Staging of Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’ Features ‘Trump’ Getting Assassinated, Inside Edition via YouTube, June 12, 2016
Archive for June 12, 2017
Libyan Security Committee Calls U.S. Muslim Leader a Terrorist
June 12, 2017Libyan Security Committee Calls U.S. Muslim Leader a Terrorist, Investigative Project on Terrorism, June 12, 2017
Omeish and U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine. Source: Facebook
A prominent Muslim American political activist is included on a list of 75 terrorists issued by a Libyan parliamentary committee.
Esam Omeish is a former president of the Muslim American Society and remains a prominent figure at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Va. He is among 75 people the Libyan House of Representatives’ Defense and National Security Committee labeled Friday as enemies.
Libya’s government remains fragmented, with the House of Representatives based in a city called Tobruk. It is considered closely aligned with Egypt.
Omeish is the 29th name listed on the terror list and is described as an “international member of the Muslim Brotherhood.” Another American, Aly Abuzaakouk, appears just after Omeish’s, also identified as an international Muslim Brotherhood member.
Omeish blasted the move in a statement on his Facebook page, saying “my name had unjustly and falsely been placed on a so called list of supporters of terrorism.” He protested Saturday to Virginia U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, the 2016 Democratic vice presidential nominee, and plans to try meeting more members of Congress today.
Omeish wants the committee’s leader “legally prosecuted for fraud, slander and defamation to obtain a judgement inhibiting their ability to travel to America…” He also wants penalties for committee members who approved the list, accusing them of “randomly charging American citizens who have no offense or crime, or involvement with any of the forms of terrorism, and who are major in the American landscape in the fight against terrorism and working with all security and legal agencies to preserve the country’s security and the safety of the society and communities with transparency and integrity which everyone near and far knows.”
Omeish formerly served as president of the Muslim American Society (MAS), which insiders have acknowledged is the Muslim Brotherhood’s overt arm in the United States. In a December Facebook comment, Omeish wrote that Muslims “have not known of the people of Islam … those more just in understanding, wider in approach and closer in application than the Muslim Brotherhood. We have not known of humane brotherliness and its people, (and we are affiliated with all men whom Allah has created a propensity for love, mercy, an upright disposition, good morals and honorable character) better in ethics, of gentler parts, deeper in adherence to duty, nobler in morals among all their sons, and every one of their actions than the Muslim Brotherhood.”
Last year, he advocated that the U.S. support for a group known variably as the “Revolutionary Shura Council,” or the “Mujahideen Shura of Derna,” despite ties between its officials and al-Qaida. Egypt’s air force bombed the group last month in retaliation for terror attacks against Coptic Christians in April.
Abuzaakouk also has deep Muslim Brotherhood connections. He has served as executive director of the American Muslim Council (AMC), and publications director for the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). He became foreign minister of the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Government of National Salvation based in Tripoli after dictator Muammar Gaddafi fell. That group opposes the internationally recognized government in Tobruk.
The AMC was founded in part by Mahmoud Abu Saud, who helped Hassan al-Banna create the Brotherhood in Egypt, the Washington Post reported in 2004. FBI officials have long suspected that the IIIT housed leading Brotherhood officials in the United States.
Despite his overt support for “the jihad way” and for the Brotherhood, Omeish has been close to Kaine for at least a decade. When Kaine was Virginia’s governor in 2007, Omeish was forced to resign from a state immigration panel after Investigative Project on Terrorism video showed him praising Palestinians during a 2000 rally for knowing that “the jihad way is the way to liberate your land.”
At a separate event two months earlier, Omeish similarly praised Palestinians “for their bravery, for their giving up their lives for the sake of Allah and for the sake of Al-Aqsa [Jerusalem]. They have spearheaded the effort to bring victory upon the believers in [Palestine].”
It was during a 2010 fundraiser for Omeish’s state assembly campaign that U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison – now the Democratic National Committee’s vice chair – complained that Israel unduly influence U.S. policy in the Middle East. “A region of 350 million all turns on a country of 7 million,” Ellison said. “Does that make sense?”
