02/19/17

The Roar of the Forgotten Man and Woman

On February 14, 2017, I spoke to the Cornell Political Union at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, on the promise of Donald Trump’s Presidency. My lecture, “Trumpism Can Make America Great Again,” follows:

Last time I was here was over a year ago when my son Michael was looking at Cornell. He loves this school and this organization—and anything he loves, I do too. So thanks to all of you for the work you do, the discussion you facilitate, and the important contribution you make to this great institution. Cornell is one of the world’s premier universities, and your intellectual curiosity and search for answers to our world’s and nation’s problems are a big contribution to that greatness.

On the drive up here tonight, I happened to see how this university describes itself on its Twitter feed. It’s a great description: “Teach tomorrow’s thought leaders to think otherwise and create knowledge with a public purpose.” Tonight I’m going to do exactly that: I’m going to try to get you to think a little differently—to see what over 60 million Americans saw when they voted for Trump, and we’ll do all of this with the spirit that we’ll use this knowledge to serve the higher public purpose of enhancing the greatness of our nation, which requires of each subsequent American generation that they defend and continually improve it for all Americans.

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We have just undergone the closest thing to a revolution in American politics as one can have in our Constitutional Republic, and tonight I will attempt to explain it objectively. I will speak tonight not to the few of you here who may already support Trump, nor those of you who consider yourselves conservatives or Republicans, but to the vast majority here tonight that I’m sure do not. These are the facts and sentiments that led to an electoral outcome you no doubt did not want and did not predict—but I’m convinced need to understand.

I come tonight not to defend Trumpism, even though you will find no more passionate advocate for it. Literally since his announcement on June 16, 2015, I defended him consistently on television, radio and in many forums—and I sought to defend or at least explain him to those prone not to hear or process his important message.

So I come to Cornell tonight not to defend Trumpism but to explain it.

For eight years and maybe longer—the totality of your adult lives in fact, this nation was headed in a decidedly left of center and globalist direction. Under this recent administration, we saw the problems of other countries as inherently ones we were obligated to solve. In many cases, we even wrongly blamed ourselves for these problems. We entered into trade agreements that worked well for other nations but failed the American worker. We opened our nation to legal and illegal immigrants—and bent over backwards to accommodate their needs, desires and cultures but never considered the impact we were having on our citizens.

This created what Trump correctly labeled in his Republican Convention acceptance speech “the forgotten man and woman”—the working American whose economic plight worsened on the watch of Obama and whose country became less identifiable to him and her. And this past November 8, the “forgotten man and woman” had seen enough—and their voice was heard loudly.

What inspired all this passion in these forgotten men and women?

Let me deal tonight with facts:

Employment: All of you have probably heard and followed the employment trends announced each month and quarter by the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. You heard, for instance, that unemployment under Obama seemed to be stagnant, or even reduced. And it was always reported in single digits. In the final month of Obama’s presidency—December 2016—it was reportedly 4.9 percent, which seems not unreasonable.

But these numbers excluded the biggest story of American unemployment—the long-term unemployed and those who’d simply given up looking for work. While the short-term unemployment came down, it was only because many of those short-term unemployed Americans moved into the long-term category and ceased being reported in the primary BLS monthly survey number, which is really just a poll subject to all the inaccuracies one might see in any poll.

The employment reality in the country is actually much worse than reported. In fact, there has really been essentially zero job creation for native American citizens since 2000. The total number of Americans holding a job increased 5.7 percent from 2000 to 2014. But if you back out jobs taken by legal and illegal immigrants, the number of Americans holding jobs actually decreased 17 million between 2000 and 2014. When the longer-term unemployed are included, the number of jobless Americans is not 4.9 percent. It’s at least almost twice that—9.5 percent, and some believe considerably higher than even that. On Obama’s watch, it’s a fact that a bad employment situation got even worse.

Seldom reported in these routine “official” employment statistics was the fact that, under Obama, the number of Americans not in the labor force kept creeping upward. In December 2016, this number of Americans not in the labor force reached an all-time high: 95,102,000. That’s nearly thirty percent of our entire nation. On jobs, the “forgotten man and woman” has been hurt and is hurting.

Continue reading →

02/5/17

How About “America First” for College Admissions?

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

In a recent article, “Surge in foreign students may be crowding Americans out of elite colleges,” The Washington Post stumbled on the truth about one of the factors affecting the rising cost of college for American students. The percentage of foreign students enrolling in both public and private colleges and universities has skyrocketed. Their sponsors, Middle East governments and regimes like China, buy their way into American colleges and universities for their own students, forcing up costs for the dwindling number of Americans fortunate enough to gain admission.

