ISRAEL Comments turned off

Max Blumenthal Channels Leni Riefenstahl and Celebrates Hamas: Andrew Harrod

Posted By on June 21st, 2018

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/06/max-blumenthal-channels-leni-riefenstahl-the-triumph-of-hamas

“Can any parallels be made then to Nazism and Judaism?” asked a questioner in a conference room packed with about 100 people at the June 9 screening of Killing Gaza at Washington, DC’s rabidly anti-Israel Jerusalem Fund. This shockingly absurd query typified the atmosphere surrounding the latest screed against Israel produced by “gonzo journalist” Max Blumenthal and his equally deranged colleague Dan Cohen.

“Judeo-Nazi” analogies are nothing new for the Jerusalem Fund presenters Blumenthal and Cohen. Cohen has previously described how their film about Israel’s 2014 Operation Protective Edge military campaign against Hamas terrorists in Gaza “was inspired by” a past “bracing portrait of the Nazi death camps.” Blumenthal has similarly written that the film chronicles “Israel’s wholesale criminality” and “sadistic Israeli violence.”

Blumenthal and Cohen have discussed Killing Gaza on Christopher Hedges’ On Contact talk show on RT, the Russian state-funded television channel thatregistered in 2017 under America’s Foreign Agent Registration Act. Like many other American leftists, he has found a home at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s propaganda mouthpiece, where RT newscasters like the 9/11 TrutherAbby Martin go to extreme lengths to vilify Israel and its use of “Hitler’s methods.” RT’s Israel-hatred befits Hedges, who wrote in a review of Killing Gaza that “toxic racism and militarism infect Israeli society.”

Cohen told host Hedges that Gaza is a “man-made intentional hell for what Israel considers non-humans” and made false allegations about Israel depriving Gaza of water. In contrast, Israel has over the years almost doubled the amount of water supplied to the Palestinian territories under the 1993 Oslo Accords and hasworked to improve Gaza’s desalinization and water treatment capabilities. Hedges concurred that the film supposedly documented common canards about “one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters,” notwithstanding Gaza’scommercial development and obesity public health problems.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

“Immigration” Sydney M. Williams

Posted By on June 21st, 2018

http://swtotd.blogspot.com/

No human with an ounce of compassion wants to see children separated from their parents. The bond, especially between a mother who bore and gave birth to a child, is unbreakable. Yet, plying heart strings will not resolve the problem we have with illegals (or smugglers claiming to be parents) who seek asylum, or have chosen to by-pass the legal immigration process and have crossed without papers into our country, by way of an unsecured border.

As everyone knows, border guards have only four choices when families are caught at the border, attempting to cross illegally, without proper authorization: Violators can be sent back into Mexico, which was one step the Obama Administration took. The entire family can be released into our country, pending a hearing to which they would voluntarily have to return, another choice the Obama Administration made. (Statistics suggest that 80% of those who disappear into the nether reaches of the country do not show up for scheduled hearings.)Three, the entire family (including the children)can be incarcerated, pending a hearing. And four, the parents can be incarcerated, pending a hearing, while the children are housed separately from their parents. The first choice commits the family to extreme hardship, as Mexico has no interest in taking them in. They must return, unescorted, to their country of origin. The second encourages the illegal entry into our country of not only asylum seekers but potential terrorists and those who choose not to play by the rules. The third would be cruelest to the children. The fourth, the option chosen by the Trump Administration[1](and distasteful to all, including Mr. Trump), highlights the need for comprehensive immigration reform – something both Parties in Congress, the author of our laws, has studiously avoided. Mr. Trump has been blamed, but the real culprit is Congress. Especially cynical are the misanthropists in the media and Washington who let crocodile tears detract from their failed policies

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The IG Report Should End Mueller’s Obstruction Investigation By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on June 21st, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/mueller-investigation-obstruction-ig-report-should-end/

The same logic that spared FBI and Justice Department officials harsher treatment in Michael Horowitz’s report should inoculate the president.

While generally cautious about criticizing Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on the Clinton-emails investigation, Trump supporters have taken aim at its chief logical flaw: Although key investigators harbored anti-Trump and pro-Clinton bias, and even made statements indicating an intention to act on that bias, the IG did not find that this bias was the proximate cause of any particular investigative decision.

