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December 2016

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Michael Gove :Left’s hatred of Israel is racism in disguise Critics of the Jewish state cannot bear the fact that it is a beacon of western values in a sea of tyranny and despotism *****

By on December 17th, 2016

Michael Andrew Gove is a British Conservative politician, who was Secretary of State for Education from 2010 to 2014 and Secretary of State for Justice from 2015 to 2016. He has been the Member of Parliament for Surrey Heath since 2005. He is not Jewish. God bless him!!!!!rsk

How do you know if someone’s an anti-Semite? They don’t all perform stiff-arm salutes for the camera and offer interesting 140-character thoughts about race theory on Twitter. Although those are helpful clues, as the American alt-right, Hezbollah and Iran’s leadership prove.

But anti-Semitism isn’t a prejudice restricted to the likes of Richard Spencer, Hassan Nasrallah and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. As befits the world’s oldest and most durable hatred, it has many more adherents and has taken many different forms.

In medieval times, when individuals made sense of their world through the prism of faith, anti-Semitism was a religious prejudice. In the 19th and early 20th centuries – the age of Darwinism – anti-Semitism clothed itself in the white coat of the scientist. Biological metaphors were deployed to modernise hate. The Jews were carriers of “racial contamination” who had to be eliminated as a pathological threat to humanity’s future.

That belief led to history’s greatest crime. The extermination of six million powered by hatred of one thing – Jewish identity. It should have been the case that anti-Semitism died in the furnaces of the Holocaust. But the hatred survived. And, like a virus, mutated.

Anti-Semitism has moved from hatred of Jews on religious or racial grounds to hostility towards the proudest expression of Jewish identity we now have – the Jewish state.

No other democracy is on the receiving end of a campaign calling for its people to be shunned and their labour to be blacklisted. The Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions movement is a growing force on our streets and campuses. Its campaigners argue that we should ignore ideas from Jewish thinkers if those thinkers come from Israel and treat Jewish commerce as a criminal enterprise if that business is carried on in Israel.

This is anti-Semitism, impure and simple. It is the latest recrudescence of the age-old demand that the Jew can only live on terms set by others. Once Jews had to live in the ghetto, now they cannot live in their historic home.

It is to this country’s eternal credit that we rejected centuries of prejudice one hundred years ago and pledged to extend to the Jewish people the rights enjoyed by Germans and Italians, Japanese and Mexicans – the right to a land they could call their own. The Balfour Declaration in 1917 was followed in 1948 with the creation of the state of Israel. Since then, that state’s success has been near miraculous.

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

A Trumpian Israeli initiative: Caroline Glick

By on December 17th, 2016

US President-elect Donald Trump won’t even take office for another month, but he has already killed the status quo.

During the election, Trump trounced the untouchable consensus on NATO’s post-Cold War purpose. Questioning the purpose of an alliance formed to fight a war that ended 25 years ago is indisputably a reasonable thing to do. But until Trump came around, no one did.

Since November 7, Trump has continue to reject accepted wisdom. For 44 years no US president would speak with the president of Taiwan. And then President-elect Trump took a call from Taiwan’s President-elect Tsai Ing-wen.

It’s not clear where Trump stands on either NATO or Taiwan. But it is eminently apparent that by ignoring protocol, Trump expanded his maneuver room in his dealings with NATO and China.

Then of course, there is Jerusalem. Since 1948 the US has refused to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital – or even as part of Israel. This policy of non-recognition – embodied by the US refusal to transfer the US embassy to Jerusalem – has been maintained by a bipartisan consensus despite the fact that for the past 20 years, US law has required the State Department to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the embassy to Jerusalem.

When Trump promised to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, his words were greeted with cynicism.

But then this week his senior advisor Kellyanne Conway said Trump is serious about moving the embassy to Jerusalem.

In one fell swoop, the 68 year old consensus is gone.

35 years ago, on December 14, 1981, Israel took a Trump-like step. Israel took a wrecking ball to received wisdom.

That day, the Knesset passed the Golan Heights Law. Then prime minister Menachem Begin decided on the initiative the day before. In less than 24 hours, the law when from an idea in Begin’s head into the law books.

The Golan Heights law cancelled the Military Government and Civil Administration that had governed the area since 1967 and replaced them with Israeli law and administration.The Reagan administration was livid. Begin had neither asked Ronald Reagan for permission nor given Reagan a head’s-up on what he was about to do.

