The Front Page Cover
2016 The turth is the gold of today
Featuring:
When Black Lives Mattered
Jason L. Riley
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Hilly's Highlight Reel Continues
The State Department finally got around to dumping a few thousand more of Hilly Clinton's emails Friday, and there are at least a couple of real doozies. For starters, there are another 66 emails sent or received that containing classified material, bringing the total of such emails to 1,340. Remember that time she insisted, "I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email," or her promise, "There is no classified material"? Good times.
Another revelation is that she instructed Jake Sullivan, her deputy chief of staff at the time and now her campaign foreign-policy adviser, to strip classification from some material and fax it to her over an unsecured channel. "[T]urn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure," she told him in what can only be construed as a direct order to violate the law regarding sensitive or classified information.
Less serious — indeed, more humorous — she expressed dismay, again to Sullivan, that someone at the State Department was ... wait for it ... using a personal email account. "I was surprised he used personal email account if he is at State," she wrote from her private email account and server. Oh, and by the way, that particular email was marked classified.
But never mind all that, she told us when the scandal blew up. "What I did was legally permitted."
Clinton's campaign insists, "It is false that Hilly Clinton asked for classified material to be sent over a nonsecure system." Furthermore, she said what she requested of Sullivan was "common practice." So we suppose that's a Clintonesque "meaning of is" parsing. -The Patriot Post
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The Heart of the GOP There's no shortage of ink (both literal and virtual) spilt analyzing the danger, disruption and fear of destruction underway within the Grand Old Party. The presidential primary features a mobilized base of voters who appear through their support of "outsider" candidates like Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina to be ready to end the current practice of governing by Republicans. And make no mistake: The establishment is panicking.
It's fascinating that the glare of the spotlight is fixated on the personalities of these political novices. The establishment argues that these candidates' lack of experience should disqualify them for the highest elected office in the world. Yet voters see their inexperience as a positive attribute, and largely favor the solutions these candidates offer.
The Leftmedia and the governing elites cringe when Trump proposes a pause in the immigration of individuals whose countries of origin are either in the heart of the Islamic State or in close proximity. However, average Americans don't want terrorists entering our nation among the masses who truly are displaced by Islamic extremism. The Islamic Trojan horse is a serious threat.
December's passage of latest spendthrift budget by Republican majorities in the House and Senate was praised by Barack nObama, Harry dinky-Reid and Nancy Pulosi. And why not? It funded everything nObama wanted, including his Syrian refugee plan. In part, Republicans were budgeting for a GOP president — to remove the budget as a political weapon in the 2016 race — but most grassroots conservatives simply feel betrayed. Again. Still. -The Patriot Post
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SOURCES SAY FEDS PROBING CLINTON PAYOLA CLAIMS
Fox News: “The FBI investigation into Hilly Clinton’s use of private email as secretary of state has expanded to look at whether the possible ‘intersection’ of Clinton Foundation work and State Department business may have violated public corruption laws, three intelligence sources not authorized to speak on the record told Fox News. This track is in addition to the focus on classified material found on Clinton’s personal server. ‘The agents are investigating the possible intersection of Clinton Foundation donations, the dispensation of State Department contracts and whether regular processes were followed,’ one source said.” Wait. What? - WSJ: “In [a recently released] 2011 email exchange about faxing a talking points document, the former secretary of state instructed aide Jake Sullivan to take a secure fax and ‘turn [it] into nonpaper with no identifying heading and send nonsecure’ if technical difficulties with the secure fax system persisted…‘I was looking for a secure fax that could give me the whole picture,’ the Democratic presidential candidate said Sunday on CBS. ‘But, often times, there’s a lot of information that isn’t at all classified. So, whatever information can appropriately be transmitted unclassified often was...’ Mrs. Clinton said Sunday that the request to her staffer didn’t amount to an order to violate laws on handling classified material, and said the email was never sent in any case.”
