RUTHFULLY YOURS

At Connecticut College, the outrage machine claims another victim.

Academics like to think of themselves as autonomous thinkers, and academia—meaning literally the protected realm of free speech—gives professors not only the right to speak their minds but also, via the institution of tenure, protection against losing their livelihoods by displeasing those more powerful than themselves. The fact that civil polities treasure safe spaces for free speech attests to their progressive bona fides. Especially in our times, when new social networks can turn ominously feral, one would hope that academics and their institutions, especially small, face-to-face college communities, could return that investment and resist anonymous, predatory, crowd behavior.

Yet mob rule is precisely what happened this past semester at Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut, along the Thames River. Over the course of the past spring semester, philosophy professor Andrew Pessin was driven from campus based on a malevolent reading of a Facebook post in which he depicted “the situation” in Gaza as one in which the Israelis had confined a “rabid pit bull” to a cage, while animal rights activists protested for the poor beast’s release. Although Pessin didn’t specify in the text, he and a commenter did make clear that this metaphor referred to Hamas terrorists, not to the population generally. But in an attack spearheaded by a Muslim student who in high school had begun a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, and a Muslim professor, recently appointed head of the new Global Islamic Studies Program, a small group of activists, given the run of the school paper by its editors, accused Pessin of comparing all Palestinians to rabid dogs and calling for them to be “put down.” Pessin, they claimed, “directly condoned the extermination of a people. A member of our community has called for the systematic abuse, killing, and hate of another people.” The editor who arranged for the publication of all three letters did not ask Pessin for a response in the same issue. Shock and horror spread through the community, triggering among many traumatic memories of verbal, racial, dehumanizing abuse, and arousing heretofore silenced “marginal voices.” A great cry went up against racists and hate-speakers of all kinds.

Take ‘refugee advocates’ at their word and it is all so very simple: Australia must admit and support indefinitely all who turn up. As to the cost of those opened borders, not a word. When it comes to actions and consequences, preachy prattle is where their case starts and stops
Do-gooders congregated in the inner cities feel that Australia must house large, unstated, numbers of the world’s dispossessed. Where do they think these refugees will live? Well certainly not in their backyards. One hundred refugees dumped in each of their streets might be salutary.

Competing with the inner-city do-gooders in the bleeding-heart stakes are many conservative commentators. Desperate to establish their empathetic credentials, they use the avoidance of deaths at sea as their moral rationale for stopping boats. It is disingenuous. It won’t do.

Sarah Hanson-Young was exactly right some years ago when she said ‘accidents happen’ after a refugee boat foundered and sank. If refugees are willing to risk their lives on rickety boats, that is up to them.

It is up to them! Clearly, they think the risks are worthwhile.

The rationale for stopping boats has nothing at all to with protecting refugees from their own folly. It is to uphold our national right to control our borders. “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come,” John Howard rightly said. He didn’t add, “in case they drown”. He placed Australia’s interests ahead of refugees; as he should. Putting Australia first appears to be remote from the thinking of the Labor-Greens left.

http://jamieglazov.com/2015/07/31/choudary-spencer-and-jasser-battle-it-out-on-jihad-in-chattanooga-on-the-glazov-gang/

This special episode of The Glazov Gang was joined by Anjem Choudary, a London Imam, Robert Spencer, the Director of JihadWatch.org, and Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, the Founder and President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

The three guests came on the show to discuss “Jihad in Chattanooga.”

Don’t miss the fireworks:

While President Obama builds a government that does more and more to pry into the lives of ordinary citizens, he does more and more to keep his own government bullies free from scrutiny.

Last week, he went as far as any president since Watergate to make sure that government corruption could go unscrutinized and unchecked.

In a stunningly brazen act of defiance against the very notion that government should be answerable to the public, Obama’s Justice Department issued an order severely limiting the investigative powers of inspectors general — the very officers who are the first line of defense against government corruption and waste.

This is the latest, and the most dangerous, in a long line of Obama attacks against the independence and authority of IGs.

