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6-12 Shevat, 5772 Jan. 30-Feb. 5, 2012 -- THE JEWISH OBSERVER, LOS ANGELES -- 457th Web Ed.
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CHILD SUPPORT BILL
By LINDA TAYLOR
The average divorce rate in California is 70 percent. California’s child support system is the biggest in the nation. Representing 1.6 million cases. More than 10 percent of the federal caseload of 15 million. Los Angeles county alone serves more child support cases than the state of Georgia.
Currently, child support is not tax deductible. With fewer jobs, and the economy, parents are worried that they will fall behind on payments and the penalty for doing so can be swift and harsh. Penalties include loss of your drivers license, tax liens, loss of your professional licenses, and jail. 84% of child support providers are men, who are not asking to stop paying, they are asking for help so they can continue paying.
70% of all child support arrears is owed by men earning less than $10,000 a year. While there is concern over jail and prison costs, by giving non-custodial parents a tax break, we could further reduce jail and prison costs. Parents are incarcerated solely for non payment .
Let’s make child support tax deductible. It's the right thing to do. I have asked Assemblyman Bill Berryhill to introduce legislation making child support tax deductible.
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ZOA: RON PAUL MUST PUBLICLY REPUDIATE VICIOUS ANTI-ISRAEL, RACIST STATEMENTS ATTRIBUTED TO HIM
By MORTON KLEIN
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has called upon Republican presidential contender Ron Paul to publicly repudiate the vicious anti-Israel and racist statements attributed to him over past decades, not merely to deny that he made them or that they were published without his knowledge or consent. Ron Paul has stated that he either didn't utter or authorize many statements appearing in his name. The ZOA maintains that Mr. Paul is not thereby denying that these are his beliefs merely by disclaiming authorship and that, if he genuinely disagrees with them, he can make this clear easily by publicly repudiating and condemning these statements issued in his name.
According to a former Paul aide, Eric Dondero, Paul is "most certainly Anti-Israel, and Anti-Israeli in general. He wishes the Israeli state did not exist at all. He expressed this to me numerous times in our private conversations. His view is that Israel is more trouble than it is worth, specifically to the America taxpayer. He sides with the Palestinians, and supports their calls for the abolishment of the Jewish state, and the return of Israel, all of it, to the Arabs."
Paul's hostility to Israel has also been on display during the current presidential campaign, when, on November 21 in the CNN sponsored Republican debate, he stated, "Why do we have this automatic commitment that we're going to send our kids and send our money endlessly to Israel?" Paul has also claimed U.S. policy was responsible for 9/11 and anti-American hostility in the world, saying, "You talk to the people who committed it and those individuals who would like to do us harm, and they say we don't like American bombs to be falling on our country, we don't like the intervention we do in their nation ... the average American didn't cause it. But if you have a flawed policy, it may influence it."
James Kirchick, writing in the New Republic, after closely researching the newsletters issued in Ron Paul's name over the decades, particularly those not available on the internet from years preceding 1999, concluded the following:
Whoever actually wrote them, the newsletters I saw all had one thing in common: They were published under a banner containing Paul's name, and the articles (except for one special edition of a newsletter that contained the byline of another writer) seem designed to create the impression that they were written by him--and reflected his views. What they reveal are decades worth of obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays. In short, they suggest that Ron Paul is not the plain-speaking antiwar activist his supporters believe they are backing--but rather a member in good standing of some of the oldest and ugliest traditions in American politics ...
The rhetoric when it came to Jews was little better. The newsletters display an obsession with Israel; no other country is mentioned more often in the editions I saw, or with more vitriol. A 1987 issue of Paul's Investment Letter called Israel "an aggressive, national socialist state," and a 1990 newsletter discussed the "tens of thousands of well-placed friends of Israel in all countries who are willing to wok [sic] for the Mossad in their area of expertise. [Of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, a newsletter said] 'Whether it was a setup by the Israeli Mossad, as a Jewish friend of mine suspects, or was truly a retaliation by the Islamic fundamentalists, matters little ...
Paul's campaign wants to depict its candidate as a naïve, absentee overseer, with minimal knowledge of what his underlings were doing on his behalf. This portrayal might be more believable if extremist views had cropped up in the newsletters only sporadically--or if the newsletters had just been published for a short time. But it is difficult to imagine how Paul could allow material consistently saturated in racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and conspiracy-mongering to be printed under his name for so long if he did not share these views'" (James Kirchick, 'Angry White Man: The Bigoted Past of Ron Paul,' New Republic, January 8, 2008).
