California Dreaming?

Posted December 4, 2016 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: 2016 elections, California, President Elect Trump, President Reject Clinton, Secession, Trump Derangement Syndrome
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California Dreaming?, Power Line, Steven Hayward, December 4, 2016

(Can the rest of us take up a collection to speed California on its way? — DM)

It’s hard to single out the most delicious example of the post-Trump liberal freak out, but the din about California secession has to rank high on the list. Among other obvious things, California provided Hillary Clinton with her entire margin of victory in the popular vote—without California, Trump wins the popular vote in the other 49 states handily. (Without California and the five boroughs of Manhattan, Trump’s popular vote victory starts to approach a landslide.)

ca-sucession

California certainly is out of step with the rest of the nation (especially the fact that, with about 13 percent of the nation’s population, it has over 20 percent of the nation’s total welfare caseload. Progressive government that works!) Last week in Washington I ran into California’s GOP party chairman, Jim Brulte, who is trying to rebuild the GOP from the ground up, working to elect Republicans to local offices around the state with some success. But he admitted that California must now be regarded as a center-left state (at best). I asked Jim if he thought Proposition 13 would still pass today? He admitted, “I’m not sure.”

There’s talk of a ballot initiative to propel the idea of California’s secession. I’m all for it. If California left the union, Republicans would essentially run the nation forever. Like South Carolina, et al. in 1860, California can’t secede of it own will; it will require the consent of the other 49 states, either through Constitutional amendment or an act of Congress (I’m not at all clear on this question, but haven’t had time to study the matter closely).

Quite aside from the constitutional question, I wonder whether the secessionist hotheads have pondered a few basic questions:

  • The other 49 states will not consent to California seceding unless California assumes its proportionate share of the national debt. Are Californians up for assuming roughly $2.5 trillion in sovereign debt? And just how would that debt be transferred? Will the foreign holders of U.S. sovereign debt accept a swap for California’s obligation? Which leads to the next question.
  • Will California have its own currency and central bank? Or will it use the dollar? Or peg the California Peso to the dollar somehow? (By the way, if you’ve ever driven into California, you know that it has border inspection stations for agriculture in place, so the infrastructure for trade and border control is already in place! (/sarc alert)
  • Will California maintain its own army, navy and air force? If so, I imagine the other 49 states will want California to pay for the federal military bases and equipment that it wants to keep for itself—add another $1 trillion to the secession tab. They could skip this expense by having a mutual defense treaty with the U.S. Or perhaps they’ll enter into a mutual defense treaty with Mexico. (More /sarc alert.)

But hey, California, we’re constantly told, is the sixth largest economy in the world. Should be easy, no? On second thought, I’ll bet some California liberals will reconsider, and come up with a slogan like, “Stronger Together.” Oh, wait. . .

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6 of 7 Nations With Worst Record of Christian Persecution Are Muslim

Posted December 4, 2016 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Christians and Islamism, Islam and Christianity, Islamic nations, North Korea, Religious Persecution
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6 of 7 Nations With Worst Record of Christian Persecution Are Muslim, Creeping Sharia, December 4, 2016

im-christian-and-i-love-the-quran

The seven nations where persecution was branded so extreme that “it could scarcely get any worse” include: Afghanistan, Iraq (northern), Nigeria, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Syria.

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Source: Top 7 Nations With Worst Record of Christian Persecution: Report

Persecution watchdog group Aid to the Church in Need released its 2016 “Religious Freedom in the World” report on Thursday, highlighting the growing cases of intolerance around the world, particularly between the time period of June 2014 and June 2016 — coinciding with the rise of the Islamic State terror group.

The report included case by case studies of a number of different countries around the world, and the religious discrimination people of faith face. Some of the most extreme forms of oppression were experienced by people in Iraq and Syria, including Christians and Yazidis, who have been targeted in an ongoing genocide campaign by IS.

One Yazidi boy trained for jihad in Syria shared the chilling words his radical instructors told to him: “You have to kill kuffars [unbelievers] even if they are your fathers and brothers, because they belong to the wrong religion and they don’t worship God.”

The report revealed that 196 countries were examined, with 38 showing “unmistakable evidence” of significant religious freedom violations. Twenty-three of those countries were placed in the top level “Persecution” category, while 15 others in the “Discrimination” group.

Religious freedom conditions “clearly worsened” in 14 countries, the report added, and only three — Bhutan, Egypt and Qatar — showed signs of improvement since the last study in 2014.

The seven nations where persecution was branded so extreme that “it could scarcely get any worse” include: Afghanistan, Iraq (northern), Nigeria, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Syria.

“A virulent and extremist form of Islam emerged as the number one threat to religious freedom and was revealed as the primary cause of persecution in many of the worst cases,” the report noted.

It added that “religious hyper-extremism,” such as the actions of IS in their quest to build a caliphate and kill off minorities, has been on the rise, characterized by mass killings, ‘horrific’ forms of executions, rape, and extreme torture such as burning people alive, crucifixions, or throwing victims off buildings.

The atrocities committed by Islamist radical groups in nations such as Syria, Iraq and Libya were called arguably some of the “greatest setbacks for religious freedom since the Second Wold War,” with victims being subjugated to a system which “insults almost every tenet of human rights.”

Other watchdog groups, such as Open Doors USA, have called on the global Church to resist being too self-centered, and instead reach out to help its brothers and sisters in need.

Open Doors President David Curry told The Christian Post in October that the factors that led to 2015 being the worst year for Christian persecution have stayed in place for 2016 as well.

“You still have rouge nations like Eritrea, North Korea, Sudan and others, who are not concerned about international justice laws, and are persecuting Christians within their government,” Curry told CP at the time, ahead of the International Day of Prayer.

