Dear Hollywood: Shut Up and Act. Or Sing. Whatever, PJ Media, Michael Walsh, January 6, 2017
Don’t Bogart that joint, my friend (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Sick and tired of being lectured by Hollywood celebrities? In that case, this one’s for you:
If you can stand the smug sanctimony — but might appreciate the cluelessness — here’s what they’re mocking:
Didn’t we just have an election that settled this?
Biden declares ‘it is over’ as he declares Trump the winner, Washington Examiner,
Vice President Joe Biden on Friday shut down a Democratic challenge to the congressional certification.
“It is over,” he said when the third challenge was lodged by a House Democrat, to a rousing cheer from Republicans.
Biden later gaveled down similar protests from Reps. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, and Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz. Jackson Lee stood four times to protest, but each time was shut down by Biden.
Parliamentary rules prohibit “debate in a joint session,” Biden said at one point. “The objection cannot be entertained” without a senator’s signature, he added.
Democrats were expected to protest Donald Trump‘s election, but were not expected to be able to slow down the proceedings significantly because no senators joined House Democrats. Their protests were on grounds varying from complaints that members of the Electoral College in various states were illegitimate, to voting rights violations on Election Day to Russia’s interference in the election.
House members from Florida, Georgia and several other states rose to object but without the sign off from one of their home state senators, Biden rules the protests out of order.
Toward the end of the process, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., stood and asked if any senator would stand with House members, but none did.
But at the end, Biden announced the expected result: Trump got 304 electoral votes, and Hillary Clinton got 227. Just as Biden finished, three protesters interrupted the process and were escorted out of the gallery.
The final tally gave seven electoral votes two other candidates. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell got 3 votes, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, former Rep. Ron Paul, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and Native American activist Faith Spotted Eagle each got one vote.
As I have noted many times, hate crimes are political capital. When real ones don’t exist, they must be invented. This will only lead to more fabricated anti-Muslim hate crimes — and there have already been many. Hamas-linked CAIR and other Muslims have on many occasions not hesitated to stoop even to fabricating “hate crimes,” including attacks on mosques. A New Jersey Muslim was found guilty of murder that he tried to portray as an “Islamophobic” attack, and in 2014 in California, a Muslim was found guilty of killing his wife, after first blaming her murder on “Islamophobia.”
This kind of thing happens quite frequently. The New York Daily News reported that “a woman who told cops she was called a terrorist and slashed on her cheek in lower Manhattan on Thursday later admitted she made up the story, police said early Friday. The woman, who wore a headscarf, told authorities a blade-wielding wacko sliced open her face as she left a Manhattan cosmetology school, police sources said.”
We were told that a Muslim boy was attacked and beat up on his school bus in North Carolina — but a photo showed him without a scratch and no one on the bus corroborated his story. And recently in Britain, the murder of a popular imam was spread far and wide as another “Islamophobic hate crime” – until his killer also was found to be a Muslim. The Mirror reported that the imam “was targeted because he had made efforts to turn youngsters away from radical Islam.”
According to The Detroit News, a Muslim woman, Saida Chatti, was “charged with making a false police report after she allegedly fabricated a plot to blow up Dearborn Fordson High School to retaliate against the November terrorist attacks in Paris….Police say Chatti called Dearborn investigators Nov. 19, six days after Islamic extremists killed 130 people in Paris.”
And similarly in Britain, a Muslim woman was “fined for lying to police about being attacked for wearing a hijab. The 18-year-old student, known only as Miss Choudhury, said she was violently shoved from behind and punched in the face by a man in Birmingham city centre 10 days after the atrocities in the French capital on November 13.”
“Migrants to be IMMUNE from deportation if they witness ‘right-wing’ crime under proposals,” by Simon Osborne, Express, January 5, 2017:
MIGRANTS who suffer or witness “right-wing” hate crimes will be immune from deportation under proposals put forward by the federal German state of Brandenburg.
The state parliament became the first in Germany to offer migrant victims of crime extra rights last year following a rise in recorded attacks and the new measure is now being pushed by the Ministry of the Interior.
A statement from the ministry said: “In addition to consistently preventing and prosecuting criminal offences, special protection of the victims and special care are necessary if the victims are people of foreign origin.”
Supporters of the move argue new arrivals are uniquely vulnerable without support networks in Germany and deportation could make their lives harder.
The regional parliament also agreed “to ask the regional government to make sure that victims of right-wing violent crimes are offered the possibility of being issued with residence permits and tolerances”.
Migrants who commit a crime, or share responsibility for a violent incident when in Germany, will be exempt from the proposed new rule….
