THE PRESIDENT’S LOOKING-GLASS ISLAMIC WORLD

 Obama may have forgotten about “war with Islam,” but war with Islam has not forgotten about him.

Bruce S. Thornton

 

"President Obama recently gave a speech at the Pentagon about our efforts against ISIS that confirmed he has little awareness of the real world our enemies inhabit. The talk reprised the usual received wisdom and unchallenged orthodoxy that comprise most of the foreign policy establishment’s ideas about Islamic jihadism and how we should fight it. Consider the following particularly egregious examples:

Ideologies are not defeated with guns; they’re defeated by better ideas–– a more attractive and more compelling

"This statement is a classic either-or fallacy. Anyone familiar with history would have added the adverb “just” before “with guns.” Obama is indulging stealth pacifism, a variation on the “violence doesn’t solve anything” and “use your words” mantras of the junior high playground monitor. Such a stance is politically convenient when the voters are against the use of force, and a leader doesn’t have the will or ability to convince them why force is necessary." . . .

Digging Up Confederate Bones Would Only Make America Worse

Nationl Review Online

"To no one’s real surprise, the national Confederate-flag debate turns out not to be about flags alone. It’s not even truly about history. And it’s certainly not about dealing with the issues of crime and poverty that still disproportionately impact the black community. It has now moved entirely into the realm of raw cultural and political power. It’s an identity-politics hammer that is “heads, I win; tails, you lose” for all too many conservatives. With the Left in the lead, you’re either a racist for refusing to bulldoze history or — if you go along — you’re still a racist, but at least the Left has you under control." . . . Read more

 Related discussions at NRO:

 Watch: Debating Confederate Flag Displays on CNN 

 On Lowering the Confederate Flag      . . . "You can pass any gun law you want. The 1994 assault-weapons ban was allowed to expire after ten years because, as a Justice Department study showed, it had no effect. There’s only one gun law that would make a difference: confiscation. Everything else is for show." . . .

The Shameful Liberal Exploitation of the Charleston Massacre. . . "And yet the Democratic elites, from President Obama on down, opportunistically turned Roof into a stand-in for white America, linking his rampage to the Left’s standard grab bag of institutional racism that allegedly poisons black life." . . .

Obama cautioned “us” (read: whites) about other manifestations of “our” potentially lethal racism. Once we “realize” how we are “infected” with bias, he said, we will be “guarding against not just racial slurs, but . . . also . . . against the subtle impulse to call Johnny back for an interview but not Jamal.

Southern Culture and Experiences: Indelibly American!

Voice of Lillpop  "To say that the Confederate flag symbolizes slavery and a legacy of racial discrimination is about as simple minded and myopic as claiming that infant babies are all about dirty diapers!
"There is so much more there!
"Just some of the thoughts that pop into my mind when I think of life in the Deep South are:

• Southern hospitality: Warm, sincere, gracious, honest, caring, & loving “down home” people---people you can trust!
• Charming Southern accents, colloquialisms, and humor
• Slower speech, more relaxed, lifestyles, less conniving
• Politeness, perfect manners & courtesy
• Warm summer evenings, rain & thunder storms
• Amber waves of grain
• Elvis Presley and Graceland, TN
• Sunday school in May
• Vacation bible school
• Gospel music sung so passionately by African-American choirs
• Blue grass and country music
• Sunday dinner
• BBQs, horseshoes,
• TV show He-Haw
• Andy Griffith & No Time for Sergeants, Mayberry, RFD; Beverly Hillbillies TV show
• The Grand Old Opry
• Superstar country  performers like Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynnete, Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, & other women of renown
• Cold watermelon, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, potato salad, hot buttered biscuits, corn on the cob, iced tea, cherry cobbler pie
• Magnificent parades on 4th July,  Veterans Day, & Memorial Day
• Open, proud love for America, unabashed patriotism

"There is so much to enjoy and love in and about the Deep South….why would anyone waste time fretting about slavery and a war that was fought 155 years ago?

"Time to heal and live!

"Respect and love the Confederate flag for what it is…an indelible part of our blessed American heritage and culture!   May it ever be so!"   John W. Lillpop.

Is the World Becoming Fed Up?

Faster, please: A great pushback is awakening here and abroad, but its timing, nature, and future remain mysterious.

 Victor Davis Hanson . . . "Millions of Americans do not feel necessarily that holy matrimony exclusively between a man and woman is bias. Nor do they think listening to the late historian Shelby Foote or watching Lee, Longstreet, and their Confederate flags on Ken Burns’ Civil War constitutes a moral felony. They know also that liberal outrage is selective: Star Trek reruns won’t be pulled because gay George Takei (“Mr. Sulu”) is an abject racist ^[6] and on record as such. We won’t ask octogenarian William Shatner (“Captain Kirk”) to disown him. Spike Lee is a praised filmmaker, whom we forgive for peddling on film lies about the death of Malcolm X ^[7] and who sicced the mob on the home of the wrong George Zimmerman ^[8] in his quest for vigilante justice.

