From a few years back...worth re-reading again...
"In early January 2014, Bob Lonsberry, a Rochester talk radio personality on WHAM 1180
AM, said this in response to Obama's "income inequality speech":
Two Americas
The Democrats are right, there are two Americas.
The America that works, and the America that doesn’t.
The America that contributes, and the America that doesn’t.
It’s not the haves and the have nots, it’s the do's and the don’ts.
Some people do their duty as Americans, obey the law, support themselves, contribute to
society, and others don’t.
That’s the divide in America.
It’s not about income inequality, it’s about civic irresponsibility.
It’s about a political party that preaches hatred, greed and victimization in order to win
elective office.
It’s about a political party that loves power more than it loves its country. That’s not invective,
that’s truth, and it’s about time someone said it.
The politics of envy was on proud display a couple weeks ago when President Obama
pledged the rest of his term to fighting “income inequality.”
He noted that some people make more than other people, that some people have higher
incomes than others, and he says that’s not just.
That is the rationale of thievery. The other guy has it, you want it, Obama will take it for you.
Vote Democrat.
That is the philosophy that produced Detroit. It is the electoral philosophy that is destroying
America.
It conceals a fundamental deviation from American values and common sense because it
ends up not benefiting the people who support it, but a betrayal.
The Democrats have not empowered their followers, they have enslaved them in a culture of
dependence and entitlement, of victim-hood and anger instead of ability and hope.
The president’s premise – that you reduce income inequality by debasing the successful –
seeks to deny the successful the consequences of their choices and spare the unsuccessful
the consequences of their choices.
Because, by and large, income variations in society is a result of different choices leading to
different consequences.
Those who choose wisely and responsibility have a far greater likelihood of success, while
those who choose foolishly and irresponsibly have a far greater likelihood of failure. Success
and failure usually manifest themselves in personal and family income.
You choose to drop out of high school or to skip college - and you are apt to have a different
outcome than someone who gets a diploma and pushes on with purposeful education.
You have your children out of wedlock and life is apt to take one course; you have them
within a marriage and life is apt to take another course.
Most often in life our destination is determined by the course we take.
My doctor, for example, makes far more than I do. There is significant income inequality
between us.
Our lives have had an inequality of outcome, but, our lives also have had an in equality of
effort.
While my doctor went to college and then devoted his young adulthood to medical school
and residency, I got a job in a restaurant.
He made a choice, I made a choice, and our choices led us to different outcomes.
His outcome pays a lot better than mine.
Does that mean he cheated and Barack Obama needs to take away his wealth?
No, it means we are both free men in a free society where free choices lead to different
outcomes.
It is not inequality Barack Obama intends to take away, it is freedom. The freedom to
succeed, and the freedom to fail.
There is no true option for success if there is no true option for failure.
The pursuit of happiness means a whole lot less when you face the punitive hand of
government if your pursuit brings you more happiness than the other guy.
Even if the other guy sat on his arse and did nothing. Even if the other guy made a lifetime’s
worth of asinine and shortsighted decisions.
Barack Obama and the Democrats preach equality of outcome as a right, while completely
ignoring inequality of effort.
The simple Law of the Harvest – as ye sow, so shall ye reap – is sometimes applied as, “The
harder you work, the more you get."
Obama would turn that upside down. Those who achieve are to be punished as enemies of
society and those who fail are to be rewarded as wards of society.
Entitlement will replace effort as the key to upward mobility in American society if Barack
Obama gets his way.
He seeks a lowest common denominator society in which the government besieges the
successful and productive to foster equality through mediocrity.
He and his party speak of two Americas, and their grip on power is based on using the votes
of one to sap the productivity of the other. America is not divided by the differences in our
outcomes, it is divided by the differences in our efforts.
It is a false philosophy to say one man’s success comes about unavoidably as the result of
another man’s victimization.
What Obama offered was not a solution, but a separatism.
He fomented division and strife, pitted one set of Americans against another for his own
political benefit.
That’s what socialists offer. Marxist class warfare wrapped up with a bow.
