House Hunters: A Window on a Derelict Culture By David Solway

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/02/house_hunters_a_window_on_a_derelict_culture.html

Like many people, I’ve been watching House Hunters and its cousin House Hunters International on HGTV with considerable interest, though perhaps not for the usual reasons. I understand the charm the program has for its viewers: the pleasure of visiting houses and their locales, the ideas one may get for redecorating one’s own dwelling, the information about places one may wish to visit or move to, the guessing game regarding which of the inevitable three houses the purchasers will settle for, or simply abundant material for one’s fantasy life.

But I do wonder how many viewers realize that the whole business is largely a scripted hallucination which may even be hazardous to one’s future decisions if taken seriously. And as we will see in the ensuing, it partakes as well of a progressivist rage for leftist queer and gender politics.

To begin with, House Hunters et al. paint a scrubbed and prettified picture of the subject. I recall several episodes dealing with the lovely Greek island of Paros, featuring gorgeous, well-appointed villas replete with lavish amenities including ample showers and impressive fireplaces. I lived in Greece for several years and know the island well — well enough to know that, like most Aegean islands, it suffers from critical water shortages and an equally critical lack of firewood owing to centuries of forest denudation. Showers will be few and winters will be rheumatoid. And unwary buyers will be sucking lemons.

This is only one instance of the HGTV lie. Cabo San Lucas is another popular HGTV fable, focusing on gleaming condominiums and stunning views. The hagglers, cheats, swarms of importunate vendors, heavy traffic, sewage treatment problems and evidence of extortionate prices are left on the cutting-room floor. Caveat emptor.

Moreover, dialogue and character must rank the program at the lowest end of the entertainment industry scale. The dialogue is cloyingly banal with its ceaseless empty chatter, and the prospective buyers/renovators are generally among the most vapid and unattractive cast of characters one could ever hope to avoid.

Conservative Activist Targeted by Mob at Ohio University Welcome to the world of higher miseducation. Jack Kerwick

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/02/attacked-conservative-activist-targeted-mob-ohio-jack-kerwick/

With each passing week, more proof mounts that the world of Higher Education is, as I note in the title to my book on this subject, Higher Miseducation.

It’s also an increasingly dangerous place for conservative students.

Unfortunately, it is not an exaggeration to say that violence against the person and property of conservative students has become something of a commonplace on college campuses.

This should (but, regrettably, most assuredly will not) shock the moral sensibilities of remotely decent people everywhere, irrespectively of their political partisanship.

The College Fix, a student-run publication dedicated to drawing the public’s attention to the systemic and systematic undermining of the University’s historic mission by political ideologues, informs us of the violence, the mob violence, to which conservative students and speakers are routinely subjected.

At Ohio University, Kaitlin Bennett, a conservative activist in her early 20’s who regularly records her exchanges with left-leaning students at college campuses around the country, was besieged by a mob—yes, a mob—of at least 100 students who attacked her and the rest of her crew—including her bodyguard (that one young, petite female even needs a bodyguard on a college campus for daring to express her conservative views speaks volumes).  

The Fix refers to the footage of the “huge crowd of students…yelling and screaming at Bennett” as she tries to film a video.  Also captured on the latter are the members of the mob who “eventually began throwing things at Bennett, her bodyguard, and her team from Liberty Hangout.”

Promising News (We Hope) from Britain Is the tide of reflexive silencing and appeasement about to turn? Bruce Bawer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/02/promising-news-we-hope-britain-bruce-bawer/

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Britain is a basket case. In many jurisdictions, the police appear to be less interested in solving murders than in intimidating – and even arresting – law-abiding citizens who have criticized Islam on Twitter. Meanwhile new Pakistani “grooming gangs” are still being uncovered, and the numbers – the number of non-Muslim girls who turn out to have been raped, the number of men who have raped them, and the number of years this has been going on without anyone doing anything about it – are staggering. Yet given the scale and horror of these crimes, the public reaction to them has been bafflingly muted. One observer recently commented that if the British had any cojones, the grooming-gang scandals would have sent them out into the streets en masse, demanding the arrest and incarceration of every politician, journalist, social worker, and police officer who knew about the gangs for years and did nothing.

