Showing posts with label Republicans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Republicans. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Congressmen Tour Israel as 'Americans' Not Democrats, Republicans - CBN News Julie Stahl

House Majority leader Kevin McCarthy - King David Hotel
Jerusalem, Israel
Congressmen Tour Israel as 'Americans' Not Democrats, Republicans
08-08-2017
CBN News Julie Stahl
JERUSALEM, Israel – Democratic and Republican House members stood united on Tuesday in Jerusalem to say the U.S. has no greater ally than Israel.
"But our importance that we wanted to show, one is the bond with our ally [Israel]," said House Majority leader Kevin McCarthy. "We have shared values, shared security interests throughout the world and there is no stronger bond between any ally we have, being the only democracy in the Middle East."

More than 50 members of the U.S. House of Representatives are touring Israel in two partisan groups during August. But McCarthy and Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer told journalists at a joint press conference Israel is completely a bi-partisan issue.
McCarthy said he and Hoyer work together on many issues, especially when it comes to sanctions in the world.
"We have made a point of making sure we have an overlapping time here in Israel with Republicans and Democrats because this is not a partisan issue," McCarthy said.
"We are not here as Democrats and Republicans; we are here as Americans who support Israel's security, its sovereignty and the safety of its people. We are here because we are the United States of America, partners for peace and partners for security," Hoyer said.
Hoyer said the overlapping trips – the Democratic contingent came last week and leaves tonight and the Republican contingent arrived last night and leaves next week – is meant to send a message of solidarity with Israel and its people.
"The solidarity that we know is necessary if we are to defeat those – not only in the Middle East but around the world – who through terrorism and violence would put at risk our democracies, which obviously Israel and America share in common, but also put at risk our way of life," Hoyer said.
Sponsored by the American Israel Education Foundation, the goal is to provide both Democratic and Republican congressmen with firsthand knowledge of U.S.-Israel relations and critical issues facing American policymakers such as regional strategic threats and the impact of recent events on the future.
The policymakers met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah, as well as members of the Israel Defense Forces.
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Saturday, May 20, 2017

Johnny Enlow, God Says, "I Played My Trump Card, I Will Win the Hand" - THE ELIJAH LIST


Johnny Enlow: God Says, "I Played My Trump Card, 
I Will Win the Hand"

THE ELIJAH LIST

May 20, 2017

Steve ShultzFrom the desk of Steve Shultz:
I'm going to keep this very short. This is a potent word from Johnny Enlow. He has sown into the Body of Christ much hope and encouragement. From time to time, Johnny brings forth a word that has a bit more correction in it. This is one such word.
Please read this word by prophet Johnny Enlow and let's lift up President Trump, his cabinet and family in this hour! (To Subscribe to the Elijah List go here.)
Enjoy! And thanks for forwarding this to your friends! They can subscribe here.
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Word of the Lord released by Johnny Enlow on Thursday, May 18, 2017:
Last night I was awakened with an intense and fiery word from the Lord that I will attempt to convey. This is what I heard:

"Be not moved and shaken by the present shakings, rumblings and reactions coming out of DC. I did not go out of My way to affect this last election to then suddenly have it aborted. I played My Trump card and I will win the hand. This move does not require My Trump card to be perfect, as I have already taken all of that into consideration – as I always do – when I choose anyone for any assignment that I have.

"Jesus was the last man that had the character in place to actually sustain the call upon His life. Since then no one has had the character-base necessary for the great assignments that I have given out. Do not wrongly assume that I only call those who are qualified. I instead continually work to qualify the called, but I have amazing patience for that process. Yes, I am actively at work in upgrading My Trump card's character even through the fire he is going through.
"Hang on, because a time of accelerated change is here."
"Do not find yourself having less patience than I do in your zeal for character and holiness. Human religious idealism has time and time again worked against Me as you choose to prioritize that which YOU see fit instead of what I am working on next. You must learn to stay out of judgment seats you don't belong in.

