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Trump Doesn’t Represent the Conservative Base By Jonah Goldberg

Posted By on December 11th, 2015

There’s a tendency in politics to mistake personal animosity for ideological animosity.

Consider Bill Clinton. His staggering dishonesty, tackiness, and scorn for the rule of law aroused a lot of anger from the Right. But he wasn’t really that left-wing.

Oh, he was certainly more liberal in his heart than he let on, but he also worked from the assumption that this was a center-right country, and that limited what he could get away with.

Clinton ran for president the first time by “triangulating” against the base of his own party. He took time off from the campaign to oversee the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a man so mentally disabled, when he left for the electric chair, he told the guards that he was saving the pecan pie from his last meal “for later.” Clinton signed welfare reform (reluctantly), the Defense of Marriage Act (less reluctantly), helped to balance the budget, and proclaimed that “the era of big government is over.”

And yet, many conservatives insisted he was a no-good hippy left-winger.

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Obama Chanukah Party Attacks Islamophobia, Calls for “Justice” for Palestinians “I stand here to light these lights to say no the darkness By Daniel Greenfield of Islamophobia”

Posted By on December 11th, 2015

Obama’s Chanukah parties have had issues in the past. But this time it teetered over into full-blown violently offensive territory. Obama’s own remarks were boilerplate inoffensive stuff. Israel’s President Rivlin, a political hack who desperately sucks up to the media, was equally insipid.

But the White House chose Susan Talve to light the Menorah. Talve is a member of the anti-Israel group T’ruah which is currently promoting assorted “soft BDS” programs. She’s also a Ferguson activist. Her behavior was deeply insulting to the religious Jewish community and made it clear that the White House was determined to hijack even a Chanukah party to promote an anti-Jewish agenda.

So the general conviviality of the Chanukah party was disrupted by a crazed rant from Susan Talve in which she seemed determined to jam as many leftist talking points as possible in her limited time. Instead of talking about Chanukah, Talve blathered on about getting, “guns off our streets” and to “clean up the fires of toxic nuclear waste”.

Talve screeched, “I stand here with my fierce family of clergy and black lives matter activists who took to the streets of Ferguson”.

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Hillary vs. the Benghazi Families Clinton’s most brazen lie yet. Arnold Ahlert

Posted By on December 11th, 2015

There is little doubt this presidential campaign season is unique, at least in one respect: for the first time in a long time, the despicable nature of the mainstream media’s double-standard is as much in focus as the candidates themselves. And perhaps nothing screams double-standard more than the calculated lack of attention on Hillary Clinton’s latest assertion that she never told the families grieving over the loss of their loved ones in Benghazi that an anti-Muslim video was to blame for the attacks.

We begin with where that assertion was made. Clinton floated this latest insult to those families and the American public within the friendly confines of ABC News’ This Week, hosted by pseudo-journalist and former Clinton toady George Stephanopoulos. The would be the same George Stephanopoulos that still passes muster in the corporate suites at ABC, despite having made three separate donations of $25,000 apiece to the Clinton Foundation in 2012, 2013 and 2014 respectively. Those donations remained under the radar, even when Stephanopoulos engaged in a contentious interview with “Clinton Cash” author Peter Schweizer, during which he rose to the Clinton’s defense. After being outed, Stephanopoulos apologized for the oversight, insisting he thought his contributions were “a matter of public record.” “However, in hindsight, I should have taken the extra step of personally disclosing my donations to my employer and to the viewers on air during the recent news stories about the Foundation,” Stephanopoulos confessed.

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The Lies About Mass Muslim Immigration And the dire consequences. Howard Rotberg

Posted By on December 11th, 2015

For over 30 years on American television, and before that on radio, the premier game show was called “Truth or Consequences”. For about 20 years, it was hosted by the ever-popular Bob Barker.

On the show, contestants received roughly two seconds to answer a trivia question correctly (usually an off-the-wall question that no one would be able to answer correctly, or a bad joke) before “Beulah the Buzzer” sounded. If, as was almost always the case, the contestant could not complete the “Truth” portion, there would be “Consequences,” usually a zany and embarrassing stunt. From the start, most contestants preferred to answer the question wrong in order to perform the stunt. Said the show’s producer Ralph Edwards, “Most of the American people are darned good sports.”

