NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

When Teddy Met Yuri Bork smearer Ted Kennedy sought Soviet help against Ronald Reagan. Lloyd Billingsley

Posted By on February 8th, 2017

The smear surge against President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch is certain to sweep in a tide of lies. That was the case thirty years ago in the 1987 hearing for Robert Bork, Supreme Court nominee of President Ronald Reagan. The smearer-in-chief was Senator Ted Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat and something of a poseur.

His chief claim to fame was brother John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who narrowly defeated Richard Nixon for president in 1960. Ted rode the JFK coattails to a Senate seat in 1962 but his self-control issues soon plunged him into trouble.

On July 18, 1969, Ted Kennedy drove off a bridge in Chappaquiddick, Massachusetts. Kennedy escaped unharmed but abandoned 28-year-old passenger Mary Jo Kopechne in the car, where the young woman perished. In Senatorial Privilege: The Chappaquiddick Cover-up, Leo Damore showed how the Kennedy family deployed their influence to quash investigations of the incident and shield Ted from accountability.

JFK’s brother got only a two-year suspended sentence for leaving the scene of an accident and in 1970 was reelected to the U.S. Senate. There he became an object of derision even to liberals.

“Every image that the Democrats have to overcome – that they overtax the Middle Americans, try to meet social problems only with a proliferation of programs, are the junior partners of vociferous but marginal interest groups, look too carelessly at the credentials of the Third World movements and leaders, and neglect the security of the nation and of the free world – is kept alive by this buffoon.” That was Henry Fairlie in a 1987 New Republic piece headlined, “Hamalot: The Democratic Buffoon-in-Chief.”

As it later emerged, Ted Kennedy was also a pioneer in seeking the influence of hostile foreign powers in the American electoral process. In 1984 Sen. Ted Kennedy sought help from the Soviet Union, then headed by the KGB’s Yuri Andropov, an old-line Stalinist. Kennedy offered to lend Andropov a hand in dealing with President Reagan. In return, the Soviet boss would lend the Democratic Party a hand in challenging Reagan in the 1984 presidential election.

The gambit failed, and Reagan won in a landslide over both the Democrats’ Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro and Communist Party USA candidates Gus Hall and Angela Davis. In 1987, Reagan’s nominee for the Supreme Court was Robert Bork, solicitor general during the Nixon administration, a professor at Yale Law School, and a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. With this highly qualified candidate, who was also a good man, Ted Kennedy took the low road.

FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Trump Should Reject the Failed “Peace Process” The historical pattern is clear. Bruce Thornton

Posted By on February 8th, 2017

President Trump has made a lot of bold moves in his first few weeks in office. Judged by the mainstream media’s lies, fake news, distortions, and hysteria, his executive actions on immigration, oil pipelines, rolling back federal regulations, and firing an insubordinate acting Attorney General are on the money. But a few of his foreign policy moves are questionable.

Most troubling is the statement on Israel’s announcement about new settlements. “While we don’t believe the existence of settlements is an impediment to peace, the construction of new settlements or the expansion of existing settlements beyond their current borders may not be helpful in achieving that goal.”

This Delphic announcement has provoked differing interpretations. On the one hand, it correctly rejects the false global consensus that peace would break out in the region if only Israelis stopped building “illegal settlements” on “occupied territory.” On the other, the White House repeats the hoary cliché that settlement construction isn’t “helpful in achieving” peace, implying that settlement developed should be slowed or halted. The statement may just be diplomatic triangulation, an attempt to assure both Israelis and their enemies while the president determines a new approach. But Trump’s repeated statements about forging “peace” between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs suggest he may be trapped by long-exploded assumptions about the crisis, at a time when what we need are blunt truth and decisive action instead of more failed diplomacy.

