Luke Ford | No sacred cows.

So when will realists endorse Donald Trump?

Posted on February 2, 2016 by Luke Ford

Professor Daniel Drezner writes for the Washington Post:

The big story, however, is that Trump and his advisers think of themselves as stone-cold realists:

Trump’s narrow definition of “national interest” does not include things like democracy promotion, humanitarian intervention, the responsibility to protect people from atrocities or the advocacy of human rights abroad. Trump believes that economic engagement will lead to political opening in the long run. He doesn’t think the U.S. government should spend blood or treasure on trying to change other countries’ systems.
“This is a long game; it’s not a short game,” Clovis said. He faulted neoconservatives who “think you can go out there and in three weeks after Iraq collapses you can create a constitutional democracy over there.”
The Trump campaign thinks of this approach as pragmatic and realistic. Like classical realists, Trump wants to deal with states and governments, not non-state actors or international organizations. That, according to his advisers, is why he sometimes seems to praise strongmen who lead their states as executives with absolute power. Trump sees Putin and other dictators as businessmen doing what any CEO would do, fighting for their organization.

So would, say, respected academic realists such as John Mearsheimer or Stephen Walt or Barry Posen approve of these sentiments?

If they’re being intellectually honest, they would. Trump’s team hits on the major realpolitik talking points with respect to American foreign policy in these sentiments: a reluctance to expend U.S. blood and treasure overseas, an assumption of other states as rational unitary actors maximizing their interest defined as power, a reluctance to export American values, and a deep disdain for neoconservative approaches to the world. We also know from Tom Wright that Trump evinces a strong relative gains view of great power politics, checking another realist box. And a lot of what Trump is saying resonates with American attitudes on this subject.

So here’s my question to academic realists: After reading complaint after complaint after complaint that realism has been marginalized, it turns out that the leading candidate for the GOP nomination for president this year is a budding realist. He certainly sounds more realist than, say, Marco Rubio or Hillary Clinton. And yet questions have been raised about his foreign policy gravitas.

This is the perfect moment for realists to intervene in the marketplace of ideas and publicly endorse Trump. Sure, he’s not a perfect realist, but that candidate doesn’t exist (much like the perfect neoconservative or perfect liberal internationalist doesn’t exist). Sure, he has said some controversial things, but academic realists have not shied away from controversial pronouncements either. If realists really want to have some skin in the American foreign policy game, they will not find a better vessel than Trump.

For all I know, academic realists are secretly advising Trump. But this is about the marketplace of ideas and speaking truth to power. The public, particularly the GOP public, is anxious about American national security. They deserve to know whether what Trump is saying is consistent with a viable foreign policy worldview. For a school of thought that believes it lacks influence, this is the perfect moment to marry its rigorous, severe logic with the emotive language of a flesh-and-blood candidate for president, and possibly help to reduce that candidate’s massive unfavorables in both the country and the foreign policy community.

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Donald Trump’s America-First Doctrine

Posted on February 2, 2016 by Luke Ford

From Bloomberg:

Sources close to the campaign told me Trump has also spoken with controversial historian Daniel Pipes and Israel’s current envoy to the UN Danny Danon, among others.

Sources close to the campaign tell me that Trump’s foreign policy proclamations are not ad hoc; in fact most are planned months in advance. For example, on Dec. 7 when Trump announced his idea to ban Muslims, it appeared to be a response to the terror attack in San Bernardino only days earlier. Sources close to the campaign say it had planned to announce the policy well before that attack happened.

Clovis said there was a huge amount of preparation that preceded Trump’s call for a pause in Muslim immigration.

“Do you think for a minute we would send the leading presidential candidate out, if we did not have the law, the history, and the Constitution on our side? Think it through,” he said. “We know exactly what we want to do and when.”

Trump’s advisers also claim that Trump’s wide-ranging foreign policy proposals, which include renegotiating the U.S.-Japan alliance treaty and outsourcing the Syria problem to the Russians, all fit into an easily understandable set of three “organizing principles” that form Trump’s governing doctrine on foreign policy.

“One, we want to take a very clear worldview in our foreign policy, dealing with the national interest, and let that be our organizing principles. Two is that we want to make sure that we engage in free markets, but we want those markets to be fairer as well. And three, if we do not have strong economic recovery, we can’t do the other two,” said Clovis. “If that’s not a Trump doctrine, I don’t know what is.”

