Security Council Settlements Resolution: Shameful Betrayal by Obama | National Review

After a brief foray into the other side of the argument -- Friedman in the post below -- back to caning Obama and Kerry in the National Review.

Bibi Netanyahu Makes Trump His Chump - Thomas Friedman, NYT

Thomas Friedman puts the opposite side of the story about the Israel UN Resolution, in the New York Times. Opposite, that is, to the one I've been promoting: that UN Resolution 2334 is anti-Israel, flawed and the US should not have abstained.
But there are problems with his analysis, the main one being why didn't he -- why doesn't the UN -- put the Palestinian feet to the fire. Why is it always just Israel that's attacked and impugned? The blame may be partly theirs, but is surely not *all* theirs. Palestinian terrorism in Israel is most assuredly a factor. The failure of Hamas even to accept an Israeli state is another.
And what about the fact that Israel has at least twice, in 2000 and 2008, offered the West Bank back, and been rebuffed by Yasser Arafat and the PA. Arafat's response to the offer -- basically all that he had demanded -- was to start an intifada!
Not to mention that when Israel was established -- by the World, in the shape of the UN, in 1948 -- Israel was happy for Arabs to set up a Palestinian state next door in the internationally-designated territory -- virtually identical to what they now demand -- but were attacked instead. (And failed, as they have every time they've attacked Israel).
Not also to mention that Israel has handed back the Sinai and Gaza, both occupied in defensive wars. It's normally the losing side in a war that sues for peace. Now the World -- the UN -- expects Israel to sue for peace. To give away preemptively the land that's supposed to be on the table in the "land for peace" deal that all sides accept (or have accepted until now) as being a cardinal principle.
There are many good comments to the Friedman article.

Obama's malice, May's shame. Drain the UN swamp | MelaniePhillips.com

Good on yer Melanie! Another sane and sensible attack on the Obama - Kerry treachery from Melanie Phillips.

Israel’s right to build homes is settled … under international law

Look at the tiny sliver in yellow, that is Israel (you can hardly see it)
All the other lands were won by Islam in expansion "by the sword"
[Referenced in the article below]

More in this recent series of the Kerry/Obama perfidy, in the Conservative Review. This one's rather for history and legal buffs as it makes the case that there is no "occupation" and therefore no "illegal" settlements, which even to Israel supporters like me, is a bit of a long bow to draw. Mind you, only because the other side has been so successful in pushing the other side, even if flawed or even a lie.

Here we go again with the U.N. peddling the biggest geo-political hoax of all time — that Israel's control over Judea and Samaria is illegal, that it belongs to a distinct Arab people called "Palestinians," and that the source of Islamist mayhem across the globe is a smattering of Jewish homes being built in their ancestral land. Land, which by the way, is virtually invisible on a map compared to the mass of land controlled by Islam. 

Security Council Settlements Resolution: Shameful Betrayal by Obama | National Review

More on John Kerry's shameful speech on Israel. His voicing Obama's betrayal of an ally, the only democracy in the Middle East, in the National Review

Undergraduate ramble lacking context, reality. John Kerry's awful speech.

Greg Sheridan's article in The Australian

John Kerry's imitation of Fidel Castro, with a speech as long and as mournful and as useless as those the Cuban dictator frequently delivered, helps explain why he was such a dismal failure as US Secretary of State.

Kerry's meandering speech blamed Israel for the failure so far to achieve a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

The problem is, it read like the speech of an earnest undergraduate who has just come to the issue through the reporting of al-Jazeera and CNN and has no background in historic reality.

The Kerry speech lacked all context, proportion, balance, history and any sense of reality.

Australians have long understood that Kerry was an extremely mediocre choice for secretary of state. In the published diaries of former foreign minister Bob Carr there is a long cable from then ambassador Kim Beazley concerning Kerry's appointment.

Kerry, Beazley said, had very little interest in Asia and almost none at all in Australia.

Beazley predicted, correctly, that Kerry would devote his tenure to trying to get a big historic prize for himself, namely an Israeli Palestinian peace deal.

For his entire tenure, Kerry has seemed disconnected from the real world crises of the Middle East, focusing instead on his undergraduate obsessions with Israel. Hundreds of thousands of people are slaughtered in Syria in part because of the strategic vacuum Kerry and his boss and their feckless sermonising created; Iran and Russia become dominant strategic players; Yemen and Libya collapse, but Kerry knows what his priorities are: to beat up on Israel.

Barack Obama has taken a characteristic personal revenge on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he detests, with a profoundly destructive and irresponsible UN Security Council resolution, which declares every Israeli living anywhere beyond the 1967 borders, even in the Jewish quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, to be an illegal settler.

This means the Palestinians have no incentive to compromise and the Israelis are encouraged not to compromise either, because they cannot even rely on their best friend.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/greg-sheridan/undergraduate-ramble-lacking-context-reality/news-story/a4af14f12e1f30a35c0e800a28d77f37

Good Riddance… — Quadrant Online Re Kerry / Israel

Another on John Kerry"s shameful Israel speech, in Australia's Quadrant
Note the first comment on a Greg Sheridan article, in the Australian.

National Review | Conservative News, Opinion, Politics, Policy & Current Events

Spot on:

The world is aflame with threats and instability, yet Kerry and Obama, petulant leftists with an Israel fixation, could not resist this last kick in the teeth to the region's sole democracy. They knew it would harm Israel's moral standing – now the delegitimizers can claim that Israel is in violation of "Security Council" resolutions – and give an unmerited win to the Palestinians. Perhaps most infuriating of all, they claim to be doing it all for Israel's own good.

Too bad they couldn't follow their own advice: "Don't do stupid s**t."

http://www.nationalreview.com/

Obama’s Fitting Finish - WSJ

Commentators on left and right are agreed: Obama's foreign policy has been a disaster. Eight years of in incoherence and pusillanimity 

All are agreed apart, of course, from the man himself. He remains blissfully, if perhaps willfully, ignorant. So much so that he -- incredibly -- deems his failure to act in Syria after his "red line" was crossed, to have been a success, the "right thing to do". No, it wasn't. It was a disaster heaped upon earlier disasters from Iran to Afghanistan via his refusal to acknowledge Islamic ideology as the key driving force in global mayhem. 

Bret Stephens is sound. Here in this essay in the Wall Street Journal, he concisely summarizes the case against Obama's foreign policy legacy:

Barack Obama 's decision to abstain from, and therefore allow, last week's vote to censure Israel at the U.N. Security Council is a fitting capstone for what's left of his foreign policy. Strategic half-measures, underhanded tactics and moralizing gestures have been the president's style from the beginning. Israelis aren't the only people to feel betrayed by the results.

