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Ruth King

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Essay That Helped Bring Down the Soviet Union by By Natan Sharansky

By on July 25th, 2018

It championed an idea at grave risk today: that those of us lucky enough to live in open societies should fight for the freedom of those born into closed ones.

Fifty years ago this paper devoted three broadsheet pages to an essay that had been circulating secretly in the Soviet Union for weeks. The manifesto, written by Andrei Sakharov, championed an essential idea at grave risk today: that those of us lucky enough to live in open societies should fight for the freedom of those born into closed ones. This radical argument changed the course of history.

Sakharov’s essay carried a mild title — “Thoughts on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom” — but it was explosive. “Freedom of thought is the only guarantee against an infection of mankind by mass myths, which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed into bloody dictatorships,” he wrote. Suddenly the Soviet Union’s most decorated physicist became its most prominent dissident.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/opinion/andrei-sakharov-essay-soviet

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Glazov Moment: Leftist Traitors Accuse Trump of Treason. When communists and Sharia-enablers point fingers about loyalty.

By on July 25th, 2018

http://jamieglazov.com/2018/07/24/glazov-moment-leftist-traitors-accuse-trump-of-trea

In this new Jamie Glazov Moment, Jamie discusses Leftist Traitors Accuse Trump of Treason, analyzing when communists and Sharia-enablers point fingers about loyalty.

Don’t miss it!

And make sure to watch Jamie shed disturbing light on Iranian Woman’s 20-Year Sentence for Protesting Hijab — where he asks: Who will stand for the women and girls brutalized by Islamic Law?

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Haley rips Arab, Islamic states for UN posturing on Palestinian question

By on July 25th, 2018

https://worldisraelnews.com/haley-rips-arab-islamic-states-for-un-posturing-on-palestinian-question/?utm_source=MadMimi&utm_medium=email&

Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, delivered a hard hitting speech to Tuesday’s meeting of the Security Council on the Middle East, questioning the fundamental commitment of Arab states to securing progress for the Palestinians.

Haley argued that if solidarity with the Palestinians was to be judged by the volume of words expended on the issue in the halls of the UN, “one would come away with an extremely distorted picture.”

“No group of countries is more generous with their words than the Palestinians’ Arab neighbors, and other OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) member states,” Haley told the Security Council. “But all of the words spoken here in New York do not feed, clothe, or educate a single Palestinian child. All they do is get the international community riled up.”

“Last year, while Algeria was providing nothing to UNRWA, and Turkey was providing $6.7 million, the United States gave $364 million,” Haley continued. “That’s ten times the combined amounts from every country I just named.”

She added: “And that’s on top of what the American people give annually to the Palestinians in bilateral assistance. That was another $300 million last year, and it averages to more than a quarter of a billion dollars every year since 1993.”
Speeches over action

The alleged preference among Arab states for solidarity speeches rather than practical action on behalf of the Palestinians was not limited to the funding issue, Haley said.

“Where are the Arab countries when it comes to encouraging reconciliation between Palestinian factions, which is essential to peace?” she asked. “Where are the Arab countries when it comes to denouncing Hamas terrorism? Where are the Arab countries when it comes to supporting compromises that are necessary for peace?”

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John Whitehall Experimenting on Gender Dysphoric Kids

By on July 24th, 2018

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2018/07/experimenting-children-gender-dysphoria/

Paediatricians with a total of 931 years’ experience reported only 12 cases of gender confusion, meaning just one genuine case might be expected every 76 years. Now, each year in Australia, hundreds are presenting for treatment which the ascendant orthodoxy decrees must be provided.

Four studies recently published in Pediatrics, the prestigious journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, confirm the experimental basis of the “Dutch Protocol” of medical intervention for childhood gender dysphoria now practised throughout the Western world, including special clinics in Australian children’s hospitals. They reveal the tunnel vision of appraisal of the nature of associated mental and social disorder, when viewed through the lens of the ideology of gender fluidity. That ideology maintains there is no such binary entity as a girl and a boy: our gender exists on a variable locus on the “rainbow”. It perceives associated mental disorder to result from parental and societal frustration of fulfilment of a chosen gender distinct from chromosomal reality. This frustration is the root of the problem, and gender dysphoria is but one symptom of an underlying, innate mental disorder. The ideology of gender fluidity would lead to the conclusion that confused children should have their desired gender affirmed by the medical profession, practised by society and enforced by the law.

Known as the Dutch Protocol because it was developed in the Netherlands, the medical pathway may result in massive intervention into the mind and body of a child despite the lack of scientific basis. The newly released “Australian Standards of Care and Treatment Guidelines for Trans and Gender Diverse Children and Adolescents” publicly declare they are not based on the usual standards that justify Western medical therapy, including biological plausibility, proof of effect and absence of complications in bench studies, animal experiments and human trials. Rather, they are based on “clinical consensus … and a limited number of non-randomised clinical guidelines and observational studies”: in other words, on the “expert” opinion of the doctors running the clinics.

