Kill the Kulaks

So, what is a Kulak to do? For one, you should take the language denigrating your ethnic group seriously, because calls for asset seizures are always presages to calls of physical liquidation. Once your liquid assets are seized, it is necessary to take your tough-to-move assets, and when you have nothing left to give, you are useful either as a slave or as a dead body.

If the moral trend can be reversed, by openly contradicting the story of [insert group here]’s perfidy, then good on you, but typically, once a state has begun the scapegoating process, it finds itself unable to back down from it — it has to see it to its logical conclusion. Physical resistance usually never occurs, because actors within states only begin these sorts of widespread demonization programs if there is unlikely to be any real physical resistance to it.

Similarly, whining slogans about ‘white genocide’ are meaningless when that sounds like a great idea to the people who want to expropriate you. The guilt-narrative is that White Christians are uniquely responsible for the post-1945 crime of genocide, and that retaliation is more than fair play. That chatter only works if they are actually amenable to that moral argument, and in fact, they think it would be a great thing, and have indeed cheered on such operations in countries like Rhodesia and South Africa.

Read the whole thing. And remember this:

It’s not wise to trust in moderate political parties to brake the success of the neo-Jacobin left, because moderate parties are the first ones to go in crisis, under pressure from both sides.

Of course, none of this will make any sense if you are totally unfamiliar with the history of the left, especially in the 20th century. The rhetoric will seem benign because the symbols that they use for certain things are going to appear benign, rather than containing murderous intent. The normalcy that you have experienced for most of your life will be what you expect to experience for the foreseeable future, because you don’t have the records of others stored in your head, warning of such things.

In the same way, when people talk about ‘socialized medicine,’ you are going to have an entirely different emotional reaction to it if you know that Soviet doctors dumped dying patients out in front of hospitals to make their statistics look better than if you are wholly ignorant of that anecdote.

Four more completely Incompetent and corrupt women you could not find

Genderflect: When Starbucks "Race Together" Just Doesn't Cover All Your PC Needs

Obama’s race to chaos

Reading Michael Goodwin's article I though a better headline would have been Obama's Race to Armageddon.

If you’re confused about the Saudi Arabia-led air attacks against Islamist rebels in Yemen and can’t tell one group of head-choppers in Iraq and Syria from another, don’t despair. All you need is imagination.

Close your eyes and imagine that those countries and terrorists have nuclear weapons. Imagine their barbarism going nuclear as they blow up cities, wipe out ethnic and religious groups and turn the region into cinders.

Now open your eyes and realize you’ve seen the future, thanks to President Obama’s policies. It is a future that will be defined by Obama’s Wars. Yes, plural.

Read the whole thing because it's real.

A Tale of Two Rapes

Mark Steyn on the media and two rapes, one at UVA that didn't happen and on in Egypt that did.

Yesterday, the Police Chief of Charlottesville, Virginia gave a remarkable press conference, the upshot of which was, as the New York Times headline put it:

Police Find No Evidence Of Rape At University Of Virginia Fraternity

Not only was there "no evidence" that the horrific gang rape at the frat house party took place, there was "no evidence" that the party took place. Indeed, there was "no evidence" that the man "Jackie" described as her date that night even exists.

But the Left isn't willing to let go of such a great story, even if it's a total lie.

"Even if she made up the story", she "pulled back the curtain on rape". And even if there was no rape going on behind the curtain she raised awareness of how rape culture is so prevalent that women are being traumatized into making up stories that they've been gang-raped by seven Phi Kappa Psi men even when they haven't been. The blogger Oliver Willis thinks it's "super dangerous" that the right is seizing on the implosion of Rolling Stone's story to insist that "all rape allegations can be ignored". But isn't it the left that's trivializing real rape by according fake rape the same protected status? After all, if Jackie is incredibly "brave" for "coming forward" to "pull back the curtain" on something that never happened, if "gang rape" no longer requires either rape or a gang, if it is not necessary to have actually been attacked, brutalized and sexually violated in order to be a rape victim, then what's the big deal if one has been?

The media have now moved on. At CNN, they're worried that the police report on the total lack of any evidence for any rape might deter rape victims from coming forward:

CNN reporter Sara Ganim agreed with one of Hostin's conclusions centered on her fear that "Jackie's" experience might lead other victims of sexual assault to stay quiet about their experiences. When too many women who are victims of sexual assault already refuse to come forward, her concerns are valid and should be shared by everyone.

"Other victims of sexual assault" is not quite le mot juste, given that there is no evidence that "Jackie" was ever assaulted by anybody at all. A better word would be actual victims of sexual assault. And, if real victims of real sexual assault are deterred from coming forward because a fabulist's pitiful fantasy was made front-page news by a gullible ideological media, that ought to occasion some circumspection from those, like Ms Ganim and Ms Hostin, who made the fabulist a pin-up girl in the first place. If CNN et al want someone to blame for real rape victims being reluctant to come forward, they should try looking in the mirror.

Meanwhile the victim of a real rape is ignored.

CBS News 60 Minutes correspondent Lara Logan is back in the hospital in Washington, D.C., due to years-long complications stemming from the brutal sexual assault she endured in Egypt while covering the Arab Spring in early 2011...

While the MSM were swooning like schoolgirls about the Arab Spring, real Arabs creating the Spring were showing what they thought of women.

Within minutes of Mubarak's resignation, the CBS reporter Lara Logan, covering events in Tahrir Square, was set upon by a 200-strong mob who stripped her, punched her, beat her with flagpoles, and subjected her to a half-hour sexual assault by multiple participants while shouting "Jew! Jew!" She's not a Jew, and she doesn't look the least bit like the hook-nosed stereotypes to which Arab cartoonists are so partial. But then, if you're the kind of Egyptian who thinks Mubarak is a "Zionist" and that the Mossad are putting GPS on sharks and sending them to terrorize sunbathers at Sharm el-Sheikh, she's close enough.

What's striking about this story is not so much that her own employer, CBS News, chose not to run it until over three days later - on the following Monday - but that in the intervening period they pumped out the same sappy drivel as everybody else - "Egypt's New Age Revolution" (60 Minutes), "Egypt Proved Change Is Possible, Sexy And Cool!" (CBS Sunday Morning) - even as they knew there was another side to the story, and that their own correspondent was lying in the hospital traumatised because of it.

