Friday, November 6, 2015

GMOA"s Collection Gets Better and Better. JEB! Black Focus - Reasonable Or Overboard?

Skidaway Island Republican Club


Presents:
 

True Perspectives
Immigration and Undocumented Illegals
 

Thursday, Nov. 19, 2015
Plantation Club
Cocktails/Cash bar : 4:30 PM
Presentation : 5:00 PM
Sustaining members – Free
Regular members - $5 Non-Members - $10

All Welcome

SarahLamar
​​Many of us are concerned about immigration and in particular illegal immigrants.

Sarah Lamar is a partner in the Hunter/McLean Law Firm in Savannah specializing in the area of employment law. She is nationally recognized for her expertise in the area of immigration.

She has agreed to bring us up to date regarding legislative and executive actions in this area.

Please join your friends and neighbors for this meaningful session. Come at 4:30 to see friends and renew acquaintances.
For reservations:
Russ Peterson
598-9845 (russp16@aol.com)
or
Dick Miller
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Humor will carry us  through Obama's remaining term, maybe:
https://www.facebook.com/CarbonTV/videos/403997546475360/>>>>
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What difference does it make? (See 1 below.)

 and  

 Is the world finally waking up to the threat from "radical" Islamists and Muslims? (See 1a, 1b and 1c below.)
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We were there in May but these are superior pictures: The Grand Canyon
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I have always been a natural born contrarian and this is why I am posting this analysis

JEB is tall, nice looking and, from a physical standpoint, more presidential looking than most all of the other candidates, including Bernie and Hillarious.

His record of accomplishments is solid.  Whether what he accomplished as Governor of Florida, many years ago, will translate into what today's public want  could be one his Achilles Heel problems.

Kasich also has a solid record of achievements both as Governor and as a Congressperson but he comes across weak and his stance (slump shouldered) is not presidential looking.

Obviously Jeb's last name is an impediment and that is why he campaigns as JEB.

Finally, Trump is right about  JEB projecting low energy. Obviously voters are attracted to outsiders for the moment and Trump's bluster has caught on but may not last.  His attacks on others could wear thin over the long run.

Time will tell won't it?  (See 2 below.)

and

Another contrarian view that probably is on a lot of people's minds and  tongues but they fear the criticism for stating it openly. 

Has the legacy of discrimination become an albatross? (See 2a below.)
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Back from GMOA Board Meeting.  Our acquisitions continue to grow and the quality of our collections expands.
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Dick
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1)

Cong. Hearing on American Victims of Islamist Terrorism 

By: Lori Lowenthal Marcus
On Wednesday, Nov. 4, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) chaired a hearing of the Judiciary's Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights and Federal Courts titled “Justice Forsaken: How the Federal Government Fails the American Victims of Iranian and Palestinian Terrorism.”

This hearing focused on the federal government’s failure to support the American victims of Islamic terror in their search for justice.

“The history of Palestinian and Iranian terrorism against Americans is extensive and continues to this day. Americans have long been the targets of Palestinian hijackings, suicide bombings, and assassinations, in part because of our nation’s close relationship and friendship with Israel,” Sen. Cruz said.

“In litigation, the Administration sides with the terrorist against American citizens, and when negotiating with the Ayatollah Khamenei, the Administration ignores American hostages languishing in Iranian prisons; it ignores the victims of terrorism. That is a national disgrace.”

In his opening statement, Sen. Cruz spoke about various American victims of terrorism and the struggle they have endured not only to seek justice from the terrorists who attacked them, but from their own government which has worked against them in those struggles.

Senator Cruz talked about 12-year-old Jamie Sokolow who, nearly 15 years ago, lay bleeding and shattered on a Jerusalem street. Just moments before a blast from a Palestinian Arab suicide bomber, Jamie had been chatting with her family outside a shoe store.

