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February 2019

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

L.A. Skyscraper Shown Exploding in New ISIS ‘Promise Fulfilled’ Threat By Bridget Johnson

By on February 16th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/l-a-skyscraper-shown-exploding-in-new-isis-promise-fulfilled-threat/

An ISIS-supporting group posted an image online depicting an explosion at the top of the third-tallest office tower in downtown Los Angeles.

Though ISIS backers operating under a number of media alliances regularly craft and circulate threats and recruitment propaganda in the form of posters and video, Los Angeles is rarely featured as a target. The online jihadists trend toward threatening New York, Washington, Las Vegas, and large European cities.

The new image shows a camouflage-clad jihadist holding an ISIS flag with the evening L.A. skyline in the background and the glow of flames photoshopped coming from the hillside beneath his feet. An explosion is photoshopped onto the top of the Aon Center, the 62-story tower at 707 Wilshire Blvd. in the city’s financial district. The original photo used appears to be from Shutterstock.

The words above the image: “Our promise will soon be fulfilled.”

The city of Los Angeles routinely reminds residents that landmarks and transportation hubs — such as Los Angeles International Airport, targeted in a foiled 2000 al-Qaeda plot — are potential terrorist targets. Terror groups have always routinely complained about products from Hollywood making their way into popular culture in Muslim-majority nations.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Despite Contrary Claims, African-Americans Believe in the American Dream — Even Millennials By Samuel J. Abrams

By on February 16th, 2019

https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2019/02/15/despite_contrary_claims

Is the American Dream attainable for everyone? Conclusions in recent debates in academic and policy circles have been rather pessimistic, and a recent high profile newspaper piece went as far as saying that the American Dream is not for black millennials because so much of it is dependent on owning a house and reaching career milestones. An achievement not really possible for younger blacks in this country according to the author, who based her findings on discussions with a selection of her peers. Her conclusion that the American Dream is unattainable for black millennials Is a most disturbing finding if true.

However, data from a new survey on the American Dream (the American Enterprise Institute’s Social Capital survey) reveal that claims of its demise, especially among black millennials, are overblown.

In the survey, I asked thousands of Americans around the country what factors were essential to the American Dream. While homeownership was important, Americans replied that other factors such as freedom to live as one chooses, and meaningful family relationships were far more important — despite being elements that are not regularly discussed when people think about the American Dream.

The most significant factor in pursuing the Dream according to the survey results is to have the freedom to choose how to live one’s life. This is the case for the population as a whole, of which 86% believes that freedom of choice is essential for the realization of the American Dream. It is also the case for 83% of millennials — those born between 1981 and 1996. Breaking the findings down along racial lines, 86% of whites favor freedom of choice, while other groups are in the high-seventieth percentile range. Additionally, 83% of millennials (79% of black and 80% of white millennials) believe that a good family life is essential to the Dream. These minor percentage differences call into serious question the popular racial disparity stories.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Latest Chapter in Europe’s Electoral Challenges: Spain After three years of shaky, minority governments, Spaniards will vote in an election that could produce a stalemate. A new, hard-right party could play kingmaker.By Giovanni Legorano

By on February 16th, 2019

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called snap general elections for late April, bringing the curtain down early on a short-lived government and pitching Spain into a vote that is likely to produce a fragmented legislature and could showcase the rising strength of a new, hard-right party.
Mr. Sánchez, who heads the only established center-left party running a major European country, invoked snap parliamentary elections for April 28, a year earlier than the current end of the legislature’s scheduled four-year mandate.
The decision followed Mr. Sanchez’s failure Wednesday to secure parliamentary approval of this year’s budget after he lost critical support from Catalan separatist parties.
The April elections, which would mark the third time Spanish voters have gone to the polls in national elections in under four years, could usher in a period of protracted instability, as no obvious parliamentary majority seems set to emerge from the vote. No party enjoys more than about 25% support in current opinion polls.
Indeed, the fragmentation of Spain’s political landscape is such that Vox, a new hard-right party that enjoys about 10% of support in opinion polls, could prove the kingmaker in a new government.
The political situation in Spain reflects a trend across Europe, where legacy parties have faded and new, upstart forces steadily gain strength. The result has been monthslong political haggling in countries such as Germany, Italy and Sweden before governments can be formed. Even then, many administrations are shaky, minority governments that rely on fragile parliamentary coalitions. CONTINUE AT SITE

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Ilhan Omar’s History of America The United States as Cold War villain. By James Freeman

By on February 16th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ilhan-omars-history-of-america-11550259885

Not that it will make Israelis feel any better, but Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) doesn’t seem to like America all that much, either.

Shortly after apologizing for anti-Semitic comments, the House freshman Democrat set about trashing America’s conduct during its successful Cold War against the Soviet empire.

Rep. Omar’s views may not have been entirely clear to Minnesota voters last November. A public broadcasting report shortly before her November election to the U.S. House described her this way:

Omar fled her native Somalia when she was 8 years old and spent four years in a refugee camp in Kenya. She came to the US as a 12-year-old and eventually settled in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis, which has long been a first stop for new arrivals in the US. There, she “fell in love with democracy” and started spending time as a community organizer until she ran for office.

… For Omar, the inspiration to get involved in politics came from her family, who were always talking about politics, world news and democracy over meals.

But in a New York Times report almost two months after last year’s election, her experience in America didn’t exactly sound like a love affair:

Her arrival in this country was the first time, Ms. Omar has said, that she had confronted “my otherness” as both a black person and a Muslim. She became a citizen in 2000, when she was 17. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, she decided to wear the hijab, as an open declaration of her identity. But from “the first day we arrived in America,” she said, she concluded that it was not the golden land that she had heard about.

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