Monday AM ~ TheFrontPageCover

The Front Page Cover
 2016             The truth will set you free 
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Featuring:
A Wounded Boy’s Silence, and the Candidates’
by Peggy Noonan
 
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 China's G20 Façade 
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The history of totalitarian socialism is one filled with charades and symbols over and against reality and substance. A recent example of this took place this past weekend at the G20 summit in the city of Hangzhou, China. With the arrival of so many significant leaders from the world's largest and most powerful economies, the Chinese communist government staged an impressive image of a clean and well-ordered society. Days before the Chinese government had issued a mandatory seven-day "holiday" where citizens were instructed to leave the city. Almost overnight, a busy, bustling city of six million residents was reduced to a virtual ghost town. How did the Chinese authorities ensure the mass exodus of citizenry? There were positive incentives such as discounts to "places of interest" and cheaper travel fairs, and there were negative incentives of police force for those residents who were not so "voluntarily" inclined to leave.
          As the world leaders arrived for the summit, there was no stinky smog in the air since all the factories had been shut down days before. The roads were free of heavy traffic, as those folks who were still left in the city had been instructed to stay home. And most importantly, there were no picketers protesting human rights issues. No, China would look good to all outsiders as a testament to the benefits of a communist society, just as China's leaders want it. (The same thing happened for the Beijing Olympics.) The message to the residents of Hangzhou and the rest of China: Government knows best, so get inline. Which is the foundational belief of leftists everywhere.  ~The Patriot Post
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 The Donkey Who Cried Wolf 
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Robin Smith: "I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you." —Friedrich Nietzsche
          The 19th century German philosopher and poet perhaps had no idea how relevant this statement would be to 21st century politics. But the routine screeches of baseless alarm, manufactured crises and the hyperbole employed by Democrats, and in some cases, Republicans, are creating an authentic problem — a credibility desert. The moral to the story of Aesop's fable, "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," applies: Tell lies or exaggerate often enough, and the truth is not believed, even in times of need and danger.
          How do these simple statements relate to the multi-billion-dollar campaigns employed today across all kinds of media platforms? Simply put, when the decision is made to conduct your entire campaign message in the key of panic and extremes, the consuming public becomes tone deaf to changes in pitch or appreciable variations.
         With the loud protests of the Left have come these broad statements:
  • "You're a racist," in response to the desire for enforcement of immigration law.
  • "You're a bigot," to the beliefs of many who accept God's view that homosexuality, like adultery, is sin.
  • "You're greedy," in labeling those who want to keep the money they work hard to earn instead of seeing nearly half of their earnings forcefully taken by governments.
  • "You're anti-women's health," in believing the dismembering of an infant in utero is not contraception and should not be funded by tax dollars.
These and many more extreme statements are frequently employed by any number of talking heads on the Left, or are used in "news" items that masquerade as fact when, in reality, the level of opinion moves the analysis clearly to editorializing.
          Let's look at a recent example. For speaking against Donald Trump, Mitt Romney is now being lauded as "reasonable" and "thoughtful" by Democrats ranging from Barack nObama to Harry dinky-Reid. But Romney is the same guy who took mortal verbal blows in 2012 from those very same Democrats. Remember?
  • Mitt Romney's mythological hatred of dogs filled the headlines and the late-night shows after he built a windshield-equipped carrier to transport their family dog on top of their vehicle.
  • Romney's hatred of women was a statement of fact when it was discovered that, while he served as governor of Massachusetts, he catalogued women under consideration for employment by placing their profiles in binders.
  • Romney was specifically blamed for a woman's cancer death by her widower husband in a pro-nObama TV ad after he lost his insurance when a factory closed. The plant closed while Romney was running the Winter Olympics. The woman died five years after the husband lost his job.
  • Romney was said to have dodged paying taxes for 10 years, according to Harry dinky-Reid, who cited an anonymous source safely from the Senate floor, to complete the Democrats' portrait of a blood-sucking capitalist criminal. dinky-Reid's charge was a complete fabrication.
But, now? Oh, "Mitt's a great guy," say the Democrats who urge his voice be heard with a newfound respect and attentiveness.
