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50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

We Need to Hate By Eileen F. Toplansky

Quite frankly, Western civilization is losing the capacity to hate hatred. Far too many Europeans and Americans are engaging in outright denial of the most heinous and evil occurrences across the globe. Too many people will not truly acknowledge “the age old fact that God’s children are capable of the most horrid things.” Consequently, the West refuses to articulate a message of resistance, mobilize itself, and destroy the evil.

In his essay titled “Home Is Where to Learn How To Hate” Leo Rosten lays out a compelling argument asserting that denying evil is a result of “never having been taught to hate properly: that is (a) relevantly; (b) in proportion, fitting the thing or person hated; (c) without blind rage; and (d) without guilt.” Thus, we find a young woman smiling and holding a sign that says “will trade racists for rapists” and calling for women to cover up so as not to offend. What an odious acceptance of evil. That the horrific crime of rape is accepted in order to avoid the alleged appearance of racism against the perpetrators is mind-boggling. Such sanctimonious depravity needs to be called out. And ignoring Islamic jurisprudence which permits sex-slavery, destruction of pre-Islamic antiquities, and pedophilia merely paves the way for our eventual enslavement if we continue to be meek bystanders.

In fact, Rosten maintains that “not ever to hate is to surrender a just scale of decent values. Not ever to hate is to drain love of its meaning. Not to hate anyone is as crazy as to hate everyone.”

Furthermore, “a world of automatic indiscriminate loving is suicidal — for the good and loving are enslaved or exterminated by those who gratify their cruelty and their lust.” Consider the rapacious cruelty of ISIS and the moral cowardice of a world that will not admit that “neither truth nor justice nor compassion can possibly survive unprepared and unarmed.”

Instead we see an ardent desire to literally disarm law-abiding people while simultaneously and deliberately erasing the facts about our enemies’ intentions. Iran can chant “Death to America” and Kerry superciliously lectures Americans and ignores genuine concerns. Obama dismisses beheadings, amputations, boiling of humans, sexual assaults, kidnapping, stoning, burnings, burials of live human beings, and genocide with mealy-mouthed word games and double talk. He divests the peace warriors of the vital information needed to understand our enemies’ intentions. His flights from truth do not mitigate the intentions of our enemies. Ending the blacklisting of U.S. Islamic charities that are helping to finance terrorist activities is unconscionable. Bribing journalists to paint a favorable coverage of the Iranian nuclear deal is reprehensible. How can we defeat what we cannot identify if their wicked objectives and actions are deliberately camouflaged?

A Trump Economy Beats Clinton’s His plans that would get the U.S. back on track include the biggest pro-growth tax cut since 1981 and repeal of ObamaCare.By Andy Puzder and Stephen Moore

Certain business leaders and prominent conservatives have denounced Donald Trump’s economic policies and even argued that Hillary Clinton would be a better choice in November. This is hard to fathom. Although we disagree with him on some issues, we have both signed on as economic advisers to Mr. Trump because we are confident in the direction he would take the country.

What could possibly be the economic case for Mrs. Clinton? She has vowed to defend President Obama’s “legacy” and double down on job-killers like ObamaCare. Even Bill Clinton knows that the status quo hasn’t worked: In March he told a crowd that it is time to “put the awful legacy of the last eight years behind us.”

Since the end of the recession, economic growth has averaged an anemic 2.1%, producing the weakest “recovery” since the Great Depression. That has slowed to 1.4% in the last quarter of 2015 and 1.1% in the first quarter of 2016. The middle class is shrinking, and median household income today, in real terms, is lower than when Mr. Obama took office. By more than two to one, Americans believe the country is on the wrong track.

What does Mr. Trump offer as an alternative?

• The biggest pro-growth tax cut since Ronald Reagan’s 1981 reform. Mr. Trump would simplify the tax code and significantly reduce marginal rates, encouraging investment and economic expansion. His proposed corporate tax rate of 15% would make it easier for American firms to repatriate earnings, bringing capital home and making the U.S. a more hospitable place to invest. Mr. Trump’s tax plan would do more for working-class and middle-class families than any scheme to redistribute income.

