FINALLY: A REALISTIC PLAN FOR FIGHTING THE JIHAD AND PROTECTING AMERICANS

Courtesy of Donald Trump


Robert Spencer
http://www.frontpagemag.com/
June 14, 2016



Donald Trump in Manchester, New Hampshire (Reuters)

We’ve gotten so used to politically correct obfuscation about Islam being a religion of peace that preaches tolerance and non-violence that Donald Trump’s words in his address Monday were startling: “Many of the principles of radical Islam are incompatible with Western values and institutions. Remember this, radical Islam is anti-woman, anti-gay and anti-American. I refuse to allow America to become a place where gay people, Christian people, Jewish people are targets of persecution and intimation by radical Islamic preachers of hate and violence.”

Trump continued: “This is not just a national security issue. It’s a quality of life issue. If we want to protect the quality of life for all Americans — women and children, gay and straight, Jews and Christians and all people then we need to tell the truth about radical Islam and we need to do it now.”

One may quibble about whether jihad violence and Sharia oppression in Islam are really “radical,” but the fact is that Donald Trump has become the first nominee of either party since 9/11 to reject the usual nonsense about how jihadis believe in and preach a twisted, hijacked version of the religion of peace. Even more importantly, Trump is now the first presidential candidate since maybe John Quincy Adams to recognize that the problem posed by Islam is not just restricted to the specter of violent jihad attacks, but is, given Sharia oppression of women, gays, and non-Muslims, very much, as Trump put it, a “quality of life issue.”

Trump declared his determination to prevent more jihad attacks such as the one in Orlando Saturday night above all by reiterating his proposal temporarily to “suspend immigration from areas of the world where there’s a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies until we fully understand how to end these threats.” CNN huffed: “Critics of Trump's policies, however, have pointed out that the perpetrator of the Orlando massacre was born in the U.S.” 

Those critics are not being honest. What Trump actually said was that the Orlando jihad mass murderer was born “of Afghan parents, who immigrated to the United States.” He noted, quite correctly, that “the bottom line is that the only reason the killer was in America in the first place, was because we allowed his family to come here,” and pointed out, quite rightly, that “we have a dysfunctional immigration system, which does not permit us to know who we let into our country, and it does not permit us to protect our citizens properly….We’re importing radical Islamic terrorism into the West through a failed immigration system and through an intelligence community held back by our president. Even our own FBI director has admitted that we cannot effectively check the backgrounds of people we’re letting into America. ”

Can any truthful person seriously dispute that? Tashfeen Malik, who, along with her husband Syed Rizwan Farook murdered fourteen people at a Christmas party in San Bernardino last December 2, had passed five separate background checks from five different U.S. government agencies. If the U.S. did not have a “dysfunctional immigration system,” she would never have been in the country in the first place. And neither would her husband, about whom Trump noted that he was “the child of immigrants from Pakistan and he brought his wife, the other terrorist from Saudi Arabia through another one of our easily exploited visa programs.”

Trump skewered Hillary Clinton for having “repeatedly refused to even say the words radical Islam until I challenged her yesterday.” He quoted her fatuous words: “Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people, and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism” and opined “she’s in total denial, and her continuing reluctance to ever name the enemy broadcasts weakness across the entire world — true weakness.” Clinton wants, he said, “to take away American’s guns and then admit the very people who want to slaughter us. Let them come into the country, we don’t have guns. Let them come in, let them have all the fun they want….The bottom line is that Hillary supports policies that bring the threat of radical Islam into American and allow it to grow overseas, and it is growing.”

Trump’s point was sound. In what way was it not? Combining unrestricted immigration and a massive influx of Muslim migrants, among whom the Islamic State has promised to embed jihadis, with a disarmed American population is simply an invitation to jihad massacres on a frequency never hitherto imagined. Could there be an Orlando-style attack every day? Why not, in the America of the near future that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are busy preparing for us? 

Trump declared: “The burden is on Hillary Clinton to tell us why she believes immigration from these dangerous countries should be increased without any effective system to really to screen.” Again, his point his sound: all those, including Hillary, who are busy excoriating Trump for the “racism” and “bigotry” of his immigration proposal have not bothered to suggest any alternative plan for preventing jihadis from entering the country. The bottom line, to borrow one of Trump’s pet phrases, is that Hillary and the rest of the political and media elites would rather see Americans subjected to jihad mass murder on a huge scale than do anything that is politically incorrect.

