https://www.youtube.com/watch?
And:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
If liberals say it they think it must be so because facts escape them and their lack of logic is tied to emotion.
You cannot have civil discourse with most liberals because they cannot support their beliefs with facts and cogent thinking. They resort to name calling, identity politics and yes, hate and racial and ethnic prejudice.
They also have a tendency to project their specious facts on others in order to shift blame etc.
This is one reason why rational debate and solving solutions is virtuously impossible and why, when Democrats are in control, they perpetuate the problems because it is vote connected and when they're out of office they blame the opposition while resisting any effort to co-operate. They have been allowed to have it both ways.
It is all about tactics, winning votes and getting re-elected. They are driven by hypocrisy and it shows throughout the year and culminates in a powerful reminder on Oscar night.
Based on what is going on in la La Land, liberals apparently care more about protecting, so called, rights of illegals than protecting American citizens.
As long as liberals hold onto their desire to obstruct, and play to the irrational and disaffected very little will be accomplished by way of constructive legislation or solution solving.. (See 4 below.)
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Not sure I totally agree. You decide for yourself.
https://
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Winny was not a whiner. (See 1 below.)
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Iranian nuclear status growing closer? (See 2 below.)
Let them fight it out. (See 2a below.)
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This from one of my father's law partners in response to the joke I posted about the lady who sold pretzels.
"Dick, your story below about the older lady selling pretzels brought to mind one of your father’s stories about a rental house he owned. The house was occupied by an elderly black man who visited your father monthly to explain why he couldn’t pay the rent. Your father always told him to pay when he was able, but never asked him to leave. Finally, after a couple of years of these monthly visits, the tenant came in and announced that he was moving. When your father asked why, the tenant explained, “I found a cheaper place. M---"
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Hillary staffer goes to CIPAC and receives a warm reception. (See 3 below.)
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Schumer the racist. (See 4 below.)
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Comment on Avi's book: https://www.israel21c.org/?p=
++++++++++++++++++++++++Dick
Iranian nuclear status growing closer? (See 2 below.)
Let them fight it out. (See 2a below.)
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This from one of my father's law partners in response to the joke I posted about the lady who sold pretzels.
"Dick, your story below about the older lady selling pretzels brought to mind one of your father’s stories about a rental house he owned. The house was occupied by an elderly black man who visited your father monthly to explain why he couldn’t pay the rent. Your father always told him to pay when he was able, but never asked him to leave. Finally, after a couple of years of these monthly visits, the tenant came in and announced that he was moving. When your father asked why, the tenant explained, “I found a cheaper place. M---"
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Hillary staffer goes to CIPAC and receives a warm reception. (See 3 below.)
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Schumer the racist. (See 4 below.)
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Comment on Avi's book: https://www.israel21c.org/?p=
++++++++++++++++++++++++Dick
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1)
Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' speech as prophetic -- and chilling -- today as it was 72 years ago
By Lee Cohen
Monday marks the anniversary of the delivery of a critical address by one of the most important figures of our time: Winston Churchill’s “Sinews of Peace” speech. This stirring oration delivered on March 5, 1946 at Fulton, Missouri, in the presence of President Truman, was vitally important to defining events and inspiring sentiment unique to the time, but its messages have significance and lessons far beyond.
Known colloquially as “the Iron Curtain Speech,” this event had an important impact on framing the primordial threat to world peace in the post-World War II period – the Cold War – and to focusing attention on the leading global alliance motivated to protect world peace, the Anglo-American Special Relationship.
In the speech, Churchill sounds a chilling warning to the West to be vigilant against the gathering clouds in Europe: “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent…seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control.” Worse still, he cautions as to the acquisition of nuclear weapons in the hands of our enemies.
He reminds us with an authority no one else could have that, “Last time [World War II] I saw it all coming and cried aloud to my fellow countrymen and the world, but no one paid attention…It could have been prevented, in my belief, without the firing of a single shot… but no one would listen, and one by one we were all sucked into the awful whirlpool.”
