Trumpites are fundamentally changing the Democratic and Republican Parties

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Trumpites are fundamentally changing the Republican Party into the New American Party. Blue Dogs are moving away from the Democratic Party and becoming independents, with some registering as Republicans in order to support Trump in the primary (see below).

Their sole objective is to make America great again.

They have a leader named Trump, who in fact, follows their lead. The Republican and Democratic Parties need to take heed of this committed and energetic group of voters.

Sun Tzu wrote, “Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.”

Trumpites know their enemies, which include but are not limited to: Obama Democrats, establishment Republicans (a.k.a. GOPe), the media, Muslims, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, George Will, Jeb Bush, and on and on.

Trumpites believe they can win the battle for the White House with the only candidate who is actually following the Department of Homeland Security’s policy of when you see something, say something – Donald J. Trump.

When Trump sees something, he says something and more American voters love him for it.

The New York Post’s Marisa Schultz writes:

Donald Trump ratcheted up his attacks on Hillary Clinton Sunday, blasting her for playing the “woman’s card” and saying her notoriously philandering husband would be “fair game” when he hits the campaign trail for his wife.

Bill Clinton was a “liability” when Hillary ran against President Obama in 2008, and it will be no different this election cycle, Trump predicted on “Fox and Friends.”

Read more.

Now that’s saying something. An establishment Republican would never say that for fear of being labeled an anti-woman bigot. Trumpites eat up this kind of directness and confrontational attitude with glee. Trumpites love the truth and anyone who speaks it in plain, simple terms.

Trump is a master of the sound bite and speaks the language of Joe and Jane six-pack.

trump democrats

Trump Democrats registering as Republicans.

I saw this post on Twitter today:


 TRUMP WORLD (@trump_world)
12/28/15, 8:30 AM

“Today we went and changed our party from Democrat to Republican so we can vote for @realDonaldTrump“

In a Politico column titled “Trump ties with Pope Francis in U.S. poll for second most-admired man in the world” Nick Gass writes:

On the list of most admired men, Pope Francis and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump tied for second place with 5 percent each. Meanwhile, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders earned 3 percent, with Bill Gates at 2 percent.

A mix of religious and political figures, including the Dalai Lama and George W. Bush, rounded out the top 10, with 1 percent each. For Trump, this is his fifth finish in the top 10, the other instances coming in 1988, 1989, 1990 and 2011.Read more.

The frustration with both political parties has fueled the rise of the Trumpites.

Trumpites are those from all parties, every walk of life and every economic class. Trumpites are sick and tired of politics as usual, hate career politicians and feel the government is totally corrupt and oppressive. This is the core that will fundamentally transform the Republican Party, and those 115 Republicans who voted for the Paul Ryan omnibus budget.

Trumpites are nationalists but not socialists. They are the former silent majority, who now have a national spokesman – Donald J. Trump.

Their leader is Donald Trump, their goal is to win the White House in 2016, not for any political party but for America.

In 1776 those who broke away from the ruling class were called patriots and it was they who fundamentally changed America from a subservient colony of King George III to a Constitutional Republic based on individual freedom and liberty.

Today these anti-ruling class voters call themselves “Trumpites.”

RELATED VIDEO: Trump Supporter Nessun Dorma Video – Trump Versus the Liberal Media:

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The Sci-Fi Fantasy of Central Planning

Held Hostage: An Analysis of Kidnapping Across Time and Among Jihadist Organizations

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In March 2013, David Haines and Frederico Motka were kidnapped while traveling together near the Turkish border in Syria. The men were both foreigners and aid workers. They were held in the same prison by the same militant group. Yet they suffered sharply different fates. In May 2014, Motka was released, while four months later, Haines became the fourth Westerner to be beheaded by the Islamic State. Press accounts noted that the major difference between the men was their nationality: Motka was Italian; Haines was British.

In the summer of 2014, the Islamic State began its campaign of public executions of kidnapped Westerners. Though these barbaric acts captured the world’s attention, hostage taking is not new. Nevertheless, research designed to increase our understanding of this threat is limited. As in the example provided above, most discussions regarding kidnappings rely on anecdotal evidence. A more detailed analysis of key questions regarding the role of group type, nationality of the victim, and outcome as they relate to kidnapping incidents has been lacking for want of publicly available data.

In an effort to address this, the CTC presents “Held Hostage: Analyses of Kidnapping Across Time and Among Jihadist Organizations,” a report that examines trends related to the kidnapping of Westerners by jihadist groups. The report relies on a newly gathered open-source dataset of the kidnapping of Westerners from 2001–2015, which the CTC publicly releases together with this report. We believe that the report and accompanying data will be an important resource for policymakers, practitioners, and academics interested in this area.

To access the project page, with links to the Report, the Dataset, and other resources, click here.

EDITORS NOTE: This column is by Seth Loertscher and Daniel Milton.

A Victory In Lawfare

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This has not been a good year.  From the start of January when gunmen walked into the offices of Charlie Hebdo to last month when suicide bombers walked into a concert hall in the same city, the terror and bloodshed may have returned to France but in the meantime it circled the entire globe.  From California to Tunisia and Texas to Mosul this year has been one of atrocities and barbarism of a scale almost too appalling to consider.

At the same time our politicians have struggled to even get some consensus on what to do about the human tide which has flowed across the continent and begun a process of change which will take decades to play out.  In the Middle East we have prevaricated and then patted ourselves on the back for doing little and late.  In the international arena we have seen Vladimir Putin begin to look like a world leader, while the President of the United States has been reduced to something like a global commentator. Everywhere the world looks more unstable and uncertain and the future more troubling than it has at any year’s end for a long time.

In such a situation one has to look for points of light.  One such point came this week in a small but important victory in the UK.  It is a year and a half since David Cameron ordered a review into the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK.  Since the conclusion of that report’s findings and its writing-up earlier this year the Brotherhood has three times tried to stop the report’s findings from being released.  They have attempted injunctions in March, in the summer and then again this week, just one day before the publication of the findings, though not the full report.

That such an organisation can even think of being able to use the British courts to silence the British government says much about why the global battle against Islamic extremism is going backwards.  But the UK government won out and its findings are immensely helpful to pushing back the tide of extremism at home.  While deciding that the Brotherhood does not meet the level of violence required to justify outright proscription it does find that the group is one that possibly leads to extremism and that new measures should therefore be put in place to tackle those groups and individuals associated with the movement.

