ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Renowned climate scientist jailed for fraud By Thomas Lifson

Posted By on September 8th, 2017

Well, it’s a start…

Lucy Smith reports for the Townsville (Queensland), Australia Bulletin:

A RENOWNED climate scientist has been jailed for fraudulently claiming half a million dollars in reimbursements from his employer.

Over seven years, Australian Institute of Marine Science senior researcher Daniel Michael Alongi lodged 129 claims for fictitious purchases totalling $553,420.

When police caught up with him in 2015, he told them he had spent the money on rare and antique books.

One book, about Captain James Cook’s journeys, cost $15,000.

Alongi, 60, pleaded guilty in Townsville District Court yesterday to defrauding the Federal Government agency.

Commonwealth prosecutor Chris Moore detailed Alongi’s “carefully executed” offending, which saw him earn far more than his $4000 a fortnight salary.

“To support the claims he created or modified invoices, receipts and credit card statements, along with drafting fake analysis reports and email trails,” he said.

Climate scientist Dr Daniel Alongi, who worked for the Australian Institute of Marine Science, leaves the Townsville Magistrates Court. (Photo: Townsville Bulletin.)

Compared to the gross fraud of anthropogenic global warming alarmism (that already has cost Australia dearly), this is small beer, even though the total is over half a million bucks (Australian dollars). Compared to the hundreds of billions of dollars squandered on crony green energy schemes, this is not even a rounding error.

Alongi is not some minor figure in the Warmist research establishment.

Eric Worrall comments:

According to Research Gate, Alongi has helped author 140 publications, and has been cited 5,861 times. All in the last few months has been bad for the image of mainstream climate science. First we had the Shukla 20 scandal, and now we have the Alongi fraud case. I’m not saying climate scientists are just in it for the money. I think there is substantial evidence that many of them truly believe. But clearly there is an awful lot of money on the table, which predominantly seems to go to scientists who support the position favoured by politicians. More than enough money to tempt the unscrupulous.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Charter Schools Are Flourishing on Their Silver Anniversary The first one, in St. Paul, Minn., opened in 1992. Since then they’ve spread and proven their success. By David Osborne

Posted By on September 8th, 2017

On Sept. 8, 1992, the first charter school opened, in St. Paul, Minn. Twenty-five years later, some 7,000 of these schools serve about three million students around the U.S. Their growth has become controversial among those wedded to the status quo, but charters undeniably are effective, especially in urban areas. After four years in a charter, urban students learn about 50% more a year than demographically similar students in traditional public schools, according to a 2015 report from Stanford’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes.

The American cities that have most improved their schools are those that have embraced charters wholeheartedly. Their success suggests that policy makers should stop thinking of charters as an innovation around the edges of the public-school system—and realize that they simply are a better way to organize public education.

New Orleans, which will be 100% charters next year, is America’s fastest-improving city when it comes to education. Test scores, graduation and dropout rates, college-going rates and independent studies all tell the same story: The city’s schools have doubled or tripled their effectiveness in the decade since the state began turning them over to charter operators.

More than 80% of their students are African-American, and an equal percentage qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. But on the most important metrics—graduation and college-going rates—New Orleans became the first high-poverty city to outperform its overall state in 2015 and 2016.

Or consider Washington. In 1996 Congress created a Public Charter School Board for the capital. After 20 years, its 120 schools educate 46% of the city’s public-school students. As in New Orleans, the board closes charter schools in which kids are falling behind, while encouraging the best to expand or open new schools.

The competition from charters helped spur Washington’s mayor to take control of the failing school district and initiate profound reforms. The district is improving rapidly. Yet my analysis of available data suggests the charter sector still performs better. The difference with African-American and low-income students is dramatic, even though charters receive between $6,000 and $7,000 less per pupil annually than district schools do.

This new model’s effectiveness has inspired other cities. A decade ago, Denver Public Schools Superintendent Michael Bennet, frustrated by the traditional bureaucracy, worked with the school board to embrace charters. They gave them space in district buildings and encouraged the successful ones to open new schools. Then they began creating “innovation schools,” with some of the freedom to operate that helps charters succeed. Last year 42% of Denver students attended charters or innovation schools.

When these efforts began, Denver had the slowest academic growth of Colorado’s 20 largest districts. By 2012 it had the fastest. Today its students—almost 70% of them qualifying for subsidized lunch—are approaching the state average on standardized tests in elementary schools and exceeding them in middle schools. CONTINUE AT SITE

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Next Middle East War Israel and Iran are heading for conflict over southern Syria.