"And then a Palestinian suicide bomber struck, sending shrapnel into Jamie’s right eye and blood across her face. Jamie’s whole family was wounded, including her father, a 9/11 survivor. Nearby, a bone was sticking out of her mother’s leg. Even worse, a woman’s severed head lay just a few feet away. Still, Jamie kept courageously repeating: ‘I’m 12 years old, I’m from New York, and I’m going to stay alive.’

“Today’s hearing is for Americans like Jamie, like the Sokolow family -- Americans who have suffered greatly because of the horrific and evil actions of Iranian and Palestinian terrorists. Americans who have fought hard to ensure that justice is done in these situations, only to see their own Government, more often than not, stand against them," said Cruz.

One of the lawyers who represented Jamie's family and ten other terror victim families in litigation against the Palestinian Liberation Army and the Palestinian Authority testified.

Kent Yalowitz of Arnold & Porter filed a lawsuit ten years ago in a U.S. federal court in New York. Earlier this year, Yalowitz's clients won an historic victory in court.

Yalowitz described the terrorists who assaulted, battered, bludgeoned and maimed his clients:
Many of the terrorists responsible were so-called 'security' officers of the Palestinian Authority. Those employees—and hundreds of others—were caught, tried, convicted, and sentenced for murder, attempted murder, and other crimes.

Today, many of them sit in jail in Israel. Far from disowning these terrorists, the PA and PLO have kept them on the payroll and promoted them.

Internal PA and PLO documents, which we introduced in evidence in court, reflect these organizations’ approval of the conduct of the terrorists and even characterize the terrorists’ heinous crimes as part of 'their fight for their country.' These are current policies of the PA and the PLO.
And yet, as Yalowitz testified, the U.S. government, represented by the Justice Department, never lifted a finger to help its citizens. While the PLO and the PA paid for the best lawyers money could buy to represent the murderers, the American government did nothing. Nothing, that is, until the lawyers representing the victims persuaded the jury that justice required the terrorists to pay their victims. The jury awarded the victims $655.5 million in damages.

Once the clients were victorious in court, the U.S. government stepped in. To help? No. It sided instead with the PLO and the PA and asked the court not to require the defendants to file a bond - as is commonly the case - while they filed an appeal.

That's right, the U.S. Department of "Justice" filed a statement the crux of which revealed its concern that the governments of the terrorists would be "severely compromised" which could lead to a crisis if the PA were to "collapse."

In addition to the Sokolow victims, other American victims of Palestinian Arab terrorism included two American diplomats who were murdered in the Sudan (murdered because the U.S. refused to release Sirhan Sirhan, the Palestinian Arab terrorist who murdered Robert F. Kennedy), a disabled Jewish American man in a wheelchair named Leon Klinghoffer, and a 13-year-old boy named Koby Mandell.

The terror continues to this day.

"Of course, as bad as Palestinian terrorism has been, the Iranian government arguably has even more American blood on its hands," Cruz explained.

The hearing was held on the same day that, 36 years ago, Iranian students climbed the walls of the American embassy in Tehran and seized it from the Americans whom they captured, blindfolded and handcuffed. Fifty-two of the Americans present that day in the embassy remained in Iranian captivity for 444 days.

“Thus began Iran’s war against the ‘Great Satan’—a war that has been waged on the American people for nearly four decades, whether the United States Government will admit it or not. In 1983, the Iranian government—acting through its terrorist proxy Hezbollah—bombed a Marine barracks and the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing 241 Marines and 17 American civilians. Two years later, Hezbollah hijacked a TWA flight and murdered Navy diver Robert Stethem—whose brother is here to testify today. Iran also helped murder 19 Americans with the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, 12 Americans with the 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and over a dozen American sailors with the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole.

“Nor should we forget that Iran has waged war against our troops in Iraq. Based on the declassified portion of a report that Central Command has provided to my office, we now know that at least 196 U.S. service members were killed in Iraq by Iranian-made Explosively Formed Penetrators, or EFPs, from 2003 to 2011. Let me repeat that number, because this is the first time it has been made public. According to the Central Command, at least 196 U.S. service members were killed in Iraq by Iranian-made Explosively Formed Penetrators, or EFPs, from 2003 to 2011," Cruz intoned.