Even with his legacy of having saved the free world, and his great oration, Churchill’s speech earned scorn from many sides, unsurprisingly fueled by the media, both American and British.
The great war leader went on to outline his hope for the outcomes of the Marshall Plan and the formation of global organizations committed to peace-keeping. The subsequent history of these, one fears, would have left Churchill sadly disappointed. Of particular note, the United Nations and the European Union, with their sovereignty-leeching tendencies to stifle nation states and great bi-lateral friendships such as that of the U.S. and United Kingdom, would have confounded as well as disappointed Churchill.
Notably, he coined a phrase in this speech, “THE Special Relationship”—referring to the Anglo-American alliance— which suggests the importance it deserves. At Fulton, Churchill highlighted the need, for the whole world, of our great alliance—a relationship based upon a compassionate world view underpinned by “the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world,” undergirded by the resources of our combined military might.
While he would have been let down by the trajectory of many global organizations, Churchill would have been reassured by the achievements of the Special Relationship, which endures to help stabilize the world, notwithstanding new global threats and all manner of heads of government in both countries.
Indeed, thank heaven for a bi-lateral alliance that has not only the strength, but the resolve to take on the world’s great menaces, undeterred by the voices of protest.
If not for leadership like that of Churchill, and Reagan and Thatcher after him, freedom would surely not prevail today.
What if, for instance, Churchill had bent to public opinion favoring appeasement in Britain before she entered the war? The period of darkness and inhumanity unleashed by the Nazis likely would have penetrated the whole world, including our own shores.
Even with his legacy of having saved the free world, and his great oration, Churchill’s speech earned scorn from many sides, unsurprisingly fueled by the media, both American and British. The New York Times said Churchill had painted "a dark picture of post-war Europe." He was accused after the speech for positing “poisonous doctrines” that were tagged as alarmist, racist, and imperialist. Even Truman initially backed away, but once again, under Stalin’s leadership, events proved Churchill prophetic.
Contemporary detractors wail against the American Exceptionalism embodied by President Trump’s approach and protest on the streets of San Francisco and elsewhere. In the UK socialist-embracing Corbynistas and American Sandersites wail against capitalism and free markets and wring their hands over holding our enemies in the Middle East and North Korea to account.
Happily good sense still prevails in some quarters. The stirring new film “Darkest Hour” is an example. It portrays for a new generation Churchill’s stand against the whirlwind of adversity and reminds us just how close we came to losing everything we fight for. And for its part, Fulton, Missouri, has a museum dedicated to the inspiring statesman.
In the end, Churchill’s instincts were right—about nearly everything that counts. Thank you, Winston for Fulton and for your courage and resolve.
Lee Cohen is a Senior Fellow in Western European Affairs at the London Center for Policy Research, and the New York Director of the Anglosphere Society. He was formerly the Director of the Congressional United Kingdom Caucus.
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2)'Iran can resume nuclear enrichment to 20% purity in 2 days'
TEHRAN TIMES,
TEHRAN – Behrooz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said on Monday that Tehran can resume enriching uranium to the purity of 20 percent in less than two days.
2)'Iran can resume nuclear enrichment to 20% purity in 2 days'
TEHRAN TIMES,
TEHRAN – Behrooz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said on Monday that Tehran can resume enriching uranium to the purity of 20 percent in less than two days.
“We are able to return to the former state and even to a new state several times better than the previous one. For example, we can take action in less than 48 hours if we want to enrich to the purity of 20 percent,” Kamalvandi asserted.
“We can speed up enrichment by new machines,” Kamalvandi told Al-Alam News Network.
Kamalvandi said in January that Tehran will increase its uranium enrichment activities with a speed far much higher than the time before it struck the nuclear deal with great powers.
According to the 2015 nuclear agreement, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran agreed to put limits on its nuclear work in exchange for termination of economic and financial sanctions. The agreement went into force in January 2016.
The deal was signed between Iran, the European Union, Germany and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council including the United States in July 2015.
Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi also said in August 2017 that Iran can resume uranium enrichment to the purity of 20 percent in five days in the Fordow plant if necessary.
‘Trump will not dare pull out of nuclear deal’
Kamalvandi also said that U.S. President Donald Trump is not brave enough to pull out of the nuclear deal.
“If one intends to do something, there is no reason to just talk about it,” he said.
However, he said that Iran has various options if the U.S. quits the JCPOA.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to pull out of the deal. In his new policy declared on January 12, Trump gave Congress and European allies four months to fix what he claims “disastrous flaws” in the deal otherwise he will withdraw the U.S. from it.
2a) Let Rouhani and Khamenei Fight
By Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh
It’s in America’s interest for the Iranian regime’s bitter power struggle to intensify further.
Iran’s Islamic revolutionaries criticize each other regularly, but recently the level of invective among the ruling elite has reached new heights. The vicious infighting between President Hassan Rouhani and his detractors now threatens the governing edifice of the Islamic Republic. Given the clerical regime’s aggressive foreign policy and nuclear ambitions, it is in America’s interest to see this power struggle intensify.
During the pro-democracy demonstrations in 2009, most of the Iranian ruling class, including Mr. Rouhani, rallied around Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader. In the wake of the smaller but more widespread provincial protests that started last December, revolutionary elites appear divided. These contesting factions are further delegitimizing the state they are trying to save.
This is a contest for power, not ideals. Mr. Rouhani surely is not seeking to liberalize the political system and make it more accountable to the citizenry. A founding father of the theocratic regime who remains deeply implicated in many of its worst crimes, Mr. Rouhani seeks to make the economy work without structural reforms that would free it from clerical control. He hopes that Western investment can help Iran’s corrupt, mismanaged economy grow.
Mr. Rouhani has now transformed himself into a democrat and populist, albeit a deeply cynical one. Taking a swipe at Iran’s unelected leaders, he recently insisted that “elections are the only means to govern” and “criticism and protest are the people’s right.” The defiant president has called for a referendum on democracy: “When the revolution happened, we were all together aboard the train of the revolution; some of us decided to get off the train; others we forced off whom we should not have. All should be invited back on the ‘success and a victorious revolution’ train.”
Then there’s the mysterious leak of video from a 1989 Assembly of Experts meeting. The group, which chooses the supreme leader of Iran, was weighing whether to approve Mr. Khamenei’s ascension to the post. “Pity an Islamic society,” Mr. Khamenei confesses in the video, “if even the possibility is raised that someone like me can be its leader.” It is hard not to see the hands of the president and his allies behind this humiliation.
The same is true for the recent budget disclosure, which showed higher-than-expected funds going to the detested virtue police and conservative religious foundations allied with Mr. Khamenei. Mr. Rouhani and his allies appear to be trying to chip away at the regime, but their opponents nonetheless command the country’s most powerful institutions: the office of the supreme leader, the judiciary, the Revolutionary Guards and vigilante groups that often terrorize their critics. The conservative press has mocked the idea of a referendum, while belittling Mr. Rouhani for relying on Westerners to rescue the economy.
The supreme leader has warned that “the enemy is waiting for an opportunity. He is waiting for the emergence of a rift through which he can infiltrate the country.” In an even more stern rebuke, Revolutionary Guard commander Qasem Soleimani warned Mr. Rouhani, “I find it unfortunate that some who are self-styled as followers of the path of the Imam don’t write an open letter to the Global Arrogance (America) but write open letters to the standing [supreme] leader.”
Mr. Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards harbor their own vision of economic empowerment—the “resistance economy.” They want to jump-start the economy while relying less on Western commerce. Their plan calls for more use of the country’s internal markets and trade with culturally nonthreatening countries like Iraq and Central and East Asian states.
