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November 2020

Save our Democracy! Trump presumably will fight it in court. But I think he should take a page from his own playbook and hold rallies the contested spots over the next couple of days. By Roger Kimball

https://amgreatness.com/2020/11/04/save-our-democracy/

I have said all along that I thought President Trump would win reelection. The question was whether he would win by a big enough margin to insulate himself from the machinations of fraud, on the one hand, and litigation, on the other. 

I believe that Donald Trump did win the election last night. By my count he had chalked up well over the requisite 270 electoral votes necessary to win reelection. That was a little past midnight. I repaired to the arms of Morpheus confident that November 4 would ratify what was essentially a fait d’accompli on the evening of November 3. 

No such luck. No sooner had my head hit the pillow than the Democrats in the urban centers of states where Trump was leading—in Detroit, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Milwaukee—stopped counting the votes. Why would they do this? Because they wanted to stanch the flow of votes going to Trump and buy themselves time to determine how many votes they would need to win. Finding the votes later on is never a problem. That’s what we pay corrupt party apparatchiks to do. It seemed novel in 1960 when Richard Daley went to Cook Country to secure the election for JFK.  When I went to bed last night, President Trump was comfortably ahead in Wisconsin. Close your eyes: poof: 100,000 ballots suddenly appear in Wisconsin with Joe Biden’s name on them. Stand by for similar feats of magic.

Although common, this outrageous practice is a direct assault on our democracy. Trump presumably will fight it in court. But I think he should take a page from his own playbook and hold rallies in those and maybe other hot spots (Phoenix comes to mind) over the next couple of days. Bring the fight to the people and, just as important, bring the people to the fight. 

The Democrats are not sitting idly by, they are busy “harvesting” votes. Donald Trump needs to mobilize the public with a series of high-profile “Save Our Democracy” rallies. He was performing at 3, 4, or 5 rallies a day for the last couple weeks of the campaign. He should take the show back on the road one last time. If the Democrats complain that the campaign is over he can rebaptize the events as “peaceful protests.” That’s what Antifa and BLM do when they take to the streets. The contrast with the threatened scenes of mayhem, arson, and looting by the Left will afford a useful visual. As many people have observed, Trump’s followers wave American flags. Democratic supporters prefer to burn them. 

I suspect that such Save Our Democracy rallies would attract tens of thousands of people, just as Trump’s campaign rallies did these past weeks. There is no way that Sleepy Joe Biden could compete with them. Not only would they dramatize the extent and enthusiasm of Trump’s support, they would also serve as a salutary reminder that Trump, unlike so many Republican politicians, is willing to fight to assure a free, open, and fair election. They would have the additional attraction of driving the Left even more beyond the pale than than they already are. It’s not nice to take pleasure in the sufferings of others, but I am willing to make an exception in the case of the anguish such rallies would cause among the people who have spent the last four years trying to destroy the president and anyone who came into his orbit. 

Save Our Democracy! It has a ring to it. I hope team Trump will consider organizing a bunch of them now, today.

Report Warns of Islamic Radicalization in France by Judith Bergman

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16529/france-islamic-radicalization

The commission found the consequences of radicalization alarming, particularly the “dissemination of behaviors that… directly affect freedom of conscience, equality between men and women, and the rights of homosexual persons”.

“Under the guise of Islamophobia, political Islam was able to thrive by making people believe it could be nonviolent “. — Mohammed Sifaoui, journalist.

The report concludes that there is a risk of political infiltration from extremists in general and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular, especially in municipal councils.

The report sets forth 44 proposals in a multi-pronged effort to deal with radicalism.

A report published in July by a commission of inquiry of the French Senate, the upper house of the French Parliament, has found that “Islamist radicalization” is a “reality” in France. The commission of inquiry, made up of approximately thirty senators, interviewed a large number of researchers, politicians and other experts on the subject.

