Profiling, per se, is not illegal but some methods of profiling have been ruled unconstitutional.
No longer need to profile. Seems pretty evident terrorism is caused by radical Muslims, rioting to radical blacks, lying to Hillary, apologies to Obama, weakness to most Republicans in Congress and deficits to big government spenders.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Should Hillary lose what becomes of the Democrat Party? Does it matter? (See 1 below.)
===
Netanyahu has gravitas but is he brash for inviting Abbas to speak in Israel? (See 2 and 2a below.)
===
Can The White House define Palestinian land? Don't hold your breath. (See 3 below.)
===
Hillary and Donald distinctions. Are they too narrowly defined? You decide. (See 4 below.)
===
Let's hear it for the wall:http://www.kusi.com/clip/
+++
Netanyahu had few options. (See 5 below.)
===
Dick
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1)
What Happens to the Democratic Party if Clinton Loses?
By Michael Barone
There's been lots of speculation about the fate of the Republican Party if (as most of the prognosticators expect and hope) Donald Trump loses. There's been less speculation, though recent polling suggests it may be in order, about the fate of the Democratic Party if Hillary Clinton loses.
Certainly there's reason to think -- or fear -- that the Republican Party will change. Republicans likely won't supply the bulk of support for free trade agreements as they increasingly have for 40 years. Prominent Republicans probably won't press for mass legalization of illegal immigrants, as they did in 2006, 2007 and 2013.
If Trump loses, the Republican electorate will have become more downscale and elderly -- a continuation of a process that's been in train since the middle 1990s. The long-term migration of voters southward along Interstate 95 will have made the East Coast just about as solidly Democratic as the West Coast, leaving a Republican rump in the interior South and the Great Plains.
Anti-Trump Republicans hope the Trump effect will just go away, and will note that a defeated Trump will not leave behind much in the nature of an institutional apparatus, as the defeated Barry Goldwater arguably did in 1964. But the argument for going back to pre-Trump positions is weakened by the fact that Republicans have lost four of the six presidential elections between 1992 and 2012.
But what if Hillary Clinton loses? The political map in that case will look quite different, with Democratic states confined to the Northeast, West Coast and a few splotches in between. The presidential Democratic Party, like the congressional Democratic Party, will be concentrated in heavily Democratic central cities, some sympathetic suburbs and scattered university towns.
The shock for Democrats if Clinton loses will likely be more severe than for Republicans if Trump loses. "Imagine the best candidate in your party losing to the weakest candidate in the other party," speculates Dan McLaughlin, writing for the National Review, "after years of telling yourself that your party had unlocked the demographic code to a permanent majority."
One option for Democrats would be to moderate their policies, as the New Democrats urged in the 1980s and Bill Clinton did in the 1990s. After all, that proved pretty successful. But the current Democratic electorate has little stomach for going back to that strategy.
Two decades ago, lots of self-described moderates and even conservatives voted in Democratic primaries. Not so these days. The slump in Democratic primary and caucus turnout, from 38 million in 2008 to 31 million in 2016, was due to a sharp decline in turnout by self-described moderates. Hillary Clinton's move from her husband's 1990s triangulation to her near-total acceptance this year of Bernie Sanders's left-wing platform was a rational response to changes in the Democratic primary electorate.
Some Democrats will blame a Clinton loss on her particular problems -- lies about her illicit secret email server, doubts about her health -- and if she loses it's not likely she'll run again at age 73. So who will?
One lesson of recent presidential primaries is that Democratic voters are transfixed by identity politics, having elected the first black president and chosen the first female presidential nominee. Another is that there's a large constituency for left-wing candidates.
What they haven't been interested in is disgendered white male liberals. The largely forgotten John Edwards fell by the wayside quickly in 2008, and Martin O'Malley, with credentials similar to those of Bill Clinton and Michael Dukakis, attracted zero support in 2016.
That leaves them with no obvious choices if Clinton loses this year. Their most visible and attractive left-wingers, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, will be over 70 in 2020. Prominent black and Hispanic officeholders tend to represent overwhelmingly Democratic constituencies and have made few of the bows to moderation that made Barack Obama a plausible national candidate in 2008.
It's possible that a post-2016 Democratic Party could look like Britain's Labour Party, which has abandoned the New Labour posture of Tony Blair that produced three landslide victories in 1997, 2001 and 2005. Now, under far-left-wing leader Jeremy Corbyn, the party seems headed for landslide defeat in 2020.