Also betrayed: Iranians, whose 2009 Green Revolution in heroic protest of a stolen election Mr. Obama conspicuously failed to endorse for fear of offending the ruling theocracy. 

Iraqis, who were assured of a diplomatic surge to consolidate the gains of the military surge, but who ceased to be of any interest to Mr. Obama the moment U.S. troops were withdrawn, and only concerned him again when ISIS neared the gates of Baghdad.

Syrians, whose initially peaceful uprising against anti-American dictator Bashar Assad Mr. Obama refused to embrace, and whose initially moderate-led uprising Mr. Obama failed to support, and whose sarin- and chlorine-gassed children Mr. Obama refused to rescue, his own red lines notwithstanding. 

Ukrainians, who gave up their nuclear weapons in 1994 with formal U.S. assurances that their "existing borders" would be guaranteed, only to see Mr. Obama refuse to supply them with defensive weapons when Vladimir Putin invaded their territory 20 years later.

Pro-American Arab leaders, who expected better than to be given ultimatums from Washington to step down, and who didn't anticipate the administration's tilt toward the Muslim Brotherhood as a legitimate political opposition, and toward Tehran as a responsible negotiating partner.

Most betrayed: Americans.... [more at link above]

“Sacrifice black Muslim slaves went through in this country is nothing compared to Islamophobia today”

Linda Sarsour again. Last reported on by me in 2012. Her main schtick is Muslim victimhood. Here in full paranoid, perfervid bloom....

One Law for All: how can you argue *against* that?

Below is from Mariam Namazie, and ex-Muslim, from her organisation, One Law for All in the UK.  The UK has some 80+ Sharia courts.  A scandal that they do. There's an enquiry into them, but the feeling around the interested blogosphere is that it'll be a whitewash.

OVER 300 ABUSED WOMEN ISSUE STATEMENT AGAINST PARALLEL LEGAL SYSTEMS: WHO WILL LISTEN TO OUR VOICES?

"We oppose any religious body – whether presided over by men or women – that seeks to rule over us.” So say more than 300 mostly Muslim women, but also others from different faiths who have been abused in their personal lives. From their own lived experiences, these women are voicing their alarm, through a powerful statement published today, about the growing power of religious bodies such as Sharia councils.  Read the full statement.

SHARIA COURTS HAVE NO PLACE IN UK FAMILY LAW: LISTEN TO THE WOMEN WHO KNOW

In a piece also published today, Southall Black Sisters Director Pragna Patel states: "Our demand is simple: no religious arbitration of any kind in family matters. We want a secular law underpinned by human rights values to be applicable to all without exception. As the One Law for All campaign has continued to assert, this is the only way to guarantee freedom of religion as well as freedom from religion. The challenges we face are too important to be reduced to a crude and regressive politics of representation".  Read full article.

DEVASTATING NEW EVIDENCE AGAINST SHARIA COURTS IN BRITAIN

Also published this week is devastating new evidence submitted by One Law for All to the Home Affairs Select Committee. It reveals how Sharia councils violate human rights, how discrimination and violence lie at the heart of the courts, how they are linked to the transnational Islamist movement, and why they are a parallel legal system, which must be dismantled.  The submission also objects to Naz Shah's line of questioning of Spokesperson Maryam Namazie and accusations of "Islamophobia" and "anti-faith" to discredit secular voices.

The evidence unequivocally finds that Britain is failing to meet its obligations to gender equality in family relations as specified in CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women) by permitting the continuation of these courts. Read the full submission.

Previous submissions to the Home Affairs Select Committee by One Law for All, Southall Black Sisters, IKWRO, Centre for Secular Space, Yasmin Rehman and British Muslims for Secular Democracy can be seen here.

Personal testimonies from women whose rights have been violated by Sharia courts continue to be added to our website.

#ONELAWFORALLBECAUSE  

#STRUGGLENOTSUBMISSION

We are calling on black and minority women and men as well as secularists and women's rights campaigners to highlight why they are opposed to parallel legal systems and defend one secular law for all. Post your messages on social media using the above hashtags, including with your photo. See some messages here.

SUPPORT THE IMPORTANT WORK OF THE ONE LAW FOR ALL COALITION

Please continue to support the work of the One Law for All coalition by donating. No amount is too small and every little helps. A special thanks to those who donate on a regular basis. We can't tell you what a difference it makes.

DON'T FORGET 22-23 JULY 2017 CONFERENCE

Please don't forget to buy tickets to the 22-23 July 2017 International Conference on Freedom of Conscience and Expression if you can make it. It will be a historic conference - one that you can join for as little as £85 a day (including refreshments, lunch, cocktails, and a brilliant line up of speakers and acts). Find out more about the conference here.

On behalf of One Law for All, we hope you have a lovely holiday and New Year.

We look forward to working with you over the next year against parallel legal systems and for one secular law for all!

Warm wishes

Gina Khan and Maryam Namazie

One Law for All

onelawforall@gmail.com

077 1916 6731

@GinaKhanUK

@MaryamNamazie

http://onelawforall.org.uk/

Donald Trump’s sharp contrast from Obama and Bush on Islam has serious implications - The Washington Post

Was going to post this ludicrous article in the Washington Post with some comment about its spurious moral equivalence e.g. between the Koran and the Bible ("revered by many Americans"), but see that commenter "Jason Born" has made the comment for me:

Again we witness a fatuous attempt to read Islam through a relativist prism that absolves it on any responsibility for the violence committed in its name and its ideological interests. To wit: "Many of its controversial rules, like death for blasphemy and apostasy, have parallels in the Hebrew Bible, a book revered by many Americans." Yes, to a point. But when was the last time a Christian or a Jew in America or elsewhere cut the throat of an apostate? When was the last time a Christian or a Jew (or a Hindu or a Buddhist or a Scientologist, for that .matter) gunned down writers and artists for committing blasphemy? This false equivalency, this peurile collapsing of history into some kind of generalised all-religions-are-equally-bad narrative, is expressly designed to prevent us asking questions of the all-too-real prevalence of Islamically inspired killing whether in Paris, London, Boston, California, Madrid, Iraq or Syria.
Again: "the kind of Sharia jihadists want is not the kind most American Muslims want" - as if Sharia comes in a choice of seventeen flavours instead of being a coherent, principle-specific body of jurisprudence defined, not by Isis, but by the hadith and rulings of classical Islamic scholars including Bukhari, Sahih Muslim and others, all of whom are largely unanimous in their rulings on killing apostates, dealing with unbelievers, the second-class status of women, the sanctioning of child marriage and punishments including amputation.
McCants makes assertions certain in the knowledge that most of his audience are ignorant of the facts, creating a hollowed-out space into which he and other apologists can decant fictional and dangerous misrepresentations of a truth that we will need, sooner or later, to face up to.