Ellison added: “We can’t allow another country to treat us like we’re their ATM. Right? And so we ought to stand up as Americans. Now some of us have affinity for other places around the globe. Some of us are new Americans and adopted America as our home. But whether you’re born here or whether you accepted America as your own voluntarily, this is our home. Right? All of our home equally, and we can’t allow it to be disrespected because some, by a country that we’re paying money to.”
In this case, Kaine serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s subcommittee for North Africa.
It is unclear what impact the Libyan House committee’s terror list will have, especially among U.S. policy makers. There’s no public information indicating Omeish was directly involved in any terror support. But he has openly advocated for “the jihad way” and lauds the Brotherhood, a movement which articulated a goal of creating a global Islamic state and serves as an inspiration for Sunni jihadist groups including al-Qaida, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Ja’amat Islamiya.
“The common link here is the extremist Muslim Brotherhood – all of these organizations are descendants of the membership and ideology of the Muslim Brothers,” former National Security and Counter-terrorism Coordinator Richard Clarke testified in 2004 before a U.S. Senate committee.
There are twin bills pending in Congress that would designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group. The United Arab Emirates has already done so.
The New Media Should Drive the News Cycle
June 12, 2017The New Media Should Drive the News Cycle, American Thinker, James Lewis, June 12, 2017
(Funding? — DM)
I believe that the New Media deserve major credit for deconstructing the Old Media narrative. Right after James Comey’s much-hyped congressional testimony, several New Media sites picked up the real news – namely, that Comey had actually outed himself as a top leaker in the Deep Government by sending his own written memo, typed on government time, on a government computer, to attack the president of the United States, with no proof of illegal or unethical behavior at all.
That should have been the lead story for the New Media. We had the Comey leaker story, and we told the story, but it was reactive; it took the false narrative of Trump’s supposed obstruction of justice as the point of departure. That seems to validate the false accusation against Trump and only pointed out its falsehoods.
The Old Media don’t play defense. They play offense, and let the truth be damned. The New Media are winning the battle for American minds, but they have not yet learned to actively drive the news cycle.
As a result, Trump’s magnificent spectacle in Saudi Arabia, which turned the Saudis, along with 50 national Muslim leaders, along with Egypt, Israel and the United States, against Iranian aggression and Iran’s proxy state, Qatar, went more or less unnoticed. Today, the Gulf Council alliance, backed by the United States, is starting to choke Arab commerce with Qatar, and if that campaign succeeds, the Qataris will have to back down.
On top of all that, for the first time since 9/11, we have pinpointed a major source of funding and direction for horrific massacres in the West – namely, Qatar. This is a clear move against the Iranian terror sponsors as well, therefore this is a strategic move against the Shi’ite half of jihad.
The Saudis have to do much, much more. But Trump (aided by Mattis and Jared Kushner) has started a major turning point in the jihad war. The huge MOAB weapon against ISIS in Afghanistan is part of the strategic turnaround.
Some of the New Media have done an excellent job in covering the MOAB and the Saudi Trump celebration. But we have not used this major event to drive the news cycle.
That is because we will leave the aggressive role in the media wars to the New York Times and its corrupt left-jihadist P.R. gang. We have direct evidence for headline collusion and endless lying from the NYT-led media aggressors.
But the New Media should steal the lead from the NYT and its historically communist ally, the U.K. Guardian, which also controls the BBC.
We are like that losing football team that gives up offensive plays, so it gets pushed back and back and back. Conservatives complain that we are always on defense. But from our current state of play, taking the offense is not difficult at all. All it takes is a changing of mindset from being a loser to being a winner.
Look at all the news driver’s we’ve missed.
Trump’s overturning of Obama’s bizarre and anti-American attacks on U.S. industries.
Trump’s opening up of U.S. hydrocarbon production, thereby driving down the cost of fuel around the world and putting OPEC in a double-bind.
Trump’s victory in getting Israel and the Pals to sit down and talk turkey on the details of a settlement.
Putin’s eagerness to ally with the United States to destroy ISIS, which also includes Russian Chechens, who assassinated children in an elementary school in Beslan twenty years ago and held Moscow citizens hostage in a theater. Putin and his Russian Orthodox establishment hate the jihad, and they never want trained Chechens to come back from Syria. Strategic cooperation therefore serves both sides. One reason for the sudden anti-Russian hate campaign from the Democrats is easy to guess: the Dems are now getting lots of money from Iran. This is perfect for a real investigative journalist to figure out the details, which are not hard to dig out.
