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October 2016

Iranian Cause and Effect Tehran’s Houthi allies fire at U.S. ships after U.S. sanctions relief.

The Obama Administration keeps stretching the limits of the nuclear deal with Iran to provide the type of sanctions relief the mullahs believe they are owed, no matter what the deal says. So what better way to repay White House’s generosity than by firing on U.S. ships?

That’s one way to understand Sunday’s incident off the coast of Yemen, when the USS Mason, a guided-missile destroyer, and the USS Ponce, an amphibious ship, were attacked by two Chinese-built C-802 cruise missiles fired from territory controlled by Iranian-backed Houthi militia. Iran is a major operator of the C-802; its proxy Hezbollah used it in 2006 to punch a hole in an Israeli corvette off the coast of Lebanon.

On Sunday neither missile hit its target, though the USS Mason launched SM-2 air-defense missiles to defend against the threat. The episode could have ended differently: Last week the Houthis scored a direct hit on the HSV Swift, an unarmed transport shift used by the United Arab Emirates to resupply the Saudi-led military coalition that has been fighting the Houthis for 18 months.

The U.S. contributes limited intelligence support to that coalition, part of a grudging effort by the Administration to reassure Riyadh that the U.S.-Saudi alliance could survive the nuclear deal. Tehran would dearly like to dissolve that 71-year alliance, which also has been frayed by Saudi targeting mistakes that have resulted in major civilian casualties. It’s probably no coincidence that Sunday’s attacks on the U.S. ships came a day after a Saudi air strike mistakenly killed more than 140 mourners at a funeral in the Yemeni capital of Sana’a.

That attack is a tragedy, but the Administration should remember that the U.S. military has committed similar errors before it cuts Riyadh loose. If the U.S. is uncomfortable with Saudi Arabia as a friend, it will find even less to like should the kingdom ever become an enemy.

More significantly, the attack on the Navy ships—with hundreds of American sailors aboard—is another reminder that the nuclear deal has done more to embolden than moderate Tehran’s ambitions, despite a cascade of U.S. concessions.

Hillary’s October Surprise: WikiLeaks Releases Camp Clinton E-mails Hackers release evidence that shows Hillary was exactly what everyone thought she was By Mark Antonio Wright

://www.nationalreview.com/node/440980/print

Although it’s been almost entirely drowned out in the furor over last weekend’s release of Donald Trump’s hot-mic lewd comments to Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush and Sunday night’s no-holds-barred presidential debate, a third explosive story emerged in the last several days: WikiLeaks has begun releasing long-promised tranches of information on Hillary Clinton — so far in the form of three batches of e-mails purportedly from the hacked account of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. The e-mails contain information ranging from the mundane to the embarrassing to the politically damaging (e.g., what appear to be excerpts of Hillary’s Wall Street–speech transcripts) to the slightly bizarre — such as the fact that Tom DeLonge, the former lead singer of the punk-rock band Blink-182, was in contact with Podesta on the subject of aliens and what the government knows about UFO crashes.

WikiLeaks, the anti-privacy organization headed by Julian Assange, claims that the e-mails are proof of a web of corruption that surrounds the former secretary of state and her husband, former president Bill Clinton.

While neither the Clinton campaign nor John Podesta has directly confirmed the veracity of the e-mails, neither have they specifically denied the provenience of their content (there are allegations, including from Newsweek’s Kurt Eichenwald, that at least some of the e-mails have been edited or manipulated to put Clinton and her associates in the worst light possible).

So what exactly has WikiLeaks exposed? As of Tuesday afternoon, the e-mail that has grabbed the most headlines — and the one that may be the most politically damaging — is a roundup of Clinton’s paid speeches to financial firms. The e-mail, apparently written by Clinton campaign researcher Tony Carrk and sent to Podesta and other senior Clinton campaign operatives in January 2016, “flags” sensitive topics and subject matters. “I put some highlights below,” Carrk writes. “There is a lot of policy positions that we should give an extra scrub with Policy.”

Carrk goes on to provide transcript excerpts along with his own headers indicating how the sections could be politically problematic, e.g., “Clinton Admits She Is Out of Touch,” “Clinton Says You Need to Have a Private and Public Position on Policy,” “Clinton Talks about Holding Wall Street Accountable only for Political Reasons,” etc. Written in the heat of the Democratic primary and facing a Bernie Sanders–led insurgency on her left flank, the e-mail focuses on how Clinton could be seen as too centrist, too business-friendly, or too out of touch to appeal to a liberal-activist base fired up by the “independent socialist” senator from Vermont.

What Should We Make of WikiLeaks as a Source? Publishing stolen private e-mails is wrong, but if those e-mails are authentic, we must take them seriously. By Andrew McCarthy

eliminary consideration to the source, and to the degree, if any, that questions about the manner in which the documents were procured diminish their reliability.

