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April 2019

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Eric Swalwell, California Democrat, says he’s running for president By Camilo Montoya-Galvez

By on April 9th, 2019

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/eric-swalwell-2020-california-congressman-tells-stephen-colbert-hes-running-for-president/

California Rep. Eric Swalwell, one of President Trump’s most outspoken critics in Congress, announced he is seeking the presidential nomination in what is shaping up to be the largest Democratic primary field in U.S. history.

The 38-year-old San Francisco area lawmaker announced his presidential campaign during an appearance on “The Late Night Show with Stephen Colbert” airing Monday night on CBS.

“I’ve already done a lot, but I can do more,” he said in a clip released by the show. “I’ve been in Congress for six years. I’ve defended our country from the Intelligence Committee while Democracy has been on the ropes.”

Swalwell enters a crowded race for president with more than a dozen candidates seeking to capture the Democratic nomination and thwart Mr. Trump’s reelection bid next year. To date, 17 other Democrats have declared their candidacy for president or launched presidential exploratory committees, including Sens. Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren; Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan; Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard; Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke; and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

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Evaluating the 2020 Democratic Primary Field By Sean Trende

By on April 9th, 2019

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/04/09/evaluating_the_2020_democratic_primary_field_139997.html

Assessing the Democratic presidential primary at this point is a nearly impossible task. With around 15 serious candidates who have declared or formed an exploratory committee, and with another handful seriously looking at joining the race, the slate is very much in flux. Like the Republican primary in 2016, small changes in the polling position of candidates can translate to a large change in their position relative to one another, which in turn incentivizes rising candidates to stay in. So rather than, say, power-ranking the candidates – how does one really decide how to rank John Hickenlooper versus Jay Inslee? – I will look at them through the lens of “buy” versus “sell,” based upon the RCP Poll Average.

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Palestinians Target Students by Khaled Abu Toameh

By on April 9th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14041/palestinians-target-students

The Palestinian students are being targeted because of their political affiliations and not because of any crime they committed.

While the Palestinian Authority and Hamas are busy beating up each other’s supporters, “pro-Palestinian” activists on US and Canadian university campuses are busy blaming Israel for Palestinian woes.

For these alleged activists — who are remarkably passive when it comes to truly assisting Palestinians — their protests seem more about hating Israel than anything else. If they really cared about the Palestinians, they might stop abusing Israel long enough to notice the abuse that the Palestinian “leaders” inflict on the people under them.

“Pro-Palestinian” activists at university campuses in the US and other Western countries have long been waging various campaigns to denounce Israel and hold it fully responsible for the continued “suffering” of Palestinians.

These activists, however, seem to care little about violations committed against the Palestinians by the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank or Hamas in the Gaza Strip — even when fellow students in the West Bank and Gaza are being targeted.

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Qatar: ‘A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing’ Bankrolling Islamism in Europe by Giulio Meotti

By on April 9th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14042/qatar-europe-islamism-finance

“We have been reporting Doha’s ideological and religious penetration for years. In the form of investments and financial operations, Qatar extends its proselytizing network every day, with serious damage to European societies…” — Souad Sbai, the Moroccan-born president of Italy’s Averroes Studies Center.

Qatar has been funding mega-mosques across Europe. Qatar’s goal is apparently to Islamicize the European diaspora.

“[Qatar’s] English-language stations produce slick propaganda against Qatar’s enemies, dressed up in Western liberal rhetoric. Al Jazeera’s latest venture – its social media channel, AJ+ – is aimed at young, progressive Americans. Its documentaries on the evils of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Trump administration are sandwiched between glowing coverage of transgender rights campaigns and emotional appeals for the plight of asylum seekers on America’s southern border – seemingly incongruous topics for a broadcaster controlled by a Wahhabi regime… Qatar is now the largest foreign donor to American universities.” — Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum.

In October, Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini visited Qatar, the “energy giant”, where he praised the emirate for “not sponsoring extremism anymore”. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. Qatar, “the other Wahhabi state”, apparently is interested not only in its economic relationship with Europe, but also in exporting its brand of political Islam.

According to a new book, Qatar Papers: How the Emirate Finances Islam in France and Europe, by two French journalists, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, Qatar has distributed 22 million euros to Islamic projects in Italy alone. This funding has had virtually a single beneficiary: the Union of Islamic Communities and Organizations in Italy (UCOII), accused of closeness to Qatar’s pet organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, the mouthpiece of which is Qatar’s media outlet, Al Jazeera, located in the capital city of Doha.

