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H/t Freedom is Just Another Word
H/t Freedom is Just Another Word
Cartoons of the Day
Posted November 17, 2016 by danmillerinpanamaCategories: Humor, President Elect Trump, President Reject Obama
Tags: Humor, President Elect Trump, President Reject Obama
Donald Trump and the real black swan event
Posted November 17, 2016 by danmillerinpanamaCategories: 2016 elections, Obama election - a black swan event
Tags: Obama election - a black swan event
Donald Trump and the real black swan event, Washington Times, Monica Crowley, November 17, 2016
Illustration on the Obama presidency by Alexander Hunter/The Washington Times
The election of Donald Trump as president has been regarded by some as a black swan event: an extremely rare occurrence so unexpected and consequential that it generates stunning changes in the existing order.
But in retrospect, the election of Mr. Trump is not the black swan event.
No, the election of Barack Obama was the seismic aberration.
And the triumph of Mr. Trump is the national self-correction back to the center-right, a state of normalcy, and most importantly, to the country’s natural and rightful exceptionalism.
It turns out that Mr. Trump is the rule, while Mr. Obama was the anomalous exception.
The Obama cult of personality was built primarily on five things: the dynamism of the man, the power of his personal story, the change he represented (generational, political, racial), the emotional draw of white guilt, and the call on the American heart for idealism. The Clintons, quickly cast out as the old brand, were replaced by the new Obama brand that promised a different kind of politics.
He was brilliant, savvy, charismatic and a superb rhetorician who knew how to win. Perhaps even more importantly, as the first viable black candidate for president, he allowed white America to believe it had advanced toward vanquishing racism once and for all in the ultimate feel-good moment.
Mr. Obama had never expressed an unadulterated love for America, only deep critiques of its racial divides, social and economic injustices, and bullying ways in the world. His detached persona mirrored a detachment from fundamental American values.
It helped that he was cool, as in “hip,” but he was also cool as in “unflappable,” which came in handy as he led the leftist revolution. How could someone that seemingly rational want to radicalize the United States? Most people would not believe the truth about him and his motives — until it was too late.
Once he was sworn in as president, however, the American people took a backseat to his redistributionist agenda. After all, the people weren’t critical to his plans. In fact, we were an impediment to them, something to be finessed, lied to and manipulated. As Jon Stewart aptly noted in Rolling Stone in fall 2011, “I think he was already kind of over us by the time he got into office.”
To Mr. Obama, any public disapproval of his plans needed to be removed or crushed. Campaigning as a transcendent figure and governing as a committed redistributionist involved two different skill sets. Once he became president, the unifying, amber-lit guy disappeared and was replaced by the guy who slapped down Republican congressional leaders and the American people with a curt “I won” and a relentless forward march toward executive actions and strictly party line dictates.
As time passed, the Obama hypnosis began to wear off and the redistributionists’ agenda ripened. Pretty soon, “stimulus,” omnibus spending, bailouts, Obamacare, Dodd-Frank financial regulation, and suffocating regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency and National Labor Relations Board were no longer the dynamic new policies of the hip president but the destructive policies of a president bent on deconstructing America. Despite his assurances that he’d deliver glowing economic results, he instead produced crippling economic weakness.
Within a few months of their takeover, the Democrats’ casualties began to pile up. In November 2009, voters in deep-blue New Jersey and purple Virginia elected Republican governors. In January 2010, voters in even bluer Massachusetts elected a Republican senator, Scott Brown, to replace Edward Kennedy. In November 2010, voters across the country swept Republicans into control of the House and closer to control of the Senate, which they ultimately delivered in another Republican-sweep year, 2014.
Last week, the voters delivered the final coup de grace to Mr. Obama and his agenda, by turning control of the White House, the Senate and House and about two-thirds of the nation’s governorships and state legislatures over to Republicans.
Shortly after he was elected, Mr. Obama and his supporters in the political class told us that he had redrawn the political map by creating a new, long-term Democrat majority. Instead, by ramming through his leftist agenda, he decimated his party and created the conditions for its complete reversal. And he gave rise to a Republican populist who has already succeeding in redrawing the political map in ways that threaten the Democrats’ long-term viability.
That is a supreme irony, and perhaps his real legacy.
After being led on this long detour into the desert by a faux political Moses in Mr. Obama, we are now being led out of it by a more improbable but authentic political Moses in Donald Trump.
And while the actual black swan event is coming to its end, the guy from Queens, N.Y., is already beginning to restore our equilibrium.
Muslims may wear and pray to the Cross to deceive Christians, says Al Azhar cleric
Posted November 17, 2016 by danmillerinpanamaCategories: Al Azhar University, Islam and Christianity, Taqiyya
Tags: Al Azhar University, Islam and Christianity, Taqiyya
Muslims may wear and pray to the Cross to deceive Christians, says Al Azhar cleric, Jihad Watch, Raymond Ibrahim, November 17, 2016
An Arabic language video of an Al Azhar professor, Dr. Salim Abdul Galil, is instructive of how that Egyptian institution sees the relationship between Muslims and Christians.
