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March 2017

MEDIA Comments turned off

Maddow and MSNBC Make Fools of Themselves on Live TV The MSNBC host’s “breaking story” releasing Trump’s tax return on air breaks apart.Joseph Klein

By on March 16th, 2017

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow went on twitter Tuesday (March 14th) to hype her “breaking story”: “We’ve got Trump tax returns. Tonight, 9pm ET. MSNBC. (Seriously).” This no doubt sent the Left into a state of delirium. Then, Maddow followed up with another tweet, lowering expectations slightly: “What we’ve got is from 2005… the President’s 1040 form… details to come tonight 9PM ET, MSNBC.” That was not quite accurate either. What Maddow finally revealed on her show, after all of her self-promotion, were only two leaked pages from President Trump’s 2005 tax return that she had received from former New York Times reporter David Cay Johnston. Johnston claimed he just happened to receive them in his mailbox. And all that Maddow managed to prove was that President Trump paid $38 million in federal income taxes on reported income of $150 million, at an effective rate of 24.5%, as compared to the Obamas’ payment of federal income taxes on their reported income at an effective tax rate of 18.7% in 2015. In anticipation of Maddow’s attempted “scoop,” the White House scooped her and released information on President Trump’s 2005 taxes before Maddow did.

While Maddow continued to spin her wild conspiracy theories about some nefarious connection between Russia and the Trump campaign or even President Trump himself, the tax documents she released on her show provided no substantiation of her charges.

The whole exercise rivaled the broadcast three decades ago of Geraldo Rivera’s hyped special focusing on the opening of a secret vault in the Lexington Hotel once owned by Al Capone. The vault turned out to be empty except for some dirt and several empty bottles. After the show, Rivera was quoted as saying “Seems like we struck out.”

Maddow also struck out, big time. She received criticism not only from the right, as expected, but also from more liberal circles. For example, a writer for “The Fix,” the liberal politics blog of The Washington Post, called the whole brouhaha over Donald Trump’s 2005 tax return “a total nothingburger.” CNN’s senior media reporter Dylan Byers‏ tweeted: “Disappointment for Democrats. Fodder for Trump supporters. Setback for serious journalists.” Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign press secretary Brian Fallon tweeted: “Dems should return focus to Trumpcare tomorrow & the millions it will leave uninsured, not get distracted by two pages from ’05 tax return.”

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EDUCATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Anti-Semitism Dressed Up As “Education” The pernicious lies of the organization “If Americans Knew.”

By on March 16th, 2017

Founded in 2001 by Alison Weir, If Americans Knew (IAK) describes itself as a “research and information-dissemination institute” that focuses primarily on “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, U.S. foreign policy regarding the Middle East, and media coverage of this issue.” The organization’s mission — rooted in the premise that the U.S. media are largely infected with a pro-Israel bias — is to “inform and educate the American public on issues of major significance that are unreported, underreported, or misreported.”

IAK asserts that because of what it calls the “Israeli military occupation” of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinians in those regions “live in an odd and oppressive limbo” where “they have no nation, no citizenship, and no ultimate power over their own lives.” By IAK’s telling, “Israel is one of the leading violators” of the Geneva Conventions, “a set of principles instituted after World War II to ensure that civilians would ‘never again’ suffer as they had under Nazi occupation.” Lamenting that “Palestinians live, basically, in a prison in which Israel holds the keys,” IAK claims that “Israeli forces regularly confiscate private land; imprison individuals without process — including children — and physically abuse them under incarceration; demolish family homes; bulldoze orchards and crops; place entire towns under curfew; destroy shops and businesses; [and] shoot, maim, and kill civilians.”

Arguing that it is only because of “the money and weaponry provided by the United States” that Israel is able to “impos[e] an ethnically discriminatory nation on land that was previously multicultural,” IAK calls for a complete cessation of all U.S. aid to the Jewish state. “American support of the Israeli government,” the group elaborates, “… places us [the U.S.] at war with populations whose desperate plight we are helping to create and … makes us an accomplice to war crimes and an accessory to oppression.” In addition, IAK charges that U.S. economic assistance to Israel not only “prop[s] up a system of discrimination that is antithetical to American principles of equality and democracy,” but also “interferes with American relations with the oil-producing nations” while siphoning vital tax revenues away from “domestic needs.”

