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A Brave Soldier in the Fight for Minority Rights in Bangladesh By Janet Levy

Posted By on July 27th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/07/a_brave_soldier_in_the_fight_for_minority_rights_in_bangladesh.html

On July 17th, President Trump met with more than two dozen survivors of religious conflicts, including victims from Iraq, Tibet, China and Bangladesh.  Several individuals stepped forward at the Second Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom to tell their stories in hopes of informing him and gaining a commitment for intervention.

Among them was Priya Saha, an officer with the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council (BHBCUC), who was determined to obtain Trump’s assistance with the dire situation faced by minorities in her country.  She testified that since Bangladesh became independent in 1972 and Islam was declared the state religion five years later, non-Muslims have had their land confiscated and, among other atrocities, have been raped and murdered.  Millions of people have disappeared or have fled the country, she said.

As a result of her testimony, the government threatened Saha with sedition charges, angry mobs demonstrated outside her home, she and her family have been targeted on social media and she was expelled from the council.  All this occurred in a Muslim country which claims to observe religious freedoms and declares that all faiths live in harmony.  

As the former organization secretary for the non-profit BHBCUC, Saha is well-versed in the problems resulting from the infringement of minority rights in Bangladesh.  The organization was established  in 1988 to protect the rights of religious and ethnic minorities in the country after Islam was instituted as the state religion by constitutional amendment in 1977.  Secularism had originally been a fundamental principle of Bangladesh’s 1972 Constitution.  But this founding principle was altered by then-President, Ziaur Rahman, who replaced the non-sectarian text with a commitment to the “absolute trust and faith in Almighty Allah.”  Over the years, many challenges arose against the constitutional amendment amid calls for Bangladesh to return to secularism.  All have been rejected and Islam remains as the official state religion.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Computer-based Teaching of Remedial English Skills Just Doesn’t Work By David Solway

Posted By on July 27th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/07/computerbased_teaching_of_remedial_english_skills_just_doesnt_work.html

College administrators and pedagogues, confronted with the incontrovertible signs of intellectual miasma among their students and perhaps unconsciously aware that they have raised a generation of toffee-nosed misfits and incompetents, have responded by installing a plethora of writing and language courses, mainly of the digital variety. They believe that computer instruction in grammar and syntax will redress the balance by teaching students how to write and think.

The evidence shows otherwise. Nonetheless, many teachers continue to support the online language project as a boon to students who need to amend their so-called “writing skills.” These teachers, many of whom are former colleagues, claim that student reading practices and writing abilities actually improve thanks to three-hour classes in which postulants stare into computer screens, interminably scrolling away, nimbly surfing the Net and sending email messages to one another.

The claim is disingenuous and needs to be put in context. Though some instructors deal with second-language students for whom Web-based drills are pro forma, native-born students have also been subjected to the same laboratory practices with little or nothing to show for them. Many write and speak as if they were indeed of foreign extraction — this is no hyperbole — and their academic work, in tandem with the expression of their ideas, is often, like, you know, embarrassing.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Nadler’s Trump Hunt Is Dead and He’s the Only One Who Doesn’t Know By Stephen Kruiser

Posted By on July 27th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/nadlers-trump-hunt-is-dead-and-hes-the-only-one-who-doesnt-know/

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) on Friday outlined details of what he and the House Judiciary Committee will continue doing to further beat the dead horse that is his witch hunt investigation into President Trump.

To much of America, it came off as more of a cry for help. Here is a thirty-six second snippet of Nadler’s babble-fest:

House Judiciary Cmte. will file an application today for the grand jury material underlying the Mueller report, Chairman Nadler says.

For the past couple of years Democrats have been waiting for Robert Mueller to be their Santa Claus, delivering them a litany of impeachable offenses all neatly wrapped up with a pretty bow on top.

When Santa wrote them a letter in the form of the special counsel report and it didn’t include any clear mention of the presents, they were convinced that he would most definitely bring them in person.

So they subpoenaed him.