The practical application of that doctrine plays out in several ways. Trump’s narrow definition of “national interest” does not include things like democracy promotion, humanitarian intervention, the responsibility to protect people from atrocities or the advocacy of human rights abroad. Trump believes that economic engagement will lead to political opening in the long run. He doesn’t think the U.S. government should spend blood or treasure on trying to change other countries’ systems.

“This is a long game; it’s not a short game,” Clovis said. He faulted neoconservatives who “think you can go out there and in three weeks after Iraq collapses you can create a constitutional democracy over there.”

The Trump campaign thinks of this approach as pragmatic and realistic. Like classical realists, Trump wants to deal with states and governments, not non-state actors or international organizations. That, according to his advisers, is why he sometimes seems to praise strongmen who lead their states as executives with absolute power. Trump sees Putin and other dictators as businessmen doing what any CEO would do, fighting for their organization.

“Mr. Trump looks at them and he says, ‘OK, I know exactly what kind of man you are and I know when I sit down at the table with you I can get your measure,’” said Clovis. “That’s really the calculus that’s in place.”

Clovis said the problem in the Republican national security establishment is that the experts see everything in “micro-tactical” terms and want to solve problems immediately rather than taking a longer historical view. He said Trump’s narrower vision of America’s national interest is designed for the everyman.

“People get it,” Clovis said. “And you know what, he’s absolutely right.”

Sam Nunberg, who advised Trump on foreign policy early in the campaign before having a falling out with Lewandowski, told me that Trump’s foreign policy was “Reagan-esque realpolitik,” a stance designed to be able to make policies based on circumstances without being burdened by ideology.

“Reagan would go after Qaddafi, but he would do business with Saddam,” he said. “It’s a case-by-case basis of what’s in American interests.”

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Gay Porn Kingpin Takes on LGBT Boycott Israel Movement

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Luke Ford

Makes me proud to be Jewish.

Who would have thought there were Jews in porn?

From Breitbart:

TEL AVIV – The boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement targeting Israel is nothing more than old fashioned anti-Semitism disguised as political activism, Michael Lucas, a gay pornographic film actor and director, declared in a radio interview on Sunday.

Lucas is founder and CEO of Lucas Entertainment, New York’s largest gay adult film company and one of the biggest gay porn production companies in the world.

The BDS movement is “all about political correctness but basically it’s all about good old Jew hatred,” he said.

“It’s all about anti-Semitism. They hate Jews. Now we have a new word: Israel. It’s really considered after the Holocaust to be very inappropriate and low class to say, ‘We hate Jews.’ So they say, ‘You know, we disagree with the Zionist policies. Israel get out from the West Bank. Get out from Palestine.’ Why the hell and how dare the world tell Israel that Jews should leave Palestine, that Jews should leave the West Bank.”

Lucas made the comments on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio,” the popular Sunday night talk-radio program broadcast on New York’s AM 970 The Answer and Philadelphia’s NewsTalk 990 AM. Klein doubles as Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter.

Lucas was speaking after over 200 rowdy BDS protesters stormed the gay rights Creating Change Conference at the Chicago Hilton on Friday and used intimidation tactics to cancel an event hosted by A Wider Bridge, an organization that advocates the relationship between the “LGBTQ communities of North America and Israel.”

The National LGBTQ Task Force, which organized the conference, had weeks earlier cancelled the Wider Bridge reception but reinstated it last week after pressure from major Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League.

Israel is “losing the fight in the U.S.,” Lucas warned. “Those anti-Israeli groups are successfully convincing Democrats and liberals that Palestinians are the underdogs. And people usually don’t think for themselves.”

Lucas has been a staunch supporter of the Jewish state, writing opinion pieces targeting Israel’s critics in such publications as The Advocate, Huffington Post and Pink News. He also released a gay porn film titled “Men of Israel,” which was reportedly the first such film shot on location in Israel and using an all Israeli and all Jewish cast. Lucas called the film “a bold move to promote Israeli culture and tourism.”

