Archive for the ‘Obama’ category

How Not to Fight Our Enemies

March 13, 2016

How Not to Fight Our Enemies, Front Page MagazineDavid Horowitz, March 13, 2016

(An excellent article by David Horowitz. — DM)

cdtobckueaez4sp

The mob that came to disrupt the Trump rally in Chicago was neither spontaneous nor innocent, nor new. It was a mob that has been forming ever since the Seattle riots against the World Trade Organization in 1999, whose target was global capitalism. The Seattle rioters repeated their outrages for the next two years and then transformed itself into the so-called “anti-war” movement to save the Saddam dictatorship in Iraq. Same leaders, funders and troops. The enemy was always America and its Republican defenders. When Obama invaded countries and blew up families in Muslim countries, there was no anti-war movement because Obama was one of them, and they didn’t want to divide their support. In 2012 the so-called “anti-war” movement reformed as “Occupy Wall Street.” They went on a rampage creating cross-country riots to protesting the One Percent and provided a whipping boy for Obama’s re-election campaign. Same leaders, same funders and troops. In 2015 the same leftwing forces created and funded Black Lives Matter and lynch mobs in Ferguson and Baltimore who targeted “white supremacists” and police.

Behind all the mobs was the organized left – MoveOn.org, the public sector unions runby Sixties leftovers,  and the cabal of anti-American billionaires led by George Soros. The mobs themselves were composed of the hate-filled foot soldiers of the political left. Now these forces have gathered in the campaign to elect the Vermont communist and are focusing their venom on Donald Trump. The obvious plan is to make Republicans toxic while driving a wedge through the Republican Party. The plan is defeat Republicans in November so that the destructive forces they have set in motion in the Democratic Party can finish the wrecking job that Obama started.

One of the professionally produced signs at the Chicago mob scene proclaimed, “This is what democracy looks like.” Actually it is exactly what fascism looks like. As every student of the Thirties knows, the break up of democratic forums by Nazi and Communist thugs paved the way for Hitler’s election. Just like the mobs of the Thirties, today’s left is driven by racial and class hate, and is utterly contemptuous of the democratic process – hence the effort to hang the Ferguson cop before the trial and to prevent Trump from expounding his views in Chicago.

And what has been the reaction of the presidential candidates, particularly those who propose to save the country? It is to blame Trump as though he and not the left had instigated the riot. If you play with matches like Trump did, opined Hillary Clinton, you’re likely to start a fire. This is the same Hillary Clinton who has compared Republicans to terrorists and called them racists, and who once accused a “vast right-wing conspiracy” of inventing her husband’s paramour. The Democratic Party has officially endorsed the Black Lives Matter racists and rioters. But it is not only the left who is attempting to blame Trump for the Chicago debacle.

According to the proudly positive John Kasich, it was Trump who created the “toxic environment” that led to the riot – not the fascist movement that has been metastasizing in our universities and streets for more than a decade. In other words, when you finally go on the attack, attack a Republican rather than a Democrat. That way you get a pass.

Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz and their spokespeople piled on Trump as well. “Ted Cruz Claims Trump Is To Blame For Violence At His Rallies,” ran a headline in the leftwing New York Times. His Republican attackers attempted to shame Trump for speaking to the anger of his conservative supporters instead of bringing everyone together – those who claim we live in a white supremacist society and the whites they are attacking, those who claim that Republicans are terrorists and racists and the victims of this abuse. As though you can create unity with people who hate you because you are white or rich, or believe that America is a nation worth saving. The fact is that Trump’s anger is pretty controlled, considering the hate-filled environment of Islamic terrorists, illegal immigrants, event disrupters and rival candidates openly smearing him.

He is often guilty of over-reach – “punch him in the nose” directed at one disrupter, but this is hardly the sin his detractors suggest in comparing him to Mussolini. That is a much great violence to the man who is its target. Aside from Trump’s compulsive over-reach what is wrong with anger in the current political context? Is it wrong to be angry at what Obama and the Democrats and the progressive mobs are doing to our country? How is this dissociation from Trump mob attack not the same surrender to political correctness that conservatives like Rubio and Cruz claim to reject? Aren’t Cruz and Rubio angry at what is being done to our country? Why are they willing to validate the hypocritical slanders of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, two architects of our disasters?

