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Europe’s ‘Turkish Awakening’

March 14, 2017

Europe’s ‘Turkish Awakening’, Gatestone Institute, Burak Bekdil, March 14, 2017

Europe looks united in not allowing Erdogan to export Turkey’s sometimes even violent political polarization into the Old Continent.

Erdogan clearly rejected Merkel’s mention of “Islamist terror” on grounds that “the expression saddens Muslims because Islam and terror cannot coexist”.

Turkey increasingly looks like Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. An Iraqi government guide refused to discuss politics: “In Iraq half the population are spies… spying on the other half.”

Officially, Erdogan’s Turkey has embarked on a journey toward Western democracy. Instead, its Islamist ethos is at war with Western democracy.

Turkey, officially, is a candidate for full membership in the European Union. It is also negotiating with Brussels a deal which would allow millions of Turks to travel to Europe without visa. But Turkey is not like any other European country that joined or will join the EU: The Turks’ choice of a leader, in office since 2002, too visibly makes this country the odd one out.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is now campaigning to broaden his constitutional powers, which would make him head of state, head of government and head of the ruling party — all at the same time — is inherently autocratic and anti-Western. He seems to view himself as a great Muslim leader fighting armies of infidel crusaders. This image, with which he portrays himself, finds powerful echoes among millions of conservative Turks and [Sunni] Islamists across the Middle East. That, among other excesses in the Turkish style, makes Turkey totally incompatible with Europe in political culture.

Yet, there is always the lighter side of things. Take, for example, Melih Gokcek, the mayor of Ankara and a bigwig in Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP). In February Gokcek claimed that earthquakes in a western Turkish province could have been organized by dark external powers (read: Western infidels) aiming to destroy Turkey’s economy with an “artificial earthquake” near Istanbul. According to this conspiracy theory, the mayor not only claims that the earthquake in western Turkey was the work of the U.S. and Israel, but also that the U.S. created the radical Islamic State (ISIS). In fact, according to him, the U.S. and Israel colluded to trigger an earthquake in Turkey so they could capture energy from the Turkish fault line.

Matters between Turkey and Europe are far more tense today than ridiculous statements from politicians who want to look pretty to Erdogan. The president, willingly ignoring his own strong anti-Semitic views, recently accused Germany of “fascist actions” reminiscent of Nazi times, in a growing row over the cancellation of political rallies aimed at drumming up support for him among 1.5 million Turkish citizens in Germany.

The Dutch, Erdogan apparently thinks, are no different. In a similar diplomatic row over Turkish political rallies in the Netherlands, Erdogan described the Dutch government as “Nazi remnants and fascists”. After barring Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu from entering the country by airplane, the Dutch authorities also escorted another Turkish minister out of the country. Quite a humiliation, no doubt. An angry Erdogan promised the Netherlands would pay a price for that.

Dutch police in Rotterdam use batons, dogs and water cannon to control a riot that broke out when pro-Erdogan crowds violently protested the Dutch government’s refusal of entry to Turkish government ministers, on March 11, 2017. The Turkish ministers had planned to address political rallies of Turks in the Netherlands. (Image source: RT video screenshot)

Europe, not just Germany and the Netherlands, looks united in not allowing Erdogan to export Turkey’s highly tense and sometimes even violent political polarization into the Old Continent. There are media reports that the owner of a venue in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, has now cancelled a pro-Erdogan rally, although Sweden’s foreign ministry said it was not involved in the decision.

Europe’s anti-Erdogan sentiment is going viral. Denmark’s prime minister, Lars Loekke Rasmussen, said that he asked his Turkish counterpart, Binali Yildirim, to postpone a planned visit because of tensions between Turkey and the Netherlands. Although Turkey thanked France for allowing Foreign Minister Cavusoglu to address a gathering of Turkish “expats” in the city of Metz, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called on Turkish authorities to “avoid excesses and provocations”.

None of the incidents that forcefully point to Europe’s “Turkish awakening” happened out of the blue. At the beginning of February, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Erdogan held a tense meeting in Ankara. Erdogan clearly rejected Merkel’s mention of “Islamist terror” on grounds that “the expression saddens Muslims because Islam and terror cannot coexist”. The row came at a time when a German investigation into Turkish imams in Germany spying on Erdogan’s foes made signs of reaching out to other parts of Europe. Peter Pilz, an Austrian lawmaker, said that he was in possession of documents from 30 countries that revealed a “global spying network” at Turkish diplomatic missions.

At the beginning of March, after Turkey said it would defy opposition from German and Dutch authorities and continue holding rallies in both countries, Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern called for an EU-wide ban on campaign appearances by Turkish politicians.

In response, further challenging Europe, Turkey arrested Deniz Yucel, a Turkish-German reporter for a prominent German newspaper, Die Welt, on charges of “propaganda in support of a terrorist organization and inciting the public to violence.” Yucel had been detained after he reported on emails that a leftist hacker collective had purportedly obtained from the private account of Berat Albayrak, Turkey’s energy minister and Erdogan’s son-in-law.

Erdogan’s propaganda war on “infidel” Europe has the potential to further poison both bilateral relations with individual countries and with Europe as a bloc. Not even the Turkish “expats” are happy. The leader of Germany’s Turkish community accused Erdogan of damaging ties between the two NATO allies. Gokay Sofuoglu, chairman of the Turkish Community in Germany, which is an umbrella for 270 member organizations, said: “Erdogan went a step too far. Germany should not sink to his level”.

