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Home » Biden and Kerry on Trump’s UAE/Israel achievement

Biden and Kerry on Trump’s UAE/Israel achievement

The New Neo Posted on by

Meh, he just stood on the shoulders of giants – us!

“I personally spent time with leaders of both Israel and the UAE during our administration, building the case for cooperation and broader engagement and the benefits it could deliver to both nations,” the former vice president [Biden] said in a statement…

Reacting to the announcement, Kerry, now a Biden campaign surrogate, said in a tweet that credit was due to the UAE, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, and its ambassador to Washington, Yousef al-Otaiba.

But Kerry, too, did not directly acknowledge the efforts of the Trump administration in achieving the agreement, which he said “builds on years of work to advance regional peace.”

Blah blah blah and blah.

Two career politicians with zero accomplishments except their repeated elections in blue-blue states, their appointments by Obama as his lackeys, and their poor decisions over the many long years. I must say that even back when I was a liberal Democrat I detested these two – in particular Kerry, to whom I took an instant dislike during his Winter Soldier thing.

Comments

Biden and Kerry on Trump’s UAE/Israel achievement — 29 Comments

  1. I totally agree. I read last night on Instapundit (posted 8/14 @ 8:52 pm a tweet, that is below, that this shows just how abysmally bad our professional diplomatic cadre has performed. People got really comfortable, lazy and RICH (ask how HAMAS leadership can have their families in Switzerland and France) with the conventional narrative. It took Trump and his band of merry narrative smashers to accomplish this. He and his team don’t care about the established order. In trade, states craft, war, education and racial relations they are breaking all the rules and the beneficiaries are the people. We are truly blessed to have this man in charge.

    Anshel Pfeffer
    “This should be a day of honest reckoning for the Israeli left, the “international community” and the entire peace process industry. For 30 years they’ve been saying Israel will have relations with the Arab world only at the price of a Palestinian state. The Arab world doesn’t care.”

  2. A separate post about Trump not accepting the conventional wisdom ecosystem that elites make their living.

    “Meet with Kim Jung Un without preconditions!!” Diplomatic class – “Blasphemy!”

    “What? Move troops out of Germany to Poland because they don’t keep their defense commitments.” Military class – “Its just not done. The golf courses aren’t as nice as Germany.”

    “Call out China for stealing and then acting on it with sanctions and penalties.” Business Elites – “That makes my comfortable bonus check smaller.”

    “Control the borders and force us to hire black men at a higher cost!!” Professional Class – “That means I have to interact with them.

    “Prison reform for non-violent low level offenders?” Racial Grievance Industrial Complex “That’s racist! I can’t explain how it is but because I say it is, it is.”

    “What – allow fracking and drilling that employ high school educated men!!” Gaia Worshipers – “That means people can live as well as I am and my sense of moral superiority is threatened.”

    The power brokers in the current order are fighting back fiercely as their way of life with its comfortable assumptions gets upended. I just finished re-reading Robert Massie’s “Dreadnought” about the pre-WWI naval race and how the actions of the supposedly elite class was so incompetent that it lead to war that shattered their comfortable world.

    I believe we are on the cusp of a grand re-ordering of the world because of the debt and demographic crisis’s that will envelop the world. It is coming and we will have to live through it. We need clear eyed wise leadership to get through it. I am an optimist by nature and believe that we can get through it with minimal damage if we don’t tie ourselves to brain dead orthodoxies that no longer reflect reality.

  3. You dislike Kerry? I am shocked, as Capt. Louis Renault said in the movie Casablanca. Kerry is a decorated Vietnam veteran and spent Christmas in Cambodia. I was in the Navy and we spent Christmas in Tokyo because entering Cambodian territory was prohibited.

  4. “[Biden] said in a statement” will be the way Basement Bide will communicate from now on.

  6. It is actually rather funny. Some on the Left are disparaging the agreement as meaningless; at the same time this pair are trying to take credit.

    No matter, the despicable media will run interference for these despicable people.

    The very thought of Kerry debasing the same uniform that I wore proudly for 25 years makes me angry.