Yes, the Brits voted for Brexit. But they continue to let their media get away with using the word “Asians” to obscure the specifically Islamic roots of honor killings, forced marriages and the rape of infidels. Yes, supporters of Tommy Robinson, who played a key role in bringing the grooming gangs to light, have turned out in large numbers to cheer him on more than one occasion, but when he ran for a seat in the European Parliament he was trounced, suggesting that his popularity is not as widespread as one might have hoped. Indeed, for “respectable” figures in Britain, Robinson remains an untouchable: MPs such as Jacob Rees-Mogg may be estimable in certain ways, but not a single member of the House of Commons has ever dared publicly to praise Robinson, and only one of the 794 members of the House of Lords – that would be Lord Pearson – has stood up for him. I keep running across, and being initially impressed by, British YouTubers who present themselves as bold, outspoken enemies of political correctness, only to see them go out of their way, at the first opportunity, to distance themselves from Robinson, whom they reflexively smear as a racist and Islamophobe.

Richard Grenell: An American Hero Under Attack No figure in the Trump administration has been a greater champion of equality for gay people. Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/02/richard-grenell-american-hero-under-attack-daniel-greenfield/

President Trump’s new appointee to be the Acting Director of National Intelligence is under vicious attack from the left and from the LGBT Left in particular – a telling fact since no figure in the Trump administration has been a greater champion of equality for gay people.

After the attacks of September 11, the position of the Director of National Intelligence was created to coordinate all of our intelligence agencies against the external terror threat. As the Spygate scandal continues to undermine trust in the intelligence community, the position is more important than ever.

President Trump’s appointment of Richard Grenell as Acting Director has infuriated the Obama veterans and holdovers responsible for Spygate, as well as the LGBT Left.

As Trump’s ambassador to Germany, Grenell successfully led tariff negotiations with German automakers, helped gain subsidies for American energy shipments to Germany, convinced most major German companies to pull out of Iran, closed German airspace to an Iranian airline, stopped $300 million euros in gold and currency from going to Iran, and got Germany to ban Hezbollah.

Coming off this successful winning streak, Grenell is already under vicious attack because his track record shows that he can get things done, and get them done for America. And that’s the last thing that the anti-American Left wants.

Making Sense of the Harvey Weinstein Verdict By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/harvey-weinstein-verdict-long-prison-sentence-likely/

The former Hollywood power-player is likely to face a long prison sentence despite being acquitted of the most serious charges he faced.

Though a New York State jury convicted Harvey Weinstein on two felony sexual-assault charges Monday, it acquitted him of three allegations of aggravated sexual assault, including the two most serious charges he faced. Still, the counts of conviction are likely to result in a severe prison sentence for the 67-year-old former Hollywood producer.

Weinstein was charged with five offenses, all arising out of two coercive sexual encounters: a 2013 rape of then-aspiring actress Jessica Mann, and forcibly performing oral sex on former production assistant Miriam Haley (professionally known as Mimi Haleyi) in 2006. Before we describe the five counts with more specificity, let’s turn to the two controversial elements of the case, which will make the charges easier to understand:

1. Predatory-sexual-assault charges
Annabella Sciorra, the most famous actress involved in the case, testified that Weinstein raped her about 27 years ago. State prosecutors could not base charges solely on this accusation because it is time-barred under the statute of limitations. Yet they used the Sciorra incident to exacerbate the Mann and Haley encounters into charges of predatory sexual assault (PSA).

First Israeli rabbi received as guest of Saudi king at royal palace

Rabbi David Rosen arrived in Riyadh to participate in an interfaith meeting in Saudi Arabia.

By World Israel News Staff

A rabbi named David Rosen became the first Jewish clergyman from Israel to be hosted by the king of Saudi Arabia in his Riyadh royal palace.

The meeting happened last week, Times of Israel reported, as part of a gathering held by the King Abdullah International Center for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID). Rosen is a member of KAICIID’s board of directors.

The Times quoted Rosen as saying that the meeting represented the first-ever interfaith group hosted by King Salman.

Rosen also serves as director of interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee and was the only Jewish member on the nine-person KAICIID board that met with King Salman last week.

Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, and Hinduism rounded out the faiths with representation on the KAICIID board in Riyadh.

A British-born immigrant to Israel, Rosen also sits on the Israeli Chief Rabbinate’s Commission for Interreligious Dialogue.

AIPAC Responds After Bernie Sanders Said He’s Skipping Pro-Israel Event By Zachary Stieber

https://www.theepochtimes.com/aipac-responds-after-bernie-sanders-said-hes-skipping-pro-israel-event_3248456.html

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) launched “an odious attack” against the group’s upcoming event after Sanders said he wouldn’t attend the conference.

“Senator Sanders has never attended our conference and that is evident from his outrageous comment,” AIPAC, which says it is America’s pro-Israel lobby, said in a statement on Sunday.

