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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 3, 2017 at 12:13 am
Islamics are quick to assert that they, too, are Americans. But getting Islamics to point out the terrorists within their ranks is an entirely different matter.
According to author Ronald Kessler, this has caused serious problems for the FBI. In his 2011 book, The Secrets of the FBI, Kessler notes the refusal of the Islamic community to identify known or potential terrorists within its ranks.

Says Arthur M. Cummings, the Bureau’s executive assistant director for national security: “I had this discussion with the director of a very prominent Muslim organization here in [Washington] D.C. And he said, ‘Why are you guys always looking at the Muslim community?’”
“I can name the homegrown cells, all of whom are Muslim, all of whom were seeking to kill Americans,” replied Cummings. “It’s not the Irish, it’s not the French, it’s not the Catholics, it’s not the Protestants. It’s the Muslims.”
Occasionally, Muslims will condemn Al Qaeda. But “rarely do we have them coming to us and saying, ‘There are three guys in the community that we’re very concerned about.’” said Cummings.
“They don’t want anyone to know they have extremists in their community. Well, beautiful. Except do you read the newspapers? Everybody already knows it. The horse has left the barn.
“So there’s a lot of talk about engagement. But, realistically, we’ve got a long, long way to go.”
At one community meeting, an Islamic leader suggested to Cummings that then-FBI director Robert Meuller III should pose for a picture with his group’s members. The reason: To show that Islamics are partners in the “war on terror.”
“When you bring to my attention real extremists who are here to plan and do something, who are here supporting terrorism,” said Cummings, “then I promise you, I will have the director stand up on the stage with you.”
“That could never happen,” replied the Islamic leader. “We would lose our constituency. We could never admit to bringing someone to the FBI.”
Cummings has no use for such Politically Correct terms as “man-caused disasters” to refer to terrorism. Nor does he shy away from terms such as “jihadists” or “Islamists.”
“Of course Islamists dominate the terrorism of today,” he says bluntly.
In May, 2014, Steven Emerson, a nationally recognized expert on terrorism, posted an ad in The New York Times, warning about the dangers of PC-imposed censorship:
“Our nation’s security and its cherished value of free speech has been endangered by the bullying campaigns of radical Islamic groups, masquerading as ‘civil rights’ organizations, to remove any reference to the Islamist motivation behind Islamic terrorist attacks.
“These groups have pressured or otherwise colluded with Hollywood, the news media, museums, book publishers, law enforcement and the Obama Administration in censoring the words ‘Islamist’, ‘Islamic terrorism’, ‘radical Islam’ and ‘jihad’ in discussing or referencing the threat and danger of Islamic terrorism.
“This is the new form of the jihadist threat we face. It’s an attack on one of our most sacred freedoms—free speech—and it endangers our very national security. How can we win the war against radical Islam if we can’t even name the enemy?”

He has a point—and a highly legitimate one.
Imagine the United States fighting World War II—and President Franklin Roosevelt banning the use of “fascist” in referring to Nazi Germany or “imperialist” in describing Imperial Japan.
Imagine CNN-like coverage of the Nazi extermination camps, with their piles of rotting corpses and smoking gas ovens, while a commentator reminds us that “Nazism is an ideology of peace.”
Then try to imagine how the United States could have won that life-and-death struggle under such unrealistic and self-defeating restrictions.
It couldn’t have done so then. And it can’t do so now.
Then consider these Islamic terrorist outrages of our own time:
- The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., which snuffed out the lives of 3,000 Americans.
- The 2004 bombing of Madrid’s commuter train system.
- The attack on the London subway in 2005. The killing of 13 U.S. Army personnel at Fort Hood, Texas, by a Muslim army major in 2009.
- The bombing of the Boston Marathon in 2013.
- The kidnapping of 300 Nigerian school girls by Boko Haram in 2014.
- The slaughter of 12 people at a Paris satirical magazine that had published cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed in 2015.
- The slaughter of more than 100 people in ISIS attacks across Paris in 2015.
- A series of deadly terrorist attacks in Brussels, killing 31 and injuring 270 in 2016.
- The mashing of eight bicyclists and pedestrians by a truck-driving ISIS supporter in 2017.
In every one of these attacks, the perpetrators openly announced that their actions had been motivated by their Islamic beliefs.
In his groundbreaking book, The Clash of Civilizations (1996) Samuel Huntington, the late political scientist at Harvard University, noted:
“The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.”
The West may not be at war with Islam—as countless Western politicians repeatedly assert. But Islamics have no qualms about declaring that they are at war with the West.
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 2, 2017 at 12:12 am
The 2016 Boston Marathon was scheduled for April 18, 2016.
And local, State and Federal law enforcement authorities had been planning security for the event since October, 2015.
So it was only natural that these agencies wanted the public to know the Marathon would be as safe as more than 5,000 law enforcement officers could make it.

The Boston Marathon
“‘Leave the worrying to us’: Security Ramped Up for Boston Marathon,” read the headline of the April 16 issue of USA Today.
And it gave the reason for this: Three years earlier, on April 15, 2013, two bombers had wreaked havoc at the finish line of the race.
It also named the bombers—brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev—whose terrorist act killed three people and injured about 264 others.

Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
It further noted that Tamerlan had died in a shootout with police three days after the marathon–and police had captured Dzhohkar several hours later. (He was convicted by a jury and sentenced to death.)
But the story said nothing about their citing Islam as the reason for their murderous rampage.
Click here: ‘Leave the worrying to us’: Security ramped up for Boston Marathon
The April 16 edition of The Boston Patch carried this headline: “Boston Marathon 2016: Security Changes You Can’t See All Around You.”
The article stated that most of these precautions couldn’t be revealed. Then it added that even though law enforcement officials hadn’t identified a credible threat to this year’s Boston Marathon, “recent events make the world feel less safe today than in 2013.”
But the article said nothing about those “recent events,” such as:
- In 2013, two Muslims butchered and beheaded a British soldier on a busy London street.
- In 2014, an ax-wielding Muslim slashed two New York police officers before being shot by other cops.
- In 2015, Muslims slaughtered 12 people at a Paris satirical magazine for publishing cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed.
- In 2015, more than 100 people were murdered in ISIS attacks across Paris.
- In 2016, a series of Islamic terrorist bombings in Brussels killed 31 and injured more than 300.
Nor did the story say that all of these “recent events” were carried out by followers of the Islamic religion. Or that the perpetrators openly announced that their actions had been motivated by their Islamic beliefs.
Click here: Brussels attacks add urgency to Boston Marathon security | US News
On April 6, 2016, The Boston Globe announced: “Tight Security Planned for Upcoming Boston Marathon.”
The story noted that, in drawing up their security arrangements, “authorities analyzed terrorist attacks in Paris, San Bernardino, Calif., and Brussels in recent months.”
The San Bernardino attack had occurred on December 2, 2015.
The story said that Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, had slaughtered 14 people and wounded 22 at a Department of Public Health training event and birthday party.

Tashfeen Malik and Syed Rizwan Farook
But the article did not inform readers that Farook and Malik were Muslims acting in the name of Islam.
The story quoted Harold Shaw, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston Field Office, as saying: “San Bernardino taught us something very significant. They [the killers] were not on the radar.”
But the article omitted “something very significant”: Farook and Malik had melded perfectly into American society before their outrage.
Thus, the only factor that could have put them “on the radar” as potential terrorists was their being Muslims.
And in an America driven by Political Correctness, noting that would have been verboten.
Click here: Tight security planned for upcoming Boston Marathon – The Boston Globe
NBC News carried a story on “How the Boston Marathon is Using Security Technology.”
The story then described how police used a high-tech partner, Esri, to track, in real-time, the progress of the morning’s race.
“When you look [at] security, there’s three legs to the stool: People, process and technology,” said Arnette Heintze, CEO and co-founder of Hillard Heintze, an investigation and security risk management company.
Click here: How the Boston Marathon is Using Security Technology – NBC News
Yet for all the gushing kudos leveled at the new uses of sophisticated technology for keeping people safe, one thing was conspicuously ignored.
The opening paragraph, “Three years after a deadly bombing at the Boston Marathon….” left unnamed those had made the use of this technology necessary–Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Nor did it mention that Dzhokhar had laid out, in a note, his reason for attacking innocent men and women: “We Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all.
“Well at least that’s how Muhammed wanted it to be forever. The ummah [Islamic community] is beginning to rise.
“Know you are righting men who look into the barrel of your gun and see heaven, how how can you compete with that. We are promised victory and will surely get it.”
Click here: Text from Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s note left in Watertown boat – The Boston Globe
Of all the Democratic and Republican Presidential candidates in 2016, only Donald Trump dared to say the politically un-sayable: Islam is at war with us.
And this candor—coupled with repeated Islamic atrocities—gained him both the Republican nomination and the White House.
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on October 4, 2017 at 12:05 am
Every year, the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) bestow Golden Globe awards to recognize excellence in television and film, both inside and outside the United States.
And on Sunday, January 8, the presenters honored actress Meryl Streep with the Cecil B Demille lifetime achievement Award.
Since 1979, she’s been nominated for more Academy Awards than any other actor—15 nominations for Best Actress and four for Best Supporting Actress.
She won Best Supporting Actress in 1980 for Kramer vs. Kramer, Best Actress in 1983 for Sophie’s Choice and again in 2012 for The Iron Lady.
But when Streep appeared to accept her latest award, she had a nomination of her own to present: One for a performance that “broke my heart.”

Meryl Streep at the Golden Globes
It had come in real life, not a movie. And the performer she nominated was Donald Trump, for his mockery of a disabled New York Times reporter in 2015.
The reporter, Serge Kovaleski, suffers from arthrogryposis, a congenital condition that restricts the movement of the muscles in his arms.
Since declaring his Presidential candidacy on June 16, 2015, Trump had attacked the patriotism of America’s Islamic population. He claimed that he had seen Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the collapse of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.
To prove this, Trump cited a September 18, 2001 article written by Kovaleski when he was a reporter for The Washington Post.
In this, Kovaleski wrote that police “detained and questioned a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style parties.”
After Trump mentioned the story, Kovaleski said that the key word in it was “allegedly,” adding that there were no credible reports of such celebrations.
At a South Carolina rally on November 24, 2015, Trump claimed that Kovaleski was backing away from his article.
To mock Kovaleski, he flopped his right arm around with his hand held at an odd angle while imitating the reporter: “Now, the poor guy, you’ve got to see this guy: ‘Uhh, I don’t know what I said. Uhh, I don’t remember,’ he’s going like ‘I don’t remember. Maybe that’s what I said.’”
Attacked for mocking Kovaleski’s disability, Trump claimed: “Serge Kovaleski must think a lot of himself if he thinks I remember him from decades ago–if I ever met him at all, which I doubt I did.”