This conclusion is easy to rebut; I did so myself in a column last week. Yet, the Trump camp should also be embracing it. Why? Because if this is the Justice Department’s position, then Special Counsel Robert Mueller has no business investigating the president for obstruction.

The IG’s rationale has been vulnerable to attack because of the way it has been distorted by FBI director Christopher Wray and congressional Democrats. They blithely assert that the IG found no bias in the FBI’s decision-making. That claim insults our intelligence.

The report documents a surfeit of political animus. Chapter Twelve, in which the IG marshals text messages and other recorded communications between investigators, is breathtaking. The report does not say that the investigators’ manifest loathing of Trump, their expressed intent to derail his presidential bid, and their desire to bring about his impeachment were irrelevant. It says that (a) because there were legitimate policy considerations that could have informed every one of their investigative decisions, and (b) because, as a matter of law, the FBI and Justice Department have broad discretion to make such judgment calls, (c) it is not the IG’s place to second-guess those decisions.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

No, Americans Who Want Border Security Aren’t Anti-Immigrant After accounting for taxes illegal immigrants pay, we’re still supporting them to the tune of some $123 billion. Don’t we need that money for the opioid crisis, infrastructure, and aircraft carriers?By Donna Carol Voss

Posted By on June 21st, 2018

http://thefederalist.com/2018/06/21/no-americans-want-border-wall-arent-anti-immigrant/

A recent Quinnipiac poll confirms what most of us already know: Republicans favor a border wall, Democrats don’t. In April, 81 percent of Republicans favored a wall, while only 4 percent of Democrats did.

In the eyes of the Left, this makes Republicans “the bad guys.” They are portrayed as a stain on our national character — “That’s not who we are” — and a shameful blight on our heritage — “We’re a nation of immigrants.” Worst of all, they are portrayed as anti-immigrant.

But they’re not. They’re anti-illegal immigration, and there’s a big difference. It isn’t personal.

Any decent person’s heart breaks at the plight of Central American parents worried sick that MS-13 will recruit their children, if they aren’t killed by violence first. (Read up on what happens to unaccompanied minors once they get here, however. Out of 214 recent MS-13 gang arrests, 30 percent had crossed the border illegally as unaccompanied minors.)

Drug cartels in Mexico feed on broken families, poverty, and hopelessness, aided by rife government corruption and an astronomical murder rate (25,340 in 2017). We want to rescue as many of these people as we can, but there’s a limit to how many can join our country every year. We have a right to control who gets in, for our own survival.

It is not anti-immigrant to want to block illegal aliens from pouring into our country. Even if every single one were a squeaky clean Mother Teresa, the sheer fact of their presence robs citizens and legal residents of something precious. Some of the calculus is economic, some isn’t.
Illegal Immigrants Are a Big Net Economic Loss

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Peter Smith : Wrongheaded About ‘Rights’

Posted By on June 21st, 2018

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2018/06/wrongheaded-rights/

To maintain our right not to be assaulted and perhaps killed we all, as individuals — men and, yes, women — must keep our wits about us. This is such a straightforward proposition it shouldn’t need to be explained, least of all to the Premier of a state whose courts regularly turn monsters loose.

I don’t want to comment directly on the horrific and tragic rape and murder of Eurydice Dixon in a Melbourne park in the early hours last Wednesday. It is so sad and beyond anything that words can convey. I want to comment first on the Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and second on women’s (so-called) rights.

Andrews is quite clearly stupid beyond the normal degree of stupidity that is increasingly evident among the political class. Among other inanities he reportedly broadcast this message to women:

“Go out with friends at night. Or don’t. Go about your day exactly as you intend, on your terms. Because women don’t need to change their behaviour. Men do.”

Apparently, “his comments have been met with a wave of approval online, with many women thanking him for his remarks.” They are simply deluded. He, on the other hand, is not only deluded but, much worse, recklessly irresponsible with the lives of others.

I am a father of two daughters. I can’t imagine ever advising them to go out alone where they liked and when they liked? That would be a form of abuse. No-one should be advised to be careless of their circumstances – least of all young women. The Victoria Police were right to advise women to be careful of their circumstances. This is one of the reported tweets, critical of the Victorian police, no doubt typical of many:

“Frankly I think Victoria Police should apologise for their victim-blaming and completely useless ‘advice’ following the murder of Eurydice Dixon. Don’t tell us to be more careful. Tell men they will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law if they choose to commit a crime!”