This is the reality we must never forget: There is an anti-American radical in the White House who – with the support of his party – has delivered nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles and a hundred billion dollars to our mortal enemies in Teheran who have declared their intentions to kill us. This suicidal deal was not an oversight, as Rubio has correctly observed, but the result of decades of thinking that America and Israel are adversaries, and our enemies are their victims. The extremists of #Never Trump exemplify the malaise Republicans have been prisoners of for years, which is what the primary revolt is about. Why was there no #Never Obama movement in 2012? For Republicans such a movement would be unthinkable. It would be too angry. It would be called racist. On the other hand, no one will call us racist for attacking a fellow Republican. So let’s join the left in smearing one of our own and hope that we can scrub off the stigmas that Democrats have tarred us with in the process. We’re not racists. Let’s not fight Obama, which will prove that we are. Let’s have respectful words for the lynch mob left.  If we capitulate the disaster unfolding before us, maybe it will go away. That is what the Trump crowd is angry about and mainstream Republicans should be too.

At the outset of the presidential debates all the Republican candidates pledged to support the party’s choice in November. Extra pressure was put on Trump to do so and he did. But now that millions of Republicans have cast their ballots for Trump, Rubio and Kasich are threatening to renege on their pledge, and destroy both the party and the country in the process. And Cruz, while sniping at Trump’s alleged role in inciting the leftists is notably non-committal about whether he will support a Trump primary victory. None of them explain how you can fight fascist leftists without actually fighting them and opening yourself to the charge of anger.

Perhaps it is money from the #Never Trump crowd – the extremists who want to thwart the popular vote and fatally split the party – that is behind this perfidy. But as someone who until very recently held high opinions of Rubio and Cruz, I am hoping that it is not too late for somebody to wake them up. I am hoping that somebody says: Cut it out. Come to your senses. Your scorched earth warfare is threatening the very existence of the right. Trump isn’t the enemy. Like you he is opposed to the Iran deal, supports a secure border, recognizes the Islamist threat, wants to reduce taxes and make the country solvent, and is greatly expanding the Republican base. Attempt to beat him at the polls if you think he shouldn’t be president but let the voters decide the result, and respect their decision. The alternative is a fratricidal war that could drive large numbers of conservatives away from the polls, and whose beneficiaries will only be America’s enemies at home and abroad.

Judge Jeanine Pirro Opening Statement – Attack On 1st Amendment and Trump Rally

March 13, 2016

Judge Jeanine Pirro Opening Statement – Attack On 1st Amendment & Trump Rally, Fox News via You Tube, March 12, 2016

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0LD_4MAQug

Trump Storm Troopers Mob Sanders Rally: Force Cancellation

March 13, 2016

Trump Storm Troopers Mob Sanders Rally: Force Cancellation, American Thinker, Clarice Feldman, March 13, 2016

Of course, this didn’t happen. The opposite is true, but you can be sure that would be the headline had conservative opponents of Sanders prevented his rally in suburban Chicago from taking place because of mob threats of violence. This makes Ted Cruz ‘s spineless rejoinder to the violent demonstrations in Chicago so galling to me.

Some years ago I wrote here of my contempt for conservatives who flee the forum for fear of getting their spotlessly white togas spattered with mud and blood when their colleagues are being savaged by liars and thugs. This week my White Toga award goes to Ted Cruz. As thousands of rent a mobs from Soros funded Move On, the White House approved Black Lives Matters fabulist race baiters, and Bernie Sanders fans mobbed and threatened the thousands of people who’d waited in lines for hours to attend a rally in Chicago for Donald Trump. Even Obama pal and admitted terrorist Bill Ayers, doubtless reliving his “glory days” as a Weatherman was there cheering the mayhem on:

We shut Trump down! Beautiful gathering of anti racist youth. pic.twitter.com/uYOFXMvKhX

Bill Ayers (@WilliamAyers) March 12, 2016

The People’s Cube, which has perfected its satire of left speak described the event from the thugs’ point of view:

CHICAGO, IL – Tonight one thousand peaceful communists, socialists, anarchists, Black Lives Matter activists, devout Muslims, immigration advocates with Mexican flags, and local students of Marxism, disrupted a meeting of some twenty five thousand angry and violent Trump supporters.