"Amid all this leftish high-fiving about court decisions and executive orders, we forget political and electoral reality. Barack Obama has done more to destroy liberal political power in the Congress and in the statehouses than any Democratic politician since the 1920s. His executive orders and neglect of enforcing existing law have green-lighted the executive power of the next Republican president in a way that Richard Nixon could hardly imagine. He has discredited the idea of a disinterested media to such a degree that its biased audits of the next future Republican administration will be seen as laughable.
 . . .
" A growing number of people sense that 21^st century leftist elites are not pragmatic working people, but a privileged sect that callously experiments with other people’s lives on the understanding that they are insulated and immune from the inevitable disasters that follow from their own ideas."

What do you suppose will be next?

 

This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here   "I have no affection for the Confederate battle flag and I understand that it means different things to different people. I also do not think it is a good idea for it fly over the grounds of a state government, but I also firmly believe if it does, it is the state’s business. Not mine and most certainly not the business of the federal government. Like it or not, that emblem is part of the history of this nation. Do we want to wipe away our history, most especially the ugly parts of it? Wipe away a time that split not only our country, but families too? Bury the history of the time that divided us to the point that we took up arms and started killing one another? Should not an informed citizenry want to understand all of the events that led up to that conflict so as to not repeat it? All of the reasons and events that led up to that deadly split? Certainly we would not want to bury or mischaracterize any history surrounding an important event in the life of our nation. Would we?

"So let us not stop with a flag. Let us dig up long buried remains and move them somewhere – anywhere. A landfill maybe? We must tear down statues, rename schools, rename roads, rename all of those U.S. Army Bases now named for Confederate Generals…. And, if we pursue this logic to the very end, what else can we expunge from our history?
. . . Full article here


"After we have wiped any reminders of the Confederacy from our history, what do you suppose will be next? What other disagreeable and offensive symbols must be removed from our sight along with their history.

"I do not know if we are already traveling down the road of forgotten history or worse yet we are remembering a history that is racked with inaccuracies and exclusions. We must return to our beginning and revisit the missteps, otherwise we will repeat them. That is what we do."

In the face of evil, find no comfort in pacifism

National Post

 

A sure recipe for a nuclear or biological holocaust is a planet run by the likes of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

"What excuses, or at least mitigates, U.S. President Barack Obama and his negotiating team’s inability to get to first base in trying to convince the current rulers of Iran to give up the idea of developing nuclear weapons, is the near-certainty that no one could.

"As several pundits pointed out — most recently Reuel Marc Gerecht and Mark Dubowitz, writing in The Wall Street Journal — the ayatollahs of Tehran are resolved to have the Bomb. The only deal worthy of the name would be one that would prevent them from having it. This is an impasse that cannot be resolved by the give-and-take of negotiations, only by the imperative of force.

To avoid misunderstanding, the imperative of force doesn’t necessarily mean military measures. It means going to the negotiating table with the same resolve to withhold the Bomb from the leaders of the Islamic Revolution and their Revolutionary Guard as they have to acquire it. In this negotiating stance, military measures aren’t on the table as an option, but as the only option unless the opponent submits.
. . .
" Some who consider such statements anathema include genuine pacifists — that is, people who hate war, as opposed to pretend-pacifists, who merely hate the West. What I’ve always found ironic about the first group, the genuine pacifists, is that what they would like is so completely at odds with what they’re likely to get. Their aim is to avoid bloodshed, but what they achieve is more leeway for tyrants and fanatics of the nuclear ayatollahs’ kind: empire builders, secular or religious, for whom shedding blood is all in a day’s work."  Emphasis added, TD 

Hillary’s Headache, Trump's odds

 We don't want a radical leftist, big government socialist, communist-kissing, groveling wimp for president. We want Hillary! TD

Bernie Sanders can cause her a lot of pain. 
" Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator from Vermont, is surging in the polls against Hillary Clinton. A Quinnipiac University survey has him within 20 points in Iowa, while three of the last four polls have found him within 15 points in New Hampshire. Judging by state polls alone, Sanders is in about as good a spot vis-à-vis Clinton as Barack Obama was at this point in 2007. So perhaps it is time to ask whether Sanders can pull off a similar upset."

"Probably not. Clinton should win, but Sanders could give her a headache whose effects last through the general election.

"The Clinton-Sanders contest has rekindled an old tension in the Democratic party. On one side are professional politicians in charge of maintaining the coalition in government. They are progressive, but they generally like the status quo and will bargain with Wall Street, health insurance companies, and other leftist bugaboos (so long as they cough up campaign contributions). On the other are left-wing activists who want to upend the status quo by reducing the role of money in politics, corralling corporate America, and radically redistributing income.

