Muslims and Free Speech

From Professor Michael Curtis, at American Thinker.

After a review of the free speech debate following the Charlie Hebdo attack, there's this:

The mainstream media with its stance of political correctness argues that the greatest danger now is that “more Europeans will come to the conclusion that all Muslim immigrants are carriers of a great and mortal threat.”  It is unlikely that anyone has ever formulated such a conclusion, but realistic commentators have pointed out that a real threat exists.  Indeed, in her combative book The Rage and the Pride, published soon after 9/11/2001 in New York, Oriana Fallaci warned that Muslim extremists with their swelling hatred for the West would launch another  attack.

One can agree that the two murderous Kouachi brothers and  Amedy Couibaly, who killed 17 people, are not the true representatives of the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world.  But it is equally true that the CH satirical pieces and cartoons, some of which are infantile and obscene, are not the real instigators of the threat to the West.  The threat is Islamic extremism or Islamism, not any result of Western foreign policy in the Middle East.

Nor did violence in France result from the policies of President François Hollande, or from the high rate of unemployment or poverty or because children of Muslim immigrants are said to be caught between two cultures.  Nor is the German group Pegida (Patriotic Europeans against Islamization of the West), which demonstrates against immigration, the cause of violence.  Rather, its members argue, its existence and activity are an attempt to prevent violence.  German security authorities suggest that about 250 of the 4 million Muslims in the country are jihadists, and more than 2,000 are potentially dangerous.

Irrespective of the political views of those making the argument, criticism of Islamists and of certain parts of Muslim behavior – inferior status of women, absence of free expression on political and religious issues, the interconnection between religious and political power – is not correctly described as “Islamophobia.”...

Well, don't go making too much sense, Professor.

Holly Fisher, Army Wife and Conservative Hottie, Busted for Infidelity

This is at Charles C. Johnson's Got News, "BREAKING, EXCLUSIVE: Tea Party Photo Military Wife Caught Cheating On Combat Vet Hubbie."

There's no question this story's legit. Ms. Fisher has a post up at Facebook about how she was all famous and hot to trot once her Twitter fame exploded. She didn't handle it well and now has gotten back to God and family:

I’ve been married since I was barely 20, most of that marriage was in the army life. With deployment, kids, career changes, etc. we’ve had our ups and downs, like most couples. In the overwhelming mess of the political spotlight and trying to find myself and where I belong, I actually completely lost myself. I lost my faith in my marriage, I lost my faith in this life that not only I’ve chosen for myself, but a life that I promote. Happy military wife with kids and church and happy, happy, happy. False. My life crumbled. My marriage crumbled. I lost my faith in God. I didn’t know where I was going to go next or what I was going to do. For a very short period in the middle of that, I actually believed my marriage was over and found someone else.

Day after day, actually week after week, throughout the late fall, I found myself just trying to figure out what I needed to do to make myself happy and to get my life back on track.

I have suffered from depression and anxiety most of my life, only recently telling my family about it, but after being at my lowest, my darkest, and literally about to end it all, my daughter started laughing. My sweet, angelic baby girl toddled into the room while I was sitting on the edge of my bed, and she was squealing with delight.

Right then and there I knew I needed to get off my butt and get on my knees. My daughter, along with God, saved my life. I regained my ability to pray after a few long nights of my husband squeezing me tight and helping me realize that we are a team, we are best friends, we are partners, and no matter how lost we’ve been in the past, we can survive anything...

Well, it's certainly news.

I'll say though, for someone who went viral mocking the hell out of hate-addled leftists, she's fallen pretty hard. But then, we're all fallen. We're human. Owning up to it is the start of getting things back together. Hopefully her husband's going to be forgiving. I'd hate for them to divorce. Their baby would get the worst of it. She's still just a little thing.

@HollyRFisher I am with you always. We crossed this bridge and will walk together now with our heads high. I love you. Matthew 6:14-15
— David Fisher (@DavidIFisher) January 19, 2015

Added: At London's Daily Mail, "Gun-toting Christian mother-of-three who made 'liberal heads explode' admits cheating on her military vet husband with Tea Party member."

L.A. Times: Saïd and Chérif Kouachi 'Craved Belonging', Which is Why They Murdered #CharlieHebdo, or Something

So stupid.

Being orphaned, feeling marginalized, and "craving belonging" are not explanations for the French terrorist massacre. Islamic jihad is the only reason these two Islamic terrorists murdered the innocents. All the rest is psycho-babble.

Occam's razor, folks. Just go with it.

At the Los Angeles Times, "French terrorists were primed for trouble from the start, analysts say":

The gunmen behind France's worst terrorist attack in decades appear to have been easy prey for recruiters to violent jihad.

The children of immigrants, with seemingly chaotic family lives, they were frustrated by injustices they perceived around them and had been trying to make their way with few means, according to court records and experts who study terrorism networks.

"These were people who were marginalized, who broke with society. They went to prison, and they became radicalized because they needed to be heroes," said Christophe Crepin, spokesman for a French police union. "In the end, they're just barbarous assassins."

Their path to radicalization began in the seething immigrant neighborhoods on the edges of Paris.

Said Kouachi, 34, and his brother Cherif, 32, were born to a family of Algerian descent in Paris' 10th arrondissement. Their father appears to have been largely absent, and their mother struggled to raise the family's five children, Crepin said.

The brothers were placed at a young age in a center for orphaned and troubled children outside the capital. Their mother died soon after.

The pair returned to Paris around 2000 and moved into an apartment in the 19th arrondissement, an area heavily populated by migrants from France's former colonies in North Africa. They survived on odd jobs. Cherif Kouachi delivered pizzas for a time and later worked at a supermarket fish counter, according to French news reports.

Long before the brothers stormed the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on Jan. 7, killing 12 people, they fell under the influence of a self-proclaimed Islamist preacher they met at a local mosque.

Still in his 20s and working as a janitor, Farid Benyettou became the mentor and spiritual leader of a group of young Muslims who were angered by images of American abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison and wanted to go fight U.S. soldiers in Iraq. French authorities called them the Buttes-Chaumont network, after the picturesque park with its picnickers and hilltop views where they would go jogging.

Benyettou was just a year older than the younger Kouachi, but the brothers looked up to him because he claimed to have studied Islam and had a brother-in-law who was part of an Algerian militant group, said Jean-Charles Brisard, chairman of the Paris-based Center for the Analysis of Terrorism. They attended lessons at Benyettou's apartment, where they discussed the religious arguments for waging holy war.

Even then, Cherif Kouachi would talk about wanting to stage an attack in France, a friend told investigators. But their mentor told them the fight was elsewhere.

Some members of the Buttes-Chaumont group would later be killed in Iraq or return badly maimed, but the Kouachi brothers never made it to the war. Cherif Kouachi was arrested in a 2005 crackdown on the network that was funneling fighters. He had a plane ticket for Syria, then the gateway for fighters hoping to do battle against the U.S. in Iraq. His brother's role in the network, if any, is unclear.

At the time, the younger Kouachi told investigators he was relieved to be caught. He described himself as a "ghetto Muslim," according to the French newspaper Le Monde, a clean-shaven hipster who liked to rap and smoke marijuana with friends. He didn't want to die in Iraq, he said, but was afraid he would be called a coward if he didn't go.

Prosecutors thought he had been manipulated by a cult-like ideology and didn't consider him a serious threat. When the case wrapped up in 2008, he was sentenced to time served.

But the radicalization that had begun on the streets of Paris intensified in prison, experts say. Remanded after his arrest to Fleury-Merogis Prison south of Paris, the nation's largest, he found himself in the company of hardened extremists.

There he met the Algerian-born Djamel Beghal, regarded as one of Al Qaeda's top recruiters in Europe, and convicted in a 2001 plot to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Paris. With them was the Kouachi brothers' future accomplice, Amedy Coulibaly, serving time for one of a string of robberies.

Coulibaly, the same age as Cherif Kouachi, was born in France to parents of West African descent. The only boy in a family of 10 children, he grew up on a housing estate in Grigny, south of Paris, that is notorious for gangs, drugs and violence.

"These guys are looking for something to join, they're looking for something to identify with," said Andrew Liepman, a senior policy analyst at Rand Corp. and former principal deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center. "It could be a bridge club, the Boy Scouts or Al Qaeda — and there aren't a lot of bridge clubs in prison."...

More.

Note: "Craving belonging" is how the hard-copy edition of the story described the Kouachis.

Miss Lebanon Saly Greige Denies Taking Selfie with Miss Israel Doron Matalon

It's come to this.

