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February 2020

The Balkanized Democrats The contentious Democrat primaries are exposing the fraud of “diversity.” Bruce Thornton

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/02/balkanized-democrats-bruce-thornton/

The slogan of “diversity” has always contained a fundamental incoherence. On the surface, the variety of identities expressed mainly in cosmetic differences hides deeper, more contentious variations ignored by diversicrats and their media champions. Chanting “diversity is our strength,” the purveyors of “rainbow coalitions” forget that diversity can also be a weakness despite the conformity of their public “woke” political aims. The contentious Democrat presidential primaries have exposed these fissures that are threatening the Left’s aim of retaking presidency.

Start with the obvious division within the party: That between Bernie Sanders and a DNC establishment that believes, probably correctly, that a cranky socialist village explainer is electorally radioactive. Bernie and his passionate Bros have already been primed by the 2016 primary to suspect the party establishment of “moderate” squishes, who are plotting to promote plutocrat Michael Bloomberg and his billions as the candidate, or to rig the convention once again. Whether Bernie is the candidate or not, this conflict will leave a lot of bad blood that will weaken the party in the general election.

The permanent threat to “rainbow” diversity, however, is social and economic class. All the Democrat primary front-runners are rich one-percenters, with the exception of Mayor Pete, who languishes among the top ten percent of earners.  And all the candidates this cycle have been political insiders, senators mostly, and are festooned with gilt-edged university and professional credentials. Especially during televised debates, this graphic privilege is an embarrassment to a party that touts diversity and its strengths, and styles itself as the party of the working class and dispossessed. And what’s so “transformational” about rich and university credentialed people wielding power? Since the days of Julius Caesar, ambitious elites have championed the plebeians in order to aggrandize their own power and privilege.

Trump’s Chances for Re-Election Are Looking Better and Better By Victor Davis Hanson

https://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/trumps-chances-for-re-election-are-looking-better-and-better/

Donald Trump has at least five strong historical arguments for his re-election.

One, he is an incumbent. Incumbent presidents have won 14 of 19 re-election bids since 1900.

The few who lost did not enjoy positive approval ratings. In a Gallup poll from earlier this month, Trump enjoyed his highest approval rating since his inauguration, squeezing out a 49 percent favorable rating vs. 50 percent unfavorable.

Two, the public perception of the economy usually determines any presidential election — as incumbents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Herbert Hoover learned the hard way. Currently, the U.S. is enjoying low inflation, low interest rates, positive economic growth, near-record-low unemployment, rising workers’ wages, and record gas and oil production.

Three, unpopular optional wars derail incumbent presidencies.

The quagmire in Vietnam convinced Lyndon Johnson not to run for re-election in 1968. Jimmy Carter was tarnished by the seemingly never-ending Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-1981. The Iraq War drove down George W. Bush’s second-term approval ratings and helped derail his would-be Republican successor, John McCain.

This Is No Time to Go Wobbly on Capitalism As Democrats embrace outright socialism, some CEOs and Republicans call for unwise compromises. By Nikki Haley

https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-is-no-time-to-go-wobbly-on-capitalism-11582739248?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

Ms. Haley served as governor of South Carolina, 2011-17, and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, 2017-18. This op-ed is adapted from a speech she delivered Wednesday to the Hudson Institute.

There’s an important debate happening in America right now, a competition among three distinct views of the world. The first view is held by those who think capitalism is the best and fairest economic system the world has ever seen. The second is held by those who think socialism is the answer to a host of problems from climate change to inequality. Then there are those who are pushing a watered-down or hyphenated capitalism, which is the slow path to socialism.

Mark me down as a capitalist. I grew up in South Carolina as the daughter of Indian immigrants. My mom started a small business selling clothes and gifts. She worked hard and showed my brothers, my sister and me what it meant to live the American dream. The U.S. is a country where people can find jobs that match their talents and passions. America has lifted up more people and unleashed more prosperity than any other country in human history.

In 1800, you were lucky if you lived to be 40. A third of children didn’t live past 5. Since then, the U.S. has become an industrialized nation. Average real income per person has soared by 4,000% since 1800. Medical breakthroughs mean Americans live much longer. In 1820, 94% of the world lived in extreme poverty, earning less than $1.90 a day, adjusted for purchasing power. Today that figure is closer to 10%. Because of capitalism, the world is cleaner, healthier and wealthier than ever.

Bernie’s Foreign Sympathies He assails Americans who support Israel and calls Benjamin Netanyahu a ‘racist.’

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bernies-foreign-sympathies-11582763907?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Bernie Sanders wants Americans to believe he’s a garden variety “democratic socialist,” with the emphasis on democratic. But as media scrutiny of the Democratic presidential front-runner increases, we’re learning more about where his political sympathies lie, and they’re revealing about what a Sanders foreign policy would look like.

The latest example came this week when Mr. Sanders rejected an invitation to speak at the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee summit in Washington next week. The conference is a campaign staple for candidates of both parties, though there is no obligation to attend.

