ISRAEL Comments turned off

Peace, Peace, but there is no Peace! By Victor Sharpe

Posted By on May 7th, 2019

http://thejerusalemconnection.us/blog/2019/05/06/peace-peace-but-there-is-no-peace-

The Jewish prophet Jeremiah said those words millennia ago and it is telling when applied to peace between Israel and the Arab aggressors, yet still the hope for a true and lasting peace is resurrected again and again. But is it a case of “blessed are the peacemakers” or just another attempt to disinter a rotting corpse, just like Chamberlain’s “peace in our time?”

As I write this article, more than 500 missiles have been launched against the embattled Jewish state and Israeli civilians have been killed and wounded. The hate riddled junior branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, takes “credit” for this relentless act of genocidal war. This is reality, and it is upon this chimera that we wait for the Middle East peace proposal that President Trump’s son in law, Jared Kushner, has said, “is realistic … it’s executable and it’s something that I do think will lead to both sides being much better off.”

Kushner also noted that the peace plan, which is expected to be unveiled in June, “will provide answers to the final status issues” between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs – whatever that means.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Why Biden Leads the Democratic Field . By Charles Lipson

Posted By on May 7th, 2019

ttps://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/05/07/why_biden_leads_the_democratic_field_140259.html

Why does Joe Biden, with all his obvious weaknesses, currently lead the Democratic presidential field?

A big part of the answer is that his party knows him, likes him, and respects his years of fighting for their side. They also know his manifold shortcomings. He is not the brightest bulb on the chandelier. He is prone to gaffes—often big ones—and makes inexplicable policy errors, like his statement last week that China is hardly a U.S. adversary. His years of Washington experience leave him with a vulnerable record of votes and statements, many of them out-of-step with today’s electorate, especially Democratic activists. He is a consummate Washington insider in an era when everybody wants an outsider. Even worse, some of his insider connections apparently benefited his family, especially his son Hunter, who flew with the vice president on official trips and then forged profitable business ties in those countries.

With all those negatives, why is Joe Biden leading the 2020 Democratic field?

One reason cannot be stressed enough: He loves campaigning—old-fashioned, “retail” stops where pols slap backs, kiss babies, shake hands, and toss red meat to the crowd. (Smelling hair is less welcome.) Americans are attracted to candidates who project upbeat, positive images, candidates who enjoy being with them and asking for their support. What they don’t like are finger-wagging school principals who tell them to eat their broccoli. That’s why Elizabeth Warren does not wear well. Most of the other candidates don’t seem to connect at all. The only exceptions are South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and possibly New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker. Biden is a happy contrast to this glum crowd. Like President Trump, he has fun at his rallies and is energized by the cheers. The downside is that Biden’s improvisations often end with his foot wedged in his mouth.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

FEDERAL FUNDING OF FORTUNE 100 COMPANIES

Posted By on May 7th, 2019

Our investigation discovered that Fortune 100 companies received $1.8 trillion in federal contracts, grants, and direct payments from 2000-2017.

But it doesn’t stop there. These well-connected and wealthy companies received $3.2 billion in federal grants (2014-2017), on top of the nearly $100 billion they receive each year in contracts.

Click here to download your free copy of our report to read our key findings.

The transparency revolution is spreading.

Last night, our report broke in the Washington Times with an article entitled, “Taxpayers fund research for world’s richest, most powerful companies, watchdog finds.”

And just moments ago, CSPAN’s Washington Journal aired our 45-minute interview discussing the biggest findings.

It’s your money. You deserve to know how it’s being spent.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

A TRIBUTE TO ISRAELI MOTHERS By Ruthie Blum

Posted By on May 7th, 2019

https://dallasjewishmonthly.com/a-tribute-to-israeli-mothers/?fbclid=IwAR1ipPvCGhLgut9QsB2k_FXVt8_0Nn7SDZ5fh9vUkQWofzBhnzS86rs5n08

In a well-deserved tribute, Rachel Frenkel, Bat-Galim Shaer and Iris Yifrach – the mothers of the three teenaged boys whose abduction and murder at the hands of Palestinian terrorists in the summer of 2014 sparked Operation Protective Edge in Gaza – were invited to light a torch at Israel’s Independence Day ceremony on May 9.

