ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Reign of the Prosecution And Netanyahu’s call for investigation of the investigators. Caroline Glick

Posted By on November 29th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/11/reign-prosecution-caroline-glick/

Last Thursday in Israel, the politicians were the big story. Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman was the villain who had held the country hostage for nearly a year as he fed his narcissistic personality disorder.

The left’s latest flagship, the Blue and White Party, is all the once vibrant political camp can put together now that it has lost its ideology. With its deity of peace killed by suicide bombers and missiles, and its socialism statues crushed under the weight of bankrupt government companies, all the left has left is “blue and white.” The party stands on two planks: destroying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and eternalizing the regime of Israel’s unelected bureaucrats.

The party’s figurehead—Benny Gantz—was tempted to join a unity government with Netanyahu that would guarantee he served as prime minister under a rotation agreement. But his comrades wouldn’t let him. Joining a government with Netanyahu would be a betrayal of their very reason for existing. So, unhappily, he walked away.

And then there was Netanyahu himself. On Thursday, his supporters shook their heads in frustration and his enemies clapped their hands in glee at the sight of Israel’s greatest statesman, the leader the public wants to keep in office, unable to form a government.

The conversation about Israel’s politicians lasted less than 24 hours.

At four in the afternoon, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit’s office announced that at 7:30 in the evening he would announce his decision to indict Netanyahu. The underlying message was crystal clear: The day after Gantz returned his mandate to form a government to President Reuven Rivlin after he failed to get a sufficient number of coalition partners to build a government, Mandelblit ruled that there’s no point in talking about whether or not Israel is going to new elections in March.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

CrowdStrike: a Conspiracy Wrapped in a Conspiracy Inside a Conspiracy The conspiracy theory that exposes the Democrats’ desperation and panic. Oleg Atbashian

Posted By on November 29th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/11/crowdstrike-conspiracy-wrapped-conspiracy-inside-oleg-atbashian/

In the last few days, media talking heads have been saying the word “CrowdStrike” a lot, defining it as a wild conspiracy theory originating in Moscow. They were joined by Chris Wallace at Fox News, who informed us that president Trump and his ill-informed fans believe in a crazy idea that the DNC wasn’t hacked by the Russians but by some Ukrainian group named CrowdStrike that stole the DNC server and brought it to Ukraine , and that it was Ukraine that meddled in our 2016 election and not Russia.

A crazy idea indeed. Except that neither Trump nor his fans had ever heard of it until the Democrat-media complex condescendingly informed them that these are their beliefs.

Let’s look at the facts:

Fact 1. In 2016 the DNC hired the Ukrainian-owned firm CrowdStrike to analyze their server and investigate a data breach.

Fact 2. CrowdStrike experts determined that the culprit was Russia.

Fact 3. The FBI never received access to the DNC server, so the Russian connection was never officially confirmed and continues to be an allegation coming from the DNC and its Ukrainian-owned contractor.

Fact 4. Absent the official verdict, other theories continue to circulate, including the possibility that the theft was an inside job by a DNC employee, who simply copied the files to a USB drive and sent it to WikiLeaks.

None of these facts was ever disputed by anyone. The media largely ignored them except for the part about the Russian hackers, which boosted their own, now debunked, wild conspiracy theory that Trump was a Russian agent.

MEDIA Comments turned off

Impeachment Shows the Limit of Media Power Live by the lie, die by the lie.

Posted By on November 29th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/11/impeachment-shows-limit-media-power-daniel-greenfield/

After the media went all out to televise the impeachment committee hearings, a majority of independent voters switched from supporting impeachment to opposing impeachment.

In October, 48% of independents supported impeachment while 39% opposed it. Now 49% of independents oppose impeachment while only 39% still support it. The neat, almost perfect reversal, can be credited to the media’s fateful decision to televise the committee hearings across the networks.

The media’s error was entirely predictable.

The Russia investigation looked good in the media frame until the Mueller report came out and then Mueller was dragged in to testify about it. The impeachment bid looked good in the media lens until people actually watched committee hearings and didn’t see any of what the media had been touting.

