SHE LIED! Hillary’s Tearjerker About Handicapped Girl in Wheelchair in DNC Speech WAS ALL A LIE!

Jim Hoft Jul 31st, 2016 10:32 am63 Comments

On Thursday night Hillary Clinton delivered her acceptance speech at the DNC Convention in Philadelphia.
The transcript was posted at the LA Times.

Hillary told the crowd about a poor suffering handicapped girl in a wheelchair in New Bedford, Massachusetts who could not go to school because of her disability. Hillary said she helped the girl get to school.

Hillary told the crowd about how she helped that girl get to school.

“My mother, Dorothy, was abandoned by her parents as a young girl. She ended up on her own at 14, working as a housemaid. She was saved by the kindness of others.

Her first-grade teacher saw she had nothing to eat at lunch and brought extra food to share the entire year. The lesson she passed on to me, years later, stuck with me: No one gets through life alone. We have to look out for each other and lift each other up.

And she made sure I learned the words from our Methodist faith: “Do all the good you can, for all the people you can, in all the ways you can, as long as ever you can.”

“So, I went to work for the Children’s Defense Fund, going door-to-door in New Bedford, Mass., on behalf of children with disabilities who were denied the chance to go to school.

I remember meeting a young girl in a wheelchair on the small back porch of her house. She told me how badly she wanted to go to school — it just didn’t seem possible in those days. And I couldn’t stop thinking of my mother and what she’d gone through as a child.

It became clear to me that simply caring is not enough. To drive real progress, you have to change both hearts and laws. You need both understanding and action.

So we gathered facts. We built a coalition. And our work helped convince Congress to ensure access to education for all students with disabilities.”

But it was ALL A LIE.

Wasserman Schultz’s problems aren’t over yet

Wasserman Schultz’s problems aren’t over yet
By Lisa Hagen - 07-31-16 10:30 AM EDT

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's political troubles aren't over yet.

The Florida Democrat is facing the toughest political race of her life after ending her controversial tenure as leader of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

Her House seat is on the line in a primary race against well-funded challenger Tim Canova, and the battle is heating up amid the fallout from her resignation following the leak of hacked emails that showed DNC officials plotting to undermine Sen. Bernie Sanders's (I-Vt.) presidential campaign in the Democratic primary.

Some think the race has changed after the former chairwoman's tough week.

"I think this has really shifted the race," said Kathryn DePalo, a political science professor at Florida International University. "I think she's going to have a tough fight. I think she's probably going to win, but it'll be close."

She added that a Canova victory would not be a surprise. "I think that's how devastating these email leaks have been," DePalo said.

Wasserman Schultz was booed off the stage by Sanders supporters at the Florida delegation breakfast on the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia last week.

"The constant refrain that I heard is she can eke it out," said Susan MacManus, a political science professor at University of South Florida in Tampa.

But MacManus said it won't be without a fight.

"She's got to come home and work her constituency," she said. "She hasn't had to for years."

State Sen. Eleanor Sobel, a Clinton delegate whose district overlaps with Wasserman Schultz's congressional district, also attended the breakfast and brushed off the prospect that this will hurt Wasserman Schultz's reelection bid.

"Most people understand Debbie as someone who is very caring," Sobel said. "She's part of the fabric of our community."

Canova has been trying to build momentum.

He's already raised an eye-popping $2.3 million since entering the race in January, and his alignment with Sanders has won him attention and an endorsement from the senator himself.

Canova said he's been nonstop campaigning for the past eight months as he criss-crosses the district to meet as many constituents as possible. The DNC leak exudes her "bad judgment" and has rallied more people to his campaign, he said.

"We're seeing a lot of energy come our way," Canova told The Hill. "We built a very good field operation to ride the wave that's come in now."

A political consulting firm run by top aides to the Sanders campaign has joined Canova. The firm, run by Tad Devine, Julian Mulvey and Mark Longabaugh, was tasked with handling advertising as well as advising Sanders during the primary.

One big question is whether Sanders will campaign for Canova in Florida.

Canova said he spoke to Sanders's campaign manager before the convention and that talks will continue, but no plans have been confirmed.

Wasserman Schultz, the state's first Jewish congresswoman, is a well-known fixture in her predominantly Jewish district. Her campaign did not return a request for comment.

She also appears to have an advantage in that her constituents voted overwhelmingly for Clinton in the March primary.

Those who live in her district describe her as a tireless campaigner who's well liked and well known.

Some observers are skeptical Canova can win in a summer primary that will likely have low turnout.

"While I'm sure that there is some impact, I don't think that we should overstate the impacts because I think that the folks in her home district are the ones that know her the most," said Ashley Walker, a Florida Democratic strategist.

Wasserman Schultz's main priority will be to engage with constituents and have a constant presence in her district. Her campaign will also have a bit of catching up to do: Canova's campaign has been running TV and radio ads for the past three weeks.

"I think she needs to get out there face-to-face, get out to the groups all over the district," DePalo said. "That's the way I think she can turn things around is being out there."