Begin was clearly operating on the basis of the “It’s better to ask for forgiveness than for permission” protocol.

In the event, the Americans weren’t really mad.Reagan prevented the UN Security Council from sanctioning Israel for its action.

The Syrian regime did nothing. The Arab world yawned.

Israel was spared international condemnation in large part because of the way Begin explained the purpose of the law.

The day before the Knesset passed Begin’s law, the Syrian regime announced it would prefer to fight Israel for 100 years than live at peace with it. That statement, like hundreds of similar ones over the 13 years since Israel took over the strategic plateau reinforced yet again, the basic truth that Israel would be responsible for the Golan Heights for a long, long time.

After the law was passed, Begin and his advisors insisted its purpose was administrative. Israel couldn’t wait for a hundred years to register births and deaths and marriages, they explained. The Syrian legal code, through which the Military Government administered the areas was unsuited to a modern democracy. There was no way to protect the rights of Golan residents so long as Syrian law was the law of the land.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

How about a Little Art of the Deal for Iran? Trump should send Obama’s JCPOA to the Senate. By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on December 17th, 2016

or his part, Trump has been ambiguous, perhaps strategically so, on how he intends to handle the Iran deal, variously suggesting that he would tear it up, restructure it, or — in a significant departure from the Obama administration — hold the mullahs to its strict letter.

I would propose a different tack: Trump should treat the Iran deal the way it should have been treated all along — as a treaty.

Doing so would help President Trump accomplish two critical objectives in one fell swoop. First, without necessarily dismantling any benefits Obama may have secured, Trump would lawfully transfer to himself the power to renegotiate the deal on better terms — the signature skill on which he built his successful White House bid. Second, he would reverse a perilous constitutional setback that purports to create American legal obligations through international proceedings in which powers hostile to the United States — Russia, China, and Iran itself — weigh in, but the American people’s elected representatives are frozen out.

It cannot be stressed enough that the Iran deal is not law, at least for the most part (more on that caveat momentarily). An international agreement becomes legally binding on the American people only if it is ratified as a treaty or enabled by ordinary legislation. Neither is true of the JCPOA. It is therefore a mere executive agreement that may be canceled at any time. The fact that Obama signed it and got it endorsed by the United Nations Security Council is insufficient, under our Constitution, to create legal obligations. Indeed, that is why there is rampant speculation about what Trump might do — had the agreement been ratified or statutorily enacted, there would be nothing to discuss.

There is a complication (isn’t there always?). When the Obama administration signed the JCPOA, Congress did not do what it should have done — namely, either (a) nothing at all or (b) pass a “sense of the Senate” or “sense of Congress” resolution affirming that, for an international agreement to be legally binding, the Constitution requires the president to present it to the Senate for approval or seek legislation implementing its terms. Instead, Congress foolishly enacted legislation — the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA) — which allowed the president to claim a legislative imprimatur with only one-third support from Congress.

I will not rehash the demerits of INARA — I have already done that repeatedly and at length (see here and follow the links). It is not my intention here to provoke more debate with Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker, who says he is a staunch opponent of the Iran deal. I am proposing a way for Senator Corker to lead a meaningful opposition.

INARA is relevant for present purposes because, as I have previously explained, it arguably repealed sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program. Although the language is less than clear, I believe the courts would see it that way.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Child Marriages in Muslim Societies Still Destroying Lives By Robert Jones

By on December 17th, 2016

The recent death of a “child bride” in Turkey is yet another reminder of the plight of children forced to marry in Muslim societies.

Fifteen-year-old Derya B., who was living in the province of Bitlis in eastern Turkey, gave birth to her first child at home in early December, according to Turkish newspaper Haberturk. One week after the birth, she was hospitalized — ironically on October 11, the International Day of the Girl — due to a severe headache, nausea, and vomiting. She was held in the intensive care unit of the hospital for two days. Derya eventually died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Derya had been married off to a relative in an “imam wedding” (a non-official, Islamic wedding) last year in Mutki, a village in Bitlis, when she was 14.

Dr. Aydan Biri, an expert in gynecology, told Haberturk that factors that increase maternal death can be direct or indirect:

The death of Derya constitutes indirect maternal death. It is dangerous for child brides to get pregnant. The death rate in adolescent pregnancies is higher. Blood pressure, premature birth, and early interventionist birth are commonplace in child pregnancies. And the pregnancies of children, whose body organs are not completely developed, end, more often, in death.

