ISRAEL Comments turned off

Ruthie Blum Will restraint be Netanyahu’s downfall? He is an elected official, after all, not a king. The Israeli public is his boss, not the other way around. Ruthie Blum

Posted By on November 15th, 2018

https://www.jns.org/opinion/will-restraint-be-netanyahus-downfall/

Addressing his controversial decision to agree to a ceasefire with Hamas following more than 24 hours of incessant mortar, rocket and missile fire from Gaza into southern Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained:

“In normal times, a leader must be attentive to the hearts of the people, and our people are wise. But in times of crisis, when making critical decisions in the field of security, the public cannot always be a partner in the crucial considerations that must be concealed from the enemy. At these moments, leadership is not to do the easy thing; leadership is to do the right thing, even if it is difficult. Leadership is sometimes facing criticism when you know confidential and sensitive information that you cannot share with the citizens of Israel, and in this case with the residents of the south, whom I love and appreciate greatly.”

Netanyahu made these statements on Wednesday at a memorial service for David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, whose tough leadership and party’s 30-year domination kept him at the country’s helm for longer than any of his successors thus far.

Almost simultaneously, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced his resignation, on the grounds that Netanyahu had ignored his objections to the ceasefire and “capitulated to terrorists.”

This is the same Netanyahu who, while in Paris on Sunday—where he joined world leaders in marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I—likened Hamas to ISIS and said: “There no diplomatic solution to Gaza.”

The hours following Lieberman’s figurative bombshell were spent more on media analysis of Israel’s internecine political strife and on Netanyahu’s chances for surviving an early election than on the literal explosive havoc wreaked by Hamas on the Jewish communities in rocket range of Gaza.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Brazil’s Exceptional President Srdja Trifkovic

Posted By on November 15th, 2018

https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2018/December/43/12/magazine/article/10845837/

Jair Bolsonaro won the presidential election in Brazil on October 28 with 55 percent of the vote. The former army captain triumphed over Fernando Haddad of the leftist Workers’ Party pledging to fight crime and corruption, to end affirmative action for “disadvantaged minorities,” and to shatter the straitjacketed discourse on race and sexuality. The leader of the fourth-largest democracy has vowed to uphold traditional family, patriotism, Christian faith, and law and order.

From the standpoint of the Western elite, Bolsonaro’s views are beyond the pale.

“I will not fight nor discriminate,” he said in 2002, “but if I see two men kissing in the street, I’ll hit them.”

“I’m homophobic, yes,” he reiterated some years later, “and very proud of it if it is to defend children in schools.”

“I’d rather have my son die in an accident,” he declared in 2010, “than show up with some mustachioed guy!”

“Brazil is a Christian country,” Bolsonaro insists. “God above everyone! It is not this story, this little story of secular state. It is a Christian state, and if a minority is against it, then move!”

What would he do if his son fell in love with a black woman? The question was put to Bolsonaro in 2011. “I do not run that risk as my children were very well raised,” he replied. In 2017, he promised to end all indigenous and slave-descended quota programs. “Has anyone ever seen a Japanese begging for charity?” he asked. Of course not, “because it’s a race that has shame. It’s not like this race that’s down here, or like a minority ruminating here on the side.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Sen. Mike Lee: A conservative case for criminal justice reform

Posted By on November 15th, 2018

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/sen-mike-lee-a-conservative-case-for-criminal-justice-reform

“Government’s first duty,” President Reagan said in 1981 and President Trump recently tweeted, “is to protect the people, not run their lives.” The safety of law-abiding citizens has always been a core principle of conservatism. And it is why we need to take this opportunity to pass real criminal-justice reform now.

Although violent crime rose during the final two years of President Obama’s time in office, it decreased during the first year of Trump’s presidency. We need to keep that momentum going. And criminal justice reform can help us do that in two ways.

First, commonsense sentencing reform can increase trust in the criminal-justice system, thus making it easier for law enforcement personnel to police communities. Right now, federal mandatory-minimum sentences for many drug offenses can lead to outcomes that strike many people as unfair, and thus undermine the public’s faith in our justice system.

For example, when I served as an Assistant United States Attorney in Salt Lake City, Weldon Angelos — a young father of two with no criminal record — was convicted of selling three dime bags of marijuana to a paid informant over a short period of time.

