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May 2016

Trump, Ryan and the Islam Problem By Roger L Simon

One of the main areas of contention between Donald Trump and Paul Ryan is the question of Muslim immigration. In early December, when Trump first made his proposal (now a “suggestion”) to stop all such immigration until we “understood what was going on,” one of the first to react in high dudgeon was Ryan, who declared: “This is not conservatism.”

He was applauded for his four-word pronouncement by those “conservatives” at the Washington Post, who called his response “near-perfect.” Actually, to me it seemed morally narcissistic and had little to with conservatism, pro or con. Ryan wanted to disassociate himself as quickly as possible from the ugly and seemingly racist Trump.

But let’s look more closely at what the speaker said during that response:

When we voted to pause the refugee program a few weeks ago, I made very clear at the time: there would not be a religious test. There would be a security test. And that is because freedom of religion is a fundamental Constitutional principle. It’s a founding principle of this country.

Aside from the obvious — if people are fighting and killing you in the name of a religion, how do you ignore the “religious test” — what about that “security test”? Is it really happening or are people slipping into the country by various means, including an open border, with no test whatsoever? What about reports of an ISIS camp eight miles from El Paso?

And, perhaps more importantly, did that “pause” Ryan voted for actually take place in any meaningful way? According to the New York Post a “surge operation” bringing Syrian refugees to America was already in operation this past April. By “surge operation,” Gina Kassem — regional refugee coordinator in Amman — told reporters, it was meant the resettlement process that normally took 18 to 24 months would be sped up to 3 months. (Some pause!) And the figure of 10,000 refugees that has often been proffered by the administration was a minimum, not a maximum.

What is the maximum and how will they be vetted? And just how do you “vet” during a “surge”? Is that what Ryan really meant by a “security test”? I doubt it, but Trump should ask him at their next reconciliation meeting. As they say, Paul’s got some “xplainin” to do.

Now this isn’t a simple question. The Syrian people have suffered mightily at the hands of various psychotic despots, secular and religious. Trump has called for supporting more extensive refugee camps in the region, an idea that makes more sense than bringing them here. (He has also called for the Gulf states to pay for them — good luck with that.) CONTINUE AT SITE

Peter Smith: Saving Women from Islam

Sure, people have the right to dress as they wish, within the bounds of decency, of course. And that’s why the vile misogyny of imprisoning women in head-to-foot draperies must be banned: it is a foul and indecent assault on everything our society should stand for.
I’m changing my mind, and that doesn’t happen too often. In an article in the March 2011 issue of Quadrant (“Struggling with the Burka”) I argued from a classical liberal tradition that the way people dress in purely public situations — where no professional interactions are required — is a matter for them and certainly not for the law. I brought in John Stuart Mill (On Liberty), no less, to bolster this position.

I was taken to task in the following May issue by Babette Francis from Toorak, Victoria. In her letter, among other astute observations, she wrote that I arrived at my conclusion “from the comfortable perspective of a male, one moreover who has never had to live as a citizen of an Islamic country.” My reaction at the time was to think that she had misunderstood my position. After all weren’t we on the same side?

The tenor of my article was hardly pro-Islam and, accordingly, I had concluded that the only option available to Western societies was “to limit the size of Muslim populations through selective immigration policies.” But now I don’t think we were quite on the same side at all. I believe that I was on the wrong side when it came to the burka.

Let me be clear, I now believe that the Islamic face veil – the niqab – should be outlawed in all public places, as it is in France. Moreover, I believe that the Islamic head covering – the hijab – should be banned for teachers and students in all schools in receipt of any government funding. Would I extend this ban to other religious symbols? No, I wouldn’t, unless, say, Catholics, Anglicans, Buddhists or Hindus developed supremacist tendencies and turned particularly nasty.

Steve Kates: Media Is The Massage

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2016/05/media-massage/

Obama’s ratings remain astonishingly healthy, given eight years of foreign-policy debacles, a wan economic ‘recovery’ and a nation more deeply divided than when he took office. His secret, as a White House spinner explains, is having grasped that voters know little and reporters even less
How do you account for this: Obama report card: Approval up, economy down? In fact, Obama’s approval rating remains well up into his eighth year in office despite of the wreckage not just to the economy, but to the American health care system, the refugee crisis across the Middle East and throughout Europe, the open borders on the American south (and increasingly its north), continuous reductions in living standards, worsening racial relations, and an all-round deterioration in every aspect of American life.

You account for it by understanding that the average American knows less about America than you do and lives in a media bubble almost as tight as the bubble that once surrounded the Soviet Union.

Which is why this remains the single most important story of the Obama years because it explains everything else that would otherwise be inexplicable:

In the New York Times Sunday Magazine, David Samuels details how Ben Rhodes, a script writer, author of the Beloit Journal fiction piece titled “The Goldfish Smiles, You Smile Back,” and brother of CBS president David Rhodes, a man with zero foreign policy experience, shaped and promoted the president’s foreign policy narratives.

