Shirley Anne from the Canadian Coalition Against Terror (C-CAT) has created a parliamentary petition to keep Iran listed as a State Supporter of Terrorism.
In an email to Canadians Anne notes:
Many Canadians have lost family and friends to Iranian-sponsored terrorism. Please click here to sign the petition.
NOTE: When typing your phone #, NO spaces!
Any Canadian citizen or permanent resident, regardless of age, can sign. After signing you will get an email from parliament requesting that you confirm your support for the petition.
Please don’t forget this crucial 2nd step – go back to your inbox and wait for the email to confirm your support.
/s/ Shirley Anne
P.S. I also think it would make a big impression if everyone wrote directly to their MP on this topic as well…let me know if you do!
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/muslim-terrorists.jpg388640Shabnam Assadollahihttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngShabnam Assadollahi2016-04-15 06:13:112016-04-15 08:54:47Canada: Parliamentary Petition to keep Iran listed as a State Sponsor of Terrorism
WASHINGTON, D.C. /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) today released a new video that examines an outspoken radical Islamist adviser to the campaign of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
Titled “Bernie Sanders’ Bad Adviser,” the video examines the past statements and actions of Linda Sarsour, executive director of the Arab American Association of New York.
She describes supporters of Israel as inherently racist and creepy, defends the Islamist terror hegemon Hamas as a legitimate political force and accuses advocates for the Jewish people as being white supremacists.
Sanders featured Sarsour her in a recent speech for a political rally in Wisconsin and in a new campaign advertisement.
The following is a transcript of the IPT video:
Title: Bernie Sanders’ Bad Adviser
In an April 1stNew York Daily News interview, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders grossly exaggerated the number of Palestinian casualties during the 2014 Gaza war.
Sanders: Anybody have – help me out here because I don’t remember the figures, but my recollection is over 10,000 innocent people were killed in Gaza. That sound right?
NYDN: I think it’s probably high, but…
Sanders: I don’t have it in my head, but I think it’s over 10,000.
Text
Sanders’ estimate of 10,000 innocent casualties is seven times higher than the Hamas estimate adopted by the United Nations.
And it makes no reference to Hamas fighters killed by the Israel Defense Forces after firing rockets from schools, hospitals and other densely populated areas, who were tallied as civilians.
It isn’t clear where Sanders may have heard such an erroneous estimate.
But among his key surrogates is a stridently anti-Israel activist.
Someone who sees Zionists – people who support the existence of a Jewish state – as inherently racist and creepy.
Despite her hateful rhetoric, Linda Sarsour, executive director of the Arab American Association of New York, is taking on an increasingly higher profile within the Sanders campaign
When Sanders needed someone to introduce him at an April 3 rally just before Wisconsin’s hotly-contested primary, he chose Linda Sarsour.
Linda Sarsour: See, I’m a person of faith. And not everybody believes in God and that’s cool. I do. And what that means is, when I go to the polls, I’m making a moral choice. And the only moral choice you have if you are a person that believes in a higher being, is to walk into that polls and proudly vote for Sen. Bernie Sanders. 2:36 (cheers follow)
Sanders: Let me thank Linda, except that she gave about three-quarters of my speech.
In 2014, between labeling Zionism as creepy and her Sanders advocacy, Sarsour pushed a false story. She said that the terrorist group Hamas no longer called for Israel’s annihilation. While she said she wasn’t defending Hamas, she made it seem like a responsible party which should have a seat at future peace talks:
Sarsour: So I’m obviously no expert on Hamas and on their charter, but what I do understand is that their point of contention is that Hamas has in their charter that it will not recognize the state of Israel. And people will say, how do we then acknowledge a Palestinian state or Hamas if they don’t recognize the existence of the state of Israel? My understanding is that in 2006 they moved away from that position as they were getting ready for elections that they obviously won.
Text
Sanders would be well advised not to listen to Sarsour on this one.
In 2012, Khaled Meshaal, the top Hamas political leader, gave a speech saying the exact opposite of what Sarsour claims.
Meshaal: “First of all, Palestine – from the (Jordan) River to the (Mediterranean) Sea, from its north to its south – is our right and our homeland. There will be no relinquishing or forsaking even an inch or small part of it,” Meshaal said in a December 2012 speech carried on Al-Aqsa TV.
Text
In a speech during the “Million Man March” in Washington last October, Sarsour called supporters of Israel white supremacists.
Sarsour: We are one, sisters and brothers, and our liberation is bound up together. The same people who justify the massacres of Palestinian people and call it collateral damage are the same people who justify the murder of black young men and women. //That common enemy, sisters and brothers, is white supremacy. Let’s call it what it is. 1:13
Text
Inflammatory rhetoric isn’t new for Sarsour.
After Islamist terrorists massacred the editorial staff at the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo, Sarsour was a featured speaker at a banquet at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
CAIR is a radical Islamist group that was designated as an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest Hamas money laundering case in US history.
At this banquet, Sarsour adamantly refused to stand with the slaughtered cartoonists because she accused them of “vilifying” Islam.
Sarsour: “I am absolutely not Charlie. I am absolutely not going to say Je suis Charlie. [Applause.] Because Charlie Hebdo chose to use his publication to vilify my faith, dehumanize my community, demoralize my prophet, and I absolutely will say you can have freedom of speech and I have the freedom to call you a bigot and a racist. This [applause over several words]. No I am not Je suis Charlie.
Text
Charlie Hebdo mocked all major religions. It was considered to be harsher on Christianity than any other, but for mocking Islam, Sarsour condemned terrorist victims as bigots and racists.
Sarsour leapt to similar, baseless conclusions in 2012, after a Muslim woman was found beaten and dying in her San Diego area home.
A note found near her made it seem like she was targeted because she wore a hijab.
Likening the case to the killing of Florida teen Trayvon Martin, Sarsour took to CNN.com to proclaim Shaima Alawadi the victim of a hate crime.
Pullout
“In America, terrorism has become synonymous with Arabs and Muslims. We see that clearly stated in the note left next to Alawadi.”
Text
But the note that Sarsour mentioned turned out to be a forgery by Alawadi’s husband who was convicted of her murder.
Sarsour hasn’t had much to say about that.
Despite a record of angry rhetoric and hate toward Israel and its supporters, Sarsour’s profile in the Sanders campaign continues to grow.
She is featured prominently in his latest campaign ad:
Sarsour: Bernie Sanders sees all of me, he sees all of you, he sees us as a whole people, a whole country. That’s why I’m voting for Bernie Sanders.
Sanders: I’m Bernie Sanders, and I approved this message.
This past weekend, the Economist uploaded a short video to its Facebook page called, “The year of the 1 percent.” The video shows a graph superimposed over the Earth seen from space, while a voice narrates, “2016 is set to be a more unequal world than ever before. For the first time, the richest 1 percent of the population will enjoy a greater share of global wealth than the other 99 percent.”
The Economist’s graph reminded me of another graph, which also shows two lines that eventually cross but tells a very different story. Despite population growth, there are fewer people living in extreme poverty today than ever before:
How can both graphs be accurate? Poverty can decline even as inequality rises, as long as the total amount of wealth in the world is growing.
To ignore this is to fall prey to the “fixed pie fallacy.” Throughout most of human history, global wealth hardly changed. But thanks to trade and industrialization, wealth has skyrocketed, especially since the 1900s, and continues to climb.
At the same time, technological advances have also increased human wellbeing in ways not captured by looking at GDP alone.
Because the pie is growing, focusing solely on inequality, like the Economist’s video does, makes little sense. Most of us would rather have a relatively small slice of a gigantic pie than the biggest slice of a microscopic pie.
In other words, most of us would rather be wealthier in absolute terms, regardless of our relative position. This is why many of us, if given the choice, would choose to be an ordinary person today, instead of a member of the upper crust a century ago or a 17th century king.