In many broadcasts, the stunts on Truth or Consequences included a segment with a popular, but emotional, heart-rending surprise for a contestant, that being the reunion with a long-lost relative or with an enlisted son or daughter returning from military duty overseas, particularly Vietnam.

Bob Barker would sign off the show by saying “I hope all your consequences are happy ones.”

It is my contention that in this sad era of Islamist terrorism, jihadism and attempts to form a “world-wide Caliphate”, (starting with a desire to remove the Jews from Israel, followed by a gradual demographic/migratory take-over of Europe and a myriad of mini-wars in Africa, the Philippines and other Asian countries where Muslims seek the submission of their neighbors), that the idea of accepting hundreds of thousands of Muslim migrants to Canada and the United States, has some consequences, and these should be discussed, frankly and honestly.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

What ISIS Really Wants? To Kill You Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on December 11th, 2015

Since 9/11, America has been plagued with a media industry churning out counterintuitive “What do the terrorists want” pieces. Sure you might think that the terrorists “want to kill you”. But profound media thinkers who know all about Islam without ever having read the Koran know that what the terrorists really want is for us to kill them. Every time we bombed them, we were just “playing into their hands.”

Today the same bad ideas are being brushed off for insipid “What does ISIS want” thinkpieces which conclude that what ISIS wants most is for us to deviate from the media’s favorite progressive policies.

After letting ISIS overrun its half-dozen countries, the same geniuses responsible for the mess began claiming that what ISIS really fears is more of their failed policies. And what it really wants is Republican policies. If you support bombing terrorists or keeping them out of the country, you’re helping ISIS.

According to Obama, ISIS wants us to turn to “tough talk” and begin “abandoning our values” by keeping Syrian Muslim migrants out. After the Oval Office speech was done, the Caliph of ISIS probably threw up his hands and told his fellow terrorists, “It’s no use. This Hussein fellow just won’t talk tough. We’re doomed. Sure we’ll keep on killing Americans, but what good will it do if he won’t talk tough?”

Biden informed Americans that, “It’s clear what ISIL wants. They want to manufacture a clash between civilizations. They want frightened people to think in terms of ‘us versus them.’” Whereas our leaders know better than to think in such terms, unless the “thems” are Republicans in which case it’s okay.

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The Passing of a GI Joe Medal of Honor recipient Tibor Rubin wanted to show that Jews could fight as well as die. Peter Collier

Posted By on December 11th, 2015

Our country lost a hero last Saturday (December 5), a hero it acquired along the way, when Tibor Rubin—“Ted,” as he liked to be called because that was his “American name”—died. His birth certificate said he was 86, but by his own calculation he was actually a little younger than that since he believed that he had a second birthday when he arrived in America 67 years ago.

Ted’s story is one of the most remarkable in U.S. military history. It is a story of daring and determination not quite like any other. It is a story given flesh and bones by simple human decency.

Voluble and mordantly funny, Rubin, a thick and powerful man even in old age and still speaking an immigrant’s eccentric English, told me about it a few years ago during a couple of interviews I conducted with him for a book I was doing on the Medal of Honor.

The story begins in Hungary where he was born in 1929 in the small town of Paszto. His family were Jews, but this didn’t matter to their neighbors—not yet, anyhow. “We have a beautiful life there,” Rubin said. “We didn’t bother nobody and nobody bothered us.”

As World War II approached, things changed as the Hungarian government, Hitler’s ally, passed a series of anti-Jewish measures imitating those the Nazis had used in laying down a foundation for the Holocaust. When he was 13 and they sensed that night was falling, Rubin’s parents sent him to Budapest in the hope that he would be absorbed by the big city. He survived on his own for a couple of years, but when the round up came, he couldn’t hide. He was arrested and packed with hundreds of others into cattle cars headed for the Mauthausen camp in Austria. He never forgot the German commandant’s chilling greeting upon their arrival there: “You Jews, none of you are going to get out of here alive.”

BOOKS Comments turned off

Markey Mark by Mark Steyn

Posted By on December 11th, 2015

On Tuesday I appeared at the US Senate at a hearing called by Senator Ted Cruz’s sub-committee on Space, Science and Competitiveness. Senator Cruz introduced me as “an international bestselling author, a Top Five jazz recording artist, and a leading Canadian human rights activist”. In fact, at that moment, I was America’s Number One jazz vocalist, but I thought it was a bit early in the proceedings to jump up and demand the record be corrected.

