The Bookworm Beat 5/24/16 — the “world keeps turning” edition and open thread

Woman-writing-300x265I’ve switched migraine medicines and have been a little limp and dazed, but the migraines are passing and my energy is returning — so what better thing to do than write a round-up?

No, more Muslims will not save us from the ones we already have.  Daniel Greenfield takes up the challenge of those (including Petraeus) who claim that the only way to save ourselves from the bad Muslims who are already here is to import still more Muslims:

Muslim immigration isn’t a solution. It’s a problem posing as a solution. And we are told that we need to make the problem bigger in order to solve it. Muslim immigration has yet to reduce terrorism in any country. The increase in Muslim populations has not made Europe any safer. On the contrary, it has increased the risk of terrorism. The same is also true in Africa, Asia and across the Middle East.

Debunking yet another Palestinian lie. Palestinians claim that they hate Israelis as imperialists because the latter forcibly occupied Palestinian land after the Six Day War.  Michael Freund debunks this completely by pointing out that, in 1965, Levi Eshkol, Israel’s third prime minister, offered the Arabs a comprehensive peace plan that would have given them everything they wanted — everything, that is, but the Jews voluntarily walking into the Mediterranean to commit genocide against themselves. The Arabs, naturally, refused.

By the way, events in 1967 are very important to the Palestinian narrative. Claiming that the Jews stole their land and subjugated their people to a foreign occupation is how you get pig ignorant people to sign on to your murderous agenda.  And by pig ignorant, I’m not exaggerating, I’m probably being too nice:

If he’s a Catholic, then I’m the Pope. Wait!  What?  Francis is actually the Pope?  You’ve got to be kidding me.  Nope,not kidding. Raymond Ibrahim details some of Pope Francis’s most anti-Christian rhetoric.  And the surprise I showed two sentences ago?  All faked.  I’ve known since Day One that the Pope is a Communist, not a Christian.

The death of America.  Historically, America has been a high trust, low corruption nation.  In recent years, however, we’ve seen a different trend that didn’t start with Obama but certainly has reached its apex with him. That trend is the complete corruption of our government institutions.  Glenn Reynolds explains that we no longer have an honest civil service, something that endangers American society as a whole. (And somehow I don’t think fixing this problem is high on any candidate’s agenda this year.)

Donald and Newt?  If Newt were Donald’s Veep, I’d vote for that ticket in a heartbeat.  Both understand the American media, one is a master showman, and the other is a brilliant and committed conservative. By the way, the third party idea is going nowhere.  Honestly, if Romney couldn’t win in a straight two-person race against a president with an appalling record, why would anyone think he can siphon enough votes off from both Republicans and Democrats to win this time around?  That’s just crazy. It guarantees a Hillary victory because, if it does siphon off any votes, it will be Republican ones.  Do we really need to replay 1992 in order to get another Clinton into the White House?

Trump plays to win.  I’m thinking that Trump just might sweep the election.  When you take the fact that he plays to win and pair it with the fact that Hillary is awful, you end up with Hillary’s vile attacks on women becoming front and center in the campaign:

Dennis Prager on #NeverTrump.  Dennis Prager explains why he believes that conservatives have to vote for Trump in this election. I’ve pretty much said exactly the same thing but, as always, Prager says it better.

Obama handed the Middle East over to the Iranians.  We know Obama lied when he entered into the Iran Agreement. Tom Nichols posits a reason for the lie:

The White House and its supporters were set on two goals, one of them trivial, the other terrifying. The trivial objective was to give a failed presidency at least one foreign policy legacy item. That was to be expected, since the Obama administration, in permanent campaign mode since the day the president took office, has presided over the worst American foreign policy in the modern era.

The more stomach-churning objective is that the administration, as it turned out, really believed in its pledges to get America out of the Middle East, and decided early on that the only way to do this was to replace the United States in the region with a duumvirate of Russia and Iran.

Political tourists are just as bad as sex tourists.  As the pathetic people of Venezuela slip deeper and deeper into socialist poverty and decay, Nick Cohen takes to the pages of The Guardian (!) to remind those trendy political tourists in the West that they helped create and prop up this economic/statist nightmare.

A deeper understanding of crony fascism.  The Left’s obsession with money results in something I’ve described as “crony fascism,” and that Richard Fernandez explains is the direction for our future, and one that leads to human bondage at the feet of an all-powerful state.

If you’re in a Blue state and looking to move, think Texas.

More on the Bataclan massacre.  I don’t like Taki’s magazine, which has an unpleasant antisemitic edge, but it often does have worthwhile articles, such as this interview with Jesse Hughes, a vocalist with Eagles of Death Metal, the band that was playing at Bataclan when the Muslims started firing. Some takeaway words:

Do you think political correctness is killing our natural instincts and making us vulnerable?

Definitely. There were two girls who were involved. They were at the venue and vanished before the shooting, and these women were in traditional Muslim garb. They knew people wouldn’t check them because of the way they were dressed. They got caught a few days later.

[snip]

Where is this push coming from? Is it all our fault?

Of course not. When you’re at a soccer game in Europe and you see the words “United Arab Emirates,” you know there is a lot of Arab money floating around and influencing the dialogue. The conversation is constantly being steered away from scrutiny. They think we’re fools.

Arab money is a pollutant. So many movies are made with Arab money. George Clooney doesn’t kiss the ass of the Arabs for no reason. American movies are the best way to influence the hearts and minds of the world.