The IDF’s New Social Contract, Front Page Magazine, Caroline Glick, January 6, 2016
Azaria is the first victim of a General Staff that has decided to cease serving as the people’s army and serve instead as B’Tselem’s army. The call now spreading through the Knesset for Azaria to receive a presidential pardon, while certainly reasonable and desirable, will likely fail to bring about his freedom. For a pardon request to reach President Reuven Rivlin’s desk, it first needs to be stamped by Eisenkot.
A pardon for Azaria would go some way toward repairing the damage the General Staff has done to its relationship with the public. But from Eisenkot’s behavior this week, it is apparent that he feels no need and has no interest in repairing that damage.
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Sgt. Elor Azaria, who was convicted of manslaughter Wednesday for shooting a terrorist in Hebron last March, is a symptom of what may be the most dangerous threat to Israeli society today.
Azaria, a combat medic from the Kfir Brigade, arrived at the scene of an attack where two terrorists had just stabbed his comrades. One of the terrorists was killed, the other was wounded and lying on the ground, his knife less than a meter away from him.
A cameraman from the foreign-funded, Israeli- registered anti-Israel pressure group B’Tselem filmed Azaria removing his helmet and shooting the wounded terrorist. According to the military judges, the film was the centerpiece of the case against him.
The day of the incident, the General Staff reacted to the B’Tselem film with utter hysteria. Led by Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot and then-defense minister Moshe Ya’alon, Israel’s generals competed to see who could condemn Azaria most harshly.
For the public, though, the issue wasn’t so cut and dry. Certainly Azaria didn’t act like a model soldier. It was clear, for instance, that he acted without proper authority and that his action was not permitted under the rules of engagement then in effect in Hebron.
But unlike the IDF’s senior leadership, the public believed that the fact that it was B’Tselem that produced the film meant that it had to be viewed with a grain of salt.
The name “B’Tselem” was seared into the public’s consciousness as an organization hostile to Israel and dedicated to causing it harm with the publication of the UN’s Goldstone Commission Report in 2009. Among the Israeli-registered groups that provided materials to the biased UN commission charged with finding Israel guilty of war crimes during the course of Operation Cast Lead against Hamas in late 2008 and early 2009, B’Tselem made the greatest contribution.
The Goldstone Report cited B’Tselem as the source for its slanderous “findings” 56 times.
After the UN published the Goldstone Report, Michael Posner, the US assistant secretary of state for human rights, visited Israel and met with Jessica Montell, B’Tselem’s executive director at the time.
The US Embassy’s official report of their meeting was published by WikiLeaks.
During their meeting, Montell told Posner that her group’s goal in providing the Goldstone Commission with materials was to force the government to pay a heavy price for its decision to fight Hamas, by criminalizing Israel in the court of world opinion.
As B’Tselem saw it, Israel needed to come to the point where it would consider whether it could “afford another operation like this.”
Montell explained that from B’Tselem’s perspective the root of the problem with Israel is the Israeli public. The public is the source of Israel’s bad behavior, according to B’Tselem, because it “had zero tolerance for IDF killed.” As far as the public is concerned, she said, harm to Palestinian civilians is preferable to harm to IDF soldiers.
Since, in B’Tselem’s view, the public’s commitment to the lives of its soldiers meant that it would not constitute a “moral check on war,” and check the bellicosity of IDF commanders, it fell to B’Tselem to make the IDF brass and the government care more about world opinion than they care about what the public thinks.
The public’s condemnation of B’Tselem after its role in compiling the Goldstone Commission’s libelous accusations against the IDF was made public made no impression whatsoever on the group.
Following Operation Protective Edge in 2014, B’Tselem’s materials were cited 67 times by the report of the biased UN commission put together to slander Israel.
In 2007, B’Tselem launched its “Camera Program.”
The camera initiative involved providing video cameras to B’Tselem employees and volunteers in Judea and Samaria in order to document the actions of Israeli security forces and civilians in the areas.
In many cases, the videos B’Tselem produced distorted reality for the purpose of criminalizing both groups.
For instance, in 2011, B’Tselem gave a film to Ynet’s Elior Cohen that purported to show Israeli police brutally arresting a young Palestinian boy and preventing his mother from coming to the police station with him.
But as CAMERA showed at the time, B’Tselem’s portrayal of events was fanciful at best. In all likelihood, the event was staged by the B’Tselem photographer.
At the outset of the film the boy is unseen as he throws rocks at a police van. The boy is first seen as he runs toward the B’Tselem camerawoman. For her part, the camerawoman screams at the police and identifies herself as from B’Tselem.
