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Prince Hussein on Trump and Farage as ‘Demagogues and Fantasists’

September 11, 2016

Prince Hussein on Trump and Farage as ‘Demagogues and Fantasists’, American Thinker, Paul Austin Murphy, September 11, 2016

Prince Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein — a Jordanian of the Hashemite tribe (which traces itself back to Muhammed) — has just called various right-wing Western politicians “demagogues and political fantasists”. Mr. Hussein did so while addressing a security conference in The Hague.

Here’s a few words on the Prince himself.

Prince Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein is the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. He’s the son of Prince Ra’ad bin Zeid, the former Lord Chamberlain of Jordan. Hussein himself was once Jordan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations.

A Jordanian as a UN human rights chief? That’s the same Jordan that doesn’t allow a single Jew to become a citizen and which is a specialist administrator of torture. (Jordan does allow Israelis and Jewish tourists.) This also squares well with all those Saudis at the United Nations who preach to the rest of the world about interfaith, terrorism and, believe it or not, human rights.

Here’s Wikipedia on Jordan’s current record:

“ — limitations on the right of citizens to change their government peacefully;

— cases of arbitrary deprivation of life, torture, poor prison conditions, impunity, arbitrary arrest and denial of due process through administrative detention, and prolonged detention;

— breaches of fair trial standards and external interference in judicial decisions;

— infringements on privacy rights;

— limited freedoms of speech and press, and government interference in the media and threats of fines and detention that encourage self-censorship;

— restricted freedoms of assembly and association…

— legal and societal discrimination and harassment of religious minorities and converts from Islam are a concern…

— legal and societal discrimination and harassment of members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community;

— loss of Jordanian nationality by some citizens of Palestinian origin;

— restricted labor rights; and

— cases of abuse of foreign domestic workers.”

Prince al-Hussein included Geert Wilders, Donald Trump, and Nigel Farage in his broad generalisations. However, he singled out the Dutch leader, Geert Wilders, as an especially bad “bigot”.

Then Trump and Farage came in for an attack. Apparently they use the same tactics as the Islamic State. Yes, you read that correctly.

Well, if Geert Wilders is a “demagogue and political fantasist”, so too are very many people in the Netherlands, because opinion polls have just told us that Wilders’ party — the Freedom Party (PVV) — is leading the polls in that part of the world.

Wilders, like Nigel Farage, has also recently addressed the American people. More precisely, Wilders addressed the U.S. Republican Party National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, last month.

Prince al-Hussein went into more detail when he spoke at the inauguration of the Peace, Justice and Security Foundation.

Firstly, he said that he was speaking directly to Geert Wilders and his “acolytes”. Indeed, he was speaking to all the populists, demagogues, and political fantasists who inhabit Europe and America.

Prince Hussein continued:

“I am a Muslim, who is, confusingly to racists, also white-skinned; whose mother is European and father, Arab. And I am angry, too, because of Mr. Wilders’ lies and half-truths, manipulations and peddling of fear.”

Isn’t it strange when European political/economic elites and Arab princes (in this case) cast disparaging remarks about “populists” and populism? It’s as if populism is as culpable as racism is nowadays. It’s also interesting to hear Hussein say that because he’s white, this ends up being “confusing to racists”. Really? But, Prince Hussein, Islam is not a race and neither do Muslims constitute a single race. So why should patriots and counterjihadists be confused by Hussein’s whiteness? Is he mixing-up patriots and counterjihadists with those very many Leftists who see everything in terms of race? Or, instead, is he confusing them with the very many Muslims who use the “race card” to quell all criticisms of Islam and Muslims (as Muslims)?

Prince Hussein returned to his themes of populism and Mr. Wilders. His said that the PVV’s (Wilders’ party) manifesto is “grotesque” and that Wilders has much in common with Donald Trump, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, France’s National Front leader Marine Le Pen, and UKip’s Nigel Farage. Moreover, he called for decisive political action to be taken against populism and patriotism. (Whatever could he mean by that?)

In one news piece I read, Prince Hussein talked about “half-truths” and “oversimplification” when it comes to Islam. In detail, he said:

“But in its mode of communication, its use of half-truths and oversimplification, the propaganda of Daesh uses tactics similar to those of the populists.”

That’s strange really because Hussein, at least here, seems not to have given any examples of such “half-truths” or “oversimplifications”. However, since Hussein pretends to believe that all the critics of Islam think that there can be no such thing as a white or a yellow Muslim, perhaps he’s mistaking Islam’s critics for other people.

I said earlier that International Socialists (i.e., Leftists) see everything in terms of race (as National Socialists also do), and that Muslims use the charge of racism to help them install sharia blasphemy law, so here’s Hussein elaborating on this. He said that “humiliating racial and religious prejudice fanned by the likes of Mr Wilders” had become official policy in some countries.

Mr. Hussein also warned that such racism and populism could easily and quickly descend into “colossal violence”. The only places in which there is colossal violence nowadays are Muslim countries. These Muslims, however, aren’t the victims of white racism or populism: they are victims of Muslim-on-Muslim “hate”. As for Europe and the United States, it will almost a certainty be the case that most of the violence which happens in the future in these countries will be the responsibility of Muslims. And Prince Hussein himself will bear some of the responsibility for that.

Prince al-Hussein finished off his speech with the following words:

“Are we going to continue to stand by and watch this banalisation of bigotry, until it reaches its logical conclusion?”

Sorry, Mr. Hussein, I see much more bigotry and violence coming from the Muslim quarter than I do from anywhere else in the world. And, in a certain sense, such violence is partly a result of what Hussein and his United Nations are attempting to bring about in European and American — i.e., sharia blasphemy law.

