A World Without Islamophobia

by Burak Bekdil
Insight Turkey
February 28, 2018

http://www.meforum.org/7219/a-world-without-islamophobia


A bias in plain sight.

Turkey's leaders, most notably President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, have a habit of expressing their loathing for "Islamophobia" in the West. They are right to do so. All the same, their condemnation of the bad is, almost always, incomplete and selective.

Ahmet Örken is one of Turkey's best-known professional cyclists and the multiple Turkish time trial champion. In September, he signed a two-year contract with Israel Cycling Academy. In the aftermath of the Turkish public outcry over U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, Mr Örken, under pressure, had to quit his Israeli team and join a homegrown Turkish team. "It was a difficult period in the last two weeks," he said, referring to pressure on himself and his family for having signed up with an Israeli sports team.

What phobia so powerfully h**es peace and love?

Islamophobia?

What phobia could have forced an athlete to quit his team just because a foreign head of state recognized a city as the official capital of another foreign country?

Islamophobia?

In November, during the Miss Universe Pageant contest in Las Vegas, Miss Iraq (Sarah Idan) and Miss Israel (Adar Gandelsman) uploaded images of themselves on their Instagram accounts, with the words "peace and love from Miss Iraq and Miss Israel." A month later the family of Miss Iraq was forced to flee the country because of this photo. Miss Israel's family still lives in Israel peacefully.

What phobia is it that forced an Iraqi family to flee their country just because their daughter posed with an Israeli contestant and posted the words "peace and love?" What phobia may have prompted threats of violence against the Iraqi family? What phobia so powerfully h**es peace and love?

Islamophobia?

The UK branch of Amnesty International, the global defender of civil liberties, recently banned UN Watch from speaking at their headquarters, joining politicians like Ahmadinejad, Assad, Qaddafi, Castro, and Chavez, who, over the years, have all tried to intimidate and silence UN Watch.

"In debates of the UN Human rights Council, ambassadors from Iran, Syria, Cuba, and the PLO routinely interrupt testimony from victims we bring, and urge the chairman to rule that I am out of order. I'm used to that by now. Yet never did I imagine that the world's largest human rights organization would join their ranks," said Hillel C. Neuer, executive director of UN Watch. "In a patent display of bigotry and intolerance, a human rights group that is supposed to defend freedom of speech and the right to argue is shutting down a debate in their offices."

Why, really, would a human rights watchdog ban another watchdog? It's not too difficult to guess. On February 5, UN Watch released a fifty-page report documenting ten years of UN indifference to combating Antisemitism. Would Amnesty ban UN Watch if it documented UN indifference to combating Islamophobia?

Again, not too difficult to guess.

Ah, yes, the world would be a perfectly peaceful place to live in if Islamophobia did not exist.

Burak Bekdil is an Ankara-based political analyst and a fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Got a big benefit from Trump's tax cuts, did ya ? Check out this.

NEWS & POLITICS
Paul Krugman Has a Brutal Message for American Taxpayers
If you think you're benefiting from the Trump tax cuts, think again.
By Jacob Sugarman / AlterNet March 2, 2018, 4:45 AM GMT


Last month, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) came under fire for celebrating the $1.50 weekly raise a public school secretary stands to gain from the recently passed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Ryan's outrageous statement is even more preposterous if you actually crunch the numbers. As Paul Krugman writes in his Thursday column, "How’s that $75-a-year saving going to look when the [secretary] finds out that, partly because of that tax cut, her mother’s Medicare plan has been converted into an inadequate voucher system and Medicaid won’t pay for her father’s nursing home care?"

While a slim majority of Americans now holds a favorable opinion of the Republican legislation, Krugman is here to warn them that they are being taken for a ride. That's because the federal government has "no business" cutting taxes at all.

"Why? The federal government, as an old line says, is a giant insurance company with an army," he writes. "Most of its costs come from Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—and all three programs are becoming more expensive as ever more baby boomers reach retirement age. This means that unless we cut back sharply on benefits that middle-class Americans count on, we will need to raise more revenue than in the past."

We know how this story ends. Even before the president signed their monstrous bill, Republicans were already discussing the possibility of "entitlement reform"—despite the fact that candidate Trump promised not to lay a finger on programs like Medicare and Medicaid. So who stands to benefit from these huge tax cuts? It most certainly isn't lower- and middle-income earners.

"Most of the tax cut actually consisted of huge tax breaks for corporations, which is in effect a big tax cut for stockholders," Krugman continues. "And while many Americans own a bit of stock via their retirement accounts, even if you include these indirect holdings, more than 80 percent of stocks are owned by the wealthiest 10 percent of the population...The wealthy are giving themselves a big gift, and sending the bill to the middle class."

Krugman is willing to acknowledge there's "probably something" to the theory that lower taxes will eventually benefit workers, but not much. The process could end up taking decades, and there's no guarantee corporations won't simply pocket their savings.

