POLITICS Comments turned off

Amy Klobuchar shoots herself in the foot with comments on the Aurora shooting By Thomas Lifson

Posted By on February 18th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/02/amy_klobuchar_shoots_herself_in_the_foot_with_comments_on_the_aurora_shooting.html

Only a week after launching her presidential campaign decrying global warming during a snowstorm in Minneapolis, the woman who wants to claim the mantle of a “moderate” Democrat has beclowned herself with a nonsensical statement. Even worse, as a veteran prosecutor — county attorney (D.A.) in the most populous county in Minnesota, responsible for all criminal prosecution — she missed a point squarely within her area of purported professional competence.

Screen grab from Twitter.

The Hill posted a video to Twitter of her campaigning in Eau Claire, Wisconsin (friendly territory not too far from the Minnesota border), claiming that the mass shooting in Aurora, Illinois shows that “It is time to put sensible gun control legislation in place.”

One problem: the shooter in Aurora was already prohibited by existing laws from having a firearm. The problem was that existing laws weren’t enforced. Via The Daily Wire:

During a Saturday press conference, Aurora Police Chief Kristen Ziman said that the suspect had previously been arrested on six separate occasions by the Aurora Police Department, “including arrests for traffic and domestic battery-related issues.”

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Ilhan Omar’s Big Lie By Rich Lowry

Posted By on February 18th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/ilhan-omars-big-lie/The Left distorts what happened in El Salvador in the 1980s.

In a viral exchange at a congressional hearing last week, the new congresswoman from Minnesota, Ilhan Omar, who is quickly establishing herself as the most reprehensible member of the House Democratic freshman class despite stiff competition, launched into Elliott Abrams. She accused the former Reagan official and Trump’s special envoy to Venezuela of being complicit in war crimes.

“Yes or no,” she demanded, “would you support an armed faction within Venezuela that engages in war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide, if you believe they were serving U.S. interest, as you did in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua?”

Omar was cribbing from the Left’s notes on U.S. Latin American policy, and doing it badly. She made much of the 1981 El Motoze massacre in El Salvador. The idea that Abrams is somehow directly implicated in this bloodcurdlingly awful event is completely absurd. He was assistant secretary of state for international organizations in the Reagan administration, then became assistant secretary of state for human rights and humanitarian affairs on December 10, 1981. The massacre occurred the next day. Unless we are to believe the El Salvadoran military unit took his change of jobs as a green light to indiscriminately kill villagers (which unfortunately was not a new practice), Abrams obviously had nothing to do with the massacre.

Nonetheless, the Omar attack is an opportunity to examine the premises of the Left’s narrative on Reagan’s policy in El Salvador, which supports the persistent attacks on Abrams as a “war criminal.” To paraphrase the famous Mary McCarthy line about Lillian Hellman, every word in this narrative is a lie, including “and” and “the.”

In what follows, I rely throughout on Russell Crandall’s book The Salvador Option: The United States in El Salvador, 1977–1992, a fair-minded, factual account that’s a marked contrast to the tendentiously left-wing material that dominates online.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

McCabe and 60 Minutes Avoid Discussing Why Russia Factored in Comey’s Firing By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on February 18th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/andrew-mccabe-60-minutes-avoid-discussing-why-russia-factored-in-james-comeys-firing/

Trump wanted Comey to state publicly what he had insinuated to the president privately: that Trump was not a suspect.

Andrew McCabe is a good witness and he made a favorable impression, at least on me, in his 60 Minutes interview with Scott Pelley. Pelley and his editors did a great job highlighting McCabe’s down-to-earth likability. Unlike Jim Comey, a career prosecutor and corporate lawyer before he became FBI director, former deputy director McCabe is a career agent; his relation of events smacks of the Bureau’s “just the facts, ma’am” ethos. And McCabe’s account of Trump telling him to ask his wife what it was like to be a “loser” (after she lost a Virginia state senate race) is devastating, precisely because it sounds just like something Trump would say.

That aside, there are problems with McCabe’s story.

First, Pelley failed to ask him the screamingly obvious questions: What about Russia did Trump want included in Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s memo supporting Comey’s dismissal? McCabe obliquely said Trump wanted Rosenstein “to put Russia in” the memo about Comey (I’m quoting from memory). But Pelley never asked what in particular about Russia Trump wanted included. What about Russia was Trump referring to when he spoke — in conversations with NBC News and Russian diplomats — of Russia’s part in Comey’s firing? Pelley highlighted the word “Russia,” but he sidestepped what Trump was concerned about regarding Russia.

The viewer was thus left to conclude, from McCabe’s other comments, that Trump must have fired the FBI director because he was fearful of the Bureau’s investigation of Russia’s interference in the election; because he was concerned that the FBI would find that Russia intended to benefit Trump and would therefore deduce that Trump was complicit.

