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Jimmy Kimmel Hits a New Low By Julie Kelly

Posted By on February 1st, 2018

It was embarrassing to watch.https://amgreatness.com/2018/01/31/jimmy-kimmel-hits-new-low/

In what might be a new low for broadcast television, as well as in the entertainment industry’s ongoing attempt to undo a sitting U.S. president, ABC late night host Jimmy Kimmel interviewed porn star Stormy Daniels on Tuesday night following President Trump’s State of the Union address. Daniels’ alleged sexual encounter with the president in 2006 was the subject of a recent exposé in the tabloid magazine, InTouch. And she’s more than earning her 15 minutes of fame thanks to anti-Trump garbage-peddlers like Kimmel.

Before I get into the depraved details, let me say this: I feel sorry for Mrs. Jimmy Kimmel. Not only does her husband routinely exploit their ill child to score political points, Kimmel humiliated her with this lewd interview, where Daniels openly flirted with him as he asked her degrading questions about sex. If my husband behaved this way in any setting—let alone on national television for the purpose of feeding the sick voyeurism of millions of people—he’d arrive home to find a nine iron aimed at his windshield.

Kimmel will use anyone as a prop to vent his uncontrolled Trump-rage and agitate his like-minded viewers. Just before the Daniels segment, Kimmel hosted a weird Oprah-like panel where several Americans who oppose amnesty for so-called Dreamers came face-to-face with a woman named Esmeralda, a woman brought to the U.S. from Mexico as a child, who is engaged and has a child with an American citizen. When one DACA foe told Kimmel, “We live in a most loving, compassionate and exceptional country,” Kimmel cut off the woman and said, “No, I don’t agree with that. I think this country has become cruel.” (Kimmel suffers from what I call the “I-just-started-paying-attention-to-politics-after-Trump-was-elected” syndrome. He must not be aware that deportations have been occurring for decades, and even accelerated during President Obama’s tenure.)

But the one-time comedian smoothly pivoted from angst-ridden immigrant champion to creepy middle-aged man in an instant as Daniels appeared on the set. Dressed in a tight blue dress to emphasize her humongous breasts (seriously, how do these women not fall over?), she played coy with Kimmel as he asked one raunchy question after another. She appeared nervous as Kimmel read aloud the letter that circulated on social media yesterday, purportedly signed by Daniels, that again denied the affair. He pointed out the signatures didn’t match previous autographs as he held up photos of her wearing a bikini: “Did you sign this letter that was released today?” Daniels replied, “I don’t know, did I?” She gave the same response when Kimmel asked if she has a non-disclosure agreement with Trump. “Do I?”

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The ‘Goodness’ of Migrants: When Feelings Trump Facts by Douglas Murray

Posted By on February 1st, 2018

No one asked what in the hearts of the migrants of Calais is so very “good”, and what “goodness” is so lacking in the hearts of the British people that it needs topping-up from the camps of Calais.

It is worth reflecting on just two recent terrorist plots, by people who did not bring only “goodness” when they came from Calais.

The question fails to get asked: “What exactly did we gain from their presence in our country? And what exactly was the ‘goodness’ that you think they brought?”

In Western Europe, there is still only an overwhelming political and social price a price to pay for appearing to be against mass immigration. Public opinion polls may consistently show the public to be opposed to mass migration. But in public, it remains most acceptable, and indeed commonplace, to continue to utter bromides about the benefits that migration brings, including the advantages from any and all illegal immigration.

Recently on the BBC’s main political discussion programme, Question Time, the panel were asked about immigration and, as so often in the British immigration debate, the subject of the situation in Calais, France came up. Over recent years Calais has repeatedly become the place for illegal camps of illegal migrants to congregate, in the hope of moving from France to the UK. Some of these migrants attack lorries and disable vehicles to try to climb aboard them. Others attempt other ways to get through the Channel Tunnel, either on a vehicle or on foot.

