Secretary of State John Kerry told the House Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday that the U.S. should be wary of trusting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s warnings on Iran, because Netanyahu had also backed the Iraq War. Kerry’s remarks were hypocritical, since he also supported the war. And they raise the disturbing suggestion, beloved of conspiracy theorists, that Israel is dragging the U.S. to war. Yet it is worth asking whether Kerry’s criticism has merit.
by Joel B. Pollak25 Feb 2015, 1:57 PM PST0
Former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has decided not to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by liberal Democrat Barbara Boxer after 2016. With strong support among Latino voters in California, Villaraigosa was seen as a major potential threat to Attorney General Kamala Harris, who was the first to declare for the seat.
by Joel B. Pollak24 Feb 2015, 10:41 PM PST0
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has turned down an invitation to meet with Senate Democrats, according to Reuters, politely informing them that meeting with one party alone “could compound the misperception of partisanship regarding my upcoming visit,” according to Reuters. It is a response that reprises Democrats’ complaints about the speech Netanyahu is to deliver before a joint session of Congress on March 3–and turns their own arguments against them.
by Joel B. Pollak24 Feb 2015, 9:48 PM PST0
The whiz kids of Silicon Valley are celebrating the GOP’s apparent collapse on Net Neutrality. The New York Times exults: “the little guys appear to have won.” It omits that the “little guys” are some of the richest people in America, and–by their own lights–the smartest. The odd thing is that the nerds who have an app for everythng seem to be unable to explain what Net Neutrality actually is, and why we need it. Case in point: Tuesday’s epic failure by Tumblr CEO David Karp on CNBC.
by Joel B. Pollak24 Feb 2015, 6:49 PM PST0
The Black Conservatives Fund (BCF), a political action committee (PAC) that declares it is “committed to turning out the black vote and elect black conservatives at every level of government,” has launched a fundraising drive around an effort to draft former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to run for U.S. Senate in California to replace retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA). A recent poll showed that Rice outperformed all other candidates, actual and potential, from either major party.
by Joel B. Pollak24 Feb 2015, 8:20 AM PST0
A new Field Poll reveals that a majority of California registered voters still have a very positive view of Gov. Jerry Brown–even though a similar majority also believes he spends too much money on big government projects the state cannot afford.
by Joel B. Pollak24 Feb 2015, 6:31 AM PST0
Former Harvard Law School professor and renowned defense attorney Alan Dershowitz has slammed President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats over their efforts to undermine Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress next week. In an op-ed to be published in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, Dershowitz accuses “Obama of direct intrusion on the power of Congress and on the constitutional separation of powers” in his objections to the speech.
by Joel B. Pollak23 Feb 2015, 5:30 PM PST0
The family of Kayla Mueller, the American hostage and humanitarian who was killed by ISIS earlier this month, has launched a new 501(c)3 charity in her memory. The charity, Kayla’s Hands, was announced by the family in an interview with NBC News that aired on the Today show Monday morning. It links to a website that promotes causes with which Mueller had worked, including the International Solidarity Movement, a radical pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel organization.
by Joel B. Pollak23 Feb 2015, 6:30 AM PST0
Despite the presence of Republican presidential contenders in the Golden State this weekend, a pair of Field Polls released late last week look grim for the GOP. One shows President Barack Obama’s approval rating among likely voters in the Golden State rising to 57%, “the best appraisal of Obama in over two years by Californians.” The other shows that fewer than one in five Californians approve of Congress, and a near-majority say Republican control of both houses of Congress is a bad thing.
by Joel B. Pollak22 Feb 2015, 6:14 AM PST0
On the eve of his historic, controversial, and critically-important address to Congress next week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a small-ball political barrage in Israel. His party, the Likud, lost a challenge against a U.S.-funded left-wing group, V15. The Prime Minister is being investigated for allegedly pocketing the deposits on beverages served at his residence, and his rivals are blaming him for rising housing prices in Israel, documented in a new report.
by Joel B. Pollak22 Feb 2015, 5:55 AM PST0
Thursday marked the sixth anniversary of CNBC editor Rick Santelli’s famous “rant heard ’round the world” from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. It was the moment that launched a nascent movement, rousing conservatives to stand up to the radical presidency of Barack Obama. As I note in my recent book Wacko Birds: The Fall (and Rise) of the Tea Party, the Tea Party succeeded in stopping much of Obama’s agenda. It has since helped the GOP retake both Houses of Congress.
by Joel B. Pollak20 Feb 2015, 7:40 AM PST0
Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani thinks that President Barack Obama doesn’t love America, and has now said so in public. He’s repeated the claim, several times, as he has been forced to defend it. Predictably, Democrats have seized on
by Joel B. Pollak20 Feb 2015, 5:10 AM PST0
The Obama administration has no shame whatsoever about its denialist approach to radical Islamic terror. Rather than admit that its conference on “violent extremism” was, at best, window-dressing after the embarrassment of avoiding the Paris anti-terror march, it is attempting to turn political correctness into a foreign policy doctrine. The latest example is Secretary of State John Kerry’s “plan” for fighting “violent extremism,” published Thursday in the Wall Street Journal.
