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February 2019

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Ilhan Omar: Poster Child for the Red-Green Axis By James Simpson

By on February 27th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/ilhan-omar-poster-child-for-the-red-green-axis/

Stop ignoring this virulently anti-Semitic, anti-American coalition of subversives. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), along with her comrades Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), has gotten a lot of press since winning a seat in Congress. Despite her non-apology for bigoted, anti-Semitic statements she made earlier this month, Omar remains a virulent anti-Semite. But it is much worse than that: In addition to likely criminality, her extreme Left positions and connections to terrorists make her a security risk.

Some have demanded she be removed from the House Foreign Relations Committee, a position awarded to her by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But she has no business in Congress at all, and should at the very least be investigated for numerous crimes committed over a period of years.

Omar’s position on Israel is long-established and well-known. She supports the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, and is overtly anti-Zionist. The 2012 tweet below — which she only deleted in the past few days — reiterates the incessant Arab narrative that casts Israel as an invader and abuser of Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Democrats Are Interminably ‘Waiting for Mueller’, Just as in Samuel Beckett’s Absurdity By Roger Kimball

By on February 27th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/democrats-are-interminably-waiting-for-mueller-just-as-in-samuel-becketts-absurdity/

I have no doubt that some theatrical director specializing in the work of Samuel Beckett has been eying the investigation of Robert Mueller with envy. After all, what the nation calls “Waiting for Mueller” has been running nearly two years and, just as in the famous Beckett absurdity, the title character never shows up. We’re told that may be coming to an end, that finally, at last, Mueller really will deliver the goods, as soon as next week, CNN reported. But then it was CNN that reported it, so of course it turned out not to be true but just another installment of its fake news machine. Still, soon, soon, he’ll be wrapping up “soon,” just as he was last spring, this past summer, and all through the fall. He’s shedding lawyers, he’s wrapping up, he’ll be done … soon.

Well, sooner or later, he will be done soon, and then he really will be done. Maybe Donald Trump will have served out the whole of his first term by then, or maybe he will just be entering the 2020 election cycle when Mueller and his team of Clinton-Obama prosecutors turn off the lights and slide their report over the transom to Attorney General William Barr. We just don’t know.

But here’s something we do know. While the nation’s eyes have been riveted on the Mueller Russian Collusion investigation, its father, the Clinton Email investigation, has been quietly swept under the rug, pushed into the oubliette, stricken from the public’s consciousness.

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EDUCATION, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Why We Need a ‘Chicago Statement’ By Augusto Zimmerman…..see note please

By on February 27th, 2019

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2019/02/why-we-n

  Throughout the Anglosphere- America,Canada, England, Scotland, Australia, academic institutions and free speech are threatened by political correctness and lockstep leftist ideology. This is from Australia …rsk

The Australian government has announced that an independent review of free speech on university campuses will be undertaken by the Hon Mr Robert French AC, former Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia and current chancellor of the University of Western Australia, will be reviewing existing material, including codes of conduct, enterprise agreements, policy statements and strategic plans.The review comes after a series of controversies on campuses across Australia, where students and academic staff have been accused of stifling public debates.

This is also followed by an extensive research by the Institute of Public Affairs (‘IPA’).  In 2017, the IPA recommended that Australian universities adopt the Chicago Statement or a similar declaration.The Chicago Statement recognises free speech on campus as an issue that carries the core mission of every university as a place of learning. It defends free and open inquiry in all matters, and guarantees the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge and learn. The Statement works as a set of guiding principles intended to demonstrate a strong commitment to freedom of speech and freedom of expression on college campuses.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

A quick and dirty guide to Chicago’s down and dirty mayoral election For decades, Chicago has held its elections in February precisely because it is cold, often snowy, and hard to get to the polls Charles Lipson

By on February 27th, 2019

https://spectator.us/quick-dirty-chicago-mayoral/

On Tuesday, Chicago voters head to the polls to vote for Rahm Emanuel’s successor as Da Mayor. ‘Why vote in late February?’ you might ask. ‘Didn’t Chicago just vote in November for House members and Governor?’Oh, you naive soul. For decades, Chicago has held its elections in February precisely because it is cold, often snowy, and hard to get to the polls. When you suppress ordinary voters, who is left? For many years, it was reliable voters for the old Chicago Democratic Machine. Some of them drove city busses or garbage trucks; others shuffled papers in city offices. Some filled potholes. Many more watched their co-workers fill potholes while they grabbed a cigarette. What better way to ensure that insiders get reelected?This system is on life-support, mortally wounded by the Federal Courts, which made two crucial rulings in the 1970s and 1980s. Known as the Shakman Decrees, the first said the city could not hire workers based on their politics. The second said it could not fire workers for the same reasons. The courts knew the city would not comply readily, so they appointed monitors, who stayed for decades.

