Displaying posts published in

October 2018

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The ‘Hodgkinson Standard’ and the Political Blame Game By Thomas Farnan

By on October 30th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/10/30/the-hodgkinson

On June 14, 2017, James Hodgkinson, a Bernie Sanders campaign volunteer during the presidential primaries, opened fire on a Republican congressional baseball practice in northern Virginia. Four people were shot, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.).

President Trump addressed the shooting saying, “We may have our differences . . . We are strongest when we are unified and when we work for the common good.”

The New York Times noted favorably that “Mr. Trump steered clear of the possible political motivations of the gunman,” and instead issued a “dignified” call for unity.

There was general agreement that when a sociopath with a peripheral involvement in politics commits a violent act, it is unfair to attribute broad political blame.

Last week, someone sent devices that were meant to look like pipe bombs to two former presidents, their first ladies, congressional leaders, and an ex-CIA chief.

Another was sent to actor Robert De Niro, whose movie “Taxi Driver”was cited by a nut as the reason he shot President Reagan in 1981. Nobody ever blamed De Niro for John Hinckley, Jr.

Nevertheless, this time the media, prominent Democrats, De Niro, and some NeverTrump Republicans jumped at the chance to blame Trump. The story was sensationalized beyond the boundaries of readily ascertainable facts.

These were the rare explosive devices displayed at CNN like a party favor, photographed for Twitter, and shipped on America’s crowded highways (or worse, in airplanes) to Quantico, Virginia for further testing.

Which is how bombs are always handled. No, really.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Is Trump’s GOP Attracting Young Conservative Blacks? By Julie Kelly

By on October 30th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/10/30/is-trumps-gop

The fundamental restructuring of both major political parties—which began more than a decade ago when Barack Obama first ran for president—is ramping up during the Trump era. The Republican Party is attracting more working-class, non-college educated whites in the Midwest and Rust Belt; Democrats are picking up more college-educated white women, particularly in the suburbs of major cities.

While the gains of both parties are probably cancelled out by this electoral shift, there is one group that Democrats simply cannot win without: black voters.

Unfortunately for Democrats, Trump continues to court blacks by citing rising economic prospects, record low unemployment among African-Americans, and the need for federal prison reform. Democrats are fearful low voter turnout among blacks on November 6 will dash their hopes of reclaiming control of Congress; Obama campaigned in Wisconsin and Michigan on Friday in an effort to rally black voters in states where must-win Senate seats are at stake.

But the Democrats also may have a more long-term problem with black voters. A small but growing number of young blacks are aligning themselves with the GOP, rejecting their parents’ and grandparents’ hand-me-down political fealty to the Democratic Party.

This past weekend, hundreds of black conservatives ages 15 to 35 gathered in Washington, D.C., for the Young Black Leadership Summit. The three-day event—sponsored by the conservative campus outreach group Turning Point USA—hosted sessions in grassroots political organizing and leadership training. Featured speakers included prominent black leaders such as Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, Heritage Foundation President Kay James, talk show host Larry Elder, and actress Stacey Dash.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Bolsonaro’s Hope and Change Brazilians wanted new leadership after years of recession and graft.

By on October 30th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bolsonaros-hope-and-change-1540853512

‘Bolsonaro threatens the world, not just Brazil’s fledgling democracy,” declared a headline last week in the Guardian, referring to presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro. And that was one of the milder warnings in the international press. Yet Brazilians elected him anyway on Sunday with 55% of the vote. Maybe the world should show a decent respect for Brazilian democracy and try to understand what happened.

Start with the fact that this was a transparent, competitive and fair contest. Mr. Bolsonaro didn’t steal the election. He won it by persuading voters. A 27-year member of the legislature, Mr. Bolsonaro was also fortunate to be running against Fernando Haddad, the hand-picked candidate of the Worker’s Party (PT) that has ruled Brazil for most of the last 15 years. Mr. Bolsonaro was able to run as the reformer against a legacy of economic and political failure.

Brazil has yet to recover from the leftwing populism of PT President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010) and successor Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016). Deficits, public debt and inflation soared, as the PT expanded the number of state-owned enterprises. It also squandered the opportunity to boost capital flows, most notably by failing to create attractive auction rules in the huge deepwater oil reserves discovered in 2007. By the time the Workers’ Party was done, Brazil was in a recession that lasted nearly three years.

The PT also built a legacy of graft. Construction companies padded bids and paid kickbacks to politicians, executives and the PT. The national development bank extended loans to facilitate the transactions, including to Cuba and Venezuela. The head of the bank said in September that the dictatorships in Havana and Caracas have outstanding loans of $1 billion and both are in arrears.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Time to flee Democratic Party Adriana Cohen

By on October 30th, 2018

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/adriana_cohen/2018/10/time_to_flee_democratic_party

Kanye West is calling for a #Blexit, a black exit from the Democratic Party, because the Trump administration has done more to empower the black community than his liberal predecessor.

What a great idea.

What American women need here in the U.S. is a #Wexit — women exiting the Democratic Party. Why? Because the single best way to empower women is financial independence. With the female unemployment rate at 3.6 percent — the lowest in 65 years — women should be burning their pink hats not knitting new ones.

A well-paying job allows women to live life on their own terms, make their own choices and pursue their dreams — unbeholden to anyone. Isn’t that the bedrock of feminism?