"Interestingly, a large portion of Democrats do not fall cleanly on either side. Working-class whites, African Americans, and Latinos are all major players in Democratic primary politics, yet none is a main combatant in this struggle. It is a quarrel among socioeconomically upscale whites. While average Democrats tell pollsters they prefer left-wing policies, historically they have backed establishment candidates." . . .

There Will NEVER Be a President Trump  "Before one more straight-faced political story is written about the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump, the obvious begs to be stated: The man has absolutely no chance of winning.   Zero. Nada."

Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA) Introduces Bill To Ban Govt. Use Of Words 'Husband' And 'Wife'. I repeat: "DEMOCRAT", "CALIFORNIA"

MRC

 

"From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH." George Orwell, "1984"

"As Orwell explained in his classic novel, "1984" changing the words used by a society is a powerful tool for tyranny. With "The Amend the Code for Marriage Equality Act "(H.R.2976), Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA) is trying to enforce the recent Supreme Court ruling that same sex marriage is the law of the land by legislating the federal government to strike the words "husband" and "wife" everywhere they're found in the entire Federal code, replacing them with more gender-neutral terms such as “spouse” or “married couple.”

"According to the statement released by Rep. Capps

The Amend the Code for Marriage Equality Act recognizes that the words in our laws have meaning and can continue to reflect prejudice and discrimination even when rendered null by our highest courts,” Capps said. “Our values as a country are reflected in our laws. I authored this bill because it is imperative that our federal code reflect the equality of all marriages.”

. . . "Rep. Capps has convinced 24 other members of Congress to (seven from California) co-sponsor H.R.2976. Representatives: Ami Bera (D-CA), Donald Beyer Jr. (D-VA), Suzan DelBene (D-WA), Mark DeSaulnier, (D-CA), Donna Edwards (D-MD), Eliot Engel, (D-NY), Sam Farr, (D-CA), Alan Grayson (D-FL), Raul Grijalva, Raul (D-AZ), Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX), Michael Honda, (D-CA), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Rick Larsen (D-WA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Sander Levin (D-MI), Alan Lowenthal (D-CA), Betty McCollum  (D-MN), Patrick Murphy (D-FL), Eleanor Holmes Murphy, (Non-voting DC), Norton, (D-DC-At Large), Chellie Pingree (D-ME), Mark Pocan (D-WI), Adam Smith (D-WA), Mike Thompson (D-CA), and Niki Tsongas D-MA." . . .

20 years of cleaning up NYC pissed away. Remember the Mayor Dinkins days? UPDATED

NY Post

 

. . . "And the growing problem isn’t solely on city streets.
"Transit hubs, including Penn Station, are plagued by surging numbers of homeless people who publicly masturbate, harass bystanders and demand free food as the city looks the other way, commuters complain.
“ 'It reminds me of the pre-[Rudy] Giuliani era,” said Jim Hoover, 60, who has been commuting through Penn Station since 1986. “The police aren’t chasing them away anymore.”
"Just outside the Port Authority Bus Terminal, a homeless man drunkenly knocked a woman to the floor while stumbling around the sidewalk.
"The bum, who goes by “Monk,” was arrested by a cop at the scene and taken away by an FDNY ambulance.
“ 'He’s going to get a hospital bed and a slap on the wrist,” said Timothy Arroyo, who was watching from a crowd that gathered.
“ 'He’ll be back out here tomorrow.”
"A PA source said there has been a “noticeable uptick” in vagrants at the terminal in recent months." . . .
 New York wants to bring public urination out of the shadows 

 

UPDATE: DeBlasio presiding over rapid decline in NY city quality of life  "[New]York City has never been a paradise, but for 20 years previous to the election of Mayor Bill de Blasio, quality of life had risen dramatically as a result of what's known as "broken windows" policing - enforcing minor crimes to take people off the streets and prevent them from committing major offenses.

"But now, with the far left wing mayor leading the charge, more and more minor crimes are not being enforced. Predictably, this has led to a surge in violent crime and an invasion by vagrants and homeless people that hasn't been seen since the pre-Guiliana days." . . .

Read more

 De Blasio and Dinkins: When cops and mayors feud
. . . "After a fanatic assassinated two cops on Saturday, de Blasio clearly understood he had to do something to calm the waters between himself and the NYPD.
"But it was telling that de Blasio could not restrain himself during a press conference he called on Monday to try to set things right with the NYPD — reserving his greatest passion for an unplanned defense of anti-cop demonstrators against the media.
"So, yes, he has three years to fix things. Problem is, he’s Bill de Blasio.
"And Bill de Blasio gives every indication that, left to his natural instincts, he’ll just make things worse."

