http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/crush-the-muslim-brotherhood/ Like all terrorist organizations, the Muslim Brotherhood has only one commodity to trade in. Blood. In the war of ideas for the future of Egypt, the Brotherhood had nothing to offer but the blood of its followers and victims. It has no new ideas. It has no record of accomplishments. It has no vision […]
http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2626/I-Got-Plenty-of-Evidence.aspx
The bizarro war on American Betrayal doesn’t stop. The latest from David Horowitz is that I “should not have written this book.”
Who says that?
I will have a lengthy rebuttal to publish in the next few days.
Couldn’t let this comment keep sliding, though. One of the mainstays of this surreal assault on my credibility is that I argue without evidence. Or, as David Horowitz says, I make “large claims unsupported by the evidence.”
No, I make large claims supported by evidence — lots of evidence. Here is one chapter’s worth of my 900-plus endonotes.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/08/15/What-Difference-Does-It-Make-A-Response-to-Diane-West
Some conservatives are taking the position that the dispute between Diana West and Ron Radosh, and by extension Frontpage, is a “circular firing squad.” Others regard it as a scholastic dispute over obscure historical sources. Still others feel that it is a distraction from important matters, and are puzzled by the heat that it has generated. Except for the first point, these objections simply misread the conflict and what it involves. I will deal with them shortly.
First, regarding circular firing squads: Among political activists these destructive formations are normally inspired by disagreements over policy and/or tactics–immigration reform or shutting down the government, for example. The disputes degenerate when one side attacks the alleged motives of the other and questions the political credentials of its adherents. In other words, they accuse those who disagree with them of treason to the cause.
The present dispute is not about policy or tactics. It is about an approach to historical events. That approach, exemplified by West’s book American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character, is conspiratorial rather than political, and makes large claims that are unsupported by the evidence. It also leads to political conclusions that have consequences–in our view quite destructive ones. Only one side in this dispute, it should be said, has impugned the motives and questioned the political bona fides of the other. Conservatives who find this regrettable should address their concerns to Diana West and her followers, who have accused us of anti-anti communism (i.e., pro-communism) and referred to us as “totalitarians.” Given our long public record of anti-communist activities and publications these are absurd accusations on their face, but very similar to the kind of accusations we find fault with in West’s book.
http://www.nationalreview.com/node/355910/print
VOGUE’s efforts to be relevant other than as a fashion rotogravure for the wealthy are really funny. Remember their tribute to Bashar al-Assad’s wife Asma? And the cover of Hillary in designer duds “The Extraordinary Hillary Clinton” followed by the sappiest post Monica hagiography….And now of course the new idol in 2009-“Michelle Obama: The First Lady the World’s Been Waiting For,” trumpeted Vogue’s March 2009 cover.And now Anna Wintour is gushing “I can’t wait to put President Hillary Clinton on the cover.’ ….rsk
From Pink Sneakers to Stilettos
“Wendy Davis in a Carolina Herrera dress and Reed Krakoff pumps” is the description under the Vogue glamour shot of the Texas state senator posing in the state capitol.
“Texas state senator Wendy Davis’s filibuster against an antiabortion bill turned her into an overnight sensation. Now can she battle her way to the governor’s mansion?”
An “antiabortion bill,” of course, that if honestly discussed, is more of a uniter than a divider, as most Americans see the wisdom and justice in trying to protect innocent life, while wanting to make sure that mothers are safe and supported. An “antiabortion bill” that sought to raise clinic standards for the health of Texas women and protect unborn children at 20 weeks and older capable of feeling pain. Presumably in the three-hour interview, the Vogue reporter never asked her about Kermit Gosnell, or Davis might have googled what that story was about before her National Press Club appearance where John McCormack asked her about it.
http://www.nationalreview.com/node/355909/print At his August 9 news conference, Obama spoke with journalists in the White House East Room about Republicans and Obamacare. “At least they used to say, ‘Well, we’re going to replace it with something better,’” Obama said. “There’s not even a pretense now that they’re going to replace it with something better.” Unless Republicans […]
http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2625/In-Defense-of-My-Livelihood.aspx
What did I do on my summer vacation?
I stayed home. The family went to the country this week but not me. I stayed behind to deal with a white-hot controversy.
About what? Me.
Thus, I am now engaged in the painstaking job of rebutting an explosion of falsehoods and distortions about me and my new book, American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character. These attacks began appearing on the Internet last week at several neoconservative websites: first and mainly Frontpage Magazine (FPM), Pajamas Media and American Thinker.
Close to 10 pieces have appeared (more promised), all of them emanations of a 7,900-word book review at FPM that reviewer Ronald Radosh described as a “take-down” in one of his own three follow-up pieces. Two writers who followed suit admitted in print that they hadn’t read the book.
It is important to note that this lengthy “take-down” comes after an earlier, positive review of “American Betrayal” appeared at FPM. Controversial books spark different reactions, of course, but instead of leaving the original, positive review posted and commissioning a new review from a different perspective, FPM editor David Horowitz – noted free-speech advocate – pulled the positive review off the website.
http://www.nationalreview.com/node/355959/print
After repeatedly, and correctly, proclaiming that phone and e-mail surveillance by the NSA is both necessary and constitutional, the president has succumbed to left and libertarian pressure: He has proposed installation in NSA of “a full-time civil-liberties and privacy officer” and other mechanisms in “the transparency community.” A “transparency community” within an “intelligence community” is an unworkable oxymoron. Any “civil-liberties and privacy” officer installed in NSA would, to show that he is performing, have to impede intelligence activities — a burden we do not need in our already difficult war on terrorism.
