Kamala Harris’ big challenge David Axelrod see note please

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/28/opinions/kamala-harris-big-challenge-axelrod/index.html

This is major, because David Axelrod is the man who groomed Barack Obama from obscurity to the White House in four years….rsk

Kamala Harris has a theory of the case about the Democratic presidential nominating process. If she’s right, she could well be standing on a debate platform with Donald Trump in 2020.
Plainly, her announcement and effective rollout on Martin Luther King Jr. Day wasn’t a casual scheduling decision. Nor was her decision to visit South Carolina even before her highly produced kickoff rally Sunday in Oakland, California.
While not explicitly capitalizing on her status as the only woman of color in the race, the symbolic timing of her declaration and the nature of these events were impossible to ignore.
Too little attention has been paid to the way the nominating process unfolds, first in mostly white Iowa and New Hampshire but then moving quickly to more diverse states where African-Americans play a much larger role.

Hillary Clinton was able to shake off Bernie Sanders in 2016 primarily because of her advantage among black voters. That same edge helped Barack Obama prevail over Clinton in 2008.

African-American voters are a strong part of the Democratic base. And under party rules, congressional districts with overwhelming Democratic performance receive additional delegates, multiplying the value of black support.
Harris’ challenge is to be a top finisher in the early states that traditionally narrow the field, to get to those contests that start with the crucial South Carolina primary, where she may have a decided advantage. She’ll be in Iowa tonight for a CNN Town Hall hosted by Jake Tapper. (It airs at 10 pm on CNN.)
There are many reasons to believe Harris could break through.

There’s Still a Path to the Wall . By Steve Cortes

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/01/28/theres_still_a_path_to_the_wall_139298.html

Those of us who care deeply about the 2016 movement led by Donald Trump should not equivocate about the near-term damage inflicted by last week’s political events. Though Speaker Nancy Pelosi controls only one-half of one-third of our federal government, her tactics, plus the unanimity of her caucus, imperil the central animating objective of the America First electoral ascent: The Wall.

In her Machiavellian disregard for the personal, economic, and national security of Americans, she correctly ascertains that allowing large-scale construction of Trump’s wall all but assures his re-election in 2020. After all, Trump’s leadership on the economy, judicial appointments, and a restrained foreign policy already more than justify another term. However, the unfinished business of border security remains a cornerstone of that goal.

Pelosi and her allies, therefore, have suddenly determined that physical barriers are “immoral” even though, for decades, Democrats gladly supported hundreds of miles of barricades. To paraphrase the words of their former Capitol Hill colleague John Kerry, they were for walls before they were against them. What Pelosi’s party actually stands against is … allowing a major victory for the president, regardless of the harm their obstinacy inflicts on American citizens.

Despite these significant obstacles, a path exists for the administration to both secure our country’s border and advance the 2020 re-election cause. But the coming days and weeks will be mission critical.

Anti-Semitism Is Deeply Woven into the European Fabric By Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld

https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/anti-semitism

The anti-Semitism that is so integral to European culture developed in a dominating hostile Christian environment over more than a millennium. This provided much of the cultural infrastructure of the Holocaust, which was executed by Germans with the help of many allies. During the Enlightenment and thereafter, many leading European thinkers expressed hatred towards Jews. In recent decades, the hatred towards Jews found in European societies mutated partly into anti-Israelism, which targets the Jewish state.

Saying that anti-Semitism is integral to European culture does not make one popular in Europe. This does not change even if one clarifies that this is not the same as saying that most Europeans are anti-Semites.

Yet the claim is not difficult to prove. European culture developed in a dominating, hostile Christian environment over more than a millennium. Major incitement against Jews initially stemmed from the Catholic Church. Later, several Protestant churches, including Lutherans, promoted Jew-hatred.

If powerful institutions and elites promote hatred over a very long period, that hatred comes to permeate the culture. In the 1960s, Christian historian and clergyman James Parkes analyzed the conflict between Christians and Jews during the first eight centuries of the Christian era. Concerning that period he concluded, “There was far more reason for the Jew to hate the Christian than for the Christian to hate the Jew – and this on the evidence of Christian sources alone.”