The commission found the consequences of radicalization alarming, particularly the “dissemination of behaviors that… directly affect freedom of conscience, equality between men and women, and the rights of homosexual persons”.

“[T]his religious revival, for some, is accompanied by a desire to affirm their belief in the public space, in the company, in the school, and of recognition by institutions and public services, which conflicts with the laws of the Republic and secularism”.

The Real Enemy of Islam by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16724/the-real-enemy-of-islam

“The beheading of the French history teacher proves that political Islam has become a real threat to world peace in light of its expansionist tendency, which is currently embodied by Erdogan’s project, which not only targets the societies of Muslim countries, but also other societies that incubate important Islamic communities.” — Al-Habib Al-Aswad, Tunisian journalist, Al-Arab, October 28, 2020.

He wants to represent himself as a defender of Islam. Which Islam does he speak for? Erdogan has committed crimes in Libya, Syria and all Arab countries. He is the one who is offending Islam.” — Mustafa Bakri, Egyptian media personality, Al-Dostor Studio, October 30, 2020.

The reactions of many Arabs and Muslims show that they view Erdogan as a more serious threat to Islam than Macron or others in the West.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not authorized to speak on behalf of the Muslims, especially regarding the current controversy surrounding France’s attitude toward Islam and Muslim terrorist attacks. That is what many Muslims are saying these days in the aftermath of Erdogan’s attempt to present himself as the grand defender of Islam in a conflict that recently erupted between Muslims and France.

According to several Muslim political analysts and writers, Erdogan is trying to take advantage of the anti-France campaign in the Muslim world for his own political gain. The message the Muslims are sending to France and the rest of the world is that Erdogan is a hypocrite and opportunist, who is acting from personal interest and not out of concern for Muslims or Islam.

Turkey Glorifies Historic Crimes by Uzay Bulut

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16690/turkey-historic-crimes

“In our civilization, conquest is not occupation or looting. It is establishing the dominance of the justice that Allah commanded in the [conquered] region…. This is why our civilization is one of conquest.” — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, MEMRI.org, August 26, 2020.

“Turkey will take what is its right in the Mediterranean Sea, in the Aegean Sea, and in the Black Sea…. This is why we are determined to do whatever is necessary politically, economically, or militarily. We invite our interlocutors to put themselves in order and stay away from mistakes that will open the way for them to be destroyed.” — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, MEMRI.org, August 26, 2020.

“The most savage treatment was always reserved for those visibly proclaiming their Christianity: clergy and monks ‘were burned to death, while others were flayed alive from head to toe.'” — Raymond Ibrahim, historian, Frontpage Magazine, August 7, 2019.

In 2018, the Speaker of Turkey’s parliament, İsmail Kahraman, described Turkey’s military offensive against northern Syria as “jihad.” “Without jihad,” he added, “there will be no progress.” During the same offensive, Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) also called for “jihad” and declared in a weekly sermon that “armed struggle is the highest level of jihad.”

The Turkish government has, in recent years, escalated its rhetoric of neo-Ottomanism and conquest.

On August 26, for instance, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gave a speech at an event celebrating the 949th anniversary of the Battle of Manzikert. This battle resulted in Turks from Central Asia invading and capturing the then majority-Armenian city of Manzikert, within the borders of the Byzantine Empire.

Parts of his speech were translated by MEMRI:

“In our civilization, conquest is not occupation or looting. It is establishing the dominance of the justice that Allah commanded in the [conquered] region.

“First of all, our nation removed the oppression from the areas that it conquered. It established justice. This is why our civilization is one of conquest.

Mr. Trump Goes to Washington Carol Innone

https://amgreatness.com/2020/11/02/mr-trump-goes-to-washington/

After years of being misled by the disconnected-from-history visions of both the Left and Right, we finally have someone in the lead who loves America and her ideals.