When the review began a team of our top researchers at HJS were invited in to give evidence about the activities of the Brotherhood in the UK and in Europe.  It was a great pleasure and honour to do so and to be able to name some of those who have been named and identified in the final report’s conclusions.  This makes the fight against the group’s affiliates in the UK very significantly easier.  Much of the challenge in this area in recent years has been fighting to ensure that extremist groups are identified as such by the authorities so that it cannot be lowered to a ‘he-says, she-say’ debate between non-governmental organisations.

Much more will be needed to turn events around globally, but keeping our own stable clean in the UK and Europe is a very important part of changing around that global tide.  This is a very long conflict, and although the set-backs can be swift, progress is always arduous.  Nevertheless, some progress there is and for that we can at least reflect on a year which has ended with a modest victory.

mendozahjsFROM THE DIRECTOR’S DESK  

This week, yet another bit of hope in the world was extinguished by the Obama Administration. In this case, that the USA would attempt to stick by some principles – as well as sound strategic sense – in its decision making over Syria.

Speaking in Moscow following a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, US Secretary of State John Kerry uttered the fatal words that “The United States and our partners are not seeking so-called regime change” in Syria. In short, that the Butcher of Damascus, Bashar al-Assad, could stay in power after all, and despite both destroying his country and occasioning the rise of Islamic State through his murderous behaviour.

This is disappointing, but not surprising. The Obama Administration has after all flunked pretty much every foreign policy test thrown at it, ranging from Russia in Ukraine to the Iranian nuclear agreement.

But it is also a decision that will have serious consequences going forwards. If our declared intention is to defeat Islamic State by bringing the remaining non-jihadist forces together in a political settlement, then keeping Mr Assad will make that harder, not easier to achieve. Syrian rebels who have spent the past few years seeking his removal on account of his dictatorship will not now suddenly rush to embrace him, although they could have been persuaded to ally with Assad’s regime minus a few figureheads. Instead, they will continue their struggle, even if it looks ever more forlorn.

Assad has become a symbol of oppression. And in acquiescing to that symbol’s survival, the US has betrayed its principles as a bastion of liberty in the world. You can be certain that Islamic State will use this declaration to pump propaganda material out to its Muslim targets in the West, entreating them to join its jihad because the Western powers have shown they are happy to tolerate repression.

But the true victors from this policy shift will be the Iranian revolutionary regime. Assad’s dependency on Iran is well-established. If his regime wins, then so does Iran. And if Iran wins in Syria, it will be able to extend its push for dominance in the region through territorial control linking Lebanon to Iran through a direct land corridor that will take in Syria and a Shia dominated Iraqi state. Which will be bad for Western allies in the region, and ultimately for the West itself.

Congratulations therefore to President Obama and Mr Kerry. It is a rare feat to be both strategically shortsighted and morally bereft. But they have managed it and in some style.

Dr Alan Mendoza is Executive Director of The Henry Jackson Society
Follow Alan on Twitter: @AlanMendoza

Muslims stone Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem in Bethlehem

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Knowledgable Christians in the U.S. know that the sole person at fault here is Fouad Twal. Why was he poking Muslims in the eye and provoking them by daring to enter Bethlehem? Doesn’t he realize that to be a Christian, much less the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, in Bethlehem presents a continuing danger? He should apologize to Muslims for not showing sufficient “solidarity with Islam,” retreat to Jerusalem, and stay behind closed doors, lest he continue to offend Muslims.

“Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem greeted in Bethlehem by hail of stones PA reportedly arrests 16 ‘Salafi radicals’ who were planning to carry out terror attack against tourists celebrating Christmas,”Times of Israel, December 25, 2015:

The car taking Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Fouad Twal, head of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land, was struck Friday, Christmas Day, in Bethlehem by rocks thrown by Palestinian rioters.

None of the passengers in the patriarch’s vehicle was injured in the incident, but his car sustained damage, according to a Ynet news report.

Clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinian demonstrators erupted following his departure from the city, known as the birthplace of Jesus, the news site said….

He also said Palestinian security forces arrested Wednesday about a dozen suspected radical Islamists in Bethlehem.

A report in the Palestinian Ma’an news agency put the number of detainees at 16. According to the report, the group are Salafi radicals who were preparing to carry out a terror attack against Western tourists arriving in Bethlehem to celebrate Christmas there.

The report did not identify the detainees as being affiliated with any known jihadist groups.

A report in the Hebrew-language daily Ma’ariv said that senior PA officials met in Bethlehem earlier this week in order to formulate a strategy against the threat posed by extremists to the Christian celebrations in the city.

At least four people are being held in detention without trial in Bethlehem and four others, supporters of Islamic State, were arrested elsewhere in the West Bank. It was not clear where eight other people were being held.

On Thursday night, PA President Mahmoud Abbas and the authority’s prime minister, Rami Hamdallah, participated in a midnight mass at Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, Ma’an reported.

In a statement released by his office before the visit, Abbas praised Palestinian Christians for their role in creating a “rich and diverse society.”

“This year, we witnessed more churches around the world supporting the call for recognition of the State of Palestine, and an increasing number of Christian groups campaigning to divest from companies that profit from the Israeli occupation of our land,” Abbas said.

The Christian Palestinian population dwindled significantly over the past years. Christians today make only 2 percent of the Palestinian population in the West Bank.

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Muslim stabs a 9-year-old black boy in the ‘name of the Islamic State’

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Savagery. “If you look at the video, it looks like he was trying to slit his throat.” As the Qur’an says: “When you meet the unbelievers, strike the necks…” (47:4)

“Student who ‘plotted a terrorist attack on Times Square and tried to kill an FBI also stabbed a boy, 9, in the neck in a botched audition for ISIS,’” by Wills Robinson, DailyMail.com, December 27, 2015:

A student who allegedly plotted a bomb attack on Times Square may have stabbed a nine-year old boy in the neck as part of a botched audition to join ISIS, police have claimed.. [sic]

Fareed Mumuni, who is accused of providing material support to the terrorist group, was living just 600 yards from Jermaine Culver in Staten Island, New York, when he was knifed on January 9, 2015, as he walked to school.

The youngster survived the attack and ran away, but was forced to move to Atlanta with his grandmother because he was too afraid to go back out onto the streets.

Mumuni, 21, has never been officially named as a suspect, but NYPD sources have told the New York Post the feds are getting in the way of their investigation.