In it he discusses Koran 3:28: “Let believers not take for friends and allies infidels rather than believers: whoever does this shall have no relationship left with Allah—unless you but guard yourselves against them, taking precautions.” Galil began by explaining this verse as meaning Muslims must never befriend or aid non-Muslims, especially against fellow Muslims.
However, if Muslims find themselves under non-Muslim authority and fear for themselves, they may, in the words of the Koran verse, “guard” themselves, by “taking precautions.” The sheikh explained that this means that it is permissible for Muslims to pretend to be “one of them,” the infidels, but only on the outside.
By way of example, he said that if the Muslim is under the authority of Christians, and the cross is everywhere, the Muslim can wear the cross and hang it up— despite Islam’s well-known virulent hatred for the cross; he can also pretend to be a Christian and conceal his Muslim practices. Sheikh Galil called this strategy—also known as the doctrine of taqiyya—as a “license” granted by Allah to Muslims to protect themselves against infidels.
Here, again, is a reminder of why Al Azhar is regularly accused of teaching the same brand of Islam that “radicals” adhere to. Al-Qaeda has published a long treatise on this very topic, “Loyalty and Enmity,” calling on Muslims to hate non-Muslims, but permitting them to pretend to be one of them whenever circumstances make it prudent to do so.
And here again is a reminder of why it is that Egypt’s Coptic Christian population lives under unenviable circumstances.
Iran Pressuring Palestinian Jihadists to Resume Anti-Israel Terrorism
Posted November 17, 2016 by Peter HofmanCategories: Uncategorized
Tags: Anti Semitism, Gaza Strip, Iran-Israel relations, Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Islamic Jihad, Islamic terrorism, Israel, Jihad
EXCLUSIVE – Source: Iran Pressuring Palestinian Jihadists to Resume Terrorism Against Israel
17 Nov 2016
Source: Iran Pressuring Palestinian Jihadists to Resume Anti-Israel Terrorism
Warrick Page/Getty
TEL AVIV – Iran has been prodding Palestinian jihadists to resume hostilities against Israel, a Palestinian security official told Breitbart Jerusalem.
He said that Palestinian security services have noticed increased efforts on the part of the Iran-financed Islamic Jihad terrorist organization in Gaza to recruit West Bank operatives, especially in and around the cities of Hebron and Jenin.
Palestinian Authority officials have been prevented from operating in Gaza since the 2007 coup in which Hamas seized control of the territory, but according to intelligence collected by the PA, Iranian Revolutionary Guard officials have pressured Islamic Jihad to set up a terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank.
The official states that Iran, encouraged by Hamas’ success in restoring its infrastructure in the West Bank, charged Hezbollah with recruiting militants formerly associated with Fatah’s military wing, and has more recently turned to Islamic Jihad in hopes that the terror group would rebuild its own West Bank infrastructure, which was left in ruins at the end of the second intifada.
Last week, the Israeli media reported that members of an Islamic Jihad cell were arrested after they planned to carry out an attack on a wedding in the south of Israel and kidnap soldiers.
Among the detainees were an Islamic Jihad operative who was arrested upon attempting to enter Israel as an international businessman, two Palestinians who resided in Israel illegally, and an Arab Israeli man.
The Palestinian official said that the Islamic Jihad operative’s cover was blown when he insisted on entering Israel despite having lost contact with his collaborators, who had been arrested.
“It’s unclear why he didn’t suspect that the reason they disappeared was that they had been arrested,” he said. “For two weeks they were in detention, and he all the same insisted on reaching the Erez Crossing, between Gaza and Israel.”
He said that Iran’s attempts to rekindle Islamic Jihad’s terrorist activity are likely to continue.
He also said that an Islamic Jihad activist who was recently arrested near Jenin said that he had been recruited by Gaza operatives and told interrogators that some of the group’s funds originated in Iran.
Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.
Clinton Aide: Hillary Lost Because Women Suffer From “Internalized Misogyny”
Posted November 17, 2016 by danmillerinpanamaCategories: 2016 elections, Democrat establishment, Democrat Party, Donald Trump, Female misogyny, Hillary Clinton - "Feminist"
Tags: Democrat establishment, Democrat Party, Donald Trump, Female misogyny
Clinton Aide: Hillary Lost Because Women Suffer From “Internalized Misogyny” Jonathan Turley’s Blog, Jonathan Turley, November 17, 2016
The dismissal of white women by the Clinton camp as self-loathing, sexist robots is another effort at avoidance. The Democratic leadership and consultants proved out-of-touch with the public despite polls that gave ample indication that Clinton was the worst possible candidate to put forward in this anti-establishment period. Nevertheless, the Democrats appear to be rallying around again many of the same leaders and the Clinton family (including reportedly grooming Chelsea as the new “brand” name candidate). The position of aides like McIntosh is that the fault is that white women simply did not listen or learn. It was not the message or the candidate or her campaign. It is a remarkably insulting spin but it seems to be preferred to the more difficult questions raised by the campaign.
