who is randy scheunemann?

freedom’s last best hope, etc

Speaking on behalf of the McCain campaign, former Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift tonight flatly stated that Obama had called Palin a pig:

The formation of the Palin Truth Squad couldn’t have happened too soon, as we saw when Sen. Obama in Lebanon, Va., this evening uttered what I can only deem to be disgraceful comments comparing our vice presidential nominee Gov. Palin to a pig. Sen. Obama owes Gov. Palin an apology.

Asked why she was so confident Obama was “comparing” Palin to a pig, she said Palin was the only one of the four candidates on both parties’ tickets who wears lipstick:

She is the only one of the four candidates for president, or the only vice presidential candidate who wears lipstick. I mean, it seemed to me a very gendered comment. But, if as part of his apology Sen. Obama wants to say, no, he was calling Sen. McCain — who is a true hero in our country — a pig, then I suppose we could wait en masse for an apology to that, as well.

It was pointed out to Swift that, after the line about the pig, Obama had said, “You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called ‘change,’ it’s still gonna stink after eight years.” Swift then suggested that Obama was calling McCain a fish:

I have a fourth-grader and two second-graders at home. I would not teach them that this is sort of a high-minded debate on policy issues when they are calling people rotten old fish or a pig. In fact, it sounds a lot like some of the least intelligent debates on the playground sound like at our elementary school.

A reporter then reminded Swift that in December, McCain was asked about criticisms coming his way from then-opponent Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass., and McCain replied, “Never get into a wrestling match with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it.” Was McCain calling Romney a pig? a reporter asked Swift. Of course not, Swift said.

– from Jake Tapper, ABC Blogs

pentagon hawks with interesting histories

Pentagon set on mission to rebuild Georgian military
Raw Story, Sep 9, 2008

Serving at the time as Vice President Cheney’s national security adviser, Edelman assumed the ambassadorship in Ankara in July 2003. It was widely speculated that Edelman was named to this key post not only because of his close ties to administration hardliners, but also because of his family connections to Turkey. Edelman’s grandmother fled Russia in the early 1920s, and his mother was born in Turkey. His great uncle taught at Ankara University (Los Angeles Times, March 30, 2005; see also Edelman’s State Department biography). Edelman’s two-year stay in Ankara turned into a lightning rod for deepening anti-U.S. sentiment in Turkey. The Turkish columnist Ibrahim Karagul wrote: “Edelman is probably the least-liked and trusted American ambassador in Turkish history” (quoted in K. Gajendra Singh, “U.S.-Turkish Relations Go Wobbly Now Over Syria,” Al Jazeerah, March 23, 2005). In a column for the newspaper Yeni Safak, Karagul wrote: “Considering the range of his activities, his statements which violate the decorum of democracy, and his interest in Turkey’s internal affairs, Eric Edelman acts more like a colonial governor than an ambassador. Edelman’s actions have exceeded his diplomatic mission. His ‘interest’ in nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the Turkish media, and ethnic minorities make him go beyond his role as an ambassador. His presence here has never contributed to Turkish-American relations, and it never will. If we want to address the reasons for anti-Americanism, Edelman must be issue one. As long as Edelman stays in Turkey, the chill wind disturbing bilateral relations will last.” – Right Web

The Pentagon said Tuesday it was sending a team to Georgia this week to assess needs for rebuilding its military, emphasizing that Tbilisi must be capable of deterring any new Russian attack. “The Department of Defense is sending an assessment team to Tbilisi later this week to help us begin to consider carefully Georgia’s legitimate needs and our response,” said Under Secretary of Defense Eric Edelman. “After assessments of these needs, we will review how the United States will be able to support the reconstruction of Georgia’s economy, infrastructure, and armed forces,” he told a congressional hearing on the Georgia-Russia conflict. The steps to help Georgia, he said, would be “sequenced” and would show US support for its security, independence, and territorial integrity. “Georgia, like any sovereign country, should have the ability to defend itself and to deter renewed aggression,” he said. To suggestions by a senator that Georgia be given anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons in a bid to at least “delay” further Russian movement into its neighbor, Edelman said there could be “some understanding with Georgia about what capabilities it thinks it needs. “There should not be any question whether Georgia is entitled to military assistance from NATO or any allies.”