"I Am Neither Republican or Democrat"

"You do not yet know how to cooperate with what I do on planet earth because you are often out of sync both with who I am and with what My agenda is. However, even as I call you higher to a place of wisdom and trust – yet I still have patience for you as you struggle to recognize My present-day narrative. I am neither Republican nor Democrat. I am neither Conservative nor Liberal.

"Conservative-mindedness carries elements of anxiousness and fear that I do not carry. I am not on the defensive. I am not just trying to conserve principles and values. I am not wringing My hands at the sins of those who do not know Me. I do not have as My highest priority that society stop misbehaving. I am not angst-ridden in any way at all.

"I am more about liberating than about conserving. I am liberal in what I give out and My atmosphere is one that liberates. Where My Spirit is there is freedom. Even since the Garden of Eden, I have always trusted you with more freedoms than what you were then ready for. I am still the same God. I have always liberally given to society freedoms, provision, protection and opportunities that they do not deserve. 
(Photo via Maxpixel)

"I have been saddened but never surprised at humanity not properly stewarding that which I have given them. I am not ever shocked at what those do – who do not know Me. It is the expected behavior for those who do not know Me. Moreover, My priority when dealing with humanity is always with those who know Me – or think they know Me. I am not overly concerned when a broken society does not prioritize love. I do however call for those who are called by My name to operate from My priority of love and My priority of fearlessness.

"My heart is still strongest for the weak, for the poor, for the displaced, for the alien, for the prisoner, for the suffering. Many of you have created for yourself a God made in your image, but be assured of this – it is YOU who must conform to My image. If you have forgotten My image go back and study who Jesus revealed Me to be.

"I made the United States to be a melting pot for the nations. I made the nation to be a Promised Land of sorts for many nations. Yes, some basic safety procedures and processes need to be implemented, but I did not choose Trump because this was a priority of Mine. Yes, some protection of American values of freedom and tolerance need to be watched over but even this has not been My priority with My choosing of Donald Trump. He is in fact called to bring greater security to America, but much of that will happen through different means than presently being pursued.


"I Chose Trump For Purposes You Must Yet Be Patient to Watch For"

"I have chosen to play My Trump card as an interrupter of darkness and as a lead domino for national reformation – that will lead to reformation among the nations. The status quo of government had become entrenched on dark strongholds and I have played My Trump card as a disrupter of those strongholds. I have released Myriads of the hosts of Heaven to assist with that assignment.
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"I chose Trump for purposes you must yet be patient to watch for. The hordes of Hell in media have rallied in mass under Leviathan but I will crush them under the forces that I have released under My trusted archangel Gabriel. He will be instrumental in devastating media outlets that do not position themselves as lovers of truth and goodness. There will be in-house fires that will not be able to be put out in some major media outlets. There will be the hanging by the very noose they have created for others.

"Do not be deceived by the look of power that the enemy in media presently seems to carry. Much of it will presently look very different. I have already beheaded the enemy in many places and much of the backlash you hear or see is the backlash, as it were, of a chicken with its head cut off. Its strongest kick is post-mortem – but it has already been dealt with. My Trump card is something I will continue to play, but it is a card I have already played as well. Much of the enemy's powerful-seeming backlash is the backlash of that which is beheaded.

"I Have Chosen Trump to Repair Your National Economy"
"Be not moved and shaken by the present shakings, rumblings and reactions coming out of DC"
"I have chosen Trump and his unique skill-set to repair your national economy and to by extension, repair the economy of the nations. It is not a smooth uncomplicated process but it is a process I will help him with. It is the enemy who has been trying to destroy your economy and the nations' economies. He has been attempting that and even surreptitiously setting up for that in order to stop the massive harvest already coming in; and in aborting the age of reformation and era of renaissance that you are presently engaged in.

