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Ruth King

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Trump’s ‘Special Prosecutor’ Where do you think he could have come up with that lousy idea?

By on October 10th, 2016

Donald Trump says he wants a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton if he becomes President, and our friends on the left are up in arms. “Banana republic” stuff, they cry. We agree, but where were they when Barack Obama did the same in 2008?

“If I win, I am going to instruct my Attorney General to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation,” Mr. Trump told Mrs. Clinton at Sunday’s debate. This is a mistake on several levels, not least because promising to prosecute political opponents if you win is essentially a promise to politicize the Justice Department. It’s what dictatorships or unhealthy democracies like Argentina do, and it breeds lack of trust and public cynicism. It might cheer Mr. Trump’s supporters, but we doubt it will reassure undecided voters about his presidential temperament.

Then again, where could Mr. Trump have conjured such a bad idea? Well, maybe from a certain Senator who ran for President in 2008 promising an investigation of the Bush Administration’s “torture” of jihadist detainees. Here’s how he put it in April 2008:

“What I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my Attorney General immediately review the information that’s already there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued. I can’t prejudge that because we don’t have access to all the material right now. I think that you are right, if crimes have been committed, they should be investigated.” He went on to say he didn’t want something that would “perceived” as a “partisan witch hunt,” but the signal was clear.

In 2009 Attorney General Eric Holder followed up by appointing John Durham as a special prosecutor to investigate CIA agents and contractors for their interrogations in the war on terror. Mr. Durham also looked into whether agents had illegally destroyed tapes of the interrogations. Mr. Durham never brought charges, but Mr. Obama’s call for a criminal probe was clearly aimed at indulging the left’s Bush hatred.

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FOREIGN POLICY, POLITICS Comments turned off

Hillary’s No-Fly Gaffe and Trump’s Missed Opportunity; David Goldman

By on October 10th, 2016

he most extreme misstatement of the Oct. 9 US presidential debate was Hillary Clinton’s proposal for a no-fly zone in Syria. The Democratic candidate declared, “I, when I was secretary of state, advocated and I advocate today no-fly zones and safe zones. We need some leverage with the Russians, because they are not going to come to the negotiating table for a diplomatic resolution, unless there is some leverage over them.” Neither Donald Trump nor the debate moderators mentioned the obvious: Russian air defense makes a no-fly zone in Syria impractical.

The broader issue–and one that a Republican challenger might well exploit–is that American superiority in air defense systems has eroded under the Obama administration to the point that Russia well might have the ability to down American stealth aircraft. The Pentagon doesn’t know the answer to this question, and, understandably, doesn’t want to find out. The issue is not whether America and Russia might go to war over a downed American aircraft. That is most unlikely. America’s strategic credibility would suffer a catastrophic humiliation if stealth no longer defeated Russian anti-aircraft missiles.

Russia has already installed an S-400 air defense system in Syria, designed to kill combat aircraft, and announced that it will supplement the S-400 with the S-300V system, expanding the range of Russian air defenses in the region to 250 miles. Military Times Oct. 8 quoted Steve Zolaga, a defense analyst with the Teal Group, warning that “The Russians may have felt that they needed a certain package to deal with a full-blown American air campaign. The Russians sometimes come up with these really paranoid scenarios where they see war being imminent everywhere. If you have a paranoid assessment of what the West’s intentions are, then the S-300V makes a certain amount of sense.” Given Clinton’s proposal, Russia’s deployment seems less paranoid then preemptive.

The Obama administration has already distanced itself from Clinton’s no-fly proposal, on the grounds that it would not stop the killing on the ground. But the former Secretary of State’s insistence on the no-fly zone betrays a basic ignorance of the state of American defenses as well as arrogance about the prospective use of American military power.

More pertinent is the simple issue of capability. American defense experts acknowledge that Russia is working on advanced radar that can identity and target low-observation aircraft. National Interest defense editor Dave Majumdar reviewed the issue in an August 2016 survey. Mike Kofman of CNA Corporation opined to NI, “Russia has invested in low-band early warning radars, with some great variants out there, but can it use these to put a good picture together, and process it to develop a track against low-observation aircraft?”