***********************
We recently discussed how, within minutes of the loss on election night, Clinton aides began to spin the loss and entirely the fault of FBI Director James Comey — a spin picked up by Clinton herself the next day. Many of us have questioned that spin in light of Clinton’s long-standing low polls on truthfulness and her ranking as (with Trump) the most unpopular nominee of a major party for the presidency. Now, former Clinton campaign communications director Jess McIntosh has come up with a new culprit. Of course, it is not the Democratic establishment that engineered the nomination despite ample warning signs in the polls. It was not the campaign that preferred spin to honesty at every turn. And it was not the candidate herself. No, it was the self-loathing and inherent sexism of women.
In an appearance on MSNBC (which seems at times to be moving through the stages of grieving of Kübler-Ross), McInstosh insisted that the problem was with sexist, self-hating women: “Internalized misogyny is a real thing and this is a thing we have to be talking about as we go through and see.” She added “We as a society react poorly to women seeking positions of power. We are uncomfortable about that and we seek to justify that uncomfortable feeling because it can’t possibly be because we don’t want to see a woman in that position of power. As we go through these numbers, as we figure out exactly what happened with turnout, it seems to be white college-educated women . . . We have work to do talking to those women about what happened this year and why we would vote against our self-interest.”
Of course, there could be a more obvious answer: people really did not like Hillary as a leader regardless of her gender. It may be that the large numbers of women refused to vote for Hillary simply because she was a woman. Clinton and Trump were the most unpopular politicians ever to be nominated for president and over 60 percent of voters viewed Clinton as fundamentally dishonest. None of that stopped the DNC from engineering her victory over Bernie Sanders who presented precisely the populist campaign that many voters were looking for. Clinton had the Democratic establishment and many allies in the media — everyone agreed except the public. That was enough . . . until the voters had their say on November 8th.
Jess McIntosh is the Communications Director for Emily’s list and previously served as spokesperson for Senator Al Franken.
McIntosh’s statement reflects what turned off a lot of women that I spoke with. The Clinton campaign hammered away at different groups “voting their interests” and specifically drum beat the notion that women had to support Clinton as the first possible female president. It was all about “self-interest.” That pitch itself can be viewed as sexist. Many women did not trust Clinton and saw nothing in her that spoke to their lives or the difficulties of their families. Notably, Clinton was losing among various female groups to Sanders in the primary. Again, Clinton staffers spoke of educating women to see their self-interest, but tended to avoid the anomaly of running female-centric themes without the support of most women. For many women and men, picking a president is not about “self-interest” but the best for their country and their families.
According to the New York Times, Clinton carried only 54 percent of the female vote against Donald Trump. However, nearly twice as many white women without college degrees voted for Trump than for Hillary and she basically broke almost even on college-educated white women (with Hillary taking 51 percent). Trump won the majority of white women at 53 percent.
The dismissal of white women by the Clinton camp as self-loathing, sexist robots is another effort at avoidance. The Democratic leadership and consultants proved out-of-touch with the public despite polls that gave ample indication that Clinton was the worst possible candidate to put forward in this anti-establishment period. Nevertheless, the Democrats appear to be rallying around again many of the same leaders and the Clinton family (including reportedly grooming Chelsea as the new “brand” name candidate). The position of aides like McIntosh is that the fault is that white women simply did not listen or learn. It was not the message or the candidate or her campaign. It is a remarkably insulting spin but it seems to be preferred to the more difficult questions raised by the campaign.
Trump’s Bizarre Winning Formula
Posted November 17, 2016 by danmillerinpanamaCategories: 2016 elections, Democrat establishment, Democrat National Committee, Democrat plantation, Donald Trump - President Elect
Tags: Democrat establishment, Democrat National Committee, Democrat plantation, Donald Trump - President Elect
Trump’s Bizarre Winning Formula, Town Hall, Victor Davis Hanson, November 17, 2016
The Democratic Party handed Donald Trump a rare opportunity to make radical changes to the electoral map that could last for years to come.
First, the Democrats gave Trump a great gift by completing the ongoing radicalization of their party under President Obama. After 2008, it was no longer a party of the working and middle classes, but a lopsided political pyramid.
On top were the cynical elites who turned up in the WikiLeaks John Podesta email trove: self-important media members, Ivy League grandees, Silicon Valley billionaires, Wall Street plutocrats and coastal corridor snobs. They talk left-wing but live royally. They court minorities to vote in lockstep, then deride them in private. The vast lower tier of the party comprises government employees, the poor, minorities, and the millions dependent on state and federal assistance. The Democrats in between were ignored, and so they kept fleeing the party. Look at the red/blue map of the election. Democratic strength retreated to the inner cities and the rich coastal suburbs.
The Democrats also, in suicidal fashion, stoked racial chauvinism, or the notion that one’s tribe should transcend all other affiliations. After pandering to various minority groups, Hillary Clinton apparently believed that they suddenly would forget her emphasis on race and ethnicity to vote for her, a 69-year-old white multimillionaire.
But the Democrats learned a bitter lesson in 2016: Obama’s left-wing, rich/poor ideological agendas do not appeal to most of the country. Despite a hard progressive agenda, Obama was able to win two terms by relying on racial and ethnic solidarity, earning record numbers of Latino and black votes.