Don’t believe the phony claim that it will cost $10 trillion over a decade. As Americans will see when he reveals the entire plan in the next few weeks, any revenue loss would be a fraction of that amount.

• The repeal of ObamaCare, the fastest-growing entitlement program of all. Mr. Trump promises to replace the law with a consumer-choice health plan. He also wants to immediately repeal dozens of President Obama’s antibusiness executive orders.

• A pro-growth energy policy. Mr. Trump wants to employ all of America’s abundant resources—oil, natural gas and coal. His plan could make America the world’s No. 1 energy producer within five years, producing millions of new jobs and trillions of dollars of extra output—along with new royalty payments to the government. Mrs. Clinton, by contrast, brags that she would put “a lot of coal miners” out of work.

The Convention Revolt Peters Out Anti-Trump forces have failed to unbind delegates. What if Donald had agreed? Kimberley Strassel

In the lobby of a downtown building here, the security guard had stopped inquiring about names or destinations. “You going up to 1615?” he asked, pointing at an elevator. “Everybody’s going to 1615.”

That’s because up on the 16th floor, in a temporarily rented office, was Delegates Unbound, one of the nerve centers of the rebel movement against Donald Trump. Volunteers with phones stuck to their ears jockeyed for a quiet office, looked over the latest delegate counts, and hunted for food among piles of takeout boxes. The media never stopped calling.

That’s over now. The fight to unseat Donald Trump as the Republican nominee was the last, great unknown of next week’s GOP convention. Its outcome was decided Thursday night, as it collapsed under the overwhelming might of Republican National Committee power brokers.

The makings of potential fireworks began Thursday evening, when a GOP committee voted down a proposal to add a “conscience clause” to the convention rules. It would have freed delegates to vote for their preferred candidate on the first ballot. The clause had been the goal for months now of Free the Delegates, a group led by Kendal Unruh, an activist and Colorado delegate. To force a floor vote on a conscience clause by the full convention next week, Ms. Unruh needed one quarter of the rules committee (28 delegates). She didn’t get it, thanks to last-minute RNC deal making.

EDWARD CLINE: FUGITIVE RECOLLECTIONS SEE NOTE

Ed Cline, author of thousands of brilliant essay and myriad well acclaimed books was informed that he is on an ISIS hit list. His landlady insisted that he leave his apartment and he is now located somewhere in Texas…..rsk

I settled into my new apartment here in the “Heart of Texas” (the town shall remain nameless to all but those close to me) which is, from all outward appearances, an intellectual wasteland, I began to make some observations. Trying my best to acclimatize myself to the heat and realign my sense of direction, in the beginning I would sit for a while on a neighbor’s steps and endeavor to de-simmer.

The town is like Las Vegas; tawdry on one hand, without character on the other. It shares also with Vegas the heat. However, whereas in Vegas, there are few pleasantly cool mornings, until the heat that collects in its basin soars dramatically as the day wears on reaching the uppermost neighborhoods, here there are many evenings and nights when I needed to cover myself with a blanket, it was so cold. The mornings are pleasant enough, until the heat builds and climaxes a little past noon. And here, because the place is relatively flat, winds blow the heat around, but not fast enough to make it miserable. Air conditioning is an absolute necessity. It makes one wonder, as I often did about Vegas, how people managed to live without A/C, crawling in their wagons at oxen-speed through hostile terrain and onto Death Valley and California beyond or ensconced in their adobe or tin roof huts cooking hot meals under broiling sun

There is a nursing home beyond the wire fence facing my patio. I have a magnificent view of two of its dumpsters, and a regular parade of nursing home personnel hauling trash to those dumpsters, taking their time to have a smoke on the way and to yak about the day’s developments inside the home. The nursing home itself resembles a morgue or a crematorium.

For a while I would sit and stare at the pitiful sight of a dead sparrow that had tried to fly through the fence, near the bottom. Its head and neck drooped on the wire, and its feathers would flutter in the breeze. It served to deepen my depression for my circumstances. I felt like I had a personal connection with that bird.

