Lieberman Loses Logic

Someone wrote to me, reacting to Foreign Minister Lieberman's anti-Abbas moves:

If the problem is that Abbas is cooperating with terrorists and conducting diplomatic “terror” against Israel, why are we demanding elections? 

If Abbas gets reelected, will his campaign then be legitimate? 

Is the idea here that terror is okay if ratified by the Palestinian electorate?

Think about that.

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My Absentee Ballot Registration Form Has Arrived

I'm continuing on my way:-

Democracy at work.

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On Cogan's Bluff - Huffington Post Comments

These three comments of mine were left at a Huffington Post article by one Dr. Charles G. Cogan, Associate, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School (his site is here)

This assertion is woefully inadequate for a scholar: "But how could a mass influx of Jews into Palestine not prejudice the "civil and religious rights" of existing non-Jewish communities there? The Balfour Declaration stands, along with the partition of India, as an icon to the micawberish policies of the British Empire at the start of its decline."

How? By they becoming citizens of the Jewish state which is what happened to the Arabs that stayed in the borders of Israel after 1948, preferring not to run away nor fight in a war of aggression in violation of the UN recommendation that indeed a Jewish state be established. That the state was to be Jewish was not in doubt; its borders in the end depended on Arabs losses after they sought to eradicate the nascent state.

"Civil and religious rights" are quite obviously not national nor political rights. The Arabs (actually the non-Jews, since that is the term used; Arabs never even being mentioned and that was purposeful) were not to gain such rights but only civil, personal and religious.

Mr. Cochran is subverting the history as well as the language employed.

And to someone who wrote:

For the record:

The 1922 League of Nations British Mandate for Palestine was a Class A Mandate, i. e, Palestine was to be administered by Britain AS A WHOLE until its citizens were able to assume democratic self-rule. By incorporating the Balfour Declaration the mandate did facilitate Jewish immigration to "secure the establishment of the Jewish National Home," but it did not call for the creation of a Jewish state or homeland in Palestine or any form of partition. As declared in the Churchill Memorandum (1 July 1922), "the status of all citizens of Palestine in the eyes of the law shall be Palestinian, and it has never been intended that they, or any section of them, should possess any other juridical status."

Furthermore, regarding the British Mandate, as approved by the Council of the League of nations, the British government declared: "His Majesty’s Government therefore now declare unequivocally that it is not part of their policy that Palestine should become a Jewish State." (Command Paper, 1922)

I commented:

That the Balfour Declaration "did not call for the creation of a Jewish state or homeland in Palestine" is a mis-comprehension of the legal process which decreed very much so that a Jewish homeland was to be established. That process was (a) Balfour declaration.; (b) deliberations at Versailles peace Conference 1919; (c) attempted Feisal-Weizmann agreement 1919; (d) San Remo Conference decision, April 1919; (e) League of Nations awarding of Mandate, July 1922, Sept. 1923. It was this string of decisions that decided that no Arab state would arise in Palestine but in Syria, Lebanon, Mesopotamia in addition to Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

And again, British policy could not override League of nations and in 1939, Zionists went to Geneva to appeal against the British White Paper which completely subverted the essence of the Mandate. But WW II broke out, halting procedure.

And to another who wrote:

Both Churchill and the MacDonald White paper rendered Balfour moot.

I responded:

Ridiculous. British statements of colonial office or foreign office policies could not override a decision of a body such as the League of Nations. even the 1947 Partition plan of the UN was but a recommendation.

The last two are your regular anti-Zionist trollers but that Cogan should ...compose such inanities?  Worse, having had a "37-year career in the CIA, ...23 of them overseas...in India, Congo, Sudan, Morocco, Jordan and France. From 1979-1984, ...chief of the Near East and South Asia Division in the Directorate of Operations, and from 1984-1989, ...CIA chief in Paris", it is now obvious how administrations could be misled and ill-advised.