"I am saving you from much deeper conspiracies and from much darker futures than most of you can even begin to comprehend. Even you conspiracy followers only see the human elements involved and they are ever there from generation to generation with changing faces. Almost none of you have seen the dark hands behind the scene. It is why you must trust Me at this time though you are not used to trusting Me. You have created belief systems that limit My scope and scale of intervention on this planet and you are wrong in your assumptions of My Sovereignty being limited.

"I am still Ruler of the nations and as Jesus confirmed to you: ALL power in Heaven AND EARTH is Mine and Ours. The little authority on your tiny earth that I surrendered through the fall of Adam, I fully regained through what Jesus did on the Cross. Yes, I require your co-laboring with Me on all matters of planetary change, not because I need your enabling power, but because I desire partnership and collaboration with My sons and daughters. Don't confuse My love for family partnership as a need for whatever power you can provide Me. Surely, you see the foolishness of the idea that I, the Creator of the Universe, would need YOUR power to eradicate darkness.

"I, with one pronouncement and in one moment, could eliminate all evil from the planet. This is within My immediate capabilities. However, I am not just fighting evil, but I am raising sons and I am maturing a Bride. My great joy will be to have sons and daughters in My image to such an extent that their advanced levels of love will release My glory and crush the evil one.

"I am committed to using YOU not because I need your power but because I desire your cooperation in making My story sufficiently majestic. There is no greater joy I could have and no greater glory I could receive, than to have those made in My image arise and shine with who I really am in every area of society. Because of My great patience and because of My ultimate trust in My image in you – this will happen.

"You can expedite matters on earth's time clock by cooperating with Me, but as surely as I live, the whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God that will be seen on My kids. I am not doing this without you, but MY choice. My present intervention in your government, your media, and your economy is all part of the process of enabling you to be positioned for maximum reflecting of My brilliance among the nations. I am fully Sovereign, but I am also fully committed to your partnership in the process."


"For I will At This Time Overhaul the World and Overhaul Your World"
"Hang on, because a time of accelerated change is here. For I will at this time overhaul the world and overhaul your world. You must not overrate your thoughts, your judgments, your theology, your eschatology. Most of these have put Me in boxes that I do not reside in. This is a time where literally ALL IS POSSIBLE for those who look to Me. Therefore, you must remove the veils through which you see Me. Position yourself to be in learning mode from Me. Thinking you know something is literally your greatest hindrance at this time.

"I only can fill empty vessels. Find a way to empty yourselves. Humility is a huge key. Gratitude is a huge key. These keys will help you access the great golden keys of faith, hope and love. I call on you to stop carrying anxiety, stop the finger pointing, stop the angst, stop proclaiming end of days scenarios. Stop any and everything that takes you out of being a carrier of good news. You are ministers of the Gospel and that word still means 'good news'. Your best days are here if you are committed to faith, hope and love.

"I am using My Trump card for certain matters but you must rise up and make even the much greater Kingdom difference."
 (To Subscribe to the Elijah List go here.)
Johnny Enlow
Johnny and Elizabeth

Email: Contact@JohnnyandElizabeth.com
Website: www.JohnnyandElizabeth.com
Johnny Enlow is a social reformer, international speaker, spiritual mentor, and author of The Seven Mountain ProphecyThe Seven Mountain Mantle, and Rainbow God. He and his wife Elizabeth are focused on awakening individuals to their call to provide practical solutions from the heart of God for every problem in society – until the real God of all of life is displayed in the seven primary areas of culture in all nations: Media, Arts and Entertainment, Government, Family, Religion, Economy, and Education.
To receive more words like this in YOUR inbox, subscribe FREE to the Elijah List at this link http://elijahlist.com/subscribe.
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Thursday, May 18, 2017

The Dow Plunges 372 Points As Trump Impeachment Talk Reaches A Fever Pitch On Capitol Hill - Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG


Posted: 17 May 2017 Michael Snyder  THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG

The wolves are circling, and members of Congress from both political parties are now openly talking about impeaching President Trump.  On Wednesday, speculation of a looming Trump impeachment sent stocks plunging.  The Dow was down 372 points, and the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq both experienced their largest declines in eight months.  