Even with all eyes suddenly drawn to the race, it's still difficult to predict the outcome with no polling currently available. But if someone is able to unseat Wasserman Schultz, observers say it's Canova.

"If anyone's going to beat her, it's a Democrat from her left with $2 million," said Kevin Hill, a political science professor at Florida International University.

Study: Law-Abiding Firearm Owners Really Don't Commit Gun Crimes (Which Is What We've Been Telling You All Along)

Matt Vespa

Well, what do you know? It looks like what we’ve been saying about gun crimes being committed mostly by people who shouldn’t have them turns out not to be NRA-backed propaganda, but…the facts. For what seems like millennia, the pro-Second Amendment crowd has said ad nauseum that the vast majority of gun owners are law-abiding, and that the vast majority of gun crimes are committed by people who shouldn’t firearms to begin with. It’s not a radical concept, nor is the notion that more gun control laws would only harm the honest gun owners, while having zero impact on the criminal element in this country. 

In a new study by the University of Pittsburgh, it was discovered that law-abiding gun owners were responsible for less than a fifth of all gun crimes (via WaPo):

In the study, led by epidemiologist Anthony Fabio of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health, researchers partnered with the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police to trace the origins of all 893 firearms that police recovered from crime scenes in the year 2008.

They found that in approximately 8 out of 10 cases, the perpetrator was not a lawful gun owner but rather in illegal possession of a weapon that belonged to someone else. The researchers were primarily interested in how these guns made their way from a legal purchase — at a firearm dealer or via a private sale — to the scene of the crime.

"All guns start out as legal guns," Fabio said in an interview. But a "huge number of them" move into illegal hands. "As a public-health person, I'd like to be able to figure out that path," he added.

More than 30 percent of the guns that ended up at crime scenes had been stolen, according to Fabio's research. But more than 40 percent of those stolen guns weren't reported by the owners as stolen until after police contacted them when the gun was used in a crime.

One of the more concerning findings in the study was that for the majority of guns recovered (62 percent), "the place where the owner lost possession of the firearm was unknown."

Christopher Ingraham, who wrote the article, added that straw purchases are also a major factor in guns getting into the wrong hands. As evidence to that fact, he mentioned that 44 percent of gun owners identified in the 2008 study did not return calls from law enforcement. Yet, the rate and lack of initiative on behalf of gun owners reporting their firearms stolen, or approaching law enforcement, is a bit disconcerting. Maybe here the federal and state government could lend a hand in incentivizing making sure more people safely store their firearms. I’m not saying that gun owners are irresponsible, but maybe here is where federal and state governments could pass laws that incentivize more secure storage: allow gun owners to write gun safes off their taxes.

The Secure Firearms Act was proposed in 2013, but died at the end of the session. It offered a $1,200 deduction to any citizen for the cost of a gun safe. Maybe double or triple that amount—do something that could incentivize more Americans to participate in gun safe buying. First of all, who wouldn’t want he chance to get a $1,200 deduction in the first place? I bet you could get a lot more if that figure were increased a bit. Granted, this is just one piece of policy that could be debated. Frankly, the best ways to effectively stress properly storage is have the National Shooting Sports Foundation, The National Rifle Association, and other pro-gun rights groups conduct public service campaigns of their own to stress the issue, but we all know that anti-gun liberals are going to protest, whine, or go indiscriminately insane if these groups start talking about gun safety. 

In fact, there’s an almost 100 percent chance the talk about proper storage in this context would be hijacked by gun control crowd’s incessant need to discuss expanded background checks. Nevertheless, it’s the right thing to do if this were to happen. Yet, the real issue here is that gun owners are law-abiding, and criminals don’t obtain their firearms legally. But I know all we will get from the anti-gun Left is a big eyeroll.

Key coalition partner rejects Merkel’s stance on refugees

Key coalition partner rejects Merkel’s stance on refugees

Power Line - Sunday July 31, 2016

by Paul Mirengoff

(Paul Mirengoff)

Undeterred by recent murders committed by Muslim refugees, Angela Merkel stands fully behind her decision to admit more than 1 million Syrian refugees. She made this clear in a recent press conference the theme of which was “we can still do this.”

But Merkel’s key coalition partner, Horst Seehofer the premier of Bavaria, today rejected this view. “‘We can do this’ – I cannot, with the best will, adopt this phrase as my own,” Seehofer said following a meeting of his Christian Social Union party, the Bavarian counterpart of Merkel’s party. 

Seehofer explained:

The problem is too big for that and the attempts at a solution thus far too unsatisfactory. Restrictions on immigration are a condition for security in this country.”

Bavaria has been hard hit by immigration-related violence. The killing spree by the Iranian-German took place at a shopping center in Munich. Bavaria was also the site of the attack by a Syrian asylum seeker at a music festival in Ansbach and the ax and knife attack by an Afghan asylum seeker that occurred on a train.

It wasn’t until the day after the Munich attack that Merkel got around to talking about it. President Obama beat her by 17 hours.