Writing in Out Magazine last week, Lucas slammed the anti-Israel protesters at Friday’s LGBTQ event in Chicago as “thugs” who were “not interested in dialogue. They comprised an enraged gang filled with Jew-hatred, bent on intimidating and silencing LGBT Jews who have any connection to the state of Israel.”

His Israel advocacy has not been without consequence, however. Lucas says anti-Israel protesters follow him to speeches at universities and stalk him at public events in the porn industry.

“In the gay world I have made lots of people hate me,” he told Klein. “There were a lot of calls from the gay community overall to boycott my films. That was funny. Good luck.”

Lucas slammed his critics as uneducated, explaining they are misusing the word “racism.”

He stated:

People accuse you of racism because you speak for Israel. That’s not actually racism. Palestinians and Muslims are not a race. Such a terrible use of the English language. Speaking for Israel does not make you more popular. It gives you accusations of racism. Of Islamophobia – whatever that means. And you become politically incorrect. It’s all about political correctness but basically it’ all about good old Jew hatred. It’s all about anti-Semitism.

Posted in Homosexuality, Israel, Pornography | Comments Off

What Happened To Trump?

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Luke Ford

Comments to Steve Sailer:

* A poll conducted a couple of days ago and an entrance poll at the caucases today showed Trump leading, but he’s losing the actual caucus vote. It’s hard to admit being for Trump in public. The other primaries will be decided by secret ballot, where Trump’s opponents won’t have this advantage.

* Rubio wants to increase neocon wars, flood the U.S. with cheap labor (illegals), and support TPP. Ted Cruz wants to quintuple H1B visa workers, support TPP, et al. I say fuck conservative middle America. They had one last chance with a non-politician billionaire. But they’re too stupid to know what’s good for them. I’m a 2%-er living comfortably in Massachusetts. Fuck those evangelical losers with low IQs in flyover country and I’m done caring about them.

* What’s great about those numbers is how much room for growth there is in there for Cruz vs. Rubio. Forced to choose between the two is a Trump/Paul/Carson voter more likely to choose Rubio or Cruz?

68.4% of the vote appears to be going to the Fuck RINOs Party. That’s the number we see over and over again nationwide – polls showing ~70% of GOP voters wanting anyone but an establishment candidate. Win or lose in November this revolt isn’t dying anytime soon.

MORE COMMENTS:

* I think the very fact that Trump firmly staked a claim on what was believed to be a politically untenable position – building a wall and expelling illegal immigrants, confirms that he is sincere in this position and will attempt to follow through. If he didn’t want to do it, why in the world would he campaign on that platform when the conventional wisdom was that it was stance held only by racist Nazi sympathizers? I think Trump was truly convinced by Coulter’s book.

I also think it’s safe to believe in his trade protectionist positions. He is on the record advocating a more pro-America stance on trade deals since the 80′s.

I have no idea if he can be expected to follow through on his rhetoric with respect to guns or abortion, but I don’t really care much. The 2nd Amendment will still protect our guns rights, and nobody has done anything about abortion for 40 years so there’s no reason that Trump will do anything different.

* Iowa has picked the correct GOP candidate 3 of the last 7 contested races so all the losers have something to cling to tonight. Cruz won by throwing bibles around and that means he has zero chance in New Hampshire. But, Rubio will be the darling of the Conservative Industrial Complex now so my guess is they drag him over the line in New Hampshire.

The funny thing to me is we’re going to get Clinton – Lazio 2.0 in the general with Bootsie playing the role of Rick Lazio. If I did not know better, I’d think these things are scripted.

* I’m disappointed, but I don’t think Trump sitting out the debate had anything to do with it. Certainly, there weren’t a lot of Trump voters going to Rubio.

What appears to have happened is that turnout was high, and a lot of that turnout went to Rubio or Cruz, both of whom were energized by fear that Trump might win.

However, Trump had to have done pretty well to keep 24% of the vote, which means he wasn’t asleep at the wheel.

Immigration isn’t a big deal in Iowa, and in fact, shockingly, many learned that the cities are “sanctuary cities”, meaning they’d lose funding under Trump or Cruz.

Trump had a good speech. That shows he’s in it to win it. Let’s hope he comes out hard for immigration restriction. And if there are too many anti-restrictionists out there, then it’s justs not the time.

