Displaying posts published in

March 2018

MY SAY: ELECTIONS ARE COMING

My letterbox is increasingly stuffed with requests from candidates for donations. It goes something like this:

Dear Ruth, As you know blah, blah, blah….security blah,blah,blah, Israel, blah, blah blah, energy blah,blah, blah, values blah blah blah. Send money…..

Well, I have a nonpartisan rule of thumb…..If J Street, the assisted suicide organization for Israel, supports any candidate, I do not send a nickel.

The following Senators who are running for re-election have been endorsed by J Street:

Dianne Feinstein D. California

Chris Murphy D. Connecticut…the NUTmeg state

Angus King I- Maine

Sherrod Brown D…Ohio

Sheldon Whitehouse D. Rhode Island

Tim Kaine D-Virginia (Hillary’s running mate in 2016)

Maria Cantwell D- Washington

Oliver Friendship Theocratic Iran and its Citizens’ Lives

The political authority of the unelected Supreme Leader and his personally selected Guardian Council to veto bills and choose presidential candidates makes a mockery of Iran’s supposed ‘democracy’. For those who might criticise such a system, a mandatory seventy-four lashes await.

In his 1689 publication A Letter Concerning Toleration, the English philosopher John Locke recommended that the institutions of religion and state be made into totally separate entities, because such a separation would lead to a high level of social stability. Locke’s ideas were considered revolutionary at the time, but the notion of a separation of religion and state has long been a staple of developed nations. However, numerous countries, especially in the Middle East, still implement a form of government where religion and state are intertwined. Iran is one such nation.

Iran’s theocratic ruler, the “Supreme Leader”, is a clear representative of the interests of the dominant Shia Islam in the nation’s political sphere, and has a stranglehold over matters pertaining to the Iranian state. This situation has resulted in internal lawmaking that negatively affects the lives of Iranians, and a political structure that denigrates the country’s democracy.

Iran used to have a form of more democratic governance promoting the separation of religion and state until the 1979 uprising that led to the establishment of the Islamic Republic. The uprising was led by the nation’s first Supreme Leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, and was supported by many of the older, more religiously fanatical citizens who were against the rapid modernisation and Westernisation of Iran by the then government. With this new political order came a new constitution, stating that “All civil, penal, financial, economic, administrative, cultural, military, political, and other laws and regulations must be based on Shia Islamic criteria.” This constitutional basis for the authority of the dominant Shia Islam over matters of state is politically and practically manifest in the role of Supreme Leader.

The current Supreme Leader of Iran is Ali Khamenei. Elected to this position not by popular vote, but by decree of the Assembly of Religious Experts, Khamenei was chosen as a “suitable cleric” to uphold the beliefs of Shia Islam in Iranian politics. The members of the Assembly of Religious Experts are also strict followers of Shia Islam and experts in the Koran and sharia law. The Supreme Leader they elect is guaranteed to be of a similar hardline Shia conviction, which Khamenei is, and act on behalf of Shia interests and principles, which Khamenei does.

The Supreme Leader operates both within and above a largely impotent publicly elected civil government and President, and has powers over matters of state that are far-reaching, controlling, and near absolute. In the Iranian constitution, the Supreme Leader’s role is defined as to “determine the interests of Islam in Iran”, and to “guide” and “supervise” the nation. This was included in the constitution by Iran’s original Islamic revolutionaries in order to assuage fears that a more moderate, democratic and Westernised government would regain power.

The Supreme Leader has far-reaching control over jurisdictions typically considered matters of state in the West. While the elected President of Iran does handle matters of small civil legislation, the theocratic Supreme Leader is totally responsible for control of the armed forces and defence, and can “dictate general guidelines of Iranian foreign and domestic policy”. The Supreme Leader also has the authority to appoint military commanders, the director of national radio and television networks, members of the national security council, the chief judge and prosecutor, and mosque leaders in all of Iran’s major cities.

Deep-Freezing the Truth at Penn A distinguished law professor is publicly shamed for pointing out truths about race preferences. Heather Mac Donald

The diversity imperative demands dissimulation and evasion. The academic-achievement gap, the behavioral differences that produce socioeconomic disparities, and the ubiquity of racial preferences must all be suppressed in public discourse, since they undercut the narrative that white racism is the driving force in American society. This dissimulation was on display last week at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, when Dean Ted Ruger announced that law professor Amy Wax would no longer teach mandatory first-year law courses at the school. In a memo announcing his decision, Ruger accused Wax of “conscious indifference” to truth. It is Ruger, however, who has distorted facts.

