Democrats continue to stonewall Trump and his appointments. Four of 15 have been approved as of today by committee and then after floor vote. Another, DeVos, was approved today after V.P Pence voted to break the tie.
The action by the Democrats is not only disgraceful but is an insult to The American People.
Common sense and decency have given way to extreme partisanship. (See 1 below.)
The same applies to the Washington District Judge's decision blocking Trump's desire to temporarily suspend immigrants from 7 nations identified by Obama's State Department as out of control and incapable of providing adequate documentation. (See 1a below.)
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Everyone seems to have their favorite Pinata. One of mine is George Soros. (See 2 below.)
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Trump's tweet equating Putin and his Russia with our own nation's mistakes was about as dumb as GW's comments about seeing Putin'darker soul through his blue eyes.
I understand Trump's desire to "butter up Putin" in the hope that a buttered leopard might change his spots or at least we can have a working relationship but Trump went beyond where he needed to go.(See 3 below.)
Dick
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1)What Ever Happened to Common Sense?
I have been hearing from many people about common sense lately.
Because a book of mine has that phrase in the title, people frequently offer me their thoughts about common sense. Over time, this has amounted to a kind of informal and unscientific poll. Here are the results so far: evidently, there is general agreement that common sense has fallen on hard times in America. From "common sense has become so uncommon" to "whatever happened to common sense anyway?," the responses agree that American life has been trending away from common sense.
And it is obvious to anyone that common sense is not just fading away for reasons unknown. Common sense has been reeling from an all-out frontal assault. We need only to consider political correctness. Political correctness is the rejection of common sense in our political discourse. The proponents of P.C. demand that schools let boys into girls' bathrooms and that universities protect college students from words and ideas that might upset them. The P.C. overlords simultaneously demand that America bring in large numbers of Muslims from the jihadi-infested Middle East and that American citizens be deprived of the means to defend themselves and their families from jihadists.
But the war on common sense goes far beyond the political assault on the 1st and 2nd Amendments. Since academia is ground zero for political correctness and the progressive left, there is also an assault on rational standards in higher education. Steve Hayward has been chronicling the ongoing absurdity for us. In a recent posting, we learn that three women videotaped themselves watching the 17th season of ABC"S The Bachelor, then talked about it afterward, and turned it into a Ph.D.! Even worse, the Ph.D. was awarded by the University of Utah. The rot in academia has spread from elite private universities in progressive regions all the way to public universities in conservative states.
It was not ever thus. When America knew itself, common sense was the coin of the realm in American thinking, both in academia and in ordinary life.
The philosophy of common sense – called "common sense realism" – once reigned supreme in American higher education. Allen Guelzo, the distinguished American historian, made that point in this way in his truly great lecture series, "The American Mind":
Before the Civil War, every major [American] collegiate intellectual was a disciple of ... common sense realism.
Please notice what an extraordinary statement this is. Professor Guelzo does not say "most" or "nearly all"; he says "every." This speaks to the extraordinary importance of this philosophy to the original American Republic. Identified with the Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid and his followers, it was, in the words of another great historian, Arthur Herman, "virtually the official creed of the American Republic." The Founders were masters of the thought of Reid and the tradition he belonged to.
For more than a century after the Founding, studying those thinkers was part of what it meant to be an educated American. Here is what the distinguished British historian Lord Acton found when he visited Harvard in 1853:
The first year they read a few books of extracts from classical authors, and a bit of Horace and Cicero[.] ... Next year: 2 books of Homer, 2 or 3 plays, some Horace, Cicero[.] ... In the third year Reid becomes a text-book.
Not extracts from Reid, but "a text-book" – testimony to Reid's importance.
To be clear, common sense realism exists in two varieties. There is the garden variety, which you and I rely on in our daily lives and which we usually just call common sense. If you believe that a boy in a tutu and a tiara who claims he identifies as a girl is a boy, then you are a common sense realist.
Lincoln spoke for all of us garden-variety common sense realists when he famously asked and answered this question: "If you call a tail a leg, how many legs would a dog have? Four, because, even if you call it a leg, it's still a tail."
In contrast, Professor Guelzo is referring to common sense realism in its second variety. It is philosophy of great rigor and reach for philosophers who embrace common sense.
The fact that educated Americans and ordinary Americans alike were common sense realists goes a long way to explain what made America extraordinary. Alexander Hamilton and Abraham Lincoln were masters of common sense realism. That the Americans they addressed, educated or not, were also common sense realists did much to make it possible for Hamilton and Lincoln to reach voters on the extraordinarily high level of thinking we find in The Federalist Papers and in Lincoln's speeches.
So what, then, has happened to common sense? It has fallen victim to the progressive left's rejection of the Founders' vision. Of course, the progressives reject the Constitution, the Electoral College, and all of the creations of the Founders, but that is not sufficient for their purpose. They also must go on to reject the common sense realism of the Founders. Since that philosophy is rooted in ordinary common sense, ordinary common sense must go, too.
Donald Trump calls himself a common sense conservative. Does his election signal America's return to common sense? It is too soon to tell. Certainly, the enemies of common sense will fight – and they occupy fortified positions. Tenured professors in colleges and universities and government employees at every level cannot be fired, and they are more dedicated to fundamentally transforming America according to the progressive vision than they are to teaching or to serving the taxpayers who pay their salaries. We may not have yet seen the worst of what they will do to resist the threat of a return to common sense.
If the outcome of this fight matters to you, please consider trying to find a way to lend a hand.
Robert Curry is the author of Common Sense Nation: Unlocking the Forgotten Power of the American Idea from Encounter Books.
1a)
Governing by Tantrum
By Eugene Robinson
WASHINGTON -- No one should have been surprised when President Trump raged that the "so-called judge" who blocked his travel ban should be blamed "if something happens." It is clear by now that the leader of the free world has the emotional maturity of a 2-year-old who kicks, punches and holds his breath when he can't have ice cream.