The Trump crowd had it coming because they had conspired to shut down everyone else’s right to free speech by buying tickets to the event, which was closed to those who didn’t have tickets. That was a grotesque violation of the protesters’ right to get inside, jump on the podium, rip Trump signs, and scream “F** Trump” into a TV camera.

As the news of the event’s cancellation was announced, the protesters peacefully celebrated their victory by throwing punches at Trump supporters and police officers, shouting over their objections, flipping the middle finger and kicking their cars, and walking into the road to block traffic composed of gas-guzzling, global-warming-causing vehicles.

Did Ted Cruz criticize this effort to deny thousands of people their right to free speech and assembly or the violent nature of the demonstration? No, he feebly offered up this on Fox New’s The Kelly File: “A campaign bears responsibility for creating an environment when the candidate urges supporters to engage in physical violence.”

Did he seriously believe that the effort to shut down the rally was occasioned by anything but Trump’s political positions? Where was he in 1968 when the far left pulled the same kind of thug action in the same city? Did he not notice Soros’ funding of Move On and Black Lives Matter or his funding of opposition to Trump and mobilization of Latinos opposed to Trump’s immigration stance in this election?

The organizers’ own words belie that claim that Trump bears responsibility for this mayhem: They were well organized and were there to shut down Trump  whose political views they oppose.

Here’s People for Bernie:

People For Bernie

‏‪@People4Bernie

Remember the ‪#TrumpRally wasn’t just luck. It took organizers from dozens of organizations and thousands of people to pull off. Great work.

Newsbusters picked up from an AP story the role of a Black Lives Matters

When’s the last time if even, that a group of right-wing protesters in the U.S. specifically set out to completely shut down a left-wing speaker’s address? There’s no doubt that the attempt to protest Trump was organized, and that its primary intent was to prevent him from speaking:

[snip]

“Trump represents everything America is not and everything Chicago is not,” said Kamran Siddiqui, 20, a student at the school who was among those celebrating. “We came in here and we wanted to shut this down. Because this is a great city and we don’t want to let that person in here.”

[snip]

“Our country is not going to make it being divided by the views of Donald Trump,” said Jermaine Hodge, a 37-year-old lifelong Chicago resident who owns a trucking company. “Our country is divided enough. Donald Trump, he’s preaching hate. He’s preaching division.”

[snip]

Chicago community activist Quo Vadis said hundreds of protesters had positioned themselves in groups around the arena, and they intended to demonstrate right after Trump took the stage.

Their goal, he said, was “for Donald to take the stage and to completely interrupt him. The plan is to shut Donald Trump all the way down.”

A directory assistance lookup indicates that there is no listed “Quo Vadis” (which means “Where are you going?” in Latin) in Illinois.

It seems quite likely that the person who was quoted is really Quovadis Green, a Chicago activist who was involved in Black Lives Matter protests in Chicago’s Michigan Avenue shopping district during last year’s Black Friday Christmas shopping weekend.

Bernie Sanders, whose people, as I have noted, took pride in shutting down the Trump rally, held a rally of his own in suburban Chicago. There he bragged that he was bringing people together, not dividing them like Trump. One can only imagine what he’d have said in the unlikely chance that rabid Trump supporters had shut down his rally. I say unlikely chance because these tactics are those of the left side of the spectrum. For sure, the press wouldn’t have called such action a “protest”. We’d have been treated to Nazi comparisons and the rally wreckers called Trump’s storm troopers.

The president, who has stirred up so much racial division by, among other things, supporting the Black Lives Matter supporters and megaphoning their lies about Trayvon Martin and Ferguson, Missouri, was equally mendacious.

“What’s happening in this primary is just a distillation of what’s been happening in their party for more than a decade,” Obama said, according to a report filed by the Texas Tribune.