For example, on the definition of Palestine, Cogan writes:

"The territory of Palestine was not defined until September 1, 1922 as a line "drawn from a point two miles west of... [Aqaba] up the center of the Wadi Araba, Dead Sea and River Jordan to its juncture with the River Yarmuk; thence up the centre of the river to the Syrian frontier." This was the boundary between Palestine and Transjordan... the Balfour Declaration called for a Jewish national home in "Palestine" which later became defined, per above, as ending at the Jordan River..."

First of all, indeed, it was only the Jewish people who had any definition of the country as a geo-political entity which we termed Eretz-Yisrael.  The Ottoman administrative boundaries changed and surely did not create a recognizable "country" per se.  The Arabs were not "Palestinians" but until the early 1920s, and even later, considered themselves as "Southern Syrians" and demanded the Mandate be joined to that of Syria under France.

Secondly, Transjordan, which surely did not exist, as implied, as a country, was actually part of the Palestine Mandate until 1946 at which time, when applying for acceptance to the UN as an independent country, was refused because the US State Department accepted the Zionist argument that only when the Mandate ended and the Jewish national home was reconstituted could any part of the original territory be separated from what should become the Jewish national home.


Thirdly, Cogan's bluff, that "the Balfour Declaration called for a Jewish national home in 'Palestine' which later became defined, per above, as ending at the Jordan River" is untrue. 

Article 25 of the Mandate decision reads:

In the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined, the Mandatory shall be entitled, with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, to postpone or withhold application of such provisions of this mandate as he may consider inapplicable to the existing local conditions, and to make such provision for the administration of the territories as he may consider suitable to those conditions...

There was no 'ending' at the Jordan River.  In addition to the continued administration of that area by the High Commissioner sitting in Jerusalem, as mentioned previously, there was an acquiescence to Britain's move in March 1921, first at the Cairo Conference and then in Jerusalem at the end of the month, to 'postpone' and to 'withhold application of provisions' but that was but a temporary situation, at least as conceived in 1922.

Even the September 1922 memorandum reads ""In the application of the Mandate to Transjordan, the action which, in Palestine, is taken by the Administration of the latter country will be taken by the Administration of Transjordan under the general supervision of the Mandatory."  And also, "From that point onwards, Britain administered the part west of the Jordan as Palestine, and the part east of the Jordan as Transjordan. Technically they remained one mandate...".

Is Cogan truly knowledgeable of such matters or is more a propagandist?

Moreover, as Eli Hertz points out, The Mandate for Palestine "laid down the Jewish legal right under international law to settle anywhere in western Palestine, the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, an entitlement unaltered in international law [done by] Fifty-one member countries - the entire League of Nations - unanimously...on June 30, 1922, a joint resolution of both Houses of Congress of the United States unanimously endorsed the 'Mandate for Palestine'...".  And there was the Anglo-American Convention of 1924 which repeated the commitment.

So, whether Cogan likes it, or not, the Balfour Declaration was part of the sense of the US Congress, too.

It is sorrowful that the Kennedy Center thinks Cogan is employable.

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Israeli Weakness

Reported

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to bring the people responsible for the firebombing to justice and relayed that message to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

"We will not tolerate racism, and we will not tolerate the combination of racism and violence," he said in a statement Tuesday. "This is something we just cannot accept, not as Jews, not as Israelis." Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon described the two weekend attacks as "terrorist acts" that "run contrary to Jewish ethics and values."

[racism?  why do our politicians adopt the language of the radical left? and "terror"? it runs counter to all religious morality can values.  without any identity, why hint that Jews are responsible?]

Social critics note that the decades-long conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has bred hatred, dehumanization and violence on both sides. 

[not in equal amounts or 'quality']

Palestinian attacks on Israeli vehicles in the West Bank are frequent, and many Palestinians consider them legitimate forms of resistance against Israeli occupation.  The Israeli military counted 196 Palestinian firebomb attacks and six shooting incidents in the first half of 2012, but it did not provide information on casualties.

Gerald Steinberg, a political science professor at Bar-Ilan University, said the incidence of violence among Israelis is not exceptional in the world context.  "There are pockets within Israeli society, particularly among young teenagers, where there is a history of violence, intolerance, across the board. It extends to Jewish groups in Israel as much as it does to Palestinians," he said. "The evidence clearly shows that Israel is not any less intolerant than the United States or Europe, and there is a lot of stress in this society."

