Thursday, November 24, 2016

Texas women exonerated after nearly 15 years in prison for sexual assault


Texas’ highest criminal court on Wednesday exonerated four San Antonio women who spent almost 15 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of sexually assaulting two girls, opening the door for the women to seek potentially millions of dollars in state compensation.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that the so-called “San Antonio 4” -- Elizabeth Ramirez, Kristie Mayhugh, Cassandra Rivera and Anna Vasquez -- were innocent. The decision will allow the criminal records of all four women to be expunged.

The women were convicted in 1998, after two of Ramirez’s nieces, ages 7 and 9, accused them of holding them by the wrists and ankles, sexually assaulting and threatening to kill them in 1994. One of the nieces later recanted, saying another family member threatened her into making the statements.

“Those defendants have won the right to proclaim to the citizens of Texas that they did not commit a crime. That they are innocent. That they deserve to be exonerated,” Judge David Newell wrote in the majority opinion. “These women have carried that burden. They are innocent. And they are exonerated.”

CBS affiliate KENS reports that Ramirez was babysitting her two nieces, who were 7 and 9 years old at the time, while the other three women were visiting at her apartment.

About four months after that night, in November 1994, the 20-year-old and pregnant Ramirez remembers a knock at her door.

“I was at home in my apartment, and a detective came knocking at the door and asked to speak to me,” Ramirez previously told KENS. “He asked if I knew Javier, Stephanie and Vanessa, and I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s my brother-in-law and my nieces.’ And he said, ‘Do you know they accused you of sexually assaulting them?’ And I was like, ‘No.’ And he said, ‘Do you know why they would do that?’ And I said, ‘No, I have no idea because it never happened.’”[...]

But the court’s opinion on Wednesday relied heavily on the niece who recanted her testimony. The opinion said the two girls’ testimony was so intertwined that a jury could not rely on one without the other. The court also said the “newly available evidence of innocence undermines the legally sufficient, but hard-to-believe versions of events that led to the convictions of these four women.”

A concurring opinion by two other Texas Court of Criminal Appeals judges would also grant exoneration based on the challenges to the expert testimony and recantation. The opinion said “no reasonable juror would have convicted them” considering those factors and other “weak and contradictory” testimony presented at their trials.

The science behind why you shouldn’t stop giving thanks after Thanksgiving



Every year, Americans set aside one day for gratitude. But why shouldn’t every day be Thanksgiving?

Not the part of the holiday that calls for gorging on turkey and pumpkin pie or lazing about with family and friends, but the part where people deliberately pause to reflect and count their blessings.

On most days, gratitude manifests as an emotional reaction to a favorable event or outcome. But it also can be a way of life. People who consciously choose daily to seek out things in their lives to be thankful for are, research has shown, happier and healthier.

In one 2003 study, gratitude experts Robert Emmons of the University of California at Davis and Michael McCullough of the University of Miami asked some participants to keep a record of what they were grateful for, while others were asked to list the hassles in their lives. After several weeks, those in the gratitude group had a more positive outlook on life, exercised more and reported fewer physical problems.

Emmons also has compiled a list of health data points from his and others’ studies on gratitude that show there are many emotional and physical health benefits of being consciously thankful. For example, practicing gratitude is related to 23 percent lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol and led to a 7 percent reduction in biomarkers of inflammation in patients with congestive heart failure. There are studies that suggest gratitude led to reductions in depression and blood pressure and improvement in sleep quality among those with chronic pain and insomnia. In one study, 88 percent of suicidal patients reported feeling less hopeless after writing a letter of gratitude.

Although it’s busy season for a gratitude expert, Emmons, author of “The Little Book of Gratitude,” took the time this week to answer our questions by email about the practice of giving thanks and why we should be doing it year round.[...]

School for life David Brooks on Character

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Trump shifts on at least 3 prominent issues: Climate, torture and prosecution of Clinton

People voted for Trump for what he promised. But now that he is significantly backtracking on those promises they are not bothered by the deception - because "at least he said what I wanted to hear and his heart is clearly in the right place. Such a good man - not like that wicked liar Clinton". 