“I’m not encouraged yet by the response of the global Church, but I’m hopeful that they are going to wake up and see what is happening,” he added.

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Prime Minister Trudeau’s affection for despots, autocrats and Islamists

Posted December 4, 2016 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Canada, Castro, China, Communism, Despots, Iran, Islamic terrorism, Islamists in Canada, Islamophobia, Sharia law, Trudeau
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Prime Minister Trudeau’s affection for despots, autocrats and Islamists, CIJ News, Diane Weber Bederman, December 4, 2016

justin-trudeau-7-cijnewsJustin Trudeau. Photo: CIJnews

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau displayed his affection for fascism on the death of Fidel Castro. “We join the people of Cuba today in mourning the loss of this remarkable leader.” He seems to be following in the footsteps of his father Pierre. Members of Parliament, media outlets in Canada, and around the world expressed their shock at his comments.

Trudeau has also shared his affection for Chinese Communists. “Justin’s 2013 tribute to the role of big government in forcing people into living more environmentally might explain his flirtation with dictators and despots. ‘There is a level of admiration I actually have for China because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime…”’

Trudeau is in the process of cozying up to the Iranians. Iran; a country run by an autocratic, theocratic despot. Trudeau has opened the doors to warmer relations with Russia.

According to Canadian journalist Terence Corcoran “The Trudeaus have been at this for six decades, flirting with the murderous icons of communist oppression since the 1950s when Trudeau the First expressed his admiration for elements of Stalin’s Soviet Communism.

In the 1960s, a 41-year-old Pierre Trudeau visited Communist China during the great famine and co-wrote a book hailing Maoism and denying the existence of a national food policy that killed 38 million people. He never retracted his China views. But, in the 1970s, he cozied up to Fidel Castro, who until his death Friday has held the Caribbean island in a form of political slavery.”

Paul Wells from the Toronto Star did not parse his words of condemnation. “Trudeau lauded Castro’s ‘tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people,’ whose speech and dietary protein Castro rationed, by law, for decades. I guess it was tough love.”

Margaret Wente from the Globe and Mail wrote “Mr. Trudeau’s affection for the old dictator puts him in the company of Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad.” She found his comments oddly timed. “He was just winding up a far-flung trip whose theme was human rights, during which he lectured various African nations on the need to improve their treatment of women and sexual minorities. Unfortunately, Mr. Castro wasn’t all that progressive either. “

The Globe Editorial Board wrote their concerns about Justin Trudeau; that his comments leave the disturbing impression that he actually believes what he said about Castro including “I know my father was very proud to call him a friend and I had the opportunity to meet Fidel when my father passed away. It was also a real honour to meet his three sons and his brother President Raúl Castro during my recent visit to Cuba.”

Gerald Caplan wrote “Scarcity became the overriding characteristic of Fidelismo, scarcity in both the quantity and quality of the life he provided. Dissent was not tolerated, political dissidents imprisoned, human rights a foreign intrusion, free speech counterrevolutionary, trade unions government servants, gays an insult to the revolution.”

Kelly McParland of the National Post wrote: “Given a choice between saying something nice about his Dad’s Cuban pal, and defending the values of democracy and human rights, Justin Trudeau picked the wrong one.”

He went with “el Comandante” – the captain, the commander – one of the appellations accorded Cuba’s Fidel Castro during the 50+ years in which treated his country like a personal political project, impoverishing millions while pursuing a self-defeating confrontation with Washington.”

Mark Bonokoski, Toronto Sun wrote “Blind to Cuban history, and blinkered by his fathers’ fairy tales about Fidel Castro, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s statement about the death of the Cuban dictator was an embarrassment of international proportions. He ignored the brutal truth about the man, dancing around like a clown in a parade dodging horse droppings.”

Members of parliament shared their outrage; from Lisa Raitt, to Rona Ambrose, Maxime Bernier, Kellie Leitch, to Stephen Harper’s son. And then there was world-wide condemnation of Trudeau’s affection for this despot.

So I ask all of these people, journalists, columnists, and Canadian Members of Parliament, where is your outrage at Trudeau’s attempts to mimic these despots? First, by allowing him to pass a petition that attacks free speech without a word from any of you.

The Parliament passed petition 411 that could attack free speech.

“We, the undersigned, Citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the House of Commons to join us in recognizing that extremist individuals do not represent the religion of Islam, and in condemning all forms of Islamophobia” (dislike of or prejudice against Islam or Muslims, especially as a political force).

In English this means that we will not be able to criticize Islam as a political force. This is denying us of our right to criticize an ideology that is diametrically opposed to the ideology of democracy.

This leads me to the next question. Where is your outrage with Trudeau’s statement that Islam is compatible with the west while the leading Muslim organization in Canada, ICNA, posted a publication on its official site saying this is not true?

“The political system of Islam is totally incompatible with western democracy.

“The concept of government party and the opposition is alien to Islam.

“All belong to one Ummah with only one goal and pursue the same aims and objects of Islamic guidelines!”[Online publication of ICNA Canada’s site]

ICNA (Islamic Circle of North America) Canada is an Islamic nation-wide organization striving “to build an Exemplary Canadian Muslim Community” by “total submission to Him [Allah] and through the propagation of true and universal message of Islam.” Dr. Iqbal Massod Al-Nadvi is the Amir (President) of Islamic Circle of ICNA Canada and is also serving as Chairperson of Canadian Council of Imams.

Whom should we believe? Non-Muslims or respected Muslim leaders?

