Saturday, September 16, 2017

Did Susan Rice Spy on Trump Officials for Muslim Brotherhood? - Daniel Greenfield




by Daniel Greenfield


Imagine if Watergate had been about the White House spying on Democrats for the KGB.



Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism.

After months of denials, the pretext for Susan Rice’s eavesdropping on Trump officials has finally been made public. It had been widely known that Obama’s former National Security Adviser had contrived to unmask the names of top Trump officials who had been spied on by the administration. And the same media that still treats Watergate as the Great American Scandal had claimed that there was nothing “improper” in an Obama loyalist eavesdropping on members of the opposition party.

Every time Obama Inc. was caught eavesdropping on opposition politicians, it presented its spin in a carefully packaged “scoop” to a major media outlet. This time was no different.

When Obama Inc. spied on members of Congress to protect its Iran nuke sellout, it packaged the story to the Wall Street Journal under the headline, “U.S. Spy Net on Israel Snares Congress”. The idea was that Obama Inc. was “legitimately” spying on Israel, that it just happened to intercept the conversations of some members of Congress and American Jews, and that the eavesdropping somehow meant that its victims, Jewish and non-Jewish, rather than its White House perpetrators, should be ashamed.

The White House had demanded the conversations between Prime Minister Netanyahu, members of Congress and American Jews because it "believed the intercepted information could be valuable to counter Mr. Netanyahu's campaign." This was domestic surveillance carried out under the same pretext as in the Soviet Union which had also accused its dissident targets of secretly serving foreign interests.

Obama and his minions had used the NSA to spy on Americans opposed to its policies. Including members of Congress. They did this by conflating their own political agenda with national security.

Since Obama’s spin was that the Iran Deal was good for national security, opponents of it were a “national security” threat.

And its fig leaf for domestic surveillance was that a “foreign leader” was involved.

Now get ready for a flashback.

Susan Rice’s excuse for unmasking the names of top Trump officials in the Obama eavesdropping effort was that they were meeting with the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates. The carefully packaged CNN story, which reeks of the Goebbelsian media manipulations of “Obama whisperer” Ben Rhodes, tries to clumsily tie the whole thing to the Russians. But for once it’s not about Russia. It’s about Islam.

The UAE has become best known for being the first regional Muslim oil state to turn against the Muslim Brotherhood and the entire Arab Spring enterprise. It helped mobilize opposition to the Qatari agenda. The ultimate outcome of that effort was that Egypt was stabilized under a non-Islamist president and the Islamist takeover in Libya is looking rather shaky. The Saudi coalition against Qatar, the sugar daddies of Hamas, Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, has its origins in that effort.

When Obama Inc. spied on members of Congress before, it was to protect Iran. This time around, the gang that couldn’t spy straight was trying to protect the Muslim Brotherhood. The Iran Deal was never about stopping Iran’s nuclear program. It certainly does not do that. Nor was it ever meant to do it.

Instead the real goal of the Iran negotiations was a diplomatic arrangement with the Islamic terror state. The fruits of that arrangement can be seen from Beirut to Baghdad. They are written in blood and steel across Syria, Israel and Yemen. And that arrangement had to be protected at all costs.

Even if it meant spying on Americans. Even if it meant spying on members of Congress.

The arrangement that Susan Rice was protecting by spying on top Trump officials was even older and dirtier. It goes back to Obama’s Cairo speech and the resulting bloody horrors of the Arab Spring.

Both times Obama Inc. was caught spying on American officials to protect its dirty deal with Islam.

Obama officials had spied on Americans to protect Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood. That’s more than a mere crime. It’s treason. Imagine if Watergate had been about the White House spying on Democrats for the KGB. That is the sheer full scope of what we appear to be dealing with here.

Both high-level eavesdropping incidents involve an effort by Obama Inc. to protect Islamist enemies.

These efforts checked all the right and wrong legal boxes. The orders were carried out by men and women who know all the loopholes. Each decision was compartmentalized across a network. There were always pretexts. And a media eager to fight for the right of the left to spy on the right.

It is as unlikely that Susan Rice will be held accountable for pulling off a crime that makes Watergate into the gold standard of governmental ethics as it is that Hillary will ever go to jail for abusing classified information. The network, which some dub the swamp, has excelled at defending its own.  That’s why current National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster protected Susan Rice’s access to classified information and nurtured all the Obama holdovers behind the leaks while purging those who tried to expose them.

It is also why Susan Rice’s testimony did not leak until CNN was able to roll out its carefully packaged spin.

Conservatives excel at zeroing in on abuses like Hillary’s email account, the Rice unmasking and the Benghazi cover-up, but falter when it comes to exposing the motives behind them. And so the investigation of the abuses quickly vanishes into a thorny thicket of alibis, technical legalities, cover-ups and licenses. And a baffled public reads about hearings that delve into acts rather than motives.

It is vital that we understand not only what Rice did, but why she did it. It is important that we expose the pattern of misconduct, not just the individual act.

Susan Rice’s eavesdropping would have remained hidden if Flynn and his appointees hadn’t temporarily obtained the keys to the kingdom. And the network quickly worked to have Flynn forced out and replaced with McMaster. And McMaster has steadily forced out Flynn’s appointees so that there are no more leaks like the one that exposed the Rice eavesdropping. The swamp looks after its own.

Unless there are fundamental changes at the NSC and beyond, we will never know the full scope of the Obama eavesdropping operation. But we still do know a great deal about what motivated it.

Susan Rice and the White House didn’t just eavesdrop on the political opposition. There was an agenda so urgent that they were willing to pull out all the stops to protect it.

Even right down to committing what has become the ultimate crime in the White House.

It was the same agenda that dragged us into a war in Libya. The same agenda that was at the heart of the diplomatic efforts of the administration over eight years. That agenda was empowering Islamists.

