Displaying posts published in

September 2019

Ruthie Blum Trump and Israel: Lasting love, not a broken ‘bromance’ with Bibi The relationship was sparked and continues to be based on shared interests.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/trump-and-israel-lasting-love-not-a-broken-bromance-with-bibi/

(September 24, 2019 / JNS) Approached by reporters on the tarmac of a California airport last Wednesday as the tally from the Sept. 17 Knesset elections was still being calculated, U.S. President Donald Trump measured his words.

When asked whether he had spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—whose political future appeared to be hanging in the balance of what was clearly leading to the current deadlock—Trump replied: “I have not. Those results are coming in, and it’s very close. Do you have any updates? You people [the press] usually should know before the president, right?”

Indicating that he was not surprised by the turn of events, Trump added, “Everybody knew it was going to be very close. We’ll see what happens.”

Grasping the point of the question, which had to do with his much-touted close personal bond with Netanyahu, he concluded by saying, “Look, our relationship is with Israel.”

It was like a shot that could be heard around the world. For days on end, media outlets highlighted this little exchange as evidence that Trump is a fickle fair-weather friend turning his back on an embattled buddy.

Yes, journalists known for their hostility to both leaders gleefully portrayed Netanyahu as a pitiful figure whose campaign posters included a photo of himself with the American president, and described Trump as a man giving his Israeli counterpart the cold shoulder.

The groveling Jewish lefties By Joan Swirsky

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/swirsky/190923

Not long ago, I received a lengthy e-mail – “Why We Must Renew Our Commitment to the Civil Rights Movement” – from a woman named Melanie Roth Gorelick, who identified herself as Senior Vice President of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA).

Honestly, I thought it was one of the preposterous spoofs of that satirical publication, The Onion.

But no… it was the real thing.

In short, Ms. Gorelick recommended that Jews concentrate their attention not on the pandemic of anti-Semitism and violent acts against Jews throughout the world and in the United States of America, but instead on those poor oppressed blacks who have never had it better in the good ole U.S.A., thanks to President Trump!

While Ms. Gorelick briefly mentioned that there is an “increase in anti-Semitism and hate crimes” in America, her entire discourse was devoted to a plea for the Jewish community (2.8 percent of the U.S. population) to turn their impassioned efforts and energies to supporting the cause of blacks in the U.S. (14 percent of the U.S. population), who she claimed still experience grave discrimination.

This in spite of the fact that since President Trump was elected, blacks have never experienced a higher degree of employment, independence, wealth, home ownership, and freedom from discrimination in the history of our country!

A Platform of Urban Decline Democratic presidential candidates believe America is racist, yet they ignore the evidence on crime and ensure that racial disparities persist. Heather Mac Donald

https://www.city-journal.org/democratic-candidates-racism-crime

Democratic accusations that America is endemically racist are becoming ever more frequent and strident. At the last presidential debate, Pete Buttigieg announced that “systemic racism” will “be with us” regardless of who wins the presidency; Beto O’Rourke claimed that racism in America is “foundational” and that people of color were under “mortal threat” from the “white supremacist in the White House”; Julián Castro denounced the growing threat of “white supremacy”; and Cory Booker called for “attacking systemic racism,” especially in the “racially biased” criminal-justice system.

At the same time, the allowable explanations for racial disparities have shrunk to one: that self-same racism. During this month’s debate, Joe Biden tried to suggest that some poor parents could benefit from instruction regarding optimal child-rearing practices: “We [should] bring social workers into homes of parents to help them deal with how to raise their children. It’s not that they don’t want to help, they don’t want — they don’t know quite what to do,” he said. Biden was invoking one of the Obama administration’s key anti-poverty initiatives. Home-visiting programs pair nurses and other social service workers with pregnant women and new mothers to teach them parenting skills. Progressive activists have demanded and won hundreds of millions of federal dollars for such programs, yet pundits have denounced Biden’s “horrifyingly racist answer,” in the words of The Intercept, and called for him to pull out of the presidential primary because of it. Buttigieg sniffed that Biden’s statement was “well-intentioned” but “bad,” since it ignored the fact that “racial inequity” in this country was “put into place on purpose.” 

Newly Released McCabe Memo Describes Rosenstein’s Offer to Wear Wire to Spy on Trump Debra Heine

https://amgreatness.com/2019/09/24/newly-released-mccabe-memo-describes-rosensteins-offer-to-wear-wire-to-spy-on-trump/

Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein proposed wearing a wire into the Oval Office to record conversations with President Trump in the days after the president fired FBI Director James Comey, an explosive two-page memo written by then-Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe claims.

According to McCabe’s notes, Rosenstein said he thought he could get away with wearing a wire because “he was not searched when he entered the White House.”

