Praise of Trump from the Left

It is sometimes forgotten that American conservatives were traditionally isolationist.  Trump hasn't forgotten.  And that appeals to some on the Left too -- JR

Yes, Trump plays a bully boy as he appeals to populist (good) – as well as nativist, xenophobic and racist (bad) – sentiments. The bad need to be meaningfully addressed and engaged rather than dismissed by self-styled sophisticates, noses raised. The good should be recognized and encouraged.

Billionaire and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Billionaire and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Focusing on the negative aspects of his campaign has blinded many people to what’s good in it – and I don’t mean good like “Oh, the Democrat can beat this guy!” I mean good like it’s good that some important issues – like the militarized role of the U.S. in the world – are getting aired.

Trump is appealing to nativist sentiments – as Pat Buchanan did in the 1992 campaign – but along with Buchanan’s “America First” arguments came a distrust of imperial adventures. Similarly, Trump recently said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “killed hundreds of thousands of people with her stupidity. … The Middle East is a total disaster under her.”

Now, I think that’s pretty accurate, though U.S. policy in my view may be more Machiavellian than stupid, but the remark is a breath of fresh air on the national stage. So, at times, Trump is a truth-teller, including when he says politicians sell themselves to rich donors and when he calls out “free-trade” deals for costing American workers their middle-class jobs.

But the mainstream meme about Trump is that he’s a total liar. The New York Times recently purported to grade the veracity of presidential candidates. By the Times’ accounting, Trump was off the scales lying. But I never saw anyone fact-check his assertion about former Secretary Clinton’s record of bringing bloody chaos to Libya, Syria and other Mideast countries. That’s not an argument that establishment media wants to have.

Of course, a few sentences after Trump’s comment about Clinton’s death toll, he turned to the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the CIA station in Benghazi, causing Salon to dismiss him as embracing “conspiracies,” which is all that many people will hear, not the fuller context.

Shouldn’t someone who at times articulates truly inconvenient truths be credited for breaking “politically correct” taboos, such as acknowledging the obvious disasters of U.S. interventionism across the Mideast? Trump speaks such truths, as he did during the Las Vegas debate about U.S. wars:

“We’ve spent $4 trillion trying to topple various people that frankly, if they were there and if we could’ve spent that $4 trillion in the United States to fix our roads, our bridges, and all of the other problems; our airports and all of the other problems we’ve had, we would’ve been a lot better off. I can tell you that right now.”

Frankly, that is a stronger critique of military spending than we’ve heard from Sen. Bernie Sanders of late. But Trump’s — or Sen. Rand Paul’s — remarks about U.S. policies of “regime change” and bombings are often ignored. It’s more convenient to focus on U.S. kindness in letting a few thousand refugees in than to examine how millions of displaced people from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somali and other countries lost their homes as a result of U.S. government policies.

A Long-Ignored Constitution

Some critics say Trump’s proposal to temporarily ban Muslim immigrants is unconstitutional (although that argument is debatable as a matter of law regardless of what one thinks of the morality and practicality of his idea).

But there’s also the question of how frequently recent presidents have violated the Constitution in recent years with hardly a peep from the mainstream media. News flash: the sitting Democratic president has bombed seven countries without a declaration of war. We’ve effectively flushed the Constitution down the toilet. Does that justify violating it more? No. But the pretend moral outrage on this score is hollow.

And there’s some logic to the nativist Muslim bashing. It’s obviously wrong on many levels, but it’s understandable given the skewed information the public is given. Since virtually no one on the national stage is seriously and systematically criticizing U.S. policy in the Middle East, such as the multiple U.S. “regime change” invasions and the longstanding U.S. alliances with Saudi Arabia and Israel, it makes sense to say that we’ve got to change something and that something is separating from Muslims.

Some sophisticates also slammed Trump for acting in the Las Vegas debate like he didn’t know what the nuclear triad is (the Cold War-era strategy of delivering nuclear bombs by land-based missiles, strategic bombers and submarine launches).

Well, I have no idea if he knows what the nuclear triad is or if he was just acting that way. But I’m rather glad he didn’t adopt the administration’s position of saying it’s a good idea to spend a trillion dollars to “modernize” the U.S. nuclear arsenal so we can efficiently threaten the planet for another generation.

People may recall that for all the rhetoric from President Barack Obama about ending nuclear weapons, it was President Ronald Reagan, after all his bluster about the Evil Empire and basing intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe, who almost rose to the occasion when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev proposed eliminating nuclear arsenals.

For today’s mainstream journalists, it’s just easier to go with the flow and hate Trump, as all the major media outlets want us to do. After all, much of our political culture lives off hate. Apparently hate is what gets people to do what you want them to do. So you scare them by building up villainous bogeymen, such as Saddam Hussein, Bashar al-Assad, Vladimir Putin.

People were so encouraged to hate Hussein that many backed the disastrous invasion of Iraq. They were propagandized into hating Assad so much that U.S. policy helped give rise to ISIS. Putin has been transformed into such a comic-book villain that people who should know better talk casually about shooting down Russian planes and seeking “regime change” in Moscow.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the supposedly “reasonable” Republican “moderate,” says “it’s time that we punched the Russians in the nose.” Who cares about risking nuclear war? Don’t we all just hate Putin?

Now, many Americans – Republicans and Democrats alike – are demonizing Trump. Whatever he says is put in the most negative context with no expectation of balance. He has become the focus of hate, hate, hate. He’s a black-hatted, black-hearted villain. But why can’t we just view people for who they are, seeing both the good and bad in them?

Asking Why the Hate

Trump calls for a cutoff of immigration of Muslims “until we can figure out what the hell is going on” — which, given our political culture’s seeming propensity of never figuring out much of anything might be forever, but the comment actually raises a serious question: why are people in the Mideast angry at U.S. policy?

Says Trump: “There’s tremendous hatred [among Muslims toward the United States]. Where it comes from, I don’t know.” But Trump — unlike virtually anyone else with a megaphone — is actually raising the issue about why there’s so much resentment against the U.S. in the Mideast.

Virtually the only other person on the national stage stating such things is Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, though his articulations have also been uneven and have been a pale copy of what his father, former Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, has said.

Of course, what should be said is: If we don’t know “what the hell is going on!” — then maybe we should stop bombing. But that doesn’t get processed because the general public lives under the illusion that Barack Obama is a pacifistic patsy. The reality is that Obama has been bombing more countries than any president since World War II – by his own count seven – Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya and Somalia.

Half of what Trump says may be borderline deranged and false. But he also says true things — and critically, important things that no one else with any media or political access is saying.

At this week’s Las Vegas debate, Trump said: “When you had the World Trade Center go, people were put into planes that were friends, family, girlfriends, and they were put into planes and they were sent back, for the most part, to Saudi Arabia.”

Granted, Trump’s comment was mangled and imprecise – he may have been referring to President George W. Bush’s extraordinary decision to let rich Saudis, including bin Laden family members, onto the first civilian planes allowed back into the air after 9/11 so they could avoid intensive FBI questioning and possible hostility from the American people – but Trump’s remark raises the legitimate question of Saudi Arabia’s relation to 9/11.

Yes, Trump says he’ll bomb the hell out of Syria, as does virtually every other Republican candidate. (Sen. Ted Cruz wants to see if “sand can glow in the dark,” phrasing usually associated with nuclear war.) But Obama’s already is bombing Syria and Iraq albeit without much media fanfare. So people think it’s not happening and thus believe that Obama’s passivity is the problem.

What Americans are right in sensing is that President Obama, former President Bush and the rest of the Establishment are playing endless geopolitical games and keeping them in the dark. As citizens in what is supposed to be a democratic Republic, they’re right to be sick of it. Many of the people supporting or sympathizing with Trump seem to sense that he may be the only one ready to tip over the furniture and make a fuss.

SOURCE

*************************

Whitewashing Chappaquiddick

There’s an old saying attributed to Russians who endured the travails of Soviet totalitarianism: "The future is known — it’s always bright — but the past keeps changing." According to Hollywood Reporter, Apex Entertainment is producing a feature movie entitled "Chappaquiddick," a film whose utterly twisted rationale is revealed by Producer Mark Ciardi: "I’ve done a lot of true life stories, many sports stories, but this one had a deep impact on this country. Everyone has an idea of what happened on Chappaquiddick, and this strings together the events in a compelling and emotional way. You’ll see what [Senator Ted Kennedy] had to go through."

What Kennedy had to go through? How about what Mary Jo Kopechne had to go through?

Hollywood may wish to engage in another Orwellian effort stringing together events in a "compelling and emotional way," but pesky facts are indisputable: After a drunken Kennedy drove his car off Dike Bridge into Poucha Pond, the man who would become the "Lion of the Senate" extricated himself and left the 28-year-old Kopechne to drown.

According to Edgartown search-and-rescue head John Farrar, who reached the scene the next morning, Kopechne’s corpse was positioned in a way that indicated she was searching for pockets of air. Farrar believes she lived for two hours after the crash. In other words, if Kennedy had merely knocked on the door of the nearest house — only yards away — and summoned that rescue squad, Kopechne might have survived. Not that anything Farrar said became part of the public record. "I was told outright by the D.A.’s office that I would not be allowed to testify on how long Kopechne was alive in the car," he told People magazine in July 1989. "They were not interested in the least in anything that would hurt Ted Kennedy."

After leaving the scene, the rest of Kennedy’s "ordeal" consisted of walking back to the party he attended — and trying to get his cousin, Joe Gargan, to say that it was Gargan driving the car. Gargan refused, but insisted that they return to the scene and attempt to rescue Kopechne. When that proved unsuccessful, Ted went back to his hotel room, where he tried to set up an alibi with the hotel clerk. After that he went to bed without notifying authorities until after 8 a.m. the next day.