What’s needed is for the New Media to unify around one of these themes – not to copy others, but to add value to their exposés – in order to drive the message home over and over again. Today we pay too much attention to wacky Nancy Pelosi, as if her scripted and inarticulate verbal bombs are actual news. They are not. We make them news.
We can snipe at Pelosi and her wacky ilk all we want, but we need aggressive, positive news memes that all multiple New Media grab as a story – like Comey’s self-confessed corrupt leaking – and use to drive the news cycle.
I’m giving just a few examples, but the New Media are creative, and many people have unique insights. (We are also much smarter than the mannequins of the Olds.)
Competition is good, but sometimes we should pull together and get our American audience thinking about a clear and present danger. There are plenty of them.
One reasonable goal would be for the New Media to drive every other news cycle. That would make it humanly possible to do, rather than being driven crazy to write alarming headlines every 24 hours. We can follow the real news rather than make it up, as the competition does.
Taking the initiative in driving the news will require discipline and a willingness to work together – not as a mandatory rule, but when the opportunity arises. The Comey confession to leaking to the NYT is one example. But this administration gives us many examples.
A vigorous offensive style by the New Media might also stiffen the spine of Republicans in Congress. It might help to guide and to be guided by the 50 million (or more) Americans who voted for Trump.
This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Let’s not blow it. Don’t copy the Olds. Drive the initiative!
Report: The Top Muslim Scholar Calls for Death of Christians
June 12, 2017Report: The Top Muslim Scholar Calls for Death of Christians, Clarion Project, Elliot Friedland, June 12, 2017
Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of the leading theologians of the Muslim world, who is considered the spiritual guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, has called for the murder of Christians. He was recently blacklisted as a terrorist by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt. Qaradawi, 90, was included in a list totaling 59 names of individuals and 12 entities listed as terrorists connected to Qatar.
Ahmed Adnan, a Saudi journalist, writer and political advisor based in Lebanon made the claim Qaradawi supports killing Christians in an interview with Al-Ahram al-Arabi.
“A call of Yusuf al-Qaradawi was intercepted in which he gave a fatwa to blow up churches and kill Christians,” he said in the interview. “This information is not from me but from a special source. This fatwa inspired training sessions in Libyan Islamist militia camps. These training sessions resulting in terror attacks that blew up churches and the incident of al-Minya.”
On May 26, masked gunmen opened fire on a convoy of Copts in Minya governate, killing 28.
Adnan also claimed in the interview that Qatar was indirectly connected to the Manchester terrorist attack through its support of militias in Libya.
The Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia published an announcement saying Minister of Education Ahmed Ibn Muhammed al-Issa ordered there should be no book, articles, pamphlets or anything else written by al-Qaradawi in the libraries of the universities, colleges, school and departments of education.
Following Qaradawi’s listing as a terrorist, the Saudi-backed Muslim World League expelled Qaradawi.
Peter Schweizer: Jeff Sessions Ending DOJ Handouts to Activist Groups ‘a Tremendous Victory’
June 12, 2017Peter Schweizer: Jeff Sessions Ending DOJ Handouts to Activist Groups ‘a Tremendous Victory’, Breitbart, Dan Riehl, June 12, 2017
Scott Olson/Getty Images
President of the Government Accountability Institute, Peter Schweizer, spoke with Breitbart News Daily SiriusXX host Raheem Kassam on Monday regarding Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ decision to end Department of Justice handouts for leftist groups, which has come to be known as something of a “slush fund.”
As Breitbart News reported:
For decades, through a variety of initiatives, the DOJ has insisted on donations to third parties as part of the settlements it reaches with defendants, especially corporations. In the Obama administration, this practice took on the character of a “slush fund,” which funneled hundreds of millions of dollars from these corporate defendants and put it into the hands of non-government organizations.
Recipients have included left-wing “community organizer” groups such as the National Council of La Raza, or “The Race,” a Latino racial advocacy group that supports mass illegal immigration. Other recipients include the National Urban League, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, and NeighborWorks America, which is a congressionally chartered mortgage aid group that itself has come under widespread criticism.