Those decrees drove a stake through the heart of the old system, where alderman and ward committeemen gave out good-paying jobs to city workers who got out the vote. It was a well-organized system. The city employees had to visit homes in their neighborhood, listen to what residents wanted (such as a stop sign or better garbage pickup), and then share that information with their boss, known in Chicago as ‘their Clout.’ The visit concluded by reminding voters who they should vote for. Often the advice was simply ‘vote straight Democratic.’ These political workers were expected to make campaign donations and were held responsible for how many of their voters came to the polls. Fail in these critical tasks and find yourself a new job.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Netanyahu ignores global opinion at Israel’s peril By Lawrence J. Haas

By on February 27th, 2019

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/431613-netanyahu-ignores-global-opinion-at-israels-peril

Few things are more infuriating than to hear Western leaders lecture Israel about how it should behave – whether the issue is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or other matters – while they say little if anything about far more serious matters of regional stability or human rights around the world.After all, it’s Israel – and no other nation – that sustains the rocket fire that the terrorists of Hamas direct from Gaza, and it’s Israel that suffers the consequences of anti-Jewish incitement by the supposedly moderate Palestinian Authority from the West Bank. No Western leader should tell Israel how best to protect its people.

Having said that, rising anti-Semitism that’s often cloaked in the politer guise of anti-Zionism is a global fact of life, and so is growing hostility to Israel among leftist political parties across the West. Thus, the Jewish state, which seeks U.S. and other Western support when it’s under attack at the United Nations or elsewhere, should be at least somewhat sensitive to the global ramifications of its actions.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Price of Failure in Venezuela By Matthew Continetti

By on February 27th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-price-of-failure-in-venezuela/

Nicolás Maduro and Juan Guaidó are engaged in a struggle for the future of Venezuela. Their rivalry is not merely personal. It also has an ideological dimension. Maduro, heir to socialist authoritarian Hugo Chávez, draws strength and support from the world’s autocracies, including Cuba, Russia, China, and Iran. Meanwhile, the United States and some 50 other countries recognize Guaidó, a 35-year-old democrat, as the legitimate president. The duel between these various international antagonists serves as a reminder that the outcome in Venezuela will have consequences beyond that impoverished country’s borders.

Maduro has lost support across the globe, in the streets, and among some members of his regime, who transfer money and even family out of the country. He maintains a monopoly of deadly force through his control of the security forces, including the paramilitary colectivos, and through the help of his sinister allies, who assist him in controlling the flow of information into and out of Venezuela. Dislodging him requires the persistent threat of force combined with diplomatic isolation and economic constriction. That is what the Trump administration has sought to achieve in the five weeks since it recognized Guaidó.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Burlington’s Foreign Policy By Michael Brendan Dougherty

By on February 27th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/bernie-sanders-foreign-policy-domestic-enemies-geopolitical-stage/

In the 1980s Bernie Sanders cozied up to dictators from around the world.

In his decades-long career in politics, Bernie Sanders was never more active as a foreign-policy figure than when he was the mayor of Burlington, Vt. He owned it. “Burlington had a foreign policy,” he wrote in his 1997 book, Outsider in the White House. From his mayoral perch he fired off missives to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, demanding better treatment of IRA prisoners held in Northern Ireland. He tried to establish direct relations with the incoming Sandinista regime in Nicaragua, hoping to establish a radio channel that would broadcast the revolution to Vermont. The mayor met with Daniel Ortega to convey that many Americans rejected the Reagan administration’s foreign policy. Ortega, in the many years since, has looted his country, installed hideous light fixtures along the major roads to please his wife, suborned much of the Catholic Church to his rule, and blown past his own constitution’s term limits. The country is sliding into unrest, as the aid that used to come in from the Netherlands and Luxembourg has dried up.

As mayor, Sanders cemented a sister-city relationship between Burlington and the Russian city of Yaroslavl (he and his wife spent their honeymoon in the Soviet Union). Sanders was diplomatic during his trip. After a presentation on central planning, Sanders told his Soviet peers that health care and housing were better in the United States, though they cost much more back in America. When he came home, Sanders praised Soviet train stations and “palaces of culture.” His wife was even more effusive, almost describing the theory of New Soviet Man, when she described a cultural life that wasn’t cleaved off from work, as a mere hobby, but fully integrated into an ideal of community service. Burlington’s foreign policy, as it was then, was driven by idealism (some of it misguided), lots of easy talk about imperialism, and dislike of “Ronald Ray-gun.”

