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August 2016

Yale forms committee to purge university of ‘offensive’ names By Rick Moran

Yale University, considered one of the finest centers of higher education in the country, is forming a committee to examine procedures to rename buildings, monuments, and other campus features that may be “offensive” to one group or another.

What if you consider the committee itself an affront to free inqury and a surrender to political correctness?

Daily Caller:

The Committee to Establish Principles on Renaming is exactly what it sounds like: A special group that will set rules to decide what aspects of Yale’s history should remain, and which should be purged.

The committee’s existence stems from the long-running controversy over Calhoun College, a residential college at the school named for John C. Calhoun, an American vice president who was a vocal defender of slavery. Many have called for Calhoun College to be renamed, with those calls gaining strength after the June 2015 shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, which sparked a general backlash against monuments to the Confederacy and slaveholders.

Back in April, Yale President Peter Salovey announced Calhoun College would not be renamed, despite protests. At the time, Salovey said renaming the college would go against Yale’s core principles, including its motto, Light and Truth.

Removing Calhoun’s name obscures the legacy of slavery rather than addressing it,” he said at the time.

But the announcement did nothing to quiet critics or defuse the issue. Opponents continued to denounce Calhoun, and in June, a Yale employee smashed a historic stained glass window at Calhoun he argued was demeaning because it showed black slaves harvesting cotton. Despite initially losing his job and being hit with criminal charges, the employee ultimately went totally unpunished for his stunt.

VA Whistle-for-it Day By Joanna Rosamond see note please

For the best writing and exposure of VA chicanery check out : http://www.openthebooks.com/

On July, 30, 2016 VA Office of Inspector General announced “Today is National Whistleblower Appreciation Day. We as a Nation must recognize the important role whistleblowers play in exposing serious problems and deficiencies in Government programs and operations.”

What does the VA mean by serious problems? Millions spent on “art” while our homeless Veterans dine “Chez Garbage”? Are rampant corruption, lies and despicable treatment of “VA VIP Customers” serious and blatant enough?

The wrongdoing is shamelessly self-explanatory, and so is Obama´s endorsement of the VA secretary´s pseudo transformation of the decaying department. While performing on Disabled Veterans Convention in Atlanta (August 1, 2016), Obama gushed: ´´Thank you, Bob, for the great work you are doing.´´

As for VA Secretary Robert McDonald, he seems perfectly content with the pat on the back and grandiose sound of his own voice: “Excellence is what we´re after. So the right dialogue is about forward-looking leadership and sustainable accountability.”

Hey, homeless “folks”, if you are hungry, eat a project: “You should know there are more than 100 legislative proposals for Veterans in the President´s 2017 Budget.” McDonald seems optimistically hopeful that after elections he will receive more money to burn and no “sustainable accountability” for loss of human lives and potential.

Obama said “As Commander-in-Chief, I´m pretty tired of some folks trash-talking America´s military and troops” but it was not about refusing to salute the American Flag , sending our soldiers to Leavenworth or inhuman treatment of homeless Veterans; just one more boring attack against Donald Trump.

On the website of U.S. Department of Defense figures: “Washington, July, 2014 – Leaders at the Veterans Affairs Department are deeply concerned and distressed about allegations that whistleblowers are routinely retaliated against”.

In 2016 VA whistleblowers still claim retaliation for complaints against the ´´distraught´´ leaders and Secretary McDonald still considers that ´´You can´t fire your way to excellence´´.

Bill Martin :Free Speech Is The Only Remedy

If you have entered a major sports stadium recently it will have been only after a bag search and, possibly, a body scan at the turnstiles — one example of the way in which the freedoms and safety we once took for granted are being inhibited. The only response is to speak frankly about the reason why.
In his excellent Quadrant essay, “Weaponising Our Weaknesses”, Edwin Dyga detailed the peril faced by Western civilisation and the maladies rendering us all but incapable of mounting a credible defence in the interests of its survival. That article identified the disease and outlined the dire prognosis if left untreated. What follows are the obvious and clinical steps which logic says governments must be encouraged to adopt as the most efficacious remedy.

The first and fundamental requirement is the changing of prevailing attitudes and the language that goes with it. Political correctness must be banished. The legal and moral acceptability of any view or opinion is to be determined solely by its veracity, irrespective of the way it is subjectively perceived by any group or individual. The only restriction on freedom of expression must be that which prohibits the expression of actual and outright hate and which advocates violence, as distinct from mere criticism or disapproval. Laws contrary to the letter or spirit of this determination — Section 18C, for starters – must be abolished. Our Western traditions take as a given that democratically elected governments will be champions of free and unfettered speech. Any hedged or qualified restriction on what can be said, written or broadcast betrays all those who, in many cases, gave their lives to win for all who came after the liberty of candour.

