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2016

Trump: Tribune Of Poor White People By Rod Dreher

I wrote last week about the new nonfiction book Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and a Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance, the Yale Law School graduate who grew up in the poverty and chaos of an Appalachian clan. The book is an American classic, an extraordinary testimony to the brokenness of the white working class, but also its strengths. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. With the possible exception of Yuval Levin’s The Fractured Republic, for Americans who care about politics and the future of our country, Hillbilly Elegy is the most important book of 2016. You cannot understand what’s happening now without first reading J.D. Vance. His book does for poor white people what Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book did for poor black people: give them voice and presence in the public square.

This interview I just did with Vance in two parts (the final question I asked after Trump’s convention speech) shows why.

RD: A friend who moved to West Virginia a couple of years ago tells me that she’s never seen poverty and hopelessness like what’s common there. And she says you can drive through the poorest parts of the state, and see nothing but TRUMP signs. Reading “Hillbilly Elegy” tells me why. Explain it to people who haven’t yet read your book.

J.D. VANCE: The simple answer is that these people–my people–are really struggling, and there hasn’t been a single political candidate who speaks to those struggles in a long time. Donald Trump at least tries.

What many don’t understand is how truly desperate these places are, and we’re not talking about small enclaves or a few towns–we’re talking about multiple states where a significant chunk of the white working class struggles to get by. Heroin addiction is rampant. In my medium-sized Ohio county last year, deaths from drug addiction outnumbered deaths from natural causes. The average kid will live in multiple homes over the course of her life, experience a constant cycle of growing close to a “stepdad” only to see him walk out on the family, know multiple drug users personally, maybe live in a foster home for a bit (or at least in the home of an unofficial foster like an aunt or grandparent), watch friends and family get arrested, and on and on. And on top of that is the economic struggle, from the factories shuttering their doors to the Main Streets with nothing but cash-for-gold stores and pawn shops.

The two political parties have offered essentially nothing to these people for a few decades. From the Left, they get some smug condescension, an exasperation that the white working class votes against their economic interests because of social issues, a la Thomas Frank (more on that below). Maybe they get a few handouts, but many don’t want handouts to begin with.

From the Right, they’ve gotten the basic Republican policy platform of tax cuts, free trade, deregulation, and paeans to the noble businessman and economic growth. Whatever the merits of better tax policy and growth (and I believe there are many), the simple fact is that these policies have done little to address a very real social crisis. More importantly, these policies are culturally tone deaf: nobody from southern Ohio wants to hear about the nobility of the factory owner who just fired their brother.

Trump’s candidacy is music to their ears. He criticizes the factories shipping jobs overseas. His apocalyptic tone matches their lived experiences on the ground. He seems to love to annoy the elites, which is something a lot of people wish they could do but can’t because they lack a platform.

The last point I’ll make about Trump is this: these people, his voters, are proud. A big chunk of the white working class has deep roots in Appalachia, and the Scots-Irish honor culture is alive and well. We were taught to raise our fists to anyone who insulted our mother. I probably got in a half dozen fights when I was six years old. Unsurprisingly, southern, rural whites enlist in the military at a disproportionate rate. Can you imagine the humiliation these people feel at the successive failures of Bush/Obama foreign policy? My military service is the thing I’m most proud of, but when I think of everything happening in the Middle East, I can’t help but tell myself: I wish we would have achieved some sort of lasting victory. No one touched that subject before Trump, especially not in the Republican Party.

Communists and Muslims: The Hidden Hand of the KGB! Posted by Jake Martinez

Posted on Lenin and Sharia-By Cliff Kincaid-On July 19, 2012:

These are only excerpts from this eye-opening presentation because of its overall length
Konstantin Preobrazhensky, former KGB intelligence officer and author of several books on Russia. His white paper, Communists and Muslims: The Hidden Hand of the KGB.

“Introduction by

I am pleased to present Konstantin Preobrazhensky’s insightful treatment of the radical Muslim problem, in connection with how the communists, in particular the Russians, are using or exploiting them. Much of this influence stems from the operations of the Soviet intelligence service, the KGB, which continues under a different name. A former KGB officer, Preobrazhensky fled to the U.S. in 2003 and received political asylum in March 2006. His bio tells the full story of his efforts to expose the Soviet intelligence service, the KGB, and its successor.

In this report, he discusses a peculiar phenomenon – those with Muslim names and communist hearts. Or, as Frank Gaffney has put it, Sharia is “Communism with a God.” This seemingly paradoxical problem is real and has been exported by the Soviet Union as part of the communist world revolution.