It's the kind of idiot like John Adams who talks about the subjugation of women in Arabia but then - to show that America's just as bad - refers to Rush Limbaugh as an oppressor of American women.

This was a symphony for violin and some such movement or whatever, and the composer decided to take to the microphone and explain to the audience -- it's a black-tie audience, Avery Fisher Hall -- what it was that inspired this particular symphony or piece or movement that he was performing, conducting, whatever he was doing last night. And he said he had been in Paris, in Europe, and he was reading Arabian Nights, and he was reading other tracts.

And he was just stunned and he found out all of the discrimination and hatred and mistreatment of women in the Arab world. And then he paused and he said, "You can find that here on Rush Limbaugh." Nordlinger said what happened next sickened him. The audience in Avery Fisher haul applauded for nearly two minutes. The composer was referencing me as no different than militant Islamists and their treatment for women.

Two Minutes of Hate

 What we have here is the Perfect Liberal Moment, the self-satisfied opportunity to hate.

Self-satisfied hatred: a perfect phrase to describe liberal smugness and it’s consequent loathsome behavior. Substitute Garrison Keillor (for one) for John Adams, and the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul for Avery Fisher Hall, and you have another building block in my contempt for my former homies on the Left. They would hijack any event to hold a two-minute hate of George Bush. Or Dick Cheney. Or Don Rumsfeld. Or Condoleezza Rice. Or John Ashcroft.

But the self-satisfied part was even worse than the hatred. People like Adams and Keillor didn’t want a debate. They wanted unanimity. They picked their times, however inappropriate and incongruous, when they knew they’d get no argument. Even more, they’d get whoops of approval and howls of laughter. And I felt the same bile rising in my stomach that Nordlinger describes.

He was almost alone, but not quite. Rush was happy to share this story as he opened his show today. Later on, he got a call from a woman who was also in the Avery Fisher audience. She and her companion were both disgusted by the spectacle. When they booed Adams and screamed in defense of Rush, they were angrily told to shut up. Like I said, unanimity and nothing less.

As Jay Nordlinger says in his article in National Review:

You’re never supposed to analogize anything to the Nazis. That’s the rule. But sometimes I break the rule. And I believe I got a whiff — just a tiny whiff — of Nuremberg in Avery Fisher Hall tonight. Collective hatred, and self-satisfied hatred, based on damnable lies.

But I digress.  This was about two rapes.

Since the rise of ISIS, we now have an epidemic of gang rape and sex slavery across the region. What happened to Miss Logan told us something of the truth of Islam's "spring fever" - whereas the "change is sexy and cool" pap was as fake a narrative as "Jackie"'s.

These facts are too cold and plain to be expressed in a "multicultural" society which has told itself that, thanks to the joys of diversity, a nice gay couple and a polygamous Muslim with three wives in identical burkas can live side by side at 27 and 29 Elm Street. In America Alone, I mentioned two European women who'd taken to going out headscarved when their journeys took them through, ahem, certain neighborhoods. No young girl can safely walk in "scanty clothing" through Clichy-sous-Bois or Rosengard in Sweden. In La Courneuve in France, 77 per cent of covered women said they wore the veil to "avoid the wrath of Islamic morality patrols," as Claire Berlinski put it. She added: "We are talking about France, not Iran."

And a fool like John Adams, America Loather, tells "people like him" that America's just the same.  And the fools applaud, not because they accept the accusation, but because it gives them a moment to look around and tell themselves they - and the other well-fed America Loathers around them - are better people.  They are not like the "low sloping foreheads" outside of Manhattan, San Francisco, and the groves of academia.  

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO HARRY REID?

The "Drive-by media" as Rush Limbaugh calls them are a pretty homogeneous herd when it comes to certain many subjects.  For example the Fast & Furious gun running scandal is always referred to as a mistake.  It's one of those subjects that makes me ask "how stupid do they think we are?"

The way Harry Reid got his face battered, his ribs broken and his eye closed is another example.  An exercise band breaking?  Give me a break!  apparently the press really does not want to get into a fight between Reid and the Mafia so they pretend to swallow the lie and move on.

From Powerline:

Scott wrote here about Harry Reid’s announcement that he will not run for re-election, a decision which, Reid was quick to say, was not the result of his “elastic exercise band” accident. In January, I wrote OK, So What Really Happened to Harry Reid? I noted the injuries that Reid suffered on New Year’s Day, in Las Vegas: multiple broken bones around his right eye, damage to the right eye, severe facial bruising, broken ribs, and a concussion. Was all of this really the result of losing his balance because an elastic exercise band broke? That seems unlikely, to say the least.

Anyone who saw Reid would say that he looked like he had been beaten up by a guy with a hard left, maybe using brass knuckles:

When a guy shows up at a Las Vegas emergency room on New Year’s Day with severe facial injuries and broken ribs, and gives as an explanation the functional equivalent of “I walked into a doorknob,” it isn’t hard to guess that he ran afoul of mobsters. Yet the national press has studiously averted its eyes from Reid’s condition, and has refused to investigate the cause of his injuries. To my knowledge, every Washington reporter has at least pretended to believe Reid’s story, and none, as far as I can tell, has inquired further.

A friend of mine was in Las Vegas a week or two ago. He talked to a number of people there about Reid’s accident, and didn’t find anyone who believed the elastic exercise band story. The common assumption was that the incident resulted, in some fashion, from Reid’s relationship with organized crime. The principal rumor my friend heard was that Reid had promised to obtain some benefit for a group of mobsters. He met with them on New Year’s Day, and broke the bad news that he hadn’t been able to deliver what he promised. When the mobsters complained, Reid (according to the rumor) made a comment that they considered disrespectful, and one of them beat him up.

Is that what really happened? I have no idea, but it is a more likely story than the elastic exercise band yarn.

What happened to Reid is not just a matter of curiosity. Everyone knows that the Reid family has gotten rich, even though Reid has spent his entire career as a public employee. It is known that a considerable part of his fortune came from being cut in on sweetheart Las Vegas land deals that included at least one person associated with organized crime as a principal. Was the Senate Majority Leader in the pocket of the Mafia? That seems like a question worth exploring, and yet, to my knowledge, not a single investigative reporter has chosen to look into the matter, even with the obvious clue of Reid’s face in front of them.

The deliberate blindness of Democratic Party reporters hasn’t stopped people from speculating about what really happened to Harry Reid, but so far, at least, it has prevented the story from exploding into a major scandal.

