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Trump is Right on Taiwan

December 4, 2016

Trump is Right on Taiwan, Commentary Magazine, , December 4, 2016

taiwan-callTaiwan Presidential Office via AP

Simply on its face, Trump is right to talk to Taiwan’s president. Unlike her Chinese counterpart, she is a democratically elected leader. Taiwan is the 11th largest Asian economy in terms of gross domestic product (purchasing power parity), with an economy larger than that of Singapore, Pakistan, Malaysia, or Israel. It’s also the United States’ 10th largest trading partner.

Nor should China’s propaganda about Taiwan being simply a renegade province true. Taiwan was only under mainland Chinese control during the Qing Dynasty, and Chinese control was tenuous even then. Control of Taiwan passed among colonial powers, each leaving a distinct stamp on the character of Taiwan, which is as different from mainland China as Argentina is from Colombia.

Trump may have reversed the policy of his immediate successors with regard to contacts, but the simple fact is that, even after the U.S. switched its recognition of China to Beijing from Taipei, U.S.-Taiwanese official exchanges still occurred at a high level–although admitted less so in recent decades.

The reason why critics consider Trump’s phone call as diplomatically counterproductive is because it will anger China. But has kowtowing to China’s diplomatic sensitivities or even broader cooperation with China enhanced America’s security? In Dancing With the Devil, my history of a half-century of U.S. diplomacy with rogue regimes and terrorist groups, I trace how successive U.S. administrations sought to use Beijing as an intermediary in diplomacy with North Korea. In order to keep China cooperative, both Democratic and Republican administration offered waivers on sensitive technology. Rather than pressure Pyongyang to roll back its nuclear developments and aggression, Chinese officials simply pocketed the concessions and did nothing. After a quarter century, the U.S. State Department has nothing to show for Chinese mediation with North Korea.

More recently, Chinese hackers stole designs for both America’s new F-35 and F-22 stealth aircraft. This saved Beijing billions of dollars and years of basic design work, all the while amplifying China’s ability to check the ability of the United States to project power or, conversely, for China to project power themselves. The Chinese hacking of tens of millions of U.S. personnel records is simply icing on the cake.

If China wants to the United States to defer to its world view, it should show that such deference benefits the United States as well as China. Regardless, it should not be the policy of the United States to endorse or empower Chinese land grabs of territories that have distinct identities and do not desire to be under Beijing’s control.

Rather than condemn Trump on Taiwan, it would be far better to encourage the incoming administration to show as much moral clarity on issues relating to the Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and the Baltics as they face a growing Russian menace.

Categories: China, President Elect Trump, Taiwan
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UK: Another Massive Charity Commission Whitewash

December 4, 2016

UK: Another Massive Charity Commission Whitewash, Gatestone Institute, Samuel Westrop, December 4, 2016

In its report, the Charity Commission makes note of the iERA’s promotion of hate preachers, but treats the charity as a victim of such extremism, rather than an instigator.

According to the Commission, bureaucracy is the solution — the iERA’s extremism will be solved by more “adequate procedures… to prevent abuse of the charity, its status, facilities or assets.”

Those more familiar with the iERA will know that asking this Salafist charity to produce and follow its own counter-extremism plan is akin to demanding that the Ku Klux Klan introduce affirmative action hiring processes.

Extremist charities are not private institutions: charitable status affords extraordinary legal and financial benefits, including the opportunity for radical Islamist organisations to claim government subsidies. But no government should allow extremist networks to exploit charitable status. Shut these charities down, and ban those Islamist activists from ever again becoming trustees of a charitable organisation.

On November 4, the British charity regulator, the Charity Commission, published a report of its inquiry into the Islamic Education and Research Academy (iERA), a British Salafist group and religious training organisation. The inquiry was initially welcomed by moderate Muslim groups and counter-extremism analysts, but many will be disappointed with the Charity Commission’s recommendations.

More than a dozen pieces have been written for the Gatestone Institute examining the iERA’s links to extremism, as well as the failure of government, media and even Jewish organisations to tackle this fast-growing Salafist group. In 2014, one of these articles exclusively revealed that the “Portsmouth Five,” a notorious group of ISIS recruits from southern England, were all members of an iERA youth group.

In 2014, the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain published their own comprehensive report, which looked even more closely at the officials, preachers and extremist links of the iERA. In the wake of significant media coverage, the Charity Commission launched their investigation. The “inquiry’s scope,” the Charity Commission claims, was to look at the iERA’s extremist links, as well as its “financial management.”

There was no shortage of evidence. The head of the iERA, Abdur Raheem Green, is a former jihadist who warns Muslims of a Jewish “stench,” encourages the death penalty as a “suitable and effective” punishment for homosexuality and adultery, and has ruled that wife-beating “is allowed.”

1074The head of the Islamic Education and Research Academy (iERA), Abdur Raheem Green, is a former jihadist who warns Muslims of a Jewish “stench,” encourages the death penalty as a “suitable and effective” punishment for homosexuality and adultery, and has ruled that wife-beating “is allowed.” (Image source: BBC video screenshot)

Other iERA officials have included Zakir Naik, an Islamic preacher whose NGO has just been raided and designated “unlawful” by Indian law enforcement; and Abdullah Hakim Quick, who has called upon God to “clean and purify al-Aqsa from the filth of the Yahood [Jews]” and “clean all of the lands from the filth of the Kuffar [non-believers].”

