RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/As-I-see-it-Mussolini-vs-Lucrezia-Borgia-There-is-an-alternative-451287
American Jews are horrified by the choice they think will face them at November’s presidential election. If they adjust their perspective, however, there is another option.

Traveling in the US last week I found Jews, like many others, in a state of extreme agitation.

The Trump phenomenon, they raged, was beyond belief. How could America be doing this to itself, possibly nominating as a presidential candidate a man who was a crude and unstable know-nothing, a bigoted authoritarian and potential despot, a threat to America’s future and the entire world? They might have no option, said Republican Jews in despair, but to vote for Hillary.

No! cried others who were equally despairing.

How could you even think of voting for Hillary, what with the email scandal, with her past support for the PLO and the bullying way she treated Israel while she was secretary of state, with the Muslim Brotherhood types and other Israel-bashers in her close circle? Yes, granted, said the first group, but at least she’s an experienced politician, at least she’s kinda done the job already, at least she knows how to behave in government. What, came the response, after Benghazi? After the murder there of the ambassador and three others on her watch, the attempt to sanitize the atrocity and then the cover-up of that attempt, after her “What difference does it make” outburst at the congressional hearing? So it went on back and forth with voices raised: Trump vs Hillary, the unspeakable versus the uneatable, Mussolini versus Lucrezia Borgia. There was, it seemed, no alternative. None.

Um, what about, I asked in a very small voice, Ted Cruz? Wouldn’t he be an acceptable alternative? Both sides looked at me in horror. On this they were agreed. Ted Cruz was totally, but totally, unacceptable. Why? Because he was an ultra-conservative, evangelical Christian.

They’d all rather have even Hillary than Cruz as president. Really? So Hillary was not such a threat to America, the Jews and the world after all? I hold no particular brief for Cruz. I observe him from afar, and my information is necessarily inadequate as a result. But if you really believe that both Trump and Hillary pose such a threat to all we hold dear, what on earth does Ted Cruz stand for that makes him even worse than those two priceless specimens? I understand that many American Jews are socially liberal. I understand that, for them, social liberalism is in fact their religion. But in the context of today’s terrifying world, to consider a socially conservative viewpoint to be the biggest threat of all takes some explaining.

One obvious reason is the profound antipathy felt by many American Jews toward evangelical Christians. This is strange given that such Christians are the most stalwart and passionate supporters of Israel in the world today, far more so than Diaspora Jews.

Nevertheless, many American Jews regard them as a dire threat to the Jewish people.

The much-stated reason is that they want to convert the Jews at the “end of days.” Well, some evangelicals do and others don’t. And with those who do, I don’t know about you but I’ll take my chances on that when the apocalypse finally arrives.

Ah, say the American Christophobes, but these evangelicals are theologically anti-Semitic.

Well, many of these Jews’ liberal friends are politically anti-Semitic, singling out Israel as they do for blood libels and demonization. Is that perhaps a tolerable form of anti-Semitism in these Jews’ minds? To put it another way, which is better – the anti-Semite who hates Israel or the supposed anti-Semite (who may not be that at all) who loves Israel? Of all the presidential candidates, Cruz is the one who takes Israel’s part with the greatest clarity, passion and absence of any equivocation. He really gets it.

Last weekend, he wooed the Republican Jewish convention in Las Vegas and received a warm reception but from a wary crowd.

I love the New York Post…since we used to get The Bronx Home News which merged with The New York Post in 1948. It was delivered to our “stoop” on Bryant Avenue along with The Jewish Forward and the Herold Tribune. The “stoop” in those days was the flight of steps leading to the front door of a building….large or small, against which we played “stoop ball.”

Now the word “stoop” means ” to lower one’s moral standards so far as to do something reprehensible.”

And that is what the newspaper has done in it’s endorsement of a cur:
New York Post Criticizes ‘Rookie’ Trump in Scary Endorsement By Tyler O’Neil

“You can love Ted Cruz or hate him, but the Texas senator is actually clear on what he supports. John Kasich, who just received the endorsement of former New York Governor George Pataki, is a little fuzzier, but even he actually has a few concrete proposals. The Donald shifts in the political wind, and his supporters actually like that.