This downturn was sparked by a New York Times report that said that a memo that FBI Director James Comey wrote in February stated that Trump requested that Comey “end the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn”.  Democrats and Republicans are both jumping on this memo as potential evidence of “obstruction of justice”, but as I will explain below, even if everything that Comey is saying is true there is no evidence of obstruction of justice in this case.  

However, perception is often more important than reality, and at this moment Wall Street and many of Trump’s fellow Republicans in Washington believe that the Trump administration is coming apart at the seams.  After the events of this week, it is clearer than ever that it is imperative that we get Trump some friends in Congress in 2018.

Following Trump’s surprise election victory in November, stocks surged as investors anticipated the implementation of a robust pro-business agenda.

But now that the Trump administration is deeply embroiled in controversy, many fear that Trump’s pro-business agenda will never become a reality
“A week agowe were talking about the agenda grinding to a halt,” the Republican said. “Now, the train is going down the hill backwards.”
And even before Wednesday’s revelation about Comey’s memo, some top Republican leaders were already disavowing Trump’s agenda.  For example, just check out what Bloomberg is reporting about Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell…
Earlier Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he’s prepared to block Trump on many of his proposed budget cuts and won’t support major tax cuts that add to the deficit. Nor would he commit to building Trump’s border wall.
The financial markets had already “priced in” big tax cuts, reduced regulations and a massive increase in infrastructure spending.

If the markets believe that none of those things are going to happen now, that is likely to result in a significant downturn for stocks.

Of course the Democrats are just thrilled by these latest developments.  U.S. Representative Jim Himes told MSNBC that the Republican agenda is now “lying in ruins on the floor of this building”
Speaking earlier on Wednesday, Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), a member of the House intelligence committee, said the Republican legislative agenda “is lying in ruins on the floor of this building.”
“It was tenuous when they got through their so-called health care bill in the House.  You can still see blood on the floor here for what it cost them to get that through the House,” Himes told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” in an interview from the U.S. Capitol.
“Now, you know, things like tax reform , which is, you know, very, very difficult in the best of times — with that cloud, with this cloud, hanging over this building, that legislative agenda is all but gone.”
Previously, I have warned about the “gangster culture” in Washington D.C., and the truth is that the “Deep State” has been out to get Trump since the moment he was elected.

There are thousands upon thousands of laws that apply to the presidency, and the jackals among the establishment have been waiting for Trump to trip up just a little bit so that they can try to take him down for good.

And things are starting to move very quickly now.

Within hours of the revelation about the Comey memo, Democratic Representative Al Green called for Trump to be impeached from the House floor: “This is about what I believe. And this is where I stand. I will not be moved. The president must be impeached.”

It isn’t much of a surprise to see this sort of rush to judgment from the Democrats, but the speed at which Republicans are turning on Trump is more than just a little bit alarming…
-Senator John McCain raised the specter of impeachment when he told the press that the crisis surrounding Trump has reached “Watergate size and scale”.

-McCain’s partner in crime, Senator Lindsey Graham, released a statement that said he “will follow the facts — wherever they may lead”.  Graham has always been one of Trump’s biggest critics, and he clearly is ready to move forward with impeachment.
-According to the Hill, U.S. Rep. Justin Amash is saying that if Comey’s memo is true “it would merit impeachment”.

-Commenting on Trump’s troubles, U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.) told reporters that obstruction of justice “has been considered an impeachable offense”.

But what none of them understand is that Trump has not committed any crime.

As a former lawyer with two law degrees (a JD and an LLM), it is my opinion that even if everything in Comey’s memo is true (and that is a big if), it still would not mean that President Trump is guilty of obstruction of justice.