Take the incoherence of the statement. If “settlements” are not an “impediment” to peace, then how exactly can they “not be helpful”? Because they anger the Arabs and Israel’s other enemies? To think this is to validate the Arabs’ duplicitous pretexts for violence, and to appease their irrational passions––approaches that have distorted our policies in the region for seven decades. And it takes at face value the false assumptions that all the Palestinian Arabs want is their own nation and self-determination, and that their violence and murder are understandable reactions to Israeli intransigence.

But the Palestinian Arabs have rejected multiple opportunities to achieve their own state, starting in 1947-48 when they answered the offer of a nation with a war on Israel that killed 20,000 Israelis. They answered the Oslo Accords of 1993, a framework for creating a Palestinian state, with continued PA corruption and terrorist violence that killed 269 Israeli civilians and soldiers in seven years. In 2000, Arafat rejected Bill Clinton’s plan, and followed up with terrorist attacks that by 2013 had killed 1,227 Israelis. In 2008 Ehud Olmert offered “moderate” Palestinian honcho Mahmoud Abbas another state comprising 97% of the disputed territories, and once again Israel was rebuffed and subject to even more terrorist murder. And for all that time the PA has continued to incite violence against Jews, reward the families of murderers, and brainwash children with virulent Jew-hatred.

The historical pattern is clear: when offered a state, the Arabs respond by killing Jews. To paraphrase Einstein, repeating the same failed policies over and over and expecting a different outcome is the definition of foreign policy insanity.

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

To Fix Counterterrorism, End Obama’s ‘Countering Violent Extremism’ Strategy By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on February 8th, 2017

Last June, the jihadist terrorist Omar Mateen opened fire at a gay night club in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 and wounding several other revelers. It quickly became clear that Mateen was yet another “known wolf” – the term popularized by my friend and colleague Patrick Poole to describe the frequent phenomenon of terrorists who manage to plot and strike against the West notwithstanding that their patent radicalism has put them on the radar screen of law-enforcement and intelligence agents.

I have long argued that the cause of this phenomenon is the restrictions on common sense placed on our agents by political correctness, which essentially blind them to the well-known but rarely acknowledged progression from Islamic scripture to sharia-supremacist ideology (what we call “radical Islam”), to enclaves populated by adherents and sympathizers of this ideology, and inevitably to jihadist terror. This iteration of political correctness has been the backbone of Obama administration counterterrorism strategy, known as “Countering Violent Extremism” (CVE). Shortly after the Orlando attack, I delivered a speech at the Westminster Institute – entitled, “Defenseless in the Face of Our Enemies” – in which I addressed CVE. The new Trump administration is in the process of formulating its own counterterrorism strategy. Below, for what it may be worth, is the portion of my speech that addressed CVE:

Of the nearly 36,000 people who work for the FBI, fewer than 14,000 are investigative agents. National security is a crucial part of the Bureau’s portfolio, but the FBI is statutorily the lead investigative agency in virtually every category of criminal offense in federal law. At most, there are a couple thousand agents assigned full-time to counterterrorism. Those numbers are multiplied somewhat by joint federal-state efforts — the Joint Terrorism Task Forces in several metropolitan areas across the nation. Even so, because the Bureau is an intelligence agency as well as a law-enforcement agency, there are over a thousand terrorism investigations ongoing at any one time. The FBI director indicates that there is activity that must be monitored in all 50 states. Unless there are flashing neon signs of imminent attack, the small number of investigators can only spend so much time on any one suspect.

Of course, that time can be maximized, or wasted, depending on whether investigators know what they’re looking for . . . and whether they are permitted to look for it.

Clearly, the FBI spent a lot of time on Mateen. It sent confidential informants to interact with him, conducted physical surveillance, covertly monitored some of his phone calls, and interviewed him face-to-face three separate times. It concluded that his bark was bad, but his bite was non-existent. Honoring guidelines imposed on terrorism investigations, the FBI closed its case. That is, in addition to concluding that no charges should be filed, the Bureau further decided that additional monitoring of Mateen was not warranted.

