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August 2016

Experts Who Got Brexit Wrong Now Say Trump Can’t Win Is elite overconfidence surfacing again? By John Fund

Donald Trump says that the same experts and pollsters who incorrectly predicted that British voters would vote to stay in the European Union are now dismissing his chances to win the White House.

That’s mostly true. Before the Brexit vote, PredictWise, a website that aggregates data on the likelihood of events, found that there was a 21 percent chance of its being approved. Early on the night of June 23, when Britons voted, it pinned the chances of Brexit’s passing at only 12 percent. Over the last month, PredictWise has placed Trump’s chances of winning at between 19 percent and 30 percent. Other American prediction outlets give Trump only a 15 to 25 percent chance of victory.

Nigel Farage, who as head of UKIP (UK Independence Party) helped launch the campaign for the EU exit 20 years ago, thinks there is a parallel. Appearing at a Trump rally of 15,000 people in Jackson, Miss., Wednesday, Farage told the crowd:

We saw experts from all over the world . . . giving us Project Fear, telling us if we voted to be run by a bunch of unelected old men in Brussels, our economy would fall off a cliff, they told us there would be mass unemployment and investment would leave our country. . . . We saw the commentariat and the polling industry doing everything they could to demoralize our campaign.

Farage believes that it’s possible for a similar populist rebellion to succeed in America and elect Trump. He overstates the parallels, but he is spot-on when it comes to ridiculing the experts on Brexit. A new analysis by the Guardian, a left-leaning newspaper, concludes that British employment is up post-Brexit, retail sales have rebounded, the budget deficit is lower than it was last year, inflation remains low, the stock market is near an all-time high, and a weaker pound has boosted British tourism.

Column One: Trump and the American Dream by Caroline Glick

According to most polls taken since last month’s party conventions, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton enjoys an insurmountable lead over Republican nominee Donald Trump. Consequently, a number of commentators on both sides of the partisan divide have declared the race over. Clinton, they say, has won.

There are several problems with this conclusion.
First of all, the “official campaign,” won’t begin until September 26, when Clinton and Trump face off in their first presidential debate. Clinton is not a stellar debater and Trump, a seasoned entertainer, excels in these formats.

Second, recent polls indicate that Trump is closing the gap. Whereas until this past week Clinton enjoyed a 6-8 point lead in the polls, in two polls taken this week, her lead had contracted to a mere 1-3 points.

Third, it is quite possible that Clinton’s problems have only begun. Her peak popularity may be behind her. Since her nomination, barely a day has passed without another stunning exposé of apparently corrupt behavior on the part of Clinton and her closest advisers. This week’s AP report that half of Clinton’s non-official visitors during her tenure as secretary of state were donors to the Clinton Foundation was merely the latest blow.

The continuous drip of corruption stories will have a corrosive effect on Clinton’s support levels. If the revelations to come are as damaging as many have claimed, their impact on Clinton’s candidacy may be fatal.

In light of Clinton’s weaknesses, Trump’s main hurdle to winning the election may very well lie with the NeverTrump movement. That movement encompasses much of the Republican establishment – that is, the political class of centrist elected officials, opinion-shapers, former officials and ideologues. Its members have vowed not to vote for Trump even if it means that Clinton wins the White House. The fact that so many prominent Republican voices continue to oppose Trump even after he has been nominated hurts his ability to build support among swing voters.

As far as the NeverTrumpsters are concerned, Trump carried out a hostile takeover of their party.

Extremist Islam in Canada A shocking new report reveals what is being taught in mosques and schools inside the country. Lloyd Billingsley

Leading Canadian politicians have been proclaiming that, despite what former prime minister Stephen Harper contended, Islamic extremism is rare or nonexistent in Canada’s mosques, and that to believe otherwise is racist or Islamophobic. On the other hand, an investigation by two experts finds that in some Canadian mosques and school libraries, extremist Islamic literature is the only brand available.

That is the contention of “The Lovers of Death”? Islamist Extremism in Our Mosques, Schools and Libraries, a recent study by Thomas Quiggin, formerly an intelligence analyst with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Privy Council Office. Quiggin is also a court-qualified expert on the structure of jihadist terrorism. Co-author Saied Shoaaib, a journalist originally from Egypt, has written extensively on Islamic extremism in the Middle East and in Canada.

