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Trump’s Bizarre Winning Formula

November 17, 2016

Trump’s Bizarre Winning Formula, Town Hall, Victor Davis Hanson, November 17, 2016

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The Democratic Party handed Donald Trump a rare opportunity to make radical changes to the electoral map that could last for years to come.

First, the Democrats gave Trump a great gift by completing the ongoing radicalization of their party under President Obama. After 2008, it was no longer a party of the working and middle classes, but a lopsided political pyramid.

On top were the cynical elites who turned up in the WikiLeaks John Podesta email trove: self-important media members, Ivy League grandees, Silicon Valley billionaires, Wall Street plutocrats and coastal corridor snobs. They talk left-wing but live royally. They court minorities to vote in lockstep, then deride them in private. The vast lower tier of the party comprises government employees, the poor, minorities, and the millions dependent on state and federal assistance. The Democrats in between were ignored, and so they kept fleeing the party. Look at the red/blue map of the election. Democratic strength retreated to the inner cities and the rich coastal suburbs.

The Democrats also, in suicidal fashion, stoked racial chauvinism, or the notion that one’s tribe should transcend all other affiliations. After pandering to various minority groups, Hillary Clinton apparently believed that they suddenly would forget her emphasis on race and ethnicity to vote for her, a 69-year-old white multimillionaire.

But the Democrats learned a bitter lesson in 2016: Obama’s left-wing, rich/poor ideological agendas do not appeal to most of the country. Despite a hard progressive agenda, Obama was able to win two terms by relying on racial and ethnic solidarity, earning record numbers of Latino and black votes.

The logic of such a formula could not be easily transferred to a non-minority Democratic candidate. So Clinton lost key blue states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin because minority turnout in cities such as Detroit, Philadelphia and Milwaukee fell off from 2008 and 2012.

Worse for Democrats, by pandering to tribal solidarity, they polarized the white working classes. When physical similarity is touted as the best argument to vote for someone, it green-lights everybody to do the same — including huge numbers of less affluent whites who voted for Trump.

Trump took advantage of these openings. By reformulating the old Republican messages to include so-called fair (rather than free) trade, by leaving Social Security alone and by promising to create more jobs, Trump plucked millions of lower- and middle-class voters from the Democratic Party.

Republican elites may have been appalled that Trump blasted global trade agreements and promised to punish corporations that outsourced jobs overseas. But those who have been left out of the globalized economy flocked to that message after not warming up to John McCain and Mitt Romney in earlier presidential elections.

Trump’s populism also appealed to a surprising number of blacks and Latinos. Although Trump was even richer than some multimillionaire Republican nominees of the recent past, he posed as a man of the people, eating fast food and speaking in a Queens accent.

For many non-whites, Trump’s message was more about class than race. Inner-city dwellers share many of the same worries as the poor whites of the Ohio Valley and southern Michigan. Some blacks have more in common with poor whites than with Colin Kaepernick or Van Jones. And many whites have more in common with less affluent blacks and Latinos than with Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush.

These populist economic interests had been ignored by Democrats and Republicans, as coastal-corridor economies made 30-somethings in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street multimillionaires — with only crumbs left for those who work with their hands.

In other words, Trump miraculously won the Electoral College despite adversarial media and hostile Democratic and Republican establishments. He ran with relatively little campaign spending, virtually no ground game, few political handlers, little celebrity backing and few establishment endorsements. And he won because he rewrote the traditional rules of red/blue presidential politics.

Democratic Party chiefs slammed Trump as a bigot. “Never Trump” Republicans trashed him as a protectionist and populist rather than label him a true conservative. Some elite Democrats rightly feared that he might revolutionize politics by stealing minority and working-class voters from Democrats on shared class concerns that transcend race. Some elite Republicans worried that he could win new converts who weren’t concerned with whether the Wall Street Journal found him to be an apostate and so often a vulgarian.

The strangest irony of all?

Establishment Republicans who hated Trump sounded a lot like establishment Democrats.

In sum, the billionaire Trump thinks he can forge a new kind of “Republican” majority, to the chagrin of elite Democrats and elite Republicans alike.

And he could be right.

Categories: 2016 elections, Democrat establishment, Democrat National Committee, Democrat plantation, Donald Trump - President Elect
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Trump Derangement Syndrome

November 17, 2016

Trump Derangement Syndrome, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, November 17, 2016

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The hysteria of Trump Derangement Syndrome is the flip side of Obama worship. Both reject democracy and embrace power. They are the illiberal attitudes of a totalitarian movement at odds with America.

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Like all dictators, the Democrats believe in democracy only until they lose an election.

And then they lose their minds.

The last time a national mental breakdown this severe happened was sixteen years ago when Bush beat Gore. The Democrats reacted gracefully to their defeat by insisting that they didn’t really lose because Bush stole the election. Psychiatrists were soon tending to lefties suffering from depression. Others protested outside the Florida Supreme Court, President Bush’s home and their parents’ basement.

Jesse Jackson accused Republicans of a “coup.” Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson warned that “without justice there will be no peace.” Thousands protested Bush’s inauguration waving signs like, “We want Bush out of D.C.” and “You’re not our president.”

The Congressional Black Caucus tried to obstruct the certification of the Electoral College vote. Then when Bush won again in the next election, they did it all over again. Expect them to try it one more time.

Because they don’t believe in democracy. They believe in their own absolute entitlement to power. Any election that they win is legitimate. Any election that they lose is illegitimate.

But if Bush Derangement Syndrome was bad, Trump Derangement Syndrome is even worse.