          In The New York Times, Howard Wolfson, the director of communications for liar-Hillary's 2008 presidential campaign and current adviser for billionaire and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, recently bemoaned the current mud pit. Recalling his days with both John hanoi-Kerry and liar-Hillary Clinton in their runs for president, Wolfson acknowledges, "I'm quite confident I employed language that, in retrospect, was hyperbolic and inaccurate, language that cheapened my ability — our ability — to talk about this moment with accuracy and credibility." Translation: Democrats cried wolf too many times, and now they're having a hard time turning up the volume on Trump.
          Wolfson concludes, "We should take stock of this moment and recognize that our language really needs to be more accountable and more appropriate to the circumstances." Which is another way of saying he really means it this time.
          Oh, there's nothing like hearing a Democrat, especially one who's affiliated with liar-Hillary Clinton, make requests for accountability. Just precious. And, so, the story goes with the credibility desert where truth has dried up from the heat of political extremes.
          There's a cautionary tale in this for conservatives, too. Part of the reason for Trump's rise in the first place was that unrealistic expectations were placed upon congressional Republicans and then even solid conservatives were condemned as traitorous "establishment" when they failed to achieve constitutional government with Barack nObama still at the helm. It's true Republicans could have done more, but they didn't do nothing.
          While it's appropriate to contrast the reckless policies and illegal practices of liar-Hillary Clinton, for those shrinking in number who are highly prized — the undecided voters — it's critical to hear more than shouting and name-calling that signify either liar-Clinton Derangement Syndrome or Trump Panic Attack.
          That said, more often than not when conservatives point to a leftist and cry "wolf," there actually is a wolf.  ~The Patriot Post
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The Dangers of Ransom Payments to Iran
by Mark Dubowitz
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{defenddemocracy.org} ~ This summer marked the one-year anniversary of the announcement of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). This deal is fatally flawed in that it provides the Islamic Republic of Iran with a patient pathway to nuclear weapons capability by placing limited, temporary... and reversible constraints on Iran’s nuclear activities. These nuclear “sunset provisions,” which will begin to expire in seven years and mostly disappear over a period of ten to fifteen years, leave Iran as a threshold nuclear power with an industrial-size uranium enrichment and plutonium program, near-zero nuclear breakout capacity, an advanced centrifuge-powered clandestine sneakout capability, advanced ballistic missile and ICBM programs, access to advanced heavy weaponry, greater regional hegemony, and a more powerful economy that could be immune to Western sanctions. Even as Iran temporarily scales back some of its nuclear activities under the JCPOA, the regime’s illicit efforts to obtain proliferation-related technology continues while its other non-nuclear malign activities are expanding. The deal – as well as the interim agreement known as the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) – provided Iran with substantial economic relief that helped the regime avoid a severe economic crisis and return to a modest recovery path. The lifting of restrictions on Iran’s use of frozen overseas assets as part of the interim agreement returned about $11.9 billion to Iran. The final agreement provided Tehran with access to a further $100 billion, including over $50 billion in unencumbered, liquid cash, according to the nObama administration. These funds gave Tehran badly needed hard currency to settle its outstanding debts, begin to repair its economy, build up its diminished foreign exchange reserves, and ease a budgetary crisis, as well as providing the regime greater resources for the financing of terrorism and other illicit activities. The nuclear deal did nothing to address the full range of Iran’s malign activities, including ballistic missile development, support for terrorism, regional destabilization, and human rights abuses... http://www.defenddemocracy.org/content/uploads/documents/Dubowitz_Mark_Fueling_Terror_.pdf
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Slithering Shape-Shifting liar-Clinton Bought,
Owned By Soros, Tech Billionaires
by Rick Wells
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{rickwells.us} ~ The wily liar-Clinton shape-shifting drew the attention of Lou Dobbs as he notes how much she is trying to sound like Donald Trump these days... The reason that won’t work for her is a simple one of ownership, hers. Dobbs notes, “She’s been bought and paid for by the very establishment Donald Trump is running against.” Dobbs says, “She wants you to forget she’s one of the principle architects of the status quo that is suffocating our middle class and the working people who aspire to be part of it. She’s the elitist, she’s the corporatist, he’s the populist. She’s the globalist, he’s the nationalist. She’s about globalism no matter how high, how severe the cost to America and Americans. Trump’s all about America and Americanism.” “Look who loves her,” says Dobbs, “especially with their money. liar-Clinton’s single biggest benefactor, the left-wing billionaire George Soros. He’s given millions to liar-Clinton, pledged millions more. That’s not counting the millions he’s given to other left-wing groups as well, to help her win the presidency that he sees as important to his own influence.”...  http://rickwells.us/dobbs-slithering-shape-shifting-clinton/
