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August 2019

The Left vs. the Crazy Left If you’re looking for a moderate president, you won’t find one in the Democratic field. By Kimberley A. Strassel

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-left-vs-the-crazy-left-11564701434

The nation has struggled to categorize the Democratic presidential candidates. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is some days a “populist,” others a “liberal.” Sen. Bernie Sanders is at pains to define “democratic socialism” as apart from plain, old “socialism.” The media describes Sen. Amy Klobuchar as a “centrist” or “moderate,” even as she insists on “proven progressive.”

There’s an easier taxonomy: Lefties vs. Crazy Lefties. That’s the choice Democrats have in the primaries, and the two pools from which Donald Trump’s opponent will come.

This summer’s debates have been primarily useful for highlighting how radically the Democratic Party has shifted. Barack Obama can fairly be described as the most liberal president in American history—from his command-and-control regulatory regime to the Affordable Care Act, from his tax hikes to his activist judges. Yet the entire Democratic primary field is now rebuking his agenda as small and weak, if not proto-Trumpian.

Mr. Obama avoided campaigning in 2008 on a public option, and the White House willingly jettisoned that demand in the final ObamaCare negotiations. He knew that at best it would muster 43 Senate votes, while senators like Joe Lieberman had vowed to filibuster a government “takeover” of health insurance that would balloon the national debt. House Blue Dogs similarly rejected it. Yet all 20 of the candidates on this week’s debate stage backed Medicare for any American, if not all of them.

Mr. Obama touted natural gas as a bridge fuel to a future lower-carbon environment. He kept his economy afloat by winking at the state-led fracking revolution, and since retirement he’s even (misleadingly) bragged that he was responsible for record new U.S. oil production.

President Trump Shatters Left-Wing Myths By Rabbi Aryeh Spero

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/08/president_trump_shatters_leftwing_myths.html

President Trump is boldly providing much-needed relief to the American people. He is untying us from the bands of political correctness that have, in un-American fashion, forced Americans to accept liberal myths and farces.  He is telling it like it is, showing Americans that their freedom of speech cannot be muzzled by liberal censors or taken away by the left-wing speech and thought police.

It’s about time someone, as the President did, stopped all this baloney and labeled Al Sharpton the con-man he has been for decades. In the name of being a “civil rights leader”, Sharpton has gotten away with not paying millions of dollars in owed taxes; fomented rioting against Brooklyn’s religious Jews; led — with self-proclaimed racist Sonny Carson — a boycott of a Korean grocery store, where protesters called the owners “yellow monkeys”; held anti-Semitic, racially-charged rallies that led to the Freddy’s Department Store massacre; and knowingly and purposely destroyed the lives of two white police officers in the Tawana Brawley hoax.  Sharpton has been shoved down our throats as “reverend” while threatening “no justice, no peace.”

Finally, someone has demonstrated a compelling inner sense of truth to portray Sharpton as what he is: a creator of hoaxes and shakedowns, and a serial inciter of violence and racial strife for his own power and self-enrichment.

President Trump is broadening the scope of the Presidency by taking on issues no previous leader was willing to do. First he alerted us to a media no longer impartial but zealously preoccupied by manufacturing fake news in behalf of a radical left-wing agenda. He then exposed us to the dangerous reality of a vast government bureaucracy, akin to a shadow government, operating in behalf of its own interests and concerns and not those of the American people. The Deep State, confidently and without checks and balances, ignores representatives elected by the American people while pursuing a globalist and self-serving agenda.

Right From Wrong: Sex, lies and videotape Ruthie Blum

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Right-From-Wrong-Sex-lies-and-videotape-597452

Nothing better illustrates the perils of prematurely debating a criminal case in the context of social politics than the recent arrest of a bunch of Israeli teenagers in Cyprus.

On Monday evening, after nearly two weeks in police custody, the remaining seven suspects in what was originally believed to be the gang rape of a 19-year-old British tourist in Ayia Napa landed at Ben-Gurion Airport. The other five were released a few days earlier.