The most recent wave of tensions between Erdogan’s Turkey and Europe, which it theoretically aspires to join, have once again unveiled the long-tolerated incompatibility between Turkey’s predominantly conservative, Islamist and often anti-Western political culture and Europe’s liberal values.

Turkey increasingly looks like Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. During my 1989 visit to Iraq a Turkish-speaking government guide refused to discuss Iraqi politics, justifying his reluctance as: “In Iraq half the population are spies… spying on the other half.” Erdogan’s Turkey has officially embarked on a journey toward Western democracy. Instead, its Islamist mindset is at war with Western democracy.

Categories: Erdogan, Erdogan and Islamism, Europe, Europe and Islam, Islamic terrorism, Islamisation, Netherlands, Turkey, Turkish democracy
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Revolutionary Guard commander: Hezbollah more prepared than ever to attack Israel

March 14, 2017

Source: Revolutionary Guard commander: Hezbollah more prepared than ever to attack Israel – Middle East – Jerusalem Post

ByYASSER OKBI/ MAARIV HASHAVUA, JPOST.COM STAFF
March 14, 2017 08:38

In an interview to a Kuwaiti newspaper, the Iranian official revealed that Hezbollah has recently inherited new missile factories from Iran and is training intensely to prepare for an attack.
Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim men from the Iranian-backed group Kataib Hezbollah wave the party's flags

As US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu both continue to apply pressure on Iran regarding its controversial, often-discussed nuclear capabilities, an assistant to a commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps revealed to Kuwaiti daily publication Al-Jarida that Hezbollah has raised its level of preparedness and is ready to launch a massive attack against Israel with lethal results.

The Iranian commander explained that Iran has opened factories in Lebanon for the purpose of manufacturing long-range missiles as well as other munitions and has recently passed ownership of the factories to Hezbollah.

Speaking exclusively to Al-Jarida, the Iranian official, who opted to remain anonymous, said that the decision to set up the factories in Lebanon was made due to “Israel’s [alleged destruction] of munition factories in Sudan, as well as the damage caused to munition sources from Syria.”

Addressing the Shi’ite terror organization’s repeated threat to launch rockets that could reach every part of the Jewish state, the official quoted Iranian Defense Minister Hoseein Dehghan who has recently heeded that Hezbollah was now capable of manufacturing rockets that could target every spot in Israel, from the very north to the southern border with Egypt.

The official also revealed that a special faculty was opened at Imam Hossein University, which is owned by the Revolutionary Guard, where hundreds of Lebanese as well as foreign students are trained to manufacture rockets.

Speaking about the new missile-manufacturing facilities, the Iranian source explained that the facilities were built some 50 meters deep and protected by several defense systems to fend off Israel’s fighter jets in case of attack.

The Iranian official added that the factories are able to manufacture rockets whose range reaches over 500 km. Among the new munitions already manufactured are surface-to-surface missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and drones carrying anti-tank missiles. The source also said that Hezbollah has already tested the new missiles successfully in the on-going front the Shi’ite terror organization is leading alongside President Bashar Assad in Syria.

The Kuwaiti newspaper emphasized that by boasting its activity and development, Hezbollah is issuing yet again another threat against Israel, conveying the underlying message that even if Israel were to interfere with Iranian activity in Syria, Iran would still continue arming and aiding its Lebanese ally.

This is not the first time the Kuwaiti newspaper discussed the Iranian and Lebanese threat looming over Israel. As recently as March 7, the newspaper wrote on its front page the American-Israeli joint plan to deal with the Iranian presence in Syria.https://www.memri.org/player/clip/36050/1/1 Hezbollah leader threatens Israel’s ammonia and nuclear facilities (MEMRI)

And while Israeli officials do not seem to be deterred by the piling threats as well the news of the organization’s ameliorated military capabilities, Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nassrallah remains steadfast in his declarations that Hezbollah is ready to launch an attack against Israel.

“I call on Israel not only to empty the ammonia tank in Haifa, but also to dismantle the nuclear reactor in Dimona. Our military capabilities will strike Israel and its settlements,” he threatened as recently as February 2017.

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Opposition Builds Against Mattis Pick Who Met With Muslim Brotherhood

March 13, 2017

Opposition Builds Against Mattis Pick Who Met With Muslim Brotherhood, Washington Free Beacon, , March 13, 2017

(Why and for what purpose does General Mattis want her at the Department of Defense? What do her views on the Muslim Brotherhood and anything else have to do with Department of Defense activities? The article does not indicate. — DM)

WASHINGTON, DC – NOVEMBER 04: Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Anne Patterson testifies during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, November 4, 2015 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Opposition is mounting on Capitol Hill and in conservative foreign policy circles over Defense Secretary James Mattis’s efforts to hire a former Obama administration official who lobbied in favor of engagement with the Muslim Brotherhood and spearheaded efforts to criticize Israeli counter-terrorism efforts, according to multiple sources close to the Trump administration.

Mattis is lobbying to hire former diplomat Anne Patterson as undersecretary of defense for policy, according to multiple reports, a position that would make her the third most powerful voice at the Defense Department.