Categories: Donald Trump, Geert Wilders, Islam and human rights, Islamic hatred of others, Jordanian human rights, Nigel Farage, Prince Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, Racism, UNCHR
Tags: Donald Trump, Geert Wilders, Islam and human rights, Islamic hatred of others, Jordanian human rights, Nigel Farage, Prince Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, Racism, UNCHR

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The Bumpy Ride of Our Flight 93

September 11, 2016

The Bumpy Ride of Our Flight 93, PJ Media, Roger Kimball, September 10, 2016

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‘Flight 93’ – View from the Sacred Ground

There is a scene in the first episode of Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie’s Jeeves and Wooster series that bears on the current presidential election. Bertie Wooster, at the direction of his Aunt Agatha, has motored down to Ditteredge Hall, seat of Sir Roderick and Lady Glossop, to cozy up to their hearty daughter Honoria. The former head-girl at Girton is not keen on the match: “He doesn’t shoot, he doesn’t hunt, . . . he doesn’t work even.” But Lady Glossop points out that Honoria will be twenty-four the following week. “He is not all your father and I would have hoped for you, I agree, but . . .”

But consider the alternative.

Regular readers know that I have not been part of the Donald Trump Cheerleading Cavalcade. I first wrote about him a year ago July. After saying that I didn’t think he would be the candidate, I concluded with this advisory:

He has raised some issues that the high and mighty dispensers of conventional wisdom would do well to ponder. Moreover, he has done it in a way that, though terribly, terribly vulgar, is catapulting Trump to first place in the polls. What does that tell us? That the people are stupid and need to be guided by the suits in Washington? If you believe that, I submit, you are going to be profoundly disappointed come November 2016.

Well, as Samuel Goldwyn remarked in another context, we’ve passed a lot of water under the bridge since then.

Back in June, Donald Rumsfeld summed up the position that, in subsequent weeks, many (not all) anti-Trump conservatives have come to adopt. Reprising his famous epistemological mot that distinguished between “known unknowns” and “unknown unknowns,” Rumsfeld said that, of course he was voting for Trump. Trump was an “unknown known,” perhaps dubious in some ways, but all the world knew exactly what Hillary Clinton represented.

This was the essential point made in a more colorful way in the most remarkable essay I have read in some time, “The Flight 93 Election,” which appeared a few days back in that indispensable journal, the Claremont Review of Books. I have no idea who “Publius Decius Mus”—the putative author—really is, though I speculate on stylistic and philological grounds that he is not unacquainted with the works of Leo Strauss. The historical Decius Mus was a Roman consul during the first Samnite and Latin wars. In 340BC, he sacrificed himself at the Battle of Vesuvius in order to secure a great victory for the Romans. That story, for those who are interested in such things, is told in Book 8 of Livy’s The History of Rome.

Presumably, Claremont’s Publius adopted the name of that self-sacrificing Roman in order to remind his readers of the existential stakes in this election (as well as, of course, concealing his real identity from the wrath of NeverTrump vigilantes). Publius reworks Donald Rumsfeld’s point with a metaphor—with two, in fact: “2016,” he begins, “is the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die.”

You may die anyway. You—or the leader of your party—may make it into the cockpit and not know how to fly or land the plane. There are no guarantees.Except one: if you don’t try, death is certain.

Here’s the second metaphor:

a Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances.

I think this is about right—or, rather, I used to think this about right. I’ll come to my second thoughts in a moment. First, let me quote a bit more from this sinewy and intelligent essay. Publius begins by noting some of the contradictions that beleaguer contemporary American conservative thought. On the one hand, conservatives have a long list of dire diagnoses that, if accurate, spell doom. If, says Publius, conservatives are right about the national debt, about the fabric of society, about national security threats, and on and on, then “they must believe—mustn’t they?—that we are headed off a cliff.”

But—and here’s the “on the other hand”—it is quite clear that they believe no such thing. On the principle that actions speak louder than words, what they actually believe is that things will putter along more or less they way they always have.

Well, which is it?

To simultaneously hold conservative cultural, economic, and political beliefs—to insist that our liberal-left present reality and future direction is incompatible with human nature and must undermine society—and yet also believe that things can go on more or less the way they are going, ideally but not necessarily with some conservative tinkering here and there, is logically impossible.

Which brings us to this uncomfortable observation:

If you genuinely think things can go on with no fundamental change needed, then you have implicitly admitted that conservatism is wrong. Wrong philosophically, wrong on human nature, wrong on the nature of politics, and wrong in its policy prescriptions. Because, first, few of those prescriptions are in force today. Second, of the ones that are, the left is busy undoing them, often with conservative assistance. And, third, the whole trend of the West is ever-leftward, ever further away from what we all understand as conservatism.

What do you think? I think that #3 is indisputable, as is # 2, and that the protasis of #1 is mistaken: things cannot go as they have without fundamental change, ergo we need not admit, on this argument, that conservatism is wrong about human nature, politics, etc., etc.

Two more bits from Publius. First, on what a Hillary presidency would look like: “A Hillary presidency,” he writes, “will be pedal-to-the-metal on the entire Progressive-left agenda, plus items few of us have yet imagined in our darkest moments.” Yep. And that’s not the worst of it:

It will be coupled with a level of vindictive persecution against resistance and dissent hitherto seen in the supposedly liberal West only in the most “advanced” Scandinavian countries and the most leftist corners of Germany and England. We see this already in the censorship practiced by the Davoisie’s social media enablers; in the shameless propaganda tidal wave of the mainstream media; and in the personal destruction campaigns—operated through the former and aided by the latter—of the Social Justice Warriors. We see it in Obama’s flagrant use of the IRS to torment political opponents, the gaslighting denial by the media, and the collective shrug by everyone else.

