Today is voting day in Israel, and many of you know Bibi Netanyahu is in trouble in the polls.....but not many of you know why. Here are two stories to give you background when you hear the result, because you won't be getting anything like the true picture from your media - especially the first story....
Fascinating look at the power of money, in action in our foreign policy and our domestic politics. One billionaire, Sheldon Adelson, is doing a pretty good job of owning US foreign policy towards Israel, Iran and the Middle East. And he wants war.
Remember the address to Congress by Netanyahu two weeks ago that insulted the President and subverted US foreign policy? All arranged by Adelson.....
Remember the 47 Republican Senators letter to Iran last week, saying if you make a deal when we get the White House in 2016 we are canceling any treaty you make with Obama? That was sponsored by Senator Tom Cotton, who is owned by Adelson.
It's frightening, isn't it.....one evil oligarch with a right wing agenda may drive this country into doing one of the stupidest possible things we could do, which is to start another war in the Middle East, because ole' Sheldon thinks this would be best for Israel.
Sheldon Adelson, chairman and chief executive officer of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call) (CQ Roll Call via AP Images)
Everything you need to know about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress Tuesday was the presence in the visitor’s gallery of one man – Sheldon Adelson.
The gambling tycoon is the Godfather of the Republican Right. The party’s presidential hopefuls line up to kiss his assets, scraping and bowing for his blessing, which when granted is bestowed with his signed checks. Data from both the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics and the Center for Public Integrityshow that in the 2012 election cycle, Adelson and his wife Miriam (whose purse achieved metaphoric glory Tuesday when it fell from the gallery and hit a Democratic congressman) contributed $150 million to the GOP and its friends, including $93 million to such plutocracy-friendly super PACs as Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, the Congressional Leadership Fund, the Republican Jewish Coalition Victory Fund, Winning Our Future (the pro-Newt Gingrich super PAC) and Restore Our Future (the pro-Mitt Romney super PAC).
Yet there’s no knowing for sure about all of the “dark money” contributed by the Adelsons – so called because it doesn’t have to be reported. Like those high-rise, multi-million dollar apartments in New York City purchased by oligarchs whose identity is hidden within perfectly legal shell organizations, dark money lets our politicians conveniently erase fingerprints left by their ink-stained (from signing all those checks) billionaire benefactors.
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But Sheldon Adelson was not only sitting in the House gallery on Tuesday because of the strings he pulls here in the United States. He is also the Daddy Warbucks of Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu is yet another of his beneficiaries – not to mention an ideological soulmate. Although campaign finance reform laws are much more strict in Israel than here in the United States, Adelson’s wealth has bought him what the historian and journalist Gershom Gorenberg calls “uniquely pernicious” influence
Paul Krugman with an excellent column, and he looks at what has happened in Israel economically......it's the same as here - the wealthy are getting richer, and the rest of the people are struggling.....
Why did Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel feel the need to wag the dog in Washington? For that was, of course, what he was doing in his anti-Iran speech to Congress. If you’re seriously trying to affect American foreign policy, you don’t insult the president and so obviously align yourself with his political opposition. No, the real purpose of that speech was to distract the Israeli electorate with saber-rattling bombast, to shift its attention away from the economic discontent that, polls suggest, may well boot Mr. Netanyahu from office in Tuesday’s election.
But wait: Why are Israelis discontented? After all, Israel’s economy has performed well by the usual measures. It weathered the financial crisis with minimal damage. Over the longer term, it has grown more rapidly than most other advanced economies, and has developed into a high-technology powerhouse. What is there to complain about?
The answer, which I don’t think is widely appreciated here, is that while Israel’s economy has grown, this growth has been accompanied by a disturbing transformation in the country’s income distribution and society. Once upon a time, Israel was a country of egalitarian ideals — the kibbutz population was always a small minority, but it had a large impact on the nation’s self-perception. And it was a fairly equal society in reality, too, right up to the early 1990s.
Since then, however, Israel has experienced a dramatic widening of income disparities. Key measures of inequality have soared; Israel is now right up there with America as one of the most unequal societies in the advanced world. And Israel’s experience shows that this matters, that extreme inequality has a corrosive effect on social and political life.
Our media will announce who wins the election in Israel, and if you're like me you're rooting for the other guy, whoever he is because if Netanyahu gets in again the chances of war with Iran just got more serious....
And if I ever go to a casino again, it won't be one of Adelsons.....
OK - a video for you.....the Germans have invented a flying car......woop whoop.....can't wait to see the autobahn footage.....three minutes, but you get the idea sooner than that!
And finally a joke............Todays deaf wife joke
Bert feared his wife Barbara wasn't hearing as well as she used to and he thought she mightneed a hearing aid. Not quite sure how to approach her, he called the family Doctor to discussthe problem.
The Doctor told him there is a simple informal test the husband could perform to give the Doctora better idea about her hearing loss.'Here's what you do,' said the doctor, 'Stand about 40 feet away from her, and in a normalconversational speaking tone see if she hears you. If not, go to30 feet, then 20 feet, and so on until you get a response.'That evening the wife is in the kitchen cooking dinner, and he was in the den.He says to himself, 'I'm about 40 feet away, let's see what happens.' Then in a normal tone heasks, 'Honey, what's for dinner?'No response, so the husband moves about 30 feet fromhis wife and repeats, 'Barbara, what's for dinner?'Still no response.Next he moves to the dining room where he is about 20 feet from his wife and asks, 'Honey, what's for dinner?'Again he gets no response.He walks up to the kitchen door, about 10 feet away. 'Honey, what's for dinner?'Again there is no response.So he walks up behind her. 'Barbara, what's for dinner?'
'For gods sake Bert, for the FIFTH time, CHICKEN!'
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