He dismisses anything he doesn't want to hear as "fake news," which is the equivalent of holding his hands over his ears. A poll showing that most people disapprove of the ban? Photographic evidence that the crowd for his inauguration was less than historic? Fake! All fake!
Trump's supporters may convince themselves that the tantrums are part of a clever act. But if they were, Trump's closest aides wouldn't be leaking like walking colanders to what he calls the "dishonest media." It appears they can't get the president to sit for a briefing or read a memo, so they send messages to him via the newspaper stories that are clipped for him to read and the cable channels he obsessively watches.
Trump's temperament is at least an issue and potentially a crisis, not just for the nation but for the world. In one of his introductory phone calls with foreign leaders, he even managed to ruffle feathers with Australia, which is a hard thing to do. What kind of leader accuses one of our most steadfast allies of trying to send the "next Boston bombers" to the United States? A leader utterly lacking in self-control, apparently.
I realize there is some method to go along with all the madness. I understand that Trump wants to be disruptive and has disdain for traditional norms. I know he believes he has a mandate to radically change U.S. immigration policy, defend what he sees as Western values and project his vision of American strength.
But how does feuding with Australia further those ends? What rational purpose is served by lashing out at a federal judge for fulfilling his constitutional role? Why did he spend his first week in office trying to deny the fact that his inaugural crowd, while of quite respectable size, was much smaller than either of former President Obama's?
Trump's assault on the concept of an independent judiciary can be seen as something out of Orwell. "What is our country coming to when a judge can halt a Homeland Security travel ban and anyone, even with bad intentions, can come into U.S.?" Trump tweeted on Saturday. In one efficient sentence, the president trashed the concept of separation of powers and falsely alleged that prior administrations had let just anyone into the country.
So should that tweet be read as a deliberate attempt to encourage fear as a way of grabbing more power? Or was it simply Trump's pre-kindergarten reflex to hit back at anyone who hits him?
I think it was probably the latter. I've seen no indication that Trump is able to control his need to retaliate. We saw it throughout his campaign, and 70-year-old men usually don't change.
Those in his inner circle obviously know that the way to accomplish their own goals, and to stay in Trump's favor, is to indulge his impulses in hopes of being able to channel them in a given direction. Those who speak for the White House, including press secretary Sean Spicer, are required to emulate Trump's air of wounded pugnacity. And yes, Melissa McCarthy's portrayal of Spicer on "Saturday Night Live" may be the funniest thing I've seen all year.
Thus far, senior advisers Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller -- both from the nationalistic, protectionist, anti-immigration "alt-right" -- have proved most skillful at the game of intrigue in Trump's court. Chief of Staff Reince Priebus has had less success in getting the president to pursue a traditional Republican agenda, though he is likely to get the deregulation and tax cuts his party wants. Kellyanne Conway's overreach with "alternative facts" and "the Bowling Green massacre" seem to have pleased, not irked, her boss. Son-in-law Jared Kushner has had little apparent impact thus far, but he can play the long game because he's family and doesn't have to worry about being fired.
But make no mistake: We are talking about the rising and falling fortunes of courtiers who, with flattery and whispers and flowery professions of fealty, serve the unpredictable whims of their liege lord. The next four years promise to be a history lesson in the sort of thing that caused American democracy to be born.
(c) 2017, Washington Post Writers Group
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2) THE LIST: George Soros Is Funding Nearly 200 Organizations To Attack America
Byproudcons.com,
It’s not exactly any secret that President Trump and his entire administration are under attack by leftists all over the globe, but sometimes it is tough to really understand to what degree the attack is occurring.
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2) THE LIST: George Soros Is Funding Nearly 200 Organizations To Attack America
Byproudcons.com,
It’s not exactly any secret that President Trump and his entire administration are under attack by leftists all over the globe, but sometimes it is tough to really understand to what degree the attack is occurring.
Globalist billionaire George Soros is funding nearly 200 organizations that have launched attacks on Trump and/or conservatives, which likely won’t stop anytime soon. Dr. Rich Swier has published the entire list of organizations that Soros funds, and if he’s funding it, you can be sure there’s globalist, leftist, and socialist motives behind it.
Advancement Project: This organization works to organize “communities of color” into politically cohesive units while disseminating its leftist world views and values as broadly as possible by way of a sophisticated communications department.
Air America Radio: Now defunct, this was a self-identified “liberal” radio network.
All of Us or None: This organization seeks to change voting laws — which vary from state to state — so as to allow ex-inmates, parolees, and even current inmates to cast their ballots in political elections.
Alliance for Justice: Best known for its activism vis a vis the appointment of federal judges, this group consistently depicts Republican judicial nominees as “extremists.”
America Coming Together: Soros played a major role in creating this group, whose purpose was to coordinate and organize pro-Democrat voter-mobilization programs.
America Votes: Soros also played a major role in creating this group, whose get-out-the-vote campaigns targeted likely Democratic voters.
America’s Voice: This open-borders group seeks to promote “comprehensive” immigration reform that includes a robust agenda in favor of amnesty for illegal aliens.
American Bar Association Commission on Immigration Policy: This organization “opposes laws that require employers and persons providing education, health care, or other social services to verify citizenship or immigration status.”
American Bridge 21st Century: This Super PAC conducts opposition research designed to help Democratic political candidates defeat their Republican foes.
American Civil Liberties Union: This group opposes virtually all post-9/11 national security measures enacted by the U.S. government. It supports open borders, has rushed to the defense of suspected terrorists and their abettors, and appointed former New Left terrorist Bernardine Dohrn to its Advisory Board.