Given the forces of the left arrayed against his party, Cruz’ take was more than spineless, it was self-defeating. If they succeed in shutting down Trump’s rallies, he’ll be next in their crosshairs. It’s the way they work. In any event, this show of rent-a-mob force may well encourage more voters, sick of this behavior, into the Trump camp.

Cruz’ offering up a justification for this behavior also played into the press game of targeting Republicans while spackling the records of their opponents. Of particular amusement is this piece in the Washington Post (whose editors must be on permanent leave):

Trump is known for his massive, raucous rallies — part campaign events, part media spectacles, part populist exaltations for his most loyal supporters. But the events have also become suffused with the kind of hostility and even violence that are unknown to modern presidential campaigns. The candidate himself often seems to wink at, or even encourage, rough treatment of protesters.

What is conveniently ignored is that these demonstrations are set up by Trump’s opponents specifically to provoke tensions and fights which the press then propagandizes. By this means they hope to set him up as what he is not — a racist — to scare off supporters and drive Blacks and Hispanics to the polls to vote for his Democratic opponent.

It’s of a piece with the rapidly disintegrating claim of a Breitbart reporter, Michelle Fields, days before that she was roughed up by Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s brilliant campaign manager.

The Daily Beast picked up her claim and further suggested (on the basis of a dubious third-hand account) that Lewandowski had admitted manhandling Fields, but as pictures and videos emerged which made her claim virtually impossible to sustain. It shows Trump and Lewandowski emerging from the presser with a Secret Service agent between Lewandowski and Fields. The Daily Beast walked that back step by step:

Update 2:15 p.m. ET: The Trump campaign has evidently leaked an email from Breitbart News Washington political editor Matthew Boyle. In the email Boyle rejects as “false” Daily Beast editor-at-large Lloyd Grove’s claim that Lewandowski “acknowledged to Breitbart’s Washington political editor, Matthew Boyle, that he did manhandle Fields.”

Breitbart, itself over the day, seemed to be backpeddling its reporter’s claim and noted

A Vine video has emerged, purporting to show a new angle of the incident. The footage appears inconclusive, but visible in the background is Ken Kurson, editor-in-chief of the New York Observer, who appears to have had a close-up view of the action.

Breitbart News reached out to Kurson, who responded via e-mail:

I was five feet away from the alleged incident and didn’t see anything. I was literally looking right at Corey when it supposedly happened. Someone sent me a Vine of it (I look bald as hell, goddammit — and what’s with that backpack?!?!!?) and if this happened, I think I would have seen it. I have a lot of experience as both a journalist and operative in these kind of press scrums and I didn’t see anything at all out of the norm.

Still, you can be sure this week’s lefty trope that Trump and his people are violent and encourage more violence will be played out, And if Cruz were the front runner drawing tens of thousands to his rallies he, too, would be tarred just the same.

Stay alert. This is going to be the dirtiest election in a long time.

Off Topic | Trump, Conservative Ideolgues and Populists

January 24, 2016

Trump, Conservative Ideolgues and Populists, Dan Miller’s Blog, January 24, 2016

(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)

Conservative ideologues want to keep things essentially as they are, making only marginal and generally ineffective changes. Populists want to change things to be more consistent with what “we the people” want. Often, what we the people want is better than what our “leaders” want or try to provide. Under these definitions, Trump is a populist, not a conservative ideologue. That’s good.

According to Dictionary. com, these are attributes of “conservatives:”

Disposed to preserve existing conditions, restore traditional ones, and to limit change.

According to the same source, “populism” means:

Any of various, often anti-establishment or anti-intellectual political movements or philosophies that offer unorthodox solutions or policies and appeal to the common person rather than according with traditional party or partisan ideologies.

Grass-roots democracy; working class activism; egalitarianism.

National Review recently published an entire special edition devoted to attacking Trump on the ground that he is insufficiently conservative. Whom did National Review support in 2008 and 2012? Guess or go to the link. He did not win.