Kopechne was buried only a day after she died, and a petition by a district attorney to exhume her body was denied by a judge, making it impossible to determine the exact cause of her death. Ultimately, Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident causing injury. Judge James Boyle suspended the minimum sentence requirement of two months' imprisonment, citing Kennedy’s "unblemished record." That would be an unblemished crime record: Ted was suspended from Harvard for cheating and was arrested four times for traffic violations as a law student in Virginia. Moreover, proving he remained a person of "integrity" going forward, he and former Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd shared in a "sandwich" with a distraught La Brasserie waitress in 1985. We’ll spare you the details in keeping with our standards as a family publication.

Chappaquiddick occurred in 1969. Nonetheless, the liberal voters of Massachusetts kept re-electing Teddy, who remained a senator until his death in 2009, 40 years later. Adding insult to injury, Kennedy was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, a place where America buries its war heroes.

Kennedy biographer and former New York Times reporter Adam Clymer sums up the liberal mindset regarding Ted’s sordid life, insisting his "achievements as a senator have towered over his time, changing the lives of far more Americans than remember the name Mary Jo Kopechne." Liberal blogger Melissa Lafsky did Clymer one better, grotesquely speculating that because of Kennedy’s "life and career that are being (rightfully) heralded," maybe Kopechne would have felt her own death was "worth it." Author Joyce Carol Oates was equally despicable in the effort to find the right balance between Kopechne’s death and Kennedy’s subsequent career, asking, "If one weighs the life of a single young woman against the accomplishments of the man President Obama has called the greatest Democratic senator in history, what is one to think?"

In a world uncontaminated by a bankrupt political ideology, one would think Obama is lying, Clymer, Lafsky and Oates are sickos who think a young woman’s life is a "reasonable" tradeoff for a privileged politician’s lifelong liberalism, and that Ted got away with murder — figuratively and literally.

But we don’t live in that world. We live in a world where substantial numbers of Americans learn "history" by watching Oliver Stone’s and Michael Moore’s revisionist movies in all their propagandistic glory. According to Hollywood Reporter, "Chappaquiddick" is a "political thriller that chronicles the true story of what is described as the seven most dramatic days of Kennedy’s life. On the eve of the moon landing, Senator Kennedy becomes entangled in a tragic car accident that results in the death of former Robert Kennedy campaign worker Mary Jo Kopechne. The senator struggles to follow his own moral compass and simultaneously protect his family’s legacy, all while simply trying to keep his own political ambitions alive."

"Entangled?" Apparently, the car drove itself into Poucha Pond. And no doubt Teddy struggled to follow his own moral compass, give or take a "waitress sandwich" — or his alleged attempt to treasonously enlist the Soviet Communists to unseat President Ronald Reagan in 1984, an utterly unsuccessful plot that was discovered in 1991, when USSR archives were declassified by Boris Yeltsin.

On several occasions, comedian Dennis Miller has asserted that Hillary Clinton will be our next president — because she best exemplifies what America has become. If she does, perhaps it’s because the only thing leftists are better at than airbrushing the contemptible career of a dead Democrat is airbrushing the contemptible career of a living one. And maybe in the midst of next year’s presidential campaign, another leftist hack channeling Lafsky or Oates will assure us that Tyrone Woods, Glen Doherty, Sean Smith and Chris Stevens would have felt that dying in Benghazi was "worth it" in return for Clinton’s ascension to the Oval Office.

When it comes to progressive historical revisionism, the sky — or the bottom of a bottomless pit — is the limit.

SOURCE

There is a  new  lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- mainly about Muslims and political correctness

*************************

For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on A WESTERN HEART.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

*********************************

This should kill off the Statin religion (but it won't, of course)

There have been many anecdotal reports of statins adversely affecting mental functioning, to the point where the upsurge of Alzheimer's in recent decades could be nothing more than an effect of widespread statin use.

Scientists, however, rightly pooh-pooh anecdotal reports unless they are backed up by survey or other evidence.  So a recent study (below) is of great interest.  And its findings are striking. Where epidemiological reports in the medical literature characteristically make a big deal out of tiny odds ratios -- with ratios just above one being typical -- the odds ratio for the effect of statins is 4.4!  A very strong result by epidemiological standards.  So statins definitely can and do wreck your memory. The critics of statins are resoundingly vindicated.

The authors below don't want to believe their results, of course, so clutch for comfort their finding that ALL lipid lowering drugs -- not just statins -- wreck your memory. Quite how that is a comfort quite eludes me, however.  I would have thought that the finding shows that we NEED our lipids in our brains and that ANY attempt to lower them is destructive.  And statin critics have often made that point. There is of course a LOT of cholesterol in  our brains. It belongs there.

So we might ask what good is something that protects your heart but wrecks your brain?  But the reality is even worse than that.  A recent very comprehensive study found that statins did not even protect your heart. You were just as likely to die of heart failure with or without them.  Here are the statistics:

Statins reduced the numbers of patients experiencing non-fatal HF hospitalization (1344/66 238 vs. 1498/66 330; RR 0.90, 95% confidence interval, CI 0.84–0.97) and the composite HF outcome (1234/57 734 vs. 1344/57 836; RR 0.92, 95% CI 0.85–0.99) but not HF death (213/57 734 vs. 220/57 836; RR 0.97, 95% CI 0.80–1.17).

And since statins have an acknowledged muscle-weakening effect and the heart is one big muscle, the use of statins to treat the heart was always deeply paradoxical!  Words rarely fail me but that went close.

Clearly, the prescribing of statins to the general public should cease forthwith.


Statin Therapy and Risk of Acute Memory Impairment

Brian L. Strom et al.

ABSTRACT

Importance:  Reports on the association between statins and memory impairment are inconsistent.

Objective:  To assess whether statin users show acute decline in memory compared with nonusers and with users of nonstatin lipid-lowering drugs (LLDs).

Design, Setting, and Participants:  Using The Health Improvement Network database during January 13, 1987, through December 16, 2013, a retrospective cohort study compared 482 543 statin users with 2 control groups: 482 543 matched nonusers of any LLDs and all 26 484 users of nonstatin LLDs. A case-crossover study of 68 028 patients with incident acute memory loss evaluated exposure to statins during the period immediately before the outcome vs 3 earlier periods. Analysis was conducted from July 7, 2013, through January 15, 2015.

Results:  When compared with matched nonusers of any LLDs (using odds ratio [95% CI]), a strong association was present between first exposure to statins and incident acute memory loss diagnosed within 30 days immediately following exposure (fully adjusted, 4.40; 3.01-6.41). This association was not reproduced in the comparison of statins vs nonstatin LLDs (fully adjusted, 1.03; 0.63-1.66) but was also present when comparing nonstatin LLDs with matched nonuser controls (adjusted, 3.60; 1.34-9.70). The case-crossover analysis showed little association.

Conclusions and Relevance:  Both statin and nonstatin LLDs were strongly associated with acute memory loss in the first 30 days following exposure in users compared with nonusers but not when compared with each other. Thus, either all LLDs cause acute memory loss regardless of drug class or the association is the result of detection bias rather than a causal association.

SOURCE

******************************

What, Exactly, Is a Fascist?

I have written on this at some length (e.g. here and here) but the notes below by Stephen Moore are an excellent update -- JR

It’s hard to find a self-respecting liberal these days who doesn’t denounce Donald Trump as “a fascist.” If you Google “fascist,” the first thing that pops up on the screen is a photo of Trump.

University professors, Democratic pundits and members of the media who don’t call him a fascist resort to over-the-top, sneering terms like “racist,” “repellent” and even “Nazi.” After Trump’s call for a moratorium on Muslim immigration, here are a few of the choice words from those tolerant people on the left:

“He is running for President as a fascist demagogue,” said Martin O'Malley, Democratic presidential candidate.

“Trump wants to literally write racism into our law books,” said Huma Abedin, aide to Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton.

“It is … entirely fair to call him a mendacious racist,” said Ben Smith, editor-in-chief, BuzzFeed.

“America’s modern Mussolini,” said Dana Milbank of The Washington Post.

“Trump is a proto-fascist, rather than an actual fascist. He has many ideas that are fascistic in nature,” wrote Peter Bergen, CNN’s national security analyst.

At the end of this sneering commentary, Bergen launched into a fascinating tutorial on what a fascist is. Here are several key characteristics of a fascist leader according to CNN:

    “The superiority of the leader’s instincts over abstract and universal reason.”

    “The belief of one group that it is the victim, justifying any action.”

    “The need for authority by natural leaders (always male) culminating in a national chief who alone is capable of incarnating the group’s destiny.”

Wait a minute. What modern politician best fits this description? Could it be Barack Obama, the Messiah, the chosen one, the man who holds political rallies with gothic columns in giant amphitheaters, who enters the stage as if he were a Greek god? Obama is the greatest demagogue of modern times, who convinced the vast electorate that they are “victims” and that the key to happiness and prosperity is to take from the rich: people, he says, who have way more wealth than they could possibly need.

Obama’s whole political success rests on identity politics — on persuading blacks, Hispanics, Jews, women, the disabled, gays, students, the poor and immigrants that they are victims of a vast American government conspiracy against them.

As for belief in the “superiority” of the leader’s powers “over reason,” Barack Obama, omnipotent, tells his followers that he has the capability of “healing the planet,” changing the earth’s weather pattern and stopping oceans from rising. He is promising miracles that require people to suspend all reason and believe that he can achieve the equivalent of Moses parting the oceans.

So just who is the “proto-fascist,” really?

