Dr. Patrick Slattery’s News Roundup
A service of DavidDuke.com
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Trump, negotiating TV deal, reportedly wondered if he needed a Jewish agent
Donald Trump speaking during an event at the Trump SoHo Hotel in New York City, June 22, 2016. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND (JTA) — Donald Trump, negotiating his reality TV show, reportedly wondered whether a Jewish agent could get him a better deal.
“Don’t you think I should get a Jewish agent, so he can negotiate better for me?” Trump asked, according to an unnamed Jewish executive present at talks between NBC and Trump about his hit show, “The Apprentice.”
The executive’s account was quoted in The New York Times on Saturday in an account of Trump’s years as the star of “The Apprentice.”
From The Times of Israel
What does the VP rollout tell us about Trump?
Pence appointment draws praise from GOP leaders, as well as signs that infighting and indecision remain a problem
July 17, 2016, 4:33 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — In business and politics, Donald Trump likes to go with his gut. His selection of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as a running mate appears to be a lesson in what happens when he doesn’t.
Trump introduced Pence as his No. 2 on Saturday, passing over candidates with whom he has a more personal connection in favor of an experienced politician with solid conservative credentials. GOP leaders — many lukewarm at best about the outsider at the top of their ticket — were nearly unanimous in praise.
Yet getting to that moment of party unity was chaotic, with many of the twists and turns playing out in public — and not in a way the spotlight-seeking Trump prefers.
On its own, the muddled lead-up to Saturday’s announcement is unlikely to impact Trump’s standing in his general election fight with Democrat Hillary Clinton. But it provides some of the clearest indications yet of how he might handle high-pressure decisions as president, where few choices are easy and his personal preferences are just one of many factors to consider.
“It does cause one to question how and what kind of process he would use if he were actually president and had to make some of the decisions,” said Lanhee Chen, the policy director to Republican Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. Still, he said it was instructive that Trump “can be influenced against what his instincts tell him.”
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Watch
Peter Beinart joins US Jews for civil rights-style protest in West Bank
Peter Beinart, left, marching with other activists from the Center for Jewish Nonviolence through the West Bank city of Hebron, July 16, 2016. To Beinart’s right is the movement’s CEO, Ilana Sumka. (Andrew Tobin)
HEBRON, West Bank (JTA) – Dozens of American Jews spent Friday in the West Bank practicing nonviolent resistance against Israel’s presence here.
On hand to help were some bold-faced names in the American Jewish community’s Israel debate, including Peter Beinart, a leading liberal U.S. Jewish thinker, and Amna Farooqi, the Muslim president of J Street U.
The activists used tactics familiar from the U.S. civil rights movement to provoke Israeli authorities in Hebron — the most volatile city in the West Bank and the site of frequent clashes between Israelis and Palestinians. When many of the activists staged a sit-in and refused a military order to leave a Palestinian property, Israeli police detained six of them with dual Israeli citizenship.
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Republican convention apologizing to Sheldon Adelson for errors in funding appeal
Sands Corp. Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson speaking at the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) at The Venetian in Las Vegas, Oct. 1, 2014. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND (JTA) — The Republican National Convention will apologize to Sheldon Adelson for a letter asking him to cover a $6 million shortfall, saying it contained inaccuracies and was not reviewed by all its signatories.
Politico reported Friday that the convention host committee was set to apologize to Adelson for inaccuracies in the letter regarding donors who reneged on pledges. Visa and Koch Industries were among the companies denying they had made pledges.
It quoted a spokeswoman for the convention, Emily Lauer, who attributed the errors to the last-minute rush to make up shortfalls.
From The Times of Israel
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump introduced Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate on Saturday, calling him “my partner in this campaign” and his first and best choice to join him on a winning Republican presidential ticket.
