Tuesday, April 30, 2019

You Can’t Make This Up: There's Some Irony About Ilhan Omar’s Tweet About CA Synagogue Shooting


By Matt Vespa Matt Vespa | Townhall


Source: AP Photo/Susan Walsh

Tragedy struck the Jewish community this weekend. A man decided to open fire at a synagogue in San Diego. Anti-Semitism is the motive, according to reports. One person was killed. Three others were wounded. John Earnest is the name of the suspect (via Reuters):

Police say the gunman walked into the suburban San Diego synagogue late on Saturday morning, the last day of the week-long Jewish holiday of Passover, and killed one woman and wounded three other people inside, using an assault-style rifle.

According to authorities, the suspect, John Earnest, then fled in a car before calling police to hand himself in.

We believe he acted alone and without outside support in carrying out the attack,” San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore said in a statement.

The suspect, who is also under investigation for a mosque arson, has been booked into custody on one count of murder in the first degree and three counts of attempted murder in the first degree, Gore said.

So, you would think that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) who has a long history of peddling anti-Semitic tropes would probably want to stay away from this one, right? Nope. 

She tweeted, “Earnest shot & killed Jewish worshippers and bombed a Masjid [Mosque]. Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism are two sides of the same bigoted coin. Let us stand together as Americans in rejecting hate!” 

She linked to the op-ed she wrote after she was elected to Congress on the matter.

Lady, you said that supporters of Israel exhibited dual loyalty and said Israel had hypotonic powers to blind people to their evil. 

Oh, there was the “all about the Benjamins” tweet, which centered on AIPAC and its donations. 

Listen, we get it. As a Democrat, you have separate rules. 

You can be hypocritical and get away with it. You can be an insufferable condescending pile of garbage, but be viewed as some rising star in a party that has many allies in the liberal media. 

In real world, Omar is pretty much now a full-blown anti-Semite—and an anti-Semite condemning…anti-Semitism is just wrong.

But, as Grabien’s Tom Elliott noted, an anti-Semite who then lectures us about…anti-Semitism is just…there’s no shame. 

The irony is extreme.

Of course, the media has already pegged the true culprit: Donald Trump.

Monday, April 29, 2019

New York Times Publishes Cartoon Worthy of Nazi Propaganda




The New York Times has sunk to the level of anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda which served to incite the Germany during the years of the Third Reich.

A political cartoon run by the “venerable” newspaper’s International Edition, which hit the newsstands on April 25, depicted a dog with the head of Israel’s newly-reelected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leading a blind President Trump wearing a Jewish skullcap. Dangling from the dog’s leash is a Star of David.

More classic anti-Semitic tropes couldn’t have been drawn by Joseph Goebbels himself and his crew of German propagandists, who systematically prepped an entire continent not only to accept, but abet the mass extermination of the Jews of Europe.

This propaganda, which culminated in the Holocaust, served to turn an entire group of people into subhuman vermin, despised by the masses and deserving of extinction. In the Times’ current version, the meaning is clear (and complete with the classic Nazi-era used of the Star of David): Netanyahu (i.e. Israel, i.e. all Jews) calls the shots of the leader of the most powerful nation in the world.

Putting aside all the outrage of publishing such a cartoon, one thing we can say is that the paper has finally shown its true colors. Instead of hiding behind news stories that are deliberately inaccurate and present a skewed depiction of the “facts” when it comes to reporting about Israel, as well as about Orthodox Jews, this cartoon (which certainly went through a number of editors for approval) says it all.

This we can tell by the “apology” run by the paper when called out for running the cartoon. Pulling the item from further publication, the paper admitted the cartoon “included anti-Semitic tropes” and stated, “The image was offensive, and it was an error of judgment to publish it.” View image on Twitter.

Far from an apology, this should be considered, at best, an explanation. Notice in the statement there is no acknowledgement of the fact that publishing the cartoon was morally wrong (not to mention factually wrong, as there is nothing politically to suggest that Israel has any such power over the U.S.).

Rather, the reason The New York Times, by its own admission, pulled the cartoon was because “the image was offensive.”

Yet plenty of political commentary is offensive, especially in today’s “safe space” era. Discourse deemed offensive is usually because it doesn’t conform to the accepted dogma, or it presents facts that are true but inconvenient (i.e., politically incorrect).

Yet, offensive is not the same as immoral. Offensive is not the same as inaccurate.

More likely, the Times realized post facto that the “offense” caused by the cartoon might be so great as to have long-standing negative financial effects on the paper and was thus deemed not worth it.