“Liberal fascism,” as my friend Jonah Goldberg has aptly pointed out in his book of the same title, is the “collaboration of government, church, unions and interest groups to expand government. It is simply the liberal impulse for controlling the lives of others.” It is the religion of the left.

Ironically, the left intelligentsia that is accusing Trump of fascism are many of the same people in Hollywood who just made a movie celebrating the communists and fascists of the 1950s within their ranks — and portraying them sympathetically as blackballed victims rather than subversive supporters of the butchers who killed millions of Jews, blacks, gays, Christians and dissidents.

Many of the communists in Hollywood, not least of all Trumbo, the new movie’s hero, were avid supporters of Stalin and even remained so after his genocidal purges were well-documented. Even the Russians themselves have repudiated the savagery of Stalin — but not the American left.

So what really is fascism? The left, simplistically, has redefined the term to mean when massive numbers of voters support a conservative cause supported by the right and opposed by the left. If you oppose racial quotas or gun control, you are a fascist. If you support traditional marriage, you are a fascist. If you want to cut welfare benefits, you are a fascist. If you support Donald Trump, you are a fascist. By this definition liberals can’t be fascists because they are on a righteous cause.

But the real definition of a fascist is a leader who wants to use governmental power to suppress rights of individuals. It is the partnership of government and private industry for the “collective good.” Corporate cronyism is a classic form of fascism, which would include programs such as the Export Import Bank.

Fascism, communism, socialism, Nazism, progressivism are all just variations on this same theme. These “isms” all feed on the subjugation of freedom.

The left might want to engage in some introspection and ask why so many millions of Americans — many of whom enthusiastically voted for Obama — now agree with Trump. Are these suddenly terrible people? Have they been duped by a charismatic leader? More likely the answer is that an ever-shrinking number of Americans trust Obama to keep the dangerous Muslims out. People want, above all right now, to keep their families safe, and since Obama has no interest in real and effective terrorist screening, many Americans believe it’s best to keep them all out for now.

If middle-class American voters are so economically marginalized and so afraid, angry and distrustful of Washington that millions would throw their support behind a man routinely denounced as a dangerous Nazi/fascist, maybe the left might want to ask: Who made things so bad that it has come to this? Without Barack Obama’s full slate of failures and his eight years of polarizing politics, there could be no Donald Trump.

SOURCE

*******************************

What's REALLY bothering Americans?

By Jonah Goldberg

"We have people across this country who are scared to death," New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie declared loudly at this week’s Republican presidential debate in Las Vegas.

Virtually the entire debate was based upon this premise. Which is understandable. Since the bloody Islamist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, terrorism has shot up as the chief concern for most Americans, particularly Republican voters.

"For most of 2015, the country’s mood, and thus the presidential election, was defined by anger and the unevenness of the economic recovery," pollster Fred Yang of Hart Research Associates explained upon the release of the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. "Now that has abruptly changed to fear."

Only 34 percent approve of President Obama’s handling of the Islamic State, according to the poll, and more Americans are worried about terrorism than at any time since the aftermath of 9/11.

This abrupt change in the climate explains why Hillary Clinton is suddenly talking much tougher about terrorism and why the president is keen to get some good national security photo ops in before he leaves for vacation.

But I can’t shake the sense that the polls, politicians and my fellow pundits are mistaking a symptom for the disease.

We live in an anxious age. That anxiety runs like a river beneath the political landscape. Different news events tap into that river and release a geyser of outrage and fear. Right now, mostly on the right, it’s terrorism, but before that it was Mexicans illegally sneaking into our country. Sometime before that, there was the freak-out over Ebola and the administration’s aloofness about it.

One common explanation for the anxious age we are in is that the economy is undergoing a profound transformation that is leaving a lot of people on the sidelines. It seems obvious to me there’s a lot of merit to this explanation.

But I don’t think that economics explains everything. Seventy percent of Americans think the country is on the wrong track. Many of those people are doing just fine economically.

No, I think the missing piece of the puzzle is the fact that Americans — on the left and the right — think that the folks running the country have an agenda different from theirs. The left has a much richer vocabulary for such claims, given its ancient obsessions with greed and economic determinism. They see big corporations and the so-called "1 percent" pulling strings behind the scenes. (Watch literally any Bernie Sanders speech on YouTube to learn more.) Paranoia about the influence of big money in politics has inspired the Democratic front-runner to make revising the First Amendment a top priority.

But while there are a great many people on the right who also complain about crony capitalism and special interests, such concerns don’t get to the heart of the anxiety, at least not for conservatives.

Let’s go back to where we started. Christie says, "We have people across this country who are scared to death." No doubt that’s true. But for a great many of them, I suspect, the fear is not so much a fear of the Islamic State but a fear that our own government, starting with the president, just doesn’t take terrorism seriously. We now know he was very late in taking the Islamic State seriously.

I suspect most conservatives think that if America marshaled the sufficient will to defeat the Islamic State, we’d make short work of it. Obama has no interest in such an undertaking. He reserves his passion for attacking Republicans or pushing his other priorities, such as climate change, which persistently remains a very, very low priority for most Americans.

But the president himself is a symptom. The whole system seems to have lost its mind. That there’s even a debate about whether security officials should be allowed to look at the social media posts of immigrants is a sign that our bureaucrats have such open minds their brains have fallen out. We should have seen this coming five years ago, when we learned that Obama told the new head of NASA to make one of his top priorities outreach to the Muslim world.

Terrorism is a big concern, but this sense that the political system is unresponsive, unaccountable and operating on its own self-interested ideological agenda is bigger. It is the ur-complaint that explains everything from enduring outrage over the lies that greased Obamacare’s passage to fury over illegal immigration, disgust over corruption at the IRS and VA, the immortality of the Ex-Im Bank and countless other outrages du jour.

The failure of credible politicians to address this anxiety created an opportunity for Donald Trump. At least he’s willing to say Washington is stupid.

SOURCE

*************************

For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on A WESTERN HEART.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

*********************************

Psychologists discover the truth of an old conservative saying

The saying is "A conservative is a liberal who got mugged last night". It is of no certain origin but is often attributed to Irving Kristol or some other NYC neoconservative -- though it is also attributed to Frank Rizzo, who rose from police chief to Mayor of Philadelphia.  The point is of course the notoriously poor reality contact of liberals. Most of what they believe is at variance with reality, with "all men are equal" being the most obvious example plus global warming and most of feminism being other examples. Here's that pesky graph of the satellite temperature record again:



And the wisdom of the "mugged" saying was shown in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, when attitudes among American adults were shown to have shifted Rightward after the attacks.  The attacks may be said to have "mugged" America, at least temporarily.

A new article (below) extends the finding to Britain -- concerning the time in 2005 when Britain had its big attack by Muslim terrorists. And the interesting thing this time is that it was ONLY liberals who changed their attitudes.  By 2005, British conservatives had learned from the 9/11 attacks and more or less expected what happened in Britain.  But liberals were caught by surprise.  They had NOT learned from 9/11.  So the attitude change was among British liberals only.

Amusing that the authors below describe heightened caution about Muslims as "prejudice".  I would have thought that it was POSTjudice -- evidence of learning, not evidence of hostility


Liberals' attitudes toward Muslims and immigrants became more like those of conservatives following the July 7, 2005 bombings in London, new research shows. Data from two nationally representative surveys of British citizens revealed that feelings of national loyalty increased and endorsement of equality decreased among political liberals following the terrorist attack.

The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Terrorist attacks on major international capital cities such as Paris, Ankara, or London are rare and dramatic events that undoubtedly shape public and political opinion. But whose attitudes do they affect most, and in what way?

"Our findings show that terrorism shifts public attitudes towards greater loyalty to the in-group, less concern with fairness, and greater prejudice against Muslims and immigrants, but it seems that this effect is stronger on those who are politically left-leaning than those who are right-leaning," explain psychological scientists from the Center for the Study of Group Processes at the University of Kent.

"The overall impact is to create a climate in which it may be harder to promote or sustain intergroup tolerance, inclusiveness and trust," says Julie Van de Vyver of the University of Kent, one of the authors on the study.

Research from psychological science has shown that people often adopt ideological belief systems that reduce their feelings of threat. Based on these findings, the research team hypothesized that the bombings would cause liberals to shift moral perspectives in favor of protecting the in-group, akin to the values typically reported by political conservatives. They speculated that this shift would ultimately lead to an increase in prejudice toward the out-group among liberals.

Historic survey evidence gathered by two of the study authors, Diane Houston and Dominic Abrams, provided the research team with real-world insight. The researchers analyzed newly available data from two nationally representative surveys, administered about 6 weeks before and 1 month after the July 7, 2005 bombings in London. The bombings, which occurred on public transport, led to the deaths of 52 people and injury of 770 people. The bombings were part of an Al Qaeda attack carried out by three British-born Muslims from immigrant families and one Jamaican convert to Islam.

In the two surveys, participants rated their agreement with statements that represented four moral foundations: in-group loyalty (i.e., "I feel loyal to Britain despite any faults it may have"), authority-respect (i.e., "I think people should follow rules at all times, even when no one is watching"), harm-care (i.e., "I want everyone to be treated justly, even people I do not know. It is important to me to protect the weak in society), and fairness-reciprocity (i.e., "There should be equality for all groups in Britain").

Participants also rated their agreement with statements about attitudes toward Muslims (e.g., "Britain would lose its identity if more Muslims came to live in Britain") and immigrants (e.g., "Government spends too much money assisting immigrants").

As expected, attitudes towards Muslims and toward immigrants were more negative following the attacks than before, but only among liberals; conservatives' views stayed relatively constant. Thus, liberals' attitudes seemed to shift toward those of conservatives following the bombings.

