BREAKING! Israel attacked on 4 fronts – GAZA, LEBANON, SYRIA, SINAI 

Bare Naked Islam

 Since the start of the operation:

• Over 1000 rocket have been launched at Israel.

• 754 of those rockets hit Israel

• Approximately 201 rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system.

• The IDF has targeted over 1,474 terror targets, with both naval and aerial capabilities.

Lebanon:

Also Monday, rockets were fired at Israel from southern Lebanon, reported Reuters, drawing retaliatory artillery fire from Israeli forces, Lebanese security officials and the Israeli army said, in the third such rocket attack from Lebanon since Friday.

An Israeli police spokeswoman said there was no immediate word of damage or casualties from the rocket fire. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Syria:

A rocket fired from Syria hit an open area on the Israeli side of the Golan Heights on Monday afternoon, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Spokesperson Unit confirmed in a statement.

The statement said according to initial reports, the launching was “deliberate.” It is still not clear who is responsible for the attack, the Walla news website reported.

Gaza:

A Hamas drone capable of carrying weapons was shot down Monday with a Patriot missile along the southern Israeli border.

“It was shot to smithereens,” Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a spokesman for the Israeli Army, told reporters Monday.

Israeli officials said it was the first time Hamas militants had launched a drone since fighting escalated last week.

Israel reported that its so-called Iron Dome defense system intercepted several rockets fired from Gaza, including one Monday evening over Tel Aviv.

Sinai:

4 lightly injured in recent rocket attack on Eilat.

Great Moments in Government Waste and Inefficiency

Daniel J. Mitchell  / Townhall Columnist

It’s difficult being a libertarian.

In addition to all the other challenges (such as trying to convince people stealing doesn’t become okay simply because the government is the middleman), I get conflicted about government waste.

You’re probably thinking I’m wandering off the libertarian reservation. After all, aren’t libertarians big opponents of boondoggles, government waste, and pork-barrel spending?

All true, but here’s my challenge: I also don’t want “efficient government.”

In other words, our goal should be to shrink government, not to make it “work better.” To understand the point I’m making, ponder these questions:

Do we want government to efficiently lure people into dependency?

Do we want government to efficiently socialize health care?

Do we want government to efficiently cartelize the agriculture sector?

I hope the answer to all these questions is “NO,” which is why I generally focus my work on structural changes to shrink the size and scope of government.

But every so often, notwithstanding everything I just wrote, I can’t resist pointing out really absurd examples of wasteful spending. And today we have two jaw-dropping examples.

We know that government bureaucracies like palatial buildings and that cost overruns are the rule rather than the exception. Well, one of the new bureaucracies created by the Dodd-Frank bailout bill is setting records for extravagance with its new headquarters.

The newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is renovating the Washington, D.C., headquarters it rents—at a cost per square foot that is more expensive than Trump World Tower in New York City. The CFPB project is estimated to cost taxpayers more than $215 million… Cost projections have increased $65 million in six months and $120 million since last year’s estimate. Some of the building’s extravagant features include a four-story glass staircase, two-story waterfall and a sunken garden.

But what’s really amazing is that all this money is being spent on a rented building and that the cost of renovating is far greater than what was spent on building (yes, building, not just renovating) some of the world’s most famous landmark structures.


Now for our second example. 

We’ve all heard about how big chunks of education spending get wasted on bureaucracy and don’t get used for classroom instruction.
And we read about how welfare bureaucrats consume a lot of money that supposedly is targeted to help poor people.

This principle also applies to other forms of government spending.

CNN reports that the federal government’s program for emergency food aid around the world is such a cluster-you-know-what that barely a bit more than one-third of money is actually spent on food for crisis-stricken regions.

International typhoons, hurricanes, and earthquakes leave behind devastating scenes of poverty and need. If you had about a $1.5 billion every year to send food to such desperate areas, how would you do it? …The way the U.S. provides international food aid is an antiquated and bureaucratic tangle. Food largely has to be purchased here in the U.S., and then shipped on boats by U.S. cargo carriers to the trouble spots. The Government Accountability Office says that 65% of the money for this aid program is spent on shipping and business costs – not on food. … it’s a system that has helped shipping companies and unions win billions in government contracts, companies like Maersk. …There’s also the transport workers unions. …The two leading maritime unions gave more than “three quarters of a million dollars to members of the current House of Representatives in the 2012 election cycle,” according to the Center for Public Integrity.

Geesh, what a typical example of insider corruption.

This is yet another piece of evidence for my view that disaster relief is not a function of the federal government.

P.S. Regarding the theme of today’s column, Fred Smith, the founder and former President of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told me on more than one occasion that we should “be thankful we don’t get all the government we pay for.”

