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South Florida Muslim Leader Posts Material from Hitler Supporter AMANA’s Sofian Zakkout once again refers to Jews as “pigs” and “monkeys.” Joe Kaufman

Posted By on January 27th, 2016

Sofian Zakkout wears a number of hats. First, he is the director of a prominent South Florida Muslim organization, the American Muslim Association of North America (AMANA). Second, he sits on boards of civic groups, including those devoted to fighting crime, such as the local chapters of Citizens’ Crime Watch and Crime Stoppers, whose leadership safeguards him. And third, he’s a raving anti-Semite who embraces terrorist groups and preaches violence. In 2016, he has started off the year in true form by targeting Jews on social media.

The night of Monday, January 11th, was a hate-filled one for Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout. On this night, he aimed his wrath at the Jewish community.

He began by posting onto Facebook side-by-side photos of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and American Jew and former National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Abraham Foxman (shown clawing his hand). Under the photos, along with lines from the Bible intentionally misquoted to make Jews appear as enslavers and murderers, the following is read (with some grammatical repairs): “[T]ell [me] again why my tax money along with most Americans are giving [these] pigs $18 billion annually in financial aid to [these] f**ks in Israel?”

Zakkout attacking the ADL’s Foxman may be retaliation for a July 2010 ADL report condemning Zakkout and his group AMANA for featuring what the ADL called a “venomous” anti-Semitic, anti-Israel video on the AMANA website. The video was produced by and featured white supremacist leader David Duke. Zakkout has since posted a number of Duke videos on social media and has praised Duke as “a man to believe in!”

POLITICS Comments turned off

The “Establishment” vs. Trump — and the People The battle that crystallizes where we are after the disastrous seven years of Obama. Bruce Thornton

Posted By on January 27th, 2016

Just weeks before the Iowa caucuses Donald Trump was subjected to a barrage of criticism from Republican commentators. New York Times house conservative David Brooks, who has threatened to move to Canada if Trump becomes president, called Trump a “solipsistic branding genius whose ‘policies’ have no contact with Planet Earth.” The National Review devoted a whole issue to parsing Trump’s manifold flaws and dangers to the Republican Party and the country: “Trump is a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones.”

And those were the nicer comments.

This battle between Trump and the Republican establishment raises interesting questions about where we are politically after the disastrous seven years of Barack Obama’s presidency. Start with the contested notion that there even exists something we can call the Republican establishment. Trump along with Ted Cruz have presented themselves as anti-establishment candidates, “outsiders” battling the inside-the-Beltway “cartel,” to use Cruz’s word. As such they appeal to those voters who long have despised Congress and its pundit enablers for “going along to get along” rather than taking legislative action to slow down Obama’s ongoing fundamental transformation of America into an EU social-democratic nanny-state populated by the spawn of Julia and Pajama Boy.

Critics of this formulation argue that there is no “establishment,” that the diverse and conflicting opinions among Republican leaders, and the failure of this establishment to use its imagined powers and slow down Donald Trump, is proof that it is a figment of a paranoiac imagination. Didn’t the Chairman of the Republican National Committee punish National Review for dissing Trump by disinviting it from cosponsoring the next debate? And didn’t establishment stalwart Bob Dole say nice things about Trump during his evisceration of Ted Cruz? There is no unified cabal of Republican bigwigs colluding with the enemy and betraying the ordinary voters who put them in office.

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Feminist Internet: Citing Studies Linking Obesity to Health Problems Is ‘Oppressive’ By Katherine Timpf

Posted By on January 27th, 2016

According to Feminist Internet, worrying about obesity, a health problem that plagues our society, isn’t a nice thing to do — in fact, it’s a very mean, “oppressive” thing called “concern trolling.”

A post co-authored by Melissa A. Fabello and Linda Bacon for the blog Everyday Feminism defines “concern-trolling” as “the act of a person participating ‘in a debate posing as an actual or potential ally who simply has concerns they need answered before they will ally themselves with a cause.’”

In case that buzzword salad didn’t make any sense to you, the authors gave a few examples of the the kinds of unacceptable, “oppressive” phrases that people needed to “stop” using, including, “I’m just concerned about their health.”

Now, you might see absolutely nothing wrong with that kind of statement — especially considering that obesity has been repeatedly found responsible for a huge number of preventable deaths in the United States.

But apparently, true feminists are supposed to ignore facts if those facts have the potential to hurt someone’s feelings:

“It’s disheartening to see feminists – people who we generally trust to engage with content and have their status quo boundaries pushed – rush to quote sketchy research and throw oppressive ideologies around all in the name of, supposedly, ‘health,’” the article states.

BOOKS Comments turned off

U of Oregon Students Debated Removing MLK Quote From Wall Because It Wasn’t Inclusive Enough It says nothing about discrimination based on gender identity! By Katherine Timpf

Posted By on January 27th, 2016

Student leaders at the University of Oregon considered removing a famous Martin Luther King Jr. quote from a wall on its student center on the grounds that it was just not inclusive enough — because it talked only about racial discrimination and not discrimination based on stuff like gender identity.