Derya is only one of the millions of victims of child marriages in the Muslim world. A total of 232,313 girls, aged 16 and 17, were married in Turkey between 2010 and 2015 alone, according to the official figures of the Turkish Ministry of Family and Social Policy.

Islamic tradition records that Muhammad, the founder of Islam, who is considered al-Insān al-Kāmil (the perfect human) and uswa hasana (an excellent model of conduct) by Muslims, married Aisha when she was 6 and consummated his marriage with her when she was 9.

He was 54 years old.

As scholar Robert Spencer puts it:

Islamic apologists in the West routinely deny that Muhammad married a child or that Islamic law sanctions child marriage. In reality, few things are more abundantly attested in Islamic law than the permissibility of child marriage.

Many Islamic countries, adds Spencer:

… make Muhammad’s example the basis of their laws regarding the legal marriageable age for girls.

Similarly, Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second caliph of Islam, married Umm Kulthum bint Ali, granddaughter of Muhammad and the daughter of Caliph Ali, when she was between 10 and 12 years old and he was around 47. CONTINUE AT SITE

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Report: RNC Security Stopped Russian Hackers From Infiltrating Networks By Debra Heine

By on December 17th, 2016

Russian hackers tried to breach the computer networks of the Republican National Committee but failed to get past their security defenses, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday evening. According to U.S. officials briefed on the intrusion, the hackers used the same techniques that allowed them to successfully infiltrate the Democratic National Committee, suggesting that they had intended to compromise Republicans, too. People close to the investigation said that only one email account linked to a long-departed RNC staffer was targeted, indicating a less aggressive effort, however.

The disclosures came as a political furor grows over suspected Russian hacking of U.S. political organizations. The Central Intelligence Agency has concluded that Russian hackers, whom analysts say work for that country’s military and intelligence apparatus, stole emails from the DNC, as well as another Democratic organization and the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, to harm her candidacy and boost Republican Donald Trump’s chances of winning. Russia has denied the allegations.

The possibility that Russians tried and failed to infiltrate the RNC doesn’t necessarily conflict with the CIA’s conclusion. A senior U.S. official said analysts now believe what started as an information-gathering campaign aimed at both parties later took on a focus of leaked emails about Mrs. Clinton and Democrats.

This news contradicts what the the New York Times reported last week — namely, that senior administration officials had concluded with “high confidence” that the RNC systems had been penetrated by the Russians but they didn’t release any of their information because they only wanted to burn Hillary Clinton.

President Barack Obama said in an NPR interview Thursday that the U.S. is considering retaliatory moves against Russia. “I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections, that we need to take action, and we will,” he said. “At a time and a place of our own choosing. Some of it may be explicit and publicized; some of it may not be.”

The WSJ continues:

Until now, few details had been disclosed about the nature of the targeting of Republican organizations, especially the flagship Republican National Committee, where hackers sent so-called phishing emails last spring to an email address there. Those emails were quarantined by a filter meant to detect spam as well as potentially malicious traffic that may carry viruses or trick recipients into divulging passwords, two officials said.

A third person familiar with the investigation said RNC staff members didn’t realize they had been the target of spies until June, after Democratic committee leaders revealed that hackers had successfully gained a foothold inside their networks. Once inside, they reportedly were able to access a trove of DNC opposition research on Mr. Trump, then a candidate. CONTINUE AT SITE

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BOOKS, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Iran’s Theater of Operations in Latin America By Janet Levy

By on December 17th, 2016

In Iran’s Strategic Penetration of Latin America (Lexington Books, 2014) authors and global security experts Joseph Humire and Ilan Berman elaborate on Kelly’s position with a collection of essays that provides an alarming look at Iran’s penetration of Latin America. That activity began in 1979 as part of Iran’s overall strategy to seek global power and develop nuclear weapons. Latin American experts featured in this revealing volume detail how Iran’s infiltration of Latin America has been pursued under the cover of commercial activities and cultural exchanges and has been aided by an alliance and shared militancy with the Latin American Left. The experts maintain that, over more than three decades, Iran has been able to forge strong economic, political, and strategic links to the region.

As the authors explain, Iran began its strategic infiltration of Latin America in 1982. International proxy groups exported Muslim revolutionary ideas using a global network of embassies and mosques under the cover of legitimate commerce and diplomatic, cultural, and religious associations. In this way, the Islamic regime concealed its intelligence activities, claimed diplomatic immunity and gained access to backdoor channels and local governments. Iran’s operatives traveled throughout the region unifying and radicalizing Islamic communities and recruiting, proselytizing and indoctrinating young Latin Americans.