And I am far from alone in this regard.  Someone that agrees with me is ultra-liberal George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley
A good place to start would be with the federal law, specifically 18 U.S.C. 1503. The criminal code demands more than what Comey reportedly describes in his memo. There are dozens of different variations of obstruction charges ranging from threatening witnesses to influencing jurors. None would fit this case. That leaves the omnibus provision on attempts to interfere with the “due administration of justice.”
However, that still leaves the need to show that the effort was to influence “corruptly” when Trump could say that he did little but express concern for a longtime associate. The term “corruptly” is actually defined differently under the various obstruction provisions, but it often involves a showing that someone acted “with the intent to secure an unlawful benefit for oneself or another.” Encouraging leniency or advocating for an associate is improper but not necessarily seeking an unlawful benefit for him.
Then there is the question of corruptly influencing what? There is no indication of a grand jury proceeding at the time of the Valentine’s Day meeting between Trump and Comey. Obstruction cases generally are built around judicial proceedings — not Oval Office meetings.
You can’t charge someone with a crime just because you don’t like that person.

We are not supposed to be a nation that conducts witch hunts.  The law is supposed to be applied equally to all of our citizens, and that includes the president of the United States.
I know that the left and the establishment Republicans that hate Trump would love to use the law as a weapon to remove Trump from office, but the truth is that there is no evidence that Trump has done anything wrong.

And if the law was actually applied objectively in our land, it is quite likely that Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton would all be in very hot water about now.  The following comes from Mike Adams of Natural News
Keep in mind that these same discredited media outlets gave Obama a pass when he laundered $1.7 billion in cash and delivered it to Iran on a military cargo plane.
They are the same fake news media that looked the other way when Bill Clinton met with Loretta Lynch on the tarmac in a private meeting to pressure Lynch to back off any potential criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton’s long list of crimes.
They are the same anti-American media that said nothing when Hillary Clinton cheated during the presidential debates by receiving the debate questions in advance from CNN. (She also pre-sold her anticipated presidency by collecting tens of millions of dollars in “donations” and “speaking fees” from foreign interests.)
They are the same media that stood silent when former President Obama weaponized the IRS to suppress the speech of conservative non-profits. Similarly, nobody in the media seems to be alarmed at all that Obama abused the state surveillance apparatus to spy on his political opponents such as Rand Paul.
For much more on the crimes of the Clintons in particular, I would commend a book by Edward Klein entitled “Guilty as Sin: Uncovering New Evidence of Corruption and How Hillary Clinton and the Democrats Derailed the FBI Investigation”.  The fact that neither of the Clintons have ever been to prison says a lot about the state of criminal justice in America today.

It is literally going to take a miracle for Trump to survive the next couple of years.  If he can do that, we can definitely greatly strengthen his hand by sending hordes of Trump supporters to D.C. during the mid-term elections in 2018.

If the impeachment process moves forward, there are a whole lot of Republicans that would gleefully plunge knives into Trump’s back.  So Trump needs to be very careful, because he doesn’t have a lot of true friends in Congress at this point.

This is why we can no longer vote for someone just because they carry the label of “Republican”.  What we really need is a conservative revolution in this country, and my hope is that we can start a movement that will turn Washington D.C. completely upside down.

Friday, February 24, 2017

How Angry Will You Be If The Republicans In Congress Do Not Repeal Obamacare? - Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG

Obamacare Report Card - Facebook

Posted: 23 Feb 2017   Michael Snyder  THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG

Top Republicans are now publicly saying that Obamacare will never be fully repealed. In fact, many Republicans in Congress are already using the term “repair” instead of “repeal” to describe what is going to happen to Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law. Without a doubt, the Republicans in Congress are eventually going to do something, but strategists in both parties are now suggesting that most of the key elements of Obamacare are going to remain once everything is all said and done. It will be put into a more “conservative” package, but it will still be Obamacare.

