Rep. Omar’s Anti-Semitism is Just CAIR’s Anti-Semitism - Daniel Greenfield

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by Daniel Greenfield

Pull on the string of Rep. Omar’s anti-Semitism and you go right back to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Rep. Ilhan Omar defended the anti-Semitic Black Israelites hate group in January. In February, she was originally scheduled to speak at an Islamic Relief USA dinner alongside IRUSA’s Yousef Abdallah who had endorsed violence against Jews and described former Governor Chris Christie “down on his knees before the jewish lords and masters… only money makes stuff like this happen.”

Abdallah’s comments were very similar to the anti-Semitic Twitter slurs that got Omar in trouble.

That’s not a coincidence. Omar’s worldview, including her anti-Semitism, was shaped by a familiar network of Islamist organizations which control life for most Muslims in the United States.

In March, Rep. Omar is headed to California to speak at CAIR’s Los Angeles dinner. There she will appear alongside CAIR’s Florida boss Hassan Shibly who has defended Hamas and vocally praised Hezbollah. “Israel & it’s supporters are enemies of God and humanity!” he had tweeted.

Shibly has vocally defended Rep. Omar over her comments about Jews.

Rep. Omar’s comments about Jews are a commonplace CAIR talking point. Nihad Awad, the co-founder and executive director of CAIR, had made an even more explicit version of the same argument. “Who of Clinton’s advisors … is opposing the latest agreement with Iraq? Look at their names. Look at … their ethnic or religious or racial background.”

“The Jews plan to distort Islam’s image and have succeeded in their plans,” he later claimed.

Before that, Awad had been the PR director for the Islamic Association of Palestine, CAIR’s previous incarnation, which had published “America’s Greatest Enemy: The Jew! And an Unholy Alliance!” The hate pamphlet claimed that, “the Jews through their Zionist machinery have power over all the agencies and organs of the United States government.”

It’s no coincidence that Rep. Omar is speaking at the events of two Islamist organizations which have a history of promoting the claim that Jews control America using money. It’s where she got those views.

The coverage of Rep. Omar’s anti-Semitic tweet has treated its bigotry as if it were her own. It’s not.

Rep. Omar isn’t just dropping in on CAIR. She had also served on CAIR-Minnesota’s advisory board. And her trip to California is a matter of repaying her biggest group of supporters for their backing.

Omar had benefited from three CAIR fundraising events in California. While she had accused pro-Israel politicians of taking money from pro-Israel Jews, she’s been taking money from pro-terror Muslims.

Rep. Omar’s anti-Semitism was absorbed, along with other even uglier views, from the Islamist lobby of hate groups like CAIR. And Omar’s career shows that there is no Islamist agenda too extreme for her.

In 2017, she was one of only two representatives to vote against a bill limiting terrorist life insurance payouts.

In 2016, Omar sent a letter in defense of 9 ISIS recruits in Minnesota. "A long-term prison sentence for one who chose violence to combat direct marginalization is a statement that our justice system misunderstands the guilty," she wrote of the ISIS recruits. "People seek violent solutions when the process established for enacting change is inaccessible to them."

Rep. Omar doesn’t just hate Jews and oppose Israel. These are only components of her Islamist worldview which sparks with sympathy for Islamist terrorists in America, as much as in Israel.

Congress doesn’t have an Omar problem. It has a CAIR problem. And that’s a much harder problem to solve than soliciting a non-apology from Rep. Omar for letting her anti-Semitic slip show.

Over time, CAIR leaders learned how to say the same ugly things in a more deniable tone. Rep. Omar is learning the same tricks. But coded bigotry isn’t an improvement. It is in some ways worse.

Rep. Omar has tended to be condemned and to apologize for word choices. But her word choices are not inopportune. And they are not the issue. The Islamist politician wasn’t blindly stumbling into offensive territory because of her word choices. Her word choices reflect the stark apocalyptic terms in which she sees the conflict with Israel.

Omar’s worldview is CAIR’s world. And CAIR’s worldview is that of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood’s Sayyid Qutb had claimed that the Jews use money to control the world. Hamas, an arm of the Brotherhood, had claimed in its charter that, "with their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others... With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests."

Pull on the string of Rep. Omar’s anti-Semitism and you go right back to the Muslim Brotherhood. Omar is just a symptom of the problem. And the problem is the Brotherhood’s presence in American politics.

Omar’s hateful views are unremarkable among Muslim Brotherhood activists. They’re so commonplace that they’re little more than background noise. Conspiracy theories about global influence are used to explain how the Jews were able to win back their independence and maintain an independent country.

When Omar tweeted, “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel”, she was echoing the same worldview from another angle. It’s the tip of an Islamist conspiracy iceberg that goes far beyond a current clash with Hamas and instead all but contends that the Jews had started WWI and all the other wars in order to achieve their geopolitical goals.

In the Koranic and Qutubian worldview, the Jew is a primal enemy of Islam. The Jews are behind all the conflicts and there will be no peace until a final apocalypse in which the Muslims wipe out the Jews.

And then Allah will awaken the people.

Opposition to Israel and support for Hamas helps Muslims affirm the role of the Jews as the fundamental enemies of Islam, who prevent the supremacy of Islam from taking hold.

Islam’s victory can only be achieved by destroying the Jews.

These are the ingredients baked long and hard to make Rep. Omar’s worldview.  And this is only the beginning. As more Muslims are elected to higher office, more of them will be Islamists.

CAIR has a solid grip on Muslim communities in America. As more Muslim are elected to national offices, CAIR’s agenda will sink even deeper into the national and local legislatures. That is what we should be talking about. The only lesson Rep. Omar has learned is to choose her words more carefully and that will make it easier for Democrats to ignore her anti-Semitism and harder for Jewish activists to complain about it. But Rep. Omar’ convictions, grounded in her religion, are not about to change or go anywhere.