The police are shown asking the boy’s mother repeatedly to join them in the car. As she stands poised to enter the vehicle, a Palestinian man is shown telling her in Arabic not to go.
In July 2016, B’Tselem released a film taken in Hebron during an attempted stabbing attack by a female Palestinian terrorist against Israel police at a security checkpoint outside the Cave of the Patriarchs.
The police reported that the terrorist tried to stab a policewoman who was checking her in an inspection room. Another policewoman shot and killed her.
B’Tselem claimed that its film proved that the female terrorist was shot for no reason. But the fact is that it does no such thing. As NGO Monitor noted, the B’Tselem film neither contradicts nor proves the police’s version of events.
Over the years, the public’s growing awareness of B’Tselem’s unwavering hostility went hand in hand with its growing distress over what was perceived as the IDF’s willingness to sacrifice the safety of troops to prevent it from receiving bad press.
For instance, in 2012, a film went viral on social media that showed a platoon of combat engineers fleeing from a mob of Palestinians attacking with rocks, Molotov cocktails and slingshots.
When questioned by reporters, the soldiers said that they had repeatedly asked their battalion commander for permission to use force to disperse the crowd and they were repeatedly denied permission.
Retreat was their only option.
In 2015, another film went viral showing a group of Palestinian women hitting and screaming at a soldier trying to arrest one of them for throwing rocks at his platoon. He did nothing as he absorbed the blows. And no harm came to the women who assaulted him.
Along with the films, came stories that soldiers on leave told their friends and family about the IDF’s rules of engagement. The tales were always the same. The rules of engagement are so restrictive that all initiative is placed in the hands of the enemy. Not only can terrorists attack at will. They can flee afterward and expect that no harm will come to them, because what is most important, the soldiers explain, is to ensure that IDF maintains its reputation as the most moral army in the world.
This was the context in which Azaria killed the wounded terrorist.
Although the headlines relate to Azaria, and his family members have become familiar faces on the news, the fact is the reason the Azaria affair was the biggest story of the year is that it really has very little to do with him.
There are three forces driving the story.
First of course, there is B’Tselem.
B’Tselem’s produced the film to advance its goal of obliging Israel’s national leadership, including the IDF brass, to care more about “world opinion” than about the opinion of Israeli citizens.
Second then, is the pubic that cares more about the lives of IDF soldiers than about what the world thinks of it.
Finally, there is the IDF General Staff that is being forced to pick which side it stands with.
Since Israel was established nearly 70 years ago, the relationship between the IDF and the public has been based on an often unstated social contract.
From the public’s side, Israel’s citizens agree to serve in the IDF and risk their lives in its service.
Moreover, they agree to allow their children to serve in the military and to be placed in harm’s way.
From the IDF’s side, the commanders agree to view the lives of their soldiers as sacrosanct, and certainly as more precious than the lives of the enemy and the enemies’ society.
The third side is the General Staff. In the years leading up to the Azaria affair the generals were already showing disturbing signs of forgetting their contract with the public.
The films of fleeing soldiers and the rules of engagement weren’t the only signs of our military leadership’s estrangement.
There were also the promotions given to radical lawyers to serve in key positions in the Military Advocate-General’s unit, and the red carpet treatment given to radical leftist groups like B’Tselem that were dedicated to criminalizing soldiers and commanders.
Since the shooting in Hebron, the General Staff’s treatment of the public has become even more disdainful.
Ya’alon and Eisenkot and his generals have repeatedly offended the public with comparisons of “IDF values” with alleged processes of barbarization, Nazification and ISIS-ization of the public by the likes of Azaria and his supporters.
If there was a specific moment where the military brass abandoned its compact with society once and for all, it came on Tuesday, the day before the military court convicted Azaria of manslaughter. In a speech that day, Eisenkot insisted that IDF soldiers are not “our children.” They are grownups and they are required to obey the orders they receive.
By making this statement the day before the verdict in a case that pitted society against the General Staff, which sided with B’Tselem, Eisenkot told us that the General Staff no longer feels itself obligated by a sacred compact with the people of Israel.
Azaria is the first victim of a General Staff that has decided to cease serving as the people’s army and serve instead as B’Tselem’s army. The call now spreading through the Knesset for Azaria to receive a presidential pardon, while certainly reasonable and desirable, will likely fail to bring about his freedom. For a pardon request to reach President Reuven Rivlin’s desk, it first needs to be stamped by Eisenkot.
A pardon for Azaria would go some way toward repairing the damage the General Staff has done to its relationship with the public. But from Eisenkot’s behavior this week, it is apparent that he feels no need and has no interest in repairing that damage.
As a result, it is likely that Azaria will spend years behind bars for killing the enemy.