Detectives have said he is a ‘person of interest’ and have a theory it was a trial for the Middle Eastern militant organisation.

One source told the newspaper: ‘If you look at the video, it looks like he was trying to slit his throat.’

Officers also believe he resembles the man who was caught on CCTV attacking the youngster.

Mumini was arrested on terrorism charges after he allegedly stabbed a FBI agent multiple times with a kitchen knife while they were executing a search warrant on his home, prosecutors said.

He also allegedly tried to grab another agent’s rifle during the incident. Authorities said another large knife was recovered inside his car.

The officer survived, but Mumuni is still facing 85 years in prison for his purported crimes.

Both and and Muther Omar Saleh allegedly planned to attack in the United States.

When he was apprehended, Assistant Attorney General Carlin said: ‘According to the indictment, Munther Omar Saleh and Fareed Mumuni conspired to provide material support to ISIL and devised a plan to conduct an attack in New York.

‘During his arrest, Mumuni stabbed an FBI agent numerous times, but thankfully the agent’s body armor protected him from the defendant’s attack and the defendant was safely apprehended by law enforcement….

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Preserving the Traditions of the Jewish Diaspora — A Lesson for All in 2016

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This was derusha, a sermon or homily, delivered by Dr. Fred Leder at Congregation Beth El, Fairfield, Connecticut on Shabbat, December 26, 2015. Dr. Leder is a fellow Columbia University alumnus and former President of the synagogue.

Dr. Fred Leder

Dr. Fred Leder

At the beginning of this Sedra [Aramaic for “order” synonymous with Parasha or Torah portion in English] Vayehi [the final reading from the Book of Genesis . Genesis 47:28 – 50:26]  we find Jacob, an old man, on his death bed in Egypt. He asks Joseph, his rich influential son, to bury him with his ancestors in the cave at Machpelah. Jacob is thinking about his life and what will become of his descendants. When Joseph comes to visit his father, Jacob recalls what God  promised him:

“I will make you fertile and numerous, making of you a community of people; and I will assign this land (Canaan) to your offspring to come for an everlasting possession.”

Now Jacob is wondering how this might all come about.

Jacob tells Joseph that he will adopt Joseph’s sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, elevating them to the status of their uncles, each to have his own tribe and his own portion in the land, someday. He does this out of love and devotion to Rachel, his wife who died young and was buried on the road to Ephrata.

Then Jacob looks at the sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, whom he has just adopted and elevated to patriarchs, and he asks Joseph, “Who are these?”
Jacob is neither blind nor senile and surely, he knows who the two boys are. He is perhaps, inquiring about their character. Are these two boys going to carry the traditions of their ancestors back to Canaan?  It seems Jacob is wondering, and maybe not so sure.

Tradition has it that the boys answer the question by reciting the Shema for their grandfather.

The Shema or sh’ma  is one of only two fixed prayers in the torah  that Jews  are obligated to recite daily  morning and night:

Sh’ma Yisra’eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad. Hear, oh  Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. Blessed be the Name of His glorious kingdom forever and ever.  And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be in your heart. And you shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall speak of them. when you sit at home, and when you walk along the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up. And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Then Jacob blessed them, saying:

The God in whose ways my Fathers Abraham and Isaac walked,
The God who has been my shepherd from my birth to this day.
The Angel who has redeemed me from all harm.
Bless these lads.
In them may my name be recalled,
And the names of my Fathers Abraham and Isaac,
And may they be teeming multitudes upon the earth.
By you shall Israel invoke blessings, saying: God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh

It is our tradition to bless our sons on Friday nights with this very blessing… “God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh.”

This begs the question why Manasseh and Ephraim?

Ephraim and Manasseh were children of the Diaspora. They were born in Egypt. They dressed like affluent Egyptians. They spoke Egyptian and they had no firsthand knowledge of Canaan. That is why Jacob asked who they are.

Jacob was pleased to find that the sons of Joseph understood the tradition of their father and grandfather and he could see that his dream of being blessed with a multitude of descendants who would one day return to Canaan, was going to happen.

Jacob asks Joseph to see that he is buried at Machpelah in Hebron with his ancestors, and upon his death, he is embalmed in the Egyptian tradition, and carried with a military escort provided by the Pharaoh, to Hebron, to be buried in the cave at Machpelah.

One day Moses and the entire people of Israel would take the bones of Joseph in an ark, to be buried in Canaan. After Sinai, the people of Israel would carry with them two arks. One containing the ten commandments and one containing the bones of Joseph.

So Joseph and Manasseh and Ephraim laid the groundwork for the continuity of the Jewish people. That is why we invoke the blessing asking that our sons be like Manasseh and Ephraim.

However, life is not so easy, and every grandparent worries about the continuity of his traditions. Especially in the Diaspora where our children function primarily in the gentile world.

In October 2013, The Jewish Telegraphic Agency published a study of American Jewry done by Pew Research, augmented by population data from the Steinhardt Social Research Institute and the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University. These studies put the number of American Jews at about 6.5 million people. About 35 % of respondents identified as Reform Jews, 30 % claim no denomination, 18 % Conservative and 10% Orthodox.

Overall, 22% of U.S. Jews claim no religion at all. Thirty-two percent of all Jews born after 1980 claim to have no religion, and as you might expect, these people have much less connection to Jewish organizations and are less likely to raise their children Jewish.

The most startling finding is that the intermarriage rate among young Jewish people is 58%, and the number rises to 71% when only the non-Orthodox are considered. This is compared to 17% in 1971, only 44 years ago. Among in-married Jews, however, 96% are raising their children as Jews by religion, compared to 45% among intermarried Jews.

In other words, when a gentile marries a Jew and converts to Judaism there is a very good chance the children will be raised in a Jewish home. Among the general Jewish population, this is a fifty-fifty proposition. What prejudice and anti-Semitism could not achieve, acceptance in America is achieving, and it is not clear that non-Orthodox Judaism has any future at all in this country.

What are Jewish parents to do, to preserve and protect our Jewish heritage? At the end of the day, I suppose one needs to be fortunate, but clearly, it starts with teaching.

The foundations of a Jewish home are kashruth, Shabbat and the festivals. Learning the history of our people, as well as a strong affinity to Israel also play very important roles.

Children learn by watching.

Does Mother light candles on Friday night and does Father bless his sons and daughters, in the tradition of Jacob?

