Month: January 2018

Wondering why a few conservative friends fail to be impressed at Presidential thoughtfulness.

 
From The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser:

I have been considered a perfectionist most of my life, a badge I wore with honor for many years, and one I still wear on occasion. As we age — I am now sixty — we tend to reflect on our lives and how we got where we are today. Self-reflection and assessment are good, allowing us the opportunity to be honest about the path we have taken and choices we have made in life.

When I first realized fifteen or so years ago that I had a problem, a BIG problem that was harming my wife and children, the first thing I did was try to figure out how I ended up with OCPD.

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From Tommy Christopher:

The second most shameful thing about Donald Trump’s racist rant about “shithole countries” has been the cowardly reactions of elected Republicans.

But on Sunday morning, one of them let slip what it’s quite likely many of them are thinking.

On “Meet the Press,” Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul told host Chuck Todd that the “only thing” he regrets about Trump’s racist rant isn’t Trump being a racist, but people calling Trump a racist.

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From David Anderson at The Moderate Voice:

Lately the world’s largest open air mental hospital, as the Holy Land has been called, has lived up to its moniker. Trump has helped by moving our embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Some aspects of this destabilizing action have been neglected or misunderstood by the media, however. Firstly, any hope of a Palestinian state is now pretty much dead. For decades what would have been the second state of a two-state model has been chipped away, enclaved, and geographically scattered by Israel, illegally by some measure. Much of the world went along with barely a peep outside Europe. Endorsing Jerusalem as its capital is a de-facto agreement with the current status quo for the entire West Bank.

Twenty years ago, let alone forty or fifty, Trump’s embassy shift would have resulted in all kind of howls from the Islamosphere. Ambassadors would have been recalled, boycotts thrown, state sponsored mass protests and the like. But in the last month apart from a few street demos by Palestinians themselves, Arab push-back has been muted to non-existent. Remember in the 1970s and ‘80s Palestinians, the P.L.O and its attendant non-state allies were terrorism. Spectacular plane hijacking and bombings were regular fare. It was a different, naive era of secular terrorism where Marxist groups and their socialist state supporters fought for the definable goal of “Palestine.” That was before a religious, millenarian suicidal jihad began in the 1990s. Religion has supercharged terrorism – in part by convincing terrorists to die themselves as well as kill others, en-mass, mainly by putting Allah in center of the picture. Today’s terrorist is seeking otherworldly paradise, not a shabby little nation state by the Mediterranean.

The “why” of Trump’s moving the embassy has been misunderstood: is not the work of the “Israel lobby.” Jews get the credit or blame (depending on perspective) for America’s lock-step alliance with Israel, however other factors are at play. Consider there are only four million Jews in the US, the majority of whom vote Democrat even though the Republicans are the more Israel friendly of the two big parties.

It’s the Christians.

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From John Pavlovitz:

At times in this life it can be a challenge to figure out who the bad people are, but sometimes they help you.

Sometimes they do the work for you.

Sometimes with their every vulgar, bitter word from their mouth, they testify to their personal malignancy and they make it easy to identify them.

Generally speaking, there are things that good people do and things good people don’t do.

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Wondering why a few conservative friends fail to be impressed.

• Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post reviews current White House personalities as revealed in the new book by Michael Wolff.
   
• At Stinque, nojo is more than a little impatient with mainstream news. In somber tones, shocked reporters announce the astounding discovery that we have a racist President. Really? Who could have guessed?
   
• Author John Scalzi at Whatever is weary of pretzel-like logic used by those who continue to maintain that Trump is not a racist.
   
• Tommy Christopher reports as a GOP news anchor is finally forced to conclude the obvious “Donald Trump disgraced the country.”
   
• Andy Borowitz reports as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is caught under the President’s Oval Office desk trying to disconnect the huge nuclear button. Satire? Oh, yeah. Satire.
   
• Jonathan Bernstein gathers thoughts from the thoughtful as he shows the danger to Republicans of Trump’s ethnicity based attacks. Neat phrase, that.
   
• Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice takes a look at the possible political effects that accompany the announced retirement infamous Congressional Rep Darrell Issa.
   
• Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger shows how Democrats may be about be granted unbelievable luck in Arizona.
   
• Frances Langum keeps track as my President’s social media director wants to end “chain migration” and gets reminded of his own family.
   
• Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara at Principled Perspectives goes after the safety net. It seems those who exercise socially granted rights to health care, education, or a minimum wage are “moochers” who serve as examples of the “greedy needy”. They fail their basic moral responsibility to pay their own way.
   
• In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, former pastor and current atheist Bruce learns from Christian singers that God is pro-gun. In fact, one of the reasons Jesus suffered and died was ancient Roman gun control..
   
• North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz suggests that Christians might meet a real need by putting aside other agendas and let people know they are visible.
   
• This week’s note in Trumpian ‘Alternative Facts’ comes from Newsweek as Kellyanne Convey insists “nobody here talks about Hillary Clinton.”
   

