ISRAEL Comments turned off

Trump Cuts Palestinian Funding No more unconditional aid to corrupt, terrorism-enabling Palestinian leadership. Joseph Klein

Posted By on August 28th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271162/trump-cuts-palestinian-funding-joseph-klein

The Trump administration will not continue subsidizing the so-called “moderate,” “non-violent” Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership clique in the vain hope that throwing more good money after bad will help bring about real peace or provide genuine help for the Palestinian people. This clique is made up of lying hypocrites, who fund and glorify terrorists while corruptly diverting aid money and donations to their own personal benefit.

Last Friday, a State Department official announced to reporters that it would redirect U.S. financial assistance of more than $200 million originally intended for the Palestinian Authority and projects in the West Bank and Gaza. This cut in bilateral aid is on top of the previously announced cut of nearly $300 million in U.S. financial support for the discredited UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) denounced the Trump administration’s latest funding cut decision. “The rights of the Palestinian people are not for sale,” PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi said in a statement. “There is no glory in constantly bullying and punishing a people under occupation” through what she characterized as “economic meanness.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Parsing Mueller’s Lies: Why Julian Assange Makes the Perfect Foil By Michael Thau

Posted By on August 28th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/08/27/parsing-muellers

In the second part of this report, we saw that correcting the flagrant misrepresentations and filling in the strategic gaps in Robert Mueller’s July 13 indictment yields a tale that revolves around four important dates in the annals of 2016 presidential election skullduggery: one in March and three over a four-day period in June of that year.

March 19: Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta is tricked into giving away the password to his main Gmail account. As a result, hostile actors gained possession of all of Podesta’s campaign emails; including one containing a file of Trump opposition research.

June 12: Julian Assange announces that his organization WikiLeaks gained possession of and will soon be releasing Clinton campaign emails.

June 14: The Washington Post discloses the now infamous Russian hack of the DNC’s servers, announcing in both the headline and lead sentence the odd detail that the Russians stole a file of Trump opposition research.

June 15: The mysterious Guccifer 2.0 emerges online just one day after the Post story, claiming to be the hacker described therein and releasing 230 pages of Trump opposition research as confirmation.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A Dossier Debunking His lawyer says the Steele claims about Michael Cohen are false.

Posted By on August 28th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-dossier-debunking-1535413060

Michael Cohen’s accusations have replaced Russian collusion as Washington’s reason-du-jour to impeach Donald Trump, which may explain why few are reporting that Mr. Cohen has cast further doubt on what was supposedly a key piece of collusion evidence.

Mr. Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, confirmed last week that Cohen has never been to Prague in the Czech Republic. This is one of the main claims in the Steele dossier that was commissioned by oppo-research firm Fusion GPS, paid for by the Clinton campaign and used by the FBI in its Trump investigation.

The dossier claims Mr. Cohen traveled to Prague in August or September of 2016 to discuss with Kremlin officials how to make “cash payments” to hackers of the Clinton campaign. Mr. Davis now says that the Prague trip and all other allegations about Mr. Cohen in the dossier are “false.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

‘The View’ Hated McCain… Before They Loved Him By Matt Margolis

Posted By on August 28th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/video-the-view-hated-mccain-before-they-loved-him/

Oh, what a difference a few years and Donald Trump make when it comes to how the media treats Senator John McCain.

A few months ago I wrote about how one day the left will be nostalgic for Donald Trump. I noted how the left’s perceptions of George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney have gone from “literally Hitler” to literally “okay.” With regards to John McCain, I noted how Madonna compared him to Hitler during a concert, how he was likened to Nazis in an episode of The Family Guy, and how Slate called him “worse than Bush.”

The media today now have pretty much only nice things to say about the late Sen. John McCain (who’s record of independence has aligned him with Obama and against the GOP on several issues, and even more importantly, against Trump), but this is in stark contrast to how they treated him when he was Barack Obama’s opponent in 2008.

It was a battle of a moderate war hero and a radical noob. McCain’s status as a war hero was somehow not as important as Obama’s community organizing and candidness about his smoking marijuana. McCain was just a crusty old white guy and Obama was the cool young black candidate, and if you didn’t like him, you were racist.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Leftists despicably exploit McCain By Lloyd Marcus

Posted By on August 28th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/08/8_27_2018_14_36.html

Fake news media’s sudden overwhelming fondness for Republican Senator John McCain is insidiously evil and disgusting. Coldly and calculatingly, the American Left exploits and spins even death to further its mission to undermine President Trump, the Constitution and traditional American principles and values.