American experts argue that the top-of-the-line Russian systems probably can take down American fourth-generation aircraft (the variants of the F-15, F-16, and F-18) but may not be able to defeat the F-22 Raptor — yet. Pro-Russian outlets like Russia Insider claim that the next generation of Russian air defense, the S-500 system scheduled for 2017 deployment, will “push the F-35 into retirement.”

The issue is not whether Russian radar can track stealth aircraft, but whether it can do so quickly and accurately enough to target missiles. That remains an unanswered question. A senior Defense Department official said on deep background that the Pentagon does not know the answer, and does not wish to find out the hard way.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

The Left condemns the GOP candidate even as it celebrates crudity and sexual exhibitionism throughout the culture.Heather Mac Donald

By on October 10th, 2016

Democrats and their media allies, joined by many Republicans, are calling on Donald Trump to withdraw from the presidential race after a newly released, decade-old tape of a frat-house-level conversation between Trump and television host Billy Bush in 2005, in which Trump boasted of his heavy-handed pursuit of females. Trump describes trying unsuccessfully to seduce a married woman by taking her furniture shopping, speaking in the crudest terms. He brags that because he was a star he could “grab [females] by the pussy” and claims to Bush that he starts kissing beautiful women “like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.” Bush eggs him on: “Whatever you want!” (Bush being a more admiring confidante than Leporello to Don Giovanni).

The response has been swift and apocalyptic. Hillary Clinton tweeted: “This is horrific. We cannot allow this man to become president.” Vice Presidential candidate Tim Kaine told reporters: “It makes me sick to my stomach.” Slate’s science editor wrote that “I feel sicker after seeing it than I can remember feeling in a while.” Another Slate columnist writes that Trump and Bush “can’t see their female colleagues as anything but collections of fuckable or unfuckable body parts. They exhibit a complete disregard for women’s humanity, agency, and internal lives.”

Now why might it be that men regard women as sex objects? Surely the ravenous purchase by females of stiletto heels, push-up bras, butt-hugging mini-skirts, plunging necklines, false eyelashes, hair extensions, breast implants, butt implants, lip implants, and mascara, rouge, and lipstick to the tune of billions a year has nothing to do with it. Females would never ever exploit their sexuality to seek attention from men. Bush and Trump, driving to the set of Days of Our Lives on a studio bus, comment on the legs of actress Arianne Zucker who is coming to meet them: “Oh, nice legs, huh?” Trump says. “Your girl’s hot as shit, in the purple,” Bush says. How surprising that Trump and Bush noticed Zucker’s legs! As documented in the video, she is wearing a skimpy purple dress, with an extremely short hem cut on the bias, a low neckline and fully exposed back. She is in high heels to accentuate her bare legs. The ratio of exposed skin between Zucker, on the one hand, and Trump and Bush, on the other, is perhaps 100 to one. But all that bare flesh must simply be because Zucker has a high metabolism and gets exceedingly warm; she would never want to broadcast her sexuality to men or have men notice her. The fact that she swishes her hips when she walks must just be a quirk of anatomy.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

Trump trounces Clinton at second debate Trump took control.He had facts. He had substance. She had political clichés. by Jack Engelhard

By on October 10th, 2016

“Last night’s debate was a clear triumph for Donald Trump. But to win our hearts and minds, the battle is not between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.The battle is between the shrewd, cunning and deceitful news media and the rest of America.”

Donald Trump came in with a preexisting condition, that of failure to communicate at the first debate against Hillary Clinton.

Last night in St. Louis he was given a second chance to go strong where earlier he had been weak in pointing out Clinton’s flaws, among them her soft approach to Islamic terror. Over the weekend Wikileaks revealed that she favored open trade and open borders.
This was where Trump had his opening to double down on his call to build walls against infiltrators who bring with them Islamic terror along with BDS and anti-Semitism. Within the past 24 hours two Israelis were murdered and more wounded in Jerusalem at the hands of jihadists.

