Even if photo shopped it is telling! In this campaign of "body parts" we
should be seeking integrity, competence
for The Oval Office, not ovaries! It is sad
we may be faced with a choice between
Grandma Hillarious and Grandpa Hairdo!
Melting Ice Caps! Expanding Deficits!
===
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Ready for Negotiations with the Palestinians Immediately
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told AIPAC delegates during Tuesday morning's General Session — via live satellite link — that he is ready to negotiate with the Palestinians "immediately without preconditions, anytime, anywhere." He continued, "That's a fact. But President Abbas is not ready to do so. That's also a fact."
Click here to watch the Prime Minister's address.
He also condemned The U.N's continuing anti-Israel stance in an effort to stave off Obama's threat to support an imposition by The U.N. of a two state solution. He ended by thanking America and its relationship and support of the sole Democracy in that region of the world.
and
Speaker Paul Ryan: Friendship with Israel in America's InterestSpeaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) addressed theMonday night General Session, stating, "I firmly believe that the friendship between our two countries is not just in Israel's interest, but it is in America's interests. It is good for Israel, it is good for America, and it is good for the world."
Click here to watch Speaker Ryan's speech.
===
I am going to go against my market guru who does not believe the market will have a significant correction. I believe the market is getting tired and is overbought and we are going to have a decent correction in the coming week or so. I also believe the market will not break to a new low but will stabilize and then, depending upon 2d quarter earning releases, could resume another upward move. Time will tell. I am not a buyer but still favor the same names previously mentioned. I just would like to observe how they act should we experience a market retrenchment. Meanwhile, MRK got a favorable judgement regarding their patent suit and OPKO, my speculative biotech, has moved the most and I cut back on my holdings today. But, as always, what do I know since I did not believe Obama would destroy the coal industry and now Hillarious has threatened to finish the job.
===
A JV Team? Really? What ISIS Really Wants - The Atlantic
Perhaps Obama is naive or perhaps he is more in their alliance because of his desire to punish The Colonialist West and realize his father's dreams!
===
It is not difficult to pin the tail of on our many causes of why America finds itself where it is at this time in our history. What is more difficult is to come up with how to go about devising and implementing decisions that will get the train back on track.
Our problems have been building and are cumulative. Like straws there are only so many the donkey's back can take. As we drifted away from our Constitution through SCOTUS decisions, that were more akin to legislating from the bench, we broke with the concepts of our Founding Fathers. This allowed for change in directions which metastasized and then our traditions, social and family structure, began to crumble. Urban life and unemployment morphed into increasing frustration and crime and our incarceration rate exploded while jail time only served to cause more of what we sought to avoid.
Add to this the enormous growth and stifling power of government with all its oppressive weightiness and disappointing failures and the concept that we could spend beyond our means and the disconnect between citizen identity, support of our nation's wars and patriotism also began to fade. Buttress this with looking the other way when real law enforcement was demanded and add the decline in rigid educational standards and teaching of classical courses like civics, history, and it is not happenstance that a further drift from our principles and national character has occurred.
So what do we do about it? It seems we have decided to express our anger versus embracing rational and logical decisions and solutions that call upon us to return to our "can do American" approach to problem solving.
Until we supplant enlightened leadership for anger and smoke blowing we will only spin our wheels, spend more money and dig a deeper hole from which it may be impossible to recover.
Neither the two leading candidates our two party faithfuls have flushed up are what we need and that would be true whether we were in our current pickle or not. One has proven untrustworthy and has a record of failed and/or misguided achievements and the other has proven he can turn anger into a leading candidacy but offers solutions that, at best, run from being bizarre all the way to lacking credible substance.
Were I called upon to offer solutions, the first thing I would do is force Congress to pass a new and simple tax code which would be designed to produce a reduced revenue stream thereby, forcing government to shut down many of its agencies, departments and functions because my next goal would demand a balanced budget.
In furtherance of a reduced government, I would close The Department of Education and transfer whatever of its worthiness would be left to some other department. I would do the same with The Department of Energy and most of the EPA. As for the unemployment this would create I would pay those afflicted one year of their current salary and urge them to retrain themselves at government expense and then look for employment. Those who accepted this offer would receive half their former salary for a second year.