For years, particularly since 1992, watchdog organizations have called out The Gary Lady for its systematic and deliberate publishing of misinformation about the Jewish state and its inhabitants. However, this cartoon goes beyond the pale, even in today‘s post-Trump era of self-avowed advocacy journalism by the mainstream media.

(We will forget the irony at the moment of that self-same media which accuses Trump of being anti-Semitic.)

As we have seen from those jumping on the bandwagon to deflect criticism of Representative Ilhan Omar’s blatant and offensive anti-Semitism (“Islamophobia!’ cried Senator Cory Booker and most of the new Democrat party), this type of propaganda serves to create one more step in cementing the normalization of anti-Jewish sentiment among the chattering classes.

The last time that happened, those classes managed to convince the masses. For the Jews, not to mention the entirety of Europe, Russia and America, which all suffered terribly from Hitler and World War II, it didn’t end well.

Sunday, April 28, 2019

Trump’s Economy Continues to Roar - U.S. Economy Powers Ahead In First Quarter: 3.2% Growth


Abracadabra!


Last year, President Trump achieved 3% growth for the entire year, and that growth continued into the first quarter of this year.

"That gives us one snapshot of what's happening in the economy," said Heather Boushey, executive director of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. 

"In the early part of the recovery, it was certainly people at the very top that recovered the fastest," Boushey said. "We're now seeing indications that those income gains are more widely spread."

Last year, workers at the bottom of the income ladder saw some of the fastest wage gains, thanks to a strong job market as well as increases in state and local minimum wages.

While President Trump’s economy continues to deliver results, Democrats want to take us backwards to the failed policies of Barack Obama.

This is the latest signal that our economy isn’t slowing down, and that’s in large part thanks to President Trump’s America First policies.

When voters ask themselves in 2020 if they’re better off now than they were four years ago, the answer will be a resounding yes thanks to President Trump and Republican leadership.

Saturday, April 27, 2019

Some Things to Ponder




There's a push to change laws to permit both criminals serving time and ex-criminals the right to vote. Guess which party is pushing the most for these legal changes. If you guessed that it was the Democrats, go to the head of the class.

Bernie Sanders says states should allow felons to vote from behind bars. Elizabeth Warren doesn't go that far but believes felons should have the right to vote. Democrats want the criminal class to have voting rights restored because they could become a significant part of the Democratic base.

These are America's murderers, rapists, burglars, child molesters and drug dealers. Over two million of these people are in prison. If we add in the number of people on probation and parole, there are 6.7 million people currently under correctional control. 

If cons and ex-cons get the right to vote, it's almost a guarantee that most of these people will cast their vote for a Democratic candidate.

Democrats don't stop with wanting cons and ex-cons to vote. It turns out that more than 50 percent of Democrats surveyed want illegal immigrants to have the right to vote, as they already do in some Democratic-controlled cities.
America's gun control advocates have the belief that outlawing guns would drastically reduce crime. 

Almost all handguns have been outlawed from private citizen use in the U.K. since 1996. Nonetheless, violent crime in the U.K. has risen almost every year since the ban. Criminals love the idea of a disarmed populace. 

While there are few gun crimes in the U.K., there's a recent report that in 2018 there were over 40,000 knife crimes committed. It's gotten so bad that some stores have stopped selling kitchen knives.

America's gun control advocates might have some solutions for the citizens of the U.K. They might advocate a thorough MI5 (U.K.'s secret service) background check for anyone wishing to purchase any kind of knife, including kitchen knives. 

They might advocate knife registration. There might be lengthy prison sentences for anyone caught with an illegal unregistered knife. With London's murder rate higher than New York City's, Mayor Sadiq Khan has implemented knife control policies as violent crime surges. Khan deployed over 300 additional London police officers to stop and search anyone they suspect is carrying a knife.

Friday, April 26, 2019

The Russians and the Dossier


By Kimberley A. Strassel | The Wall Street Journal 


Former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele in London, March 7, 2017. PHOTO:VICTORIA JONES/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Mueller should have investigated whether Moscow used Steele in its interference.

Politicians keep reminding us not to lose sight of special counsel Robert Mueller’s broader assignment: to investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. If only someone had reminded Mr. Mueller.

One of the biggest failures of the Mueller probe concerns not what was in the final report, but what was not. Close readers will search in vain for any analysis of the central document in this affair: the infamous “dossier.” It’s a stunning omission, given the possibility that the Russians used that collection of reports to feed disinformation to U.S. intelligence agencies, sparking years of political maelstrom.