Of course, if these people were genuine asylum seekers with genuine asylum claims, they have already passed through several countries in which they could and should have claimed asylum. That they are congregating around the entrance to the Channel Tunnel in Calais is a demonstration not that they are legitimate asylum seekers in search of safety, but illegal migrants seeking to get into Britain.

Like everything else in the immigration debate, and often life, feelings most of the time trump facts. The discussion on the BBC’s Question Time was, in that sense, utterly typical. One of the guests on the panel was the Hollywood scriptwriter Dustin Lance Black. A social and political liberal, Black used his time there to make one extraordinary claim in particular:

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The “Fake News” Crusade to “Protect” You from Free Speech by Robbie Travers

Posted By on February 1st, 2018

Even if judgements against some of these websites might be overturned in courts, doing so is clearly an enormous financial burden, as the would-be censors doubtless know. But what a handy way not to have one’s policies questioned — especially, one assumes, during elections.

Attempts to censor “competing narratives” is probably just a tip-off that certain individuals are afraid their political ideas will be unable to withstand the questions asked or the test of time.

“If a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society, not a free society.” — Natan Sharansky, The Case for Democracy.

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear,” George Orwell wrote in his ant-totalitarian novel, 1984. He would probably have frowned upon the latest UK Government blueprint to create a regulatory agency that will ultimately strangle freedom of expression.

Scrutiny against “Fake News,” is undoubtedly a positive development. It means that at least people are questioning the news they are consuming. Yes, it is a problem that so much disinformation and misinformation exists. It is, however, a far bigger problem if they do not. The public’s resolve should be that disinformation is not combated by a regulatory body controlled by Government. Individual arguments, with evidence, is what belongs in a democracy, which can only survive if it is a marketplace of ideas.

If having a Government body decide what can and cannot be published – thereby creating a culture of both official censorship and self-censorship — is not enough to concern you, the briefest glance at what this newly created British body would consider “Fake News” should send you running into the street.

This new UK Government body would deem worthy of censorship “Satire or parody which means no harm but can fool people”. According to these geniuses, satire and parody are “Fake News.”

Satire often relies on mixing believability and absurdity — not necessarily to fool people but to point out serious problems in a more approachable way. This can be done to draw people’s attention to take a harder look at what they are consuming, or to make a wider political point humourously. The idea that satirical publications would be possibly removed and censored because people might believe them sounds disingenuous at best, and at worst autocratic.

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Trump’s SOTU Hit the Right Foreign Policy Notes – Now Comes the Hard Part by John R. Bolton

Posted By on February 1st, 2018

President Trump’s first State of the Union address was not heavy on national security issues. It did, however, make one critical point: In reviewing the international achievements of his first year in office, Trump was abundantly clear that the Obama era is over. Primarily retrospective assessments like Trump’s are perfectly legitimate for a president finishing his initial year, especially given what his policies are replacing.

Gone was President Obama’s self-congratulatory moral posturing, replaced by a concrete list of accomplishments that will inevitably increase the power of America’s presence in the world. Trump’s policy is not only not isolationist — as many of his opponents (and a few misguided supporters) contend — his pursuit of Ronald Reagan’s “peace through strength” approach actually demonstrates that Obama’s detached, ethereal retreat from American assertiveness internationally amounted to the real isolationism.

Most importantly, Trump again committed to palpably more robust military budgets and an end to the budget-sequester mechanism, the worst political mistake made by Republicans in Congress in living memory. Sequestration procedures were liberal dreams come true, forcing wasteful increases in domestic programs in order to obtain critical military funding. The sooner this whole embarrassing exercise is behind us, the better.

As Secretary of Defense James Mattis frequently points out, harking back to Jeane Kirkpatrick’s famous comment, there cannot be an adequate American foreign policy without an adequate defense policy.