There’s no point in talking about Rep. Omar, unless we’re also going to talk about CAIR.


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

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272879/rep-omars-anti-semitism-just-cairs-anti-semitism-daniel-greenfield

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Leaked video offers glimpse of emerging Israel-Arab alliance - Ariel Kahana, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

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by Ariel Kahana, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

Saudi FM: "Who is supporting Hamas and Islamic Jihad and undercutting the Palestinian Authority? Iran" • Bahraini FM: Iran is a far bigger threat to regional security than Israeli-Palestinian conflict • UAE FM: Israel justified in attacking Iran in Syria.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sits beside U.S. Secretary of State 
Mike Pompeo at the Warsaw summit, Thursday Photo: AP 

Israel and Arab states on Thursday made strides in their joint effort to curb Iranian expansion in the region, as Arab foreign ministers attending the U.S. sponsored Mideast summit in Warsaw, Poland, sitting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the audience, lambasted the Islamic republic and the European countries offering it support.

The Prime Minister's Office released a 25-minute video of the closed meeting, in which senior Gulf Arab officials played down the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, defended Israel's right to defend itself, and described Iran as the greatest threat to regional peace.

The video, bearing the insignia of the Prime Minister's Office, was recorded on a mobile device and it was not clear who took it. Netanyahu's office briefly made the YouTube video available to a small group of journalists traveling with him before quickly removing it.

It was unclear whether Netanyahu intended to leak the information or distributed it mistakenly. But the decision to take the video down indicated that the Gulf officials, whose governments do not have formal diplomatic relations with Israel, had not consented to its release.

The edited, 25-minute video shows a series of comments made by officials from Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on a panel discussion at the security conference. Some 60 nations participated in the gathering, which was focused heavily on countering Iran's growing influence in the region.

Saudi Arabian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir accused Iran of hurting the Palestinian cause by supporting terrorist groups battling PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

"Who is supporting Hamas and Islamic Jihad and undercutting the Palestinian Authority?" he said. "Iran."

"We cannot stabilize the region without peace between Israel and the Palestinians. We cannot stabilize the region without peace in Lebanon and Syria," Jubeir went on to say, "[but] wherever we go we find Iran's evil behavior. If you want peace and stability in the Middle East, you must make it clear to the Iranians that if they want to be treated like a normal country they must behave like a normal country."

Jubeir also blasted the Iran nuclear deal, which he said allows Iran to acquire nuclear weapons and menace the region because of its so-called sunset clauses.

"When the JCPOA was signed, everyone thought everything would be fine," Jubeir said, referring to the 2015 nuclear pact by its technical name.

"Meanwhile, we in the region are in the brunt, for us 10 years is the blink of an eye. So, Iran ends up with a nuclear weapon – it is theoretically capable of doing one very quickly because no limits on enrichment – who is going to suffer? We are."

"Iran gives ballistic missiles to the Houthis [in Yemen] and Hezbollah [in Lebanon]. Who's going to suffer? We do, in the region. And so people have to be serious about how to deal with the problem of Iran."

Jubeir added: "I wish the Iranians would change, but they aren't there yet. Any attempt to be good with them has failed. They present two faces – a foreign minister [Mohammad Javad Zarif] who speaks nicely and [on the other hand] the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps."

He also had some harsh words for Hezbollah, saying "One of the biggest jokes is when you say Hezbollah has a political wing and a military wing. There is no such thing."

Bahrain's foreign minister, Khalid Al Khalifa, made some of the toughest comments, saying that Iran is a far bigger threat to regional security than the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"We grew up talking about the Palestine-Israel dispute as the most important issue," he said in the video. "But then at a later stage, we saw a bigger challenge. We saw a more toxic one, in fact the most toxic in our modern history, which came from the Islamic Republic, from Iran."

He went on to denounce the "neo-fascist regime" in Tehran, accusing it of plotting attacks in his country and destabilizing Yemen, Syria and Iraq. He also said that "toxic money, guns and foot soldiers of the Islamic republic" have hindered progress in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.

Bahrain, an island nation off Saudi Arabia that's home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, long has had tense relations with Iran.

If it wasn't for Iran's regional aggression," Khalifa continued, "we would have been much closer today in solving this issue with Israel. But this is a serious challenge that is preventing us now from moving forward anywhere, be it Syria, be it Yemen, be it Iraq, be it anywhere. So this is the challenge we have to face in order to deal with other challenges," he said, referring to Iran.

While the Gulf Arab countries' animosity toward Iran is well known, it is generally taboo for Arab leaders to make such comments about the Palestinians in high-profile public settings.

In the clip, the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, also indicated that Israel was justified in attacking Iranian targets in Syria.

"Every nation has the right to defend itself, when it's challenged by another nation, yes," he answered in response to a question by the panel's moderator, former U.S. Middle East peace negotiator Dennis Ross, about Israeli strikes intended to prevent Iran from entrenching itself militarily in Syria.

Ross later tweeted of the event: "Same room, same views of Iran's aggressive, threatening posture in the Middle East, and unmistakable convergence of what should be done to counter it."

Netanyahu did not participate on the panel, but is seen sitting in the audience. Speaking to reporters early Thursday, Netanyahu cryptically hinted at what he called the "unfathomable" friendly atmosphere at the conference. But he did not disclose any details or say whom he had met.

Hatnuah party leader Tzipi Livni, a political rival, accused Netanyahu of violating standard protocol and leaking the video to boost his campaign ahead of April 9 elections. She called for "external diplomacy, not internal politics."

