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January 2018

White Supremacy and “White” Culture By Tom McCaffrey

Surrendering it to the likes of Black Lives Matter and the Donna Rileys of the world would mean the end of the United States as a country of individual liberty and its economic counterpart, capitalism.

“Rigor [in engineering education] accomplishes dirty deeds… disciplining, demarcating boundaries, and demonstrating white male heterosexual privilege,” says Donna Riley, head of engineering education at Purdue University. “Scientific knowledge itself is gendered, raced, and colonizing.” (Engineering Studies, Dec, 2017)

To make any sense of this, one must visit the fever swamps of “white supremacy” scholarship. In the good old days, “white supremacy” referred to the ideology of groups like the Aryan Nation and the Ku Klux Klan. No more.

“White supremacy… is the presumed superiority of white racial identities… in support of the cultural, political, and economic domination of non-white groups.” (Progress in Human Geography, Nov, 2015) In other words, “white supremacy” refers nowadays to the imposing of “white” culture on non-whites by America’s white majority.

According to this view, the injustice of the Indian wars, of slavery, and of the Jim Crow era continues unabated today in the form of forced white cultural supremacy—forced, for example, by demanding rigor in engineering education. So, it appears, the whole edifice of American culture, and, by implication, of Western civilization, is a conspiracy by whites to keep non-whites (and women, homosexuals, etc.) oppressed.

The first casualty of such a view is the idea of objective truth. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and private property, for example, are no longer universally valid ethico-political principles grounded in human nature. (“We hold these truths to be self-evident.”) They are, rather, white constructs designed exclusively to serve white ends, at the expense of non-whites.

Does a Red Thread Run Through the Anti-Trump “Coup”? by: Diana West

Let’s take a closer look at Fusion’s “academic expert on Russia,” Nellie H. Ohr, the mystery woman, intriguing for her marriage to DOJ official Bruce Ohr, her fluency in Russian, her ham radio operator’s license, and, finally, the possibility that she had a hand in the anti-Trump “dossier.”

The “H” stands for Hauke, Ohr’s maiden name. On reading through a Washington Post obituary of Kathleen A. Hauke, Nellie’s mother, and a guide to the papers of her parents, Kathleen A. and Richard L. Hauke, both Ph.D.s, which are archived at the University of Rhode Island, a sketch of the Hauke family’s life of the mind takes shape.

Clearly, Nellie grew up in a family on the intellectual Left — i.e., the mainstream of American academia. Her mother, an English professor, was active, if not activist, in black-white racial issues of the late 1960s and 1970s, including interracial adoption and “promoting racial equality in education,” a kindly-sounding idea, which, via coercive means of “promoting,” has atomized our society into a sum of non-working parts — yes, the opposite of “a more perfect union.” Whoever conceived of the project, there was something devilishly clever about turning college admissions offices into key enforcement centers of racial and other quotas of a state-mandated order. As we might finally admit, from Berekely to Yale to Mizzou, it is here where generations of cadres have received Marxian indoctrination under cover of cap and gown, the indispensable legions of ideological victory in a “Cold War” Americans still insist they won.

In this same pioneering spirit of “promoting,” perhaps, Kathleen A. Hauke devoted herself to studying black/African American authors and writers on the same Left, even communist, wavelength, from Langston Hughes to South African writer Richard Rive. One notable biographical detail was Kathleen’s first visit to South Africa in 1954, via freighter, when she was just 19 years old.

Her main academic interest, however, was a black American journalist named Ted Poston. She wrote or edited three books on Poston, including a 2000 collection of his journalism, which is described as having “infused” his newspaper, the New York Post, “with a black viewpoint on topics as varied as the paranoia engendered by McCarthyism and the light-stepping magic of Bill Bojangles Robinson” (emphasis added). A highlight of Poston’s pre-“McCarthyism”-youth came when he, along with Langston Hughes and others, journeyed to the USSR in 1932, the height of the Stalin’s mass-starvation of “collectivized” Ukrainians, to be wined and dined by the Soviets as they worked on a Comintern movie about the plight of the “American Negro.” It was never completed.

Nellie’s father, Richard L. Hauke, was a botany professor. His listed works are mainly scientific, but his biographical notes highlight his interests in creationism, bioethics and, circa 1983-1985, “nuclear winter.”

In these days of “global warming” (it was 7 degrees when I woke up), it’s easy to forget the mass hysteria over “nuclear winter” that gripped the 1980s, the final decade, they say, of the Cold War. This was the heyday of the Reagan administration, and Soviet strategists were thus concentrated on thwarting Reagan’s program to modernize US and NATO arsenals (plus ca change …). Talk about “Russian influence,” that cartoonishly misunderstood mantra of today: It was the “active measures” of Brezhnev-Andropov-Chernenko-Gorbachev’s Kremlin that drove the Western disarmament movement known as the “peace movement,” or “nuclear freeze movement,” across Europe and the US, sparking outrage via “disinformation” against neutron bombs and “Star Wars” and “war-monger” Reagan along the way.

