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February 2016

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To Understand Trump, You Have to Understand New York Posted by Daniel Greenfield

By on February 12th, 2016

The conservative consensus around Trump has solidified into, “He’s the devil” or “He’s our savior.” Either Trump is going to destroy the establishment and save us all. Or he’s secretly in league with Hillary Clinton to rig the election. There’s very little room for the middle ground here.

But Trump isn’t either of these things. He’s just Trump. And it’s important to understand who he is. Instead of the narratives that the different sides are building around him.

Trump seems exotic in a Republican system dominated by D.C. insiders from northeastern suburbs and filled with southern and western candidates. But local politics in New York is filled with guys who have the same blend of liberal-conservative politics and talk and sound just like him.

Giuliani’s political career really began with him yelling, “He blames it on me! He blames it on you! Bulls__t” at a police rally. The cops then took over City Hall chanting, “No justice, no police.”

Christie’s national rise began with the release of videos in which he berated union members and humiliated questioners. Republicans fell in love, at least until the infamous Obama hug happened. And yet the establishment forgets that some of its key members were begging a guy who has the same personality, attitude and style as Trump to run for president before the last election.

Call it New York values, but some of what Trump’s critics object to is a New York-Jersey-Philly abrasive political style that puts a premium on “telling it like it is” at the expense of civility and sometimes substance. You can catch Bill O’Reilly doing the same thing on FOX News.

It’s disingenuous for the establishment to pretend that Trump is some sort of complete break from civility. It’s not. It’s just New York Values taken to their most obnoxious extreme. If the establishment thought that President Chris “Numbn__s” Christie had enough class, why not Trump?

But the trouble with the common sense tough guy style in urban politics is that it compensates for weakness elsewhere. Giuliani and Christie were very tough in one specific area. In Giuliani’s case that was crime and it was such a major issue for the city that some of his more liberal positions didn’t matter. In national politics, those positions did matter when Giuliani ran for president.

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Happy birthday, Islamic republic: Ruthie Blum

By on February 12th, 2016

On Thursday, Iran celebrated the 37th anniversary of its Islamic revolution with great fanfare. To ‎mark the success of the reign of the mullahs, which began in 1979 with the return of Ayatollah ‎Ruhollah Khomeini from exile, Iranians took to the streets to chant “Death to America, Death to ‎Israel,” while waving banners hailing the current despot-cleric, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.‎

Normally, this occasion involves a march to the defunct U.S. Embassy, the site of the hostage-‎taking of American diplomats, to bask in the defeat of the Great Satan at the hands of students ‎loyal to Khomeini.‎

This year, however, the regime in Tehran had additional and more recent reasons to gloat. The ‎first was the lifting of international sanctions, made possible by Iran’s intransigence during ‎nuclear negotiations. Understanding full well that U.S. President Barack Obama would stoop to ‎any low necessary to achieve a deal with the world’s greatest state sponsor of terrorism, the ‎Iranian hegemons got what they didn’t even have to bargain for.‎

The second was the January 12 detaining of U.S. sailors, whose boats had gone off course in the ‎Persian Gulf. Letting Washington grovel and beg to have the 10 Americans released unharmed — ‎and then thank the Iranians for being merciful — merely added honey to the baklava Khamenei ‎was nibbling with his afternoon tea at the time.‎

The latter event has provided much amusement for the supreme leader and his henchmen. It has ‎been the subject of speeches by top brass and the impetus for awards bestowed upon ‎Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps naval officers. Indeed, it is a story that Iran has been milking for all ‎its worth over the past month. Not a day has gone by without some new piece of “information” ‎about the incident. ‎

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MY SAY: THOMAS FRIEDMAN…THE NEW YORK TIMES “CALUMNIST”

By on February 12th, 2016

Tom is a black belt basher of Israel who would gladly blame the Zika virus on the Jewish state. He is also a sniveling coward by his own admission. In his dreadful book “From Beirut to Jerusalem” in 1989 he states:
“There was not a single reporter in West Beirut who did not feel intimidated…no one had any illusions that [the factions] would tolerate much serious reporting.” When an Araft spokesman warned that he was not “friendly”enough to the PLO cause he “lay awake in my bed the whole night worrying that someone was going to burst in and blow my brains all over the wall.” He further states:“the truth is, the Western press coddled the PLO and never judged it with anywhere near the scrutiny that it judged Israeli, Phalangist, or American behavior.” ….. “For any Beirut-based correspondent, the name of the game was keeping on good terms with the PLO, because without it,you would not get the interview with Arafat you wanted when your foreign editor came to town.”

