Thursday, August 23, 2018
When politics becomes personal
A close American friend recently revealed why a mutual friend was no longer speaking to me.
“She said you support Donald Trump. But that isn’t true, is it?”
My first reaction was incredulity. My second was to laugh hysterically. My third was to get angry. My fourth was to write about this, knowing that it might cost me some more friends.
How had it come to this? How did it happen that I, a relatively apolitical person who hadn’t even voted in the last US presidential election (what was the point when my home state, Maryland, always went Democratic?) and never wrote about political topics, was being shunned because of my political beliefs?
I considered what I had said that prompted my friend to drop me. I had expressed my approval that Trump had moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and rescinded the treaty with Iran. Additionally, I had said that it was Northeastern elitism and arrogance that had brought him, not Hillary Clinton, to power. I don’t consider either comment to be especially controversial.
I had also stressed that Trump wasn’t my top choice for president then or likely ever. But I had already said enough.
For many Trump haters, there is a “you are with us all the way or against us” mentality that has reached hysterical proportions. It is a view no longer relegated to just a few hotheads. It is a hysteria that permeates our most elite media, institutions, and individuals. It is mean, ugly, and very personal.
After discussing politics one evening at a cafĂ©, another friend remarked to me: “I don’t understand how such a nice person as yourself can be right wing.”
The implication is that the left has a monopoly on goodness and caring for others. The comment echoes the words of the late great columnist Charles Krauthammer who once noted: “To understand the workings of American politics you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.”
I understand that comment because I once thought so myself. I was the third generation of my family to attend a “progressive” private school where we learned more about Martin Luther King, Jr than the Founding Fathers. I worked on my first political campaign at age 15 for ultra-liberal Bella Abzug and a few years later trudged through snowy Maine and New Hampshire canvassing votes for liberal icon Sen. Ted Kennedy. President of my college Young Democrats, I wept when Ronald Reagan was elected and bought a t-shirt at the 1984 Democratic Convention reading “Friends Don’t Let Friends Vote Republican.”
I was drawn to liberal Democrats because they represented my values: freedom of speech and religion, civil rights, gender equality, gun control, and non-elitism. I thought conservatives were wealthy white men who abused the poor and saw women as intellectually inferior sex objects.
But slowly, while Trump was just focused on amassing New York City real estate, liberals have been attacking America and Israel, while glossing over the threat of Islamic fundamentalism. They have castigated working class people in middle America as ignorant hillbillies and mocked their religious beliefs. And they have created an intolerance for dissent.
The mythical liberal of the past — an open-hearted and generous soul helping the underdog — has become an ugly figure excoriating anyone who doesn’t share his views. Those who don’t swoon over Obama and foam at the mouth at the mention of Trump are being branded as racist and evil. Equally shocking are the stories of elitist universities refusing to let non-left speakers on campus.
All of this has succeeded in pushing people like me, who do not feel entirely comfortable voting Republican, further and further away from the Democratic Party. We are the voters up for grabs in the next election. Those that criticize and ostracize us do so at their own peril.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Former journalist -- The Washington Times, USA Today, New York Daily News, Women's International Net -- among others. Co-author -- Arafat: A Political Biography (Oxford, 2001), Hating America (Oxford, 2003). Completed the Masters in Creative Writing at Bar Ilan.
Palestinian Minibus Flips Near Maale Adumim [VIDEO] 1 Dead 9 Injured
The minibus has PA (Palestine Authority) license plates. MDA reports a 50-year-old male was pronounced dead on the scene. Nine men in their 30s are being treated. Three are moderate-to-serious and six light-to-moderate. The victims are being transported to Hadassah Mt. Scopus and Shaare Zedek Hospitals in Jerusalem.
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
Illegal Alien Charged with First Degree Murder of Mollie Tibbetts
Mainstream Media covering up for this Illegal piece of filth! Not reporting that he is an illegal Alien!
Daily News Headline:
New York Times:
"Body Believed to Be That of Mollie Tibbetts, Iowa College Student, Is Found" you have to read the article to see that the murderer was arrested, but no mention that he is illegal.
USA Today: Describes murderer as "undocumented"
"Undocumented immigrant charged with murder in killing of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts"
The Real Story:
Harvard professor slams coconut oil as ‘pure poison’
If you’re cuckoo for coconut oil, think again.
That’s the message of a lecture from Dr. Karin Michels of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, which is currently making the rounds on YouTube. The 50-minute German-language talk, titled “Coconut Oil and Other Nutritional Errors,” debunks the popular belief that the ingredient is a waistline-slimming, brain-boosting superfood.
“Coconut oil is pure poison,” the Harvard professor said, according to a translation by Business Insider. “It is one of the worst foods you can eat.”
This warning could come as a shock to advocates of the thick, fatty stuff, who use it not only for cooking but also blend it into their morning cup of coffee. Enthusiasts say the resulting beverage, called “bulletproof coffee,” curbs hunger and helps beat post-wake-up brain fog.
