MEDIA Comments turned off

Media Self-Immolates Over Baghdadi Death to Smear Trump Samantha Strayer

Posted By on October 30th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/10/29/media-self-immolates-over-baghdadi-death-to-smear-trump/

Media once again showed their relentless attempt to isolate the president, portraying him as a standalone blip in the universe without presidential precedent. It blew up in their faces.

Americans learned over the weekend that serial rapist, murderer, and ISIS terrorist chieftain Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi went up in a blaze of vainglory as he fled in fear from American special operations forces and detonated a suicide vest, blowing up himself and three children.

Reactions split along predictable lines. One side praised President Trump, U.S. military and intelligence operatives, and allies who assisted in the mission. They declared the world safer with Baghdadi dead.

The other side, however, lost its collective, freaking mind.

President Trump had hinted at “something very big” in a Saturday night tweet, setting off speculation that it had to do with Baghdadi. In his Sunday morning announcement to the nation, Trump explained what happened, who was involved, who was notified, and his expectations moving forward. He identified by name the Americans killed by Baghdadi and his men. He spoke for eight-and-a-half minutes and then answered questions from the press for another 40. He was accessible, transparent, and candid.

He was particularly clear about his reasons for authorizing the mission, and they were entirely consistent with what he has said and published in the past. With characteristic frankness and purpose, he described the manner of Baghdadi’s death:

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Ending Wars By John Stossel (On Rand Paul)

Posted By on October 30th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/ending-wars/

“”It’s a very complicated war over there,” says Paul. “They’re four or five different countries involved in it. The people who live there know better. We can’t know enough about these problems. And unless you want to put 100,000 troops in there and fight Assad, Russia, Turkey … we ought to rethink whether we should get involved in these wars to begin with.”

Four years ago, the media were talking about a “Libertarian Moment.”

I had high hopes!

Sen. Rand Paul ran for president, promising to “take our country back from special interests.” But his campaign never took off.

He “shouldn’t even be on the stage,” said Donald Trump at a Republican presidential debate.

Paul quit his presidential campaign after doing poorly in Iowa.

In my new video, Paul reflects on that, saying, “Either the people aren’t ready or perhaps the people in the Republican primary aren’t ready.”

But Paul says, “We may be winning the hearts and minds of people who aren’t in Washington.”

Really?

The current deficit is a record $984 billion, and since Trump was elected, federal spending rose half a trillion dollars.

But Paul says progress has been made, in that Trump has introduced some market competition in health care, cut taxes, cut regulations, appointed better judges and promises to get us out of foreign wars. Paul tweeted that Trump is “the first president to understand what is our national interest.”

POLITICS Comments turned off

I Can Defeat Trump and the Clinton Doctrine The U.S. will stop trying to overthrow governments and police the world. By Tulsi Gabbard

Posted By on October 30th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/i-can-defeat-trump-and-the-clinton-doctrine-11572389508

Hillary Clinton emerged recently to claim, with no basis in fact, that I am being “groomed” by the Russian government to undermine America. As a major in the National Guard who served in Iraq—one of the many disastrous regime-change wars Mrs. Clinton championed over her career—I swore an oath to only one authority: the U.S. Constitution.

I’m running for president to undo Mrs. Clinton’s failed legacy. From Iraq to Libya to Syria, her record is replete with foreign-policy catastrophes. It’s a primary reason why I resigned as vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 2016 to endorse Bernie Sanders. Mrs. Clinton and the powerful media and political network she built up over decades have never forgiven this slight. The smears have been nonstop ever since.

Hardly a week goes by when I’m not asked a question about how I’m being secretly backed by Russia or other foreign powers—on top of countless other falsehoods intended to destroy my reputation. Those who are indebted to the war machine and the overreaching intelligence agencies, as well as their cheerleaders in the media, are determined to take me down because they know they can’t control me. I’m directly challenging their power.

This isn’t a petty “spat” between Mrs. Clinton and me. It’s a serious contrast in views about the choice voters face as they decide which Democratic candidate is best equipped to defeat President Trump. Mrs. Clinton already lost to Mr. Trump once. Why would Democrats think a Hillary 2.0 candidate would result in anything different?

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

A Dead Caliph and the Eternal Jihad Trump deserves praise for winning this battle. But is America winning the war? Raymond Ibrahim

Posted By on October 30th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/10/dead-caliph-and-eternal-jihad-raymond-ibrahim/

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head or “caliph” of the Islamic State, is finally dead.  This is certainly welcome news—if only because someone like al-Baghdadi deserves his fate. And President Trump deserves much credit for eliminating this evil leader of ISIS.