Trump mocking Kovaleski, left; Kovaleski, right
But Kovaleski quickly contradicted Trump: He had covered Trump as a reporter for the New York Daily News and had met him face-to-face on at least a dozen occasions.
So Meryl Streep knew what she was talking about when she said:
“There was one performance this year that stunned me. It sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good. There was nothing good about it. But it was effective, and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh and show their teeth.
“It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter. Someone he outranked in privilege, power and the capacity to fight back. It kind of broke my heart when I saw it. I still can’t get it out of my head because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life.
“And this instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing.
“Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.”
Kelleyanne Conway served as Trump’s mouthpiece during the 2016 Presidential campaign. She continued in that rule as he prepared to take office as President on January 20.
And she was thoroughly upset with Streep’s remarks.
Appearing on Right-wing Fox and Friends the next morning, she said: “We have to now form a government, and I’m concerned that somebody with a platform like Meryl Streep is also, I think, inciting people’s worst instincts.
“When she won’t get up there and say, ‘I don’t like it, but let’s try to support him and see where we can find some common ground with him, which [Trump] has actually done from moment one.”
What common ground she didn’t say. Agreeing on mocking the disabled?
Not to be outdone in “inciting people’s worst instincts,” President-elect Trump quickly took to Twitter—his preferred mode of communication.
Since Twitter allows only 140 characters, Trump couldn’t say all he wanted in one tweet. So it took three:
Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn’t know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes. She is a…..
Hillary flunky who lost big. For the 100th time, I never “mocked” a disabled reporter (would never do that) but simply showed him…….
“groveling” when he totally changed a 16 year old story that he had written in order to make me look bad. Just more very dishonest media!
In 2015—before she insulted him—Trump told The Hollywood Reporter: “Julia Roberts is terrific, and many others. Meryl Streep is excellent; she’s a fine person, too.”
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 31, 2017 at 12:10 am
A Pew Research Center survey released on August 29 found that 36% of Americans approve of President Donald Trump. Most other polling rates his approval between 35 and 40%.
Other findings of the survey included:
- Just over two-thirds of Republicans agree with his positions;
- Among Democrats, 94% disagree with them;
- 15% of respondents agreed with Trump on all or nearly all issues;
- 18% agreed with him on many issues;
- 21% agreed on a few issues; and
- 45% didn’t agree with him on issues at all.
Asked what they thought of Trump’s conduct in office, Republicans were divided:
- 19% didn’t like his conduct;
- 46% said they had mixed feelings;
- 34% liked the way he behaved as President.
When asked what they liked most about Trump’s Presidency, those who approved of his performance cited his personality and conduct four times more often than his policies.

Donald Trump
On August 30, an article in Salon tackled this group head-on: “Most Americans Strongly Dislike Trump, But the Angry Minority That Adores Him Controls Our Politics.”
It described these voters as representing about one-third of the Republican party:
“These are older and more conservative white people, for the most part, who believe he should not listen to other Republicans and should follow his own instincts….
“They like Trump’s coarse personality, and approve of the fact that he treats women like his personal playthings. They enjoy it when he expresses sympathy for neo-Nazis and neo-Confederate white supremacists.
“They cheer when he declares his love for torture, tells the police to rough up suspects and vows to mandate the death penalty for certain crimes. (Which of course the president cannot do.)
“…This cohort of the Republican party didn’t vote for Trump because of his supposed policies on trade or his threat to withdraw from NATO. They voted for him because he said out loud what they were thinking. A petty, sophomoric, crude bully is apparently what they want as a leader.”
According to the Pew survey, they only comprise 16% of the population. That leaves 65% of Republicans who are revolted by Trump’s personality and behavior.
But they are being advised by GOP political consultants to vigorously support him.
“Your heart tells you that he’s bad for the country,” one anonymous consultant told the Salon reporter. “Your head looks at polling data among Republican primary voters and sees how popular he is.”
It’s precisely these hard-core Fascists who come out in mid-term elections—and they’re scaring the remaining 65% who make up the GOP establishment.
Their highest priority, after all, is to hold onto their privileged positions in the House and Senate. And anything that might jeopardize that—including what’s best for the country—can go hang.
Perhaps it’s time for Republicans to remember the lesson taught by High Noon, the classic 1952 Western starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly.

Town marshal Will Kane (Cooper) has just marred Amy Fowler (Kelly) a Quaker. It should be the happiest day of his life. But shortly after the ceremony, word comes that Frank Miller—a notorious murderer Kane once sent to prison—has been released.
Even worse, Miller and three other killers are coming into town on the noon train—to kill Kane.
Kane’s first instinct is to flee: He and his wife get into a buggy and dash out of town. But then his sense of duty takes over. He returns to town, intending to recruit a posse.
But this proves impossible—everyone is scared to death of Miller and his gang. And everyone Kane approaches has a reason for not backing him up.
Even Amy—a fervent believer in non-violence—threatens to leave him if he stands up to Miller. She will be on the noon train leaving town—with or without him.
When the clock strikes noon, the train arrives, and Kane—alone—faces his enemies. He shoots and kills two of them.
Then, as he’s pinned down by the third, he gets some unexpected help—from his wife: Amy shoots the would-be killer in the back—only to be taken hostage by Miller himself.
Miller tells Kane to leave his concealed position or he’ll kill Amy. Kane steps into the open—and Amy claws at Miller’s face, buying Kane the time he needs to shoot Miller down.
It’s over.
At that point, the townspeople rush to embrace Kane and congratulate him. But he’s now seen them for the cowards they are and holds them in total contempt.
Saying nothing, he drops the marshal’s star into the dirt. He and Amy then get into a buggy and leave town.
Fred Zinnemann, the film’s director, intended the movie as an attack on those frightened into silence by Joseph McCarthy, the infamous Red-baiting Senator from Wisconsin.
More than 50 years later, the movie remains a powerful indictment of civil cowardice—and a testament to the courage of a committed individual.
Gary Cooper won a Best Actor Academy Award for his performance.
Today’s Republicans would do well to find the same courage as Will Kane—and choose love of country over love of self.
Human nature being what it is, that is highly unlikely to happen.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, Entertainment, History, Military, Social commentary, Uncategorized on August 2, 2017 at 1:51 am
Anthony “The Mooch” Scaramucci desperately sought a high-stakes position with the Donald Trump White House.
He would have done better to have studied the truths offered in the 1940 movie, The Man I Married.
Carol Cabbott (Joan Bennett) is the editor of The Smart World, married to Eric Hoffman (Francis Lederer) a German. They have a seven-year-old son, Ricky (Johnny Russell).
Sometime in the 1930s they decide to vacation in Nazi Germany. Eric is quickly enamored of the Third Reich. His ardor is shared by Frieda (Anna Sten) a former schoolmate who reunites with him.
Frieda and Eric attend Nazi gatherings, and he decides to stay in Germany. Carol, however, is appalled at the cruelty and barbarism of the Reich and can’t wait to return to the United States.