Editor Joseph Humire recounts that in 1983 the regime sent an emissary, Mohsen Rabbani, an Iranian cleric, as a commercial attaché to set up a trade agreement with Argentina, ostensibly to supply halal-certified meat to the Islamic Republic. Rabbani, who in 1994 would become the primary architect of a terrorist attack in Buenos Aires, fostered alliances with local Shiite Muslims, as well as radical activists who wanted to shift power away from democratic alliances and U.S. influence. Trade with Iran helped these activists buy political patronage to advance authoritarian rule and enabled them to funnel mass social spending into their countries and influence elections. As Islamic terrorist entities such as Iran’s proxy, Hizb’allah, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) moved into the region, they joined with local radical groups such as FARC and Shining Path in their anti-Americanism and hatred of Jews and Israel.

The authors explore how, with a large Muslim population in place spewing hatred toward Israel, attention focused on the largest Jewish population in South America, the 230,000 Jews in Argentina. In 1992, a Hizb’allah-linked terrorist group claimed responsibility for bombing the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. In 1994, Hizb’allah committed the deadliest bombing in Argentine history when it bombed the AMIA Jewish community center also in Buenos Aires, killing 89 people and injuring hundreds.

The essay collection insightfully examines the role of Venezuelan dictator, Hugo Chavez. After becoming president in 1999, he forged a close relationship with Iran and hailed Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hizb’allah, as a hero. He also demanded criminal prosecution for Israel’s leader, Ariel Sharon, and President George W. Bush for mass murder. Chavez was able to help Iran overcome the hurdles of economic sanctions and engage in both licit and illicit commercial activity, including acquisition of strategic minerals for nuclear weapons development, drug trafficking, and money laundering. Chavez filled his cabinet with Islamists and became a close partner with then-Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. According to the authors, during this period Iranian influence in Latin American countries increased significantly.

Chavez worked closely with Fidel Castro, the first leader to recognize the Islamic republic and to invite Iran to open in Havana its first Latin American embassy. Together, Chavez and Castro sponsored a socialist “Bolivarian Revolution” to establish a “new world order” in which Latin America was part of a global revolution, not unlike the one in Iran. In 2004, they founded the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America or ALBA.

In Iran’s Strategic Penetration of Latin America, the authors examine how, over a decade, ALBA grew in strategic importance in Latin America and helped cause the backsliding of democratic reforms in the region. ALBA’s goal was to create a Latin American coalition under Venezuelan and Cuban rule using non-state actors and transnational organized crime to bring about a post-American world. In 2010, Iran and Syria were admitted to the organization as observer states. Chavez worked with Iran and Hizb’allah to train his military in asymmetric warfare, the use of insurgency forces against established armies. Iran financed an ALBA military training school in Bolivia, as well as Hizb’allah training centers in other countries. Hizb’allah became heavily involved in drug trafficking and money laundering in the tri-border area of Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil. It made millions of dollars, sending cocaine from Mexico and Columbia to the Middle East and Europe. Hizb’allah used its presence in Latin America to raise money for its global operations from the Lebanese and Syrian diasporas and to recruit, indoctrinate and proselytize among the Latin American population.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Walter Starck: If Only Sharks Ate ‘Experts’

By on December 17th, 2016

Walter Starck, a regular Quadrant contributor, has been researching coral reefs for more than 50 years
“Half-baked notions of environmental evangelism being presented as sound science by self-proclaimed “experts” have played a major part in driving a majority of our small primary producers out of their industry. These were the flexible, low-overhead operations which played a key role in providing abundant low cost food and raw materials. The result has been steep price increases in food, housing and energy going from among the most affordable in the world and rising to among the most expensive.

Now we have the highest level of personal debt in the world, half the population signed up as indentured servants to the banks for most of their working lives and much of the remainder in an ongoing battle to pay for rent, food and energy. Regardless, the eco-salvationists are doubling down on demands for still more restrictions.”
No surprise that sharks are attracted to areas where food is plentiful and, likewise, learn to avoid dangerous locales. In this regard they are far smarter than green-thinking alarmists, who denounce netting while remaining pointedly unaware that a rotting shark drives away fellow predators.
The legal protection of sharks and ever-increasing restrictions on commercial fishing have resulted in a significant increase in coastal shark populations around Australia. Combined with a growing population and more people in the water this has also led to a significant increase in attacks over recent years. Government now faces conflicting pressures in demands to save the lives of both people and sharks.

