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Ruth King

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Why France Is Revolting against the Ancien Régime by Michel Gurfinkiel ****

By on April 5th, 2017

No political observer in his right mind would have expected at the beginning of 2016 a Brexit vote in Britain in June, the resignation of David Cameron, a dogfight between the two main Brexit supporters and propagandists within the Tory party, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, and eventually the rise of Theresa May. Nor would he have foreseen, for that matter, the election of Donald Trump in the United States on November 8.

Something similar is happening in France now — on a much larger and trickier scale. A few months ago, it was taken for granted that François Hollande’s ineffectual socialist administration would be succeeded after the 2017 election — on April 23 and May 7 — by a conservative government led either by former president Nicolas Sarkozy or former prime minister Alain Juppé: a simple matter of the swing of the pendulum, as is the rule among democracies. What the French are facing now, however, is an unprecedented upsurge of the National Front, the elimination of a generation of political leaders on almost all sides, and the collapse or near collapse of classic Left and Right parties. While many voters welcome the change, others are just in a state of shock. On March 18 — one month or so ahead of the first ballot — 34 per cent of the electorate and 43 per cent of voters under 35 had still not decided whether to vote or not.

On March 20, the five most prominent candidates debated for three and a half hours on TV. About 10 million people watched intently. It was indeed a great show — and probably a defining moment in the campaign.

All five candidates are rebels. Marine Le Pen, 48, the National Front leader, is a rebel by definition. She has managed to upgrade in many ways the party she inherited from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, in 2011, to purge it of many unsavoury elements, to trim its formerly racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric (including Holocaust denial) and to switch from Vichy nostalgia to a near-Gaullist statism. In fact, she has even been increasingly reluctant to use the name National Front, and has floated alternative labels, such as Rassemblement Bleu Marine (“Navy Blue Rally”, a play on words with her first name which means “Navy” in French).

For all that, she is still sticking to a binary, undemocratic and utterly revolutionary view of the world, positing a bitter fight between what she calls “the System” (the political and cultural elite, of both Right and Left, the “lobbies”, globalisation, multiculturalism, immigration, the European Union, the euro) and “the people” (the ordinary Frenchmen) whom she claims to represent exclusively. The implication is that either you side with the people and her against the System, and opt for a fully sovereign and autarkic France under her guidance, or you are, willingly or not, an enemy of the people. Interestingly enough, she used this logic against her own father, as he resisted the revamping and defascisation of the National Front, and did not flinch from expelling him from the party at the age of 86.

At the other end of the political spectrum, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, 65, a former minister of vocational education, rebelled against the Socialist party in 2008 to found the more hardline Parti de Gauche (Left Party) and then the Front de Gauche (Left Front) in association with a diminutive Communist Party. He eventually started a new movement in 2016, France Insoumise (Indomitable France).

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Russia’s gloomy economic picture By:Srdja Trifkovic

By on April 5th, 2017

This year’s Moscow Economic Forum (MEF) opened last Thursday at the Lomonosov State University under the slogan A New Strategy for Russia. The panelists—prominent academics, businessmen and senior managers—were brutally blunt in their diagnosis of the causes of Russia’s economic woes, and especially critical of the country’s Central Bank for continuing to follow a neoliberal strategy. There is a general consensus that Russia’s economic and financial problems are systemic, and only in small part due to Western sanctions.

Ruslan Grinberg, head of the Institute of Economics and the Forum’s moderator, noted that in the 1990’s everyone was intoxicated by the dogma of the free market: you should privatize, deregulate and stabilize. The results were disastrous, but Russia’s economic decision-making community is still not free of neoliberal blinkers. This applies not only to the Central Bank, but also to the economic departments of the Medvedev government. According to Grinberg, “market fundamentalism is dead, but its cause still lives on in key segments of Russia’s ruling elite.”

