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February 10, 2012
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David G. Savage: Why activists may not be in a hurry to have High Court rule on alternative marriage
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The Kosher Gourmet byDana Velden: Going to the bother of making soup? You know it better be good. This CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP certainly is! And it's a cinch to make, too (Includes techinques and serving secrets)
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Mark Clayton: How did Anonymous hackers eavesdrop on FBI and Scotland Yard?
February 3, 2012
Edmund Sanders : Israeli official says Iran is creating missile that could reach East Coast of US
Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
February 2, 2012
Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
February 1, 2012
Brian Bennett: US officials see increasing threat of domestic attack from Iran
Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures
January 31, 2012
January 30, 2012
Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim: Misreading Teheran's limits -- deadly and economically devastating as they may be -- is a risk administration, Europe seem willing to take
Suzanne Bohan: Warning: Nap-deprived tots missing more than sleep, study finds
Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
January 27, 2012
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Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
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Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
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Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
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Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
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Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
January 19, 2012
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January 17, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
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January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
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John Fauber : Statins found to raise diabetes risk in postmenopausal women
Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
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January 11, 2012
Shari Roan: Millions of atrial fibrillation sufferers at risk for devastating, but preventable, stroke
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David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
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January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
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Jewish World Review
April 17, 2009 / 23 Nissan 5769
(Right) winging it at the DHS
By
Jonah Goldberg
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The Extremism and Radicalization Branch, Homeland Environment Threat Analysis Division of the Department of Homeland Security issued a report last week. It's called "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment."
I had no idea there even was an ERBHETAD of the DHS working on the RECEPCFRRR.
Who among us doesn't feel safer already?
The problem with it is that it makes little effort to document or demonstrate its contention that "extremist" groups are resurgent, that they are right-wing, or that they may be formed from the ranks of "disgruntled military veterans." Worse, it's very sloppy about what qualifies someone as "extremist" in the first place. Basically, it's fancy bureaucratese for: We're guessing bad people will do bad things because the economy is bad and the president is black. But we have no real evidence.
For instance, the report insists that returning "disgruntled military veterans" from Iraq and Afghanistan are recruitment fodder for extremist and terrorist groups.
But, if you follow the footnotes, as John Hinderaker of the Powerline blog did, you'll discover that, according to the FBI, only 19 Iraq and Afghanistan war vets have joined the "extremist movement" (and some of them may have lied about their service). More than half of America's 1.4 million active-duty military personal have served in Iraq or Afghanistan (and there are roughly 23 million veterans in the United States). Any way you slice it, 19 yahoos amount to statistical noise so faint you would need one of those UFO-hunting dishes to pick it up.
My objection to the DHS report and DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano's thumbless grasp of why the report bothers people isn't that the agency is concerned with domestic terrorists. It should be, even though it wrankles a bit that this administration is so squeamish to describe Islamic terrorists as "terrorists" but is promiscuous with the T-word when it comes to right-wing Americans.
The evidence that al-Qaida & Co. are terrorists is widely available, but Napolitano boasts that she calls attacks such as those on 9/11 "man-caused disasters." She says she doesn't want to fuel "the politics of fear." But her own department dubs nebulous and ill-defined Americans as terrorists even though DHS has "no specific information" that they're plotting any attacks.
My real objection to this report is that its source material amounts to "everybody knows." Everybody knows the right is full of whack-jobs, hatemongers and killers, and if we don't remain vigilant, bad things will happen.
Just look at the coverage of these tea parties. To watch CNN, you'd think these were beer hall putsches, as if emulating the Boston Tea Party and demanding less government were straight out of "Mein Kampf."
I wrote a book on fascism which tried to show that what everybody knows isn't necessarily true. The idea that soldiers will return from war and become right-wing militants? Well, that has its roots in Fascist Italy, where veterans returned as black-shirted shock troops of "Il Duce," Benito Mussolini. The only problem was that they clamored for socialism the socialism of the trenches! and their leader had earned the title "Il Duce" as the leader of the Socialist Party.
The idea that American "hate groups" are right-wing and bristling with vets got new life with JFK's assassination at the hands of a disgruntled vet named Lee Harvey Oswald. Everybody knew right away that Oswald was an agent of "hate" and hate was code for right-wing and racist. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren summed up the instantaneous conventional wisdom when he blamed the "climate of hatred" for Kennedy's death. Everybody knew that the right was involved.
There was just one inconvenient truth: Oswald was a communist who, according to the Warren report, had "an extreme dislike of the rightwing" and had actually tried to murder a right-wing former Army general.
When Hollywood filmed the Tom Clancy novel "The Sum of All Fears," it changed the real villains from Jihadi terrorists to a bunch of European CEOs who were secret Nazis. Because "everybody knows" that's where the real threat lies.
Sen. John Kerry belonged to an organization of vets that considered assassinating American politicians. (Kerry denied participating in those meetings.) Barack Obama was friends with, and a colleague of, a domestic terrorist whose organization plotted to murder soldiers and their wives at a social at Fort Dix. A young Hillary Clinton sympathized with the Black Panthers, a paramilitary gang of racist murders and cop killers.
Bring that up and you're a paranoid nutcase out of "Dr. Strangelove."
But if you're terrified of a bunch of citizens who throw tea in the water and demand lower taxes and less government spending, well, that's just a sign of political seriousness.
Because everyone knows who the real threat to the country is.
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