MEDIA Comments turned off

Media Serves Up Comedy in Effort to Get Trump Roger Kimball

Posted By on February 26th, 2020

https://www.theepochtimes.com/media-serves-up-comedy-in-effort-to-get-trump_3248010.html

I don’t believe that President Donald Trump has ever deployed the Twitteresque acronym “ROFLMAO” (rolling on the floor, laughing my ass off). But I know that he appreciates the sentiment because of something he said in February 2018.

At that time, at the apex of Robert Mueller’s Excellent Adventure, Trump observed that people were “laughing their asses off in Moscow” at the malevolent Keystone Cops antics of the Get Trump Brigade.

“If it was the GOAL of Russia to create discord, disruption, and chaos within the U.S.,” the president observed, “then, with all of the Committee Hearings, Investigations and Party hatred, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.”

That was—and is—exactly right, as was his follow-on observation: “I never said Russia did not meddle in the election, I said ‘it may be Russia, or China or another country or group, or it may be a 400-pound genius sitting in bed and playing with his computer.’ The Russian ‘hoax’ was that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia—it never did!”

Period. Full stop. End of story.

But not, of course, the end of the comedy.

POLITICS Comments turned off

How Can Bernie Sanders Happen in America? By David Harsanyi

Posted By on February 26th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/how-can-bernie-sanders-happen-in-america/

There are many good reasons not to normalize socialism here.

A number of pundits have recently argued that younger voters, especially those under 30, are less inclined to be bothered when they hear the word “socialism,” since they have no firsthand memory of the Cold War.

To some extent, this must be true. Those who weren’t alive during socialism’s cruelest catastrophes — or even its many banal failures — will be less put off by the idea. Then again, if a presidential candidate were praising the excellent public transportation system of the Third Reich or going on about the some alleged benefit to American slavery, they would rightly be chased from the public square forever even though the vast majority of voters have no firsthand knowledge of the Holocaust or slavery. Anti-Semitism and racism haven’t disappeared, and neither has Marx, sadly.

For that matter, many Americans — including Bernie — lived through Stalin and Pol Pot and Mao and they still champion the idea of socialism. It’s completely unsurprising that Bernie once defended the Viet Cong. Because many of us over 40 immediately recognize who Bernie is. I grew up with people like him. In those days, though, adults generally didn’t take their crazy disheveled Commie uncles who taught economics at the local commuter college very seriously. Maybe that’s the problem.

It’s true that Bernie’s fans aren’t acquainted with socialism (and, incidentally, this is true only if we ignore the existence of Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, China, etc.), but the fact is that most Bernie supporters don’t seem to have a rudimentary grasp of basic economics much less the “socialism” they think exists in Scandinavian nations. What they do have are lots of feelings. And, like millions of other saps over the past century-plus, they’ve been enticed by the collectivist “ethic” — its revolutionary appeal, its religiosity, and its quixotic promises.

“Fascism is remembered as a crime,” John Hayward correctly points out. “Communism is treated like a mistake.” I’d add that capitalism is judged by its few failures and socialism by its few successes. Sanders will never praise the “literary programs” of any non-tyranny. But if I’ve learned anything from Twitter — or perhaps, more accurately, if Twitter has solidified any of my existing suspicions — it’s that academia is teeming with hard-left apologists. There are plenty of fantastic historians out there, of course, but many of loudest academics, the ones media often relies on, are either apologists for socialism or socialists themselves.

POLITICS Comments turned off

After Sanders Snubs AIPAC, Bolton Asks if He’d Make Ilhan Omar His Secretary of State By Rick Moran

Posted By on February 26th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/trending/after-snubbing-aipac-conference-bolton-asks-sanders-if-hed-make-ilhan-omar-secretary-of-state/

Bernie Sanders refused an invitation to the pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference, accusing the group of giving a platform for “bigotry.” This set off John Bolton, who schooled the pro-Palestinian socialist.

Fox News:

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) late Sunday also called out  Sanders over his decision to skip its conference next month in Washington. Sanders cited his concern that the group provides a platform for leaders to “express bigotry” and oppose basic Palestinian rights.

Sanders, who is on the heels of a big win in the Nevada caucuses, took to Twitter on Sunday to voice his concern about the influential lobby. The Vermont senator vowed that if elected president he would work with both Israelis and Palestinians to bring peace and stability to the region.