Multiple sources on Capitol Hill and those close to the Trump foreign policy teams are voicing concerns about the pick, warning that Patterson would seek to continue some of the former Obama administration’s most controversial foreign policies, such as conducting outreach to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Patterson, who served as U.S. ambassador to Egypt when the Muslim Brotherhood rose to power, advocated in favor of negotiating with the terror group. Her efforts drew outrage in the Egyptian reformist community, which still views Patterson as working to legitimize the Muslim Brotherhood.

As assistant secretary of state for near east affairs in the Obama administration, Patterson also led efforts to criticize Israeli authorities after they killed a Palestinian-American terrorist who was attempting to stab civilians.

Patterson’s record under the Obama administration has raised concerns on Capitol Hill, where she would require Senate confirmation in order to assume the Defense Department post.

Multiple sources who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon about the matter expressed opposition to the pick and outlined larger concerns about efforts by Mattis to hire former Obama administration officials who conservatives view as responsible for multiple failures in U.S. foreign policy.

These sources also expressed concern about the Trump administration’s failure to remove former Obama officials from the administration, citing the efforts by some to kneecap President Donald Trump’s foreign policy team and preserve Obama-era policies.

“This would be a disastrous choice,” one senior congressional aide tracking the matter told the Free Beacon. “Patterson has a well-documented track record of sticking up for extremist groups at every turn. Her selection would mean elevating someone whose views not only run counter to the president’s, but U.S. national security as well. The administration should seriously reconsider.”

A second senior Republican Senate aide expressed similar concerns. Patterson’s views run counter to the foreign policy outlook expressed by Trump on the campaign trail, the source noted.

There is mounting concern over the promotion of Patterson to such a senior role, according to the source, who said this would “would send the wrong message given her background in Egypt, in particular her sympathies to the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Insiders close to Trump’s national security team described mounting concern over Mattis’s efforts to hire Patterson.

“People concerned about the U.S.-Egypt relationship don’t know what to make of Mattis’s support for Anne Patterson,” said one source, who explained that Patterson’s record on Egypt is vastly different that Mattis’ own comments about recalibrating relations with the country.

“Egyptians I have spoken to, both in and outside government, are extremely worried right now,” the source added. “First, they can’t believe they might have to contend with Patterson’s pro-Brotherhood polices; and second, it’s causing them to re-evaluate who they thought Secretary Mattis is.”

As the Trump administration looks to reset years of strained relations with Cairo, the selection of Patterson could draw outrage from secular leaders who are still angered by her engagement with the Muslim Brotherhood, sources explained.

One Egyptian opposition leader who spoke to the Free Beacon during the 2013 revolution in Egypt described Patterson as “the first enemy of the revolution,” claiming “she is hated even more than [former Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed] Morsi.”

Patterson met in 2012 with Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie, who has been extremely critical of the United States.

Patterson still has strained relations with current Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Reports in Middle Eastern publications indicated that Patterson pressured al-Sisi to release imprisoned Muslim Brotherhood members and later threatened him when he refused to do so.

Sources also raised questions about Patterson’s commitment to Trump’s foreign policy, which seeks to isolate fanatical religious organizations such as the Brotherhood and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC.

Patterson cast doubt during a 2015 Senate hearing on efforts to designate the IRGC as a terrorist group, efforts that are likely to be revisited by Trump’s team.

One senior Republican foreign policy adviser who has close ties to the White House told the Free Beacon that Patterson would represent a continuation of the Obama administration’s failed engagement in the Middle East.

“Anne Patterson is the embodiment of the Obama administration’s failed approach to the Middle East, which focused on crowding out our traditional Arab allies with radical Islamists from Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood,” said the source, who requested anonymity to speak freely about the administration.

“As the post-Kerry State Department becomes less and less relevant, and the White House and Defense Department take over foreign policy strategy, it’s beyond irresponsible to put her in charge of the Pentagon’s policy apparatus,” the source said.

Categories: Anne Patterson, Department of Defense, Egypt, Israel, Muslim Brotherhood
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Global Warming in One Easy Lesson

March 13, 2017

Global Warming in One Easy Lesson, Power Line, John Hinderaker, March 13, 2017

(Finally, anthropogenic global warming/climate change agnostics and atheists are being heard. It’s about time. President Trump’s new EPA head, Scott Pruitt, has apparently been attentive. Supporters of the Church of Global Warming, such as VOX, are unhappy.– DM)

Professor Lindzen recently wrote a letter to President Donald Trump explaining, briefly and cogently, why he and many other scientists are skeptical of the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming theory–which, despite tens of billions of dollars in government subsidies, has failed to generate significant empirical support.

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Richard Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT. MIT’s web site suggests his scientific eminence:

Professor Lindzen is a dynamical meteorologist with interests in the broad topics of climate, planetary waves, monsoon meteorology, planetary atmospheres, and hydrodynamic instability. His research involves studies of the role of the tropics in mid-latitude weather and global heat transport, the moisture budget and its role in global change, the origins of ice ages, seasonal effects in atmospheric transport, stratospheric waves, and the observational determination of climate sensitivity. He has made major contributions to the development of the current theory for the Hadley Circulation, which dominates the atmospheric transport of heat and momentum from the tropics to higher latitudes, and has advanced the understanding of the role of small scale gravity waves in producing the reversal of global temperature gradients at the mesopause, and provided accepted explanations for atmospheric tides and the quasi-biennial oscillation of the tropical stratosphere. He pioneered the study of how ozone photochemistry, radiative transfer and dynamics interact with each other. He is currently studying what determines the pole to equator temperature difference, the nonlinear equilibration of baroclinic instability and the contribution of such instabilities to global heat transport. He has also been developing a new approach to air-sea interaction in the tropics, and is actively involved in parameterizing the role of cumulus convection in heating and drying the atmosphere and in generating upper level cirrus clouds. He has developed models for the Earth’s climate with specific concern for the stability of the ice caps, the sensitivity to increases in CO2, the origin of the 100,000 year cycle in glaciation, and the maintenance of regional variations in climate.