Ultimately, his message to American taxpayers is simple: "If you think you were helped by the tax cut, think again. Donald Trump and his allies pretended to give you a gift, but they gave themselves and their wealthy patrons much bigger gifts—and they’re going to stick you with the bill. You’ve been s**mmed."

AH HA HA HA HA!!!

You poor pathetic little boy.

Time to come to grips with reality Woofie....Trump 2.0 coming in 2020.

Tammy Bruce: Get ready for Trump 2.0 – The 2020 news is bad for Democrats, great for America
Feb 28, 2018

On Wednesday you could hear howls of misery and disbelief coming from Democrats and Never Trumpers. What now, you may ask?

After all, the power and popularity of the president’s tax cuts has already hit. His rolling back of regulations and the k*****g of the ObamaCare mandate has already fueled an economic renaissance. What else could have made the morose even less amiable?

Was it the president continuing to smash ISIS? Or was it the leaked audio of Russian fighters in Syria complaining that a U.S. attack “kicked our a---- like we were little pieces of s---.”

It was actually the most debilitating news of all: The Trump campaign announced that 2016 campaign digital guru Brad Parscale is the 2020 campaign manager for the president’s re-e******n bid, confirming the happy likelihood that people will be saying the words “President Trump” until early 2025.

Even some Democrats are beginning to understand the extent of the Trump sea change. From the liberal magazine New Republic: “Last year, it seemed certain that he would be a one-term president – if he even lasted that long. But he has a plausible path to victory in 2020.”

He does indeed. Helping the president’s re-e******n chances is the constant meltdown of liberal leadership and their refusal to acknowledge reality. Right now the Democratic agenda for America consists of hating the president, hating tax cuts and working really hard to ban plastic straws.

President T***p w*n on an agenda of putting the American people first, a vision made possible only if you actually like the country and her people. Combine that with a businessman’s and patriot’s success at bringing back the American Dream and get ready for President Trump 2.0 in 2020.
Full story:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/02/28/tammy-bruce-get-ready-for-trump-2-0-2020-news-is-bad-for-democrats-great-for-america.html

There are folks here that spent every waking hour criticizing POTUS, calling for impeachment and even going so far as to suggest that he be k**led. These folks insisted that the President was hell bent on destroying America. These folks insisted that nothing the President did was satisfactory, indeed, everything he did was an abject failure. These same folk denied that the President was THEIR President and suggested that v****g irregularities and outright fraud put him in the White House. Sound familiar at all? It should, except...............I was referring to President Obama. Does it sound familiar now?

What is particularly funny is, these same folk are now coming to the defense of POTUS, insisting that he only has the very best of intentions for America, and that everything he does is an overwhelming success, often in advance of any empirical evidence to that effect. These very same folks accuse the President's detractors of being unpatriotic, even going so far as to name them enemies of the State. They insist that THIS President is everyone's President, and shame on those who say otherwise. They become quite angry when folks disparage this President, stating that this behavior is totally unfair.

My question is; what happened? What changed? How as it patriotic to deride one President, but not another President? I suspect that many of these confused folk, clung to the misinformation that the former President wasn't an American citizen, that way - it isn't unpatriotic to wish him ill. Some of them, though they'll never admit it publicly, excused their behavior - as Obama was half black. I suspect the vast majority of these hypocritical folk, don't make any excuses at all as they have their first amendment rights to say wh**ever they want about whoever they want, which is true..................but then..............everyone else has that right as well.

So, the question now is; is it a waste of time disparaging one President and defending another, or is it time well spent? I'm absolutely positive that some of these folk are paid trolls, so we can safely dismiss their motivations, since the highest bidder gains their loyalty. The majority, however, are true blue Americans, who feel that their behavior is justified..............somehow. I've heard comments such as " I respect the office, not the man ", but this argument is rejected by supporters of the current President. I firmly believe that some of these folk believe, deep down in their pea pickin hearts, that they made a mistake v****g for and defending the current POTUS, but p***e compels them to "double down" on their dude, hoping that things will turn out ok.

The reality is; if it was ok for them to attack a President they didn't like - it must be ok for others to do the same. We do NOT get to pick and choose what rights OTHERS may enjoy, as that behavior is anathema to America's founding principles. This must cause some people no small amount of confusion. How is it ok to state that businesses have the right to do, or not do, certain things due to their Christian religion - but it is not ok for other religions to do the same? That also flies in the face of the Constitution, but some folks defend that behavior as well.

No matter what our particular beliefs are about anything, we will have to eventually admit that others have the exact same right to behave as we have in the past. We can try to justify our malleable behavior all we want, but that doesn't change the overriding principle, which is..................all Americans are created equal and have equal rights. Yep, Democrats have the same rights as Republicans. Liberals have the same rights as Conservatives. Everyone else has the same rights as all the above. Is it a waste of time arguing with people who aren't about to change their minds about anything, or is it time well spent?