The Obama edition of Watergate wasn’t committed merely for domestic political gain. It was carried out for a reason that was encompassed in his address to the United Nations after the Benghazi massacre.

“The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

This foul slogan led to the first arrest of a filmmaker for political speech in almost a century. It led to the sordid betrayal of our national security and our allies. And to domestic espionage against Americans.

The future must not belong on those who spy on Americans to protect Islamism.

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267873/did-susan-rice-spy-trump-officials-muslim-daniel-greenfield

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Russian agree to keep Iranians only 3 miles from Israel border - Lilach Shoval and Israel Hayom Staff




by Lilach Shoval and Israel Hayom Staff 


Israel had asked Russia to forbid Iran and its terrorist proxies from crossing the Sweida-Damascus line, some 40 kilometers away from the northern border



IDF soldiers on the Golan Heights
Illustration: AFP 
 In the past month or two, the defense establishment has identified unprecedented Iranian activity north of the border. In light of this, perhaps last week's reports by foreign media outlets that Israel attacked a weapons facility in Syria on Sept. 7 seem more understandable.
Aside from the aforementioned alleged airstrike, the IDF carries out hundreds of operations year-round within the framework of its so-called "war between the wars." Only a small portion of the IDF's activities come to light in the foreign media, but these operations include special intelligence gathering, land-based missions and a variety of other measures aimed at staving off the next war.
In recent weeks, we have also heard Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman issue harsh statements about Iran's encroachment into Syria, along with reports that the Islamic republic is trying to build precision-missile factories in Lebanon and Syria. According to foreign reports, the target of last week's airstrike was one of these factories.
Thus far, terrorist organizations have been unable to acquire precision strike capabilities. The IDF, meanwhile, views Hezbollah's aspirations in this regard as a "severe strategic threat," because such missiles can accurately hit strategic installations in Israel, such as air force bases, the chief of staff headquarters and other sensitive sites. It is important to note that despite Israel's air-defense systems – Iron Dome, David's Sling – it is impossible to intercept every enemy missile.
Talking with the Russians
Israeli officials are perhaps discontented with Russia's handling of Iran in the region, but Israel and Russia have been wise enough to build a successful mechanism to prevent friction between their respective militaries in the Syrian arena. To maintain this mechanism, senior IDF officers meet every few weeks with their Russian counterparts.
Israel wants Russia to prevent hostile elements, such as Iran and Hezbollah, from establishing a presence along Israel's border. In its efforts to keep Iran away from the Golan Heights border, Israel has asked Russia to forbid Iran and its proxies from crossing the Sweida-Damascus line, but the Russians have agreed to allow the Iranians within 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) of the border with Israel. The distance between Damascus and the Israeli border, incidentally, is about 40 kilometers (25 miles).
Israeli officials recently expressed considerable concern that the Iranians ultimately want to be "on Israel's fences" and will gradually try to move closer to the border.

Lilach Shoval and Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/2017/09/15/russians-agree-to-keep-iranians-only-3-mi-from-israel-border/

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IDF's Gaza Wall May Change Hamas Terror Strategies - Yaakov Lappin




by Yaakov Lappin

Hamas is most likely to respond to Israel's improved position against the tunnels in Gaza by upping attempts to generate terrorism from the West Bank.

Time may be running out for one of Hamas's main weapons against Israel: Its cross-border terror tunnels.
 
By 2019, according to Israel Defense Forces (IDF) assessments, Israel will complete an underground wall that stretches along the 60-kilometer (37 mile) border with Gaza. The wall is the product of several years of research and development, and is designed to eliminate the tunnel threat to Israeli communities located near Gaza.

During the past three years, since the end of its last conflict with Israel, Hamas has invested big resources into its tunnel maze. One of its top goals is to rehabilitate an ability to inject murder squads into Israeli territory through the tunnels.

Once inside Israel, they could target IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians for murder or kidnapping, whenever the next conflict breaks out.

But Israel has invested far more than Hamas to try stopping that threat. It is paying 150 million shekels ($42.5 million) for each kilometer of the new wall.

Work began on the subterranean project in areas where Israeli communities were very close to the border. Then, gradually, other areas began receiving protection.

During a conference call held with reporters in August, the commander of the IDF's Southern Command, Maj.-Gen. Eyal Zamir, said the wall will prevent "the digging of tunnels into our territory," adding that work is "advancing according to plan. In the coming months, this project is going to significantly accelerate. We will see an expansion in the scope of the works. Within two years, we will be able to complete work."

Many details about the wall remain classified. But IDF sources have previously indicated that the wall will come with electronic sensors. The sensors will issue alerts to military control centers, sounding the alarm about suspicious tunnel digging activity.

The control rooms, would, in turn, be able to order action if necessary.

Similar military control rooms are popping up along the Gaza border to handle intelligence coming in from Israel's above-ground border fence. Sensors installed on the barrier, together with units from the IDF's Combat Intelligence Collection Corps, are joined by drones, spy balloons, and radars, all feed the control centers with a flow of data, and alert them to suspicious activity.

The big question now is whether Hamas will sit back and watch Israel take away its offensive tunnel option, or whether it will feel cornered and strike out, risking a new conflict.

"We very much hope we will not be challenged as this [work] continues," said Zamir. "We hope that this quiet will continue, but continue to prepare. We are on high alert."

Hamas's military wing, the Izzadin Al-Qassam Brigades, issued a statement earlier this month saying that the underground wall "will not limit the ability of the resistance," and vowing to "find the solutions needed to overcome it."

But Hamas is unlikely to launch attacks in response to Israel's wall, Ely Karmon, a senior research scholar at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya, Israel, told the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

"They cannot initiate a military maneuver now. The timing is bad for them," he said, citing Hamas's financial woes, made worse by the fact that Qatar, under U.S. pressure, is cutting off the cash flow to the Gaza Strip.