Ousting Wax from her first-year civil-procedure class has been a desideratum of the academic Left since she published an op-ed last August celebrating bourgeois virtues like the work ethic, respect for authority, and sexual temperance. Wax was deemed a “white supremacist” for suggesting that not all cultures were equal in preparing people for participation in a modern economy.

In December, Dean Ruger asked her to desist from teaching first-year students and to take a leave of absence, in the hope that the controversy spurred by her op-ed would die down. As a “pluralistic dean,” he said, he needed to accommodate all factions in the school. Wax declined the request and reported the details of the conversation immediately thereafter to friends. (I was one of the people to whom she spoke.) Wax later described the conversation in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. Ruger denied her account through a spokesman, claiming that he had merely engaged in a pro forma discussion of her sabbatical schedule, such as he would have done with any other professor. Ruger’s version is not credible, though: in an informal survey, no law professor polled reports ever having a dean drop by his office to discuss a routine sabbatical. This alleged bureaucratic convention does not exist, unless Dean Ruger has only recently introduced it.

Dems Go after Gina Haspel with the “Torture” Smear The real background of Trump’s CIA pick. Bruce Thornton

Gina Haspel, Trump’s pick to succeed Mike Pompeo as head of the CIA, is a thirty-year veteran of the agency, one well respected by intelligence professionals from both parties. If confirmed, she will be the first woman to run our most important security agency. But despite this feminist victory, the Dems are likely to muddy the waters at her confirmation hearings by smearing her with allegations she oversaw “torture” at a black site in Thailand in 2002. Typical of what we can expect is the New York Times editorial titled, “Having a Torturer Lead the CIA,” even as the charge about the black site was shown to be untrue.

Once again, the party bereft of ideas and principle resorts to emotional obfuscation and accusation to advance their ideological prejudices. So, once again, it is necessary to lay out the facts and partisan hypocrisy behind the “torture” charge that has damaged our ability to gather the intelligence necessary to defend our safety and security.

Start with the imprecise or even willfully distorted language that always perfumes unsavory ideologies. In everyday use, “torture” can mean anything from a visit to the dentist to the sadistic mayhem of brutal regimes like Iran or North Korea. As a result, indiscriminate, lurid connotations and emotions attend the use of a word like “torture,” which of course is what makes it so useful for partisan smears.

Laws, however, have to be more precise. The statute concerning torture in U.S. law defines it as “an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control.” The law further clarifies “severe mental pain or suffering” as “the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from . . . the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering.”

How Tariffs Dampen the Energy Boom A trade war would prevent American manufacturers from taking advantage of abundant hydrocarbons. By Rupert Darwall

Is someone in the White House colluding with China? The Trump administration’s decision to impose tariffs on imported aluminum and steel lets China off the hook for its chronic and deliberate overproduction. Worse, it sets the stage for a trade war that would rob U.S. manufacturers of the advantages stemming from America’s recent transformation into the world’s hydrocarbon superpower.

From lifting restrictions on offshore drilling to ending the Obama administration’s war on coal, Mr. Trump’s robustly pro-growth energy policies have so far delighted American industry. Energy Secretary Rick Perry told an audience at February’s Conservative Political Action Conference that America has finally turned the page on the Jimmy Carter era of resource pessimism and energy shortages. Forecasters expect U.S. oil production to surpass Saudi Arabia’s output in 2018. Last year the U.S. produced 19.4% more natural gas than Russia.

Having freed itself from the Paris climate agreement and dumped the Clean Power Plan, the U.S. now has easy access to more low-cost energy than almost any other industrialized nation. American coal production, exports and employment rose in 2017 after years of decline. Thanks to technological innovations such as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, the U.S. is awash in cheap, domestically produced natural gas. No other industrial nation comes close to matching America’s energy exceptionalism.

Normally all this would be great news for domestic manufacturers, which rely on energy-intensive aluminum and steel as inputs. In Europe, where green policies have pushed up energy costs, natural-gas and electricity prices are roughly double those in the U.S. Yet despite the low cost of domestic natural gas, U.S. primary production of aluminum has fallen by more than half since 2015.