Another foray into political incorrectness in Trump’s speech was his insistence that the Muslim community in the U.S. has “to work with us. They have to cooperate with law enforcement and turn in the people who they know are bad. They know it. And they have to do it, and they have to do it forthwith….The Muslims have to work with us. They have to work with us. They know what’s going on. They know that he was bad. They knew the people in San Bernardino were bad. But you know what? They didn’t turn them in. And you know what? We had death, and destruction.”

The Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was furious. CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooperclaimed that “law enforcement authorities have repeatedly stated that they have tremendous cooperation from the Muslim community.” CAIR’s hypocrisy is astounding, as it has more than once advised Muslims not to cooperate with law enforcement. In January 2011, its San Francisco chapter featured on its website a poster that read, “Build A Wall of Resistance / Don’t Talk to the FBI.” In November 2014, CAIR-Florida’s “14th Annual Banquet Rooted in Faith” in Tampa distributed pamphlets entitled “What to do if the FBI comes for you” and featuring a graphic of a person holding a finger to his lips in the “shhh” signal. 

Another CAIR pamphlet, entitled “Know Your Rights: Defending Rights, Defeating Intolerance” featured a graphic of the Statue of Liberty likewise making the “shhh” symbol. Cyrus McGoldrick, a former official of Hamas-linked CAIR’s New York chapter, even threatened informants, tweeting with brutal succinctness: “Snitches get stitches.” Zahra Billoo of CAIR-San Francisco regularly tweets that Muslims have no obligation to talk to the FBI, and should contact Hamas-linked CAIR if the FBI asks to talk to them.

This is the group criticizing Trump for noting that Muslim communities have not been any significant help in rooting out jihadis from among them?

Trump’s most revolutionary proposal was for an overhaul of our entire foreign policy establishment and the assumptions upon which it rests – assumptions that have led us into numerous blind alleys and failed initiatives. He said: “The decision to overthrow the regime in Libya, then pushing for the overthrow of the regime in Syria, among other things, without plans for the day after, have created space for ISIS to expand and grow like nobody has ever seen before. These actions, along with our disastrous Iran deal, have also reduced our ability to work in partnership with our Muslim allies in the region. That is why our new goal must be to defeat Islamic terrorism not nation building. No more nation building. It’s never going to work.”

Indeed. It didn’t work in Iraq. It hasn’t worked in Afghanistan. We have poured billions into Pakistan since 9/11 to help them fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and the Pakistani government has funneled a good deal of that money to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Trump said it: “And by the way we’ve spent almost $5 trillion over the years on trying to nation build in the Middle East and it has been complete and total disaster.” Yet despite the fact that its policies have failed again and again and again, the foreign policy establishment keeps reappointing and promoting those responsible for those failures, allowing them to make more mistakes in ever-larger arenas. But no candidate has ever challenged that establishment – until now.

Trump offered one more common sense that no establishment politician has thought to or dared to make: he suggested that there needs to be a reconfiguration of our alliances, which are still based on the Cold War. “NATO,” he said, “needs to change its focus and stop terrorism....America must unite the whole civilized world in the fight against Islamic terrorism.” 

Indeed. The world is on fire courtesy of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. If America votes in November for more of the same, we will soon be engulfed in those flames as well. On Monday, Donald Trump outlined an unprecedentedly realistic plan for putting out the fire. 

 Tags: Donald Trump, Florida, Jihad, shooting

Take Off the Gloves

We’re all on ISIS’s kill list—what are we willing to do about it?

Matthew Hennessey

http://www.city-journal.org/

June 12, 2016

Medical personnel wait with stretchers outside Orlando Regional Medical Center

Fifteen years after 9/11, Islamic terror is losing its power to shock. Fourteen dead in San Bernardino at a community center. Fifty dead in Orlando at a nightclub. A 19-year-old shot dead at a traffic light in West Orange, New Jersey. Marines and sailors killed at a recruiting station in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The Boston Marathon. What’s next? A better question: what isn’tnext?

The numbness is taking hold. What once seemed as impossible and distant as a walk on the moon is taking on the air of inevitability: You and I—any of us, all of us—will wake up one day to find that it is our son, our daughter, our parents, or our neighbors who were blown away at a nightclub in the small hours, at a shopping mall at noon, on a bus in the center of town, in a stadium parking lot, or in their beds as they slept.

They are coming. ISIS publishes “kill lists” of Americans. We are all on it, every one of us.

