ROGER SIMON: Why Obama Still Refuses to Name Radical Islam.
Archive for 2016
June 13, 2016
EXACTLY RIGHT: “ISIS-inspired madman Omar Mateen’s decision to massacre dozens of patrons of the Pulse nightclub was the bloodiest mass shooting in modern history. It was also an attack on the heart of the LGBT community and an unwelcome sign that radical Islamic terrorists may now single out gays and lesbians with the same focus that they have targeted Jews and others. . . . It was not just a mass murder; it was a notice to the LGBT community. ISIS is coming for us.”
FASTER, PLEASE: On Target: The personalisation of cancer treatments is leading to better outcomes for patients. It will also pave the way to cures. I once told an oncologist that it must be depressing to be able to cure so few people, and he said that the way he looked at it, he was able to give them additional years of quality life, and that’s not nothing. And it’s not, but a cure is better.
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MY USA TODAY COLUMN IS ON ORLANDO: An Untraditional War: We can’t stop ISIL-inspired massacres if we deny we’re fighting Islam’s jihadist strain.
It is no coincidence that during the eight years of the Obama administration, the American military has been emasculated by budget cuts that have resulted in a radical diminishment of both personnel and battle-readiness of its air and naval forces. Nor should we be so surprised that all three of Obama’s former secretaries of defense have come out publicly against the administration in an unprecedented fashion. Or that a key American ally in the Middle East, King Abdullah II of Jordan, would actually say privately that “I think I believe in American power more than Obama does.”
Definitely read the whole, depressing, fascinating thing.
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Campus Drunk Confidential.
Related: What Is ‘Consent’ To A Drunk? — Is it rape if she didn’t know she was saying yes, and he couldn’t tell she was in a blackout?
WOMENS’ RIGHTS UPDATE: Dutch woman jailed in Qatar after reporting rape convicted of ‘illicit sex’
A Dutch woman who has been in jail in Qatar since mid-March after she reported being raped, has been found guilty of “illicit consensual fornication” and being “drunk in a public place.”
At a court hearing in Doha Monday, the 22-year old, whom CNN has identified only as Laura, was handed a one-year suspended sentence and placed on probation for three years for the sex-related charge, and fined 3,000 Qatari Riyals ($823) for being drunk outside a licensed location.
She’ll almost certainly be deported immediately.
A Syrian man also appeared alongside her and was found guilty of the same crimes. He was sentenced to 100 lashes for the illicit fornication charge and a further 40 lashes for the illegal consumption of alcohol. As a Muslim he is not allowed to drink at all under Qatari law.
The woman may have been slipped a drugged beverage by someone at the bar, but at least the worst penalty she faces — for having been raped — is a fine and deportation.
MAGICAL THINKING: ‘Hamilton’ Cast Will Not Use ‘Guns’ in Tonight’s Tony Performance.
So who will be first to sing “Imagine” in Orlando?
AN UPDATE ON THE Dan Markel Murder-For-Hire Investigation.
GALLUP: Satisfaction Under Obama Is Lowest Since Carter.
According to Gallup, Americans’ satisfaction levels with the way things are going in the U.S. are low and President Obama will be leaving office with a lower overall satisfaction average of any president since Jimmy Carter.
Only 29% of Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in the U.S. according to the Gallup poll conducted during the first week of June.
The Gallup poll asked, “In general, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time?”
Americans’ satisfaction has averaged only 24% across the 89 months of the Obama administration to date. The low satisfaction levels of recent years means that Obama will be leaving office with an overall satisfaction average of 24% for his presidency so far. Obama’s numbers are lower than the average measured across the term of any president since Jimmy Carter.
The Obama administration’s numbers are far below the 37% overall average since Gallup began measuring in 1979. Gallup has only three measures of satisfaction taken during the Carter administration, all in 1979, and they average 19%.
I can’t imagine why.
RESET: NATO Chief: 4 Battalions Going to Baltic States, Poland.
Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary-general, said alliance defense ministers will formally approve the deployment plan drafted by NATO military planners at a meeting that begins Tuesday in Brussels.
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, four of NATO’s members that feel most threatened by Russia, will each be reinforced by “a robust multinational battalion,” Stoltenberg told a news conference.
“This will send a clear signal that NATO stands ready to defend any ally,” the NATO chief said.