Politicians simply cannot take the time to become well informed on the myriad issues they must deal with so they have to rely heavily on the advice of experts. This works well in matters where there is a firmly founded body of knowledge, but less so in areas where knowledge is sketchy, conflicting and uncertain. Unfortunately we now have certified “experts” for every occasion, including topics about which we are in fact quite ignorant. Such “experts” know only what they have been taught in the degree mills, and what they offer is not so much evidence but more opinion and ideology. In environmental matters this situation is both common and compounded by a vigorous suppression of any questioning where a particular perspective has been deemed ethically correct by an academic community which leans overwhelmingly to the political left.

Although employing shark nets off popular swimming beaches has a well-established record in greatly reducing attacks, academic “experts” now deem this to present an unacceptable risk to “endangered” marine life. If their proclaimed expertise included any practical knowledge of sharks and shark fisheries they would know nets are not only effective but pose little risk to overall shark populations. It simply causes them to avoid the netted area.

In World War II night vision was critically important in many military activities, and good night vision depends on a healthy intake of Vitamin A. This is normally supplied from fresh vegetables but these were impossible to provide in many situations. The synthesis of Vitamin A had not been achieved at that time but shark liver oil was known to be a particularly rich natural source. As part of the war effort shark fisheries were initiated in a number of different areas and the fishermen soon learned that taking the liver and discarding the bodies quickly drove other sharks away from an area. Decaying shark flesh appears to be a strong shark repellent.

When shark netting is employed off beaches there is an initial high catch which quickly declines along with sightings in the general area. The overall catch and area affected is tiny relative to the wider population. Most importantly, to be maximally effective the carcasses of any sharks caught should be left in the area, not disposed of elsewhere.

Like most animals, sharks are attracted to areas where they are fed and likewise soon learn to avoid areas where they are in danger. No marine fish or invertebrate has ever been exterminated by fishing and the effect of introducing a few danger zones for them so that we too can enjoy the sea with minimal risk would be only a small price to pay for them or us.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Islamism in Europe by Khadija Khan

By on December 17th, 2016

Ironically, those who dare to speak out against extremists either face severe consequences, such as death threats, or are called anti-Muslim bigots. This kind of response often discourages progressive voices from speaking out, and understates the progress of counter-extremism even within the Muslim community. Opposition voices still might be there — more than ever. They just go underground.

Since the unprecedented terror attacks in France, Belgium and Germany, citizens across the Europe have been living in constant fear. They seem to be sick and tired of the Muslim extremists; children might be in danger on their way to school, and shopping takes place under the protection of soldiers.

With Brexit, the election of Donald Trump, and Italy’s referendum, there seems to be a snowball effect. The growing influence of Alternative for Germany (AfD), the National Front in France, the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, the Freedom Party Austria and the Five Star Movement in Italy all appear to be byproducts of the same rhetoric.

The dull reaction of a vast number of European Muslims to the rising wave of terror and violence has also contributed to this shift. Increasing numbers of native-born Europeans seem angry and distrustful of their fellow Muslim citizens, especially when everyone else has come out loud and clear in denouncing terrorist crimes.

German authorities and those across Europe seem finally to be strengthening their campaign against the militant far-right, including Muslim extremists, during the past few weeks.

This awakening, however, seems to be coming after a major price that Europe had to pay in terms of death and chaos unleashed by terrorists in Germany, Belgium, France, Denmark, and so on.

Governments across the Europe seem to be switching into panic mode to prevent the rise of European radicalism through the rise of the far-right, racism and nationalism throughout the entire continent.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel sounds as if she is backing down a bit from championing the influx of migrants and her slogan of “We can do it!” in developing a multicultural society. She not only vowed to Germans in an address last week that the migrant crisis must never be repeated; she also called for an all-out ban on the full-face veil covering in Germany.

Following Merkel’s lead, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière also proposed a partial ban on veils, and pronounced them contrary to assimilation.

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MEDIA, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Facebook’s Fake Fix for Fake News Liberal fact-checkers are not the way to ensure a more informed public.