In an effort to shield itself from charges of anti-Semitism, IAK is usually careful not to disparage “the Jews” explicitly; instead it typically refers to subsets of Jews such as “the Zionists,” “the Israel lobby,” or “the neocons” whose “dual loyalties” allegedly undermine America’s national sovereignty.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Geert Wilders and the Real Story of the Election The patriotic revolution continues. Daniel Greenfield

By on March 16th, 2017

The Dutch Labor Party used to dominate Maastricht. The ancient city gave its name to the Maastricht Treaty that created the European Union. In this election, the Labor Party fell from a quarter of the vote to a twentieth.

Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party, which advocates withdrawing from the EU, is now the largest party in the birthplace of the European Union.

And the growing strength of the Freedom Party can be felt not only on the banks of the Maas River, but across the waterways of the Netherlands. A new wind of change has blown off the North Sea and ruffled feathers in Belgisch Park.

In The Hague, where Carnegie’s Peace Palace hosts the World Court while the humbler Noordeinde Palace houses King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima, the internationalist institutions colliding with the nationalist ones, the United Nations rubbing up against the Dutch parliament and Supreme Court, the Freedom Party has become the second largest party despite the 15% Muslim population.

In Rotterdam, where Muslim rioters shouted, “Allahu Akbar” and anti-Semitic slurs and where Hamas front groups are organizing a conference, the Freedom Party is now the second largest political party. In that ancient city on the Rotte that had the first Muslim mayor of a major European city, Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb of the Labor Party who was being groomed for Prime Minister, estimates are that Labor fell from 32 percent to just 6 percent. That is strikingly similar to what took place in Maastricht.

But nearly half of Rotterdam is made up of immigrants. Muslims make up 13% of the population. But turnout hit 72% and after the Muslim riots, the Freedom Party only narrowly trails the ruling VVD.

The Freedom Party has become the largest party in Venlo while the Labor Party has all but vanished.

And that is the real story of the Dutch election.

The truly final results will only be known next week. But the current numbers show that the Freedom Party has become the second largest political party in Parliament having gained five seats while the Labor Party has disastrously lost 29 seats.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Greece: A Democracy in Crisis by Maria Polizoidou

By on March 16th, 2017

The Greek people have just about reached the limits of their strength. The economic situation is tragic. Illegal immigration is out of control, criminality increases day by day. The political system is steeped in corruption and the media have stopped being the communication channel between citizens and the political system. The Greek media are functioning as the praetorian guard of the euro; they favor the massive admission of Muslim populations into Greece and they fiercely attack every voice that disagrees with them.

Bishop Ambrossios is urging people to revolt. He characterizes the illegal Muslim immigrants entering the country as conquerors. He also says that Christianity is under attack in Greece, while Islam is being daily reinforced. He says that Greek Orthodox churches are being desecrated, robbed and burned by Muslim immigrants while the state just sits by and looks on.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras does not fully control his political party; his biggest problem is his cabinet.

When a political system is corrupt, when the media only put out propaganda and not information, when oligarchs control public life, when the political system seems repeatedly directed against the interests of its own people, when a political system ignores the constitution and the will of the majority but draws its legitimacy once every four years through elections, then, although it may be called “democratic”, it is a democracy of junk. It is not the people’s democracy anymore; instead, it belongs to the elites.

If Greeks do not take back their homeland, wrote journalist Makis Andronopoulos on January 3, 2017, the guns may well have the last word. Andronopoulos wrote that he came to this conclusion after polls showed the detachment of the political system from the Greek people and their tragic way of life.

The director of the newspaper Kathimerini, Alexis Papahelas, wrote on January 29, 2017 that the people are exhausted, that democracy still does not have solution to the problems of citizens and that the situation in Greece reminded him of 2012, when the old political system was wiped out.

Bishop Ambrossios is urging people to revolt. He characterizes the illegal Muslim immigrants entering the country, as conquerors. He also says that Christianity is under attack in Greece while Islam is being daily reinforced. He says that Greek Orthodox churches are being desecrated, robbed and burned by Muslim immigrants while the state just sits by and looks.

Members of the governing coalition say that Germany wants to bring down the Greek government and bring the New Democracy party to power. The leader of New Democracy, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, is the most obedient and tenacious follower of the German policy in Greece.

