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2016

Was Trump’s Would-Be Assassin Inspired by a ‘Climate of Hate’? By Debra Heine

Did the left-wing “climate of hate,” which has been plaguing Donald Trump and his supporters for many months, incite an autistic British man to take extreme measures to “stop” him? If Sarah Palin and the tea party could be blamed for the assassination attempt on Gabrielle Giffords in 2011, then it’s fair to question if Donald Trump’s critics can be blamed for the attempt on his life.

A few days ago, 20-year-old Michael Steven Sandford attempted to kill the Republican presumptive nominee at a rally at the Treasure Island Casino. Sandford tried to take a gun from a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department officer in order to assassinate Trump but failed in his attempt, according to court documents filed in U.S. District Court in Nevada.

The British national, who was living in the United States illegally on an expired visa, now faces up to ten years in prison after apparently making a confession to a Secret Service agent. Media coverage of what should be a major story has been somewhat less than wall-to-wall. Would the media be this curiously disinterested if the assassination attempt had been on Hillary Clinton?

The same could be said if it had happened with Barack Obama in the summer of 2008. Questions would be debated on air for weeks on end about the evil lurking in the hearts of men and why someone would be so desperate to prevent the election of the first black or female president. But when someone plots for more than a year to kill Trump, travels across the country to find an opportunity and then launches his attempt, it creates barely a ripple in the media pond.

Protests at Trump rallies have become increasingly violent in recent weeks, with the media often blaming the GOP candidate himself for inciting the violence. Of course, the only ones to blame for violence at a Trump rally are the people behaving violently. The same could be said for young Mr. Sandford, but since “right-wing rhetoric” and a “climate of hate” were blamed for a lunatic’s misdeeds five and a half years ago, perhaps it is worth examining the possibility that left-wing rhetoric and an anti-Trump “climate of hate” are to blame for the assassination attempt on Trump.

The Primaries Are Over. Why Haven’t the 2016 Oddities Stopped? By Roger Kimball

There’s not a lot that supporters of Donald Trump, supporters of Hillary Clinton, and supporters of a bright future for the United States of America agree about. Following my usual policy of fostering comity and mutual understanding, however, I am happy to have isolated one important bit of common ground that partisans of all stripes can agree on: this has been a very odd campaign season.

While that may not seem like much to work with, recognition of that oddity does contain a potentially fecund seed. Much depends on the exact valence of the relevant tense: it has been a very odd campaign. But does the oddity continue?

There is something about the disposition of most humans that encourages the belief that what is will continue to be. Our lives, we believe, will continue on tomorrow pretty much as they did today and the day before that. This election season was plenty odd — the rise but not (yet) the fall of Donald Trump, the persistence of Bernie Sanders, the steady march forward of the scandal-encumbered wife of Bill Clinton. Amazing, isn’t it?

But every step along the way the larger narrative has operated like a self-sealing fuel tank. No matter how seriously it was punctured, a gelatinous ooze of conventional wisdom was excreted to preserve the story we’d all agreed upon (didn’t we?) before.

No matter how many primaries Bernie Sanders won, no matter what breaches of national security the FBI uncovered, Hillary was the agreed-upon nominee. Nothing was going to change that. Unless, of course, something does.

You’re Not Worried Nearly Enough about China By David P. Goldman

China now has the world’s fastest supercomputer, faster than anything we’ve got by a factor of five. Forget the South China Sea. That’s rope-a-dope, and we’re the dope that’s getting roped. We lost that one. We’re about to lose the next round, too.

China has built the computer with chips that it designed and manufactured in China, after the United States banned Intel from selling its fastest chips to China.

China not only has the world’s fastest individual supercomputer, but it has more total supercomputing capacity than the United States. And its capacity is growing, and getting even faster; China claims it will add a zero to computing speed by 2020, which would make its top-of-the-line box 50 times faster than the Titan supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

This isn’t about virtual reality headsets. Supercomputers are a decisive instrument in economics and war. They break codes (or create hard-to-break codes), for example. They simulate nuclear explosions. They design air frames. They model the molecular properties of new materials. China’s economy, to be sure, is far behind America’s in many key areas–but not in chip-making, or computer architecture. Not any more.