Russia on Tuesday submitted a draft resolution in the UN Security Council demanding an arms embargo, saying “some countries” wanted to start re-arming Georgia and were allocating “large sums of money” for that purpose. Washington has been providing largely humanitarian aid to Georgia after Russia’s military surged into the pro-Western nation on August 8 to rebuff a Georgian offensive to regain control of South Ossetia from Moscow-backed separatists. Moscow then went on to recognize the two breakaway regions as independent states. US efforts to help Georgia will not be undertaken by Washington alone, Edelman said, citing parallel moves by NATO. “NATO has also decided to assist Georgia in assessing the damage caused by Russian military action, including to the Georgian armed forces, and to help restore critical services necessary for normal public life and economic activity,” he said. NATO has sent an advisory support team to Georgia as well as its special envoy for the Caucasus and Central Asia, and the North Atlantic Council permanent representatives are also planning visits. “We must not, and will not, allow Russia’s aggression to succeed in Georgia,” Edelman said. “Nor must we miss an opportunity to link arms in solidarity with our partners and friends in the region in the face of aggression,” he added. Last week, the United States rolled out a one billion dollars in additional economic assistance to Georgia to help it weather immediate needs caused by the current turmoil.

wonders of dual citizenship revealed

With White House at Stake, Ultra-Orthodox
Work To Get Out the Vote — in Israel
Nathan Jeffay, Forward, Sep 9, 2008

Haifa, Israel — As the American presidential contest between Barack Obama and John McCain heads into its final stretch, a group of leading ultra-Orthodox rabbis in Israel is preparing to release a statement that urges the country’s American expatriates to exercise their voting rights in November by casting absentee ballots. The statement comes on the heels of a visit to Israel by Haredi lobbyist Rabbi Yehiel Kalish, who is the director of government affairs at Agudath Israel of America, a leading Haredi advocacy organization. Kalish spent a week in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak early this month, meeting with rabbis to request their help in mobilizing Americans living in Israel to register and vote. Kalish said that the campaign, the first of its kind, is a nonpartisan effort to maximize the voting rate among American Israelis in order to strengthen the Jewish community’s bargaining power in Washington. The hope, he said, is that a high turnout will encourage the winning candidate — and other decision makers — to pay attention to the Jewish community’s priorities when formulating policy. “Every vote cast from Eretz Yisrael comes from someone concerned for the safety and security of people living there, and this will be understood in Washington,” Kalish told the Forward.

Aaron Spetner, a Jerusalem-based Agudath Israel activist who is heading the campaign, added that “if thousands of voter registration forms are coming in from Israel, it makes us powerful in Washington — with the president, senators and congressmen.” There are an estimated 200,000 Americans living in Israel and the Palestinian territories. Only 35,000 are currently registered to vote. Several experts contacted by the Forward voiced skepticism, however, at the organizers’ claim of nonpartisanship, pointing to conservative leanings among Haredi voters. “While I can’t be sure, Haredim are much more right-wing and want to show McCain that they are capable of delivering the goods,” said Bar-Ilan University sociologist Menachem Friedman, an expert in Haredi culture. Political activists were more direct. “You would have trouble convincing me that this is not done in support for McCain by people who favor McCain,” said Gershon Baskin, founder and CEO of the dovish Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information. Baskin said that regardless of whether or not there is explicit rabbinic endorsement for McCain, Israel is an obvious recruiting ground for McCain supporters. “American Jews are by majority behind Obama,” Baskin said. “Ask most Israelis who they would vote for if they could, and a majority will say McCain. Now, among American Israelis, who tend to be more right-wing and more religious — especially those targeted in this campaign — McCain will fare particularly well.”