Understandably, the Clinton camp has stressed the questionable nature of WikiLeaks’s operations. That is what lawyers tend to do when documents show up that cast their clients (and themselves) in an unflattering light. There is some persuasive force to these complaints. They are too convenient, though. When it came to top-secret information stolen and leaked by Edward Snowden, the reaction on the left and among many libertarians was that the documents appeared authentic and thus it was proper — essential, in fact — to base reporting and arguments on them. Concerns that what Snowden had done was illegal and treasonous, and that the leaks immensely damaged national security, were said to be trivial compared to the imperative of exposing supposedly monstrous government surveillance activities. Many to this day regard Snowden as a hero.

As I am often constrained to observe, our progressive politics today are not about right and wrong but about us and them — logic is out, “narrative” is in. So we shouldn’t go looking for the Left to take consistent positions. If theft and leaks help The Cause, what matters is the substance of the documents; if they hurt, then it’s time to start worrying about authenticity, moral hazard, etc.

But let’s try to sort out right and wrong, even if the answers are unsatisfying.

The basic rule applied in American courts is that even an atrocious source can produce authentic, reliable evidence. The more atrocious the source, though, the higher the burden to establish authenticity and reliability (there are salient differences between the latter two things, which we’ll get to presently). This is easier to grasp with documents than testimony: It can be very hard (often impossible) to establish the trustworthiness of testimony from a dubious source, while the authenticity of a document can often be verified pretty easily. If, upon examination, the document appears to be what it is represented to be, and especially if its authenticity is not refuted by those with a reason to refute it, it is generally admitted into evidence for the jury’s consideration. But how much the jury should rely on the document’s contents (the “weight” to be given them) depends on how much reason there is to suspect the document is fraudulent or misleadingly incomplete.

Leaked emails show State Department gave special attention to Bill Clinton’s friends after Haiti earthquake

A State Department official close to Hillary Clinton appeared to give preference to former President Bill Clinton’s friends after the devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010, emails leaked to ABC News revealed on Tuesday.

The official, Caitlin Klevorick, was one of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s senior aides. She was managing Clinton Foundation contacts who were offering assistance to the State Department.

In one email, Klevorick wrote, “Need you to flag when people are friends of WJC,” referring to William Jefferson Clinton. “Most I can probably ID but not all.”

She wrote in another email: “Is this a FOB [Friend of Bill]! If not, she should go tocidi.org,” referring to a general government website.

The person was emailing to offer medical supplies in the wake of the earthquake.

In another case, billionaire Clinton Foundation donor Denis O’Brien wrote to Clinton aide Doug Band and Clinton Foundation foreign policy director Amitabh Desai for help figuring out how to fly supplies into Haiti and get employees of his company, Haitian telecom firm Digicel, out of the country.

Desai referred to O’Brien as a “WJC VIP” in an email with the subject line “Friend of Clintons.”

O’Brien later wrote in an email to Band that he was “not making any progress through conventional channels.” Band then wrote to Desai to “pls get on this.”

While some offers of help were charitable, others might have been seeking lucrative government contracts as part of the Haiti reconstruction and recovery efforts, ABC noted.

Klevorick told ABC News that she asked questions about whether the contacts were friends of Bill Clinton to determine whether they had previously worked in Haiti or with disaster relief. She said the priority “was to get the necessary resources to the right places as soon as possible to save lives.”

Media Polling Fully Exposed – About That NBC/WSJ Clinton +11 Point Poll….

Media Polling Fully Exposed – About That NBC/WSJ Clinton +11 Point Poll….https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2016/10/11/media-polling-fully-exposed-about-that-nbcwsj-clinton-11-point-poll/#more-123009

The Real Battle, is The Battle For Your Mind

Researchers and political analysts frequent CTH because we bring you hard, factual, and fully cited research enabling you to make up your own mind about the headlines.

What you are about to read (and see) below is a fully cited example of something we have discussed frequently, but withheld until today, so the oppositional forces cannot change strategies in their attempts to manipulate your mind.

It is now time to lay all media polling naked for you to grasp. Everything below is fully cited so you can fact-check it for yourself. However, we present this with a disclaimer: the entities exposed will industriously work to change their approach from this day forth.

You have probably seen the latest example of the media claiming a released presidential poll from NBC and The Wall Street Journal as an example of Hillary Clinton expanding to an 11 point lead in the weekend following the “controversial” leaked tape of Donald Trump.

The claim is complete and utter nonsense. Here’s the proof.