“This is a tremendous victory people ought to be very encouraged by,” said Schweizer.
The idea got its start under Eric Holder as far back as the Clinton administration. “The problem is, it got distorted, as so many things do in Washington, DC,” added Schweizer. “And so rather than going to the victims of what a company might have done, they ended up giving it to activist groups. And many of these activist groups, like La Raza, like others, not only didn’t do things to alleviate the activity that had taken place, they actually used the money for things like voter registration.”
“These were politically active groups,” he added.
Iran’s Foreign Legion in Syria
June 12, 2017Iran’s Foreign Legion in Syria, Front Page Magazine, Joseph Puder, June 12, 2017
(Please see also, Syrian-Hizballah massacre in Daraa: 140 dead. — DM)
The Iranian strategy, it appears, is to consolidate is forces in southwestern Syria facing the Druze area of Dar’aa, and gradually move their commanded forces toward the Israeli border in the Golan. Iran has sought for a long time now to establish its proxies, including Hezbollah units in the Golan facing Israel. Israel however, was able to dislodge these Iranian efforts. Nevertheless, the Iranian cooperation with Russia in Syria, and the lucrative arms deals between them, may persuade Russia to consider the Iranian efforts.
Iran is the leading state-sponsor of international terrorism, and the IS attack has given Tehran a taste of its own deadly medicine. The oppression of Sunnis in Shiite Iran is likely to drive Sunni Baluch and Ahwazi Arabs into doing the IS’s bidding, translated into acts of terror in the heart of Tehran. It demonstrates a hard truth – that Sunni jihadists can assemble a foreign legion, just as the Iranian jihadists have done in Syria.
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Arab News reported (6/7/2017) that “Suicide bombers and gunmen attacked the parliament building and the Mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini in the Iranian capital. Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility and released a video purporting to show gunmen inside the parliament.” The twin attacks on Wednesday killed 12 Iranians, and embarrassed the radical Islamist regime by showing its vulnerability at home. IS terrorists hit the most potent symbols of Iran’s Islamic Republic on Wednesday. It has brought into sharp focus the high cost of Tehran’s involvement in Syria, which according to the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) leadership, was meant to ward off terrorist attacks at the home front. With an economy that has barely recovered from sanctions imposed on it by the international community, the Iranian regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei can hardly justify the huge cost to the treasury of exporting its revolution and backing Assad in Syria with Iranian cash, if not in blood.
Given the Sunni-Shiite conflict engulfing the Middle East, it was inevitable that IS will ultimately strike at Iran – the patrons of Shiite-Islam. The antecedents of IS in Iraq proved that the Sunnis who ruled in Iraq albeit, as a minority with a Shiite majority, won’t easily allow Shiites to disenfranchise them. In Syria however, the Sunnis are the majority, and have been ruled for almost 50 years by the Alawite (Shiite) clan of the Assads. It was never a question of whether or if IS will strike at Iran but rather when. The array of Shiite militias fighting IS, and non-Islamist Sunni militias, under the command of Maj. General Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Division of the IRGC, is clear enough reason why Iran is, and will continue to be a target.
To expand its influence throughout the Middle East region, and extend the Shiite Crescent, the Ayatollahs’ regime in Tehran has devoted huge resources to protect its turf in Syria, and maintain it as a bridge to Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea. In essence, it means the preservation of the Bashar Assad, Alawi-led (Alawites are an offshoot of Shiite Islam) regime. The Syrian dictator who has now earned the moniker “the butcher of Damascus” can count on the Iranian ‘Foreign Legion’ made up of Shiite fighters from Lebanon (Hezbollah), Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen. They provide the manpower that serves the Iranian agenda in Syria. Besides Hezbollah, there is the Afghan “Fatimiyoun and Khadem el-‘Aqila Brigades; the Pakistani Zainebiyoun Brigade; Yemeni Houtis “Liwa Al-Saada Brigade, the Iraqi Shiite militia Al-Nujaba Movement. The Iraqi Shiite contingent is the largest force engaged in the defense of the Assad regime. It is estimated to number around 40,000 fighters.