No one yet knows whether the Orlando monster, Omar Mateen, was connected in a formal way to ISIS, al-Qaida, or any of the agents of global jihad. He may have been acting on his own. One thing’s for sure—he didn’t pull the idea of blowing away homosexuals out of his hat. Yet Mateen’s father told NBC that his son’s murder of 50 Americans at a gay nightclub had “nothing to do with religion.” It strains credulity. Most world religions have at one time or another expressed intolerance of homosexuality. Only one that I am aware of is currently putting people to death for the “crime” of being gay—and not just in ISIS-controlled areas.

You don’t have to be Bernard Lewis to know that Omar Mateen was motivated by his Islamic faith to kill gay Americans. It would be nice if we could speak openly about this. It would be even better if our major media outlets wouldn’t twist themselves into politically correct pretzels trying to avoid “speculation” about a motive. Sometimes a jihad is just a jihad.

According to reports, Mateen was a “known quantity” to the FBI. Did they do everything they could to stop him? One hopes. Further, one hopes that they weren’t hindered in their efforts by the anti-Islamophobia brigade that see bias and bigotry in seemingly every attempt to protect Americans from terror. The ACLU claims that surveillance programs like the NYPD’s now-disbanded Demographics Unit are “based on a false and unconstitutional premise: that Muslim religious belief and practices are a basis for law enforcement scrutiny.” The average citizen can be forgiven for thinking that the ACLU would be willing to sacrifice a couple dozen gay night clubbers if it meant neutering law enforcement’s ability to get inside the mosques and coffee bars where American Muslims congregate.

I have a different idea. I think it’s well past time that we took off the gloves. Let the FBI surveil the mosques. Let the NYPD surveil the mosques. Let these agencies do what needs to be done without fear of offending the ACLU, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or the self-loathing secular liberals whose first thought when they hear about attacks like this is, “Oh, no. This will help Trump.”

Matthew Hennessey is a City Journal associate editor. Twitter:@matthennessey.

Killing Homosexuals Is Not ISIS Law, It Is Muslim Law

For nearly 25 years, we’ve been clinging to the fiction that groups such as ISIS are anti-Islamic.

By Andrew C. McCarthy — June 12, 2016

http://www.nationalreview.com/

Orlando police officers seen outside of Pulse nightclub.

Various reports indicate that the death toll from the jihadist attack overnight at a popular gay club in Orlando may exceed 50 people, with more than 50 others wounded. The terrorist’s identity has been reported: He is Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old American citizen and devout Muslim from Fort Pierce, Fla., the son of immigrants from Afghanistan.

The FBI has indicated that Mateen, who was killed in a shootout with police at about 5 a.m., was an Islamic extremist. Representative Peter King (R., N.Y.), who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, says the shooter was “trained in the use of weapons.” As we have noted here many times, military training is generally the key that separates competent terrorists from wannabes. But whether actual or would-be jihadists, these Muslims are motivated by Islamic supremacism, the belief that sharia, Islam’s ancient, totalitarian law, must be imposed on society.

Based on all this, there is abundant Washington and media speculation that the attack is “ISIS-inspired.” This is consistent with the bipartisan, government-approved inanity we have been following for a quarter-century, what I often call the political class’s concoction of “An Islam of Their Very Own.” It goes something like this:

Islam is a religion of peace, period. End of discussion. “Violent extremist” outfits such as ISIS and al-Qaeda kill wantonly, with no real ideological motivation. ISIS and al-Qaeda are thus not Islamic, but actually anti-Islamic — and if they cite Islamic scripture to justify their atrocities, they are “hijacking” and “perverting” Islam. Because we must see these groups as “anti-Islam” rather than Islam, it is acceptable to call a mass-murder attack “terrorism” only if law-enforcement develops some plausible tie to these groups. Otherwise, if a Muslim is involved, stick with “workplace violence” and the like. Finally when an attack committed by a Muslim is too obviously terrorism to deny, call it “ISIS-inspired,” or “al-Qaeda-inspired,” or “Hamas political resistance,” etc. — but by all means do not, absolutely do not, ascribe it to Islam in any way shape or form.

This is idiocy. Will today’s event, the worst mass shooting in American history, help us see that?

We need to consider separately Islam and its sharia law.

There are various ways to interpret Islamic scripture in order to attempt to evolve it out of violence. This, of course, does not change the fact that supremacist, fundamentalist Islam is a legitimate, mainstream, virulently anti-Western interpretation of Islam; but it does at least mean that there can be other mainstream versions of Islam that reject violence and Islam’s politico-legal system.