Egypt Tips for Serious Travelers By:Srdja Trifkovic

https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/egypt-tips-for-serious-travelers/

My “Letter from Egypt,” with a comprehensive analysis of the country’s political, economic and social situation is coming in a few days’ time. For starters, let me present our readers with a few practical tips on how to make the most of this incredible country without spending many thousands of dollars/euros and without being herded around with thousands of others.

Preliminary remarks: You don’t need to apply for a visa before traveling, they will issue one at the airport upon arrival for $25. Make sure to get an international driving license. Never pay the initial asking price for anything, and always assume that 50% or less is probably realistic. Carry enough cash at all times, as ATMs may be hard to find and are often out of service. Have plenty of small notes, 5 and 10 Egyptian Pounds (LE) for baksheesh — one LE is around 6 cents, $1 is ca. 17 LE. One dollar bills are more than welcome for heftier tips (bar tenders, pool attendants). Drink only bottled water, which is available everywhere and cheap. Start taking probiotics a week before leaving, and don’t stop until returning home. Get a prepaid SIM card from Orange EG when you arrive. Bring your own GPS with Egypt uploaded, better than Google Maps.

1. Make Hurgadha your holiday destination and base camp for a two-week, all-inclusive package tour in winter. It is on the Red Sea, away from the Nile Valley, but it It is the most economical and comfortable take-off point for ventures into central and southern Egypt, inc. Luxor, southern Nile Valley and Aswan. (For Cairo, Alexandria and their environs you’ll need another trip, or to relocate to a northern base after a fortnight at Hurghada.) Plan to go between early January and late February, when the prices are low, the temperature ideal (74-78F during the day, dropping to well below 50 at night), sunshine pleasant but not oppressive, and last-minute all-inclusive prices ridiculously low. (From mid-March on you risk dust storms.) My two-week package from Belgrade was 500 euros ($600). It’s truly All-Inclusive, inc. a three-hour return flight on Air Cairo’s new Airbus 320, a spacious room (more like a mini-suite, really) in a well-tended complex, and unlimited food, wine, beer and cocktails, 24/7. The Long Beach Resort is comfortable, safe, and clean; it’s pretty much the same with all other hotel complexes in Egypt’s premium Red Sea resort. The food is not Cordon Bleu, but it is wholesome, fresh and honest. For all three main meals it comes in the form of multiple table spreads (which included roast duck last Thursday, pan-fried sole Friday, filet mignon last night). The substantial Smörgåsbord of European and Middle Eastern delicacies contains something for every taste. In the morning the spread includes fresh eggs on demand (any style) that taste free-range, freshly squeezed juices, and an array of fresh salads and fruit. To burn the calories, a well-equipped gym is open 24/7, while two of the five pools are heated and mostly deserted.

The Democrats’ Stealth jihad By Amil Imani

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/01/the_democrats_stealth_jihad.html

For decades, the Democrat Party has shown by both words and deeds that they despise the U.S. Constitution while they bend over backward to embrace Islamists, illegal aliens, and anyone who hates America. The left is interested only in power and nothing else – even if it means to sacrifice our national security and advocate open borders.

The liaison between American Muslims and the Democratic Party is frequently described as a marriage of convenience, where Muslims will ally with leftist politicians, who will gladly cede some of their power to this group of enforcers so conservative politicians and Christians who advocate self-defense and sane social policies are kept out of office.

While America is in hibernation, Muslim organizations with the help of Democrats have been busy, working “stealthily” to change America in what is called “soft jihad.” Soft jihad is practiced where Muslims are not strong enough to unsheathe the sword of jihad, where the true nature of Islam is exposed and when the public would likely stamp them out. A critical tool of soft jihad involves penetration of the American educational system, such as Da’wa, the religious duty of each Muslim to convert non-Muslims and strengthen the Islamic Ummah.