I think this is correct. And I think Publius is right that the demonization of the Right would only accelerate in a Hillary Clinton administration. Which brings Publius—and me—to Donald Trump. “Yes, Trump is worse than imperfect, “ he admits. “So what? We can lament until we choke the lack of a great statesman to address the fundamental issues of our time.” Publius goes further than I would. “Trump,” he says,

alone among candidates for high office in this or in the last seven (at least) cycles, has stood up to say: I want to live. I want my party to live. I want my country to live. I want my people to live. I want to end the insanity.

There were others, in my opinion, who fit this bill, including Ted Cruz. But Ted Cruz is not a candidate for the presidency in 2016. Donald Trump is. Which brings me back to my second thoughts about Trump. As recently as a few weeks back, I was a lesser-of-two-evils, reluctant Trump supporter: classic Russian roulette vs. the loaded semi-automatic that is a Hillary Clinton victory.

But then Trump embarked on a series of high-profile speeches and rallies. I liked what he said about taxes and economic policy. I liked his list of possible SCOTUS nominees. I liked what he said about supporting the police and the plight of blacks in the inner cities. I liked what he said about combatting Islamic terrorism (what Barack Obama calls “workplace violence”). I even liked most of what he said in his immigration speech in Arizona. I thought it was courageous and “presidential” for him to meet with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. I thought he did the right thing in going to lend moral, and even a bit of material, support to the victims of the floods in Louisiana. I was grateful when he released a video commemorating the canonization of Mother Teresa. I was happy to see him supporting school choice, standing up for religious freedom, and criticizing those who mock Christians and people of faith.

I know there will be some who object, “But how do you know he will do all things things.” The answer is, I don’t.

But I do know what Hillary would do: Obama on steroids. She’s a known-known. She would, as Publius warns, complete the “fundamental transformation” of this country into a third-world, politically correct socialist redoubt.

There is a fair amount of hysteria among NeverTrumpers about “The Flight 93 Election,” which I guess underscores just how potent its argument is. (The fact that Rush Limbaugh read it aloud on his radio show redoubled that potency.) As I say, I’ve come around to thinking that there are plenty of good reasons for someone of conservative principles to support Trump. I know, and have repeatedly rehearsed, the standard litany of criticisms about Trump. But they fade if not into insignificance then at least into near irrelevance in the face of his actual program (see above) and, most of all, in the face of the horror that is his opponent. I’ll give the last word to Publius: “The election of 2016 is a test . . . of whether there is any virtù left in what used to be the core of the American nation. If they cannot rouse themselves simply to vote for the first candidate in a generation who pledges to advance their interests, and to vote against the one who openly boasts that she will do the opposite (a million more Syrians, anyone?), then they are doomed. They may not deserve the fate that will befall them, but they will suffer it regardless.”

The great James Burnham once remarked that where there is no alternative there is no problem. Fortunately, we do have an alternative, and, my, we do have a problem. I was wrong when I predicted that Donald Trump would not be the candidate. I hope I will be proved wrong about my prediction that, were he the candidate, he would not win. The trends are promising, I think, but it would be foolish to deny that there are madmen in the cockpit or that many of the passengers are scared, apathetic, deluded, or just plain cowardly. We need a real-life Decius Mus who is willing to say “Let’s roll” and make a concerted charge. It may be the last chance we have.

Categories: 2016 elections, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Never Trumpers, Western civilization
Tags: Donald Trump, Never Trumpers, Western civilization

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Hillary Backs Off

September 10, 2016

Hillary Backs Off, Power Line, John Hinderaker, September 10, 2016

Hillary Clinton’s claim that half of Donald Trump’s supporters are a “basket of deplorables” (i.e., racists, sexists, etc.) and are “not America,” as noted by Scott earlier today, spurred outrage from Republicans. Trump himself tweeted appropriately:

Clinton’s surrogates defended her comments–which she actually made twice, first to an Israeli news outlet and then in a fundraiser in New York–vigorously. But a little while ago, Clinton decided to back off from her assertion that half of Trump’s voters are beyond the pale:

Hillary Clinton expressed “regret” Saturday for comments in which she said “half” of Donald Trump’s supporters are “deplorables,” meaning people who are racist, sexist, homophobic or xenophobic.

“Last night I was ‘grossly generalistic,’ and that’s never a good idea. I regret saying ‘half’ — that was wrong,” Clinton said in a statement in which she also vowed to call out “bigotry” in Trump’s campaign.

You could say it was a non-apology apology. Apparently Clinton’s only concession is that she may have been off on the percentage. Perhaps only 40% of Trump’s supporters are bigots.

A senior Democrat close to the campaign told CNN it wants to have a conversation about what it sees as the racism in Trump’s campaign, but could not have that part of the conversation until Clinton backed away from the “half” comment.

I doubt that this incident will have much effect on the campaign. Many millions of Americans are tired of being smeared as racists and xenophobes, but they are pretty much all voting for Trump already.

Categories: 2016 elections, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Trump supporters
Tags: Donald Trump, Trump supporters

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Hillary calls ‘half’ of Trump supporters ‘basket of deplorables’

September 10, 2016

Hillary calls ‘half’ of Trump supporters ‘basket of deplorables’, American Thinker, Carol Brown, September 10, 2016

If you support Donald Trump, you are “irredeemable,” part of a “basket of deplorables.” A “kind” who should never be allowed to rise again. You are a “radical fringe” made up of “racist,” “sexist,” “homophobic,” “Islamophobic,” “anti-Semitic,” “misogynist,” “xenophobic,” “you name it” types. Hillary Clinton paints you as hopeless moral lepers who should be banished to a remote island to live our final days.

We are so bad, so evil, that we are no better than “terrorists.”

We are “not America.”

We are all of these things (and more) according to Hillary Clinton. And anyone who thinks the language she uses to describe us is merely words spewed to inspire her base is fooling themselves.

Clinton will act on her words. And her actions will be as harsh and as anti-American as it gets. The boom will come down so hard that our lives will be impacted in ways that are almost impossible to fathom.