China has surface-to-ship missiles (the DF-21 and its successors) that can sink U.S. carriers. It has satellite-killer missiles that can take out our space-based communications. It has high-speed maneuvering missiles. We know about all this. What should worry us is what we don’t know about yet. China’s super-computing capacity opens up a vast number of possibilities for industrial as well as weapons design. It turbocharges the rate of innovation and drastically reduces developing and testing time and costs. This is an advantage America used to take for granted. We controlled exports of fast computer chips, even the ones embedded in game boxes, because we wanted to maintain our edge. And now it’s gone. Not a single politician to my knowledge has mentioned it.

The EU is a Dictatorship that Britain Should Leave By Anthony Bright-Paul

There can be no ifs and buts about it – the EU is a Dictatorship. How come? How dare I say such a thing? Answer: When the Commission headed by Herr Juncker issues a Regulation it has the force of law for all 28 member States immediately. Let me repeat that one word – immediately.

Nobody has the right to question this Regulation – it is incontestable. It simply arrives from the EU and it is Law! There are no discussions in Parliament, no processes, no debate, absolutely nothing. Once you clearly understand this my friends, and my friends also on the Remain side, I say to you “Think again.”

It is true that both the Lords and the Monarchy are an anachronism, in some ways logically indefensible. So we have a Monarch by whom all laws are promulgated by Royal Assent, but whose Assent is assured. The Monarch actually has almost absolute power, which in practice is never used. The House of Commons is the legislature, where laws are proposed by the majority Party and opposed by the Opposition. The Executive is formed by the leader of the majority Party, who becomes Prime Minister, but still has to report weekly to the Monarch. (Not everybody knows this.)

The Lords were originally landed gentry who had a natural stake in the Kingdom, and the Bishops, both of whom were reckoned to be above being bought and above Party politics, – precisely because they were not elected. Alas too many Prime Ministers have sought to fill the Lords with their cronies. Nevertheless, in spite of the abuses of power, the Lords has proved to be a wonderful brake upon the Commons, and a means of publicising issues to the general public and modifying laws.

The Shrinking of the Liberal Order ‘We want our country back’ is a slogan that holds for Trumpites and Brexiteers. By William A. Galston

Whatever the outcome of the “Brexit” vote—the U.K.’s referendum Thursday on remaining in the European Union—an era of Western history is ending and a new one is struggling to be born. The liberal internationalist project of the past seven decades is on the defensive, while ethno-nationalism (often illiberal) is surging.

The optimistic assumption that history’s arc is linear and progressive is being challenged by the older, darker view that order is locked in a perpetual struggle with chaos, security with danger. If liberal means are no longer adequate to guarantee order and security, say the challengers, they become niceties we can no longer afford.

In the U.S., support for the country’s postwar role as the lead guarantor of peace and the liberal international economic order is weakening. The Republican Party’s presidential nominee has rattled governments around the world with his frontal challenge to America’s military alliances.

Leaders in both parties have rejected the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, despite President Obama’s compelling geopolitical argument that if the U.S. doesn’t write the rules for East Asia in the 21st century, the Chinese will. Long-suppressed ethno-nationalist sentiments within America’s aging, shrinking white majority have found their public voice, blocking long-overdue immigration reform and questioning the loyalty of American Muslims.

In Europe, illiberal majoritarianism is on the rise. Hungary’s Viktor Orban was the earliest example of this trend, which intensified with parliamentary inroads last year by the extreme-right Jobbik party. Many other countries have followed in Hungary’s wake.

Meanwhile, support for the EU, the world’s most conspicuous example of liberal internationalism, is waning. A survey released this month by the Pew Research Center found that the share of French citizens with a favorable view of the EU has declined to 38% from 69% during the past decade, lower than even the U.K.’s 44%. In Germany, the linchpin of the European project, support has declined to 50%, while disapproval has risen to 48%.

There are specific complaints behind these trends. Overwhelming majorities throughout Europe fault the EU’s handling of the refugee crisis and its response to the aftermath of the Great Recession. But the objection goes deeper.