By on December 17th, 2016

Some progressives will do anything to avoid confronting the realities of why Hillary Clinton lost the election, and one diversion is the complaint about fake news, which is provoking even worse responses. Facebook announced this week that the social-media platform will weed out some stories, and that the company will deputize “fact-checkers” to decide if an article is credible. What could go wrong?

Facebook says it is testing technology so that a story shared on its site that is flagged by users, among unknown other indicators, will be checked out by the Associated Press, ABC News, PolitiFact or others. If these high priests declare a story fake, it will be denoted as “Disputed by 3rd Party Fact-Checkers” and perhaps demoted in a news feed.

This appears to be a response to the fake news story that Mrs. Clinton lost the election because false information duped people into voting for Donald Trump. There is zero evidence that invented events—an article that said “The Pope Endorsed Donald Trump,” for example—swayed the election.

More than 80% of Americans told Pew Research in a recent poll that they can spot fake news, and only a third report seeing it often. Fakery and exaggeration exist on the web. But this does not qualify as a democracy-killing “epidemic,” which is how Mrs. Clinton described it last week.

It’s certainly curious that the consternation over fake news seems aimed above all against Mr. Trump. Politico this fall rolled out a fact check of the Republican, claiming that every three minutes he told one “untruth.” Here’s one of those supposed falsehoods: Mr. Trump said Islamic State is evil “the world has not seen.” Politico concluded that this was false because “judging one ‘level of evil’ against another is subjective.” Well, judging what is true is also often subjective.

That’s certainly the case with PolitiFact, which pretends to be even-handed but has its own biases. In 2008 PolitiFact helped bless ObamaCare with a “true” rating for candidate Barack Obama’s claim that “if you like your health-care plan, you can keep it.” In 2009 the website demoted the remark to “half true,” adding the non-insight that ObamaCare would “surely change the current health system.” By 2013, as Americans lost their insurance, PolitiFact changed its judgment and called Mr. Obama’s line the “lie of the year.”

Tendentious PolitiFact ratings are a classic genre of bad journalism. When Texas libertarian Ron Paul said the U.S. federal income-tax rate was zero until 1913, PolitiFact called that “half true.” (We would have called that true.) Former Virginia Senator Jim Webb later said the same thing and notched a mark of “mostly true,” and maybe he earned extra points for being a Democrat.CONTINUE AT SITE

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Trump Can End the War on Cops Stop treating police as racist and pushing lower hiring standards as a way to achieve ‘diversity.’By Heather Mac Donald

By on December 17th, 2016

Donald Trump’s promise to restore law and order to America’s cities was one of the most powerful themes of his presidential campaign. His capacity to deliver will depend on changing destructive presidential rhetoric about law enforcement and replacing the federal policies that flowed from that rhetoric.

The rising violence in many urban areas is driven by what candidate Trump called a “false narrative” about policing. This narrative holds that law enforcement is pervaded by racism, and that we are experiencing an epidemic of racially biased police shootings of black men.

Multiple studies have shown that those claims are untrue. If there is a bias in police shootings, it works in favor of blacks and against whites. Yet President Obama has repeatedly accused the police and criminal-justice system of discrimination, lethal and otherwise. During the memorial service for five Dallas police officers gunned down in July by an assassin who reportedly was inspired by Black Lives Matter, Mr. Obama announced that black parents were right to “fear that something terrible may happen when their child walks out the door”—that the child will be fatally shot by a cop.

The consequences of such presidential rhetoric are enormous, especially when amplified by the media. Officers working in high-crime areas now encounter a dangerous level of hatred and violent resistance. Gun murders of officers are up 68% this year compared with the same period last year.

Police have cut way back on pedestrian stops and public-order enforcement in minority neighborhoods, having been told repeatedly that such discretionary activities are racially oppressive. The result in 2015 was the largest national homicide increase in nearly 50 years. That shooting spree has continued this year, ruthlessly mowing down children and senior citizens in many cities, along with the usual toll of young black men who are the primary targets of gun crime.

To begin to reverse these trends, President Trump must declare that the executive branch’s ideological war on cops is over. The most fundamental necessity of any society is adherence to the rule of law, he should say. Moreover, there is no government agency today more dedicated to the proposition that black lives matter than the police.

The nationwide policing revolution that originated in New York City in 1994—based on proactive enforcement—saved thousands of minority lives over 20 years, and provided urban residents with newfound freedom. While police agencies and their local overseers must remain vigilant against officer abuses, the federal government will no longer deem cops racist for responding to community demands for public order.

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