I don’t think I’ve posted this yet, my Trump post: It’s the Immigration, Stupid.

* Holy shit, look at Bill Clinton. He’s a f–king vegetable. It looks like he’s actually dead and embalmed, and they’re just jerking his body around with strings.

* 8 out of 10 Trump supporters don’t have college degrees and many of them have never voted before. You need an army of volunteers knocking on doors and dragging these people to the polls. Otherwise, they’ll be sitting at home watching TV. Trump should seriously consider investing more in a serious ground game. Being a New Yorker, a celebrity, a TV star, and having enjoyed all the media coverage and favorable poll numbers for the past 6 months, Trump probably underestimates the basic mechanics and nitty gritty of electoral politics.

* Cruz made a good case before the election that, if you want anyone other than Trump to win, you should vote for him in Iowa, because a) he had the best chance of beating Trump there and, b) If Trump won Iowa, the race would be over.

* It would seem that many Iowa Republicans saw Cruz – who is also described (wrongly, to my sense of matters) as an “outsider” – as the safer “outsider” choice to Mr. Trump who is an actual outsider. Cruz’s Iowa ground game was also far more muscular than Mr. Trump’s nonexistent one. All that considered, in national terms I might lean toward reading their numbers as an actual tie.

The real shock is Rubio’s strong third-place numbers. How a Midwestern Republican could vote for Rubio is beyond my power to comprehend. But then Iowa has had some twenty-to-thirty years of LaRazatino meat-processing & stoop labor immigrants whose Chamber of Commerce employers may be more than a little inclined to support a rat like Rubio.

Sanders’s numbers come as no shock at all. For the last two weeks Enemedia-Pravda have been giving Sanders a propaganda boost at the same time as they’ve been boosting Hilligula while also reporting on the latest State Department release of her cavalierly handled “special access programs” e-mails. If Sanders runs away from Hilligula in New Hampshire, look for Enemedia-Pravda to worship Sanders in exactly the same way they worshipped candidate Obama – and to promote Hilligula as Sanders’s top veep choice. To me the most depressing thing about Sanders is this: Sanders is purely the product of forty years of the radicals’ takeover of public edudoctrination of America’s children – including children of blue collar Americans who have been most grievously screwed by Sanders/SJW types.

* Suppose in order to win the nomination, Trump may have to simply remain competitive in the Bible Belt states, and win outright in such states Northeastern/Rust Belt/Upper Midwest/Pacific as NY; PA; New England as well as OH; MI; WI; IL; and also CA; NV; CO; out west. Could that be done?

Because if all the Bible Belt primaries want is for someone to read the Bible to them and not really discuss the issues, then son of a preacher has it pretty easy. Trump’s great ace in the hole or, “Trump” card may just be that he’s from the Northeast and perhaps could use that to his advantage in the West, where social issues/religious language isn’t as strongly appealing in a primary, particularly in CA. As the US’s biggest state ergo it must also carry the most delegates (even though most of the time the primary race is pretty much over by the time CA primary voters go to vote).

* There’s an earlier shot of the three family members on a stage with Bill in the middle. They are all holding hands, and it looks like he actually needs support to stand. He has fallen so far, so fast that it’s impossible not to notice.

It’s not just his physical state that alarmed me somewhat. Did you catch Hillary’s wild eyes in her victory speech? She looked ready to leap from the stage, jump in the cab of a long haul truck, and drive an all nighter to Oregon. Whatever she’s on, it’s the good stuff.

* Iowa was always one of Trump’s weakest states. Unfortunately the chance he might win it, as was indicated by the most recent polls, makes this feels like a loss rather than a solid start. Thankfully he is so far ahead in NH and SC I can’t see those results changing. Ultimately there has been little change in the delegate number he has won, one less than had he won. The result does explain why Cruz started attacking Rubio though.

* Veganism seems to have sapped Bill’s powers.

* Rubio is the new GOP mafia darling since Jebra is a dud. Could there be something nefarious going on? Check out where and by how many votes Rubio surprisingly came in a strong number ONE.

* Rubio’s showing stinks of fraud. None of the polls hinted at anything of the kind, and he’s not the sort of candidate who gets massive grassroots support that might be underrepresented in the polls (e.g. Ron Paul in 2012). And the voting software was provided by a major Rubio donor (Microsoft).