And he is still going strong: An e-pal Mike M, sent me his latest spoor from February 2016: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/10/opinion/the-many-mideast-solutions.html and his comment:

“As usual Friedman blames Israel for the work of the Palestinians. it is not “lack of imagination” that leads all rational people to the idea that withdrawal from Gaza led to the creation of the terrorist base of Hamastan, so further withdrawal will probably lead to further terrorism.Only a coward makes his nasty points in the guise of “questions. ”

Friedman: “Was it the fanatical Jewish settlers determined to keep expanding their footprint in the West Bank and able to sabotage any Israeli politician or army officer who opposed them? Was it right-wing Jewish billionaires, like Sheldon Adelson, who used their influence to blunt any U.S. congressional criticism of Bibi Netanyahu? Or was it Netanyahu, whose lust to hold onto his seat of power is only surpassed by his lack of imagination to find a secure way to separate from the Palestinians?”

p.s. spoor is defined as “1 : a track, a trail, a scent, or droppings especially of a wild animal. rsk

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Madeline Albright Hurts Clinton’s Campaign — but Not for the Reason You Think : Liz Peek

By on February 12th, 2016

Hillary Clinton is struggling to connect with young women voters, so she has brought in… Madeleine Albright? Enlisting the 78-year-old to chase millennials may seem far-fetched, but it’s a gift to voters and to the GOP. Just as Hillary’s claims of advocacy for women encouraged criticism of her husband’s sexual misadventures, trotting out Bill Clinton’s former Secretary of State allows us to revisit how her husband’s presidency all but ignored the brewing Islamic jihad against the U.S.

Hillary Clinton offers her husband’s time in office as a halcyon time of peace and prosperity. The truth is that Bill Clinton, like President Obama, made a cataclysmic choice early on that has cost this country untold amounts of blood and treasure. That choice was to ignore the numerous attacks on Americans by Islamic radicals, a decision which served to embolden the jihadists behind 9/11. Like President Obama, Bill Clinton, distracted by endless scandals, led from behind.

Americans may have forgotten that during the Clinton presidency al-Qaeda bombed the World Trade Center in New York, leaving 6 dead and 1,040 injured. The administration, focused on pushing Hillary’s unpopular healthcare proposal, characterized the attacker as someone who “did something really stupid,” and handed the investigation over to the cops. Intelligence groups, who suspected that Osama bin Laden orchestrated the bombing, were muted.

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University Plasters Campus with Posters Asking Students to Check ‘Size Privilege’ Wait — I thought all sizes were equally beautiful? By Katherine Timpf

By on February 12th, 2016

Southern Oregon University plastered its campus with posters asking students to check their privileges in various areas — including their “size privilege.”

The posters were placed “all over campus” by the school’s Bias Response Committee, according to an article in The Siskiyou​, the school’s newspaper.

The other privileges listed on the posters are: white, male, class, Christian, neuro-typical, cisgender, able-bodied, and heterosexual.

The school even hosted “public meetings for students to air their feelings” about the posters last week.

“[We wanted] to provide awareness that privilege does exist, and explain that privilege does not just pertain to race but that there are other forms of privilege, we wanted to start a dialogue . . . and I would say we succeeded,” said SOU Associate Director of Student Life – Diversity and Inclusion Marjorie Trueblood-Gamble.

Of course, not all of the “dialogue” has been happy.

“I believe they are segregating and dividing the population by targeting certain groups,” SOU student and U.S. Marine Corps veteran Tim Short told The Siskiyou.

Now, I have a problem with the posters, too, but for a different reason: They are very body negative. Seriously, just what in the hell is “size privilege” supposed to mean, anyway? Are they actually suggesting that some sizes of bodies are better than other sizes of bodies?

Get it together, SOU — it’s 2016, and and we are all supposed to know that bodies of all sizes are equally beautiful and special and deserving of the utmost praise and celebration for being just the way they are.

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The Unmaking of Marco Rubio? By David Harsanyi

By on February 12th, 2016

Did one robotic moment in a single debate really bring down Marco Rubio in New Hampshire, probably finishing him off nationally? Unlikely.