How Algeria could destroy the EU

Wow! I did not know this in The Spectator. That the president of Algeria is near to death and that his death may lead to Islamization of Algeria and a massive emigration to Europe.

When Bouteflika goes, Algeria will probably implode. The Islamists who have been kept at bay by his iron hand will exploit the vacuum. Tensions that have been buried since the civil war will re-emerge. And then Europe could be overwhelmed by another great wave of refugees from North Africa....An Algerian civil war would create huge numbers of refugees. One analyst told me he expects 10 to 15 million Algerians will try to leave. Given Algeria’s history, they would expect to be rescued by one nation: France. In its impact on the EU, even a fraction of this number would dwarf the effect of the Syrian civil war. Given the political trauma that the refugee crisis has already caused in Europe, a massive Algerian exodus could cause tremendous insecurity....

French Terrorism Suspects Appeared Anything But - The New York Times

Yet another case proving that Muslims don't go all jihadi because they're poor, or disenfranchised, or deprived. Remember also the 9/11 mob: every one of those mass murderers had a decent middle class job and had been well educated. Ditto the 7/7 bombers in London.
In the German case, the would be jihadis are shopkeepers and teachers. Good, friendly family men. Just that they'd got all gooey at the thought of randomly killing their countrymen.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/world/europe/france-strasbourg-islamic-state-isis-arrests-terrorism.html?hpw&rref=world&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well


Sent from my iPad,en.

One Plus One: Maajid Nawaz - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

My Hero, the U.K.'s Maajid Nawaz just now on the Australian show ABC's One Plus One, here in Hong Kong. He's on tour in Australia.
Maajid says that his wife left him when he left the radical Hizb-ut-Tahrir. His wife is still a member. She has brought up his son, now 15, who says that his father is "not a good Muslim" and won't talk to Maajid.
Maajid says that he speaks up for Muslims of all stripes, feminist Muslims, gay Muslims, minority-sect Muslims, and for non-Muslims too.
Then, in answer to a question whether he questions what he's doing, he says that he does that every day. But that if he stepped down from his counter extremism organization the Quilliam Foundation he doubts someone would step in to run it because there are so few Muslims who talk like him.
The interviewer didn't ask the obvious question: if that's the case isn't this a big concern for the U.K.? That Maajid's family, his friends, other Muslims, think that he's a "bad Muslim" for speaking up in support of values that we fought centuries for and which are now firmly embedded in our liberal secular societies? What about that??!
It sure worries me. Maajid is just one man. And Muslims say they simply don't want to listen to him.
What hope is there? When a guy who spent five years in an Egyptian dungeon as a radical, reforms and tries to argue for a more tolerant Islam, but is reviled by his coreligionists? What hope? For an inclusive, secular, democratic, integrated Islam?
http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-18/one-plus-one:-maajid-nawaz/7181716?pfmredir=sm


Sent from my iPhone

The World Fears Trump’s America. That’s a Good Thing. - NYTimes.com

An amazing article to have in the leftie New York Times: The World Fears Trump's America.  That's a Good Thing.  Unusual in that it's severely critical of Obama's foreign policy. As of course it should be. His foreign policy has been catastrophic. The "red line" on Syria, ignored by Obama when it was crossed, was also a straight  line to ISIS and the refugee crisis. For that alone he deserves to be excoriated. 

/Snip

During the last eight years, President Obama showed what happens when the world's greatest power tries strenuously to avoid giving fright. He began his presidency with lofty vows to conciliate adversaries, defer to the opinions of other countries and reduce America's military commitments. Consequently, he received rapturous applause in European capitals and a Nobel Peace Prize. In the real world of geopolitics, however, the results have been catastrophic.

Mr. Obama's passivity in the face of provocations and his failure to enforce the "red line" in Syria led Russia, China and other adversaries to seek new gains at America's expense. His promises to "end the wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan satisfied the cosmopolitan chatterers of Stockholm, Paris and New York, but they deflated American allies in Baghdad and Kabul, and emboldened adversaries in Iran and Pakistan. So severe was the damage that he had to send troops back to Iraq in 2014, and had to abort his plans to withdraw all American forces from Afghanistan before leaving office.

Veiled Bigotry in Germany - NYTimes.com

LETTER to: International New York Times:

In Veiled Bigotry in Germany (NYT Editorial, December 9), you say: 

But the truth is that the bans [on face veils] are first and foremost a direct expression of antipathy toward Muslim immigrants, usually meant to appease far-right xenophobes.

The "truth is",  just because you say it is? 

Sorry, but polls show majorities in Europe and the U.K. support bans on face veils. Are these majorities now to be smeared as "far-right xenophobes"?

I'm a leftie myself (Remainer, supported Obama/Hillary), surely not a "far-right xenophobe", and still I support the bans. 

No other group of people can wear face masks in courtrooms, in schools or in banks. Why should Muslims be exempt?  This is a case of applying the law equally, not of discrimination. 

It's also a mistake to accept, as you do, the protestations of "Islamic leaders", who claim 

....that the bans lead women to feeling excluded from society, and thus facilitate radicalization. 

[Oh, how those Islamic leaders know how to push your buttons!  ... facilitate radicalization!]

But think about it. How much more excluded can one be than to wear a mask or the full body bag in public?  And that leads to "radicalization"?  Get real. And read something about the radicalization process. Read the Koran for starters. 

Later in your Leader you say the veil "poses no threat". Again, sorry but it does. There are numerous cases of crimes committed by veiled individuals, often men dressed in women's burkas, face veils 'n all. 

It is supercilious, condescending, holier-than-thou attitudes such as yours that enabled the stampede to Brexit and vote Trump, even by good lefties. 

Again, Get real. 

Shame on you. 

Peter F.
HK

Palestinians were always willing to go to extreme lengths in Arab-Israel peace process | South China Morning Post

Answer in today's South Chris Morning Post to my earlier letter on Israel-Palestine. 