Economist Vladislav Zhukovsky noted that the economy is supposedly growing, but the country’s human potential has declined. Current spending on education is only 4.1%, instead of 7% of GDP, and health care accounts for under 5%. The overall state of the Russian economy can be described as degradation and compression. It is accompanied by bureaucratization, monopolization, and dollarization. On the other hand, says Zhukovsky, “our officials have discovered a new art form—ever more sophisticated forms of statistical manipulation to draw a beautiful reality in contrast to the deteriorating crisis situation.” According to the latest revised data, in 2015 the downturn officially amounted to only 2.8%, and to a mere 0.2% in 2016, while the real economy was actually growing. Zhukovsky is adamant that this is “statistical alchemy,” and that all key macroeconomic indicators were overrated. In reality, he says, Russia has experienced 26 months of continuous fall of real incomes, by about 17.5% overall.

In an earlier interview Zhukovsky complained that this year’s MEF would be the voice of the entrepreneurial community crying in the desert: “It is clear that none of those who determine macroeconomic policy, and distribute annually a trillion rubles of public procurement, are interested in it. Today we see a strange situation that the windfall in oil and gas complex, metallurgy, raw materials, natural monopolies, in the production of various kinds of fertilizers, technical complex, which has grown over the last 2.5 years, more than 55% in ruble terms, all to no positive effect in the economy. The growth of corporate profits did not affect the growth of investment and wages . . . There is no general strategy.”

Professor James K. Galbraith, author of the seminal 2012 study Inequality and Instability, noted that rising inequality happens in clusters of countries. Extreme polarization occurred between 1990 and 2000 in Russia and other ex-communist countries. There has been considerable stabilization after 2000, however, as many of those countries abandoned the extreme neoliberal model. In recent years Russia has experienced the fact that when currencies weaken, those who sell abroad do better than those who sell at home. Russia’s fundamental problem is the dollar-based global financial regime. Galbraith added that the new U.S. administration does not have an effective economic strategy to preserve and expand a stable and diverse middle class: “We still suffer, and we will continue to suffer, from private affluence and public squalor.”

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21 Ways to a Happier Depression: A Creative Guide to Getting Unstuck from Anxiety, Setbacks, and Stress Hardcover – April 4, 2017 by Seth Swirsky

By on April 5th, 2017

Here is a book by multi talented Seth Swirsky that can be a help to those who suffer depression and a guide to their families and loved ones.
https://www.amazon.com/21-Ways-Happier-Depression-Creative/dp/1492648132/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1491340932&sr=8-4&keywords=seth+swirsky

Say goodbye to dreary shades of black and white and start seeing the world for the prism of color it is with this refreshing and creative guide! In a unique combination of art, activities, and uplifting anecdotes, 21 Ways to a Happier Depression leads you on a hands-on journey to personal growth. Getting you out of one of “those moods” can be as simple as:

• Making the bed
• Nurturing a plant
• Painting shapes in loops and colors
• Breaking down your work into a to-do list
• Getting a fresh new look with some different décor, or even a haircut!

Inspired by his own life experience, Clinical Psychologist Seth Swirsky gently encourages positive introspection through honest and practical advice. With this book, a happier depression is literally in your hands!

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Rasmea’s exit, stage left by Ruthie Blum

By on April 4th, 2017

Convicted Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh received a standing ovation this weekend in Chicago from ‎an enthusiastic crowd at the national conference of the organization Jewish Voice for Peace.‎

Luckily for Odeh — who took part in the bombing of a Jerusalem supermarket in 1969, which killed ‎Hebrew University students Leon Kanner and Eddie Joffe — the Jewish state that she and her radical leftist ‎buddies in the U.S. Jewish community would see eradicated let her out of jail as part of a prisoner ‎exchange. Still, she has expressed no gratitude to the liberal society that set her free in 1980, or to the ‎one that has enabled her since then to roam around freely, spewing her vitriol and inciting violence. ‎On the contrary, the proud member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who feels no ‎remorse for the innocent boys she killed, also defied the country that took her in as in immigrant — ‎concealing her terrorist past in order to enter the United States.‎