We begin with a google search showing hundreds of media citations referencing theNBC/WSJ Poll:

Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal By Jo Becker and Mike McIntire

The headline on the website Pravda trumpeted President Vladimir V. Putin’s latest coup, its nationalistic fervor recalling an era when its precursor served as the official mouthpiece of the Kremlin: “Russian Nuclear Energy Conquers the World. ”http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html?_r=0

The article, in January 2013, detailed how the Russian atomic energy agency, Rosatom, had taken over a Canadian company with uranium-mining stakes stretching from Central Asia to the American West. The deal made Rosatom one of the world’s largest uranium producers and brought Mr. Putin closer to his goal of controlling much of the global uranium supply chain.

But the untold story behind that story is one that involves not just the Russian president, but also a former American president and a woman who would like to be the next one.

At the heart of the tale are several men, leaders of the Canadian mining industry, who have been major donors to the charitable endeavors of former President Bill Clinton and his family. Members of that group built, financed and eventually sold off to the Russians a company that would become known as Uranium One.

Beyond mines in Kazakhstan that are among the most lucrative in the world, the sale gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States. Since uranium is considered a strategic asset, with implications for national security, the deal had to be approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of United States government agencies. Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by Mr. Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.

And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.

The Tenth Life of Donald Trump By seizing control of Sunday night’s debate, he steadied his faltering candidacy — a bit. By Victor Davis Hanson

The Sunday debate recalibrated the moribund Trump candidacy. It will not end this week. The stampede and groupthink calls for his resignation will ease. Trump might have lost the debate on points of detail, but by the end of hour one, he had won it on energy level and audacity.

No one has ever spoken so bluntly to Hillary Clinton in her 30 years in politics. The confrontation was long overdue. In an either/or race, Trump at least reminded the audience that he is running as a refutation of the status quo. Hillary still bores with the idea that Obama’s record is fine and her continuance of it will make things even better.

Trump, as the teenage delinquent, was at times, as expected, repetitive and brash. Hillary, as playground monitor, was characteristically off-putting, sanctimonious and disingenuous. At one point she foolishly explained her advocacy of being duplicitous by comparing herself to a supposed two-faced Abe Lincoln. Pulling Old Abe down to pull yourself up is not a good idea. Nor is referring voters to “fact-checking” at her own website! And there is something now surreal about Hillary’s promises to get tough with Putin, after she cooked up that ridiculous stunt of a red “reset” button in Geneva in 2009, while subsequently caving on almost everything the Russians wanted.

By the debate’s end, it was almost miraculously forgotten that hours earlier, Trump had been considered dead. That fact also translated into a Trump debate victory.

A leaked hot-mike tape from 11 years prior caught a married and near-60 Donald Trump talking dirty, in adolescent, misogynistic fashion — along with a celebrity scion of the Bush aristocracy.

The old, leaked recording revealed what most Americans knew already (from Trump’s own autobiographies, interviews, and past boasts): Trump is as crude as our crude culture, and sometimes as repellent in language and thought.

Whether he reified his braggadocio by grabbing women and sexually assaulting them through unwarranted touching — in the manner of former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger or past president Bill Clinton — remains to be seen from future hit-leaks. If Trump was talking sex trash as he approached 60, we can only imagine what the Clinton campaign will dig up from his randier 40s and 50s — especially after Trump did well enough in the debate, and in response to more Wikileaks damage to Hillary.

Why did his decade-old locker-room talk matter? A cruder and raunchier America of Miley Cyrus and Beyoncé is now far more sexually sensitive than was the staid America of half a century ago — as if the dirtier we become, the more sanctimonious we end up. Past presidents, such as John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton, trumped even Trump in unleashing their reckless libidos on quite young White House staffers, an array of mistresses, and random women. But they were then young, liberal, loved by the media, and skilled incumbent politicians holding the power of the country at key moments in history.

Private buccaneer Trump so far has no such mitigating arguments to contextualize his reprehensible private banter. In the debate Trump played the Clinton defense of Moveon.org days: He was terribly sorry and now it was time to “move on” to solve problems — an argument that long ago had resonated with the Left.

In case that did not work, Trump used another Clinton liberal tactic: reminding us of others who do worse. Bill Clinton’s leaks about his sanctimonious opponents once led to the resignations of Republican congressmen whose private lives were said to be no better than Clinton’s. Never underestimate the comparative sleaze in Washington.

Barnard Event: Zumba Is ‘Cultural Appropriation’ By Katherine Timpf

Barnard College is hosting a lecture later this month titled “Health at the Expense of Cultural Appropriation: Yoga and Zumba.”

Yes — Zumba.

The lecture is part of a series titled “Barnard BLUE.” According to the college’s official website, “BLUE” stands for “Building Leadership & Understanding Equity,” and it’s “aimed to engage students in intentional dialogues to explore their identities and what it means to foster inclusive communities.” Titles for other sessions in the series include “Sorry for Party Rocking: College Party Culture & it’s Implications” and “Faux Feminists: Pop Culture Icons & Hypocrisy.”

