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Bolsonaro’s Hope and Change Brazilians wanted new leadership after years of recession and graft.

Posted By on October 30th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bolsonaros-hope-and-change-1540853512

‘Bolsonaro threatens the world, not just Brazil’s fledgling democracy,” declared a headline last week in the Guardian, referring to presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro. And that was one of the milder warnings in the international press. Yet Brazilians elected him anyway on Sunday with 55% of the vote. Maybe the world should show a decent respect for Brazilian democracy and try to understand what happened.

Start with the fact that this was a transparent, competitive and fair contest. Mr. Bolsonaro didn’t steal the election. He won it by persuading voters. A 27-year member of the legislature, Mr. Bolsonaro was also fortunate to be running against Fernando Haddad, the hand-picked candidate of the Worker’s Party (PT) that has ruled Brazil for most of the last 15 years. Mr. Bolsonaro was able to run as the reformer against a legacy of economic and political failure.

Brazil has yet to recover from the leftwing populism of PT President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010) and successor Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016). Deficits, public debt and inflation soared, as the PT expanded the number of state-owned enterprises. It also squandered the opportunity to boost capital flows, most notably by failing to create attractive auction rules in the huge deepwater oil reserves discovered in 2007. By the time the Workers’ Party was done, Brazil was in a recession that lasted nearly three years.

The PT also built a legacy of graft. Construction companies padded bids and paid kickbacks to politicians, executives and the PT. The national development bank extended loans to facilitate the transactions, including to Cuba and Venezuela. The head of the bank said in September that the dictatorships in Havana and Caracas have outstanding loans of $1 billion and both are in arrears.

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Time to flee Democratic Party Adriana Cohen

Posted By on October 30th, 2018

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/adriana_cohen/2018/10/time_to_flee_democratic_party

Kanye West is calling for a #Blexit, a black exit from the Democratic Party, because the Trump administration has done more to empower the black community than his liberal predecessor.

What a great idea.

What American women need here in the U.S. is a #Wexit — women exiting the Democratic Party. Why? Because the single best way to empower women is financial independence. With the female unemployment rate at 3.6 percent — the lowest in 65 years — women should be burning their pink hats not knitting new ones.

A well-paying job allows women to live life on their own terms, make their own choices and pursue their dreams — unbeholden to anyone. Isn’t that the bedrock of feminism?

Hence it’s high time women stop thinking with their ovaries and start thinking with their pocketbooks. The former may give you “free” birth control, the latter a future.

With the GDP over 4 percent, median income up more than 4 percent and wages on the upswing, Trump’s economy has given women freedom and power. That’s the power to carve their own path and for many the freedom to leave unhappy marriages or abusive relationships because a good-paying job gives women the means to survive, if not thrive, on their own.

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

New Palestinian “Concern” for International Conventions by Bassam Tawil

Posted By on October 30th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13196/palestinians-prisoners-rights

While Hamas has been violating international laws by denying visits or any communication with the Israelis it holds captive, Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons continue to enjoy basic rights, including meeting with an attorney, receiving medical treatment, religious rights, basic living conditions (such as hot water, showers and sanitation), proper ventilation and electric infrastructure.

The families of the Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli prisons know where their sons are. They also know that their sons receive proper medical treatment and while away their days reading, exercising and watching TV. But the Israelis held by Hamas can only dream of seeing daylight as they languish in captivity.

The proposed Israeli law is a temporary measure, aimed at forcing Hamas to release information about the Israelis held in the Gaza Strip. There would be no need for the law were Hamas prepared to honor international and humanitarian conventions and allow visits by the Red Cross and other international agencies to the Israelis it is holding.

Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that rules the Gaza Strip, does not like a bill making its way through Israel’s Knesset that would prevent visits by family members of terrorists in Israeli prisons. The bill, sponsored by MK Oren Hazan (Likud), would prevent such visits to terrorists who are members of groups that hold Israeli prisoners and deny them visits.

