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November 2015

The Man Who Saved Germany’s New Democracy Helmut Schmidt saw his country through terrorism and Soviet intimidation with its liberty intact. By Josef Joffe

‘A statesman,” quipped Harry S. Truman, “is a politician who’s been dead 10 or 15 years.” That wasn’t true for the “little haberdasher” who built an American-led global order from scratch in the 1940s. Nor is it true for Helmut Schmidt, the chancellor of West Germany from 1974 to 1982. Mr. Schmidt died Tuesday at the age of 96.

Statesmen—think Churchill or Lincoln—are born in adversity, halfway between triumph and tragedy. Mr. Schmidt faced his first test in 1977 when West Germany, assaulted by homegrown terrorism, was tottering on the edge of internal war. The Baader-Meinhof Gang, the self-styled “Red Army Faction,” was murdering bankers, industrialists and prosecutors.

The RAF’s strategy was a classic one: provoke the state into shedding its liberal-democratic mask by forcing it into an unchecked repression that would unleash a revolution. The climax was the hijacking of a Lufthansa plane to Somalia. The terrorists had stuffed the aircraft with explosives, and Mr. Schmidt confronted a deadly demand: Release our jailed comrades, or you will have the blood of 86 hostages on your hands.

An Adult on Campus Mitch Daniels offers a lesson to college administrators.

We’ve been wondering all week what happened to the grown-ups on American university campuses, and it appears we have a sighting. Mitch Daniels, the president of Purdue University, spoke up Wednesday about the children’s revolt at Yale and Missouri in a letter “to the Purdue community.”
It deserves to be quoted at length: “Events this week at the University of Missouri and Yale University should remind us all of the importance of absolute fidelity to our shared values. First, that we strive constantly to be, without exception, a welcoming, inclusive and discrimination-free community, where each person is respected and treated with dignity. Second, to be steadfast in preserving academic freedom and individual liberty.

“Two years ago, a student-led initiative created the ‘We Are Purdue Statement of Values,’ which was subsequently endorsed by the University Senate. Last year, both our undergraduate and graduate student governments led an effort that produced a strengthened statement of policies protecting free speech. What a proud contrast to the environments that appear to prevail at places like Missouri and Yale. Today and every day, we should remember the tenets of those statements and do our best to live up to them fully.”

Hungary’s Migrant Crisis Ends, Europe’s Has Just Begun by George Igler

“[H]alf any given year’s total migrants arrive by the start of October. The other half arrives between October and the end of December… If these tendencies remain relevant, we should expect the very opposite of a winter break, and should prepare instead for an increasing flood of people.” — Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary, September 21, 2015.

The UN High Commission for Refugees announced on Nov. 2 that the number of people who illegally migrated to Europe in October alone (218,394) nearly outstripped the number of those who entered throughout the whole of 2014 (219,000).

The reality at Hungary’s central railway station in Budapest had to be seen to be believed. Hungarians were easily outnumbered 200 to 1 by predominantly young Muslim males. These newcomers engaged in sporadic violence, rioted at the sight of camera crews, and left the station littered with human excrement.

According to Björn Höcke, of the populist Alternative for Germany Party (AfD), by the end of 2016 there will be as many Muslim males of military age in Germany (5.5 million), as there are young German men of that age.

On Nov. 2, Libya threatened to send to Europe millions of migrants from Africa, unless the EU recognizes its self-declared (Islamist) government.

Richard Baehr: Netanyahu Tries to Bring Back the Democrats

On the most important foreign policy vote in a decade, on an issue with enormous consequence for Israel, Republican members of Congress were 100% opposed to the Iran nuclear agreement.
On the other hand, almost all of AIPAC’s supposed great Democratic friends in Congress did not have the guts to oppose their fellow party member, President Barack Obama, and the ministrations of his “whips,” Sen. Dick Durbin and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. In the Senate, only four of 46 Democrats voted against the nuclear agreement, and only one, New Jersey’s Robert Menendez, risked the wrath and vindictiveness of the administration by also speaking out in opposition.
This week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in the United States for the Jewish Federations General Assembly in Washington. It was also his first visit with Obama following the Iran nuclear deal and his controversial appearance before a joint session of Congress, which was boycotted by about a quarter of all Democratic House and Senate members. Netanyahu has a sophisticated understanding of American politics, and is aware that damage has been done to the historic bipartisan support for Israel.

