RUTHFULLY YOURS

Tens of thousands of anti-Trump demonstrators (and in some cases rioters) have ‎taken to the streets to protest Donald Trump’s victory last Tuesday. The protesters ‎seem to be a collection of those who supported Bernie Sanders and those who show ‎up for Black Lives Matter demonstrations. If more of these two groups had shown ‎up to vote in a few key states, Hillary Clinton might now be working on the Clinton restoration project at the White House. ‎

While there are still several million mail-in ballots to be counted in California and a ‎few other states, which will certainly add to the popular vote margin for Clinton, ‎the fact is that American presidential elections are decided in the Electoral College, and Trump appears to have won more electoral college ‎votes (306) than any Republican since George H.W. Bush in 1988. In other words, ‎in the arena that mattered, Trump’s victory was decisive. No Republican had won ‎Michigan or Pennsylvania since 1988, or Wisconsin since 1984. ‎

Of course, with Clinton’s majority in the popular vote, some of her supporters ‎are now demanding that the “national will” be honored, and that electors from states backing Trump should vote for Clinton. This, of course, will not happen. So, ‎too, none of the Hollywood personalities who promised to move to Canada if ‎Trump won have yet chartered flights to Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver. ‎One wonders why these people never threaten to move to Mexico.

The Trump victory, accompanied by sweeping Republican victories down-ballot in ‎the Senate and House, state legislatures and governors’ races, provides hope to conservatives and Republicans for a reversal ‎of much of what they believe has been the damage done by the Obama administration ‎in its two terms.‎

One area where the tone of the administration should change immediately is U.S. ‎relations with Israel. On the day after his victory, Trump spoke with Israeli Prime ‎Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and invited him to Washington. Netanyahu seemed pleased that Israel once again would have a friend in ‎the White House. Contrast this with the posture of ‎President Barack Obama, who set the tone on his first day in office by making his first call to a foreign leader to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.‎ Later, Obama helped organize a boycott of Netanyahu’s speech to Congress in ‎‎2015; walked out on him during one meeting in Washington; made sure his State ‎Department offered up strident condemnations either through press secretaries or ‎top administration officials of every bit of news from Israel on any construction ‎project across the Green Line; and blamed Israel for the lack of progress in the ‎peace process.

“Trump’s Victory Challenges the Global Liberal Order”

Headline, “Financial Times”

November 10, 2016

Methinks the FT got it backward. The headline should have read: “Trump’s Victory May Restore the Global Liberal Order.” Because the “global liberal order” has eroded. Slowly, insidiously but certainly, individual liberties have diminished, as the state has assumed increasing responsibilities and as more people have become dependent on it. The inference is that the FT would have been pleased to have seen a continuation of the Obama policies of greater government involvement in the economy, and a concomitant decline in freedom – usurped by regulatory agencies, Executive Orders and political correctness. The headline reflects the failure of elites to understand why they lost. This decline in liberty is sad, for it was in Britain that modern liberalism first appeared – Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill – all men from whose message we have strayed.

While classical liberalism is fundamental to our success as a nation, economies have undergone a seismic shift. Technology, communication and globalization have fundamentally changed the way goods and services are produced, delivered and consumed. For a large number of Americans, certainty has been replaced with uncertainty, optimism by pessimism, hope by fear. Joseph Schumpeter’s “creative destruction” has done enough damage to the economy without making it worse with putative regulations. While progressives concern themselves with issues like protecting students from uncomfortable speech, transgender bathrooms and an elusive and amorphous desire for equality, millions of Americans are focused on surviving. It is not only roofs to protect them and food to sustain them that are needed, it is the sense of dignity and self-sufficiency that comes from work. It is not that the foci of progressives are unimportant, but that their priorities pale in comparison to the more fundamental need of people – jobs.

Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein released the following statement:
It is painful to see Anti-Defamation League (ADL) president Jonathan Greenblatt engaging in character assassination against President-elect Trump’s appointee Stephen Bannon and Mr. Bannon’s company, Breitbart media. ADL/Greenblatt essentially accused Mr. Bannon and his media company of “anti-Semitism” and Israel hatred, when Jonathan Greenblatt/ADL tweeted that Bannon “presided over the premier website of the ‘alt right’ – a loose-knit group of white nationalists and anti-Semites.”
In fact, as pro-Israel writer (and orthodox Jew) Joel B. Pollak wrote, Mr. Bannon is “an American patriot who defends Israel & has deep empathy for the Jewish people.”
ZOA’s own experience and analysis of Breitbart articles confirms Mr. Bannon’s and Breitbart’s friendship and fair-mindedness towards Israel and the Jewish people. To accuse Mr. Bannon and Breitbart of anti-Semitism is Orwellian. In fact, Breitbart bravely fights against anti-Semitism. Here are a few of the many examples:
Stephen Bannon joined ZOA in fighting the anti-Semitic rallies at CUNY by requiring his Breitbart reporters to call CUNY officials and Gov. Cuomo aides urging them to do something about it.
Breitbart courageously publishes articles reporting that the Palestinian Authority defames Israel with blatant falsehoods. On November 13, 2016, Breitbart reported that:

Stephen Bannon joined ZOA in fighting the anti-Semitic rallies at CUNY by requiring his Breitbart reporters to call CUNY officials and Gov. Cuomo aides urging them to do something about it.

