Displaying posts published in

April 2019

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The US Sanctions on Mullahs are Working by Majid Rafizadeh

By on April 27th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14126/the-us-sanctions-on-mullahs-are-working

“The golden days are gone and will never return. Iran doesn’t have enough money to give us.” — A militant with an Iranian-backed militia in Syria, New York Times, March 26, 2019.

Feeling the pressure of sanctions on Iran, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah, has also called on his group’s fundraising arm “to provide the opportunity for jihad with money and also to help with this ongoing battle.”

Iran’s national currency, the rial, has dropped to historic lows — one US dollar, which equaled approximately 35,000 rials in November of 2017, now buys you nearly 130,000 rials.

Critics of US President Donald Trump and his policy regarding the Iranian government are quick to condemn him for the sanctions he has imposed on the theocratic establishment. Their argument is anchored in the idea that the only informed and effective policy that will deal with Iran’s clerical establishment is rooted in enticing them in from the cold: in oher words, appeasement.

These critics had the opportunity to initiate and expand appeasement policies during the eight-year administration of former President Barack Obama. Throughout this time, President Obama made unprecedented concessions in an attempt to appease the ruling mullahs. He met them with generosity and flexibility every step of the way. What was the outcome?

Continue reading →
POLITICS Comments turned off

Biden Launches His Campaign on a Toxic Slander By Karin McQuillan

By on April 27th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/04/26/biden-launches-his-campaign-on-a-toxic-slander/

Former Vice President Joe Biden hooked his entire campaign launch this week on the hoax that President Trump called white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia “fine people.” “Charlottesville” is the first word out of Biden’s mouth, what he calls the defining moment for his campaign and for the country.

Biden’s presidential message is directly in line with Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” smear. Its main effect will be to energize Trump supporters. Biden can try to ride race-baiting to the White House, as his old boss did in 2012, but Biden is not the man to do it. Leading with the Charlottesville lie is a pathetic attempt to overcome the disability of being a white man in a Democrat party obsessed with skin color.

Biden can’t hide that he’s white by attacking President Trump as a racist. And he can’t use Charlottesville to define his campaign, because Charlottesville is a lie.

Did President Trump defend the neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville and call them “very fine people.” No. This is not even ambiguous. It is as clear as two plus two. Watch the video of President Trump’s August 15, 2017 press conference yourself. Read the transcript. Biden’s video will go down as one of the most dishonest campaign launches in American political history.

Continue reading →
ISRAEL Comments turned off

Yasser’s Terrorist Jesus by David Littman November 15, 2004

By on April 27th, 2019

In the past 2,000 years there have been numerous descriptions of Jesus of Nazareth, but the image of an Arab Jesus – “the first Palestinian fedayin who carried his sword” – as depicted by Yasir Arafat at a sideshow of the United Nations in 1983 was probably the most grotesque. Present at his first press conference at the Palais des Nations in Geneva on September 2, 1983, I heard the words from the UN simultaneous English interpretation of his spoken Arabic:

“We were under Roman imperialism. We sent a Palestinian fisherman, called St. Peter, to Rome. He not only occupied Rome, but also won the hearts of the people. We know how to resist imperialism and occupation. Jesus Christ was the first Palestinian fedayin who carried his sword along the path on which the Palestinians today carry their Cross.”1

There was a full house, but no one expressed either shock or disbelief, nor was there any later protestation from representatives of the Holy See or the World Council of Churches, even after my letter quoting his words was published in three Swiss newspapers.2 Yet few could ignore the historic fact that it was in 135 – 100 years after the death of Jesus – that the Roman Emperor Hadrian re-conquered Judea, changing its official name from Judea to Palestina. ( “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod…” Matthew 2:1)

Continue reading →
ISRAEL Comments turned off

Omar, Suleiman: ‘Jesus was a Palestinian’By Anne-Christine Hoff

By on April 27th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/04/omar_suleiman_jesus_was_a_palestinian.html

What do a Minnesota congresswoman, a Dallas imam, and the New York Times all have in common? In the past week all three have promoted the meme that Jesus was a Palestinian.On April 19, an op-ed in the New York Times stated that “Jesus, born in Bethlehem, was most likely a Palestinian man with dark skin.” On April 20 Congresswoman Ilhan Omar retweeted Dallas imam Omar Suleiman’s argument that Jesus was “Palestinian,” not Jewish.Such claims are part of a narrative that more and more seems to be insinuating itself into American political discourse. This narrative tends to paint both Jews and whites as inhuman oppressors and non-whites and Palestinians as their innocent victims.

