POLITICS Comments turned off

Ilhan Omar Endorsed Somalia’s New President. Four Days Later, Omar’s Brother-in-Law Had a Powerful Job in His Administration By David Steinberg

Posted By on January 24th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/davidsteinberg/ilhan-omar-endorsed-somalias-new-president-four-days-later-omars-brother-in-law-had-a-powerful-job-in-his-administration/
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) became the first Somali-American legislator in United States’ history when Minnesota’s House District 60B elected her on November 8, 2016. The distinction won Omar immediate fame and influence in Somalia, which was entering the final stretch of a critical presidential election of its own.

According to prominent federal security clearance defense attorney Sean Bigley (read below), Omar’s documented actions in the weeks that followed would almost certainly prevent any applicant with such a background from obtaining or keeping a U.S. security clearance.

Ilhan Omar is now a U.S. congresswoman, however. Elected federal officials are exempted from the arduous security clearance process; they hold de facto clearances once sworn in to office. Further, Omar will likely be privy to a significant amount of classified national security information this term. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has granted Omar’s request for a seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

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“Corruption … affects virtually every aspect of the Somali society: from public officials’ misuse of public goods for private gain and the solicitation of bribes in exchange for basic services to the clan-based patronage networks used to obtain employment and political appointments.” — Transparency International, 2018

The common hyperbole for describing government corruption — “rampant,” or “endemic” — does not help adequately illustrate Somalia’s recent administrations. “As bad as it gets” does the job, literally: Transparency International, the massive NGO dedicated to exposing public-sector corruption, has placed Somalia dead-last among all nations on Earth in its annual “Corruption Perceptions Index” — for 11 consecutive years. Somalia has occasionally managed to tie, though never outrank, North Korea.

Any significant involvement by a U.S. citizen in Somalia’s election process would likely raise eyebrows at America’s intelligence agencies.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Palestinian Arab Leadership Calls “Coexistence” With Israelis Criminal By Lori Lowenthal Marcus

Posted By on January 24th, 2019

A brand new, two-story shopping mall just opened in Atorot, a poor, largely Arab section of northern Jerusalem that will serve both Palestinians and Israeli Jews. It is not being celebrated by everyone and may come with a price.

The mall has drawn the ire of Palestine Arab leadership who say ‘coexistence’ between the groups is criminal and in many ways, it reveals the internal machinations of the deep divide that has made the U.S. peace negotiations so difficult.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last week that a U.S. peace push “won’t be [uniquely] a U.S.-driven process” and would require the cooperation of all parties, including allies in the region.

“Ultimately, the Israelis and the Palestinians will have to come to an agreement,” he said.

If anything, the Atorot Mall, is another test of that process. It is just across Israel’s separation barrier from Ramallah, the government seat of the Palestinian Authority. Atorot, known as Al-Ram in Arabic, is a little more than six miles from downtown Jerusalem.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Ruthie Blum Is Israel’s inevitable war with Iran already underway?

Posted By on January 24th, 2019

https://www.jns.org/opinion/is-israels-inevitable-war-with-iran-underway/

It would be a mistake to dismiss nuclear threats coming out of Tehran as mere saber-rattling, given its stated intention and increasingly overt attempts to annihilate Israel, even at its own potential peril.

Israelis enjoying themselves on the slopes of the Mount Hermon ski resort in the Golan Heights were startled on Sunday afternoon to witness an Iranian missile heading their way. Had it not been intercepted by the Iron Dome missile-defense system, many innocent vacationers, as well as residents in the area, would have been killed.

The surface-to-surface projectile, fired by the Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force in Syria, did not cause the skiers to pack up their gear and run for shelter and hot chocolate, however. After filming the scene on phones and helmet cams, they picked up where they left off. For most Israelis, the rain of enemy rockets is not nearly as novel as mounds of fresh snow.

