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January 2018

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Democrats Lose Big Time As Shutdown Ends They tried to shoehorn a big immigration amnesty into stopgap funding and paid a heavy price. Matthew Vadum

By on January 23rd, 2018

Democrats’ politically risky scheme to hold U.S. government operations hostage to their demand that young illegal aliens be granted amnesty failed spectacularly yesterday as lawmakers voted to re-open the briefly shuttered government.

Just 69 hours into the shutdown – most of the time passed over the weekend when few Americans even noticed the government was closed – Democrats and other open-borders lawmakers staged a tactical retreat, handing President Trump and anti-amnesty conservatives a clear victory. Democrats no doubt were aware of a Harvard-Harris poll that found 58 percent of voters opposed to the Democrat-led shutdown.

Democrats got essentially nothing in exchange for voting to re-open the government, which made the Republican triumph even sweeter. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made an unenforceable promise to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to bring an immigration bill to the floor – he said merely that it was his intention to do so – if a compromise cannot be made regarding the illegals before government funding runs out again.

“I doubted it was possible, but Dems have actually lost a shutdown fight,” tweeted Fox News commentator Brit Hume. “Schumer has agreed to end the filibuster in exchange for practically nothing. Make no mistake: Schumer & Dems caved. What a political fiasco.”

Republicans are almost never deemed “winners” of shutdown-based confrontations, but major left-wing activist groups almost universally acknowledged this time the GOP outmaneuvered Schumer who still managed to brag he was “confident” he could get 60 votes in the Senate for an amnesty bill.

Charles Chamberlain, executive director of the left-wing group Democracy for America, mocked Democrats for backing down from a fight.

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The Limits of the Resistance Democrats assumed they could pin everything on Trump. By Rich Lowry

By on January 23rd, 2018

Chuck Schumer started a government shutdown he couldn’t finish.

The New York Democrat, among the shrewdest operators in national politics, stumbled badly because he succumbed to the siren song of the anti-Trump resistance. He believed that any charge could be made to stick to President Donald Trump, no matter how implausible, and chose the dictates of an inflamed Democratic base over common sense.

His embarrassing climbdown after a short, mostly weekend shutdown shows the limits of the resistance. Yes, an anti-Trump midterm wave appears to be building, and Democratic activists — marching in the streets by the tens of thousands and badgering Republicans at town-hall meetings — are energized. But this doesn’t mean that Democrats can act with impunity so long as they are fighting under an anti-Trump banner.

Schumer sought to attach an extraneous matter, an amnesty for so-called Dreamers, on a must-pass government-funding bill and, when Democrats inevitably didn’t get what they wanted, blame President Trump for the ensuing government shutdown. This effort depended on gravity-defying spin that proved sustainable for less than three days.

The fact is that the Republican House handily passed a bill to keep the government open, with the support of the Republican president. Almost every Republican in the Senate voted to pass that bill through the upper chamber — where it required a supermajority of 60 and therefore some Democratic votes — while almost every Democrat in the Senate opposed it. Republican leaders said they didn’t want a shutdown and urged Democrats not to force one.

It was always going to be true that people, even reporters, were going to notice all this.

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Prison in France: Terrorism and Islamism by Yves Mamou

By on January 23rd, 2018

Like its police and the firefighters, France’s prison guards say they live in a permanent climate of violence and fear. And their exasperation is growing.

“Before, every morning, I was afraid to discover a guy hanging in his cell. You know what I’m dreading today? To be slaughtered, stripped, put a blade in my back. In the name of Islam and ISIS. Every day, on my way to work, this fear gnaws at my belly.” — ‘Bernard,’ a French prison guard.

“In the old days, aggressive behavior was linked to the difficulties of everyday life. Now hatred and violence are unleashed [by Islamists] against [our] authority, our society and its values.” — Joaquim Pueyo, MP, former director of Fleury-Mérogis prison

Instead of understanding that the famous deradicalization centers have not been useful because deradicalization did not take place, they persist in thinking that the solution to the war is appeasement. Their new experiments all go in the same direction: pursuing the fantasy that “if we are nice with jihadists, they will be nice to us.”

French prison guards are on strike. In a period of less than 10 days, a number of guards in various prisons were attacked and wounded, mainly by Islamists incarcerated for terrorist offenses or petty criminals apparently on their way to becoming radical Islamists. In reaction, the guards have blocked the normal functioning of the majority of prisons.

