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April 2016

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CLIMATE HUSTLE-THE MOVIE

By on April 15th, 2016

Help spread the word about “Climate Hustle” filmAre you as tired as I am of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and the rest using global warming as an excuse for left-wing policies designed to tax and control us into submission?

So much of what the left claims as “settled science” is flat out wrong. It’s time that people learned the facts and wake up!
CFACT, the folks who educate the world about global warming with their “Climate Depot” news service have produced this fantastic movie that will open eyes and minds, lay out the scientific facts and keep us laughing while they do it.
May 2nd will be an historic night. I’ll be at the movies, will you?

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Targeting Jews in the Ivory Sewer A safe space for Jew-hatred. Kenneth Levin

By on April 15th, 2016

Reports of anti-Semitic acts on American campuses suggest that the nation’s universities and colleges are likely today the chief institutional repository of anti-Semitism in the United States.

As one recent study notes: “A survey of U.S. Jewish college students by Trinity College and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law revealed that 54% of surveyed students reported experiencing or witnessing instances of anti-Semitism on campus during the first six months of the 2013-2014 academic year. Another survey by Brandeis University in the spring of 2015 found that three-quarters of North American Jewish college student respondents had been exposed to anti-Semitic rhetoric…”

The same study also notes that, in addition to encountering anti-Semitic rhetoric, Jewish students have been the targets of “physical assault, harassment, destruction of property, discrimination and suppression of speech.” The Brandeis University survey found that “one-third of students… reported having been harassed because they were Jewish.”

The study citing these data was conducted by the AMCHA Initiative, and AMCHA Initiative’s own findings appear in the organization’s “Report on Anti-Semitic Activity in 2015 at U.S. Colleges and Universities With the Largest Jewish Undergraduate Populations.” The AMCHA Initiative report looks more particularly at the strong correlation between the presence of anti-Israel groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) on campuses, as well as anti-Israel activity such as that of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and campus anti-Semitism.

The correlation is hardly surprising, since much of SJP’s activities on campus – including the agenda of SJP guest speakers at events underwritten by colleges and universities – consists of demonizing Israel, denying Jewish history and Jews’ right to national self-determination, and advocating for anti-Israel entities such as HAMAS, which explicitly calls not only for the annihilation of Israel but for the murder of all Jews. The BDS movement likewise seeks to delegitimize and undermine Israel’s existence and grossly distorts the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and leading BDS supporters have acknowledged that the movement’s ultimate goal is the dissolution of the Jewish state.

Nor is that goal particularly hidden, nor for that matter in need of being hidden, in much of American academia. Indeed, in March, 2012, Harvard University hosted a “One State Conference” at the Kennedy School where speaker after speaker called for dismantling Israel and attacked those promoting its continued existence. According to the Harvard Crimson, the conference was organized by campus groups Justice for Palestine, the Palestine Solidarity Committee, the Palestine Caucus, the Arab Caucus, the Progressive Caucus and the Alliance for Justice in the Middle East.

Why are colleges and universities tolerating an epidemic of anti-Semitic acts on their campuses, and the activities of groups that directly or indirectly promote such acts? At a time when there is so much campus sensitivity about so-called micro-aggressions and the need to render campuses safe spaces for those students who feel victimized, when even seemingly innocuous statements or actions by fellow students or faculty members can lead to punitive measures against them should someone respond by feeling aggrieved, why are the macro-aggressions against Jews on campus allowed to continue with little consequence for the perpetrators?

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Inside the Bernie Sanders Pro-Hamas Campaign Attacking Jews and pandering to Muslims is the plan. Daniel Greenfield

By on April 15th, 2016

Why won’t Bernie Sanders stop attacking Israel? That’s the question some Jewish supporters are asking as the troubled campaign continues alienating Jews while pandering to haters of the Jewish State.

For the longest time it was all but impossible to get Bernie to even admit he was Jewish. His campaign conducted no outreach to Jewish groups while aggressively pursuing outreach to Muslim groups such as CAIR. CAIR is an anti-Semitic Islamist group with known ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

In New York, the Sanders campaign seemingly had to bow to reality and actually reach out to Jews.

But instead the Sanders campaign set out to offend and alienate Jews in New York, as it had done to Jews all over the country, by selecting an anti-Israel activist who had defended Muslim anti-Semitism.