In retrospect, this seems reckless. But the FBI is not incompetent, far from it. The agency knew Mateen was worth a heavy investigative investment. The problem is that the FBI answers to the Washington political class. The bipartisan Beltway has long ruled that advocacy of radical Islam is protected by the Constitution. It has long instructed its investigators, preposterously, that seditious beliefs and agitation are immune, not just from prosecution, but even from mere inquiry.

What passes for Obama’s national-security strategy, known as “Countering Violent Extremism,” exacerbates this problem. CVE delusionally forbids the conclusion that radical Islamic ideology has any causative effect on terrorist plotting. The FBI is in the impossible position of trying to conduct investigations that follow the facts wherever they lead, while fearing that such investigations — by illuminating the logical progression from Islamic scripture to sharia supremacism to jihadist terror — will enrage its political masters.

EDUCATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

5 Great Reforms Betsy DeVos Will Bring to the Department of Education By Tyler O’Neil

Posted By on February 8th, 2017

On Tuesday, Vice President Mike Pence broke a tie in the U.S. Senate to confirm President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Education, Betsy DeVos. Liberals have launched numerous attacks on DeVos, even protesting her nomination with a 24-hour “speechibuster” reminiscent of Ted Cruz’s anti-Obamacare message in 2013.

Liberal attacks have branded her an elitist, a religious extremist, and a foe of public education. But what will DeVos actually do as secretary of Education? Here are 5 things to expect from the newly confirmed secretary.
1. Decentralize education, abolish Common Core.

When asked what DeVos will actually do at the Department of Education, Friends of Betsy DeVos spokesman Ed Patru told PJ Media, “I think you’ll see a concerted effort to return decision-making back to states.”

Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips praised DeVos as “someone who understands that better outcomes can’t be dictated from Washington.”

Along those lines, DeVos released a statement last year announcing her full opposition to the Common Core Education Standards. DeVos supports “high standards, strong accountability, and local control,” her statement explained. She noted that many of the organizations she supported also backed Common Core, but added that “along the way, it got turned into a federalized boondoggle.”
2. Put kids before unions.

“I also think you’ll see a Department of Education that, before every decision, asks itself: ‘Is this policy in the interest of kids, or is it in the interests of teachers, administrators and organized labor leaders?'” Patru added. He argued that under DeVos’ leadership, “the interests of kids will always take priority.”

Black leaders have also praised DeVos for her concern about all kids, regardless of race. “She’s not African American, but she’s concerned about our children,” Dr. Dwight Montgomery, president of the Memphis Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), declared in December. Montgomery said DeVos will be committed to “make sure that every child is in an environment to receive the education that is in the best interest of the child.”

The new secretary of Education will “have a commitment to education, not just public education,” Montgomery declared. This may involve shaking up the status quo, to put the needs of children ahead of the education establishment.
7 Desperate Liberal Lies About Trump’s Education Pick Betsy DeVos
3. School choice.

DeVos has promised to revolutionize education in concrete ways, through school vouchers and charter schools. She has supported these programs in order to deliver “top-notch education for all students, regardless of their location or socioeconomic level.”

In 2000, DeVos and her husband backed a ballot proposal to amend the Michigan Constitution to create a school voucher program that allows taxpayer funds to follow students to private schools. While that proposal failed, the couple formed a political action committee to support voucher-friendly candidates on the national level. DeVos has also fought to expand the number of school choice programs across the country.

DeVos and her husband also helped to pass Michigan’s first charter school law, establishing publicly funded schools open to all students, but able to operate with more autonomy than traditional public schools. There are currently 275 charter schools in Michigan, and while these schools have been criticized for their lack of accountability and government oversight, they provide more educational options for children.

MEDIA, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The truth behind the under reporting of terrorist incidents By Ed Straker

Posted By on February 8th, 2017

President Trump initially said the media didn’t report some terrorist incidents, which was quickly clarified to mean that they underreported them. The New York Times released a long list of terrorist attacks they had covered in their reporting to counter Trump’s claim.

