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February 2019

Media Wolves and Their Sheep’s Clothing By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2019/02/25/media-wolves

During his fierce news conference last Wednesday, Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson blasted the accomplices who publicly validated Jussie Smollett’s bogus claim that he was attacked last month by two white Trump supporters.

“To make things worse, the accusations within this phony attack received national attention for weeks,” said the chief. “Celebrities, news commentators, and even presidential candidates weighed in on something that was choreographed by an actor.”

Chicago media won plaudits for their coverage of the hoax: Local reporters, gifted with finely tuned bullshit detectors from covering the cutthroat world of Chicago politics each day, remained skeptical as the story unfolded, refusing to be suckered like their counterparts in the national media were.

Johnson’s condemnations—combined with the fact that Chicago reporters were applauded for the mere fact of doing their jobs correctly—starkly illustrate the cultural and political crisis now engulfing the country: The legacy media’s instant legitimization of scoundrels, insofar as the sympathetic subject plays the foil to Donald Trump.

Every huckster, hoaxster, swindler, cheater, publicity hound, and flat-out liar immediately earns rock-star status as long as the charlatan offers the confirmation bias that Trump haters need in order to prove their twisted and unsubstantiated conclusions about the president.

Victim of a nonexistent hate crime? Corrupt law enforcement official? Sniveling congressman with laughable tales about the Ruskies?

The Establishment Goes Trump on China By Victor Davis Hanson

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/establishment-adopts-trump-views-china-military-threat-trade/

A new consensus is emerging, and it sounds a lot like what the president has said all along.

Read recent essays on China. Visit think-tank public symposia. Hear out military analysts. Talk with academics and media pundits. Listen to Silicon Valley grandees. Watch Senate speeches and politicians interview on television.

The resulting new groupspeak is surreal. If one excises the word “Trump,” what follows is a seemingly revolutionary recalibration of attitudes toward China that more or less echo Trump’s voice in the wilderness and often crude and shrill warnings dating back from the campaign trail of 2015.

Trump’s second secretary of state, the skillful Mike Pompeo, has been institutionalizing the president’s pessimistic view of China. Insightful but heretofore underappreciated assessments from China scholars such as Miles Yu and Gordon Chang are now being taking seriously. Both have been warning us for years that the Chinese seek domination, not accommodation, and are replacing their erstwhile feigned respect for our strength with an emboldened contempt for our perceived growing weakness, whether real or psychological. Both have warned also that once China achieves military, economic, and cultural parity with the United States, the global order will be quite different from that of the last 75 years.

From the military, one hears more frequently now that we were at a tipping point by late 2016: The Obama Asian pivot had failed — publicly provocative, but in reality without substance, giving the lethal impression of real weakness masked by empty rhetoric. The Chinese militarization of the Spratley Islands was conceded as the inevitable future of the South China Sea. Chinese military and weapons doctrine was aimed at destroying the offensive capability of the U.S. fleet in the Pacific as a way of breaking off allies from America, and then Finlanding them.

2020 Democrats Voted Against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act By Tyler O’Neil

https://pjmedia.com/trending/2020-democrats-voted-against-the-born-alive-abortion-survivors-protection-act/

On Monday, Democratic senators running for president in 2020 voted against the Born Again Abortion Survivors Protection Act, effectively declaring their support for infanticide. The bill failed to gain the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate, as most — but not all — Democrats voted against it.

Sen.s Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) all voted “no.”

During the debate over the legislation, Democrats argued that it was a smokescreen to attack a woman’s right to an abortion.

Holding Its Tongue on Democracy, EU Presses Arab Leaders to Stem Migration First-of-its-kind summit focused on curbing migrants, not on human rights By Jared Malsin

https://www.wsj.com/articles/holding-its-tongue-on-democracy-eu-presses-arab-leaders-to-stem-migration-11551121873?cx_testId=16&cx_testVariant=cx&cx_artPos=4&cx_tag=contextual&cx_navSource=newsReel#cxrecs_s

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt—European Union officials used a first-of-its-kind summit here this week to press Arab leaders to create stability and stem migration but played down calls for democracy, reflecting a desire for calm after years of border tumult.

The two-day meeting between the EU and the Arab League ended Monday without a formal agreement on migration or security cooperation. The assembled leaders issued a declaration that calls for unspecified efforts to address issues ranging from climate change to wars in Yemen, Libya and Syria.

