Displaying posts published in

August 2017

Dartmouth faculty denounce president for denouncing terrorist-sympathizer lecturer Greg Piper

Simply inaccurate’ to say he approves of political violence https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/36136/

Mark Bray says political violence is justified against certain groups.

The Dartmouth University history lecturer is not saying this privately or describing the historical use of political violence: He’s advocating it in media interviews while promoting his admittedly sympathetic new book about the left-wing terrorist movement Antifa.

But when his university president publicly criticized Bray’s expressed views, saying “the endorsement of violence in any form is contrary to Dartmouth values,” Bray’s faculty peers rushed to his defense.

More than 100 faculty have signed a statement that praises Bray as “the national expert” on fascism and anti-fascism in the 21st century, according to a Monday report in The Chronicle of Higher Education, which says faculty names were not on the letter it was shown.

The statement says, bafflingly, Bray’s accurately reported words in media appearances are “simply inaccurate.”

It also raises a straw man, that Dartmouth has threatened Bray’s job by criticizing his accurately reported views: “There is nothing that Professor Bray has said that is in violation of Dartmouth’s stated free speech and academic freedom policies.”

The statement asks the university to retract President Philip Hanlon’s critical statement, apologize to Bray “for exposing him to entirely predictable possibility of physical harm,” and study how Dartmouth’s peer institutions “react when such a situation arises again—as it most certainly will.”

Here’s the somewhat typo-ridden transcript from the Aug. 20 broadcast of Meet the Press, where moderator Chuck Todd asks Bray why he’s part of “a very small minority here who is defending the idea of violence considering that somebody died in [the ‘Unite the Right’ rally and counterprotest in] Charlottesville.”

Bray replies:

I think that a lot of people recognize that, when pushed, self-defense is a legitimate response to white supremacy and neo-Nazi violence. And you know we’ve tried ignoring neo-Nazi’s in the past. We’ve seen how that turned out in 20’s and 30’s and the lesson of history is you need to take it with the utmost seriousness before it’s too late. … And the way to stop that is what people did in Boston [by physically attacking a “free speech rally”], what people did in Charlottesville. Pull the emergency break and say you can’t make this normal.

Reminded by Todd that the civil-rights movement had its own supporters of political violence who were overruled by its leaders, Bray again euphemizes political violence against words as self-defense:

Well, there’s a big difference between confronting fascism and confronting other forms of violence. So we can see that during the 30’s and 40’s, there was no public opinion to being leveraged by non-violent resistance. If you get fascist to be powerful enough in government, they’re simply not gonna listen to the kind of public opinion that non-violence can generate. … A lot of people are under attack and sometimes they need to be able to defend themselves. It’s not, you know, it’s a privileged position to be able to say that you never have to defend yourself from these kinds of monsters.

Princeton student groups rip Trump’s ‘complicity’ in racism, school’s ‘structural oppression’ Dave Huber

Not to be left out of the social justice chorus in the post-Charlottesville age, a coalition of 17 Princeton University student organizations have penned an op-ed blaming President Trump for the rise of the alt-right and racist incidents since the 2016 election, as well as a resurgence of white supremacy.

The groups — which include the Princeton Students for Reproductive Justice, Muslim Advocates for Social Justice and Individual Dignity, and the Princeton Hidden Minority Council — also chide their university for its complicity in the “oppression” of marginalized communities, declaring it “is not good enough to disapprove of or condemn racism, white supremacy,” etc.

The school must act, you see … and in the manner these groups demand.

