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April 2021

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Where Have You Gone, Atticus Finch? By Jack Cashill

By on April 16th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/04/where_have_you_gone_atticus_finch.html

In the archives of legal fiction, two characters best embody historic liberal self-perception. One is attorney Atticus Finch of To Kill a Mockingbird fame. The other is Juror #8 in the 1957 film, 12 Angry Men. Today, each is an endangered species.

In his defense of Tom Robinson, a black man accused of rape in 1930s Alabama, Atticus ignored public opinion. He stared down the mobs intent on extra-legal justice and protected his ”mockingbird” as best he could. The unlikely mockingbird today is former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. As Chauvin learned quickly, if he did not know it beforehand, today’s vestigial liberals identify not with Atticus but with the mob.

Hell, as even Snopes had to concede Vice President Kamala Harris “encouraged her supporters to donate” to a nonprofit called the Minnesota Freedom Fund (MFF) that was bailing out members of the mob arrested for rioting after George Floyd’s death.

Chauvin’s crime, like Robinson’s, was being of a certain race in a society that increasingly sees justice only through the prism of race. Like the fictional Robinson, the real-life Chauvin represents one of a long and growing line of sacrificial lambs offered on the altar of racial “justice” to expiate the nation’s imagined sins.

Ever impatient, the mobs from the very same liberal metro could not wait for Chauvin’s official immolation to demand the sacrifice of a new lamb. This time, the mobs have shown no scruple about sating themselves on a female officer. To them, it mattered not a whit that veteran Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, officer Kim Potter clearly showed no racial malice in her accidental shooting of Duante Wright, a troubled archetype from a subculture slowly being crushed under the weight of rigidly enforced dishonesty.

To his good fortune, Chauvin has found his Atticus in defense attorney Eric Nelson. Although he has backstage help from the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, Nelson has been arguing solo against the snarky Mod Squad of a prosecution team. Calm and dispassionate, the forty-something Nelson has been quietly picking the prosecution case apart these last three weeks.  Viewed from another planet, the unknowing alien might wonder why Chauvin is even on trial. For details, please see the work done by Andrew Branca at Legal Insurrection.  Those who have not followed the case closely would be wise to ignore Big Media and watch the closing arguments, likely on Monday, before forming an opinion.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden Intelligence Community Breaches Authority to Target the Right Julie Kelly

By on April 16th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/04/15/biden-intelligence-community-breaches-authority-to-target-the-right/

Instead of prioritizing resources to confront the menace posed by America’s foreign adversaries the IC is devoting most of its time to pursuing Americans on the political Right.

The freshly reelected Republican senator from Nebraska had kind words this week for Joe Biden’s intelligence chiefs. “The American people are blessed to have an [intelligence community] as serious as ours,” Senator Ben Sasse said during Wednesday’s Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. He called the group, which included FBI Director Christopher Wray and CIA Director William Burns, “heroes” and wanted a chance to “say thank you” in front of the American people.

Sasse, who is supposed to act as a fierce skeptic not a fawning cheerleader of the world’s most powerful intelligence apparatus, singled out Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines for praise. “Your opening statement . . . was incredibly strong,” Sasse swooned. 

Haines, the top deputy to former CIA Director John Brennan during the Obama Administration, undoubtedly marveled at winning such a groveling endorsement from a sitting Republican senator—or perhaps she internally laughed at winning over yet another reliable GOP dupe. (In fairness, most Republicans on the committee joined in Sasse’s praise for Haines.)

But Senate Republicans should have been outraged rather than starry-eyed over Haines’ opening statement as well as her conduct in office since taking the reins of the intelligence community the day after Joe Biden’s inauguration. Haines is wasting no time accelerating the weaponization of a sprawling organization that is supposed to identify threats to the homeland by foreign actors, not target Americans with the wrong political views.

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Biden Continues to Mishandle His Own Border Crisis How to make the illegal immigration surge even worse. Joseph Klein

By on April 16th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/04/biden-continues-mishandle-his-own-border-crisis-joseph-klein/

The Biden administration is increasingly desperate in the face of the migration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border that Biden’s progressive open-door policies have created. Illegal unaccompanied minors are flooding into this country, overwhelming available government resources to shelter and care for them. The Biden administration is already reportedly spending more than $60 million a week to house these minors now in federally run shelters. Many more are illegally crossing the border every day and are being added to the thousands allowed to remain in the United States.

What “creative” solutions has the Biden administration come up with to deal with this surge, aside from scrambling to increase shelter capacity beyond the hovels the kids are already being crammed into? One idea is to offer extended paid leave to government employees, who are likely to have no relevant training and experience, to step in and take care of some minors. Another idea is to offer cash payments to Central Americans to keep them home rather than emigrate to the United States. Offering what amounts to bribes for Central Americans to stay put instead of attempting to reach the United States is likely to backfire.