Chelsea German works at the Cato Institute as a Researcher and Managing Editor of HumanProgress.org.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/globe-wealth-graphic-forturn-magazine-fee-e1460658482268.jpg299640Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2016-04-14 14:29:572016-04-14 14:56:102016 Is the Year of Inequality – And Prosperity by Chelsea German
Free Speech Is about the Power to Challenge the Status Quo!
Free speech is the great equalizer in our society. It doesn’t matter about your race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, class — you get the point — the First Amendment protects your right to speak freely. Despite this, some student activists — perceiving unequal social conditions, including at institutions of higher education — are fighting for social change at the expense of free speech. The sad irony, however, is that free speech only becomes privileged when it’s restricted, which is why free speech must remain a right equally applicable to all.
To understand why, consider Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s commencement speech at Wellesley College in 2015. In it, she said, “You, because of your beautiful Wellesley degree, have become privileged, no matter your background.” But, she added, “Sometimes you will need to push [this privilege] aside in order to see clearly,” because “privilege blinds” you to those who are different.
Students calling for speech restrictions are particularly blinded by their privilege, which leaves them unable to see the unjust privilege that restricting speech would further confer upon them. This is dangerous and counterproductive to their cause.
Restricting Speech Is an Unjust Privilege
First, to support restrictions on certain kinds of speech, activists must have (or at least project) unwavering confidence in both themselves and the system in which they are operating — the university in this case — to discern what’s offensive. Even if they see gray areas in expression, they are forced to present issues in absolutist terms if they are to have the perceived moral authority to police and punish those who offend.
Turning again to Adichie’s speech, we can see why this is wrong. As she said, “I knew from … the class privilege I had of growing up in an educated family, that it sometimes blinded me, that I was not always as alert to the nuances of people who were different from me.”
Sometimes, people are genuinely racist (though what’s considered racist varies widely from place to place) and their speech is identifiable as such. But what about the student who isn’t aware of the offense he or she may cause by wearing a sombrero at a party, which some consider cultural appropriation? How about the student who is aware but disagrees that it’s offensive? Should he or she be censored and punished based upon some activists’ standards of right and wrong? Different people have different experiences and different views. Because of this, nuance matters.
Second, while it can be tempting to argue that free speech maintains inequality because it protects offensive speech, this argument fails to distinguish between people and their views. That is, when you censor people — even for offensive speech — you are denying them equal access to, and protection of, the First Amendment and you are doing so from a position of privilege. The right to free speech gives everyone an equal right to voice his or her opinions — but it does not mean that such opinions will win or even register in any given forum.
Restrictions on free speech, on the other hand, make both people and ideas unequal by subjugating them to someone else’s understanding of what’s right and therefore allowable. Indeed, to assume one’s views are so infallible as to warrant imposition on others and to assume there is no legitimate debate left to be had on certain topics — and the language used in discussing those topics — is a privilege that oppresses not only the hated racist, but the honest dissenter and everyone in between.
Lastly, some students claim that free speech is about power — that it enables and sustains privilege for some but not all. Let’s be clear: free speech is about power. It’s about having the power to challenge the status quo, question society’s deeply held beliefs, and call others to task. But free speech only becomes privileged when it’s restricted.
Understanding the Would-Be Censors
Of course words can have consequences. (If they couldn’t, nobody would bother speaking.) It would be hypocritical to argue that offensive speech will never cause harm, at least to feelings or interests, while also maintaining that speech is so vital it requires robust protection. One could also argue that the marketplace of ideas — like all markets — has negative externalities. The most evident, as campus activists assert, is that offensive speech is protected and those it’s directed at — typically thought to be minorities — are disproportionately burdened by it.
Moreover, restricting or punishing speech provides instant gratification. It’s an immediate and swift response to views one finds abhorrent. It gives the impression that justice has been served. For those who believe society is stacked against them, it’s a small beacon of hope. Restricting speech, then, isn’t seen as infringing upon someone else’s liberty, but rather righting a wrong. The emotional appeal is understandably strong.
But this is not right.
A Just Alternative
The best way to counter hateful, offensive speech is with more speech. Think of it this way: restricting speech treats the symptoms of bigotry by making its manifestations less visible. Conversely, more speech acts as a cure by attacking the underlying disease. The former method may seem effective in the short term, but it’s dangerous in the long run.
As FIRE President and CEO Greg Lukianoff has argued, when offensive speech is banned, it drives those with potentially dangerous views (however determined) underground, making them harder to identify, while also potentially making them more extreme. It also gives a false sense of social progress. And who ultimately pays the price? The people the bans were meant to help, when it turns out society wasn’t as friendly as they believed.
Countering hateful speech with more speech is not seamless. It’s hard work, and it’s not instant. It doesn’t guarantee the flushing of all bigoted and hateful opinions from society, and it often works slowly. Nevertheless, it is the only method that is both just and that makes progress last. Engaging with people who express views different from one’s own moves beyond the superficial to challenge core beliefs, assumptions, and biases — and can help a person identify and recognize his or her own. Consider the case of Megan and Grace Phelps, granddaughters of the pastor who founded the Westboro Baptist Church. After interacting with a Jewish man by email and on Twitter, the sisters decided their views were wrong and decided to leave the WBC, which also meant being excommunicated by their family.
The marketplace of ideas won’t always work this way, and not everyone is destined to see the light. But restricting speech is a privileged response that neither makes society more equal nor has any tangible benefit other than providing a false sense of justice, which, in the long term, only fuels underlying problems. We cannot afford to be blind to this reality.
None of this should be construed as a plea to accept the status quo or to disengage. Rather, it’s a call for college students who support restricting speech to recognize their own privilege. Education is a gift, and college students should use the privilege it confers to advocate for change. But this means realizing free speech is not the enemy of progress, and that restricting it will not make society more equal. To do otherwise — to restrict and punish speech — is to be so willfully blind to privilege as to become the oppressors.
Chris Marchese is a communications assistant at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
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“I think it is only because capitalism has proved so enormously more efficient than alternative methods that is has survived at all,” Milton Friedman told economist Randall E. Parker for Parker’s 2002 book, Reflections on the Great Depression.
But I think innovation, not efficiency, is capitalism’s greatest strength. I’m not saying that the free market can’t be both efficient and innovative, but it does offer people a strong incentive to abandon the pursuit of efficiency in favor of innovation.
What Is Efficiency?
In its simplest form, economic efficiency is about given ends and given means. Economic efficiency requires that you know what end, among all possible ends, is the most worthwhile for you to pursue and what means to use, among all available means, to attain that end. You’re being efficient when you’re getting the highest possible benefit from an activity at the lowest possible cost. That’s a pretty heavy requirement.
Being inefficient, then, implies that for a given end, the benefit you get from that end is less than the cost of the means you use to achieve it. Or, as my great professor, Israel Kirzner, puts it, If you want to go uptown, don’t take the downtown train.
What Is Innovation?
Innovation means doing something significantly novel. It could be doing an existing process in a brand new way, such as being the first to use a GPS tracking system in your fleet of taxis. Or, innovation could mean doing something that no one has ever done before, such as using smartphone technology to match car owners with spare time to carless people who need to get somewhere in a hurry, à la Uber.
Innovation, unlike efficiency, entails discovering novel means to achieve a given end, or discovering an entirely new end. And unlike efficiency, in which you already know about all possible ends and means, innovation takes place onlywhen you lack knowledge of all means, all ends, or both.
Sometimes we mistakenly say someone is efficient when she discovers a new way to get from home to work. But that’s not efficiency; that’s innovation. And a person who copies her in order to reduce his commute time is not an innovator — but he is being efficient. The difference hinges on whether you’re creating new knowledge.
Where’s the Conflict?
