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September 2017

Europe’s New Lie: Comparing Asylum Shelters to Nazi Concentration Camps by Giulio Meotti

In the current crisis, governments, NGOs, charities and the media have all embraced migrants in the millions, and welcomed them with open arms. The Jews during the Second World War — most of whom were turned away, turned in, or betrayed by all European governments — were not so fortunate.

All of Europe’s efforts have been devoted to rescuing migrants: on borders, at sea and in cities that host asylum centers. Such distinctions, however, are apparently not enough: the immigration question must become a new ideology, like a religion. That seems why there is an orchestrated attempt by large segments of the establishment to turn Europe’s rescue operations into a “new Holocaust”. Questioning them must become a taboo. Even Pope Francis, who compared a center for migrants to “concentration camps”, adopted this nonsense.

Despite Muslims historically having been the most aggressive colonizers, Europe’s élites have come to idealize them due to a mix of demographic decline, misconception of Islam, self-hate for the Western culture and a fatal, romanticized attraction for the decolonized Third World people.

What is the best way to shut down the debate on immigration? By heightening the language to levels impossible to be debated. That is what has been happening in the new — and false — trend of comparing the waves of migrants arriving in Europe to Jews during the Holocaust.

Recently, Franco Berardi, the Italian author of a play in Germany, “Auschwitz on the Beach”, charged Europeans with setting up “concentration camps” on its territory. One line in the performance was, “Salt water has replaced Zyklon B” — a reference to the poison gas used by the Nazis in World War II to exterminate Jews. After protests from the Jewish community, the play was cancelled. Adam Szymczyk, the director of the Documenta exhibition, defined the show as a “warning against historical amnesia, a moral wake-up call, a call to collective action”. This response, while true for the mass-murder of Jews, is a grotesque distortion of what has been happening in Europe for the last three years. On the contrary, governments, non-governmental organizations, bureaucrats, charities and the media have all embraced migrants in the millions, and welcomed them with open arms. The Jews during the Second World War — most of whom were turned away, turned in or betrayed by all European governments — were not so fortunate.

Auschwitz on the Beach?
In the current crisis, governments, NGOs, charities and the media have all embraced migrants in the millions, and welcomed them with open arms. Pictured: The Greek Red Cross helps an Afghan migrant who just arrived from Turkey with an inflatable boat on Lesvos Island, Greece, on December 13, 2015. (Image source: Ggia/Wikimedia Commons)

The current misrepresentation was first formulated by Sweden’s deputy prime minister, Asa Romson. “We are turning the Mediterranean into the new Auschwitz”, she said. Since then, this sham comparison has entered into the European mainstream, and the death of six million Jews has been turned into an ideological platform — a parable of human suffering — to justify importing even more unknown migrants. Even Pope Francis, who compared a center for migrants to “concentration camps”, adopted this nonsense.

Jewish organizations in the US rightly condemned the comparison. David Harris, Executive Director of American Jewish Committee, said: “The Nazis and their allies erected and used concentration camps for slave labor and the extermination of millions of people during World War II, there is no comparison to the magnitude of that tragedy.”

All of Europe’s efforts, in fact, have been devoted to rescuing migrants: on borders, at sea and in cities hosting asylum centers. Such distinctions, however, are apparently not enough: the immigration question is apparently supposed to become the new ideology, like a religion. That is why there seems an orchestrated attempt by large segments of the establishment to turn the rescue operations into a “new Holocaust”. Questioning them must become a taboo.

Turkey’s Mass Persecution of Christians and Kurds by Uzay Bulut

Yazidis, Alevis and women in the region are also being abused by Turkish authorities, and dozens of Kurdish journalists who have publicized this have been imprisoned.

This hatred of Christians and Kurds in Turkey is not restricted to government officials. It is widespread among the public, as well, and expressed extensively on social media.

The situation of minorities in Turkey and their persecution by Turkey — a member of NATO and perpetual candidate for EU membership — must be told as often and as loudly as possible.