It is estimated that over one million international students are enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities. That figure has doubled in 15 years. The growing international enrollment is crowding out qualified U.S. students.

But the Post, staying true to the liberal/libertarian orientation of its owner, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, tried to play down the serious nature of the problem. “International growth has fostered an increasingly cosmopolitan culture on campuses across the country, with academic benefits for domestic and foreign students alike,” the Post claimed. “It gives colleges an additional path toward ethnic and racial diversity, opening doors to students from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe. But it also injects pressure into the admissions scramble that U.S. high school seniors are starting to experience this month as schools release early-admission decisions.”

With that final sentence, the paper alluded to how American high school students are losing slots to foreigners. The claims about a “cosmopolitan culture” and “diversity” sound attractive, but the benefits for the American students lucky enough to get into these colleges were not clearly defined.

“American citizens need to stand up for American schools for American students,” says Dr. Tina Trent, who studies and writes about academia. “As foreign students stand at the front of the line, too many American students stand outside the classroom doors, increasingly excluded from the very institutions their parents and grandparents built and subsidize with every paycheck.”

Trent, who contributes to a blog sponsored by the Capital Research Center and writes frequently on education, says that she found that at one university, a faculty member noted that one in 10 of the freshman seats was “going to the children of plutocrats from a repressive, communist state,” Communist China. “This is something that is going on at both public and private universities and colleges,” Trent told Accuracy in Media.

The foreign students are paying the full cost, since money is no problem for the regimes that sponsor them. Yet, their financial contributions do not reduce tuition for the American students lucky enough to get in, and the public dollars continue to flow.

“When these institutions give classroom chairs to foreign students, they are unilaterally choosing to transfer our tax dollars to foreigners,” she explained. “The excuses the schools have given over the years include the virtues of globalization and exposing Americans to ‘diverse’ foreign cultures. But in reality, administrators are mostly motivated by the fact that they can charge foreign students higher tuition.”

Trent said that in Florida, where she taught college classes as an adjunct professor, she watched friends struggle to get their own children into a university system they paid for with their own tax dollars. “Even when they get into schools, certain classes in the hard sciences are extremely hard to access. Yet these schools still manage to find room for rapidly increasing numbers of foreign students,” she added.

She said that with the extra tuition money provided by foreigners, on top of the public funds, administrators are sponsoring and promoting useless and politicized “studies” programs that justify bloated salaries for themselves. A concrete example of this trend is the proliferation of “diversity and inclusion” departments or offices on college campuses. Such departments or offices literally spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on speakers like communist Angela Davis and conferences devoted to feminist or radical black studies.

Trent said the students from totalitarian states, be they Islamic or Chinese, are pouring money into administrators’ pockets, but the anti-American attitudes these students often bring with them are not being corrected. “Nor are the administrators criticizing the regimes from which these students come,” she added. However, white male American students are immediately judged as racist, sexist, homophobic, etc., and ordered into “diversity” training sessions.

“So you get this ironic situation where university administrators who find Klansmen under every rock when it comes to their American students, are running cover for plutocrats from China and slave-owners from the Middle East who violently oppress women,” Trent said. For example, “You won’t find many Women’s Studies professors criticizing their own school’s administrations for admitting students from countries that practice female genital mutilation, or forced abortion, or who murder rape victims.”

“As these totalitarian regimes gain footholds in American universities by making direct donations and purchasing larger and larger percentages of classroom seats, those regimes are gaining tremendous influence over the research done by these schools,” she said. “The increasing anti-Israel bent of Middle Eastern Studies programs is just the oldest example of such crudely cash-based ideological colonialization of American higher education.”

Foreign students put other burdens on schools. Trent says that colleges and universities usually use underpaid adjunct lecturers and instructors to teach freshman composition classes and tutor foreigners who don’t speak fluent English. “I know adjuncts, and also graduate students, who spend hours of essentially unpaid labor tutoring scores of such students who don’t speak enough English to be attending an American school in the first place,” she said.

The Wall Street Journal has reported on another problem—how cheating among international students is rampant. “Faculty and domestic students interviewed said it appears that substantial numbers of international students either don’t comprehend or don’t accept U.S. standards of academic integrity,” the paper said.

As President Trump grapples with such issues as the high cost of college and student debt, Trent says Congress and the states should be holding “America First” hearings “to determine the size of this new influx of foreign students and its specific effect on the ability of American students to gain access to higher education.”

Cliff Kincaid

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected]. View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid.