Hamas wants to engage Egypt to improve its isolation and find a way out of its financial crisis. It just opened an office in Cairo. It cannot depend on friends like Turkey, which has a limited ability to provide assistance, Karmon said. "Beyond that, Hamas is under pressure from the Palestinian Authority. A new military clash with Israel will harm them," he said.

During his remarks, Zamir said that the "Gaza arena is stable," adding, "We have identified that Hamas remains deterred, and that it is restraining many attacks [by smaller Palestinian armed factions]."

At the same time, he said, Hamas is encouraging the flames of terrorism to spread in the West Bank, and is orchestrating terror cells remotely, as it prepares itself for future war in Gaza.

That's an assessment that was echoed by Karmon, who said Hamas is most likely to respond to Israel's improved position against the tunnels in Gaza by upping attempts to generate terrorism from the West Bank.

Hamas, together with Iran, could try to smuggle rockets into the West Bank, Karmon said, citing a directive by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei to assist West Bank terrorist cells.

"The Iranians understood that Hamas is deterred in Gaza, and limited in what it can do," Karmon said.

As a result, Hamas likely will remain focused on igniting the West Bank, and using it as a launchpad for terrorist attacks on Israel, he said.

Karmon cited information unveiled by the chief of Israel's domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, in recent days, which told the government that about 200 terror attacks had been thwarted in 2017.

"Most of the big attacks [that were stopped by the Shin Bet] were organized by Hamas, not Fatah," Karmon said. "Hamas's whole campaign is focused on the West Bank, and includes using clans that support Hamas, and distributing propaganda for violent incitement. They are neutralized in Gaza, and are trying to heat up the West Bank."

Meanwhile, back in Gaza, Hamas continues neglecting the basic needs of the 2 million Palestinians it rules over, as it remains focused on its quiet military build-up, according to the chief of the IDF's Southern Command.

"Many resources in Gaza are going to the Hamas military wing. They could be used instead to improve the humanitarian situation," Zamir said. "We continue to prepare. Reality is explosive. It could deteriorate into a conflict at any time."

In addition to offensive tunnels, Hamas has built a maze of tunnels that crisscross Gaza City. Zamir described them as "an underground metro network," designed to move Hamas armed members, weapons, and logistics out of Israel's sight.

Yet Israel's Southern Command is watching these activities closely, and preparing a range of solutions designed to enable Israel to turn Hamas's underground city into a large death trap if a new conflict begins.

The IDF's Southern Command recently sent out images of civilian facilities in Gaza that Hamas uses as a cover for its military-terrorist activities.

One image is of a six-story residential building, which Hamas used to build an underground facility nearby, according to the military. The second photo is a of a home containing a family with five children, which is linked to a tunnel that leads to a mosque, enabling Hamas terrorists to move underground and use human shields as they do.

This type of activity "endangers the civilians of Gaza," Zamir cautioned. "We hope that this quiet will continue, but we are continuing to prepare, and are on high alert."

Yaakov Lappin is a military and strategic affairs correspondent. He also conducts research and analysis for defense think tanks, and is the Israel correspondent for IHS Jane's Defense Weekly. His book, The Virtual Caliphate, explores the online jihadist presence.

Source: https://www.investigativeproject.org/6683/idf-gaza-wall-may-change-hamas-terror-strategies

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Democrats Play Pak Man With National Security - Lloyd Billingsley




by Lloyd Billingsley


Another secret server expands the IT intrigue.




Back in July, when House Democrats’ mysterious IT man Imran Awan attempted to flee the country, authorities arrested him at Dulles airport on charges of bank fraud. For Andrew McCarthy, who prosecuted the “Blind Sheik” Omar Abdel-Rahman, “this appears to be a real conspiracy, aimed at undermining American national security.” Turns out, McCarthy was on to something.

“A secret server is behind law enforcement’s decision to ban a former IT aide to Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz from the House network,” reports Luke Rosiak in the Daily Caller. Law enforcement has indicted Awan, charging that he “routed data from numerous House Democrats to a secret server.”

The data came from the House Democratic Caucus, once chaired by California Democrat Xavier Becerra, one of the five Caucus members who hired Awan back in 2004. Becerra and New York Rep. Gregory Meeks also put on the payroll Imran’s wife Alvi and his brother Abid. As Rosiak explains, Becerra, who became chair of the HDC in 2013, was personally responsible for “far more of the payments to the Awan family than any other member.”

In late January, after the inauguration of President Donald Trump, Becerra left Congress to become Jerry Brown’s attorney general in California. As investigators told Rosiak, Becerra “wanted to wipe his server, and we brought to his attention it was under investigation.” When investigators asked for an image of the server, “they deliberately turned over a fake server.”

That amounted to “interference in a criminal investigation” and also served up evidence that Awan and his family associates, “knew exactly what they were doing and were going to great lengths to try to cover it up.” So what, exactly, were they covering up? The possibilities are rather extensive.

Awan could freely grab data from the computers of 45 House Democrats, including Henry Waxman, Jackie Speier, Tammy Duckworth, Hakeem Jeffries, Joaquin Castro, Gabrielle Giffords, Emmanuel Cleaver, Kendrick Meek and many others, including members of the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committees.

To access that kind of information you need a security clearance, and as Andrew McCarthy noted, Awan and his gang could not possibly have qualified for such a clearance. On the other hand, for any foreign snoop, U.S. intelligence and foreign affairs information would be worth big bucks on the international market.

Awan also had free access to the computer of Florida Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz, head of the Democratic National Committee. Wasserman Schultz hired Awan and brought aboard Abid Awan’s wife Natalia Sova and Awan’s brother Jamal. As the IT intrigue unfolded, Wasserman Schultz pushed back, threatening investigators when they sought to inspect a laptop that belonged to Awan.