American Constitution Society for Law and Policy: This Washington, DC-based think tank seeks to move American jurisprudence to the left by recruiting, indoctrinating, and mobilizing young law students, helping them acquire positions of power. It also provides leftist Democrats with a bully pulpit from which to denounce their political adversaries.
American Family Voices: This group creates and coordinates media campaigns charging Republicans with wrongdoing.
American Federation of Teachers: After longtime AFT President Albert Shanker died in in 1997, he was succeeded by Sandra Feldman, who slowly “re-branded” the union, allying it with some of the most powerful left-wing elements of the New Labor Movement. When Feldman died in 2004, Edward McElroy took her place, followed by Randi Weingarten in 2008. All of them kept the union on the leftward course it had adopted in its post-Shanker period.
American Friends Service Committee: This group views the United States as the principal cause of human suffering around the world. As such, it favors America’s unilateral disarmament, the dissolution of American borders, amnesty for illegal aliens, the abolition of the death penalty, and the repeal of the Patriot Act.
American Immigration Council: This non-profit organization is a prominent member of the open-borders lobby. It advocates expanded rights and amnesty for illegal aliens residing in the U.S.
American Immigration Law Foundation: This group supports amnesty for illegal aliens, on whose behalf it litigates against the U.S. government.
American Independent News Network: This organization promotes “impact journalism” that advocates progressive change.
American Institute for Social Justice: AISJ’s goal is to produce skilled community organizers who can “transform poor communities” by agitating for increased government spending on city services, drug interdiction, crime prevention, housing, public-sector jobs, access to healthcare, and public schools.
American Library Association: This group has been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration’s War on Terror — most particularly, Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, which it calls “a present danger to the constitutional rights and privacy rights of library users.”
The American Prospect, Inc.: This corporation trains and mentors young leftwing journalists, and organizes strategy meetings for leftist leaders.
Amnesty International: This organization directs a grossly disproportionate share of its criticism for human rights violations at the United States and Israel.
Applied Research Center: Viewing the United States as a nation where “structural racism” is deeply “embedded in the fabric of society,” ARC seeks to “build a fair and equal society” by demanding “concrete change from our most powerful institutions.”
Arab American Institute Foundation: The Arab American Institute denounces the purportedly widespread civil liberties violations directed against Arab Americans in the post-9/11 period, and characterizes Israel as a brutal oppressor of the Palestinian people.
Aspen Institute: This organization promotes radical environmentalism and views America as a nation plagued by deep-seated “structural racism.”
Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now: This group conducts voter mobilization drives on behalf of leftist Democrats. These initiatives have been notoriously marred by fraud and corruption.
Ballot Initiative Strategy Center: This organization seeks to advance “a national progressive strategy” by means of ballot measures—state-level legislative proposals that pass successfully through a petition (“initiative”) process and are then voted upon by the public.
Bill of Rights Defense Committee: This group provides a detailed blueprint for activists interested in getting their local towns, cities, and even college campuses to publicly declare their opposition to the Patriot Act, and to designate themselves “Civil Liberties Safe Zones.” The organization also came to the defense of self-described radical attorney Lynne Stewart, who was convicted in 2005 of providing material support for terrorism.
Black Alliance for Just Immigration: This organization seeks to create a unified movement for “social and economic justice” centered on black racial identity.
Blueprint North Carolina: This group seeks to “influence state policy in North Carolina so that residents of the state benefit from more progressive policies such as better access to health care, higher wages, more affordable housing, a safer, cleaner environment, and access to reproductive health services.”
Brennan Center for Justice: This think tank/legal activist group generates scholarly studies, mounts media campaigns, files amicus briefs, gives pro bono support to activists, and litigates test cases in pursuit of radical “change.”
Brookings Institution: This organization has been involved with a variety of internationalist and state-sponsored programs, including one that aspires to facilitate the establishment of a U.N.-dominated world government. Brookings Fellows have also called for additional global collaboration on trade and banking; the expansion of the Kyoto Protocol; and nationalized health insurance for children. Nine Brookings economists signed a petition opposing President Bush’s tax cuts in 2003.
Campaign for America’s Future: This group supports tax hikes, socialized medicine, and a dramatic expansion of social welfare programs.
Campaign for Better Health Care: This organization favors a single-payer, government-run, universal health care system.
Campaign for Youth Justice: This organization contends that “transferring juveniles to the adult criminal-justice system leads to higher rates of recidivism, puts incarcerated and detained youth at unnecessary risk, has little deterrence value, and does not increase public safety.”
Campus Progress: A project of the Soros-bankrolled Center for American Progress, this group seeks to “strengthen progressive voices on college and university campuses, counter the growing influence of right-wing groups on campus, and empower new generations of progressive leaders.”
Casa de Maryland: This organization aggressively lobbies legislators to vote in favor of policies that promote expanded rights, including amnesty, for illegal aliens currently residing in the United States.
Catalist: This is a for-profit political consultancy that seeks “to help progressive organizations realize measurable increases in civic participation and electoral success by building and operating a robust national voter database of every voting-age American.”
Catholics for Choice: This nominally Catholic organization supports women’s right to abortion-on-demand.
Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good: This political nonprofit group is dedicated to generating support from the Catholic community for leftwing candidates, causes, and legislation.
Center for American Progress: This leftist think tank is headed by former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta, works closely with Hillary Clinton, and employs numerous former Clinton administration staffers. It is committed to “developing a long-term vision of a progressive America” and “providing a forum to generate new progressive ideas and policy proposals.”
Center for Community Change: This group recruits and trains activists to spearhead leftist “political issue campaigns.” Promoting increased funding for social welfare programs by bringing “attention to major national issues related to poverty,” the Center bases its training programs on the techniques taught by the famed radical organizer Saul Alinsky.