I first came into contact with Preobrazhensky when I was writing about the “Arab Spring.” As the leader of Tunisia was forced into exile, I noticed that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Marxist–Leninist organization founded in 1967, issued a statement declaring, “These popular upsurges are shaking the ground in the Arab world and posing a new and powerful challenge to U.S. imperialism, Zionism, and the Arab regimes which have enabled them by trampling upon their own people for decades.” It said that “the Arab masses were capable of making great and revolutionary change, as we are witnessing today, and which has already achieved great results in Tunisia.”

The PFLP is part of the PLO and has a long-time association with the Soviet intelligence service, the KGB. The group earned a reputation for spectacular international attacks, including airline hijackings, which killed at least 20 U.S. citizens. The statement by the PFLP about turmoil in the Middle East was a reminder that a terrorist group associated with the Soviet Union is still in existence, active, and prepared to take advantage of world unrest and troubles.

Because of our work in exposing the Al-Jazeera television network, we found it interesting that the Muslim Brotherhood, which effectively controls the network and brags about it, gave rise to terrorist organizations such as Hamas, officially designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the U.S. State Department. However, the Muslim Brotherhood is not an officially designated FTO. This has enabled the Obama Administration to literally embrace the organization, which has taken power in Egypt.

The Muslim Brotherhood wants Egypt to unilaterally open the border with Gaza, a move that would facilitate arms shipments to Hamas and increase military pressure on Israel. A Congressional Research Service report noted, “Egypt sealed the border out of concern for the possibly destabilizing effects of Hamas’s relations with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which the government of President Mubarak considers a threat.” President Obama encouraged the overthrow of Mubarak, a long-time American ally.

The Theological Compromise For Terror By Herbert London

President, London Center for Policy Research

In a commonly told Israeli joke or aphorism, two taxi drivers come to an impasse on a single road. The first driver says move aside so I can pass; the second driver says the same. Emotions explode. After hurling insults, the first driver leaves his cab with fists flailing. He sees a Jew seated in the back of his rival’s taxi and proceeds to beat him up. The second driver upset by what he observed, gets out of his cab and heads for his rival’s taxi. Quite coincidentally, there is also a Jewish passenger in the back seat and he too is beaten up. What is the moral of this story?

Assume for a moment, the drivers are Sunni and Shia. In the story they are rivals, but most notably they are united in their hatred of Jews. The Middle East assumption that religious differences will lead to fragmentation and a stalemate between Sunni and Shia is a fiction since both sides have a common enemy and a common goal: Removing the U.S. and Israel from the Middle East.

Recently the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned members of al Qaeda who are based in Iran. What journalist Armin Rosen pointed out is that the Shia dominated regime doesn’t care about sectarian differences with Sunnis as long as al Qaeda bogs down the U.S. on every battle front in the Middle East.

Iran’s ties with al Qaeda have been well known and documented since 2011. According to the 9/11 Commission report, “Eight of the fourteen Saudi ‘muscle’ operatives (in the attacks) traveled into or out of Iran between October 2000 and February 2001.” After the 9/11 attacks, several members of bin Laden’s family sought sanctuary in Iran.

For Iran, terrorism comes first. It has been known for a considerable period that Iran is the primary sponsor of Hezbollah (a Shia terrorist group) and has assisted Hamas (a Sunni terrorist organization). The common principle they share is inflicting violence on and in Israel.

MY SAY: THE HIGH DUDGEON OF MR. KHIZR KHAN

This is not a defense of Trump’s oafish response to the Khans….

I totally understand and empathize with the grief of parents who lose their children in war or sickness or violence. There is, however, something that rankles, when their grief is used for dirty politics. So it was when the mothers of young black men killed by police and the Khans were highlighted at the Democratic convention as shills for Hillary Clinton. Where were the mothers of innocent cops killed in Dallas? Where were the mothers of the soldiers of Fort Hood who died at the hands of an enlisted American Moslem soldier on a jihad? And where is Mr. Khan on the record speaking against jihad against Americans in San Bernardino or Orlando. His gratuitous offer of his copy of the constitution was theater. Who scripted him?

Robert Spencer makes the point exactly in his column listed below:

Khizr Khan, Servant of the Global Umma ​His son died in service of the U.S. military; now his father is using his memory to advance a different cause. Robert Spencer

Lashing and Flogging: Islam and Iran Vicious and inhumane punishments are on the rise in the Muslim world. Dr. Majid Rafizadeh

The ruling clerics of Iran are increasing their reliance on public flogging not only for punishing people, but also for threatening those who are violating minor Islamic and Sharia laws.

