Farewell to Ahmed the Clock Boy As he absconds to Qatar, his influence is undeniable. But is it for good or ill? Robert Spencer

“Not many people make national news by bringing a homemade clock to school,” gushed Time as it named Ahmed Mohamed to its list of “The 30 Most Influential Teens of 2015.” “But the ninth grader’s arrest, after teachers and authorities mistook said clock for a bomb, kicked off a national debate over racial profiling—and a outpouring of support for Mohamed, who was personally invited to the White House by President Obama (who called his clock ‘cool’). In October, he accepted a full scholarship to a prestigious school in Qatar.”

Racial profiling? Really? What race is jihad terror again? What race is carrying what could be a bomb to a school? I keep forgetting.

In any case, Time’s selection was perfectly fitting. Ahmed Mohamed probably deserves to be on the list more than any of the other 29 teens. As he hobnobbed with world leaders and was hailed as a hero by the international media, his influence was undeniable; the only question was whether it was a positive or a negative influence.

For Time and its mainstream media colleagues, of course, there was no question that Ahmed was a positive influence. He was a symbol of everything the media wants us to believe about Muslims and Islam: that Muslims are inventive, hard-working, industrious, and unjustly harassed by an out-of-control, racist and “Islamophobic” law enforcement establishment.

Israeli Blood on Obama’s Hands How Obama and Kerry caused the stabbing terror spree in Israel. Daniel Greenfield

Before the Muslim terror stabbing spree, Netanyahu had made repeated efforts to meet with the leader of the PLO. And for once, Abbas, the PLO leader, had not been averse to a meeting.

Instead it was Secretary of State John Kerry who told Abbas not to meet with Netanyahu.

Abbas went to the UN and disavowed the Oslo Accords. The first Muslim stabbings of Jews, with the encouragement of the PLO, began a few days later.

It is unlikely that Kerry had directly told Abbas to escalate the violence, but he had sent him the same effective message by coordinating with the PLO boss at the expense of Netanyahu. The top terrorist came away with the understanding that the administration favored him and was hostile to Netanyahu.

And he was right.

So Abbas decided to see what another outburst of violence would net him.

Freedom Center Launches ‘Stop the Jihad on Campus’ Campaign Ending the use of our universities as staging grounds for campaigns of hatred. Mark Tapson

Mark Tapson, a Hollywood-based writer and screenwriter, is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and the editor of TruthRevolt.com.

The David Horowitz Freedom Center has officially launched a campaign called “Stop the Jihad on Campus.” During the coming fall term, from October 26- November 6, 2015, the Freedom Center will be holding a series of “teach-ins” to raise student awareness about Islamic jihad, and to combat the pro-terrorist propaganda of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood which has become such a familiar presence on American campuses.

The campaign invites students who believe in our Constitution and who are opposed to the genocides taking place in the Middle East against Christians Jews, and Muslims who don’t support jihad to participate by holding a teach-in on your campus to tell the truth about what is happening in the Middle East and to expose the threat to Americans here at home.

Hillary Clinton and Obama’s Lies on Benghazi — Too Many to Count, but Let’s Try By Deroy Murdock

People died. Hillary lied.Obama lied, too.They lied early.They lied often.They lied deliberately.

They lied about the slaughter of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, at the hands of al-Qaeda-tied terrorists.

They lied, but not to protect vital national secrets or flummox America’s enemies.They lied to get reelected.

And they lied directly, knowingly, and repeatedly to the American people.

Although I am a confirmed and consistent critic of Hillary and Obama, I long had cut them some slack regarding their first comments about the Benghazi attack. Thanks to the fog of war, I thought, they could not be blamed if they initially misattributed this deadly onslaught to a mob inflamed about an incredibly amateur Internet video that dissed the Prophet Mohammad. If they innocently got it wrong in, say, the first twelve hours after the assault began, they might deserve a grudging pass — at least for those early announcements.

Katherine Timpf — Colleges Designating Official Halloween Costume Sensitivity Consultants ????!!!!

It’s about time!
Colleges are hanging flyers around campus with phone numbers of officials that students can call to consult with about whether or not their Halloween costume is perfectly politically correct.

“Unsure if your costume might be offensive?” asks a poster that’s been hung around campus at State University of New York at Geneseo. “Don’t be afraid to ask questions.”

The poster contains the phone numbers and e-mails of five (five!) campus officials that students can contact and discuss the very important issue of whether or not what they will dress up as to get drunk in will be advancing social-justice causes.

Wesleyan University has been hanging similar posters around the school — but with six (six!) numbers listed.

#share#It’s not clear whether students will be able to reach these numbers round-the-clock through Halloween weekend. Hopefully they will. After all, Halloween is a very serious issue, and can not be treated as if it were just some fun little holiday that’s a chance for people to use their imaginations and have some fun without taking each other too seriously.

John Kasich Enters the Twilight Zone By John Fund

If there’s a consensus about Wednesday’s GOP debate, it’s that the CNBC moderators had a train wreck. Among the non-conservatives who thought the moderators were horribly biased and inept were HBO’s Bill Maher and Ron Fournier of the National Journal. But Ohio governor John Kasich said afterwards that he was “very appreciative of how they did their job.” Kasich “thought they did a good job” and said that the raucous, interruption-filled debate was “well controlled.”

John Kasich’s perception of the debate reality is worthy of Rod Serling’s old mind-bending TV show.

