POLITICS Comments turned off

Bye, Buttigieg By Jim Geraghty

Posted By on March 2nd, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/bye-buttigieg/

Pete Buttigieg is leaving the presidential race. His decision comes as a surprise; this morning, his campaign was still urging supporters to get out the vote on Super Tuesday.

A decent number of Buttigieg supporters are now up for grabs in the Super Tuesday states. Buttigieg is at 13.3 percent in the RealClearPolitics polling average of Massachusetts, 13 percent in Colorado, 11.5 percent in Virginia, 9.5 percent California, 7.5 percent in Texas, 6.8 percent in North Carolina.

(As of Thursday, more than 2.7 million voters in California had returned ballots in early voting. Hope they didn’t vote for Tom Steyer or Pete Buttigieg.)

Last week, Morning Consult asked Buttigieg supporters who their second choice was and found them splitting pretty evenly: Sanders 21 percent, Joe Biden 19 percent, Warren 19 percent, and Mike Bloomberg 17 percent. If Buttigieg supporters do split that way, each of those four candidates would get another 2 to 3 percent, which could put some of them above the 15 percent threshold in certain states.

FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Afghan Withdrawal Deal Trump agrees to a 14-month timeline if the Taliban honor their security commitments.

Posted By on March 2nd, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-afghan-withdrawal-deal-11583106215?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

President Trump has made clear he wants all American troops out of Afghanistan, and on Saturday the U.S. signed an “agreement for bringing peace to Afghanistan” with the Taliban. The coming months will tell if this is a genuine path to peace or political cover for a U.S. exit.

The good news is that this agreement is better than what the U.S. had seemed to accept in September. The Taliban have killed thousands of Americans, and Mr. Trump shouldn’t reward them with a Camp David signing ceremony as he first suggested.

The Taliban, or at least their representatives, have agreed to negotiate with the elected Afghan government for the first time. The Taliban want to establish an Islamist emirate and have previously refused to talk to the Kabul government. The Taliban have also promised to reduce their attacks on Afghan civilians and troops, as a week long test leading to Saturday demonstrated is possible.

For the first time the Taliban have also forsworn support for al Qaeda and are promising to prevent Afghanistan from being a safe haven for any group planning attacks against the U.S. This is the reason the U.S. sent troops to the country after 9/11, and the deal makes clear this is the main American priority.

POLITICS Comments turned off

‘Mayor’ Pete Runs Out of Obama Speeches to Pilfer. Drops Out of Democratic President Race. By Victoria Taft

Posted By on March 2nd, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/election/mayor-pete-runs-out-of-obama-speeches-to-pilfer-drops-out-of-democratic-president-race/

Mayor Pete Buttigieg has told his staff that he’s pulling out of – suspending – his Democratic presidential campaign.

The former South Bend, Ind., mayor had his campaign staff leak the news to media outlets Sunday afternoon. Buttigieg was expected to speak to supporters in South Bend Sunday night.

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The “Israeli Apartheid” Accusation

Posted By on March 2nd, 2020

Who are the real perpetrators of apartheid? 

This new Glazov Gang episode features Diane Bederman, the author of the new book, The Serpent and the Red Thread: The Definitive Biography of Evil.

Diane discusses The “Israeli Apartheid” Accusation, and she asks: Who are the real perpetrators of apartheid? 

Don’t miss it!Watch Video: CLICK HERE.

https://jamieglazov.com/2020/03/01/glazov-gang-the-israeli-apartheid-accusation/

HISTORY Comments turned off

The lost congressman: What happened to Jeremiah Haralson?

Posted By on March 1st, 2020

https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/in-depth/news/2020/02/26/jeremiah-haralson-lost-congressman-alabama/2823015001/

The lost congressman

He was a slave at 18.

A state legislator at 24.

A congressman at 28.

And a prisoner at 48.

Jeremiah Haralson lived a remarkable life. Then he vanished.