The reason is simple: China. In 2000 China produced about 11% of primary aluminum; now Chinese aluminum accounts for more than half of world output. After the 2016 election, the Aluminum Association urged President-elect Trump to make China’s aluminum sector a top trade priority and force Beijing to the negotiating table. By adopting National Trade Council director Peter Navarro’s aluminum tariffs this month, the White House effectively kicked over the table instead. CONTINUE AT SITE

Israel Says It Destroyed Syrian Nuclear Reactor in 2007 Operation is a message to countries like Iran who threaten country’s existence, tweets Israeli intelligence minister By Dov Lieber

Israel said it destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007, ending its silence over the airstrikes in what it said was a warning for an increasingly bellicose Iran threatening the country’s existence.

Israel in recent months has amplified criticism of Iranian attempts to set up military bases in Syria, warning it would counter any attempts by Tehran and its allies to strengthen their presence on its border.

Tensions escalated in February after Israel’s military said one of its jets was shot down by antiaircraft missiles during strikes on Syrian targets. Those strikes came after Israel said it intercepted an Iranian drone launched from Syria that had infiltrated its airspace.

Russia and Iran are the main backers of the Assad regime in the yearslong Syrian conflict and Tehran has vowed to destroy the Israeli state.

Some Iranian officials also have said Tehran could pull out of the 2015 nuclear deal that limits its enrichment program if the U.S. backs out, as President Donald Trump has threatened.

Iran says its enrichment program is for peaceful purposes, but Israel and other Western powers have long suspected that Tehran sought to develop nuclear weapons.

The acknowledgment of the destruction of the Syrian reactor “sends a clear message: Israel will never allow nuclear weapons to countries like Iran who threaten its existence,” Israel Katz, the country’s intelligence minister, wrote on Twitter.

His comments came after the Israeli military disclosed for the first time details about the 2007 operation, releasing previously classified information, pictures and video of the airstrikes.

“Israel’s policy was and remains consistent—to prevent our enemies from acquiring nuclear weapons,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late Wednesday.

The Syrian regime couldn’t be reached for comment. It has previously denied that the bombed site was a nuclear reactor. An official at Iran’s United Nations mission in New York didn’t respond to a request for comment.

It was widely thought that the airstrikes in 2007 were carried out by Israel, but its formal disclosure on Wednesday comes as Mr. Trump considers scotching the Iranian nuclear deal in May. Israel is pushing for strict overhauls, including more-robust inspections of Iranian facilities and an indefinite period to restrict Iran’s nuclear program.

Ronen Bergman, a political and military analyst who wrote “Rise and Kill First”—a history of Israel’s intelligence agencies—said Israel was sending a message not just to Iran, but also to the Trump administration. CONTINUE AT SITE

Saudi Arabia: What About the Hate-Filled Textbooks and Sermons? by Lawrence A. Franklin

Recent analyses by experts on religious freedom cite the continued prejudicial declarations against Christians, Jews, and Western Civilization in Saudi educational textbooks as evidence that Saudi Arabia still bears ill will against the “infidel” West.

Saudi Arabia has failed to meet agreed-upon deadlines to remove objectionable language from educational texts.

The current Saudi Foreign Minister, Adel bin Ahmed al-Jubeir, seemed falsely to imply that hateful language appears only in past, discontinued textbooks and that current textbooks are being purged of any offensive language.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s May, 2017 Saudi Arabia trip and his address to leaders of Islamic nations may open a new era of cooperation between the United States and the world’s leading conservative Sunni Muslim states. Trump’s trip, along with reported warming relations between Israel and some Arab states, may suggest that the initial stages of an anti-Iranian, anti-terrorist alliance is in the offing.

In Saudi Arabia, Trump forcefully denounced Iran’s support for terrorism. This speech was welcomed especially by Arabian Peninsula Sunni state leaders, who could well be threatened by the aggressive policies of Shia Iran in the Persian Gulf and the Levant.

Unfortunately, however, the Saudi educational system’s textbooks, at least as of a year ago, remain rife with anti-Christian and anti-Jewish statements, as well as criticism of other Muslim sects. Perhaps one of the real litmus tests of the viability of a new era in relations between the United States and conservative Sunni Arab states will be whether the latter totally purge their abusive denunciations of peoples of other religious faiths.

