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The Health of Nations By J. D. Vance

Posted By on January 7th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/tucker-carlson-health-of-nations-markets/

Conservatives should heed Tucker Carlson’s advice. We shouldn’t assume that what is good for markets is good for all of us.

Tucker Carlson’s monologue heard round the world is interesting on its own terms. In it, he argues against a conservatism that consistently prizes commercial interests above those of everyone else. I encourage you to watch or read it in full. Yet the response on the right is as interesting as Carlson’s monologue itself, for it reveals a discomfort among some conservatives for balancing the tensions that exist in our coalition and in our ideology.

There is, by many on the right, an effort to sing the praises of market capitalism without acknowledging the tensions between our pro-market principles and everything else. I respect Ben Shapiro a great deal, but I found this paragraph in his response to Carlson curious:

Supply and demand economics has powered most of the world’s human beings out of extreme poverty, and led to the richest society in human history. It has allowed us to live longer, in bigger houses, in more comfort. It has meant fewer dead children and more living parents. If we’ve blown that advantage, that’s our own fault. Traditional conservatives recognized that the role of economics is to provide prosperity — to raise the GDP. The role of a social fabric and a value system is to provide meaning.

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Rashida’s Song Anthem for Democrats’ anti-Trump jihad. Lloyd Billingsley

Posted By on January 7th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272471/rashidas-song-lloyd-billingsley

Rashida Tlaib is one of the first Muslim women in Congress but last week the Michigan Democrat revealed something else about herself. The first time Tlaib said “mother,” she had learned half a new word, the same one she showcased after being sworn in as a representative of the people.

“When your son looks at you and said ‘Mamma, look, you won — bullies don’t win.’ And I said, ‘Baby they don’t, because we’re gonna go in there and we’re gonna impeach the motherfucker!’” The self-described Palestinian-American may be okay once she comes out of her shell, but Democrats had her back.

Rising star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been busy proposing tax hikes to 70 percent and abolishing energy from gas and oil. She took a break from building socialism to blast the “faux outrage” over Tlaib as “Republican hypocrisy at its finest,” citing Trump’s claim of “locker room talk” for his “sexual assault” of ladies.

“I probably have a generational reaction to it, but in any event I’m not in the censorship business,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters. “But I don’t think it’s any worse than what the president has said.” That is understandable from a woman whose favorite Stalinist was Soviet agent Harry Bridges, and who thinks walls are “immoral.” On the other hand, the parallel is not quite right.

Trump has said that we are going to “bomb the shit out of ISIS” and lamented “shithole countries.” During the primaries he mocked rivals but never said “I’m going to defeat the motherfuckers.” Trump once expressed a desire to put Hillary Clinton in jail but never called the Clintons “motherfuckers,” a term Bill and Hillary often used for each other, according to Christopher Andersen in American Evita: Hillary Clinton’s Path to Power.

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Escape from Portland Unarmed cops, an 18% murder rise, and vigilante justice. Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on January 7th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272426/escape-portland-daniel-greenfield

It was a big year in Portland where the murder rate rose 18.6%. That was the perfect time for Portland’s progressive politburo to spend over $1 million on unarmed cops armed only with pepper spray.

There was a little bit of excitement when it was learned that their 200 hours of training would include “Taser Orientation” suggesting that they might be allowed to carry tasers. But Mayor Wheeler’s office explained that the weaponless cops weren’t being trained to use tasers, but “how to avoid being tased”.

Portlanders aren’t waiting for officers to show up and shout, “Don’t tase me, bro”. Instead in a city overrun with crime, they’re increasingly taking matters and guns into their hands.

Of the 32 violent deaths in Portland last year, 5 were found to have been carried out in self-defense. That tops the 4 deaths that occurred as a result of shootings by those cops who still have their guns.