The Times was correct on the very narrow question but totally wrong on the underlying truth.

No one questions whether the Times, and the media, have reported most terrorist attacks. They have. But they report on terrorist incidents the way they report the weather. It is brief, to the point, and usually gone the next day. Most importantly, there is never any examination of the “why” behind terrorist attacks. The Times simply reports “A man shouting ‘Allahu akbar’ went and killed three people. He is now in custody,” expressing no greater interest in what caused the incident than what you would see about what caused rain on a particular day.

The underreporting that Trump is referring to is that total lack of curiosity on the part of the media about the motivations of the attackers. From that list the Times provided, you can see there have been many, many terrorist attacks by Muslims. Why are they committing so many attacks? Is this part of some trend that should concern us? The Times doesn’t know and doesn’t want to know.

Contrast that with the story of how a private security guard shot and killed a black man who was trying to pound his head into the pavement. The Times published literally dozens and dozens of articles exploring the possible racist motivations of the security guard. Every time a police officer shoots a black man (which, in a nation as large as 300 million people, can happen from time to time), the Times empties a well of ink trying to draw larger conclusions about the racism of the police.

Not so with radical Islamic terrorist attacks. There are no days and days of follow-up about the ideology that drove an Islamic terrorist. It happened, it’s over, that’s it, like a passing raincloud. That’s the underreporting I believe President Trump is referring to.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Germany’s Muslim Demographic Future by Soeren Kern

Posted By on February 8th, 2017

Critics of Germany’s open-door immigration policy are warning that the recent surge in Germany’s Muslim population — which surpassed six million in 2016 for the first time — has already changed the face of the country forever.

The price for reversing Germany’s demographic decline appears to be the further Islamization of Germany under the guise of multiculturalism.

With a fertility rate of 1.6 births per woman, well below the replacement rate of 2.1, Germany will require a permanent influx of 300,000 migrants per year in order keep the current population level stable through the year 2060, according to the report.

“We are importing Islamic extremism, Arab anti-Semitism, national and ethnic conflicts of other peoples, as well as a different understanding of society and law. German security agencies are unable to deal with these imported security problems, and the resulting reactions from the German population.” — Leaked German intelligence document.

More than a decade ago historian Bernard Lewis warned that if current migration trends continue, Europe will be Islamic by the end of the 21st century. Germany’s political elites are at the vanguard of making that prediction come true.

Germany will need to take in 300,000 migrants annually for the next 40 years to stop population decline, according to a leaked government report.

The document, parts of which were published by the Rheinische Post on February 1, reveals that the German government is counting on permanent mass migration — presumably from Africa, Asia and the Middle East — to keep the current size of the German population (82.8 million) stable through 2060.

The report implies that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to allow into the country some 1.5 million mostly Muslim migrants between 2015 and 2016 was not primarily a humanitarian gesture, but a calculated effort to stave off Germany’s demographic decline and to preserve the future viability of the German welfare state.

If most of the new migrants arriving in Germany for the next four decades are from the Islamic world, the Muslim population of Germany could jump to well over 20 million and account for more than 25% of the overall German population by 2060.

Critics of Germany’s open-door immigration policy are warning that the recent surge in Germany’s Muslim population — which surpassed six million in 2016 for the first time — has already changed the face of the country forever.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

What Is the Muslim Brotherhood? by Thomas Quiggin

Posted By on February 8th, 2017

A variety of groups ascribe to the Islamist objective of imposing their politicized beliefs on others. Included in these are ISIS, al-Qaeda and Hizb ut-Tahrir. However, the largest and best organized of all the Islamist groups is the Muslim Brotherhood. It is the well-spring from which the Islamist ideology flows.

The founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna, stated that “It is in the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.”

A bill, introduced by Senator Ted Cruz, to have the Muslim Brotherhood designated as a terrorist group would have far-reaching impact, and be the single greatest blow stuck against Islamist extremism in the USA.