Samuels observes: “His lack of conventional real-world experience of the kind that normally precedes responsibility for the fate of nations — like military or diplomatic service, or even a master’s degree in international relations, rather than creative writing — is still startling.” (In this respect, of course, he matches the president’s foreign policy background: None.)

The article details how these two shaped and spun make-believe about the facts and their policies and with the aid of a supine press and a number of think tanks and social media outlets helped propagate the false narratives these two wove out of their fantasies.

Islamists Infiltrate the Swedish Government One Month of Islam and Multiculturalism in Sweden: April 2016

The library in Arvika surprised patrons by offering Arabic language courses. Many Swedes wondered if offering courses in Swedish to the Arabic-speaking immigrants would not be more productive. The library, however, does not offer any such service.

The Immigration Service released a new report on April 8, entitled “Are You Married?”, which showed how its own case officers allow child marriages.

Swedish authorities have approved hundreds of polygamous marriages among immigrants, law professor Göran Lind revealed on April 4.

According to the police, the man became angry with his wife, because she was trying to learn Swedish.

April was the month when the Islamist scandals in the Green Party (Miljöpartiet) came one after the other. The Green Party sits in Sweden’s government, along with its coalition partner, the Social Democrats (Socialdemokraterna). They have made themselves known as a party favoring open borders, and with a passionate love for multiculturalism. These infatuations are precisely why the party has been a perfect candidate for Islamist infiltration. Within theGreen Party, even to ask the question whether Muslims view Islam as a political force has been considered rude and “Islamophobic.”

On April 17: Housing Minister Mehmet Kaplan was forced to resign after it was reported that he not only socialized with Islamists and fascists, but also compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians with Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews.

April 20: A would-be member of the Green Party executive, Yasri Khan, refused to shake hands with a female TV reporter, Ann Tiberg, causing much hoopla and eventually forcing Khan to resign.

April 22: The scholar Lars Nicander of the Swedish Defense University warned that the Green Party may have been infiltrated by Islamists: “It is obvious they are trying to get in and ascend to positions of trust,” Nicander told the daily Aftonbladet.

Green Party party secretary Anders Wallner commented on Nicander’s remarks:

“What is being put forth by Lars Nicander is something we take very seriously. Extremism has no place in our party, something our spokespersons have been very clear about.”

April 23: Semanur Taskin, spokesperson for the Green Youth in Stockholm, decided to drop out of politics. As a Swedish Muslim, she said, she felt “misunderstood and no longer secure in politics.” Taskin is also a member of an organization founded by Mehmet Kaplan — Swedish Muslims for Peace and Justice (Svenska muslimer för fred och rättvisa). The organization is best known for working for Muslim rights in Sweden; participating in “Ships to Gaza,” and criticizing all things they perceive as “Islamophobic” or the government’s work against Islamism.

Iran’s Anti-Semitism by Majid Rafizadeh

Thanks to the lifting of sanctions, the prize for best Holocaust cartoon was lifted as well. Iran is now offering $50,000 for the best Holocaust cartoon, more than quadruple last year’s prize, which was $12,000.

The competition is expected to draw participants from more than 50 countries. It is sponsored by two organizations which are directly or indirectly linked to the Iranian regime: the Owj Media and Cultural Institute, funded by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the Sarsheshmeh Cultural Center, which is supported by the Islamic Development Organization (IDO). The Iranian parliament provides the IDO’s budget.

These kinds of Holocaust events and conferences in Iran are based on the notion that Holocaust did not occur.

This week, Iran is hosting its second annual Holocaust Cartoon Competition, even as some politicians and world leaders continue to argue that Iran is becoming a stabilizing force because it is re-joining the international community, by implementing the nuclear agreement and integrating into the global financial system.

The exhibition of Holocaust cartoons will open on May 14. Iran’s Holocaust Cartoon Competition reflects the Iranian regimes’ attempts to expand its efforts to promote anti-Semitism beyond the borders of its nation.

As Iran’s revenues are rising, thanks to the lifting of sanctions, the prize for the best Holocaust cartoon was lifted, as well. Iran is now offering $50,000 for the best Holocaust cartoon, more than quadruple last year’s prize, which was $12,000. According to Iran’s semi-official IRNA news agency, the conference is expected to draw participants from more than 50 countries.

The Iranian regime seems to be using global legitimacy, granted to its leaders by many Western politicians through the nuclear agreement and business deals, to promote the core pillars of its Islamic revolution, opposing the US and rejecting Israel’s right to exist, as well as its fundamental ideals.

