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It’s Not the Debate. It’s the Focus Group By Roger L Simon

Posted By on January 29th, 2016

Something did surprise me though — and it was Frank Luntz’s focus group. I have never seen them so unanimous in their reaction. Almost all of them seemed to think Rubio had won the debate and the vast majority said they had decided to switch their votes to the Florida senator. Virtually all of them thought he could defeat Hillary Clinton.

I don’t blame Donald Trump for passing on the seventh Republican debate Thursday night. It was pretty boring, even for a political junkie like me, though I did enjoy Rubio’s one-liner about Bernie Sanders running for president of Sweden. (Frankly, I think even the terminally PC Swedes might not even be able to handle Bernie in the end the way things are headed.)

I heard some of the spin-room pundits nattering on about how serious the debate was, ostensibly because of the absence of Donald, as compared to the previous encounters. I didn’t see it. Fox had promised new and interesting questions but they weren’t much (except perhaps from some minor video assist). It felt to me like everything had been “asked and answered” before, maybe several times before. And I found it hard to sit through all that spin-room blather about who did or didn’t win the debate. Did Jeb rise above his low expectations? Yawn.

(FULL DISCLOSURE: During the debate I was simultaneously streaming Trumps’ veterans’ benefit on my computer, turning the volume up and down on each as I went, so I may have missed some key minutes. The benefit was intermittently entertaining and it was heartening to see them raise so much money for disabled vets.)

The essential difficulty of these debates is the distinctions between the candidates are so narrow that mostly they seem manufactured, even between the so-called insiders and outsiders. In actuality, the only real outsider in the Republican field is Dr. Carson. Trump has been wheeling-and-dealing with politicians for decades, Cruz is a senator, and Fiorina is an ex-CEO of a major corporation who has spent years negotiating with politicians and jetting around the world for major foundations. During Thursday’s debate, the only ones with substantive policy differences were Rand Paul and possibly Kasich, who sometimes appears to been running for the nomination of the Democratic Party. Maybe he should, because all they have at the moment is a semi-felon and that “Swedish” president.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Islam and Islamism in America in 2015: Part II April-June 2015 by Soeren Kern

Posted By on January 29th, 2016

More than half (51%) of Muslims in America believe they should “have the choice of being governed according to Sharia.” Only 39% of those polled said that Muslims in the U.S. should be subject to American courts. Nearly a quarter believed that, “It is legitimate to use violence to punish those who give offense to Islam by, for example, portraying the prophet Mohammed.” Nearly one-fifth of Muslim respondents said that the use of violence in the U.S. is justified in order to make Sharia the law of the land in this country. – Poll commissioned by the Center for Security Policy, Washington, D.C.

“Ramadan is a special prayer time, a time for religion. We double-park here every Friday and they [allow it], but today they gave us all tickets, almost 100 cabs. This has never happened before. I can’t help but to think they are being prejudiced. They don’t understand. We have to be here.” – Mohammad Zaman, New York City cab driver.

“We have no way … to know who these people are … we don’t have databases on these individuals so we can’t properly vet them, to know where they came from, to know what threat they pose.” – Michael McCaul, Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, commenting on the Obama administration plan to resettle Syrian refugees in the U.S.

ISIS is operating training camps just a few miles from El Paso, Texas. – Judicial Watch, citing Mexican law enforcement and intelligence sources.

Officials at Mason High School in Mason, Ohio, canceled “hijab day” after parents expressed opposition. Female students were asked to wear a headscarf, or hijab, for an entire school day, followed by a time for reflection and discussion.

A study by the Population Reference Bureau estimated that 507,000 women and girls in the United States are at risk or have already undergone female genital mutilation (FGM), more than twice the number estimated in 2000.

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Sweden: A Church with No Conscience by Nima Gholam Ali Pour

Posted By on January 29th, 2016

The response from the Church of Sweden to the Kairos Palestine document contained no criticism at all against the massive lies, racism and distortions it contains. More sadly, there seems not to have been the slightest attempt to verify if any of the allegations in it were even true.

A church that genuinely believes in love and understanding would long ago have renounced the Kairos Palestine document, which has been pointed out by serious organizations out as anti-Semitic and racist.

The country’s largest religious institution is therefore helping and encouraging people to study a rawly anti-Semitic, racist document.

Attacks against Jews in Sweden have partly originated through such normalization. When the Church of Jesus Christ in Sweden supports an anti-Semitic document, the Jews in Sweden become fair game.

The Church of Sweden[1] has a problem. Its deep involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian issue — and especially its support for the Kairos Palestine document [full English text and annotations in Appendix below] — is something that should be noted and held up for criticism by other churches, and all those who oppose anti-Semitism and all forms of racism.

The Kairos Palestine document can be found in Swedish on the Church of Sweden’s website and is described by the Church of Sweden as follows:

“The Kairos document has been produced by Palestinian Christians and is about their vulnerability under occupation. Since it was published in December 2009, it has spread throughout the world and in some areas has become a movement that believes and fights for peace and justice in Palestine and Israel.”