Posted By on September 8th, 2017

Israel launched airstrikes on a military compound in Syria on Thursday, and the bombing should alert the Trump Administration as much as the Syrians. They carry a warning about the next war in the Middle East that could draw in the U.S.

Israel doesn’t confirm or deny its military strikes, but former officials said they were aimed at a base for training and a warehouse for short- and midrange missiles. The strikes also hit a facility that the U.S. cited this year for involvement in making chemical weapons.

The larger context is the confrontation that is building between Israel and Iran as the war against Islamic State moves to a conclusion in Syria and Iraq. Iran is using Syria’s civil war, and the battle against ISIS, as cause to gain a permanent military foothold in Syria that can threaten Israel either directly or via its proxies in Syria and Lebanon.

Tehran has helped Hezbollah stockpile tens of thousands of missiles that will be launched against Israel in the next inevitable conflict. If it can also dominate southern Syria, Iran can establish a second front on the border near the Golan Heights that would further stretch Israel’s ability to defend itself.

Israel may have to make more such strikes in Syria because Iran isn’t likely to give up on this strategic opening. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards know they have Russia’s backing in Syria, and the U.S. is signaling that it is loathe to do anything to change that once Islamic State is routed from Raqqa.

“As far as Syria is concerned, we have very little to do with Syria other than killing ISIS,” President Trump said Thursday at a White House press conference with the emir of Kuwait. “What we do is we kill ISIS. And we have succeeded in that respect. We have done better in eight months of my Presidency than the previous eight years against ISIS.”

Great, but the problem is that the end of ISIS won’t bring stability to Syria, and American interests in the Middle East don’t end with ISIS. The danger of a proxy war or even a direct war between Iran and Israel is growing, and it will increase as Iran’s presence builds in Syria. Mr. Trump may not like it, but he needs a strategy for post-ISIS Syria that contains Iran if he doesn’t want the U.S. to be pulled back into another Middle East war.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

A Rabbi Walks Into a Campus Protest . . . ‘Once you strike a real relationship with someone,’ he says, ‘the screaming recedes.’ By Allan Ripp

Posted By on September 8th, 2017

Rabbi Shlomo Elkan hadn’t heard of Oberlin College before heading there in 2010 to establish a Chabad House, which functions as a campus center for Jewish students. “Rural Ohio wasn’t on my radar,” the 34-year-old rabbi, who grew up in Atlanta and received his rabbinical training in New Jersey, tells me. But a third of students at Oberlin are Jewish, and the Corn Belt seemed a quiet place to raise a family. Little did he know.

The rabbi and his wife, Devora, quickly drew regular attendance to services at their small home, but Oberlin was boiling with political debate. It was a loop playing out on campuses across the country, under the banners of Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Students for Justice in Palestine, and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. The presumption around many quads was that to be Jewish meant you were part of the privileged, oppressor class.

“At first the questioning and conflict seemed natural. That’s what college is about, with kids seeking new identities, communities, even religious narratives,” says Rabbi Elkan, one of 200 Chabad rabbis posted at U.S. colleges. “But in the last several years we noticed hard lines forming around students to show their progressive stripes. That put many in the uncomfortable position of having to denounce Israel and their own Jewishness or stay silent when others did so.”

Early last year Oberlin rhetoric professor Joy Karega was exposed for promoting conspiracy theories and sharing anti-Semitic images on Facebook . Ms. Karega wrote that Islamic State is “a CIA and Mossad operation.” She also posted memes about Jews’ controlling the world’s banks, media and the U.S. government. These themes could have been ripped from “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

The Oberlin administration initially defended Ms. Karega, citing academic freedom. But it relented and fired her in November. Some accused the school of caving to Jewish alumni by ousting the popular African-American teacher. Amid the noise, a Jewish professor’s home was vandalized with references to ovens; numerous students transferred; and Oberlin landed 11th on a Jewish newspaper’s Worst Colleges for Jewish Students list.

Donors pulled back, including one who had pledged $350,000 to relocate Oberlin Chabad to a 6,000-square-foot campus residence. The unfinished property—the site of a former YMCA—sits in mid-repair, covered with construction wrap. “That one was tough,” Rabbi Elkan says, noting his current home has one bathroom to accommodate his six children, plus the dozens of students who pile in each Sabbath. CONTINUE AT SITE

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Comey’s Secret Power Here’s a question: What if the FBI had a lot to do with that fake Trump ‘dossier’? By Kimberley A. Strassel

Posted By on September 8th, 2017

J. Edgar Hoover’s abuse of power as FBI director led Congress and the Justice Department to put new checks on that most powerful and secretive of offices. By the time Congress finishes investigating James Comey’s role in the 2016 presidential election, those safeguards may be due for an update.