This similar to the explanation that a woman - whose husband cheats on her and beats her regularly - will use to explain why she hasn't left him. "He always promises that he will be better and never beat me again. And then after he beats me he apologizes sincerely for not keeping his promises and he is so nice to me after he beats me. He is such a good man"

LA Times  Donald Trump tweaked the script of his transition again Tuesday, appearing to shift his stance on at least three major issues in the course of an afternoon but defending his right to continue involvement in his worldwide businesses despite the potential for conflicts of interest.

What seemed to be Trump’s ironclad belief that America must withdraw from the international climate change accord reached last year suddenly wasn’t so ironclad. He demurred when pressed on whether he would pursue criminal charges against Hillary Clinton — a signature promise of his campaign. And he backed off on his commitment to torturing enemies of state, saying a single conversation with a retired Marine general changed his mind.

The day marked yet another in which Trump’s agenda bounced around like a pinball. Much of the repositioning played out during a wide-ranging interview with the New York Times — a meeting that Trump had angrily said in the morning that he would cancel over what turned out to be a misunderstanding over the ground rules. By afternoon, Trump was on a full-fledged charm offensive in the mothership of the news organization he had just hours earlier derisively labeled “failing.”

Whether Trump’s remarks reflected a genuine pivot in his thinking or just the president-elect playing to the room he was in will become clearer when he starts governing. Trump made sure to leave himself wiggle room, as he often does.

Still, some of the shifts were jarring. The president-elect, who had branded climate change a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese and dismissed efforts to fight it as a massive, politically motivated waste of time and money, now said that perhaps action was needed, and that he might follow through with America’s commitments in the international climate agreement that he repeatedly vowed during the campaign to disregard.

“I’m looking at it very closely,” he said. “I have an open mind to it.”

The comments put Trump at odds not just with his own campaign pledge, but also with his transition team. The man charged with readying the Environmental Protection Agency for the Trump administration, Myron Ebell, is a renowned climate contrarian who regularly attacks the consensus of mainstream science that global warming is a crisis that must be addressed immediately. Ebell has crusaded against every major effort the U.S. has embarked on to slow warming. The Trump transition plan, posted online, states the president-elect will “scrap the $5-trillion Obama-Clinton Climate Action Plan.”

Environmentalists were skeptical of Trump’s altered tone. “As long as Trump has a climate change denier like Myron Ebell running his [EPA] transition team, you know this is all a bunch of empty rhetoric,” said May Boeve, executive director of the climate change advocacy group 350.org.

Trump also got blowback from the right, whose activists were irked by his decision not to pursue prosecution of Clinton.

“I don’t want to hurt the Clintons — I really don’t,” Trump said. “She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways.” When he was pushed on whether prosecution is off the table, Trump responded: “It’s just not something that I feel very strongly about.”

The conservative group Judicial Watch, which has committed itself to exposing alleged Clinton law-breaking, warned Trump against “a betrayal of his promise to the American people.”

But Trump said he would use his influence over law enforcement to argue it is time to move past Clinton investigations, though that too would suggest undue sway over agents who are supposed to be independent of politics when deciding which targets to investigate.

He allowed there is even a case to be made that the Clinton Foundation does “good work.”

The remarks came on a day when Trump’s own foundation was once again in the spotlight. It acknowledged in a fresh tax filing Tuesday that it broke rules prohibiting self-dealing, which will likely trigger a fine. The tax document emerged after the Washington Post reported on multiple instances in which Trump used foundation money to cover the cost of legal settlements his businesses entered into.

The Trump Foundation did not disclose on its new tax filing what payments were inappropriate. Foundation attorneys declined to comment and the Trump transition team did not respond to emails.

The continued negative attention on Trump’s financial entanglements, though, did not appear to be motivating him to more quickly step away from his business empire. Trump made a point of noting that while he is working to transfer control of his businesses over to his children, he does not have to.

“The law's totally on my side; the president can't have a conflict of interest,” Trump said.

He elaborated: “In theory, I could run my business perfectly and then run the country perfectly.”

Trump’s indifference to being perceived as using the presidency to enrich himself flouts all White House convention.

He pushed back against concerns that turning over his business empire to his children doesn’t free him from conflicts, as they are also his advisors in government and will be in constant contact. “If it were up to some people, I would never, ever see my daughter Ivanka again,” he scoffed.