Among other despicable statements contained in these newsletters are the following: 1) Ridiculed black activists who wanted to rename New York City after King, suggesting that 'Welfaria,' 'Zooville,' 'Rapetown,' 'Dirtburg,' and 'Lazyopolis' were better alternatives. --In a passage titled 'The Duke's Victory,' a newsletter celebrated Duke's 44% showing in the 1990 Louisiana open primary. 2) 'Duke lost the election ... but he scared the blazes out of the Establishment.' 3) In 1991, a newsletter asked, 'Is David Duke's new prominence, despite his losing the gubernatorial election, good for anti-big government forces?' 'The conclusion was that "our priority should be to take the anti-government, anti-tax, anti-crime, anti-welfare loafers, anti-race privilege, anti-foreign meddling message of Duke, and enclose it in a more consistent package of freedom.'" 4) A special issue of the Ron Paul Political Report, published in June 1992, dedicated to explaining the Los Angeles riots of that year. "Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began." 5) In 1994, South Africa's transition to multiracial democracy was portrayed as a “destruction of civilization" that was "the most tragic [to] ever occur on that continent, at least below the Sahara." 6) Regarding the debate on whether gays should be allowed to serve in the military, Ron Paul's newsletter stated, "Homosexuals, if admitted, should be put in a special category and not allowed in close physical contact with heterosexuals."
We call upon Ron Paul to publicly repudiate and condemn the vicious anti-Israel and racist statements that have been either stated by him or else attributed to him in newsletters published under his name over many years.
It is an insult to the public's intelligence for Ron Paul and his spokesmen to pretend that these vicious statements can be shrugged off by claiming that he neither made nor authorized them. These statements are numerous and have been around for years. They appeared in publications bearing his name. Had Ron Paul genuinely disagreed with them and found them shocking, he had ample time and opportunity to say so publicly. He has never done so. In fact, his current ploy of avoiding condemnation of these statements by instead claiming he didn't say or authorize them strongly suggests that he fully agrees with them and does not reject these hateful, vicious views.
Ron Paul and his supporters' latest insistence that he is actually pro-Israel and would not interfere in the way Israel seeks fit to defend itself doesn't tally with Paul's post-9/11 statements to the effect that the U.S. is being attacked by Islamists for, among other reasons, its support for Israel. Can one really believe that a president who believes these things would not seek to pressure Israel from doing anything that might upset its Arab neighbors? That he would not blame Israel for Arab hostility? That he would not deny it intelligence assistance? That he would not side with Arab diplomatic initiatives condemning Israel in the misguided hope that Arab dictators and radicalized masses might like the U.S. a little more? This sort of dangerous, flawed thinking has been a staple of Ron Paul's foreign policy pronouncements.
Mr. Paul is not denying that these are his beliefs merely by disclaiming authorship. If he genuinely disagrees with them, he can make this clear very easily - by publicly repudiating and condemning these statements issued in his name. Until and unless he does so, Ron Paul himself should be condemned, delegitimized and shunned as a vicious, Israel-hating, racist.
Morton A. Klein, President
* * *
PRESIDENT OBAMA FUNDS US-ISRAEL MISSILE
DEFENSE SYSTEMS AT HISTORICALLY HIGH LEVELS
By CONGRESSMAN STEVE ROTHMAN
President Obama [recently] sent a strong message by signing into law the highest levels of funding for the joint US-Israel missile defense programs in our history. Our enemies and friends will now continue to know that the US and Israel are making even more powerful the already unprecedented military and intelligence cooperation between our two nations.
I thank President Obama, Chairman Bill Young (R-FL), Ranking Member Norm Dicks (D-WA), and all my colleagues on the defense subcommittee for their leadership and vision in funding these life-saving programs. With their support, the US will invest $235.7 million for essential joint US-Israel missile defense programs for the coming year. I am proud that since 2007, the US has invested more than $1 billion in US-Israel joint missile and rocket defense programs.
Given America’s significant budget challenges, every single dollar that is spent by the federal government must be given the highest level of scrutiny, including funds toward the defense of the United States and its allies. It is a mark of the importance of these jointly developed missile defense programs – Arrow 2, Arrow 3, and David’s Sling -- that they were all so robustly funded.
The growing proliferation and increasing deadliness of missiles and rockets around the world, from Iran and Hezbollah to Gaza and Syria, pose a direct threat to US national security. Our enemies know they cannot prevail against the combined might of the world’s sole military superpower and the Middle East’s greatest military force. The funding signed into law today by President Obama is only the latest example of the unparalleled strength of military cooperation between the US and Israel.