Disappointment was high, then, when the Israel Defense Forces announced that the popular site, adjacent to the Syrian and Lebanese borders, would be closed on Monday. The IDF was already planning the retaliatory strikes that it carried out late Sunday night against Iranian bases and soldiers stationed near Damascus—a mere 30 miles from Mount Hermon.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Global confidence reaffirmed in Israel’s economy Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger,

Posted By on January 24th, 2019

https://bit.ly/2TbG6lY

1. Israel’s most successful ever government bonds issue totaled 2.5BN Euros: 1.25BN 10-year bond and 1.25BN 30-year bond. The European demand was six times the amount of the bond issued (15BN Euros!) in spite of the low interest rate – 1.5% for the 10-year bond and 2.5% for the 30-year bond – reflecting confidence in Israel’s economy, Israel’s responsible management of its economy and Israel’s solid bond-repayment track record. Some 300 investors from Britain, Germany, France and other European countries – including European Central Banks, pension fund and insurance companies – participated in the bond issue. At the same time, Saudi Arabia had to increase its interest rate to 3%, in order to raise 3BN Euros (Globes Business Daily, January 10, 2019).

2. Israel surged to 5th place in the latest Bloomberg Innovation Index, 2019, trailing South Korea, Germany, Finland and Switzerland, ahead of Singapore, Sweden, USA, Japan, France, etc. Israel was 10th in the 2018 Index. In 2019, Israel is the only country ahead of South Korea in the category of research & development expenditure as a percentage of GDP (4.3%). Israel’s major surge is in the area of patent activity – from 19thspot in 2018 to the 4th spot in 2019. The Bloomberg Innovation Index ranks the globe’s 60 most innovative countries according to the following criteria: GDP, productivity, patent activity, concentration of researchers, postgraduate PhD students engaged in research & development per 1-million people and concentration of high-tech companies (Globes, January 22).

3. The largest ever Japanese delegation of 200 senior executives of 100 leading Japanese corporations, including Mitsubishi and Toshiba, along with Japan’s Minister of Economic Affairs, visited Israel, exploring ways and means to expand bilateral trade and investment. In 2018, Israel’s export to Japan grew 42% to $1.16BN, mostly medical, optical and metal equipment and products. Since 2014, Japanese companies have made over 200 venture capital investments in Israel’s high tech sector. However, Japan – the world’s 3rd largest economy – accounted for only 2% of foreign investment in Israel during the past five years. In addition to commercial high tech, Japan is increasingly interested in cooperation and acquisitions in the areas of defense and homeland security. Israel’s innovation track record has enticed dozens of Japanese companies to explore the potential of research, development and production cooperation with compatible Israeli companies. Japan’s and Israel’s Economic Ministers signed an agreement, enhancing digital health cooperation, teaming substantial Japanese corporations and ground-breaking Israeli startups. Another agreement highlights the matching of Israeli innovations (e.g., artificial intelligence, cyber technologies) and Japanese manufacturers, targeting the Japanese market. A leading Israeli venture capital fund, Vertex, has benefitted from hundreds of millions of dollars, invested by 31 Japanese investors, including financial institutions and major corporations (Globes, January 17).

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Exposed: Arabs silently taking over land in Gush Etzion

Posted By on January 24th, 2019

https://worldisraelnews.com/exposed-arabs-silently-taking-over-land-in-gush-etzion/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=push_notification&utm_campaign=PushCrew_notification_1548352996&pushcrew_powered=1

Israeli NGO and politicians campaign to fight Palestinian landgrabs in areas where Israel is in full control.

By Aryeh Savir,TPS

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has recently increased its efforts to take control of a strategic area in the Nahal Heletz area between Jerusalem and Gush Etzion.

Regavim, a research-based legal advocacy NGO which says it is dedicated to ensuring accountable use of Israel’s national land, published on Wednesday a report which exposes the PA’s construction work at Nahal Heletz, near Har Gilo on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

A large number of heavy tractors have been turning the landscape of the riverbed into a wide and flat expanse, and ancient agricultural huts have been renovated and transformed into residential buildings for Arabs.

These lands are survey lands which are not privately owned and therefore can be declared state lands.

Yishai Hemo, the Regavim director in Judea and Samaria, argues that the engineering work and high cost involved in the effort prove that this is not a private initiative.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Dangers of Defining Deviancy Up written by Ilana Redstone Akresh