Since 2015, the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been attacking Kurdish-majority areas in the country.

A 2017 World Heritage Watch report details the destruction of one such town, Suriçi (Sur), as follows:

“[C]urfews were declared six times for several days each from September 2015. These curfews were 24-hour-a-day blockades and led to clashes between Turkish state forces and Kurdish rebel groups, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people and serious destruction of the affected area. The last ongoing curfew from 11 December 2015, accompanied by the use of heavy military weapons such as tanks, mortar and artillery by the government, was the most devastating one. Numerous historical buildings and monuments – as well as the integrity and authenticity of Suriçi – suffered damage and destruction.”

The clashes have taken their toll on Turkey’s Christian population, which is caught in the crossfire. According to a November 2016 report in The Armenian Weekly,

“The past year has been a living hell for the hidden Armenians of Turkey. The civil war between the Kurdish resistance guerrillas and the Turkish army has resulted in massive destruction in southeastern and eastern Turkey. Most of the buildings in the region have been bombed or burnt by the army and police forces, followed by complete demolition and razing of the damaged buildings… with only a few mosques, police stations, or government buildings left standing.

“Entire neighborhoods have disappeared, reduced to rubble. The Surp Giragos Church in Diyarbakır has escaped the fighting relatively intact structurally… But the Turkish security forces have used it as an army base, desecrating the church, burning some of the pews as firewood, with garbage and smell of urine everywhere.”

A similar report, from August 2017, appeared in the Armenian-Turkish weekly Agos. According to the report, “Armenian, Syriac and Chaldean Christians have not been able to worship in their churches for the last three years.” This is because virtually the entire town — and all Christian properties belonging to the indigenous Armenian, Assyrian (Syriac), Chaldean and Protestant communities — was included in an expropriation plan adopted in March 2016 by the Turkish cabinet. Among the Christian properties expropriated are the Armenian Catholic, the Chaldean Mor Petyun and the Armenian Surp Giragos churches.

In response, the Surp Giragos church — whose members claim that every time they visit, they see that the structure has suffered additional damage — filed a lawsuit against the Turkish State Council. Other Christian foundations are also engaged in litigation to stop the expropriation, but the suits are still pending.

Surp Giragos is the largest Armenian church in the Middle East. According to Agos, its bell tower was destroyed by artillery fire during the 1915 Armenian genocide (at the hands of the Ottoman Empire, precursor to the Turkish Republic), because it stood taller than the minaret of a nearby mosque. After it was expropriated from the Armenian community during the First World War, it was initially used as a cotton storage warehouse. It remained in ruins for nearly a century, until being restored in 2011 and reopened to worship with the support of the Kurdish-administered Diyarbakır municipality.

Gambling With National Security MGM Resorts funnels cash to Hamas-linked CAIR and Antifa apologists. Matthew Vadum

A major casino operator in Las Vegas is matching employee donations to phony civil rights groups, including HAMAS-linked CAIR and the pro-Antifa hate group Southern Poverty Law Center, in order to fight “hate” in the United States.

In response to terrorist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Barcelona, Spain, MGM Resorts International CEO James Murren denounced “hate speech and hate-based actions.” The huge publicly-traded gambling concern, is reportedly the largest casino operator on the Las Vegas Strip and has a global workforce of 77,000. According to WND, Murren “was a lifelong Republican before he endorsed Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.”

Fed by the establishment media’s exploitation of the tragic death caused by a reputed neo-Nazi at a misnamed “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, and after years of relative indifference to the terroristic and racist violence from the Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street movements, suddenly Murren wants to fight “hate” by giving money to groups that exist solely to generate “hate.”

CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, is an Islamist group linked to international terrorism that favors the imposition of Sharia law on America and undermines the Global War on Terror at every opportunity.

The fabulously wealthy Southern Poverty Law Center is an extreme left-wing group that smears those who dare to express skepticism about Islam and Muslim organizations as bigots and “Islamophobes.” The mainstream-conservative Family Research Council was attacked by a would-be mass murderer who relied on SPLC research that described FRC as a hate group. Another would-be mass murderer shot and nearly killed House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) after accessing SPLC research materials.