In another significant turnabout, he backpedaled from his repeated calls for a return to waterboarding and other discredited torture techniques to fight terrorism. Trump indicated he had reversed his view after a discussion with retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, considered a possible pick for secretary of Defense.[...]

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Donald Trump’s Early Thanksgiving – An Incredible Story About Anonymous Chessed That Trump Did

Yeshiva World News by Rabbi Hershy Ten is the president of Bikur Cholim Los Angeles.

Hamodia  


[...] My history with Donald Trump began in July 1988. At that time, my wife and I had been living in Los Angeles for 5 years after moving here from New York. Our beautiful 3 year-old son Avraham Moshe was suffering from a severe lung condition.

When Avraham Moshe’s doctors found themselves at a loss to remedy his pain and suffering, I looked to my former home of New York with the hope that a set of fresh eyes could offer a chance at recovery. However, in order to pursue this we needed to fly my son across the country, but no private or commercial airline would do so due to potential liabilities, and our health insurance wouldn’t cover the cost. So there we were, with seemingly nowhere else to turn; but the thought of doing nothing was not an option. In the 1980s, Donald Trump’s fame was well-known to me, and well-known to most of the world. So when I once again awoke early one morning to the familiar sight of my son struggling to breathe, I decided to take a bold step – I picked up the phone and called Donald Trump’s office, spoke with him, and bluntly asked him to lend us his private plane for this mission of mercy. Without knowing me and without hesitation, he said yes.

A week later, Donald Trump’s 727 landed in Los Angeles and flew me, my wife, and my son along with 3 ICU nurses to LaGuardia Airport. We landed at sunrise and were greeted by our family-members on the tarmac, as well as an army of reporters. You must bear in mind that at this time there was no social media or internet; nevertheless the news was out and the NY press was abuzz with the story of the famous entrepreneur’s generosity with dozens of headlines such as, “Trump to the rescue of tyke” and “On two wings and a prayer”. Sadly, there was no new hope that could be provided to our son, and weeks later we returned home on the same plane. Though Avraham Moshe bravely battled for his life for years to come, he passed away just months shy of his bar mitzvah – yehi zichro baruch.

While my son’s z”l outcome was devastating, Mr. Trump’s enormous act of chesed rendered me forever grateful and gave me a unique insight of his character. Since that first contact, we were indelibly connected and remain so to this day. For almost 3 decades I’ve dropped by his office to say “hello” and not a year has passed without he and I exchanging wishes of a L’shana Tova and a Gut Yor. Those who know me both personally and in my role as president of Bikur Cholim (Los Angeles) know that I’ve carried the impact of his kindness with me every day. However, for many years I had often wondered as to what personal impact this may have had on him. [...]


Trump Foundation admits to violating ban on ‘self-dealing,’ new filing to IRS shows


President-elect Donald Trump’s charitable foundation has admitted to the IRS that it violated a legal prohibition against “self-dealing,” which bars nonprofit leaders from using their charity’s money to help themselves, their businesses or their families.

That admission was contained in the Donald J. Trump Foundation’s IRS tax filings for 2015, which were recently posted online at the nonprofit-tracking site GuideStar. A GuideStar spokesman said the forms were uploaded by the Trump Foundation’s law firm, Morgan, Lewis and Bockius.[...]

The New York attorney general’s office is investigating Trump’s charity, following up on reports in The Post that described apparent instances of self-dealing going back to 2007. A spokesman for Attorney General Eric Schneiderman declined to comment, other than to say “our investigation is ongoing.”[...]

During the presidential campaign, The Post revealed several instances — worth about $300,000 — where Trump seemed to have used the Trump Foundation to help himself.

In two cases, The Post reported, the Trump Foundation appeared to pay legal settlements to end lawsuits that involved his for-profit businesses.

In one case, Trump settled a dispute with the town of Palm Beach, Fla., over a large flagpole he erected at his Mar-a-Lago Club. The town agreed to waive $120,000 in unpaid fines if Trump’s club donated $100,000 to Fisher House, a charity helping wounded veterans and military personnel. The Trump Foundation paid that donation instead — effectively saving his business $100,000.

In another, Trump’s golf course in New York’s Westchester County was sued by a man who had won a $1 million hole-in-one prize during a tournament at the course. The man was later denied the money because Trump’s course had allegedly made the hole too short for the prize to be valid.