The international politics of selfies.

At the New York Post, "Uproar after Miss Israel's selfie with Miss Lebanon."

More at JPost, "Miss Lebanon denies taking photo with Miss Israel, says she 'photo-bombed' her," and Time, "Miss Lebanon Criticized After Being Caught in Miss Israel’s Selfie."

Actually, no. That's not a photobomb. She's posing for a selfie, straight up. It's indeed sad that two young women can't enjoy a moment of innocence at beauty contest. Sheesh.

Notice, however, that's it's the Lebanese who're unforgiving here. That tells you something.

VIDEO: #CharlieHebdo to NBC's Chuck Todd: When You Blur Our Cover, 'You Blur Out Democracy'

Watch it here.

And at Bloomberg, "Charlie Hebdo Editor Says Some Media ‘Blur Out Democracy’."

It's Gerard Biard, the new editor at Charlie Hebdo, who should be headlining Memeorandum right now, but is not, predictably.

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."



Also at Reaganite Republican, "Reaganite's Sunday Funnies," and Theo Spark's, "Cartoon Round Up..."

More at Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – Hang It Up, France," and Lonely Conservative, "Saturday Funnies."

Cartoon Credit: William Warren.

Championship Sunday Rule 5

Let's get things rockin' with the Pirate's Cove, "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup," and "If All You See……is a horrible wood fire polluting the atmosphere with carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist."

Now over at Gator Doug's, "THE DALEYBABE."

A View From the Beach, "Packers vs Seahawks." And AoSHQ, "NFC Championship Game."

Proof has more, "...the Obligatory NFL Cheerleaders." And at PCP, "NFC Championship: Green Bay Packers vs. Seattle Seahawks."

Also at Knuckledragging, "Your Good Morning Girl."

Goodstuff's has "Hot Cosplayer Abby Dark Star."

And Dana Pico has, "Rule 5 Blogging: Swiss Misses."

At Egotastic!, "Humpday Huzzah! Jodie Gasson Strips Out of Bikinis for Memorable Shower Time Experience."

At the Hostages, "Big Boob Friday."

More at Ode's, "Good Advertising ~OR~ Rule 5 Woodsterman Style."

And at Drunken Stepfather, "ANNA KOURNIKOVA IN A BIKINI TOP OF THE DAY."

The Last Tradition has "Rule 5 Sunday - Lais Ribeiro."

Crazy Uncle Bubba has, "Today is Leg Day!"

That Mr. G Guy, "An Open Letter to My Tenants: 'I'm not rich you dirtbag flea-ridden deadbeats'."

Diogenes, "I have recently received email from two different regular reader of this blog about the apparent turn to a darker more serious tone. For this I apologize, and I will attempt in as short a way as possible to explain..."

Soylent, "Your Morning Coffee Creamer."

And at 90 Miles from Tyranny, "Morning Mistress."

Drop your links in the comments if I've missed your Rule 5.

Until then...

ADDED: At Ms. EBL's, "2015 NFC Championship Seagals Rule 5 Update: Seattle wins in OT," and "Colts Patriots AFC Championship Rule 5 Update: Pats demolish Colts."

'American Sniper' Busts Out to Record-Breaking Opening Weekend

At USA Today, "'American Sniper' smashes records with $90M weekend."

At Instapundit, "GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT: Box-Office Shocker: ‘American Sniper’ Targeting Massive $75M-Plus Debut."



It's a great movie. Here's my review, ICYMI, "'American Sniper': A War on Terror Masterpiece."

Pamela Geller in Garland, Texas

Pamela headlined a huge free speech really in the Lone Star State yesterday.

At Breitbart Texas, "PAMELA GELLER: MUSLIMS TRYING TO RESTRICT FREE SPEECH IN TEXAS."

Video of Pamela's speech, "Pamela Geller Free Speech Rally, Garland,Texas."

And at iOWNTHEWORLD REPORT, "Success In Garland, Texas":

Pamela’s site is not back and up and running. What you’re seeing online is not a 100% usable site. Pamela is most likely going to abandon it and come back bigger, better and stronger.

This move isn’t entirely due to the attack. She’s been working on a new site prior to the attack (I know this to be true because I’ve been doing some design work on it), so the timing is serendipitous.

Be sure to follow Pamela on Twitter.

Leftist haters gotta hate.

Obama to Propose Tax Increases on Investments, Inherited Property

Hey, now that's a surprise.

Wealth taxes. For leftists, an idea whose time has come.

At the Wall Street Journal, "President Expected to Outline Tax Measures in State of the Union Address":

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will call on the new Republican-led Congress to raise taxes on investments and inherited property and to create or expand a range of tax breaks for middle-income families, laying out an opening position in a debate over taxation that both parties see as a potential area of compromise.

Mr. Obama will outline the measures in his State of the Union address Tuesday night. He will propose using revenue generated from the tax increases—which would fall mainly on high-income households—to pay for a raft of new breaks aimed at boosting stagnant incomes for low- and middle-income households.

Those initiatives include tripling the child-care tax credit and creating a new credit for families in which both spouses work, senior administration officials said on Saturday.

The administration plans to consolidate and expand education tax breaks. It would also make retirement savings programs available to many more people, for example by requiring many employers that don’t currently offer workers a retirement plan to enroll them automatically in an individual retirement account. The administration says its proposals would make retirement saving programs available to 30 million additional people at the workplace.

Mr. Obama’s address Tuesday will start the process of determining where he might find common ground with the new Republican Congress. Both the president and GOP leaders have said that a tax overhaul, along with trade, might yield compromises.

The president’s proposals go well beyond overhauling business taxes, which the White House has previously expressed a willingness to undertake, to include changes to the individual tax code. Republican lawmakers have argued that a tax overhaul should be aimed at both businesses and individuals.

At the same time, the new White House position could complicate the debate, by underscoring deep philosophical differences between the parties. In particular, Mr. Obama’s tax increases are likely to draw opposition from Republicans.

The White House plan would make broad changes to the tax bills of wealthier taxpayers, mainly by raising the taxes they pay on investments. The top capital gains rate would rise to 28% from 23.8%. The plan also would impose capital-gains tax on more inherited assets.

It also would create or expand several significant tax breaks for low- and middle-income households, for instance by establishing a new $500 credit for families in which both spouses work, and by tripling the value of the child care credit to $3,000 per child. The changes also would significantly expand the availability of the child-care credit to more middle-income households.

Republican lawmakers generally have opposed raising taxes on higher-income earners, as Mr. Obama proposes. They also have bridled at some recent Democratic legislative proposals for new tax breaks to expand incomes for moderate-income families. Democrats “are just out buying [people’s] votes” with such plans, Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) said in a recent interview. Mr. Obama’s capital gains rate increase is likely to come in for particular criticism, although administration officials argue the 28% rate is still lower than the ordinary income rate for high earners.

The administration said the tax increases would raise revenue by about $320 billion over the next decade, while the new tax breaks and other initiatives would cost about $235 billion. The administration didn’t detail its plans for the additional revenue.

The tax proposals represent a part of the administration’s broader strategy to raise stagnant middle-class incomes, a prominent topic in Washington lately.

More at that top link.

In January 2013, "74% of the French said that Islam 'is not compatible with French society'."

Christopher Caldwell, at the Wall Street Journal, really pours it on at the last few paragraphs of his Saturday essay, "Immigration and Islam: Europe’s Crisis of Faith France and the rest of Western Europe have never honestly confronted the issues raised by Muslim immigration":

What continues [after the Paris attacks] is the deafness of France’s government and mainstream parties to public opinion (and popular suffrage) on the issues of immigration and a multiethnic society. Mr. Hollande’s approval ratings have risen since the attacks, but they are still below 30%. In January 2013, according to the newsweekly L’Express, 74% of the French said that Islam “is not compatible with French society.” Though that number fell last year, it is almost certain to be higher now.

Voters all across Europe feel abandoned by the mainstream political class, which is why populist parties are everywhere on the rise. Whatever the biggest initial grievance of these parties—opposition to the European Union for the U.K. Independence Party, opposition to the euro for Alternative für Deutschland, corruption for Italy’s 5 Star Movement—all wind up, by voter demand, placing immigration and multiculturalism at the center of their concerns.

In France, it is the Front National, a party with antecedents on the far right, that has been the big beneficiary. In the last national election, for seats in the European Parliament, the FN, led by Marine Le Pen (daughter of the party’s founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen), topped the polls. But the ruling Socialists froze the Front National out of the recent national ceremonies of mourning, limiting participation in the Paris rally to those parties it deemed “republican.” This risks damaging the cause of republicanism more than the cause of Le Pen and her followers.

