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What Do the Polls Say About a Blue Wave? By Julie Kelly

Posted By on November 1st, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/11/01/what-do-the-polls

Since it’s now clear that Democrats may not only fail to take control of the U.S. Senate, they actually could lose seats, all eyes are focused on the battle for the House of Representatives.

The political fortunes for congressional Republican candidates are the reverse of those with which their Senate counterparts are blessed. In the Senate, Democrats are defending nearly two-dozen incumbent senators, many in states that Donald Trump won in 2016; if Republicans run the table, the GOP could get very close to a filibuster-proof Senate.

Conversely, 37 Republican congressmen are retiring this year, including Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. Two popular Republican lawmakers face federal indictments, and another is under an ethics investigation. For Democrats, the court-ordered redistricting of Pennsylvania’s congressional map was manna from heaven, gifting them with at least five favorable new districts. Some pundits just one year ago were predicting the Democrats could pick off 50 seats from reeling Republicans.

But as polls trickle in just days before next week’s election, there’s no indication Democrats will come close to winning those 50 seats, let alone is there any certainty they will flip the 23 seats needed to reclaim the speaker’s gavel in January.

At this point—if a “blue wave” was indeed in the offing for November 6—at least a few polls in key swing districts would show big advantages for the Democrats; that’s not the case. The RealClearPolitics average of polls tracking the generic congressional vote gives Democrats a 7.5 point edge, but many of those polls are more than a week old. A recent YouGov/Economist poll shows just a five-point preference for Democrats, and the latest Rasmussen poll has Democrats ahead only three points, a statistical tie. This must be causing some unease among party leaders and candidates.

So let’s look at the breakdown of the seats in play, and what the recent polls suggest might happen next week.

The top sites that analyze each congressional contest list between 14 and 20 Republican-held seats as “likely” or “lean” Democratic, while only a few Democrat districts could flip to the GOP. A handful of those seats—such as Illinois’ 6th Congressional District and Iowa’s 1st Congressional District—are tied; very few candidates in the “lean Democratic” category have double-digit leads.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Hello Honduras, Goodbye Columbus By Michael Walsh

Posted By on November 1st, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/10/31/hello-

On the morning of March 16, 1916, with World War I already raging in Europe but America still neutral, the Mexican bandito Pancho Villa led a military raid on the dusty border town of Columbus, New Mexico. At that time, New Mexico had just passed the fourth anniversary of its statehood and remained a sparsely populated outpost in the desert southwest. Still, there was an U.S. Army garrison there—and it was our soldiers whom Villa attacked in his daring assault on American territory.

The raid was repulsed; the Americans killed 16 Mexican nationals on our side of the border, and chased Villa back into Mexico. But the incident outraged the nation, and President Wilson ordered a punitive expedition to hunt Villa down and bring him back, dead or alive. (Presidents didn’t fool around in those days.) Under the command of General “Black Jack” Pershing, the Army drove deep into Mexico, but 11 months of searching failed to locate Villa. The troops returned, having gained valuable combat experience; shortly thereafter the United States entered the war, with Pershing commanding the American Expeditionary Forces, and they took some of the lessons they’d learned in Mexico to France with them.

Today there’s another attempted invasion of America, also by Latin Americans: the various “caravans” (a charming, romantic label invented by the media to make the marchers seem less threatening and less, well, illegal), mushing their way up from the Central American hellholes of El Salvador (home of MS-13), Honduras, and Guatemala, bent on barreling through the absurd loopholes of “compassion” that mark American immigration law and straight into the arms of the American welfare system and the remittance offices. That they are “unarmed” matters not one whit, given their high predilection for violence that would make their Amerindian ancestors blush.

And yet, somehow, we’re not supposed to care. It’s as if America was a boundless charity instead of a sovereign nation, and a pitiful, helpless charity at that, with no say over who becomes the recipient of its deeply in-hock largesse. “Everybody has won, and all must have prizes,” says the Dodo Bird in Alice in Wonderland, and right now there’s no bigger Dodo than Uncle Sucker.

So President Trump’s order to send more than 5,000 troops to the border to prevent the illegal aliens from crossing the line is a welcome development. Forget the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of the military in domestic matters, i.e. law enforcement—this is no matter for local sheriffs or even just the Border Patrol, but is rather a national-security issue. There’s no question that the military can and should be used to repel an invasion; all that’s needed is to call the situation what it is. Instead of “caravans” and “migrants” let us speak instead of “armies” (ABC tried that and immediately got its mouth washed out with soap, which tells you something about the statement’s veracity) and “invaders.” But in the era of P.C.-speak, such plain talk is the truth that dare not utter its name.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

When Laws Are Not Enforced, Anarchy Follows By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on November 1st, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/11/01/when-laws-are-

What makes citizens obey the law is not always their sterling character. Instead, fear of punishment—the shame of arrest, fines or imprisonment—more often makes us comply with laws. Law enforcement is not just a way to deal with individual violators but also a way to remind society at large that there can be no civilization without legality.