Though Spetner insisted that the effort was not aimed at a particular candidate, he implied that a high Haredi turnout might make a specific impact. “Politicians recognize voters; they recognize the people who get them elected,” he said. But Spetner continued, “Who we vote for is not as important as letting candidates know that there are all these people who will be voting largely on Israel-related issues. Knowing priorities of voters is what shapes the agenda in politics, so we have come to the realization that we should be part of that. If we vote, and are known to vote, it will cause them to think about us before anything they do.” He singled out security issues that affect Israelis, foreign policy decisions affecting Israel and matters in the United States that affect the Jewish community as issues on which he believes the opinions of Americans in Israel could have increasing clout. Sociologist Samuel Heilman of Queens College of the City University of New York seconded Spetner’s analysis. “The primary motivation is to show that [Agudath Israel] can motivate people to go to the polls,” he said. “Once these people are checked out on the voter list, [Agudath Israel] has won. Nobody knows who they will have voted for.” Heilman, however, added that, given the Haredi community’s tendency to vote right wing, the fact that Agudath Israel will be able to tell Republicans “with a wink” that it secured them extra votes is secondary, Heilman said.

Harnessing rabbinic pressure is just one component of Agudath Israel’s campaign. Kalish also launched a grass-roots initiative to set up voter registration offices in Haredi homes. Posters have gone up in synagogues and community centers, informing people that they have about a month, depending on their home state, to register as voters. Simultaneously, Agudath Israel is gearing up at home in America to encourage Haredi voter turnout. This effort has the backing of several leading rabbis, including the head of the acclaimed Rosh Yeshiva of Ner Israel Yeshiva of Baltimore, Rabbi Aharon Feldman. During Kalish ’s visit to Israel, he met with three of the country’s most revered yeshiva heads: Aharon Leib Shteinman and Michael Yehuda Lefkowitz of Ponevezh Yeshiva and Nosson Tzvi Finkel of the Mir Yeshiva. He also met with Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, son-in-law of the most respected talmudic authority in the Orthodox world, Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv. The four rabbis he met are all noted for their avoidance of political involvement. In addition to the yeshiva heads, Kalish contacted several grand rabbis of Hasidic sects, and at least one is believed likely to sign on.

As planned, the campaign is turning housewives in Haredi neighborhoods into political operatives. Judy Neuwirth of Jerusalem’s Bayit Vegan neighborhood told the Forward that until she accepted a bundle of voter registration forms from an Agudath Israel official early this month, the only kind of politics she got involved in was “between my kids.” Now, a stream of visitors arrives daily to register. She gives the visitors forms, which she collects and sends to Agudath Israel for processing. “It is important that whoever is elected has his head firmly screwed on in the sense that he does what is good for the Jews in Israel in order to keep our support,” she said. Another activist, Bracha Ross, a housewife from the Haredi West Bank settlement of Betar Illit, said: “When people around here heard that we have forms, they were very excited. A lot of people did not even know you can have an absentee vote. This campaign is really encouraging people to use their rights.” She added that while the form is available online, this is of little use to Haredim, many of whom adhere to rabbinic rulings against using the Web. Despite the activists’ enthusiasm for the drive, the notion of a nonpartisan campaign is lost on some of them. While Agudath Israel has stated that it will not show favoritism toward either candidate, Neuwirth holds out a hope that the rabbis encouraging participation in the poll will also offer recommendations of whom to vote for. “The same as happens in [elections in] this country, we will vote for whoever the rabbis say is better,” she told the Forward.

