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October 2019

POLITICS Comments turned off

A Democrat, and Social Conservative, Challenges Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez By Jack Crowe

By on October 18th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/fernando-cabrera-social-conservative-democrat-challenges-alexandria-ocasio-cortez/ernando

Cabrera is running to unseat her in next year’s primary in New York.

D emocratic city councilman Fernando Cabrera sounds like a New Yorker. He’s speaking fast when I reach him by phone Monday, rattling off the myriad differences between himself and the woman he’s challenging for the Democratic primary nomination for New York’s 14th district: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

As a well-known New York Democrat who is unconcerned about jeopardizing a future career in national politics, Cabrera is the most serious primary challenger to enter the race, and the media have taken notice. His announcement was covered in the New York Post last week, and he was headed to an interview with Fox News as we discussed his plans to upset a political phenom.

While the cosmetic differences between Cabrera — a 55-year-old Pentecostal pastor —and his 29-year-old former bartender opponent abound, he’s convinced that the primary distinction between himself and Ocasio-Cortez is his willingness to do the work of government. He rapidly details his record as a three-term city councilman: falling crime and unemployment rates in his district, coupled with increased graduation rates and high-school STEM achievement. He juxtaposes this record with the way that Ocasio-Cortez has spent her first year in office.

“The ‘o’ in Ocasio stands for ‘zero,’” he says impatiently. “She has brought home zero money, she’s advanced zero bills.” His frustration is obvious. Cabrera explains that he had no intention of running for the congressional seat. “I would’ve retired,” he says, but then he saw how Ocasio-Cortez derailed Amazon’s plan to bring its headquarters, and 25,000 jobs, to Queens.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Trump Used the Options He Had in Syria By Jim Talent

By on October 18th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/trump-used-the-options-he-had-in-syria/

There was no reason to leave a few Special Forces in the middle of an armed conflict when, yes, Erdogan might be willing to risk war with the U.S.

There has been a great deal of outrage expressed over the fact that the United States did not prevent Turkey from initiating the military operation to create a “buffer zone” in northern Syria. The major objection seems to be that in withdrawing the 100 or so American Special Operations forces who had been stationed in the area, the United States was giving permission for the operation and abandoning the Kurds who have helped us in the fight against ISIS.

I don’t see the criticism; in fact, far from abandoning the Kurds, the United States has consistently opposed the Turkish buffer-zone operation and used every means to prevent it that were consistent with America’s overriding national interests in the region.

The Kurds are tough fighters and were indispensable in supplying the ground component against ISIS. They had their own reasons for doing it, of course. Apart from not wanting to become victims of ISIS themselves, the Kurds are a stateless people and they have been trying to carve out a self-governing enclave for themselves in Syria or Iraq or Turkey or wherever they can get it. The success of the war against ISIS, and the prominent role of the Kurds in the effort, raised at least the prospect of such an enclave in northern Syria.

The United States does not support Kurdish separatism in Syria, but the Trump administration did try for months to get Turkey to agree to joint patrols and shared control in northern Syria; the purpose was to prevent further conflict and instability in the region, enable a continued focus on the fight against ISIS, and ensure effective security over captured ISIS soldiers. But it would have been at least a small step toward Kurdish autonomy.

Recep Erdogan was impatient, to say the least, with the American negotiating position. Erdogan is no fool, and he was aware that the Kurds were developing a significant measure of de facto control in northern Syria. Turkey and the Kurds have a long and checkered history, and Erdogan is as opposed to Kurdish separatism and statehood as the Kurds are in favor of it.

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Why Mexico Is Cooperating with Us on Immigration By Mark Krikorian

By on October 18th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/immigration-enforcement-mexico-cooperating-with-us/

‘No one will come to trample our country, our land!’

One of the reasons border apprehensions have dropped from their alarming peak in May is that Mexico has been pretty aggressive in stopping third-country nationals from traversing its territory on their way north to make bogus asylum claims so they can be released into the U.S.

But why has Mexico been willing to work with us like this? It’s especially curious because in the past, Mexico was not at all eager to help us limit illegal immigration, a pattern we might have expected to intensify with last year’s election as president of left-wing populist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (commonly known as AMLO, pronounced as a word rather than initials).

No doubt President Trump’s tariff threats had some effect. Three-quarters of Mexico’s exports go to the U.S., and despite increased integration of our economies over the past couple of decades, they still need us a lot more than we need them. Also, Trump’s mercurial temperament clearly has the Mexicans worried that he could do something rash (similar to Iran’s fears about Reagan if the hostages weren’t released before he was inaugurated).

But it’s unlikely that these things would be enough to move a sometimes touchy nationalist like AMLO. Rather, I think a big part of the explanation is that the current flow of illegals is mainly made up of foreigners, not Mexicans. Earlier waves of mass infiltration across our southern border consisted mainly of Mexicans, and while Mexico quickly took back its people who had been nabbed by the Border Patrol, it did little if anything to reduce the flow. They did establish a police-like unit of the country’s immigration agency called Grupo Beta, which worked on Mexico’s northern border (opposite our southern border), but its remit was to help potential illegals with water and first aid and protect them from criminals.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

What Barr Got Right — and What He Might Add By Howard Husock

By on October 18th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/william-barr-remarks-notre-dame-decline-religiosity/

He singled out for criticism those who believe that, in effect, government social programs could replace the virtues instilled by religion.