Israel Puts the Spike Missile on its Apache Helicopters
Posted November 17, 2016 by danmillerinpanamaCategories: Defense of Israel, Israeli military, Israeli technology, Obama and Hamas, Obama and Israel, Spike missile
Tags: Defense of Israel, Israeli Military, Israeli technoloy, Obama and Hamas, Obama and Israel, Spike missile
Israel Puts the Spike Missile on its Apache Helicopters, Gatestone Institute, Stephen Bryen and Shoshana Bryen, November 17, 2016
For this reason, Israel concluded that the U.S. under Obama was not a reliable supplier of either helicopters or missiles.
Israel’s Spike is superior to the Hellfire. It has longer range, making it safer to use against an enemy that possesses shoulder-fired ground to air missiles.
Worse yet, despite Saudi Arabia’s horrible bombing performance in Yemen, the U.S. continues to sell billions of dollars’ worth of weapons and has stepped up shipments of munitions.
The Spike is a better option than the Hellfire and safer to use, which is why 25 nations now use the missile and 25,000 or more have been produced.
Sometimes when decisions do not work out exactly as intended, they work out just fine.
In the midst of Operation Protective Edge — Israel’s response to 182 Hamas rockets and mortarsfired at Israeli towns and villages in the first week of July 2014 — the Obama administration accused Israel of “heavy handed battlefield tactics,” including the use of artillery instead of precision-guided munitions. U.S. President Barack Obama halted the supply of Hellfire missilesand announced that all military equipment supplied to Israel would be vetted individually in the White House, instead of shipped, according to prior agreements, by the Pentagon to Israel.
The President, it appears, had been reading wild press stories about the damage to Gaza — which ultimately turned out to be concentrated in areas in which Hamas was stockpiling munitions and rockets and conducting command and control operations, which included firing more than 2,700 rockets and missiles during the rest of July. Israel struck an UNRWA-administered school, prompting cries of outrage, but UNRWA later admitted that it covered up that Hamas had used the school for military operations.
The Hellfire decision was especially ironic because it is a precision munition, generally less broadly damaging than bombs dropped from aircraft. The Hellfire can be fired from airplanes, drones and helicopters.
Ironic, too, because the United States has used Hellfire missiles against terrorists — often without the permission of the countries in which the terrorists were killed. A Hellfire was used to kill Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Kahn, American citizens, in Yemen. Al-Awlaki was designated a terrorist, and Kahn the editor of the al-Qaeda magazine Inspire, but U.S. law may have been violated by their assassination.
Israel carried the Hellfire on its Apache helicopters — and the story of Israel’s purchase of 42 Apaches is also one of difficulty. In 2009, the Obama administration blocked the delivery of six of the Apaches to Israel, on the grounds Israel might use them in Gaza. U.S.-Israel military cooperation on the Apache was made difficult and as Obama’s dislike of Israel and Israeli security policy increased, the Hellfire on the Apache became the White House target.
For this reason, Israel concluded that the U.S. under Obama was not a reliable supplier of either helicopters or missiles. After the 2014 operation in Gaza, Israel turned to the Israeli manufacturer Rafael, developer of the hugely successful and potent Spike anti-tank missile. Rafael was to adapt Spike technology to the Apache, while the helicopter retained Hellfire capability at the same time.
The decision was fairly easy, because Israel was already working on adopting the Spike to helicopters in Europe, where the Spike is a big hit. Spain has already installed the Spike ER version on its Eurocopter Tiger attack helicopters. Others in Europe and Asia are doing the same.
A Tiger attack helicopter carrying two racks of Israeli Spike ER missiles. (Image source: Airbus Helicopters)
Israel’s Spike is superior to the Hellfire. It has longer range, making it safer to use against an enemy that possesses shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles known as MANPADS. Since Benghazi, sophisticated MANPADS, including US-made Stingers (the same as were used in Afghanistan in “Charlie Wilson’s War”), have been smuggled from Libya and are now in the hands of terrorists including Hezbollah and ISIS.
The Spike features a non-line-of-sight firing capability, making it a more flexible weapon. But one feature of Spike that is entirely missing in Hellfire is that the operator can change target in mid-course or even destroy the weapon in flight if the target turns out to be wrong — a capability that is not trivial. During the Yugoslav war, NATO aircraft on a number of occasions hit targets that should have been aborted. One such incident occurred during an attack to knock out the Grdelica Bridge near Belgrade on April 12, 1999. When the missile was launched, the bridge was empty; when it struck some minutes later a civilian train was crossing and destroyed. On May 1, 1999 in Kosovo, NATO planes hit a bridge at Luzane where, again, a school bus came along after the missile was launched, killing many school children.
The Obama administration should never have cut off the sale of a precision weapon such as the Hellfire in the middle of battle. It was bad policy: it signaled the unreliability of the U.S. at that time as an ally. Worse yet, despite Saudi Arabia’s horrible bombing performance in Yemen, the U.S. continues to sell the Saudis billions of dollars’ worth of weapons, and has stepped up shipments of munitions. So Israelis have reason to believe that America failed her at a moment when it counted.
But there is a silver lining. The Spike is a better option than the Hellfire and safer to use, which is why 25 nations now use the missile and 25,000 or more have been produced.
