Mediaboss Marketing

When the White House released its plan for the creation of a Palestinian state that also gives due consideration to Israeli security, writes Seth Mandel, a number of major Jewish organizations rushed to condemn it. The self-styled pro-Israel, pro-peace group J Street lambasted the plan for being too pro-Israel, as did the Israel Policy Forumfounded in the 1990s at the behest of Yitzak Rabin. Even the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) responded equivocally. To Mandel, this attitude is only a symptom of a deeper problem:

What we are seeing is [that] American Jewish leaders fail to take seriously the rising tide of anti-Semitism that masquerades as anti-Zionismand even the way progressive groups enable it.

Consider the story of the anti-Semitic crime spree in New York. . . . The media ignored the violence until there was blood in the streets; the organized Jewish world reacted like a deer in the headlights; non-Orthodox rabbis sneered at the aredi community as it absorbed daily assaults; Jewish intellectuals pretended nothing was happening. [One journalist wrote that] far-right extremism constitutes the paramount threat to American Jewish life today. It was a line the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) had been pushing hard as well.

But the renewed violence in the New York area wasnt coming from white nationalists or alt-right poseurs. Many of the attacks caught on tape featured African-American suspects in outer-borough neighborhoods where religious Jews were framed as land-grabbing outsiders, with some residents telling interviewers they viewed Israel as the point of origin for these Jews. In Jersey City, the shooters were reportedly Black Hebrew Israelites, a kind of extreme black nationalist group, apparently motivated by a conspiracy theory that Jews pull the strings of the police to kill black peoplea calumny that took original form as a claim that Israel was training U.S. cops to persecute minorities. Israel very quickly becomes Jews.

Following the October 2018 mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue, the Jerusalem Post asked the ADL whether it would finally drop its long-held opposition to federal security grants for synagogues and other houses of worship. The answer was no. The ADL, an official explained, was still opposed on constitutional grounds. In 2004, the [Reform movements] Religious Action Center put out a memo opposing security funding for Jewish institutions. It dropped its opposition [only] after the Pittsburgh shooting. The constitutional issues were a pretext to elevate liberal political stances over Jewish communal needs, but now appear not to be worth the public-relations headache.

Read more at Commentary

More about: ADL, AIPAC, American Jewry, Anti-Semitism

See more here:
The American Jewish Establishment Has Failed to Grapple with the Threat of Anti-Semitism - Mosaic

I, too, know the joys of watching Kent State "gun girl"Kaitlin Bennett get marched off a campus.

Before Bennett was driven off Ohio University campus by a crowd of protesting students this weekmore on that later I had the pleasure of watching as she was ejected from a Bernie Sanders town hall for workers at a high school in Lordstown, Ohio. Later that night, conservative conspiracy theorist, pal of white supremacists and (former) Bumble aficionado Jack Posobiec tweeted a video of Bennetts ejection from the event that went viral and, to my surprise, I made a cameo.

While the focus of the video is on Bennett as shes marched out of the event, oneeagle-eyed Twitter user chose instead to focus on the joy it brought others. Namely, me.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

Yeah, thats me in the gray peacoat, mockingly waving at Bennett as she was led out of Sanders rally.

Im ashamed to admit that my brain has been poisoned by the internet enough that I actually recognized Bennett when she arrived at the event. Evidently no one else did, as they let her simply walk into the town hall.

Afterwards, people debated on Twitter whether Bennett should have been kicked out or allowed to stay. In an embarrassing attempt to adhere to nebulous notions of journalistic ethics, my hometown broadcast station even gave Bennett who was at the event on behalf of Alex Jones InfoWars conspiracy website airtime to share her thoughts on what happened.

When questioned by the station, the Sanders campaign (correctly) responded:"We are disappointed the people of the Youngstown community are being shown on the local broadcast news content from InfoWars, a white supremacist platform that has been banned from YouTube, Apple and Facebook for hate speech and targeting the parents of children who died in Sandy Hook."

Turns out Bennett is still at it. Monday she was run off campus by a mob of OU students shouting No one f*****glikes you, Dont come back and (my favorite) Wheres your diaper?, a reference to the widespread rumor that Bennett soiled herself at a frat party at Kent State University.

