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November 2018

Donald Trump, He Grows on You-John O’Sullivan

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/donald-trump-grows/

Whether Donald Trump is a good and potentially great US president is one of the rare political questions that divide my family. From his early surge in the 2016 Republican primaries, my wife has been a firm supporter of the unorthodox Republican. Call her a Trumpette. I was cautious, sceptical and—while he was fighting Republicans in primaries—opposed to his nomination. When Trump sealed the nomination, my wife became more enthusiastic; I settled down uncomfortably into a Never Hillary posture on the respectable Centre Right. When he won the presidency against the odds, we both felt justified—she on the grounds that a bold new conservatism had been launched, I because a repressive Left party had failed to close the trap on the American people.

My rationale was the simple one that however bad Trump might be (impulsive, vulgar, abusive, seemingly ignorant on public policy …), he was certainly better than Mrs Clinton, who was a national leader of the progressive Left movement that holds sway in the media, universities, foundations like Ford and Rockefeller, labour unions, many corporations, the federal bureaucracy (the “deep state”) and the whole Moving Left show. The behaviour of Clinton, the Democrats, and the activist Left since the election has only confirmed my judgment.

For better or worse, however, we were both in the Trump column. Which is how we found ourselves as guests of a Republican congressman at an off-the-record speech by Trump in Washington to an enthusiastic meeting of Republican congressmen and donors. It was the first time I had sat through an entire Trump speech. It was a revelation, because it was a masterful performance. That was not because of what he said (which I can’t report), however, but because of how he said it.

First Muslim Women in US Congress Misled Voters About Views on Israel by Soeren Kern

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13308/ilhan-omar-rashida-tlaib

“Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.” — Ilhan Omar, in a tweet, November 2012.

“When a politician singles out Jewish allies as ‘evil,’ but ignores every brutal theocratic regime in the area, it’s certainly noteworthy….” — David Harsanyi, New York Post.

“With many Jews expressing distaste for an ‘illiberal’ Israel, it’s little surprise that the bulk of American Jewry isn’t overly bothered about the election of Socialists who are unsympathetic to the Jewish state or consider Zionism to be racist.” — Commentator Jonathan Tobin.

Ilhan Abdullahi Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Harbi Tlaib of Michigan will be the first two Muslim women ever to serve in the US Congress. Most of the media coverage since their election on November 6 has been effusive in praise of their Muslim identity and personal history.

Less known is that both women deceived voters about their positions on Israel. Both women, at some point during their rise in electoral politics, led voters — especially Jewish voters — to believe that they held moderate views on Israel. After being elected, both women reversed their positions and now say they are committed to sanctioning the Jewish state.

America’s first two Muslim congresswomen are now both on record as appearing to oppose Israel’s right to exist. They both support the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. Both are also explicitly or implicitly opposed to continuing military aid to Israel, as well as to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — an outcome that would establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Instead, they favor a one-state solution — an outcome that many analysts believe would, due to demographics over time, replace the Jewish state with a unitary Palestinian state.

Australia waffling on proposal to move its embassy to Jerusalem By Thomas Lifson

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/11/australia_waffling_on_proposal_to_move_its_embassy_to_jerusalem.html

Australia appears to be backing away from a proposal floated last month to move that nation’s embassy to Jerusalem. Why? Pushback from Indonesia, which is negotiating a free trade pact with Australia.

New.com.au reports:

Fairfax Media reported a Morrison Government minister had quietly reassured Indonesian Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita that the proposal – which has become the sticking point holding up a $16.5 billion free trade agreement between the two countries – had a slim chance of going ahead.

Asked today what the chances were the embassy would be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Mr Morrison told reporters in Singapore: “All I have said is that we will consider the matter.”

The Prime Minister has copped a backlash over the idea from Indonesia, Palestine and other predominantly Muslim countries, as well as the federal Opposition, since he floated the idea the week before last month’s crucial Wentworth by-election.

The Guardian reports:

Scott Morrison will attempt to rescue the Australia-Indonesia free trade agreement in his first meeting with Joko Widodo on the sidelines of the Asean summit in Singapore.

Indonesia’s trade minister, Enggartiasto Lukita, has confirmed there will be no deal while Australia considers moving its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

“It can be signed any time but when you will sign it … depends on Australia’s position [on the embassy],” he told Indonesian media in Singapore on Tuesday, according to the Nikkei Asian Review.

Indonesia – the world’s most populous Muslim country and a strong supporter of Palestine – is furious at the potential relocation, which was announced during the Wentworth byelection.

Bolsonaro is right about the Cuban doctors By Silvio Canto, Jr.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/11/bolsonaro_is_right_about_the_cuban_doctors.html

For years, Cuba has sent doctors to Brazil. It started in 2013 under an agreement between the Castro regime and Brazil’s leftist government. The doctors were sent to poor areas. In reality, it was just another source of hard currency for the Cuban government.