I would demand Congress comb through the myriad of entitlements and cut them by a third over a three year period and would insist they address the sustained survival of Social Security and Medicare. I would eliminate Obamacare and rely upon current proposals to be debated and would demand a final one be passed that was rational.
As for The Iran Deal, I would either see that it be enforced to the letter or I would end it and send a clear signal to Iran to behave or suffer the consequences. I would not revisit the subject but would act upon my clear warning in the event of further violations..
In my second and third year I would begin rebuilding the nation's military and infrastructure giving priority to former government employees recently fired.
Nothing get's done in the fourth year of a presidency so I would sit back and observe the benefits and problems caused by my actions in the first three years and if I chose to run again I would base my campaign around their solutions. If elected, I would set about to restructure The State Department and our foreign policy and align them with how best to meet the problems we face. With the restored military we would have begun resurrecting both could work in better unison to protect our nation and ensure our revised and more rational foreign policy commitments.
For too long we have been engaged in a mismatch between foreign commitments and the military capabilities of meeting them successfully.
As for my ongoing speechifying, I would have constructed and along with others would give an entire series of lectures to re-educate the populace about what it means to be an American. I/we would discuss the responsibilities we owe to each other and how best we must conduct ourselves. My hope would be that we would again become proud of our nation, proud of what it meant to be an American and hope it would heighten the willingness to tighten our belts, throw back our shoulders and meet the call for shared sacrifices.
This brings me to illegal immigration. I would press Congress to pass legislation that would allow such to seek citizenship, if they so choose, but prevent those who broke our laws to qualify and would ship them out of our land. I would demand the right to citizenship bear a cost and incur a time delay. In the interim they could remain if employed and work toward that goal. As for the enforcement of and protecting our borders I would unleash the existing department responsible and tell them to get the job done.
So much of leadership involves style that begets followship.. Neither Grandma Hilarious or Grandpa Hairdo possess it though I give credit to The Donald because he, at least, has flair.
There you have it in a nut shall and I would call upon the most practical minds in our nation to construct these policies. I would intentionally avoid Ivy League talent as much as I could because they have created much of the mess. I would turn to the Mid-West and rely upon minds who place pragmatism above genius and who have not lost their American Character and sense of values.
One of the first people I would enlist as an advisor would be an old friend named Bernie Marcus! (See 1 below.)
I sent the above to some of my friends and fellow memo readers before I posted it and this was the reply from one of my dearest:
Dick,
An excellent, thoughtful letter. (You’d be 90 at the end of your second term.)
Happy Purim! A---"
My response was:" How does 91 sound? "
===Lefties take this author to task for criticizing Obama underneath Che Guevara's picture and throw up Reagan speaking below a picture of Lenin. The author responds and points out the difference but it will fall on deaf ears because lefties cannot stand factual rebuttal because it leaves them naked and without a response and that is the world intellectual bullies find themselves in most of the time. (See 2 below.)
===
Ridding Europe of Jews has two benefits:
1) It will end and already dying Europe sooner as the Muslims finish the job
and
2) It will enrich those countries where the Jews go, mostly Israel. (See 3 and 3a below.)
===
Court rebukes IRS and Federal prosecutors. About time.
One more claim by Reid, Schumer and company, that the IRS investigation was a contrived Right Wing Conspiracy, falls of its own lying weight.
The Demwits are so two faced you would think they could see through themselves but they never give up and that is why they are so good at politics and gutter fights. They will stop at nothing, say anything to win because winning is the prize. That is also why Hillarious can be effective. Though she tops the two faced list she can lie with a straight one and that has taken years of perfecting. But then, she had "Ole" Bill as her coach. After all: 'is, is, is' and if you don't believe that then ask yourself: ' what difference does it make!' (See 4 below.)
===
Dick
=======================================================================
1) How the Brussels Attacks Challenge Democracies
By Frida Ghitis
There's something particularly disconcerting about watching a terrorist attack unfold in the heart of Europe from the vantage point of the Middle East.
