The Unyielding Iranian Menace Shoshana Bryen

www.jewishpolicycenter.org

There were apparently two groups of invaders at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad — hordes of rioting protesters in the streets and well-covered, professional-looking, careful militia members entering the out building. Security forces (and some contractors) used tear gas and stun guns against the demonstrators as the United States protected its embassy compound — sovereign American territory by international convention.

A bit of U.S.-Iranian history is instructive here. When the Iranians overran the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979, President Jimmy Carter dubbed the Ayatollah Khomeini “a holy man” with whom, presumably, one could do business. President Barak Obama was certain, in 2015, that “the only alternative to the JCPOA is war with Iran,” presumably meaning that the so-called “Iran nuclear deal” was the way to avoid war and restore Iran to the family of nations.

The result of Carter’s assistance to the ayatollah, and Obama’s lapse in memory — the Iranians had actually been in a declared state of war with the United States (and Israel) since 1979 — was to allow the juggernaut of Shiite expansionist theology to ruin Iran, invade Iraq, incubate ISIS, occupy Syria, bring its proxy to power and ruin Lebanon, run the Houthi war in Yemen, undermine Bahrain, attack Saudi Arabia, and spread its tentacles across Africa. And this transpired all while Iran violated the U.N. ban on Iranian arms imports and exports, the U.N. ban on the development of Iranian ballistic missiles, and the P5+1-ratified-by-the-U.N. ban on the development of nuclear weapons technology.

2019’s Adult of the Year Attorney General William Barr has kept his promises and his independence. By Kimberley A. Strassel

https://www.wsj.com/articles/2019s-adult-of-the-year-11578009044?emailToken=

Person-of-the-year awards are almost always bestowed on men and women who already meet with fawning praise. Let’s instead craft an award based on a person’s willingness to speak truth to power—whether to the press, the boss, or to partisan operators. Call it Adult of the Year. The winner: Attorney General William Barr.

President Trump nominated Mr. Barr in December 2018, and for a moment he received the respect he deserves. The press had grown accustomed to demeaning all Trump nominees, but was stymied by Mr. Barr’s impressive career and bipartisan legal support. A Justice Department and Central Intelligence Agency veteran, he served as attorney general from 1990-91 with distinction. Media outlets had to acknowledge his “pedigree,” and CNN even quoted an unnamed Justice Department lawyer who had been “nervous” about a Trump pick but pronounced Mr. Barr “a great choice” because “he’s tough he’s principled and he’s independent.”

Mr. Barr remains all those things. He has been vilified precisely because he has maintained an impartial view of the Justice Department and has kept his promises. The great hope—and demand—of the Russia-collusion crowd was that Mr. Barr—as a longtime man of the institution—would circle the department’s wagons. His refusal to do so has made him a threat.

And so commenced one of the more obvious, not to mention nasty, delegitimization campaigns in modern Beltway history. Journalists and Democrats accused him of manipulating the rollout of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report in March. They pounced on his decision in May to name U.S. Attorney John Durham to investigate the origins of the Federal Bureau of Investigation probe into the 2016 Trump campaign, accusing both of engaging in “conspiracy theories.” CONTINUE AT SITE

Cardinal Pell and the Burden of Proof Peter West

The conviction of the guilty is just; it is the unremarkable business of a just criminal jurisprudence; but the conviction of the innocent strikes at the heart of justice. If it happens through error or negligence, it is bad enough; when it happens by design, it is an abomination that corrodes trust in the law itself.

Maimonides in the 12th century, in this commentary on Exodus 23:7 (Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked) concluded, “it is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent man to death once in a way.”

Practical men, especially those who reasonably expect never to suffer the consequences of flawed jurisprudence, have taken a more pragmatic view than Maimonides. So English Chief Justice John Fortesque, in 1471, revised the number drastically. “Indeed I would rather wish twenty evil doers to escape death through pity, than one man to be unjustly condemned.” Later still, Lord Blackstone in the late 1760s widened the scope to all crime and punishment, writing, “Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” This last has become a fundamental maxim of common law criminal justice, generally known as Blackstone’s Ratio.