When Santa came down the Capitol Hill chimney on Wednesday all he brought with him to give the Democrats was a big bag of coal, which he then awkwardly delivered.

Almost everyone but the Democrats knew it was coal.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

U.S. Supreme Court lets Trump use disputed funds for border wall

Posted By on July 27th, 2019

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday handed President Donald Trump a victory by letting his administration redirect $2.5 billion in money approved by Congress for the Pentagon to help build his promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border even though lawmakers refused to provide funding.

The conservative-majority court on a 5-4 vote with the court’s liberals in dissent blocked in full a ruling by a federal judge in California barring the Republican president from spending the money on the basis that Congress did not specifically authorize the funds to be spent on the wall project fiercely opposed by Democrats and Mexico’s government.

“Wow! Big VICTORY on the Wall. The United States Supreme Court overturns lower court injunction, allows Southern Border Wall to proceed. Big WIN for Border Security and the Rule of Law!” Trump tweeted just minutes after the court acted.

A brief order explaining the court’s decision said the government “made a sufficient showing” that the groups challenging the decision did not have grounds to bring a lawsuit.

In a highly unusual move, Trump on Feb. 15 declared a national emergency in a bid to fund the wall without congressional approval, an action Democrats said exceeded his powers under the U.S. Constitution and usurped the authority of Congress.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Why I Am Not Celebrating the Mueller Hearings: Diana West

Posted By on July 26th, 2019

https://www.theepochtimes.com/why-i-am-not-celebrating-the-mueller-hearings_3016865.html

I am certainly no stranger to the far end of a limb, but this time, I am really out there. I watched the Mueller hearings and despaired. I saw the Original Sin of Trump-Russia — “Russia hacked the DNC,” shaped by time and “messaging” into “Russian interference in 2016 on behalf on Donald Trump” — enter the record, accepted and even regurgitated by the GOP.

But Mueller gave a foggy performance! He never even read his own report! Impeachment is dead! The response by the estimable Mollie Hemingway typifies conservative satisfaction.

I rubbed my eyes, tried to smile, but it didn’t work. I still felt snookered and betrayed by Republicans who inexplicably failed to take the kill shot and win a victory for the country by exposing the whole rotten Deep State conspiracy, enabled and amplified by the MSM, to concoct a tale of a massive Russian cyber-strike on our democracy supposedly designed to prevent Hillary Clinton from being elected. This Big Lie has not only delegitimized Trump’s presidency now and forever, it simultaneously aligns Trump supporters — American patriots — with our adversaries in the Kremlin. Believe me, this will come back and haunt us all when Commissars Schiff, Tlaib, Brennan and the rest of the Party get real power.

Why did no Republican want to pull the pin on Russian hacking? I went back to a June 2017 op-ed I wrote by the same name: “Pulling the Pin on Russian Hacking.” Change the names around and it could run this morning.

About those Comey hearings.

Not one US senator asked former FBI Director James Comey to account for the sinister fact that the source of the explosive determination that “Russia hacked the DNC” computer system is a DNC contractor, not the FBI.

Not one US Senator asked why Comey’s FBI deferred to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s DNC when the DNC refused to permit FBI forensics specialists to examine the DNC computer system; or why the FBI was never able to examine John Podesta’s personal devices, either. Not one member of the Senate Intelligence Committe inquired as to why the DNC servers have not, after all of this time, ever been re-examined by the FBI; or whether it is just possible that this same DNC contractor putting forward the DNC/Russian hacking charge might have destroyed the DNC computer system.

MEDIA Comments turned off

Fox’s Donna, Geraldo, and Whitewashing Juan : Gerald Honigman

Posted By on July 26th, 2019

http://q4j-middle-east.com

Channel hopping, I usually can’t help but settle on Fox News for such programming…and at times I have problems with that choice too. So I turn to the wildlife or fishing channels instead.