  7. Any assessment of Kerry’s life/career should really stop when he went to Paris and tried to help our then enemy. He sullied his uniform and the oath he swore not to give aid and comfort to the nation’s enemies. Everything after that is meaningless. He committed treason. There is a penalty for that. A penalty he never paid.

  9. John Kerry to America, Trump and Israel:

    John Kerry
    @JohnKerry
    Aug 13
    The UAE, @MohamedBinZayed, and Amb. Al Otaiba deserve credit for their historic initiative to normalize relations with Israel in return for Israel foregoing annexation. This is a welcome step that builds on years of work to advance regional peace.

    John Kerry to Tomás de Torquemada: Hold my beer.

  10. “Some on the Left are disparaging the agreement as meaningless; at the same time this pair are trying to take credit.”

    “Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?”

    “Forget it, he’s rolling”

  11. Hey, Neo:

    TOTALLY UTTERLY OT.

    Just thought you’d be interested, I’m too lazy to open my e-mail client, and, given your love of dance, I figured you’d really like it, if you had not seen it before… Others will likely be interested as well.

    Top 10 Movie Dance Scenes Of All Time
    by Cinefix
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAE_p0KUnIs

    You might want to make your own entry on it and offer your own comments.

    Cinefix is great, by the way, if you have any interest in film. It has probably a hundred “top x lists” from top westerns, to top opening shots to top title sequences, to top casting choices, to top movie moments, and such, often calling attention to details you can appreciate but, unless you’re a major major film buff hadn’t realized the significance of.

    Look at the YT side bar for other lists, you can click for hours.

    They often call attention to movies that even a very extensive and eclectic history of movie interests miss (Offhand, I’ve seen more than 15,000 movies, easily, and they routinely list movies I have not seen)

  13. A couple of relevant posts from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (via Power Line).

    https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2020/08/14/israel-uae-unambiguous-diplomatic-success/

    The agreement will rightly garner virtually unanimous support across the U.S. political spectrum. As Joe Biden, the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, indicated in his response to the announcement, the effort to advance peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors has been a top priority for administrations of both parties going back decades.

    It was unfortunate that in his statement praising the deal, Biden couldn’t bring himself to congratulate Trump and his peace team for their role. Maybe that’s too much to expect in today’s intensely polarized environment, especially in an election year. There’s no doubt that the agreement will redound completely to Trump’s political advantage at a time when he’s badly in need of wins. And it will likely continue to pay major dividends to his reelection effort when one or more other Gulf states join the normalization process, and he plays host to a White House signing ceremony after the technical details of the deal are finalized—probably as close to Election Day as possible. But while Trump’s success might be bad for the Democrats’ narrow political interests, it’s an unadulterated good for U.S. national interests. Biden knows that and it would have been gracious and fitting for him, even healing in a way, to rise above today’s destructive partisanship, if only for a moment, to acknowledge the victory for the United States and to thank Trump for getting it done.

    In the same way, it would be a nice touch if Trump were to invite Biden as well as all living former presidents to attend a signing ceremony when it finally happens and to recognize his predecessors’ role in pressing the cause of Middle East peace over the years. It would be a chance to send a powerful signal to the world that even in the middle of a bitterly fought election campaign, the leaders of the United States are still able to unite on behalf of the common good.

    It would take a miracle, you say, for that kind of display of bipartisan statesmanship. Perhaps. But isn’t that what people used to say about peace between Israel and the Arabs? Hope indeed springs eternal.

    John Hannah is a senior counselor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former national security advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney.

    https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2020/08/07/middle-east-hedge-against-biden-presidency/

    Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are in for a rude awakening if former Vice President Joe Biden defeats President Donald Trump in November and Democrats take control of the U.S. Senate in addition to the House. The only thing that might save them: normalizing relations with Israel.
    …
    In effect, the Saudis and Emiratis should borrow a winning strategy from Jordan and Egypt, both of which have peace treaties with Israel. Jordanian officials claim that Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley would jeopardize Jordan’s treaty with Israel, but King Abdullah knows that his influence in the House and Senate Appropriations Committees would wash away if the treaty were ever abandoned. Even in the rockiest of times for Cairo—the election of the Muslim Brotherhood to power and an ensuing military coup—U.S. military assistance to Egypt survived, albeit with conditions, because of the Camp David Accords.