Trudeau’s stance is a breach of our Constitution and free speech. Islam, based on Sharia Law as is being interpreted by major Islamic groups, is innately homophobic, misogynistic, xenophobic and viciously anti-semitic. Saudi Arabia just announced they aren’t ready for female drivers!

Islam, as being reflected in Islamic literature in Canada, does not treat all people as equal; does not believe in free will; does not accept gay rights or women as equal to men. Islam the ideology does not separate itself from Islam the religion so it is not tolerant of other religions (there are no synagogues or churches in many Muslim countries) and it makes demands on democracy to accommodate religious beliefs in the secular world.

Where is Main Stream media when it comes to “outing” Trudeau and his comments about Islam? Where are these people who are shocked by Trudeau’s comments about Castro and his love of autocrats, despots and theocrats? Why are they not holding him to account for his declaration that Islam is compatible with the West?

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I’m Fighting the Left’s Culture War One Bagel at a Time

Posted December 4, 2016 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Leftists, President Elect Trump, President Reject Clinton, Progressives
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I’m Fighting the Left’s Culture War One Bagel at a Time, American Thinker, Clarice Feldman, December 4, 2016

Their movements are never about what they say they are. They are about gaining power for themselves and destroying any who stand in their way. Those who refuse to comply with their ever-changing and ever more ridiculously unreal versions of nature and humanity must be the objects of never-ending warfare.

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At first I dismissed the Democrats’ subsidized street riots and vandalism, moronic election recount demands, and perfervid attacks on Trump and his supporters in the press as a demonstration of their juvenile, narcissistic refusal to accept defeat. Then I read the brilliant essay by Angelo Codevilla

It’s a bit long and I know your Sundays are busy but if you can’t read it all at once, I’ll summarize what I think are the most significant points in the hope that if the topic is of interest you’ll read it all. He traces the notion of political correctness from the 1930 Communist movement through Antonio Gramsci’s “cultural hegemony” configuration to the modern Democratic Party and finds in them a familiar strain:

[A]ll progressives, Communists included, claim to be about creating new human realities, they are perpetually at war against nature’s laws and limits. But since reality does not yield, progressives end up pretending that they themselves embody those new realities. Hence, any progressive movement’s nominal goal eventually ends up being subordinated to the urgent, all-important question of the movement’s own power. Because that power is insecure as long as others are able to question the truth of what the progressives say about themselves and the world, progressive movements end up struggling not so much to create the promised new realities as to force people to speak and act as if these were real: as if what is correct politically — i.e., what thoughts serve the party’s interest — were correct factually.

Communist states furnish only the most prominent examples of such attempted groupthink. Progressive parties everywhere have sought to monopolize educational and cultural institutions in order to force those under their thumbs to sing their tunes or to shut up. But having brought about the opposite of the prosperity, health, wisdom, or happiness that their ideology advertised, they have been unable to force folks to ignore the gap between political correctness and reality.

He argues that this effort is bound to fail and progressives everywhere have had the same reaction “to this failure by becoming their own reason for being.” Their movements are never about what they say they are. They are about gaining power for themselves and destroying any who stand in their way. Those who refuse to comply with their ever-changing and ever more ridiculously unreal versions of nature and humanity must be the objects of never-ending warfare.

Unlike the Machiavellian Gramscian model of attaining power through cultural hegemony and coopting the institutions which might oppose them, the American left has chosen to go even further and pick “fights with the common sense of people it cannot wholly control.”  American schools of education taught a version of America in which this country “was born tainted by Western original sins — racism, sexism, greed and genocide against natives and the environment all wrapped in religious obscurantism and on the basis of hypocritical promises of freedom and equality.” These teachers created “a uniform class” which “now presides over nearly all federal and state, government bureaucracies, over the media, the educational establishment, and major corporations.”

Why does the American Left demand ever-new P.C. obeisances? In 2012 no one would have thought that defining marriage between one man and one woman, as enshrined in U.S. law, would brand those who do so as motivated by a culpable psychopathology called “homophobia,” subject to fines and near-outlaw status. Not until 2015-16 did it occur to anyone that requiring persons with male personal plumbing to use public bathrooms reserved for men was a sign of the same pathology. Why had not these become part of the P.C. demands previously? Why is there no canon of P.C. that, once filled, would require no further additions?

Because the point of P.C. is not and has never been merely about any of the items that it imposes, but about the imposition itself. Much less is it about creating a definable common culture or achieving some definable good. On the retail level, it is about the American’s ruling class’s felt need to squeeze the last drops of voter participation out of the Democratic Party’s habitual constituencies. On the wholesale level, it is a war on civilization waged to indulge identity politics.

Hurting dissenters has become, he argues, “an addictive pleasure” because they really have no priorities beyond aggrandizing their own power.

The end result of this insult to voters was the election of Trump and the rejection, almost entirely, of the Democratic Party.

As if to underscore that the flailing left hasn’t got the message and insists it has the right to silence those who hold different opinions we have three examples this week: Kellogg’s attack on Breitbart, BuzzFeed’s attack on the Gaineses and the boycott of Goldberg’s Bagels in Baltimore. They are all on a different scale of course, but all reflect the common leftist conceit that they are the fonts of all that is good and true and the rest of us must comply with whatever is this day’s fashions — from “global warming” to men in girls’ bathrooms, to ignoring Planned Parenthood’s sale of fetal body parts.

Kellogg’s

To most of us, Kellogg’s Cereal is breakfast fare (cereal, Pop-Tarts). What is less well-known is that its non-profit arm, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, funds and supports a dogs’ breakfast of unsavory leftwing operations — from Soros’ Open Society to the odious foundation money-laundering outfit, the Tides Center.