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Imam Reveals ISIS Planned to Attack
Christians at Mall With Chainsaw
by Mark Tapson
{truthrevolt.org} ~ ISIS planned to use chainsaws to murder Christians in a Belgian shopping center, according to the son of a radical imam... The UK Mirror reports that the teenager, who cannot be named, is the son of radical imam Shayh Alami from the eastern Belgian city of Verviers - described by Belgian media as "one of the most important breeding grounds for Islamists in Belgium." The boy told cops about the plot after being arrested for appearing in a video in which he walked down a street allegedly calling out in Arabic for the murder of Christians. In the short video published on the website of the Arabic-language media watchdog MEMRI, the teen can be seen strolling down the streets of Verviers, cursing Christians and praying for their annihilation...  http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/son-imam-reveals-isis-planned-attack-christians-mall-chainsaw
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North Korea Successfully Detonates Nuke
More Powerful Than Hiroshima Bomb
by Caleb Howe
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{redstate.com} ~ Early Friday morning, the 68th anniversary of its founding, North Korea conducted its fifth nuclear test, successfully detonating a nuke so powerful that it registered a 5.3-on the Richter scale... It was an explosion more powerful than that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima according to Reuters. North Korea also claims it has perfected the technology to launch the warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile. In response to the test, South Korean president Park Geun-hye said Kim Jon Un's pursuit of his nuclear program is “maniacal recklessness,” and she denounced it as a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions. For its part, the Security council has announced an emergency meeting in the wake of this event...
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nObama Is Registering Undocumented
Immigrants by the Millions
by Dave Hodges
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{thecommonsenseshow.comn} ~ Obama, on behalf of liar-Clinton’s candidacy is at it again! nObama and DHS are registering millions of undocumented immigrants to vote... Months after the nObama administration spent $19 million to register new immigrant voters that will likely support Democrats in November, it’s dedicating an additional $10 million in a final push as the presidential election approaches. The money is distributed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the Homeland Security agency that oversees lawful immigration, to organizations that help enhance pathways to naturalization by offering immigrants free citizenship instruction, English, U.S. history and civics courses. Officially, they’re known as “citizenship integration grants.” BUT THEY ARE A DECEPTION- THE DEMOCRATS DO NOT WANT A PATH TO CITIZENSHIP FOR IMMIGRANTS AND THE VIDEO BELOW DESCRIBES WHY THIS IS TRUE!...Why is nObama getting away with it?  http://www.thecommonsenseshow.com/2016/09/09/obama-registering-undocumented-immigrants-millions/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=obama-registering-undocumented-immigrants-millions
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Germany: Beginning of the End of the Merkel Era?
by Soeren Kern
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel (left) suffered a major blow on
September 4 when the anti-immigration party Alternative for
Germany, led by Frauke Petry (right)
{gatestoneinstitute.org} ~ German Chancellor Angela Merkel suffered a major blow on September 4 when the anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD) surged ahead of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in elections in her home state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania... With 20.8% of the vote, the AfD came in second place behind the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) (30.6%). Merkel's CDU came in third place, with 19% of the vote, the worst result it has ever had in Meck-Pomm, as the state is called for short. The election in Meck-Pomm was widely seen as a referendum on Merkel's open-door migration policy and her decision to allow more than one million migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East to enter Germany in 2015. The migrant influx has resulted in a notable increase in crime in the country. The growing sense of insecurity has been exacerbated by a series of attacks this summer by Muslim migrants in which ten people were killed and dozens more were injured...  https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8899/germany-merkel-era
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IRS Redefines ‘Husband’ and ‘Wife’ to Eliminate Sex'
by Rachel Alexander