In its report, the Charity Commission makes note of the iERA’s promotion of hate preachers, but — as it has done in the past — treats the charity as a victim of such extremism, rather than an instigator. According to the Commission, bureaucracy is the solution: the iERA’s extremism will be solved by more “adequate procedures… to prevent abuse of the charity, its status, facilities or assets.” External speakers, the Charity Commission advises, should “sign the charity’s Anti-Extremism, Data Protection and Equal Opportunities disclaimers.” The iERA, concludes the Charity Commission, should produce “risk assessments” for all events and put in place an effective “counter-extremism policy.”

Those more familiar with the iERA will know that asking this Salafist charity to produce and follow its own counter-extremism plan is akin to demanding that the Ku Klux Klan introduce affirmative action hiring processes. But such demands make sense to civil servants in London, who adhere to the government line that because British Islam is inherently good, any real examples of extremism can only be the work of corrupting outside influences.

Counter-extremism analysts have seen such blindness from the Charity Commission before. In 2013, the Charity Commission reported on the offices of an unnamed charity:

“We visited the charity’s premises and saw images of the leader of the group that is a proscribed terrorist organisation were displayed on the walls of the charity’s offices. We also identified that the charity had organised marches at which supporters of the proscribed organisation were present.”

Was this charity, evidently dedicated to the support of a banned terrorist organisation, shut down? No. Instead, the Charity Commission decided to “instruct the trustees to develop and implement robust controls to manage the charity’s activities and the use of its premises.”

Also in 2013, the Charity Commission opened an investigation into International Islamic Link, a taxpayer-funded Shi’ite charity that previously described itself as “the office of … Ayatullah Nasir Makarem Shirazi.” Aytollah Shirazi is one of the Iranian’s regime most hardline clerics. He is known for issuing a fatwa for the murder of Iranian pro-democracy activist Roozbeh Farahanipour. He is also known for his unwavering commitment to Holocaust denial and his support for killing adulterers and homosexuals.

Once the Charity Commission opened an investigation into International Islamic Link, the organisation told the Charity Commission that they had no link with this Iranian cleric. Nevertheless, the Charity Commission, despite clear evidence to the contrary, declared that they were “satisfied” with the charity’s response.

The Charity Commission treats the claims made by trustees of extremist charities as irrevocable truth, and responds to evidence of extremism merely by urging more stringent bureaucratic oversight.

In 2014, Gatestone Institute published information about the Islamic Network. This extremist group’s website advocated the murder of apostates, encouraged Muslims to hate non-Muslims and claimed “The Jews scheme and crave after possessing the Muslim lands, as well as the lands of others.” After investigating the charity, the Charity Commission decided to give the Islamic Network booklets titled, “How to manage risks in your charity.”

The recent Charity Commission whitewash into the iERA is just one more example of a weak, ineffective charity regulator. Extremist charities are not private institutions: charitable status affords extraordinary legal and financial benefits, including the opportunity for radical Islamist organisations to claim government subsidies through a “tax-back” scheme named Gift Aid. Although the iERA’s accounts do not mention the amount if receives from the Gift Aid program, the group encourages donors to “consent yes to gift aid.”

If a private organisation wishes to promote non-violent, bigoted Islamist ideology, then a free society should allow them to do so. But no government should allow extremist networks to exploit charitable status. Shut these charities down, and ban those Islamist activists from ever again becoming trustees of a charitable organisation.

Categories: Britain and Islamists, Islam and human rights, Islamic invasion, Islamic perversions, Islamisation, Islamist charities, Islamist moral values, Islamists in Britain
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UK bans three bishops from Iraq and Syria from entering the country

December 4, 2016

UK bans three bishops from Iraq and Syria from entering the country, Jihad Watch, , December 4, 2016

“There is a serious systemic problem when Islamist leaders who advocate persecution of Christians are given the green light telling them that their applications for UK visas will be looked on favourably, while visas for short pastoral visits to the UK are denied to Christian leaders whose churches are facing genocide.

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The UK Home Office banned me from entering the country for saying: “[Islam] is a religion and is a belief system that mandates warfare against unbelievers for the purpose for establishing a societal model that is absolutely incompatible with Western society” — which is a demonstrably true statement. The UK Home Office recently admitted Shaykh Hamza Sodagar into the country, despite the fact that he has said: “If there’s homosexual men, the punishment is one of five things. One – the easiest one maybe – chop their head off, that’s the easiest. Second – burn them to death. Third – throw ’em off a cliff. Fourth – tear down a wall on them so they die under that. Fifth – a combination of the above.” The Home Office also recently admitted two jihad preachers who had praised the murderer of a foe of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. One of them was welcomed by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

But these three bishops from areas where Muslims are persecuting Christians cannot enter. Probably Home Office officials were afraid of offending their own Muslim population by doing so.

Britain is not finished?

bishops

“Britain BANS heroic bishops: Persecuted Christian leaders from war zones refused entry,” by Caroline Wheeler, Express, December 4, 2016:

THREE archbishops from war-torn Iraq and Syria have been refused permission to enter the UK despite being invited to London to meet Prince Charles.

The Christians, including the Archbishop of Mosul, were told there was “no room at the inn” by the Home Office when they applied for visas to attend the consecration of the UK’s first Syriac Orthodox Cathedral.

Last night the decision was described as “unbelievable” by critics who pointed out that extreme Islamic leaders had been allowed visas.

The Prince of Wales addressed the congregation at St Thomas Cathedral in London last week, while both the Queen and the Prime Minister sent personal messages of congratulations.

Prince Charles, who has previously described the persecution of the Christians in the Middle East as a “tragedy”, used his address to highlight the suffering of Syrian Christians.

But the welcome did not extend to Nicodemus Daoud Sharaf, the Archbishop of Mosul, nor to Timothius Mousa Shamani, the Archbishop of St Matthew’s, which covers the Nineveh valley in northern Iraq, who were refused UK visas to attend the event on November 24.

