Friday Afternoon Roundup - Obama, Ireland and Olmert

Well this week has been heavy on Obama blogging. I realize this is of less interest to readers from Europe and Israel, so aside from a Sunday post or unless any shocking exposes turn up, I think that will be it for a while.

In Europe the fate of the EU is hanging in the balance and so is that of Eurabia. It's an odd twist of fate that has the Irish shouldering the burden to preserve civilization once more. The Telegraph has a good article tying together the troubles in the American economy and the fate of free trade in Europe. If you tend to believe that Soros may have had a hand in creating that weakness, then the picture begins to grow really dark.

We are witnessing Europe's Prague Spring - as my colleague Daniel Hannan puts it - the moment the EU loses its legitimacy. Yes, the system endures. The tribes acquiesce. But the idealism is draining away.

Can anyone really claim that the Lisbon Treaty is rooted in the democratic assent of the French, Dutch, British, Danes, Swedes, Finns, Poles, and Czechs?

We have the spectacle of Gordon Brown refusing to sign the treaty in public because of the potent danger it poses to his Government.

A British prime minister slinks away to a private room to commit Britain to an arrangement that alienates the powers of Parliament - in perpetuity and perhaps illegally - knowing that his people would vote 'no' by crushing margins if given a chance.

How on earth did we arrive at such a sorry state of affairs?

Over in Israel many of the same power brokers are nudging Olmert out and nudging Livni in, to insure that Israel would have the weakest leader possible even as Iran rushes to develop and deploy nuclear weapons while their golden boy, Obama, is being aimed at the Presidency. The pieces are lined up in place and the game continues.

In the Jerusalem Post Caroline Glick has a column on Morris Talansky, a crook that all too many have embraced, because he promises to get rid of another crook. The matter may not be so simple though considering that Talansky is only two degrees of separation from Iran via Chavez.

Talansky cuts a slightly less flattering figure, shows a slightly less idealistic side of his personality, in a New York courtroom. It was to the US District Court in Manhattan that Talansky and fellow high rollers turned when they decided to sue Israel Aerospace Industries for its refusal to sell satellite images from Israeli spy satellites to Hugo Chavez's government in Venezuela.

Talansky and his fellow businessmen own a minority share in the Israeli firm ImageSat. IAI is the majority shareholder. ImageSat sells satellite images from Israeli spy satellites to foreign governments. And Talansky - who cares so much about Israel that he stuffed Olmert's pockets with cash for 15 years - and his associates think it is unfair for IAI to refuse to sell those images to Venezuela. The fact that Chavez is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Latin American amigo, they claim, shouldn't affect their ability to make a buck.

But of course, Talansky never wanted anything but the best for Israel - that is for Olmert. And he never expected to receive anything in return for his concern from Israel - that is from Olmert.

Last week Ma'ariv reported that Olmert had contacted an Israeli diplomat in Venezuela and asked him to expedite a proposed $18 million deal between Chavez's government and ImageSat but the Defense Ministry nixed the deal for some inscrutable reason. Olmert, of course, had only the purest of motives.

And what follows is a useful warning about the real impact of campaign finance laws on the political system. An impact that we're beginning to see in America with Obama and Soros.

FROM A legal perspective, Israel's electoral system was made for men like Olmert. Over the years, the Knesset has passed draconian laws that limit to nearly nothing the legal contributions that donors can make to political campaigns. At the same time, the Knesset has left in place enormous loopholes that permit politicians to raise almost unlimited funds in unofficial contributions, or "soft money."

As it stands, then, the system favors those who are constitutionally disposed to operate at the edge of the law - that is, people such as Olmert.

Since Israel's campaign finance laws were written for angels, and since politicians are mere mortals, most elected officials are vulnerable to scrutiny of their finances. This places the state prosecutors and judges in a position of enormous power over politicians. They know that they can fully expect to find something on everyone if they just look hard enough. And since an indictment suffices to force an elected official from office, the state prosecution has the power to fire elected officials at will.

This wouldn't be too bad if the state prosecution and the judiciary weren't so politicized. But they are. Since justices and prosecutors make no secret of their radical leftist ideological platform, legally challenged politicians like Olmert and former prime minister Ariel Sharon understand that the best way to avoid legal scrutiny is to advance the political agenda of the legal fraternity.

Now imagine Obama given eight years to put his own legal infrastructure into place across the board and the real nightmare will truly begin.

Meanwhile back on the Obama front, No Quarter has been really hammering Obama with the release of yet another Pfleger video and an article describing Obama's close personal spiritual advisor and friend Pfleger as a vicious anti-semite.

Let’s remind everyone that Pfleger backed up Farrakhan in a 2006 controversy over some remarkable Farrakhan bile. Pfleger criticized a mass resignation of Jewish members on a state of Illinois hate crimes commission: NBC 5, Chicago

Pfleger said “good riddance” to the people who had left the commission. “Leave, go ahead and go on out, we don’t need that kind of a spirit or mentality and a narrowness on that kind of commission. I’m glad they’re gone,” Pfleger said.

What was the issue? A member of the commission, Sister Claudette Marie Muhammad, was the Nation of Islam’s minister of protocol.

[She] “was under the radar until she invited other commissioners to attend a Farrakhan speech last month. Criticism of Muhammad mounted after the speech, which included references to “Hollywood Jews” promoting homosexuality and “other filth.”

The three Jewish commission members who resigned wanted Muhammad to repudiate Farrakhan’s criticism of Jews, gays and other groups. The Jewish Community Relations Council, representing 46 Chicago-area groups, passed a resolution supporting the three commission members.

Here’s the quote from Farrakhan that Pfleger implicitly supported.

Farrakhan said, “These false Jews promote the filth of Hollywood. It’s the wicked Jews, the false Jews that are promoting lesbianism, homosexuality,” and “Zionists have manipulated Bush and the American government” over the war in Iraq.

But of course that's only the start of it because fellow Obama faith endorsee and close friend, the Rev Willie Barrow and James Meeks, also both supported the Farrakhan line on this.

It becomes obvious then that Obama is surrounded by not only racists and bigoted preachers, but Farrakhan supporters, making his claims that he has nothing to do with Farrakhan that much weaker. He certainly seems to have no trouble spending two decades in a church that all but venerates Farrakhan.

Lemon Lime Moon has her own take on the Obama campaign, writing,

Rev. Wright influence much? No, frankly I don't think Rev Wright is the problem here. I think the Rev Wright is just the mirror showing us the mind of Barry and Michelle. I do not think Obama learned this at Rev Wright's knee, I think that the church was chosen by Obama as his spirtual home because it reflected his own thoughts and feelings.

At the Keli Ata blog, A Calculated Lie, Obama Trifles with the Holocaust

The prisoners of Auschwitz were liberated not only from the camp but from a certain death (murder.) It all plays into Obama's Messiah complex. He (by way of a great uncle) liberated people from death. It is disturbing that he would abuse the Holocaust in this matter to fuel his enormous ego.

But Obama obviously has no problem trifling with the gravity and magnitude of the Holocaust. So why are some Jews and non-Jews not only supporting him but making excuses for him? Obama is putting his hands up in a defensive stance saying don't touch me, my father liberated Jews from a concentration camp. He's a war hero. He was at Auschwitz. Don't touch me! He wants the same gentleness and compassion one would give a war veteran or Holocaust survivor (or relative of a survivor).

He's saying in one breath--don't touch me my uncle liberated a death camp, while in another breath he's saying love me because my uncle liberated a death camp. If at all true, it was his UNCLE not him. Talk about crying uncle.