That placed Trump in a perfect spot to further his cause against Radical Islam that affects everyone, everywhere. He took control.

He said, “We have to be able to name the problem – radical Islam. We can’t let people in we know nothing about.”

Clinton said, “I agree we need to take care of who enters this country.” But the rest of what she said amounted to gibberish. Likewise the rest of night.

He had facts. He had substance. She had political clichés.

Trump arrived a wounded man. Caught on tape debasing women (in 2005) in the most vulgar terms, Trump found himself cornered from Clinton and even from members of his own party. Even before the slugfest at this Town Hall setting, some GOP heavyweights demanded he drop out.

Clinton said, “Now we know who we are.”

Trump said, “Mine were words. Not action, like your husband’s.” He accused Bill Clinton of going beyond groping.

Gradually, the forced devil-may-care smile dissolved from Hillary’s face.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Hamas’s Mashaal praises Jerusalem terrorist Hamas leader phones family of Ammunition Hill terrorist, praises him for “defending the Palestinian people”.

By on October 10th, 2016

Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal on Sunday night phoned the family of the terrorist who murdered two Israelis at Ammunition Hill in Jerusalem and praised their son’s actions.

According to Channel 10 News, Mashaal told the family, “I congratulate you. With the attack he defended the Palestinian people.”

Mashaal added, “The Palestinian people are proud of his heroism, he serves as an example to his contemporaries. Hamas will continue the jihad until the liberation of Palestine and the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the defilement of the occupation.”

Throughout the day on Sunday, Arabs in Jerusalem celebrated the attack and the deaths of the two Israelis, Levana Malichi and Yosef Kirma.

In one incident, a 24-year old law student at Hebrew University reported that Jerusalem Arabs at a café had publicly rejoiced over the attack.

Police later made several arrests of Arabs who expressed support for the attack.

Hamas continues to incite to violence against Israelis, and just recently declared that the current wave of terrorist violence, which it refers to as the “Al-Quds Intifada”, will continue until the end of the “Israeli occupation”.

The group has been vigorously involved in inciting terrorism during the current wave of violence, often mimicking Islamic State’s style with propaganda clips staging beheadings and suicide bombings.

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

2 killed, 6 injured in shooting attack in Jerusalem

By on October 10th, 2016

At least two people have been killed and six injured in a drive-by shooting in Jerusalem, Israeli police said. The shooting is preliminarily being considered a terrorist attack, according to a police spokesman.

The incident took place near Israeli police’s National Headquarters located near the Ammunition Hill memorial site, according to Israeli police. A perpetrator was shooting from a car.

BREAKING At least 5 Israelis wounded in drive-by shooting attack in Jerusalem
1 critical terrorist shot & wounded. pic.twitter.com/vJqGYlHHSA

The attacker escaped and headed to the tomb of the Hebrew prophet Samuel, 1.3 kilometers north of Jerusalem’s Ramot neighborhood.Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said that the attacker has been identified as a 39-year-old man from the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan.

The injured victims were taken to Hadassah Hospital Mt. Scopus, the hospital said, as cited by the Times of Israel.

The attacker was due to start a four-month jail sentence next week for assaulting a police officer, a spokeswoman for Israel’s Prisons Service said, as cited by Reuters.

Hamas has claimed responsibility for the attack. According to the organization’s spokesman, the attack was “a natural reaction” to the occupation “against our people.”

At least 218 Palestinians have died in attacks in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip since 2015. Israeli authorities claim 147 of those were assailants, while the others were killed during protests or clashes.

Palestinians have killed least 33 Israelis and two visiting Americans, estimates from Reuters show.

However, Palestinians have accused Israel of constantly using excessive force, claiming that some of those killed had no intention of attacking and posed no threat. In some cases, Israel has opened investigations into whether excessive force was used.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Guess Who Is Helping Islamists to Oppress Women? by Thomas Quiggin

By on October 10th, 2016

Why Canada’s Minister of Immigration should be accepting an award from an individual whose own organization (ICNA) openly advocates violence against women is not clear. Minister Hajdu, despite her role as Minister for the Status of Women in Canada, has remained silent on this issue despite being made aware of it directly.