Fox News: “The FBI investigation into Hilly Clinton’s use of private email as secretary of state has expanded to look at whether the possible ‘intersection’ of Clinton Foundation work and State Department business may have violated public corruption laws, three intelligence sources not authorized to speak on the record told Fox News. This track is in addition to the focus on classified material found on Clinton’s personal server. ‘The agents are investigating the possible intersection of Clinton Foundation donations, the dispensation of State Department contracts and whether regular processes were followed,’ one source said.” Wait. What? - WSJ: “In [a recently released] 2011 email exchange about faxing a talking points document, the former secretary of state instructed aide Jake Sullivan to take a secure fax and ‘turn [it] into nonpaper with no identifying heading and send nonsecure’ if technical difficulties with the secure fax system persisted…‘I was looking for a secure fax that could give me the whole picture,’ the Democratic presidential candidate said Sunday on CBS. ‘But, often times, there’s a lot of information that isn’t at all classified. So, whatever information can appropriately be transmitted unclassified often was...’ Mrs. Clinton said Sunday that the request to her staffer didn’t amount to an order to violate laws on handling classified material, and said the email was never sent in any case.”
-Fox News
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The FBI is getting ready
to absolutely wallop Hilly Clinton
Chuck Ross
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{dailycaller.com} ~ The FBI is investigating whether Hilly Clinton’s State Department improperly directed contracts to Clinton Foundation donors, in possible violation of public corruption laws, Fox News is reporting... Three sources confirmed the previously-unknown investigation angle to Fox reporters Catherine Herridge and Pamela Browne. “The agents are investigating the possible intersection of Clinton Foundation donations, the dispensation of State Department contracts and whether regular processes were followed,” one law enforcement source told Fox.
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Fox host zings nObama aide:
What about the Constitution?
CHERYL CHUMLEY.
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{wnd.com} ~ Fox News host Chris Wallace zinged the White House chief of staff, Denis McDonough, during a televised interview, asking the presidential mouthpiece during discussion of executive orders: What ever happened to the notion of Article One, in the Constitution?... That's the one that reads, in part: "All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives." Wallace asked: "Whatever happened to that?" But Wallace wouldn't let the matter drop, asking McDonough again about "what the Constitution says" in regards to the rights of the legislative branch, versus the powers of the executive. http://www.wnd.com/2016/01/fox-host-pings-obama-aide-what-of-constitution/.
House Democrats Turn to the Wrong Muslims for SOTU
investigativeproject
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Russia Giving Advanced
Weapons to Hezbollah, ‘No Strings Attached’
algemeiner
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Israeli Left-Wing Extremist
Arrested Fleeing the Country
Truth Revolt
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Ezra Nawi
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Gitmo Detainee who nObama
Freed Monday Said He
Would‘KILL AMERICANS’ if Released
PAMELA GELLER
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Muhammad Abd Al Rahman Awn Al-Shamrani
.{pamelageller.com} ~ I wouldn’t be surprised if nObama supplied the arms to do it with... The fifth column got what it had been working on for decades — a plant in the White House. I warned of what an enemy he was in my 2009 book, The Post-American Presidency: The nObama Administration’s War on America. Gitmo should be expanded, not closed. Any Muslim found guilty of jihad-terror in the USA should be incarcerated at Gitmo, along with any others caught on the battle-field. The nObama Pentagon announced Monday that Guantánamo detainee Muhammad Abd Al Rahman Awn Al-Shamrani, 40, will be transferred back to his home country of Saudi Arabia. Need more prove he sides with the enemy. http://pamelageller.com/2016/01/gitmo-detainee-who-obama-freed-monday-said-he-would-kill-americans-if-released.html/
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The big but hidden US jobs problem
Robert Doar.
{aei.org} ~ While the Labor Department reported 292,000 net new jobs in December, the U.S. labor-force participation rate, 62.6%, has remained at near record lows after more than five years of steady decline. It increased a bare tenth of a percent over November... Meanwhile, labor-force participation in Great Britain stayed flat through the downturn; and for 25 to 54 year olds, it increased 2.2 percentage points from 2000 to 2014. Over the same period in the U.S., the labor-force participation from ages 25 to 54 dropped 3.1 percentage points. Running New York City’s welfare program for six years in the Bloomberg administration until 2013 taught me that employment is central to the well-being of families and the economy. The fact that so few Americans are holding or actively seeking a job is a serious problem, especially for those at the bottom..