Simone Zimmerman, formerly of J Street, had made a name for herself by harassing Jewish charities that help people in Israel. Zimmerman had defended BDS and opposed Israel’s campaign against Hamas, saying, “We think it’s important to understand the context of occupation”.

She had allied with JVP, a hate group, to oppose fighting anti-Semitism on campus. JVP has described the murder of Jews as “resistance” and the Jewish community as the “enemy”.

Zimmerman’s first attempt at outreach to Jewish supporters ended in disaster with a shouting match at a Jews for Bernie event. But Jews for Bernie is run by Daniel Sieradski, another opponent of Israel, who distributed a meme during the last war with Hamas which asserted that “That’s why Palestinians are fighting back.” Sieradski had claimed in the past that the real threat wasn’t Hamas whose leaders “just want to make life better for their people”, but Jewish “ethnic exclusivity”.

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The Obama Administration Should Not Apologize for Hiroshima By David Harsanyi

By on April 15th, 2016

Secretary of State John Kerry toured the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and Museum in Japan this week, a month before he and President Obama will meet foreign ministers at the G-7 Summit in that country. Reuters reported that he witnessed “haunting displays [of] photographs of badly burned victims, the tattered and stained clothes they wore, and statues depicting them with flesh melting from their limbs.”

“It is a stunning display. It is a gut-wrenching display,” explained Kerry. “It is a reminder of the depth of the obligation every one of us in public life carries . . . to create and pursue a world free from nuclear weapons.” Iran would exempt itself, of course.

But is this really the lesson of Hiroshima — that those in public life have an obligation to do away with nuclear weapons? A lot of people might argue that the existence of those weapons has saved lives from broader world conflicts and conventional warfare. That includes ending World War II sooner.

Last week, the Washington Post dutifully reported: “In Hiroshima, Kerry won’t apologize for atomic bombs dropped on Japan.” Technically, he didn’t. What we witnessed was one of the administration’s inverted non-apology apologies.

There’s a lot of speculation Obama will visit Hiroshima during the summit and offer some sort of apology. (If we’re to believe WikiLeaks, U.S. officials have been wrestling with the idea of having Obama apologize for the Hiroshima attacks for a while now.)

Doing so would comport well with his history, and it would not be a great leap for Obama. Having a high-ranking American official visit the museum already lends credibility to the Japanese notion that the U.S. bombing was gratuitous. On top of that, Kerry blames nuclear weapons — rather than Japan’s fanaticism and nihilism — for Hiroshima.

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Palestinians: We Will Not Accept a Jewish Israel by Khaled Abu Toameh

By on April 15th, 2016

The obsession with settlements is certain to divert attention from core issues, such as Palestinian recognition of a Jewish Israel. Many Palestinians continue to regard Israel as one big settlement that needs to be removed from the Middle East.

Even those who say they have accepted the two-state solution are not prepared to recognize any Jewish link to or history in the land.

In the view of Al-Husseini, Palestinians refuse to acknowledge a Jewish state because they believe this would grant legitimacy to “Jews’ rights to the land of Palestine” and undermine the Palestinian demand for the “right of return” for millions of refugees into Israel.

Israeli Arab leaders are betraying their constituencies by privileging the perceived interests of Palestinian Arabs, while Palestinian Arab leaders are betraying their constituencies by denying any link between Jews and the land. This stance makes peace a non-starter.

Israel as a Jewish state remains anathema to the Palestinian community. This is a top-down attitude, communicated on a constant basis by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas.

The Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state is based on the argument that such a move would mean giving up the “right of return” for millions of “refugees” into Israel. This refusal is also based on the continued denial of any historic Jewish connection to the land.

In recent weeks, the PA president has once again reiterated his strong opposition to recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.

The Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state is one of the main obstacles to peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Settlement construction complaints are nothing more than a Palestinian Authority smokescreen.

There is much talk these days about the Palestinian Authority’s intention to ask the United Nations Security Council to issue a resolution condemning Israel for construction in the settlements. It is not yet clear whether the PA will carry out its threat. What is clear, however, is that this obsession with the settlements is certain to divert attention from core issues, such as Palestinian recognition of a Jewish Israel. Many Palestinians continue to regard Israel as one big settlement that needs to be removed from the Middle East.

