J.R. Nyquist, whose strategic analysis first caught my eye in the mind-expanding book, And Reality Be Damned...., has weighed in on the "war" against American Betrayal with an essay.

"In Defense of Diana West."

by JR Nyquist

There is great confusion in our political discourse today. “Former” Communists in Russia are sounding more and more like conservatives. The same might be said of “former” Communists in the United States. Everyone talks...

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On February 5, 2013, a bullet almost ended the life of Lars Hedegaard, one of the leading champions of free speech in the world, and a dear friend. Danish police have now made an arrest in the case -- in Istanbul.

From Dispatch International:



Would-be assassin of Lars Hedegaard may have been holy warrior in Syria

 

A 26-year-old Lebanese man accused of an attempt on the life of Danish journalist and Dispatch International editor Lars Hedegaard in February 2013 was arrested in Turkey five days ago. According to press reports, he is connected with extremist Islamic circles in Denmark and Sweden and has probably taken part in the fighting in Syria.

 

...

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DVIDS/US Navy photo by Fireman Roderick Eubanks: Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Barry launches a Tomahawk missile in support of Operation Odyssey Dawn on March 19, 2011. This was one of approximately 110 cruise missiles fired from U.S. and British ships and submarines that targeted about 20 radar and anti-aircraft sites along Libya’s Mediterranean coast.

This week's syndicated column

More than Benghazi skeletons should haunt Hillary Clinton's expected 2016 presidential bid. It now seems that the entire war in Libya -- where thousands died in a civil war in which no U.S. interest was at stake -- might well have been averted on her watch and, of course, that of President Obama's. How? In March 2011, immediately after NATO's punishing bombing campaign began, Muammar Qaddafi was "ready to step aside," says retired Rear Admiral Charles R. Kubic, U.S. Navy. "He was willing to go...

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Browsing through the House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings on "Subversive Involvement in Disruption of 1968 Democratic Party National Convention, Part 1," I came across fascinating Page 2260 (screenshot above). It is testimony from committee staffer James L. Gallagher, who was discussing some of the 82 Old Left to New Left groups and publications (some with ties to foreign Communists) the Committee had identified as fomenting mayhem and violence at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Ramparts was the ninth group on the short list. (Note: Both the convention "disruption" and this congressional hearing took place in 1968; David Horowitz was not yet editor of Ramparts. By his own account, Horowitz was not part of the Ramparts contingent that travelled to Chicago for the convention.) There are several points of historical interest in this testimony....

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On November 16, 1933, FDR “normalized” relations with the USSR in spite of overwhelming evidence that USSR was anything but  a “normal” state. On the contrary, it was a self-declared revolutionary entity openly (and covertly) dedicated to the subversion and overthrow of non-Communist nations. The US-USSR agreement included Soviet promises not to foment the overthrow of our Constitution, not to support agents attempting to overthrow our Constitution, and the like – all of which was already underway and, after the agreement, would only increase. Maintaining this diplomatic (later military) relationship, then, required looking the other way, the sustained denial of the facts, and even outright lies – a pattern of behavior, I argue in American Betrayal, that ultimately helped subvert our government, and even our nation’s character.

Without a serious re-examination and revision of these events,...

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This week's syndicated column

The important-sounding Foreign Affairs Council of the European Union has recently reiterated “its strong support for Ukraine’s unity, sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.”

Poor, destabilized, post-putsch Ukraine is to be congratulated for receiving something none of the 28 countries that actually belongs to the EU ever does: support for its sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity. (“Unity” is a more complicated matter, given the EU’s reflexive pox on separatist movements that might prefigure the breakup of the EU itself.) As the world’s pre-eminent transnational entity since the breakup of the USSR, the EU is all about eradicating its members’ sovereignty, independence and borders.

This, of course, is not something most Americans are aware of. When we hear talk of “Europe” vs. Russia, or the importance of extending “European values,”...