FBI Expands Hilly Clinton
Investigation to Include Public Corruption
Kemberlee Kaye
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Hilly Clinton
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{legalinsurrection.com} ~ Bad news for Hilly Clinton as Fox News reported Monday that the FBI has expanded its investigation... What began as an investigation into Hilly’s use of a personal email account during her tenure as Secretary of State due to classified information found on their home-brewed server has expanded to include examination of business conducted the The Clinton Foundation. The development follows press reports over the past year about the potential overlap of State Department and Clinton Foundation work, and questions over whether donors benefited from their contacts inside the administration. The Clinton Foundation is a public charity, known as a 501(c)(3). It had grants and contributions in excess of $144 million in 2013, the most current available data. FBI agents with experience investigating cases like Clinton’s are pressing for prosecution. http://legalinsurrection.com/2016/01/fbi-expands-hillary-clinton-investigation-to-include-public-corruption/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LegalInsurrection+%28Le%C2%B7gal+In%C2%B7sur%C2%B7rec%C2%B7tion%29.
America’s Markets Running on Empty
Carl Delfeld
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ISIS Followers Plan
to Take over Gaza Strip
Khaled Abu Toameh
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In Gaza by the Palestinian Islamic Army (PIA)
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{gatestoneinstitute.org} ~ A new group calling itself the Palestinian Islamic Army (PIA) has popped up in the Gaza Strip, signaling incontrovertibly the growing influence of the Islamic State (ISIS) among Palestinians... A thirty-minute video put out by the PIA shows its followers pledging allegiance to ISIS "Caliph" Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, and paints Hamas leaders as "apostates" and "infidels" for failing to implement Islamic sharia law in the Gaza Strip. The video constitutes proof positive that the ISIS ideology has infiltrated Gaza -- a truth that Hamas has unsuccessfully been trying to conceal for the past year. In the video, Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashaal are denounced for aligning themselves with moderate Arab leaders in the Gulf, who are described as "criminals and enemies of Islam." Apparently, Hamas has been too kind to Christians living in the Gaza Strip. The narrator blasts Hamas leaders for offering greetings to Christians on their holidays and condolences on the death of some of the community's members. Hamas leaders are featured making visits to Christian "polytheists" in the Strip. http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7209/isis-gaza-takeover
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When Black Lives Mattered
Jason L. Riley
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At the time, many black lawmakers and activists saw in crack cocaine a unique threat. The drug was considered more accessible, more addictive, and more closely associated with violent behavior than its powder form. Proponents of the “crackdown on crack” believed that lawful inner-city residents would be better off if crack offenders were locked up for longer periods of time. In other words, the motivating factor was safety, and the resulting racial disparities were incidental. Yet today’s critics of the 1986 law ignore or play down the role of black leaders in its passage and pretend that racial animus drove the effort.
At the time, many black lawmakers and activists saw in crack cocaine a unique threat. The drug was considered more accessible, more addictive, and more closely associated with violent behavior than its powder form. Proponents of the “crackdown on crack” believed that lawful inner-city residents would be better off if crack offenders were locked up for longer periods of time. In other words, the motivating factor was safety, and the resulting racial disparities were incidental. Yet today’s critics of the 1986 law ignore or play down the role of black leaders in its passage and pretend that racial animus drove the effort.
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According to Michael Javen Fortner’s urgent and extraordinary new book, Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment, this sort of politically expedient revisionism also shapes today’s related debate over the mass incarceration of black men. Fortner responds to best-selling authors like Michelle Alexander, a law professor at Ohio State University, who has argued that a white backlash against the civil rights gains of the 1950s and 1960s led to the utilization of penal policy to restore the old Jim Crow social order of white supremacy. To Alexander and most of the liberal commentariat, mass incarceration has less to do with black criminality and more to do with historical white resistance to racial equality. In their view, prisons are tools of racial subordination. Under the auspices of a war on drugs, a racially biased criminal-justice system targets people simply for being black, not necessarily for breaking the law. Hence the tendency of leftists to obsess over the racial imbalance of the prison population while rarely discussing the racial imbalance among perpetrators of crime—as if the two are wholly unrelated.
According to Michael Javen Fortner’s urgent and extraordinary new book, Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment, this sort of politically expedient revisionism also shapes today’s related debate over the mass incarceration of black men. Fortner responds to best-selling authors like Michelle Alexander, a law professor at Ohio State University, who has argued that a white backlash against the civil rights gains of the 1950s and 1960s led to the utilization of penal policy to restore the old Jim Crow social order of white supremacy. To Alexander and most of the liberal commentariat, mass incarceration has less to do with black criminality and more to do with historical white resistance to racial equality. In their view, prisons are tools of racial subordination. Under the auspices of a war on drugs, a racially biased criminal-justice system targets people simply for being black, not necessarily for breaking the law. Hence the tendency of leftists to obsess over the racial imbalance of the prison population while rarely discussing the racial imbalance among perpetrators of crime—as if the two are wholly unrelated.