I don’t want to be too damning of this sentiment. It comes from an emotional and passionate place. But it is silly, and the premier of a state has a duty to steer the conversation towards a measured place. He has abjectly failed in that duty. And to say that men have to “change” is bordering on the deranged. Men do not commit atrocities on women. Monsters do. Men protect women from monsters. That’s their job and most try to do it as they are able and as circumstances allow.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Palestinians: How to Achieve a Better Life by Bassam Tawil

Posted By on June 21st, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12559/palestinians-protests-dictatorship

“It’s become safer to demonstrate against Israel than against Abbas or the Palestinian Authority. Israel is at least a country of law and order and they have human rights organizations and a powerful media and judicial system. We can only continue to dream of having something like what the Jews have.” — Palestinian activist.

At the end of the day, Palestinians know that the power struggle between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas is not between good guys and bad guys, but between bad guys and bad guys. These bad guys are no different from other Arab dictatorships that enslave and kill their people. Anyone who thinks that Mahmoud Abbas is eager to go back to the Gaza Strip is living in a dream world.

If the Palestinians ever wish to seek a better life, the first thing they need to do is rid themselves of the “leaders” who have destroyed their lives.

In the past two weeks, Palestinians received yet another reminder that they are living under undemocratic regimes that have less than no respect for public freedoms.

The regimes of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip never miss an opportunity to remind their people of the dire consequences that await anyone who speaks out against the leaders. The two Palestinian regimes have been forcing it down the throats of their people for many years.

Still, some Palestinians seem surprised each time the PA or Hamas send their police officers to break up (or, more precisely, to break bones in) a demonstration in Ramallah or the Gaza Strip.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

A Canadian U-Turn on Iran? by Tom Quiggin

Posted By on June 21st, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12549/canadian-iran-policy

Tom Quiggin is a former military intelligence officer, a former intelligence contractor for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and a court appointed expert on jihadist terrorism in both the Federal and criminal courts of Canada.

Most alarming to the U.S. has been Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s position on Iran, where the regime seems to want to increase its influence in Canada due to its proximity to the U.S. Trudeau has been enabling this penetration.

The discord between Canada and the U.S. was evident on a series of matters related to the North American Free Trade Agreement, but what went on behind the scenes was far more critical.

As long as leaders in the West who hold such views remain in power, Canada will be on the watchlist of those who oppose the spread of Islamic extremism and theocratic dictatorships. Canada may well be living through its highest-risk moment since World War II.

On June 12, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau led the Liberal Party in supporting a Conservative Party motion condemning “the current regime in Iran for its ongoing sponsorship of terrorism around the world, including instigating violent attacks on the Gaza border.” It also called for designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization.

Trudeau’s vote marked a sudden, unprecedented U-turn from more than 10 years of his personal and very public support for pro-Islamist causes and Iran, beginning in 2008 when he entered the parliament.

Since Justin Trudeau’s election two and a half years ago, however, the U.S. has grown increasingly worried about the Canadian government in general, and the prime minister in particular. Trudeau has called those who oppose the return of ISIS fighters to Canada “Islamophobic.” He also has said that ISIS fighters can be a “powerful voice for preventing radicalization” in Canada, even though his government does not have a deradicalization program. In addition, the government has yet to appoint a leader for the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence.

The approximately 60 ISIS fighters who have returned to Canada roam the country freely. None has been charged or convicted. The government has shown no will to deal with them, not even when one was caught on tape describing how he had executed prisoners. Canada also has stopped sending the names of known ISIS fighters to the UN registry of terrorists, in spite of the fact that some of them are reported to be a chemical-weapons risk.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Why Democracies Should Support Tough U.S. Iran Policy by Jagdish N. Singh

Posted By on June 21st, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12561/support-us-iran-policy

“On one level, Iran acts as a legitimate Westphalian state conducting traditional diplomacy… At the same time, it organizes and guides nonstate actors seeking regional hegemony based on jihadist principles: Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria; Hamas in Gaza; the Houthis in Yemen.” — Henry Kissinger, 2015.
Last week came to light “… details about a second building at the Parchin site involved in high explosive work related to nuclear weapons in an explosive chamber. This building has not been visited by the IAEA… [There was also] direct evidence that the secret Fordow enrichment site was being built to make weapon-grade uranium.” — David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security.
It is time for everyone to join the U.S. and President Trump in their efforts to prevent the Islamic Republic of Iran from having the ways and means to becoming a full-fledged nuclear power.