It’s difficult to believe that voters would turn on a candidate over one gaffe — yet, somehow, it can also make perfect sense in this cycle. Either way, let’s stop pretending that 2016 voters are concerned about authenticity. What they’re really asking of politicians is for better acting while delivering canned lines. Because they’re all canned lines.

Nearly every candidate is a talking-point-spewing automaton. What Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Jeb Bush, and Ted Cruz say — and even much of what Donald Trump says — is prefabricated, tested, and constructed to appeal to whatever subsection of the electorate they hope to entice. The most talented candidates can repeat those lines, jokes, and touching anecdotes with the same bogus earnestness every single time. This is their real talent. I mean, even Trump — probably the only top-tier candidate regularly going off script — strings together many of the same absurdities in mind-numbing platitudinous loops, and his fans eat it up.

Still, there’s no question that Rubio failed to deliver on this front last week. And while he’s no more prone to offer calculated responses than is Clinton or Sanders, Rubio let the political world create a caricature. All the usual suspects joined in, because, whether you like him or not, Democrats fear Rubio more than they do any other Republican.

The robot talking point was regurgitated in dozens of articles and a million tweets, and by political cartoonists. Activists, lacking basic self-respect, began following Rubio around in robot outfits. The Washington Post explained what it all meant — “what Marco Rubio’s robotic debate performance reveals.” Well, it probably reveals that we — pundits, bloggers, media, and probably most voters — like to turn candidates into one-dimensional cartoon characters who can be easily mocked, categorized, memed, and dispensed with.

Caricatures are easier to hate, and also easier to support. Trump the brash fighter. Mitt Romney the out-of-touch job killer. Cruz the Machiavellian meanie. Jeb the awkward establishmentarian. Bernie the pure-hearted ideologue. Rubio the robot. You know how it works.

While this line of attack, brought on by his own performance, almost certainly had something to do with his showing in New Hampshire, I’m not fully sold on the debate theory. Whatever you make of Rubio’s positions — and I’m not crazy about plenty of them – he’s an impressive politician. According to CNN, voters broke away from Rubio at the end, but exit polls (and you can take them for what they are) show that while the debate mattered to many voters, Rubio fared only slightly worse than most other Republicans.

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James O’Keefe Stress-Tests New Hampshire Voter-ID Law: It Fails Anyone can fill out a form, say he’s a resident, and cast a vote. By John Fund

By on February 12th, 2016

Guerrilla videographer James O’Keefe and his Project Veritas team have for years documented just how easy it is to commit voter fraud in states ranging from Minnesota to North Carolina. In 2012, his undercover exposés at the polls convinced the New Hampshire legislature to pass a bill mandating that voters show a government-issued ID — even college ID cards are acceptable. If voters have no form of ID, they can sign an affidavit and still have their vote counted. The votes needed to approve the bill over the objections of then-governor John Lynch were provided by his fellow Democrats.

This year’s presidential primaries were the first in which the ID law was fully in effect, so O’Keefe returned to New Hampshire to see how it was working out. He didn’t find the long lines and confusion predicted by liberal critics, but his undercover team found out just how easy it still is for non-residents to vote. He released a video documenting his findings.

The video shows poll workers advising Project Veritas journalists how to skirt the rules in order to vote as non-residents. Bernie Sanders campaign staffers are shown encouraging undercover journalists to claim false addresses in order to vote in the primary. (No matter how easy the undercover journalists found it would be to cast an illegal ballot, they stopped short of actually doing so.)

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The Mismatch Between Europe’s Israel Labeling Demands And Palestinian Legal Arguments by Alex VanNess ****

By on February 12th, 2016

International bodies such as the European Union (EU), in their infinite wisdom, have decided to call on Israel to “end all settlement activity,” as well as target Israel, economically, through special labeling of Israeli products originating in Judea and Samaria, the “West Bank.” Moreover, U.S. State Department spokesperson, John Kirby has defended Europe’s actions, which is a departure from the Administration’s position from November that said the EU’s labeling guidelines “could be perceived as a step on the way to a boycott.”

The EU claims that goods produced in settlement areas are not “Made in Israel” and that the new labeling guidelines are to ensure accuracy. This decision ignores Israel’s legal right to this land under International Law and reiterated a faulty position that lands Israel has controlled since the 1967 Middle East war are not part of the internationally recognized borders of Israel.