Merkel seems tone deaf and out of touch on this issue. In her recent statement, she insisted:

Despite the great unease these events inspire, fear can’t be the guide for political decisions. It is my deep conviction that we cannot let our way of life be destroyed.

But Germans are coming to realize that mass immigration from Muslim countries threatens their way of life. Perhaps the best evidence of this can be found not in the recent killings as horrifying as they are, but rather in the spate of sexual assaults, most notably the spree that took place in Cologne on New Year’s Eve.

The Daily Mail claims that Merkel’s premiership is now “hanging by a thread.” I don’t know whether that is so, but her popularity — which had plummeted only to revive following the Brexit — is sure to take a hit given the recent violence. 

The Daily Mail cites a poll in which 83 per cent of Germans saw immigration as their nation’s biggest challenge – twice as many as a year ago. Surely a big portion of that 83 percent agrees with Merkel’s Bavarian ally that her “solution thus far [is] too unsatisfactory.”

Indeed, Internet pollster YouGov foundthat 48 percent of Germans do “not agree at all” that Germany can manage the refugee influx and another 18 percent said they “slightly disagree.” Taken together, that’s two-thirds of Germans. Less than a quarter of respondents had confidence in Merkel’s “we can do this” mantra.

Merkel has always seemed pragmatic and clear-headed. Why did she commit Germany to taking in such a vast number of Syrian refugees?

Last year, I tried to answer the question this way:

I don’t doubt that there is a humanitarian component to Merkel’s decision, and in some respects her willingness to take in so many refugees is a feel good story. But keep in mind that Germany has an economic interest in bringing in young workers, and that this interest isn’t mirrored in many other EU member states.

Germany faces a severe labor shortage, both short-term and long-term. A study by the Robert Bosch foundation suggested that Germany’s workforce could shrink by about 6 million by 2030.

I also wonder whether Merkel really grasped what the sudden influx of a million or more Muslim refugees would mean for Germany. It’s fair to ask whether Merkel understands Islamism. Perhaps her model was based on the Turkish immigrants of the past. But they came from a basically secular nation at a time when Islamist extremism wasn’t nearly the force it has become.

Jens Spahn, deputy finance minister and a senior member of Merkel’s conservatives, seemed to confirm this explanation.  He admits: “My impression is that we all underestimated a year ago what would come upon us with this big refugee and migration movement.”

But not “all” did. In his comments today, Seehofer said that ““all our predictions [about the impact of Merkel’s policies] have been proven right.”

In all likelihood, Seehofer’s assessment that Merkel’s government continues to “underestimate” what’s in store will also be proven right.

  

Read More Here

Koch Brothers’ Network: We’re not Helping Trump or Clinton

Koch Brothers’ Network: We’re not Helping Trump or Clinton

The Stream - Sunday July 31, 2016

by Steve Peoples

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) -- From a luxury hotel on the edge of the Rocky Mountains, some of the nation’s most powerful Republican donors are rebelling against Donald Trump.

Billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, host of the exclusive weekend retreat, did not mention Trump by name as he warned that political leaders are giving “frightening” answers to America’s challenges. One of his chief lieutenants was more direct as he made clear that Koch’s expansive political network would not use its tremendous resources to help Trump win this fall.

“We’re focused on the Senate,” said Mark Holden, general counsel and senior vice president of Koch Industries.

He noted that none of the presidential candidates are aligned with the Koch network “from a values, and beliefs and policy perspective.” Trump’s dire warnings of growing crime in America, Holden said, simply aren’t accurate.

“We’re much safer,” Holden said. “That’s what the data shows.”

Koch described the 2016 “political situation” this way: “We don’t really, in some cases, don’t really have good options.”

The comments came Saturday, the first of a three-day gathering for donors who promise to give at least $100,000 each year to the various groups backed by the Koch brothers’ Freedom Partners -- a network of education, policy and political entities that aim to promote a smaller, less intrusive government.

The ambitious Koch network has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to influence politics and public policy over the last decade, but don’t plan to spend anything to help Trump, even if some of the 400 or so deep-pocketed donors gathered in Colorado Springs this weekend think it should.

Trump thumbed his nose at the gathering from Twitter.

“I turned down a meeting with Charles and David Koch,” the New York billionaire tweeted. “Much better for them to meet with the puppets of politics, they will do much better!”

The weekend’s agenda for the estimated 400 donors gathered in Colorado Springs featured a series of policy discussions and appearances from at least three governors, four senators and four members of the House of Representatives, including House Speaker Paul Ryan.

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey talked up policy successes in their states on Saturday night, avoiding discussion of the 2016 presidential contest altogether. When it was his turn, Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner touched on the race for the White House, although he did not mention Trump’s name.

“Forty years worth of Supreme Court justices are going to be determined this November,” Gardner told donors, a reference to the next president’s ability to fill at least one existing vacancy on the high court.

Those yet to appear include Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Texas Sen. John Cornyn, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, Utah Sen. Mike Lee, Rep. Mike Pompeo of Kansas. Rep Jason Chaffetz of Utah and Rep. Mike Coffman of Colorado.