How Facebook and Social Media Promote Terrorism by Uzi Shaya

The failure by the social media networks to enforce the prevention of terror-related content on their sites is, in fact, a direct violation of the Antiterrorism Act and the Material Supply Statutes; the general public is also in its right to have the protections of the Community Decency Act of 1996 cover content on social media.
The conclusion is that the social media companies are adopting an adversarial case-by-case approach to enforcing a ban on terror incitement on their platforms.

The nature of Islamic terrorism throughout the world has changed in recent years. Alongside the established and organized groups — such as Hezbollah, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and even ISIS — a new and different type terror has been created, one that is nourished ideologically, spiritually, and intellectually by these groups, yet shows no connection — organizationally or operationally– to them.

This terror is defined by what we refer to as “lone wolves.” These are individuals whose nationalistic motives, religious incitement or psychological needs propel them to commit acts of terror without being a member of an organized group or cell. The one unifying aspect for all these lone wolves is social media.

Social media networks enable any individual to have his voice and his opinions heard so that his proclamations can resonate with audiences that are far-reaching. Unfortunately, the existing freedoms on social media have been manipulated by terrorist groups to create a threat that poses a clear and present danger to citizens around the world.

Terrorist groups around the world have recognized the potential of social media and these networks have become an essential component — in fact, an unhindered course of action — in allowing the global terrorist networks greatly to expand the operations of terror groups and their supporters worldwide, and affect billions of people around the world. These operations and activities include disseminating “open messages,” the recruitment of new members and supporters, but most importantly to advertise and promote the essence of their terror movement and the glorified aftermath of attacks that they have perpetrated. In the process, the terrorist groups can reach a potential army of a million possible soldiers without any direct connection to them.

Is the United Kingdom an Islamist Colony? by Tom Quiggin

If the gang members were “Asian,” records were not kept. Such is the cowardice and criminal negligence of the police involved.

These Sharia courts mean that the legal system of a foreign political ideology, Islam, has created a parallel legal system in which Sharia is placed above English common law. It is thought that some 30 to 85 Sharia courts are operating in England and Wales alone.

“The Muslim Brotherhood’s foundational texts call for the progressive moral purification of individuals and Muslim societies and their eventual political unification in a Caliphate under Sharia law. To this day the Muslim Brotherhood characterises Western societies and liberal Muslims as decadent and immoral. It can be seen primarily as a political project.” — Prime Minister David Cameron, 2014, regarding a report withheld from the public [Emphases added].

The United Kingdom, once an imperial power, now sounds more like a colonial vassal. The actions of British government officials suggest that the will of the government has collapsed in the face of terrorist and ideological assaults by the forces of political Islam. The ideology is being spread by, among others, the Muslims Brotherhood, according to a major report of the British government itself. A number of Muslim Brotherhood front groups have been identified as such by government reports such as those of the United Arab Emirates. These include the UK based Cordoba Foundation, the Muslim Association of Britain, and Islamic Relief UK. All three of these organization are listed as terrorist entities in the United Arab Emirates as well.

American Identity is Not Globalist By Emina Melonic

In a column this week for The Washington Post, Michael Gerson laments the passing, at least in his imagination, of a time when America was interested in helping and cooperating with other nations. “Why is our political moment not just pathetic but also traumatic?” writes Gerson. He goes on to claim the presidency of Donald J. Trump has destroyed something precious and unique about the American character. Gerson draws upon the history of America’s involvement in World War II, backed by some beautiful words from former presidents to show what he understands as the immaculate diplomacy of Truman, Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy, and to call out what he deems the complete mess Trump is making.

Gerson writes that we have always understood there to be a “practical and moral role for America in the global defense of free governments and institutions,” and to a certain extent, I agree. But Gerson is wrong to suggest, as he does later in the article, that this moral role of America is now dismissed as “globalism.” To make matters worse, he argues Trump is “staggeringly ignorant,” “unfamiliar,” and “unmoved” by the brilliance and moral fortitude of his predecessors. Trump, asserts Gerson, sees America as “a nation like any other nation, defined by ethnicity and oriented toward narrow interests.”

Gerson’s words echo today’s establishment and patronizing leftist rhetoric of “this is not who we are.” His language is reactionary and based in emotionalism rather than logic and reason. They appear also to be inspired by what has become known as “virtue-signaling,”—a conspicuous morality that attacks the opponent as uncaring and cold-hearted without ever bothering to understand one’s opponent as he understands himself.