On quick reading at least two errors which I assume are deliberate:  

1. Madrid conference of 1999:  Israel did accept, not decline. 

2. United Nations Resolution 242:  Israel did accept, not flout.

Bazarwala fails to note the second main requirement of Resolution 242: that all parties (Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria) had to recognize all the others. Had that happened then Israel would have returned the occupied lands (the first requirement). The deal was "land for peace". Not "land before peace". With the history of attacks on Israel, how could any reasonable person expect Israel to hand over land on the "promise" of peace?
As to Bazarwala's first question: "... wasn't Israel carved out of stolen land from indigenous Palestinians 70 years ago?".  The short answer: No.  Israel was crafted out of land owned by Jews (bought from expatriate Ottoman landlords, often at above-market prices), and only encompassed land that had majority Jewish demographics. There's a detailed history here.  Sure, it's Jewish source, but read around the subject, and this is the conclusion.  The trope of jews "stealing" Palestinian land is simply wrong.
Scan of Bazarwal's letter below the fold.

Arab-Israel conflict was avoidable

My letter published today in the South China Morning Post. 

Letters to the Editor, December 3, 2016: Arab-Israel conflict was avoidable.

Arab-Israel conflict was avoidable

Alon Ben-Meir urges US president-elect Donald Trump to “pressure Israel” to agree to a two-state solution (“Trump must try to get Israel’s acceptance of a two-state ­solution”, November 19).

There is little to indicate that, as president, Trump will want to tread into a dispute that has been the graveyard of hopes for 70 years.

As Ben-Meir himself notes, even outgoing US President Barack Obama has failed in the endeavour, despite “supreme efforts”.

But even if Trump were to wade into these murky waters, why is it that only Israel should be pressured?

After all, Israel has repeatedly accepted a two-state solution over the last 70 years, whereas various ­iterations of Palestine have rebuffed all solutions.

On September 1, 1947, the UN Special Committee on ­Palestine issued a report ­proposing a split of the Palestinian Mandate along lines similar to those pursued by Palestinians today.

The Jewish Agency accepted the proposal. The Arab Higher Committee rejected it.

Just imagine if the Arabs had accepted the proposal. We would have had none of the murderous mayhem of the last 70 years.

Instead of destruction, there would have been construction.

Israel has 82 companies listed on the Nasdaq, more than all countries except the US and China. Imagine if this Israeli entrepreneurial spirit had been harnessed with that of the Palestinians. They would today be the mega-Switzerland of the Middle East.

They could by now have developed an Israeli-Arab-Palestinian common market, perhaps even a federation.

Instead, we have had attacks on Israel (all unsuccessful), ­belligerent intifadas (mostly unsuccessful), and the ­infamous “Three Nos” – no peace with ­Israel, no recognition of Israel and no negotiations with Israel.

How is one to negotiate with such intransigent ­interlocutors? And yet it’s Israel which must be “pressured”? There’s a great deal of hypocrisy among the ­observers of the Israeli-Palestine conflict.

Peter Forsythe, Discovery Bay

General James 'Mad Dog' Mattis email about being 'too busy to read' is a must-read - Business Insider

This is a great read. I agree with everything Mad Dog says. I have myself a library of thousands on the subject of Islam. Mad Dog will be fully clear on the problematic aspects of that particular ideology. 

And, most amazingly, I was directed to this viral email by a BBC journalist. And this is Trump's nominee for Secretary of defence! 

Mad Dog writes clearly, thoughtfully and cogently. 

Fidel's Legacy -- a Dissident's View. Bret Stephens, WSJ

To Justin Trudeau, Canada’s puerile prime minister, he was a “legendary revolutionary” who “made significant improvements to the education and healthcare of his island nation.” To Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain’s Labour Party, he “will be remembered both as an internationalist and a champion of social justice.” To Michael Higgins, president of Ireland, he was a tribune “for all of the oppressed and excluded peoples on the planet.”

And for Barack Obama, still president of the United States, he was a “singular figure” whose “enormous impact” would be recorded and judged by history.

Why is the DNC considering Keith Ellison as chair? Why is Maajid Nawaz promoting it?

DNC: simple. It's virtue signaling. See how open and tolerant we are. That we would have as leader of our Democratic Party a Muslim associated with the Jew hating Nation of Islam. That's how tolerant we are.

Maajid: I don't know. why is he supporting Ellison's candidacy? It seems crazy. Many Maajid fans, self included, are puzzled and upset.

Fidel Castro’s Communist Utopia - WSJ

If you want to see the difference, literally (and I mean literally!), between socialism and capitalism in practice have a look at the satellite picture at night of the Korean Peninsula. The South is a blaze of light. The north has a little pinprick of light at its capital Pyongyang. (The fat prick's pinprick:  Kim Jong-un's nickname in Chinese is "Fatty the Third"). 

I have the temporal equivalent of that geographic snapshot. It's China when I first went there in the mid 70s while it was still "Cultural Revolution" time, in thrall to Marxism-Leninism. Studying there as I was, I had to get food and clothing like the locals and that meant getting ration tickets and lining up. Look at China now. There is nothing you can't buy. And the average Chinese is earning ten times what a senior official was earning in the 60s and 70s. The difference? Just ideology. The first period was communist. The second period was (and is) capitalist (thought to save face the Chinese called it "socialism with Chinese characteristics"). 

And in this Wall Street Journal article, Fidel Castro's Communist Utopia, they make the same point. Look at Cubans in Cuba. Then look at Cubans who fled to the United States (some 2 million of a population of 10 million). Same people. Different ideologies. Which is better off? The ones in the United States by a long way. Average monthly wages in Cuba are $US 20. In the US, it's $US 2,000, one hundred times more. 

And don't give me that guff about how Fidel gave Cuba great education and health systems. First,  good education and health care predated Castro.  Second, they're not so great anyway (doctors get $US20/month, and hospitals are falling apart). Third, even if they were as great as the left would have us belive, that would not excuse Castro's gross violations of human rights.  Many countries have good medical and education systems, without dictatorship.  Singapore, for example.

Basically, Castro backed the wrong horse. If he'd gone for the US instead of the Soviet Union Cubans would now be as rich as their American co-nationals. But despite this gross strategic error, Castro is forgiven all by the left. As I'm seeing now on CNN and has been the case in BBC since the beginning. 

Conscription, the secret behind Israel’s army of geeks

Interesting!
Follow on from my letter to the South China Morning Post the other day about Israel and the two-state solution in which I noted that Israel has the third largest number of companies on Nasdaq, after just the United States and China.
This is a remarkable achievement given that Israel is under constant low-grade warfare.
And interested how important conscription is to the body politic and, as here, the body economic.
I would rather like to see the return of conscription or some form of public service in other western countries before being let into the workforce.