NR - Trump

Writing at PJ Media about National Review’s special issue, Roger L. Simon argued that 

Many of their arguments revolve around whether Trump is a “true conservative.” Instead of wading into the definitional weeds on that one — as they say on the Internet, YMMV [Your Milleage May Vary] — allow me to address the macro question of what the purpose of ideology actually is. For me, it is to provide a theoretical basis on which to act, a set of principles. But that’s all it is. It’s not a religion, although it can be mistaken for one (communism). [Insert and Emphasis added.]

Ideology should function as a guide, not a faith, because in the real world you may have to violate it, when the rubber meets the road, as they say. For those of us in the punditocracy, the rubber rarely if ever meets the road.  All we have is our theories. They are the road for us. If we’re lucky, we’re paid for them.  In that case, we hardly ever vary them. It would be bad for business.

Trump’s perspective was the reverse. The rubber was constantly meeting the road. In fact, it rarely did anything else. He always had to change and adjust. Ideological principles were just background noise, barely audible sounds above the jack hammers. [Emphasis added.]

When National Review takes up arms against Trump, it is men and women of theory against a man of action. The public, if we are to believe the polls, prefers the action. It’s not hard to see why. The theory has failed and become increasingly disconnected from the people. It doesn’t go anywhere and hasn’t for years. I’m guilty of it too. (Our current president is 150% a man of theory.) Too many people — left and right — are drunk on ideology. [Emphasis added.]

Were the “old White men” who wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence, and those who fought for the colonies in the Revolutionary War, conservative ideologues? Did they want to preserve existing conditions under the King of England, his governors and military? Or were they pragmatic populists, as well as men of action, who opposed the King’s establishment and offered unorthodox solutions appealing to the “common” people? It took a lot of pushing from such revolutionaries as Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, but the pragmatic populists won.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3TGbKfkwGA&list=PLqWUmyBq_P8LZ1jP9XwPuv_4xWhMPiKs1

I don’t want to suggest that Donald Trump is this generation’s George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson or Ben Franklin. Times are now sufficiently different that doing so would be frivolous. Among other differences, there should be no need to go to war now because we still have an electoral process, flawed though it may be. Nor are we ruled by an unelected, hereditary king; we are ruled by an elected president who considers Himself a king, ignores or twists the Constitution to fit His needs, often ideological, and acts by royal executive decree when the Congress declines to do His bidding or goes about it too slowly to suit Him.

Be that as it may, what’s wrong with the populist notion encouraging members of the governed class — the “vulgarians” — to have greater voices in how they are governed than those who govern them, often to their own benefit, while mocking those whom they govern? Sometimes we the people make mistakes and sometimes we get it right. Ditto our dear leaders. Why not give us a chance for a change?

Into which category — conservative ideologue or populist — if either, does Donald Trump fit, do we need him now and, if so, why?

Here’s the 2012 video Whittle referred to in the video above:

Which of the current Republican candidates has taken, or is the most likely to take, positions comparable to those suggested in the above video?

In September of last year, I wrote an article titled To bring America back we need to break some stuff. There, I quoted Daniel Greenfield for the following proposition:

What we have now is not a movement because we have not defined what it is we hope to win. We have built reactive movements to stave off despair. We must do better than that. We must not settle for striving to restore some idealized lost world. Instead we must dream big. We must think of the nation we want and of the civilization we want to live in and what it will take to build it. [Emphasis added.]

Our enemies have set out big goals. We must set out bigger ones. We must become more than conservatives. If we remain conservatives, then all we will have is the America we live in now. And even if our children and grandchildren become conservatives, that is the culture and nation they will fight to conserve. We must become revolutionaries. [Emphasis added.]

I also suggested that if we don’t seek real — even revolutionary — change we might as well try to join the European Union. That would keep things pretty much as they now are and would, therefore, be more the “conservative” than the populist thing to do.

Our unelected and unaccountable bureaucracy could merge with that of the EU and our Congress could merge with the impotent EU Parliament.

Here’s a new Trifecta video about a proposal by the Governor of Texas to amend the Constitution which, he contends, has been broken by those who have improperly increased the power of the Federal Government while diminishing that of the states.