AIPAC wasted little time to respond to the public rebuke and called his comments an ill-informed and “odious attack.” The pro-Israel lobby said Sanders never attended a conference, which is “evident in the outrageous comment.”

“Senator Sanders is insulting his very own colleagues and the millions of Americans who stand with Israel,” the statement read. “Truly shameful.” Somehow, I don’t think the Bern feels much shame at all.

Radical leftists have been after AIPAC for years.

Last year, liberal groups like MoveOn called on Democratic candidates to sidestep the annual conference.  The groups claimed that the lobby tried to thwart the Iran nuclear deal and backed Israel’s unfair settlement policies, according to reports.  A candidate’s decision to shun the conference could bolster his progressive support.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Ilhan Omar’s appalling ‘collusion’ with Turkey’s tyrant By Benjamin Weingarten

Posted By on February 26th, 2020

https://nypost.com/2020/02/25/ilhan-omars-appalling-collusion-with-turkeys-tyrant/

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s mandate defined “collusion” as “links and/or coordination” with foreign powers. Democrats and their media allies tried and failed to hang the charge around President Trump’s neck. But one of their own darlings, Rep. Ilhan Omar, has inarguably colluded with an unsavory Islamist regime: Turkey’s.

In fall 2017, Omar, then a state representative, attended a closed meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. According to a report since deleted from a Somali-language periodical, Omar and the Islamist strongman discussed “issues involving Omar’s native Somalia and issues for Somalis in Minnesota. … The meeting ended with Erdogan asking Omar to voice her support for Turkey.”

A month later, Omar would take to Twitter to praise Turkey for providing airlifts for Somalis injured in a Mogadishu truck bombing.

Given recent concerns over foreign influence, one might ask: Why was this state representative meeting with the leader of an increasingly anti-American regime? With what authority was she negotiating Turkish-Somali relations or any foreign-relations matters?

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Sweden’s Victimized Children by Judith Bergman

Posted By on February 26th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15558/sweden-victimized-children

“The suspects are also victims in some sense, but this is still something we have to deal with, that children also commit crimes”. — Police Chief Carin Götblad, Expressen, February 5, 2020.

Parents are afraid to report the crimes committed by other children against their children… In August 2019, 13-year-old Filip and his family had no other choice than to move from the city of Uppsala after a gang of minors made his life there unbearable. He was abused, robbed and his life was threatened by gangs, with Swedish authorities telling him not to report it to the police as this would make things “worse” for him.

Last year there were 257 reports of explosions — including attempted explosions — an increase of 59% compared to 2018, according to SVT Nyheter. Yet, only seven people have been convicted for any of those 257 crimes.

“For the first time now, more crimes — in absolute terms — are committed by persons of foreign background than by persons of Swedish origin… The most crime-prone population subgroup are people born [in Sweden] to two foreign-born parents”. — Report by Det Goda Samhället (“The Good Society”), summer of 2019.

The number of children who rob other children has increased by 100% in only four years, according to a new study by Swedish police about reported violent crimes in which children under the age of 15 are both the victims and the perpetrators. In 2016, there were 1,178 robberies against children under 18 years of age. In 2019, the number had increased to 2,484. The number of violent crimes where the suspect is a child under 15 years of age has also gone up dramatically: In 2015, there were 6,359 reported violent crimes where the suspect was a child under 15. In 2019, that number had increased to 8,719 reported violent crimes.

The crimes involve “Violence to the head, kicks, gun threats, burning with lighters, threats to kill, threats to bomb the school, stabbings with food knives, bites and children who have been scratched, dragged, thrown and locked up by other children”.

The lowest age of a suspected perpetrator was seven. There has also been an increasing number of girl gangs. One girl was violently assaulted by a gang of five girls who kicked her, beat her and spat at her. The girl said she thought she was going to die.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Speaking Clearly about the ‘Deal of the Century’ by Naomi Linder Kahn

Posted By on February 26th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15637/deal-of-the-century

Israel’s and America’s upcoming elections are fateful for both countries and will determine who will conduct the negotiations moving forward. If no clear message is conveyed by Israel — immediately — negotiations after the elections could take this silence as tacit agreement.