The Muslim Brotherhood operating in the U.S. made it clear that “their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

The North Atlantic Islamic Trust, according to former FBI Agent Robert Stauffer, “served as a financial holding company for Muslim Brotherhood-related groups.” This money was wired into the U.S. from countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Egypt, Malaysia and Libya.

Muslims living in the United States likely have little to fear from the Trump Administration and the 115th Congress. By contrast, Islamists living in the United States have grounds to be worried.

A bill introduced by Senator Ted Cruz to have the Muslim Brotherhood designated as a terrorist group could have far-reaching implications, many of which have received little public attention. The bill, if acted upon, would be the single greatest blow stuck against Islamist extremism in the USA. It would also have far reaching impact in Canada and elsewhere.

Islamists are those who have the desire to “impose any interpretation of Islam over society by law.” A variety of groups ascribe to the Islamist objective of imposing their politicized beliefs on others. Included in these are ISIS, al-Qaeda and Hizb ut-Tahrir. However, the largest and best organized of all the Islamist groups is the Muslim Brotherhood. They are the well-spring from which the Islamist ideology flows. The founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna, stated that “It is in the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Do Not Reward Bad Behaviour Trump Must Bury Anti-Semitic UN Resolution by Jagdish N. Singh

Posted By on February 8th, 2017

The Trump Administration needs to see to it that UN Security Council Resolution 2334 is rendered null and void.

UNSC Resolution 2334 also implies that Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter, Western Wall and Temple Mount are all occupied territory, when in fact, it was Israel that liberated them from the illegal Jordanian conquest of them in the war of 1948.

Given the history of violence which the Palestinians indulge in against the Jews, it would seem a counter-productive precedent to reward decades of terrorism and uncivilised behaviour with a state. It would also leave the Palestinians, who deserve a responsible and accountable leadership, under the domination of two corrupt and brutal governments, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

A study of the various proposals Israel has made to Palestine from time to time shows the key obstacle to peace is not the Palestinians’ demand for any piece of land but their refusal to recognize the existence of the Jewish state, or presumably any state but an Islamic one.

The U.S. could also move its embassy to Jerusalem. This would send the Palestinian leadership and others in the region a strong message that Washington will support both historical facts and countries that comport themselves with civilised behaviour.

In the long-continuing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, conventional wisdom has it that peace can be achieved through realistic negotiations between the parties to the conflict.

The previous Obama administration displayed a clear tilt towards one party to the conflict, the Palestinians, at the cost of the other, Israel.

Last month, Washington’s abstention from voting on United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2334 led to its passage. This resolution condemns Israeli settlements in “Palestinian Occupied Territories.” Resolution 2334 also implies that Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter, Western Wall and Temple Mount are all occupied territory, when in fact, it was Israel that liberated them from the illegal Jordanian conquest of them in the war of 1948. The resolution effectively states that any Jewish presence beyond the 1949 armistice lines, or Israeli construction in Judea, Samaria or Jerusalem, is illegal.

Objectively speaking, this resolution amounts to anti-Semitism: it is simply counterfactual to the Jews’ history in the region. Both the Bible and archeology reveal that Jews have had a historical connection with this land for more than 3000 years.

Given the history of violence that the Palestinians indulge in against the Jews, it would seem a counter-productive precedent to reward decades of terrorism and uncivilised behaviour with a state. It would also leave the Palestinians, who deserve a responsible and accountable leadership, under the domination of two corrupt and brutal governments, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

One hopes President Donald J. Trump, as the leader of the democratic world, would waste no time to bury this counter-factual, anti-Semitic resolution. Nikki Haley, Trump’s appointment to the United Nations, has already condemned the controversial resolution as an “outrageous bias” against Israel, and criticized the Administration of former President Barack H. Obama for the abstention that let the resolution pass.