This week, it flounced its skirts and announced it was pulling its advertising from the highly effective Breitbart site: “We regularly work with our media-buying partners to ensure our ads do not appear on sites that are not aligned with our values as a company,” said Kris Charles, a spokeswoman for Kellogg’s. “We recently reviewed the list of sites where our ads can be placed and decided to discontinue advertising on Breitbart.com. We are working to remove our ads from that site.”

Breitbart regularly having challenged the orthodoxy of the mainstream media and the uniparty, every good leftist — and I count Kellogg’s management in that category — must do all it can to demonize it, despite the unrealistic and untrue charges against the site and Steve Bannon who was its former executive chair and now is chief strategist for president-elect Trump. (In the same manner, at a Harvard Symposium this week, the losing Clinton advisors attacked the Trump campaign for “racist dog whistles” to win the election. I suppose that’s easier than conceding they ran a dreadful campaign for a candidate who called those who opposed her “deplorables” and offered no policy reasons — only her sex and time [poorly] served in elective office. They ought to read Codevilla for a clue.)

Chip and Joanna Gaines

Democratic candidates pay election-year homage to religious beliefs (Clinton, for example, talked about her “Methodist beliefs” forming her views). They are coopting religious organizations, inter alia, Mussolini-style by means of lavishly funding the “faith-based” NGOs which are paid per head to place unskilled, unvetted Moslem refugees on the U.S. welfare rolls in exchange for which they lobby for more such immigration. At the same it is no secret that the ruling elites make every effort to undermine Judeo-Christian beliefs and attack believers.

This week’s designated target is HGTV’s “Fixer Upper couple Chip and Joanna Gaines”. In a particularly odious witch-hunting move, BuzzFeed posted that they attended a church whose pastor believes the Bible — that marriage is reserved for a man and a woman.

Why anyone, other than the author of this piece, cares was a mystery to even the Washington Post, but if so, it’s because the Post’s writers haven’t been paying attention to the earlier successful anti-religious PC campaigns forcing wedding cake bakers and florists to serve at gay weddings or nuns to provide contraceptive coverage for their employees.

Ace of Spades Headquarters could not resist a response:

HGTV has a remodeling show “Fixer Upper” featuring Chip & Joanna Gaines. I’ve seen it a few times. They appear to be nice couple and seem to do a good job. No religious overtones that I’ve seen.

One problem, the Gaines belong to a church where SSM is not accepted. The Gaines’ have kept their mouths shut but are under pressure to state their beliefs.

So Christians who stay true to their beliefs are fair game? Right? Well, if Christians are to be held accountable for their beliefs. What about Muslims?

So if the Gaines’ church and pastor can lead to their suspension and/or termination. (Stay tuned) What about a Muslim congressman?

Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) hasn’t come out publicly for the exclusion of SSM. But it appears that his Imam has.

“It’s not within our paradigm, really, to change the word of God,” said Imam Makram El-Amin, leader of Masjid Al-Nur in Minneapolis. “Our religion is clear about this matter. It’s not a lifestyle that we accept as being part of the natural way of things for human beings. When it comes to that, that’s my position, and that’s Islam’s position. And this incident as tragic and terrible as it is that does not change that,” he said.

Until Congressman Ellison comes forth and denounces his Imam, his mosque and anti-homosexuality Keith Ellison is not in a position to run the DNC. Hell, he shouldn’t even be a congressman. We won’t even get into his Anti-Semitism and his ties to the Nation of Islam.

If we can’t have a Christian couple star in a 30 minute cable show about home fixer uppers, certainly we can’t have an anti-homosexual bigot run the DNC.

But when it comes to the hypocrites left we know which religion is acceptable, don’t we?

Goldberg’s Bagels

Goldberg’s Bagels is a small kosher bakery in Baltimore,

When a customer attacked pro-Trump supporters outside his store, claiming Trump was a rapist and racist, the shop owner tried to quell the disturbance by asking the woman to leave. She further insulted Trump and then his supporters. This prompted Mr. Drebin, the shop owner, to express his own support for Trump, after which his Facebook page was filled with insults suggesting Drebin approved of “anti-Semitism, misogyny, xenophobia and alt-right leanings.” The entire PC shtick.

His business dropped by 15%.

Keep this stuff up and someday there won’t be a Democratic Party. In the meantime, I note that Goldberg’s Bagels has a website, and you can order by mail. They’re very delicious, (So is Chik-fil-A, by the way.)

Let the left play the P.C. card all they want, I will fight to trump them every time.

 

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Trump Sec of Defense Pick: Enemy of Islamism and Iran

Posted December 4, 2016 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Department of Defense, Iran, Islamism, Islamist organizations, Islamist terrorists, James Mattis, Political Islam, President Elect Trump, Secretary of Defense, Trump appointments
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Trump Sec of Defense Pick: Enemy of Islamism and Iran, Clarion Project, Ryan Mauro, December 4, 2016

united-states-general-james-mattis-640-320-getty-drew-angerer_0General James Mattis with President-elect Trump (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

General Mattis completely and utterly rejects the romanticized interpretation of the Iranian regime as “moderate” or part of the solution to Sunni terrorism. In April, he described the Iranian regime as the “single most enduring threat to stability and peace in the Middle East;” one greater than Al-Qaeda or ISIS.

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President-Elect Trump has chosen Marine Corps General James “Mad Dog” Mattis for secretary of defense, eliciting widespread enthusiasm focusing on his status as the “most revered Marine in a generation” and factory of quotable quotes.

Deserving of more positive attention is his emphasis on confronting Political Islam and the Iranian regime.

General Mattis has advocated for significant changes in both the military fight against the specific Islamist terrorist groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda, as well as the fight against the Islamist ideology that births them. Although ISIS’ caliphate is on the decline, General Mattis doesn’t settle for an encouraging positive trend. He wants to win quickly and decisively, yet humanely with care for civilians.