Live by the lie, die by the lie.

The paradox of impeachment is that the media’s con artists invented it, but stories alone, the commanding heights of communications, can’t actually close the deal. Like every con job, at some point the mark actually wants to see the million dollars that Nigerian prince is offering, the brand-new Tesla for only five grand, and the papers for the Brooklyn Bridge. Individual marks can be strung along indefinitely, but there are limits to how much an entire nation can be conned. Even by the media.

Abe Lincoln had something to say about that. But, then again, he was a Republican.

The media has excelled at creating investigation narratives. Its take on the Russia investigation or the Ukraine investigation convinced a lot of people that President Trump really was guilty. But you can’t impeach someone in the media. Nor can you actually try them on MSNBC. And that’s the problem.

Elections are where the media’s power lies because all it has to do is convince voters to cast a ballot, without ever having to show its work or prove its claims. With impeachment, it has to do both.

BOOKS, FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Good sense from Gingrich on China Most of the problems America blames on its archrival are of its own making, argues the former House speaker David Goldman

Posted By on November 29th, 2019

https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/11/article/good-sense-from-gingrich-on-china/

China remains what it has been for millennia, and most of America’s problems are not China’s fault but its own, former House speaker Newt Gingrich argues in his new book. Some rhetorical flourishes aside, the Republican elder statesman and Trump adviser rejects the ubiquitous American view that China is about to collapse under its own weight, or that China inevitably must become a Western-style democracy, or that the Chinese people are waiting for a wave of America’s hand to overthrow their evil communist overlords, and so forth.

He contrasts “the Western tradition of freedom under law dating back at least 3,000 years with roots in Athens, Rome and Jerusalem” to “the Chinese tradition of order imposed by a centralized system, a pattern that goes back at least 3,500 years.” Implicitly, he acknowledges that China’s political system today reflects thousands of years of its history.

Rather than blame China for America’s problems, Gingrich offers a harsh critique of America’s failings and argues that “there are a lot of steps America must take that are a reflection of America’s failures. Some of the greatest failures and weaknesses in American can’t be blamed on China. Rather, we have to look at ourselves and our own mistakes and failures. The burden on us to modernize and reform our own system is enormous.”

For example, Gingrich declares:

“It is not China’s fault that in 2017, 89% of Baltimore eighth graders couldn’t pass their math exam…

“It is not China’s fault that too few Americans in K-12 and in college study math and science to fill the graduate schools with future American scientists…

“It is not China’s fault that, faced with a dramatic increase in Chinese graduate students in science, the government has not been able to revive programs like the 1958 National Defense Education Act…

“It is not China’s fault the way our defense bureaucracy functions serves to create exactly the ‘military-industrial complex’ that President Dwight Eisenhower warned about…

“It is not China’s fault that NASA has been so bureaucratic and its funding so erratic that… there is every reason to believe that China is catching up rapidly and may outpace us. This is because of us not because of them…

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, POLITICS Comments turned off

Globalist Climate Candidate Michael Bloomberg and the Humanitarian Hoax of Climate Change by Linda Goudsmit

Posted By on November 29th, 2019

https://goudsmit.pundicity.com/23539/globalist-climate-candidate-michael-bloomberg

   http://goudsmit.pundicity.com http://lindagoudsmit.com

Michael Bloomberg became a multi-billionaire by understanding global markets. He analyzed the 2020 U.S. presidential political marketplace and concluded three things:

● None of the hysterical, radically leftist Democrat candidates can beat President Trump in 2020.

● Joe Biden’s political corruption exposed in the Ukraine is irreversible and focuses unwelcome attention on the political corruption of the Clintons, the Pelosis, the Kerrys, and the Obamas.

● The single most successful humanitarian hoax and galvanizing political issue of our time is climate change.

So what does astute multi-billionaire globalist Michael Bloomberg do? He announces himself the climate candidate of the 2020 presidential election. In a November 26, 2019 article, Billionaire Buys Climate Change on Google, Brian Kahn reveals how Bloomberg plans to spend $1 billion of his personal fortune to buy Google ads that will reinforce his image as the climate candidate.