Prof. Lindzen is a recipient of the AMS’s Meisinger and Charney Awards, the AGU’s Macelwane Medal, and the Leo Huss Walin Prize. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society. He is a corresponding member of the NAS Committee on Human Rights, and has been a member of the NRC Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate and the Council of the AMS. He has also been a consultant to the Global Modeling and Simulation Group at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and a Distinguished Visiting Scientist at California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. (Ph.D., ’64, S.M., ’61, A.B., ’60, Harvard University)

Professor Lindzen recently wrote a letter to President Donald Trump explaining, briefly and cogently, why he and many other scientists are skeptical of the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming theory–which, despite tens of billions of dollars in government subsidies, has failed to generate significant empirical support. The letter was reproduced by the Science and Environmental Policy Project. It has the virtue of being easily read and understood:

For far too long, one body of men, establishment climate scientists, has been permitted to be judges and parties on what the “risks to the Earth system associated with increasing levels of carbon dioxide” really are.

Let me explain in somewhat greater detail why we call for withdrawal from the UNFCCC [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change].

The UNFCCC was established twenty-five years ago, to find scientific support for dangers from increasing carbon dioxide. While this has led to generous and rapidly increased support for the field, the purported dangers remain hypothetical, model-based projections. By contrast, the benefits of increasing CO2 and modest warming are clearer than ever, and they are supported by dramatic satellite images of a greening Earth.

• The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) no longer claims a greater likelihood of significant as opposed to negligible future warming,

• It has long been acknowledged by the IPCC that climate change prior to the 1960’s could not have been due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Yet, pre-1960 instrumentally observed temperatures show many warming episodes, similar to the one since 1960, for example, from 1915 to 1950, and from 1850 to 1890. None of these could have been caused by an increase in atmospheric CO2,

• Model projections of warming during recent decades have greatly exceeded what has been observed,

• The modelling community has openly acknowledged that the ability of existing models to simulate past climates is due to numerous arbitrary tuning adjustments,

• Observations show no statistically valid trends in flooding or drought, and no meaningful acceleration whatsoever of pre-existing long term sea level rise (about 6 inches per century) worldwide,

• Current carbon dioxide levels, around 400 parts per million are still very small compared to the averages over geological history, when thousands of parts per million prevailed, and when life flourished on land and in the oceans.

Calls to limit carbon dioxide emissions are even less persuasive today than 25 years ago. Future research should focus on dispassionate, high-quality climate science, not on efforts to prop up an increasingly frayed narrative of “carbon pollution.” Until scientific research is unfettered from the constraints of the policy-driven UNFCCC, the research community will fail in its obligation to the public that pays the bills.

Categories: Climate change, Trump agenda
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Democrats Flip-Flop On Russia | SUPERcuts! #447

March 13, 2017

Democrats Flip-Flop On Russia | SUPERcuts! #447, Washington Free Beacon, March 13, 2017

 

Categories: Democrats and Russia
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Living in Sderot: Ten seconds to save your life

March 13, 2017

Living in Sderot: Ten seconds to save your life, Rebel Media via YouTube. March 13, 2017

The blurb beneath the video states,

Less than 1 km from Gaza and the target of over 10,000 rockets, Mayor of Sderot, Alon Davidi, tells Sheila Gunn Reid why he stays in what he describes as “the front line in the battle against evil”.

Categories: Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Israeli civilians, Israeli security, Rocket attacks, Sderot
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Virgil: The Beltway Assures Us the Deep State Doesn’t Exist

March 13, 2017

Virgil: The Beltway Assures Us the Deep State Doesn’t Exist, Breitbart, Virgil, March 13, 2017

(Please see also, The Trouble with Barry.  — DM)

BNN Edit

In parts one and two of our guided tour of the Deep State, we looked at two anchors of the Federal Triangle in downtown DC, the Department of Commerce and the Environmental Protection Agency.  And while Virgil looks forward to continuing his tour of the Triangle and other nodes of the Deep State, sometimes breaking news breaks in, and so we should pause to consider the latest.

On March 10, from his podium at the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, President Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, was asked about the Deep State.  The question:

Does the White House believe in a “Deep State” that is actively working to undermine the president?

And here’s Spicer’s answer:

I think that there’s no question when you have eight years of one party in office, there are people who stay in government—and continue to espouse the agenda of the previous administration.  So I don’t think it should come as any surprise there are people that burrowed into government during eight years of the last administration and may have believed in that agenda and want to continue to seek it.  I don’t think that should come as a surprise.

In other words, Spicer’s answer to the answer to the question was “Yes.”  So now there can be no doubt that the concept of the Deep State will be discussed for a long time to come.  And yet if Virgil might be permitted to quibble with Spicer, he would say that the Deep State is a lot deeper than just the past eight years—we’ll come back to that point.