Acts of terrorism can occur without shaking a country to its core. These latest attacks, awful as they were, could be taken in stride if the majority in France felt itself secure. But it does not. Thanks to wars in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, thousands of young people who share the indignation of the Kouachis and Coulibaly are now battle-hardened and heavily armed.

France, like Europe more broadly, has been careless for decades. It has not recognized that free countries are for peoples strong enough to defend them. A willingness to join hands and to march in solidarity is a good first response to the awful events of early January. It will not be enough.

Be sure to RTWT.

One of the reasons that leftist MSM outlets attack populist parties as "far-right extremists" is because traditional nationalist conservatism (populism) is a threat to the left's stultifying cultural hegemony of political correctness and decay. The "far-right" isn't the problem in Europe. It's the left. And the left's capitulation to radical Islam.

Who Today Takes a Proud Stand for Freedom?

Not many sadly.

Or, well, while many talk the talk, few walk the walk. Might be dangerous, you know.

From William Kristol, at the Weekly Standard, "Men With Chests":

Who today takes a proud stand for freedom?

Two who did, men of [John F.] Kennedy’s generation, died last weekend. The achievements of Walter Berns and Harry Jaffa are chronicled elsewhere in this issue. Both understood that freedom was precarious and the American republic was precious. And both were students of Leo Strauss, and therefore understood the weaknesses of the modern accounts of freedom.

The life’s work of both was shaped by the problem identified by Strauss in Natural Right and History: Modern thought, most decisively in Germany, had abandoned the idea of natural right and of any claim that there might be reasonable grounds for an attachment to freedom. Strauss remarked in 1952 that “It would not be the first time that a nation, defeated on the battlefield and, as it were, annihilated as a political being, has deprived the conquerors of the most sublime fruit of victory by imposing on them the yoke of its own thought.”

Berns and Jaffa, each in his own way, sought to preserve that sublime fruit of victory. Whatever differences, important and transient, there were between the two of them, both understood that saving freedom required historical and philosophical rethinking.

Strauss’s discoveries in the history of political philosophy had the effect of liberating his students from the yoke of contemporary thought. But Strauss and his students understood—indeed, emphasized—that such a liberation could not mean simply ignoring the challenges to or wishing away the weaknesses of modern freedom. Berns and Jaffa each tried to work through the arguments and rediscover the history that could deepen our understanding of the conditions of freedom, and thereby inform and strengthen our commitment to freedom. The greatest tribute we could pay to Berns and Jaffa is to rededicate ourselves to the unfinished work that they have thus far so nobly advanced.

RTWT.

Progressives and Islamists — Rooting Out Blasphemy of Utmost Importance for Both

From Darleen Click, at Protein Wisdom (via Memeoradum):

If you’ve ever wondered at why the Left embraces or apologizes for such groups as CAIR, Hamas, the BDS movement, and agitates for legislation like “hate crimes” statutes, this is it.

Leftism is a religious ideology with more in common with Islamism than Judaism or Christianity.

Islamic State Claims Responsibility for Bomb Attack on Algerian Embassy in Libya (VIDEO)

Yet another terrorist attack from the religion of peace.

Funny how radical leftists are mum on how President Obama left Libya a smokin' heap of terrorist murder and mayhem. I mean, getting Bush and Cheney to the Hague remains such a priority.

Fucking morons.

At Modern Ghana, "IS group claims bomb attack on Algerian embassy in Libya":

Tripoli (AFP) - Assailants lobbed explosives at Algeria's embassy in the Libyan capital Saturday, wounding three people, a security official said, in an attack claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group.

The IS Libya branch said "soldiers of the caliphate" attacked the empty mission in a message posted on Twitter, together with a photograph of a tree-lined street with a fire in the background.

There was no independent confirmation of the claim -- reported by the US-based monitoring group SITE Intelligence.

The IS posted a similar claim for a December 27 car bomb attack outside the building of a Libyan unit tasked with securing diplomatic missions that left no casualties, SITE reported at the time.

The security official, who works for the unit, said Saturday's attack in central Tripoli seriously wounded a guard and that two passers-by were lightly hurt. Medical sources confirmed the toll.

The assailants threw "a bag full of explosives from a passing car at a police car parked near a guard post", he said, adding that the attack caused damage to the building and parked cars.

But in the brief tweet, the IS said the blast was caused by an explosive device planted by its militants under the guard station.

Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra of neighbouring Algeria condemned the bombing. "Any attack on a diplomatic post is a crime under international law," he said.

Saturday's attack came a day after a coalition of militias declared a ceasefire, hours after an agreement at UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva between Libya's warring factions...

Violent Muslims Scream 'Down with France!' as Charlie Hebdo Protests Rip Through Niger (VIDEO)

It's not like there's a clash of civilizations or anything. Nah.

At the BBC, "Charlie Hebdo: Niger protesters set churches on fire":

At least three people have been killed and six churches attacked in Niger amid fresh protests against French magazine Charlie Hebdo's cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

Protests began outside Niamey's grand mosque and reportedly spread to other parts of the country, a day after five were killed in Niger's second city.

Niger's president condemned the violence and appealed for calm.

More.

Reince Priebus Wins Third Term as RNC Chair

Interesting.

At the Hill, "Priebus gets third term as RNC chairman."

And see Bloomberg, "Reince Priebus Wins His Long War Against MSNBC."

Islam Has Nothing to Do with Islam!

Heh, the latest from Pat Condell.

Checkmate.

High School Girls Basketball Coach Suspended After Running Up Score in 161-2 Blowout (VIDEO)

Er, I guess that was kinda harsh on the losing team's self-esteem.

And remember, the self-esteem movement says we should nourish each and every child. Winning is mean!

And of course, anyone who violates this precious esteem movement catechism shall be mercilessly punished! Winning decisively shall not be tolerated!

At CBS News Los Angeles:



Also at Fox News, "California girls high school basketball coach suspended after 161-2 victory."

British Sports Huntress Rachel Carrie Attacked by Sick Twitter Trolls!

Yes, because the left is all about tolerance, Part Gazillion!

At London's Daily Mail, "The British shooting star hunted by sick Twitter trolls: Markswoman says she's treated 'like a terrorist' by online bullies."

Belgium Deploys Military in Cities After Terror Raids

Well, you think?

At WSJ, "Soldiers to Guard Jewish Institutions, Foreign Embassies After Foiled Terror Plot":

PHOTOS: Belgian soldiers protecting the Jewish community outside Synagogues in Antwerp pic.twitter.com/A9kc4JjQfJ

— IDF Elite (@idfelite) January 17, 2015

BRUSSELS—Belgium on Saturday started deploying soldiers to guard Jewish community institutions, foreign embassies and buildings belonging to the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, as governments across Europe stepped up security after last week’s terrorist attacks in and around Paris.

Some 150 troops took up positions across Brussels and the port city of Antwerp, Defense Minister Steven Vandeput said, and their numbers could be raised to 300 if necessary.

Among the sites with special protection are the embassies of the U.S., Israel and the U.K., Mr. Vandeput said. He declined to say whether specific threats had been made against the sites under special protection, saying only that locations had been chosen by Belgium’s National Crisis Center based on a general threat assessment.

The government’s move marks the first time since the mid-1980s—when left-wing terror groups detonated a series of bombs in Belgium—that the government has used its military to help guard civilian sites in its cities. The soldiers are allowed to use their arms, a special arrangement made possible after Belgium raised its general threat level to three out of four.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said earlier on Saturday that some troops could also be deployed outside Brussels and Antwerp, including in the eastern city of Verviers, where police killed two men and arrested several others in an antiterrorism raid on Thursday. Belgian authorities have said the suspects had been on the verge of launching attacks on police.

Meanwhile, Greek police on Saturday said they detained four suspects in connection to those foiled attacks against Belgium police. A Belgian official said later, however, that Belgian authorities had determined the Greek claim to a link wasn’t true. “The people arrested in Athens have nothing to do with the case in Belgium,” Eric Van Der Sypt, spokesman for the Belgian federal prosecutors, said.

Several other European countries have boosted security and raided suspected terrorist cells following the deadly attacks in France.

European security and intelligence officials have said in recent weeks that the terror threat is as high as it has been for many years—in large part because of the fear of radicalized European Muslims returning from the battlefields in Syria and Iraq with military training.