He had already smashed up crucial hard drives before fleeing. Even so, as the intrepid Luke Rosiak noted, Wasserman Schultz refused to fire any of the Awans, even after they after they became targets of a criminal investigation. She further charged the Awans were victims of anti-Muslim profiling. Gregory Meeks likewise claimed Awan had been targeted because he was born in Pakistan.

Nick Fandos of the New York Times chased down Awan’s lawyer Christopher Gowen, who called the accusations “the product of an anti-Muslim, right-wing smear job.” The piece came headlined, “Trump Fuels Intrigue Surrounding a Former I.T. Worker’s Arrest.”  DNC mouthpiece Xochitl Hinojosa called the security charges “laughable,” and claimed Russia was behind the DNC hack.

Anti-Trump reactionary Xavier Becerra, who wanted the Democrats’ secret server bleached out, was once on Hillary Clinton’s short list as a running mate. The former First Lady and Secretary of State operated an unsecured private server in her home. When this became news, Clinton had the server wiped clean, her staffers smashed up other electronic gear, and nobody wanted to talk about it. 

FBI boss James Comey, who boasts a long history of helping the Clintons, found that Hillary had been extremely careless in handling classified information but chose not to bring any charges. That kept Clinton in the race, which she lost to Donald Trump. The former Secretary of State has since authored What Happened, but on her current book tour she fails to explain what, exactly, happened to the more than 30,000 emails she destroyed.

Like Clinton, the old-line media appear to believe that what, at this point, does it matter? In similar style, the establishment media show little curiosity about Imran Awan. What material did he steal from members of the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committees?

What was on that secret server that House Democratic Caucus boss Xavier Becerra wanted wiped clean? And with so many reliable IT aides readily available, why did the Democrats choose Pakistani-born Imran Awan and his extended family? Why were they kept on the payroll and protected?

Did Imran Awan send any U.S. classified information to his homeland Pakistan? Did he sell it off to Russia, Iran, or perhaps North Korea? Nobody seems to know, not even James Comey and Robert Mueller, but some realities are clear.

“In Washington, it’s never about what they tell you it’s about,” explains Andrew McCarthy. They say the Awan affair is about bank fraud or Islamophobia, but it does appear to be a real conspiracy aimed at undermining American national security.


Lloyd Billingsley is the author of Barack ‘em Up: A Literary Investigation, and Bill of Writes: Dispatches from the Political Correctness Battlefield.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267879/democrats-play-pak-man-national-security-lloyd-billingsley

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Leftists Never Fight - Tom Trinko




by Tom Trinko

Are we to be ruled by unelected judges who summon up whatever changes the “living” Constitution requires to support their left-wing ideologies, or will we be free men and women who determine our own fate?

Senator Dianne Feinstein revealed both the Democrat’s anti-Catholic bigotry and view of work when she said:
"And I think in your case, professor, when you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you, and that's of concern when you come to the big issues that large numbers of people have fought for years in this country."
She was addressing a Catholic woman who has been nominated to the judiciary. Can you imagine what would happen if a Republican questioned a liberal woman’s suitability for the judiciary because of that woman’s religious beliefs? Apparently, according to Democrats, not only can one be black only if one toes the line set by the rich white liberals who run the DNC, but one can only be a woman if one bows to the altar of the DNC leadership.

The obvious problem has been discussed extensively; namely the Constitution specifically says that one can’t have a religious test for office. Hence the Democrat’s “no Catholics need apply” rule is a clear rejection of the Constitution and the rule of law.

However, there is even a more deeper indictment of Democrats in the last part of the quote.

Before proceeding, let’s be clear in this context Democrats are the leadership, the consultants, the big donors, the bureaucrats, and the politicians, not the average Hillary voter. Many if not most of those vote Democratic because the media hides from them what the leadership does; that’s why Democratic voters don’t know that Hillary was waging a war on the Catholic Church and evangelicals in saying that they were unfit to serve in office unless they put aside their pro-life positions.

Feinstein, the epitome of the Democrat leadership, has stated that she was mostly thinking about abortion when she was talking about all that fighting people had done.

Yet no one “fought” for the right of women to kill their daughters for any reason at any time up to the moment of birth if by “fight” one means using the democratic process to change the laws of the country.

Prior to Roe v. Wade, all 50 states had addressed abortion and some states, such as New York and Nevada, allowed abortion under certain circumstances. Yet even in liberal NY there was no support for no-holds-barred, kill-them-at-the-moment-of-birth abortion laws; precisely the law that America woke up to one morning when our true sovereigns -- in the minds of Democrats -- the Supreme Court justices, spoke.

Seven of the unelected lawyers who accept the idea that America is a tyranny rather than a republic decided that the Constitution contained a right to privacy even though that right is nowhere mentioned in the document and had not been sighted by thousands of judges for nearly 200 years.

That Democratic contention that those seven people were “fighting” indicates that in their minds the people as a whole are not part of the Democratic process. Rather only the elites -- judges, politicians, big donors, bureaucrats, foreign liberals -- matter.

Even now, when voters enact restrictions on abortion -- most Americans want abortion restricted to the first trimester, for example -- Democrats fight not through the democratic process but through the courts where rich lawyers can quash the rights of Americans.

Essentially Feinstein is revealing her fascist, but not anti-Semitic, heart by saying that she supports a few rich, mostly white, mostly male, judges deciding the law of the land. Sure, she approves of democracy when it gets her what she wants but if the people don’t support her, she is quite comfortable going over their heads and imposing on them what they’ve rejected.

We see that with DACA. Congress was given a chance to pass DACA and, fearing the voters, it said no. Obama then simply instituted what he’d previously said was unconstitutional as a royal fiat. Democrats applauded then and are applauding now; fascists at heart, they reject Democracy if it thwarts their lust for power.