#NotOurPresident on Twitter quickly gave way to riots in major cities. Democrats in the affected cities decided that the riots were a great idea even though it was their own police that were being attacked.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, New York City’s radical leftist boss, claimed that “more disruption… will change the trajectory of things”. Even though the only trajectory that the protests have changed thus far is New York City traffic. “The more people fight back, the more it takes away his power,” he insisted.

Wiser heads on the left recognized that messing up Manhattan traffic wouldn’t stop Trump from taking office. Instead they decided to abolish the Electoral College. Senator Boxer will introduce a bill to that effect. Bernie Sanders mumbled that it’s time to rethink it. Michael Dukakis fired off an angry email insisting that Hillary Clinton had won and that abolishing it should be a top Democratic priority.

Since Hillary lost, the Electoral College is, according to Slate, an “Instrument of White Supremacy—and Sexism”. And probably Islamophobic and Homophobic too. Time Magazine defaulted to the default lefty attack on anything by accusing the Electoral College of being racist. But if Hillary had won, then any attack on the Electoral College would be racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic and claustrophobic.

Rank and filers weren’t interested in waiting to abolish it tomorrow. They skipped right to trying to rig it today. Over 4 million people have signed a petition titled, “Electoral College: Make Hillary Clinton President on December 19”. Because that’s just how they think elections should work.

Efforts were made to contact Electors directly urging them to hijack the election. Idaho Secretary of State Lawerence Denney said that the Electors were being harassed with “insults”, “vulgar language” and “threats”. One Elector reported that his cell, home phone, email and Facebook were targeted.

“They’re just trying to steal this thing,” he said.

The Electoral College is undemocratic. Unless you’re a Democrat asking it to undemocratically hijack the results of a state election while depriving its voters of political representation.

Some Democrats despaired of stealing the election and tried to steal the Supreme Court instead. There were revived calls for a Supreme Court recess appointment. There’s a petition, a Saturday Night Live punch line and a bizarre effort by Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley to move the nomination forward.

Merkley claimed that Trump has “no right to fill” that seat and that the Supreme Court seat was stolen.  “We need to do everything we possibly can to block it,” he insisted.

What does that mean? How about a permanently deadlocked Supreme Court?

A Slate writer urged that, “the only way to answer nihilism is with nihilism of our own.”

“Obstruct the nomination and seating of any Trump nominee to fill Scalia’s seat,” she urged. “We will lose. But that’s not the point now… If Democrats can muster the energy to fight about nothing else, it should be this.”

A permanently deadlocked Supreme Court doesn’t sound like much of a plan. But Trump Derangement Syndrome means embracing nihilism. And it’s downright rational compared to the celebrity meltdowns as TMZ’s finest cope with the blow to their egos of an election that showed they didn’t matter.

Lady Gaga has been yelling at Trump on and off Twitter. Constitutional scholar George Takei demanded that Obama just appoint Garland. Honorary feminist Joss Whedon declared, “This is simple: Trump cannot CANNOT be allowed a term in office. It’s not about 2018. It’s about RIGHT NOW.”

What does that mean? It’s a tantrum. It means that baby wants his power and he wants it now.

And it only gets crazier from there.

The outer reaches of Trump Derangement Syndrome include calls to boycott three brands of toilet paper because they’re allegedly made by the Koch Brothers. Never mind that the Koch Brothers weren’t supporting Trump. Facts, like democracy, only matter when they happen to be on your side.

Then there are the ritual burnings of New Balance sneakers on YouTube and Instagram. Not to mention support for the secession of California from the United States of America.

A man has sued Donald Trump for $1 billion for having inflicted “great emotional pain, fear and anxiety on Election Day and beyond.” Students at Cornell held a “cry-in” to mourn the results of the election.  The University of Kansas offered students therapy dogs. At the University of Michigan’s multi-ethnic student affairs center students took comfort in regressing to childhood with coloring books and Play-Doh.

John Hopkins recommended a healing circle. Stanford urged students to “take care of yourselves and to give support to those who need it.” Vanderbilt encouraged them “to take advantage of the outstanding mental health support the university offers.”

At the University of Maryland, an astronomy test was canceled to help students cope with “a personally threatening election result.” A Yale economics professor made his test optional because students were “in shock” over losing an election.  A dozen midterms were rescheduled at Columbia.

One student complained, “Instead of studying for my exam, I was glued to the election update. It’s not fair to have a test the following day when something so monumental is taking place, especially when this event is threatening so many groups of people in our country.”

Under all the outraged rhetoric is a narcissistic sense of entitlement. Frustrate it and tantrums happen.

Trump Derangement Syndrome is the tantrum that happens when that sense of entitlement bursts. It’s not a new phenomenon. We saw it with Bush and with previous Republican presidents before him. But as the left’s power has grown, its insular ivory towers have become unable to imagine ever losing it.

Obama maintained the illusion that the opposition didn’t matter by ruling unilaterally. Then in one election the illusion collapsed. The left wasn’t really in charge. There were millions of people across the country in places they had never visited or even heard of who got to decide on all these issues.

That warm comfortable safe space of John Oliver and Samantha Bee viral videos, Buzzfeed stories and social media feeds filled with carefully curated people who agreed with them wasn’t reality. It had been an illusion all along. It was an elitist island that had little in common with that vast geography of people who get their say through the Electoral College. After two terms of getting their way on everything, they woke to a world in which they didn’t matter and which was suddenly no longer catering to their whims.