But that is misleading. We know that what Trump wanted made public was something very specific about Russia, namely, that Comey repeatedly told the president he was not a suspect in the Russia investigation. Trump was frustrated — over time, ballistic — over the fact that Comey was privately telling him that he was not under investigation, yet making statements that would lead the public to believe Trump was suspected of conspiring in Russia’s hacking operations. Trump wanted Comey to state publicly that he was not a suspect; Comey’s refusal to do so made no sense to the president, especially after Comey gratuitously implied, in his stunning March 2017 House testimony, that Trump was a suspect.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Jason Chaffetz: FBI’s Andrew McCabe should be on trial, not a book tour

Posted By on February 18th, 2019

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/jason-chaffetz-fbis-andrew-mccabe-should-be-on-trial-not-a-book-tour

Andrew McCabe lied multiple times to federal investigators.

That was the official finding in February 2018 of a scathing 39-page report by the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of the Inspector General. They found McCabe, then Deputy Director of Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) “lacked candor” in answering questions about his authorization of disclosures in the Hillary Clinton email investigation. The referral for further action went to the DOJ.

One year later he is publishing a book, being highlighted on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” and walking free after lying at least four times, three of them under oath, to federal authorities investigating his conduct. Trading on the notoriety he gained from his partisan loyalty, he will now have the opportunity to monetize the duplicity that shielded Hillary Clinton from justice.

For a time, McCabe was the acting director of the FBI. He of all people knew the rules, the law, and had a duty and responsiblity to tell the truth.

In stark contrast, the subjects of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigations have been shown no such favor. Several are being prosecuted for lying to federal authorities. Much to my surprise, Mueller actually managed to get the DOJ to prosecute someone for lying to Congress – former Trump attorney Michael Cohen. That is a promising development.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

A Labour Revolt Against Corbyn Seven MPs bolt over anti-Semitism and Brexit abdication.

Posted By on February 18th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-labour-revolt-against-corbyn-11550508910

A British political party splintered on Monday, and for once it wasn’t the ruling Conservatives. Seven members of the Labour opposition resigned from the party in protest over leader Jeremy Corbyn’s inconstant dealing on Brexit and tolerance for anti-Semitism.

The rebel Members of Parliament include Chuka Umunna, the party’s former spokesman on business affairs, and Luciana Berger, who has endured anti-Semitic abuse by Corbyn supporters. All seven have held senior party positions and hail from the centrist wing in charge during the Tony Blair era. They aren’t forming a new political party and will keep their seats while voting as independents.

All seven cited the excuse-making of Mr. Corbyn and his allies regarding abuse of Jewish members, spread of anti-Jewish tropes and sympathy for anti-Israel terrorists. The number of such cases referred to the party for disciplinary proceedings has skyrocketed under Mr. Corbyn, yet last summer he resisted formalizing an internationally accepted definition of anti-Semitism in party rules. The willingness of the rebels to leave raises questions about why so many others are still working for Mr. Corbyn.

As for Brexit, this is the latest evidence that Britain’s impending departure from the European Union is scrambling domestic politics. Both major parties remain deeply divided on Brexit and the bigger question of what the British economy should be after it leaves. Theresa May’s Conservatives are split between free-market Brexiteers and Remainers who are woolier on economics.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The FBI’s Trump Panic McCabe reveals how officials contemplated a bureaucratic coup.

Posted By on February 18th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fbis-trump-panic-11550508578

The American people have largely taken the disruptive Trump Presidency in stride, going about their lives and expressing their approval or not the constitutional way—at the ballot box. The same can’t be said for many of the country’s panicked elites, as we are learning anew about the Federal Bureau of Investigation as former deputy director Andrew McCabe hawks a new memoir.

Mr. McCabe now says that, after Mr. Trump fired FBI director Jim Comey in May 2017, Mr. McCabe and senior Justice Department officials “discussed whether the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet could be brought together to remove the President of the United States under the 25th Amendment.” That’s according to Scott Pelley’s account of his interview with Mr. McCabe aired Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes.”

In the interview, Mr. McCabe says Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein raised the 25th Amendment scenario “and discussed it with me in the context of thinking about how many other cabinet officials might support such an effort.” Mr. McCabe says he didn’t contribute much but seems to excuse the conversation because “it was an unbelievably stressful time.”

Mr. McCabe was fired last year for lying to FBI investigators, so it’s hard to know how much to believe. He’s also tried to qualify the interview after excerpts were disclosed, with a spokesperson saying that while Mr. McCabe “participated in a discussion that included a comment by Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein regarding the 25th Amendment,” he did not participate in any “extended discussions” about removing Mr. Trump.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Debunking Qanta Ahmed’s Corrosive Claim, ‘Antisemitism Is Profoundly Against Islam’ By Andrew G. Bostom

Posted By on February 18th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/debunking-qanta-ahmeds-corrosive-claim-antisemitism-is-profoundly-against-islam/

“Until Qanta Ahmed musters the intellectual and moral courage to similarly connect the modern scourge of Islamic Jew-hatred to Islam itself, she and her obfuscating misrepresentations will continue to do more harm than good.”

Qanta Ahmed is a secular Pakistani Muslim physician, and occasional talking head, who fancies herself “a Muslim expert in Islamism.” As I have demonstrated previously, she in fact has a very thin veneer of understanding of Islam, and an apparent willingness to engage in takiya, sanctioned Islamic dissimulation.