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BOOKS Comments turned off

Daryl McCann: Big Brother’s Loyalty

By on July 24th, 2018

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2018/07/big-brothers-loyalty/

In his rushed-to-press book, ‘A Higher Loyalty’, James Comey reveals himself as a congenital lawyer with a special talent for obfuscation and self-exoneration. That such a creature rose so high lends enormous credence to Donald Trump’s grievances against the Deep State.

It’s too easy to mock the title of ex-FBI Director James Comey’s memoir A Higher Loyalty. Higher loyalty to whom? Jim Comey? Comey himself anticipates the charge by confessing upfront in the Author’s Note that he “can be stubborn, prideful, overconfident, and driven by ego”, character flaws he has struggled with his “whole life”. No kidding. A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership might be an exercise in self-righteousness, confesses Comey, but whether that is accurate or not—and our author, unsurprisingly, quickly proceeds to deny it—his enmity towards President Donald Trump happens to be based on something more substantial than Comey’s own bruised ego. Ethics is Comey’s word for it. I am, perhaps surprisingly, inclined to agree; but with the proviso that ideology rather than ethics be designated as James Comey’s moral compass.

There is something big lurking in the depths of Comey’s memoir and to uncover it we must address three key issues: (a) the exoneration of Hillary Clinton; (b) Comey’s boyish admiration for Barack Obama; and (c) the brutal denigration of Donald Trump. In the first instance, the former FBI director’s exoneration of Hillary Clinton in A Higher Loyalty is a tricky business, as was his pronouncement in July 5, 2016, that Hillary Clinton had been “extremely careless” in the use of a private server during her tenure as Secretary of State but that, in his judgment, “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring a case against her for mishandling classified information, either “intentionally or in a grossly negligent way”. We now know the FBI “sensitive matters team” never had any intention of recommending charges against Candidate Clinton in 2016 and that, as Candidate Trump would say, “the fix was already in”.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The latest global warming scare might make you want to kill yourself By Thomas Lifson

By on July 24th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/07/the_latest_global_warming_scare_might_make_you_want_to_kill_yourself.html

Too many “scientists” have too much grant money and too much computer time on their hands, thanks to the tens of billions of dollars in grant money ($32.5 billion from 1989 to 2015, according to the Science and Public Policy Institute) that the federal government has been dispensing for “climate change research.” Put together a proposal to find a new scary correlation, and odds are you’ll be bringing in the federal cash, to the delight of your university (that gets to appropriate a third or so of the grant for “overhead”). That’s why we have hundreds and hundreds of bad things that global warming (or climate change) supposedly will cause.

The San Francisco Chronicle has the latest claim, one that bears the imprimatur of Stanford University.

More people are likely to take their own lives as the planet warms, say researchers at Stanford University and UC Berkeley in a study published Monday that suggests yet another worrisome impact of climate change.

The multidisciplinary research team looked at nearly 1 million suicides in North America and found that hotter temperatures correlate with higher suicide rates. The warming projected through 2050, the group figures, could increase suicide rates by 1.4 percent in the U.S. and 2.3 percent in Mexico over that time, resulting in 21,000 additional deaths in the two nations.

The role of heat, the authors said, may be just as significant as other, more well-known drivers of suicide, like economic hardship, which also pushes rates up, and suicide prevention programs and gun control legislation, which tend to push rates down.

I certainly feel despair when it gets too hot. That’s why I moved to coastal California, where it rarely gets into the nineties. But if this holds water, we ought to see that suicide rates pretty closely correlate with average temperatures. A look at suicide rates by country reveals no such relationship. Here are the top 20 countries:

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POLITICS Comments turned off

McCaskill and the Swamp A senator’s husband enjoys rising earnings from government-backed investments. James Freeman

By on July 24th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/mccaskill-and-the-swamp-1532467234

Who says newspapers are dying? The Trump newsprint tariffs aren’t helping, but daily journalism appears to be alive and well at the Kansas City Star, which performs a public service today in illuminating a lucrative area of the Beltway swamp. Specifically, the Star details the rising income from federally-subsidized investments enjoyed by the spouse of a U.S. senator.

“Businesses tied to U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill’s husband have been awarded more than $131 million in federal subsidies since the Missouri Democrat took office in 2007,” reports the Star.

The newspaper details the surge in income for Ms. McCaskill’s husband, Joseph Shepard, as a result of his investments in government-backed housing projects. According to the Star:

In 2006, the year before McCaskill entered the Senate, her husband’s personal income from those investments was between $1,608 and $16,731, according to the senator’s financial disclosure forms.

In 2017, five years into McCaskill’s second term, Shepard personally earned between $365,374 and $1,118,158 from investments in housing projects that received federal subsidies, the disclosure forms show. Disclosure forms only provide ranges of income.

There’s no evidence that McCaskill played any part in directing federal funds to businesses affiliated with her husband.