By Congressman Steve Rothman, New Jersey
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EDITORIAL MASTHEAD
Bard, Mitchell G. -- contributing columnist
Cravatts, Dr. Richard L. -- contributing columnist
Golub, Mark S. Rabbi -- contributing columnist
Mann, Charles (Chuck)-- contributing columnist
McConnell, Susan -- contributing columnist
Proebsting, Tom - contributing columnist
Reichel, Rabbi Aaron I., Esq. - contributing columnist
Reuben, Liz -- editor
Arthur Christopher Schaper -- contributing columnist
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CONGRESSMAN ROTHMAN’S STATEMENT ON THE ARREST OF A SUSPECT IN RUTHERFORD FIREBOMBING
Congressman Steve Rothman (D-NJ) released the following statement:
Tremendous thanks and gratitude to our outstanding Bergen County Prosecutor, John Molinelli, for his brilliant, unrelenting, and extraordinary leadership throughout this matter. Also, our thanks to John Molinelli’s team at the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, the Bergen County Police Department, the Bergen County Sherriff’s Office, the Rutherford Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and all of those involved in the speedy arrest of a suspect in the case of the firebombing of Congregation Beth El in Rutherford, NJ.
Every house of worship is a sacred place. Individuals who might ever consider attacking a church, synagogue, mosque, or temple, let alone, as was the case in Rutherford, the family home of the congregation’s religious leader are now on notice that the entire community will respond swiftly and effectively. I have full confidence in our local and federal law enforcement officials and that justice will be served.
Steve Rothman, Washington, D.C.
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Tremendous thanks and gratitude to our outstanding Bergen County Prosecutor, John Molinelli, for his brilliant, unrelenting, and extraordinary leadership throughout this matter. Also, our thanks to John Molinelli’s team at the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, the Bergen County Police Department, the Bergen County Sherriff’s Office, the Rutherford Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and all of those involved in the speedy arrest of a suspect in the case of the firebombing of Congregation Beth El in Rutherford, NJ.
Every house of worship is a sacred place. Individuals who might ever consider attacking a church, synagogue, mosque, or temple, let alone, as was the case in Rutherford, the family home of the congregation’s religious leader are now on notice that the entire community will respond swiftly and effectively. I have full confidence in our local and federal law enforcement officials and that justice will be served.
Steve Rothman, Washington, D.C.
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RON PAUL IS DANGEROUS
By MATT BARBER
After the most recent GOP presidential debate, reasonable people can disagree as to who came out on top. It was abundantly clear, however, who was smothered beneath the pile.
As Ron Paul waxed naive from his perch in Sioux City, Iowa, on issues ranging from foreign policy to judicial activism, one could almost hear his campaign bus tires deflate. Although some polls indicate that Mr. Paul has surged in Iowa, most national polls suggest that, beyond a relatively fixed throng of blindly devoted “Paulbots,” support for the eccentric Texas lawmaker has a concrete ceiling.
Mr. Paul did himself no favors during the debate. Afterward, former Iowa House Speaker Christopher C. Rants blogged, “Ron Paul finally lit a match after dousing himself with gasoline.”
Putting aside for a moment Mr. Paul’s leftist policies on a variety of social issues ranging from his unwavering support for newfangled “gay rights” – to include open homosexuality in the military – to advocacy for across-the-board legalization of illicit drugs, Mr. Paul demonstrated that he has a dangerous, fundamental misunderstanding of the threat posed to every American citizen by radical Islam. This alone disqualifies him for serious consideration as our future Commander in Chief.
During the debate, moderator Bret Baier asked Mr. Paul: “Many Middle East experts now say Iran may be less than one year away from getting a nuclear weapon. … Even if you had solid intelligence that Iran was in fact going to get a nuclear weapon, President Paul would remove the U.S. sanctions on Iran - including those added by the Obama administration. So, to be clear, GOP nominee Paul would be running left of President Obama on Iran?”
Mr. Paul responded: “But I’d be running with the American people because it would be a much better policy.” (The only American people running with this policy risk running the rest of us off a cliff.) He went on to reject a U.N. agency report that indicates Iran is within months of developing nuclear weaponry, calling it “war propaganda.” He then spouted the same anti-American talking points we’ve come to expect from the hard-left “progressive” establishment, blaming America for Iran’s efforts to go nuclear.
In defense of Islamic terrorists, not unlike those responsible for Sept. 11, Mr. Paul said, “Yeah, there are some radicals, but they don’t come here to kill us because we’re free and prosperous. … They come here and want to do us harm because we’re bombing them.
“I don’t want Iran to have a nuclear weapon,” he continued, all the while demonstrating to everyone watching that a President Paul would be unwilling to lift a finger to prevent it. His pacifist ruminations prompted fellow presidential candidate Michele Bachmann to respond: “With all due respect to Ron Paul, I think I have never heard a more dangerous answer for American security than the one that we just heard from Ron Paul. … I’ll tell you the reason why, the reason why I would say that is because we know without a shadow of a doubt that Iran will take a nuclear weapon, they will use it to wipe our ally Israel off the face of the map, and they stated they will use it against the United States of America. Look no further than the Iranian constitution, which states unequivocally that their mission is to extend jihad across the world and eventually to set up a worldwide caliphate. We would be fools to ignore their purpose and their plan.”