“Because Israel is an advanced democracy committed to human rights conventions to which the terrorist organizations are not committed, an intolerable situation results. The terrorist organizations, as a strategy, kidnap and hold Israeli citizens without regard for their conditions and without allowing them visits, which seriously harms the morale and the national strength of the State of Israel,” the bill’s explanatory notes say.

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Jordan Cancels Israeli Land Leases A sober reminder of Arab hostility to the Jewish State. A. Klein and Daniel Mandel

Posted By on October 30th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271778/jordan-cancels-israeli-land-leases-morton-klein

Last week, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, in what has been described as a “sharp tone,” announced that he would annul an appendix to the 1994 Israeli/Jordanian peace treaty under which certain parcels of lands in the border regions –– the Naharayim (Baqura) area near the Sea of Galilee, and Zofar (al Ghamar), some 80 miles north of Eilat in the Aqaba region –– were to have been leased to Israel in perpetuity.

Jews have farmed these lands since 1926, when the then-British Mandatory power authorized it, along with the establishment of a power station by Pinchas Rutenberg.

However, in 1994, when Israel and Jordan concluded a peace treaty, Israel transferred these territories to Jordanian sovereignty. However, Appendix I (b) in the treaty authorized continued Israeli cultivation of these farmlands for 25 years, automatically renewable for 25-year periods “unless one year prior notice of termination is given by either Party, in which case, at the request of either Party, consultations shall be entered into.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has indicated he will be taking up the matter with King Abdullah in a bid to have the termination off the lease rescinded, but Oraib Rintawi, the director of the Quds Center for Political Studies in Amman, has said, probably accurately, “Jordan cannot backtrack on this … This is a decision of the king, government and public. I do not believe there is any possibility to backtrack on this decision.”

HOMELAND SECURITY, IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

MS-13 Inflicts “Reign of Terror” in California Democrats look the other way as sanctuary state allows criminal illegals to thrive. Lloyd Billingsley

Posted By on October 30th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271736/ms-13-inflicts-reign-terror-california-lloyd-billingsley

“How brutal murders and fear kept a town silent. MS-13 is like no other gang.”

That may sound like President Trump at one of his rallies but it’s actually the headline of an October 19 Fresno Bee story by award-winning reporter Yesenia Amaro. “MS-13 carved out a reign of terror,” she writes, “resulting in at least 14 brutal murders in and around Mendota from 2015 to 2017.” Amaro charts how this reign of terror developed, and the bloodshed MS-13 has inflicted.

“MS-13 slipped into Mendota relatively unnoticed,” Amaro notes, and “few people outside the rural town in California’s Central Valley knew MS-13 had infiltrated the area at least a decade ago.” This was not only due to relative obscurity of Mendota, with a population of some 11,000. When the gang ramped up the violence, “there was little or no media coverage on some of the murders, some of which had been initially labeled as suspicious deaths.”

Along with the gang’s extortion, kidnapping and drug trafficking, the killings “kept nearly everyone quiet, including city leaders, who failed to sound the alarm.” Even after the 25 MS-13 arrests, Mendota Mayor Rolando Castro declined to comment for Amaro’s story “citing fears for himself and his family.” Other residents spoke only on condition of anonymity, “citing fear of gang reprisals” such as the one involving Joanna Soloria Maya.

In July, 2016, before she was slated to testify in a murder case, “Joanna was hacked to death” and her body left outside an apartment complex. As Amaro noted, MS-13 has an international reputation for “brazenly leaving the bloodied, mangled corpses in the open.” Joanna’s sister Jannette told Amaro, “they are killing people out there, like they are animals.” And the MS-13 campaign of violence is “going to get worse” because law enforcement “can’t stop it.”