Trump chose to single out the need “to modernize and rebuild our nuclear arsenal,” the bedrock of America’s deterrence capabilities. Indeed, Trump went on, quite rightly, to cast doubt on the “Global Zero” notion of actively working to eliminate all nuclear weapons. For many of those who pursue “Global Zero,” the real target is not rogue states like Iran or North Korea, or strategic threats like Russia or China, but the United States itself. Trump basically said in response, “When the lions lie down with the lambs, call me.” Just so.

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Yale Law School Grad Cory Booker is an Ignoramus on Citizenship Rights By Richard Baehr

Posted By on February 1st, 2018

New Jersey Senator Cory Booker seems to spend every waking moment either admiring his Presidential look in a mirror, or trying to move left of any of his opponents for the 2020 nomination. After the State of the Union Address Tuesday, he demonstrated a profound ignorance of the Constitution. The Stanford and Yale Law School educated Rhodes Scholar, naturally raced to the MSNBC studios after the address to express his profound displeasure.

Attacking President Trump for his divisiveness, Booker said the following:

“Then the raw meat was ugly, and then the appeals to fear-mongering, using MS-13 as a way to cast a shadow around millions of Americans who are looking for a full recognition of their citizenship rights.”

Looking for a full recognition of their citizenship rights? What rights to citizenship do ten million illegal immigrants possess — whether in the dreamer category, or any other- their parents, those who overstayed visas, whatever the explanation. The answer is they have no rights to citizenship, now or in the future, unless the Congress passes a law and the President signs it to extend an amnesty to allow these people to establish a legal status in the country, and at some point, a path to citizenship.

Booker slips up because at this point his view — supporting complete amnesty and citizenship rights, is what the Democrats are after. They want millions of new Democratic voters, more than they share any concerns about people in the shadows.

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The Memo Freakout

Posted By on February 1st, 2018

Donald Trump’s critics have moved beyond latter-day Cold Warrior mode into full blown McCarthyism. John Heilemann of MSNBC has taken to insinuating that Republican Devin Nunes, chairman of the House intelligence committee, might be a Russian plant. The congressman’s offense is producing and working to release a memo about the sources of the FBI’s surveillance of persons associated with the Trump campaign in 2016, which has made Nunes the most hated man in Washington for Democrats and the press.

The memo is portrayed as a blatant PR gimmick and a clear and present danger to America’s intelligence operations. But from what we know of Nunes and his colleagues, they have long been sincerely alarmed at what they’ve learned about how the FBI operated in 2016. The suspicions have been heightened by the bizarre stonewalling of the committee’s inquiry by a Republican-led Justice department (this background accounts for why the committee hasn’t worked closely with the DOJ on the memo).

As for endangering U.S. intelligence, the committee has scrupulously followed the process to declassify the document in such circumstances. Nunes or someone else could have simply leaked the document to a sympathetic reporter — this is how Washington usually works — but he has instead played by the rules. The White House is, per chief of staff John Kelly, currently scrubbing the document, and presumably anything that reveals sources and methods will be redacted.

We can’t know if the document is nearly as explosive as advertised until we see it. Perhaps the presuppositions of the committee Republicans have led them to an overly hostile interpretation of the material. (The FBI is already out with a statement saying that the memo leaves out important details.) But you don’t have to be Sean Hannity to be curious about the beginning of the investigation and its conduct, given the disturbing revelations of the last few months.

At the outset of all this, we favored a full investigation of the 2016 election controversies — from the Russian hacking to unmasking — to give the public as many facts as possible. Instead, the main investigation is taking place within the black box of a special-counsel probe. If nothing else, the Nunes memo will pull back the curtain on part of the story. The FBI and the Democrats can — and should — share their own versions. This is called public debate, and we assure the Red Hunters on the Left that this is not how the Kremlin conducts its affairs.

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Rethinking the Geography of Power In America and abroad, governing institutions should be dispersed more widely. By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on February 1st, 2018

Where the seats of power are located matters. Given the populist revolt in the United States and Europe against the so-called global elite, it is time to refigure the geography of governmental and transnational power.

