ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Dear President Obama: Don’t turn into Raul’s new North American ‘amigo’ By Silvio Canto, Jr.

Posted By on February 22nd, 2016

President Obama will be visiting Cuba in March.

I guess that he needs to go to a place where people will be happy to see him.

Frankly, there aren’t too many of those places left in the U.S.: his job approval is 45% in the RCP average of polls. A whopping 63% believe that the country is in the wrong track. Only 38% approve of how he is handling foreign policy.

So let’s go to Havana and let Raul Castro stage a nice welcome party. He will close the government offices and fill the streets with Cubans.

Let’s hope that President Obama finally calls for change in Cuba rather than play the role of Raul’s new American friend. He will be speaking to a skeptical Cuban audience who thought that “los Americanos” would bring prosperity and change. So far, the only thing that most Cubans have seen is repression and more of it.

He should start by calling for multiparty elections in Cuba, as Roger Noriega said “Let the Cubans vote”:

“Let Cubans vote.” Those three words, spoken by President Obama on his planned trip to Cuba, could unite all Americans — including those Americans in neighboring countries — behind a worthy cause. Will a man elected promising “hope and change” advance those objectives in a country where they are genuinely needed?

We shouldn’t have to ask.

The president’s visit to Cuba comes as the winds of change have shifted toward freedom, away from the authoritarian populism promoted by the Castro brothers for 60 years. Voters in Argentina recently elected a pro-free-market conservative who has pledged to seek a positive relationship with the United States. In December, Venezuela’s democrats won congressional elections in a landslide and now represent a majority that opposes the Cuban-backed regime that has brought the country to political and economic ruin.

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Antonin Scalia and the Battle against Kritarchy By Robert Weissberg

Posted By on February 22nd, 2016

Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia’s death has been a tragedy, at least for conservatives. Less obvious, though I would argue of ultimately greater importance, is that this outpouring of feeling and machinations regarding his replacement exposes a second tragedy – that the United States now edges on becoming a kritarchy, a government of judges. How else can one possibly explain the wall-to-wall media coverage on how his death might transform 5-4 victories into 4-4 stalemates or, worse, 5-4 defeats if Obama picks the next associate justice?

The political influence of judge-made law is clearly visible in everything from Obamacare to gun control, same-sex marriages, abortion, redistricting, the death penalty, immigration, campaign finance, and racial preferences in higher education. It is no exaggeration to say that the highest laws of the land now reflect the views of at least five unelected officials who are 99.9% immune to public pressure. And this power seems to be growing. Hard to believe that Scalia’s nomination to the Court was so uncontroversial that it passed the Senate by a 98-0 margin.

If one’s side has sympathetic judges, the kritarchy temptation can be irresistible, but evaluated against democratic criteria, the liabilities far outweigh the benefits. Let me offer some of the key anti-kritarchy arguments prior to discussing reversing this dangerous drift.

First, courts, regardless of whose ideology dominates, have scant control over their agenda, so those dependent on judge-made law may never have the chance to be victorious, even if one’s side enjoys a 9-0 majority. A virtual perfect storm is necessary to put an issue before a court, and even then, not necessarily in a way that permits a decisive outcome. Opponents of Roe v. Wade (1973) may never live to see it totally overturned, since abortion cases inevitably concern a variety of administrative details, not the core up-or-down issue.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Peter Smith Populate or Perish

Posted By on February 22nd, 2016

The West is doomed because, as Europe is demonstrating, there aren’t enough births to sustain culture and traditions under assault by exuberantly fecund new arrivals who simply do not share them. The solution: subsidise larger families rather than immigrant benefits
A French novel has changed my mind on an expensive piece of entitlement largesse championed by Tony Abbott. Mr Abbott was right and I was badly wrong, along with all conservative commentators. I have also been wrong about opposing the increasing amounts of taxpayer money paid and promised for child care. The reason is simple: we pay it, and a lot more of it, or we die. Bear with me.

“Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past,” came to mind when reading: “If you control the children, you control the future.” The first is the familiar Party slogan in Nineteen Eighty-Four. The second is a description of the Muslim Brotherhood’s motivation in Michel Houellebecq’s novel Submission (2015). I was struck by the parallel, and it didn’t end there.