On Friday, France detained a dozen suspects believed to have aided the gunmen who carried out the attacks at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s Paris office and a kosher supermarket. The gunmen—Chérif and Said Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly —were killed on Jan. 9 in police raids, ending three days of violence in and around Paris that left 17 people dead.

Separately, police in Germany on Friday said they had raided 11 sites in Berlin and arrested two people suspected of providing financial support and recruiting fighters for the militant group Islamic State in Syria. Another man suspected of being a member of Islamic State was also arrested, federal prosecutors said.

The Belgian troops deployed on Saturday will focus on “static protection” of buildings and the people inside, freeing up regular police to patrol the streets and do other police work, Mr. Vandeput said. They will operate under the chain of command of the police...

Keep reading.

'Selma' and the Sanctimony of Leftists

I was reading my hard-copy of Time earlier, and I found its piece on "Selma" interesting, although not quite worth a blog post, "Selma: The Making of History." If anything, I was debating whether to see the movie at the theater or wait until it comes out on cable (which will be about a year from now).

But that's it.

Now, though, it turns out my friend Mary Grabar (pictured) has a piece up on the debate over the film's creative license with MLK's relationship with President Lyndon Johnson, at Pajamas Media:

It’s always interesting to witness the sanctimony of liberals (usually Democrats) when their narratives of history are challenged by those they say they “helped.”  Thus it has happened with the movie Selma, which has focused negative attention on President Lyndon Johnson, so much so that my Google search for “Lyndon Johnson” brought up as the second entry (after the first Wikipedia entry) a Hollywood Reporter article.

The film’s director, Ava DuVernay, has said she did not want to follow other movies such as The Help that present whites as “saviors.”  But Joseph Califano, Johnson’s “top assistant for domestic affairs,” charged in the Washington Post that the film “falsely portrays President Lyndon B. Johnson as being at odds with Martin Luther King Jr. and even using the FBI to discredit him, as only reluctantly behind the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and as opposed to the Selma march itself.” Califano even claimed that the Selma march was Johnson’s idea.

Other commentators also made corrections.  Three days before the film’s Christmas Day release, Politico ran LBJ library director Mark Updegrove’s long feature that asserted that LBJ and Martin Luther King, Jr. were “close partners” in reform.  Post columnist Richard Cohen rushed to Johnson’s defense and reported that director DuVernay had the temerity to call Califano’s assertion “jaw dropping and offensive.”  Then in what Cohen called a “brush off of a tweet,” Duvernay advised getting the true historical account by “interrogating history”–by seeing her movie.

But it seems that all bases need to be covered, and on January 5, 2015, the Post published another article, this time about a “quiet battle” Johnson as vice president waged in 1961 as he and his wife challenged restrictive real estate covenants of their “elite” Northwest Washington neighborhood, “The Elms.”  The reporter, Karen Tumulty, must have searched for this nugget. But she saw no irony in the fact that the anti-poverty future president with a penchant for social engineering was motivated by the fact that “diplomats from African nations . . .  found it difficult to find suitable housing.”

The Post has published well over a dozen articles on the movie....

The historians quoted in articles praise Johnson. David Garrow was quoted in the New York Times and then re-quoted in the Post as insisting that Johnson fully supported the Selma march and as objecting to the depiction of Johnson ordering FBI surveillance tapes of King’s extramarital trysts.  Naturally, responsibility for the surveillance is placed on LBJ’s predecessor President Kennedy, and even more so on FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.  Garrow said, “If the movie suggests L.B.J. had anything to do with the tape, that’s truly vile and a real historical crime against L.B.J.”

Yet, in The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr., Garrow reported on the delight Johnson took in listening to the surveillance tapes of King (whom Garrow approvingly presented as a radical and socialist).  Garrow wrote, “When one aide attempted to defend King’s sincerity on the issue of [opposition to the Vietnam War], Johnson reportedly replied, ‘Goddamn it, if only you could hear what that hypocritical preacher does sexually.’”  This is a milder term of abuse for King. Johnson was known for using the racial slur that is unprintable in our respectable publications or printable only with a trigger warning as was done in an MSNBC article.

That MSNBC article acknowledges that Johnson was “a reliable member of the Southern bloc, helping to stonewall civil rights legislation” for two decades, but gives Johnson a pass as a product of his times and does not charge him with political opportunism.  The New York Times also portrays Johnson via Princeton history professor Julian Zelizer as someone who wanted voting rights but couldn’t get them through until the civil rights movement made it possible.

Chosen are only those historians whose opinions fit the flattering narrative of those who like to think of themselves arm-in-arm with the “marchers” either in actuality or imaginatively–and choking up at the movie, as Richard Cohen, in his column, said he did.

But Johnson’s support of civil rights legislation for political purposes was seen for what it was back in the 1960s by black conservatives like Reverend Joseph Jackson and Pittsburgh Courier columnist George Schuyler.

Schuyler, who supported Barry Goldwater for president against Johnson because of his better record on civil rights, saw civil rights marches as a form of “beggary,” of prostration of blacks before white political leaders.  Working in the tradition of Booker T. Washington, Schuyler promoted the idea of black economic independence in the form of cooperatives and black-owned financial institutions and businesses.

Joseph H. Jackson, the longest serving president of the National Baptist Convention, in a speech before the meeting of that body in 1964, also opposed the “direct action” tactics of “boycotts, pickets, sit-ins, and demonstrations,” implying that most of the black community did not approve of such lawless tactics for achieving civil rights. “We must not allow the white community to pick our leaders or tell us what Negro to follow,” he stated.

Such expressions of Truth to Power, however, do not fit into the self-flattering image of liberals.  Dramatizations of such speeches will not be coming to a screen near you.

I've excerpted the article, so go to the link to RTWT.

Britt Linn, Miss March 2014, Takes Over New York City

A lovely video, at Playboy, "Playboy Playmate Britt Linn Takes Over New York City."

BONUS: "30 Never-Before-Seen Photos from Britt Linn's Playboy Shoot."

2014 Wasn't the Warmest Year Ever

I saw the headline yesterday at the Washington Post announcing the "hottest year in recorded history" and just rolled my eyes. We know, in fact, that the earth's temperature is not rising, a fact that even the U.N.'s IPCC acknowledged in its most recent report with regard to "unexplained anomalies" in the panel's climate forecast models. But most Americans don't know the technical details in the climate change policy debates, and if journalist do, they certainly have a bias against honest reporting and public openness and skepticism, since the "climate change" agenda is the progressives' pet big-government project of decade.

So here's today's cover at the Los Angeles Times, a literal banner announcement, gleeful in its presentation, of the story on record warming, "How hot was it? 2014 was Earth's warmest year on record, data show."

The problem, quite simply, is that it's just not true.

IBD has an editorial concisely debunking the lies, "Is 2014 The Hottest Year Ever? Satellites Say No":

The news is ablaze with a report that 2014 was the "hottest year." But there's no reason to be excited. The story the global warming alarmists are trying to tell isn't the only one out there.

'For the third time in a decade," shouted the AP, "the globe sizzled to the hottest year on record, federal scientists announced Friday."

The Washington Post reported that "the year 2014 was the hottest ever measured, based on records going back to the year 1880."

Bloomberg News challenged readers to "deny this" and directed them to "animation below" that documents "2014: The Hottest Year."

Hysteria also reigned at the BBC in Britain, the New Era in Africa, Australia's Sydney Morning Herald and all points in between.

In one sense, the breathless stories are correct: 2014 was the hottest year on record — by no more than four-hundredths of a degree. But that's based on surface thermometer records, which are not reliable.

Better measurement is done by satellites, and they indicate 2014 was the third-warmest in the 36 years that satellites have been used to document temperatures.

John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, says the satellite data show that temperature changes since 2001 are "statistically insignificant."

As expected, though, some scientists — a few of whom are considered "distinguished" — take the hottest-ever report as confirmation that man is dangerously warming his planet due to fossil-fuel use.

But a few have kept their heads. Roger Pielke, professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University, told the Post that "there remain significant uncertainties in the accuracy of the land portion of the surface temperature data, where we have found a significant warm bias."

Judith Curry, professor at Georgia Tech's school of earth and atmospheric sciences, said that "with 2014 essentially tied with 2005 and 2010 for hottest year," the implication is "that there has been essentially no trend in warming over the past decade."

"This 'almost' record year does not help the growing discrepancy between the climate model projections and the surface temperature observations," she added.

There's simply nothing to see here. But that's the way it's always been with the global-warming swindle.