Islam expert Robert Spencer was targeted by the SPLC. His educational website Jihad Watch was accused of “extreme hostility toward Muslims” by the SPLC which led to online payment service PayPal suspending the site as an alleged hate group. PayPal reversed its decision after public backlash.

Liberty Counsel sued charity watchdog Guidestar for posting what it calls SPLC’s “false and defamatory” hate designations on its pages for various mainstream organizations.

But according to MGM’s Murren, CAIR and the SPLC stand against what politically correct left-wingers deem “hate,” so they deserve to be celebrated and funded.

“The events in Charlotttesville and Barcelona can easily cause us to feel overcome by hatred and gutted by violence, leaving open questions about our future – as a nation, a global society and even a human race,” MGM CEO James Murren wrote in a letter to the company’s employees that was published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “The protection of human dignity, demonstrated in the form of tolerance and respect for all people is the core of our identity.”

Why is Homeland Security Funding Anti-Israel Terror Defenders? You can’t counter terrorism by defending it. Daniel Greenfield

Countering Violent Extremism was one of the great counterterrorism frauds of the Obama era. Not only was CVE useless, but it was an excuse for building ties with assorted Muslim Brotherhood groups.

A week before President Trump’s inauguration, Jeh Johnson, Obama’s Secretary of Homeland Secretary, gave his allies one last gift with millions in CVE grants. The list of grantees included the Muslim American Leadership Alliance, Unity Productions Foundation and Ka Joog. Once Kelly took over at DHS, some were either removed or, like Ka Joog, claimed that they had opted out to protest the Muslim travel ban.

But when the final grantees were announced, two troubling organizations remained on the list: Peace Catalyst International and Masjid Muhammad.

Though it bills itself as the ‘Nation’s Mosque’, Masjid Muhammad was set up by the racist hate group known as the Nation of Islam which believed that white people were racially inferior. Lucius Bey Muhammad, who set it up, had said, “The black man is indeed the greatest. His genes are stronger! No white man can produce a baby darker than himself.”

Elijah Muhammad, whom the mosque’s site still praises, had allied with the American Nazi Party. He had preached that, “these enemies of Allah are known at the present as the white race”

While the branch of the movement represented by Masjid Muhammad has parted ways with Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam, they still maintain a relationship. At the mosque’s 53rd anniversary, Farrakhan’s personal representative phoned in with remarks.

Should Countering Violent Extremism funding be going to a mosque set up by violent extremists and which still seems unable to end all connections with one of the nation’s worst racist hate groups?

But the case of Peace Catalyst International is in some ways more troubling than Masjid Muhammad.

Peace Catalyst International claims to “create safe spaces and foster authentic relationships between Christians and Muslims”. While PCI strongly emphasizes its Christian identity, its agenda largely seems to involve propagandizing for Islamists. Sometimes to an extremely disturbing degree.

PCI boss Rick Love wrote, “Some Pakistanis do hate us for these reasons: the war in Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq on false pretenses, decades-long support for oppressive regimes in the Muslim world, bias in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the killing of thousands of innocent Muslims described as ‘collateral damage’”.

PCI’s latest post is from Jennifer S. Bryson and it includes a call to Christians to engage in “sacrificial listening” to Muslims. Even if they’re ISIS supporters. Bryson heads the Zephyr Institute and its pet project, the Center for Islam and Religious Freedom. Also working at the Center for Islam is convicted Jihadist Ismail Royer. Bryson was formerly a member of the Board of Directors of PCI.

North Korea Tests Its Most Powerful Nuclear Bomb Yet Options dwindle as world faces renewed threats from rogue regime. Joseph Klein

North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-un has called President Trump’s bluff. After conducting a succession of ballistic missile tests, including two ICBM tests in July and its most recent ballistic missile test over Japan, the rogue regime carried out its sixth nuclear test this past weekend. It reportedly was at least four times more powerful than the previous nuclear test North Korea conducted last year. North Korea acted despite strident warnings from President Trump, enhanced demonstrations of U.S. and its allies’ joint military prowess in the region, and increased sanctions imposed collectively by the United Nations Security Council and unilaterally by the United States.