I was not familiar with Houellebecq’s work before reading Submission. For those like me, Douglas Murray provides an excellent review of Submission and some of the author’s earlier works, together with a little about the man, in the November, 2015, edition of Quadrant. Murray recounts that Houellebecq was the target of legal proceedings for having one of his characters in Platform (2001), whose girlfriend had been killed on a tourist beach by jihadists, express hatred for Islam and Muslims. He speculates that this may have been one of the reasons Houellebecq decided to live in Ireland. Whatever the truth of that, it says something sinister about where we are heading when a novelist is held to legal account for the expressed feelings of one of his characters. Perhaps the local Thought Police suspected he was venting his own secret Islamophobic thoughts?

POLITICS Comments turned off

Marco Rubio Picks Up ‘Establishment’ Backers as GOP Field Narrows byBeth Reinhard and Rebecca Ballhaus

Posted By on February 22nd, 2016

Norm Coleman is free Thursday after all. The former Republican senator from Minnesota was supposed to co-host a fundraiser for Jeb Bush, but the former Florida governor on Saturday gave up his bid for the GOP nomination after a limp finish in the South Carolina primary. Now Mr. Coleman – who originally backed South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham before he quit the race in December — is throwing his support to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

Virginia Republican fundraiser Bobbie Kilberg, who joined Mr. Bush’s camp last week, said nine donors reached out Sunday morning to say that if she backed Mr. Rubio, they would, too.
“That’s a lot of people to call you at 10 in the morning on a Sunday,” said Mrs. Kilberg, who originally backed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s now-defunct presidential campaign. “I really believe (Mr. Rubio) is the only candidate around which mainstream Republicans can coalesce in order to win this nomination and win the general election.”

It’s the presidential version of musical chairs, as one candidate after another no longer sees a path to the nomination, goes home and leaves rivals jockeying for their cushion, so to speak.

Mr. Coleman and Mrs. Kilberg are among the first wave of major donors, elected officials and party leaders who are gravitating to Mr. Rubio after Mr. Bush’s exit. Despite his resistance to being lumped with the Republican “establishment,” Mr. Rubio is emerging as that wing of the party’s top choice. READ MORE AT SITE

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Where Obama Fails on Iran Sanctions, the Gulf States Can Step In Saudi Arabia and its allies have potent financial weapons to deploy. Some are already kicking in. By David Andrew Weinberg and Mark Dubowitz

Posted By on February 22nd, 2016

http://www.wsj.com/articles/where-obama-fails-on-iran-sanctions-the-gulf-states-can-step-in-1456096639

Meaningful new U.S. sanctions on Iran will have to wait for the next administration. President Obama continues to oppose congressional efforts to inflict financial pain on Tehran for its malign activities. In January the Treasury Department finally did react to Iran’s unlawful ballistic-missile tests, but those sanctions will cause no economic damage. Instead they targeted individuals and companies—procurement networks that Tehran can easily reconstitute.

The Gulf States might not be so timid: Saudi Arabia and its allies have potent financial weapons they can deploy against Iran. The sectarian war between the Sunni and Shiite states is intensifying militarily, with proxies fighting from Syria to Yemen, and economically. On Jan. 4 Riyadh announced an end to all commercial relations with Iran and said it would cut off travel, with an exception for pilgrims visiting holy sites. In response Tehran banned imports of all Saudi products.

Last week the Saudis teamed up with Russia to propose capping oil production at January levels, putting pressure on Tehran to do the same as it tries to rescue its battered economy. Riyadh has deployed oil as a weapon before. In 2012 and 2013, after sanctions halved Iranian oil exports, Saudi Arabia raised production to prevent global price shocks. As the Iran nuclear deal was being negotiated in 2014-15, the Saudis increased oil production again. That helped to push prices below $35 a barrel. Now as Iran re-enters energy markets, desperate for economic relief, it will get only about half the price for its oil on which it based its budget last year. READ MORE ATE SITE

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America’s Moment of Trump

Posted By on February 22nd, 2016

http://www.wsj.com/articles/americas-moment-of-trump-1456076806

Donald Trump’s convincing victory in South Carolina Saturday marks a moment of truth in the 2016 U.S. presidential race. The businessman is now the clear favorite for the Republican nomination, yet he is also the candidate most disliked by GOP voters and according to the polls the least likely to win in November. Are Republicans really going to jump off the cliff into the great Trump unknown?