After Reid announced his decision to retire, Rush Limbaugh also hinted that Reid had not fallen off his exercise equipment, but had fallen afoul of some people who beat him up.

The Hillary saga ... continued.

HILLARY 'WIPED HER SERVER CLEAN'...

RNC: 'Even Nixon didn't destroy the tapes'...

New questions about Huma's special status...

Private Emails Reveal Secret Spy Network...

The fruit of Obama's "Smart Diplomacy"

NOW KINGDOM WANTS NUKES...
Iranian Defector: 'USA Negotiating Team Mainly There to Speak on Iran's Behalf'...
Powers close in on 2-3 page nuclear deal...
PARIS BALKS...
PRUDEN: Obama's love bomb...
Mideast 'free fall'...
'Unprecedented' threats...
Arab warplanes pummel Yemen rebels...
Battle for the Middle East...
YNET: Iran's master plan...




RISE OF ARAB ARMY

Are we sure this is not the desired outcome?

“The US negotiating team are mainly there to speak on Iran’s behalf with other members of the 5+1 countries and convince them of a deal"

Iranian defector speaks.

50 SHADES OF BARACK OBAMA.

The Obama Foreign policy. Connecting the dots.

If someone’s words do not correspond to his actions, believe his actions. I have asked for a while: “What would Obama do differently if he did not like America?” So far there’s no good answer.

Obama’s actions in this country are the subject for another essay. Let’s just say that Congress has checkmated itself. The Left is in control of academia and the communications media. The Justice department and the rest of the government apparatus is firmly in control of Obama loyalists. Races, cultures and sexes are at each other’s throats. Domestically, it’s all proceeding as planned.

But for a moment let’s see what’s happening in the rest of the world.

In Europe Obama allows free rein to a resurgent Putin who saw the fall of the Soviet Union as a tragedy and is busy rebuilding a greater Russia. The “sanctions” are eyewash, designed to mollify the American people into believing that we are actually doing something effective. Russia will not be stopped by sanctions and Putin will not be toppled by sanctions. In fact, Putin is a popular Russian leader, admired for rebuilding Russian pride after the USSR as dismantled. Hitler took the same route, energizing the German people who were beaten and dispirited after WW1, appealing to their patriotism and restoring their wounded pride. It’s an effective strategy and it works every time it’s tried.

Obama’s sanctions are a magician’s trick; a distraction to make you look “here” while the real action is going on “there.” And the “there” is the fact that Russia is slowly swallowing Ukraine which is losing a war of territorial aggression because it’s outgunned. Obama is shipping them blankets when they need weapons, knowing that Putin won’t mind. Putin understands that Obama needs to appear to do something without doing anything effective. It’s that famous flexibility that Obama promised Putin after the election.

In the Middle East the same magic trick is being played. The drone campaign is the distraction. Wars are never won from the air, even when massive air power is applied. Drone strikes are pinpricks that kill the occasional Jihadist du-jour but do nothing to change the balance of power. It’s clear that the centerpiece of the Obama’s Middle East policy is an American alignment with Iran. That is the goal of the nuclear talks. The Obama administration wants to use an agreement, any agreement, to end international sanctions on Iran. With the end of sanctions a resurgent Iranian economy armed with nukes will become the hegemon in the Middle East, controlling the flow of oil and the wealth of the region. In this scenario, the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia and other former American allies will be forced to make their peace with their new rulers.

Grand plans do not always go without a hitch. In a surprise move, and without consulting with the US, the Saudis and Egypt actually took military action to counter Iranian actions aimed at taking military control of Yemen and several other small nations. That could blow up into an Arab – Persian war, something that does not appear to be part of the Obama plan for fundamentally transforming the Middle East.

What about Israel? Obama tried mightily to oust Netanyahu and replace him with someone who would take Obama’s orders. That did not work. So Israel remains a stumbling block to the Obama plan for the Middle East. 

Egypt remains another unresolved issue. Things were going so well for Obama when the Muslim Brotherhood took power, but its overthrow is causing complications. You can be sure that Obama will work to undermine the current Egyptian government, perhaps even foment a revolution. If he can get the Brotherhood back in power an alliance of Egypt and Iran is not out of the question.

Is it possible for all this to be accomplished before the next presidential election cycle? That’s unknown.  Obama is playing a dangerous game with the potential for a genuine WW3.  There is also the possibility that things will get so far out of hand that Congress will actually try to regain it's historic constitutional role. Not all Democrats in congress are blindly loyal to their leader.  But if that is avoided there is there the problem of continuing the "fundamental transformation" that Obama is working on.  We like to think that there will be another presidential election and that someone who believes in America, who likes America, will be elected. Their job will be anything but easy.  Let us pray.

Krauthammer on Harry Reid

Democrat lawmaker in Indiana accuses 18 month of child of racism.

Lawmaker says colleague's toddler feared her because she's black

The already contentious debate over Indiana's proposed "religious freedom" bill took a surreal twist Monday afternoon when — in the midst of discussion on the bill — a Democratic lawmaker said that a Republican lawmaker's child was "scared" of her because she is black.

The comment by Rep. Vanessa Summers drew audible gasps, in no small part because the child — the son of Rep. Jud McMillin — is 18 months old.

"I told Jud McMillin I love his son, but he's scared of me because of my color," Summers told McMillin, who is white, during debate over the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in the House.

Sarah Palin Was Right!

The media has crucified Sarah Palin.   It's because he was right about so many things.

Remember when they laughed at Sarah Palin when she said “Drill, baby, drill” because everyone knew that we were running out of oil

Sarah Palin’s supported Ron Paul in opposing Barack Obama’s great adventure in Libya. Any day now Josh Earnest is going to cite Libya along with Yemen as a model for our intervening in the Middle East.

Sarah Palin’s has a doctrine named after her. She believes that:

“First, we should only commit our forces when clear and vital American interests are at stake. Period.

Second, if we have to fight, we fight to win. To do that, we use overwhelming force. We only send our troops into war with the objective to defeat the enemy as quickly as possible. We do not stretch out our military with open-ended and ill-defined missions. Nation building is a nice idea in theory, but it is not the main purpose of our armed forces. We use our military to win wars.”

Third, we must have clearly defined goals and objectives before sending troops into harm’s way. If you can’t explain the mission to the American people clearly and concisely, then our sons and daughters should not be sent into battle. Period.”