Not only that. Last month, Odeh’s three-year battle with the U.S. government, which was sparked by ‎her being convicted of immigration fraud, came to a happy end with a plea bargain according to which ‎she would be stripped of her American citizenship and deported, but serve no jail time. ‎

The Rasmea Defense Committee, a vocal group of avid supporters, had the nerve to respond to this ‎piece of luck and ill-deserved generosity by saying that her decision to accept the deal was difficult, ‎but it was the best she could hope for under the “current racist political climate” of President Donald ‎Trump, in which her “prospects for a fair trial are slimmer than ever.”‎

It is bad enough that Odeh spent only 10 years in an Israeli prison. Worse still that she is getting off the ‎hook for her subsequent crime. But the fact that she has been elevated to some kind of sainthood, ‎lauded by feminist, black and other self-described human rights activists is as shocking as it is ‎shameful.‎

To add insult to injury, Jewish Voice for Peace pressured the management of the Hyatt Regency Hotel, ‎the venue rented for the hate-filled conference, not to allow a pro-Israel group to rent a separate ‎room in which to hold a memorial service for Odeh’s victims. This is a classic case of what renowned ‎law professor Alan Dershowitz calls “free speech for me and not for thee.”‎

Yes, as long as Jewish Voice for Peace and its non-Jewish counterparts — such as Students for Justice in ‎Palestine and Black Lives Matter, which use it as a cover for their anti-Semitism — have the microphone, ‎anything goes. Even glorifying cold-blooded murder. But when an organization like StandWithUs wants ‎to present an opposing viewpoint, any underhanded tactics to prevent it from doing so are kosher.‎

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The Fight for Zion By Asaf Romirowsky

By on April 4th, 2017

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Fifty years after the Six Day War, the American Jewish community is sharply fragmented, with many Jews grappling with where Zionism fits into their Jewish identity. As the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement grows in popularity and attracts more Jewish advocates, the gap is growing even wider between American Jewry and Israel.

For American Jews, Zionism has become a source of debate, controversy, embarrassment, and guilt as they try to come to terms with the activities of the Jewish state and its elected officials. Consequently, many seek to detach themselves from what used to embody the core of Jewish identity. A case in point is Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a pro-BDS Jewish group that uses its “Jewishness” to validate its cause.

While JVP’s desire to persuade the Israeli government to change its policies is legitimate, the growing strength of the BDS movement at large makes the demise of the two-state solution ever more likely. JVP’s executive director, Rebecca Vilkomerson, is notorious for her hard leftist views, as illustrated in her Washington Post op-ed entitled “I’m Jewish, and I want people to boycott Israel.” So strong is JVP’s antipathy to Israel that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has called it “the largest and most influential Jewish anti-Zionist group” in the US.

Yet the true essence of Zionism lies in its ability to encapsulate both religious and secular Jewish identities. The current challenge is to identify the component of renewal. The Zionist enterprise did not end with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Each generation must redefine Zionism as it is relevant to them.

Theodor Herzl famously wrote in his diary, “Were I to sum up the [1897] Basel Congress in a word – which I shall guard against pronouncing publicly – it would be this: ‘At Basel, I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today, I would be answered by universal laughter. If not in five years, certainly in fifty, everyone will know it.’”

The difference between Herzl’s generation and post-1948 generations was a first-hand understanding of what the absence of a Jewish state means for Jewish survival. The state represents the difference between autonomy and servility, indeed between life and death. But today’s millennial generation has no memory of a time when Israel did not exist or was ever on the “right side of history.”

Given the wedge that has been pushed between Zionism and Judaism, one might even suggest that were Herzl to raise the question of a Jewish homeland today, he might not receive support. The irony is that what initially led Zionist leaders to bond over the idea of a homeland was the growing threat of antisemitism. Today, even as antisemitism is on the rise around the world, anti-Zionism is often viewed as legitimate criticism.