Not only did the child services department do nothing to help the 1400 girls being raped and forced into prostitution, in fact she (and others) went out of their way to silence anyone who tried to speak out. Rather than face the fact that a problem of mass rape existed, Joyce Thacker played a role in the cover-up.

Canada’s Prime Minister Trudeau has declared himself to be a “feminist” and says he is committed to increasing the role of women in society. However, he recently visited a gender-segregated mosque in Ottawa, the imam of which is part of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), placed on a list of designated terrorist organizations by the United Arab Emirates in 2014.

Ironically, the City of Ottawa has other mosques which are modern and humanist, but the Prime Minister has never chosen to visit one of them.

Advocating violence against women and other misogynist practices are increasingly being accepted by individuals who identify themselves as “feminists” and “female leaders.”

The process of normalizing Islamist misogyny is well underway while so-called feminists remain silent on issues such as wife beating, child marriages, female genital mutilation and “forced suicides.”

For current feminists, it appears as though political correctness and fantasizing that they are “social justice warriors” outweighs the rights of women, especially brown women.

When it comes to the issue of opposing violence against women, feminists are as silent as beaten wives. Nothing – including the advocacy of wife beating, pedophiliac sex acts with nine-year-old girls and the generalized oppression of women – can draw feminists into the debate on the role of women under the Islamist ideology that is prevalent in Canada and the USA.

Premier Katherine Wynne of Ontario (population 13.6 million) recently visited the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), along with Education Minister Mitzie Hunter. They met on August 26, 2016 with female members of the Islamic Circle North America Sisters (ICNA Canada) in Scarborough. The ICNA directly advocates misogynist positions such as wife beating, the taking of slave girls and the position that women are, overall, inferior to men. ICNA also notes that Islamic women have been “emancipated” from the obligation of earning their own livelihood. Therefore, women can be kept at home and cannot leave the house without the permission of the husband.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Right to Mock by Douglas Murray

By on October 10th, 2016

Mohammed Shafiq was quoted in the Sun saying of Smith: “I think he should apologise immediately. Our faith is not to be mocked, our faith is to be celebrated and I think people will be offended.”

Shafiq does not explain why his faith should not be mocked. Nor does he seem to know anything about the right of free people in free countries to do or say whatever we like about Islam or any other faith whenever we feel like it.

There is nothing special about Islam that means it cannot be mocked. In fact, it would be a very good thing (both for Muslims and everyone else) if it were mocked rather more.

But there in that sentence is the implicit threat again. All insist that their faith “should not be mocked.” And for those who say they are moderates, and are presented as such by the press, it seems to be exceptionally useful that they do not have to be much more explicit than this.

But in this not-so-subtle intimidation do we not see precisely that thing which most worries the public? That despite what our politicians say, the allegedly vast chasm that separates the extremists from the “moderates” seems at times to be almost paper-thin.

If there is one question that most concerns the public around the question of radical Islam it is “What is the connection between the extremists and the moderates?” Leading politicians across the Western world have not been much help in answering this question, insisting as they do, that radical Islam has nothing to do with Islam and that the extremists are as far away from the moderates as it is possible to be. Yet the public senses that this is not the case.

Despite the amazing lack of public debate about the actual contours of the discussion, the public knows that something is not right about the analysis provided by Liberal politicians and others. Indeed, the public notices not only that there is some connection between the two (something Democrats in the U.S., among others, deny) but that the connection may be closer than anyone would like. A fine example of this was thrown up in the UK this week in the space of just 24 hours.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

MY SAY: THE DEBATE

By on October 10th, 2016

Hillary is slick and has been peddling her lies for twenty years. Trump is no great debater but he really took the upper hand last night. A most intriguing example is how both handled a question from a young Moslem woman in secular dress: ” How would you deal with Islamophobia?”

