Why Democrat Prospects Logically Should Be Bleak In 2018 But Why They Probably Are Not. Why Bibi Visited Putin Again. New America and Consequences.

 "As an American I am not so shocked that Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize without any accomplishments to his name, but that America gave him the White House based on the same credentials."  - - -  Newt Gingrich,  10-31-09

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One would think decades of bankrupt Democrat, liberal and progressive policies, their more recent petulant display of pique and inability to accept the election results followed by their current acts of obstruction would, by now, have turned enough Americans off to make Democrat prospects in 2018 rather bleak.

The problem has to do with party loyalty that borders on enslavement. Black voters cannot disengage because too many are incapable of thinking for themselves. Hispanics are less committed but they do need to be cultivated in ways beyond the grasp of Republicans. Soccer mom's, one would think, are rational enough to understand their emotional voting has not served their family's well and the youth of this country are either too lazy to vote or too immature to understand why Socialism is worse than the Iran Deal.

Trump is making some progress on many fronts but if Republicans cannot construct a winning message out of the many gifts Trump has given them and nominate candidates that are appealing they deserve to lose tragic as that may be for the nation.
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With respect to Netanyahu, he and Putin get along fairly well. Bibi's problem is that Israel's needs conflict with Putin's on occasion and this is why Netanyahu seeks to prevent Russia blocking Israel's ability to defend itself at the cost of Russia's military deaths.

Putin has no love for Iran, nor Iran for Russia but Iran is doing some of Putin's dirty work by causing problems for America's regional allies. Bibi needs to get Putin to allow Israel a free hand when it comes to curbing Iranian strategic gains in the region. It is a very dicey game and this is why Bibi paid another visit to Putin. .(See 1 below.)

Israel takes gloves off and responds to attack. (See 1b below.)

More Iran deal commentary:

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/iran/iran-deal-change-the-world-nukes/+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The war on wisdom. (See 2 below.)

And

Hanson on The West. (See 2a below.)
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Some humor. (See 3 below.)

And

The Juggler

Finally:

This is our new America and the consequences according to Walter Williams. (See 3a and 3b below.)
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Dick
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1)

NETANYAHU MEETS PUTIN IN MOSCOW, ATTENDS VICTORY DAY CEREMONY

"In light of what is happening in Syria at this moment, it is necessary to ensure the continued security coordination between the Russian army and the Israel Defense Forces."

BY JULIANE HELMHOLD

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin and Serbian President Alexander Vujcic at a parade in Moscow's Red Square commemorating the 73rd anniversary of the Russian victory over Nazi Germany on Wednesday.

President Putin had personally invited Prime Minister Netanyahu to participate alongside him in the events of Russia's annual victory day.Following the parade, the leaders attended a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in memory of soldiers of the Red Army who fell in the Second World War whose burial place is unknown. An honor guard was held at the site and the countries' anthems were played.The leaders then proceeded to take part in a reception at the Kremlin marking the holiday with the participation of dozens of veterans.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Victory Day parade in Moscow, 
Speaking ahead of the trip to Russia, Netanyahu said: "I am leaving for an important meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Our meetings are always important and this is especially important.

"In light of what is happening in Syria at this moment, it is necessary to ensure the continued security coordination between the Russian army and the Israel Defense Forces."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Victory Day parade in Moscow,

Part of an annual event marking the Soviet Union's World War Two victory over the Nazis, Putin looked on as thousands of troops marched past him and columns of tanks rumbled across the famous square in a show of military might reminiscent of those displayed during the Cold War.

The authorities, backed by state media, use the event to boost patriotic feeling and show the world and potential buyers of military hardware how a multi-billion dollar modernisation program is changing the face of the Russian military.

Putin, whose relations with the West are on a hostile trajectory, has said he does not want an arms race while warning potential enemies that his country has developed a new generation of invincible weapons to protect itself just in case.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Victory Day parade in Moscow, 

"We remember the tragedies of the two world wars, about the lessons of history which do not allow us to become blind. The same old ugly traits are appearing along with new threats: egoism, intolerance, aggressive nationalism and claims to exceptionalism," Putin told the parade.

"We understand the full seriousness of those threats," added Putin, who complained about what he said were unacceptable attempts to rewrite history while saying Russia was open to talks on global security if they helped keep world peace.

