# shameondem

Thank you, Benjamin Netanyahu, sir. We heard you loud and clear, even if 50 some Democrats and the U.S. president did not. Shame on them. 

Here is the list of lawmakers who say they won’t attend:

Senate

Sen. Al Franken (D., Minn.)
Sen. Martin Heinrich (D., N.M.)
Sen. Tim Kaine (D., VA)
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., VT)
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., VT)
Sen. Brian Schatz (D., Hawaii)
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.)
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.)

House

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D., Ore.)
Rep. Karen Bass (D., Calif.)
Rep. Corrine Brown (D., Fla.)
Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D., N.C.)
Rep. Lois Capps (D., Calif.)
Rep. André Carson (D., Ind.)
Rep. Joaquin Castro (D., Texas)
Rep. Katherine Clark (D., Mass.)
Rep. Lacy Clay (D., Mo.)
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D., Mo.)
Rep. James Clyburn (D., S.C.)
Rep. Steve Cohen (D., Tenn.)
Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D., New Jersey)
Rep. John Conyers (D., Michigan)
Rep. Danny K. Davis (D., Ill.)
Rep. Peter DeFazio (D., Ore.)
Rep. Diana DeGette (D., Colo.)
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D., Texas)
Rep. Donna Edwards (D., Md.)
Rep. Keith Ellison (D., Minn.)
Rep. Chaka Fattah (D., Pennsylvania)
Rep. Martha Fudge (D., Ohio)
Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D., Ariz.)
Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D., Ill.)
Rep. Denny Heck (D., Washington)
Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (D., Texas)
Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D., Texas)
Rep. Walter Jones (R, N.C.)
Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Ohio)
Rep. Barbara Lee (D., Calif)
Rep. John Lewis (D., Ga.)
Rep. Dave Loebsack (D., Iowa)
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D., Calif.)
Rep. Betty McCollum (D., Minn.)
Rep. Jim McDermott (D., Wash.)
Rep. Jim McGovern (D., Mass.)
Rep. Jerry McNerney (D., Calif.)
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D., N.Y.)
Rep. Gwen Moore (D., Wisconsin)
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D., D.C.)
Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D., Texas)
Rep. Chellie Pingree (D., Maine)
Rep. David E. Price (D., N.C.)
Rep. Charles Rangel (D., N.Y.)
Rep. Cedric Richmond (D., La.)
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D., Ill.)
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D., Miss.)
Rep. Mike Thompson (D., California)
Rep. John Yarmouth (D., Ky.)

My Anger at the Left

In the video below, which is a segment from a 60 Minutes interview with Clarissa Ward, the man being interviewed (who is apparently a British Islamist), says he wants to see Sharia Law implemented not just in London, but in Europe and America, as well. Here's a partial quote: 

"Ultimately, I want to see every single woman in this country covered from head to toe. I want to see the hand of the thief cut [off]. I want to see adulterers stoned to death. I want to see Sharia Law in Europe, and I want to see it in America, as well. I believe our patrols are a means to an end.”

The patrols refer to the work he and his fellow radical Islamists do in the streets of East London, confronting British citizens for not complying with Sharia. You can see a few of these encounters in the video, some polite, some confrontational and intrusive. 

I fear the politically correct multi-cultural Left won't see this video as a portent of things to come. Clarissa Ward doesn't even know how to challenge this guy. All she can say, when he tells her she should cover up, is, That's absurd! Yes, it is absurd--to us. But to them, it's perfectly reasonable. At some point they'll stop being polite about it (see article below, "What Islam Isn't"). 

I can only pray that someone with more courage than 

​Barack ​Obama wins the presidency in 2016 because things are deteriorating pretty rapidly on his increasingly self-absorbed watch. 

​Leftists should pray too. This is beyond party politics. ​

We need a leader with courage and clarity, someone who will call things as they are (Islamic terror not violent extremism). Someone like the intrepid French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who has the temerity to call these monsters what they are, "Islamo-Fascists" (see Wall Street Journal article below).

The more ground we yield in our craven attempts to 

​not offend, ​the more the extremists will f​eel empowered to encroach on western values. At some point, it will mutate into what they really want, which is total domination. 