For Mr. Khamenei, Western sanctions revealed that dependence on foreign commerce is a country-crippling vulnerability. Mr. Rouhani differs, seeing the nuclear deal as the gravestone of American-European cooperation against Iran. For him, more European investment will divide the West, neutralizing the more hawkish U.S. Mr. Khamenei and his disciples aren’t enchanted, as Mr. Rouhani is, with the China model, in which autocracy, capitalism and a certain cultural permissiveness coexist. They don’t see China’s vibrant economy and growing military power; they see a regime that has forfeited its ideological inheritance.
Neither Mr. Rouhani’s pragmatic revolutionaries nor Mr. Khamenei and his allies can win this power struggle. The president may be able to agitate government and society, but he cannot reinvent himself as an opposition leader. He is merely strengthening a national narrative that has already rejected clerical rule.
The supreme leader and his supporters can thwart Mr. Rouhani’s legislative agenda and his attempt to refashion the economy. But given their contempt for democracy and their ease with corruption, they cannot rebuild the regime’s battered legitimacy. As the clerical oligarchs plot against one another, the system is likely to grind to a halt. The result of this factional fight is paralysis at a time when the theocracy is facing popular disaffection, economic decline and imperial overstretch.
The White House can crack the regime. Pushback—any pushback—against Tehran’s gains in Syria would help, as would a tidal wave of sanctions against the Revolutionary Guards. The president can also use his bully pulpit and economic sanctions aggressively to expose and punish the regime’s tyrannical behavior.
The potential for a democratic transition exists in Iran, where such aspirations have been growing for over 100 years. As regime-shaking street protests have repeatedly revealed, the country is a volcano. We want it to erupt. For the U.S. and the Middle East, sooner is better than later.
Mr. Gerecht is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
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3) A Hillary Staffer Goes to CPAC
‘Try not to get killed,’ a friend warned. But I was greeted with open arms.
By Annafi Wahed
‘Make sure to check in with us!” one friend told me. “Try not to get killed,” another warned. I wasn’t off to a war zone or a spy mission in Moscow. I was riding a bus from New York to Washington to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference.
To be sure, I’m a tiny, talkative South Asian woman who spent four months on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign staff. I wasn’t exactly in my element surrounded by people in “Make America Great Again” hats chanting “Lock her up! Lock her up!“ But there was more to CPAC than that. In four days, I spoke with more than 100 conservatives, most of whom greeted me with open arms and thanked me for being there and having an open mind. They happily engaged me in meaningful political conversation and invited me for drinks and after-parties.
Where some saw a circus, I saw a big tent. I spoke with Jennifer C. Williams, chairman of the Trenton, N.J., Republican Committee and a transgender activist. Twenty feet away, I spoke with a religious leader who opposes same-sex marriage. While a panelist touted capital punishment, several attendees crowded the Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty booth. Hours after President Trump recast Oscar Brown Jr. ’s song “The Snake” as an ugly anti-immigrant parable, several influential Republicans were asking me, a naturalized citizen, how they can support my startup.
In retrospect, I’m embarrassed at how nervous I was when I arrived. I found myself singing along to “God Bless the USA” with a hilariously rowdy group of college Republicans, having nuanced discussions about gun control and education policy with people from all walks of life, nodding my head in agreement with parts of Ben Shapiro’s speech, and coming away with a greater determination to burst ideological media bubbles.
Among liberals, conservatives have a reputation for being closed-minded, even deplorable. But in the Washington Republicans I encountered at CPAC, I found a group of people who acknowledged their party’s shortcomings, genuinely wondered why I left my corporate job to join Mrs. Clinton’s campaign in 2016, and listened to my arguments before defending their own positions.
Although CPAC attendees were as passionate about policy as my liberal friends, they took a more lighthearted approach. At one after-party, they alternated between taking selfies with Milo Yiannopoulos and engaging in a thoughtful, substantive discussion with a Democrat. One notable exchange: I exclaimed, “Of course the Department of Education is necessary!” which drew the rejoinder, “Great! Let’s make 50 of them!”