Cruz continued:
Yet, despite the slaughter and maiming of an untold number of American citizens at the hands of Palestinian and Iranian terrorists, the United States Government has, rather shockingly, failed time and time again to fulfill its sovereign duty: To obtain justice for its citizens. Our government has failed terror victims in a number of ways.

First, it has failed to prosecute terrorists. Since 1993, more than 50 Americans have been killed by Palestinian terrorists in Israel. And yet, as the Mandel’s point out, ‘not one terrorist here has been prosecuted’ by the Department of Justice. ‘Not one.’ According to the Mandel’s, the DOJ’s Office of Justice for Victims of Overseas Terrorism, which was established in their son’s honor, ‘is supposed to investigate, apprehend, indict, extradite and punish terrorists -- but it doesn’t.’

Second, the government has actively discouraged the collection of valid judgments. Over the years, Congress has increasingly permitted American victims to bring lawsuits and obtain judgments in federal court against state sponsors of terrorism. Now, American victims and their families have successfully prosecuted 86 cases against the government of Iran and have been awarded judgments totaling nearly $50 billion. Similar victories have been won against the Palestinian Authority and the PLO.
And although the American victims of Islamic terrorism frequently prevailed in a court of law, as the hearing exposed, the U.S. government's role too often has been to obstruct rather than to pursue justice for the victims.

And the actions of  the U.S. government, both at the negotiating table and afterwards, in the Nuclear Iran Deal reveals what Cruz called the "worst betrayal of all."

“Indeed, the Administration has openly admitted that it did not take the terror victims into account at the negotiating table. In litigation, the Administration sides with the terrorist against American citizens, and when negotiating with the Ayatollah Khamenei, the Administration ignores American hostages languishing in Iranian prisons; it ignores the victims of terrorism," said Cruz.

“That, ladies and gentlemen, is a national disgrace. And this hearing is designed to shine a light on the obligation of the government of the United States to stand with American citizens against terrorists who would murder innocent Americans.”

 

About the Author: Lori Lowenthal Marcus is the U.S. correspondent for The Jewish Press. A graduate of Harvard Law School, she previously practiced First Amendment law and taught in Philadelphia-area graduate and law schools.


1a)---The first countries to ban Islam: See how the world is  acting fast on the threat 
posed by Islam.

Cuba rejects plans for first mosque.

The African nation of Angola has officially become  the first country to ban Islam.

Record number of Muslims  deported from Norway at last as a way of fighting crime.

Japan is the only nation that does not give citizenship to Muslims.

In Germany alone in the last year there were 81 attacks targeting  mosques.

Austrian police arrested 13 men targeting suspected  jihad recruiters.

A Chinese court sends 22 Muslim Imams to jail  for 5 to 16 years for Spreading hatred.
 China has executed eight  Jihadists; China campaigns against Separatism (i.e. disallowing  islamists to have their own separate state). Muslim prayers banned in  government buildings and schools in Xinjiang (Western China).

British Home Secretary prepares to introduce 'Anti-social Behaviour Order' for extremists and strip dual nationals of their Citizenship.

Czech Republic doesn't want Islam in their country.

Alabama - A new controversial amendment that will ban the recognition of "foreign laws which would include sharia law".

The Polish Defence League  issues a warning to Muslims. 16 States Have All Introduced  Legislation to Ban Shariah Law.

Some Muslims in Northern Ireland  have announced plans to leave the Country to avoid anti-Islamic  violence. The announcement comes after an attack on Muslims in the  city of Belfast, when crazed rioters were provoked.

North Carolina Bans Islamic "Sharia Law" in the State.

