NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Schumer Presses For Senate Testimony From Live Witnesses Wants a do-over of Schiff’s clown show. Joseph Klein

Posted By on December 18th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/12/schumer-presses-senate-testimony-bolton-mulvaney-joseph-klein/

Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer has proposed that the Senate hear from four current or former high-level Trump administration officials he considers to be vital witnesses in the trial that will follow the House of Representatives’ impeachment of President Trump. These witnesses include Mick Mulvaney, the Acting White House Chief of Staff, and John R. Bolton, the former National Security Adviser. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wisely rejected the Schumer proposal. He argued that it was incumbent upon the House, in their role as prosecutors, to bring the strongest case they can to the Senate for trial.

“It is not the Senate’s job to leap into the breach and search desperately for ways to get to ‘guilty,’” Senator McConnell said. “That would hardly be impartial justice. If House Democrats’ case is this deficient, this thin, the answer is not for the judge and jury to cure it here in the Senate.The answer is that the House should not impeach on this basis in the first place.” Senator McConnell emphasized that it is the House’s “duty to investigate. It’s their duty to meet the very high bar for undoing a national election. As Speaker Pelosi herself once said, it is the House’s obligation to, quote, ‘build an ironclad case to act.’” What the House Democrats have produced falls far short of that standard.

ISRAEL, MEDIA Comments turned off

Countering Bill Whitaker’s ’60-Minutes’ Rawabi Story How about the Israelis living across the hill? Joseph Puder

Posted By on December 18th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/12/countering-bill-whitakers-60-minutes-rawabi-story-joseph-puder/

Bill Whitaker’s (December 8, 2019) CBS-TV 60-Minutes segment called: “Rawabi: Man’s Vision For a Palestinian Future” is a biased journalistic piece and ignorant of historical facts and Middle East realities. While extolling the featured “hero” of the story – Palestinian builder Bashar Masri, Whitaker failed to mention a critical fact in his story – Palestinian terrorism.  Nor has he bothered to get the other side of the story – Israelis living across from Rawabi in a nearby hillside community of Samaria.

Whitaker mentions that the “Arab-Palestinians have been yearning for a state since 1948.”  The fact is that the Arab Palestinians could have had their state in 1947, and even earlier, in 1937 (Peel Commission recommendation). In November, 1947, the United Nations voted for the Partition of Palestine. The UN vote called for the creation of both a Jewish (Israeli) State as well as an Arab-Palestinian state. The Jews of Israel accepted a shrunken Jewish State. The Arab Palestinians rejected the partition plan (and the previous Peel Commission plan for statehood) and chose to wage a war of extermination against the Jewish state. The Arab Palestinians, along with 5 Arab states, including Egypt, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, sent forces to destroy the nascent Jewish state with the aim of “throwing the Jews into the sea.”

In stating “The West Bank, where the Palestinians hoped to establish their state…,” Whitaker implied that someone denied the Palestinians their hopes to establishing their state. In fact, the Palestinians have said “NO” to every offer of peace extended to them by Israel. In July 2000, President Bill Clinton convened a summit at Camp David. Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak were invited to the secluded Camp David to resolve once and for all the 100-year-old conflict between Arabs and Jews. Encouraged by President Clinton, Barak offered far reaching concessions to the Palestinians, including 91% of the West Bank, all of the Gaza Strip, and Israeli territory in exchange for Jewish Settlements in Judea and Samaria. In addition, Barak agreed to the Palestinians establishing their capital in East Jerusalem. Significantly, Barak also agreed to extend a humanitarian gesture such as allowing 100,000 Palestinian refugees to settle in Israel. Arafat rejected the offer to establish a Palestinian state, he refused to commit to “ending the conflict”, and chose instead to launch the bloody Second Intifada, which cost the lives of over 1,000 Israeli civilians, victims of Palestinian terror.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

America’s Immigration Dilemma What makes an immigrant culturally qualified to enter the United States? Jason D. Hill *****

Posted By on December 18th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/12/our-immigration-dilemma-jason-d-hill/

Most people who are presenting themselves at our Southern borders from Mexico, and South and Central America, and others who are seeking asylum mostly from Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and the Middle East, are from countries outside the historical process. Many of these countries are not just political rogue states, but also economic rogue states as well. They have failed to put into practice a set of sound economic policies that satisfy the basic needs of a majority of their citizens. Failed states are sinkholes in the world. They actively detract value from the region in much the same way that condemned buildings used by criminals spread mayhem and drag down home values throughout a neighborhood. Since regions are interconnected via a vast causal network of interlocking social, political and fiscal systems, they contaminate the entire liberal order.