Anti-Gunners Kill More Jobs with Bloomberg-Style Laws  

Michael Schaus / Townhall Columnist

America’s largest shotgun manufacturer has decided to move more of its business to the Republic of Texas. The news that O.F. Mossberg & Sons, Inc. chose not to expand their business in Connecticut shouldn’t really come as a surprise. States that have zealously pursued more restrictive gun control policies have seen their historically loyal firearm manufacturers begin an exodus to friendlier locales. Mossberg has decided to move more of its manufacturing process to Texas in light of Connecticut’s recent legislative attempts to demonize their industry; such as implementing a confiscation registration process, and outlawing future sales of various firearms categorized by a specific behavior (i.e. assault weapons).

 

The recent announcement from Mossberg goes to prove that anti-gun policies are, in fact, wrong on virtually every political level. They are generally unpopular, morally abhorrent, administratively unenforceable, socially ineffective, and economically suicidal. In fact, as I have previously written, there is a very strong correlation between gun rights and general prosperity. And that correlation does not exist merely because a few jobs may, or may not, be lost due to a few Bloomberg-approved laws and regulations.

Laws like Connecticut’s recent gun-control attempts (or Chicago’s gun ban; or New York’s firearm restrictions; or California’s weapon prohibitions; or…) are generally a barometer for individual liberty. After all, a government that is distrusting of individuals’ power to protect themselves is unlikely to trust an individual’s right to engage freely in the markets, manage business without beauracratic oversight, or make personal decisions about their lifestyle choices. (This explains why the anti-gun crusader, Mike Bloomberg, also has a penchant for outlawing high-capacity sodas.)

In fact, gun laws tend to infringe on more rights than merely those enumerated in the Second Amendment. Confiscation, criminalization, and registration arguably infringe on property rights as much as anything else. After all, it seems a little absurd that the state should be so interested in the private, and legal, property of law-abiding gun owners; unless the state has a disposition to micro-managing the lives of its citizens.

A dissolution of property rights, mixed with the institutionalized distrust of average citizens, seems to create a toxic climate of statism and government overreach. Governments, in general, tend to grow jealous of power held by individuals and the free markets. Cities like Chicago, New York, and LA, are not plagued with violence and poverty only because of their anti-gun laws… But those laws are indicative of a larger government-down approach to “managing” and “regulating” individuals into compliance with a statist agenda. The people who believe Chicago’s gun laws are too relaxed, are the same technocrats who think America’s most overpaid (and underperforming) school district just needs to hire a few more administrators in order to make things work. And this should probably tell us something.

Yes: Mossberg’s move to Texas makes sense on a political level… But it also makes sense on a business level. Connecticut has not only demonstrated that they are opposed to Mossberg’s industry, but they have shown that personal property, private enterprise, and individual liberty are secondary to the interests of a few legislative “leaders” in the state house. Rights, in modern-day Connecticut, are allowed at the whim of the state; as opposed to government actions being allowed with an eye to the preservation of individual liberties.

So, while Texas continues to build their economy, create good-paying manufacturing jobs, and expand the protections of our enumerated rights, Connecticut will continue to infringe the rights of its citizens and deteriorate its economy. Mossberg’s CEO said, “Investing in Texas was an easy decision. It’s a state that is not only committed to economic growth but also honors and respects the Second Amendment.” Yeah… What he failed to point out, is that those two characteristics are closely related in a free society.

Gun control has always been bad economic policy in America… Not just because it moves jobs to the Republic of Texas; but because it requires that governments disregard the foundation of a free and open civilian economy.

Now, if Connecticut would just start targeting those high capacity sodas, maybe they can earn the Bloomberg seal of approval for nannyism.

Netanyahu speaks his mind: Two-State Solution impossible, outsiders naive

 Pamela Geller / Atlas Shrugs

Finally.

Insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Israeli concessions, land give-aways, thousands of Gaza rockets, Fogel beheadings, school boys kidnappings, and endless war is the reality of the Islamic religious imperative of the jihad against the Jews.

Caroline Glick has said that the two state-solution has “no basis in reality” and “no chance of ever succeeding.” Glick writes in her book:

–Much support for the two-state solution is fueled by the mistaken assumption that the absence of a Palestinian state is the root cause of the Arab world’s and Iran’s hostility toward Israel and of instability throughout the region.

–Many two-state solution proponents, including President Obama, wrongly regard Israeli settlements as the major obstacle to peace while downplaying Palestinian terrorism and the culture that fosters it and overlooking Palestinian Authority corruption and authoritarianism.

–Because the land promised to the Jewish people under the auspices of the League of Nations by the post-World War I British Mandate for Palestine included the West Bank, and because no nation, including Jordan (which controlled the territories between 1949 and 1967) has a superior legal claim, Israel has a respectable case under international law to exercise sovereignty over the West Bank or, to use the Biblical names Glick prefers, Judea and Samaria.