Do Mother and Father attend Shabbat services on a regular basis?  If not, how could anyone expect his children to be synagogue people?

I am old enough to remember the founding of the State of Israel. For me the return of the Jews from the ruins of Europe and the Middle East to reclaim their ancestral land, speaking Hebrew and fighting to maintain their heritage was a very moving experience. It was a miracle in modern times.

I remember the days when it was common knowledge among the gentiles that Jews were cowards, dealmakers who would never fight in an organized military. In 1958, a very well meaning gentile professor at Columbia told me that the one thing Israel did was to prove to the world that Jews could fight.

I am also old enough to remember the Six Day War in detail. When the war broke out on June 5, 1967, Israel maintained radio silence regarding the battle taking place in Sinai. Egypt, on the other hand, trumpeted initial victories claiming to have repulsed the Israeli Air Force (IAF) and to have shot down their planes. Nobody knew these were false claims. That night and the following night, I attended a small minyan in New Jersey and we prayed for a miracle, fearing that the Jewish state was lost.

On the third day, Israel lifted the embargo on war news and reported that in the first hours of the war they had destroyed the Egyptian Air Force that Israeli armor had reached the Suez Canal, that the IAF was moving to destroy the Jordanian Air Force, and that commando units were moving north to defend Jerusalem. Spirits soared as the first Jewish army in over 1900 years was moving to liberate a divided Jerusalem, and the Temple Mount.  When Motti Gur broadcast, “Har ha bayit b’Yadeni” (the Temple Mount is in our hands) the entire world Jewish community was thrilled, even those who did not practice anything.

I mention this now to give some sense of the familial bond we had to our brothers and sisters in Israel at that time and how truly a miracle was performed for all of us in our own lifetime. I do not believe that sense of awe is transmitted to our younger people. Certainly not on our college campuses where BDS movements thrive, even among Jewish kids, and all the prejudices of the world are visited on the Jewish State.

To paraphrase Giulio Meotti, an Italian journalist who writes for Il Foglio, in Rome:

No other nation on earth, which since its founding, less than seventy years ago, had to sacrifice 23,000 soldiers.

No other nation on earth lives without recognized borders.
No other nation on earth has a population living under a perpetual emotional strain.
No other nation on earth is constantly threatened to be wiped off the map.
No other nation on earth is threatened by boycotts all over the world.
No other nation on earth wins its wars and then loses the peace.
In no other nation on earth do guests on official visits utter disrespectful and offensive comments.

No other nation on earth provides its own enemy with water, electricity, food, weapons, and medical treatment.

As Charles Krauthammer put it in 2011:

Israel is prepared to give up land, but never again without peace. A final peace. Which is exactly what every Palestinian leader from Haj Amin al-Husseini to Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas has refused to accept. Which is why, regardless of who is governing Israel, there has never been peace. Territorial disputes are solvable; existential conflicts are not. Land for peace, yes. Land without peace is nothing but an invitation to national suicide.

Beth El has always had a tradition of close support of Israel, not only financially but also with organized visits, especially tours for young people. Travel to Israel is the only real way of understanding the miracles that have been performed for us in modern times. This understanding is part of the foundation of our tradition and our attachments to Judaism.

In today’s world, more than ever before, we need to lead our children in our traditions by example, and we need to support our brothers and sisters in Israel with all the physical and emotional sustenance we can provide. We cannot accept the new anti-Semitism that has become rampant in Europe and parts of the United States. We have to raise our voices against boycotts, false accusations, and false comparisons.

When our national leaders are wrong in some respect regarding Israel we have to speak out, collectively and individually. We will not always have leaders who are sympathetic to our cause. Sometimes we have leaders, who are downright hostile, but this is a free country and we are free to support those who support us.  We are the strongest Jewish community on earth and it is vital that we use our resources in support of Jewish causes in America and throughout the world. It is also critical to our survival as Jews in America.

Shabbat shalom.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of a painting of Jacob Blessing Manasseh and Ephraim, Sons of Joseph by Benjamin West, American Painter, 1766-1768.

Wrong: Muslim Migrants are not like Jewish Holocaust Survivors

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Dr. Michael Welner has spoken out against the complicit calumny of American Rabbis and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, one the voluntary agencies that stands to gain from the influx of Syrian Refugees, who compare the their plight with those Jews who survived the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust or Shoah.

Dr michael welner

Dr. Michael Welner, Chairman of The Forensic Panel.

His Algemeiner article, We Cannot Allow Comparisons of Mideast Refugees to Holocaust Survivors is a veritable Jeremiad  from this renowned Forensic Psychiatrist, Founder of the Manhattan – based The Forensic Panel,  expert witness at many high profile cases of mass shootings and developer of an evidence based standard for measuring depravity and evil.  He is also the son of Holocaust survivors. We have written about his remarkable mother Barbara who has a deep, abiding reality based assessment of the heinous barbaric treatment of Jews from her own experience during the Shoah and those evident in the extremism of radical Islam.

See our April 2015 Iconoclast post, “On the Eve of Yom Ha Shoah a Courageous Survivor Speaks of the Islamist Threat Facing Israel and Jews”. Dr.  Welner makes several valid points about why the comparison of the Jewish Holocaust survivors’ experiences versus those of the Syrian and other Muslim refugees is at best myopic.  Among these are:

  1. Jewish refugees were not warring with anyone, and were no threat to anyone. Refugees attributed to Syria are fleeing a war within their own land in which they are on one side or another.
  2. Jewish refugees were hunted down to be killed wherever they were. This is not happening to all (or most) Muslims of Syria and neighboring countries who seek emigration.
  3. Jewish refugees were literally fleeing for their lives with nowhere in their countries to go. Syrian refugees are fleeing a country with degraded infrastructure for a safer and more normal existence. They also have the option of traveling to neighboring Arab countries — something Jews of the Holocaust did not have.
  4. Jewish refugees had no conflict or grievance with the West. The Arab world is in the midst of an open conflict with the West. The United States has been sponsoring some of the fighters operating in Syria. There is no way of knowing whether refugees have allegiance to one faction or another.
  5. Jewish refugees were not accompanied by any terrorist problem in America. Islamist terrorism has already expressed itself through those who have immigrated here legally and illegally.
  6. Jewish refugee traffic was never exploited to embed people who were simply taking advantage of chaos to slip across borders with criminal or terrorist motivation. That has already been demonstratively the case with the Syrian-Turkish Muslim migration.
  7. Jewish refugees had no Jewish homeland to go to. They were stateless people who were unsafe everywhere. The “Syrian” refugee problem overlooks that there are areas all over the Muslim world which could accommodate them culturally, but many of those countries have refused them.