Of course, it's possible Democrats could rebound during an unpopular Trump presidency, just as Republicans could during an unpopular Hillary Clinton term. But it's also possible that the party's current left-wing constituency could make a post-Clinton Democratic Party unelectable outside its left-wing redoubts.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2)
By Ira StollThe New York Times Finds a New Adjective to Hurl at Netanyahu
The New York Times has found a new adjective to hurl at the prime minster of Israel: “brash.”
A Times dispatch by Peter Baker, the new Jerusalem bureau chief, begins, “For Benjamin Netanyahu, the brash prime minister of Israel, there are few audiences more skeptical than the world leaders he will face at the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday.”
The Zionist Organization of America pointed out sarcastically on Twitter, “‘Brash’??? Thanks for inserting your opinion. Thanks for the journalism.”
The New York Times’s unfortunate habit of slapping labels on Benjamin Netanyahu was the topic of a post here earlier commenting on the absurdity of the Times having described Mr. Netanyahu both as “loquacious” and as “usually taciturn,” two diametrically opposed terms.
The paper has apparently given up — at least for now — on deciding whether Mr. Netanyahu talks too much or too little. Instead it’s taking issue with his attitude.
“Brash,” according to my authoritative Webster’s Second Unabridged, means: “brittle or fragile, as some wood.” Other meanings are: “rash; too hasty” and “insolent; impudent.”
Given that Mr. Netanyahu has endured the death of his brother and more than 10 years as prime minister of Israel, describing him as “brittle” or “fragile” seems inaccurate. Given that he has not retaken Gaza, the Sinai or the security zone in Lebanon, and did not launch a preemptive strike against the Iranian nuclear program, describing him as “rash” or “hasty” doesn’t really seem accurate, either; if anything, Mr. Netanyahu is restrained and deliberate, the opposite of rash.
That brings us to the third of the possible Webster’s meanings — the idea that Mr. Netanyahu is somehow shameless, or rude. What the Times is getting at here is that, in its view, Mr. Netanyahu is a Jew who doesn’t know his proper place; a Jew who, unlike the elderly, poor European Holocaust survivors upon which the paper
lavishes loving and lengthy attention, or the “warm and decorous French Jew” who tickled the fancy of the Times’ T magazine, Mr. Netanyahu is a Jew with power who will speak out publicly and act for Jewish interests.
If the Times foreign desk or its new Jerusalem bureau man finds Mr. Netanyahu “brash,” perhaps we Jews could come up with a few adjectives of our own to sling at the New York Times. “Biased” would be one way to start.
More of Ira Stoll’s media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.
2a)
Why Abbas Won’t Accept Bibi’s Offer
During his address to the United Nations General Assembly that seemed largely a challenge to the organization’s legitimacy—he described its organs as s a “moral farce,” a “disgrace,” a “joke” and a “circus”—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slipped in a clever invitation. He asked Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to come to Jerusalem to address the Israeli people at the Knesset. Abbas’s answer to the offer so far has been silence. But since he has repeatedly rejected every past invitation for a one-on-one meeting with the Israeli in recent years—just as he has repeatedly rejected Israeli offers of peace and statehood—there is little likelihood that the answer will be different this time.
If Abbas were serious about peace, going to Jerusalem in that manner would completely change the dynamic of both the stalled peace process and Israeli public opinion about the conflict no matter what the Palestinian said in his remarks. The spectacle of Abbas at the Knesset would undermine the arguments of the majority of Israelis who agree with the prime minister that the Palestinians don’t want peace. It would create what would likely be intolerable pressure on Netanyahu to give in to more of the PA’s demands on territory and other issues. If the generous terms of peace previously offered by Israel were really inadequate, such a stunt is the best and perhaps the only way for the Palestinians to do better.
So rather than just toss this aside as a meaningless gesture, as Netanyahu’s critics are doing, it’s worth asking why Abbas won’t even consider doing something that is so obviously in the interests of his people? The answer is painfully obvious. He can’t do it because his objective isn’t really a two-state solution that would end the conflict forever.
Going to the Knesset wouldn’t just revive echoes of Anwar Sadat’s dramatic 1977 gesture that led to peace between Israel and Egypt. More than anything either he or his predecessor Yasir Arafat has done, it would signal that the century-long Palestinian war on Zionism is over. Speaking there would mean that the Palestinians are acknowledging the legitimacy of the Jewish state and that the only obstacles to peace are details about borders and guarantees against future violence.