Starting a business that hasn’t been tried before involves a lot of trial and error. Most of the time the trials, no matter how well thought out, turn out to contain errors. The errors may lie in the means you use or in the particular end you’re pursuing.
In most cases, it takes quite a few trials and many, many errors before you hit on an outcome that has a high enough value and low enough costs to make the enterprise profitable.) Is that process of trial and error, of experimentation, an example of economic efficiency? It is not.
If you begin with an accurate idea both of the value of an end and of all the possible ways of achieving that end, then you don’t need to experiment. Spending resources on trial and error would be wasteful. It’s then a matter of execution, which isn’t easy, but the real heavy lifting in the market process, both from the suppliers’ and the consumers’ sides, is done by trying out new things — and often failing.
Experimentation is messy and apparently wasteful, whether in science or in business. You do it precisely because you’re not sure how to answer a particular question, or because you’re not even sure what the right question is. There are so many failures. But in a world where our knowledge is imperfect, which is the world we actually live in, most of what we have to do in everyday life is to innovate — to discover things we didn’t know we didn’t know — rather than trying to be efficient. Being willing to suffer failure is the only way to make discoveries and to introduce innovations into the world.
Strictly speaking, then, if you want to innovate, being messy is unavoidable, and messiness is not efficient. Yet, if you want to increase efficiency, you can’t be messy. Innovation and efficiency usually trade off for each other because if you’re focused on doing the same thing better and better, you’re taking time and energy away from trying to do something new.
Dynamic Efficiency?
Some have tried to describe this process of innovation as “dynamic efficiency.” It may be quibbling over words, but I think trying to salvage the concept of efficiency in this way confuses more than it clarifies. To combine efficiency and innovation is to misunderstand the essential meanings of those words.
What would it mean to innovate efficiently? I suppose it would mean something like “innovating at least cost.” But how is it possible to know, before you’ve actually created a successful innovation, whether you’ve done it at least cost? You might look back and say, “Gee, I wouldn’t have run experiments A, B, and C if only I’d known that D would give me the answer!” But the only way to know that D is the right answer is to first discover, through experimentation and failure, that A, B, and C are the wrong answers.
Both efficiency and innovation best take place in a free market. But the greatest rewards to buyers and sellers come not from efficiency, but from innovation.
Sandy Ikeda is a professor of economics at Purchase College, SUNY, and the author of The Dynamics of the Mixed Economy: Toward a Theory of Interventionism. He is a member of the FEE Faculty Network.
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When Trump mentioned Bausch & Lomb and Kodak, I was reminded about seeing the adults in the neighborhood leave early in the mornings and come home from these workplaces, as well as factories like Bond’s, Hickey-Freeman, and Rochester Products. Most of these have either closed or downsized; workers in foreign countries now do the jobs my parents and relatives did. The neighborhood I grew up in began its downward slide with the 1964 riots. With the loss of manufacturing jobs, working class families fled not only the neighborhoods but Rochester itself. In my old “14621” neighborhood, the modest houses with neatly kept yards now feature trash and boarded-up windows.
Full Speech: Donald Trump Rally in Rochester, New York:
I had some apprehension about going to the Donald Trump rally in Rochester, New York, on Sunday, April 10, after seeing the footage of the violence at the March 11 rally in Chicago.
Even before entrapped Trump supporters had gotten beyond George Soros-supported thugs blocking their way out of the University of Illinois at Chicago arena, and before they could fix their smashed car windows enough to drive home, all three of the other remaining candidates—Marco Rubio, John Kasich, and Ted Cruz—weighed in. The New York Times reported that while all three “condemned the disruptions,” they claimed that Trump was responsible for the “tenor.” Cruz said that Trump “affirmatively encourages violence.” Kasich said Trump created a “toxic environment.” Rubio waffled, but implied that Trump’s language was in part responsible for the violence.
Since then, media outlets bent on eliminating Trump have ramped up their “discourse” against not only Trump but his supporters. Libertarians have called them “cultists” in “thrall to a vicious culture,” corrupted by a “‘sense of entitlement.’” Their communities, devastated by the loss of their industries, “deserve to die,” wrote Kevin Williamson. Weepy Mormon convert Glenn Beck, who has laid hands on Cruz as an anointed leader, proclaimed that “no real Christian” would vote for Trump. Attitudes have ranged from pity to contempt.
Videos of a 78-year-old man who punched a protester giving the finger and an African American Air Force sergeant hitting a long-haired ne’er do well have been played over and over, as have a couple of Trump’s off-hand comments.
So, I wondered if the billionaire from Queens would say anything that would lead to fisticuffs.
I did not see that and I was relieved.
The media did not see that and was disappointed.
The day of the rally was one of those cold and dreary spring days that I remembered from growing up in Rochester, when I insisted on walking through the snow to Easter mass in my patent leather shoes.
I drove past the hangar on Scottsville Road at around 11:15 a.m. and saw about 150 people lined up. Doors opened at noon and Trump was scheduled to speak at 3:00. I had driven in from Clinton, so I went to get some lunch at the Dunkin Donuts down the road. When I got to the hangar about an hour later, it was almost full.
Yes, there were a lot of white men, many of them wearing attire indicating they were military veterans. A lot of them looked like they could be off-duty policemen. There were quite a few college-age people, among them Asian men who looked like they could have been attending the Rochester Institute of Technology down the road. Some of the guys wore jackets emblazoned with the names of motorcycle clubs. One 40-ish woman in front of me displayed tattoos on her hands that crept up under her winter coat. Two men in front of me were discussing the price of ammunition at Wal-Mart. Standing next to me was a black couple who looked like they had just left church with their two boys, around seven and ten. Everyone stood shoulder-to-shoulder on the concrete floor of an airplane hangar for over two hours to hear Trump. The mood was upbeat. The father next to me entertained his younger son with a hand game. A guy in the front was waving around a paperback copy of one of Trump’s books to the beat of the music.
In spite of the freezing temperature, the cavernous hangar was heating up with all the people, and doors opened about an hour after I got there. A short time later the top hatch of an old military plane opened up and Trump volunteer coordinator Carl Paladino hoisted up an American flag and an Airborne flag. The crowd erupted in cheers of “USA, USA!”
When Paladino came to the podium later and began with “God bless America,” the crowd again cheered. He talked about how people in Washington want to control the media, how “unbelievable” it was that they would discuss a brokered convention, using arcane rules. “How can people be so out of touch with reality?” he asked and followed with references to Obama’s disregard of the rules and the Constitution. A few shouts erupted from protestors embedded on the fringes. From my place in the middle of the crowd I could not hear their words but learned later that they were laced with profanity. These pathetic yells were drowned out by “USA! USA!”
Paladino continued, saying that the American people are tired of “wimps,” “appeasers,” and “apologists,” alluding to Paul Ryan, John Boehner, and Barack Obama. He talked about veterans getting “the respect they deserve” by requiring that all those in the government use a VA card. He attacked New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s restrictive gun laws (the S.A.F.E. Act) and his misuse of Hurricane Sandy relief funds intended to help the “little guy,” for an advertising campaign that helped him in the election. When he said, “build the wall,” a cheer went out. He ended by saying, “God bless America and God bless Donald Trump on his adventure.”
Pastor Mark Burns then used his oratorical skills to denounce Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton (who he said belongs in jail, echoing some of the slogans on t-shirts in the crowd), Obama (blaming him for the San Bernardino attack), “Lying Ted,” special interests, the media, GOP puppets like Romney and Rubio, and the slur against “New York values” from Ted Cruz. He talked about how hard New York has been hit by lost manufacturing jobs and fighting back “harder.”