Jeremiah Haralson listened as the ex-Confederate accused him of forgery. It was Feb. 13, 1877, and Haralson, a congressman from Selma, had testified to a U.S. Senate subcommittee about the violence and fraud that cost him his re-election to Congress from Alabama’s Black Belt.

Malcolm Graham, on hand to represent the state Democratic Party, dismissed Haralson’s descriptions of racial terror with a cynical languor. Local Democratic leaders told him no such intimidation occurred, and these cursory denials satisfied the former Confederate congressman.

So Graham tried to make Haralson the criminal. During questioning, Graham asked Haralson about the testimony of another witness who claimed that Haralson had forged an election ticket to get votes in Lowndes County.

“He said there were 163 votes cast for you there, and that there would not have been one if the voters had not been imposed upon by a counterfeit ticket you had circulated there,” Graham said.

Haralson could recite precinct names and vote totals from memory. Lowndes County was not strong for him. That was true. But people there knew Haralson: The son of a prominent Lowndes County planter once held him in bondage.

“I have a few personal friends in the county, you know, old man,” the former slave told the former defender of slavery. “There are a good many there that know me, and they vote for me on personal grounds.”

EDUCATION Comments turned off

It’s unsurprising that Ivy League colleges churn out dangerous leftists

Posted By on March 1st, 2020

https://www.bookwormroom.com/2020/02/27/its-unsurprising-that-ivy-league-colleges-churn-out-dangerous-leftists/

“…….

Ivy will also insinuate itself into your doors and windows, your vents, and your shutters. It will climb your walls, destroy your grout, pull down your bricks and siding, tear down your gutters, and generally wreak havoc everywhere it can go. All the while, the leaves continue to have that pretty, decorative ivy look. Even as it’s destroying everything it touches, it manages to look attractive.

In addition, every tendril has a gazillion roots and the vines have a habit of breaking off just as you think you’re about to pull a whole root system out successfully. Thus, no matter how much you manage to destroy above ground, you know you’ve left more vines and roots underground where they are unreachable. This means that it’s virtually impossible ever to rid yourself of ivy. All that you can do is maintain vigilance and attack it when even a single leaf appears anywhere.

It occurred to me today as I was struggling with the ivy destroying my planting beds, trying to tear down my bricks and gutters, strangling my other plants, and resisting my best efforts to track down every root and tendril that there is no difference between ivy and American socialism.

If socialists are confined to urban cocktail parties and a few university faculty lounges, they can be innocuous and even decorative and interesting. However, once you set them free, they destroy everything they touch.

On the surface, they might be grandmotherly figures like Elizabeth Warren (if you like nagging, pushy grandmothers), or perky little boys like Pete Buttigieg, or funny, crazy uncles like Bernie, but underneath they’re putting out tendrils that swamp and destroy everything. They entangle themselves in America’s institutions and eventually destroy them.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Panel at U. Michigan Blames Western Colonialism for Gender Violence Among Immigrants

Posted By on March 1st, 2020

https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/02/panel-at-u-michigan-blames-western-colonialism-for-gender-violence-among-immigrants/

“Gender Violence, Immigrant Vulnerability and the State: A Symposium”

Do you ever just sit back and marvel at the left’s ability to come up with things like this?

The College Fix reports:

In the latest example of higher education victimology, a panel at the University of Michigan discussed on Monday how Western colonialism is culpable for gender violence in the immigrant community.

According to The Michigan Daily, UM women’s studies professor Debotri Dhar, organizer of the “Gender Violence, Immigrant Vulnerability and the State: A Symposium” event, claimed that “residual ideals from the colonial era have resulted in immigrants of color being framed as burdens on the state” which contribute to “immigrant vulnerability and gender violence.”

Dhar added that in our current “very politically divisive” atmosphere, the situation surrounding immigrants, “our most vulnerable individuals,” can be overlooked.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Fool and his money: Good riddance, Tom Steyer By Monica Showalter

Posted By on March 1st, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/03/fool_and_his_money_good_riddance_tom_steyer.html

Well, it’s over.