Attorney General William Barr finds himself the target of criticism for remarks he made at the University of Notre Dame in which he made the case that a decline in religiosity — and, indeed, attacks on the beliefs of the religious — might have something to do with personal and social dysfunction in the United States.

For this — and his expressed view that “militant secularists” might actually prefer to replace the “traditional moral order” — Barr stands accused of endorsing some sort of Christian theocracy.

Barr, of course, hardly endorsed the idea the church–state divide should be erased in the United States. Nor did he insist that only the religious could live a healthy and productive life. Rather, he singled out for criticism those who believe that, in effect, government social programs could replace the virtues instilled by religion. It’s an important distinction. Since the New Deal, and increasingly since the Great Society, we have done exactly what Barr asserted: We have “called on the state to mitigate the social costs of personal misconduct and irresponsibility . . .”

One tends to think in this regard of financial social-safety-net programs — the social-welfare state. But much more is involved in what might be termed the social-service state — the huge constellation of social-service “providers” who claim they can use counseling techniques to improve the lives of the addicted, the promiscuous, the domestic abusers. The distribution of federal funds to these not-for-profit organizations has, as Barr suggested, reflected a dramatic shift in values.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Free Canan Kaftancioglu Stand with a Turkish dissident against Islamic blasphemy laws. Mark Tapson

By on October 18th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/10/free-canan-kaftancioglu-mark-tapson/

A month ago, Canan Kaftancioglu, a leading secular politician in Turkey and a critic of Islam, was sentenced to nine years, eight months and 20 days in prison on the transparently political charge of “insulting” authoritarian President Recep Erdogan and the Turkish state in social media posts dating back several years, as well as the Orwellian charge of “spreading terror propaganda.” This inspired a young Turkish activist named Kursat Christoff Pekgoz here in the United States to launch an online petition to bring attention to this injustice and help secure Kaftancioglu’s freedom.

Pekgoz recently wrote about this for FrontPage Mag here, and I reached out to him for more details.

Mark Tapson: Can you give us a little background about yourself and your own activism in Turkey, as well as your activism since coming here to the United States?

Kursat Pekgoz: I grew up in Turkey fin de siècle, during the late 1990s and throughout the 2000s. I took up various human rights causes as I became increasingly concerned with Erdogan’s tyranny, and my focus was mainly the civil rights of religious minorities. Some of my past efforts include: attending protests against Islamists (2007), attending Turkan Saylan’s funeral (2009), active participation in a forum/protest against compulsory Islamic education (2010), working as a pro bono teacher for secularist CYDD (2009-2010), attending the Gezi protests as a volunteer/bodyguard (2013), advocacy against electoral fraud (2014), signing a human rights declaration to protest the persecution of Kurdish civilians (2016), and visiting the Armenian Genocide memorial (2017). I have advanced degrees in Molecular Biology and English Literature. I have studied seven languages (English, Turkish, Ancient Greek, Russian, Latin, German, French).

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Socialist Tyranny, Genocidal Muslim Tyranny, Slave State and Libya Win UN Human Rights Council Seats Daniel Greenfield

By on October 18th, 2019

Will the last man in Turtle Bay please turn out the lights?

Venezuela, Poland and Sudan amongst 14 new Human Rights Council members

I like how the UN’s own house news headlines the fact that Venezuela, a brutal socialist dictatorship full of starving people, worthless money and whose people are fleeing by the millions, has been elected to the UN Human Rights Council.

And then there’s Sudan, which is responsible for actual genocide.

Africa had four seats up for grabs, and four candidates, who were duly elected: Libya, Mauritania, Namibia and Sudan

As Hillel Neuer of UN Watch has pointed out, Mauritania has sizable numbers of slaves.

The UN has a slave state, a genocidal Muslim tyranny, and a murderous socialist tyranny on its Human Rights Council. And the only qualification for a seat is who kills and oppresses the most people, and violates the most human rights.

UN Watch is calling for a campaign to remove Venezuela. But the next review will inevitably condemn the human rights violations of America and Israel, while praising Venezuela for its commitment to social justice.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Why It Matters That Sidney Powell Wants Data From Joseph Mifsud’s Smartphones- Margo Cleveland

By on October 18th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/10/17/why-it-matters-that-sidney-powell-wants-data-from-joseph-mifsuds-smartphones/

While Sidney Powell’s latest motion barely comprised two pages, the implications are multi-pronged and monumental.

On Tuesday, attorney Sidney Powell struck again, revealing yet another huge development in the Spygate saga between the lines of her latest motion. That motion, filed in the still-pending criminal case against Trump’s former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, demanded exculpatory evidence from federal prosecutors.

But unlike her previously filed motion to compel, here Powell seeks evidence “that has only recently come into its possession.” And the evidence sought? The data and metadata from two Blackberry devices used by Joseph Mifsud.