The UK also refused to grant a visa to Archbishop Selwanos Boutros Alnemeh, the Archbishop of Homs and Hama in Syria.

In his case the British embassy told him that it would not waiver from its policy of not granting visas to anyone in Syria.

The men were also told they were denied entry because they did not have enough money to support themselves and they might not leave the UK.

Last night the leader of the UK’s Syriac Orthodox Christians Archbishop Athanasius Toma Dawod condemned the decision.

He said: “These are men who have pressing pastoral responsibilities as Christian areas held by IS are liberated.

“That is why we cannot understand why Britain is treating Christians in this way?”

Dr Martin Parsons, head of research at the Barnabas Fund, an aid agency which has helped more than 8,000 Christians escape persecution at the hands of IS, said: “It’s unbelievable that these persecuted Christians who come from the cradle of Christianity are being told there is no room at the inn, when the UK is offering a welcome to Islamists who persecute Christians.”

The Home Office recently issued guidance stating that there should be a presumption that senior members of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood should be granted asylum in the UK – despite the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood has repeatedly incited violence against Egyptian Christians.

Dr Parsons also claims that visas were granted in July to two Pakistani Islamic leaders who have called for the killing of Christians accused of blasphemy.

He said: “There is a serious systemic problem when Islamist leaders who advocate persecution of Christians are given the green light telling them that their applications for UK visas will be looked on favourably, while visas for short pastoral visits to the UK are denied to Christian leaders whose churches are facing genocide.

“That is an urgent issue that Home Office ministers need to grasp and correct.”…

Categories: Britain and Christians, Britain and Islamists, Islam and Christianity, Islamic refugees, Islamisation
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California Dreaming?

December 4, 2016

California Dreaming?, Power Line, Steven Hayward, December 4, 2016

(Can the rest of us take up a collection to speed California on its way? — DM)

It’s hard to single out the most delicious example of the post-Trump liberal freak out, but the din about California secession has to rank high on the list. Among other obvious things, California provided Hillary Clinton with her entire margin of victory in the popular vote—without California, Trump wins the popular vote in the other 49 states handily. (Without California and the five boroughs of Manhattan, Trump’s popular vote victory starts to approach a landslide.)

ca-sucession

California certainly is out of step with the rest of the nation (especially the fact that, with about 13 percent of the nation’s population, it has over 20 percent of the nation’s total welfare caseload. Progressive government that works!) Last week in Washington I ran into California’s GOP party chairman, Jim Brulte, who is trying to rebuild the GOP from the ground up, working to elect Republicans to local offices around the state with some success. But he admitted that California must now be regarded as a center-left state (at best). I asked Jim if he thought Proposition 13 would still pass today? He admitted, “I’m not sure.”

There’s talk of a ballot initiative to propel the idea of California’s secession. I’m all for it. If California left the union, Republicans would essentially run the nation forever. Like South Carolina, et al. in 1860, California can’t secede of it own will; it will require the consent of the other 49 states, either through Constitutional amendment or an act of Congress (I’m not at all clear on this question, but haven’t had time to study the matter closely).

Quite aside from the constitutional question, I wonder whether the secessionist hotheads have pondered a few basic questions:

  • The other 49 states will not consent to California seceding unless California assumes its proportionate share of the national debt. Are Californians up for assuming roughly $2.5 trillion in sovereign debt? And just how would that debt be transferred? Will the foreign holders of U.S. sovereign debt accept a swap for California’s obligation? Which leads to the next question.
  • Will California have its own currency and central bank? Or will it use the dollar? Or peg the California Peso to the dollar somehow? (By the way, if you’ve ever driven into California, you know that it has border inspection stations for agriculture in place, so the infrastructure for trade and border control is already in place! (/sarc alert)
  • Will California maintain its own army, navy and air force? If so, I imagine the other 49 states will want California to pay for the federal military bases and equipment that it wants to keep for itself—add another $1 trillion to the secession tab. They could skip this expense by having a mutual defense treaty with the U.S. Or perhaps they’ll enter into a mutual defense treaty with Mexico. (More /sarc alert.)

But hey, California, we’re constantly told, is the sixth largest economy in the world. Should be easy, no? On second thought, I’ll bet some California liberals will reconsider, and come up with a slogan like, “Stronger Together.” Oh, wait. . .

Categories: 2016 elections, California, President Elect Trump, President Reject Clinton, Secession, Trump Derangement Syndrome
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6 of 7 Nations With Worst Record of Christian Persecution Are Muslim

December 4, 2016

6 of 7 Nations With Worst Record of Christian Persecution Are Muslim, Creeping Sharia, December 4, 2016

im-christian-and-i-love-the-quran

The seven nations where persecution was branded so extreme that “it could scarcely get any worse” include: Afghanistan, Iraq (northern), Nigeria, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Syria.

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Source: Top 7 Nations With Worst Record of Christian Persecution: Report

Persecution watchdog group Aid to the Church in Need released its 2016 “Religious Freedom in the World” report on Thursday, highlighting the growing cases of intolerance around the world, particularly between the time period of June 2014 and June 2016 — coinciding with the rise of the Islamic State terror group.

The report included case by case studies of a number of different countries around the world, and the religious discrimination people of faith face. Some of the most extreme forms of oppression were experienced by people in Iraq and Syria, including Christians and Yazidis, who have been targeted in an ongoing genocide campaign by IS.

One Yazidi boy trained for jihad in Syria shared the chilling words his radical instructors told to him: “You have to kill kuffars [unbelievers] even if they are your fathers and brothers, because they belong to the wrong religion and they don’t worship God.”

