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May 2018

ELECTIONS ARE COMING: TODAY IN OHIO…..WHO WILL TAKE ON DEMOCRAT SENATOR SHERROD BROWN?

Republicans Renacci, Gibbons Battle for Trump Supporters in Heated Ohio Senate Race By Paula Boyard-
https://pjmedia.com/election/republicans-renacci-gibbons-battle-for-trump-supporters-in-heated-ohio-senate-race/

Tuesday is primary day in Ohio, and one of the most heated races in the state is for the Senate seat currently occupied by Democrat Sherrod Brown. Congressman Jim Renacci will face Cleveland investment banker Mike Gibbons in the GOP primary in their quest to take on the uber-liberal Brown in the fall. Both are trying to rally Trump supporters to their cause, hoping to win their votes on Tuesday. Renacci, an ardent fan of the president, cites President Trump’s endorsement as a reason for Trump voters to support him. Gibbons, also an ardent Trump supporter and the co-chair of his fundraising efforts in Ohio in 2016, says Trump supporters should vote for him. The president’s diehard fans are divided, while the candidates continue to exchange barbs—and lawsuits—in the days leading up to the election.

Renacci, who aligned himself with then-candidate Trump right before Republican National Convention, says he is the candidate who can best help to advance the president’s agenda. Since announcing that he’d be entering the Senate race, Renacci has received Trump’s explicit endorsement (via a tweet, of course) and has appeared numerous times with both Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. On Saturday Renacci sat at Trump’s right hand during a Cleveland forum on taxes.

Chris Schrimpf, spokesperson for Gibbons, told PJM, “Voters know that Mike Gibbons is the conservative outsider in this race.” He added that Gibbons is “not a career politician, unlike Jim Renacci.” Schrimpf said that Gibbons “also has a plan to have Mexico pay for the [border] wall.”

Gibbons, a political newcomer, entered the race to challenge conservative favorite Josh Mandel, the current state treasurer, in the primary. After Mandel dropped out, citing family reasons, Renacci, who had already announced he was running for governor of Ohio, announced that he was switching to the Senate race at the request of the White House. CONTINUE AT SITE

The Sexual Revolution’s Angry Children At its core, #MeToo represents a rejection of the sixties’ vision of erotic liberation. Kay S. Hymowitz

“The sexual revolution stripped young women of the social support they need to play gatekeeper, just as it deprived men of a positive vision, or even a reason, for self-restraint. Recognizing those losses is where any reformation has to start.”

Last fall, as the first #MeToo scandals scrolled across the cable news chyron, I happened to be reading Sticky Fingers, Joe Hagan’s superb new biography of Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner. As Hagan describes the magazine’s early years in the 1960s, just about everyone on the staff—male and female—was having sex with everyone else, under and on top of desks, on the boss’s sofa, wherever the mood struck them. Hagan quotes one writer claiming that Wenner told him that “he had slept with everyone who had worked for him.” Compared with Wenner and the early Rolling Stone crowd, Harvey Weinstein was a wanker.

Did the women of Rolling Stone consent to the goings-on at what today would be regarded as an illegal den of workplace harassment? They appeared to. In the company’s bathroom, women employees scribbled graffiti ranking male staffers for their sexual performance—not, as they do on college campuses today, the names of rapists in their midst. Jane Wenner, Jann’s wife, was known to judge job seekers by “whether a candidate was attracted to her” and, in some cases, to test the depth of their ardor personally. Photographer Annie Leibovitz, who made her name at Rolling Stone, routinely slept with her subjects and was rumored to have had threesomes with the Wenners.

Different as they seem, there’s a direct line between that revolutionary time and our own enraged, post-Weinstein moment. What started out as a clear-cut protest against workplace harassment has mutated into a far-reaching counterrevolution—a revolt against the combustible contradictions that the sexual revolution set in motion 60-odd years ago.

Exhilarated by the sudden freedom from the restrictive sexual morals of their mid-century childhoods and overflowing with youthful, and often chemically enhanced, animal spirits, countercultural kids like those at Rolling Stone gave little thought to the possible risks of their momentous experiment in sexual liberation. History is filled with social schemes, many cruel, some more lenient, designed to protect women and girls from sexually predatory males, as well as from their own risky but more discriminating desires: everything from codes of chivalry to chaperones, from burkas to single-sex dorms, from courtship rituals to romantic love.

NY attorney general, a proud feminist, accused of keeping a ‘brown slave’ By Ed Straker

What does a Democrat have to do to invalidate his social justice warrior credentials? Does letting a woman drown in a river cancel his SJW privileges? No, not where Teddy Kennedy was concerned. What about if he did unspeakable things with an intern and a box of cigars in the Oval Office? No problem there when President Clinton was involved.