This increased prejudice was accounted for by changes in liberals' moral foundations. Specifically, liberals showed an increase in in-group loyalty and a decrease in fairness, and these shifts accounted for their negative attitudes toward Muslims and immigrants.

The results show that people's moral perspectives aren't necessarily constant - they can change according to the immediate context.

"An important challenge following dramatic terrorist attacks is to know how to engage with public perceptions and attitudes, for example to prevent an upsurge in prejudice and its effects," says Abrams.

"For people working to tackle prejudice, it is important to be aware that terror events may have different effects on the attitudes of people who start from different political orientations," the researchers write.

Based on these findings, the researchers argue that terrorist attacks may ultimately lead conservatives to consolidate their existing priorities, making them resistant to change; at the same time, such attacks may prompt a shift in liberals' priorities toward more prejudiced attitudes.

This shift in attitudes may be reflected in the UK parliament's recent decision, following the November attacks in Paris, to approve bombing missions in Syria—a reversal of its decision in 2013. The researchers note that the greatest change in voting occurred among Labour Members of Parliament, who fall on the left end of the political spectrum; they showed a 20% increase in support for the bombing missions from 2013 to 2015.

SOURCE

*************************

Even Vlad likes The Donald
 

Note that Russians drink tea.  That's teacup in the pic

After staring down months of opposition and criticism, U.S. Presidential hopeful Donald Trump has finally received a rare piece of ringing, unequivocal support.

Unfortunately, it comes from the provocative and confrontational Russian president Vladimir Putin.  Today Putin offered his thoughts on the Republican party nomination for the White House, and offered nothing but praise for the billionaire businessman.

He said: 'He is a very outstanding man, unquestionably talented. He is the absolute leader of the presidential race.'

Putin went on to describe him as 'flamboyant', and claiming Trump wants to move to a 'deeper level' of relations with Russia, added: 'How can we not welcome it? Of course we welcome it.'

Putin went on to state Russia is ready to improve ties with the U.S. and work with whomever is elected its next president.

SOURCE

**********************************

The Donald replies

Donald Trump hesitated on Friday to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin for allegations the Kremlin has killed high-profile journalists critical of the leader, saying "our country does plenty of killing also."

During an interview with MSNBC’s "Morning Joe," Trump expanded upon his welcoming of praise from Putin, remarking that "when people call you brilliant, it’s always good, especially when the person heads up Russia."

Co-host Joe Scarborough then asked Trump what he thought about the number of high-profile murders of journalists who have been critical of Putin. "He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader, you know unlike what we have in this country," Trump responded.

Scarborough pressed Trump again on the issue.

"Well I think our country does plenty of killing also, Joe," Trump said. "So, you know. There’s a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now, Joe. A lot of killing going on, a lot of stupidity."

Asked then, whether he would condemn Putin's hostility toward journalists, Trump said, "Oh sure, absolutely."

SOURCE

*****************************

Trump: ‘We Have To Be Much Tougher’ on Families of Terrorists

My comments at the foot of this report -- JR

 Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump reiterated his previous assertion that he would "go after the wives" and family members of terrorists.

 "We have to be much tougher" on terrorists’ families, Trump said when asked about his previous statement during the fifth GOP presidential debate held in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

"Recently Donald Trump mentioned that we must kill the families of ISIS members. However, this violates the principles of distinction between civilians and combatants in international law. So my question is: How would intentionally killing innocent civilians set us apart from ISIS?" Georgia Tech student Josh Jacob asked on Facebook.

Trump replied: "We have to be much tougher, we have to be much stronger than we've been. We have people that know what’s going on. You take a look at just the attack in [San Bernardino] California the other day. There were numerous people, including the mother, that knew what was going on. They saw pipe bombs sitting all over the floor, they saw ammunition all over the place. They knew exactly what was going on.

"When you have the World Trade Center go, people were put into planes that were friends, families, girlfriends – and they were put into planes and they were sent back, for the most part, to Saudi Arabia. They knew what was going on. They went home and they wanted to watch their boyfriends on television.

"I would be very, very firm with families. And frankly, that will make people think, because they may not care much about their lives. But they do care, believe it or not, about their families' lives."

But Trump’s position on targeting the families of terrorists was challenged by both former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).

"This is another example of [Trump’s] lack of seriousness," Bush responded. "Look, this is troubling because we’re at war. They’ve declared war on us, and we need to have a serious strategy to destroy ISIS. But the idea that that is a solution to this is just crazy. It makes no sense to suggest this."

 "If you are going to kill the families of terrorists, realize there is something called the Geneva Convention that we would have to pull out of," Paul also pointed out. "It would defy every norm."

"So they can kill us but we can’t kill them?" Trump asked.

SOURCE

Yes.  I think the point is that Muslims have set the example.  If they keep attacking innocent men, women and children, that gives us a warrant to do the same to them if that is helpful to  our self-defence.  The Geneva convention was set up because all sides realized that what they did to others could be done to them in retaliation. The signatories were protecting themselves in signing it.  But if Muslims don't obey the Geneva convention, they put themselves outside it and cannot expect it to protect them.  "As ye sow, so shall ye reap". (Galatians 6:7) -- JR

*************************

For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on A WESTERN HEART.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

*********************************

Is Trump even more popular than the polls say?

FOLLOWING DONALD TRUMP’S highly publicized spiritual beheading of Muslims, he once again defied conventional wisdom, not only holding fast in the national polling but also improving. In the latest Monmouth University GOP poll this week, Trump soared to 41 percent, the first time he’s broken that barrier, putting him well ahead of his next closest rival, Senator Ted Cruz, at 14 percent. A Washington Post-ABC poll confirmed the Trump surge, though they have him at 38 percent.

Given how well Trump is doing, this may seem like an odd question to ask, but are the polls actually under-representing Trump’s support among Republicans?

One thing is for sure: Despite widespread condemnation, Trump’s proposed temporary halt to Muslim immigration seems to be working to his advantage. At Tuesday night’s CNN debate in Las Vegas, Jeb Bush deserved credit for challenging Trump and refusing to scapegoat all Muslims. However, his was a lonely voice. It’s significant that criticism from the other candidates was muted. Partly that’s because, we know from polling, a majority of Republicans agree with Trump. But it’s also true that everyone draws the line somewhere. For Trump, the line was drawn at 14 American deaths in San Bernardino. For other candidates, it may be 140, 1,400, or 14,000. If you doubt it, ask if they are willing to unequivocally take an immigration ban off the table as a wartime measure. That Trump was willing to bring it forward means something to the legion of fans that admire him for saying out loud what others are only thinking.

Because of his harsh immigration policies, openly supporting Trump for some people carries with it risk of shame and humiliation. “Fascist” and “racist” are just some of the negative terms used to describe Trump by his critics. Which leads to the first reason that Trump’s support may be undercounted: People lie, and the more ill at ease they are with the questions being asked, the more likely they are to lie in response.

Evidence from polling in Europe suggests anti-immigration candidates do better on automated and online polls than they do on polls that use live interviewers. Voters won’t reveal to a stranger that they support an anti-immigration politician, but they will anonymously record it into a machine. The same phenomenon has also been observed here. Over the weekend, The Des Moines Register’s live interview poll showed Cruz leading Trump in Iowa, 31-21. Days later, however, the robo-calling PPP poll from Iowa showed Trump leading Cruz, 28-25.

The second reason Trump’s support may be artificially low is the possibility Trump is going to bring nontraditional GOP voters into the primary electorate. I spoke to a rival campaign’s pollster who believes some of the state polls are screening so tightly for past GOP primary voters that they could be missing a chunk of Trump voters who have never participated in the primary process. Of course, the question is whether these nontraditional primary voters who have been energized by Trump will follow through and actually show up to vote on a cold, snowy day in Iowa or New Hampshire. Still, a strong argument exists they’re being undercounted in polling of likely voters.

In 2008, the energizing force in the Republican primary was the Iraq War. In 2012, it was the economy. In 2016, it’s immigration. It’s no surprise in hindsight that the candidate with the harshest immigration policies is leading the field. All along, the Washington insiders assured us Trump would self-destruct as we got closer to the first voting. Instead, the real story in 2016 may be that Trump’s true support is greater than they or anyone else thought.

SOURCE

*************************************

Lessons of the Fifth GOP Debate

By Mark Alexander

Nine Republican candidates took the stage last night in the fifth debate of this primary cycle. The theme was national security, and there’s no question the next president will have an enormous task endeavoring to recover from Barack Obama’s years of domestic and foreign policy failures. But perhaps the overarching takeaway is that everyone on the stage brings their constituents to the election that matters most — defeating Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Here is my summary: The most prepared were Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina. The least prepared were Ben Carson and Donald Trump. Carson in particular is a smart, moral, nice guy who is painfully unprepared to be commander in chief.

Some other observations: Rand Paul too often sounded petulant, but he had the best cheerleading section. Trump and Jeb Bush hate each other — perhaps because they are most alike as silver-spoon politicos. Trump again demonstrated he is the master of sound bites but thin on any real understanding of issues. Bush, on the other hand, is knowledgeable, but comes across as whiny and mad at Trump for taking his candy. Chris Christie would have been far more formidable in 2012. John Kasich wins the “time bell violator” award.

Last but certainly not least, the most notable political phenomenon with the greatest potential consequences in 2016 and beyond would be the rocketing rise of Trump. His celebrity name recognition, contentious remarks and populist rhetoric have kept the blustering billionaire at the top of pop-presidential polls for months.