On Thursday, former House Speaker John Boehner made headlines all over the country when he said that a complete repeal of Obamacare is “not what’s going to happen”.  Instead, Boehner said that Republicans are going to “fix Obamacare” and that they will “put a more conservative box around it” in order to keep their constituents happy.

Of course this isn’t what we voted for. For years, Republican politicians all across the country have been promising that Obamacare would be repealed once they got control of Congress, but now Boehner is telling us that all of that was just “happy talk”
Earlier in the panel discussion, Boehner said he “started laughing” when Republicans started talking about moving lightning fast on repeal and then coming up with an alternative.
“In the 25 years that I served in the United States Congress, Republicans never, ever, one time agreed on what a health care proposal should look like. Not once,” Boehner said. “And all this happy talk that went on in November and December and January about repeal, repeal, repeal—yeah, we’ll do replace, replace—I started laughing, because if you pass repeal without replace, first, anything that happens is your fault. You broke it.”
When the Republicans finally get around to doing something, they will inevitably declare it to be a great victory, but will it actually be that much different from what we have now?
Yes, the IRS penalty for not having health insurance will probably go. But there will still be coverage for children up to the age of 26, there will still be mandatory coverage for preexisting conditions, there will still be mandatory coverage for maternity expenses, there will still be some form of Medicaid expansion and there will still be subsidies for the poor.

In the end, we are still going to have a healthcare system where half the country pays for the healthcare for the other half of the country.

That isn’t fair, and it never will be.  One half of the country shouldn’t have to pay much higher rates for their own health insurance and also pay for the healthcare of everyone else in the nation as well.  Either we should go back to a free market system, or they might as well go ahead and socialize the entire thing.

The thought of sticking with what we have right now is utter insanity, but unfortunately that is what top Republicans mean when they speak of “repairing” Obamacare. The following comes from the New York Times
“When you talk about ‘repeal,’ you have just used a word that is very polarizing,” said Representative Tom MacArthur, Republican of New Jersey, who meets weekly with moderate Republicans and Democrats of equal number. “When you go to Democrats and say, ‘Help us repeal,’ that puts them in a box. If you say, ‘Would you help us repair something?’ people start listening in a whole other way.”
How in the world do you “repair” a steaming pile of garbage?

I just don’t understand.

What the Republicans need to do is very simple. As Jim Demint has suggested, the Republicans in Congress simply need to pass the same Obamacare repeal that Barack Obama vetoed not too long ago…
Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint, the former South Carolina Republican senator, called on activists attending the Conservative Political Action Conference to push their members of Congress to send to President Donald Trump the same legislation that dismantled the law and was vetoed by President Barack Obama with all due haste.
“We must and we can repeal Obamacare now,” DeMint said. “They should send that same bill to President Trump right now.”
So what is keeping Republicans in Congress from moving forward?

One thing is the defunding of Planned Parenthood. Some liberal Republicans are promising to vote against any Obamacare repeal bill that defunds Planned Parenthood
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) says she will not vote for an ObamaCare repeal bill that defunds Planned Parenthood.
In her address to Alaska’s state legislature Wednesday, the moderate Republican offered her firmest commitment yet that she will not support defunding Planned Parenthood.
“I, for one, do not believe that Planned Parenthood has any place in our deliberations on the Affordable Care Act,” she said.
Another thing that is giving some Republicans pause are the angry protesters that they are running into at town hall meetings…
U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa and Reps. Jason Chaffetz of Utah, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Tom McClintock of California are among Republicans who faced hostile audiences at recent town hall meetings.
This comes after the Women’s March on Washington that drew hundreds of thousands of protestors the day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
“Republicans need to be paying attention and doing their best to understand the energy from the town halls,” said Nathan Gonzales, editor and publisher of Inside Elections, a Washington-based publication that tracks congressional races.
Of course a lot of those “angry protesters” are from Barack Obama’s private army of more than 30,000 volunteers that are being deployed around the nation in a desperate attempt to defend Obamacare.