As time passes, Eric becomes more strident in his worship of Adolf Hitler. Carol and he grow increasingly estranged.
Eventually, Eric tells Carol he is in love with Frieda and wants a divorce. Even worse, he wants to keep his son in Germany, to become a loyal follower of the Nazis.
For Carol, the situation is desperate: Under German law, Eric’s rights will trump hers.
But then fate takes a hand. While visiting his elderly father, Eric learns something truly shocking: His mother was a Jewess—the absolute worst calamity that could befall an ardent Nazi.
“If you won’t let your son return to America with his mother,” says his father, “I will go to the authorities and show them the marriage certificate.”
Eric is stunned. So is Frieda, who is standing by when the news breaks. Disgusted that she was about to “racially defile” herself, she angrily stalks out.
Suddenly, Eric now says he doesn’t know what came over him, and he wants to return to the United States. Even more startling, he expects to go on with his marriage to Carol, as if nothing has happened.
But, for Carol, the damage is too great and the marriage is over.
She and Ricky return to the United States without Eric—who has lost everything: His wife, his son and his future with the Third Reich.
Now, fast forward to the 21st century of Donald Trump’s America—and the fate of Anthony Scaramucci.

Anthony Scaramucci
Jdarsie11 [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)%5D
In 2005, Scaramucci founded SkyBridge Capital, a global alternative investment firm.
But, in 2017, hoping to attain a position with the Trump administration, he resigned from his co-management role and ended his affiliation with SkyBridge.
On January 12, he was named Assistant to President Trump and director of the White House Office of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs.
Then disaster struck. On January 31, Trump’s chief of staff, Reince Priebus, called Scaramucci “to tell him he should pull out of consideration.”
Priebus opposed Scaramucci’s appointment because of Scaramucci’s stake in Skybridge Capital. The reason: Skybridge held a majority stake sale to RON Transatlantic EG and HNA Capital (U.S.) Holding, a Chinese conglomerate with close ties to China’s Communist Party.
But then Scaramucci’s future with the Trump administration suddenly appeared a reality.
On July 21, 2017, he was named as White House Communications Director, to take office on July 25. Even more importantly, he would report directly to the President—and not to Priebus, as had White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer.
Spicer, who had opposed Scarmucci’s hiring, resigned on the day of the appointment. Priebus had also strongly argued against the hiring, to no avail.
Then Scaramucci’s own hubris intervened.
On July 26, in a call to Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker, Scaramucci said he would rid the White House of “leakers.” He threatened to fire the entire White House Communications staff if Lizza didn’t reveal the source who had leaked the story of a dinner he had had with Trump.
He blasted Priebus as a “leaker” and “a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac,” and predicted that Priebus “would resign soon.”
Scaramucci also had harsh words for Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon: “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock. I’m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the President. I’m here to serve the country.”
On July 27, Priebus resigned as chief of staff.
The next day, Trump announced that he had named retired general John F. Kelley as Priebus’ replacement.
Then, on July 31, Scaramucci joined Spicer and Priebus as an ex-White House employee—dismissed by Trump at Kelly’s request, according to The New York Times.
And, like Eric Hoffman in The Man I Married, Scaramucci found himself without a marriage.
His wife, Deidre Ball—like Carol Hoffman—despised the man he yearned to work for: Donald Trump.
Married to Scaramucci in 2014, Ball filed for divorce in early July 2017 when she was eight months pregnant with their second child.
On July 24, Deidre gave birth to the couple’s son, James—while Anthony was in West Virginia attending the Boy Scouts Jamboree with Trump. He reportedly sent her a note: “Congratulations, I’ll pray for our child.”
Like Icarus, the mythical character who flew too close to the sun, he rose to the heights—and plunged to his doom.
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on July 31, 2017 at 12:56 am
As both a Presidential candidate and President, Donald Trump has repeatedly used Twitter to attack hundreds of real and imagined enemies in politics, journalism, TV and films.
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, Trump fired almost 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions that had somehow offended him.

Donald Trump
The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them.
Among his targets:
- Hillary Clinton
- President Barack Obama
- Actress Meryl Streep
- Singer Neil Young
- Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Comedian John Oliver
- News organizations
- The State of New Jersey
- Beauty pageant contestants
Others he clearly delighted in insulting during the campaign included:
- Women
- Blacks
- Hispanics
- Asians
- Muslims
- The disabled
- Prisoners-of-war
As a Presidential candidate and President, he has shown outright hatred for President Barack Obama. For five years, he slandered Obama as a Kenyan-born alien who had no right to hold the Presidency.

Barack Obama
Only on the eve of the first Presidential debate with Hillary Clinton—in September, 2016—did he finally admit that Obama had been born in the United States.
Then, on March 4, 2017, in a series of unhinged tweets, Trump accused Obama of tapping his Trump Tower phones prior to the election:
“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”
Thus, without offering a shred of evidence to back it up, Trump accused his predecessor of committing an impeachable offense.
Both the FBI and Justice Department have vigorously refuted this slander.
Trump’s all-out effort to destroy the Affordable Care Act—nicknamed “Obamacare”—has been driven by his mania to erase every vestige of the Obama Presidency.
Even attending a Boy Scout Jamboree became, for Trump, a way to attack the former President.
“By the way, just a question. Did President Obama ever come to a jamboree?” Trump asked the crowd of 40,000, encouraging them to boo Obama. And many of them did.
As President, he has bullied and insulted even his own handpicked Cabinet officers and White House officials.
- His press secretary, Sean Spicer, quit on July 21. The reason: He believed—correctly—that his loyalty to Trump had become a one-way street. Trump kept him in the dark about events Spicer needed to know—such as an interview that Trump arranged with the New York Times—and which ended disastrously for Trump.
- Trump has waged a Twitter-laced feud against Jeff Sessions, his Attorney General. Sessions’ “crime”? Recusing himself from any decisions involving investigations into well-established ties between Russian Intelligence agents and members of Trump’s Presidential campaign.
- Trump has publicly said that if he had known Sessions would recuse himself—because of his past contacts with Russian officials—he would have picked someone else for Attorney General.
- Trump repeatedly humiliated his chief of staff, Reince Priebus—at one point ordering him to kill a fly that was buzzing about. On July 28, Priebus resigned.
As Americans have watched Trump’s behavior with morbid fascination, many of them have asked: “What makes him do the things he does?”
It’s a question asked–and answered—in the 1993 Western, Tombstone. And the answer given in that movie may be just hold the answer to the question so many Americans are now asking about Trump.

