Ron Klain: The Last Fixer : Dan Henninger

The political spin doctors can no longer compete with a simple set of facts.

In “Pulp Fiction,” a movie about crime, there is a character named The Wolf. The Wolf is known as a “cleaner.” His line of work is cleaning up the mess made by incompetent criminals. As played by Harvey Keitel, the cleaner is a man of focus, competence and authority. I thought of the cleaner when President Obama called in Ron Klain.

Mr. Obama said Mr. Klain would be the Ebola czar. But the rest of the Beltway political community said he was something else. Some said Mr. Klain was a famous political operative. Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, called him an “implementation expert.” Those who have been around politics too long said Mr. Klain was a fixer.

Political fixer is not an entirely dishonorable profession. Presidents, governors, mayors—nearly all at some point need someone who can hose down the blood, do the laundry and get the boys back to doing business as usual.

Or used to.

Ron Klain may be the last fixer.

No more revered idea exists in politics than “message control.” A political idea is brought forth, and its originators are expected to control how the public thinks about that idea. This half-fake, half-real protocol has worked well. Then came ObamaCare.

Geert Wilders in Nashville, USA: New International Freedom Alliance (IFA) To Stop the Islamisation of the Free World ****

Dear friends,

Thank you for attending this very important meeting.
It is great to be back in Tennessee, the Volunteer State.
I am traveling from Los Angeles to DC, but I insisted on coming to Tennessee for a very good reason.

Two centuries ago, General Andrew Jackson was tasked with raising an army to liberate New Orleans. When he sent the call out to Tennessee, five times the number expected from your State showed up. The Tennessean Volunteers were noted for their valor in combat.
Many things change in two centuries, but the volunteer spirit and the valor of Tennessee has not. That is why I am here tonight.

I am not going to beat around the bush. I need your help. We have a rendezvous with history here today. Outside, a war is going on. War has been declared on us. The situation is far worse than you can imagine.

For over a decade, I have been warning against Islam. This cruel totalitarian ideology wants to turn the entire world into an Islamic caliphate, ruled by Sharia law.

What this means can currently be seen in the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. There, people are beheaded and women and children are sold as slaves, in the same way as Islam’s founder Muhammad did in the 7th century.
America and its allies are currently bombing the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Dutch F16 planes are part of this offensive. My party supports this wholeheartedly. We support the United States. But there is more to be done.

The free world is in danger.
Our judeo-christian civilization is in danger. Islam is threatening our home countries. So we have to do more than eradicate the dark forces of the Islamic State in the Middle East.
As a matter of fact, our first task is to protect our own nations, our own freedoms, our own children, our own civilization, here, at home. That should be our first priority.

Neurotrope Tackles Alzheimer’s Disease With Novel Mechanism: Jason Napodano, CFA See note please

http://seekingalpha.com/article/2575735-neurotrope-tackles-alzheimers-disease-with-novel-mechanism
Summary

Neurotrope, Inc. is developing therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease (AD).
The company’s lead compound, bryostatin-1, is a natural compound isolated from a tiny, ocean dwelling organism.
Bryostatin-1 activates protein kinase C (PKC) and represents a novel treatment option for AD that is supported by extensive preclinical data.
The company is also developing an AD diagnostic test with early results showing sensitivity (correctly diagnosing AD) ≥ 97% and specificity (correctly identifying individuals without AD) ≥ 96%.
Neurotrope has a basic market capitalization of only $14 million, with $10+ million in cash in the bank and data from a Phase 2a study coming in early 2015.

Neurotrope, Inc (OTCQB:NTRP) is seeking to commercialize technology developed at and exclusively licensed from the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute (BRNI) for therapeutic and diagnostic applications in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and other neurodegenerative disorders. We believe the company has a promising technology, is highly undervalued, and well-funded to show initial proof-of-concept for its lead development candidate in early 2015.

…Alzheimer’s Disease…

As the World Turns: Will the West Prevail? Michel Gurfinkiel

It has been assumed, since the end of the Cold War, that globalization is irreversible and that technologies, cultures, and markets are spreading, merging, and interacting at an ever quicker pace. This is certainly true. But what if, in addition to globalizing, the world is also splitting into separate and antagonistic sub-worlds? Two of them in particular, which ironically came into existence and have been growing as free riders in the Western-shaped universe, now pose a threat to the West.
First, there is what we might call the Wastelands. These are the many countries that have descended into chaos in the last quarter-century, and those that may follow them at any moment. As early as the 1990s, Samuel P. Huntington pointed out that disorder was sprawling in the border zones between civilizations. In the ensuing years, Robert D. Kaplan wrote even more specifically about what he termed the “coming anarchy.” The 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States, which originated at least in part from chaos zones, drew the attention of global decisionmakers to the strategic threats implied by these areas. The “Arab Spring” revolutions of 2011 and events such as the terrorist attack in Benghazi were reminders that chaos is spreading rather than receding, and that, in the space of some twenty years, it has become a permanent fixture of the world.

