Displaying posts published in

September 2019

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

CAIR Research Director Previously Praised NGO With Jihadist Ties The fact that Abbas Barzegar conducts research for CAIR while praising those who materially support jihadists is a troubling phenomenon, but points to a larger problem within the field of NGOs. By Erielle Davidson

By on September 6th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/06/research-director-of-cair-previously-praised-ngo-with-jihadist-ties/

The research director for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), Abbas Barzegar, has a history of publicly supporting a Turkish nonprofit organization that “has provided financial, logistical and political support for jihadists,” according to The Investigative Project on Terrorism.

What makes Barzegar’s praise of Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) particularly noteworthy is that he is the head author of CAIR’s 2019 report on Islamophobia, titled “Hijacked by Hate: American Philanthropy and the Islamophobia Network.” In other words, he has been accusing U.S. nonprofits of Islamophobia while publicly endorsing a group that, according to the former chief of counter-terrorism in Turkey, has furnished material support to jihadists.

It is unclear whether Barzegar was either ignorant of IHH’s role or knew but did not care. When approached by IJT for comment, Barzegar did not respond.

In an op-ed for The Washington Post in 2015, Barzegar claimed that IHH was on the “front lines” in Syria, assisting tens of thousands of Syrian refugees heading towards Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan. He even presented IHH as ideal candidates for becoming “ideological gatekeepers” within the war-torn region, arguing they were capable of performing more than simply “routine aid work.”

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

What If Americans Wanted Freedom As Much As Hong Kongers Do? I hope these courageous, freedom-loving protesters succeed and their message of hope catches on in other countries desperate for the Hong Kong formula.By Adam Mill

By on September 6th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/06/americans-wanted-freedom-much-hong-kongers/

As I watch the fearless Hong Kong protesters risk life and limb, standing up to the Chinese juggernaut to protect freedom, I can’t help but wistfully wish we’re witnessing the beginning of a spreading popular movement. In my heart of hearts, it’s my fondest hope that these courageous, freedom-loving protesters succeed and that their message of hope catches fire in other countries in desperate need of the Hong Kong formula.

I’m not referring to a spread into mainland China, which would also be wonderful. No, here I’m hoping their thirst for freedom also spreads to the United States.

I’m not saying the United States isn’t free. But it’s a whole lot less free than the special experiment of Hong Kong. For one thing, the Heritage Foundation rates Hong Kong’s as the freest economy in the world, and the United States as the world’s 12th-freest. That’s embarrassing.

Hong Kong is a miracle economy. Its unemployment rate rarely rises above 4 percent. It recovered quickly from the financial crisis in contrast to the very lethargic U.S. recovery between 2008 and 2017. Hong Kong has avoided the curse of a large entitlement system due to its free market policies. It maintains a “simple and efficient” tax rate of 15 percent, from which it drives an astonishing budget surplus, averaging 3.4 percent. Its debt is equivalent to 0.1 percent of GDP.

Leftist orthodoxy would hold that the absence of a robust social safety net would result in widespread human suffering. But the opposite is true. Hong Kong, a city of comparable size to New York City, has a tiny homeless population of approximately 1,000, as opposed to New York, where nearly one of every 121 New Yorkers is currently homeless. Hong Kong’s poverty rate of 14.7 percent is among the lowest in the world.

In spite of a comparatively hands-off regulatory environment, market efficiencies make Hong Kong’s carbon footprint per citizen less than green-obsessed Great Britain, Belgium, Germany, and Luxembourg, to name a few examples. Indeed, its carbon footprint per citizen is only two-thirds of Norway’s (6.4 metric tons per capita versus 9.3) and less than half of Canada’s (15.2 metric tons). If the left really cared about the environment, it shouldn’t abandon the profit motive’s efficient resource management that has proven to be a more effective pollution reducer than central control.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

An overblown hypothesis by James Piereson On hurricanes and climate change.

By on September 6th, 2019

https://newcriterion.com/blogs/dispatch/an-overblown-hypothesis

We are well into hurricane season with a dangerous storm lurking off the coast of Florida and now poised to make a run up the east coast of the United States. As happens every year at this time, the appearance of hurricanes provokes speculation about the role of climate change in the formation of these destructive storms.