The New York Times reported last week that employees in federal government agencies like the Department of Homeland Security and NASA had received e-mails asking them whether they would be willing to take four-month paid leaves from their jobs “to help care for migrant children in government-run shelters.” Nearly three thousand federal employees answered the call as of April 9th, leaving behind the duties they were actually hired to perform.

As for the cash transfers to Central Americans to keep them at home, Roberta Jacobson, the outgoing White House southern border coordinator, told Reuters recently that such payments were an option under review by the Biden administration to address “the economic reasons people may be migrating.” It has apparently not occurred to the Biden administration “geniuses” that desperate people will do desperate things. The smugglers will be the winners as many of the cash payment recipients use their windfalls to pay for being smuggled into the United States. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy expressed what many Americans must be thinking when he said, “It’s insulting to the millions of Americans who are out of work or facing despair in our country.”

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Have New York City Voters Burned Out on the Left? Daniel Greenfield

By on April 16th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2021/04/have-new-york-city-voters-burned-out-left-daniel-greenfield/

New York City went from being run by a Republican and a moderate Democrat, and descended into hard leftist under De Blasio. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s win, the defeat of Rep. Elliot Engel, and the campaign to replace Cuomo with a Socialist seemed to solidify the city and perhaps even the state as leftist territory. And yet, despite all that, the Left seems unable to get a grip on the upcoming mayoral election.

A survey conducted by Data For Progress, a national think tank, found 26 percent of voters are supporting Yang’s candidacy — double the 13 percent who said they would support Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams. 

The poll also found Yang leading Adams 25 to 22 percent among Black voters — a surprising number given the borough president’s political base in predominantly African-American parts of Brooklyn. Data For Progress polled 1,007 likely voters between March 21 and April 5 through web and text interviews, which would not necessarily capture the older New Yorkers Adams — a former police officer and state Senator — is counting on.

City Comptroller Scott Stringer, a career politician from Manhattan, captured 11 percent of those surveyed, and former City Hall attorney and MSNBC legal analyst Maya Wiley came in fourth at 10 percent. Every other candidate polled in single digits.

The Left and the media have been pushing Wiley. She is the model of what the Left wants. Instead, Yang is far ahead despite the media’s efforts to destroy him. And while I’m no fan of Eric Adams, he’s far too moderate these days for the Left.

Could the Left win St. Louis while losing New York to moderate Democrats? The media is doing its best to stop Yang. With no effect. 

Why is Yang polling better with black voters than Adams or Wiley? One answer might be that a big chunk of the electorate in New York City is sick and tired of the lunatic Left.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

An Open Letter to Butler University’s Students for Justice in Palestine and the Group’s Fellow Travelers Butler’s time to look in the mirror. Richard L. Cravatts

By on April 16th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/04/open-letter-butler-universitys-students-justice-richard-l-cravatts/

Your group, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), has a long history since its founding in 1993 of bringing vitriolic anti-Israel speakers to their respective campuses.

And your recent invitation to the Marxist, former Black Panther, Angela Davis (pictured above), a supporter of the destructive Boycott Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, to speak at Butler affirms your group’s radicalism and its history of creating a hostile climate on whatever campus you have a chapter. SJP members apparently wish to live in a world where only your predetermined virtues and worldview prevail, and feel quite strongly that, in the case of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, at least, the answers are black and white, there is a moral side and an immoral side, and that anyone who does not, or cannot, see things as clearly and unambiguously as you woke students do is a racist, an oppressor, or a supporter of an illegal, apartheid regime trampling the human rights of the blameless, hapless Palestinians.

Your former president at Butler even promoted conspiracy theories about a Zionist cabal working behind the scenes to have the Angela Davis speech canceled. “Days before Butler University’s shameless censorship of Angela Davis,” wrote Roua Daas, the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the Student Government Association at Butler University, “the Student Government Association was bombarded by pressure from Zionist students [emphasis added] who claimed to oppose Davis’ event because of her support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement — a grassroots demand for nonviolent economic pressure against Israel’s illegal military occupation of Palestine.”

In her letter in the Butler Collegian, Daas wrote that “This is not the first time this school year that these students [emphasis added] have attempted to silence free speech and prevent political events on campus,” continuing her denigration of Zionists on the Butler campus. “Many will recall failed attempts this past fall to use student senate resolutions to cancel student organization events and place limits on topics that could be discussed,” she added, referring to the debate on campus last fall over the adoption of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. 

“This is also not the first time that Zionists have attempted to deplatform Angela Davis for her supportive stance on Palestine,” Daas added, and “institutions which silence the voices of Black radicals such as Davis are complicit in the systems of racism and oppression which hurt BIPOC people within and beyond Butler University.”