We saw it with gay “marriage.” California passed Prop 8, with Blacks supporting it at the 70%+ level, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Prop 8 passed with 52% of the voters supporting it. Yet the Democrat governor and the Democrat attorney general refused to defend the law as they were required by their oath of office. That alone shows that Democrats are fascists; it’s not up to the governor to decide which laws are constitutional or not; that’s the job of the courts.

However, the state courts supported the legality of Prop 8. Not to be deterred, Democrats took it to a federal court where a closeted gay judge who stood to benefit from ruling against Prop 8 suppressed the will of the people of California.

Then to add insult to injury, Democrats applauded when the Supreme Court imposed the redefinition of marriage on all of America, overturning the votes of 55,000,000 Americans who had voted to retain the millennia-old definition of marriage. Given that the Constitution says that only the powers enumerated in the Constitution belong to the federal government and given that defining what is and isn’t a marriage is not in the Constitution, it’s blindingly obvious that the Supreme Court had no authority to change thousands of years of Western Tradition.

But Democrats were thrilled; Democracy be damned -- we got what we wanted, was their mantra.

It would be hard to find a single Democrat initiative, from legalizing pornography to redefining marriage, which was the result of a concerted effort to change the minds of the American people and use the democratic process to achieve Democratic goals.

Feinstein gives witness to the fascist anti-democratic nature of the modern Democratic party.
Squishy Republicans who are enamored of the rules that worked 60 years ago when Democrats weren’t all fascists need to wake up and see we’re in a war for the soul of America.

Are we to be ruled by unelected judges who summon up whatever changes the “living” Constitution requires to support their left-wing ideologies, or will we be free men and women who determine our own fate?

We live in interesting times, and we all need to make a stand against the fascists who wish to enslave us. Nazis have no power in America precisely because people know who they are. If the people find out who the Democrats really are they too will have no power.

You can read more of tom’s rants at his blog, Conversations about the obvious and feel free to follow him on Twitter


Tom Trinko

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/09/leftists_never_fight.html

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Unapproved Thought Is Violence - William L. Gensert




by William L. Gensert

Today, every progressive (read Democrat, liberal, or leftist) has his nose pressed into everybody else’s business lest someone think or say something that might melt a snowflake.

Twitter cofounder Evan Williams has said: “I thought once everybody could speak freely and exchange information and ideas, the world is automatically going to be a better place, I was wrong about that.”

Yet, we cannot speak freely, can we? Say the wrong thing and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) will label you a hatemonger. The nation’s founders envisioned free speech as a guardrail against the republic veering down an embankment, thinking that if speech were free, someone would be there to call BS when the nation went places not intended or imagined.

Yet, today, every progressive (read Democrat, liberal, or leftist) has his nose pressed into everybody else’s business lest someone think or say something that might melt a snowflake. We can’t have anyone ever offended, or embarrassed, or in any way made uncomfortable by unapproved thought.

It is in this way, the language has changed. Whereas the word “violence” has always meant actions that include actual physical violence, progressives have transmogrified “unapproved thought” from a mere difference of opinion into an integral component of the definition of violence. 

Therefore, the violence of unapproved thought can now be met with actual violence because actual violence is not really violence if it is committed against someone with the wrong ideas and the gall to speak those ideas aloud.

It’s amazing how diversity is not really all that diverse in a world composed of safe spaces and resegregation under a unitary set of acceptable ideas where words no longer mean what we thought they meant. Antifa, which is modern-speak for anti-fascist, is probably the most fascist organization in America today and the same goes for the SPLC and Black Lives Matter (BLM). All lives matter, but saying that is now hate-speech and thus violence, which can be justifiably met with actual violence.

Throughout the eight years of Barack Obama, I was afraid to speak out against the man whom I thought was not who he purported to be. I thought he was a horrible president without an ounce of honesty or humility, pushing policies that were detrimental to every man, woman, and child in America. To say so aloud, however, was not permitted, and when I started writing about him, the windows in my house were broken, not once, but twice. That was then; I wonder what’s in store now.

Today you can say anything you want about the current president -- talk about killing him in the vilest of ways and it’s not a problem. I seem to recall that a rodeo clown not only lost his job and livelihood but also received a visit from the Secret Service, all because he wore an Obama mask -- and that was before It killed the clown business, making them into monsters that scare little children (and a surprising number of grown men as well).

The progressive plan is to restrict what people can say. They have always controlled the conversation, but that is not enough when you want to rule the world. They need to make sure no one ever disagrees with them. That’s the deal with the statues.

According to a recent NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist poll, 62% thought the Confederate statues should remain, while only 27% wanted them removed, and even among African-Americans, a 44% plurality of those polled said they should remain.

You see, it has nothing to do with statues of dead Democrats erected by dead Democrats a hundred years ago to reinforce the Democratic Party’s white supremacist governance in the southern states. It is about making a point. Don’t you dare oppose us no matter how ridiculous our demands, or we will not only destroy you publicly and politically but physically as well. Violence has always been an excellent tool for behavior modification.

Democrats have staked their future on this strategy, along with the media, their most loyal ally, Antifa, and BLM. They think that people will be terrified by the two thousand or so white supremacists currently active in the country, and not the very violent, very bloody and much better organized hundred thousand Antifa, BLM, and sundry other anti-white, anti-Trump, anti-Republican groups. Yet, didn’t the media claim they were anti-racist and anti-fascist? That’s the story they try to sell one broken head at a time, and Antifa/BLM loves them some broken heads.

There are no more moderate Democrats; the entire party consists of progressives who have bought into the whole thought is violence that must be met with violence strategy. It remains to be seen how successful this will be in the end; the mere fact that they are successful now does not transfer into success tomorrow.

Screaming the loudest often doesn’t make you the most popular, but it does get you the most attention -- and it is surely a sign the nation is in deep trouble.

Now, in a delusionary quest for eternal electoral supremacy, the Democrats are in an onanistic frenzy, eating their future one statue and one Antifa riot at a time. They are treating their future as a party as if it was another comestible to be thrown into the gaping maw of identity politics.