The stakes could not be higher.

It’s not enough to vote on November 8^th. We must all be foot soldiers for the Trump campaign. It’s our last best hope. Because contrary to Jonah Goldberg’s perspective during a recent conversation with Glenn Beck that “we are never just one election away from doom,” I believe we are.

And on route to explaining why, I’d like to first take up one specific point they discussed: Supreme Court appointments under Clinton. Goldberg noted that Ginsberg will just be replaced by a younger version of Ginsberg, as if it would be a wash. But it wouldn’t be a wash because, as Goldberg pointed out, the replacement would be “younger.” Right. Younger. As in on the court for decades, irrespective of which party is in power.

But if Clinton wins, we can predict which party will be in power election after election after election. Her presidency will seal our fate on a broad and lasting scale. The Democratic Party will turn what is now a major Electoral College advantage into a guaranteed win as massive numbers of Hispanics and Muslims are imported into the United States – demographic groups that vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.

November 8^th is, I believe, our last chance to grab the reins of power, to keep this nation from crashing over the precipice upon which we precariously sit. Teetering and holding our breath.

Hat tips: Breitbart, Daily Caller, Los Angeles Times, The Blaze

Categories: 2016 elections, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Trump supporters
Tags: Donald Trump, Trump supporters

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Behind the Outrageous ‘ISIS Backs Trump’ Smear

September 9, 2016

Behind the Outrageous ‘ISIS Backs Trump’ Smear, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, September 9, 2016

isisandclinton

When Trump called Hillary a founder of ISIS due to her role in the destructive Arab Spring, the media underwent one of its ritual paroxysm of outrage. Heads spun around 360 degrees at CNN. The New York Times spit split pea soup clear across the office. NPR began crawling up the walls. And everyone who was anyone in the media agreed that Trump had been completely out of line in saying such a thing.

Never mind that Hillary Clinton had previously accused Trump of being an ISIS recruiter. There are different rules for your team. And now that the fifteen minutes of media outrage over Trump’s line passed, she’s free to do it again. And so, as a dog returns to its vomit, Hillary declared that ISIS is “essentially throwing whatever support they have to Donald Trump.”

That would be news to ISIS which focuses more on mass murder than getting out the vote in Illinois.

If the Islamic State is throwing its support to anyone, it’s the woman who helped get it off the ground. CAIR’s poll showed majority Muslim support for Hillary. But never mind the facts, ma’am.

Hillary Clinton claimed that ISIS said that it wants Trump to win “because it would give even more motivation to every jihadi.” Apparently Jihadis won’t be sufficiently inspired to murder Americans if Hillary is in the White House. They’ll just sit around eating Cheetos and playing Call of Duty.

But if Trump wins, they’ll finally start an exercise program and then blow themselves up.

ISIS got its biggest start under Hillary. It’s actually doing less well now that Hillary is out of office. Maybe the nation’s greatest living diplomat is underestimating how motivating she can be to Jihadis?

But Clinton insists that because Trump “doesn’t want to let Muslims from around the world come to our country”, his presidency would be a “gift to ISIS.”

Because apparently the one thing that the Islamic State wants for Christmas is to make it harder for its Muslim terrorists to kill Americans. Like Hillary’s makeup artist, the Jihadis really love a challenge.

But, just like last time around, Hillary’s smear is sourced to a dubious figure with even more dubious national security credentials.

This time it’s Matt Olsen who has a piping hot take in Time explaining, “Why ISIS Supports Donald Trump”. The original smear appeared last month in Foreign Affairs and was titled, “Why ISIS Is Rooting for Trump”. Olsen just recycles it and changes one word. Not only is he a liar, but he’s also lazy.

But Matt Olsen is also a third thing, besides lazy and liar, that’s far more dangerous.

His Time bio describes him as “the former head of the National Counterterrorism Center”. That’s technically true. It’s also like describing a firefighter slash arsonist only by his official job title.

When Obama wanted someone to help him free terrorists from Gitmo, he picked Olsen. Olsen’s task force approved the transfer of over 100 Islamic terrorists from Gitmo. He forcefully urged the closure of Gitmo and was accused by Congressman Frank Wolf of misleading him on terrorist releases.

Wolf accused Olsen of wrongfully expediting the release of terrorists, and overturning Department of Defense assessments, in order to do so.

In other words, if ISIS wanted a gift, it would be Matt Olsen wrapped in a big red bow. ISIS might still behead Matt, but it would probably give him a big kiss first.

Hillary Clinton cited Matt Olsen as a national security expert. “They have, as Matt Olsen has pointed out, said that they hope Allah delivers America to Trump,” she whined. Who knew that Hillary was this suspicious of Allah? It’s a given that she might worry about God, but Allah must be on her side.

Haven’t Obama and Olsen have freed enough of Allah’s faithful butchers to win his hellish support?

But Olsen isn’t using his expertise here. That would be too much work. Instead he just recycled the Foreign Affairs piece, “Why ISIS Is Rooting for Trump” by Mara Revkin and Ahmad Mhidi.

Who are they? Good question. Ahmad doesn’t have much of a bio. The Financial Times, which printed one of his pieces, describes him as “an independent journalist based on the Turkish border.” A German paper calls him a “Syrian journalist”. He’s apparently 26 years old. Another site appears to identify him as an anti-Assad activist. It might be more accurate to describe him as an activist, not a journalist.

Mara Revkin is a Resident Fellow with the Abdallah S. Kamel Center for the Study of Islamic Law and Civilization at Yale Law School. Who is this Kamel fellow? He’s a Saudi businessman who donated $10 million to Yale to study Sharia. He’s also the chairman and founder of the Dallah Al-Baraka Group.

Is the Dallah Al-Baraka Group involved with the Clinton Foundation? Do camels defecate in the desert?