Like many Trump backers, the Post admits that The Donald is “a divisive, coarse, amateur,” as New York’s competing newspaper, the Daily News, shot back. The candidate will turn 70 years old this year, and they are expecting him to mature in record time, before the election.

“This endorsement of a man, in spite of himself, for the most powerful position in the world, is a shameful reflection not on what makes America great, but what makes us dumb as hell,” the Daily News’ Shaun King concludes.”

What Does John Kasich Think He’s Doing? By Matthew Continetti —

When John Kasich departs this earthly vale of tears, he ought to donate his brain to science. It could teach us a lot about irrational thinking.

The Ohio governor has won a single state: his own. He has 143 delegates. That puts him fourth in the count behind Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio — who is no longer a candidate.

To win the nomination on the first ballot of the Republican convention, Kasich would have to win 138 percent of the remaining delegates. This is impossible. Even a politician should be able to do that math.

To win on the second ballot, Kasich would have to outmaneuver Ted Cruz and his impressive delegate operation. That seems, let us say, beyond implausible.

To win on a subsequent ballot, when the nomination is up for grabs, Kasich would have to do something over the next two months that he seems constitutionally incapable of doing: show the slightest bit of selflessness and concern for the cause and the country and put those feelings ahead of his own narcissism, vanity, condescension, and sneering disdain for the party he seeks to lead.

What does that mean for Kasich in practice? Running against Trump where he’s strongest and ceding ground to Cruz where he’s weakest.

Kasich helps Trump. He can’t pretend otherwise. For months the anti-Trump forces have wanted nothing more than the ability to coalesce around a single challenger. One goofy man has stood in the way all along. He bit into Bush’s vote, into Christie’s, into Rubio’s. Now he’s biting into Cruz’s.

Dear Reader (including those of you who think we need a president who would leave the whole world blind, which would be inconvenient since e-mail newsletters in braille are technologically complicated),

It looks like the Trump body snatching virus I wrote about last month is spreading again. For a moment, after Wisconsin, it seemed like it might be going into remission. Nope, it’s actually spiking.

Last night the New York Post endorsed Donald Trump. After I criticized the editorial on Twitter, a Trump supporter tweeted at me “No Goldberg, you are wrong. Support the front runner and stop trying to burn the party. Unite it.”

This lover of unity and champion of party loyalty goes by the Twitter handle “TrumpOrRiot.” In all of the bilious argy-bargy and venomous folderol I’ve heard the last few months, nothing so economically encapsulates Trumpism more than calls for unity from a maroon who self-identifies as someone who thinks rioting is the only righteous alternative to his dashboard saint’s victory.

On the drive in to my office this morning, I heard Hillsdale College president Larry Arnn, one of the wisest and gentlest souls I’ve ever encountered, describe Trump as a “good and honest man” and “quite brilliant.” A few minutes ago on Twitter, the great semi-retired editorialist Don Surber said to me, regarding Trump, “You will come around. Others may not because they are childish.”

No. Just, no.

I won’t. Indeed, the only childishness I see are the masses of beer-muscled goons and sycophants stomping their feet over the object of their man-crushes.

The Trump Calculus

If a president Trump does the right thing, I will say he did the right thing — because that’s my job. But I will never look at that fleshy pile of vanity, crudity, and deceit and say, “There’s a good and honest man.” Yes, yes, we all believe in redemption, so maybe he could have some Oval Office conversion, find a God that doesn’t consider profit maximization to be the key measure of a man’s soul, and become a good and honest man. Maybe the sudden bowel-stewing realization that he’s wildly unqualified for the job of commander-in-chief will arouse in him a humility never displayed in his gaudy romp across our airwaves.

But that’s not the way I would bet. (It’s also a bit of a moot point, since I’m convinced Trump would lose very badly against either Sanders or Clinton.)

New York Post Criticizes ‘Rookie’ Trump in Scary Endorsement By Tyler O’Neil

The New York Post made a surprise endorsement on Thursday night, but it wasn’t exactly logical. Indeed, the editorial board seemed to be suffering under the same delusions hardcore supporters of Donald Trump entertain.