Moreover, if nothing forces Eisenkot and his generals to their senses, Azaria will neither be the last nor the greatest victim of their betrayal of the public’s trust.
Seattle Jewish organization fighting Islamophobia with posters
By Eric Mandel,
Digital Content Producer | January 5, 2017 @ 5:11 pm
Source: Seattle Jewish organization fighting Islamophobia with posters
When it comes to mass discrimination, history has not been kind to people of Jewish faith. That’s why the local chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace has taken to solidarity with what it believes to be persecuted refugees and those of Muslim faith, even if it is as simple as a sign that says “Refugees are Welcome Here.”
“As Jewish folks in particular, because we are not right now being targeted by the state, we really want to stand in solidarity with those who are being targeted, including Muslims and all people of color,” said Wendy Elisheva Somerson, a founding member of Seattle’s chapter of the Jewish Voice for Peace.
Related: Don’t support this Seattle extremist group, says Jason Rantz
Artist Micah Bazant, from the national Jewish Voice for Peace branch in New York City, created the “Refugees are Welcome” art, which depicts a man with an infant huddled in his coat. These posters aren’t a response to Donald Trump – the rationale pre-dates him by more than a decade. The impetus actually came from the rise in Islamophobia that stemmed from 9/11, when a different kind of registry was created for Muslims immigrating from other countries, as well as the Syrian refugee crisis earlier this year. Elisheva Somerson said the organization started canvassing and handing out flyers to businesses, primarily in Capitol Hill, in January of 2015.
The JVP, which has been around for about 10 years and focuses on peace in the Middle East, justice, equality and dignity for Palestinians and Israelis and, broadly speaking, is an anti-racist organization. Trump’s rise up the Republican ranks to the White House and his controversial Cabinet picks have changed the dynamics of the organization of late. Among the group’s concerns are Trump’s many campaign ideas and promises, including his proposed registry for Muslims (which has since been relatively muted) and the appointment of Breitbart News CEO Steve Bannon as a White House advisor. Bannon is one of the primary faces of the alt-Right movement and has been labeled anti-Semitic, though KTTH’s Michael Medved has said a look at Bannon’s actual record indicates he’s not scary as it might seem.
The local chapter of the Jewish organization planned to restart canvassing with the posters in December, and posters and prints can also be ordered online. Somerson said she wasn’t sure how many posters total have been distributed but guessed there were “thousands” hanging around the city of Seattle.
Related: Gov. Jay Inslee keeps his word on accepting Syrian refugees
“We are asking local businesses to take a stand against racism and Islamophobia,” she said. “We welcome refugees in this country. We don’t agree with the things Donald Trump has said about banning Muslims from immigrating to this country or banning Syrian refugees.”
Somerson said this is not specifically about providing a “safe space” for refugees but is instead an awareness campaign — a broad declaration that they don’t want government officials racially profiling Muslims on airplanes and trains.
“It’s such a scary, hateful environment right now for folks wearing hijabs,” she added. “We’re really trying to stand up in solidarity with our Muslim neighbors and friends.”
JVP-Seattle and Jews Against Islamophobia also joined together on Dec. 21 outside Pacific Place to stand together against Islamophobia and racism as part of a Chanukah ritual — holding nine signs, which, together, made the shape of a Chanukah menorah. Each sign contained an injustice that said they wanted to recommit themselves to challenging. Among them:
• We refuse to be silent about anti-Muslim speech and violence.
• We condemn state surveillance of the Muslim community.
• We fight anti-Muslim profiling and racial profiling in all its forms.
• We call for an end to racist policing
• We honor indigenous rights and support the resistance led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to protect their land and water.
“It’s just a moment for Muslims and Jews to come together,” Elisheva Somerson said. “And I think Muslims are primarily being targeted right now but we don’t know what’s going to happen with rising anti-Semitism and the way that racism and anti-Semitism intersect. It’s just a moment for us to show solidarity based on part of our own history of anti-Semitism in this country and in this world and to stand in solidarity.”
The posters from Jewish Voice for Peace are not the only ones preaching inclusion and safety, especially in Capitol Hill where multiple marches and rallies have been held since Election Day, including a gathering of thousands for the “Seattle Women March Against Hate” on Dec. 3.
Gov. Jay Inslee has kept his word on accepting Syrian refugees while others refused, resettling far more refugees in 2016 from the war-torn country than ever before. Mayor Ed Murray has also said Seattle, which passed an ordinance in 2003 denoting it as a Sanctuary City, will keep accepting refugees even if that means losing out on some federal funding under the incoming Trump administration.