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IMMIGRATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Obama Judge Blocks Trump’s New Travel Order History is repeating itself, unfortunately. Matthew Vadum

By on March 16th, 2017

President Trump’s new, narrowly tailored temporary ban on travel from select countries plagued by Islamic terrorism was put on hold at the eleventh hour yesterday by the latest in a series of soft-headed, left-wing federal judges determined to sabotage presidential efforts to secure the nation’s borders.

Lawyer Justin Cox of the George Soros-funded National Immigration Law Center, hailed the ruling, saying the judge in this case found that “the primary purpose of the executive order is to discriminate against Muslims.”

The temporary travel ban is “a shaming device” and “a dehumanizing device” that “perpetuates this myth, this damaging stereotype of Muslims as terrorists.”

Trump vowed to fight on at a high-energy rally in Nashville, saying the ruling was “terrible” and suggested it was “done by a judge for political reasons.” This was “an unprecedented judicial overreach,” he said, adding he would take the legal case “as far as it needs to go,” including the Supreme Court. “The danger is clear, the law is clear, the need for my executive order is clear.”

Trump critics like Cox deride the new executive order, falsely claiming it is a “Muslim ban,” even though it leaves out the vast majority of Muslim-majority countries on earth. Even if it did single out Muslims, it should still survive constitutional scrutiny, many legal experts say. The Constitution’s prohibition of so-called religious tests doesn’t apply to immigration policy, which is why no one raised a fuss during the Cold War when the U.S. set aside visas specifically for Soviet Jews escaping religious persecution.

And to make all of this even worse, it turns out the lawsuit ruled on yesterday was brought by a foreign-born Muslim cleric with ties to the international terrorist underworld. More on that in a moment.

The legal proceeding arose out of President Trump’s Executive Order 13780 which would have temporarily prevented visas from being issued to individuals from Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Libya, and Syria to provide the government with an opportunity to implement Trump’s “extreme vetting” measures aimed at weeding out visa applicants who pose a threat to U.S. national security. The order was also to suspend refugee processing for 120 days. The new order differs from Trump’s previous, broader directive, Executive Order 13769, also enjoined by the courts, “in that it omitted Iraq from the list of affected countries, did not affect any current visa or green-card holders and spelled out a robust list of people who might be able to apply for exceptions,” according to a Washington Post summary.

To no one’s surprise, the judicial officer usurping the powers of both the executive and legislative branches of the government, Honolulu-based U.S. District Court Judge Derrick Kahala Watson, was appointed to his post by President Obama in 2013. Federal judges in Washington state and Maryland are also expected to rule on EO 13780 soon.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Back to Nuclear Basics: Does Unilateral Restraint Work? by Peter Huessy

By on March 16th, 2017

U.S. Air Force

Nuclear weapons are in the news multiple times each day, with unsettling events in North Korea, China, Iran, and Russia escalating the concern that the United States is entering an era of growing instability and uncertainty.

While there are serious and gathering nuclear threats facing the United States and our allies, there is no need to panic, nor believe that doomsday is just around the corner. However, we do need to get on with the task of modernizing our nuclear deterrent, enhancing our ballistic missile defenses and working effectively to stop the proliferation of such weapons.

This essay addresses the question of how best to maintain nuclear deterrence. Critics of the current US modernization plan urge the US to exercise restraint by curtailing the modernization of significant portions of our nuclear deterrent under the assumption that if the United States unilaterally stops “arms racing,” our adversaries such as Russia and China will as well.

My conclusion is three-fold: (1) recent history shows restraint does not work; (2) nuclear modernization is absolutely required; and (3) a renewed “peace through strength” policy will both reduce nuclear dangers and restore some stability in international affairs.

First, let’s review the facts of the nuclear landscape.

The United States has deployed in its strategic nuclear forces under 1600 nuclear warheads, at least 1000 warheads less than the Russians. [The Russians have to reduce these numbers to the New Start level by February 2018].

Second, the United States has a few hundred tactical or theater nuclear weapons, less than the 2000-5000such weapons held by Russia.

Third, the Russians are on pace to modernize at least 90% of their nuclear deterrent force by the turn of the decade, no later than 2021 it appears. By contrast, the U.S. modernization begins with the deployment of a new bomber, submarine, and land-based missiles no earlier than from mid-2027 through 2031, so U.S. modernization restraint is hardly called for.