Respectful opposition to Democratic Party policies is no longer accepted; it is reviled. Should one disagree with the Democrats even the slightest on their latest progressive decree, you will be met with paroxysmal fits of rage from spokesmen spewing spittle from their mouths while making scatological charges of all manner of evil against that person. Paramount among the accusations will inevitably be their favorite, racism.

Moreover, it’s no longer only their political opposition. In the regnum that is the Democratic Party, there is no room for moderates, because the Democrats have long stopped being a political party and have become a movement. Welcome into that movement is both Antifa and Black Lives Matter (BLM). Agree with their tactics and motives or else.

For the sake of America, and indeed, humanity as well, I have to believe the populace at large will not buy into this version of Orwell’s 1984 the Democrats are peddling as the future of the nation, but today, there is real risk inherent in such unapproved thought. 

William L. Gensert

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/09/unapproved_thought_is_violence.html

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The Thought Police Strike Again - Giulio Meotti




by Giulio Meotti

This politically correct nonsense highlights even further the infantilization of our culture

  • This politically correct nonsense highlights even further the infantilization of our culture -- such as the demand for "safe spaces" and "trigger warnings". It may look like a comedy, but its effect is deadly serious.
  • Groupthink is a debilitating force. in any civilization. It undermines one's ability to resist the real enemies of democracy and freedom: it makes us blind to radical Islam and jihadi terrorism, and it gives the impression that our society is a joke.
  • Instead of being intellectually diverse, universities are trying their utmost to impose homogeneity of thoughts and ideas. So-called "right wing newspapers" are banned from certain universities. Recently, at the City University of London, the student union, devoid of irony, fascistically voted to ban some conservative tabloids in order to "oppose fascism".
Headlines every day proclaim the new religion: political correctness, cultural vandalism and censorship -- not from Islamic emirates such as Saudi Arabia, but in Western cities right here.

The Writers Union of Canada, for instance, recently apologized for a magazine editorial that defended the right of novelists to create characters from a backgrounds other than their own.

Just think of that: a writer defending the right to use one's imagination?! What an insult! At least, to "the new Stalinists" it is.

"In my opinion anyone, anywhere, should be encouraged to imagine other peoples, other cultures, other identities," Hal Niedzviecki, who was the editor of the union's magazine, Write, defended freedom in an editorial. The Union then announced that Niedzviecki had resigned.

Another journalist also fell victim to this new religion. Jonathan Kay also recently resigned as editor of the magazine The Walrus. Defending Niedzviecki's right to use his imagination cost Kay his job.

Their unspeakable crime was, it appears, "cultural appropriation" -- one of the new "groupthink" expressions that the theologian Paul Griffiths condemned as "illiberal and totalitarian". Griffiths, too, had to resign from Duke University after criticizing his colleagues for a "diversity program" that "provides foundational training in understanding historical and institutional racism."

Every revolution needs to master a new "language" to achieve uniformity of expression and thought. George Orwell, in 1984, called the replacement language "Newspeak".

Cardiff Metropolitan University, one of the largest in Britain, compiled a list of 34 words that it "encouraged" teachers and students to stop using, and replaced them with "gender-neutral" terms. "Fireman" should be replaced by "firefighter"; "mankind" should be replaced by banned "humanity", and so on. Princeton University also expunged the word "man" in its various uses, in favor of supposedly more "inclusive" expressions. City University of New York decided to ban "Mr." and "Mrs." California State University replaced commercial terms such as "businessman", "mailman", "manpower" and "salesman" to avoid that horrendous, forbidden word.

While at it, why not also purge Christianity's religious language? Some of the most famous theological universities, such as Duke and Vanderbilt, invited professors and staff to use "inclusive" language even when they are referring to God, because the masculine pronouns are "a cornerstone of patriarchy".

This politically correct nonsense highlights even further the infantilization of our culture -- such as the demand for "safe spaces" and "trigger warnings". It may look like comedy, but its effect is deadly serious. British philosopher Roger Scruton has said that a kind of "moral obesity" is crippling Western culture.

Groupthink is a debilitating force. in any civilization. It undermines one's ability to resist the real enemies of democracy and freedom: it makes us blind to radical Islam and jihadi terrorism, and it gives the impression that our society is a joke.

That is why Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, whose novel 2084 depicted a dystopian state governed by religious law, said "literature and arts are not playing a big role in this struggle against barbarism". Those writers are, instead, far too busy implementing political correctness.

Universities in Britain are now even holding workshops to "deal with right wing attitudes in the classroom". Instead of being intellectually diverse, universities are trying their utmost to impose homogeneity of thoughts and ideas. So-called "right wing newspapers" are banned from certain universities. Recently, the at the City University of London, the student union, devoid of irony, fascistically voted to ban some conservative tabloids in order to "oppose fascism".

Dozens of personalities, conservative and liberal alike, have been prevented from speaking on many U.S. campuses. This is just a short list: Milo Yiannopoulos, Janet Napolitano, George Will, Condoleezza Rice, Madeleine Albright, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Henry Kissinger, Christine Lagarde, Charles Murray and Jason Riley.

First, students asked to limit freedom of expression to a specific place on campus. Then they started issuing declarations about no rights to free speech. Finally, in a crescendo of hysteria, they ended up throwing firebombs. How can we pretend that freedom of expression in the West is protected -- from fascism, Islamism, anything -- when we restrict it in our universities?


When the "politically incorrect" commentator and writer Milo Yiannopoulos was due to speak at the University of California, Berkeley on February 1, 2017, a mob of 150 people proceeded to riot, smash and set fires, causing more than $100,000 of damage. (Image source: RT video screenshot)

A few weeks ago, the 2017 Whitney Biennal in New York opened with a protest in front of a painting by the American-born artist Dana Schutz. The picture depicted Emmett Till, a boy lynched by racists in Mississippi in 1955. More than 25 black artists signed an open letter, written by the artist Hannah Black, to the Whitney's curators and staff, asking that the painting be removed from the Biennial, allegedly because "the painting uses black suffering for "profit and fun'". Ms. Black also asked that the painting be "destroyed and not entered into any market or museum".