Posted By on January 24th, 2019

https://quillette.com/2019/01/24/the-dangers-of

In 1993, then-Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan published an essay entitled “Defining Deviancy Down,” in which he argued that understanding the shift towards more permissive attitudes regarding crime and violence is crucial to their reduction. Specifically, he asserted that the redefinition of norms around deviant behavior (or “defining deviancy down”) had collectively shaped society in unintended ways, resulting in a desensitization to what might have once been considered shocking. By way of illustration, Moynihan referenced the 1929 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago—the notorious gangland execution of seven men committed during the prohibition era. He reminded his readers that those killings had elicited universal public outrage, and then contrasted that reaction with a contemporary example: “On the morning after the close of the [1992] Democratic National Convention in New York City in July,” he wrote, a headline reported “3 Slain in Bronx Apartment, but a Baby is Saved…A mother’s last act was to hide her little girl under the bed.” These were also execution-style killings, but they were greeted with only a barely discernible nod of dismay. In the six decades between 1929 and 1992, a transformation had occurred in the levels of violence and criminal behavior that the public seemed willing to accept.

The idea of defining deviancy down has attracted renewed attention from commentators in the Trump era. In recent years, Moynihan’s analysis has been used to understand how Trump’s impact on the culture has increased the acceptability of previously taboo language, attitudes, and behaviors. In November 2015, Jonathan Capehart wrote an article for the Washington Post entitled “How Trump is ‘defining deviancy down’ in presidential politics.” Capehart argued that, “As the 2016 Republican presidential contest drags on, [Moynihan’s] diagnosis fit politics in general and the campaign of Donald Trump in particular. Just when you thought the Big Apple billionaire couldn’t sink any lower, he does. He gleefully dances through the nativist, racist, misogynistic slop as if he were Gene Kelly in Singing in the Rain. And to make matters worse, Trump is rewarded for it.” In a similar vein, Albert Hunt wrote an op-ed for Bloomberg in May 2017 entitled, “The Age of Trump is ‘Defining Deviancy Down’: When the president seems inept or corrupt, we shrug. If he ever fumbles through adequately, he is praised.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Leftist Jew Hatred Has Come to America By Karin McQuillan

Posted By on January 24th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/01/23/leftist-jew

The ascendancy of the hard Left, which is Barack Obama’s lasting legacy, is transforming life in America for Jews. The comfort, safety, and equality of American Jews are not acceptable to leftists. According to the doctrine of intersectionality, minority groups are united in grievances against Western Civilization and whiteness. The Left began with blacklisting and boycotting conservatives. Now American Jews are in the crosshairs, no matter how liberal their politics.

The response from the mainstream Democratic Party has been to jump on the bandwagon. Will American Jews jump off? Not as long as they continue to live in Democrat communities and work in the professions on the two coasts and college towns, where becoming Republican means losing your friends, being shunned at synagogue, and stunting your career—or if you are starting out in life, being shut out of careers in academia, the arts, mainstream journalism, and Silicon Valley. For most Jews, the social and career cost of changing party affiliation is a such a tall cliff, it feels suicidal, that is, the loss of their entire identity. People don’t make changes like that easily.

Why do American leftists have such a problem with Jews? The short explanation is the identity politics that are President Obama’s toxic legacy to the country, by which he and his thousands of trained activists have redefined the Democrat Party. You’ve got to fit into a favored grievance group, and no matter how left-wing they are, Jews are white. Equally bad, their ethnic group as a whole is wildly successful. Jewish success strips the grievance crowd of their main argument.

Jews have suffered huge discrimination in America. They arrived penniless and made it in one or two generations, embracing America with love despite the discrimination they faced everywhere. Jews do not do grievance and envy and self-destructive addictions, it is just not in their Biblical culture. Shut out of corporate America, elite colleges, medical schools, law offices and banks, they created their own. As small and large independent businessmen, Jews made it in America. Jews are living proof that nothing can stand in your way in America if you have good values like education and a strong family. The identity politics, blame-America crowd can’t stand the Jewish-American success story.

American Jews count their blessings for our wonderful country where we all have the God given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, in recognition that God created all men of equal worth in His eyes. America is the only country on earth, outside of Israel, where Jews have been treated fairly and allowed to flourish. The left hates America. Sohrab Ahmari points out “The intersectional left is committed to the opposite idea–that everywhere in the West, there are hidden ‘structures of oppression’ that trap minorities along the lines of race, gender and sexuality.” Jews have no place in this ideology. So they are cast out.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Auditing Our Auditors By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on January 24th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/01/23

The Roman satirist Juvenal, in a famous passage, asked, “Who will watch the watchmen?”

That problem of policing the police has troubled Western thinkers from Plato to the American founders.

