“The dream of equality for all is not an obligation of one race or another. It is a common calling in our unique society. We are still a nation of immigrants, where the rule of law is inadequate if the rule of the heart is not also an equal part. All shades of the American palette matter.”
— Thomas John “Tom" Brokaw, American television journalist and author; from his commencement address to the University of Mississippi, May 14, 2016.
And This from a friend and fellow memo reader: "Dick,
How come we don't hear a word about the fact that the folks at the border, who
illegally attempted to enter our country and who originated from Central America,
had previously been illegal aliens in Mexico and traveled the entire country of
Mexico illegally? BTW, if an American couple attempted a robbery, were caught
by the police and arrested, what would happen to the kid they left behind in the car? Separated, that's what.
A--"
There is always another side to any issues:http://www.breitbart.com/big-
"Up Chuck Schumer" argues Trump could solve the immigration issue by the stroke of his pen. This is the Obama solution which, of course, lasted as long as an incoming president who did not agree. Government by "penmanship" may be the liberal approach to governance but is as lasting as disappearing ink. (Word is Trump is going to do what "Up Chuck" says.)
Democrats are enjoying their moment of political demonizing, and it may be effective with gullible voters, but Trump seeks a permanent solution that requires Democrats to join in legislating the constitutional way. Congress, as so often is the case, are ducking their responsibility. It is time they do their job and legislate a solution to our immigration mess. Trump will sign anything that makes our borders safe, introduces selective legal immigration, solves the Dacca and current child separation issue.
I have often said if you want to get rid of a bad law enforce it. Trump chose to enforce laws passed by Congress and this actions backfired. Previous when these law produced injurious results GW and Obama decided to disregard enforcement. If we are a nation that believes in the rule of law the more we disregard our laws and allow Congress to escape their responsibility the more America will descend the slippery slope of becoming a lawless nation.
Meanwhile, the same liberal thinking that professes compassion for children of illegal immigrant families is the same liberal thinking that drives protests against free speech on college campuses, motivates bias towards fellow Americans under the rubric of PC'ism, instigates marches and protests in support of every cause under the sun like "evil" capitalism, the legal election of Trump, the ability to vote without producing valid identification, contempt for those who defend us and the list is endless etc.
I have a generalized thesis: all too often liberals employ the tactic of misplacing blame because doing so elevates passion, exposes logic to transference thereby, creating a political advantage.. For example: parents cross into America illegally. Under current laws , if caught, their children are not allowed to be placed in a prison or detention facility so they are separated. Trump is blamed for enforcing the law which others break. The blame should not be on our president for enforcing the law. The blame should be on those who break the law. However, by ignoring/disregarding the illegal acts of parents a transference situation is created and Trump is politically demonized/pilloried.
Everyone will tell you they favor secure borders but they are unwilling to fund increased protection, regardless of the form it takes and they refuse to pass correcting legislation because either they are insincere in wanting to solve the problem and/or, more than likely, want to create a situation giving them a political advantage through transference and blame shifting.
More hypocrisy? You decide. (See 1 and 1a below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Everyone has a bucket list and today one of my long standing goals was granted. One of my LTE's was published in the WSJ.
Though I had nothing to do with our withdrawal from The U.N's Human Right's Commission the fact that we withdrew, after warning we would ,was also a long held bucket list wish.
Far too many liberals rail at Trump for his policies regarding illegal immigration but have remained moot over the outrageous bashing of Israel.
Again, you decide ((See 2, 2a and 2b below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No one will ever replace the insightful Op Ed's by Charles Krauthammer. Because of his psychiatric training he was able to meld a unique insight with his literary skills.
I do believe Professor Victor Davis Hanson is another worthy Op Ed writer. No, not a replacement for Krauthammer but a man of extraordinary talent and conviction. He is a product of what is best about Americans. Therefore, I am re-posting his recent article. (See 3 below.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Because of the IG report, others under study and yet to be released and revelations involving Steele, Hillary and The DNC, the Russian Collusion matter,Mueller was directed to investigate, is now undercut and weakened.
Democrats castigate Trump and Giuliani for attacking Mueller but there is some merit to the latter's argument because of the impact this unresolved investigation is causing with respect to governance and presidential/administration legitimacy and credibility. Nor is the mass media bias serving our nation well with respect to this knotty and apparently contrived allegation.
Mueller is not likely to be deterred and one should assume the investigation will hang over and, possibly, influence the mid term election.
America is passing through a period of political contentiousness that is extremely harmful to our security, our long term interests and threats from adversaries like China etc.
https://www.nationalreview.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Walter Williams discusses black victimization. (See 4 below.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dark and Irish Humor. (See 5 below.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dick
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1) Border Politics and the Use and Abuse of History By Victor Davis Hanson
Posted By Ruth King
Much has been written — some of it either inaccurate or designed to obfuscate the issue ahead of the midterms for political purposes — about the border fiasco and the unfortunate separation of children from parents. Rich Lowry’s brief analysis is the most insightful.