Hence it’s high time women stop thinking with their ovaries and start thinking with their pocketbooks. The former may give you “free” birth control, the latter a future.

With the GDP over 4 percent, median income up more than 4 percent and wages on the upswing, Trump’s economy has given women freedom and power. That’s the power to carve their own path and for many the freedom to leave unhappy marriages or abusive relationships because a good-paying job gives women the means to survive, if not thrive, on their own.

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

New Palestinian “Concern” for International Conventions by Bassam Tawil

By on October 30th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13196/palestinians-prisoners-rights

While Hamas has been violating international laws by denying visits or any communication with the Israelis it holds captive, Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons continue to enjoy basic rights, including meeting with an attorney, receiving medical treatment, religious rights, basic living conditions (such as hot water, showers and sanitation), proper ventilation and electric infrastructure.

The families of the Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli prisons know where their sons are. They also know that their sons receive proper medical treatment and while away their days reading, exercising and watching TV. But the Israelis held by Hamas can only dream of seeing daylight as they languish in captivity.

The proposed Israeli law is a temporary measure, aimed at forcing Hamas to release information about the Israelis held in the Gaza Strip. There would be no need for the law were Hamas prepared to honor international and humanitarian conventions and allow visits by the Red Cross and other international agencies to the Israelis it is holding.

Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that rules the Gaza Strip, does not like a bill making its way through Israel’s Knesset that would prevent visits by family members of terrorists in Israeli prisons. The bill, sponsored by MK Oren Hazan (Likud), would prevent such visits to terrorists who are members of groups that hold Israeli prisoners and deny them visits.

“Because Israel is an advanced democracy committed to human rights conventions to which the terrorist organizations are not committed, an intolerable situation results. The terrorist organizations, as a strategy, kidnap and hold Israeli citizens without regard for their conditions and without allowing them visits, which seriously harms the morale and the national strength of the State of Israel,” the bill’s explanatory notes say.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Jordan Cancels Israeli Land Leases A sober reminder of Arab hostility to the Jewish State. A. Klein and Daniel Mandel

By on October 30th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271778/jordan-cancels-israeli-land-leases-morton-klein

Last week, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, in what has been described as a “sharp tone,” announced that he would annul an appendix to the 1994 Israeli/Jordanian peace treaty under which certain parcels of lands in the border regions –– the Naharayim (Baqura) area near the Sea of Galilee, and Zofar (al Ghamar), some 80 miles north of Eilat in the Aqaba region –– were to have been leased to Israel in perpetuity.

Jews have farmed these lands since 1926, when the then-British Mandatory power authorized it, along with the establishment of a power station by Pinchas Rutenberg.

However, in 1994, when Israel and Jordan concluded a peace treaty, Israel transferred these territories to Jordanian sovereignty. However, Appendix I (b) in the treaty authorized continued Israeli cultivation of these farmlands for 25 years, automatically renewable for 25-year periods “unless one year prior notice of termination is given by either Party, in which case, at the request of either Party, consultations shall be entered into.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has indicated he will be taking up the matter with King Abdullah in a bid to have the termination off the lease rescinded, but Oraib Rintawi, the director of the Quds Center for Political Studies in Amman, has said, probably accurately, “Jordan cannot backtrack on this … This is a decision of the king, government and public. I do not believe there is any possibility to backtrack on this decision.”

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HOMELAND SECURITY, IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

MS-13 Inflicts “Reign of Terror” in California Democrats look the other way as sanctuary state allows criminal illegals to thrive. Lloyd Billingsley

By on October 30th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271736/ms-13-inflicts-reign-terror-california-lloyd-billingsley

“How brutal murders and fear kept a town silent. MS-13 is like no other gang.”

That may sound like President Trump at one of his rallies but it’s actually the headline of an October 19 Fresno Bee story by award-winning reporter Yesenia Amaro. “MS-13 carved out a reign of terror,” she writes, “resulting in at least 14 brutal murders in and around Mendota from 2015 to 2017.” Amaro charts how this reign of terror developed, and the bloodshed MS-13 has inflicted.

“MS-13 slipped into Mendota relatively unnoticed,” Amaro notes, and “few people outside the rural town in California’s Central Valley knew MS-13 had infiltrated the area at least a decade ago.” This was not only due to relative obscurity of Mendota, with a population of some 11,000. When the gang ramped up the violence, “there was little or no media coverage on some of the murders, some of which had been initially labeled as suspicious deaths.”

Along with the gang’s extortion, kidnapping and drug trafficking, the killings “kept nearly everyone quiet, including city leaders, who failed to sound the alarm.” Even after the 25 MS-13 arrests, Mendota Mayor Rolando Castro declined to comment for Amaro’s story “citing fears for himself and his family.” Other residents spoke only on condition of anonymity, “citing fear of gang reprisals” such as the one involving Joanna Soloria Maya.

In July, 2016, before she was slated to testify in a murder case, “Joanna was hacked to death” and her body left outside an apartment complex. As Amaro noted, MS-13 has an international reputation for “brazenly leaving the bloodied, mangled corpses in the open.” Joanna’s sister Jannette told Amaro, “they are killing people out there, like they are animals.” And the MS-13 campaign of violence is “going to get worse” because law enforcement “can’t stop it.”

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