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November 2019

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: THE HATRED THAT FUELS IMPEACHMENT

By on November 25th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/11/24/the-hatred-that-fuels-impeachment/

We are in new territory now. Hating a president is equivalent to finding him guilty of supposed high crimes. Impeachment is a casual affair. Hearsay is as valid as direct testimony.

Neither the NeverTrump Right nor the Progressive Left has yet offered a coherent defense of their de facto, three-year-long singular effort to delegitimize and ultimately remove Trump from office before the 2020 election.

We are now in the midst of a systematic effort to impeach a president on the basis of a thought crime. Trump’s purported quid pro quo sin was issuing a temporary hold on military assistance to Ukraine that supposedly transcended legitimate worries about rampant corruption—to include specifically investigating the suspicious behavior of a corrupt Ukrainian oil company and the compromised relationship of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son around it.

The anti-Trump writ is that it is impeachable even to delay to the Ukrainians lethal military assistance while citing the need to investigate the corruption of Ukrainians, including the career of Hunter Biden, whose father, the former vice president and “point man” on Ukraine, is now running for president.

Supposedly irrelevant to this inquiry is the prior policy of denying military aid to Ukraine, intervening in Ukrainian politics to fire a prosecutor by threatening a cutoff of even nonmilitary aid, and ignoring that the vice president’s son served as a lucrative functionary with a corrupt Ukrainian company while his father was adjudicating U.S. aid to Ukraine.

So why this disconnect? The reason is not “Ukraine,” merely the latest iteration in a long series of efforts, but rather existential hatred.

“Conservative” NeverTrump Disdain

The NeverTrumpers’ position, although rarely articulated, seems fairly clear.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

In Less Than A Year, 3/4 Of The ‘Squad’ Is Under Financial Investigation

By on November 25th, 2019

https://dailycaller.com/2019/11/23/squad-campaign-finance-scandals/

The three most prolific members of the “squad” of freshman representatives are the subjects of multiple Federal Election Commission complaints and ethics probes.
The congresswomen have been accused of violating campaign finance laws for their personal or political benefit.
Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib have promised to bring about a more equitable and just world.

The three most prolific members of the so-called “squad” of freshman Democratic congresswoman face allegations of violating campaign finance laws and House ethics rules for their personal or political benefit 10 months into their terms.

Below are the Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaints and House ethics inquiries that have been filed against Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan since they took Washington, D.C., by storm in January with the promise of bringing about a more equitable and just world.

Ocasio-Cortez Could Face ‘Jail Time’ Over Unreported Affiliation With Outside PAC

Ocasio-Cortez’s political rise in 2018 was made possible in large part to Justice Democrats PAC, an outside political action committee that recruited her to enter politics in 2017 and provided much of her campaign’s staffing and overhead needs in the lead-up to her June 2018 primary victory over former Rep. Joe Crowley.

Ocasio-Cortez’s relationship with Justice Democrats became the subject of intense scrutiny in 2019, resulting in two complaints submitted to the FEC.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The FDA Needs More Adult Supervision, Not More Independence Henry I. Miller

By on November 25th, 2019

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/11/25/the

Academics and former agency heads have called for the Food and Drug Administration to become an independent agency, out from under the umbrella of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Although the FDA has real problems, giving it more independence isn’t the solution.

The argument may sound compelling. “Partisan political interposition has grown increasingly worrisome” at the FDA, said three academics in an article in the journal Science. They continued: “As the sole arbiter standing between a new drug application and a potential public health calamity, the FDA can hardly afford to be buffeted by undue political interference,” and should, therefore, become an independent agency. A group of former heads of the agency made a similar recommendation in January.

Yet political meddling has been extremely rare in recent years, and the genuine calamities in which the FDA has been involved have been self-inflicted wounds that might have been avoided with more, not less, accountability and oversight.

The FDA is ubiquitous in Americans’ lives, regulating products that account for more than $1 trillion dollars annually — 25 cents of every consumer dollar. Its regulation provides some measure of reassurance and tangible benefits, to be sure, but it has massive costs, direct and indirect. For example, bringing a new drug to market costs, on average, more than $2.5 billion.