Koch later told his guests that America’s frustrated electorate is looking at the wrong place -- politicians -- for answers.

“And to me, the answers they’re getting are frightening,” he said without naming any politicians, “because by and large, these answers will make matters worse.”

Charles and David Koch have hosted such gatherings of donors and politicians for years, but usually in private. The weekend’s event includes a small number of reporters, including one from The Associated Press.

Koch has put the network’s budget at roughly $750 million through the end of 2016.

A significant portion was supposed to be directed at electing a Republican to the White House. It will instead go to helping Republican Senate candidates in at least five states: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Wisconsin and Florida, Holden said, noting that the network has dedicated $42 million so far to television and digital advertising to benefit Republican Senate candidates.

In some cases, the network may try to link Democratic Senate candidates to Clinton, he added, but there are no plans to go after her exclusively in paid advertising. The organization may invest in a handful of races for governor and House of Representatives as well.

And while the network will not be a Trump ally, it won’t necessarily be a Trump adversary either.

“We have no intention to go after Donald Trump,” Holden said.

 

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Read More Here

The Fatherless Effect

The Fatherless Effect

Trevor Thomas

Over the last several months – and especially the last few weeks – much has been made of the "Ferguson effect." The phenomenon is now so widely discussed that it has its own Wikipedia page (though I wouldn't suggest visiting it for an explanation). St. Louis police chief Sam Dotson coined the phrase in November of 2014, but Heather Mac Donald popularized it in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in 2015. In early 2016, she againdescribed the Ferguson effect:

Since the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in August 2014, the conceit that American policing is lethally racist has dominated media and political discourse, from the White House on down. Cops in minority neighborhoods in Chicago and other cities have responded by backing away from pedestrian stops and public-order policing; criminals are flourishing in the vacuum.

In other words, because of the lies of liberals, many American policemen have taken their nightsticks and their nine-millimeters out of some of the most dangerous areas in the U.S., and criminals are taking full advantage.  As I pointed out a couple of weeks ago, given that black Americans typically live in the most dangerous parts of our nation, it is black Americans who are suffering the most from police disengagement from "discretionary enforcement activity."

The current political and moral climate in the U.S. demands that we give more attention to the grave issue of the absence of fathers among black children. Out-of-wedlock births in the U.S. are at historic highs, and the vast majority of black children in America are born to single mothers. And just as criminal gangs and other undesirables fill the void of absent police officers in American neighborhoods, the same thing happens – but on a much larger and more destructive scale – when fathers are absent from the family.

There are over 100 cities in the U.S. – from Atlanta to Utica – with populations north of 50,000 in which more than half of the households are headed by single parents. The vast majority of these households are led by single moms. These cities are the most dangerous places in the U.S. Given the rate of black out-of-wedlock births, and with most black Americans living in large U.S. cities (about 75%), millions of American black children are growing up fatherless in the most crime-ridden places in America.

Among many other sad outcomes, fatherlessness is one of the leading predictors of future criminal activity. Children living with their married biological parents are the least likely to commit criminal acts. On the other hand, children from single-parent homes (almost always without a father) are "more likely to ... engage in questionable behavior, struggle academically, and become delinquent. Problems with children from fatherless families can continue into adulthood. These children are three times more likely to end up in jail by the time they reach age 30 than are children raised in intact families, and have the highest rates of incarceration in the United States."

As the breakdown of the family has been hotly debated in the U.S. for years now, you've almost certainly heard the above stats before. However, long before the rampant disintegration of the family in America began, researchers were revealing what common sense and sound morality always knew. As authors Kevin and Karen Wright point out:

Research into the idea that single-parent homes may produce more delinquents dates back to the early 19th century. ... [O]fficials at New York State's Auburn Penitentiary, in an attempt to discern the causes of crime, studied the biographies of incarcerated men. Reports to the legislature in 1829 and 1830 suggested that family disintegration resulting from the death, desertion, or divorce of parents led to undisciplined children who eventually became criminals.

Fatherlessness is the single greatest cause of poverty in the U.S.  As Robert Rector pointed out years ago, "[b]eing raised in a married family reduced a child's probability of living in poverty by about 80 percent." In order to further their big-government agenda, modern liberals often point to education as the answer to poverty in America. However, marriage is a far better weapon against poverty than is education. Again, as Rector points out, "being married has the same effect in reducing poverty that adding five to six years to a parent's level of education has." In addition, a child living in a single-parent home where the parent is a college graduate is nearly twice as likely to live in poverty as a child living with their married parents whose highest level of education is completing high school.

Marriage provides the safest environment for children. In addition to being much more likely to live in crime-ridden communities, children born to single moms face much more danger inside the home than do children living with their married parents. As marripedia points out:

The rate of physical abuse is 3 times higher in the single parent family. The rate of physical abuse is 4 times higher if mother is cohabiting with the child's biological father (unmarried). The rate of physical abuse is 5 times higher if the child is living in a married step family. The rate of physical abuse is 10 times higher if the mother is cohabiting with a boyfriend.