Dutch MP calls for removal of all mosques in Netherlands. Member of Dutch Parliament: 
 "We want to clean Netherlands of Islam".   Dutch MP Machiel De Graaf spoke on behalf of the Party for Freedom when he said, "All mosques in the Netherlands should be shut down. Without Islam, The Netherlands would be a wonderful country."
1b)



Germany: '20 Million Muslims by 2020'


“We are importing Islamic extremism, Arab anti-Semitism, national and ethnic conflicts of other peoples, as well as a different understanding of society and law.” — From a leaked German intelligence document.
“We need to be clear that there must be limits and quotas for immigration — we cannot save the whole world.” — Markus Söder, Finance Minister of Bavaria.
“The migration crisis has the potential to destabilize governments, countries and the whole European continent. … What we have been facing is not a refugee crisis. This is a migratory movement composed of economic migrants, refugees and also foreign fighters” — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
“Meanwhile, refugees are still heading into Germany — at a rate of around 10,000 a day. … The decade after Ms. Merkel first came to power in 2005 now looks like a blessed period for Germany, in which the country was able to enjoy peace, prosperity and international respect, while keeping the troubles of the world at a safe distance. That golden era is now over.” — Gideon Rachman, Financial Times.
Germany's Muslim population is set to nearly quadruple to an astonishing 20 million within the next five years, according to a demographic forecast by Bavarian lawmakers.
The German government expects to receive 1.5 million asylum seekers in 2015, and possibly even more in 2016. After factoring in family reunifications — based on the assumption that individuals whose asylum applications are approved will subsequently bring an average of four additional family members to Germany — that number will swell exponentially. This is in addition to the 5.8 million Muslims already living in Germany.
According to the president of the Bavarian Association of Municipalities (Bayerische Gemeindetag), Uwe Brandl, Germany is now on track to have “20 million Muslims by 2020.” The surge in Germany's Muslim population represents a demographic shift of epic proportions, one that will change the face of Germany forever, “but we are just standing by, watching it happen.”
Addressing an expo in Nuremburg on October 14, Brandl warned that untrammeled migration will entail heavy costs for German taxpayers and may also lead to social unrest. He said:
“A four-member refugee family receives up to 1,200 euros per month in transfer payments. Plus accommodation and meals. Now go to an unemployed German family man who has worked maybe 30 years, and now with his family receives only marginally more. These people are asking us whether we politicians really see this as fair and just.”
Brandl said this also applies to the electronic health card, which provides asylum seekers with the same benefits as Germans who have paid into the health insurance system for many years. To criticize this as unfair has “nothing to do with racism or right-wing extremism.”
Brandl's concerns are echoed in a leaked intelligence document, which warns that the influx of more than one million migrants from the Muslim world this year will lead to increasing political instability in Germany.
The document — portions of which were published by Die Welt on October 25 — reveals growing alarm within the highest echelons of Germany's intelligence and security apparatus about the consequences of Chancellor Angela Merkel's open-door immigration policy.
The so-called non-paper (the author of the document remains anonymous) warns that the “integration of hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants will be impossible given the large numbers involved and the already-existing Muslim parallel societies in Germany.” The document adds:
“We are importing Islamic extremism, Arab anti-Semitism, national and ethnic conflicts of other peoples, as well as a different understanding of society and law. German security agencies are unable to deal with these imported security problems, and the resulting reactions from the German population.”
An unidentified high-ranking security official told Die Welt:
“The high influx of people from other parts of the world will lead to the instability of our country. By allowing this mass migration, we are producing extremists. Mainstream society is radicalizing because the majority does not want migration, which is being forced by the political elites. In the future, many Germans will turn away from the constitutional state.”
The warnings come amid mounting criticism of Merkel, whose September 4 decision to open the door to migrants in Hungary exacerbated the crisis.
The Minister-President of Bavaria, Horst Seehofer, who also heads the Christian Social Union (CSU), the sister party to Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has emerged as one of Merkel's most vocal critics. “I am convinced that the chancellor has chosen another vision for Germany,” he said. “This has been a mistake that will occupy us for a long time. I see no way of putting the genie back into the bottle,” he added.
In an interview with Bild, Seehofer said:
“We explicitly believe that immigration must be controlled and limited if Germany wants to cope with it. The seriousness of the situation is becoming clearer every day. The population does not want clever sayings or inconclusive site visits. It wants action!”
After months of attacking critics of Merkel's immigration policies as right-wing xenophobes, Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier conceded that the migration crisis risks tearing German society apart. In a joint essay published by Der Spiegel, the two wrote: “We cannot indefinitely absorb and integrate more than one million refugees each year.”
Bavarian Finance Minister Markus Söder said: “We need to be clear that there must be limits and quotas for immigration — we cannot save the whole world. The refugee influx will not be stopped unless we secure our borders and send a clear signal that not everyone can come to Germany.”
