NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Obama Administration Needs to Abandon Its Petraeus Obsession See note please

Posted By on January 28th, 2016

I admire V.D. Hanson and agree about the hypocrisy of Obama on the general’s amatory transgressions, but this statement about David of Surgeistan is ridiculous: “Petraeus was not just any four-star general. He was the most effective and talented American general since General Matthew Ridgway, who saved what appeared to be a lost Korean War. Petraeus and his team promoted the so-called surge of troops into Iraq, and enlisted tens of thousands of Iraqis to join the American effort to defeat radical terrorists and insurrectionists.” Huh? The rules of engagement enforced by General Petraeus put our soldiers in harm’s way to respect the sensibilities of barbarians and avoid “collateral damage”….As a result, soldiers responding to attacks by armed “civilians” in religious garb were punished for their response….rsk

In politically driven moods, the ancient Romans often wiped from history all mention of a prior hero or celebrity. They called such erasures damnatio memoriae.

The Soviet Union likewise airbrushed away, or “Trotskyized,” all the images of any past kingpin who became politically incorrect.

The Obama administration seems obsessed with doing the same to retired General David Petraeus.

Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter is now thinking of retroactively taking away one or two of Petraeus’s four stars. The potential demotion in rank, opposed by the Army, is intended as further punishment for the misdemeanor to which he pleaded guilty last year. Petraeus accepted two years of probation and paid a $100,000 fine for allowing his mistress, Paula Broadwell, to read classified information for research on the biography she was writing about Petraeus.

BOOKS Comments turned off

Another Environmentalist Doomsday Clock Expires, When Can We Laugh? By David French

Posted By on January 28th, 2016

The rapture was supposed to happen on September 13, 1988. A few fringe pastors were screaming that the end was nigh, that the righteous would soon disappear into the air while the rest of humanity was doomed to suffer a quite literal hell on earth. Forget the biblical admonition that no man knows the day nor hour of Christ’s return, these men had figured it out. It was time to prepare yourself.

I was a sophomore at a Christian college in Nashville, and it was the talk of the campus. No one likes to make fun of crazy Christian preachers more than irreverent Christian college students, and we couldn’t stop dividing the student body between the saved and the damned.

When the alarm clock rang the morning after the scheduled rapture, I hit snooze, and said, triumphantly, to my roommate, “We’re still here!” There was no response. “Hello?” Still no response. I looked down at his bed, and no one was there. For about nine seconds I was gripped by sheer panic. I’d been left behind. The lake of fire awaits! Then my roommate walked in from the shower, and the crisis passed.

I thought of this story as I watched Rush Limbaugh’s Al Gore “armageddon” clock expire. In January, 2006 — when promoting his Oscar-winning (yes, Oscar-winning) documentary, An Inconvenient Truth — Gore declared that unless we took “drastic measures” to reduce greenhouse gasses, the world would reach a “point of no return” in a mere ten years. He called it a “true planetary emergency.” Well, the ten years passed today, we’re still here, and the climate activists have postponed the apocalypse. Again.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Donald Trump: Thin-Skinned Tyrant By Andrew C. McCarthy —

Posted By on January 28th, 2016

Is Donald Trump the sharia of American politics? I’m having trouble finding much daylight between Islamic law’s repressive blasphemy standards and the mogul’s thin-skinned sense of privilege.

None of us wants to be insulted or smeared. But sharia forbids not only ridicule or slander against Islam; it bans any examination that casts Islam in an unflattering light. Worse, truth is not a defense: Even if one’s questions are based on undeniable past actions or verbatim quotes from scripture, tough questioning is considered blasphemous. Retribution, moreover, is often completely out of proportion to the scale of the perceived “offense.”

How is Trump different?

They say politics ain’t beanbag: People in and around it eventually get slammed by opponents and other critics. But to Trump, the mildest criticisms are “vicious” attacks.

Let’s take the exchange last summer with Megyn Kelly that prompted Trump to whine that he was unfairly treated and to heap abuse on Ms. Kelly in the aftermath. (Before I go on, note that I support Mr. Trump’s rival Ted Cruz, and that I am on friendly terms with Megyn Kelly, on whose program I periodically appear.)