The founding document of what became the EU pledged signatories to “lay the foundation of an ever-closer union among the peoples of Europe.” For decades, leaders believed that the cure for the continent’s ills was “more Europe”—the progressive deepening of economic and political integration. CONTINUE AT SITE

German Court Rejects Erdogan’s Appeal Against Axel Springer Chief Court rules Mathias Döpfner expressed opinion protected by freedom of expression By Ruth Bender See note please

Mathias Döpfner is one of Europe’s staunchest defenders of Israel who describes himself as a “non-Jewish Zionist” In his words:” “Israel and Europe should have an understanding of absolutely common interests in the defense of democracy and the values of the free Western world. Israel is the bridgehead of democracy in the Middle East. So it is in the interests of Europe to support it and to strengthen it. We share the same cultural roots and we share the same security interests and foreign policy interests. Let’s bring it closer together.” rsk

BERLIN—Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s efforts to silence what his lawyers have called libelous mockery of his person in Germany suffered a blow on Tuesday when a court rebuffed a complaint he had filed against a prominent German media executive.

The higher court of Cologne ruled on appeal that Mathias Döpfner, chairman and chief executive of media group Axel Springer SE, expressed an opinion when defending a comedian’s vitriolic text about the president. This opinion, it said, was protected by freedom of expression.

The decision, which confirmed a judgment in first instance, marked a win for critics of the Turkish president and advocates of press freedom, who had accused Mr. Erdogan of seeking to extend a domestic crackdown on critics to other countries.

“The decision shows that the state of law functions in Germany,” said Frank Überall, chairman of the German Federation of Journalists DJV. “Maybe the Turkish president Erdogan will now concentrate again on a factual discourse rather than try and abuse of the German legal system to implement his crude censor fantasies.”

The decision is the latest episode in an unfolding dispute that originated in a poem that comedian Jan Böhmermann aired on a late-night comedy show at the end of March. The lengthy string of crude abuse aimed at the president was meant as an ironic response to Turkey’s prior criticism of another piece of satire and a self-avowed attempt to test the limits of free speech in Germany.

Mr. Döpfner, whose stables of publications include Germany’s mass-market Bild tabloid and the broadsheet Die Welt, had come out in defense of the comedian when it emerged that he was being sued by Mr. Erdogan for insulting the Turkish president. CONTINUE AT SITE

‘Brexit’ Vote Will Change Europe, No Matter the Outcome Britain’s EU referendum calls into question march toward closer ties; resistance over ‘total integration’By Laurence Norman and Stephen Fidler

BRUSSELS—If the U.K. decides in Thursday’s referendum to leave the European Union, it would shake the continent to its political foundations. Even if it stays, the bloc may never be the same.

A decision to leave, which would be a first by a member nation, would deepen the crisis facing a continent already struggling with economic weakness, debt problems, large-scale migration and growing geopolitical instability to its south and east.

At a minimum, politicians and officials say, a British exit would transform the bloc’s balance of power. Negotiations over a new relationship would consume the EU’s energy at a time when European institutions are struggling to respond to the other problems. A U.K. exit also could disrupt financial markets and fire up anti-EU forces in other countries.

Whether or not the U.K. leaves, change is coming. In February, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron struck a deal with the rest of the EU to restrict migrant benefits and detach Britain from the bloc’s push for an “ever closer union.” Mr. Cameron’s effort to claw back power from Brussels, coupled with the referendum at home, is an approach that other European politicians are promising to follow, potentially fragmenting the bloc further.
Known Unknowns of ‘Brexit’

On June 23 the U.K. votes on whether to stay in or leave the European Union. It’s difficult to know exactly what will happen if voters choose leave, but that hasn’t stopped both sides of the debate predicting the future. So, here are three things we definitely don’t know about Brexit. Photo: Getty Images.

The referendum, at a minimum, has delivered a shock to Europe’s political classes, calling into question what some had once regarded as an inevitable march toward a federal EU.