Trump Derangement Syndrome
Posted November 17, 2016 by danmillerinpanamaCategories: 2016 elections, President Elect Trump, Trump Derangement Syndrome
Tags: President Elect Trump, Trump Derangement Syndrome
Trump Derangement Syndrome, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, November 17, 2016
The hysteria of Trump Derangement Syndrome is the flip side of Obama worship. Both reject democracy and embrace power. They are the illiberal attitudes of a totalitarian movement at odds with America.
**************************
Like all dictators, the Democrats believe in democracy only until they lose an election.
And then they lose their minds.
The last time a national mental breakdown this severe happened was sixteen years ago when Bush beat Gore. The Democrats reacted gracefully to their defeat by insisting that they didn’t really lose because Bush stole the election. Psychiatrists were soon tending to lefties suffering from depression. Others protested outside the Florida Supreme Court, President Bush’s home and their parents’ basement.
Jesse Jackson accused Republicans of a “coup.” Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson warned that “without justice there will be no peace.” Thousands protested Bush’s inauguration waving signs like, “We want Bush out of D.C.” and “You’re not our president.”
The Congressional Black Caucus tried to obstruct the certification of the Electoral College vote. Then when Bush won again in the next election, they did it all over again. Expect them to try it one more time.
Because they don’t believe in democracy. They believe in their own absolute entitlement to power. Any election that they win is legitimate. Any election that they lose is illegitimate.
But if Bush Derangement Syndrome was bad, Trump Derangement Syndrome is even worse.
#NotOurPresident on Twitter quickly gave way to riots in major cities. Democrats in the affected cities decided that the riots were a great idea even though it was their own police that were being attacked.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, New York City’s radical leftist boss, claimed that “more disruption… will change the trajectory of things”. Even though the only trajectory that the protests have changed thus far is New York City traffic. “The more people fight back, the more it takes away his power,” he insisted.
Wiser heads on the left recognized that messing up Manhattan traffic wouldn’t stop Trump from taking office. Instead they decided to abolish the Electoral College. Senator Boxer will introduce a bill to that effect. Bernie Sanders mumbled that it’s time to rethink it. Michael Dukakis fired off an angry email insisting that Hillary Clinton had won and that abolishing it should be a top Democratic priority.
Since Hillary lost, the Electoral College is, according to Slate, an “Instrument of White Supremacy—and Sexism”. And probably Islamophobic and Homophobic too. Time Magazine defaulted to the default lefty attack on anything by accusing the Electoral College of being racist. But if Hillary had won, then any attack on the Electoral College would be racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic and claustrophobic.
Rank and filers weren’t interested in waiting to abolish it tomorrow. They skipped right to trying to rig it today. Over 4 million people have signed a petition titled, “Electoral College: Make Hillary Clinton President on December 19”. Because that’s just how they think elections should work.
Efforts were made to contact Electors directly urging them to hijack the election. Idaho Secretary of State Lawerence Denney said that the Electors were being harassed with “insults”, “vulgar language” and “threats”. One Elector reported that his cell, home phone, email and Facebook were targeted.
“They’re just trying to steal this thing,” he said.
The Electoral College is undemocratic. Unless you’re a Democrat asking it to undemocratically hijack the results of a state election while depriving its voters of political representation.
Some Democrats despaired of stealing the election and tried to steal the Supreme Court instead. There were revived calls for a Supreme Court recess appointment. There’s a petition, a Saturday Night Live punch line and a bizarre effort by Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley to move the nomination forward.
Merkley claimed that Trump has “no right to fill” that seat and that the Supreme Court seat was stolen. “We need to do everything we possibly can to block it,” he insisted.
What does that mean? How about a permanently deadlocked Supreme Court?
A Slate writer urged that, “the only way to answer nihilism is with nihilism of our own.”
“Obstruct the nomination and seating of any Trump nominee to fill Scalia’s seat,” she urged. “We will lose. But that’s not the point now… If Democrats can muster the energy to fight about nothing else, it should be this.”
A permanently deadlocked Supreme Court doesn’t sound like much of a plan. But Trump Derangement Syndrome means embracing nihilism. And it’s downright rational compared to the celebrity meltdowns as TMZ’s finest cope with the blow to their egos of an election that showed they didn’t matter.
Lady Gaga has been yelling at Trump on and off Twitter. Constitutional scholar George Takei demanded that Obama just appoint Garland. Honorary feminist Joss Whedon declared, “This is simple: Trump cannot CANNOT be allowed a term in office. It’s not about 2018. It’s about RIGHT NOW.”
What does that mean? It’s a tantrum. It means that baby wants his power and he wants it now.
And it only gets crazier from there.
The outer reaches of Trump Derangement Syndrome include calls to boycott three brands of toilet paper because they’re allegedly made by the Koch Brothers. Never mind that the Koch Brothers weren’t supporting Trump. Facts, like democracy, only matter when they happen to be on your side.
Then there are the ritual burnings of New Balance sneakers on YouTube and Instagram. Not to mention support for the secession of California from the United States of America.