Given the limited time, the slew of candidates to engage, and the grave problems faced by the country, could Kelly have made a better choice than to grill Trump on his derogatory remarks about women? As they say in the debate biz, that’s debatable. But the questions she asked were hardly irrelevant.

Presidential temperament is often a decisive electoral consideration. Furthermore, the “war on women” meme is a bread-and-butter Democratic attack: regrettably effective against Republicans in the last presidential election and certain to be reprised if Hillary Clinton is the Dems’ nominee. How do we gauge Trump as a prospective nominee if we don’t get a sense of what ammo can be fired at him and how he is apt to handle it?

BOOKS Comments turned off

U.S. Attorney Shows Skewed Priorities on Terrorism Why 2016 will be the year of living dangerously. Lloyd Billingsley

Posted By on January 28th, 2016

Benjamin B. Wagner, an Obama appointee, is the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California, a vast region from Oregon to Los Angeles County. Wagner claims that “preventing acts of terrorism is my top priority” but his recent commentary for the Sacramento Bee leaves room for reasonable doubt.

Wagner refers to “the massacre” at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino but does not call it an act of terrorism. Rather, it is “tragic reminder” of the danger that foreign terrorist organizations, seek to “radicalize” Americans and inspire “violent acts.” Wagner does not name Tashfeen Malik, a Pakistani national, and American-born Syeed Farook, the Muslim perpetrators of the December 2 terrorist attack. Neither does Wagner name a single one of their 14 victims, who included African Americans, Hispanics and immigrants.

Wagner does refer to Nicholas Teausant, who “pleaded guilty to attempting to travel overseas to join the Islamic State.” The U.S. Attorney also mentions “a young man who lived in Sacramento” who lied about his activities abroad. This “young man” is Aws Mohammed Younis Al-Jayab, 23, an Iraqi Muslim who came to the United States as a refugee in 2012 but rejoined the struggle in Syria in company with terrorists.

Wagner notes that neither Teausant nor Al-Jayab “was charged with planning violent acts within the United States” but explains that “the threat from overseas terrorist organizations is not my only concern.” The Obama appointee is also concerned about “hostility and violence against our own Muslim American neighbors.” Further, “recent anti-Muslim rhetoric on the campaign trail and in the media is fraying Muslim Americans’ sense of security.” Wagner does not explain how the San Bernardino attack, along with the Boston Marathon bombing, 9/11 and other terrorist actions might have frayed everyone’s sense of security.

BOOKS Comments turned off

Flawed Holocaust Remembrance Forgetting that, even today, Jews could just be targeted. P. David Hornik

Posted By on January 28th, 2016

International Holocaust Remembrance Day fell this week on Wednesday. If the day is supposed to serve an educational function, it has largely been a failure.

It was also reported this week that “More than 40% of European Union citizens hold anti-Semitic views and agree with the claim that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians and behaving like the Nazis….” The data come from Israel’s official anti-Semitism report for 2015.

The 40% figure is consistent with earlier findings. A 2011 study by the University of Beilefeld in Germany found 48% of Germans and 63% of Poles agreeing that Israel was carrying out a war of extermination against the Palestinians; the lowest figures were 38% and 39% for Italy and the Netherlands respectively. Polls of Germans in 2013 and 2014 came up with similar numbers.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day has been marked for about a decade, along with other commemorations and educational efforts. The upshot is that large numbers of citizens of Europe—the continent where the Holocaust occurred—are unable to tell the difference between the deliberate extermination of six million people and an armed conflict whose death tolls, on both sides, are in the thousands.

Even for many of those who seem able to acknowledge the nature and magnitude of the Holocaust, the notion that, seventy years later, Jews have transformed from victims to victimizers appears irresistible.

BOOKS Comments turned off

Anti-Israelism and the Jewish community by Asaf Romirowsky

Posted By on January 28th, 2016

Over the course of Jewish history, the idea of survival has become essential to understanding the Jewish community. Such understanding has run highest at times when Jews were powerless, such as the end of World War II, and produced at these times a certain amount of world sympathy.