Reading ‘Lolita’ in the West written by Zachary Snowdon Smith

https://quillette.com/2019/01/26/

In 1955, when a flushing toilet was still considered too offensive for the eyes of the movie-going public, it’s no surprise that a blackly comic novel about sex with children would cause a stir. Enter Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, the effusively written story of a 37-year-old literature professor who marries a widow in order to gain access to Lolita, her 12-year-old daughter. The star of Lolita is not Lolita herself, but Humbert Humbert, who hides his obsession with adolescent girls under a mask of tweedy old-world erudition. Humbert uses his position as narrator to lecture the reader on the many noble aspects of adult-on-child romance, and to extol his love for his adopted daughter/concubine. To many, Nabokov remains “the guy who wrote that book about pedophilia.”

Following its publication, Lolita was ignored, and then banned. Britain led the way, confiscating all copies of the novel entering the country, and France followed suit. Only months after its release did Lolita receive its first positive review from a respectable paper, the Sunday Times.

Responding to the Sunday Times, John Gordon, editor of the Sunday Express, spoke for Lolita’s moral critics: “Without doubt it is the filthiest book I have ever read. Sheer unrestrained pornography… Anyone who published it or sold it here would certainly go to prison. I am sure the Sunday Times would approve, even though it abhors censorship as much as I do.”

The first edition of Lolita was printed by Olympia Press, a publishing house where the pornographic bumped elbows with the merely provocative. Nabokov was not the first serious writer to take refuge with the seedy publisher: William S. Burroughs’s Naked Lunch, Samuel Beckett’s Molloy and Robert Kaufman’s exposé Inside Scientology all had their first editions at Olympia. The Olympia imprint, however, did little to improve Lolita’s credibility.

In the 2010s, as hand-wringing over the moral effects of art has grown fashionable once more, Lolita has been subjected to fresh scrutiny. In Russia, an ascendant religious Right has sought to discredit Nabokov as an un-Russian cosmopolitan and purveyor of deviance. The Nabokov Museum in St. Petersburg has suffered particular abuse, ranging from graffiti accusing Nabokov of pedophilia to having vodka bottles containing Bible verses thrown through its windows.

Attack of the Techno-Lynch Mob By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2019/01/27/attack-

The Covington Lie offered the perfect occasion for the electronic mob to pounce—after temporarily licking its wounds following the BuzzFeed fake news hysteria. And it did so without shame or even much regret after the fact, as Jason Leopold, the BuzzFeed fabulist, ceded center stage to a kindred serial prevaricator, Nathan Phillips. The latter in his 15 minutes of fame did not make a major statement that was not contradicted by an earlier statement or by the facts.

The entire psychodrama boiled down not to what the facts on the ground showed, but rather who each party was perceived innately to be.

On the one side, the suspects were seen as rambunctious teenage kids (thus easy targets not especially schooled in the arts of rhetoric or repartee).

They were white (enough said) and smiling (indicative of their smirking privilege and lack of victim status).

They also were doctrinaire religious (the current upsurge in left-wing Catholic bigotry is our updated version of the “whore of Babylon” smear wave of the 19th century).

They were mostly male (toxic masculinity, Gillette just reminded, is the font et origio of our sins).

They were pro-life, and anti-abortion (insensitive to the reality that an ascendant Planned Parenthood just announced record annual income of $1.67 billion and its highest annual profit in history with $244.8 million).

Some were wearing red Trump MAGA hats (or as Joy Behar justified the lynch mob frenzy, “Because we’re desperate to get Trump out of office. That’s why.”)

America’s Latest “Historic” Political Icons Radical Democrats Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar join the U.S. Congress.John Perazzo

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272668/americas-latest-historic-political-icons-john-perazzo

“Historic” political figures may be well worth celebrating, but only if they are something other than ignorant and ill-tempered human wrecking balls. “Historic” doesn’t necessarily mean “good.” Barack Obama’s “historic” tenure as our nation’s first black president, for instance, was tainted by the somewhat inconvenient fact that he is a lifelong Marxist who has spent all of his adult years allying himself with America-hating revolutionaries like Bill Ayers and Berhardine Dohrn, and with bilious Jew-haters like Jeremiah Wright, Rashid Khalidi, and Al Sharpton. When Hillary Clinton made her own “historic” attempt to become our first female president, her campaign was tarnished by the similarly unpleasant fact that she was the most corrupt presidential candidate who ever breathed. And when Keith Ellison “historically” became the first Muslim elected to Congress, he brought with him a long history of allegiance to the most prolific Jew-hater in living memory, Louis Farrakhan.