The wave of attacks began on January 11, 2018. Three guards of Vendin-le-Vieil’s prison, in the north of France, were lightly wounded in a knife attack committed by the Christian Gantzarski, a German convert to Islam who joined Al Qaeda and masterminded the bombing of a synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia, in 2002.

On January 15, 2018, seven guards were attacked and injured by a “radicalized” inmate at Mont-de-Marsan prison, in the south of France.

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The American Stake in the Czech Elections by Jiri Valenta

By on January 23rd, 2018

Jiri Valenta is a nonresident senior fellow at the BESA Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University, Israel and author of “Soviet Intervention in Czechoslovakia, 1968” (Johns Hopkins, 1990).

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11786/czech-elections-us-interests

Czech President Milos Zeman adamantly refuses to obey the European Union immigration quotas, even in the face of EU lawsuits.

As for the widely bruited charge that he is pro-Russian: In 1968, this writer, a former classmate of Zeman’s in the Prague School of Economics, together defended the Prague reforms before hostile academic audiences in Leningrad and Moscow just weeks before the Soviet invasion. Expelled from the Communist Party, for his opposition to the Soviets, Zeman was also thrice in two decades fired from his job. In contrast, his opponent in the run-off, Jiri Drahos, repeatedly traveled to West under the watchful supervision of the Czech secret police.

Zeman’s defeat would deprive Europe of a powerful voice against anti-Semitism and Islamo-fascism. Drahos, an inexperienced leader, is more likely to be malleable to Brussels’s demands on accepting quotas on Muslim immigration. The result of the Czech vote will reverberate through Europe. Consequently, Zeman’s reelection is in America’s national interest.

The significance of an upcoming, run-off, presidential election in Czech Republic is largely underestimated in Washington. But its prevalent view of it as a not too significant event in a small European country is dead wrong.

Contenders include the sitting President, outspoken and politically incorrect Milos Zeman, who garnered 39% of the vote in the first of a two-phase election. His rival is chemist Jiri Drahos, the correct, low key, former president of the Czech Academy of Sciences, who won 27%. A tight race is expected in the January 26-27 vote.

In America, Zeman’s foes are led by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, together with President Barack Obama’s State Department holdovers. They yearn for Zeman’s defeat at they do for the downfall of President Donald Trump, whom Zeman in some ways resembles.

As with Trump, one of key issues is whether Zeman is pro-Russian as maintained by his foes in U.S and Czech media. Yet even more crucial is Zeman’s hard line on Muslim immigration. He adamantly refuses to obey the European Union immigration quotas, even in the face of EU lawsuits.

A bit of Czech history is in order here. Curiously, the Prague events in last century on dates ending in the number 8, have often witnessed developments with major implications. In 1918, the founding of democratic Czechoslovakia by exiled Czech politician Tomas Masaryk intensified the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire. In 1938, British and French appeasement of Adolf Hitler at Munich and the Nazi occupation of the Czech Sudetenland adumbrated the outbreak of World War II a year later. In 1948 a Communist coup in still democratic Prague was a key impetus for the creation of NATO a year later.

In 1968 the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia aimed at quelling the infectious Prague Spring, became in the words of my mentor, Josef Korbel (Madeleine Albright’s father), “the inextinguishable spark” for future democratic revolutions. That happened in 1989 as playwright Vaclav Havel, “an outstanding dissident,” in Zeman’s words, became president of a new, democratic Czech Republic.

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The U.S. and Pakistan: Time for a Divorce? by Lawrence A. Franklin

By on January 23rd, 2018

“The amount of pain that Pakistan has inflicted upon the United States in the last 12 years is unprecedented.” — Amrullah Saleh, Afghanistan’s former spy chief.

Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency continues to sponsor, equip, and train several terrorist organizations that directly target American troops in Afghanistan, as well as regional allies of the United States, such as India. The U.S. could direct the Department of State to place Pakistan on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

It is long past time for the U.S. to choose what type of relationship it wants.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent denunciation of Pakistan’s “lies and deceit” is long overdue. Pakistani Foreign Minister Khawajah Asif’s retort — “We do not have any alliance” with the U.S. — appears to administer the last rites to a relationship long battered by mistrust. Are there, however, sufficient U.S. interests served by maintaining military cooperation with Pakistan, despite the contentious relationship?