[as much?]

Sorry but I find a weakness here amongst the representatives of israel.

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Low-Intensity Conflict Report #40

Low-Intensity Conflict Report #40, August 22, 2012

These reports are translated and publicized by Yehudit Tayar for Hatzalah Yehudah and Shomron with the clearance and confirmation of the IDF.  Hatzalah Yehudah and Shomron is a voluntary emergency medical organization with over 500 volunteer doctors, paramedics, medics who are on call 24/7 and work along with the IDF, 669 IAF Airborn Rescue, the security officers and personal throughout Yesha and the Jordan Valley, and with MDA.


August 21, 2012
Attack from Gaza; Rocket fallout in open uninhabited region . I am not at liberty to disclose the location for reasons of National Security.
Israeli vehicle attacked and hit with rocks at Adam junction in the Benjamin Region causing damage.
Israeli driver came from the direction of Itamar towards Bet Faruk and reported to IDF that Arabs were preparing to throw Molotov cocktails at him.  He continued to drive. 
Israeli vehicle attacked near Bet Faruk by Arabs with Molotov cocktails.
IDF is following up the investigation of the attack.
Israeli driver reported that Arabs attacked him with rocks north-west of Ramallah between Rantis and Bet Arieh.  IDF in control of the investigation.
Arabs threw Molotov cocktail on Border Police post at B.P. Base at Abudis north of Bet Lehem.

August 20, 2012
IDF allows us to release:
Secret Service and IDF arrested a terror cell in May 2012 belonging to the Hazit Ha'Amamit. The cell was planning shooting attacks and kidnapping in order to bargain.  Among the planned targets were: Maccabim Checkpost, and Ge'va Checkpost.
Arabs attacked Israeli youth with rocks as he rode on his bicycle at the road connecting Kiryat Arba and Hebron.
Israeli vehicles attacked by Arabs with rocks near Karnei Shomron at Azuz Junction.

August 19, 2012
Two serious incidents south of Shechem at Hawarwa rocks were hurdled from Arabs in car at Israeli vehicle. I wish to point out that the press does not relate to the continous attacks and attempted murders of innocent Israeli travelers on the roads.
Israeli bus belonging to the Gush Etzion Development company attacked with rocks near El Arub on the Gush Etzion-Hebron Highway.  The bus was carrying Israeli youth.

August 18, 2012
Close to the beginning of the Shabbat a traveler in the Eilat Hills found remains of a rocket that was fired earlier in the week towards Eilat. 
Border Police post at Kever Rachel was attacked by Arabs with Molotov cocktails and rocks causing damage but fortunately no injuries.

August 14, 2012
Security Forces allow us to release:
Arab arrested in the Shechem region following investigation into the poisoning of a family in Ra'anana when the terrorist broke into the family home and put poison into a beverage that was in the house.  As a result the father of the family was critically injured, the mother, grandmother, toddler and a policeman were moderately injured from the poison.

The MP at Psagot

That's MP Brooks Newmark from Braintree on the right.

Dani Dayan and Yigal Dilmoni, head of Yesha Council's Information Bureau on the left.

At the Psagot Winery.

In the 1980s, we had loads of MPs, like Anthony Steen who had me drive him into El-Amari refugee camp on the outskirts of Ramallah.  What a ride.  And the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee came to Shiloh for tea and talk.

Mr. Newmark came to learn from what's actually happening on the ground although his opinions were not changed, it appears.

That's the proper way of being a politician.

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Let's Get Away from MidEast News

Man who assaulted wife with Ostrich egg jailed for six months

A New Zealand man who assaulted his wife with an ostrich egg after her pet pig ran amok has been jailed for six months, local media reported...

The ostrich egg, the largest type of egg produced by any living bird species, caused bruising to the chest of Russell's wife, the report said...

Phillip Russell lost his temper when he discovered the pig had damaged his power saw, verbally abusing his wife, spitting at her then grabbing an ostrich egg from the kitchen table and hurling it at her, Fairfax Media reported.