Tombstone recounts the legendary blood feud between the Ike Clanton outlaw gang and the Earp brothers—Wyatt, Morgan and Virgil—in the famous gold-mining town in 1880s Arizona.
Wyatt Earp has been challenged to a gunfight by quick-trigger gunman Johnny Ringo. Although he impulsively accepted the challenge, Wyatt now realizes he’s certain to be killed. Thus follows this exchange with his longtime friend, the pistol-packing dentist, John H. “Doc” Holliday:
WYATT EARP: What makes a man like Ringo, Doc? What makes him do the things he does?
JOHN H. “DOC” HOLLIDAY: A man like Ringo….got a great empty hole right through the middle of him. He can never kill enough or steal enough….or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.
EARP: What does he need?
HOLLIDAY: Revenge.
EARP: For what?
HOLLIDAY: Bein’ born.
Donald Trump was born into a world of wealth and privilege. His father gave him $200 million, which he channeled into a real estate empire. He has claimed to be worth a billion dollars.
He has been linked—often by his own boasts—to some of the most beautiful women in the world. He has been a major force on TV through his “reality show,” The Apprentice. He has literally stamped his name on hundreds of buildings.
And now he holds the Presidency of the United States, the most powerful office in the Western world.
Yet he remains filled with a poisonous hatred that encompasses almost everyone. Since taking office, he has offered nothing positive in his agenda.
Instead, he has focused his efforts on what he can take from others. At the top of his list: The Affordable Health Act, which provides access to medical care for millions who previously could not obtain it.
As first-mate Starbuck says of Captain Ahab in Herman Melville’s classic novel, Moby Dick: “He is a champion of darkness.”
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on February 21, 2017 at 12:04 am
It was February 16–and Trump’s first press conference as President.
Like the climatic showdown in The Caine Mutiny, it offered an unhinged rant, full of anger, personal attacks, self-pity and self-glorification.
But the man doing the ranting was not Captain Philip Francis Queeg. It was President Donald J. Trump, speaking from the East Room of the White House.
He opened casually: “Thank you very much. I just wanted to begin by mentioning that the nominee for Secretary of the Department of Labor will be Mr. Alex Acosta….”

Donald Trump
For the next hour and 15 minutes, Trump let raw emotion do his talking.
Among the highlights:
His hates the press: “….The press has become so dishonest that if we don’t talk about it, we are doing a tremendous disservice to the American people. Tremendous disservice. We have to talk about it to find out what is going on, because the press, honestly, is out of control. The level of dishonesty is out of control.”
He won “bigly” in the Electoral College: “I put it out before the American people, got 306 electoral college votes. They said there’s no way to get 222. 230 is impossible. 270 which you need, that was laughable. We got 306, because people came out and voted like they’ve never seen before. So that’s the way it goes. I guess it was the biggest electoral college win since Ronald Reagan.”
[Actually, it wasn’t. He got a smaller share of the Electoral College votes–56.88% than former presidents George H. W. Bush–79.18%; Bill Clinton–68.77% in 1992; and 70.45% in 1996; and Barack Obama–67.84% in 2008; and 61.71% in 2012.
[No other President had ever felt it necessary to brag about his Electoral College victory. And Trump didn’t mention that he lost the popular vote–with Hillary Clinton getting almost 2.9 million more votes than he did.]
He ignored the turmoil in his month-old administration: “I turn on the TV, open the newspapers and I see stories of chaos. Chaos. Yet it is the exact opposite. This administration is running like a fine-tuned machine, despite the fact that I can’t get my Cabinet approved, and they’re outstanding people.”
[His National Security Adviser, Michael T. Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, was forced to resign after 24 days.

Mike Flynn
[The reason: The media reported that Flynn had misled the vice president and other White House colleagues about a conversation with the Russian ambassador to the United States.
[In addition, Trump:
- Had his executive order banning travel by Muslims to the United States halted by Federal courts;
- Fired his acting attorney general for refusing to defend the ban;
- Angered the president of Mexico into cancelling a summit meeting;
- Bragged about the size of his electoral win to Australia’s prime minister, then hung up on him;
- Authorized a commando raid that resulted in the death of a Navy SEAL;
- Lied that he had been prevented from winning the popular vote by millions of illegal aliens; and
- Attacked Nordstrom’s department store for dropping the clothing and accessories lines of his daughter, Ivanka.
[In fact, Trump’s Cabinet–with the exception of his pick for Secretary of Labor–had been steamrollered through the Senate by Republicans.]
The press persecutes him: “I watch CNN. It’s so much anger and hatred and just the hatred. I don’t watch it anymore, because it’s very good….
“You look at your show [CNN Tonight] that goes on at 10 in the evening. You just take a look at that show. That is a constant hit. The panel is almost always exclusive anti-Trump. The good news is he doesn’t have good ratings, but the panel is almost exclusive anti-Trump. And the hatred and venom coming from his mouth. The hatred coming from other people on your network.”
He’s really a good, misunderstood person: “….I can handle a bad story better than anybody, as long as it is true. Over a course of time, I will make mistakes and you will write badly, and I am OK with that. But I am not OK when it is fake….
“I know when you’re telling the truth or when you’re not. I just see many, many untruthful things. And I’ll tell you what else I see, I see tone….The tone is such hatred. I’m really not a bad person, by the way. No, but the tone is such–I do get good ratings. You have to admit that.”
His campaign never colluded with Russian Intelligence: “Well, the failing New York Times wrote a big, long front-page story yesterday. And it was very much discredited, as you know. It [was] — it’s a joke. … Russia is fake news. This is fake news put out by the media.”
[Several of Trump’s high-level advisers were in constant communication during the campaign with Russian Intelligence agents. These contacts are now being investigated by the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency.]
* * * * *
By the end of The Caine Mutiny, Stephen Maryk is acquitted of mutiny. Captain Queeg is presumably relieved of future commands.
By the end of President Trump’s bizarre and frightening press conference, there is no telling what lies ahead for the United States–or the world.
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on February 20, 2017 at 12:03 am
Watching President Donald Trump’s first press conference, some viewers might have flashed back to the climatic scene in the 1954 movie, The Caine Mutiny.
Based on Herman Wouk’s bestselling novel, it centers on the minesweeper USS Caine. Stationed in the Pacific during World War II, its captain is by-the-book Lt. Commander Philip Francis Queeg (Humphrey Bogart).