Palestinians have spent decades pushing the narrative that Israel’s activities in this region; in particular, settlements are “illegal” theft of Palestinian lands. For decades, a public relations campaign has been waged to ensure that any mentioning of Jewish neighborhoods in the West Bank is proceeded by the phrase “illegal settlements” at every possible opportunity.

Are the Israeli settlements as illegal as the international community says they are? The answer to that is no. With regards to their legal argument, Palestinians and their supporters have been pounding a square peg into the round hole for decades. In doing so, they have bastardized long-understood concepts of international law, to the point of being unrecognizable. However, several key aspects of this issue need to be understood.

First, while over a million Arabs live and own land in Israel, the laws on land ownership under the Palestinian Authority (PA) prohibit Arabs from selling land to Jews. Unless I missed something, there are no international laws on the books saying, “No Jews allowed in the West Bank.” In fact, Jews have lived in that area for thousands of years. The only time Jews haven’t lived there was for the few years, prior to Israel’s acquisition of the territory, when the Arab governments in control of the area forcefully removed these Jews from their homes.

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Former Jihadism Insider Tells All by Andrew E. Harrod

By on February 12th, 2016

Inside Jihad: How Radical Islam Works, Why It Should Terrify Us, How to Defeat It, the autobiographical book by former Egyptian would-be jihadist Tawfik Hamid, has recently appeared in a revised 2015 edition. This critically important, tremendously insightful insider analysis of Islam, its various threats, and reform possibilities is no less relevant now than the first edition seven years ago.

“A literal interpretation of the Quran, along with mainstream teachings of Islam today, can easily be used to justify” the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) explains Hamid in detail. Around the world “Denialists,” as he terms them, “typically and stubbornly promote the view that Islam is a peaceful religion,” but “violent injunctions of Sharia are not bizarre, extremist or anachronistic Islamic interpretations.” “Excusing ISIS as being ‘un-Islamic’ is absurd.”

Hamid justifies his judgments with the experience of an individual born 1961 into a highly-educated “secular Muslim family in Cairo,” Egypt, who turned to religion as a medical student. His uniquely interesting autobiography documents how the son of a privately atheist doctor participated in the Egyptian Islamist group Jamaa Islamiya (JI) from 1979-1982 before a spiritual transformation turned the younger Hamid away from violence. In JI he was “prepared to train with jihadists in Afghanistan-to fight and kill the Russian invaders in the name of Allah.”

“Medical students are often more attracted to religion because they see the power of God in nature on a regular basis,” writes Hamid while noting that his life story is no exception. “Westerners are often astonished to observe highly accomplished Muslim doctors in the terrorist ranks,” he notes while citing the example of Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian surgeon currently leading al-Qaeda. “Dr. Ayman,” as he was known through his involvement in various Islamist groups to Hamid and his colleagues, “came from a wealthy, well-known and well-educated family and was a top postgraduate student.” Zawahiri exemplifies for Hamid that, among Islamist leaders, “many if not most emerged from the upper socioeconomic classes,” contrary to “naïve and unrealistic” socioeconomic explanations for jihad such as poverty

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Who Wants to Be America’s Top Socialist: Wisconsin Edition The only thing we have to fear are senile leftists repeating memorized speeches. Daniel Greenfield See note please

By on February 12th, 2016

Here is another example of a fine journalist using age as criticism….Neither Sanders nor Hillary are “senile”defined as “having or showing the weaknesses or diseases of old age, especially a loss of mental faculties.” Hillary has been corrupt and mendacious all her life and Bernie has been a hard lefty all his life. To attribute their serious shortcomings to their age is wrong and vulgar- akin to Trump’s reference to Caly Fiorina’s looks. rsk

PBS, a venerable leftist institution long since past its prime, hosted two other leftist institutions past their prime, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, for the special Wisconsin edition of the Democratic Party’s newest hit show, Who Wants to Be America’s Top Socialist.

“I believe in government,” Bernie Sanders declared. And that was the theme for the night.

A political party that does not believe in G-d or that 2 + 2 = 4 believes in and passionately loves government. Its perverted love affair with government gave birth to two political hacks who couldn’t manage to mow the lawn without setting it on fire, but who want to run the country and the world.

In an eye-meltingly mustard yellow jacket, the uniform of some alien space armada invading the planet, Hillary Clinton glared balefully into the camera and promised the nation twice as much free stuff in return for their submission to her ruthless rule. Bernie Sanders, who kept coughing as if he might not live through the debate, never mind the election, upped the ante to three times as much free stuff.

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