The Post based its endorsement on the fact that Trump is an accomplished businessman, but that he is also a “rookie” when it comes to politics. They assume he will do a full about-face from the primary to the general. This not only explains Trump’s policy simplicity and angry eccentricities, it excuses them. As the New York Daily News’ Shaun King declares, this “is so sad it’s actually kind of funny.”

The editors of the Post not only expect Trump to change his positions, they advise him on how to do so.

Should he win the nomination, we expect Trump to pivot — not just on the issues, but in his manner. The post-pivot Trump needs to be more presidential: better informed on policy, more self-disciplined and less thin-skinned.

Yet the promise is clearly there in the rookie who is, after all, leading the field as the finals near.

Besides Trump’s astonishing success, the editors of the Post cannot name any concrete goals of his that they actually like. Oh, they find plenty of things they disagree with: pulling US troops out of Japan and South Korea, building a border wall, opposing trade deals without supporting free trade, and Trump’s coarse language and manners.

Nevertheless, Trump must be supported, because “he’s challenging the victim culture that has turned into a victimizing culture.” This is true, but how does it not apply to Ted Cruz? The editors “expect Trump to stay true to his voters,” but not to the positions or the personal style which attracted them in the first place.

Indeed, the publication goes so far as to call The Donald “an imperfect messenger carrying a vital message.” What is that message? It is “the best hope for all Americans who rightly feel betrayed by the political class.”

In the end, the Post trusts Trump because “he has the potential — the skills, the know-how, the values — to live up to his campaign slogan: to make America great again.” It ignores all evidence to contrary, much of which the editors themselves have mentioned in that very article!

This reminds me of something Jonah Goldberg wrote in National Review in March. The fact that Trump has attracted voters is treated as a justification for his outlandish proposals, even inviting comparisons to Ronald Reagan (who was also widely attacked in the media).

“Hated by the establishment, hated by the Left, Cruz is Obama’s nemesis. If he is elected, he will implement policies that unravel Obama’s legacy.If America opts for a demagogue, it will remain on its current trajectory.”

The US presidential race is President Barack Obama’s political legacy. Depending on who succeeds him, that legacy will either fade or become the new normal.
To understand what he has wrought, a good place to start is with the man running to Obama’s left: Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The socialist from Vermont knows how to play to the crowd. Sanders knows that the people captivated by his tales of avaricious bankers aren’t too keen on Jews either.
And as a Jew, he’s cool with that.

Sanders’s courtship of Jew-haters in a staple of his campaign. The depth of his efforts was made clear at the end of a campaign event at the Apollo Theater in Harlem last Saturday when an audience member got up and began spewing anti-Jewish slanders.

Sanders doesn’t have a problem telling bigots off. He did just that at another event when a questioner asked a question he deemed anti-Muslim. Sanders is an unstinting champion of gay rights and black rights. So if he wanted to tell off a Jew-hater, he could have done so easily.

In the event, the questioner rose and said, “As you know, the Zionist Jews – and I don’t mean to offend anybody – they run the Federal Reserve, they run Wall Street, they run every campaign.”

Weathering a chorus of boos from his fellow audience members, the questioner then asked Sanders, “What is your affiliation to your Jewish community?” Sanders could have told the questioner to take a long walk off a short pier. He could have told him he’d rather win without the support of bigots.

He could have used it as a teaching moment and told his audience that millions of Jews have been murdered because of the lies the questioner just repeated.

Instead, he called him “Brother” and told he needed to hide his hatred better.

Two rather anti Israel ants duking it out…..what a show…rsk
Israel and Palestine. This is perhaps one of the most contentious issues, globally — so much so that no presidential candidate for the United States has ever declared their support for the Palestinians. Until now.

Bernie Sanders sparred with Hillary Clinton in Thursday night’s Democratic primary debate on the subject of Israel and Palestine. Couching his message in his “100%” support for Israel, Sanders said the Palestinians needed to be treated with compassion and “dignity” for any progress to be made — and that America plays a big role in that. Clinton did not appear to agree.