Abba Eban dispelled this notion eloquently, stating, “There is no difference whatever between antisemitism and the denial of Israel’s statehood. Classical antisemitism denies the equal right of Jews as citizens within society. Anti-Zionism denies the equal rights of the Jewish people its lawful sovereignty within the community of nations. The common principle in the two cases is discrimination.”

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Winning the Civil War of Two Americas America vs. Anti-America. Daniel Greenfield

By on April 4th, 2017

When John Edwards touted the “Two Americas” during his presidential campaigns before his political career ended in disgrace, it was still a metaphor. It stopped being a metaphor at the end of last year.

If you doubt that, you can watch Tom Perez, the head of the Democratic National Committee, yelling that President Trump didn’t win the election. There is a huge difference between opposing the winner of an election and denying that he won it. It’s the difference between opposition and rebellion.

Democrats have not recognized a single Republican presidential victory this century. There is no real reason to think that they will recognize a third one. We can safely assume that the third or fourth Republican to win the White House, no matter who he is, will face the same treatment.

A two-party system can’t function if one party denies the legitimacy of elections won by the other side.

In the Edwards era, the Democrats denied that President Bush had won the election, but they still remained part of the government. That’s no longer the case. Their political mantra is resistance. Their position is that Trump and Republicans are inherently illegitimate and must not be allowed to govern. Instead the government must be defied, opposed, subverted and brought down by any means.

The Democrats have become an unelected shadow anti-government that is seeking to bring down an elected government. That is what I described in an earlier article as a civil war.

The crisis has its roots in Two Americas.

The Democrats artificially created another America. They built it in the elitist urban and suburban enclaves of the left. They drew it with urban welfare ghettoes and with mass immigration. But despite the vast financial, political and cultural power invested in this “New America” it did not represent the majority of the country. And democratic elections dealt repeated setbacks to this Anti-America.

Political maps show these alien concentrations of blue amid a vast national sea of red. Democrats have lost much of the country. They have been wiped out at the state level. They retain power only because they have illegally concentrated them in undemocratic political, financial and cultural centers.

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Jihad Comes to Wall Street “Sharia finance” does exactly what it promises, financing the spread of sharia — and terror. By Alex Alexiev —

By on April 4th, 2017

If you’ve seen Geert Wilders’s film Fitna, you may not have noticed a single headline amongst all the bombings, beheadings, and earnest expressions of Islam’s eventual world domination: Halal-fund: investments for Muslims. But the investment vehicles referenced are an essential part of radical Islam’s efforts to insinuate itself into Western societies in order to destroy them from within. And Wall Street, barely out of the woods from its disastrous run-in with sub-prime mortgages — and having lost one of its historic investment houses, Bear Stearns, in the process — is now chasing the very kind of “sharia finance” against which Wilders’s movie warns, a business line that may eventually wind up being even more calamitous than the subprime-mortgage fiasco.

For the growing army of its acolytes, who salivate at the prospect of tens of billions of dollars in transaction fees from the burgeoning industry, sharia-compliant finance is seen as little more than a cuddly Islamic version of socially conscious investment — with ethical strictures forbidding usury and sin industries, and emphasizing charity. Indeed, a conference on the subject last Fall co-sponsored by the Wall Street Journal was titled just that: “Islamic Ethical Investment.” According to this rosy interpretation, sharia finance is a windfall for capital markets — allowing Wall Street to skim some foam off the ocean of petrodollar liquidity in the Middle East, and put it to good use.

Other interpretations are possible, of course. Critics see sharia finance as a massive subversion campaign by radical Islam designed to legitimize sharia in the West, to undermine our markets, and ultimately to imperil our free-enterprise system and national security — all the while exposing banks to financial risks that make the sub-prime fiasco look like a walk in the park. For its proponents and ideological enablers — such as the well known suicide-bombing advocate, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi — sharia finance is nothing less than “Jihad with money.” As al-Qaradawi explains, “God has ordered us to fight enemies with our lives and with our money.” Unfortunately for Wall Street, it’s hard to argue with the good sheikh on that score. Far from being a guide to ethical investment, sharia finance is indistinguishable from sharia itself.