You can read various accounts of this event across the Internet from one perspective or another. Among the climate wallahs, there is a lively back-and-forth at Judith Curry’s pad, at Anthony Watts’, Bishop Hill’s, and Junk Science. On the politics of it – ie, Republicans and Democrats – I have a couple of thoughts, one of which has to do with the 2016 election. But that is a separate subject, so I’ll leave it for another day.

There was an altercation underway as I entered the room, when two Greenpeace activists attempted to get in the face of Professor William Happer about something or other. You can see it here. It is, to be legalistic about it, witness-tampering, and a sadly appropriate start to a hearing that at least partly addressed the climate of intimidation in global-warming science.

As for the hours that followed, I’ll let the reports from all sides speak for themselves, and just make a couple of points. On the morning of the event, Senator Bill Nelson, the Florida Democrat and Ranking Member, sent a message, warning me that I was obligated to “respect the decorum of the Senate”. I’ve been invited to Buckingham Palace, the White House and parliaments around the world, and nobody has ever felt it necessary to pre-issue such a warning. In the event, the US Senate has no “decorum” worthy of respect, as we’ll get to in a moment.

You can find my written testimony here. A few excerpts. First, the general overview:

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Palestinians’ Biggest Tragedy: Failed Leadership by Khaled Abu Toameh

Posted By on December 11th, 2015

It was recently reported that the commander of the Islamic State (ISIS) branch in Sinai held talks in the Gaza Strip with leaders of Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezaddin al-Qassam Brigades, about expanding their cooperation.

President Abbas does not seem to care whether the Palestinians of Gaza are turned into hostages and prisoners. He is probably hoping that the crisis will drive Palestinians to revolt against the Hamas regime, paving the way for his PA to return to the Gaza Strip.

Instead of trying to solve the Gaza crisis, Abbas is too busy waging a diplomatic war against Israel. He wants to file “war crimes” charges against Israel with the International Criminal Court — ignoring the fact that he and Hamas are responsible for the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza.

The Palestinians ignore the fact that their biggest tragedy over the past few decades has been (and remains) their failed and corrupt leadership that is willing to sacrifice them for its own interests.

Since June 2013, the Rafah border crossing, the sole crossing point between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, has been closed for most of the time.

Since the beginning of 2015, the Egyptian authorities have opened the Rafah terminal for a total of only 21 days.

Last week, the Egyptians opened the border crossing for two days, allowing a few hundred Palestinians to cross in both directions.

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ISIS Beheads Five Russians By Stephen Green

Posted By on December 11th, 2015

Good lord:

The Islamic State has executed five Russian nationals after accusing them of spying within ISIS controlled territory.

This is in addition to the beheading of a Russian citizen last week by a man now dubbed “the Chechen Jihadi John.”

“Yes, this Russian citizen was a Chechen,” Ramzan Kadyrov, leader of Chechenya told reporters on December 3. “He was beheaded.”

A Russian security source said, “The victim is unlikely to have had any relation to our special services.”

Graphic video (in Russian) at the link.

The report also claims there are 2,400 Russians fighting for ISIS. That’s enough to make you wonder if ISIS selected a few of their own to execute for propaganda purposes, or if they somehow managed to get their hands on five non-ISIS Russians to murder.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Obama’s Phony War Against ISIS By Stephen Green

Posted By on December 11th, 2015

For good and for ill, fighting from the air has been perhaps the defining aspect of America’s warmaking. We invented “precision” daylight bombing against Germany in WWII. We pioneered firebombing and nuclear bombing against Japan in that same conflict. We developed laser-guided munitions for use against high-priority targets while fighting North Vietnam, and even more precise GPS-guided munitions for our 21st century wars.

We build the best bombers, the best fighters, and the smartest bombs. We invented stealth so that “America, f*** yeah!” you won’t even see us coming.

Our pilots are perhaps the best trained in the world, and even if our Air Force has become too small for today’s needs, it’s still the biggest and by far the most powerful in the world.

And don’t even get me started on drones. Big drones give Air Force colonels capabilities once reserved to jillion-dollar spy satellites, and tiny drones turn a muddy-boot Army grunt into an aerial reconnaissance asset. Even cooler, a president sorting through “assassination cards” in the Oval Office can have his order relayed to a drone pilot in Nevada who gives a command via satellite to an armed drone over Syria — and then a few seconds later a Hellfire missile sends a jihadi commander to Paradise.