It has, therefore, been part of America’s liberal, egalitarian and benevolent policy to admit such persons who stand little chance of making anything substantial of their lives in their own countries entrance into the United States.

This is and remains the greatness of America. People came here and they wanted to love America and become Americans. They came with no sense of entitlements, no sense of aggrievement—only with a burning desire to make something of their lives and, in doing so, to make superlative or small contributions to the moral meaning of America. As they stepped into the future America promised them, they, by their efforts and suffusion of the landscape with an original assemblage of who they were, simultaneously co-created a future template for others to inhabit.

But the immigrant demographics of this great country are changing. We are witnessing individuals who are bringing their illiberal values into the United States and wishing to implement them and re-make the country entirely into their own illiberal image. In the case of many Islamic transplants, they claim to be moderates in their religious faith. Yet they are complicit in the radical factions of a political ideology many take to be a religion of peace. By default, they do not condemn the growing fealty to the idea that Sharia law can and should run parallel to American jurisprudential law. They do not condemn the growing anti-Semitism and Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) campaigns sweeping college campuses which, incidentally, are not generated by even radical Muslims, but by mainstream moderates who view Israel as a genocidal and apartheid state, and America as an evil imperial nation.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Democrats are imploding By Thomas Lifson

Posted By on December 18th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/12/the_democrats_are_imploding.html

It’s too soon to predict that the Democrats will go the way of the Whigs, but the oldest political party in the world is tripping over its own doctrines; making a public spectacle of its inability to coherently sponsor debates; riven by ideological fissures that seem to be widening; driving away two bedrock constituencies, the white working class and black voters; and hitching itself to a doomed impeachment effort that could cost it dearly next November.

It’s a great time to be alive if you are a Republican!

Consider the forthcoming presidential debates.

Next Thursday’s scheduled debate is being boycotted by all its candidates because the food service provider at the host institution, Loyola Marymount University — itself a second choice venue after UCLA was chosen and rejected because of a strike there — is experiencing a strike, and the candidates refuse to cross a picket line.  DNC chair Tom Perez, a former secretary of labor, is leaning hard on the parties to the strike to settle their differences (do you suspect there may be some quid pro quo promises?), so the squabble between the two constituencies of the Democrats, higher education and left wing labor unions, can end.

But solving that issue is child’s play compared to the “diversity” issue facing the debate scheduled for next February:

Nine Democratic presidential candidates have called on the Democratic National Committee to relax its debate standards next year, allowing some lower-polling rivals onto the stage.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Shouldn’t the media report how bad previous climate change predictions have been instead of participating in the indoctrination? By Jack Hellner

Posted By on December 18th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/12/shouldnt_the_media_report_how_bad_previous_climate_change_predictions_have_been_instead_of_participating_in_the_indoctrination.html

For the last 100 years, we have seen climate prediction labels go from global warming, global cooling, global warming, climate change, climate catastrophe, climate emergency and climate collapse. The goal has been to scare the public and especially the children to give up their freedom and money to the powerful government.

Instead of journalists investigating and saying how wrong previous predictions have been, they go along with the indoctrination to try to force the radical leftist agenda and policies on the public. These people all pretend they care about the poor and middle class, but the proposed policies would destroy tens of millions of jobs, would make income and wealth inequality much worse, and would make many millions more people dependent on government.

Everyone should stop pretending that Biden, Mayor Pete, Bloomberg or any other Democrat is moderate. They are all willing to destroy the economy and give much greater power to the government on the climate and fossil fuels.