Washington state consistently falls within the top 10 refugee-receiving states in the country, according to the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS). A record 3,907 refugees were accepted into Washington in the federal fiscal year 2016 (Oct. 1, 2015 to Sept. 30, 2016), a 33 percent jump from 2015. Of the total number of refugee arrivals, the top five countries of origin included Ukraine (20 percent), Iraq (16 percent), Afghanistan (13 percent), Somalia (11 percent), and Burma and Iran (6 percent each). Only 165 (4 percent) were identified as Syrian refugees, who have been the focal point of the most scrutiny from officials around the US.
Elisheva Somerson says she believes the message of acceptance is getting across.
“It just seems like such a heightened political moment where awareness around Islamophobia and Xenophobia is really on the increase,” she said.
At Scratch Deli, the poster sits among a group of other posters on the community bulletin board that promote art classes and shows. Daniel O’Connell, one of the Deli owners, said he recalls it going up about a year ago and that he makes a conscious effort to maintaining its space during his monthly board-tidying. He views the poster as a “signaling mechanism” that communicates that is an Islamophobia-free space.
“I like to think that Scratch is a safe zone, period,” he said. “I would hope that in a situation in which I witnessed bigotry or someone came in and expressed that they were being harassed outside for any reason, I would have the courage to help in whatever way I could, including sheltering the harassed and removing the harasser from our establishment. That said, I recognize that Scratch is located in Capitol Hill, a hyper-socially liberal bubble within the already hyper-socially liberal bubble that is Seattle, so I don’t know that I’ll ever be faced with these situations.”
The Seattle Police Department embarked on a similar yet completely different mission with its “Safe Space” program in May of 2015, providing businesses and organizations with decals and information on how to report malicious harassment and hate crimes. There are directives and responsibilities associated with those posters, most notably to call 911. In April of 2016, the program expanded to all 98 Seattle Public Schools and has reached 1,600 locations including expanding to 46 law enforcement agencies around the country. The point of the signage was to reduce anti-LGBTQ crimes and bullying. Businesses and organizations are encouraged to post the signs at the entrances to their premise as a “symbol of safety for the victims of LGBTQ crime and a warning to those who commit those crimes.”
Officer Jim Ritter, the creator of SPD’s Safe Place Initiative, said there has been a “significant increase” in reported hate crimes or malicious harassment or bias elements since 2015, which he says indicates the program is working. More than anything, though, he says it has built collaboration within the community and has started conversations that weren’t happening previously.
“It’s creating conversations that haven’t been had before and I think that the residual impact has gone far beyond even the local impact of this in the victims of these crimes,” he said.
Somerson, meanwhile, said the JVP signs are not to be mistaken with policy and that signs in a window should not be confused with the creation of an actual safe space.
“I don’t think because someone puts a rainbow sticker in their store, that makes it a safe space for LGBT folks. I just don’t,” she said. “That was also a campaign put through the Seattle Police Department, which is notorious for not exactly treating people of color and queer folks well so I don’t believe that we can guarantee safe space anywhere. I think that it’s certainly a sign that we are standing in solidarity, we would hope that it makes people feel safer, it makes people feel like they have somewhere to turn, that people care about them, that their friends and neighbors understand this political moment and are standing up for them. I have questions about the idea of ‘safe space.’”
O’Connell, too, recognizes the limitations of the poster’s sentiment.
“My only concern would be someone putting up a poster and patting themselves on the back for a job well done,” he said. “I certainly don’t consider having the poster up to be the fulfillment of my civic or humanitarian duty, and I would caution anybody who does to reconsider.”
Stumping Earnest: Say, why didn’t Obama eject China diplomats over OPM hack? Hot Air, Ed Morrissey, January 6, 2017
(Please see also, Why Trump and US intel clash over Russia. — DM)
However, the OPM hack in particular was much more damaging, and was conducted directly against the government of the United States. The hack went on for over a year and exposed the background-check files of anyone who applied for a security clearance. That included the raw data from those checks, which means that China’s intel agencies have their hands on a lot of very sensitive information they can use to potentially blackmail people in highly sensitive positions. At the very least, they know who all of those people are and where they and their families live, which is a huge head start on forcing people into becoming moles and double agents.
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Call this the Question of the Week. ABC’s Jon Karl asked White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest on Tuesday about why Barack Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats for hacking the DNC but didn’t expel any Chinese diplomats for hacking an actual government agency and stealing the highly confidential records of 21 million government employees. Earnest … really didn’t have much of an answer. Via RealClearPolitics and our pal Matt Vespa:
(Video at the link. — DM)
JON KARL, ABC: So when the Chinese hacked OPM in 2015, 21+ million current and former government employees and contractors had their personal data stolen by the Chinese. Why did the White House do nothing publicly in reaction to that hack? Which in some ways, was even more widespread than what we saw here from the Russians?