The administration’s war against IGs began in particularly nasty form just four months after Obama took office.First, let’s understand what IGs are and do. The Congressional Research Service last December defined IGs “as permanent, nonpartisan, and independent offices,” tasked by Congress, on behalf of the American people, with fighting “waste, fraud, and abuse … in more than 70 federal agencies.” As Justice Department IG Michael Horowitz told the Washington Times, the law gives IGs the authority to “access ‘all’ documents necessary to conduct effective oversight.”

The principle is similar: faced with an enemy that repeatedly declares its genocidal hatred, acts on it wherever possible, constantly strives to improve its ways and means, you peace process. Why was it successful with Iran and not with the “Palestinians”? Perhaps because the comical P5 + 1 applied the pressure to itself in the case of Iran, leaving no one to resist. The same pressure applied to Israel since 1993 has failed to produce total surrender. Drastic concessions were proposed but the enemy insisted on the right of return of “refugees” down to the third, fourth, and forever generations that would spell the elimination of the Jewish state. There were no significant limits to the concessions made by the P5+1 and no expectation that the deal will yield anything other than itself. The deal is that there’s a deal.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/08/richard_baehr_and_caroline_glick_on_the_iran_deal.html#ixzz3hYr4Etr5

AT co-founder Richard Baehr was on Chicago radio legend Milt Rosenberg’s program this week for close to two hours, with Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick, to discuss the Iran deal, the two state solution, and of course Barack Obama.

Here is the link.http://hark.io/podcast/focusing-on-israel-and-the-middle-east-with-caroline-glick-and-richard-baehr/

The Democratic National Committee Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, got a jolt of introspection, a quick glance at oneself like walking by a picture window and being surprised by the reflection.

Chris Matthews, bravely admitting that he once knew the answer to this question, sought the answer from Debbie.

“What is the difference between a Democrat and a Socialist?” Matthews asked. Wasserman Schultz was at a loss. Video

She didn’t answer the question. Couldn’t answer the question. Sometimes what is not said is the answer.

Obama’s first hope was to reach a deal with his Iranian friends that would leave the Assad regime in place. But the Iranians blew him off.

While Israel and much of official Washington remain focused on the deal President Barack Obama just cut with the ayatollahs that gives them $150 billion and a guaranteed nuclear arsenal within a decade, Obama has already moved on – to Syria.

Obama’s first hope was to reach a deal with his Iranian friends that would leave the Assad regime in place. But the Iranians blew him off.

They know they don’t need a deal with Obama to secure their interests. Obama will continue to help them to maintain their power base in Syria though Hezbollah and the remains of the Assad regime without a deal.

Social engineers have a knack for destroying history, then self-servingly reshaping it to align with political agendas for consumption by the masses.

The results of their skill are no better exemplified than we are currently witnessing. Confederate history is quite literally being destroyed, as monuments to Robert E. Lee and other Confederate heroes are being defaced by ignorant vandals who know nothing more than the legend of how Abraham Lincoln and his brave Union army crushed Jefferson Davis’ and Robert E. Lee’s Southern hordes in the name of liberating enslaved blacks.

That this is legend is in no way true makes it no less pervasively believed by those who wish to remain ignorant. If you don’t believe me at my word that Lincoln did not wage his war in the name of freeing Southern slaves, perhaps you might believe his? In a letter to Horace Greely in August, 1862:

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save the Union by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.

Documents released include physician’s declaration of her health along with tax disclosures

Hillary Clinton released a flurry of documents Friday that included a physician’s declaration of her personal health and a batch of financial information, in a bid to rebut accusations of secrecy surrounding her presidential campaign.

The financial documents showed Mrs. Clinton and her husband earned $139 million in adjusted gross income over the past seven years, including $28 million last year, when they paid an effective tax rate of more than 35%. The release coincided with a voluminous release of Clinton emails from her time as secretary of state.

The disclosures helped illuminate both her personal finances and some lingering questions regarding her health. According to a Clinton aide, they were designed to demonstrate the campaign’s commitment to transparency, at a time when Mrs. Clinton has faced criticism over secrecy.

In a statement accompanying the tax release, Mrs. Clinton noted that she and her husband have now made public the details of their personal finances going back to 1977. Mrs. Clinton also became the first candidate to release a personal health summary.