Oh, and for the record, here's the Telegraph's report from 2013 on the problems at the IPCC, "Scientists working on a landmark UN report on climate change to be published this week are at loggerheads over their explanation for why the earth’s surface temperature has stopped rising as rapidly as they previously predicted."

Yep, it's certainly a swindle. Sadly, though, millions of Americans are getting bilked.

While Jews Are Slaughtered, the Left Worries About Islamophobia

The "Islamophobia" lie gives the left cover for enabling Islam's existential assault on the West.

From Brendan O'Neill, at the Australian:

THE parallel moral universe inhabited by Europe’s chattering classes and celebs was starkly ­exposed last week.

In Paris, shortly after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, an extremist stormed a kosher store, terrorised its patrons, and murdered four of them. Their crime? Jewishness.

And yet as this act of anti-Semitic barbarism was taking place, what were the opinion-forming set and the right-on glitterati worrying their well-groomed heads about? Islamophobia. The possibility of post-Charlie Hebdo violence against Muslims.

They fretted over violence that hadn’t occurred, rather than violence unfolding before the world’s eyes in a store frequented by Jews.

So we had the bizarre spectacle of British newspapers thundering about a possible outburst of anti-Muslim madness at precisely the moment an outburst of anti-­Semitic madness was taking place. Beware “Islamophobes seizing [the Charlie Hebdo] atrocity to advance their hatred”, hollered The Guardian as an anti-Semite was seizing a kosher shop to advance the world’s oldest hatred.

The day after the assault on the kosher store, three of the top 10 most-read articles on The Guardian’s website were dire warnings about potential Islamophobic violence post-Charlie Hebdo. Some folk seemed more concerned about possible attacks on Muslims than they were about actual ­attacks on Jews.

The gaping disconnect between observers’ fears of what would happen in France after the Charlie Hebdo massacre and what actually did happen was summed up in comments made by George Clooney. On Monday, as the ­bodies of the four murdered Jews were being prepared for the flight to Israel, Clooney was telling fawning hacks about the scourge of “anti-Muslim fervour” in ­Europe. It got to a point where it wouldn’t have felt surprising to hear a journalist say: “Oh no, Jews have been attacked — will this cause yet more problems for ­Muslims?!”

Of course, it’s entirely legitimate to worry about a backlash against Muslims in the wake of Islamist terror. That some blank grenades were thrown into the courtyard of a mosque in France suggests there are indeed Muslim-loathing hotheads. But there’s no escaping the fact that observers struggle to acknowledge the seriousness of anti-Semitism.

They find it easier to fantasise about a mob-led war on Muslims than to confront the real, growing problem of Jew-baiting.

We saw this last year, too, when there were numerous anti-Semitic outbursts during the Gaza conflict. Those who pose as progressive, who instantly reach for political placards whenever Muslims or ­another minority suffer abuse, didn’t say much.

They fidgeted, ermed and aahed, or, worse, offered an apologia for the new anti-Semitism. “If Israel didn’t treat Palestinians so badly, maybe Jews wouldn’t get ­attacked”, they hinted. This ugly excuse-making for anti-Semitic violence reared its head again this week when a BBC reporter in Paris, Tim Wilcox, said to a shaken French Jewish women that “the Palestinians suffer hugely at ­Jewish hands as well”.

In short: maybe there’s a logic to anti-Semitic violence. Maybe it’s just a reaction to Israeli — or as Wilcox put it, “Jewish” — wickedness. Maybe you deserve it. Wilcox expressed a common view in right-thinking sections of society: that anti-Semitism isn’t quite as bad as other forms of racism because it’s often misfired anger with Israel.

We’re witnessing the terrifying meshing together of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, with those who claim merely to hate Israel often slipping into expressions of disdain for “the Jews” and targeting Jewish shops for boycotts.

Indeed, if Amedy Coulibaly, the killer in the kosher store, thought a simple shop was an appropriate place to act out his foul radicalism, it isn’t hard to see why: anti-Israel protesters have been targeting Israeli-linked or just Jewish-owned shops for years now. Jewish produce, Jewish shoppers — all fair game, apparently.

The increasingly unhinged nature of many leftists’ loathing for Israel has led them to problematise the Jews themselves. They speak darkly of Jewish lobbies, of super-powerful forces making our leaders kowtow to Israel. Their swirling, borderline conspiratorial fear of Israel means they often cross the line from yelling at Israel to wondering about the trustworthiness of the Jews...

Absolutely sickening.

And don't miss the final word at the link.

'American Sniper': A War on Terror Masterpiece

From John Nolte, at Big Hollywood, "‘AMERICAN SNIPER’ REVIEW: A PATRIOTIC, PRO-WAR ON TERROR MASTERPIECE":

In director Clint Eastwood’s best films (“Gran Torino,” “Million Dollar Baby,” “Unforgiven,” “The Outlaw Josey Wales”), the multiple Oscar-winner is able to make us feel both the righteousness of justified violence and the heavy emotional price paid by those committing it. “American Sniper,” which is undoubtedly Eastwood’s best picture since “Million Dollar Baby” (2004), and might just be his best since “Unforgiven” (1992), faithfully constructs and respectfully deconstructs “The Legend”: Chris Kyle, the deadliest sniper in the history of the U.S. Military.

“American Sniper” opens during the worst days of Fallujah in Iraq. Kyle (Bradley Cooper) is the eye in the sky watching his fellow warriors through a sniper scope and protecting them when necessary with the kind of precision shooting that will quickly make him a legend (and target).

Through a door, an Iraqi woman emerges with a boy who can’t be older than 10. They walk towards a group of Marines. She hands the boy a large grenade. Kyle has been told by his superiors that what happens next is his call.

War is ugly and it’s not pretty watching our guys kick in doors. But there are bad guys behind those doors, and no matter how bad those guys might be, Eastwood makes sure the audience knows Americans don’t carry power drills or take lives out of any motive other than self-defense.

There is nothing even close to moral equivalence in “America Sniper,” only the truth: that there is no equivalence between the barbarians who target the innocent and the American heroes who target those who target the innocent...

Keep reading.

I saw the movie last night, at the 10:15pm showing in the IMAX theater at the Irvine Spectrum.

For me it was more like a documentary, and hence not my favorite war film. Indeed, it's not quite as harrowing as "Lone Survivor," although I wouldn't pick one over the other. It's just that with Chris Kyle in "American Survivor," you're getting an up-close-and-personal look at the onset and duration of PTSD. That Kyle was able to ride it out in all-American grunt style, and then help alleviate his pain by giving back to the disabled veterans' community, only suggests that the ultimate reckoning with his status as "Legend" of Iraq was inevitably delayed. We'll never know, for of course he was killed by a disturbed vet who he was trying to help by taking him out to the shooting range. The film handles that portion of his life with an extremely admirable minimalism. Indeed, I'd have to check, but there's a lot of authentic footage at the conclusion of the movie for Kyle's memorial procession, where the streets were lined with thankful citizens waving U.S. flags in commemoration.

The acting's superb. Bradley Cooper should probably win best actor, although he won't because feel-good patriotic movies don't go over with the correctness set in Hollywood. Or at least I don't expect it to. And Clint Eastwood's directing is indeed phenomenal. The battle scenes put you on the ground at the center of the action. While extremely realistic, there isn't a Stephen Spielberg-level of gory detail. It's more precision, neat bloodshed and death. Come to think of it, "Black Hawk Down" dwelt more on the visceral carnage of war more than this film did. But I like that about "American Sniper." In fact, the biggest letdown of the film is that we don't have more development of what's happening in country, in Iraq. I understand it's an autobiography, but the the chronological approach to Kyle's tours had me wondering how much longer the movie was going to play. I hate that. It's a signal to me that the pace is lagging.

Be that as it may, those who've served, or those who've worked with veterans and in doing PTSD charitable work, will be extremely pleased with this production. Dana Loesch had practically an out-of-boy experience seeing this, especially in that she saw the film at the premiere in Texas, surrounded with the principals and within the background of her experiences with military weapons training groups as so forth. Dana's take also expresses the necessary humility we should all have when watching films like this. Chris Kyle's patriotism and duty simply can't be faked. Unless you've placed you life on the line like that you're not going to fully "get it."