Kamel is also an “establisher” of the Dar Al-Hekma College where Hillary Clinton spoke as Secretary of State. If that name rings a distant bell, it should. A top official at the school is Huma Abedin’s mother. Other establishers include the “Saudi Bin Laden Group” and “Mr. Yaseen Abdullah Kadi”.

Mr. Kadi was a suspected associate of Osama bin Laden, had been accused of links to Hamas and was blacklisted on suspicion of providing material support to terrorists. Obama Inc. helpfully cleared him.

Kamel’s Dallah Al-Baraka Group was one of the Saudi banks listed in a lawsuit by 9/11 families which were accused of having “conspired with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to raise, launder, transfer, distribute, and hide funds for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda in order to support and finance their terrorist activities including, but not limited to, the September 11th attacks.”

Back in 2001, the Al-Baraka Group had been linked to Al Qaeda transactions. Not to mention helping set up the financial branch of Hamas.

These are the impeccable sources for Hillary’s claim, for Matt Olsen’s claim, that ISIS supports Trump.

And what are the sources that Mhidi, that mysterious Syrian “journalist” somewhere on the Turkish border, and Revkin, a Resident Fellow with the “You Can’t Prove We Funded Al Qaeda or Hamas Center” at Yale, used to prove that ISIS supports Trump?

A screenshot of a supposed Telegram message. It’s the sort of thing a child could photoshop. Even Dan Rather, with his Microsoft Word documents from the 70s, would hang his head in shame.

And yet it’s what Matt Olsen quotes in his Time piece as proof that ISIS supports Trump.

You might think that if ISIS really wanted to get out the vote for Trump, it would do it in a more accessible format. Or that if the Democratic nominee wanted to accuse Trump of being a pawn of ISIS, she might have more evidence than this tissue paper.

ISIS doesn’t seem shy about publicity. It puts out a new atrocity video every week. Yet it can’t seem to manage to issue an official “We Love Trump” statement or invite the press to the launch party for its Super PAC.

And so we have a devastating indictment of ISIS’ love for Trump based on screenshots in an article written by a Syrian activist with unclear loyalties and a fellow at a center funded by a Saudi billionaire accused of terror links which was passed along by the guy who helped Obama free Islamic terrorists.

All of this raises serious questions about one candidate’s national security credentials.

And it isn’t Trump.

Categories: 2016 elections, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Islamic State wants Trump elected president
Tags: Donald Trump, Islamic State wants Trump elected president

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Canny Trump already negotiating with Russia

September 9, 2016

Canny Trump already negotiating with Russia, Washington Times, L. Todd Wood, September 8, 2016

As a former military officer, I learned decades ago that when taking command of new unit, an officer has to be a strict disciplinarian. Rules have to be enforced and your subordinates need to respect and understand you are a determined person who takes your oath of office seriously. In reality, these first few months are a negotiation with your troops. First impressions count, they set the stage for your entire command.

Anyone who has followed this 2016 election cycle should know that Donald Trump is always negotiating. When the GOP nominee was talking about preventing Muslims from coming into the country “until we can figure out what is going on,” he was laying out a hard-line negotiating position that could be softened down the road if need be.

When he talks of deporting 12 million illegal immigrants, he is doing the same thing. Now amid hints of possibly softening that stand, he is seen as moderating and appeals to a larger swath of the electorate. I believe Mr. Trump will do the right thing for America when it comes to immigration, but the point is a negotiator starts negotiating long before the media spotlight highlights the actual bargaining begins.

I think Mr. Trump is doing the same thing with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He is laying the groundwork for what he believes will be future success dealing with Moscow. Mr. Trump has spent time in Russia. He has done business with Russians. He understands how they think. He understands they respect strength, not weakness. He understands they also want to be respected. Mr. Trump’s comments complimenting Mr. Putin as a strong leader “in a different system” are stroking the Russian president’s ego at a time when it will do the most good. The liberal media have freaked out because Mr. Trump refuses to follow the Obama administration line on Russia, but all he is doing is speaking nicely while carrying a big stick.

Mr. Putin has spent a lot of energy recasting the United States as Russia’s No. 1 enemy. Think about it — now that Mr. Trump is very popular among the Russian population, which for the most part yearns for peace just as Americans do, it will be more difficult for the Kremlin to cast America as an existential threat to the Motherland when Mr. Trump is in the White House.

Russians have a 1,000-year-old paranoia regarding the West. They have a deep need to be respected and a desire for prestige. Mr. Trump is playing to those psychological needs. He’s not being naively gushing like George W. Bush, or incompetently appeasing the Russians as Hillary Clinton and President Obama have repeatedly done. He is not narcissistically demeaning Russia is a third-rate power that doesn’t make anything, as our president has insinuated. He’s not making fun of Mr. Putin’s slouch. He is treating the Russian president as a leader worthy of respect, while at the same time looking out for the best interests of the United States.

Mr. Trump has not said he will surrender Western principles or values in the face of future Russian aggression. On the contrary, he wants to rebuild the U.S. military “so that no one will dare mess with us.” That has to give the Kremlin and the oligarchs pause. In the long run, rebuilding our hard and soft power at home will do more to enhance our national security than making promises we can’t or won’t keep. Our government owes $20 trillion, for heaven’s sake.

Mr. Trump’s comments on NATO members paying their fair share for defense are also spot on. The truth is that we do not have an alliance if all the other countries rely on the American nuclear umbrella while attacking our companies for monopolistic practices and tax violations in their own courts. Oh, the hypocrisy!

Russia belongs at the geopolitical table as a great power. Its history demands that. Mr. Trump is certainly aware of this and, by publicly acknowledging the fact, has cleverly already put down the opening marker in his negotiations with Mr. Putin. Mr. Trump’s not being what Lenin once called a “useful idiot” for Russia. He’s simply working the art of the deal.