Sharia, on the other hand, is basically set in stone. (Or should I say “stoning”?) Even most Islamic reformers acknowledge that it badly needs reform — not that it can be reinterpreted, but that it needs to be changed. Its provisions and especially its draconian punishments were largely fixed a millennium ago.

The mandate that homosexuals be killed is not from ISIS or al-Qaeda. It is from sharia — which draws on Muslim scripture.

As I’ve observed several times, an English version of the classic sharia manual Reliance of the Traveller has been endorsed by scholars of al-Azhar University, the seat of Sunni Islamic learning since the tenth century; by the International Institute of Islamic Thought, a Muslim Brotherhood think tank that is influential in Washington; and by other influential Islamic governments and commentators. Here is its teaching on homosexuality, found in the chapter on “Enormities” — the most grave offenses:

Sec. p17.0: SODOMY AND LESBIANISM 

Sec. p17.1: In more than one place in the Holy Koran, Allah recounts to us the story of Lot’s people, and how He destroyed them for their wicked practice. There is consensus among both Muslims and the followers of all other religions that sodomy is an enormity. It is even viler and uglier than adultery [AM: which is punished brutally, including by death]. 

Sec. p17.2: Allah Most High says: “Do you approach the males of humanity, leaving the wives Allah has created for you? But you are a people who transgress” (Koran 26:165-66). 

Sec. p17.3: The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said:

1. “Kill the one who sodomizes and the one who lets it be done to him.”
2. “May Allah curse him who does what Lot’s people did.”
3. “Lesbianism by women is adultery between them.”

As I noted many times, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi may be Sunni Islam’s most influential living sharia jurist. Here, as reported by the Middle East Forum, is Qaradawi’s teaching on homosexuality:

We must be aware that in regulating the sexual drive Islam has prohibited not only illicit sexual relations and all what leads to them, but also the sexual deviation known as homosexuality. This perverted act is a reversal of the natural order, a corruption of man’s sexuality, and a crime against the rights of females. (The same applies equally to the case of lesbianism.) 

The spread of this depraved practice in a society disrupts its natural life pattern and makes those who practice it slaves to their lusts, depriving them of decent taste, decent morals, and a decent manner of living. The story of the people of Prophet Lut (Lot), peace be upon him, as narrated in the Koran should be sufficient for us. Prophet Lut’s people were addicted to this shameless depravity, abandoning natural, pure, lawful relations with women in the pursuit of this unnatural, foul, and illicit practice. That is why their Prophet Lut, peace be on him, told them, “What! Of all creatures, do you approach males and leave the spouses whom your Lord has created for you? Indeed, you are people transgressing (all limits)!” (Koran, 26: 165–166) 

The strangest expression of these peoples’ perversity of nature, lack of guidance, depravity of morals, and aberration of taste was their attitude toward the guests of Prophet Lut, peace be upon him.[Here follows a digression on the story of Lot as related in the Koran. ---Eds.] 

Muslim jurists have held differing opinions concerning the punishment for this abominable practice. Should it be the same as the punishment for fornication, or should both the active and passive participants be put to death? While such punishments may seem cruel, they have been suggested to maintain the purity of the Islamic society and to keep it clean of perverted elements.

Since the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, there has been no shortage of praise for Ayatollah Ali Sistani, whom the Bush administration frequently lauded as a “moderate” and a supporter of “democracy.” (We critics countered that Sistani is a fundamentalist sharia-supremacist who supported “democracy” — meaning popular vote — in a Muslim-majority society because that was the most direct, efficient way to impose sharia.)Sistani is as influential a Shiite sharia authority as there is. As I have previously recounted, when asked, “What is [Islam's] judgment on sodomy and lesbianism?” Sistani replied: “Forbidden. Those involved in the act should be punished. In fact, sodomites should be killed in the worst manner possible.”

Yup, let it sink in: “killed in the worst manner possible.”

The inspiration for Muslims to brutalize and mass murder gay people does not come from ISIS. It is deeply rooted in Islamic law, affirmed by many of Islam’s most renowned scholars. This is why, wherever sharia is the law, homosexuals are persecuted and killed. See, for instance, this 2014 Washington Post report listing ten Muslim countries where homosexuality may be punished by death (Yemen, Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, and Iraq — notwithstanding its new, U.S.-supported constitution).