The Constitution is not broken. It’s just been poorly interpreted, twisted and otherwise ignored. In recent years Obama — who claims to be a “constitutional scholar” — has done more to ignore, twist and misinterpret it than any other president I can remember. Depending on what amendments might be adopted and ratified, an Obama clone (Hillary Clinton?) might well do the same; perhaps even worse. A president can personally stop that process by not doing it. A president can halt poor judicial interpretations only by nominating judges unlikely to make them.

Conclusions

Trump is not perfect; nobody is. However, he says what he thinks rather than spew multiculturally correct pablum. Few are sufficiently thick-skinned to do that. A “vulgarian,” he is not politically correct. Others are because they don’t want to offend. Trump recognizes that Islam is the religion of war, death and oppression and does not want the further Islamisation of America, which is already proceeding apace. Few leaders of either party are willing to take that position, mean it and act on it effectively if elected.

We are mad, not insane. We want to give we the people a bigger and stronger voice in how and by whom we are governed. If, by voting to make Trump our President, we make a big mistake so be it. Worse candidates with fewer qualifications have been elected and reelected. During His first and second term as President, Obama has gone far in His quest to transform America fundamentally and in the wrong directions. If Trump does not come sufficiently close to correcting course to meet our expectations during his first term, we won’t vote to reelect him. In the meantime,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ6XdwGt7Ls

Opps. I almost forgot this

Cartoons of the Day

January 23, 2016

H/t Vermont Loon watch

boom

 

deals

 

position

 

caliphate

The threat to ‘national existence’

January 19, 2016

The threat to ‘national existence’ Israel Hayom, Clifford D. May, January 19, 2016

[Islamic immigration and European responses] may not threaten Europe’s existence. But European civilization will never be the same. Should Americans also prepare to accommodate “new realities”? Or is it possible for us to adopt different policies, to choose not to follow Europe’s example? This is a discussion Americans need to have. But Obama will not be the one to lead it.

*********************

President Barack Obama called the Islamic State the “J.V. team,” boasted that he’d set al-Qaida “on its heels,” and implemented successful counterterrorism policies in Yemen. He insists that both the nuclear deal and the hostages-for-felons swap he concluded with Iran’s rulers are triumphs of diplomacy. In his State of the Union address last week, he reassured Americans that our enemies do not “threaten our national existence.” Why am I not filled with optimism?

“Existential threat” is a term that has been most commonly used in recent years about Israel, a nation-state that Islamists aim to exterminate. As Iran’s rulers have noted, the detonation of just one nuclear weapon on Israeli soil could be the quickest means to achieve that goal.

The United States, being bigger and stronger, is obviously more resilient. But a nuclear attack, an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) attack, a biological attack or even a series of attacks of the sort that took place in San Bernardino would profoundly transform America — even if “our national existence” did not come to an end. My grandchildren would inherit a country very different from the one my parents’ generation — the “Greatest Generation,” whose members fought and defeated the tyrants of the 20th century — bequeathed to us.

In Europe, a profound transformation may already be under way. Most recently, on New Year’s Eve in Cologne and several other German cities, hundreds of acts of violence and sexual assault were perpetrated against non-Muslim women by men of Middle Eastern and North African origin. Local politicians at first tried to cover up what happened. Most media adopted a don’t-ask-don’t-tell attitude. Little by little, however, details have been emerging.

According to an internal police report obtained by The Wall Street Journal, there were scenes of “crying women fleeing sexual molestation from crowds of men, passersby trying to rescue young girls from being raped, and groups of intoxicated men throwing bottles and fireworks at a police force no longer in control of the situation.”

What lessons should be learned? According to The New York Times, the police are largely to blame because “officers failed to anticipate the new realities of a Germany that is now host to up to a million asylum seekers, most from war-torn Muslim countries unfamiliar with its culture.”

Let’s unpack that: There are “new realities.” Maybe German authorities can work harder to “familiarize” new arrivals with local culture — a culture that traditionally frowns on robbing, groping and raping women. If not, German culture must adjust. Cologne Mayor Henriette Reke has suggested that women should perhaps begin to dress more modestly in public spaces.