–Israel’s 1967 seizure of the West Bank was followed...

Read the whole entry »

OOPS! Hamas rocket takes out power station in Gaza, Israel not fixing it

Bare Naked Islam

 

Hi, Hamas. Israel would love to help you with your little electrical problem but we won’t be able to repair it today, tomorrow doesn’t look good either. You see, we’re kind of busy fighting a war right now. Call us when you run out of rockets and we’ll do lunch.

INN  Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has asked the IEC not to risk the lives of its employees in trying to restore power. The Palestinian Authority currently owes the Israel Electric Company NIS 1.5 billion ($525 million) in unpaid bills for electricity. 

 

Last month, the IEC filed a petition with the High Court demanding to be allowed to shut off electricity to the Palestinian Authority until the debt was paid – or to allow the IEC to seize customs and aid payments collected on behalf of the PA to pay off its debt. That case is still pending.

 

Seventy thousand Gazans from Khan Younis and Deir el-Balah were in the dark Sunday night after a Hamas rocket hit the power line that supplies electricity to those places. It’s not clear when Israel Electric Company workers will be able to repair the system, but they are apparently in no rush to do so. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has asked the IEC not to risk the lives of its employees in trying to restore power to the affected sector in Gaza, an operation that could take hours.

 

As Operation Protective Edge enters its seventh day, many Israelis are demanding that the country take more aggressive action against Hamas in order to put a halt to the seemingly endless missile attacks from Gaza. One suggestion that has come up numerous times is cutting off electricity to Gaza,which Israel is still supplying. The Hamas missile, which hit one of the high tension wires that move power from Israel to Gaza, apparently made that a moot point, at least partially.

 

Meanwhile, the IEC is still supplying electricity to Gaza, under orders from the government.

Robert Spencer in PJ Media: 4 Muslims Who Deserve to Be Under Surveillance

Robert Spencer / Jihad Watch

 

Leftists and Islamic supremacists are raising an uproar about this surveillance, and so it will soon end. But it shouldn’t. Here’s why, in my PJ Media piece for this week:

Leftists and Islamic supremacists are enraged this week over the revelation that the FBI and NSA, despite their officially politically correct See-No-Islam Hear-No-Islam Speak No-Islam stance, have had four prominent Muslim leaders in the U.S. under surveillance.

They have appealed to Barack Obama to stop this surveillance and all related monitoring of Muslims immediately, which he almost certainly will, and have mounted a Twitter campaign based around the bitterly ironic hashtag #IAmATarget, which applies more to infidels in the line of jihad attacks than it ever will to Muslim leaders in the United States.

The only problem with all the righteous indignation that Leftists and Islamic supremacist leaders have summoned about this surveillance is that it is entirely justified. The uproar began with an exposé titled “Under Surveillance: Meet the Muslim-American Leaders the FBI and NSA Have Been Spying On,” written by none other than Glenn Greenwald, along with another far-Left journalist, Murtaza Hussain. Greenwald and Hussain purport to demonstrate that five Muslim leaders whom the NSA and FBI have been watching are undeserving of such scrutiny, as they’re honest, patriotic Americans whose only misdeed is to oppose administration policies.

This is, of course, absurd. Opposing U.S. government policies from the Left won’t get you placed under surveillance; it’ll get you media adulation, foundation grants, and awards from philanthropic groups. Obama’s IRS persecutes conservative groups, not Leftists, and several military presentations in recent years have claimed that “right-wing extremists” are a terror threat, with nary a word about genuinely violent Left-wing extremist groups such as the Occupy movement and others.

Bizarrely, and perhaps because they couldn’t find enough Muslims to fit their victim paradigm, Greenwald and Hussain include in their list of persecuted Muslims Hooshang Amirahmadi, an Iranian-American professor at Rutgers, who is a professing atheist; for the actual Muslims on their list, they gloss over the genuine reasons why the FBI and NSA have placed these men under surveillance:

2. Agha Saeed

Agha Saeed is “a former political science professor at California State University who champions Muslim civil liberties and Palestinian rights” – including, say Greenwald and Hussain, “the right of Palestinians to armed resistance against occupation if peaceful means fail—a right affirmed in a series of resolutions by the United Nations General Assembly.”

The fact that the corrupt and morally compromised UN endorsed the “Palestinian” jihad is hardly a ringing affirmation of its moral rectitude, and in any case, the groups that pursue “armed resistance against occupation” are jihad terror groups such as Hamas, Hizballah, and Islamic Jihad. Saeed supports this “armed resistance,” so he may be in contact with some of the leaders or members of such groups, and surveillance could reveal something that could be used to stop their jihad terror attacks against civilians. So here again, surveillance is warranted.