Here is a small sample of predictions on the climate that almost all of the media regurgitate with no questions asked:

2019-The UN says we only have a few years left because of warming.
2008-On ABC, Good Morning America. By 2015, New York City would be under water, milk would be $13 per gallon and gasoline would be $9 per gallon, very little of Miami would be left. (they were so close)
2005-After Katrina we were told hurricanes would be more frequent and severe than ever. Instead we had a ten-year lull in serious hurricanes hitting the U.S.
1989- The UN says we only have a few years left because of warming.
1970-First Earth Day. Billions would die soon because of global cooling and an ice age.
1922-AP and Washington Post-Coastal cities would soon be underwater because the ice caps have melted due to global warming.

Here is a small sample of questions for politicians, bureaucrats, scientists, educators, Time person’s of the year, and people who pretend to be journalists peddling the indoctrination and pushing the agenda.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Of Course Bernie Sanders Has a Jeremy Corbyn Problem By David Harsanyi

Posted By on December 18th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/12/bernie-sanders-campaign-anti-semitism-in-his-ranks-jeremy-corbyn-problem/

His indifference to anti-Semitism among some of his prominent supporters is a blot on his candidacy.

‘Trotsky makes the revolutions, and the Bronsteins pay the bills.”

This was the purported rejoinder of Moscow’s chief rabbi, Jacob Maze, after Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky — the former Lev Bronstein — rebuffed his request for assistance, explaining that he was not a Jew but rather an international man of socialism.

I was reminded of this tragic quip when watching a mob of liberal Blue Checkmarks have a collective meltdown over Noah Rothman’s Commentary piece “Bernie Sanders Has a Big Jeremy Corbyn Problem” this weekend.

How could Sanders, a progressive Jew — a man who lost family in the Holocaust, no less! — have an anti-Semitism problem?

Well, for one thing, as Trotsky correctly indicated, socialism tends to corrode all other religious and cultural affiliations. Secular Jewish progressive groups posing as faith-based organizations, for example, have long worked to conflate their ideological positions with Judaism by reimagining the latter to make it indistinguishable from the former. It’s one of the great tragedies of the American Jewish community that they are succeeding.

More bluntly, remember that Sanders honeymooned in Moscow, not Jerusalem, for a good reason. “Let’s take the strengths of both systems,” Sanders insisted even as the reprehensible Soviet system was on the verge of collapse. “Let’s learn from each other,” Sanders said even when over 100 Jewish refuseniks were still being denied permission to leave the Communist regime after enduring decades of anti-Semitic oppression under rhetoric of “anti-Zionism.” As far as I can tell, Sanders never said a word in their defense to his hosts.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

TheHill.com Democrats repeat failed history with mad dash to impeach Donald Trump Jonathan Turley

Posted By on December 18th, 2019

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/474887-democrats-repeat-failed-history-with-mad-dash-to-impeach-donald-trump

“Let them impeach and be damned.” Those words could have easily come from Donald Trump, as the House moves this week to impeach him. They were, however, the words of another president who not only shares some striking similarities to Trump but who went through an impeachment with chilling parallels to the current proceedings. The impeachment of Trump is not just history repeating itself but repeating itself with a vengeance.

The closest of the three prior presidential impeachment cases to the House effort today is the 1868 impeachment of Andrew Johnson. This is certainly not a comparison that Democrats should relish. The Johnson case has long been widely regarded as the very prototype of an abusive impeachment. As in the case of Trump, calls to impeach Johnson began almost as soon as he took office. A southerner who ascended to power after the Civil War as a result of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Johnson was called the “accidental president” and his legitimacy was never accepted by critics. Representative John Farnsworth of Illinois called Johnson an “ungrateful, despicable, besotted, traitorous man.”

Johnson opposed much of the reconstruction plan Lincoln had for the defeated south and was criticized for fueling racial divisions. He was widely viewed as an alcoholic and racist liar who opposed full citizenship for freed slaves. Ridiculed for not being able to spell, Johnson responded, “It is a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.” Sound familiar? The “Radical Republicans” in Congress started to lay a trap a year before impeachment. They were aware that Johnson wanted their ally, War Secretary Edwin Stanton, out of his cabinet, so they then decided to pass an unconstitutional law that made his firing a crime.