“As somebody who is 100% pro-Israel, in the long run, and this is not going be easy … if we are ever going to bring peace to that region — which has seen so much hatred and so much war — we are going to have to treat the Palestinian people with respect and dignity,” Sanders, who is himself Jewish and has spent prolonged periods of time in Israel, told the audience.

He was responding to moderator Wolf Blitzer’s question of whether or not Israel’s 2014 Gaza offensive was disproportionate in its retaliation. Sanders replied in the affirmative, a position he’s made known in the past.

“Israel was subjected to terrorist attacks [and] has every right in the world to destroy terrorism,” the Vermont senator said. “But we had in the Gaza area — not a very large area — some 10,000 civilians who were wounded and some 1,500 who were killed. Now if you’re asking me … ‘Was that a disproportionate attack?’ The answer is I believe it was.”

Just hours before these remarks, Sanders suspended Simone Zimmerman, in charge of his campaign’s national Jewish outreach, for making distasteful remarks about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Facebook — Zimmerman also aspersed Clinton in her posts.

The Zionist or Israel lobby in the upper echelons of American power has silenced many on the issue of Israel and Palestine. It is “one of the most potent advocacy groups in Washington, D.C.,” the Independent explained in 2013, after Chuck Hagel, during his Secretary of Defense confirmation hearing, reneged on his comments that Congress was intimidated by the lsrael lobby.

Why won’t Bernie Sanders stop attacking Israel? That’s the question some Jewish supporters are asking as the troubled campaign continues alienating Jews while pandering to haters of the Jewish State.

For the longest time it was all but impossible to get Bernie to even admit he was Jewish. His campaign conducted no outreach to Jewish groups while aggressively pursuing outreach to Muslim groups such as CAIR. CAIR is an anti-Semitic Islamist group with known ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

In New York, the Sanders campaign seemingly had to bow to reality and actually reach out to Jews.

But instead the Sanders campaign set out to offend and alienate Jews in New York, as it had done to Jews all over the country, by selecting an anti-Israel activist who had defended Muslim anti-Semitism.

Simone Zimmerman, formerly of J Street, had made a name for herself by harassing Jewish charities that help people in Israel. Zimmerman had defended BDS and opposed Israel’s campaign against Hamas, saying, “We think it’s important to understand the context of occupation”.

She had allied with JVP, a hate group, to oppose fighting anti-Semitism on campus. JVP has described the murder of Jews as “resistance” and the Jewish community as the “enemy”.

Zimmerman’s first attempt at outreach to Jewish supporters ended in disaster with a shouting match at a Jews for Bernie event. But Jews for Bernie is run by Daniel Sieradski, another opponent of Israel, who distributed a meme during the last war with Hamas which asserted that “That’s why Palestinians are fighting back.” Sieradski had claimed in the past that the real threat wasn’t Hamas whose leaders “just want to make life better for their people”, but Jewish “ethnic exclusivity”.

When Sarah Palin first came on the scene as the surprise vice presidential pick of the McCain campaign, she was a breath of fresh air. As she gave her address at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, many Tea Party activists who were themselves political neophytes from humble backgrounds heard themselves in her folksy Alaskan twang. It was this sort of kinship which prompted so many to defend Palin against attacks from the political establishment. She was us. We were her. An attack on her intelligence was an attack on ours. We knew implicitly that the same people who looked down their noses at her would just as soon scoff at us. So we circled the wagons.

Oh how times have changed. Over the years since, Palin has devolved into a self-parody that fulfills the caricature her critics once crafted. In a new interview with the Associated Press, she demonstrates as much in remarks regarding the Republican presidential nomination process.

From U.S. News and World Report:

Voters will “rise up” in opposition if Republican power brokers try to take the presidential nomination away from Donald Trump or Ted Cruz at the GOP convention this summer, Sarah Palin said Thursday in a wide-ranging interview.

The 2008 vice presidential nominee told The Associated Press that GOP voters have the right to decide the party’s nominee and will rebel if House Speaker Paul Ryan or some other “white knight” is chosen at a contested convention. Ryan said this week he will not seek or accept the nomination.

Palin said voters know better than to be fooled by party leaders.

“How dare they?” Palin asked, denouncing “arrogant political operatives who underestimate the wisdom of the people.”