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There is nothing theoretical about the European Union's plans to eradicate the nation-states of Europe as sovereign states. These plans are becoming "reality," as the London Telegraph story below explains, and despite all assurances provided by any so-called "opt-out" clause. Meanhile, the emerging shape of federal Europe also shows Western concerns over Russian violations of Ukrainian "sovereignty" to be camouflage for something else. The last thing the EU empire wants to do is safeguard any state's "sovereignty," thus preserving its independence of Brussels. This is not to put a gloss on Putin's opportunism, however, or to recast his motives. It should, on the other hand, bring Brussels' motives in Ukraine under more informed scrutiny.

...

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Not one but several of the lowpoints of what Vladimir Bukovsky & Pavel Stroilov have called a "Soviet-style propaganda campaign" against American Betrayal, what Jed Babbin tagged a "disinformation campaign," and what M. Stanton Evans has described as my "mugging" were logged by The American Thinker website edited by Thomas Lifson.

There was the (1) unsubstantiated parroting of the lies, distortions and fabrications (all debunked here) in an otherwise positive review (which, not incidentally, included the reviewer's declaration that he was now persuaded that Harry Hopkins was an agent of Soviet influence inside the Roosevelt White House); there was the (2) rapid enforcement action by Rado. publicly whacking the positive reviewer (and, of course, my book again in one of a blizzard of Rado-Horo attack pieces); there was (3,4) not one but two other attacks posted at American Thinker by writers who actually admitted in print not to have read my book at all; and 5) lowest of all, there was Thomas...

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This week's syndicated column

When Brandeis University withdrew an honorary degree for Ayaan Hirsi Ali after a student-professor firestorm branded her an “Islamophobe,” the campus in effect declared itself an outpost of Islamic law, American-style. Officially, Brandeis is now a place where critics of Islam – “blasphemers” and “apostates,” according to Islamic law – are scorned and rejected.

Not that Brandeis put it that way in its unsigned announcement about Hirsi Ali’s dis-invitation, which notes: “She is a compelling public figure and advocate for women’s rights, and we respect and appreciate her work to protect and defend the rights of women and girls throughout the world. That said, we cannot overlook … her past statements that are inconsistent with Brandeis University’s core values.”

Translation: Hirsi Ali’s advocacy on behalf of brutalized women is Good, but Hirsi Ali’s “past statements”...

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This week's syndicated column

Whether the Cold War is back, it’s an apt moment to strike up a wider conversation about a couple of central questions from my book American Betrayal. Why did the West fail to claim an ideological or moral victory at the apparent end of the Cold War? Did the West really even win the Cold War?

If we go back in time and listen, we hear no consensus click over signs that an unalloyed U.S.-led triumph over communist ideology had taken place; nor do we find a sense of national thanksgiving for the forces of good – or, at least, for the forces of better – in their triumph over the forces of a non-abstract evil as manifested in Gulag or KGB or famine or purge history. “Mustn’t gloat”...

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This week's syndicated column

It may surprise some Americans to learn that almost one-quarter of the people living in Switzerland are foreigners. Even so, just over 50 percent voted last month to cap immigration, which, unchecked, could leave indigenous Swiss a minority in 50 years. Newsweek’s headline over the story was typical: “Switzerland’s Sudden Fear of Immigrants.”

Fear. Immigrants. The German publication Spiegel Online wrote also about “scaremongering.” The enlightened reader’s thought-bubble is now supposed to register the word “racism.” But was it really “fear of immigrants” – read: “racism” – that drove sufficient numbers of Swiss to the polls to check their own demographic extinction as a recognizable culture and nation-state? Or was it a nearly anachronistic instinct to survive as a recognizable culture and nation-state?

I see it as the instinct to survive – and applaud the...

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I am currently writing about the events referred to in this video, events which Peter Martino has encapsulated well here. In the meantime, there is no one who can explain them with more eloquence and clarity than Geert Wilders himself.

Behold the statue of The Dockworker in Amsterdam (found here via here). It stands between the Portugese Synagogue and the Jewish Historical Museum on Jonas Daniel Meijerplein Square.

Of course, all eyes are drawn to the black flag of Al Qaeda, that elongated and Arabian-curled swaztika, waving beside it.

