Meet The New Press Secretary, Same As The Old Press Secretary - When It Comes To The Jews

When White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was defending President Trump's exclusion of Jews in his Holocaust Remembrance Day statement it reminded me of when his predecessor Josh Earnest defended President Obama when he said the January 2015 attack on Jews at Hyper Cacher was a "random attack".

After all what's the difference between Spicer saying that there were people other than Jews who suffered during The Holocaust and Earnest saying there were people other than Jews in that deli?

Let's be clear. The principle targets of the Nazis were Jews and the principle targets of that terrorist in the Paris deli were Jews. The failure to recognize this demonstrates not only that history teaches us nothing and that politics, be it Left or Right, is devoid of morality.

Is Trump Naming His SC Pick Tomorrow To Distract Us From His Muslim Ban Clusterf#*k?

President Trump has announced he will name his Supreme Court pick in a prime time address tomorrow night two days ahead of schedule.


There's only one reason for shifting this timetable and that would be to take focus off the clusterf#*k his Muslim immigration and travel ban has been. The only thing that animates liberals more than Islamophobia and racism is the Supreme Court. This will especially be true if Trump throws a curve and appoints Ted Cruz to the bench.


I know Trump released a shortlist of William Pryor, Neil Gorsuch and Thomas Hardiman last week. But this is Trump we're talking about here. He's impulsive and can change at a moment's notice. If he can change when he announces his Supreme Court appointment who can say he wouldn't change who his Supreme Court appointment will be?


Regardless of who Trump appoints it looks like he will get what he wants. The same cannot be said for his Muslim ban. Come to think of it the sooner he appoints a justice the more likely Trump's Muslim ban will be able to withstand any judicial challenges that have already been launched.

Why Won't Quebec Authorities Release The Names of The Two Shooters Responsible For Mosque Attack? UPDATE

As I write this it has been at least 12 hours since the two suspects in the Quebec City mosque shooting which left six congregants dead and yet authorities have not been forthcoming in releasing their names.


At the time of the shooting a witness reported he heard shouts of "Allahu Akbar". As such it is only natural to wonder if the perpetrators were Muslim as I did last night. There has been speculation on social media that the perpetrators were Syrian refugees. If this turns out to be a case it would not only put a black mark on Prime Minister Trudeau's Syrian refugee program, but could also have the effect of vindicating President Trump's executive order barring travel and immigration from Syria along with six other Muslim majority countries. The Islamophobia narrative would be shot to hell. It would certainly go a long way in explaining the delay.


Still, speculation has been rampant. The Daily Beast got fooled by a fake Reuters website and erroneously identified the suspects as white supremacists. By the same token, it is certainly possible that the perpetrators aren't Syrian refugees either.


Of course it is possible that this could have been a Muslim on Muslim attack with the perpetrators being born and raised in Quebec and possibly converts as was the case in the 2014 Parliament Hill shooting in Ottawa.


I say let the chips fall where the may and sooner the authorities release the names the better. The longer they wait the more speculation will abound and that is unhealthy. If the perpetrators are non-Muslim then we have to deal with that fact. But if they are Muslim we also must deal with that fact too.


Whoever is responsible for this act what is beyond dispute is that six people were killed in prayer. It is something all reasonable people ought to abhor.


UPDATE: Although Quebec authorities arrested two Laval University students, Alexandre Bissonnette and Mohamed el Khadir, police eventually said one of the men was a witness although declined to be more specific. CBC News didn't exactly cover itself in glory when it tweeted, "Only one of the two men detained in the #QuebecShooting is considered a suspect. Because of this, we are deleting posts with their names." The tweet had all the makings of a whitewash.


However, authorities are now confirming that Bissonnette is the shooter and el Khadir is the witness. Obviously a hatred of Muslims was the motive although it isn't clear what precisely set him off last night. No doubt there will be an examination of any social media posts made by Bissonnette or any subsequent statements he might make to the authorities.


In the interim, I fully expect Prime Minister Trudeau to speak out against Islamophobia and quite possibly introduce more gun control legislation to give the appearance of doing something.


Of course, nothing can justify this heinous act. But as Groucho Marx said, "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." Just as with President Trump, I have no doubt Trudeau will look for trouble, find it, diagnose it incorrectly and apply the wrong remedies.

Five Muslims Killed in Quebec City Mosque; Were They Killed By Other Muslims? UPDATE

Tonight, two gunmen opened fire at the Islamic Cultural Center in Quebec City killing five congregants. The two gunmen are in custody but have not been identified.

A witness reports the gunmen shouted "Allahu Akbar" during the attack, a calling card of far too many Islamic terrorist attacks. The question, of course, is whether Muslims killed fellow Muslims or if non-Muslims were adding insult to injury.