The Kairos Palestine document, from 2009, is a letter that describes itself as “the Christian Palestinians’ word to the world about what is happening in Palestine.” Israel’s presence in what the document refers to as “Palestinian land” — even though this Biblical region has continuously been home to the Jews for nearly four thousand years — is bizarrely described as “a sin against God and humanity.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Emails show billionaire Democrat conspiring with EPA to undermine agency critics By Rick Moran

Posted By on January 29th, 2016

Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer’s trade association coordinated with the EPA to debunk a federally commissioned study that was critical of the EPA’s impact on the power grid.

Emails between the agency and the Advanced Energy Economy (AEE), a trade association of about 80 companies, show that there was an exchange of ideas on how to handle the critical report and lessen its impact.

Washington Free Beacon:

AEE is one of three politically oriented groups run out of and coordinated by Steyer’s office. While his political and policy efforts garner more press attention, emails obtained by the Energy and Environment (E&E) Legal Institute through Freedom of Information Act requests reveal ways in which his coalition of green energy businesses also affects public policy.

Arvin Ganesan, AEE’s vice president for federal policy, emailed a handful of EPA and White House staffers in January 2015. “Several of us talked last month about rebutting” a November study from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), a nonprofit tasked by the federal government with monitoring and developing standards for electricity reliability.

Critics of the EPA’s power plant regulations were already citing NERC’s study, which questioned the impact of EPA power plant regulations on electrical grid reliability and suggested they delay the rule’s implementation.

“NERC’s report underscores the growing reliability concerns with EPA’s unworkable plan,” Rep. Ed Whitfield (R., Ky.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s panel on energy and power, said of the report’s release.

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Climate Change: The Burden of Proof By S. Fred Singer

Posted By on January 29th, 2016

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has to provide proof for significant human-caused climate change; yet their climate models have never been validated and are rapidly diverging from actual observations. The real threat to humanity comes not from any (trivial) greenhouse warming but from cooling periods creating food shortages and famines.

Burden of proof

Climate change has been going on for millions of years — long before humans existed on this planet. Obviously, the causes were all of natural origin and not anthropogenic. There is no reason to think that these natural causes have suddenly stopped. For example, volcanic eruptions, various types of solar influences, and atmosphere-ocean oscillations all continue today. We cannot model these natural climate-forcings precisely and therefore cannot anticipate what they will be in the future.

But let’s call this the “Null hypothesis.” Logically therefore, the burden of proof falls upon alarmists to demonstrate that this null hypothesis is not adequate to account for empirical climate data. In other words, alarmists must provide convincing observational evidence for anthropogenic climate change (ACC). They must do this by detailed comparison of the data with climate models. This is of course extremely difficult and virtually impossible since one cannot specify these natural influences precisely.

We’re not aware of such detailed comparisons, only of anecdotal evidence — although we must admit that ACC is plausible; after all, CO2 is a greenhouse gas and its level has been rising mainly because of the burning of fossil fuels.

Yet when we compare greenhouse models to past observations (“hindcasting”), it appears that ACC is much smaller than predicted by the models. There’s even a time interval of no significant warming (“pause” or “hiatus”) during the past 18 years or so — in spite of rapidly rising atmospheric CO2 levels.

There seems to be at present no generally accepted explanation for this discrepancy between models and observations, mainly during the 21st century. The five IPCC reports [1900 to 2014] insist that there is no “gap.” Yet strangely, as this gap grows larger and larger, their claimed certainty that there is no gap becomes ever greater. Successive IPCC reports give 50%, 66%, 90%, 95%, and 99% for this certainty.

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Pushback for Anti-Israel Academics The American Historical Association recognized that its own credibility was on the line in a recent vote. By Cary Nelson

Posted By on January 29th, 2016

At their annual meeting in Atlanta earlier this month, members of the American Historical Association voted down a factually flawed resolution condemning Israel. It was a victory that may also point the way for academic fields in the humanities to regain their lost credibility and stature on campus.

The AHA consists of faculty and graduate students who teach and study history throughout the country. Up for debate and a vote at the January meeting was a resolution condemning Israel for its conduct affecting higher education in Gaza, Israel itself, and the West Bank. For instance, the resolution claimed that Israel refuses “to allow students from Gaza to travel in order to pursue higher education abroad.”
Opponents marshaled evidence to prove this was untrue. Egypt, not Israel, controls the “Rafah crossing” that Gaza students and faculty heading toward universities abroad have used for decades. Unlike the benighted English-department faculty members from Columbia and Wesleyan universities who proposed a similar resolution two years ago, AHA historians were interested in facts. They likely knew that after Egypt closed the Rafah crossing in October 2014, Israel increased the flow of students leaving Gaza through the Erez crossing into Israel to the north, and on to Jordan for flights abroad.

POLITICS Comments turned off

The Rubio Gamble There’s a method to his unusual strategy. It all depends on a strong showing in Iowa. By Kimberley A. Strassel

Posted By on January 29th, 2016

Marco Rubio is suddenly everywhere in Iowa. He’s campaigning alongside Joni Ernst, the state’s popular senator. He’s in the headlines of the Des Moines Register and Sioux City Journal, both of which endorsed him. He’s playing to standing-room-only crowds, jamming in three or four events a day.

