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Ruthie Blum: Winds of Mideast change worth remembering at the ballot box Evidence of thawing anti-Israel enmity among states wishing to ally themselves with Washington against the ayatollah-led regime in Tehran should be cause for great celebration in the so-called “peace camp.”

Posted By on February 18th, 2020

https://www.jns.org/opinion/winds-of-mideast-change-worth-remembering-at-the-ballot-box/

The significance of two events that have been upstaged this week by the Hebrew media’s incessant coronavirus coverage cannot be overemphasized—particularly with the fast approach of the March 2 Knesset elections.

One was the rejection of an appeal by an activist in Bahrain sentenced to three years in prison for burning an Israeli flag during a pro-Palestinian protest last May. The other was the flight of an Israeli plane over the skies of Sudan.

Each occurred over the past weekend. Both indicate winds of change (one quite literal) in the Middle East, made possible through policies promoted by U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose enhancing of ties with Arab leaders in the effort to keep the Islamic Republic of Iran’s regional and global hegemonic ambitions at bay is bearing fruit.

The Bahraini verdict comes amid the now-overt warming of ties between Manama and Jerusalem, which do not have official diplomatic relations. In October, for instance, Israeli Foreign Ministry counter-terrorism department head Dana Benvenisti-Gabay attended the “Working Group on Maritime and Aviation Security” conference in Bahrain. The gathering of 60 countries—co-hosted by Manama, Washington and Warsaw—was referred to by the Bahraini foreign ministry as “an occasion to exchange views on how to deal with the Iranian menace and to guarantee freedom of navigation.”

That conference took place four months after the White House gave a preview of the economic side to its “Peace to Prosperity” plan during a two-day workshop in Bahrain last June, attended by businesspeople and diplomats from the Middle East and elsewhere. The much-touted happening—the preview of Trump’s “deal of the century” that was unveiled on Jan. 28 in the presence of Netanyahu—was boycotted by the Palestinian Authority, in whose interest it was held in the first place. (The Israeli government wasn’t even invited as a gesture to the P.A.)

It is in the above context that Manama’s intolerance for the desecration of the Israeli flag can and should be understood.

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Islamists’ Response to Peace Plan by Bassam Tawil

Posted By on February 18th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15622/islamists-response-peace-plan

When Hizb-ut-Tahrir says that negotiations and a peace process with Israel are acts of treason, their words are pointed straight at Abbas and the PA leadership. When Hizb-ut-Tahrir says it wants Muslim armies to liberate all of Palestine, the organization is actually calling on Muslims to march on Israel, kill Jews and destroy the state.

While the ideology of Hizb-ut-Tahrir might sound inhospitable, it is shared by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and several other Palestinian terror groups — particularly regarding the goal of eliminating Israel.

By continuing to incite their people against Israel and the US… Abbas… and other PA officials are driving more Palestinians into the open, welcoming arms of Hizb-ut-Tahrir as well as Iran’s proxies, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. By allowing thousands of Islamists to call for the destruction of Israel on the streets of West Bank cities, PA leaders are digging their own graves: The same people they are inciting against Israel and the US will kill these leaders not only for being affiliated with Israelis and Americans but for being too “moderate.”

Finally, by making, as they usually do, contradictory claims to their own people, they are losing, among the Palestinians, the little credibility they have left.

The Palestinian Authority, after rejecting US President Donald Trump’s recently unveiled plan for Mideast peace, “Peace to Prosperity,” as a “conspiracy” against Palestinians, is now trying to persuade the Israeli public that it is “still” interested in achieving peace with Israel.

Earlier this month, PA President Mahmoud Abbas announced that he would cut all ties with Israel and the US, including security coordination, to protest the Trump plan, which he denounced as the “slap of the century.”

“We are informing you,” Abbas told Arab foreign ministers during an emergency meeting in Cairo, “that there will be no relations with Israel and the US, including on security cooperation.”