JOSH EARNEST: These are two cyber incidents that are malicious in nature but materially different.
KARL: 20 million people had their personal data taken… fingerprints, social security numbers, background checks. This was a far-reaching act–
EARNEST: I’m not downplaying the significance of it, I’m just saying that it is different than seeking to interfere int he conduct of a U.S. national election. I can’t speak to the steps that have been taken by the United States in response to that Chinese malicious cyber activity–
KARL: But nothing was announced. There was not a single step announced by the White House.
EARNEST: It is true that there was no public announcement about our response, but I can’t speak to what response may have been initiated in private.
KARL: But no diplomats expelled, no compounds shut down, no sanctions imposed, correct? You don’t do that stuff secretly.
When this popped up on Twitter, one person responded that the disparity was because the Russians hacked the election. Actually they didn’t hack the election; they conducted a propaganda campaign boosted in part by hacks on two private political organizations, one of which refused to cooperate with investigators afterward. That’s certainly serious enough to merit some kind of a diplomatic response, but the Russians didn’t change vote totals or crash electoral systems — in fact, they didn’t penetrate any government systems in this effort.
However, the OPM hack in particular was much more damaging, and was conducted directly against the government of the United States. The hack went on for over a year and exposed the background-check files of anyone who applied for a security clearance. That included the raw data from those checks, which means that China’s intel agencies have their hands on a lot of very sensitive information they can use to potentially blackmail people in highly sensitive positions. At the very least, they know who all of those people are and where they and their families live, which is a huge head start on forcing people into becoming moles and double agents.
And yet, the Obama administration did nothing to publicly rebuke China, except scold them in a speech. How well did that work out? Not impressively, as Sharyl Attkisson pointed out:
Last March, China government hackers continued a malicious pattern of cyber attacks on U.S. government and private networks, according to U.S. Cyber Command chief Mike Rogers. China has been linked by U.S. intelligence agencies to wide-ranging cyber attacks aimed at stealing information and mapping critical computer networks for future attacks in a crisis or conflict.
Karl’s question, and Earnest’s inability to provide a coherent response, is the question the media should have been asking ever since Obama and the Democrats suddenly embraced Mitt Romney’s formulation of Russia as our #1 geopolitical foe over the last two months. That question should also be aimed at Congress as they ask for joint select committees to delve into the Russian propaganda campaign. The basic question is this: Why didn’t you do anything about China first?
Why Trump and US intel clash over Russia, DEBKAfile, January 6, 2017
The furious clamor keeping the alleged Russian hacking scandal on the boil is being orchestrated by the outgoing president and his intelligence chiefs to ramp up US-Russian friction to an eve-of-cold war pitch.
It is important to note that Trump and his advisers, including designated Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, don’t propose rushing into détente with Moscow or any sort of honeymoon. They are acting to restore relations to an even keel and end the disequilibrium of the past eight years, during which Obama just talked and Putin did what he wanted, especially in East Europe and the Middle East.
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America’s intelligence chiefs may have been singing their swan’s song Thursday and Friday (Jan. 5-6) when they hurled allegations of election-meddling “ordered at the highest Kremlin level” against Russia at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in Washington. The committee’s chair John McCain picked up the ball and declared that Russian hacking was “an act of war,” after hearing grim testimony from the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and the National Security Agency head Adm. Michael Rogers.
They disclosed that they had compiled a confidential intelligence report that demonstrated how President Vladimir Putin interfered in the US election campaign in favor of the winner, Donald Trump. They declined to divulge its contents but promised to release a shorter, censored version to the public next Monday, Jan. 9.
CIA chief John Brennan and Homeland Secretary Jeh Johnson then proceeded to the White House to present the confidential report to President Barack Obama.
It will be put before President-elect Trump Friday.
The furious clamor keeping the alleged Russian hacking scandal on the boil is being orchestrated by the outgoing president and his intelligence chiefs to ramp up US-Russian friction to an eve-of-cold war pitch.
DEBKAfile’s Washington and intelligence sources find that the campaign is prompted by five motives:
1. The president-elect not only proposes to put relations with Moscow on a new and different footing, his transition teams are already at work with Putin’s advisers to chart areas of cooperation between the two powers, ready for the Trump administration to go forward when he moves into the White House on Jan. 20.