Two Americas, coming closer each day to proving the truth to Lincoln’s maxim that a house
divided against itself cannot stand."
1a) Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Brief Essay, “ OnStupidity "
Although he was in power for only a handful of years, Hitler and his Nazi government slaughtered millions. One of the more well-known victims of that slaughter was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed on April 8th, 1945, a few short weeks before Hitler’s own death.
Unlike many of Hitler’s victims, Bonhoeffer was not a Jew, but a Lutheran minister, scholar, and theologian who boldly spoke against Hitler’s policies. Bonhoeffer landed a position in the German government during WWII and subsequently used that position as cover for assassination attempts against Hitler.
While awaiting his own execution, Bonhoeffer recorded a number of his thoughts in a work we now know as Letters and Papers from Prison. One of these essays, entitled On Stupidity, records some of the problems which Bonhoeffer likely saw at work in Hitler’s rise to power:
“Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. … The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.”
Americans today might do well to heed Bonhoeffer’s warning.
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2) Byron York: A non-alarmist reading of the Mueller Russia Indictments
By Byron York
There's been no shortage of breathless reaction to Trump-Russia special prosecutor Robert Mueller's indictment of 13 Russians and three Russian organizations for their efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election. "An attack that — but for the loss of life — is as bad as Pearl Harbor," tweeted veteran journalist Jonathan Alter.
That's one way to look at it. Another is that, combining the 37-page indictment with testimony from social media executives before congressional intelligence committees — and there isn't much in the indictment that the intel committees didn't already know — the Russian operation, while warranting serious U.S. punishment, emerges as a small, poorly funded operation with a level of effectiveness that is impossible to measure but could be near zero.
The Russia operation has been discussed almost exclusively in terms of Donald Trump, but it did not start out that way. According to the indictment, it began in May 2014 with "the purpose of interfering with the U.S. political and electoral processes, including the presidential election of 2016."
The indictment says three of the Russian defendants traveled to the U.S. to "collect intelligence for their interference operations." That didn't seem to be a Trump-specific operation; one trip, a three-week visit, was in June 2014, the other, a four-day visit, was in November of the same year.
The group's work was done through social media — Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Most of it consisted of buying ads or posting messages and keeping track of their spread through the social media world.
The indictment quotes an unspecified Russian document saying the job was to create "political intensity through supporting radical groups, users dissatisfied with [the] social and economic situation and oppositional social movements." That involved focusing on angry fringes and hot-button issues: immigration, the Black Lives Matter movement, religion.
When attention turned to the 2016 race, the Russians "engaged in operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump."
Again, not Trump-specific. The goal seemed always to mess with Hillary Clinton, the presumed favorite to win the Democratic nomination and then the presidency. Everything else was improvised.
The intensified focus on Trump came, not surprisingly, as Trump emerged as the likely Republican nominee to challenge Clinton.
"From at least April 2016 through November 2016," the indictment says, "defendants and their co-conspirators, while concealing their Russian identities and organization affiliation through false personas, began to produce, purchase, and post advertisements on U.S. social media and other online sites expressly advocating for the election of then-candidate Trump or expressly opposing Clinton."
There's no evidence the Russians thought Trump had a chance to win, just like no U.S. political experts thought Trump had a chance to win. The goal was to harass Clinton — candidate Clinton and then President Clinton — with a modern, social-media version of old-fashioned Soviet disinformation campaigns.
The indictment is vague on what the Russians spent. It says that by September 2016, nearly the end of the campaign, the operation spent about $1.25 million a month. But in terms of what the Russians paid for social media ads, the indictment just says "thousands" of dollars every month.
The sums are rounding errors in a race in which the Clinton and Trump campaigns spent a combined $2.4 billion.
Facebook officials gave more details in statements and testimony before the Senate and House intelligence committees a few months ago. First, Facebook said the Russian operation bought about 3,000 ads, spending about $100,000 on Facebook and Instagram combined. That is compared to about $81 million the Clinton and Trump campaigns spent on Facebook and Instagram combined.