12/27/16

The HUMILIATING Truth About Obama’s Presidency Revealed Just Weeks Before He Leaves Office

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton | Right Wing News

Barack Obama will leave office with a 58% approval rating. I don’t know about you, but I find that impossible to believe. He has all but destroyed this country over the past eight years. The list of damages is too long to really go through. Among his greatest crimes are Obamacare, which destroyed the greatest health system in the world. He gutted our military and destroyed the morale of our troops, basically leaving us severely exposed to our enemies. The Iran deal nuclearized the greatest terrorist threat on the planet, all funded by the United States. He opened our borders wide to an invasion and is still bringing in thousands of Muslim refugees that aren’t vetted. And let’s not forget that he brought the Muslim Brotherhood into the White House and got four men killed in Benghazi. His last and possibly most transparent crime was against Israel at the UN, where Obama joined with the jackals and stabbed Israel in the back.

Only one in seven Republicans approve of his job performance and I think that number is way too generous. According to Pew Research, 88% of Democrats approve of Obama, while on 15% of Republicans approve. Again… not buying those numbers. Almost a third of this country has been out of work for years… regardless of the unemployment numbers they parade around, which is a massive manipulated lie. Businesses have fled this country at an astounding rate to escape taxes and regulations… all thanks to Obama’s Marxism.

From the Daily Mail:

President Obama’s job approval rating is a healthy 58 per cent as he begins his glide path out of office, but that number hides a partisan split among Americans that’s wider than any outgoing president has seen since at least the 1960s.

During a November 17 press conference in Germany, Obama claimed that ‘based on current surveys of public opinion in the United States, it turns out that the majority of Americans think I’ve done a pretty good job.’

But that assessment hides a deep divide: While 88 per cent of Democrats told Pew Research Center pollsters that they have a favorable view of Obama’s work in the Oval Office, just 15 per cent of Republicans agree.

That gap – 73 per cent – is far larger than what Gallup polls recorded at the end of the Reagan and Clinton administrations, and as both George Bushes prepared to leave the White House.

Obama’s average approval rating across all eight years of his presidency also shows the largest partisan breach measured since opinion surveys began separating data by political party affiliation during the Eisenhower administration.

The 73-point party gap is the largest ever measured since pollsters started recording approval ratings during the Eisenhower years. There is such a huge gap between the left and the right now, it is staggering and frankly, frightening. When you see such a disparity between political entities within a country, it usually means you are on the cusp of a civil revolt of some sort. I’m hoping and praying that President-elect Donald Trump can fix enough of the damage to stop that from happening here. The communists have been successful in tearing us apart and causing upheaval and chaos. Thank God Hillary Clinton did not get elected… she would have finished us off, I have no doubt of that.

Obama claimed last month that ‘the majority of Americans think I’ve done a pretty good job’. No, they don’t. Only the uninformed or the ones that are communists or Islamists do. That’s the brutal truth. Obama also claimed that if he ran against Donald Trump, he would have beat him. Again, no… he wouldn’t have. Americans are sick of the corruption, Marxism and lies brought on by Barack Obama. That is what he will truly be remembered for. He took Saul Alinsky to heart and really should be included with the other rebel that Alinsky honored… Lucifer: “Lest we forget at least an over the shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins – or which is which), the very first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom – Lucifer.” ― Saul D. Alinsky, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals. That’s one hell of a legacy. Just sayin’.

President Barack Obama has a 58 percent approval rating as he leaves office, but that number hides a massive 73-point gap between Democrats and Republicans.

Pew’s numbers show 88 percent of Democrats and just 15 percent of Republicans currently approve of Obama’s job performance.

Averaged over Obama’s eight years in office, approval of the outgoing president’s Oval Office work drew a 67-point partisan gap – the largest measured in more than 60 years.

11/24/16

The Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving

From: Wallbuilders

The Pilgrims are well known today for their association with the first Thanksgiving festival. The Pilgrims were Separatists — a set of Protestants who felt that they would be unable to reform the Church of England and therefore needed to separate and form their own church. Following persecution from the Church of England, they went to Holland and then eventually to America. (The Puritans were those who believed they could reform the Church of England. It turned out that they were wrong, and following severe persecution, some 20,000 followed the Pilgrims to America.)

The Pilgrims had obtained a land grant for Virginia and set sail in the Mayflower on September 6, 1620. But after a rough ocean crossing, they landed some 200 miles north of Virginia in what became known as Massachusetts. On November 11, 1620, they finally dropped anchor and came ashore.

The harsh New England winter was already well underway. Having no homes or shelter of any kind when they landed, before spring arrived, half of the 100 settlers had died. But that first year also brought unexpected blessings as some of the Indians in the area who had learned English were willing to help the Pilgrims by showing them many things they needed to survive, including how to plant Indian crops such as corn, and how to hunt and fish in that area.