Perhaps so. About a third of GOP voters seem to be confirmed cliff-divers, as Mr. Trump won handily by rolling up a similar share of the vote he won in New Hampshire. He won again across most demographic and ideological groups, especially with those most fed up with Washington and GOP leaders. Mr. Trump should also send a thank-you note to the pope for attacking him, since he won 34% of evangelical Protestant voters who may have resented the Catholic pontiff’s ill-conceived intervention.

Mr. Trump now heads into Nevada and the March 1 southern primaries with momentum that would typically carry him to the nomination. The difference is that Mr. Trump engenders passionate support and also passionate opposition. His unfavorable ratings are the highest in the GOP field, with a net negative in the most recent WSJ/NBC poll of minus-31. Hillary Clinton is only minus-13.

The blustery businessman also doesn’t seem all that eager to expand his support. In his victory speech Saturday night, he offered a passing grace note to Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz for doing well but he was mostly self-referential and didn’t mention Jeb Bush, who had earlier announced he is leaving the race. Mr. Trump declared that he is leading “a movement,” but for that to be true he will have to unify the Republican Party. It still isn’t clear what his movement represents other than Mr. Trump’s blunt persona, his family and ultimatums to various countries. READ MORE AT SITE

BOOKS Comments turned off

ISIS’s Islamic Inspirations — on The Glazov Gang

Posted By on February 22nd, 2016

http://jamieglazov.com/2016/02/21/isiss-islamic-inspirations-on-the-glazov-gang/

As the dire threat of ISIS to the West continues to escalate, with recent reports now indicating that 5 thousand ISIS jihadists are at large in the EU, we continue to witness mass denial within the West’s leadership, media and culture about the Islamic nature of the Islamic State.

Nonetheless, the Islamic nature of the Islamic State is clear for all to see. Just recently, for instance, a Syrian Christian, John, testified about life for Christians in the Islamic State’s controlled city of Raqqa, where he revealed that Christians are paying the jizya, the “tax” that conquered non-Muslims must pay to their Islamic rulers to spare their lives — and that is mandated by the Qur’an (9:29).

In response to John’s testimony, and to shed light on the Islamic nature of the Islamic State and the huge price the West is paying in denying it, we are running The Glazov Gang’s feature interview with Shillman Fellow Raymond Ibrahim on ISIS’s Islamic Inspirations, in which Raymond unveils the Islamic roots of ISIS and the hazardous danger of the West deceiving itself about it.

Don’t miss it!

BOOKS Comments turned off

Pal-Arab Human Rts Activist Slammed at U Chicago for Insufficient Criticism of Israel Palestinian Arab human rights activist had to be escorted by police from U Chicago due to enraged pro-Pal-Arab students. By: Lori Lowenthal Marcus

Posted By on February 22nd, 2016

It would be funny if it weren’t so serious.

Yet again a campus speaker is slammed and silenced by a crowd of students and alumni for failing to understand the “horrors” of “the Occupation,” and for failing to hold Israel sufficiently accountable.

But this time, at this campus, with this speaker, it is hard to imagine a more absurd scenario.

Bassem Eid, a Palestinian Arab who is a human rights activist and who not only worked for the United Nations and the far leftist NGO Btselem, he also founded the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, was the speaker at the University of Chicago on Thursday, Feb. 18.

The topic of Eid’s speech was “A Palestinian Point of View.” His talk was sponsored by the University of Chicago Hillel, the Pozen Family Center for Human Rights, J Street U Chicago (which later apologized for the sponsorship) and several international groups, plus the Israel Education Center.

But although Eid spoke about his own first hand experiences, having lived in and around Jerusalem all of his life, several of the students were outraged that he dared to criticize the Arabs, and was insufficiently harsh – in their view – on the Israelis.

One speaker after the next, during the Question and Answer session following Eid’s talk, demanded to know how dare Eid not speak about the horrors of “the Occupation,” and why he spent any time at all criticizing the Palestinian Arabs for their violence.

The questioners all made demands of Eid, all were livid that he failed them by not attacking the true and primary wrongdoer – in their opinion – Israel. It did not matter whether it was someone who identified himself as a “Palestinian,” “someone from Gaza,” or a “Jewish alumna of the University of Chicago,” all were infuriated by Eid’s talk.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Xi takes nuclear option in bid to rule for life Michael Sheridan

Posted By on February 22nd, 2016

Xi Jinping appears to be building a personality cult around him as Mao did (Li Tao)

CHINA is moving towards one-man rule as the state media step up demands for personal loyalty to President Xi Jinping, a departure from the Communist party’s collective leadership of recent decades.