Fact-checking a liberal Islamopologist

Faiza Patel, Islamist apologist at New York University

Faiza Patel works at the Brennan Centre for Justice which is part of the New York University. She recently had an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times that caught my attention.  Mainly because she dowplayed the Islamist intent of a couple of major Islamic organisations in the US: specifically the Islamic Circle of North America and CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations.
As I looked through the article, at the Brennan site, I found other statements one should not expect from a senior research analyst at a prestigious New York think tank.
So, I go through her article, copied and pasted below the fold.
It's called "A 'Commission on Radical Islam' Could Lead to a New McCarthy Era" at the Brennan site.
My comments are indented and in italics, based on the Brennan version, after the fold.

Islam is a religion of peace. If you don't believe me, I kiiiiil you!

Just another Islamist nutter contemplating the evil of we infidels and
wondering when he can strike against us.

Talk about cognitive dissonance.  Abdul Razak Ali Artan, the latest Islamist nutter who tried to kill random infidels by mowing them down with a car and then knifing them, was upset about what people would think if he prayed in public.  "I'm a Muslim", he said, "it's not what the media portrays me to be."  Oh really?  And what would that be? That you might at any random moment explode with Allah-stoked rage and try to kill as many innocent infidels as you can?
So, how to negate that stereotype?  How to negate the stereotype that Muslims will try to kill infidels?  How about trying to kill as many infidels as possible?
Oh, that would do it. Yeah, right, Abdul.
Note in the meantime, that Abdul did pray in public (his main concern) and nothing happened.  Of course it wouldn't in a PC American campus.
He also railed against the killing of Rohingya Muslims in Burma. Demanding that the US stop it. But...that’s nothing to do with the US.
Good riddance to you Abdul.  Hope you're enjoying those 72 virgins…

Election Therapy From My Basket of Deplorables - NYTimes.com

This is Maureen Dowd's way of eating humble pie as she eats her Thanksgiving turkey (Election Therapy From My Basket of Deporables). Posting an apparently annual "column" that her conservative brother Kevin gives her each Thanksgiving.
I read this as an accompaniment to my listening to her audiobook "The Year of Voting Dangerously", her collection of columns up to but not including the election. She's pretty far to the left, but her columns, to be fair, rounded as much on Hillary as they did on the band of Republican candidates.
It also turns out that she's close to George H. W. Bush and there's a lot of quoting from letters and notes they have exchanged over the years. A very different Republican from today's, that H.W.

‘A recipe for scandal’: Trump conflicts of interest point to constitutional crisis | US news | The Guardian

Interesting!
I had thought, from what's appeared in the press and TV news, that there's no conflict of interest for a president.  Surprising, but that appeared to be the case.
In this piece in The Guardian, it's pointed out that a US president can't take any payment (any "emolument") from outside the US.
That is, any payment to PresidentTrump, via his companies, that came from a foreign source (and he's got hundreds of deals in many countries) would be illegal.
What's he going to do about that? He's got payments coming in all the time, one presumes.  The IRS would know....
Who is going to be the first to take him to court over this? Could it lead to impeachment?

Castro

TO THE BBC:
Enough of the hagiography, already!
Castro was a mass murderer who impoverished his country.
Trump had it right (and I voted Hillary!): "a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people.....".
There's no "nuance" to be had...
Yours, etc

"Trump must try to get Israel's acceptance of a two-state solution". Letters, 19 November

LETTER TO SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST [295 Words]:

Alon Ben-Meir urges Donald Trump to "pressure Israel" to agree a two-state solution (Trump must try to get Israel's acceptance of a two-state solution, Letters, 19 November).

There is little to indicate that President Trump will want to tread into a dispute that has been the graveyard of hopes for seventy years. As Ben-Meir himself notes, even Obama has failed, despite "supreme efforts".

But even if Trump were to wade into these murky waters why is it that only Israel should be pressured? After all, Israel has repeatedly accepted a two-state solution over the last 70 years. Various iterations of Palestine have rebuffed all solutions.

On 1 September 1947, the UN Special Committee on Palestine issued a report proposing a split of the Palestinian Mandate along lines similar to those pursued by Palestinians today.  The Jewish Agency accepted the proposal. The Arab Higher Committee rejected it. [UN Security Council Report October 2016]

Just imagine if the Arabs had accepted the proposal. We would have had none of the murderous mayhem of the last seventy years. Instead of destruction, construction.

Israel has 82 companies listed on the NASDAQ, more than all countries except the U.S. and China. Imagine if this Israeli entrepreneurial spirit had been harnessed with that of the Palestinians. They would today be the mega-Switzerland of the Middle East. They could by now have developed an Israeli-Arab-Palestinian common market, perhaps even a Federation.

Instead, we've had attacks on Israel (all unsuccessful), belligerent intifadas (mostly unsuccessful), and the infamous "Three Nos" -- No peace with Israel, No recognition of Israel and No negotiations with Israel. How is one to negotiate with such intransigent interlocutors?

And yet it's Israel who must be "presssured"?

There's a great deal of hypocrisy amongst observers of the Israeli Palestine conflict.

Yours, etc...

The Disappearing Dialect at the Heart of China’s Capital - NYTimes.com

I'm pasting the whole article, in case you can't use this link:

Sinosphere

By EMILY FENG

BEIJING — To the untutored ear, the Beijing dialect can sound like someone talking with a mouthful of marbles, inspiring numerous parodies and viral videos. Its colorful vocabulary and distinctive pronunciation have inspired traditional performance arts such as cross-talk, a form of comic dialogue, and "kuaibanr,'' storytelling accompanied by bamboo clappers.

But the Beijing dialect is disappearing, a victim of language standardization in schools and offices, urban redevelopment, and migration. In 2013, officials and academics in the Chinese capital began a project to record the dialect's remaining speakers before it fades away completely.

The material is to be released to the public as an online museum and interactive database by year's end.

"You almost never hear the old Beijing dialect on the city streets nowadays," said Gao Guosen, 68, who has been identified by the city government as a "pure" speaker. "I don't even speak it anymore with my family members or childhood friends."

The dialect's most marked characteristic is its habit of adding an "r" to the end of syllables. This, coupled with the frequent "swallowing" of consonants, can give the Beijing vernacular a punchy, jocular feel. For example, "buzhidao,'' standard Chinese for ''I don't know,'' becomes "burdao'' in the Beijing dialect. "Laoshi,'' or "teacher," can come out sounding "laoer."

In the 1930s, China's Republican government began defining and promoting a common language for the country, referred to in English as Mandarin, that drew heavily, but far from completely, on the Beijing dialect. The Communist government's introduction of an official Romanization system in the 1950s reinforced standardized pronunciation for Chinese characters. These measures enhanced communication among Chinese from different regions, but also diminished the relevance of dialects.