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Fortner, a political scientist at the City University of New York, challenges this wobbly liberal narrative by detailing the history of black activism that spurred Governor Nelson Rockefeller in the early 1970s to make New York the first state to mandate lengthy prison sentences for drug offenses. Today’s mass-incarceration phenomenon, the author argues, is an outgrowth of Rockefeller drug policies that enjoyed strong support from working- and middle-class blacks who were being terrorized by black criminals.
Fortner, a political scientist at the City University of New York, challenges this wobbly liberal narrative by detailing the history of black activism that spurred Governor Nelson Rockefeller in the early 1970s to make New York the first state to mandate lengthy prison sentences for drug offenses. Today’s mass-incarceration phenomenon, the author argues, is an outgrowth of Rockefeller drug policies that enjoyed strong support from working- and middle-class blacks who were being terrorized by black criminals.
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Crime rose rapidly nationwide in the 1960s and 1970s, and law-abiding blacks in places like New York bore the brunt of the consequences. Between 1960 and 1968, for instance, violent crime rose by 50 percent nationwide and by more than 450 percent in the Big Apple. Within New York City, some neighborhoods suffered a great deal more than others. “Homicide rates in white working-class precincts (Canarsie, Brooklyn), white middle-class areas (Bayside, Queens), and white upper-class precincts (Upper East Side) were dramatically lower than in precincts in minority communities,” writes Fortner. The homicide rate in one Harlem precinct “was over twenty-six times the rate in the Upper East Side, almost fifty times the rate of the most dangerous precinct in Bayside, and almost forty times the rate in Canarsie.” Between 1966 and 1976, blacks in New York City constituted half of all homicide victims—as well as about 50 percent of drug-related deaths—despite being only about one-fifth of the city’s population.
Crime rose rapidly nationwide in the 1960s and 1970s, and law-abiding blacks in places like New York bore the brunt of the consequences. Between 1960 and 1968, for instance, violent crime rose by 50 percent nationwide and by more than 450 percent in the Big Apple. Within New York City, some neighborhoods suffered a great deal more than others. “Homicide rates in white working-class precincts (Canarsie, Brooklyn), white middle-class areas (Bayside, Queens), and white upper-class precincts (Upper East Side) were dramatically lower than in precincts in minority communities,” writes Fortner. The homicide rate in one Harlem precinct “was over twenty-six times the rate in the Upper East Side, almost fifty times the rate of the most dangerous precinct in Bayside, and almost forty times the rate in Canarsie.” Between 1966 and 1976, blacks in New York City constituted half of all homicide victims—as well as about 50 percent of drug-related deaths—despite being only about one-fifth of the city’s population.
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The book’s broader point—and Fortner makes it in a clear, fluid prose style that rarely lapses into academic jargon—is that a black silent majority at the time “was much more alarmed about drug addiction and violent crime than its white analogue” and ultimately motivated to take action. It was blacks who instigated the crackdown on black criminality, often over the opposition of white liberals and black political elites. “Many minority legislators voted against the drug laws, and survey evidence indicates that, driven by their own interests and ideologies, they were at odds with the communities they represented,” writes Fortner. Eventually, Rockefeller, “no pioneer of punishment,” began to recite the grievances of working- and middle-class blacks, to “appropriate their language and echo the discourse of their movement.”
The book’s broader point—and Fortner makes it in a clear, fluid prose style that rarely lapses into academic jargon—is that a black silent majority at the time “was much more alarmed about drug addiction and violent crime than its white analogue” and ultimately motivated to take action. It was blacks who instigated the crackdown on black criminality, often over the opposition of white liberals and black political elites. “Many minority legislators voted against the drug laws, and survey evidence indicates that, driven by their own interests and ideologies, they were at odds with the communities they represented,” writes Fortner. Eventually, Rockefeller, “no pioneer of punishment,” began to recite the grievances of working- and middle-class blacks, to “appropriate their language and echo the discourse of their movement.”
