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July 2016

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

Putin and Those Democratic Emails Clinton blames Russia for the DNC leak. Pre-emptive inoculation?

By on July 26th, 2016

Here’s the last word Democrats wanted to hear at their Philadelphia convention this week: emails. But there it was after WikiLeaks released 20,000 internal emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee revealing, among other things, that party officials had favored Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders.

That wasn’t news, but it gave the Sanders legions a new opening to vent their frustration with the establishment. Their fury brought down Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the party chair, who on Sunday announced her resignation at the end of the convention but by Monday had been strong-armed by the Clinton campaign to abandon any convention role.

Remember those Casualties of Bill (Clinton) from the 1990s? Ms. Wasserman Schultz is the first Casualty of Hillary in this Clinton comeback. She had to go for the sake of party unity but also because the DNC emails remind Americans of another batch of emails, those belonging to the former Secretary of State.

On that score, it was startling to hear the Clinton campaign respond to the email leak by blaming Russia. Campaign manager Robby Mook accused Russian “state actors” of divulging the emails for “the purpose of helping Donald Trump,” and even suggested several pro-Russian provisions in the recent GOP platform were behind the leak. The media is now noting that Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort once worked for a Vladimir Putin crony.

Nothing is beyond Mr. Putin, especially since he is already trying to influence European elections. His allies are bankrolling France’s National Front leader, Marine Le Pen, they supported Britain’s exit from the European Union and fabricated stories this spring to undercut Chancellor Angela Merkel in regional elections. Vlad the Election Impaler might well prefer Mr. Trump in the Oval Office, even if Mrs. Clinton was an architect of President Obama’s 2009 “reset” with Russia.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Is Europe Helpless? A civilization that believes in nothing will ultimately submit to anything. Bret Stephens

By on July 26th, 2016

At last count, members of the European Union spent more than $200 billion a year on defense, fielded more than 2,000 jet fighters and 500 naval ships, and employed some 1.4 million military personnel. More than a million police officers also walk Europe’s streets. Yet in the face of an Islamist menace the Continent seems helpless. Is it?

Was France helpless in May 1940?

Let’s stipulate that a van barreling down a seaside promenade isn’t a Panzer division, and that a few thousand ISIS fighters scattered from Mosul to Marseilles aren’t another Wehrmacht. But as in France in 1940, Europe today displays the same combination of doctrinal rigidity and loss of will that allowed an Allied army of 144 divisions to be routed by the Germans in six weeks. The Maginot Line of “European values” won’t prevail over people who recognize none of those values.
So much was made clear by French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who remarked after the Nice attack that “France is going to have to live with terrorism.” This may have been intended as a statement of fact but it came across as an admission that his government isn’t about to rally the public to a campaign of blood, toil, tears and sweat against ISIS—another premature capitulation in a country that has known them before.

Mr. Valls was later booed at a memorial service for the Nice victims. It would be heartening to think this was because he and his boss, President François Hollande, have failed to forge a strategy to destroy ISIS. But the public’s objection was that there hadn’t been enough cops along the Promenade des Anglais to stop the attack. In soccer terms, it’s a complaint about the failure of defense, not the lack of a proper offense.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Germany: Christian Names for Muslim Migrants? by Soeren Kern

By on July 26th, 2016

“The United States is full of anglicized German names, from Smith to Steinway, from Miller to Schwartz. The reason: integration was made easier. … I think that German citizens of foreign origin should also have this possibility.” — Ruprecht Polenz, former secretary general of Germany’s ruling Christian Democratic Union.

Non-Muslim immigrants generally choose traditional German names for their children to facilitate their integration into German society. By contrast, Muslim immigrants almost invariably choose traditional Arabic or Turkish names, presumably to prevent their integration into German society. A 2006 study found that more than 90% of Turkish parents give their German-born children Turkish first names.

A 2016 study found that 32% of ethnic Turks in Germany agree that “Muslims should strive to return to a societal order such as that in the time of Mohammed.” More than one-third believe that “only Islam is able to solve the problems of our times.” One-fifth agree that “the threat which the West poses to Islam justifies violence.” One-quarter believe that “Muslims should not shake the hand of a member of the opposite sex.”

Muslim migrants in Germany who feel discriminated against should be given the right to change their legal names to Christian-sounding ones, according to a senior German politician.

The latest innovation in German multiculturalism is being championed by Ruprecht Polenz, a former secretary general of the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He believes the German law which regulates name changes (Namensrecht) should be amended to make it easier for men named Mohammed to become Martin and women named Aisha to become Andrea.

German law generally does not allow foreigners to change their names to German ones, and German courts rarely approve such petitions. By custom and practice, German names are only for Germans.

According to Polenz, who served as a member of parliament for nearly two decades, the law in its current form is “ignorant” and should be changed:

“An ignorant law: the United States is full of anglicized German names, from Smith to Steinway, from Miller to Schwartz. The reason: integration was made easier. It no longer appeared as though a family was not from the USA. I think that German citizens of foreign origin should also have this possibility.”

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Department of Homeland Security Targeting the Wrong Enemy by A.J. Caschetta

By on July 26th, 2016

President Obama has surrounded himself not with military strategists but rather with fiction writers, wide-eyed diplomats whose strategy is “don’t do stupid shit,” and law enforcement officials who believe that “Our most effective response to terror and hatred is compassion, unity and love.”

Only “rightwing extremism” is obvious to the Obama Administration. Everything else is apparently too complex and nuanced for labels. Even Micah Xavier Johnson, who said that he was motivated by “Black Lives Matters” rhetoric and hatred of white people, is a conundrum to the president, who bizarrely asserted that it is “hard to untangle the motives of this shooter.”