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Turkey and Qatar: An Alliance Under the Saudi Sword by Burak Bekdil

Posted By on October 29th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13205/turkey-qatar-saudi-arabia

The new U.S. leverage that emerged after the Saudi embarrassment is the same leverage that the U.S. can now use to broker an entente between Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

That there may be a Saudi-Qatari rapprochement might be bad news for Erdoğan. A future Saudi-Qatari deal would force Turkey militarily out of the Gulf and force Erdoğan entirely to recalibrate his quest for Turkish leadership in the Sunni ummah (global community).

Qatar’s distance from Erdoğan regarding the Khashoggi murder signals a Qatari-Saudi entente. Qatar may well be breaking away from its alliance with Turkey.

This will give the Saudis an upper hand in their rivalry with Erdoğan in Sunni leadership of the ummah. If Erdoğan loses Qatar to Saudi Arabia, he will be paying geostrategic price as well as an economic one.

A 21st century ideological kinship, based on political support for Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood, has built a strong bond between Turkey’s elected leadership and Qatar’s family of sheiks, despite an unpleasant shared history a century earlier.

The Qataris, not knowing that a 21st version of Islamism — not yet born then — fought the Ottomans to gain their independence in 1915. This event ended the 44-year-long Ottoman rule on the peninsula.

Independence, however, lasted for only about a year, until 1916, when Qatar became a British protectorate, until 1971. Today, hydrocarbon-rich Qatar, often referred to as a family-run gas station, is the staunchest regional ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey.

Both countries, Qatar and Turkey, pursue policies that are strongly anti-Israel (Erdoğan once remarked that “Zionism is a crime against humanity”) and share policies that are pro-Hamas and pro-Muslim Brotherhood.

This foreign policy blend, however, is deeply disliked by the House of Saud, a regional heavyweight, as well as by its Gulf and other regional allies: Egypt, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority — in addition to the Arab League.

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Over 1,000 Parents Protest Pediatrics Group’s Treatment Guidelines for Transgender Youths By Mairead McArdle

Posted By on October 29th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/parents-protest-transgender-treatment-guidelines/

As the American Academy of Pediatrics gets set to host its annual national conference and exhibition in Orlando starting Friday, some parents are protesting the group’s controversial treatment recommendations for LGBT youth, which the conference will promote.

“Our own children have become obsessed with the notion that they need powerful puberty blockers and hormones and bodily surgeries to transition to the opposite sex,” wrote the anonymous group of over 1,100 parents in a press release opposing the treatments. “The American Academy of Pediatrics fully supports this. We do not.”

The AAP released new guidelines last month for parents and teachers of children who say they identify with a gender other than the one they were born with.

In a policy statement entitled “Ensuring Comprehensive Care and Support for Transgender and Gender-Diverse Children and Adolescents,” the group recommended “gender-affirming” health care for minors who do not identify with their birth sex. In some cases, this includes “surgical intervention,” as well as using gonadotrophin-releasing hormones to delay puberty up to age 16 and prevent the development of some sex characteristics, such as breasts or a deeper voice.

In a statement, the group of parents expressed “serious concerns” about the new AAP policies, which they believe will “continue, and possibly worsen, the harm brought to many children by the recent radical changes to treatment guidelines for transgender-identifying youth.”

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Accusing Trump of fostering violence is incitement

Posted By on October 29th, 2018

http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/10/29/accusing-trump-of-fostering-violence-is-incitement/

If you believe President Trump’s “discourse of hate” is to blame for the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, then you must also believe that the absolute silence over the many anti-Semitic incidents under the previous president also played a significant role.

A hate crime is a despicable thing. That is why accusing someone of being responsible for a hate crime (like saying U.S. President Donald Trump may not have been the shooter, but he created an atmosphere that was conducive to the shooting) is a very serious thing. In fact, it is incitement.

The bodies strewn across the floor of the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood were still warm when my colleagues here in Israel began to suggest that this heinous murder, committed by the vile neo-Nazi Robert Bowers, was carried out under the auspices of Trump. Revolting.