Center for Constitutional Rights: This pro-Castro organization is a core member of the open borders lobby, has opposed virtually all post-9/11 anti-terrorism measures by the U.S. government, and alleges that American injustice provokes acts of international terrorism.
Center for Economic and Policy Research: This group opposed welfare reform, supports “living wage” laws, rejects tax cuts, and consistently lauds the professed achievements of socialist regimes, most notably Venezuela.
Center for Reproductive Rights: CRR’s mission is to guarantee safe, affordable contraception and abortion-on-demand for all women, including adolescents. The organization has filed state and federal lawsuits demanding access to taxpayer-funded abortions (through Medicaid) for low-income women.
Center for Responsible Lending: This organization was a major player in the subprime mortgage crisis. According to Phil Kerpen (vice president for policy at Americans for Prosperity), CRL “sh[ook] down and harass[ed] banks into making bad loans to unqualified borrowers.” Moreover, CRL negotiated a contract enabling it to operate as a conduit of high-risk loans to Fannie Mae.
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: Reasoning from the premise that tax cuts generally help only the wealthy, this organization advocates greater tax expenditures on social welfare programs for low earners.
Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS): Aiming to redistribute wealth by way of higher taxes imposed on those whose incomes are above average, COWS contends that “it is important that state government be able to harness fair contribution from all parts of society – including corporations and the wealthy.”
Change America Now: Formed in December 2006, Change America Now describes itself as “an independent political organization created to educate citizens on the failed policies of the Republican Congress and to contrast that record of failure with the promise offered by a Democratic agenda.”
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington: This group litigates and brings ethics charges against “government officials who sacrifice the common good to special interests” and “betray the public trust.” Almost all of its targets are Republicans.
Coalition for an International Criminal Court: This group seeks to subordinate American criminal-justice procedures to those of an international court.
Common Cause: This organization aims to bring about campaign-finance reform, pursue media reform resembling the Fairness Doctrine, and cut military budgets in favor of increased social-welfare and environmental spending.
Constitution Project: This organization seeks to challenge the legality of military commissions; end the detainment of “enemy combatants”; condemn government surveillance of terrorists; and limit the President’s executive privileges.
Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund: Defenders of Wildlife opposes oil exploration in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It condemns logging, ranching, mining, and even the use of recreational motorized vehicles as activities that are destructive to the environment.
Democracy Alliance: This self-described “liberal organization” aims to raise $200 million to develop a funding clearinghouse for leftist groups. Soros is a major donor to this group.
Democracy 21: This group is a staunch supporter of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, also known as the McCain-Feingold Act.
Democracy Now!: Democracy Now! was created in 1996 by WBAI radio news director Amy Goodman and four partners to provide “perspectives rarely heard in the U.S. corporate-sponsored media,” i.e., the views of radical and foreign journalists, left and labor activists, and ideological foes of capitalism.
Democratic Justice Fund: DJF opposes the Patriot Act and most efforts to restrict or regulate immigration into the United States — particularly from countries designated by the State Department as “terrorist nations.”
Democratic Party: Soros’ funding activities are devoted largely to helping the Democratic Party solidify its power base. In a November 2003 interview, Soros stated that defeating President Bush in 2004 “is the central focus of my life” … “a matter of life and death.” He pledged to raise $75 million to defeat Bush, and personally donated nearly a third of that amount to anti-Bush organizations. “America under Bush,” he said, “is a danger to the world, and I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is.”
Demos: This organization lobbies federal and state policymakers to “addres[s] the economic insecurity and inequality that characterize American society today”; promotes “ideas for reducing gaps in wealth, income and political influence”; and favors tax hikes for the wealthy.
Drum Major Institute: This group describes itself as “a non-partisan, non-profit think tank generating the ideas that fuel the progressive movement,” with the ultimate aim of persuading “policymakers and opinion-leaders” to take steps that advance its vision of “social and economic justice.”
Earthjustice: This group seeks to place severe restrictions on how U.S. land and waterways may be used. It opposes most mining and logging initiatives, commercial fishing businesses, and the use of motorized vehicles in undeveloped areas.
Economic Policy Institute: This organization believes that “government must play an active role in protecting the economically vulnerable, ensuring equal opportunity, and improving the well-being of all Americans.”
Electronic Privacy Information Center: This organization has been a harsh critic of the USA PATRIOT Act and has joined the American Civil Liberties Union in litigating two cases calling for the FBI “to publicly release or account for thousands of pages of information about the government’s use of PATRIOT Act powers.”
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights: Co-founded by the revolutionary communist Van Jones, this anti-poverty organization claims that “decades of disinvestment in our cities” — compounded by “excessive, racist policing and over-incarceration” — have “led to despair and homelessness.”
EMILY’s List: This political network raises money for Democratic female political candidates who support unrestricted access to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand.
Energy Action Coalition: Founded in 2004, this group describes itself as “a coalition of 50 youth-led environmental and social justice groups working together to build the youth clean energy and climate movement.” For EAC, this means “dismantling oppression” according to its principles of environmental justice.
Equal Justice USA: This group claims that America’s criminal-justice system is plagued by “significant race and class biases,” and thus seeks to promote major reforms.
Fair Immigration Reform Movement: This is the open-borders arm of the Center for Community Change.
Faithful America: This organization promotes the redistribution of wealth, an end to enhanced interrogation procedures vis a vis prisoners-of-war, the enactment of policies to combat global warming, and the creation of a government-run heath care system.
Feminist Majority: Characterizing the United States as an inherently sexist nation, this group focuses on “advancing the legal, social and political equality of women with men, countering the backlash to women’s advancement, and recruiting and training young feminists to encourage future leadership for the feminist movement in the United States.”