In an opinion piece in the U.K.’s Independent newspaper, commentator Edward Siddons noted that the crimes under discussion were all committed by men. (How perceptive of him!) He then instructs: “We should look to the gender of the Cologne attackers — not their race.”

First: I’m not aware that anyone has been looking at race, a concept based on physical and genetic traits. What the sexual predators have in common is religion. They also all come from parts of the world where beliefs, values and attitudes — not least regarding the rights of women — are unlike those that have evolved in Europe. Second: Siddons’ emphasis on gender is curious. Does he really mean to suggest that Buddhist, Catholic, Baptist and Jewish men are just as likely to participate in orgies of sexual molestation?

Inadvertently, however, he raises this interesting question: If Europe is going to take in millions of new immigrants, shouldn’t at least 50 percent of them be women?

Until now, those streaming into Europe from the south have been disproportionately male. Is anyone asking why these mainly military-age men are abandoning their most vulnerable kith and kin? If they could defend the women and children of their homelands, would they? Might it not be better for European leaders to assist them, rather than teach them to conjugate German verbs and apply for jobs in Volkswagen factories?

Writing in the European edition of Politico, Valerie Hudson, professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, noted that the large disparity between male and female immigrants means there are likely to be unbalanced sex ratios within immigrant communities and within European societies as a whole for decades to come. “Numerous empirical studies,” she writes, correlate such imbalances “with violence and property crime — the higher the sex ratio, the worse the crime rate.”

She adds that “societies with extremely skewed sex ratios are more unstable even without jihadi ideologues in their midst.”

And, of course, such ideologues are already entrenched throughout Europe. They will be adept at identifying young men who are not succeeding. They will do their best to radicalize and recruit them. Even among those who are adjusting, some may be persuaded that working for a salary, raising a family and paying a mortgage hold less appeal than fighting for a caliphate with all the rewards that can bring in this life and the next.

Such changes may not threaten Europe’s existence. But European civilization will never be the same. Should Americans also prepare to accommodate “new realities”? Or is it possible for us to adopt different policies, to choose not to follow Europe’s example? This is a discussion Americans need to have. But Obama will not be the one to lead it.

Cartoon of the Day

January 13, 2016

H/t Hope n’ Change

Strait of the Union 2

Cartoon of the Day

January 5, 2016

H/t The Jewish Press

Obama-gun-control-in-America

U.S. Foreign Policy: From Bad to Worse in 2016?

December 31, 2015

U.S. Foreign Policy: From Bad to Worse in 2016? Power LinePaul Mirengoff, December 31, 2015 

2015 was a bad foreign policy year for America. Our enemies in Tehran won a pathway to prosperity and additional regional influence without losing the ability to obtain nuclear weapons within 10 to 15 years, or sooner if they choose. Our enemy in Moscow enjoyed an enormous expansion of his influence in the Middle East and continues to menace U.S. allies in Europe.

Our enemy in Damascus, propped up by Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah, is probably the comeback world player of the year, now that he’s winning in the battlefield and the U.S. has signaled that his removal from power is no longer an objective. Moreover, Assad’s resurgence has not coincided with substantial losses for ISIS in Syria. Indeed, the limited setbacks ISIS experienced this year within its “caliphate” were probably offset by gains elsewhere, plus success in exporting terror to the West.

A bad foreign policy year for America isn’t necessarily a bad year for President Obama, though. He seems to be okay or better with Iranian prosperity and regional dominance, and indifferent to the successes of Putin and Assad. Inject him with truth serum and the president would probably say that his biggest foreign policy setback of the year was the reelection of Benjamin Netanyahu.

What does 2016 have in store for U.S. foreign policy. More of the same but with increased success in combating ISIS, I would have guessed.

However, Lee Smith predicts that “next year will be worse.” He writes:

What will make the next year especially dangerous is the White House itself. Obama is eager to wrap everything up before he leaves office, and John Kerry no doubt clings to the hope that Syrian peace talks could bring him the Nobel Peace Prize he thought he earned with the Iran deal. The administration is in a hurry, and the only way it sees forward is in caving to Iranian and Russian demands—above all, the demand that Assad stay in power. Indeed, as Kerry made clear two weeks ago, the White House has finally come clean and admitted it’s no longer interested in deposing Assad, if it ever was.