Here are some of the ways in which “white- and male-serving” Princeton is “upholding structural oppression” against its students, according to their Daily Princetonian op-ed :

–Refusal to remove racist memorialization on campus (e.g. Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Woodrow Wilson Residential College, Stanhope Hall)

–Refusal to divest from private prisons and detention centers

–Failure to declare itself a sanctuary campus for undocumented students

–Lack of accommodations for non-binary students (e.g. lack of accessible gender-inclusive restrooms across campus, denial of resources, and continued harassment of queer, trans and non-binary students of color from low-income backgrounds on campus)

–Failure to provide adequate food options for low-income students

–Failure to provide students with a more diverse academic curriculum that addresses historically marginalized groups, especially within the field of ethnic studies (e.g. Latinx Studies, Native/Indigenous Studies, Asian American Studies, and Pacific Islander American Studies)

–Perpetuation of double standards regarding the establishment of affinity living spaces. While the University allows for students to live together based on shared artistic (e.g. Edwards Collective ) or sustainability (e.g. Pink House) interests, it has declined to allow living spaces based on shared race or ethnicity.

In tried and true politically correct contradictory fashion, the coalition further argues that the “labor of organizing has not always been equally assumed by groups of differing privilege.”

But … how do groups of differing privilege “equally” assume responsibility? It’s obvious enough from this treatise that straight white males would assume the most responsibility; however, as I’ve previously joked regarding the creation of, a “PC hierarchy handbook” what would be the guidelines after this group?

More from the piece:

We all have an obligation to oppose those who seek to foster hatred and discord by adopting these beliefs and actions.

Over the past seven months, the current presidential administration has actively opposed carrying out this obligation. White supremacy and the oppression of marginalized peoples has always had a political platform in the United States. The Trump administration has only exacerbated the level of violence against vulnerable individuals by emboldening racists to exercise their hatred explicitly, as evident from the acts of violence against people from historically marginalized communities directly following the election to the racist marches in the present day. Donald Trump is complicit in the rise of the alt-right and the racism and white supremacy that accompanies it.

[…] we need not hold our breath for a president who will not condemn white supremacist terrorism. Instead, we must turn to one another in solidarity and commit to coalition-building and accomplice-ship between communities of differing privileges. Recognizing the value of diversity and acceptance is a start, but we can and must do more than loftily promising to stand together.

We must be in solidarity with the counter-protesters who stood inches from torch-bearing fascists at the University of Virginia. Solidarity with Takiyah Thompson, who was arrested for toppling a Confederate statue in Durham, N.C. Solidarity with all those in this country who live under and struggle against systems of oppression. …

Lastly, courtesy of this newfound alliance, here’s a new term for your “oppression” vocabulary: “transmisogynoir,” the oppression of trans women and trans feminine people of color.

Free Speech under Siege As another school year begins, the freedom of expression on which our nation was founded is more endangered than ever. By Logan Beirne

A new school year is upon us, and the assault on free speech continues as Yale Law School students reject their new dean’s call for civil discourse. George Washington proclaimed in 1783 that if “the freedom of Speech may be taken away,” then, “dumb & silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter.” If campuses are incubating our next generation of leaders, I hope America likes lamb chops.

While teaching at Yale, I have often witnessed students demonizing each other over their disagreements. Concerned students informed me of a school-wide e-mail argument in which one student was branded racist because of his disagreement with another student’s criticism of course offerings. The accused pointed out that he obviously could not see his interlocutor’s race over e-mail, nor guess it from her name; he simply disagreed with her idea. The ad hominem attacks only intensified from there.

Another time, a student group invited a controversial speaker to campus. Rather than speak up to expose the flaws in the speaker’s ideas, offended students announced that anyone in that group who did not publicly denounce the speaker and call for a disinvitation would be labeled sexist and ostracized. Intimidated students quietly dropped out of the group.

These private interactions are a symptom of what ails the public sphere.

Since its birth, the United States has grappled with people’s natural tendency to quash dissenting views. The founding generation rejected the British Crown’s practice of publishing its own newspaper in favor of both an independent free press and ardent support for free expression. But by 1798, a mere ten years after the Constitution’s adoption, the federal government had enacted the Sedition Act, making it illegal to publish “any false, scandalous and malicious writing” against Congress or the president. The act was a clear violation of Americans’ First Amendment rights. The Federalist party, under President John Adams, used its control of the government to silence its critics and attack the Democratic-Republican minority.