    The move would come with other potential benefits, too. Announcing a peace agreement with Israel would hand President Trump a timely and historic foreign policy victory—facilitating Middle East peace—a transformational accomplishment of such magnitude that voters otherwise distracted by the novel coronavirus will take note. Should Trump win in November, the Gulf would gain important new chits with an unencumbered second-term president.

    Conventional wisdom of the pre-Iran deal era posited that the Arab world could not normalize relations with Israel until all Palestinian-related issues were resolved. But the last four years should have dispelled any lingering fears in Gulf capitals that normalization with Israel would spark an “Arab street revolt.”
    …
    If there is a cost to Sunni Arab regimes for publicly associating with Israel, those costs are largely sunk. The secret relationship is no longer secret. The question is whether Gulf leaders have the vision and political will to reap the untapped strategic benefits by formalizing a relationship that everyone already knows exists.

  15. RNB – LOL, except it’s not really funny.

    Breaking news from the pixels of record:

    https://babylonbee.com/news/obama-horrified-as-trump-undoes-his-years-of-hard-work-bombing-the-middle-east

    The former president addressed the nation in a video message recorded in his seaside mansion, slamming Trump for his willingness to suddenly overturn years of presidential precedent.

    “Look, all those slaughtered civilians, bombed-out hospitals, ruined cities — you didn’t do that,” he said, tears streaming from his face. “That was all me. It’s really sad to see what America has become. We’re not the warmongering nation we once were, and you’ve got Trump to thank for that.”

    He shook his head and wiped his eyes, glancing up at the Nobel Peace Prize on his shelf. “If you’d only listen to me and blow more people up, Drumpf — you too would get one of those bad boys.”

    https://babylonbee.com/news/blm-rioters-awarded-nobel-peace-prize
    “This may be the most deserving recipient since Barack Obama.”

  16. US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman:
    “I think the credit that he [Biden] deserves is he was — they were so bad and so hostile to both Israel and the Emirates that it caused both of them to commiserate a little bit, which was something that we were able to take advantage of when the president [Trump] took office,” Friedman said.

    “So, to that extent, I think the Obama policy was so terrible that it probably created more of a commonality of interest between Israel and the Emirates.”

    https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2020/08/14/david-friedman-joe-biden-helped-middle-east-peace-deal-only-by-being-so-hostile/#

  17. Ben david:

    That’s a great quote. Yes, they united against the common enemy: Obama and Biden.

  19. “…so terrible…”

    Indeed. It would be appropriate to repost the following to remind Democrat-voting (purported) supporters of Israel just how far Obama/Biden were prepared to go to “achieve peace” in the middle east (and “help” Israel):
    https://lidblog.com/obama-anti-israel-resolution/
    Note: Lee Smith, in a more recent article, also mentions this “plan” (i.e., piece of geopolitical vengeance) in connection with the Flynn/Kislyak phone calls and speculates that its foiling was a major reason why Obama/Biden decided that Flynn had to be put away.
    https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/joe-biden-susan-rice
    Key graf:
    “In a Dec. 29 phone call, Kislyak told Flynn that Moscow had already notified the outgoing administration they were not going to support Obama’s parting shot at Jerusalem. Still, it must have irked Obama to hear the two of them discuss his failure—and his ham-fisted efforts to undermine U.S.-Russia relations.”

    See also:
    https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/russiagate-obama-iran

  21. The diplomatic deal is another item to add to the list of things President Trump has done (or at least facilitated) for Israel, which have all been elements of upending the standard Middle East paradigm.

    https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/upending-the-rules-about-peace-in-the-middle-east/

    The impending peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates is more than just a stunning diplomatic breakthrough. It represents a fundamental shift in the paradigm of peace-making.