In addition, it is worth noting that these kinds of global conferences, which work to deny the historical fact of the Holocaust, are aimed at undermining Israel’s legitimacy, as well as its right to exist. One of Iran’s major foreign policy and ideological objectives, which rests on the religious teachings of Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei, is the struggle against Israel.

Palestinian Leaders and Child Sacrifice by Khaled Abu Toameh

The Palestinian Authority (PA) is now hoping that the tragedy of the Abu Hindi family will push Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to revolt against Hamas.

Hamas is hoping that the tragedy will further undermine the credibility of the Palestinian Authority among Palestinians, shown as being complicit in the blockade on the Gaza Strip to prevent it from receiving weapons.

These charges and counter-charges constitute yet more proof that the PA and Hamas are determined to pursue their fight to the last Palestinian child.

What happened in the Abu Hindi home is an unspeakable family tragedy. What is happening to the Palestinian people, who have forever been led by leaders who care nothing for their well-being, is a tragedy of national proportions.

The tragic death of three Palestinian siblings, killed in a fire that destroyed their house in the Gaza Strip on May 6, demonstrates yet again the depth to which Palestinian leaders will go to exploit their children for political purposes and narrow interests.

The three children from the Abu Hindi family — Mohamed, 3 years old, his brother Nasser, 2 years old and their two-month infant sister Rahaf, died in a fire caused by candles that were being used due to the recurring power outages in the Gaza Strip.

Britain’s Muddled Priorities? by Douglas Murray

On the one hand, the overwhelming cause of our current security problems is Islamist terror. It is the number one cause of concern to our police, intelligence services and everybody else with the nation’s security at heart. The public expects to be protected from such terror and expects that protection to come from that security establishment.

Yet all the time, a vocal lobby of Muslim and non-Muslim figures tries to pretend that the threat is not what it is, or that an attempt to depict any and all efforts to protect the country — even one phrase said by one actor in one simulated attack scenario — is some terrible crime of bigotry.

An actor saying “Allahu Akbar” in a simulated terror attack may be offensive to somebody’s religion. But if so, what is more offensive to their religion: one actor saying “Allahu Akbar” as part of a simulation, or countless Muslims around the world shouting the same phrase before real attacks in real time?

Sometimes you can see a whole society’s self-delusion in under a minute. Consider a single minute that occurred in Britain this week.

On Monday night, Greater Manchester Police staged a pre-prepared mock terrorist attack in a Manchester shopping centre in order to test emergency responses capabilities, readiness and response times. At one stage, an actor playing a suicide bomber burst through a doorway in a crowded part of the shopping centre and detonated a fake device.

It turned out that the actor pretending to be a suicide bomber had shouted the words “Allahu Akbar” (“Allah is Greatest”) before the simulated attack. This may have helped make the simulation more realistic, but it had an immediate backlash. Nobody complained about the simulated attacks. What disturbed some people was the simulation of the signature Islamist sign-off.

ISRAEL’S DANGEROUS ADDICTION: VIC ROSENTHAL ****

On this 68th anniversary of the independence of the modern Jewish nation-state, my thoughts naturally turn to the question of how long we will be able to keep that independence, purchased at such great cost.

It’s not an issue that occupies citizens of most other states to the same degree. Although the US has major problems in several areas, I don’t hear Americans talking about losing their independence. They settled that back in the 18th century.

For us, it is never settled, despite international law and despite our successful defense of our homeland. Most of the world does not think that the Jewish people should have an independent state, in many cases because they don’t agree that there is a Jewish people (on the other hand, a ‘Palestinian’ people makes sense to them, or at least they pretend it does).

There is more than one way a sovereign nation can lose its independence. It can be conquered in war, as happened to Carthage in the 2nd century BCE, its people killed, enslaved or dispersed, its wealth carried off and its land sown with salt. It can be invaded and then made into a colony or satellite, its people allowed to live but without self-determination, as happened to the Eastern European satellites of the Soviet Union after WWII. And it can allow its decisions to be influenced by a more powerful state or states, little by little giving up its independent volition to economic and political pressure, until it finds itself so dependent on its ‘patron’ that it has lost the ability to control its destiny.

Israel is threatened militarily today primarily by Iran and its proxies. It would be wrong to minimize the direct threat to our existence that they represent, and our government and the IDF do take it seriously and prepare for conflict.http://abuyehuda.com/2016/05/israels-dangerous-addiction/

But we are also at risk of a ‘soft conquest’ by another enemy, this one an alliance of supposedly friendly nations, led by one massively powerful country that is considered our greatest friend and supporter. And our leaders seem blind to this danger.

How does a soft conquest work? Here are some of the tactics:

Create economic dependence by damaging the target’s relationships with rival partners.
Create military dependence either directly by ‘protecting’ the target or indirectly by locking it in to you as a sole supplier of arms, ammunition or spare parts.
Strengthen its enemies and weaken the target’s own self-defense abilities so that it will have to depend upon you when threatened.