He also attacked the racial divisiveness encouraged by Obama and Clinton. “Declare to the world,” he intoned, “all lives matter. A-a-ll lives matter. There are no white people. There are no black people. The only colors that matter are red, white, and blue.” He was right about the media misrepresentation. One headline indicated that he had claimed that “black people don’t exist” Donald Trump, he said, was watching the crowd on TV.
When Trump came on, and began, “Let’s talk about Rochester,” the crowd was ready. The points were familiar to those who follow this election, and they primarily involved economic issues and safety. He addressed fracking, the budget deficit, the Iran deal, Common Core, and the Second Amendment. He sounded the familiar themes about NAFTA, Asian currency, China, and the lost science and manufacturing jobs. In Rochester, 4,000 jobs have been lost in six months. Bausch and Lomb has moved out and Xerox is outsourcing. Trump promised that SentrySafe, which is moving manufacturing to Mexico, would face a stiff tariff when it tried to sell its products here. He promised large tax cuts for the “most forgotten,” the middle class, ending TPP and the need for smart negotiators in free trade. “I love free trade,” he said, but “we lose to China, Mexico, Canada. . . everybody.” Trump presents himself as a skilled deal-maker and called not only Kerry and Obama “incompetent” but also the Republicans elected to Congress in 2010 who voted for the Omnibus bill that funds illegal aliens, Obamacare, and refugees. Boehner “gave away all the cards,” when he said “‘we will not shut down’” Washington, Trump charged.
Trump segued into the dishonesty of the press, blasting the New York Times, the Washington Post, and especially the Boston Globe for its fake apocalyptic front page about a Trump presidency and for those who misleadingly report in empty arenas after rallies. Pointing to the press area on the platform in the back, he said, “Look who I brought to Rochester. Turn around.”
The crowd did. Some shook fists; a few held up middle fingers.
Trump speaks in an associative style and his slam of the press included the selection of German chancellor Angela Merkel as Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, which led him to charge that “We are the world’s policemen,” and then to ask, “Who are better than our policemen?” In response to cheers, he said, “I love these people.” He used the word “love” several times.
He talked about a rigged and “crooked system.” In a point of commonality, Trump and Bernie Sanders have energized both parties, bringing in record numbers of primary voters. This has not translated into delegates all the time (as happened to Trump in Louisiana). It’s supposed to be “You vote and the vote means something,” Trump asserted.
While he brags, Trump speaks to the forgotten middle class, the wage earners, those who believe in “America first,” a phrase he uses. Noting that people on buses had to be turned away, he apologized to the people in the buses, but promised “I’ll come back.” He apologized for not being able to seat us. Noting the positive mood he said these are the safest rallies. “Our people protect each other. We have to love one another.”
Commenting on the safety in the rallies, he predicted that the headlines would be about protestors.
Oddly, even his braggadocio has an element of sincerity. When he started talking about immigration on June 16, it “hit a button,” and now Ted Cruz is talking about building a wall, he said. He said he wrote about Osama bin Laden in his book, The America We Deserve, published in 2000. He implied that we would still have the World Trade Center towers had others heeded his warnings.
He said that when Obama announced the withdrawal from Iraq, the “enemy said he can’t be that stupid. But he adhered to the date,” and now Iran is taking over Iraq and Yemen. They want Saudi Arabia.
The middle class or former middle class has been beaten down by the Obama administration in the last seven years, and has certainly not found champions in the Republicans they elected to Congress. No one has talked about “winning” like Trump has.
He called his campaign “a movement,” but “not a movement of hate. It’s a movement of love.” While such words may come off as odd in print or in a sound bite, at the rally they came off as sincere and spontaneous.
The mood carried over even as our exit was delayed by a long jam at the exit as buses loaded up. But even after standing on their feet for several hours, no one got testy.
The two dozen protestors on the other side of the road, with signs telling us, “bigots go home,” looked like a miserable, hateful bunch in contrast.
I walked alongside the road back to my car and passed a young WROC reporter who intoned about the protestors and “clashes.” I heard him say, “As far as we know, there have been no arrests, yet.” A story on WHEC began, “Thousands of people gathered outside the Trump rally at Rochester International Airport, many of them protestors.” The story focused on a few dozen misfits among tens of thousands and quoted their allegations that Trump supporters screamed at them and tried to start fights. I saw nothing of the sort. Trump was right about that.
Reporters had come looking for a certain story, the story of Trump opponents. I saw the same narrative play out with tea party rallies, where ordinary citizens enjoyed patriotic music and speeches with their families, and police officers and sanitation workers enjoyed easy days.
The only anger at the Trump rally was directed at the media.
After spending the night at my aunt’s house, I left Rochester the following morning. In my car, I listened to WHAM’s Bob Lonsberry Show. Callers were still in the afterglow of the rally. Todd Baxter, former chief of police for suburban Greece, said he had attended and recognized about 30 off-duty police officers in the crowd. Another caller said he liked Trump’s positions on ending Common Core and Obamacare.
These are things that the other Republican candidates have talked about, and with more elegance. Cruz, especially, seems to have a grasp on the issues from a Constitutional perspective. But for me, his statements have been ringing hollow since his comments about the aborted Chicago rally.
I also recognized the something missing about the other candidates in another part of the radio caller’s comments. He noted that Trump mentioned Rochester “four times. Four times!”
I think it was more than that.
I remembered a man striking up a conversation with me as I had walked into the hangar, towards security. The man said he voted Republican but had gone to Hillary Clinton’s rally and wanted to go to all the rallies in the area. “The candidates usually ignore us,” he said. After we passed through security I lost him in the crowd of 7,000. But when the radio caller spoke with feeling about how Trump had repeated the name “Rochester” I was reminded.
When Trump mentioned Bausch & Lomb and Kodak, I was reminded about seeing the adults in the neighborhood leave early in the mornings and come home from these workplaces, as well as factories like Bond’s, Hickey-Freeman, and Rochester Products. Most of these have either closed or downsized; workers in foreign countries now do the jobs my parents and relatives did. The neighborhood I grew up in began its downward slide with the 1964 riots. As was common then, rioting was attributed to bad “social conditions.” But lax law-and-order and increased welfare spending only encouraged the troublemakers. With the loss of manufacturing jobs, working class families fled not only the neighborhoods but Rochester itself. In my old “14621” neighborhood, the modest houses with neatly kept yards now feature trash and boarded-up windows.
Kevin Williamson in a particularly vicious article about the disaffected white middle class asserts that such neighborhoods and towns “deserve to die.” I and tens of thousands of Trump supporters in Rochester disagree.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image of Donald Trump in Rochester, New York is courtesy of ABC News.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/trump-rally-rodchester-new-york-e1460650556233.jpg360640Dr. Mary Grabarhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Mary Grabar2016-04-14 12:17:282016-04-14 12:18:11At the Donald Trump Rally: ‘Let’s talk about Rochester’
Three Assyrian Christian organizations—the American Mesopotamian Organization, the Middle East Christian Committee and the Assyrian Genocide and Research Center are calling it a “historic opportunity to strike a blow against one of the Middle East’s oldest and most vicious organizations—the Muslim Brotherhood.”
Coptic Solidarity is also rallying its supporters behind the bill. Its president, Alex Shalaby, said, “Coptic Solidarity calls on all who support civil rights, democracy, and religious freedom to take action on this campaign. A terrorist designation against the Muslim Brotherhood is not just a Coptic issue, but one that affects the welfare of all Egyptians.”
The group’s statement also said that the Muslim Brotherhood “is the head of several subsidiary terrorist organizations in the Middle East, Europe and North America.”
As the Clarion Project has repeatedly documented, the Brotherhood and its supporters have instigated, allowed and participated in the persecution of Egyptian Coptic Christians.
The Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act mentions how over 70 churches and 1,000 Coptic homes and businesses were set on fire by Brotherhood supporters after the Egyptian government cracked down on the Islamist protests in 2013. The evidence shows that the Brotherhood planned for the protests to become violent even though an Egyptian government review admitted that its security forces responded to the provocations and attacks inappropriately.