Back to the statue for a history lesson that makes the appalling symbolism apparent. Below is a screenshot from A Travel Guide to Jewish Europe. It tells us that nearly three-quarters of a century ago, during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, Dutch dockworkers...

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President Obama welcoming Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki, whose cabinet recently approved sharia-based draft law legalizing child rape ("marriage" to 9-year-olds)

This week's syndicated column

You may have missed it, but March 8 was International Women's Day, a holiday unconnected to a religious rite or person, and with no national or even seasonal significance. It is socialist in origin, and it was Lenin himself who made it an official holiday in the Soviet Union. Not surprisingly, it is now a rite of the United Nations.

In these origins lie the day's basic fallacy: that womanhood is an international -- global -- political state of being; that there is a universal female political condition, which urges, a la Marx, "Women of the world, unite!" Against what? The common foe -- men.

As with Marxism itself, for such a sisterhood to coalesce, even on paper or in elite committees...

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Note from Condoleeza Rice to George W. Bush and back again on June 28, 2004.

---

When Westerners and Muslims talk about "freedom," they are talking about two entirely different ideas. Tragically, irresponsibly, the political and academic elite still don't admit or know it. They seem to have learned nothing in more than a decade since 9/11 and the subsequent US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the several years since "Arab Spring."

It's so easy to find the facts it becomes clear they don't want to know them.

The entry on freedom, or hurriyya, in the "Encyclopedia of Islam" describes a state of divine enthrallment that bears no resemblance to any Western understanding of freedom as predicated on the workings of the individual conscience. According to the encyclopedia, Islamic freedom is "the recognition of the essential relationship between God the master and His human slaves...

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This week's syndicated column

Reading as widely on Ukraine as possible, I kept wondering why the story wasn’t making sense. Then I realized the buzzwords used to tell the story weren’t adding up.

Here’s what we hear: Democracy in action drove a corrupt leader, whose snipers had fired on protesters in Kiev, to flee Ukraine. Enter Russian forces into Crimea, Ukraine. The “Free World” must now take its stand against the “Russian Bear” for freedom, sovereignty and rule of law, and reject the outcome of an “unconstitutional” referendum in which Russian-majority-Crimea is expected to vote to join Russia. Meanwhile, please inject billions of Western taxpayer dollars and euros into Ukraine.

Mute the rhetoric, though, and it’s hard not to notice that last month, a violent mob and rump parliament ousted the elected Ukrainian president in another “unconstitutional” process better known as a coup....

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Something's very wrong when the Land of the Free is the envy of Europe for its "centralized government."

From Speigel Online's recent interview on Ukraine with Polish foreign minister Radek Sikoski:

SPIEGEL: Do you feel that Europe is making a weak impression in this crisis? While EU leaders continued to discuss the issue in Brussels, Washington was already imposing stronger sanctions.

Sikorski: The Americans have done even more -- by relocating F-15 and F-16 jets to Eastern Europe, for example. In contrast to Europe, the US has a centralized government. We should learn from the current crisis that European integration must also continue when it comes to security policy.

Sounds to me as if Sikorski is talking about more power for...

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If you thought that in Ukraine we finally had a global crisis sans Islam, think again. My first clue was hearing "Allah Akbars" on a Youtube of some anti-Russia protestors (not in news media). Then, a Ukrainian e-pal from Kiev wrote in, noting, "The Kirimli (Tatars) can ask for help Turks and other Muslim peoples. With Hisb-ut-Tahrir or Wahhabites. It could be a new `hot point.' "

The Tatars of Crimea -- at least the ones who have returned to Crimea in the aftermath of Stalin's mass deportations of nearly 200,000 Tatars in 1944, which would kill nearly half of the population  -- are Muslim and speak a Turkic language.

According to Al Monitor, Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutolgu recently met in Kiev with the former speaker of the Tatar National Assembly, Mustafa Abdulcemil Kirimoglu, and declared: “If the term is appropriate, we are in 'mobilization' to defend the rights of our kin in Crimea by doing whatever is necessary.”

...