It helps, in my case, having a dad from the "Greatest Generation," and of course I study and teach military history and international relations. As I get older I feel the need to honor those who've put their lives on the line. It's only natural. The war on terror is nowhere near concluded. Our political leadership, especially President Obama, would like us to think it is. But the sad reality is it's not, and many more people are going to die, as victims of Islam's global jihad, and as those who've answered the call of duty to defend against it. "American Sniper" helps us understand the physical, emotional, and psychological costs of that war. As a society we'll deal with those costs more honestly and effectively after 2017, when the current administration leaves office. As it is we're in a break from reality that's mercilessly costing us, particularly in our will to stand up to evil and in our standing in the world as the last bastion and bulwark of freedom.

But these things will pass. And we'll have more stories of hardship and healing in a time of war. And for that we can thank heroes like Chris Kyle. And we can thank the storytellers who're willing to preserve that history and immortalize their experiences on film. There is indeed a silent majority of decency and resilience in this country, but these eternal American attributes atrophy without robust, unflinching, and shamelessly pro-American leadership. With luck the 2016 presidential campaign will help restore values and historical appreciation to our politics. And God willing, the country will elect a president committed to reversing the decline of the last 6 years (8 years by January 20th, 2017) and America can get back to being the "last best hope of Earth."

To Face Islamist Terror, We Must Face the Facts About Islam's History

From hot neoconservative Douglas Murray, at the Spectator UK, "'Religion of peace' is not a harmless platitude":

The West’s movement towards the truth is remarkably slow. We drag ourselves towards it painfully, inch by inch, after each bloody Islamist assault.

In France, Britain, Germany, America and nearly every other country in the world it remains government policy to say that any and all attacks carried out in the name of Mohammed have ‘nothing to do with Islam’. It was said by George W. Bush after 9/11, Tony Blair after 7/7 and Tony Abbott after the Sydney attack last month. It is what David Cameron said after two British extremists cut off the head of Drummer Lee Rigby in London, when ‘Jihadi John’ cut off the head of aid worker Alan Henning in the ‘Islamic State’ and when Islamic extremists attacked a Kenyan mall, separated the Muslims from the Christians and shot the latter in the head. And, of course, it is what President François Hollande said after the massacre of journalists and Jews in Paris last week.

All these leaders are wrong. In private, they and their senior advisers often concede that they are telling a lie. The most sympathetic explanation is that they are telling a ‘noble lie’, provoked by a fear that we — the general public — are a lynch mob in waiting. ‘Noble’ or not, this lie is a mistake. First, because the general public do not rely on politicians for their information and can perfectly well read articles and books about Islam for themselves. Secondly, because the lie helps no one understand the threat we face. Thirdly, because it takes any heat off Muslims to deal with the bad traditions in their own religion. And fourthly, because unless mainstream politicians address these matters then one day perhaps the public will overtake their politicians to a truly alarming extent.

If politicians are so worried about this secondary ‘backlash’ problem then they would do well to remind us not to blame the jihadists’ actions on our peaceful compatriots and then deal with the primary problem — radical Islam — in order that no secondary, reactionary problem will ever grow.

Yet today our political class fuels both cause and nascent effect. Because the truth is there for all to see. To claim that people who punish people by killing them for blaspheming Islam while shouting ‘Allah is greatest’ has ‘nothing to do with Islam’ is madness. Because the violence of the Islamists is, truthfully, only to do with Islam: the worst version of Islam, certainly, but Islam nonetheless...

Oh Douglas! Stop making so much sense!

Still more.

Rick Perry Lays Groundwork for Likely Presidential Bid

I like him.

He's one to keep an eye on.

At WSJ, "Perry Stakes Out Nuanced Immigration Stance Ahead of 2016: Outgoing Texas Governor Stands By His Support of Discounted Tuition for the Undocumented":

AUSTIN, Texas—As Gov. Rick Perry lays the groundwork for a likely presidential bid, he is standing by a Texas law that allows illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition at public universities—a policy that drew opposition within his party in his previous campaign.

When Mr. Perry sought the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, he memorably suggested in a debate that those who opposed the Texas Dream Act don’t “have a heart.” Now, with the benefit of hindsight and months of preparation for a probable 2016 White House bid, the governor, who leaves office in the coming week, says he chose the wrong words but was right about the policy.

His stance suggests he will stake out a nuanced position on immigration in a future campaign at a time when many Texas Republicans are advocating a repeal of the in-state-tuition law, and as President Barack Obama ’s recent actions delaying deportations have stirred anger among GOP activists and lawmakers.

“I said they didn’t have a heart, and that was a really bad choice of words,” Mr. Perry, 64 years old, said during an interview at the governor’s mansion this past week. Of the Texas law, he said: “I still support it.”

Mr. Perry’s comments come as more than a dozen Republicans with eyes on the White House are taking steps toward launching 2016 campaigns. Mitt Romney , the 2012 GOP nominee, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush have signaled strong interest in the race, potentially adding two formidable candidates to an already crowded roster.

Sounds wishy-washy. He obviously can't repudiate his own record, but it's going to hurt him in the primaries.

Keep reading.

Criticizing Islam? Meet the 'Honor Brigade'

Just wow.

See Asra Nomani, at the Washinton Post, "Meet the honor brigade, an organized campaign to silence debate on Islam."

Antiterror Raids in Europe Show 'War on Terror' Isn't Over

Once again, a great discussion with Judith Miller, at Fox News, "Europe raids show 'War on Terror' isn't over."

Everything Has Been Turned on Its Head

From Phyllis Chesler, at Arutz Sheva:

Last night, I lectured at a synagogue in Westchester. Afterwards, a man came up “to shake my hand.” He had asked me this exact question about Western survival and I had answered him partly based on the Arutz Sheva article I recently wrote on the question. Then he told me:

“Our son was supposed to be at the finish line at the Boston Marathon. Luckily, something prevented him from going but we spent the weeks afterwards calling up many of his Boston-area friends to see how they were. What will it take for Americans to wake up and to take Jihad seriously? If 9/11 and Ft Hood and the Boston Marathon Bombing did not do it, I am afraid to think of what will.”

A young college student said: “If I say any of the things you have just said, my friends would call me crazy.”

Said I: “So what? If you opt for popularity and conformity you will never develop the strength to stand up to evil or to tell the truth. Remember: Evil always prevails when the good people are afraid to stop it, lest they not only become pariahs--they may also lose their livelihoods and their lives.”

I thought she was going to faint.

When I was asked something about President Obama I cut right to the chase. However, in passing, I said that “of course he is considered a Muslim by the Ummah. He is the son of a Muslim father and by definition this is all that counts". Taking it a step further, Obama might also be seen as an apostate because he embraced Christianity or at least attended a black nationalist Christian church in Chicago.

Again, some people heard me say something else, namely, that I thought Obama is a secret Muslim and that this accounts for his pro-Islamic world policies and statements and his extraordinary “sensitivity” to Muslim feelings. Another college student said that if she said this to her friends they would say she was “crazy.”

Said I. “That’s nothing. Wait until they call you a Zionist and start harassing you in your dorm.”

What will it take for Europeans to wake up?

A colleague who lives in Germany read the piece and sent me the following email:

“Your suggestions about Europe have little chance of  happening. Many don't (blame) or call it Islam, including Hollande himself. Many blame the Israeli conflict with Palestine as a major cause. Europe and it's churches, intellectuals, etc., are more concerned about " islamophobia". Yesterday, 100, 000 marched against islamophobia in Germany, but did not bother with the rally in central Berlin in September against anti-Semitism, despite the fact that the rally was addressed by Merkel and president Gauck. They could only raise 4000, mostly Jews, from all over Germany."

The political will and honesty are simply not there! Germans now see themselves as victims of Hitler, Muslims also now see themselves as victims. Palestinians are victims...everything has been turned on its head...

Still more.

A great piece. And remember, political correctness will be the death of us.

New Class Conflict: Obama-Democrats in Bed with Wall Street Rich?

Joel Kotkin speaks with Glenn Reynolds at Pajamas Media's "InstaVision."

Watch: "Is Obama in Bed with Big Money on Wall Street?":

New Geography's Joel Kotkin talks to Glenn Reynolds about the Obama Administration's love-hate relationship with Wall Street. Kotkin reminds viewers that President Obama has always had a cozy relationship with the financial services industry, notwithstanding his negative rhetoric regarding banks and banking.

And buy Kotkin's book, The New Class Conflict.

Elizabeth Hurley Still Smokin'!

At Celebslam, "Still Freakln' Hot: Liz Hurley Poses for 2015 NBC/Universal Press Tour at the Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena."

Obama Seeks Federal Mandate on Paid Family Sick Leave

He's always mandating something, usually by unconstitutional executive action. So it'll be interesting to see if the GOP stands up against another federal mandate boondoggle.