They don’t really want to abolish the Electoral College, to put Garland on the Supreme Court or to burn New Balance sneakers. What they really want is to get rid of democracy and replace it with a dictatorship. Trump Derangement Syndrome is the tantrum of tyrants.

It’s a real threat to democracy. But that’s what the left has always been.

The hysteria of Trump Derangement Syndrome is the flip side of Obama worship. Both reject democracy and embrace power. They are the illiberal attitudes of a totalitarian movement at odds with America.

Categories: 2016 elections, President Elect Trump, Trump Derangement Syndrome
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No, stupid, Trump is not like Hitler

November 16, 2016

No, stupid, Trump is not like Hitler, Israel National News, Giulio Meotti, November 16, 2016

Aaron Sorkin is a most famous Hollywood screenwriter, writer of “The West Wing”, “The Newsroom”, “The Social Network” “and “Steve Jobs”. He just penned a letter published by Vanity Fair and addressed to his daughter Roxy and his wife Julia. Sorkin attacks the newly elected American president, Donald Trump, calling him “a totally incompetent pig with dangerous ideas” and a Ku Klux Klan supporter.

Sorkin’s letter contains the secret of Trump’s great success: the liberal reaction to political defeat. And the arrogance of those who do not understand how it is possible that the whole system of ideas and life embodied and preached by Sorkin, the beautiful people of the West Wing, can be rejected by the “deplorables”.

The seeds were already planted in 2004, when MoveOn, the liberal organization that is part of the Democratic Party system, launched a competition for the most beautiful video against President George W. Bush. The face of Hitler that turned into that of Bush won the contest. But then Democratic challenger, John Kerry, lost the election. And too many daughters of America grew up thinking that a Nazi took control of Pennsylvania Avenue.

From her poolside in Beverly Hills, Cher tweeted, before Eva Longoria: “Like Trump, Hitler caused chaos and fear”. Then Spike Lee: “He is like the Nazis and Mussolini”. “As Stalin and Hitler”, CNN’s Dana Bash said of the new American president, echoing Joe Scarborough at MSNBC. The New York Times published articles such as that of Peter Baker describing Trump as “part of global fascism”. And on the literary page of the Times, Michiko Kakutani has the book “Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939,” barely veiling some allusions to Trump.

The Washington Post has published at least twelve articles on the Nazi Trump: Danielle Allen (“I spent my life wondering how did Hitler come to power in Germany and, looking at the rise of Trump, now I understand”), Robert Kagan (“Fascism comes to America”), Peter Ross Range (the political theory that Trump shares with Hitler and Richard Cohen are a selection.

The Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt joined the chorus: “Some people didn’t approve of Hitler’s anti-Semitism, but they went along with it because he was going to make Germany great again”. NBChas published an article entitled: “The plan of Trump for Muslims is similar to that of Nazi Germany”. At the New Yorker, the excellent Adam Gopnik wrote: “He’s not Hitler, as his wife recently said? Well, of course he isn’t. But then Hitler wasn’t Hitler—until he was”. Writing at the New York Review of Books, the great historian of the Holocaust, Timothy Snyder, also wrote: “So far Trump can only verbally abuse his opponents at rallies, while Putin’s opponents are murdered”. So far …

Even venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, such as Sam Altman and the CEO of Hewlett Packard, Meg Whitman, compared Trump to Hitler. The reductio ad hitlerum continued in campus newspapers such as The Collegian, organ of the California State University students, who put Trump on the cover along with “Sieg Heil”. Newsweek even went to interview the stepsister of Anne Frank, Eva Schloss: “Trump is like Hitler”. Writers such as Stephen King, Junot Diaz and Dave Eggers appealed to the people: “The history of dictatorships is the history of manipulations and divisions, demagoguery and lies”.

Many of those who shouted “Hitler” at Trump had promised that they would leave the US in case of Trump’s victory. That includes Whoopi Goldberg (“it’s time to go”), Samuel L. Jackson (“I will move my black ass to South Africa”) and Lena Dunham (“I know a nice place in Vancouver and I can work from there”). They should hurry, because Trump’s Schutzstaffeln will soon be unleashed on the the Upper West Side.

 

Categories: 2016 elections, Media and Donald Trump, Trump and Hitler
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Trump Goes Out to Dinner, Press Has Hissy Fit

November 16, 2016

Trump Goes Out to Dinner, Press Has Hissy Fit, Power Line, John Hinderaker, November 16, 2016

Last night, Donald Trump went out to dinner with his family at the 21 Club, where he got an ovation from the other diners. Shockingly, he failed to tell reporters he was leaving Trump Tower. So the Associated Press headlined: “Trump ditches media – the public’s eyes and ears – again.”

The AP’s presumption is awe-inspiring. Their story is written by Julie Pace. Let me break it to you gently, Julie: you are not my eyes and ears. You are a Democratic Party operative. I do not rely on you for anything, least of all for knowledge about where Donald Trump is eating dinner.

Ms. Pace has spent recent months campaigning hysterically for Hillary Clinton. As, for example, in the story we wrote about here, where she editorialized:

Yet [Trump’s] remarks included erroneous statements and distortions about Clinton’s record, and he frequently referenced sources of information that have been widely questioned, including the book “Clinton Cash” by Peter Schweizer.

And this was in an AP “news” story!

In her “analysis” pieces for the AP, Pace really cut loose:

Why now? And why this?

For the legion of Republicans who abandoned Donald Trump on Saturday, recoiling in horror from comments their party’s White House nominee made about using his fame to prey on women, there is no escaping those questions.