Apparently, it is irresistible for SJP to avoid inviting controversial speakers to speak against Israel, even murderers, as long as they are willing and able to defame Israel, attack Zionism, point to the alleged racism of the Jewish state, and find common ground of oppression between the Palestinians and people of color on campus and elsewhere.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

Russian Bounty Story Falls Apart after Being Used to Slam Trump Admin By Ryan Mills

By on April 16th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/russian-bounty-story-falls-apart-after-being-used-to-slam-trump-admin/

The credibility of last summer’s bombshell report alleging the Russian government was paying bounties to Taliban fighters to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan took another hit this week when a senior Biden administration official told reporters they only have “low-to-moderate confidence” in the intelligence behind the story.

The intelligence was based on notoriously unreliable “detainee reporting,” the official said on the call, meaning that it came from militants looking to get out of jail.

News of the alleged bounties was first reported last June by The New York Times, which reported that “American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan – including targeting American troops.” The story, based entirely on unidentified sources, claimed that the U.S. had actually known about the alleged bounties for months.

Media outlets across the country rushed to find their own anonymous sources to “confirm” the story. Then-President Donald Trump called it “fake news” and a “Hoax started to slander me & the Republican Party.” He denied that he’d been briefed on it, and did not discuss the alleged bounties on a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin in July.

Democrats jumped on the report and used it to attack Trump in the run-up to the 2020 election. Joe Biden said Trump’s “entire presidency has been a gift to Putin, but this is beyond the pale. It’s betrayal of the most sacred duty we bear as a nation to protect and equip our troops when we send them into harm’s way.” House speaker Nancy Pelosi said “This is as bad as it gets,” and John Kerry weighed in at the Democratic Convention, saying that Trump did “nothing about Russia putting a bounty on our troops.”

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Linda Thomas-Greenfield’s Reckless Moral Equivalency By Isaac Schorr

By on April 16th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/linda-thomas-greenfields-reckless-moral-equivalency/

Does Linda Thomas-Greenfield understand the purpose of, and duties associated with, her position as United States ambassador to the United Nations? I’m sure she has her own conception of the job, and it’s her right to act on the basis of that conception; she’s the one who’s been selected for and confirmed to the role. But judging from her recent comments made while addressing Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, I don’t think that conception bears much resemblance to that which Americans have of her mission:

Of course, when we raise issues of equity and justice at the global scale, we have to approach them with humility. We have to acknowledge that we are an imperfect union and have been since the beginning. And every day we strive to make ourselves more perfect and more just. In a diverse country like ours, that means committing to do the work. It means learning and understanding more about each other. It means engaging trailblazing groups like yours, to teach, to grow, to include, to improve. It means not forgetting our past or ignoring our present, but keeping both firmly in mind as we push for a better future. I tried to do this recently in the U.N. General Assembly when I spoke on the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Thomas-Greenfield shared a few moving examples of the horror that she and other African Americans experienced in the Jim Crow South before going on:

I’ve seen for myself how the original sin of slavery weaved  white supremacy into our founding documents and principles . . .

. . . Racism is not the problem of the racist. And it is the problem of the society that produces the racist. And in today’s world, that’s every society. In America, that takes many forms. It’s the white supremacy that led to the senseless killing of George Floyd. Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many other black Americans. It’s the spike in hate crimes over the past three years against Latino Americans, Sikh, Muslim Americans, Jewish Americans,  and immigrants. And it’s the bullying, discrimination, brutality, and violence that Asian Americans face every day,  especially since the outbreak of COVID-19. That’s why the Biden-Harris administration has made racial equity a top priority across the entire government. And I’m making it a real focus of my tenure at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

For Mahmoud Abbas, a Last Hurrah? Abbas’ pretend-game of elections backfires. Hugh Fitzgerald

By on April 16th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/04/mahmoud-abbas-last-hurrah-hugh-fitzgerald/

Mahmoud Abbas originally thought it was a good idea. There was a new administration in Washington, one most favorably inclined to the Palestinians. The Biden people were ready to undo what the “unfriendly” Trump Administration had done. Trump had closed the PLO office in Washington, Biden promised to open it. Trump had folded the consulate to the Palestinians in east Jerusalem into the Embassy in Jerusalem; Biden promised to reopen it. Trump had ended both direct aid to the Palestinians and American contributions to UNRWA.

Biden announced that he was again turning on the spigot of aid, starting with a $15 million contribution, then another one of $80 million, with more – much more – to come. As for the Taylor Force Act, which prohibits American aid to the Palestinians as long as they continued to provide subsidies to terrorists and their families, in what is grimly known as the “Pay-For-Slay” program, nothing has been said about Biden’s renewal of aid constituting a clear violation of Taylor Force. Apparently it was enough that such aid was described as “humanitarian” to exempt it from the application of Taylor Force, but there is no such exemption in the language of the act. Nonetheless, no one in Congress said anything, no one insisted that such aid, even if called “humanitarian,” should be halted; possibly politicians were fearful that if they did so, they would. be painted as depriving the “poor Palestinians” of diapers and baby formula. But money is fungible; “humanitarian” aid money given to the Palestinians frees up other sums that can then be spent on weapons for terrorists.