MEDIA, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

An inadvertent boost to Bannon by Ruthie Blum

Posted By on February 8th, 2017

In yet another attempt to discredit U.S. President Donald Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, The Washington Post inadvertently did just the opposite.‎

In a piece on Friday, national reporter Matea Gold revealed that she had obtained a draft ‎of a movie proposal written in 2007 by Bannon — at the time a Hollywood filmmaker — ‎aimed at warning viewers about radical Muslims turning the U.S. into the “Islamic States ‎of America.” ‎

According to Gold, the envisioned three-part documentary, titled “Destroying the Great ‎Satan: The Rise of Islamic Fascism in America,” was to open with a scene showing ‎the flag on the U.S. Capitol building emblazoned with a crescent and star, while chants of ‎‎”Allahu akbar” emanate from inside. Quoting from the film’s ‎outline, she said its purpose was to caution not only against jihadists, but against the “enablers among us.”‎

Gold said Bannon wrote that these unwitting Americans, with the “best intentions,” ‎were the media, the Jewish community and government agencies engaged in appeasing ‎Islamism and paving “the road to this unique hell on earth.”‎

She made sure to remind readers that the author is the ‎same Bannon who helped Trump forge his executive order restricting entry into the U.S. ‎of citizens of certain Muslim-majority countries. This unsubtle juxtaposition was supposed ‎to give credence to the claim, widely circulated prior to and since Trump’s election, that ‎Bannon is both an anti-Semite and an Islamophobe. ‎

But the stab at a double whammy fell flat on its face. If anything, Gold’s account was ‎cause for optimism about Bannon’s role in the administration that is taking shape in ‎Washington. ‎

Indeed, anybody outside Israel who grasped 10 years ago that radical Islamism was a ‎force not only to be reckoned with but guarded against in the West is a person who has ‎been paying attention. Despite the national trauma caused by the attacks on the World ‎Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001, Americans quickly covered themselves in ostrich ‎feathers and put their heads in the proverbial sand, hoping that the war against al-Qaida that was ‎being fought far from their homestead would remain something they might catch a ‎glimpse of on the nightly news, but not feel, smell and taste. ‎

Unlike Israelis — virtually all of whom are soldiers even when in civilian clothes — citizens ‎of the United States are blessed with a choice about the extent of their involvement in ‎matters of national security and defense. As a result, many can and do go through life ‎without ever encountering men and women in uniform, let alone marching alongside them. ‎

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Time to Take Action on the UN is Now : Anne Bayefsky

Posted By on February 8th, 2017

U.S. contributions to the UN for 2015 = $9,917,000,000

Ask: Why is the U.S. still on the UN Human Rights Council?
Ask: Why has Congress not adopted a single bill stopping any funding to the UN since Security Council 2334?

In 2017, individual members of Congress and President Trump have called for a reassessment of U.S. funding to the United Nations in order to ensure that U.S. taxpayer dollars are utilized in ways that are consistent with American values and interests.

Additionally, in the aftermath of the UN Security Council’s adoption on December 23, 2016 of resolution 2334, which declared Israel’s presence in the historic Jewish homeland and its holy sites a “flagrant violation of international law,” members of Congress have introduced a series of bills that seek to hold the UN to account for its discriminatory treatment of the Jewish state.

Members of civil society have also launched a series of initiatives challenging the current relationship of the United States with the UN and promoting a democratic multilateral alternative.

2017 Stocktaking. So far? All Talk

The last full accounting from U.S. government sources of funding provided to the United Nations is many years out-of-date. Conducted in 2010, it states that the United States contributed $7,691,822,000 annually to the United Nations in the form of assessed, voluntary and in-kind contributions.

According to United Nations sources, U.S. contributions to the UN for 2015 totaled $9,917,000,000. (UN Chief Executives Board for Coordination, Geneva) This figure has been further broken down into three (renamed) categories as follows:

Assessed contributions $3,757,000,000
Voluntary contributions specified $5,521,000,000 (this includes donations in-kind)
Voluntary contributions not specified $639,000,000.

(This UN website documents 2014 contributions and puts the total U.S. contributions for 2014 at $10,067,000,000.)