The legislation also says the Brotherhood has engaged in “direct incitement” through its social media outlets and statements from its officials. It cites the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s report in 2013 that said, “Coptic Christians face ongoing violence from vigilante Muslim extremists, including members of the Muslim Brotherhood, many of whom act with impunity.”
You can quickly tell your representatives to support the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act by clicking right here.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/Muslim-Brotherhood-Terrorist-Designation-Act.jpg386638Clarion Projecthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngClarion Project2016-04-14 11:01:232016-04-14 12:05:01Persecuted Christians Support Muslim Brotherhood Terror Act
It’s time for the U.S. to ask itself: Why are Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds worthy of our direct material aid but the Christians are not?
The Christians of Iraq and Syria have had a breathtaking commitment to passivity since being victimized by what we all now finally agree qualifies as a genocide.
Now, the Christians are increasingly organizing to defend themselves—and the West should stand by them instead of outsourcing our moral responsibility to the Iraqis and their Iranian partners and various groups with questionable track records.
It’s easy to say that the U.S. should pressure the Iraqi government to protect the Christians, but its track record and these poll results do not inspire hope that it’ll work. The pace of the genocide is such that the Christians and those who care for them simply cannot afford to spend time hoping for the best.
A Christian force known as the Babylon Brigade has been incorporated into the Popular Mobilization Units, an assortment of militias led by the Iraqi government and their partners from the Iranian regime and Hezbollah. The Babylon Brigades and their supporters boast of their nationalism, having battled the Islamic State in non-Christian areas like Ramadi and Tikrit.
However, it numbers only 500 to 1,000 The Iraqi government should be applauded for supporting a Christian unit, but don’t mistake this for an Iraqi commitment to a Christian self-defense force that enables the community to have a say over whether it goes extinct or not.
Current U.S. policy still gambles their survival on the chance that the Iraqi government tied to Iran will protect them, particularly when the U.N. says Christian persecution in Iran has reached unprecedented levels.
The Kurds are allies of the U.S. but, when it comes to protecting Christians, they have been far from ideal. The Iraqi and Syrian Christians have plenty of stories of mistreatment at the hands of the Kurds.
The growth of a number of Christian self-defense forces in Iraq and Syria show potential for what could happen if they receive outside support.
There’s the Nineveh Plain Protection Units in northern Iraq under the helm of the Assyrian Democratic Movement of Iraq, which has a branch in northeastern Syria named the Gozarto Protection Forces. They are backed by the Middle East Christian Committee. The secretary-general of the Assyrian Democratic Movement claims that proper support would quickly grow the NPU’s numbers to 5,000.
Another small force is called Dwekh Nawsha, which is linked to the Assyrian Patriotic Party and has gotten attention because of Westerners joining their ranks. One of their advisers warned in November, “All we’re saying is we’re done. We don’t have equipment. We don’t have the weapons. We don’t have the training,” as he pleaded for U.S. backing.
In Syria, there is the Syriac Military Council, estimated to be about 2,000-strong including a Christian female unit. It belongs to a Kurdish-majority coalition known as the Syrian Democratic Forces. There is also a local Christian defense force near the Khabur River called the Khabur Guards.
A Christian police force that is favorable towards the Assad regimeclashed with Kurdish forces in Qamishli, Syria. Sources close to the situation there emphasize that the Christians who embrace Assad are motivated by a fear of Islamist rebels, not because of any affinity for dictatorship or the regime’s brutality.
It would be a mistake to dismiss the viability of Christian self-defense forces because of their current sizes and capabilities. Unlike the Iraqi and Syrian militias and rebels, the Christians have had to rely only upon themselves for survival. They don’t have a state sponsor like Saudi Arabia, Qatar or Iran to build them up.
The U.S. has provided material support to Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, despite records of human rights abuses, Islamism and ties to terrorists and enemy regimes. The Christians are reliable foes of Islamic extremism who, despite all they have suffered, have never formed a sectarian militia to exact bloody revenge.
It’s time for the U.S. to ask itself: Why are Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds worthy of our direct material aid but the Christians are not? Why do they deserve a chance to stop the murder, raping and torturing of their people, but the Christians do not and are left facing extinction if trends continue?
Wow! People across the heartland of America are beginning to understand what is happening to them!
This is a must-watch video of a local TV news reporter exposing the Partnership for a New American Economy’s joint effort with Open Borders activists like Welcoming America and the U.S. Refugee Admissions Programto make sure a steady supply of cheap labor is distributed to your towns and cities.
Also exposed is a classic and pernicious campaign that is underway to manipulate public opinion!
Also exposed is a classic and pernicious campaign that is underway to manipulate public opinion!For background see our post from January (at American Resistance 2016) about Rupert Murdoch and his rich elitist pals at the Partnership for a New American Economy.
And, then see our post just last week here at Refugee Resettlement Watch about the selection of the 20 cities where citizens are going to get the full-court propaganda press to “welcome” their replacement population.
See also Leo Hohmann’s more detailed report on what these big-wigs have planned for 20 cities. Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch is the leader of a propaganda campaign in Fargo, ND (among other unsuspecting cities). This is what I said at WND:
“They want to manipulate the minds of the community and get Americans to believe mass immigration is going to be good for them, that they’re all going to benefit from the influx of more and more migrants,” said Ann Corcoran, author of the Refugee Resettlement Watch blog. “It’s a mind game to soften up the receiving communities.”
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/stature-of-liberty.jpg363640Ann Corcoranhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngAnn Corcoran2016-04-14 08:01:432016-04-14 11:10:46VIDEO: The American Heartland is Waking Up and Beginning to Understand
Brian Lilley digs into a Journal de Montreal story about how Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has used numbered companies to hide his wealth. This isn’t a surprise but considering how he casts aspersions on others, isn’t it incumbent on him to be honest with Canadians?
Lilly reports:
Remember during the election when Justin sat down with his friend Peter Mansbridge for that friendly tête-à-tête during which Trudeau revealed that he thought many small businesses were just shell companies set up to avoid taxes?
Peter and the CBC let that comment slide but we didn’t because it seemed obvious that it revealed something about Trudeau himself. For one, how out of touch he was with regular hard working Canadians and for another, perhaps it said something about his own experiences with tax avoidance?
This should surprise no one but it turns out Justin was speaking from personal experience and certainly knows what he’s talking about at least for himself and his brother who had several numbered companies set up for them, allowing them to defer taxes for a very long time.
Despite repeated claims of transparency, it turns out he’s actually been quite opaque.
EDITORS NOTE: Justin Trudeau campaigned against government money for childcare. Now taxpayers are paying for PM Trudeau’s two nannies, even though he’s wealthy. Canadian readers may SIGN A PETITION opposing using taxpayer money to pay for the PM’s nannies at PayForYourOwnNanny.com.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/justin-trudeau-and-his-family-react-after-he-was-named-the-new-leader-of-the-li_16x9_WEB-e1460632787821.jpg360640Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2016-04-14 07:20:192016-04-14 08:05:09VIDEO: Is Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cheating on his taxes?
A big part of public policy debates involves countering misleading claims. In thisregular feature, I highlight important facts about the key issues being debated around Washington, D.C.
Claim: Fracking causes water and air pollution.
What you need to know: After leading the charge against the Keystone XL pipeline, anti-affordable-energy zealot Bill McKibben’s next target is fracking.
“Natural gas” has “to be left in the ground,” he declared in The Nation. “We need to stop the fracking industry in its tracks, here and abroad.”
The Marcellus Shale, though, underlies densely populated eastern states. It wasn’t long before stories about the pollution of farm fields and contamination of drinking water from fracking chemicals began to make their way into the national media.