The Pilgrims first harvest was bountiful — enough to fill their needs and help them through the coming winter. So even though it had been a harsh year, they still had reason to celebrate. The governor of Plymouth Colony therefore called a three-day festival, inviting the ninety Indians to join the 50 Pilgrims. This feast, which included times of thanks to God as well as athletic competitions and food and fellowship, is commonly celebrated as the first Thanksgiving festival in America. Edward Winslow, an early governor of Plymouth, wrote this account:

[O]ur harvest being gotten in, our Governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might, after a special manner, rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king, Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted; and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want.

As we celebrate Thanksgiving this year, let’s remember the history of this holiday and the hard work of these early pious Christians as we, too, take time to thank God for our blessings. From all of us at WallBuilders, Happy Thanksgiving!

(If you’re interested in more information on historic American Thanksgiving across the centuries, WallBuilders has a collection of Thanksgiving proclamations from various state governors & presidents as well as a collection of historical sermons on the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving celebrations.)

09/12/16

The Terrible Legacy of 9/11

By: Roger Aronoff | Accuracy in Media

[Editor’s note: I was asked (along with their other contributing editors) by the outstanding website Family Security Matters, to offer up our thoughts on how we “view the significance of 9/11, fifteen years on.” Here was my response, which they posted over the weekend. Roger Aronoff]

As we approach the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., the tragedy is that the Islamic jihadists are winning too many battles around the world, and have forced the West and its partners to abridge freedoms in pursuit of security. And despite the claims of the Obama administration, the U.S. is not succeeding in leading a coalition of nations to defeat the enemy, which it identifies as ISIL. In fact, ISIL, more commonly known as ISIS, is now operating fully in 18 countries—a three-fold increase in just two years—according to a National Counterterrorism Center report leaked to NBC News in August.

The fact is, after nearly eight years of Obama and Secretaries of State Clinton and Kerry, things have gotten much worse in many hot spots across the globe. Through the work of our Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi (CCB), we have concluded that Obama came to the White House seeking to empower the Muslim Brotherhood in North Africa, and the Iranian Shi’ite regime in the Persian Gulf region. Because of our unsigned nuclear “deal” with Iran, we have few options when it comes to restraining their behavior. We pretend that we have a common interest with both Russia and Iran, which is to defeat ISIS. But ISIS is just one manifestation of the jihadist ideology that seeks dominance, and submission, as it slaughters tens of thousands of people in its long, drawn out death march.

When the U.S. removed its remaining troops from Iraq in 2011, President Obama announced that “we’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people.” That was the same year that the so-called “Arab Spring” led to the fall of America’s ally in Egypt, the start of the Syrian civil war, and the West’s war against Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, who had abandoned his WMD program and was fighting against al Qaeda. That is when America switched sides in the Global War on Terror, as we documented in our first CCB report, and further supported in our second report back in June. Benghazi turned out to be a pile-up of scandal, failed policy and dereliction of duty.

Today we have Libya as a failed state, dominated by jihadist groups; Syria as the home base of ISIS and the scene of what even The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof calledObama’s “worst mistake,” comparing it to Rwanda, with close to a half a million dead; and an emboldened Iran, regularly humiliating America because it can, since it has received an estimated $100 billion in formerly frozen funds, and there is no signed deal for which they can be held accountable. In addition, peace between Israel and the Palestinians is less likely than when President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton came to power.

Meanwhile, the corrupt news media pretend that Obama has been a successful foreign policy president, when, in fact, he has been a disaster. Fifteen years after 9/11, the frequency of terrorist and jihadist attacks is such that they are quickly forgotten in a fog of war that is rapidly enveloping the world.

This article was originally published on the website of Family Security Matters.

Roger Aronoff

Roger Aronoff is the Editor of Accuracy in Media, and a member of the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi. He can be contacted at [email protected]. View the complete archives from Roger Aronoff.

09/11/16

9/11 – The 15th Anniversary

Hat Tip: Bare Naked Islam

I had to work today, so I didn’t get this out earlier. Here are some videos and remembrances of that fateful day that we will never forget.

09/11/16

Stealth war on American soil began with chaos of 9/11 terror

By: Ashraf Ramelah | Voice of the Copts

I grew up in an Islamic country within the Coptic Christian community of Egypt. On September 11, 2001 I was already a free man living between two nation-state democracies – Italy and the USA. I must admit I never looked back. I never again thought of tyrannical rule and persecution – the words and actions of a cruel, irrational dictator and his minions. I escaped bigotry and hatred. I chose a future for myself and left my family and country behind – radical but necessary. I never spoke of my origins thereafter – the persecution Copts suffer. In a sense, I tacitly endorsed Egypt’s official “democratic” image projected to the West.