The report revealed that 196 countries were examined, with 38 showing “unmistakable evidence” of significant religious freedom violations. Twenty-three of those countries were placed in the top level “Persecution” category, while 15 others in the “Discrimination” group.

Religious freedom conditions “clearly worsened” in 14 countries, the report added, and only three — Bhutan, Egypt and Qatar — showed signs of improvement since the last study in 2014.

The seven nations where persecution was branded so extreme that “it could scarcely get any worse” include: Afghanistan, Iraq (northern), Nigeria, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Syria.

“A virulent and extremist form of Islam emerged as the number one threat to religious freedom and was revealed as the primary cause of persecution in many of the worst cases,” the report noted.

It added that “religious hyper-extremism,” such as the actions of IS in their quest to build a caliphate and kill off minorities, has been on the rise, characterized by mass killings, ‘horrific’ forms of executions, rape, and extreme torture such as burning people alive, crucifixions, or throwing victims off buildings.

The atrocities committed by Islamist radical groups in nations such as Syria, Iraq and Libya were called arguably some of the “greatest setbacks for religious freedom since the Second Wold War,” with victims being subjugated to a system which “insults almost every tenet of human rights.”

Other watchdog groups, such as Open Doors USA, have called on the global Church to resist being too self-centered, and instead reach out to help its brothers and sisters in need.

Open Doors President David Curry told The Christian Post in October that the factors that led to 2015 being the worst year for Christian persecution have stayed in place for 2016 as well.

“You still have rouge nations like Eritrea, North Korea, Sudan and others, who are not concerned about international justice laws, and are persecuting Christians within their government,” Curry told CP at the time, ahead of the International Day of Prayer.

“I’m not encouraged yet by the response of the global Church, but I’m hopeful that they are going to wake up and see what is happening,” he added.

Categories: Christians and Islamism, Islam and Christianity, Islamic nations, North Korea, Religious Persecution
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Prime Minister Trudeau’s affection for despots, autocrats and Islamists

December 4, 2016

Prime Minister Trudeau’s affection for despots, autocrats and Islamists, CIJ News, Diane Weber Bederman, December 4, 2016

justin-trudeau-7-cijnewsJustin Trudeau. Photo: CIJnews

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau displayed his affection for fascism on the death of Fidel Castro. “We join the people of Cuba today in mourning the loss of this remarkable leader.” He seems to be following in the footsteps of his father Pierre. Members of Parliament, media outlets in Canada, and around the world expressed their shock at his comments.

Trudeau has also shared his affection for Chinese Communists. “Justin’s 2013 tribute to the role of big government in forcing people into living more environmentally might explain his flirtation with dictators and despots. ‘There is a level of admiration I actually have for China because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime…”’

Trudeau is in the process of cozying up to the Iranians. Iran; a country run by an autocratic, theocratic despot. Trudeau has opened the doors to warmer relations with Russia.

According to Canadian journalist Terence Corcoran “The Trudeaus have been at this for six decades, flirting with the murderous icons of communist oppression since the 1950s when Trudeau the First expressed his admiration for elements of Stalin’s Soviet Communism.

In the 1960s, a 41-year-old Pierre Trudeau visited Communist China during the great famine and co-wrote a book hailing Maoism and denying the existence of a national food policy that killed 38 million people. He never retracted his China views. But, in the 1970s, he cozied up to Fidel Castro, who until his death Friday has held the Caribbean island in a form of political slavery.”

Paul Wells from the Toronto Star did not parse his words of condemnation. “Trudeau lauded Castro’s ‘tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people,’ whose speech and dietary protein Castro rationed, by law, for decades. I guess it was tough love.”

Margaret Wente from the Globe and Mail wrote “Mr. Trudeau’s affection for the old dictator puts him in the company of Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad.” She found his comments oddly timed. “He was just winding up a far-flung trip whose theme was human rights, during which he lectured various African nations on the need to improve their treatment of women and sexual minorities. Unfortunately, Mr. Castro wasn’t all that progressive either. “

The Globe Editorial Board wrote their concerns about Justin Trudeau; that his comments leave the disturbing impression that he actually believes what he said about Castro including “I know my father was very proud to call him a friend and I had the opportunity to meet Fidel when my father passed away. It was also a real honour to meet his three sons and his brother President Raúl Castro during my recent visit to Cuba.”

Gerald Caplan wrote “Scarcity became the overriding characteristic of Fidelismo, scarcity in both the quantity and quality of the life he provided. Dissent was not tolerated, political dissidents imprisoned, human rights a foreign intrusion, free speech counterrevolutionary, trade unions government servants, gays an insult to the revolution.”

Kelly McParland of the National Post wrote: “Given a choice between saying something nice about his Dad’s Cuban pal, and defending the values of democracy and human rights, Justin Trudeau picked the wrong one.”

He went with “el Comandante” – the captain, the commander – one of the appellations accorded Cuba’s Fidel Castro during the 50+ years in which treated his country like a personal political project, impoverishing millions while pursuing a self-defeating confrontation with Washington.”

Mark Bonokoski, Toronto Sun wrote “Blind to Cuban history, and blinkered by his fathers’ fairy tales about Fidel Castro, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s statement about the death of the Cuban dictator was an embarrassment of international proportions. He ignored the brutal truth about the man, dancing around like a clown in a parade dodging horse droppings.”

Members of parliament shared their outrage; from Lisa Raitt, to Rona Ambrose, Maxime Bernier, Kellie Leitch, to Stephen Harper’s son. And then there was world-wide condemnation of Trudeau’s affection for this despot.