Four Freedoms Fund: This organization was designed to serve as a conduit through which large foundations could fund state-based open-borders organizations more flexibly and quickly.
Free Exchange on Campus: This organization was created solely to oppose the efforts of one individual, David Horowitz, and his campaign to have universities adopt an “Academic Bill of Rights,” as well as to denounce Horowitz’s 2006 book The Professors. Member organizations of FEC include Campus Progress (a project of the Center for American Progress); the American Association of University Professors; the American Civil Liberties Union; People For the American Way; the United States Student Association; the Center for Campus Free Speech; the American Library Association; Free Press; and the National Association of State Public Interest Research Groups.
Free Press: This “media reform” organization has worked closely with many notable leftists and such organizations as Media Matters for America, Air America Radio, Global Exchange, Code Pink, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, the Revolutionary Communist Party, Mother Jones magazine, and Pacifica Radio.
Funding Exchange: Dedicated to the concept of philanthropy as a vehicle for social change, this organization pairs leftist donors and foundations with like minded groups and activists who are dedicated to bringing about their own version of “progressive” change and social justice. Many of these grantees assume that American society is rife with racism, discrimination, exploitation, and inequity and needs to be overhauled via sustained education, activism, and social agitation.
Gamaliel Foundation: Modeling its tactics on those of the radical Sixties activist Saul Alinsky, this group takes a strong stand against current homeland security measures and immigration restrictions.
Gisha: Center for the Legal Protection of Freedom of Movement: This anti-Israel organization seeks to help Palestinians “exercise their right to freedom of movement.”
Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect: This group contends that when a state proves either unable or unwilling to protect civilians from mass atrocities occurring within its borders, it is the responsibility of the international community to intervene — peacefully if possible, but with military force if necessary.
Global Exchange: Established in 1988 by pro-Castro radical Medea Benjamin, this group consistently condemns America’s foreign policy, business practices, and domestic life. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Global Exchange advised Americans to examine “the root causes of resentment against the United States in the Arab world — from our dependence on Middle Eastern oil to our biased policy towards Israel.”
Grantmakers Without Borders: GWB tends to be very supportive of leftist environmental, anti-war, and civil rights groups. It is also generally hostile to capitalism, which it deems one of the chief “political, economic, and social systems” that give rise to a host of “social ills.”
Green For All: This group was created by Van Jones to lobby for federal climate, energy, and economic policy initiatives.
Health Care for America Now: This group supports a “single payer” model where the federal government would be in charge of financing and administering the entire U.S. healthcare system.
Human Rights Campaign: The largest “lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender” lobbying group in the United States, HRC supports political candidates and legislation that will advance the LGBT agenda. Historically, HRC has most vigorously championed HIV/AIDS-related legislation, “hate crime” laws, the abrogation of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, and the legalization of gay marriage.
Human Rights First: This group supports open borders and the rights of illegal aliens; charges that the Patriot Act severely erodes Americans’ civil liberties; has filed amicus curiae briefs on behalf of terror suspect Jose Padilla; and deplores the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities.
Human Rights Watch: This group directs a disproportionate share of its criticism at the United States and Israel. It opposes the death penalty in all cases, and supports open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens.
I’lam: This anti-Israel NGO seeks “to develop and empower the Arab media and to give voice to Palestinian issues.”
Immigrant Defense Project: To advance the cause of illegal immigrants, the IDP provides immigration law backup support and counseling to New York defense attorneys and others who represent or assist immigrants in criminal justice and immigration systems, as well as to immigrants themselves.
Immigrant Legal Resource Center: This group claims to have helped gain amnesty for some three million illegal aliens in the U.S., and in the 1980s was part of the sanctuary movement which sought to grant asylum to refugees from the failed Communist states of Central America.
Immigrant Workers Citizenship Project: This open-borders organization advocates mass immigration to the U.S.
Immigration Advocates Network: This alliance of immigrant-rights groups seeks to “increase access to justice for low-income immigrants and strengthen the capacity of organizations serving them.”
Immigration Policy Center: IPC is an advocate of open borders and contends that the massive influx of illegal immigrants into America is due to U.S. government policy, since “the broken immigration system […] spurs unauthorized immigration in the first place.”
Independent Media Center: This Internet-based, news and events bulletin board represents an invariably leftist, anti-capitalist perspective and serves as a mouthpiece for anti-globalization/anti-America themes.
Independent Media Institute: IMI administers the SPIN Project (Strategic Press Information Network), which provides leftist organizations with “accessible and affordable strategic communications consulting, training, coaching, networking opportunities and concrete tools” to help them “achieve their social justice goals.”
Institute for America’s Future: IAF supports socialized medicine, increased government funding for education, and the creation of an infrastructure “to ensure that the voice of the progressive majority is heard.”
Institute for New Economic Thinking: Seeking to create a new worldwide “economic paradigm,” this organization is staffed by numerous individuals who favor government intervention in national economies, and who view capitalism as a flawed system.
Institute for Policy Studies: This think tank has long supported Communist and anti-American causes around the world. Viewing capitalism as a breeding ground for “unrestrained greed,” IPS seeks to provide a corrective to “unrestrained markets and individualism.” Professing an unquestioning faith in the righteousness of the United Nations, it aims to bring American foreign policy under UN control.
Institute for Public Accuracy: This anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-Israel organization sponsored actor Sean Penn’s celebrated visit to Baghdad in 2002. It also sponsored visits to Iraq by Democratic Congressmen Nick Rahall and former Democrat Senator James Abourezk
Institute for Women’s Policy Research: This group views the U.S. as a nation rife with discrimination against women, and publishes research to draw attention to this alleged state of affairs. It also advocates unrestricted access to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand, stating that “access to abortion is essential to the economic well-being of women and girls.”