Former Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich (CSU) described Merkel's immigration policy as an “unprecedented political blunder” that will have “devastating long-term consequences.” He said the job of politics is to think beyond the present and make decisions for the future. In view of the massive flows of migrants into Germany without any police checks, Friedrich concluded: “We have lost control.” He added:
“It is totally irresponsible that tens of thousands of people are flowing into the country uncontrolled and unregistered, and we can only unreliably estimate exactly how many of them are Islamic State fighters or Islamist sleepers. I am convinced that no other country in the world would be so naive and starry-eyed to expose itself to such a risk.”
CDU lawmaker Michael Stübgen said: “The disagreement [with Merkel] is fundamental. Our capacities are exhausted and there is concern that the system will implode if we do not regain control of our borders. But the chancellor disagrees and so the conflict is unsolved.”
On October 21, more than 200 mayors in North-Rhine Westphalia signed an open letter to Merkel, in which they warned they were no longer capable of taking in any more migrants. The letter states:
“We are seriously concerned for our country and the cities and towns we represent. The reason: the massive and mostly uncontrolled flow of migrants to Germany and our cities and towns.
“All available housing possibilities are exhausted, including tents and shipping containers. Managing the migrant shelters is so time intensive that our personnel can no longer attend to other municipal responsibilities.”
According to a report by German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle, the Berlin refugee center pictured here received up to 2000 applications for asylum per day in August — before the migrant flow increased substantially.
(Image: Deutsche Welle video screenshot)
Speaking at an October 22 gathering of the European People's Party in Madrid, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán warned of the consequences of Merkel's immigration policies. He said:
“We are in deep trouble. The migration crisis has the potential to destabilize governments, countries and the whole European continent….
“What we have been facing is not a refugee crisis. This is a migratory movement composed of economic migrants, refugees and also foreign fighters. This is an uncontrolled and unregulated process…. I also want to underline that there is an unlimited source of supply of people, after Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Africa is now also on the move. The dimension and the volume of the danger is well above our expectations….
“Our moral responsibility is to give back these people their homes and their countries. It can't be our objective to provide them with a new European life. Right to human dignity and security are basic rights. But neither the German, Austrian nor the Hungarian way of life is a basic right of all people on the Earth. It is only a right of those ones who have contributed to it. Europe is not able to accept everyone who wants a better life. We have to help them to get back their own lives with dignity and we have to send them back to their own countries….
“We cannot avoid speaking about the quality of our democracies. Is it freedom of information and speech when the media usually show women and children while 70% of the migrants are young men and they look like an army? How could it happen that our people feel that their opinion is not being taken into consideration? And we have to address the question of whether our people want what has been happening. Did we get authorization from them to allow millions of migrants to enter our continent? … No, distinguished delegates, we did not.
“We cannot hide the fact that the European left has a clear agenda. They are supportive of migration. They actually import future leftist voters to Europe hiding behind humanism. It is an old trick but I do not understand why we have to accept it. They consider registration and protection of borders as bureaucratic, nationalist and against human rights. They have a dream about the politically constructed world society without religious traditions, without borders, without nations. They attack core values of our European identity: family, nation, subsidiarity and responsibility.”
In an October 26 column for the Financial Times, titled “The End of the Merkel Era is Within Sight,” Gideon Rachman wrote:
“The refugee crisis that has broken over Germany is likely to spell the end of the Merkel era. With the country in line to receive more than a million asylum-seekers this year alone, public anxiety is mounting — and so is criticism of Ms. Merkel, from within her own party. Some of her close political allies acknowledge that it is now distinctly possible that the chancellor will have to leave office, before the next general election in 2017. Even if she sees out a full term, the notion of a fourth Merkel administration, widely discussed a few months ago, now seems improbable…
“The trouble is that Ms. Merkel's government has clearly lost control of the situation. German officials publicly endorse the chancellor's declaration that 'We can do this'. But there is panic just beneath the surface: costs are mounting, social services are creaking, Ms. Merkel's poll ratings are falling and far-right violence is on the rise.
“As the placid surface of German society is disturbed, so arguments about the positive economic and demographic impact of immigration are losing their impact. Instead, fears about the long-term social and political effect of taking in so many newcomers — particularly from the imploding Middle East — are gaining ground. Meanwhile, refugees are still heading into Germany — at a rate of around 10,000 a day. (By contrast, Britain is volunteering to accept 20,000 Syrian refugees over four years.)…
“Some voters seem to have concluded that Mutti [a German familiar form of 'mother'] has gone mad — flinging open Germany's borders to the wretched of the earth…
“The refugee crisis marks a turning point. The decade after Ms. Merkel first came to power in 2005 now looks like a blessed period for Germany, in which the country was able to enjoy peace, prosperity and international respect, while keeping the troubles of the world at a safe distance. That golden era is now over.”
Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter. His first book, Global Fire, will be out in early 2016
1c) The Full Flowering of Western Decadence
By J. Robert Smith

