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October 2015

The Mental State of the Political Elites: Part II Edward Cline

The European Union is being run by men and women who have displayed marked symptoms of dementia, a condition that is quite in sync with Islam’s own brand.

Again, this column is also about the epistemological epilepsy of our political elite. And the political elite’s unreal metaphysics.

As noted in an illustration tag in Part One, the sustainability of a European Islamic State, which is all the Continent’s current immigration policies can lead to and end with, will depend in large part on the ignorance of its itinerate and hapless citizens – Muslim and non-Muslim alike. Once it reaches that stage, and Shariah law becomes the legal byword, non-Muslims will be obliged to assimilate into a largely Islamic culture.

Rank-and-file Muslims will be naturally ignorant and will have no problem adjusting to the new society of diversity. Non-Muslims, however, will have great difficulty keeping their mouths and minds shut as they are relegated to second-class citizen status.

Caroline Glick: Rabin’s True Legacy

It is notable that the same week that Israel marked the twentieth anniversary of the assassination of prime minister and defense minister Yitzhak Rabin, Palestinian Authority President and PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas went before the UN Human Rights Commission and asked the UN to establish “a special regime of international protection” for the Palestinians against Israel.

“It is no longer useful to waste time in negotiations just for the sake of negotiations. What is required is the ending of the occupation in accordance with international legitimacy,” said the man who has never held good faith negotiations with Israel in his life and has refused to even pretend to hold them for the past seven years.

De Telegraaf Interview: Geert Wilders Awaits Unfair Trial

Geert Wilders has, once again, been accused, of violating hate laws in The Netherlands over a remark he made during a March 19, 2014 Freedom Party (PVV) campaign rally for the European Parliament elections that occurred in May of last year: “fewer and fewer Moroccans” . Complaints were filed by alleged aggrieved Dutch Moroccans on the grounds that his remarks were racist and violated hate laws in The Netherlands. These remarks in the US would be protected under our First Amendment to the Constitution. No such protections current exist under the laws in The Netherlands, let alone the EU. We noted this in a December 2014 Iconoclast post about a statement Wilders made before his interrogation by Dutch police in The Hague:

Americans Are Stupid, New Study of Millennials Uncovers Educational Shortcomings By Andrew Whalen

In 30 years, these are the people who will be running (or ruining) the United States of America…..These are the people currently in schools and in early work careers who are the subjects of training about all the microaggressions and offensive things that leap out at you. They go to safe spaces and watch videos of puppies when they get scared.These millennials may drag down the whole country, but we’re all to blame.

A new study from the world’s largest nonprofit educational testing organization says that American millennials are super stupid. In results that the Educational Testing Service managed to call “cause for concern” rather than “disastrous to the entire concept of American progress,” American millennials managed to score at or near the bottom in literacy, numeracy and computeracy ( Problem Solving in Technology-Rich Environments, or PS-TRE) when compared to 21 other countries. The overall results for the study called the low scores of American millennials “disappointing.”

10 Things to Know About the Latest Wave of Palestinian Terror Yishai Fleisher

The aftermath of a terrorist attack that took place in Ra’anana. Photo: Magen David Adom.
The current state of affairs in Israel is full of lessons and truths. The sooner we learn them, the ‎sooner we can stop the attacks.‎

1. We can stop feeling guilty‎.
A few good things have come out of the recent wave of terror in the streets of ‎Israel. The first is that the facade that jihadis are somehow struggling for self-determination, ‎social justice, or any other noble idea has been unmasked. It is clear to us now that, unlike what ‎we’ve been urged to believe for the last 30 years, jihadis don’t want peace. They want to ‎annihilate Jews, Judaism, and the State of Israel. This is great news. Because once the ‎pretense is dropped, we stop falling for it and begin unloading the guilty feeling that we are at ‎fault for everything. We drop the idea, for example, that building in Jerusalem or Judea is causing this war. Those few ‎voices who still try to blame the victims sound delusional and their ideas are being debunked. At ‎the same time, there is a realization that within Israel is a hostile minority that simply ‎does not accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state. Clarity is forming, and it will lead to victory.


2. The Jewish fighting spirit is back‎.
The second good thing is that the Jewish fighting spirit is back on the streets. Men and women, ‎old and young, are responding to terror with defiance. Pepper spray, rolling pins, umbrellas, ‎selfie sticks, kicks, fists, running, and especially shooting — Israelis are shooting bad guys (and ‎gals). Yes, there have been some horrific videos of Jews being gouged as though we’re back in ‎a medieval Polish countryside. But even in those videos, soon enough, a gun-toting Jew ‎vanquishes the jihadi zombie. We don’t cower and shriek as they wish we would, and it ‎demoralizes them. Our people’s healthy fighting instincts have (amazingly) not been ‎corrupted by the media, or by the ideology of weakness. Remember: Fighting back is good, so ‎stay tactical out there, folks!‎

MY SAY: HABEMUS CANDIDATUS

Last night there was no more Trump L’oeil , and Dr. Carson’s civility was the antidote to the pseudo conservative buffoon. Among their supporters are many “independents”- who may identify with Republicans, but they do not vote in primaries. My bet is that registered Republicans who now cheer Trump and Dr. Carson will veer to either Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio.

