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August 2013

JOHN FONTE: LET US END DUAL CITIZENSHIP (AMEN****)….SEE NOTE PLEASE

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/356538/lets-talk-about-dual-allegiance-john-fonte

MY ISRAELI/AMERICAN FRIENDS WILL BRISTLE….BUT DUAL CITIZENSHIP IS WRONG ON ALL GROUNDS….RSK

Any comprehensive immigration bill should ensure that new citizens have to abjure their other loyalties.

This week, Senator Ted Cruz announced that he would be renouncing his Canadian citizenship, which he gained by dint of being born in Calgary. He did the right thing, but the entire issue of dual allegiance has yet to be seriously addressed during the debate over comprehensive immigration reform. So let us be comprehensive, if you will.

The Schumer-Rubio Senate bill, by making millions more immigrants eligible for citizenship in the coming years, will provide for a vast expansion of people eligible for dual citizenship. Is this positive or negative? I would argue that the status of dual citizenship per se is not necessarily a problem, but that dual allegiance, in the sense of the active exercise of loyalty and allegiance to a foreign state, is inimical to American democracy.

The concept of dual allegiance — the idea that some Americans (with the special privilege of voting in two nations) have political allegiance to a foreign state as well as to the United States — is inconsistent with the moral foundation of American democracy. Our form of government is based on equality of citizenship, and dual-allegiance citizens are by definition civic bigamists.

Dual-allegiance citizens exist in a political space beyond the American constitutional community. Besides being part of “We the People of the United States,” they are apparently members of another “people” — a foreign political community — with different and competing responsibilities and commitments. These foreign interests and commitments dilute their commitment, attachment, and allegiance to the United States. (For those who want the long version of this argument, see my 2005 report on the topic for the Center for Immigration Studies.)

The poster boy for dual allegiance is Univision’s Jorge Ramos, who wrote on his blog in January that, yes, he values his American citizenship . . .

JONAH GOLDBERG: MSNBC’S ONE SIDED RACE CONVERSATION

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/356513/race-conversation-network-jonah-goldberg ‘Why do they seem so determined to also make it racial?” So asks Joy-Ann Reid, the managing editor of The Grio, a web magazine owned by NBC News whose mission is to “focus on news and events that have a unique interest and/or pronounced impact within the national African Americans audience.” The “they” in […]

ROGER KIMBALL: OBAMA’S DEPENDENCY AGENDA

http://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/2013/08/22/obamas-dependency-agenda/?print=1

“ObamaCare is not a train wreck waiting to happen. It is a train wreck that is happening now. Sally Pipes has some very good ideas about applying some effective first aid for ObamaCare in her new Encounter Broadside on the subject [2]. We should instantly adopt her proposals.”

It’s the little things that get you. Yesterday, our former paper of record published a story about the decision by UPS [1], the big package-delivery company, to restrict or eliminate health care coverage for spouses of its white collar workers. It is thus, the Times reports, “joining an increasing number of companies that are restricting or eliminating spousal health benefits.”

This fact, and the trend it represents, puts the Times in something of a bind. The paper has been one of the most conspicuous boosters for everything Obama, with the result that it has, like the monkeys in the story, adopted a policy of “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” when it comes to the president’s many failed policies and initiatives. Benghazi? It happened because of an anti-Muslim internet video. Trayvon Martin? Murdered by a “white Hispanic” in a fit of racial hatred. The use of the IRS as a political weapon to intimidate and punish conservatives? Has that even been reported on in the Times? ObamaCare? What, do you want to deny health care to the poor?

(Pardon us while we disable the non sequitur buzzer . . .)

CLAUDIA ROSETT: SHOCKED, SHOCKED BY THE AXIS OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS

http://pjmedia.com/claudiarosett/shocked-shocked-by-the-axis-of-chemical-weapons/ Out of Syria come reports alleging the worst chemical weapons attack yet. From the United Nations and the U.S. come the stock promises “to investigate this as soon as possible” (the UN) and “do our due diligence and get all the facts and determine what steps need to be taken” (the U.S.). Fine — […]

ABRAHAM MILLER: OBAMA’S POLICY- FROM EXCEPTIONALISM TO IRRELEVANCE?

http://pjmedia.com/blog/putin-is-the-victor-in-egypt-as-obama-stumbles/?print=1 Putin Is the Victor in Egypt as Obama Stumbles We can legitimately debate whether there ever was such a thing as American exceptionalism, but today, it would be difficult to argue that there is not such a thing as American irrelevance.  Favoring the Muslim Brotherhood and speaking in patently naïve and platitudinous rhetoric calling […]