Abbas has been making similar threats for the past three years — probably the reason Palestinians have long stopped taking his threats seriously.

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Why Did President Trump Expand the Travel Ban? by Lawrence A. Franklin

Posted By on February 18th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15605/trump-expanded-travel-ban

General justifications for the travel ban include: poor vetting of travelers to the U.S. by the restricted countries; an unwillingness on the part of those countries to share personal data on would-be visitors to the U.S.; and the refusal to accept the return of their nationals if expelled by U.S. authorities.

Kyrgyzstan made the travel-ban list largely because of its lax passport issuance, which has caused a global glut of false Kyrgyzstani passports used by criminals and terrorists to enter Eurasian countries. Kyrgyzstan is also notable for its poor counter-terrorism efforts.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 2018 that the U.S. president has the authority to issue such travel bans as part of his duty to protect American citizens. The ruling also determined that the first list of countries placed on the restricted visa program in 2017 did not constitute a “Muslim ban,” as North Korea and Venezuela were also included…. Eritrea has more Christians than Muslims. Myanmar is almost entirely Buddhist.

Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, arguing for the administration, opined that it is only logical that any people applying for a visa to the U.S. be properly vetted.

There are general and specific justifications for U.S. President Donald Trump’s January 31 order to add Nigeria, Tanzania, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Sudan and Myanmar (Burma) to the list of seven other countries — Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen — subjected to a restriction on travel to the United States.

General justifications for the travel ban include: poor vetting of travelers to the U.S. by the restricted countries; an unwillingness on the part of those countries to share personal data on would-be visitors to the U.S.; and the refusal to accept the return of their nationals if expelled by U.S. authorities.

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Left-Wing Group Organized Barr Attack Letter The letter is just another destroy-Trump mission funded by leftists to deceive and inflame the public. Julie Kelly

Posted By on February 18th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/17/leftwing-group-organized-barr-attack-letter/

The headline sounded ominous: “Former Justice Dept. Lawyers Press for Barr to Step Down,” blared an article in Sunday’s New York Times. More than 1,100 former federal prosecutors signed a letter to condemn Attorney General William Barr and encourage Justice Department employees to tattle on the nation’s top lawman if they see anything naughty.

The lawyers were outraged at Barr’s decision to override “line prosecutors,” including two holdovers from the Robert Mueller investigation, who had recommended an excessive sentence against Roger Stone. “Barr’s actions in doing the President’s personal bidding unfortunately speak louder than his words,” they wrote. “Those actions, and the damage they have done to the Department of Justice’s reputation for integrity and the rule of law, require Mr. Barr to resign.”

Times reporter Katie Benner, trying to make the stunt look like a legitimate grassroots effort, attributed the letter to Protect Democracy, which she described as a “nonprofit legal group.” But Protect Democracy is not an organic activist group spontaneously created by high-minded legal experts alarmed by Trump’s alleged flouting of the rule of law. Protect Democracy was launched in early 2017 as part of an extensive anti-Trump operation managed by a leftwing tech billionaire: Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay. This is who is behind Protect Democracy and a number of other nonprofits formed to destroy the president.

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The price of crazy: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez yelps for help against 12 primary challengers By Monica Showalter

Posted By on February 18th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/02/the_price_of_crazy_alexandria_ocasiocortez_yelps_for_help_against_12_primary_challengers.html

Why would a candidate who has more money than all her rivals put together be issuing urgent appeals across the country for funds to her campaign?

That’s what we see now with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who’s sending out pleas for money from her supporters across the country, to ward off as many as 13 primary challengers.

From CNBC, here’s one:

WASHINGTON — Former CNBC anchor Michelle Caruso-Cabrera added her name Tuesday to the list of candidates hoping to deny Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a second term. 

Caruso-Cabrera, who worked for the financial news network for more than 20 years, is challenging Ocasio-Cortez in the Democratic primary June 23 for New York’s 14th District. She filed her candidacy with the Federal Election Commission on Monday, becoming Ocasio-Cortez’s fifth Democratic challenger and 12th overall to file with the FEC. 