The annual event is held on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, the site of the Israel’s national military cemetery. It takes place at the end of the day of mourning for all the country’s fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism, and marks the beginning of joyful birthday celebrations for the Jewish state, which turns 71.

The jarring juxtaposition of the somber and the sweet is purposeful. Before partying with nighttime fireworks and all-day barbecues, Israelis pause for a 24-hour period to commemorate, weep for and thank all the men, women and children killed either defending the nation from incessant enemy assault – or simply for going about their daily lives in the ancient Middle East homeland that they transformed into a flourishing Western democracy.

It is rare to find a family in Israel that has not been touched in some fashion by this particular form of bereavement. Indeed, funerals are just as much a part of the Israeli experience as weddings and baby-namings. And fear of losing one’s offspring in bombings, rocket-fire, car-rammings and stabbings is as present as anxiety about whether those same kids eat their broccoli or do their homework or find a suitable mate or get a good job. It is a country of Jewish mothers, after all.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Ruthie Blum: Jihadi missiles, Israeli mourning

Posted By on May 7th, 2019

https://www.jns.org/opinion/jihadi-missiles-israeli-mourning/

Four families’ names will now be noted and quoted together by virtue of their shared tragedy over the course of a single fateful weekend.

Reeling after three days of nonstop rocket barrages from Gaza, and fully aware that the ceasefire with Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists is temporary, Israelis are preparing for this year’s Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day) ceremonies with particular sadness and no small degree of frustration.

This evening, when the Jewish state enters into a 24-hour mourning period for all the fallen soldiers and civilian victims of terrorism who have been killed since its inception, four new names will have been added to the list. Four new sets of spouses, children, parents and siblings will have earned the dreaded label of “bereaved.”

Each will wish he or she could have turned the clock back to the minute before Moshe Agadi, Moshe Feder, Ziad al-Hamamda and Pinchas Menachem Pashwazman were murdered by missile fire that changed the course of their history.

MEDIA Comments turned off

If Deplatforming Hoaxsters is OK, The News Media Should Be in Big Trouble By Julie Kelly

Posted By on May 7th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/05/06/if-deplatforming-hoaxsters-is-ok-the-news-media-should-be-in-big-trouble/

Without much explanation, Facebook last Thursday banned several high-profile users amid accusations they violated the company’s subjective rules about violence and hate speech. The ban applied to InfoWars founder Alex Jones; YouTube star Paul Joseph Watson; Laura Loomer, a 25-year-old journalist and conservative activist, and others accounts loosely aligned with the political Right. (Loomer and Jones already have been kicked off Twitter.)

The company offered little in the way of specifics about why these so-called “dangerous individuals” were banished from the world’s most active social media site. “We’ve always banned individuals or organisations that promote or engage in violence and hate, regardless of ideology,” the company said in a statement.

The corporation’s vague condemnation prompted widespread speculation from journalists about the real reason why these online menaces got the axe: Jones, Watson, Loomer, et. al. are conspiracy theorists, they warned. From 9/11 to Pizzagate, these alleged villains have peddled their own sinister version of reality and spread false information to their followers.

“President Donald Trump on Saturday retweeted messages from conspiracy theorists and far-right figures after Facebook banned several right-wing personalities for promoting violence and hate,” scoffed CNBC online reporter Tom DiChristopher in response to Trump’s weekend tweets criticizing Facebook’s move.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Senate Dems Delete Poll After Brett Kavanaugh Beats Ruth Bader Ginsburg By Jim Treacher

Posted By on May 7th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/senate-dems-delete-poll-after-kavanaugh-beats-ginsburg/

As you know if you’ve ever watched a TV show about lawyers, you should never ask a question if you don’t already know the answer. You shouldn’t be arrogant enough to assume you already know it, just because you really want to believe it’s true. Don’t get cocky. Don’t hurt your own case.

In other words, don’t be the Senate Democrats. They’re out of power right now, and until they start winning some elections again, all they can do is complain about being thwarted again and again. Whine, whine, whine:

.@realDonaldTrump and the Republican-led Senate have aggressively pushed to reshape the judiciary with conservatives. Decades of hard-fought progress could be erased. We must take back the Senate.