When this powerful nuclear bomb test is coupled with North Korea’s successful test launching of intercontinental ballistic missiles and with intelligence reports indicating that North Korea has mastered the capability to miniaturize a nuclear warhead that can fit onto its missiles, the regime appears to be closer than ever to presenting a credible nuclear threat to the United States mainland. It still has one problem to solve in order to successfully launch direct nuclear strikes on U.S. cities – missile re-entry into the atmosphere. However, without even bothering about re-entry, North Korea may already have the capability today to detonate a nuclear bomb in the upper atmosphere, generating an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that could virtually destroy the US.’s electrical grid and communications systems. An EMP attack would affect transportation as well as critical food, water and medical supplies. Millions of people could die as a result. North Korea has in fact threatened just such an attack.

In short, the U.S. and its allies are facing a very serious threat of catastrophic proportions from an erratic megalomaniac, with limited options to prevent it from becoming a grim reality at a time of Kim Jong-un’s choosing.

President Trump responded to North Korea’s latest nuclear test provocation via his usual channel of choice, twitter. The president first tweeted: “North Korea has conducted a major Nuclear Test. Their words and actions continue to be very hostile and dangerous to the United States…..” He also announced that he was meeting with his White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and military leaders at the White House to discuss North Korea.

After then criticizing China for not doing enough to stop North Korea and criticizing South Korea for its “talk of appeasement with North Korea,” President Trump ramped up the pressure on any countries still doing business with North Korea. He tweeted: “The United States is considering, in addition to other options, stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea.” China, North Korea’s biggest trading partner and principal supplier of oil, would seem to be the main target of this threat.

China condemned North Korea’s latest nuclear test and urged North Korea to “stop taking erroneous actions that deteriorate the situation.” It has previously backed the United States in voting for the toughest economic sanctions resolution yet at the UN Security Council, and has in fact curtailed some trade with North Korea. Yet Kim Jong-un remains unfazed.

James Madison’s Lesson on Free Speech For the people to rule wisely, they must be free to think and speak without fear of reprisal. By Jay Cost see note please

This column verges too closely on equivalence between the alt-right and the violent thugs of Antifa, however a tribute to James Madison is very welcome.
I visited James and Dolly Madison’s restored home and graveside “Montpelier” in Virginia last fall. I walked off a tour which only emphasized his ownership of slaves without mentioning that he was editor of The Bill of Rights, or a co author, with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay of the Federalist Papers. My brother and I walked through the magnificent estate bemoaning the fact that he is so under appreciated as a founding father of our great democracy…..rsk

The broad middle of this country seems caught between a rock and a hard place. On the far left, the “Antifa” movement has taken to protesting — often quite violently — ideas that do not conform to their transitory notions of social justice. On the other extreme, the alt-right has become indistinguishable from white-supremacist and neo-Confederate movements that have their origins in the seedy underbelly of American political history.

In light of this, it is seductive to question the utility of free speech. After all, speech is not entirely free in Europe. There are certain views you are prohibited from publicly expressing there, and they seem to have well-functioning democracies. Why must we hold to such an absolutist view? Are we not giving aid and comfort to the opponents of the republic by allowing them to utter such vile words? Is it not wiser to leaven the First Amendment with a prudent disregard for the fringes?

If we understand free speech in purely liberal terms — i.e. as a self-evident right — then these questions seem to have merit. After all, we restrict other rights for the sake of the public welfare. Most of them can be taken away, so long as it is done so with “due process.” And the process that is due, in many respects, is conditioned by the political, social, and economic climate of the day. Why not speech?