But Abbas won’t do that because that isn’t what he is after. As his own speech illustrated, Abbas’s view of the conflict is still fatally mired in a miasma of historical grievances and religious hate.Abbas used the UN GA rostrum to demand Britain apologize for the Balfour Declaration that set in motion international recognition for the right to the Jewish homeland. Just as bad, he recycled the lies he and his official media have been circulating about Israel’s intentions to harm the Temple Mount mosques that have served as the principle source of incitement to terrorism during the current “stabbing intifada.”
While he said that the PA’s implicit recognition of Israel in the 1993 Oslo Accords remained “in force,” he made it clear that it was conditional in nature and could be rescinded if the Israelis didn’t bow to all of his demands. The Palestinians have flouted their Oslo commitments over the last 23 years. More to the point, the entire focus of his current campaign at the UN is to abandon the bilateral negotiations to which the accords committed the PA in favor of unilateral steps that don’t so much sidestep peace as discard it altogether.
Abbas at the Knesset won’t happen because the political culture of the Palestinians is still rooted in the same rejection of Balfour that helped forge their sense of national identity in the last century. It’s easy for American liberals to condemn Netanyahu as insincere, but if Abbas were truly searching for a path to peace and independence for his people, the smartest thing he could do would be to say yes to the prime minister’s invitation. The fact that we all know he’d never even consider doing it tells us all we need to know about Palestinian intentions.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3)
President Obama delivered an address at the UN on September 20, 2016.
The Memorandum of Understanding that President Barack Obama concluded last
week with Israel regarding US military aid to Israel for the next decade is
classic Obama.
Since he entered office nearly eight years ago, Obama's foreign policy has
always sought to kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, his
policies are geared toward fundamentally transforming the US's global
posture. On the other, they work to weaken if not entirely neutralize his
congressional opponents at home.
The second goal is no mean task. After all, the US Constitution empowers
Congress with the foreign policy powers aimed at checking and balancing the
president's.
For instance, to ensure that no president could adopt foreign policies that
harm US national interests or undercut the will of the people, the
Constitution required that all treaties be approved by two-thirds of the
Senate before they can take effect.
Were it not for Obama's double tracked foreign policy, that constitutional
provision should have blocked Obama's radical and dangerous nuclear deal
with Iran. Understanding that he lacked not merely the support of two-thirds
of the Senate but of even a bare majority of senators for his deal, Obama
decided to sideline the Senate.
To this end, Obama speciously claimed that the deal was not significant
enough to be considered a treaty. The Iran deal of course is a more radical
course change than the US's approval of the UN Charter and the NATO Treaty.
The nuclear deal radically changes not only the US's policy toward Iran and
toward every nation, friend and foe, in the Middle East. As former
secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Schultz argued during the
nuclear negotiations, it upends 70 years of US nuclear policy, undermining
the foundations of the US's nonproliferation policies.
Obama and his advisers insisted that the deal was a mere presidential
agreement. In response to their absurd claim, Sen. Tom Cotton and 46 other
senators sent a letter to Iran's leaders informing them that since the deal
would not be brought before the Senate for a vote, the nuclear agreement
they were negotiating with the Obama administration would be binding neither
on Congress, nor on Obama's successor.
Cotton's letter prompted Obama to make yet another end run around Congress.
The day the agreement was concluded in Geneva, and even before lawmakers had
the chance to read it, the administration anchored the deal in a binding UN
Security Council resolution. The maneuver gave the nuclear deal the force of
international law.
Now, if Congress fails to respect the deal, or if Obama's successor disavows
it, the US will face the prospect of Iran arguing that it is free to build
bombs at will, since the US breached the deal.
Another congressional authority is the power of the purse. Throughout
Obama's two terms, Congress repeatedly used this power to implement foreign
policies he opposed in relation to both Iran and Israel. Over Obama's
objection, Congress repeatedly passed and upheld sanctions laws against Iran
for its illicit nuclear program and its support for terrorism.
As for Israel, Obama routinely sought to slash US funding for Israel's
missile defense programs. Congress in turn routinely over road him and
expanded US funding for Iron Dome and David's Sling.