The perpetrators of the Brussels attacks, recent experience strongly suggests, will turn out to be jihadi terrorists, and, in fact, the Islamic State has taken responsibility. They have struck again in Belgium, in the capital of the European Union, killing dozens and wounding scores more, sending shivers of insecurity across Europe.
Brussels is in lockdown; passengers who were en route to Belgium are being diverted to other points in Europe, and the sense of anxiety and vulnerability for people on the continent and even in the U.S. has climbed once again.
A moment ago, someone back in the U.S., nervous about my travels, told me, “I can't wait for you to be out of the Middle East.” But I'm on my way to Europe, which seems more dangerous than where I am, in the United Arab Emirates.
Ironically, just Monday, I was listening to a prominent European leader and human rights activist prod this country to allow its people more freedom, more dissent. Mary Robinson, the former U.N. high commissioner for human rights, was telling the Emirates that they cannot fully achieve their lofty aspirations without allowing their citizens the freedom to disagree with government policies, the freedom to criticize their government.
A similar message was delivered the previous day by Amal Clooney, the human rights attorney who became an international superstar when she married George Clooney. She told her audience at a government communications forum that a tweet criticizing the government should be answered with another tweet, not with jail.
And yet, the bombs went off in Belgium, where all these freedoms are available.
The moment is reminiscent above all of the November attacks in Paris, carried out by European-born radical Islamists, most of them children of North African immigrants, who grew up in the Arab districts of Paris and Brussels, where they became indoctrinated in jihad and traveled to Syria to hone their terrorist skills.
Extremists have found that democratic societies and their freedoms make for a most agreeable base of operations. In the Middle East, life is much more difficult for them. They are under closer scrutiny, and the authorities feel much less inclined to worry about their rights or the rights of anyone who might be in the process of becoming a dangerous radical.
The net sweeps actual and potential troublemakers, along with other critics.
If I look up to my television right now, I see terrible images from Brussels, people running in a smoke-filled, bombed-out airport hall. If I look out my window, I see a peaceful lagoon, people strolling along the waterfront.
The contrast does not justify, but it helps explain why Arab governments are reluctant to loosen the reins, and it helps shed light on why right-wing politicians in Europe are making huge strides.
France's Marine LePen called for immediately closing the border between France and Belgium and said “laxisme,” excessive tolerance, has gone on too long — and in the U.S., Donald Trump called today's tragedy “just the beginning.” This is an enormous and pivotal test for the West. The answer to terrorism cannot be abandoning the individual freedoms of an open society, even if that is the temptation.
When people feel unsafe, they are more willing to relinquish their freedoms.
As it happens, I just had a conversation here with an Afghan woman who was telling me how the Afghan people welcomed the dreadful Taliban to power because they yearned for peace and security. That is in no way to say that a Taliban-style regime is about to go into place in Belgium or France or the U.S.; of course not. But insecurity makes individual freedom a lower priority. That is understandable. And, in fact, some safety measures that would be intolerable in times of calm are acceptable in order to restore security. But there is a limit, and it's difficult to draw that moving line.
The most fundamental duty of a government is to make its people safe. But democratic countries have to do it with one hand tied behind their backs. They must do it that way. Otherwise, they lose themselves.
2)The Difference Between Reagan in Moscow and Obama in Havana
By Jay Nordlinger
Yesterday, I wrote a post about President Obama in Cuba — specifically, his posing for pictures in front of the secret-police headquarters, with its giant mural of Che Guevara. Obama was all smiles. I regarded these pictures as unseemly, grotesque.
And then a strange thing happened: I was attacked by people on the left. This occurred on Twitter. Why was it strange? Well, I haven’t been attacked from the left in years, I’m afraid. In my world, civil war is the name of the game. Every day, I’m attacked from the right (by right-wingers who consider me insufficiently right-wing). I was beginning to think the Left had forgotten me.
What a relief!
Several of them tweeted at me a photo of Ronald Reagan, giving a speech underneath a large bust of Lenin. This was supposed to make me a hypocrite: knocking Obama while admiring Reagan, presumably. (The presumption was absolutely right.)