Nihad Awad is “the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights organization in the country.” (Greenwald, the article fastidiously notes, “has given paid speeches before CAIR’s regional affiliates.”)

“Despite its political moderation and relationship to federal law enforcement agencies,” say Greenwald and Hussain, “CAIR became a primary target of hardline neoconservatives after 9/11.” This apparently resulted in the fact that “in 2007, the Justice Department named the group as one of more than 300 ‘unindicted co-conspirators’ in its controversial prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation, then the largest Muslim charity in the U.S., which was eventually convicted of providing material support to Hamas.”

Greenwald and Hussain notes that “in 1994, Awad voiced public support for Hamas—before the group’s campaign of suicide attacks against civilians and subsequent placement on the State Department’s terrorist list in 1997.” But it adds:

“I do not support Hamas,” Awad says today, pointing out that the group was not involved in terrorist activities at the time he made the statement. “It was not on the list of organizations that sponsor or conduct terrorism by the State Department. And when the organization took those acts, CAIR has condemned it, repeatedly.”…

So we are to understand that Awad supported Hamas in 1994, but in 1997, when it was placed on the State Department’s terrorist list, he stopped supporting it. Here is part of the old Hamas website’s “Glory Record” of attacks against Israelis – the terrorist organization’s own record of its murderous actions. On a page that remained on its website well after 9/11, it celebrated the pre-1994 murders of Israeli civilian Ya’coub Berey; civilians on a bus to Tel Aviv attacked by Hamas jihadi Ahmed Hussein Shukry; civilians in a crowd in Jaffa who were murdered by another Hamas jihadi in 1992; and a civilian at Beit Lahya who was murdered by a member of Hamas’s al Qassam Brigades.

The site also celebrated the stabbings by Hamas members of an Israeli bus driver, a group of Israelis at a bus station in Keryat Youval, a group of Israeli citrus packers, and a group of Israelis who were run down by jihadist cab driver Jameel Ismail al-Baz.

All these acts were committed and publicly celebrated before 1994, when Awad professed his support for Hamas. That they give Awad a platform for his dissembling is typical of the dishonesty of the entire Greenwald/Hussain piece. But it will accomplish its purpose: the ending of surveillance of these and other Muslim leaders and the further weakening of counter-terror operations in general. And Americans will be in even greater danger than they were before.

Read the rest here.

What Is Gun Violence?

by Kevin Michalowski / Personal Liberty Digest

The term “gun violence” seems to have been coined by either the anti-gun media or some other anti-gun group in an effort to vilify the tool used to perpetrate violence on another.

Somewhere someone said, “If we call it ‘gun violence’ that will make it sound like guns are bad. We should do that.”

You and I know guns are neither good nor bad. Guns cannot do anything on their own. A gun cannot be violent any more than can a hammer, or a bowling pin or a rose bush. A gun can be used during violent acts. But here is something interesting: A violent act is not always a bad thing. Righteous violence in defense of the innocent is a good thing and should be applauded. Yet still the media and anti-gun politicians continue to beat the drum of “gun violence” in America as if to say, “If we take away all the guns, there will be no more violence.”

Several years back, politicians also said, “If we take away all the booze, no one will drink and all those problems will go away.” We saw how that turned out. It spawned the largest crime wave in U.S. history and directly gave rise to criminal syndicates that are still running today.

Since 1993, crime has been dropping. Despite a few recent high-profile cases, the numbers of mass shootings have been dropping. Armed citizens regularly intervene to protect others by employing or threatening to employ violence with a gun. But the media doesn’t report on that. Criminals are much more interesting. Guns work. Violence, when employed against criminal predators, benefits honest citizens.

So I ask again, “What is gun violence?”

It is a fantasy term. It is political spin designed to dupe the masses. If the media and the politicians can keep you thinking that guns are bad and keep telling you that reducing the number of guns will reduce crime, maybe you will believe them and one day give up your freedoms.

Our Founding Fathers knew that each individual citizen of a free Nation would need guns in defense of those freedoms. To restrict guns is to restrict our ability to, when needed, draw a line in the sand and be able to back up our words.

So many liberals will decry such ideas as something that will never happen and will say that the right to bear arms against the government is something that simply is not and will not be needed.

I give to you “The Battle of Athens, Tenn.” In 1946, after election fraud and voter intimidation in the elections of 1940, 1942 and 1944, the citizens of McMinn County took up arms to finally stop corrupt politicians.

We need guns. Righteous violence works to protect Americans. Don’t let liberals use the term “gun violence.” Call them on it, every time. Guns are not violent.