That request not only aimed at censoring different ideas, but, like the Grand Inquisitor, of destroying the "wrong thought". The new religion -- featuring political correctness, cultural vandalism and censorship -- is dismantling the West.

Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10388/thought-police

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A Master's Degree in Whitewashing Islam - Bruce Bawer




by Bruce Bawer

The idea that there are Muslims who seek to turn Europe into an Islamic colony is, of course, no "conspiracy theory." Jihad and the caliphate are core Islamic doctrines.

  • I routinely find the website Document.no to be more reliable on the facts than the state-owned TV and radio stations or any of the big private (but, in many cases, state-supported) dailies.
  • The idea that there are Muslims who seek to turn Europe into an Islamic colony is, of course, no "conspiracy theory." Jihad and the caliphate are core Islamic doctrines. For over a decade, however, Norwegian academics and intellectuals have accused those commentators, who face up to the reality of these doctrines, of "peddling paranoia."
  • I wonder if anyone asked how a statement of opinion can violate "fundamental human rights."
In Norway, where the mainstream media systematically bury or whitewash news stories that might reflect badly on the nation's misguided immigration policies, its failed integration policies, or on Islam, a handful of small but heavily trafficked websites serve a vital function: getting out information that is being suppressed and providing a forum for opinions that are being silenced.

Perhaps the most prominent of those websites is Document.no, founded in 2003 by Hans Rustad, who still serves as editor and publisher. It is an intelligent, serious, and responsible site, whose contributors tend to know more about the above-mentioned subjects -- and to be better writers -- than the staffers at the major Oslo newspapers. I have yet to read a bigoted word by a contributor to Document.no, and I routinely find the site to be more reliable on the facts than the state-owned TV and radio stations or any of the big private (but, in many cases, state-supported) dailies.

For countless Norwegian citizens, Document.no is essential reading. For the nation's cultural elite, however, it is anathema -- a major chink in an otherwise almost solid wall of pro-Islam propaganda.

So it is no surprise to learn, via Universitetsavisa, the student newspaper at the University of Oslo, that a Religious Studies student there, Royer Solheim, has written a master's thesis on Document.no, in which he describes it as a locus of "hate rhetoric," "Islamophobia," and "conspiracy theories." Nor is it a surprise that he was graded an A.

Solheim describes the thesis itself as "a qualitative study based on a critical discourse analysis of a Norwegian Islamophobic website, document.no." His conclusion:
"The Eurabia conspiracy theory permeates the Islamophobic discourse on the website. The Eurabia theory is based on an idea that Arabs or Muslims are increasing their influence and are in the process of turning Europe into an Islamic colony."
The idea that there are Muslims who seek to turn Europe into an Islamic colony is, of course, no "conspiracy theory." Jihad and the Caliphate are core Islamic doctrines. For over a decade, however, Norwegian academics and intellectuals have accused those commentators, who face up to the reality of these doctrines, of "peddling paranoia." Their useful shorthand for this is "Eurabia theory," a term derived from the title of Bat Ye'or's 2005 book Eurabia.

Universitetsavisa reports that after last year's terrorist attacks in Nice and Berlin, reader comments on Document.no were "thoroughly marked by anti-Muslim prejudice, hate rhetoric, and aversion to Islam and Muslims." I am very familiar with the comments field at Document.no. Its level of discussion is quite high. What Solheim is plainly reacting to here is the fact that the readers of Document.no have no illusion about the motives for terrorist acts such as those that took place last year in Nice and Berlin. The readers are simply not shy about acknowledging that there is a clear, straight line connecting core Islamic doctrines with repeated mass murders of infidels. If these murders sometimes lead those readers to express even outright anger at Islam, and at the reckless European governmental policies that have rendered the continent vulnerable to these atrocities, who can blame them?

In any event, the editors of Document.no are not responsible for statements made by their readers -- although, as even Solheim admits, they do make an effort to "moderate the debate and do not tolerate racism." The fact is that the opportunity Rustad's website affords citizens to sound off on matters vital to their own (and their children's) future is becoming increasingly valuable. Why? Because more and more Norwegian news media are closing down comments fields on their websites when the topic is Islam -- precisely because they do not want to host honest, vigorous debates about this most forbidden of issues. There is a good reason why Document.no has more than 200,000 unique readers per month -- which, as Solheim acknowledges, makes it bigger in this regard than the country's newspaper of record, Aftenposten.

"Within a discourse there are certain norms as to what is acceptable to say," scolds Solheim. The debates on Document.no, he pronounces with dismay, are heavy on "skepticism toward authority." Some of the contents, he insists, violate "fundamental human rights." Well, isn't he a good little policeman-in-training. Unfortunately, knifings, car-rammings, and abusing women, children and homosexuals would also seem to violate "fundamental human rights." The Universitetsavisa article briefly recounts Solheim's defense of his thesis, at which he answered questions. I wonder if anyone asked him how a statement of opinion can violate "fundamental human rights."

I also wonder if anyone asked him any questions about basic Islamic theology. His thesis adviser, Asbjørn Dyrendal, is apparently an expert in Christianity, Satanism, Wicca, and in -- surprise! -- "conspiracy theories." In his work, Dyrendal has sounded the alarm about the supposed dangers of evangelical Christianity in America -- all the while dismissing as "conspiracy theorists" those who dare to sound the alarm about the dangers of Islam. In other words, he is a prototypical member of the European academic establishment.