Upon their arrival in Israel, the boys – aged 15 to 18 – were greeted by tearful family members and cheering friends.

The kids’ parents, who had believed in their sons’ innocence all along, felt vindicated. For days on end, the Israeli media and punditry had been portraying the teenagers as predators who had preyed upon a young woman whose only mistake was to trust in the three with whom she had consensual physical relations.

Before all the facts of the case were known or revealed, the accused were convicted in the court of public opinion. According to initial reports, the victim recounted meeting two Israelis – one who spoke no English, and the other who served as a translator for their flirtation – and admitted to going to bed with both of them, as a well as with a third friend of theirs. She claimed that things went awry when she set up a date with them one night, and they showed up with a slew of additional guys in tow. It was then, she said, that they all took turns raping her.

HER STORY sounded plausible for a number of reasons.

First of all, she acknowledged having had consensual sex with at least three people whom she barely knew, giving credibility to her claims of subsequent violent gang rape.

Confessions of a Recovering Neoconservative By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2019/07/31/confessions-of-a-recovering-neoconservative/

The realignment of the political Right has prompted a public confessional of sorts, a raw acknowledgement that millions of us were led astray by Republiican leaders we trusted, we voted for, and we defended during times of war. We only have ourselves to blame, of course, because we did it with our eyes wide open. But the Trump era is forcing many Republicans to reexamine what we once believed and reassess what actually is true.

In a fiery speech earlier this month at the National Conservatism conference in Washington, D.C., Fox News host Tucker Carlson talked about purging his “mental attic” to dust off the ideas that he had accepted as legitimate over past few decades.

“The Trump election was so shocking . . . that it did cause some significant percentage of people to say ‘wait a second, if that can happen, what else is true?’” Carlson said. “Just look around . . . who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? A lot of the people we’ve been told are good guys are not. Some of them are the worst guys. I’ll let you figure out who.”

Carlson didn’t need to name names because the conservatives in the room, I assume, envisioned pretty much the same collection of bad guys—and they aren’t on the Left.

For the most part, the list would include Republican villains such as Bill Kristol, Carlson’s former boss at the now-defunct Weekly Standard, and a number of other conservative commentators still clinging to the mantras that afford them their sinecures; Bush family members and certain administration officials; former Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and the late John McCain; former Republican congressional leaders such as ex-Speaker of the House Paul Ryan; and an assortment of well-heeled donors.

Robert Mueller: The Little Man Behind the Curtain Bill Martin

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2019/08/robert-mueller-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain/

Robert Mueller, decorated Vietnam veteran, distinguished lawyer, two-term director of the FBI and, more recently,  Russiagate special counsel, recently testified for some seven hours before two select committees on Capitol Hill. What the world witnessed was sad, pitiful and largely farcical as the vague and mentally adrift champion of those who long hoped he would bring down an elected President saw their ambitions not merely dashed but pulverised. For Mueller it was bad; for Democrats it was much worse.

As soon as Donald Trump announced his presidential aspirations and entered the Republican primaries an almighty deluge of derision and ridicule was unleashed from all quarters. He was known primarily as the brash, domineering central character in the TV program The Apprentice, and less so as a very wealthy, successful property developer. Neither persona would serve to endear him to the masses, the elites of the punditocracy opined,  speaking mostly for themselves as it turned out. All forms of the media were especially savage. They branded him a vulgar buffoon and much worse. Comedians mockingly encouraged him to ‘run, please run, and let us enjoy your humiliation of failing’. By the time he looked like winning the nomination a nascent fear was rippling through the Washington swamp the candidate had pledged to drain. True, Hillary Clinton’s ascension to the Oval Office was accepted by the Left and like-minded as an inevitability, yet the signs were ominous. ‘Regular, everyday Americans’, the trans-Pacific counterparts of John Howard’s battlers, liked much of what he was saying and did not mind the way he was saying it. After he was confirmed as the Republican candidate for the presidency, the camp of Trump’s followers grew rapidly and Clinton’s supporters became concerned that the “unimaginable” might just possibly come to pass. In the top layers of this cabal a  strategy to prevent it or, failing that, to destroy it took root and flourished. The plan’s objective was no less than a fully fledged, bloodless political coup to unseat a duly elected president. Much of the conspiracy is well known already, including the identities of the plotters in the top tiers of the FBI, the CIA, other security organisations, in the Justice and State departments, among prominent politicians of both major parties.