But the First Amendment is not merely an expression of liberal freedom, but of republican freedom as well. The liberal conception of liberty defines it as absence of government interference from your life — or, in its 20th-century evolution, liberty means that the government provides for a certain standard of living. But the republican notion of liberty is different. A free republic is one in which people are governed by laws that they themselves have a hand in making. From this perspective, freedom of speech needs to remain nearly absolute.

To appreciate this, consider the efforts of the man most responsible for the Bill of Rights, James Madison.

Madison was not so much the author of the Bill of Rights, but its editor. He was initially opposed to the project; the structure of the Constitution offered sufficient protection for civil liberty, he thought, and he feared that an enumeration of rights would imply a limitation to them. But the ratifying conventions in many states had approved the Constitution, with suggested revisions. Madison, who viewed these conventions as tribunes of the popular will, took their recommendations seriously. As George Washington’s de facto prime minister during the first session of the First Congress, he refined the wide array of proposals into what ultimately became the Bill of Rights.

The Transgender Agenda Hits Kindergarten Some state laws are written to prevent parents even from opting their children out of the indoctrination By Margot Cleveland

From California to Minnesota to the District of Columbia, the transgender agenda has infiltrated the classrooms of even the most tender youth. Last week Alexandra DeSanctis reported for National Review Online about the “transition ceremony” hosted by a kindergarten teacher at California’s Rocklin Academy Gateway to celebrate a gender-dysphoric boy donning the attire and appellation of a little girl. As DeSanctis noted, the shocked and angry parents of the Rocklin pupils had not received advance notice of the “lesson” and learned of the events only when their confused children returned home.

When the outraged parents complained to school administrators, the principal fell back on Rocklin’s non-discrimination policy and the supposed age-appropriateness of the discussions. The parents’ ire at the principal and, for that matter, even the school board was wrongly directed. The fault lies instead with the California legislature. Here’s why.

California, like 21 other states and the District of Columbia, requires schools to notify parents of their sex-education curriculum. The Golden State also joins 35 other states and D.C. in requiring schools to allow parents to opt their children out of sex education. (Three other states require parents to opt in — that is, to express consent to their children’s participation in sex-education programs.) But the California legislature specifically excluded “gender identity” from the state’s notice and opt-out requirements, by providing in Section 51932(b) of the Education Code:

“This chapter does not apply to instructions, materials, presentations, or programming that discuss gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, discrimination, harassment, bullying, intimidation, relationships, or family and do not discuss human reproductive organs and their functions.”

So, contrary to the parents’ assumption that the local administrators of Rocklin Academy failed them and their children, the blame lies with the California legislature, which purposely exempted gender identity from both the notice and opt-out mandates of its sex-education provisions.

Paradoxically, as Matt Sharp, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal-advocacy non-profit organization working with allies in California to protect parental rights, highlighted in an e-mail interview: “What is so troubling is that, under California law, schools must provide notification and an opt-out before they discuss certain biological truths of human reproduction between males and females, but not when they teach the rejection of those biological truths.”

California is unique in that its legislature expressly excluded classroom instruction related to gender identity from the state’s sex education notice and opt-out requirements. However, while other states have not (yet) taken this direct approach, parents might be surprised to learn that the of law of their state likely provides them with no better protection.

For instance, the Colorado Comprehensive Health Education Act provides that local school boards and districts must provide written notification to parents of any “comprehensive health education program” and allow parents to opt their students out of the curriculum. But the statute defines “comprehensive health education program” to mean “a planned, sequential health program of learning experiences in preschool, kindergarten, and grades one through twelve.”

Public School Teachers Among the Leaders of Important Antifa Faction By Rick Moran

This is almost beyond belief. Dozens of public school teachers are members of the ultra-violent Antifa faction “By Any Means Necessary” (BAMN) — with many teachers playing a prominent leadership role in what DHS says in an organization engaged in “domestic terrorist violence.” Several of the BAMN teachers helped organize the violent Berkeley protest that assaulted peaceful protesters.

Even after being arrested for inciting violence, the teachers weren’t fired.