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Progressive Leftists vs. Common Sense By Robert Curry

By on February 27th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/02/26/progressive

Have you heard this one? A federal judge has ruled that the all-male military draft is unconstitutional.

How did you feel about this bit of news when you first learned of it? Did you think the ruling was ridiculous? An outrage? Did you feel hopeless about what is happening to our country? All of the above?

Not long ago, another federal judge ruled that the Constitution requires that male prisoners who identify as female must be provided with sex-change surgery and hormone-replacement therapy at the taxpayer’s expense, and be transferred to a prison for women.

There is so much to comment on here. For one thing, these rulings make it perfectly clear that we no longer live in a free, self-governing country. Instead of governing ourselves by means of our votes, increasingly we are subject to the dictates of judges who rule over us by managing to find the darnedest things in the Constitution. Like magicians pulling rabbits out of hats, judges can be counted on to astonish and amaze us with the wizardry by which they perform their conjuring tricks.

Read and re-read the Constitution—please!—but you won’t find anything in it to support these rulings. What you will find, however, are the rules that make clear how the federal government is supposed to work—how we are to do elections, how the powers of government are divided among the three branches of government, and so on. You can be sure the Framers did not put these rabbits in the Constitution and that they would be as amazed by these acts of judicial sorcery as you are.

Of course, the problem with these rulings is not limited to judges making free with the Constitution. That alone is outrageous enough, but it’s not enough for them. Isn’t it clear by now that in addition to the initial outrages they are now delighting in rubbing our noses in them? The more outrageous the ruling, the better it is from the progressive point of view.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Turkey: The Case of the Missing Priests by Uzay Bulut

By on February 27th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13800/turkey-missing-priests

“Prior to the kidnapping, the bishops were on their way to Aleppo to secure the release of two other abducted priests…. When Paolo Dall’Oglio, an Italian Jesuit priest, went to Raqqa to secure their release, he too was kidnapped, and is still missing. I believe he was murdered.” — Erkan Metin, an Istanbul-based Assyrian human-rights lawyer.

Metin noted that the Assyrian and other Christian peoples indigenous to the region are still awaiting justice for the kidnapped priests and other Christian victims of persecution in Syria.

“Unlike Turkey, which has failed to investigate the crimes committed against the clergymen, there is an ongoing investigation in the U.S. on their kidnappings and another is being conducted by Russia… and the U.N. is investigating the financing of terrorism in Syria.” — Erkan Metin, an Istanbul-based Assyrian human-rights lawyer.

It has been six years since two archbishops and other members of the Christian clergy went missing in Syria; their whereabouts still are unknown. Yohanna Ibrahim, head of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Aleppo, and Boulos Yazigi, head of the Greek Orthodox Church, also in Aleppo, were abducted from their car in 2013. Their driver was later found killed.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Must We Really Be Careful What We Do Lest We Offend Extremists? by Douglas Murray

By on February 27th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13803/offend-extremists

What is striking and controversial are the repeated interventions into the debate made by the government’s own ‘extremism commissioner’, Sara Khan. Over recent years Khan has been a hugely admirable figure. The founder and leader of the women’s group ‘Inspire’, Khan has shown a generation of British people – including, most importantly, young Muslim women – that it is possible to be resilient against the fanatics in their faith and also to argue for the rights of women. She has been an unarguable force for good, and has had to withstand appalling pressure from Islamist groups in the UK.

“It is, I think, completely misconceived to suggest that we should change our foreign policy because it might cause some people to take up arms against us. That’s a form of blackmail….” — Michael Howard, former Conservative party leader

In 2006 a small group of peers, MPs and Islamist groups sent an open letter to the then-Labour government. The signatories included the subsequently jailed Lord Ahmed of Rotherham, the subsequently disgraced (over expenses fraud) Baroness Uddin and the then-MP, now Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. This letter suggested to the UK government of the day that British foreign policy “risks putting civilians at increased risk both in the UK and abroad.” This is a commonly heard argument of course, and is especially commonly heard from various extremist groups.

Britain, in recent days, has had a rare distraction from its seemingly endless Brexit debate. The distraction, however, has not been an altogether welcome one. It involves the case of Shamima Begum, one of a number of girls who left their school in Bethnal Green in London in 2015 to go and join ISIS.

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