Note, again, that Omar Mateen is the American-born son of immigrants from Afghanistan, where homosexuality may also be punished by death — notwithstanding American nation-building efforts there for the last 15 years.

As I have argued before, while a categorical ban on Muslim immigration would be bad policy, our immigration law must distinguish between Islam the religion and Islamism, the sharia-supremacist political ideology, which tends to grow strong support wherever Muslims form a critical mass. There absolutely should be severe restrictions on immigration from countries, regions, and communities (e.g., in Europe) in which sharia standards are de jure or de facto imposed.

The problem with mass immigration from sharia enclaves is not merely that trained terrorists may infiltrate the immigrant population. It is that sharia-adherent, assimilation-resistant Muslims will form sharia enclaves in the U.S., as they have throughout Europe, where young Muslims will be “radicalized” under our noses in the years to come.

Today, we have gotten another glimpse of radicalization, which is not “homegrown” but rather fueled by a foreign, anti-American, anti-liberty ideology.

— Andrew C. McCarthy is as senior policy fellow at the National Review Institute and a contributing editor of National Review.

RELATED: Dispelling the ‘Few Extremists’ Myth — the Muslim World Is Overcome with Hate

RELATED: Islamist Terror and Collective Guilt

Ramadan Massacre in Orlando

Robert Spencer

http://www.frontpagemag.com/

June 13, 2016

Omar Mateen selfie and driver’s license photo.

It was the worst mass shooting ever on American soil: Omar Mateen, 29, opened fire at the Pulse, an Orlando, Florida gay nightclub, on Saturday night. Mateen murdered at least fifty people and wounded another 53. The death count is almost certain to go higher, as many are quite gravely wounded. Mateen was a Muslim who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and mentioned the Boston Marathon jihad killers in a 911 call just before he started shooting. Thus in the wake of the jihad massacre, it was time for the Leftist political and media elites to do what they always do first and foremost after every jihad massacre: make sure that no one thought ill of Islam.

The FBI, to its credit, immediately declared the massacre a terror attack, but Barack Obama was circumspect about what kind: he declared that it was too early to know “the precise motivations of the killer.” This despite the fact that not only had Mateen pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and made reference to the Tsarnaev brothers, but also the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, and the FBI is investigating reports that Mateen recited Islamic prayers during the massacre. On top of all that, the attack took place during the Muslim month of Ramadan, during which the Islamic State has called for jihad attacks against Americans. 

Nonetheless, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, along with many other Leftists, tried to turn the jihad attack into a commercial for rolling back Americans’ Second Amendment rights, tweeting: “We mourn with the people of Orlando and the LGBT community as a whole on the news that -once again- we have lost precious lives to the gun.” Who knew that guns could be so diabolical and anti-gay?

Leftist responses ranged from the ominous to the absurd. Ominously, Facebook and Reddit turned to censorship to try to prevent people from thinking ill of Islam. Facebook removed the Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) page, which had been up for six years and had over 55,000 members, and Reddit began banning people who dared to mention that the killer was a Muslim.

On the absurd side, ACLU staff attorney Chase Strangio tweeted that the massacre was the fault of conservative Christians: “You know what is gross — your thoughts and prayers and Islamophobia after you created this anti-queer climate.” Does the illustrious Strangio actually believe that Omar Mateen was incited to commit mass murder in the gay nightclub in Orlando by an “anti-queer climate” created by Christian conservatives? He probably does, since, as a Leftist, he knows that non-Muslims are always and everywhere to blame for atrocities that Muslims commit.

Not only are non-Muslims to blame for Muslim atrocities, but Muslims are their victims, even when no Muslims are killed. AFP reported that “Florida officials also invited a local Islamic leader to address the media in a bid to preempt a possible backlash against the Muslim community.” Imam Muhammad Musri of the Islamic Society of Central Floridawarned against “sensationalizing” the story. 

In a similar vein, gay activist Steven W Thrasher wrote sanctimoniously in the Guardian: “Let us remember that we have never really blamed all Christians, Republicans or Democrats (many who have organized en masse to subject queer people to systematic violence and destruction at different points in American history) for the violence waged against us. We should remember that again today. We should remember not to blame all members of any other religion or political ideology for what one person does.” Right. The problem is that any examination of the motives and goals of people such as Omar Mateen, and any consideration of what can be done about them, is always met with the accusation that such examinations and considerations constitute blaming all Muslims for the actions of jihadis. It is so obviously fallacious that it is hard not to suspect that it is an intentional obfuscation.