Trump’s support is a reflection of how dissatisfied millions of disenfranchised grassroots conservatives are with Republican “leadership.” The status quo represented by former House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has, in effect, underwritten Trump’s rising stardom. Despite greatly increasing the numbers of conservatives in the House and Senate in the historic “Republican Wave” elections nationwide in both 2010 and 2014, the much-loathed “establishment types” held the House reins until Paul Ryan replaced Boehner, and they still control the Senate. GOP leaders continue to marginalize or ignore the concerns of the conservative/Republican base — grassroots conservatives — and we are rightly outraged.

2016 will either provide an opportunity for the renewal of American exceptionalism in 2017 — the restoration of principles that have made our nation great — or it will end with the election of Hillary Clinton and a more precipitous national and international degradation.

Now, without further ado, here are some important remarks and exchanges:

On immigration:

RUBIO: “The American people don’t trust the federal government to enforce our immigration laws, and we will not be able to do anything on immigration until we first prove to the American people that illegal immigration is under control. … It takes at least 20,000 more additional border agents. It takes completing those 700 miles of fencing. It takes a mandatory e-verify system and a mandatory entry/exit tracking system to prevent overstays. After we have done that, the second thing we have to do is reform and modernize the legal immigration system. And after we have done those two things, I think the American people are going to be reasonable with what do you do with someone who has been in this country for 10 or 12 years who hasn’t otherwise violated our laws — because if they’re a criminal they can’t stay.”

CRUZ: “[W]e will secure the border. We will triple the border patrol. We will build a wall that works and I’ll get Donald Trump to pay for it. … [Rubio] was fighting to grant amnesty and not secure the border. I was fighting to secure the border. … I have never supported legalization, and I do not intend to support legalization.”

On foreign policy regarding Middle East dictators:

TRUMP: “In my opinion, we’ve spent $4 trillion trying to topple various people that, frankly, if they were there and if we could’ve spent that $4 trillion in the United States to fix our roads, our bridges, and all of the other problems … we would’ve been a lot better off. I can tell you that right now.”

FIORINA: “That is exactly what President Obama said. I’m amazed to hear that from a Republican presidential candidate.”

On the Islamic State, terrorism and the refugee problem:

BUSH: “Well, first of all, we need to destroy ISIS in the caliphate. That should be our objective. The refugee issue will be solved if we destroy ISIS there.”

KASICH: “I said last February that we needed to have … troops on the ground in a coalition similar to what we had in the first Gulf War. … First and foremost, we need to go and destroy ISIS. And we need to do this with our Arab friends and our friends in Europe. And when I see they have a climate conference over in Paris, they should have been talking about destroying ISIS because they are involved in virtually every country across this world.”

TRUMP: “A month ago [in Paris] things changed. Radical Islamic terrorism came into effect even more so than it has been in the past. People like what I say. People respect what I say. And we’ve opened up a very big discussion that needed to be opened up.”

CHRISTIE: “If you listen to Hillary Clinton the other day, what she said to the American people was, as regards to ISIS, my strategy would be just about the same as the president’s. … We have people across this country who are scared to death. Because I could tell you this, as a former federal prosecutor, if a center for the developmentally disabled in San Bernardino, California, is now a target for terrorists, that means everywhere in America is a target for these terrorists.”

TRUMP: “ISIS is recruiting through the Internet. ISIS is using the Internet better than we are using the Internet, and it was our idea. What I wanted to do is I wanted to get our brilliant people from Silicon Valley and other places and figure out a way that ISIS cannot do what they’re doing. … I would certainly be open to closing areas [of the Internet] where we are at war with somebody. I sure as hell don’t want to let people that want to kill us and kill our nation use our Internet.”

CARSON: “The war that we are fighting now against radical Islamist jihadists is one that we must win. Our very existence is dependent upon that.”

On the Obama/Clinton record:

FIORINA: “Hillary Clinton has gotten every foreign policy challenge wrong. Hitting the reset button with Vladimir Putin — recall that she called Bashar Al-Assad a positive reformer and then she opened an embassy and then later she said, over, and over, and over again, ‘Bashar Al-Assad must go,’ although she wasn’t prepared to do anything about it. Recall that Hillary Clinton was all for toppling [Moammar] Gadhafi, then didn’t listen to her own people on the ground. And then of course, when she lied about the terrorist attack in Benghazi, she invited more terrorist attacks.”

On the USA Freedom Act and NSA surveillance:

CRUZ: “I’m very proud to have joined with conservatives in both the Senate and the House to reform how we target bad guys. It gave us greater tools and we are seeing those tools work right now in San Bernardino. In particular, what it did is the prior program only covered a relatively narrow slice of phone calls.”

RUBIO: “We are now at a time when we need more tools, not less tools. And that tool we lost, the metadata program, was a valuable tool that we no longer have at our disposal.”

PAUL: “We are not any safer through the collection of all Americans' records. In fact, I think we’re less safe. We get so distracted by all the information, we’re not spending enough time getting specific information on terrorists.”

RUBIO: “If a regular law enforcement agency wants your phone records, all they have to do is issue a subpoena. But now the intelligence agency is not able to quickly gather records and look at them to see who these terrorists are calling.”

On allegiance to the GOP:

Co-moderator Hugh Hewitt: “Are you [Trump] ready to assure Republicans tonight that you will run as a Republican and abide by the decision of the Republicans?”

TRUMP: “I really am. I’ll be honest, I really am. … I am totally committed to the Republican Party. I feel very honored to be the front runner.”

SOURCE

****************************

The bill fails . . .

At 2 am this morning Congress released a $1.149 trillion, 2,009-page omnibus spending bill, a combination of thousands of spending commitments, new programs and big-government priorities.

Lawmakers failed to listen to the wishes of the American people and instead chose to cater to special interest groups. Rather than honor their campaign promises or the requests of their constituents, they caved to the Left and the Establishment.

This spending bill was a huge opportunity for conservative reform. A chance to start over and make bold spending choices to cut funding from Planned Parenthood, keep spending below budget caps, to vet the vetting process on Syrian refugees and put a stop to Obama’s executive amnesty.

The bill fails to achieve any victories on key national security issues including a more stringent vetting system of Syrian refugees.

The bill fails to block President Obama’s unlawful executive amnesty.

The bill fails to end federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

The bill fails to spend within our means, disregarding 2011 budget caps put in place to protect our economy.

Lawmakers will be voting as earlier as Thursday on this spending bill. Heritage Action opposes the omnibus spending bill and will include it as a key vote on our legislative scorecard.

The omnibus spending bill should have been an opportunity for lawmakers to assert the power of the purse. Instead the bill falls far short of achieving substantive policy victories on the issues Americans care about.

Email from Heritage Action

*************************

For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on A WESTERN HEART.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

*********************************

Donald Trump is a man of the people

By Wayne Allyn Root

Every Republican presidential candidate is in Las Vegas for the CNN debate.  They all came in Monday night.  They all had events.

Sen. Ted Cruz had 50 people at the home of a friend of mine. Sen. Marco Rubio had 200 people gathered in a room. I’m sure Ohio Gov. John Kasich had his wife, mom and dad. That’s 3 ... or 4 counting himself.

Donald Trump filled a casino with working class people. They came by the thousands.  I’d guess up to 7,000 showed up to rally for Trump. I know because I was Donald’s master of ceremonies. I was the opening act for Trump.

What a crowd. Thousands and thousands of adoring fans who love Donald Trump.  The new energy of the Republican Party ... not a bunch of old, rich farts. Working class stiffs. God bless them.

This is why Trump leads Cruz 41% to 14% in the latest national poll. The GOP hates him. Big donors hate him. Establishment hates him.  Media hate him. Even Fox News Channel seems to be against him.

Trump is fuelled by working class voters who have either not voted at all in recent elections, or voted Democrat.

Trump is great news for the GOP. He is best thing to ever happen to the rudderless party.  The middle class is struggling and right now their response is Trump.

Big shots in media don’t get what’s happening.  This is nothing short of the Trump Revolution.  And he’s no Ron Paul or Bernie Sanders.

Their adoring crowds never really mattered ... because they had and have no money. Trump will spend $1 billion once this race gets serious.

That’s the story.  Trump is the American Idol of working-class and middle-class Americans. I’m a witness. I saw it. I talked to them.  This is real.

Trump has a great shot to be president of the United States. And after Tuesday night’s debate, more Americans will see that too.

SOURCE

*********************************

Will Elites Blow Up the GOP?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

There was a dinner last week at The Source on Capitol Hill where Republican Party elites discussed how Donald Trump, even if he wins the lion's share of votes and delegates, might be denied the nomination in a "brokered convention."

Assume at the GOP convention in Cleveland that Trump runs first, Ted Cruz second, Marco Rubio third and Ben Carson fourth.

Rather than wait for Karl Rove & Co. to tell us whom the party shall nominate, Trump would phone Cruz, offer him second spot on the ticket in return for his delegates, and if Cruz declined, ask for Rubio's phone number.

Candidates who have gone through a yearlong campaign, and sustained the defeats and suffered the abuse, are not going to let a Beltway cabal decide the nominee.

Carson has already warned he will walk away from the party if such a decision were imposed upon the convention.

Moreover, the old establishments are dead. Conservatives killed the GOP establishment in 1964. The Vietnam War and George McGovern killed the Democratic establishment in 1972.

What is left are elites, collectives of office-holders past and present, donors, lobbyists, think-tankers angling for jobs, party hacks and talking heads.

What the Republican collectivity has to realize is that it is they and the policies they produced that are the reason Trump, Carson and Cruz currently hold an overwhelming majority of Republican votes.

It was the elites of both parties who failed to secure our borders and brokered the trade deals that have de-industrialized America and eviscerated our middle class.