Putin has sharply increased military spending over the 18 years he has dominated Russian politics, handed the Russian military significant policy-making clout, and deployed Russian forces in Ukraine and Syria, stoking tensions with the West.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Victory Day parade in Moscow 

As commander-in-chief, he has also at times donned military uniform himself and been filmed at the controls of a strategic bomber and on the conning tower of a submarine in photo opportunities designed to boost his man of action image.

Weapons displayed on Red Square included Russia's Yars mobile intercontinental nuclear missile launcher, its Iskander-M ballistic missile launchers, and its advanced S-400 air defense missile system, which Moscow has deployed in Syria to protect Assad's forces.

Reuters contributed to this report.

1b)

Israel drops ambiguity, claims major gains after intense Syria strikes

By TAL LEV RAM/MAARIV

"For several weeks we have been conducting a large-scale operation with the aim of disrupting a strike by the [Iranian Revolutionary Guard's] Quds Force," said IDF spokesperson Brig-Gen. Ronen Manelis revealed in a briefing with military reporters Thursday morning. "We have acted several times in the face of Iranian ticking time bombs."

In a dramatic escalation of Israeli-Iranian tensions, Israel struck dozens of Iranian targets in Syria after 20 rockets were fired towards Israel’s front defensive line in the Golan Heights early Thursday morning.

"Last night the Quds Force carried out an attack, a most serious attempt to attack Israel," Manelis said.

However, he said, the Iranians were not able to achieve their objective. "Some 20 rockets were fired, and not one fell in Israeli territory," he said. "Iron Dome intercepted the rockets. There are no injuries and no damage was caused to IDF positions."

"This is an achievement for the Israeli operation that aimed to disrupt and prevent the other side's achievement of their goals, and we can sum this up as a success," Manelis said. "It was impudence on the part of the Quds Force and Qassem Soleimani."

"Last night, the IDF conducted dozens of strikes against Iranian targets in Syria. This is the largest Israeli strike for decades. Dozens of targets belonging to the Iranians Quds Force were struck, including intelligence and logistics centers, camps, weapons depots, listening posts and more. We struck the vehicle that launched the rockets against Israel," the IDF spokesman said.

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2)The War On Wisdom
By DENNIS PRAGER

Why venerate feelings over truth?

There is more knowledge available today than ever before in history. But few would argue people are wiser than ever before.

On the contrary, many of us would argue that we are living in a particularly foolish time — a period that is largely wisdom-free, especially among those with the most knowledge: the best-educated.

The fact that one of our two major political parties is advocating lowering the voting age to 16 is a good example of the absence of wisdom among a large segment of the adult population. What adult deems 16-year-olds capable of making a wise voting decision? The answer is an adult with the wisdom of a 16-year-old — “Hey, I’m no wiser than most 16-year-olds. Why should I have the vote and they not?”

America has been influenced and is now being largely led by members of the Baby Boom generation. This is the generation that came up with the motto “Never trust anyone over 30,” making it the first American generation to proclaim contempt for wisdom as a virtue.

The Left in America is founded on the rejection of wisdom. It is possible to be on the left and be kind, honest in business, faithful to one’s spouse, etc. But it is not possible to be wise if one subscribes to leftist (as opposed to liberal) ideas.

Last year, Amy Wax, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, co-authored an opinion piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer with a professor from the University of San Diego School of Law in which they wrote that the “bourgeois culture” and “bourgeois norms” that governed America from the end of World War II until the mid 1960s were good for America, and that their rejection has caused much of the social dysfunction that has characterized this country since the 1960s.

Those values included, in their words:

Get married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education you need for gainful employment, work hard, and avoid idleness. Go the extra mile for your employer or client. Be a patriot, ready to serve the country. Be neighborly, civic-minded, and charitable. Avoid coarse language in public. Be respectful of authority. Eschew substance abuse and crime.

Recognizing those norms as universally beneficial constitutes wisdom. Rejection of them constitutes a rejection of wisdom — i.e. foolishness.

Yet the Left almost universally rejected the Wax piece, deeming it, as the left-wing National Lawyers Guild wrote, “an explicit and implicit endorsement of white supremacy” and questioning whether professor Wax should be allowed to continue teaching a required first-year course at Penn Law.

To equate getting married before having children, working hard, and eschewing substance abuse and crime with “white supremacy” is to betray an absence of wisdom that is as depressing as it breathtaking. It is obvious to anyone with a modicum of common sense that those values benefit anyone who adheres to them; they have nothing to do with race.