Climate change theorists assert that warming ocean temperatures are increasing the number and strength of hurricanes that form and make landfall in the United States. As David Leonhardt writes this week in the New York Times, “The frequency of severe hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean has roughly doubled over the last two decades, and climate change appears to be the reason.” He cites some statistics to support this conclusion, though his review of the facts is far from thorough.

As he notes, the underlying science holds that hurricanes develop in warm ocean waters in late summer, so that over time rising ocean temperatures will generate rising numbers of hurricanes, and stronger ones as well. According to scientists, average ocean temperatures have increased by about one degree Fahrenheit over the past one hundred to a hundred and fifty years, a finding that provides a foundation for the “hurricane hypothesis.” Thus, we hear the refrain that global warming is causing more storms with higher wind speeds, and that these storms last longer, are more destructive, and make landfall more often than in the past.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

A Fine Mess for the Moment Sooner, rather than later, Boris Johnson will get his election—and Brexit will happen at last. Christopher Gage

By on September 6th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/09/05/a-fine-mess/

It comes to something when the one of the most serene and sensible of political voices stems from a newspaper dedicated to the violent overthrow of capitalism.

Yet, The Morning Star—Britain’s only Communist newspaper, and once reliant on bulk orders from the Soviet Union—this week offered much in the way of common-sense; a commodity vanishingly rare in modern Britain.

“The Morning Star believes that the referendum result should be respected, and Britain should leave the EU on October 31, with or without a deal,” the paper proclaimed, parroting almost verbatim the mantra of  Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a man the same newspaper routinely daubs “fascist.”

Yes, dear reader, the beacon of democratic propriety appears to be a Leninist newspaper that papered over the barbarism of the Soviet Union and still harbors fantasies of violent revolution.

The ‘Rebel Alliance’ vs. the People

Over the past week, the formerly serious country of Great Britain perhaps seared its joke status into history.

First, Remainers armed with cheese, olives, and a good bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, blocked London streets in picnic fashion, without threat of harm or arrest, to protest an apparent “coup.”

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Duped US Travelers to Cuba Infected by Zika Virus Outbreak A Stalinist tyranny keeps it secret. Humberto Fontova

By on September 6th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274826/duped-us-travelers-cuba-infected-zika-virus-humberto-fontova

“A new analysis of Zika-infected travelers who returned to the United States or Europe in 2017 or 2018 has found that 98% had visited Cuba, which did not report any cases to world health officials at the time the country’s outbreak apparently peaked.”

“It was startling,” says Kristian Andersen, a genomic epidemiologist at Scripps Research in San Diego, California, who led the work conducted by 38 researchers from five countries. The group estimates that Cuba had 5,707 unreported cases, with most occurring in 2017 (the year, by the way, when Obama’s “opening” made U.S. travel to Cuba very chic — and very important to the Stalinist regime’s coffers, especially those of the secret police and military who majority own Cuba’s tourism infrastructure).

“Of 91 travel-associated Zika cases identified in Florida from June 2017 to October 2018, the team found that all but one infected individual was returning from Cuba. …Likewise, 63 of 64 travel-associated cases caught in Europe during that time frame involved travel to Cuba. Cuba’s unrecognized [no–it was fully recognized by the Stalinist regime which kept it hush-hush!] Zika outbreak may have ‘silently’ spread the virus to other parts of the world and continues to infect international visitors today.” (Zika News)

So what’s the big deal, some might ask? Well, “Zika virus can be passed from a pregnant woman to her fetus and can cause a birth defect called microcephaly and other severe fetal brain defects… Zika primarily spreads through infected mosquitoes. You can also get Zika through sex without a condom with someone infected by Zika, even if that person does not show symptoms of Zika.” (Center For Disease Controls.)