But in this era of “#MeToo,” the rules have changed. No longer can even liberals like Anthony Weiner sext and babysit at the same time. That’s an ominous sign for New York State attorney general Eric Schneiderman, known to be a tireless fighter for women and minorities – and, most recently, for keeping a brown slave girl on the side:

State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman called his Sri Lankan girlfriend [Tanya Selvaratnam] his “brown slave” and wanted her to refer to him as “Master,” the woman says.

“Sometimes, he’d tell me to call him Master, and he’d slap me until I did,” Selvaratnam said. “He started calling me his ‘brown slave’ and demanding that I repeat that I was ‘his property.'”

She said that as the violence grew, so did his sexual demands.

Iran in the US Backyard by Judith Bergman

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif went on a tour of six Latin American nations in 2016. Iran’s diplomatic efforts resulted in, among other things, access to the use of Venezuelan territory to advance Iran’s solid rocket-fuel production.

Culturally, Iran has helped Hezbollah establish itself as the dominant force among Shia Muslim communities throughout Latin America, and has taken control of their mosques, schools and cultural institutions.

In 2012, there were 32 Iranian cultural centers across Latin America, to facilitate the spread of the Iranian Islamic revolution; today, less than a decade later, the number of centers has grown to more than 100.

Iran and Hezbollah have been operating in Latin America since the 1980s, effectively undisturbed. During this time, Iran and its proxy, the terrorist organization Hezbollah, have been Islamizing Latin America, seemingly to create a forward base of operations for the Islamic Republic in the backyard of the United States.

No Latin American country has designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization: Hezbollah can operate with relative impunity there. In April 2017, a Hezbollah operative, Mohamad Hamdar, arrested in Peru, was acquitted of all terrorism-related charges. The Peruvian court found that Hamdar’s role within Hezbollah was in itself insufficient to consider him a terrorist[1]. This legal vacuum regarding Hezbollah might also be why Islamic terrorism, drug-trafficking and organized crime in the region is frequently underestimated.

Kanye West and the Rabbis By Eileen F. Toplansky

I admit that I am absolutely unfamiliar with the music of Kanye West. But I also suspect that Mr. West is unaware of how his latest comments on slavery actually echo the interpretations of slavery that permeate Jewish classical texts.

When the people, later to be called Jews, were originally slaves in the land of Egypt, they were known as Hebrews and were considered the property of Egypt. After their release from bondage, they became Israelites. After three months of traveling toward the Promised Land, they received the Decalogue and it is here that they are introduced to “the fundamental and astounding idea” of freedom. As Rabbi Ben Zion Spitz, Chief Rabbi of Uruguay explains

God introduces to the world an entirely different concept of ‘slavery.’ It is a temporary condition. A Jewish man, out of luck and resources (typically because he stole something and then couldn’t repay), becomes an indentured servant for six years. He must be treated well and cared for. He must have a quality of life equal to that of his master. However, if he becomes comfortable with his servitude and his master, he can request to stay on longer. The Torah [Bible] prescribes that in such a case the master takes this slave to the doorpost and pierces the slave’s ear by the doorpost, marking him, branding him as a slave until the Jubilee year, when all slaves are freed, all men of Israel reclaim their ancestral lands.

This ear piercing is meant to signify that even though the newly freed people heard the First Statement (often called the First Commandment), they simply refused to listen to its incredibly revolutionary message. G-d freed them but they must be exquisitely careful not to become enslaved again and they must never make slaves of others. Thus, the piercing indicated that they refused to acknowledge that “man is meant to live free and not be the slave of any other human being.”

New York Attorney General Schneiderman Resigns After Abuse Allegations Democrat steps down following New Yorker report in which four women alleged attorney general physically abused them By Mike Vilensky

New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman abruptly resigned Monday night after the New Yorker published an article in which four women alleged he physically abused them.

Mr. Schneiderman denied the allegations and said they were unrelated to his work as attorney general. But he said in a statement that the accusations “will effectively prevent me from leading the office’s work at this critical time.”

His decision followed calls from New York leaders including Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a fellow Democrat, to step down. The governor said he would ask a district attorney to begin an investigation immediately.

As the top law-enforcement officer in the state of New York, Mr. Schneiderman, 63 years old, was one of the leading regulators of Wall Street and has been a prominent critic of the Trump administration.

He also presided over efforts for the Weinstein Co. to be acquired and condemned co-founder Harvey Weinstein following allegations that he sexually assaulted women. Mr. Weinstein has said he didn’t engage in any nonconsensual sex.

The office of the New York attorney general represents one of the most powerful prosecutorial positions in the nation. The office has significant oversight of the financial and banking industries, both of which are largely based in and around in New York City. A spokesman for the office declined to comment. CONTINUE AT SITE

Trump Targets the Schumer Excuse GOP Senate moderates may have to cut spending after all. James Freeman

Taxpayers should soon be receiving some good news from Washington. President Donald Trump and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) appear to have found a way to enact modest federal spending restraint, despite resistance from some GOP senators. Faced with a number of Republicans who claim they cannot repeal their 2018 spending surge because they made a deal with Democrats, Mr. Trump and House GOP leaders instead aim to cut funding approved in previous years. This amounts to billions of dollars that bureaucrats never got around to spending, and now perhaps they never will.