It said Russell, 46, had repeatedly asked his wife to keep the pet pig under control as it had damaged their home, a neighbour's house and council property, but she insisted it should be given free range.

...Russell pleaded guilty to charges including assault using an ostrich egg as a weapon over the July 5 incident and was sentenced to six months jail in Hastings District Court on Wednesday.

Or am I hiding my head in the ... sand?

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Is That Arab Pollution?

I did not at all like the use of the term "pollution" to describe my activity of reestablishing a Jewish presence of residency in our national homeland.

But if you are interested in seeing real actual pollution, of our air, here's what I photographed this morning from Shiloh looking south, above the village of Turmos Aya:

In the orange circle you can discern garbage burning.

Not nice nor healthy.

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Meet A Chozeret B'teshuvah

This is the first single from the first album of Orian Reiss, released in 2009:

It's about a reserve soldier called to serve in the Second Lebanon War. Her other big hit is here.

This is how Orian looked then, a singer since 6 who spent time in Germany and is from Ramat Hasharon:

And now, just before her 30th birthday, this is Orian, Orian Zano now:

That's correct.

She's a chozeret b'teshuva.  One who has returned to the more observant Jewish lifestyle.

Her blog (in Hebrew) is here.  You can write to her here:  makorianreiss@gmail.com.

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When Jewish Girls Were Molested in Jerusalem - in 1927-1928

Following the incident last week at Zion Square and claims that the beating of an Arab was due to the boys being incited by a girl who told them she was a victim of a sexual assault by (that?)(an) Arab, which does not justify the criminal violence, I recalled a similar incident from 1928.

Here is the report from Davar, June 10 and the second item informs the readers of the murder of two Arabs near the Betzael School (the report has one wounded but he subsequently died):

The next day, the paper carried an editorial (at the left, encircled in brown) which complained of many months of incidents when Arabs harassed Jewish girls with inadequate police response for a variety of reasons:

The History of the Hagana, Sefer Toldot HaHagana, Vol. II, Part 1, p. 296, provides the details:

that throughout late 1927 and early 1928, there was a noticeable upsurge in molestation attacks comitted by Arabs against Jewish females ('hunters of kisses' they were called) mostly in the area of the Schneller Camp and the end of King George Street which at the time continued to the area of Liberty Bell Park of today.



Despite organized Hagana attacks against loitering Arabs, including beatings with sticks filled with lead.  The purpose was to indicate to an Arabs that he should think seven times about how he should behave when entering a Jewish neighborhood and how he should act therein so as to preserve the honor of the location.  It seems the Arabs of Haifa were copying the Arabs of Jerusalem in this regard.  The Hagana members felt they had to institute an "atmosphere of security".

In the end, two Arabs were shot dead on June 8, 1928, a Friday night.

The explanatory notes

add that drunken British soldiers who attempted to accost Jewish girls merited the same treatment.

The testimony is corroborated by Avraham Meshorrer, Meir Sharvit and Avraham Tehomi.

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A Matter of Culture

The New York Times awarded a mark of distinction to Nimrod Aloni, the head of the Institute for Educational Thought at a Tel Aviv teachers college, when it quoted him from his appearance on Geula Even’s post-hard news interview and discussion program on Channel One television on Monday, August 20.  

A part of what he said was “this [the beating] cannot just be an expression of something he has heard at home…This is directly tied to national fundamentalism that is the same as the rhetoric of neo-Nazis, Taliban and K.K.K..”  He added,  “This comes from an entire culture that has been escalating toward an open and blunt language based on us being the chosen people who are allowed to do whatever we like.”