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In 2005, drawing from his ground-breaking book A Throne in Brussels, Paul Belien published an essay titled "The Dark Roots of the EU." If ever you have wondered why the EU resembles a socialist superstate, this essay reveals that the EU's earliest theorists were socialists and Nazi sympathizers.

Paul writes:



In the 1930s the idea of transplanting Belgicism to the European level, by creating a unified pan-European corporatist welfare state, was further elaborated on by Henri De Man, the leader of the Belgian Socialist Party, and by his deputy Paul-Henri Spaak. De Man called himself a national socialist, but explained that this had nothing to do with nationalism at all. In fact, one of his major books was called “Au delà du Nationalisme” (“Beyond Nationalism”).

De Man knew that Belgium, as an artificial construct, did not really exist as a nation. The Belgian state was no more...

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You can't. It's not possible.

Yes, Europe's Islamization is more overtly advanced -- from de jure sharia courts in England to de factos sharia courts in Germany, no-go-zones in all major cities, halal food galore, sharia speech curbs everywhere, mosque proliferation -- but the US is being Islamized, too, maybe more neatly and more quietly, but with no such vocal and passionate political opposition.

Somehow, Europe has spawned courageous politicians such as Switzerland's Oskar Freysinger, whom I had the pleasure of intereviewing at his home in the Alps several years ago, Belgium's Filip de Winter (ditto in Antwerp), The Netherlands' Geert Wilders, whom I have interviewed on several occasions, among others, but America has not. We have no one here who addresses the Islamic threat in clear, forthright terms, not even among those conservative politicians who parade before CPAC, all the while fancying themselves defenders of the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.

...

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I have been trying to figure out why from the start I have balked at the mainstream narrative framing the struggle in the Ukraine as that of a classic, black-hat, white-hat struggle  -- Tyranny versus Freedom.

First, there are the players. It's just hard for me to see a white hat on the European Union, which in no way stands for preserving the liberty of the citizen. The EU stands for central control -- "soft" tyranny -- "soft" empire, too, and for the end of national sovereignty. A few weeks ago, in fact, I hailed Switzerland's successful, anti-EU referendum to wrest more control of its borders and immigration policy from Brussels, the EU "capital." Could the EU possibly be suporting the sovereignty of Ukraine, or of any other country for that matter? Certainly, that's what we are to believe, but the evidence is not convincing. Worth remembering also is that the EU is helmed by a bevy of erstwhile Communist, Marxist, Maoist and nuclear freezenik ministers who rule by means of an unelected, non-accountable governing structure that Vladimir Bukovsky has likened to that of the old Soviet Politburo. (I discuss the EU in American Betrayal in the context of who really won the Cold War.)   

...

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As thousands of conservatives from across the country gather outside Washington, D.C., this week for the annual CPAC conference, they get to see and cheer on their favorite conservative all-stars and presidential hopefuls in person – Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Dr. Ben Carson, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter and many more. But something else is going on. Amid the hoopla, book signings, meet and greets, speeches, panels and bands, a tense, no-holds-barred fight is under way to try to rid CPAC of a pair of influential men with track records of working with America’s enemies – Islamic organizations the U.S. government has linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and larger world of jihad.

It sounds like the setup to a thriller: Here is the pre-eminent showcase of red-meat conservatism, and at its organizational heart are movers and shakers with links to the world jihadist movement. But these are the facts as laid out in a meticulous, 40-plus-page “Statement of Facts” solemnly signed last month by former CIA Director...

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"Intercepted" phone conversations between unelected officials are magically appearing on Youtube -- something George Orwell, I don't believe, gave much imaginative thought to.

First, there was Victoria Nuland's intercepted conversation with the US Amb to Ukraine -- a gem, which left us with much more than the headline  "F--- the EU" to contemplate. Such as: Why do unelected American bureacrats think they can/should pick new governments for foreign countries?