dem slams lubavitch for partisanship

No ‘bipartisan hechsher’ for Chabad in D.C.
JTA, Sept 9, 2008

A Jewish Democratic leader says he will decline invitations to future Chabad-Lubavitch events in Washington because of its “partisan activities.” Ira Forman, the executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, says “certain Chabad associated individuals and institutions” have been “taking part in partisan activties” in the last three election cycles. “I currently do not feel that it is proper for a NJDC representative to give a ‘bi-partisan hechsher’ to your events,” Forman wrote in an e-mail to American Friends of Lubavitch Washington director Rabbi Levi Shemtov that was obtained by JTA. Forman was upset most recently, according to the letter, by a conference call last month that some 40 Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries had with John McCain in which the Republican presidential nominee asked for the group’s endorsement. “With this McCain event I do not believe you have adequately considered the issues we previously discussed — including making sure that if you invite the candidate of one party that you then proceed (before the first event takes place) and make a formal, written invitation to the candidate of the other party,” the letter said. Shemtov said he had “several” discussions with the Obama campaign about a similar event and the only reason it hasn’t happened yet is because of “scheduling challenges.”

“If between one event and an an equivalent event there is a lapse of time beyond our control, that can hardly be considered partisanship,” Shemtov said. “Especially in this particular case, we were clear with both campaigns that whatever would be done with one we would be willing to do with the other.” Forman would not comment further on the e-mail. “This letter was not intended to be public,” he said. Forman had blind-copied the e-mail to some mutual friends of the two men. Shemtov said his organization does not take sides in elections. “Chabad-Lubavitch has never been nor cannot be, nor will it ever be, a partisan organization,” he said. “In fact, we are diligent in ensuring access and information both ways across the spectrum of public officials.” Shemtov added that he does not rely on Forman for bipartisanship, pointing out that his annual dinner always includes members of Congress from both parties as honorees. “Many of our events attract more Democrats than his do,” Shemtov said, “so frankly I’m not too concerned.”

whatever happened to jewish education?

OECD: Israeli students rank last in science, math
Abe Selig, JPost, Sep 9, 2008

Underlining the crisis in the Israeli school system, an international education survey on Tuesday ranked Israel near the bottom of 57 Westernized countries – citing underpaid teachers, oversized classes and abysmal performances by students in math and science. In response, the Education Ministry noted that the survey, though newly released, was based on statistics from 2006, and suggested that the latest curriculum reform package, “New Horizon,” would lead to an improvement. The annual education report of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a grouping of Westernized countries that measures growth and modernization around the world, essentially gave Israeli education an F: It showed that Israeli teachers earn around half of the global wage average, reported that class sizes in Israel are among the largest in the world, and featured results from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) exams that placed Israeli students in 39th and 40th place in math and science, respectively, out of 57 participating nations. “We’re basically destroying our next generation’s chances to compete with the other countries,” said Dani Ben-David, a professor of economics at Tel Aviv University, who has researched the Israeli system. “It’s our future, and we’re frittering it away.”

On a rare positive note, the OECD report did show that a relatively high proportion of Israeli pupils complete 12 grades of school – 90% – compared to the OECD average of 83% and the US’s 77%. However, the study did not indicate the percentage of Israeli high schoolers who complete full matriculation – currently less than two-thirds. Education Minister Yuli Tamir cited the diversity of the Israeli education system as a uniquely demanding factor. “The Israeli education system is abnormally heterogeneous,” Tamir said. “It’s made up of four sub-systems – Hebrew state schools, Arab state schools, religious state schools and ultra-Orthodox schools. This multitude of disciplines requires additional budgets, a problem which the OCED’s exemplary countries don’t have to face.” The report did not hypothesize as to the sources of Israel’s educational woes, but its findings suggested that overcrowding is a major factor, causing a chain reaction of negative trends and a possible link to the low PISA scores. Junior-high schools hold an average of 33 students per classroom, as opposed to an average of 24 in other Western countries. Elementary school students fair slightly better with 28 kids per class, compared to 22 in other OECD countries. Consequently, the student-teacher ratio in Israel is also one of the highest in the world – with an average of 17 students per teacher. As for teachers’ wages, the report showed that the average Israeli teacher earns about NIS 48,000 ($13,257) a year, as opposed to the average $27,828 (NIS 99,846) in other Western countries and $34,895 (NIS 125,370) in the US.