It is a brilliant political move by a brilliant market analyst because anyone opposing Bloomberg is seen as opposing climate change. The advertorial message is that Bloomberg will deliver the world from the catastrophic threat of climate change, so a vote for Bloomberg is a vote to save the planet.

Bloomberg is betting that the galvanizing message of climate change is powerful enough to overcome any anti-Semitic objections to his candidacy.

Let’s examine what it means in real terms, in real life, to the lives of real voters if this self-described climate candidate wins in 2020.

We begin by debunking the foundational premise of Bloomberg’s political ads: Climate change is the greatest challenge and threat to life in the 21st century.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB Comments turned off

I Am Thankful For Many Things, Especially The Things That Make Stupid People Sad Kurt Schlichter

Posted By on November 29th, 2019

On this special day, we should reflect upon the blessings we enjoy, and I enjoy nothing quite as much as stupid people who are miserable. There are a lot of stupid people who are miserable right now, and this is good. The misery stupid people cause themselves should disincentivize future stupidity – with luck, America will be burdened with less stupidity because of it. Think of it as natural selection of people who aren’t stupid.

But there are other things to be thankful for besides the pain dummies cause themselves as a result of their own dumbness. There are good things happening out there, though the media and the elite want to conceal them. You see them if you look – in the world, in our country, in your personal life.

There’s a lot to be thankful for, and it is right and proper that we be thankful. So, without further ado, here is what we should be especially thankful for at Thanksgiving 2019:

 

The Continuing Humiliation of the Fredocons: You know, it becomes clearer with every “Oh well, I never!” and every lame recitation of their liberal elite masters’ talking points about how the latest Deep State weasel’s testimony is a “bombshell” that these losers are never getting back the petty power and prestige they once possessed. The way to understand Never Trump is to see that it is solely and entirely the pathetic attempt of a bunch of has-beens and never-wases to reverse their firing as the leaders of the conservative movement by actual conservatives. Every day, these Vichy righties become less relevant and more pathetic, and thereby less likely to ever be in a position where they can lead us to failure and defeat as they did for the two decades before we fired them in favor of Donald Trump. Thanks!

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The House I Live In: When even avowed Communists celebrated America and her principles. Fred Miller

Posted By on November 29th, 2019

https://www.dittoville.com/2019/07/14/the-house-i-live-in-when-even-avowed-comm

There was a time when even avowed communists had a startling recognition among their utopian, delusional Soviet dreams that there was undeniable greatness at the heart of America. Take the case of Abel Meeropol, writing under the pen name Lewis Allan, who crafted the lyrics to the inspiring Frank Sinatra wartime movie short “The House I Live In.” The lyrics celebrate the America of small towns, big cities, “but especially the people” going about their business independently, FREELY. What American, liberal or conservative, could or can fault its sentiments and unabashed patriotism?

Meeropol would also write Billie Holiday’s harrowing “Strange Fruit,” a poetically graphic account of Black lynchings  in the Deep South. Clearly, he was a talented artist moved by both the soaring greatness and grave shortcomings of American life. And he should be remembered and honored as such. Both songs are still sung and worthy of their durability.

The Left claims to own such “protest” as exemplified by “Strange Fruit,” but factually no decent person anywhere on the political spectrum, then or now, could object to exposure and correction of  injustices and blatant flaws in our society. It remains a mystery of human complexity to explain the contradictions within each human soul, and none poses a bigger question than how Jewish Americans like Meeropol (or anyone FREELY enjoying the blessings of living in a FREE country like this) could embrace the Marxist ideology of mass human enslavement.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

RUTHIE BLUM: NO! ISRAEL IS NOT IMPLODING

Posted By on November 29th, 2019

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Right-from-Wrong-No-Israels-not-imploding-609325

Every period in the country’s 71-year history has been marked by internal strife coupled with external danger.
If I had a shekel for every prediction of Israel’s imminent implosion, I’d be as rich as most of my socialist friends, and as free to abandon all religious-ideological nuance as many of my right-wing ones. Alas, the affluence evades, but at least with good reason. To paraphrase a quip attributed to Mark Twain, “Reports of Israel’s death are greatly exaggerated.”