Welner takes particular scorn of a HIAS letter signed by 139 Rabbis endeavoring to comparison the plight of the 900 Jewish souls on board the SS St. Louis who were denied sanctuary by anti-Semitic elements in the FDR State Department in  the late 1930’s, only to have one third ultimately perish in Nazi concentration and death camps during the Shoah. He writes:

This letter overlooks is that the very source of the current American controversy is that, by admission of even trusted intelligence persons in the Obama administration, the United States indeed cannot tell the difference between the enemy and the victims of the enemy. That is the source of our current national security problem. To compare this real dilemma to a climate of 1939 that was nothing more than just visceral hatred for Jews for nothing more than their religion is obscene. That many rabbis are willing to abet such misunderstanding demonstrates, once again, a deep failure of those rabbis to take responsibility for teaching and protecting the fidelity of Jewish history. The horrors of the Holocaust remain unthinkable, even as memories fade with the dying off of elderly survivors. So why is it that rabbis, so designated as leaders of Jewish thought, could display such derelict idiocy in making comparisons of Holocaust refugees to migrants from the Arab world?

He cites the twisting pathology of Taken Olam that is behind Jewish compassion towards Muslim refugees that defiles the memories of Shoah survivors:

In my professional opinion, these behaviors actually reflect on the sickening pathology among Jews of even the most highly educated pedigrees to feel the need, even by resorting to the grotesque, to display their non-denominational compassion. Tikkun Olam, to many, reflects upon the Jewish imperative to help the world beyond those who are Jewish. Others interpret that phrase differently. But it cannot be disputed by anyone that Jewish non-discriminatory philanthropy and with no strings attached is unmatched among religions. We need not prove that we are kind. And for those who feel that Jews need to do a better job of demonstrating this to the Muslim world, consider how much Jewish charity has been offered to Iran and Turkey after natural disasters, only to be refused in order to preserve narratives that demonize Jews. Jews are pilloried not for lack of charity, but because Muslim Arab intolerance is extreme, implacable, and emanates from countries that control their media and can control their peoples by creating fictions of Jewish bogeymen. The purveyors and consumers of said fictions couldn’t care less about the bill boarding of Jewish advocacy for Muslims.

How is it then, that the signatory rabbis degrade the special history of their own people? Because flaunting public perception of their sensitivity to others enables them to make personal political statements, massage their vanities for being part of letters published in full page ads, and announce their own bona fides. But while those public personas are their own, no rabbi owns Jewish history such that they have the right to reinvent it.

It would be far more responsible for such rabbis and other prominent Jews to feed their self-interests without resorting to defiling the Holocaust by diluting it or by distorting any of its searing lessons. How pathetic it is that in this day and age, we truly have many Christians who have a greater sensitivity for the legacy of baseless hatred towards Jews than certain rabbis themselves. President Obama can hardly be blamed for insulting the legacy of the Holocaust when so many rabbis utterly fail to respect their own Shoah.

Welner concludes:

If Holocaust denial bothers you, this crass misuse is not something to overlook without strong response. Like the BDS movement, silence only enables greater latitude. Assertions by Jews that dilute and therefore desecrate the Holocaust must stop. Holocaust trivializing should be limited to Iran and the other visceral haters, rather than daily parlance of the educated in America. The teaching of accurate Jewish history must remain, across all denominations, a litmus test for suitability to minister to others as would be expected from any religion.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of U.S. troops with giving water to a Holocaust survivor.

The Wanderer: A short film about a woman, a gun and survival

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This short film features unique guns, interesting characters and professional cinematography, but the star of the film is the location: a defunct nuclear missile silo.

EDITORS NOTE: For more information on the video: http://tinyurl.com/qfof2f8. For more information on Weapon Outfitters: http://tinyurl.com/oe9vk7w. See more at: http://www.recoilweb.com/

PODCAST: GOPe Led Congress Quadruples Foreign Worker Visas

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Listen to an extraordinarily informative Lisa Benson Show for National Security that aired Sunday December 20, 2015 on KKNT 960 The Patriot on ISIS CBW threat to EU, America, while Israel protects its citizen.  The program also addresses the surprise quadrupling of US foreign worker visas in the Omnibus spending bill abused by leading U.S. companies.  Lisa Benson and New English Review Senior Editor Jerry Gordon co-hosted this show with the assistance of Board of Advisors member, Richard Cutting.

Our Guests were:

Dr. S. Jill Bellamy, member of the UN Counterterrorism Task Force and noted international expert of biological warfare threat reduction made some stunning revelations. She spoke of ISIS Libyan-based units, comprised of Dutch and Belgian foreign fighters who may have accessed UN sealed Gaddafi era Chemical and Biological toxin caches and may have stolen large quantities of dangerous Sarin gas.  She noted that the recent EU Parliamentary research report highlighted the possible deployment by ISIS foreign fighters of CBW toxic agents and nuclear material in the EU. Bellamy spoke of the lack of preparedness of EU and American airports to possible ISIS CBW attacks.  EU counterterrorism echelons, she noted, have not prepared civilian defense programs against these threats as they don’t wish to upset their civilian populations. Israel, alone among Western countries, conducts annual exercises against CBRN threats actively involving its civilian population and even school children. Bellamy also disclosed that US intelligence declined to obtain a veritable treasure trove of information from an accredited NATO country defense source on both Syrian and Iranian bio-warfare offensive weapons programs.

Leo Hohmann, a senior editor at World Net Daily disclosed the quadrupling of H-2B Visas for guest foreign workers in seasonal business sectors to 250,000 buried in the 2,009 pages of the $1.1 trillion Omnibus spending bill signed off by President Obama before he left on his Christmas vacation in Hawaii.  He noted that the expansion of the dramatic expansion of H-2B foreign workers Visas had the active support of the US Chamber of Commerce.  Recipients of these H-2B Visas can stay in the US for up to two years. Hohmann also discussed the H-1B Visa program for foreign workers with “critical special skills” that has been abused by a number of major American companies, among them Disney, Northeastern Utilities, Hertz. In one graphic example Disney,  Hohmann spoke of how Disney gave Florida workers pink slips on condition that they train their H-1B replacements who typically are paid less than half of salaries of these technical positions and can stay in the US for up to six years and in some instances ultimately acquiring green cards for permanent residency.