President Donald Trump’s May 8 announcement that the United States was withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and considering fresh sanctions on Iran is a step in the right direction toward defending the country against Iran’s growing nuclear-weapons program and open aim to destroy both Israel and America.

In addition, last week came to light in testimony by the founder and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, David Albright, that Iran had:

“… blueprints for the production of all the components of nuclear weapons, the location of planned nuclear weapons test sites, [and] details about a second building at the Parchin site involved in high explosive work related to nuclear weapons in an explosive chamber. This building has not been visited by the IAEA… [There was also] direct evidence that the secret Fordow enrichment site was being built to make weapon-grade uranium.”

BOOKS Comments turned off

The Horrors of Honor Violence: Terrorism At Home A harrowing glimpse into a deadly form of “tribal violence”. Abigail R. Esman

Posted By on June 21st, 2018

https://www.investigativeproject.org/7489/the-horrors-of-honor-violence-terrorism-at-home

She was a 15-year-old student at San Antonio’s Taft High School with a soft smile and dark eyes. Like most girls her age in Texas, she favored blue jeans. Unlike most girls her age in Texas, in 2017 she was promised in marriage to a man 10 years her senior, who would pay her parents $20,000 to take her as his wife.

But the Iraqi-born Maarib Al Hishmawi had no intention of marrying so young, least of all to a man so much older and whom she hardly even knew. She refused.

Her parents, who had moved to the United States from their native Iraq two years prior, were furious. They “choked her almost to the point of unconsciousness,” said Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar. They beat her with broomsticks. Her mother, 33-year-old Hamdiya Sabah Al Hismawi, threw hot oil on her body.

Maarib escaped, running away from home in January. Claiming they feared she’d been kidnapped, her parents called in local police and the FBI to help track her down. But even from the start, Salazar told CBS News, it was clear to him that “this wasn’t an ordinary missing persons case.” When police found her in an undisclosed location some weeks later, Maarib explained her story. She and her five brothers were taken in by Child Protective Services and her parents immediately taken into custody. Her father blamed Maarib for his arrest.

This is not just a story about domestic abuse. It is a story about cultural mores, institutionalized violence against women and girls (and occasionally young men) in the name of family honor. And it happens to thousands of them every year, not just in places like Afghanistan and Somalia and Iraq, but in America, England, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, France, and elsewhere across the Western world.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

The Real Child Abusers of Border Insecurity The zombie lawsuit causing family separation that never dies. Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on June 21st, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270517/real-child-abusers-border-insecurity-daniel-greenfield

What the media has been falsely calling President Trump’s family separation policy began with Hollywood actor Ed Asner’s housekeeper and a lawsuit by the ACLU during the Reagan administration.

The issue was child trafficking.

Teenage girls were being smuggled into the United States. Some were being sent on to their illegal alien family members in the United States. Others were being sent to the United States as cheap labor or being trafficked for prostitution. People purporting to be family members might show up asking for them to be released into their custody. And immigration authorities were faced with a horrible situation.

The ACLU was less interested in the teens than in Attorney General Edwin Meese. Reagan’s AG was the Sessions of the day. A man whose name so enraged the left-wing group that at one point it circulated petitions demanding that Reagan fire Meese and called him the most dangerous official since Nixon.

Flores v. Meese, the case that led to the family separation policy, was born with Ed Asner’s housekeeper and the ACLU’s obsession with Meese. But the case, with various AGs replacing Meese, dragged on. And the ACLU went on insisting that refusing to release teenage illegal aliens violated the Constitution.

In ’93, when Jenny Lisette Flores, the girl at the center of the original case, was 23, the Supreme Court finally ruled 7-2 against the ACLU and rejected its bizarre claim that illegal teens had a right to be released. The verdict was brutal and made a hash of the ACLU’s opportunistic misreading of the Constitution.

And that should have been it. But by then it wasn’t Flores v. Meese, but Flores v. Reno.