International Crisis Group: One of this organization’s leading figures is its Mideast Director, Robert Malley, who was President Bill Clinton’s Special Assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs. His analysis of the Mideast conflict is markedly pro-Palestinian.
J Street: This anti-Israel group warns that Israel’s choice to take military action to stop Hamas’ terrorist attacks “will prove counter-productive and only deepen the cycle of violence in the region”
Jewish Funds for Justice: This organization views government intervention and taxpayer funding as crucial components of enlightened social policy. It seeks to redistribute wealth from Jewish donors to low-income communities “to combat the root causes of domestic economic and social injustice.” By JFJ’s reckoning, chief among those root causes are the inherently negative by-products of capitalism – most notably racism and “gross economic inequality.”
Joint Victory Campaign 2004: Founded by George Soros and Harold Ickes, this group was a major fundraising entity for Democrats during the 2004 election cycle. It collected contributions (including large amounts from Soros personally) and disbursed them to two other groups, America Coming Together and the Media Fund, which also worked on behalf of Democrats.
Justice at Stake: This coalition calls for judges to be appointed by nonpartisan, independent commissions in a process known as “merit selection,” rather than elected by the voting public.
Latino Justice PRLDF: This organization supports bilingual education, the racial gerrymandering of voting districts, and expanded rights for illegal aliens.
Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law: This group views America as an unremittingly racist nation; uses the courts to mandate race-based affirmative action preferences in business and academia; has filed briefs against the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to limit the wholesale granting of green cards and to identify potential terrorists; condemns the Patriot Act; and calls on Americans to “recognize the contribution” of illegal aliens.
League of United Latin American Citizens: This group views America as a nation plagued by “an alarming increase in xenophobia and anti-Hispanic sentiment”; favors racial preferences; supports the legalization of illegal Hispanic aliens; opposes military surveillance of U.S. borders; opposes making English America’s official language; favors open borders; and rejects anti-terrorism legislation like the Patriot Act.
League of Women Voters Education Fund: The League supports taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand; supports “motor-voter” registration, which allows anyone with a driver’s license to become a voter, regardless of citizenship status; and supports tax hikes and socialized medicine.
League of Young Voters: This organization seeks to “empowe[r] young people nationwide” to “participate in the democratic process and create progressive political change on the local, state and national level[s].”
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee: IRS records indicate that Soros’s Open Society Institute made a September 2002 grant of $20,000 to this organization. Stewart was the criminal-defense attorney who was later convicted for abetting her client, the “blind sheikh” Omar Abdel Rahman, in terrorist activities connected with his Islamic Group.
Machsom Watch: This organization describes itself as “a movement of Israeli women, peace activists from all sectors of Israeli society, who oppose the Israeli occupation and the denial of Palestinians’ rights to move freely in their land.”
MADRE: This international women’s organization deems America the world’s foremost violator of human rights. As such, it seeks to “communicat[e] the real-life impact of U.S. policies on women and families confronting violence, poverty and repression around the world,” and to “demand alternatives to destructive U.S. policies.” It also advocates unrestricted access to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand.
Malcolm X Grassroots Movement: This group views the U.S. as a nation replete with racism and discrimination against blacks; seeks to establish an independent black nation in the southeastern United States; and demands reparations for slavery.
Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition: This group calls for the expansion of civil rights and liberties for illegal aliens; laments that illegal aliens in America are commonly subjected to “worker exploitation”; supports tuition-assistance programs for illegal aliens attending college; and characterizes the Patriot Act as a “very troubling” assault on civil liberties.
Media Fund: Soros played a major role in creating this group, whose purpose was to conceptualize, produce, and place political ads on television, radio, print, and the Internet.
Media Matters for America: This organization is a “web-based, not-for-profit … progressive research and information center” seeking to “systematically monitor a cross-section of print, broadcast, cable, radio, and Internet media outlets for conservative misinformation.” The group works closely with the Soros-backed Center for American Progress, and is heavily funded by Democracy Alliance, of which Soros is a major financier.
Mercy Corps: Vis a vis the Arab-Israeli conflict, Mercy Corps places all blame for Palestinian poverty and suffering directly on Israel.
Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund: This group advocates open borders, free college tuition for illegal aliens, lowered educational standards to accommodate Hispanics, and voting rights for criminals. In MALDEF’s view, supporters of making English the official language of the United States are “motivated by racism and anti-immigrant sentiments,” while advocates of sanctions against employers reliant on illegal labor seek to discriminate against “brown-skinned people.”
Meyer, Suozzi, English and Klein, PC: This influential defender of Big Labor is headed by Democrat operative Harold Ickes.
Midwest Academy: This entity trains radical activists in the tactics of direct action, targeting, confrontation, and intimidation.
Migration Policy Institute: This group seeks to create “a North America with gradually disappearing border controls … with permanent migration remaining at moderate levels.”
Military Families Speak Out: This group ascribes the U.S. invasion of Iraq to American imperialism and lust for oil.
Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment: This group is the re-branded Missouri branch of the now-defunct, pro-socialist, community organization ACORN.
MoveOn.org: This Web-based organization supports Democratic political candidates through fundraising, advertising, and get-out-the-vote drives.
Ms. Foundation for Women: This group laments what it views as the widespread and enduring flaws of American society: racism, sexism, homophobia, and the violation of civil rights and liberties. It focuses its philanthropy on groups that promote affirmative action for women, unfettered access to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand, amnesty for illegal aliens, and big government generally.
NARAL Pro-Choice America: This group supports taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand, and works to elect pro-abortion Democrats.
NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund: The NAACP supports racial preferences in employment and education, as well as the racial gerrymandering of voting districts. Underpinning its support for race preferences is the fervent belief that white racism in the United States remains an intractable, largely undiminished, phenomenon.