But almost every left-wing position (that differs from a liberal or conservative position) is bereft of wisdom.

Is the left-wing belief in the notion of “cultural appropriation” — such as the Left’s recent condemnation of a white girl for wearing a Chinese dress to her high school prom — wise? Or is it simply moronic?

Is the left-wing belief that there are more than two genders wise? Or is it objectively false, foolish, and nihilistic?

Has the left-wing belief that children need (unearned) self-esteem turned out to be wise, or morally and psychologically destructive? To its credit, last year, the Guardian wrote a scathing exposé on the “lie” — its word — the self-esteem movement is based on and the narcissistic generation it created.

Is it wise to provide college students with “safe spaces” — with their hot chocolate, stuffed animals, and puppy videos — in which to hide whenever a conservative speaker comes to their college? Or is it just ridiculous and infantilizing?

Is the Left’s rejection of many, if not most, great philosophical, literary, and artistic works of wisdom on the grounds that they were written or created by white males wise? One example: The English department of the University of Pennsylvania, half of whose law-school professors condemned Amy Wax and almost none of whose law professors defended her piece, removed a portrait of William Shakespeare (replacing it with that of a black lesbian poet).

Is multiculturalism, the idea that no culture is superior to another morally or in any other way wise? Isn’t it the antithesis of wisdom, whose very premise is that certain ideas are morally superior to others, and certain literary or artistic works are superior to others?

And the veneration of feelings over truth, not to mention wisdom, is a cornerstone of leftism.

Here’s one way to test my thesis: Ask left-wing friends what they have done to pass on wisdom to their children. Most will answer with a question: “What do you mean?” Then ask religious Jewish or Christian friends the same question. They won’t answer with a question.

2a) America The Weird

by Victor Davis Hanson

On first glance, America does not seem that exceptional. Like China and Russia, it is a superpower. And, also like those countries, it is huge territorially. It shares many affinities with Europe. And, like China, Japan and Germany, the United States is an economic powerhouse. And yet, it is a nation unlike any in the world.

In general, outside the West, few of the seven billion people alive today enjoy human rights and the protection of property. The rule of law and freedom of expression are taken for granted in Europe and the United States, and residents there enjoy both economic prosperity and physical security. These exceptions to the global norms of repression, autocracy, tribalism, sectarian violence, and fundamentalism are found only either in the West proper, or in a few Westernized nations in Asia, Latin America, and Africa.

It may now be politically incorrect to suggest that, compared to countries like Afghanistan and Rwanda, different premises animate the social and political order of Europe, the United States, the English-speaking nations of the former British Commonwealth, and the West’s close allies such as Israel, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. But it is nonetheless true. The yearly migrations to these countries of millions of non-Westerners demonstrate that reality. Immigration is now nearly always a one-way pathway to the West or Westernized countries from the non-West. People vote with their feet in a more honest and concrete fashion than at the ballot box.

Yet the West is not monolithic. It never has been.

From the sixteenth to twentieth centuries, it was violently divided by religious schisms between Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestantism. Germany from 1871 to 1945 was never comfortable with its the territorial status quo. Long before the Nazis rose to power, it suffered periodic bouts of ethnic and cultural superciliousness —mythologizing that an ancient and tribal Germania had remained racially pure beyond the Rhine and Danube, and thus immune from Roman colonization and subsequent European assimilation.

The colonization of North America saw the emergence of a new strain of Western civilization. Yet a fault line was marked by the Spanish imperial colonization of parts of Asia and the New World. The Spanish worked on different assumptions than the British, and so their imperialism resulted in more religiously monolithic and autocratic paradigms in South America, the Philippines, and Mexico than in North America, New Zealand, and Australia. 

All of that said, the present West is once again bifurcating. Its two poles—Europe and the United States—are roughly equal in population and economic size. Yet because of historical reasons, and given the bloody history of the twentieth century, they are evolving in different directions. True, these bookends of Western Civilization share long-held commitments to consensual government and freedom of the individual. But Europe is increasingly becoming statist, utopian, pacifist, and remains traumatized from two World Wars and its role as the trip wire of the Cold War. The ill-conceived framework of the European Union is far more like the articles of the old Confederacy than the U.S. Constitution.