Brazil’s President-elect Bolsonaro wants to change the arrangement and Cuba does not like it.

This is his tweet.

This is the news report from The Guardian:

Mr Bolsonaro said Brazil would offer asylum to Cuban doctors who wished to stay in Brazil.

“This is slave labour,” he said. “I couldn’t be an accomplice of that.”

Fight the Denigration of American History By Michael Finch

https://amgreatness.com/2018/11/16/fight-the-denigration

American history is everywhere under attack. The recent skirmishes started with the campaign to remove Confederate statues, but it surely won’t end there. As our betters in America’s universities want us to know, the whole of American history is suspect. In our media, in the popular culture, and in our schools, we’re subject to an unending drumbeat of how America was founded to promote imperialism, colonialism, racism, sexism, and genocide—unimpeachable facts, we’re told, for which all Americans must forever share the burden of collective guilt and shame.

For America to atone for her sins, her history must be denounced and then purged.

This assault on America’s past is hardly news to the Right; the Left has been waging war against American history for well over a half a century. But given this ongoing and unceasing hostility, the response of so many conservatives to recent events is terribly disturbing. While it is perhaps it is to be expected given our predilection to fight amongst ourselves (e.g., the Trump debate on the Right), it is extremely ill-advised and destructive to the things we still share in common.

One thing we should have learned is that the Left never stops; there is no end to their relentless pursuit of destructive hate. There is no room for reasonable adjudication of their claims. We are hopelessly naïve if we believe that once the Robert E. Lee statues come down, the Left will be satisfied. We all know what will follow; indeed it has already started.

The nation was founded, in large part, by slaveholders, from the author of the Declaration of Independence, to the Father of our Country, to the prime author of our Constitution. Jefferson, Washington and Madison were slave owners and the list goes on. They will need to be removed just as swiftly and lustily as the statues of General Lee.

There was a time when conservatives defended the remembrances of our past. What happened? In just the past few years we have watched as conservatives—attempting, one assumes, to act in good faith and build good will—have gone along with (or at least not objected to) utterances such as John C. Calhoun was a precursor to Adolf Hitler and that the removal of statues of Confederate icons such as Robert E. Lee, and certainly Nathan Bedford Forrest, is necessary or at least, understandable. These fought for slavery and against the Union, after all. Beyond Lee and his lieutenants, the other true American hero that has come under attack from so many on the right is Andrew Jackson. Again, we hear the ridiculous comparisons to Hitler and Nazi Germany. This isn’t just sloppy history, it is disgraceful to the memory of the man who, whatever his flaws, did so much to solidify this nation.

The Top Ten University Leaders Who Are Supporters of Terror Aiding the Hamas terror campaign to thrive on campus. Sara Dogan

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271974/top-ten-university-leaders-who-are-supporters-sara-dogan

Editor’s note: In a report released today, the David Horowitz Freedom Center named university leaders from prestigious American campuses including UCLA, Columbia University, Kent State University, Tufts University, and the University of Chicago to the list of the “Top Ten University Leaders Who Are Supporters of Terror.”

These university leaders provide organizational and monetary support to Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a campus organization which functions as an arm of the anti-Israel terror group Hamas and which has repeatedly acted to terrorize Jewish students on campus. They also imbue SJP with a false veneer of legitimacy by permitting it to benefit from its association with the university’s academic prestige. Even when SJP chapters repeatedly violate campus rules prohibiting the disruption of campus events (usually pro-Israel events) or when its members chant genocidal slogans, use hateful slurs, and commit violence against Jewish students on campus, university presidents and administrations repeatedly ignore or forgive these hostile, discriminatory, and unlawful acts.

This report exposes ten presidents and chancellors of prominent American universities who have renounced their duty to protect the welfare of all students on their campus by allowing the hateful, pro-terrorist rhetoric and actions of Students for Justice in Palestine to proceed unchecked.

Read the full report below.

The Top Ten University Leaders Who Are Supporters of Terror

Introduction:

For nearly two decades, the campus organization Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) has established a beachhead of support for anti-Israel terrorists on American campuses, resulting in a dramatic rise in anti-Semitic incidents and the harassment of Jewish students. After many years of denial, the American and Jewish press have finally begun to take notice of this epidemic of hostility towards Jews and supporters of Israel, but the true depravity of SJP still escapes their notice. While most of the press coverage debates whether SJP’s anti-Zionism has crossed the line into anti-Semitism, this discussion misses the larger and far more sinister truth that SJP is not just the leading promoter of Jew hatred on American college campuses, nor does it content itself to spread anti-Semitic lies and propaganda defaming Israel, the only liberal democracy in the Middle East as an “apartheid state”—though assuredly it does these things. The media posturing misses the truth that SJP is a full-fledged arm of the anti-Israel terror group Hamas, which is using American campuses as a launching pad to gain more widespread support for its goal of eliminating the Jewish state.