This of course brings us to last week's Memorandum of Understanding. Just as
the Iran deal gutted the Senate's treaty approval authority, so the MoU
works to empty of meaning Congress's power of appropriation. Obama knows
full well that he cannot prevent Congress from appropriating supplemental
aid to Israel. So he forced Israel to agree to reject any supplemental
assistance Congress might wish to appropriate.
Not surprisingly, lawmakers are irate over his action.
Sen. Ted Cruz explained, "I... have significant concerns with aspects of the
MoU that attempt to restrict Congress's rights and responsibilities -
particularly our ability to appropriate additional funds as we and not the
executive branch deem consistent with the interests of the American people."
Congress isn't the only casualty of Obama's MoU.
The MoU strikes a body blow to AIPAC.
Since his first days in office, Obama has made a goal of weakening AIPAC.
First, Obama legitimized the anti-Israel Jewish lobby J Street. J Street's
purpose was to deny AIPAC the ability to claim that it speaks for the entire
American Jewish community and so render it inherently controversial.
Today J Street, the self-proclaimed "pro-Israel, pro-peace" outfit, is
lobbying the IRS to revoke the charitable status of American groups that
work to protect the civil and property rights of Jews in Judea and Samaria.
It is also working with Iran's lobby in Washington and Americans for Peace
Now to undermine Republican efforts to sanction Iran for its anti-US
aggression.
In 2013, Obama coerced AIPAC into lobbying Congress to support his
proclaimed plan to bomb Syrian-regime targets in response to the Assad
regime's use to chemical weapons. AIPAC's action were viewed by liberal
Democrats as proof that "the Israel lobby" was filled with warmongers.
It convinced Republicans that the group was the stooge of the
administration.
Having hung AIPAC out to dry, Obama proceeded to tear it to shreds when he
decided at the last minute to call off the air strikes.
Then of course there was the Iran deal. Obama spent a year and a half
pretending away the popular opposition to his nuclear diplomacy and
pretending that his only opponent was an all-powerful AIPAC, which worked at
the behest of a foreign government.
And now, he has signed the MoU.
For decades, AIPAC's bread and butter has been US aid to Israel. Indeed, the
strongest opponent of Netanyahu's announcement in 1997 that he wished to end
US aid to Israel was AIPAC.
AIPAC's role in lobbying aid bills through Congress has always been a
noncontroversial way for the group to build up its power and influence and
for members of Congress to exhibit their support for Israel. Since most
lawmakers support Israel and support providing military aid to Israel, the
vote is always an easy victory that gives it the aura of power and
influence.
For AIPAC, Obama's MoU is a disaster. In one fell swoop, he took away its
main lobbying operation, the one that it was guaranteed to succeed in
passing with massive bipartisan support. Following the deal, AIPAC will be
hard-pressed to maintain even a semblance of the power it held when Obama
entered into office.
Since the MoU was signed, Israeli media coverage has been dominated by
claims by leftist politicians such as former prime minister Ehud Barak that
if they were in charge, Obama would have agreed to give Israel much more
than the $3.8 billion per year Netanyahu came up with.
Given that their claims are entirely theoretical, there is absolutely no way
to know whether they are accurate. But what is clear is that taking
inflation into account, the new level of aid is not significantly higher
than the aid package approved by then-president George W. Bush 10 years ago.
The aid deal's main financial significance is found in its multi-year
lifespan. The deal's longevity mean that lawmakers and lobbyist won't be
able to wait it out.
A number of Israeli and American commentators have argued that despite its
drawbacks, Obama's MoU shows that at the end of the day, Obama really is
pro-Israel. After all, they argue, he didn't have to sign a deal. He could
have let his successor handle it.
But this of course fails to recognize the basic fact that US aid to Israel
was never in jeopardy. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump would reach a
deal. And if they failed to do so, Congress would simply appropriate the
assistance.
For Obama, the MoU isn't about securing military financing for Israel. The
aid is a means for him to achieve a different aim.
Administration and congressional sources warn that Obama wished to conclude
the MoU in the final months of his presidency to burnish his pro-Israel
credentials. He wants his pro-Israel bona fides intact as he enables the UN
Security Council to adopt an anti-Israel resolution just after the US
presidential election in November.
For the past year and a half, the French have been sitting on just such a
resolution. If passed, the French draft Security Council resolution will
require Israel to accept a deal with the Palestinians that would require it
to withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines with minor adjustments and partition
Jerusalem within 18 months or face the prospect of the nations of the world
recognizing a sovereign state of Palestine in a formal state of war with
Israel.