But first, let’s hear from other voices on the issue of whether or not there’s a Deep State.  As we can see, it’s gaining a critical mass of recognition, at least on the right.  And that’s good, because, as they say, forewarned is forearmed.

On March 5, former House speaker Newt Gingrich made himself clear—as he always does:

There is an active Deep State opposition to a populist disruptive reformer.  Many [in the government] believe it is their duty to break the law and lie.  For Trump to succeed, there will have to be profound overhaul of the bureaucracy.

A few days later, Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) didn’t use the actual words “Deep State,” but his point was the same when he described the situation in Powertown: “The same people were there, and they don’t think the new owners or the new managers should be running the ship.”  And then Kelly added this point about former president Barack Obama:

He’s only there for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to run a shadow government that is totally going to upset the new agenda.

So is the 44th president setting up a permanent campaign against the 45th president?  Obama denies any such intention; he says that he and his family are remaining in Washington so that his youngest daughter, Sasha, can finish high school.  Of course, that explanation doesn’t quite tell us why former White House consigliere Valerie Jarrett has moved into the Obamas’ 8200-square-foot home in the swanky Kalorama neighborhood, just a couple miles north of the White House.

In fact, the real goal of the relocation, according to The Daily Mail, is to “oust Trump from the presidency either by forcing his resignation or through his impeachment.”

Meanwhile, others in Congress, too, are eyeing closely the shadowy armada arrayed against the new administration.  In the words of Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), “I think it’s really the Deep State vs. the president, the duly elected president.”

And on March 9, Fox News’ Sean Hannity, was even more direct:

Deep State Obama holdovers embedded like barnacles in the federal bureaucracy are hell-bent on destroying President Trump.  It’s time for the Trump administration to purge these saboteurs.

Interestingly, by coincidence, or perhaps not, the very next day President Trump’s Justice Department ordered the firing of 46 US Attorneys, all Obama holdovers.  

Still, some in the Main Stream Media, even now, choose to deny that there is any such thing as a Deep State.  One such is David Ignatius, veteran columnist for The Washington Post, who wrote on March 7 that what we’re seeing is simply the collision of President Trump and the properly established legal system:

Some [Trump] supporters claim he’s facing a secret coup from an intelligence and foreign policy establishment that constitutes a despotic “deep state.” But really, Trump is confronting the orderly process we call the “rule of law.”

Virgil thinks that it’s rich, indeed, for Ignatius to insist that there’s nothing going on except the proper rule of law.  Why?  Because it was Ignatius’ own reporting, back on January 12, that demonstrated the extra-legal power of the Deep State.  That was the report that revealed that on December 29, Michael Flynn, named as Trump’s national security adviser in the new administration, had been intercepted talking on the phone to the Russian ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak.  And from that first report, events tumbled, and as we all know, Flynn resigned from his White House post on February 13.

And yet a few days after that Ignatius story ran on January 12, Virgil wondered aloud how he got the information about a private phone call: “Now how did Ignatius know that?”  That is, how did Ignatius learn about the Flynn-Kislyak conversation?  Continuing, Virgil wrote back then, “The Postman won’t say, other than that he got his information from a ‘senior US government official.’”  Virgil then pointed out that even if was legal to record the call—yes, it’s smart to surveil Russians—it’s not legal to leak such information to the media, especially if it involves an American citizen.  “Such disclosures aren’t legal,” Virgil added with a sigh, “but once again, nobody in Washington, DC, seems to care.”

So we can see: In the Flynn case, the power of the Deep State wasn’t at all about the “rule of law.”  It was about just the opposite.

Others, too, take the Ignatius line—even if their denials are weirdly weak and self-contradicting.  Here, for example is a March 9 headline in Politico, the bible of the Beltway: “The Deep State Is a Figment of Steve Bannon’s Imagination.” The author, Loren DeJonge Schulman, starts out by firing both barrels at Bannon and anyone else who might have suspicions about the Deep State:

Here’s a handy rule for assessing the credibility of what you’re reading about national security in the Trump era: If somebody uses the term “Deep State,” you can be pretty sure they have no idea what they’re talking about.

Got that?  Nothing to see here: So if you hear Spicer, Gingrich, Kelly, Massie, Hannity—or, of course, ol’ Virgil—nattering on about the Deep State, well, have a dunce cap handy.

So who’s the author of this don’t-worry-about-a-thing piece?  We can see from her bio that Loren DeJonge Schulman, who now works at a Democratic-aligned think-tank in DC, has an extensive background in the politics of the Democratic Party and the Deep State, both.

So maybe it’s not so surprising that Schulman wouldn’t want anyone nosing around too much in Deep State matters.   After all, nobody likes being snooped on, right?   In fact, Virgil is reminded of the 1999 Brad Pitt movie, Fight Club, featuring these oft-repeated lines:

Welcome to Fight Club.  The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club.  The second rule of Fight Club is: you DO NOT talk about Fight Club!

That was Hollywood’s way of expressing the most basic wisdom of any secret enterprise: Keep it secret!