That was before we understood the brilliance of Obama's  “Smart Diplomacy” allied with “HopeN'Change”

Sarah Palin was aware years ago about the risks to America of a shortage of rare earth metals. American politicians are still ignorant and the MSM would not know a rare earth metal if it hit them in the head and their electric cars stopped running.

More

Sources Say, Erik Prince was hired by crown prince of Abu Dhabi to put together a 800-member battalion

Fascinating:

According to the New York Time, Erik Prince billionaire founder of Blackwater was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to put together an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the U.A.E., according to former employees on the project, American officials and corporate documents obtained by a reputable source.

The force is intended to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks and put down internal revolts, the documents show. Such troops could be deployed if the Emirates faced unrest in their crowded labor camps or were challenged by pro-democracy protests like those sweeping the Arab world this year.

The U.A.E.’s rulers, viewing their own military as inadequate, also hope that the troops could blunt the regional aggression of Iran, the country’s biggest foe, the former employees said. The training camp, located on a sprawling Emirati base called Zayed Military City, is hidden behind concrete walls laced with barbed wire. Photographs show rows of identical yellow temporary buildings, used for barracks and mess halls, and a motor pool, which houses Humvees and fuel trucks. The Colombians, along with South African and other foreign troops, are trained by retired American soldiers and veterans of the German and British special operations units and the French Foreign Legion, according to the former employees and American officials.

When I heard the Prince had moved to Abu Dhabi I knew that this could be the only reason.  From the ruling family's perspective this makes perfect sense.

Let us sit upon the ground / And tell sad stories of the death of kings;

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poisoned by their wives: some sleeping killed;
All murdered: for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be feared and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humoured thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?

"The Life and Death of Richard the Second" Act III, Scene II

“I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning.”

Musings on Andreas Lubitz who intentionally flew Germanwings Flight 9525 into the Alps:

Sometimes people do things that nobody else can understand. Sometimes they even do things that are contrary to their rational interest. The underlying premise of the A320 security model was enlightened self-interest. Because the pilot shared the fate of the plane and all its passengers it was assumed that he would do nothing to harm the collective platform.

But once upon a time men knew that self-interest was not always a true shield. What Milton called “the unconquerable will” often trumped it; demanding it should be obeyed, even when destruction is the result. The name given to this unquenchable selfishness used to be evil. There is a strange moment in the New Testament when the disciples marvel at Christ’s ability to cast out demons and He responds by recalling a memory from an eon past. “It was a little before your time,” He told his followers, “but Satan and I have fought before.”

The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” And He said to them, “I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning.”

Christ’s reminiscence is one of the spookiest moments in the New Testment. He knew evil of old. We, on the other hand, have forgotten it, or deny it exists. Lufthansa thought it could make its planes safer through layers of screening and automated processes, but it failed to defend against the oldest enemy of all: the insistent will.

Plus, as an added bonus, a passage from the Bible that reminds us that Christ is, and was, and is to come.

Why certain people are uncomfortable with Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz has the ability to drive the Left crazy because he says the things that get people fired from their jobs, get them ostracized from the faculty, get them called “uppity” by writers at the New Yorker.

He refuses to pay homage to the stuffed shirts that define the boundaries of acceptable speech, the accents that we are allowed to use, the music that we are allowed to listen to lest the delicate flowers of academia or popular culture get their undies bunched up their crack. His is an invitation to buzz off. For the government to butt out of our lives. He invites the snoops to go where the sun don’t shine; so that the next election the IRS, FBI, SEC, EPA, BATF and various other agencies that can put you in prison don’t put their fat greasy thumbs on the scales.

Government encourages the poor, the rich and everyone in between to look to it for everything.  I spent an hour today listening to a lawyer tell me how to have you, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer,  pay for my stay in a nursing home even if I own a million dollar home.

I know that the NSA is able to tap my phone and the sheriff is able to track my movements.  We all commit several felonies a day so if we become troublesome enough to the Ruling Class they can threaten you with prison.  All the while Hillary is giving the middle finger to fly-over Americans because the Democrats in charge of the justice system won’t do a damn thing to enforce the law. Imagine if we didn't have to feel guilty of being Americans. Imagine that we could call Islamic terrorism by its name.

That’s why Ted Cruz scares the hell out of people who think that, with a few minor tweaks, this government is just fine. They are the same people who bought the Obama line in 2008.  That’s why these people are uncomfortable with Cruz. It’s not him; it’s the people who like him that they don’t like.  We're the peasants with pitchforks.

So Yeah, Israel Has Nuclear Weapons

Israel has nuclear weapons. Unlike the United States, which has had nuclear weapons for more than 70 years and betrayed our trust by releasing documents that confirm this, we've never used nuclear weapons to kill anyone. Unlike Iran, which doesn't have nuclear weapons (yet), Israel has never threatened to blow a nation off the face of the map.

For the past 24 hours, after hearing that the United States, under the leadership of Barack Hussein Obama, deliberately stabbed Israel in the back by releasing documents that confirm what most of the world has known or suspected for decades, I was rendered mute with anger. Every post I thought of making usually included at least one four letter word and often many of them.

And so I waited and thought and then I remembered my mother speaking before the Austrian kids who then decided rather than visit Italy, they would take their senior class trip to Israel.

When the world is a bit condescending, antagonistic and certainly against Israel in so many ways, perhaps the United States unwittingly did us a favor. The word is out. Israel has nuclear weapons.

Does that scare you?

Good.

The proper view of the liberal media

Via Stacy McCain:

Whenever I see the liberal media jumping to a particular conclusion, my instinct is that the opposite must be true. Whenever I see the liberal media ignoring a story, I figure that story must be very important. Is it possible that the liberal media sometimes might be correct about one of these “social justice” narratives? Hypothetically, I suppose, but you’re seldom going to lose money betting against them.

“You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war.”

Recalling the words of Winston Churchill to Neville Chamberlain.

The difference between then and now?  Say what you will about him, Chamberlain loved his country.

As the Saudis and Egyptians saddle up to invade Yemen and confront Iran,  we have to ask if this is what "Smart Diplomacy" is all about. 

Glenn Reynolds comments:  Before you can dub it [Obama's foreign policy] a failure, you have to know what Obama is trying to accomplish.

Latest Obama Interviewer Had Sex with a Japanese Doll for a News Story

Barack Obama knows his constituency.

The latest man to score an interview with President Obama, Shane Smith, has conducted some hard-hitting interviews, including one with a Japanese sex doll.