SJP receives substantial funding and organizational support from Hamas, through a network of Islamic “charities” and front groups. SJP’s propaganda activities are orchestrated and funded by a Hamas front group, American Muslims for Palestine, whose chairman is Hatem Bazian—a cofounder of SJP and a professor at the University of California-Berkeley—and whose principals are former officers of the Holy Land Foundation and other Islamic “charities” previously convicted of funneling money to Hamas. Hamas is a State Department-designated terrorist organization whose explicit goals, as stated in its charter, are the destruction of the Jewish state, and the extermination of its Jews.

In testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Jonathan Schanzer, an expert who previously worked as a terrorism finance analyst for the United States Department of the Treasury, described how Hamas funnels large sums of money and provides material assistance to Students for Justice in Palestine through AMP for the purpose of promoting BDS campaigns and disseminating Hamas propaganda on American campuses.

Schanzer explained, “At its 2014 annual conference, AMP invited participants to ‘come and navigate the fine line between legal activism and material support for terrorism.’” He proceeded to describe AMP as “arguably the most important sponsor and organizer for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which is the most visible arm of the BDS campaign on campuses in the United States.” He revealed that AMP “provides speakers, training, printed materials, a so-called ‘Apartheid Wall,’ and grants to SJP activists” and “even has a campus coordinator on staff whose job is to work directly with SJP and other pro-BDS campus groups across the country.” Furthermore, “according to an email it sent to subscribers, AMP spent $100,000 on campus activities in 2014 alone.”

Democracy Dies in Trivia How the media’s obsession with the superficial threatens our freedom. Bruce Thornton

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271918/democracy-dies-trivia-bruce-thornton

“Democracy Dies in Darkness” is the motto of the post-Trump Washington Post. This pompous and self-congratulatory bit of virtue-signaling is meant to proclaim the essential function the media play in protecting the political order against the supposed threat of tyranny embodied in Donald Trump. The hypocrisy of a media that wear its progressive ideology on its sleeve, and that blatantly skew their coverage of the president at a 90% negative clip, has exposed the motto as mere marketing to the leftist choir.

The truth is, “darkness” is not a problem in the klieg-lit media carnival of 24/7, 365-day on-line commentary, blogs, videos, tweets, cable-news talking heads, and Facebook posts. The problem is the trivial, often childish, usually stupid content of our Madisonian “passions” that we indulge, even as our political dysfunctions relentlessly worsen.

That politics is a form of entertainment has long been obvious since Time-Life Inc. fabricated and marketed the Kennedy clan as a celebrity “Camelot.” Each subsequent decade has seen the worsening of the process whereby images and narratives appealing to the emotions or pleasure have increasingly crowded out verifiable facts and coherent arguments.

Gratifying our feelings rather than our reason was most obvious in the rise of Barack Obama. “The One” succeeded in becoming the most powerful leader on the planet despite being a political tyro with a poorly attended single term in the Senate, a negligently vetted candidate with a Swiss-cheese personal biography and a stable of unsavory associates like “free as a bird” terrorist Bill Ayers and “God-damn America” racist Jeremiah Wright, and a zombie leftist of the sort produced for decades by our decaying universities.

And Obama did so not just because of the duplicitous rhetoric of “unity” and “moderation” typical of all candidates, but because of the racial melodrama of white guilt and redemption promised by his light skin, lack of a “negro accent,” as Joe Biden put it, and photogenic smile and family the media made as ubiquitous as McDonalds. That’s all it took for the worst president since World War II to get elected twice.

Doubling Down on Mueller What will Democrats (and Jeff Flake) do if the probe finds no collusion evidence? By Kimberley A. Strassel

https://www.wsj.com/articles/doubling-down-on-mueller-1542326829

With the midterms over, Washington returns to its regular programming: Russia. Trump critics should consider the risk of betting their political fortunes on special counsel Robert Mueller.

The Mueller probe has lost its political potency, as Democrats acknowledged on the midterm trail. They didn’t win House seats by warning of Russian collusion. They didn’t even talk about it. Most voters don’t care, or don’t care to hear about it. A CNN exit poll found 54% of respondents think the Russia probe is “politically motivated”; a 46% plurality disapprove of Mr. Mueller’s handling of it.

That hasn’t stopped Democrats from fixating on it since the election, in particular when President Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions and named Matthew Whitaker as a temporary replacement. The left now insists the appointment is unconstitutional or that because Mr. Whitaker once voiced skepticism on the Russia-collusion narrative, he is unfit to oversee the Mueller investigation and must recuse himself.

The joke here is that neither Mr. Whitaker nor anybody else is likely to exercise any authority over Mr. Mueller—and more’s the pity. The probe has meandered along for 18 months, notching records for leaks and derivative prosecutions, though all indications are it has accomplished little by way of its initial mandate.