Foolish and Dangerous Jews By Eileen F. Toplansky

In Eastern European folklore, “the city of Chelm functions as an imaginary city of fools, similar to that of the Greek Abdera, the English Gotham, and the German Schilda.” In fact, the “Chelm tales describe outlandish naiveté and futility.” Ruth von Bermuth argues that “Chelm … functioned for more than three centuries as an ironic model of Jewish society, both utopia and dystopia, an imaginary place onto which changing questions about Jewish identity, community, and history repeatedly have been projected.”

When reading these stories, one is amazed at the characters who seem so unaware of their folly. The tales showcase how common sense is often absent as so-called wise men cite unusual solutions that never work. They are stubbornly foolish and show contempt for logical problem-solving.

It is important to note that these stories reveal a backdrop of the centuries-old pariah status of Jews in a majority of countries. They could not endure if they lacked two essential survival mechanisms. The first is the necessity of always looking over one’s shoulder anticipating the Cossack, the inquisitor, the Nazi, or any of the diabolical characters whose aim was to demean or destroy the Jews. The second factor was black humor, which sustained Jews through the pogroms, the concentration camps, and the Gulag. These were necessary because one of the “[d]efining characteristics of Jewish culture and identity is the awareness of historical and modern anti-Semitism.” Jews could never become too comfortable.

Despite the fact that safety is a Jewish religious concern, there are currently far too many liberal rabbis in America who seem content to ignore the avowed enemies of the Jewish people. Consequently, “on July 25, 2017, in what appeared to be an unprecedented event in American Jewish history, a group that came into existence as a front for a terrorist organization that murders Jews was invited to solicit donations at a synagogue.”

“Rabbi Howard Jaffe of Temple Isaiah in Lexington, Mass., hosted three Muslim leaders, whom he presented to his congregation as friends of the Jewish community. It was billed as an interfaith bridge-building affair.” In actuality, it was “a political rally where Islamist extremists pretending to be moderates sought to enlist Jews in their campaign to undermine U.S. government counter-terrorism efforts, while raising funds for a Hamas-connected group – all in the name of ‘social justice’ and interfaith harmony.”

Transparency for Fusion and the FBI Democrats vote to keep documents secret but Congress will see them.

The chance that Americans will learn what really happened between the FBI and Fusion GPS is growing with Thursday’s vote by the House Intelligence Committee to give every House Member access to key information. Soon the House should move to declassify all documents in the case that don’t jeopardize intelligence sources and methods so the public can get the complete story.

Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes also moved Thursday to release to the public his committee’s interview with Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson. Every Democrat joined Republicans in voting for that public disclosure. Yet every Democrat voted against letting the rest of the House see a memo that will list the facts about the FBI’s use of FISA warrants to surveil members of the Trump campaign in 2016. Strange. What are Democrats afraid of?

Ranking Democrat Adam Schiff has been a loud voice for accountability regarding the Trump-Russia probe, but his outrage evaporates regarding the role that Fusion GPS and its Democratic financiers may have played in persuading the FBI to seek a warrant to eavesdrop on American civilians. What were the FBI’s reasons and the evidence it used to seek such an extraordinary writ?

All of this is relevant to the House’s recent vote to extend Section 702 that allows law enforcement to monitor foreigners. Mr. Nunes provided two closed briefings to Republicans last week as they prepared to renew Section 702, and he assured Members that he’d seen no evidence that government had abused 702 powers. But he also said he had seen evidence that law enforcement misused powers involving the surveillance of U.S. citizens as part of the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign.

Trump Administration Accelerating Israeli Embassy Move U.S. will convert existing structure in West Jerusalem to an embassy By Felicia Schwartz and Jess Bravin

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration is accelerating efforts to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and has decided to modify an existing property to accommodate the new mission that will open next year, U.S. officials said.

The U.S. won’t be building a new structure, in a shift from what Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and others from the Trump administration have said in describing the move recently. Mr. Tillerson has also said previously that the move is at least three years away.

“The secretary’s primary focus is on security,” said Steve Goldstein, undersecretary of state for diplomacy and public affairs. “We will not be moving to a new facility…we are going to retrofit a building,” which will be ready in 2019.

People familiar with the plans say officials intend to reconfigure portions of an existing U.S. consular facility in West Jerusalem, an area Israel has held since 1948, so that it can be designated as the U.S. Embassy.