Of course, Muslims are the frequent victim of Islamic terrorism in the Muslim world. I suppose it was only a matter of time before there was a Muslim on Muslim attack in the West.

Regardless of who perpetrated the attack, five people engaged in prayer were taken away from those families in an act of terrorism.


UPDATE: The death toll has now risen to six. Although the suspects have been in custody for some time now the authorities have not been forthcoming in releasing their names. I have some further thoughts here.

American Born Muslims Are More Likely to Commit Terrorism Than Muslims From The Seven Banned Countries

Let's consider what President Trump said when he introduced his executive order barring immigration and travel from seven Muslim majority countries:

I am establishing new vetting measures to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America. We don't want them here.

We want to ensure that we are not admitting into our country the very threats our soldiers are fighting overseas. We only want to admit those into our country who will support our country and love deeply our people.

Yet when we look at the terrorist attacks that have occurred in the United States since September 11, 2001 a good many of them were perpetrated by American born Muslims. Among them were the DC Snipers, the Fort Hood shooter, the Little Rock Army recruiter shooter, the beheading at the Oklahoma food processing plant, one of the San Bernardino shooters (which precipitated Trump to establish this policy) and the Orlando nightclub shooter. 

Over this same period, there were only two incidents concerning the countries affected by the ban. The perpetrator of the March 2006 car ramming at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill was born in Iran while the perpetrator of the Ohio State University car ramming was a Somali refugee.

Aside from the two attacks I've described, the foreign born who have perpetuated terrorist attacks in this country have been from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Egypt, Pakistan, Chechnya, Kenya and Kuwait. This encompasses 9/11, the Boston Marathon attacks, the El Al counter shooting at LAX, the Chattanooga military shooting and San Bernardino. 

I'm not saying that immigration and travel from the seven countries in President Trump's ban shouldn't have extra scrutiny. However, if the aim here is to prevent terrorism I simply don't see how barring immigration and travel from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya and Yemen will accomplish much of anything. It seems to me that if we want to address Islamic terrorism we need to look on our own soil first.

Trump Pulls a Trudeau on Holocaust Remembrance Day

For all of the Trump Administration's public efforts to mend fences with Israel, I was astounded to learn that the White House statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day omitted any mention of the Jews. As John Podhoretz writes in Commentary:

After reading it, I thought to myself, “The Trump White House is an amateur operation, understaffed and without much executive-branch experience, and whoever wrote the statement and issued it blew it out of ignorance and sloppiness.”

I won’t be making that mistake again.

Jake Tapper of CNN reported Saturday night that Trump spokesperson Hope Hicks defended and even celebrated the White House statement. The decision not to mention the Jews was deliberate, Hicks said, a way of demonstrating the inclusive approach of the Trump administration: “Despite what the media reports, we are an incredibly inclusive group and we took into account all of those who suffered…it was our honor to issue a statement in remembrance of this important day.”

No, Hope Hicks, and no to whomever you are serving as a mouthpiece. The Nazis killed an astonishing number of people in monstrous ways and targeted certain groups—Gypsies, the mentally challenged, and open homosexuals, among others. But the Final Solution was aimed solely at the Jews. The Holocaust was about the Jews. There is no “proud” way to offer a remembrance of the Holocaust that does not reflect that simple, awful, world-historical fact. To universalize it to “all those who suffered” is to scrub the Holocaust of its meaning.

This episode reminds me of when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau omitted any mention of Jews in his Holocaust Remembrance Day statement last year. Suffice it to say, Trudeau did not make that mistake this year. 

With this in mind, it will be interesting to see what the Trump Administration will have to say about The Holocaust next year. 

Trump Has Only Himself To Blame For The Chaos He Has Unleashed With Muslim Ban

President Trump's Executive Order banning immigration and travel from seven Muslim majority nations has predictably resulted in global chaos when the White House overruled DHS and indicated the executive order applies to both permanent U.S. residents and dual citizens (although late on Saturday National Security Adviser Michael Flynn indicated that dual Canadian citizens would be exempt after all).

All of this is on top of the betrayal of Iraqis who put their lives on the line for American soldiers who have been left in the cold including interpreters as well as academics who were refused entry into the country. This resulted in protests in airports all over the country. Eventually a federal judge slapped a temporary injunction stopping deportations of those who still have valid visas but the rest of the ban remains intact.

For this President Trump has only himself to blame and for what. None of this is going to stop Islamic terrorism. It won't stop homegrown terrorism nor will it prevent anyone from a country like Yemen from contacting a terror cell in Europe and send them to this country to carry out a terrorist attack. What Trump has accomplished today is to engender anger and alienation as well as left a stain on this country's legacy of freedom and liberty.