For months, they stomached his incendiary remarks about Mexicans, Muslims, prisoners of war, a Gold Star military family and a Hispanic judge, along with offensive statements about women too numerous to count. Democratic critics argue that their silence — or the promise to vote for Trump, but not endorse him — amounted to tacit approval of misogyny and racism.

There were no good answers Saturday, and few Republicans attempted to offer any. ***

Privately, even Republicans who didn’t formally revoke their support for Trump conceded there was little he could do to right his campaign at this point. Early voting is already underway in some key states and the comments aired in the video will likely be unforgivable with independent women — a constituency Trump desperately needs to win if he has any hope of defeating Clinton.

Pace was overjoyed when she thought Hillary was on her way to victory:

Hillary Clinton appears on the cusp of a potentially commanding victory over Donald Trump, fueled by solid Democratic turnout in early voting, massive operational advantages and increasing enthusiasm among her supporters.
***
With voting already underway in 37 states, Trump’s opportunities to overtake Clinton are quickly evaporating — and voters appear to know it.
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Trump’s unpopularity has opened surprising opportunities for Clinton as the White House race barrels toward its finish. Her campaign is actively competing for Arizona, a state that has voted for the Democrat in only one presidential race since 1952, and she is also spending money in Georgia, a reliably Republican state over the past two decades.

Post-election, Pace has continued to campaign against Trump.

So now she is upset because Trump didn’t tell her he was going out to dinner? Boo hoo. Watch for the Associated Press to keep up a steady barrage of anti-Trump nonsense for the next four years.

Categories: 2016 elections, Media and Donald Trump
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Jewish Leftists Choose Hamas Over Trump

November 16, 2016

Jewish Leftists Choose Hamas Over Trump, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, November 16, 2016

(Caution: Democrats may consider this article “antisemitic” and “racist.” — DM)

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The Islamic Society of North America was named by the Justice Department as an unindicted co-conspirator in funding Hamas. It was linked to two Hamas funding fronts, the Holy Land Foundation and KindHearts. ISNA’s checks were made payable to the “Palestinian Mujahadeen” or “Holy Warriors” which was a name used by Hamas.

ISNA’s co-founder Sami Al-Arian was the local head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Mousa Abu Marzook, a top Hamas official listed by the Treasury Department as a Specially Designated Terrorist, received tens of thousands of dollars from ISNA.

This should have come as no surprise as both ISNA and Hamas are arms of the Muslim Brotherhood.

But the American Jewish Committee has decided to team up with the financiers of the murder of Jews to oppose Trump. The left wing Jewish group and an Islamist organization that wrote out checks to Islamic terrorists enabling them to kill Jews have formed the “Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council”.

Statements from both ISNA and the AJC made it clear that this was a reaction to Trump’s win.

“We are uniting to help the administration navigate in the proper constitutional manner, to uphold freedom of religion and constitutional rights for all American citizens,” Eftakhar Alam of ISNA said.

“It is a reaction to some of the bigotry and hate speech that came out of the campaign,” Robert Silverman, the AJC’s director of Muslim-Jewish relations said. “We’re concerned about the public discourse in the whole country. We’re also concerned about messages that originated within the two communities. The Trump phenomenon is only going to make it come together more quickly.”

The love affair that birthed the Wolf-Sheep Advisory Council is mostly unrequited. While the AJC loudly trumpets its new friendship, as of this writing ISNA has yet to inform its brethren of the alliance with the sons of apes and pigs in its news section. ISNA’s list of interfaith partners doesn’t even mention the AJC.

But appeasing those who hate you wins more enthusiasm from the appeasers than the appeased.

Farooq Kathwari, the Muslim co-chair of the Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council, had his name on a report by the American Muslim Task Force which defended Muslim donations to Islamic terrorist groups including Hezbollah. “It was difficult for Muslim Americans… to ease the plight of Lebanese civilians without risking scrutiny by the U.S. government for aiding organizations connected with Hezbollah,” the report complained.

The Muslim council members include ISNA’s Imam Mohamed Magid who gave a diversity award to a CAIR official who had declared that Jews had incurred the wrath of Allah. Magid had called for an end to Israel’s blockade of Hamas in Gaza and the ISNA statement it was appended to had decried that Islamic terrorists had not been consulted in ceasefire negotiations.

Also on the Council is ISNA’s Sayyid Syeed who had declared, “Our job is to change the Constitution of America”. He had formerly headed up the Muslim Students Association and worked in a senior position at the International Institute of Islamic Thought, another unindicted co-conspirator in funding Hamas whose ranks included a number of Islamic terrorists fighting against Israel.

But it’s more interesting to note who in ISNA’s leadership isn’t on the Council.

There’s Iqbal Unus whose home had been raided in connection with an investigation into Hamas and Islamic Jihad funding. There’s also the co-founder of ISNA, Muzammil Siddiqi, who hosted and translated a speechby the infamous Blind Sheikh, linked to the World Trade Center bombing, in which he declared, “If you are not going to the jihad, then you are neglecting the rules of Allah.”

Siddiqi predicted the Islamic conquest and destruction of Israel. “In a few years we will be celebrating with each other the victory of Islam in Palestine. Insh’allah, we shall be celebrating the coming of the Masjid al-Aqsa under the Islamic rule. We shall be celebrating insh’allah the coming of Jerusalem and the whole land of Palestine insh’allah and the establishment of the Islamic State throughout that area.“

It would be a little awkward to have the man who praised suicide bombers and called for the destruction of the Jewish State on the Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council.

