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February 2018

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

When Ellison Broke Bread With Farrakhan Brotherhood-linked congressman publicly rejected Nation of Islam — but it was all for show. Matthew Vadum

By on February 14th, 2018

After publicly repudiating his former colleagues at the Nation of Islam, DNC deputy chairman Keith Ellison dined with the group’s notorious leader Louis Farrakhan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in 2013, according to reports.

The jihadist-friendly Ellison, a Democrat congressman representing Minnesota, is a former co-chairman of the Communist-linked Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Although Ellison was not a senior Democratic Party official in 2013, now that his DNC post makes him much more than a fringe figure in his party, the meeting takes on a greater, darker significance for Democrats, putting them in bed with raging genocidal anti-Semites, Muslim terrorists, and other enemies of the United States.

The private Sept. 24, 2013, event at the One UN Hotel in Manhattan, across the street from the United Nations complex, was reported in the Oct. 2, 2013, issue of the Nation of Islam newspaper, Final Call. Rouhani was in New York for the 68th UN General Assembly. “The dialogue revolved around the Iranian president’s speech and how to move forward in regard to relations with the United States,” according to the newspaper. “Translators were included in the meeting to facilitate communications in English and Farsi.”

“Abdul Akbar Muhammad, international representative of the Nation of Islam, and Supreme Capt. Mustapha Farrakhan were part of the Nation of Islam delegation,” the report stated.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Defending Western Civilization By Herbert London

By on February 14th, 2018

Herbert London is President of the London Center for Policy Research https://www.londoncenter.org/

For those in the West who have lost their way, no longer sure of whether to believe in their traditions or believe at all, it is useful to recall that liberty is our overarching concern. Liberty, as Edmund Burke counsels, “must inhere in some sensible object; and every nation has formed to itself some favorite point, which… becomes the criterion of happiness.”

Existentialists demur. For them the past is a dream from which they wish to awaken. They refuse to accept the “tyranny of the dead.” However, it is the history of self-government and the unique spirit and energy emerging from the Judeo-Christian tradition that offers a communion of liberty that sets the West apart from others.

Liberty now inheres in — or so we are told — the technique of administration, a liberty created and perfected by a remote class of specialists. This technique applies rationality and technology in order to annul one’s national inheritance. Yet however successful the specialists are in redrafting history as the efflorescence of gender, race, and class, the past and present are being sacrificed for a future of group rights and a diminished sense of liberty.

Tradition affirms the existence of beliefs and practices distilled from human experience shaping the meaning of who we are. To force that experience into an ideological Procrustean Bed is to mislead and misjudge. Only in traditional society can a democratic republic serve the ethical ends of the populace. This is possible because each person is seen as having his own peculiar and essential function. For example, the family is central in the succession of culture since it can encourage a reverence for the past and future. It is, after all, love for the living tradition of one’s culture and the ballast it establishes that lead society’s members to reproduce.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Kim Yo Jong is a Twisted Sister She holds a key post in Pyongyang’s fearsome and brutal Propaganda and Agitation Department. By Claudia Rosett

By on February 14th, 2018

Who is Kim Yo Jong ? “ Kim Jong Un’s sister is stealing the show at the Winter Olympics,” declared a CNN.com headline. This princess of Pyongyang received a royal welcome from South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in. He seated her in his VIP box, near Vice President Mike Pence, for the opening ceremony. He hosted her for lunch at the presidential Blue House, where she delivered him an invitation for a summit with Mr. Kim. The resulting Reuters headline: “North Korea heading for diplomacy gold medal at the Olympics.”

Missing from most of the media coverage was any detail about Ms. Kim’s day job in Pyongyang. In North Korea this kid sister has served under Big Brother as a deputy director of the powerful and omnipresent Propaganda and Agitation Department. She has apparently racked up a record so stellar that last year the U.S. Treasury blacklisted her as a top North Korean official tied to “notorious abuses of human rights.” Mr. Kim gave her an alternate seat on his politburo.

In blacklisting Ms. Kim, the Treasury specified that her department “controls all media in the country, which the government uses to control the public.” That’s an understatement. The Propaganda and Agitation Department’s mission is to control not only media but minds—to indoctrinate all North Koreans, at all levels, in the absolute supremacy of Kim Jong Un and his Workers’ Party. CONTINUE AT SITE

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

Spy vs. Spy? A new warning on Russian meddling and a declassified memo about Obama-era surveillance. James Freeman

By on February 14th, 2018

As it has for most of our lifetimes, the government of Russia will once again be engaged in trying to disrupt and discredit our democracy during this fall’s elections. At a hearing today of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats warned that the Kremlin could again attempt to use technology to undermine our republic.

The fact that Vladimir Putin’s government routinely conducts such operations against freely-elected governments should not make the United States any less vigilant. The Journal reports:

“Foreign elections are critical inflection points that offer opportunities for Russia to advance its interests both overtly and covertly,” Mr. Coats told the committee during its hearing on world-wide threats facing the U.S., in prepared testimony. “The 2018 U.S. midterm elections are a potential target for Russian influence operations.”