The dossier—compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele on behalf of Fusion GPS, an opposition-research firm working for the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee—fed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the media the principal allegations of the “collusion” narrative. It claimed Paul Manafort was at the center of a “well-developed” Trump-Russia “conspiracy”; that Carter Page served as his intermediary, conducting secret meetings with a Kremlin official and the head of a state energy company; that Michael Cohen held a clandestine meeting in Prague with Vladimir Putin cronies; and that theRussians had compromising material on Donald Trump, making him vulnerable to blackmail. 

The dossier was clearly important to the FBI probe. Its wild claims made up a significant section of the FBI’s application for a secret surveillance warrant on Mr. Page.

The Mueller report exposes the dossier claims as pure fiction. Yet in describing the actions of the Trump campaign figures the FBI accused, the report assiduously avoids any mention of the dossier or its allegations. Mr. Mueller refers to Mr. Steele and his work largely in passing, as part of the report’s description of how former FBI Director James Comey informed Mr. Trump of the dossier’s existence. The dossier is blandly described several times as “unverified allegations compiled” by Mr. Steele.

Once Mr. Mueller established that the dossier was a pack of lies, he should have investigated how it gained such currency at the highest levels of the FBI.

Yet his report makes clear he had no interest in plumbing the antics of the bureau, which he led from 2001-13. Instead, he went out of his way to avoid the dossier and give cover to the FBI.

The special counsel had another, more pressing reason to look at the dossier: It fell within his core mission. Since its publication by BuzzFeed in January 2017, we’ve learned enough about Mr. Steele and Fusion GPS to wonder if the Russians used the dossier for their own malign purposes.

In the first telling, Mr. Steele was described by friendly media as simply a “former Western intelligence official” with a history at Britain’s overseas intelligence service. It turns out he worked in Russia. Mr. Steele spent his first years of service under diplomatic cover in Moscow, later in Paris. And in 1999 he was among 117 British spies whose covers were publicly blown by a disgruntled ex-MI6 officer.

The former spy, known to the public and therefore to Russia, also became known for sending reports to the U.S. government. Last year former Obama State Department official Jonathan Winer explained that in 2009 he became friendly with the self-employed Mr. Steele, and starting as early as 2013 ensured that “more than 100 of Steele’s reports” on Russia topics were shared with the State Department. Given that the dossier is largely based on Russian sources, some supposedly connected to the Kremlin, did the Kremlin know about this arrangement and see an opportunity to spoon-feed the U.S. government disinformation?

We’ve also learned more about Mr. Steele’s and Fusion’s connections to Russians. Mr. Steele sent a series of emails to Justice Department employee Bruce Ohr in 2016 inquiring about the status of a visa for Oleg Deripaska, an oligarch with Kremlin ties. Fusion GPS was working alongside Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who arranged the infamous meeting with Donald Trump Jr. in June 2016. Fusion was hired as part of a team to help Ms. Veselnitskaya undermine Bill Browder, the man behind the Magnitsky Act, a law that imposes sanctions on Russians for corruption and human-rights violations.

How did Mr. Mueller spend two years investigating every aspect of Russian interference—cyberhacking, social-media trolling, meetings with Trump officials—and not consider the possibility that the dossier was part of the Russian interference effort?

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz and Attorney General William Barr may answer some of the questions Mr. Mueller refused to touch. Thanks to the special counsel we know Republicans weren’t playing footsie with Russians. But thanks to BuzzFeed, we know that Democrats were.

America deserves to know how far that interaction extended.

Thursday, April 25, 2019

Joe Biden launches presidential campaign with—no surprise—a race-baiting video.


By John Eidson 



Aug. 12, 2017—Carrying Confederate battle flags and Nazi flags, white supremacists prepare to enter Lee Park in Charlottesville, Virginia. -  Getty Image

On August 12, 2017, a sad collection of neo-Confederates, Klansmen, white nationalists, Nazi sympathizers and other depraved racists held a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee from a city park.

Counter-protestors showed up and a violent race riot ensued.

After condemning the hatred, bigotry, and violence at the rally, President Trump subsequently said there were “very fine people on both sides,” a remark that resulted in heated condemnation by the mainstream media.

Four distinct groups showed up at the rally, which I will label here as A, B, C and D.