With the nascent Supreme Court neither willing nor ready to check the other branches, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison appealed to the people to defend Americans’ rights “to think freely and to speak and write what they think.” They used the very rights under attack — the freedoms of speech and the press — to educate the populace, galvanize public support across the states, and win back control of the government. In other words, they successfully countered a bad law with rational arguments.

Today many will instinctively reject the Founders’ principles because many of them were white slaveholders. But that is part of the point: Automatically dismissing ideas based on the identity of the messenger can leave us all worse off. After all, these deeply flawed individuals nevertheless managed to enshrine in the country they founded — our country —many wonderful principles, from freedom of religion to checks and balances to free expression itself.

That latter principle is once again under siege today, and we could do worse than to dust off some of the grassroots tactics of Jefferson and Madison in its defense. We must take to the press, utilize social media, contact school administrators and professors, support leaders who practice and foster civil discourse, and speak to our friends and neighbors to help educate our communities on what freedom of speech really means.

Trump’s Coming Victory over Identity Politics By Ken Masugi

Amid the turbulence of the past few weeks, it has been President Trump who has kept his head while others have lost theirs.https://amgreatness.com/2017/08/29/trumps-coming-victory-identity-politics/

Trump may be the one man in America who can detoxify racial relations—I mean actually do it, not exploit them in the mode of Black Lives Matter or Al Sharpton.
Let us first be clear: No one on the political Left can possibly succeed in easing racial tensions. Their identity politics approach has played itself out beyond the limits of absurdity. That is what the reassignment of the Asian-American sports announcer, Robert Lee, really demonstrates. This farcical episode, made ESPN a mockery, even to some on the Left.

The battle lines in this ongoing fight for the political soul of America became obvious mid-day on January 20, 2017, when President Trump took his oath of office and Democratic Senate Leader Charles Schumer, poised to introduce Justice Clarence Thomas intoned a Monty Pythonesque litany, “Whatever our race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, whether we are immigrant or native-born, whether we live with disabilities or do not, in wealth or in poverty, we are all exceptional….” Schumer’s emphasizing these distinctions, many of which a civilized society should be seeking to make irrelevant or, at best, secondary, actually produces a more fractured society; one less likely to reconcile differences in order to produce a common good.

Trump’s Inaugural Address, by contrast, sought to unify the nation:
When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice….

It is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget: that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American Flag.

Trump’s approach to this issue is the only method that can redirect this country to a politics of the common good and thereby help to heal its often exaggerated racial and ethnic divisions. The Left disdains the old patriotic symbols, and too much of the right is cowardly or echoes the left. Some NeverTrumpers even adopted identity politics to oppose Trump, as the absurd candidacy of Evan McMullin exemplified, a nonentity selected for his Mormon faith to create Electoral College mischief.

Charlottesville, however, was the telling moment. With the aid of viciously anti-Trump left-wing media, a tiny cabal of neo-fascists attempted to hijack Trump’s campaign and inaugural message of American unity in the Robert E. Lee statue controversy. The absurdity of this attempt is nonetheless overshadowed by this partial success: A small claque of politically irrelevant losers, professing a foreign ideology at war with American principles, somehow persuaded the media to give it free publicity and prominence. Why might that be?

The leftist media and their imbibers thus grotesquely magnified the torchlit “blood and soil” chants of neo-fascist provocateurs. The media and those too unthinking to question it became useful idiots to these neo-nazis.

Using the slogan “Unite the Right,” the neo-fascists seized, as in a coup, the otherwise honorable cause of the retention of Confederate monuments, one that President Trump and a majority of Americans support. The media tried to legitimate this foreign ideology’s coup by accusing Trump of sympathizing with it and thus tainting him and his supporters with opinions that are entirely Un-American. And since the Left and their puppets in the press see all of political life as a competition for dominance between identity groups and they claim to identify with minorities, they cannot understand opposition to themselves as anything other than a manifestation of “white supremacy.”