It is especially important at the moment – with an unprecedented political situation accompanying a very familiar bombardment by enemies far and near – to remind all the gevalt-sayers that every period in the country’s 71-year history has been marked by internal strife coupled with external danger. So let’s take a break from misplaced nostalgia to appreciate the present, with all its aches and pains.

As it happens, the so-called “malaise” afflicting Israelis – due to the current electoral impasse, the rockets raining from Gaza and the announcement of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s indictments – is more of a mantra than an accurate depiction of daily life in the Jewish state. Even today.

Indeed, it is not for nothing that Israel ranks high on every annual global happiness index.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel on the Golan Heights benefits the USA Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

Posted By on November 29th, 2019

 https://bit.ly/2QVMGip

In 1993, 1995 and 2005, Israel retreated from 40% of the Judea and Samaria mountain ridges (West Bank) and the entire Gaza Strip. It transformed these regions into platforms of unprecedented Palestinian terrorism and missile launches, supported by Iran, Turkey and North Korea. Moreover, it has intensified lethal threats to all pro-US Arab regimes, bolstering their security ties with Israel, which they perceived to be the most credible “life insurance agent” in the region. As expected, gestures to rogue regimes and terrorists fuel further violence!

“In November 1994, the peace process had seemed to be in full swing…. [But], an organized campaign began in the US against the idea of stationing US troops on the Golan Heights as ‘peace keepers’, in the event of an Israel-Syria [peace] agreement. The campaign was orchestrated by right-wing organizations and individuals in the Jewish community, with occasional participation of visitors from Israel… [such as] the former Minister for Congressional Affairs in our Washington Embassy, Yoram Ettinger…. The organizers conveyed the message that sending US troops as peacekeepers to the Golan was bad for the US [and that the Syrian armored mechanized divisions stationed between the Golan Heights and Damascus would be deployed to the border with Jordan, aiming to topple the pro-US Hashemite regime]…. The US could lose the lives of its soldiers and become entangled in a dangerous foreign arena…. That would no doubt lead to a rise in anti-Semitism in the US…. Senator Jesse Helms, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations [a friend of Bobby Jacobs] was openly critical of the Assad regime…. The Chairman of the House Committee on International Relations, Benjamin Gilman, was under pressure from voters in his own constituency…. This Congressional opposition had at least some negative impact on Assad’s motivation to move forward in his peacemaking with Israel….” (Prof. Itamar Rabinovich, former Israeli Ambassador to the US and Chief Negotiator with Syria, The Brink of Peace, 1999, pp. 164-167).

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

In Restoring Civics, Start with the Basics There is a lot to be said for students having the opportunity to write research papers or develop projects independently. But first they should have a base of knowledge from which to proceed. Robert Holland

Posted By on November 28th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/11/27/in-restoring-civics-start-with-the-basics/

In a bit of good news for this Thanksgiving, it appears that many would-be shapers of education policy are plugging for the return of civics to the curricula of schools and colleges.

The bad news is that many of the prime movers and shakers behind a “new civics” still cling to the old progressive hostility toward a knowledge-based approach to teaching and testing American students about representative government and its historical roots in this exceptional nation.

A little more bad news: A survey released this fall by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni added to a mountain of evidence that adults, including many who attend college, don’t command much civic knowledge. For example, fewer than half knew that John Roberts is the current chief justice of the United States. More than one-quarter thought Brett Kavanaugh was.

Term lengths of U.S. senators and representatives? That is a piece of information any informed voter should know; however, fewer than half of college graduates could give the correct numbers. (The answer, by the way, is six and two, respectively).

Now for some better news: Five years ago, a coalition of prominent leaders assembled by the Arizona-based Joe Foss Institute launched a Civics Education Initiative intended to ensure that all young Americans are taught basic civics and tested on their grasp of the fundamentals. Former U.S. Education Secretary Richard Riley and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Carl Bernstein were among the participants.