A man has sued Donald Trump for $1 billion for having inflicted “great emotional pain, fear and anxiety on Election Day and beyond.” Students at Cornell held a “cry-in” to mourn the results of the election. The University of Kansas offered students therapy dogs. At the University of Michigan’s multi-ethnic student affairs center students took comfort in regressing to childhood with coloring books and Play-Doh.
John Hopkins recommended a healing circle. Stanford urged students to “take care of yourselves and to give support to those who need it.” Vanderbilt encouraged them “to take advantage of the outstanding mental health support the university offers.”
At the University of Maryland, an astronomy test was canceled to help students cope with “a personally threatening election result.” A Yale economics professor made his test optional because students were “in shock” over losing an election. A dozen midterms were rescheduled at Columbia.
One student complained, “Instead of studying for my exam, I was glued to the election update. It’s not fair to have a test the following day when something so monumental is taking place, especially when this event is threatening so many groups of people in our country.”
Under all the outraged rhetoric is a narcissistic sense of entitlement. Frustrate it and tantrums happen.
Trump Derangement Syndrome is the tantrum that happens when that sense of entitlement bursts. It’s not a new phenomenon. We saw it with Bush and with previous Republican presidents before him. But as the left’s power has grown, its insular ivory towers have become unable to imagine ever losing it.
Obama maintained the illusion that the opposition didn’t matter by ruling unilaterally. Then in one election the illusion collapsed. The left wasn’t really in charge. There were millions of people across the country in places they had never visited or even heard of who got to decide on all these issues.
That warm comfortable safe space of John Oliver and Samantha Bee viral videos, Buzzfeed stories and social media feeds filled with carefully curated people who agreed with them wasn’t reality. It had been an illusion all along. It was an elitist island that had little in common with that vast geography of people who get their say through the Electoral College. After two terms of getting their way on everything, they woke to a world in which they didn’t matter and which was suddenly no longer catering to their whims.
They don’t really want to abolish the Electoral College, to put Garland on the Supreme Court or to burn New Balance sneakers. What they really want is to get rid of democracy and replace it with a dictatorship. Trump Derangement Syndrome is the tantrum of tyrants.
It’s a real threat to democracy. But that’s what the left has always been.
The hysteria of Trump Derangement Syndrome is the flip side of Obama worship. Both reject democracy and embrace power. They are the illiberal attitudes of a totalitarian movement at odds with America.
The Trump Administration and the Kurds — A Conversation with Sherkoh Abbas
Posted November 17, 2016 by danmillerinpanamaCategories: Iraq, Middle East, Syria, Trump and the Kurds
Tags: Iraq, Middle East, Syria, Trump and the Kurds
The Trump Administration and the Kurds — A Conversation with Sherkoh Abbas, Front Page Magazine, Joseph Puder, November 16, 2016
Kurdish Peshmerga forces fighting the Islamic State (IS) in both Iraq and Syria have exhibited courage, determination, and a unique pro-American attitude in the Arabic speaking world. In Syria, however, the Kurdish forces combating the Islamic State bravely and successfully are being attacked by the Turkish army as ordered by President Erdogan. Human rights activist Dilovan Mirkhan told ARA News (November 13, 2016) that “The Turkish army stationed on the borderline with Syria, bombed residential buildings in the Mosako town in Afrin, adding that the bombardment led to massive destruction in the area.” Mirkhan reported that “Dead bodies of eight civilian victims were collected subsequent to the attack, and many others remained stranded under the rubble.”
It should be unacceptable for the incoming Trump administration to allow Turkey’s dictatorial president Erdogan to attack the very forces (the Kurds) who are liberating portions of Syria from the IS. Moreover, it is also high time for the U.N. and the U.S. to recognize the Kurdish people’s right to self-determination. The U.N. has held endless sessions in support of Palestinian rights and requests for statehood. The Kurds, numbering tens-of-millions, deserve much more from the international community. There are 22 Arab states but no Kurdish state. Given the critical role the Kurds are playing in liberating Iraq and Syria from the barbarism of the IS, the time has come to reward the Kurds with a state of their own.
Kurds have been oppressed by Saddam Hussein in Iraq and gassed in Halabja. Hafez Assad, the dictator of Syria expelled hundreds of thousands of Kurds from the Al-Hasakeh region, with similar numbers becoming stateless. The Islamic Republic of Iran has equally oppressed its largely Sunni-Muslim Kurds. It has denied political and cultural rights to its Kurdish citizens. Turkey, where the Kurds count for almost 20% of the population, is currently bombing the Kurds at the Kurdish-majority region of southeastern Turkey, and in Syria.
This reporter asked Sherkoh Abbas, President of the Kurdish National Assembly of Syria (KNA-S), to respond to the current situation in Syria.
Joseph Puder (JP): With Donald Trump becoming the new occupant of the White House, and Republicans controlling both houses of Congress, what would you like the new administration to do in Syria?
Sherkoh Abbas (SA): I hope to see the Trump administration abandon the outdated policy of maintaining the unjust legacy of the colonial Sykes-Picot agreement. Similarly, Trump should reverse the previous U.S. administration’s investment in cozying up to ruthless Middle East regimes at the expense of its existing allies. Instead, the new administration should support its natural allies such as the Kurds in the Middle East and the Amazigh people (Berbers) in North Africa.
