Bob Schieffer asked former IRS employ Michele Bachmann how she can say Obama foreign policy is a failure when OBL, Al Awlaki and Gaddafi were all killed under Obama.

Bachmann didn’t give a coherent answer, but as I see it, OBL was not captured by an “Obama policy;” it was  military/intelligence tactics and tools that Obama opposed as Senator yet didn’t block as President that ended Osama Bin Laden. Bush killed and captured many Al Awlaki-level Al Qaeda figures; but is not much of a success. In fact, no one can name by heart one of them! As for Gaddafi: Making a mess is easy (it took only 23 days to topple real strong man Saddam). Cleaning it up is the tough part. See Tunisia, Egypt for more

U.S. Equity Markets had a mixed week, with the Dow closing up 1.41%; S&P 500 up 1.12%, and the NASDAQ down 1.1%.

Year-to-Date (YTD), the Dow Jones Industrial Average, (DJIA) is up two percent; the S&P 500 is up 1.1%; and the NASDAQ is off by 0.58%.

YTD info is from CNBC.com

In the mean time, the FDIC closed four banks this weekend, bringing to 84 the number of banks it closed through October 21, 2011. At the same time last year, the FDIC closed 139 banks; 106 banks for the same period in 2009, and only fifty banks for all the eight years of the Bush Administration.

Every story I read about Gaddafi notes that US successes were “stacking up” for President Obama such as killing Osama Bin Laden (by tactics and tools Obama opposed just years ago), and the death of Anwar Al-Awlaki, an American-born radical who became a mouth piece for Al Qaeda in recent years and was killed in a missile strike.

Capturing as Bush did foreign-born Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – the number three of Al Qaeda at the time/mastermind of the 9-11 attacks and gaining from him Intel – IS a massive success! Capturing as Bush did foreign-born Al Qaeda “Operations Chief” Abu Zubaydah who personally oversaw many Al Qaeda activities from the late nineties all the way to his arrest and gaining from him Intel, IS a massive success. But since when is 1) killing an American without a court date 2) who is only a mouth piece of the largely destroyed Al Qaeda and 3) with no chance to get from this so-called massive target any Intel, considered a success for the USA in par with ending Osama Bin Laden?

The NY Post wrote Wednesday that no one told its reporter “she had to move to the back” nor did the driver in the NY World reporter incident take a stand one way or another.  Additionally, the NYT in its own report writes that “no male passengers sitting at the front of the bus explicitly told a female reporter to move, but several riders said women did not belong there.” All three instances written by reporters show that this policy is not forced on by the company nor is it forced by those riding. Instead, it is a self imposed and self accepted policy by the 99% members riding this route who at times perhaps mention it to others riding.

For those who wonder why the riders live by this rule? Well, the high success rate of marriages in the Orthodox Jewish/Hasidic community is largely due to men and women intermingling less, and as such there is reduced enticement for people to wonder outside their marriage vows.

As for the sign on a bus encouraging men and women to sit separately: It is passengers who decided to do so, and since 99% using this route don’t mind this type of seating, it indeed does not bother the owner or the drivers that the sign is up there.

yossi@yossigestetner.com

1) It took less than $1 billion and no USA lives to capture/kill Saddam. It is the rebuilding and securing Iraq – work Obama does not want to do in Libya – that cost us all the money.

2) If killing this dictator was the mission in Libya, then why was it not done within the first few weeks of the mission via USA-NATO air strike which would – according to Obama fans – help Libyans avoid all the pain brought to them in recent month by this conflict? O, my mistake: By removing Gaddafi without trying to back or install a new normal leadership, Libyans will suffer greatly as seen in recent months… in Egypt; one of our “great successes” of recent years.

3) When the leader of Yemen and other places will ultimately fall, will Obama take credit for it or will he be sent a memo that his inactions pro-longed the lethal uprisings in the Middle East?

4) Only 44% in a Rasmussen Poll now approve of Obama’s work in Libya. This is the reason why Obama needs so desperately go take credit for things that happen around the world: people see these events as taking place despite Obama and not due to Obama, and the public has little interest to give him much credit for it, so he goes out there like a little boy screaming and yelling “give me credit; give me credit.”

5) You saw this picture? I mean, when did Obama change his mind from saying hello to Gaddafi to taking credit for a twenty year old boy shooting him?

