Displaying posts published in

November 2018

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Is Mueller team bludgeoning to get narrative it wants? By Mark Penn,

By on November 29th, 2018

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/418879-is-mueller-team-bludgeoning-to-get-narrative-it-wants

Either Robert Mueller has the case of the century, tons of incriminating email and is now close to unveiling the collusion with the Russians that has been so widely repeated, or the investigation has come up empty-handed and he is now trying to bludgeon some peripheral figures into plea deals to give the appearance of collusion. It sure has created a lot of public confusion.

While we have to leave the door open to the first theory, recent actions of the special counsel sure look like a last-minute overreach to draw in fringe characters who did little more than make inquiries or tried to seem in the know about the purloined Clinton campaign emails.

To add to these mixed messages, a bombshell came out in the Guardian, that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort allegedly met repeatedly in person with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Such activity would definitely have changed the whole complexion of the case. But with both Assange and Manafort’s denials and a full denial from Manafort’s attorneys, it is more likely the Guardian was “had” with fake Ecuadorian embassy notes. There would be cameras filming everyone going into the embassy, where Assange took asylum in 2012, and holding three in-person meetings would have generated lots of collateral emails and calls — you don’t just show up at an embassy out of the blue and knock on the door. Once examined, the story is, frankly, preposterous.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Is There a 51 Percent Solution for Trump? By Victor Davis Hanson

By on November 29th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/11/29/is-there-

President Trump’s challenges are not really his economic policies and foreign affairs agendas. For the most part, they are supported by the American people and are resulting in prosperity at home and security abroad.

The economy continues to deliver near-record-low unemployment, wage gains, strong growth and unmatched energy production.

No nation can remain sovereign and secure with insecure borders. There are few ways to stop massive illegal immigration other than building a wall, insisting on employer sanctions and recalibrating legal immigration to be measured, diverse and meritocratic.

For all the hysteria over Trump’s foreign policy, many observers quietly concede that the U.S. is far tougher on Vladimir Putin and Russia now than Obama was in 2016: stronger sanctions, more help to the Ukrainians and greater NATO expenditures.

America had reached a point of no return with China. It either had to renegotiate its enormous trade imbalances and confront regional Chinese aggressions or simply acquiesce to China’s agenda of predetermined global superiority. Yet there were few levers other than temporary trade tariffs to force China to trade equitably and to follow global commercial norms.

The status quo that Trump inherited with North Korean nuclear-tipped intercontinental missiles was an unsustainable proposition. So was an Iran deal that would have guaranteed eventual Iranian nuclear capability.

Yet Trump cannot consistently reach 50 percent approval in the polls. And, like most presidents, he experienced a rebuke in the House during his first midterm elections.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Welcome Back to the Big Bully Boy Scout Show By Roger Kimball

By on November 29th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/11/29/welcome-back

Like a long-running entertainment, the Boy Scout Show, starring the lugubrious Robert Mueller as the big bully himself, is back. Off the air for some months as the people who brought you “Senator Spartacus Battles Brett Kavanaugh” and “Midterm Mayhem,” along with a special workshop on “How Democrats Can Manufacture Ballots at the Last Moment to Steal an Election,” the Big Bully Boy Scout is once again entertaining thousands across the fruited plain.

Well, it’s entertaining the media pundits in Washington and New York, anyway.

The producers of this interminable entertainment have learned a thing or two from other soap operas. For one thing, some of your favorite characters who had seemed to be written out of the script have made miraculous recoveries and, word has it, are signed for important parts in the entire season that just got underway.

Paul Manafort, for example, whom script writers seemed to have killed off last season, is back with gusto. The Bully Boy Scout and his stable of potty prosecutors (potty prosecutor No. 1: Anthony Weismann, who rumor has it is looking for another major U.S. company to destroy this season, the accounting firm of Arthur Andersen having whetted his appetite) are whining loudly about old Paul.

The season opener brought Manafort back with a bang as headlines blared that he broke his plea agreement with Big Bully Mueller. Part of the excitement revolved around the fact that no one who was not part of the inner circle had any idea what the sharp tooth emissaries of state power were talking about.