Note this comment from one of our European listeners:

Dr. Jill Bellamy is excellent. The leaks on Daesh (ISIS) having their members taken over the sealed and buried Libyan chemical weapons are being discussed in some EU countries. They are scared that suicide bombers with chemical bombs in their boats could ram a naval vessel or have it smuggled through containers from Tunisia or Algeria to Europe. For Daesh to hit at any western country would be a major means of propaganda for them, which is their main aim, as well as killing as many infidels.

The lawmakers in the EU are still skeptic of any biological attack and they do not want to spend money on it because their budget deficits are lousy. They all do not care of the dangers facing their populations. I also think that the same lack of clear thinking is missing from the US administration and law makers.

EDITORS NOTE: This podcast originally appeared in the New English Review.

Secession, Civil Disobedience or Nullification

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On October 30, 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama stood on a platform in Carnahan Quadrangle at the University of Missouri.  Speaking to a crowd of several thousand starry-eyed students and Democrat Party faithful, Obama said, “After decades of broken politics in Washington, and eight years of failed policies from George W. Bush, and 21 months of a campaign that’s taken us from the rocky coast of Maine to the sunshine of California (presumably, all 57 states), we are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

Then, with a straight face, he segued to a list of Republican talking points.  He said, “In five days, you can put an end to the politics that would divide a nation just to win an election, that tries to pit region against region and city against town, and Republican against Democrat, that asks us to fear at a time when we need to hope…  So, as president, I’m going to go through the federal budget line by line, ending programs we don’t need, making the ones we do need work better and cost less.  We’ve got to make sure that we are not charging a credit card to the next generation, borrowing from China just to pay off our dependence on foreign oil.”

Now, after just over seven years of Obama’s leadership, we find a nation that is more divided along racial, religious, and economic lines than ever before; a nation in which elections are decided, not by what is best for the nation as a whole, but by votes purchased with money borrowed from China.  When Obama took office on January 20, 2009, the national debt stood at $10.6 trillion.  In just seven years in office, Obama has used the national credit card to increase the debt by an additional $8.2 trillion, to $18.8 trillion..

Clearly, the federal government caters to the demands of the cities, where Democrats rule, at the expense of our rural areas, which are predominately Republican.  In spite of the fact that the 2012 electoral map of the United States appeared to be almost totally red, with an occasional splotch of blue indicating the major urban areas, Barack Obama was able to win reelection by an electoral vote of 365-173.  In that election, of the 3,100 counties in the United States, Obama won a majority of the popular vote in only 653 counties (21.06%), while Mitt Romney won the popular vote in 2,447 counties (78.94%).

Some 239 years ago, another man, Thomas Jefferson, also promoted a historic transformation of government.  He wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it,  and to institute new government…”

Jefferson understood the necessity of creating a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”  Yet, experience tells us that what Jefferson had in mind was the exact polar opposite of what Obama had in mind when he promised to “fundamentally transform” our nation.  After nearly seven years of oppressive rule by the Obama regime, a lawless regime for which constitutional principles and the rule of law are seen as mere annoyances, it’s time we considered whether or not our republic can ever be restored to its former greatness.

There is evidence that liberals and Democrats are using the Immigration Reform Act of 1965 as a means of importing a ruling majority of the poor and uneducated from the Third World, whose allegiances are easily purchased by a corrupt and lawless political party with access to the public treasury.  As Democratic strategist Patrick Reddy is quoted as saying, “The 1965 Immigration Reform Act promoted by President Kennedy, drafted by Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and pushed through the Senate by Ted Kennedy, has resulted in a wave of immigration from the Third World that should shift the nation in a more liberal direction within a decade.  It will go down as the Kennedy family’s greatest gift to the Democratic Party.”

In other words, what Democrats have done, methodically, over the past 50 years is to import sufficient votes to offset those they are unable to attract among white professionals and blue-collar European-Americans.  It causes one to wonder how many years we have left as the freest, most prosperous nation on Earth.

A retired United Airlines pilot compared what the passengers on Germanwings Flight 9525 must have felt to what it feels like living through the Obama era in American politics.  He said, “It is hard to imagine the growing feelings of fear and helplessness (they) felt as the unforgiving landscape rushed up to meet them… We feel the descent in the pits of our stomachs.  We don’t know where we’re going anymore, but we do know it isn’t good.  And above all, we feel helpless because a man very few Americans had heard of ten years ago (Barack Obama) has locked us out (of the cockpit).”

So, if our constitutional republic has been savaged to the point where it is beyond repair, what are our alternatives?  In a previous column I have suggest three alternatives with the order of preference being: a) massive civil disobedience, b) widespread 10th Amendment nullification by states and local communities, and finally, c) dissolution of the Union, otherwise known as secession… the most draconian of the three alternatives.  However, upon further reflection I have concluded that our first reaction to the heavy-handedness of the Obama regime should not be civil disobedience.  We have always been a nation of laws, and to suggest that we should resort to unlawful tactics such as street protests, marches, riots, and sit-ins is to suggest that we should become a nation of law breakers.

It is not the sort of undisciplined behavior that we should be teaching our children.  Nor should we be agitating for dissolution of the union, although a new nation comprising the 26 most heavily Republican states of the Old South, the Far West, the Great Plains, the Southwest, and the Midwest would make a very fine country… the greatest nation on Earth.

In a December 6, 2015 column, titled, “Secession or War – America’s West Against the East,” the President of the National Association of Rural Landowners, Ron Ewart, described the problems created by federal government ownership of land in the western states.  According to Ewart, of the 2.27 billion acres of landmass in the U.S., the federal government owns 28%, or

635.6 million acres.  Of that 635.6 million acres, 572 million acres are in the 18 western states.

Ewart suggests that the 18 western states form an alliance, warning the federal government that “they are on thin ground,” and that the only solution to the unwarranted and unconstitutional federal power grab is capitulation by the federal government… including the release of all federal lands (other than national parks and national forests) to private ownership.  He warns that, if the federal government fails to agree, the result might be an effort toward secession.