Our Constitution’s authors and proponents warned against bowing to the sort of demagoguery that lies behind attacks on the NSA program as an unconstitutional invasion of our rights. The Federalist Papers — the bible of the Constitution’s meaning — warn at the outset (No. 1) of those who invoke supposed rights of the people to oppose the government’s efforts to defeat an enemy seeking to destroy us: “A dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people, than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government.”
Continuing, “Publius” (probably Alexander Hamilton) explains why: “History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing Demagogues and ending Tyrants.”
This warning is repeated: The Government’s “powers” for “the common defense . . . ought to exist without limitation: because it is impossible to foresee or define the extent and variety of national exigencies, or the correspondent extent and variety of the means which may be necessary to satisfy them” (No. 23). Again, our Founding Fathers opposed “every project that is calculated to disarm the government of a single weapon, which in any possible contingency might be usefully employed for the general defense and security” (No. 36).
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/leaker-bradley-manning-nominated-for-nobel-prize-by-american-group?f=puball WELL ARAFAT WON A NOBEL PEACE PRIZE…..AND SO DID THE UN AND VARIOUS OF ITS SUB ORGANIZATIONS…..RSK An international petition with well over 100,000 signatories urging the Norwegian Nobel Committee (NNC) to bestow the coveted Nobel Peace Prize to Pfc. Bradley Manning — recently convicted of several charges related to his stealing classified documents […]
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/its-not-your-fathers-republican-party-anymore I went out into the rain on Tuesday to vote in the special primary election for the candidates who will oppose one another in November to be New Jersey’s next U.S. Senator. The election was occasioned by the death of Sen. Frank Lautenberg, surely one of the most liberal senators to have ever represented […]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323639704579014880441301124.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion
The New York Times gave us an amusing juxtaposition earlier this week. Editorialist David Firestone sang the praises of Hillary Clinton’s deceptive and pandering speech in which she denounced measures against voter fraud, and he called on Mrs. Clinton to mount another favorite Times hobbyhorse:
Campaign finance issues deserve a speech just as impassioned as the one on voting rights, and it will be interesting to see if Ms. Clinton devotes more time to the subject than President Obama has.
Building a campaign around these kinds of issues particularly non-partisan redistricting and easy registration–has always been seen as too narrow and too wonky for a major candidate. But Ms. Clinton’s political future, not to mention the health of her party and her country, depend on someone taking them on and not letting go. And should Ms. Clinton succeed Mr. Obama, she will encounter precisely the same kind of blanket opposition in the House unless she starts trying to change it now.
Firestone is confusing his categories here: Redistricting and voter registration are not “campaign finance issues,” and while the federal government has broad authority to regulate registration, redistricting is almost entirely a state prerogative. The Voting Rights Act does give the feds some involvement in redistricting, but it cuts in the opposite direction of “nonpartisan redistricting”: Washington presses states to create “majority minority” districts. Given current voting patterns, that leads to a concentration of Democratic voters, making surrounding districts easier for Republicans to carry.
But what intrigues us is the way in which laws restricting political speech–in the areas of both campaign finance and taxation–are vital to, as Firestone puts it, “Ms. Clinton’s political future.”
We noted Tuesday that Mrs. Clinton is using her sinecure at the Clinton Foundation–a charity that is fully tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the tax code–as a “formal apparatus” to prepare for a prospective campaign for president in 2016. Yesterday’s Times features a lengthy investigative report on the foundation:
Soon after the 10th anniversary of the foundation bearing his name, Bill Clinton met with a small group of aides and two lawyers from Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. Two weeks of interviews with Clinton Foundation executives and former employees had led the lawyers to some unsettling conclusions.
The review echoed criticism of Mr. Clinton’s early years in the White House: For all of its successes, the Clinton Foundation had become a sprawling concern, supervised by a rotating board of old Clinton hands, vulnerable to distraction and threatened by conflicts of interest. It ran multimillion-dollar deficits for several years, despite vast amounts of money flowing in. . . .
Worried that the foundation’s operating revenues depend too heavily on Mr. Clinton’s nonstop fund-raising, the three Clintons are embarking on a drive to raise an endowment of as much as $250 million, with events already scheduled in the Hamptons and London. . . .
And efforts to insulate the foundation from potential conflicts have highlighted just how difficult it can be to disentangle the Clintons’ charity work from Mr. Clinton’s moneymaking ventures and Mrs. Clinton’s political future, according to interviews with more than two dozen former and current foundation employees, donors and advisers to the family. Nearly all of them declined to speak for attribution, citing their unwillingness to alienate the Clinton family.
Difficult it no doubt is. It would be insurmountable if the Clintons (Bill in particular) lacked the star power that makes raising a $250 million endowment a feasible goal. That kind of money will enable the Clintons to buy the legal expertise to make sure everything they do complies with the letter of the law–no matter how shady it may seem to use a 501(c)(3) charity as a political vehicle.