The rates for sexual abuse are even worse than physical abuse:

The rate of sexual abuse is 5 times higher in the single parent family and when both biological parents are cohabiting (i.e. unmarried). The rate of sexual abuse is 8.6 times higher if the child is living in a married step family. The rate of sexual abuse is 20 times higher if the mother is cohabiting with a boyfriend.

Contrary to popular belief, the most likely physical abuser of a child in a single-parent home is the mother. Because they lack the financial, emotional, and other support of a husband and a father in the home, single moms are more likely to experience anger, impatience, anxiety, and feelings of helplessness. Additionally, single moms are more likely to be depressed and feel rejected by their children than are women who have husbands.

As tragic as the outcomes of the Ferguson effect are, the fatherless effect is much more wide-ranging, common, and deadly in American society. The good news: if we solve the fatherless effect, there is not even an opportunity to experience the Ferguson effect.

Trevor Grant Thomas: At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason. www.trevorgrantthomas.com Trevor is the author of the newly released The Miracle and Magnificence of America. tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

© 2011 AmericanThinker

The Munich Shooter Is Driving the Mainstream Media Nuts

Steve Chambers

Ali David Sonboly, the young man who shot up Munich last week, killing 9 mostly young people and wounding dozens of others, is driving the mainstream media nuts. It's so bad, they can't even decide what they want to call him. Is it Ali David Sonboly, or David Ali Sonboy, or just David Sonboy, as the primly and properly PC BBC tried to have it?

But now it's really getting confusing. As this article from the Mirror, among many others, now reports, Sonboly "reportedly saw it as an 'honour' that he had the same birthday as the Nazi leader [Hitler] - April 20," "was proud to be a German-Iranian 'Aryan,'" and "felt 'superior' to those of either [Turk or Arab] origin." These discoveries greatly aggravate the already severe disorientation that the MSM has suffered over his motives. It seems that some among them think Sonboly was a neo-Nazi Irano-Aryan acolyte of Breivik – anything, please, but a Muslim.

So, was this young man just a "lazy" and "chubby" misfit who moved from depression to derangement and then obsession with mass murder for fascist reasons, or was he acting out of some influence of radical Islam? Or aren't both possible?

Let's go back to the Mirror's points and unpack them, particularly for the benefit of those in the MSM who have delicate sensibilities about all things Islamic and Muslim and who avert their eyes from anything critical of their precious pet community. Here are some rather simple points from Islamic history.

Islamism, the revivalist version of Islam supported by large numbers of Muslims worldwide, borrows heavily from both communism and fascism.  Eric Hoffer explained all that back in the 1950s. More explicitly, there were close historical alliances between the Nazis and the radical Muslims of the day. Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, had ties to Hitler, helped Himmler recruit Muslim troops for the SS, and collaborated with the Nazis on paramilitary operations in the Mideast. In recent times, Muslim clerics have praised the Nazis' extermination of Jews even while trying to deny the Holocaust. At the same time, the Iranian government has regularly indulged in Holocaust denial while holding Israel and Jews to be anathema. It should therefore not be surprising that someone proud of his Muslim heritage should also feel proud of sharing a birthday with Hitler – while still having nothing the do with the bête noir of the Left, the political "far Right."

Speaking of Iran, in light of Sonboly's Iranian heritage it is not surprising that he would be prejudiced against mostly Sunni Arabs and Turks. The simplest explanation might be that he resented being bullied by Arab and Turk classmates. Yet there could easily be much more than that. Turks and Arabs are the ancient enemies of the Iranians, particularly since the rise of Islam and the almost immediate schism of the community into its Sunni and Shi'a parties. If he had merely listened to his elders, not to mention studied his ancestral history, he could easily have absorbed these atavistic prejudices. In having them, he certainly wouldn't be alone among Iranians – or vice versa. Moreover, his Sunni Turkish and Arab classmates who bullied him could even have been expressing their own atavistic animosities towards Shi'ites. After all, this circle of secular hate has been rotating for 1,400 years. Why should it not come to Europe with the migrants?

As for his reported affection for the idea that he was Aryan, a dog-whistle to Leftists in the MMS and reported in several outlets, the answer is quite simple: the word Iran is derived from the root of the word "Aryan" and the Iranians proudly see themselves as an Aryan people.

Thus there is nothing particularly surprising about Sonboly's affinity for Hitler, given his Muslim heritage, nor about his prejudices against Sunni Muslims, nor his self-identification as an Aryan. Nor is it surprising that he has not been connected to ISIS or al-Qaeda, since they are virulently anti-Shi'a Sunni groups. Yet that doesn't mean that he wasn't religiously inspired to commit terrorizing murder, nor would such zealous inspiration rule out mental illness. This combination has been noted in numerous other Muslim terrorists.

What is unusual is that a youth with this Shi'a Iranian background went ballistic. In the West, we've become so used to the much more common narrative of a Sunni kid going on a rampage that we don't expect it to happen with a Shi'ite in countries such as Germany – perhaps because there are so few of them. Well, maybe we now have to start recognizing that Shi'ites too can go on sudden jihad.

