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January 2019

The Women’s March Follows Farrakhan off a Cliff Its leaders’ anti-Semitism drives off the Democratic Party and the Southern Poverty Law Center.By Elliot Kaufman

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-womens-march-follows-farrakhan-off-a-cliff-11548104190?cx_testId=16&cx_testVariant=cx&cx_artPos=0&cx_tag=collabctx&cx_navSource=newsReel#cxrecs_s

Saturday’s Women’s March was much smaller than the original, held in 2017. It was notable not only because far fewer showed up but for who stayed away. The Democratic Party disavowed its partnership with the march, as did the Southern Poverty Law Center, Emily’s List, the Human Rights Campaign, NARAL, the Center for American Progress and hundreds of other liberal interest groups. The march had 550 official partners in 2018 and less than half as many this year. One by one, the pink hats came off.

What happened? The group that yelled loudest about Mr. Trump’s bigotry was brought low by bigotry of its own. Tablet reported last month that at the first meeting to organize the Women’s March, four days after Mr. Trump’s election, two of the group’s leaders, Carmen Perez and Tamika Mallory, insisted that, in the reporters’ paraphrase, “Jewish people bore a special collective responsibility as exploiters of black and brown people” and were leaders of the slave trade. Vanessa Wruble, a key organizer who is Jewish, told reporters Ms. Perez and Ms. Mallory later berated her: “You people hold all the wealth.” Ms. Wruble was pushed out of Women’s March Inc. by late January 2017.

So were other early organizers, leaving Ms. Perez, Ms. Mallory, Linda Sarsour and Mari Lynn Foulger, who calls herself Bob Bland, as co-chairmen. The four were the toast of the “resistance,” drawing effusions from prominent Democrats. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand called them “the suffragists of our time.” Nancy Pelosi praised them as “courageous.” The American Civil Liberties Union’s magazine lauded Ms. Sarsour as a “leader in the truest form of the word.” The ACLU is still a march sponsor, as are the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and the American Federation of Teachers—never mind that three of the four co-chairmen admire Louis Farrakhan. CONTINUE AT SITE

Pelosi’s Dreamer Pawns Democrats won’t talk even after Trump offers extended legal status.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pelosis-dreamer-pawns-11548103367

Democrats rejected Donald Trump’s compromise on immigration even before it was offered on Saturday, and that by itself should be instructive for the American public. Do Democrats want a deal to reopen the government and offer new security for more than a million immigrants, or do they want to use them as pawns against Mr. Trump?

On the evidence so far, the answer is the latter. Mr. Trump’s offer of extended legal status for young adults brought to the U.S. illegally as children, as well as to Central Americans and others with expiring visas, would provide relief against deportation for hundreds of thousands.

Isn’t this something Democrats want, or at least profess to? Democrats have sent a million press releases claiming to care about the Dreamers, Haitians, and those fleeing violence in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. It’s true Mr. Trump has held out this offer before only to renege. But here’s a new chance to get Mr. Trump’s signature on a legislative fix, at least for some years, without relying on the vagaries of courts and executive orders.

In return Mr. Trump wants money for border security and his wall, but political compromise means both sides get something. The wall may be a poisonous word for Democrats, but the President has already walked back his original demands. He is now talking about “steel barriers at high-priority locations,” not across all 2,000 miles. A fence of some kind already exists across 700 or so miles, the Administration is building another 115, and Mr. Trump wants to build another 230.

A Democratic presidential candidate (Tulsi Gabbard-Hawai District 2) says both sides to blame for shutdown impasse By Rick Moran

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/01/a_democratic_presidential_candidate_says_both_sides_to_blame_for_shutdown_impasse.html

Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is an unconventional Democrat. She deployed to Iraq with the Hawaii National Guard in 2005 and then promptly came out against American interventionism in the Middle East. She met with Syrian tyrant Bashar Assad. She joined Republicans in calling on President Obama to identify “radical Islam” as a major threat and refers to herself as a “hawk” on terrorism. She supported Bernie Sanders for president in 2016.