Why, in fact, do the Palestinians refuse to accept Israel as a Jewish state?

Abbas has consistently failed to state his reasons for his total rejection of Israel as a Jewish state. In January 2014, the PA president declared:

“The Palestinians won’t recognize the Jewishness of the State of Israel and won’t accept it. The Israelis say that if we don’t recognize the Jewishness of Israel there would be no solution. And we say that we won’t recognize or accept the Jewishness of Israel and we have many reasons for this rejection.”

On another occasion that same year, Abbas stated: “No one can force us to recognize Israel as Jewish state. If they [Israel] want, they can go to the UN and ask to change their name to whatever they want — even if they want to be called The Jewish Zionist State.” Again, Abbas failed to explain the vehement Palestinian opposition to this demand.

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Newly Released Fast & Furious Docs Show Obama Administration Efforts to Stonewall and Mislead Congress By Debra Heine

By on April 15th, 2016

Long after it would have made any difference, President Obama finally turned over thousands of Fast and Furious documents to the House Oversight Committee, revealing a deliberate attempt by some in the Justice Department to keep secret details about the deadly gun-running operation. It’s an effort that continues to this day.

The docs were turned over late last week, hours before the court-ordered deadline, and only represented a fraction of the total number the oversight committee had requested. An Obama-appointed federal judge struck down the president’s 2012 executive privilege claim back in January, giving the DOJ 60 days to hand over all information about its role in the 2009-2011 Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal.

Operation Fast and Furious was an ATF and Department of Justice program that purposely allowed the sale and trafficking of thousands of weapons to violent Mexican drug cartels. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed by Mexican bandits in December 2010 and guns from the operation were found at the murder scene. When Sinaloa cartel leader El Chapo Guzman was captured last year, guns from the operation, including a .50 caliber rifle that was used to shoot at a police helicopter, were found in his hideout. Hundreds of Mexican citizens have been killed as a result of the program and thousands of guns are still missing and being used to carry out violent crimes in Mexico and potentially in the United States.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz complained during an interview with Special Report Wednesday that the department was not complying with the law.

“They are breaking the law by telling us they’re only going to provide a couple of the documents,” he said

“When you have a duly issued subpoena, you must comply with it,” Chaffetz continued. “There was a concerted effort here to make sure the Congress never saw the light of day on these documents. They still owe us more.” He added, “if you’re going to withhold documents … there needs to be a consequence to that and the new administration I hope will go back and prosecute these people, because they’re clearly breaking the law.” But in order for there to be any consequences, we “have to have an administration with integrity,” Chaffetz said. “That’s why it’s time for us to have another election and get another administration in there.

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‘Increased Relationship’ Between al-Qaeda, Taliban Worries U.S. Commanders By Bridget Johnson

By on April 15th, 2016

A spokesman for U.S. operations in Afghanistan said the ISIS threat there seems to be under control for now, but al-Qaeda has struck up an unsettling “increased relationship” with the Taliban.

There are six groups recognized as foreign terrorist organizations operating out of Afghanistan today, Brig. Gen. Charles Cleveland, deputy chief of staff for communications for Resolute Support Mission, told reporters today via teleconference from Kabul.

The U.S. military “continues to have a mission to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda, and so we do have the authority to target any al-Qaeda member,” Cleveland noted. The authority for U.S. forces to begin targeting ISIS fighters in Afghanistan was added in January.

ISIS refers to the area as their Khorasan Province and has been trying to poach fighters from the Taliban ranks.

Seventy to 80 percent of counterterrorism strikes in Afghanistan this year have targeted ISIS, Cleveland said.

“About three months or so ago, we thought that Daesh was probably in about six to eight districts. Today, we think they’re probably in about two to three districts,” he said.

“And I always hesitate to really kind of give a specific number like that because as soon as I say three districts, somebody pops up someplace else and now they’re in four or five. But at the end of the day, we think that we have significantly decreased the footprint that they have in Afghanistan.”