“It is not the presence of extremist literature in the mosque libraries that is worrisome,” the new report contends. “The problem is that there was nothing but extremist literature in the mosque libraries.”

Examples include In the Shade of the Qur’an and Milestones by Sayyid Qutb, an author al-Qaida leaders found inspirational, as Lawrence Wright noted in The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. Quiggin and Shoaaib also found prevalent the complete works of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the founder of Wahhabism, perhaps the most extremist form of Islam, heavily promoted by Saudi Arabia.

This type of material, the authors argue, has eclipsed Canadian Muslims with humanist and modernist outlooks. At certain mosques in Montreal and Toronto, authors Quiggin and Shoaaib found statements that promoted jihad and homophobia. Likewise, Canada’s CIJ news found that some Islamic private schools in Canada use textbooks produced by the Saudi Ministry of Education. In two textbooks homosexuality is depicted as “one of the most heinous sins” and punishable by death.

Beyond Belief: Obama Seeks Illegal Immigration Assistance Of Latin American Countries As Aliens Flood Into The U.S. The wolves helping to guard the hen house? Michael Cutler

On August 24, 2016 Reuters published an astonishing headline, “U.S. seeks Latin American help amid rise in Asian, African migrants.”

This is the sort of headline that might be expected on April First — for the April Fool’s edition of the news. Unfortunately, this is not a bogus headline, but it most certainly is a bogus tactic crafted by the Obama administration.

The borders of the United States are America’s first line of defense and last line of defense against international terrorist organizations and transnational gangs. However, whenever our government or members of such volunteer organizations as the Minutemen have attempted to stanch the flow of illegal aliens and contraband from Mexico into the United States, the government of Mexico has reacted swiftly and derisively.

Yet Obama is now reportedly seeking assistance from the government of Mexico and has, in the past, sought assistance from Panama and other Latin American countries.

What you need to consider as you read the Reuters account is that the Tri-Border Region of Brazil harbors terror training camps and that members of Hezbollah, Hamas and likely al-Qaeda and ISIS are present in that lawless and dangerous region of the country.

The report claims that illegal aliens from Asia, Africa and the Middle East first head to Brazil to pick up altered or counterfeit passports before heading to the United States. Whether or not they are getting their passports from the Tri-Border Region of Brazil is open to speculation. But the dangers that this poses to our national security cannot be over-emphasized.

I delved into the issue of the dangers of the Tri-Border Region of Brazil in a recent FrontPage Magazine article, “Released Gitmo Detainee Goes Missing in Latin America: How Obama’s dash to release terror suspects from Guantanamo threatens U.S. national security.”

The August 24th report published by Reuters begins this way:

Washington is seeking closer coordination with several Latin American countries to tackle a jump in migrants from Asia, Africa and the Middle East who it believes are trying to reach the United States from the south on an arduous route by plane, boat and through jungle on foot.

Hillary’s Race War Disgusting lies, smears and hate. Daniel Greenfield

Hillary Clinton has met with leaders of a racist hate group responsible for torching cities and inciting the murders of police officers.

Deray McKesson, one of the Black Lives Matter hate group leaders she met with, had praised the looting of white people and endorsed cop killers Assata Shakur and Mumia Abu-Jamal. The Black Lives Matter hate group had specifically made a point of targeting white people in “white spaces” for harassment. It would go on to incite the mass murder of police officers in Dallas and other racist atrocities.

Despite all this, Hillary Clinton has never disavowed the racist hate group. Instead she doubled down on supporting the hate group and its icons at the Democratic National Convention.

Now, after Trump’s appeal to the black community, Hillary is desperately trying to divide us by race.

Despite Hillary’s latest hypocritical and self-serving accusations, Donald Trump has never held a meeting with leaders of a racist hate group. Hillary Clinton has. And she has refused all calls by police unions to end her support for a vicious hate group that has championed the release of cop killers and endorsed BDS against Israel.

When an 83-year-old great grandmother is viciously beaten by racist thugs and then set on fire, Hillary Clinton has nothing to say. She has remained silent about the wave of racist violence by her political allies that is sweeping this country and leaving victims battered or dead.