At the cover of today's business section, at the Los Angeles Times, "Obama pushes paid sick/family leave for workers":

President Obama embarked on an effort Thursday to make paid family leave the new norm in America, using a strategy that garnered him some success last year in increasing the minimum wage for certain workers.

Obama signed an order to give up to six weeks of paid leave to all federal employees when a new child arrives and publicly called on Congress to pass a federal law guaranteeing seven days of paid sick leave for all Americans.

He also announced that Department of Labor money would be made available for states and cities that want to study implementing their own such policies.

Then, after a lunchtime meeting with coffee shop owners and working parents in Baltimore, Obama unveiled a pitch to corporate America: Paid family leave is good for companies' bottom lines.

"When they make that investment in their employees, there's a dividend," Obama told reporters at Charmington's cafe. "They end up being more profitable over the long term."

The president's approach to paid leave draws heavily on his experience over the last year with the minimum wage, a proposal he rolled out in the State of the Union address last January by asking Congress to raise workers' base pay to $10.10 an hour from $7.25. His first steps were to sign an executive order raising the wage for people working on federal contracts and to set off on a speaking tour to plug the idea.

Today, Obama has yet to persuade the Republican-led Congress to hike the wage. But the idea has picked up currency: 17 states and the District of Columbia have raised the requirement to increase the pay of an estimated 7 million workers.

One Obama aide called the momentum "heartening," and the president's team is embracing the strategy as one of the best tools at his disposal as advisors prepare to reuse it for paid leave.

Still, the newest sales pitch faces the same challenges as the one for minimum wage. Republicans scoff at the idea of imposing more costly requirements, especially on small businesses.

Americans already have "great freedom" when it comes to work, said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), noting that workers have latitude to choose a career and negotiate for the benefits that matter most to them. American businesses operate with far fewer restrictions than the rest of the world, he said.

"One more government mandate, however well-intentioned, will only reduce those freedoms, making it harder for employees to find jobs, negotiate for the things they need and open and run businesses," he said.

Sounds good. But time will tell if these congressional RINOS hold the line against Obama's latest bid to cement is bankrupt socialist legacy.

Pamela Geller on Rick Amato Show: 'There Is No Other Choice' But to Defend Freedom and Fight Radical Islam

I was able to log onto Pamela Geller's Atlas Shrugs early this morning as I signed off from the Internet. I tweeted:

.@PamelaGeller's Atlas Shrugs is up and running: http://t.co/HCowAPFQ3J #PamelaGeller

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) January 16, 2015

But the DDoS attacks are continuing and Pamela's blog has been taken down again. She's been putting the word out on social media, and requesting support to keep her work going. Bob Belevedere reports on that at TCOTs, "DDoS ATTACK ALERT: @PamelaGeller Needs Our Help."

And at the end of his interview with Pamela, Rick Amato asks if she worries for her safety amid "this current climate we're in." The question caught Pamela a little by surprise but not without a ready response: "Of course ... but the alternative is laying down and dying, and abridging my freedom..."

Watch: "Pamela Geller on One America News, Rick Amato Show: Jihad, Islam and the West's Denial."

The First-Ever CVS-Receipt Fashion Show

On Jimmy Kimmel Live, "CVS Receipt Fashion Show."

Yeah, this is a thing. From November, at ABC News Los Angeles, "MAN MOCKS RIDICULOUSLY LONG CVS RECEIPTS WITH HILARIOUS COSTUME."

'This transformation into a nanny-state, snitching culture has severe negative long-term repercussions for U.S. society, as well as the economy, if the trend isn't reversed...'

I'm not holding my breath on reversing things anytime soon. Best to just hold ground for now, and fight fire with fire. Make the nanny-state idiots live up to their own standards.

At Zero Hedge, "Maryland Parents Investigated for Neglect After Letting Their Kids Walk Home From School Alone."

More from ABC News, "'Free-Range' Parents Under Investigation for Child Neglect."

Veteran CNN Anchor Jim Clancy Fired After Anti-Semitic Twitter Exchange with Elder of Ziyon Blog

I saw this blowup the other day, and frankly it didn't make much sense. And whatever his differences, getting all anti-Semitic on Twitter certainly wasn't worth the price.

But hey, the establishment folks think they can do whatever they want when dealing with "just a blogger."

At Elder of Ziyon, "Elder gets results! Jim Clancy fired from CNN."

Also at Algemeiner, "Anchor Jim Clancy Leaves CNN Following Abusive Twitter Exchange With Pro-Israel Activists."

More at Twitchy, "‘Wonder if Al-Jazeera is hiring': Jim Clancy out at CNN after nutty anti-Israel tweets."

And at the click through, "Don't drink and tweet." Heh.

Bar Rafaeli Throwback for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit

The new swimsuit edition will be out in a couple of weeks, so Sports Illustrated posted this throwback to commemorate the good times.

F&R Auto Sales Shamefully Forces Pizza Delivery Man to Return Tip, Gets Ripped by Internet

Heh, this is pretty good.

Background at London's Daily Mail, "'The Internet has your back bro': Car dealership cruelly shames pizza delivery man by calling him back and taking away his tip and then posts the video - which backfires spectacularly."

And Jeanne Moos has fun with it at CNN:

How 'American Sniper' Leaped Over 'Selma'

By now you've no doubt heard of the "racist" snub of "Selma" in the Oscars nominations race. Hollywood obviously hasn't overcome.

Here's the headline at the Hollywood Reporter from yesterday, at Memeorandum, "Oscars: Acting Nominees All White."

I'm sure we'll be seeing affirmative action nominees in coming years.

Meanwhile, perhaps "Selma" wasn't that great a movie, with limited demographic appeal. Oh, that's racist! And Paramount Pictures botched its rollout of early-screening DVDs to academy members? Well, you won't be hearing much about that in race-mongering MSM denunciations of the "racist" film industry.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Oscars 2015: How 'American Sniper' leaped over 'Selma'":

"Selma" and "American Sniper" premiered at the AFI Fest on the same November night. Those standing in line outside the Egyptian Theatre for the 9 p.m. "Sniper" showing could hear the ovation from inside when "Selma" ended and the clapping continued long after writer-director Ava DuVernay, actors David Oyelowo and Common, and producers Oprah Winfrey, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner walked onstage for a post-screening Q&A.

It felt like a best picture powerhouse premiered that night. And it did. It just wasn't "Selma."

Clint Eastwood's "American Sniper," a tough-minded portrait of Chris Kyle, the real-life U.S. Navy SEAL who became the most lethal sniper in U.S. military history (160 confirmed kills over four tours in Iraq), received six Oscar nominations Thursday, including nods for picture, actor Bradley Cooper and screenwriter Jason Hall.

"Selma" received a best picture nomination too. But outside of a nomination for its original song, that was it for DuVernay's civil rights drama.

How did "Sniper" elbow its way past "Selma" and into the hearts of academy members? Demographics offer a partial explanation. A 2013 Los Angeles Times survey of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voters found the academy membership to be 93% white, 76% male with an average age of 63. In other words, this is the target audience for an Eastwood war movie, not necessarily the one for a historical drama made by a black woman that shows black people changing the course of American history.

Yes, just last year the academy gave its best picture prize to "12 Years a Slave" and an Oscar to its black director, Steve McQueen. And the academy has been making real attempts to add youth and color to its membership over the past three years, an effort that "will increase," academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs reiterated Thursday morning.

So race may be a part of the story — but perhaps just a small part. "Selma" and "American Sniper" screened unfinished prints at AFI. But Eastwood's crew finished its post-production faster than DuVernay's did, enabling DVD screeners of "Sniper" to be sent to guild members, many of whom are also academy members. Paramount did not order the 150,000 DVDs necessary to blanket the guilds, and it cost "Selma" dearly. These groups vote early and feel entitled to view contending movies from the comfort of their homes. "Sniper" ended up scoring six guild nominations, including from the producers, directors and writers organizations. "Selma" landed only makeup and costumes.

"With the late arrival, they needed to make the DVDs a priority," one veteran awards consultant told me. "They didn't, and it cost them. They didn't have time to build momentum."

There's also the issue of another kind of timing, that of locking in with how American audiences want to feel about themselves — and their country — right now. "Selma" remembered the 1965 voting rights struggles led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and, in doing so, felt contemporary to the nationwide protests over the deaths of unarmed black men killed by white police offers. It's also relevant, as DuVernay has often noted, as recent laws have weakened the Voting Rights Act in many states. These are thorny issues, and they make many people uncomfortable.

