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2016

Obama’s Growing Conflict of Interest in the Clinton E-Mail Scandal By Andrew C. McCarthy

The latest revelations regarding Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information are stunning. For example, several of the former secretary of state’s “private” e-mails contain national-defense information so sensitive that it is classified at the highest levels.

Moreover, classified information so pervades the thousands of pages of e-mails communicated through and stored on Mrs. Clinton’s unsecured, homebrew server system that the court-ordered disclosure process has ground to a halt. Remember, Mrs. Clinton reviewed her e-mails before finally surrendering them to the State Department, and she initially insisted there was no classified information in them. Now, it turns out they were so threaded with classified information that the State Department and intelligence agencies have fallen hopelessly behind the court’s disclosure schedule: The task of reviewing the e-mails and redacting the portions whose publication could harm national security has proved much more complicated than anticipated. Thousands of remaining e-mails, and any embarrassing lapses they contain, will be withheld from voters until well into primary season.

So egregious have the scandal’s latest developments been that a critical State Department admission from last week has received almost no coverage: Eighteen e-mails between Mrs. Clinton and President Obama have been identified, and the government is refusing to disclose them.

The administration’s rationale is remarkable: Releasing them, the White House and State Department say, would compromise “the president’s ability to receive unvarnished advice and counsel” from top government officials.

Think about what this means. Not only is it obvious that President Obama knew Mrs. Clinton was conducting government business over her private e-mail account, the exchanges the president engaged in with his secretary of state over this unsecured system clearly involved sensitive issues of policy. Clinton was being asked for “advice and counsel” — not about her recommendations for the best country clubs in Martha’s Vineyard, but about matters that the White House judges too sensitive to reveal.

Advice to Germans on dealing with immigrants harassing their daughters: “Don’t provoke them” Andrew Bolt

In Germany, some extraordinary advice is given to locals on how to live with the 1.1 million illegal immigrants allowed into the country last year:A German town hall meeting turns angry when the local mayor suggests that the easiest way for young girls to avoid Muslim harassment is “don’t provoke them and don’t walk in these areas”:

“It’s technically not necessary for the girls to walk near the refugee shelters, there are alternative routes,” mayor Jens Muller continued, amid rising fury.

More news on the invasion of Europe here.

Two stories from Austria that add up to an underclass and future trouble – and not just in Austria.

Story one:

Compared to the beginning of 2015, the total population has increased by nearly 115,000 people… This increase was most pronounced among Syrians (plus 21,800), Afghans (18,300) and Iraqis (10,000).

Story two:

There has been a further rise in the number of unemployed in Austria, with official figures showing a 3.7 percent increase compared to one year ago… Unemployment among foreigners increased by 17 percent, mainly due to the number of unemployed refugees. 58,000 unemployed foreigners live in Vienna.

“What is it with the Left and Jews? What is it with the Left and pandering to Islamists?”

As the popular Aussie conservative columnist Andrew Bolt writes in his syndicated column today regarding the Australian Labor Party (ALP):

“The modern Left seems to have a Jew problem. The obsession with Jews even within Labor is extraordinary – and ominous.

What is it with the Left and Jews? What is it with the Left and pandering to Islamists?”

Mr Bolt quotes from a sobering piece on the subject by Sharri Markson in The Australian newspaper, showing the Left faction of the ALP is so saturated now in leftist/Islamist bias against Israel as to be aiding and abetting that old demon, slumbering since the Shoah and now belligerently wide awake: Jew-hatred.

Ms Markson wrote, inter alia:

‘…. The NSW ALP international relations policy committee chairman Michael Forshaw told The Australian yesterday that 39 resolutions had been received concerning Israel and Palestine, compared with 17 resolutions dealing with other international issues, such as the Syrian war, the Myanmar junta, Paris terror bombings, China free trade and foreign aid.

There were none on Saudi Arabia or Iran.

There are moves to recognise Palestinian statehood and to boycott products from Israel that originate in settlement areas, and many concerning banning trips to Israel while Benjamin Netan­yahu is Prime Minister. The move by Labor is partly driven by political motivations to secure the vote from Muslim communities in marginal southwest Sydney seats…..’

She cites the main offenders, and their thraldom to the Muslim vote.

She reminds the reader of the ‘incendiary remarks’ (Jewish advocacy groups are “cancerous” and “malicious” and try to “deny, misinform and scaremonger”) made by NSW Labor politician Shaoquett Moselmane, who felt comfortable enough broadcasting … anti-semitic sentiment within the walls of the NSW Parliament’ despite having ‘ ironically decried racism’ in his maiden speech:

‘He was not shouted-out of the high office he holds for racist commentary. On the contrary, Labor continues to support him and Moselmane is now a vocal advocate behind a push to ban Labor MPs from visiting Israel on trips funded by Jewish organisations…

Who Can Believe Mahmoud Abbas? by Bassam Tawil

As Hamas’s power increases, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its security services are gradually losing their control of the West Bank.