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

How Despots Interpret Deals with the West by Bassam Tawil

By on September 6th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14805/despots-deals

The European Union wants the world to welcome Iran back into the international community because as far as the Europeans are concerned, it appears that the stronger Iran is, the better: a renewed Iran would further Europe’s hope of seeing Israel and the Jews wiped off the face of the earth. Heard just a few months ago were calls such as, “send Jews to the ovens,” “Hitler didn’t finish the job,” and “kill the Jews.”

The Trump administration has created the impression in the Arab and Muslim world that it is ready to beg the leaders of Iran to engage in direct negotiations with Washington. This approach is exceptionally harmful to US interests: it sends a message to many Arabs and Muslims that Americans are prepared to surrender again and humiliate themselves for the sake of any kind of deal with the Iranians. As Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said last month, America should “bow down” to Iran. Seems it is.

Advice to the Trump administration is: Stay strong. As Osama bin Laden correctly observed, “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse.”

Strength and more strength is the only way to earn the respect of those running the show in Beijing, Kabul, Moscow, Pyongyang, and especially in Tehran, Gaza and Beirut.

The European Union says it will support talks between the US and Iran, but only if the current nuclear deal with Tehran is preserved.

The idea of direct talks between the US and Iran seems to have developed after President Donald Trump recently said he was ready to meet Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani.

“We are always in favor of talks, the more people talk, the more people understand each other better, on the basis of clarity and on the basis of respect,” EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini said last month.

The EU wants the world to welcome Iran back into the international community because — this might sound harsh, but it is increasingly hard not to believe it — they are hoping that the leaders of Tehran will focus their efforts on achieving their goal of annihilating Israel. As far as the Europeans are concerned, it appears that the stronger Iran is, the better: a renewed Iran would further Europe’s hope of seeing Israel and the Jews wiped off the face of the earth. Heard just a few months ago were calls such as, “send Jews to the ovens,” “Hitler didn’t finish the job,” and “kill the Jews.”

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Mysterious Explosion of a Russian Nuclear Missile Engine By Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Raphael Ofek

By on September 6th, 2019

https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/russia-nuclear-missile-engine/

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The fatal explosion that occurred recently during testing of the Russian Burevestnik nuclear cruise missile raises many questions. Could it have been avoided? Was it a fundamental failure of the ambitious armaments plan declared by President Putin in 2018? Whatever the answers to these questions, the renewed trend toward an unconventional armaments race could deteriorate into a second Cold War.

On August 8, during a test of the nuclear-powered engine of the 9M730 Burevestnik cruise missile (petrel in Russian; nicknamed the SSC-X-9 Skyfall in the West), held on a floating platform in the White Sea near the Nyonoksa missile test site in the far north of Russia, a mysterious explosion occurred that killed eight people. The blast raised questions about the status of a new generation of five advanced weapons introduced by Putin in 2018, of which Burevestnik, described by the Russian president as supersonic and of unlimited range, occupied pride of place.

Five of the eight people killed in the explosion were Rosatom (Russian State Atomiс Energy Corporation) employees, and three more employees were injured. According to the company’s announcement, the disaster occurred while testing an “isotopic energy source for a liquid propulsion system.”

Shortly after the explosion, the weather monitoring agency Roshydromet reported a significant spike in radiation 40 km from the blast site. Also, in the city of Severodvinsk, which is near the explosion site in the Archangelsk district, the radiation level was reported to have jumped to 16 times the normal level. This led the alarmed residents to rush to stock up on iodine, which reduces the effects of radiation exposure.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The ABC’s Bended-Knee Adoration of Al Gore Tony Thomas

By on September 6th, 2019

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2019/09/the-abcs-b

“Gore is a hypocritical money-grabbing driver of the climate-apocalypse bandwagon.”

What delusionary world do ABC people inhabit?  The national broadcaster’s editorial director, Alan Sunderland, last year fulminated against “liars and cheats and deceivers” generating fake news for the gullible. He wrote, “All responsible media organisations promise to aim for accuracy, to tell all sides of a story… Some, like the ABC, promise never to take an editorial stand or express an opinion, while others promise to make clear the distinction between their reporting and their commentary…” (My emphasis)

Oh, I see. There’s no ABC green-left narratives on lovely wind and solar energy, or ABC tear-jerking for discredited Sri Lankan “refugees”, or for stacking panels with ‘progressives’ and blackballing the Institute of Public Affairs…

My incredulity accelerated when I came across Sunderland’s 11-page audit of the ABC’s coverage of Al Gore’s Melbourne-Sydney visit in mid-July 2017. Gore came to push his new climate-horror film “An Inconvenient Sequel”.