A 2010 study by Beijing Union University found that 49 percent of local Beijing residents born after 1980 would rather speak Mandarin than the Beijing dialect, while 85 percent of migrants to Beijing preferred that their children learn Mandarin.

The remaking of the city has also played a role in diluting the language. Into the mid-20th century, much of Beijing's population lived clustered in the hutongs, or alleyways, that crisscrossed the neighborhoods surrounding the Forbidden City. Today, only a small fraction of an estimated 3,700 hutongs remain, their residents often scattered to apartment complexes on the city's outskirts.

The city has also become a magnet for migrants from other parts of China. According to China's last national census, an average of about 450,000 people moved to Beijing each year between 2000 and 2010, making about one-third of Beijing's residents nonlocals.

Mr. Gao, a diminutive man with a booming voice, remembers how different it used to be.

"Until this project, I didn't even know that what I was speaking was a dialect, because everyone around me used to speak like that," Mr. Gao said in his new apartment, not far from the hutong where he lived for more than 60 years.

According to the United Nations, nearly 100 Chinese dialects, many of them spoken by China's 55 recognized ethnic minorities, are in danger of dying out. Efforts are also underway in Shanghai, as well as in Jiangsu and five other provinces, to create databases as part of a project under the Ministry of Education to research dialects and cultural practices nationwide.

Yet the potential loss of the Beijing dialect is especially alarming because of the cultural heft it carries.

"As China's ancient and modern capital, Beijing and thus its linguistic culture as well are representative of our entire nation's civilization," said Zhang Shifang, a professor at the Beijing Language and Culture University who oversaw the effort to record native speakers. "For Beijing people themselves, the Beijing dialect is an important symbol of identity."

The dialect is a testament to the city's tumultuous history of invasion and foreign rule. The Mongol Empire ruled China in the 13th and 14th centuries. The Manchus, an ethnic group from northeast Asia, ruled from the mid-17th century into the 20th. As a result, the Beijing dialect contains words derived from both Mongolian and Manchurian. The intervening Ming dynasty, which maintained its first capital in Nanjing for several decades before moving to Beijing, introduced southern speech elements.

The dialect varied within the city itself. The historically wealthier neighborhoods north of the Forbidden City spoke with an accent considered more refined than that found in the poorer neighborhoods to the south, home to craftsmen and performers.

In Shanghai, some schools teach in Shanghainese rather than Mandarin. The Beijing city government has explored the idea of developing teaching materials in the Beijing dialect. However, these proposals have been criticized by those who fear such lessons would diminish the effectiveness of Mandarin-language education.

"As a Beijing native, I personally hope the dialect will survive,'' said Wang Hong, a third-grade teacher at the Affiliated Elementary School of Peking University. "But if you aren't a native, there's no reason to learn Mandarin plus a dialect. You would just confuse the two."

The researchers documenting the Beijing dialect are quick to stress the preservationist nature of their efforts.

"We aren't promoting the teaching of dialects in school, because China is still a Mandarin-speaking society," said He Hongzhi, the director of the forthcoming online dialect museum, which will showcase some of the recordings collected by Professor Zhang.

For Mr. Gao, the vanishing dialect of his youth is nothing to be mourned, though he is happy that more people are paying attention.

"Society needs a unified language and culture to develop,'' he said. "If we restored the old things, then the road ahead wouldn't exist."

"But I love to listen to the Beijing dialect,'' he said. "It is something innate. When I speak the Beijing dialect, it comes naturally from my heart."

Correction: November 24, 2016

An earlier version of this article misstated the number of officially recognized ethnic minorities in China. There are 55, not 56, minority groups. The Han ethnic group is in the majority, with more than 90 percent of the population.

Democrats Are Obsessed With Race. Donald Trump Isn’t - WSJ

Good article.
We daily see the left, Democrats and others on the broad left, pursuing racial identity politics that Jason Riley identifies here in the Wall Street Journal as one of the reasons for Hillary's dramatic loss. 

Trump's win came from turning around previous Obama voters. So it can't be that that was due to racism. 

Instead it was due to the need for change, seen from America's heartland. And Hillary couldn't be further from being the candidate for change. 

Obama didn't help by saying that it was his legacy on the  line. What legacy?  His failed foreign policy, with Middle East in ruins and Europe overrun by refugees that he enabled? His economic policy of death of a thousand regulatory cuts? His health policy of Obamacare with rising, not falling, premiums?

His hubris was and remains visible. The left's obsession was and remains palpable. 

/Snip

The reality is that Mr. Trump didn't prevail on Election Day because of fake news stories or voter suppression or ascendant bigotry in America. He won because a lot of people who voted for Barack Obama in previous elections cast ballots for Mr. Trump this time. In Wisconsin, he dominated the Mississippi River Valley region on the state's western border, which went for Mr. Obama in 2012. In Ohio's Trumbull County, where the auto industry is a major employer and the population is 89% white, Mr. Obama beat Mitt Romney, 60% to 38%. This year, Trumbull went for Mr. Trump, 51% to 45%. Iowa went for Mr. Obama easily in 2008 and 2012, but this year Mr. Trump won the state by 10 points. Either these previous Obama supporters are closet racists or they're voting on other issues.

Just how partisan is Facebook's fake news? We tested it | PCWorld

This article, fact-checking Facebook's own fact-checking, is interesting. Fake news now very much in the news.
The author created two profiles, one a Trump supporter and one a Hillary supporter. The fake Trump supporter was subject to more negative and fake articles about Hillary, than was the Hillary supporter about Trump (if you can follow that).
I came across this article while looking for a reference to a BBC World Service radio story that I just heard the end of, the other morning. Something along the following lines: that Facebook would remove some stories and replace them with a statement "many people have said this story was factually inaccurate". I couldn't believe they would do that. It's so easy to get a lynching crowd to say something they don't like is "factually inaccurate". I can imagine a case where somebody said "Islam was spread by the sword" , and a posse of islamapologist SJWs complaining that that was factually untrue. Whereas of course it is true.
I haven't found a reference to that yet. Maybe it's fake.

Canadian police force holds seminar against “Islamophobia”

Christine Williams reports the wise words of the Iranian dissident Assadolahi, complaining about the Canadian government's bowing down to the nonsense terminology of "Islamophobia", a term used to silence all criticism of Islam, as in their police force's seminar. 

It would be a brave police person who voiced any concerns about aspects of Islam, however "problematic". 