* Cruz doesn’t even have a path to win the nomination. He will get schlonged in any state without a heavy population of evangelicals. Your choices, if you’re supporting a Republican primary candidate, comes down to Trump or Rubio/Bush et al.

But I’d argue you’re wrong about Cruz’s general election electability.

He does very well with “very conservative” voters, hence the Iowa win. But he won’t carry swing states. Take a look at the Obama-Romney map and try to find 270 for Cruz. Its tough.

Trump can win Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, and he may even put New York and New Hampshire in play. He’s stronger in swing states mostly due to Trade and secular appeal.

* Cruz’s Swaggert performance was quite funny. Mike Savage said on his radio show that “For a moment there I thought Cruz was going to pull a snake out!”

* No surprises here. A lot at risk. The Establishment wins again … as it must to keep the system going. I wonder how much political chicanery went on behind the scenes. We not only have a rigged economy. We also have a rigged electoral system.

The Republicans don’t get it. Imagine running Romney as a candidate for President … someone from among the Wall Street M&A insiders who promises to increase jobs. [?] Imagine running Cruz as a candidate for President … someone whose wife is a principal at Goldman Sachs and who has taken political loans from Goldman Sachs in the past. [?] So obvious …! Why can’t Republicans camouflage their hand a bit better?

I can imagine a third party run that splits the vote. If Trump runs as an independent, Cruz is “toast”. If Sanders runs as an independent, Hillary is “toast”. If necessary, let’s hope both run as independents. Then, no one can credibly claim they were elected to the presidency with something like 25%-30% of the vote. Sometimes a stalemate is best so that the “winner” cannot press the illusion of empowerment.

MORE COMMENTS:

* The truth is that the liberal media-driven campaign has won again. They made massive and concerted effort to paint Trump a second coming of Hitler. And it worked – huge caucus turnout meant that people in Iowa went to caucus in droves with one main goal: stop Trump.

Face it: the tiny number of people who control 90% of our media had won almost every war they waged against core American population: offshoring, trade agreements, immigration, restrictions on freedom of speech, feminism, homosexuality, wars abroad. Guns are the only exception. (But wait, that win will come, too).

* We’ve just witnessed jeb’s campaign blow through a huge war chest for negligible results. Do the consultants working for him suffer any consequences in their careers? Do they have to go work for some small time incumbents in impregnable districts to rebuild credibility? Or can they just blame Jeb as a bad candidate and hop right back on high profile senate and presidential campaigns?

* “baby boomers are truly the worst generation”

I’m one of them and unfortunately there is too much truth in what you say. We erred in not telling our children that the whole inclusion thing was just a passing fad, conceived of and spoken in a fog of pot smoke. “Hey kids, you weren’t supposed to take it seriously.” After all, we didn’t. Although we marched with blacks during protests on campus, just look at who we chose for neighbors when we went to buy a house and start a family. Not a groid in sight.

But our daughters really believed that they were supposed to earn their liberal bonafides by dating black guys. And our sons listen to mono-tonal ghetto music on the radio to the exclusion of everything else. The music put out by modern white guys is tepid and thin, a distant echo of the muscular, melodic Rock of our, the baby-boomer generation. Modern white-guy music is a thin cry of anguish at being ignored by the wider culture in general and white girls in particular.

And our election of rootless Obama, an abandoned, mixed-race, foster child, adopted out to a family of an alien culture and then raised by his Grandparents was and is the perfect expression of our dazed and confused state. We attributed magical powers to him and bestowed honorifics upon ourselves for our open mindedness and magnanimity in helping the symbol of a prostrate race off the mat. But self congratulation is not an adequate map or basis for a plan for moving forwards.

So, we’ll just throw it all at you and leave it to your generation to figure out.

Good Luck!

* Iowans are not natural Trump supporters, even in the absence of the evangelical Christian and ethanol subsidies. Trump, to many Iowans, is an abrasive New York real estate/casino developer on his third trophy wife. His claim to fame is a television program in which he summarily fired a contestant a week. Moreover, his principal policy difference with the rest of the Republican field, immigration, is something that doesn’t yet resonate with most Iowans. Iowa has only limited immigration, so it’s still the smiling Mexican restaurant owner, and not the drug gang that Iowans think of when they think immigration.