After the presidential election, the French draft can be pulled out for a
quick vote while US Ambassador Samantha Power is in the ladies room.
In the face of the congressional outcry that would follow, Obama can now
pull out the video of his meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
from Wednesday where Netanyahu thanked him profusely for the military aid
and praised his support for Israel.
So why did Netanyahu agree to the deal?
The answer is that it was his best option.
3)
ASK THE WHITE HOUSE TO DEFINE: WHAT IS 'PALESTINIAN LAND'?
By DAVID BEDEIN
President Obama delivered an address at the UN on September 20, 2016.
During that address. Obama asked Israel not to settle “Palestinian land”.
Today, we asked White House Press Spokespeople to define “Palestinian land”.
There are five possibilities.
1. Arab villages abandoned in 1948. Palestinians who live in 59 UNRWA facilities still lay to claim these villages as “Palestinian land”. The UNRWA school system , funded to a large part by the US , is based on promoting “right of return” to this ”Palestinian land”
2. Areas settled by Israel beyond the 1949 Rhodes Armistice Lines. After the 1949 armistice, Israel settled its citizens in the Negev and Galilee, over US objections. The US has never removed these objections. Hence, the Bush letter of April 2004 to Arik Sharon invoked the 1949 lines as the basis for US government policy.
3. Areas purchased by Jews in Judea-Samaria/West Bank.
The US often claims: Jews have no human rights in areas acquired after 1967.
The US often claims: Jews have no human rights in areas acquired after 1967.
4. The Old City of Jerusalem.The Old City is defined by the Arab world as “Palestinian land”. For that reason, no Jew was allowed entry into the Old City, 1949-1967 , despite US and UN assurances.
5. Neighborhoods built on no-man’s land in Jerusalem, post-1967. The US often objects. The question remains: Do Ramot, Gilo,and Ramat Eshkol constitute “Palestinian land’ ?
We asked the White House to explain which definition applies:.
We have asked this five-pronged question many times of the US government, with no response.
We do not expect to get a response today either.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
4)Trump vs. Hillary Is Nationalism vs. Globalism, 2016
This election's real political fault line.
The pundits and commentators and pols and prognosticators will all identify multifarious political fault lines to explain the looming epic American battle between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton – women vs. Trump; evangelicals vs. Hillary; Hispanics vs. white, working-class Americans with no college; the LBGT community vs. traditionalists; old vs. young. It’s all important, but not very. Any true understanding of this election requires an appreciation of the one huge political fault line that is driving America into a period of serious political tremors, certain to jolt the political Richter scale. It is nationalists vs. globalists.
Globalists captured much of American society long ago by capturing the bulk of the nation’s elite institutions—the media, academia, big corporations, big finance, Hollywood, think tanks, NGOs, charitable foundations. So powerful are these institutions—in themselves and, even more so, collectively—that the elites running them thought that their political victories were complete and final. That’s why we have witnessed in recent years a quantum expansion of social and political arrogance on the part of these high-flyers.
Then along comes Donald Trump and upends the whole thing. Just about every major issue that this super-rich political neophyte has thrown at the elites turns out to be anti-globalist and pro-nationalist. And that is the single most significant factor in his unprecedented and totally unanticipated rise. Consider some examples:
Immigration: Nationalists believe that any true nation must have clearly delineated and protected borders, otherwise it isn’t really a nation. They also believe that their nation’s cultural heritage is sacred and needs to be protected, whereas mass immigration from far-flung lands could undermine the national commitment to that heritage. Globalists don’t care about borders. They believe the nation-state is obsolete, a relic of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which codified the recognition of co-existing nation states. Globalists reject Westphalia in favor of an integrated world with information, money, goods and people traversing the globe at accelerating speeds without much regard to traditional concepts of nationhood or borders.
Foreign Policy: Globalists are motivated by humanitarian impulses. For them, the rights and well-being of the world’s people supersede the rights and well-being of the American populace. Indeed, as writer Robert D. Kaplan has observed, the liberal embrace of universal principles as foreign-policy guidance "leads to a pacifist strain…when it comes to defending our hard-core national interest, and an aggressive strain when it comes to defending human rights." Globalists, in advocating foreign policy adventurism, are quick to conflate events in the Baltics, say, or Georgia or Ukraine with U.S. national interest, but it’s really about the globalist impulse of dominating world events. Nationalists don’t care about dominating world events. Being nationalists, they want their country to be powerful, with plenty of military reach, but mostly to protect American national interests. They usually ask a fundamental question when foreign adventures are proposed—whether the national interest justifies the expenditure of American blood and treasure on behalf of this or that military initiative. The fate of other people struggling around the globe, however heartrending, doesn’t usually figure large in nationalist considerations. The fate of America is the key.