In the end, the truth is that the Republicans should be listening to the voters that sent them to Washington in the first place. Most of those voters expected an immediate Obamacare repeal, and now that it has not happened it is making for a very confusing tax season. The following comes from Politico
Republicans’ stalled campaign to repeal the Affordable Care Act is sowing confusion among those now trying to do their taxes.
Many taxpayers believe Republicans have already repealed the law, tax preparers say, and they’re surprised and upset to learn they are still subject to Obamacare’s penalty for failing to have health insurance — a charge that climbed this year to more than $2,000 per family.
Until it is repealed, Obamacare will continue to kill jobs and will continue to kill the middle class.

It was one of the worst pieces of legislation ever written, and it boggles the mind that so many Republicans in Congress are hesitant about repealing it.

Unfortunately, just as I portray in my novel, America is rapidly going crazy.

We have been given over to a reprobate mind, and our leaders can’t even seem to think straight any longer.

If Obamacare is going to be repealed, now is the time. Please contact your representatives in Congress and tell them that a “fix” will not work and that we want Obamacare to be completely repealed and replaced with a free market alternative.

Thursday, January 26, 2017

The Left Lost Its Logic On Israel - Noah Beck ISRAEL TODAY

The Left Lost Its Logic On Israel

Thursday, January 26, 2017 |  Noah Beck  ISRAEL TODAY
Originally written for the Investigative Project on Terrorism
Support for Israel among Democrats has plummeted in recent years, a new Pew poll shows, with about as many – 31 percent – saying they sympathize more with the Palestinians than with Israel, which garnered 33 percent support.
By contrast, 74 percent of Republicans surveyed sympathize more with the Jewish state. That is the widest partisan gap since 1978.
A similar poll last year found a deep divide within the party, with conservative and moderate Democrats favoring Israel over the Palestinians by 53-19 percent.
This trend has accelerated during President Barack Obama's tenure. During Israel's 2014 war with Hamas, 61 percent of Democrats sympathized with Hamas and hundreds of left-wing historians openly sided with the terrorist group.
Bernie Sanders, whose liberal support nearly won him the 2016 Democratic primary, sought to empower anti-Israel figures like Cornel West – a supporter of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement – and James Zogby of the Arab American Institute.
President Obama's refusal to veto an anti-Israel U.N. resolution last month was ranked as the most anti-Semitic incident of 2016 by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. When Congress condemned that resolution, U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, a leading contender to run the Democratic National Committee, voted against it.
This hostility toward Israel is not limited to the American Left.
In the UK, it often coincides with anti-Semitism. As Jonathan Tobin observed, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has been "openly sympathetic with Hamas and Hezbollah," has "campaigned for the release of terrorists convicted of attacking Jewish targets," and "praised vicious anti-Semites." The co-chairman of the Oxford University Labour Club resigned after the organization voted to endorse Israel Apartheid Week. The club has a growing record of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel incidents. Last May, Britain's Labour Party secretly suspended 50 of its members for anti-Semitic and racist comments.
France's left-wing government just convened a 70-nation "peace conference" that was hostile to Israel
. France has summoned far less international pressure to the exponentially bloodier conflict next door in Syria. Moreover, the French government funds French, Israeli, and Palestinian organizations that support and promote BDS campaigns against Israel, a report by NGO Monitor shows. Such boycotts are illegal under French law.
France also funds several other NGOs with alleged ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror group, the report notes.
In the West, the political left considers itself "progressive," yet it increasingly targets the only Mideast country that actually embraces progressive values such as the rule of law, gender and sexual equality, and freedom of religion and speech. "Progressives" attack the only Mideast country making progress for all of humanity in science, technology, and medicine – from a crowdsourced solution to traffic (Waze) to breakthrough research on melanoma and leukemia.
Yet, on university campuses, where the minds of future politicians are formed, hatred of Israel and Jews has become endemic. The AMCHA Initiative, a non-profit organization that tracks BDS and anti-Semitic activity on U.S. campuses, reported more than 600 instances of such activity in 2016.