The Unknown: Islam and The Real Assault on Women

http://jamieglazov.com/2015/11/12/the-unknown-islam-and-the-real-assault-on-women/

On this new edition of The Unknown, Anni Cyrus focuses on Islam and The Real Assault on Women. And she asks: Where are the feminists?

Don’t miss it!

Duty, Honor, Country General MacArthur’s Farewell Speech (May 12, 1962)

“I stand on this rostrum with a sense of deep humility and great pride — humility in the wake of those great American architects of our history who have stood here before me; pride in the reflection that this forum of legislative debate represents human liberty in the purest form yet devised. Here are centered the hopes and aspirations and faith of the entire human race. I do not stand here as advocate for any partisan cause, for the issues are fundamental and reach quite beyond the realm of partisan consideration. They must be resolved on the highest plane of national interest if our course is to prove sound and our future protected. I trust, therefore, that you will do me the justice of receiving that which I have to say as solely expressing the considered viewpoint of a fellow American.

The Right Way to Honor Veterans The sacredness of Veterans Day — and our obligations to the heroes. Bruce Thornton

These days our men and women in uniform are usually treated with kindness and respect. Nobody begrudges someone in uniform getting to board a flight first, or getting comped a first-class seat. Even those on the left who think that people in military service are misguided dupes of evil militarists no longer indulge the open scorn and calumny prevalent in the Vietnam War era, when a uniform was a target for spittle and charges of “baby-killer,” when in 1971 John Kerry appeared before the Senate and accused U.S. troops of rape, torture, and mutilation. Yet under the surface of progressives’ seeming respect and sympathy there still lurks a subtle contempt for the virtues and values that make our warriors worthy of our gratitude and admiration.

American leftists have long indulged a stealth pacifism that naturally conditions their attitudes toward the military. After all, the U.S. is the source of global disorder caused by its corporate hegemons, who use the military to protect their access to the global resources and markets they plunder for profit. Better to appease an enemy than to unleash these capitalist legions. Remember the “no blood for oil” slogans during the protests against the Iraq War in 2003? Or the exaggerated coverage given to civilian casualties or the occasional brutality typical of every war ever fought? Or the national media attention given to anti-war protestors like Cindy Sheehan, while the numerous heroes who won Silver Stars and Navy Crosses were usually ignored?

FAILING OUR VETERANS- A NATIONAL DISGRACE BY RUTH KING

With additional comments by Adam Andrzejewski founder of Open the Books , (www.openthebooks.com/) a project of American Transparency.

In 2014 under the aegis of Family Security Matters, Nancy Kennon and I published a comprehensive study of every Congressional and Senatorial election, including incumbents and challengers, highlighting all their top issues. We found almost unanimous bi-partisan concern with protecting our Veterans and their rights.

It stands to reason that all Americans would cherish those who, in the words of Hannah Sennesh, a Holocaust martyr and poet, would have “the heart with strength to stop its beating for honor’s sake” and for duty and country.

This was a welcome development from an earlier time during and after the Vietnam war, when veterans were derided and not accorded the respect they were due.

A young veteran John Kerry testified before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on April 22, 1971, that American troops “…had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam…” and accused the U.S. military of committing war crimes “on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.”

An aspiring young William Clinton, to justify his draft resistance, wrote “so many fine people have come to find themselves still loving their country but loathing the military.” To be fair, as president he proposed reforms in VA health care programs and expedited hearings on Veterans’ Affairs early in his administration. In 1994 he appointed Dr. Kenneth W. Kizer a physician trained in emergency medicine and Public Health, as Director of U.S. Veterans Health Administration to update and modernize the VA health system. This was another case of good intentions with poor implementation and very limited success.

Under President George Bush, a scandal erupted in 2007 detailing the systematic neglect, and frustration, and deteriorating facilities that veterans faced at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, ostensibly the top medical facility for veterans. What made this more poignant is the fact that so many were veterans of both wars initiated by the president. The scandal provoked caterwauling outrage and hearings to condemn the deplorable Army hospital environment. They led to negligible reform and the venerable hospital closed its doors in July 2011 after 102 Years of healing troops and veterans.