OU protesters mocked and yelled profanities at Bennett as she and her crew of Liberty Hangout lackeys retreated to their vehicle an enormous orange Ford pickup truck that might actually be more embarrassing than Bennetts rumoredsoiling incidentand fled the scene.

Bennett, of course, is making a big deal of this. Her first port of call was to run to Trump on Twitter and ask himto take away OUs funding, calling the students terrorists in a tweet. She claims the crowd turned against her because she was a Trump supporter.To be fair, OU is a pretty liberal campus, especially for Ohio,but its far more likely that a generation that grew up watching kids their age get gunned down every few months might not take kindly to a conservative gun activist known for open-carrying an AK-47 round college.

Also, lets be honest. Political views aside, at this point, everyone knows Bennetts grift, especially if you are, like me,from northeast Ohio. She drives around the region looking for political events where she can turn up with hermicrophone in search ofunwitting people to interview. Of course the interviews are usually done in bad faith and questions are asked in a way to make people look like liberal wackos for the delight of her audience, who I assume are either geriatrics or horny alt-right dudes.

This bit was played out when Jay Leno was doing it and it was called Jaywalking, and now Bennett is carrying the torch. Even her peers in the world of young "trying to make it cool" conservatismlike Charlie Kirk and his toddlers at Turning PointUSA, as well as the always-entertaining conspiracy theoristsJacob Wohl and Jack Burkman have upped their game to keep the grift fresh. Its hardly shocking to anyone anymore to see college kids being mean to Bennett. Her shtick is getting stale.

I will give this one to Bennett, though:It takes a monumental lack of self-awareness to cry to the President of the United States that students on a college campus acted like "terrorists" by shouting mean things, and to then turn around and threaten to return to that same campus with an brigade of armed people. That about Bennett, at least, is truly original.

Go here to see the original:
I once went unexpectedly viral because of 'gun girl' Kaitlin Bennett. This week, she reached a new level of hypocrisy - The Independent

Extinction Rebellion protesters dig up a lawn of Trinity College. (Reuters photo)

On Monday, members of an environmental activist group dug up a part of the lawn of Trinity College Cambridge while sparing an apple tree that descended from the one that inspired Sir Isaac Newton. According to news reports, the digging was to protest the colleges alleged role in the destruction of nature, but the protesters symbolically protected the famous apple tree to highlight the colleges collusion in the destruction of farmland.

The group calls itself Extinction Rebellion (XR) and claims to follow the principles of non-violent civil disobedience movements. It was launched in the UK on October 31, 2018, as a response to a report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that implied we only have 12 years to stop catastrophic climate change and our understanding that we have entered the 6th mass extinction event, XR says on its website.

Critics have referred to the groups supporters as environmental fanatics. In its FAQ section, the website raises the question whether the group comprises law breaking anarchists or economic terrorists or eco-fascists; the answer posted is that the members are strictly non-violent and reluctant law breakers.

Before the Trinity College vandalism, another widely reported instance of law-breaking happened in April 2019. The group held a large demonstration in London over a course of 11 days that led to more than 1,100 arrests. Activists caused damage of an estimated over 6,000 at the Shell headquarters and glued themselves and sat on top of trains on the citys light railways.

For the UK, the group lists three demands to tell the truth, which means that the government must declare a climate and ecological emergency; that it must act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero by the year 2025; that the government must create and be led by a Citizens Assembly on Climate and Ecological Justice to meet big, wide-ranging and complex challenges. Such a Citizen Assembly would bring together ordinary people to discuss, investigate and make recommendations on ways to respond to climate change emergencies.

The group says it does not want to rely on traditional systems like petitions or writing to MPs and is more likely to take risks, which includes getting arrested. It claims its movement is to demand adequate action for the unprecedented global emergency, for which polite lobbying, marching, voting etc havent yielded the desired results from decision-makers.

On Wednesday, The Guardian reported that a man and two women have been charged with criminal damage after the digging of the Trinity College lawn. Three others have been charged with criminal damage over another protest that took place the following day. All six people have been released on bail to appear at Cambridge magistrates court on March, The Guardian said quoting police.