So why do liberals embrace illiberal players in the Arab-Israeli conflict? Double standards, underdog favoritism, media bias and group think, and prejudice at institutions like the United Nations.
Because Israel is a country of laws and Western values, Western critics often hold Israel to a standard that no democracy could meet. Alan Dershowitz captures the standard that should apply: "Name a single country in the history of the world faced with internal and external threats comparable to those faced by Israel that has ever had a better record in human rights; a better record with compliance of the rule of law; a better record of concern for civilians?"
In addition, media coverage often is skewed by Palestinian intimidation and deception, by reporters who uncritically favor underdogs, and by sloppy journalism and outright bias.
Hamas physically intimidates journalists who dare to defy its propaganda goals, thus distorting both the "facts" and the photos distributed to the world.
"Pallywood" – the practice of staging casualties and defaming Israel – has been deceiving journalists for at least 16 years. A particularly galling Pallywood example from 2015 was the inflammatory lie – by "moderate" Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas – that Israeli forces "executed" a 13-year old after an attempted terrorist attack. The truth: the child was treated in the same Israeli hospital as the boy he tried to murder.
Even Amnesty International acknowledged the unreliability of "eyewitnesses" in the conflict.
By contrast, during the 2014 war, Hamas executed 23 Gazans and tortured dozens of others.
In September 2015, Hamas imprisoned Gazans for protesting over a lack of electricity, causing some Gazans to admit that they prefer Israeli rule to Hamas.
Consistently sloppy journalism also poisons public opinion against Israel. News organizations often fail to identify the terrorist and the victim when reporting on Arabs killed by Israelis trying to defend themselves from a terrorist attack. Such missing context creates the false impression that Israelis wake up every morning asking how they can hurt Arabs.
The BBC's distortions often turn terrorists into victims. Its bias is so egregious that even its former chief complained:
"Regrettably, this is not the first time the standard of reporting and impartiality has been unsatisfactory in recent weeks. On Saturday 3rd October, I was disappointed to see the BBC News website publish a misleading and counter-factual headline: 'Palestinian shot dead after Jerusalem attacks kills two'. I note reports that this headline underwent four revisions following public criticism." The BBC's horrible headlines continue, describing the terrorist in last month's Jerusalem track-ramming attack as a "Driver of a lorry...allegedly ramming pedestrians."
Worse still, mainstream political figures sometimes promote anti-Israel calumnies. Last April, Sanders claimed that Israelis killed "over 10,000 innocents in Gaza," an estimate nearly seven times higher than Hamas's propaganda estimate of civilian deaths. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes falsely claimed in a recent PBS interview that Israel has built "thousands of new settlements" (rather than about 200). PBS never corrected this falsehood.
Thus, the "free press," which is supposed to act as a check on the government, ends up abetting its misinformation campaign against Israel.
The Obama administration and most of the political left promote a kind of anti-settlement religion that blames the lack of peace with the Palestinians on settlements. This position ignores the last century of Arab Muslim attacks on Israelis, starting decades before any settlements existed. The anti-settlement religion axiomatically affirms that settlements are illegal, even though legal scholars have concluded otherwise. The same religion also ignores Israel's removing the settlement of Yamit for peace with Egypt in 1982, and its unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. Those actions did nothing to persuade Palestinians to pursue peace, as they responded with more than 10,000 jihadi rocket attacks aimed at Israeli civilians.
Liberal support for illiberal players is illogical and counterproductive. If "progressives" choose only to blame Israel and never ask Palestinians to embrace liberal values, stop their incitement to violence, renounce terror, and accept Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, then such "liberals" have mislabeled themselves while making peace less likely.
Noah Beck is the author of The Last Israelisan apocalyptic novel about Iranian nukes and other geopolitical issues in the Middle East.
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