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My Private Marco By Roger L Simon

Posted By on February 10th, 2016

This is something that happened a couple of days ago, but I didn’t want to write about it for reasons of privacy you will understand.

Once in a while — well, at least this once for me — when you are traveling around the country covering presidential campaigns, you have an experience that makes the big-time grandeur of presidential politics oddly and touchingly personal.

When, relatively at the last moment, the folks at PJ Media asked me to continue on from Iowa to New Hampshire, having been in the Granite State for previous primaries, I knew Manchester would be the center of the action. I want online and, not surprisingly, the entire city was booked. Looking for someplace relatively close, I stumbled on a Holiday Inn Express in a place called Merrimack, not far from Manchester and known for its outlet mall. The hotel had a 4.7 rating on Trip Advisor, so I quickly reserved a room.

The day I arrived, I sensed something was up when I bumped into Senator Tim Scott in the elevator. I knew he was backing Marco Rubio. Was Marco actually staying in this hotel? I knew the Florida senator slightly. We had been introduced in the Senate last summer and I had interviewed him for PJ Media at Joni Ernst’s Roast & Ride in Iowa some months ago. I also sent him and Senator Cruz a series of foreign policy questions for PJM that they both answered.

I was further partial to Rubio, as some readers have noted, because I admired those foreign policy views and thought he was well positioned to beat Hillary, Bernie or whomever (Jerry Brown?) the Democrats would put up. I wasn’t as disturbed as some by his role in the amnesty question, though I don’t think those who enter the country illegally should ever be allowed to vote.

Sure enough, I saw Rubio’s campaign bus parked behind some snowy trees at the back of the hotel parking lot, but didn’t think that much of it as I went about my business, checking out the candidates at their campaign stops and then joining the media mash-up at the debate.

There, of course, I watched Chris Christie butcher a befuddled Rubio with his accusations of scripted answers that have been repeated, we could say ad nauseum, in the media. In an instant, I realized that Marco’s momentum from his surprise finish in Iowa, that many were saying would propel him to being the competitor to Trump, had been derailed by the New Jersey governor.

To be honest, I was depressed by it, but still went the next day to Rubio’s Super Bowl party, which was very well attended. (They had to change to a larger venue.) Marco gave an upbeat speech — maybe he wasn’t so wounded — and told the crowd to enjoy themselves, he wasn’t staying to watch the game.

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The March of Trump, and the Feel of Bern by Mark Steyn Steyn

Posted By on February 10th, 2016

As I was saying at the dawn of this day:

1) Trump;
2) Kasich;
3) Rubio;
4) Bush;
5) Cruz.

Number One and Two were correct, and at this hour Numbers Three, Four and Five are all jostling together at 11 per cent, but with Cruz third and Rubio fifth. On the Democrat side I noted the midnight vote tallies from Dixville Notch, Hart’s Location and Millsfield:

Sanders 17
Clinton 9

And I suggested that that spread might “hold throughout the day”. It pretty much did: Bernie 60 per cent, Hillary 38 per cent. And in the northern and western counties of New Hampshire, Mrs Clinton got seriously Berned. Coos County: Sanders 63 per cent, Clinton 35. Grafton: Sanders 65, Clinton 34. Sullivan: Sanders 68, Clinton 30. Carroll: 63, Clinton 36. It took older, moneyed women in the prosperous south-east corner to push Hillary up to 39 per cent. That’s really her only constituency: liberal women over 65 making 200 grand a year.

On the Republican side, Trump won yuge: 35 per cent in a nine-man race, and more than twice as many votes as the second-placed Kasich. On the latter, I wrote three weeks ago:

On the “moderate” side of the GOP, the thinking since debate season began is that Rubio is the alternative to Bush, and Christie is the alternative to Rubio. But it could be that Kasich is the alternative to all three of them.

And so it proved. Good for Kasich. But a nightmare for the GOP’s Donor-Industrial Complex: Trump has the populist lane, Cruz the conservative, and both are reviled by the so-called “establishment”. All New Hampshire had to do was sort out the so-called “moderate” lane by anointing Rubio, and, in a three-way race, he’d eliminate the Trump-Cruz problem. That was the theory.

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France to Shut Down Up to 160 Mosques Used as Terror Centers By Karin McQuillan

Posted By on February 10th, 2016

The French are raiding mosques and not liking what they are finding: hundreds of war-grade weapons, and large quantities of Kalashnikov ammunition.

French Interior Minister Cazeneuve reported, “In 15 days we have seized one third of the quantity of war-grade weapons that are normally seized in a year.”