Both the Israelis and the Palestinians know that if the PA falls, the best case scenario is that Hamas will take over the West Bank. The worst case scenario is a welcome mat for ISIS.

After Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas threatened yet again that he would end security coordination with Israel, not only has he not ended it, but — luckily for him, as it turned out — it is now stronger than ever. The Israelis, it seems, exposed two separate Hamas networks in the West Bank, both of them planning a mass-casualty attack on Israel and the destruction of the rule of Mahmoud Abbas.

Mahmoud Abbas’s other threat, that he will dissolve the Palestinian Authority (PA), and force Israel to fill the resulting vacuum and incorporate its residents and territories into Israel, also turned out to be cow plop.

Both the Israelis and the Palestinians know that if the Palestinian Authority falls, the best case scenario is that Hamas will take over the West Bank, and the worst case scenario is a welcome mat for ISIS. The West Bank will either turn into an Islamic emirate, like the Gaza Strip, or another ISIS province. In both cases, whatever “achievements” the Palestinian Authority has made will be gone forever. The entire Palestinian national consensus government, including Mahmoud Abbas and his cronies, will be executed before the day is out and all the property they have amassed over the years will be distributed as spoils to the victor.

Mahmoud Abbas is fully aware that the last thing the West wants is yet another Islamic emirate. Many inhabitants of the West Bank are also fearful of falling victim to the Islamic religious fanatics who will set them fourteen hundred years back.

Sheltering ‘Refugees’ Will Cost Germany $55 Billion This Year and Next By Michael van der Galien

Sheltering “refugees” (and invaders) from the Middle East will cost Europe dearly. Not only will the Continent’s beautiful cultures be fundamentally transformed by the newcomers who don’t share our values, they will also cost us tens of billions of dollars.

In Germany alone, the “immigration” crisis will cost German taxpayers $55 billion in the coming two years, the Institute for the German Institute for Economic Research has calculated. According to the institute, total costs for this year will be $25 billion. That’s shocking all right, but it’ll get even worse: Berlin will have to spend as much as $30 billion on the immigrants in 2017.

That’s $55 billion in total and we’re not even taking the years afterwards into consideration.

The most terrifying aspect of this news is that the German government did not take these extra costs into account for its budget. Berlin would have a surplus of $18 billion this year (which would be a one-time godsend), but that surplus will now change into a $7 billion deficit. Add to that the $30 billion refugee costs in 2017, and the Germans have a massive budget gap of $37 billion. The institute projects that Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble will have to take out billions of dollars in loans — loans future generations will have to pay off.

Trump drew record number of new people to vote against him By Ed Straker

Donald Trump bragged about how he was going to bring a record number of voters to the polls. And he did. The only problem is, most of the newcomers came out to vote against him.

In the last presidential primary, there were 120,000 Republican attendees; in this one, there were 180,000, a 50% increase. Whom did all these new people vote for? About a third voted for Donald Trump, but two thirds came out to vote against him, for other candidates. There’s no denying that Trump drove the increase in numbers, but most of the increase was antagonistic, not out of support.

Trump has a record-setting 60% unfavorable rating among all Americans, the highest unfavorable rating of any politician. Many of the people he motivated to go to the polls were not just Republicans, but independents and Democrats who wanted to see him defeated. No other candidate, not even Hillary Clinton, has higher unfavorables than Donald Trump.

This has grave implications if Trump, with plurality of Republican voters, becomes the nominee. He will be so polarizing that he will draw more new people to come out against him than for him, as he did in Iowa. Part of it is his positions on the issues, but a lot of it is his immature and acerbic personality. Calling women bimbos is not presidential. Nor is calling voters stupid or losers, or talking about how he is so great that he could shoot people and not lose support.

Those “yuuuge” crowds that Trump draws at rallies? Most don’t end up voting for him. But his style is clearly energizing people to come out and vote against him.

The Good News in American Higher Education By Bonnie Snyder

There are a number of significant challenges in higher education today, including rising costs, diminishing returns, and the stifling effects of runaway political correctness on academic inquiry. That being said, it’s not all bad news. In fact, there are a number of hopeful, emerging trends that promise to create new and expanded opportunities for students while fostering a healthier campus intellectual climate:

1. Declining Number of Applicants – The number of college applicants peaked in 2009… around the same time the number of jobs for graduates bottomed out. What a disaster! Since then, due to demographic realities, the number of graduating high school seniors has declined and, with it, we have a smaller applicant pool in higher education. It is now becoming a buyer’s market for college applicants, and colleges are struggling to fill their freshman classes. This increases the applicants’ admission chances as well as their negotiating power for financial and merit aid awards.