Fortunately, Universitetsavisa, like Document.no, has a comments field for readers. One of the readers of the article about Solheim wondered what he thinks of born-and-bred Muslims who, writing for sites like Document.no, agree with pretty much everything that Rustad and others say there about the "religion of peace." Another asked how Solheim distinguishes "between Islamophobia and entirely legitimate Islam criticism" and whether his "research" had included checking the supposedly "hateful" claims made by Document.no's contributors against the facts about Islam. A third wondered if Solheim was familiar with the frequent references, in the works of the popular Islamic theologian Yusuf al-Qaradawi, to a future and fondly hoped-for Islamic conquest of Europe. As yet another reader of Universitetsavisa put it: "It stops being a conspiracy theory when you have evidence that it's happening."


The University of Oslo, in Oslo, Norway. (Image source: Dan Lundberg/Flickr)


Bruce Bawer is the author of the new novel The Alhambra (Swamp Fox Editions). His book While Europe Slept (2006) was a New York Times bestseller and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10970/norway-whitewashing-islam

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Britain’s alarming antisemitism problem - Melanie Phillips




by Melanie Phillips

Two groups are shown to be principally responsible for problematic attitudes: Muslims and the Left.


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In 2002, on the BBC TV show Question Time, I was accused of dual loyalty in front of a jeering studio audience. My crime had been to defend Israel against demonization and double standards by both the audience and other members of the panel.

At that time I had visited Israel only twice in my life, two years previously. No matter. A British Jew defending Israel was – and is – immediately accused in some quarters of incipient treachery toward Britain, just as throughout history antisemites have accused Diaspora Jews of dual loyalty or treachery merely because they are Jews.

I thought of my own experience, of course, when I read the report on antisemitism in the UK published this week by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research.

There is currently much disquiet over the Labour Party’s conspicuous failure to address significant antisemitism within its ranks. But there has long been far wider concern among many British Jews about the antisemitic discourse, harassment and physical attacks which have become sickeningly commonplace in Britain over the past few years.

The report’s author, Daniel Staetsky, describes a situation which is complex.

Only around 5% of the population are out-and-out antisemites holding multiple anti-Jewish attitudes. Nevertheless, about 30% subscribe to some kind of antisemitic views.

The key is Staetsky’s distinction between antisemites and antisemitism. For while the number of antisemites is very small, the amount of antisemitism diffused throughout British society is much greater.

That’s because, while people may not feel personal hostility toward Jews, they may believe certain things which are in themselves antisemitic. As Staetsky says: “Antisemitic ideas are not as marginal in Great Britain as some measures of antisemitism suggest, and they can be held with and without open dislike of Jews.”

As a result, the probability for a British Jew of encountering “potentially offensive or, at the very least, uncomfortable” views is about one in three. That’s high.

Staetsky states, however, that 70% of British people hold a “favorable” attitude toward Jews. He reaches that optimistic figure, though, only by reducing respondents’ options to categorize their attitudes. When offered more options, the scenario for British Jews becomes less rosy: only around 39% have “somewhat” or “very” favorable opinions of Jews, more than 5% are classed as “somewhat” or “very” unfavorable and nearly 56% are classed as neither favorable nor unfavorable or as “didn’t know.”

Two groups are shown to be principally responsible for problematic attitudes: Muslims and the Left.

While “significant proportions of Muslims reject all such prejudice,” antisemitism and anti-Israel attitudes are two to four times higher among Muslims than in the general population.

And contrary to the claim by those on the Left that they can’t be antisemitic because they are opposed to racism and fascism, the report says levels of antisemitism on the Left are “indistinguishable” from in the rest of the population.

When it comes to Israel, however, the Left is worse. Even those who are “slightly left-of-center” or “fairly left-wing” are more anti-Israel than the general population, while the more left-wing people are the more they hate Israel. You don’t say!

Moreover, says Staetsky, while only 12% of the population are out-and-out Israel-bashers, close to a quarter of Britons believe, to some extent at least, that Israel is deliberately trying to wipe out the Palestinian population, and about one in five that Israel is an apartheid state.

These are huge numbers for such poisonous lies. And no fewer than 56% hold at least one anti-Israel attitude.

So as Staetsky says, the feeling among so many Jews that they encounter anti-Israel positions all the time becomes immediately comprehensible.

The true extent of antisemitism has, of course, been masked by claims that being anti-Israel is not the same as being anti-Jew. Staetsky, however, states: “The existence of an association between the antisemitic and the anti-Israel attitudes tested is unambiguous.”

Moreover, the stronger the hostility to Israel the more likely it is to be accompanied by antisemitic attitudes such as that “Jews exploit Holocaust victimhood for their own purposes.” And that correlation puts left-wing Israel-bashers squarely in the antisemitism camp.

Staetsky makes the link solely through a statistical overlap between anti-Israel and antisemitic attitudes. I’d go further. Anti-Israel discourse has exactly the same unique characteristics as antisemitism.

Both are based entirely on lies, distortions and libels, double standards, obsessive hatred and the assumption of a covert conspiracy with an almost supernatural cosmic power to do the world harm. And that’s no coincidence.

People don’t understand that the demonization of Israel isn’t merely “criticism.” Nor do they understand that antisemitism isn’t just an expression of dislike or hatred. Both are instead a particular form of derangement – a repudiation of reason and the replacement of truth by paranoid and malevolent lies.

Many Israel-bashers have no idea that what they are saying is profoundly antisemitic, because they have no idea that it is a set of deranged lies.

That’s because they never hear the truth. And that’s above all due to the failure of Israel to make its own case in an intelligent and strategic manner.

The report makes clear that far-right adherents, although among the most antisemitic, are of negligible importance because there are so few of them. Of far greater concern is the Left which dominates British society. And that’s what’s making Britain so uncomfortable now for so many Jews.


Melanie Phillips

Source: http://www.melaniephillips.com/britains-alarming-antisemitism-problem/

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