Angela Merkel is double-downing on making Europe the stopping point for what eventually could be millions of Muslim refugees.  Throughout Europe, that is, not just Germany.  Reported Bloomberg Business:
Repeating her insistence that Germany “will do this,” Merkel said European Union initiatives hadn’t gotten far enough and that she will push for a permanent distribution of refugees across the 28-member bloc.       
It’s a curious -- or perhaps not so curious -- aspect of human nature: the insistence on spreading one’s pathology, of co-opting others in one’s sickness, this as a means of attempting to validate that one isn’t sick.  How can one be off if everybody else is in sync with you? 

Elitists -- of a leftist stripe -- in Europe and the U.S. demean Western values and virtues; this is a career choice for many of them, particularly since the 1960s.  To varying degrees, Western elitists loathe and act to subvert the civilization that produced them, nurtured and gave them their success and standing.  There’s a sickness to this, akin to destroying one’s home (all the while rationalizing the destruction as improvements).  There’s a fundamental sickness of the soul that dwells in the anti-West left. 

With Frau Merkel, compassion or humanitarianism is just dressed up degradation, cultural, societal.  It’s given a Christian casing.  It seems to be delusional in Frau Merkel’s instance.  It’s a variant of the sickness that plagues the West.         

In this latest crisis of the West, Frau Merkel insists that millions of Muslims added to the millions already calling Europe home pose no threat to the civilization there.  Never mind the plentitude of experience with Muslims in Europe over two generations, chiefly.  Never mind that simple observation of the Muslim faith in practice in other lands among alien cultures leads to a simple conclusion: Western Civilization and Islam are irreconcilable.  Both can inhabit the same planet, but their precincts must be distinct.  Given the historic and present aggressiveness of the latter, the former would do well to be constantly vigilant.  On second thought, nay.  Western Civilization needs a rebirth, a revitalization of appreciation, and an assertive defense in the teeth of Mohammedan offensives. 