But the gathering in this Red Sea resort town reflected European leaders’ desire to seek new partners to halt to migration across the Mediterranean Sea following years of war and an influx of refugees after the Arab Spring revolts of 2011.

EU leaders such as European Council President Donald Tusk gathered with autocrats the bloc once shunned, including Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, and asked for help. EU leaders have in the past loudly called out leaders like Mr. Sisi for brutal crackdowns on political opponents, including torture and killings of civilians.

But Mr. Sisi and other leaders here have reasserted their hold on power after the tumult of 2011 uprisings.

The Saudis Hedge Their American Bets God may be great, but for Riyadh’s strategic purposes, China’s Xi Jinping apparently is greater. By Walter Russell Mead

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-saudis-hedge-their-american-bets-11551138149

It is, in its way, the most shocking spectacle in world politics since the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union: Even as Beijing is stepping up its persecution of Muslim Uighurs, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia cozied up to Chinese President Xi Jinping on his trip to China last week.

More than a million Uighur Muslims are said to be held in Chinese concentration and “re-education” camps, where beatings and mass rapes are reliably reported to be perpetrated against detainees. Yet the crown prince of the leading Sunni Islamic state signed almost $30 billion in trade agreements with China, hailed the long problem-free relationship between the two countries, pledged support for the Belt and Road initiative, and announced that Saudi Arabia respected China’s need to protect its domestic security in its own way.

God may be great, but Xi Jinping, apparently, is greater. Or at least more useful.

Saudi Arabia is not the only Muslim power kowtowing to China. Pakistan has also fallen strangely silent when it comes to the concentration camps now dotting the landscape in Xinjiang. A country that regularly whips itself into fits of murderous rage over the supposed plight of Muslims in Indian-controlled Kashmir remains rigorously calm about the massive religious repression by its more powerful neighbor.

Palestinians: “No Place for the Zionist Entity in Palestine” by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13796/palestinians-zionist-entity

Hamas and Islamic Jihad should be given credit for their clarity and honesty regarding their ambitions. The two groups are clearly saying that their ultimate goal is to see Israel removed from the region and replaced with an Islamic state. As far as they are concerned, the conflict with Israel is not about a settlement, a checkpoint or even Jerusalem. Instead, it is about the presence of Jews in what they regard as their own state and homeland.

What will happen the day after a Palestinian state is established? The answer, according to Hamas and Islamic Jihad (and other Palestinians) is that they will use it to continue the “armed struggle” until the liberation of the supposedly occupied cities of Tel Aviv, Nazareth, Tiberias, Haifa and Ashdod. Under these current circumstances, a Palestinian state will pose an immediate existential danger to Israel.

The Islamic Jihad threat to turn Israeli cities into “hell” by firing missiles at them needs to be taken seriously by those who are working on the upcoming US peace plan. Any land that is given to Abbas and his Palestinian Authority in the West Bank will be used in the future by Hamas and Islamic Jihad as a base for launching rockets and missiles at Israeli cities. Then, the terror groups will not need accurate, long-range rockets to achieve their plan to destroy Israel’s population centers: they will be sitting right across the street from them.

A Palestinian terror group says that its engineers have developed “accurate and destructive” missiles that can reach the “occupied” cities of Tel Aviv, Netanya and Jerusalem. Abu Hamza, spokesman for the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Iranian-funded Islamic Jihad organization in the Gaza Strip, threatened that his group’s “rocket unit” would turn Israeli cities into “hell.”

Ireland’s Raw Bigotry by Peter Baum

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13786/ireland-raw-bigotry

The Irish legislation, banning the import of goods from Israeli communities located beyond the 1949 armistice lines, not only coincides ironically with the U.S. Senate passage of a motion to prevent anti-Israel boycotts, but also constitutes a breach of European trade law.

These Irish “humanitarians” also do not seem to care about the suffering of the inhabitants of the Palestinian Authority and the Gaza Strip, who continue to suffer from large-scale abuse and persecution at the hands of their own despotic leaders.

Meanwhile, other nations actually guilty of serious human rights abuses, war crimes and ethnic cleansing — such as Syria, Iran, China, North Korea, Turkey and Russia, to name a few — are spared Irish indignation and legislation.

Ireland’s legislation appears to be less about actually helping Palestinians to have better lives than an effort to eradicate Israel.