Foreign Policy has been running for several years a “Failed States Index” (FSI)—renamed the “Fragile States Index” this year—that lists those countries where government and society do not work, or work very badly. According to the 2013 index, at least sixty out of one hundred and seventy-eight countries fit into that category. In other words, one out of three.

Body and Soul: The State of the Jewish Nation By Janet Tassel

The Hebrew Bible is the blueprint of Jewish civilization. And it’s the foundational document of some of the best in civilization as we know it. There in the Bible is the pledge of the Jewish people, ‘If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning.’ And then, in our lifetime, that pledge was realized, when the Jews regained their sovereignty in the land of Israel, after it had been under foreign domination for almost 2,000 years. And what’s more, they did it in the 1940s, in the same decade when one-third of the entire Jewish people had been eradicated in Europe. Now that is a miracle of truly biblical proportions.”

Thus, with great solemnity, Ruth Wisse of Harvard introduces Body and Soul: The State of the Jewish Nation, the latest documentary by Gloria Greenfield and her company, Doc Emet. The film, which will have its premiere later this month in numerous American and Canadian cities, as well as in Jerusalem, is an intensely moving experience, documenting — one is tempted to say “once and for all” — that Israel is, was, and always will be, the land of the Jewish people.

Greenfield deftly uses the format developed in her previous films, a succession of prominent “talking heads,” their authoritative commentary accompanied by historic photographs and films, paintings, and archeological objects, all conducing to the ocular proof of Israel’s history in its own promised land.

Wisse leads off the film’s chronological format with the longest and richest section of the film, the biblical evidence, “In the Beginning.” Wisse is succeeded by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks of the UK, who tells us that “Jewish identity is born in the land of Israel. It begins with two momentous journeys, of Abraham and Sarah from Mesopotamia, and the other, several centuries later by Moses and the Israelites from the Egypt of the Pharoahs; and ever since, in a sense, to be a Jew has meant to be on a journey to the Promised Land.”

The story continues. Author and historian Robert Wistrich points to the fact that though it is hard to document exactly when the special relationship of the Jewish people with the land began, it was at “the very minimum close to 3,000 years” ago, and possibly much longer.

Geert Wilders on “The West’s Battle For Freedom” – on The Glazov Gang.

Geert Wilders on “The West’s Battle For Freedom” – on The Glazov Gang.
A titan and courageous truth-teller crystallizes the only way the West will be able to preserve itself.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/geert-wilders-on-the-wests-battle-for-freedom-on-the-glazov-gang/

Israel’s Security and Unintended Consequences by Richard Kemp

Would General Allen — or any other general today — recommend contracting out his country’s defenses if it were his country at stake? Of course not.

The Iranian regime remains dedicated to undermining and ultimately destroying the State of Israel. The Islamic State also has Israel in its sights and would certainly use the West Bank as a point from which to attack, if it were open to them.

There can be no two-state solution and no sovereign Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan, however desirable those things might be. The stark military reality is that Israel cannot withdraw its forces from the West Bank.

Fatah leaders ally themselves with the terrorists of Hamas, and, like Hamas, they continue to reject the every existence of the State of Israel.

If Western leaders actually want to help, they should use all diplomatic and economic means to make it clear to the Palestinians that they will never achieve an independent and sovereign state while they remain set on the destruction of the State of Israel.

When in 1942 American General Douglas MacArthur took command of the defense of Australia against imminent Japanese invasion, one of the plans he rejected was to withdraw and fight behind the Brisbane line, a move that would have given large swathes of territory to the Japanese.

Instead, he adopted a policy of forward defense: advancing northwards out of Australia to attack the Japanese on the island of New Guinea. MacArthur then went on to play a pivotal role in the defeat of the Japanese empire.

LT. COLONEL JAMES G. ZUMWALT, USMC (RET): A BUS RIDE IN FRANCE- A SNAPSHOT OF ISLAMIZATION

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/bus-ride-in-france-provides-a-snapshot-of-islamization?f=puball

The reality of a warning, sounded for years about a process Europe is undergoing, overtly manifested itself recently on a bus ride in France.

To understand what happened requires understanding Islamization.

This occurs when a nation’s majority native population gradually relinquishes influence to a fast growing-through sustained high birth rates and immigration-Muslim population that becomes more vocal and violent the stronger it gets, ultimately imposing its will upon the host country.

As Islamization runs its course, its negative impact on natives occurs from a combination of factors which they could have acted upon to prevent the loss of influence but, sadly, failed to do so.