So Virgil was surprised to see how Schulman chose to end her denial piece.  After nearly 2000 words of mercilessly mocking the idea that there was any such thing as a Deep State, Schulman closed by . . . outing herself as a Deep Stater:

So the next time you hear someone using the term Deep State, send them a copy of this article.  Ask them to stop using it.  Tell them the term betrays their ignorance, and obscures and misleads far more than it illuminates.  And if that doesn’t work, well, we Deep Staters will take matters into our own hands. [emphasis added]

One supposes that Schulman would say that her final words were just her way of being funny: What an arch sense of humor she has!  And no doubt she got some yuks from her pals in Cleveland Park, Crystal City, and Chevy Chase.  Meanwhile, other Americans, curious about how they are being governed, might wonder what’s so funny about being threatened by a well-connected Beltway apparatchik.

Yes, an attempt at humor, however ominous, is one possible explanation for Schulman’s close.  Another possibility is that she is, in fact, proud to be a Deep Stater, and that her pride shines right through her feigned irony.  That is, she is eager to signal to her friends and colleagues in the Deep State that she is truly one of them, even as she laughs it off.

Was her Politico piece a successful stratagem?  Did Schulman succeed in playing her double game?  That is, proving that she is one of the cool kids, even as she convinced readers that only dopes and paranoids worry about the Deep State?  Virgil reports, you decide.  

Categories: Deep state, Media and Trump, Obama's Post-Presidency, Trump agenda, Trump Hater's Club
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Arab Factions Praise Jordanian Terrorist For Killing Israeli Schoolgirls

March 13, 2017

Arab Factions Praise Jordanian Terrorist For Killing Israeli Schoolgirls, Investigative Project on Terrorism, March 13, 2017

(Were the girls hiding behind a rock?  Narrated ‘Abdullah bin ‘Umar: I heard Allah’s Apostle saying, “The Jews will fight with you, and you will be given victory over them so that a stone will say, ‘O Muslim! There is a Jew behind me; kill him!’ ” — DM)

From the Muslim Brotherhood’s factions in Jordan and the Palestinian territories, to Mahmoud Abbas’ party Fatah and across social media, praise for the murderer of Israeli schoolgirls is gaining traction throughout the Arab world.

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Muslim Brotherhood and Palestinian factions are praising a Jordanian terrorist who shot and killed seven Israeli schoolgirls and injured six others in 1997, after his release from prison on Saturday.

“The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas hails the Arab Hero Ahmed Daqamseh on his release and his gaining his freedom. As we greet his noble struggle, his historic steadfastness and his heroic positions on Jerusalem and Palestine and the Resistance of the Palestinian people,” according to an Investigative Project (IPT) translation of a Hamas press statement released on Monday.

Following his release, Daqamseh labeled Israelis as “human garbage vomited into our midst by the world’s nations” and called for the death of Israelis “whether by burning or by burying,” in comments translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

The Muslim Brotherhood’s political wing in Jordan rejoiced at Daqamseh’s freedom.

“The (Islamic Action) party greets people of Jordan and the family of the hero Ahmed Damaqseh on his release from prison after his sentence and welcomes his return to practice his national role alongside the free men of this nation in construction and achievement,” according to the IPT’s translation of an Islamic Action Party statement.

Even the so-called moderate Palestinian faction, Fatah, glorified the Jordanian terrorist, justifying the murder of Israeli schoolchildren.

“It may be noted that the soldier Daqamseh opened fire on the group of girls because they made fun of him during his prayers according to his testimony at the time,” reads a Fatah statement.

Numerous supporters celebrated Daqasmeh’s release, posting large signs glorifying the murderer in the streets of Ibdar city – located in Irbid Province north of Amman – which host’s Daqasmeh’s tribe.

“Praise be to God for your safety Oh Abou Sayf [Father of the Sword]

After a long absence of twenty years. Your village is filled with light Oh Lion of the Valley. Welcome,” reads one sign, translated by IPT, featuring Daqamseh’s face

Social media users also glorified the Jordanian soldier turned terrorist as a “hero” and a “model,” while Daqamseh’s name was trending on Twitter.

From the Muslim Brotherhood’s factions in Jordan and the Palestinian territories, to Mahmoud Abbas’ party Fatah and across social media, praise for the murderer of Israeli schoolgirls is gaining traction throughout the Arab world.

Categories: Antisemitism, Dead Jews, Fatah, Hamas, Jordan, Muslim Brotherhood
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How to Fake an Islamophobia Crisis

March 13, 2017

How to Fake an Islamophobia Crisis, Accuracy in Media, Daniel Greenfield, March 13, 2017

Look out! It’s another fake Islamophobia crisis.

“Huge Growth in Anti-Muslim Hate Groups During 2016: SPLC Report,” wails NBC News. “Watchdog: Number of anti-Muslim hate groups tripled since 2015,” FOX News bleats. ABC News vomits up this word salad. “Trump cited in report finding increase in US hate groups for 2nd year in a row.”

The SPLC stands for the Southern Poverty Law Center: an organization with slightly less credibility than Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Clown College, and without the academic degree in greasepaint.

And you won’t believe the shameless way the SPLC faked its latest Islamophobia crisis.

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s latest “hate group” sightings claims that the “number of anti-Muslim hate groups increased almost three-fold in 2016.”

That’s a lot of folds.

And there is both bad news and good news from its “Year in Hate and Extremism.”

First the good news.