Parliamentarians in the Republic of Ireland are displaying an unprecedented level of hostility towards Israel, unparalleled by that of any other member state of the European Union — inviting the question about Ireland’s long, distasteful history of anti-Semitism, which clearly predates the frequently used pretext of hating the State of Israel.

How the Trump Administration Should Counter Putin’s Policies in Ukraine and Venezuela by Jiri Valenta

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13795/trump-putin-ukraine-venezuela

If Nicolás Maduro is removed from office in Venezuela, Putin might act as he did when a popular revolution overthrew Yanukovych in Ukraine, in 2014: with a surprise invasion of the Crimea. This time, Putin may launch a surprise naval and land attack on Mariupol, set up a land bridge from Crimea to Russia and continue intensifying his attempt to strangle Ukraine’s economy in order to subjugate Ukraine to Russia. Trump needs to take immediate preemptive measures to prevent Putin from doing that by increasing naval aid to Kiev.

So far, Putin seems to have been counting on a lack of American resolve regarding Venezuela, and has just succeeded in getting China to support him.

If America abdicates its role in Venezuela, you can bet Russia will eventually build intelligence facilities there. Russia has also been providing Nicaragua with “sophisticated weaponry,” including “T-72 tanks, war boats, warplanes, and powerful bombs.”

Above all, President Trump must continue as he is doing now, to work towards liberating the Venezuelan people. Any hesitation will be counterproductive.

America is facing two dangerous crises. In Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, the illegitimate winner of a reportedly sham election, has, with his socialist policies, created a catastrophic situation. The struggle in Venezuela between his challenger, Juan Guaidó, and him is reaching a crescendo. Millions of Venezuelans, suffering under his radical regime, have been flooding neighboring Brazil and Colombia. Yet, with the help of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Maduro is clinging to power, as Fidel Castro did in the early 1960s with the aid of Nikita Khrushchev.

NYC to Pay $3.3 Million to Family of Teen Who Languished at Rikers Island Lawyer representing Mr. Browder’s estate called the settlement fair

https://www.wsj.com/articles/nyc-to-pay-3-3-million-to-family-of-teen-who-languished-at-rikers-island-11548371523?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=3

New York City will pay $3.3 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the family of the teenager who spent three years at the Rikers Island jail complex after being accused of stealing a backpack, becoming a symbol of dysfunction in the criminal-justice system.

In 2010, 16-year-old Kalief Browder, originally from the Bronx, was arrested and held at Rikers on $3,000 bail. He spent time in solitary confinement and returned to court dozens of times. In 2013, the charges were dismissed. After his release, Mr. Browder died by suicide in 2015 at the age of 22.

“Kalief Browder’s story helped inspire numerous reforms to the justice system to prevent this tragedy from ever happening again, including an end to punitive segregation for young people on Rikers Island,” a spokesman for the New York City Law Department said on Thursday. “We hope that this settlement and our continuing reforms help bring some measure of closure to the Browder family.”

The city didn’t acknowledge wrongdoing in the settlement.

“This was a fair and reasonable settlement,” said lawyer Sanford Rubenstein, who represents Mr. Browder’s estate.

The $3.3 million settlement includes attorney fees and expenses. A surrogate judge will determine how the money is distributed among Mr. Browder’s family members.

Bailing on Bail Reform A progressive New York criminal-justice group walks back from an unsustainable position. Seth Barron

https://www.city-journal.org/bail-reform

Last September, as part of a national push for criminal-justice reform, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, a charitable organization, announced a plan to pay the bail of every woman and minor held in New York City’s jails. According to the group, run by Kerry Kennedy, the slain senator’s daughter, “access to justice depends on whether you can afford bail. The majority of people incarcerated in the notoriously violent Rikers Island are behind bars for the crime of being too poor.”

This is a favorite theme of the reformers, but most Rikers inmates are accused of serious crimes. Around 11.4 percent of the population is there for murder, attempted murder, or manslaughter; 20 percent are in for robbery or burglary; and another 25 percent face charges involving weapons, felony assault, sale of drugs, or rape or other sexual offenses. New York’s jails are not crowded with people whose only crime was jumping a subway turnstile or smoking weed; the average number of people held in Rikers on a given day for fare-beating is two, and for pot possession, one. And “the majority” of Rikers inmates are behind bars because they’re serving out a sentence, are ineligible for bail because of outstanding warrants, or are awaiting trial for a serious crime—not because they can’t afford bail. Even the majority of women and juveniles at Rikers, the target of the Kennedy group’s efforts, are ineligible for bail.