Or, as 17th-century British statesman George Savile famously put it: “Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen.”

In the modern world, we call such prompt, uniform and guaranteed law enforcement “deterrence,” from the Latin verb meaning “to frighten away.” One protester who disrupts a speech is not the problem. But if unpunished, he green-lights hundreds more like him.

Worse still, when one law is left unenforced, then all sorts of other laws are weakened.

The result of hundreds of “sanctuary cities” is not just to forbid full immigration enforcement in particular jurisdictions. They also signal that U.S. immigration law, and other laws by extension, can be ignored.

The presence of an estimated 12 million or more foreign nationals unlawfully living in the United States without legal consequence sends a similar message. The logical result is the current caravan of thousands of Central Americans now inching its way northward to enter the United States illegally.

If the border was secure, immigration laws enforced and illegal residence phased out, deterrence would be re-established and there would likely be no caravan.

Campus protests often turn violent. Agitators shout down and sometimes try to physically intimidate speakers with whom they disagree.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Reporting for duty again By Silvio Canto, Jr.

Posted By on November 1st, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/11/reporting_to_duty_again.html

Is anyone shocked? I am not. Remember the five Gitmo terrorists exchanged for U.S. Army sgt. Bowe Bergdahl? It turns out that all five are reporting back to duty, according to the AP:

Five members of the Afghan Taliban who were freed from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in exchange for captured U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl have joined the insurgent group’s political office in Qatar, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.

They will now be among Taliban representatives negotiating for peace in Afghanistan, a sign some negotiators in Kabul say indicates the Taliban’s desire for a peace pact.“

“These people are respected among all the Taliban,” said Mujahed. “Their word carries weight with the Taliban leadership and the mujahedeen.”

Maybe so. Maybe they are highly respected, but who cares? They are free men and working for the other side.

I remember the families of the men who were killed in Afghanistan or in a mission to rescue Bergdahl. The families of dead soldiers don’t get their sons back. The fallen soldiers don’t get a second chance. They are dead and buried.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Trump Is the Best President Ever for American Jews By Karin McQuillan

Posted By on November 1st, 2018

ttps://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/11/trump_is_the_best_president_ever_for_american_jews.html

President Trump’s statement on anti-Semitism the day after the Tree of Life massacre truly was “electrifying.”

The Jews have endured terrible persecution, and you know that we’ve all read it: We’ve studied it. They’ve gone through a lot and those seeking their destruction…we will seek their destruction…Never again.

It touched my heart deeply. Jews have never, but never, been given this kind of whole-hearted support by an American leader before. Trump told the rally-goers in Illinois, slowly, and with great emphasis:

This evil anti-Semitic attack is an assault on all of us. It’s an assault on humanity. It will require all of us, working together, to extract the hateful poison of anti-Semitism from our world. This was an anti-Semitic attack at its worst. The scourge of anti-Semitism cannot be ignored, cannot be tolerated, and it cannot be allowed to continue. We cannot allow it to continue. It must be confronted and condemned everywhere it rears its very ugly head. We must stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters to defeat anti-Semitism, and vanquish the forces of hate – that’s what it is.

Jews have never, but never, been given this kind of whole-hearted backing by an American leader before. Jews are used to facing murderous hate alone. We are not used to words that reflect the moral truth. We’re used to mealy mouthed pieties condemning hate on all sides.

A dear friend who is active fighting anti-Semitism wrote me, “It is the strongest statement in support of Jews ever made by an American president.”

President Trump is a promise keeper. He is unique among Presidents in keeping his campaign promises. When President Trump says anti-Semitism cannot be allowed to continue, it sounds like he means it. This may be, let us hope and pray, it may be of real significance.

President Trump is sui generis. He bulls through what ‘everyone knows’ and takes on the problems that others say are impossible to change. He sees what should be done, and he gets down to do it. Bringing back industrial jobs to America? No problem. Create jobs for unemployed blacks and Hispanics. At historic levels. Dealing with the immigration disaster destroying America? Bring it on.

And now antisemitic murders of Jews have happened in America, on his watch. Trump is putting the evil doers on notice: anti-Semitism will not be tolerated. Anti-Semitism? It’s got to end.