Modern Liberalism’s False Obsession With Civil War Monuments Black accomplishments in the ’40s and ’50s prove that today’s setbacks are not due to slavery By Jason L. Riley

Visit the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and between exhibits of dinosaur skeletons, Asian elephants and Alaskan moose you might notice a bust of Henry Fairfield Osborn and a plaque honoring Madison Grant. Osborn and Grant were two of the country’s leading conservationists in the early 1900s. They also were dedicated white supremacists.

Osborn, a former president of the museum, founded the Eugenics Education Society—now known as the Galton Institute—which sought the improvement of humanity through selective breeding. Grant, a co-founder of the Bronx Zoo, is known today for his influential 1916 best seller, “The Passing of the Great Race,” a pseudoscientific polemic arguing that nonwhite immigrants—which included Eastern and Southern Europeans by his definition—were tainting America’s superior Nordic stock. Osborn, who was a zoologist by training, wrote the introduction to Grant’s book, which Hitler called “my Bible.” The New Yorker magazine once described Grant as someone who “extended a passion for preserving bison and caribou into a mania for preserving the ‘Nordic race.’ ”

Given their options, why are liberals so focused on monuments to Civil War figures? Politically, it makes some tactical sense. The GOP has spent decades warding off claims of racism, and forcing Republican politicians to defend prominent displays of Confederate statuary keeps them on the defensive. On another level, however, liberals make a fetish of Civil War monuments because it feeds their hallowed slavery narrative, which posits that racial inequality today is mainly a legacy of the country’s slave past.

One problem with these assumptions about slavery’s effects on black outcomes today is that they are undermined by what blacks were able to accomplish in the first hundred years after their emancipation, when white racism was rampant and legal and blacks had bigger concerns than Robert E. Lee’s likeness in a public park. Today, slavery is still being blamed for everything from black broken families to high crime rates in black neighborhoods to racial gaps in education, employment and income. Yet outcomes in all of those areas improved markedly in the immediate aftermath of slavery and continued to improve for decades.

Between 1890 and 1940, for example, black marriage rates in the U.S. where higher than white marriage rates. In the 1940s and ’50s, black labor-participation rates exceeded those of whites; black incomes grew much faster than white incomes; and the black poverty rate fell by 40 percentage points. Between 1940 and 1970—that is, during Jim Crow and prior to the era of affirmative action—the number of blacks in middle-class professions quadrupled. In other words, racial gaps were narrowing. Steady progress was being made. Blacks today hear plenty about what they can’t achieve due to the legacy of slavery and not enough about what they did in fact achieve notwithstanding hundreds of years in bondage followed by decades of legal segregation.

In the post-’60s era, these positive trends would slow, stall, or in some cases even reverse course. The homicide rate for black men fell by 18% in the 1940s and by another 22% in the 1950s. But in the 1960s all of those gains would vanish as the homicide rate for black males rose by nearly 90%. Are today’s black violent-crime rates a legacy of slavery and Jim Crow or of something else? Unfortunately, that’s a question few people on the left will even entertain.

Just ask Amy Wax and Lawrence Alexander, law professors at the University of Pennsylvania and University of San Diego, respectively, who were taken to task for co-authoring an op-ed this month in the Philadelphia Inquirer that lamented the breakdown of “bourgeois” cultural values that prevailed in mid-20th-century America. “That culture laid out the script we all were supposed to follow,” they wrote. “Get married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education you need for gainful employment, work hard, and avoid idleness. . . . Be respectful of authority. Eschew substance abuse and crime.” CONTINUE AT SITE

The Lying Heart of The Left By Herbert London President, London Center for Policy Research

The idiocy of the hard left is in full display in a Huffington Post article by Jessica Schulberg entitled: “Sebastian Gorka, Who Has Downplayed Threat of White Supremists, Still Teaches Marines About Terrorism.” Ms. Schulberg claims that Sebastian Gorka, an adviser to President Trump, has been overly critical of Islam, yet dismissive of a white nationalist threat.