On the chance that some lefties will read this, let me explain something. When Reagan appeared under that bust, he was speaking to students at Moscow State University. It was May 1988. Reagan was 77 years old. He was one of the most famous and important anti-Communists in history.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Arthur Koestler — there were just a few others in his class. Reagan was practically the embodiment of anti-Communism.
He had been campaigning against that ideology since his days in Hollywood. In the third year of his presidency, 1983, he gave a speech calling the Soviet Union an “evil empire.” This caused huge consternation on the left, and among not a few conservatives, too.
At the time, Anatoly Shcharansky was in the Gulag. (After, he would become Natan Sharansky.) He and his fellow zeks heard what Reagan had done. Had the American president really called the Soviet Union an “evil empire”? Yes.
Years later, Sharansky reflected:
It was the brightest, most glorious day. Finally a spade had been called a spade. Finally, Orwell’s Newspeak was dead. President Reagan had from that moment made it impossible for anyone in the West to continue closing their eyes to the real nature of the Soviet Union.
Though it is not much remembered today, Reagan declared 1983 the “Year of the Bible.” This is the sort of thing that Americans, and many others, roll their eyes at. There was not much eye-rolling in the Gulag. For a time, Sharansky was able to study the Bible with another zek, Volodya. They called their sessions “Reaganite readings.”
(For an interview I did with Sharansky, on sundry matters, go here.)
Reagan took office in 1981, and he spent long, hard years countering the Soviet Union: by rebuilding the American military; supporting anti-Communist rebels around the world; launching SDI; refusing to bargain away SDI; and so on. The Left opposed him every step. Reagan and his allies installed cruise and Pershing missiles in Western Europe. This was unbelievably hard. The protests against this move were enormous and momentous.
When he got to Moscow State University in 1988, he was taking advantage of a thaw. And what did he use his speech for? Well, here is an annotation:
[Reagan] delivered a stirring plea for democracy and individual rights. He told the students that no nation can thrive without permitting a high degree of freedom — “freedom of thought, freedom of information, freedom of communication.”
Reagan’s speech itself? Well, I hope you won’t mind if I let the tape run for a while. Read as little or as much as you like.
. . . We’re breaking through the material conditions of existence to a world where man creates his own destiny. Even as we explore the most advanced reaches of science, we’re returning to the age-old wisdom of our culture, a wisdom contained in the book of Genesis in the Bible: In the beginning was the spirit, and it was from this spirit that the material abundance of creation issued forth.
But progress is not foreordained. The key is freedom . . .
The explorers of the modern era are the entrepreneurs, men with vision, with the courage to take risks and faith enough to brave the unknown. These entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States. . . .
And that’s why it’s so hard for government planners, no matter how sophisticated, to ever substitute for millions of individuals working night and day to make their dreams come true. The fact is, bureaucracies are a problem around the world. . . .
We are seeing the power of economic freedom spreading around the world. Places such as the Republic of Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan have vaulted into the technological era, barely pausing in the industrial age along the way. . . .
At the same time, the growth of democracy has become one of the most powerful political movements of our age. In Latin America in the 1970s, only a third of the population lived under democratic government; today over 90 percent does. In the Philippines, in the Republic of Korea, free, contested, democratic elections are the order of the day. Throughout the world, free markets are the model for growth. Democracy is the standard by which governments are measured.
We Americans make no secret of our belief in freedom. In fact, it’s something of a national pastime. Every four years, the American people choose a new president, and 1988 is one of those years. . . . About 1,000 local television stations, 8,500 radio stations, and 1,700 daily newspapers — each one an independent, private enterprise, fiercely independent of the government — report on the candidates, grill them in interviews, and bring them together for debates. In the end, the people vote; they decide who will be the next president. But freedom doesn’t begin or end with elections.
