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January 2013

Obama’s Anti-Absolutism Club by EDWARD CLINE

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/obamas-anti-absolutism-club

The Mainstream Mafia- excuse me, Media – oblivious to their own death throes and their glaring irrelevancy in contemporary American political discourse, continue to fawn over President Barack Obama and his second inaugural address of January 21st. They behave as though everyone in the nation were breathlessly glued to CBS, CNN, ABC, NBC, Washington Week, Face the Nation and PBS’s variety show of round table analytical yak fests. The MSM erroneously presume that the nation receives their dollops of wisdom from them. The truth is that even Obama’s supporters and worshippers rely less on what the MSM have to say and more on Internet news outlets, as well as on Twitter and Face Book, where they can “inter-react” with each other and play virtual paddy cake with their Progressive/Marxist idols.

Still, the MSM believe they set the terms of the discourse. Let’s examine some examples. Keep in mind that these are all from a left-wing perspective.

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post broke out her rosary or worry beads and fretted over how The One will accomplish all he has set out to do during his second term. Also keep in mind that, to The One and his titillated throngs of admirers, there are no such things as “absolutes,” except the “absolute” of the moment, which must be “seized” and made an absolute before it fluxes into something distasteful. After scoring Obama on the “blustery naiveté” of his first inaugural address, she forgives him.

The battle-scarred Obama of the second inaugural address was simultaneously more realistic and more confident. He spoke like a man who, in the course of four long years, has developed a far sharper vision of the role of government: first, “that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action”; second, that “our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it.”

The Marxist theme of those assertions may or may not have escaped Marcus. But they are definitely Marxist, and more and more liberals are admitting it. “This was a speech that tilted decidedly to the left, far more so than four years ago.” Left, but not Marxist.

Another aging Washington Post resident tyro, Harold Meyerson, crowed that Obama’s majority is now everyone’s majority, even if everyone didn’t show up on the Mall to “witness history.” He, too, forgives Obama for his narcissistic and tautologically confusing words in 2008.

But in the aftermath of Obama’s 2012 reelection and his second inaugural address, his 2008 remarks seem less a statement of self-absorption than one of prophecy. There is an Obama majority in American politics, symbolized by Monday’s throng on the Mall, whose existence is both the consequence of profound changes to our nation’s composition and values and the cause of changes yet to come.

The Mall throng was a bizarre menagerie of groups “from Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall” that represent Obama’s constituency, not the nation’s majority. Meyerson, too, waits breathlessly for him to cause “changes yet to come.” Meyerson takes a swipe at Obama’s principled and absolutist opponents.

Our history, Obama argued, is one of adapting our ideals to a changing world. His speech (like recent books by Michael Lind and my Post colleague E.J. Dionne Jr.) reclaimed U.S. history from the misrepresentations of both constitutional originalists and libertarian fantasists. “Fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges,” the president said. “Preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action. For the American people can no more meet the demands of today’s world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias.”

ED ZIEGLER: FORMER MUSLIMS

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/former-muslims In response to the violent actions and intense hatred by many Muslims toward non-Muslims, my articles frequently attempt to acquaint freedom loving people with the undeniable fact the goal of these Muslims is to force the world to submit to Islam. Fanatic Muslims consist of approximately 120 million followers of Islam world-wide. Many of […]

Click here to print. Hey, Parents: Meet Neo-Soviet NYU, Princeton Professor Steven Cohen: Kim Zigfeld

http://pjmedia.com/blog/hey-parents-meet-neo-soviet-nyu-princeton-professor-steven-cohen/

Not surprising: following the passage of the Magnitsky Act — which penalizes Russians who were involved with the brutal torture and murder of a human rights attorney — supporters of Vladimir Putin’s KGB dictatorship criticized Americans for supporting American values in Russia.

But would you be surprised to learn that one of those minions is not just an American citizen, but a professor emeritus at New York University and Princeton?

Professor Steven F. Cohen — husband of Katrina vanden Heuvel, publisher of ultra-liberal The Nation – has been speaking up for the interests of Putin and Russia’s KGB. Writing at The Nation itself, he called the Magnitsky Act a “sanctimonious [1] blacklist without due process” supported by a “feckless foreign policy elite”. (Do note: the Act was adopted by both houses of Congress in landslide votes with virtually no opposition.) Cohen claimed that Russia is far more democratic that the U.S. because “the Russian media were filled with heated controversy over the adoption ban,” while there was no such controversy over Magnitsky. (Putin’s response to the Act was to ban American adoptions of Russian children [2].) Cohen called American journalists “cheerleaders for a new cold war.”

This is not new behavior for him — Cohen has been bashing the U.S. media for reporting on Putin’s neo-Soviet crackdown for years now [3].