The annual conference features over 18,000 Americans from a wide variety of backgrounds and includes both Senate and House Democratic speakers.

“By engaging in such an odious attack on this mainstream, bipartisan American political event, Senator Sanders is insulting his very own colleagues and the millions of Americans who stand with Israel. Truly shameful,” AIPAC added.

The statement was in response to Sanders’s announcement over the weekend that he wouldn’t attend AIPAC’s conference, which is being held on March 1 and March 2 in Washington.

“The Israeli people have the right to live in peace and security. So do the Palestinian people. I remain concerned about the platform AIPAC provides for leaders who express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights,” he told supporters in a statement.

Can Macron halt the rise of Islamic extremism? Gavin Mortimer

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2020/02/can-macron-halt-the-rise-of-islamic-extremism/

Emmanuel Macron has unveiled his plan to combat the rise of Islamic extremism in France. Stressing that his fight was not against the religion but political Islam, ‘which has no place’ in the Republic, the president outlined a series of measures in a speech last week. Notably, his plans involve an end to the hosting of imams from countries such as Turkey and Algeria, and more rigorous control on foreign financing of mosques from the likes of Qatar.

Macron stopped short of introducing an ‘Islam of France’, which had been mooted two years ago, but his intention is to eliminate the malevolent influence of outsiders.

But is it too late to stop what Macron described as the ‘Islamist separatism’ of France, a process that began in the 1980s when François Mitterrand’s Socialist government turned a blind eye to the ‘re-islamisation’ of the suburbs by men who took their inspiration from the Iranian revolution?

The alarm was first raised in 2002 with the publication of Les Territoires perdus de la République (The Lost Territories of the Republic) by Georges Bensoussan, in which he exposed the extent of this re-islamisation.

Iran Still Reeling Nearly Two Months After Suleimani Assassination By P. David Hornik

https://pjmedia.com/trending/iran-still-reeling-nearly-two-months-after-suleimani-assassination/

The U.S. assassination of Quds Force commander Qasem Suleimani on January 3 was a dramatic event—but how much did it really set Iran back? After all, he was only one official; couldn’t Iran just replace him and move on?

Almost two months later, a report in The Guardian says that’s not so, and that Iran—and the Revolutionary Guard of which Suleimani’s Quds Force was the spearhead—is still trying to recover.

“There were 11 bodies pulled from the wreckage,” said one [apparently Iraqi] official. “We are talking about the entire inner sanctum of the Quds Force. This wasn’t just Hajj Qassem [Suleimani] and Abu Mahdi [al-Muhandis]. This was everyone who mattered to them in Iraq and beyond.”

Another source, a western intelligence agency, was more circumspect, suggesting that those killed may have been less decisive in the Iranian nexus than the Iraqis believed.

But even if that Western intelligence agency is right, The Guardian goes on to say:

From the bunkers of south Beirut to the battlefields of northern Syria and the combustible streets of Iraq, the loss of Suleimani and his entourage has derailed much of Iran’s momentum in the region….

“Two senior sources in Beirut” told The Guardian that Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah “agreed to help fill the gaping hole left by the deaths of Suleimani and Muhandis. But there were limits to what he could do. He had lived a life even more in the shadows than the Iranian general for the past 14 years. And a drone strike from a night sky was unlikely to make him feel safer.”

Claims of Russian Election Meddling Are Still a Scam By David Harsanyi

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/russian-election-meddling-claims-still-a-scam/If you can’t handle some memes or misleading ads, you probably shouldn’t be voting.

The fearmongering over Russian election “interference” might be the most destructive moral panic in American political life since the Red Scare. Then again, to be fair, those who prosecuted the post-war hunt for Communists had the decency to uncover a handful of infiltrators. We’ve yet to meet a single American who’s been brainwashed or had their vote snatched away by an SVR Twitterbot. Probably because no such person exists.

Nevertheless, millions of Americans believe that a handful of terrible memes — and I mean the most amateurish and puerile efforts imaginable — on social media were enough to overturn a presidential election in the most powerful nation on earth. Or, more likely, most pretend to believe it. As Donald Trump’s fortunes have turned somewhat in recent weeks, and socialist Bernie Sanders looks poised to take the Democratic Party nomination, the Russians are once again coming to snatch your vote.

There were lots of “wows” from journalists on Twitter last week when the New York Times reported that members of the House Intelligence Committee were warned by an aide to Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire that Russia would be meddling in the 2020 campaign in order to get President Trump reelected. When Trump found out, the Times reported, he was furious that briefers had given Adam Schiff ammunition for political attacks.