The key word is “stories.” Researchers from EPA, Yale, and elsewhere have found that fracking is done safely and doesn’t contaminate water.
Most-recently, researchers at the University of Cincinnati tested water from wells before, during, and after fracking took place nearby. Their conclusion: There is “no evidence for natural gas contamination from shale oil and gas mining.”
But what really scares McKibben is supposed methane leakages. He cites a Harvard study claiming to show that “U.S. methane emissions had spiked 30 percent since 2002.” “We closed coal plants and opened methane leaks, and the result is that things have gotten worse,” he writes.
But like claims of water contamination, facts don’t live up to McKibben’s methane horror.
Methane released from fracked natural gas well completion has fallen since 2005. Source: Energy Tomorrow.
This makes sense since methane is natural gas, and energy companies are in the business of selling that to customers. There is an obvious incentive to minimize leaks and capture as much product to maximize sales.
But if that’s not enough, a top environmental thinker thinks the McKibben is “misleading” the public. Ted Nordhaus, co-founder of The Breakthrough Institute, read the same Harvard study that got McKibben quaking in his hiking boots and came to a very different conclusion:
[Researchers] concluded that while the United States has seen a 20% increase in oil and gas production since 2002, “the spatial pattern of the methane increase… does not clearly point to these sources.”
To use Nordhaus’ words, the scientists that McKibben puts on a pedestal don’t “clearly point to a source of the increase in atmospheric methane concentrations.”
Instead, they have to scare people and mold facts like Play-Dough to push their unrealistic, irrational,“keep it in the ground” fantasies of meeting America’s energy needs without fossil fuels.
The biggest energy challenge is low prices–which is a great boon for consumers. That’s a 180-degree turn from only a decade before. Fracking and the shale boom that resulted from it is an impressive illustration of the power of American enterprise and innovation. Opponents cannot be allowed to undercut that success story by misleading the public.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of 350.org founder, Bill McKibben. Photo credit: Scott Eisen/Bloomberg.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/bloomberg_bill_mckibben_1600px-e1460628372877.jpg374640Sean Hackbarthhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngSean Hackbarth2016-04-14 06:06:422016-04-14 06:09:05Setting Things Straight: Bill McKibben is Very Wrong About Fracking
Last weekend, we posted on Facebook the background of controversial anti-Semitic vandalism in the Boston suburb of Newton, Massachusetts. The topic at the core of a heated public meeting convened by Mayor Setti Warren. A video produced by the team at Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT) provided background on the rancorous public meeting in Newton. The Facebook post of the APT video garnered over 60 shares from FB pages across the U.S., Europe and Israel. It provided documented evidence of the use of Saudi and UAE funded anti-Semitic texts and Arab World Studies notebook laced with pro-Palestinian propaganda materials and maps. We noted that APT had been in the forefront of uncovering the use of these materials by the Newton public schools since discovery in 2011. They contended their removal has yet to be independently confirmed. Watch it here:
Newton, Massachusetts Mayor Setti Warren.
A second FB post contained a Wicked Local Newton report noted the acrimony at the Newton public meeting:
Emotions were running high at a community discussion organized by Mayor Setti Warren Thursday night in response to several incidents of anti-Semitism and racism in the schools, with some in the overflowing audience apparently frustrated with the city’s response to the incidents as well as with the event’s tone.
A panel of speakers, including the mayor, a civil rights law expert, a child psychiatrist, teachers and students, spoke of the need for dialogue around discrimination in Newton, addressing issues of racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia and discrimination against people with disabilities.
But some Jewish residents, including many with direct familial or personal ties to the Holocaust, wished the forum was more focused on recognizing and denouncing the anti-Semitic graffiti in particular. There was also a group of activists upset about “anti-Israel” teaching materials they feel contributed to the anti-Semitic incidents.
“The idea that we’re supposed to have a dialogue with people who put swastikas up after the Holocaust is absurd,” said resident Steven Katz, a professor of Jewish Holocaust Studies at Boston University. “And this evening is not supposed to be about liberal values. It’s supposed to be about anti-Semitism.”
Tina Glik, a resident and parent, said she was concerned that “as clearly as the message was written, ‘Burn the Jews,’ we came here to listen to: let’s be nice, let’s talk about racism, let’s talk about discrimination against gay people, let’s talk about anything else but anti-Semitism.”
Warren reiterated that he took any instances of anti-Semitism “very seriously,” calling anti-Semitic graffiti found at F. A. Day Middle School “despicable” and “horrible.” He pledged that all potential hate crimes would be investigated, with the perpetrators punished. Anti-Semitic graffiti was also discovered at Newton North High School multiple times during the past several months.
The Boston Globe initial report of the acrimonious meeting alleged that the protesters at the public meeting had ‘disrespected’ an articulate African American woman who drew attention to her son’s isolation at the Newton High school as evidence of racism, “Activists disrupt Newton forum on prejudice:”
The group of activists was led by Newton resident Charles Jacobs, who has had a longtime grievance with the city’s schools about what he says are pro-Palestinian and anti-Semitic text books.
[…]
Newton resident Janet Yassen said it was her first time attending this type of community meeting, and she came because she was interested in hearing what Warren had to say.
But what she saw from some members of the crowd “disgusted” her, she said.
“It was embarrassing, it was awful,” she said.
After hearing the students, who at the end of the evening mingled with some of the most vocal in the crowd, Yassen said she was heartened.
“The young people were phenomenal,” she said. “For them to confront the disrespect shown by some of the adults was really courageous.”
Following the ‘rowdy’ meeting two Boston Jewish community groups, the Combined Jewish Philanthropies, the Boston Jewish Federation’s affiliate, the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) and the local chapter of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) seized upon the Globe report that an African American woman had been ‘heckled’ by protesters at the public meeting. The joint AJC/JCRC news release, while noting the persistent problems of anti-Semitic materials in school programs, wrongly criticized the protesters:
To our dismay, a group of activists – who have been identified in the media as members of the Jewish community – disrupted the proceedings. An African-American mother was heckled while discussing her own child’s experience of racism. There were loud contentions that the only concern worthy of discussion was anti-Semitism. The overall affect was to shift the focus of the meeting from concerns about anti-Semitism, as well as racism and homophobia to the conduct of the meeting itself.
The escalation and obfuscation was amped up by The Boston Globe that seized upon the joint JCRC/AJC news release in an article that went viral via the AP and internet outlets like Yahoo news and other social media, “Jewish groups condemn ‘disrespect’ at Newton forum:”
Leaders of two Jewish organizations on Monday condemned the behavior of a group of activists at a community meeting in Newton last week, saying the struggle against anti-Semitism must be part of a larger effort to build “respectful tolerant communities.”
In a joint statement, the American Jewish Committee Boston and the Jewish Community Relations Council said the activities of those who disrupted a meeting at City Hall on Thursday night “do not represent the broader sentiments of the Jewish community.”
This time, Jacobs of APT was able to fire back at both the Globe and AJC/JCRC accusations in the latest Globe article:
Charles Jacobs, the leader of the activists, said in an e-mail to the Globe that he was “quite surprised” by the statement.
Jacobs, founder of Americans for Peace and Tolerance, has had a longtime grievance with the city’s schools about what he says are pro-Palestinian and anti-Semitic textbooks.
“Given that Jews in Europe and in the Middle East are hunted, hounded and murdered because of an anti-Semitism which falsely portrays the world’s only Jewish state as among the cruelest of nations . . . and given that the Saudis and United Arab Emirates have been caught funding ‘lessons’ that taught these things in the Newton schools . . . and given that (Newton) School Superintendent David Fleishman was forced to remove some of this material and yet told the people at the meeting that he knew nothing about it, I think the meeting was, under these circumstance, quite civil,” Jacobs wrote.
