Joel B. Pollak - Page 298

National Security Advisor Susan Rice formally released President Barack Obama’s new National Security Strategy at the Brookings Institution on Friday, to mixed reviews. The document repeated many of the president’s controversial claims from recent days, such as that talks have “stopped the progress of Iran’s nuclear program.” One element of the strategy is already obsolete: it commits to “seek a stable Yemen” on the day Iranian-backed rebels have taken control of the country.

President Barack Obama told the National Prayer Breakfast that Americans ought to be humble in the fact of radical Islam, because “people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ” as well. In addition to offending much of his audience and some of the nation with his sophomoric moral relativism, the president also obscured a fact that ought to be obvious but is rarely spoken aloud: that as far as the world’s religions go, Christian civilization has done the most to advance freedom.

President Barack Obama offered the nation a lesson in moral relativism at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, when he admonished Americans not to “get on our high horse” about radical Islam because “people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ,” including here in the United States. Obama’s statement was both immoral and insensitive, and appeared to excuse the grotesque atrocities carried out by radical Islam, as well as his own passivity in responding.

The terrorist group known as Islamic State (or ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh) has publicly screened its film of a captured Jordanian pilot being burnt alive inside a steel cage. The gruesome movie, which originally appeared on the Internet, was shown on giant video screens in the Syrian city of Raqqa to crowds shouting “God is Great” at the moment of the pilot’s painful death.

The purported deal would offer the U.S. only 20% of what it wants, and would seem to confirm reports from Israeli sources last week that Iran will receive 80% of what it wants. Once, the U.S. had agreed that a bad deal would be worse than none.

Elementary schools in the inner-city Los Angeles neighborhood of Compton have a far higher vaccination rate than schools in wealthy Beverly Hills, state data show. The rate in Compton is 93.80%, near the 2013-14 national median of 94.7%, with one school at 100%. In Beverly Hills elementary schools, the rate is a mere 78.33%, creating the conditions for an outbreak.

A Los Angeles Times report released early Wednesday morning reports that many child care facilities in Los Angeles have alarmingly low vaccination rates–some reportedly as low as 51%. The report indicates that private schools have lower vaccination rates than public schools, as wealthier parents opt out of inoculation for communicable diseases like measles.

On Tuesday evening and Wednesday, Jews across California and the world will celebrate Tu B’Shvat (literally, “the 15th of the Hebrew month of Shvat”), the “New Year for trees.” The holiday roughly coincides with the appearance of the first spring blossoms in Israel–as well as in California, large portions of which enjoy a similar climate to that of the Holy Land. In recent years, the religious holiday has been overtaken by environmental themes–and, lately, by anti-Israel activists.

The sudden outbreak of measles across the United States raises questions about how the disease arrived in the country after it was eradicated here in 2000. A quick review of the U.S. State Department visa requirements for immigrant visas reveals that applicants must be vaccinated for measles prior to their approval. Measles vaccination is not required for tourist visas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nor are they required for any other disease.

It is often said that the President controls foreign policy, and that there is little Congress can do, within its more limited foreign policy mandate, to direct it. The Republican-controlled Congress–and the U.S. House of Representatives in particular–has defied that conventional wisdom by stopping President Barack Obama’s worst foreign policy blunder by far–namely, the effort to end U.S. control over Internet domain names, which would have boosted the enemies of freedom.

The Anti-Defamation League has offered a $2,500 reward to help police catch perpetrators of the recent vandalism of a Jewish fraternity at the University of California Davis, which was found Saturday morning spray-painted with swastikas.

Video has emerged from a meeting of student representatives at the University of California Davis last week in which Muslim students shout “Allahu Akbar” at a group of Jewish students holding Israeli flags and leaving the meeting.

After the improbable finish to Super Boxl XLIX, it seems natural to blame Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll and his team for calling a pass from the 1-yard line with less than 30 seconds to play, rather than handing the ball to Marshawn Lynch. But while it’s understandable that a Seattle fan might feel Carroll’s was “the worst call in Super Bowl history,” it wasn’t bad. And it was actually New England Patriots’ coach Bill Belichick’s call the play before that won the game.

On Sunday, President Barack Obama explained his stance on radical Islam to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria–and in the process, showed exactly why it is that the U.S. is losing to Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Iran. Obama believes, against all available evidence, that only a small minority of Muslims share the political beliefs of Islamist terror groups. And he is wedded to a particular tactic–the so-called “surgical” strike–that precludes any commitment of troops, giving the enemy wide freedom of action.

A Jewish fraternity at the University of California Davis was spray-painted with two swastikas Saturday, several days after the student council voted to endorse divestment from Israel. (Photo: StandWithUs via Facebook)

The New York Times has continued its reflexive bias against Israeli Prime Minister with a story Friday alleging, falsely, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went behind President Barack Obama’s back in arranging a speech to Congress in March. In fact, Netanyahu only accepted Speaker of the House John Boehner’s invitation once the White House knew of the invitation. The story has since been corrected online, but the incorrect version will misinform print readers today.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is enjoying a surge in the latest opinion polls of Israeli voters. The Jerusalem Post reports that its latest poll shows Bibi’s party, the Likud, is leading the race for the first time in weeks. Other polls agree, and show the Likud leading its rival, the Zionist Union, which is a combination of the Labor and Hatnua parties.

