal, the government threat assessment on Iran largely elided the country’s role in supporting terrorism. Language that had appeared in previous threat assessments from the intelligence community was gone in the new version. A spokesman for the ODNI told us at the time that the changes had been made for reasons of space and were not an effort to downplay Iran’s support for terror.

But that is just what the White House team was trying to do.

Multiple U.S. Treasury Department designations cited a secret agreement between Iran and al Qaeda under which the Iranian regime actively harbored al Qaeda’s “core pipeline.” A February 2012 designation reported that Iranian officials “facilitated the movement of al Qaeda operatives in Iran and provided them with documents, identification cards, and passports.” An October 2012 designation reported: “Iran continues to allow al Qaeda to operate a core pipeline that moves al Qaeda money and fighters through Iran to support al-Qaeda activities in South Asia. This network also sends funding and fighters to Syria.” A February 2014 Treasury designation singles out “a key Iran-based al Qaeda facilitator who supports al-Qaeda’s vital facilitation network in Iran, that operates there with the knowledge of Iranian authorities.” Sources familiar with the intelligence on Iran have told us that much of the language characterizing the Iran-al Qaeda relationship in those designations comes from the Abbottabad documents.

There were tensions between Iran and al Qaeda, to be certain, including over Hamza’s eventual detention in the country. And the documents—new and old—describe moments of frustration and mistrust between these two American enemies. Bin Laden did not want Iran to export its Shiite version of Islam throughout the region, and he considered plans to combat Iranian expansion. Al Qaeda also kidnapped an Iranian diplomat in order to free hostages held by the Iranian government. Any assessment of the threat presented by Iran and al Qaeda ought to take account of these strains and must appreciate that the relationship is based on mutual exploitation rather than ideological or doctrinal affinity.

That’s not what the previous assessment from the ODNI did. And background statements from “senior intelligence officials” and NSC spokesmen working under the supervision of Price gave the same misimpression. In the past, Obama officials dismissed Iran-al Qaeda cooperation as “baseless conspiracy theories” and claimed, “anyone who thinks Iran was or is in bed with al Qaeda doesn’t know much about either.” The CIA’s release of the vast bulk of the Abbottabad documents reveals a much more complicated picture—and the degree to which such statements had been White House-driven spin.

No wonder Ned Price isn’t happy.

Stephen F. Hayes is editor in chief of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.