Stoltenberg said the battalions will be commanded by NATO military leaders, and deployed on a rotational basis rather than being based permanently in the host countries.
For what it’s worth, the last time relations with Moscow were this tense, the US alone kept about 7 divisions permanently deployed in West Germany.
WHY ARE DEMOCRAT-RUN CITIES SUCH CESSPITS OF SEXUAL PREDATION? Oakland police chief resigns as underage sex scandal spreads: Now AT LEAST 24 officers are accused of sleeping with former teenage sex worker.
JOHN SCHINDLER: Jihad Denial Kills . . . Again.
Although Mr. Obama demurred from some of his customary evasions, actually calling the attack an “act of terrorism,” he quickly defaulted to his usual talking points whenever radical Muslims butcher Americans: “hate” and “guns” were cited frequently by the president, while words such as “Islamism” and “jihad” were notable by their absence. Mr. Obama’s denial of the obvious, perfected during his two terms in the White House, appears unshakeable.
These evasions are met with derision by counterterrorism professionals, who deduced Mr. Obama’s agenda back in 2009 when he dismissed the Fort Hood massacre as “workplace violence.” Spies and cops have gotten used to this president’s persistent inability to call the enemy what he actually is, even though that enemy constantly calls himself such things. “What was he gonna call Orlando,” asked an old FBI friend just hours after the Pulse attack: “gayplace violence?”
It’s not difficult to determine what’s really going on here. Just two months before this attack, an Orlando mosque hosted an Islamic theologian known for pronouncing homosexuals as deserving of death. “Death is the sentence” they merit as an act of “compassion,” the imam stated. While his invitation got some coverage in Orlando media, one wonders what the mainstream media would have to say if a white preacher in Charleston had pronounced blacks as deserving the death sentence only two months before Dylann Roof murdered nine African Americans in a church.
That’s totally different because shut up.
FIELD THE BERN: DNC Protesters Snap Up Philly Campgrounds for “Camp Bernie.”
Earlier: Democrats can build a wall! Wells Fargo Center, Xfinity Live! to Be Inside DNC Security Perimeter.
GREEN PARTY CANDIDATE JILL STEIN: Trump says terrible things. Clinton does them.
ROGER SIMON: Why Obama Still Refuses to Name Radical Islam. “Obama’s refusal to name radical Islam stems from two closely entwined factors—an enduring distaste for American power and deep personal shame (not that buried, but buried enough) of his own profound childhood connection to Islam. Not to get too psychoanalytic, to Obama, if there is something wrong with Islam, there is something wrong with him. Better to think there is something wrong with us.”
MILO YIANNOPOULOS: The Left Chose Islam Over Gays. Now 100 People Are Dead Or Maimed In Orlando.
Obama’s response to the tragedy today was similarly limp-wristed. He made no mention of Islam or Muslims, instead condemning “hate and terror” and taking a brazen swipe at gun rights activists by noting “how easy it is to let people get their hands on a weapon.”
He didn’t even address the uniquely homophobic character of the attack. What a good liberal!
There’s no more room for equivocating. The Orlando shooting isn’t just the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. shores since 9/11. It is also, by far, the worst act of violent homophobia in the nation’s history and the deadliest mass shooting in America ever.
According to the murderer’s father, his son became angry after he saw two men kissing in the street. “This had nothing to do with religion,” said the father, Seddique Mateen. “He saw two men kissing each other in front of his wife and kid and he got very angry” — as if that was some kind of excuse.
That same father is on record defending the Taliban.
Plus, a parade of I-told-you-sos from Milo.
SHOULD BE TRUST & SARKEESIAN COUNCIL: Twitter’s Trust & Safety Council Is Failing — It overpoliced #Gamergate, but hasn’t done a thing about a load of violent and virulently anti-Semitic content.
Related: Stir of Echoes: Journalists Fight Back Against ‘Nazi’ Trolls.
More: “Twitter: We take terms of service violations seriously, IF, and ONLY IF, you’re an angry New York Times editor.”
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: What passes for learning on campus: a group marriage to the sea.
Nice Muggeridge’s Law reference, to boot.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT THIS WEEKEND: Another Lie Implodes: Hillary Clinton Sent Information Marked Classified.
THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Omar Mateen Worked For Company That Provides Security to Federal Buildings.