The most prominent area is the war on the Islamic State; another – the conflicts in Syria and Iraq. They are also exploring a joint US-Russian effort to resolve the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
2. Obama, who has decided to retain a team for monitoring Trump’s policies, has plunged into a dogged fight against his successor’s decision to reset US-Russian ties.
Battling to salvage a part of his “legacy” is, Obama, exceptionally for departing American presidents, is determined to cast a long shadow over his successors’ actions and policies.
In the next four years, Barack Obama will keep hammering at the Russian hacking affair in order to keep the flames high against Trump’s “Russian steps.”
3. It is important to note that Trump and his advisers, including designated Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, don’t propose rushing into détente with Moscow or any sort of honeymoon. They are acting to restore relations to an even keel and end the disequilibrium of the past eight years, during which Obama just talked and Putin did what he wanted, especially in East Europe and the Middle East.
If the effort to restore balance to the relationship works, cooperation in common areas of concern might follow. But if not, the rivalry will continue, except that henceforth America will operate from a position of strength.
4. Working together in the war on Islamic terror will call for a large measure of cooperation between US intelligence agencies and the Russian secret services.
Sixteen years ago, after 9/11, Putin proposed this kind of cooperation to President George W. Bush in the fight against Al Qaeda.
In 2011, he stepped in again with an offer of assistance to Obama in the Libyan war.
Putin was rebuffed by both presidents rebuffed him. Donald Trump is the first US leader ready to seriously explore Putin’s intentions.
The US intelligence community is up on arms at this prospect, mainly because its clandestine branches were purpose-built to confront Russia, America’s historic Cold War enemy. It is hard for them to wrench the wheel round and head in the opposite direction at the bidding of the Trump administration.
5, Notwithstanding denials by administration officers, the president elect has every intention of overhauling the character and operational methods of America’s intelligence services. His overarching goal is to cut down the vast numbers off officers, analysts and computer operations, which turn out mountains of intelligence reports most of which he claims no one reads.
Trump plans to focus more on the product of secret agents in the field, and so save the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on desk staff and high-tech computer systems. His administration will prefer to rely more on human intelligence and less on technology-based input.
Trump encapsulated his approach to intelligence and computers in a remark to reporters on New Year’s day: “No computer is safe. You want something to really go without detection, write it out and have it sent by courier.”
The Obama Legacy: Those golden years, Israel National News, Joe David, January 6, 2016
Despite the tears you have caused us over the years with your many spankings, we are all very thankful in the end for the main thing you have done for us. You have given us “deplorables” back our common sense.
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There is talk that President Barack Hussein Obama is concerned about his political legacy once he is out of office. This is nonsense. Nothing he has ever done during his presidency could tarnish his eight years in the White House. Valerie Jarrett, the President’s closest advisor, said it all so well when she reminded the world on CNN that during the Obama Administration there was never a scandal.
She is absolutely correct. Not one single word of an indiscretion was ever written about him by the establishment media during his years in the White House and barely a word of criticism. That’s because the media felt that everything he did was always for the glory of our country – including those trillions of dollars of debt that he so unceremoniously incurred for America with his generous give-away programs.
In just eight years, the former senator from Illinois whose background has never been satisfactorily clarified has given new and rich meaning to the word patriotism.
Unlike President-Elect Donald J. Trump who began surrounding himself from the start with conspicuously successful and intelligent advisors devoted to protecting the American dream, while the Obama administration, from the start, generously began to give our financial resources away to aliens and foreign countries begging for their share of America’s prosperity. When I reminisce over all the wondrous things that occurred under his presidency, from exposing racially motivated cops to enabling ISIS, I can only wonder. Imagine for once in our lifetime, we have had a President, one mere mortal, dedicated to his promise of real hope and change for all.
To summarize the Obama administration’s entire legacy would require volumes. Nevertheless, here are a few exciting moments that occurred during his watch. Some of the moments his administration gave us during his two terms in office include, but are not limited to:
Yes, there’s no question about it. Mr. Obama’s presidency will long be remembered, especially his parting shots at Russia and Israel, and God only knows who else.
Goodbye, Mr. Ex. None of us hard-working Americans will ever forget you. You are absolutely right about Mr. Trump. Time will prove that his electoral landslide is the result of Russia’s meddling, not anything you or Ms. Clinton did to bring about such dramatic party change.
Despite the tears you have caused us over the years with your many spankings, we are all very thankful in the end for the main thing you have done for us. You have given us “deplorables” back our common sense.
Send in the Head Clowns, Washington Free Beacon, Matthew Continetti, January 6, 2017
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer of N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
It takes time to adjust. The Democrats may be counting on inertia and the media to slow the Republicans down and force them into a defensive crouch. Worked in the past. But here’s the thing about Trump: He doesn’t play defense.