But no doubt a way could be found to finesse the problem.

Siddiqi is still a prominent figure in ISNA. The Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council is a sick sad joke in which Jewish lefties ally with Jihadists against a pro-Israel administration while claiming that they share goals.

Which goals exactly does the American Jewish Committee share with Siddiqi? Is the AJC also anticipating the creation of an Islamic State in Jerusalem?

Instead of representing the needs of the Jewish community, the AJC has dived into the left-wing gutter, wailing against Trump and making alliances with the enemy to protect them from Trump.

Heading up the AJC’s effort is Robert Silverman. Silverman is a State Department veteran with plenty of experience in the Muslim world. From the start he seemed far more intent on agitating on behalf of Muslims and against the critics of Islam than for Jews.

His pitch to Jews was collaborate now and perhaps our new Muslim overlords will be grateful.

“Showing support at this critical time will lead to good results for the Jewish people down the road,” Silverman said. It didn’t work with Mohammed or in Israel or Europe. But it’s bound to work this time.

He warned American Jews not to complain about the risk of Muslim migration. “American Jews should be careful not to add to a climate of fear that exists in our country regarding immigrants.”

The joint group will, among other things, lobby for refugees. The remaining Jewish refugees are fleeing Muslim violence and hate in Europe. If America is swamped by Muslim migrants the way Europe was, where will American Jews flee all these “refugees” to?

Meanwhile Silverman retweeted a message of approval from Glenn Greenwald who had criticized theinclusion of Hamas and Hezbollah on the terror list and described them as being “dedicated to protecting their citizens against the State of Israel.” He complained, “and yet it is criminal in the United States to do anything that is deemed to be material support for Hamas and Hezbollah.”

Greenwald had also spoken of “the role Judaism plays in the decades-long oppression by the Israelis of Palestinians.”

Instead of fighting anti-Semitism, the American Jewish Committee was allying with anti-Semites.

While Muslim hate groups supported by ISNA terrorize Jewish students on campuses, the AJC expressed concern about “hate” against Muslims on campuses.

The media and left-wing groups are bombarding Jews daily with alarmist warnings about Trump while urging them to ally with our Muslim “friends”. Here’s what an alliance with those friends looks like.

Left-wing groups like the AJC have sold out the Jewish community by taking the side of Muslims over their Jewish victims. They have allied with Islamic hate groups supportive not of Jews, but of the murder of Jews.

And now they are screaming their heads off about Donald Trump.

Their Muslim friends, whether it’s Keith Ellison or ISNA, have defended anti-Semitism and attacked the Jewish State. American Jews have a choice between trying to appease Hamas or fighting against it.

The AJC has chosen its side. It has sided with the financiers and inciters of the murder of Jews.

American Jews have a simple choice to make. They can either believe the lies or hear the truth. They can either side with their killers or resist.

The AJC has made the choice very clear and simple. It’s either Hamas or Donald Trump.

Categories: 2016 elections, Donald Trump and Israel, Hamas, Islam and Jews, Islamic Society of North America, Islamists in America, Leftists
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A message from the Democrat National Committee

November 16, 2016

A message from the Democrat National Committee, via e-mail, November 16, 2016

Friend —

Over the past few days, Donald Trump has been rolling out the names of some of the people who will be a part of his administration. Leading his transition team is his anti-women, anti-LGBT Vice President-elect Mike Pence. He named Steve Bannon — publisher of the racist, sexist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic, white nationalist “news” site Breitbart — as one of his most senior advisors. And his list of cabinet secretaries ranges from the extreme fringe of the Republican party (think Sarah Palin) to Wall Street and oil company CEOs. [Emphasis added.]

They say you can judge a man by the company he keeps. Well, this list of future members of the Trump administration means we’ve got our work cut out for us over the next four years. But I have no doubt that if we stay committed to our values and steel ourselves to fight back against everything that’s going to come out of this administration, we can keep Donald Trump from taking our country over the cliff.

But we’re going to be counting on folks like you more than we ever have before to stand together with us. We were on the right side of history in this election, and we owe it to the future of this country to hold Donald Trump and his allies accountable.

Add your name, and we’ll make sure you stay in-the-know about what Trump and the GOP are planning — so that we can be ready for whatever comes our way:

http://my.democrats.org/Next

Eric

Eric Walker
Deputy Communications Director
Democratic National Committee

Categories: 2016 elections, Democrat National Committee, Transition plans
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Little-noticed law gives Trump unexpected power to undo the mischief of bureaucrats

November 16, 2016

Little-noticed law gives Trump unexpected power to undo the mischief of bureaucrats, American Thinker, Thomas Lifson, November 16, 2016

Nobody was counting on this.

Barack Obama infamously said that he would govern by a “pen and a phone.”  He has circumvented Congress and the laws for years.  The Democrats (and much of the media, but I repeat myself) have not only given him a pass, but cheered him on.  Now it appears a seldom-noticed law might be a powerful tool that Trump can use to eviscerate much of the Obama legacy.

Stacy Cowley of the New York Times reports :

Dozens of major regulations passed recently by the Obama administration — including far-reaching changes on health care, consumer protections and environmental safety — could be undone with the stroke of a pen by Donald J. Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress starting in January, thanks to a little-used law that dates back to 1996.

And it comes with a scorched-earth kicker: If the law is used to strike down a rule, the federal agency that issued it is barred from enacting similar regulation again in the future.