Statesmen, and the secret police, can have their own sense of the practical. Otto van Bismarck supposedly remarked that “it is better that ten innocent men suffer than one guilty man escape.” Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Cheka, perpetrator of the Red Terror, head of the OGPU/NKVD, was more to the point. “Better to execute ten innocent men than to leave one guilty man alive.” One of his successors, Nikolay Yezhov, restated his argument. “Better that ten innocent people should suffer than one spy get away.” What he meant by “suffer” was illustrated, as in the pictures below, when he fell foul of the Great Purge which he had orchestrated: he was executed in 1940.

French Philosopher: ‘Left-wing Islamism and antisemitism have a future’ One of France’s most important philosophers and a widely recognized public intellectual, Alain Finkielkraut, sounded strong alarm bells over the rise of left-wing Islamism and radical antisemitism.By Benjamin Weinthal

https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/French-Philosopher-Left-wing-Islamism-and-antisemitism-have-a-future-612682

“In France, it [antisemitism] is part of the extreme Left and a growing part of the population with a migration background,” he told the German magazine Der Spiegel on Saturday. “It is particularly worrying that the extreme left defends radical, antisemitic Islam for two reasons: ideologically, because for them, the Muslims are the new Jews, the disenfranchised; but also for tactical reasons, because today there are many more Muslims than Jews in France. So, left Islamism also has a future, and I’m afraid of that.”

In February, a Yellow Vests protester hurled antisemitic insults at Finkielkraut, calling him a “dirty Zionist shit” who should “go back to Tel Aviv.”

“Antisemitism is not a thing of the past, it even has a future,” Finkielkraut said. “I was actually the object of aggression with a proven antisemitic character. But I was not called ‘dirty Jew’ but ‘dirty  Zionist shit.’ The peculiarity of contemporary antisemitism is that it uses the language of anti-racism. Because of the existence of Israel, the Jews are now considered racists. ‘Filthy Jew’ – that was a morally disgraceful term. ‘Dirty racist’ – that is highly moral today.”

According to Der Spiegel, in Finkielkraut’s new autobiography, In First Person, he writes about how he and the leftist, gay philosopher Michel Foucault opposed the loathing of Israel during the 1970s.

“Michel Foucault was very attached to Israel,” Finkielkraut said. “That is forgotten today. He found the United Nations resolution which put racism and Zionism on the same level as intolerable. That was one of the reasons for the break between him and Gilles Deleuze, the other great philosopher of the era. The left-wing intellectuals around Deleuze were just beginning to demonize the State of Israel beyond legitimate criticism of Israeli politics. It occurred to me as much as to Foucault.”

Iran Can No Longer Rely on Shia Militias to Fight its Wars by Con Coughlin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15368/iran-shia-militias-iraq

The President’s robust response to the recent upsurge in Iranian-sponsored violence in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East certainly appears at odds with the perception that he has no interest in conducting military operations in the Middle East, and that his main objective is to reduce Washington’s military presence in the region ahead of this year’s presidential election contest.

And it should also send a clear signal to Tehran that its reliance on Shia militias to carry out attacks on its behalf will no longer be tolerated.

The intense pressure Iran is facing over its continued meddling in Iraq is the key factor behind the recent upsurge of violence in the Middle East that has resulted in American warplanes carrying out their biggest attack in a decade on Iran-backed militias.

Ever since the ayatollahs came to power more than 40 years ago, they have sought to distract attention away from their domestic unpopularity by getting Iran-backed Shia militias to carry out high profile attacks.

From the devastating car bomb attacks the Iranian-backed Hizbollah militia carried out against American bases in Beirut in the 1980s to the more recent attacks on Saudi Arabia’s Aramco oil facilities in October 2019, the Iranian regime has repeatedly used its proxy Shia militias to great effect to distract attention away from its domestic travails.