The media outrage usually does not include examination of why the Trump administration is enforcing existing laws that it inherited from the Bush and Obama administrations that at any time could have been changed by both Democratic and Republican majorities in Congress; of the use of often dubious asylum claims as a way of obtaining entry otherwise denied to those without legal authorization — a gambit that injures or at least hampers thousands with legitimate claims of political persecution; of the seeming unconcern for the safety of children by some would-be asylum seekers who illegally cross the border, rather than first applying legally at a U.S. consulate abroad; of the fact that many children are deliberately sent ahead, unescorted on such dangerous treks to help facilitate their own parents’ later entrance; of the cynicism of the cartels that urge and facilitate such mass rushes to the border to overwhelm general enforcement; and of the selective outrage of the media in 2018 in a fashion not known under similar policies and detentions of the past.
In 2014, during a similar rush, both Barack Obama (“Do not send your children to the borders. If they do make it, they’ll get sent back.”) and Hillary Clinton (“We have to send a clear message, just because your child gets across the border, that doesn’t mean the child gets to stay. So, we don’t want to send a message that is contrary to our laws or will encourage more children to make that dangerous journey.”) warned — again to current media silence — would-be asylum seekers not to use children as levers to enter the U.S.
A few other random thoughts. Mexico is the recipient of about $30 billion in annual remittances (aside from perhaps more than $20 billion annually sent to Central America) from mostly illegal aliens within the U.S. It is the beneficiary of an annual $71 billion trade surplus with the U.S. And it is mostly culpable for once again using illegal immigration and the lives of its own citizens — and allowing Central Americans unfettered transit through its country — as cynical tools of domestic and foreign policy.
Mexico’s policies of deliberately exporting its own citizens are decades-old and hinge on providing it a social safety valve in lieu of domestic economic and human-rights reforms.
Illegal immigration, increasingly of mostly indigenous peoples, ensures an often racist Mexico City a steady stream of remittances (now its greatest source of foreign exchange), without much worry about how its indigent abroad can scrimp to send such massive sums back to Mexico. Facilitating illegal immigration also establishes and fosters a favorable expatriate demographic inside the U.S. that helps to recalibrate U.S. policy favorably toward Mexico. And Mexico City also uses immigration as a policy irritant to the U.S. that can be magnified or lessened, depending on Mexico’s own particular foreign-policy goals and moods at any given time.
All of the above call into question whether Mexico is a NAFTA ally, a neutral, or a belligerent, a status that may become perhaps clearer during its upcoming presidential elections. So far, it assumes that the optics of this human tragedy facilitate its own political agendas, but it may be just as likely that its cynicism could fuel renewed calls for a wall and reexamination of the entire Mexican–U.S. relationship and, indeed, NAFTA.
Finally, it is unfortunate that former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden and former first lady Laura Bush have both demagogued the issue by respective grotesque and ignorant comparisons of current border shelters to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp and the forced Japanese internment during World War II. At its horrendous peak in August 1944, the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex on some days exterminated 10,000 human beings and may have cumulatively murdered well over 1 million Jews, as well as Eastern Europeans and Russians.
To suggest that a detainee center is anything similar to that industrial killing monstrosity is unhinged, abhorrent — and shameful. It is an insult to current U.S. border-enforcement personnel who do a heroic job at great risk to protect the border in a humane fashion under unimaginable conditions and political pressures. And it is a greater injury to the lost 6 million of the Holocaust when their fate is so cavalierly and ignorantly used for political advantage. Hayden also should remember that during his own tenure at the NSA and as CIA director, he was constantly and in exaggerated style besmirched on issues such as “enhanced interrogation,” drones, and intrusive surveillance. He too often became the object of frequent and unfair comparisons to various Nazi allusions of the sort that he is now promulgating against the Trump administration.
Equally ironic is that during the Abu Ghraib controversies, the Iraq War furor, and the post-9/11 renditions, George W. Bush — a constant target of brown shirt/fascist/Nazi slurs — was on occasion loosely compared to instigators of fascistic round-ups, including but not limited to the Japanese internment.
Moreover, we often forget that the forced relocation and internment was an unconstitutional and amoral act aimed at mostly Japanese-Americans citizens (among them the parents and grandparents of my current neighboring farmers), along with some Japanese residents.
It was whipped up by the feverish progressive McClatchy Bee papers, facilitated by California attorney general Earl Warren (“The Japanese situation as it exists in this state today may well be the Achilles heel of the entire civilian defense effort.”), who found the hysterical atmosphere that he helped create quite useful in getting elected governor in 1942, and, of course, green-lighted by a progressive FDR and his wartime advisers, especially Harvard Law grad John J. McCloy, a blue-chip Wall Street lawyer, FDR intimate, and later World Bank president, Ford Foundation head, and chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations. Unlike Warren, McCloy never regretted his instrumental role in the Japanese-American internment.
One can disagree with a current policy without stooping to distort history to smear an administration, especially when such tactics in the past have been used against those now employing them.
1a)
1a)
Demo Party Leaders Don't Care About Children — Unless...
|
Demos don't want an immigration solution. They want fodder for political talking points to advance their statist agenda and midterm election prospects.
|
Mark Alexander
|
Oh, what to do?
Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) are scurrying around the congressional chambers trying to figure out how to derail Donald Trump's highly successful Make America Great Again policies before the 2018 midterm elections. They have their work cut out for them.
According to current tracking by the reputable Gallup organization, satisfaction with the direction of the country is now higher than at any time since 2005. That's higher than any year Barack Obama's regime was in power. And President Trump's approval ratings are slowly climbing.
Making matters worse, first-quarter GDP growth of 2.2% was better than expected. Headline unemployment dropped to 3.8%, the best since 2000. The U-6 unemployment rate is at 7.6%, the lowest since 2001. Black unemployment hit a record low of 5.9%. Female unemployment is at 3.6%, the lowest since 1953.
