NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Paradox of American Anti-Semitism Hatred of Jews is a fringe phenomenon that has the power to cause deadly harm—and challenge the foundation of our pluralistic society By Adam Kirsch

Posted By on November 1st, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-paradox-of-american-anti-semitism-1541080901?cx_testId=16&cx_testVariant=cx&cx_artPos=0&cx_tag=contextual&cx_navSource=newsReel#cxrecs_s

The national outpouring of grief and horror that followed the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh last weekend points to the great contradiction of American anti-Semitism. It is at the same time feeble and deadly—a fringe phenomenon that nevertheless has the power to determine the mood and shape of Jewish life.

America’s acceptance of Jews and Judaism is profound, certainly greater than in any other country where Jews have lived in the diaspora. Last year, the Pew Research Center released a poll in which Americans were asked to rate different religious groups by the warmth of the feelings they inspired. The group that received the friendliest response—as measured by a “feelings thermometer” on a scale of 1 to 100—was Jews, who scored just above Catholics and mainline Protestants. (The lowest-ranking groups were Muslims and atheists.)

Even so, when Robert Bowers walked into the Tree of Life synagogue and murdered 11 people, shouting “all Jews must die,” the reaction among American Jews was more shock than surprise. In part, this is because massacres in what should be safe places are no longer surprising in the U.S. If angry, heavily armed men can commit mass murder in kindergartens, high schools, movie theaters and nightclubs—as well as a black church in South Carolina and a Sikh temple in Wisconsin—there is no reason to think that a synagogue would be immune.

But the Pittsburgh massacre was no random shooting, and it seemed to confirm a growing anxiety among American Jews that anti-Semitism is on the rise. According to a widely quoted statistic from the Anti-Defamation League’s annual “Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents,” the number of such acts increased by 57% from 2016 to 2017.

If you look at the ADL report in detail, however, the picture is more ambiguous. In 2017, anti-Semitic assaults actually decreased by almost half, to just 19 in the whole country. The number of threats made to Jewish institutions jumped dramatically, by more than 100% over the year before, but almost the entire increase is owed to a single individual, an Israeli teenager who phoned bomb threats to dozens of American Jewish schools and community centers. If you take him out of the statistics, there was basically the same level of anti-Semitic threats in 2017 as in 2016.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

State Department Spokeswoman Expected to Be Nominated U.N. Ambassador Heather Nauert joined Trump administration last year By Michael C. Bender and Courtney McBride

Posted By on November 1st, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/state-department-spokeswoman-expected-to-become-u-n-ambassador-1541096354?mod=hp_lead_pos4

WASHINGTON—President Trump is expected to nominate Heather Nauert as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, a senior administration official said.

Ms. Nauert, a former Fox News correspondent, joined the Trump administration last year and is currently the chief communications official at the State Department.

She would replace Nikki Haley, who announced plans to step down from the position last month.

Mr. Trump also has considered replacing Ms. Haley with Kelly Craft, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, or with Dina Powell, a prominent former White House official.

Other potential appointees have included Kay Bailey Hutchison, the former Texas senator who now serves as U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Another Texan, Nancy Brinker, founder of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, also was considered.

Ms. Nauert has no prior diplomatic experience. She became the State Department spokeswoman in April 2017, serving under former secretary Rex Tillerson and continued in that job after Mr. Tillerson was fired by President Trump and succeeded by Mike Pompeo.

She also served as acting undersecretary of State for public diplomacy and public affairs from March 13 to Oct. 10, 2018.

Before her arrival, Mark Toner, a career foreign service officer and former deputy State Department spokesman under the Obama administration, briefed the press in an acting capacity.

At Fox News, Ms. Nauert served as a television news anchor and most recently appeared on the program Fox & Friends. She last appeared on Fox News in February 2017.

Ms. Nauert, who didn’t respond to a request for comment, hasn’t appeared publicly at the State Department this week. In her place, Robert Palladino, a career foreign service officer who has been Ms. Nauert’s deputy since August, has briefed reporters three times this week.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

How Greens Humiliate Themselves Their latest lawsuit would have Exxon pretend that climate policy is succeeding.

Posted By on November 1st, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-greens-humiliate-themselves-1540939433

Despite its general lack of merit, a lawsuit by the New York attorney general’s office is an entertaining symbol of all that has gone wrong with the green movement in the era of climate-change politics.

Exxon is accused of failing to adopt sufficiently penitential accounting for its oil and gas projects in light of climate regulations that, ahem, don’t exist. Indeed, politicians around the world have declined to enact the green wish list even when given the chance, notwithstanding their endless verbal opposition to climate change.

Presume for a moment the accusations against Exxon are accurate. Then greens should actually be glad because Exxon has spared them future embarrassment when the company is forced to increase the recorded value of its assets to account for the failure of green politics to deliver the expected carbon regulations.

Words are challenged to express how laughable this case is. Before getting lost in distinctions that Exxon internally draws (and the attorney general muddles) between project-specific costs and policies that would suppress demand for fossil fuels generally, let’s remember a few things.

Like all businesses, Exxon seeks to take only those risks that will pay off, and has every incentive to anticipate future regulatory costs correctly. The attorney general’s office and its green backers have an entirely different purpose: They want Exxon to use its internal disciplines to prevent oil and gas development even if it would pay off.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

It’s time to get real about pre-existing conditions By Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R) Louisiana

Posted By on November 1st, 2018

Remember when Democrats promised that if you liked your plan or your doctor you could keep them? Now they’re pushing another bogus claim, accusing Republicans of wanting to take away health insurance protections for people with pre-existing conditions.
Here’s the truth: everyone — Republicans and Democrats — support protecting people with pre-existing conditions.
Way back in 2009, Republicans proposed a health care plan “to guarantee all Americans, regardless of pre-existing conditions or past illnesses, have access to affordable coverage.” A 2009 news report noted that President Obama’s plan to provide insurance coverage to Americans with pre-existing conditions would “borrow from” Senator John McCain’s 2008 platform. When Democrats presented the framework of Obamacare in September 2009, the Republican response laid out “four important areas where we can agree.” The very first one was that “All individuals should have access to coverage, regardless of pre-existing conditions.”

Republicans supported these protections then, and they continue to support them now. The reason Democrats are claiming otherwise and trying to rewrite history is simple: They’re trying to protect the status quo created by Obamacare and set the stage for a single-payer health care system. They’re using the nine pages of Obamacare that deal with pre-existing conditions to defend the entire law — all 961 pages.

That’s silly. We don’t have to protect Obamacare to protect people with pre-existing conditions. I have introduced and supported other legislation to achieve that goal. And further, many people with pre-existing conditions have been losers under Obamacare.
One Colorado woman with a pre-existing condition had been covered by a high-risk pool for years, but her insurance plan was canceled under Obamacare. “Since then, my premiums skyrocketed. In 2017, I paid $735 a month with total out-of-pocket costs of $5,500. In 2018, my premiums went up to $1,100 a month with a deductible of $6,300,” said Janet. “I have to spend $19,500 before my insurance pays anything, and it doesn’t cover all my prescription costs. My old plan was almost a third of what I have to pay now.”
After four-year-old Colette in Virginia was diagnosed with cancer, her family became entangled in a nightmare of insurance company red tape that reflects both problems with Obamacare and the risks of letting the political uncertainty around health care continue. Their only option for health insurance did not cover the only local hospital with a pediatric cancer unit. They had to consider moving to a new zip code just to get the coverage they needed.

POLITICS Comments turned off

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.