All that said, we still don't know for sure what role, if any, radical Islamic teachings played in this tragedy. Perhaps we'll find out from Sonboly's 16-year-old Afghanistani-immigrant friend who was arrested for not revealing his plans. There's considerable evidence pointing to a role of Islam, but the German authorities must first complete their investigations and then we must depend on them to report the facts. Given that they – along with many members of the global MMS – seem to have been loath to connect Islam to attacks ranging from the mass sexual assaults on the past New Year's Eve to the most recent spate of attacks, it is not a foregone conclusion that they will release the facts.

There is a strong and natural tendency to want to find simple explanations, particularly ones that fit with one's ideological preferences. The simplest and most comforting explanation in the MSM and much of the Western ruling elites for the rising tide of terror is that Islamic terrorism is rare, linked tightly to a few Salafist Sunni organizations such as ISIS and al-Qaeda (which, supposedly and conveniently are on the run), and that it is a perversion of Islam. When incidents don't fit this comfortable narrative, the MSM and authorities go to great lengths either to make them fit or to disqualify them as anything related to Islam.

There are many reasons for this behavior, but two major political initiatives are playing critical roles at the moment. One is that the European authorities don't want to admit that the migrant crisis is allowing dangerous people into their populations. Angela Merkel reinforced this in her press conference on July 28, reaffirming her determination to keep Germany's borders open to migrants.

The other is that the European governments and the US have made an enormous bet on the Iranian government being – or at least becoming – moderate, so it would be very inconvenient to find that Shi'ites also can become radicalized terrorists in our midst.

If the tragedy in Munich finally forces people to wake up to the facts about what we're facing, there will be at least a small silver lining.

© 2011 AmericanThinker

Stronger Together (or the Useful Lie)

J. Robert Smith

It's as predictable as Bill's Orgy Island romp. Hillary's acceptance speech is being praised by the MSM and Democratic establishment. But with anything leftish and Democratic, consumers are advised to read the fine print. Hillary's unity cry is just more sleight-of-hand on behalf of her side's relentless quest to remake America… to make America leftish and not America.

If you want to join with Hillary and her ilk to be "stronger together," you'll need to buy in to the left's and Democratic elite's bill of particulars. Hillary, with exquisite arrogance -- and black hole hubris -- wants you to submit, because her worldview is the worldview. Her agenda is the agenda. You unite with her on her terms. Then all is bliss. 

Paul Waldman, writing at The Week, gives us a feminized male's take on Hillary's speech:

There was an implication buried just under the surface of the argument Clinton made in her speech, one that went something like this: I want you to like me and believe in me and invest in me, just as you have with other presidential candidates. But if you have your doubts, that's OK. You don't have to love me desperately and unreservedly. You don't have to think I'm perfect. You don't have to write songs about me, or paint pictures of me, or make up ironic memes about me. Because it's not really about me. There was an implication buried just under the surface of the argument Clinton made in her speech, one that went something like this: I want you to like me and believe in me and invest in me, just as you have with other presidential candidates. But if you have your doubts, that's OK. You don't have to love me desperately and unreservedly. You don't have to think I'm perfect. You don't have to write songs about me, or paint pictures of me, or make up ironic memes about me. Because it's not really about me.

No, it's really about swallowing, hook, line, and sinker, the baloney that Hillary is the selfless, giving woman -- the benevolent mother wanting to heal the wounds of her fractious American brood. Who hankers to nurture and herd us into a village of boundless love and genderless-hood.

It's the stuff of reinvention that Waldman and the MSM are peddling -- instant, one-night, reinvention. Presto! Why, just forget Hillary's often smarmy history. Forget the bulldozing ambition, the sharklike calculation, the edgy-bitchy stare. Forget about the character assassinations of Bill's -- many -- girlfriends when they got in Bubba's and Hill's way. Forget about her futures dealings. Forget Rose Law Firm records shenanigans.

Forget that the president she served -- Barack Obama -- is leaving America more fractured than when he became president. Race relations are tattered and envenomed. Cops are being gunned down by angry blacks. Forget the under- and unemployment of working and middle class Americans. Forget that the Middle East is a dangerous, bloody mess -- and much of that thanks to policies Hillary pursued as Secretary of State.

Forget Hillary's private email servers that served her obvious breeches of national security when at the State Department. Forget Benghazi. Forget the Wall Street cronyism. Forget every indication that the Clinton Foundation is a pay-to-play vehicle. Forget much! Erase Hillary's record prior to the night of July 28, 2016. It worked in the old Soviet Union. Airbrush the photos and reinvent the person of Hillary Clinton when it helps advance her fortunes, Democrats' fortunes, and the professional left's fortunes. Forget, you flyover country masses, while the party's elites wink and nod.