However, our first alternative should be the widespread use of nullification by states and local governments, as envisioned by the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  The 10th Amendment states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”  

Liberals and Democrats might argue that the 180 American cities who have declared themselves to be “sanctuary” cities are examples of nullification.  But nullification is not about systematic disobedience to federal law that is, constitutionally, the province of the federal government.  Nullification represents a decision by state and local governments to refuse to yield to federal laws that are, under the 10th Amendment, solely the province of state and local governments.

In a December 16, 2015 report by the Tenth Amendment Center, we are told of a bill prefiled in the Missouri legislature, HB1791, which would require the Missouri General Assembly to “adopt and enact any and all measures as may be necessary to prevent the enforcement of regulations, rules, and memorandums issued by a presidential executive order.”  The bill describes executive orders not justified by federal law, or the limited constitutional authority of the president of the United States, as “repugnant to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Missouri.”  Language in the bill declares such executive orders to be “null, void, and of no effect” in Missouri.

The Tenth Amendment Center notes that “HB1791 rests on a well-established legal principle known as the anti-commandeering doctrine.   The cornerstone of that doctrine is found in the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997).  In that decision the court ruled, “We held in New York (v. United States) that Congress cannot compel the States to enact or enforce a federal regulatory program.  Today we hold that Congress cannot circumvent that prohibition by conscripting the States’ officers directly. The Federal Government may neither issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems, nor command the States’ officers, or those of their political subdivisions, to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program.  It matters not whether policy making is involved, and no case by case weighing of the burdens or benefits is necessary; such commands are fundamentally incompatible with our constitutional system of dual sovereignty.”

Republicans now control 32 governorships and both legislative bodies in 30 states.  Armed with the words of the 10th Amendment and the anti-commandeering doctrine, those governors and those legislators are capable of reasserting their state sovereignty by engaging in massive acts of nullification.   Since we cannot rely on Republican majorities in Congress to reverse the trend toward federal supremacy, the states represent our only hope for restoring our constitutional republic as the Founders conceived it.  Nullification is the answer, secession is an alternative.

Muslim National Guard soldier planned Paris-style slaughter in U.S., tried to join the Islamic State

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He was in the National Guard. He converted to Islam and plotted to massacre 150 non-Muslims and join the Islamic State. Authorities remain uncurious, however, about the process of converting to Islam and how Islamic texts and teachings may incite converts to commit acts of violence.

Hasan Edmonds

Hasan Edmonds

“National Guard soldier ‘who planned Paris-style attack on US soil’ to kill 150 people facing 30 years in prison and a $500,000 fine after pleading guilty to trying to join ISIS,” by Darren Boyle, Mail Online, December 15, 2015 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

A National Guard soldier who conspired with is cousin to join ISIS and massacre up to 150 people at his military base is facing up to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to providing support to a terrorist organisation.

Hasan Edmonds, 23, of Aurora, Illinois, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to provide material support to ISIS and one count of attempting to provide material support to the same organisation.

His cousin Jonas Edmonds, 30, also admitted the conspiracy charge as well as one count of making a false statement to authorities regarding international terrorism. He is facing a maximum jail term of 23 years when he reappears in court for sentence next year.

Hasan Edmonds, made contact with an undercover FBI agent whom he believed was an ISIS terrorist in Libya.

He requested advice on ‘how to fight and defeat the US military’. At the time, Hasan Edmonds was serving with the Illinois National Guard in Joliet. He told undercover agents were willing to attack the United States.

Both cousins later met with another undercover agent in March who pretended to help the younger Edmonds travel to Mosul in Iraq to join ISIS.

They also discussed a plan for Jonas Edmonds, 30, to use his cousin’s military uniforms to attack the base in Joliet, Illinois where Hasan Edmonds was assigned.

Jonas said he wanted the undercover agent to help him achieve a ‘body count’ of 100 to 150 people.

Hasan Edmonds took his cousin and the undercover agent to the base on March 24 to conduct surveillance and retrieve a training schedule in order to pick the best time to attack, the plea agreement said.

Hasan Edmonds and his cousin Jonas Edmonds spoke to undercover federal agents about their plan to attack the Illinois National Guard Armory in Joliet, pictured, where Hasan served as a soldier.

Jonas Edmonds drove his cousin to the airport the next day, but Hasan Edmonds was arrested before he could board the flight to Egypt. Jonas Edmonds drove from the airport to his cousin’s house but was arrested before he could retrieve the uniforms…

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of Hasan Edmonds (left), a National Guard specialist, and his cousin, Jonas Edmonds who are charged with a conspiracy in which Hasan would travel overseas to join ISIS, while Jonas would coordinate an attack on the National Guard facility where Hasan had trained. Photos supplied to CBS News.

Florida: Legislature wants to roll property taxes into state sales tax

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Florida comes in at #25 for property taxes with a rate of 1.06%. New Jersey has the highest rate at 2.38 percent.  Hawaii has the lowest rate at 0.28 percent.

There have been efforts to eliminate Florida’s property taxes and rolling it into the state sales tax. The Florida legislature will be looking into doing just that during the 2016 session, which starts in January.

CBS News Miami reports:

A House committee is looking at ways to replace property taxes with a higher state sales tax.

The House Finance & Tax Committee on Wednesday started to explore different scenarios that would shift the tax burden to shoppers by eliminating or reducing the number of Floridians paying property taxes.

Committee Chairman Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach, said any scenarios will need “many hours to fine tune,” with economists expected to address the committee before anything is advanced for the 2016 legislative session.

Read more.

We will see who comes out in opposition of this effort.

What is the property tax rate in your state? A new map from the Tax Foundation has the answer:

property_taxes-01-1024x893

Kate Scanlon from The Daily Signal reports:

The Tax Foundation, a non-partisan research think-tank based in Washington, D.C., notes that states tax property in a variety of ways and that the rates listed are the “effective rate” paid by the taxpayer.

Jared Walczak, a policy analyst with the Center for State Tax Policy at the Tax Foundation, writes that the map “cuts through this clutter, presenting effective tax rates on owner-occupied housing.”

“This is the average amount of residential property tax actually paid, expressed as a percentage of home value,” Walczak wrote.

New Jersey has the highest rate at 2.38 percent.

Illinois has the second highest rate at 2.32 percent, followed by New Hampshire at 2.15 percent and Connecticut at 1.98 percent.

Hawaii has the lowest rate at 0.28 percent. Alabama has the second lowest rate at 0.43 percent, then Louisiana at 0.51 percent and Delaware at 0.55 percent.

Read more.