Supporting an independent Kurdistan would help finish the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and reduce Iran’s influence in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria. Working with the Kurds would also sever the Shiite Crescent. Moreover, open support for the Kurds would check Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ambitious Neo-Ottoman Empire.
The U.S. under the Trump presidency, should provide full and direct support to the Kurds on all levels, including the delivery of arms, unlike the Obama administration. Arms to the Kurds should bypass Baghdad, and go directly to the Kurds.
During the primaries, Trump expressed support for the Kurds. We will call on him to do just that. The Kurds share the same values with the U.S. and they are eager to work with America.
JP: What do you expect from the Trump administration with regards to an independent Kurdish state in Syria?
SA: Syrian Kurds are currently fighting on behalf of humanity in their struggle with the Islamic State. As quid-pro-quo, the Kurds would like U.S. help in creating a federal system in Syria to start with, and ultimately supporting outright Kurdish independence in Syria. Israel, Russia, and some European nations are promoting a federal state for the failed states of Iraq and Syria.
JP: Are the leaders of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) ready for an independent Kurdish state in Syria?
SA: The YPG needs to distance itself from the Assad regime as well as the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and work with all the Kurds, including over 5,000 Syrian Peshmerga forces currently fighting to take Mosul. It must become inclusive instead of a dictatorial regime. The YPG does not enjoy the overwhelming support of the Syrian Kurds. The majority of Syrian Kurds want democracy and independence.
The YPG is vacillating between its work with the U.S., Russia, and the Assad regime. The YPG has to face the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and IS, as well as other terror groups. The Arab Gulf states, particularly Qatar, is supporting the FSA, which is ideologically close to the Muslim Brotherhood. Turkey, a NATO-member, is too close to the IS and al-Qaeda, and their agenda is to get rid of the Assad regime and the Kurds.
JP: What influence can you and the Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria (KNA-S) exert on the powers that be in your home town of al-Qamishli and Kurdish Syria?
SA: Most of the Syrian Kurds are loyal to Kurdish tribal and civic leaders, and have strong alliances with Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). The YPG opposes such relationships, and thus is not a consensus organization. The Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria (KNA-S) is aligned with tribal and civic leaders and the KRG in Iraq. We could deliver the “Kurdish street,” and additional soldiers to finish IS.
This year KNA-S has assembled a wide-ranging delegation of Syrian Kurds, including YPG officials, to come to Washington for talks with U.S. administration officials. Unfortunately, the State Department did not furnish visas to the delegates from Syria to enter the U.S. Hopefully, the Trump administration will invite the KNA-S to re-assemble the same delegation for talks in Washington.
JP: Given Erdogan’s dictatorial behavior toward the opposition in Turkey, and especially toward the Kurds in Southeastern Turkey, what would you advise the incoming President Donald Trump to do with regards to Erdogan and Turkey?
SA: Turkey ruled by Erdogan is a lost case, and it is not a friend of the U.S. Turkey’s intimate relationship with radical Islamic groups requires explanation. Erdogan’s regime has its eyes focused on Aleppo in Syria and Mosul in Iraq, ostensibly to prevent the formation of an independent and contiguous Kurdistan, comprised of Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan.
The Trump administration should prevent the Turkish army forces from entering Syrian territory under the guise of fighting IS. The reality is that Turkey is only interested in fighting the Kurds, and preventing the creation of an independent Kurdish state, or an autonomous Kurdish region in northeastern Syria.
Could a Radical Israel Basher Soon Head the Democratic Party?
Posted November 16, 2016 by danmillerinpanamaCategories: Antisemitism in America, Democrat establishment, Democrat National Committee, Islamist threats, Islamists in America, Islamists vs Islam, Islamists vs Israel, Israel, Israeli security, Keith Ellison
Tags: Antisemitism in America, Democrat establishment, Democrat National Committee, Islamist threats, Islamists in America, Islamists vs Islam, Islamists vs Israel, Israel, Israeli security, Keith Ellison
Could a Radical Israel Basher Soon Head the Democratic Party?, Front Page Magazine, Joseph Klein, November 16, 2016
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) is the leading contender to head up the Democratic National Committee. In announcing his candidacy for the position, Ellison said, “When voters know what Democrats stand for, we can improve the lives of all Americans, no matter their race, religion, or sexual orientation.”
Ellison has the support of the progressive wing of the party, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, as well as the so-called establishment types such as Senator Chuck Schumer.
What would a Democratic Party led by Rep. Ellison really look like? One need look no further than Rep. Ellison’s own statements, associations and actions. Under Ellison’s leadership, the Democratic Party will continue to evolve into a pro-Islamist party that helps advance the stealth jihad agenda, and a party that moves away from its traditional support of our closest ally in the Middle East, Israel.
Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, has a past history of working actively on behalf of the anti-Semitic firebrand Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. In 1995, writing as Keith X Ellison, he published a column for Insight News, which praised Farrakhan as “a role model for black youth” and denied that Farrakhan was an anti-Semite. In 1997, Ellison defended a statement by Joanne Jackson of the Minnesota Initiative Against Racism, who was reported to have said that “Jews are among the most racist white people I know.”