Ariel Kahana, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/2019/02/15/leaked-video-offers-glimpse-at-unprecedented-israel-arab-alliance/

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“Green New Deal” - And Planes, Trains and Automobiles - Lloyd Billingsley

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by Lloyd Billingsley

Ocasio-Cortez and her comrades travel backward toward “Year Zero”.

Democrats led by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Sen. Edward Markey have rolled out their “Green New Deal,”  a 14-page House Resolution that would replace air travel with trains, eliminate gasoline-powered cars and get rid of “farting cows” that emit methane.

“Almost everything about Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal is wrong,” explained Ed Ring in American Greatness, with accompanying detail. He also called Ocasio-Cortez and company the “watermelon people,” because they are green outside and red inside. That comparison has been around for a while, but the red is deeper than ever before. The left has always been at odds with Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, but the Green New Deal Democrats also have a beef with Orville and Wilbur Wright.

On December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers took flight in the first successful power-driven airplane. The brothers gained fame as the “fathers of modern aviation,” which grew at a rapid pace. In 1927, Charles Lindberg became the first to fly across the Atlantic, and soon airplanes were transporting passengers across the oceans. Propeller aircraft gave way to jetliners such as the Boeing 707, which made its first flight on July 15, 1954, only six years after Orville Wright passed away, and went on to “popularize jet travel.”

From the 1960s onward jetliners whisked people around the globe, at prices the American middle class could afford, and reduced delivery times for goods and emergency services. If that is not progress, it is hard to imagine what might be. Now the Green New Deal reactionaries want to ground the airliners, which as Sen. Mazie Hirono noted, “would be pretty hard for Hawaii.” The Green New Dealers want to replace air travel with rail, an essentially nineteenth-century form of transportation.

California’s vaunted “bullet train,” for example, would likely cost many times more than its current estimate of nearly $100 billion.  As in Blazing Saddles, one thing stands between the project and the agricultural land they need: the rightful owners. Even if completed, the “high-speed rail” project would be slower and more expensive than air travel, and would not take passengers where they need to go. That is the key to the left’s enthusiasm for railway transportation, and the Green New Deal Democrats also have a beef with Henry Ford.

Ford did not invent the automobile but his production techniques lowered costs and made cars accessible to the masses. Workers could purchase the products they made, and Ford sold some 15 million Model T automobiles. After World War II, automobile travel opened up the country on the interstate highway system. As Dinah Shore sang, “see the USA in your Chevrolet,” and  millions still do.

In the automobile, unlike rail, you can go pretty much wherever you want. That’s why the Democrat Luddite leftists have made the automobile their primary target. A cinematic back story may help those of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s age to appreciate their wheels.

The Grapes of Wrath, based on the John Steinbeck novel, showcased the hardships of the Depression and for many served as a powerful critique of American capitalism, at a time when admiration for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was running high. The movie hit theatres in 1940, when the Stalin-Hitler Pact prevailed, and Stalin didn’t allow it to be shown in the USSR until 1948. The Soviet dictator thought an American-made movie would serve as effective anti-capitalist propaganda, but as Nicola Budanovic recalls, this gambit backfired.

As the film showed, in America “even the poorest owned an automobile ― a luxury that was off limits to an ordinary Soviet citizen at the time.” The poverty-stricken Joads could drive wherever they wanted and “were perceived as well-off members of the middle-class who have nothing to complain about.”

Stalin quickly yanked the film but the episode openly revealed “the flaws of a central-planned economy.” And eventually, “this crippled economy and a great shortage of goods would be one of the main causes for that system to collapse.”

The United States of America would certainly collapse under the Democrats’ version of Planes, Trains and Automobiles, a sure-fire tragedy.  On the left, “from each” comes first, and the deal takes away the people’s mobility. “To each” comes last, and the people get only the health care the government wants them to have. Promoters such as Kamala Harris don’t even bother to lie about it.

Those farting cows have to go, so the deal limits what the people can eat. Other deprivations would be sure to follow, as they did in the USSR, China, Cuba, and most recently Venezuela. The Green New Deal, in effect, is the Democrats’ version of the Khmer Rouge’s “Year Zero,” a suicide note for the freest, most prosperous nation in human history.

The Green New Deal would also take away a lot of money from the people and give it to those unwilling to work. For that crowd, as Dire Straits said, it will be money for nothing. Meanwhile, whatever happens to the House resolution, the ideas of the Green New Deal will not go away any time soon.

Lloyd Billingsley is the author of Barack ‘em Up: A Literary Investigation, recently updated, and Hollywood Party: Stalinist Adventures in the American Movie Industry.  Bill of Writes: Dispatches from the Political Correctness Battlefield, is a collection of his journalism.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272830/green-new-deal-and-planes-trains-and-automobiles-lloyd-billingsley

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Religion vs. Free Speech - Denis MacEoin

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by Denis MacEoin

Those leaders who must require a more solid grounding include the ones who deny that terrorism has genuine links to issues such as jihad warfare -- and who are constantly told that "real" Islam is above rebuke.

• Courts and government bodies still find it hard to make useful distinctions between gratuitous, racist, or violent speech about Islam and Muslims on the one hand, and reasoned argument that questions aspects of Islam, or even the religion overall, from the point of view of human rights, on the other.
• The situation in Europe is even more ambiguous. Most European states have laws that purportedly support free speech, yet accusations of hate speech and Islamophobia often lead to trials and sentencing can lead to imprisonment. This skewing of facts is one crucial reason why free speech needs to be defended.
• It is more than ever necessary to educate the public and many of its leaders about both the benign and troubling facts of Islamic history, doctrine, and culture. Those leaders who must require a more solid grounding include the ones who deny that terrorism has genuine links to issues such as jihad warfare -- and who are constantly told that "real" Islam is above rebuke.
• We must indeed paint a positive picture of what so many Muslims contribute to their host societies. We should, for example, celebrate the way in which Muslim-Americans in Philadelphia launched an appeal that raised over $100,000 to help repair two Jewish cemeteries that had been vandalized. Or the Muslim veteran in Arkansas who volunteered to stand guard with others at any Jewish site that was threatened with attack.