GOOD NEW FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Switching off antibiotic resistance. Researchers at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have found new RNA-control switches (“ribo-switches) for genes encoding antibiotic resistance and discovered that these switches are actually “turned on” by the antibiotics themselves. The switches could be turned off by future treatments.
http://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/switching-antibiotic-resistance

Israeli doctors save “no chance” Cyprus baby. (TY Beverly) No newborn with a heart defect like that of Cypriot baby Vassilios had ever survived. But Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center was willing to treat him. After an anxious journey to Israel, Hadassah surgeons achieved the “impossible” and after 10 days Vassilios and his happy parents returned to Cyprus. http://www.hadassah.org/news-stories/cyprus-newborn-saved.html

Hadassah saves Al Quds student with organ failure. (TY Beverly) Palestinian Arab student Sara al Katzroy collapsed whilst jogging. She was brought from Jericho hospital to Jerusalem where Hadassah doctors used a Molecular Adsorbent Recirculation System (MARS) to save her liver. Sara now wants to become a nurse.
http://www.hadassah.org/news-stories/sara-katzroy.html

Doctors save Palestinian Arab boy who fell into boiling jam. (TY Barbara Sofer) One of Barbara Sofer’s 68 reasons to love Israel includes this amazing report of how doctors at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center managed to save the life of Mohamed – a Palestinian Arab toddler who fell into a vat of boiling jam.
http://hadassahinternational.org/supermodel-naomi-campbell-visits-childrens-ward-at-hadassah/

Eye spy. Two people have regained their eyesight after receiving the corneas of the late former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, who died March 17 after a long battle with cancer. Avraham Gian, 81, and an unnamed 70-year-old woman received the corneas at Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/meir-dagans-corneas-give-sight-back-to-2-israelis/

Heart implant is a success. (TY Atid-EDI) UK medical journal The Lancet reported the first implants of the interatrial shunts from Israel’s V-Wave (see previous newsletters). In less than 1 hour, each of 10 Canadian patients suffering poor left ventricular function received new implants and were discharged home next morning.
http://vwavemedical.com/2016/03/28/first-human-results-v-waves-interatrial-shunt-published-lancet/
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2816%2900585-7/abstract

Does US News Degrade Law Schools? By Richard Baehr

Engines of Anxiety: Academic Rankings, Reputation and Accountability by Wendy Nelson Espeland and Michael Sauder, Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 2016

The three weekly news magazines, Time, Newsweek and US News and World Report, at one time printed and sold around ten million copies combined each week. All have been greatly reduced in scope and circulation, unable to compete as weekly new journals with rapid-fire instant news feeds available from online sources or 24-hour cable news channels. One of the three, US News, under the direction of its owner Mortimer Zuckerman, chose a different course a quarter century back: becoming the bible of annual higher education rankings. This venture has proven to be a great success, whatever the profitability of the enterprise for the company. Today, US News rankings of undergraduate universities and colleges, top high schools, and graduate and professional programs, have become a primary source of information for applicants, faculty, school staffs, employers, and alumni, and an important measure of status and achievement for the various schools and programs.
The ratings have always been controversial. How do you assess the quality of a program? Are the annual surveys measuring the right things? Are the weightings of various factors which produce a rating score and a ranking reflective of what should matter most in evaluating schools or programs? Do the ratings capture the student experience and the value of a college or graduate program? Are the distinctions among schools real, or just a factor of a need to rank order? Can the ratings be gamed? Do the ratings themselves influence some of the scores that are measured in the next ratings cycle, rather than just neutrally present a status report on a school or program?

Wendy Nelson Espeland and Michael Sauder’s new book, Engines of Anxiety, focuses on the US News rankings for one particular professional program, law schools. The authors argue that whereas there are alternative rankings for other professional schools or graduate programs, such as business schools, which provide alternatives to the US News survey, and there are many books which try to evaluate and score undergraduate programs, there is no real alternative to the US News rankings of law schools. US News divides undergraduate colleges and universities into national universities, and national small colleges, as well as regional universities and colleges. A business school can pick and choose one of the surveys which ranks its program, or components of its program highly, and sell that to prospective students. But US News has no real competition for its law school rankings (latest rankings here), for which one ranking system is applied to all law schools, virtually all of whom comply with the “system” and submit their data to the magazine each year.

The authors argue that the high compliance rate relates to the fact that US News will estimate a law school’s data for each factor measured when it does not submit its own. This would include data on job placement, admissions rates, LSAT scores, and GPAs for entering students, and the US News“estimates” are designed to be conservative — lower rather than higher than what might be the real experience. Why not get ranked 89th with your own data, than 116th when US News fills in the blanks?