Justice Department officials have insisted for months that Rosenstein was only joking when he talked about wearing a wire. The DOJ has also pushed back on McCabe’s claim that Rosenstein discussed with Justice Department officials a plan to recruit members of Trump’s Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office.

“The Deputy Attorney General again rejects Mr. McCabe’s recitation of events as inaccurate and factually incorrect,” the DOJ said in a statement back in February.

The fired G-Man’s memo—dated May 16, 2017— was obtained by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch last Friday following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit. It is redacted in a few key sections, and “purports to serve as a contemporaneous recollection” of McCabe’s meeting with Rosenstein, Deputy Assistant AG for Intelligence Tashina Gauhar and Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Jim Crowell in Rosenstein’s Justice Department office on 5/16/2017.

McCabe claims that he began the meeting by telling Rosenstein that he “approved the opening of an investigation of President Donald Trump … to investigate allegations of possible collusion between the president and the Russian Government, possible obstruction of justice related to the firing of FBI Director James Comey, and possible conspiracy to obstruct justice.”

In his memo, McCabe cites the memos Comey wrote detailing his meetings with President Trump, as well as the president’s interview with NBC’s Lester Holt to justify the investigation.  In the May 11, 2017 interview, Trump told Holt that he was preparing to fire Comey regardless of recommendations from then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and then DAG Rosenstein.

President Trump: “We’re Standing Up for Almost 250 Million Christians Around the World” Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2019/09/president-trump-were-standing-almost-250-million-daniel-greenfield/

What if the President of the United States delivered an important speech about religious freedom while the media ignored it? 

That’s of course the reality.

President Trump spoke at a special UN event with a call to protect religious freedom. And he discussed the persecution of Christians and Jews around the world.

The United States is founded on the principle that our rights do not come from government; they come from God.  This immortal truth is proclaimed in our Declaration of Independence and enshrined in the First Amendment to our Constitution’s Bill of Rights.  Our Founders understood that no right is more fundamental to a peaceful, prosperous, and virtuous society than the right to follow one’s religious convictions.

Regrettably, the religious freedom enjoyed by American citizens is rare in the world.  Approximately 80 percent of the world’s population live in countries where religious liberty is threatened, restricted, or even banned.  And when I heard that number, I said, “Please go back and check it because it can’t possibly be correct.”  And, sadly, it was.  Eighty percent.

Tulsi Gabbard Qualifies for October Democratic Debate By Alexandra DeSanctis

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/tulsi-gabbard-qualifies-for-october-democratic-debate/

A Monmouth University poll released today has made Hawaii representative Tulsi Gabbard the twelfth Democrat to qualify for next month’s presidential primary debate, to be hosted in Ohio by CNN and the New York Times.

The Monmouth poll put Gabbard at 2 percent in New Hampshire, one of the states to hold an early Democratic presidential primary next year. In order to qualify for the next debate, candidates must have achieved at least 2 percent support in four qualifying polls, as well as have collected donations from 130,000 people, by no later than October 1.

Gabbard failed to qualify for last month’s debate, although she met the donor threshold, because she did not achieve 2 percent in enough qualifying polls. Her campaign has taken issue with the Democratic National Committee standards, particularly because she obtained 2 percent support in a number of polls that did not count toward debate qualification.

So far, the ten candidates who participated in the debate earlier this month have all qualified for October’s, along with billionaire investor Tom Steyer. It has not yet been announced whether the debate will follow the format of those in June and July, with candidates split up between two nights of debate, or whether all the candidates will share the stage for one evening of debate as they did earlier this month.

Michigan City Clerk Charged with Altering Ballots in 2018 Midterms By Jack Crowe

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/michigan-city-clerk-charged-with-altering-ballots-in-2018-midterms/

Sherikia Hawkins was charged Monday with six felony counts for allegedly altering absentee ballots during the November 2018 election in her capacity as city clerk for the Detroit suburb of Southfield, Mich.

Hawkins, a 38-year-old registered Democrat, stands accused of altering 193 absentee ballots. She was arraigned Monday in Southfield on charges including falsifying returns or records, forgery of a public record, misconduct in office, and multiple counts of using a computer to commit a crime. She was released on $15,000 bond.

The alleged misconduct was discovered after the Oakland County Clerk’s Office noticed that 193 voter files had been changed to reflect that the voters failed to include a valid signature or return date, when all of the implicated voters had in fact included both items. The county clerk’s office later discovered the original voter files in the trash at the election-division office. The Michigan State Police then launched an investigation that resulted in Hawkins’s arrest.

In a statement announcing the charges, Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel and secretary of state Jocelyn Benson, both of whom are Democrats, stressed that Hawkins’s behavior was anomalous and did not affect any election outcomes.

“Voting is fundamental to the very essence of our democracy,” Nessel said during a Monday news conference. “It is incumbent upon state governments to safeguard the electoral process and ensure that every voter’s right to cast a ballot is protected.”