The quote has been displayed at the Erb Memorial Union (which is currently being renovated) since 1985. It’s probably something that you’ve heard before — “I have a dream that my four little children that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream . . .” — without even thinking that it might be problematic.

But that’s because you’re just not as smart or culturally aware as these kids.

“Diversity is so much more than race,” sophomore Mia Ashley told the Daily Emerald, the school’s official student newspaper.

“Obviously race still plays a big role,” she continued. “But there are people who identify differently in gender and all sorts of things like that.”

According to the Emerald, the students ultimately decided not to change the quote, but “that decision was not made without some hard thought by the Student Union Board.”

Oh, and it gets worse: The entire reason that quote was put there in the first place was to replace another quote that students had found offensive — one that called the university “leader in the quest for the good life for all men” — which is obviously, you know, sexist as hell.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Hillary Can’t Pin Her E-mailgate on the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy By Deroy Murdock

Posted By on January 27th, 2016

As Hillary Clinton sinks ever deeper into E-mailgate, her excuses for grossly mishandling state secrets grow ever weaker. In defense of her gross negligence, Clinton and her comrades have dusted off a vintage 1990s cliché: “It’s the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy!”

Clinton has been hobbled by Inspector General of the Intelligence Community I. Charles McCullough III’s discovery that her private, unsecure computer server contained “several dozen” e-mails classified TOP SECRET/SAP. “Special Access Programs” is America’s highest clandestine designation. Such secrets must remain concealed because, under federal law, their “unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.” As former Africom strategist Dan Maguire told Fox News, “There are people’s lives at stake.”

The response in Clintonia? Blame the Right and tar IGIC McCullough as a partisan GOP hack.

“I can’t control what Republicans and their allies do,” Clinton said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press. Her outburst echoes Brian Fallon, her campaign flack.

As the SAP story broke on January 19, Fallon told Politico, “It is alarming that the intelligence community IG, working with Republicans in Congress, continues to selectively leak materials in order to resurface the same allegations and try to hurt Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.”

Fallon repeated this charge nearly verbatim when he told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota: “I think that Republicans are continuing to try to trump it up and resurface these allegations for the purposes of hurting her campaign.”

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After Years of False Alarms, the ‘Conservative Crackup’ Has Arrived By Jonah Goldberg

Posted By on January 27th, 2016

I’ve been hearing about the impending “conservative crackup” for nearly 25 years. The term was coined by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., the founder of The American Spectator. He meant that conservatism had lost its philosophical coherence. But the phrase almost instantly became a catchall for any prediction of the Right’s imminent demise or dissolution.

These dire prophecies always reminded me of those “Free Beer Tomorrow” signs. As Annie sings, tomorrow is “always a day away.”

Well, thanks to Donald Trump, tomorrow may be here. There’s a fierce internecine battle over whether to oppose Trump’s run, passively accept his popularity, or zealously support his bid.

The level of distrust among many of the different factions of the conservative coalition has never been higher, at least not in my experience. Arguments don’t seem to matter, only motives do.

Here’s Rush Limbaugh on Friday: “Forget the name is Trump. If a candidate could [guarantee to] fix everything that’s wrong in this country the way the Republican party thinks it’s wrong, if it were a slam dunk, if it were guaranteed, that candidate will still be opposed by the Republican-party establishment. . . . If he’s not part of the clique, they don’t want him in there.”

In other words, the GOP establishment has become so corrupted, its members would knowingly reject a savior just to protect their comfortable way of life.

Limbaugh also says that the conservative “intelligentsia” — in the form of conservative magazines and think tanks — doesn’t want to solve problems, it just wants to score points in an “academic exercise” within a perpetual “debating society.” “In other words,” Limbaugh says, “some people constantly need something to run against as a reason to exist.”

Meanwhile, many in the so-called establishment and intelligentsia have similar complaints about Limbaugh and his imitators on radio and cable TV, although most don’t say it publicly for fear of reprisal. I’ve lost track of the number of congressmen, consultants, and so forth who’ve told me that talk-radio hosts spend their time criticizing fellow conservatives because that’s what brings in the highest ratings. (Beating up on liberals just doesn’t animate the base like it used to.)

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Christians Who Demonize Israel: Kairos by Denis MacEoin

Posted By on January 27th, 2016

“Christian children are massacred, and everything is done in plain sight. Islamists proclaim on a daily basis that they will not stop until Christianity is wiped off the face of the earth. So are the world Christian bodies denouncing the Islamic forces for the ethnic cleansing, genocide and historic demographic-religious revolution their brethren are suffering? No. Christians these days are busy targeting the Israeli Jews.” — Giulio Meotti, Italian journalist.

The Kairos document seems to be so egregiously discriminatory that in 2010, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) declared it “supersessionist” and “anti-Semitic.”

We must ask why a presentation of the work of Kairos in an Anglican church made no reference whatever to the many associations with extremism and denial of a more rational Christian approach to the problems faced by Palestinian Christians.

Last September, during the World Week for Peace in Palestine Israel — an initiative of the Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum (PIEF) of the World Council of Churches, St. Thomas’ Church in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, hosted an event titled “Wall Will Fall”.