“Obsessed with the idea of instant and total integration, we failed to notice that ordinary people, the citizens of Europe, do not share our Euro-enthusiasm,” European Council President Donald Tusk observed in a speech in late May. “The specter of a breakup is haunting Europe, and a vision of a federation doesn’t seem to me like the best answer to it.”

Some see the U.K. referendum, no matter the outcome, as an opportunity to move toward a new EU treaty with a two-tier structure—core countries that are more integrated and peripheral counties that aren’t. Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is seeking a return to office in next year’s presidential elections, advocates reinforcing the eurozone with a finance minister and a European monetary fund. At the same time, he wants to maintain a broader EU, at 28 nations, which focuses on a few areas such as research, energy and agriculture. CONTINUE AT SITE

Top historians take down Ken Livingstone’s claim that ‘Hitler supported Zionism’ Jenni Frazer

In a lengthy J-TV interview, former London mayor again refuses to apologize for his ‘historical facts,’ which are refuted by leading Holocaust scholars.— The former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, has again refused to apologize for his remarks about Hitler and Zionism, insisting he was “misquoted” after a radio show in the UK in April.

But Livingstone, in an hour-long interview late last week with the Jewish cable channel J-TV, was put on the spot by the interlocutor, historian Dr. Alan Mendoza, who systematically took the Labour politician’s thesis apart, forcing him to admit he had a hazy grasp of facts and that his source, the left-wing journalist Lenni Brenner, had been selective in his interpretation.

In April, Livingstone, a close ally of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and himself a former MP, was suspended from the Labour Party after going on a BBC radio station and declaring that Hitler had supported Zionism. Livingstone was asked on the show to defend the party after a number of Labour members were suspended for social media posts deemed anti-Semitic.

But Livingstone was ultimately suspended himself after declaring, “Let’s remember, when Hitler won his election in 1932, his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism – this before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews.”

The fall-out from Livingstone’s inflammatory remarks led to extraordinary scenes in Westminster as the Labour MP John Mann, who is the chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism, challenged Livingstone outside TV studios and called him “a Nazi apologist.”

Ken Livingstone appears before a parliamentary inquiry into anti-Semitism in London on June 14, 2016 (screen capture: YouTube)

Last week Livingstone was called before the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee to give evidence. Insisting that he had been right and was only re-stating “historical fact,” Livingstone claimed that London Jews were crossing streets to tell him he was correct.

‘If I had said something that was untrue and caused offense, I would have apologized, but what I said was true’

Nonie Darwish Moment: Why Moderate Muslims Can’t Destroy ISIS

This special edition of The Glazov Gang presents The Nonie Darwish Moment with Nonie Darwish, the author of The Devil We Don’t Know.

Nonie focuses on Why Moderate Muslims Can’t Destroy ISIS, explaining how it is connected to why Obama acts like a defense attorney for Islam.

Don’t miss it!

And make sure to watch Nonie discuss: Why is Obama Defending Islam at Any Cost?, revealing the true reason the Radical-in-Chief positions Muslims as victims in every speech on terror:

RACHEL EHRENFELD: EMPEROR OBAMA’S NEW CLOTHES

The unfolding misrepresentations of the Obama Administration’s “deal” with Iran, suggest that either the President or the Iranians or both, have been avid readers of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”

As in Andersen’s tale, the vain American president, Obama (the Emperor,) cares about nothing except for living up to his preordained legacy as Nobel Peace Laureate, wrapping himself in yarns of deceptions as accomplishments.

Although the American public and the world is led to believe that Emperor Obama initiated the rapprochement with Iran, it seems more likely, just as in Andersen story that idea came from the scheming weavers.

The crafty, terrorism trend-setting, Ayatollah Khamenei and his artful team of disinformation weavers, eagerly sought the opportunity to become the regional power and develop their in-house nuclear arsenal, recognized as early as 2007, the unique opportunity offered to them by then Democratic presidential candidate Obama, who declared he wanted “to talk to Iran.”

After decades of terrorist designations and sanctions, the election of Emperor Obama who strived to justify his unwarranted Nobel Peace Prize, and who did not hide his naked ambition to wear his power as no other American leader has done before him, offered the Iranian the perfect punter to their knotty scheme.