I have been favorably disposed toward “The Donald” ever since he restored the ice skating rink in Central Park back in the 1980s, a quintessential New York spot that I had enjoyed when I was younger. The rink was out of commission for years and the city never seemed able to address it despite spending plenty of money. Trump had it fixed and working in a matter of months, ahead of schedule and well under budget.

Clearly a man of action who says what he’ll do and does what he says, Trump was a mover and shaker in a bureaucratically sluggish city. He is a man who keeps his promises, but even more, and this thought has grown with me through his presidency, he is someone who wants people to be happy, to enjoy life, to savor what they have, and to look forward to more.

But I started seeing him as a potential leader when I read an interview in which he disagreed with the Republican view of Social Security. He explained that people have come to rely on these programs, and it seemed wrong to be always talking about cutting them.

I was impressed. Talking about how to cut them is all Republicans seemed able to offer on this count. It was one of the historic standoffs between the parties, though not always true to the letter—Democrats want them regardless of cost, Republicans want to cut or privatize them. Trump seemed to be thinking differently, looking for ways to deal with the problem that don’t include alarming people and almost blaming them for straining the public purse. He was a very wealthy man who cared about average people and had a granular feel for their lives. This was a glimpse of how he would think out of the box on other matters as well, looking for what was actually workable instead of being pinned to dogma.

The Democrats’ Grand Delusion Joe Biden is wrong as usual. Democrats do not choose truth over lies or fact over fiction. They fool only themselves. Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2020/11/02/the-democrats-grand-delusion/

The Steele dossier, an infamous series of memos that alleged Donald Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with the Russians to rig the 2016 election, is the single most influential piece of fabricated political propaganda in American history.

The document is so bad that even the author has attempted to distance himself from its shoddy contents; Christopher Steele, despite being portrayed by the news media as a reliable former British spy, was in fact an untrustworthy partisan operative paid by the Democrats to concoct bogus claims against Donald Trump.

Nothing in the Steele dossier—from outlandish stories about peeing Muscovite prostitutes to secret trips to Prague—is true. Further, numerous investigations have concluded that no, the Trump campaign was not in cahoots with the Kremlin to defeat Hillary Clinton. As it turns out, Steele, not Donald Trump nor anyone in his orbit, was the guy tied to Vladimir Putin’s pals.

But none of these facts stops the overwhelming majority of Democrats from believing the exact opposite. According to an April 2020 poll, 77 percent of Democrats still think the dossier is legitimate and not mere campaign opposition research, which it was. 

By extension, Democrats still believe that Team Trump worked with the Kremlin to help elect the president of the United States in 2016. Keep in mind, the survey was taken one year after Robert Mueller issued his final report and testified to Congress that his two-year, multimillion-dollar probe into Trump-Russia collusion came up empty.

Ballot Box USA Here we go again. Bruce Bawer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/11/miracle-must-be-renewed-bruce-bawer/

In the presidential election of 2016, everything worked – miraculously, but just barely. The most unlikely of candidates, with no political experience, with no massive team of consultants, pollsters, and speechwriters, and with modest funding, won out in the Republican primaries over a chorus line of high-profile senators and governors, including the party establishment’s own favorite, a politician from Central Casting whose father and brother were both ex-presidents and who had a massive war chest. After slaying these dragons, that unlikeliest of candidates, thanks to the power of middle America in the Electoral College, triumphed over his Democratic opponent, whose husband had been president and who enjoyed the support of virtually everyone in America’s cultural, political, academic, and media elites – all of whom took it for granted that she would glide smoothly into office, becoming the first woman president. And what, after eight years of its first black president, could America possibly want or need, other than its first woman president?