Public lashing is orchestrated for several reasons, including to punish the person who has violated Sharia laws, impose fear in the society, humiliate the victims and cause psychological harms to the individuals.

Holding a girlfriend/boyfriend’s hand, kissing in public (even for a married couple), listening to music, drinking alcohol and wearing non-Islamic dress can all be grounds for flogging under the Islamic law of Iran. As an Iranian prosecutor, Esmail Sadeghi Niaraki, who recently arrested people for “dancing and jubilating,” said, “We hope this [flogging] will be a lesson for those who break Islamic norms in private places.”

Yesterday, according to Iran’s state-owned news agency, Tasnim, Iranian officials arrested 150 young people for being at a mixed-gender birthday party in the city of Islamshahr, close to the capital of Tehran. Young people who are arrested for attending mixed-gender parties are often fined, flogged, beaten and sometimes raped.

According to Colonel Mohsen Khancherli, Iran’s police commander for the west of Tehran Province:

“After we obtained a report about a mixed-gender party in a garden in the vicinity of Islamshahr in the west of Tehran Province, an operation was carried out by the police and another organization, leading to the arrest of dozens of boys and girls.”

He added:

“Some 150 boys and girls had gathered at the mixed-gender party under the guise of a birthday party in this garden which is situated next to a studio where unlawful music was produced and recorded. Upon arrival of the police, all those present were arrested and sent before the judiciary.”

A few weeks ago, more than 30 college students were arrested, and within 24 hours the judge ordered each to receive 99 lashes for attending a graduation party. In the last two months, approximately 600 people have been arrested, fined and lashed for celebrating.

In this video, a teenager is being lashed for helping a girl whom the moral police were attempting to arrest for wearing bad hijab. He can be heard begging for mercy.

According to Ismaeil Sadeqi Niaraki, a top Iranian cleric, Iran will not tolerate “freedom” or “having fun.” He praised the moral police for arresting and punishing those who break the Islamic laws: “Thanks [sic] God that the police questioning, investigation, court hearing, verdict and implementation of the punishment all took place in less than 24 hours.”

According to Chapter III of the Iranian Islamic constitution, Enforcement of Sentences of Flogging, Article 27: “Flogging will be administered by a woven leather belt of approximately one meter in length and one-and-a-half centimeter in width.” The penal code goes on detailing how one should be flogged:

Article 32: Enforcement of hadd for female convicts will be carried out while the convict is in a sitting position with her body fully covered by clothing.

Hungary Blasts EU with Common Sense on Islam The writing was on the wall a long time ago. Raymond Ibrahim

In “an astonishingly savage tirade”—to quote from the UK’s Express—Hungary’s Prime Minister Victor Orban recently tore into the European Union “over [Muslim] migration and taunted Angela Merkel for failing to protect German people from Islamist terror.”

(Click here to learn why central and eastern European nations, Hungary chief among them, are wary of Islam.)

In the course of his speech, Orban made two important points that I habitually make, and which explain the true reasons behind the unprecedented rise of terrorism in EU nations: 1) Islam’s Rule of Numbers; 2) Western enablement of Islam.

In regards to the first point, Orban

issued a stunning rebuke to Mrs Merkel on migration, blaming recent terror attacks on the mas[s] influx of refugees… Migration, he argued, “increases terrorism and crime” and “destroys national culture” in a thinly-veiled swipe at Mrs Merkel’s decision to roll out the red carpet to millions of people from the Middle East.

This is as simple as it gets. Over three years ago, in May 2013, I explained why a Muslim man decapitated a British solider in the middle of a busy street in London as follows:

It reflects what I call “Islam’s Rule of Numbers,” a rule that expresses itself with remarkable consistency: The more Muslims grow in numbers, the more Islamic phenomena intrinsic to the Muslim world—in this case, brazen violence against “infidels”—appear….

Thus as Muslim populations continue growing in Western nations, count on growing, and brazen, numbers of attacks on infidels—beheadings and such.

The Month That Was – July 2016 Sydney Williams

“Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men, and so it must be daily earned and refreshed –else, like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die. Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969)

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” So wrote Thomas Paine, in the aftermath of the Continental Army’s defeat at Brandywine Creek, on September 12, 1777. Freedom is not free, and Paine’s message to General Howe was filled with the patriotism that inspires us to this day. He added toward the end of his essay: “We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free.” They did; though it took four more years. It is fitting that the month that celebrates the birth of our nation is also a time to look back and remember those who died at Gettysburg, a battle that was fought over the three days preceding the 87th birthday of the United States – a battle in a war that ensured our country would be slave-free and would stand undivided. It is a month we remember the 19,240 British soldiers who were killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the single worst day in British military history – one battle in a war to ensure that freedom would flourish on the European Continent.