Trade: The history of trade in America admits of no straight-line analysis. Andrew Jackson was a supreme nationalist, and a free-trader. William McKinley made America a global power, but was a protectionist. In our own time, though, the fault line is clear. Globalists salute the free flow of goods across national borders on the theory that this will foster ever greater global commerce, to the benefit of all peoples of all nations. Writer and commentator Thomas L. Friedman, a leading globalist of his generation, once extolled America as the world’s role model for "globally integrated free-market capitalism." That was before the Great Recession and the subsequent anemic recovery throughout most of the Obama years. Today’s American nationalists look at the results of the kind of "globalization" extolled by Friedman and conclude that it has hollowed out America’s industrial core. Whether they are right or not, their focus is on the American citizens whose lives and livelihoods have been also hollowed out in many instances. Thus has a powerful new wave of protectionism washed over the body politic, leaving globalist elites running to get out of the way. Globalists were too focused on global trade and commerce to notice the horrendous plight of America’s internal refugees from the industrial nation of old.
Political Correctness: Given that globalists dominate the nation’s elite institutions and often exploit their position of power to ridicule and marginalize the so-called "Middle America" of ordinary citizens, who also happen to be nationalists, these people often feel on the defensive politically and culturally. And we are beginning to understand, courtesy of the Trump candidacy, just how angry they were at the emergence of the political correctness cadres who tell them what to think, how to regard the political issues of the day, and how they themselves will be regarded if they don’t toe the line (racist, homophobe and xenophobe are frequent threatened epithets). Globalists don’t care much about this phenomenon because it is employed largely in behalf of their views and philosophical outlook, including their globalist sensibilities. But nationalists care about it a lot. They send their kids to college in pursuit of betterment, and discover that political correctness is hammering away at the views and values they tried to teach their children as they were growing up. And their views and values aren’t allowed to compete in any free marketplace of ideas on campus but instead are declared inappropriate and intolerable before they are even uttered.
Cultural Heritage: Nationalists care about their national heritage, which they view as a repository of wisdom and lessons handed down by our forebears in this grand experiment that is both mystifying and inspiring. Globalists, not so much. Nationalists seethe at the assault under way against so many giants of our heritage, flawed though they were (as are we today). Globalists are the ones leading the assault.
On all of these fault lines, we see just how much pressure has been building up in recent years while the globalist elites concluded the issues involved were either settled or under control. Immigration—much talk about the need for reform but nothing done while the influx continued. Foreign policy—polls showing many Americans wary of interventionist adventurism while interventionist adventurism remained the prevailing attitude of governmental elites. Trade—a solid consensus among elites that free trade had no serious opposition, while industrial America crumbled. Political correctness—a blithe disregard for the sensibilities of non-globalist citizens. Cultural heritage—the power of the influence class brought to bear against those who cherish their country’s history. It isn’t surprising that the globalist class concluded that it really didn’t have to worry about any serious opposition out in the country.
But they did, and Donald Trump was the messenger. He not only attacked out-of-control immigration but did it in such a way as to signal that this was one politician who truly intended to do something about it. Despite some of his boorish rhetoric, or perhaps even because of it, nationalist Americans perked up and rallied around. On foreign policy, he posed questions that nobody else was willing to raise: Why do we need NATO as currently constituted when the Soviet Union no longer exists to threaten Europe? Why should Americans pay for the defense of rich Europeans when they can easily afford to protect themselves? Why should America continue to pursue a policy of promiscuous regime change when recent history tells us it usually produces disaster and chaos? Why can’t the elites recognize and acknowledge the regional mess wrought by their ill-considered Iraq War? Trump answers these questions in ways that set the teeth of the elites on edge, but it turns out many Americans are asking the same questions and buying the Trump answers.