But Mr. Sanders didn’t merely reply with a polite “sorry I’m busy.” The Senator took to Twitter on Sunday to say that “I remain concerned about the platform AIPAC provides for leaders who express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights. For that reason I will not attend their conference.”

Bigotry? America’s pro-Israel lobby that includes more than 100,000 members nurtures racial hatred?

Apparently Mr. Sanders meant what he said because in the Charleston debate Tuesday night he was asked about the tweet and whether he would move the U.S. Embassy back to Tel Aviv from Jerusalem. President Trump moved the Embassy to Jerusalem in 2018 after many years of bipartisan Congressional support for doing so that included Joe Biden.

ROCKET DAYS IN GAZA: SHOSHANA BRYEN

https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/authors/shoshana-bryen/

Some of us have snow days; Israeli children have “rocket days” – if you need an explanation, you haven’t been paying attention. Children in southern Israel had a rocket day Monday (Feb.24th), which was fortunate because a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) rocket slammed into a kindergarten playground. It was only one of dozens launched from the Gaza Strip this week.

The fact that the rockets are PIJ, not Hamas, is, in fact, an important point.

While Hamas’s main enemy is the Palestinian Authority (PA), which it ousted from Gaza in a bloody and brutal war in 2007, the State of Israel provides a 20-mile wide physical barrier between the two. But PIJ is in Gaza and it has become increasingly unhappy with what it perceives to be Hamas’s “softness.” In December, the Israeli Security Cabinet was considering a long-term truce with Hamas. Israel-Hamas Truce talks, brokered by Egypt, have been a staple rumor for years, but this one gained traction in 2020 after PIJ commander Baha Abu al-Ata was assassinated.

Israel holds Hamas responsible for whatever happens in Gaza – which is appropriate – but it is also true that Hamas has never actually governed Gaza; it doesn’t know how and doesn’t want to. The goal for Hamas was to build an asymmetric force to challenge Israel. It tried tunneling under the border fence, rioting at the fence, shooting hundreds of rockets over the fence at Israel. With kites – and an “incendiary falcon” – in 2018, Hamas burned over 7,400 acres of land, an area equal to half of Manhattan. Tire burning produced an ecological catastrophe because tires have carcinogens that are released when they burn. (It isn’t clear whether Hamas considered the health effects on the Palestinian civilians who breathe the same air as Israeli civilians.) The kite fires burned cultivated fields and nature preserves and killed thousands of animals.

Argentina Reversing Progress on Probe Of Big Terror Bombings

https://www.nysun.com/foreign/argentina-reversing-progress-on-probe-of-big/91029/

Justice? Not as far Argentina’s new government is concerned. Buenos Aires is eager to walk back any progress made in investigations into the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires — the worst terror act in the country’s history — or the suspicious death of the man who was set to break the case open.

Previous probes yielded ample evidence that Iran was behind the attack on the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina, which killed 85 people, as well as an earlier terrorist act, the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, when 29 civilians perished. The new Argentinian government would rather ignore it all.

And no wonder. Since December, Kristina Kirchner is Argentina’s vice president, a demotion for the woman who was president between 2007 and 2015. At that time, after the Interpol already issued red notices for the arrests of Iranian officials and Hezbollah operatives, Mrs. Kirchner was set to form a joint investigative commission with Tehran.

Before he died, Kirchner’s foreign minister, Hector Timerman, who sealed struck in 2013 a Memorandum of Understanding with Tehran, scoffed once when I told him the proposed joint investigation sounded as credible as O.J. Simpson’s vow to find the “real killers.” Meanwhile the Interpol’s red notices were put on ice while Argentina sought to widen its trade with Iran.

In 2015 an investigator, Alberto Nisman, accused Mrs. Kirchner of scheming with the Iranians to allow the Hezbollah and Iranian operatives to escape justice for their alleged role in the AMIA bombing. The night before Nisman was scheduled to present detailed evidence of his findings to Argentina’s congress, he was found dead in his apartment’s bathroom with a single gunshot to the head.

Mrs. Kirchner and her supporters in the press quickly spread the notion that Nisman committed suicide — a strange act for a man about to make public a case marking the culmination of his life’s work. Consequent investigations completely demolished the suicide theory.

ELECTIONS ARE COMING: DAN LIPINSKY (D- ILLINOIS DISTRICT 3)MUST BE RE-ELECTED

ILLINOIS PRIMARY IS ON MARCH 17TH, 2020

HIS PRIMARY RIVAL IS MARIE NEWMAN….TO HELP DAN LIPINSKI PLEASE VISIT

https://lipinskiforcongress.com/

ILLINOIS PRIMARY IS ON MARCH 17TH, 2020

HIS PRIMARY RIVAL IS MARIE NEWMAN….TO HELP DAN LIPINSKI PLEASE VISIT

Dan Lipinski for Congress – 3rd Congressional District of Illinois
https://lipinskiforcongress.com/

JNS.org – A previously unseen 2018 campaign advertisement for an Illinois Democrat currently running for the US House of Representatives features attacks on her opponent for his support of AIPAC and his stance against the BDS movement.

Marie Newman, who is running in a primary against incumbent Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinski in the state’s 3rd Congressional District, which leans Democratic, narrowly lost to Lipinski by less than 3 percentage points in the 2018 Democratic primary.