Now, people freaking out that yoga is “cultural appropriation” definitely is stupid, but it’s a complaint that I’ve heard before, and seeing it as the subject of a lecture at a liberal women’s college hardly surprises me. But Zumba? As in, the form of jumping-around aerobics that moms like? I’ve got to admit that that’s a new one.

Although it’s not clear what exactly the claims of the lecture will be, I’d assume that the “cultural appropriation” complaints about Zumba have something to do with the fact that workouts are traditionally performed to Latin American music.

The title of the lecture, “Health at the Expense of Cultural Appropriation: Yoga and Zumba,” really does illustrate how completely stupid it is. After all, I really have a hard time believing that enjoying a workout centered around a typical kind of music — even if that kind of music isn’t from your own culture — is really coming at the “expense” of anyone, however, making people so terrified that their workouts might be racist that they’re too scared to do them could come at the “expense” of their health. We’re an obese nation, and if people like to stay in shape by doing Zumba, then good for them . . . whether they’re white (ew!) or not. Seriously, how far does this go? Are we going to get to the point where white people can only work out to white-people-music without having to have some sort of cultural consciousness discussion beforehand? I sure hope not, because working out is already annoying enough as it is.

One of the most beautiful things about this country is that we are made up of a mix of people from different cultures, and that that mix gives us so many opportunities to enjoy art and music from cultures other than our own. Now, I do understand how someone claiming another culture as their own — or claiming to understand what it would be like to experience life as someone from another culture — would be offensive, however, I highly doubt that anyone who’s going to Zumba class will think that their going to Zumba class means that he or she is some kind of Latin American cultural expert. They just think that they’re someone who went to Zumba class, and I’ve got to say, there are certainly bigger problems facing us than that.

Trump’s Comments: The Latest Left-Wing Hysteria Don’t concede this election, conservatives. By Dennis Prager

Regarding Donald Trump’s private sexual comments: We are living through a national hysteria.

To understand how and why, it is necessary to understand the indispensable role hysteria plays on the left. The Left is always in major crisis mode. And in nearly every case, the crisis is wildly exaggerated or simply false — in other words, hysteria.

For example:

Few people deny that the earth is warming. To assert that is not hysteria. What is hysteria is the Left’s position that carbon emissions will destroy life on Earth.

No one denies that there are racist cops. What is hysteria is the Left’s claim that innocent blacks are routinely shot to death by racist cops.

The widespread protests against the name Washington “Redskins” were pure left-wing hysteria — ended only by the revelation through polling that the vast majority of American Indians couldn’t care less about the name.

The examples are endless: from the alleged epidemic of heterosexual AIDS in America and preschool molestation scares in the ’80s to the wildly exaggerated dangers of secondhand smoke and the baseless fears about electronic cigarettes.

We are regularly forced to endure a new left-wing-manufactured, media-supercharged hysteria.

The Liberating Responsibility Of Atonement How Israel can secure its freedom and its future. Caroline Glick

The Jewish people and the Jewish state face extraordinary challenges today. Luckily, we can handle all of them. But to do so, we need to be capable of judging ourselves fairly.

Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the Jewish year because it is the day that the Torah sets aside for us to reckon with ourselves. We are commanded to give an accounting – before our fellow men and before God – for our actions in the previous year. We must make amends to both for our misdeeds. And since none of us is perfect, every one of us has things to atone for.

Yom Kippur’s power stems from a basic assumption that forms its core. That assumption is that we are all moral agents. We all have to make an accounting.

This basic assumption is the most liberating notion ever created. Moral agency is what makes us free. It doesn’t matter how wretched or rich our external circumstances, the fact that the Torah enjoins all of us to take responsibility for our behavior means that as far as God is concerned, we are not slaves and never will be slaves.

The converse is also true.

We are only free for as long as we are capable of accounting for our actions. This means that preserving our ability to properly judge ourselves is the key to preserving our liberty.

This is true not only for the Jewish people as individuals. It is true as well for the Jewish state, Israel.

The question then is how do we do that? As far as Israel is concerned, the answer to this question has become one of increasing urgency over the past generation or so.

Over the past couple of decades, we have seen the world – and more importantly our own elites in Israel – rushing to judge our society and find it lacking seemingly on a daily basis.

Our journalists, professors, judges and generals routinely tell us what is wrong with our society. And each year, their harangues become shriller and angrier.

Indeed it is becoming hard to avoid the conclusion that for our elites, Israeli society is morally irredeemable.

Consider the behavior of our generals in the IDF. Sunday night, after the terrorist attack in Jerusalem, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot spoke at a memorial ceremony for the armored corps. There he restated for the umpteenth time in recent months that the key to defeating terrorism is maintaining the IDF’s values.