Now, there is the Estonian foreign minister's intercepted phone call with Baroness Catherine Ashton, the unelected "foreign minister" of the EU, which is also known as, pace V Bukovsky, as the "EUSSR." The Estonian minister relays evidence to Ashton conveyed to him by a Ukrainian medical official that some element of the opposition was behind the snipers. Estonia and the Ukrainian health official have since tried to walk back the story -- although Estonia has authenticated the call.











...

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Sunday, March 2:

From Minnesota Conservatives blog:

Diana West is the exclusive guest for the full hour of Gilmore & Glahn radio, Sunday, March 2, 2014 at 4 p.m. CT. Please go here to listen in real time. The podcast will be linked to below once the show has aired.

Gilmore & Glahn are honored to have Diana West tell their listeners the real story of what she found while conducting what she has called "investigative history." Don't miss Radio Worth Your Time™

Details here.

This week's syndicated column

Finally, a headline of my dreams: “Rand Paul: Democrats Should Be ‘Embarrassed’ to be Seen With Bill Clinton.”

In fact, the headline is stronger than Sen. Paul’s actual statement – Democrats “ought to be a little embarrassed” – but I’ll gladly take it and extend my heartfelt thanks and congratulations to Sen. Paul for being the first political leader I can remember (perhaps only?) to acknowledge the obvious: Bill Clinton, gross-out, serial sexual predator accused of rape by Juanita Broaddrick (not to mention virtual creator of the Red Chinese military threat through releases of military technology in exchange for campaign contributions), is a national disgrace. Yes, Democrats should be “embarrassed” to be seen with him – and with his wife, too, but that’s another column.

The reality, of course, is that Democrats celebrate Clinton, showcasing him as a keynote speaker at the 2012 National Democratic Convention, for example. But I doubt it’s just Democrats who still scrap for his autograph, pay a hefty year’s salary (six figures) for one speech and generally treat Bill Clinton like a respected and laudatory personage. And that’s a problem.

...

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Finally, a headline of my dreams: "Rand Paul: Democrats Should Be `Embarassed' To Be Seen With Bill Clinton." In fact, the headline is stronger than Paul's actual statement -- Democrats "ought to be a little embarassed" -- but I'll gladly take it, and extend my heartfelt thanks and congratulations to Sen. Paul for being the first political leader I can remember (maybe ever?) to state the obvious: Bill Clinton, sexual predator and accused rapist, not to mention creator of the Chinese military threat (for campaign contributions), is a national disgrace,...

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On Feb. 9, 50.3  percent of Swiss voters passed a referendum to cap immigration from the EU. In the course of a (very hostile) Spiegel Online interview with Christoph Blocher, leader of the Swiss People's Party, the impetus becomes clear. The EU's so-called freedom of movement -- read: untrammeled immigration into decreasingly sovereign states --  has approached a crisis for Swiss nationhood.

"Some 23.8 percent of Switzerland's population is comprised of foreigners, and almost 15 percent are first-generation naturalized Swiss citizens," Blocher said. "No similar European state has anything like that."

Once the shocking fact that nearly one in four people in Switzerland are foreigners sinks in, it seems logicial to conclude, as Galliawatch does, that many if not most non-native voters probably opposed the immigration cap. That means that the outcome among native Swiss was likely...

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"The Grinning Generals" by Rob Crllly is a recent London Telegraph story all about the above photo of two generals, one Afghan, one American. Noting the identity of the pair -- Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson, the new ISAF commander, and Maj. Gen. Abdul Raziq, the police chief of Kandahar "accused of corruption, drug running and, most extraordinarily of all, mass murder," Crilly is incredulous that this unseemly embrace was not secretly snapped and smuggled to news media. On the contrary, it is an official US government handout.

Pictures are snapped not by an outraged junior officer with an anonymous Facebook account, nor are they leaked surreptitiously to the media. The photographs are in fact distributed by the US military's own media outfit.

...

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House Speaker John Boehner made headlines on February 6 for tabling immigration "overhaul" -- one week after indicating it was at the top of this session's agenda.

But don't think anyone has put the hatchets away. Measures hacking away at the US border, US citizenship, and US law itself continue across the land even as Congress increasingly becomes the 535-figured-headed white elephant on the Hill. More American Betrayal, and at breakneck speed.