So I ask all of these people, journalists, columnists, and Canadian Members of Parliament, where is your outrage at Trudeau’s attempts to mimic these despots? First, by allowing him to pass a petition that attacks free speech without a word from any of you.

The Parliament passed petition 411 that could attack free speech.

“We, the undersigned, Citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the House of Commons to join us in recognizing that extremist individuals do not represent the religion of Islam, and in condemning all forms of Islamophobia” (dislike of or prejudice against Islam or Muslims, especially as a political force).

In English this means that we will not be able to criticize Islam as a political force. This is denying us of our right to criticize an ideology that is diametrically opposed to the ideology of democracy.

This leads me to the next question. Where is your outrage with Trudeau’s statement that Islam is compatible with the west while the leading Muslim organization in Canada, ICNA, posted a publication on its official site saying this is not true?

“The political system of Islam is totally incompatible with western democracy.

“The concept of government party and the opposition is alien to Islam.

“All belong to one Ummah with only one goal and pursue the same aims and objects of Islamic guidelines!”[Online publication of ICNA Canada’s site]

ICNA (Islamic Circle of North America) Canada is an Islamic nation-wide organization striving “to build an Exemplary Canadian Muslim Community” by “total submission to Him [Allah] and through the propagation of true and universal message of Islam.” Dr. Iqbal Massod Al-Nadvi is the Amir (President) of Islamic Circle of ICNA Canada and is also serving as Chairperson of Canadian Council of Imams.

Whom should we believe? Non-Muslims or respected Muslim leaders?

Trudeau’s stance is a breach of our Constitution and free speech. Islam, based on Sharia Law as is being interpreted by major Islamic groups, is innately homophobic, misogynistic, xenophobic and viciously anti-semitic. Saudi Arabia just announced they aren’t ready for female drivers!

Islam, as being reflected in Islamic literature in Canada, does not treat all people as equal; does not believe in free will; does not accept gay rights or women as equal to men. Islam the ideology does not separate itself from Islam the religion so it is not tolerant of other religions (there are no synagogues or churches in many Muslim countries) and it makes demands on democracy to accommodate religious beliefs in the secular world.

Where is Main Stream media when it comes to “outing” Trudeau and his comments about Islam? Where are these people who are shocked by Trudeau’s comments about Castro and his love of autocrats, despots and theocrats? Why are they not holding him to account for his declaration that Islam is compatible with the West?

Categories: Canada, Castro, China, Communism, Despots, Iran, Islamic terrorism, Islamists in Canada, Islamophobia, Sharia law, Trudeau
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I’m Fighting the Left’s Culture War One Bagel at a Time

December 4, 2016

I’m Fighting the Left’s Culture War One Bagel at a Time, American Thinker, Clarice Feldman, December 4, 2016

Their movements are never about what they say they are. They are about gaining power for themselves and destroying any who stand in their way. Those who refuse to comply with their ever-changing and ever more ridiculously unreal versions of nature and humanity must be the objects of never-ending warfare.

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At first I dismissed the Democrats’ subsidized street riots and vandalism, moronic election recount demands, and perfervid attacks on Trump and his supporters in the press as a demonstration of their juvenile, narcissistic refusal to accept defeat. Then I read the brilliant essay by Angelo Codevilla

It’s a bit long and I know your Sundays are busy but if you can’t read it all at once, I’ll summarize what I think are the most significant points in the hope that if the topic is of interest you’ll read it all. He traces the notion of political correctness from the 1930 Communist movement through Antonio Gramsci’s “cultural hegemony” configuration to the modern Democratic Party and finds in them a familiar strain:

[A]ll progressives, Communists included, claim to be about creating new human realities, they are perpetually at war against nature’s laws and limits. But since reality does not yield, progressives end up pretending that they themselves embody those new realities. Hence, any progressive movement’s nominal goal eventually ends up being subordinated to the urgent, all-important question of the movement’s own power. Because that power is insecure as long as others are able to question the truth of what the progressives say about themselves and the world, progressive movements end up struggling not so much to create the promised new realities as to force people to speak and act as if these were real: as if what is correct politically — i.e., what thoughts serve the party’s interest — were correct factually.

Communist states furnish only the most prominent examples of such attempted groupthink. Progressive parties everywhere have sought to monopolize educational and cultural institutions in order to force those under their thumbs to sing their tunes or to shut up. But having brought about the opposite of the prosperity, health, wisdom, or happiness that their ideology advertised, they have been unable to force folks to ignore the gap between political correctness and reality.

He argues that this effort is bound to fail and progressives everywhere have had the same reaction “to this failure by becoming their own reason for being.” Their movements are never about what they say they are. They are about gaining power for themselves and destroying any who stand in their way. Those who refuse to comply with their ever-changing and ever more ridiculously unreal versions of nature and humanity must be the objects of never-ending warfare.

Unlike the Machiavellian Gramscian model of attaining power through cultural hegemony and coopting the institutions which might oppose them, the American left has chosen to go even further and pick “fights with the common sense of people it cannot wholly control.”  American schools of education taught a version of America in which this country “was born tainted by Western original sins — racism, sexism, greed and genocide against natives and the environment all wrapped in religious obscurantism and on the basis of hypocritical promises of freedom and equality.” These teachers created “a uniform class” which “now presides over nearly all federal and state, government bureaucracies, over the media, the educational establishment, and major corporations.”

Why does the American Left demand ever-new P.C. obeisances? In 2012 no one would have thought that defining marriage between one man and one woman, as enshrined in U.S. law, would brand those who do so as motivated by a culpable psychopathology called “homophobia,” subject to fines and near-outlaw status. Not until 2015-16 did it occur to anyone that requiring persons with male personal plumbing to use public bathrooms reserved for men was a sign of the same pathology. Why had not these become part of the P.C. demands previously? Why is there no canon of P.C. that, once filled, would require no further additions?