The framers of the Constitution set in place a brilliant series of legislative, executive and judicial checks and balances to thwart the abuse of power by the powerful. Their pessimistic take on human nature was that all power corrupts. Inevitably, elites will insist that they should not be subject to the very rules they enforce on others.

The sexual-abuse crises within the contemporary Catholic Church arose from the de facto exemptions from the law given to priests. Too many assumed that men of faith were exempt from prosecution because as holy men they would be the last to violate the trust of minors.

One of the ironic things about the Me Too movement was that some of the worst offenders were powerful progressive men such as Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, NBC host Matt Lauer and PBS interviewer Charlie Rose. They all apparently believed that their loud liberal credentials gave them immunity from being held accountable for their harassment.

Some of the feminist organizers of the recent Women’s March, such as Tamika Mallory and Linda Sarsour, have been linked to racist and anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. They apparently assumed that as supposed victims, they could not be viewed as being sympathetic to victimizers.

Given President Trump’s unconventional background, his wheeler-dealer past and the hatred he incurs from the left, few ever give him the benefit of the doubt. The paradoxical result is that his tenure in just two years has become the most investigated, the most audited and the most closely examined presidency in history.

Half the country apparently believes Trump cannot be trusted. The result is that everything he says and does is the object of pushback, opposition and audit.

FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Opposing China’s Dangerous Ambitions by Gordon G. Chang

Posted By on January 24th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13605/china-ambitions

Admiral John Richardson is apparently worried about a lack of communication. Communication is not the problem. The problem is that Chinese generals and admirals have been and continue to be hostile, belligerent, and bellicose.

“We do not want war. This is how you prevent it. Remember, show overwhelming power not indecision or weakness. Some Chinese will read the smoke signals correctly.” — Arthur Waldron, University of Pennsylvania.

The best way to avoid conflict in the Taiwan Strait is to make it clear to Beijing that America will defend Taiwan.

In the first half of 2012, the U.S., despite firm obligations to defend the Philippines, did nothing when China took over Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. When Chinese generals and admirals saw Washington’s failure to act, they turned the heat on other Philippine reefs and islets, went after Japan’s islands in the East China Sea, and began reclaiming and militarizing features in the Spratly chain. Feebleness only emboldens Chinese aggression. There will be no good endings in Asia until Washington disabuses Beijing of the arrogant belief that it can take whatever it demands.

The sharp downturn in ties between the world’s two most fearsome militaries was evident when America’s highest naval officer, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson, went to Beijing this month.

Chinese officers were ready for Richardson: they issued hostile words, especially about U.S. relations with Taiwan. In response, CNO Richardson stuck to Washington’s decades-old script of cooperation.

It is time for American policymakers to change that script by, among other things, dropping themes of engagement, introducing notions of reciprocity, and showing resolve of their own.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

To the Secretary General of Muslim World League by A. Z. Mohamed

Posted By on January 24th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13581/mohammad-al-issa

Dr. Mohammad Bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa is special. His thoughts are definitely constructive and pro-peace. One of his wishes, Al-Issa said, is that the prospective meeting in Jerusalem will be “a step toward what will some day be a more broad cross-faith acceptance of different faiths.” As a previous Minister of Justice in Saudi Arabia, he speculated that the time will come when people of different religions can go to any country, including Saudi Arabia, and publicly practice their faith.

One might agree with Al-Issa when he says that extremists attempt “to hijack the true religion, specifically through poisoning the minds of some young people with the idea of clash of civilizations and embedding the overstated idea of conspiracy.” There is, nevertheless, plain as day, the role played by that set of Quranic verses, hadiths, and the resultant interpretations and fatwas that regrettably still fuel a hatred of non-Muslims and “unbelievers.”

A project that the new Saudi Arabian crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman, might consider is assembling a panel to see if anything in the hadith might be inauthentic.

The question facing many Muslims and their religious leaders who have similar attitudes is: will they be able to begin directly discussing the root causes of Muslims’ extremism and hatred of non-Muslims?

Dr. Mohammad Bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa, Secretary General of Muslim World League, has been one of the most outstanding Muslim leaders; he has recognized the brutality of the Holocaust and criticized any denial of it.

Last January, he wrote a letter to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. In the letter, he labeled the Holocaust as “an incident that shook humanity to the core, and created an event whose horrors could not be denied or underrated by any fair-minded or peace-loving person.”