POLITICS Comments turned off

Buttigieg Bashes GOP for Embracing ‘White-Guy Identity Politics’ By Jack Crowe

Posted By on April 17th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/pete-buttigieg-bashes-gop-for-embracing-white-guy-identity-politics/

Southbend, Ind. mayor and 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg suggested in a recent interview that the strain of populism harnessed by President Donald Trump represents a “white-guy identity politics.”
27

“By far the political movement that is most based on identity politics is Trumpism. It’s based on white-guy identity politics. It uses race to divide the working and middle class,” Buttigieg told the Associated Press when asked whether Trump relied on racial animus to win the White House. “There are a lot of strategies to blame problems on people who look different or are of a different faith or even of a different sexuality or gender identity. . . . It’s a cynical political strategy that works in the short term but winds up weakening the whole country in the long term.”

Since rising over the past few months from relative obscurity to third in national polls of the race, Buttigieg has turned criticisms traditionally leveled by Republicans at Democrats around on the party of Trump.

“First comes freedom, something that our conservative friends have come to think of as their own. . . . Let me tell you: Freedom doesn’t belong to one political party. Freedom has been a Democratic bedrock ever since the New Deal. Freedom from want, freedom from fear,” Buttigieg said when announcing his campaign Sunday.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Rashida Tlaib Hosted Activist Who Called Palestinian Terror Attack ‘Heroic’ By Jack Crowe

Posted By on April 17th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/rashida-tlaib-hosted-activist-who-called-palestinian-terror-attack-heroic/

Representative Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) hosted an extremist anti-Israel activist who has openly and explicitly endorsed terrorism at her congressional office in mid-April to celebrate the American Muslims for Palestine Advocacy Day.

The organization American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), which organized the meeting, posted a photo on its Facebook page of Tlaib standing next to Joe Catron, a veteran anti-Israel activist who has openly praised various Palestinian organizations for committing acts of terrorism.

“A tip of my hat to Rashida Tlaib, who really goes above and beyond the call of duty in welcoming every supporter of Palestine to her office, listening to what we have to say, answering our questions, and posing for endless pictures,” Catron wrote on Facebook in a post first noted by the Daily Caller.

Catron serves as U.S. coordinator of the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, an arm of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which the U.S., Australia, Japan, Canada, and the E.U. have all designated a terrorist organization.

In 2017, Catron used his personal Twitter account to praise a PFLP-organized terror attack in which an Israeli police officer was stabbed to death. Catron shared the PFLP’s official statement praising the members who perpetrated the murder and personally referred to the attack as “heroic.”

MEDIA Comments turned off

Anti-Socialists Make the Time 100: Trump, Venezuela’s Guaidó, and Brazil’s Bolsonaro By Tyler O’Neil

Posted By on April 17th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/anti-socialists-make-the-time-100-trump-venezuelas-guaido-and-brazils-bolsonaro/

On Wednesday, TIME Magazine named the 100 most influential people, and three prominent opponents of radical socialist policies made the list. President Donald Trump has famously declared that the United States “will never become a socialist country.” Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has reversed socialism in his country, and Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó is challenging the authoritarian Nicolás Maduro.

Each of these leaders has a positive profile in the TIME 100. Former Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.) praises Donald Trump for his foreign policy. Ian Bremmer hails Bolsonaro as a force against corruption, even while warning about what Bremmer sees as his “ultraconservative” dangers. Former Colombian President Juan Miguel Santos praises the courage of Juan Guaidó.

None of these profiles mentions the anti-socialism activism of these powerful leaders, but each of them has made important strides for freedom in their countries.

Trump has cut taxes, benefitting a broad swath of the American people and boosting the economy. He has also worked to free Americans from some of the excessive regulations of the bureaucratic state.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Progressive Socialists Defend the Indefensible Again By Mike Huckabee

Posted By on April 17th, 2019

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/04/17/progressive_socialists_defend_the_indefensible_again_140070.html?

A simple apology would have been the least Democrats could offer after a video surfaced of freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar brushing off the 9/11 attacks as “some people did something.” Yes, Rep. Omar, “some people” (radical Islamists) “did something” (they murdered almost 3,000 innocent citizens in an act of cowardly, cold-blooded hate). And your shoulder shrugging ambivalence about it as if someone accidently ran a stop sign is disgusting. Those weren’t soldiers wearing Kevlar and carrying weapons who were slaughtered. They were office workers, flight attendants, business people, but especially just moms and dads, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, friends and neighbors.

