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November 2018

P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

California Dem Chair Who Called Kavanaugh, “Lying Predator”, Investigated for Sexual Misconduct Daniel Greenfield

By on November 26th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/272057/california-dem-chair-who-called-kavanaugh-lying-daniel-greenfield

The media keeps screaming that Republicans have a “problem” with women. But it’s women who have a problem with Democrats. This is the latest example of a national trend in politics and media.

The California Democratic Party has launched an investigation into unspecified allegations of sexual misconduct against Chairman Eric Bauman involving party staff members.

In a statement released Saturday evening, Bauman confirmed an investigation was underway but did not address the allegations against him. He said that independent counsel has been hired to investigate the matter.

“I look forward to putting these allegations behind us and moving forward as unified Democrats,” Bauman said in the statement.

Democrats unified behind sexual harassment. Meanwhile here’s Bauman’s statement on Kavanaugh.

The Republican Party has no shame and no soul. Todays vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh is nothing less than an assault on every woman in America. It shows the Republican Party is utterly devoid of humanity and decency…

The United States Senate has disgraced itself today. Its up to the millions of Americans who are feeling righteous anger including the millions of survivors of sexual violence who have been violated all over again today to rise up and defeat every single Republican who betrayed our Country by voting to confirm this lying predator to the Supreme Court…

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Netanyahu: Still Israel’s Preferred Leader Why none of the other party leaders are fit to be prime minister. Joseph Puder

By on November 26th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272038/netanyahu-still-israels-preferred-leader-joseph-puder

At the Likud party meeting on Monday (November 19, 2018), Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu declared, “We have an entire year until the elections.” He made the statement a day after he called on his coalition partner not to dissolve the government. Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the “Israel Our Home” party, originally a party of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, resigned last week as Defense Minister, and pulled his party out of the coalition government. He was hoping to bring down Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud (party) led government. The pretext for his decision was Netanyahu’s reluctance to engage the Israel Defense Forces in another Gaza war, and his decision to agree to a ceasefire with Hamas. Lieberman denounced the move as “surrender to terror.” Lieberman’s thinking was that his resignation will prompt other coalition partners to leave as well, and thus new elections will be called, since the Netanyahu government would not have the necessary 61 votes to govern. He failed. Now he will sit on the Opposition benches next to Ayman Odeh, of the United Arab List. Lieberman learned two lessons. One, the country and seated Knesset Members are not eager for new elections to take place, and two, Netanyahu is not led by his coalition partners, but rather the opposite.

Naftali Bennett, leader of the “Jewish Home” party and coalition partner was also in a heated disagreement with PM Netanyahu over the response to the massive rocket attacks from Gaza. Like Lieberman, Bennett also sought more aggressive action against Hamas and its terrorist partners in the Gaza Strip. Bennett used Lieberman’s departure as Defense Minister to petition for this job, the second most powerful post in the Israeli government. Bennett’s eight seats in the 120 Knesset seats (Israeli Parliament), three more than Lieberman’s party, posed a veiled threat to Netanyahu. The “Jewish Home” party departure from the coalition would have brought the government down, and new elections would become a certainty. Netanyahu however, decided not give in. He was aided by Jewish Home party constituents, who pressured Bennett to stay put. They simply figured that Bennett’s quest for the Defense portfolio was not worth risking an early election result that might harm the party, and diminish its representation in the Knesset.

Benjamin Netanyahu, who sought early elections at one point, has changed his mind and is determined to go on with his narrow coalition government of 61 seats until its official term expires next year. Polls have consistently predicted that the Likud would end up increasing its representation in the Knesset. And Netanyahu predicted in August of this year that the Likud might possibly garner “35 (mandates), 40 is the goal.” Netanyahu has held the office of Prime Minister for 12 years, and if he manages, as it appears, to hold on until next year, he could surpass Israel’s founding father, David Ben Gurion, as the longest serving prime minister.