The political situation in the United States is no less crucial a factor. American presidents are elected to protect American interests — and these often shift. It is therefore important that Israel not do a deal based on oral understandings of how Israel will be at liberty to respond if and when the Palestinians violate the terms of the agreement (right now, oral understandings are all that exist), as we do not know how those oral understandings will be transmitted or accepted by the next US Congress and administration.

There is a world of difference between the approaches of the candidates from the two major US parties… Israel could easily find itself again having traded tangible facts on the ground for intangible, unenforceable promises.

If Trump is re-elected, the version of his plan eventually ratified by Israel will serve as the basis for negotiations. It is therefore crucial that the threats to Israel’s security are corrected before Israel embraces the “conceptual maps.” If, on the other hand, President Trump is not re-elected, the “Peace to Prosperity” vision may prove to be yet another Oslo Accord — a dangerous hole into which Israel will fall without a safety net. If Israel were to approve the plan now, essentially agreeing to the potential creation, at the end of four years, of a Palestinian state, the overwhelming temptation is for a future US president to begin the conversation from there, and not necessarily hold the Palestinian side to its obligations — which is precisely what happened under the Oslo framework.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Belgium:The ugly antisemitism at the Aalst carnival Some revelers were dressed as insects with fur-lined shtreimels and fake peyot and slogans suggesting that they are parasites.

Posted By on February 26th, 2020

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/The-ugly-antisemitism-at-the-Aalst-carnival-618653

The ugly face of antisemitism was literally on display in Belgium this week. The annual carnival in the Belgian city of Aalst went ahead on Sunday, with more and worse antisemitic tropes and themes than in the past. This was done on purpose. Last year, the Aalst carnival lost its UNESCO cultural heritage status over the “recurrence of racist and antisemitic representation.” The city chose to drop its status from UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity rather than drop the parade’s antisemitic elements. The mayor, rejecting the condemnation, reportedly said: “Let Aalst be Aalst.” And it was.

Let’s look at some of the “pride” of the parade this year: Israel’s Ambassador to Belgium Emmanuel Nahshon took photos from the carnival and tweeted them. He shared photos of a sign featuring a crossed out image of “Shlomo Shekelberg,” a recognizable antisemitic meme on social media in the form of a stereotypical Jewish man with a kippah, beard and enormous nose deviously rubbing his hands together.

As The Jerusalem Post’s Lahav Harkov wrote, a float with an image of the Western Wall appeared with the slogan: “Well, you would also complain if they’d cut your penis.” Another Western Wall image included caricatures of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men, again with exaggerated large noses, and a bare-breasted woman wearing the traditional shtreimel hat and peyot (sidelocks) that haredi men wear, saying. “I’m just jealous” and “I don’t have a big nose.”

Harkov noted that some revelers were dressed as insects with fur-lined shtreimels and fake peyot and slogans suggesting that they are parasites. There were also clowns with shtreimels and peyot. Some parade-goers wore lampshades patterned like tallitot (prayer shawls) on their heads.

Some revelers were dressed in Nazi uniforms.

One participant held a sign with the “rules of the carnival,” including “no Jews,” “no joking with Jews,” “certainly not speaking the truth about the Jew” and “your drugs and black money will be for us.”

In other words, this was an absolutely deliberate antisemitic assault. There is no way that these tropes and themes were accidentally or unintentionally insulting due to ignorance or a misunderstanding. It takes a very twisted mind to justify such blatant Jew-hatred as legitimate freedom of expression. All that can be said is that the mayor and citizens of Aalst, and all those who took part in the carnival, believe that this is their heritage and they have a right to be proud of it.

Welcome to Europe 2020.

BOOKS, ISRAEL Comments turned off

What the Mizrahim Lost, and What Fairness Demands Be Done About It

Posted By on February 26th, 2020

https://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/jewish-world/2020/02/what-the-mizrahim-

Donald Trump’s “Deal of the Century”—the most recent American effort to advance a plan for peace between Israelis and Palestinians—was released last month. Among those potentially affected by the implementation of such a plan, one group in Israel had been watching with particular interest: Mizraḥi Jews whose families had lived continuously in Arab and Muslim lands from biblical times until the late 1940s when they became the targets of organized violence on the part of their own governments and in the ensuing years suffered wholesale expulsion from their homes.