Some recent dispatches from the world of do-it-yourself, forget-about-the-legislature, immigration-policy-making.

Feb. 4: TheStreet.com reports "DREAMers Get BiPartisan Support as Donald Graham Joins Grover Norquist."

TheStreet,com reports:

Immigration reform may be at an intractable standstill but former Washington Post Publisher Donald Graham is creating an organization to do what the federal government has been unable to do: help make it possible for young, undocumented immigrants to go to college, and by extension,...

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I will be writing more about an extraordinary development in what has heretofore been former Reagan-era Pentagon official Frank Gaffney's heroic but very lonely quest: namely, to throw light on what ten prominent former national security officials are now publicly calling Grover Norquist's and Suhail Khan's "ties to and activities in support of Islamists inside the United States, including the Muslim Brotherhood, its operatives, front groups and agenda."

In other words, their ties and activities in support of ... enemy jihadists.

This case of stealth jihad inside the Right now has the on-the-record endorsement of 1) former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, 2) former CIA Director James Woolsey, 3) former Rep. Allen West, 4) fomer Commander in Chief,...

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This (above) is a screen shot of a tweet from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, regarding Obama's most recent executive branch power grab from the legislative branch. Grassley's bottom line: "Obama admin can't change law w memo."

Grassley also put the same message in proper English in a statement reported in the Washington Post:

“Marijuana trafficking is illegal under federal law, and it’s illegal for banks to deal with marijuana sale proceeds under federal law. Only Congress can change these laws. The administration can’t change the law with a memo.”

But "the administration" is doing exactly that...

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State Department photo/public domain

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This week, The Washington Free Beacon published a story by Alana Goodman based on excerpts from the papers of Deeda Blair, an intimate friend of Hillary and Bill Clinton, under the headine, "The Hillary Papers: Archive of Closest Friend Paints Portrait of Ruthless First Lady."

Media filters -- censors -- went haywire  attempting to downplay and dismiss the findings (NBC's Andrea Mitchell admitted on "Morning Joe" that she had argued against NBC even mentioning the Free Beacon story), which are of interest given the source: Hillary Clinton's best friend. That is, the evidence has long and redundantly demonstrated that Hillary Rodham Clinton is "ruthless" -- Goodman finds the adjective in a heretofore unpublished 1992 report by Clinton presidential campaign pollsters Stan Greenberg and Celinda Lake -- but...

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I am happy to say that American Betrayal continues to be reviewed, debated and discussed widely. I couldn't have been more pleasantly surprised than when I noticed this charming Twitter pic and profile above -- a soulmate, clearly, but no relation!

The book is also, I gather from Twitter, making the rounds in The Netherlands, and I just posted a new letter in Reader's Corner from Kiev, Ukraine. In December, a letter, also posted in Reader's Corner, came in from St. Petersburg, Russia.



Recently, along with unprecedentedly lavish coverage...

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This week's syndicated column:

One of the hats I wear is that of Washington correspondent for Dispatch International, a European weekly newspaper co-edited by Danish journalist and historian Lars Hedegaard. The name may ring a bell with U.S. readers because last February, a man dressed up as a postman with a fake package tried to assassinate Hedegaard, a noted critic of Islamization and proponent of free speech, at his home in Copenhagen. International headlines followed.

One year later, Hedegaard lives under state protection, and there have been no arrests. But that’s not what this week’s column is about.

A few days ago, Hedegaard wrote me with a new assignment:

“Would you write something about a disturbing phenomenon: the fact that Obama rules by decree and neglects the Constitution. How can this go on? Nixon was a complete amateur compared to this would-be Kim Jong-un....

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America was lucky to have him.

Maybe next time we can at least elect a president who can ride a horse.

It sounds like opera. Venice been sold down the river to the Emir if Qatar by Letta the Prime Minister and Orsoni the Mayor. Enter Bitonci, the hero from Lega Nord. Things don't end well. 

Western civilization, weep.

From the Daily Mail:

Venetians are up in arms over plans to build an Islamic centre on the banks of the lagoon city's Grand Canal.

Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta announced plans to build the Islamic museum and study centre during a meeting with the Emir of Qatar.

Letta, who is in the Middle East to drum up investment for Italy’s woe-begotten state industries, said the leaders had ‘made a commitment to explore the opportunity to build an Islamic museum in Venice on the Grand Canal.’

...

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Via Andrew Bostom.

On November 25, 2013, Forbes noted:

Over the long run the easing of sanctions against Iran spells trouble for the economics of the tight oil plays that have sprung up across the United States in recent years. The Eagle Ford and Permian Basin and Bakken need sustained high oil prices to make the economics of expensive drilling and steep decline rates pay off. It’s no coincidence that America’s great oil and gas renaissance has coincided with sanctions on Iran and unrest in Libya. The concern for U.S. drillers is that successful Middle Eastern diplomacy could end up being the worst thing for their business. If crude oil benchmarks were to fall to $75 a barrel...

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This week's syndicated column

I can’t believe I’m writing these words: Marine Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III is going on trial – again.

Twice, Hutchins’ conviction by a military court martial for unpremeditated murder in Iraq has been overturned due to factors precluding a fair trial. That means that twice, following Hutchins’ initial conviction in 2007, he has been released from the brig a free man.

After his conviction was overturned the first time, there were eight months of freedom in 2010. Then, on the day his wife Reyna found out she was pregnant with their second child, Hutchins, a third-generation Marine, returned to prison. Last summer, the military’s highest appeals court overturned his conviction a second time. For the past six months, Hutchins has been living with Reyna and their two children, Kylie, 8, and Aidan, 2, while teaching marksmanship at Camp Pendleton. A new baby is on the way. Now, he – and they – must prepare for a new trial, his third. Why?

...

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The Washington Post's Walter Pincus has extracted some other items of interest from Robert Gates' book, Duty (noted earlier here). These include the forgotten fact that the Bush administration discussed withdrawing the "surge" in Iraq even as it was getting underway, much as the Obama administration would do more emphatically vis a vis Afghanistan. (Similarly, a withdrawal date from Iraq was set by Bush.)

Also this:

Another Gates disclosure provides another lesson: information about Syria building in 2005 what turned out to be a North Korean-designed nuclear reactor capable of producing plutonium during the Bush administration.

Though the United States considered Syria a high-priority intelligence target, it was Israel that supplied the compelling evidence in spring 2007 about its nuclear activities. Gates, a former CIA director, said this represented “a significant failure on...

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This week's syndicated column

Two Iraqi men in their 20s have been convicted of a bloody sex crime in Colorado that left the victim, a woman in her 50s, in need of immediate surgery and a colostomy bag. Three other Iraqi men, also in their 20s,were convicted on lesser charges as accessories.

Four points set this case apart. First, there is its brutality: Law enforcement officers describe the July 2012 assault as "rare" and "horrific" and "one of the worst in Colorado history." Second, all of these men once assisted U.S. military forces in Iraq as informants and interpreters. Third, every one of them received permanent residency status in the U.S., due in part to efforts made by U.S. military members on their behalf. Fourth, this extraordinary case and the ties that bind it to the U.S. military and the war in Iraq have received little coverage.

Most of what the public knows...

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At Breitbart News today -- the 64th anniversay of the conviction of Alger Hiss, by the way -- M. Stanton Evans has published a brand new article, "`McCarthyism by the Numbers." Besides laying to rest the canard that Sen. Joseph McCarthy's investigations only netted a "few small fry," it concretely strengthens the defense of American Betrayal against all those tired, postmodern, juju-charges of "McCarthyism."

Which isn't to say, of course, that I don't take "McCarthy's heiress" as a compliment.

"`McCARTHYISM' BY THE NUMBERS"

by M. Stanton Evans

The orchestrated attack on Diana West’s important book, American Betrayal, has been brutal and unseemly, but in one respect at...

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In 2012, five Iraqi men in their 20s were arrested on charges in Colorado related to the extremely bloody rape and assault of a woman, who has been variously described as elderly or middle-aged. It was a sex crime so violent law enforcement describe it as "rare" and "horrific" and "one of the worst in Colorado history."