Richard R. Hanley showed up in the parking lot outside Timeless Tattoo. The California homeless bum had previously made the news when he was arrested for attacking his ex-girlfriend and her new beau with a metal chain. Hanley, already on probation for a domestic abuse and strangulation conviction, with six felony and seven misdemeanor priors, also pulled out huge clumps of a female deputy’s hair.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Lara Kollab and the Disease of Jew-Hate What drove a well-educated young doctor from an affluent family to become a vile anti-Semite? Ari Lieberman

Posted By on January 7th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272472/lara-kollab-and-disease-jew-hate-ari-lieberman

In medical terms, Lara Kollab’s career is dead on arrival or flat-lined. The prestigious Cleveland Clinic, where she was employed as a supervised resident, rightly fired her after only two months. Ohio’s Osteopathic Association informed me via Twitter that her medical training certificate is invalid because it was contingent upon her working in an accredited program. Because she was fired from the Cleveland Clinic, she is no longer in an accredited program. Moreover, because of the way medical residencies are scheduled, the earliest time that she can re-apply into another residency program is July 2020. Even then, it is doubtful that any hospital will accept her, except for perhaps Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, which also conveniently serves as a Hamas Headquarters in times of war with Israel.

For those of you who were in hibernation this past week, Kollab, whose parents are Palestinian and Muslim, posted numerous anti-Semitic comments on her social media platforms. She routinely referred to Jews as “dogs,” trivialized the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust, claimed that “Zionists” controlled the media and “Israel runs America,” and repeatedly expressed a desire to inflict harm on Jews. But the one comment that put the nail in the coffin for Kollab was the tweet where she expressed her desire to provide her Jewish patients with the wrong medication, effectively poisoning them. Not exactly the sort of sentiment that’s consistent with the Hippocratic Oath and precisely the sort of sentiment you’d expect from the likes of Doctor Mengele.

On Friday, Kollab issued an apology of sorts through her lawyer. This represents the first step in Kollab’s attempt to salvage what’s left her tattered career and reputation. But the apology was equivocal and laced with deception and deflection. She claimed that the offensive, anti-Semitic posts were made years before she was accepted into medical school. That is false. The vile comments, which included deep-seated hatred of Israel and support for terrorism continued up until 2017 and constituted one steady and continuous stream of anti-Semitic invective. Her views remained constant and unchanged even after her acceptance to Touro.

One of the mysteries of the Kollab case is why she would choose Touro of all places. Touro accepts all students from diverse backgrounds and ethnicities but when it was established in 1970, its focus was on higher education for the Jewish community. Over the years, the college became recognized for its high educational standards and consequently attracted a broader and more diverse student body.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

An Epidemic of Erasures, Redactions, Omissions, and Perjuries By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on January 7th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/01/06/an-epidemic-of-

Imagine the following: The IRS sends you, John Q. Citizen, a letter alleging you have not complied with U.S. tax law. In the next paragraph, the tax agency then informs you that it needs a series of personal and business documents. Indeed, it will be sending agents out to discuss your dilemma and collect the necessary records.

But when the IRS agents arrive, you explain to them that you cannot find about 50 percent of the documents requested, and have no idea whether they even exist. You sigh that both hard copies of pertinent information have unfortunately disappeared and hard drives were mysteriously lost.

You nonchalantly add that you smashed your phone, tablet, and computer with a hammer. You volunteer that, of those documents you do have, you had to cut out, blacken or render unreadable about 30 percent of the contents. After all, you have judged that the redacted material either pertains to superfluous and personal matters such as weddings and yoga, or is of such a sensitive nature that its release would endanger your company or business or perhaps even the country at large.

You also keep silent that you have a number of pertinent documents locked up in a safe hidden in your attic unknown to the IRS. Let them find it, you muse. And when the agents question your unilateral decisions over hours of interrogatories, you remark to them on 245 occasions that you have no memory of your acts—or you simply do not have an answer for them.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Ocasio-Cortez Says She’s More Like a British Socialist, Wants High Taxes on ‘the Tippy Tops’ By Bridget Johnson

Posted By on January 7th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/ocasio-cortez-says-shes-more-like-a-british-socialist-wants-high-taxes-on-the-tippy-tops/

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told 60 Minutes in an interview aired Sunday that people should “call me a radical” as “it only has ever been radicals that have changed this country.”