by Joel B. Pollak19 Feb 2015, 5:08 AM PST0
The most outrageous thing about President Barack Obama’s “extremism” summit Wednesday was not that it failed to identify Islamic terror as the primary threat. Nor was it that there were several Muslim representatives with extremist views present. Nor was it that the president still refuses to acknowledge ISIS (or ISIL) as “Islamic”—even while referring to it by an acronym whose first letter stands for “Islamic.”
by Joel B. Pollak18 Feb 2015, 5:31 PM PST0
The leader in the race to replace retiring U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) in America’s most liberal state is… Republican Condoleezza Rice, according to a new Field Poll released Wednesday. Rice, the former Secretary of State and Stanford don, is backed by 49% of voters–ahead of Attorney General Kamala Harris, the liberal Democrat who was the first to declare.
by Joel B. Pollak18 Feb 2015, 6:27 AM PST0
SACRAMENTO, California — Breitbart California marked its first year on the statewide media and political scene with a happy hour across the street from the State Capitol on Tuesday evening. A bipartisan crowd of legislators, staffers, political activists, journalists, think-tank scholars and well-wishers joined the Breitbart California staff at Chops Sacramento.
by Joel B. Pollak18 Feb 2015, 5:26 AM PST0
The mainstream media are reporting the “standoff” over gay marriage in Alabama as if the state’s Chief Justice, Roy Moore, is the reincarnation of (Democrat) George Wallace, standing in the schoolhouse door, defying the federal government over desegregation. The meme suits the gay rights movement perfectly, as activists have long likened the struggle for marriage to the struggle against Jim Crow anti-miscegenation laws. Yet Moore is simply following the Constitution, not defying it.
by Joel B. Pollak17 Feb 2015, 6:00 AM PST0
The State Department spokesperson has the task of defending the president’s foreign policy more often than any other government official. During President Barack Obama’s first term, that unenviable task fell to the opaque Victoria Nuland, whose redeeming feature was that there was a spine behind the smokescreen. (“F*** the E.U.,” she famously said, albeit in private, on Russia and the Ukraine.) Not so with successors Jen Psaki and Marie Harf, the clueless defending the hopeless.
by Joel B. Pollak17 Feb 2015, 4:34 AM PST0
Presidents Day 2015 comes in the midst of an upheaval about the state of U.S. foreign policy, and particularly regarding the State of Israel, whose Prime Minister will arrive in two weeks to deliver what will amount to a rebuke of President Obama’s negotiating stance on Iran. As this particular holiday lends itself to ranking the presidents from best to worst, it is worth considering how they compare on relations with Israel, which has been–despite ups and downs–a staunch ally since 1948.
by Joel B. Pollak16 Feb 2015, 11:15 AM PST0
The circle of caring and empathy often extended by liberal Americans to all and sundry is not as universal as it seems. It tends to exclude those who take pride in fighting for their country and their values–as well as those who are under attack and have no choice but to fight. And it often excludes pro-Israel Jews, and Israelis.
by Joel B. Pollak15 Feb 2015, 6:15 AM PST0
The pair of deadly shootings on Saturday in Copenhagen–one at a free-speech debate, one near a synagogue–reprise last month’s terrorist attacks in Paris by targeting journalists and Jews once more. If, as suspected, the shootings are the work of Islamic terrorists, it is clear that the West faces an enemy determined not only to kill, but to destroy our core values. That, in turn, means that the West must wage ideological war against radical Islam. “Pinpoint” air strikes are not enough.
by Joel B. Pollak14 Feb 2015, 9:20 PM PST0
The shocking triple murder of three young Muslims in North Carolina may yet turn out to be a hate crime. However, police say the cause was a dispute with the alleged killer over a parking space. A neighbor has said he was an “equal opportunity” hater. And the alleged killer, an atheist with a progressive political bent, had apparently backed the controversial “Ground Zero mosque” on social media when conservatives had opposed it. So the evidence of a hate crime appears weak, thus far.
by Joel B. Pollak14 Feb 2015, 8:57 PM PST0
Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel has confirmed that he will attend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a special joint session of Congress on March 3, despite the objections of some Jewish leaders.
by Joel B. Pollak13 Feb 2015, 1:53 PM PST0
I lifted the .45 semi-automatic, charged it, and aimed at the base of his throat. I squeezed the trigger, and put a bullet through my mark as the Springfield XD kicked sharply.My next shot was left of center, above the right lung, as I struggled to recover my aim. My next shots, though, were right where I wanted them: above the hands, through the heart, between the eyes. At the signal, we retrieved our targets, perforated Hitler caricatures with the words “Never Again” in Gothic script.
by Joel B. Pollak13 Feb 2015, 5:30 AM PST0
David Carr, a media columnist for the New York Times who sought to understand conservative media, died suddenly on Thursday night after collapsing in the Times newsroom. Carr was both a critic of, and a friend to, conservative new media, and was one
by Joel B. Pollak12 Feb 2015, 9:13 PM PST0