Sunderland’s “Editorial review of ABC interviews with Al Gore, July 2017” checked if the ABC’s coverage of Gore was biased and/or excessive, and whether Gore suckered the ABC into unduly promoting his film. Sunderland also checked whether the ABC, as per charter, was “present(ing) a diversity of perspectives so that, over time, no significant strand of thought or belief within the community is knowingly excluded or disproportionately represented.”

Actually Gore was here again only last June, when the Queensland government spent $320,000 for his Climate Week appearance. (His regular fee is $100,000). My partial list of some Gore visits is 2003, 2005, 2006 (twice), 2007, 2009, 2014 (rostrum-sharing with Clive Palmer), 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2019. He’s about as newsworthy as a Collins Street tram.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

Only the Press Could Get Away With This Score another victory for the anti-Trump thugs and bullies. Julie Kelly

By on September 6th, 2019

amgreatness.com/2019/09/05/only-the-press-could-get-away-with-this/

Let’s say you are a salesman for a major company and while attending an industry conference, you begin screaming, cursing and threatening one of the hosts—in public.

Or, let’s say you are a manager for a major company and you make up a story about how a competitor secured a bank loan and you spread that baseless rumor throughout the industry.

Or, let’s say you are a secretary for a major company and you scour the social media page of a rival in the secretarial pool, edited one of her dated posts to make it sound much worse than it actually was, and email-blasted it to the entire company in an effort to get her fired.

Or, let’s say you are the chairman of the board of a major company and you direct your underlings to lie to customers and shareholders for three years about something that never happened.

See where this is going?

In any other professional sector outside of the news media, those kinds of activities would amount to fireable offenses. No constitutional protections would apply; no activist groups would rally to your defense; no C-Suite executive would issue a statement in support of your bad behavior; no colleagues would plead your case; no judge would demand that your job be reinstated.

You would be standing in the unemployment line. Justifiably.

A Mountain of Distortions and Transgressions

Of course, those are just a few examples in an embarrassingly long list of malfeasance committed by the national media in the Trump era: At the top of the rap sheet is the way nearly every reporter, editor, columnist and talking head either fell for the manufactured Trump-Russia collusion tale or peddled what they knew all along was a lie. A close second is the attempted political assassination of a nominee for the Supreme Court. Not far behind is an orchestrated hit on pro-life teenagers wearing MAGA hat in the nation’s capital.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, POLITICS Comments turned off

Buttigieg: ‘Eating a Burger, Am I Part of the Problem? In a Certain Way, Yes.’ By Jim Geraghty

By on September 6th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/pete-buttigieg-earting-hamburgers-climate-change/

Pete Buttigieg, this morning: “Right now, we’re in a mode I think we’re thinking about [climate change] mostly through the perspective of guilt. You know, from using a straw, to eating a burger, am I part of the problem? In a certain way, yes, but the most exciting thing is that we can all be part of the solution.”

Is Buttigieg pledging to not eat burgers anymore? No. Is he proposing banning burgers? No. But he’s declaring that people eating burgers is part of the climate change problem. Because every Democrat agrees that climate change is such a pressing problem that it has to be addressed through public policy, it’s fair to wonder if someday a Buttigieg administration might start looking at policies designed to reduce the public’s consumption of meat. In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio instituted “meatless Mondays” in all of the public schools — not that he bothered to ask the kids what they thought. A 2018 study proposed a new “meat tax” designed to reduce consumption. And another National Institutes of Health study concluded, “The public and environmental health benefits of reducing meat consumption create a need for campaigns to raise awareness and contribute to motivation for change.” Hearing a presidential candidate declare that eating burgers is “part of the problem,” it’s fair to ask whether he’ll ever be tempted to try to remedy this perceived problem through federal policy or law.

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