I grew tired of seeing it. One afternoon I rose and walked over to the fence to nudge it with my shoe so that it would drop out of sight into the nursing home parking lot and I wouldn’t need to see it again. To my surprise, it wasn’t a sparrow at all or any other kind of hapless bird; it was a tiny twig with several gray-grown leaves. The discovery served to raise my spirits a smidgen. I nudged the faux bird over the fence.

Investigate #BlackLivesMatter for Black Nationalist Terror Expose the front group behind black nationalist terror. Daniel Greenfield

Prominently displayed on the #BlackLivesMatter website is a quote from cop-killer Assata Shakur. The Black Panther cop-killer worshiped by the violent racist hate group is listed by the FBI as a domestic terrorist.

A racist domestic terrorist was the ideological inspiration for #BlackLivesMatter. It is not surprising that the group’s campaign against the police led to the murder of police officers.

At the memorial service in Dallas, Obama vehemently defended the hate group against all criticism. He insisted on repeating the myth of “peaceful” protests that suddenly turn violent despite the long history of violence in #BlackLivesMatter protests and the calls for the murder of police officers by activists at #BlackLivesMatter events.

Obama has the best of reasons for covering up the ugly truth about #BlackLivesMatter and the hate groups associated with it. The massacre of police officers in Dallas was neither shocking nor unexpected.

A #BlackLivesMatter supporter had already murdered two police officers in New York. The disturbing rise in the murder of police officers had gone mostly unreported because it was politically inconvenient.

A larger attack was inevitable. It was only a matter of when.

The Justice Department was warned that the New Black Panther Party was advocating the ambush assassinations of police officers. Obama’s DOJ, which had protected the black nationalist terror group through everything from voter intimidation to major terror plots, laughed off the threat.

Micah Xavier Johnson, the Dallas black nationalist terrorist, had attended meetings of the People’s New Black Panther Party whose members were present with weapons at the scene of the anti-police hate rally. Despite the claims that Johnson was a random lunatic with no connection to the otherwise “peaceful” protest, his brand of lunacy was mainstream among groups such as the New Black Panther Party and the New Black Panther Party had supporters at the highest levels of government.

1968 Was Worse; Calm Down, Drama Queens The doom-mongers should take a chill pill and consider history. By Kevin D. Williamson — July 14, 2016

A political observer insists that the country hasn’t been this divided since the 1850s.

Which political observer? Lots of them, as it turns out.

In 2011, California governor Jerry Brown insisted that the country was experiencing a regime crisis of the sort not seen since the run-up to the Civil War. In 2013, Professor Aubrey Jewett of the University of Central Florida said the same thing. In 2014, it was Gawker; in 2010, it was Jimmy Carter. It’s a pretty common claim.

It isn’t true, of course. While race riots and snipers do bring to mind the worst of the 1960s, it isn’t 1968, much less 1860. We’ve had a few years of economic weakness, but there is broadly shared prosperity. We have corrupt and often ineffective public institutions, but government remains responsive enough to ensure general consent, and, beyond its provision of basic physical security, it is less and less relevant to our immediate happiness and well-being. Even as our political discourse becomes more theatrical and hysterical, we are, as a people, remarkably complacent. When Sean Hannity sat down to do a “town hall” show with Donald Trump, he attracted an unusually large audience — but 28 times as many people tuned in to watch reruns of The Big Bang Theory, the Coriolanus of broad, laugh-tracked sitcoms.

You’d think a country on the verge of political meltdown would pay a little more attention to the news. Despite what you may have heard from Donald Trump, National Review is the largest magazine of its kind, and our readership is about 4 percent of US Weekly’s. Golf Digest, Glamour, and Martha Stewart Living all have readerships that the New York Times management would sell Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr.’s soul for, if anybody were buying.

But telling people that we’re on the verge of civil war is a good business model. Michael Savage has made a lot more money peddling Armageddon than he ever did peddling herbal nostrums as Michael Weiner. His colleague, the Reverend Al Sharpton, has grown rich trying to give him that civil war — it’s a little like the symbiotic relationship between police and terrorists described in Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent. Conrad knew all about living in consequential times: His father had been a famous revolutionary and exile. Like any sane man of his age, he became a British subject as quickly as he could, changing the dramatic rule of the czar for the sedate reign of Queen Victoria. Boring, stable societies are best appreciated by those who have known the other kind.