Politics truly makes odd bedfellows: Cohen and his wife’s publication are aligned with the likes of Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan on this issue — two of Putin’s strongest supporters in the U.S. But Cohen’s take was truly neo-Soviet: he trashed the Clinton administration for giving birth to the new cold war, and he stated that Obama has “surrounded himself with Russia advisers, including Hillary Clinton, wedded to the twenty-year-long approach” that calls for cold war.

Cohen then directly wrote for the Kremlin itself, on its Voice of Russia website where he maintains a blog [4] and is also routinely the subject of the Kremlin’s “journalism [5].” Any American parent thinking of sending their children to Princeton or NYU ought to find this worrisome: NYU itself got into the act, publishing his article [6] on its website.

THE DECLINE OF UNIONS: JOHN FUND

http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/338950 A couple of network cameras and tripods sat outside the offices of the National Labor Relations Board here on Friday afternoon in the midst of a snowstorm. The NLRB doesn’t usually merit such attention, but it was pushed into the spotlight after Friday’s unanimous decision by a D.C. Court of Appeals panel declaring three […]

THANE ROSENBAUM: A BLEAK ANNIVERSARY FOR THE ARAB SPRING…..SEE NOTE PLEASE

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324461604578191513459319542.html?mod=WSJ_article_MoreIn_Opinion

The riots and deaths in Egypt signal another grim turn in a story once filled with hope.

THE SO CALLED “ARAB SPRING” DID NOT FOOL ANYONE FAMILIAR WITH THE HISTORY OF THE MOSLEM BROTHERHOOD AND JIHAD….THAT EARLY BLIND ENTHUSIASM WAS INDULGED BY FANTASISTS RATHER THAN POLITICAL THINKERS…..MEMRI, DAVID GOLDMAN, ROBERT SPENCER, ANDREW BOSTOM, IBN WARAQ, ANDY McCARTHY WERE AMONG THOSE WITH EYES WIDE OPEN….RSK

The Arab Spring has reached its second anniversary, but in the swath of countries upended by continuing populist revolts, it is getting hard to find a safe place to throw a party.

Egypt on Friday began a long weekend of violence as dozens of people were killed and hundreds injured in demonstrations—many of them directed at government buildings—in Cairo, Suez, Alexandria and elsewhere. A court decision in Port Said on Saturday sparked a riot that left at least 27 dead. Cairo’s Tahrir Square has been a scene of frequent protests by Egyptians unhappy with the consolidation of power by President Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. On Friday, tens of thousands descended on the square less intent on celebrating the anniversary of their revolution against the autocratic Hosni Mubarak than on raging against what replaced him. The protest descended into a chaotic street battle between demonstrators and police.

Frustration and violence in post-Arab Spring Egypt is nothing new: Last month protesters gathered at the presidential palace after Mr. Morsi granted himself broad powers beyond the reach of judicial oversight. Islamist supporters of the president detained about 50 demonstrators (including four minors), bound their hands and beat them in an apparent effort to extract confessions of a conspiracy to undermine Mr. Morsi’s fragile government. Such tactics haven’t been seen in Egypt since the days of . . . well, Hosni Mubarak.

How to Break the Tyranny of Oil Wealth : Mary Anastasia O’Grady

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323596204578244140722159814.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_BelowLEFTSecond If Chávez believes the nation’s oil billions belong to the people, why not give it to them directly? In the 12 months ahead of the October 2012 Venezuelan presidential election, government spending increased 40% from a year earlier in real terms, according to Francisco Monaldi, a visiting professor at the Harvard Kennedy School who […]

DAPHNE ANSON: ON THE UK AND RESPONSES TO M.P. DAVID WARD ****

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2013/01/whos-afraid-of-bradford-bruising.html

Bradford,Yorkshire, traditionally one of the great woollen centres in England, became home to a large number of German Jews in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. These immigrants contributed to Bradford’s growth and prosperity, and played a not insignificant part in the civic and cultural life of Bradford.

Textile merchant and philanthropist Sir Jacob Behrens (1806-89), for example, knighted in 1882, was a long-serving president of the local Chamber of Commerce, and was instrumental in the establishment of the commercial department of the Foreign Office. Merchant Charles Semon (1814-77) was similarly involved in local civic life, and also philanthropic on a grand scale. A Bradford hospital and a nurses’ training institution, and model lodging houses and a day nursery founded on his initiative, benefited in particular from his largesse. Like Behrens, he served as mayor of Bradford.

Even more outstanding as a philanthropist was yet another textle merchant from Germany, Jacob Moser (1839-1922), who, some years after Bradford’s acquisition of city status, served as lord mayor. At a time when old age pensions did not yet exist he donated £10,000 (about £1million in today’s money) in order that elderly inhabitants of Bradford irrespective of creed would have a weekly income. His wife also played a prominent tole in local affairs. Moser was a Reform Jew who nevertheless aided the local Orthodox congregation, and it’s interesting to note that he gave what was, before the First World War, the most generous contribution by a single individual to the Zionist Organisation (in order to build the Herzlia Gymnasium in Jaffa).