Because the point of P.C. is not and has never been merely about any of the items that it imposes, but about the imposition itself. Much less is it about creating a definable common culture or achieving some definable good. On the retail level, it is about the American’s ruling class’s felt need to squeeze the last drops of voter participation out of the Democratic Party’s habitual constituencies. On the wholesale level, it is a war on civilization waged to indulge identity politics.

Hurting dissenters has become, he argues, “an addictive pleasure” because they really have no priorities beyond aggrandizing their own power.

The end result of this insult to voters was the election of Trump and the rejection, almost entirely, of the Democratic Party.

As if to underscore that the flailing left hasn’t got the message and insists it has the right to silence those who hold different opinions we have three examples this week: Kellogg’s attack on Breitbart, BuzzFeed’s attack on the Gaineses and the boycott of Goldberg’s Bagels in Baltimore. They are all on a different scale of course, but all reflect the common leftist conceit that they are the fonts of all that is good and true and the rest of us must comply with whatever is this day’s fashions — from “global warming” to men in girls’ bathrooms, to ignoring Planned Parenthood’s sale of fetal body parts.

Kellogg’s

To most of us, Kellogg’s Cereal is breakfast fare (cereal, Pop-Tarts). What is less well-known is that its non-profit arm, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, funds and supports a dogs’ breakfast of unsavory leftwing operations — from Soros’ Open Society to the odious foundation money-laundering outfit, the Tides Center.

This week, it flounced its skirts and announced it was pulling its advertising from the highly effective Breitbart site: “We regularly work with our media-buying partners to ensure our ads do not appear on sites that are not aligned with our values as a company,” said Kris Charles, a spokeswoman for Kellogg’s. “We recently reviewed the list of sites where our ads can be placed and decided to discontinue advertising on Breitbart.com. We are working to remove our ads from that site.”

Breitbart regularly having challenged the orthodoxy of the mainstream media and the uniparty, every good leftist — and I count Kellogg’s management in that category — must do all it can to demonize it, despite the unrealistic and untrue charges against the site and Steve Bannon who was its former executive chair and now is chief strategist for president-elect Trump. (In the same manner, at a Harvard Symposium this week, the losing Clinton advisors attacked the Trump campaign for “racist dog whistles” to win the election. I suppose that’s easier than conceding they ran a dreadful campaign for a candidate who called those who opposed her “deplorables” and offered no policy reasons — only her sex and time [poorly] served in elective office. They ought to read Codevilla for a clue.)

Chip and Joanna Gaines

Democratic candidates pay election-year homage to religious beliefs (Clinton, for example, talked about her “Methodist beliefs” forming her views). They are coopting religious organizations, inter alia, Mussolini-style by means of lavishly funding the “faith-based” NGOs which are paid per head to place unskilled, unvetted Moslem refugees on the U.S. welfare rolls in exchange for which they lobby for more such immigration. At the same it is no secret that the ruling elites make every effort to undermine Judeo-Christian beliefs and attack believers.

This week’s designated target is HGTV’s “Fixer Upper couple Chip and Joanna Gaines”. In a particularly odious witch-hunting move, BuzzFeed posted that they attended a church whose pastor believes the Bible — that marriage is reserved for a man and a woman.

Why anyone, other than the author of this piece, cares was a mystery to even the Washington Post, but if so, it’s because the Post’s writers haven’t been paying attention to the earlier successful anti-religious PC campaigns forcing wedding cake bakers and florists to serve at gay weddings or nuns to provide contraceptive coverage for their employees.

Ace of Spades Headquarters could not resist a response:

HGTV has a remodeling show “Fixer Upper” featuring Chip & Joanna Gaines. I’ve seen it a few times. They appear to be nice couple and seem to do a good job. No religious overtones that I’ve seen.

One problem, the Gaines belong to a church where SSM is not accepted. The Gaines’ have kept their mouths shut but are under pressure to state their beliefs.

So Christians who stay true to their beliefs are fair game? Right? Well, if Christians are to be held accountable for their beliefs. What about Muslims?

So if the Gaines’ church and pastor can lead to their suspension and/or termination. (Stay tuned) What about a Muslim congressman?

Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) hasn’t come out publicly for the exclusion of SSM. But it appears that his Imam has.

“It’s not within our paradigm, really, to change the word of God,” said Imam Makram El-Amin, leader of Masjid Al-Nur in Minneapolis. “Our religion is clear about this matter. It’s not a lifestyle that we accept as being part of the natural way of things for human beings. When it comes to that, that’s my position, and that’s Islam’s position. And this incident as tragic and terrible as it is that does not change that,” he said.

Until Congressman Ellison comes forth and denounces his Imam, his mosque and anti-homosexuality Keith Ellison is not in a position to run the DNC. Hell, he shouldn’t even be a congressman. We won’t even get into his Anti-Semitism and his ties to the Nation of Islam.

If we can’t have a Christian couple star in a 30 minute cable show about home fixer uppers, certainly we can’t have an anti-homosexual bigot run the DNC.

But when it comes to the hypocrites left we know which religion is acceptable, don’t we?

Goldberg’s Bagels

Goldberg’s Bagels is a small kosher bakery in Baltimore,

When a customer attacked pro-Trump supporters outside his store, claiming Trump was a rapist and racist, the shop owner tried to quell the disturbance by asking the woman to leave. She further insulted Trump and then his supporters. This prompted Mr. Drebin, the shop owner, to express his own support for Trump, after which his Facebook page was filled with insults suggesting Drebin approved of “anti-Semitism, misogyny, xenophobia and alt-right leanings.” The entire PC shtick.