Hillary is trading on accusations of racism to distract attention from her ugly record of pandering to racists to get ahead. As Trump has said, “It’s the oldest play in the Democratic playbook. When Democratic policies fail, they are left with only this one tired argument. You’re racist, you’re racist, you’re racist!”

It’s not Hillary Clinton who has a consistent track record of opposing racists, but Donald Trump.

Hillary: Trump’s ‘Real Message’ Seems to be ‘Make America Hate Again’ By Bridget Johnson

In a speech largely aimed at moderate Republicans, Hillary Clinton declared that the “alt-right” running through Donald Trump’s campaign “is not conservatism as we have known it” and “is not Republicanism as we have known it.”

Speaking in Reno today, Clinton compared Donald Trump’s proposal for a religious test of immigrants to Islamic State policies, branded Russian President Vladimir Putin “the grand-godfather of this global brand of extreme nationalism,” and said Trump’s “real message seems to be ‘make America hate again.'”

“No one should have any illusions about what’s really going on here. The names may have changed, racists now call themselves racialists, white supremacists now call themselves white nationalists, the paranoid fringe now calls itself alt-right, but the hate burns just as bright,” Clinton said.

“Now Trump is trying to re-brand himself as well. But don’t be fooled. There’s an old Mexican proverb that says, ‘Tell me with whom you walk, and I will tell you who you are.’ So we know who Trump is.”

At the beginning of her address, Clinton panned Trump’s efforts in recent days to appeal to the African-American community.

“Trump has stood up in front of largely white audiences and described black communities in such insulting and ignorant terms. Poverty, rejection, horrible education, no housing, no homes, no ownership, crime at levels nobody has seen. Right now he said you can walk down the street and get shot. Those are his words,” she said. “But when I hear them, I think to myself, how sad. Donald Trump misses so much. He doesn’t see the success of black leaders in every field, the vibrancy of black-owned businesses, the strength of the black church. He doesn’t see the excellence of historically black colleges and universities or the pride of black parents watching their children thrive.”

Look Who Is Gutting the First Amendment! by Johanna Markind

“The [American Bar Association] wants to do exactly what the text calls for: limit lawyers’ expression of viewpoints that it disapproves of. … state courts and state bars should resist the pressure to adopt it.” — Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor and Washington Post columnist.

The language of Resolution 109 is “so broad it could mean anything… a kind of a speech code that restricts perfectly acceptable speech… anything you say might offend someone and therefore you can be punished for it.” — Ilya Shapiro, Cato Institute.

The ABA declined to answer questions for this article, as did the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The ACLU, which calls itself “our nation’s guardian of liberty,” and touts itself as fighting for “your right… to speak out – for or against – anything at all,” has not issued any statements or press releases about the model rule revision.

The struggle between free speech and speech codes that are intended to prevent harassment and discrimination appears set to leap from college campuses to law offices around the United States.

On August 8, 2016, the American Bar Association (ABA) approved resolution 109, which curtails freedom of speech. The approved resolution amended its model rule of professional conduct 8.4. It prohibits

“conduct that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know is harassment or discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or socioeconomic status in conduct related to the practice of law.”

The official comment explains:

“discrimination includes harmful verbal or physical conduct that manifests bias or prejudice towards others. Harassment includes sexual harassment and derogatory or demeaning verbal or physical conduct.”

The model rule is non-binding, but has potentially great influence on professional conduct rules that state courts require lawyers to follow. Should state courts adopt the change, lawyers found to violate it could be sanctioned and possibly disbarred. Because professional rules are legally binding on lawyers, the prospect that states may regulate “verbal conduct” implicates First Amendment concerns.

The ABA declined to answer questions for this article, as did the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The ACLU, which calls itself “our nation’s guardian of liberty,” and touts itself as fighting for “your right… to speak out – for or against – anything at all,” has not issued any statements or press releases about the model rule revision.

Palestinians: When the Mountain of Fire Erupts by Khaled Abu Toameh

The Palestinian Authority is now paying the price for harboring, funding and inciting gang members and militiamen who until recently were hailed by many Palestinians as “heroes” and “resistance fighters.”