That is a change for the Florida senator—and a carefully planned one. Of all the Republican candidates, none is playing a more complex (or longer) game than Mr. Rubio. Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz are following the conventional route of betting that big early victories will lock in the nomination. Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and John Kasich are using another classic approach—putting all their chips on one state, hoping to jump-start a move.

Mr. Rubio by contrast is flouting the usual rules, playing everywhere at once and nowhere on top. It’s the Wait Them Out strategy. The plan hinges on edgy calculations and big risks. Yet given the unusual nature of this primary cycle, the approach may prove as plausible as any other.

The first of those Rubio calculations is that he has the ability to finish strong in Iowa. The Rubio team has bided its time in the state, convinced that it is possible to peak too soon. And Iowa voters do tend to be last-minute deciders. Rick Santorum, a few weeks from the 2012 Iowa caucuses, was averaging about 7%; he finished with nearly 25% of the vote. Newt Gingrich, by contrast, saw his numbers tank in the homestretch.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Europe Curbing Defense Cuts to Counter ‘More Assertive Russia,’ NATO Says Jens Stoltenberg also says U.S. has requested NATO surveillance planes to help fight Islamic StateBy Julian E. Barnes

Posted By on January 29th, 2016

BRUSSELS—Russia’s will to “change borders in the east” has helped reduce defense-spending cuts among the European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, according to the group’s general secretary.

Jens Stoltenberg made the comments Thursday, while noting that the U.S. had requested the assistance of NATO planes in the battle against Islamic State.

NATO published its annual report Thursday, which showed that military spending and cuts to the size of European armed forces have begun to plateau. NATO heralded the trend as a sign that years of austerity-driven spending reductions have slowed or ended.

Mr. Stoltenberg said the alliance will step up its military exercises this year, noting that Russian operations near the alliance’s borders have increased dramatically. “We see a more assertive Russia to the east…that has shown a will to change borders in Europe,” he said.

Mr. Stoltenberg also said the U.S. had requested NATO deploy some of its Awacs surveillance planes to help fight Islamic State. Awacs are used to monitor airspace—a mission that has become more important with Russia’s intervention in Syria.
Regarding armed forces spending, Mr. Stoltenberg said 2015 saw a “dramatic slowing of cuts,” adding “we have started to move in the right direction. The cuts have now practically stopped among European allies and Canada.”

Military spending last year by the European members of NATO fell about 0.4%, the smallest reduction since at least 2008, NATO officials said.

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After Losing Land, Boko Haram Responds With Bombs From its Nigerian bases, the Islamic State affiliate causes havoc in Cameroon, Chad and Niger By Yaroslav Trofimov

Posted By on January 29th, 2016

GANCEY, Cameroon—Just before dawn prayers earlier this month, a young man wearing a belt of 12 explosive canisters walked into the squat, ochre-colored building that serves as the mosque of this Cameroonian village.

As he recited the prayers in the dissipating darkness, the young man accidentally stepped on the foot of Abba Ali, a 70-year-old villager.

“I looked up at him and suddenly realized that this was a stranger,” Mr. Ali said. “That scared me.”

Moments later, the intruder detonated his device in one of some 40 suicide bombings that Boko Haram, a militant group that has become the West African “province” of Islamic State, unleashed on Cameroon’s Far North region since July.
Luckily for the faithful of Gancey, the explosives belt malfunctioned and nobody except the attacker died in the blast. But that doesn’t mean the villagers are feeling secure.

“Everyone is afraid that we will have another suicide bomber here soon,” said the Gancey mosque’s imam, Moustapha Goni. “They have tried it once, and they will likely try it again.”

Boko Haram, the deadliest of Islamic State’s many affiliates world-wide, expanded its long-running conflict with Nigeria into the neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger over the past year and a half. Some of these offensives involved attacks by formations as big as a thousand men, aided by columns of armor pilfered from Nigeria’s military bases.

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Republican Debate: Without Donald Trump, Issues Stand Out While the presidential front-runner held his own event, serious policy differences emerged By Gerald F. Seib

Posted By on January 29th, 2016

Donald Trump missed Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate, and a funny thing happened: A serious conversation broke out.

The conversation was, among other things, about what it would take to ensure American security in a time of Islamic State terrorism, what it means to be a conservative in the mixed-up environment of 2016 and, most heatedly, about what to do with illegal immigrants.

The seven candidates who did show up argued with one another, pointedly and occasionally angrily but rarely on personal terms. Significant differences emerged, which is what is supposed to happen in debates.

The last Republican presidential debate before the Iowa caucuses focused on many issues from immigration to Putin. Watch the highlights in two minutes. Photo: Getty

The consensus second-ranking contender, Sen. Ted Cruz, had to explain why there was no inconsistency between his votes against defense budgets and his fiery rhetoric about sending waves of American bombers to attack Islamic State forces in Syria and Iraq.

Sen. Marco Rubio tried to sound the toughest notes on fighting extremists. At one point he said Islamic State forces “want to trigger an apocalyptic Armageddon showdown” and “need to be defeated militarily, and that will take overwhelming U.S. force.”