Powerful as Hoover was, even he never simultaneously investigated both major-party candidates for the presidency. Mr. Comey did, and Americans are now getting a glimpse of how much he influenced political events.

Mr. Comey’s actions in the Hillary Clinton email probe are concerning enough. He made himself investigator, judge and jury, breaking the Justice Department’s chain of command. He publicly confirmed the investigation, violating the department’s principles. He announced he would not recommend prosecuting Mrs. Clinton, even as he publicly excoriated her—an extraordinary abuse of his megaphone. Then he rekindled the case only 11 days before the election.

An inquiry by the Senate Judiciary Committee has now shown that Mr. Comey’s investigation was a charade. He wrote a draft statement exonerating Mrs. Clinton in May, long before he bothered to interview her or her staff. This at least finally explains the probe’s lackluster nature: the absence of a grand jury, the failure to follow up on likely perjury, the unorthodox immunity deals made with Clinton aides.

But the big development this week is a new look at how Mr. Comey may have similarly juked the probe into Donald Trump’s purported ties to Russia. The House Intelligence Committee’s investigation took a sharp and notable turn on Tuesday, as news broke that it had subpoenaed the FBI and the Justice Department for information relating to the infamous Trump “dossier.” That dossier, whose allegations appear to have been fabricated, was commissioned by the opposition-research firm Fusion GPS and then developed by a former British spook named Christopher Steele.

But the FBI had its own part in this dossier, and investigators are finally drilling down into how big a role it played, and why. The bureau has furiously resisted answering questions. It ignored the initial requests for documents and has refused to comply with the House committee’s subpoenas, which were first issued Aug. 24. Republicans are frustrated enough that this week they sent orders compelling FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to appear before the committee to explain the obstruction.

One explanation is that the documents might show the FBI played a central role in ginning up the fake dossier on Mr. Trump. To this day, we do not know who hired Fusion GPS to gather the dirt. The New York Times early this year reported, citing an anonymous source, that a wealthy anti-Trumper initially hired Fusion to dig into Mr. Trump’s business dealings, but the contract was later taken over by a Clinton-allied group. That’s when Fusion shifted its focus to Russia and hired Mr. Steele. CONTINUE AT SIT

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

European Court Orders EU Countries to Take Migrants “Politics has raped European law and values.” by Soeren Kern

Posted By on September 7th, 2017

The September 6 ruling, which has been hailed as a victory for European federalism, highlights the degree to which the European Union has usurped decision-making powers from its 28 member states. The ruling also showcases how the EU’s organs of jurisprudence have become politicized.

Many so-called asylum seekers have refused to relocate to Central and Eastern Europe because the financial benefits there are not as generous as in France, Germany or Scandinavia.

“Let us not forget that those arriving have been raised in another religion, and represent a radically different culture. Most of them are not Christians, but Muslims. This is an important question, because Europe and European identity is rooted in Christianity. Is it not worrying in itself that European Christianity is now barely able to keep Europe Christian? If we lose sight of this, the idea of Europe could become a minority interest in its own continent.” — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

The European Union’s highest court has rejected a complaint by Hungary and Slovakia over the legality of the bloc’s mandatory refugee quota program, which requires EU member states to admit tens of thousands of migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that the European Commission, the powerful executive arm of the European Union, has the legal right to order EU member states to take in so-called asylum seekers, and, conversely, that EU member states have no legal right to resist those orders.

The September 6 ruling, which has been hailed as a victory for European federalism, highlights the degree to which the European Union has usurped decision-making powers from its 28 member states. The ruling also showcases how the European Union’s organs of jurisprudence have become politicized.

Opponents of the relocation scheme say that decisions about the granting of residence permits should be kept at the national level, and that by unilaterally imposing migrant quotas on EU member states, unelected bureaucrats in Brussels are seeking to force the democratically elected leaders of Europe to submit to their diktat.

The dispute dates back to September 2015, when, at the height of Europe’s migration crisis, EU member states narrowly voted to relocate 120,000 “refugees” from Italy and Greece to other parts of the bloc. This number was in addition to a July 2015 plan to redistribute 40,000 migrants from Italy and Greece.