DuVernay's movie found itself in the news, not for these reasons but for the accuracy with which it portrayed the relationship between King and President Lyndon B. Johnson. Joseph Califano, a former senior aide to Johnson, wrote a Washington Post op-ed column saying that "Selma was LBJ's idea" (a claim he later backtracked on) and that the movie should be "ruled out ... during the ensuing awards season."...

Still more.

Two Suspects Killed in Belgium Antiterror Raid

I turned on CNN early yesterday afternoon and everyone was all over this story.

Europe's Islamic jihad is totally messed up right now. And European governments are freaking out across the board.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Belgium Antiterror Raid Leaves Two Suspects Dead: Move Disrupts Imminent Terrorist Plot, Belgian Authorities Say":

BRUSSELS — Belgian police killed two people in a firefight on Thursday evening, disrupting what authorities called an imminent terrorist plot just a week after Islamist extremists set Europe on edge with massacres in Paris.

The plot was aimed at attacking the police, authorities said, and involved people who had returned from Syria, possibly fighting alongside terrorist groups there.

The police operations, which resulted in 10 raids, were the product of an investigation that began several weeks ago, before last week’s killings in Paris at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher grocery, authorities said.

“This group was on the verge of committing a terrorist attack in Belgium,” said Thierry Werts, spokesman for the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office.

The authorities raised the nation’s terror alert and said police operations continued Thursday evening. A Belgian police spokesman said extra security measures were being taken. Police wielding machine guns were seen patrolling near Brussels’s main courthouse. The Belgian government convened an emergency meeting to discuss the security situation, officials said.

The raids come as a spate of terror attacks and failed plots linked to Islamist extremists have unsettled the Continent, often fueled by turmoil in the Middle East.

Last May, Belgium was involved in the first terrorist attack believed to have been conducted by a person who fought in Syria, when a Frenchman authorities say fought with Islamic State killed four people at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels.

The firefight on Thursday evening occurred in the eastern Belgian town of Verviers, the authorities said. The police also executed search warrants in Brussels and the Brussels suburb of Halle-Vilvoorde, targeting people who were believed to be involved in the plot.

When the police went to execute the search warrants in Verviers, they were met with automatic gunfire. They also arrested one person after the gunbattle. That person hasn’t been identified. No police were injured, authorities said.

Evidence uncovered later Thursday suggested the plot was sophisticated and ambitious. Belgian media reported that police found explosives in a house they searched in the Anderlecht neighborhood of Brussels, but that the occupants of the house couldn’t be located. Further police searches in a different part of Verviers turned up four Kalashnikovs, bomb-making materials and police clothing, Belgian daily La Libre reported.

Officials declined to discuss whether there was a connection between the plot and Amedy Coulibaly, the French Islamist who killed four people at the kosher grocery last week...

More.

Swiss Franc Moves Set Markets Aquiver

This is interesting.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Swiss Move Roils Global Markets: SNB’s Surprise Scrapping of Euro Cap Triggers Turmoil Among Bonds and Currencies":

ZURICH—Switzerland’s central bank triggered turmoil in the markets Thursday when it unexpectedly scrapped its cap on the Swiss franc’s exchange rate against the euro, a move that unleashed new volatility in credit and currency markets around the world and further underscored growing concerns about global economic prospects.

Against the cloudy backdrop of collapsing oil prices, a sharply rising dollar, fresh doubts about the stability of the euro and mounting global concerns over deflationary pressures, the move by the Swiss authorities was the starkest sign yet of the pressure policy makers face in dealing with unusual financial conditions that threaten the world’s already fragile economic conditions.

Some of the fallout was felt early Friday in Asia as FXCM Inc., the biggest retail foreign exchange broker in Asia and the U.S., said it suffered “significant losses” that wiped out its equity.

The abandonment of the cap, which had essentially pinned the currency at 1.20 francs per euro for the past 3½ years, prompted a collapse of as much as 30% in the euro versus the franc—the biggest single-day move in a developed market traders could recall. Swiss stocks fell 8.7% as traders worried the stronger franc would hurt Switzerland’s exports, especially to Europe.

The currency move was accompanied by further cuts in interest rates by Swiss authorities, pushing some European government bond yields deeper into negative territory.

The Swiss National Bank became the first monetary authority to act ahead of the European Central Bank’s expected launch of a new bond-buying program to boost the currency area’s sagging economic prospects. The reaction shows the ECB’s bond-buying program is having a big impact on markets before it has even launched. ECB President Mario Draghi’s signals in recent months that it was coming have already pushed the euro down substantially. That would also likely be the main goal of bond purchases, since interest rates are already very low in most of Europe.

Jeremy Stein, a former governor of the U.S. Federal Reserve and now a professor at Harvard University, welcomed the likely ECB policy makers’ action next week, saying that while was unclear how it will benefit the eurozone, “they are doing absolutely the right thing.” But the SNB’s move also increases the market glare on the ECB’s action next Thursday, and potentially sets investors up for disappointment if the central bank doesn’t deliver a convincing package to fight off deflation.

Tim Adams, president of the Institute of International Finance, said given the market expectations for the ECB, not acting could spark a market firestorm. “I think markets would be incredibly disappointed if it doesn’t happen,” Mr. Adams, a former U.S. Treasury undersecretary of international affairs, said in a recent interview.

A big package or an open-ended commitment to buy more if needed could have the desired effects: an even weaker euro, a surge in risky asset prices like stocks, lower rates on European corporate bonds. But a small package or an approach that makes the public doubt the ECB’s commitment to follow through could leave investors underwhelmed and might even reverse some of the effects the trumpeting of QE has already created.

While the lower euro does make life harder for the eurozone’s neighbors, most policy makers would prefer a stronger eurozone economy to a weak one...

Basically, the Swiss had established a fixed exchange rate with the Euro in 2009, where it took 1.2 francs to buy a euro. By removing the fixed rate, markets caused the franc to appreciate against the euro by 30 percent, 0.9 francs to the euro. It thus takes more euros to buy francs, and it's more expensive for consumers to buy Swiss goods and for travelers to visit Switzerland (a terrible blow to the Swiss economy). All of this roiled financial markets, as exchange brokerage houses saw their equity balances wiped out.

More at the link.

And see the New YorkTimes, "Franc Soars After Swiss Drop a Cap on Its Value."

Sarah Palin: Obama's 'Being a Chicken' About the #ParisAttacks and Radical Islam

I love her.

Hackers Take Down Pamela Geller's 'Atlas Shrugs'

I just tried to log on to Pamela' site and got a huge error warning.

She's got an update on Twitter here. And via Twitter, the current message at the error page is here.

It's more than a DDoS attack.

Dana Loesch Review of 'American Sniper': 'I felt completely inadequate and in awe of the sacrifice...'

I'd hoped to see the movie tomorrow, but my son needs my van for work. So, I'll be heading out Saturday morning first thing. I can't wait. And according to Dana, it's going to be a transformational experience.

See, "American Sniper: Movie Review And Self Reflection":

Last night I had the distinct pleasure of being invited to the Dallas, Texas premier of one of the rare movies that Hollywood gets right. "American Sniper” is based on the life of Chris Kyle, for those of you who don't know Chris was a Navy SEAL and is known as "Legend" throughout the military world for being the deadliest sniper in US history with over 160 confirmed kills. I predict that because of the truthful, ethical and real way the subject matter was treated that it won't win a single Hollywood award even though technically it is a superior film and Cooper's performance is magnificent. The film follows his life from before his days in the U.S. Navy, through his BUD/S training, meeting his wife Taya, his first deployment to the Middle East shortly after they were married and his time doing his job as a frogman sniper. If you have read the biography you already know much of the film but unless you are a combat veteran you will probably find some of the visceral realness of this movie to be challenging.

I will try not give away any spoilers here as to specific scenes in the film but I will tell you that the movie is not appropriate for children or young teens (I will revisit the review after it has been out a few weeks to discuss scenes and themes). I try not to shield my children from too much, I'd rather use the opportunity to teach them a little about the situations that arise in violent films as long as it is within reason. That being said, my children will not be seeing this film for some time. Unlike most war films, this film depicts a reality in situations that really puts you as close to the painful decisions that you can emotionally get without actually having to do the job. I am struggling to find the words to describe the adrenaline rushes and dumps that Clint Eastwood has perfectly captured and timed in this movie so I will tell you how I felt immediately afterwards.

I felt completely inadequate and in awe of the sacrifice...

Keep reading.