And worse yet, the paychecks of American workers are growing at a record pace. Consumer confidence is at an 18-year high and small business optimism is approaching a record high.
So how can Democrats stop this progress toward "Armageddon," as Pelosi calls it? If they don't, it will be Armageddon for their 2018 prospects, as well as for Pelosi's chance to regain the speaker's gavel.
Well, here's an idea!
Create a social media firestorm with a viral image of children in cages, claiming it's "children ripped from the arms of their parents by Donald Trump" and comparing Trump to Hitler — even though the photo in question was taken when Obama was setting immigration policy.
Then, bank on the fact that most of your constituents are emotionally incontinent dupes, and count on your Leftmedia propagandists to keep this charade in front of those dupes 24/7.
If successful, it will help undermine Republican efforts to pass any meaningful immigration reform legislation, and this faux focus on "the children" will elevate the immigration issue and erode confidence in Trump and Republicans in the midterm election. Hey, desperate times call for desperate measures.
There's only one glaring problem: Democrats don't give a damn about American children, much less immigrant children, unless they can be used to advance the Left's statist political agenda.
Schumer exposed the Demos' indifference, making clear they are just cynically leveraging the issue by refusing to take Senate action to remedy the family separation issue. "There's no need for legislation, there's no need for anything else," Schumer declared after seeing how successful the Demo campaign to smear Trump has been. "If the president's ashamed at what's happening at the border, he can change it. ... [Republicans] are feeling the heat. They are the ones feeling the heat on this issue, and that's why they're squirming."
Wait, I thought the issue was young children "feeling the heat."
The irrefutable fact is, if Democrats really cared about children, they would not continue to advocate policies that institutionalize poverty and enslave tens of millions of Americans on their urban poverty plantations, created by their catastrophically failed "Great Society" "welfare" programs. But then, Democrats thrive on "victim constituencies."
(Need I add that, if Democrats really cared about children, they wouldn't redistribute taxpayer income to Planned Parenthood for the forcible removal of more than a thousand children from their mothers every day.)
If they really cared about the children of illegal immigrants, they would've written and passed their own "dream" immigration policies in 2010, when they had full control of the executive and legislative branches.
But they didn't.
Currently, there are about 2,000 children temporarily sheltered apart from their parents (or those claiming to be their parents), but there are also more than 20,000 kids separated from urban-plantation parents because those adults are in prison.
Fact is, Democrat policies have invited a flood of illegal immigration in the last year to their "sanctuary cities" by insisting illegal aliens won't be prosecuted.
How the times have changed!
Before Democrats realized their political future was in jeopardy, Obama insisted: "We are a nation of laws. Undocumented workers broke our immigration laws, and I believe that they must be held accountable. When I took office, I committed to fixing this broken immigration system and began to do what I could to secure our borders. Today our immigration system is broken and everybody knows it. ... We will [add] additional [border] resources for our law enforcement personnel, so that they can stem the tide of illegal crossing and to speed the return of those who do cross over. If you are a criminal, you will be deported. ... We expect people who live in this country to play by the rules."
Video: Obama's Immigration Lies
Obama added, "To those members of Congress who question my authority ... or question my wisdom to act where Congress has failed, I have one answer: Pass a bill."
Schumer declared: "People who enter the U.S. without our permission are illegal aliens, and illegal aliens should not be treated the same as people who enter the U.S. legally. ... When we use phrases like 'undocumented workers,' we convey to the American people that their government is not serious about combating illegal immigration. ... I think it is illegal and wrong."
Video: Democrats then and now
Hillary Clinton had this to say about DACA legislation: "We have to send a clear message — just because your child gets across the border, that doesn't mean your child gets to stay. We don't want to send a message that is contrary to our laws."
And both Hillary and Bill Clinton were once staunch advocates for a border wall.
Video: Bill Clinton on "illegal aliens"
So what changed? Why are Democrats now in favor of illegal immigration?
A few years ago, when Demos were still feigning concern for their blue-collar and union-worker constituencies, whose jobs and wages had been deflated by unchecked illegal immigration, they talked tough about illegal aliens. But their proposals were all smoke and mirrors. They routinely made fake political plays for Latino and Hispanic voters while pursuing policies that protected their traditional constituencies.
But as its lower- and middle-income voter blocs began hemorrhaging to Trump's promise (and delivery) of prosperity, the Democrat Party turned its back on those constituent groups and opened a socialist voter pipeline to flood our nation with their most promising future constituency — Latinos. And labor union fat cats, whose member rolls have also been hemorrhaging, see these largely unskilled and low-wage immigrants as their future dues-payers.
Since the implementation of Trump's zero-tolerance policy in April, rather than feed and release illegal immigrants who fail to return for asylum or deportation hearings, almost 2,000 minors, some young, have been separated from their parents at the border. However, as Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen noted, the vast majority of children currently housed in Health and Human Services detention centers — 10,000 of them — are minors who illegally crossed the border without their parents. Notably, she also disclosed, "In the last five months, we have a 314 percent increase in adults and children arriving at the border fraudulently, claiming to be a family unit."
Fact is, the drug cartels, gangs, human traffickers and Middle Eastern nationals are exploiting the border crisis in order to gain access into the U.S. For the record, last year 113 political candidates were murdered in Mexico and more than 50 of their relatives have also been murdered. The cartels and gangs are exporting that violence across our border.