In August, he said the strategy still is “unguided by a sustained policy or sound strategy [and is] replete with half measures.”

Mattis was one of the chief architects of the counter-insurgency campaign that turned Iraq around so rapidly that it even surprises many of its supporters.

In testimony to the Senate in 2015, he said, “The fundamental question I believe is, ‘Is political Islam in our best interest?’ If not, what is our policy to authoritatively support the countervailing forces?”

In another speech, General Mattis said that the fundamental flaw in our strategy has been a failure to define Political Islam as the enemy of U.S. interests. He made the correct observation that such a delineation between friend and foe would allow us to identify supportable Muslim allies.

“If we won’t even ask the question [if Political Islam is in U.S. interests], then how do we ever get to the point of recognizing which is our side in the fight? And if we don’t take our own side in this fight, we are leaving others adrift,” he said.

He then referenced his recent trip to Egypt and the widespread perception that the U.S. actually intends to empower the Muslim Brotherhood. The failure to base policy around a rejection of Political Islam inevitably leads to a tolerance or even an embrace of Islamists who surpass the low bar of condemning Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

The Muslims who oppose Islamists are, as Mattis put it, left adrift.

Countless articles have been written claiming that a policy based on fighting “radical Islam,” “Political Islam,” “Islamism” and similar terms will inflame the Muslim world. Islamists and allied institutions will undoubtedly cry foul, as they always have at every minor slight, but the delineation will separate the wheat from the chaff.

Overlooked allies amongst Muslims and non-Muslim minorities will surface as U.S. policy forces the Muslim world to take stances on Islamism and its adhering organizations. New allies will be born as the discussion of Islamism leads to rejections of it. If messaged correctly, the U.S. will end up with more Muslim allies of better quality.

This view of Islamism as the adversary, rather than just specific terrorist groups targeting the U.S. homeland, is why General Mattis rejects the notion of a “moderate” Iranian regime. He was fired by the Obama Administration for his tough questions about the ramifications of current U.S. policy towards Iran.

General Mattis completely and utterly rejects the romanticized interpretation of the Iranian regime as “moderate” or part of the solution to Sunni terrorism. In April, he described the Iranian regime as the “single most enduring threat to stability and peace in the Middle East;” one greater than Al-Qaeda or ISIS.

We recently pointed out that four of Trump’s picks want to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and wage a long overdue ideological offensive against Islamism, also known as Political Islam.

Trump then chose K.T. McFarland as deputy national security adviser and Katharine Gorka as part of his Department of Homeland security “landing team” to manage the transition between administrations. Both are strong advocates of an ideological war against Islamism and Gorka has advocated for the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act.

The U.S. war against Islamist extremism now enters a new, decisive phase, but let not our enthusiasm for this strategy blind us from the risks.

The successful implementation of the anti-Islamism strategy is not solely dependent upon Trump’s national security team. It’s dependent upon him.

If his decisions prevent demonstrable success, the ideological strategy will be considered a failed concept. Its advocates will have their credibility tarnished, perhaps unfairly, and the Western response to Islamism will be put on an indefinite hold as the ideology marches on.

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China Files Complaint After Trump Call With Taiwan – Fox Report

Posted December 4, 2016 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: China, President Elect Trump, Taiwan
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China Files Complaint After Trump Call With Taiwan – Fox Report via YouTube, December 3, 2016

(Please see also, Trump speaks with “president” of Taiwan, harasses her sexually. — DM)

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Angela Merkel: False Prophet of Europe

Posted December 4, 2016 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: "Far right" parties, European spring, Gender image, Germany, Globalism, Gun control, Islam and females, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Merkel, Politics, President Elect Trump
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Angela Merkel: False Prophet of Europe, Gatestone Institute, Vijeta Uniyal, December 4, 2016

With his initiative for tighter gun laws, to prevent weapons getting into “the wrong hands,” Justice Minister Maas does not mean to target the Islamists who pose an existential threat to Germany, but an obscure German group called the “Reichsbürger.”

As the German newspaper Bild describes the law proposed by Maas, “a 13-year-old child bride would have to testify against her husband, saying that her well-being as a child is under threat. If neither the child nor the Child Welfare Service lodges a complaint, for all practical purposes the marriage would be declared legitimate.” This law clearly does not take into account the possibility of private coercion against a child, let alone the blinding likelihood of outright threats.

Justice Minister Maas evidently cares more about “gender image” than he cares about truly oppressed women and vulnerable children. In a recently drafted new law by his ministry, Mass refused to ban child marriage.

With both France and Germany going to polls next year, there is the possibility of a democratic, peaceful “European Spring.”

 

In her first message to President-elect Donald Trump, German Chancellor Angela Merkel lectured him on gender, racial and religious equality. As the New York Times put it, Merkel “named a price” for Germany’s cooperation with the Trump-led administration, namely the “respect for human dignity and for minorities from a man who has mocked both.”

If this was anything more than political posturing, and Chancellor Merkel truly cared about “human dignity” or the rights of those most vulnerable, she might have started closer at home.

After a year-long investigation into the mass-sexual attacks in Cologne, where an estimated 2,000 migrant men — mostly from Arab and Muslim countries — molested at least 1200 women, almost all the men have managed to walk free.

Last week, the Interior Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Ralf Jäger, confirmed this outcome when he said that “most of the cases [of rape and sexual assault in Cologne] will remain unsolved.” Similar coordinated sexual assaults by migrants also took place in other German cities, including Hamburg, where over 500 such cases were reported. They are expected to remain “unsolved” too.