The lawsuit was settled, and details on that final settlement have not been made public. But on the day that the parties told the court that their lawsuit had been settled, the Trump Foundation donated $158,000 to the unhappy golfer’s charity. Trump’s golf course donated nothing.

In three other cases, Trump’s foundation paid for items that Trump or his wife purchased at charity auctions. In 2012, Trump bid $12,000 for a football helmet signed by then-Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow.

In another case, from 2007, Trump’s wife, Melania, bid $20,000 on a six-foot-tall portrait of Trump painted by “speed painter” Michael Israel during a gala at Mar-a-Lago. And in 2014, Trump bid $10,000 to buy a four-foot painting of himself by artist Havi Schanz at another charity gala.

In all three cases, the Trump Foundation paid the bill. Tax experts said that, by law, the items had to be put to charitable use. Trump’s spokesmen have not said what became of the helmet or the $20,000 portrait.

The $10,000 portrait was, however, located by Washington Post readers, following coverage of the Trump Foundation. It was hanging on the wall of the sports bar at Trump’s Doral golf resort, outside Miami.

In September, a Trump campaign spokesman rejected the idea that Trump had done anything wrong, by using his charity’s money to buy art for his bar. Instead, spokesman Boris Epshteyn said, the sports bar was doing the charity a favor by “storing” its art free of charge.

Tax experts said that this argument was unlikely to hold water.

“It’s hard to make an IRS auditor laugh,” Brett Kappel, a lawyer who advises nonprofit groups at the Akerman firm, told The Post then. “But this would do it.” [...]

Broken Promise:Trump officially is not going to pursue charges against Hillary Clinton


Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Trump spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway confirmed the show’s earlier report that the incoming Trump administration will not pursue charges against his general election opponent Hillary Clinton for her use of an unauthorized email server while secretary of state and on any of the alleged wrongdoing involving her and her family’s charitable organization the Clinton Foundation.

According to Conway, Clinton still faces a challenge in rebuilding her own image and suggested this was part of Trump helping the former first lady “heal.”

“I think when the President-elect, who’s also the head of your party, tells you before he’s even inaugurated that he doesn’t wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone, and content to the members,” Conway said. “And I think Hillary Clinton still has to face the fact that the majority of Americans don’t find her to be honest and trustworthy. But if Donald Trump can help her heal, then perhaps that is a good thing. Look, I think he’s thinking of many different things as he is preparing to become president of the United States, and things that sound like the campaign aren’t among them.”


Trump won’t pursue case against Clinton, Conway says

President-elect Donald Trump has decided that he won’t seek criminal investigations related to former rival Hillary Clinton’s private email server or her family foundation, a senior Trump adviser said Tuesday

Trump’s apparent decision, conveyed by former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,’’ is a change from his campaign rhetoric, in which he issued incendiary calls for a special prosecutor to reopen the FBI’s closed investigation of Clinton’s use of a private server while serving as secretary of state and had also urged investigations of allegations of corruption at the Clinton Foundation. He nicknamed the Democratic nominee “Crooked Hillary” and encouraged chants of “Lock her up!” at his rallies.

Trump’s decision to pursue or not pursue a criminal investigation from the Oval Office would be an extraordinary break with political and legal protocol, which holds that the attorney general and FBI make decisions on whether to conduct investigations and file charges, free of pressure from the president. [...]

Trump has not spoken directly about his apparent change of heart but hinted at it in a post-election interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” in which he expressed warm feelings toward Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton. Trump had repeatedly blasted both Clintons, with whom he was once friendly, during the campaign.[...]

Rabbi Yakov Horowitz will speak in Ramot Tuesday November 22 2016



BHOL


אחרי החרדה - הרב המומחה מארה"ב יגיע לשכונה אליה עבר להתגורר תוקף ילדים מורשע, כדי לתת הדרכה להורים המודאגים

בשכונת רמות בירושלים פועלים הורים מודאגים לסילוקו של תוקף ילדים סדרתי שהורשע בארה"ב ועבר להתגורר בשכונה, כפי שדווח ב'בחדרי חרדים' לראשונה.