“Abraham Lincoln made the radical decision to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. Franklin Delano Roosevelt made the radical decision to embark on establishing programs like Social Security,” she said.

Ocasio-Cortez is pushing for a Green New Deal that would ban use of fossil fuels in the country within 12 years. “It’s going to require a lot of rapid change that we don’t even conceive as possible right now. What is the problem with trying to push our technological capacities to the furthest extent possible?” she said.

Explaining her plan to raise taxes to pay for such initiatives as the climate plan, Ocasio-Cortez told CBS, “You look at our tax rates back in the ’60s and when you have a progressive tax rate system your tax rate, you know, let’s say, from zero to $75,000, may be 10 percent or 15 percent, etc. But once you get to, like, the tippy tops — on your 10 millionth dollar — sometimes you see tax rates as high as 60 or 70 percent. That doesn’t mean all 10 million dollars are taxed at an extremely high rate, but it means that as you climb up this ladder you should be contributing more.”

The congresswoman was asked if she has “Soviet Union, Cuba, Venezuela” in mind when she espouses socialism.

“Of course not. What we have in mind — and what my policies most closely resemble — what we see in the UK, in Norway, in Finland, in Sweden,” Ocasio-Cortez replied.

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Allah over America By Eileen F. Toplansky

Posted By on January 7th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/01/allah_over_america.html

The smirk by Chuck Schumer spoke volumes, and the full-blown identity politicians showing their true colors remind one of Abraham Lincoln’s potent lines when on March 4, 1865 he penned the following:

While the inaugural address was being delivered … devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war – seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

We are not in a hot civil war at this time, but, as Charles R. Kelser has written, “cold civil war is better than a hot civil war, but it is not a good situation for a country to be in. Underlying our cold civil war is the fact that America is torn increasingly between two rival constitutions, two cultures, two ways of life.”

Consider Nikki Randhawa, a Sikh who represented the very best of America when she was the United States ambassador to the United Nations. Most of us know her as Nikki Haley. Her marriage to Michael Haley was a “measure of respect for their individual backgrounds – the colorful Sikh ritual was followed by the Methodist ceremony.” Her husband is an officer in the South Carolina National Guard. She was a governor of South Carolina – clearly two proud Americans who serve their country with distinction.

Reflect now on the newly elected Democratic Muslim women who embody the creeping sharia that is enveloping the world. Ilhan Omar (Minnesota) used American immigration law to her advantage by marrying her brother in 2009. The “motivation for the marriage points to possible immigration fraud and student loan fraud. What’s more she swore to apparent falsehoods in court.”

Tashida Tlaib (Michigan) has vociferously called for the impeachment of Donald Trump. According to Tlaib “President Donald Trump is a direct and serious threat to our country.” She asserts that “[o]n an almost daily basis, he attacks our Constitution, our democracy, the rule of law and the people who are in this country. His conduct has created a constitutional crisis that we must confront now.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Will Netanyahu Go to Riyadh? A meeting between Israel’s prime minister and Saudi Arabia’s crown prince would make sense.By Karen Elliott House

Posted By on January 7th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/will-netanyahu-go-to-riyadh-11546804745

Don’t be surprised if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu soon visits Saudi Arabia to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The Trump administration has worked for nearly two years to get Riyadh and Jerusalem openly working together. Crown Prince Mohammed loves risk and is eager to turn the page from the Jamal Khashoggi murder. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s Mideast trip this week seems choreographed for a dramatic finale starring the crown prince.

The U.S. stage managers are in place: National security adviser John Bolton landed in Israel Saturday, and Mr. Pompeo arrives Wednesday in Amman, Jordan, the first of eight Arab capitals he’ll visit in as many days. He plans to deliver a major speech in Cairo and to visit Riyadh early next week.

Mr. Pompeo’s trip is intended to underscore that far from fading out of the Middle East, the U.S. is leading a broad coalition against Iran. The linchpins of the effort are Israel and Saudi Arabia, which share a fear of Iranian expansionism and are the closest U.S. allies in the region. They have maintained informal but not-so-secret contacts, sharing intelligence on their common nemesis. Why not make it official?

