The GOP Gets the Iran Prisoner Swap Wrong

absoluterights.com

Charles Krauthammer   "Give President Obama credit. His Iran nuclear deal may be disastrous but the packaging was brilliant. The near-simultaneous prisoner exchange was meant to distract from last Saturday’s official implementation of the sanctions-lifting deal. And it did. The Republicans concentrated almost all their fire on the swap sideshow.

"And in denouncing the swap, they were wrong. True, we should have made the prisoner release a precondition for negotiations. But that pre-emptive concession was made long ago (among many others, such as granting Iran in advance the right to enrich uranium). The remaining question was getting our prisoners released before we gave away all our leverage upon implementation of the nuclear accord. We did." . . .

. . . In 1938, the morning after Munich, Europe woke up to Germany as the continent’s dominant power. Last Sunday, the Middle East woke up to Iran as the regional hegemon, with a hand — often predominant — in the future of Syria, Yemen, Iraq, the Gulf Arab states and, in time, in the very survival of Israel.  And we’re arguing over an asymmetric hostage swap."

13 Hours Of Heroism

Noisy Room

“By the rude bridge that arched the floor, their flag to April’s breeze unfurled. Here once the embattled farmers stood, and fired the shot heard round the world.”

 " . . .This Thursday (January 14) evening, the ongoing story of American heroism continues with the national release of 13 Hours, an exceptional and historically accurate film that compellingly tells the story of six brave Americans who navigated the Obama administration’s political trepidation and intervened in defense of American personnel under attack by al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists at the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012.

 "Release of the film is prompting broad Twitter use of the hashtag #AHeroIs, as Americans reflect on the many other acts of heroism they have witnessed in their own lives or interpreted in their assessment of America’s bold history.

"While four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, were killed in the Benghazi attack, the efforts of these five American heroes over the 13-hour conflict in Benghazi likely saved the lives of many others.

"13 hours tells this compelling story of Benghazi, a continuation of the long-standing tradition of American heroism. It’s an important story, and one all Americans should make a point to see."

Watch A Man Fall Asleep Behind Hillary While She Speaks

Weekly Standard   "During a Hillary Clinton rally at Simpson College's Kent Campus Center in Indianola, Iowa, on Thursday, one can see a man slowly falling asleep, right behind her."

Hillary: In a hole, and digging hard

comicallyincorrect.com

Fritz Pettyjohn   . . . "The Republican nominee may not take this tack, but outside groups, modeled on the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, will be formed, similar to the fine effort underway by Restoration PAC to expose Hillary's lies on Benghazi.  But it's not just affirmative action.  She must endorse every ridiculous proposal Black Lives Matter makes, including a refusal to say those racist words, "all lives matter."

"Now that she fears losing Iowa and New Hampshire, she must rely even more on her black firewall in South Carolina.  If blacks start to abandon her, it's over.  It's hard to get to the left of Sanders with black voters, but she'll try, even prompting speculation she may come out for reparations for slavery." . . .

The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy is Back!

"SHE’S ONTO US!"

. . . "The vast right-wing conspiracy is also to blame for her husband’s various affairs and sex scandals, apparently. Or at least that was Hillary’s story in 1998.

"A refresher:

Beginning the autopsy on Obama administration decision-making disasters

Thomas Lifson  "I hope to live long enough to see the Obama administration’s disastrous track record objectively evaluated.  The overwhelming media support Obama has received, combined with his demographic characteristics, personal charm, winning smile, sense of humor, and comedy timing, has kept his level of public esteem far above the merits of his presidential decisions.

"As his second term winds down, some truth-tellers are beginning to emerge and discuss the quality of decision-making they experienced.  Among the first is Robert Gates.  Aaron Kliegman reports in the Free Beacon:

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday that President Obama thinks he is smarter than his advisers and that he surrounds himself with people who will not question his views. As a result, the White House has struggled to develop and implement effective strategy during the Obama administration, according to Gates.
“You know, the president is quoted as having said at one point to his staff, ‘I can do every one of your jobs better than you can,’” Gates said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

"As fate would have it, young Barack Obama entered the educational system of the United States at the precise moment when a desperate need to atone for past sins led to the lionization of black students who showed promise, and a corresponding reluctance to criticize them.  This sort of condescension is racist at its heart, anchored in an unspoken belief in racial inferiority, but it masquerades as righteous anti-racism."

France and the Yarmulkah*

*First, what is a yarmulkah or a kippa?  "A Kippah, kippa, kipoh, or kipa also known as a yarmulke, . . .  is a brimless cap, usually made of cloth, worn by Jews to fulfill the customary requirement held by orthodox halachic authorities that the head be covered at all times. It is usually worn by men and, less frequently, by women . . . at times of prayer.