So I’m surprised that Trump did as well as he did. It tells me that, even in Iowa, Donald Trump is tapping into an anxiety about where the country is headed. The dead heat between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side, also tells me the same anxiety is being felt there as well.

Posted in America, Donald Trump | Comments Off

Mark Zuckerberg Warns Iowa Ahead of Vote to Reject Trump

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Luke Ford

From Breitbart: As first-in-the-nation Iowa voters prepare to caucus, open borders financier Mark Zuckerberg weighed in on the race through the president of his powerful immigration lobbying firm, FWD.us.

In a Monday CNBC interview, FWD.us President Todd Schulte made clear his view that Iowans should reject the candidacy of Donald Trump.

Zuckerberg’s spokesman Schulte told CNBC’s Sqawk Alley:

For the first time, a major party [is] putting forth people who are saying they are going to round up and deport 11.5 million people; they’re going to eliminate high-skilled immigration… And look, that may get you a win or second place in the Iowa caucuses. That is just a horrible and fatal position in a general election.

Shulte elaborated just a few hours ago with more attacks on the GOP frontrunner. Schulte tweeted: “Trump’s a hack, runs for [sic] policy specifics. Be it immigration, trade, foreign policy – answer is always he’s a strongman, others are weak.”

Schulte continued: “On immigration, he wandered into something awful that credentialed past apostasies as ok – rounding up every last undocumented immigrant.”

Zuckerberg’s FWD.us is also backed by tech giant Bill Gates. Gates has argued for the unlimited admission of foreign workers authorized to take American jobs.

FWD.us is also backed by other supporters of mass immigration, such as Google’s Eric Schmidt and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

Todd Schulte was named president of the organization in September of last year after his predecessor, Joe Greene, was reportedly “forced” out after revealing his organization’s apparent view that foreign workers are better than Americans.

This is not the first time Zuckerberg’s lobbying firm has attacked the GOP frontrunner.

Ahead of September’s CNN GOP debate, Zuckerberg’s immigration firm released an attack ad targeting Donald Trump, in which the lobbying group lectured the Republican Party on the need to pass so-called “immigration reform,” by which FWD.us means mass amnesty combined with more foreign workers on visas for big businesses.

Similarly, following the release of Donald Trump’s immigration policy paper last summer, Schulte wrote a blog post on the FWD.us website in which he described Trump supporters as “hard-line anti-immigrant restrictionists” who “rant that immigrants are taking jobs away from ‘real’ Americans.”

The number of immigrants in the U.S. is currently at a record high of more than 42 million. Nearly 1 in 7 U.S. residents was born in a foreign country. In eight years time, the foreign born share of the U.S. population will reach an all-time high. If Silicon Valley’s lobbying efforts prove successful, that record will be shattered with even greater force and rapidity.

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Forward: Iowa Caucuses Cap Harsh Campaign Dominated by Christian Appeals

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Luke Ford

Nathan Guttman writes:

Mixing religion and politics has, traditionally, been a source of concern for Jewish voters.
“It’s a slippery slope and there are concerns about how much religion is being talks,” said David Adelman, the Des Moines Jewish federation’s top lay leader. “That being said, obviously religion helps shape somebody’s moral direction and if that’s important to people everyone has the ability to ask these questions and vote based on whatever is important for them.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, the candidate least likely to discuss faith in his campaign is the only Jew in the rasie. Democrat Bernie Sanders avoids touching faith issues as much as possible. When asked by voters at a Jewish federation event last fall on the impact of his religion on his politics, Sanders stuck to the notion of “tikkun olam,” or repairing the world, and refused to delve any deeper into his own beliefs.

Israel is a nation-state based on a religion — Judaism, so I don’t think Jews intrinsically have a problem mixing politics with religion. They only have a problem when the mixing is to their disadvantage.

