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violating the right to life .......

Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir was pictured rejoicing in the passing of a controversial bill that would allow the execution of Palestinian prisoners.

The far-right minister, who has largely championed the legislation, was seen celebrating its approval by drinking and serving alcohol to members of the Israeli parliament. 

The Knesset approved the bill in its last readings on Monday with 62-48 vote in favour, despite international pleas to "abandon" the ruling. 

"This is a day of justice for the victims and a day of deterrence for our enemies. No more revolving door for terrorists, but a clear decision. Whoever chooses terrorism chooses death," Ben Gvir said, sporting the golden noose-shaped pin symbolising his campaign calling for the execution of Palestinian detainees. 

Knesset member Limor Son Har-Melech, who spearheaded the law, called the occasion a day where Israel "chose life" and said the decision is an example of "true Jewish morality".

The legislation has drawn criticism for violating the right to life and for its potentially discriminatory application, with Palestinians accused of terrorism facing execution while Jewish offenders would at most receive prison sentences for similar crimes.

The general framework of the law stipulates that anyone "who intentionally causes the death of another person with the intent to harm an Israeli citizen or resident, with the intent to end the existence of the State of Israel, shall be sentenced to death or life imprisonment".

Human rights groups and legal experts have staunchly stood against the bill, noting Israel's widespread arrests of Palestinians on broad "terrorism" charges and a surge in reports of torture and deaths in custody since the war on Gaza began.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israels-ben-gvir-celebrates-death-penalty-law-drinking-wine-parliament

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

champagne...

[APRIL 1, 2016] During the 1930s, as Adolf Hitler was rising to power in Germany, the man who would turn out to be his most implacable foe was drowning — in debt and champagne.

In 1936, Winston Churchill owed his wine merchant the equivalent of $75,000 in today's money. He was also in hock to his shirt-maker, watchmaker and printer — but his sybaritic lifestyle, of a cigar-smoking, horse-owning country aristocrat, continued apace.

Stories of Churchill's special relationship with alcohol are legendary. Eleanor Roosevelt, who was his host at the White House during World War II, was astonished "that anyone could smoke so much and drink so much and keep perfectly well."

Churchill started his day with whisky, but it was champagne that was his truest passion — and now, for the first time, we get a glimpse into the extent to which that passion imperiled his already threadbare bank balance.

In a magnificently researched new book titled No More Champagne: Churchill and His Money, David Lough, a retired banker who read history at Oxford University, recounts the unbelievable story of the former prime minister's fiscal excesses. After years of sifting patiently through Churchill's bank statements and bills, Lough, a skilled financial gumshoe, has amassed a trove of material that he deploys to great effect in his book.

We learn of Churchill's ruinous stock market speculation circa 1929 and the inheritances he squandered; his gambling rousts at the casinos in Biarritz and Monte Carlo; the thousands of pounds he sank into the upkeep of Chartwell, his beloved country mansion in Kent; and the unceasing torrent of cash he poured into maintaining a first-rate cellar.

To get an idea of Churchill's annual alcohol consumption, here's what he ordered in 1908, the year he married Clementine:

  • nine-dozen bottles and seven-dozen half-bottles of Pol Roger 1895 vintage champagne, plus four-dozen half-bottles of the 1900 Pol Roger vintage
  • six-dozen bottles of St Estèphe (red) wine
  • five-dozen bottles of port
  • seven-dozen bottles of sparkling Moselle (white) wine
  • six-dozen bottles of whisky
  • three-dozen bottles of 20-year-old brandy
  • three-dozen bottles of vermouth
  • four bottles of gin

Lough never ceases to marvel at how such a prominent public figure got away by living his life well over the overdraft and alcohol limit — though he is more bemused than judgmental. (Far more scathing is Christopher Hitchens, who, in an excellent essay for The Atlantic, compared the prodigal and overindulged Churchill of the '30s to Shakespeare's glutton Falstaff, "so surfeit-swell'd, so old, and so profane." )

READ MORE: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/04/01/472459579/hitler-couldnt-defeat-churchill-but-champagne-nearly-did

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.