Fourth, and just to be clear, current forces are capable but in need of significant investment. Most of the U.S. forces were fielded 30 or more years ago and are at the end of their service lives. They are thus actually way past due for modernization, and that is the only way they can remain credible and capable as the foundation of our deterrent. Four senior Air Force and Navy nuclear commanders underscored this point in House Armed Services Committee testimony on March 8, 2017.

In that context, how should we treat calls for major U.S. restraint in rebuilding our nuclear arms? Perhaps it would be instructive to review the impact of U.S. nuclear unilateral restraint just before and following the 1990 collapse of the Soviet Union.

Now to be clear, the U.S. and the Soviet Union and then Russia jointly agreed to the INF (1987), START I (July 1991) and START II (January 1993) nuclear weapons treaties. However, we significantly invested in a simultaneous modernization of our entire nuclear deterrent during the Reagan administration while also seeking arms control. Peace through strength worked as we secured major reductions in Soviet-era nuclear weapons and the end of the Soviet Union.

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BOOKS, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

NIDRA POLLER’S NEW BOOK: “TROUBLED DAWN OF THE 21st. CENTURY

By on March 16th, 2017

“…a new world order is taking shape before our eyes. Will it be a world faithful to democratic values, and huddled under the umbrella of American military might, or a world delivered up to the logic of blackmail: we can do this to you because you don’t know how much we suffer and you can’t hit back at us because if you do we’ll send the whole world down the tubes.
What is happening to Israelis today will happen to every one of us tomorrow. Troubled Dawn, April 2002

July 2000. The Oslo Process reaches a dead end with the failure of the Camp David talks. What did you know about Islam then? September 28, 2000, Ariel Sharon’s “provocative” visit to the Temple Mount triggers riots in Israel. Two days later, an international blood libel, the “killing” of Mohamed Al Dura, breaks the taboo against genocidal Jew hatred. Did you know the scene was staged? Al Aqsa Intifada! “Suicide bombers” go on a killing spree in Israel. In fact, they were martyrdom operations committed by shahids. The French called them kamikaze.

The floodgates opened, spewing murderous rhetoric and thuggish antisemitic violence worldwide. We were told peace process, national liberation, two-state-solution, and the Palestinian plight. Who knew that 9/11 was on the horizon? Did we understand why Israel and, by extension, the Jews were held responsible for endless atrocities committed against us? Accused of disproportionate force? What did I know about the history of jihad conquest?

American, Jewish, consecrated to the art of the novel, living in Paris since 1972, I found myself in the European heart of that upheaval. I set aside my literary research and focused on the 3-dimensional international novel unfolding before my eyes.

Troubled Dawn is the writer’s notebook I opened at that tipping point in contemporary history, my learning curve, a bildungsroman, a singular account of events as they unfolded. No retrospective reconstitution could ever convey the dramatic suspense of those years.

Perplexed, wounded, horrified by the power of the media and self-appointed experts to hone public opinion into a destructive weapon I forged my own tools to understand and resist those hostile forces. Hundreds of pages of notebook entries published here for the first time, interspersed with my earliest articles, trace my itinerary from an alarmed citizen to an internationally recognized journalist.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A Graceless End to Preet Bharara’s Successful Tenure By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on March 16th, 2017

For much of Preet Bharara’s first year as an assistant United States attorney in the Southern District of New York, your humble correspondent was his supervisor. I have always thought highly of him, personally and professionally, so I’m sorry to see him end a memorable tenure leading our former office with a politicized prima donna schtick.

One of the great things about law enforcement done right is that I didn’t know Preet’s politics back then. The SDNY is headquartered in Manhattan and its prosecutors and alumni tend to come from the nation’s top law schools (Bharara went to Harvard, then Columbia Law). Naturally, they tend to lean left. But political predisposition is irrelevant to a job that is principally about figuring out facts and applying legal principles to them.

It wasn’t until he emerged, in the mid-oughts, as Sen. Chuck Schumer’s chief counsel that I realized Preet was a partisan Democrat. I wasn’t surprised, though, to hear that he was well-liked by peers and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, particularly on the Judiciary Committee. His smarts and competence combine nicely with a winning temperament. I was delighted when President Obama nominated him to return to the SDNY as the boss, and fully expected that he would do a bang-up job, as he did.