“Influence operations, especially through cyber means, will remain a significant threat to U.S. interests as they are low-cost, relatively low-risk and deniable,” Mr. Coats said. “Russia probably will be the most capable and aggressive source of this threat in 2018.”

Mr. Coats, along with the leaders of the National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency, also said they had already seen evidence of Russian intentions to interfere during the 2018 elections, but declined to elaborate, citing the public nature of the hearing. They promised to update the committee in a classified session scheduled for later Tuesday.

Russia’s goal, Mr. Coats said, was to “create wedges that reduce trust and confidence in democratic processes.”

Trust and confidence in democratic processes can also be reduced if an American president uses Russia as a pretext to spy on domestic political opponents. Recent news about Obama administration surveillance of associates of Donald Trump raises important new questions.

On Monday Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) and his committee colleague Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) released a copy of a recent letter to Susan Rice, who served as national security adviser in the Obama White House. CONTINUE AT SITE

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Kelly and the Chaos The people who want him fired don’t want a better White House.

By on February 14th, 2018

The tom toms are beating for the head of Chief of Staff John Kelly for mishandling the White House response to spousal abuse allegations against former aide Rob Porter. Unless President Trump has lost confidence in the former Marine General, it isn’t clear what good his dismissal would do beyond satisfying Mr. Trump’s opponents.

Mr. Kelly didn’t help himself Monday by saying that the White House handling of the Porter accusations “was all done right.” He and others misjudged the uproar that similar and credible stories by Mr. Porter’s two former wives would unleash amid the #MeToo furor. He also seems to have given Mr. Porter the benefit of the doubt when the only real “due process” in the White House should be what helps or hurts the President.

But Mr. Kelly didn’t abuse those women, though you wouldn’t know it from the media denunciations. Our guess is that, amid the 25 items in his inbox, Mr. Kelly wanted to keep one of his best deputies if he could. This may be a violation of the #MeToo movement’s view that all accusations are instantly believable, but it isn’t by itself a firing offense.

The latest uproar concerns whether the White House was accurate in saying the FBI investigation into Mr. Porter’s security clearance was “ongoing.” FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress Tuesday that the FBI had “administratively closed” the Porter file last month. Mr. Porter was working under an interim clearance, and denial of a permanent clearance means someone must leave the White House. Mr. Kelly needs to get the complete story straight and make it public, but it isn’t clear that this discrepancy was intentional deception.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

AND SPEAKING OF THROWING STONES…REMEMBER EDWARD SAID?

By on February 14th, 2018

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES OCTOBER 19,2000 http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/19/nyregion/columbia-debates-a-professor-s-gesture.html

When Edward W. Said, a celebrated literary scholar, Columbia University professor and outspoken Palestinian advocate, hurled a rock toward an Israeli guardhouse from the Lebanese border in July, a photographer caught the action. The photo, which captured Mr. Said with his arm reached far behind him, ready to throw, appeared in newspapers and magazines in the Middle East and the United States.

When challenged later, Mr. Said, who had been on a trip with his family at the time, dismissed the action as trivial, ”a symbolic gesture of joy” that Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon had ended. But others saw it as scandalous and called on Columbia to reprimand Mr. Said, or at least repudiate his behavior.

For two months, Columbia gave no reply. But yesterday, in response to a request from student government leaders of Columbia College, Columbia broke its silence.

Its answer: Mr. Said’s behavior is protected under the principles of academic freedom.

”To my knowledge, the stone was directed at no one; no law was broken; no indictment was made; no criminal or civil action has been taken against Professor Said,” Jonathan R. Cole, the provost and dean of faculties, wrote in an open letter to Columbia’s student government and the student newspaper, The Columbia Daily Spectator.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Palestinian Diplomat: ‘We Are Very Proud That We Are Stone Throwers’ By Debra Heine

By on February 14th, 2018

A Palestinian diplomat, speaking to Canadian college students visiting the United Nations headquarters in New York, said that Palestinians are proud of their history of throwing stones at Israeli forces.

Further, they will continue teaching their children to do just that:

Israeli news outlet Ynet obtained the recording of Abdallah Abushawesh, a member of the Palestinian delegation to the UN, making the comments to international relations students from McGill University. Abushawesh serves as a senior adviser to the UN’s Development Group, Ynet reports.

“We are very clever and very expert at throwing the stones. We are very proud to do that. We will not stop to learn our kids (to do that),” Abushawesh says in broken English amid students’ snickers.

Abushawesh added that Palestinians who are caught throwing stones “go to the jail.”

He continued: “We are very proud that we are stone throwers. I’m one of them. Now I became a little bit older, but I stay resistant in the name of my kids.”

According to Ynet, the diplomat also boasted about his own stone-throwing exploits during the first intifada.

“I was in high school. I never missed an opportunity to throw stones. This is our life. We develop our resistance every day. We’re proud of it,” he said.