An open letter was written to Canadian Members of Parliament and Senators to challenge the spurious "Islamophobia" narrative. It was penned by Iranian dissident, writer and activist Shabnam Assadolahi, who asserts: "I have a reasonable fear of radical Islam."

What kind of "minority" is this? Germany in Jihad's crosshairs

German salafists. Who would have thought, 20 years ago?

I read somewhere a few days back -- I can't remember where, but you can be sure it was an authoritative source! -- that German authorities are now worried by the increase in the number of Salafists in Germany's burgeoning Muslim community.

Within that fundamentalist group of Muslims there's a subset that are a Jihadi threat. That is, they're a danger of committing mass murder by suicide; of becoming, that is to say, model shahid warriors according to Islam. 

These salafist jihadis number 9,000 according to the German authorities. Thats not a small number in itself. Imagine if only 1% of them, let alone 10% of them, managed a jihadist attack on the Bundesrepublic. 

But it's worse than that. The number has tripled in the last five years. That's a growth rate of 25% per year. In many cases these jihadis will be be born and brought up in Germany. 

There is no reason to believe that the growth rate of German jihadis will reduce. Why should it when Mad Mutti Merkel carries on with her insane policy of letting in a million more of these jihadi co-religionists every year?

So, expect close to 30,000 jihadis living in Germany by 2020. 30,000 and growing, who will want to wreak murderous havoc on the country that has taken them in or raised them from birth. 

Germany is screwed. It's Merkel's fault.  And the fault of Germans who enable her. They are paralyzed by their guilt for a war that ended seventy years ago. 

Visiting the sins of the ancestors on their progeny, you might say.

Priebus Calls Aspects of Islam ‘Problematic.’ Are They? | PJ Media

Further to the post just before this one, below, here is a detailed outline of why aspects of Islam are "problematic" to the extent that IslamISM is an ism we have to fight against.

CNN disastrously wrong on "Islamism"

Watching CNN just now here in Hong Kong. The anchor had on two guests only one of whose names I got: Lanhee Chen, ex Romney adviser. The other guest was from the left. 

The anchor played a video of new NSA head Gen Flynn talking about "Islamism". 

Flynn compared the fight against Islamism to the fights against other "isms", like Nazism, fascism, imperialism, communism". It's a cancer in the body of 1.7 billion Muslims and needs to be excised, by muslims with non-Muslims help. 

In this he's surely right. 

Islamism is separated from the practice of Islam by this: that Islamism aims to spread Islam to the rest of the world, to create a global Caliphate; but that aim to do so by peaceful means. ANY peaceful means, including  lawfare. They agree with jihadism's aims; just that they don't go for the violent aspect of jihad. 

From the talk of these three on CNN, none of them knew of the definition and aims of *Islamism*.  

They found Flynn's comments "troubling" and wondered about their effect on those "moderate Muslims" that we needed in the fight against terrorism. 

Not knowing that Islamism is just terrorism lite. But still aiming for the global caliphate. 

And that if these so-called "moderates" are "troubled" by Flynn's comments then they aren't really moderate at all.

Trump Summons TV Figures for Private Meeting, and Lets Them Have It - NYTimes.com

Quite extraordinary what Trump is doing with the press. Still taking them on, as president-elect, on Twitter and now in off-the-record meetings at his pad in Trump Tower.
Look at what he's upset about and what he claims is "unfair":
1. Reporting on his tax affairs. But that's of great public interest.
2. Reporting on his affairs with women. But that's of great public interest.
3. Reporting on his legal troubles at Trump University. But that's of great public interest.

So the president-elect is taking on the "newspaper of record" for reporting matters of public interest. Where will this end? The beginning doesn't look good.

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)

LETTER TO BBC:

The presenter (Tulip M'zunda?) on the WorldService radio show about FGM claims that the cutting of young girls in Africa and the Middle East is purely cultural and that there is no religion that mandates it. Indeed Islam did not invent FGM, but it does enable and support it. 

It's not in the Koran, as Tulip correctly states. But it's in the Classic Manual of Islamic Jurisprudence (Umdat al-Salik), the authorised manual of Sunni Islam's legal mandates. 

Section 4.3 says:

Circumcision is obligatory (O: for both men and women. For men it consists of removing the prepuce from the penis, and for women, removing the prepuce (Ar. bazr) of the clitoris (n: not the clitoris itself, as some mistakenly assert). (A: Hanbalis hold that circumcision of women is not obligatory but sunna, while Hanafis consider it a mere courtesy to the husband.) 

‘The Art of the Qur’an,’ a Rare Peek at Islam’s Holy Text - NYTimes.com

Here is a classic in the genre of "bend over backwards to make Islam sound nice". Here it's the New York Times art critic Holland Cotter on an exhibition of Korans, now on in Washington, in 'The Art of the Qu'ran', a Rare Peek at Islam's Holy Text.

Cotter describes the source of the Koran. And he does so by buying into and retailing that story according to what Muslims believe -- that it was the Angel Gabriel talking to Muhammad, an medieval age trader and telling him to "Koran-it". That is to recite it. BUT: Cotter doesn't say that this is what Muslims believe. He writes it down (recites it) as if that were the truth. He does not say, for example,  "Muslims believe that...":

The word Quran (or Koran) is derived from an Arabic verb for speaking from memory or reading aloud. And the book originated with the sound of a voice heard by a man named Muhammad ibn Abdullah near Mecca, the city in what is now Saudi Arabia. A trader by profession, he was in the habit of spending periods of reflection in a cave outside of town. On one visit, in A.D. 610, when he was 40, he heard a command, seemingly coming from nowhere, in Arabic:

Recite! In the name of thy Lord,
Who taught by the pen,
Taught man what he knew not.

Fearing for his sanity, he fled the cave. But he returned, and the voice, which belonged to the Angel Gabriel, spoke again, bringing a message from God. The message named Muhammad prophet of a new monotheistic religion and explained its tenets and beliefs to him. He began to share what he'd heard, but encountered violent resistance, and had to move to another city, Medina. The voice followed him there and would continue to speak until Muhammad's death in 632.

Is it more likely that this man, Muhammad, really heard the angel Gabriel; or that this man, Muhammad, heard voices?  If anyone today, whether or not named Muhammad, said they heard voices from God, they're pretty smartly sent off to the asylum. 

After this particularly Medieval Muhammad started proselytizing, the Jews who then were the majority in today's Saudi Arabia, mocked him. That's in the official Islamic history, the Sirah. But Cotter doesn't report mockery. He says that the Medieval Muhammad met "violent resistance". Not true. Cotter buys into the now familiar Muslim grievance industry. 