Even fair-minded and non-racist authors, websites, members of the media and others who present a rational critique of Islam end up being condemned as malicious racists and "Islamophobes." (Image source: iStock)

Speaking and writing about Islam today requires discretion, sensitivity, and a good grasp of facts. Doing this is harder in most European countries than it is in the United States, where the First Amendment insists on powerful free speech rights. The need for sensitivity stems from the almost universal condemnation of "Islamophobia", a mainly good-hearted response to democratic worries that innocent Muslims may be targeted with violence or hate speech, even as many (but far from all) seek to integrate themselves and their families into Western society.

Raw Islamophobia, like raw prejudice by and against any group, is of course racist, unacceptable and most often expressed by hate groups on the far right of politics. At the same time, it is not surprising that many people will build their attitudes towards Muslims on a perception prompted by Islamist terror attacks, radical Muslim antagonism to Western societies, or uneasiness about Muslims who choose to dress in ways that do not conform to Western norms. The confusion caused also creates problems for many people who have reasonable concerns about Islam as a religion and a political ideology.

The problem is that even fair-minded and non-racist authors, websites, members of the media and others end up being tarred with the same brush and condemned as malicious racists themselves. This creates a distorted perception of what has been termed "two Islamophobias," one hateful, the other respectable. The latter, of course, is not Islamophobia at all, any more than presenting a rational critique of any other religion, political thought, or ideology is racist, hate-driven or undemocratic.

That confusion between a hate-driven view of Islam and a thoughtful, unbiased criticism of it has led to restrictions on what may and what may not be written or said about Islam or Muslims, while politicians of all varieties, church leaders, and human rights activists have adopted a style of virtue-signalling that tells the world to be silent and accepting, or else they will be called racists or Islamophobes. This type of surrender might be understandable, but it has led many to say things in defence of Islam that are either not true or only partially true. That Islam is a "a religion of peace," that Islamic terrorism "has nothing to do with Islam," or that "Muslims are not anti-Semitic" are all popular claims which, at the very least, require further substantiation and informed debate. Insistence on such untruths or partial truths only serves to bring governments, the judiciary, the police, the media and many more into distrust and disrepute. This skewing of facts is one crucial reason why free speech needs to be defended. For years, many have strenuously spoken out against attempts to control and censor honest criticism – here, here or here.

Understandably, outright hatred, whether of Muslims, Christians or Jews -- such as online threats to slaughter them or postings that call for terrorist attacks -- are likely to fall within legal censure. Criticism of Islam, however, under so-called blasphemy laws, is condemned and forbidden virtually everywhere throughout the Muslim world. Bloggers and others who seek to cross those barriers are often arrested and imprisoned, flogged, murdered by mobs or executed by the state. In April 2017, a blasphemy charge was levelled against the Christian governor of Jakarta in Indonesia, Basuki Tjahaja Purname (Ahok). A court sentenced him to two years in prison for not being remorseful enough. Worse, false accusations of blasphemy are often levelled against innocent people as a means of settling personal scores, or to have people removed in order to seize their property.

The situation in Europe is even more ambiguous. Most European states have laws that purportedly support free speech, yet accusations of hate speech and Islamophobia often lead to trials -- here, here and here -- and sentencing can lead to imprisonment.

There is no hate speech law in the UK, but under a variety of government Acts, such as the 1986 Public Order Act, prosecutions for racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, or grossly anti-Muslim speech or behavior are possible. There are also paradoxes. The American author of more than 20 books, Robert Spencer, is not without a reasonable knowledge of Islamic matters, yet is banned from entering Britain, while Muslim hate preachers continue to be allowed in; in the UK, as in France, Denmark, Austria and elsewhere, it seems to be speech that merely questions political Islam that causes most confusion.

Courts and government bodies still find it hard to make useful distinctions between gratuitous, racist, or violent speech about Islam and Muslims on the one hand, and reasoned argument that questions aspects of Islam, or even the religion overall, from the point of view of human rights, on the other. Such questions come from different spheres, such as Christians, Jews, secularists, observant Muslims, reformist Muslims, human rights activists, among others. It is more than ever necessary to educate the public and many of its leaders about both the benign and troubling facts of Islamic history, doctrine, and culture. Those leaders who must require a more solid grounding include the ones who deny that terrorism has genuine links to issues such as jihad warfare -- and who are constantly told that "real" Islam is above rebuke.

We must indeed paint a positive picture of what so many Muslims contribute to their host societies. We should, for example, celebrate the way in which Muslim-Americans in Philadelphia launched an appeal that raised over $100,000 to help repair two Jewish cemeteries that had been vandalized. Or the Muslim veteran in Arkansas who volunteered to stand guard with others at any Jewish site that was threatened with attack.

We must, however, never fear speaking out against Muslim extremists who express hatred for Jews and who quote verses from the Qur'an or incidents from Islamic history in support of their bias. We must do so in measured words, citing real cases of radical Muslim anti-Semitism or anti-Western sermons or calls for violence based on interpretations of shari'a law or Islamic scripture.