"Stronger together," says the ethically challenged lady from Chappaqua. Stronger together, unless you're an unborn child. (Abortion tends to disunite babies.) Stronger together, unless you're a Christian or Jew who practices his faith. Stronger together, unless you believe in traditional marriage and family.

Stronger together if you're an illegal, particularly one who welcomes government dependency. Stronger together if you're a Muslim immigrant or refugee and you bring a loyalty to unreformed Islam. Yours is a religion of blood and conquest – nah! It's a faith of love and fraternity (women have their place). Stronger together, gays, though – Shh! – you might get shot to pieces by those unreformed Muslims at nightclubs. Unity permits for some collateral damage, huh?

Stronger together if you pervert the truth. "Guns kill." Jihadists in San Bernardino, Orlando, Paris, and Nice are just swarthy versions of James Holmes or Eric Harris or Dylan Klebold. Or a homophobe – or a repressed homosexual. Never jihadists, never unconventional soldiers loyally serving their religion. 

Writes Pat Buchanan about the recent party conventions:

Given the distance between the two halves of America, given the contempt in which each seems to hold the other, we can probably drop from the Pledge of Allegiance the word "indivisible," right after the Philadelphia Democrats succeed in cutting out the words, "under God."

And then this insight from Buchanan:

From the podium in Philadelphia, we hear the word "love." But in interviews, Democratic activists invoke terms of hate, such as racist, fascist, homophobe, misogynist and sexist to describe the Cleveland Republicans.

Would the party of Philadelphia accept a President Trump?

Would the party of Cleveland accept President Clinton?

Hard to believe. Divided we stand. So, where do we go?

Where do we go? Through a dark and tumultuous stretch in American history. Destination uncertain.

© 2011 AmericanThinker

Pope Visits Auschwitz, Begs God to Forgive ‘So Much Cruelty’

Pope Visits Auschwitz, Begs God to Forgive ‘So Much Cruelty’

The Stream - Saturday July 30, 2016

by FRANCES DEMILIO VANESSA GERA

OSWIECIM, Poland (AP) -- Choosing silence to convey his sorrow, Pope Francis visited the former Nazi death factory at Auschwitz and Birkenau on Friday, meeting with concentration camp survivors as well as aging saviors who helped Jews escape certain doom. In a guest book entry he made an anguished plea: “Lord, forgiveness for so much cruelty!”

Wearing unadorned white robes, Francis entered Auschwitz on foot, passing through the gate that bears the cynical words “Arbeit Macht Frei” -- Work Sets You Free.

One by one, he greeted 11 survivors, among them 101-year-old Helena Dunicz Niwinska, who played the violin in a death camp orchestra, and two other centenarians. One survivor, Valentina Nikodem, helped deliver babies born to Auschwitz inmates.

Elzbieta Sobczynska, who was 10 when she was brought to Auschwitz in 1944 from the Warsaw ghetto, said that in his silence, Francis spoke volumes.

“You don’t need words. Prayer was enough,” Sobczynska said, speaking to Poland’s TVN24.

Francis, she said, “came here with humility, he came here to find the shadows of those who were stripped of the most precious thing -- life.”

The pope then traveled to nearby Birkenau, a sprawling complex where people were murdered in factory-like fashion in its gas chambers.

There he greeted 25 Holocaust rescuers, including Anna Bando, who as a child helped her mother smuggle bread hidden in their handbags to Jews forced by Nazi occupiers to stay in Warsaw’s ghetto.

Francis’ visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where Adolf Hitler’s forces put to death more than 1 million people, most of them Jews, came on the third day of a five-day trip to Poland that included meetings with young Catholic pilgrims gathering in Krakow for World Youth Day, a global celebration of faith.

Except for the brief exchange with the survivors and rescuers, Francis spent his nearly two hours at the death camps in quiet prayer and reflection.

The pope wanted an “atmosphere of silence, silent compassion, silent prayer,” said Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi.

His only public words were in a guest-book entry, where he wrote in his native Spanish: “Lord, have mercy on your people! Lord, forgiveness for so much cruelty!” He then signed his name in Latin, “Franciscus.”

Later, however, Francis spoke with passion about his Auschwitz visit to a crowd of young people gathered outside the archbishop’s residence where he was staying for the night.

“How much pain! How much cruelty! Is it possible that we humans created in God’s image are capable of doing these things?” the pontiff said of the atrocities 70 years ago.

Then he added: “I don’t want to make you bitter, but I have to say the truth. Cruelty did not end in Auschwitz, in Birkenau. Even today … people are being tortured. Many prisoners are tortured, just to make them talk.”

“Today in many parts of the world where there is war the same thing is happening.”

Francis is the first pope to visit Auschwitz who did not himself live through the brutality of World War II on Europe’s soil.

Unlike his predecessors, St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI, who were young men during the Nazi rule and occupation of much of Europe and had a personal or historical connection to the site, Francis was a toddler when World War II broke out far away from his Argentine homeland.

John Paul, who visited in 1979, witnessed the unspeakable suffering inflicted on his native Poland during the German occupation. His visit, the first ever by a pontiff, was part of his overall efforts aimed at healing centuries of bitterness between the Vatican and Jews.