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{stream.org} ~ In a far-reaching response to the U.S. Supreme Court striking down natural marriage laws last summer in Obergefell v. Hodges, the IRS and Department of the Treasury have changed the meanings of the words “spouse,” “marriage,” “husband” and “wife.”... This change was also a response to the Court’s 2013 decision in United States v. Windsor, which ruled that the words “spouse” and “marriage” could not be limited to heterosexual marriages. “Husband” and “wife” now refers to “two individuals lawfully married to each other,” regardless of sex. The new definitions will give same-sex marriage couples job-protected leave to take care of their spouse’s family members under the Family and Medical Leave Act, and applies to the  marital status of taxpayers for purposes of the income, estate, gift, excise and payroll taxes. Of course, same-sex couples will now also face the “marriage penalty” for filing their taxes jointly. The “penalty” is the higher tax rate some married couples must pay if they are a middle to upper class couple with roughly similar incomes...  https://stream.org/irs-redefines-husband-and-wife-to-eliminate-gender/
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nObama’s Radical Internet Proposal Could
Result in Censorship Online
by Sen. Ted Cruz
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{stream.org} ~ The nObama administration’s proposal to give away control of the internet poses a significant threat to our freedom, and it’s one that many Americans don’t know about... It is scheduled to go into effect on Sept. 30, 2016. Twenty-two days away. Just over three weeks. Now what does it mean to give away control of the internet? From the very first days of the internet, when it was developed here in America, the United States government has maintained its core functions to ensure equal access for everyone with no censorship. The government role isn’t to monitor what we say, it isn’t to censor what we say, it is simply to ensure that it works — that when you type in a website, it actually goes to that website and not somewhere else. And yet, that can change. The nObama administration is instead pushing through a radical proposal to take control of internet domain names and instead give it to an international organization, ICANN [Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers], that includes 162 foreign countries. And if that proposal goes through, it will empower countries like Russia, like China, like Iran to be able to censor speech on the internet, your speech. Countries like China, Russia, and Iran are not our friends, and their interests are not our interests...  https://stream.org/obamas-radical-internet-proposal-could-result-in-censorship-online/
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Which Security Risk for President?
by Cliff Kincaid
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{aim.org} ~ “Could your Congressman pass an FBI background check?” is the question posed on the cover of the DVD version of Trevor Loudon’s new film, “The Enemies Within.”... In fact, however, the FBI only provides background information about federal employees, not elected officials. In Mrs. liar-Clinton’s special case, there was an opportunity to recommend prosecution of her over her mishandling of classified information, but FBI Director James Comey declined, keeping her presidential campaign alive. At the Commander-in-Chief Forum on Wednesday night, Mrs. liar-Clinton demonstrated how much of a security risk she is. She acknowledged that “…the State Department system was hacked.” She explained, “Most of the government systems are way behind the curve. We’ve had hacking repeatedly, even in the White House.” Then she added, “There is no evidence my system was hacked.” The State Department was hacked but her emails were somehow protected? This is almost as mind-boggling as her flip-flop on whether she ever received a briefing on handling classified information...
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Why is the L.A. Times Supporting the
Anti-Israel BDS Movement?
by Roger Aronoff
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{aim.org} ~ When the mainstream media get their story wrong, they are obligated as journalists to correct it. But the Los Angeles Times refuses to correct an egregious error in its own reporting... On August 21 Los Angeles Times reporter Teresa Watanabe wrote an article accusing the Maccabee Task Force of funding a poster campaign by David Horowitz’s Freedom Center. This poster campaign targeted students in the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. It publicly named activists and accused them of anti-Semitism. “The posters were one element of ‘Stop the Jew Hatred on Campus,’ a task force-funded campaign launched in February by the David Horowitz Freedom Center in Los Angeles,” wrote Watanabe. “Horowitz declined to disclose the size of the grant he received but said it helped him wage what he called a ‘guerrilla’ campaign this spring, with posters of ‘Jew haters’ on five California campuses.”...  http://www.aim.org/aim-column/why-is-the-l-a-times-supporting-the-anti-israel-bds-movement/
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A Wounded Boy’s Silence, and the Candidates’
by Peggy Noonan
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{peggynoonan.com} ~ With the campaign proper about to begin, on Labor Day, a last August thought, a very simple one: War is terrible. It is my impression our candidates for president don’t really know this. They never say it, not in formal speeches or in thinking aloud, in reveries in friendly interviews. I would say of most of America’s political class that they have their heads all screwed up about war, that they approach the subject coolly, as a political and geopolitical matter, and that they see it through prisms of personal political need and ideological gain. They are missing the central fact of it—that it is terrible. Before the election is over it would be good if someone said it.