We will God-willing be off here until October 23 due to the Sukkos holiday. In the mean time, keep an eye on the Twitter account to the right, @YossiGestetner

What is the NY Assembly Speaker Orthodox Sheldon Silver Doing in Hasidic Williamsburg, Brooklyn? Well, he visited the Shatnes Lab on Lee Ave. to check if his new suit has a mixture of both wool and linen, which is called “Shatnes,” and according to the Torah is forbidden to wear. Apparently, Silver leads a simple life style, affording only two new suits a year, which he checks for Shatnes. Indeed, some living in the Shatnes Lab area buy one suit once in two years, but for someone of Silver’s stature and income, it is surprising that he goes by with a new piece only once before Pesach (Passover) and the other before the Jewish New Year. And Yes: This time around (and maybe other times too) he drove by himself to the Lab. No chauffeur!

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Some Romney Endorsements May be Relevant to Jewish Voters: Staten Island Congressman Republican Michael Grimm endorsed today Mitt Romney for the Republican Presidential Primary. Grimm had many Orthodox Jewish backers when he ran for congress in 2010. Separately, former Florida Senator, Republican Mel Martinez is also backing Romney. I am not sure how many Jewish Floridians will be moved by Martinez, but he likely has a contact list of Jewish donors that he will try schlepping to Romney.

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If Hermann Cain Was a Jew at the Warsaw Uprising: The interview of Hermann Cain by MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell is now infamous. Between others O’Donnell asked Cain, “Where do you think Blacks would be sitting today if Rosa Parks would have followed your father’s advice” of Cain age 18 in 1963 not to get in trouble? O’Donnell is basically blaming Cain for not doing at age 18-20 what Rosa Parks did at age 42; which is 1) crazy just by looking at the age difference between the two and 2) disgusting to blame an oppressed minority teenager for not taking of the shackles placed on him by others. It’s akin to grill someone who was age 18 at the time of the Warsaw Uprising for (following his father’s orders and) keeping out of trouble.

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“The 2012 Race Will Be Partisan, Bitter, and Personal” say Senator Joseph Lieberman: COLLive Reports that Lieberman at the Annual Gershon Jacobson Lecture said he “does not share the anxiety about candidates’ open professions of faith…Jews get nervous, remembering that such discussions are often a precursor to bad times, but… Keep in mind the extraordinary history of religious freedom, tolerance and acceptance, and the constitutional framework that protects us.” He warned the 2012 campaign “will be partisan, bitter, and personal.” Clearly stating that he was “not endorsing any candidate,” he noted that, should one of the two Mormon candidates in the Republican be nominated, “it will break a barrier – the first time a Mormon will be running. I hope the Jewish community is in the lead to make sure they are judged in the American way – based on qualities and not based on their faith.”

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The “We the People” petition site at www.WhiteHouse.Gov has issues how its counts people.

As I reported here last week, the petition in favor of Sholom Rubashkin is miscounted by the White House system. Back then, number 28,996 was given to two separate people, and as such the site gave a smaller total as to how many people actually signed the ask the Obama “Policy Team” to review the Rubashkin Case.

The Rubashkin count is the second strongest at the White House petition page with more than 32,100 signatures, but the glitch, noticed by one of the readers of my blog, continues. Number 31,460 was given to someone from NY and somebody from California (see the picture); number 30,297 went to some Carol K from Illinois and to someone from California; numbers 30,068; 29,590; 29,078; 28,996 (as reported); 28,708; 28,180; 28,037; 28,000; 27,881; 27,571; 27,415; 27,328; 27,133; 26,991 and many more are all given to two separate people, which in turn means the White House system undercounts the actual number of people who petitioned for Rubashkin.

Charities Will Suffer Due to Dems/Obama Jobs Plan, according to the Boston Herald referred by www.HotAir.com. A limit on deducting charitable contributions in the tax papers will be placed on “Individuals earning over $200,000 or couples earning more than $250,000… According to Internal Revenue Service figures… Households reporting $200,000 or more in annual income [in 2009] claimed $19.14 billion [charitable deductions]… A 5 percent reduction in charitable giving by those claiming a tax deduction in 2009 would have reduced total contributions by $957 million. A 20 percent drop in giving would have reduced charitable contributions by $3.8 billion.”