His successor, Pope Benedict XVI, who visited in 2006, was a German who served in the Hitler Youth for a time as a teenager.

At Auschwitz, Francis prayed silently for more than 15 minutes before speaking individually to the survivors, shaking their hands and kissing them on the cheeks. He then carried a large white candle to the Death Wall, where prisoners at Auschwitz were executed.

At the dark underground prison cell that once housed St. Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish friar who sacrificed his life to save a fellow prisoner who had a family, Francis prayed again. A few shafts from a tiny window were the only light cast on the pontiff.

He then traveled two miles (three kilometers) to Birkenau, where Christian Poles who saved Jews during the war and other guests stood in respect as the pope arrived, his vehicle driving alongside the rail tracks once used to transport victims to their deaths there.

At the Birkenau ceremony, Poland’s chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, recited, in Hebrew Psalm 130, beginning with the words: “From the depths I have cried out to you, Oh Lord.”

Friday’s theme exploring suffering included a Way of the Cross procession that drew 800,000 young Catholics to a Krakow meadow.

 

___

Gera reported from Warsaw. Monika Scislowska in Krakow contributed to this report.

___

Frances D’Emilio is on twitter at www.twitter/fdemilio.

 

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Now That The DNC’s Over, Let’s Look at the Most Absurd Elements of Their Hacked Email Leak

The Stream - Saturday July 30, 2016

by Elena Weissmann

Wikileaks released nearly 20,000 emails from Democratic National Committee (DNC) staffers just days before the convention kicked off.

The leaks, dating from January 2015 to May 2016, reveal Democratic staffers colluding with certain media outlets and discussing how to best undermine Sen. Bernie Sanders, among other embarrassing revelations. Despite the magnitude of the hack and its consequences for DNC leadership, there is certainly some humor to be found in the emails.

In the spirit of an election that feels more like a reality show than a formal bid for president, we've rounded up some of the funniest -- and most ridiculous -- emails from the DNC email leak.

The White House vetoed having Ariana Grande perform at the presidential gala because of a video of her licking donuts.

"Can we also vet Arianna Grande?" DNC Finance Chair Zachary Allen wrote in an email, misspelling the famous pop singer's name. What followed was a back-and-forth email exchange vividly discussing a video of Grande licking donuts and saying she hates America (with DNC staffers continuing to misspell her name).

The vetting email summarizes, "Ariana Butera -- video caught her licking other peoples' donuts while saying she hates America; Republican Congressman used this video and said it was a double standard that liberals were not upset with her like they are with Trump who criticized Mexicans." White House employee Bobby Schmuck abruptly shot down the performance request, writing back, "Nope, sorry."

Literally no one ever took John Kasich seriously

(Picture; Wikileaks.org/Screengrab)

The DNC created fake, sexist ads from the Trump campaign

Deputy communications director Christina Freundlich proposed the Democrats impersonate the Trump Organization on Craigslist. In an email to fellow DNC staffers Mark Paustenbach and Luis Miranda, Freundlich asks for their approval for the fake ad, which seeks "hot women" who "must be open to public humiliation" and "should be proficient in lying about age if the boss thinks you're too old."

(Picture; Wikileaks.org/Screengrab)

DNC staffers mocked a (now accurate) Buzzfeed report that suggests both the DNC and RNC had weak cybersecurity

"The dumbest thing I've ever read," reads the subject line of a May email sent from DNC spokesman Eric Walker to an email list. The subject includes the headline to the Buzzfeed story, "These Experts Think The DNC And RNC Are Both Horrible At Cybersecurity," which the staffers go on to mock in the body of the email.

One DNC official casually suggested using Sanders' religion to undermine his credibility

In a May 2016 email, Chief Financial Officer Brad Marshall suggests that the DNC "gets someone" to question Sanders' faith at speeches in Kentucky and West Virginia. "Does he believe in God. He had skated on saying he has Jewish heritage," Marshall asked. "This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist," he added.

Staffer Amy K. Dacey responded to that message with: "AMEN."

DNC party officials entertained the conspiracy theory that Cruz's dad killed JFK

Luis Miranda, the DNC communications director, gives some credit to Trump's conspiracy theory that Ted Cruz's father killed JFK. "It would not be unusual for [his father] to be caught up in the ugly web of Cuban militants with questionable histories," he notes in the May email.

DNC staffers actually used the phrase "Bernie Bro"

(Picture; Wikileaks.org/Screengrab)

 

Miranda and other staffers used the term several times in response to an interview request from Mark Thompson, a radio host for Sirius XM and a Sanders fan. The term "Bernie Bro" refers to outspoken, aggressive white males who support Bernie Sanders.

Many involved in the emails have not yet issued public statements -- including Ariana Grande, whose donut-licking video will likely haunt her forever after she realizes it cost her a White House performance.

 

Follow Elena on Twitter. Send tips to elena.dcnf@gmail.com.

Copyright 2016 The Daily Caller News Foundation

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