What we do know — and Mueller did not at his marathon testimonies — is that the Clinton campaign paid a British ex-spy to gather (manufacture?) fallacious information from dubious Russian sources about Trump having engaged in salacious conduct involving prostitutes while staying years earlier in a Moscow hotel. This was disseminated throughout Washington and passed to tame reporters, the specific intention being to drive Trump from the office should he be elected. This plot was “the insurance” and involved American and British individuals and, though he laughs it off as a joke, the curious involvement of Alexander Downer.

A Real Feminist: Kurdistan’s President Nechirvan Barzani Empowering women and girls in a region of tyranny, misogyny and gender apartheid. Kawyar Shahed Omer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274473/real-feminist-kurdistans-president-nechirvan-kawyar-shahed-omer

As a citizen of Iraqi Kurdistan, I am greatly pleased that not too long ago, Nechirvan Barzani, a strong feminist and advocate for women’s rights, was sworn in as the Kurdistan Region of Iraq’s President. When he was Kurdistan’s Prime Minister, I had the honor of working in his media office and the office tasked with rescuing kidnapped Yezidis. There, I witnessed how Barzani is one of the greatest advocates for women’s rights in the Middle East region. I saw how he tirelessly worked to save abducted Yezidi women and girls. I witnessed how he passed legislation that is greatly beneficial for women’s rights.   

Under the leadership of Barzani, Kurdistan amended the Iraqi Personal Status Law, which was used as an excuse to justify honor killings. On top of that, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq ratified Article Eight on the Elimination of Domestic Violence, which outlaws all gender-based violence. As a result of these measures, honor killings in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq are considered intentional homicide and due to the changes in the law, the number of honor killings in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq has significantly decreased since the Kurds received autonomy.

In addition, the Kurdish authorities outlawed all forms of forced marriages and female circumcision, restricted polygamy and reformed the inheritance law in order to guarantee a fair share for females. Furthermore, Barzani also succeeded in having the parliament pass a law stressing that a man cannot marry a second wife without the first wife’s permission. The first wife has to come to the court and sign a document stating that she gives her husband permission to take on a second wife. 

‘No Republican Talking Points!’ Is The New Democrat Talking Point Thomas McArdle

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/08/01/no-republican-talking-points-is-the-new-democrat-talking-point/

It was 10:46 p.m. when Joe Biden finished his closing statement Wednesday night. At 10:50 p.m. the former Vice President was at the edge of the stage with his arm around the Rev. Al Sharpton, the professional demagogue who with his hoaxes and hatemongering has stirred up more racial discord in America than anyone.

And Biden is the “centrist” candidate.

Government dependency, the cause of so much misery, is the air that politicians of the left breathe. Ever-increasing government control is their perennial objective, promising it will solve big problems (often of government making). But it never does.

Democrats talk about “endless wars,” but the problems of poverty and crime President Trump showcased in his explosive tweets about Baltimore must never be solved, so that the left’s war against them never ends.

Despite strides against racism and against lack of economic opportunities for the underclass that were unimaginable in the 1960s, the Democrats running for president in 2020 are more intent on expanding government and worming it into Americans’ lives than some of the most power-hungry tyrants of the past, doing so purportedly to combat the phantom of “systemic racism.”