​This isn't my opinion. ​Read the recent article in The Atlantic called "What ISIS Really Wants" (link below). Years ago I remember expressing concern to my brother about Sharia Law. He pooh-poohed it. Yet here we are, seeing attempts to normalize it on the streets of London.​ Here we see it discussed in The Atlantic, not a right-leaning publication, far from it. 

Conservatives are mocked, silenced, caricatured, but I believe they're the ones who see this issue clearly. It will be up to the left to stop this coming darkness. 

Interesting side note. I just said, "this coming darkness." But I'm reminded of something Dennis Prager once said about evil. People automatically compare evil to darkness, the way I just did. But Prager says evil is really more like a blindingly bright light. Like trying to stare into the sun. It can't be done. 

That's what's going on here. The evil we read about, the brazen acts of violence graphically paraded on social media, is so glaringly bright, we look away. We pretend it's not happening, not as bad as it seems, not our responsibility. We scoff at alarmists. We say there are more important issues to confront, like climate change or gender neutral bathrooms in schools. We say it will never happen here. 

But I think it could come here, might in fact come here, especially if Iran gets its nuclear bomb, which this foolish, misguided, self-absorbed president is apparently facilitating in his arrogance and naiveté.

​I'm scared. But I'm also angry. I'm furious at people on the left for refusing to call thi​s devil-may-care president out, for letting this circus of a presidency go on unabated for so long in the name of their ideology. I'm furious at people on the right who either aren't paying attention ("I'm not interested in politics") or who don't think they can do anything about it (over 50% of evangelicals do not vote). We're like the proverbial frog in water, gradually coming to a boil. And I hold those on the Left, including my own relatives, wholly, unequivocally, emphatically responsible. 

Readings:

"What ISIS Really Wants," by Graeme Wood (The Atlantic, March 2015).

"France's Anti-Terror, Free-Market Socialist," by Sohrab Ahmari (Wall Street Journal Weekend Interview, February 27, 2015).

"What Islam Isn't," by Dr. Peter Hammond (an excerpt from his book, Slavery, Terrorism, and Islam: Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat) 

Incredibly Credulous: Kenneth Turan's Embarrassing Review of "The Hunting Ground"

Kenneth Turan's breathless review of The Hunting Ground, a just-released documentary on the "epidemic of sexual assault on college campuses," is breathtaking in its absence of scrutiny and its profusion of credulity. 

The review is filled with sensational descriptors: 

"documentary on college rape chills with statistics" 

“Hunting Ground bristles with unnerving statistics"  

"powerful factors are arrayed against students"   

"wrenching first person stories"

(All that's missing are the exclamation marks!!)

Turan seems utterly seduced by the film's statistics, yet it's those damn statistics that are so, well, damning. Start with the "unnerving" statistic first cited, that "one in five college women, and one in 33 college men, will be sexually assaulted during their time on campus."

One in five? Did Mr. Turan pause long enough from his Thesaurus-browsing to think about what this statistic means in a practical sense? My two daughters each graduated from a four-year institution; nearly all of my daughters' friends graduated from a four-year institution; my son graduated from a four-year institution, as did nearly all of his friends. I have nieces and nephews who have graduated from four-year institutions. Let's say, conservatively, that this represents about 20 college grads in my circle of family and friends. You'd think, if the 1 in 5 number were true, there would be four instances of rape or assault in my little circle of family and friends. I have yet to hear of any of these young people being sexually assaulted. Are we just lucky? Were the odds ever in our favor?

Come to think of it, practically speaking, what parent in his or her right mind would send a kid anywhere with crime numbers like these? It would be tantamount to negligence. You may as well drop your kid off at the corner of Sodom and Gomorrah. "Bye, darling! We love you! See you at Christmas! Watch your back!"

The statistic is simply not credible.

Mr. Turan gives lip service to "skeptics" who have challenged the data, but he doesn't say whether those skeptics were consulted, let alone featured, in the film, so I'm guessing they weren't. Which would mean Christina Hoff Sommers was neither mentioned nor interviewed. That's a shame. Sommers is a former philosophy professor and Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who, according to her bio at AEI, is "best known for her critique of late twentieth-century feminism." For years Sommers has been debunking myth after feminist myth that most people take at face value (the 77 cent to the dollar gender gap discrepancy, Super Bowl Sunday domestic violence, the rule of thumb, to name a few).