However, the AJC/JCRC with the complicity of this second Globe article continued to convey the false information by School Superintendent Fleischman that the woman at the Newton public meeting had been ‘disrespected:’
“Moreover, it is hardly a secret that pernicious elements exist that are seeking to import anti-Israel and anti-Jewish bias into American school curriculums. We share this concern. However, it does not justify conduct that was manifest at this meeting or the disrespect that was shown to neighbors, who also had difficult experiences of their own to discuss.”
Fleischman, who was booed at last Thursday’s meeting and required a police escort to leave, retorted in an email on April 11, 2016 cited by The Globe saying:
In an interview Friday, Fleishman said that Jacobs’s complaints about the Newton curriculum being biased against Israel “are issues from the past,” which were resolved in 2013.
“They have our entire curriculum, our faculty at both high schools spent hours putting together all the material, unit by unit, in response to freedom of information requests,” Fleishman said of Jacobs’s group.
Fleishman sent an e-mail to faculty on Monday discussing the events of the forum.
“What was intended to be a community discussion to ensure Newton is a welcoming and inclusive place for all turned into a display of disrespectful and uncivil behavior,” Fleishman wrote. “Some in the audience were particularly insensitive toward a Newton parent who courageously shared a story of racism faced by her son.”
Jacobs and APT responded to Fleischman’s allegation, Tuesday with video documentation suggesting that both Fleishman and The AJC/JCRC were wrong about the alleged “heckling”. The Globe proceeded to soft pedal it:
On Tuesday afternoon, Jacobs’s organization issued a statement denying that the woman had been heckled.
In a video of the community meeting posted on the city’s website, the woman talks about her son’s experiences with racism. Twice she is interrupted, prompting someone in the crowd to call out, “Let her speak.”
The JCRC/AJC and The Globe were upended by the APT cell phone video that captured evidence that the woman had been, if anything, respected by attendees at the public hearing. Watch the You tube video of the woman’s presentation at the Newton public meeting.
Problem is that the JCRC/AJC andThe Globe reports have not been challenged on the lack of credibility, let alone credulity.
Jacobs has been warning for years that establishment Jewish organizations have failed to shift to the new situation Jews face: anti-Israelism, the new anti-Semitism. Now Jews are hated for their “apartheid state,” Israel. The radical left/radical Muslim alliance, the red-green alliance is hunting and killing Jews in Israel and Europe. They intimidate Jews on American college campuses with eviction notices, fake Apartheid walls, simulated border checks and die –ins, especially during Israel Apartheid Weeks. The Jewish establishment Jacobs contends fled from this new anti-Semitic alliance. They still want to fight the old anti-Semitism, neo- Nazis, White Aryan nation and KKK racists. They cower and are confused in the face of a leftist anti-Zionism and patently Islamist anti-Semitism that Jews in Europe fear will cause them to leave, a second time. Jacobs has been hounded by what passes for the Jewish Establishment for years because of his position. This latest episode in Newton he thinks may be their push-back
We asked Jacobs for his views on the dispute. Here is what we wrote us:
Why would the Boston Jewish leadership not insist on seeing the curriculum, after Newton School Superintendent Fleishman was forced to remove a Saudi funded anti-Semitic lesson that taught students that Jews in Israel murder Arab women in jail? After they have all seen the video which shows those libels.
It should not be forgotten that the Jews of Europe are hounded, hunted and murdered because of anti-Israelism. American Jewish students are harassed and intimidated on campuses because of the same ideology that is being taught in the Newton schools. Newton has security at its synagogues for the very same reason: anti-Israelism. Yet some of Newton’s top Jewish leaders prefer to circle the wagons, defend their friends and deny the truth.
EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of Newton, Massachusetts Mayor Setti Warren faces Dr. Charles Jacobs of Americans for Peace and Tolerance, taken on April 7, 2016. Source: Katherine Taylor, Boston Globe
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/Newton-Mayor-Seti-Warren-and-Charles-Jacobs-of-APT-Source-Katherine-Taylor-Boston-Globe-4-8-16.jpg385639Jerry Gordonhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJerry Gordon2016-04-14 05:50:032016-04-14 05:50:03VIDEO: Boston Jews divided on Saudi/UAE anti-Israel materials in public schools
BOCA RATON, Florida., April 13, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Which party wins the United States presidential election in November could have a major impact on how investors play the stock market for years to come, says a Florida Atlantic University College of Business professor who has studied the financial implications of more than four decades of political power struggles.
These findings are outlined in the paper, “What To Expect When You’re Electing,” published in the journal Managerial Finance, and are based on an analysis of security market returns relative to the political party of the president, the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy, the year of the president’s term and the state of political gridlock.
It found that political harmony – when the same party controls Congress and the White House – is better for the stock market than political gridlock.
“The conventional wisdom is gridlock is good for the market, but actually the data show the opposite,” said Luis Garcia-Feijoo, Ph.D., a professor of finance at FAU and the study’s co-author. “In fact, market returns are higher when there’s harmony, not gridlock.”
The study also found that stock market returns are higher during the third year of a president’s term — which means investors should have something to look forward to in 2019 regardless of who wins the White House in November.
Additionally, this and several other studies have found that overall stock market returns are better under Democratic presidential administrations.
“It’s not just this paper, it’s others, and they all find the same thing – that having a Democrat in the White House is better for the equity market,” Garcia-Feijoo said. “A Republican president has been historically better for bond markets.”
Garcia-Feijoo found in this study that the main driver for stock market returns may be monetary policy. Under an expansive policy – when the Fed lowers interest rates or buys Treasury bonds to inject capital into the economy – stocks tend to perform better.
Garcia-Feijoo produced “What To Expect When You’re Electing” with Scott B. Beyer, Ph.D., professor and interim dean at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh College of Business, Gerald R. Jensen, Ph.D., professor of finance at Creighton University’sHeider College of Business, and Robert R. Johnson, Ph.D., president and CEO of the American College of Financial Services.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/20140502_stocktradingdetail.jpg313631Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2016-04-14 05:23:052016-04-14 05:23:05Stock Market Returns Can Be Impacted By Which Party Wins in 2016
PHILADELPHIA, PA /PRNewswire/ — While presidential candidates are going head-to-head in heated discourse, the great American cities of Philadelphia and Cleveland are pushing political banter aside to ready themselves for the national spotlight as they host the Democratic National Convention (July 25-28) and Republican National Convention (July 18-21), respectively. Cleveland’s last political convention was the 1936 RNC; that same year, Philadelphia welcomed the DNC. The cities will be part of history again in 2016.
City Population (2013):
Philadelphia – 1.6 million
Cleveland – 390,100
Founding:
Philadelphia – 1682
Cleveland – 1796
Nicknames:
Philadelphia – Philly, City of Brotherly Love, The Place That Loves You Back
Cleveland – Forest City, Rock and Roll Capital of the World, The Land, The CLE
Economic Base:
Philadelphia – By the early 20th century, Philadelphia, called the “Workshop of the World,” was the driving force behind the Industrial Revolution. Today’s industry landscape looks much different: “Eds and meds” ranks as the city’s top industry, and leisure and hospitality ranks fifth.
Cleveland – Built by early 20th century industrial entrepreneurs in the steel and manufacturing sectors,Cleveland is now an advanced manufacturing powerhouse, with productivity increasing 92% from 1999 to 2015. Entrepreneurs are playing a significant role in the resurging economy, expanding in health-tech, high-tech sectors from flexible electronics to health care to biomedical engineering. The city is also a health care hub with more than 60 hospitals, including the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals.
Buzz:
Philadelphia – Lonely Planet ranked the city as the best place to visit in the United States in 2016.
Cleveland – CNN named Cleveland one of its “16 Intriguing Things to See and Do in 2016” while the city is the only U.S. destination on FoxNews.com’s “10 under-the-radar destinations for 2016.”