The Daily Caller:

One of BAMN’s most prominent organizers is Yvette Felarca, a Berkeley middle school teacher and pro-violence militant. Felarca currently faces charges of inciting a riot for her role in the Sacramento violence

After BAMN and other antifa groups staged violent protests in Berkeley to keep right-wing author Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking, Felarca defended her group’s acts of violence. BAMN was able to cancel another event, this time an April speech by pro-Trump author Ann Coulter, by promising a repeat performance of the Milo riots.

The FBI and DHS say Antifa groups like BAMN are engaging in “domestic terrorist violence,” according to the Politico report.

Just last weekend, Felarca helped organize BAMN’s mass demonstrations that “shut down” a free speech rally in Berkeley last weekend. As with BAMN’s other organized actions, left-wing actors at Saturday demonstrations violently attacked peaceful protesters. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi condemned the Antifa violence in Berkeley, while Felarca called BAMN’s actions a “resounding success.”

Several BAMN members and leaders have run for spots on local teachers’ union boards — successfully.

BAMN organizer and high school teacher Nicole Conaway organized a “sickout” at her school in 2015, leading other teachers in calling in sick to protest the policies of Republican Gov. Rick Snyder. The sickout forced six Detroit-area schools to cancel classes, affecting nearly 4,000 students.

[…]

Oakland Technical High School teacher and BAMN member Tania Kappner worked with Felarca this past January to organize students and teachers in a walkout in protesting Trump. Kappner was identified in the media as a BAMN member as early as 2011.

Kim Jong Un’s Thermonuclear Joyride By Claudia Rosett

Following North Korea’s sixth nuclear test, advertised by Pyongyang as an ICBM-ready hydrogen bomb, it was good to hear Defense Secretary James Mattis talking tough. But that won’t stop North Korea from building nuclear missiles. It won’t stop North Korea’s threats against the U.S. and our allies. I’d wager it won’t even interfere with Kim Jong Un’s enjoyment of his apparently ample meals.

Mattis stressed Kim’s peril in his remarks on Sunday, when he said: “Any threat to the United States or its territories, including Guam or our allies will be met with a massive military response.” Mattis added the backhanded threat that “we are not looking to the total annihilation of a country, namely, North Korea, but as I said, we have many options to do so.”

But does Kim have any reason to think the U.S. would exercise those options?

North Korea has long been a geyser of threats, including its threat last month to use the U.S. territory of Guam for missile practice, its launch last month of a ballistic missile over Japan, and its threat accompanying Sunday’s nuclear test that it could use thermonuclear weapons for a “super-powerful EMP attack.”

The U.S., Japan and South Korea have responded with shows of force, but like a multitude of displays done before, the de facto message is one of great muscle but no will to fight. None of that force has been used to strike North Korea. Kim holds Seoul hostage, and America, while groping for a solution to North Korea’s rapidly compounding threats, has no appetite to risk a replay of the carnage of the 1950-1953 Korean War, potentially amplified by nuclear weapons in the hands of Pyongyang.

With the caveat that I have no inside information, it’s intriguing to imagine what’s going on right now in Kim Jong Un’s head. He’s a young tyrant, now in his mid-thirties, who inherited power upon the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, in December 2011. Some young men inherit a family fortune. Kim inherited supremacy over a totalitarian ruling party, fully accessorized with a nation state, a gulag, a nuclear weapons program and one of the world’s largest standing armies — with artillery already dug in to threaten the fat prize of capitalist Seoul, with its population of 10 million South Koreans just the other side of the Demilitarized Zone.

Since inheriting the keys to this grotesque family estate, Kim has presided over four of North Korea’s six nuclear tests to date (one in 2013, two in 2016 and the latest this Sunday). Under his rule, North Korea has amassed a nuclear arsenal estimated by various experts to be in the double digits, perhaps now including thermonuclear weapons. On Kim Jong Un’s watch, North Korea has advertised its pursuit of the ability to launch nuclear missiles from submarines, and acquired the ability to miniaturize nuclear warheads and mount them on missiles. In July, North Korea succesfully tested two ICBMs. And, as mentioned, in August North Korea threatened the U.S. territory of Guam and launched a missile over Japan. And of course there was the test on Sunday of what North Korea celebrated as a hydrogen bomb.