Some fans even believe that a spoonful of coconut oil can prevent gingivitis and sinusitis, which is why they spend 10 minutes a day gargling with it — a habit known as “oil pulling.”
Michels isn’t the first expert to come out against the oil’s alleged status as a miracle food.
The American Heart Association advised against consuming too much of it in June 2017, after a study found that all saturated fats — regardless of the source — are damaging to heart health.
Just because it comes from a plant doesn’t mean it’s good for you: The same study pointed out that coconut oil, which is 82 percent saturated fat, is actually richer than butter. The saturated fat content of that much-maligned ingredient? Sixty-three percent.
Tuesday, August 21, 2018
Rosh Yeshivah Prohibits Friends of The Chassan To Attend The Wedding Because It's Elul!!!
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The Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Eliyahu Abba Shaul, forbade his yeshiva students to attend the wedding of one his talmidim that was held Sunday evening in a banquet hall near Petah Tikva.
According to friends, the Chassan who was married last night was in a "problematic" relationship with the Hanhalah.
The directive given to the students was that whoever took part in the wedding would be taken from his bed and removed from the yeshiva immediately.
The official reason: There are no weddings in the month of Elul!
When students of other Yeshivas heard that few students showed to be "mesamach" the Chassan, they came running to the wedding.
The Ironic part was that the Rosh Yeshivah, Hagoen Hatzaddik R' Eliyahu Abba Shaul, participated in the wedding of the daughter of the Rabbi Tzion HaCohen Kook that very same night!
Bobover Meshiginer Gives His New-Born Daughter 9 Names
This past Shabbos in the Bobover Bais Medrish in Boro Park, a father gave his daughter no fewer than nine names.
"And her name shall be called in Israel:
Leah, Hinda, Tzirel, Malka Attia, Sheina Chana Chava Tzivya," the Gabbai declared after the "Aliyah to the Torah."
According to reports from Chasidim, the family name - which the daughter would also have to bear - is Folger.
The interesting name, which undoubtedly breaks every possible record, has drawn a wave of amusing reactions. One of the surfers chirped on Twitter: "Thank God that it's not a boy, imagine what it means to call him the Torah ...
Black South African Government Will Seize Land owned by Whites!
"We are not calling for the slaughter of white people - at least for now"
White South African farmers will be removed from their land after a landslide vote in parliament.
The country's constitution is now likely to be amended to allow for the confiscation of white-owned land without compensation, following a motion brought by radical Marxist opposition leader Julius Malema.
It passed by 241 votes for to 83 against after a vote on Tuesday, and the policy was a key factor in new president Cyril Ramaphosa's platform after he took over from Jacob Zuma in February.
Mr Malema said the time for 'reconciliation is over'. 'Now is the time for justice,' News24 reported.
'We must ensure that we restore the dignity of our people without compensating the criminals who stole our land.'
Mr Malema has a long-standing commitment to land confiscation without compensation. In 2016 he told his supporters he was 'not calling for the slaughter of white people - at least for now'.
A 2017 South African government audit found white people owned 72 per cent of farmland.
Rural affairs minister for the ruling African National Congress party said 'The ANC unequivocally supports the principle of land expropriation without compensation'.
'There is no doubt about it, land shall be expropriated without compensation.'
Freedom Front Plus party leader Pieter Groenewald said the decision to strip white farmers of their land would cause 'unforeseen consequences that is not in the interest of South Africa'.
The deputy chief executive of civil rights group Afriforum said the motion was a violation of agreements made at the end of apartheid.
Trump Deports Nazi labor camp guard Video!
A former Nazi SS labor camp guard was deported from his home in Queens, N.Y., to Germany, the White House announced in a statement early Tuesday morning.
Palij admitted to Department of Justice officials in 2003 that he trained at a Nazi camp in German-occupied Poland. Court documents indicated that men who trained at the SS Training camp in Trawniki carried out the Nazi regime’s plan to murder Jews in Poland.
The 95-year-old also served as an armed guard at the adjacent Trawniki Labor Camp – where he served an “indispensable role” in the death of roughly 6,000 Jews who were killed in one of the single largest massacres of the Holocaust in 1943, according to the statement.
Palij, who claimed he was working on a farm and in a factory during World War II, had his U.S. citizenship revoked in 2003 by a federal judge, and ordered to be deported a year later. His appeal was denied in 2005.
“Through extensive negotiations, President Trump and his team secured Palij’s deportation to Germany and advanced the United States’ collaborative efforts with a key European ally,” the statement read.
Palij’s deportation process was hindered over Germany’s unwillingness to take him back because he is not a German citizen, ABC News reported.
President Trump tasked U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell to ensure Palij’s deportation was on the top of his list when he arrived to Berlin, according to the outlet.
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