    For more than 50 years, that paradigm has been based on seemingly unassailable assumptions.
    …
    [all of the known knowns are detailed]
    …
    For more than half of a century, the paradigm of Middle East peace-making has proven highly resistant to change. Yet even the fiercest advocates of that belief-system must recognize the seismic shift that will take place once the UAE-Israel treaty is signed. Some will no doubt insist on adhering to disproven assumptions. Those who care about peace will abandon them.

    Despite the ranting of some factions that support continued dissension (or so it seems, since they never propose any peace deal that would work), other people are grateful. These two posts, by different authors, are undated, but can be placed in context by the actions cited.
    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/23775

    This is the Dayenu for President Trump, based on the simple realization that there has never been a president as pro-Israel as Trump, and it is almost unthinkable that there will ever be another.

    Let us count the ways, individual acts for which alone we would sing Dayenu, “it would have been enough:”
    …(16 things listed)
    That is some list, even without reciting the al achat kama v’chama that would marvel at the achievement of each of the above. It is unprecedented in the history of the relationship of the United States and Israel and the president is only two years into his administration.

    Of course, there have been other presidents who were “pro-Israel,” and others who were less than friendly – but there has never been a President whose support was unambiguous and influenced so many other nations around the world as this President. We should be thankful, and express our gratitude without hesitation.

    Gratitude is an especially cherished virtue among Jews and particularly on Pesach when we celebrate our nation’s founding. And even if we limit the real Dayenu to the King of Kings, we do acknowledge that, as King Shlomo put it, “Like streams of water the heart of a king is in G-d’s hands…” (Mishlei 21:1).

    Sure, he may tweet a bit too much and much too vividly at times, and one can quibble with a questionable policy here and there, and others can criticize a character weakness or two, but we betray ourselves and our deepest values if we do not express gratitude.

    Only a Trump, not beholden to the tired thinking of all the old Middle East experts and their evenhandedness, their failures, and their anti-Israel animus scarcely concealed, could have pulled this off –a re-alignment of American foreign policy.
    …
    Sometimes we are tested with an abundance of good and not the incidence of evil. That too is a gift of Providence for which we should be ever grateful.

    https://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/24905

    A great curse has befallen American Jews, one that will haunt us forever: Some of our American Jewish Congressmen and Jewish Senators are at the very heart of this evil, venal, and unconstitutional House impeachment of President Trump. While, in the future, I will focus on these miscreants; today, I want to thank G-d for the infinite blessings and protections President Trump has endowed the American and Israeli Jewish people.

    Today, I want to thank President Trump for each action which in itself would have been enough. In essence, I want to pen the Passover Seder’s “Dayenu,” “It would have been enough for us,” to thank President Trump’s for each of his blessings for the Jewish People.
    …
    (this list only has 5 actions, but it expands on why they were a blessing for Israel and for Jews)
    …
    I could go on and on, and on, about all the blessings and security President Trump has brought the Jews. But, on this day of infamy, on this day where President Trump has been falsely and criminally attacked by bunch of Jewish hooligans, I want to thank G-d for President Trump – for President Trump just being President Trump.

    \Dayenu. that would have been enough.

  22. Here is a more general list of things to be grateful for, which don’t seem to impress the NeverTrumpers* even though there are liberals* who recognize them as reasons to leave the Left.
    (*there should be some way of cross-indexing comments to Neo’s posts, as there is often an overlap in relevance)

    https://www.bookwormroom.com/2019/04/20/president-trump-is-the-dayenu-president/

    No matter how imperfect Trump is, looking at his record of accomplishments, as to each one I say the Passover word “dayenu” — it would have been enough.
    During the Passover dinner, one of the songs Jewish families sing is Dayenu. It is in the nature of a “count your blessings song,” with the song reciting each of God’s miracles during the Exodus and, after every verse reciting “dayenu,” which means “it would have been enough” or “it would have sufficed.” Growing up, I considered this song one of the best parts of the proceedings. I was in good company, for Jews have been singing Dayenu for around one thousand years.
    …
    [Bookworm gives the original song here, which was of great interest to me as I am a “fan” of the Old Testament, as well as a strong supporter of Israel and the Jewish people]
    …
    The point of the song, obviously, is not to get greedy, but to be grateful for whatever gifts or miracles come your way. God doesn’t need cumulative miracles to prove His greatness and the debt Jews owe Him. Each little thing He did, standing alone, would have been enough.