But the full content of that portion of his interview should be quoted:

Nimrod Aloni: “…there is a radicalization and escalation of so-called hate crimes, the so-called crimes of racism, which is what I did hear on the way over that the fellow justifies lynches and terrorism against Arabs - and there are at present almost daily terrorist attacks against Arabs – and he justifies what was done as it’s worth is to save lives. Now this is not connected to his home, and not solely to the educational systems, it's about Israeli culture in which nationalism becomes xenophobic chauvinism, in which religion adopts a façade not of ‘its ways are pleasant’ but of extremism, violence, fundamentalism, and we see a language exactly like the neo-Nazis in Europe, the Ku-Klux-Klan in America, the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Geula Even: just a moment, are you not exaggerating a bit.
Aloni: No, no, no…
Even: Look, this boy is fifteen and a half, what we see now is the result of what he went through until now. When you say that lately you see not manifestations of nationalism, or even chauvinism and you give harsh and terrible examples from history, but he is the result of what?
Aloni: Geula, do not give Israeli society any discounts. Even those who do terrible things in many places. There is legitimacy. Some children, of course, there are children, let us say, with perhaps personal adversity, or from a weak social milieu but they heard rabbis who  don’t rent apartments to Arabs, and Jewish girls should not – there was that Rabbis’ wives letter – that  Jewish girls should not hang around Arabs. He perhaps read Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the day I read in the paper ...
Even: You attribute a lot of reading material that I doubt he digested, (inaudible due to the two talking at once)… it's so much material.
Aloni: it is a whole culture where there is escalation, or there is more free speech, with no suppression, whereby it is stated that we are sort of chosen people, that we cannot assimilate with the Arabs and we must steer clear of them. This discourse among weak groups can be translated as ‘hilltop youth’ or terrorism against Jews…”.

In the first instance, it appears Ms. Kershner cannot either translate adequately or was provided with a less-than-authentic transcript of Aloni’s words.

Second, that he is the son of radical and extreme leftist Shulamit Aloni is quite relevant to his opinion.

Third, the quotation is less than representative of his approach which is basically a rejection of traditional Jewish culture, even if not necessarily religious.

And fourth, how is it that just last month the entire spectrum of the left-wing, in Israel as well as abroad, lashed into US presidential candidate Mitt Romney for arguing that there is something wrong culturally with a group of people and now, to attack culture is proper and acceptable?

Is it that Romney was referring to Arabs whereas Aloni and Co. are talking about Jews?

That seems to be the culture of political discourse in Israel.

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Now They Tell Us Tanks Were Needed

Funny, didn't we used to hear there's no military solution to terror?

Former Military Intelligence head Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin told Army Radio Wednesday that he wasn't worried about the tank deployment. "Terrorism is fought with tanks," he said.

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The Youngest Visitor?

A couple of months old, I'd guess:-

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A Few Jews, A New Tree - Temple Mount Today

After eight days during which the Temple Mount was off-limits to Jews, closed to non-Muslims due to an extended "end-of-Ramadan and Eid El-Fitr" period, the first Jews entered this morning:

and here's the new tree which replace the one that fell over and claimed as a victim of nefarious Jewish activity:

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More of the Illogical

Is this referring to the situation vis-a-vis Iran?

...the administration’s options for intervening remain limited by what its officials have described as a simple calculus: It would make the conflict even worse.

No. The reference is to Syria.

So ask yourselves: if this is the situation, or if this is the viewpoint being foisted on Obama via the NYTimes, what can Israel expect in terms of US support?

After all, it's always, relatively, worse after a war. In the sort term. But can Israel expect anything good from Iran, in the sort or long-term?
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There's Apartheid in Israel?

The bathers are all Arabs, or almost all, enjoying the sea on the Eid El-Fitr holiday in the land of the Zionist entity called Israel:-

Source

So, So Left Out

The frustrated Israeli left that failed to garner support in recent
elections has adopted a new strategy. Already before shrinking in the 2009 elections to only 16 Knesset members (represented by Labor and Meretz), several leftist figures decided to turn to external forces “to save Israel from itself” rather than struggle for the hearts and minds of the Israeli people. They argued that Israel’s democracy is in danger and tried to mobilize European and American public opinion to pressure Israel in their desired direction. A recent example of this strategy is an opinion piece in The New York Times titled “Israel’s Fading Democracy.”  This op-ed exemplifies the longing for the days when the left was in power, particularly before 1977, a year that ended the Labor party hegemony in Israeli politics. Yet an objective analysis of the traits of Israeli politics shows that Israel’s vibrant democracy is alive and kicking and actually faring much better than it did during the “old days.”