This plan by America’s self-regarding elites to defeat the most unlikely of candidates was foiled by the most unexpected of factors: namely, the wisdom of the so-called ordinary, hard-working, law-abiding voter. Trump emerged victorious from the maze, the obstacle course, the Minotaurian labyrinth of presidential politics solely because enough of the right people in enough of the right states sensed that he really was the right man for the job. They respected his résumé. They liked the cut of his jib. They responded to what he said. They somehow sensed that this one might actually keep his promises. And they were proved right, and then some: after he won, he worked harder than any president before him, kept more promises than any president before him, and demonstrated over and over again that his vaunted genius for running a business and making a deal was no hype. His success on so many fronts underscored the incompetence of all these career politicians with blue-chip reputations. He blew them out of the water, proving that a first-class businessman who really cares about the well-being of Americans can outdo any number of self-seeking Washington hacks.

Trump Establishes 1776 Commission By Stanley Kurtz

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/trump-establishes-1776-commission/

This afternoon President Trump signed an “Executive Order Establishing the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission.” The order marks an important step in Trump’s efforts to foster patriotic education.

The text is longer and more substantive than typical presidential EOs. It offers sharp criticisms of current educational trends, a definition and explanation of patriotic education, as well as a vision for how to realize it. Following Trump’s remarks at the White House Conference on American History, the president was criticized by some on the left both for favoring a simplistic view of patriotism and for trying to force a curriculum on schools in violation of local control. This EO refutes both criticisms.

Trump’s EO does offer strong criticisms of “polemics grounded in poor scholarship” that vilify “our Founders and our founding.” The president evidently has Howard Zinn and the 1619 Project in mind. “Despite the virtues and accomplishments of this Nation, many students are now taught in school to hate their own country, and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes, but rather villains,” the EO continues. The order rakes this approach over the coals for a time, then says, “Failing to identify, challenge, and correct this distorted perspective could fray and ultimately erase the bonds that knit our country and culture together.”

Vote No on 1984 By Victor Davis Hanson

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/11/vote-no-on-1984/

Thought crimes, ministries of truth, and memory holes belong in Oceania, not America.

If we were to wake up in 2022, would we be more likely to see a 15-person Supreme Court, a Senate without a filibuster, a nation without an Electoral College, and an effort to admit two more states and with them four more senators if Joe Biden or Donald Trump were president?

Why would we blow up a nine-justice Supreme Court after 151 years, or a 233-year Electoral College, or a 170-year Senate filibuster, or a 60-year 50-state Union? And why now? What is the theme, the argument, the momentum for shattering these traditions, other than that progressives see them as ancient impediments to their radical ends?

Who, if president, would alter our ways of governance, and who would resist? Why are the proponents of these radical changes to the way we are governed so fanatical and yet so quiet about their intentions?

We know that about 99.7–99.8 percent of those under 60 who are infected with the coronavirus survive the disease. We know that the more we lock down everyone under quarantines, the more we risk scattering our resources to cover everyone — many of whom do not need such investment — only to short the vulnerable and elderly who most certainly do need the protection.

In which administration — Biden’s or Trump’s — will more Americans die or become ill under quarantine from increased substance, familial, and spousal abuse, from missed medical procedures and surgeries, from depression and suicide, and from the loss of their livelihoods than will die from the virus itself?

Court File Shows Joe Biden Listed as Possible Witness With Son in Fraud Case By Paul Sperry

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/11/02/court_file_shows_joe_biden_a_witness_with_son_in_fraud_case_125860.html

A federal judge named Joe Biden as a possible “witness” along with his son Hunter in a criminal fraud case last year that ended in the convictions of two of Hunter’s business partners, according to little-noticed court documents. The Democratic presidential candidate’s appearance on a witness list casts new doubt on his claims he knew nothing about his son’s shady business dealings.

Joe and Hunter Biden: The father’s name appears above his son’s on a list of dozens of individuals who might pose a conflict for prospective jurors.

Hunter Biden blamed one of his convicted partners — Devon Archer — for his father’s name appearing on a list of potential witnesses in a juror questionnaire in the case, which was filed Jan. 11, 2019.

In a 47-minute recording recovered from his abandoned laptop, an agitated Hunter can be heard grousing about calls he’s been getting from his father, who apparently was upset with the developments as he prepared to launch his campaign for the White House.