Take the United Nations. Much of the international body’s perceived negatives derive from being in the world’s richest and most visible city, New York. But what if U.N. elites did not have easy access to instant television exposure, tony Manhattan digs, and who’s-who networking?

Most of the world is non-Western. Many Western elites are apologetic over past sins of imperialism and colonialism.

So why not move the United Nations to Haiti, Libya, or Uganda? The transference would do wonders for any underdeveloped country, financially, culturally, or psychologically. U.N. officials without easy access to Westernized media and the high life might instead have more time to concentrate on global problems such as hunger, disease, and violence — and be personally enmeshed in the dangers they address.

Given the controversy over President Trump’s supposed disparagement of such countries as “sh**holes,” having an underdeveloped nation host the United Nations could refute such stereotyping. Relocating the U.N. to a capital such as Port-au-Prince, Tripoli, or Kampala would prove that such places are unduly underappreciated and surprisingly wonderful cities from which to conduct international governance.

Liberals treasure the United Nations. Conservatives don’t trust its often anti-democratic and anti-American tenor. So why not split the difference by staying in the United Nations but, after 66 years of a New York headquarters, finally allowing another country a chance at hosting the U.N.?

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‘Islamophobia’ Hysteria In Canada Offensive Holocaust comparisons have gone too far. Howard Rotberg

Posted By on February 1st, 2018

Canada continues its submission to Islamism. My local paper, the Hamilton Spectator, ran an op-ed on January 26th from a local Muslim doctor under the headline, “Islamophobia is alive and well.” Dr. Raza Khan, writing about the tragic shooting a year ago by a lone individual in a Quebec City mosque killing 6 and injuring more, advocates that Canada should designate January 29th as a “National Day of Remembrance and Action on Islamophobia.” The doctor recites a few anti-Muslim actions by some fringe groups, and Quebec’s law that those wearing burkas or niqabs would not be eligible from offering or receiving public services, its legislature feeling that faces should be disclosed. From this he hectors us that “Racism is surging in Quebec” and that “the ugly face of hatred (is) here in Canada.”

He concludes his essay thus: “Never Again. For all.” Most of us know that “Never Again” is the term most often used in the hope that the Holocaust murdering 6 million Jews will never again happen. Dr. Khan however appropriates this expression for the purpose of drawing moral equivalence between acts of some isolated individuals and a considered legislative policy about how far hiding your face can go in a liberal democracy. This equivalency was run in the newspaper three days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day. This attempt to give another commemorative date to Muslims a few days before Holocaust Remembrance Day follows an attempt to bring a motion before Canada’s Parliament giving special attention to “Islamophobia” in a motion condemning racism.

Member of Parliament Iqra Khalid in her Motion 103 calls on the government to “condemn Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination,” asks the government to “recognize the need to quell the increasing public climate of hate and fear,” and request for the “Commons heritage committee to study how the government could develop a government-wide approach to reducing or eliminating systemic racism and religious discrimination, including Islamophobia, and collect data to provide context for hate crime reports and to conduct needs assessments for impacted communities. Findings are to be presented within eight months.” Khalid has been “unwilling to entertain any compromise on the specific wording” of Motion 103.

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Europe’s Failure to Exercise the Diplomacy of Truth The surrender to threats, economic opportunism, and hypocrisy. Fiamma Nirenstein

Posted By on February 1st, 2018

The chilled relationship between Europe and Israel arises from a fundamental European misunderstanding and ignorance of Israeli national needs. In every critical political decision, whether supporting the Iran deal, condemning U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, supporting UNESCO dangerous revisionism of Jerusalem’s Jewish cultural history, or refusing to identify the true source of European anti-Semitism, Europe has consistently taken the antagonistic position towards Israel. Despite this, the general European conclusion is that the unfriendly relations are Israel’s fault due to its right-wing policies led by the nationalistic Netanyahu government. Pretending that the relationship is strained because of a right-wing Israel, allows Europe to shirk its own responsibility for the decline of EU popularity in Israel.

