With the date of the 2016 Republican Convention set for July, a final verdict on the GOP presidential debate schedule and adoption of proposed primary rules are the highly anticipated announcements up next at the Republican National Committee’s winter meeting in San Diego. The early national convention date (July 18 - 21 in Cleveland) is part of move by the RNC to condense the nominating process and allow the party’s eventual nominee to access general election funds sooner. The timing and number of debates, which the committee wants to limit, along with adoption of strict rules to make the primary season more orderly, are part of a strategy meant to avoid a repeat of 2012’s drawn-out primary schedule and seemingly endless debates. Most states have signaled a willingness to go along with the new RNC rules, though moving the convention to July could create problems for those with primaries falling within 45 of the July 18 convention start date. -Fox News
WaPo: “Elections keep getting older, but the young voters stay the same age. And those young voters, by and large, keep on not voting. There’s a lot of benefit to getting younger voters involved in campaigns: they’re often tireless volunteers, and having a strong advocate in a home with regular voters certainly doesn’t hurt. But 18- to 24-year-olds are often among the smallest percentage of the electorate… The age of Boomer-controlled politics is fading. Gen Xers are ascendant. #Millennials, the generation that’s done so much to shape our culture, have largely yet to appear on the political scene.” -Fox News
(Greg Corombos) - Rep. Bill Flores, R-Texas, says President nObama’s loyalty to liberal special interests could doom Republican efforts to fund the Department of Homeland Security...while blocking funding for nObama’s unilateral action to confer legal status on at least five million people in the nation illegally. However, Flores said nObama is already taking additional actions to undermine the rule of law and American families before Congress even finishes it defunding efforts. “I don’t hold out much hope for the president,” Flores said. “He puts the interests of others ahead of the interests of families.” I do think, its time to impeach him. Its overdo. http://www.wnd.com/2015/01/slap-in-the-face-obama-taps-surprise-source-to-fund-amnesty/
(jewishworldreview.com) - The presence of Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas at today's unity rally in Paris probably seemed quite natural to those whose knowledge of the his activities is limited to the statements praising him as a champion of peace from President nObama and Secretary of State Hanoi Kerry.
But the baggage Abbas, who was given an unusually prominent place in the front rank of the march symmetrically balancing the presence of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on the other side of French President Francois Hollande, carried a great deal of baggage to the event in terms of his own association with terrorism and fomenting of hate against Jews.
The instinct of the news media is to embrace Abbas's presence there along with that of Netanyahu as proof that the march was a transcendent kumbaya moment that will mark a turning point in the struggle against terror and anti-Semitism. But the question more sober observers will struggle with is whether Abbas's poor record on these issues does more to undermine progress than the symbolism did to advance it.
Why question Abbas at all?
Since taking over the PA after Arafat's death, Abbas has not only turned down peace offers and refused to negotiate seriously with Israel, he has repeatedly stated that he will never accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn. He has also continued to support the "right of return," which is inconsistent with Israel's existence though at times he has said things to the English and Israeli press that contradicts those given to his own people.
Moreover, rather than standing in unity with the world against terrorism, Abbas signed a unity pact with Hamas terrorists last year, an act that blew up the peace talks Secretary of State Hanoi Kerry worked to keep alive.
But even more than that, Abbas has in recent months personally incited his people to commit acts of violence as part of an effort to falsely convince them that the mosques on the Temple Mount are in danger.
Abbas's praise of a terrorist who tried to assassinate a rabbi advocating Jewish prayer rights on the Mount as someone who went straight to heaven tells us all we need to know about the PA. This is, of course, in addition to the steady drumbeat of incitement against Jews and Israel on the official PA media controlled by Abbas.
Indeed, had the Charlie Hebdo and kosher market murderers committed their acts in Israel, there is little doubt that Abbas would have honored them by naming a square or some edifice after them. It is also certain that had they been captured alive after taking part in an act of terrorism, he would have supported taking Israeli hostages in order to free them in a prisoner exchange, after which he would have greeted them as heroes as he has terrorists who committed equally heinous crimes against Jews.
One may say that, to use Francois de La Rochefoucauld's memorable phrase, Abbas's presence at the rally is a classic case of hypocrisy being "the homage vice pays to virtue." But any good that might come from the symbolism of Abbas being there also reminds us that it will take more than one rally, however impressive it might have been, to defeat Islamist terror.
What France and the world need to do to defeat terror is to acknowledge that the problem lies not so much in the few who commit these acts but in the vast number of people in the Muslim and Arab worlds that either rationalize or support such acts. Progress will come not when Mahmoud Abbas marches in Paris but when he stops supporting it at home.
Until then, inviting him to such events only undermines the purpose of the rally.
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