When Ellison first ran for Congress, Nihad Awad, executive director of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), provided his support at a fund raiser in Minneapolis for Ellison. Ellison in turn has spoken at CAIR fundraising events. He also defended CAIR against credible charges that CAIR was trying to infiltrate staff offices tied to committees on the judiciary, homeland security and intelligence. At CAIR banquets in late 2008, Ellison urged CAIR supporters to seek jobs in the then incoming Obama administration.
Some of Ellison’s donors have “a history of Muslim Brotherhood connections,” according to Campus Watch. The Minneapolis branch of the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated Muslim American Society reportedly paid for Ellison’s pilgrimage to Mecca for the Hajj in 2008.
Ellison is not interested in hearing a diversity of views from moderate Muslims such as M. Zuhdi Jasser, founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, who believe that reform is needed within Islam today. Indeed, Ellison accused Jasser of speaking like those allegedly turncoat blacks “who would seek to ingratiate themselves with powerful people in the white community and would there turn them on the rest of us and give license to attack us all. Now is somebody going to snatch my 13-year-old daughter’s hijab off, call her a horrible name, spit on her because of something that you said, Dr. Jasser, I worry about that.”
Ellison’s example of a good role model for a dedicated Islamist appears to be Hamza Yusuf, president and chairman of the Zaytuna Institute in California. Ellison lauded Yusuf as a respected religious authority who had converted to Islam. Ellison’s role model called Judaism a “most racist religion,” and said just two days before the September 11, 2001 attacks on our homeland, “This country [America] unfortunately has a great…tribulation coming to it. And much of it is already here, yet people are too illiterate to read the writing on the wall.”
As Robert Spencer, the author of Stealth Jihad, has just written, the same media that are falsely claiming President-elect Trump’s choice to serve as his chief strategist, Steven K. Bannon, is a white supremacist and anti-Semite are “hailing Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) for announcing his candidacy for Chairman of the Democratic National Committee – despite Ellison’s very real links to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, two groups that are outdone by no one in anti-Semitism.”
In addition, one wonders why the more so-called establishment Democrats, in particular the likely next Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a strong supporter of Israel, would not be more troubled by Ellison’s virulently anti-Israel positions.
Ellison has called for the cut off of military aid to Israel. His opposition to supporting Israel with any funding for military purposes even extended to the purely defensive Iron Dome. His cockeyed justification for not even backing an effective means to destroy incoming rockets launched by Hamas from Gaza before they can reach civilian population centers in Israel was that to do so could undermine negotiation of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. “Because a cease-fire is what we should prioritize now,” Ellison said when asked to explain his vote on Meet the Press. “A cease-fire protects civilians on both sides — it doesn’t just say, ‘We’re only concerned about people on one side.’”
Ellison also wrote an op-ed article for the Washington Post in which he called for “an end to the blockade of the Gaza Strip.” Thus, for the next possible chairman of the Democratic Party, cutting off Israel’s ability to defend itself with the Iron Dome, together with pressuring Israel to remove all barriers to the import into Gaza of sophisticated rockets from Iran and elsewhere for Hamas to use against Israeli civilians, represents what Democrats should stand for.
Ellison has also made himself an ally of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement against Israel, and he has helped legitimize them through participating in their programming. For example, in July 2016, Ellison participated in a panel discussion co-sponsored by The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, one of the largest BDS operations in the US. Ellison has been at the top of that anti-Israel organization’s “House Hall of Fame.” It should be no surprise that, as Salon reported on June 2, 2016, “Rep. Keith Ellison shared a photo on Twitter…that refers to Israel’s illegal military occupation of the Palestinian territories as apartheid.”
Finally, with respect to the issue of Syrian refugees, Ellison did not think that President Obama’s decision to admit 10,000 Syrians during the last fiscal year was good enough. Shortly before Obama announced his ramp up decision, Ellison had written a letter to the president stating, “Now, more than ever, we need to live up to our history by increasing the number of Syrian refugees allowed to resettle in the United States.” After the president announced his decision to admit 10,000 more Syrian refugees in just one year, Ellison commented, “Ten thousand is not enough. Aren’t we the people who say, ‘give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses’? We must do more for families who are not safe in their own homeland.”
Not on President-elect Trump’s watch if there is any potential danger of admitting jihadist terrorists. With Trump intent on curbing the admission of more Syrian refugees until we get a handle on who they really are, one can imagine how Ellison, as head of the Democratic National Committee, will push his open borders policy for Syrian refugees to the top of his party’s agenda, irrespective of the risks to the American people.
If the Democrats do end up selecting Rep. Keith Ellison as the new chair of the Democratic National Committee, they will be elevating a radical Islamist and Israel basher. Contrary to his pitch on Meet the Press last Sunday, his record does not demonstrate how he would successfully lead his party’s effort to “make working America know that the Democratic party is absolutely on their side.” To the contrary, his selection will risk further alienation of a vast portion of Americans who are convinced – correctly so – that the party they had once supported has abandoned them.
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