The Obama era is one of willful blindness to the jihadist movement that has declared war on America. CIA Director John Brennan purged the word “jihad” from the agency’s vocabulary. Obama’s two Attorneys General have done the same at the Department of Justice.

The federal government has spent the last 8 years pretending that “rightwing extremists” are more numerous and dangerous than the careful and intelligent jihadist attackers, whom it insists are just “madmen” or “troubled individuals.”

Anyone surprised by President Barack Obama’s recurring attempts at exploiting jihadist attacks in his efforts to restrict gun ownership should read the earliest known document concerning terrorism assembled by his administration. The unclassified assessment by Department of Homeland Security (DHS), titled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment,” is dated April 7, 2009 — a mere 77 days after Obama’s inauguration.

The document was leaked shortly after its release to law enforcement officials across the country and made public by Roger Hedgecock on April 13, 2009. It laid out the new president’s legislative and executive priorities on terrorism, guns and immigration. Uniquely combining these three issues would become a predictable, coordinated pattern during Obama’s two terms in office.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

Ryan Mauro: Tim Kaine’s History of Embracing Islamists

By on July 26th, 2016

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s newly-announced running mate, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, has a history of embracing Islamists. He appointed a Hamas supporter to a state immigration commission; spoke at a dinner honoring a Muslim Brotherhood terror suspect and received donations from well-known Islamist groups.

Appointing a Muslim Brotherhood Front Leader Who Supports Hamas

In 2007, Kaine was the Governor of Virginia and, of all people chose Muslim American Society (MAS) President Esam Omeish to the state’s Immigration Commission. A Muslim organization againstIslamism criticized the appointment and reckless lack of vetting.

Federal prosecutors said in a 2008 court filing that MAS was “founded as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.” AChicago Tribune investigation in 2004 confirmed this, as well as MAS’ crafty use of deceptive semantics to appear moderate. Convicted terrorist and admitted U.S. Muslim Brotherhood member Abdurrahman Alamoudi testified in 2012, “Everyone knows that MAS is the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Read our fully-documented profile of MAS here.

According to Omeish’s website, he was also president of the NationalMuslim Students Association (click there to read our profile about its Muslim Brotherhood origins) and served for two years on the national board of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which the Justice Department also labeled as a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity and unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-financing trial.

His website says he was the vice president of Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, a radical mosque known for its history of terror ties, including having future Al-Qaeda operative Anwar Al-Awlaki as itsimam and being frequented by two of the 9/11 hijackers and Nidal Hasan, the perpetrator of the Fort Hood shooting. Omeish’s website says he remains a board member.

Omeish’s website also says he was chairman of the board of Islamic American University, which had Hamas financier and Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yousef Al-Qaradawi chairman of its board until at least 2006.

Omeish was also chairman of the board for the Islamic Center of Passaic County, a New Jersey mosque with heavy terrorist ties and an imam that the Department of Homeland Security wants to deport for having links to Hamas.

Omeish directly expressed extremism before Kaine appointed him. He claimed the Brotherhood is “moderate” and admitted that he and MAS are influenced by the Islamist movement.

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BOOKS Comments turned off

David R. Legates: Students taught advocacy in place of science Students are learning energy and climate change advocacy, not climate science

By on July 26th, 2016

For almost thirty years, I have taught climate science at three different universities. What I have observed is that students are increasingly being fed climate change advocacy as a surrogate for becoming climate science literate. This makes them easy targets for the climate alarmism that pervades America today.

Earth’s climate probably is the most complicated non-living system one can study, because it naturally integrates astronomy, chemistry, physics, biology, geology, hydrology, oceanography, and cryology — and also includes human behavior by both responding to and affecting human activities. Current concerns over climate change have further pushed climate science to the forefront of scientific inquiry.

What should we be teaching college students?

At the very least, a student should be able to identify and describe the basic processes that cause Earth’s climate to vary from poles to everestequator, from coasts to the center of continents, from the Dead Sea or Death Valley depression to the top of Mount Everest or Denali. A still more literate student would understand how the oceans, biosphere, cryosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere – driven by energy from the sun – all work in constantly changing combinations to produce our very complicated climate.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s definition of climate science literacy raises the question of whether climatology is even a science. It defines climate science literacy as “an understanding of your influence on climate and climate’s influence on you and society.”

How can students understand and put into perspective their influence on the Earth’s climate if they don’t understand the myriad of processes that affect our climate? If they don’t understand the complexity of climate itself? If they are told only human aspects matter? And if they don’t understand these processes, how can they possibly comprehend how climate influences them and society in general?

Worse still, many of our colleges are working against scientific literacy for students.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Former NASA scientist dispels notion global warming is ‘settled’ science by Michael Bastasch

By on July 26th, 2016

A former NASA climate scientist has put out a new report criticizing the argument that global warming is settled science.

“It should be clear that the science of global warming is far from settled,” said Dr. Roy Spencer, a former NASA scientist who now co-runs a major satellite temperature dataset at the University of Alabama-Huntsville.

“Uncertainties in the adjustments to our global temperature datasets, the Daily Caller New Foundationsmall amount of warming those datasets have measured compared to what climate models expect, and uncertainties over the possible role of Mother Nature in recent warming, all combine to make climate change beliefs as much faith-based as science-based,” Spencer wrote in a report published by the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation.

“Until climate science is funded independent of desired energy policy outcomes, we can continue to expect climate research results to be heavily biased in the direction of catastrophic outcomes,” Spencer wrote.
Spencer’s report covers a wide swath of climate science topics from the factors behind global warming, to how scientists make adjustments to climate data, to the “97 percent” consensus figure often cited by politicians and environmentalists.

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