בשבוע הקרוב תתקיים בשכונה הרצאה תחת הנושא "שמירת בטיחות הילדים בעולמנו כיום", אותה ימסור מי שנחשב למומחה בתחום - הרב יעקב הורביץ.

הרב הורביץ, הינו מייסד ומנהל של ישיבת דרכי נועם במונסי ניו יורק והקים את פרויקט "יס", העוסק בין היתר בטיפול בנוער בסיכון ועוסק בסוגיות הקשורות לפגיעות בילדים ומניעתן. שמו אף עלה לכותרות בפרשת המאבק נגד תוקף הילדים משכונת הר נוף בירושלים, שתבע את הרב לבית המשפט נוכח הרדיפה אחריו, והכפשת שמו כביכול.

הרצאות הרב מטעם ארגון "מגן" שיימסרו באנגלית בערים שונות ובשכונת רמות בירושלים בתאריך 22 לנובמבר, יתקיימו בבית הכנסת טשכנוב, ויימסרו לגברים ונשים בנפרד.

ל'בחדרי חרדים' נודע עוד כי הגאון הרב אשר וייס, מחשובי רבני השכונה, מעורב בפרשה - ולפי מידע ממקורות בשכונה הוא מוכן לאפשר לתוקף לעבור טיפול מונע שימנע ממנו להמשיך לתקוף, וכך להימנע מפעולות לסילוקו מהשכונה.

MK Glick: My relative committed suicide due to his divorce

Arutz 7   MK Yehuda Glick (Likud) devoted his Knesset address Monday to the plight of divorced fathers and the high rates of suicide among this group.

"A relative of mine committed suicide three months ago in the same situation," said Glick. "Three children, a year after his divorce. Last week a young man in Haifa committed suicide and many, many more have done the same. It seems to me that the time has come to be more aware of the appalling situation of men who are involved in a divorce process."

"Hundreds of people are killed, month after month," lamented Glick. "Divorced men commit suicide seven times more than their married counterparts."

Glick read out parts of a Yediot Aharonot article by Yifat Glick, including the suicide note written by Hanan Dadon, who was the MDA's Southern Region spokesman and a member if the 669 rescue unit. "Today I understood that there is no value to my life. My divorce will leave me destitute. How can I stay debt-ridden and still pay 14,000 NIS a month in child support? How can I work two jobs yet not be able to look my children in the eyes?

"I am supposed to start a new phase in life, to begin a training course on the fifteenth of the month," wrote Dadon. "Yet what's the point if in the end there won't even be bread and margarine and I will have to live with my father?"

The mere raising of the subject by Glick aroused the ire of MK Rachel Azaria (Kulanu) who interrupted Glick's words with a series of taunts. "What is this? It's not appropriate for you to speak like this," she declared. "Express yourself in a way that fits reality."

"It's not appropriate for me to talk about people in distress?," retorted Glick. "I'm talking about a group of people who according to official statistics of the state of Israel suffer from more that 100 suicides a year." [...]

On Wednesday the initial vote on a proposal by MK Betzalel Smotrich (Jewish Home) and Yoav Kish (Likud) to cancel the early childhood custody which automatically leaves young children with their mother. The law is not the controversial "Parents and Children" proposal which confers prerogative rights on social workers over parents. The present proposal is intended to cancel the present situation whereby mothers are automatically preferred to fathers with regard to custody of children under the age of six.

The promised post election normalization of Trump? Trump blasts media heads in private meeting


It had all the trappings of a high-level rapprochement: President-elect Donald J. Trump, now the nation’s press critic in chief, inviting the leading anchors and executives of television news to join him on Monday for a private meeting of minds.

On-air stars like Lester Holt, Charlie Rose, George Stephanopoulos and Wolf Blitzer headed to Trump Tower for the off-the-record gathering, typically the kind of event where journalists and politicians clear the air after a hard-fought campaign.

Instead, the president-elect delivered a defiant message: You got it all wrong.

Mr. Trump, whose antagonism toward the news media was unusual even for a modern presidential candidate, described the television networks as dishonest in their reporting and shortsighted in missing the signs of his upset victory. He criticized some in the room by name, including CNN’s president, Jeffrey A. Zucker, according to multiple people briefed on the meeting who were granted anonymity to describe confidential discussions.