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Sinai Campaign, Lessons From A Forgotten War The folly of international guarantees. Ari Lieberman

Posted By on November 1st, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271801/sinai-campaign-lessons-forgotten-war-ari-lieberman

Sixty-two years ago, on October 29, 1956 sixteen Israeli Air Force C-47 Dakota transport planes (one piloted by a woman) dropped 395 paratroopers deep behind Egyptian lines in the Sinai Peninsula, just outside the Mitla Pass. Hours earlier, Israeli P-51 Mustangs cut Egyptian phone lines in Sinai with their wings and propellers severely disrupting Egyptian military communications. These actions represented the opening shots of the Sinai Campaign, codenamed Operation Kadesh, a large-scale Israeli military undertaking directed at Israel’s main antagonist at the time, Egypt. The paradrop was followed-up by land thrusts.

The reasons for the attack were four-fold. First, Egypt led by its belligerent pan-Arabist leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, blockaded the Straits of Tiran, an international waterway, to Israeli shipping. As a result, Israel’s southern port city of Eilat was rendered useless and its maritime access to parts of Asia and Africa was cut off.

Second, since the early 1950s, Egypt had been sponsoring Fedayeen attacks against Israel. The Fedayeen were largely Palestinians, armed, trained and paid by Egypt. They launched their terrorist attacks mostly from Egypt and Jordan. One of the most notorious of these was known as the Scorpion Pass Massacre, a deadly ambush attack that left 11 Egged bus passengers including women and children, dead. At least one female passenger was raped before being murdered. Kadesh was aimed at punishing Egypt for its role in the Fedayeen attacks and destroying Fedayeen bases in Gaza and Sinai.

Third, in 1955 Egypt concluded a major arms purchase with the Soviet Union which in turn utilized Czechoslovakia as its convenient interlocutor. The deal involved the sale to Egypt of hundreds of T-34 tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery, MiG-15 fighters, Ilyushin ll-28 bombers, and naval vessels. Such a large-scale transfer of weapons altered the balance of power in favor of Egypt. Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Dayan estimated that it would take a year for Egypt to absorb this massive amount of hardware and when it did, it would strike at Israel. Nasser never missed an opportunity to proclaim his nefarious intentions to his base and the Arab world at large and Israel took his threats seriously. As such, Israel determined that if war was inevitable, it was better if it occurred before the Egyptians learned how to use their new toys.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Gillum Accuses Ron DeSantis of Anti-Semitism Over David Horowitz A shameless leftist liar and hack hits a new low. Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on November 1st, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271804/gillum-accuses-ron-desantis-anti-semitism-over-daniel-greenfield

Andrew Gillum, the Bernie candidate aspiring to run Florida, has a compelling platform. Racism.

Gillum isn’t saying he’s a racist. Everyone else is a racist. And I do mean everyone.

If you call Andrew Gillum “Andrew” instead of Mayor Gillum (Andy currently runs Tallahassee, a city with the highest crime rate in Florida), you’re a racist.

“I’m a sitting mayor and he had the nerve to address me only as Andrew,” Gillum had whined about former Rep. Ron DeSantis, his Republican opponent, at a black college.

It was a debate and Gillum had actually been standing at the time. Also Andrew had compared Ron to a dog and found two hundred different ways to accuse Ron of racism.

“I wanted to correct him, y’all, but I didn’t want to be petty,” he told students.

Good thing, Andrew chose not to be petty about it. When you’re a standing mayor of a city with a higher murder rate than Miami, you’ve gotta think big, y’all.

Just wait until you see what happens to those Floridians sent to the swamp gulags for failing to genuflect before Governor Gillum when the gubernatorial limo swings by.

Also if you pay attention to Gillum’s lies about corruption in an FBI investigation, you’re a racist.

“They’ve wanted the people of this state to believe somehow,” Gillum ranted. “I’m unethical, participated in illegal and illicit activity. I mean, you name it. The goal is obviously to use my candidacy as a way to reinforce, frankly, stereotypes about black men.”

Obviously.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The New Jihad: More Threatening Than Ever by Guy Millière

Posted By on November 1st, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13206/jihad-threat

It is important to emphasize that radical Islamists use means other than terrorism to gain ground.

This week, the unelected judges of the European Court of Human Rights submitted to the demands of Sharia blasphemy laws and decided not to allow criticism of Muhammad, lest Muslim feelings be hurt. The court actually chose hurt feelings over freedom of expression and truth as a defense.

“As someone who has known what it is to live without freedom, I watch in amazement as those who call themselves liberal and progressive – people who claim to believe so fervently in individual liberty and minority rights – make common cause with the forces in the world that manifestly pose the greatest threats to that very freedom and those very minorities… We need to say to Muslims living in the West: if you want to live in our societies, to share in their material benefits, then you need to accept that our freedoms are not optional”. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali, 2016.

When the Barcelona terror attack took place August 17, 2017, as horrible as it was (13 deaths, 130 injured), the jihadists did not consider it a success. They had a more lethal project. They wanted to drive vans packed with explosives into the of the Sagrada Familia basilica and two other tourist areas of the city. That, however, was the last major jihadist attack in a Western country. The Manchester attack had taken place two month earlier, on May 22, 2017; the attack in Nice, France, had taken place on July 14, 2016; and the in Orlando attack, in Florida, on June 12, 2016.