The charge was that Manafort lied “to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Special Counsel’s Office on a variety of subject matters, which constitute breaches of the agreement.” But “a variety of subject matters” covers a multitude of possibilities, which of course is exactly the point of this Kafkaesque charade in which dozens of people are swept up in the insatiable maw of prosecutorial frenzy.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Keeping the Mentally Ill Out of Jail *****

By on November 29th, 2018

https://www.city-journal.org/keeping-mentally-ill-out-of-jails

Stephen Eide joins City Journal associate editor Seth Barron to discuss how America’s health-care system fails the mentally ill, and the steps that cities and states are taking to keep the mentally ill out of jail and get them into treatment.
Audio Transcript

Seth Barron: We’re back with another edition of 10 blocks. This is your host, Seth Barron, associate editor of City Journal. People in big cities around the country regularly encounter individuals who are clearly troubled and often seriously mentally ill. Despite decades of work and attention to the issue, our society has not yet come up with an effective way to treat the mentally ill in a humane manner. In fact, many of these people wind up getting arrested, either for minor or serious crimes and then cycle in and out of the jail system, which has become the nation’s de facto mental health treatment facility. I’m joined now by Steven, I’d senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and Contributing Editor to City Journal. He writes frequently on the intersecting issues of mental illness and homelessness, and has a piece in the current issue of City Journal entitled “Keeping the Mentally Ill Out of Jail.” Hi Steve. Thanks for joining us.

Stephen Eide: Hey Seth, so nice of you to have me on.

Seth Barron: So Steve, why is this a problem? Why aren’t the mentally ill in mental hospitals?

Stephen Eide: Well, that’s the way that we used to do it. When we talk about the public mental health care system, what the government does to help them mentally ill, it used to do that in only one way. Up until the 1950s, we ran these massive mental asylums, mental institutions that house hundreds of thousands of people. For various reasons, we decided to phase that system out, through a process known as deinstitutionalization. So now for the most part, we try to treat mentally ill, even people with serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar, depression, in the community, and outpatient for forms of treatment as much as possible. That has meant a somewhat fragmented system of delivery for mental health care. And oftentimes people have difficulty accessing the treatment that they need for their particular condition. And one of the reasons why we know that this approach does not work very well, why we regularly debate how to reform mental health care is the large numbers of mentally ill people in jails and prisons. In fact, in every state, the largest mental health facility, inpatient mental health facility you could say, is a jail which has a larger patient load than the than the largest state mental hospital at this point. So, this is a problem. In various ways, we try to address this rate of high levels of mental illness amongst our incarcerated population.

Seth Barron: Yeah. But what’s the problem with sending these people to jail if they’ve committed a crime? Are you in favor of an insanity defense?

Stephen Eide: Yes, but for most part, when we talk about the very large population mentally ill behind bars, we’re not talking about people who are guilty by reason of insanity. That’s a real sliver. And we’re really talking about jails, places where people go after they’ve been arrested before their case has been processed, before their offense, has been adjudicated. The idea I think is that most of these people are there because they’re sick, not because they’re criminals. Many of them are picked up for low level offenses, nonviolent offenses, and had they received proper treatment, they wouldn’t be there, but because they’re not receiving treatment, that’s where they wind up and many of them as many kind of journalistic exposes show, such as a series of the Virginia pilot newspaper last year, their condition tends to worsen while they’re behind bars.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

AT’s Richard Baehr explains what happened on November 6 VIDEO

By on November 29th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/11/ats_richard_baehr_explains_what_happened_on_novemebr_6.html

I was not able to attend this year’s Restoration Weekend in Palm Beach, but I heard from a lot of people about the presentation that our chief political correspondent Richard Baehr was a real highlight. He had the unenviable task of following the speech kicking off the program given by Victor Davis Hanson, and did a smashing job of it. He was the lead speaker on what was called the “all-star panel” analyzing the election results.

The other participants, Pat Caddell, Chris Buskirk (editor of American Greatness) and Daniel Greenfield, are among the smartest political thinkers of our time.

Watch for yourself. Richard, as always, cites data in his analysis, and sees things escaping most people.

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FOREIGN POLICY, IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Toward a Stronger U.S.–Mexico Relationship By Reihan Salam

By on November 29th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/us-mexico-relationship-partnership-immigration-amnesty/

One of my pet causes is promoting a stronger, more constructive partnership with Mexico, and the Central American migrant caravans offer a perfect illustration of why it’s so important. Mexican president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador is an avowed leftist, and it is natural that U.S. conservatives would be wary of him. But his desire to improve life for ordinary Mexicans is very much aligned with the U.S. interest in reducing unauthorized immigration, as is his stated commitment to creating opportunities for Central American migrants in Mexico. That is why I strongly believe the Trump administration ought to work closely with the incoming López Obrador government. By discouraging non-meritorious asylum claims, which have surged in recent years, the “Remain in Mexico” plan that is currently being discussed by U.S. and Mexican officials would greatly alleviate the current migration crisis.