2. Increasing Number of Jobs for Graduates After the worst job market for young adults since the Great Depression, graduates finally have reason for optimism. Thanks to the aging of the Baby Boomers and their shift into retirement, the labor market is starting to open up for young people. According to The Wall Street Journal, incomes for the newest batch of graduates are now the highest in over a decade, while unemployment rates are falling quickly. Also, the National Association of Colleges and Employers reports that employers plan to hire 11% more college graduates this year than last.

3. Tuition Discounting. After years of runaway tuition price inflation, completely disconnected from the rest of the economy and supported by mushrooming levels of student debt, market forces are finally starting to exert some influence at some schools. Institutions are offering all-time-high tuition discounts to encourage students to enroll and, for the first time in recent memory, we’re starting to see good old-fashioned price competition breaking out among some consumer-minded schools. Now, that’s refreshing!

Private Interests and Public Money By Gideon Isaac

One of the extraordinary developments in the current presidential campaign is that the front runners on both the Democrat and the Republican side are emphasizing their opposition to the “special interests”. Given that the world is rapidly becoming a more dangerous place, and that our unemployment rate (when we include those who have dropped out of the official statistics) is so high, one would expect this issue to be on the back burner.

A central belief of Bernie Sanders, who is running a surprisingly effective campaign, is that our economy is rigged by the wealthy, in such a way that the average person gets short-changed. As Bernie’s website puts it: “We are talking about a rapid movement in this country toward a political system in which a handful of very wealthy people and special interests will determine who gets elected or who does not get elected.”

On the Republican side, Donald Trump claims his political rivals are indebted to special interest groups, whereas he, a billionaire, doesn’t need to take money from anyone.

Hillary Clinton will not be outdone: “We have to end the flood of secret, unaccountable money that is distorting our elections, corrupting our political system, and drowning out the voices of too many everyday Americans.”

The problem with these candidates who promise to fight the special interests is that they are creating more special interests, which will be even more uncontrolled.

Death Toll Climbs From Boko Haram Massacre in Nigeria Residents of northeastern town describe horrors of attack, even as many around the country, inured to frequent terror strikes, focus on economic woes By Gbenga Akingbule

ABUJA, Nigeria—The death toll climbed from Boko Haram’s Saturday night rampage through a refugee camp in northeast Nigeria, as residents buried bodies and terrified survivors ferried wounded to nearby towns for treatment and refuge from another assault.

Government authorities on Monday said the number of dead in the town of Dalori had risen to 65. Another 136 wounded were taken to local hospitals, said Sani Gatti, spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency.

The attack, which targeted those fleeing Boko Haram’s violence, was a gruesome reminder of how indiscriminately violent the Islamist insurgency has become in the two years since vigilantes helped push the jihadists from urban centers like Dalori, a suburb of Maiduguri, the largest city in northeast Nigeria. Witnesses described the militants burning down houses as children screamed inside.

Aisami Modu, a local resident who lost his wife and daughter in the attack, which involved suicide bombers and gunmen on motorcycles, said authorities recovered the remains of his 6-year-old daughter, which he immediately buried in accordance with Islamic rites.

“My daughter was found burned to death today.…I have lost my wife,” Mr. Modu said over the phone from Maiduguri, where he fled with other survivors.

Baba Kaka, a 45-year-old fish trader, escaped to join his wife and two daughters, who were attending a wedding in Maiduguri. “I was just running toward the outskirts of the town while gunshots cracked in the air. Before the military came to our rescue, I thought I would be killed.”

Saudi Court Overturns Death Sentence Against Palestinian Poet Ashraf Fayadh, convicted of apostasy, is sentenced to eight years in prison and 800 lashes instead By Ahmed Al Omran

RIYADH—A Saudi court on Tuesday overturned a death sentence against a Palestinian poet convicted of apostasy and imposed an eight-year prison term and 800 lashes instead.

A court in the southwestern city of Abha also ordered the poet, Ashraf Fayadh, to repent and renounce his poetry on official state media, his lawyer Abdulrahman al-Lahim said.

Mr. Lahim said his client, 35 years old, was innocent of the charges against him and would appeal the latest sentence. He also said he had asked the court to release Mr. Fayadh from jail on bail, pending the outcome of his appeal.

This was the latest Saudi freedom-of-expression case in recent months to be met with a harsh sentence. It has become a flashpoint for criticism from international free-speech and human-rights groups, which have called on the Gulf kingdom to free Mr. Fayadh since his detention in January 2014.