Another notable Jew with Bradford connections was the artist and art school administrator Sir William Rothenstein, who was born there in 1872, the son of an immigrant woollen merchant, and died in 1945 after a distinguished career. His paintings include Jews mourning in a synagogue (which can be seen here).

Today, the Jewish presence in Bradford has been all but eclipsed, and the town to which those and other nineteenth-century immigrants flocked and in which they so eagerly integrated is home to a large Muslim community of mainly Pakistani origin who comprise about one quarter of the population.

It is against that backdrop that the outrageous remarks of Liberal Democrat MP David Ward, who represents the Bradford East, must be viewed.

JEREMY HAVARDI: HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY ABUSE

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/2580/holocaust_memorial_day_abuse There is a new form of demented bigotry being paraded by some of Israel’s most venomous detractors. We can call it Holocaust Day abuse. It consists of insulting the Jewish victims of Nazi genocide by politicising the day set aside to honour their memory. On Holocaust Remembrance Day, while most of us remembered the […]

SENATOR (RET.)JAMES WEBB IN NOVEMBER 1979….WHY WOMEN CAN’T FIGHT….SEE NOTE PLEASE

http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/people/jim-webb-women-cant-fight/

JAMES WEBB IS A COMBAT VETERAN OF VIETNAM, AUTHOR OF THE NOVEL MADE INTO A MOVIE “RULES OF ENGAGMENT”….RSK
“Your mission remains fixed, determined, inviolable—it is to win wars,” Douglas MacArthur told the 1962 West Point class. In this story, a Naval Academy graduate, a combat veteran of Vietnam, says the country’s fighting mission is being corrupted, with grave consequences to the national defense. One of the main problems, he says, is women. By James Webb

From the November 1979 Washingtonian

We would go months without bathing, except when we could stand naked among each other next to a village well or in a stream or in the muddy water of a bomb crater. It was nothing to begin walking at midnight, laden with packs and weapons and ammunition and supplies, seventy pounds or more of gear, and still be walking when the sun broke over mud-slick paddies that had sucked our boots all night. We carried our own gear and when we took casualties we carried the weapons of those who had been hit.

When we stopped moving we started digging, furiously throwing out the heavy soil until we had made chest-deep fighting holes. When we needed to make a call of nature we squatted off a trail or straddled a slit trench that had been dug between fighting holes, always by necessity in public view. We slept in makeshift hooches made out of ponchos, or simply wrapped up in a poncho, sometimes so exhausted that we did not feel the rain fall on our own faces. Most of us caught hookworm, dysentery, malaria, or yaws, and some of us had all of them.

We became vicious and aggressive and debased, and reveled in it, because combat is all of those things and we were surviving. I once woke up in the middle of the night to the sounds of one of my machinegunners stabbing an already-dead enemy soldier, emptying his fear and frustrations into the corpse’s chest. I watched another of my men, a wholesome Midwest boy, yank the trousers off a dead woman while under fire, just to see if he really remembered what it looked like.

We killed and bled and suffered and died in a way that Washington society, which seems to view service in the combat arms as something akin to a commute to the Pentagon, will never comprehend. And our mission, once all the rhetoric was stripped away, was organized mayhem, with emphasis on both words. For it is organization and leadership, as well as the interdependence sometimes called camaraderie, that sustain a person through such a scarring experience as fighting a war.
This is the only country in the world where women are being pushed toward the battlefield. The United States also has one of the most alarming rates of male-to-female violence in the world: Rapes increased 230 percent from 1967 to 1977 and the much-publicized wife-beating problem cuts across socioeconomic lines.

MORE MORSI AND MOSLEM TERRORHOOD ANTI-SEMITISM: JOHN ROSSOMANDO

http://www.investigativeproject.org/3897/additional-morsi-muslim-brotherhood-anti-semitic
Note: This is the first of two stories to examine the New York Times’ coverage of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The New York Times’ January 14 report on the Middle East Media Research Institute’s (MEMRI) videos of Egyptian Mohamed Morsi’s 2010 anti-Semitic statements inexplicably omitted the larger story of the Muslim Brotherhood’s decades-long intrinsic anti-Semitism.
The Investigative Project on Terrorism has uncovered comments going back to 2004 showing a pattern of pure anti-Semitic comments made by Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders.
MEMRI has routinely covered these sorts of bigoted and hate-filled statements from throughout the Islamic world that most media outlets such as the Times have refused to cover since the late 1990s.
Morsi’s comments reflect the Muslim Brotherhood’s intrinsic anti-Semitism that is easily obtainable dating back to its founding in 1928.