Ben-David, a former Kadima Knesset candidate, said the OECD’s findings confirmed the ongoing crisis in the Israeli educational system, which he traced to three principal areas. “The first problem is the general quality of teachers,” he said. “While there are good teachers out there, we have teachers’ colleges with acceptance requirements that are below the acceptance requirements of any Israeli university. How can we expect teachers to lift our kids up to the university level, when they’re not necessarily at that level themselves?” Next, Ben-David pointed to the insufficient time spent studying basic courses, or core curriculum, in the classroom. “There’s a lot to be said about what we’re teaching the kids, and how much time we spend teaching them,” Ben-David charged. “When you look at the proportion of pupils studying science for less than two hours a week, you can understand why we’re slipping in the PISA exams.” Finally, Ben-David lambasted the management structure within the education system as fundamentally flawed. “You have principals, essentially managing each school, with all of the accountability but no authority whatsoever to change anything. How can you give someone the responsibility of educating your children, when they themselves can’t make the changes necessary to do so properly?”

tarpley with some good news for once

Ivashov, Chiesa, Meyssan, Russian Experts
To Debate 9-11 On Russian TV Friday
Webster G. Tarpley, Rense.com, 9-9-8

Thierry Meyssan reports from Moscow that he and other leading international 9/11 truth experts have completed taping a television debate which will be telecast on the first national program of Russian state television this coming Friday, September 12. This no-holds barred, free-wheeling debate, featuring strongly divergent opinions about what really happened on and about September 11, 2001, will be shown in conjunction with the documentary film Zero, produced and directed by Chiesa and Franco Fracassi of Telemaco Productions in Rome. Russians are thus about to receive an unprecedented evening of 9/11 truth. The telecast will go out in the middle of prime time. Among the participants, General Leonid Ivashov was the commander of the Russian armed forces on September 11, 2001, and has been a leading critic of the US official version. A leading strategic thinker for his country, Ivashov is currently a fellow of the Strategic Culture Foundation (fondsk.ru) in Moscow. Giulietto Chiesa is a member of the European Parliament in Brussels, representing the region around Asti in northwest Italy. Chiesa has been the leading spokesman for 9/11 truth issues in the European Parliament, and has been the prime mover behind the documentary film Zero, as well as the collection of essays by the same name which has also attracted much attention in Italy since being published in the late summer of 2007. Thierry Meyssan, the founder and leader of the Voltaire Network in Paris, was one of the first critics of the US official story about 9/11. He is the author of several books, including 9/11: The Big Lie, and Pentagate. He also organized the Axis for Peace conference in Brussels in November 2005.

Among almost a dozen Russian participants in the debate that will be televised Friday evening in Moscow, one of the most compelling speakers was a Russian cosmonaut who observed the 9/11 events from his post on the International Space Station in earth orbit. This cosmonaut recounts in the telecast that, as he watched the immense plume of smoke spread from New York out over the Atlantic, he took a large number of photos and films which were sent automatically to both Houston and Moscow. “We have been studying these images very, very, carefully,” commented the cosmonaut pointedly, “and we have seen some highly interesting things.” The host for the debate stressed that this landmark telecast did not imply that the Kremlin administration of President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin was officially espousing any particular point of view concerning 9/11, but rather reflected a commitment to free and open debate. Nevertheless, observers in the Russian capital sense a far-reaching change of mood by the Russian government in the wake of the August 7-8 genocidal attack on South Ossetia by the Georgian dictator and US satellite Saakashvili. The Russians, according to this view, are through with doing favors for the US, especially in regard to Washington’s official myths about 9/11 and the war on terror, and this telecast will deliver that message in a clear and unmistakable way.