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Who Commits Most of the World’s Extremist Violence? Evil as they are, white supremacists aren’t even close to the top of the list. Seth Barron

By on April 9th, 2019

https://www.city-journal.org/global-extremist-violence

Last week, the New York Times featured an illustrated timeline of “white extremist” killings over the last nine years, with lines demonstrating citation and affiliation among the killers. According to the Times, the record shows “an informal global network of white extremists whose violent attacks are occurring with greater frequency in the West.”

The idea that white supremacist violence is a growing global threat has gained more currency recently, notably in the wake of the ghastly Christchurch mosque massacre, when an avowed white nationalist murdered 50 Muslims. New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for instance, asserted that “White supremacists committed the largest # of extremist killings in 2017.” No one will deny that racial hatred is an evil ideology, and that people who kill in the name of white supremacy commit evil—but is it true that white extremists are sowing a growing amount of worldwide mayhem?

The evidence suggests otherwise. Even a superficial glance at the record indicates that of the nearly 20,000 people killed in thousands of extremist killings in 2017, white supremacists were responsible for very few. The worst terrorist event of 2017, according to the State Department, was the explosion of a truck bomb outside the Safari Hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia, which killed more than 580 people. This violent act is believed to have been the work of Al-Shabaab, which was responsible for 97 percent of the 370 instances of extremist killings in Somalia in 2017, accounting for about 1,400 deaths—mostly civilian. The remaining violent acts were carried out by Jabha East Africa (ISIS-Somalia), a dissident Al-Shabaab splinter group.

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Same People Behind Iraq War Lies Pushed Russian Collusion By Julie Kelly

By on April 9th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/04/08/same-people-behind-iraq-war-lies-pu

For more than two years they misled us.

Exploiting fear and confusion after a shocking event, they warned that our country was in imminent danger at the hands of a mad man. They insisted that legitimate intelligence, including a CIA report issued a month before a national election and a dossier produced by reliable sources in the United Kingdom, proved the threat was real. The subject monopolized discussions on Capitol Hill, in the White House, and in the press.

They argued that the situation was so dire that it was straining our relationship with strategic allies. Any evidence to the contrary was readily dismissed. And anyone who questioned their agenda was ridiculed as a coward, a dupe, or a conspiracy theorist. The news media dedicated endless air time and column inches to anyone who wanted to repeat the falsehood.

But an investigative report released two years after the propaganda campaign began found no evidence to support their central claim. The CIA report was highly flawed. The official dossier, some concluded, was deceptive and “sexed-up.”

No, I’m not referring here to the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, although the similarities are nearly identical. I’m talking about the period between 2002 and 2004 when many of the very same people who recently peddled collusion fiction also insisted that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction—including material to produce nuclear bombs. On the heels of the horrors of 9/11, the United States and our allies waged war against Iraq in 2003 based primarily on that assurance.

But in 2004, a special advisor to the CIA concluded Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. There were no stockpiles of biological or chemical agents; no plans to develop a nuclear bomb. The main argument for the war had been wholly discredited. But it was too late: The conflict officially raged on for another seven years, including a “surge” of 20,000 more U.S. troops in 2007 at the behest of the late Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.). We still have a troop presence in Iraq to this day.

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Why Are 2020 Democrats Embracing Slavery Reparations? By Matt Margolis

By on April 9th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/why-are-2020-democrats-embracing-slavery-reparations/
Today, Senator Cory Booker, one of the many Democrats running for president, announced legislation that would “form a commission to recommend reparations for slavery.” According to Booker, “This bill is a way of addressing head-on the persistence of racism, white supremacy, and implicit racial bias in our country. It will bring together the best minds to study the issue and propose solutions that will finally begin to right the economic scales of past harms and make sure we are a country where all dignity and humanity is affirmed.”

Spoiler alert, Senator Booker: It won’t solve any problems. It won’t satisfy anyone. What exactly do proponents of slavery reparations believe that they will do that affirmative action policies in education, employment, awarding of government contracts, etc., etc. couldn’t? If the election of Barack Obama to the highest office in the land (despite his radicalism and lack of qualifications) wasn’t proof that we, as a nation, have moved far beyond the days of slavery, then what will? A check? For how much? Will we finally be able to put an end to affirmative action policies? Of course not, that’s not the point.

Ben Shapiro has previously noted that just the question of how reparations would be implemented is in itself something proponents of reparations can’t answer with unity. So, it’s safe to say that reparations would not be a cure-all to right the wrongs of the past and put slavery behind us once and for all, but just another wealth redistribution program that would precede another, and another, and another to solve something that, in the eyes of those pushing for it, will never actually be fixed to satisfaction.