His business dropped by 15%.

Keep this stuff up and someday there won’t be a Democratic Party. In the meantime, I note that Goldberg’s Bagels has a website, and you can order by mail. They’re very delicious, (So is Chik-fil-A, by the way.)

Let the left play the P.C. card all they want, I will fight to trump them every time.

 

Categories: Leftists, President Elect Trump, President Reject Clinton, Progressives
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Trump Sec of Defense Pick: Enemy of Islamism and Iran

December 4, 2016

Trump Sec of Defense Pick: Enemy of Islamism and Iran, Clarion Project, Ryan Mauro, December 4, 2016

united-states-general-james-mattis-640-320-getty-drew-angerer_0General James Mattis with President-elect Trump (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

General Mattis completely and utterly rejects the romanticized interpretation of the Iranian regime as “moderate” or part of the solution to Sunni terrorism. In April, he described the Iranian regime as the “single most enduring threat to stability and peace in the Middle East;” one greater than Al-Qaeda or ISIS.

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President-Elect Trump has chosen Marine Corps General James “Mad Dog” Mattis for secretary of defense, eliciting widespread enthusiasm focusing on his status as the “most revered Marine in a generation” and factory of quotable quotes.

Deserving of more positive attention is his emphasis on confronting Political Islam and the Iranian regime.

General Mattis has advocated for significant changes in both the military fight against the specific Islamist terrorist groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda, as well as the fight against the Islamist ideology that births them. Although ISIS’ caliphate is on the decline, General Mattis doesn’t settle for an encouraging positive trend. He wants to win quickly and decisively, yet humanely with care for civilians.

In August, he said the strategy still is “unguided by a sustained policy or sound strategy [and is] replete with half measures.”

Mattis was one of the chief architects of the counter-insurgency campaign that turned Iraq around so rapidly that it even surprises many of its supporters.

In testimony to the Senate in 2015, he said, “The fundamental question I believe is, ‘Is political Islam in our best interest?’ If not, what is our policy to authoritatively support the countervailing forces?”

In another speech, General Mattis said that the fundamental flaw in our strategy has been a failure to define Political Islam as the enemy of U.S. interests. He made the correct observation that such a delineation between friend and foe would allow us to identify supportable Muslim allies.

“If we won’t even ask the question [if Political Islam is in U.S. interests], then how do we ever get to the point of recognizing which is our side in the fight? And if we don’t take our own side in this fight, we are leaving others adrift,” he said.

He then referenced his recent trip to Egypt and the widespread perception that the U.S. actually intends to empower the Muslim Brotherhood. The failure to base policy around a rejection of Political Islam inevitably leads to a tolerance or even an embrace of Islamists who surpass the low bar of condemning Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

The Muslims who oppose Islamists are, as Mattis put it, left adrift.

Countless articles have been written claiming that a policy based on fighting “radical Islam,” “Political Islam,” “Islamism” and similar terms will inflame the Muslim world. Islamists and allied institutions will undoubtedly cry foul, as they always have at every minor slight, but the delineation will separate the wheat from the chaff.

Overlooked allies amongst Muslims and non-Muslim minorities will surface as U.S. policy forces the Muslim world to take stances on Islamism and its adhering organizations. New allies will be born as the discussion of Islamism leads to rejections of it. If messaged correctly, the U.S. will end up with more Muslim allies of better quality.

This view of Islamism as the adversary, rather than just specific terrorist groups targeting the U.S. homeland, is why General Mattis rejects the notion of a “moderate” Iranian regime. He was fired by the Obama Administration for his tough questions about the ramifications of current U.S. policy towards Iran.

General Mattis completely and utterly rejects the romanticized interpretation of the Iranian regime as “moderate” or part of the solution to Sunni terrorism. In April, he described the Iranian regime as the “single most enduring threat to stability and peace in the Middle East;” one greater than Al-Qaeda or ISIS.

We recently pointed out that four of Trump’s picks want to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and wage a long overdue ideological offensive against Islamism, also known as Political Islam.

Trump then chose K.T. McFarland as deputy national security adviser and Katharine Gorka as part of his Department of Homeland security “landing team” to manage the transition between administrations. Both are strong advocates of an ideological war against Islamism and Gorka has advocated for the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act.

The U.S. war against Islamist extremism now enters a new, decisive phase, but let not our enthusiasm for this strategy blind us from the risks.

The successful implementation of the anti-Islamism strategy is not solely dependent upon Trump’s national security team. It’s dependent upon him.

If his decisions prevent demonstrable success, the ideological strategy will be considered a failed concept. Its advocates will have their credibility tarnished, perhaps unfairly, and the Western response to Islamism will be put on an indefinite hold as the ideology marches on.

Categories: Department of Defense, Iran, Islamism, Islamist organizations, Islamist terrorists, James Mattis, Political Islam, President Elect Trump, Secretary of Defense, Trump appointments
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China Files Complaint After Trump Call With Taiwan – Fox Report

December 4, 2016

China Files Complaint After Trump Call With Taiwan – Fox Report via YouTube, December 3, 2016

(Please see also, Trump speaks with “president” of Taiwan, harasses her sexually. — DM)

Categories: China, President Elect Trump, Taiwan
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Angela Merkel: False Prophet of Europe

December 4, 2016

Angela Merkel: False Prophet of Europe, Gatestone Institute, Vijeta Uniyal, December 4, 2016

With his initiative for tighter gun laws, to prevent weapons getting into “the wrong hands,” Justice Minister Maas does not mean to target the Islamists who pose an existential threat to Germany, but an obscure German group called the “Reichsbürger.”