Merkel, who lectured Trump on gender, did not even bother to visit the women who were raped and assaulted in Cologne or other German cities — even though these women were victims of her own failed open-border policy.

As New Year’s Eve approaches again, Merkel’s “Multikulti” paradise looks more and more like a police state. According to leaked, confidential police reports published by Germany’s Expressnewspaper, Cologne will be turned into a fortified city to avoid a repeat of last year’s mass sexual assaults. Security forces will monitor the streets with helicopters, surveillance cameras, observation posts and mounted units. The city of Hamburg has also reportedly taken similar steps.

While the Merkel government arms the police, efforts are underway to tighten gun laws for the citizenry. As the German state-run broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported on November 28: “Justice Minister Heiko Maas called for tighter weapons laws to prevent guns from falling in to the wrong hands.” With this latest initiative, Minister Maas does not mean to target the Islamists who pose an existential threat to Germany and the rest of the Western World, but an obscure German group called the “Reichsbürger.”

The Justice Minister apparently shares Merkel’s skewed worldview. After the New Year’s Eve sexual assaults in Germany, Maas, to “cure” the country’s rape epidemic, proposed a ban on “sexist advertising.” In April, Deutsche Welle reported:

The aim of the proposal – which is reportedly in response to the sexual assaults in Cologne on New Year’s Eve – is to create a “modern gender image” in Germany… In future, posters or ads which “reduce women or men to sexual objects” could be banned. In the case of dispute, a court would have to decide.

Justice Minister Maas evidently cares more about “gender image” than he cares about truly oppressed women and vulnerable children. In a recently drafted new law by his ministry, Mass refused to ban child marriage. Official German statistics estimate the number of married children in Germany at 1,475, of whom 361 are under the age of 14 — a rising trend thanks to uncontrolled migration from Muslim countries.

As the German newspaper Bild describes the law proposed by Maas:

“a 13-year-old child bride would have to testify against her husband, saying that her well-being as a child is under threat. If neither the child nor the Child Welfare Service lodges a complaint, for all practical purposes the marriage would be declared legitimate.”

This law clearly does not take into account the possibility of private coercion against a child, let alone the blinding likelihood of outright threats.

In Merkel’s Germany, the rights of an able-bodied migrant man trump the rights of a sexually assaulted woman and subdued child.

Following the electoral victory of Donald Trump, liberals all over are pinning all their hopes on Merkel. The “orphaned” liberals, in essence actually authoritarian, are probably looking for a new leader behind whom to rally. Many in the mainstream in the West are already calling the German Chancellor the “Leader of the Free World.” Following Clinton’s loss, the U.S. online magazine Politico described Merkel in almost messianic terms as “Global Savior.”

As Merkel seeks re-election to a fourth term in the autumn of 2017, she is counting on extremely favourable media coverage and glowing celebrity endorsements to enable her to win again.

2094(Image source: Tobias Koch/Wikimedia Commons)

After Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid went south, President Barack Obama flew to Germany to endorse Merkel’s re-election bid. After Britain’s Brexit vote and Trump’s White House win, the liberal establishment and its rank and file in the mainstream media seem frantic to keep Merkel in power. Merkel’s defeat at the hands of a resurgent nationalist party such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD) would strike their “globalist project” right at the heart of Europe.

Next year’s German elections will be first and foremost a referendum on Merkel’s open-border policy. It was her suspension of border controls — or the Dublin Protocol — in September 2015 that opened the floodgates for Arab and Muslim mass-migration in the first place.

If Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) emerge as the largest party and she manages to head the next ruling coalition, it will be sold by the media and the elites as a vindication of her “Refugees Welcome” policy.

An upset defeat for Merkel, however, could spell doom not only for her policy of mass-migration but for the entire Brussels-based “European project” — a German “Brexit” (“Dexit”?).

With both France and Germany going to the polls next year, there is the possibility of a democratic, peaceful “European Spring.”

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“Syrian 5th Corps” is new Shiite foreign legion

Posted December 4, 2016 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Aleppo Syria, Iran - Syria war, Israel, Israel and Syria, Shiite foreign legion, Syria war, Syrian military
Tags: , , , , , ,

“Syrian 5th Corps” is new Shiite foreign legion, DEBKAfile, December 4, 2016

fifth_corps

The new Shiite foreign legion or international brigade presents a major headache for Syria’s neighbors, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel. It provides a cover for Iran and Hizballah to sneak troops right up to their borders. Whenever this happened in the past, Israel and Jordan pushed back hard. But this will be more difficult once the Fifth Corps is set up as an integral part of the Syrian army.

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Syria and its allies came closer than ever to taking Aleppo on Friday, Dec. 2, when they captured the Tariq al-Bab district to gain control of 60 percent of the rebel-held eastern part of the city.

Drawing on the lessons of this success, the winning forces have begun building a military outfit modeled on the format of the victorious coalition. It is designated the “Fifth Corps” of the Syrian army, but DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources can identity the new unit as the framework for an international Shiite brigade or foreign legion.

It is the brainchild of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Gen. Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iranian Mid East operations, who is in Iraq at present, supervising the Shiite militias on the Mosul front. However, his officers are overseeing its construction of the new military legion. It is composed of the remnants of the Syrian army’s First and Second Corps, which took a bad beating in the five years of conflict, the Hizballah expeditionary force in Syria and the Shiite militias which Tehran imported from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight for Bashar Assad.

The new framework aims to field 50,000 to 70,000 fighting men.

Its command structure is already taking shape in a form that is new for the Syrian army and indeed any other fighting force in the region. Syrian, Hizballah and foreign Shiite officers will make up this command, but not direct their own forces, only mixed units composed of Iranian, Syrian, Shiite and Hizballah servicemen.