While the stigma and the libel against veterans ended, almost pari passu with the end of the draft in 1973, another national tragedy and scandal ensued.

Yale Crybullies Whine They Can’t Sleep Over Offensive Halloween Costumes “I don’t want to debate. I want to talk about my pain.” Daniel Greenfield

The Missouri crybullies got their way, purging administrations for not taking their whininess seriously fast enough (thereby making them feel unsafe). And then they turned on the media which had been churning out their propaganda with more bullying and crying.

The Yale crybullies are still whinging on because the administrators who suggested that maybe they should grow up instead of whining about other people’s Halloween costumes still haven’t been fired.

Why haven’t they been fired yet? The Yale crybullies feel so unsafe. They need kitten pictures. They can’t even sleep now.

Jencey Paz, whinged that, “I have friends who are not going to class, who are not doing their homework, who are losing sleep, who are skipping meals, and who are having breakdowns.”

Another student howled at an administrator,

“In your position as master,” one student says, “it is your job to create a place of comfort and home for the students who live in Silliman. You have not done that. By sending out that email, that goes against your position as master. Do you understand that?!”

“No,” he said, “I don’t agree with that.”

The Dynamic GOP Debate Fox Business Network lets the candidates speak for themselves. Matthew Vadum

In the fourth televised GOP primary debate last night, eight Republican candidates for president laid out their positions as they sparred over taxes, immigration, government spending, and to a lesser extent, foreign policy.

They clashed heatedly over what it means to be a conservative and the immigration issue, particularly amnesty.

The debate venue was the same storied Milwaukee auditorium where Theodore Roosevelt gave a 90-minute speech Oct. 14, 1912 after being shot in the chest by a deranged saloonkeeper. Roosevelt, who served as president from September 1901 to March 1909 as a Republican, was campaigning at the time for president on the Progressive Party ticket.

Last night’s debate was — fortunately — less eventful.

It was also the best, most business-like of the four GOP primary debates so far.

It stood in stark contrast to the televised firing squad 10 Republican contenders faced on CNBC on Oct. 28. That was the debacle of a debate in which moderators acted like prosecutors cross-examining hostile witnesses and obnoxiously playing candidates off against each other.

Unlike left-wing CNBC charlatan John Harwood, the moderators of Fox Business Network last night recognized it was their job to elicit answers and facilitate constructive conversations, not oversee gladiatorial combat. FBN anchors Maria Bartiromo and Neil Cavuto, along with Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Gerard Baker, were well-behaved, reasonable, and professional. (The main debate transcript is available here.)

One of the evening’s more interesting multi-debater exchanges came when Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) trolled Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) over foreign policy and child tax credits.

After Baker told Rubio his tax plan includes a significant expansion of child tax credits that would raise the incomes of struggling parents, the moderator asked if there was “a risk you’re just adding another expensive entitlement program to an already over-burdened federal budget?”

Rubio stressed the paramountcy of the family in American society and said he was “proud” of his child tax credit increase, which he said was part of a “pro-family tax plan” that would strengthen the family unit.

Paul interjected, perhaps thinking of himself an an ideological gatekeeper like William F. Buckley Jr., saying,

We have to decide what is conservative and what isn’t conservative. Is it fiscally conservative to have a trillion-dollar expenditure? We’re not talking about giving people back their tax money. He’s talking about giving people money they didn’t pay. It’s a welfare transfer payment … Add that to Marco’s plan for $1 trillion in new military spending, and you get something that looks, to me, not very conservative.

Rubio shot back, saying “this is their money” that Americans have paid. Using an argument often employed by left-wingers, the senator said his program would allow parents to “invest” in their children, “in the future of America and strengthening your family … [the] most important institution in society.”

Paul replied, “Nevertheless, it’s not very conservative, Marco.”

Rubio said he wanted to rebuild the military and slammed Paul as “a committed isolationist.” Rubio added, “I’m not. I believe the world is a stronger and a better place, when the United States is the strongest military power in the world.”