Rob Eshman in the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles writes about Hillary’s foreign policy wonk who apparently gets her values from the Jewish religion:

Rosenberger is 35, friendly, direct and familiar, the voice of someone you went to camp with, but probably smarter.
She describes herself as a wonk with a social-activist bent, which she credits to her religious background.
“So if you look at foreign policy,” said Rosenberger, who, like most millennials, is prone to start her most important sentences with “So,” “many different issues have inequality sort of at their core. And I would say that, for me, actually, I do think that comes from my Jewish roots. Passover is my favorite holiday, because I find very much a driving mission for myself in this, the obligation of the Jewish people who have been free from oppression ourselves to root out oppression wherever we see it.”
Rosenberger grew up in the South Hills suburbs of Pittsburgh, where her mother helped found the Jewish Community Center. The family belonged to the Reform movement: Temple Emanuel, travel to Israel with Young Judea, and summer each year at Emma Kaufmann Camp.

It does not sound like Laura Rosenberger has a big problem mixing politics with religion.

I think social identity theory best explains what is going on here. The more you identify with your in-group, the more suspicion you are likely to feel towards out-groups.

Posted in Christianity, Jews | Comments Off

Marty Kaplan: The idiocy of the Iowa caucuses

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Luke Ford

Marty Kaplan writes: “We’re suckers for the patriotic mythology and gauzy imagery of town halls and high school gyms where candidates get grilled and caucus-goers speak up and get counted. But the power of Iowa and New Hampshire isn’t a reward for the superior candidate-scrutinizing skills that their citizens inherently possess; it’s a consequence of state party officials flexing their muscles over the calendar.”

Ever get the sense this guy just doesn’t like America, particularly middle America? Jews like Marty Kaplan fear populism and nativism and nationalism. They prefer government by elites.

Ever notice that elites tend to think America works much better than ordinary people think? Because the game is rigged against the ordinary hard-working America who doesn’t want welfare and doesn’t want more immigration.

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EXCLUSIVE: Pollster Frank Luntz Helped Shape Marco Rubio’s Entire Political Career, Did Not Disclose Relationship on Fox News

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Luke Ford

From Breitbart: Pollster Frank Luntz has been instrumental in shaping the political career of young Sen. Marco Rubio, raising grave concerns about Fox News’ decision not to disclose that relationship before Luntz showcased an extraordinarily pro-Rubio focus-group after Thursday night’s Republican debate.

Breitbart News has learned from a high-level former elected Florida Republican that Luntz crafted Rubio’s messaging efforts when he was a rising state legislator in the Sunshine State a decade ago.

Luntz was paid to guide Rubio’s transition into a statewide political role and he even helped to fashion the famous “American Exceptionalism” speech that vaulted Rubio to national prominence, spending much face-time with the young lawmaker in the process.

Luntz took up a block of time on Fox News immediately after the debate Thursday night to show how his hand-picked focus-group declared Rubio the winner of the Donald Trump-free debate.

Luntz’s post-debate focus group was so skewed in favor of Rubio it was jarring.

“Megyn, you asked probably the toughest question of the debate. You gave the candidates no room to wiggle. You pressed him. And he responded,” Luntz gushed to Megyn Kelly, awkwardly referring only to Rubio before even mentioning him by name. “I want to begin with the most important and impactful moment of this debate. It was your challenge of Marco Rubio. And watch how well he did on immigration.”

Posted in Fox | Comments Off

Six Reasons Trump Would Be Disaster for U.S. Jews, Israel and the Middle East

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Luke Ford

From Haaretz:

He wants to take Israel’s wall and run with it much much further

Trump regularly cites Israeli policies that already divide the American Jewish community as being both successful and replicable for the United States. He cites “the [separation] wall” in Israel as an example of why the United State should build a wall with Mexico, and has repeatedly called for “taking out the families of terrorists,” one long step further from the Israeli policy of demolishing terrorists’ homes. Israel certainly wouldn’t gain reputationally from this emulation: As Ryan Lizza noted in the New Yorker after attending a Trump rally, “I had never previously been to a political event at which people cheered for the murder of women and children.”