    So what’s this got to do with Trump? Well, let me first assure you that I am not likening Trump to God. He is no God.** He is, instead, a very imperfect man, but one who nevertheless has taken a series of steps that, even if each stands alone, is a reminder why a Trump presidency is so much better than the Hillary alternative.

    The genesis for this thought came about because I got an email from a very dear friend, one whom I respect more than you can imagine, who is baffled by my fondness for Trump. Before the Mueller report, he saw Trump as a crude buffoon. Since the Mueller report, he sees him as a dangerously corrupt individual. Worse, he sees Trump as way less successful than a good Republican president should be. As readers of this blog know, I’ve come to hold Trump in quite high esteem. Thinking about how to explain my esteem to my friend, I came up with the “dayenu” meter.

    To begin with, remember that America’s choice in November 2016 was completely binary: Hillary or Trump. So we’re not measuring Trump against some perfect Republican candidate; we’re measuring Trump against Hillary, who was committed to continuing the Obama administration, although with the addition of the Clintons’ unique brand of financial corruption. It is in that context that I look at what Trump has done. (As an aside, I would argue, as Wolf Howling already has, that Trump is proving to be an extraordinary conservative president who, only halfway through his first term, can measure up even to Ronaldus Magnus.)

    Also, regarding what Trump has not done, or not yet done, I never lose track of the fact that, for two-and-a-half years, Trump has been contending with the weight of an entirely false accusation that he entered into a conspiracy with Russia to keep Hillary from the White House. (Incidentally, that’s why Trump said he was “f**ked* when he realized the immensity of this whole Russia collusion hoax. He wasn’t saying, “Oh, my God, the jig is up! I’m going to jail.” He was saying, “Oh, my God, this will paralyze my effectiveness as a president.”)

    So here’s my dayenu recital for Trump:
    …
    [she explains, very cogently, the reasons conservatives support so many of the President’s policies, which we have discussed many times here, so I will excerpt the one relevant to this post]
    …
    If Trump had merely proved to be the staunchest friend Israel has ever had in the White House, or certainly the staunchest friend since Reagan, and implemented policies that are putting a stop to the Palestinians’ non-stop, bad faith demands, even as the whole Democrat Party is turning increasingly anti-Semitic — Dayenu.
    …
    I could go on all day with this. Trump is rude, crude, bumptious, impulsive, cold-blooded, combative, etc. I see that. I also see that he’s incredibly funny, that he has a wonderful knack for making Leftists reveal their true colors, and that his initiatives, even if imperfect or ultimately ineffective, nevertheless have shifted paradigms at home and abroad in ways that are important to and beneficial for America.

    Of interest as well is her aside on Flynn and Mueller in the middle of last year.

    The same post is on at least two other websites, if you want to explore other places that value Bookworm as much as some of us do.

    https://www.thelibertybeacon.com/president-trump-is-the-dayenu-president-passover-special-videos/

    https://www.watcherofweasels.org/president-trump-dayenu-president/

  23. Bookworm exegesis continued:

    **Yes, Demedia immediately claimed that expressing gratitude to the Orange Man by using a religious parallel was an act of heresy (which is ironic indeed, since they don’t even believe that the real God of Israel has a place in the Democrat party platform***).

    https://forward.com/fast-forward/422201/republican-jewish-coalition-donald-trump-dayenu/
    “Former senator Norm Coleman, chair of the Republican Jewish Coalition, is leading a Passover Dayenu (it would have been enough) in which Donald Trump replaces God.”

