What makes Trump tick (so far)? Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

Notwithstanding international and domestic criticism, and irrespective of his crude and rude style, Donald Trump’s candidacy for the Republican nomination has gained momentum, in part, due to his proposal for a temporary moratorium on Muslim immigration, until the introduction of an effective counter-terrorist vetting process. According to a December 10, 2015 Rasmussen poll, his proposal is favored by a majority of GOP voters (66%:24%) and a plurality of all voters (46%:40%).

Trump is leveraging, not shaping, the current US state of mind – and especially that of Republican voters – which reflects frustration with the federal, state and local political and non-political establishment/elites, as well as with political-correctness in the areas of the economy, crime, immigration, foreign policy, the war on Islamic terrorism, and homeland security.

Trump benefits from the drastic erosion in the stature of conventional wisdom/orthodoxy, and, therefore in the stature of conventional/orthodox candidacy.

Trump is aware of the yearning to resurrect the ethos of the American Dream, which featured the USA – until the 2007-2009 Great Recession – as the only moral, economic and military super-power. He attempts to echo the eagerness to stop the slippery slope of the American state of mind from boundless optimism to pessimism, from patriotism to skepticism, from faith and confidence in American exceptionalism to national and personal uncertainty and anxiety, from expected upward mobility to feared downward mobility.

The American Papers that Praised Hitler

They fell hard for the job-creating Führer with eyes that were like ‘blue larkspur.’ Why did so many journalists spend years dismissing the evidence of his atrocities?
“The train arrived punctually,” a Christian Science Monitor report from Germany informed its readers, not long after Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. “Traffic was well regulated” in the new Germany, and policemen in “smart blue uniforms” kept order, the correspondent noted. “I have so far found quietness, order, and civility”; there was “not the slightest sign of anything unusual afoot.”

As for all those “harrowing stories” of Jews being mistreated—they seemed to apply “only to a small proportion”; most were “not in any way molested.” Overall, the Monitor’s dispatch declared, the Hitler regime was providing “a dark land a clear light of hope.”
Why did many mainstream American newspapers portray the Hitler regime positively, especially in its early months? How could they publish warm human-interest stories about a brutal dictator? Why did they excuse or rationalize Nazi anti-Semitism? These are questions that should haunt the conscience of U.S. journalism to this day.

Some of the U.S. press coverage of Hitler’s first weeks in power was rooted in unfamiliarity with the man and his movement. The Nazis had risen from barely 18 percent of the national vote in mid-1930 to become Germany’s largest party only two years later, and gained power just months after that. Knowing little about Hitler and Nazism, many American editors and reporters assumed, based on previous experience, that a radical candidate would show some restraint once in office.

CAROLINE GLICK: ISRAEL’S HOME GROWN ENEMIES

This past July, unknown assailants threw a firebomb into the home of the Dawabshe family in Duma. The mother, Reham and the father Saad along with their eighteen month old baby Ali were killed. Four year old Ahmed was critically injured.

Authorities immediately alleged that the assailants were members of a Jewish terrorist organization. The accusations were widely disregarded by members of the national religious camp, and by the Right, more generally. But following news that Jewish suspects were arrested for the crime earlier this month, those early allegations ring truer than before.

The Right had good reason to raise an eyebrow at the allegations. The IDF, the Shin Bet and state prosecutors have a long history of open discrimination against the Right.

Fourteen years before the Dawabshes were murdered, then attorney general Elyakim Rubinstein retracted five year old indictments against members of Eyal.

MY SAY:MERRY CHRISTMAS TO OUR TROOPS DEPLOYED FAR FROM HOME

Currently, the United States has military personnel deployed in about 150 Countries… This song was written in 1943 by the lyricist Kim Gannon and composer Walter Kent. Walter Kent was a Jewish American composer who also wrote the music for the wartime hit ” The White Cliffs of Dover.”

I’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS

I’ll be home for Christmas
You can count on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents under the tree

Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love light beams
I’ll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams

CHRISTMAS DAY 1776

http://www.nationalreview.com/slideshows/today-history-6
DECEMBER 25, 1776: General George Washington crosses the Delaware River with a force of Continental Army soldiers in what would become an iconic moment of the Revolutionary War. Hoping to surprise a force of Hessian soldiers camped at Trenton, N.J., Washington organized a two-pronged attack, personally leading half the force, some 2,400 soldiers, across the icy river at 11:00 P.M. Christmas night. Reaching Trenton the following morning, Washington’s troops made quick work of the Hessians, groggy from holiday drinking and over-confident of their fighting abilities, and took nearly 1,000 prisoners and valuable supplies. Washington’s daring victory buoyed the spirits of the patriot cause at a pivotal moment when many doubted the war of independence could be won.

Christmas greetings from Netanyahu and Abbas Ruthie Blum

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas separately offered Christmas greetings to the world on Thursday. Because both leaders operate in the Middle East and neither is Christian, their respective messages are particularly worthy of note.