“I am the daughter and granddaughter of working-class Italian and Cuban immigrants,” Caruso-Cabrera told CNBC in a statement. “I am so lucky to have had such a wonderful career, and I want everybody to have the opportunity that I’ve had. That’s why I’m running.”

It’s weird stuff for a candidate who has so much money — $5 million–plus in the bank, against her next-challenger’s $800,000 or so, and the collective group of challengers having just $2 million at most among themselves.  According to a Politico report last month:

Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign received more than 325,000 contributions from more than 185,000 individual donors in 2019. Her fundraising in the final quarter of the year is a dramatic increase compared to the total raised for her entire first election campaign in 2018, which came in at $2.1 million.

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President Trump slaps back when Obama tries to take credit for his economy By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on February 18th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/02/president_trump_slaps_back_when_obama_tries_to_take_credit_for_his_economy.html

It’s been fascinating watching the Democrats try unavailingly to address the fact that the economy under President Trump has been rocket-fueled. That effort reached its apex on Monday when Barack Obama put out a tweet boasting about how it was his Recovery Act, which he signed on February 17, 2009, that not only saved the economy but laid the groundwork for its current strength. The responses to his tweet were swift, especially from President Trump.

One of the things that truly riles the Democrats is that President Trump has so much to crow about. And crow he did during his State of the Union address, making sure to distinguish his economic accomplishments from the Obama malaise.

During his speech, Trump boasted about 7 million new jobs, which is 5 million more than projected in the Obama years; the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years; the lowest unemployment rates ever for minorities; the lowest overall unemployment for women since WWII; the record number of working Americans; the contrast between food stamp rolls under Obama (10 million added) and under Trump (7 million subtracted, plus 10 million leaving welfare); the contrast between the workforce under Obama (300,000 Americans left it) versus Trump (3.5 million joined it); the 47% gain in wealth for the bottom half of wage earners, a result of their rising wages (“a blue-collar boom”); the highest ever real median household income; the soaring stock market; and the unprecedented growth in consumer confidence.

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The Roger Stone Double Standard By David Harsanyi

Posted By on February 18th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/roger-stone-double-standard/

For all the hullaballoo around the Stone case, he still faces prison — while his partners in dishonesty are lauded as patriotic heroes.

Whether Roger Stone, the loopy, self-aggrandizing political operative, deserves nine years in Supermax for obstructing an investigation into Russia–Donald Trump “collusion” is debatable. Whether the powerful men who helped create the investigation that ensnared Stone have been allowed to lie with impunity is not. They have.

Only a few days after prosecutors melodramatically left the DOJ after Trump tweeted a defense of Stone and the DOJ subsequently revised its sentencing recommendation to be more lenient, former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe was informed that he wouldn’t face charges. McCabe faced an inquiry into whether he broke the law when he denied to investigators that he had leaked information concerning a Clinton Foundation probe to the press.

McCabe went on CNN, where he is now paid to lecture citizens about the decaying state of American democracy, and claimed that being branded a liar was “one of the most sickening and demeaning experiences of my life.”

It’s a confusing statement — not merely because the IG report found that McCabe, once entrusted with immense power, had repeatedly lied under oath, but because McCabe himself had admitted to lying and apologized for it.

Was he lying about lying? Maybe he’ll tell us more in his next book.

As McCabe cozies up with his new colleagues, think of Michael Flynn, a decorated general and former national-security adviser, still mired in a four-year legal battle for allegedly misleading the FBI — not under oath — in the Russia-scare investigation that went absolutely nowhere.

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Michael Bloomberg Is a Condescending Jerk . . . . . who made a legitimate point about how jobs are changing. By Robert VerBruggen

Posted By on February 18th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/michael-bloomberg-is-a-condescending-jerk/

T he hunt is on for offensive clips of Michael Bloomberg talking off the cuff, and over the weekend a new one circulated. In the version passed around, Bloomberg nonchalantly tells his Oxford audience that he could teach anyone how to farm — “even people in this room”: “It’s a process; you dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, add water, up comes the corn.” He adds that modern “information economy” jobs require more “gray matter.”