The liaison between French imams and the French government has told Aljazeera “according to official figures and our discussions with the interior ministry, between 100 and 160 mosques will be closed.”

France has 2,600 mosques. In addition, 2,235 Muslim businesses and homes have been searched. There have been 232 arrests.

Meanwhile, in America, we are being mercilessly lectured to by the Democratic Party that questioning the importation of citizens from a jihadi culture is racist.

How do the Republican candidates approach this threat? Trump is calling for a moratorium on all Muslim immigrants. Senator Cruz has introduced legislation designating the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization (which would enable us to deal with many jihadi front groups in America); introduced the Terrorist Refugee Infiltration Prevention Act of 2015, to bar refugees from countries with substantial territory controlled by a foreign terrorist organization; legislation to allow state governors the power to bar refugees from their states; and twice introduced the Expatriate Terrorist Act, which bars Americans who join ISIS or other terrorist groups from re-entering the country. Rubio voted against the Musim immigration moratorium bill and has no proposals to limit jihadi refugees. His Gang of Eight bill would have allowed unlimited Islamic immigrants.

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Giving driver licenses to illegal immigrants is insane By Silvio Canto, Jr

Posted By on February 10th, 2016

.We just learned that over 600,000 driver licenses were issued to illegal immigrants in California

The law known as AB60 took effect on January 2, 2015. The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) expects a total of about 1.4 million people will get their license under the law by late 2017.

Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, signed the law in October 2013 to give a legal document to the 2.5 million undocumented immigrants in California alone — most from Latin America and particularly neighboring Mexico.

California officials believe the program — which does not give license holders any US federal benefits — does make roads in the most populous US state safer, several state sources said.

It does not allow license holders, for example, the right to fly on airplanes inside the United States, nor does it give anyone legal residency status, the right to work or to seek a US passport.

But among the upsides are that California drivers with the document can drive legally across the entire vast United States, without being fined or facing fear of having their vehicle impounded.

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Reconciliation, jihadi-style : Ruthie Blum

Posted By on February 10th, 2016

Palestinian officials met in Doha on Sunday, as part of a Qatar-led initiative to cause rival factions Fatah and Hamas to bury the literal and figurative hatchet. Turkey was also in on the act, ostensibly interested in getting the leaders in Ramallah and Gaza to present a united front for the sake of an agreement with Israel.
This is amusing, to put it mildly, since the only thing on which Fatah and Hamas actually do agree is the ultimate goal of annihilating the Jewish state.
They are at odds about everything else, including the pace at which their shared aim should be carried out. But mainly, they — like the rest of their Islamist brethren throughout the region and the world — are engaged in a deadly power struggle.
So perpetual is this battle that the so-called unity deals the two groups signed in the past, most recently in April 2014, have unraveled before the ink on their contracts was dry. But the signatures did serve an unwitting purpose: to show those who still could not see that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was a partner for jihad, not peace with Israel.
In order to hide the egg on their faces, all the leftist Israeli and foreign politicians and pundits who were making a distinction between Hamas, the recognized terrorist organization controlling Gaza, and Fatah, Abbas’ party ruling the PA, came up with a creative way to justify the internal rapprochement. Rather than saying they had been wrong to view Abbas as a moderate, the PA apologists said Abbas would now be able to speak on behalf of the entire Palestinian population when negotiating a two-state solution.
This was a moot point, of course, because Fatah and Hamas have never honored their own agreements with anyone. Furthermore, Abbas was not then, nor is now, interested in Palestinian statehood. So let us all rest assured that no good can come of the talks taking place in Doha right now. Oh, other than a reiteration of enmity on everyone’s part towards Israel.
As was reported in the London-based newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat ahead of the negotiations, Fatah and Hamas “were set to discuss ways to end divisions and to unite their ranks in the face of ‘Israeli aggression,’ stressing that unity was necessary to rebuild Gaza and end the Israeli blockade on the Strip.”
Where fighting Israel is concerned, consensus already exists, however. The current wave of violence against Jews, through the use of rocks, knives, cars and pipe bombs, is being carried out predominantly by PA Palestinians, not all Hamas loyalists.
For its part, Hamas is not only rebuilding the terror tunnels destroyed during Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, but it keeps releasing videos boasting of this endeavor and threatening to kidnap and kill Israelis. Even Egypt is having a hard time flooding and demolishing all the new underground passageways Hamas has been digging to transport ISIS terrorists from the Sinai to Gaza for medical treatment, in exchange for weapons, cash and other contraband.
Hamas’ latest production, released on Sunday (coinciding with the jump-start of negotiations with Fatah in Qatar) is a music video calling on Palestinians to resume suicide bombings on Israeli buses — a practice that was hindered by Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. Preventing terrorists from infiltrating Israel on a daily basis to blow up innocent people riding to work or dining in restaurants was the whole purpose of closing off the hornet’s nest in the first place. And opening it up to enable a repeat performance is precisely what the parties in Doha, including Turkey, are demanding.