It was the elites of both parties who got us into these idiotic wars that have blown up the Middle East, cost us trillions of dollars, thousands of dead, and tens of thousands of wounded among our best and bravest.

That Republican elites would sit around a dinner table on Capitol Hill and discuss how to frustrate the rising rebellion against what they have done to America, and decide among themselves who shall lead us, is astonishing.

To borrow from the Gipper, they are not the solution to our problems. They are the problem.

More HERE

**************************

Slaying or at least winging the regulatory dragon

By Martin Hutchinson

The COP-21 global climate talks ended this weekend, with a treaty that won't have much practical effect. Yet regulations to combat "climate change" have already inflicted trillions of dollars of economic damage and there seems no prospect of ending their depredations. In other areas, the regulatory state set up since the 1960s expands steadily, with only modest rollbacks likely if an anti-regulatory President is elected. Since our entire future prosperity depends on not sharing Laocoon's fate from the regulatory serpents, it is thus worth pondering how we might defeat them, and to what extent it is truly impossible.

In general, the U.S. and many global regulators have used the last seven years of pro-regulator government to entrench themselves. U.S. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy is confident that they are elimination-proof "You're going to lose and you might as well get over it" she told a Congressional hearing last week. Under the Dodd –Frank Act of 2010 regulating the banks, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau was put inside the Fed to prevent Congress overseeing it properly. The statutory and theoretical prohibitions against Congress meddling with the Fed are strong, so the idea was they would protect the CFPB also, even though the authors of Dodd-Frank knew the CFPB would spend its life imposing costs on the financial services industry and impeding the operation of the free market.

As well as the regulators, the years of regulation have produced an appalling group of crony capitalists who benefit from it. This is clearest in the banking sector, where regulation has raised the barriers to entry to prohibitive levels – new bank formation has slipped 97% since before the crisis, from about 100 year before 2007 to THREE a year, in the entire United States, since 2010.

The combination of regulation and foolish Fed monetary policy, allowing banks to receive interest on $2 trillion of reserves kept at the Fed, and granting a permanent 2% yield curve differential between deposit rates and long-term government bond rates, has made the lives of all but the very largest banks very easy indeed. As for the largest banks, they have been subsidized in their investment banking operations, which have made trading profits based on ever-rising asset prices and huge swathes of money sloshing around the system. So when the banks and their top executives turn out to be among the largest donors to Hillary Clinton, who regularly denounces them, they are not turkeys voting for an early Christmas, but fat, corrupted, unhealthy pigs voting for the endless subsidy swill to keep flowing.

Crony capitalists have however spread well beyond banking. Elon Musk, for example, whose Tesla empire depends almost entirely on government subsidies of one kind or another is certainly more plausible than the people who ran the failed Solyndra solar panel company, but his business has yet to be tested by recession or – more difficult still – by an environment in which massive taxpayer handouts to wealthy eco-conscious consumers are no longer available.

Needless to say the crony capitalists, through massive political donations, have bought at least a substantial minority of politicians. When allied with the "green" lobby or the politically correct liberals of the big coastal cities, they are practically unstoppable. We saw their power in the U.S. Eximbank disaster, in which that crony capitalist haven died for more than five months, to the mass cheers of ordinary taxpayers, before mysteriously rising again without significant reform, its survival guaranteed for another four years.

Finally, there is the international dimension. It has now become clear from experience that international bureaucracies are much more dangerous than the domestic kind. They are responsible to nobody, so can allow their instincts for politically correct self-aggrandizement and waste full rein. They are also perpetual. I am not aware of any such body ever having been abolished; there are still League of Nations bureaucracies in Geneva, which have had no real purpose since 1945, but have continued to draw handsome salaries and allowances.

A U.S. President can refuse to fund them, but in an era of massive liquidity such as the present that is no problem; at most they slim down a little, funded by the remaining countries that still support them and possibly by a little low-cost borrowing and wait for the swing of the U.S. political pendulum, after which their full funding will be restored, probably including the arrears. Thus international regulation, especially in areas such as the environment and refugee questions, is even more unstoppable than domestic regulation.

The forces preventing significant pruning of regulations are thus very powerful. Even to consider countering them we must assume a President dedicated to doing so, a Congress in which he has safe majorities in both houses, and eight years in which to operate, during which he is able to maintain his House and Senate majorities for at least six of them. It is a lot to ask, but let assume some miracle brings this lucky combination in the fairly near future. What should this miracle President and his miracle Congress do?

The most important set of regulations to eliminate is that surrounding global warming, and the environment in general.  The reality behind global warming is difficult to establish amid all the fog. A New York Times article as far back as 1956 quoted an estimate by the British climatologist Guy Callendar that carbon dioxide emissions were warming the atmosphere by about 1.1 degree Celsius per century. That now looks a little high; the warming since 1900 is only about 0.8 degrees; in any case it does not suggest that by 2100 we will have suffered anything like the 3-4 degrees Celsius rise from present levels at which damage to our civilization could become significant. Two important factors making global warming less dangerous are that the effects of increased carbon dioxide are asymptotic, not exponential, and that plant feedback also dampens the warming effect.

Global warming is real but the "global warming" hysteria is a leftist and crony capitalist scam. Apart from doctored "hockey stick" graphs of temperature rises and now even doctored temperature observations, it includes such intellectual dishonesties as defining the temperature rise as dating from the beginning of industrialization, a period when we were in a Maunder minimum temperature phase and would thus have had significant warming even if the dinosaurs still roamed. The new Paris treaty that wants to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius from the beginning of industrialization is limiting us to warming that has already happened; if there is any warming effect of carbon at all we would have to shut down civilization completely to comply with her absurd benchmark.

The best way of ensuring that global warming and other environmental dishonesty doesn't embed itself in U.S. policy is probably structural: abolish the EPA and embed the environmental regulatory function within the Department of Commerce, whose main function is the promotion of American business. With a suitable Commerce Secretary like the 1980s Malcolm Baldridge, environmental regulations that caused economic damage would be severely pruned back. Add a requirement for proper, non-fudged estimates of regulations' benefits and costs, and a separate audit by the Government Accounting Office before they were put into effect, and you would probably have a system of environmental regulation that could survive even the return of a Democrat administration.

More HERE

***************************

This Might Explain Why Obama Thought ISIS Was Contained

President Obama's assertion that ISIS was contained showed that he was either desperately trying to justify his failures or that he was seriously lacking information. A new report suggests it was the latter:

    President Barack Obama has only attended roughly 40 percent of his daily intelligence briefings throughout his presidency, according to the Government Accountability Institute (GAI).

    In September 2014, the Government Accountability Institute updated an analysis of how much time President Barack Obama has spent attending his Presidential Daily Briefs (PDBs), as recorded on the White House official calendar and Politico’s comprehensive calendar. The updated study covered the president’s first 2,079 days in office, running from January 20, 2009 through September 29, 2014. Of those, President Obama attended a total of 875 Presidential Daily Briefs for an overall 42.09% attendance rate.

    The report also found President Obama’s attendance has declined slightly in his second term from 42.43 percent to 41.26 percent.

I'm willing to bet if there was a daily global warming briefing, Obama wouldn't miss a single round of golf for it. This finding is an absolute disgrace, and should remind Americans how unserious Democrats are when it comes to keeping us safe.

SOURCE

***********************************

For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on A WESTERN HEART.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

*********************************

A Trump breakthrough?

Many skeptical of Donald Trump's ability to secure the nomination point to his inability to get more than 30 or so percent in polls. But that might be changing. As Politico reports:

    "Donald Trump just got a little more vault in his ceiling. Nationwide, the polling-obsessed Manhattan multi-billionaire and leading Republican presidential candidate broke into the 40s on Monday.

    According to the results of the latest Monmouth University poll surveying voters identifying as Republican or independents leaning toward the GOP, Trump earned 41 percent, nearly tripling the support of his closest rival, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who took 14 percent.

    The poll underscores Trump's success at keeping voters fixated on his unprecedented presidential campaign. The latest national survey was taken after Trump landed another whopper, proposing in an emailed statement last Monday to temporarily ban all Muslims from entering the U.S. The statement gave Trump another boost of media attention, and some speculated it was designed to shift the conversation away from a Monmouth poll from Iowa released earlier that day that showed Cruz with a 5-point edge in the state."

It will be interesting to see if this poll holds up- these things tend to be unreliable, but it's a reminder that Trump won't be going anywhere for quite some time.

SOURCE

****************************

Cruz Compares Obama's Nuke Deal to Neville Chamberlain's Munich Pact

President Obama’s handling of the Iranian nuclear deal is akin to former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Nazi Germany in the 1938 Munich Pact, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told an audience at the Heritage Foundation in Washington on Thursday.

“I believe today we are at a moment like Munich in 1938,” Cruz said. “That President Obama has returned from Geneva, returned from agreeing to give over $100 billion to the Ayatollah Khamenei, promising like Neville Chamberlain peace in our time.

“If history teaches anything, giving hundreds of billions of dollars, strengthening homicidal maniacs who intend to murder you, has never, ever, ever worked out well,” Cruz said.

The Republican presidential candidate went on to decry Obama’s current handling of foreign policy, which he said has made the administration of former President Jimmy Carter look like a success in comparison.

“After two terms of an Obama-Clinton foreign policy so disastrous it makes the Carter administration look good, we are in a desperate need once again for clarity,” Cruz said.

Cruz slammed the president for refusing to acknowledge America’s enemy, accusing Obama of acting as an “apologist” for radical Islamic terrorism.