The denunciations came quickly and furiously, many of them pointing out that farming these days is a pretty high-tech endeavor. There are three things to know about this episode.

First, the version of the clip that went around left out important context. Bloomberg was very explicitly not talking about modern farmers, but rather about “the agrarian society” that “lasted 3,000 years” before the industrial era, which lasted 300. His point was that the modern economy does not create good, reliable jobs for low-skilled workers the way that past economies did. You can see the full discussion starting around 41:30 here (though the actual query that prompted Bloomberg’s rambling answer starts at 37:30):

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Time Is Running Out: The U.S. Needs a High-Tech Manhattan Project By David P. Goldman

Posted By on February 18th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/time-for-a-high-tech-manhattan-project/

We’re getting our heads handed to us. I don’t like to be the bearer of evil tidings, but I hate losing. The only I hate more than losing is trying to make ourselves feel better while we’re losing, rather than winning. We need to wrest the initiative in high tech from China and re-establish American dominance in telecommunications, computation, artificial intelligence, materials science, chip design and lithography, manufacturing, and other key fields. I don’t care how much it costs. If we don’t spend the money to ensure America’s number one position now, we’ll go broke in any case.

We sat on our hands while China’s Huawei took the lead in the game-changing technology that will usher in what the Chinese call the Fourth Industrial Revolution. 5G telecommunications (which we are rolling out at a snail’s pace while China surges ahead) make possible industrial robots that design production processes by themselves, driverless cars, virtual-reality controlled surgery at long distance, and a dozen other breakthroughs. China is getting the jump on us while we dither. Think Manhattan Project. Think Sputnik moment. Think JFK’s Moonshot. Think Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative. We need a grand mobilization of material and human resources to meet the challenge of the 21st century.

You can’t stop something with nothing, and all of our attempts to slow Huawei down have failed miserably. Excepting Japan, Israel and Australia, every one of our allies has invited Huawei in to build 5G networks because the alternative would cost another two years and 50 percent more. Either they don’t believe what we’re saying about Huawei’s capacity to spy on them, or they don’t care. We shut down component sales to Huawei, and Huawei now builds smartphones and base stations with zero U.S. components. It now makes chipsets for smartphones and AI processers that rival the best America can produce.

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A Campaign Against Bureaucratic Bloat in U.S. Foreign Policy Trump’s national security adviser has a plan of attack for a problem decades in the making. By John Lehman

Posted By on February 18th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-campaign-against-bureaucratic-bloat-in-u-s-foreign-policy-11581974339?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

The press has been focused recently on Lt. Col Alexander Vindman’s departure from the National Security Council. But less noticed is the substantive overhaul of the council’s staffing practices, announced last fall by national security adviser Robert O’Brien. President Trump’s renovation of the White House’s top advisory body could help streamline American security for years to come.

The problems that plague the NSC trace to before its founding in 1947. The White House has long sought to centralize decision-making to overcome the political jockeying that often takes place within the national-security establishment. I have lived half of my professional life in the policy world of Washington and half in the financial world of New York. The former is much more Hobbesian and bitter than the latter—and always has bee

After securing victory in World War II, for example, federal policy makers were at each other’s throats over whether to share nuclear technology with the Soviet Union through the Baruch Plan. The branches of the armed services feuded over roles, missions and funding. President Truman and congressional leaders nonetheless produced a few lasting achievements, including the Marshall Plan and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

But the bitter postwar years also featured terrible blunders in China and Korea. Truman’s radical strategy to shrink the Navy, while declaring Korea outside America’s vital interest, led almost immediately to the Korean War. Journalist John Osborne told me that during those years he was run ragged between the White House and the Pentagon. Both were leaking classified information aimed at opponents in government.