What makes Ms. Schulberg’s article particularly poignant is Gorka’s recent removal from the White House. Gorka does argue that Islam is an inherently violent religion that encourages its adherents to engage in acts of terrorism. What many consider inappropriate, others embrace. For example, President Sisi of Egypt, a pious Muslim, contends that there is violence within Islam and, as a consequence, he has called for a revolution from within. This comment was echoed by the King of Bahrain, also a pious Muslim.

It is not coincidental that most terrorist attacks worldwide have been committed by Muslims, notwithstanding the obvious fact that most Muslims are not terrorists. This distinction is made by Professor Gorka, but conspicuously overlooked by Ms. Schulberg.

By comparison white supremists, hateful as they are, do not represent a comparable threat to national security. The evidence is clear, aside from the bombing in Oklahoma City, there isn’t evidence these neo Nazis and skinheads are prepared to launch terror attacks against the nation. In fact, instead of exaggerating their number and influence, it should be noted that they represent .0001 percent of the American population. That said, these people are loathsome and potentially dangerous, but they are not at present a challenge to national security.

The fact that these groups are conflated suggests more about the alt left than Sebastian Gorka. The planned assaults on the erstwhile president’s adviser was designed to undermine President Trump, now a pin cushion of the Left, and the sensible view that within Islam are prescribed activities for terrorism. One need not be a lecterer at Marine University to recognize the global jihad and what it means for the United States.

This article at Huffington Post is – to put it politely – simply ugly propaganda. In the days that passed we have grown accustomed to this kind of piece on the pages of various blogs and news outlets. I doubt it will affect Sebastian Gorka’s reputation, except for a few who are persuaded by left wing group think. But it is yet another step in the on going culture war. Mischaracterization, exaggeration, deception are the tactics in this battle. It is sad but true that George Orwell lives in “newspeak” where war is peace, truth is lies, tolerance is intolerance and the enemies of this democratic republic can make indefensible claims with impunity.

Hezbollah, Assad Give Hundreds of ISIS Terrorists Tour Bus Ride to Sanctuary In deal, jihadists get air-conditioned trip to Iraqi border, infuriating al-Abadi. By Bridget Johnson,

The government of Iraq as well as the internationally recognized Syrian government in exile sounded the alarm about negotiations between the coalition of Hezbollah and the regime of Bashar al-Assad and the Islamic State that allowed safe passage to more than 300 ISIS terrorists.

The agreement between the parties, following a Sunday ceasefire between Lebanese government forces and the Hezbollah-Assad forces, allowed ISIS fighters to get on tour buses that shipped them and their families from the Syria-Lebanon border to Deir ez-Zor province southeast of Raqqa. The final destination, the Associated Press reported, where they were traveling today and where housing was being prepared, was Al-Bukamal — a mere 13-minute drive from the Iraq border crossing.

In return, ISIS pointed to the burial location of several Lebanese soldiers kidnapped by the terror group in 2014. Bodies have been located and DNA tests are being conducted on the remains.

ISIS documents found in Qalamoun indicated that some of the fighters there were from Chechnya. Syrian state media released images of a fleet of air-conditioned tour buses waiting to load up with jihadists.

“Honestly speaking, we are unhappy and consider it incorrect,” Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told reporters. “Transferring terrorists from Qalamoun to the Iraqi-Syrian border is worrying and an insult to the [Iraqi] people.”

“There must be no chance for Daesh to breath,” the Iraqi leader added.

Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah claimed in a Monday televised address that ISIS “had asked for a ceasefire in order to negotiate, something that was out of question for us, but as Daesh found itself cornered it surrendered and collapsed — they had no choice but to accept our terms.”

“We have made a deal to which we must commit; we do not stab in the back and we do not betray,” he said of the pact.

The Lebanese military wasn’t so quick to declare ISIS flushed out of their territory, noting the need to clear affected areas and ensure ISIS didn’t leave mines behind.

According to pro-Assad Al-Masdar News, Nasrallah said ISIS was “made by the western intelligence services to serve Israel, and they fought for the sake of the Israeli scheme and the U.S. hegemony.”