And so, actual solutions must never be given voice. Which is why during the last two nights we witnessed the bizarre new phenomenon of the Democrats again and again accusing each other of borrowing “Republican talking points” — apparently the worst sin that can be committed.

Policing Your Fellow Democrats’ Speech

Kushner, Jordan, & the Saudi Peace (of the grave) Plan: The Gall of the Hashemites by Gerald A. Honigman

Please allow me to begin with excerpts from an article in Israel National News on 7/31/19 about President Trump’s adviser’s current visit to the Middle East…  

“…President Donald Trump’s adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner met with Jordan’s King Abdullah II in Amman on Wednesday for talks on a controversial US plan for Israeli-PA peace. The two discussed ‘efforts to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’…adding Kushner was ‘visiting Jordan on a tour that includes a number of countries in the region’…

Abdullah stressed ‘the need to achieve a just and lasting peace to ensure the establishment of an independent Palestinian state…with east Jerusalem as its capital, living in peace and security alongside Israel’…said any plan should be based on the internationally backed “two-state solution”and in accordance with the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative [italics GAH]. The [Arab] initiative called on Israel to withdraw from all land it liberated in1967, in exchange for normalization between all Arab states and Israel. Kushner was accompanied by Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt…” http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/266764 

Note the part of the statement above in italics where Abdullah states that any agreement must be based on the 2002 Arab peace initiative. 

What he left out is that initiative also calls for Israel to be inundated by millions of allegedly “returning” Arab refugees, raised on decades of murderous hate. Note that more Jews fled “Arab”/Muslim lands than Arabs who fled in the opposite direction due to a war that over half dozen Arab states launched immediately upon Israel’s rebirth in May 1948. To this day, children are taught, by both Hamas and the PA’s Abbas folks, how to murder Jews in their summer camps, schools, television programs, and elsewhere. The Internet has plenty of references regarding this.

United Nations Singles Out Israel for Violating ‘Women’s Rights’ By William Z. Nardi

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/united-nations-singles-out-israel-for-violating-womens-rights/

The United Nations economic and social council recently singled out Israel for violating women’s rights by a vote of 40–2 with nine abstentions and three countries absent.

The resolution criticized Israel for posing a “major obstacle” for Palestinian women “with regard to their advancement, self-reliance, and integration in the development of their society,” UN Watch reported.

The Council then resolved Israel should address these issues by complying with the 1994 agreement signed with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): fully opening Palestinian access to border crossings in the Gaza Strip, as well as restoring and replacing “civilian property, vital infrastructure, agricultural lands and government institutions that have been damaged or destroyed due to its military operations,” according to a UN press release.

Iran, Saudia Arabia, Yemen and Pakistan were among the 54-nation committee which proposed the resolution — all countries that have seen their fair share of criticism for human-rights abuses.

“It amazes me how the U.N. condones votes like these. It is a total mockery of human rights to allow Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, and Yemen to name Israel as the world’s only violator of women’s rights,” wrote Nikki Haley, the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, on Twitter.

Cory Booker Uses the Word ‘Sh**holes’ to Describe Migrant Countries and No One Cares By Megan Fox

https://pjmedia.com/trending/cory-booker-calls-migrant-countries-shholes-and-no-one-cares/

I thought I hallucinated during the interminably long and boring Democrat debate part deux last night and heard Cory Booker proclaim that some home countries of migrants coming to America are “sh**holes.” But it turns out he really said that. When chastising Joe Biden for suggesting we should encourage immigration when those people have something to offer us, Booker said, “That’s playing into what Republicans want — to pit some immigrants against other immigrants. Some are from sh**hole countries and some are from working countries.”

Booker’s camp is claiming he was quoting the president, and maybe so, but it sure seems like he’s accepting the premise that some countries are less than ideal.

And why, if that statement is so offensive, would he continue to repeat it? Maybe he was dunking on the president, but it sounded like he was stating it as fact. If he was joking he needs a better joke writer.