Regulation that is excessive actually costs lives, both directly by withholding life-saving products, and also by diverting societal resources to gratuitous regulatory compliance.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Are Palestinians Not Entitled to Human Rights? by Bassam Tawil

By on November 25th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15200/human-rights-palestinians

“The protection of rights and freedoms requires that the right to human rights be guaranteed to judges. Judges have the right to express their opinions freely in the media and social media. Al-Haq, while condemning the violation of the right of judges to express their opinions freely, calls on [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas to ensure an environment conducive to the reform of the judiciary and the justice system in Palestine.” – Al Haq, Palestinian human rights organization, based in Ramallah, West Bank.

These human rights violations continue in the face of the PA government’s pledge to stop any violation of press freedoms. Ibrahim Milhem, spokesman for the PA government, was quoted earlier this year as saying: “The government will exert all efforts to make the media work environment in Palestine more open and free and to stop any violation of press freedoms.”

Unless the Palestinians manage to rise up against their abusive and corrupt leaders — which they can only do with the backing of the international community and media — their hope of building a democratic society will remain nothing more than a dream.

The international community, particularly those countries that provide financial aid to the Palestinians, should at least speak out against human rights violations committed by Palestinian leaders. That way, the Western donors will embolden reformists and other Palestinians who are working to end corruption and dictatorship. The donors should also make their financial aid to the PA leadership conditional on halting human rights violations and persecution of political opponents.

While Palestinian officials repeatedly condemn Israel for violating Palestinians’ freedom of expression, it is actually the Palestinian Authority (PA) that continues to harass, intimidate and detain Palestinians for expressing their opinions on social media or being affiliated with rival political groups. Business as usual.

The latest victims of the PA’s ongoing assault on public freedoms, particularly freedom of expression, are Palestinian lawyers, judges, political activists and university students.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Iran Tortures Protesters, World Yawns by Uzay Bulut

By on November 25th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15202/iran-tortures-protesters

This internet blackout, according to Iran Human Rights director Amiry-Moghaddam, “might indicate the Iranian authorities’ plans to use even more violence against the protesters.”

On November 22, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Twitter: “The U.S. is sanctioning the Minister of Information and Communications Technology, Mohammad Jahromi, for helping shut down the Iranian internet. We will hold members of the Iranian regime accountable for their violent repression of the Iranian people. #Internet4Iran.”

It is likely that Pompeo’s warnings had a direct effect: the following day, on November 23, NetBlocks confirmed that: “[Internet] connectivity has been restored with multiple fixed-line providers across much of Iran, allowing users to get online via wifi.”

To help the Iranian people, at the mercy of their oppressive regime, the world would do better to emulate the Trump administration’s tough posture. European appeasement and diplospeak only embolden, rather than weaken, tyrants such as those in Iran.

The hundreds of anti-regime protesters and civil rights activists who have been arrested by Iranian security forces since the eruption of mass demonstrations on November 15 — after the government raised the price of gasoline — are in danger of torture, forced confessions and even death sentences.

According to the organization Iran Human Rights (IHR):

“The detainees are held in unknown places, and their families are not informed about their whereabouts. Moreover, there has been a total internet blackout imposed by the authorities making information flow very difficult.

“‘Most of the detainees could not call their families. Their relatives have tried to find out where they are held. They even do not know their beloved ones are dead or alive,’ a well-informed source told IHR.”

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EDUCATION, ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Students Storm the Field at Harvard-Yale Game to Protest Climate Change By Rick Moran

By on November 25th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/students-storm-the-field-at-harvard-yale-game-to-protest-climate/

The 136th edition of one of college football’s oldest rivalries, the Harvard-Yale game, was disrupted by a couple of hundred students who stormed the field at halftime to protest climate change, delaying the start of the second half.

The hour-long delay meant that the game, played at the Yale Bowl, finished in near darkness as the stadium has no lights installed. After two overtimes, Yale prevailed 50-43.

Make no mistake: this ain’t your granddaddy’s Ivy League.