Clinton’s stumbles fray Democrat nerves

 

Financial Times   "Tactical blunders. A strained relationship with the media. An insurgent rival drawing enormous crowds.

"For Hillary Clinton, the past few weeks of her 2016 presidential campaign have brought back uncomfortable memories of her failed bid in 2008. 

"Three months in to what should be one of the best funded, best organised campaigns in history, Mrs Clinton has been unable to draw a line under a series of controversies, or to generate the kind of grassroots enthusiasm that will be crucial to maintaining momentum in the gruelling months ahead. 

"As she prepares to outline her economic vision for the country in a high-profile address on Monday in New York, Mrs Clinton’s team is betting that a rollout of popular, middle-class friendly policies such as paid sick leave and universal prekindergarten provision will help to reset the debate."

 

The goodie wagon is coming! Hillary will this election if it takes every dime this nation has. TD

 

 

Megyn Kelly Goes There: Why Is Obama Ignoring Murder of Katie Steinle?

Debra Heine "Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple accused Megyn Kelly of “crossing a line” on her Fox News show The Kelly File Thursday night because she had the audacity to ask a question a lot of Americans are wondering about.

"Why doesn’t the president give Katie Steinle, the woman killed by an illegal immigrant in San Francisco, the same attention he gave to cases involving Freddie Gray, Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin?

"Kate’s murder has since exploded into a national debate on illegal immigrants, sanctuary cities and crime. With the White House ducking the issue of its own acquiescence in these cities’ decision to flout the federal immigration laws which were duly enacted. When asked repeatedly this week to speak to this case, White House spokesman Josh Earnest declined to weigh in other than to refer folks to the Department of Homeland Security.

"A stark contrast to what we saw after Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson. A man we know was attacking a police officer at the time of his death. His funeral saw three Obama officials in attendance, his death drew comments from President Obama personally and his administration also sent in the DOJ and 40 FBI agents dispatched to Missouri after Michael Brown was killed. Where is the swarm of agents in San Francisco?

"Then there was Freddie Gray in Baltimore, a repeat drug offender who was killed in police custody. Here again his funeral was attended by three Obama administration officials and again the President spoke personally to Freddie Gray’s death. And again sent the DOJ in to investigate. When Trayvon Martin was killed in Florida, the president spoke to his death which was later ruled to be in self-defense. But Katie Steinle, nothing. No comments, no swarm of FBI agents, no DOJ investigation, nothing. Why?"

Jimmy Carter Says Hillary Will Win Thanks to This ‘Stupid’ Reason

 

 Bridget Johnson  "Former President Jimmy Carter has tipped his hat toward Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) as the liberal standard-bearer seeking the Democratic nomination — but concedes that “stupid” campaign finance laws will hand victory to Hillary Clinton.

"Carter told PBS that “more inherently” Sanders and Elizabeth Warren speak better on the issue of income inequality.

“ 'The senator was in the forefront of saying equality and doing away with discrimination economically, constraining Wall Street, and doing away with the domination that the rich people now have over the political system,” Carter said of the Massachusetts Democrat.

“ 'And so since Elizabeth Warren decided not to run, I think Bernie Sanders has kind of inherited her mantle for promoting less distinction on an economic basis of American citizens.”

"But at the same time, Carter said, he knows “that the stupid decision by the Supreme Court on Citizens United to let money dominate America’s political system is giving, I would say, Hillary Clinton a big advantage that will be, I think, overwhelming toward the end of the campaign.”

"Sanders “speaks more for a liberal and the active wing of the Democratic Party,” the former president said.

 

“ 'I think he’s been a lot bolder in his promulgation of his own ideas than has Hillary Clinton,” he added. “But I think she is going to come along later and win.”

"Carter also commented on race relations, noting that after the Civil Rights Era “I think the United States kind of breathed a sigh of relief and said, well, we have resolved the race issue now, and there won’t be anymore, detectable, at least, elements of an American society where whites are in the supreme position, to the detriment of blacks.”

"“And I think the recent high public about the police and black confrontations and the tragedy in Charleston have reminded us that we still have a long way to go,” he said. “There’s still an innate racism in our country that needs to be addressed accurately.' ”

 Bridget Johnson is a veteran journalist whose news articles and opinion columns have run in dozens of news outlets across the globe. Bridget first came to Washington to be online editor at The Hill, where she wrote The World from The Hill column on foreign policy. Previously she was an opinion writer and editorial board member at the Rocky Mountain News and nation/world news columnist at the Los Angeles Daily News. She is an NPR contributor and has contributed to USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, Politico and more, and has myriad television and radio credits as a commentator. Bridget is Washington Editor for PJ Media.