The left hates Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Some hate him as they would hate any Israeli leader; they just hate Israel (and they may hate Jews, too). Some hate him because they love Obama, and Netanyahu stands up to Obama–which is why many Democrats who would otherwise love Bibi have chosen to hate him. But at the core, the left hates Netanyahu because just as Israel is a nation-state in a post-national world, Bibi is a modern man in a post-modern era.

Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) was deeply unpopular among Californians last fall, with only 41% of adults and 45% of likely voters approving of her performance, according to the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). However, her decision to retire has been followed by a dramatic increase in her popularity: 53% of adults and 51% of likely voters now approve in a new PPIC poll.

Bill Burton, a prominent political aide to Barack Obama, has been hired by SDKnickerbocker to head its new Los Angeles office, a plum position that signals the enduring influence–and burgeoning affluence–of Obama campaign alumni.

The New York Times has launched a full-court press against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer over Netanyahu’s acceptance of an invitation by Speaker of the House John Boehner to address Congress on the subjects of Iran and radical Islam in March without coordinating with the White House.

The speech that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will deliver to a special joint session of the US Congress in March will be the most important address by an Israeli leader in the history of the Jewish state.

The terrorist group known as Daesh, “Islamic State,” ISIS or ISIL has threatened to behead President Barack Obama and turn the United States into a Muslim province, installing sharia law and incorporating America into its fledgling caliphate.

For Goldberg, Obama can do no wrong when it comes to Israel–and only Israel. In his efforts to cover for Obama, he has fumbled away much of his credibility on the issue. There is not much for Netanyahu to fear from the habitual criticism of a pundit who has so clearly departed from reality. But as an example of how American Jewish liberals are tying themselves in knots trying to reconcile their partisan loyalties with the facts of Obama’s failures on Israel, there is no finer specimen.

Netanyahu has one basic responsibility: to protect the security of the State of Israel, the homeland of the Jewish people. That is why Ambassador Ron Dermer is correct to call Netanyahu’s speech to Congress a “sacred duty.”

Small business owner Tawni Angel has won the first round of her court battle against a radical animal rights activist who is attempting to ban Angel’s popular pony rides from a weekly Santa Monica farmers’ market. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa Hart-Cole ruled last Thursday that Angel’s lawsuit against activist Marcy Winograd can proceed, finding that Angel demonstrated a “sufficient probability of prevailing” on the question of whether Winograd had defamed her.

A 20-year-old volunteer in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) who grew up near Hollywood has been awarded the Chief of Staff Citation for bravery in last summer’s war in Gaza after he killed four Palestinian terrorists in combat. Sgt. Sahar

There are at least five ways in which Iran has explicitly violated the interim agreement–one hat has been extended twice but has failed to produce anything but more time for Iran to advance to a nuclear weapon.

Former Obama adviser Dennis Ross, who left the White House in 2011 amidst rumors of clashes with Valerie Jarrett, has co-written a strident op-ed in Politico urging President Barack Obama to take a tougher stance with Iran.

Vice President Joe Biden wrapped up his California visit on Friday by telling doctors that the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, had “ended the debate” about whether health care is a privilege or a right, according to the Orange County Register.

On Friday, White House spokesperson said that President Barack Obama would not meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visits Washington, D.C. in March due to a policy of not meeting with foreign leaders prior to their election campaigns, “to avoid the appearance of influencing a democratic election in a foreign country.” However, that excuse proves empty against the historical record, as Bill Clinton met then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres in 1996.

Vice President Joe Biden told students at West Los Angeles College on Friday that President Barack Obama’s plan to offer “free” community college would prepare young Americans to compete for opportunities in the global economy. “The rest of the world is catching

J Street, a George Soros-funded, far-left organization that styles itself as “pro-Israel” but spends its energy opposing Israeli policies, is trying to stop Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from addressing Congress in a special session in March.

“I am not here to make the case for war. I am not even here to make the case for new sanctions. You know it well enough. On both sides of the aisle, you have leaders who can speak more powerfully than I about why more pressure is needed, after a year of fruitless talks. No—I am here to ask merely that America be what America is: the leader of the free world.”

A new study by the RAND Corporation has found that Americans are increasingly likely to work while on vacation–and that Republicans are 37.5% more likely to work on vacation than Democrats, even when controlling for all other factors.

President Barack Obama took his State of the Union on the road yesterday, telling college students in Boise, ID that he will make two years of college “free” and “universal.” What he did not tell them, however, is that he wants to tax 529 savings plans to pay for those two free years of community college–which are already free anyway for poor students, under federal grants.