Categories: Donald Trump, Negotiation strategy, Putin, Russia
Tags: Donald Trump, Negotition strategy, Putin, Russia

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Hillary: Islamic State saying, “Oh, please, Allah, make Trump president of America”

September 8, 2016

Hillary: Islamic State saying, “Oh, please, Allah, make Trump president of America” Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer, September 8, 2016

“We’ve made a judgment, based on a lot of research, that bringing Islam into the definition of our enemy actually serves the purpose of the radical Jihadists, and there’s a lot of evidence of that.”

In reality, there is no such research, and could not be: the idea that naming the enemy would play into the hands of the enemy is a dogma of the Washington establishment that is based on two untested and unproven assumptions. The first of these is that to call the jihadis “jihadis” would confer upon them a spurious legitimacy that would aid in their recruitment. But it is absurd to think that Muslims are looking to non-Muslim political leaders to tell them what Islam is and isn’t. The second is that to speak honestly about the motivating ideology of the enemy would alienate our Muslim allies. But there is no reason why that should be so either. To acknowledge that those who are fighting us are Islamic jihadis doesn’t mean that every Muslim is or must be on their side. There are innumerable examples from Muslim history of various factions of Muslims fighting against other factions. And the Muslim nations who are for various reasons opposed to the Islamic State and al-Qaeda know full well what Islam teaches; it isn’t as if they really don’t know how Islamic those groups are. If that knowledge hasn’t stopped them from opposing those groups now, public acknowledgment of what they are wouldn’t, either.

“He quoted ISIS spokespeople rooting for Donald Trump’s victory, because Trump has made Islam and Muslims part of his campaign. And basically, Matt Olsen argues, the Jihadists see this as a great gift. They are saying, ‘Oh, please, Allah, make Trump president of America.”

Here Clinton contradicts herself. “Oh, please, Allah”? Hasn’t she just engaged in “bringing Islam into the definition of our enemy”? Hasn’t she just admitted that they are Islamic, despite her repeated claims to the contrary?

And does the Islamic State really want Trump to win? Unlikely that they would prefer someone who says he will fight them strongly over someone who will continue the weak and ineffective half-measures that are being employed today.

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“Watch: Clinton claims ISIS praying for a Trump victory,” Israel National News, September 8, 2016:

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton gave her first interview to an Israeli media outlet this election season, sitting down for an exclusive interview with Israel’s Channel 2 that is set to air Thursday evening.

Clinton ripped into Republican nominee Donald Trump during the interview, claiming that his campaign rhetoric had bolstered the ISIS terror group.

When asked by interviewer Yonit Levi whether she would, if elected president, she would pursue the war on ISIS differently than her predecessor and, specifically, if she would refer to the conflict as a “war on radical Islam” – noting that the Obama administration has shied away from referencing “radical Islam” – Clinton suggested use of such terminology could actually strengthen Islamic terror.

“We’ve made a judgment, based on a lot of research, that bringing Islam into the definition of our enemy actually serves the purpose of the radical Jihadists, and there’s a lot of evidence of that,” Clinton responded.

The former Secretary of State then added that Matt Olsen, the former chief of the National Counterterrorism Center, had written in a TIME article, published Thursday, that “ISIS supports Donald Trump”.

“He quoted ISIS spokespeople rooting for Donald Trump’s victory, because Trump has made Islam and Muslims part of his campaign. And basically, Matt Olsen argues, the Jihadists see this as a great gift. They are saying, ‘Oh, please, Allah, make Trump president of America.”

“I’m not interested in giving aid and comfort to their aid and comfort to their evil ambitions,” added Clinton. “I want to defeat them, I want to end their reign of terror. I don’t want them to feel as though they can be getting more recruits because of our politics.”

The former First Lady then turned to her own plan for confronting ISIS, saying she would “intensify what is already happening: our air campaign, more support on the ground to the Arab and Kurdish fighters.”…

Categories: 2016 elections, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Islamic State, Islamic terror groups
Tags: Donald Trump, Islamic State, Islamic terror groups

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Donald Trump Hillary Clinton Commander in Chief Forum 9/7/16 NBC September 7, 2016

September 8, 2016

Donald Trump Hillary Clinton Commander in Chief Forum 9/7/16 NBC September 7, 2016, via YouTube

Categories: 2016 elections, Clinton e-mails, Donald Trump, Foreign policy, Hillary Clinton, U.S. Military
Tags: Clinton e-mails, Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, U.S. military

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Donald J. Trump Military Readiness Remarks

September 7, 2016

Donald J. Trump Military Readiness Remarks, Trump campaign press release, September 7, 2016

Today, I am here to talk about three crucial words that should be at the center of our foreign policy: Peace Through Strength.

We want to achieve a stable, peaceful world with less conflict and more common ground.

I am proposing a new foreign policy focused on advancing America’s core national interests, promoting regional stability, and producing an easing of tensions in the world. This will require rethinking the failed policies of the past.

We can make new friends, rebuild old alliances, and bring new allies into the fold.

I’m proud to have the support of warfighting generals, active duty military, and the top experts who know both how to win – and how to avoid the endless wars we are caught in now. Just yesterday, 88 top Generals and Admirals endorsed my campaign.

In a Trump Administration, our actions in the Middle East will be tempered by realism. The current strategy of toppling regimes, with no plan for what to do the day after, only produces power vacuums that are filled by terrorists.

Gradual reform, not sudden and radical change, should be our guiding objective in that region.

We should work with any country that shares our goal of destroying ISIS and defeating Radical Islamic terrorism, and form new friendships and partnerships based on this mission. We now have an Administration, and a former Secretary of State, who refuse to say Radical Islamic Terrorism.

Immediately after taking office, I will ask my generals to present to me a plan within 30 days to defeat and destroy ISIS.