The obscure law — called the Congressional Review Act — was passed 20 years ago at the behest of Newt Gingrich, then the House speaker and now a member of Mr. Trump’s transition team. It gives Congress 60 legislative days to review and override major regulations enacted by federal agencies. In the Senate, the vote would not be subject to filibuster.

The president can veto the rejection, which usually renders the law toothless. But when one party controls both the White House and Congress, it can be a powerful legislative weapon.

So far it has only been successfully used once: In 2001, a Republican Congress invoked it to eliminate workplace safety regulations adopted in the final months of President Clinton’s tenure. President George W. Bush signed the repeal two months after his inauguration, wiping out stricter ergonomics rules that had been 10 years in the making.

On Jan. 20, when Mr. Trump takes office with a Republican-controlled Congress — one that has indicated its zeal for undoing President Obama’s doings — more than 150 rules adopted since late May are potentially vulnerable to the ax, according to an analysis by the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center.

“It allows the election results to be applied almost retroactively, to snip off activity that happened at the end of the last administration,” said Adam Levitin, a law professor at Georgetown.

The column notes several examples of rules and regulations Obama’s White House has been quickly rolling out in the dying months of his presidency.  However, there is a new sheriff in town.

The GOP House has been trying to use this law for years but was stymied by Obama’s veto power.

Under Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s leadership, the House has used the law several times to try to reject a number of the Obama administration’s policies. Those challenges were symbolic — President Obama vetoed every one that reached his desk — but President-elect Trump can approve any sent to him after he takes office. Mr. Ryan’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

“I don’t think they’ll go after every single rule, but I think you’ll get eight to 10 that may be targeted,” said Sam Batkins, the director of regulatory policy at the American Action Forum, a right-leaning group that has been tracking which regulations are subject to congressional review.

The threat posed by the law may slow the usual rush of “midnight regulations” that administrations typically race to finish in their final days. This year, it will be a high-stakes game of chicken — put out a rule and hope it survives, or hold off, to preserve the chance to revisit it in the future?

House Republicans have already put bureaucrats on notice that efforts by them to slip through new rules and regulations will be met with extra scrutiny when a new Congress and president take charge in January.  Lisa Rein of the Washington Post:

Newly empowered House Republicans on Tuesday laid down the gauntlet to the outgoing Obama administration: Don’t finalize any pending rules and regulations you think you can slip through before you leave office.

In a letter to hundreds of Cabinet secretaries, commissioners and other heads of federal offices and agencies signed by 22 Republican leaders, the lawmakers noted that President Obama has been generous in his use of executive orders to set policy. And they issued a threat: Ignore us and we will give your agency extra scrutiny.

“Should you ignore this counsel, please be aware that we will work with our colleagues to ensure that Congress scrutinizes your actions — and, if appropriate, overturns them …” said the one-paragraph missive signed by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and 21 Republican committee heads. They oversee federal agencies from the Department of Veterans Affairs to the Environmental Protection Agency.

When liberals wail about this missive, they can be reminded that Obama’s team issued the same type of message.  This warning should serve as a red line that bureaucrats will not cross and that Republicans will enforce.

In any case, Trump can go to DEFCON-4 on his own.

People on the right and among libertarians and freedom-seekers everywhere have long decried the rise of the regulatory state and its unchecked power in the hands of bureaucrats who have, seemingly, lifetime tenure and powers to wreak havoc on the economy.

Thomas Lifson has written about the pressing need to overhaul civil service rules to make the government and its worker bees more efficient, as has Bruce Walker in another American Thinker column.  Bureaucrats are unelected and unaccountable officials who control too much power in America.  Barack Obama has spent the last eight years implanting partisan true believers throughout the federal government.  Many have been cleverly transforming themselves from political appointees, who can be relatively easily swept away when the Washington Stables are cleaned, to civil service employees who have all but lifetime tenure (this system is truly rigged and needs to be “fundamentally transformed”).

The power that the Congressional Review Act gives Donald Trump can accelerate the changes America needs to grow its economy from the stultifying burdens of Leviathan.

Trump has a pen and a phone, too.  Democrats will soon be reminded of that phrase and come to rue it.

 

Categories: 2016 elections, Congressional Review Act, Federal Bureauracy, President Trump, US Congress
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Who Pays for the Anti-Trump Demonstrations/Riots?

November 16, 2016

Who Pays for the Anti-Trump Demonstrations/Riots? PJ Media, Roger L Simon, November 15, 2016

antitrioters

The stars belong to everyone. The best things in life are free.

Except for demonstrations and riots, as the long line of chartered buses in Chicago that ferried participants to the Windy City anti-Trump protests reminds us.

It’s unclear where these buses came from — some have the markings of a Wisconsin company on the side — but it’s relatively easy to guesstimate some of the cost online. It varies, of course, with the quality of the motor coach, but seems to average out a bit over a thousand dollars a day, with wifi but not including the driver or drivers. (The latter depends on how far you’re coming from.)

Exactly how many of these vehicles were rented across the country, and for how long, is difficult to gauge, but we all know these events are still ongoing. Indeed, they are likely to be with us, off and on, through the inauguration and beyond.

Then there are meals and per diems for the participants, not to mention a little vigorish for their troubles. But who are these demonstrators? Some of them were evidently wrangled on Craigslist. Jane Velez-Mitchell, who was quasi-debating me on the topic on the Malzberg Show on Newsmax TV Monday, vehemently insisted they were mostly upstanding employed citizens like she is. Salt of the Earth.