At one time, she was considered a “rising star” on the Democratic left. But while she is an economic progressive, her approach to foreign policy has angered the left.

She recently apologized for previous “anti-LGBTQ” statements, proving that on some issues, she is a very conventional Democrat. Now, having announced her intention to run for the Democratic nomination for president, she appears willing to stake out positions in opposition to her party.

Yesterday, she said that both sides are to blame for the shutdown logjam.

Politico:

“The problem here is that this issue, like so many others in Washington, are being relegated to partisan politics,” she said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“Where if a Republican is putting forward a proposal, Democrats are going to shoot it down. If Democrats are putting forward a proposal, Republicans are going to shoot it down, really thinking about which party can call a win on this issue.”

The Black Panthers Were Murderous Thugs Who Don’t Deserve Public Accolades Violent activists who sowed seeds of division, hindered racial harmony, and tortured real people are not worth exalting on college campuses. By Ariana Welsh

http://thefederalist.com/2019/01/21/black-panthers-murderous-thugs-dont-deserve-public-accolades/

When I walked into the library of my university mid-semester and spotted a massive Black Panther Party tribute exhibit, it felt like a line had been crossed.

When my generation thinks of the 1960s, we think of milkshakes and poodle skirts. The civil rights movement, the war on crime, and World War II are reserved for pages in a textbook. The only thing that was truly passed down from my elders in that time period to me was a feeling of fear at two names: the Klu Klux Klan and the Black Panthers. They were radical organizations made up of thugs who sowed violence and inspired terror. Both managed to survive at least two generations.

Apparently, the Black Panthers’ reputation has been rehabilitated. The exhibit took up an entire room in the front entrance of the university library, and had a pristine, museum-grade quality rarely seen in the type of place that makes you pay for your own printer paper. It was made up of black and white photos of elders whose only significant action was to smile harmlessly at the camera.

Hosted, rather ironically, by the school’s Center for Judaic, Holocaust, and Peace Studies, the photos, according to the front board, “reveal the humanity of the groups’ members rather than their invented personae.” Black Panther members “are real people, with real stories, who are your next door neighbors. They don’t fit the profile of rabid, anti-white, cop-hating terrorists…”

Ericka Huggins is one of the smiling old ladies in the exhibit. She helped torture young Alex Rackley with other Black Panther members, boiling the water they used to pour over his chest and commanding him to be quiet when he pleaded for mercy. Now she’s a lecturing professor. Rackley is dead. After falsely admitting he was an informant in hopes of stopping the hours of torture, Black Panthers killed him and dumped his body in a river.

No, Forever War In Syria Won’t Protect The United States If the U.S. experience in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria should have told our foreign policy elites anything, it is that Washington can’t resolve distant political problems.By Daniel DePetris

http://thefederalist.com/2019/01/21/no-forever-war-syria-wont-protect-united-states/

Army Chief Warrant Officer Jonathan R. Farmer, 37, of Boynton Beach, Florida. Navy Chief Petty Officer Shannon M. Kent, 35, of Pine Plains, New York. Defense Intelligence Agency civilian Scott A. Wirtz, 42, of St. Louis, Missouri. Interpreter Ghadir Taher, 27, from East Point, Georgia.

The bodies of the four Americans from four separate parts of the country—victims of a January 16 Islamic State suicide bombing near a popular restaurant in the Syrian city of Manbij—made their final return home to Dover Air Force Base on January 19. It was a vivid and graphic reminder to the American people that U.S. forces remain very much in harm’s way.

To the politicians back home, the deaths of four Americans in a Syrian town few in the United States could find on a map is a sign of ISIS’s sudden resurgence. The American people have been led to believe that President Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria is emboldening the enemy. Sen. Lindsey Graham, the interventionist who has never seen a world problem that couldn’t be solved through military force, even suggested that Trump’s decision may have laid the groundwork for the bombing in Manbij. Sen. Jack Reed said the attack is proof the administration needs to “reevaluate” a troop departure.