Mexico is one of the most dangerous nations on the planet, and five of its cities rank in the top 10 most dangerous cities, including most notably Ciudad Juarez, right across the border from El Paso. (Last time I was there, seven federal police were killed the night before I arrived.)
Point is, our southern border is a dangerous place, and the Democrat effort to use children to put a smiley face on that fact, after advocating open boarders, is disgraceful hypocrisy.
According to President Trump: "The United States will not be a migrant camp and it will not be a refugee holding facility. It won't be. If you look at what's happening in Europe, if you look at what's happening in other places, we can't allow that to happen to the United States — not on my watch. We want safety and we want security for our country. If Democrats would sit down instead of obstructing, we could have something done very quickly. ... But just remember, a country without borders is not a country at all. We need borders. We need security. We need safety. We have to take care of our people."
National Review's Rich Lowry has written a good summary of the evolution of the enforcement issue related to children: "The Trump administration isn't changing the rules that pertain to separating an adult from the child. Those remain the same. Separation happens only if officials find that the adult is falsely claiming to be the child's parent, or is a threat to the child, or is put into criminal proceedings. The past practice had been to give a free pass to an adult who is part of a family unit. The new Trump policy is to prosecute all adults. The idea is to send a signal that we are serious about our laws and to create a deterrent against re-entry. (Illegal entry is a misdemeanor, illegal re-entry a felony.)"
Of course, immigrant families claiming asylum or refugee status at official ports of entry aren't separated from children. Only those who attempt to cross illegally are separated from their children while being processed through the courts.
As I noted above, American citizens are also separated from their children while justice is served. But those kids aren't good for leftist political agendas.
Just because the Trump administration is now finally enforcing long-standing immigration laws doesn't mean that families being held prior to deportation shouldn't be kept together during legal proceedings. Fact is, most of these illegal immigrants are seeking better opportunities — including "free" housing, schooling and medical care. And they are coming in ever-larger numbers because previous administrations have advertised that they can cross into the U.S. with impunity.
That being said, we should be concerned for the younger minors, those too young to understand why they are being separated from their parents.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has proposed legislation authorizing new temporary shelters to house families together until their asylum requests are processed. In the meantime, it's worth mentioning that the conditions and provisions for those children are infinitely better than the conditions and provisions they had before crossing the U.S. border.
Trump has repeatedly called on Republicans and Democrats to send him legislation resolving the illegal immigration issue. On Tuesday, he endorsed both House immigration bills that build the wall, close legal loopholes, cancel the visa lottery, curb chain migration, and solve the border crisis and family separation issue by allowing for family detention and removal. Agreement on this legislation has thus far eluded Republican consensus. The division in the Republican ranks has been a split over what amounts to amnesty vs. border security and enforcement.
We favor Virginia Rep. Bob Goodlatte's Border Security and Immigration Reform Act over the proposal by House Speaker Paul Ryan, and it will be an extraordinary achievement if the House can agree on how to merge the bills.
Regardless, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has signaled that stand-alone legislation to resolve the family separation issue will pass if one of the immigration bills doesn't.
If Republicans don't pass one of the two immigration bills currently under consideration before the end of the week, Trump is considering an executive order to resolve the short-term issue of family separation. "I'll be signing something in a little while that's going to do that," Trump said Wednesday. "I'll be doing something that's somewhat preemptive and ultimately will be matched by legislation I'm sure."
But that will not resolve the Ninth Circuit Court requirement that the adults be released after 20 days.
Regardless, as I noted, Demos don't want an immigration solution. They want fodder for political talking points to advance their statist agenda and midterm election prospects.
|
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Allies said U.S. participation was the last shred of credibility left in the organization.
By Nikki Haley
This organization recently added the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is obstructing an investigation into the murder within its borders of two United Nations human-rights experts.
In the past decade, this organization has passed more resolutions to condemn Israel specifically than to condemn Syria, Iran and North Korea combined.
Most people would not imagine that such an organization would be dedicated to protecting human rights. Yet all of these details describe the misnamed U.N. Human Rights Council. In truth, the council provides cover for governments with awful human-rights records, and it refuses to eliminate its Agenda Item 7, which targets Israel unfairly by mandating that each session include a discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
After more than a year of unsuccessful efforts to fix these fundamental defects, the U.S. delegation announced Tuesday our withdrawal from the council. Our country will no longer be party to this deeply flawed institution, which harms the cause of human rights more than it helps it.
There are two major reasons that so many countries have resisted U.S.-led reform efforts. The first is baked into the council’s composition. One look at this rogue’s gallery explains why the organization has such appalling disrespect for the rights Americans take for granted. A credible human-rights council would pose a threat to these countries, so they oppose the steps needed to create one. Instead they obstruct investigations and reports, while interfering with the council’s ability to name and shame the perpetrators of the world’s worst atrocities.
The second reason for resistance to reform is even more frustrating. Many countries agree with the U.S. about shunning human-rights violators and supporting Israel—but only behind closed doors. Despite numerous overtures, these countries were unwilling to join the U.S. in a public stand. Some even told us they were fine with the council’s flaws, as long as it let them address their pet issues. This is not a moral compromise we are willing to make. The U.K. has promised to oppose any resolution targeting Israel under Agenda Item 7, and we support that stance. We wish other countries would do the same.