Continue reading →
ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

A Navy Veteran Went to Prison for Digging Ponds in the Mountains The Supreme Court can remedy the injustice done by the EPA’s unclear ‘navigable waters’ rule.The Supreme Court can remedy the injustice done by the EPA’s unclear ‘navigable waters’ rule. By Ethan Blevins

By on April 27th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-navy-veteran-went-to-prison-for-digging-ponds-in-the-mountains-11556317175

“I am haunted by waters,” wrote Norman Maclean in “A River Runs Through It,” his 1976 novel about growing up in a family of Montana fly fishermen. Joe Robertson was haunted by waters of a different kind—the kind that can land someone in federal prison without warning. These are “navigable waters,” which carry on their current the full force of federal power to bankrupt and jail people who meddle with them. The problem is that no one knows what they are.

Robertson, a Navy veteran who died in March at 80, spent 18 months in prison for getting the definition of “navigable waters” wrong. The land he owned in the Montana mountains was more than 40 miles from the nearest genuinely navigable river, but a trickle ran through it: the combined force of two garden hoses meandering down the slope in a channel about a foot deep and a foot wide.

Before he died, Robertson and his wife, Carrie, dug ponds in the path of their modest mountain trickle. The Environmental Protection Agency declared it a “navigable water” subject to the Clean Water Act and prosecuted him for “discharging” pollutants without a permit. He was found guilty in 2016. In addition to his 18 months in prison, Robertson was ordered to pay a $130,000 fine.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Tide Keeps Rising The Trump policy mix continues to pay economic dividends.

By on April 27th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-tide-keeps-rising-11556319160

With the comeback in financial markets this year, we probably should have seen it coming. But the headline rebound in first quarter growth to 3.2% reported Friday is still a pleasant surprise that shows again that the U.S. economy is remarkably resilient when government doesn’t get in the way.

The Keynesians who predicted an imminent recession are pointing out flaws in the GDP details, and they’re right that volatile categories like net exports (1.03%), inventory growth (0.65%) and state and local government (0.41%) contributed substantially to growth. Strip out those categories and growth would have been 1.3%.

Yet the government shutdown took some 0.3% off growth and that won’t be repeated in the second quarter. Auto sales took 0.49% off GDP in the quarter, but sales rebounded in March heading into the second quarter. Overall consumer spending contributed a relatively small 0.82% to GDP, perhaps due to the fall in consumer confidence after the stock market swoon in the last months of 2018. With job growth strong and wages rising, consumers should contribute more to the expansion the rest of this year.

Continue reading →
EDUCATION Comments turned off

Alexander Khan: Fear and cowardice at Middlebury College

By on April 27th, 2019

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/alexander-kahn-fear-and-cowardice-at-middlebury-college

Two years ago, I invited AEI scholar Dr. Charles Murray to speak at Middlebury College in Vermont. As is now well-known, the moderator of the event was injured after a riot broke out when she and Murray left the lecture hall.

While I was shocked by what had happened, I was proud of what I had done in inviting Dr. Murray and how the administration had acted to ensure that he could speak.

This past week, the pride I once had in my college dissolved entirely after the administration refused to secure a lecture by another controversial speaker.

Continue reading →
FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Trump Moves To Withdraw U.S. From U.N. Arms Trade Treaty

By on April 27th, 2019

https://www.npr.org/2019/04/26/7175477

President Trump effectively “unsigned” an international arms sales agreement Friday, moving to withdraw the U.S. from the United Nations’ Arms Trade Treaty. The agreement sets global standards for regulating transfers of conventional arms, from rifles to tanks and airplanes.The treaty, known as the ATT, has been in effect since late 2014. The U.S. signed on to the agreement in 2013 but has not ratified the treaty.The U.S. withdrawal had been expected. Trump made it official at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention in Indianapolis, pulling out a pen onstage and signing a paper that he said would take back the Obama administration’s signature on behalf of the U.S.

Continue reading →