"Mr. President, the kippah to us is a sign of reverence." Rabbi Feller, another member of the group, continued, "We place the kippah on the very highest point of our being—on our head, the vessel of our intellect—to tell ourselves and the world that there is something which is above man's intellect: the infinite Wisdom of God."

Back to the point:
Yeshiva World News

"The head of the Jewish community in Marseille, France, Zvi Ammar, announced last week that Jews should avoid wearing the kippah

in the streets. The announcement was made last Tuesday a day after a teenager attacked and slightly injured a teacher in the southern France city who wore a yarmulkah.

"The teenager, a Turkish citizen of Kurdish origin who was armed with a machete and a knife, said that he had acted in the name of the militant Islamic State group, according to French prosecutors.

“Not wearing the kippa can save lives and nothing is more important,” Ammar told the French paper, La Provence daily. “It really hurts to reach that point but I don’t want anyone to die in Marseille because they have a kippa on their head.”

"Marseille has the third largest Jewish community in France.

"Ammar added, “On Saturday, for the first time in my life, I will not be wearing the kippa to the synagogue.” . . .

Before we discuss the sources, it should be generally understood that regardless of the final halacha, covering one’s head engenders hachna’ah . . . – humility, a necessary component in prayer -

"According to the position of those Poskim who hold that it is not an obligation, there is no question that in a location where there is a significant danger, one may remove one’s Yarmulkah. "

While we're at it, these are the Tzitzit:
. . . "The Torah states in Numbers 15:38: "Speak to the Children of Israel, and say to them, that they shall make themselves tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and they shall put on the corner tassel a blue-violet (Tekhelet) thread." Wearing the Tzitzit is also commanded in Deuteronomy 22:12:

"You shall make yourself twisted cords, on the four corners of your garment with which you cover yourself.' " . . .

The McLaughlin-Sherouse List: The 10 Most-Regulated Industries of 2014

Patrick McLaughlin, Oliver Sherouse   "Recent research has shown that heavy regulation reduces entrepreneurship and employment opportunities and can divert investment from the most productive uses. The accumulation of regulation has also been associated with diminished labor productivitygrowth. On a macroeconomic scale, the buildup of regulation has slowed economic growth by an average of 2 percentage points, according to a study published in the Journal of Economic Growth. Policymakers should consider how existing regulations target certain industries more than others and whether heavy regulation of some industries is conveying enough benefits to justify the associated costs to the economy." . . .

Oliver Sherouse is the research analyst for the regulatory studies program.  Patrick A. McLaughlin is a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

The Impact of Federal Regulation on Kentucky;  Massachusetts; Wyoming

Juanita Broaddrick: Hillary’s Ghost

National Review

I was 35 years old when Bill Clinton, Ark. Attorney General raped me and Hillary tried to silence me. I am now 73….it never goes away. — Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) January 6, 2016

"For Hillary Clinton, who a month earlier had tweeted, “Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported,” and who has made her record on “women’s issues” (as her website phrases it) central to her campaign, Broaddrick’s tweet is the stuff of nightmare. Faulkner might have been writing directly to the Clintons when he warned: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

Broaddrick had related the episode to NBC, but it had been nixed in the cutting room. In 2003, in an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, Broaddrick repeated the story, adding: “I could have passed out at that moment. . . . Cold chills went up my spine. That’s the first time I became afraid of that woman.”

. . . "And Hillary? When Bill’s wife shook her hand in 1978, was she trying to send a message? “There was no doubt in my mind. It not only shocked me, it made me very frightened. The smile dropped, and the intonation of her voice, it was very cold. She knew what he had done to me, and she was saying, ‘Thank you very much for keeping quiet.’” . . .

Juanita Broaddrick Says Bill Clinton Called Her At Work Repeatedly After Alleged Rape, And Hillary Helped Cover it Up

“And said, ‘I just want you to know how much Bill and I appreciate the things you do for him.’ And I just stood there, Aaron. I was sort of you might say shell-shocked.”
“And she said, ‘Do you understand? Everything you do.’”

AN OPEN LETTER TO HILLARY CLINTON, BY JUANITA BROADDRICK

Juanita Broaddrick was notified last week that she is being audited for tax returns that were filed covering 1998.

hopenchangecartoons

Real-Life Heroes Tell All About The Benghazi Attack

Noisy Room

Hillary Clinton Gets One More Shot to Take Down Sanders

Vanity Fair  

"Could a last-minute town hall event save Clinton from defeat in Iowa?"