Most recently, in her Factual Feminist video blog, Sommers refutes the 1 in 5 claim with newly-released statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Justice that suggest the real number is closer to 1 in 53 ("too many," Sommers agrees, "but a long way from one in five").

Of course one assault is one too many. No one is saying sexual assault isn't an important issue. But the idea of taking the misleading claims of a documentary at face value and presenting them as ground-breaking and important once again demonstrates the disdain people in the media (and politics, for that matter) have for average viewers.


That's what bothers me most about Kenneth Turan's uncritical and embarrassingly effusive review of The Hunting Ground: the film-going public will similarly accept without question these misleading claims. And next year at the Oscars, when the film wins its little award, the acceptance speech will, like Turan's review, be breathless and important. The celebs in the audience will rise to their feet and cheer and pump their fists in solidarity the way Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lopez did when Patricia Arquette called for pay equity (based on misleading data) in her acceptance speech at this year's ceremony. 

As Vladimir Lenin, founder of the Russian Communist Party, once said, "A lie told often enough becomes the truth." 

Yes. Who needs truth when you've got . . . unnerving statistics? 

Meanwhile, for an honest discussion on sexual assault and rape, here are two segments of The Factual Feminist. You can read her bio here.

Sexual Assault Myths (Parts 1 and 2): 

"Without the Jews of France..."

Here's an article published in The Algemeiner ("'We Haven't Shown Enough Outrage': French PM Issues Blistering Denunciation of Anti-Semitism," by Ben Cohen).

Here are excerpts from the speech (retrieved from the Anti-Defamation League website):

Ladies and gentlemen deputies, the tragic ordeals we've just been through have left their mark on us — on our country and on our conscience.

However, we must also be capable, each time, of making a swift diagnosis of the state of our society and of its urgent needs.

We'll clearly have the opportunity to hold these discussions.

I’m going to say a few words and please excuse me for taking more time than planned.

The first subject we must deal with, clearly, is the fight against anti-Semitism.

History has shown us that a reawakening of anti-Semitism is the symptom of a crisis of democracy, a crisis of the Republic.

That's why we must address it powerfully.

After Ilan Halimi in 2006, after the crimes of Toulouse, there has been an intolerable rise in acts of anti-Semitism in France.

There are words, insults, gestures, foul attacks, as in Créteil a few weeks ago, which — as I recalled in this house – have not aroused the outrage expected by our Jewish compatriots.

There's the huge worry, the palpable fear we felt on Saturday, in the crowd, outside that kosher supermarket at Porte de Vincennes, and at the Synagogue de la Victoire on Sunday evening.

How can we accept that in France — the Jews' land of emancipation two centuries ago but also, 70 years ago, one of the lands of their agony — how can we accept that shouts of “Death to the Jews!” can be heard in our streets?

How can we accept the acts I've just recalled?

How can we accept that French people can be murdered because they are Jewish?

How can we accept that a Tunisian citizen sent to France by his father to be protected can be killed while going to buy his bread for the Sabbath — because he is a Jew? It's not acceptable.

I say to the national community, whose reaction has perhaps been insufficient, and I say to our French Jewish compatriots that this time we can't accept it, that we must also rebel.

We must make the true diagnosis: there's an anti-Semitism people call historical, going back many centuries, but above all there's this new anti-Semitism born in our neighborhoods against the backdrop of the Internet, satellite dishes, abject poverty and hatred of the State of Israel, advocating hatred of the Jew and of all Jews.

We must say this! We must utter the words to combat this unacceptable anti-Semitism.

As I've had the opportunity to say, as Minister Ségolène Royal said in Jerusalem this morning, as Claude Lanzmann wrote in a magnificent article in Le Monde, yes, let's say it directly to the world: without France's Jews, France would no longer be France!

It's up to us to proclaim this message loud and clear. We haven't said it; we're not outraged enough!

How can we accept that in certain institutions, middle schools and high schools, we can't teach what the Holocaust was?

How can we accept that a kid aged seven or eight, when asked by his teacher, “Who is your enemy?” can answer “It's the Jews”?

When the Jews of France are attacked, France is attacked and the universal conscience is attacked; let's never forget that!