You’re not misreading that; in a video from 2008, founder and CEO of Vice media Shane Smith pays to have sex with a doll in a Tokyo doll brothel. The doll is shown spread-eagle on a bed, and the camera provides several gratuitous up-skirt shots....

The company Smith founded, Vice.com, “revels daily in hard drug use, weird sex and every sort of bodily effluvium,” reports Forbes, and this video, part of the “Vice Guide to Sex,” is no exception.

When I heard about this interview I wondered about the name of the media channel but I thought "VICE" was an acronym.  I was wrong.  Barack Obama goes to a porn channel for an interview.  

Not that the mainstream media is not willing to don knee-pads for Obama, but it's not nearly as edgy as a guy having sex with a doll in Japan. 

Obama: Obamacare was Republicans' plan

"The Affordable Care Act pretty much was their plan before I adopted it," he said.

Oh, and Yemen is a success story. 

DEA agents had 'sex parties' with prostitutes

This is the Obama Administration, after all.

The Oversight panel is also investigating allegations into the Secret Service that agents there hired prostitutes in Colombia while advancing a trip for President Barack Obama

.

The country's in the very best of hands.

Newsmax's Top 50 Conservative Blogs of 2015

Noted.

How much contempt must you have for your audience if you continue to insist that Yemen is a success story?

No.  That's genuine question.

From The Blaze:

ABC reporter Jonathan Karl noted that “complete chaos” has gripped Yemen as the country faces a bloody struggle against radical rebel forces and asked if the White House still views Yemen as a counterterrorism “model.”

The reporter seemed surprised when Earnest said the White House is maintaining its position.

Earnest told reporters on Wednesday that a “successful counterterrorism strategy is one that will build up the capacity of the central government to have local fighters on the ground to have local fighters take the fight to extremists in their own country.” He added that the counterterrorism strategy is a “template that has succeeded in mitigating the threat in Yemen and Somalia.”

“That’s astounding,” Karl responded. “You’re saying you still see Yemen as a model? Building up a central government, which has now collapsed? A president who has apparently fled the country? You know, Saudi troops massing on one border, the Iranians supporting the rebels? You consider this a model for counterterrorism?”

To the credit of ABC, they are actually reporting this disaster, even referring to Obama's declaration last year of Yemen "the model for counter terrorism." You can even hear some criticism of Obama's policies.

Meanwhile NBC's Andrea Mitchell notes the problems in Yemen, but no reference to the fact that Obama considers Yemen a success story.  They continue to run clips of Obama reassuring people that everything is going well.  In fact, now that Saudi Arabia is intervening, it's passing along Iranian propaganda, accusing the Saudis of committing atrocities.  

CBS makes a passing mention of Obama's brags about the Yemeni model.

The government's collapse raises serious questions about the Obama administration's "light footprint" model of combating terrorism. As recently as September, as President Obama announced the campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, he cited Yemen as an example of a successful U.S. counterterrorism strategy.

"I want the American people to understand how this effort will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ... this strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years," Mr. Obama said.

Raises question? The accompanying video begins with the question: "Why should American care?"  A question like that is a prelude for a story later that will say that the American retreat from Yemen is no big deal.

What the Democrats were saying before the Iraq invasion

DRUDGE: Bergdahl Charged with Desertion

BERGDAHL CHARGED WITH DESERTION

George Zimmerman: Obama ‘Broke the Law’ with ‘Baseless Prosecution,’ ‘Incendiary Comments’

Women's Sexual Assault Advocates are Upset that University of Virginia Rape Did Not Occur

Advocacy groups would not have any reason for existing if their cause disappeared. The Race Industry would cease to exist if everyone's skin turned one color. The same is true of the Sexual Assault Prevention industry. If men disappeared tomorrow what would the sexual assault centers do?  Go after women who prey on other women?

Well, we are finding out. When the report of a brutal gang rape at the University of Virginia turns out to be a hoax, the entrepreneurs of the Sexual Assault Industry worry that their business will go down. Evidence that a symbiotic relationship between a disturbed young woman and an author who has made a career out of fabricating sexual assault stories "could set a dangerous precedent." That's according of Rebecca Weybright who worries that the next female who claims to have been raped may have to actually produce some evidence as opposed to having her victim thrown out of school - or worse: being sent to prison for a crime he did not commit.

The findings may prove to be an obstacle to sexual assault prevention and adjudication in the future, according to John Banzhaf, a public interest law professor at George Washington University.

“This Rolling Stone debacle, coupled with the recent memory of phony allegations of rape [by lacrosse players] at Duke University, and a Justice Department study showing that widely cited estimates of the rate of rapes and other sexual assaults on college campuses has been grossly exaggerated, may blunt so-far successful efforts by the federal government and anti-rape groups to force colleges to not only crack down but to also convict more male students,” Banzhaf said in a statement given to The College Fix.

Banzhaf said “almost two dozen courts” have found in favor of accused males who sued their universities to obtain justice.

The Charlottesville police findings could prove detrimental to victims of sexual assault who are seeking justice, if they come to be seen as “the boy who cried wolf,” Banzhaf added.

Director Rebecca Weybright of the Sexual Assault Resource Agency of Charlottesville echoed Banzhaf’s worry over the effect the investigation’s conclusion could have on assault victims.

“Why would somebody want to put themselves to be potentially subjected to what, the amount of questioning and I’m sure the criticism?” Weybright said in an interview with NBC 29.

Further, Weybright was concerned Jackie’s discredited account could set a dangerous precedent.

“My first thought was ‘oh my gosh this is just going to make more people not believe survivors,’ and that’s pretty devastating,” Weybright said.

For people like Weybright = No Rape.  No Cause.  It's Terrible.

BIZ vs. GOVT

The Press on Cruz

Senator For Gurlz (TM) Kirsten Gillibrand: Don't Blame The "Victim" Who Invented The UVA Gang-Rape Hoax Out of Whole Cloth Just To Get the Attention of a Boy She Had a Crush On

Ace of Spades goes off on the execrable Kirsten Gillibrand.

We need a National Conversation explaining how fake victims of hoax-rapes are just as much victims as victims of actual rape, I guess.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who is pushing for stronger laws against rapes on college campuses, today warned against people criticizing the woman at the center of a University of Virginia sexual assault case...

But Gillibrand said the ire over the case shouldn't shift blame onto victims, who already have a hard time coming forward to authorities.