According to the Qatari based outlet, Al-Jazeera (1/22/2016), “Some 20,000 Afghan Shia fighters alone are said to be fighting alongside Iran to help save the government of the Syrian President Assad.” Iran, the publication pointed out, recruited tens of thousands of Afghan Shiite fighters, offering them salaries to join the fight to save President Bashar Assad. The Afghan Shiites are refugees from the ongoing war in Afghanistan between the government of Ashraf Ghani and the Taliban. They escaped to Iran due to economic and political hardship, and sought asylum there. Given the inability of young Afghanis to find work in Iran, they are easily manipulated into being cannon-fodder for the Iranians. Unlike an Iranian fighter, an Afghan illegal migrant killed in action would not be a burden on the Iranian treasury. Moreover, its foreign mercenaries provide Iran with deniability with regards to their intervention in Syria.
Captured Afghan Shiite fighters revealed that they are attracted to Syria by the promise of a financial reward. The Iranian regime paid recruits supposedly between $500 and $1,000 a month. Some Afghans claimed that they joined the fighting brigades as a way to escape prison sentences or even the death penalty for drug trafficking, one of the few outlets for Afghan refugees in Iran. Anas al-Abdah, the secretary of the opposition Syrian Coalition committee told Al-Jazeera that “Iran considers itself the one and only reference point for all Shia people in the whole world. It organizes them into political, social and military organizations, both in their local communities and abroad…This is part of the main mission of the Iranian regime in terms of exporting the revolution. Iran recruits, motivates, organizes, finances, and trains Shias from all over the world to help support Bashar al-Assad’s regime from collapsing.”
In Israel, there is particular attention being paid to the Al Nujaba group. Israeli Col. (retired) Dr. Jacques Neriah, suggested that at “The end of February, 2017, the leader of Al-Nujaba’, Akram el-Q’aabi, declared in an unprecedented announcement that his forces were to fight together with the Syrian army to ‘liberate’ the Golan. El-Q’aabi justified his position by stating that the terrorism of ISIS is but a part of a grand plan designed by the Zionists, supervised by the Americans with Turkish-Gulf implementation. Therefore, it was time to decapitate the head of the Zionist snake.” Neriah added, “The Brigade announced in March, 2017 the creation of “The Liberation of the Golan Brigade” (Liwa’ Tahrir el-Jolan). The Brigade whose members have fought in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq will have one mission: to assist the Syrian army in liberating its “stolen lands.” According to the spokesman of the Al-Nujaba, ‘The creation of this Brigade was but a step toward liberating the holy places in occupied Palestine.”
The Iranian strategy, it appears, is to consolidate is forces in southwestern Syria facing the Druze area of Dar’aa, and gradually move their commanded forces toward the Israeli border in the Golan. Iran has sought for a long time now to establish its proxies, including Hezbollah units in the Golan facing Israel. Israel however, was able to dislodge these Iranian efforts. Nevertheless, the Iranian cooperation with Russia in Syria, and the lucrative arms deals between them, may persuade Russia to consider the Iranian efforts.
As a result of the IS twin attacks in Tehran, the Golan front is a secondary priority for now. The IRGC, whose position in Iran has strengthened, despite the overwhelming reelection victory of the more “moderate” President Hassan Rouhani in the recent elections, will now increase its operations in Syria and Iraq, and more Iranian resources will be spent there. Iranian President Rouhani will now find it more difficult to reduce spending on foreign arenas such as Syria, as he has promised to do in his election campaign.
Iran is the leading state-sponsor of international terrorism, and the IS attack has given Tehran a taste of its own deadly medicine. The oppression of Sunnis in Shiite Iran is likely to drive Sunni Baluch and Ahwazi Arabs into doing the IS’s bidding, translated into acts of terror in the heart of Tehran. It demonstrates a hard truth – that Sunni jihadists can assemble a foreign legion, just as the Iranian jihadists have done in Syria.
John McCain, off rail, says Obama better than Trump
June 12, 2017John McCain, off rail, says Obama better than Trump, Washington Times,
(Please see also, Never Trump is Still Waiting for the Apocalypse. — DM)
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., questions former FBI Director James Comey during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, Thursday, June 8, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
We know Sen. John McCain is no friend of President Donald Trump’s — but this is ridiculous.