Go to any American town, to take just an example, and you’ll see dozens of churches, representing many different beliefs — in many places, synagogues and mosques — and you’ll see families of every conceivable nationality worshiping together. Go into any schoolroom, and there you will see children being taught the Declaration of Independence, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights — among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness . . . Go into any courtroom, and there will preside an independent judge, beholden to no government power. There, every defendant has the right to a trial by a jury of his peers, usually twelve men and women — common citizens; they are the ones, the only ones, who weigh the evidence and decide on guilt or innocence. In that court, the accused is innocent until proven guilty, and the word of a policeman or any official has no greater legal standing than the word of the accused. . . .
Freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things. It is the continuing revolution of the marketplace. It is the understanding that allows us to recognize shortcomings and seek solutions. It is the right to put forth an idea, scoffed at by the experts, and watch it catch fire among the people. It is the right to dream — to follow your dream or stick to your conscience, even if you’re the only one in a sea of doubters. Freedom is the recognition that no single person, no single authority or government, has a monopoly on the truth, but that every individual life is infinitely precious, that every one of us put on this world has been put there for a reason and has something to offer. . . .
Freedom, it has been said, makes people selfish and materialistic, but Americans are one of the most religious peoples on earth. . . . Democracy is less a system of government than it is a system to keep government limited, unintrusive; a system of constraints on power to keep politics and government secondary to the important things in life, the true sources of value found only in family and faith.
Etc., etc.
Now, as my tweeters pointed out, Reagan was speaking underneath a bust of Lenin. But his speech was pure anti-Leninism. Everyone in that auditorium, and everyone in the world, knew that Ronald Reagan was an anti-Communist to his very bone marrow.
About the current president — who went to Havana and posed in front of the mural of Che Guevara — we know no such thing.
My tweeters showed pictures of Reagan and the Lenin bust. (A bust in more senses than one.) They also showed pictures of Nixon and other Republicans in China. This, too, was supposed to shame me.
I certainly have had my criticisms of U.S. policy on China over the years. I have written about it steadily. But I recognize the need for a relationship with the PRC. In my view, there is no need for the normalization with the Castros that Obama has effected, certainly without concessions — without liberalization — from the dictatorship. The Soviet Union had liberalized significantly, of course, when Reagan went to Moscow.
In what Obama is doing, I see no Realpolitik element. I see him crossing off items on his rhymes-with-bucket list. (After the 2014 midterm elections, in which Republicans swept, he said he had no bucket list — but he did have “something that rhymes with ‘bucket list.’”)
If you’d like to know what I think about Obama and Cuba, please consult this column of February 22.
One more thing about my tweeters: Several of them mentioned Saudi Arabia. Their assumption was, I delight in American relations with the House of Saud while despairing of Obama’s relations with the House of Castro. Much as it pains me, my tweeters never read me. How they got a hold of the one blogpost, I don’t know.
Last month, I did a podcast with Ensaf Haidar, the wife of Raif Badawi, the most prominent Saudi political prisoner. (Go here.) (I interviewed Ensaf through an interpreter, Celine Boustani.) Furthermore, I wrote two pieces about Raif and Ensaf, the longer one of which is here.
Also last month, I interviewed George W. Bush at his center in Dallas. I wrote up that interview in five parts. In Part IV, we discuss the issue of the Saudis. Of some interest, I believe.
======================================================================================3) Belgian official says he’d ‘kill each and every Jew’
Peacekeeper from Molenbeek sparks national outrage over blatantly anti-Semitic rant on Facebook
A Belgian municipal security officer is facing dismissal after saying he would kill “each and every Jew” during a debate on Facebook this past Friday.
“The word Jew itself is dirty. If I were in Israel, frankly, I would do to the Jews what they do with the Palestinians — slaughter each and every one of them,” wrote the officer, who was only referred to as Mohamed N. in Belgian media.
The debate quickly spiraled as the officer ignored requests from others in the discussion to tone down his statements, according to a report in Belgian paper Le Soir.The officer was going by the pseudonym Bebeto Gladiateur.
According to Belgian media the man was a “guardian of the peace” — an official force dedicated to maintaining security and serving as a deterrent to neighborhood crime, but one that does not wield police powers.