Fox’s recent hiring of folks like the unscrupulous Democrat honcho (honcha?), Donna Brazile, is a case in point. She and her cohort  south Florida Congressional Democrat Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, would stop at nothing to get their guy or gal elected: in Brazile’s case, feeding at least one question to Hillary Clinton in a major debate. And that’s just what she got caught doing. So, CNN axes her–and then Fox hires her.

No other Lefties in town to choose from for “fair and balanced” reporting?

While there’s been some other problems, it’s the next one that painfully lingers, causing repeated bouts of severe indigestion…

I don’t know what Fox is paying Brazile for her irreplaceable wisdom, but I do know that, when a current co-host of  The Five and frequent participant on some other programs as well, Juan Williams, was hired, he came aboard with a three year, $2 million contract in 2010. I’m sure that has increased substantially since then.

Not only does he continue to be hard to stomach nowadays for anyone with neurons firing properly, but I can’t help remembering a particular day, years ago, when I was driving home from work and listening to National Public Radio.

HISTORY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

THE TRAGIC FIGHT OVER A ZIONIST LEADER’S FINAL RESTING PLACE by Moshe Phillips

Posted By on July 26th, 2019

https://www.thej.ca/post/the-tragic-fight-over-a-zionist-leader-s-final-resting-place https://herutna.org/

The anniversary of the passing of a Jewish leader is often an occasion to reflect on the deceased’s life and legacy, and the death of the Zionist leader in August 1940 is no different. 

But in Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s case, the controversy over his re-interment, decades later, is also a matter of significance—and offers important lessons for our own era.

Jabotinsky was one of the most dynamic and influential Zionist orators of the 20th century. Speeches were vital for inspiring the masses—especially the downtrodden masses of interwar Eastern Europe. He exhorted the Jews of Russia and Poland to take pride in their heritage, to recognize that violent anti-Semitism was on the horizon, and to prepare to settle in the Land of Israel.

Jabotinsky addressing the 1931 World Zionist Congress

But Jabotinsky was much more than just a speechmaker; he also was a man of action. He was the founder, in 1917, of the Jewish Legion, the first Jewish military force in nearly two thousand years. He created the Haganah, in 1920, to protect the Jews of Palestine against Arab pogromists, and spent years in a British prison for the “crime” of organizing Jewish self-defense (He was made a member of the OBE – Order of The British Empire – 2 years later – ed.). He was the spiritual father of the Irgun Zvai Leumi, the underground Jewish militia that fought for Jewish independence.

Two of Jabotinsky’s most devoted followers, Jewish underground leaders Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, would later serve as prime minister of the State Of Israel that their leader did not live to see.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Humanitarian Hoax of the 2019-2020 Equality Act: Killing America With Kindness – hoax 41 by Linda Goudsmit

Posted By on July 26th, 2019

 http://goudsmit.pundicity.com/22987/the-humanitarian-hoax-of-the-2019-2020-equality

  http://goudsmit.pundicity.com  http://lindagoudsmit.com

The Humanitarian Hoax is a deliberate and deceitful tactic of presenting a destructive policy as altruistic. The humanitarian huckster presents himself as a compassionate advocate when in fact he is the disguised enemy.

The 116th Congress 2019-2020 Equality Act is a Democrat bill prohibiting discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity in multiple areas including public accommodations and facilities, education, federal funding, employment, housing, credit, and the jury system. Sounds great – what’s the problem?

The Equality Act “updates” the definitions of three terms: sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity, and “expands” the categories of public accommodations. On May 17, 2019 H.R. 5: Equality Act passed the Democrat controlled House with unanimous support from Democrats plus eight Republican votes. Next, it goes to the Republican controlled Senate for consideration. Why the partisan split?

The Equality Act seeks to amend and expand the expressly recognized “non-discrimination” categories in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The Civil Rights Act was designed to provide equal protection under the law to African Americans and to women in 20th century America making it illegal to discriminate against them based on race, ethnicity, or gender. In 1964 the word “gender” was specifically understood to mean male or female in the biological, chromosomal, colloquial sense of the word. In the 21st century the leftist Democrat party is selling sameness as equality and feelings as facts – they are not the same.