The beauty of this arrangement, so far as the ayatollahs are concerned, is that, by relying on Shia militias to do their dirty work, whether it is firing missiles at Israel or carrying out assassinations in Europe, Tehran is able to deny any involvement in wrongdoing.

No longer. By launching a series of air strikes against Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria on Sunday night, the Trump administration has made it abundantly clear that it will no longer tolerate Tehran’s denials of its involvement in attacks against the US and its allies.

Moreover, after Washington accused Iran of being responsible for the subsequent attacks against the US Embassy in Baghdad that followed the air strikes, Tehran is risking a direct military confrontation with the US if it persists with the underhand tactic of employing proxies to carry out attacks on its behalf.

Can Taking Cannabis Cause Permanent Harm?

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15367/can-taking-cannabis-cause-permanent-harm

Gatestone Institute to examine the impact of legalized marijuana in 2020. Details to follow…

STAY TUNED!-This is a major public health issue……rsk

A Fracking Ban Would Trigger Global Recession Mark P. Mills

https://www.manhattan-institute.org/issues-2020-economic-consequences-fracking-ban-recession

“”A fracking ban, regardless of motivation, is anchored in magical thinking that non-hydrocarbon energy sources could fill a massive global energy shortfall if the U.S. exited the world stage as a major supplier of oil and natural gas. Both fuels will be critical for the global economy for decades to come. The key issue is not whether wind and solar can supply more energy—they can and will—but whether a future American administration would reverse the progress of the last decade in lowering energy prices and enhancing geopolitical stability.”

Reality

The extraction of oil and gas through the techniques of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (colloquially, “fracking”) has catapulted the United States into leadership of the world’s energy markets. Since 2007, fracking has doubled U.S. oil production and increased gas production by 60%. Instead of a major importer, America is rapidly becoming the largest exporter of oil and is expected to supply the majority of net new energy traded on global markets over the next two decades.

If the U.S. imposed a fracking ban, the supply disruption would trigger the biggest oil and natural gas price spikes in history—almost certainly by more than 200%—which would, in turn, tip the world into recession. Even the expectation that a ban could be enacted would destabilize markets. U.S. imports and the trade imbalance would soar, as would consumers’ spending on energy. To keep the lights on, America would have to nearly double the quantity of coal burned, as well as import up to 1 million barrels of oil per day for dual-fueled power plants that would lose access to natural gas.

13 Hours vs 13 Minutes – That’s The Difference Between Two Presidents When It Comes To Saving American Lives…

https://dcwhispers.com/13-hours-vs-13-minutes-thats-the-difference-between-two-presidents-when-it-comes-to-saving-american-lives/

When the Benghazi Massacre was underway, then-President Barack Obama went to sleep. It took 13 hours for help to arrive. Sadly, that was more than enough time for militants to kill and injure Americans, including the first U.S. ambassador killed in the line of duty since, ironically, the Iranian attack on the U.S. embassy during the Carter presidency.
This week in Iraq it took President Donald Trump just 13 minutes to give the order for help. The militants quickly scattered and lives were saved.
What a remarkable difference a different Commander in Chief can make when it comes to keeping Americans safe even in the most dangerous parts of the world.

Colleges Dupe Parents and Taxpayers The high cost of “diversity” being the highest goal of higher education. Walter Williams

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/colleges-dupe-parents-and-taxpayers-walter-williams/

Colleges have been around for centuries. College students have also been around for centuries. Yet, college administrators assume that today’s students have needs that were unknown to their predecessors. Those needs include diversity and equity personnel, with massive budgets to accommodate.