The problem, however, is that while Remain in Mexico would clearly redound to the benefit of the U.S., it is essential that Mexicans feel as though they’re benefiting as well. And that is why I’d love to see President Trump offer something tangible to López Obrador that could cement a long-term deal.

What is it that that López Obrador’s government might want from the U.S.? For now, let’s leave aside practical considerations, such as, ahem, finding a proposal that Democrats in the House would be willing to pass and President Trump would be willing to sign. Because, well, we’re in the ideas business, people — and because political realities can change unexpectedly, so it never hurts to think big.

Elsewhere, I’ve argued that we ought to allow U.S. retirees to make use of their Medicare benefits in Mexico. Doing so could both reduce the cost to U.S. taxpayers of caring for older Americans who’d benefit from a lower cost of living, including lower-cost medical and custodial care, and generate low- and mid-skill employment in Mexico by fueling the growth of a labor-intensive eldercare sector. (Unbeknownst to me, Walter Russell Mead, the distinguished historian and Wall Street Journal foreign-affairs columnist, made this case in testimony before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Economic Policy last year.) This could prove a huge boon to Mexico and, as such, it would be a powerful inducement to cooperate with U.S. immigration-enforcement efforts.

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Democrats Stand With Foreign Rioters They challenge the use of teargas by border patrol agents under attack. Michael Cutler

By on November 29th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272073/democrats-stand-foreign-rioters-michael-cutler

The news footage of the thousands of members of the “migrant” caravan showed young men throwing rocks at U.S. Border Patrol agents and attempting to charge the U.S./Mexican border. The Border Patrol agents were clearly under attack and had only two courses of action to take. The beleaguered agents could step aside or even retreat and permit their positions to be overrun by hundreds or even thousands of illegal aliens among whom are likely criminals, gang members and even those affiliated with terrorism, who would then disperse into the United States where the abject lack of resources would enable them to meld into communities across the country, particularly those jurisdictions that have been proclaimed “Sanctuary Cities.” Alternatively, they could stand their ground and defend the border to prevent the illegal and un-inspected entry of these invaders. In order to protect themselves, however, these agents would need to deploy either lethal or less-than-lethal force.

We all know that the Border Patrol opted to deploy teargas, a less-than-lethal force, that succeeded in repelling the attempted breach of our border, although it was reported that approximately 50 aliens did manage to enter the United States, but were quickly apprehended and taken into custody by the Border Patrol.

It would certainly appear that the agents demonstrated discipline, restraint and professionalism in managing to bring a very dangerous situation under control without the loss of life. Incredibly, rather than commending these valiant federal agents, Democrats and members of the mainstream media have attacked the agents. They complained that these “asylum seeking migrants” should have been quickly processed and permitted to enter the United States. They complained bitterly that the use of teargas was wrong and had the potential to injure women and children who were in the front of the surging mob.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Trump Didn’t Create Europe’s Resentment He just refuses to tolerate its arrogant elites. Bruce Thornton

By on November 29th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272071/trump-didnt-create-europes-resentment-bruce-thornton

Speaking in Paris at the centenary of the Armistice, French president Emmanuel Macron made some silly comments about nationalism. Recycling tired clichés about nationalism’s guilt for both World Wars, he called nationalism the “betrayal of patriotism” and warned about the “old demons coming back to wreak chaos and death.”

Apart from the ideological prejudices and historical ignorance on display from a globalist watching the “rules-based international order” tottering even as he speaks, Macron was also aiming his barbs at President Trump, who identifies himself as a proud nationalist. Macron punctuated his point by later calling for the creation of an “EU army” because “We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America.”

For NeverTrump globalists from both parties, a scolding from a European, even one accompanied by preposterous threats, is the QED of their indictment of Trump’s numerous offenses. But contrary to such naïve admiration, long before Donald Trump, the European ruling elite, especially the French, have looked on the U.S. with resentment, contempt, and envy.