In the end, our allies’ case for the U.S. to stay on the council was actually the most compelling argument to leave. They said American participation was the last shred of credibility left in the organization. But a stamp of legitimacy on the current Human Rights Council is precisely what the U.S. should not provide.
Our withdrawal from the council will not end America’s own steadfast commitment to human rights. The U.S. delegation remains proud of American leadership in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Our country has always championed freedom, individual dignity, human rights and the rule of law, and that will never change. The U.S. will continue to lead on human rights outside the council, even as we push for institutional reform with like-minded partners.
Last year when the U.S. presided over the U.N. Security Council, we initiated the first-ever Security Council session dedicated to the connection between human rights and peace and security. The same year, when the Venezuelan regime blocked a Human Rights Council discussion of the massive violations it had committed, the U.S. organized an event outside the council’s chambers with Venezuelan human-rights leaders. When several countries objected to holding a Security Council session on the Iranian people’s human-rights struggles, the U.S. succeeded in initiating one anyway.
I have traveled to U.N. camps for refugees and internally displaced persons in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Turkey and Jordan, and met with the victims of atrocities in those troubled regions.
America uses its voice and vote every day at the U.N. to defend human rights. We will continue to be a champion for the abused peoples of Burma, China, Russia, Syria, Iran, South Sudan, Cuba, Venezuela and countless other places. We will continue to push the Human Rights Council for reforms that would make it worthy of our involvement. Any country willing to work with us to reshape the council need only ask.
We believe in the sovereignty of all U.N. member states, but no country should use that sovereignty as a shield when it proliferates weapons of mass destruction, promotes terrorism or commits mass atrocities. The U.S. does not seek to impose its system on anyone else. But we do support the universal values of freedom and human rights. And we will speak out for those values at every opportunity.
That is why we are withdrawing from the U.N. Human Rights Council, an organization that is unworthy of its name. But even as we depart, our commitment to human rights will remain steady as ever, and our voice will only get louder.
Ms. Haley is U.S. ambassador to the U.N.
2a)The New York Jewish Week
Israel Isn’t A Wedge Issue
When President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, not everyone in the Jewish community was happy. Though the demand to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was once a consensus issue, reactions broke down, like virtually everything else in this hyper-partisan age, along party lines.
The vast majority of Jewish Democrats are so implacably opposed to the president that they wouldn’t cheer anything he did. But many Democrats also believe the embassy move is just the latest evidence of Republicans seeking to use Israel as a wedge issue to win over Jewish voters as well as others — principally evangelicals — who care deeply about the Jewish state.
They see this as regrettable since, in their view, it politicizes an issue that ought to remain bipartisan. What’s worse, they claim that associating Israel with Republicans as well as the even more toxic Trump brand, is alienating Democrats. Indeed, the close relationship between the Trump administration and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the widespread support for the president among Israelis is causing some liberals to think of Israel as a red state populated by Jewish “deplorables.”
To back up this assertion they point to recent polls such as one by Gallup that show a widening partisan gap among Americans’ views about Israel with Republicans overwhelmingly supportive — 87 percent — and Democrats deeply divided with only 49 percent holding a favorable opinion of the Jewish state.
Democrats aren’t entirely wrong about this since Republicans have been trying to increase their share of the Jewish vote since 1980 when Ronald Reagan got a record 40 percent share. But in the decades since then, not even the most pro-Israel GOP presidential candidates have come close to that total. While politically conservative and Orthodox Jews tend to regard Israel as a litmus test issue, most Jews see it as just one of many that influence their votes and by no means as important as domestic concerns.
Perhaps in another 50 years when demographic models predict the Orthodox will outnumber the non-Orthodox in the United States, the GOP will succeed in winning the Jewish vote. But until then, as even the most optimistic of Jewish Republicans should have learned, Jews are among the most loyal Democratic voters and there is nothing Trump or anyone else can do about it.
Yet even if we acknowledge that Republican hopes of winning the Jewish vote are a pipe dream, pro-Israel Democrats are kidding themselves if they think the shift in partisan opinion is primarily about the GOP trying to use Israel as a wedge issue.
The two parties have largely swapped identities with respect to Israel. A half century or more ago, Democrats were the lockstep pro-Israel party and Republicans were deeply divided about it. The situation is now reversed. Republicans are nearly unanimous in their enthusiastic backing for Israel while Democrats are the ones who are split with a growing faction on the left that is either deeply critical of the Jewish state or outright opponents.
Part of the problem is the disproportionate influence among Democratic activists of left-wing groups like the Women’s March, which is led by figures like Tamika Mallory and Linda Sarsour, who buy into intersectional theories that falsely consider the Palestinian war on Zionism to be akin to the U.S. civil rights struggle. In a party in which identity politics is the coin of the realm, sympathy for the Palestinians is widespread as is a willingness to believe false charges about Israel and to embrace anti-Zionism.
That trend may grow as the anti-Trump “resistance” becomes more important and the Bernie Sanders wing of the party — which was defeated by Hillary Clinton in 2016 — assumes a more dominant role in 2020. While Sanders may not become the Democratic nominee, his increasingly hostile attitude toward Israel — as demonstrated by a series of videos his office released that absolved Hamas for the recent violence in Gaza and seemed neutral about the “right of return” indicated — may set a marker for other liberal candidates to match.