“There is no plan for anything temporary,” Mr. Goldstein said.

Jerusalem is contested by Israel and Palestinians.

While a 1995 U.S. law requires officials to move the embassy to Jerusalem, Mr. Trump’s predecessors routinely have exercised their statutory power to postpone the project.

Mr. Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December and directed the State Department to begin to move the U.S. embassy there.

State Department officials at first said this would involve locating property and building a new facility, which could cost as much as $1 billion and take several years. Under that scenario, it might not have opened until a second Trump term or beyond.

Many career diplomats and others have been dismayed by Mr. Trump’s decision, which some believe has infuriated Palestinians while producing no obvious benefit to American diplomatic objectives.

THE “TRUMP IS A DESPOT CREW IS THE REAL THREAT TO DEMOCRACY RICH LOWRY

It hasn’t been easy recently to make an attack against President Trump that is over-the-top enough to stand out from the run-of-the-mill hysteria, but outgoing Republican Sen. Jeff Flake managed it.

In a speech hitting Trump for his broadsides against the press, Flake excoriated the president for using the phrase “enemy of the people.” Per the Arizona senator: “It is a testament to the condition of our democracy that our own president uses words infamously spoken by Josef Stalin to describe his enemies.”

The association of Trump, whose offense is being crude and thoughtless while occupying an office he won in a raucously free election, with one of the greatest monsters of the 20th century is so wildly irresponsible it is its own corruption of our discourse.

Trump isn’t a despot. Far from being an autocrat, he’s a weak president susceptible to the views of the last person he’s talked to and so deferential to Congress that he spent all of last year pining for a signing ceremony for literally anything lawmakers could send him on health care or taxes.

At its worst, the Trump White House isn’t sinister; it’s farcical. It’s not Recep Tayyip Erdogan carefully and deliberately creating a one-party state; it’s Trump getting miscued by a TV show into a tweet undermining his administration’s own position on the reauthorization of a surveillance program.

The Trump alarmists thought that a brittle democratic culture and set of institutions were about to encounter a man representing a dire, determined threat to their integrity; instead, a robust democratic culture and set of institutions encountered the guy sitting down at the end of the bar yelling at the TV.

David Frum of The Atlantic warned at the beginning of the year of Trump cowing the media. Instead, Trump faces the most hostile press at least since Richard Nixon. So comprehensively do Trump outrages dominate the news cycle that it’s difficult for a sex scandal involving a porn star to break through. If you’re a late-night host who doesn’t spend an inordinate amount of time on Trump, your ratings lag. Michael Wolff has sold more than a million copies of a loosely sourced book whose power is the salaciousness of its gossip and its confirmation of everything people who hate Trump already believe.

Rather than stretching his powers, Trump has reined in the executive overreach of the Obama years, which was brazen and unconstitutional, although undertaken with much greater politeness. Obama proudly thought he could rewrite immigration law on his own and make recess appointments when Congress wasn’t in recess.

There’s no doubt Trump violates norms that we should want to preserve. The president shouldn’t slam reporters and news organizations by name, call for people in the private sector to be fired, criticize companies or urge his adversaries to be jailed, among other routine provocations.

The Out-of-Touch Party By Adriana Cohen

Democrats are out of touch.

They made that abundantly clear when every liberal lawmaker rejected the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and did everything possible to obstruct its historic passage. Instead of working in a bipartisan manner to help grow the U.S. economy and restore the American dream for all, liberal politicians — including Democratic Party leadership — told voters the GOP tax bill would be bad for them, bad for the economy and a gift to the rich.

Then millions of Americans got a raise — faster than liberals could knit another pussy hat.

Just ask the multitude of blue- and white-collar workers across industries and demographics who are enjoying higher wages, lucrative bonuses, extended family-leave benefits and an abundance of other perks thanks to the tax reform bill, which not a single Democrat voted for. Yet despite the fact that AT&T is giving out $1,000 bonuses to 200,000 U.S. employees as a result of the new law and scores of other American businesses are doing the same, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters, “In terms of the bonus that corporate America received versus the crumbs that they are giving to workers to kind of put the schmooze on, it’s so pathetic. … I think it’s insignificant.”

Only an out-of-touch 1 percenter like Pelosi — a well-known multimillionaire — could dismiss thousands of dollars in working families’ pockets as mere “crumbs.” To the contrary, for 99 percent of the population, it’s significant.

Notwithstanding, Apple announced this week that it’s going to invest $350 billion in America. This investment includes expanding existing campuses and building new facilities, as well as creating 20,000 jobs. The maker of the iPhone also said it’s giving the majority of its employees $2,500 in stock options.