The Arizona senator, who says he’s a Republican, actually came out and told a left-leaning overseas newspaper, the Guardian, that Barack Obama provided better leadership for America than Trump.
Seriously.
Here’s the context: The Guardian, in a long-running hit piece on Trump that included quotes from those who were upset at the president’s tweeting and non-politically correct talk and walk on foreign affairs — including blunt assessments of the terrorist situation — asked McCain what he thought of the message the White House chief was sending ‘round the world.
The Guardian asked McCain this, no doubt because the Guardian knew exactly what kind of reply McCain would give. And McCain, the anti-Trumper of the Senate, did not disappoint.
“What do you think the message is? The message is that America doesn’t want to lead,” McCain said, the Guardian gleefully reported. “They are not sure of American leadership, whether it be in Siberia or whether it be in Antarctica.”
The Guardian, sensing victory on the horizon, then followed up with this: So was America’s standing in the global arena better under Obama?
And again, McCain didn’t disappoint.
“As far as American leadership is concerned, yes,” he said.
Unbelievable. Now the important thing to remember here is a) members of the media only go to McCain when they want to act like they’re doing the balanced thing and getting a quote from a Republican — while knowing full well McCain’s a Republican In Name Only; and b) nobody in the conservative world gives a hoot what McCain thinks.
In fact, the only ones who want McCain to stay in office are the Democrats.
But saying Obama — Obama of world tour apologist fame, Obama of diplomacy at all costs fame, Obama of selling out Israel and Mideast allies with the Iran treaty fame — is better for America in terms of leadership is a new low, for even the left.
Trump’s policy with other nations is pure and simple: America first. Those who criticize, are globalists.
Those who say Obama was a better leader than Trump — especially those in the Republican Party who say such — are delusional.
Never Trump is Still Waiting for the Apocalypse
June 12, 2017Never Trump is Still Waiting for the Apocalypse, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, June 12, 2017
“Republicans of all stripes must be made to acknowledge and accept that Trumpism is an experiment that failed,” Noah Rothman wrote in Commentary.
It was October 2016 and Rothman was declaring the terms on which Never Trumpers would accept the surrender of Republicans after Trump’s defeat. Some “examples must be made”, but after some political purges, the GOP could be reunited around “free trade” and “an internationalist foreign policy”.
But instead of losing, Trump won. The disasters that Rothman was predicting, the loss of Congress and the White House, never came about. And the scorned prophets of Never Trump, instead of apologizing or being offered terms for rejoining the GOP, continued forecasting disaster and doom for the heretics.
Like Democrats, Never Trumpers were still stuck on an election that Trump wasn’t supposed to win. Democrats had predicted a Hillary victory and Never Trumpers predicted a Republican disaster. Both Democrats and Never Trumpers want to reverse the results of the election. The Democrats invent vast conspiracies and the Never Trumpers predict disasters that will never happen.
Never Trumpers are obsessed with proving to Republicans that electing Trump was a disastrous mistake.
So everything is a disaster. Trump is infuriating Europeans alienating Muslims, abandoning NATO and destroying the planet. The sky is always falling. The apocalypse is just around the corner. And when it finally arrives, Rothman and the rest of the gang can lay out their terms for reunifying the GOP around illegal alien amnesty, destructive trade practices and open borders for terrorist refugees.
Even after the election, President Trump still can’t win.
“Donald Trump’s Republican Party Will Be Defeated,” George Will predicted in his Washington Post column before the November election. The National Review chose to reprint his warning that Republicans must break with Trump. That would “determine how many of them lose with him, and how many deserve to.”
When Trump won, Will dubbed it a, “A Disruptive yet Ruinous Triumph for the GOP”. Never mind that the GOP had won, it was really a defeat. “Will the Republican party learn the wrong lessons from its election victory?” he inquired.
And who better to turn to for the right lessons than the man who had predicted that Republicans would lose and who had declared “this was not my party anymore”, but still insisted on lecturing Republicans?