PALARAB JIHAD: TEACHING CHILDREN TO BE MURDERERS BY ITAMAR MARCUS

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/itamar-marcus/palestinian-jihad-teaching-children-to-be-murderers/print/ Reprinted from Palestinian Media Watch. Fatah’s official Facebook page continues to promote and glorify violence and terror for children. In one post, young Palestinian boys are shown holding rifles with the text: “The children of Palestine – this is how they celebrated their holiday.” [Facebook, “Fatah – The Main Page,” Aug. 9, 2013] In […]

BRUCE BAWER: FEMINIST HIJAB SOLIDARITY?

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/bruce-bawer/feminist-hijab-solidarity/print/ Europe is awash in dhimmitude, but Sweden is a case unto itself. There’s something desperate and demented about the levels of dhimmitude on display in Ikea-land. In no other European country, moreover, is there so little pushback in the media. As I wrote just yesterday, Sweden has the highest percentage of rapes in the […]

S. FRED SINGER: A TALE OF TWO HOCKEY STICKS

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/08/a_tale_of_two_climate_hockeysticks.html

The false “hockeystick” graph with which (in 2001) the UN climate panel claimed that current surface temperatures are “unprecedented” in a millennium is at odds with hundreds of scientific papers and with their own previous position. There is nothing unusual about today’s temperatures; the world was warmer in the Middle Ages. However, the “hockeystick” graph showing a rapid increase in 20th century CO2 concentration is genuine.

The Third Assessment Report (2001) of the UN-sponsored IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) espouses a temperature history over the last thousand years that resembles a ‘hockeystick’ (HS). The ‘shank’ is the smooth decline of temperature from 1000 to 1900AD, followed by an apparent sharp rise in the 20th century (forming the ‘blade’ of a hockeystick). IPCC-AR3 promoted this rise as definitive evidence of human influence on climate; emission of carbon dioxide was supposed to cause the 20th century warming. But this temperature history is fake; it is contradicted by much other evidence.

ANDREW HARROD: ARAB MK’S SHARIA BLASPHEMY DEMAND ON ISRAEL….SEE NOTE PLEASE

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/08/arab_mks_sharia_blasphemy_demand_on_israel.html

HELLO MR. HARROD! THE ARAB WAR AGAINST THE JEWS AND ISRAEL HAS ALWAYS BEEN A JIHAD….NOT A LOCAL DISPUTE ABOUT BOUNDARIES, AND IT IS A FACT THAT OBTAINS THROUGHOUT THE MUSLIM WORLD, THE MORE ONE APPEASES, THE HIGHER THEY RATCHET THEIR DEMANDS….RSK

This past May, Muslim Arab Member of the Knesset (MK) Ibrahim Sarsour introduced a bill in Israel’s parliament that would prohibit blasphemous speech. Sarsour’s demand on Israel, a model of liberal democracy, to subject herself to sharia blasphemy laws is dubious. Further, Sarsour’s own provocative, even hateful, statements against fellow Israelis is further evidence that Islamist sensitivities entail no reciprocity for other groups.

Sarsour described his bill, first introduced in an earlier version in 2008, as prohibiting “any offense in any form” against “religious sentiments.” This would include cursing, defaming, and depicting religious books and figures such as Muhammad, Moses, and Jesus. Sarsour cited as motive a future possibility in Israel of derogatory Muhammad caricatures and soccer game chants offensive to Muslims. Concerning free speech concerns, Sarsour discerned a “clear difference between… opinions and harming religious sentiment” as a “red line” having “no justification to cross.”

Sarsour stated that current Israeli law in this area is not strong enough. Section 173 of Israel’s Penal Law, according to one English translation, imposes up to a year’s imprisonment for spoken or written words “liable crudely to offend the religious faith or sentiment of others.” Sarsour’s bill would eliminate “crudely” from the law and add the aforementioned specific applications.

DAVID B. RIVKIN JR. AND LEE A. CASEY THE TRUE LESSONS OF THE IRA SCANDAL

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323477604579001263134291446.html?mod=opinion_newsreel President Obama and his political allies have dismissed as “phony scandals” mounting evidence that the Internal Revenue Service and other federal agencies hindered and punished conservative advocacy groups. Meanwhile, efforts are under way to impose even more regulation on core political speech. The government’s abuses are very real, but the scandal’s lessons are not […]