These were not violent crimes. No one was hurt. But because Angelos had been in possession of a gun at the time he sold the drugs (a gun which was neither brandished nor discharged in connection with the offense), the judge was forced by federal law to give him a 55-year prison sentence. The average federal sentence for assault is just two years. The average murderer only gets 15 years. While acknowledging the obvious excessiveness of the sentence, the judge explained that the applicable federal statutes gave him no authority to impose a less-severe prison term, noting that “only Congress can fix this problem.”

POLITICS Comments turned off

Sen. Kamala Harris draws comparison between ICE and KKK By Stephen Dinan

Posted By on November 15th, 2018

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/nov/15/kamala-harris-draws-comparison-between-ice-and-kkk/
– The Washington Times – Thursday, November 15, 2018

Senate Democrats compared ICE to the Ku Klux Klan Thursday, saying the agency’s deportation officers have earned an evil perception among “many” people, and it’s up to the acting chief to change that.

“Do you see any parallels?” Sen. Kamala Harris asked of Ronald D. Vitiello, the acting director at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, during a confirmation hearing for his nomination to become permanent director.

Mr Vitiello flatly rejected the comparison, saying there was no parallel, and demanded to know whether the senator was really trying to draw an equivalency.

The exchange was spurred by a series of questions Ms. Harris asked related to a social media post Mr. Vitiello made early this decade referring to the Democratic Party as “neo-Klanist.” He apologized for the post, calling it an attempt at a joke that he now realizes was hurtful and inappropriate.

“It was wrong to do,” he said.

Ms. Harris, though, asked him why the words were wrong, and he said it was because of the history of the KKK using violence and intimidation to achieve its social aims. That’s when the senator said the same perception exists of ICE.

“I see no perception that puts ICE in the same category as the KKK,” Mr. Vitiello retorted.

Ms. Harris’s line of questions drew a rebuke from Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Ilhan Omar Shows Dems Aren’t Interested In Confronting Anti-Semitism David Harsanyi

Posted By on November 15th, 2018

http://thefederalist.com/2018/11/14/ilhan-omars-election-suggests-democrats-arent-interested-in-confronting-anti-semitism/

Ilhan Omar, one of the first of two Muslim women to be elected to Congress, is a new kind of politician. She’s telegenic. Ideologically progressive. Widely celebrated by a media that’s obsessed with identity politics. She’s the kind of politician who can openly side with Hamas against Israel or spread “Protocols of Zion”-style conspiracies on Twitter, claiming that Jews possess the supernatural ability to hypnotize the world as they unfurl their “evil.”

It’s not surprising, then, that Omar also supports the “boycott, divestment and sanctions” movement (BDS). In a statement to the website Muslim Girl (later confirmed elsewhere), someone on Omar’s staff explains that, yes, “Ilhan believes in and supports the BDS movement, and has fought to make sure people’s right to support it isn’t criminalized. She does however, have reservations on the effectiveness of the movement in accomplishing a lasting solution.”

So, although Omar contends that BDS will be ineffective in getting the sides to “a lasting solution,” she stills “believes in and supports” a movement that smears the Jewish state as a racist endeavor and aims to destroy it economically. It’s a mystery, is it not, why some Jews might find that positioning offensive?

Omar has supported BDS for a while, even though she will now occasionally slip in some platitudes about the peace process. As Scott Johnson of Power Line (who’s been following this story from the beginning) points out, Omar misled Jewish voters in her district, obfuscating about her position and, as she still does, conflating her support for BDS with a bill that would have stopped continued taxpayer funding of the movement. No one is attempting to “criminalize” anti-Israel speech, although it’s heartening to see Omar is a free-speech absolutist. We’ll see if her position on the “criminalization” of speech will remain consistent moving forward, and not reserved for supporters of Hamas.

As far as I know, not even former congressman Keith Ellison, who once accused the shifty Jews of running American foreign policy, openly supported the BDS movement. Not even J-Street, the progressive front for hard-left activists posing as Israel supporters, openly backed BDS. Nor does George Soros, although he has intermittently funded BDS groups in the past and has been active against the Jewish state for years.

Of course, BDS proponents will tell you they are anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic. But when you’re fixated on the only liberal state in the Middle East, and avoid criticism of any Islamic regimes that deny their own citizens the most basic of human rights, you, at the very least, betray a morally bankrupt position. Even as Hamas rains hundreds of rockets down on civilians—a nihilistic project that always takes precedent over investing in their own people in their own autonomous Palestinian territory—there is criticism from those who only see evil behind Jewish acts of self-defense.