It is worth considering the possibility that we do not live in especially consequential times, politically speaking, and that much of the drama of our current politics is just that: drama, a performance we stage for ourselves as an entertainment.

Obama’s Hypocrisy in Dallas The Hypocrite-in-Chief complains about the problems he aggravates. Michael Cutler

In the wake of the mass killing of Dallas police officers, Barack Obama spoke at the memorial service.

His speech began with the appropriate language and tone that made it appear that finally, he was trying to bring America together. But then, apparently unable to help himself, he veered off the path of reason and fell back to his old pattern of painting with a broad brush, virtually declaring that there are only two types of racists – those who admit they are racists and those who, although they are racists, deny that they are.

The ABC Dallas affiliated station, WFAA posted the full transcript of President Obama’s speech at the Dallas memorial service on Tuesday, July 12, 2016.

Obama’s inflammatory statements, coupled with the statements made by Democratic members of the House of Representatives during hearings that were conducted to consider the Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal, turned those hearings into opportunities to focus on police shootings.

Those hearings were called because of the apparent crimes committed by Ms Clinton in mishandling e-mails that contained classified information up to and including at the Top Secret level and higher. Clinton also made use of unauthorized computer servers in her house that were in total violation of laws and regulations concerning national security. Yet Democratic members of Congress insisted that Clinton’s actions were of no significance but then sought to question both FBI Direct Comey and at a subsequent hearing, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, about police shootings and issues concerning gun control.

This tactic, either by design or stupidity, fans the flames that threaten to engulf so many of America’s tinderbox poverty-stricken neighborhoods around the United States, in the flames of conflict. This threatens the safety and the lives of those neighborhoods and the safety and the lives of the police officers who patrol those neighborhoods to protect those who live there.

Obama Invites Inciters of Cop-Killers to the White House Obama hosts a roundtable of Black Lives Matter racists and useful idiots. Matthew Vadum

The day after lecturing mourning Dallas police about how racist they are, President Obama hosted leaders of the virulently racist Black Lives Matter movement at the White House.

Black Lives Matter, which is funded by hedge fund manager George Soros, is not merely a political movement: it’s a Marxist, anti-American, revolutionary cult whose members aim to unleash a reign of terror on our society. They celebrate when police officers are killed in the line of duty. They don’t want equality; they demand that black Americans receive special, preferential treatment. Disagree and they’ll howl you’re a racist, boycott your business, or try to get you investigated for hate crimes.

The White House visit came after the grotesque, undignified, un-presidential atrocity of a speech President Obama gave in Dallas on Tuesday at a memorial service for the five officers slain by black supremacist Micah Xavier Johnson. At that event Obama lectured Americans, defended Black Lives Matter, bashed police, and pontificated about how racist Americans and American institutions are, particularly the police, while spewing all manner of left-wing talking points.

“If we’re honest, perhaps we’ve heard prejudice in our own heads and felt it in our own hearts. We know that. And while some suffer far more under racism’s burden, some feel to a far greater extent discrimination’s sting. Although most of us do our best to guard against it and teach our children better, none of us is entirely innocent. No institution is entirely immune. And that includes our police departments. We know this.”

At an event intended to honor police murdered by a racist cop-hater, Obama chose to slander cops as racist, placing them on the same moral footing as Johnson. “Insisting we do better to root out racial bias is not an attack on cops, but an effort to live up to our highest ideals,” he said.

It’s classic Obama. He tells Americans to help him heal the nation while passive-aggressively stabbing at his enemies, and then invites those tearing the country apart to the people’s mansion for milk and cookies.

The invitees were part of Black Lives Matter which urges the murder of cops. Obama has been inviting racist disciples to the White House to learn at the feet of the master agitator for years. Such invitations constitute implicit endorsement by the president of the Black Lives Matter movement’s in-your-face antics and violent activism. At such White House meetings and in speeches across the nation, the president grossly exaggerates the extent of police brutality in America today and tells lie after lie in order to throw red meat to his fellow radical agitators.