Instead, Democrats have gone on the offensive, calling Omar’s critics racist and accusing one of their Republican colleagues — an Iraq war veteran who lost an eye in combat — of not doing enough for his country.

Over the weekend, others joined in defending Omar as the victim and blaming the whole controversy on Republicans.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Ten post-Mueller questions that could turn the tables on Russia collusion investigators By John Solomon,

Posted By on April 17th, 2019

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/439234-ten-post-mueller-questions-that-could-turn-the-tables-on-russia-collusion

Soon, the dust will settle from special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, and Americans will have a fuller understanding of why prosecutors concluded there wasn’t evidence to establish that Donald Trump and Russia colluded to hijack the 2016 election.

At that point, many voters exhausted by the fizzling of a two-year scandal, once billed as the next Watergate, will want to move on like a foodie from an empty-calorie shake.

But a very important second phase of this drama is about to begin, as Attorney General William Barr, Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) put the Russia collusion investigators under investigation.

Their work will be, and must be, far more than just a political boomerang.

It must answer, in balanced terms, whether the FBI was warranted in using the most awesome powers in the U.S. intelligence arsenal to spy on Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign at the end of the 2016 election.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Mayor Pete Picks a Fight With Pence — and the First Amendment By Steve Cortes By Steve Cortes

Posted By on April 17th, 2019

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/04/17/mayor_pete_picks_a_fight_with_pence_–_and_the_first_amendment_140084.html

As the world’s Christians celebrate Holy Week, people of faith in America who subscribe to the centuries-old understanding of marriage as a covenant between one man and one woman increasingly find themselves maligned in the public square, even if their beliefs only apply to their private lives. In this regard, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg is leading a new, very public assault upon religious tolerance, and in doing so attacks the very foundation of the First Amendment.

Buttigieg recently declared to a fawning Ellen DeGeneres on her show that “I’m not interested in feuding with the vice president.” This curious statement ignores the fact that a “feud” requires at least two sides in conflict, and this contrived Pete vs. Mike struggle involves only the mayor lobbing verbal volleys at Vice President Pence. In addition, for someone supposedly uninterested in a fight, Buttigieg’s nonstop litany of lamentations aimed at Pence’s Christian principles suggests otherwise.

For example, the openly gay mayor recently lectured that “the thing I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand, [is] that if you have a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me. Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator.” Quite apart from fomenting a “quarrel,” Pence has in fact displayed total respect and even deference toward Buttigieg. After the mayor publicly disclosed his sexuality in 2015, then-Gov. Pence responded: “I hold Mayor Buttigieg in the highest personal regard. … I see him as a dedicated public servant and a patriot.”

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Jordan Peterson, And the New Chivalry written by Esther O’Reilly

Posted By on April 17th, 2019

https://quillette.com/2019/04/12/jordan-peterson-and-the-new-chivalry/

In his recent appearance at Liberty University, Jordan Peterson delivered this verdict on the dominant attitude toward masculinity among our society’s elites: “I don’t think we do a very good job at the moment of encouraging men. We have this idea that there’s something intrinsically oppressive about the patriarchy and about masculinity in general. And I think that’s nonsense. I think that strong, honest, truthful, courageous men pursuing noble goals is of great benefit to everyone, male and female alike.” Members of the student audience applauded loudly, little knowing that not 10 minutes later, a scene would unfold in which Peterson would have an opportunity to match action to words.

By now, tens of thousands of people have seen the clip of the desperate young man who slipped past security to rush the stage and appeal to Peterson for help. The high-definition video feed was cut, but amateur footage shows Peterson leaving his seat and following David Nasser, Liberty University’s Campus Pastor, to engage. Nasser assures the troubled boy that he is “in the right place,” telling security to stand down while he leads the audience in prayer. As the student collapses in sobs, Peterson can be seen kneeling down to put a calming hand on his heaving shoulders. After the student is escorted offstage, the video feed comes back up as Nasser and Peterson return to their seats. Peterson seems shaken and visibly moved to tears.The whole vignette plays out in less than two minutes. Yet it affords an opportunity for reflection—by shedding light not only on the specific nature of Jordan Peterson’s appeal, but also on the larger question of what masculine virtue can and should look like in the modern age.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Emma Lazarus and Donald Trump: Solving the Border Crisis By Stephen B. Presser

Posted By on April 17th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/04/16/emma-lazarus-and-donald-trump-solving-the-border-crisis/

On the base of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor are the famous lines from poet Emma Lazarus: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me . . .” The United States is a signatory to the United Nations 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. Article 33 of the Convention provides: “No Contracting State shall expel or return a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”

Article 33 appears to implement a bit of Emma Lazarus’s poem, but it’s also clear from the U.S. Constitution that the sovereign people have delegated to their representatives the power of determining who can gain entry to this country. Article I, Section 8 provides that Congress is given the power “To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.” Congress has also passed legislation seeking to implement asylum for the kind of refugees contemplated by Article 33.