Group A: The right-wing racists who staged the rally; armed with AR-15s for self-defense, these loathsome Neanderthals chanted racist slogans while displaying the Confederate flag and Nazi symbolism

Group B: Counter-protestors from left-wing “anti-fascist” organizations that crashed the rally without a permit; as evidenced by the body armor & protective helmets they wore—and the semi-automatic firearms, baseball bats & chemical sprays they brought with them—these black-clad anarchists were intent on inciting a violent confrontation

Group C: Decent, principled, unarmed counter-protestors belonging to religious organizations and civil rights groups that showed up to peacefully demonstrate against the racists who staged the rally

Group D: Decent, principled, non-racist conservatives who showed up to protest the removal of Robert E. Lee’s statue; members of this group were not affiliated in any way with the rally organizers, did not participate in racist chanting, and did not display symbols of racial hatred and intolerance

When President Trump said “very fine people on both sides,” he was referring to members of groups C and D, peaceful counter-protestors on the political left and peaceful non-racist protestors on the political right.

In a reprehensible act of journalistic fraud, the corrupt mainstream media twisted Trump’s words totally out of context with the obscenely untrue charge that he purposely attempted to draw a moral equivalence between the racist rally organizers and those who peacefully protested against them.

While projecting a transparent air of self-righteous moral posturing, Joe Biden, who knows the media’s incendiary narrative about Trump’s statement is blatantly untrue, chose to use that fake news narrative as the highlight of his race-baiting campaign rollout video.

The Trump economy has brought black joblessness to the lowest level ever recorded and President Trump has reached out to the African-American community in many ways, resulting in rising approval ratings with black voters.

The Democrats’ greatest fear is losing the overwhelming advantage they’ve traditionally held with the black electorate. Biden will attempt to keep that advantage from evaporating by painting Trump as a racist.

Good luck, Joe. Apparently you know nothing about the racial bona fides of the president you and your rollout video smeared.
 _____________________

RELATED ARTICLES





The living room of Mar-a-Lago Club

In 1985, Donald J Trump bought the 126-room, 62,500 sq. ft. Mar-a-Lago estate, the magnificent Palm Beach, Florida seaside resort once owned by Post Cereals heiress, Margaret Merriwether-Post. 

The brash New York real estate developer was intent on turning his newly acquired property into a private club that would compete with other high society clubs in the area, nearly all of which barred blacks and Jews from membership.

When Trump, then 39, revealed that memberships at his proposed club would be offered without regard to race or religion, the Palm Beach town council imposed restrictions to prevent him from turning Mar-a-Lago into a club.

Sensing the restrictions were intended to perpetuate the discriminatory practices of the Old South social order in Palm Beach, Trump went head-to-head with the town council.

As part of his strategy to bring long overdue social change to the upper echelon of Palm Beach society, he sent the city commissioners a copy of the Sidney Poitier movie, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, a film about upper-class racism.

When the commissioners still wouldn’t budge, Trump filed a $100 million federal lawsuit, and the rest is history.

Under Trump’s ownership, Mar-a-Lago Club has been open from the beginning to anyone who could qualify, regardless of race or religion. Influenced in part by Trump’s ground-breaking example, other clubs in the area slowly began doing away with discriminatory membership policies. 

Today, all high society clubs in Palm Beach are open to blacks and Jews.

Long before he ran for president, Donald Trump was dismantling racial barriers in south Florida, not the kind of thing a racist would do. 

In many ways since being elected, President Trump is fulfilling his promise to reach out to the African-American community.
 ___________________

Democrats say Trump is a racist.

Would a racist president do things like these: 


Trump signs clemency plea for African-American woman who received overly-harsh sentence

● Alice Marie Johnson was sentenced 22 years ago to life in prison for a non-violent drug offense.

● Kim Kardashian brought Johnson’s plight to the attention of President Trump, who ordered her set free.

● “I felt like I was losing hope. Thank you, President Trump. I love you and I am going to make you proud that you gave me this second chance in life.”

● Leftist Democrat Bill Maher fears “grateful black folks” like Alice Johnson will cause Trump to rise in the polls.
 ______________________


Citing racial injustice, Trump posthumously pardons black boxing legend, Jack Johnson

 ● The first African-American heavyweight boxing champion was convicted in 1913 by an all-white jury for taking his white girlfriend across state lines for “immoral purposes.”

● The conviction and imprisonment destroyed the boxing career of the “Galveston Giant.”

● With Sylvester Stallone and former heavyweight champion Lenox Lewis at his side, President Trump signed the pardon in an Oval Office ceremony.

● Previous presidents, including President Obama, rejected bi-partisan requests to grant clemency to Johnson.
______________________


Trump signs bill elevating Martin Luther King’s birthplace to full National Park status
  
● With the slain civil rights leader’s niece, Alveda King, looking on, President Trump signed the bill on January 9 aboard Air Force One.

● The legislation gives the landmark attraction additional resources, including park rangers and funding for community improvements.