Abushawesh would no doubt be a strong contender for the media’s diplomatic gold medal, but Kim Jong Un’s sister already won that earlier this week.

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Democrats Holding to ‘Limits of Compromise’ on DACA Talks, Says Senator By Bridget Johnson

By on February 14th, 2018

With the March 5 deadline for Congress to save DREAMers looming, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) declared that “the limits of compromise are there” on what Dems will give up for the Deferred Action for the Childhood Arrivals program “because, basically, we’re talking about fundamental core American values.”

President Trump tweeted this morning: “Negotiations on DACA have begun. Republicans want to make a deal and Democrats say they want to make a deal. Wouldn’t it be great if we could finally, after so many years, solve the DACA puzzle. This will be our last chance, there will never be another opportunity! March 5th.”

Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday that “speaking for the Republican Party, we would love to do DACA.”

“We would love to get it done. We want border security and the other elements that you know about. Chain migration, you know about. The visa lottery, you know about,” he said. “But we think there’s a good chance of getting DACA done if the Democrats are serious and they actually want to do it.”

Blumenthal told CNN this morning that the president’s proposal to end family reunification for all but spouses and minor children was a non-starter as senators negotiate to save some 800,000 DACA beneficiaries from “mass draconian deportation,” but they are willing to give some extra bucks for border security.

“We cannot make the DREAMers a blank check for a nativist, far-right fringe agenda, so we are willing to compromise,” he said. “…The only way to do a deal is, narrowly and simply, to provide permanent status for the DREAMers and a path to citizenship combined with border security. We’re talking about surveillance and sensors, better training for the border agents, more of them, and strengthening the fences and the physical barriers where it will do some good. Not a wall from sea to shining sea.”

Using his father, an immigrant fleeing Germany in 1935, as an example, Blumenthal said that family reunification “is part of the American ideal.”

“It’s the immigrants’ story and we all know it. It’s part of our lives. And betraying that fundamental American value is something that we cannot tolerate,” he added.

The senator said limiting the bill to a narrow focus on DREAMers can “muster [a] sufficient majority here to provide momentum going into the House of Representatives,” though Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) hasn’t committed to a DACA debate and vote as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has.

“If it takes some compromise on border security, a few more dollars for sensors and surveillance and fences,” Blumenthal said, Dems are willing to do that.

McConnell said on the Senate floor this morning that “there is no reason why we should not reach a bipartisan solution this week.” CONTINUE AT SITE

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MEDIA, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

TOM GROSS: DISPATCHES

By on February 14th, 2018

This is one of an occasional series of dispatches that doesn’t concern the Middle East, though it does concern the media.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve become friends with a number of North Korean exiles and dissidents that I’ve met over the years when I was speaking on the Middle East at international human right conferences. The suffering they have described is horrific. (In the past, I have criticized the media, in particular the New York Times, for all but ignoring human rights in North Korea.)

I attach two pieces, one from yesterday’s Washington Post, the other from today’s Wall Street Journal. (Both are by subscribers to this list.) There are extracts first, and then a short note on anti-Israel, pro-North Korean regime western academics and writers.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Ankara’s Hypocrisy Knows No Bounds: A Tale of Two Terror Camps by Gerald A. Honigman

By on February 14th, 2018

Recently, the Turks complained about the January 31, 2017 Washington placement of Hamas leader, Ismail Haniya, on a terror watch blacklist. Ankara has supported Hamas substantially for years now, especially since the increasingly dictatorial Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) gained ascendency in the second decade of this century.

Increasingly, with the turmoil and chaos in adjacent Syria and Iraq, the Turks appear to have visions of at least partially recreating the borders of the former Ottoman Turkish Empire. Absent Washington and Moscow’s involvement, this might already have been a done deal by now, with the centuries old rivalry between the Ottomans and Iran’s Safavid and Qajar Shahs over the region at play. Of course, Russia’s involvement here is also nothing new—both in pre-Soviet and post-Soviet days. Moscow was non-discriminatory when expanding its own imperial borders via those of the other two players.

While the AKP claims that it’s not really “Islamist,” Erdogan & Co. certainly have an affinity for at least some militant, fundamentalist Islamist groups—including ISIS and Hamas. It’s no accident that the border has been fluid for ISIS fighters moving between Turkey and Syria.

Since I began by relaying Ankara’s support for a group dedicated to the slaughter of Jews and their sole, resurrected, minuscule nation (note: geographically, thirty-eight Israels fit into Turkey; Israel’s population is about 1/11 its size with about the same 20% mix of Arabs to Jews as Turkey’s 20-25% Kurds to Turks), from here onwards my concern will not be about such things as why or how modern Turkey transformed from Mustafa Kemal’s (“Ataturk”) post-World War I’s secular state to one closely aligned with religiously-motivated extremist groups. Instead, I will concentrate on a comparison between what Ankara faces regarding its own real or perceived threats and how Israel has handled what is, in reality, a far worse situation.

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