Next, with absolute confidence in the protection of the law and authorities, we must actually dare to say what we think. If, for example, you find the veiling of young girls an insult to our traditions of female emancipation, being told that such observations are “offensive” or, that universal catchall, “inappropriate”, cannot be accepted as a valid defence of repugnant cultural practices. Let those at the pointy end respond to such criticism on its merits or otherwise. Yes, harsh opinions expressed openly can be upsetting, but those that are suppressed fester and burst like toxic abscesses.

In daring to say what we know to be true, we must openly acknowledge and decisively proclaim that our civilisation, based on Judeo-Christian principles, is under mortal threat from Islam. It must be proclaimed, and proclaimed unambiguously, that we are determined to maintain our culture and customs and, further, that we firmly oppose all attempts, open and surreptitious alike, to change them. The inevitable objections by Muslim leaders and non-Muslim “progressives” is to be firmly and confidently countered by the wealth and breadth of empiric evidence, starting with Islamic scriptures’ assertion that the faith of Allah is divinely destined to rule the world. We must not be deterred by spurious accusations of racism and Islamophobia. Only the facts must matter. The inconvenient ones can no longer be swept under the rug in order to placate the habitually offended.

Tony Thomas :Young Heads Filled With Green Mush

Imagine being a pro-coal activist — or a climate sceptic, for that matter — and enjoying open access to Australia’s schools. Inconceivable, right? But if you’re pushing Oxfam’s green myths and downright lies, there is a welcome mat outside very nearly every classroom.
Officially-encouraged child abuse involves greens’ lobbyists brainwashing primary and secondary-school kids. A leading lobbyist is Oxfam Australia, gearing up for a renewed assault this month on our idealistic and gullible schoolchildren.

Oxfam this Term 4 is pushing “Hunger Banquets” for kids — “a fun, eye-opening (and mouth-watering!) interactive and experiential learning event centred on the issue of global hunger: and particularly food insecurity resulting from climate change.”[1] Principals, teachers and their unions have put out the welcome mat[2] for Oxfam’s zealots and their green-drenched propaganda.[3] As Oxfam says, “The Hunger Banquets project is mapped to the Australian Curriculum (AC) cross-curricular priority of Sustainability. It is also accompanied by a whole heap of classroom resources, linked to AC Geography Yr 9, AC English Yrs 7-10, and AC Health.”

Oxfam Australia, the $110 million local arm of the global $A1.5 billion international charity behemoth, will “help you [teachers] bring social justice into the classroom.”

“Social justice” includes Oxfam exhorting kids’ pocket money into its own coffers:

“Hunger Banquet money box: Download our moneybox template if you’re asking Hunger Banquet participants for a gold coin donation or raising money for Oxfam’s work in other ways. Handy tip: Sticking your printout onto a manila folder or old cereal box will make your moneybox more sturdy.”

It matters not that half our kids’ parents are conservative voters. There is no push-back from conservative politicians: parents have to suck it up. Moreover, Oxfam is hardly the sole green-left-socialist indoctrinator with entrée to classrooms. Come on in, Greenpeace, plus the Australian Conservation Foundation, Youth Climate Coalition, GetUp, teams of Al Gore’s indoctrinators, the Australian Academy of Science, World Wildlife Fund, Cool Australia– each and every one promoting and cross-promoting[4] students with activist urgings. I asked a Liberal Party tactician what the party could do about all the brainwashed future greens voters emerging from high schools, and he said he had no idea.

Oxfam also throws its weight behind the cross-gender-promoting and Marxist-inspired Safe Schools indoctrination, mandated in Victoria by CFMEUpuppet premier, Dan Andrews. Oxfam says,

We are proud to stand in solidarity with, and state our support for, Safe Schools Coalition Australia … as an ally in working towards a world that is more just, peaceful, harmonious and fair.”

No kid is too young to escape the Oxfam net. Oxfam wants to saturate schools at class-, year- and whole-of-school level, pegging “hunger banquets” in particular to World Food Day , October 16.[5] Oxfam’s Hunger Banquets involve kids sorting themselves into high, medium and low-income groups, corresponding to global regions. Most kids get only a cup of rice and water for the lunch, but the small group of First Worlders win a tummy-filling three courses that includes Italian pasta. Point made. Except that the point is a bucketful of Oxfam bull faeces: “Hungry for a fair climate? Climate change is the single biggest threat in the global fight against hunger.”