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Yes, Many Journalists Choose Sides in a Conflict—and Often for the Worst Reasons Zenobia Ravji

Posted By on February 9th, 2016

It’s important to remember that journalists are human beings, too—and just like everyone else at work, they can often be overwhelmed, underprepared, bought with kindness, and subject to unconscious bias.

People always ask me if I’m pro-Israel. No one has ever asked me if I am pro-America or pro-Canada or pro-Kenya, where I was born. What does it mean to be pro-Israel? The question even seems vaguely offensive, as if it questions the legitimacy of Israel itself.
I am sure that the concept of a Jewish state has always made sense to me. Perhaps because I myself come from an ancient ethnic and religious minority, the Zoroastrians, who continue to live in a diaspora outside of what was once our homeland, Iran.
So I came to Israel with a predisposed understanding of the need for a state, a safe haven for a people that has been a global minority for millennia and continuously persecuted. But as for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I had no clue what was going on, who was right and who was wrong.
What I came to realize was that you simply cannot understand this highly complex, multidimensional situation unless you come see it for yourself and experience it for yourself, without preconceived notions. This is hard to do. So whom do we rely on to do it? For most people, it’s the Western media, and we presume they know what they’re doing. For the most part, they don’t.
I first came to Israel in January 2014 for a short trip. This two-week holiday turned into two years. At the time, I was a graduate student in journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While traveling, I stumbled on a really eye-opening story—“everyday life” in the West Bank. In the U.S., I was exposed to images of violence and chaos any time the West Bank was mentioned in the news. So when I accidentally ventured into the West Bank during my travels, I had no idea I was even there. I was surrounded by tranquil scenes, modern infrastructure, and economic cooperation between Palestinians and Israelis. I guess this was too boring to make any headlines.
I thought it would be interesting to show people the uneventful side of the story. This wasn’t to negate any social and political injustices of the situation. I just thought people should see the entire truth—not just soldiers, bombs, and riots, but also what’s happening when none of the drama is taking place.
And it wasn’t just the normalcy of life in the West Bank that went unreported. Many of the human rights violations by the Palestinian Authority were never mentioned, such as the lack of freedom of speech and the press, and a complete neglect of the Palestinian people by their own politicians, who continue to exploit the peace process while pocketing European and American funding for a “free Palestine.” My work, however, didn’t consist of criticizing the PA. I thought I should leave that to the “real” journalists. It was their job, after all, to report such things.

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The Insanity of Jewish Philanthropy Funding Hamas Only the insane think that Jews should help Hamas kill Jews. Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on February 9th, 2016

Jane Kahn and Michael Bien, two activists with the anti-Israel New Israel Fund, had a complaint about San Francisco’s Jewish Community Federation. They were unhappy that JCF wouldn’t fund Hamas.

Or more specifically, they whined that “we were unable to make donations through our JCF donor-advised philanthropic fund to certain organizations that we support”. One of those organizations was the American Friends Service Committee because the JCF narrow-mindedly refuses to help fund groups that “endorse or promote anti-Semitism” or promote BDS.

The American Friends Service Committee does these things and more. It promotes BDS as if that were its religion right down to a “BDS Summer Institute”. And it has a long and troubled history with anti-Semitism from urging Jews to “tolerate some anti-Semitic remarks” to throwing a shindig for Iranian madman Ahmadinejad.

But, more importantly, the AFSC has urged the United States to deal with Hamas despite its call for the eradication of the Jewish people. It has a history of supporting Hamas front “charities” and its website defends Hamas and describes its murderous terror attacks against Israeli civilians as “the use of violence in resisting Israel’s occupation”. It tells supporters “U.S. government policy officially supports Israel’s continued siege on Gaza and the Isolation of Hamas. This is a situation that must end.” It urges supporters to demand a, “complete end to Israel’s siege on Gaza and engagement with Hamas.”