As I look back on all the people who greeted me warmly, made sure I didn’t get lost in the crowd, and went out of their way to introduce me to their friends, I can’t help but wonder how a Trump supporter would have fared at a Democratic rally. Would someone wearing a MAGA hat be greeted with smiles or suspicion, be listened to or shouted down?
At Hillary rallies, we always filled the stands with our biggest supporters. At CPAC, most of the few liberals in attendance had media credentials, as I did. I’m new to this, but shouldn’t we want to engage with people who aren’t convinced of our viewpoints? Why aren’t there more conservatives at Democratic rallies and more liberals at CPAC? What are we afraid of?
Ms. Wahed is founder of TheFlipSide.io, a daily digest of liberal and conservative commentary.
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4)DENNIS PRAGER: ‘THE LEFT IS THE MOST
RACIST MOVEMENT SINCE THE NAZIS’
“Would Chuck Schumer like to see fewer Jews in the judiciary so that the judiciary looked like the American population?” asked Dennis Prager on Friday’s edition of his eponymous radio show.
Prager’s comments came in response to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) opposition to a federal judicial nominee on the basis of the nominee being white.
Schumer further advocated for the implementation of racial and ethnic quotas within federal judicial nominations. Merit should be subverted in pursuit of “diversity,” he suggested, calling for the nomination of more female and “non-white” nominees on the basis of sex, race, and ethnicity. The federal judiciary should “[start] looking a lot more like the America it represents,” said Schumer during a Wednesday Senate session:
The nomination of Marvin Quattlebaum speaks to the overall lack of diversity in President Trump’s selection for the Federal judiciary. Mr. Quattlebaum replaces not one but two scuttled Obama nominees who were African American. As of February 14, 83 percent of President Trump’s confirmed nominees were male; 92 percent were White. That represents the lowest share of non-White candidates in three decades.
It is long past time that the judiciary starts looking a lot more like the America it represents. Having a diversity of views and experience on the Federal bench is necessary for the equal administration of justice. After years of improvement, the Trump administration, as in so many other areas, is taking a giant step backward–this time, when it comes to the diversity of their nominations. I will be voting no on the Quattlebaum nomination.
Following Schumer’s quota-based logic, Prager asked if the share of Jews within the judiciary should be reduced in pursuit of proportionate ethnic representation:
I wonder, if [Chuck Schumer] thinks [the judiciary] should look like America — I’m just curious, since I’m a Jew, I can ask this question, because if a non-Jew asked this he’d be accused of anti-Semitism — so I would like to know, I’ll bet you that the proportion of judges who are Jewish is greater than the proportion of Jews in the society. Would Chuck Schumer like to see fewer Jews in the judiciary so that the judiciary looked like the American population? Is that an unfair question? I’m serious, is it unfair? If he’s serious about what he said, does he think Asians overrepresent? Does he feel this way about sports?
Having members of one’s race represented politically or within the government does not afford one tangible benefits, said Prager:
So what does that mean exactly? The judiciary is supposed to racially reflect the racial composition of American life? And why, exactly? Why is that a ideal that it looks like the American people? What benefit is there? [The left] speaks constantly of a racist society and the problems of the black underclass — which is a problem worth speaking about, incidentally. So I always ask, “Name me one benefit that having all the black mayors and all the black congressmen that we have has accrued to black life.” I would like to know one single tangible benefit.
There are virtually — I’ve always pointed this out — no Asian congressmen, Asian governors, Asia judges — well, maybe some Asian judges — and they are the most successful community in the United States of America. … There is zero correlation between having your race represented in Congress or the judiciary and benefits to your race. Zero. This is all a fraudulent appeal to pure racial thought in the United States. The left is the most racist movement since the Nazis. I’m not comparing the left to Nazis, they’re not opening up death camps, they’re not rounding up people to send to gas chambers, I’m totally aware of that, and nothing in imputed in what I just said to suggest that. I’m merely stating a fact. The most racist doctrine since Nazism is modern leftism. That’s it. This is how they think. They think in terms of race.
Prager regularly describes the left as subscribing to a political trinity of race, gender, and class.
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