In Europe, a sympathetic automatic switch clicks on when the Muslim world is involved, especially when it came to the Iranian nuclear deal. This sympathy goes together with Europe’s incomprehension of Donald Trump’s personality and actions, seen as anti-liberal and extreme right-wing. Coherent criticisms of the Iranian deal are ignored. This allows Europe to avoid any honest discussion and to marginalize and personalize the review of the Iran deal that Trump advocates. Actually, the European Union’s position, instead of serving its real interests dangerously looks at the past. Business interests and political correctness must not be more important than enforcing anti-proliferation, no more serious than finally visiting Iranian military sites that hide the real secrets of Iran’s non-compliance, and most of all, considering the dangerous essence of the Iranian threat. All this poses a threat, first and foremost to the Middle East, and immediately after that, to Europe.

Instead of facing the real and present dangers of anti-Semitism, Europe is focused on fighting its past “ghosts” of anti-Semitism. Today, the “new Jew” – the Israeli, along with his proxies, the diaspora Jews – are condemned in a way that has nothing to do with the tradition of right-wing political parties. Today, the Jews are not seen in the same way, as they were 90 years ago. The face of anti-Semitism has changed, and therefore widespread right-wing anti-Semitism is quite improbable. The general perception of the Jew is no longer that of a cosmopolitan parasite and traitor of Western values, but quite the opposite. The Jews and Israel, in fact, wholeheartedly embrace Western values and customs, and this “original sin” is more likely to be readily employed by the European Left than by the Right.

The option of speaking the truth is the only way for Israel to establish a new relationship with Europe. European leaders showed that they could easily vote for the worst lies about Israel (in the General Assembly but also in other UN bodies). UNESCO, for instance, regularly votes on resolutions which deny any Jewish ties to the Western Wall and recognizes it as an Islamic heritage site. Their voting against Israel and choosing an absurd lie like denying Jerusalem ties to the Jewish People and Israel defy reason and history. And then the European leaders feign friendship to the Jewish state.

Why does Israel have a difficult relationship with Europe? Why is Europe so tough on Israel? And how do we find the way to correct this sour relationship?

Europe’s Politicized View of Israel

The respected Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) foundation issued a report in September 2017 entitled “Israel’s Views of Europe-Israeli Relations.”1 The study is based on a poll of 1,000 Israelis, but the analysis produced has the flavor of a very personal and political viewpoint.

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FBI’s War on the Memo The Bureau desperately tries to discredit the document — before its release in the coming days. Matthew Vadum

Posted By on February 1st, 2018

The increasingly embattled Federal Bureau of Investigation launched a preemptive strike yesterday against the hotly anticipated foreign surveillance abuse memo in hopes of discrediting the document before it is released in coming days.

The public relations effort came as more evidence became available about the questionable behind-the-scenes conduct of fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who allegedly tried to use his authority to undermine President Trump’s campaign.

The classified four-page memo, compiled by House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), was based on classified information supplied by the FBI and its parent agency, the U.S. Department of Justice. The two organizations “fought tooth and nail” to avoid handing over the relevant records to Congress, according to Fox News, citing an inside source. They produced the documents only after Nunes “threatened to move forward with contempt of Congress citations.”

The memo is said to provide evidence proving allegations that top officials in President Obama’s national security community abused their authority to obtain surveillance warrants against members of President Trump’s election campaign from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Its release could set in motion a process whereby bad actors in the government could go to prison. It may indicate that government officials relied on the tainted Fusion GPS dossier by former British spy Christopher Steele that is loaded with Kremlin-supplied misinformation to obtain the warrants. The dossier, as we now know, was paid for by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, and was part of her bag of dirty tricks.