Factors include reluctance, prompted by political correctness, to speak out against a tightening noose around their necks caused by Muslim application of sharia over domestic law, establishment of no-go zones where non-Muslims-not even police-dare tread, belief their government will protect them, apathy when it fails to happen, and, ultimately, fear.

The event occurring on a bus in France represents a microcosm of what is eerily taking place throughout most of Europe.

As reported by Mad World News in an October 7th article: “A French man was keeping to himself on a train ride-simply just trying to make it to his destination safely-when he was senselessly beaten to a pulp by a gang of rogue Islamists. The Muslim men didn’t stop at just one target, they also terrorized other innocent passengers.”

The bus security video reveals the following evolution of events:

All appears quiet aboard the bus. A group of at least five Muslim youths exchange hand-slapping greetings. Muslim youth #1 appears to have previously stolen someone’s wallet, sharing it with youth #2. After removing its contents, #2 returns the wallet to #1 who tosses it on the floor near a passenger standing with his back to the group.

Luncheon Address by Peter Huessy, to the Precision Strike Association and the National Defense Industrial Association, at the Johns Hopkins University, October 21, 2014

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/late-to-the-challenge-diminishing-american-leadership-in-the-age-of-terror?f=puball

INTRODUCTION:

A year ago, in trying to make the case for a much diminished role in foreign affairs for the United States, a well known conservative institute in Washington argued our current policies were still linked to our perception of the then Soviet Cold War threat, not the new realities of today.

They even argued: “Soviet war plans for Europe that are now public were primarily defensive; they assumed Soviet forces would be responding to a NATO attack.”

Their claim was two-fold: Not only were they claiming our policy today was based on a threat that no longer existed, but the threat we thought existed during the Cold War was in their view equally bogus.

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?

The conventional wisdom is that Americans are “war weary”. Many on both the right and left want to eliminate what has been described as America’s “hegemonic pretensions”, what is sometimes referred to as putting an end to our “seeking dragons to slay” or as President John Adams put it “America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy”. More colloquially, Americans do not want to be the “world’s policeman”. Fair enough.

It is one thing to analyze the extent of our security challenges of the past and differ with conventional wisdom. It is quite again another matter to invent a history to use such a distortion to justify a new policy for today that minimizes threats, promotes isolationism, and to put it bluntly, is blind to reality.

As such, we may be entering the most dangerous and momentous time since the end of World War II at the same time when we are very much unprepared.

Just as we were late after 1945 in understanding the nature of the challenge of what would become known as the Cold War, so we today have not been willing to honestly face the serious security challenges of our time, especially the poisonous coalition of rogue state sponsors of terror and their jihadi affiliates.

Just at the time this threat is getting more serious, the United States and its allies have been content to push for declining defense budgets and meeting fewer security obligations. This has and is making it increasingly difficult to find the leadership necessary to lead a coalition of nations to defeat the threats we face.

DORE GOLD: AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW ON DEFENSIBLE BORDERS IN THE AGE OF IS

How has the tumult in the Middle East affected the debate over Israel’s territorial requirements? For an answer, Mosaic approached Dore Gold, head of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, who has long promoted the concept of defensible borders primarily as a means of meeting Israel’s security needs in the West Bank. Our exchange was conducted by email.

Q. Before we get to the idea of “defensible borders” itself, can you begin by telling us about your involvement in it?

A: I became immersed in this issue when I was serving as foreign-policy adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his first term in the late 1990s. I was tasked with converting the IDF’s “Interests Map” for the West Bank into a form that could be presented to President Bill Clinton; I joined the prime minister for that presentation in the White House Map Room. Four years later, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon asked me to condense the work for his meeting in the Oval Office with President George W. Bush.

This formed the nucleus of what, starting in 2005, would become a series of monographs on the subject published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Copiously illustrated with maps and photographs, they featured essays by such prominent authors as Moshe Yaalon, now Israel’s defense minister, Yaakov Amidror, until recently Israel’s national security adviser, and Major General (ret.) Uzi Dayan. The latest edition in the series was released this year, by coincidence just prior to the Gaza war. [Mosaic linked to a number of chapters here— Eds.]

Q. What was the original idea, and has it changed at all in light of regional developments over the years?

A: The idea was first put forward by Deputy Prime Minister Yigal Allon after the Six-Day War of 1967. As commander of the pre-state Palmah, Allon was one of the architects of Israel’s national-security doctrine, and had also been a mentor of Yitzhak Rabin. His essential point was, and is, simple enough: Israel must retain certain territories on the West Bank for its security.

Q: What about the Palestinians? That land, after all, is increasingly referred to as occupied Palestinian territory.