Quakers vs. Shakers:
Philadelphia – Finding religious freedom in William Penn’s colony, a pacifist sect of Christians called Quakers settled and grew in and around Philadelphia, contributing greatly to civic and philanthropic life.
Cleveland – After splitting from the Quakers in England, the “Shaking Quakers” (so known for their ecstatic movement during worship services), or “Shakers,” moved from New York to Ohio and other states where they led austere lives, practiced celibacy and set trends with their simple furniture and crafts. Cleveland suburb Shaker Heights was named for them.
Famous American Firsts:
Philadelphia – As the first U.S. capital and the site where the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, Philadelphia claims these firsts for the public good: first meeting ofCongress, public school, hospital, flag, newspaper, bank, free lending library, university, postal route, volunteer fire company, law school, stock exchange, U.S. Mint.
Cleveland – Cleveland is the home to innovative firsts: the first electric streetlight, electric streetcar, electric traffic signal and rapid transit system from the airport to downtown. Pop culture firsts include: first rock and roll concert, “Superman” comic, Life Savers candies and broadcast of a “Monday Night Football” game, which aired from Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Cleveland residents also elected the first African-American mayor, Carl Stokes.
History Of Political Conventions:
Philadelphia – Independence Hall housed the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Between 1848 and 2012, the city hosted one-quarter of the major national party conventions—most notably, the first convention of the new Republican Party in 1856; the Republican, Progressive and Democratic conventions in 1948, when Southern Democrats formed the “Dixiecrats;” and most recently, the Republican National Convention in 2000.
Cleveland – This year marks the third Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Previous conventions were hosted in the Cleveland Public Auditorium in 1924 and 1936. The 1924 convention delivered general election winner Calvin Coolidge.
Top Attractions:
Philadelphia – Independence National Historical Park (Independence Hall, Liberty Bell Center, The President’s House, National Constitution Center, National Museum of American Jewish History), Philadelphia Museum of Art and Rocky steps, Valley Forge National Historical Park
Cleveland – Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Cleveland Museum of Art, Playhouse Square, The Cleveland Orchestra, Cleveland Metroparks, A Christmas Story House, Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Cleveland Botanical Garden, Cleveland History Center
Major Musical History & Attractions:
Philadelphia – Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff created the soulful “Sound of Philadelphia” in the early 1970s; a marker shows where their studios stood for more than 30 years. Another historical marker notes the location where Dick Clark broadcast “American Bandstand.”
Cleveland – DJ Alan Freed first coined the phrase “rock and roll” here in 1952, so it is appropriate that the world’s only Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum calls the city home. The Cleveland Orchestra, one of the most acclaimed performing ensembles in the world, plays seasonally at Severance Hall in University Circle and has residencies in Vienna, Miami, at the Lincoln Center Festival in New York and at the Lucerne Festival.
Arts & Culture:
Philadelphia – The grand Benjamin Franklin Parkway is lined with the world-renowned Philadelphia Museum of Art, Barnes Foundation, Rodin Museum and other institutions. Philadelphia is known as the “Mural Capital of the World,” thanks for the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program’s 3,800 creations.
Cleveland – Playhouse Square is the country’s largest performing arts center outside of New York with nine theaters in a one-block radius. University Circle is home to the world-famous Cleveland Orchestra, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the always free Cleveland Museum of Art, which features 900 pieces of artwork on display in 16,000-square-feet of renovated space.
Classic Food:
Philadelphia – Almost no one leaves Philly without sampling a cheesesteak, roast pork sandwich or South Philadelphia’s Italian restaurants, where red sauce goes by “gravy.”
Cleveland – Eastern European cuisine—including pierogis, stuffed cabbage and the Polish Boy—is the “must-have” for any visitor to Cleveland.
Contemporary Restaurant Scene:
Philadelphia – Four words might best describe Philadelphia’s current food scene: alfresco, BYOB, Passyunk and Fishtown. The city’s first restaurant with sidewalk seating opened in 1998; today, Philly resembles a European city, with tables and chairs outside of almost every eatery. Because local liquor licenses can be hard to come by (expensive, time-consuming) and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvaniacontrols all in-state liquor sales, BYOBing is a way of life in Philadelphia. Two of the hottest restaurant hubs are vibrant neighborhoods outside of Center City: Fishtown in the north and East Passyunk Avenue in South Philadelphia.
Cleveland – Ranked number seven on Travel & Leisure‘s list of “America’s Best Cities for Foodies,”Cleveland’s food scene is booming with restaurants like Lola, from Iron Chef and “The Chew” hostMichael Symon, and Greenhouse Tavern, from James Beard Award recipient Jonathon Sawyer. Great Lakes Brewing Company, Platform Beer Co. and Market Garden Brewery have brought Cleveland to the forefront of the national beer scene. Restaurant hotspots include E. 4th Street and the Ohio City andTremont neighborhoods.
ABOUT VISIT PHILADELPHIA®:
VISIT PHILADELPHIA® is our name and our mission. As the region’s official tourism marketing agency, we build Greater Philadelphia’s image, drive visitation and boost the economy. On Greater Philadelphia’s official visitor website and blog, visitphilly.com and uwishunu.com, visitors can explore things to do, upcoming events, themed itineraries and hotel packages.
ABOUT DESTINATION CLEVELAND:
Destination Cleveland is Cleveland’s convention and visitors bureau. This private non-profit organization’s mission is to drive economic impact and stimulate community vitality for Greater Cleveland through leisure and business travel. Cleveland welcomes nearly 17 million visitors annually. For more information, visit www.thisiscleveland.com.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/host-cities-for-conventions-1.jpg351640Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2016-04-14 05:13:042016-04-14 05:13:04A Tale Of Two Cities: Philadelphia And Cleveland Put On 2016 Political Conventions
TO: Michael Barnett, Chairman of the Palm Beach County, Republican Party
Robert Sutton, Chairman of the Broward County, Republican Party
I got an email from a Trump supporter in District 21 who was at the Boca Marriott Hotel for the Florida delegate selection and she tells me the Palm Beach and Broward County GOP leadership only picked Ted Cruz supporters as delegates.
When Mr. Trump won Florida he also won all 99 delegates as a winner takes all state. This includes Congressional District 21. Your district.
May I humble remind you that the Republican Party of Florida rules state that your delegates are bound to the winner of the Sunshine State primary through 3 rounds of voting. We do not expect there will be a round four.
If this is true I would like to remind you all that Mr. Cruz won only 13% of the votes in Broward County and only 12% in Palm Beach County. Mr. Trump won 49.2% and 52.13% respectively.
I speak frequently speak with Governor Scott and this will be on the agenda with my next phone call with him.
I will also send a link to his column to my friend Sean Hannity and others at Fox News as a heads up for further investigation.
Perhaps they will add this to the Colorado story I initiated on Fox News with a former Trump delegate from Colorado who asked for my help when he was denied his vote.
Copy to: Fort Lauderdale, Boynton Beach, Palm Beach, GOP State Committeeman/woman
RELATED VIDEOS:Donald Trump’S Speech at Palm Beach County GOP Lincoln Day dinner after winning the Florida primary on March 20th, 2016.
Trump Colorado supporter not allowed to vote at State Assembly. Trump’s National Delegate Candidate from Colorado, Kimberly J, was not allowed to vote at the Colorado GOP assembly on April 9th, 2016 in Colorado Springs. Her County had ballots from A through H and K through Z skipping I & J, conveniently.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/trump-wins-florida-e1460551780571.jpg360640Geoff Rosshttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngGeoff Ross2016-04-13 08:50:092016-04-17 07:38:17Florida: Broward and Palm Beach GOP hand pick delegates who are Cruz supporters
Ryan Mauro is