Trump and the Khans He acted like a jerk, but there’s more to the story.By James Taranto

“Khan’s speech not only successfully baited Trump into playing the fool; it gave Nevertrumps an opportunity to feel good about themselves. We noticed this Sunday tweet from Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations: “Either you stand with Khizr & Ghazala Khan or Donald Trump. No middle ground. Choose your side. I’m with #KhizrKhan.” But neither Khan is running for president. The actual choice is between Mrs. Clinton and Trump, but by equivocating in this way, Boot transfers his support for Mrs. Clinton to a sympathetic figure.

As for “no middle ground,” that isn’t even true in the election, as one does have the option of abstaining or voting third-party. It certainly isn’t true of the Trump-Khan dustup. We think Trump has handled it appallingly, but we also find plenty of fault with the Democrat-media narrative that has arisen around it.

Take Khan’s j’accuse, “You have sacrificed nothing,” and Stephanopoulos’s question, “What sacrifice have you made for your country?” Do these not apply equally well to Mrs. Clinton? She didn’t serve in the military, nor did her husband (a fact Republicans hoped vainly would work against him in 1992), and their daughter has lived quite a pampered life. As David French—an Army Reserve major, Iraq veteran and Nevertrump stalwart—observes:

Hillary Clinton hasn’t sacrificed—she’s lived the progressive dream. And she’s certainly not a “public servant”—she’s a cynical, grasping, and ambitious politician. Her accomplishments are meager, and her one guiding star is her own self-advancement.

A Daily Beast column Saturday carried the headline “Chicken Hawk Trump Mocks Captain Khan’s Mother.” We’ve heard that epithet before, but isn’t hawkishness a necessary element? Trump is running as the less hawkish candidate, faulting Mrs. Clinton for voting in favor of the Iraq war and pushing for the 2011 Libya intervention.

During his DNC speech, Khan cited Trump’s proposal for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration (on which he seems to have equivocated of late, as in the Pence statement above) and answered as follows:

Let me ask you: have you even read the United States Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy. In this document, look for the words “liberty” and “equal protection of law.”

But as the Washington Examiner’s Byron York and National Review’s Andy McCarthy point out—and as we explained back in December, when Trump first put the idea forward—the Constitution places almost no limit on Congress’s power to regulate immigration, and none at all on its power to control entry of unadmitted nonresident aliens. The legal term of art is the plenary power doctrine.

As NR’s Jim Geraghty points out, the media are highly selective in their treatment of grieving parents:

Hey, remember when the first night of the Republican convention featured Patricia Smith, mother of Sean Smith, one of the Americans slain in Benghazi? Remember how her speech was called a “cynical exploitation of grief”? Or the “unabashed exploitation of private people’s grief” or “the weaponization of grief”? Remember how she “ruined the evening”? How it was, “a spectacle so offensive, it was hard to even comprehend”? How some liberal commentators said, “Mrs. Smith was really most interested in drinking blood rather than healing”? How her speech represented an “early dip into the gutter”? Remember how a GQ writer publicly expressed a desire to beat her to death?

As is often the case, Trump’s outrageous behavior finds a precedent in his critics’ behavior—in this case, their behavior just the week before.

To be sure, the critics Geraghty cites are all journalists; none of them are seeking to become president. But do you remember John Kerry?

He launched his public career in 1971 by testifying to a series of outrageous slanders against American servicemen. Subsequently he was elected lieutenant governor of, and U.S. senator from, Massachusetts. He was the Democratic nominee for president in 2004, when he presented himself as a war hero.

Kerry has never apologized for his calumnies against his fellow Vietnam veterans, which the liberal media played down as he was pursuing the Democratic nomination. When a group of vets eventually called him out on it, Democrats and journalists smeared them.

In 2013 Kerry left the Senate after the president nominated him as secretary of state. If by Obama’s standards Trump is unfit to serve because of his obnoxious comments, how is Kerry fit?”

Zika and the Democrats Obama is sitting on money and methods to slow the virus. Instead he blames Congress.

The Zika virus is only beginning to hit the U.S. mainland, but its political exploitation is already an epidemic. To wit, the Obama Administration that is sitting on money and methods to reduce the Zika outbreak is using the virus as a political bludgeon to elect more Democrats.

