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CAIR’s Identity Problem by Pete Hoekstra

Posted By on November 25th, 2015

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) styles itself as America’s largest Muslim civil rights advocacy group. Its executive director, Nihad Awad, recently took advantage of a reporter’s inflammatory article on a likely miscommunication with a presidential candidate to tweet to his English audience, “Exactly what #ISIS wants: #DonaldTrump’s recent call to force American Muslims to carry special ID.”

Moments later, Awad more directly reflected CAIR’s real status as a front for the radical Islamist Muslim Brotherhood when in Arabic he expanded upon those comments to compare the U.S. to Nazi Germany. The IPT translated the comments:

“It actually happened. The Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is calling for forcing American Muslims to carry ID’s classifying them on the basis of their religion. Exactly like Hitler did.”

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Why The Iran Deal? By Herbert London

Posted By on November 25th, 2015

With even Obama supporters now questioning the deal with Iran, with the revelation Iranian leaders made a side deal with the IAEA, with recognition that al Qaeda has a sanctuary in Iran, with the U.S. excluded from the inspection team, with leaders in Iran shouting “death to America” and with the Supreme Leader indicating that Israel must be “annihilated,” why does President Obama insist on this arrangement?

From a perspective that is coming into focus, President Obama and his colleagues see themselves as the Sykes and Picoh of the Middle East. That is to say, like members of the British and French foreign offices in 1916 who drew lines in the sand creating states out of the dismembered Ottoman Empire, President Obama regards the nuclear deal with Iran as a way to redraft Middle East geography and, simultaneously, have the U.S. withdraw from the region.

If Iran is in possession of nuclear weapons – a pathway created through the “deal” – it becomes the regional “strong horse,” a condition that justifies U.S. withdrawal. While there is the recognition Sunni nations will object to this hegemonic status for Iran, the Obama team contends that Iran will be a more reliable (Obama used the word “responsible”) partner in stabilizing the Middle East than Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Jordan. That is a strategic calculation that many regard as misguided. Why would you put Iran, the major state sponsor of terrorism, in a position to stabilize a region it has helped to destabilize? This is the question that many, including Democratic officials, are asking.

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Pete Mulherin Please, Waleed, Clichés Won’t Suffice See note please

Posted By on November 25th, 2015

This should be delivered to our president and to Hillary Clinton….rsk
ISIS says Islam is one thing and you insist it is nothing of the kind. Unless you are prepared to address, explain and specifically refute the Koran’s endorsements of murder, rape, intolerance and conquest, I’ll remain confused. Absent that, your latest sermon is an empty polemic, clarifying nothing.

Dear Waleed,
Anti-Muslim sentiment is growing in Australia, evidenced by the United Patriotic Front’s countrywide marches at the weekend. We learnt on this week’s Four Corners that de-radicalisation programs haven’t been very successful in Australia to date. Meanwhile, the other night, Waleed, you caused a sensation with your impassioned call for unity in the wake of the latest Paris terror attacks. But while I share your moral outrage I can’t help feeling that you’re not really helping the situation.

I’m sure you’d agree that truth is the aim of serious discussion, but on a sensitive topic like the role of Islam in terrorism it’s very hard to come by. I’m no expert on Islam; but that’s just the point. I’m typical of Australians who are confused by extremist positions on all sides and trying to make sense of where the truth lies. Extremists, by definition, don’t suffer those who disagree with them, they’re intolerant of anyone who doesn’t subscribe to their narrow view. And on that definition, I think you, too, are an extremist Waleed.

There are three vocal and extreme positions in this debate: the Islamic State, with its literal reading of the Koran and Prophet’s life; anti-Muslim groups such as the United Patriotic Front; and non-violent Muslim apologists like yourself. Common to all three is a narrow interpretation of Islam and intolerance for those who question their views.

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Geoffrey Luck The Silver-Tongued Scourge of ISIS

Posted By on November 25th, 2015

As if the head-loppers did not have enough to worry about, what with rumours of a virgin shortage in Paradise and financial anxieties arising from missed Centerlink appointments. Now our PM has blitzed the Beard Brigade with a Dispatch Box barrage of his best, mostly borrowed cliches.
Our freshly-minted prime minister, Mr Ozemail, has appointed General Waleed Aly of Monash University, Channel 10 and the ABC, as his national security adviser. The appointment was announced to the cheers of the House of Representatives today, as the politicians re-lived the spine-shivery thrills of excitement they experienced on the hundred millionth replay of Aly’s national security address to the nation last week.