The senator’s campaign tells the Star that she has nothing to do with her husband’s investments and the paper notes that he was investing in affordable-housing projects long before he met the senator, whom he married in 2002.But lately Mr. Shepard seems to have become much better at selecting such investments. According to the newspaper:

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Don’t Underestimate the Socialist Surge on the Left By John Hart

By on July 24th, 2018

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/07/24/dont_underestimate_the_socialist_surge_on_the_left_137601.html

A Democratic “blue wave” may or may not be able to overcome the Republicans’ majority and structural advantages in the 2018 midterm elections. But the bigger story that’s brewing is the dramatic and nationwide leftward shift of the Democratic Party. The socialist surge has potential to reshape not just the party but American politics for generations to come.

Democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s victory over 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley in a New York primary was the most significant political upset since Tea Party Republican Dave Brat defeated then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in 2014. Her victory wasn’t an isolated incident. Democratic-socialist candidates also scored wins in Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives and, in 2017, in Virginia’s House of Delegates.

Meanwhile, in California, the Democratic state party executive committee decided to endorse progressive stalwart Kevin de Leon over Dianne Feinstein. (Feinstein won the open primary, but in California the top two finishers, even if members of the same party, run against each other in the general election.) Feinstein has major advantages in the November face-off (name ID and fundraising) and will likely prevail. But when Dianne Feinstein is deemed too conservative for the Democratic Party a major shift is underway.

The Democratic socialists hoped to start a new chapter in their crusade with a rally last week in the heart of America: The event took place in Wichita, Kansas. For Kansas’s conservatives, the rally was the political equivalent of “Red Dawn.” The Bernie Sanders liberation army, under the leadership of General Ocasio-Cortez, parachuted into the heart of Koch country (Wichita is the headquarters of Koch Industries) to pick a fight and make a point. Ocasio-Cortez said they chose the location to prove that “an honest, grassroots, lobbyist-free movement for working-class Americans can work anywhere.”

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Who benefits from John Brennan’s security clearance? It sure isn’t America. Daniel McCarthy

By on July 24th, 2018

https://spectator.us/2018/07/who-benefits-from-john-brennans-security-clearance/

John Brennan had a tough time when he took his first CIA lie-detector test in 1980. He was asked a standard question as to whether he had ever belonged to an organisation dedicated to the overthrow of the United States government. Not quite, but almost: just four years earlier Brennan, then a student at Fordham University, had cast his first vote for president for the candidate of the Communist Party USA. Brennan had never been a party member—just a Communist voter.

The CIA let him in. A little more than thirty years later, he was appointed by Barack Obama to lead the agency. But now, ex-CIA director Brennan is questioning the patriotism of Obama’s successor, accusing the president of being an agent of Moscow. “Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of ‘high crimes & misdemeanors,’ Brennan wrote on Twitter. “It was nothing short of treasonous.”

Comrade Brennan would know, right? But no—a dumb college kid’s vote for the CPUSA is no more treasonous than a president who takes a less adversarial approach to Russia than Democrats demand. Brennan has evidently never had a good grasp of the U.S. Constitution, whether as a Communist-voting student or the nation’s top spy. That he now turns policy disagreements and personal disgust into “nothing short” of treason is par for the course.

Sen. Rand Paul, the Republican who votes against Trump more often than any other in the U.S. Senate, has called on the president to strip Brennan of his inactive security clearance. Trump is considering doing just that. He’s contemplating depriving Michael Hayden, Susan E. Rice, James R. Clapper Jr., and other former intelligence officials who have been critical of him of their clearances as well. Democrats claim that this is intimidation, though the question on many observers’ minds is: why do so many ex-officials have these clearances in the first place?

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No Detectable Lead Poisoning in Flint After All By Kyle Smith

By on July 24th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/flint-michigan-water-no-lead-poisoning/

The city’s kids made photogenic victims, but thankfully the scare was overblown.

The numbers are in on the lead contamination of Flint, Michigan’s water in 2014–15, and it’s time for a sigh of relief. Medically speaking, the lead in the water turned out to be a non-event.

The increase in lead content in children’s blood after the water debacle was small. Tiny, in fact. How tiny? It was basically statistical noise: 0.11 micrograms per deciliter, which is within the range of normal fluctuation. Two experts explain in the New York Times:

A similar increase of 0.12 micrograms per deciliter occurred randomly in 2010-11. It is not possible, statistically speaking, to distinguish the increase that occurred at the height of the contamination crisis from other random variations over the previous decade.

Lead is dangerous and it’s proper to be vigilant about it. In terms of municipal management, or politics, the lead saga in Flint shouldn’t be overlooked. Any negligence should be adequately punished. If you behave in a grossly careless way and somehow no one gets hurt, you were still grossly careless.

Yet in terms of lead in the water in the Flint, the inescapable takeaway from the Times op-ed by professors Hernán Gómez, the lead author of the study “Blood Lead Levels of Children in Flint, Michigan: 2006–2016,” and Kim Dietrich, the principal investigator of the Cincinnati Lead Study, is that the children of Flint dodged a bullet when the city water supply was switched from the Detroit River to the Flint River in 2014. (In 2014–15 there was an outbreak of the bacteria-based Legionnaires’ disease in Flint that caused the deaths of 12 people, but ten of the 12 were linked to a single hospital called McLaren Flint.)

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