Islam is proving to be a recidivist faith; you can take the religion out of the Dark Ages, but not the Dark Ages out of the religion, goes the trope.  Islam remains what it has been from the outset: a creed of blood and conquest.  Not, mind you, the blood of the lamb and the conquering of hearts.      

Merkel’s belief that Muslims can be situated in Western Europe without injury (dare say, fatality) to the peoples and cultures whose ancestries there are deep in time, is plain loony.  The religion of bloody conquest will keep doing what it was built to do by Mohammed centuries before.  It’s practically an organism driven by instinct, not brains.  Future historians will have a field day making sense of elitist worldviews that permitted the surrender of their territories to aliens practicing a hostile faith.  

Western Civilization has been assaulted (from within) and crumbling in Europe for a century.  Godlessness has taken hold.  Vacant materialism reigns.  But not among immigrant Muslims, of course, which serves them well in their rise to dominance in Western Europe.  Faith lends a sureness that faithlessness cannot hope to confer.  Or in the case of Frau Merkel, a misguided, gooey interpretation of Christianity opens the gates to the very peoples intent on destroying Christianity (let’s broaden that to “Judeo-Christianity”).     

It’s doubtful that many Western Europeans, long having been schooled that “For God and Country” is disreputable -- it being freighted with chauvinism and exploitive of the West’s unwashed Third World betters -- are likely to take to the ramparts in defense of what remains of their civilization.  The battle cry, “For godlessness and the welfare state!” rouses whom?  How many aging Germans, French, Brits, Italians, Spaniards, et al, will fight to the death under E.U. banners?  Quite probably, after convulsions (not all Western Europeans are godless creatures of the E.U.), masses of Europeans will “turn Turk.”  Better to switch than fight and lose one’s head.  Europeans with means will flee Sharia Law.

This may sound fantastic to some, or far distant to others, but those of us in our middle years or younger may live to witness the Fall of Western Europe -- and in dramatic fashion, given the rapidity of events. 

About a century ago, in a mere 52 months, Europe’s empires reduced themselves from the zenith of their global powers through ruinous war; through murder-suicide.  World War I precipitated the decline of Europe.  Subsequent revolutions and wars (and the isms that sparked them) furthered the decline.  What remains in Europe today -- regardless the veneer -- is hollowness, a palpable played-out quality to the entire affair.  No wonder, whether through Merkel’s twisted compassion or other elites’ world-weariness or still others’ hostility, there’s an unspoken desire -- only recently appreciated among das Volk -- to turn out the lights and hand over the keys.  Maybe the Muslims deserve it more and can do a better job.

Lest we be accused of only pointing fingers at Western Europeans, the sickness that infects their elites, infects ours. 

Decades ago, it was said that Americans had an infatuation with everything French.  Anything fashionable came from Paris, whether clothing, cuisine, décor, art, music -- you name it.  Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy was a Francophile.  Even France’s post-WWII existentialism (remember the names Sartre, Camus, and Malraux?) found audiences and adherents here for a time.  Given existentialism’s tendency toward nihilism, it may have more currency now than we suppose.  

The joke in days of yore was that Europe’s American cousins were always a step or two behind Europe’s fashions.  Americans aped more than originated. 

So, too, with ideology.  American leftism is derivative.  It’s lifted from Europe and applied with all its destructive force here.  Its chief contributions to the cause are operational: Alinsky’s rules and Cloward-Piven, for examples.
As with European leftism, the American version has long ranged beyond economics to attack the moral, religious, and cultural underpinnings of society.  Marriage and family have been targets for decades.  Homosexual unions -- and whatever variants follow -- are merely extensions of the attack.  Boys thinking (or pretending to think) they’re girls and hanging out in girls’ locker rooms or restrooms and cosmetic sex changes aren’t about ending “gender distinctions” (art cannot trump nature); they’re advanced to degrade minds and trash souls; to muddle then lay low moral reasoning. 