● Previously turned down by presidents Bush and Obama, the long-championed bill was sponsored by Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), a vocal critic of President Trump.
  __________________


Trump considering posthumous pardon for Muhammad Ali

● The former heavyweight boxing sensation was sentenced in 1970 to five years in prison and his championship title revoked after he was convicted of draft evasion.

● As a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War, Ali refused to serve in the military.

● The decision was overturned in 1971 in a unanimous Supreme Court decision that found the Department of Justice improperly told the draft board that Ali’s stance wasn’t motivated by his religious beliefs.

On June 8, 2018, President Trump extended an olive branch to the NFL kneelers by asking them to send him the names of African-Americans they feel were unfairly treated by the criminal justice system, promising to have his administration review such cases and take remedial action when warranted.

 Donald Trump was never called a racist until he ran for president.

 What do African-American voters have to lose by giving this “racist” president a chance?

Wednesday, April 24, 2019

FBI found Hillary Clinton's emails in Obama White House, former top official says


by Daniel Chaitin | Washington Examiner


A former top FBI official said a repository of Hillary Clinton's emails was obtained by the Obama White House.

As part of a court-ordered discovery related to Clinton’s unauthorized email server, Bill Priestap was asked by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch to identify representatives of Clinton, her State Department staff, and government agencies from which “email repositories were obtained" by the FBI.

He divulged a nonexhaustive list, which included the Executive Office of the President.

Other people mentioned were former Clinton aides Cheryl Mills, Heather Samuelson, Jacob Sullivan, and Justin Cooper, former Clinton information technology staffer Bryan Pagliano, the State Department, Secret Service, and Washington-based law firm Williams and Connolly.

Priestep answered questions in writing and under oath as part of U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth's ruling earlier this year that discovery could commence examining the former secretary of state’s use of the server, encompassing Obama administration senior State Department officials, lawyers, and Clinton aides, as well as Priestap.

Judicial Watch shared Priestep's recent testimony on Tuesday, at a time when Republican allies of President Trump, as well as the Justice Department and its inspector general, are looking into possible misconduct by top DOJ and FBI officials stemming back to the Obama administration to undermine Trump as a candidate and president.

“This astonishing confirmation, made under oath by the FBI, shows that the Obama FBI had to go to President Obama’s White House office to find emails that Hillary Clinton tried to destroy or hide from the American people,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “No wonder Hillary Clinton has thus far skated — Barack Obama is implicated in her email scheme.”

Priestap served as former assistant director of the FBI's counterintelligence division and played a significant role in overseeing both the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s private email server and her handling of classified information. He also was involved in the FBI’s investigation into allegations that President Trump and Trump campaign associates were colluding with the Russian government during the 2016 election.

The FBI confirmed to the Washington Examiner earlier this month that Priestap is retired. "Yes, Mr. Priestap became eligible to retire and chose to do so after 20 years of service," a representative said.

The FBI investigation into Clinton's use of an unauthorized server, hosted in the basement of her home in Chappaqua, N.Y., came to a conclusion during the 2016 presidential election. Former FBI Director James Comey publicly recommended in 2016 that no charges be brought against Clinton, who was then a candidate for president, but admonished Clinton and her colleagues for being "extremely careless" in handling classified information.

One of the main controversies stemming from Clinton's emails was how a technician managing the server deleted 33,000 emails. The FBI was only able to recover about 5,000 of the emails, which were released in tranches up until earlier this year as part of a Judicial Watch lawsuit.

Obama himself said he learned of Clinton's private email server "the same time everybody else learned it through news reports," during an interview with CBS News in 2015. 

His press secretary Josh Earnest also acknowledged Obama exchanged emails with Clinton while she was using her private server, but did not know the details of her email address.

“The president, as I think many people expected, did over the course of his first several years in office trade emails with his secretary of state,” Earnest said. “I would not describe the number of emails as large, but they did have the occasion to email each other.”

Clinton has long blamed the FBI's handling of the emails investigation as a reason for her 2016 loss to Trump.


Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Here’s What Some Small Business Owners Are Saying About Trump’s Presidency


By STEPHANIE HAMILL | The Daily Caller


 U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy listening session - Photo Courtesy Bruce LeVell (6th from Left)

What are small business owners saying nearly two-and-a-half years into Donald Trump’s presidency?

To find out, The Daily Caller sat down with Bruce LeVell, who is with the U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy’s Region 4.





LeVell represents small business owners in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.

During the interview, LeVell talked about how small businesses are thriving under Trump, thanks to the cutting of taxes and regulations.


 He also discussed some of the challenges some businesses owners are facing in the areas he represents, which include access to capital and health care.

“Affordable health care is the number-one issue,” said Levell.