According to Minding the Campus, Penn State University’s Office of Vice Provost for Educational Equity employs 66 staff members. The University of Michigan currently employs a diversity staff of 93 full-time diversity administrators, officers, directors, vice provosts, deans, consultants, specialists, investigators, managers, executive assistants, administrative assistants, analysts and coordinators. Amherst College, with a student body of 1,800 students employs 19 diversity people. Top college diversity bureaucrats earn salaries six figures, in some cases approaching $500,000 per year. In the case of the University of Michigan, a quarter (26) of their diversity officers earn annual salaries of more than $100,000. If you add generous fringe benefits and other expenses, you could easily be talking about $13 million a year in diversity costs. The Economist reports that University of California, Berkeley, has 175 diversity bureaucrats.

Diversity officials are a growing part of a college bureaucracy structure that outnumbers faculty by 2 to 2.5 depending on the college. According to “The Campus Diversity Swarm,” an article from Mark Pulliam, a contributing editor at Law and Liberty, which appeared in the City Journal (10/10/2018), diversity people assist in the cultivation of imaginary grievances of an ever-growing number of “oppressed” groups. Pulliam writes: “The mission of campus diversity officers is self-perpetuating. Affirmative action (i.e., racial and ethnic preferences in admissions) leads to grievance studies. Increased recognition of LGBTQ rights requires ever-greater accommodation by the rest of the student body. Protecting ‘vulnerable’ groups from ‘hate speech’ and ‘microaggressions’ requires speech codes and bias-response teams (staffed by diversocrats). Complaints must be investigated and adjudicated (by diversocrats). Fighting ‘toxic masculinity’ and combating an imaginary epidemic of campus sexual assault necessitate consent protocols, training, and hearing procedures — more work for an always-growing diversocrat cadre. Each newly recognized problem leads to a call for more programs and staffing.”

Here’s What’s Going to Happen in 2020 Kurt Schlichter Kurt Schlichter

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2019/12/30/heres-what-is-whats-going-to-happen-in-2020-n2558641

If you thought you can’t top the stupidity we experienced in 2019, brace yourself for 2020 because it’s going to be a pronoun-fueled weather cult pinko freakshow. But it won’t be all amusing antics – the left hates us and its ugly mask is coming off, revealing the even uglier fascist visage lurking beneath. If you listen to them, and if you aren’t an insufferable goo goo wimp who refuses to hear them, you will know that they intend to silence you, even imprison you, and deprive you of the ability to participate in your own governance. So, if you want to live as a free man or woman – if they have their way, they’ll destroy you for recognizing that unalterable binary – best be ready. 

Be motivated to engage in the cultural melee. 

Vote. 

And buy guns and ammo. As my favorite literary creation famously says, no one has ever regretted being too well armed.

With that in mind, here are my predictions for 2020:

10. Trump Will Be Impeached…Yawn: Poor, flailing Nancy Pelosi will eventually transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate, thereby actually impeaching the President. Now, whether Pelosi’s current antics constitute “impeachment” or not is irrelevant, except denying it due to her gamesmanship is fun because it owns the libs. No one cares, and to the limited extent we normal people do, this alleged impeachment is a badge of honor for the President. Her fringe-driven delay tactics make the Dems look dumber, and eventually she will send it to the Senate where Cocaine Mitch will kill it. Sure, some of the useless GOP caucus will make noises about how this clusterfark must be taken seriously because principles and honor and stuff. Saps. They just better take seriously that we in the base will electorally eviscerate them if they vote to convict. Maybe Mitt the Gimp will vote for it because he’s weak and stupid. Maybe Senator Iglookowski (RINO-AK) will too. But in the end, Trump will triumph and yet again humiliate his opponents.

9. The Economy Will Stay Strong, Disappointing Democrats: The party of the workin’ man is already in mourning because the Trump economy has finally brought some prosperity back to the workin’ man instead of concentrating wealth among the globalist liberal gentry that Obama served. The media will cheerlead for a recession; the Democrats will try to ignore the new Roaring 20s, but America’s success will remain a nightmare for liberals during 2020.