Of the 160,000 migrants to be “shared,” nine countries in Central and Eastern Europe were ordered to take in around 15,000 migrants. Although the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia voted against the agreement, they were still required to comply.

Since then, several states have refused to accept their assigned quotas of migrants. Poland, for example, has a quota of 6,182 migrants, not one of whom has been admitted. The Czech Republic has a quota of 2,691 migrants, of whom only 12 have been taken. Hungary has a quota of 1,294, none of whom has been admitted.

In the EU as a whole, so far only around 25,000 migrants have been relocated (7,873 from Italy and 16,803 from Greece), according to the EU’s latest relocation and resettlement report, published on July 26, 2017. Of the 28 EU member states, only Latvia and Malta have taken in their full quotas — a combined total of 469 migrants.

Many so-called asylum seekers have refused to relocate to Central and Eastern Europe because the financial benefits there are not as generous as in France, Germany or Scandinavia. Hundreds of migrants who have been relocated to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which rank among the poorest countries in the EU, have since fled to Germany and other wealthier countries in the bloc.

Hungary and Slovakia, backed by Poland, argued that the European Union broke its own rules and exceeded its powers when it approved the quota system with a “qualified majority” — around two thirds of the bloc’s members. They also argued that the relocation scheme is a direct violation of the European Union’s Dublin Regulation, a law that requires people seeking refuge within the EU to do so in the first European country they reach.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Why an Obscure Strip of Land in the Himalayas is Important for the Free World by Lawrence A. Franklin

Posted By on September 7th, 2017

India’s withdrawal already has served China’s interest: to pressure Bhutan and Nepal to resist seeking help from New Delhi to defend their sovereignty. China wants these small Himalayan countries to view India as an unreliable ally, and probably hopes they will begin looking to Beijing for protection and leadership.

Where the wider region is concerned, China most likely considers India’s capitulation as a signal to other countries engaged in territorial disputes with it — such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Japan — to succumb to bilateral negotiations with Beijing, rather than solicit international or multilateral organizations to negotiate for them. All of these states, which are either U.S. allies or have friendly relations with America, are keenly aware of their vulnerability in the face of China’s growing military power.

The United States must not allow China to intimidate India and other friendly regional states. Rather, it must support the banding together of those countries to defy Beijing and contain Chinese expansionism. American influence in the Pacific is at stake.

A months-long confrontation between China and India over an obscure piece of land — the Doklam plateau in the Himalayas — has serious implications that should not be minimized or ignored.

China’s decision to pick a fight with India near their mutual border with the Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan is not just a local issue: the regional altercation could have global repercussions.

The crisis was sparked early in the summer of 2017, when China constructed a road inside Bhutan, an ally of India’s. (Bhutan’s border is internationally recognized, but China rejects its legitimacy, claiming that the area is really part of southern Tibet.) In response, Indian troops entered the disputed territory on June 12 and faced off with Chinese soldiers and road construction crews. No shots were fired, however brawling ensued.

(Image source: Nilesh shukla/Wikimedia Commons)

China’s behavior, which reflects its ultimate objective of achieving hegemony in the Pacific, runs counter to the U.S. policy imperative to protect freedom of navigation on the high seas, through which one-third of the world’s commerce passes. To this end, the U.S. Pacific Fleet conducts regular and frequent multilateral naval exercises to keep these waters free of Chinese control. One such exercise was conducted jointly with the Indian Navy during the recent standoff with China.

The upshot of the standoff was that India backed down. On August 28, New Delhi withdrew its troops from Doklam, a move that China has touted as a victory and deployed as a warning. As a Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman triumphantly announced, “We remind the Indian side to learn the lesson from this incident.”

India portrayed the temporary resolution to the conflict differently, claiming the crisis was defused as a result of a mutually agreed-upon diplomatic decision, which it called an “expeditious disengagement of border personnel.” In any event, as no territorial issues were resolved along the 3,500-kilometer China-India border, future incidents are likely to erupt.

In the meantime, India’s withdrawal already has served China’s interest: to pressure Bhutan and Nepal to resist seeking help from New Delhi to defend their sovereignty. China wants these Himalayan countries to view India as an unreliable ally, and probably hopes they will begin looking to Beijing for protection and leadership.

Where the wider region is concerned, China most likely considers India’s capitulation as a signal to other countries engaged in territorial disputes with it — such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Japan — to succumb to bilateral negotiations with Beijing, rather than solicit international or multilateral organizations to negotiate for them. All of these states, which are either U.S. allies or have friendly relations with America, are keenly aware of their vulnerability in the face of China’s growing military power. If they become disillusioned and weaken their resistance to Beijing’s ambitions, the United States’ standing in the Pacific will be damaged irrevocably.

IMMIGRATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump’s ‘Never Mind’ DACA Tweet The president signals his enthusiasm for amnesty. Why would immigration activists give an inch? By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on September 7th, 2017

This was supposed to be about how all of yesterday’s heated rhetoric, all the defiant “Stand by Your Dreamer” talk from Harvard and from tech CEOs, was just so much theater. In truth, no one — at least no one law-abiding — is going to be much inconvenienced, let alone deported, over President Trump’s supposed “rescission” of President Obama’s unconstitutional Deferred Action for Child Arrivals (DACA) program. As I explained yesterday, a proper application of prosecutorial discretion would place young aliens who were brought to this country illegally (or maintained here illegally) by their parents — that is, through no fault of their own — in a low-priority enforcement status. With the exceptions of those arrested for serious crimes, those with extensive criminal records, or those presenting similar sociopathic circumstances, the DREAMers would be left alone.

Alas, there is a different reason to see the still ongoing hysteria as a waste of time.

Rich Lowry notes in his Corner post that the president — as ever — took to Twitter last night. It took less than 140 characters to remove any doubt: There has been no rescission.

Trump has just quasi-frozen matters for six months. He explicitly says that he wants Congress “to legalize DACA” (i.e., enact the existing program so he can sign it into law). Moreover, if the people we used to think of as lawmakers fail to codify DACA, Trump says that he “will revisit this issue!” Translation: The program won’t die; the president will simply re-extend it by executive action while encouraging Congress to continue working to pass it — just like Obama.

I argued during the GOP nomination battle that Trump is a phony on immigration. He camouflages this fact in provocative (and sometimes noxious) rhetoric about Mexicans and a border wall — a wall that would be physically impossible to build as he described it and that Mexico was never going to pay for. (Have you noticed our coming budget battle is over his insistence that American taxpayers foot the bill?) But if you listened carefully, there was always an amnesty subtext. Recall his truly absurd claims that he would round up and deport 11 million people and then bring most of them back with legal status.

Trump wants to be all things to all people: the restrictionist ideal of his rabid base as well as an amnesty enthusiast in the mold of a New York City Democrat.

The DACA sleight of hand proves the point. On the hustings, restrictionist Trump promised to rescind DACA as soon as he took office (and some people actually believed him). Of course, he did not do so . . . because he doesn’t think it should be rescinded; he thinks it should be law. But he wants credit for ending it — for being both against and for it.

Consistent with this utterly inconsistent approach to DACA, nothing he has done as president makes sense. He has contended (correctly) that DACA is unconstitutional, yet he has continued administering the program for the past eight months. He has now had his attorney general announce that the program is rescinded because it is unconstitutional, but the program is not really rescinded and — as Jack Goldsmith rightly pointed out on Twitter yesterday — the Justice Department has not withdrawn the Obama DOJ’s 2014 opinion supporting DACA’s purported constitutionality.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Beware of Narratives and Misinformation Narratives surrounding the DNC hack & Antifa reveal media bias and government bureaucracy at their worst. By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on September 7th, 2017

U.S. intelligence agencies said Russia was responsible for hacking Democratic National Committee e-mail accounts, leading to the publication of about 20,000 stolen e-mails on WikiLeaks.

But that finding was reportedly based largely on the DNC’s strange outsourcing of the investigation to a private cybersecurity firm. Rarely does the victim of a crime first hire a private investigator whose findings later form the basis of government conclusions.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is many things. But so far he has not been caught lying about the origin of the leaked documents that came into his hands. He has insisted for well over a year that the Russians did not provide him with the DNC e-mails.

When it was discovered that the e-mails had been compromised, then–DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz weirdly refused to allow forensic detectives from the FBI to examine the DNC server to probe the evidence of the theft. Why did the FBI accept that refusal?

That strange behavior was not as bizarre as Wasserman Schultz’s later frenzied efforts to protect her information-technology specialist, Imran Awan, from Capitol Police and FBI investigations. Both agencies were hot on Awan’s trail for unlawfully transferring secure data from government computers, and also for bank and federal-procurement fraud.

So far, the story of the DNC hack is not fully known, but it may eventually be revealed that it involves other actors beyond just the Russians.