Pakistan’s two-faced role in joining the U.S.-led war on terror, while at the same time giving sanctuary and assistance to terrorist groups, was apparent even before the 9/11 attack on America and continues to this day. President Trump’s decision to withhold military aid may cause Pakistani intelligence agencies to be even less cooperative than they were in the past in assisting U.S. forces deployed to Afghanistan. Moreover, Pakistan’s commercial, economic, and investment interests appear now more closely aligned with China.

It is also in America’s interest to end its own double game of attempting to be allied with both India and Pakistan, countries that are mortal enemies; it would be wise to choose India over Pakistan. As the world’s most populous democracy, India shares U.S. liberal democratic values. Its power in Asia is exceeded only by that of China, America’s principal competitor in the Pacific.

The recent liberation by Pakistani troops of an American family — kidnapped five years ago in Afghanistan by Pakistan-based terrorists — should not be seen as a decision to cooperate more fully with the U.S.-led war on Islamic terrorism. U.S. Navy SEALs were ready to liberate the hostages in the event that Pakistan refused to do so. Reports suggest that U.S. intelligence passed to Pakistan the exact location of the hostages, making it difficult for the Pakistanis not to act. Consequently, Pakistan, as an alleged ally of the U.S., had little choice but to assist.

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Illegals in California with Driver’s Licenses Eligible to Vote After April 1 By Peter Barry Chowka

By on January 23rd, 2018

Starting on April 1, 2018, illegal aliens in California who have recently obtained state driver’s licenses legally, or obtained them previously by lying about their immigration status, will automatically be registered to vote. Since January 2015, according to the California DMV, A.B. 60, a law passed by the California Assembly, “allows illegal immigrants to the United States to apply for a California driver’s license with the CA Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV)” [emphasis original]. As of December 2016, more than 800,000 California driver’s licenses were issued to illegal aliens under the A.B. 60 law. Additional thousands of illegals may have been granted licenses prior to 2015 because they lied on their driver’s license application forms and claimed they were in the country legally. (No proof of legal residence has been required by the California DMV in recent years.)

An editorial in the Victorville Daily Press on January 22 summarized the situation:

According to the [s]ecretary of [s]tate’s website, in order to vote in California one must be at least 18 years old, a United States citizen[,] and a resident of California.

But a court settlement Jan. 10 in response to a suit filed by the League of Women Voters [and several other groups including The National Council of La Raza] may have pushed open the door to rampant voter fraud in this state. That’s because under the settlement, starting in April the Department of Motor Vehicles will automatically register to vote all those who renew their driver’s licenses unless they opt out.

California Political Review and Courthouse News first broke the story of illegals being allowed to vote starting this spring on January 18 in an article titled “Alert: Starting April 1 California DMV Will AUTOMATICALLY Register Illegal Aliens to Vote – by COURT ORDER:”

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Claim: Page and Strzok Referenced FBI ‘Secret Society’ that Met the Day After the Election By Debra Heine

By on January 23rd, 2018

There is serious talk on Capitol Hill about the appointment of a second special counsel amid several new bombshell revelations swirling around the Trump/Russia probe. First, there are the allegations of shocking and substantial government surveillance abuses under President Obama outlined in the FISA abuse memo. Secondly, the FBI lost five months of key text messages between the anti-Trump/pro-Clinton FBI officials Peter Strzok and his mistress Lisa Page.

And now there’s talk of a “secret society” of officials within the FBI that apparently met the day after the election of Donald J. Trump to plot against the president-elect.Top Republicans now believe there may be real grounds for a second special counsel, Fox News reported Monday evening.Reps. Devin Nunes (R-CA), Trey Gowdy (R-SC), and Bob Goodlatte (R- VA) met on Saturday to discuss the FISA memo and the text messages. On Monday, the trio put out the following statement:

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Book Excerpt: ‘American Pravda’ By James O’Keefe, Project Veritas

By on January 23rd, 2018

James O’Keefe is one of the most controversial and consequential figures in American media. Using hidden cameras and microphones, he has engineered a series of undercover investigations that have toppled powerful figures, sparked legal reforms – and generated a torrent of criticism: Tough appraisals in the New York Times, Washington Post and elsewhere have portrayed the 33-year-old as an unethical right-wing activist who seeks to legitimize his work by claiming it is journalism.