Also in the ad, Shadin Maali, a mother, community advocate and small-business owner, stated that Newman “doesn’t pander to special interest groups like AIPAC.” (Maali also happens to be Newman’s campaign chair.)

JNS.org – A previously unseen 2018 campaign advertisement for an Illinois Democrat currently running for the US House of Representatives features attacks on her opponent for his support of AIPAC and his stance against the BDS movement.

Marie Newman, who is running in a primary against incumbent Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinski in the state’s 3rd Congressional District, which leans Democratic, narrowly lost to Lipinski by less than 3 percentage points in the 2018 Democratic primary.

Also in the ad, Shadin Maali, a mother, community advocate and small-business owner, stated that Newman “doesn’t pander to special interest groups like AIPAC.” (Maali also happens to be Newman’s campaign chair.)

Death by a Thousand Progressives Leftists are destroying our great country one attack at a time, and we have to stop them. Willie Richardson

https://patriotpost.us/articles/68823-death-by-a-thousand-progressives-2020-02-26

Pete Buttigieg is encouraging a nine-year-old boy to “come out the closet” on the stage of a presidential campaign. Hip Hop rapper YG targeted a conservative young man and threw him out of his concert because he would not say, “F— Donald Trump!” Two young Trump supporters were run off the road by a car because of their Trump flags on their bikes. To top it off liberal style, there are rumors that the tarnished Hillary Clinton is being courted as a VP candidate for Bloomberg. Sigh.

If America is to be destroyed it will not explode from outside, but implode from the inside. Hence the phrase “death by a thousand progressives.” America as we know it is being threatened by communism, socialism, and Marxism during this election year. Over a century ago, President Abraham Lincoln had this to say about the potential downfall of America:

At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

Court Rules Trump Admin Can Withhold Federal Grants to NYC, Seven States over Sanctuary Policies By Zachary Evans

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/court-rules-trump-admin-can-withhold-federal-grants-to-nyc-seven-states-over-sanctuary-policies/

A federal court on Wednesday ruled that the Trump administration could withhold grants to New York City, as well as seven states, due to their refusal to cooperate with the federal immigration enforcement efforts.

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled that the federal government could withhold funds from New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Washington, Massachusetts, Virginia and Rhode Island, over the states’ “sanctuary” laws. The states currently contain a number of cities, including New York City, with laws preventing local authorities from notifying Immigration and Customs Enforcement when an illegal immigrant is about to be released from jail.

The seven states and New York City sued the Trump administration in 2017 after federal immigration authorities demanded access to jails and the creation of a system to notify agents of the impending release of an illegal immigrant. The 2nd Circuit court’s decision reverses lower court rulings in favor of the states.

“So-called ‘sanctuary’ policies make all of us less safe because they intentionally undermine our laws and protect illegal aliens who have committed crimes,” then-attorney general Jeff Sessions said in 2017 when the suit was filed.

 

Earlier this month current Attorney General William Barr announced the Justice Department would initiate a series of lawsuits against localities with “sanctuary” laws.

In Iran, an Electoral Flop By Ilan Berman

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/iran-election-low-turnout-shows-regimes-weakening-state/

The regime’s continued rogue behavior has left the country increasingly isolated.

What if you held a national election and no one turned out? That’s the situation currently confronting Iranian officials, who are grappling with the aftermath of a truly disastrous outcome in last week’s parliamentary elections.

According to the official Fars News Agency, just 42 percent of Iranians voted in the country’s latest parliamentary elections, which took place on Friday. That’s the lowest percentage ever recorded in the 41-year history of the Islamic Republic. (By way of comparison: The turnout for Iran’s last parliamentary elections, in 2016, was approximately 60 percent.) Yet there’s good reason to believe that even those official numbers are inflated, and perhaps significantly so. Outside reports, relying on internal Iranian media sources, indicate that actual voting tallies fell far below the official 42 percent figure, forcing the regime to keep polling stations open longer than planned to scrape together even a minimum number of legitimate votes.

If you’ve been paying attention to events in Iran, that lackluster showing shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Over the past two years, persistent protests in practically every major Iranian city — and at virtually every stratum of Iranian society — have showcased a population that has become profoundly disaffected with the country’s clerical regime. These protests have flared anew in recent weeks, following the Iranian government’s accidental January 8 downing of a Ukrainian airliner amid heightened tensions with the United States. That event helped to convince many Iranians that their government is dangerously incompetent, and a real hazard to their own safety.

The regime in Tehran responded in predictable fashion: by trying to tighten its hold on political power. Ahead of Friday’s parliamentary vote, Iran’s government disqualified more than 7,000 applicants from running. That in and of itself is hardly new; Iran’s religious institutions have long been used to weed out politicians deemed insufficiently loyal to the country’s governing religious ideology. But this time, the ranks of those disqualified included dozens of parliamentarians who had previously passed clerical muster and were now standing for reelection. Apparently, Iran’s ayatollahs are now unable to tolerate even a semblance of pluralism within the country’s secular institutions.