VIDEO: Who are the Biggest Crooks in America?

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Dinesh D’Souza spoke to the Park Cities Women’s Republican Club about the progressive heist of America on December 1st in Dallas, and the conversation was broadcast nationwide on C-SPAN Book TV. During the talk, D’Souza shows that progressive politics is nothing but a series of scams and cons aimed at stealing the wealth of America.

Watch now:

In Stealing America, D’Souza shows that the biggest crooks in America are the progressives perpetrating this con. Andrew McCarthy’s review of the book in National Review shows that despite Obama’s best efforts, D’Souza is intent on exposing their crimes:

“America flourished because it was an anti-theft society: freedom inextricably linked to the protection of private property, unleashing creativity, entrepreneurship, and unprecedented prosperity. The progressive critique of that society is not advanced in good faith; it is, as D’Souza portrays it, a “con.” Its purpose — not its unintended consequence but its aim — is to seize the wealth and power of achievers. The con is systematized by the Democratic party now under Obama’s leadership, with Hillary waiting in the wings.

Dinesh D’Souza implores us to recognize the con for what it is, and work, as he works, to expose it, rather than dignify it as an alternative political philosophy. America, he contends, is well on the way to being stolen. We will lose our country if we fail to reaffirm our anti-theft roots.”

America: Are You being Schlonged?

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Great orators have a way of using a word to make a point that resonates with the masses. Some of these words later become part of a dialogue and perhaps even are added to Webster’s dictionary.

Donald Trump is a master at using simple words to explain complex issues. His latest is the use of the noun schlong as a verb when referring to Hillary Clinton.

Charles Hurt in his column “The Nuclear Option: Donald Trump Schools Rivals on ‘The Art of the Schlong” writes:

If you think “The Art of the Deal” was a yuuuuuuuuuuge success — and it was — just wait until Donald Trump comes out with his latest masterpiece, “The Art of the Schlong.”

[ … ]

“The Art of the Schlong” is a political treatise, like “The Art of War,” only more devastating and infinitely more entertaining. It is more psychologically sinister than Machiavelli’s “The Prince.” It is like Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” only the opposite. Except for the influence part.

The treatise is a tactical primer for anybody thinking of getting into politics, especially as a Republican these days. Tough world out there right now.

It is a schlong or get-schlonged world, so you’d better learn how to schlong. [Emphasis added]

Americans increasingly believe they are getting schlonged.

gallop government corruptionIn September a Gallop poll confirmed that 75% in U.S. see widespread government corruption. Gallop reports:

Three in four Americans (75%) last year perceived corruption as widespread in the country’s government. This figure is up from two in three in 2007 (67%) and 2009 (66%).

While the numbers have fluctuated slightly since 2007, the trend has been largely stable since 2010. However, the percentage of U.S. adults who see corruption as pervasive has never been less than a majority in the past decade, which has had no shortage of controversies from the U.S. Justice Department’s firings of U.S. attorneys to the IRS scandal.

Add to this list: The Fast and Furious government gunwalking scandal, the Benghazi and Extortion 17 cover-ups, the revelation that Obamacare is unsustainable by Professor Jonathan Gruber and most recently Hillary Clinton’s email scandal.

Donald Trump in one word has captured the essence of all of these examples of government out of control. Will his use of schlonged, along with Grubered, be added to the political lexicon? Only time will tell.

If you feel you are being schlonged please take our confidential survey and leave a comment and tell us how government has schlonged you.

RELATED VIDEO: Who are the biggest crooks in America?

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Taliban asked me if Obama is gay

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If Bergdahl is telling the truth, it is unlikely in the land of bacha bazi that these Taliban members were objecting to sleeping with men. They were asking if Obama was gay, i.e., did he sleep onlywith men — which exclusivity they would equate with weakness.

Beyond lurid curiosity, they were most likely asking Bergdahl if the President was truly as weak as he appeared to be.

“Bergdahl: Taliban asked me if Obama is gay,” by Beckie Strum, New York Post, December 24, 2015 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Bowe Bergdahl compared his first year in Taliban captivity — starved, stinking and chained to a bed — to being tossed in a closet and forgotten.

“Picture someone taking a bag, throwing it into the closet, shutting the door and just forgetting about it. That was basically how they treated me,” he said.

In the third episode of the popular podcast “Serial,” which is focused on Bergdahl’s alleged desertion from the Army in 2009 and subsequent five-year captivity by the Taliban, he details the misery of his first year held hostage — ending in a dramatic escape attempt that lasted 8½ days.

The interview was conducted by filmmaker Mark Boal (“The Hurt Locker,” “Zero Dark Thirty”) as part of a project on Bergdahl’s life. He lent the recordings to “Serial,” which is hosted by Sarah Koenig.

Bergdahl said he saw his first chance at escape soon after his abduction in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktika province, when a water delivery temporarily distracted his captors. He managed to slip off the chains binding his hands and feet and unlatched the flimsy wire holding the door to his cell closed.

He was free for only 15 minutes, running barefoot over rocks and climbing onto a roof and covering himself in mud to hide, he said in audio used by the podcast. He was caught in moments and hauled back into his cell, where men beat him with a rubber hose. They then blindfolded him and moved him to a new home, in what he now believes was North Waziristan in Pakistan, he said.

His new living arrangements were filthy and painful.

“In the new place, they put me on an Afghan bed and they chained my feet to the ends of the bed and chained my hands to the tops of the bed so that basically I was spread-eagle on the bed and blindfolded. And that’s how I spent the majority of the next three months,” he said.

He was allowed to use the bathroom twice a day and could shower around once a month. He developed bedsores and chronic diarrhea as a result.

“The time deprivation, too much light or too much darkness and too much randomness, it just wears away at you and drives your nerves into the ground. The constant worry ‘Am I going to die today?’ or is something worse going to happen,” he said.

Although watching over Bergdahl was a high honor, the guards were often bored and would pass the time by making videos of him, interrogating him with ridiculous questions or shaving his beard into shapes they found amusing, he said.

“They ask you, is Obama gay and sleeps with men?” he recalled. His young guards were also curious about where US military bases got their prostitutes, alcohol and drugs, and were obsessed with American soft drinks, he added.

“They love Mountain Dew. If you want to piss people off in that country, all you do is cut off their sugar supply,” he said….

RELATED ARTICLE: Obama will veto counter-terror measures to save the Iran nuke deal