    This actually is, in my opinion, a blasphemous parody, since there is not an ounce of gratitude in it for anyone, and very little veracity either.
    https://www.westsiderag.com/2020/04/08/upper-west-sider-writes-new-versions-of-dayenu-and-the-four-children-for-covid-era-passover

  24. ***There are an abundance of stories about the brouhaha at the 2012 Democrat convention, but these capture the moment as I remember it.

    https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/sep/6/obamas-party-says-no-to-god/

    The most memorable moment of the Democratic National Convention was when the delegates denied God three times from the convention floor. It was the latest blunder in an Obama re-election effort that increasingly looks like it doesn’t have a prayer.****

    The deity issue arose when conservatives slammed Democrats for deleting references to God and a united Jerusalem that were in the liberals’ 2008 platform. The slap must have stung because the Obama campaign quickly orchestrated a floor amendment to stuff the clauses in the previously approved 2012 platform. It should have been a pro-forma matter, but when convention chairman Antonio Villaraigosa, mayor of Los Angeles, called the vote, the floor responded with a vigorous “no” twice. In a fit of procedural integrity, Mr. Villaraigosa tried to get the required two-thirds to amend a third time, but the “no’s” were louder than ever. Finally, visibly frustrated, he announced the motion had passed even though everyone in the hall knew it hadn’t. It was amateur hour.

    It’s not surprising that Democratic delegates were generally hostile to God. According to the latest Gallup numbers, President Obama has a 46 percent advantage over Mitt Romney***** among those who profess “no religion” and lags 23 percent behind Mr. Romney among those who say they are “highly religious.” Asking a group of Democratic true believers — or in this case, true nonbelievers — whether they want God in the platform is their secular equivalent of blasphemy.

    Democrats compounded the platform blunder by not getting their story straight.
    …
    (an amusing story you might peruse, if you haven’t heard it before)
    …
    The Obama campaign also bungled the Jerusalem issue. The inserted language pledges support for a united Jerusalem, which is not administration policy. The campaign said this reflected Mr. Obama’s personal preference, in which case it has no place in a party platform. The hedge, of course, was designed to appease the Democrats’ strong pro-Palestinian faction, which nixed the Jerusalem language in the first place. Mr. Obama’s clear message to them was, “I support your vision of a divided Jerusalem, but I have to say some things to shore up my sagging support among Jews.”

    ****Sadly, Republican prayers had no effect this time, although some election fraud probably did.
    ***** It is doubly amusing to me because the Democrats (and some Republicans!) objected to Mitt Romney, in part, because he was TOO religious to be president; and then, four years later, they (both groups!) were lambasting Donald Trump because he was NOT RELIGIOUS ENOUGH.

    If the Democrats didn’t have double standards …..

    https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/did-democrats-really-boo-god-not-quite-its-worse-than-that/
    By Phil Lawler | Sep 06, 2012
    (leaving out some of the details already covered above)

    Thousands of bloggers are reporting this morning that delegates at the Democratic convention in Charlotte booed when God was reintroduced into their party’s platform. That’s not entirely accurate. But the true story does not reflect any better on the Democratic Party.
    …
    That ruling from the chair was an obvious abuse of power. It was impossible to say, simply from the volume of voices, whether the “Ayes” outnumbered the “Nays.” To assert that the “Ayes” predominated by a 2-to-1 margin was simply absurd. Quite understandably, many delegates objected to the ruling. So their boos were aimed at Villaraigosa, not at God.

    But it’s not quite that simple. This vote didn’t occur in a vacuum. In drafting the original platform, Democratic leaders had removed references to God (and to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel). They didn’t merely forget to mention God; in updating previous party platforms, they made a conscious decision to remove Him. When that decision was brought to the attention of ordinary American voters, outside the orbit of the Democratic Party apparatchiks, it was unpopular. It didn’t play in Peoria. Belatedly, the Democratic leaders realized that they should put God back in the picture. So an amendment to the platform was place on the convention’s agenda.