A Zika outbreak hit Miami this week, and the Centers for Disease Control on Monday advised pregnant women to get checked for possible exposure. Women in Miami are being told to cover up, stay indoors and wear insect repellant because the virus can cause malformed brains in the womb. These are sensible precautions, but it would be better if the government wasn’t dysfunctional in spending the money it has and eradicating the mosquitoes that carry the disease.

About 6,400 cases of Zika have been confirmed in the U.S. and its territories, though only one in five who are infected show symptoms. Most cases in the continental U.S. have been individuals who have traveled to regions with an epidemic, particularly Latin and Central America. While the virus can be transmitted sexually, it is commonly spread by mosquitoes. The infection risk peaks in the summer.

The White House that is responsible for public health is trying to blame Congress while ducking its own failures. “The keys here are sitting with Congress, and they have to turn them to unleash more federal funding,” White House press secretary Eric Schultz said Friday.

He should talk to Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer because Senate Democrats blocked Zika funding. The Administration in February requested $1.9 billion for Zika research, education and prevention. Last month the Senate and House agreed to a $1.1 billion compromise that was offset by $543 million in leftover ObamaCare funds when Puerto Rico chose to expand Medicaid rather than set up exchanges. The bill also temporarily waived duplicative permitting requirements for anti-mosquito pesticides.

But Senate Democrats blocked the conference report, inventing the excuse that the bill banned funding for Planned Parenthood, restricted access to birth control and gutted the Clean Water Act. None of this is true. Planned Parenthood wasn’t specifically identified on a list of public health clinics and community health centers eligible for funding, but it also wasn’t barred from receiving federal funds as a sub-grantee. CONTINUE AT SITE

U.K. Lawmakers Urge More Action on Migrant Crisis Cross-party panel stresses need for stronger border controls By Alexis Flynn

LONDON—Britain’s government should do more to resettle Syrian refugees and strengthen border controls to clamp down on the smuggling of migrants, an influential committee of U.K. lawmakers said in a report to be published Wednesday.

The cross-party panel also criticized the European Union’s handling of the migrant crisis, saying the EU failed to anticipate and tackle the crisis and has done “too little, too late,” according to an advanced copy of the report by the Home Affairs Committee, which examines the U.K.’s interior ministry.

“Europe’s efforts to address this colossal refugee crisis has been lamentable,” said Keith Vaz, a member of the opposition Labour Party, who heads the panel. While it has no formal powers to compel the government to act, the committee’s high-profile role can shape political debate.

In the U.K., committees comprising lawmakers publicly scrutinize the workings of different government departments, providing oversight and advice.

The report’s publication follows the U.K.’s June vote to leave the EU. Polls showed unease about the rise of immigration played a big part in the referendum result. Despite these concerns, Mr. Vaz said it was imperative that the new British government stick to a commitment by former Prime Minister David Cameron to house 20,000 Syrians by 2020 as part of a program to relocate refugees from camps to the U.K. Mr. Cameron had wanted the U.K. to stay in the EU and resigned after the referendum. He was succeeded by Theresa May.

According to the report, approximately 1,602 Syrian refugees have been processed under the program since Mr. Cameron made the pledge in September. Most have been resettled in Scotland and northern England. CONTINUE AT SITE

U.S. Sent Cash to Iran as Americans Were Freed Obama administration insists there was no quid pro quo, but critics charge payment amounted to ransom By Jay Solomon and Carol E. Lee

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward.

Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane, according to these officials. The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, they said.

The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
The settlement, which resolved claims before an international tribunal in The Hague, also coincided with the formal implementation that same weekend of the landmark nuclear agreement reached between Tehran, the U.S. and other global powers the summer before.

“With the nuclear deal done, prisoners released, the time was right to resolve this dispute as well,” President Barack Obama said at the White House on Jan. 17—without disclosing the $400 million cash payment.

Senior U.S. officials denied any link between the payment and the prisoner exchange. They say the way the various strands came together simultaneously was coincidental, not the result of any quid pro quo.

“As we’ve made clear, the negotiations over the settlement of an outstanding claim…were completely separate from the discussions about returning our American citizens home,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said. “Not only were the two negotiations separate, they were conducted by different teams on each side, including, in the case of The Hague claims, by technical experts involved in these negotiations for many years.”

But U.S. officials also acknowledge that Iranian negotiators on the prisoner exchange said they wanted the cash to show they had gained something tangible.