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Cain, Bachmann decline to say Romney is a Christian, reports the Washington Post. In other words, they indirectly agree with Poster Robert Jeffers who made this claim on Friday. Personally, I am not familiar with all religions and what belong to whom. As long a religion does not cause mayhem and destruction to civilization, I would say – anecdotally – that few Jewish Voters care what religion a candidate practices. Heck, look what happened to the Orthodox Jewish David Weprin in NY9…

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Many of these positions in a presidential campaign are just to make some deep-pocketed, well-connected people of a community feel part of a team, but for what it is worth, Mitt Romney has placed some Jewish advisors on his Foreign Policy and defense advisory panels.

Of the 23 senior advisors reported in the Washington Post, Michael Chertoff, Eliot Cohen; Dov Zakheim, Norm Coleman, and Don Senor are Jewish. The campaign also announced more than a dozen other people for Advisory positions on specific matters such as Europe, Middle East, etc.

Romney would up defense aid to Israel, reports Jerusalem Post via the JTA. Romney“delivered the first major foreign policy speech of his campaign Friday at The Citadel, a military college in South Carolina… Romney said he would increase defense assistance to Israel, raise the US military profile near Iran and recognize Israel as a Jewish state.”

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Obama’s Jewish Team Lays Out Path Back to White House, reports the Forward. “For the past three months, a group of President Obama’s Jewish supporters has been getting together for a weekly conference call to discuss strategy. The group, includes, among others, former White House adviser David Axelrod, Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, former Congress members Robert Wexler and Mel Levine, Chicago Jewish activist and attorney Alan Solow, and mega-donor Penny Pritzker. Together, they have been trying to figure out how to overcome a relatively successful Republican attempt to plant doubts among Jewish voters regarding Obama’s relations with Israel.”

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Religion in national politics is always relevant for Jewish voters. Politico reports that Texas pastor Robert Jeffress who introduced Texas Governor Rick Perry at the Values Voter Summit, said Friday that Mormonism is a “cult.” The Perry Camp didn’t approve of this statement, and Romney fans are of course not happy with this.

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House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the highest-ranking Jewish Republican in American politics, will be Sunday afternoon at an event in Westchester County, NY hosted for him.

U.S. Equity Markets had a plus week, with the Dow closing up 1.7%; S&P 500 up 2.1%, and the NASDAQ gained 2.7%.

Year-to-Date (YTD), the Dow Jones Industrial Average, (DJIA) is down 4.10 percent; the S&P500 is down 8.1%; and the NASDAQ is off by 6.4%.

YTD Info is from CNNMoney.com

In the mean time, the FDIC closed two banks this weekend, bringing to 76 the number of banks it closed through the first week of 2011. At the same time last year, the FDIC closed 129 banks; 98 banks for the same period in 2009, and only fifty banks for all the eight years of the Bush Administration.

Are the Occupy Wall Street people Anti-Semites? YWN has a debate on it. Not many expressed anti-Semitic slurs, and Obama came out today validating those protests. My point is “If President Obama understands that ALL Republican presidential candidates needed to condemn the three four people out of 6,000 Republicans at a debate who boo-ed DADT, then the President should come out and condemn this too.” See here the video and transcript.

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Can a conservative favor a Pollard release? Eric Ericson, Editor of RedSate, a very popular conservative website, makes a case as to why Republicans should not submit to the October 11’th debate hosted by the Washington Post and Bloomberg News. Among others he notes that “The Post hosts Jenn Rubin who claims to be a conservative but has spent the better part of her career at the Post advocating the release of the traitor Jonathan Pollard and routinely bashing Senator Jim DeMint.”

Ok, if someone rips DeMint, then the person is likely not a sound Conservative. But I am confused why it would be “unconservative” to advocate that someone serving a sentence 4-5 times longer than average spies should not be released (a few years before his Nov 20, 2015 release date).

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Jewish Floridians may come in handy for Repubs, based on a PPP Poll that shows incumbent Democrat U.S. Senator Ben Nelson would win with double digits against any of the Republicans trying to unseat him late next year.

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This morning at a press conference, president Obama came out in support of the Wall Street protesters who are among others verbally attacking banks and rich people; the same thing the President did today and other days. Here is the transcript between a Wall Street protestors and a Jew with a Kipa on his head:

Anti-Semite: I am against corporations because they don’t pay me money…. Seven dollars an hour…

Middle-Aged Jew: Get a job.

Anti-Semite: I have got a job, Mo.

Jew: No you don’t.

Anti-Semite: I do have a job.