Queeg is determined to bring a sense of discipline to the ship’s lax seamen. But he can’t admit mistakes, and his bullying approach to command alienates both officers and crew.
Soon after, a typhoon overtakes the Caine. Queeg becomes paralyzed with fear. His executive officer, Steve Maryk (Van Johnson), relieves the captain of command to prevent the loss of the ship. Maryk turns the Caine into the wind and rides out the storm.
Maryk is tried by court-martial for mutiny. His case looks hopeless: Queeg has been found sane by three Navy psychiatrists.
Naval Prosecutor Lt. Commander John Challee depicts Maryk as a reckless mutineer. And Queeg portrays himself as the persecuted victim of a malignant conspiracy by his own officers.
Knowing that Queeg reacts badly to stress, Maryk’s attorney, Lt. Barney Greenwald (Jose Ferrer) relentlessly cross-examines him:
GREENWALD: Did you steam over your tow line?
QUEEG: I’m happy to dispose of this particular slander. When we were towing the target, I saw some anti-aircraft bursts. I turned to avoid them. My unreliable helmsman failed to warn me about that. But I saw it and reversed course. We didn’t steam over the tow line.
GREENWALD: Did nothing else distract you?
QUEEG: Not that I recall.
GREENWALD: Weren’t you reprimanding a seaman for having his shirt-tail out while the ship turned?
QUEEG: That only took two seconds.
GREENWALD: Were all your officers disloyal?
QUEEG: I didn’t say that. Only some were disloyal.
GREENWALD: Mr Keith and Mr Maryk?
QUEEG: Yes.
GREENWALD: Did you turn your ship upside down searching for a phantom key?
QUEEG: I don’t know what lies have been sworn to here, but a key definitely did exist.
PROSECUTOR LT. COMMANDER JOHN CHALLEE: The witness is understandably agitated. I request a recess.
QUEEG: I don’t want a recess. I’ll answer all questions right here and now.
GREENWALD: Did you conduct such a search?
QUEEG: Yes, I did. My disloyal officers failed me, and the key couldn’t be found.
GREENWALD: Wasn’t this whole fuss over a quart of strawberries?
QUEEG: The pilfering of food in large amounts or small is a very serious occurrence on board a ship.
GREENWALD: You were told that the mess boys ate the berries. There was no key.
QUEEG: The key was not imaginary. I don’t know anything about mess boys eating strawberries.
GREENWALD: Have you no recollection of a conversation with Ensign Harding? Didn’t he tell you that the mess boys ate the strawberries?
QUEEG: I remember he was grateful for his transfer. His wife was ill in the States.
GREENWALD: Do you know where Ensign Harding is now? He’s in San Diego. He can be flown up here in three hours if necessary. Would it serve any useful purpose to have him testify?
QUEEG: Now, there’s no need for that.
[He reaches into the pocket of his Navy coat and removes two little steel balls, which he rolls together whenever he feels under stress. He starts rolling them together now and continues to do so throughout the rest of the proceeding.]
Now that I recall, he might have said something about mess boys. I questioned many men, and Harding was not the most reliable officer.
GREENWALD: The defense has no other recourse than to produce Ensign Harding.
QUEEG: Now, there’s no need for that. I know exactly what he’ll tell you–lies. He was no different from any other officer in the wardroom. They were all disloyal. I tried to run the ship properly, by the book, but they fought me at every turn. If the crew wanted to walk around with their shirt-tails out, let them. Take the tow line–defective equipment.
But they began spreading wild rumors about steaming in circles. And then “Old Yellowstain.” I was to blame for Maryk’s incompetence and poor seamonship. Lt. Maryk was the perfect officer, but not Queeg.
But the strawberries, ah, that’s where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes. But I proved beyond a shadow of a doubt and with geometric logic that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox did exist. I could have produced that key if they hadn’t pulled the Caine out of action. I know now they were only trying to protect some fellow officer.
Naturally, I can only cover these things from memory. If I’ve left anything out, just ask me specific questions and I’ll be glad to answer them one by one.
[The courtroom falls silent–except for the tinkling of the steel balls that Queeg keeps rolling in his right hand. The judges stare at him as he does so. They say nothing, but it’s clear they know they’re looking at a man at the end of his sanity–and naval career.]
GREENWALD: No further questions, sir.
Maryk is acquitted.
* * * * *
So much for fiction. Now for the terrifying reality.
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on January 10, 2017 at 12:06 am
Every year, the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) bestow Golden Globe awards to recognize excellence in television and film, both inside and outside the United States.
And on Sunday, January 8, the presenters honored actress Meryl Streep with the Cecil B Demille lifetime achievement Award.
Since 1979, she’s been nominated for more Academy Awards than any other actor–15 nominations for Best Actress and four for Best Supporting Actress.
She won Best Supporting Actress in 1980 for Kramer vs. Kramer, Best Actress in 1983 for Sophie’s Choice and again in 2012 for The Iron Lady.
But when Streep appeared to accept her latest award, she had a nomination of her own to present: One for a performance that “broke my heart.”

