Saturday, May 19, 2018

An increasingly powerful left wing is causing the party to abandon the Jewish state.

But a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo from 13 Senate Democrats suggests the party may be at a tipping point.
Jonathan S. Tobin at National Review



"Over the past half-century, Republicans and Democrats have exchanged identities on Middle East issues. Republicans are now the lockstep pro-Israel party, and the Democrats are deeply divided about their attitudes toward the Jewish state. And as polling from both the Pew Research Center and Gallup indicated earlier this year, the split between the two major parties on Israel is growing.
"The previous administration accelerated these trends. President Barack Obama’s eight years were dedicated to creating what he called more “daylight” between the U.S. and Israel, and support for the Iran nuclear deal became a litmus test of Democratic-party loyalty. President Donald Trump has worked to overturn Obama’s Middle East policies, putting the remaining pro-Israel Democrats in a difficult political situation. Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, as well as his abandonment of the Iran deal, have been cheered by the Netanyahu government but panned by most Democrats, including some who in the past have advocated both of those positions.
"But reactions to the latest round of violence in the Middle East shows that the Democrats’ drift may be speeding up still more, with the party veering toward anti-Israel hostility." . . .
The moral compass of Democrats manifests itself:

School Shooter Found Carrying Symbol Linked to Radical Trump Haters

"It appears that wearing the trench coat with its pro-socialist propaganda was common for the alleged shooter."
Western Journal  . . . "That suspected criminal has now been taken into custody and revealed as a 17-year-old student. As journalists poured over the alleged shooter’s social media accounts, they found something chilling.


"It appears that the shooter proudly wore a piece of pro-Communist propaganda on his clothing as he carried out the attack.
"Photos and descriptions from the accused criminal’s Facebook page show an unmistakable Soviet “hammer and sickle” pin placed prominently on the lapel of his jacket — the same jacket that witnesses said he wore during the rampage." . . .

. . . "The star pin appeared to be identical or similar to items available from MarxistBooks.com and other pro-socialist propaganda outlets.

"More recently, the symbol has become the de facto icon of radical anti-Trump protesters. There are numerous examples of liberal protesters waving the hammer and sickle flag or using the iconography on banners protesting the president and conservatism" . . .

Antifa and their colors:


Now we see the American Left as they truly are

The final irony here is that liberals tend to embrace godless evolution and generally believe that people are nothing but animals.  Yet as the brilliant G.K. Chesterton put it, "Man is an exception."  He "is always something worse or something better than an animal[.]"  So true.  And I think we know which free will-abusing people are keeping MS-13 gangsters company in the worse category.  Selwyn Duke
Dark Angel
Selwyn Duke: "If liberals were animals, it would be an improvement"  "Ever since President Trump characterized MS-13 gang members as "animals," Democrats have been playing dumb (when they haven't actually been dumb) for political gain.  What started with some fake news outlets purposely misrepresenting Trump's remarks and others sloppily parroting the deception has degenerated into the comical: leftists trying to save face and gain votes by cynically claiming they're offended that anyone would do violence to the principle of the dignity of all human persons.  Why, Nancy Pelosi, a pooh-bah of prenatal infanticide posing as a latter-day St. Thomas Aquinas, actually lectured us about how every person has a "divine spark.' " . . .

A grim spectacle: The left fully revealed  "Over the eight years of the Obama administration, the Democratic Party moved left, then more left, then hard, radical, Alinskyite left.  Terrible damage was done to the country as a result.  Obamacare virtually destroyed our once finest health care system.  The Iran deal was a cash cow for the mullahs; the West got nothing but the promise that Iran would become a nuclear power.  Obama thrived on racial strife, and so he exacerbated it day after day, any way he could.  He supported Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and Antifa.  He likely saw to it that tens of thousands of dollars were illegally funneled to those groups along with the millions sent their way by George Soros.  Obama enforced few if any immigration laws because the left needs that perennial immigrant underclass to gain power. " . . .

Notice the divinity here?


Would Nancy Pelosi say there is a spark of divinity in President Trump?

The Federalist asks, Do Liberals Hate Trump More Than MS-13?
. . . "When these outlets and journos were called out for their extremely misleading reporting, many of them chose to defend MS-13 rather than walk back their criticism of Trump. This is a gang with the motto, “kill, rape, control.”  
"Let’s take a stroll down the walk of shame, shall we?" . . .

Read the comments from these opinion shapers and teachers of our children.
. . . "It’s one thing to vehemently oppose this president, but to be brainwashed by your own hatred for Trump that you’re purposefully manipulating his remarks about MS-13 so that it appears that he was referring to all immigrants is truly appalling and absolutely shameful."

MS-13; the corrupt media throws this nation under the bus


Fake Racism News - A.F. Branco


"The MSM wonders why the majority of America cannot stand them. It’s probably because of the way they twist and edit President Donald Trump’s words.


"The New York Times, The Washington Post, and others all claimed that Trump called “some unauthorized immigrants” animals during a rant*. No. He referred to members of the dangerous MS-13 gang as animals.

"What Trump Actually Said.  CNN’s Jake Tapper posted the full context of Trump’s quotes:" . . .

*"Rant"; that's the NY Times choice of word.

The search for blame in Texas...once more

Sickle, hammer, and Iron Cross strike in Texas  . . . "The murderer of schoolchildren in Texas understood that the Soviet sickle and hammer, on the one hand, and the Nazi Iron Cross, on the other hand, are symbols belonging to the same ideological direction.  We do not yet know how strong the ideological convictions of this murderer are.  But we know one thing: America does not want to endure the massacres of children anymore – as we do not want to see another gun-free zone filled with blood.

"Massacres in Israeli schools are non-existent nowadays, just like gun-free zones.  American schoolchildren deserve the same protection as their Israeli counterparts.  Being a small country, Israel armed whom it could to protect their children: their teachers.  In America, it makes no sense to arm the teachers for a variety of reasons.  We should allow our teachers to arm themselves, but it should not be a government policy.
"Paradoxically, in order not to turn our country into a police state, we need police officers in every school." . . .

Note to CNN and ladies of "The View": Do not - repeat not - claim this is a Christian symbol:
I can just picture it now. CNN's Don Lemon, are you listening?  TD 

The inevitable blaming of the culture instead of the shooter.
. . . As I write this, after the politicians in Texas had their say, the tired liturgy began anew.
You know how this goes. You’ve seen it before: anger, tribal chant and politics, those who want armed security at schools, those who say there are too many guns in America already.
We slide into our default positions. We think by hashtag.
The uglier our thoughts, the harsher they are, the better. People let their anger roll off their thumbs and onto the Twitter accounts. You can watch the number of your Twitter followers grow when you call people like me a “gun fetishist.” . . .

J.J. Watt offers to pay funeral expenses for victims of Santa Fe High School shooting

SB Nation


"Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watt has reportedly reached out to Santa Fe High School — the site of Friday’s mass shooting in Texas — and offered to cover the funeral expenses of the victims. At least 10 people have died following the tragedy, with another 10 injured — the majority of which are students.

Santa Fe High School officials have been notified that @JJWatt is personally going to pay for the funerals of all the victims of the Santa Fe High School shooting tragedy.
"Watt expressed his grief on Twitter yesterday before reportedly contacting school officials. Houston is just 37 miles northwest of Santa Fe High School." . . .
Deviant Art

Friday, May 18, 2018

The Best Explanation for Our Spate of Mass Shootings Is the Least Comforting

National Review


. . . "Those who advocate for gun control have an immediate answer — the prevalence of guns in the United States. Yet guns have been part of the fabric of American life for the entire history of our republic. Mass shootings — especially the most deadly mass shootings — are a far more recent phenomenon.

"Writing in 2015, Malcolm Gladwell wrote what I think is still the best explanation for modern American mass shootings, and it’s easily the least comforting. At the risk of oversimplifying a complex argument, essentially he argues that each mass shooting lowers the threshold for the next. He argues, we are in the midst of a slow-motion “riot” of mass shootings, with the Columbine shooting in many ways the key triggering event. Relying on the work of Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter, Gladwell notes that it’s a mistake to look at each incident independently: . . ."
But Granovetter thought it was a mistake to focus on the decision-making processes of each rioter in isolation. In his view, a riot was not a collection of individuals, each of whom arrived independently at the decision to break windows. A riot was a social process, in which people did things in reaction to and in combination with those around them. Social processes are driven by our thresholds—which he defined as the number of people who need to be doing some activity before we agree to join them. In the elegant theoretical model Granovetter proposed, riots were started by people with a threshold of zero—instigators willing to throw a rock through a window at the slightest provocation. Then comes the person who will throw a rock if someone else goes first. He has a threshold of one. Next in is the person with the threshold of two. His qualms are overcome when he sees the instigator and the instigator’s accomplice. Next to him is someone with a threshold of three, who would never break windows and loot stores unless there were three people right in front of him who were already doing that—and so on up to the hundredth person, a righteous upstanding citizen who nonetheless could set his beliefs aside and grab a camera from the broken window of the electronics store if everyone around him was grabbing cameras from the electronics store.
. . .  

Student Says School Shooter Was Picked On By Coaches, Wore Trench Coat Daily

Prepare for more CNN appearances by those foul-mouthed Parkland brats.

Daily Wire . . . "He's been picked on by coaches before for smelling bad and stuff like that and he doesn't really talk to very many people," the student said. "He wears a trench coat every day and it's like 90 degrees out here."
"I heard that he wore a shirt today and it said 'born to kill,' the shirt he was wearing, I don't even know how the school can allow that," the student continued.
The reporter then asked the student about his reaction to the school's handling of the shooting, asking him if they handled it appropriately.
"No, they pulled the fire alarm and got everyone in one position, that's not smart," the student replied. "They should have done the right thing and left the people in the classrooms."
The reporter then appeared to try to bait the student into making a statement on gun control, asking him what he thought about the state of America today.
"The student once again pointed out the alleged gunman was supposedly bullied by coaches, saying, "I think it's stupid, the coaches can't talk to students like that and make fun of them. That's their fault, and strictly their fault. Not the kid's fault, but their fault, no one has talked to him or tried to be nice to him."




Texas Colonel Describes How Police Must Engage A School Shooter – Puts Parkland Police To Shame "Multiple law enforcement officers engaged the shooter who killed 10 and wounded 10 at Santa Fe High School in Texas Friday morning.
"That’s according to Texas Department of Public Safety director Steve McCraw." . . .
"One of the Texas police officers was shot and severely wounded when he engaged the shooter. The officer has not been identified and is in the hospital.
"The actions of the Texas officers present a stark contrast to the actions of the Broward County Sheriff school resource officer during the Parkland, Florida shooting earlier this year." . . .

Two thousand years waiting for a restoration of Jewish sovereignty in Jerusalem

"Two thousand years waiting for a restoration of Jewish sovereignty in Jerusalem via Instapundit, and for some American Jews, today’s significance is that it gives them a chance to emote their hostility to Trump. Sad!"



"BECAUSE LEFTIST POLITICS HAS BECOME A RELIGION: Two thousand years waiting for a restoration of Jewish sovereignty in Jerusalem, and for some American Jews, today’s significance is that it gives them a chance to emote their hostility to Trump. Sad!"

MS-13; the corrupt media throws this nation under the bus

"What rational Americans heard as a slam against the violent Salvadoran gang MS-13, the media heard as a racist rant. Kinda like that whole Laurel/Yanny thing… Cartoon by A.F. Branco."

Fake Racism News - A.F. Branco
Fake Racism News – A.F. Branco Cartoon
Thomas Lifson: MSM drive another nail in their own coffin with distortion of Trump's 'animals' comment  "The mainstream media have forfeited the trust of all but the dedicated progressive faction of the American public, roughly 20-30% of the populace.  Now that a majority distrusts their word, and now that we have a president who is a counter-puncher, they can't get away with their old tricks all the time.
"It was outright malpractice for many outlets, including the New York Times, CNN, and the Associated Press, to create the impression that when he used the word "animals" in public, Trump was referring to all immigrants, or to all illegal aliens, as he was responding to a question about MS-13." . . .
Below: "Rant"?

. . . "Like sobbing children, the left-wing media can’t get over the fact Trump beat Hillary Clinton and is systematically dismantling President Obama’s policy legacy, and it’s driving some of them, quite literally, insane."


Planned Parenthood, NARAL Are Very Upset That 
The President Called Violent Gang Members 'Animals' . . . "Hogue stepped foot into more bizarre territory, warning that dehumanizing even murderous individuals was the pathway to "very dangerous territory," where more human beings might face dehumanization. Hogue is apparently unaware that her own organization fights for the right to murder innocent, tiny humans in the first three to nine months of their lives — definitely dangerous territory." . . .


“When all of our great-great-grandparents came to America they weren’t ‘animals,’ and these people aren’t either.” —

Scarcely a day goes by without the news media lying about the president and his administration. No wonder trust in the press is at an all-time low. It should be.  . . . "The round table had nothing to do with illegal immigrants in general, or “those trying to breach the country’s borders” (the caravaners, I take it). This was the president’s reference to animals; again, he obviously was referring to MS-13 gang members:. . . "

Pelosi: Trump Using 'Animals' Term in Sanctuary Debate Ignores 'Spark of Divinity in Every Person'. . . "If the media and liberals want to defend MS-13, they're more than welcome to," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters. "Frankly, I don't think the term the president used is strong enough." . . .

terrellaftermath

Thursday, May 17, 2018

Iran and President trump

Charles Krauthammer once said, "It's not that we have a new sheriff in town; it's that we now have a sheriff"

The Crashing Iranian Economy and the Mullahs’ Last Stand


. . . "The Washington Free Beacon reported the following:
European diplomats are said to be blaming the Obama administration for drumming up business with Iran and telling these allies that they could engage in economic transactions without penalty. The reaction from lawmakers has been unsympathetic, source said, explaining that congressional opponents of the deal long warned these European countries the deal would be subject to harsh scrutiny after President Barack Obama left office. . . . 
 “As President Trump has always said, the Iran deal was great for the mullahs and terrible for the American people,” the source said, speaking only on background. “Obama gave Iran more than they could ever have imagined, and now Trump is taking it away. The Iranians are rushing to grab and save whatever they can. Europe will have to choose a side.” . . .
Caroline Glick: Netanyahu’s finest hour  . . . "Apparently unaware that the US is a more important EU ally than Iran, Mogherini insisted, “The European Union is determined to preserve it. Together with the rest of the international community, we will preserve this nuclear deal.”
"The liberal US media outlets were also aghast. Commentators joined the chorus of former Obama administration officials condemning Trump and insisting his move will isolate the US from the international community.
"Trump brushed off his critics by noting, “You saw [Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu get up yesterday and talk so favorably about what we did.”
"In other words, as far as Trump is concerned, Israel’s support is just as valuable as Mogherini’s. He’s perfectly willing to suffice with Israeli support. Having Israel in his corner means that the US is not isolated." . . .

10 Key Takeaways From The New York Times’ Error-Ridden Defense Of FBI Spying On Trump Campaign

You know you have hit the bullseye when Rush Limbaugh introduces you:

Rush Limbaugh
Mollie Hemingway
It's reasonable to assume that much of the new information in the New York Times report relates to leakers' fears about information that will be coming out in the inspector general report.
 The New York Times published an article yesterday confirming the United States’ intelligence apparatus was used to spy on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016.
Here are a few quick takeaways.

1. FBI Officials Admit They Spied On Trump Campaign

"The New York Times‘ story, headlined “Code Name Crossfire Hurricane: The Secret Origins of the Trump Investigation,” is a dry and gentle account of the FBI’s launch of extensive surveillance of affiliates of the Trump campaign. 
"Whereas FBI officials and media enablers had previously downplayed claims that the Trump campaign had been surveiled, in this story we learn that it was more widespread than previously acknowledged:
The F.B.I. investigated four unidentified Trump campaign aides in those early months, congressional investigators revealed in February. The four men were Michael T. Flynn, Paul Manafort, Carter Page and Mr. Papadopoulos, current and former officials said…
The F.B.I. obtained phone records and other documents using national security letters — a secret type of subpoena — officials said. And at least one government informant met several times with Mr. Page and Mr. Papadopoulos, current and former officials said.
"This is a stunning admission for those Americans worried that federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies might use their powers to surveil, leak against, and target Americans simply for their political views or affiliations. As Sean Davis wrote, “The most amazing aspect about this article is how blasé it is about the fact that the Obama admin was actively spying on four affiliates of a rival political campaign weeks before an election.”

"The story says the FBI was worried that if it came out they were spying on Trump campaign it would “only reinforce his claims that the election was being rigged against him.” It is easy to understand how learning that the FBI was spying on one’s presidential campaign might reinforce claims of election-rigging." . . .

Israel’s Interrogation of Captured Gazan Infiltrators Reveal Hamas’ Strategy

Israel Rising


. . . "Salim Abu Daher, 21, a resident of the Gaza Strip, was arrested on 28 April 2018 upon infiltrating into Israel in order to burn fields and groves. Officials learned the following from Salim:
1. Hamas is financing the violent action in the framework of which kite-borne firebombs are sent toward Israeli territory.
2. Hamas members in civilian clothing circulate among violent activists and supply gasoline for the kite-borne firebombs which are designed to ignite and burn Israeli fields.
"Other detainees revealed the following:
1. Hamas encourages children and young people to cross the fence.
2. Hamas militants in civilian clothes encourage children to try and cross the fence in order to steal IDF equipment.
"This resulted in an event on May 4th in which a 13-year-old youth was wounded while taking part in an attempt to infiltrate into Israeli territory in order to steal a security camera at Karni Crossing, east of Gaza City." . . .