— Senate Democrats (@dscc) May 5, 2019

As part of this effort to take back the Senate from those rotten voters who don’t know what’s good for them, the Dems decided it would be a good idea to hold a Twitter poll. They invited chaos. And unfortunately for them, chaos has a sense of humor.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Leftist Clown Justin Trudeau Follows in the Footsteps of Obama By David Solway

Posted By on May 7th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/ronald-mcdonalds-at-the-helm-leftist-clown-justin-trudeau-follows-in-the-footsteps-of-obama/

Over the last year, I’ve met a growing number of fellow Canadians who have begun to yearn for a Donald to lead the country. They have belatedly recognized that they have a Ronald McDonald at the helm in Justin Trudeau, whose antics may delight children but who is quite incapable in any adult capacity.

Most recently, our dear leader in sensitive trade talks with the Japanese prime minister referred to the country as China. We recall that Trudeau wished the Canadian Olympic team in Seoul, South Korea, best of luck in Pyongyang, North Korea. We learn from an interview in The New York Times that Canada has no core identity—not how a sober statesman speaks of his country. This is the man who, as the beneficiary of a family trust fund, never had to run a household out of his own earnings, could say “The budget will balance itself,” while leading the country into astronomical debt. According to his way of thinking, the Boston Marathon bombers needed to be sympathetically understood, since they must have felt “completely excluded.” He sought a gender-balanced cabinet “because it’s 2015.” This is the zany who on a diplomatic visit to India can affect Bollywood and dress in a ceremonial costume to the bemusement of his hosts.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Ummah Day in Philadelphia By Marc A. Scaringi

Posted By on May 7th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/05/ummah_day_in_philadelphia.html

Young schoolchildren attending the Muslim American Society Islamic Center in Philadelphia are being taught to be enemies of Jews and are being indoctrinated in the culture of violent Islamic jihad. This is extremely disturbing at any time, but even more so now with the rise in anti-Semitism and the horrific murders of innocent Jews from the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh to Chabad of Poway, north of San Diego.

On April 22, 2019, the Muslim American Society in Philadelphia uploaded a video of its “Ummah Day” celebration. Ummah Day is the time of year when Muslims come together and celebrate their cultural traditions. It’s about Muslim pride — as the Quran teaches, “You are the best community (Ummah) raised up for (the benefit of) humanity; enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong and believing in God…” (Quran 3:110). The video of their celebration, however, reveals something sinister is going on there.

In the video, young boys and girls dressed in traditional Muslim attire sing and recite what the Muslim American Society claims are traditional Muslim songs and poetry. But if you listen to the lyrics you will hear the boys singing, as they don the Palestinian keffiyeh, how they will fight to destroy Israel and reconquer Jerusalem with lines such as, “Glorious steeds call us and lead us onto paths leading to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The blood of martyrs protects us. Paradise needs real men!” and “Take us, oh ships, until we liberate our lands — until we reach our shores and crush the treacherous ones!

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The EU Courts the Arab League by Judith Bergman

Posted By on May 7th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14188/eu-courts-arab-league

[President of the European Council, Donald] Tusk referred to the value gap between the states of the Arab League and those of the European Union as “differences between us”. Such euphemisms however, do not explain the evident lack of even the pretense, on the part of the EU, to comply with its own stated human rights policies.

“We’ve been witnessing a spike in gross human rights violations across the Arab region, including in extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, and torture and other ill-treatment. The region is in dire need of a credible and independent judicial mechanism to provide justice for human rights violations, the overwhelming majority of which presently go unaddressed”. — Said Benarbia, MENA Programme Director of the International Commission of Jurists.

In uncomfortably Orwellian fashion, the summit “Reaffirmed our resolve to combat cultural and religious intolerance, extremism, negative stereotyping, stigmatisation and discrimination leading to incitement to violence against persons based on religion or belief and condemn any advocacy of religious hatred against individuals that constitutes incitement, hostility or violence, including on the internet and social media”.

Instead, Mogherini’s words came across as references to the EU’s own continued efforts to monitor and police free speech and thus, gradually, to extinguish any kind of diversity of opinion within the EU.

The first summit between the European Union (EU) and the Arab League, formally known as the League of Arab States (LAS), took place on February 24-25. “Europeans and Arabs have a long and rich history of cultural, economic, commercial and political exchanges. This, together with the geographical proximity and interdependence, has contributed to institutionalise a strong relationship between the EU and the League of Arab States (LAS). Within this framework, the common aim is to develop closer cooperation to realise their shared aspirations to ensure peace, security and prosperity in both regions,” the website of the European Union announced.