Even the name Equality Act is part of the deception. The name evokes compassion in the casual observer, but there is nothing equal about the Equality Act, it is a colossal humanitarian hoax that redefines maleness and femaleness with the words “gender identity.” This is how it works.

No longer satisfied with laws prohibiting discrimination based on gender, the radical left has taken aim at the biological definition of maleness and femaleness making it a subjective matter of opinion rather than an objective matter of chromosomes. Gender identity is not the same as gender. Why is this important?

Facts are not feelings. Facts support the objective reality that is the foundation of biological science, laws, and ordered liberty. Feelings support the subjective reality of political science, the arts, and psychology. We can have feelings about facts, but feelings cannot change facts in a society of ordered liberty. The danger of confusing objective and subjective reality is discussed at length in “The Humanitarian Hoax of Multiple Realities.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Day #TheResistance’s Dream Died By Julie Kelly

Posted By on July 26th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/07/25/the-day-

It wasn’t supposed to end this way.

Donald Trump, not Robert Mueller, was supposed to be broken and vanquished at the hands of his political foes. Donald Trump, not Robert Mueller, was supposed to suffer a legacy-ending humiliation on national television that would bury his tough-guy reputation and taint his past achievements. The supporters of Donald Trump, not the supporters of Robert Mueller, were supposed to slink away in embarrassment, desperately searching for any calcified crumb of credibility to salvage their beaten hero.

The climax of #TheResistance’s fantasy to take down Donald Trump wasn’t supposed to end with long faces at MSNBC and CNN, or with reporters at the Washington Post and the New York Times admitting defeat. 

These are the kinds of things Washington Post opinionators write about Donald Trump, not about Mueller.

Panelists on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” were supposed to be ebullient after watching their savior in action, not ranting like lunatics about the need for someone to “punch” President Trump. The Lawfare folks were supposed to be popping champagne corks, not turning on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for refusing to play along with their impeachment crusade. And it was Team Mueller, not Donald Trump, who was supposed to declare victory.

Stumping the Prosecutor
But the dream died on July 24, 2019, when former Special Counsel Robert Mueller not only failed to deliver the goods against Trump but revealed that #TheResistance, once again, had pinned its hopes on a flawed actor not up to the task. Just like the cast of conquerors who came before him—Stormy Daniels, Michael Avenatti, Michael Cohen, and Omarosa, just to name a few—Robert Mueller slouched out of the spotlight after failing to best the Bad Orange Man.

The spectacle in front of the House Judiciary Committee and the House Intelligence Committee was not what the Democrats expected but it was exactly what they deserved. After delaying the scheduled hearing for a week, Mueller reluctantly appeared but only after negotiating a deal that his chief of staff could attend alongside him. Aaron Zebley was sworn in as a witness by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), but Republican members refused to direct any questions to him.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Warren Predicts An Economic Crash: Her Policies Will Guarantee It John Merline

Posted By on July 26th, 2019

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/07/26/warren-predicts-an-economic-crash-her-policies-will-guarantee-it/

Earlier this week Sen. Elizabeth Warren said that an economic crash is right around the corner. She’s right. But it’s her own plan that would bring about the collapse she’s predicting.

Warren says that she sees all the signs of a “coming economic crash” that she — and she alone, apparently — saw before the 2008 financial crisis.

Let’s leave aside the dubiousness of Warren’s self-proclaimed economic forecasting abilities, and the fact that Democrats have been predicting an economic calamity since November 2016.

Here’s her central point:

“The country’s economic foundation is fragile. A single shock could bring it all down,” she proclaimed. To emphasize the point, she made it again. “With a vulnerable economy, we should be reducing the odds of potential shocks that could push us into a downturn.”

If that’s true, then Warren should abandon her entire economic plan. It is rife with massive self-imposed shocks that would destroy one entire industry, throw millions out of work, double the size of the federal government, raise taxes to unheard-of levels, and give Washington effective control over corporate decision-making.