    And here’s where things get interesting: That amendment was controversial! Quite a few delegates opposed the mention of God. Some, no doubt, were primarily concerned about the mention of Jerusalem. Party leaders might have simplified matters by introducing two separate amendments: one to restore a mention of God, the other to name Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. But that tactic would not have suited the purposes of the party strategists. They didn’t want an open debate on God (or on Jersualem) during the convention. <b.They didn’t want to give American voters the opportunity to see just how radical the Democratic party has become. They wanted the amendment approved quickly.

    Villaraigosa did his part, pronouncing the amendments victorious at a time when any sentient observer realized that their passage was in doubt.
    …
    Today we don’t know whether or not a majority of participants at the Democratic convention actually objected to mentioning God in the party’s platform. The party leadership didn’t want us to know.

    Check out Mr. Lawler’s bio for links to some other articles that fall into the conservative POV.

  25. And now I will add some more recent stories in a sequence leading up to today, and hence to the topic of this post, that is, Democrats object to Trump getting a win in the Middle East — because they have contempt for Jews, Israel, Jerusalem, and God.

    https://nypost.com/2017/03/15/democrats-still-havent-faced-their-god-problem/
    By Salena ZitoMarch 15, 2017 | 7:17pm | Updated

    The Democratic Party has a God problem.

    And over the last couple of decades, as its base became more educated, less religious and more urban, this problem has only grown.

    Some of this has to do with lower church attendance in cities versus rural areas, and the Democratic Party’s increasing reliance on urban voters. Some of it is the divisiveness of social or cultural issues like abortion and gay marriage. And the divide has seemingly sapped Democrats’ ability to communicate to religious Americans.

    Especially if those people of faith are white, according to Brad Chism, a longtime and respected Democratic strategist based in Mississippi.

    “And that problem extends to the national media, who by and large are mostly Democrats, meaning you have these powerful forces who do not understand more than half of the people in this country,” he said.

    Chism makes a crucial point about what this means for American politics: Some of the greatest moral advancements in our country’s history have been accomplished largely through the influence of the church and churchgoing people, especially through the 20th century.

    “You look at women’s suffrage, civil rights, the abolition of slavery and all of these massive other changes — religion and religious people have played a role in moving society toward a higher plane,” said Chism.

    “We’ve seen that recently as well, but a lot of progressives and liberal Democrats don’t see the role of religion in society,# and that is a big mistake,” he said.

    And it’s a mistake people like Kevin Washo are trying to rectify, though they feel like they’re swimming against the tide. A day before the Democratic National Convention opened here last July, Washo, a Catholic and prominent national Democrat, organized a private Mass led by a Jesuit priest in the conference room of a prestigious law firm in a shimmering Market Street skyscraper.

    That imagery is a far cry from the 2012 Democratic convention,
    …
    The headlines that came out of that debacle — “Democrats boo God” was a common one — ended up making matters worse for those, like Washo and Chism, who would like to see their party counter the perception of its estrangement from people of faith.

    Washo, a former executive director of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, wants the national party to recognize this problem and invest heavily in solving it: “One of the first things I think they need is full-time engagement at the DNC to focus on people of faith, not just for a cycle, but make something permanent within the party with real resources.”

    Washo said the messaging also needs to be sincere to people of faith — “a real, authentic effort, not lip service.”

    The 2006 midterm elections seem to have been a turning point. Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate as well as a majority of state governorships. As the Pew Research Center noted at the time, exit polls showed Democrats “did well among their core constituencies; compared to 2002, they received increased support from Jews##, the religiously unaffiliated, infrequent churchgoers and those who never attend religious services.”

    In other words, Democrats were hugely successful across the country by solidifying their base. In the process, they have pushed away religious voters not simply by ignoring them but by actively repelling them with accusations of bigotry and backwardness.###

    Unless they change that, Democrats ­haven’t got a prayer of solving their God problem.

    # And thus, the tearing down of monuments to people who were not only NOT supporters of the Confederate States, but who actively opposed slavery and fought for abolition. Among other facts of history that the Left is trying to erase.
    ## A divided constituency, as we have seen.
    ### Aka “a basket of deplorables.”