Sharia is a reactionary-to-the-core medieval Islamic doctrine that claims control over every aspect of every Muslim’s life. It imposes such “ethical” mandates on Muslims as the obligation to discriminate against women and non-Muslims; to kill homosexuals, adulterers, and apostates; to establish and maintain Muslim rule around the world; and to carry out violent offensive jihad against infidels. Notably, for those Muslims who cannot engage in physical jihad using force of arms, sharia requires that they support jihad financially. This is what sharia finance is all about.

Far from being a legitimate investment vehicle, sharia finance facilitates religiously sanctioned support for terrorist organizations — as well as providing radical Islamists with highly paid sinecures as sharia-finance board advisors in the sanctum sanctorum of capitalism, all the while that they are pursuing a subversive campaign to destroy it.

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Prof. At Rollins College Involved In Suspending Christian Student Has Ties To Islamic Extremists New details shed light on the controversy. Will Nardi and Zach Swaim

By on April 4th, 2017

New details surfacing regarding a Muslim Rollins College professor who was involved in the wrongful suspension of a Christian student show that she has multiple ties with radical Islamic individuals and organizations, most notably through an ex-lover under FBI investigation and in her position as the spokesperson for the Islamic Society of Central Florida (ISCF).

The College Fix reported last Monday that the professor, Areej Zufari, falsely accused the student, sophomore Marshall Polston, of violating the terms of his suspension by setting foot on campus, resulting in a disciplinary hearing with the university conduct system. Polston has since been exonerated of all charges after providing surveillance footage of where he really was at the time and has been officially reinstated at the college.

Polston claims he was originally suspended after sending a strongly worded email refuting his professor’s claims that Jesus’s crucifixion never happened and that his followers never believed he was the son of God. Rollins College refused to answer questions on whether they would investigate these claims and Zufari’s potential ties to Islamic extremists.

Zufari served as the spokesperson and Director of Communications for the Islamic Society of Central Florida (ISCF) from 2001 to at least 2004, according to the author bio from her 2012 book “Beyond the Headlines” and press communications from the organization. ISCF’s main mosque, Masjid al-Rahman, is owned by the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), which was classified by federal prosecutors as both an un-indicted co-conspirator in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case and as an entity that is or was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In this case, the Muslim Brotherhood’s goals were identified as “establish[ing] a network of organizations in the U.S. to spread a militant Islamist message and raise money for Hamas,” and “eliminating the State of Israel through violent jihad.” Former FBI special agent Robert Stauffer stated that NAIT’s role in the Muslim Brotherhood is that of a nonprofit financial holding company, according to the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel.

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“Proud Muslim” Proclaims Himself a “Triple Threat to Donald Trump” Dr. Asif Mahmood is candidate for lieutenant governor of California. Lloyd Billingsley

By on April 4th, 2017

“As a Muslim immigrant from the great blue state of California, I’ll be a triple threat to Donald Trump. I’m running for office to fight against him, and to fight for our families.”

That was Dr. Asif Mahmood, a Democrat, last Wednesday outside ICE headquarters in Los Angeles, announcing that he is running for lieutenant governor of California.

The 56-year-old physician was born in Pakistan, but as he explained, “I wanted to live in America because of my children. I wanted them to grow up in a place that celebrates diversity and tolerance. . . Donald Trump continues to attack people like me – immigrants and people of color and Muslims. I say President Trump has it all wrong. It’s time to get tough on hate. California must be the leader of the Trump resistance and I will fight every step of the way.”

CAIR representative Danna Elneil told reporters, “We’re not 100 percent sure whether he’s the first Muslim to run.” Many Muslim countries, organizations and scholars would not be 100 percent sure if the candidate is a Muslim.