Belgian police officer Mohamed N.’s anti-Semitic threats on Facebook, under the pseudonym Bebeto Gladiateur. He is pictured with Molenbeek’s mayor Françoise Schepmans in the screenshot. (screenshot, Facebook via Le Soir)
“If this is true, this gentleman will see the door. There is no question about it,” Le Soir quoted Molenbeek Mayor Françoise Schepmans as saying. “The guardians of the peace assume a role of mediation in the community. They are the image of communal authority. His words shocked me…
I cannot tolerate such an attitude of a communal agent.”
Belgian reports indicated that the officer was going to be dismissed and that the dismissal process had already started.
“It will be done according to procedure,” Schepmans said.
“There are two things particularly questionable about this case,” said Joël Rubinfeld, president of the Belgian League against Anti-Semitism (LBCA). “Firstly, [there is] the fact that a ‘guardian of the peace’ would publicly speak something that is so antithetical to the values he is supposed to embody, promote and defend. Secondly, there is the anti-Semitic speech that I am concerned expresses itself increasingly uninhibitedly in certain circles.”
Rubinfeld has warned in the past that rising anti-Semitism is spurring an exodus from Belgium. Last year, a veteran of the Syrian civil war opened fire at the Brussels Jewish Museum, murdering four people.
3a) Hashtag: We Are Neville Chamberlain!
Immigration is the new “No Nukes/Save the Whales” movement, only with more body bags.
After the mass murder committed by Muslims in San Bernardino, which came on the heels of the mass murder committed by Muslims in Paris, Donald Trump proposed a moratorium on Muslim immigration.
Explaining the idea on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” he talked about how Muslim immigration was infecting Europe: “Look at what happened in Paris, the horrible carnage. … We have places in London and other places that are so radicalized that the police are afraid for their own lives. We have to be very smart and very vigilant.”
Trump’s reference to London’s no-go zones was met with a massive round of sneering, which is what passes for argument in America these days. Jeb! said Trump was “unhinged,” Sen. John McCain called him “foolish,” and former vice president Dick Cheney said Trump’s remarks went “against everything we stand for and believe in.” (Based on Trump’s crushing primary victories, Cheney is no longer qualified to say what “we” believe in.)
To prove Trump wrong, reporters called British authorities and asked them: Are you doing your jobs? They responded, Why, yes we are! The head of London’s police said, “Mr. Trump could not be more wrong,” and London mayor Boris Johnson called Trump’s comments “utter nonsense.”
Within days, however, scores of rank-and-file London policemen begged to differ with their spokesmen, leading to the following headlines:
UK Daily Mail: ‘TRUMP’S NOT WRONG — WE CAN’T WEAR UNIFORM IN OUR OWN CARS’: Five Police Officers Claim Donald Trump Is Right About Parts of London Being So ‘Radicalised’ They Are No-Go Areas
The Sun: ‘THERE ARE NO-GO AREAS IN LONDON’: Policemen Back Trump’s Controversial Comments
UK Daily Express: ‘TRUMP IS RIGHT!’ Police Say Parts of Britain Are No-Go Areas due to ISIS Radicalisation
Then, in January of this year, Trump talked specifically about the Muslim invasion of Brussels on the Maria Bartiromo show. “There is something going on, Maria,” he said. “Go to Brussels. … There is something going on and it’s not good, where they want Sharia law … There is something bad going on.”
The New York Times headlined a story on the interview: “Donald Trump Finds New City to Insult: Brussels.” News is no longer about communicating information; it’s about imparting an attitude. Trump is rude, so whether he’s right is irrelevant. As the saying goes, “Better dead than rude.”
Indignant Belgians took to Twitter, the Times reported, “deploying an arsenal of insults, irony and humor, including images of Belgium’s beloved beer and chocolate.” Liberals have gone from not understanding jokes to not understanding English. When Trump talked about unassimilated Muslim immigrants demanding Sharia law, I don’t think he was knocking Belgium’s beer and chocolate.
Rudi Vervoort, the president of the Brussels region (who evidently survived this week’s bombing), rebuked Trump, saying, “We can reassure the Americans that Brussels is a multicultural city where it is good to live.”