But in a recent statement about the deluge of undocumented foreign nationals from Central America now seeking admission at our southern border, President Trump observed:, “They come up. In many cases, they are rough gang members. In many cases, they are people with crime records. And they are given a statement to read by lawyers standing there waiting. It says, ‘I have great fear for my life. I have great fear for being in my country.’ Even though in some cases, some of these people are holding their country’s flags and waving their country’s flags . . .”

Similarly, former Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, in a December 20 press release, announced a new administration policy to prevent aliens “trying to game the system” by asserting groundless asylum claims and then “disappear[ing] into the United States, where many skip their court dates . . .”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Hamas’s Honesty and the Deal of the Century by Khaled Abu Toameh

Posted By on April 17th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14081/hamas-honesty-peace-deal

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s threats serve as a reminder that Hamas and other Palestinian terror group consider Israel one big settlement that needs to be annihilated. Above all, Hamas has never accepted the “two-state solution” or changed its charter, which explicitly states: “When our enemies usurp some Islamic lands, Jihad [holy war] becomes a duty binding on all Muslims…. We must spread the spirit of Jihad among the [Islamic] Umma, clash with the enemies and join the ranks of the Jihad fighters.”

Hamas cannot reach any political deal with Israel because it does not agree to Israel’s right to exist. This is the message that Sinwar and leaders of all Palestinian terror groups want the world to hear. For the terrorist leaders, the only peace they will accept is one that results in the elimination of Israel and the evacuation of all Jews from their homes.

The Hamas Charter is a straightforward, unambiguous message that says: “[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement [Hamas]….There is no solution to the Palestinian problem expect by Jihad.”

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has undoubtedly read the Hamas charter. He knows that if he accepts any peace plan that does not include the expulsion of all Jews from their homes, he will be denounced by his rivals in Hamas as a traitor. Abbas is also aware of Hamas’s threats to shower Israel with rockets. He knows that at the same time as Hamas attacks Israel, it will seek to flatten him for “betraying” Arabs and Muslims in “allowing” Jews to continue living in “their” state. This is the Palestinian reality that the “Deal of the Century” is about to be dealt.

April 15 marked the 18th anniversary of the firing of the first Hamas rocket toward Israel. On this day, 18 years ago, Hamas’s military wing, Izaddin al-Qassam, launched its first rocket attack at Israeli population centers near their border with the Gaza Strip.On the eve of this occasion, Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader of the Gaza Strip, threatened that his movement will continue to fire rockets at Israel. The rockets, he said, will be fired at Israeli “settlements” not only near the border with the Gaza Strip, but also at supposed “settlements” in the Israeli cities of Ashkelon, Ashdod and Tel Aviv.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

German Government: Anti-Israel, Pro-Iran by Stefan Frank

Posted By on April 17th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14064/germany-government-israel-iran

Supporting one-sided resolutions against Israel is not Germany’s only unfriendly act against the Jewish state. Chancellor Angela Merkel has put pressure on other European Union states so that they do not transfer their embassies to Israel’s capital. Stopping the murder of Israelis is also not on the German government’s agenda.

Last year the Palestinian Authority (PA) allocated $330 million to pay terrorists, and Germany paid $100 million to the PA. So it is fair to say that Germany pays the PA to reward the murder of Jews.

While Chancellor Angela Merkel talks about “Germany’s special historical responsibility for Israel’s security”, her government channels German taxpayer money to murderers of Jews, and President Steinmeier sends congratulatory telegrams to those who plan the annihilation of the Jewish state.

“We must no longer let Israel down at the UN. It is madness that we are constantly on the side of countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran or Yemen against Israel” — Frank Müller-Rosentritt, member of the German parliament’s committee on foreign relations for the opposition Free Democratic Party (FDP).

German Chancellor Angela Merkel likes to think of herself as a friend of Israel. In a speech she gave in the Knesset in Jerusalem in Mach 2008, she said:

“Here of all places I want to explicitly stress that every German government and every German chancellor before me has shouldered Germany’s special historical responsibility for Israel’s security. This historical responsibility is part of my country’s raison d’être. For me as German chancellor, therefore, Israel’s security will never be open to negotiation. And that being the case, we must do more than pay lip-service to this commitment …”