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Democrats have been in power for so long that they’ve forgotten how to oppose. Their party has been on a roll since 2005 when the botched Social Security reform, the slow bleed of the Iraq war, and Hurricane Katrina sent the Bush administration into a tailspin. The Democrats won the Congress the following year and the White House two years after that. And while they lost the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014, Democrats still had the advantage of retaining the White House, a president seemingly immune from criticism, the courts, the bureaucracy, and large portions of the media. The correlation of forces in Washington has weighed heavily in favor of the Democrats for a decade.
No longer. The election of Donald Trump has brought unified Republican government to Washington and overturned our understanding of how politics works. Or at least it should have done so. The Democrats seem not to understand how to deal with Trump and the massive change he is about to bring to the nation’s capital. During the general election they fell for the idea that Trump can be defeated by conventional means, spending hundreds of millions of dollars in negative television advertising and relying on political consultants beholden to whatever line Politico was selling on a given day. This strategy failed Trump’s Republican primary opponents, but Democrats figured that was simply because the GOP was filled with deplorables. It was a rationalization that would cost them.
Republicans control the House, the Senate, 34 governor’s mansions, and 4,100 seats in state legislatures. But Democrats act like they run Washington. Nancy Pelosi’s speech to the 115th House of Representatives was a long-winded recitation of the same liberal agenda that has brought her party to its current low. Give her points for consistency I guess. Chuck Schumer is just being delusional.
Smarting from the failed nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, the Senate minority leader pledged to oppose Donald Trump’s nominee weeks before inauguration day. “If they don’t appoint somebody good,” he said on MSNBC, “we’re going to oppose them tooth and nail.” That would “absolutely” include keeping the seat held by the late Antonin Scalia empty, he said. “We are not going to make it easy for them to pick a Supreme Court justice.”
I suppose it’s too much to expect a graduate of Harvard Law School to grasp the difference between majority and minority. Mitch McConnell was able to block Garland’s appointment because the Republicans controlled the Senate. The Democrats do not. And McConnell was able to hold his caucus together because he was on solid historical ground. Lyndon Johnson’s nomination of Abe Fortas as chief justice failed in the election year 1968, and the so-called “Biden Rule” of 1992 stipulated no Supreme Court replacements during the last year of a presidency. Schumer himself, in a 2007 speech, expanded the waiting period to the final 18 months of a president’s term. Now, despite a record of calling on the Senate to confirm the president’s nominees—as long as the president is a Democrat—Schumer has adopted the strategy of no Supreme Court confirmations at all. How does he think President Trump will respond? By caving?
The Democrats, lead by head clown Chuck Schumer, know how bad ObamaCare is and what a mess they are in. Instead of working to fix it, they..
An attempt to filibuster the Scalia replacement may force McConnell to change the rules so that Supreme Court vacancies can be approved by a majority vote. And where would Democrats be then? Not only will they have lost the Scalia seat, they will be completely vulnerable should another vacancy arise in the next two years. And Schumer has a reputation for political savvy.
The blanket opposition to president-elect Trump extends to his appointments at large. Democrats can thank Harry Reid for allowing executive branch officials and lower-court judges to be approved by a majority vote. But the Washington Post reports that Schumer wants to prolong the confirmation process so that some Trump cabinet officials are not confirmed until March. The reason: “Democrats have been troubled by a lack of personal disclosure by Cabinet choices that they say mirrors Trump’s refusal to disclose personal tax information during the presidential campaign.” The presidential campaign that, in case the Democrats have forgotten, Trump won.
Reviving the issue of the tax returns makes little sense. It generates headlines but doesn’t move votes. And though it’s entirely possible that one or more of Trump’s nominees won’t be confirmed, I seriously doubt it. In every incoming administration there is a personal revelation or atrocious hearing that dooms a cabinet appointment. But hearings begin next week, whether Chuck Schumer likes it or not, and so far the quality of the opposition research against Trump’s picks has been remarkably blah.
Yes, the first duty of the opposition is to oppose. And I don’t expect the Democrats to roll over for Trump. But I am surprised by their hysterics, and by their race to see who can be the most obnoxious to the new president. They seem to have been caught off guard, to say the least, by their situation. Take for example their willingness to stand on a podium beside a sign that reads, “Make America Sick Again.” By embracing this message, such as it is, the Democrats associated not Trump but themselves with illness. Who on earth thought that was a good idea?
It takes time to adjust. The Democrats may be counting on inertia and the media to slow the Republicans down and force them into a defensive crouch. Worked in the past. But here’s the thing about Trump: He doesn’t play defense.
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