The same Democratic hacks and leftist media operatives now praising the late John McCain called him a racist for being white, Republican, and opposing Obama in 2008. As the GOP presidential nominee, McCain’s absurd strategy was to get into the presidential boxing ring with Obama and not lay a glove on him. McCain even instructed his team not to use Obama’s middle name, “Hussein”. Fake news media still mercilessly attacked McCain, even accusing him of “race-baiting”.

These same leftist hypocrites are arrogantly attempting to dictate to Kelli Ward and President Trump how they should respond to McCain’s death.

I attended the final rally of Dr. Kelli Ward’s bus tour in Yuma, Arizona. Ward offered a moment of silence and a prayer for John McCain and his family. I guarantee that Ward’s classy gesture will not be reported by fake news media.

As I stated, the American Left shamefully sees McCain’s death as its latest bludgeon to beat up on conservatives, Republicans, and President Trump.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Syrian War Goes Global By Herbert London President, London Center for Policy Research

Posted By on August 27th, 2018

Prior to World War I alliances across Europe created an environment in which one event, the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, could set in motion mobilization of forces that led inexorably to conflict. It was as if this was a natural and inevitable slide into the abyss. https://londoncenter.org/

Recently Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the establishment of U.S. bases east of the Euphrates River was a provocative act that “could lead to World War III” Erdogan noted that this deployment is an attempt to offset Russian and Iranian influence but, in his judgment, does nothing to stabilize the region.

At the same time, the Turkish dictator – often accused of bluster – brought his country one step closer to war with Greece over disputed islands in the Aegean Sea which were once part of the Ottoman Empire.

Prime Minister Francois Holland of France condemned Russian and Turkish meddling in the Syrian conflict. For Holland, the issue in Syria is not the survival of Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad, but “world order” disrupted by Russia’s growing influence in the Levant. Now the issue is “how to respond to Vladimir Putin, not how much to respond to… Assad. The West must realize that is the true scope of the danger.” Moreover, Holland also harshly criticized Erdogan for attacking allies of France in Afrin, the Kurdish enclave in northwest Syria, suggesting that Turkey has betrayed its role as a NATO member.

Then there is Saudi Arabia’s leader, Mohammed bin Salman who warned against the “triangle of evil” in Syria. (Turkey, Iran and extremist organizations). He also noted the growing influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in countries like Turkey with the ultimate goal of a new Caliphate. The Turkish invasion in Afrin named “Operation Olive Branch” – a clear Orwellian inversion – has led to 300,000 citizens deprived of water and other basic needs. Big battles in Afrin are still to come and are likely to be as destructive as anything seen in Raqqa or Aleppo.

BOOKS Comments turned off

American Tragedy: Nidra Poller

Posted By on August 27th, 2018

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/american-tragedy/

It takes a genius of a clown like Tuvia Tenenbom to piece together the American Tragedy in a drive-in tour de force that spans the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave from coast to coast, from north to south, from Alaska to Hawaii. Our roaming reporter and natural actor drops in on all kinds of folks, getting them to speak their minds, such as they are, and making us forget the vast empty spaces where nothing is worthy of mention and even the boredom is too flat and weary for words. Tuvia T., a man of theater, artfully creates the illusion of unity of time, space, and action out of thousands of kilometers of loose ends.

And that’s not all! In a six-month (was it only six months?) road trip in the USA, he finds enough people actually present in public places to converse with, however scantily, and fill 400 pages with notable quotes. Like an archeologist putting together a Greek urn out of a pile of broken bits, Tenenbom distills the essence of early 21st century America with bits and pieces of locations, characters, and dialogue. It is so funny to read. And so sad, once you’ve assimilated the whole journey.

The American tragedy is, by definition, the inextricable association of the best and the worst. The USA is an upstart nation founded by Europeans that fled their oppressive culture and established a glaring contradiction of their origins. From there, the nation is built in layers like a “mille feuille” (that they call a “napoleon”) of refugees and fortune hunters. Let it be called a melting pot (what a strange idea when you think of it) or a tossed salad, the only way it could work is, as Tenenbom writes, by forcing them to abandon their ancestral cultures… and get nothing in return. That’s the land of opportunity. So little to master. Just get the knack of things and fly.

MEDIA Comments turned off

The Silence Over A Potential Chinese Spy In Feinstein’s Office Is Deafening From the start, this was a story the media had no interest in covering. Now it is apparent that our political class has no interest in probing it. Ben Weingarten

Posted By on August 27th, 2018

https://thefederalist.com/2018/08/27/the-silence-over-a-potential-chinese-spy-in-feinsteins-office-is-deafening/

With concerns over attempts by foreign adversaries to influence the American political system at a fever pitch — notwithstanding that in the case of the president, the commentariat’s charges of certain treasonous Russian collusion have grudgingly been downgraded in slightly more sane quarters to dubious alleged campaign finance infractions — that the story of a Chinese spy in Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office has seemingly died is simply stunning.