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Palin Completely Misrepresents Republican Nomination Process in Interview By Walter Hudson

By on April 15th, 2016

When Sarah Palin first came on the scene as the surprise vice presidential pick of the McCain campaign, she was a breath of fresh air. As she gave her address at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, many Tea Party activists who were themselves political neophytes from humble backgrounds heard themselves in her folksy Alaskan twang. It was this sort of kinship which prompted so many to defend Palin against attacks from the political establishment. She was us. We were her. An attack on her intelligence was an attack on ours. We knew implicitly that the same people who looked down their noses at her would just as soon scoff at us. So we circled the wagons.

Oh how times have changed. Over the years since, Palin has devolved into a self-parody that fulfills the caricature her critics once crafted. In a new interview with the Associated Press, she demonstrates as much in remarks regarding the Republican presidential nomination process.

From U.S. News and World Report:

Voters will “rise up” in opposition if Republican power brokers try to take the presidential nomination away from Donald Trump or Ted Cruz at the GOP convention this summer, Sarah Palin said Thursday in a wide-ranging interview.

The 2008 vice presidential nominee told The Associated Press that GOP voters have the right to decide the party’s nominee and will rebel if House Speaker Paul Ryan or some other “white knight” is chosen at a contested convention. Ryan said this week he will not seek or accept the nomination.

Palin said voters know better than to be fooled by party leaders.

“How dare they?” Palin asked, denouncing “arrogant political operatives who underestimate the wisdom of the people.”

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Is Trump America’s Jean-Marie Le Pen? By Michel Gurfinkiel

By on April 15th, 2016

It is quite tempting to draw parallels between the Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders movements in America and the populist movements that have been rocking European politics for many years. There seems indeed to be, on both sides of the Atlantic, a growing discontent about traditional politics and a feeling among ordinary citizens of being betrayed by a complacent and pathetically incompetent establishment. As a result, we are seeing a swing to both right-wing and left-wing demagogues.

The parallel between Trump and the French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the French National Front and passed it to his daughter Marine Le Pen in 2011, is particularly insightful. There is a lot in common between both men, as well as some important differences.

Both men turned into political icons quite late in their lives. While Le Pen had been constantly dabbling in politics since his student years, he did not reach a sizable audience until the 1980s when he was almost 60. He became a major player in 2002 at age 74 only when he emerged during the presidential election’s second round — due to Byzantine ballot regulations — as the sole challenger of the outgoing conservative president Jacques Chirac. Likewise, Trump may have floated political ambitions since 1988 at least, but he became a serious contender only in 2015 at the age of 69.

Both are “charismatic.” In other words, they are consummate showmen who pay more attention to the audience’s emotions than to rational argument and debate. Le Pen allegedly took lessons with an American televangelist coach, and Trump succesfully ran his own reality TV program.

Clearly, their age is more of an asset than a liability in this respect: showmanship means physical energy, and while that may be taken for granted in young men and women, it strikes as magical or superhuman in older men. Think of the Rolling Stones or of French rock singer Johnny Hallyday, well in their seventies, who attract larger crowds than most juvenile rock and pop singers.

Both Le Pen and Trump are truculent, indulge in bad-taste jokes, discard political correctness, and play on racist and sexist themes or innuendoes. Both can be rude towards sick or physically challenged people: Le Pen once suggested that AIDS patients should be locked in special facilities; Trump appeared to mock a disabled New York Times reporter. Both project a macho image but have had complex relationships with women. Upon separating from him, Le Pen’s first wife Pierrette, a former pin-up girl, stripped naked in 1987 for the French edition of Playboy magazine. Trump appeared on Playboy’s cover in 1990 along with playmate Brandi Brandt.

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Epic fail: Dozens show up around the country for ‘Million Student March’ By Rick Moran

By on April 15th, 2016

On three, everyone point a finger and laugh.

Daily Caller:

This year’s “Million Student March” — scheduled for Wednesday, April 13 on college campuses across America — appears to have failed miserably because hardly anyone bothered to show up.

Organizers had hoped for a huge turnout.

“A new wave of activism against student debt is on the move again this week,” The Huffington Post giddily promised on Monday. “The students taking the lead represent the advance guard of an even more massive army which is mobilizing around the idea that higher education should be an investment we make as a society.”

Kind of a small “advance guard,” don’t you think?

On the campus of the recently-troubled University of Missouri, for example, a sparse gathering of about 15 students protested as part of the “Million Student March,” according to the Columbia Missourian.

Campus police warned the protesters that any disruptive demonstrators could be arrested or suspended from school.

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