In contrast, when the Zionist enterprise began to lay the foundation for statehood in Mandatory Palestine, Jews began to accumulate power, which caused some to immediately question the enterprise itself. Old anti-Semitic tropes immediately reminded us that such a state would be based on “exploitation” or even Zionist “world domination,” something that generated non-Jewish hostility and, among a Jewish minority, feelings of guilt. Powerlessness was the preferred, even ideal situation.

After the Holocaust we witnessed a trend among many Jews, especially among children of survivors, to distance themselves from the horrors, and the State of Israel, because of the contrast that had emerged between powerlessness and power. This was illustrated in books like The Holocaust Is Over; We Must Rise From its Ashes by former Knesset speaker Avraham Burg, Norman Finkelstein’s The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering and the writings of critics like the late Tony Judt who categorically rejected Zionism.

POLITICS Comments turned off

What is at Stake for America in Bernie vs. Hillary The revolution will either destroy America or the Left. Daniel Greenfield 9

Posted By on January 28th, 2016

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are the same candidate. They’re both leftist radicals with degrees in political science who held back some of their more radical ideas to pursue political office. In the two years that they served together in the Senate, they voted the same way 93 percent of the time.

They’re also political opportunists. Bernie Sanders, no less than Hillary, reinvented his political views, including his allegiance to Socialism, numerous times over the years. Sanders moderated his positions on everything from gun control to Israel when it helped his political career. He’s now modifying plenty of positions all over again in order to appeal to new and different voters.

Bernie Sanders is no more authentic than Hillary Clinton and she is no less radical than he is. Both her attempts to appear mainstream and his efforts to seem radical are political poses that they deploy to bring in money and support from major blocs within the Democratic Party. Underneath the theater, Hillary Clinton is a longtime Alinsky fan while Bernie Sanders stumbles trying to update his views with the current obsessions of the radical left on everything from immigration to gun control to race.

The real struggle isn’t over beliefs, but over tactics.

While Hillary Clinton and her allies are attacking Bernie Sanders over his radical backing for Single Payer, in 1993, she told her husband that “managed competition“ was a “crock” and that “single-payer” was necessary. Hillary had proposed her own version of “Medicare for All” and when asked if it would be a backdoor for single payer, said, “What are we afraid of? Let’s see where the competition leads us.”

POLITICS Comments turned off

Ted Cruz Doesn’t Have Time for Failed ‘Conventional Wisdom’ on Foreign Policy. Ben Weingarten

Posted By on January 28th, 2016

Here’s How He Would Defend America Against Threats from the Middle East, Russia and China, According to His Chief National Security Advisor Dr. Victoria Coates

You might not think that the national security and foreign policy advisor for one of the leading 2016 presidential candidates would have the pedigree of a University of Pennsylvania art history Ph.D. specializing in Italian renaissance studies, and a former consulting curator title at the Cleveland Museum of Art. But then you haven’t met Dr. Victoria Coates, the self-described Renaissance woman and the chief articulator and defender of Cruz’s Jeane Kirkpatrick-inspired philosophy that has vexed many across the Republican political spectrum to date.
During an in-depth interview with Dr. Coates on her new book, David’s Sling: A History of Democracy in Ten Works of Art, we had the chance to pick the brain of Cruz’s national security consigliere on topics including:

The principles that underlie the “Cruz Doctrine”
Dr. Coates’ challenge to Cruz’s critics in the GOP foreign policy Establishment
What “winning” in the Middle East would look like for America under a President Cruz
The single greatest underestimated or ignored threat to America’s national interest

Ben Weingarten: Who are some of the individuals, or what are some of the works that have had the greatest influence on your worldview as it relates to foreign policy and national security, and by extension the worldview of Senator Cruz?