Hamas’s dream of extending its control to the West Bank now seems more realistic than ever — unless Mahmoud Abbas wakes up and realizes that he made a big mistake by authorizing local and municipal elections.

The blood pouring out in Nablus and other Palestinian towns is proof that Abbas is on his way to losing control over the West Bank, just as he lost Gaza to Hamas in 2007. In an emergency meeting held on August 25 in Nablus, several Palestinian factions and figures reached agreement that it would be impossible to hold the vote under the current circumstances.

Hours after his security officers lynched a detainee, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas urged Palestinian businessmen living abroad to support the Palestinian economy by investing in the Palestinian territories. The Palestinian Authority (PA), he asserted, was “working to provide security and safety to encourage investment.”

According to Abbas, “The Palestinian territories are living in a state of security stability, which we are working to provide for residents and investors alike by enforcing the rule of law and enhancing transparency and accountability.”

It must be nice to create your own reality, especially if your true reality is that of the 81-year-old Abbas.

In his speech before the businessmen, Abbas neglected any reference to the latest wave of “security chaos” in PA-controlled areas in the West Bank, specifically Nablus, the largest Palestinian city.

Germany devises quick fix to thwart sexual assault By Carol Brown

Germany’s a mess thanks to Angela Merkel and others who breathlessly embrace those who wish to destroy the country – killing, raping, and wreaking all manner of havoc as they go. No matter how much violence Muslim imports heap upon the populace, immigration policy does not shift. The policy seems to be founded on the idea that the sooner the country can be destroyed, the better.

Go figure.

Among countless issues along the path to hell is that of rising sexual assault perpetuated by Muslim barbarians against German women and girls.

But not to worry. Germany has devised an answer to nip this escalating problem in the bud: temporary tattoos.

Yes, that’s right. Temporary tattoos are being placed on the arms of young girls in public swimming polls to fend off would-be attackers. The terrifying tattoo says: “No!” The potentially life-saving message (/s) is bracketed by an image of angel wings.

If only Germans would realize that their new Muslim friends are more concerned with 72 virgins than angels, but that’s beside the point.

Is this insane? (Answer: yes.)

As a quick aside, Muslim colonizers in Germany are referred to as the “new citizens.” Gee, that was quick. They went from being “migrants” to “immigrants” to “citizens” in a heartbeat. Then again, as noted at the outset of this blog, Germany is in a rush to get her demise over and done with, so I guess it makes sense to get these barbarians on the citizen fast track.

But I digress.

Hillary and the culture of impunity By James G. Wiles

Pay to play, anyone?

So far, Team Hillary’s defense of what the New York Post on Wednesday called the “Dough Nation” scandal reminds me of Mark Twain’s joke about the girl back in Missouri who sought to excuse her illegitimate child on the ground that it was “so small.”

“Only 3%,” Hillary’s spokesman told Politico on Wednesday, of Mrs. Clinton’s total visitors while she was Secretary of State fall into the category of “nongovernmental visitors.” But half of those, it turns out, had previously made generous donations to the Clinton Foundation.

Yes, he said, but the Associated Press’ investigation only dealt with the first half of Mrs. Clinton’s tenure at Foggy Bottom.

So, you know, the AP’s story is ‘flawed”. Nothing to see here. Keep moving.

Malarkey.

This one’s got legs, folks. And there’s at least another 15,000 emails coming by mid-September.

Furthermore, NPR reported Thursday morning, the 750 emails released this week are heavily redacted. That means that the quid pro quo which Team Clinton, so far, is loudly proclaiming is not there may, in fact, be there. We just can’t see it yet.

In short, this truly is a presidential election without precedent. Even a leading Democratic columnist has had enough.

Mr. Trump’s call for a special prosecutor now puts the stakes in this year’s presidential race in sharp focus. No one believes, of course, that this attorney general will seek the appointment of a special prosecutor. But for Mrs. Clinton, Trump’s demand means that she will almost certainly face new federal investigation and, quite likely, prosecution if she loses the election.

This takes the 2016 race out of anything before seen in American history. It’s Hillary’s own fault, of course. But it still makes this contest uncomfortably like an election in a Third World country.

“You lose, you die.” Or at least end up in jail or have to flee the country.

Are we becoming Nigeria?