Unfortunately, he seems to have forgotten the defining attribute of the great institution that is the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York: The work is bigger than any one person doing it. It is an easy mistake to make: When big cases are successful, the prosecutor in charge gets the plaudits; you must constantly remind yourself that you are being celebrated for the collective effort of scores of people; their dedication is responsible for the glow in which you bask.

In just the last generation, before Preet’s turn came, the SDNY was run by Rudy Giuliani, Mary Jo White, Jim Comey, and Mike Garcia among a handful of other stellar prosecutors who made their distinct mark before taking other lofty posts in public life. In each case, when the boss moved on, a new boss moved in and the work of the office went on seamlessly.

Contrary to the media consternation — which is more about loathing of the incoming president than loving of the outgoing U.S. attorney — the work will go on without Preet, too. All of it, including the political corruption cases. The “Sovereign District” has always prided itself on independence from Main Justice; the party in power in Washington made little or no difference to the day-to-day in Manhattan.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Intel Committee Leaders: ‘No Evidence’ Obama Wiretapped Trump Tower By Bridget Johnson

By on March 16th, 2017

WASHINGTON — The Republican and Democratic leaders of the House Intelligence Committee declared today that they have seen no evidence of Obama administration wiretapping at Trump Tower, while the president retorted that wiretapping was a broad term and “interesting” things related to his tweet would surface within a couple of weeks.

“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” Trump tweeted March 4 while in Mar-a-Lago. “Is it legal for a sitting President to be ‘wire tapping’ a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!”

That sparked congressional review of the claims in committees already probing Russia’s influence campaign during the presidential election.

“We don’t have any evidence that that took place… I don’t believe there was an actual tap of Trump Tower,” Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) told reporters today at a joint press briefing on Capitol Hill with Ranking Member Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).

Nunes, who served on Trump’s transition team, said there remains the possibility of the “incidental collection on Americans who were tied to the Trump campaign” in the course of other investigations, but they’ve yet to substantiate that.

Schiff added, “I’ve seen no evidence that supports the claim that the president made that his predecessor wiretapped he and his associates at Trump Tower — thus far, we have seen no basis for that whatsoever.”

The Justice Department missed this week’s deadline to turn over evidence of wiretapping to the committee; Schiff said the committee extended the deadline until March 20 and stressed that both he and Nunes are willing to use “the compulsory process” if necessary. He added that FBI Director James Comey will be asked in open session if such evidence exists at a March 20 hearing.

“It concerns me that the president would make such an accusation without basis,” Schiff said. “I would think it’s in the public’s interest that this be addressed very openly by the director, and we certainly expect that he will.”

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MEDIA, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Megyn Kelly claims not free to work for NBC under contract with Fox, but Fox News disagrees By Thomas Lifson

By on March 16th, 2017

Has Megyn Kelly morphed from a hot commodity to a hot potato? Something very weird is going on in the TV news business as the onetime mega-star remains under wraps at NBC, even though her former employer says she is free to work for them.

Joe Flint of the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday:

The cable news juggernaut [that would be Fox News –ed.] said in a statement that it released Ms. Kelly from the network on March 9, almost four months before her contract expires on July 1, so she can start working at NBC News. She announced in January that she will be anchoring a daily morning show at NBC along with a Sunday evening program.

Ms. Kelly’s camp contests that. Leslee Dart, Ms. Kelly’s spokeswoman said, “the terms of the termination are still being negotiated.”

Hmm. Now, that is very odd. Somebody is not telling the truth.

Ms. Kelly is reported to be earning in the neighborhood of $15 million a year. That works out to just over $41,000 per day, which is a lot of money to leave on the table every single day if NBC is cutting her paychecks. But for a behemoth like Comcast, that is chump change.

In the TV business, the big event each year is the late springtime “upfront” presentation to advertisers, in which the inventory of advertising space for the coming broadcast year that debuts in the fall is displayed to clients. In the case of NBC-Universal, that inventory would sell for about $6 billion, according to Variety, assuming that the prices hoped for by the network are realized. If advertisers believe that Megyn’s planned programming will be a hit, those prices will be realized. But if her prospects are sinking, they will not bid up prices for ad space in her planned shows.

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