There were even those who broadcast out loud, on their microphones, their theories that the massacre perpetrated by Bowers was inspired by the “spirit of the times” in the United States since Nov. 9, 2016 – in other words, the day after the man the media believes was the wrong candidate won the presidential elections. The public doesn’t feel that way, but what does the public know, right?

The media is certainly not responsible for what happened in Pittsburgh on Saturday. But neither is Trump. Bowers is responsible. He is the murderer. He is the criminal. Those looking for the root cause can find it in the sick ideology that has already taken millions of Jewish, black, Romani, Christian and Muslim lives. Faced with racism, we are all brothers.

As for Bowers, he actually viewed Trump as being too soft, and worse, he hated him for maintaining close ties with the Jews. But the media chose to focus on Trump’s war on illegal immigration and his fight against violence and anti-Semitism, from the left end of the political spectrum too. That’s what he was trying to do last year, when he made that controversial remark after the neo-Nazi attack in Charlottesville. He did not come out in defense of neo-Nazis. He just wanted to point out that incitement and instigation of violence were not exclusive to the Right – there are also instigators on the Left.

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Israel and Vietnam celebrate 25 years of diplomatic relations

Posted By on October 29th, 2018

http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/10/29/israel-and-vietnam-celebrate-25-years-of-diplomatic-relations/

Throngs of Vietnamese join Israeli folk dance event at historic Ly Thai To Square • Showcasing Israel’s trailblazing agricultural and water technology, Israeli Ambassador Nadav Eschar says the two nations are connected by “innovation, science and vision.”

Dmitry, a 26-year-old Israeli from Jerusalem traveling in Vietnam, could not believe what he was witnessing.

“Suddenly, in the middle of Hanoi, I heard Israeli songs,” he said ecstatically. “I told myself I had to be hallucinating, but it was actually happening.”

Dmitry was describing the large celebration put on by the Israeli Embassy in Vietnam on Saturday to mark 25 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries, which brought thousands of Vietnamese to historic Ly Thai To Square for a display of Israeli technology and a mass Israeli folk-dancing session.

The event was almost surreal, especially considering the past animosity between the two nations. For the better part of the past quarter-century, the government in Hanoi has usually contacted Israeli ambassadors only when it wanted to summon them and issue rebukes for Israel’s alleged mistreatment of the Palestinians, in keeping with Vietnam’s past as an ally of the Soviet Union. Vietnam even hosted Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat several times during the Cold War and afterwards.

Israel and Vietnam established official diplomatic ties in 1993, but it took 12 years before Hanoi opened an embassy in Tel Aviv. In 2010, when Israel suggested that then-President Shimon Peres visit Hanoi, the Foreign Ministry was told such a visit would be premature.

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Iran Holds a Hostage for ‘Spying on the Dead’ An American student ends up in a notorious prison after he copies documents dating from 1840-1910. By Gerard Gayou

Posted By on October 29th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-holds-a-hostage-for-spying-on-the-dead-1540852246

Give President Trump credit for bringing unjustly detained Americans home. Whatever misgivings you may have about his North Korean diplomacy, three American prisoners freed in May are better for it. So is Pastor Andrew Brunson, whom Turkey released this month. “I hope my husband is next,” Hua Qu tells me. “He has literally been taken hostage by Iran.”

Her husband is Xiyue Wang, a history graduate student at Princeton arrested in Tehran in August 2016 and sentenced to 10 years in the notorious Evin Prison. He is one of at least five Americans currently detained in Iran—and the only one who doesn’t also hold Iranian citizenship.

Mr. Wang, then 35, ventured to Iran in January 2016 to research the Qajar dynasty, which ruled Persia from 1794 to 1925. The espionage allegation came after he copied thousands of pages of research material from the National Archives of Iran. As one of his Princeton professors put it, Mr. Wang was accused of “spying on the dead.” The documents he copied were from between 1840 and 1910, according to Ms. Qu.