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Anybody hearing about just how far left the caravan organizers are? By Monica Showalter

By on November 26th, 2018

The US government must publicly acknowledge a) its role in Honduran Coup in 2009, b) that the Honduran government is a US supported dictatorship, and c) recognize the political and social crises throughout Central America as caused by US foreign policy.

This is nutbag, far-left stuff. That’s not about moms and kids, that’s about the political demands of Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela. And as you read further in their “demands,” you can read that they also want American officials prosecuted. This is the caravan agenda as it throws hapless women and children in front of the cameras, leaves Tijuana a humanitarian agenda area, and leaves Mexico with the prospect of a completely shut border. As they say: By any means necessarily, and those migrants are their pawns. Now is the scenario clearer?

And are there any questions as to why the caravan migrants are overwhelmingly military-aged unemployed young men, as this Univision screengrab from Mexicali unintentionally shows? (That reporter look uncomfortable).

Meanwhile, pictures from Univision (Spanish only) do expose who the caravan organizers are. The camera shots show that the organizers themselves are far-left activists, quite possibly what remain of the gang-like Chavista shock troops of Latin America who destroyed Venezuela. Smug, smarmy and robotic, they speak a disciplined Marxist party line devoid of individualism. They’re obviously experienced community organizers, which gives you an approximate look at how Chavez destroyed Venezuela. It was guys like these who produced that. And given the caravan thugcraft already seen, look at them how at odds it all is with their peaceable and humanitarian claims.

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P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Skip the Children’s Instagram Pageant Kids need to know their parents are paying close attention to them, not playing to an audience. By Jennifer L. Taitz

By on November 26th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/skip-the-childrens-instagram-pageant-1543175539

‘How many likes did I get?” When I overheard a friend’s 8-year-old daughter ask how her back-to-school portrait had performed on her mother’s Instagram, my heart fell. No child should grow up believing life is a continuous popularity contest judged on social media.

I have two toddlers myself and people ask why I don’t post their photos. I’ll admit it’s tempting: Who doesn’t get a dopamine rush from a burst of likes or heart emojis? It’s not surprising that the average mom checks Instagram six times a day, according to the platform’s data. Yet I wonder how parents can navigate sharing while relaying the message that life is about more than presenting the perfect image. In weighing the costs and benefits of social media in my life, I realized that signing up for Instagram would only tempt me to be more superficial.

I also worry about the example I’m setting. Since social-media use is associated with disordered eating and body-image issues, do I want my daughter and son to see me documenting my life and then imitate that behavior? When studies link social-media use with depression and anxiety in young adults, and the average teenager spends nine hours a day in front of a screen, it’s worth considering the impact being visibly tethered to our phones may be having on our kids.

In my mind, healthy living requires participating in the moment in a meaningful way. That’s not easy to do while staging and posting photos, then tracking responses. Robin Berman, one of my favorite psychiatrists and author of “Permission to Parent,” prescribes looking at your children with “hearts in your eyes”: truly seeing who they are with warmth. But it’s difficult to appreciate a child’s inner world from the vantage point of an iPhone camera.

Your social-media feed may be full of kids bearing toothy smiles, but will these children be grinning when they reflect back on their meticulously documented childhoods? Since my toddlers have no idea I’ll be broadcasting a photo I’ve taken of them, it doesn’t seem fair for me to do so. If I were a teenager today, I think I’d be furious if my parents had spent my early years urging me to pose for anyone scrolling.

As a psychologist who teaches people how to regulate their emotions, I can imagine the young girl I overheard sitting on my therapy couch a decade from now, describing how her well-meaning mother chronicled her every move for a distant audience rather than paying close attention to her.

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MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

The Favourite – A Review By Marilyn Penn

By on November 26th, 2018

http://politicalmavens.com/

There’s a grand guignol atmosphere in “The Favourite,” with 18th century men coiffed in long sheep-like wigs, made up to look like drag queens and Queen Anne herself looking more like a madwoman than a regal character. Though the story of the queen and Sarah and Abigail, the two women who service her in every sense of the word, is loosely based on historical fact, the language is full of contemporary curse words which seem anachronistic. Surprisingly, they turn out to have been in use during that century – especially the two four letter words with a “u” as the only vowel; this is significant because it lends credibility to some of the sexual behavior you might have thought was not in vogue at that time. Certainly there is no historical record to support the movie’s contentions.