Hawkins, who makes $101,500 per year, has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of her trial.

Like Russian Collusion, Ukraine Hysteria Is Pure Projection By Media And Democrats By Sean Davis

https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/23/like-russian-collusion-ukraine-hysteria-is-pure-projection-by-media-and-democrats/

The only 2016 campaign that colluded with Russia was Hillary Clinton’s, and the only 2020 candidate who bragged about threatening Ukraine to fire a prosecutor investigating corruption is Joe Biden.

If the latest media-manufactured hysteria over President Donald Trump’s interactions with the Ukrainian government looks familiar, it’s because it is. The same tired playbook is being run by the same discredited people with the same goal: get rid of Trump, by any means necessary.

Just as the Clinton campaign, Obama administration holdovers, and complicit media allies peddled lies about Russian collusion while engaging in literal Russian collusion during and after the 2016 presidential campaign, so too did Joseph Biden literally threaten to withhold money from Ukraine if it failed to fire the prosecutor investigating his son’s company.

To hear the media tell it, Trump committed treason. The walls are closing in. The end is nigh. Why? Well, the details there are a little fuzzy, as they always seem to be. Somebody heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend who heard it from another that Trump had threatened Ukraine that it must investigate Hunter Biden, the troubled son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden…or else.

KENNETH BURNS AND COUNTRY MUSIC AND HARD TIMES *****

https://spectator.org/hard-times-u-s-a/

Dwight Yoakam had me in tears Sunday night. I was watching the new Ken Burns PBS documentary series about the history of country music, and Yoakam quoted a Merle Haggard song, “Holding Things Together,” which is about a man trying to raise his children after his wife has left the family. When Yoakam sang the verse about a heartbroken father attempting to comfort his daughter on her birthday, he choked up, and suddenly the tears were streaming from my eyes, too.

They just don’t write ’em like that anymore, not even in Nashville. Those old songs about hard times and broken hearts, crying in your beer over a cheating woman — you can literally feel the pain in the twanging voices and the whining steel guitars. And the men and women who sang those songs knew a thing or two about hard times, having come from backgrounds of poverty that few Americans in the 21st century can imagine.

Give credit to Burns for this: His eight-part series reminds us that what our contemporary progressives denounce as “white privilege” has never been universal in America, and it certainly didn’t typify the backgrounds of the folks who made Nashville famous as “Music City, U.S.A.” Haggard, for example, was born in Kern County, California, in 1937, the youngest of three children in a family that had left a farm in Oklahoma after their barn burned down. The Haggards were “Okies,” characters right out of a Steinbeck novel, at the bottom of the heap in one of the worst economic eras in American history. Merle’s life didn’t get any easier when his father died in 1945. The future country music star was only eight at the time, and after his father’s death he became a juvenile delinquent. He was later sentenced to San Quentin prison, which inspired one of his most famous lyrics:

No, Trump Is Not Facing the Death Penalty over Ukraine By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/no-trump-is-not-facing-the-death-penalty-over-ukraine/

Bill Weld beclowns himself in trying to spread this misinformation.

Bill Weld used to be a serious guy. A scholar graduated from Harvard and Oxford, a man with gravitas in the legal community. Before he began seeking elective office in the late 1980s, Weld was a high-ranking and extremely knowledgeable federal prosecutor. For a time, he was the chief of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division under President Reagan. I have not been a fan of his post-DOJ political career, but I’ve never thought of him as a clown.

Now, he has beclowned himself.

It was a “Hold my beer” moment of one-upmanship on Morning Joe Monday, MSNBC, where the Trump-deranged legions make their 24/7 calls for Trump’s impeachment, is one of few venues where Weld can find an audience for his forlorn GOP-nomination challenge to the president.

Weld was talking about the president’s conversations with his Ukrainian counterpart. Trump has admitted that he urged President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden for corruption. Former vice president Biden, of course, is a favorite to emerge as the Democrats’ 2020 nominee opposing Trump.

For most of us, the potential removal of a president of the United States over misconduct allegations may seem extraordinarily grave, having never happened and rarely been tried lo these 230 years of constitutional governance. For former Governor Weld, though, grounds for Trump’s impeachment are so matter-of-factly to be assumed that he’s moved beyond them. Way beyond them.

Trump, he asserts (and I’m not kidding, though I wish I were), may need to be put to death.

The details of the Trump–Zelensky communications are still emerging. Yet Weld decided he knows enough to pronounce that Trump’s purported “pressuring a foreign country to interfere with and control a U.S. election” is not a matter of merely “undermining democratic institutions.” No, no, “It’s treason pure and simple.” Not content with ludicrous overstatement, Weld took pains to add: “And the penalty for treason under the U.S. Code is death. That’s the only penalty.”