Why is it that toxic propaganda posts are shared so widely? In Antisocial: How Online Extremists Broke America, Andrew Marantz, a journalist with The New Yorker, explores how online fringe ideas spread fake news; how truth becomes fake news; and how a candidate who was dismissed as a joke was eventually elected US President by the dark side of the Internet.

To write this book, Marantz spent time with alt-right groups and propagandists who are experts in using social media to their advantage, and he learnt how to make content go viral. Everyone knows the most basic rule of the internet: Dont feed the trolls, and dont take tricksters at their word. The trolls, of the alt-right called themselves provocateurs, or shitposters, or edgelords. And what could be edgier than joking about Hitler? Marantz writes in the book.

Marantz has written extensively about technology, social media, the alt-right, the press, comedy and pop culture.

Pulitzer-prize winning author Elizabeth Kolbert has praised Mrantzs latest book, writing: Antisocial is at once funny and scary, antic and illuminating. Its a must-read for anyone still struggling to understand the last election or hoping to make sense of the next one.

In its review, The Guardian calls it an absorbing and disturbing book that raises two awkward questions. One is whether digital technology now constitutes an existential threat to liberal democracy. Second, was the old media ecosystem, with its elitist gatekeepers, editorial control, political bias and other flaws, really worse than what we have acquired? Or, pace Winston Churchill on democracy, was it just the worst system apart from all the others?

Read the original:
This Word Means: Extinction Rebellion - Yahoo India News

Ntulis decision to join the partys leadership contest is timely. She has the credentials to help it return to its liberal roots, writes Imraan Baccus.

There are serious questions about whether the DA will recover.

Despite the leadership of John Steenhuisen, the DA has a significant presence of right-wing zealots who, like Helen Zille, have decisively moved from the South African liberal tradition embodied by Helen Suzman, towards a version of the libertarian wing of American alt-right politics.

Mbali Ntuli has entered the leadership race at a critical time in the DAs history.

She joins when there is likely to be no black constituency for a right-leaning DA.

Ntuli represents the kind of steady momentum that could spring a few surprises come the next elections

The recent draft policy document of the DA reads: Individuals, when free to make their own decisions, will not be represented in any and every organisation, sector, or level of management according to a predetermined proportion. The DA, therefore, opposes race, gender and other quotas.

It is clear that we now have the race denialism of Zille and DA policy head, Gwen Ngwenya and their ridiculous fantasy that non-racialism is a liberal concept that they now embody.

Zille, Ngwenya and others in that camp engage in a form of race denialism that masks enduring racism and functions to legitimate ongoing white domination.

It comforts the powerful and afflicts the oppressed.

In a country in which poverty is a deeply raced and gendered phenomenon, to pretend that race and gender are no longer relevant considerations in policymaking and public discourse is to implicitly endorse the status quo.

It is clear that the party has collapsed into forms of reactionary politics.

In this regard, Zille will go down in history as the person who both extended the DAs reach after Tony Leons time at the helm, and then, after her turn to the right, destroyed everything that she built.

Time will tell, but she may go down as the person who finally broke the liberal tradition in South Africa, despite her courageous past.

So if ever the party needed refreshed leadership it is now. Ntuli offers the opportunity for the DA to reconstruct itself.

She has steadily risen through its ranks from baptism as a youth activist through to councillor, seasoned parliamentarian and senior party worker.

Credit must go to her for fearlessly building the DA brand in Durban townships as well as in the northern reaches of the KwaZulu-Natal province closer to her St Lucia home base.

The latter is a region the Inkatha Freedom Party considers its domain and one that the ANC also prizes.

Her father Big Ben Ntuli was considered the boss of taxi bosses. His untimely demise shook up the young Mbali

Ntuli worked her way into a deeply hostile and patriarchal environment, frequently facing personal danger.

There must be something coded in her genes when it comes to the gangster swagger and signature nail art.

Her father Big Ben Ntuli was considered the boss of taxi bosses.

His untimely demise shook up the young Mbali. Then came the family feud for control of his taxi empire.

It was a storyline straight out of a political thriller complete with charges of poisoning.

For Ntuli, having survived both the taxi underworld and a nasty family feud, liberal politics sound like walking a poodle.

Her schooling was a training ground that the traditional DA cognoscenti dare not scoff at.