HOMELAND SECURITY, MEDIA Comments turned off

“Islamophobia” Outbreak in California A Muslim was found with a Qur’an, a book on terrorism, and a sawed-off rifle. What else could this be but “Islamophobia”? Robert Spencer

Posted By on November 15th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271950/islamophobia-outbreak-california-robert-spencer

The San Francisco Chronicle has discovered a case of “Islamophobia,” and their intrepid reporters are on the job: “An Alameda County prosecutor,” we’re told, “recently held up an unusual piece of evidence while arguing that a man charged with a weapons violation should remain jailed without bail: a Quran.”

It seems that “the religious text, paired with a book on the psychology of terrorism, as well as a sawed-off rifle — all allegedly found in Dajon Ford’s car at the time of his arrest — was cause for concern, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Golde told Superior Court Judge Yolanda Northridge at an Oct. 19 bail hearing.”

Golde, says the Chronicle, asked rhetorically: “What are his plans?” According to the paper, “the Quran was cited among several arguments Golde made suggesting Ford was a threat to the community, in addition to noting his previous criminal history.” But the predictable response has come: “the move has drawn heat from at least one local civil rights attorney, and stunned defense attorney Claire White, who called Golde’s line of questioning ‘racist’ and ‘Islamaphobic [sic].’”

White complained that Golde’s mention of the Qur’an “allows the discussion on public safety to turn not on what actual facts are, and more on fears and prejudices.” And in a blandly reported conflict of interest that appears to have made no difference in the treatment of this case, the Chronicle reports that “White said Ford’s books came from the library of her and her late husband, Dr. Prince White, who was the program and police campaign coordinator for the Urban Peace Movement, a civil rights organization that had worked with Ford in the past.”

Why did Golde mention that Ford had a Qur’an? He rightly explained: “I brought out everything that was there and the judge made the decision, and the judge made the decision based on public safety.”

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Maybe We Could Use a Civic Hippocratic Oath By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on November 15th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/11/15/maybe

A mob of protesters associated with the radical left-wing group Antifa swarmed the private residence of Fox News host Tucker Carlson on the night of Nov. 7. They yelled, “Tucker Carlson, we will fight! We know where you sleep at night!” The mob’s apparent aim was to catch Carlson’s family inside and so terrify them that he might temper his conservative views. Only Carlson’s wife was home at the time. She locked herself in a pantry and called police.

During the Supreme Court nomination hearings for Brett Kavanaugh, demonstrators disrupted the proceedings and stalked senators. Later, a mob broke through police barricades to pound on the doors of the Supreme Court while Kavanaugh was preparing to be sworn in. Their agenda apparently was to create such confusion and disorder that the nomination might be postponed.

Hollywood celebrities habitually boast of wanting to shoot, blow up or decapitate President Donald Trump. Apparently their furor is meant to lower the bar of violence so that Trump fears for his personal safety and therefore might silence or change his views.

Few of these protesters fear any legal consequences when they violate the law. Nor do those who disrupt public officials at restaurants, stalk them on their way to work or post their private information on the internet.

Yet most Americans are tired of hearing the lame excuses that the protesters’ supposedly noble ends justify their unethical or illegal means to achieve them.

On the other hand, the public does not wish to curb free speech or our First Amendment rights of expression. Journalists certainly have the right to unprofessionally lecture and sermonize instead of just posing questions to public officials. But they still set a poor example of journalistic behavior and disinterested reporting while confirming the public’s low esteem for their entire profession.

Most people do not believe that the overseers of Facebook, Google and Twitter possess either the wisdom or the ethics to censor the sort of social media that most people find objectionable. Yet the pubic tires of the anonymous hitmen on social media who post vicious lies to ruin the reputations of their perceived enemies.

The trick, then, is to distinguish between illegal behavior (which should be prosecuted) and improper behavior (which should be shamed).

POLITICS Comments turned off

The 2020 Democratic National Circus: The Outsiders By Eric Lendrum

Posted By on November 15th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/11/15/the-2020-

With the midterms behind us, it’s full steam ahead now to the upcoming Democratic primaries for the 2020 presidential nomination. Of course, the campaigning for that august honor started on November 9, 2016 (one can never be too early) but now that the “Christmas in July” feel of it is shed, there’s no more need for being coy.

Our previous installment focused on those most likely to be the establishment picks for the 2020 election. But if the 2016 battle taught us anything, it is to expect the unexpected. And the Democratic Party is ripe for an outside the party structure challenge, backed by a far-left base ready to avenge the loss of Bernie Sanders in those rigged primaries.

Who are the likely candidates for such a challenge?