From the start, this was a story the media had no interest in covering. Now it is apparent that our political class has no interest in probing it.

The reporting on Feinstein was limited to a few outlets — ignored by large newspaperssuch as The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, and major networks, excluding Fox News, which provided scant details as to what transpired and downplayed the potentially dire ramifications of the alleged breach.

The press took at face value boilerplate statements from Feinstein’s office seeking to dispel any suggestion that the Chinese had penetrated her office, with nary a question directed at the senator herself as she enjoyed her tranquil August recess.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

A Strange Kind of Authoritarian If President Trump is a tyrant, as the Left constantly charges, he isn’t doing a very good job at it. Seth Barron

Posted By on August 27th, 2018

https://www.city-journal.org/html/strange-kind-authoritarian-16129.html

The double whammy of yesterday’s guilty verdict in the case of Paul Manafort and guilty plea in that of Michael Cohen—President Trump’s former campaign manager and personal attorney, respectively—must have stunned the White House, and certainly elated the president’s critics, who are busy filing their teeth in preparation for an impeachment case. But as the nation moves into untrodden constitutional territory, with demands that Trump be indicted for political corruption, it’s worth examining the balance of power in the U.S. today, and the extent to which the president—frequently accused of unprecedented abuse of executive authority—may actually be more respectful of legal procedure and norms than his critics charge.

While the Mueller investigation moves laboriously toward its ostensible focus—Russian meddling in the 2016 election—it has been blazingly fast in racking up convictions and guilty pleas on what appear to be less-than-urgent tax-fraud cases. Paul Manafort, Trump’s onetime campaign manager, was indicted, tried, and convicted for crimes pertaining to his political-consultancy business in Ukraine. No link was alleged between these activities and Trump; it was an ancillary case that, as the judge observed early on, was part of an effort to put pressure on the president. Michael Cohen, Trump’s lawyer, pled guilty to a slew of financial-related crimes. He confessed, among other felonies, to having made $30,000 by brokering the sale of an expensive piece of luggage, and failing to report this income. The kicker in Cohen’s confession was the last count, where he appears to implicate Trump in an effort to influence the 2016 election; the president directed him, he claims, to make “an excessive campaign contribution” to buy silence from women with whom Trump had had sexual relationships with in the past. Cohen, facing 65 years in prison, appears responsive to the prosecutorial squeeze play, and is willing to testify to Trump’s involvement in nefarious doings.

P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

How to Think about Privilege By Graham Hillard

Posted By on August 27th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/whiteness-meaningless-catch-all-progressive-epithet/

‘Whiteness’ is not a helpful shorthand.

Some years ago, a friend of mine who was employed by a state indoctrination center (all right, a public school) was made to participate in a faculty-development exercise whose ideological preoccupations are by now familiar. Facing each other in a circle, the assembled teachers were directed to take a step backward whenever they could claim one of the “advantages” read from an administrator’s list. Born in the United States? Take a step. Raised in a two-parent home? Step again. Fortunate enough to attend college? Step once more. Perhaps because my friend was forced to back nearly out of the building, he intuited quickly enough the activity’s message. His middle-class life was no longer to be understood as a product of his (and his parents’) diligence and sacrifice but as something undeserved, ugly, even oppressive.

My friend, reasonably enough, was horrified. But now I wonder if the era when that exercise took place should be regarded as the good old days.

One of the retrospective charms of the millennium’s first decade is the fact that the various privileges identified by my friend’s principal hadn’t yet cohered (at least outside academic circles) into the rhetorical catch-all of “whiteness.” Conversations about inequality could still be had — indeed, sometimes they were even useful — but the Left remained sweetly unaware of its ability to evoke a whole host of disparities with a mere sneering reference (“white people”) to 60 percent of the population. A single cultural turning point is impossible to mark, but one could do worse than to point to the progressive beatification of Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose contributions to public discourse are perhaps best summed up by his absurd remark to Evanston Township High School students that “when you’re white in this country, you’re taught that everything belongs to you.”

That such a claim is unfalsifiable using any tools currently in vogue — any tools, that is, except reason and observation — is only part of its appeal. The remainder derives from its usefulness as intellectual shorthand: It allows the speaker to substitute a threatening abstraction (“Boo! Whiteness!”) for an actual discussion of the hugely complicated inequalities that obtain in American society.