Mrs Clinton went into full pander mode almost like saying “some of my best friends are “Mooslim” as she pronounced it to give her response more pander power. In fact, her best friend Huma is Moslem, but her response was blather and can’t we all get along and more snide references to Trump’s “bigotry” against everyone and everything.

Trump, on the other hand, challenged the question by asking why American Moslems are not more forthright in denouncing terrorism and cooperating with law enforcement in reporting suspicious activities. Further along in the questions he was challenged on restricting immigration from Arab/Moslem nations.

Again, he would not pander, demanding the strictest vetting and warning that open and poorly guarded porous borders permit criminals and jihadists to come into our nation and wreak havoc. He called it a “Trojan Horse” and chided Clinton for skirting the facts and the terminology and avoiding naming the enemy.

Considering the biased interference of the harridan Martha Raddatz he did very well. A focus group of undecideds questioned by Frank Luntz on Fox news revealed that some leaned to Hillary and others to Trump when the debate started, but the majority raised their hands when asked if Trump had won their vote. Stay tuned…..rsk

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

Can We Please Focus on What Clinton or Trump Would DO as President? Voting against Trump to protest his raunchy mouth will not shield America against jihadists, defund sanctuary cities, or save the Hyde amendment. By Deroy Murdock

By on October 10th, 2016

How many of this presidential campaign’s closing days will Americans spend pondering things said and done ages ago? Before November 8, will we imagine the future or solely inspect the past?

Americans lately have been divided and tense over things that happened more than a decade in the rear-view mirror:

2005 (Donald J. Trump’s crude and degrading X-rated remarks from eleven years ago have dominated the news since Friday afternoon.)

1998 (The Monica Lewinsky affair, Bill Clinton’s subsequent impeachment, and Hillary Clinton’s efforts to denigrate Lewinsky as the fiasco unfolded.)

1996 (Trump’s comments about former Miss Universe Alicia Machado and her fluctuating weight.)

1995 (Illegally leaked excerpts from Trump’s tax return.)

1978 (Bill Clinton’s alleged rape of Arkansas public servant Juanita Broaddrick and Hillary’s allegedly pressuring her into silence. “How many times must it be said? Actions speak louder than words,” Broaddrick responded to Trump’s lewd conversation with Billy Bush, then with Access Hollywood. She continued Friday night via Twitter: “DT said bad things! HRC threatened me after BC raped me.”)

1975 (Hillary Clinton defended Thomas Alfred Taylor against charges that he raped Kathy Shelton, age 12; he got off with time served; Shelton was raped so violently that she remained in a coma for five days and was rendered infertile. In a 1980s interview with Arkansas journalist Roy Reed, Hillary found her experience hilarious. As she explained at the time: “He took a lie detector test. I had him take a polygraph, which he passed, which forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs.” She then burst into laughter.)

These controversies, scandals, and accusations are legitimate issues and worthy of debate.

It is no surprise, of course, that Hillary and her media allies ironically have capsized the campaign theme song that helped the Clintons win the White House in 1992. Upending Fleetwood Mac, the Clintons now sing, “Don’t Start Thinking about Tomorrow.”

Hillary would pump Obama’s big-budget, high-tax, and red-tape toxins into an economy that “grows” this year at an imperceptible 0.95 percent, amid the slowest recovery since 1949. Clinton stands shoulder to shoulder with Black Lives Matter, promising four more years of decaying race relations. Clinton also would keep leading from behind, guaranteeing hotter flames around the world.

No wonder, then, that she and her cheerleaders in America’s newsrooms keep voters focused on yesterday.

For Trump’s part — despite eloquently delivering via teleprompter several intelligent, specific, policy-driven speeches — he also discusses Crooked Hillary’s character flaws, primarily her current E-mailgate, Clinton Foundation, and Benghazi scandals.

But he, too, has jackhammered into the Clintons’ malfeasance vaults and excavated ancient controversies and outrages.

Trump also has chomped like a rainbow trout into the baited hooks that Hillary has tossed into the waters where he swims. This has distracted him from his forward-looking game and made him turn backwards.

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