Then there was Brett McGurk, who viewed Trump’s order as so detrimental to the counterterrorism effort that he resigned his position as U.S. envoy to the counter-ISIS coalition in protest. In a Washington Post editorial McGurk warned that the entire mission was now at risk of being jeopardized. “The president’s decision to leave Syria,” McGurk wrote, “was made without deliberation, consultation with allies or Congress, assessment of risk, or appreciation of facts.”

Trump’s Border Wall Deal Rebuffed by Dems Nothing is good enough for leftists who treasure an insecure border. Matthew Vadum

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272623/trumps-border-wall-deal-rebuffed-dems-matthew-vadum

President Donald J. Trump extended an olive branch to Democrats on the weekend, conceding much of their immigration policy agenda in a bold longshot bid to move forward with building a southern border wall and ending the nearly month-long partial government shutdown but left-wing lawmakers rejected his overture even before he addressed the nation on TV on Saturday.

Trump’s address came after a particularly frosty week in Washington.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) informed the president he would be unable to deliver a State of the Union Address in Congress because the money wasn’t there to provide security. Trump countered by canceling a decadent junket Pelosi and other fat cat lawmakers had been planning overseas. At the eleventh-hour, while lawmakers and their guests were en route to a military airport to fly away, the president deprived them of the use of U.S. military aircraft.

Anticipating Democrat criticism, Trump said on TV, “walls are not immoral,” adding that a wall “will save many lives and stop drugs from pouring into our country.”

“This is not a concrete structure from sea to sea,” he said. “These are steel barriers in high-priority locations.”

Kamala Harris Will Kick Off 2020 Run on ‘American Values’ With Speech in … Silicon Valley By Tyler O’Neil

https://pjmedia.com/trending/kamala-harris-announces-2020-run-on-american-values-with-speech-in-silicon-valley/

On Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) announced her candidacy for the 2020 presidential election with a 1-minute video extolling “American values” and inviting supporters to join her … in Oakland — a rising liberal tech hub increasingly associated with Silicon Valley.

“Truth, justice, decency, equality, freedom, democracy. These aren’t just words, they’re the values we as Americans cherish, and they’re all on the line now,” Harris began. “The future of our country depends on you and millions of others lifting our voices to fight for our American values. That’s why I’m running for President of the United States.”

Yet despite her references to “American values,” Harris also invited her supporters to join her for a speech in Oakland on Sunday, January 27.

While Harris was born in Oakland, the city still seems an odd choice for a first speech. Oakland is very large and very diverse, but it has extremely rich pockets and is a growing center for technology companies. It is increasingly associated with Silicon Valley.

Oakland is the birthplace of the Mai Tai and has the third highest concentration of lesbians. Silicon Valley in particular is known for sexual deviance and sexual harassment, not to mention the constant stigmatization of conservative views as “hateful” — something Kamala Harris in particular is quite familiar with.

Kamala Harris may have been born in Oakland, but that does not mean Americans want Oakland values. CONTINUE AT SITE

Should the FBI Run the Country? By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2019/01/20/should-the

Since the media would doubtless answer that loaded question, “It depends on the president,” let us imagine the following scenario.

Return to 2008, when candidate Barack Obama had served only about three years in the U.S. Senate, his sum total of foreign policy experience. And he was running against the overseas old-hand, decorated veteran, and national icon John McCain—a bipartisan favorite in Washington, D.C.

During the campaign, unfounded rumors had swirled about the rookie Obama that he might ease sanctions on Iran, distance the United States from Israel, and alienate the moderate Arab regimes, such as the Gulf monarchies and Egypt.