The thought arises most recently from the harrowing photo and videotape of the 5-year-old boy in Aleppo, Syria. You have seen one or both. His name is Omran Daqneesh and he lived with his parents and three siblings in the rebel-held Qaterji neighborhood, which late Wednesday night last week either Russian or Syrian forces targeted in a brutal airstrike. Omran was pulled from the rubble. He was placed on a seat in the back of an ambulance.

The left side of his head was covered in blood. His thick dark hair was stiff from smoke and dust. His legs were marked by soot and what looked like bruises. One report said he’d been in the rubble an hour before they dug him out.

They wouldn’t let the ambulance go until it was full. There was room for more children, and they came. But Omran is the one you can’t stop watching. He stares mutely, like a shocked old man. Photojournalists make flashes of light as they take his picture. No one has—or takes—a moment to call any comfort to him, to the 5-year-old boy as he stares ahead.

He can’t fully see out of his left eye, which seems damaged. Tentatively, calling no attention to himself, he brings his left hand up to his head and touches around for the wound. He seems to find it, then puts his hand down on his legs, as if not to call attention to his wounds.

Watching the videotape, posted on YouTube by an anti-Assad group, you see what is most harrowing. It isn’t only his youth, his aloneness, the blood—it’s that he isn’t crying.

Children, by nature and instinct, cry when they are infants. But as they grow older, 3 and 4 and 5, crying is sometimes more of a decision. Children who know they’re cared for cry in the expectation that someone will comfort them. If by 3 or 4 you haven’t had that, or haven’t had that enough—if circumstances were harsh enough that you couldn’t rely on help or comfort—then you might not cry. Because it won’t bring the help you need, or may in fact bring negative responses.

For all 5 years of his life, Omran Daqneesh lived in a country wracked by civil war, surrounded by the tension, fear and hardship war brings.

Anyway, he didn’t cry. He was taken to a local underground hospital called M10, treated for head wounds and released. There are reports his older brother has since died.

War is terrible. It abuses the innocent and takes their lives, it wastes all kinds of treasure, it kills generations and whole cultures. It strikes me as rather mad that our candidates for commander in chief of the most powerful armed forces in the world don’t ever simply think aloud about this.

About 18 months ago I asked a potential Republican presidential candidate, in conversation, if he hated war. He got the dart-eyed look politicians get when they sense a trick question. This startled me. How do you not know the answer? After a few seconds I said, “This is not a trick question.” I explained I was thinking of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who said, “I hate war,” roughly five years before prosecuting one with unambivalent vigor.

The potential candidate then stuttered that of course he doesn’t like war, but sometimes it’s necessary. Well, yes, sometimes it is. But why would you fear stating that war is hell, and hell ain’t where we want to be?

Afterward, and again this week, I went back to FDR’s famous speech, delivered at Chautauqua, N.Y., Aug. 14, 1936—80 years ago this month. He was “less cheerful,” he admitted, about world events than domestic ones—this at the depth of the Depression. What happens in the world may have an impact on the United States, but we can serve the cause of peace by “setting an example” and following the policy of the good neighbor—“the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others.” Because of this practice “the whole world now knows that the United States cherishes no predatory ambitions. We are strong; but less powerful nations know that they need not fear our strength.”

He observed that “the noblest monument to peace . . . in all the world is not a monument . . . but the boundary which unites the United States and Canada—3,000 miles of friendship.” Still, so long as war exists there is danger of being “drawn into” one. That grieves him, he said, because “I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. . . . I have seen cities destroyed. . . . I hate war.”

It’s quite a speech, a deep and persuasive exposing of thoughts on the most essential of human and governmental subjects. But what really surprised me on rereading it was that I don’t think a Republican or Democratic candidate would feel free to speak like that anymore. They’d fear being called soft. That isn’t good, or even practical. FDR after all was pretty good at waging war. It only made him more powerful, made his decisions more convincing, that he’d laid down the predicate that he’d never wanted it and in fact hated it.

Unless I’m missing something neither candidate for president appears to have an informed or deeply felt sense of the tragedy of war. liar-Hillary Clinton was subjected, in the primaries, to sharp criticism from the left that she was too bellicose, was wrong to go all in on Iraq, wrong to support regime change in Libya, wrong to be so temperamentally activist in this area. When Moammar Gadhafi was killed in the field after the fall of his government she laughed with a reporter: “We came, we saw, he died.”

As for Donald Trump, he is usually equally aggressive in speaking of potential U.S. military actions, though it’s clear he hates war at least for himself. He did not serve and famously told Howard Stern that dodging incoming STDs was his personal Vietnam.

Our leaders are shallow on the subject of war. No, worse than shallow—they’re silent. Which is one reason they will likely not be fully trusted should they make rough decisions down the road on Syria, or Iran, or elsewhere.

War is terrible. That should be said over and over, not because it’s a box you ought to check on the way to the presidency but because you’re human and have a brain.

You should hate war. A 5-year-old knows that.

http://www.peggynoonan.com/a-wounded-boys-silence-and-the-candidates/

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