Meryl Streep at the Golden Globes
It had come in real life, not a movie. And the performer she nominated was Donald Trump, for his mockery of a disabled New York Times reporter in 2015.
The reporter, Serge Kovaleski, suffers from arthrogryposis, a congenital condition that restricts the movement of the muscles in his arms.
Since declaring his Presidential candidacy on June 16, Trump had attacked the patriotism of America’s Islamic population. He claimed that he had seen Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the collapse of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.
To prove this, Trump cited a September 18, 2001 article written by Kovaleski when he was a reporter for The Washington Post.
In this, Kovaleski wrote that police “detained and questioned a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style parties.”
After Trump mentioned the story, Kovaleski said that the key word in it was “allegedly,” adding that there were no credible reports of such celebrations.
At a South Carolina rally on November 24, 2015, Trump claimed that Kovaleski was backing away from his article.
To mock Kovaleski, he flopped his right arm around with his hand held at an odd angle while imitating the reporter: “Now, the poor guy, you’ve got to see this guy: ‘Uhh, I don’t know what I said. Uhh, I don’t remember,’ he’s going like ‘I don’t remember. Maybe that’s what I said.'”
Click here: Donald Trump mocks disabled New York Times reporter – Donald Trump mocks reporter with disability – YouTube
Attacked for mocking Kovaleski’s disability, Trump claimed: “Serge Kovaleski must think a lot of himself if he thinks I remember him from decades ago–if I ever met him at all, which I doubt I did.”

Trump mocking Kovaleski, left; Kovaleski, right
But Kovaleski quickly contradicted Trump: He had covered Trump as a reporter for the New York Daily News and had met him face-to-face on at least a dozen occasions.
So Meryl Streep knew what she was talking about when she said:
“There was one performance this year that stunned me. It sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good. There was nothing good about it. But it was effective, and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh and show their teeth.
“It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter. Someone he outranked in privilege, power and the capacity to fight back. It kind of broke my heart when I saw it. I still can’t get it out of my head because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life.
“And this instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing.
“Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.”
Kelleyanne Conway served as Trump’s mouthpiece during the 2016 Presidential campaign. She continues in that rule as he prepares to take office as President on January 20.
And she was thoroughly upset with Streep’s remarks.
Appearing on Right-wing Fox and Friends the next morning, she said: “We have to now form a government, and I’m concerned that somebody with a platform like Meryl Streep is also, I think, inciting people’s worst instincts.
“When she won’t get up there and say, ‘I don’t like it, but let’s try to support him and see where we can find some common ground with him, which [Trump] has actually done from moment one.”
What common ground she didn’t say. Agreeing on mocking the disabled?
Not to be outdone in “inciting people’s worst instincts,” President-elect Trump quickly took to Twitter–his preferred mode of communication.
Since Twitter allows only 140 characters, Trump couldn’t say all he wanted in one tweet. So it took three:
Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn’t know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes. She is a…..
Hillary flunky who lost big. For the 100th time, I never “mocked” a disabled reporter (would never do that) but simply showed him…….
“groveling” when he totally changed a 16 year old story that he had written in order to make me look bad. Just more very dishonest media!
In 2015–before she insulted him–Trump told The Hollywood Reporter: “Julia Roberts is terrific, and many others. Meryl Streep is excellent; she’s a fine person, too.”
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on August 15, 2016 at 1:03 am
August is the month for…assassination. Or at least for advocating—and dramatizing—it.
On August 9, Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump told a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina: “Hillary [Clinton] wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment.
“If she gets to pick her [Supreme Court] judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”

Donald Trump
The Clinton camp instantly saw it as a “dog-whistle” solicitation for political assassination:
“Don’t treat this as a political misstep,” Senator Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut, who has called for stiffer gun laws, wrote on Twitter. “It’s an assassination threat, seriously upping the possibility of a national tragedy & crisis.”
“A person seeking to be the President of the United States should not suggest violence in any way,” Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said in a statement.
The Trump campaign issued a statement denying that he had meant any such thing.
Three days after Trump’s remarks, Operation Antrhopoid, a UK-French-Czech historical film, appeared in theaters. Directed by Sean Ellis, it stars Cillian Murphy, Jamie Dornan, Charlotte Le Bon and Bill Milner.
Its subject: The 1942 assassination of SS Obergruppenführer (General) Reinhard Heydrich.

For Trump it was a moment of supreme, if unnoticed, irony.
“The constant violent, brutish talk from Donald Trump,” said Michael Steel, a top adviser to former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, “is unworthy of the office he seeks.”
Political violence has long been a feature of Trump’s campaign. During the primaries, he openly endorsed retaliation against protesters who disrupted his rallies, many of whom accused him of racism.