This will require military warfare, but also cyber warfare, financial warfare, and ideological warfare – as I laid out in my speech on defeating Radical Islamic terrorism several weeks ago.

Instead of an apology tour, I will proudly promote our system of government and our way of life as the best in the world – just like we did in our campaign against communism during the Cold War.

We will show the whole world how proud we are to be American.

At the same time, immigration security is a vital part of our national security.

We only want to admit people to our country who will support our values and love our people.

These are the pillars of a sound national security strategy.

Unlike my opponent, my foreign policy will emphasize diplomacy, not destruction. Hillary Clinton’s legacy in Iraq, Libya, and Syria has produced only turmoil and suffering. Her destructive policies have displaced millions of people, then she has invited the refugees into the West with no plan to screen them.

Including Veteran healthcare costs, the price of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could total $6 trillion, according to a report in the Washington Examiner. Yet, after all this money spent and lives lost, Clinton’s policies as Secretary of State have left the Middle East in more disarray than ever before.

Meanwhile, China has grown more aggressive, and North Korea more dangerous and belligerent. Russia has defied this Administration at every turn. Putin has no respect for President Obama or Hillary Clinton.

Sometimes it has seemed like there wasn’t a country in the Middle East that Hillary Clinton didn’t want to invade, intervene or topple. She is trigger-happy and unstable when it comes to war.

Hillary Clinton is just reckless – so reckless, in fact, she put her emails on an illegal server that our enemies could easily hack. Then Clinton’s team used a technology called bleachbit to acid wash her emails. They even took a hammer to some of her 13 phones, to cover her tracks and obstruct justice. These email records were destroyed after she received a subpoena to turn them over.

In the FBI report, she claimed she couldn’t recall important information on 39 occasions.

She can’t even remember whether she was trained in classified information, and said she didn’t even know the letter “C” means confidential.

If she can’t remember such crucial events and information, she is unfit to be Commander-in-Chief.

Her conduct is simply disqualifying.

She talks about her experience, but Hillary Clinton’s only foreign policy experience is “failure.” Everywhere she got involved, things got worse.

Let’s look back at the Middle East at the very beginning of 2009, before Hillary Clinton was sworn-in.

Libya was stable.

Syria was under control.

Egypt was ruled by a secular President and an ally of the United States.

Iraq was experiencing a reduction in violence. The group that would become what we now call ISIS was close to being extinguished.

Iran was being choked off by economic sanctions.

Fast-forward to today. What have the decisions of Obama-Clinton produced?

Libya is in ruins, our ambassador and three other brave Americans are dead, and ISIS has gained a new base of operations.

Syria is in the midst of a disastrous civil war. ISIS controls large portions of territory. A refugee crisis now threatens Europe and the United States. And hundreds of thousands are dead.

In Egypt, terrorists have gained a foothold in the Sinai desert, near the Suez Canal, one of the most essential waterways in the world.

Iraq is in chaos, and ISIS is on the loose.

ISIS has spread across the Middle East, and into the West.

Iran, the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, is now flush with $150 billion dollars in cash released by the United States – plus another $1.7 billion dollars in cash ransom payments. In other words, our country was blackmailed and extorted into paying this unheard-of amount of money.

Worst of all, the Nuclear deal puts Iran, the number one state sponsor of Radical Islamic terrorism, on a path to nuclear weapons.

This is Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy legacy.

But that’s not all. President Obama and Hillary Clinton have also overseen deep cuts in our military, which only invite more aggression from our adversaries.

History shows that when America is not prepared is when the danger is greatest. We want to deter, avoid and prevent conflict through our unquestioned military strength.

Under Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, defense spending is on track to fall to its lowest level as a share of the economy since the end of World War II. We currently have the smallest Army since 1940. The Navy is among the smallest it has been since 1915. And the Air Force is the smallest it has been since 1947.

When Ronald Reagan left office, our Navy had 592 ships. When Barack Obama took office, it had 285 ships. Today, the Navy has just 276 ships.

The average Air Force aircraft is 27 years-old. We have 2^nd generation B-52 bombers – their fathers flew the same plane.

Our Army has been shrinking rapidly, from 553,000 soldiers in 2009 to just 479,000 today.

In 2009, our Marine Corps had 202,000 active Marines. Today, it’s just 182,000.

Our ship count is below the minimum of 308 that the Navy says is needed to execute its current missions. President Obama plans to reduce the Army to 450,000 troops—which would hamstring our ability to defend the United States.

It takes 22 years on average to field a major new weapons system.

In 2010, the US spent $554 billion on non-war base defense spending.

In the current year, we are spending $548 billion – a cut of 10% in real inflation-adjusted dollars. This reduction was done through what is known as the sequester, or automatic defense budget cuts. Under the budget agreement, defense took half of the cuts – even though it makes up only one-sixth of the budget.

As soon as I take office, I will ask Congress to fully eliminate the defense sequester and will submit a new budget to rebuild our military.

This will increase certainty in the defense community as to funding, and will allow military leaders to plan for our future defense needs.

As part of removing the defense sequester, I will ask Congress to fully offset the costs of increased military spending. In the process, we will make government leaner and more responsive to the public.

I will ask that savings be accomplished through common sense reforms that eliminate government waste and budget gimmicks – and that protect hard-earned benefits for Americans.

Government-wide, improper government payments are estimated to exceed $135 billion per year, and the amount of unpaid taxes is estimated to be as high as $385 billion.

We can also reduce the size of the federal bureaucracy through responsible workforce attrition – that is, when employees retire, they can be replaced by a smaller number of new employees.

We can also stop funding programs that are not authorized in law. Congress spent $320 billion last year on 256 expired laws. Removing just 5 percent of that will reduce spending by almost $200 billion over 10 years.

The military will not be exempt either – the military bureaucracy will have to be trimmed as well.