On trade, Trump isn’t exactly original in his protectionist leanings. Such thinking has played a significant role at various times in American history—in good times and bad. And as recently as 1988, Democrat Richard Gephardt ran on the issue of "economic nationalism." But once again Trump has upended the old politics and opened up a new fault line. On political correctness, he offers a counter-assault that is breathtaking in its political distinctiveness and force. And on cultural heritage, he said it all when he said, "We’re going to be saying Merry Christmas again, folks."
Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, is the personification of the globalist elite—generally open borders, humanitarian interventionist, traditionally a free trader (though hedging in recent months), totally in sync with the underlying sensibilities of political correctness, a practitioner of identity politics, which lies at the heart of the assault on the national heritage. Nothing reflects this Clinton identity more starkly than the Clinton Foundation, a brilliant program to chase masses of money from across borders to fund the underpinnings of an ongoing political machine.
It’s impossible to say at this early stage in the political season whether Trump, the candidate of the New Nationalism, actually has a chance to win the presidency. But, win or lose, he has shaken up the political system, introduced powerful new rhetoric and opened up a new political fault line between nationalism and globalism that isn’t going away anytime soon. For the globalist elites of America, it’s an entirely new era.
Robert W. Merry is a contributing editor at the National Interest and an author of books on American history and foreign policy.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
5) Obama's latest Israel Deal and AIPAC
By Caroline B. GlickThe Memorandum of Understanding that President Barack Obama concluded last
week with Israel regarding US military aid to Israel for the next decade is
classic Obama.
Since he entered office nearly eight years ago, Obama's foreign policy has
always sought to kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, his
policies are geared toward fundamentally transforming the US's global
posture. On the other, they work to weaken if not entirely neutralize his
congressional opponents at home.
The second goal is no mean task. After all, the US Constitution empowers
Congress with the foreign policy powers aimed at checking and balancing the
president's.
For instance, to ensure that no president could adopt foreign policies that
harm US national interests or undercut the will of the people, the
Constitution required that all treaties be approved by two-thirds of the
Senate before they can take effect.
Were it not for Obama's double tracked foreign policy, that constitutional
provision should have blocked Obama's radical and dangerous nuclear deal
with Iran. Understanding that he lacked not merely the support of two-thirds
of the Senate but of even a bare majority of senators for his deal, Obama
decided to sideline the Senate.
To this end, Obama speciously claimed that the deal was not significant
enough to be considered a treaty. The Iran deal of course is a more radical
course change than the US's approval of the UN Charter and the NATO Treaty.
The nuclear deal radically changes not only the US's policy toward Iran and
toward every nation, friend and foe, in the Middle East. As former
secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Schultz argued during the
nuclear negotiations, it upends 70 years of US nuclear policy, undermining
the foundations of the US's nonproliferation policies.
Obama and his advisers insisted that the deal was a mere presidential
agreement. In response to their absurd claim, Sen. Tom Cotton and 46 other
senators sent a letter to Iran's leaders informing them that since the deal
would not be brought before the Senate for a vote, the nuclear agreement
they were negotiating with the Obama administration would be binding neither
on Congress, nor on Obama's successor.
Cotton's letter prompted Obama to make yet another end run around Congress.
The day the agreement was concluded in Geneva, and even before lawmakers had
the chance to read it, the administration anchored the deal in a binding UN
Security Council resolution. The maneuver gave the nuclear deal the force of
international law.
Now, if Congress fails to respect the deal, or if Obama's successor disavows
it, the US will face the prospect of Iran arguing that it is free to build
bombs at will, since the US breached the deal.
Another congressional authority is the power of the purse. Throughout
Obama's two terms, Congress repeatedly used this power to implement foreign
policies he opposed in relation to both Iran and Israel. Over Obama's
objection, Congress repeatedly passed and upheld sanctions laws against Iran
for its illicit nuclear program and its support for terrorism.
As for Israel, Obama routinely sought to slash US funding for Israel's
missile defense programs. Congress in turn routinely over road him and
expanded US funding for Iron Dome and David's Sling.
This of course brings us to last week's Memorandum of Understanding. Just as
the Iran deal gutted the Senate's treaty approval authority, so the MoU
works to empty of meaning Congress's power of appropriation. Obama knows
full well that he cannot prevent Congress from appropriating supplemental
aid to Israel. So he forced Israel to agree to reject any supplemental
assistance Congress might wish to appropriate.
Not surprisingly, lawmakers are irate over his action.
Sen. Ted Cruz explained, "I... have significant concerns with aspects of the
MoU that attempt to restrict Congress's rights and responsibilities -
particularly our ability to appropriate additional funds as we and not the
executive branch deem consistent with the interests of the American people."