But while we can all celebrate this monster getting his just deserts, al-Baghdadi’s death will, unfortunately, likely have zero impact on the jihad.  This dismal prognostication is fortified by the fact that, for nearly 14 years now, every time an Islamic terror leader was killed, politicians and media exulted, portraying the death as a major blow to the jihad; and, for nearly 14 years now, I have responded by recycling an article that I first wrote in 2006, titled “The West’s Multi-Headed Monster.”

Although I changed the names of the jihadi leaders killed to suit the occasion—first Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi, then Abu Hamza al-Masri, then Abu Laith al-Libi, then Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayub al-Misri, then Osama bin Laden, and now Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi—my conclusion has remained the same:

The West’s plight vis-à-vis radical Islam is therefore akin to Hercules’ epic encounter with the multi-headed Hydra-monster.  Every time the mythical strongman lopped off one of the monster’s heads, two new ones grew in its place.  To slay the beast once and for all, Hercules learned to cauterize the stumps with fire, thereby preventing any more heads from sprouting out.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Erdogan Lauds Koranic Harshness Toward Non-Muslims Urging Koranic conquest. Andrew Bostom

Posted By on October 30th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/10/erdogan-lauds-koranic-harshness-toward-non-muslims-andrew-bostom/

Notwithstanding any limited “support” Turkey may (or may not) have provided the successful U.S. raid which liquidated ISIS’s al-Baghdadi, Turkish President Erdogan made some revealing, indeed pathognomonic remarks, during last Friday’s (10/25/19) prayers in Istanbul’s Great Camlica Mosque.

A Turkish writer in exile who is a very fluent, gifted Turkish to English translator, translated (below) the triumphal report by Yeni Akit, an outlet enamored of the Turkish President and his traditionalist Islamic political party, the AKP.

On October 25, Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan attended the Friday prayers at the Great Çamlıca Mosque in Istanbul. He was accompanied by Istanbul’s governor Ali Yerlikaya, mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, Istanbul’s chief of police Mustafa Çalışkan and the head of the Istanbul branch of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Bayram Şenocak.   After the Friday prayers, hafiz İshak Danış recited from the Koran Sura Al-Fath (which means “victory, triumph, conquest” in English, Koran 48:29: “Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah ; and those with him are forceful against the disbelievers, merciful among themselves.” ). Then Erdogan took the microphone, reciting a part of the verse in Arabic and then in Turkish. He told the congregants: “My dear brothers. First of all, I congratulate your holy Friday. The Koranic verses that Danış just recited commands us to be violent towards the kuffar (infidels). Who are we? The ummah [nation] of Mohammed. So [the Koran] also commands us to be merciful to each other. So we will be merciful to each other. And we will be violent to the kuffar. Like in Syria.” Erdogan then went on to refer to another Koranic verse (61:13: “And [you will obtain] another [favor] that you love – victory from Allah and an imminent conquest; and give good tidings to the believers.”)  in Arabic: “Inshallah, God has promised us in Syria (in Turkish): ‘Nasrun minallahi ve fethun karib ve beşşiril mu’minin.’ [‘Victory from Allah and an imminent conquest; and give good tidings to the believers.’]. We see it is happening right now. With the permission of Allah, we will see it even more. I will meet some presidents of foreign countries at the Dolmabahce Palace today. I ask for your permission now to go there.”

Authoritative Koranic commentaries—classical and modern—as well as canonical hadith, traditions of Islam’s prophet Muhammad, support Erdogan’s hateful and predatory views toward non-Muslims.

The Egyptian polymath al-Suyuti (d. 1505) was recognized as a brilliant jurist, historian, and biographer, among whose many scholarly contributions are about twenty works of Koranic studies, including seminal Koranic commentaries. Suytui’s Tafsir al-Jalalayn (co-written with his mentor al-Mahalli), as the great contemporary Dutch Islamologist Johannes J.G. Jansen (d. 2015) noted in his treatise “The Interpretation of the Koran in Modern Egypt,”  remains one of the most popular as well as the most authoritative Koranic commentaries in Egypt. Maulana Muhammad Shafi (d.1976), was a former grand mufti of India (prior to the August, 1947 partition), and author of Maariful Quran, which remains the best-known Koranic commentary in Urdu, and a major, influential modern interpretation of the Koran. Shafi also wrote more than three hundred books, and in addition to these literary works, broadcasted tafsir of the Koran on Radio Pakistan for a number of years.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

What Baghdadi’s Death Tells Us About the Real Terror Threat Always look for the country behind the curtain. Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on October 30th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/10/what-baghdadis-death-tells-us-about-real-terror-daniel-greenfield/

What’s the best place to look for the terrorist leader of a defeated Islamic terrorist group? When his men are on the run, look for his hideout in or near the country that sponsors him.