Casa D’Ice Signs, the sign outside a bar in K-Mart Plaza in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, is no longer listed as a hate group. The sign outside the bar had been listed as a hate group by the SPLC for years. The owner of Casa D’Ice had been known for putting politically incorrect signs outside his bar. So the SPLC listed the “signs” as a hate group. (Even though there was only one sign.) Not the bar. That would have made too much sense.

Since then Casa D’Ice was sold and the SPLC has celebrated the defeat of another hate group. Even if the hate group was just a plastic sign outside a bar.

But the bad news, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, is that anti-Muslim hate groups shot up from only 34 in 2015 to 101 in 2016.

What could possibly account for that growth? Statistical fakery so fake that a Vegas bookie would weep.

President Trump is on the cover of the SPLC’s latest Intelligence Report: a misnomer of a title from an organization whose intelligence gathering led it to list a bar sign as a hate group.

But there’s actually another phenomenon responsible for this startling rise reported by the SPLC.

The SPLC decided to count 45 chapters of Act for America as separate groups.

How do you get a sudden rise from 34 to 101 hate groups? It helps to suddenly add 45 chapters of one group. Act for America isn’t a hate group. It’s also just as obviously not 45 groups.

And it didn’t come into existence last year.

Act for America was only listed as one group in the 2015 list. It shot up to 45 now.

The SPLC this year listed the Los Angeles chapter of Act for America as a separate group. But the chapter has been around for quite a few years.

Furthermore Act for America boasts not 45, but 1,000 chapters across the country. Why list just 45 of them? Look at it from the SPLC’s perspective. Next year, it can add 200 chapters and claim that anti-Muslim hate groups once again tripled. And then it can do the same thing again the year after that.

That way the Southern Poverty Law Center can keep manufacturing an imaginary Islamophobia crisis.

Also added to the list is Altra Firearms: a gun store that ran an ad declaring that it wouldn’t sell firearms to Clinton supporters or Muslims. Like Casa D’Ice, this is another case of the SPLC demonstrating that it has no idea what distinguishes a store whose owner says politically incorrect things from a “group”.

The list has added Bosch Fawstin: an artist who was the target of the first ISIS terror attack in America during the assault on the Draw Mohammed cartoon contest. The SPLC announced that it was adding the Eisner nominated artist to its list of hate groups after he survived the attack.

The SPLC’s actions were obscene.

After the attack, Heidi Beirich, in charge of adding targets to the SPLC’s hate map, announced that she would be adding Bosch to the list because the Center now knows his location. Indeed the SPLC makes a point of highlighting the locations of likely terrorist targets. And the Southern Poverty Law Center’s map of hate has been used by terrorists before.

Floyd Lee Corkins opened fire at the headquarters of the Family Research Council. The conservative Christian organization had been targeted by Corkins because of its appearance on the SPLC’s list.

“Southern Poverty Law lists anti-gay groups. I found them online,” Corkins later confessed to the FBI.

When Leo Johnson, the building’s African-American manager, attempted to stop Corkins, the SPLC shooter told Johnson that he didn’t like his politics and opened fire. The SPLC gunman had planned to kill everyone in the office, but Johnson’s heroic actions saved their lives. The African-American building manager was forced to undergo painful surgeries because of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s hate list.

Despite its role in the terror attack, the SPLC continues to target the Family Research Council.

None of the so-called “Anti-Muslim hate groups” listed by the SPLC have shot anyone. The SPLC has.

Bosch Fawstin is a courageous activist. He’s also an individual. As am I. And the SPLC also has me up as a hate group. Other individual bloggers on the list include Atlas Shrugs, Refugee Resettlement Watch, Bare Naked Islam and Citizen Warrior.

6 of the SPLC’s “hate groups” are actually individuals. It’s understandable that the Southern Poverty Law Center is vague on the definition of hate. But you would think that it could figure out the definition of “group.”

No such luck.

The SPLC lists the David Horowitz Freedom Center as a hate group. But then again it also lists the American College of Pediatricians and the Jewish Political Action Committee as hate groups.

It doesn’t take much to be listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

You don’t need to be a group to be listed by the SPLC as a hate group. You don’t even need to have a pulse. Inanimate plastic signs can be listed too.

The rest of the SPLC’s “increase” is padded out with assorted community groups opposed to refugee resettlement, such as Treasure Valley Refugee Watch, and any Christian ministry it doesn’t like.

But there is one barrier to being listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

No amount of overt anti-Semitism from CAIR’s Nihad Awad would ever get the Islamist hate group listed as a hate group. Even CAIR’s flirtation with Neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers can’t get it on the hate map. The SPLC collaborated with the Muslim Public Affairs Council despite its anti-Semitism.

Instead the SPLC lists counterterrorism organizations such as the Investigative Project on Terrorism, the Clarion Project and the David Horowitz Freedom Center which point out their terror ties as hate groups.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is greedy, cynical and dishonest. Its latest ploy to gain headlines by inflating a group it had formerly listed as 1 organization into 45 by listing each chapter separately is the sort of behavior you expect from a lazy college student, not one of the wealthiest organizations in the country. And yet no one in the media will call out the SPLC for its greed, its bigotry and its lies.

The SPLC climbs into bed with extremists and terrorists and it smears counterterrorism organizations. It helps terrorists target their critics. And it solicits money through shameless lies.

It’s easy to indict the SPLC. But every indictment of the SPLC is also an indictment of a Fake News media that repeats its absurd lies without ever checking its facts.

