As almost nobody watched the last Democratic debate, you may have missed Hillary Clinton’s charge that Donald Trump had become the Islamic State’s “best recruiter” by supposedly antagonizing Muslims [ Hillary Clinton: Donald Trump ‘Becoming ISIS’s Best Recruiter ,’ by Amanda Terkel, Huffington Post, December 19, 2015]. Now Al Shabaab, an Al-Qaeda offshoot active in Somalia, put out a propaganda video containing a clip of Trump unveiling his plan to halt Muslim immigration in between clips of a terrorist leader saying Muslims would eventually be forced to fight against all Western nations [ Donald Trump appears in Al Shabaab’s new terrorism recruiting video , by Kellan Howell,  Washington Times, January 2, 2016]. The Left is claiming vindication, with the lesser Charles Johnson (not the editor of GotNews) snarking: “Terrorist group Al-Shabaab is now using Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim bigotry as a recruiting tool, exactly as Hillary Clinton stated” [ Al-Shabab Terror Group Uses Donald Trump Soundbite in Recruitment Video , Little Green Footballs, January 2, 2016]. Typically, Trump has brushed aside this claim and struck back hard (“the video that ISIS made was about her husband being a degenerate”) [ Trump dismisses terror video, hits Clinton again, by Eric Bradner, CNN, January 3, 2016]. But the real question: why are Americans supposed to care what a bunch of foreigners think?

Clinton’s actual charge was that Trump was featured in propaganda for the Islamic State, which is currently in an intra-jihadist shooting war with Al-Qaeda [ Think Islamic State has dealt a knock-out blow to al-Qaeda? Think again , by Hugh Naylor,  Washington Post, December 26, 2015]. There’s still no proof of that, so Trump’s charge that Clinton made the whole thing up is still valid. As we all know, You Can’t Stump the Trump.

But never mind. There is a deeper issue here: the Left’s contention that the only way to defeat Islamic radicalism is through moderate Mohammedans convincing their co-religionists to leave us alone. Donald Trump, we are told, is no less than a threat to national security because he threatens this plan. [ USA Today: Trump a ‘threat to national security,’  by Eddie Scarry,  Washington Times, December 8, 2015]

But there are problems with this argument. The most obvious: it’s ridiculous to say Islamic radicals didn’t have a problem with us until Trump came along. America has been facing Islamic terrorism since well before September 11, all the way back to the Barbary Pirates. [ U.S. at war with Islam since Thomas Jefferson’s time , by Bill Federer,  WND, February 15, 2015]

A bigger problem: this theory holds that only foreigners are allowed to pronounce on the United States. Americans are not even regarded as a consideration in this mindset. And, as absurd as it sounds, this is precisely the strategy both the Republicans and the Democrats have Read more >>

Each year, “The McLaughlin Group,” the longest-running panel show on national TV, which began in 1982, announces its awards for the winners and losers and the best and the worst of the year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV59n3z3gXc

Rereading my list of 39 awardees [Full Transcript] suggests something about how our world is changing.

As Read more >>

Donald Trump has shifted the Overton Window, soaring to the top of the polls while championing issues the political class believed were off-limits. But even Trump seemed to side with the Left in deploring Justice Antonin Scalia’s recent remarks about Affirmative Action’s paradoxical negative impact on African-Americans. Of course, Scalia had an entirely reasonable point. However, it’s time to face up to the real scandal: the damage that Affirmative Action does to displaced whites (and Asians).

During oral arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas, UT attorney Greg Garre argued that when school dropped Affirmative Action policies, diversity plummeted. Scalia commented:

“I'm just not impressed by the fact that the University of Texas may have fewer [black students without Affirmative Action]. Maybe it ought to have fewer…And I don't think it stands to reason that it's a good thing for the University of Texas to admit as many blacks as possible."

[ Read the most controversial statement by Justice Scalia on admissions and race, by Robert Barnes, Washington, Post, December 10, 2015]

Scalia then said:

"There are those who contend that it does not benefit African--Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less advanced school, a less —a slower—track school where they do well,"

These remarks reportedly “drew muted gasps” from the attendees [ Supreme Court Justices’ Comments Don’t Bode Well for Affirmative Action, by Adam Liptak, New York Times, December 9, 2015].

After the arguments, the gasps were less muted:

• Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid [Email him] claimed

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[Adapted from the latest Radio Derb,now available free of charge, exclusively on VDARE.com.]

"Ignorance is strength" said the Party slogan in Nineteen Eighty-Four. For sure, in the Western world of 2015, knowledge will get you into trouble. Whether or not ignorance is strength, in the Western world today, ignorance is definitely social acceptance. Do Americans of all people really not know—that nations with big racial minorities are arenas of discord, social friction, group rancor, and perpetual conflict? How did we get so stupid?

It's not just us, of course. All the old Anglo-Saxon and northwest European countries have enstupidated themselves in the same way. Look at Germany. Look at Britain.

Case in point: Oliver Letwin, an Old Etonian grandee (albeit American-descended), 59 years old, married with two kids, an Anglo-Jewish intellectual who has spent his entire adult life in politics, although never at the highest levels. He's a Tory Member of Parliament and currently a senior policy adviser to David Cameron, Britain's stupid, worthless, and repulsive Prime Minister.

Thirty years ago, precisely in October 1985, Letwin was a junior policy Read more >>

Fruitcake apocalypse.     Whiny, pampered college students have their microaggressions. For the rest of us there are microsatisfactions and microdisappointments. Here's my microdisappointment of the Christmas season.

It's eccentric, I know, but I love fruitcake. I would eat those things all day long if not held back by nutritional common sense and a stern wifely eye. Thus constrained, I limit myself to one fruitcake per annum, at Christmas of course.

For many years I've been getting my fruitcakes on mail order from Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville, Virginia. Around Thanksgiving I'd get their promotional booklet in the mail, with a form you could fill out to specify what goodies you wanted, in what quantities.

This past half-dozen years I haven't bothered with the form. When the booklet arrived I'd just phone in my order to a pleasantly monkish voice at the other end — Brother Ambrose or Brother Matthew — telling them to send the same cake they'd sent the previous year. I was what the retail trades call a regular.

Well, this year Thanksgiving came and went with no booklet from Holy Cross. Had I dropped off their mailing list somehow? I went to the Abbey's website.

Fruitcakes 2015-2016

Fruitcakes are NOT available for shipping! They can be purchased only by driving to the Holy Cross Abbey Gift Shop in Berryville, Virginia.

Do NOT call the monasteryfruitcake.org customer service number

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I’ll post another update when I get our final numbers, but I don’t want to wait any longer to say: THANK YOU!

The conclusion of our biggest fundraising period of 2015, the Year-End Appeal, was midnight last night. Not only is the Year-End Appeal our biggest push annually, but 2015’s appeal Read more >>