"Victim blaming or shining the spotlight on her for coming forward is not the right approach," Gillibrand said on "The Capitol Pressroom," a public radio show in Albany. "In fact, what we have to focus on is how do we keep these campuses safe? How do we have better trained personnel on campuses so they can tell a survivor what her options are and so they can have all the facts?"

She came forward with a horrible lie, you stupid twat.

Gillibrand said it would be wrong for some to call on the female student in the UVA scandal to face criminal charges.

"I think it's inappropriate," she said. "One of the challenges with survivors of sexual trauma and rape is that they often don’t want to actually participate with law enforcement because they don’t think justice is possible. They don't think they will be believed; they think they’ll be blamed."

Are you on Mars, you fucking idiot? She shouldn't be "believed" because, get this, she made it all up.

This is a major theme of the Feminist Cultists. Just yesterday Jessica Valenti claimed we shouldn't engage in "victim blaming" here. Again, forgetting that "Jackie" is not a victim. She instead is a perpetrator, of spreading a vicious slander against complete strangers just to get A Boy's Attention.

I can't say she's guilty of filing a false police complaint because she seems to have completely refused to discuss her Fake Gang Rape with the police.

Let me suggest the obvious here: Feminist Cultists like Gillibrand and Valenti may be speaking, ostensibly, about not blaming the "victim" "Jackie" here, but what they're really most determined is that they themselves not be blamed for believing such a grotesque and stupid lie, nor of cursing those who (wisely) doubted it.

I don't know what these two fine Cultists said, but I know when the first guy to raise questions raised some questions, he was attacked by the flock of harpies as a woman-hating rape-loving monster.

Well, now it's proven that these Cultists were in fact the monsters, and foisted a lie on the nation to aggrandize themselves.

And they don't want to be called out for that (despite the fact that "calling out" is a favorite tactic of the left).

Stupid, evil or both? Like the Ferguson "hands up don't shoot" lie The left is extremely upset that Darren Wilson is NOT a racist who killed a black kid for no reason. They are equally upset that no gang rape took place at UVA. They continue to claim that they are victims even as real people have their lives ruined by false accusations. Like Communists need class enemies, Nazis need Jews, the Left needs evil white men, killer cops, and raping frat boys. And if they can't find a real one, they'll make one up.

Democrats have understood "uppity" since they bought their first Negro slave...

John Cassidy of the New Yorker calls Ted Cruz "uppity."

The conventional wisdom is that Cruz hasn’t got a chance, and, as far as the Presidency goes, it’s probably accurate. To many Americans, he is the uppity loudmouth who, in the fall of 2013, less than a year into his first term as a senator, helped bring the federal government to a halt.

Klavan on Democrats

The leftists of the Democratic Party — the party of slavery; the party of the Ku Klux Klan; the party of Jim Crow; the party of segregation; the party of a welfare state that destroyed the black family in ways the most evil slaver could only dream of; the party of abortion, which snuffs out more black lives than heart attacks and cancer combined — call us racist when we oppose them. I weep sad tears. I so wanted their good opinion.

Read the whole thing.

If Obama were trying to neuter America, what would he do different?

The patriotic conservative hawks who are terrified by the deterioration of our military are absolutely right – our military is in crisis. But lifting the sequester caps and pumping more money into the Pentagon isn't going to solve the problem. First, we need a president who actually cares about defending this country. Second, we need to change the Defense Department from a feeding trough for government workers and contractors into a lean, mean, warfighting machine.

We can solve the first problem in November 2016 by electing a president who cares about this country's defense. Barack Obama doesn't, and Hillary Clinton won't. They never have, and their posturing as friends of the troops and a supporters of a strong defense is a lie like everything else they say.

There’s no point in even trying to rebuild our forces until we get a president who actually understands the nature of our enemies and sides with America and our allies against them. You need to understand – liberals do not want America to be a superpower. They want us neutered. The decline of our military isn’t an accident; it’s a goal.

Read the whole thing.  Oh and more more zinger

We used to be manned to fight two wars and now we can’t even beat a bunch of glorified banditos driving their Toyota pick-ups between slave auctions.

Ted Cruz to announce presidential bid Monday

Sen. Ted Cruz plans to announce Monday that he will run for president of the United States, accelerating his already rapid three-year rise from a tea party insurgent in Texas into a divisive political force in Washington.

Cruz will launch a presidential bid outright rather than form an exploratory committee, said senior advisers with direct knowledge of his plans, who spoke on condition of anonymity because an official announcement had not been made yet. They say he is done exploring and is now ready to become the first Republican presidential candidate.

Israel: Beware of Obama

Michael Goodwin in the NY Post:

First he comes for the banks and health care, uses the IRS to go after critics, politicizes the Justice Department, spies on journalists, tries to curb religious freedom, slashes the military, throws open the borders, doubles the debt and nationalizes the Internet.

He lies to the public, ignores the Constitution, inflames race relations and urges Latinos to punish Republican “enemies.” He abandons our ­allies, appeases tyrants, coddles ­adversaries and uses the Crusades as an excuse for inaction as Islamist terrorists slaughter their way across the Mideast.

Now he’s coming for Israel...

Apologists and wishful thinkers, including some Jews, insist Obama real­izes that the special relationship between Israel and the United States must prevail and that allowing too much daylight between friends will encourage enemies.

Those people are slow learners, or, more dangerously, deny-ists.

If Obama’s six years in office teach us anything, it is that he is impervious to appeals to good sense. Quite the contrary. Even respectful suggestions from supporters that he behave in the traditions of American presidents fill him with angry determination to do it his way.

For Israel, the consequences will be intended. Those who make excuses for Obama’s policy failures — naive, bad advice, bad luck — have not come to grips with his dark impulses and deep-seated rage.

Read the whole thing.

Bill Whittle: The Criminal Arrogance of Hillary Clinton

If you wonder if Hillary Clinton broke the law, watch this.

The American experiment was many things, but first and foremost it was an attempt, for the first time in human history, to create a society based upon the rule of law. The Declaration of Independence lists, in exhaustive and minute detail, nearly thirty enumerated cases of lawlessness on the part of King George III. This nation showed the world that common people could not only rule themselves; they could do so without an aristocracy and especially do so without an aristocracy that was, like King George, above the law.

Here’s a law: U.S. Code, Title 18, Part I, Chapter 101, Section 2071, Paragraph a: “Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.”