Dr. Asif Mahmood is a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, founded in 1889 on the belief that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908) was the long-awaited Messiah. Allah sent him, the Ahmadis believe, to end religious wars, condemn bloodshed and reinstitute morality, justice and peace.

According to the Congressional Record, in 2012 Democrat representatives Brad Sherman and Zoe Lofgren welcomed to Congress “His Holiness, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad.” Based in Britain, he is “the worldwide spiritual leader of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, which has tens of millions of adherents around the world in 190 countries and tens of thousands of adherents here in the United States.” Sherman commended the Ahmadi motto, “Love for all. Hatred for none.”

Sherman also welcomed “distinguished leaders” Dr. Asif Mahmood and Kareem Ahmed

who show such leadership of the Muslim community in the Los Angeles area. As Dr. Stephen M. Kirby noted in 2015, the Sunnis who represent nearly 90 percent of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims would have a problem with the Ahmadi claim that they represent the “true” Islam.

In 1984, Dr. Mahmood’s native country of Pakistan added Section 298 to the penal code, prohibiting the Ahmadis from calling themselves Muslims, posing as Muslims by reciting Koranic verses, referring to their faith as Islam, and preaching or propagating their faith. The Pakistani law even prohibits Ahmadis from sounding the call to prayer.

Indonesia and Kyrgyzstan deploy similar prohibitions and in 1997 Sheikh Ali Bin Abdur Rahman Al Hufaifi, chief Imam of the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi mosque in Medina, Saudi Arabia, condemned the Ahmadis as “traitors” spouting “false Quranic commentary.” As Dr. Kirby noted:

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Mainstream Media Distorts Reality on Israeli Settlements Even a simple announcement by the Israeli government is used as a platform to bash Israel.

By on April 4th, 2017

Reprinted from en.mida.org.il.

Yesterday, Israel’s government approved construction of a new settlement in Judea and Samaria (aka West Bank). Media outlets CNN, BBC and the NY Times wasted no time publishing stories that distort the truth, if not outright lie. These mistakes range from offering a false impression of reality to actually getting facts wrong. Such elementary mistakes expose the disconnect between mainstream media outlets and basic truths of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

For example, CNN wrote that this is Israel’s ‘first new settlement in Palestinian territory in more than 20 years’. The first part of the sentence is misleading and the second part is false. Israel has not built new communities in Judea and Samaria because it has given numerous chances for the Palestinian leadership to come to the table and reach an agreement. However, the Palestinians continually refused. Instead, the article leads the reader to believe that this is a new policy meant to stifle any chance for a peace agreement.

The second part of the statement asserts that Israel is building in Palestinian territory. This is because CNN incorrectly believes that Israel has no legal rights to the West Bank. Israel’s legal rights to controlling the West Bank and building communities there under international law have been affirmed time and again by respected authorities on the subject, including: Professor Eugene Rostow, Professor Julius Stone , Professor Eugene Kontorovich, Professor Avi Bell and more.

BBC wrote that this new settlement is being built after ‘the largest settlement, Amona, was evacuated by police last month.’ Amona, far from being the largest settlement, was probably one of the smallest settlements existing in the West Bank, approximately 40 families. Yet, this gives the impression that even the largest settlement in the West Bank was evacuated, and thus why not evacuate the entire West Bank.

And the New York Times topped it off by cherry picking statements to make it look as if Israel was disrespecting the Trump Administration. Author of the article, Isabel Kershner, who has been accused of anti-Israel bias in the past, writes that Israel is building settlements despite President Trump’s request ‘to hold off on settlement activity’. Then she writes that ‘the United States has long considered the settlements an obstacle to peace.’ Those two statements are mixing apples with oranges.

The Trump Administration, while suggesting that Israel hold off on settlements for a little bit, explicitly said in a press release that they ‘don’t believe the existence of settlements is an impediment to peace’. This was a clear departure from past US policy, especially under the Obama Administration, yet Kershner ignores that, and prefers to think that Barack Obama is still president.

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