When Trump was sworn in, Will called it, “A Most Dreadful Inaugural Address”. He warned, “Donald Trump’s Economic Policy Could Spell Disaster” and “Trump’s Immigration Plan Could Spell Doom for the GOP.”
And if the disaster isn’t forthcoming on its own, Will pleaded with the public “to quarantine this presidency by insistently communicating to its elected representatives a steady, rational fear of this man.” And there’s the National Review wing of the “Resistance” — the left’s effort to sabotage the Trump presidency and fulfill the prophecies that failed.
Back at Commentary, Noah Rothman had consistently predicted that Trump would lose. “When Trump’s Republican presidential bid flames out – and it will flame out,” he wrote confidently. “This “plan” is a road to electoral ruin,” he warned of Trump’s common sense migration reform.
Everything was Trump’s fault.
“Bilateral relations between the United States and Russia have cratered since Trump took office,” Rothman mourned. Obama departed office with relations at their lowest point in decades. Hillary Clinton had compared Putin to Hitler. But to Never Trumpers, it’s always Trump’s fault.
Elsewhere, Rothman bemoaned that Trump had “prioritized renewed confrontation” with Iran and China. To Never Trumpers, common sense policies were bad if they had Trump’s name on them.
But Rothman’s constant predictions of disaster, before and after, were nothing compared to even madder voices at Commentary like Max Boot; the Republican answer to Keith Olbermann.
“Donald Trump represents the No. 1 security threat to the United States today,” Max Boot declared. Greater even than Global Warming.
This month, Rothman echoed Boot’s preposterous claim by invoking the conspiracy inside the conspiracy. “The Bannon wing is now a menace to global security.”
But none of the Never Trumper hysterics can actually define this global security menace. Trump has taken a tougher line on every enemy from China to Iran to Syria to Russia to Cuba to ISIS. Despite all the innuendo about Russia, it was Trump not Obama, who enforced a red line in Syria. Obama made a deal with the devil in Iran. Trump is beginning to roll it back. And the Russians aren’t remotely happy about it.
Trump stood up to China and North Korea. Unlike Obama’s fake pivot, Trump is staying the course. ISIS is being defeated. And that’s the problem for the Boot-Rothman fantasies.
Boot claimed that Trump was “embracing fascism” and had also embraced “war crimes”. He argued that Trump was playing “right into the terrorists’ hands” and “doing serious damage to American credibility and to collective security.” Outside Commentary, Boot would go on to demand that “for the good of the country, Trump should resign before our new national nightmare gets worse.”
“Republicans Need to Abandon the Trump Ship ASAP,” Boot insisted. He closed by echoing the conviction that, “the security of the United States might now depend on electing a Democratic Congress in 2018.” It would have been more honest of Boot to just join the Democrat Party.
The job security of Never Trump pundits certainly depends on a Republican defeat in 2018. If Trump doesn’t fail, how will anyone know they were right? And so, with the logic of the left, they insist that he must be made to fail. If Trump won’t fail and Republicans won’t abandon him, it’s time to vote Democrat. As a number of Never Trumpers actually did.
But neither the National Review nor Commentary can hold a candle to the sheer derangement of the Weekly Standard. The Standard pushed 25th Amendment and Electoral College shenanigans to stop Trump that were hardly seen outside left-wing swamps. It compared Paul Ryan to a Nazi collaborator for endorsing Trump. All of this was spiced with doom headlines that could have come from the media.
“Trump the Loser”, “Donald Trump, a One-Man Wedge Issue, Threatens GOP Future”, “Donald Trump’s Plan to Destroy the U.S. Economy”, headlines shrieked. “With Trump, It Only Gets Worse from Here.”
And even, “Is Trump Ruining Marriages?”
Is there anything wrong in the world Trump isn’t responsible for? Everything he did was terrible.
Even if Trump won, a story speculated that, “It is doubtful that he will have a commanding legislative majority.” Even if he does, Schumer will filibuster a Trump nominee and “If you think the Senate Republicans will blithely go along with eliminating that procedural tool, then you haven’t been paying much attention to the Senate Republicans in the last decade” and “It beggars belief to presume that Trump can build a majority coalition in favor of conservative principles”.
The establishment that was always right had spoken. Yet it kept on being embarrassingly wrong. Over and over again.