“The Palestinian Authority’s official TV network has been airing a video several times a day baselessly accusing Israel of poisoning former PA President Yasser Arafat and further claiming that Israel is targeting current President Mahmoud Abbas next. Arafat died at the age of 75 on November 11, 2004, just outside of Paris. A French forensic team examined his remains and concluded that there were no traces of poison in his body. Nevertheless, every year around the anniversary of his death, the PA disseminates the libel that Israel murdered him.” (Emphasis in original.)
On November 14, 2016 Breitbart reported the human cost and pain to a Jewish student at the New School of finding a swastika scrawled on her dorm room door.
Breitbart bravely publicizes Iran’s violations of the Iran deal – which pose an existential threat to Israel. On November 13, 2016, Breitbart reported that “Despite a finding published by the UN’s atomic energy agency this week that Iran has — for the second time — stockpiled more heavy water than permitted under the terms of the nuclear agreement it reached with six world powers last year, the US State Department is declining to acknowledge this as a violation of the deal.”
Breitbart also sympathetically reports on the scourge of anti-Semitic anti-Israel boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS). On November 2, 2016, Breitbart reported that: “Reports of anti-Semitic incidents on US college campuses have increased, much of it attributed to the rise of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, a new report has found.”
ZOA President Morton Klein stated: “The ZOA welcomes the appointment of Stephen Bannon as chief strategist to the incoming Trump/Pence administration. We wish Mr. Bannon every success in his new position. We urge Jonathan Greenblatt/ADL to withdraw and apologize for their inappropriate character assassination of Mr. Bannon and Breitbart Media.”
Would Trump’s extraordinary pro-Israel advisors such as Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Pence, Sheldon Adelson, and Orthodox Jews Jared Kushner, David Friedman, and Jason Greenblatt ever allow an anti-Semite/Israel-hater to work with them? Would Trump’s Orthodox Jewish daughter Ivanka, whose children go to an Orthodox day school, ever allow an anti-Semite to work with her father? And, remember Donald Trump’s platform on Israel was the strongest pro-Israel platform ever. I’m also forced to ask – why didn’t ADL and other Bannon bashers complain that Hilary’s advisers included some very anti-Israel people starting with major donor to Hillary, the Israel-hating, George Soros? Where were ADL’s complaints then?

Historians will be writing for decades about how Donald Trump improbably became president. Here’s one angle I hope they don’t ignore. Hillary Clinton’s 2008 supporters set in motion Trump’s candidacy when they began spreading rumors that Barack Obama had been born in a foreign country. It wasn’t until 2011 that Donald Trump picked up that bizarre torch and ran with it, only to finally drop it in September when it was clearly a spent flame.

The same mainstream media that slammed Trump for his birther obsession has long failed to properly mention its origins in the “dark ops” wing of the 2008 Hillary campaign. As Britain’s Telegraph reported in 2011: In April 2008, “an anonymous email circulated by supporters of Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama’s main rival for the party’s nomination, thrust a new allegation into the national spotlight — that he had not been born in Hawaii.” The first lawsuit to make birther claims was filed by Phil Berg, a Democratic attorney and a Hillary Clinton supporter.

Hillary herself has dismissed claims that her campaign had anything to do with spreading the birther rumor. She told CNN that the suggestion was “ludicrous,” saying, “I have been blamed for nearly everything, that was a new one to me.” But the Clintons rarely leave fingerprints of their own involvement in skullduggery. Last September, former McClatchy Newspapers Washington bureau chief James Asher revealed the role that Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal played in stirring up the birther scandal. “He strongly urged me to investigate the exact place of President Obama’s birth, which he suggested was in Kenya,” said Asher, who at the time was McClatchy’s investigative editor and in charge of Africa reporting. “We assigned a reporter to go to Kenya, and that reporter determined that the allegation was false.”

Denials of the Clintons’ involvement in the original birther controversy come from the same aides who denied that their candidate had personally approved trolling against the Trump campaign even though an undercover video by James O’Keefe confirmed that. Other O’Keefe videos showed that operatives linked to Hillary’s campaign paid people to disrupt Trump rallies and plan voter-fraud schemes.

None of this excuses Trump’s decision in 2011 to stoke the birther controversy and demand a copy of Obama’s birth certificate. (“But I will tell you this. If he wasn’t born in this country, it’s one of the great scams of all time.”)

Trump’s attacks clearly irked Obama, and in April 2011, Obama released a copy of the long-form version of his Hawaii birth certificate. The annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner was three days later, and Obama knew that Trump would be in attendance as a guest of the Washington Post. Obama made a point of strolling onto the stage to the strains of Rick Derringer’s “Real American” and later “revealing” his “long-form birth video,” which ended up being a clip from The Lion King. Obama then proceeded to fillet Trump like a master sushi chef:

I know that he’s taken some flak lately, but no one is happier — no one is prouder — to put this birth certificate issue to rest, and that’s because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter: Like, Did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?