At this point, pro-Israel Democrats need to stop whining about Republicans trying to capitalize on the administration’s praiseworthy support for the Jewish state, and start concentrating on the real battle facing them: the uphill struggle to save their own party from being captured by left-wingers who have abandoned Israel.
2b) Dozens of rockets launched from Gaza Strip, IDF strikes Hamas targets
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Dozens of Hamas rockets were fired on Israel from the Gaza Strip late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning. At least three projectiles landed in Israeli communities causing no injuries, but slight damage to buildings and vehicles in southern Israel.
The IDF spokesperson's office reported that seven rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome and three of those fired landed within the Gaza Strip.
Residents of the south got little sleep as warning sirens blared throughout the night. Early Wednesday morning, it was decided that schools would remain open, under increased security protection.
The IDF spokesperson's office reported that seven rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome and three of those fired landed within the Gaza Strip.
Residents of the south got little sleep as warning sirens blared throughout the night. Early Wednesday morning, it was decided that schools would remain open, under increased security protection.
In retaliation to Hamas activity, the IAF struck 25 Hamas targets in three separate rounds of retaliatory strikes overnight.
The escalation began after Israeli fighter jets attacked three targets in a Hamas base located in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.
The strikes came in retaliation to the ongoing launching of incendiary kites and balloons into Israeli territory all throughout Tuesday. These makeshift devices sparked forest and brush fires in 15 locations in the Gaza periphery.
In a second round of IAF activities, eight targets were struck including three Hamas bases.
During a third round of IAF operation, eleven targets were struck in retaliation for the rockets being fired on Israel, including four Hamas bases, the IDF spokesperson reported.
In response to over 45 rockets launched by Hamas towards southern Israeli communities, the IDF targeted military objectives in the Gaza Strip belonging to Hamas— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) 7:55 AM - Jun 20, 2018
In response to over 45 rockets launched by Hamas towards southern Israeli communities, the IDF targeted military objectives in the Gaza Strip belonging to Hamas pic.twitter.com/1UvzPK9JAm— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) June 20, 2018
According to Hebrew news site Walla! one of the projectiles landed near a kindergarten in the Eshkol regional council.
The IDF warned that it is ready to use "a variety of tools and means" to respond in an increasing intensity to such acts of terror.
Minister for Regional Cooperation Tzachi Hanegbi stated Tuesday that "there was never any idea" voiced in the cabinet to open fire on Palestinians who are flying incendiary kites into Israel.
"We do not kill those who launch kites," Hanegbi stated, "the cabinet backs the position of the security forces that as long as this will go on more and more Hamas assets will be bombed."
Since its last war with Gaza's dominant Hamas Islamists in 2014, Israel has stepped up efforts to prevent cross-border attacks, improving rocket interceptors and investing in technologies for detecting and destroying guerrilla tunnels.
In recent weeks, Palestinians have sent kites dangling coal embers or burning rags across the Gaza border to set fire to arid farmland and forests, others have carried small explosive devices in a new tactic that has caused extensive damage.
At least 127 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops during mass demonstrations along the Gaza border since March 30 and the men sending the kites over the fence believe they have found an effective new weapon. Reuters contributed to this report.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3)‘Future Pres’ Hillary — the Font of all the Scandals
Review the Clinton email scandal, the Steele dossier, the insertion of at least one FBI informant into the Trump campaign, the misleading of the FISA court by FBI and DOJ officials intent on monitoring U.S. citizens, and, now, the inspector general’s report. There emerges a common denominator: the surety by all involved that Hillary Clinton would be president, and the need to prepare for that fact.
Examine the IG’s transcript of a random, pre-election series of electronic chitchat between high-ranking FBI employees:15:07:41, Agent 1: “ . . . I’m done interviewing the President — then type the 302. 18 hour day . . . ”15:13:32, FBI Employee: “you interviewed the president?”15:17:09, Agent 1: “you know — HRC” [Hillary Rodham Clinton]15:17:18, Agent 1: “future pres”15:17:22, Agent 1: “Trump cant win”“Trump can’t win” explains the salty language also of the Page-Strzok text trove, where the two paramours talk of Trump supporters that they “can smell” and an “insurance” plan to preclude Trump’s nearly nonexistent chances. (“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration . . . that there’s no way [Trump] gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”)Perhaps the most iconic example of deep-state bias was the following Page-Strzok exchange:Page: “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!”Strzok: “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.”When high-career FBI and DOJ officers go on to refer to American voters as smelly, “retarded,” ignorant, and feces (easily trumping Hillary’s own “deplorables” and “irredeemables” and Obama’s “clingers”), they do so because they assume their candor to each other will earn rewards rather than punishments. More generally, they count on their illegal and unethical behavior becoming known and thus résumé points rather than grounds for later firing and jail.In such an incestuous Washington world, one presidential candidate, an abject outsider and sure loser, was a hopeless “idiot,” ”loathsome,” a ”menace” and a “disaster.” In contrast, as another (unnamed) FBI agent boasted to a female counterpart, “I’m . . . with her.” What he meant was not so much that he was obviously a Clinton partisan and a would-be born-again feminist, but rather that he was a partisan of someone who was going to shortly be president, and that he was an enemy of one who would pay a big price for his eccentric and uncouth bid.So recalibrate the following questions:Why would a seasoned careerist like Andrew McCabe allow his spouse to receive nearly $700,000 in campaign donations from Clinton-affiliated organizations, only later to become a chief investigator of the Clinton email scandal, or why would he