Netanyahu began his address by mentioning the festive nature of the holiday, calling it a “special opportunity to spend time with loved ones.”

He continued by expressing empathy for less fortunate Christians who are “experiencing violence, persecution and fear” in every part of the region except the Jewish state, where “religious freedom is a sacred principle” and “Christian citizens enjoy the full blessings of freedom and democracy, their equal rights enshrined in Israeli law.”

He ended by saying, “Let us remember the common heritage and values that unite us in the face of extremism and hatred, which we will never accept. From Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish people, the city of peace, I join Christians everywhere, and especially those in the Middle East, in a common prayer for a more peaceful and tolerant world.”

Christians in Nigeria: Having Nothing but Everything by Alan Craig

Justice is in short supply in northern Nigeria.

In 2013, there were over 200 Christian churches in the thriving Gwoza area. By the middle of 2014, there were almost none left.

The orphans have nothing, but surrounded by the warm and disciplined Christian love of the Kwashis, they have everything.

In Jos, in the middle-belt of Nigeria. despite the proliferating Christmas decorations in homes and churches, peace on earth and goodwill between communities continues to be in short supply. Across northern Nigeria, the church is facing an existential threat from the violence and intimidation of Islam in its various forms.

In the school of Gloria Kwashi, wife of the Anglican Archbishop, Ben Kwashi, which serves 400 orphans, the lunchtime bowl of mixed rice and beans with added nutrients is, for many of these children, the only meal of the day. The education of these orphans is taken seriously by Gloria Kwashi and her dedicated staff of seven, not only as a Christian imperative but also as a vital route out of poverty.

Grim Life for Christians in Muslim Pakistan by Raymond Ibrahim

“Often in these cases the police take no action or, worse, side with the rapists. Christian families or witnesses are pressured to withdraw complaints.” — Sardar Mushtaq Gill, Pakistani lawyer and human rights activist.

Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of five, has been on death row since 2010 because a Muslim woman, apparently with a personal vendetta against Bibi, accused her of speaking blasphemy against the prophet of Islam, Muhammad. “She could be killed by any inmate or even a prison guard,” said an official. “She was vomiting blood last month and was having difficulty walking.”

Saddique Azam, a Catholic teacher and headmaster at a primary school in a small village, was beaten and tortured by a group of Muslim teachers who resented being under the authority of an “infidel.”

Nabila Bibi, a Christian woman who was engaged to a Christian man, was abducted, forcibly converted to Islam, and forcibly married to a Muslim man.

The U.S. State Department lists only nine nations as “Countries of Particular Concern” (CPC) — a designation for those nations considered to be the worst violators of religious freedom. These include governments that “engage in or tolerate” systematic, ongoing, and unspeakable violations of religious freedom.

Muslim Immigration is Exactly What ISIS Wants Immigration is what ISIS needs to defeat America. Daniel Greenfield

To understand ISIS, you have to understand the difference between terrorists and Islamic terrorists.

Ordinary terrorists have two goals; to compel the enemy to meet their political demands and to rally their supporters to consolidate their class, race or national identity group behind them.

Islamic terrorists are not interested in the “political demands” part. They will occasionally accept concessions and even offer Hudnas, temporary truces, but no permanent separate peace can be achieved with them. It’s why Israel’s peace process with terrorists has gone on failing for decades. It’s why the attempt by Gaddafi to achieve peace with the LIFG ended in a civil war and his death. It’s why Obama’s attempts to negotiate with the “moderate Taliban” failed miserably.

Al Qaeda and ISIS are not “negative” protest movements formed in response to our foreign policy. That’s a foolish self-centered idea held by foolish self-centered Westerners. Al Qaeda and ISIS are “positive” movements that seek to achieve larger religious goals entirely apart from us. Islamic terrorists are not responding to us. They are responding to the Koran and to over a thousand years of history.

Osama bin Laden did not carry out 9/11 to inflict harm on Americans. That was a secondary goal. His primary goal was to rally Muslims to build a Caliphate by encouraging them to attack America.

Media Silent about Hillary’s Smear of Trump Bill Clinton, not the Republican front-runner, is being used as an ISIS recruitment tool. Matthew Vadum

The fabricated on-air debate claim of Hillary Clinton that Islamic State is showing videos of Republican frontrunner Donald Trump “to recruit more radical jihadists” has gone largely unchallenged in the mainstream media.

In fact it is the Benghazi bungler’s husband, not Trump, who is featured in an Islamic State (a.k.a. ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh) recruiting video in which he is labeled a “fornicator” for his many sexual improprieties.

“No Respite,” a four-minute video published online by Islamic State in November, shows images of Bill Clinton, along with former President George W. Bush, who is called a “liar,” and President Obama. The propaganda piece makes the pitch that the U.S. military is no match for Muslim armies.

But you probably haven’t heard about the appropriation of Bill Clinton’s image for jihadist recruitment efforts.