Ironically, if we speak out too forcefully, the result can be counterproductive, making it unlikely that the people we would like to convince in politics, the churches, the media, or the mainstream will agree with our views. The extremist nature of some anti-Muslim agitators in the UK, for example, has had the effect of making it hard for many people to take in what they say.

What happens, then, is the exact opposite of what real Islamophobes claim they want, instead causing serious concerns about Islam to be dismissed. It is probably more constructive for everyone who speaks and writes about Islam and Muslims to do so in a measured and well-informed way.

Trevor Phillips, "a son of immigrants", the founding chair of Britain's Equality and Human Rights Commission, and a man profoundly disillusioned by the failure of so many ethnic and religious groups to integrate into British society, wrote an essay, Race and Faith: The Deafening Silence, in which he denounces official failure to face up to the divisions that have opened up in the UK following widening levels of immigration and "superdiversity". Phillips, long the country's best-known defender of multiculturalism, says the collapse of positive diversity had been because of two things: silence about divisions and loud denials that any problems existed at all. Serious critics of Islam need to join their voices to Phillips's, and others who tackle problems openly. To do that, we have to stand -- as he has done -- against all forms of extremism, both religious and secular.

Dr. Denis MacEoin lectured in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the UK's Newcastle University. He is the author of approximately 40 books and reports. He serves as a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13539/religion-free-speech

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Why is Trump, and not Obama, the so-called 'dictator'? - Jack Hellner

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by Jack Hellner

Democrats would like you to forget the many splendors of the Obama record.

President Trump has been turned down by Democrats for a sensible border barrier, so he will declare a national emergency in accordance with a law Congress passed in 1976.

Somehow, following a law Congress passed gets Trump labeled as a dictator.

Here is the case for declaring a national emergency:

Tens of thousands of people die each year from drug overdoses and a huge percentage of those drugs comes across the porous southern border illegally. Here is one story, headlined: "Deadly blue 'Mexican oxy' pills take toll on US Southwest":

Aaron Francisco Chavez swallowed at least one of the sky blue pills at a Halloween party before falling asleep forever. He became yet another victim killed by a flood of illicit fentanyl smuggled from Mexico by the Sinaloa cartel into the Southwest — a profitable new business for the drug gang that has made the synthetic opioid responsible for the most fatal overdoses in the U.S.
"It's the worst I've seen in 30 years, this toll that it's taken on families," said Doug Coleman, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration special agent in charge of Arizona. "The crack (cocaine) crisis was not as bad.
The fentanyl that killed Chavez was among 1,000 pills sneaked across the border crossing last year in Nogales, Arizona by a woman who was paid $200 to tote them and gave two to Chavez at the party, according to court documents.

Hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens, including gang members and other criminals, descend on our long southern border each year. They overwhelm our current ability to screen out and stop drugs, criminals and people with diseases.

President Trump tried to end DACA with an executive order since President Obama implemented that, with a new executive order and somehow complicit judges decided that only the first executive order was actually a law.

Trump then offered Democrats a more permanent solution on DACA in exchange for funding the border wall, stopping chain migration and ending the lottery system for immigrants and Democrats turned him down even though they have been in favor of those things in the past.

Trump has tried to get sanctuary cities and states to comply with immigration law and cooperate with ICE but he has been blocked by Democrats and complicit judges. Trump is essentially trying to enforce immigration laws Congress passed and is being thwarted at every turn.

Democrats have declared that illegal aliens crossing the border had to be stopped in the past, but have never followed through. Now, they are absolute obstructionists.

It certainly appears that after seeking many options, President Trump's newest tack -- to give the border guards and Homeland Security what they say they need to enforce the law and protect the citizens of the United States -- is a reasonable solution to invoke for the national emergency in compliance with the 1976 law.

Trump is being transparent in what he is planning to do and where the money is coming from and yet he is being labeled a dictator.

Trump will be sued to block the national emergency and some complicit judges will go along even though he is following the law. If Trump loses and we don’t get more protection at the border, Democrats will cheer and never Trumpers will say he didn’t keep his promise. If the American people are very unfortunate we will get a Democrat president in 2020, and we will end up with more drugs, more illegal immigration, more people dependent on government handouts and a march towards socialism. Heaven help us.

Now let’s contrast what President Trump is doing in compliance with laws that Congress wrote, and with what Obama did while he was in office when he was supported by almost all journalists and other Democrats.

President Obama repeatedly said that the Constitution didn't allow him to unilaterally change immigration laws but he did it anyway with his executive order on DACA. Democrats not only didn't care that he went around Congress and acted as a dictator, they supported the move.

Obama and the complicit Justice department decided that they weren’t going to enforce immigration laws and instead supported sanctuary cities and states as they defied the laws.

While the Obama administration supported cities and states that openly defied the federal law they were sworn to defend, they showed how insincere they were when they went after Arizona for wanting to enforce those same laws. Remember this headline? "Obama administration sues Arizona over immigration law."

The Obama administration on Tuesday sued Arizona over the state’s strict new immigration law, attempting to wrestle back control over the issue but infuriating Republicans who said the border required more security.

When Obamacare came up short of funds, President Obama didn’t go to Congress or declare an emergency. He just illegally diverted the money and Democratic congressional leaders at the time, such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Sen. Chuck Schumer, and others, didn’t sue or care. Here's how the headlines went at the time, and this is a non-conservative news source: "Government Illegally Diverts Billions to Obamacare Reinsurance Slush Fund."

For 2015 Obamacare reinsurance, the administration will pay out $6 billion raised from a fee on private health insurance and an additional $1.7 billion that under federal law belongs to the Treasury department. Indeed, the decision by the Obama administration directly violates section 1341 of Obamacare which explicitly states “money shall be deposited into the general fund of the Treasury of the United States and may not be used for the [reinsurance] program.