I imagine some are, but Jane apparently missed the reports on the Portland demonstrations.

It turns out that more than half of the clowns who were and are ripping up Rip City as if they were trying to do a real-life, no-fun cover of the Little Richard classic weren’t even from Oregon and were hardly likely to be employed at all (except as professional protesters). Not only that, seventy percent of these refugees from Kristallnacht, allegedly so upset about the election of Donald Trump, didn’t even bother to vote in the first place — in Oregon or any other state.

The sacking of Portland is, so far, only the worst of what is happening across the country. There’s plenty more, accompanied by chants of “Love Trumps Hate” alternating with “Kill the Police.”

Not very gentle stuff for supposed peacemakers. But perhaps they were only imitating their leader.

Further, supposed neo-Nazi graffiti linked with Trump’s name are being reported by the MSM, which, not surprisingly, is making no serious attempt to determine if they are real or the work of provocateurs. (In most cases, I’m betting on the latter.)

The operative questions, however, is just who pays for this mayhem — and what do these funders want.

Asra Nomani posted a list of 100 supporters of the Trump protests on Twitter. You will recognize many names. And 33 of the 100 received money from one man, referred to at the link in proper Twitter syntax as @georgesoros.

(For those who don’t know Nomani, she is the former Wall Street Journal reporter and founder of the Muslim Reform Movement who wrote what I consider the most important and courageous essay of election 2016.)

Meanwhile, from Politico:

George Soros and other rich liberals who spent tens of millions of dollars trying to elect Hillary Clinton are gathering in Washington for a three-day, closed door meeting to retool the big-money left to fight back against Donald Trump.The conference, which kicked off Sunday night at Washington’s pricey Mandarin Oriental hotel, is sponsored by the influential Democracy Alliance donor club, and will include appearances by leaders of most leading unions and liberal groups, as well as darlings of the left such as House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairman Keith Ellison, according to an agenda and other documents obtained by POLITICO.

Out of curiosity, I just checked and found a room at the Mandarin Oriental starts at $565. It goes up to $675 if you want breakfast.

But who am I to deny the rich their pleasures? I wouldn’t mind staying at the Mandarin myself. Though it does appear a bit unseemly, doesn’t it? Meeting in such a venue as purported tribunes of the poor and disadvantaged?

It’s hard to believe they’re really serious, or that helping others is what they really want.

If it was, they would have noticed how the Democratic Party has helped immiserate not only those “deplorables” they so evidently revile, but also the African-American community they claim to represent. No, the only people the folks in the Democracy Alliance donor club, known as the DA, actually help are themselves.

Soros is not their titular leader, but certainly their spiritual one. He is an odd man, to say the least, having done evil things and what are putatively good things as well. On the evil side of the ledger is the well-known shorting of the British pound that simultaneously made him his initial fortune while truly shorting the average British citizen. Oh, well. And then there’s the little matter of the Holocaust, when he “shorted” his fellow Jews, and astonishingly, feels no shame to this day.

On the positive side, he did a lot of good in the support of Eastern European countries in the initial phase after the breakup of the Soviet Union. But it was rather downhill from there, as he appears to have his finger in just about every propagandistic progressive pie through a variety of cut-outs so complex it would take years to unsnarl them. It’s hard not to feel the whole thing is some kind of bizarre charade, an almost surreal power game for his own amusement. He too cares little for the results of his fiddling — only for control.

And meanwhile the protesters march and smash, fed by his machine. But for what end?

Can Soros or anyone else really tell us? Do they know themselves? Is it a last ditch attempt to prove some kind of “benign” Marxism can work, or finally just that blind assertion of power? Or maybe it’s just one massive ego trip.

Categories: 2016 elections, Anti-Trump rioters, George Soros
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RIGHT ANGLE: What A Night!

November 16, 2016

RIGHT ANGLE: What A Night! Bill Whittle Channel via YouTube, November 15, 2016

Categories: 2016 elections, Bill Whittle, Hillary Clinton, President Elect Trump
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Obama tells world ‘My vision’s right,’ warns of dangers of Trump’s populism

November 16, 2016

Obama tells world ‘My vision’s right,’ warns of dangers of Trump’s populism, Washington Times, Dave Boyer, November 16, 2016

(These grapes sure are sour. — DM)

obamaairfarcePresident Barack Obama points as he boards Air Force One in Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Sunday, Nov. 6, 2016, en route to Florida, where he will speak at a campaign event for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton at Osceola …

Facing rejection of his worldview on both sides of the Atlantic, President Obama doubled down Tuesday on the dangers of populism and declared that Donald Trump’s supporters don’t realize how good they’ve had it for the past eight years.

Declaring, “My vision’s right,” the president said Mr. Trump won the presidential election by exploiting conservatives’ “troubling” rhetoric to play on Americans’ skepticism of globalization and diversity. He accused Republicans of fanning flames of “anger and fear in the American population” over economic uncertainty to help Mr. Trump win, and warned that similar forces are threatening the European Union.

“You’ve seen some of the rhetoric among Republican elected officials and activists and media,” Mr. Obama said at a news conference in Athens, Greece, with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. “Some of it [was] pretty troubling and not necessarily connected to facts, but being used effectively to mobilize people. And obviously President-elect Trump tapped into that particular strain within the Republican Party and then was able to broaden that enough and get enough votes to win the election.”

Asked if the election of Mr. Trump and British voters’ decision to leave the European Union amounted to a rejection of his worldview, Mr. Obama pointed to his relatively high approval ratings and retorted, “Last I checked, a pretty healthy majority of the American people agree with my worldview on a whole bunch of things.”