We didn’t find Osama bin Laden hiding in a cave in Afghanistan, but in a compound in a Pakistani military city. And Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the former Caliph of ISIS, wasn’t hanging out in his home turf, but in an area controlled by Turkey and its allied Islamist militias right off the Turkish border.

Osama bin Laden’s death confirmed the reports of his ties to Pakistan, and Baghdadi’s death confirmed the rumors of the links between ISIS and Turkey. Those links may not as run as deep as those between Pakistan, the Taliban, and Al Qaeda, but when Baghdadi wanted someplace to hide out with his family, he didn’t huddle with his forces, but picked a location under the shadow of the Turkish military.

As Robert Spencer, an expert on the theology and geopolitics of Islamic terrorism, noted, “It strains credulity that Turkey, with its interests in northern Syria, did not know he was there. Al-Baghdadi was killed in Barisha in the Idlib province, a town of no more than 2,500 people right on the Turkish border.”

Where did we actually find the Caliph of ISIS? Allegedly, he’d been living in the home of Abu Mohammed Salama, a Hurras al-Din leader. The Islamic terror group, whose name means Guardians of Religion, had been listed as Al Qaeda in Syria in its Specially Designated Global Terrorist designation. Hurras al-Din had formerly been part of Tahrir al-Sham which has been cooperating closely with Turkey.

One of Tahrir’s four components was the Al-Nusra Front, which was formerly the official Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. While the US bombs Tahrir al-Sham, Turkey, a NATO member, works with it.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

What the Left Tells Young Americans Dennis Prager

Posted By on October 30th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/what-the-left-tells-young-americans/

Here are some of the messages the Left has been giving America’s young people:

Your past is terrible, and your future is terrible.

The American past is a story of genocide, slavery, racism, patriarchy, and colonialism. You should be ashamed of it.

As regards your future, your very existence is in jeopardy. You may well die at a young age unless society completely shifts from fossil fuels to wind and solar power. In fact, your future is so bleak you should probably not consider getting married and having children.

If you are a girl, you should know that American society has contempt for you. You will be paid less than a man for the exact same work and exact same number of hours of work. You will have between a 1 in 4 and 1 in 3 chance of being sexually assaulted if you attend college. There is a glass ceiling that will prevent you from professional success. And professional success, not marriage and family, is what you should concentrate on.

That none of the above is true is irrelevant to the Left. What is relevant to the Left is that these messages make young women into leftists — because they make them angry (virtually all leftists are angry), sad (there are happy liberals and happy conservatives but very few happy leftists), and lonely (singles are overwhelmingly on the left).

If you are a young black, the most important thing for you to know is that this country loathes you — that racism is “part of our DNA,” as President Barack Obama put it — and that just being black gets you suspended or expelled from school, shot by police, denied the vote whenever possible, and disproportionately imprisoned.

HISTORY, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

1776, not 1619 America’s Founding was not defined by slavery and white supremacy—quite the contrary. Arthur Milikh

Posted By on October 29th, 2019

https://www.city-journal.org/new-york-times-1619-project

For decades, much of academia, the liberal activist class, and the public school system have operated on the premise that America is fundamentally racist. The latest manifestation of this outlook is the 1619 Project, rolled out last month by the New York Times. Claiming that “anti-black racism runs in the very DNA of this country,” it “aims to reframe the country’s history” by making 1619—the year slavery was first introduced by the British to Virginia—the year of “our true founding.”

This narrative is akin to the Jacobins’ alteration of the calendar to make their revolution the decisive turning point in human history. Just as they would save France from the monarchy, so, too, will the Times save America from white supremacy. The Times encourages public schools to adopt an accompanying curriculum that spreads the 1619 Project’s message to young Americans. Its goal is to brand our founding documents—the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—as immoral and thus unworthy of our allegiance.

To make America’s Founding contemptible, one must hide, ignore, and distort the Founders’ writings and thoughts. Irresponsibly omitted from this narrative is the fact that not a single major Founder endorsed slavery. On the contrary, the Founders unambiguously saw slavery as evil. George Washington said, “there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it,” and Thomas Jefferson’s original draft of the Declaration of Independence calls the slave trade an “execrable commerce” and an affront “against human nature itself.” Gouverneur Morris called slavery a “nefarious institution” and “the curse of heaven,” and John Jay said, “It is much to be wished that slavery may be abolished. . . . To contend for our own liberty, and to deny that blessing to others, involves an inconsistency not to be excused.”