There’d be no anti-ISIS alliance

Under Trump, there’s no doubt the ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis would gain momentum, if not combustion. Many Trump’s critics accuse him of doing ISIS’ work for it by exploiting fear of terrorism and drumming up the kind of anti-Muslim sentiment radical Jihadists leverage to gain support. Trump as president would distance Arab world allies: the UAE and other Arab state billionaires have threatened to divest from the United States under his presidency. And we haven’t started on the likely Trump – Muslim world relationship. As conservative pundit, Mona Charen slammed him in in the National Review’s anti-Trump manifesto: “Where is the center of gravity in a man who in May denounces those who ‘needlessly provoke’ Muslims and in December proposes that we (‘temporarily’) close our borders to all non-resident Muslims?”

He’d outsource Middle East policy to Putin

Trump’s new foreign policy approach is based on the United States making ‘good deals’ and getting “paid back” for protection or intervention abroad. This would end the U.S. “getting screwed over” by having to do the rest of the world’s work for them. It’s several steps away from the familiar American traditions of neoconservative or liberal interventionist policy. As part of this U.S. Interests First approach, he has regularly called for letting Putin, Assad and ISIS fight it out in Syria.

While this line finds a ready audience among some war-weary Americans, U.S. military officials have warned that civilians are bearing the brunt of the over 5,000 airstrikes Russia has carried out since September, which is both further fueling the European refugee crisis and enhancing ISIS’ recruitment message.

Meanwhile, the more the United States gets pushed out of the region, the more Putin and his de-facto allies, especially Iran and Hezbollah, strengthen their position at Israel’s doorstep.

But is it good for Israel?

Donald Trump likes to boast about his pro-Israel credentials. One of his favorite lines on the stump is, “I was even the grand marshal for the [NYC] Israeli [sic] Day Parade.” And if that doesn’t sell you, rest assured, he has “won so many awards from Israel” and has “so many friends from Israel.” He promises he “will be very good to Israel.”

When first pushed on whether or not Jerusalem should be Israel’s capital and the U.S. Embassy should be moved there, he waffled and refused to give a clear answer. Last week, while locked in a close battle with Ted Cruz in the polls in Iowa, Trump in an interview with Christian Broadcasting Network, pledged to move the Embassy in a bid to poach Cruz’s Evangelical support.

Historically, the American leaders who have historically best served Israel’s interests were fuelled by ideological motivations. Truman recognized Israel, against the urging of the advisor he believed to be the greatest man alive, George Marshall, because of his Christian faith and deep belief in spreading universal values. America’s patronage of Israel has been based more on ideological and philosophical imperatives, with a dose of clear-sighted pragmatism, than any so-called “Jewish lobby.”

Donald Trump has shown no ideological underpinnings, other than “making America great again,” that would ensure he would support Israel in tough times. He’s already shown little backbone in standing up for other states’ independence against larger foes: When pressed on whether or not he believed Ukraine should be a part of NATO, he said he didn’t care. He feels no nostalgia for backing up strategic allies of half-a-century’s standing: “If somebody attacks Japan, we have to immediately go and start World War III, OK? If we get attacked, Japan doesn’t have to help us. Somehow, that doesn’t sound so fair. Does that sound good?” Trump said. Israel’s fate in terms of its military and strategic dependence on the U.S. would be subject to a kind of erratic opportunism based on Donald Trump’s whims and the latest subjects of his bunker mentality.

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Brendan Eich’s Brave New Browser

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Luke Ford

Steve Sailer writes: “Brendan Eich, CEO of Mozilla until it was discovered that he had exercised his First Amendment rights as a citizen to participate lawfully in the democratic process, is heading a team building a new browser, alliteratively entitled Brave. It’s intended to block ads and tracking, which seems like a good idea in this Brave New World. You can currently download a 0.7 release for developers if you are into playing guinea pig.”

COMMENTS:

* You should note that their plan is to block existing ads on the site, and then *replace* them with their own ads. They say they’ll generously share 55% of the ad revenue with the site.

I expect people to start writing sites which somehow malfunction if the ads are not present.

* I believe Firefox was hemorrhaging users well before the Two Minute Hate took him out. I think once Chrome came out–a far more nimble browser vis-à-vis Firefox at the time–people starting jettisoning it in droves (me among them).

In any event, I’m curious about this development because Chrome is my preferred browser in terms of usability (Opera’s a close second ), but I absolutely hate having anything to do with Google. (Damn them and their superior products!) Were this to be as fast, stable, and standards-compliant as Chrome, I’ll readily switch over.

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