“He’s chosen not to confront the actual enemy. He’s chosen not to call the attacks in Fort Hood or Little Rock or Boston or Chattanooga concerted acts of radical Islamic terrorism,” Cruz said.

“He spent a significant portion of his Sunday address as an apologist for radical Islamic terrorism,” Cruz said in reference to the president’s speech on the administration’s counterterrorism strategy following the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.

“In this context, it raises the specter that Americans will be labeled as bigots if they dare utter the world ‘Islam’ in connection with a terrorist attack.”

However, the Texas senator also criticized both parties for wanting to restrict Americans’ liberties to combat terrorism, pointing out that many Republicans want the government to collect a reckless amount of Americans’ personal records, while many Democrats want to restrict their use of firearms through gun control.

“In addition to those voices on the right who are suggesting sweeping aside citizens’ Fourth Amendment rights, there are voices on the left who are taking the same approach and want us to voluntarily surrender our Second Amendment rights,” Cruz said.

“Both of these approaches are misguided,” he declared.

“When the focus of law enforcement and national security is on law-abiding citizens rather than targeting the bad guys, we miss the bad guys while violating the constitutional rights of American citizens.”

Cruz advocated securing the border, engaging in limited records collection, and restricting refugee access to those coming from “terror-ridden” countries.

“We should not shy away from smarter policies that enhance our ability to target the bad guys while protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens,” he said.

SOURCE

************************************

California Knife Attack Still Not Called Terrorism

San Bernardino recently fell victim to another onslaught of Islamic terrorism right here in America, but recall just over a month ago another tragedy that struck the Golden State. In November, Faisal Mohammad, a student enrolled at the University of California, Merced, attacked four of his peers before being fatally shot by police. But because the weapon used by Mohammad was a knife, the story was mostly ignored and escaped mainstream scrutiny. It also took a while for the man’s name to be made public, for obvious reasons. The grievance industry claims the attack was motivated by Mohammad’s getting kicked out of a study group, but the ensuing investigation debunked that theory and raises questions of why investigators have yet to call it terrorism.

According to Fox News, “Mohammad, whose victims all survived, left behind a rambling, two-page manifesto in which he instructed himself to ‘praise Allah’ as he worked his way through his hit list, a photocopied ISIS flag and at least one shaken roommate who remembers him as a menacing loner.” That roommate, Ali Tarek Elshekh, added, “He was … an extreme Muslim.” He also testified that Mohammad threatened to kill a friend if he touched his prayer mat. None of that sounds like a domestic dispute.

These revelations have one of the victims' fathers, John Price, asking an obvious question: “Why don’t we just call it what it is — domestic terrorism? Everyone is afraid to be politically incorrect. I do believe in law enforcement and believe they will do their job, but it seems like to me we aren’t getting the whole story. I just wonder how much of this is driven from way higher up and is politically driven — I just don’t know.”

He’s right. Last July, an Islamic jihadist attacked two military recruiting facilities in Chattanooga, murdering five. But five months later, despite the assailant’s clear intention to commit jihad, the FBI still hasn’t classified it terrorism. In some ways, we’ve seen a similar story unfold in San Bernardino. And make no mistake: Terrorists know it’s not just guns and pipe bombs that will further their agenda, but political correctness as well.

SOURCE

********************************

Trump exposes elitism

In “The Myth of Sisyphus,” Albert Camus’s exploration of the role of suicide in the modern world, the philosopher of the Absurd states, “That universal reason, practical or ethical, that determinism, those categories that explain everything are enough to make a decent man laugh.” Camus was making reference to philosophical giants of western civilization whose task was to justify a universe seemingly indifferent to humanity’s yearning for meaning. All of which Camus dismissed with a rhetorical flip of his hand and a whiff of disdain; he believed magisterial cathedrals of thought were irrelevant to enlightening individuals' souls about the most important thing in their lives. Quite the contrary, their hubris induces mirth, as his cold analysis in “Sisyphus” made clear.

So what relevance do Camus’s words have for American politics in the wake of the terrorist attack in San Bernardino? Delving into Donald Trump’s recommendations about prohibiting additional Muslim immigration provides an answer. Indeed, everybody, Republicans and Democrats alike, wanted to strut their stuff, beginning with President Obama’s address about treating Muslims with respect, followed by Trump’s speech. Certainly, Trump’s address ignited volleys of censure from New Jersey to Nevada.

Lindsey Graham said Trump “has gone from making absurd comments to being downright dangerous with his bombastic rhetoric,” while Jeb Bush commented that Trump is unhinged and his proposals cannot be taken seriously. Marco Rubio declared, “I disagree with Donald Trump’s latest proposal. His habit of making offensive and outlandish statements will not bring Americans together.” John Kasich declared Trump “entirely unsuited to lead,” and Carly Fiorina concluded that Trump’s prescription was an “overreaction.” Hillary Clinton said, “This is reprehensible, prejudiced and divisive.” And Brent Bozell’s Media Research Center Alert is stuffed with a cornucopia of media’s denunciations of Trump.

Of course Trump has his defenders, none more able than National Review’s David French, who provided a trenchant analysis of America’s (and the world’s) Muslim terrorism problem in an essay with a title that says it all: “Dispelling the Few Extremists Myth — the Muslim World Is Overcome with Hate.” Consulting polls displaying data that are devastating to politically correct views about Muslims, French maintains that, “To understand the Muslim edifice of hate, imagine it as a pyramid — with broadly-shared bigotry at the bottom, followed by stair steps of escalating radicalism — culminating in jihadist armies that in some instances represent a greater share of their respective populations than does the active-duty military in the United States.” Further, Jeffrey Lord of The American Spectator reviewed Franklin Roosevelt’s wartime actions involving Germans, Italians, and Japanese, concluding that FDR made Donald Trump look like a “nerdy weakling.” These are just two examples, of course; an abundance of commentaries continue to pour forth from Trump’s detractors and allies as this is being written.

The question is what one is supposed to make of all this? Two main points stand out. First, Trump’s critics and supporters are talking about different things, actually, with the former concerned about America’s inclusiveness, “that’s not who we are,” while his supporters probe into the characteristics of radical Islam. Second, the debate over Muslim immigration demonstrates the chasm between many of America’s opinion leaders, pundits, and intelligentsia, on the one hand, and a huge hunk of the country’s rank and file, on the other.

This is where a Camus analogy comes in. Like the West’s philosophical luminaries Camus had in mind, America’s self-appointed opinion overseers — Republicans and Democrats alike — have constructed rhetorical edifices celebrating their own righteousness and moral superiority, which in their minds bestow on them the right to tell citizens what to think and what to do. Indeed, our avatars of civic virtue preach to the peasants below about threats none of the avatars will personally ever have to confront themselves. All of which, as Camus points out, would be downright amusing, if the subject matter weren’t so serious.

Except this time the peasants are having none of it. Although Americans certainly don’t want to wage war against Islam, they are also smart enough to know that the San Bernardino massacre wasn’t committed by a bevy of disgruntled Baptists, and that a culture based on Sharia is antithetical to American constitutionalism. So, they’re clinging to their guns, and religion, and many of them, to the only person who has demonstrated the guts to excoriate the elite’s view of America. This is not an argument for or against Donald Trump, about whom we all have our own opinions. It is to say, however, that his supporters are enraged about America’s elite endlessly spouting their irrelevant and scolding pieties, which are enough to make many American citizens deeply unsettled.

SOURCE

*************************************

The Midas Paradox: How Government Caused and Prolonged the Great Depression

The Great Depression was the most disastrous economic calamity of the past century, but no one had offered a convincing explanation for every twist and turn the economy took from 1929 to 1940-until now. Independent Institute research fellow and Bentley University economics professor Scott Sumner solves the mystery of the economy's multiple ups and downs, and other puzzles that have befuddled economic historians and analysts, in The Midas Paradox: Financial Markets, Government Policy Shocks, and the Great Depression, a path-breaking book destined to shape all future research on the topic.

Drawing on financial market data and contemporaneous news stories, Sumner (ranked 15th in Foreign Policy's Top Global Thinkers of 2012) shows that the Depression is ultimately a story of horrendous policymaking-especially decisions related to monetary policy and wage rates. Gold hoarding by the world's central banks brought on the Great Contraction (1929-33), and widespread fears of currency devaluation spooked the private sector into hoarding gold; the resulting drop in total spending helped drive thousands of firms out of business and raise unemployment to historic highs. Making matters worse, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt prevented the American economy from recovering quickly with his attempt to artificially raise hourly wage rates on five separate occasions. Sumner's insightful narrative of these and related events-and his refutation of enduring historical and economic myths-makes The Midas Paradox must-reading for anyone who wants to understand how badly policymakers failed and how we can avoid repeating their mistakes.

More than a fresh contribution to the literature on the Great Depression, The Midas Paradox offers a powerful critique of modern monetary analysis-and identifies its harmful role in policymaking during the recent Great Recession. "We think we have advanced far beyond the [economic] prejudices of the 1930s," Sumner writes, "but when a crisis hits we reflexively exhibit the same atavistic impulses as our ancestors. Even worse, we congratulate the Fed for avoiding the mistakes of the 1930s, even as it repeats many of those mistakes."

SOURCE

***********************************

For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on A WESTERN HEART.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

*********************************

More on the man who shouted 'You ain't no Muslim, bruv'

The man concerned has been treated as a profound theological authority on Islam by all sorts of people from the British Prime Minister down.  So who is he and what does he actually know? His identity has been kept under wraps so it has been difficult to answer that. Some information has now been released, however, so we do know a little about the man.  Excerpt below:

The man who shouted "You ain't no Muslim, bruv" at a suspected terrorist during a stabbing at Leytonstone Tube station has told how he now fears retribution. The bystander was heard in video footage of the incident in east London last weekend saying the phrase that later went viral as an attacker wielding a knife stabbed a man.