Everything about The Favourite is over the top – the incredible paneled palace, the background music which occasionally rises to the foreground, the oversized ambitions of Sarah and Abigail, well-played by Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone and the complicated, convoluted character of Anne herself in a tour-de-force performance by Olivia Colman. She is sickly and dependent yet willful and demanding; at times a fool and then surprisingly capable of rising to the exigencies of her rank. She remains a deeply unhappy woman who mourns her miscarriages and stillbirths and the early death of her child. She is supremely eccentric and prone to childish tantrums such as summarily dismissing her various ministers so she can return to her bed. Though she is the fulcrum around whom the plot revolves, the main subjects of interest are the two women who are distant cousins, each vying for Anne’s attention and rewards.

Lady Sarah Churchill is a commanding presence who, as the queen’s main lady in waiting, has taken over most of the decision making for the country. She is clever, informed and the wife of the Duke of Marlborough who was leading the British troops in a war against the French. Historically, Sarah is credited with having been the most powerful woman in France in her day. After noticing that Abigail has been demoted to being a scullery maid, Sarah rescues her, bringing her upstairs where the work is more pleasant and where she subtly manages to insinuate herself into the queen’s affections and bedchamber.

How this happens is told in graphic scenes involving nudity, sex, politics, violence, treachery, romance, disillusionment and some surprises. At a certain point, the movie begins to feel like a pile-on that actually makes you lose interest because there’s just too much to digest. The soundtrack, effective at first in foretelling an ominous development, eventually turns into a headache-producing disturbance. But the movie will make you run to the internet to learn more about this unusual triangle of women – no mean accomplishment for director Yorgos Lanthimos.

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Airbnb’s Anti-Israel Hypocrisy The tech company will operate anywhere and serve anyone—except Jews in the West Bank.

By on November 26th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/airbnbs-anti-israel-hypocrisy-1543175767

Two very different organizations took action last week against Jews owning property in the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority sentenced two Palestinians to 15 years hard labor for selling land to Jews. And Airbnb, the tech behemoth and online marketplace for lodging, announced it would no longer serve Jewish communities in the West Bank. The two actions differ in brutality but are based on the same idea: Jews should have no home in the West Bank.

Under Airbnb’s policy, an American Jew with a rental property in the West Bank is barred from listing it for rent on the website. But an American Arab is welcome to list his home a few hundred meters away, even though the Palestinian law forbidding real-estate deals with Jews carries a maximum penalty of death. That openly racist policy doesn’t trigger Airbnb’s delisting policy.

Airbnb admits the West Bank is the site of complicated “historical disputes.” Until 1948, the West Bank was part of the League of Nations’ 1922 British Mandate for Palestine, created to become a “national home” for the Jewish people. In 1947, the U.N. General Assembly passed a non-binding resolution suggesting the territory be divided into Arab and Jewish states, an idea the Arabs immediately shot down. Indeed, when the mandate ended and Israel declared independence in 1948, all its Arab neighbors invaded immediately. Jordan occupied the West Bank and massacred or expelled every Jew in the area, took their homes and destroyed their synagogues. Israel only regained the West Bank after Jordan foolishly attacked again in 1967. Many Jews then returned, including to lands Jews had purchased before Israeli independence.

Since then, the dispute has narrowed. Israel signed the Oslo Accords with the Palestinian leadership in 1993, leaving all settlements—the new and returning Jewish communities—under complete Israeli control. Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1994. To be sure, the Palestinians still demand the removal of Jews from the entire West Bank. But Airbnb’s policy applies only to the Israeli—primarily Jewish—communities in the disputed territories.

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