She went to a posh girls school followed by the bastion of white liberalism Rhodes University in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape.

So she is not someone plucked out of the township with rough edges as some might want to paint her.

Her entire makeup is that of a good South African success story of a streetwise young black woman who has chosen an unconventional path into politics.

It surely could not have been easy for her meandering the dizzy minefield of DA politics over the past decade especially.

Unlike the fallen from grace Mmusi Maimane and embarrassingly eager Bongani Madikizela, Ntuli has held her own as a freethinking, sometimes undisciplined spirit.

At this moment in time the DA could very well do much worse than Ntuli

At this moment in time the DA could very well do much worse than Ntuli.

That is not to say that there are not enough bright cadres to attend to its immediate dilemmas.

Steenhuisen for one is as bright as a button but his clear shortcoming is that he cannot take the DA beyond hollering from the opposition benches.

In his personal choices at volatile moments, Madikizela has hitched his wagon too close to the Zille runaway train headed to the cliffs edge.

Ntuli has the right kind of hunger to have a go at what is still the second prize in South African politics.

A decade of building a challenge to the dominance of the ANC was wasted by Zille and Maimane in the main.

Ntuli represents the kind of steady momentum that could spring a few surprises come the next elections.

Whether the DA grandees, funders or rank and file are ready for a youthful, savvy black woman remains to be seen.

Baccus is a senior research associate at ASRI, research fellow in at the University of Kwa-Zulu-Natals School of Social Sciences and academic director of a university study abroad programme on political transformation

View post:
Could Mbali Ntuli save the DA? - News24

Former Congressman Joe Walsh (R-IL)pledgedto back the Democratic nominates even if its socialist Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Walsh is the latest in many prominent #NeverTrump Republicans to declare that hell back the Democratic nominee. Former Dan Quayle Advisor Bill Kristolrecently proclaimed, But for the time being, one has to say: We are all Democrats now.

Walsh, Kristol, and many other #NeverTrump conservative leaders have been willing to take a hard stand in opposing President Trumps many misdeeds and his debasing of American institutions. I respect that. However, I disagree with backing the Democrats for the following four reasons.

Many of us have decided against remaining in the GOP. Ive been saying our country needs a new political partyfor some time. #NeverTrump leaders like Kristol hung onto the GOP label so they could undermine the president and criticize the president as members of the presidents party. They didnt seek to wrest control of positions within State and Federal parties. They just saw to use the affiliation to give credence to their criticisms with groups likeRepublicans for the Rule of Law.

Republicans for the Rule of Law began as an effort to push the Mueller Investigation into Russian interference in the U.S. election. Trump-opposing Republicans like Kristol saw the Mueller investigation as the vehicle that dispose of Trump or at least weaken him to the point that a primary challenge might have a chance. This failed mainly due to the over-hyping of potential findings by Mueller. The Mueller investigation may have found several possible obstructions of justice, but it couldnt match the over the top hype that Trump was directly working for the Kremlin.

Also, Trump-skeptical Republican leaders began to back Democrats. Former RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie took a Trump-like turn when running for Governor of Virginia, engaging in a healthy amount of race-baiting in the 2017 Virginia Governors race, and Kristol backed his opponent. Trump critics like columnist George Will urged for voters to hand control of Congress to the Democrats. Both strategies succeeded as Ralph Northam was elected Governor of Virginia, and Democrats took the House.

On the plus side, House Democrats have made efforts to hold the president accountable.

However, their partisan motives undermined the credibility of their investigations. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Ca.) took the lead on impeaching President Trump. Schiff was skating on thin ice credibility-wise due to his overselling of the Mueller and Russia investigations. Evenmany conservativeswho favored impeachment thought the Democrats flawed processed doomed it. The Democrats botched the investigation of Ukraine due to a politically driven Impeachment by Christmas timeframe. This led to an impeachment case whose only hope of success was Republican Senators having a sense of honor and duty that exceeded House Democrats. Of course, Senate Republicans showed they didnt.