Stories also abounded that the Los Angeles Times had suppressed the release of a supposedly explosive “Khalidi tape,” in which Obama purportedly thanked the radical Rashid Khalidi for schooling him on the Middle East and correcting his earlier biases and blind spots, while praising the Palestinian activist for his support for armed resistance against Israel.

Even more gossip circulated that photos existed of a smiling Barack Obama with Louis Farrakhan, the Black Muslim extremist and radical pro-Gaddafi patron, who in the past had praised Adolf Hitler and reminded the Jews again about the finality of being sent to the ovens. (A photo of a smiling Obama and Farrakhan did emerge, but mysteriously only after President Obama left office).

Imagine that all these tales in 2008 might have supposedly “worried” Bush lame-duck and pro-McCain U.S. intelligence officials, who informally met to discuss possible ways of gleaning more information about this still mostly unknown but scary Obama candidacy.

Prime minister of Muslim-majority nation Mali to visit Israel in coming weeks

https://worldisraelnews.com/prime-minister-of-muslim-majority-nation-mali-to-visit-israel-in-coming-weeks/

Israel is reportedly preparing for an official visit from the head of state of yet another Muslim-majority African nation in the near future.

By World Israel News Staff

According to Israel’s Channel 13, the Jewish state is preparing to welcome Mali’s Prime Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga in the coming weeks.

The historic visit represents another step in Israeli premiere Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategy of improving ties with nations in Africa, including those with Muslim majorities, such as Mali.

According to the report, Maiga’s visit will occur before Israeli elections at the beginning of April.

In 1973, Mali cut ties with Israel in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War during an era in which a number of African nations selected Arab allies over the Jewish state.

The announcement regarding the Malian leader’s visit follows a 2018 meeting between Netanyahu and Maiga in Liberia, after which Netanyahu’s office announced the beginning of a new era of “warming” relations between the two nations.

Mali joins other African countries that recently reestablished ties with Israel following decades of severed relations, including Chad, a nation from which Netanyahu just returned. Netanyahu traveled to Chad to officially relaunch ties after 47 years last week.

In response to the development, Islamic terrorists claiming to be affiliated with al-Qaeda killed 10 United Nations peacekeepers in Chad, and injured another 25, blaming the attack on the government’s decision to renew ties with Israel.

Nathan Phillips Lied. The Media Bought It. By Kyle Smith

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/nathan-phillips-lied-the-media-bought-it/

There was far more than met the eye to the Covington Catholic story, but that didn’t stop the popular press from vilifying its students.

If you’re in a public place and someone starts heckling you, are you entitled to heckle back? How about if someone does something much worse than heckling you in a public place? What if that person in fact takes a drum up to you and starts banging it in your face? Are you entitled to heckle back? How about smirking? Are you allowed to smirk?

I think you are, even if you’re wearing a MAGA hat. Even if you’re an entitled brat. Even if you’re an entitled Catholic brat.

We’ll stipulate that the Catholic boys from a high school in Kentucky were a little obnoxious when an indigenous man named Nathan Phillips banged a drum at them in front of the Lincoln Memorial on Friday. But Phillips was being a lot more obnoxious. To put it another way, if you were minding your own business in a public place and someone came right up to you and put a drum up to your face and made a huge racket inches from your nose, would you be happy about it?

The kids from Covington Catholic High School in Covington, Ky., were ambassadors for causes much bigger than themselves: Catholicism and the right to life. As such, they should have comported themselves better than to jeer and do a tomahawk chop in front of Phillips. Ideally, the kids would have ignored him and walked away. Until about ten minutes ago, it was broadly agreed in our culture that kids are allowed to do some dumb things because they’re kids. Should these kids’ lives be ruined because some of them responded to obnoxious provocation by being a bit rude themselves? I’d say their reaction was if anything more restrained than you would expect from teenagers. I’d advise them to do better next time. I certainly wouldn’t consider expulsion.

Phillips, on the other hand, is an adult, and he repeatedly lied about what happened to the Washington Post, which was utterly taken in by him and reported everything he said uncritically.