It was a remarkable display of cockiness for a president whose favored candidate just lost the election to succeed him and who failed to persuade British voters last spring to remain in the EU.

Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation, said Mr. Obama was displaying hubris and a lack of understanding of the anti-EU forces rising in Europe.

“He is a president really in denial with regard to the sweeping changes that are taking place both at home and abroad, especially across the Atlantic,” Mr. Gardiner said in an interview. “The biggest development in Europe in the last few years has been growing support for sovereignty and self-determination. He continues to lecture Europe and European politicians about the right path forward. I think it’s a message that is stuck in a time warp.”

The lame-duck president, whose legacy initiatives are imperiled by an incoming Republican president and Republican-led Congress, said Americans will realize eventually how dangerous it is to foment discrimination based on race or religion. He said it’s a lesson that Europeans who favor breaking up the European Union should heed as well.

“My vision’s right on that issue,” Mr. Obama said. “It may not always win the day in the short term in any political circumstance, but I’m confident it will win the day over the long term.”

After eight years of denying that he pays attention to polls, Mr. Obama pointed to his job approval ratings (57 percent in Gallup) as proof that there was a “mismatch … between frustration and anger” among Mr. Trump’s voters. He speculated that voters simply felt a “need to shake things up.”

Mr. Obama also pushed a theme of “You’ll miss me when I’m gone,” predicting that voters in the U.S. and Britain will eventually realize that he was correct in his assessment of the political forces at work. He forecast that Mr. Trump’s supporters will grasp soon, probably before the Republican faces re-election, how good things have been during his administration.

“Time will now tell whether the prescriptions that are being offered, whether Brexit or with respect to the U.S. election, ends up actually satisfying those people who have been fearful or angry or concerned,” Mr. Obama said. “I think that’s going to be an interesting test, because I think I can make a pretty strong argument that the policies we put forward were the right ones, that we’ve grown faster than just about any advanced economy. The country is indisputably better off, and those folks who voted for the president-elect are better off than they were when I came into office, for the most part. But we’ll see whether those facts affect people’s calculations in the next election.”

He said he has pushed an agenda for economic equality over the past eight years but congressional Republicans have blocked him.

The president’s 52nd and final foreign trip was not supposed to become a postelection autopsy. It was planned before the election as part sightseeing tour — Mr. Obama had never been to Greece — and partly to offer a fond farewell in person to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whom Mr. Obama counts as his closest partner over his two terms.

Mr. Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton changed all that. Now Mr. Obama is traveling on a mission to reassure anxious European allies that Mr. Trump will keep the U.S. commitment to alliances such as NATO and will largely preserve the continuity of U.S. foreign policy.

Mr. Obama praised Greece as one of only five NATO members that spends the advised 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense, despite its heavy debt burden and austerity measures.

Thousands of Greeks protested Mr. Obama’s visit. Riot police fired tear gas Tuesday night at demonstrators marching a few miles from the presidential mansion where Greek leaders were hosting a state banquet for Mr. Obama.

About 7,000 people, among them many hooded protesters and members of the communist-affiliated group PAME, marched through the streets of central Athens holding banners reading, “Unwanted!”

Police clashed with the protesters after they tried to break through cordon lines to reach the parliament building and the U.S. Embassy. Some demonstrators threw two gas bombs at police before dispersing into nearby streets close to Athens’ main Syntagma Square.

In a separate protest in the northern city of Thessaloniki, protesters burned a U.S. flag.

Mr. Obama was visiting two days before the anniversary of a bloody 1973 student revolt that helped topple a military junta that took power in 1967 with U.S. government support.

Before Mr. Obama left Washington on Monday, he conducted an hourlong press conference at the White House, hoping that questions about Mr. Trump’s election wouldn’t follow him overseas. They did.

A reporter for NBC News reminded Mr. Obama of an interview he conducted in January with “Today” show co-host Matt Lauer, who had asked the president if he felt responsible for creating the conditions for Mr. Trump’s candidacy. At the time, Mr. Obama replied, “Talk to me if he wins.”

The NBC reporter asked the president Tuesday if he felt responsible for Mr. Trump’s victory.

“I still don’t feel responsible for what the president-elect says or does,” Mr. Obama said. “But I do feel a responsibility as president of the United States to make sure that I facilitate a good transition and I present to him, as well as the American people, my best thinking, my best ideas about how you move the country forward.”

Mr. Obama warned that “we are going to have to guard against a rise in a crude sort of nationalism or ethnic identity or tribalism that is built around an ‘us’ and a ‘them.’”

“I will never apologize for saying that the future of humanity and the future of the world is going to be defined by what we have in common as opposed to those things that separate us and ultimately lead us into conflict,” he said. “Take Europe. We know what happens when Europeans start dividing themselves up and emphasizing their differences and seeing a competition between various countries in a zero-sum way. The 20th century was a bloodbath.”

Mr. Gardiner said Mr. Obama has no real understanding of the forces reshaping Europe.

“I think President Obama remains a figure of tremendous hubris who does not really understand the changes taking place across the world, and whose administration has been incredibly weak-kneed in terms of projection of American influence and power,” he said.

“For a president with such an embarrassing foreign policy record, President Obama’s been an extraordinarily self-confident figure. His record doesn’t match his arrogance,” he said.

⦁ This article is based in part on wire service reports.

Categories: 2016 elections, Europe, Populists, President Elect Trump, President Reject Obama
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