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Rich Get Richer. Good Peter Smith

Posted By on October 29th, 2019

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/

“Don’t get me wrong, as I am all in favour of taxing the well-heeled. But soaking the rich, as the Left forever advocates, will see investment stall, capital stock run down, progress go into reverse and poverty increase. Welcome to your socialist paradise: an equality of impoverishment for all.”

Line up any bunch of political lefties anywhere and their key to delivering free stuff is taxing the rich. This applies to all of the Democrat presidential candidates in the USA. In addition to confiscatory income taxes, Pocahontas (aka Elizabeth Warren) wants to impose a wealth tax, in the style of French socialist economist Thomas Piketty.

Apparently, those rich people are selfishly keeping goodies from us ninety-five percenters. This is the grievous money delusion (GMD) which seduces callow minds. It can only be compared to the grievous warming delusion (GWD) which has swept away reason among so many in recent years. It is perhaps no coincidence that those particularly susceptible to GMD succumb to GWD.

It is also disappointing that economists, worthy of the name, in other words, excluding sad lefties like Paul Krugman and his ilk, hardly ever explain the position clearly. They generally go to the point that high taxes undermine incentive. They do to an extent. But only to an extent.

There was an instructive survey of Ford Motor company workers in the late Sixties I think it was. They were asked whether they thought their fellow workers would likely work less overtime if taxes were increased. Something like ninety percent said yes. They were then asked whether they personally would work less overtime. Something like ninety percent said no.

The real argument against confiscatory taxes is not to do with incentive, it is to do with the with the driving force of successful capitalist economies. That driving force is capital investment fuelled by saving and augmented by invention. Saving some of what is produced and using it to sustain life while things are built like, factories and machines, which help make more goodies, cheaper goodies, better goodies and new (previously unthought of) goodies.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

It’s Time for Every American Patriot to Rally Around Trump: The American Republic Is at Stake By David P. Goldman

Posted By on October 29th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/i-killed-my-parents-and-now-i-ask-for-mercy-on-the-grounds-that-im-an-orphan/

I killed my parents and now I ask for mercy because I am an orphan….

That’s the canonical definition of chutzpah — shameless effrontery — and it summarizes the Democratic position on the attempted impeachment of President Trump. The Hillary Clinton campaign paid for the Steele dossier, assembled out of bits handed to ex-MI6 spook Christopher Steele from his Russian intelligence sources, and the FBI used this concoction to obtain FISA warrants to bug the Trump presidential campaign. Now, THAT’S foreign interference. And those facts aren’t in dispute. When the Trump administration tries to get the truth out of foreign governments about their involvement in nefarious activities in the U.S., the Democrats scream, “Impeachment!”

The Wall Street Journal editors got this exactly right:

Democrats want to impeach Donald Trump for inviting Ukraine to investigate 2020 election rival Joe Biden. But then why are they opposed to investigating whether Democrats used Russian disinformation to get the FBI to investigate Donald Trump in 2016?

That’s the double standard now on gaudy public display over multiple news reports that U.S. Attorney John Durham’s review of the origins of the Russian fiasco of 2016 has become a criminal probe. Attorney General William Barr this year appointed Mr. Durham, a highly regarded and veteran prosecutor, to examine this part of the Russia tale that special counsel Robert Mueller chose to ignore.

Nothing less than the American republic is at stake here. It’s time for every American patriot to rally around the president. Some of my neo-conservative ex-friends are cheering for the wrong side. Shame on them.

For the record, I don’t care whether there was quid pro quo with Ukraine or not. If President Trump used military aid as a bargaining chip to persuade the government of Ukraine to investigate foreign subversion of our political system, he was doing his job as commander-in-chief to protect this country from its external enemies. The parade of striped-pants cookie-pushers from the State Department feeding information to closed-door Democratic Party kangaroo courts in the House of Representatives is irrelevant. Trump is fighting a mutiny by the U.S. intelligence community. If the mutineers succeed, it will be the end of the republic. If a cabal of bureaucrats nestling in the bowls of our $80 billion a year intelligence bureaucracy can bring down an elected president of the United States, the republic is finished.

The impeachment issue is a load of baloney, period. No less a constitutional scholar than Prof. Alan Dershowitz wrote (on the website of the Gatestone Institute):

So, the question remains: did President Trump commit impeachable offenses when he spoke on the phone to the president of Ukraine and/or when he directed members of the Executive Branch to refuse to cooperate, absent a court order, with congressional Democrats who are seeking his impeachment?

The answers are plainly no and no. There is a constitutionally significant difference between a political “sin,” on the one hand, and a crime or impeachable offenses, on the other.

Even taking the worst-case scenario regarding Ukraine — a quid pro quo exchange of foreign aid for a political favor — that might be a political sin, but not a crime or impeachable offense.