By most estimates they, and possibly Chris Christie were the stars in last night’s debate…..Stay tuned…..rsk

CNBC’s Bias Loses the Republican Debate Republican candidates team up against CNBC’s biased moderators. Daniel Greenfield

There’s no consensus on who won the latest Republican debate, but there was no question that CNBC was the big loser.

The Republican debate on CNBC was supposed to be about the economy; instead it became a debate about media bias as candidates fought moderators over dishonest questions and cynical attacks.

Instead of discussing the economic worries of a nation impoverished by two terms of the Obama Economy, Republican candidates struggled to talk about the concerns of working Americans while CNBC moderators dug up old discredited attacks from the CNN debate and fired gotcha questions at them.

Most observers would have said that there wasn’t much that could bring the Republican field together, but media bias did it. Candidate after candidate struck back at the moderators to thunderous applause from the audience. Instead of a debate between the candidates, the CNBC debate quickly became a pitched battle between the Republican contenders and the outnumbered Democratic moderators.

And by the end of the debate, CNBC moderators Becky Quick, John Harwood, and Carl Quintanilla had been outmaneuvered, beaten and humiliated by the Republican candidates in every round.

It’s No Longer the Trump Show By Alexis Levinson —

Boulder, Colo. — It was a new world order at Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate here in Boulder.

With just three months to go until the first GOP nominating contest, voters are beginning to get serious about making decisions, and candidates could not get by just introducing themselves. At this debate, they had to prove that they deserved to be on everybody’s short list.

For the first time, the outsider candidates — Donald Trump, Carly Fiorina, and Ben Carson — were largely sidelined in favor of people who conventional wisdom would say are the safer bets to win the nomination — specifically, Marco Rubio.

In previous debates, almost all the combat revolved around Donald Trump. His brash style and willingness to level uppercuts at his opponents — both on the stage and off —determined the questions, defined the narrative, and made him the most prominent voice in the debates. But the candidates descended on Boulder as the shape of the race is starting to change. Trump can no longer say he is leading in every single poll in every single state. Ben Carson has slid ahead in Iowa, and is taking up ground in national polls.

As Predicted, the Iran Deal Has Begun to Wreck Global Nuclear Non-Proliferation Efforts By Fred Fleitz

Amid growing indications that Iran does not plan to comply with the July nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA), there is a new report that the huge U.S. concessions offered to Tehran to get this agreement are already undermining global efforts against nuclear proliferation.

One of the most significant of these concessions allows Iran to continue to enrich uranium even while the JCPOA is in effect. This contradicts years of U.N. Security Council resolutions calling on Iran to halt all uranium enrichment, and previous U.S. policies that have strongly discouraged nations from beginning peaceful uranium-enrichment programs due to the ease with which they can be used to produce weapons-grade nuclear fuel.

Although Obama-administration officials deny it, this concession has been interpreted by Iran and other nations as conceding to Iran the “right” to enrich uranium. Andrew McCarthy wrote in National Review in August that this denial is hard to take seriously, since John Kerry conceded Iran’s right to enrich in 2009, when he was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The chickens have already come home to roost on the uranium-enrichment concession: The United Arab Emirates (UAE), which in 2009 signed an agreement with the U.S. barring it from pursuing uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing, is now considering renouncing these commitments.

Jeb Swings at Rubio, Misses, and Finds Himself on the Ropes By Tim Alberta —

Swing and a miss.

It was the story of the night, the story of the debate, and it might soon be the story of Jeb Bush’s campaign.

After months of flicking passively at Marco Rubio — all the while dismissing talk of their collision course, and rolling his eyes at the narrative of “master vs. apprentice” — Bush finally launched a public broadside against his friend and former protégé during the third GOP presidential debate Wednesday night.

His timing was logical and yet inopportune; CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla had been quizzing Rubio about his mounting number of missed Senate votes, which prompted a Florida newspaper to call for his resignation. Rubio responded forcefully by decrying the newspaper’s “double standard” of endorsing Democratic candidates who had similarly missed votes. The audience rallied behind Rubio, roaring with approval — and just then, Bush decided to jump in.

“Marco, when you signed up for this, this was a six-year term, and you should be showing up to work,” Bush lectured. “You can campaign [for president] or just resign and let someone else take the job. There are a lot of people living paycheck to paycheck in Florida as well. They are looking for a senator that will fight for them each and every day.”