After Obama was chastised for illegally diverting funds, that didn’t stop him. He just stole again from low-income housing. Again, Pelosi, Schumer and others didn’t care.

Remember this story?

Federal court litigation provides evidence the Obama administration illegally diverted taxpayer funds that had not been appropriated by Congress in an unconstitutional scheme to keep Obamacare from imploding.
In 2016, a U.S. District judge caught the Obama administration’s Health and Human Services Department acting unconstitutionally and therefore put an end to the illegal diversion of taxpayer funds, but the Obama administration didn’t stop there.
The Obama administration instead turned to the nation’s two government-sponsored mortgage giants – the Federal National Mortgage Association, commonly known as “Fannie Mae,” and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, commonly known as “Freddie Mac” – to invent a new diversion of funds in a desperate attempt to keep Obamacare from collapsing.
“Paying out Section 1402 reimbursements without an appropriation thus violates the Constitution,” Judge Collyer concluded. “Congress authorized reduced cost sharing but did not appropriate monies for it, in the Fiscal Year 2014 budget or since.”
“Congress is the only source for such an appropriation, and no public money can be spent without one.”

It is dangerous to our freedom and prosperity when most journalists, instead of holding all powerful politicians to account, support one party no matter what they say or do and seek to destroy the other party with misleading and inaccurate articles. It degrades journalism to indoctrinate the public with misleading and false stories disguised as news. Well, here we are again, they are doing it again now, and not even a true matter of national security is stopping them.

Jack Hellner

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/02/why_is_trump_and_not_obama_the_socalled_dictator_.html

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Breaking the Left's Deception of Black Americans - Lloyd Marcus

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by Lloyd Marcus

We can whine about how evil leftists control mainstream and social media. Or we can focus on creative ways to educate our fellow American low-info voters.

With earbuds in my ears and wired to my phone, I listen to national Christian broadcasts during my daily walk. Back to back, I heard two black pastors with large congregations. It was stunning hearing how clueless both men were regarding the truth of various political issues.

Both pastors parroted Democrats' and fake news media's lies in their sermons. Between the two, they rebuked Republicans for hatefully wanting to build a wall to “keep people out”. They blamed Republicans for foolishly shutting down the government, which caused 800,000 employees to suffer unpaid. They scolded Republicans for cruelly separating children from their parents. Each allegation against Republicans was a misrepresentation of the truth; rooted in Democrats' and fake news media's longtime lie that Republicans are racist and mean.

The Border Wall. Americans welcome immigrants who enter our country legally. The border wall is to stop the invasion of illegals which includes sex traffickers, drug dealers and violent criminals. Stats confirm that walls are effective. Hypocritically, Democrats who preach that building a wall to keep Americans safe is racist and mean live in highly secured communities behind walls.

The Government Shutdown. In essence, Democrats shutdown the government by refusing to sign a budget with a piddly $5 billion towards the border wall. Democrats claim the wall, at a cost of $25 billion, is too expensive. Meanwhile, we are spending $135 billion annually for freebies to illegals. Democrats want the free flow of unskilled needy illegals invading our country to become new Democrat voters. The dirty little secret is illegal aliens are already voting for Democrats in our elections.

Separating Children. Democrats authored the law separating children from their parents at the border. Trump said he hates the law. Fake news and Democrats are using this Democrat law to portray Trump as a villain. Meanwhile, Democrats and fake news elevate to sainthood irresponsible foreign parents who send their children unaccompanied to make the extremely dangerous journey to America. Border agents report 12-year-old illegal alien girls armed with birth control, Plan B pills, due to the high probability of being raped along the way. What kind of parents subject their children to such horrors?

A white friend left a tearful message on my phone. Kelly was heartbroken over the loss of her 40-year friendship with a black woman. The two women and their husbands vacationed together; shared family joys and sorrows together. They never discussed politics. Out of the blue, the black woman phoned Kelly to rant about Trump's racism. Kelly gave numerous examples of why Trump is not a racist. She touted Trump's excellent record of hiring blacks. She included how Trump fought the old-guard racism of Palm Beach golf clubs. Trump opened Mar-a-Lago and insisted that blacks and Jews be admitted.

The conversation between Kelly and her longtime friend ended with the black woman saying, “I never thought you would support a racist.”

I returned Kelly's heartfelt phone call. I told Kelly to pray that God will open the eyes of her deceived black friend. I handed the phone to my wife. Mary counseled Kelly to mourn the loss of her friend and trust God to fill the void.

The next day Kelly sent me a note saying she had decided to send her black friend a letter telling her that she loves her. Kelly said she will include my article, “State of the Union Destroys ‘Trump is Racist’ Lie”.

My younger brother Jerry is the only Republican in his all-black Baptist church in Baltimore. He confronted his black pastor about routinely including rants about how Trump and Republicans are racist in his sermons. Jerry told the pastor about how years ago, Trump gave Jesse Jackson office space for his PUSH organization. Jerry explained that the KKK was founded by Democrats. He touted Democrats' history of perceiving blacks as inferior and opposing black liberation. None of these truths impacted his pastor's disdain for Trump and Republicans. Jerry feels led to remain in his church, letting his light shine and speaking out for what is right.

Jerry said since political facts seem useless in breaking his pastor's blind loyalty to Democrats, he will approach it using biblical scripture. What can I say, folks -- our dad was a preacher.

Jerry has scheduled a meeting with his pastor and the church elders. He will speak to them using, Matthew 16:33. “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness....” Jerry will go down the list of all the things Democrats are pushing which are in conflict with the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

I applaud my brother Jerry and my friend Kelly for not giving up. Both are seeking ways to break leftists' stronghold on the hearts and minds of deceived black Americans. The Bible says, ”Seek and ye shall find.”