For anyone unfamiliar with the history, legal issues, and distortions of the Israeli-Arab and Jewish-Muslim conflicts, the deeply one-sided presentations and literature of the event may seem reasonable in the lack of such a context, and this report will, therefore, attempt to rebalance the narrative.

There are, broadly speaking, two clashing narratives about historical and current events in the region. By presenting only one side of the conflict, Wall Will Fall served only to exacerbate the root cause for the failure of peace negotiations: Palestinian rejection of the two state solution. Although Israel was repeatedly condemned — often very harshly — for its treatment of Palestinians, not once in the presentations or in the literature available were the Arabs ever censured for their series of aggressive wars against Israel, or the Palestinians criticized for their decades of terrorist attacks on Israelis, their preaching of anti-Semitic hatred in school textbooks, mosque sermons, summer camps, government-controlled media, and elsewhere. During the event, guilt was placed on one party only: Israel. As we shall argue, Israel is the least likely candidate for censure at such a high level.

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OTTAWA HIJAB DAY? — THE GLAZOV GANG

Posted By on January 27th, 2016

http://jamieglazov.com/2016/01/27/ottawa-hijab-day-the-glazov-gang/

A group called “City for All Women Initiative“ is planning an “Ottawa Hijab Day” on Feb. 25, 2016. The group states that it is aiming for “better awareness”, “greater understanding,” and a “peaceful world.” The Hijab Day will be a day, the group announces, “When non-Muslim women will wear a hijab for all or part of the day to be in solidarity with Muslim women. We walk with our sisters.”

In response to this group’s planned event, we are running Jamie Glazov’s Video: What a Woman in Hijab is Really Saying to You, in which he unveils the terrifying truth about what the hijab really signifies.

Perhaps the organizers of the event will share this video with all of their event’s participants in order to help achieve “better awareness” and “greater understanding”.

Don’t miss this special Jamie Glazov Video:

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Turkey: Death to Free Speech by Burak Bekdil

Posted By on January 27th, 2016

A criminal indictment was filed against Sedat Ergin, editor-in-chief of the country’s most influential newspaper, Hurriyet. Prosecutors demanded up to five years in prison for Ergin, for allegedly insulting President Erdogan. The indictment claims that Hurriyet insulted the president by paraphrasing what the president had said.

“[T]his is a ‘democracy’ with a growingly diminishing freedom of speech. It is ‘democracy’ where the ‘voice of the nation,’ which practically is the voice of the political majority and its glorified leader, intimidates and silences dissenting voices.” — Mustafa Akyol, columnist, Hurriyet.

According to a report by the Turkish Journalists Association, 500 journalists were fired in Turkey in 2015, while 70 others were subjected to physical violence. Thirty journalists remain in prison, mostly on terrorism charges. Needless to say, the unfortunate journalists invariably are known to be critical of Erdogan.

Europe, cherishing its “transactional” relations with Turkey, prefers to look the other way and whistle. All the EU could say about the prosecution of academics was that it is “extremely worrying.” Brussels cannot see that Turkish affairs passed the threshold of “extremely worrying” a long time ago.

Defending his quest for an executive presidential system Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cited Hitler’s Germany as an effective form of government. Yes, he said, you can have the presidential system in a unitary state as in Hitler’s Germany. His office later claimed that the president’s “Hitler’s Germany” metaphor had been “distorted” by the media. Erdogan’s words on Hitler’s Germany may or may not have been distorted, but the way he rules Turkey reminds one powerfully of how Hitler ruled the Third Reich.

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The Value of Tolerance Today is “Wear a Kippah Day” – Il Foglio Wants Your Selfie by Shoshana Bryen

Posted By on January 27th, 2016

The question is not whether a Jew wears a kippah [Jewish skullcap]. It is whether others — Jews and non-Jews — insist that Jews have a RIGHT to wear a kippah — and Christians a cross — and whether non-Jews join Jews in wearing a kippah as a test of tolerance.

“A Jew who hides in fear of being recognized as a Jew is the perfect symbol of a world that forces the West to hide for fear of provoking a reaction among those who want to stab the West.” — Il Foglio, Italian newspaper.

Please wear a kippah on Wednesday, January 27, 2016. Do it for freedom of religion — for all of us. And send Il Foglio — kippah@ilfoglio.it — your selfie!

The defining value of Western politics is tolerance — not that anyone is always tolerant, and not that other people are not also tolerant, but in order to have the freedom of speech, freedom of religion, equal justice under law and multiple political parties. The demand that we be tolerant of that which we do not observe and do not believe and even/especially with which we do not agree is paramount. “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” and “Liberté, égalité, fraternité” require tolerance. “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” The First Amendment’s protection of a free press and freedom from prior government censorship is the definition of tolerance.

Think Nazis in Skokie or “Piss Christ.”

Mostly the media gets it wrong, and increasingly, American institutions — particularly university campuses — get it even more wrong, elevating the protection of people’s “feelings” over the need be open at least to hearing ideas that might be deeply repellent to you.