Of course, my real question is not what Booker thinks reparations will accomplish (since we all know they won’t accomplish anything) but why this is becoming a litmus test for 2020 Democrats. Most of the 2020 Democrats who attended Al Sharpton’s National Action Network convention in New York City last week expressed support for the commission Booker’s legislation aims to create. This kind of thing may play well to African-American Democrats, but opposition to slavery reparations has been strong and consistent over the years, with roughly 7 in 10 Americans opposing them. With such strong opposition to reparations, supporting them is clearly not a winning message in the 2020 general election.

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CAIR Planning Huge Push in SoCal The subversive jihadist group goes on offense on the Left Coast. Matthew Vadum

By on April 9th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273423/cair-planning-huge-push-socal-matthew-vadum

The terrorist-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations announced plans to “mobilize the Muslim community” in 80 mosques in Southern California in order to push its Islamist, anti-American agenda.

CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in 2007 in an alleged criminal conspiracy to support both HAMAS and the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. In 2014 the United Arab Emirates designated CAIR a terrorist organization.

In remarks largely ignored by the mainstream media, CAIR-Los Angeles Executive Director Hussam Ayloush unveiled the plans at CAIR’s 4th Annual Dinner in Woodlands Hills, California on March 23, as Gateway Pundit reported.

“California is home to the largest Muslim community in the country,” Ayloush said. “One million Muslims reside in California.”

“Through organizing the community here we can uplift the rest of the country, not just the state. Imagine the leverage we make here.”

CAIR will mobilize mosques in Santa Barbara and across the state, Ayloush said.

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The Ilhan Omar of American Journalism? The L.A. Times’ shameless Islam apologist. Bruce Bawer

By on April 9th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273410/ilhan-omar-american-journalism-bruce-bawer

I first became aware of Lorraine Ali over a decade ago, when, as a staff writer at Newsweek, she cruelly savaged another Ali, namely Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who, like Lorraine, had a Muslim background, but who, unlike Lorraine, had (on 9/11) rejected her faith, courageously calling it out for its ideology of brutal conquest, its systematic subjugation of women, its inculcation of contempt for the infidel, its endorsement of such primitive practices as honor killing and forced marriage, and its prescription of the death penalty for apostasy, adultery, homosexuality, and other transgressions. In her memoir, Infidel, Ayaan (who, owing to jihadist threats, has lived for years with round-the-clock bodyguards) recounted her rise from dire poverty and barbaric oppression in Somalia and Saudi Arabia to a seat in the Dutch legislature, where, defying dhimmi colleagues, she eulogized Western freedoms and stood up for the rights and equality of Muslim women – thereby becoming, for many of us, a world-class heroine.

For Lorraine, however, the L.A.-born daughter of an Iraqi immigrant, Ayaan was, and is, a traitor against a religion that routinely romanticizes; hence, in her review of Infidel on February 26, 2007, Lorraine accused Ayaan of “throwing a rhetorical hand grenade” at Islam – thereby providing, as I wrote in my 2009 book Surrender, “a good example of how anti-jihadist rhetoric is described in violent terms by the same kinds of journalists who, when describing jihad itself, opt for delicate euphemisms.”

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A Radical Suggestion: Diana West

By on April 9th, 2019

https://www.theepochtimes.com/a-radical-suggestion_2869905.html

I wouldn’t call it an out-of-body experience exactly, but I did get a thrill in reading the autobiography of former CIA Director Richard Helms, “A Look Over My Shoulder.” It served as strong validation of the line of research I followed to write my new book, “The Red Thread: A Search for Ideological Drivers Inside the Anti-Trump Conspiracy.”

Helms’ book explained that it’s this same line of research—which Helms followed in 2003—that helped identify Soviet agents.

Helms, who led the CIA between 1966 and 1973, was recounting a post-retirement luncheon he had with a World War II buddy from the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the CIA. It was the day before Helms was to meet with the CIA’s counterintelligence staff, and his old friend told him: “Remind them that no intelligence agency can for very long be any better than its counterintelligence component. And recommend that they chisel the words into the granite entrance out there.”

Helms continued: “He had a point. A quick glance in the rearview mirror shows that the most notorious traitors and successful spies in this century would have been barred from sensitive government work, or exposed early in their careers, had basic counterintelligence measures been taken.”

As Helms explained them, these basic counterintelligence measures include conducting precisely the kind of research I have put together under the rubric of “red threads” to build ideological profiles of leading persons in the anti-Trump conspiracy: Nellie Ohr, Christopher Steele, John Brennan, James Comey, and others.

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