After multiculturalism struck this week, Vervoort said, “I would like to express my support to the victims of the attacks of this morning …” Twitter bristled with supportive hashtags, the Belgian flag and professions of solidarity. The Times editorialized: “Brussels, Europe, the world must brace for a long struggle against this form of terrorism.”
All this would be perfectly normal if we were talking about an earthquake or some other natural disaster — something humans have no capacity to prevent. But Muslims pouring into our countries and committing mass murder isn’t natural at all. It’s the direct result of government policy.
It’s as if the government were dumping rats in our houses, and then, whenever someone died of the plague, those same government officials issued heartfelt condolences, Twitter lit up with sympathetic hashtags and the Times editorialized about effective rodent control, but no one ever bothered to say, Hey! Maybe the government should stop putting rats in our houses!
When people are killing in the name of their religion, it’s not an irrelevancy to refuse to keep admitting more practitioners of that religion.
But this is the madness that has seized Europe and America — a psychosis Peter Brimelow calls “Hitler’s revenge.”
Apparently, what we have learned from Hitler is not: Don’t kill Jews. To the contrary, the only people who openly proclaim their desire to kill Jews are … Muslims.
What we’ve learned from Hitler is not: Don’t attempt to seize hegemonic control over entire continents. The only people vowing to conquer the world are … Muslims.
And what we’ve learned from Hitler is not: Beware violent uprisings of angry young men. The only hordes of violent, angry young men are, again … Muslims. (And Trump protesters.)
But instead of learning our lesson and recoiling with horror at this modern iteration of Nazism, we welcome the danger with open arms — because the one and only lesson we’ve learned from Hitler is: DON’T DISCRIMINATE!
=======================================================================4) Federal Court Rebukes IRS, DOJ, Orders Release of Targeted Tea Party List
Stephen Dinan reports in the Washington Times:
“The lawyers in the Department of Justice have a long and storied tradition of defending the nation’s interests and enforcing its laws -- all of them, not just selective ones -- in a manner worthy of theDepartment’s name. The conduct of the IRS’s attorneys in the district court falls outside that tradition,” Judge Raymond Kethledge wrote in a unanimous opinion for a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. “We expect that the IRS will do better going forward.”
Justice Department officials declined to comment on the judicial drubbing, and the IRS didn’t respond to a request for comment on the unusually strong language Judge Kethledge used.
The Justice Department closed its two-year investigation into whether the IRS improperly targeted conservative groups last October, declining to charge anyone involved, including Lois Lerner -- who continues to enjoy a six-figure annual pension since her early retirement from "government service." The DOJ probe merely found:
... substantial evidence of mismanagement, poor judgment and institutional inertia leading to the belief by many tax-exempt applicants that the IRS targeted them based on their political viewpoints.
The IRS said section 6103 of the tax code prevented it from releasing that information.
Judge Kethledge, however, said that turned the law on its head.
“Section 6103 was enacted to protect taxpayers from the IRS, not the IRS from taxpayers,” he wrote.
Edward Greim, a lawyer at Graves Garrett who is representing NorCal Patriots, explained why the group was seeking the names on the list:
“What we’ll be able to see is how, starting in the spring of 2010, with the first one or two groups the IRS targeted, we’ll be able to see that number grow, and we’ll even be able to see at the tail end their possible covering up that conduct,” he said.
He said they suspect the IRS, aware that the inspector general was looking into the tax agency’s behavior, began adding in other groups to try to muddle the perception that only conservatives were being targeted.Democrats have argued since the IRS scandal broke in May of 2013 that liberal groups were targeted just as much as conservatives were, hence it was a "phony scandal." This information should be able to dismiss that argument.
The NorCal Patriots case moved to the discovery stage in January, when U.S. District Judge Susan J. Dlott certified it as a class-action lawsuit. Now lawyers for more than 200 tea party groups will be able to ask for all documents related to the targeting, and to depose IRS employees about their actions. The lawyers are hoping that they’ll be able to uncover pertinent information that Congress and the DOJ missed in their own investigations.
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