Reinhard Heycrich
And Heydrich—“the man with the iron heart,” as Adolf Hitler eulogized at his funeral—similarly earned a reputation for brutality and racism.
A tall, blond-haired formal naval officer, he was both a champion fencer and talented violinist. Heydrich joined the Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squads, better known as the SS, in 1931, and quickly became head of its counterintelligence service.
In 1934, he oversaw the “Night of the Long Knives” purge of Hitler’s brown-shirted S.A., or Stormtroopers.
The S.A. had been instrumental in securing Hitler’s rise to Chancellor of Germany in 1933. They had intimidated political opponents and organized mass rallies for the Nazi Party. But after Hitler attained power, he saw them as a liability.
In September, 1941, Heydrich was appointed “Reich Protector” of Czechoslovakia, which had fallen prey to Germany in 1938 but whose citizens were growing restless under Nazi rule.
Heydrich immediately ordered a purge, executing 92 people within the first three days of his arrival in Prague. By February, 1942, 4,000-5,000 people had been arrested.
In January, 1942, Heydrich convened a meeting of high-ranking political and military leaders to streamline “the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.”
Up until that time, the Nazis had been unable to agree on a comprehensive anti-Jewish policy. Some had argued for the “mere” expulsion of Jews from Germany while others advocated their wholesale extermination.
At the now-infamous Wannsee conference, Heydrich decreed that, henceforth, all Jews in Reich-occupied territories would be shipped to extermination camps. No exceptions would be made for women, children or the infirm.
An estimated six million Jews were thus slaughtered.
Returning to Prague, Heydrich continued his policy of carrot-and-stick with the Czechs—improving the social security system and requisitioning luxury hotels for middle-class workers, alternating with arrests and executions.
The Czech government-in-exile, headquartered in London, feared that Heydrich’s incentives might lead the Czechs to passively accept domination. They decided to assassinate Heydrich.
Two British-trained Czech commandos—Jan Kubis and Joseph Gabcik—parachuted into Prague.
With limited intelligence on Heydrich’s movements and little equipment in a city under lockdown, they had to find a way to carry out their assignment.
Unexpectedly, they got help from Heydrich himself. Supremely arrogant, he traveled the same route every day from home to his downtown office and refused to be escorted by armed guards, claiming no one would dare attack him.
On May 27, 1942, Kubis and Gabcik waited at a hairpin turn in the road always taken by Heydrich. When Heydrich’s Mercedes slowed down, Gabcik raised his machinegun–which jammed.
Instead of ordering his driver to “step on it,” Heydrich ordered him to halt—so he could take aim at his would-be assassins.
Rising in his seat, he aimed his revolver at Gabcik—as Kubis lobbed a hand grenade at the car. The explosion drove steel and leather fragments of the car’s upholstery into Heydrich’s diaphragm, spleen and lung.
Hitler dispatched doctors from Berlin to save the Reich Protector. But infection set in, and on June 4, Heydrich died at age 38.
For Donald Trump, the timing of Operation Antrhopoid couldn’t be worse.
Trump has long been accused of being a racist and would-be dictator. Facebook routinely carries memes of him wearing a Nazi uniform, complete with Hitler forelock and toothbrush mustache.
It is Trump who raised the issue of using assassination to attain political ends. The last thing he needs is a movie showing that Right-wingers can also be targets for death.
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ISLAMIC TERRORISTS: PC VS. REALITY: PART TWO (END)
In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 3, 2017 at 12:13 amIslamics are quick to assert that they, too, are Americans. But getting Islamics to point out the terrorists within their ranks is an entirely different matter.
According to author Ronald Kessler, this has caused serious problems for the FBI. In his 2011 book, The Secrets of the FBI, Kessler notes the refusal of the Islamic community to identify known or potential terrorists within its ranks.
Says Arthur M. Cummings, the Bureau’s executive assistant director for national security: “I had this discussion with the director of a very prominent Muslim organization here in [Washington] D.C. And he said, ‘Why are you guys always looking at the Muslim community?’”
“I can name the homegrown cells, all of whom are Muslim, all of whom were seeking to kill Americans,” replied Cummings. “It’s not the Irish, it’s not the French, it’s not the Catholics, it’s not the Protestants. It’s the Muslims.”
Occasionally, Muslims will condemn Al Qaeda. But “rarely do we have them coming to us and saying, ‘There are three guys in the community that we’re very concerned about.’” said Cummings.
“They don’t want anyone to know they have extremists in their community. Well, beautiful. Except do you read the newspapers? Everybody already knows it. The horse has left the barn.
“So there’s a lot of talk about engagement. But, realistically, we’ve got a long, long way to go.”
At one community meeting, an Islamic leader suggested to Cummings that then-FBI director Robert Meuller III should pose for a picture with his group’s members. The reason: To show that Islamics are partners in the “war on terror.”
“When you bring to my attention real extremists who are here to plan and do something, who are here supporting terrorism,” said Cummings, “then I promise you, I will have the director stand up on the stage with you.”
“That could never happen,” replied the Islamic leader. “We would lose our constituency. We could never admit to bringing someone to the FBI.”
Cummings has no use for such Politically Correct terms as “man-caused disasters” to refer to terrorism. Nor does he shy away from terms such as “jihadists” or “Islamists.”
“Of course Islamists dominate the terrorism of today,” he says bluntly.
In May, 2014, Steven Emerson, a nationally recognized expert on terrorism, posted an ad in The New York Times, warning about the dangers of PC-imposed censorship:
“Our nation’s security and its cherished value of free speech has been endangered by the bullying campaigns of radical Islamic groups, masquerading as ‘civil rights’ organizations, to remove any reference to the Islamist motivation behind Islamic terrorist attacks.
“These groups have pressured or otherwise colluded with Hollywood, the news media, museums, book publishers, law enforcement and the Obama Administration in censoring the words ‘Islamist’, ‘Islamic terrorism’, ‘radical Islam’ and ‘jihad’ in discussing or referencing the threat and danger of Islamic terrorism.
“This is the new form of the jihadist threat we face. It’s an attack on one of our most sacred freedoms—free speech—and it endangers our very national security. How can we win the war against radical Islam if we can’t even name the enemy?”
He has a point—and a highly legitimate one.
Imagine the United States fighting World War II—and President Franklin Roosevelt banning the use of “fascist” in referring to Nazi Germany or “imperialist” in describing Imperial Japan.
Imagine CNN-like coverage of the Nazi extermination camps, with their piles of rotting corpses and smoking gas ovens, while a commentator reminds us that “Nazism is an ideology of peace.”
Then try to imagine how the United States could have won that life-and-death struggle under such unrealistic and self-defeating restrictions.
It couldn’t have done so then. And it can’t do so now.
Then consider these Islamic terrorist outrages of our own time:
In every one of these attacks, the perpetrators openly announced that their actions had been motivated by their Islamic beliefs.
In his groundbreaking book, The Clash of Civilizations (1996) Samuel Huntington, the late political scientist at Harvard University, noted:
“The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.”
The West may not be at war with Islam—as countless Western politicians repeatedly assert. But Islamics have no qualms about declaring that they are at war with the West.
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