My dad, Dr. Rev. Lloyd E. Marcus, recently passed at age 90. I brought home a book from Dad's library titled, The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz. The book says your mind is a “thought factory” either dominated by Mr. Triumph or Mr. Defeat. Both are extremely obedient, triggered by your instructions. Mr. Triumph produces ways for you to win. Mr. Defeat nurtures ways for you to fail. I can testify to the truth of this concept in the book.

Frustrated, I whined about how unfair it was that nothing I did seemed to lower my blood sugar. Committed to win, I put Mr. Triumph in charge, thinking of things I needed to do differently. After several adjustments in my diet and exercise, my blood sugar numbers have dramatically improved. I focused totally on thinking of ways to win. The Bible says, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”

My fellow Americans, we can whine about how evil leftists control mainstream and social media. Or, we can place Mr. Triumph in charge of our thinking, focusing on creative ways to educate our fellow American low-info voters. I fully intend to continue praying, trusting God and spreading truth.


Lloyd Marcus, The Unhyphenated American
Help Lloyd spread the Truth
http://LloydMarcus.com

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/02/breaking_the_lefts_deception_of_black_americans.html

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Ireland and the Border - Michael Curtis

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by Michael Curtis

For a thousand years, the borders of Ireland have presented a political problem. Indeed, they may have dominated the debate over the last few years over the issue of Brexit.

Ireland has been a trouble spot since the invasion of the island by the English king Henry II in 1171, whether to prevent a rival, Strongbow, from controlling the area, or to overcome the damaging opprobrium resulting from the murder of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, on December 29, 1170, by four of his knights. Declaring that Ireland was a part of his empire, Henry II changed the course of Irish history as resident Normans in the area pledged their loyalty to the British crown.

Almost a thousand years later, the borders of Ireland remain a difficult political problem, and indeed may have dominated the debate over the last few years over the issue of Brexit. Economic and political relationship between the Republic of Ireland (ROI) and Northern Ireland, part of the UK, has been a central factor in the negotiation process of the UK and EU over Brexit. Thus, the border issue is not simply bilateral, it is also an EU issue. 

The problem is compounded by the fact that the Brexit issue evokes historical memories as well as having political as well as economic implications. After Henry II, inhabitants lost territory to new arrivals from England, who formulated the laws. The crucial problem arose with Henry VIII and his decision to leave the Catholic Church and have the country adopt Protestantism, to which many Irish were opposed in their desire to remain Protestant as well as speak their own language, Gaelic. 

Oliver Cromwell invaded Ireland to reestablish control over Ireland, massacring over 2,000 of the population in the Siege of Drogheda in September 1649, while Ulster, a Protestant bastion, remained loyal to England, as it still is. Cromwell remains a villain for many Irish. More troubles ensued during following centuries. During the great famine 1845-49, Ireland lost more than 1.5 million victims. By 1900 the country had only half the number of inhabitants it had in 1830. 

On January 1, 1801 the Act of Union united the two areas, previously linked by personal union, into a single kingdom, the United Kingdom. The Chief Secretary, the key administrator in governing Ireland, ruled on behalf of London. However, the struggle for Irish emancipation starting in the 19^thcentury continued. After the failed Easter Rising against British rule in April 1916, guerrilla war between the IRA and Britain occurred, 1919-1921. It ended in May 1921 with the partitioning of the country, ending British rule in most of Ireland. The Irish Free State was created as a self-governing Dominion in December 1922 while Northern Ireland, NI, remained in the UK. Finally, on April 18, 1949 the Republic of Ireland was established, an independent republic, headed by a president.

However, hostilities between the IRA and the government continued in Ulster, virtually 30 years of civil war, including the Bloody Sunday incident on January 30, 1972 when 28 unarmed civilians were killed by British troops during a protest March in Derry (Londonderry). Hostilities lasted until April 10, 1998, Good Friday, which began the peace process. Good Friday was concerned with creating an infrastructure of cooperation between north and south, between the Irish government and the newly created power sharing Irish Assembly, in Northern Ireland. 

It also implied the normalization of relations between Protestant and Catholic communities in Northern Ireland, and between Britain and the ROI. The normalization would mean the opening of the border which had previously been manned by British soldiers. As a result, since both countries are still in the EU, there are no checks on goods or people moving between Northern Ireland and the ROI. 

The open border is the most tangible symbol of the peace process as well as of economic cross-border cooperation. All political sides in the Brexit negotiations agree there should not be a “hard” border, checks on persons, goods, or infrastructure, dividing NI from the ROI whatever the outcome of final negotiations. Therefore, keeping the border open and abiding by the Good Friday Agreement is critical. 

As a result, Brexit negotiators devised the so-called “backstop,” a political invention, a fallback position, to keep the border open as much as possible between the ROI and NI, even if no comprehensive trade deal can be reached between UK and EU. NI is the only part of the UK that has a land border with another EU country, the ROI. By backstop, the whole of UK, according to Prime Minister Theresa May, would enter in a single customs territory with EU, no tariffs on trade in goods between UK and EU, though NI would be aligned to other rules of the single market.

Two problems are related to this. One is that May does not favor a permanent customs deal lest it prevent British free trade deals with other countries. The other is that her proposals have twice been defeated in the House of Commons, on January 15, 2019 by 432-202, and on February 14, 2019 by 303-258. In the latter vote, her own Conservative party, 5 voted against her, and 67 others abstained.