The history of just the last 27 years illustrates how little Trump has to do with European attitudes towards America. By the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Europe and its dreams of ever-closer integration into a larger transnational federation was a few years away. Suddenly there was geopolitical space for a new “superpower” freed from the old Cold War strictures. Though belonging to NATO and a committed ally of the U.S., increasingly by the early 90s the European elite often appeared to comprise a “non-aligned” movement committed to peace and global development. It also was open to transcending the old, Manichean communist-capitalist dichotomy that had long fretted European communists and socialists, not to mention more recent leftist parties like the Greens. Even before the collapse of the Soviets, “third way” alternatives were touted such as “Eurocommunism,” or frauds like “communism with a human face” were proposed and implemented. Of course, the Warsaw Pact peoples living under communism knew every human face had a boot eternally stamping it.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Where Can Asia Bibi Go? Only two places left where she might be safe. Hugh Fitzgerald

By on November 29th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272088/where-can-asia-bibi-go-hugh-fitzgerald

Asia Bibi, the Pakistani Christian woman who spent eight years on death row in a Pakistani jail, having been convicted of “blasphemy” on the testimony of Muslims, has at last been freed by a decision of the Pakistani Supreme Court. But her latest ordeal has only just begun, for she cannot possibly live safely in Pakistan, where massive crowds have been calling for her to be executed and where, during this past year, two high officials of the government who had criticized her prosecution were, as a consequence, murdered by Muslim fanatics.

The United Kingdom has refused to offer Bibi asylum, prompted by fears of violence by Muslims. The UK high commissioner in Islamabad is reported to have warned he could not protect his staff if asylum were granted by the UK. This led the Foreign Office, in turn, to ask the Home Office not to grant Asia Bibi’s request. And there was another fear as well. That was the concern that if Bibi were granted asylum by Her Majesty’s Government, Muslims could well riot in the U.K. itself.

In a demonstration of widespread pusillanimity, no country has yet stepped forward to offer this woman asylum.

So where can Asia Bibi go? There are two places where she just might be safe.

The first is the United States, where she could be offered not just asylum, but a place in the Witness Protection Program. Between 1971 and 2013 (the latest year for which figures are available), that Program has successfully protected 8,500 people (“witnesses”), along with 9,900 family members. The American government is unlikely to be worried about possible Muslim unrest should Asia Bibi be given asylum. While Muslims in the UK make up 5% of the population, in the US they make up only 1%, where, likely as a consequence, they are better behaved. The U.S is also 40 times bigger than the U.K. Should Asia Bibi come here, there’s more room to disappear in, with a government that has a ready network of safe houses, new identities, and, if need be, plastic surgery.

The second place where Asia Bibi should consider requesting asylum is the Vatican. By doing so, Asia Bibi would be putting the islamophilic Pope Francis on the spot. He who has been insisting that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence” would be confronted with the reality of a Christian woman who, living in a Muslim land, falsely accused by Muslim coworkers of blasphemy against Muhammad, was sentenced to death. After spending eight years of her life in prison waiting for that sentence to be carried out, she was finally acquitted by the Pakistani Supreme Court. Two high-ranking Pakistani officials who had criticized the prosecution of Asia Bibi, the Governor of Punjab Salman Taseer, and the Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, were both assassinated as a result.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Switzerland: “Creeping EU Accession” by Soeren Kern

By on November 29th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13359/switzerland-eu-accession

The EU has now increased the pressure by resorting to blackmail: Brussels is making its recognition of Switzerland’s SIX Swiss Exchange, the fourth-largest stock market in Europe, contingent on Swiss acceptance of the framework agreement.

The measure was opposed by a coalition of Swiss business groups, which convincingly argued that it was a question of economics and access to international markets for the export-dependent country. “Ultimately, it is about maintaining prosperity in Switzerland and keeping the companies and jobs here,” said Monika Rühl, director of the business group Economiesuisse.

“The SVP rejects a one-sided submission to EU institutions, aimed at establishing an institutional connection of Switzerland to the EU apparatus, with a dynamic EU legal takeover and, ultimately, the subordination of Switzerland to the EU Court of Justice. A dynamic adoption of EU law would be another massive erosion of our direct democracy.” — Swiss People’s Party.

Swiss voters have resoundingly rejected a referendum calling for the Swiss Constitution to take precedence over international treaties and law.

Two-thirds (66.2%) of voters in the November 25 referendum opposed the “self-determination” initiative, put forward by the eurosceptic Swiss People’s Party (Schweizerische Volkspartei, SVP), the largest party in the Swiss parliament.

SVP leaders had argued that the new law was necessary to safeguard national sovereignty from further encroachment by supranational organizations such as the European Union and the United Nations.

The Swiss government countered that the proposal would undermine Switzerland’s economic stability as it would require Bern to amend existing bilateral agreements with the EU, the country’s largest trade partner, to bring them into compliance with the Swiss Constitution.

The proposal’s defeat comes ahead of pending decisions by the Swiss government over whether to sign a wide-ranging EU “framework agreement,” and a controversial UN “migration pact.”

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