Paragraph b: Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States.

Islamofacist nutbags merge

This is too good not to quote.

NOTING the similarity of their respective business models and the potential going forward to maximise positive synergies, Islamic State and Boko Haram recently formed a merger.

Gang of 20 Men Attack Synagogue in Stamford Hill - Saturday Night 3-22-2015

Starbucks starts a conversation on race.

Some of the lying lairs responsible for the "Hands up don't shoot" lie.

The liars are on tape.



I want the names of all of these liars.

Starbucks on race

This is what Obama's Smart Diplomacy Looks Like

KHAMENEI CALLS 'DEATH TO AMERICA'
KERRY HAILS NUKE DEAL PROGESS

US removes remaining personnel from Yemen

Wait, wasn't Yemen an example of Smart Diplomacy?

Four months ago, Obama called Yemen’s war on terror a success. Now the Yemeni government may fall.

Yemen in Chaos: Portrait of an Obama 'Success' Story

Obama Tonight: Yemen and Somalia Are Models of Success (!)

“But I want the American people to understand how this effort will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil. This counter-terrorism campaign will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out ISIL wherever they exist using our air power and our support for partner forces on the ground. This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.”

After all the mocking of Bush standing before a banner on an aircraft carrier proclaiming "Mission Accomplished" why is the MSM silent about Obama's "success story in Yemen?

The question is rhetorical; Democrat operatives with bylines don't question other Democrats about failure.

Instapundit:

JUST SIX MONTHS AGO, IT WAS AN OBAMA “SUCCESS STORY.” Losing Yemen.

The last US special forces have been withdrawn from Yemen without exciting much notice from the US press. Max Boot tweets: “All US SOF evacuating Yemen. Huge win for AQAP, huge defeat for US. How many foreign policy disasters can we handle?” Reuters reports, “the United States has evacuated its remaining personnel, including about 100 special operations forces, from Yemen because of the deteriorating security situation there, U.S. officials said on Saturday.” This means that the last vestiges of what the Obama administration only recently touted as their model counter-insurgency operation are gone. The collapse has flown largely under the media radar.

Last week Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post reported that $500 million dollars in American supplied weapons are now in the hands of “Iranian-backed rebels or al-Qaeda”. The Islamist blitzkrieg is living off huge quantities of captured US materiel.

The Democrats believe all sorts of stupid, false, vicious and racist things.

Ace of Spades

I've often said, because it sounds clever and may even be right, that it's not the true things we believe that define us -- everyone believes that the sun is warm; how does that differentiate us? -- but the false things.

I also think that a political movement is marked by the false things it either believes or goes silent about, because a large number of its congregants wrongly believe the false things to be true, and will get upset if you claim otherwise.

The media likes to claim the GOP is full of false believes, especially about Science, and that may be true here and there.

But which is the party which still believes that Michael Brown was assassinated, or that his death was caused by "structural racism" in Ferguson, rather than that which seems more likely to be the more proximate cause, to wit, his punching an armed police officer in the face and then reaching for his loaded weapon?

The Democratic Party is not properly called the Stupid Party because all of the stupid, false things they believe are either widely believed by the media, or never contradicted by the media, because the media does not want to upset the sensibilities of its fellow Democrat voters.

But yes, they believe all sorts of stupid, false, vicious and racist things.

How to become gluten intolerant

Liberal calls for attack on Israel

I think it was Yogi Berra who said that "you can observe a lot by just watching."   With that I found out that some Liberals are seriously thinking that a nuclear attack on Israel by, among others, France, should be under consideration. 

I was reading Netanyahu’s Victory, on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal when I ran across this gem by a commenter named Marc Jones:

Here is something for you to consider Mr. Perlman. There are a number of nuclear states which are dependent on Middle East oil. They include China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and France. There are several other states which have all the components and capabilities to construct nuclear weapons very quickly, that are also dependent on Middle East oil. They include Japan, Taiwan, South Africa, and South Korea. Do you really think they will allow their economies to be wrecked by a conflict between Iran and Israel? Is it Israel or Iran who's elimination would lead to greater stability for their economies? It is not just Israel that can be expected to act in its own best interests. Israelis should spend some time pondering that fact.

When someone pointed out that if Israel believed that nuclear armed nations could decide to destroy  Israel to protect Arab oil it would be a very good reason for them to attack Iran first, Marc Jones said this:

...you are off by a full 180 degrees regarding my scenario. Let me be more clear. A first [sic] against Iran by Israel is a recipe for disaster. They don't have sufficient convention capability to eliminate the Iranian nuclear infrastructure. If they decide to use their nukes, it is quite likely they will face a pre-emptive first strike by any of a number of nuclear powers dependent on Mid-east oil. Charging into a box canyon, guns blazing is generally a very bad idea and that would be exactly what a first strike would entail. The result could be existential tragedy for Israel, a truly God-awful outcome.

He decides to double down in a follow-up:

Nations act in their own best interests. Think about that. What is in the best interests of those countries? Israeli security? Not by any stretch of imagination. They will protect their own economies.

...all of the countries listed have active and effective foreign intelligence services. Several have extensive spy satellite systems. If they think events in the Middle East are beginning to risk their wellbeing, they will be watching. If they see Israel making pre-launch preparations and it makes sense to do so, they will act.

Marc Jones sees an attack, not by Arabs, but by nations depending on Mid-East oil as a real possibility.  

Outrageous? 

Perhaps. But we once thought that an American president ruling by decree executive order was outrageous.  We once thought that free speech was sacrosanct, especially on college campuses.  We once thought that we could buy a cup of coffee without getting lectured on race.  We once thought that how long you showered was none of the government's business.  We once thought that helping Israel - the only democracy in the Middle East - defend itself was as American as apple pie.  It helps to observe what the Left is thinking in its unguarded moments, because their agenda is on the march.  And nuking Israel to protect access to Arab oil is definitely on their radar screen. 

Media declare loser in Israeli election: Barack Obama

The MSM was the other loser. Did you see Andrea Mitchell? She went to Israel to see Bibi defeated and could not conceal her hatred.

Will Obama Join Islamofascist Out to Destroy Israel in the UN ?

OBAMA PLOTS TO BYPASS BIBI WITH UN ACTION

Journalistic liars cost 8,000 households $250 million in Ferguson

I am sure Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post felt warm and fuzzy when he posted, " ‘Hands up, don’t shoot’ was built on a lie."