Facebook estimated about 11 million people saw at least one of the ads between 2015 and 2017. But that wasn't all before the election. Facebook said that of ad "impressions" — that is, how many times an ad appeared on screen in a person's news feed — just 44 percent came before the election, while 56 percent came after the election.
About 25 percent of the ads were never seen by anyone, Facebook said. And of the total ads, "The vast majority…didn't specifically reference the U.S. presidential election, voting or a particular candidate."
Looking at key states, the total spent on ads targeting Wisconsin was $1,979, according to Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Burr. Ad spending in Michigan was $823. In Pennsylvania, it was $300.
That is not the stuff of rigging elections.
Of course, Facebook is more than ads; the vast majority of the material on it is so-called organic content, produced by the people who use Facebook. The company estimates that a total of around 150 million people may have been "served content" from a page associated with the Russians during the two-year period before and after the election. That means that some Russian-produced content was visible on news feeds — not that Facebook users necessarily saw it or engaged with it.
"This equals about four-thousands of one percent (0.004%) of content in News Feed, or approximately 1 out of 23,000 pieces of content," Facebook executive Colin Stretch said in prepared testimony before the Senate last November.
The indictment says Russians used the fake Facebook accounts they created to team with unwitting Americans to stage a few real-world, pro-Trump events in Florida, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. A few days after the election, the Russians staged two rallies in New York — one to support the president-elect and another headlined "Trump is NOT my President." It was the original Russian goal of disruption applied to new — and very unexpected — circumstances.
All Americans should be grateful that the Mueller team has gone after the Russian interference project. Russia needs to be prevented from doing it again, and also not allowed to get better at it.
But that doesn't mean the Russian interference outlined in the new indictment amounted to a lot. It didn't.
And it is something that can be combated in a variety of ways. Facebook already reports much progress in detecting and eliminating fake accounts, which is precisely what the Russians relied on. The company, and other social media platforms, will likely make more improvements in the future.
And, despite much speculation that President Trump is doing nothing to prevent future Russian efforts, there seems little doubt the U.S. intelligence community is working on counter-measures and is already in a better position to combat interference than in the last election.
Of course, there's more to the 2016 Russian effort than the conduct outlined in the new indictment. The charges do not cover, for example, the Russian hacks of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, which could become the subject of future indictments.
So there is more to learn. But as far as the new indictment is concerned, there is good reason to stay calm. It's not Pearl Harbor, in any way, shape, or form.
2a)Breaking Mueller Indicts Another
An attorney who worked for a prominent law firm was charged with making false statements to federal authorities as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential election.
Washington with lying to investigators about conversations related to a report he helped prepare on the trial of a Ukrainian politician, Yulia Tymoshenko. Van Der Zwaan was charged with a criminal information, which typically precedes a guilty plea.
Van Der Zwaan, identified on his LinkedIn page as an associate in the London office of Skadden, Arps, Slate Meagher & Flom, was questioned regarding the firm’s work in 2012 on behalf of the Ukraine Ministry of Justice. He allegedly lied to investigators about his last communications with Richard Gates, who was indicted in October with ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort over their consulting work in Ukraine.
The lawyer also allegedly lied about his talks with someone else, referred to by the government as "Person A.” Van Der Zwaan deleted and failed to produce emails sought by the special counsel and a law firm, prosecutors said.
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4) What A Fabulous Time To Shake Up Israel's Government
By Rabbi/Prof Dov Fischer
Just in case no one in Israel has noticed, Iran recently flew a drone into Israel. The Islamo-Nazis are probing Israel’s defenses. They want to wipe Israel off the map.
Israel responded rapidly and forcefully — and with fierce effectiveness — but an Israeli fighter plane went down. Israel immediately obliterated twelve critical military sites in Syria, taking out a major aspect of Syrian air defenses, and going frontally against Iran in Syria.
Simultaneously, Israel signaled to Vladimir Putin that no one in Israel wants trouble with the Russians — and thank you, by the way, for the centuries of your Jew-hatred under Tsars and Communists that helped bequeath us with so many of Israel’s best citizens and advanced-technology geniuses — but Israel can stare down Russians, too.