Last week the party’s flagship newspaper issued a call for Xi to have the power to “remake the political landscape of China”. The article, supposedly written by one of a literary group, was put out on a social media account run by the People’s Daily. It said all communists must be loyal to Xi and “line up with the leadership”.

The campaign to enshrine Xi as the infallible “core” of authority is worrying many inside the political elite and coincides with China exerting its military muscle and possibly preparing to change its nuclear weapons strategy.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has just stationed surface-to-air missiles on a disputed island in the South China Sea. The Chinese expansion comes as Barack Obama rallies Asian nations to support free navigation in the strategic waterway. The prospect of one man dominating the party, the state and the army in China could be the most challenging test in the next American president’s in-tray.

Xi’s grand plans include a total reorganisation of the Chinese military command structure that has included an internal debate about its nuclear weapons. Xi recently formed a dedicated PLA rocket force to control the nuclear ballistic missile arsenal. A report for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a US-based group, says China may be considering placing its nuclear forces on alert, which means that, like America and Britain, its weapons would be ready to fire on command.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

MY SAY: TURNING AGAINST TRUMP SEE NOTE PLEASE

Posted By on February 21st, 2016

This is a column posted by someone named “bookworm”….my sentiments expressed perfectly….rsk
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/02/turning_against_trump.html
Dear Trump supporters: There was no shame in your offering him your support in 2015 when he appeared as a brave, fun, and energetic conservative. Now, though, there’s no shame in your backing away from that support in the face of new information showing he’s not the man you thought he was.

People who pride themselves on rational thinking know there are few feelings worse than being wrong about something, especially something that they made a big noise about at the time. What helps lessen this intellectual humiliation is understanding that, given the information available at the time, the decision was a rational one at the time. The remedy for the initial error is to use the newly available information to reach a more reasoned decision.

As the campaign season goes forward, we’re learning more about Donald Trump’s politics and seeing his initial ebullient puckishness too often give way to self-referential arrogance and venomous hubris. Now is a good time for Trump supporters to use this new information to revisit their original conclusion about him and to realize, with no shame attached, that he’s not the candidate they thought he was.

When Trump first appeared on the 2015 political scene, he was a breath of fresh air. Most conservatives enjoyed his irreverence in tweaking the media rules favoring Progressives and demonizing conservatives — rules before which Republicans had long bowed down. It was galvanizing to hear Trump state in plain English that we need to address the holes in immigration that allow Islamic terrorists easy entry, even if doing so meant temporarily stopping all Muslim immigration until we figure out how to separate the moderate wheat from the murderous chaff.

Likewise, Hillary’s opponents enjoyed his refusal to allow Hillary’s double-X chromosomes to stifle the fact that the only woman Hillary supports is Hillary. To that end, she enabled her husband’s predatory, misogynistic sexual misbehavior for more than thirty years. Trump was the first Republican to remind everyone how appalling and hypocritical Hillary’s behavior has been.

Early on, Trump was loud about conservative positions: Securing our borders; supporting Israel; ending the abortion culture, and protecting Second Amendment rights. It therefore seemed as if the dream conservative candidate was presenting himself. Here was a man who bulldozed the political correctness that stifles conservative thought and who openly, and in simple language, embraced conservative positions. Based upon that information, it was eminently reasonable to support Donald Trump.

The media also encouraged Trump’s candidacy. He was good for ratings and they considered him un-electable. Given the media’s overwhelming progressive bias, they wanted to advance a Republican candidate they were sure would lose. They therefore gave him 25 times more coverage than the rest of the GOP field combined. That’s a lot of free advertising in a nation that appreciates colorful characters.

For months, then, for someone bewildered by the exceptionally crowded Republican field, Trump seemed like the answer to seven years of Obama’s efforts to turn America into another saggy, flabby semi-socialist country; to hand the Middle East over to Putin; and to tear down our national security by destroying America’s borders and having our military focus obsessively on climate change and social re-engineering.

That was then. This is now. Now the opposition research is finally coming to light, and it seems that Trump (shame on him, not shame on you) has been lying to America’s conservatives. Up until he threw himself into this election cycle, Trump was the very model of a modern elite Progressive. Moreover, as the campaign progresses, his current statements give the lie to his past promises.