Admitting his mistake is a start.

When will he pony up some money to help the 8,192 households in Ferguson, Missouri, recover the approximately $250 million in lost property values caused by his sloppy journalism and to be blunt, racism?...

People like Jonathan Capehart did this because the news media is run by a bunch of college-educated liberals who take the word of black people over white people. Every time.

It is racist.

Because Capehart is a racist. And now he's peddling another lie; the lie about the "racism" of the people of Ferguson.

But Jonathan Capehart rationalizes this lie as saying well, the white cops were not nice to black people, so all the rioting, looting, larceny and arson were justified.

Tell that to the 5,000 black households in Ferguson who just lost $30,000 in equity on their homes because of the lie he helped spread.

I knew it was a lie all along. I remember past lies of a similar nature from Tawana Brawley and Crystal Magnum. The NAACP has no credibility with me because of its legacy of spreading fear and through outrageous lies -- and its silence on black-on-black crime, particularly homicides.

The failure of so many journalists to do their job and double-check Dorian Johnson's cover story just cost approximately 5,000 black families in Ferguson, Missouri, roughly $150 million.

Black lives matter to me. But to guys like Al Sharpton and Jonathan Capehart, ratings and online hits matter more.

Capehart is getting a six figure salary for writing racist diatribes for the Washington Post; It's why he's there, to make rich white Liberals feel good about themselves. 

Like the Pharisees int he Bible who proclaimed their righteousness:  

The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: 'I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else. For I don't cheat, I don't sin, and I don't commit adultery. I'm certainly not like that tax collector!

Stop Smearing Critics of Islam as Islamophobes

The IHRC, a charity founded in 1997 to research, study, and bleat about anyone who is less than fawning about Islam, initiated the Annual Islamophobia Awards in 2003. The winners are, of course, not actually anti-Muslim bigots, but simply people who have had the temerity to criticize some aspect of Islamic faith or culture.

So Ayaan Hirsi Ali has won one for failing to show sufficient respect to the religion that ruined her childhood. How dare she! Tony Blair was awarded one as well, proving that even painfully PC politicians who go around quoting the Koran and saying what a wonderful religion Islam is can still find themselves labelled haters.

And now, eclipsing even those previous undeserving winners, Charlie Hebdo has been dishonored with an award. On March 7, exactly two months after the massacre—nice—the IHRC christened that mag the worst of the international Islamophobes. No one from the magazine was available to pick up the award, of course, since many of its writers are now dead.

The IHRC’s labelling of freshly-killed satirists is like a post-mortem justification for the massacre itself, a reminder of the “crimes” these people committed prior to being shot at their desks. In fact, it’s merely a less bloody version of the Islamic State’s habit of hanging a placard around the neck of some poor bloke about to be crucified or pushed off a building: a reminder of the wickedness done by these individuals who are being, or have been, executed.

It isn’t surprising that the IHRC’s giggling at the dead of Charlie Hebdo has been met with outrage. But now we need to go further. We need to reject, not only the grisly handing of an Islamophobia award to dead cartoonists, but also the very idea of Islamophobia—the word itself, the notion that to criticize or mock Islam is to be disordered and therefore in need of reprimanding or a cure.

We live in an era of phobias. They are apparently spreading like a ravenous blob, turning more and more human minds black with prejudice. Today, it isn’t only fear of spiders, clowns, or open spaces that is branded a phobia—so are certain ways of thinking, certain beliefs, moral viewpoints that fall outside the mainstream. ....

What we’re witnessing is the pathologizing of dissent, the treatment of edgy or just eccentric ideas as illnesses requiring silencing or even treatment. It’s a cynical attempt by certain groups and their media cheerleaders to opt-out of the battle of ideas by branding their opponents as irrational, and therefore not worthy of engagement.

As Glenn Reynolds put it:

To be fair, “stifling meaningful debate” is the whole point of branding things as phobias. It is, like most lefty tropes, just another way of saying shut up and submit.

It wasn't even close

BIBI STAYS

Andrea Mitchell hates it.

Despite the best efforts of Team Obama, who sent operatives to Israel to defeat Bibi Netanyahu, his Likud party won a sweeping victory.

The Israeli elections took a dramatic turn in the early morning hours on Wednesday as official tallies from nearly all precincts indicate that Likud has opened up a significant lead over Zionist Union, a far cry from the virtual dead heat that television exit polls had reported Tuesday evening.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting before dawn on Wednesday, the Likud has emerged as the clear, undisputed victor in the elections.

The Year of Ben Trovato

The Federalist names Ben Trovato 2014 Person of the Year.

Who is Ben Trovato?

He has been everywhere and had a hand in just about every big story, from Ferguson to the University of Virginia. He has been most active in his usual fields, journalism and politics, but we can see his impact as far afield as espionage and even retail.

You’ve never heard of him? Maybe so, but you already know him very well.

For those who suspect that Ben Trovato is not a real, literal person, you’re right. But the whole point of old Ben’s influence is that it doesn’t matter whether he’s literally real. Or whether anything is literally real, for that matter.

I first heard of Ben Trovato while reading a curious little volume of unusual word origins. A number of these supposed etymologies, most of the really colorful ones, were attributed to “Ben Trovato.” The name is taken from an old Italian saying: se non è vero, è ben trovato. Roughly translated: if it’s not true, it’s a good story. These were the kind of word origins that you really wanted to be true, but for which there was no real evidence. In contemporary parlance, they are “too good to check.”

I think you can begin to see why 2014 has been the year of Ben Trovato. It has been a year full of things that were non vero, but which had really good narratives. Or at least really convenient narratives.

It may not actually be true that Michael Brown had his hands up and was saying “don’t shoot” when a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer shot him—the bulk of the eyewitness testimony and physical evidence indicates otherwise—but “hands up, don’t shoot” is still a great slogan because it’s such a good “metaphor” and captures a “larger truth.” Ben Trovato at work.

Like Al Sharpton, Ben Trovato has frequently been invited to the White House, where he spent some time hanging out with the son Barack Obama might have had, before swinging over to the First Lady’s office, where he prompted Michelle Obama to describe how an incident at a Target store shows that she still needs to fear being mistaken for the help because she’s black. Proof of America’s persistent racism. Sure, she told the same story a few years ago with a totally opposite meaning. But you’re missing the point. The point is that the new version of the story is well constructed to convey an important narrative. It has Ben Trovato’s fingerprints all over it.