The horror of 9/11 broke my heart and my silence, giving birth to Voice of the Copts (a human rights organization) as a response to Islam’s expression here in America. Memories of my childhood flooded back, and I was suddenly compelled to speak out for the Copts of Egypt — explain our plight as a warning to America. Unlike the Coptic community of 20 million in Egypt that has no military, no soldiers, and no political leaders, America could and would strike back. I wasn’t worried about that kind of warfare.

What alarmed me more almost was another facet of jihad – propaganda spreading wrong information about Islam through deception tactics to gain power within our civilization; slowly erode and conquer us through our culture and our laws. Deception and conquest are fundamental to Islam’s religious political doctrine.

After 15 years, civilization jihad has made progress in the West. Many Americans still don’t recognize or acknowledge the process taking place. This may be due to America’s failed leadership who collaborate with the enemies of freedom. At one point, Hillary Clinton promised the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) she would do her best to see that “shame-based” speech was employed in America in response to its request for suppression of free speech critical of Islam.

America chased down a single man in a single country in the Middle East in response to 9/11, but today its seems we have no real strategy to eradicate quiet civilizational, stealth jihad conducted from the Middle East inside our country – in fact the opposite is true; we are helping things along. This is why President Obama has said “the terrorist threat continues,” as he recently announced his extension of the 9/11 “State of Emergency” for his eighth time” (consistent with section 202 (d) of the National Emergencies Act). He should know. He has had so much to do with it.

No doubt America is dealing with explosive numbers of inner city and rural town encampments of Somalian and Syrian Muslims streamlined into the country by Obama’s advocacy and policies. Obama’s White House press release on August 30 says, “The national emergency declared on September 14, 2001, and the powers and authorities adopted to deal with that emergency must continue in effect…” So the American people must give power and authority away and suspend constitutional rights. This is the worrisome part, and again my mind floods with memories of the authoritarian Egyptian regime.

From the 9/11 tragedy, America has lost more than the thousands of innocent victims we mourn for today as we continue to see the ideology behind the attack sow into the fabric of our great nation. For that we must mourn as well and move forward to change it.

07/6/16

Cutting Through the Pain

Arlene from Israel

Here I am, again, skipping over the good news. My apologies for this, as I know my readers enjoy those good reports (as do I). But once again, I feel compelled to focus on the not-good news:

Some painful circumstances – disease, for example – may be unavoidable. Others should never, ever happen. What I have in mind right now is the terrorist murder of 13 year old Hallel Yafa Ariel last week, who met her death at the hands of a knife-wielding 17 year old Palestinian Arab.

Credit: onlysimchas

Monday I paid a shiva (condolence) call to her family. I was blown away by their determination to persevere, their strength in the face of horror.

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And just for one moment it is the horror I need to focus on. For she wasn’t “just” killed via a knifing. Her body endured a pummeling by knife. It is so perversely sick that thinking about it becomes unbearable. (It brought to my mind the 2011 beheading of the two-month old Fogel baby by Palestinian Arabs terrorists who later declared themselves “proud” of what they had done.)

There is a part of me that wants to be circumspect and discrete, passing over these gruesome facts. But I have come to realize I have an obligation to speak out. Because the world does not know. People – embracing some sanitized version of the situation – do not begin to comprehend what we deal with here. And so I must tell it out, and ask you to wrap your heads around this, and tell it out as well.

Please, do not imagine that the way this young terrorist behaved is a response to the “occupation” – an occupation which, in point of fact, does not even exist. (More below on this issue.) Or that he is an anomaly, an aberration in an otherwise normal social. For this is not the case!

What we are facing is a society that in some substantial measure –encouraged by its leadership – embraces, indeed venerates, violence.

Consider Palestinian Arab practices such as “honor killings” and the shooting of guns to celebrate weddings (which practice on occasion causes the accidental death of a celebrant). Mark their hysterical and violent funerals for their terrorists, as compared with the subdued, “let’s make the world a better place” tone of the funerals for the victims of those terrorists.

Hey, even more significantly: Mark the fact that the terrorists are their national heroes, celebrated in a way that the Palestinian Arabs never, ever remotely celebrate scientists or musicians or educators. And that children are taught at a young age to embrace violence. This is a form of child abuse.

See this chilling video:http://www.palwatch.org/site/modules/videos/popup/video.aspx?doc_id=16531 and be sure to read the full comment below about social media.