It will be the first Shiite army or foreign legion ever seen in the Middle East.

An oblique reference to the novel force came from a Hizballah source this week who said: “The Fifth Corps is an important turning-point for the ties between allied forces within the same axis – Syria, Iran, Russia and Hizballah.”

Russia? DEBKAfile’s sources have heard no hint of the Russians joining the new Shiite legion. But Hizballah has been spreading reports in the past fortnight about its deepening ties with Russian officers, mainly on the Aleppo front, and their supposed appreciation of the Lebanese Shiites’ fighting prowess.

The Syrian high command has meanwhile moved forward on the new scheme with a decision this week to send the entire next class of military recruits to the new Fifth Corps.

The new Shiite foreign legion or international brigade presents a major headache for Syria’s neighbors, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel. It provides a cover for Iran and Hizballah to sneak troops right up to their borders. Whenever this happened in the past, Israel and Jordan pushed back hard. But this will be more difficult once the Fifth Corps is set up as an integral part of the Syrian army.

Western and Arab observers following the Syrian war believe that, as soon as they finish off the rebels in Aleppo, the new foreign legion’s forces will turn south to repeat the exercise there with Russian support.

The Russian bombardment of rebel concentrations outside the southern towns of Jasim and Daraa Sunday, Nov. 27, was seen a message from Moscow to Jerusalem and Amman that southern Syria is now in line for the next battle.

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America moves right, Jewish groups move left

Posted December 4, 2016 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: 2016 elections, Jewish left in America, Keith Ellison, President Elect Trump, Steven K. Bannon
Tags: , , ,

America moves right, Jewish groups move left, Israel Hayom, Richard Baehr, December4, 2016

On January 20, the Republican Party will control the White House, both houses of Congress, at least 33 governors’ offices, and over two-thirds of state legislative bodies, including 25 states where the governor is a Republican and the GOP is the majority party in both branches of the state legislature. The Democrats will have similar control in four states. The other states will have mixed party governance. One would need to go back to the 1920s to find a time of similar dominance by the Republican Party. In but eight years, the Democrats have lost a dozen Senate seats, 66 House seats, near 1,000 state legislative seats, 13 governors’ offices, and the presidency.

The president-elect, Donald Trump, won 24-25% of the Jewish vote, according to the national exit polls and a J Street survey. Democrat Hillary Clinton won either 70-71% of the Jewish vote in these same surveys. The margin for the Democratic nominee was the second smallest for any Democratic nominee with Jewish voters since 1988. Only the 2012 Obama vs. Romney race among Jewish voters was closer (69% to 30%).

When the national popular vote total is finally complete (California, supposedly our most technologically advanced state, takes longer than any other state by a matter of weeks to complete its tally), Clinton will have won the popular vote by about 2%, while getting trounced in the Electoral College 306-232 (a 14% margin). Exit polls and final polls before Election Day showed Clinton winning by 4-5%. Given what some analysts are calling “shy Trump voters” who did not want to reveal their support for Trump to pollsters, it is certainly possible that Trump exceeded the percentage of support reflected in the exit poll or J Street survey among Jewish voters. In any case, it is safe to assume that Jewish voters were far more supportive of the Democratic nominee than almost any other group, which occurs in every presidential election.

What is clear since election day is that several major Jewish organizations have chosen to identify with those who seem panicked by the election results, particularly the election of Trump. Charitable organizations rely on contributions, and if two-thirds to three-quarters of Jewish voters went for the Democrat, it is not surprising that many Jewish organizations reflect this partisan split among their members and donors. Nonetheless, there is “a new sheriff coming to town,” and typically, most major Jewish organizations look forward to working with the new president on their issues of concern, rather than going to war with him during his presidential transition.

In the past few weeks, the Anti-Defamation League, led by former Obama staffer Jonathan Greenblatt, was one of the first organizations of any kind to aim fire at Trump’s naming of Breitbart executive chair Steve Bannon as an in-house adviser. The ADL leader was quick to label him an anti-Semite and a leader of the “alt-right.” Most of those scurrilous charges have been walked back after the ADL was hit with pushback by those who have worked with Bannon or for him, and knew him far better than his critics, with several Jews among his leading defenders. But it was clear that the ADL wanted to be early out of the box to show it was not at all concerned with striking a partisan pose, and was part of the team on the left who were committed to making life miserable for Trump, even during the transition period before he took office. Today, the ADL is playing the role of victim, claiming it is under attack from the Right for doing its job.

Accusing Republicans of bigotry is nothing new at this point, and has become part of the standard campaign fare by Democratic candidates and those on the left. A major reason why Hillary Clinton was defeated was the near total emptiness of her campaign in making a case for why she should be president, as opposed to electing her so as not to have Trump in office, due to his temperament, and of course, alleged bigotry. In the weeks since Trump selected Bannon, mainstays of the major media , such as The New York Times and major networks, have given a lot of coverage to a collection of a few hundred white racists meeting at a convention in Atlanta. Clearly, guilt by association was the order of the day — white-power racists equals Bannon equals Trump.

The Bannon selection, which does not require Senate ratification, drew attacks from predictable Jewish groups on the left — J Street, the National Council of Jewish Women, T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, and Uri L’Tzedek (the Orthodox Jewish social justice movement), among others. But a collection of groups associated with the Conservative movement was similarly harsh in attacking Bannon — the Rabbinical Assembly, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Cantors Assembly, the Women’s League for Conservative Judaism and the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs issued a joint statement of condemnation.