so clumsily leak to the press and lie about it afterwards? Easy answer: He wisely played the odds and knew that his future FBI ascendency was assured, given that he had helped exonerate the soon-to-be president, Hillary Clinton. His only rub would be competing with other post-election sycophants who would all be vying for President Clinton’s patronage, each claiming that his own particular improper, illegal, or unethical behavior trumped that of the others.Why would Loretta Lynch endanger her reputation with an adolescent stunt like agreeing to a weird jet-plane meeting on an Arizona tarmac with the old conniving schmoozer Bill Clinton? (What are the odds that two friends accidentally bump into each other in charter jets at the same time at one of the nation’s roughly 5,000 airports?) Answer? Such a concession was not entirely adolescent by Lynch’s savvy calculations. Not only was her improper behavior unlikely to become publicized; far more important, the Clintons, once Hillary was elected, would probably have either retained Lynch as AG or promoted her to the Supreme Court as a careerist reward for noble service rendered. We can imagine that Lynch would have reported to President Hillary that she had forced Comey to drop the word “investigation” and only with a wink and nod had “recused” herself from an investigation that she intended would lead to only one result.Why would the last boy scout James Comey, in clumsy fashion, reinterpret a federal statute about handling classified communications so that it would suddenly include “intent” as a newly invented criterion for being found in violation of the law? Why, as investigator and prosecuting attorney, would he shut down, open up, and then shut down his investigation of Clinton at the height of the election season? Why would he for so long ignore the Wiener laptop evidence?Comey later himself answered those questions by his admission that he assumed Clinton would be president. As he stated, he thought his (Potemkin) investigation would give her legitimacy after her exoneration.A losing Hillary Clinton may now be mad at Comey, but that is only because the deep-state pollsters’ sure 90 percent odds of her winning proved laughable. Had she won, Hillary probably would at least have listened to Comey as he pleaded that his exoneration of her email impropriety and the way in which he had assigned partisans to her case were proof — along with her victory — that he deserved praise and rewards, not firing. Comey’s 2016 calculus was always that Clinton had likely done something wrong but would be president, while Trump probably had not broken the law but certainly would not be elected.Why would Hillary, John Podesta, and the DNC be so childish as to hire the likes of a reckless egotist Christopher Steele who would leave a paper trial with their fingerprints over his bought fantasies and fabrications? Again, a President Hillary would probably soon have appreciated such slavish service. And more significantly, as a sure winner, she would have thought such dirt would help subject the pathetic loser Trump to a legal morass in his post-election bitter isolation. Who knows, Hillary might have cackled to her gang that their neat oppo-research file reminded her of her own cattle-futures gambit or the mysterious vaporization and reincarnation of the Rose Law Firm files.Why would professionals such as the omnipresent Rod Rosenstein and the proper Sally Yates sign on to juvenile FISA-court requests for surveillance that were obviously misleading, if not constituting some sort of felonious obstruction of justice by deluding the court about the nature of the Steele dossier? (The application failed to disclose that the dossier was unverified, that the FBI had fired Steele for improper leaking, that the dossier itself was the source of circular “corroborating” news stories, and that it was paid for by Hillary Clinton.)Answer? Again, Yates, Rosenstein, and Comey, along with other signatories of FISA requests, would now be rewarded with tenure and/or promotions for noble service to the cause. Bill might have guffawed that it all reminded him of the Marc Rich pardon caper or the minor inconvenience of being disbarred.
Nothing in the past of either Brennan or Comey, both of whom previously lied with impunity and while under oath to Congress, gave them any reason to fear any legal consequences for either unethical or illegal behavior.
Why would supposed intelligence pros like Comey, John Brennan, and James Clapper stoop to traffic in the Steele dossier, and in Comey’s case, even become a party to inserting at least one informant into an ongoing political campaign?Lots of answers. One, Trump’s was not a political campaign, but rather a sure losing political campaign. Two, Trump himself would not just go down to defeat, but was likely to be ruined after the election as he experienced a Manafort-like fate of endless leaked negative stories in the media, a litany of made-up charges designed to have him plea-bargain to a felony or two, and millions in never-ending legal fees. Three, nothing in the past of either Brennan or Comey, both of whom had previously lied with impunity and while under oath to Congress, gave them any reason to fear any legal consequences for either unethical or illegal behavior. Again, in careerist terms, their behavior was logical; what was abjectly illogical was that Trump won.Why would supposed progressive humanitarians and civil libertarians such as Susan Rice and Samantha Power request unmasking of hundreds of American citizens and somehow expect such unredacted names to reappear in dark contexts right before the 2016 election? Aside from the fact that neither Rice nor Power is a humanitarian or a civil libertarian, such behavior would springboard a rapprochement with the Clintons. Service beyond the call of duty, indeed, even risking criminal exposure through leaking unmasked but still classified names, could not be ignored even by a vindictive Hillary Clinton, who had prior reason to distrust both.
What then would be stupid in careerist terms? Had James Comey and the Obama DOJ run their investigation of Hillary Clinton the same way that Robert Mueller is currently conducting his hounding of Donald Trump, or had Robert Mueller conducted a post-election, Comey-like faux inquiry into Donald Trump, it would be the epitome of administrative-state stupidity.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++It is tiring to hear sermons about the integrity of the FBI and DOJ, as if their elite leadership in Washington has no more influence over an organization than a general does over his army. Of course, the vast majority of employees in the field are both competent and just. But too many of their Washington leaders see themselves in grandiose terms, as subject to no law other than the demands of their own egos.