The Nation Institute: This nonprofit entity sponsors leftist conferences, fellowships, awards for radical activists, and journalism internships.
National Abortion Federation: This group opposes any restrictions on abortion at either the state or federal levels, and champions the introduction of unrestricted abortion into developing regions of the world.
National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty: This group was established in 1976 as the first “fully staffed national organization exclusively devoted to abolishing capital punishment.”
National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy: This group depicts the United States as a nation in need of dramatic structural change financed by philanthropic organizations. It overwhelmingly promotes grant-makers and grantees with leftist agendas, while criticizing their conservative counterparts.
National Committee for Voting Integrity: This group opposes “the implementation of proof of citizenship and photo identification requirements for eligible electors in American elections as the means of assuring election integrity.”
National Council for Research on Women: This group supports big government, high taxes, military spending cuts, increased social welfare spending, and the unrestricted right to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand.
National Council of La Raza: This group lobbies for racial preferences, bilingual education, stricter hate-crime laws, mass immigration, and amnesty for illegal aliens.
National Council of Women’s Organizations: This group views the United States as a nation rife with injustice against girls and women. It advocates high levels of spending for social welfare programs, and supports race and gender preferences for minorities and women in business and academia.
National Immigration Forum: Opposing the enforcement of present immigration laws, this organization urges the American government to “legalize” en masse all illegal aliens currently in the United States who have no criminal records, and to dramatically increase the number of visas available for those wishing to migrate to the U.S. The Forum is particularly committed to opening the borders to unskilled, low-income workers, and immediately making them eligible for welfare and social service programs.
National Immigration Law Center: This group seeks to win unrestricted access to government-funded social welfare programs for illegal aliens.
National Lawyers Guild: This group promotes open borders; seeks to weaken America’s intelligence-gathering agencies; condemns the Patriot Act as an assault on civil liberties; rejects capitalism as an nonviable economic system; has rushed to the defense of convicted terrorists and their abettors; and generally opposes all U.S. foreign policy positions, just as it did during the Cold War when it sided with the Soviets.
National Organization for Women: This group advocates the unfettered right to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand; seeks to “eradicate racism, sexism and homophobia” from American society; attacks Christianity and traditional religious values; and supports gender-based preferences for women.
National Partnership for Women and Families: This organization supports race- and sex-based preferences in employment and education. It also advocates for the universal “right” of women to undergo taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand at any stage of pregnancy and for any reason.
National Priorities Project: This group supports government-mandated redistribution of wealth — through higher taxes and greater expenditures on social welfare programs. NPP exhorts the government to redirect a significant portion of its military funding toward public education, universal health insurance, environmentalist projects, and welfare programs.
National Public Radio: Founded in 1970 with 90 public radio stations as charter members, NPR is today a loose network of more than 750 U.S. radio stations across the country, many of which are based on college and university campuses. (source)
National Security Archive Fund: This group collects and publishes declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act to a degree that compromises American national security and the safety of intelligence agents.
National Women’s Law Center: This group supports taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand; lobbies against conservative judicial appointees; advocates increased welfare spending to help low-income mothers; and favors higher taxes for the purpose of generating more funds for such government programs as Medicaid, food stamps, welfare, foster care, health care, child-support enforcement, and student loans.
Natural Resources Defense Council: One of the most influential environmentalist lobbying groups in the United States, the Council claims a membership of one million people.
New America Foundation: This organization uses policy papers, media articles, books, and educational events to influence public opinion on such topics as healthcare, environmentalism, energy policy, the Mideast conflict, global governance, and much more.
New Israel Fund: This organization gives support to NGOs that regularly produce reports accusing Israel of human-rights violations and religious persecution.
NewsCorpWatch: A project of Media Matters For America, NewsCorpWatch was established with the help of a $1 million George Soros grant to Media Matters.
Pacifica Foundation: This entity owns and operates Pacifica Radio, awash from its birth with the socialist-Marxist rhetoric of class warfare and hatred for capitalism.
Peace and Security Funders Group: This is an association of more than 60 foundations that give money to leftist anti-war and environmentalist causes. Its members tend to depict America as the world’s chief source of international conflict, environmental destruction, and economic inequalities.
Peace Development Fund: In PDF’s calculus, the United States needs a massive overhaul of its social and economic institutions. “Recently,” explains PDF, “we have witnessed the negative effects of neo-liberalism and the globalization of capitalism, the de-industrialization of the U.S. and the growing gap between the rich and poor …”
People for the American Way: This group opposes the Patriot Act, anti-terrorism measures generally, and the allegedly growing influence of the “religious right.”
People Improving Communities Through Organizing: This group uses Alinsky-style organizing tactics to advance the doctrines of the religious left.
Physicians for Human Rights: This group is selectively and disproportionately critical of the United States and Israel in its condemnations of human rights violations.
Physicians for Social Responsibility: This is an anti-U.S.-military organization that also embraces the tenets of radical environmentalism.
Planned Parenthood: This group is the largest abortion provider in the United States and advocates taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand.
Ploughshares Fund: This public grant making foundation opposes America’s development of a missile defense system, and contributes to many organizations that are highly critical of U.S. foreign policies and military ventures.
Prepare New York: This group supported the proposed construction of a Muslim Community Center near Ground Zero in lower Manhattan – a project known as the Cordoba Initiative, headed by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.
Presidential Climate Action Project: PCAP’s mission is to create a new 21st-century economy, completely carbon-free and based largely on renewable energy. A key advisor to the organization is the revolutionary communist Van Jones.
Prison Moratorium Project: This initiative was created in 1995 for the express purpose of working for the elimination of all prisons in the United States and the release of all inmates. Reasoning from the premise that incarceration is never an appropriate means of dealing with crime, it deems American society’s inherent inequities the root of all criminal behavior.
Progressive Change Campaign Committee: This organization works “to elect bold progressive candidates to federal office and to help [them] and their campaigns save money, work smarter, and win more often.”
Progressive States Network: PSN’s mission is to “pass progressive legislation in all fifty states by providing coordinated research and strategic advocacy tools to forward-thinking state legislators.”
Project Vote: This is the voter-mobilization arm of the Soros-funded ACORN. A persistent pattern of lawlessness and corruption has followed ACORN/Project Vote activities over the years.
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3) Trump Gives a Boost to Putin’s Propaganda
The president’s line that the U.S. also has ‘killers’ will be used to justify still more Russian murders.
By David Satter
President Trump’s expression of “respect” for Vladimir Putin in an interview that aired over the weekend, and his comparison of extrajudicial killings by the Putin regime to American actions, has ushered in a new era in U.S.-Russian relations. Never before has an American president implied that political murder is acceptable or that the U.S. is guilty of similar crimes.
The goal of improved relations with the Russian president, as Mr. Trump explained, is to create the conditions for a U.S.-Russian alliance to fight Islamic State. But the result will be to cripple the Russian opposition, contribute to the propagandizing of the population, and diminish the ability of the U.S. to prevent internal and foreign Russian atrocities.
In the present atmosphere, Russian activists know they could be killed at any time. Last week Vladimir Kara-Murza, a political activist and journalist, was hospitalized with symptoms of poisoning. The motive for the poisoning may lie in statements Mr. Kara-Murza made to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee last June. In his testimony, he called for the extension of sanctions under the Magnitsky Act, which imposed visa bans and asset freezes on Russian officials involved in the 2009 torture and murder of Sergei Magnitsky, an anticorruption lawyer.
Mr. Kara-Murza said sanctions should be imposed on Russian human-rights abusers including Gen. Alexander Bastrykin, at the time Russia’s chief security officer and head of the Investigative Committee. Gen. Bastrykin resigned in September, and on Jan. 9 he was added to the list of those targeted by the Magnitsky sanctions.
Now Mr. Kara-Murza is in a coma, suffering from organ failure, and fighting for his life. The symptoms are identical to those he showed after being poisoned two years ago, when he was given a 5% chance of survival.
On Feb. 27, 2015, Boris Nemtsov, the leader of the Russian opposition, was shot dead as he crossed the Moskvoretsky Bridge in the shadow of the Kremlin. He was compiling a report on Russian soldiers in eastern Ukraine whose presence was denied by the government. Earlier, he advised representatives of the U.S. government on targets for sanctions after the Russian annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine.
For both Mr. Kara-Murza and Nemtsov, the violence was demonstrative. Mr. Kara-Murza was poisoned twice in the same way, and Nemtsov was shot next to the Kremlin on the most heavily guarded bridge in Moscow. These are signs that the regime is not hesitant to indicate authorship of its crimes.
The oppositionists also face social isolation. Alexei Navalny, a prominent blogger, and Mikhail Kasyanov, the former prime minister, have been physically attacked. A secretly filmed video of Mr. Kasyanov with his lover was shown on national television. Before he was killed, Nemtsov received death threats on social media. After his murder, images of his body were circulated on websites and social media, and posts denouncing him received hundreds of thousands of “likes.”
In such a hostile environment, U.S. backing is an important source of moral reinforcement for Russia’s political and human-rights activists. Mr. Trump’s remarks instead provide reinforcement for the Putin regime’s propaganda, which tries to convince Russians that the abuses they experience in their daily lives are typical of all countries.
An example was an Oct. 30 Russian news report that U.S. citizens, angered by vote fraud in the lead up to the Nov. 8 election, were ready to launch a massive demonstration in Washington, similar to the 2013-14 protests in Kiev’s Maidan Square. While the story about the U.S. demonstration was fabricated, in December 2011 Russians did take to the streets to protest widespread vote fraud. The “news” item was intended to persuade them that vote fraud was also typical of the U.S.
Mr. Trump’s statements suggesting that Russia and America are similar in abusing human rights and the U.S. also has “killers” will be quoted by the government, state-run media and other anti-opposition forces for years.
Mr. Trump also undermines America’s moral authority, making it more difficult for the U.S. to prevent Russian atrocities. In Syria, Russian forces have deliberately targeted markets, hospitals and homes. The London-based monitoring group Airwars estimates that there were at least 3,786 civilian deaths caused by Russian bombing between Sept. 30, 2015, and Dec. 20, 2016, with the actual numbers likely far higher. Death on this scale can generate new resistance. But Mr. Trump’s “respect” for Mr. Putin leaves little room for criticism. If the U.S. president is not concerned about political murders, what basis does he have for objecting to the indiscriminate meting out of death from the air?
The attempt to mollify Russia is not new. In 1999 the U.S. failed to question Russia’s official explanations for the apartment bombings that brought Mr. Putin to power despite the arrest of state security agents found planting a bomb in an apartment building in Ryazan. In 2009 the Obama administration launched its “reset” policy despite the murders of Alexander Litvinenko, a former FSB agent, and Anna Politkovskaya, a leading investigative reporter, and the invasion of Georgia.
Mr. Trump’s readiness to condone murder in the pursuit of an ill-advised U.S.-Russia partnership suggests that he doesn’t see the distinction between defensive war and the murder of one’s own people to hold on to power. Cooperation with Russia on these terms could involve the U.S. in crimes that neither the American people nor the world will accept. Mr. Trump needs to give more thought to his words—while there is still time.
Mr. Satter is affiliated with the Hudson Institute and Johns Hopkins University. He is author of “The Less You Know, the Better You Sleep: Russia’s Road to Terror and Dictatorship under Yeltsin and Putin” (Yale, 2016).
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