Just days after the Trump victory and the Bannon pick seemed to create a certainty of a dystopian future for many American Jews and their organizations, a Minnesota congressman, Keith Ellison, had his name put forward as a candidate for the next leader of the Democratic National Committee. Remarkably, with the exception of the Zionist Organization of America and a few other politically conservative Jewish groups, most Jewish groups held their fire on Ellison, and seemed to think all was well regarding Ellison and Jews and Ellison and Israel. After all, New York Senator Chuck Schumer immediately endorsed him for the job. That Ellison once had ties to the Nation of Islam and its leader, Louis Farrakhan, and had called Israel an apartheid state, seemed to be of no great concern. Greenblatt’s first comment was that he had contacted the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota on Ellison, and they gave him a clean bill of health.

Greenblatt subsequently told The New York Times that he thought Ellison was “an important ally in the fight against anti-Semitism” but held a posture on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “on which we strongly differ and that concern us.”

Now, as other groups have continued digging into Ellison’s’ unsavory history with regard to Israel, the ADL has reversed course, and now argues that he is disqualified for the job. Greenblatt seemed disturbed that Ellison, in a 2010 speech to a Muslim group, had echoed the Stephen Walt-John Mearsheimer thesis that Israel controlled U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East: “The United States foreign policy in the Middle East is governed by what is good or bad through a country of 7 million people,” Ellison said in the recorded speech to his supporters. “A region of 350 million all turns on a country of 7 million. Does that make sense? Is that logic? Right? When the Americans who trace their roots back to those 350 million get involved, everything changes.”

Why the did the testimony by Jews who worked for Bannon or with Bannon, and knew of his support for Israel and Jewish causes, including establishing an office in Jerusalem for Breitbart, count for nothing with the ADL and its allies among Jewish organizations, but the presumption about Ellison was that all was well until the anti-Semitic stench got too large to ignore? In one case, the person in question was guilty until proven innocent, and in the other, the reverse.

How will the Democratic Party now deal with the DNC nomination? Will Ellison withdraw his name, or stand and fight, backed by the Sanders/Warren wing of the party for whom Israel is at best a minor issue or annoyance? Rumors were that President Barack Obama was not enthusiastic about Ellison as DNC chair from the start. But the Democrats seem to have concluded after having suffered their third decisive beating in the last four election cycles, that the solution to re-energize the party was to move even further left, and to solidify their identity-group politics and pandering. Jews and Jewish groups will soon find out that they are nowhere near the front of that line, despite their rush to join in the anti-Trump chorus.

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New Jersey: Muslims arrested, forced illegal alien Muslim slave laborers to work in halal slaughterhouse

Posted December 4, 2016 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Halal, Illegal immigrants, Islamic slaughter, New Jersey, Slave labor
Tags: , , , ,

New Jersey: Muslims arrested, forced illegal alien Muslim slave laborers to work in halal slaughterhouse, Creeping Sharia, December 3, 2016

A Mohammed Quotient of three so far, the two arrested and one of the lawyers.

The slave trade is certainly one of the contributions Muslims have had on American history. Source: Men forced others to work in Halal slaughterhouse, authorities say | NJ.com

NEWARK — Federal agents on Tuesday arrested two New York men on human trafficking charges after they say the pair forced undocumented migrants to work in a Halal chicken slaughterhouse they ran in Middlesex County.

Mohammad Abdul Wahid, 54, and Mohammed Iqbal Kabir, 42, are charged with one count each of conspiracy to commit human trafficking, conspiracy to harbor undocumented persons for financial gain and violating the Fair Labor Standards Act, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Prosecutors say that between July 2011 and January 2016, Wahid and Kabir paid the workers approximately $290 a week for 70-100-hour work weeks, deducting $40 a week for allowing them to live in an insect-infested boarding home in front of the Perth Amboy slaughterhouse.

Prosecutors say the workers weren’t paid overtime or additional wages for working longer hours.

Two Muslim individuals who were employed to slaughter the chickens also were threatened with arrest and deportation when they complained about their working conditions, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors say the arrests were the result of collaboration between the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Department of Labor, Department of Homeland Security, FBI, IRS, Department of Agriculture and the Civil Rights Division’s Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit.

Both men face a maximum prison sentence of 20 years in prison if convicted of the human trafficking charge, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The charging documents do not name the business.

More:

The factory, which was in operation between July 2011 and January 2016, employed only Muslim workers, a requirement of Halal meats.

Proper saftey equipment, such as gloves, masks or soap, was not provided to employees. When employees complained, Wahid and Kabir threatened to call the police. The employees did not further their complaints over deportation fears.

If convicted, the pair face steep fines and lengthy jail sentences: they could face up to 30 years in prison and have to pay $510,000 each.

And more:  2 in NJ charged with keeping immigrants as slaves in halal slaughterhouse

The state Labor Department, as a matter of policy, does not investigate workers’ immigration status or share workers’ immigration status with federal immigration officials. Nevertheless, unscrupulous employers often use fear of deportation or arrest to exploit illegal workers, officials say.

The federal complaint says all the workers in Wahid’s business were undocumented immigrants. The complaint also refers to co-conspirators who are not named in the charges.

Wahid’s attorney, Mohammed Gangat, declined to comment on the specifics of the case.

“We do deny all charges and intend to have our day in court,” he said Tuesday.

Kabir is being represented by the federal public defender’s office.

The two merchants face as many as 20 years in prison and a $250,000 if convicted of human trafficking, another 10 years and $250,000 fine if convicted of harboring.

The were released on $75,000 unsecured bond with home confinement and electronic monitoring.

Why aren’t state agencies – many of whom thrive on state and federal taxpayer dollars – not required by law to report immigration status in criminal, if not all, matters?

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