As for the growth of Islam, for Cotter, it simply "spread". Nothing about the violence by which it spread. Correctly and infamously, Islam was "spread by the sword". This is well documented in Islamic texts. 

For Cotter the Koran is in ancient Arabic, therefore neither he nor any non Arabic speaker can fully understand what he accepts to be the beauty of its message. And this accounts, per Cotter, the Islamophobia of the likes of Trump. Trump cannot understand the beauty of the basic text of Islam. 

I do not buy the islamopologists' tripe that you can't understand the Koran if you don't understand Arabic. I know Chinese, including Classical Chinese. It's difficult; more so than Arabic. But it can still can be translated. Even by me a non Chinese. 

And what of the world's most populous Muslim country, Indonesia?  They can't speak Arabic. Are they incapable of understanding the core message of Islam?

This is sheer bullshit apologia. By the New York Times no less.

Shame on Cotter. Shame on the New York Times. 

Trump Threatens the Postwar Order - WSJ

The world would have been a much worse, poorer and more dangerous place had not the U.S. guided post-war global developments. No matter how much influential leftists like Noam Chomsky might deny it. 

The Marshall plan, the GATT, the United Nations, patrolling world sea lanes - the world's Mayor and the world's policeperson. 

To this global role Trump is a "clear and present danger", as William A. Glastonbury argues in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. 

/Snip

...the balance sheet is clear: The world the United States has led since the 1940s is more prosperous, more secure and more democratic than it would have been had we stood aside.

Man who led Trump’s digital strategy says his SA company earned more than $90 million | WOAI

Just saw Brad Parscale with Megyn Kelly. He had called the Trump victory well before the election. And was running the Trump campaign's digital programme. He called the election for Trump based on the numbers he was getting via digital and fed to the campaign.
Re FBI Director Comey's letter to congress about Clinton's emails -- the intervention that Hillary blamed for her defeat -- Parscale said that the numbers of undecided breaking for Trump had been increasing well before Comey's intervention just before the election.

Lies in the Guise of News in the Trump Era - NYTimes.com

The BBC World Service ("The World's Radio") had a show just the other about spoof and misinformation sites. I guess one of the best-known satirical sites is The Onion though it was not mentioned in the BBC show. And then there are the outright made-up news sites. I'm sure a lot of people believe their lies -- if the number of friends and acquaintances who quote ridiculous stuff is anything to go by. 

Kristof goes into the subject in some detail here: lies in the guise of news

The take-away is "buyer beware". Do the common sense test. Also read the MSM. If the crazy sounding thing you just heard or read is not in the MSM then it needs more research. 

If  it's NOT in the MSM doesn't make it not true: just that it needs verification. Take, for example, the issue of oppression and murder of Christians in the Middle East. It was covered in detail in the blogosphere for years before the MSM got around to acknowledging it. But for other stuff: confirm and verify.

My prediction: Hillary win...

...  with 300+ Electoral votes

LATER (1:12 pm 9th November. HK time): well I guess I read that one wrong. As did just about everyone else on cable news, from BBC, to Fox, and CNN in between. Unbelievable!  And sick-making. I guess there were a lot of secret Trump supporters who only came out on polling day. 

Donald Trump’s success reveals a frightening weakness in American democracy - Vox

Longish article in VOX, but interesting and worth the read.
The litany of Trumpian lies, deceptions, bigotry and shortcomings.
And of the complicity in all that by an American electorate that pines for the strong leader, the authoritarian, the fascist, even.

Sure Sean ....

Sure, mate. You're spot on, Hillary's a witch and Donald's a saviour.
I'm just watching Sean Hannity's last (thank god!) rant before the election. And a more partisan spewing of factoids you couldn't find. He viscerally hates Hillary and ball-tighteningly worships Trump.
It's kind of surprising (or not), that the channel selling itself as "Fair and Balanced" shiould allow the ranting of a know-nothing like Hannity.
The others on the evening stint -- Megyn Kelly and Bill O'Reilly -- are rather better, especially Megyn who has been an equal-opportunity griller of both sides.
Hannity should be dumped by Rupert sins who are now looking at better positioning Fox News for the future.
By the way, one of the standard gripes of Fox is that the mainstream media is in thrall to Hillary. It's true that apart from Fox, TV news tends left. That said they also tend to try present a balanced picture -- even if balance is not be needed. The world isn't flat, after all, even if some loonies insist it is. There need be no equal time for inanities. But even if you accept the Hannity trope about the leanings of MSM, he doesn't ever mention mainstream radio. Lots of people listen to radio. Rush Limbaugh, for example, has tens of millions of listeners. And he's solidly on the right, even the far right. Most talk back radio is right of centre.  Why doesn't that ignoranus Hannity ever mention that?  I guess I answered my own question. He's an ignoramus. 

WikiLeaks Isn’t Whistleblowing - NYTimes.com

I agree with this article. There's no way that the unchecked vomit-dump of hacked emails is whistleblowing.
It's a purely political act to destabilize the Clinton campaign.
Note that there are no leaks of RNC emails.
Not even Fox News can find any smoking gun amongst the dump. The worst seems to be that a DNC operative leaked a few debate questions to the Clinton camp pre the debate. There was no evidence that Hillary even knew.
But if that's a "dirty trick" (which it is), we can be certain that it's the sort of dirty trick that both parties have done in every campaign since ever I remember. Indeed the Republicans used to be the masters at them: duplicitous attacks on John McCain (an alleged black love child) and on John Kerry (attacks on his war record) come to mind.
But now, according to Trumpistas, what's revealed in the Wikileaks are not dirty tricks any more. Now it's "the system is rigged".
Well, what's rigged is the Wikileaks data dump. Hacked by Russia, passed to the egregious Assange, for him to crap down on the world. All to try to get Putin's favoured candidate into the White House.
As for the bulk of the hacked emails they're about internal party discussions, squabbles and strategising. So what?
/snip

Whistle-blowing, as Mr. Ellsberg did, is a time-honored means for exposing the secret machinations of the powerful. But the release of huge amounts of hacked data, with no apparent oversight or curation, does the opposite. Such leaks threaten our ability to dissent by destroying privacy and unleashing a glut of questionable information that functions, somewhat unexpectedly, as its own form of censorship, rather than as a way to illuminate the maneuverings of the powerful.

LATER: 8th November in the New York Times, and Paul Krugman makes the following points about the hacked emails:

Nothing truly scandalous emerged, but the Russians judged, correctly, that the news media would hype the revelation that major party figures are human beings, and that politicians engage in politics, as somehow damning.