It is not unusual for journalists to agree to off-the-record sessions with prominent politicians, including President Obama, as a way to gain insights and develop relationships.

But after details of Mr. Trump’s hectoring leaked on Monday in The New York Post, it seemed the meeting was being used as a political prop, especially after Trump-friendly news outlets trumpeted the session as a take-no-prisoners move by a brave president-elect.

“Trump Slams Media Elite, Face to Face,” blared the Drudge Report. “Trump Eats Press,” wrote Breitbart News.[...]

Mr. Trump is meeting with representatives of several news organizations this week, including The New York Times, where he is scheduled to speak on Tuesday with editors, reporters, columnists and the newspaper’s publisher.

Reince Priebus, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff; Ivanka Trump, Mr. Trump’s daughter; and Ms. Conway are expected to accompany the president-elect to The Times, according to a person with direct knowledge of the meeting.
[...]

Monday, November 21, 2016

An Embassy in Jerusalem? Trump Promises, but So Did Predecessors


America’s top diplomat in Jerusalem lives in an elegant three-story stone house first built by a German Lutheran missionary in 1868, a short walk from the historic Old City. But he is not an ambassador and the mission is a consulate, not an embassy.

For decades, those distinctions have rankled many Israeli Jews. The United States, along with the rest of the world, has kept its primary diplomatic footprint not in Israel’s self-declared capital, Jerusalem, but in the commercial and cultural hub of Tel Aviv to avoid seeming to take sides in the fraught and never-ending argument over who really has the right to control this ancient city.

Until now. Maybe.

President-elect Donald J. Trump vowed during his campaign that he would relocate the mission “fairly quickly” after taking office. That in itself is nothing new: For years, candidates running for president have promised to move the embassy to Jerusalem, and for years, candidates who actually became president have opted against doing so.

But just as Mr. Trump broke all the rules of campaigning, some of his supporters say no amount of hand-wringing by the State Department will change his mind. Jason Greenblatt, an Orthodox lawyer who is advising Mr. Trump on Israel, told Army Radio after the election that the president-elect was “going to do it” because he was “a man who keeps his word.”

Already, many Israelis and Palestinians are buzzing about the prospect. Where would the embassy go? Would it straddle the line between West Jerusalem, which is predominantly Jewish, and East Jerusalem, which is predominantly Arab? Would it touch off street protests in Palestinian cities or a backlash among Arab allies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia?

“Jerusalem is a symbolic, emotional and real issue,” said Itamar Rabinovich, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States and president of the Israel Institute. “It matters to many Israeli Jews because it would indicate that the United States actually recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, which now it effectively does not.”

Which is why Arabs object so strenuously to such a move. “This is a sign that he’s going to side with Israel,” said Mustafa Alani, a scholar at the Gulf Research Center, a research organization with offices in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. “If he does it, it’s going to be a wrong start for his relationship with the Arab world.”

The status of Jerusalem has always been one of the thorniest issues dividing Jews and Arabs. In 1947, the United Nations recommended that the city be declared a “corpus separatum,” meaning an international city, rather than incorporated into either the Arab or the Jewish states then being contemplated on the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. But in the war that followed its declaration of statehood in 1948, Israel captured the western portion of the city while Jordan seized the east.

Israel took control of East Jerusalem in its 1967 war with its Arab neighbors and annexed it, declaring that the city would remain whole and unified as its eternal capital (and later building many settlements there that most of the world considers illegal). The United States and most other countries refused to recognize the annexation and kept their embassies in or near Tel Aviv. The last two countries with embassies in Jerusalem, Costa Rica and El Salvador, moved out a decade ago.

Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both promised during their presidential campaigns to move the embassy to Jerusalem. Both later backed away from those promises, convinced by Middle East experts that doing so would prejudge negotiations for a final settlement between Israelis and Palestinians.

In 1995, Congress passed a law declaring Jerusalem to be Israel’s capital and requiring the embassy be moved there by 1999 — or else the State Department building budget would be cut in half. But the law included a provision allowing presidents to waive its requirement for six months if they determined it was in the national interest. So every six months, Mr. Clinton, Mr. Bush and eventually President Obama signed such waivers, fearing a violent response in the Arab world if the embassy moved.[...]