And now, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, the first two Muslim women ever elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, have stepped forth to become our latest “historic” icons.

Tlaib, who served in the Michigan state legislature from 2009-15, has cultivated noteworthy ties to a number of radical Islamist organizations. In 2009, for instance, she received a Community Service Award from the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group she has praised for its “invaluable” and “vital” “advocacy efforts” on behalf of “those who don’t have the resources to defend themselves.” Moreover, Tlaib has spoken at banquets and conferences hosted by CAIR, the Muslim American Society, and the Islamic Circle of North America. She also has received numerous financial donations from individuals affiliated with CAIR, the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim Students Association, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council. Most of these entities are affiliated with the notorious Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic supremacist organization and a fountainhead of extremism/terrorism.

Robert Spencer “Scholar of Religions” Says Allah is “More Merciful” Than the God of the Bible The Western intelligentsia just can’t get enough of hating Western civilization.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272685/scholar-religions-says-allah-more-merciful-god-robert-spencer

The Western intelligentsia’s capacity for self-flagellation and self-hatred seems to be endless. Jack Miles, Religion News Service tell us, is “author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning ‘God: A Biography’ and a retired professor of religion at the University of California Irvine, now offers an erudite and highly readable close reading of Allah’s real nature.”

Miles’ “erudite” take on Allah is that the god of the Qur’an is “more merciful” and “more moral” than the God of the Bible. Miles is, of course, being feted and celebrated for this in all the right places by all the right people, those who know that teaching the people of Western Europe and North America to despise their own culture and heritage, and to love that of Islam, is a good and noble endeavor.

Miles’ claims, however, are completely wrong. In the first place, there is the evidence of present-day reality. There have been well over 30,000 jihad terror attacks worldwide since 9/11; virtually all of them carried out by Muslims acting upon Qur’anic dictates, many of them screaming “Allahu akbar.” There have been no terror attacks committed by Jews screaming the Shema or Christians screaming “Jesus is Lord.” No doubt Christians have behaved violently in the name of Christ throughout the history of Christianity, but in doing so they never invoked the violent passages of the Bible as justification for their acts.

Bad Ideas Are Born in Bad Universities How our academies are enabling the instruments of tyranny. Bruce Thornton

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272697/bad-ideas-are-born-bad-universities-bruce-thornton

In 1726 Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels gave us a brilliant satire of the folly of research divorced from common sense, practicality, and reality. When Gulliver visits the Grand Academy of Lagado, he finds “Projectors” busy with research projects like extracting sunbeams from cucumbers, building houses from the roof down, and converting excrement back to food.

It’s hard not to think about Swift’s Projectors when you consider today’s loony ideas driving our social mores and even laws. And for that we can thank our universities, where most of these preposterous notions have their genesis. Multiple “gender” identities, “toxic masculinity,” “microaggressions,” and occult “racism” are just a few examples of speculative nonsense that have escaped the university asylum and now roil our politics and infect our laws.

Like most social and political dysfunctions, this degradation of the university is a product of the Sixties. Professors always have had political and ideological preferences, but in the Sixties, universities institutionalized left-wing identity politics in various “studies” departments and programs. Yet faced with aggressive public complaints that women and minorities had been ignored in academic research and teaching, administrators did not address the alleged shortcomings in their curricula from within the protocols of university disciplines like English or history. For example, the topics of black or female history, literature, or social history should be studied with the same professional methodologies and protocols that govern those disciplines. Training in those professional standards could then become the foundation of research and teaching, subject to the professional oversight and judgment of similarly trained peers.

Rather than adjusting and correcting curricula within the framework of existing disciplines, however, universities simply created separate but equal academic sandboxes to quiet noisy activists and buy (they thought) some peace and quiet. Nor did they consider the consequences of sacrificing professional standards in order to display their political correctness.