Skipping the traditional massive rally in favor of a low-key announcement in a Manhattan hotel, Trump tried to draw a sharp contrast between Pence, a soft-spoken conservative, and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate. In fact, he spent about as much time lambasting Clinton as praising Pence, declaring she had led President Barack Obama “down a horrible path” abroad.
He said Pence would stand up to America’s enemies and that he and the governor represent “the law-and-order candidates” at home.
“What a difference between crooked Hillary Clinton and Mike Pence,” Trump said. He added: “He’s a solid, solid person.”
Pence, standing alone in front of American flags, hewed closely to the populist themes that Trump has voiced on the campaign trail, describing himself as “really just a small-town boy.” He praised Trump effusively as “a good man,” a fighter, a legendary businessman and a patriotic American.
From PressTV
Why did Turkey coup d’état fail? President’s popularity vs plotters’ ineptitude
Protest in any society arises from discontent with the status quo, unlike a coup, in which there is an armed push to overthrow the state with the help of the military. The recent botched putsch in Turkey simultaneously falls into both categories and neither – something inbetween but with a catch: The true winner of the overnight coup, President Erdogan, is using this “God-given gift” to reinvigorate his version of democracy and further the exact actions that caused the protests in the Turkish society in the first place.
Underneath the facts we know about the messy and short-lived coup-that-wasn’t, there is a more dramatic series of events yet kept in the dark. Many believe that it was not an actual coup d’état as it lacked the real defining characters of one; and even if we can call it a coup, it was doomed to fail since the very beginning as it was nothing comparable to Turkey’s previous military interventions in politics – in 1960, 1971, 1980, and 1997.
Every novice in politics knows that all politics is about contrast. And to turn a contrasting voice to durable political power in a democracy, you need popular support, which would be garnered if your promised changes to the status quo that capture the essence of what people truly want.
This was not the case in Turkey as the plotters seemed to be following a checklist from a very outdated version of Coup d’etat for Dummies –and very incompetently too. Waiting for the president to leave the town for a holiday. Check. Seizing the main airport, sealing off internationally-significant routes – here Istanbul’s Bosphorus Bridge and Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge. Check. Sending tanks to the parliament. Check. And taking over the offices of Turkish Radio and Television (TRT), the country’s national public broadcaster and broadcasting a statement declaring a curfew. Check.
But the putschists had no planning to capture important figures in the authority or major government buildings, no one to lead the endeavor, no strategy for communication and social media, no popular fan base in society – or even in the military itself, and no coordination among their ranks. Even the creation of their executive body, the Turkish Peace Council, was announced by a news anchor at the TRT news channel during the coup, allegedly at gunpoint.
Istanbul-based military affairs researcher Gareth Jenkins says, “This coup was obviously planned quite well but using a playbook from the 1970s,” and Sinan Ülgen, a Turkish foreign policy scholar with the Carnegie Europe think tank, believes that the plotters’ biggest flaw was their undefined line of authority and lack of control over the key levers of power. He says, “Their blueprint was also ineffective since they failed from the outset to capture any military installations in Turkey or any of the (political) leadership” as they were acting outside the military chain of command.
From PressTV
Erdogan likely using recent coup bid to eliminate enemies: Assad
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says the Turkish president may be using the recent coup attempt in Turkey to eliminate his opponents in government institutions.
Assad was speaking at a Sunday meeting with a visiting delegation of Lebanese politicians headed by Najah Wakim, the president of the Lebanese People’s Movement, in the Syrian capital, Damascus, according to Lebanese dailyAl-Akhbar.
Referring to the recent developments in Turkey, Assad said there is no clear picture of what is going on in Turkey yet and there are many speculations about the coup attempt.
First comes a coup and then a purge?
The attempted putsch in Turkey began on Friday night and the violence and fighting between the rebel soldiers and government loyalists dragged into Saturday, when the coup was largely defeated.
Following the coup attempt, the Turkish government has arrested thousands of people on suspicion of involvement in the putsch, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has hinted that the country may modify the Turkish constitution so as to allow the execution of those involved in the coup bid. Capital punishment is banned under the current Turkish constitution.