Hezbollah began sending fighters to aid Assad in 2012, after the Arab Spring revolution began. CONTINUE AT SITE

Ivy League Profs vs. ‘The Tyranny of Public Opinion’ A few brave scholars urge students to think for themselves. James Freeman

At last there’s an encouraging message of intellectual independence—and from the Ivy League of all places. Just in time for school, a hardy band of professors has joined together to commit a flagrant micro-aggression. Scholars from various academic disciplines have signed a declaration urging college students to declare their independence. Specifically, the participating scholars warn about “the vice of conformism” and offer to each student headed off to college advice that is both simple and clear: “Think for yourself.”

Some if not all of the 15 signatories are probably a little bit amazed that their message even needs to be said at institutions supposedly dedicated to learning. But the decline of campus culture means that independent thought can now require of students tremendous effort and even a kind of courage. The professors write:

At many colleges and universities what John Stuart Mill called “the tyranny of public opinion” does more than merely discourage students from dissenting from prevailing views on moral, political, and other types of questions. It leads them to suppose that dominant views are so obviously correct that only a bigot or a crank could question them.

Since no one wants to be, or be thought of as, a bigot or a crank, the easy, lazy way to proceed is simply by falling into line with campus orthodoxies.

Don’t do that. Think for yourself.

Thinking for yourself means questioning dominant ideas even when others insist on their being treated as unquestionable. It means deciding what one believes not by conforming to fashionable opinions, but by taking the trouble to learn and honestly consider the strongest arguments to be advanced on both or all sides of questions—including arguments for positions that others revile and want to stigmatize and against positions others seek to immunize from critical scrutiny.

The letter, signed by professors from Harvard, Princeton and Yale, is published by Princeton’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. This seems altogether fitting, given the Princeton grad’s large role in the drafting and ratification of the U.S. Constitution and its First Amendment protection of free speech. This is also bound to set campus radicals in search of a Madison statue to deplore. But perhaps at least a few of them will stop to ponder the nature of the freedom they enjoy to protest. They might also reflect on this week’s message from professors including Princeton’s Robert George:

The central point of a college education is to seek truth and to learn the skills and acquire the virtues necessary to be a lifelong truth-seeker. Open-mindedness, critical thinking, and debate are essential to discovering the truth. Moreover, they are our best antidotes to bigotry. CONTINUE AT SITE

MY SAY: ONCE AGAIN!

FROM THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE OF MIDEAST OUTPOST-http://www.mideastoutpost.com/archives/once-again-ruth-king.html

After the Holocaust, “Never Again” emerged as the rallying cry of international Jewry determined to prevent recurrence of the murderous anti-Semitism that had slaughtered one of every three Jews in the world. Israel became the incarnation of Jewish renewal and its existence a guarantee of “never again.”

For a few decades, European nations were shamed by their complicity in the roundup of Jews. But, as writer Conor Cruise O’Brien noted “anti-Semitism is a light sleeper” and what may have started as ignorant criticism of Israel has morphed into international hatred of Jews. By 2017 anti-Semitism and anti-Israel harassment had become a pandemic. Evil, when committed against Jews, especially in Israel, has become banal. Jewish settlers in their beds, babies in cribs, toddlers in diners, soldiers at bus stops, shoppers in a kosher deli in France, are deemed not quite as innocent as other victims of terror. As far back as 1980, when terrorists placed a bomb in the Rue Copernic synagogue in France that injured ten and killed four passersby, Raymond Barre, then Prime Minister of France, lamented “They aimed for Jews but they killed two innocent French citizens.”

Today in the most perverse irony Jews are compared to Nazis.

Where did those comparisons originate?

Why in Israel itself where the late unlamented Yeshayahu Leibowitz coined the term” Judeo-Nazis” to describe fellow Israelis. Who praised the scoundrel? The Israeli elite bestowed honors upon him, including the government’s highest award, the Israel Prize. (When this caused a public furor, Leibowitz withdrew from taking the prize but never withdrew his slander of the Jewish state.) That didn’t stop Israel’s rag Haaretz, when a year later he slipped his mortal coil, lauding him for his “profound moral seriousness and the great relevance of his thought today.“ Herzliya’s Mayor eulogized him as “one of the greatest intellectuals of his generation” and named a street after him. Even in Jerusalem a street now bears his name.