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In addition to assessing academic studies, Fortner has marshaled interviews with black activists, transcripts from legislative hearings, literature of the period, and numerous press reports to support his central claims. Readers may be especially intrigued by the punitive bluntness of the black press at the time. The Chicago Defender ran political cartoons in the early 1970s that portrayed black thugs menacing black neighborhoods and included captions like “Brother ’HOOD in Black Communities” and “Stop Black on Black Crime.” After a bank employee was shot dead in 1970, the Atlanta Daily World published an editorial with the headline CRIME MUST BE STOPPED. “It goes hard for the Christian heart to say this, but stiffer measures, all the way up to capital punishment, seem to be the only tangible way to protect that portion of society, which has not fallen under the heels of hardship and become animals. Animals!” wrote the editors. “This bank, which has apparently become a target of hoodlums, and has young female tellers scared out of their wits, has employed numerous black people for years, and is making major contributions to the cause of advancement in Atlanta.”
In addition to assessing academic studies, Fortner has marshaled interviews with black activists, transcripts from legislative hearings, literature of the period, and numerous press reports to support his central claims. Readers may be especially intrigued by the punitive bluntness of the black press at the time. The Chicago Defender ran political cartoons in the early 1970s that portrayed black thugs menacing black neighborhoods and included captions like “Brother ’HOOD in Black Communities” and “Stop Black on Black Crime.” After a bank employee was shot dead in 1970, the Atlanta Daily World published an editorial with the headline CRIME MUST BE STOPPED. “It goes hard for the Christian heart to say this, but stiffer measures, all the way up to capital punishment, seem to be the only tangible way to protect that portion of society, which has not fallen under the heels of hardship and become animals. Animals!” wrote the editors. “This bank, which has apparently become a target of hoodlums, and has young female tellers scared out of their wits, has employed numerous black people for years, and is making major contributions to the cause of advancement in Atlanta.”
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Or consider this 1972 editorial on crime in the Washington Afro-American: “The exceedingly high incidence of housebreakings, pocketbook snatchings, robberies, shoplifting cases and shootings are not simply the outgrowth of bad social conditions,” said the editors. “It’s time to recognize that basic honesty has a lot to do with it. Honesty begins at home and makes little difference whether or not you are poor, unemployed and whatsoever.” The editors continued: “It’s also time we stop blaming everybody else for the criminal acts which occur in our neighborhoods. The victims of most of these criminal acts are black, and . . . the vast majority of these acts are caused by black people, and in the end the whole city . . . suffers.”
Or consider this 1972 editorial on crime in the Washington Afro-American: “The exceedingly high incidence of housebreakings, pocketbook snatchings, robberies, shoplifting cases and shootings are not simply the outgrowth of bad social conditions,” said the editors. “It’s time to recognize that basic honesty has a lot to do with it. Honesty begins at home and makes little difference whether or not you are poor, unemployed and whatsoever.” The editors continued: “It’s also time we stop blaming everybody else for the criminal acts which occur in our neighborhoods. The victims of most of these criminal acts are black, and . . . the vast majority of these acts are caused by black people, and in the end the whole city . . . suffers.”
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I don’t know Fortner’s personal politics, and his book is a work of scholarship, not a polemic. But in a moving preface, he does mention that his experience as a black youngster reared on Brooklyn’s mean streets during the height of the crack epidemic informs his perspective. “While the literature on mass incarceration has correctly highlighted racial discrimination within the criminal justice system, it has unnecessarily discounted the hurt and terror of those who clutch their billfolds as they sleep, of those who exit their apartments and leave their buildings with trepidation, and of those who have had to bury a son or daughter because of gang activity, the drug trade, or random violence.” Fortner wrote Black Silent Majority, he says, “to recover the voice of the ‘invisible black victim.’” His book accomplishes that and much more.
I don’t know Fortner’s personal politics, and his book is a work of scholarship, not a polemic. But in a moving preface, he does mention that his experience as a black youngster reared on Brooklyn’s mean streets during the height of the crack epidemic informs his perspective. “While the literature on mass incarceration has correctly highlighted racial discrimination within the criminal justice system, it has unnecessarily discounted the hurt and terror of those who clutch their billfolds as they sleep, of those who exit their apartments and leave their buildings with trepidation, and of those who have had to bury a son or daughter because of gang activity, the drug trade, or random violence.” Fortner wrote Black Silent Majority, he says, “to recover the voice of the ‘invisible black victim.’” His book accomplishes that and much more.
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