In reality, the motivation for the jihad is quite clear, but Barack Obama doesn’t want to acknowledge that, because to do so would force him to confront the reality of Islamic teaching regarding gays. The Qur’an says: “If two men among you are guilty of lewdness, punish them both. If they repent and amend, leave them alone; for Allah is Oft-returning, Most Merciful.” (4:16) That seems rather mild, but there’s more. The Qur’an also depicts Allah raining down stones upon people for engaging in homosexual activity: “We also sent Lot. He said to his people: “Do you commit lewdness such as no people in creation committed before you? For you practise your lusts on men in preference to women: you are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds….And we rained down on them a shower of brimstone: Then see what was the end of those who indulged in sin and crime!” (7:80)

Muhammad makes clear that Muslims should be the executors of the wrath of Allah by killing gays. A hadith depicts Muhammad saying: “If you find anyone doing as Lot’s people did, kill the one who does it, and the one to whom it is done.” (Abu Dawud 38:4447) And: “Stone the upper and the lower, stone them both.” (Ibn Majah 3:20:2562)

Combine this with the fact that Islamic State spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani recently called on Muslims to use this Ramadan to “get prepared, be ready … to make it a month of calamity everywhere for nonbelievers…especially for the fighters and supporters of the caliphate in Europe and America,” and Mateen’s pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State, and there is no doubt whatsoever what Omar Mateen was trying to do.  

The Left has chosen to protect Islam at all costs, even at the expense of its other victim groups. When the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) several years ago ran ads highlighting the mistreatment of gays in Islamic law, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, which is its city council, issued a resolution condemning not that mistreatment, but our ads. Gay advocates such as Theresa Sparks and Chris Stedman attacked us for daring to call attention to the institutionalized mistreatment of gays under Islamic law. Their gay advocacy doesn’t extend to standing up to Sharia oppression of gays, even though that oppression is far more virulent and violent than anything from “right-wing extremists” in the U.S. 

And you can’t blame them: given the Leftist/jihadist alliance, it’s clear that if they spoke out against Sharia mistreatment of gays, they would no longer be invited to the best parties, and might even be branded as “right-wing.” Their moral cowardice and duplicity, however, are obvious, and monstrous in the light of what has just happened in Orlando. The Left’s continuing and now reflexive obfuscation and denial in the wake of every jihad massacre only ensures that there will be many, many more such massacres.

 Tags: Acts of Terrorism, Florida, Jihad, Ramadan

Today's Tune: Van Morrison - Just Like A Woman - 2/2/1974 - Winterland, San Francisco, CA

Van Morrison's ‘It’s Too Late to Stop Now’ Review: Greatness in Its Prime

A remastered version of a seminal Van Morrison album is joined by a selection of previously unreleased recordings from the same time

By 

JIM FUSILLI

http://www.wsj.com/
June 7, 2016



Because their catalogs are so familiar, it’s not often that rock’s bygone greats can surprise music lovers. But that is what Van Morrison does with a series of live recordings from 1973 that will be released this Friday: “It’s Too Late to Stop Now,” a remastered version of the original 1974 album of the same name; and, separately, three previously unreleased albums and a concert film packaged together as “It’s Too Late to Stop Now, Volumes II, III, IV & DVD” (Sony Legacy). Revisiting the original album and spending a few hours with the fresh material serves as a reminder of what greatness is.

Supported by the Caledonia Soul Orchestra, a versatile 11-piece group that included a string section, the original “It’s Too Late to Stop Now” package presented Mr. Morrison singing, with focus and fire, a few of his hits, showcasing his two most recent albums—“Saint Dominic’s Preview” (1972) and “Hard Nose the Highway” (1973)—and covering songs made notable by Bobby Blue Bland, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Willie Dixon and Sonny Boy Williamson. The tracks on the new Volumes II, III and IV were culled from the same concerts as those included on the ’74 release, and rise to the same artistic caliber. The expanded “It’s Too Late to Stop Now” is a case where more is more.

The 45 previously unreleased performances on the albums present Mr. Morrison as an artist of significant achievement who was then still in search of new modes of expression and, perhaps more important from today’s perspective, willing and eager to illustrate where his kind of rock came from. Long before the current prosperous era in which singer-composers, be they in folk, hip-hop, R&B or rock, ignore convention by mixing forms and tapping into popular music’s past, Mr. Morrison was doing just that, tossing aside trends and rock’s already stodgy orthodoxy. The new albums reveal just how eclectic his influences were. He covers faithfully and with fitting humor “Buona Sera,” a 1956 hit for Louis Prima, and the oft-performed blues “Since I Fell for You.” There’s a reading of “Bein’ Green,” originally performed by the Muppets’ Kermit the Frog—Frank Sinatra covered it in ’71—which Mr. Morrison recorded for his “Hard Nose the Highway” collection.