Who Do Bigots Blame for Police Shootings in America? Israel, of Course! by Alan M. Dershowitz

In response to the tragic deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling at the hands of police officers in Minnesota and Louisiana, the New York University chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) posted the following on its Facebook page:

“In the past 48 hours another two black men have been lynched by the police…. We must remember that many US police departments train with #IsraeliDefenceForces. The same forces behind the genocide of black people in America are behind the genocide of Palestinians. What this means is that Palestinians must stand with our black comrades. We must struggle for their liberation. It is as important as our own. #AltonSterling is as important as #AliDawabsheh. Palestinian liberation and black liberation go together. We must recognize this and commit to building for it.”

Even in moments of national mourning such as these, SJP bigots cannot help but exploit the deaths of innocent Americans to further their own anti-Semitic political agenda, namely to delegitimize and demonize the nation state of the Jewish people.

By implicating Israel in these killings, SJP is engaging in the old trope of blaming Jews for systemic and far-reaching societal problems. This practice was anti-Semitic when some Christian communities used it to blame Jews for plagues, poisonings, and murders; it was anti-Semitic when the Nazis used it to blame Jews for the failing German economy; and it is still anti-Semitic today. There is no more evidence that any of the police who killed Mr. Castile and Mr. Sterling were in fact trained in Israel than there was that Jews were responsible for any of the other crimes that formed the basis for traditional blood libels.

The oppression of black Americans long predates the founding of the state of Israel; contrary to the claims of SJP and like-minded groups, Zionism did not beget racism, nor is Zionism a reflection of racism. It is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people. But the twisted logic on the part of SJP should come as no surprise, given that the same organization blamed Zionism for rising tuition costs in the City University of New York college system. The essence of anti-Semitism is the bigoted claim that if there is a problem, then Jews — and now Zionists — must be its cause.

AG Lynch Tells Congress: ‘It Would Be Inappropriate for Me to Comment Further’ on Clinton Email Probe Melanie Hunter

Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in her opening statement Tuesday that she would not “comment further” on the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server now that the FBI’s probe has concluded with no charges recommended against the presumed Democratic presidential nominee.

“I want to close with a comment about the investigation of Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal email server during her time as secretary of State. As you are aware, last week I met with [FBI] Director [James] Comey and career prosecutors and agents who conducted that investigation,” the attorney general said.

“I received and accepted their unanimous recommendation that the thorough year-long investigation be closed and no charges be brought against any individuals within the scope of the investigation,” Lynch said.

“And while I understand that this investigation has generated significant public interest, as attorney general, it would be inappropriate for me to comment further on the underlying facts of the investigation or the legal basis for the team’s investigation,” she added.

In an exchange with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), Lynch declined to comment “on the facts or the substance” of the case:

Goodlatte: “Let me turn your attention to Director Comey’s conclusions on a variety of points. Secretary Clinton stated that she never sent or received information marked as classified on her server. Director Comey stated that was not true. Do you agree with Director Comey?” Goodlatte asked.

Lynch: “Director Comey has chosen to provide great detail into the basis of his recommendations that were ultimately provided to me. He’s chosen to provide detailed statements, and I would refer you to those statements. I, as attorney general, am not able to provide any further comment on the facts or the substance of the investigation.”

Goodlatte: “General Lynch, I think you will agree that the ultimate responsibility for a prosecutorial decision does not rest with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but with the Department of Justice, which you head. Have you not taken a close look at the work done by Director Comey, especially given the extreme national interest in this issue to make a determination yourself whether you or those working for you agree or disagree with Director Comey?”

Lynch: “As I’ve indicated, I’ve received the recommendation of the team, and that team is composed prosecutors and agents. It was a unanimous recommendation as to how to resolve the investigation, and … what the information that they have received concluded, and I accepted that recommendation. I saw no reason not to accept it, and again I reiterate my pride and faith in their work.”