Then the Gaza border fence held hidden bombs that severely wounded two IDF soldiers and a rocket was launched. Israel responded forcefully.
So isn’t this a fabulous time for Israel’s media and leftists to shake up the nation’s government and defense apparatus? What a perfect moment to signal to the Ayatollahs, Assad, and Putin that Israel is rife with internal turmoil! Perhaps we can bring back Ehud Olmert and Amir Peretz to mastermind the national defense. Was it a leftist campus Conservative Rabbi at Hillel who said: “If not now, when?”
Yes, it is very important that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut down on his cigars. And too much pink champagne could give him a red nose. But, uh, just in case no one noticed. . . .
These guys in the Islamist Arab and Persian worlds wait for this stuff. They are like the lion quietly waiting for the giraffe to bend down on its powerful legs and sip water. That is when they pounce for the instant kill. An Anwar Sadat does not make war with a Menachem Begin. Rather, a Sadat sees his moment when a nice grandmother-type, a bubbe like Golda Meir, is the Prime Minister and tells him in a much quoted line that she completely forgives him for killing her children, just has trouble dealing with his making her teach her children to learn life-or-death self-defense. That is when they strike. They attack the Bubbe. They wait for a labor hack like Amir Peretz who gets the Defense Ministry portfolio as a union payoff for delivering votes. They don’t start up with Begin, with Sharon.
It is the same in America. The Communists tested a young John Kennedy by shipping Soviet missiles into his backyard. They test a joker like Jimmy Carter, beating him everywhere in the world. They run amok on an Obama and Kerry, creating new terror groups and spreading their murder globally. But they do not mess with a Ronald Reagan — because Crazy Reagan will drop a bomb on their tents and kill their harems of wives. Even a Bush, if pressed, will see them hanged.
Yes, sometimes the political head of a country must be removed. Hitler. Stalin. Tsars. Ayatollahs. Of course those. Also the Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt.
And sometimes even non-murderous political leaders are so utterly corrupt, so bereft of any conscience, so tainted and devoid of morality, that they just have to be locked up, like the Clintons in America, traitors who allowed Putin and his allies to gain access to American plutonium reserves even as Bill Clinton was pocketing $500,000 around the same time for a speech in the the Russian orbit. (That must have been some speech!) Crooks and Arkansas hillbillies who, when they left the White House after their eight years and two terms there, Bill and Hillary actually stole some of the American people’s furniture with them for their new home. One day yet, an honest prosecutor will catch up with them.
But does Israel really want to shake up its political leadership right now, with the possibility of transferring power to less experienced and less intimidating leaders at the helm, because Netanyahu got cigars, champagne, and maybe some jewelry from the kinds of people he befriended? Think back to the Ehud Olmerts and that Gang of Incompetents who truly brought about massive loss of Jewish life simply by their failures and inadequacies during the Hezbollah war. If Israel wants ethically, morally pristine leaders, does Israel really want a return to the likes of Ehud Barak, who not only presided over the Creation and Flowering of the Intifada, the burning of the Kever Yosef structure, the Bloody Hands lynch at Ramallah — but whose own ethics deserve a good look?
Remember Ehud Barak? Want to talk about corruption? President Bill Clinton pardoned a corrupt financial wheeler-dealer, Marc Rich — whose very existence on this earth brought shame and humiliation to the Jewish People. He was so corrupt that he fled from America rather than face justice. Why did Bill Clinton pardon that crook? When Americans reacted in outrage, demanding to know why, Clinton explained that he simply was doing a favor for a friend, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who had pleaded with him to pardon Rich.
So Netanyahu asked the Americans to give a visa to a Jewish billionaire or two, James Packer and the producer Arnon Milchan (who actually produces major blockbuster movies in America like “Pretty Woman,” “Twelve Years a Slave,” and “JFK”), doing something that any Israeli Prime Minister would do for any Israeli billionaire who requests a word from high-up to get him a visa, so he can make more money, which will redound to Israel’s national financial benefit. What is wrong with that? All politicians do that. Has no one ever heard the expression: “It’s not what you know; It’s who you know.” Or “Vitamin P – Protektzia.” It is the first “Hebrew word” that new immigrants to Israel are taught at Ulpan (Hebrew language class).