The destruction of the Islamic State under President Donald J. Trump has not only deprived jihadists of what had become a rear base and training camp; it also deprived them of the idea that they could quickly defeat the West.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Denmark says it foiled Iranian assassination attempt on its soil

Posted By on October 31st, 2018

http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/10/31/denmark-says-it-foiled-iranian-assassination-attempt-on-its-soil/

Denmark recalls its ambassador to Iran over a foiled Tehran plot to kill three Iranian dissidents on Danish soil • Denmark consulting with “partners and allies,” including the European Union, about possible sanctions, Foreign Minister Samuelsen says.

Denmark has recalled its ambassador to Iran after it accused Tehran of plotting to kill three Iranian dissidents living in the Scandinavian country.

Denmark’s Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen and Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen on Tuesday both called the alleged Iranian attack in Denmark “totally unacceptable.”

“I have decided to recall Denmark’s ambassador in Tehran for consultations. Denmark can in no way accept that people with ties to Iran’s intelligence service plot attacks against people in Denmark,” Samuelsen told reporters.

Iranian Ambassador to Denmark Morteza Moradian has been summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Copenhagen and it was made “crystal clear” to him that “the gravity of the matter is difficult to describe,” Samuelsen said, adding he was consulting with “partners and allies,” including the European Union, about possible sanctions.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said in a statement that Tehran “strongly denied” the allegations, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

A police operation last month that briefly cut off Copenhagen from the rest of Denmark stemmed from an alleged Iranian plot to kill an opposition activist, the head of Denmark’s intelligence agency said Tuesday while announcing a suspect’s arrest.

A Norwegian citizen of Iranian descent was arrested Oct. 21 on suspicion of helping an unspecified Iranian intelligence service “to act in Denmark” and of alleged involvement in the assassination plot, Danish Security and Intelligence Service Director Finn Borch Andersen said.

The suspect was seen taking photos of the residences of members of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA) in Ringsted, a town some 37 miles southwest of Copenhagen, he said.

The suspect has denied wrongdoing and is being held in pretrial custody until Nov. 8, Borch Andersen said. He did not name the Norwegian.

“This is a case that entails an Iranian intelligence operation in Denmark, In our view, it was an Iranian intelligence agency’s plan to assassinate a person who lives in Denmark,” he said.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Israel Mum About New Computer Virus Attack on Iran By Rick Moran

Posted By on October 31st, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/israel-mum-about-new-computer-virus-attack-on-iran/

Reports out of Iran indicate that a massive attack on Iranian infrastructure and strategic networks took place in the last few days by a computer virus even more powerful than the Stuxnet worm that wrought tremendous damage on Iran’s nuclear program.

Israeli officials are refusing to discuss any role they had in unleashing the virus, that’s been described as “more violent, more advanced and more sophisticated” than Stuxnet.

As the Israeli Times reports, the attacks come just days after Israel assisted Denmark in foiling an assassination plot on an Iranian dissident and reports emerged that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s cellphone was hacked.

“Remember Stuxnet, the virus that penetrated the computers of the Iranian nuclear industry?” the report on Israel’s Hadashot news asked. Iran “has admitted in the past few days that it is again facing a similar attack, from a more violent, more advanced and more sophisticated virus than before, that has hit infrastructure and strategic networks.”

The Iranians, the TV report went on, are “not admitting, of course, how much damage has been caused.”

On Sunday, Gholamreza Jalali, the head of Iran’s civil defense agency, said Tehran had neutralized a new version of Stuxnet, Reuters reported.“Recently we discovered a new generation of Stuxnet which consisted of several parts … and was trying to enter our systems,” Jalali said.

Stuxnet crippled Iran’s nuclear weapons program, setting it back several months, or several years, depending on the source. Hopefully, if the report is accurate and the virus is more advanced and sophisticated, the systems it affected will sustain even more damage.

The Stuxnet virus was reported to have been developed jointly by Israel and the US. This worm is just one aspect of the “shadow war” being waged by Mossad against the Iranian regime.

Without attributing responsibility to the Mossad, the report mentioned the tapping of Rouhani’s phone, noting that the Iranians “had to switch it for an encrypted model because they understand that someone has been listening to him for days and weeks.”

On Sunday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged intensified efforts to counter enemy “infiltration,” Reuters said.

In a speech to officials in charge of cyber defense, Khamenei said: “In the face of the enemy’s complex practices, our civil defense should… confront infiltration through scientific, accurate, and up-to-date… action,” the report said, quoting Iranian state TV. CONTINUE AT SITE