Khan-flict: Freedom Fighting Son, Sharia Supremacist Father Andrew Bostom

Army Capt. Humayun Khan, was killed in action during an extended tour in Iraq. Deployed at Baquabah, Khan served in a force protection role, and oversaw a unit securing and maintaining his base. June 8, 2004, Khan died after ordering his soldiers to stay back, and “hit the dirt,” when he approached a suspicious taxi. While Khan was moving towards the vehicle, and motioning for it to stop, two men in the taxi detonated their explosives, killing themselves, Khan, and two Iraqi soldiers. Because of his heroic sacrifice, none of Khan’s soldiers were killed in the blast. When Khan was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery, he received full military honors at the burial, and his commanding officer observed in a letter,

He died selflessly and courageously, tackling the enemy head on. We will not forget him and the noble ideas he stood for.

Simply put, Humayun Khan died defending the uniquely Western conceptions of freedom articulated in the US Constitution, and Bill of Rights.

All Americans must acknowledge and honor the Khan family’s grief as parents of a heroic soldier killed in action. Their anguished perspective requires especial deference. But we should also take seriously the assertions made by Khizr Khan, Humayun’s father, and a lawyer, about the Constitution, at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) convention, which are contradicted by Khizr Khan’s earlier published opinions. Many Americans have their own copies of the Constitution (readers can get your own pocket Constitution here, for free, via Hillsdale College), and they know that Khizr Khan, perhaps in his lingering sorrow, egregiously misrepresented what our founding document states regarding immigration in the 14th amendment, as discussed recently by Byron York.

It was no doubt unintentional on Khizr Khan’s part that he appeared to attack the large majority of ordinary Americans who are concerned about the DNC’s support for admitting immigrants into the US without background checks (adequate databases for vetting Syrian Muslim refugees, as a prime example, don’t exist), even from countries with known risks for harboring jihad terrorists (i.e., like Syria). Americans want to disagree without being disagreeable, and being hectored that we have “black souls,” or lack compassion. We can have genuine, deep sympathy for the Khan family’s loss, and still disagree with Khizr Khan’s misrepresentation of the Constitution. With all due respect for his deprivation, we must review, gimlet-eyed, Mr. Khan’s published articles asserting the supremacy of Sharia over other politico-legal systems—opinions that are antithetical to the principles in the Constitution that he waved at Americans during his DNC convention address—and his own son died fighting to preserve.

UPDATE FROM FRANCE: NIDRA POLLER

Who do you think made the following statement on X Radio?

She does not want France to become Muslim. There is a massive Arab-Muslim invasion. If we want to maintain our cohesion and cultural harmony, we have to make a new balance in immigration. With regard to radical Islam: “I want the Salafist mosques closed and demolished! We have a problem with the organization of Islam in France.

She is against the full facial veil, “walking advertisement for radical Islam.” Veiled women should be punished by law and deprived of their civic and social rights.

You’ll find the answer at the end of this update.*

I am an optimist because I believe in reality. No matter how hard people try to deny it, reality sticks to its guns. It won’t vanish. It keeps popping up and sooner or later they have to deal with it. That’s what will happen.

No, I don’t think the world is coming to an end. I don’t think Europe is finished. We received a report on two Polish experts that raised an alert on the imminent collapse of European civilization. My father z”l was born in Przemysl (near Lvov). His family left Poland in the early years of the 20th century. Those that stayed behind were, with rare exceptions, exterminated. If Europe didn’t end then, it might just as well stay on for the next session of the adventured-packed film, known simply as The World.

BFM TV covered the entire funeral service in the Rouen Cathedral for the slaughtered priest Jacques Hamel. A majestic, moving, carefully orchestrated ritual. I don’t think I have ever attended a Mass or seen one in its entirety. In their modest eulogies the priest’s sister and niece brought to life his down to earth warmth and decency. Hamel’s sister related two stories about her brother’s military service in Algeria. He chose to remain a simple soldier, refusing to accept a promotion to officer because he did not want to be in a situation where he would have to order the soldiers under his command to kill. On one occasion, he was the sole survivor of a “shooting” [Were they ambushed or had they gone into battle?] He asked why, why was I the sole survivor? And for his sister the answer is now, standing before us, the simple wooden coffin covered with a white chasuble and red scarf of martyrdom. Why did he survive? [To have his throat slit by an allahu akhbar neighbor?] To testify by his martyrdom to Christ’s sacrifice?