As the German newspaper Bild describes the law proposed by Maas, “a 13-year-old child bride would have to testify against her husband, saying that her well-being as a child is under threat. If neither the child nor the Child Welfare Service lodges a complaint, for all practical purposes the marriage would be declared legitimate.” This law clearly does not take into account the possibility of private coercion against a child, let alone the blinding likelihood of outright threats.

Justice Minister Maas evidently cares more about “gender image” than he cares about truly oppressed women and vulnerable children. In a recently drafted new law by his ministry, Mass refused to ban child marriage.

With both France and Germany going to polls next year, there is the possibility of a democratic, peaceful “European Spring.”

 

In her first message to President-elect Donald Trump, German Chancellor Angela Merkel lectured him on gender, racial and religious equality. As the New York Times put it, Merkel “named a price” for Germany’s cooperation with the Trump-led administration, namely the “respect for human dignity and for minorities from a man who has mocked both.”

If this was anything more than political posturing, and Chancellor Merkel truly cared about “human dignity” or the rights of those most vulnerable, she might have started closer at home.

After a year-long investigation into the mass-sexual attacks in Cologne, where an estimated 2,000 migrant men — mostly from Arab and Muslim countries — molested at least 1200 women, almost all the men have managed to walk free.

Last week, the Interior Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Ralf Jäger, confirmed this outcome when he said that “most of the cases [of rape and sexual assault in Cologne] will remain unsolved.” Similar coordinated sexual assaults by migrants also took place in other German cities, including Hamburg, where over 500 such cases were reported. They are expected to remain “unsolved” too.

Merkel, who lectured Trump on gender, did not even bother to visit the women who were raped and assaulted in Cologne or other German cities — even though these women were victims of her own failed open-border policy.

As New Year’s Eve approaches again, Merkel’s “Multikulti” paradise looks more and more like a police state. According to leaked, confidential police reports published by Germany’s Expressnewspaper, Cologne will be turned into a fortified city to avoid a repeat of last year’s mass sexual assaults. Security forces will monitor the streets with helicopters, surveillance cameras, observation posts and mounted units. The city of Hamburg has also reportedly taken similar steps.

While the Merkel government arms the police, efforts are underway to tighten gun laws for the citizenry. As the German state-run broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported on November 28: “Justice Minister Heiko Maas called for tighter weapons laws to prevent guns from falling in to the wrong hands.” With this latest initiative, Minister Maas does not mean to target the Islamists who pose an existential threat to Germany and the rest of the Western World, but an obscure German group called the “Reichsbürger.”

The Justice Minister apparently shares Merkel’s skewed worldview. After the New Year’s Eve sexual assaults in Germany, Maas, to “cure” the country’s rape epidemic, proposed a ban on “sexist advertising.” In April, Deutsche Welle reported:

The aim of the proposal – which is reportedly in response to the sexual assaults in Cologne on New Year’s Eve – is to create a “modern gender image” in Germany… In future, posters or ads which “reduce women or men to sexual objects” could be banned. In the case of dispute, a court would have to decide.

Justice Minister Maas evidently cares more about “gender image” than he cares about truly oppressed women and vulnerable children. In a recently drafted new law by his ministry, Mass refused to ban child marriage. Official German statistics estimate the number of married children in Germany at 1,475, of whom 361 are under the age of 14 — a rising trend thanks to uncontrolled migration from Muslim countries.

As the German newspaper Bild describes the law proposed by Maas:

“a 13-year-old child bride would have to testify against her husband, saying that her well-being as a child is under threat. If neither the child nor the Child Welfare Service lodges a complaint, for all practical purposes the marriage would be declared legitimate.”

This law clearly does not take into account the possibility of private coercion against a child, let alone the blinding likelihood of outright threats.

In Merkel’s Germany, the rights of an able-bodied migrant man trump the rights of a sexually assaulted woman and subdued child.

Following the electoral victory of Donald Trump, liberals all over are pinning all their hopes on Merkel. The “orphaned” liberals, in essence actually authoritarian, are probably looking for a new leader behind whom to rally. Many in the mainstream in the West are already calling the German Chancellor the “Leader of the Free World.” Following Clinton’s loss, the U.S. online magazine Politico described Merkel in almost messianic terms as “Global Savior.”

As Merkel seeks re-election to a fourth term in the autumn of 2017, she is counting on extremely favourable media coverage and glowing celebrity endorsements to enable her to win again.

2094(Image source: Tobias Koch/Wikimedia Commons)

After Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid went south, President Barack Obama flew to Germany to endorse Merkel’s re-election bid. After Britain’s Brexit vote and Trump’s White House win, the liberal establishment and its rank and file in the mainstream media seem frantic to keep Merkel in power. Merkel’s defeat at the hands of a resurgent nationalist party such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD) would strike their “globalist project” right at the heart of Europe.

Next year’s German elections will be first and foremost a referendum on Merkel’s open-border policy. It was her suspension of border controls — or the Dublin Protocol — in September 2015 that opened the floodgates for Arab and Muslim mass-migration in the first place.

If Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) emerge as the largest party and she manages to head the next ruling coalition, it will be sold by the media and the elites as a vindication of her “Refugees Welcome” policy.

An upset defeat for Merkel, however, could spell doom not only for her policy of mass-migration but for the entire Brussels-based “European project” — a German “Brexit” (“Dexit”?).

With both France and Germany going to the polls next year, there is the possibility of a democratic, peaceful “European Spring.”

Categories: "Far right" parties, European spring, Gender image, Germany, Globalism, Gun control, Islam and females, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Merkel, Politics, President Elect Trump
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