When the media reports that there was a huge rise in anti-Muslim groups because the Southern Poverty Law Center turned 1 group into 45, it proves that it really is in the Fake News business.

Categories: Faked news, Hate groups, Islamophobia, Southern Poverty Law Center
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The Trouble With Barry

March 13, 2017

The Trouble With Barry, PJ Media, David Solway, March 13, 2017

Former President Barack Obama leaves the National Gallery of Art in Washington, Sunday, March 5, 2017. ( AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

There is now a President and an Anti-President. A government and a shadow government. The anti-President controls more of the government through his shadow government than the real President.

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Alfred Hitchcock’s black comedy The Trouble with Harry bombed at the box office when it was first released in 1955; it has now achieved the status of a classic. Today, a bizarre melodrama playing in all the major political theaters, which might be called The Trouble with Barry, has become an overnight smash hit. Starring Barack Obama, a prodigy of the art of surveillance and Teflon-like resilience, it will eventually run its course. However the plot may develop, one thing is certain: it will not be regarded as a classic.

The trouble with Barry, like Hitchcock’s moribund Harry, is that he never seems to go away, constantly emerging at the most inopportune moments. Unlike every other president in American history, Obama has dedicated himself to the practice of what the Washington Examiner has described as “post-presidential meddling.”

He has thrown himself fully into Alinsky-style “community organizing,” stirring up resistance to the Trump administration in every way conceivable: installing, according to the New York Post, a “shadow government,” dubbed Organizing for Action, comprising more than 30,000 agitators and 250 chapters across the U.S., in order “to sabotage the incoming administration”; renting a dwelling and setting up command headquarters around the corner from the White House; cooking up the Russian hacking fable; and most recently, allegedly wiretapping Trump Tower, which seems disturbingly probable following the salient remarks of Ret. Army Intelligence Officer Tony Shaffer on Fox and the revelations from Breitbart News. Mark Levin’s accusation that Obama is orchestrating a “silent coup” against Trump rings true. As Daniel Greenfield points out:

There is now a President and an Anti-President. A government and a shadow government. The anti-President controls more of the government through his shadow government than the real President.

Obama and his Deep State have engaged in “a criminal conspiracy of unprecedented scope.”

And yet, even today, few media outlets are willing to investigate the innumerable instances of lying, lawbreaking, corruption, broken promises and cronyism for which Obama is clearly answerable. That he is likely involved in a wiretapping operation against a political opponent should not come as a surprise to anyone who has observed or researched the man. As Matthew Vadum comments in FrontPage Magazine, “It might be said that every day of his presidency he committed at least one impeachable offense” — whether abusing executive powers, bypassing Congress, leaking classified information, misrepresenting Obamacare, being ultimately responsible for the Fast and Furious and Benghazi infamies, and more.

The wiretapping affair is only the latest in a vast and ongoing sequence of misdemeanors, scandals and illegalities — a list compiled by Doug Ross runs into hundreds of such instances of impropriety and malpractice. No matter. The list will only grow. The editor of a prestigious conservative site wrote me calling this latest outrage a “game changer.” That remains to be seen. I would have thought, for example, that Obama’s first Executive Order (13489) on January 21, 2009 sealing his vital records would have been the game changer we were waiting for, but Barry sailed on unscathed.

There have been weak presidents, deluded presidents, and harmful presidents before him, but never has there been anyone as sinister or questionable as Obama, not excluding even the malefic Jimmy Carter or the sleazy Bill Clinton. What J. R. Dunn writing in American Thinker has said of Hillary, “the most repellent and corrupt American presidential candidate since Aaron Burr,” is equally true, in my estimation, of Barack Obama. Meanwhile, it is Trump who faces a barrage of threats, calls for impeachment and acts of disobedience that would have been more explicable if levied against Obama for his historic deceptions and malfeasances. Under the pestilential reign of Obama, and indeed years of Democratic incumbency, the shining city on the hill has become a murky city in the swamp.

The trouble with Barry is not only that he refuses to go away, materializing like Harry where he has no business being, or that he enjoys, à la Hitchcock, making cameo appearances in whatever political film he happens to be directing at the moment. All this would be perfectly acceptable, even agreeable, were he a benign presence or if he had Hitchcock’s talent for deadpan humor and high entertainment rather than a penchant for malice and misconduct.

The trouble with Barry is, quite simply, that he is Barry, a “Third World man,” to cite Phyllis Chesler’s psychological analysis of Obama, trying to become the father he never really had, an anti-white, anti-colonialist, anti-capitalist, anti-Zionist, anti-American, Marxist revolutionary. Why then, would he not use any means at his disposal, legitimate or illegitimate, including those that reek of “police state tactics,” to achieve his ends? Was this not predictable from the beginning? He will keep popping up working his characteristic mischief wherever he possibly can. This is what the man does and will continue doing. If he is not finally indicted for his multiple derelictions, there will be other “game changers” to come, all to no effect. A fall guy will inevitably be found to take the rap. We need to realize that what has been called “Obamagate” is nothing out of the ordinary. Obama is Obama. What did we expect?

Hitchcock’s film ends decisively with the legend: “The Trouble with Harry Is Over.” Unfortunately, the trouble with Barry isn’t.

Categories: Deep state, Obama and Constitution, Obama and law enforcement, Obama and media, Obama's Post-Presidency, Organizing for Action
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