Also, the Democrats political gains have driven more conservatives into the arms of Trump. Ralph Northam pushed a radical pro-abortion agenda thatcountenanced infanticidedespite being touted as a moderate. With the new Democratic Majority in the House, we saw the rise of the radical squad of four far-left Democratic Congresswomen. Speaker Nancy Pelosi seemed helpless to reign them in. Pelosi has refused to stand up Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) over Omars bigotry. Stopantisemetism.org named OmarAnti-Semite of the Year. Well done, House Democrats, and those who helped bring you to power.

For three years, those on the right who opposed Trump have spent their influence on a strategy that leaves challenging Trump to prosecutors and Democrats. Its time to ask that classic Doctor Phil question: Hows that working for you?

Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) won the popular vote in Iowa and New Hampshire. However, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg won more delegates and therefore won the Iowa caucus. Former Vice-President Joe Bidens campaign is on life support as he finished fourth and fifth in the first two contests. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is fading, and neither Buttigieg nor Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) has jumped into the lead anywhere based on their early state performances. The most likely candidate to stop Sanders is a late entry, billionaire former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

At present, theres an eighty percent chance the Democratic nominee will be either Bloomberg or Sanders. Both candidates are comparable to Trump in their own ways.

The definition of a race between Trump and Bloomberg is as follows: One candidate is a wealthy New York oligarch with authoritarian tendencies, ahistory of racially insensitive remarks,problems respecting women, and whodefended Russias invasion of the Crimea.The other candidate is Donald Trump.

One of Bloombergs supporterssaid, at an event this weekend, that she was aware of his issues with women, but he should be given a bye because the alternative is four more years of Trump. Republicans used the same argument in 2016 to back Trump.

Sandershas a long history of backing authoritarian regimesin places like Cuba and Nicaragua. He even spent his honeymoon in the Soviet Union. Many #NeverTrumpers have been shocked at the hatefulness of Trump-supporting groups like Turning Point USA, as well as the many racist and alt-right groups that embraced Trump. Bernies most extreme backers, known as Bernie Bros, arejust as bad.

You can make an argument over whether Trump is worse than either candidate. However, that is a debate over degrees, not a debate over kind. If youre concerned by the type of person Donald Trump is, Michael Bloomberg is the same kind of person. If youre worried about the type of anger and hatred that Trump inspires in others, Sanders is the same kind of candidate. Supporting either Bloomberg or Sanders in the name of getting rid of Trump damages the credibility of anti-Trump conservatives.

With two men who are older than the president being the Democratic frontrunners, President Trumps re-election chances look good. The best opportunity for either Bloomberg or Sanders to win is an economic collapse or foreign policy fiasco. Barring that, with prosperity at home and relative piece abroad, I see little chance that the country will vote for either Bloomberg or Sanders.

So Walsh and Kristol are not only asking Trump-opposing conservatives to compromise our values and our credibility to stop Trump, theyre asking us to do it in whats most likely a doomed effort. While theres an 80 percent chance that Bloomberg or Sanders wins the Democratic nomination, theres a 20 percent chance that someone else does. Biden may make a comeback. All those editorial board endorsements could do more for Amy Klobuchar than they did for John Kasich four years ago. A brokered convention might nominate Michelle Obama even though she doesnt want to be president. These would still not be great outcomes, but at least they wouldnt be bad in the same way Trump is. Kristol and others are trying to influence the Democrats to such a result.

It was equally possible after Donald Trump won three of the first four contests in 2016, that #NeverTrump Republicans could stop Trump. In the case of 2016, I felt obliged to try to save my then-party from Donald Trump against all the odds. As an independent, its not my job to protect the Democrats from themselves, and efforts to do so are likely pointless.

To some, Donald Trumps political career is the white whale; they are determined to kill at all costs. However, Trump is only a symptom of much larger problems in American politics. Voting for either Trump or his opponent will only make these problems worse. Spending the next eight months bickering over who would make America worse is like debating which venomous snake you want to bite you.

In his famous Give Me Liberty speech, Patrick Henry said the battle didnt belong only to the strong, but to the vigilant, the active, the brave. America needs a conservative Independent challenger to inspire voters to reject all venomous partisans. An excellent independent showing could serve as the foundation of a new major party and would be far healthier than trying to pick which of two evils is worth supporting.

Read the rest here:
Why #NeverTrump Conservatives Shouldn't Back the Democrats in 2020 - Caffeinated Thoughts