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And so, we come to the great injustice visited upon us by the world: We are told to make concessions to the Palestinian Arabs for “peace.” Concessions to people who venerate violence and celebrate death.

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The traditional way of Muslim mourning requires erecting a tent, where mourners receive their visitors. The Taraiyre family – family of the terrorist who murdered Hallel Ariel – has such a tent.

The governor of Hebron (center), visiting the mourning tent for the terrorist killed after slaughtering 13-year-old Hallel Ariel. Photo: Facebook.

Credit: Facebook

It was paid for by the Palestinian Authority.

http://www.algemeiner.com/2016/07/04/palestinian-authority-funds-mourning-tent-for-terrorist-who-stabbed-13-year-old-israeli-girl-to-death-fatah-official-arrives-to-pay-tribute-to-family/

Reportedly, a high official of Fatah, the major party of the PA, was among those who paid a condolence call.

And there is still more. As the Palestinian Media Watch has noted:

“…in accordance with PA law, Taraiyre’s family will now begin receiving a monthly stipend — something that is paid to all families of “martyrs” [shahids].

http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=18302

Please, dear friends, wrap your heads around this, as well. The Palestinian Authority condones and rewards what this young terrorist did. Its leaders have no red lines that conform with decency and humanity. They do not speak out against such acts, but the contrary.

How dare the world suggest that we sit with the PA and negotiate a “state” for them!

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Before I move on to further points I wish to make, it is important for me to note that certainly not every Palestinian Arab embraces violence and is filled with hatred; some show that decency and humanity I refer to above.

Please see an article here about the Palestinians Arabs who saw the overturned car of the Mark family, and came to help:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4824391,00.html

(The fact that this was newsworthy indicates that this behavior is out of the norm.)

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As to the much touted suggestion that the “occupation” is the cause of this deep-seated and virulent hatred we are witnessing:

[] I have spoken many times about the fact that in legal and historical terms Israel is not an “occupier” in Judea and Samaria, and I will return to this many more times. But even if there were an “occupation,” it would not justify what is going on now. No way, no how. To use it as justification is to obfuscate: to rationalize, to mask the total immorality of the current violence.

[] While they are reluctant to say so publicly for obvious reasons, it has been clear for years that many Palestinian Arabs would prefer governance by Israel to governance by the PA, which is totally corrupt, provides no human rights, offers scant economic opportunities, has no social services, etc. They are not chaffing under Israeli governance, where it exists, so much as furious about the way the PA conducts itself. But sometimes it is easier (and safer) to vent against Israel. And the PA – in speaking about such things as the alleged danger Jews represent to the Al-Aqsa Mosque – provides a convenient rationale for channeling this fury.

See this, written just a year ago:

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/half-of-jerusalems-palestinians-would-prefer-israeli-to-palestinian-citizen

It is nonsense to suggest that those Palestinian Arabs under the jurisdiction of Israel are so greatly enraged by this fact that they are reduced to extreme and uncontrollable violence, or that those under the jurisdiction of the PA are livid because they believe the PA has not been given the latitude to establish a full state.

Palestinian Arab culture is hamula-based. The loyalty is to the clan. There is not a huge yearning for a state. Not intrinsically. Whatever the PR hype on the matter.

[] Lastly, I would like to share something just written by the eminent scholar Efraim Karsh, “Occupation is not the problem.”

When professor Karsh speaks about “occupation,” he is not referring to legalities of ownership of the land, but of governance of the Palestinian Arabs by Israel.

His executive summary (emphasis in the original):

“The proposition that ‘occupation’ is to blame for Palestinian terrorism defies history, reality, and logic. Israel’s control of the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza has been virtually nonexistent for twenty years, ever since the 1995 interim agreement and the 1997 Hebron redeployment. Palestinian terrorism has increased not in response to the ‘occupation,’ but in response to its ending.”

Professor Karch writes (emphasis added):

“If occupation is indeed the cause of terrorism, why was terrorism so sparse during the years of actual occupation? Why did it increase dramatically with the prospect of the end of the occupation, and why did it escalate into open war following Israel’s most far-reaching concessions ever?

“One might argue far more plausibly that it was the absence of occupation – that is, the withdrawal of close Israeli surveillance – that facilitated the launching of the terrorist war in the first place, just as it was the partial restoration of security measures in the West Bank during the 2002 Operation Defensive Shield and its aftermath (albeit without assuming control of over the daily lives of the Palestinian population there) that brought the Palestinian war of terror to a (temporary) halt.

http://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/occupation-not-problem/

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Unfortunately – and it grieves me greatly to say this – some portion of Israeli society is also sick. But in a way that is the inverse of the Palestinian Arab society.

We have had our own Jewish nation in modern times for 68 years now. But before this, we were in galut – in exile – for some 2,000 years. During those years, the survival of Jews often depended upon being able to please the host society. And we have not, as a nation, yet lost the habit of trying to please others.

As the Western world promotes a disproportionate concern for the Palestinian Arabs to the detriment of Israeli rights and well being, our leadership – or some portion thereof – struggles to show what “good guys” we are in dealing with those Palestinian Arabs.

In a nutshell: We are not as tough on them, and specifically on the leadership of the Palestinian Authority, as we need to be. We take little steps, and while they move in the right direction – quicker demolition of houses of terrorists, refusal to return bodies, etc. – they remain insufficient.

Our government needs to be less concerned about what the Western world will say, and more concerned about making certain that no more Israelis meet the fate endured by Hallel Yafa Ariel and Rabbi Micki Mark last week.

There are a number of suggestions on the table as to how to be more stringent. They include such actions as shutting down PA broadcasts, because of the incitement; refusing to turn over any tax monies collected as long as the PA continues to pay the families of terrorists and “salaries” to terrorists in prison; and blocking use of the Internet, which is a major vehicle for terrorists’ communication (although how, is beyond my expertise).

Taking aim directly at PA actions is a critical component of what needs to be done. And it is precisely in this regard that our government tends to tip-toe.

I cannot possibly deal here with all the suggestions for greater stringency that have been proposed, although I will mention one below and return to others later.

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There is a feeling in several quarters in Israel that the government is about talk – about “seeming” tough for the moment – rather than about real action.

There is solid reason for this feeling. There have been stringent actions announced in the face of a specific terrorist act that are quietly reversed when the moment is past. And announcements about actions that seem to be stringent but in point of fact are not what they appear to be.

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Here I mention a couple of examples of the latter:

The prime minister announced that in response to the terror attack in Kiryat Arba, 42 new housing units would be built.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-approves-additional-units-in-kiryat-arba-in-response-to-attacks/

Subsequently it became apparent that the tenders for this building had gone out well before the attack. That is, it was not a plan for new, additional building being announced at all.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/214518#.V3v9QZDr3IU

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It was also announced that there was going to be “full closure” of the village of Bani Na’im, home of the murderer of Hallel Ariel.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/363300#.V3wBVZDr3IU

Subsequently, it was discovered that the “full closure” consisted of “nothing more than a pile of dirt that the Arab residents easily drive around.”

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/214423#.V3wAUZDr3IV

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What I ask here is that you send a message to Prime Minister Netanyahu.

I cannot emphasize this enough: Do NOT preach to him. Do NOT write in anger. Do NOT suggest that you have superior expertise in the matter and can advise him on what to do. Do NOT engage in polemics or provide history lessons. All of these approaches are severely counterproductive. They will turn him off. If you want to be helpful, you will write with great restraint and avoid these pitfalls.

Be respectful. And write no more than three sentences. Be positive: Urge strength, encourage him to stand tall in the face of enemies, let him know you are with him during this horrendous time. It is the number of messages that matters, not your specific message.

I provide three different addresses below. Send your message to all three. The prime minister will not be reading these messages directly, his aides will. In your subject line, put “Please share this with the prime minister,” “Please pass this message to PM Netanyahu,” or something similar

[email protected] [email protected] (underscore after pm) [email protected]

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As to responses that are being called for, I want to allude here to one approach that I see as good news: annexation of Ma’aleh Adumim and of Gush Etzion. It is time for a new message, say those advancing these proposals. And I heartily agree. Whether they meet with success now or not, we must hope that they mark the beginning of a brighter future.

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When last I wrote, I noted that neither the White House nor the State Department had expressed condolences for the terrorist murder of Hallel Ariel, who was an American citizen. It was pointed out to me by a couple of readers that indeed there had been a statement by the State Department. This is the case, and so my comment had not been fully correct. But the State Department expression of condolences – which ignored the fact that Hallel was an American – was insufficient.

Not for a second do I believe this was an inadvertent oversight on the part of the State Department. To acknowledge Hallel’s citizenship is to acknowledge responsibility for responding to what happened to her. The State Department would rather avoid this.

A ZOA press release on this issue makes the further point that the condolence statement neglects to mention that the terrorist was a Palestinian Arab. Hmmm… It also compares the State Department condolence here to similar condolences regarding events in other parts of the world.
http://zoa.org/2016/07/10328355-zoa-u-s-state-departments-condolence-statements-on-terrorist-attacks-biased-against-israel-jews/

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I will do my best to focus on some measure of good news when next I post.

07/4/16

Happy Fourth of July!