A couple of years and $250 million later, Tom Steyer’s presidential run has left him exactly where he started in the presidential race, at zero.

The poor wretched monomaniac of greenie virtue now goes the way of Jay Inslee, the qualified, but leftist, governor of Washington state who, like Steyer, was also global warming bore and washed out because of it. You’d think maybe Steyer would have noticed how unimportant this ‘sky is falling’ greenie cause was with voters by that point, but nope, Steyer continued to sell that snake oil to voters, thinking a barrage of television ads would make them catch on. He never had a clue.

Now he has his clue, $250 million dollars later, no delegates, a pathetic third place finish in South Carolina, prompting him to finally cut his losses, and exit the race.

Actually, he probably had some clues, given that he changed his tune to South Carolina’s voters from global warming to ‘racial justice,’ something he claimed “not enough people” cared about but, trust him, he did, in what was an obvious pander for the black vote in South Carolina. Turns out another old white guy, Joe Biden, got there first, succeeding in that machine pol way of his, through endorsements from old-line black politicians such as Rep. James Clyburn — gaffes, exaggerations, and all.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

European Appeasement Is Alive and Well By Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld

Posted By on March 1st, 2020

https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/europe-appeasement/

The word “appeasement” evokes dark memories of the Munich 1938 agreement, in which Britain and France made far-reaching concessions to the aggressive German Nazi state in order to avoid violent conflict. The betrayed victim was Czechoslovakia, which was not even invited to the conference at which its fate was to be decided. The outbreak of WWII in 1939 showed, of course, that the agreement was a gross error in judgment. Sadly, the West does not appear to have learned much from Neville Chamberlain’s misguided proclamation of “peace in our time”.

The reality that antisemitism is an integral part of European culture is not the only issue dividing the EU and Israel. There is also the serious problem of chronic and habitual appeasement, though it is not often identified as such.

The quintessential example of Western appeasement in recent years was the 2015 nuclear agreement forged by the Obama administration with the Islamic Republic of Iran (known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA). The four other members of the Security Council plus Germany all signed this flawed agreement alongside the Americans. The pact, which was ostensibly intended to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of Tehran’s Islamist regime, allowed it to continue to design and test missiles and develop advanced centrifuges.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu appeared before the US Congress to protest the agreement—a highly unusual and undiplomatic act, but justified under the circumstances. Obama was appeasing an aggressive and hostile Iranian regime that made (and continues to make) unceasing threats to destroy the State of Israel.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Is Manhattan About To Get Drowned By The Sea? Francis Menton

Posted By on March 1st, 2020

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2020-2-29-is-manhattan-about-to-get-drowned-by-the-sea

Nothing, and I mean nothing, leads so quickly to the loss of all critical faculties as global warming hysteria.

One key claim in the maelstrom of global warming hype is the assertion that sea level will shortly rise and swamp coastal cities. I would put this claim in the category of total BS. For more detail than you would ever want to know on that subject, go to this link.

But for today’s purposes, assume that there is something to the claim of a big impending sea level rise. I live here in Manhattan, specifically Lower Manhattan (the southern part of the island). If sea level is about to rise and swamp coastal cities, Manhattan looks like ground zero, and Lower Manhattan in particular. We are an island surrounded by estuaries, otherwise known as the sea. Most of the southern half of our island, Lower Manhattan — the half with the high end business districts and pricey residential areas — rises up barely at all above sea level. Lower Manhattan has about 15 or so miles of shoreline, with the sea surrounding us on the East, West and South. The northern half of the island is hilly, and has much higher elevations; but in Lower Manhattan the first few blocks in from the waterfront are around 10 to 20 feet at best above mean high tide. If a big sea level rise is imminent, we are going under.

Belief in anthropogenic global warming and its associated natural disasters like sea level rise is an essential component of Manhattan groupthink. Therefore, it is clear that our politicians must “do something” about the impending calamity. But what? We’re not about to jack up some thousands of buildings by 30 or 50 feet each, even assuming that somebody could figure out how to do that.