HISTORY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Chaim of Arabia: The First Arab-Zionist Alliance Rick Richman

Posted By on January 7th, 2019

https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/4992/chaim-of-arabia-the-first-arab-zionis

On January 3, 1919, a few weeks after World War I ended, the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann met with Emir Faisal, the commander-in-chief of the Arab uprising against the Ottoman Empire, at a London hotel. Faisal’s father, King Hussein of Hedjaz, ruled the two holiest sites of Islam—Mecca and Medina—and the family traced its lineage to the prophet Muhammad. Faisal was accompanied to the meeting by his adviser, friend, and translator, T. E. Lawrence, who had helped him lead the Arab Revolt.

At the meeting, Weizmann and Faisal signed an agreement, brokered over the preceding month by Lawrence, exchanging Arab acceptance of the Balfour Declaration for Zionist support of an Arab state in the rest of the Ottoman lands. In February, they traveled to the Paris Peace Conference, where the victorious Allies would remap Europe and the Middle East, and made complementary presentations about the future of the region.

In the famous 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia, Lawrence would be played by Peter O’Toole, and Faisal by Alec Guinness. Weizmann was not portrayed at all, but perhaps he should have been. His arduous wartime trip, in June 1918, from Palestine to Faisal’s remote desert military camp—a five-day journey by train, boat, car, camel, and foot—led to their January agreement.

The Balfour Declaration, issued on November 2, 1917, had pledged support for a Jewish national home in Palestine, in part to generate support in America and Russia for Britain’s war effort. The British believed that both countries had influential Jewish populations and that the declaration would help keep Russia and America in the war against Germany and the Ottoman Turks. It was also, however, part of a broader British war strategy—one designed to bring the Jewish, Arab, and Armenian national movements into an informal alliance to defeat the Ottoman Empire.

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The European Union’s Massive Brexit Self-Harming Exercise by Malcolm Lowe

Posted By on January 7th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13501/eu-brexit-self-harm

Irish PM Varadkar has made an Irish joke out of Ireland by his own opposition to changing the “backstop.” To claim that an easily removable obstacle that will gravely harm Ireland provides essential protection to Ireland may not be the funniest joke in Irish history, but it is a good candidate for becoming the most expensive one.

As the resumption of the Brexit debate looms in the House of Commons, it is reported that the European Commission is haughtily retaining its refusal to consider any revision to the Withdrawal Agreement (WA); this attitude is also backed by the numerous leaders of European Union countries whom UK PM Theresa May has contacted. Those leaders assume that, like most of them themselves, the UK will eventually grovel before the Commission and accept its dictate.

The European leaders are too young, perhaps, to remember that most of their countries would have become German dominions and satellites if the UK had not refused to grovel to Hitler in July 1940 after the Fall of France, fighting on alone in Europe and North Africa. As Germany discovered later that its misjudgment of the UK would end with the devastation of Germany, today the UK is preparing resolutely for a no-deal Brexit that will cost it dearly, but the EU more dearly.

For one thing, the European Commissioner for Budget and Human Resources, Günther Oettinger, warned on December 27 in an interview with the Westfälische Rundschau that EU members will have to pay up if the UK saves itself the estimated €42 billion that it would owe the EU according to the provisions of the WA. Merely in 2019, Germany itself would have to pay about half a billion euros extra (“ein mittlerer dreistelliger Millionenbetrag”). As for himself, he is planning to leave the European Commission for the private sector in the spring, that is, about the time when the UK is scheduled to leave the EU (March 29).

The source of the trouble (if anyone still does not know) lies in one part of the WA, the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland, the so-called “backstop.” It provides for a “temporary” customs union between the UK and the EU in the case that negotiations between the two parties on the Future Relationship have not finished by the end of 2020 (the date specified in the WA). The purpose of the “backstop” is allegedly to guarantee a fundamental interest of the Irish Republic: that there should not be a “hard border” between it and Northern Ireland, when the latter leaves the EU along with the rest of the UK.