Aly, it will be remembered, broke the news that Islamic State is weak. He described ISIL as “The mouse that roars.” Listen:

There is a reason ISIL still want to appear to powerful, why they don’t want to acknowledge that the land they control has been taken from weak enemies…ISIL don’t want you to know they would quickly be crushed if they ever face d a proper Army on a battlefield.

They want you to fear them. They want you to get angry. They want all of us to become hostile.

These powerful insights had not gone unnoticed by Mr Ozemail, although busy flitting from city to city with leadership peers on international business. So it may well be that he called for Waleed to churn out the script for his first national security statement to Parliament. And this is what he read out:

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The Lessons of Paris and 9/11 Unlearned Surveillance is not just about making arrests, but knowing where the next threat might come from By Jason L. Riley

Posted By on November 25th, 2015

The timing could have been worse, but not by much. Exactly one month before the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris, a federal appeals court reopened a discrimination lawsuit filed against New York City over a counterterrorism program begun in the wake of 9/11.

The 2001 World Trade Center attack was the second time the buildings had been hit in eight years—a car bomb was detonated underneath the complex in 1993, killing six and injuring more than 1,000. Follow-up plots to bomb the George Washington Bridge, the United Nations and the FBI’s New York office were thwarted by an informant who had infiltrated the terrorists. But after 9/11, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly stepped up the city’s offense against Islamic extremists bent on killing innocent Americans.

Among other things, the New York Police Department developed a Counterterrorism Bureau that collaborated with law-enforcement agencies throughout the U.S. and around the world. Most of the conspirators in the 1993 and 2001 attacks came from places like Egypt, Lebanon, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. They settled in Arabic-speaking neighborhoods in New York City and New Jersey, where some were radicalized in mosques and through Islamic organizations. The NYPD has long used confidential informants to infiltrate the mafia, gangs and drug rings, and it determined that an effective way to stop future terror attacks would be to employ the same tactics. Thus a so-called Demographics Unit was created in 2003 to identify specific “venues of radicalization” and “locations of concern” and provide early warning of any terrorist activity.

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Thanksgiving With a Side of Public Distrust Americans may be thankful at home but are unhappier than ever with Washington. By William A. Galston

Posted By on November 25th, 2015

On the eve of Thanksgiving, Americans are not in a particularly thankful mood. That’s the conclusion I draw from the latest Pew Research center study of our attitude toward government.

Trust in government is near historic lows. Yet our expectations from government are very high. Diminished trust and elevated hope yield the dominant sentiment of this presidential election year—not anger, but rather profound frustration.

The research I’ve just summarized applies to both political parties. It isn’t exactly news that Democrats see a major role for government in most areas. But so do majorities of Republicans in 10 of the 13 areas covered in Pew’s study. Nor is it news that 57% of Republicans are frustrated with government. But so are 59% of Democrats.

Americans are critical of their elected officials. Only 23% say that our leaders care what people like me think; only 22% see these officials as putting the country’s interests ahead of their own; only 19% think that they try hard to stay in touch with the voters. Overall, Americans regard their elected officials as intelligent but selfish and dishonest.

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Congress Can Cool Off Obama’s Climate Plans At the Paris talks next week, the U.S. may make harmful commitments on spending and carbon.By Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyoming)

Posted By on November 25th, 2015

When the U.N. climate-change talks convene in Paris next week, the risks will be high for American taxpayers. President Obama wants a climate deal and is willing to pay dearly to get it. The inevitable outcome is a plan with unproven benefits and unreachable goals, but very real costs. It will be up to Congress to check the president’s ambition of committing the U.S. to an international green scheme that will produce little or no return.

The ostensible goal of the Paris talks (Nov. 30-Dec. 11) is to convince countries to commit to enacting laws that reduce carbon emissions. That fits President Obama’s vision of a world without fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas. The American people oppose these policies, but the president has shown himself determined to circumvent Congress.

The Obama administration has already imposed burdensome regulations—for instance, the sprawling Clean Power Plan aimed at wiping out the coal industry—that will raise the cost of energy and put hundreds of thousands of Americans out of work. Now the president wants his negotiators to use these international climate talks to pile on more restrictions.

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Princeton students stand up to political correctness More than 1,300 sign a petition that champions free speech

Posted By on November 25th, 2015

While students from Yale University in Connecticut to Claremont McKenna in California are protesting, demanding more cultural sensitivity, safe spaces and trigger warnings, some students at Princeton University in New Jersey are fighting back.