These and other performances place Mr. Morrison and the orchestra in a jazz context, something the original “It’s Too Late to Stop Now” failed to do. Mr. Morrison’s “Moondance” swings loose and limber, propelled by Jeff Labes’s piano and David Hayes’s walking bass. (Mr. Morrison quotes “Fever,” introduced by Little Willie John in ’56, perhaps acknowledging its influence on his composition.) “The Way Young Lovers Do,” from Mr. Morrison’s 1968 masterpiece “Astral Weeks,” swings too, with the strings dancing around the melody and offering a thrilling, unexpected interlude that welcomes a piercing solo by trumpeter Bill Atwood, who excels on several numbers. A gorgeous reading of the ballad “Snow in San Anselmo” is punctuated by a mad bebop interval, and Hank Williams’s “Hey, Good Lookin’” emerges as a jump blues.

In those days, Mr. Morrison was a contradiction on stage. As the DVD confirms, he could appear diffident in performance, standing for the most part stationary at the microphone. And yet he churned with contained energy and a soul-deep connection to the emotional core of his music. On “I Paid the Price,” a song he co-composed in the early ’70s but didn’t release back then, Mr. Morrison seems about to implode as he repeats lines with increasing intensity. In “Sweet Thing,” also from “Astral Weeks,” the strings deliver Mr. Morrison to its aching two-word chorus. “Pick it!” the singer barks at guitarist John Platania, who responds with a terse solo before Mr. Morrison and the band leap into an improvised coda.

The three new volumes don’t skimp on Mr. Morrison’s late-’60s pop-and-rock hits; they include “Brown Eyed Girl” and different versions of “Here Comes the Night” and “Gloria”—the latter subdued here—than those that appeared on the original live album. Back then, Mr. Morrison gave the impression that he could compose a hit whenever he wanted to, but also that he had much more on his mind. Concerts like the ones that provide the material for the expanded “It’s Too Late to Stop Now” revealed he was, more so than any of his peers, at the crossroads of rock-and-pop’s past, the best of its then-present and the possibilities for its future. Thus, the new collection rises well above a mere historical artifact. “It’s Too Late to Stop Now” provides an essential listening experience.

Mr. Fusilli is the Journal’s rock and pop music critic. Email him at jfusilli@wsj.com and follow him on Twitter @wsjrock

Peter Schweizer: ‘Flow of Money’ from Foreign Donors ‘Dramatically Affected Hillary Clinton’s Tenure as Secretary of State’

by JOHN HAYWARD
http://www.breitbart.com/
June 10, 2016


AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

Clinton Cash author and Breitbart News senior editor Peter Schweizer addressed the criticism that his book plays a “guilt by association” game with the Clintons on Friday’s Breitbart News Daily with SiriusXM host Stephen K. Bannon.

“I didn’t have access to Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails,” he noted, looking back to a previous interview with Shepherd Smith of Fox News. “I don’t have a document that says, ‘We’ll give you money, and I’ll do this in return.’ What, clearly, the book shows is that the flow of money — particularly the flow of foreign funds — dramatically affected Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.”

“It is about ‘follow the money.’ That’s the greatest route in American politics, right? If you want to find out why a politician is doing something, don’t look at what they say. Look at what they do,” he advised.

Bannon agreed that “follow the money” has been a reliable strategy for uncovering many previous political scandals, ranging from Watergate and Abscam to Iran-Contra. It’s a methodology the media seems eager to employ with everyone except powerful Democratic politicians, especially the Clintons.

Bannon observed that Schweizer has been less partisan than the mainstream media in his investigations, having worked crony-capitalism and corruption stories on both sides of the aisle before Clinton Cash became his most explosive production.

Schweizer said that a “key point,” which makes the Clintons “different than anybody else in American politics today,” is the size and scale of their operation, and the amount of foreign money they raked in.

“They’ve got a net worth now of around $200 million, when they had none in 2001,” he noted. “No American political figure or family has had that dramatic a climb. But even more importantly, the book is not about Goldman Sachs, it’s not about Boeing, it’s not about Big Oil. It’s about foreign companies. It’s about foreign governments and foreign financiers.”