Congress isn't the only casualty of Obama's MoU.
The MoU strikes a body blow to AIPAC.
Since his first days in office, Obama has made a goal of weakening AIPAC.
First, Obama legitimized the anti-Israel Jewish lobby J Street. J Street's
purpose was to deny AIPAC the ability to claim that it speaks for the entire
American Jewish community and so render it inherently controversial.
Today J Street, the self-proclaimed "pro-Israel, pro-peace" outfit, is
lobbying the IRS to revoke the charitable status of American groups that
work to protect the civil and property rights of Jews in Judea and Samaria.
It is also working with Iran's lobby in Washington and Americans for Peace
Now to undermine Republican efforts to sanction Iran for its anti-US
aggression.
In 2013, Obama coerced AIPAC into lobbying Congress to support his
proclaimed plan to bomb Syrian-regime targets in response to the Assad
regime's use to chemical weapons. AIPAC's action were viewed by liberal
Democrats as proof that "the Israel lobby" was filled with warmongers.
It convinced Republicans that the group was the stooge of the
administration.
Having hung AIPAC out to dry, Obama proceeded to tear it to shreds when he
decided at the last minute to call off the air strikes.
Then of course there was the Iran deal. Obama spent a year and a half
pretending away the popular opposition to his nuclear diplomacy and
pretending that his only opponent was an all-powerful AIPAC, which worked at
the behest of a foreign government.
And now, he has signed the MoU.
For decades, AIPAC's bread and butter has been US aid to Israel. Indeed, the
strongest opponent of Netanyahu's announcement in 1997 that he wished to end
US aid to Israel was AIPAC.
AIPAC's role in lobbying aid bills through Congress has always been a
noncontroversial way for the group to build up its power and influence and
for members of Congress to exhibit their support for Israel. Since most
lawmakers support Israel and support providing military aid to Israel, the
vote is always an easy victory that gives it the aura of power and
influence.
For AIPAC, Obama's MoU is a disaster. In one fell swoop, he took away its
main lobbying operation, the one that it was guaranteed to succeed in
passing with massive bipartisan support. Following the deal, AIPAC will be
hard-pressed to maintain even a semblance of the power it held when Obama
entered into office.
Since the MoU was signed, Israeli media coverage has been dominated by
claims by leftist politicians such as former prime minister Ehud Barak that
if they were in charge, Obama would have agreed to give Israel much more
than the $3.8 billion per year Netanyahu came up with.
Given that their claims are entirely theoretical, there is absolutely no way
to know whether they are accurate. But what is clear is that taking
inflation into account, the new level of aid is not significantly higher
than the aid package approved by then-president George W. Bush 10 years ago.
The aid deal's main financial significance is found in its multi-year
lifespan. The deal's longevity mean that lawmakers and lobbyist won't be
able to wait it out.
A number of Israeli and American commentators have argued that despite its
drawbacks, Obama's MoU shows that at the end of the day, Obama really is
pro-Israel. After all, they argue, he didn't have to sign a deal. He could
have let his successor handle it.
But this of course fails to recognize the basic fact that US aid to Israel
was never in jeopardy. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump would reach a
deal. And if they failed to do so, Congress would simply appropriate the
assistance.
For Obama, the MoU isn't about securing military financing for Israel. The
aid is a means for him to achieve a different aim.
Administration and congressional sources warn that Obama wished to conclude
the MoU in the final months of his presidency to burnish his pro-Israel
credentials. He wants his pro-Israel bona fides intact as he enables the UN
Security Council to adopt an anti-Israel resolution just after the US
presidential election in November.
For the past year and a half, the French have been sitting on just such a
resolution. If passed, the French draft Security Council resolution will
require Israel to accept a deal with the Palestinians that would require it
to withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines with minor adjustments and partition
Jerusalem within 18 months or face the prospect of the nations of the world
recognizing a sovereign state of Palestine in a formal state of war with
Israel.
After the presidential election, the French draft can be pulled out for a
quick vote while US Ambassador Samantha Power is in the ladies room.
In the face of the congressional outcry that would follow, Obama can now
pull out the video of his meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
from Wednesday where Netanyahu thanked him profusely for the military aid
and praised his support for Israel.
So why did Netanyahu agree to the deal?
The answer is that it was his best option.
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