The idea that Republicans were honor-bound to continue all the spending that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) recently extracted probably makes little sense to those outside of government. This is especially true because, to secure his new budget buster, Mr. Schumer had to break his own previous agreement with Republicans to abide by reasonable limits on discretionary spending.

The opportunity to impose some small measure of discipline now exists because spending rules make it easier to rescind federal spending than to approve it in the first place. Republicans needed 60 votes on the first go-round so they had to deal with Mr. Schumer unless they wanted another government shutdown. The result exceeded the 2018 and 2019 spending caps under the Budget Control Act by a total of nearly $300 billion. CONTINUE AT SITE

Mr. Najib and Mr. Trump The Malaysian strongman has played U.S. Presidents for fools.

Malaysians go to the polls on Wednesday, and in a normal democracy the ruling coalition of Prime Minister Najib Razak would lose in a rout amid scandals and widespread defections. But the latest polling suggests the opposition in this important Southeast Asian nation will again win the popular vote but fall short of a parliamentary majority.

This would be a repeat of the 2013 election, after which Mr. Najib carried on as Prime Minister and the leader of the ruling United Malays National Organization, or UMNO. The result would show how much Mr. Najib and his party have corrupted Malaysia’s democracy with gerrymandered districts, control of the media, and race-based demagoguery.

In 2015 this newspaper broke the news that nearly $700 million from the state-owned investment fund 1MDB transited through Mr. Najib’s personal bank accounts. He said the money was a legal political donation from a Saudi royal and that most of it was returned. Malaysia’s Attorney General cleared him of wrongdoing, and no charges have been brought in Malaysia.

That didn’t stop six nations from investigating the laundering of $4.5 billion allegedly embezzled from 1MDB. The U.S. Department of Justice filed civil lawsuits to freeze more than $1.6 billion of assets, much of which was held by the friends and family of “Malaysian Official No. 1.” U.S. officials have told the Journal that Official No. 1 refers to Mr. Najib.

Iran Wins in Lebanon The election solidifies Hezbollah control on Israel’s border.

President Trump has made containing Iran’s regional ambitions a cornerstone of his foreign policy, and by that measure Sunday’s election in Lebanon is a setback. Not that anyone in Washington seems to have noticed.

Preliminary results indicate that Iran’s proxy Hezbollah and its allies won more than half the seats in Lebanon’s 128-seat parliament, consolidating the Shiite militia’s political grip on the country. Thanks to Lebanon’s sectarian political system, Prime Minister Saad Hariri, a Sunni, will likely keep his job, but his clout will be considerably weakened given the clobbering his Future Movement took at the polls.

Voter turnout fell five percentage points from the 2009 election, mostly because Lebanese citizens didn’t have much of a choice between Hezbollah and Hezbollah-lite. Mr. Hariri threw his lot in with the terror group when he accepted a power-sharing arrangement in 2016 with former general Michel Aoun, a Hezbollah ally, to break a political stalemate. The country is overwhelmed with Syrian refugees and its economy is stagnating.

The Trump Administration seems to have adopted a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil approach regarding Hezbollah’s influence on Mr. Hariri and his government. Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited the country in February and tried to distinguish between Hezbollah, the terrorist organization, and Hezbollah, the political party. They share the same principles. Mr. Trump compounded the confusion in April by commending “the government of Lebanon’s progress” in passing a budget, deploying Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) on the Syrian border and fighting Islamic State. The LAF is outmanned and outgunned by Hezbollah.

What’s at Stake in the Attack on Haspel The responsibility for CIA policy belongs to the president and Congress, not agents. By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey

Gina Haspel reportedly offered last week to withdraw her nomination as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The White House declined and now must stand behind her as she faces an unjustified assault involving the Bush administration’s enhanced-interrogation program.

Shortly after 9/11, the administration concluded that it needed to obtain as much actionable intelligence as possible to avert future attacks. It decided to explore, and ultimately adopted, the use of interrogation methods against some al Qaeda operatives far more rigorous than would have been permissible against lawful prisoners of war.

The administration was properly mindful of U.S. statutes and obligations under the United Nations Convention Against Torture. Even unlawful enemy combatants may not be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment. Where to draw the line? It was not for the CIA, much less Ms. Haspel, to answer that question, but for the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which advises federal agencies on the law.

OLC’s guidance, in the form of several memos issued in 2002 and 2003, was communicated through the CIA’s general counsel to agents in the field and was the basis on which the enhanced-interrogation program was carried out. The guidance was precise and unambiguous. It listed all the legally permissible interrogation techniques, backed up by appropriate safeguards. The details of this program were fully and repeatedly briefed to the so-called congressional Gang of Eight—the House and Senate majority and minority leaders and chairmen and ranking members of the intelligence committees. None raised a word of objection.