ESPN:

In a statement, the Ivy League referred to the protest as “regrettable.” Yale said that while it “stands firmly for the right to free expression,” it had issues with how the protesters went about their demonstration.

“The exercise of free expression on campus is subject to general conditions, and we do not allow disruption of university events,” Yale said in its own statement.

Yale coach Tony Reno said the unusual interruption was an example of what has made his university’s rivalry with Harvard stand the test of time.

“It’s what makes Yale Yale,” Reno said. “Our group, I’m sure if you asked them and the Harvard guys what makes it special, it’s not only the game of football. It’s the passions.”

Yes, even if those passions are due to blind ignorance.

The grown-ups tried to wrangle the unruly kids and get on with the game, but this is 2019, not 1968, so no tear gas, no police truncheons — even though some of the protesters could have used a good spanking.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Sham Interfaith Group Partners with CAIR, Features Anti-Semite Rabbis and other ‘useful idiots’ share panel with those who hate them. Joe Kaufman

By on November 25th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/11/sham-interfaith-group-partners-cair-features-anti-joe-kaufman/

The Interfaith Action Group of Southwest Florida, like most interfaith groups, holds events with participants from different religions. It seems, though, when it comes to Islam, the group favors representatives from the radical Muslim organization CAIR. That was the case last month, as Interfaith Action featured, as one of its participants, the Communications Director of CAIR-Florida and someone who has actively spread anti-Semitism, Wilfredo Amr Ruiz. This article is meant to expose the sham that is the Interfaith Action Group and to warn religious leaders with good intentions from continuing to contribute to this thinly veiled display of intolerance.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations or CAIR was established, in June 1994, as a key component of then-global head of Hamas Mousa Abu Marzook’s Palestine Committee, a now-defunct US-based Hamas support network. Former CAIR representatives have been convicted of terror-related crimes, and in 2008, the US government named CAIR a party to the financing of Hamas. Following the September 11th attacks, CAIR used its official website to solicit funds for charities associated with Hamas and al-Qaeda.

The Florida chapter of CAIR has consistently reflected the violent extremism of its parent organization. A prime example of this is the pro-Hamas rally CAIR-Florida co-sponsored, in July 2014, outside the Israeli Consulate in Miami, where attendees repeatedly shouted, “We are Hamas,” “Let’s go Hamas,” and “Hamas kicked your ass.” After the rally, the event organizer, Sofian Zakkout, posted photos from the event with the caption, “Thank God, every day, we conquer the American Jews like our conquests over the Jews of Israel!”

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

There are No Settlers on the West Bank Only noble and heroic pioneers re-founding sacred Israel. Jason D. Hill

By on November 25th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/11/there-are-no-settlers-west-bank-jason-d-hill/

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently announced that the U.S. would no longer consider civilian settlements in the occupied territories of the West Bank as a violation of international law. Many Israelis have warmly embraced this U.S. move as a great moral victory for the Jewish state. And to be sure, Pompeo’s declaration reversed a forty-decade US policy that regarded the settlements as a violation of international law.

The only proper response to Pompeo’s announcement is: it’s a long time coming. And, along with the U.S. announcement, moral citizens of the world must begin a radical reversal of certain anti-Israeli and anti-Jewry references to the so-called “settlers” of Judea and Samaria (The West Bank) and what has been mistakenly referred to as “Occupied Territory.”

To begin with, the Israeli Jews are not settlers in Judea and Samaria. From here on, they should be referred to as heroic pioneers on re-founded land in Holy Israel. This is the land of Moses, a nation unified under King David, the only nation blessed by God in the Bible renamed Palestine by the Romans in the second century and later artificially divided into three states. This is the nation occupied and destroyed, and its people exiled and conquered immorally under the Egyptians (1523 BCE—1313 BCE); Babylon under King Nebuchadnezzar (423 BCE-372 BCE); Persia/Media (372 BCE—140 BCE); Greece (371 BCE—140BCE); and Rome (69 CE—Present).