"A hastily scheduled town-hall-style event, announced Wednesday by CNN and scheduled to take place just one week before the Iowa caucuses, could be a saving grace for Hillary Clinton, whose presidential campaign has faced an unexpectedly formidable challenge from Democratic rival Bernie Sanders.

"The prime-time gathering will air Monday at nine P.M., a huge change from the three debates that the Democratic National Committee scheduled on inconvenient weekend nights. The odd scheduling and limited number of debates provoked criticism from Sanders and fellow candidate Martin O’Malley for giving them inadequate time to make their case to the American public, especially in comparison to the numerous Republican debates that have drawn record-breaking numbers of viewers." . . . 

Hillary Clinton Will Get a Final Chance to Beat Bernie Sanders in Iowa Town Hall Before the Caucus

. . . "CNN, once known colloquially as “Clinton News Network,” has been favorable to the Clintons since 1992, when Larry King told Bill Clinton on a hot mic that CNN founder Ted Turner would “serve” him after the presidential election."

CNN's Larry King giving Bill Clinton helpful advice during a 1992 interview break with a hot mike:

LIBERAL AND CONSERVATIVE MEDIA UNITE AGAINST TRUMP

. . . "Trump immediately called Annabell, promising to save her farm and pledging $20,000 toward the effort. "Last night when he called, my heart went pitter patter," Annabell told ABC's "World News Tonight." "I never talked with a man with that much money before. And he assured me that one day the land would be mine. I thought, after I hung up, 'This can't be true, this just can't be true.'" 

Ann Coulter  "We have never had total war against a candidate like we're seeing with Donald Trump. All elements of national media are uniting to stop him. 
 "Look for a fake Trump scandal to break -- probably from a conservative news outlet -- right before the Iowa caucus. 
 "A few months ago, an alleged Trump quote from a 1998 People magazine interview was circulating on the Internet, claiming Trump said that if he ever ran for president, he'd run as a Republican because Republican voters are "the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything on Fox News. I could lie and they'd still eat it up." 
 "I pay a lot for Nexis, and Trump has never said anything remotely resembling this. Snopes.com investigated, too, and also concluded the quote was a fake. But you can probably still find some idiot tweeting it out right now. 
 "Last week, Glenn Beck "retweeted" a post allegedly tweeted by Trump the day after the 2012 election, saying: "I always vote for the winners! Congratulations to My Friend, @BarackObama!" 
 "If that doesn't sound like Trump, it's because Trump never said it. Beck's retweet sure made it look real, but you can check Trump's Twitter archive. 
 "All the stories about Trump being a fraud keep turning out to be the real frauds. I assume that, like most sentient beings, he's changed his mind about some things. But the one consistent thread running through his entire life is his love for this country and his fellow Americans. 
 "The attacks on Trump from the "conservative" media calling him a socialist, a Democrat, a flip-flopper, a fake conservative are just name-calling. I notice that the accusers never include examples, not true ones, anyway. Here are some examples of how Trump has always been for Americans first. Wouldn't it be nice to have a president who likes us more than he likes foreigners -- and the rich donors who employ them? . . .
Full article here.

"Two years later, Trump was interviewed by Larry King at the 1988 Republican National Convention. Please look up this interview -- it's fabulous. "  Here it is:

"Conservative pundits keep assuring clueless viewers that Trump is not a "real Republican." They seem not to grasp that most viewers are saying, That's fantastic! Thanks for reminding me. (I look forward to conservative talk show hosts 20 years hence billing themselves as "Trump Republicans.") "

I'd feel better if he was more informed and informative on important issues such as foreign policy. TD

Phyllis Chesler and Pat Condell on Europe’s Betrayal Of Women

I cannot say, as this video does, that Obama is a Muslim, only that he registers esteem for Islam more that he ever does for America's culture and history. The Tunnel Dweller

Phyllis Chesler on the other face of Jihad 

"It is an ugly face and it is turned towards Europe's women."

. . . "If Germany and Austria—if all Europe--does not find, prosecute, and deport all the men who took part in the recent New Year's Eve atrocities, they will soon discover that such attacks might become regular features of European life and will occur on most holidays; that, like Muslim women, European women will increasingly live in fear; begin to stay indoors; and that female workers will increasingly suffer from post-traumatic stress symptoms. A European woman's quality of life and efficiency at work may decrease. This will be true for women of every ethnicity and religion.

"How can one educate a barbarian lynch mob? In my opinion, only through the mosques and the Islamist media.

"That is not likely to happen any time soon." . . .

Noisy Room  Ladies, "the public space is no longer yours to enjoy".