 
My long time friend T. Paine, at Saving Common Sense, reports on the uproar over the US recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. He concludes that Palestinians who object do “not truly want peace”. After all, says my conservative friend, Israel’s title to Jerusalem has been determined by God.

Infidel753 takes issue with the theocentric nature of my friend’s argument. Claiming to speak for the Almighty tends to foreclose any respect for other points of view. However, in disagreeing, Infidel also finds a point of agreement.

Infidel753:

Israel’s title to Jerusalem has been determined by God

This is a good example of the bizarre phenomenon observed throughout human history, in which some humans have figured out that they can place their own personal claims, prejudices, and pronouncements beyond dispute by claiming the role of ventriloquist’s dummies for an imaginary superbeing. On the status of Jerusalem, as on so many other issues, all we have are transcribed statements by humans in ancient times who claimed they were speaking for God, statements which usually conveniently reflect the interests of the humans supposedly relaying them.

In fact, Israel’s title to Jerusalem was determined the same way most national claims to territory are determined — by military force.

Trump, being an ignoramus, doesn’t grasp that diplomacy sometimes requires fudging reality to assuage wounded pride. Everyone who functions in the real world knows that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital and that there will never be any “Palestinian state” in the West Bank, just as everyone who functions in the real world knows that Taiwan and China are now two separate countries and probably will always be so. But when dealing with people who still wish that reality were other than it is, one is wise to avoid “rubbing it in”.

Paine does make a good point, though. The US should not be funding the “Palestinian Authority” which facilitates anti-Semitic terrorism. Fudging words for diplomatic purposes is sometimes necessary; overlooking murder is inexcusable.

Infidel753 expands on his main argument in a nuanced, thoughtful followup article that is well worth reading.

Dave Dubya writes for the informative and entertaining site, Freedom Rants. He offers a bit of research as a counterpoint to Infidel.

Dave Dubya:

I was curious about the US funding the Palestinian Authority, and found this interesting. Most money goes to UNRWA, the United Nations’ Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees.

From:
Haaretz reports: FACT CHECK: How Much Funding Does the U.S. Give Palestinians – and What Would Happen if Trump Cuts It

If the United States stopped giving that money, however, the result won’t necessarily pressure the Palestinian Authority. UNRWA’s work is much more influential in areas not controlled by the PA, such as Gaza and the Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, than in the West Bank…

A Congressional report from December 2016 stated that on average, ever since the Palestinian Authority’s creation following the Oslo process in 1993, the United States has invested $400 million a year in the Palestinians. Most of this money has not gone directly to the PA, but rather to projects in the West Bank and in Gaza supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

The report stated that the United States was due to invest $363 million in the Palestinian territories in 2017, with the vast majority of the sum going to USAID programs, and an approximate $36 million to directly support the Palestinian Authority’s security forces. With regards to such support of Palestinian security forces, which work in coordination with Israel to stop terror attacks, the report mentions that they may have also received “covert” funding from the United States without providing more details.

These days, Congress is considering legislation that would significantly cut funding to the Palestinians through USAID programs, called the “The Taylor Force Act.” The bill, named after an American citizen who was murdered in a terror attack in Tel Aviv in 2016, aims to cut U.S. funding to the Palestinians – except a number of programs such as hospitals in East Jerusalem, water projects and vaccination programs – as long as the Palestinian Authority continues paying salaries to convicted terrorists who are sitting in Israeli jails.

The Taylor Force Act, it should be noted, does not affect the budget allocated to the Palestinian security forces. While Israel supports the bill, it would likely oppose cuts to the funding given to the Palestinian security forces that work with Israeli counterparts on a regular basis and help maintain relative calm in the West Bank.”

Have a safe and peaceful weekend.

 
From libertarian Julian Sanchez of Cato Institute:

Donald Trump’s whiplash-inducing Twitter comments about the surveillance legislation his administration had just endorsed didn’t stop the House of Representatives from approving a bill to reauthorize the FISA Amendments Act for another six years, but if you watched the floor debate, you might come away thinking civil libertarians won at least a few concessions in the process. Defenders of the statute’s controversial Section 702, which authorizes warrantless surveillance of foreigners’ communications, rejected a proposal to require FBI agents to seek a warrant before querying the vast 702 database for Americans’ communications—a practice critics have dubbed a “backdoor search”—but did accept a narrower warrant requirement for queries conducted for criminal investigations unrelated to national security. Is this, as the bill’s boosters repeatedly insistence, a “compromise” that should provide some small consolation to civil libertarians?

Alas, no. There’s a good reason you won’t find any privacy advocates cheering even a partial victory following Thursday’s vote.

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From Max’s Dad:

To those who criticize CNN or MSNBC or whoever for bring these grunting toads on are missing the point. We dont watch Fox or Fox and Friends where these ass kissing soulless creeps live and breathe, being asked questions they already have seen. We watch other networks that sane people watch. To see these liars in action is essential. They are in power and refusing to admit that is suicide. We must see them and see their idiotic spewing of Trump vomit, Nazi bile and racist dog whistles, We have to. Or we dont get angry and we dont vote.

I applaud CNN and Jake Tapper for doing this interview.

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