Source

Shiloh's Children - Cont'd

Magician's Day in the park:

Photographer: Miriam-Feyge Bunimovitch

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Two Cicumcision News Stories

1.

After a Cologne court ruled that circumcision was illegal, there were those who argued that the decision would not impact Jewish life in Germany. We were cautioned not to jump to conclusions since it was just one court, whose jurisdiction was limited. The reaction of Germany’s political leadership, particularly Chancellor Angela Merkel, was exemplary as the parliament voted to take up a bill legalizing the ritual in the fall. But, as today’s news reveals, the optimists did not count on the willingness of many Germans to support the court.

As the Times of Israel reports, criminal charges have been filed against a rabbi in Northern Bavaria for performing circumcisions. According to the Juedische Allgemeine, a Jewish weekly, the state prosecutor of Hof confirmed that charges had been filed against Rabbi David Goldberg, who serves the community of Upper Franconia for “harming” infants by performing the rite of brit milah, the covenantal ritual at the heart of Judaism. A Hessian doctor that cited the Cologne court’s ruling brought the charges against the rabbi. While the rabbi has not yet been tried, let alone convicted, the spectacle of German courts prosecuting a Jew for practicing Judaism doesn’t just awaken echoes of the Holocaust. It also sounds a warning that the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Western Europe is not a passing phase...

2.

Declining rates of circumcision among infants will translate into billions of dollars of unnecessary medical costs in the U.S. as these boys grow up and become sexually active men, researchers at Johns Hopkins University warned...a team of economists and epidemiologists estimated that every circumcision not performed would lead to significant increases in lifetime medical expenses to treat sexually transmitted diseases and related cancers — increases that far surpass the costs associated with the procedure...in the last decade, studies have increasingly shown that removing the foreskin of the penis has significant health benefits, said Dr. Aaron Tobian, senior author of the new study.

...Circumcision is believed to prevent STDs by depriving pathogens of a moist environment where they can thrive. The inner foreskin has been shown to be highly susceptible to HIV in particular because it contains large numbers of Langerhans cells, a target for the virus.

...If circumcision rates were to fall to 10% — which is typical in countries where insurance does not cover the procedure — lifetime health costs for all the babies born in a year would go up by $505 million. That works out to $313 in added costs for every circumcision that doesn't happen, the report said.
In this scenario, nearly 80% of the additional projected costs were because of medical care associated with HIV infection in men, the team wrote...The analysis comes a week before the American Academy of Pediatrics is scheduled to release a new policy on circumcision. Since 1999, the doctors group has taken a neutral stance on the procedure, saying that "the scientific evidence demonstrates potential medical benefits" but that it's not strong enough to say that circumcision should be routine...A shift in position could boost support for circumcision, since both pediatricians and parents look to the academy for guidance, Leibowitz said.

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New Book to Read

A new book has been published by HarperCollins.

The author, Craig Karpel writes that Obama voters' political addictions are so disorienting that to attain "voting sobriety" by Election Day they need to go through the 12-step program he has devised. Each step is designed to enable voters to understand how they succumbed to a particular addiction, and what they need to do to overcome it. 

 

Noting the Obama campaign's emphasis on persuading voter to attend pro-Obama house parties, he urges readers to host and attend Alcoholics Anonymous-type meetings to "work the steps" by admitting their political addictions to each other and committing to go through "Democratic detox" and "Republican rehab."

 

The 12-Step Guide for the Recovering Obama Voter captures the mood of millions of Americans who are coming to regret voting for Obama in 2008 and won't be voting for him in November.  

 

The author's credentials:

 

Craig S. Karpel is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work has appeared in

such venues as The New Republic, New York Magazine, The New York Times, Playboy,

PJ Media, and The Wall Street Journal. He has been a Contributing Editor of Esquire and

Harper's Magazine.

 

As a community organizer fighting for "social justice" in the early 1970s he was an

adviser to the far-left firebrand Abbie Hoffman. He counseled John Lennon during the

former Beatle's involvement in American leftist politics.

He wrote for the iconic left-wing magazine Ramparts and the ultra-liberal Village Voice

of the 1960s and 70s.

 

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