Now O’Keefe is getting his say in a new book, “American Pravda: My Fight for Truth in the Era of Fake News.” In it he presents himself as a modern-day Mike Wallace and his organization, Project Veritas, as a “60 Minutes” for the digital age. In the following excerpt, he argues that the failings of the mainstream media have made his brand of citizen journalism necessary. And he offers brief sketches of some of Project Veritas’s top exposés, before its most recent: Twitter employees describing the hiding of users’ tweets, based on content, without notifying them.

All Points Books/St. Martin’s Press

Why the Veritas Journalist Exists

The mission of Project Veritas is “to investigate and expose institutional waste, fraud, abuse, and other misconduct in order to create a more ethical and transparent society.” This is not inherently a political mission. If our objective were to advance a political agenda, as journalists on both sides have admitted doing, we would have to reinforce that agenda time after time with editorial content. We don’t. We move on. We do not put words in our subjects’ mouths. We cannot create a reality where there is none. If we have any motivation at all, it is to hold the media and administrative state accountable. Not inherently “right wing” or “left wing,” we work the opportunities the major media choose to ignore.

No ordinary American advocates for general waste, fraud, and abuse. No politician does either. That does not stop the political class from practicing—indeed perfecting—all of the above. So mired are so many lawmakers and administrators in everyday abuses that the Trumpian word “swamp” seems altogether appropriate to describe the contemporary deep state. For many of the swamp dwellers, the Constitution is not a guide but an obstacle. Without the journalist’s external light—and lots of light day after day, night after night—the swamp will not be drained.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Justice May Bust the College Trust The federal government is looking into an ‘ethics code’ designed to shield schools from competition. By Naomi Schaefer Riley

By on January 23rd, 2018

Are colleges colluding? The U.S. Justice Department wrote the National Association for College Admission Counseling Jan. 10 seeking information on its “ethics code.” The department’s aim is to determine whether colleges, through NACAC, may be violating antitrust law by seeking “to restrain trade among colleges and universities in the recruitment of students.”

It’s long been an open secret that American colleges engage in cartel-like behavior. Schools that are supposed to be wholly independent agree on when students can submit applications, when admissions officers must inform them of a decision (including a financial-aid offer), when students must accept or decline the offer, and when to let students off the waiting list. In response to an earlier Justice Department investigation, Ivy League schools in 1991 agreed to stop sharing information about offers of financial aid.

Colleges argue that this cooperation benefits applicants. Its purpose is “to provide access to college in a way that is transparent, is clear and easy to understand, in a way that parents and school counselors can understand how the process works,” Todd Rinehart, a University of Denver administrator who led the committee that rewrote the code last year, told InsideHigherEd.

Perhaps, but the code also serves to ensure that colleges cannot get an “unfair” advantage over one another. What if one school decided to allow applications before the NACAC-decreed Oct. 15 start date? What if it was so impressed by an application it sent an admission offer the following day? The student would save months of work filling out applications and hundreds of dollars on application fees. But the other colleges would be out of luck.

What about the way colleges agree on what it means to apply “early decision”? Students promise they’ll enroll in a school no matter what other offers come in and risk being blacklisted if they back out. Katharine Fretwell, dean of admission and financial aid at Amherst College, told U.S. News in 2016 her school and about 30 other colleges share lists of students admitted through early decision—and of those who subsequently decided not to attend. CONTINUE AT SITE

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Chuck Schumer, Shut Down Democrats running for President vote to keep the government closed.

By on January 23rd, 2018

Over in the department of futile and stupid gestures, the Senate on Monday voted 81-18 to end the government shutdown that Democrats had insisted on late last week. The politics apparently didn’t turn out to be the winner the Democrats anticipated, so they bailed out and called retreat a victory.

The Senate and House passed a resolution to fund the government through Feb. 8. Both parties will continue to negotiate a deal on the status of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the law-abiding young adults who came to the U.S. as children. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would bring some immigration measure to the floor, and Democrats are calling this a shutdown triumph. But the negotiations were already underway, and President Trump has said he wants a deal to legalize the Dreamers. The shutdown needlessly roiled immigration politics.

Some 15 Democrats plus Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) voted to keep the shutdown going. They include several of the multitude of Democratic presidential aspirants in addition to Mr. Sanders : Kamala Harris of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. This crew wants to tout their credentials as fighters for the Dreamers, and they’d rather have a wedge issue than a solution.

Also voting against opening the government were Republicans Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah. This is a reminder that the 51-seat GOP majority is really a 49-seat minority given that those two might stage a protest vote at any moment for no useful purpose.

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