We may wish that the righteous would get all the honors, glory, and political favors on this earth. But we know how the earth works. It is a shame that people do not rise solely based on merit and qualities of character. But that is the world. Donald Trump is the President. Ivanka is his daughter. A guy married that daughter. Now that guy is a White House advisor and Middle East negotiator. Protektzia.
Clinton was President. His wife helped him get rid of the woman every time he sexually abused another woman, and she shared as his partner in crime. Literally. So she got to be a United States Senator. Then she got to run for President. Protektzia. John Kennedy was President of the United States. So his brother, Robert, got to be Attorney-General and later a United States Senator. That is how it works. Vitamin P.
Barack Obama initially had friends like basic local Chicago Jew-haters: the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Minister Louis Farrakhan. Then he got a little bit important in Illinois, so he started getting big payoffs from “friends.” His wife suddenly got a $300,000 hospital job that was eliminated soon after she moved on. A crook named Tony Rezko — eventually convicted on 16 charges and sentenced to more than ten years in prison — arranged for Obama to buy a house at $300,000 less than its fair market value. And Obama did favors for Rezko. Ah, the joy of friends! And instead of indicting Obama, they made him President. So Obama threw his old pals and the Jew-hating pastor who married him under the bus, and Obama made new friends that had better presents. A friend in need is a friend indeed — especially when the deed is to the property next door to the crook.
Y’know how kids wear those T-shirts that say: “My parents visited Hawaii, and all I got was this crummy T-shirt”? Bibi should get a T-shirt that says: “Ehud Barak did favors for Marc Rich / Obama got a $300,000 discount on a house / His wife got a $300,000 “Job” / And all I got were some crummy cigars and champagne.”
Here is a secret, so please don’t tell anyone — just between us: In modern-day Western democracies, it costs a fortune to run in a free democratic election for head of government — whether to be President of the United States, Prime Minister of Britain or France or Israel. They have to raise millions. Do you know who they raise it from? (Rember, please: This is our secret.) Not from the homeless. Not from the leper colonies. They raise the money from billionaires who have the money. Therefore, every such political leader is in bed with gazillionaires. Behind closed doors, they schnorr and beg. And in time, because they are pursuing the same things — money, luxuries, and some ideology — they become friends of sorts. It is the same reason that so many celebrities marry other celebrities: they hang out together, socialize in the same circles, spend money on the same vanities.
So Bibi Netanyahu hangs out and buddies with the likes of Arnon Milchan and James Packer. What a surprise! Then they come to his home, perhaps for a dinner with the Prime Minister of Israel. What does a gazillionaire in Israel give his host, the Prime Minister of Israel, when he comes for dinner? A bottle of Manischewitz? A box of assorted Wissotzky tea bags? A gift basket of Bissli, Bamba, a Krembo, and Elite wafers? A wooden cutting board? “Here, Sara, you will really love this wood board. It is great for cutting cheese on crackers. Also for slicing vegetables.”
So of course they give him expensive exotic gifts like fancy cigars! The only cigars Israel is known for are the thin Moroccan beef appetizers. Of course they gave him fancy champagne. Big deal! And of course he makes a call to John Kerry to do a favor for a friend who needs a visa.
One can only hope and pray that Attorney-General Mandelblit will have the wisdom to drop this nonsense and that the Prime Minister will use this brush with political insanity to learn that his own political time is winding down, as all political epochs do. With this wisdom and awareness that time is not endless, one can only hope that Bibi will see that that his enemies in Israel will stop at nothing, that his best friends are those who support Israel’s rights to Judea and Samaria, and that he finally will leverage this rare moment in history when his fellow head of government in America is a real friend of his and of Israel, to launch an historic legacy of building and new construction in Judea and Samaria while the gate of opportunity still is open.
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