Jew: You are standing here… Bum.

Anti-Semite: You are a Bum, Jew!

Jew: What?

Anti-Semite: I am a Jew. Why are you fighting with us. O… YOU HAVE GOT THE MONEY THAT’S WHY YOU ARE Fighting, you Jewish man…

Jew: I have got the money because I have worked before.

Snip…

Anti-Semite: My mother died from a heart attack.

Jew: What?

Anti-Semite: What? Due? Du du du… you can’t even speak English. Are you Israeli? Go Back to Israel.

Jew: Why would I go back?

Anti-Semite: Go back to Sholom Israel.

National Review Video  has the video here

If President Obama understands that ALL Republican presidential candidates needed to condemn the three four people out of 6,000 Republicans at a debate who boo-ed DADT, then the President should come out and condemn this too.

Or you accept that the people who occupy Wall Street are a load of clowns not worthy of any recognition, or – as the president did – you validate them and as such you denounce any hatful anti-Semitic rhetoric coming from that camp. Obama and his backers cannot have it both ways!

In the context of you Michael Moore hyping up confused youngsters against the rich and corporations, answer the following:

1)   What IS rich?

2)   What is your average income since 2005?

3)   What is your current net value/worth?

4)   How much percent of your income do you give to charity?

Maybe the White House is good at counting jobs saved and created by the Stimulus (ARRA), but when it comes to count the petitions of Americans, it may be different.

For example: The petition in favor of Sholom Rubashkin, now the second strongest issues at the “We the People” petition page, collected more than 29,000 signatures at this time, but exactly how many is anyone’s guess. Why? Two people – one from Iowa and the other from California – are both counted as Signature 28,996.

See the picture here:

Two signatures, One from IA and the other from CA, are coutned as 28,996, at We the People, the official Petition Site at www.WhiteHouse.Gov

VP Biden to Meet Jewish Leaders About Pollard, reports the Jerusalem Post whose websites loads very slow. Biden agreed to it following Tuesday’s Rosh Hashanah meet at the Biden’s place at the Naval Observatory.

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Rick Perry is a True Friend of Israel, claim Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post. “Perry’s attachment and views on Israel were formed long before he had a presidential run in mind.” Among other things, “Texas is Israel’s fourth-largest trading partner… That’s right — there is a Texas-Israel Chamber of Commerce… strongly supported by Governor Rick Perry.”

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Obama is Losing Jewish Support in Swing States, reports business week. “Florida is the biggest swing state with a large proportion of Jewish residents, 613,000, according to the 2010 North American Jewish Data Bank.” Worse… “According to the National Jewish Democratic Council, a 10 percent loss of the Jewish vote could shift the… vote margins by 98,000 in Florida, 35,000 in Pennsylvania, 18,000 in Ohio and 8,500 in Nevada.”

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Why did Palin announce today she is not running for President? She could have waited another week or could have announce this a week ago. Why today?

Well, for the same reason she showed up in NH when Romney had a good day and in IA when Bachmann had a good day! Palin just MUST be THE story of the GOP, and with Christie sucking up all the air yesterday, and Perry getting a lot of coverage today, Palin needed to make a drastic move to take away attention from others and shine it back on her.

Job well done, Sarah!

Vice President Joe Biden is planning to host this afternoon in his office in DC a group of Orthodox Jewish leaders, mostly from NY. Some in attendance were slated to meet yesterday with Herman Cain in NY, but the candidate new to major national attention, never showed up to the meeting. However, he did call in and addressed the group over the phone.

The 3:00 meeting with a half a dozen Orthodox leaders is in advance of the 4:30 reception that the Biden’s are hosting for Jewish community leaders.

As Haaretz’s Chief U.S. Correspondent tweeted earlier, it is not sure if the Biden will ask forgiveness for his recent statement about Pollard…

contact: yossi@yossigestetner.com

I am not sure if Herman Cain ate pizza with Donald Trump in New York, but the Republican Presidential Candidate is slated to meet Orthodox Jewish leaders in New York today afternoon in the Wall Street area after the close of the equity markets.

It is notable that some of the leaders Mr. Cain is expected to meet also met Texas Governor Rick Perry when he was in NY a few weeks ago for his Middle East speech. This is not a sample of people trying to bet on all horses in the race. Instead, those leaders try developing relationships with those who may have leadership and influential positions in policy and politics that may down the road address the needs of the Jewish Community.

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