These ancient communities, whose roots in the Middle East predated by a millennium the advent of Islam, numbered close to one million people. After 1948, they were cast out root and branch from Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, North Africa, and Iran. Most found refuge in the newly established Jewish state. There, the Knesset, initially slow to demand compensation for their losses, would eventually mandate that no settlement with the Palestinians would be acceptable if it failed to include recompense for individual and communal properties—estimated, in area, to amount to nearly 40,000 square miles, about five times the size of Israel, and valued at $150 billion—that had been confiscated by Muslim governments in the Middle East from their Jewish citizens.

The new American plan does indeed address the case of the Mizraḥi Jews. Noting that the Arab-Israel conflict “created both a Palestinian and Jewish refugee problem,” and that the numbers displaced were approximately equal on the two sides, the plan goes on to state unequivocally that, separate from any peace agreement, “a just, fair, and realistic solution” for the Jewish refugees, “including compensation for lost assets” as well as compensation to Israel for the cost of absorbing them, must be “implemented through an appropriate international mechanism.”

All of this,of course, remains to be seen. Meanwhile, and whether or not the Trump plan ever comes to fruition, the Mizraḥi story deserves telling and retelling. For an engaging treatment, the 2018 book Uprooted by Lyn Julius, a British-born descendant of Iraqi Jews, can serve as a useful introduction.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Priti Patel has upset the Home Office ‘chapocracy’… bully for her!Allison Pearson

Posted By on February 26th, 2020

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/priti-patel-has-upset-home-office-chapocracy-bully/?WT.mc_id=tmgliveapp_iosshare_At5B9G1587mV

When I met the new Home Secretary at the Conservative Party Conference back in September, she was remarkably buoyant, determined to get on with the job the voters expected her to do – and clearly aghast at the state of the department she had taken over.

Reviews had been commissioned at vast expense and resulted in exactly nothing. The newsagent’s daughter was staggered by all the waste. Priti Patel twitched that mischievous little smile of hers and told me that in nine weeks, she hoped to achieve more than had been achieved in the previous nine years.

Well, we know how that worked out, don’t we? Or, at least, we can have a good guess.

For the past week, Home Office civil servants – not particularly civil and certainly no one’s servant – have been briefing furiously against their boss, who is accused of “bullying, belittling officials in meetings and creating an atmosphere of fear”. Yesterday, we learnt that two senior civil servants have been forced out and transferred to other departments.

On top of that came the highly damaging allegation that MI5 did not trust Patel and was limiting the information they showed her. We were led to believe that intelligence chiefs “regularly roll their eyes” at her interventions in meetings. So not just a horrid bully, then, but thick as well.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Could global cooling silently become a reality? By Ronald Stein

Posted By on February 26th, 2020

https://www.cfact.org/2020/02/24/could-global-cooling-silently-become-a-reality/

Trying to imply that cooling is right around the corner when we’re watching record-breaking warm ocean temperatures to me seems a big stretch, but current facts and the history around the five previous ice ages that came and melted before fossil fuels became recognizable words may be worthy of reviewing.

The real climate crisis may not be global warming, but global cooling, and it may have already started. These events may not be an anomaly, but a predecessor of things to come:

Planting was one month late due to cold Spring weather across the Great Plains of North America in both 2018 and 2019.

In 2019 Spring was wet and cold and ~40% of the huge USA corn crop was not planted.

Summer 2019 was cold, and snow came early in the Fall, and the crop was a failure across much of the Great Plains.

There were good harvests in the USA Southeast and South in 2019, and lots of grain in storage so prices did not escalate – but there were big crop losses across the Great Plains. Also, lots of that grain will be feed grade only, if they do get it off the fields.

The sun activity which is not controlled by humanity or by social media may be formulating a different forecast for the world. Even NASA has imagined a “Little Ice Age” in the future, because of solar activity that rises and falls in 11-year cycles; and the newest one begins this year, 2020.

Cool temperatures shorten growing seasons. Cool temperatures also reduce evaporation from the seas, resulting in less precipitation over land. The result is fewer months to grow crops, colder temperatures during the growing season, and less rainfall to hydrate the crops. Crop failures and famine predictably follow.