“One cannot ignore the possibility that Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, is using these developments to eliminate his opponents in Turkey’s military, judicial and political institutions,” Assad said in his Sunday remarks, according to Al-Akhbar.
Various Turkish officials, including Erdogan, have said those deemed to have played a role in the coup attempt will pay a heavy price.
From PressTV
Turkey detains coup plotters at base used by US: Media
Turkey has detained a senior air force general and other officers accused of involvement in a failed military coup at a key air base used by US forces for raids in Syria, Turkish media reports say.
Local newspapers, including Hurriyet Daily, said brigadier air force general Bekir Ercan Van was taken into custody Saturday along with over a dozen lower ranking officers at Incirlik Air Base in the southern province of Adana.
AFP quoted an unnamed Turkish official as saying that Ankara suspected Incirlik was used to refuel military aircraft hijacked by the putschists overnight Friday.
Last year, Turkey agreed to allow the United States to use Incirlik to carry out raids against purported Daesh targets in neighboring Iraq and Syria.
Incirlik is of strategic importance to Washington’s aerial military operations as it is home to A-10s, the most reliable manned aircraft the US uses in its military campaign in the two Arab states.
It is also one of six NATO sites in the region, which house tactical nuclear weapons.
From PressTV
Turkey turmoil: Foreign plot or staged coup
Some of the soldiers detained in Turkey have reportedly told interrogators they were not aware they were part of a coup attempt.
They had been told by commanders they were taking part in military maneuvers, the Turkish Hurriyet newspaper has reported.
Some soldiers said they understood they were part of a coup when they saw civilians climb on tanks.
Turkish televisions have shown footage of soldiers surrendering to people and special forces police without resistance, their hands behind their heads.
According to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency, all soldiers involved in the attempted coup have been taken into custody.
A Turkish official told reporters that six senior army commanders were arrested in connection with the failed coup, including General Akin Öztürk, who in the 1990s was the Turkish military attaché to Israel.
From PressTV
Russia conducts 50 anti-Daesh sorties near Palmyra
Russian fighter jets have carried out 50 air strikes in three days on positions of the Daesh Takfiri group near Syria’s recently-liberated city of Palmyra.
“Since July 12, Russian air force planes have conducted more than 50 strikes against Islamic State (Daesh) personnel and material” near Palmyra, Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement Thursday.
“The Russian air force has increased the intensity of its strikes against targets of the armed units of international terrorist organizations near the city of Palmyra,” it added.
The statement said some of the attacks were carried out earlier on Thursday by six Tupolev bombers which flew out of an airbase in Russia and conducted strikes east of Palmyra, near the cities of Arak and Sukhna, as well as in the Homs region.
A command center, a field camp for Daesh militants, two oil processing plants and a large quantity of the group’s personnel and military hardware were destroyed in the strikes, said the statement.
Syrian military, backed by allies including the Russian air force, recaptured Palmyra from Daesh in March, but some towns, including Arak and Sukhna, still remain under the control of the militants.
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Senate calls on Germany to do more for aging Holocaust survivors
(JTA) — The U.S. Senate approved a resolution calling on the government of Germany to do more to meet the needs of aging Holocaust survivors.
Sponsored by U.S. Sens. Bill Nelson (D-Florida) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), the resolution that passed Thursday night follows a similar measure in the House meant to ensure “that all Holocaust victims live with dignity, comfort, and security in their remaining years.”
It calls on Germany “to reaffirm its commitment to this goal through a financial commitment to comprehensively address the unique health and welfare needs of vulnerable Holocaust victims, including home care and other medically prescribed needs.”
According to the resolution, there are about 100,000 Holocaust survivors living in the United States today, as well as about 500,000 in the rest of the world, and they all have increasing health and welfare needs that require assistance.