There is not much left to the media myth of James Comey as dutiful FBI director, unjustly fired by a partisan and vindictive President Donald Trump. A closer look suggests that Comey may have been the most politicized, duplicitous, and out-of-control FBI director since J. Edgar Hoover.

During the 2016 election, Comey, quite improperly, was put into the role of prosecutor, judge, and jury in the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server while she was secretary of state. That proved a disaster. Comey has admitted under oath to deliberately leaking his own notes — which were likely government property — to the media to prompt the appointment of a special counsel. That ploy worked like clockwork, and by a strange coincidence it soon resulted in the selection of his friend, former FBI director Robert Mueller.

Comey earlier had assured the public that his investigation of Clinton had shown no prosecutable wrongdoing (a judgment that in normal times would not be the FBI’s to make). It has since been disclosed that Comey offered that conclusion before he had even interviewed Clinton.

That inversion suggests that Comey had assumed that whatever he found out about Clinton would not change the reality that the Obama administration would probably drop the inquiry anyway — so Comey made the necessary ethical adjustments.

Comey was also less than truthful when he testified that there had been no internal FBI communications concerning the infamous meeting between Clinton’s husband, former president Bill Clinton, and then–attorney general Loretta Lynch on an airport tarmac. In fact, there was a trail of FBI discussion about that supposedly secret rendezvous.

Before he fired Comey, Trump drafted a letter outlining the source of his anger. But it seemed to have little to do with the obstruction of justice.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Robert E. Lee: Saladin of the South By Karl Spence

Posted By on September 7th, 2017

AN EXCERPT OF A LONGER PIECE ON ROBERT E. LEEhttps://amgreatness.com/2017/09/06/robert-e-lee-saladin-south/

What does any of this have to do with current events? Three words: Robert Edward Lee.

General Lee may fairly be considered the Saladin of the South: a noble adversary honored even by those who fought him. And, just as any Christian who refuses to honor what is honorable in Saladin may fairly be said to hate Muslims, any Social Justice Warrior who today refuses to so honor Robert E. Lee may fairly be said to hate Southerners. The Lee statues that dot the American landscape are not symbols of hatred; they are objects of it.

Yet. back in the day, or I should say, in the night they drove old Dixie down, hatred was not the spirit that prevailed. Ulysses S. Grant would write in his memoirs that upon receiving Lee’s surrender, “I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.” And Grant silenced his army’s guns, which had begun firing a salute in exultation on the event, saying, “The war is over. The rebels are our countrymen again.”

The feeling in the victorious North came to be, “You fought a good fight, Reb.” Not that the Rebellion’s cause was good, but that the valor, prowess, and self-sacrifice of the rebels themselves was worthy of admiration. Such remained the prevailing sentiment in all of America, all the way through to my childhood, which coincided with the Civil War’s centennial. And if you stop to think about it, doing honor to the South does honor to the North as well. What glory is there, after all, in vanquishing a contemptible foe?

When the U.S. Army decided to turn Lee’s home in Arlington, Virginia, into a cemetery for Union war dead, the idea may have been conceived spitefully. But the move became a tribute to Lee in spite of itself. There stands Lee’s mansion, surrounded by Union graves like so many scalps around a tepee. It’s a testament not only to the courage and dedication of those who fought to preserve the Union, but also to the fearsome price that must be paid by anyone who thinks to conquer Americans, even when the conqueror is American himself.

So, do any of today’s Antifa thugs view today’s Lee-lovers as fellow Americans? Would any Social Justice Warrior today say, as Grant did, “The rebels are our countrymen again?” The question answers itself.

Consider another example, one especially appropriate in light of those other Live Action Role Players, the ones who marched around in Charlottesville with torches, as if they were extras in “Triumph of the Will.” Antifa is good at beating up people in the street, as good at it as any stormtrooper ever was. But beating real Nazis takes something more, something Winston Churchill had and Antifa doesn’t.

In all this world, Adolf Hitler had no deadlier enemy than that great British war leader. Had Churchill not become prime minister in 1940, Britain might well have made peace with Nazi Germany. Hitler then would have been free to achieve his dream of conquering Eurasia from Calais to Vladivostok. And when America’s turn came to go toe-to-toe with him, then even with every Lee-loving Southerner pitching in to whip the Axis, we might not have prevailed against such a behemoth. Had Churchill not lived, we all might be speaking German today.

Here’s what Churchill said about Hitler: “Nothing is more certain than that every trace of Hitler’s footsteps, every stain of his infected and corroding fingers will be sponged and purged and, if need be, blasted from the surface of the earth.”