Every four years, one Republican presidential candidate attempts to first win “the media primary,” primarily by accusing other GOP candidates of “extremism” while at the same time flattering the mainstream media. In 2008, that candidate was John McCain — although his love affair with the media ended as soon as Barack Obama was his opponent. In 2012, it was former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, who crashed and burned.

It’s Rubio vs. Cruz And Republicans could do a lot worse. By Kevin D. Williamson

‘Ted Cruz is only going to be popular,” a lefty correspondent sniffs, “in those places where the Osmonds are still popular.” If that is true, then the news for Senator Cruz could not possibly be better, inasmuch as this puts Nevada into play: Donny and Marie signed up for a six-week stint in Las Vegas back in 2008, and extended, and extended, and will be performing in the showroom now named for them until the end of 2016, at least. Good tickets for the reliably sold-out show are $260 each — no laughing matter when one considers that the Osmond demographic includes some pretty large families. It can be hard to see it from Williamsburg or Petworth, but the culture isn’t (only) what the hipsters think it is. If Senator Cruz proves as popular as Shania Twain and NASCAR, he won’t just be president — he’ll be president-for-life.

And that is of some interest, given that Wednesday’s debate very much left the impression that this is a Ted Cruz–Marco Rubio race.

About those other guys . . .

Jeb Bush’s performance confirms an earlier judgment of him, that he was a pretty good governor a long time ago with no special oomph today, a decent man whose misadventures on the critical policy questions of immigration and education, along with his too-familiar surname, are like heavy boots on a drowning man. His strategy to push Senator Rubio to the side in order to be positioned in such a way that the bulk of the reasonable-to-just-short-of-howling vote should fall upon his head as fading reality-television grotesque Donald Trump enters the Norma Desmond stage of his campaign, leaving Senator Cruz to wage a pyrrhic campaign for the moonbats, was too calculated. It was so calculated, in fact, that Senator Rubio was able to deftly parry it simply by pointing out the calculation. Bush père screwed up by reading his stage directions aloud — “Message: I care” — whereas the (younger) younger Bush stood mutely by as Senator Rubio read aloud from his playbook. It was like watching the smartest kid in the fourth grade mangle his own name at a spelling bee.

Mark Steyn on Europe

Re the accelerating Islamization of Europe, Bob Belvedere over at the Camp of the Saints has an interesting aside:

People like the Koch Brothers should really be forming paramilitary units for the purposes of rescuing what European Treasures they can, such as the aforementioned Throne [of Charlemagne], the Mona Lisa, Michelangelo’s David and Pieta, Magna Carta, etc.

Put Magna Carta to one side for the moment, since the document is a mere souvenir of the idea, and it’s the idea that matters, which is why some of us are still writing books on the subject (personally autographed copies exclusively available from the SteynOnline bookstore).

But the notion of commando teams rescuing what’s left of western art from the Eurabian night struck me a year or so back as I was watching a rather undernourished George Clooney flick, The Monuments Men, about art experts rescuing great paintings marooned behind enemy lines during World War Two. In the first chapter of his very prescient book The West’s Last Chance, written before the Mohammed cartoon eruptions, the late Tony Blankley contemplates a European future in which firebreathing imams incite art wars on whatever’s to hand – Michelangelo’s “Little David” gets blown up in Florence, Albrecht Dürer’s Adam and Eve are attacked with acid, a car bomb explodes outside the Rodin museum… More and more of the surviving works are carted off to “secure” storage facilities, never to be seen in public again.

Wake Up, America—Your Military Is Marginal Posted By James Jay Carafano

The Heritage Foundation released its annual assessment on the state of the armed forces. The rating delivered by the 2016 Index of U.S. Military Strength is “marginal.” That might not be a bad grade for kindergarten kids to bring home. They have a couple of years before they have to apply to Harvard. But, that’s not much to show for a commander-in-chief after seven years of stewardship over America’s military.

Reacting to the report, Senator John McCain (R-AZ), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, bemoaned that “crippling America’s military readiness and capability at a time when we face a complex array of challenges not seen since the end of World War II.”

“In aggregate,” the Heritage report found, “the United States’ military posture is rated as ‘marginal’ and is trending toward ‘weak.’” Unlike other indexes which just add up what the U.S. military has, this assessment also measures the state of threats to our vital interests and the conditions under which the military might operate to determine whether the capabilities of the armed forces are sufficient.

The Making of a Palestinian Hero Posted By P. David Hornik

On October 3, 2015, Muhannad Halabi, a 19-year-old Palestinian, perpetrated a stabbing and shooting attack on Israelis in the Old City of Jerusalem. He killed two men—Nehemiah Levi, 41, and Aharon Banita, 22. Banita’s wife was also seriously wounded, and their two-year-old child was lightly wounded. The attack ended with Halabi being shot dead by policemen.

When the wife, Adele Banita, injured and bleeding, begged for help [1] from surrounding Palestinian shopkeepers, they “just spat at me…laughed and cursed…and told [me] to ‘drop dead.’…”

Since that time, the memory of Muhannad Halabi, the attacker, has undergone a process not far from the beatification of a saint:

Just hours after the attack, the first Palestinian baby was named after [2] Halabi. The mother of the newborn Muhannad Halabi called the mother of the deceased Muhannad Halabi, and “the two mothers cried from joy….” Palestinian news outlets dubbed Halabi a “hero of our people” who was “murdered by the occupation army.”