In response to a sit-in of the university president’s office by 200 members of the Black Justice League, over 1,300 members of the university community signed a petition to ensure that Princeton “maintains its commitment to free speech and open dialogue and condemns political correctness to the extent that it infringes upon those fundamental academic values.”
As signatures on the petition climbed, students formed the Princeton Open Campus Coalition. They wrote to Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber and asked to meet with him to discuss preserving the freedom of speech and civil debate that are the hallmarks of a classical education. Evan Draim, a Princeton senior and one of the group’s founders, told me in an email: “We hope that our peers at other colleges gain inspiration from what we are doing at Princeton.”

The Black Justice League’s demands include a dorm for those who want to celebrate black affinity; mandatory diversity training; and a requirement that students take a course on so-called marginalized peoples. They also want the renaming of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the removal of a mural of President Woodrow Wilson. Wilson, who graduated from Princeton in 1879 and who served as the university’s president from 1902 until 1910, formally segregated the federal workforce.
Campus protests are the latest in many students’ efforts to be protected from situations that they find difficult.

Eisgruber has agreed to set aside four rooms on campus for the use of students of different cultures, and to consult with faculty and the board of trustees on other demands.
Asanni York, a junior who helped organize the protests, said the university was not doing enough to address racial problems on campus, and that “black students on this campus feel uncomfortable every day.” York told me: “I’m focused less on how President Eisgruber resolved the sit-in and more on how campus will change in the next two semesters.”
Wilson was a racist by today’s standards, but he was hardly a reactionary figure in his time. As university president, he tried unsuccessfully to disband Princeton’s now-famous eating clubs on the grounds that they were elitist, and he pioneered the idea that Princeton should be a university “in the nation’s service.” As America’s president, Wilson substantially expanded the size and scope of the federal government including such institutions as the Federal Reserve Board.

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Royal Dimwit Prince Charles: Blame Global Warming for ‘this Horror in Syria’ By Tom S. Elliott

Posted By on November 24th, 2015

Joining John Kerry and Bernie Sanders, Prince Charles became the latest to blame the Syrian civil war on global warming.

In a half-hour interview that aired tonight on Sky News, Prince Charles said man’s impact on the climate spurs violence and conflict, specifically the civil war in Syria.

“There is very good evidence indeed that one of the major reasons for this horror in Syria was a drought that lasted for about five or six years, which meant that huge numbers of people in the end had to leave the land because water ran out, their crops failed,” Prince Charles said. “Increasingly, they came into the cities already full of Iraqi refugees from that horrible crisis. This combined created a very difficult situation.”

“It is bad enough now with refugees, but think what it will be like if we do not deal with the problem which is actually helping to cause it because the conflict often comes from movement of people as a result of not being able to survive,” he continued.

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Obama Has Just Begun How much damage can he do in his last year in office? By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on November 24th, 2015

Insidiously and inadvertently, Barack Obama is alienating the people and moving the country to the right. If he keeps it up, by 2017 it will be a reactionary nation. But, counterintuitive as it seems, that is fine with Obama: Après nous le déluge.

By sheer force of his personality, Obama has managed to lose the Democratic Senate and House. State legislatures and governorships are now predominantly Republican. Obama’s own favorable ratings rarely top 45 percent. In his mind, great men, whether Socrates or Jesus, were never appreciated in their time. So it is not surprising that he is not, as he presses full speed ahead.

Obama certainly has doubled down going into his last year, most recently insisting on letting in more refugees from the Middle East, at a time when the children of Middle Eastern immigrants and contemporary migrants are terrorizing Europe. What remaining unpopular executive acts might anger his opponents the most? Close down Guantanamo, let thousands more refugees into the United States, free thousands more felons, snub another ally, flatter another enemy, weigh in on another interracial melodrama, extend amnesty to another million illegal aliens, make global warming laws by fiat, expand Obamacare, unilaterally impose gun control? In lieu of achievement, is the Obama theory to become relevant or noteworthy by offending the public and goading political enemies?

An Obama press conference is now a summation of all his old damn-you clichés — the fantasy strawman arguments; the caricatures of the evil Republican bogeymen; the demagogic litany of the sick, the innocent, and the old at the mercy of his callous opponents; the affected accentuation (e.g., Talîban; Pakîstan, Îslám, Latînos, etc.) that so many autodidacts parade in lieu of learning foreign languages; the make-no-mistake-about-it and let-me-be-clear empty emphatics; the flashing temper tantrums; the mangled sports metaphors; the factual gaffes; and the monotonous I, me, my, and mine first-person-pronoun exhaustion. What Obama cannot do in fact, he believes he can still accomplish through invective and derision.