Who is mining the bedrock of anti-Semitism in the West? Those unspeakable Jews who undermine, libel, defame Israel and give legitimacy to the avalanche of hatred that is spreading like wildfire.

Jewish-American voters were a powerhouse of political activism on behalf of Israel. Now their short attention span has guided them to policies inimical to Jewish survival. “Never again!” is still their motto but the focus has changed dramatically.

Never again will women be denied the right to end pregnancy even at late stage. Never again will the “settled science” of climate change be disputed. Never again will anyone claim that capitalism and Judeo-Christian principles are superior. Never again will any immigrants be denied entry into America. Never again will any religion be slandered, with the exception of Orthodox Jews and Evangelical Christians. Never again will any conservative legislators be supported. Never again will any conservative opinions be heard with respect. Never again will anyone vote for a Republican.

Writer Linda Goudsmit sums it up well:

“The liberal Jewish community has lost its way. Liberalism has replaced religion as the community’s organizing principle. The Jewishness of Judaism has been replaced with the secular anti-Semitic anti-American tenets of the radical left-wing liberal Democratic Party in America. It is completely counter-intuitive for Jews to support a platform that is clearly anti-Semitic — but the inconsistencies and hypocrisy do not seem to get in their way. How is that possible? Because the liberal Jewish community has surrendered its rational critical thinking abilities and embraced the feel-good emotional sloganism of the New Democrat Party. “

MY SAY: I BEG YOUR PARDON?

The Mueller investigation is sputtering along and Antifa are thugs and the monument debate does have decent people on both sides, so the never Trumpers have seized on a new “outrage”….namely the pardon of former Sheriff Joseph Arpaio.

Just for the record:

In 1979, Jimmy Carter released three Puerto Rican terrorists who shot at members of Congress.

In 1999 an adviser to President Clinton proposed pardons of imprisoned Puerto Rican terrorists. The pardons would be “fairly easy to accomplish and will have a positive impact among strategic communities in the U.S. (read, voters),” wrote Mayra Martinez-Fernandez, an adviser to the White House Working Group for Puerto Rico, according Debra Burlingame in The Wall Street Journal. Get that? Voters. Clinton, to be sure, issued the pardons.

In January of this year outgoing President Obama issued 200 commutations of sentences, including that of Oscar López Rivera, a member of Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña (FALN), a Marxist-Leninist terrorist group who was released on May 7th 2017. The Daily News summarized FALN’s “accomplishments:

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/oscar-lopez-rivera-not-deserve-president-obama-pardon-article-1.2947628

“In 1974, the FALN began planting booby-trap bombs around New York. While most of these early explosions caused only property damage, the group’s clear intention was to kill and maim. In December 1974, an NYPD officer responding to a report of a dead body in an abandoned building on 110th St. was seriously injured by an FALN incendiary device.
In January 1975, a 10-pound dynamite bomb killed four people and injured dozens at Fraunces Tavern. The powerful blast was felt blocks away. In an eerie foreshadowing of 9/11, dust-covered victims staggered through downtown streets. The FALN quickly took responsibility for the deadly deed.
When a Chicago apartment serving as the FALN’s bomb-making factory was raided in November 1976, authorities learned the names of the group’s leadership. López Rivera and several associates became fugitives.
On Aug. 3, 1977, the FALN struck again in a coordinated attack in Midtown. An alert office worker at 342 Madison Ave., near 43rd St., noticed a suspicious package and evacuated the building. No one was hurt in the subsequent blast.
Workers at the Mobil Building at 150 East 42nd St. weren’t so lucky. An FALN bomb planted there killed 26-year-old Charles Steinberg. The building’s ground-floor windows blew out and several New Yorkers were critically injured by a shower of glass.”