Reagan and Kirkpatrick (Wikipedia)
Dr. Victoria Coates: Well certainly in terms of David’s Sling, it’s in many ways a cautionary tale about how one chooses to understand the development of democracy, and how it can be spread. I mean because certainly this tells us it is a trial-and-error process, it takes a long time and it can’t be taken for granted. So certainly that’s how it has informed my worldview. For Senator Cruz, I know he looks very much for models of success, which sounds very simple, but it’s amazing to me how many people will look at failed models and sort of “try, try again,” using tactics that have not been particularly successful. So he looks at a President like Ronald Reagan, which is very popular to do, but it’s very hard to actually imitate the Reagan model because you have to make a number of very difficult choices, you have to set your priorities clearly, and you have to just stay focused on them like a laser. And so as he looks at our challenges today, he would see Reagans’ and [Jeane] Kirkpatricks’ and Fred Iklés’ interactions with the Soviet Union as a great model: That you don’t pretend that you can domesticate them; you don’t pretend that they are suddenly going to become your friend; but rather that they are a terrible threat that has to be fought every time they poke their heads up. And that does not mean necessarily invading, but it does mean being extremely mindful of America’s interests.
“[Senator Cruz] would see Reagans’ and [Jeane] Kirkpatricks’ and Fred Iklés’ interactions with the Soviet Union as a great model”
Ben Weingarten: Do you view Islamic supremacism as the analogue — although obviously differing in some ways — to the ideology and forces of the Soviet Union?
Dr. Victoria Coates: Certainly in terms of being an existential threat, it was interesting over Christmas the [Iranian] Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini came out with a little-noticed statement about how he felt Iran was locked in a “civilizational struggle” with the West. Now, I’m not in the business of destroying anybody else’s civilization, but I am in the business of protecting my own. And when somebody says they’re out to destroy it, I think we should probably pay some attention. And so, it’s not as you said, directly analogous to Soviet totalitarianism, but it could only be a matter of time. And so I think we need to organize the way we think about this in terms of protecting and celebrating both our culture, our allies because I think we are a tremendously powerful force for good around the world, and so that’s something I’d like to perpetuate.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Turkey’s All-Out War on Kurds and Media by Uzay Bulut

Posted By on January 28th, 2016

Our only aim today was to share what had happened in Van with the public in a healthy way. Today it was not us, but the people’s right to information that was taken into custody. We will not be silent.” — Bekir Gunes, working for the IMC TV, on Twitter. He was taken into custody for trying to report on the murders, but later released.

Since August, Turkey has been bombing and destroying its Kurdistan region in the same pattern: The Turkish government first declares curfews on Kurdish districts; then Turkish armed forces, with heavy weaponry, attack Kurdish neighborhoods and everyone living there. Much of this slaughter is presumably due to the Kurds having gained a large number of seats the latest elections — thereby preventing Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from attaining the super-majority he sought in order to change the Constitution and become “Sultan” for life, to rule as an autocrat. Kurds are also now asking for their right to rule themselves in their native lands, where they have lived for centuries.

Curfews in 19 Kurdish towns (from August 10, 2015 to the present) have penned Kurds in and enabled Turks to murder them more easily. So far, according to the Diyarbakir Branch of the Human Rights Association (IHD), in the past few months, 170 civilian Kurds have been killed. Of these, 29 were children, 39 were women and 102 were men. At least 140 people were wounded; some have lost eyes, legs or arms; others are the victims of brain trauma.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Harry Reid Recalls ‘Good Old Days’ When Trump ‘Did a Fundraiser or Two for Me’ By Bridget Johnson

Posted By on January 28th, 2016

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) today recalled “the good old days” when Donald Trump “did a fundraiser or two for me.”

Reid was asked outside a closed policy luncheon on Capitol Hill today about Trump’s compliments.

“I’ve always had a good relationship with Nancy Pelosi. I’ve never had a problem. Reid will be gone,” Trump told MSNBC yesterday, in reference to the Nevada senator’s impending retirement. “I always had a decent relationship with Reid, although lately, obviosuly, I haven’t been dealing with him so he’ll actually use my name as the ultimate — you know, as the ultimate of the billionaires in terms of, you know, people you don’t want.”

“But I always had a great relationship with Harry Reid,” Trump continued. “And frankly, if I weren’t running for office I would be able to deal with her or Reid or anybody. But I think I’d be able to get along very well with Nancy Pelosi and just about everybody. Hey, look, I think I’ll be able to get along well with Chuck Schumer. I was always very good with Schumer. I was close to Schumer in many ways.”

Since Trump began his presidential run, Reid has slammed many of the real-estate mogul’s statements on topics like immigration and Muslims from the Senate floor.

Today, Reid noted, “We’ve gotten along fine.”