Under the Roman Empire we witnessed the apocalyptic and most devastating blow to Jewish sovereignty that lasted for 2,000 years. It allowed for, among other dastardly intrusions, occupation under the Ottoman and British Empires. Let us not forget a few historical minutiae:

With the legal re-founding of the state of Israel in 1948, the local Palestinian militia groups along with Egypt, Jordan (then Transjordan), Syria, Iraq, Lebanon fought a vicious war—along with contingent forces from Saudi Arabia and Yemen—to annihilate tiny Israel. Jordan confiscated Judea and Samaria which it illegally annexed in 1950. In a 1967-Six Day defensive war against Jordan, Israel retook its Holy lands of Judea and Samaria from Jordan. Let us remember that Judea and Samaria historically belonged to Holy Israel and the Jewish people. It never belonged to a “Palestinian state” nor to a political entity known as “the Palestinians”.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

BDS and Antifa Bigots Shout “Back to the Ovens” at Toronto’s York U Anti-Semitic violence and hate at a Canadian university. Daniel Greenfield

By on November 25th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/11/bds-and-antifa-bigots-shout-back-ovens-torontos-daniel-greenfield/

“Go back to the ovens, go back to Europe!”

That was what Jewish students, pro-Israel activists, and Jewish community members heard in Vari Hall.

It was a Wednesday evening at York University. Students and community members had come out to a modernistic building on York U’s Keele Campus in Toronto to hear the stories of former Israeli soldiers. The volunteers with Reservists on Duty, two women and five men, six Jews and one Arab Christian, were there to conduct a dialogue and answer questions about their experiences in Israel’s battle against terrorism.

Shar Leyb had grown up in Canada before making the decision to move to Israel and serve in the Israel Defense Forces. The ugly scenes that met him at York University was a Canada he did not recognize.

“It’s extremely sad,” he told Front Page Magazine. “In Canada, my home country, people filled with hate and violence were calling for the death of all Jews.”

York U’s Vari Hall had been the scene of some ugly confrontations in the past, but no one had expected 500 BDS and Antifa bigots to show up screaming hatred and attacking Jewish students on campus.

“Before the event, we were setting up and a deaf person could hear the chants,” Shar said. “We went to see and there were a couple of hundred people. Reservists on Duty is all about dialogue, talking to the other side, understanding their concerns and finding common ground. But they didn’t want to speak.

What happened can be seen in dozens of viral videos that quickly spread across the internet.

Amit Deri, the CEO of Reservists on Duty, had expressed concerns about the potential danger at York University even before the event. Posters depicting murderous Israeli soldiers had gone up calling for angry protests. “All out! No Israeli soldiers on our campus!” they had demanded. Another poster had urged protesters to wear black. That’s the color associated with antifa and violent anarchists.

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EDUCATION, P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

‘Idea Laundering’ in Academia How nonsensical jargon like ‘intersectionality’ and ‘cisgender’ is imbued with an air of false authority. By Peter Boghossian

By on November 25th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/idea-laundering-in-academia-11574634492

You’ve almost certainly heard some of the following terms: cisgender, fat shaming, heteronormativity, intersectionality, patriarchy, rape culture and whiteness.

The reason you’ve heard them is that politically engaged academicians have been developing concepts like these for more than 30 years, and all that time they’ve been percolating. Only recently have they begun to emerge in mainstream culture. These academicians accomplish this by passing off their ideas as knowledge; that is, as if these terms describe facts about the world and social reality. And while some of these ideas may contain bits of truth, they aren’t scientific. By and large, they’re the musings of ideologues.

How did this happen? How have those working in what’s come to be called “grievance studies” managed to extend their ideas far beyond the academy, while convincing people that their jargon adds something meaningful to public discourse? Biologist Bret Weinstein, who was run out of Evergreen State College by a leftist mob in 2017, calls the process “idea laundering.”

It’s analogous to money laundering. Here’s how it works: First, various academics have strong moral impulses about something. For example, they perceive negative attitudes about obesity in society, and they want to stop people from making the obese feel bad about their condition. In other words, they convince themselves that the clinical concept of obesity (a medical term) is merely a story we tell ourselves about fat (a descriptive term); it’s not true or false—in this particular case, it’s a story that exists within a social power dynamic that unjustly ascribes authority to medical knowledge.

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