From international obscurity half a dozen years ago, Kim has vaulted to erstwhile godhood on his totalitarian home turf, and become a celebrity tyrant who makes headlines around the globe. With tactics worthy of Stalin, or Caligula, he has consolidated power — recall the execution in 2013 of his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, and the assassination earlier this year, with VX nerve agent, of his half-brother, Kim Jong Nam. Under his rule, North Korea has become a global player in cyber warfare. In the tradition of his enterprising forebears, he continues to cultivate strategic alliances and illicit weapons networks that funnel North Korea’s military wares to the likes of Syria, Iran and their terrorist mascots.

Name-Calling — What a Catharsis! By Eileen F. Toplansky

I am slowly cleaning out my personal library. Of course, each volume must be scrupulously examined, marginal notes savored, and finally the book itself must be dusted and either put back among the shelves or given away.

One of the gems is a 1986 book titled Dimboxes, Epopts, and Other Quidams: Words to Describe Life’s Indescribable People by David Grambs. Its pages fill a need that I have long had for describing certain individuals in America today. While profanity has its own personal satisfaction, a more literate epithet is equally forceful and this book has quite a few colorful terms.

The cover had a picture with the word canoodler or amorous caresser and Joe Biden instantly came to mind with his “nuzzling, hugging, squeezing or making sure the bodily contours are still there, as opposed to more urgent exploration.”

Then there is Bill Maher, a genuine âme de boue or someone “with a ‘soul of mud,’ whose thoughts and imagination, if not in the gutter, not higher than the curb” — in short, “a mundane, nasty, cosmically dirty mind” as he accused the President of the United States of incest. And, of course, who could forget the grotesque Kathy Griffin?

Jonathan Gruber and Susan Rice, exquisitely exemplify what being an ananias or “liar” is — prevarication on steroids, shall we say?
Hillary Clinton is a pseudologist — a “skillful or systematic liar, able to pile lie upon lie without batting an eye” — actually a “marathon ananias since she not only falsifies but embellishes and makes it all believable.”

How interesting that “charming sociopaths and playboy husbands are often pseudologists, also known as mythomaniacs.”

In addition, Hillary Clinton is both a cachinnator with her “loud laughter, whose deafening bray is usually inappropriate” as well as a fleerer who “emits howls of laughter chiefly to proclaim an avowed sense of humor or an aroused sense of superiority.”

Then there are the present-day snowflakes who, as misomusists or misosophists, “can’t stand learning, which chiefly includes school, studying, lectures, books and instructive people,” preferring to wrap themselves in safe spaces. Instead they seem to collapse “in tears at the slightest hint of adverse criticism, mockery or teasing” — genuine catagelophobes.

Far too many of the media fall into the category of “ipsedixitists or opiners who make dogmatic statements that are anything but proven facts, or whose assertions are borrowed from so-called authorities.” Grambs calls them “parrots with an ego problem.”

Basically they are misologists or “thick-skulled individuals who hate any rational discussion or honest argument about an issue” and “who mightily resist becoming enlightened.” Thus, if one attempts to “bounce ideas off a misologist, the ideas just clatter to the floor.”

Crowds who are agitprops or “vociferous, propagandistic agitators or sloganeers, particularly people with Marxist or leftist sympathies such as a rabid aspheterist (communist)” now occupy far too many college campuses. “Guerilla theater, bullhorns and revolutionary graffiti describe these people” as explained in this article titled “March for Science: Leftwing Agitprop Creates #FakeScience to Advance Liberal Agenda.”

Too often, groups such as Antifa are bashi-bazouk or “dangerously out-of-control, undisciplined individuals who know no law.” Then there is George Soros who, as an “unusually evil manipulator,” would be known as a Svengali or “cunningly exploitive” individual.