Canada: “Islamophobia Day”? Are You Kidding? by Tom Quiggin

In fact, in Canada, “Islamophobia” comes in only fourth behind crimes against Blacks, Gays and Jews. Hate crimes against Muslims actually have dropped, even as the overall number of hate crimes increased, according to the last Statistics Canada reporting.

The National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM, formerly CAIR CAN) was founded with the mission of supporting its American parent organization, CAIR USA, which in turn was formed to support Hamas. According to the Hamas Covenant, the group is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is listed as terrorist group by the US and Canada. CAIR USA was also listed as a terrorist entity by the United Arab Emirates in 2014.

The current Executive Director of CAIR CAN/NCCM, Ihsaan Gardee, has tried to claim that CAIR USA and its Canadian chapter CAIR CAN/NCCM have no relationship. This view is misleading. Most tellingly, CAIR CAN/NCCM made the following statement on its own website in 2003 referring to CAIR USA: “This Washington-based organization is CAIR CAN’s parent organization.”

With respect to the presence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Canada, newspapers such as the Toronto Star have printed that there is no such thing as the Muslim Brotherhood in Canada or the US. A 2015 piece by Haroon Siddiqui, the Toronto Star’s editorial page editor emeritus, stated that: “Muslim Brotherhood is not a registered entity in Canada or the USA, nor does it have any branch in North America.” For this assessment, Siddiqui was quoting Jamal Badawi. What Siddiqui did not mention was that Badawi is a member of the North American Muslim Brotherhood’s Shura Council, according to the Muslim Brotherhood itself.

The Trillion-Dollar Chameleon Big Tech is hiding in plain sight. By Victor Davis Hanson

Twenty years ago, no one had heard of either Facebook or Google, neither of which existed yet. For that matter, no one knew much about social media or search engines in general.

Cell phones were still simply mobile, small, and expensive telephones. There was no concept of a phone as a handheld computer.

Today, five companies — Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Alphabet (Google’s parent company) — have a collective worth of more than $3 trillion. Yet such transnational companies remain mostly exempt from the sort of regulations and accountability faced by most other industries.

Major corporations understandably fear product-liability laws. Oil companies are hectored by class-action lawsuits and headline-grabbing attorneys badgering them to pay up for supposed climate change brought on by commuters filling up each week. Tobacco companies have paid out billions of dollars due to cigarettes’ contribution to lung cancer. Pharmaceutical corporations are often forced to pay millions in fines when their prescription drugs cause dangerous side effects.

Yet every year, nearly a half-million Americans are injured in traffic accidents due to distracted driving involving a cell phone. No one knows how many millions of people worldwide are addicted to the apps on their smartphones — a habit that can be harder to break than an opiate addiction and can leave addicted users in a similar zombie-like condition. Yet unlike Big Pharma, Big Oil, and Big Tobacco, Big Tech is rarely held responsible for the deleterious effects of its products on millions the world over.

In most states, public boards and commissions regulate companies that provide public utilities. The theory is that such corporations use public spaces — from power poles to underground pipelines — to serve a captive public domain and provide an essential need. Radio and television stations are likewise regulated by the federal government on the similar assumption that the airwaves are not private property.

Palestinians: Abbas’s Big Bluff – Again by Bassam Tawil

In his desperation, Abbas hurls abuse and in all directions. He has resorted to his old-new strategy of warning us that if his demands are not met, World War III will break out. Abbas would like us to believe that the Palestinian issue should remain at the center of the world’s attention — otherwise, there will be bloodshed and violence on the streets of most countries.

Should anyone take Abbas’s threats seriously? The answer is simple: No.

The war to destroy Israel is still in full force. The Palestinians have not brought up a new generation that recognizes Israel’s right to exist; on the contrary, they have brought up a generation that believes in jihad and death, one that denies any Biblical Jewish history or links to the Holy Land.

PLO leaders who met in Ramallah on January 15 recommended that the Palestinians revoke their recognition of Israel.

The recommendation came in response to US President Donald Trump’s announcement recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

The PLO leaders also advised their leadership to suspend security coordination with Israel. They also called for revising all agreements signed with Israel, including the Oslo Accords.

The meeting of the PLO Central Council was chaired by President Mahmoud Abbas, who in the past few weeks has chosen to embark on an open collision course with the US administration, possibly in the hope that US Department of State will back down as it always previously has.

Abbas has been in a belligerent mode since Trump’s December 6 announcement on Jerusalem. In a speech before the PLO Central Council session, Abbas mocked Trump and hurled abuses at him. Abbas said he hoped God would “destroy” Trump’s house. The Arabic Yakhrab baytu means “May his house be destroyed”. According to The Guardian, Abbas “did not literally mean the White House or Trump Tower. But its wider sense is unmissable.”