But the 39-year-old security guard from north London - named only as John as he asked for his surname to be withheld - said he has the support of his family

John is not Muslim himself, but said he is angry that terrorist groups such as Isil claim to represent Islam. "Isis should be wiped out, because they're not Muslims, because Muslims don't do that," he said. "It's as simple as that.

He told how he felt he had to voice his feelings when he saw what was happening in the station. "I saw the guy," he said. "I was like, well you ain't a Muslim... That's my views, and I had to let him know that, because he looked to be a terrorist. I don't believe in all that."

Muhyadin Mire, 29, is expected to stand trial next year charged with the attempted murder of a 56-year-old man who was attacked from behind in front of several members of the public on the evening of Saturday, December 5.

Prosecutors have alleged the attack, during which witnesses said they heard a man shout "This is for Syria", was an act of terrorism.

SOURCE

Some extra information:  The attacker was indeed a Muslim with a Muslim name.  He is a Muslim who came to Britain from from Muslim Somalia as a 12 year old.  He has a brother named Mohamed.  His first name is an African form of the Arabic Mujahideen, which is the term for one engaged in Jihad. Clear enough?

And the bystander is no authority on anything.  He is not even a Muslim himself. He is simply a security guard.  Security guards do not have a great reputation for intellectual profundity and this guy does nothing to disturb that impression.  He is simply a guy who has drunk deep of the official Kool-Aid. Despite massive and repeated evidence to the contrary he really believes that "Muslims don't do that".  He is as deluded as his Prime Minister.

**************************

Legal Scholars Supports Constitutionality of Trump's Muslim Ban

One of the main criticisms of Donald Trump’s proposed moratorium on Muslim immigration is that it’s unconstitutional. For example, Republican presidential candidate and law graduate Marco Rubio said that the plan “violates the Constitution” earlier this week.

However, two notable law professors — Jan C. Ting of Temple University and Eric Posner of the University of Chicago — say those critics are wrong and possibly don’t know much about legal history.

Ting, a professor at Temple University’s School of Law and a former Immigration and Naturalization Services commissioner for the Department of Justice, explained to The Daily Caller that Trump’s plan is in keeping with over a hundred years of legal precedent.

“No kind of immigration restriction is unconstitutional,” Ting told TheDC. “The U.S. government can exclude a foreign national on any basis.”

The legal scholar explained that the Supreme Court’s decisions since ruling unanimously in favor of the legality of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1889 have upheld the authority of the political branches — executive and legislative — to make immigration law as they see fit and to exclude foreigners on grounds that would not be applicable to American citizens.

“The statutes are clear: immigration is different from all other aspects of the law,” Ting said. “The Supreme Court has ruled we can enact laws against foreign nationals that would not be permissible to apply to citizens. The courts historically have no role in these decisions.”

SOURCE

*********************************

The Hidden Reason Why Americans Dislike Islam

by David French

Yesterday, YouGov and the Huffington Post released a poll showing that large majorities of Americans — and pluralities across every political demographic — have an “unfavorable opinion” of the Islamic faith. The numbers are simply not close:

There will be no doubt some hand-wringing about “Islamophobia” and further calls to continue the American elite’s fourteen-year track record of whitewashing Islamic beliefs and culture, but I wonder if the media is missing a powerful, largely-uncovered influence on America’s hearts and minds — the experience and testimony of the more than two million Americans who’ve served overseas since 9/11 and have experienced Islamic cultures up-close.

Yes, they were in the middle of a war — but speaking from my own experience — the war was conducted from within a culture that was shockingly broken. I expected the jihadists to be evil, but even I couldn’t fathom the depths of their depravity. And it was all occurring against the backdrop of a brutally violent and intolerant culture.

Women were beaten almost as an afterthought, there was a near-total lack of empathy for even friends and neighbors, lying was endemic, and sexual abuse was rampant.

Even more disturbingly, it seemed that every problem was exacerbated the more religious and pious a person (or village) became. I spent enough time outside the wire and interacting with tribal leaders to get a sense of the reality around me, but the younger guys on the line spent weeks at a time living in the heart of the local community.

I remember one young soldier, after describing the things he’d seen since the start of the deployment, gestured towards the village around us and said — in perfect Army English — “Sir, this s**t is f**ked up.”

It is indeed. While it’s certainly unfair to judge Indonesia or Malaysia by the standards of Iraq or Afghanistan, it’s very hard to shake the power of lived experience, nor should we necessarily try. After all, when we hear stories from Syria, Yemen, Gaza, the Sinai, Libya, Nigeria, Somalia, Mali, Pakistan, and elsewhere they all fit the same depressing template of the American conflict zones.

Nor is the dazzlingly wealthy veneer of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, or the other Gulf States all that impressive. Tens of thousands of soldiers have seen the veritable slave labor that toils within the oil empires and have witnessed first-hand their casual disregard for “lesser” life.

But this same experience has caused us to treasure the Muslim friends we do have — in part because we recognize the extreme risks of their loyalty and defiance of jihad. That’s why American officers fiercely champion the immigration of local interpreters, even to the point of welcoming them into their own home.

That’s why there’s often an intense connection with our Kurdish allies, the single-most effective ground fighting force against ISIS.

Two million Americans have been downrange, and they’ve come home and told families and friends stories the media rarely tells.  Those stories have an impact, but because of the cultural distance between America’s warriors and its media, academic, and political aristocracy, it’s an impact the aristocracy hasn’t been tracking.

Experience trumps idealistic rhetoric, and I can’t help but think that polls like YouGov’s are at least partly registering the results of a uniquely grim American experience.

SOURCE

********************************

What The Founders Thought About Islam, In Their Own Words

President Obama has continually asserted that Islam was “woven into the fabric” of the United States since its founding. Obama claims that Muslims have made significant contributions to building of this nation. The claim is laughable to anyone who has studied US history. Historian David Barton spoke to Glenn Beck and tore the president’s claims apart.

Barton found the first real contribution any Muslim made was in 1856 (80 years after the founding) when then Secretary of War Jefferson Davis hired one Muslim to help train camels in Arizona. Not exactly a resounding contribution, since the plan to fight Native Americans via camelback was soon dismissed.

But Muslims did have an influence on early America, and that influence was one of a foe. After winning its independence from England, American vessels no longer enjoyed British protection. France, dismayed that the US would not aid it in its war against England, also ceased protection of American ships. The result led to American vessels being raided and plundered by Muslim pirates from the Barbary Coast.

After agreeing to pay 10% of the new nations dismal GDP in exchange for passage, attacks continued. Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin were sent as representatives to mediate the problem. It was there that they discovered that the Islamic law the pirates followed made it their duty to attack non-Muslims.

“The ambassador answered us that [the right] was founded on the Laws of the Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise,” Jefferson wrote to Secretary of State John Jay, explaining peace was not possible.

Ben Franklin wrote of his experience: “Nor can the Plundering of Infidels be in that sacred Book (the Qur’an) forbidden, since it is well known from it, that God has given the World, and all that it contains, to his faithful Mussulmen, who are to enjoy it of Right as fast as they conquer it.”

John Adams, in his report to Jay, wrote of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, and called him a “military fanatic” who “denies that laws were made for him; he arrogates everything to himself by force of arms.”

By the time Jefferson became president the Barbary coast was extorting 25% of US GDP and attacks were still occurring. Jefferson wasted no time in signing a war powers request which launched the US’s entire naval fleet to wage war on the Barbary pirates. Jefferson saw the fleet off, ordering the US sailors to chase the pirates all the way to Tripoli, giving rise to the famed verse from the US Marines’ anthem.

President Obama is correct when he says that Muslims shaped this country, just not in how he means. They provided the context and need for the US Marines and provided our first lesson in battling extremism: It cannot be appeased. Extremism must be routed out through force.

SOURCE

***********************************

The runaway tyranny of an unelected bureaucracy

California Coastal Commission (CCC) is an unelected body of regulatory zealots that overrides the elected governments of coastal counties and cities on issues of land use and property rights. As we recently noted, the powerful CCC is moving into animal management, trying to leverage SeaWorld into killing off its orca shows. Now the CCC is expanding into sports management and gender quotas.

At Mavericks, on the California coast just north of Pillar Point Harbor near Half Moon Bay, the waves break huge in the winter. For more than 15 years, surfers have held a big-wave competition there, but as Samantha Weigel of the Daily Journal notes this year "was the first time organizers were required to obtain a permit from the Coastal Commission." As Kristin Bender of the Associated Press observes, the CCC granted a permit but told organizers, "they better have a plan for including women if they want a permit to hold the event next year." Commissioner Mark Vargas told reporters, "there ought to be some sort of consideration for equal opportunity or at least transparency for their selection process to ensure there is no discrimination." As organizers explained, women can participate in the competition. Women have surfed Mavericks before but no woman has ever made the top 24 in the competition. A push for women to have a heat of their own led to the Coastal Commission demand. Do it our way, the unelected CCC says in effect, or no permit. This is hardly the CCC's only power surge.

As we noted, the unelected Commission is claiming jurisdiction over inland projects such as landfills on the grounds that rivers flow through the coastal region en route to the ocean. As Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee warned, this means the Commission could expand to the nearly entire state. In reality, elected governments are entirely capable of handling their land use and environmental affairs. SeaWorld is capable of managing its own shows and the Mavericks organizers can run their event all by themselves. A responsible, accountable government would eliminate the Coastal Commission at the first opportunity.

SOURCE

***********************************

For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on A WESTERN HEART.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

*********************************