Finally, the last defendant in the crime now comes to trial. His name is Jasim Ramadon, above in orange. A decade ago, Jasim, known as "Steve-O," helped US troops i.d. Saddam loyalists, including his father.  

UPDATE: Jasim Ramadon has been convicted on multiple counts of sexual assault.

As the disturbing realization...

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After endorsing the gubernatorial run of conservative California Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, a Tea Party favorite who opposes illegal immigration, actress Maria Conchita Alonso "abruptly" left the cast of a San Francisco play this week.

From the local CBS story:

The actress was to perform next month at the Brava Theater Center in San Francisco’s Mission District in a Spanish-language version of “The Vagina Monologues,” scheduled for a run from February 14th through 17th. The show is being produced by none other than Eliana Lopez, wife of San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi.

“We really cannot have her in the show, unfortunately,” Lopez told KPIX 5. She said Alonso abruptly resigned from the cast on Friday, given the backlash on the immigration issue.

“Of course she has the right to say whatever she wants. But we’re in the middle of the Mission. Doing what...

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One of my favorite sites, Tundra Tabloids, is currently under a massive DDOS assault launched by enemies of free speech. No worries. After armoring up, TT will be back online.  

I've been mulling how -- or even whether -- to mark the appearance of six entries on American Betrayal in the January 2014 issue of The New Criterion. The issue contains an essay by editor Roger Kimball and five letters, all devoted to my book, or, rather, to  Andrew C. McCarthy's review of American Betrayal, which appeared in the December 2013 issue. Why so much ink? The answer is simple. Andy McCarthy, the celebrated former federal prosecutor, noted author and commentator, had the temerity to write positive things about my book in his December review. Like a clanging bell to Pavlov's dog, this review drove Ronald Radosh and Conrad Black to churn out letters to the editor explaining to McCarthy the error of his ways. By my count, this becomes the fifth, maybe even the sixth piece by Radosh, and the fourth or fifth by Black. Harvey Klehr and John Haynes also write in general protest. I...

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All I can say is that it's been way too long since Tom Stone has published a guest-blog here.

"Regarding Michael O’Sullivan’s review of Lone Survivor in the January 10, 2014 Washington Post, Weekend Section."

by Tom Stone

I don’t know if Mr. O’Sullivan has ever been in the military, let alone in combat.  Let us not get into an argument over whether we should go to war, for whatever reason, this movie is not about that. War is a terrible thing, has been for thousands of years, an unavoidable consequence of man’s ignorance, of man’s inhumanity to man. War is in our genes and will never cease.  I dare anyone to argue that. I have seen war in Vietnam, and like my father and my father-in-law in WWII, and my son in Iraq and Afghanistan, experienced the worst...

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March 1940 NKVD memo by Beria, released by Russia in 2010, proposing mass execution of thousands of Polish POWs. Signed approval by Stalin, K. Voroshilov, V. Molotov, and A. Mikoyan. Signatures in left margin are M. Kalinin and L. Kaganovich. Soviet guilt for this massacre was known to US and GB beginning in 1943, but Allies joined Stalin's conspiracy of silence.

This week's syndicated column

The power of history to speak to us depends on our ability to hear it. When we are deaf to its secrets, or too confused or conditioned to decipher them, we miss the opportunity to be empowered by them. We thus fail to overcome the propaganda our own government, like the dictatorships we revile, has all too often deceived us with.

I am struck by this aura of static around a sensational new discovery. Researcher and author...

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RLN.fm, a news site described to me as "Russian libertarian" (yes, you read right), has included me among 20 "important American conservatives." I tossed the site's Russian-language write-up into Google Translate to learn this recognition comes due to  American Betrayal.

It is wonderful to see how far and wide American Betrayal has already traveled -- as far as Australia, where a positive review is now the top featured article online in the January 2014 issue of Quadrant, edited by Keith Windshuttle, and now even to Russia. I recently learned that a Polish-language translation of American...

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