These initial deliveries of aid were being given, members of the Administration let it be known, to “earn the trust” of the Palestinians. Why the Americans felt they needed to win the “trust” of the endlessly meretricious Palestinians remains unclear. But no one asked for a clarification. In any case, the largesse lavished upon the Palestinians will not win their “trust” but merely confirm their belief in the gullibility of the Americans, or at least of the Americans who have now assumed power in Washington.

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Canada: J-Space Supports NDP Party’s BDS Resolution to Actively Campaign Against “Illegal Settlements” A “progressive” Jewish voice advances the agenda against Israel. Christine Douglass-Williams

By on April 16th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/04/canada-j-space-supports-ndp-partys-bds-resolution-christine-douglass-williams/

J-Space is known as a “respectable,” “Progressive” Jewish voice in Canada. It is more or less the counterpart to J-Street in America. Several days ago, the New Democratic Party (NDP) in Canada passed an anti-Israel, BDS-supporting Resolution, 04-10-20 (Justice and Peace in Israel-Palestine), at its 2021 Convention. J-Space supported it. See its official statement HERE.

A little background about the NDP for Americans who may be unfamiliar with it: the NDP is a far-Left, Progressive Party, with now only 24 out of 338 seats in the House of Commons. The NDP actually served as Canada’s official opposition party from 2011 to 2015, but its support has dwindled. It is worthwhile to note that the NDP also founded an “unofficial” New Democratic Party Socialist Caucus in 1998.

Last year, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh stated that his party does not support BDS, as reported by the Canadian Jewish News:

He unequivocally condemned BDS, stating that it “creates tensions and divisions,” and “does not advance peace.” Singh stated that neither he nor the NDP support BDS, believing that it is not “the right path forward.”

Singh is regarded with distaste in many circles. He ostensibly supports Sikh separatism and was banned from India for insulting its human rights record and accusing it of genocide. But despite his condemnation of BDS a year ago, to an astute observer, his declarations were suspicious, given his party’s prior ambivalence about BDS. But now, Singh has taken the gloves off to  expose his real views of Israel. The new resolution just passed by the NDP states:

…Therefore BE IT RESOLVED THAT the NDP actively campaign in support of the demand of Palestinian unions, civil society and unions across Canada and around the world for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against the Israeli state…

Ending all trade and economic cooperation with illegal settlements in Israel-Palestine
Suspending the bilateral trade of all arms and related materials with the State of Israel …

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

The New Plan to Oust Netanyahu And the dire implications for Israel. Caroline Glick

By on April 16th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/04/new-plan-oust-netanyahu-caroline-glick/

In a discussion with associates on Tuesday, Yamina chairman Naftali Bennett spoke candidly about his political plans, which, according to media reports, he is closely coordinating with New Hope party leader Gideon Sa’ar. Both Bennett and Sa’ar hail from the ideological right and both are outspoken opponents of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and seek to unseat him as premier.

Although Bennett refused to recommend that President Reuven Rivlin confer the mandate to form a government on Netanyahu last week, he has made clear that he will join a Netanyahu-led governing coalition if Netanyahu is able to secure the two seats he lacks to build a 61-member government. In contrast, Sa’ar refuses to join a Netanyahu-led government. And for now, Sa’ar’s five colleagues in his six-member Knesset faction are boycotting Netanyahu with him.

Sa’ar has tried twice to oust Netanyahu in elections—first in the Likud’s internal leadership race and then as head of his new party in the last election. Both of his electoral bids flopped. Despite massive media support both times, the voters wouldn’t go along.

Although Bennett told his associates on Tuesday that “we’re in” if Netanyahu manages to find two more lawmakers to join a government under his leadership, he is convinced Netanyahu will fail. “It’s wishful thinking” that any members of Sa’ar’s party will return to Likud, he said. “It won’t happen.”

Netanyahu’s mandate to form a government is good for 28 days. From Bennett’s perspective, the real coalition talks will only begin after Netanyahu fails.

At that point, he asserted confidently, “Someone else in Likud will be the prime minister.”

Israel Katz, Nir Barkat or Naftali Bennett are all possible candidates to replace Netanyahu, in Bennett’s view. Each of them will be able to form a coalition because Sa’ar will join them—and he won’t join Netanyahu.

In other words, Sa’ar’s plan, which Bennett has joined, is to do to Likud members what late Prime Minister Ariel Sharon did to Likud voters in 2004.

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