By: David Barton | Wallbuilders

Celebrating America

Today, July 4th, we celebrate Independence Day – the 240th birthday of America! We also commemorate those who signed the Declaration of Independence and were willing to risk so much. As they acknowledged:

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

Many of the signers suffered for their actions. Some were hunted, lost homes and property, fled with their families to avoid capture, and had family members captured or killed. Yet despite the high cost, no signer went back on his personal pledge, and America did win its freedom! The stories of the signers inspire us, and America has thrived under the five unique principles they set forth in the Declaration:

There is a Creator.

The Creator has given a certain set of inalienable rights to every individual.

The primary purpose of government is to protect those inalienable rights.

There is a fixed moral law (“the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”).

Decisions below the level of inalienable rights and fixed morals are to be made with the consent of the governed.

As we remember these principles from our nation’s founding, let’s celebrate this Independence Day in a way that was recommended by John Adams in 1776:

It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.

This short video by David Barton identifies the principles that have made America exceptional. Happy Fourth of July!

07/4/16

I can’t sing the National Anthem

By: T F Stern | The Moral Liberal

Well, that’s not quite true; I can’t sing the National Anthem without tears dripping down my cheeks and a large knot forming in my throat. You see, I know some of the story about how this tune came about.

This morning as we closed our church service the closing hymn was The Star Spangled Banner. I wonder if other denominations have that in their hymn book; I would hope so.

The congregation arose as the choir master stood to lead us, the first notes played by the organist sent a shiver down my spine. I really did try to sing out, honest; but emotions got the better of me so I let everyone else pay tribute to our nation while I mouthed the words, tears welling up in the corner of my eyes.

I’ve been battling a chest cold and these emotions got my sinuses going full blast. I didn’t need this; damn it all, now I’m congested again.

As we stood through all three verses my mind imagined the night Francis Scott Key stood watching as Ft. Henry was to be shelled into oblivion by the British Navy. You see, the British were still miffed for having lost the Revolutionary War and decided to give it another ‘go’ a few years later; historians called it the War of 1812.

The British had given the occupants of Ft. Henry a way out; simply lower your flag and become subjects of British rule. Their situation was impossible as hundreds of British war ships pounded this insignificant fort all through the night…and yet the flag remained, lighted as it were by the bombs bursting in air.

The British commander was perplexed and couldn’t fathom why they didn’t surrender; there was no way they could win.

Francis Scott Key said he remembered what George Washington had said. He said, “The thing that sets the American Christian apart from all other people in the world is he will die on his feet before he’ll live on his knees.”

In the morning, by the dawn’s early light, the flag could still be seen from the deck of the British war ship, tattered and leaning at a peculiar angle it remained standing to everyone’s amazement.

Apparently each time the flag had been knocked down a brave man would stand it up in spite of the horrendous shelling. Many died keeping that flag upright and standing and as far as I know their names were never recorded.

I guess some of our youth haven’t been properly taught the importance of our flag and some of what goes into being a citizen of this great nation.

Years ago during a baseball game someone recorded what has been called “the greatest play in baseball”. It happened on April 25, 1976 when a couple of malcontents jumped onto the ball field in the middle of a game and tried to light an American Flag on fire. Rick Monday, an outfielder for the Dodgers ran over, grabbed the Flag and saved it to the delight of most everyone watching.

Far too many folks go about disrespecting our country through their hostility when destroying or demeaning the Flag. Some stomp on it, like home grown terrorist Bill Ayers, good friend and supporter of Barrack Obama. Others use it like toilet paper while displaying obscenities at the camera. Heaven help them should I happen by while they disrespect the Flag in my presence.

I wish I knew the name of even one person who died at Ft. Henry while holding up that Flag, a symbol of never giving up in the face of insurmountable odds. Perhaps they’ll forgive my not being a better historian; certainly they’ll understand my not being able to sing out this morning.

But I know the words to that familiar tune; yes I know them all too well as my chest swells with pride and my eyes fill with tears.

The Star-Spangled Banner

1 Oh say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,

Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,

O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?

And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof thru the night that our flag was still there.

Oh say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

2 On the shore, dimly seen thru the mists of the deep,

Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,

What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,

As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?

Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,

In full glory reflected now shines on the stream;

’Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh, long may it wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

3 Oh, thus be it ever, when free men shall stand

Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation!

Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land

Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserved us a nation!

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto: “In God is our trust!”

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

The Moral Liberal’s Senior Editor, T.F. Stern, is a retired City of Houston police officer, self-employed locksmith, and gifted political and social commentator. His popular and insightful blog, T.F. Sterns Rantings, has been up and at it since January of 2005.