While Powell’s latest motion barely equaled two pages, the implications are multi-pronged and monumental.

That the U.S. government has only recently obtained possession of a pair of smartphones used by Joseph Mifsud tells us two things: that Attorney General William Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham’s probe into the origins of the Russia-collusion hoax is both serious and successful, and that the Crossfire Hurricane targeting of President Trump and former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation were neither.

After all, Mifsud was the man whose tip to young Trump volunteer advisor George Papadopoulos, that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton, supposedly formed the basis for the FBI to launch Crossfire Hurricane’s targeting of the Trump campaign in late July 2016. Yet no one bothered to interview Mifsud until six months later, when he traveled to D.C. to speak at a conference sponsored by the State Department.

And then the FBI let him go, later blaming Papadopoulos for their inability to properly question the purported Russian agent. Mueller seemed equally uninterested in Mifsud—a strange position to take toward a putative enemy agent.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Boris Gets Brussels to Say Yes Can the British PM get Westminster on board with his Brexit deal?

By on October 18th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/boris-gets-brussels-to-say-yes-11571340220

There’s still no guarantee the United Kingdom will leave the European Union by the current Oct. 31 deadline, but Prime Minister Boris Johnson deserves credit for negotiating an exit agreement many wrote off as impossible. The question now is whether he can win over Parliament.

“The negotiators reached an agreement on a revised Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland and on a revised Political Declaration,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker wrote in a letter Thursday. He’s referring to negotiations to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland, which is divided between the independent Irish Republic and Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement relies on a frictionless border between the two countries.

Mr. Johnson managed to scrap a U.K.-wide backstop, which could have kept the country in the EU customs union indefinitely. Now the backstop essentially is limited to Northern Ireland, and the Northern Ireland Assembly will vote on the arrangement every four years.

Mr. Johnson accepted nonbinding language about maintaining a level-playing field with the EU on competition. This will create tension if London tries to turn the U.K. into a low-tax alternative to the Continent, but that can be dealt with later. The deal isn’t perfect, but neither are the alternatives of another aimless withdrawal extension, an economically damaging no-deal Brexit, or a new referendum that would poison British politics for a generation.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A Texas Mayor Defends the Constitution from Sharia Law By Amil Imani

By on October 18th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/10/a_texas_mayor_defends_the_constitution_from_sharia_law.html

Time and again in every election we see politicians promise everything, and once elected deliver very little or nothing. Beth Van Duyne is a welcome exception and her past record clearly proves it. A person of impeccable integrity, Beth has always remained loyal to the values and wishes of her constituents and has not compromised them on the altar of political expediency so widely practiced by self-promoting politicians. A devoted mother beaming with energy and the talent to get things done, Beth is indeed the kind of person the US Congress desperately needs.

Under Beth’s leadership as a Mayor of Irving, TX, the city became one of the best and safest towns in the great state of Texas. Beth Van Duyne’s achievements attracted the attention of President Trump’s administration and accepted to serve, this time, at the national level in the Department of Housing and Urban Development Office in Fort Worth.

City of Irving Islamic Tribunal

Van Duyne’s reputation soared outside her city since February 2015, when she became aware that some Muslims intended to create a Sharia court in Irving, TX. To follow with her oath of office, she wanted to make sure if in fact, these stories were accurate.  

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

An Election for the Boo-Birds By David Solway

By on October 18th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/an-election-for-the-boo-birds/

As Canada approaches its October 21 federal election, it is obvious that it would take someone like Donald Trump to rescue this country from a crater of socialist lies, faddist memes, rampant welfarism, “social justice” debauchery, climate boondoggles, economic bankruptcy, unsustainable immigration, and, in short, a veritable Pandora’s Box of cultural and political ills.

The leaders of our traditional parties can only be charitably described as, to be blunt, imbeciles or scoundrels, or both. Much has been written about Liberal prime minister Justin Trudeau as Canada’s Embarrassment-in-Chief, a bezomian who has regularly beclowned himself in public, praised China’s “basic dictatorship,” assured us that budgets balance themselves, embroiled himself in scandals, been found in violation of the Conflict of Interest Act, bribed the media with the promise of a $600 million gift, and indebted Canada’s future generations to the tune of $685.5 billion and counting—indeed, Trudeau is projected to be the largest debt accumulator in Canadian history. No wonder he has recently been endorsed by Barack Obama.

A self-promoting paragon of virtue, photos have recently surfaced of Trudeau in blackface, which the press is frenetically excusing. Like the opportunistic cullion that he is, Trudeau’s latest hijinks involve his wearing a bulletproof vest at a Liberal rally in response to an alleged security threat whose source has not been identified—unless, of course, as Rebel News journalist Sheila Gunn Reid points out, quoting a Liberal flak on CBC TV, we blame Conservative free-speechers, yellow-vesters and the little that remains of an honest media. Ezra Levant’s just released The Librano$—merging the words “Liberals” and “Sopranos”—tells us all we need to know about Trudeau’s corruption and unfitness for office.

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