Appearing Saturday evening with Judge Jeanine Pirro, Ahmed elaborated on an op-ed she had published in The Daily Caller on February 14 that claimed:

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), an American Muslim of Somali origin, shames American Muslims with the antisemitism she has brought to Congress.

Notwithstanding this rather dubious assertion of “shame,” given the global pandemic of Muslim Jew-hatred, which now includes Muslim diaspora populations in the West, Ahmed had the following exchange (from 35:14-35-37) with Judge Pirro. Ahmed observed, appropriately, “Empowering antisemitism is against every American value,” which elicited a quick interjection from Judge Pirro, “And against our Judeo-Christian ethics,” prompting Ahmed to aver, “And it is also against Islam, which reveres the Torah and Judaism.” This latter, patently false statement by Ahmed, in turn, prompted Judge Pirro to add the requisite cultural relativist fig leaf caveat, “And you and I understand when you say, ‘Islamist’ there is a political ideology, versus the Muslim religion,” because Ahmed had earlier (32:07-17) accused Muslim Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of “ringing completely true with Islamist antisemitism”—as if this artificial construct was completely divorced from Islam’s intrinsic Jew-hatred. Nodding approvingly, Ahmed quickly chimed in, “Exactly,” and the segment ended.

MEDIA Comments turned off

Why Does the MSM Keep Falling for Obvious Hoaxes? By Debra Heine

Posted By on February 18th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/why-does-the-msm-keep-falling-for-obvious-hoaxes/

This is just sad:

The national outrage that simmered after actor Jussie Smollett said he was attacked by people shouting racial and anti-gay slurs was fueled in part by celebrities who spoke out loud and strong on social media.

But the outrage has now been replaced by surprise, doubt and bafflement as the singers, actors and politicians who came out in support of the “Empire” star struggle to digest the strange twists the case has taken. Some conservative pundits, meanwhile, have gleefully seized on the moment.

The narrative that just a week ago seemed cut-and-dry has become messy and divisive — and it’s all playing out again on social media.

If there was a “national outrage” over the dubious incident, it was limited to gullible left-wing journalists, celebrities, politicians and activists.

The “narrative” only seemed “cut-and-dry” to people who were looking at the case through lenses clouded by their anti-Trump bias. It seemed made-up to those of us who noticed that Smollett’s allegations were outlandish, implausible and riddled with inconsistencies from the get-go.

Yet even as his story started falling apart (which happened almost immediately), the national media clung to their precious narrative.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

MY SAY: ON PRESIDENTS DAY 2019

Posted By on February 18th, 2019

Today we honor the memory of our magnificent Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

On November 19, 1863 President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the Soldier’s National Cemetery. In only ten sentences, 272 words and delivered in two minutes, the speech is a national treasure….rsk

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

MEDIA, POLITICS Comments turned off

Why the Media Can’t Stop Promoting Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez By Lisa Schiffren

Posted By on February 18th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/02/17/why-the-media

By this point, not yet seven weeks into the current congressional term, the whole country has grown tired of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The freshman radical socialist phenom from New York’s 14th congressional district has been radically overexposed by the media.

Her gaffes are getting old. Her narcissistic, defensive tweeting is tedious. And yet, the media keeps obliging her with photo ops, social media clips, and endless sound bites. They cannot look away, lest they forfeit clicks.

Last week she grimaced at the State of the Union, while wearing white. Half the Democratic field of Presidential candidates embraced her “Green New Deal,” before it was withdrawn out of embarrassment. This week she took credit for tanking 25,000 potential Amazon jobs in her district, and betrayed her stunning ignorance of what a tax incentive is, by demanding that the $3 billion dollars in incentives promised to Amazon be used to give stuff to the poor, as if it were cash in hand. If the media really loved her they might help her maintain some mystique. Instead, Annie Leibovitz just photographed her and her live in boyfriend at the Bronx apartment she barely lived in.

The media chases AOC because she generates clicks: Watching a train wreck is mesmerizing. Seeing a live demonstration of everything we fear about the ignorance of millenials is riveting. But those are small matters.

The real reason that neither cameras nor citizens can look away is, of course: sex. The woman exudes a wild kind of sex appeal. She is hugely mediagenic. Her thin, lanky body, with the attention grabbing, er… rack; the expressive face; the crazy eyes and large, invariably red lipsticked mouth—any casting director could have predicted her ability to grab attention.

To use the Hollywood term of art, young Alexandria is, “fuckable.” That is a rare quality among political women, possibly never previously seen in any elected female Congresswoman or Senator. (Though Harry Reid thought that Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D, N.Y.) had it early on, when he called her “the hottest Senator.”) Remember how the extremely hot Sarah Palin disrupted the political landscape, and we learned the acronym MILF? This attribute explains why there are so many politically conservative men telling the world that they would “do” her, while complaining about her “stupidity,” and irritating voice. Men are obsessed, despite the fact (or because of it?) that she is a clear candidate for the top right corner of the Hot-Crazy matrix.