As a practical matter, Mr. Mueller should have been brought to heel some time ago. As a political matter, that won’t happen. The administration has always understood that such a move would provoke bipartisan political blowback, ignite a new “coverup” scandal, and maybe trigger impeachment. It’s even more unlikely officials would risk those consequences now, as Mr. Mueller is said to be wrapping up.

Democrats know this, as does the grandstanding Sen. Jeff Flake. Yet they demand a Whitaker recusal and are again pushing legislation to “protect” the special counsel’s probe. Senate Republicans rightly blocked that bill this week, partly on grounds that it is likely unconstitutional. They also made the obvious point that if Mr. Trump intended to fire Mr. Mueller, he’d have done so months ago and wouldn’t need to ax Mr. Sessions to do it. And while the president tweets ceaseless criticism of the probe, he has never threatened to end it.

Democrats are nonetheless doubling down on the probe for political advantage. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer declared members of his caucus will demand that language making it more difficult to fire Mr. Mueller be included in a spending bill that needs to pass before the end of the current legislative session. Mr. Flake is offering an assist, saying that he will block any judicial nominees in committee until a Mueller protection bill gets a Senate floor vote. Over in the House, incoming Democratic committee chairmen, led by soon-to-be Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, are vowing an investigation blitz focused on collusion with Russia. CONTINUE AT SITE

Trump Supports Changes to Criminal-Justice System Legislation could give judges more discretion in sentencing and reduce mandatory minimum sentences for some drug-related offenses By Vivian Salama and Kristina Peterson

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-to-support-changes-to-criminal-justice-system-1542222870?cx_testId=16&cx_testVariant=cx&cx_artPos=4&cx_tag=contextual&cx_navSource=newsReel#cxrecs_s

WASHINGTON—President Trump endorsed bipartisan criminal-justice overhaul efforts at a White House ceremony on Wednesday, throwing his support behind changes to U.S. sentencing laws that he said also would give federal inmates a second chance when they are released.

“Did I hear the word bipartisan?” he joked during a speech at the White House. “I’m thrilled to announce my support for this bipartisan bill that will make our communities safer and give former inmates a second chance at life after they have served their time—so important.”

A new bill under discussion in the Senate is expected to give judges more discretion in crafting sentences in some cases and could reduce mandatory minimum sentences for some drug-related offenses.

The bill also would seek to reduce some penalties affected by the disparity in crack and cocaine sentencing, which was narrowed in a 2010 law. And it would clarify that the practice of “stacking,” or creating a longer sentence from accumulated charges, was not intended for some first-time offenders.

Among the aims of an overhaul, according to a White House official, is to save money with fewer prisoners and ultimately redirect those funds to help law-enforcement efforts.

In May, the House passed a bill from Reps. Doug Collins (R., Ga.) and Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) that didn’t overhaul sentencing guidelines. That bipartisan bill would allow some inmates to serve out the final stretch of their sentences in halfway houses or in home confinement, and would add new protections for pregnant and postpartum female prisoners, among other provisions.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) had been reluctant to bring the House bill up in the Senate, but on Wednesday signaled he would be willing to consider the emerging compromise coming from the Senate.

Mr. McConnell said GOP leaders would be assessing how much support the new deal has once it has been finalized and weighed against the Senate’s other must-pass legislation remaining this year.

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas is among a group of Republicans who have said they would vote against the bill. A White House official said that they “welcome his feedback, but he’s just one vote.”

The latest effort was spearheaded by Mr. Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has been working with lawmakers on the legislation. CONTINUE AT SITE

The Ungracious Mr. Gillum The Democrat loses the recount for Florida Governor but still won’t concede.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-ungracious-mr-gillum-1542329873

Florida finished its machine recount of close election races on Thursday, and Republican candidate for Governor Ron DeSantis retained his lead outside the 0.25% threshold for a hand recount. That should mean the race is over. Yet Democrat Andrew Gillum refused to concede, in a display of ill-grace that won’t help his political future in Florida.

“A vote denied is justice denied—the State of Florida must count every legally cast vote,” Mr. Gillum said in a statement after the state’s 3 p.m. deadline for counties to finish counting had passed. “As today’s unofficial reports and recent court proceedings make clear, there are tens of thousands of votes that have yet to be counted.”

Mr. Gillum didn’t say it, but he’s counting on judicial intervention from the lawsuits filed by Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson to conjure more ballots from somewhere, anywhere to change the outcome. Mr. Nelson trails Republican Rick Scott by 0.154%, so that race will now proceed to a hand recount. But one of those legal Hail Marys failed Thursday when a judge denied a request to count ballots without matching signatures. Neither Democrat is likely to win, but in the name of “counting every vote” they want to overturn normal vote-counting practice.