Europe never had a vast frontier like the United States, or a history of mass immigration. Again, neither its individual nations nor the present European Union embrace anything like the values of the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights. The idea of a multiracial America united only by common allegiances to the ideas of freedom and liberty is still foreign to Europe, or at least it was until the last two decades or so. Despite the stain of chattel slavery, America has otherwise had no experience with the long European traditions of monarchy, hereditary aristocracy, colonialism, or indentured peasantry.

In general, Europe is still captive to the ideals of the French Revolution: an equality of result, mandated and often enforced by hereditary elites not fully subject to the ramifications of their own professed egalitarian ideologies. The Enlightenment idea of an all-powerful paternal state is much stronger across the Atlantic. European elites believe that with enough education, investment, and state planning, the very nature of man can be recalibrated to be peaceful, rational, and equal, which in turn explains why the European state is far more intrusive in the lives of its citizens than is even the American federal octopus.

Americans generally lack such idealistic pretensions, other than those who believe the American model should be xeroxed all over the world. The original vision of the Founders—to protect freedom and liberty by limiting the power of government with a system of checks and balances—was quite different than the European ideals of mandated fraternity and egalitarianism. 

Due to all these historical and political currents, America remains the exceptional Western nation, whose influence and stature transcend the size of its economy and population, and its vast land mass of rich natural resources. Its cocktail of property rights, unfettered oil and gas development, muscular national defense, gun rights, religiosity, free-market economics, limited government, philanthropy, and great private universities is, again, unlike anything in the West.

Likewise, its excesses that arise from the marriage of free-market affluence and constitutionally protected unfettered expression, in the eyes of the world, appear often as license and indulgence.  Certainly, the First and Second Amendments, the National Football League, rap music, the U.S. Marine Corps, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, the Ivy League, or 24/7 cable news could not originate elsewhere.

The result is that America exists both as the world’s refuge and its beacon, the sole place where individuals can find a safe harbor. Only in America can the individual remain free and able to live his life under the assumption that the major decisions of his life are his own and not predicated on state approval. Only in the United States does the rags to riches story still exist, given that neither regulation, the deep state, nor an entrenched aristocracy can fully suppress entrepreneurs or aspiring capitalists.

In particular, America serves a variety of crucial roles within the West. It offers a psychological and ideological check on European socialism, in that America’s greater economic robustness and continued military superiority remind Europe that its drift toward statism will only make it less competitive and result in an unhealthy dependency on U.S. arms. The worst thing that the United States could do to Europe would be to emulate Europe’s own protocols, and thereby reinforce Europe’s own worst tendencies while depriving it of a savior in extremis. Certainly, former British colonies such as Australia, Canada, and New Zealand ultimately rely on U.S. guarantees of their security, given that they can no longer depend on strength of the United Kingdom.

No other country in the world bucks tradition and defies conventional wisdom whether that means supporting Israel, reducing its carbon imprint by massive new reliance on natural gas production and solar power, or declaring that neither North Korea nor Iran can maintain or obtain a nuclear weapons program. 

It is common for nations abroad to criticize the United States as an outlier that is at perennial war with the United Nations, is skeptical of the European Union, often lectures fellow NATO members, moves its embassy from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem, and pulls out of the Paris Climate Accord. But the United States’s autonomy and questioning of consensus are precisely why its economic, cultural, political, and military power are preeminent, and why most of the world’s dispossessed wish to emigrate there. Make the United States follow the political, cultural, or military protocols of Europe, Canada, or the UN, and the West itself would lose its dynamism and its leadership.

The world relies on American technological innovation, military and economic strength, research and development, graduate education, political stability, and humanity. Try to change what is often thought as a weird United States, or to make America conform to a typical Western country like France or Germany, and other nations would lose the very power that often keeps them afloat. If the world thinks America is strange, it should remember that such weirdness is precisely why the world can rely on America.

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3)"It isn't premarital sex if you have no intention of getting married. George Burns

"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." Jack Nicholson

Sex is one of the most wholesome, beautiful and natural experiences money can buy. Steve Martin

"Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same." Oscar Wilde.


3a)Two Versions:   

The ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER    

OLDVERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. 

The grasshoppe 

thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. 

Come winter, 

the ant is warm
and well fed.

The grasshopper has
no food or shelter, so he
dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE OLD STORY:   

Be responsible for yourself!

MODERN 
VERSION 

The ant works hard
in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house
and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant 
is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. 

Come winter, the shivering   

grasshopper 

calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be
allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.. 

CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN,  
and ABC show up to
provide pictures of the shivering  

grasshopper 
next to a video of the ant 
in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. 
America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor

 grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears
on Oprah 
with the grasshopper 
and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green ...' 

Occupy the Anthill stages
a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the 

Black Lives Matter group singing, We shall overcome.

Then Reverend Al Sharpton
has the group kneel down to pray for the grasshopper 
while he damns the ants. He later appears on MSNBC to complain that rich people do not care.

Former President Obama  

condemns the ant 
and blames 
Donald Trump, President Bush 43, President Bush 41, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the 
Pope 
for the  

grasshopper's 
plight. 

Nancy Pelosi & Chuck Schumer  
exclaim in an interview on The View
that the ant has
gotten rich off the back of the 
grasshopper ,
and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts
the Economic Equity & 
Anti-Grasshopper Act 
retroactive to the beginning of
the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number
of green bugs and,
having; nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar 
and given to the grasshopper .

The story ends as we see the grasshopper 
and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant's old house,
crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again. 

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken
over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and peaceful, neighborhood.

The entire Nation  

collapses
bringing the rest
of the free world with it.

MORAL OF THE STORY:

Be careful how you vote in 2018. 

I've sent this to you because I believe that you are an ant 
not a grasshopper !

3b)

The Unintended Consequences of the Welfare State on the Human Spirit

By Walter E. Williams 

Before the massive growth of our welfare state, private charity was the sole option for an individual or family facing insurmountable financial difficulties or other challenges.

How do we know that? There is no history of Americans dying on the streets because they could not find food or basic medical assistance. Respecting the biblical commandment to honor thy father and mother, children took care of their elderly or infirm parents. Family members and the local church also helped those who had fallen on hard times.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, charities started playing a major role. In 1887, religious leaders founded the Charity Organization Society, which became the first United Way organization. In 1904, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America started helping at-risk youths reach their full potential. In 1913, the American Cancer Society, dedicated to curing and eliminating cancer, was formed. With their millions of dollars, industrial giants such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller created our nation’s first philanthropic organizations.

Generosity has always been a part of the American genome. Alexis de Tocqueville, a French civil servant, made a nine-month visit to our country in 1831 and 1832, ostensibly to study our prisons. Instead, his visit resulted in his writing “Democracy in America,” one of the most influential books about our nation.

The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more >>

Tocqueville didn’t use the term “philanthropy,” but he wrote extensively about how Americans love to form all kinds of nongovernmental associations to help one another. These associations include professional, social, civic, and other volunteer organizations seeking to serve the public good and improve the quality of human lives.

The bottom line is that we Americans are the most generous people in the world, according to the new Almanac of American Philanthropy—something we should be proud of.

Before the welfare state, charity embodied both a sense of gratitude on the behalf of the recipient and magnanimity on the behalves of donors. There was a sense of civility by the recipients. They did not feel that they were owed, were entitled to, or had a right to the largesse of the donor.

Recipients probably felt that if they weren’t civil and didn’t express their gratitude, more assistance wouldn’t be forthcoming. In other words, they were reluctant to bite the hand that helped them.

With churches and other private agencies helping, people were much likelier to help themselves and less likely to engage in self-destructive behavior. Part of the message of charitable groups was: “We’ll help you if you help yourself.”

Enter the federal government. Civility and gratitude toward one’s benefactors are no longer required in the welfare state. In fact, one can be arrogant and hostile toward the “donors” (taxpayers), as well as the civil servants who dish out the benefits. The handouts that recipients get are no longer called charity; they’re called entitlements—as if what is received were earned.

There is virtually no material poverty in the U.S. Eighty percent of households the Census Bureau labels as poor have air conditioning; nearly three-quarters have a car or truck, and 31 percent have two or more. Two-thirds have cable or satellite TV. Half have at least one computer. Forty-two percent own their homes.

What we have in our nation is not material poverty but dependency and poverty of the spirit, with people making unwise choices and leading pathological lives, aided and abetted by the welfare state.

Part of this pathological lifestyle is reflected in family structure. According to the 1938 Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, that year 11 percent of black children and 3 percent of white children were born to unwed mothers. Today it’s respectively 75 percent and 30 percent.

There are very little guts in the political arena to address the downside of the welfare state. To do so risks a politician’s being labeled as racist, sexist, uncaring, and insensitive. That means today’s dependency is likely to become permanent.

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