Democracy is neither free nor easy. It is a constant struggle, against those from the outside who would defeat it and from those on the inside who would impede it. At the moment, freedom’s greatest external threat are the fanatics who comprise Islamic extremists – be they ISIS, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, the Haqqani Network, Hezbollah, the Taliban or Hamas. To defeat them, we must identify them, and then puncture the ideology that has caused a religion to become a cauldron of hatred. Obviously, our greatest ally in this fight should be peace-loving Muslims. Unfortunately, they have not stepped to the plate in the numbers necessary. In the meantime, Mr. Obama’s refusal to name the enemy is reminiscent of the failure of Neville Chamberlain’s Conservative Party in Britain, in the mid and late 1930s, to acknowledge the evil embedded in Nazism and Fascism. His not doing so only emboldened the Axis. Dictators and fanatics see democracy as mushy, as it depends on the will of the people rather than on an all-powerful leader. We are seen as soft by the barbarians who lead these Islamic terrorist groups. But, what those philistines miss is that when aroused a free people fight more resolutely than others. But first, we must be aroused.

Internally, democracy is at risk when citizens become complacent, more interested in their well-being than in recognizing the fragility and rarity of liberty – when people become blindly obedient to their leaders. Democracy and freedom are also at risk when the media serves as lap dogs rather than watch dogs.

The two conventions consumed the last two weeks of the month. In both cases, the establishment circled their wagons, Democrats more successfully than Republicans, though help from the DNC failed. Politics has become less about service and more about being served. The purpose of government should be to enact and uphold laws; to protect the lives and inalienable rights of its citizens, and to do those things individuals cannot do for themselves. Instead, it has become a path to personal wealth and power for the chosen (and corrupt) few.

Europeans, Hit by Terror, Exalt Palestinian Master Terrorist The irresistible “charm” of Marwan Barghouti. P. David Hornik

Last Tuesday terrorists broke into a French church, murdered an 85-year-old priest, and severely wounded another person. On Friday it was reported that several French municipalities had initiated the granting of honorary citizenship to jailed Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti.

Arrested by Israel in 2002, in 2004 Barghouti was sentenced to five terms of life imprisonment on five counts of murder. Leader at the time of the Tanzim militia, he is seen as the mastermind of the most vicious sustained terror assault in history—the Second Intifada (2000-2005), which, in a country one-tenth the size of France, killed over a thousand people in five years.

As the Israeli ambassador to France, Aliza Bin-Noun, wrote in an open letter on Thursday: “Barghouti is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people. At a time when Western countries should unite against the threat of terrorism, the French support for Barghouti in fact legitimizes his actions.”

Barghouti’s popularity in France, however, is of long standing. From 2007 to 2010, a dozen French municipalities made him an honorary citizen. In 2013 another municipality, Bezons, gave him that distinction along with Majid al-Rimawi, who took part in the murder of an Israeli cabinet minister in 2001.

And in December 2014 the Parisian suburb of Aubervilliers conferred the honor on Barghouti, three months after another Parisian suburb, Valenton, had done the same.

In all or most of these cases, the municipalities paying homage to the Palestinian terrorists were Communist-led. In recent years the French Communist Party’s fortunes have declined, and today it holds only a small minority of legislative seats and runs only a small minority of municipalities.

So far the reports on last week’s new round of moves to honor Barghouti don’t say whether the municipalities in question are Communist-led ones. But even if Barghouti’s fan club in France is not that large, he is a cause célèbre elsewhere in Europe as well.

The Marketing of the Democratic Candidate What’s left to justify a Hillary presidency? Bruce Thornton

The Democrats’ convention ended after striving mightily to persuade most of America that Hillary Clinton is somehow more human, likable, caring, and accomplished than the public record of her scandals and behavior would suggest. Unfortunately for the Dems, not Bill, not Obama, not Hillary herself can transform Hillary. There is no political alchemy that can turn that base metal into gold.

For years, armies of political consultants, publicists, and marketing geniuses have not been able to make people like Hillary. We’re on at least the fifth version of Hillary, and all the oxymoronic advice like “act naturally” or “be likable” has not been effective. She’s still inauthentic and unlikable, and 56% of voters disapprove of her. She’s like New Coke or Betamax, a bad product no amount of advertising could sell in the real world of market accountability. Yet the mainstream media have labored like Trojans on this project, downplaying her crimes and failures, believing her lies, and rationalizing her faults.