What are the likely consequences?

To begin with, the only opposition groups that can agree to a political process in which Assad is not removed are those that are in fact or in effect pro-Assad. All others will have to be excluded from peace talks, and some will be labeled terrorists, like Jaish al-Islam, one of the most effective anti-Assad units, whose leader Zahran Alloush was recently killed in a Russian airstrike. This drove home the fact that Putin’s campaign was never about fighting ISIS—rather, it was about defending Assad (and securing Moscow’s Syrian bases).

Therefore, in promoting a peace process that protects Assad, the White House is giving political and diplomatic cover to Moscow and Tehran. John Kerry will be acting as Putin’s enforcer, telling America’s traditional regional allies that the war against Assad is over and it’s time to give up.

However — and I’m not sure whether this is good news or bad — our allies are unlikely to listen to the lame duck Secretary:

Saudi Arabia can ill afford an Iranian victory of that magnitude, and it would be an even worse outcome for Turkey. Ankara is hosting millions of refugees who will never return to Syria so long as the regime that butchered their family and friends is still in power. It’s a major domestic issue for the Turks, and with three unfriendly powers on its border—Russia, Iran, and Assad—the Syrian war is a national security matter.

Therefore, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan believes it is vital to keep open his supply lines to anti-Assad groups, even as Putin’s forces are campaigning to close them down. In other words, Kerry’s “peace process” is driving a NATO member toward crisis, and perhaps a shooting war with Russia.

Finally:

Israel may soon find itself in a similarly dangerous situation. Yes, even with Russian troops present in Syria, Jerusalem has continued to attack arms convoys heading across Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as Iranian assets inside Syria, like Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar. However, it’s not clear how long this state of affairs can last, or if the Iranians will press their Russian partners to clarify whose side they’re on.

It has long seemed clear that the primary damage Obama would be able to inflict on America during his second term would be in the realm of foreign policy (although Obama is inflicting more damage than I expected domestically, and if Republicans cooperate will inflict even more through the mass release of drug dealers from prison). If Smith is right, 2016 will be the apotheosis of Obama’s damage to the United States in the world.

Israelis Can’t Stand Obama even More than Iranians

December 23, 2015

Israelis Can’t Stand Obama even More than Iranians, The Jewish Press, Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu, December 23, 2015

anti_obama_billboard_3_adpAn anti-Obama billboard in the United States.

Israelis can’t stand President Barack Obama even more than Iranians can do without him, but they like German Chancellor Angela Merkel as the most popular world leader, a new survey reveals.

The poll in Israel was part of an international survey of 65 world leaders by WIN/Gallup International. Ma’agar Mochot, headed by Prof. Yitzchak Katz, carried out the survey in Israel.

One of the questions posed was:

What is your opinion regarding each of the following global leaders: very favorable position, sympathetic to some extent, not sympathetic to some extent, or very unfavorable?

Each leader was ranked twice, once with a favorable ranking and once with an unfavorable ranking, and the final score was determined by subtracting the negative votes from the positive votes.

Obama was popular worldwide with a 30 percent rating on the plus side, much better than can be said for what Americans think of him.

In Israel, he scored a minus 22 percent, even worse than the minus 21 percent ranking by Iranians.

On the positive side, the most popular world leader for Israelis is German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who scored a net 38 percent on the plus side, far ahead of the distant second place leader, Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron.

Israelis also placed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, French President Francois Hollande, Russian President Vladimir Putin and President of China Shi Tz’infing above Obama.

However, President Obama can console himself that Israelis don’t dislike him as much as they do Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdul Aziz, and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.

On the other hand, Russians gave President Obama a disastrous minus 83 percent rating, the lowest of any country. However, he is popular in Kosovo with a plus 73 percent rating. Close behind is Vietnam

Putin is much more unpopular with Americans than with Israelis. He scored minus 44 in the United States, and only minus 20 in Israel.