Bern-out
Speaking of Sanders, there is little doubt that the socialist senator from Vermont is a frontrunner. He is the one other candidate who rivals former Vice President Joe Biden’s poll numbers, especially in the crucial early state of New Hampshire. And he still maintains a loyal following after his rigged defeat in 2016.

Alternative history and speculation about whether Sanders would have won in 2016 is fascinating. As even supporters of President Trump would admit, Bernie might narrowly have defeated Trump. His message also targeted voters fed up with the traditional politics of Left and Right who were looking for something different in an outsider with populist appeal. What’s more, Bernie had the passionate support of young voters. With his labor union bona fides, he might have understood the need to campaign hard in the Rust Belt (while Hillary Clinton simply took those votes for granted). On issues such as trade, for example, Sanders and Trump practically sound the same (though their reasoning differs).

Just as trade might have been the issue that could have won 2016 for Sanders, it may end up being the issue that secures President Trump’s reelection in 2020. Beginning with Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, his successful renegotiation of NAFTA, and his hard bargaining with China and the European Union for greater trade concessions, Trump has neutralized the issue.

Sanders’ luster generally has faded over the past two years. Another run in 2020 would be more of an attempted remake of his 2016 crusade rather than an actual “revolution.” And everyone knows the sequel is rarely better than the original. Perhaps that explains why the Democrats’ new rising socialist star, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has refused to endorse a possible Bernie 2020 campaign. While Bernie may still be useful as a campaigning tool, the chances of him actually being the candidate grow smaller and smaller by the day.

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Google Cloud is Busted by Russians and Chinese By Stephen Bryen

Posted By on November 15th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/11/google_cloud_is_busted_by_russians_and_chinese.html

Perhaps it is a good thing that Google employees convinced their management not to do business with the Pentagon, thereby pulling out of participating in a $10 billion cloud computing contract called JEDI (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure).

On November 12th, Google’s services were hit by a massive hack allegedly carried out by Russians, Chinese, and Nigerians. The hack redirected all of Google’s search, business, and cloud computing operations through servers run in these countries using a hack called the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). This gave the hackers unprecedented access to extremely sensitive information on users and direct access to any data that was not independently encrypted (one presumes that the typical computer network security protocols were automatically compromised by being run through servers that did not belong to Google). Even more critically, it gave the three countries complete control over all of Google’s operations and data. While the hack only lasted about an hour and a half, it demonstrated in clear terms just how vulnerable computer networks are and showed that the critical infrastructure could have been taken down, had the hackers wanted to do so.

For the record, the Google Cloud and Google’s G-Suite business services have good security practices, and the Google Cloud in particular has some security features that are quite advanced. But that did not stop the BGP hack, because BGP hacks exploit the IP addresses and information routing addresses that are built into the modern internet. Worse yet, computer experts say that current technology can’t stop a BGP hack.

The Pentagon with its JEDI contract wants to migrate its computer networks to the cloud, and just not any old cloud but a cloud system run by private enterprise that is shared with the public. While the Pentagon doubtlessly will use some form of encryption for its cloud operations, it cannot protect the exploitation of its networks if exposed on a public network. Moreover, the Pentagon has yet to explain how it will back up the system if it fails for any reason.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Why Renewed US Sanctions on Iran are Good News for Palestinians by Khaled Abu Toameh

Posted By on November 15th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13300/iran-sanctions-palestinians

What the Hamas official is actually saying is that thanks to Iran’s backing, Hamas continues to hold hostage the two million residents of the Gaza Strip, whose lives have been literally destroyed by the Hamas leaders’ policies.

The message that Hamas and PIJ are sounding is: How dare the US administration impose sanctions on Iran, the only country that is helping us in our effort to continue our terrorist attacks against Israel?

The renewed US sanctions on Iran are good news, however, for many Arabs and Muslims who feel threatened by Tehran’s actions and rhetoric. Iran has long been systematically working towards undermining moderate Arabs and Muslims in the region.

The Palestinian Authority and Abbas are actually attacking a US administration that is seeking to undermine the enemies of Abbas: Hamas and Iran. The Palestinian Authority is, thus, aligning itself with its own enemies.

If the United States is worried about imposing harsher sanctions on Iran, it should not give those concerns a second thought. Being unpopular with people who do not wish you well is probably the price of true leadership.

Those who are worried, and should be worried, are Iran and its Palestinian allies and friends.

The US administration has decided to reinstate the sanctions against Tehran that were removed under the 2015 “nuclear deal.” These sanctions are part of Washington’s effort to curb Iran’s missile and nuclear programs and diminish its influence in the Middle East.