We had a representative example recently in Scott Pelley’s interview with Hillary on 60 Minutes. After she whined and whined about the invidious “Hillary Standard” –– the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy version 2.0––Pelley gently asked in therapeutic Oprah tones, “Why do you put yourself through it?” In other words, he accepted the ridiculous premise that her negative image is the consequence not of her actions, but of “Unfounded, inaccurate, mean-spirited attacks with no basis in truth, reality,” as she put it. A real journalist would have challenged her by asking about the long catalogue of financial improprieties from the Whitewater scandal to the Clinton Foundation, or the self-serving lies from “landing under sniper fire” in Bosnia to telling the grieving parents of the four Americans murdered in Benghazi that an obscure Internet video was responsible. But skilled courtiers know that royalty can’t stand too much reality.

This year’s Democratic Convention speakers didn’t do much better, when they could be heard above the Berniacs’ booing and jeering. Their catalogue of lies about Hillary’s résumé––her alleged achievements on Middle East peace, “climate change,” getting Iran to negotiate over its nuclear weapons program––smacks of desperation, given how many light-years from the truth they are. The Middle East has descended into a Darwinian jungle in which ISIS, Russia, and Iran are the alpha predators. Even if Anthropogenic Global Warming is true, all the much touted international agreements from Kyoto to Paris have done and will do nothing to cool the planet. As for Iran, it takes remarkable shamelessness to tout this disaster, given the mounting evidence that the world’s worst state sponsor of terrorism has been serially cheating and is likely to obtain nuclear armaments within a couple of decades.

Bill Clinton, the fading Big Dog of the party, gave a tedious convention speech that spent a lot of time trying to “humanize” Hillary by talking about their courtship and marriage and other random acts of compassion and caring. Apart from the preposterous premise that they have had a happy and loving marriage (see Crisis of Character), humanizing Hillary is a fruitless task. She obviously lacks her husband’s political brilliance and powers of empathy. Of course, his empathy is phony, but like Truman Capote’s Holly Golightly, Bill is a real phony. He believes all this crap he believes. Hillary has been in the public eye for 25 years, and in all that time she has consistently appeared mean, entitled, insincere, vindictive, petty, elitist, money-grubbing, and insatiable for power.

Khizr Khan, Servant of the Global Umma ​His son died in service of the U.S. military; now his father is using his memory to advance a different cause. Robert Spencer

The mainstream media is wild with enthusiasm these days over Khizr Khan, the father of a Muslim soldier, Humayun Khan, who was killed fighting in Iraq in 2004. Khizr Khan, brimming with self-righteous anger, spoke at the Democratic National Convention, where he delivered what the Washington Post dubbed a “brutal repudiation of Donald Trump.” Trump responded, elevating Khizr Khan to the status of full-fledged flavor-of-the-moment media celebrity. There’s just one catch: Khizr is using his son’s memory not to advance the cause of the United States, as his son apparently died trying to do, but to advance a quite different cause: that of the global umma.

The well-heeled and powerful backers of the global jihad – those who have enabled the Islamic State (ISIS), al-Qaeda, and other jihad groups to grow as powerful as they have today — are enraged at Donald Trump. They are deeply worried by his call for a temporary moratorium on Muslim immigration into the United States, as that will make it much more difficult for jihadis to get into this country. They are anxious to stigmatize any and all resistance to jihad terror – and so, happily enough for them, is the Democratic Party, which has eagerly signed on to the longtime strategy employed by Islamic supremacist advocacy groups in the U.S., to demonize all effective measures against jihad terror as “bigoted” and “Islamophobic.”

So it was that Khizr Khan, in the full fury of his indignation at the DNC, trotted out a straw man, falsely claiming that Trump wanted to “ban us from this country.” Trump has said nothing about banning Muslim citizens of the U.S. from the country, only about a temporary moratorium on immigration from terror states. Even worse, all the effusive praise being showered on Khizr Khan in the last few days overlooks one central point: he is one man. His family is one family. There are no doubt many others like his, but this fact does not mean that there is no jihad, or that all Muslims in the U.S. are loyal citizens.

Khizr Khan is enraged at Donald Trump, but is Trump really the cause of his problem? Jihad terrorists, not Donald Trump or “Islamophobes,” killed his son in Iraq. And if Donald Trump or anyone else looks upon Muslims in the U.S. military with suspicion, it is with good reason: does any other demographic have as high a rate of treason as Muslims in the U.S. military? In 2003, a convert to Islam, Sgt. Hasan Akbar, murdered two of his commanding officers in Kuwait. In 2009, Major Nidal Malik Hasan murdered 13 Americans at Fort Hood.