  26. AAANNNND – They didn’t change that.

    https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jan/31/democrats-ongoing-problem-with-god/

    Democrats, as recent headlines show, are planning to amend the requirement that those testifying before the House Committee on Natural Resources will swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth — without the “so help you God” finish line.

    Anything to get God out of government, right?

    Here’s the oath that’s being proposed, as reported by Fox News: “Do you solemnly swear or affirm, under penalty of law, that the testimony that you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?”

    Omitted is the phrase “so help you God.” Added is the phrase “under penalty of law.”####

    The committee’s rules package also strips all the gender-specific pronouns from its text, replacing the likes of “chairman” with “chair” and so forth.

    “Oddly enough,” the Daily Caller wrote, “the proposal to remove references to God comes just two months after Democrats proposed to remove a 181-year-old restriction on wearing religious headgear on the House floor in order to accommodate newly-elected Muslim women members.”

    Apparently, then, it’s just the Christian God that offends.

    But this is not surprising. The Democrats have been waging a war against God — against Christianity’s God — for some time. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may talk about the Democrats “doing the Lord’s work,” as she said back in 2017. But that talk isn’t matching the party’s walk.#####

    In the lead-up to the 2012 convention, Democratic leaders outright removed mention of God and of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel from the party’s proposed platform. When faced with backlash, they offered up a resolution in Charlotte to reverse the removals. The vote was contentious; several delegates outright opposed.
    …
    In other words: Had the Dems gone with a ballot vote, the results may have been completely different.

    The Democrats’ public image problem with God repeated at the party’s 2016 convention — though in fairness, the boos that came there were protests of Hillary Clinton by Sen. Bernie Sanders’ fans. They just came during prayer — unfortunate timing for the party; completely fortunate for headline writers.

    “Democrats heckle preacher during opening prayer,” Fox News wrote then.

    And this, from Mashable: “Opening prayer at Democratic convention halted by booing crowd.”

    All that, and more, then prompted the New York Post to opine in 2017, “Democrats still haven’t faced their God problem.”

    Well, here it is in 2019, and it’s like the repeat button’s been hit.

    Democrats still have a problem with God. And with 56 percent of Americans “professing faith in God as described in the Bible” and another 33 percent professing belief “in another type of higher power or spiritual force,” according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in April of 2018 — that means voters have a problem with the Democratic Party.

    • Cheryl Chumley

    #### I actually don’t have a problem with that change, since there are a multiplicity of religious believers taking an oath of office, not just Jews and Christians; and, I suspect, only some of the oath-takers of all religions do so with the serious belief that their God will punish perjury.
    And non-believers are just lying when they use that phrase.
    “Under penalty of law” is less ambiguous in intent, although it is apparently partisan in practice these day.

    ##### Let’s not get into the hypocrisy, and blasphemy, of our true-believers-only-when-I-can-get-some-advantage-out-of-it. Both parties included.
    Judgment for eternity is the Lord’s, but that doesn’t mean we have to ignore blatant mendaciousness.

  27. Might as well come full circle – back to a list of President Trump’s accomplishments and why they should be a part of the 2020 Republican platform, although currently they are not.

    https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/aug/16/president-trumps-missing-dna/

    He did give a statement about some of his campaign promises for the next term.

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/08/06/in-ohio-donald-trump-makes-six-promises-to-american-workers-for-his-second-term/

  28. Remember how President Trump abandoned our Kurd allies?
    Remember when he re-positioned American troops near oil fields in Syria controlled by Kurdish forces?
    Well, Kurds and going to begin selling the oil.
    Syria is outraged. Turkey is outraged. But they can’t do a thing about it. Next, recognize the area as a Kurd homeland.

    Well played, President Trump.

    Syria is outraged:
    https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/08/syrian-government-enraged-that-kurds-intend-to-sell-kurdish-oil

    Turkey is outraged:
    https://ahvalnews.com/turkey-syrian-kurds/turkey-accuses-syrian-kurds-seizing-syrias-natural-resources

  29. If John Kerry was on fire at the end of my driveway I’d stand on my front porch and watch with a smile on my face.

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