BOOKS Comments turned off

The Case Against Socialism By John Stossel

Posted By on December 18th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/the-case-against-socialism/

Sen. Rand Paul just wrote a book, “The Case Against Socialism.”

I thought that case was already decided, since socialist countries failed so spectacularly.

But the idea hasn’t died, especially amongst the young.

“Hitler’s socialism, Stalin’s socialism, Mao’s socialism. You would think people would have recognized it by now,” says Paul in my latest video.

Paul echoes Orwell in likening socialism to “a boot stamping on the human face forever” and warning that it always leads to violence and corruption.

“You would think that when your economy gets to the point where people are eating their pets,” says Paul, contemplating the quick descent of once-rich Venezuela, “people might have second thoughts about what system they’ve chosen.”

That’s a reference to the fact that Venezuelans have lost weight because food is so hard to find.

“Contrast that with (the country’s) ‘Dear Leader’ Maduro, who’s probably gained 50 pounds,” Paul observes. “It really sums up socialism. There’s still a well-fed top 1%; they just happen to be the government or cronies or friends of the government.”

Naturally, American socialists say our socialism will be different.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

IMPEACHMENT:  A Devastating Dissent

Posted By on December 18th, 2019

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/impeachment-a-devastating-dissent/90945/

The most striking thing about the impeachment report of the House Judiciary Committee is its upside-down nature. The report is a 650-page doorstop that is designed to accompany the impeachment resolution that the House will put to a vote on Wednesday. Yet the part of the report that is likely — not certain but likely — to prevail in the Senate is not the vast verbiage from the majority. Rather, it’s the part called “dissenting views.”

Normally one would expect “dissenting views” to be a kind of historical footnote. Grand juries, to the function of which the Judiciary Committee role in an impeachment is sometimes likened, don’t even issue “dissenting views.” Grand juries either hand up a true bill, meaning an indictment, or not. In this case, though, if and when the impeachment report goes to the Senate, the dissenting views could well prove dispositive.

They certainly strike us as a devastating reprise. The dissenters — the document is signed by Congressman Doug Collins, the Judiciary Committee’s ranking Republican — start with the fact that the impeachment of President Trump arose in a different way from the impeachment efforts against Presidents Andrew Johnson, Nixon, and Clinton. In those cases, the facts had been agreed on by the time impeachment articles were considered.

In the Clinton case, an independent prosecutor had labored for years to build the case. That work should have been done in the House, we’ve always felt, but there it is. The impeachment of Mr. Trump would, if it happens Wednesday, be the first time the House decided to, as the dissenters put it, “pursue impeachment first and build a case second.” It was done “in haste to meet a self-imposed December deadline.”

The dissenters complain of being sidelined during the hearings and the run-up to them. They fault Judiciary’s majority for failing to invite fact witnesses of any kind during the committee’s investigation and for relying instead on the work of the Intelligence Committee. (In the Senate, ironically, the Democratic minority is now complaining that the facts should now be adduced in the upper chamber.)

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Moshe Dann: The E.U.’s Proxy War Against israel

Posted By on December 18th, 2019

https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/The-EUs-proxy-war-against-Israel-611122

They don’t have to do the dirty, immoral work of opposing Israel’s existence directly; no messy concentration camps. The EU pays others to do it (for specifics, see the website of NGO-Monitor).

The most potent non-military threat to Israel’s existence is the opposition to Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights by the international community, led by the European Union.

The EU is the largest single donor to the Palestinians – more than a half-billion euros annually. It funds over two dozen anti-Israel propaganda organizations (NGOs) dedicated to demonizing Israel – over €6 million annually. In addition, these NGOs also receive millions from individual European countries. The EU is the largest contributor to UNRWA, which is dedicated to Israel’s demise. The EU supported US president Barack Obama’s “deal” with Iran to produce weapons of mass destruction and supports “non-military” organizations run by or associated with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria. And the EU is one of the largest contributors to the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip.

They don’t have to do the dirty, immoral work of opposing Israel’s existence directly; no messy concentration camps. The EU pays others to do it (for specifics, see the website of NGO-Monitor).