The essential features of the EU, single market and customs union, allow people, goods, and services to enter other EU countries without inspection. The basic problem is that if Britain leaves the EU it will probably lead to delays and checks in this policy. The reality would be that the ROI and NI would be in different customs and regulatory regimes, and British goods would be checked at the border. The backstop, a last resort, is intended to prevent full border controls on goods crossing between ROI and NI. For Britain one problem is that it can only end the backstop arrangement with EU agreement. 

The issue is both economic and political. The fear is that barriers between North and South Ireland might revive the old animosity, the Troubles, the 30-year conflict over NI status as part of the UK. Military controls of the 500-kilometer border were only removed with the Good Friday agreement which provided for more collaboration and free movement between the two entities.

Irish and British politics enter into the picture. For 10 years in NI the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Fein worked together in a government coalition. Power sharing in NI ended in on January 9, 2017 because of differences between the major parties over the issue of green energy. It led to the general election of June 8, 2017 which resulted in a hung parliament. The Conservatives won 42,4% of the vote and gained 318 of the 50 seats, less than a majority; the Labour Party got 40.0% of the vote and 262 seats. Of the Irish parties. DUP got 10 and Sinn Fein 7. 

The UK government therefore relies on the DUP for a majority vote in the House of Commons, which it has twice lost. 

The Republic of Ireland, like NI, would suffer from a hard border. At the same time, it is benefitting from London-based groups banking institutions, including Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, and Barclays, asset management, and insurance companies, who want to retain access to EU markets. ROI will also benefit from pharmaceutical and legal firms which are moving business to Dublin. 

The dilemma of Brexit negotiations continues, especially since PM May does not have full support from her Conservative party. The EU may be less inclined to make compromise concessions in view of May’s lack of control of her party. A major problem is that the scheduled departure of UK from the EU on March 29 may have to be delayed because of the difficulties in agreeing on future trade and economic relations. The immediate issue is to identity “backstop” with full clarity, or find a suitable alternative, to prevent a hard border. 

Michael Curtis

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/02/ireland_and_the_border.html

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Ilhan Omar and a moveable feast of intolerance - Jack Engelhard

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by Jack Engelhard

These Muslim immigrants feel comfortable enough to bring us a taste of Omar’s Somalia, and other such Islamic hell-holes, where calling for the murder of Jews is a typical Friday sermon.

I’m all for locking the doors to this country if Rep. Ilhan Omar is symbolic of what’s coming in…and bringing with them cultures of religious intolerance.

Agreed, not all are like that; life is complicated and I have Muslim friends who are steady Americans.

It is not our style to bad-mouth another people. We are Jewish and we know how it feels.

But we also know how it feels to come under attack as never before in the United States. Somebody has to speak up before it’s too late…as we warned here elaborately.

So, it’s my view that President Trump had it right when he declared it’s time to “take a pause” on immigration…even the legal variety. (Naturally he got hammered for this.)

He was again right when he said “we only want people coming in who love our country.” (Naturally he got pummeled for this, too.)

No doubt the good are part of the mix – but who’s to sort them out before it’s too late?

It’s too late to stop people like Omar. She’s in. She got in through our generous doors…doors that were flung open by way of the Hart-Celler Immigration Act of 1965, which, in effect, narrowed access to people who share our values, mainly European Christians and Jews, and instead gave preference to people who don’t…namely, to a substantial degree, Muslims.

LBJ signed the legislation. Ted Kennedy pushed it through.

The consequence? Ilhan Omar… and thousands more like her…like numerous imams who wormed their way in through Hart-Celler and feel comfortable in America.

They feel comfortable enough to bring us a taste of Omar’s Somalia, and other such Islamic hell-holes, where calling for the murder of Jews is a typical Friday sermon.

The New York’s Post’s Paul Sperry did the digging and here uncovered “Radical Imams spewing anti-Semitism in the US with Impunity.”

Yes, this is happening in America. This has come to America where we felt safe and away from all that, and where we escaped from all that whether Christians or Jews. (Read this memoir.)

For Jews, finally, there will always be Israel to call home. Back here, not so sure anymore.

Rep. Omar’s latest bitchy stunt was to harangue (Jewish) witness Elliott Abrams as if the House Foreign Affairs Committee were a kangaroo-court in old Berlin.

So it begins. She got her first Jewish catch…and in one swoop rendered the entire Democrat Party, along with the entire Congress, unrecognizable.

Yes, that Somali twerp sits on that committee, and like her brothers and sisters for the advancement of Islam in America – they all feel perfectly at home as Jew-hating bigots.  

Had we not heard? Did we not know that these are a people who can’t help themselves? It’s in their blood. Their anti-Semitism goes with them wherever they go.

It is a portable intolerance…a moveable feast of anti-Semitism that has already sunk Europe as they keep coming to poison one culture after another.

When did it come to the United States? Think Hart-Celler, 1965, and how three years later, June 5, 1968, Sirhan Sirhan, shoots and kills Robert Kennedy.

Ted Kennedy invited him in, through that immigration act, and now Sirhan Sirhan, a “Palestinian,” sits out a life sentence in a San Diego County prison.

Anti-Semitism was his culture and Robert Kennedy was his target for his support of Israel.

But another “Palestinian” from the same culture, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, today sits in our House of Representatives, courtesy of Michigan voters.   

So, we know when it began. When does it end? Where are the other voices to sound the alarm?


Jack Engelhard's classic international bestselling novel Indecent Proposal, which later became a worldwide hit movie, has been republished to meet readers’ demands. His other major works include Compulsive: A Novel, his award-winning post-Holocaust Montreal memoir Escape from Mount Moriah, plus Slot Attendant: A Novel About A Novelist. His website: www.jackengelhard.com

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/23455

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