AFSC Palestine-Israel program director Mike Merryman-Lotze justifies anti-Semitic terrorism by arguing that, “Violence is the inevitable response.” AFSC figures advocate the destruction of Israel in various forms. AFSC coordinates with other extreme anti-Israel groups, including JVP. This isn’t a new development for the AFSC which has an ugly history of defending politically correct genocide.

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Iran’s Proxies to Create “Islamic Republics” Dollars flow to expand Islamist ideology of Iran and its proxies. Dr. Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on February 9th, 2016

Iran has created an Islamist empire through its loyal proxies in dozens of countries. More recently, these Iranian Islamist proxies have become empowered and emboldened to an unprecedented level. Their leaders are publicly announcing their desire to create Islamist states, which are modeled after the Islamic Republic of Iran.

For example, this week, the Deputy Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Naim Qassem, pointed out in an interview, to a state-owned Iranian outlet, that he truly believes that “Islam is the solution to all of man’s problems, in all places and at all times.” As a result, he contends that it is a “doctrinal and cultural imperative” to overthrow the secular state in Lebanon and set up an Islamic Shiite political system. He also desires the new state to precisely resemble the one created by Ayatollah Rooh Allah Khomeini, the autocrat founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran who tried to establish a political establishment similar to that of Muhammad over 1400 years ago.

Hezbollah is not the only ideological Islamist proxy that is coming out with such blatant announcements. Others of Iran’s proxies−including Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (AAH), Badr Organization, Liwa Abu Fadl al-Abbas (LAFA), Kataib Al Imam Ali−have publicly reasserted their mission of creating a state similar to that of Khomenei’s.

Leaders of Hezbollah and other Shiite Islamist groups funded by Iran have made their allegiances to Iran by believing in the concept of “Absolute Wilayat al-Faqih” (Guardianship of the Jurist) which was coined by Ayatollah Khomeini. The concept of “Absolute Wilayat al-Faqih” follows that all domestic, social, economic, political and foreign policy maters are in the hand of one person (who is elected by Allah: The Supreme Leader). This is similar to how things were ruled in Muhammad’s era. The Supreme leader has the right to enact, suspend, and abolish any laws based on his discretion, Shari law and Islamic Jurisprudence.

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Rush: Why is Rubio the Only One Saying it? Brian Lilley

Posted By on February 9th, 2016

El Rushbo is showing why he is the top talk show host in America once again. During Monday’s radio show Rush Limbaugh didn’t make fun of Marco Rubio for saying that President Barack Obama is doing what he does on purpose.

During Saturday’s debate in New Hampshire, Rubio repeated a variation of the same line several times: “Anyone who believes that Barack Obama isn’t doing what he is doing on purpose doesn’t understand what we are dealing with here,” Rubio said.

The repetition was mocked during the debate by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and since then by others, but on Monday, Limbaugh was asking why others were not parroting Rubio’s line.

“This is really, really important,” Limbaugh said. “There are only two people that I’m aware of that are making a consistent point of this. Rubio, actually, is atop of this. Rubio and Cruz are the only two in the entire Republican field. Carly Fiorina may have said something like this occasionally. With Rubio, it’s a theme. With Cruz, it’s close to a theme. And the real question is: Why do the other Republicans in the field disagree?”

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WaPo Op-Ed: ISIS Fighters Are Human Beings Too Just human beings who behead captives, burn children alive, and enslave women. Mark Tapson

Posted By on February 9th, 2016

Last Friday a Washington Post contributor penned an op-ed with the provocative title, “ISIS kidnapped my best friend. But when I met its fighters, I couldn’t hate them.” The op-ed seems intended to convey a poignant, emotional insight about the tragic human cost to everyone trapped in the hell that is ISIS-controlled territory. But the end result is moral equivalence.

Photojournalist Sebastian Meyer relates that his best friend was kidnapped in 2014 by ISIS militants. Meyer can’t say much more than that, he claims, without further endangering his friend, who presumably then is still being held captive somewhere even after all this time. Given the opportunity months later to question an ISIS captive, Meyer – eager to get some answers and some catharsis – was surprised to find himself becoming sympathetic to the fighter for having been recruited into service with the Islamic terror group at what we in the West would consider the tender age of 13.

Meyer detailed the captive fighter’s background:

Ali was born in 1995 and joined the Islamic State in 2008, at the age of 13, he told me. He was trained as an assassin and given his first mission two years later. He and three friends were sent to kill four Iraqi police officers in Mosul. The group tracked the men down, executed them with shots to the back of their heads and buried them where they fell. Ali said he had killed eight or nine men in battle, not including the five he’d beheaded.