Early in my term, I will also be requesting that all NATO nations promptly pay their bills, which many are not doing right now. Only 5 NATO countries, including the United States, are currently meeting the minimum requirement to spend 2% of GDP on defense.

Additionally, I will be respectfully asking countries such as Germany, Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia to pay more for the tremendous security we provide them.

Finally, we will have at our disposal additional revenues from unleashing American energy. The Institute for Energy Research cites a “short-run” figure of as much as $36 billion annually from increased energy production.

Using these new funds, I will ask my Secretary of Defense to propose a new defense budget to meet the following long-term goals:

We will build an active Army of around 540,000, as the Army’s chief of staff has said he needs. We now have only 31 Brigade Combat Teams, or 490,000 troops, and only one-third of combat teams are considered combat-ready.

We will build a Marine Corps based on 36 battalions, which the Heritage Foundation notes is the minimum needed to deal with major contingencies – we have 23 now.

We will build a Navy of 350 surface ships and submarines, as recommended by the bipartisan National Defense Panel – we have 276 ships now.

And we will build an Air Force of at least 1,200 fighter aircraft, which the Heritage Foundation has shown to be needed to execute current missions – we have 1,113 now.

We will also seek to develop a state of the art missile defense system.

Under Obama-Clinton, our ballistic missile defense capability has been degraded at the very moment the US and its allies are facing a heightened missile threat from states like Iran and North Korea. As these potential adversaries grow their missile programs, US military facilities in Asia and the Middle East, as well as our allies, are increasingly in range, with the United States homeland also potentially threatened.

We propose to rebuild the key tools of missile defense, starting with the Navy cruisers that are the foundation of our missile defense capabilities in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The Obama-Clinton administration tried repeatedly to remove our cruisers from service, then refused to modernize these aging ships.

We will start by modernizing our cruisers to provide the Ballistic Missile Defense capability our nation needs; this will cost around $220 million per modernization as we seek to modernize a significant portion of these 22 ships.

As we expand our Navy toward the goal of 350 ships, we will also procure additional modern destroyers that are designed to handle the missile defense mission in the coming years.

Accomplishing this military rebuild will be a fifty-state effort —every state in the union will be able to take part in rebuilding our military and developing the technologies of tomorrow.

In addition, we will improve the Department of Defense’s cyber capabilities. Hillary Clinton has taught us all how vulnerable we are to cyber hacking.

Which is why one of the first things we must do is to enforce all classification rules, and enforce all laws relating to the handling of classified information.

Hillary Clinton put her emails on a secret server to cover-up her pay-for-play scandals at the State Department. Nothing threatens the integrity of our Democracy more than when government officials put their public office up for sale.

We will also make it a priority to develop defensive and offensive cyber capabilities at our U.S. Cyber Command, and recruit the best and brightest Americans.

One of my first directives after taking office will be asking the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and all relevant federal departments, to conduct a thorough review of United States cyber defenses and identify all vulnerabilities – in our power grid, our communications systems, and all vital infrastructure. I will then ask for a plan to immediately protect those vulnerabilities. At the same time, we will invest heavily in offensive cyber capabilities to disrupt our enemies, including terrorists who rely heavily on internet communications.

These new investments in cybersecurity, and the modernization of our military, will spur substantial new job creation in the private sector and help create the jobs and technologies of tomorrow.

America must be the world’s dominant technological powerhouse of the 21^stcentury, and young Americans – including in our inner cities – should get these new jobs.

We must also ensure that we have the best medical care, education and support for our military service members and their families – both when they serve, and when they return to civilian life.

Our debt to our men and women in uniform is eternal.

To all those who have served this nation, I say: I will never let you down.

We will protect those who protect us.

And we will follow their example of unity. We will work across all racial and income lines to create One American Nation.

Together, we will have one great American future.

We will be one people, under one God, saluting one American flag.

America will be a prosperous, generous and inclusive society.

We will discard the failed policies and division of the past, and embrace true American change to rebuild our economy, rebuild our inner cities, and rebuild our country.

We Will Bring Back Our Jobs.

We Will Make America Strong Again.

We Will Make America Safe Again.

And We Will Make America Great Again.

Categories: 2016 elections, Donald Trump, U.S. Military
Tags: Donald Trump, U.S. military

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Trump Scores With Vets, Calls for Sequester End, Military Revival

September 7, 2016

Trump Scores With Vets, Calls for Sequester End, Military Revival, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, September 7, 2016

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Good.

These military cuts, despite the efforts to pretend otherwise, had quite a bit to do with Republicans doing the bidding of some libertarian bigwigs looking to get their agenda in through a backdoor. Also see, Deal, Iran. Confronting the sequester head on is the right thing to do.

In a preview, the Trump campaign said the New York billionaire would call on Congress to do away with the “sequester” budget cuts to defense, and request that military generals provide him with a plan for defeating the Islamic State terror group during his first 30 days in office.

Mr. Trump’s plan calls for the number of active Army members to climb to 540,000, the number of Navy ships and submarines to climb to 350, and the number of Air Force fighter aircraft to climb to 1,200.

Those numbers rely on recommendations by the Army chief of staff, the Heritage Foundation and the National Defense Panel, the campaign said.

Meanwhile the Clinton campaign is really relying hard on the LBJ playbook.

On Tuesday, the pro-Clinton super-PAC Priorities USA released a video ad that meshed Trump’s declaration that “I love war” over pictures of battle and a nuclear mushroom cloud.

Subtle. Vets meanwhile are backing Trump.

Donald Trump leads Hillary Clinton by 19 points — 55 percent to 36 percent — among voters who are currently serving or have previously served in the U.S. military, according to the latest NBC News|SurveyMonkey Weekly Election Tracking Poll.

Categories: 2016 elections, Clinton campaign, Donald Trump, U.S. Military
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