Schweizer said that while Americans have strong disagreements about the role of money in politics, he doubted anyone would think “it’s a good idea to allow foreign entities, and foreign financiers, to give money to our politicians — but that’s precisely what the Clintons have established.”

“If you’re a foreign financier, and you’re trying to get something from the Secretary of State, you can’t give money to a political campaign. You can’t give money to a Super PAC. It’s against the law,” he said. “But you can hire the Secretary of State’s spouse to give an over-inflated speaking fee, and collect a lot of money. Or you can make a large donation to the Clinton Foundation, ten times the amount that you might donate to a Super PAC.”

Bannon cited the billion-dollar commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative by Gilbert Chagoury, who Schweizer described as a “doozy.”

“He doesn’t run an insurance company in London,” Schweizer said. “This is a guy who has climbed to the top in the most corrupt country in the world, which is Nigeria.”

Bannon added that the Nigerian section of the new Clinton Cash documentary film is “difficult to watch.”

“We start with the poverty in Nigeria,” he said of the film, for which he was a writer and producer. “You’ve got little kids eating out of garbage cans, every day. That’s how they exist. And you’ve got guys that run this country, and the warlords around this country, that have stolen so much money, and got it put away in places like Geneva, right, and Bill and Hillary Clinton are in business. They took a billion dollar commitment – one billion dollars. The mainstream media, don’t hear that on CNN. They never asked a question, in 35 hours of debates.”

There are many questions Clinton should be asked about this donation, given her benefactor Chagoury’s “horrific” track record, including an international court conviction for money laundering. “He’s been stealing with both hands from Nigeria,” Bannon declared. “Those little kids are eating out of that garbage can because of guys like this.”

“That’s exactly right, Steve,” Schweizer agreed. “Not only do they take money from guys like Gilbert Chagoury. As we point out, Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State took favorable actions on their behalf. So think about this for a second: Nigeria is the most corrupt country in the world, guys like Gilbert Chagoury are making all of this money. We send them $600 million in taxpayer money, in foreign assistance. Hillary Clinton signed a waiver so that they could continue to receive that aid, even though they were not transparent in how that money was being spent, and where it was going.”
“Absolutely, there was a flow of money, and Hillary Clinton took favorable actions,” he charged. “It did affect the decisions she made as Secretary of State.”

Schweizer looped the Clinton Cash revelations into Hillary Clinton’s email scandal. “Here’s the bottom line: Hillary Clinton sent and received 60,000 emails, about, when she was Secretary of State. She deleted more than half of those, and she turned the remainder over to the State Department, and said, ‘The 30,000 I deleted were all personal and private.’ She used examples like ‘this is about Chelsea’s wedding, and this is about yoga.’ Look, nobody sends 30,000 emails on yoga, or on wedding plans,” he said.

“The bottom line is, the deleted emails are precisely emails that relate to these kinds of transactions,” Schweizer asserted. “Meeting with donors, favors for donors, the flow of money, those sorts of issues. This is why the two events are connected. This is why, by the way, the FBI’s investigating both things. They’re investigating the email server. They’re also investigating this very real problem of pay-to-play with the Clinton Foundation, during her tenure as Secretary of State.”

Schweizer said he was preparing some additional analysis of Clinton’s email.

“What we’ve done is looked at the emails, and the ones that have been released, and what you find is that there are these gaps, where she takes a trip somewhere, and there’s several days where she does not send or receive an email, according to those that she’s released,” he revealed. “So the question becomes: really, honestly, she was not communicating with anybody for three days, while she’s Secretary of State, on a foreign trip, meeting with foreign individuals? Or is it more likely that these were deleted emails that were related to Clinton Foundation behavior, and she did not want the public to see those, so they were deleted.”

“It’s going to be a numeric analysis and a content analysis to see what’s really missing from the emails that they’ve released, and claim is the complete set,” he promised.

Schweizer looked forward to a round of media appearances in the days ahead. “Any time you work on fighting corruption, and corruption becomes the center point of a campaign, you’re glad that people are paying attention,” he said.

“This is a center point of the trouble we’re having in the United States. Why are our elected officials unresponsive? It’s because things are good for them. And things are good for them because a lot of them are on the take,” Schweizer declared. “They’re taking favors, they’re taking money. So corruption is a central component, I believe, of the problems we’re having in this country, where our leaders are just detached from us.”

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