According to “Trump’s Position Is Even Worse Than You Think”, the election was so hopeless that “the national polls are actually overstating Trump’s strength.” It’s always hopeless for the Never Trumpers. And that’s because their position is hopeless. The product they’re selling is defeatism. And that’s never been very popular. The only argument for defeatism is manufacturing a constant sense of crisis.
Throughout the election, the Standard warned that Republicans must break with Trump or go down with him. A single quote from “To Save the Party, Pull the Plug on Trump Now” will suffice.
“Understand this: Donald Trump is not going to win.”
Even now, a Standard column insists that Trump will go the way of Nixon and Republicans must break with him. In the Never Trump camp, Trump and the GOP are always on the verge of destruction.
But the apocalypse never arrives.
In just one paragraph of one Weekly Standard article, President Trump is accused of undermining “legitimate checks on his authority”, eroding “confidence in our electoral system” and tarnishing his office. And probably ruining your marriage too.
But after all this time the disaster still hasn’t arrived. Trump won. The alarmists lost. The stock market is rising and our enemies are afraid. The alarmism of the echo chamber has added up to nothing more than failed predictions, falling subscriptions and encouragement to Democrat seditionists.
Never Trump is really Never Wrong. Like the Democrats, they refuse to adapt to reality. Rothman and his Never Trump colleagues need to accept that Never Trumpism is an experiment that failed, apologize to Trump and the American people whose progress they are obstructing, and go home.
Syrian-Hizballah massacre in Daraa: 140 dead
June 12, 2017Syrian-Hizballah massacre in Daraa: 140 dead, DEBKAfile, June 12, 2017
According to DEBKAfile’s military sources, any Syrian rebels surviving the initial onslaught on the town had no choice but to fall back. They could only find sanctuary in two places – Jordan, to the south, or the Al-Tanf Syrian-Iraqi border crossing to the east, which is held by US and Jordanian special forces. Those forces did not intervene in the Daraa debacle.
After capturing Daraa, the next victim of a Syrian-Hizballah massacre is most probably Quneitra, which lies less than 9km from the Israeli border. Its capture would bring every last Syrian town bordering Jordan and Israel under their domination.
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Bashar Assad’s troops and his allies, the Iran-backed Lebanese Hizballah, are notorious for their barbaric cruelty to the populations they conquer. But even by their own appalling standards, the massacre they wreaked against the 100,000 citizens of the southern Syrian town of Daraa this week must stand out as a milestone from hell.
Posted in the town, just one kilometer from the Jordanian border, were 3,000 anti-Assad rebels, some of whom joined the Free Syrian Army to be trained and armed by the United States and Jordan. The offensive the Syrian government army and Hizballah launched against their positions on Sunday, June 11, left 140 dead and hundreds injured in its first hours.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that it started with dozens of Syrian air force helicopters dropping 150 explosive barrels on those positions, while Syrian bomber-fighter planes conducted at least 25 sorties against rebel rooftop positions atop the highest buildings, and Syrian artillery fired off some 120 ground-to-ground missiles against various key points in the town of Daraa.
Syrian and Hizballah forces advanced into the town under this hellish blitz.
Our sources report that the spearhead consisted entirely of Hizballah’s Al Qaim Brigade, followed by units of the Syrian army’s elite 4th armored Division, armed with advanced Russian-made T-90 tanks. The commander of the offensive was Col. Ghayath Galla.
(On June 6, DEBKAfile disclosed in an exclusive report that the 4th Division’s commander, Bashar Assad’s younger brother, Gen. Maher Assad, and his officers were sighted inspecting the terrain around Daraa in advance of the offensive.)
According to DEBKAfile’s military sources, any Syrian rebels surviving the initial onslaught on the town had no choice but to fall back. They could only find sanctuary in two places – Jordan, to the south, or the Al-Tanf Syrian-Iraqi border crossing to the east, which is held by US and Jordanian special forces. Those forces did not intervene in the Daraa debacle.
After capturing Daraa, the next victim of a Syrian-Hizballah massacre is most probably Quneitra, which lies less than 9km from the Israeli border. Its capture would bring every last Syrian town bordering Jordan and Israel under their domination.
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