Mr. Paul evidently is one of those fools. Iran is today’s version of Nazi Germany, and Mr. Paul’s obtuse strategy of reckless inaction affords him the dubious title of this generation’s Neville Chamberlain. Like Chamberlain’s fruitless appeasement, Mr. Paul’s similar strategy simply feeds the insatiable beast.
Don’t get me wrong. I personally like Ron Paul. He’s that affable - if not a little “zany” - uncle who has the whole family on edge at Thanksgiving. “Oh boy; what’s Uncle Ronny gonna say next?”
Still, you wouldn’t give Uncle Ronny the carving knife for the turkey, much less the keys to the Oval Office.
Mr. Paul is many things, but conservative is not one of them. He’s a died-in-the-wool libertarian. That’s one part conservative, two parts anarchist.
Ronald Reagan often spoke of a “three-legged stool” that undergirds true conservatism. The legs are represented by strong free-market economic principles, a strong national defense and strong social values. For the stool to remain upright, it must be supported by all three legs. If you snap off even one leg, the stool collapses under its own weight.
Mr. Paul is relatively conservative from an economic standpoint, but in true libertarian form, has snapped off the legs of national defense and social values. The libertarian is a strange and rare little animal – a bit like the woolly flying squirrel. It spends its days erratically darting to-and-fro atop this teetering, one-legged stool in a futile effort to keep it from toppling. America witnessed Ron Paul doing this squirrelly libertarian tango Thursday night. Cute but unstable.
Ron Paul never had a chance; but now, with the possible exception of his most committed devotees, I suspect most people will finally admit it. Regardless of what happens in Iowa, the Paul engine has run out of steam. During the debate it pulled into the station and released its final wheeze right alongside the Cain Train.
Matt Barber, Lynchburg, VA
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PAUL IS NOT AN ANTI-SEMITE
By ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER SCHAPER
Congressman Ron Paul wants to stop the foreign aid that the United States sends to other countries. That includes all countries in the Middle East, including strong and constant ally against terrorism, Israel.
Paul made his case very convincingly. Israel does not need out help. The Jewish State is one of the wealthiest and most innovate nations in the world. A free society which protects its citizens from tyranny within and marauders abroad, Israel deserves to represent itself and fight for its interest without depending on foreign aid.
To favor free markets and limited encroachment in foreign entanglements will not endanger the Jewish State, nor will it embolden terrorists to further imperil the only vibrant Western Democracy in the Middle East.
Besides, for all the foreign that the United States hands out, this country gives more to the hostile Arab nations that are threatening Israel. In effect, the U.S. Government is funding a self-defeating policy which enlarges our enemies.
Just because Paul wants to eliminate wasteful, contradictory spending does not make Ron Paul an anti-Semite. His efforts will strengthen the Jewish State.
Whether Ron Paul wins the GOP nomination or not, whether a GOP contender wins the presidency or not, whether Barack Obama remains in office or leaves after one term, free-market principles in sync with Congressman Paul's legislative record would be in the best interests of a nation whose allies as of late have spent too much time dictating what her foreign policy should be.
Israel can take care of herself. The United States must scale back its foreign entanglements and untangle the domestic troubles tying up the American people and their future.
Arthur Christopher Schaper, Torrance, CA
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ICN MOURNS THE LOSS OF DEAR FRIEND NEWTON
BECKER
By SHIMON EREM
Dear Editor,
Long before the founding the Israel Christian Nexus, Newton Becker was one of a handful of close and trusted friends with whom I discussed the idea for a new organization that would bring together Christians and Jews in collective action to support the People and State of Israel and to defend our shared Judeo-Christian values. With his always generous support and wise counsel, the ICN was founded a decade ago in 2002.
In the years since, as a member of ICN's board of directors and valued friend and advisor, Newt Becker has been a tireless servant of G-d and a faithful friend of Israel. His death this past weekend, on Sunday January 2, 2012, is a deep personal loss to Danielle and me, and to all of us at the Israel Christian Nexus and everyone who loves Israel.
Newt had one of the most brilliant minds of anyone I have been privileged to know. He also had one of the greatest hearts. He was a phenomenally successful entrepreneur who had a commitment to service and a vision for bringing people together and mobilizing them for effective action. And, no one I know was more able than he to get wonderful things done.
Newt's work with the ICN and support of our programs and activities was nothing short of remarkable. It is, however, just a small part of the legacy left by this great man. Newt played a pivotal role in supporting and shaping the efforts of numerous other pro-Israel organizations, including: MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute), CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America), Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), StandWithUs, Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), the Israel Project and so many others.
As we say goodbye to our dear friend Newt Becker, I thank G-d for having had the opportunity to know him. Our great love and gratitude go out to his beloved wife Rochelle and to all of his family for sharing this great man with all of us.
Shimon Erem
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