The flood of illegals into the U.S. is preponderantly from the south.  Hispanics aren’t Mohammedans, yet they bring their own set of troubles.  No need to catalogue the stresses they impose on society.  President Obama -- no believer in American exceptionalism, as his record indicates -- has begun importing Muslim refugees.  Red state Idaho is the preferred destination currently. 

Along with Frau Merkel, soft-minded Christians here have persuaded themselves that charity means bringing the enemy into the midst of innocents.  Wasn’t it the Good Shepherd’s job to keep the wolves at bay?  Muslims transplanted from Syria or wherever to Idaho or wherever are a welcome sign of “diversity” -- diversity being nondiscriminatory and inclusive of anybody other than conservatives.  These Christians (let’s toss in plenty of Jews) suffer from willful ignorance and conceit.  Both sins in their ways.  Both symptoms of a greater malady that afflicts the West.  The critical question lingers, is the West beyond cure?
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2) Don't laugh: The Jeb Bush victory scenario
By BYRON YORK 

The conventional wisdom that Jeb Bush is dead has become so unanimous it's only natural to suspect it's wrong.
Yes, the polls are atrocious. Bush, now seeking traction with a New Hampshire tour, is at four percent in the latest Fox News national survey and a weak fifth in the RealClearPolitics average of polls. The trend, for the moment, seems to be down, down, down.
Yet there is a not-crazy scenario in which Bush could rise again, not to dominate the race but to be in the running when the four candidates ahead of him self-destruct, kill each other, or run out of gas.
JebWorld held a focus group in New Hampshire the day after Bush's disastrous performance at the Republican debate in Boulder. According to a source deep inside JebWorld, the result was not only not terrible, it pointed to five areas of promise for Bush.
1) A large majority of group members were undecided and felt no rush to decide anything. It's not even time to narrow their list of favorite candidates.
2) After all that has happened, the New Hampshire voters still had a positive, or mostly positive, impression of Bush. They see him as smart, mature and dull.
3) They like Donald Trump, think he's fun, but are concerned about giving Trump the vast powers of the presidency.
4) They love Ben Carson as a non-politician with a gentle bedside manner but are a little discomfited by his offbeat views on a number of topics.
5) They see Marco Rubio as a perfect vice president and wonder if he is too young, and has too few accomplishments, for the top job.

Four of them, specifically. First, Trump. JebWorld continues to believe the New York billionaire doesn't have what it takes for a long, grueling campaign. But if Trump does last, the still-rich Bush super political action committee Right to Rise will have the ability to unleash millions of dollars worth of negative ads to exploit the doubts voters already have about him.
Next Carson. JebWorld believes Republicans are drawn to him because of his natural likeability and because he stands so far outside the political system. But they believe Carson's support is particularly soft, with 80-plus percent of Carson supporters saying they might eventually vote for someone else. That, plus Carson's own weaknesses and the heightened scrutiny he will inevitably receive atop the polls, will eventually bring him down.
That leaves Rubio and Ted Cruz, who could emerge as the two leaders after a Trump-Carson fadeout. One good-for-Jeb scenario would be that Rubio and Cruz then engage in an internecine battle so vicious, bitter and bloody that Republican voters come to believe neither is suited for the presidency.
In that case, Republicans look around and see Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, Rand Paul, Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, and Lindsey Graham, and ask: Now why was it we didn't like Jeb?

Even after that ruinous moment in Boulder, Bush is still taking shots at Rubio, but JebWorld would clearly be happy to have Cruz take up the fight. In the careful-what-you-wish-for category, JebWorld believes Bush would do well in a one-on-one against Cruz, and the Bush super PAC will still be there to carpet-bomb the last opponent standing.
All this could well turn out to be a total fantasy. The nicer way to put it is that Bush needs a lot of planets to align. And he could really use a break. That leads to JebWorld's last point: It's been said over and over, but Bush really believes longevity will be the key to victory — who can stay in the race through the inevitable shakeups of December, January, and February?
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