The problem with all the current scandals is that half the country, including the half that runs the media and the administrative state, thinks that any means are justified to achieve the ethical and noble end of aborting Donald’ Trump’s presidency.
That same mindset of exemption explains why Mueller did not disclose to the public immediately why he removed Page and Strzok from his investigation, and why their staggered and initially clandestine departures were in fact related. And why, too, Andrew Weissmann, Jeannie Rhee, and Aaron Zebley were seen to have no possible conflict of interests even though one of them was not shy about his earlier disdain for Trump and his enthusiasm for Clinton, while the other two had either in the past defended a Clinton aide or the Clinton Foundation. Again, the way the orthodox state works is that the mere suggestion that such progressive attorneys have conflicts of interests is branded heresy and earns outrage — but never alters the fact that they do in fact have real ethical conflicts.The problem with all the current scandals is that half the country, including the half that runs the media and the administrative state, thinks that any means are justified to achieve the ethical and noble end of aborting Donald’ Trump’s presidency. What one half of the country sees as unethical behavior is assumed by blue America to be noble service beyond the call of duty. When a Page or Strzok or Andrew McCabe broke protocols and likely the law, 50 percent of the population saw something like James Comey’s version of a “higher duty.”For all the investigations and IG reports, for all the revelations of scandals and wrongdoing, there will probably in the end be little consequence, simply because to those who matter, such illegality is seen as nobility. Many at the highest echelons of the FBI and DOJ broke laws. But Trump broke a far higher and far more important unwritten law — one forbidding any presidential candidate and future president to be and act like Donald J. Trump.
4) 'Keeping black people fearful, angry, victimized and resentful'
By Walter Williams
For several decades, a few black scholars have been suggesting that the
vision held by many black Americans is entirely wrong.
Dr. Shelby Steele, a scholar at Stanford University's Hoover Institution,
said: "Instead of admitting that racism has declined, we (blacks) argue all
the harder that it is still alive and more insidious than ever. We hold race
up to shield us from what we do not want to see in ourselves."
Dr. John McWhorter, professor of English and comparative literature at
Columbia University, lamented that "victimology, separatism, and
anti-intellectualism underlie the general black community's response to all
race-related issues," adding that "these three thought patterns impede black
advancement much more than racism; and dysfunctional inner cities, corporate
glass ceilings, and black educational underachievement will persist until
such thinking disappears."
In the 1990s, Harvard professor Orlando Patterson wrote, "America, while
still flawed in its race relations ... is now the least racist
white-majority society in the world; has a better record of legal protection
of minorities than any other society, white or black; (and) offers more
opportunities to a greater number of black persons than any other society,
including all those of Africa."
During an interview in December with The Daily Caller, Steele said the
anti-Americanism that started during the 1960s and has become mainstream and
visible in the black community is "heartbreaking and sad." That
anti-Americanism that so dominates the American black identity has been
"ruinous to black America, where we are worse off than we were under
segregation by almost every socio-economic measure."
Some people might challenge Steele's assertion that in many measures blacks
are worse off than during segregation. How about some numbers?
As late as 1950, female-headed households were only 18 percent of the black
population. Today 70 percent of black children are raised in single-parent
households. In the late 1800s, there were only slight differences between
the black family structure and those of other ethnic groups. In New York
City in 1925, for example, 85 percent of kin-related black households were
two-parent households. According to the 1938 Encyclopaedia of the Social
Sciences, that year 11 percent of black children were born to unwed mothers.
Today about 75 percent of black children are born to unwed mothers.
From 1890 to 1940, a slightly higher percentage of black adults had married
than white adults. Today about twice as many blacks have never married as
whites. The bottom line is that the black family was stronger the first 100
years after slavery than during what will be the second 100 years.
What about the labor market?
In every census from 1890 to 1954, blacks were either just as active as or
more so than whites in the labor market. During that earlier period, black
teen unemployment was roughly equal to or less than white teen unemployment.
As early as 1900, the duration of black unemployment was 15 percent shorter
than that of whites; today it's about 30 percent longer. Would anyone
suggest that there was less racial discrimination during earlier periods?
White liberals and the Democratic Party are the major beneficiaries of
keeping black people fearful, angry, victimized and resentful. It's crucial
to both their political success and their efforts to change our nation.
Racial harmony would be a disaster for leftists, be they politicians,
academic liberals or news media people.
As for black politicians and civil rights hustlers, Booker T. Washington
long ago explained their agenda, writing:
"There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping
the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the
public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their
troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs
- partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of
these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do
not want to lose their jobs."
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University.
_______________________________________________
5) LONGEVITY
Married men live longer than single men do,
but married men are a lot more willing to die...
but married men are a lot more willing to die...
_____________________________
HOW TO STOP PEOPLE FROM BUGGING
YOU ABOUT GETTING MARRIED
YOU ABOUT GETTING MARRIED
Old aunts used to come up to me at weddings,
poking me in the ribs and cackling,
telling me, "You're next."
poking me in the ribs and cackling,
telling me, "You're next."
They stopped after I started doing the
same thing to them at funerals.
same thing to them at funerals.
_____________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment