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January 2018

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Canada: Islamist-Leftist-Government Alliance Silences Free Speech by Christine Douglass-Williams

By on January 8th, 2018

“I… make a distinction between those who choose to practice Islam in peace and harmony with others, and those with an agenda to subvert democratic constitutions, demand special privileges over other creeds, and attack innocent people as a supremacist entitlement. It is odd to be removed from a race relations foundation for my private work in criticizing Islam, which is not a race.” — Christine Douglass-Williams, Jihad Watch, December 21, 2017.

Canada’s Motion M-103 puts Islam above all other religions in that any other religion can be discussed openly, criticized openly and even be mocked openly without punishment or state penalty.

“The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” — Muslim Brotherhood Plan for North America.

Political Islam espouses the opposite of all I stand for as an activist for human rights for all. I oppose its treatment of women, female genital mutilation (FGM), child brides, killing of gays, goals to obliterate Israel, raping of infidel women, blasphemy laws etc., as any proponent of human rights and those who battle intolerance should.

For writing and warning about political Islam, I was terminated as a director at the federal government’s Canadian Race Relations Foundation (CRRF), an agency usually at arms-length from the federal government.

As I wrote at Jihad Watch:

I have been terminated from the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, four months after a threatening letter by Heritage Minister Melanie Joly about my writings on Islam at Jihad Watch,

Joly made good on her threats. The Privy Council has terminated my appointment, despite my years of dedicated commitment to the Foundation, on which I also served as Chair of the Investment Committee, and as a member of the Human Resource and Executive Committees. Why? Because I dared to criticize political Islam on Jihad Watch, and because of My Personal Warning to Icelanders, in which I warned about the deceptive works of Muslim Brotherhood operatives in their infiltration of the West. Their tactics are well documented.

I personally make a distinction between those who choose to practice Islam in peace and harmony with others, and those with an agenda to subvert democratic constitutions, demand special privileges over other creeds, and attack innocent people as a supremacist entitlement. It is odd to be removed from a race relations foundation for my private work in criticizing Islam, which is not a race.

Canadian Press (CP) gave my story balanced coverage. It was run by Post Media outlets, Canoe, The National Post and even Huffington Post. The lengthy Toronto Star story — “Board member of anti-racism agency fired amid accusations of Islamophobic commentary” — however featured a number of far-left, pro-Islamist sources; among them: The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), CAIR-CAN/NCCM and the Mosaic Institute.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Trump Should Kill the Iran Nuclear Deal, for the Dissidents and Protesters It endangers global security and bolsters a brutal theocratic regime. Fred Fleitz

By on January 8th, 2018

President Trump will make some important decisions this month that could not only end the controversial 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran but also convey America’s support for Iranian protesters and hasten the overthrow of Iran’s ruling mullahs. By January 12, Mr. Trump must decide whether to renew a waiver of sanctions lifted by the Iran deal—i.e., the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. The law requires him to make such a determination every 120 days. By January 15, the president must decide whether he will continue to “decertify” to Congress Iran’s compliance with the agreement.

When President Trump decertified the JCPOA to Congress in October, it looked like he was on track to withdraw from the deal if Congress did not use a 60-day window to pass legislation to toughen or “fix” it. However, even though Congress failed to act, Trump is now being pressured to extend the agreement, as its supporters claim that any action he might take to kill it would play into the hands of Iran’s ruling mullahs.

This approach is wrong. It would sustain a fraudulent agreement that has endangered global security and bolstered a brutal theocratic regime.

None of President Obama’s promises about the JCPOA — that it would keep Iran one year away from a nuclear weapon, improve U.S.–Iran relations, and bring Iran into the community of nations — have been borne out. Instead, the deal has emboldened Iran’s ruling mullahs to continue the nation’s international isolation, as Tehran spends billions of dollars on expensive belligerent activities, money that was made available to it through sanctions relief and that it could have spent to shore up the civilian economy.

There are many reports that the agreement did not appreciably slow Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. Iran continues to make progress toward making nuclear-weapons fuel, as it is allowed under the deal to enrich uranium with over 5,000 centrifuges and to develop advanced centrifuges. The head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization said in August 2017 that Iran would be able to resume production of 20 percent enriched uranium, which can be quickly converted to weapons-grade uranium — within five days if the JCPOA is revoked.

There are credible reports, including several from German intelligence agencies, that Iran is cheating on the agreement. Senators Ted Cruz (R., Texas), Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), and Tom Perdue (R., Ga.) raised concerns about Iranian noncompliance and cheating in a July 2017 letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. I also note that Tzvi Kahn, an analyst for Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, penned a brilliant op-ed for The Hill last October, debunking claims by JCPOA defenders that the IAEA has fully certified Iran’s compliance with the agreement.

The Iranian people were supposed to benefit from the Iran deal’s sanctions relief, but this didn’t happen. Instead, Iran’s ruling mullahs wasted billions of dollars in sanctions relief on the military and meddling in regional disputes. Iran’s 2016–17 military budget reportedly increased by 90 percent. In April 2017, Rouhani claimed that it had grown by 145 percent.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Tony Thomas Green from Instinct to Jackboots

By on January 8th, 2018

That catastropharians consider themselves so much brighter and more insightful than the knuckle-dragging rest of us is not news, yet the vaulting arrogance of climate cultists can still surprise. Take the deep-green Forum for the Future, which cheerfully anticipates penal colonies for skeptics.

The Kerguelen islands are horridly cold and windy specks near the Antarctic, populated by a few score of French scientists and several thousand sheep. But to a leading British green group, Forum for the Future, it has enormous potential as an internationally-run penal colony for global warming sceptics.

The Forum’s founder-director is Jonathon Porritt 67, Eton- and Oxford-bred Chancellor of Keele University, adviser to Prince Charles, and Green Party activist. [1] The Forum’s fancy for Kerguelen can be found in its 76-page report “Climate Futures – Responses to Climate Change in 2030”, written in conjunction with Hewlett-Packard, a company which should know better. This scenario, one of five, involves the naughty world delaying the reduction of emissions, for which we must all suffer. The document even conjures a fictional climate criminal and imagines him being deported to Kerguelen in 2028. He is Jean-Claude Bertillon, leader of the No Climate Change Party in Canada, “convicted of denying the existence of climate change”.

The report actually fantasises three penal colonies for climate criminals. The other two are Britain’s frosty South Georgia[2] and the South Island of New Zealand. Written in 2008, the document attempts to show how CO2 emissions will wreck the planet within a couple of decades unless civilisation turns away from the sins of consumerism and economic growth. As we are now almost half-way to the 2030 forecast date it is possible to get a handle on how the Forum’s timeline is working out, and perhaps to gain an inkling of any substance to the report’s assertion that our descendants will look back on us with the same disgust we reserve for the slave-owners of yesteryear.

The authors — and Porritt himself — long for an eco-catastrophe that would eliminate all public doubts about climate doom. Their manifesto says,

“Because of a chilling lack of confidence in our leaders … our only hope would be for an isolated, serious pre-taste of climate change to happen soon enough for the political and behavioral response to have a useful impact.”

This is probably wishful thinking, as Porritt, founder director of Forum for the Future and chair of the UK’s Sustainable Development Commission, pointed out:

‘I have occasionally fantasised about a low mortality-count scenario where a Force Six hurricane takes out Miami, but with plenty of warning so the entire city is evacuated with zero loss of life. The insurance industry in America would collapse because this could be a $50-60 billion climate-related ‘natural’ disaster. The industry wouldn’t be able to cope with that. There would be knock-on pain throughout the global economy, massive, traumatic dislocation. This would act as enough of an injection of physical reality, coupled with financial consequences for leaders to say: ‘Ok, we’ve got it now. This isn’t just about some nasty effects on poor countries: this is devastating for our entire model of progress.’ The response to that would be a negotiated transition towards a very low-carbon global economy that builds increased prosperity for people in more equitable and sustainable ways.’”

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Dear Al Franken: About that Forced Resignation… By Michael Walsh

By on January 8th, 2018

Sin in haste, repent at leisure:

A prominent donor to the Democratic Party says she is considering withdrawing support for senators who urged their colleague Al Franken to resign after he was accused of sexual misconduct.

The donor, Susie Tompkins Buell, has been one of the Democratic Party’s most generous supporters for decades. In particular, she has been a champion of female politicians, including Senators Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Maria Cantwell of Washington.

Ms. Buell said in a text message on Saturday that withdrawing support from the senators who called for his resignation was “an option” she was considering. “In my gut they moved too fast,” she wrote, adding that Mr. Franken “was never given his chance to tell his side of the story. For me this is dangerous and wrong,” she added. “I am a big believer in helping more women into the political system but this has given me an opportunity to rethink of how I can best help my party.”

This is what happens during a stampede: people get trampled. And speaking of a stampede:

When Hollywood’s most prestigious organization, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) — the group of nearly 7,000 actors, directors and other industry types who dole out the Oscars — expelled Harvey Weinstein on Oct. 14,audiences applauded. But by acting so swiftly, a mere nine days after the New York Times first reported allegations of sexual assault against the movie producer, the outfit now finds itself facing a dilemma. CONTINUE AT SITE

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Be Careful What you Wish For By Viv Forbes

By on January 8th, 2018

In today’s crazy world, Western politicians are wasting billions of taxpayer dollars force-feeding costly unreliable green energy in the bizarre belief that this will somehow change Earth’s climate.

Even more incredible, they fear global warmth and seem hell-bent on creating global cooling. They should study climate history. It is snow and ice, cold dry air, and carbon dioxide starvation we need to fear, not a warm, moist, fertile, bountiful atmosphere.

Climate change is natural and unstoppable.

Just 20,000 years ago, Earth was in one of its recurring glacial phases. A thick massive ice sheet smothered Canada, Iceland, Greenland, North Asia, and Europe as far south as London. Much of the animal and plant life of the previous warm era was extinguished. Even in warmer lands not covered by the ice sheet, plants suffered as the cold oceans removed moisture and carbon dioxide plant food from the atmosphere.

Then, because of changing cycles in Earth’s orbit and tilt, reinforced by changing solar cycles, the sun warmed the frozen lands. The great ice sheets melted, sea levels rose and the warming oceans expelled moisture and CO2 plant food into the atmosphere. Plant life recovered. Tundra, forests, grasslands and herbivores advanced towards the pole and fish became abundant in the shallow seas that flooded coastal plains. Hunters, herders, farmers, and fishermen followed the food.

Human population increased greatly. They gave thanks for the warmth, and worshipped the sun.

But the peak of the modern warm era is past, and the natural cycles controlling global temperatures are pointing downwards.

Only an idiot with a death wish for life on Earth would attempt to accelerate our inevitable descent into the next ice age.

Luckily, their costly war on warmth is totally futile, but their war on carbon energy will prove tragically misguided in the cold times ahead.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump Crazy? Like a Fox By James Lewis

By on January 8th, 2018

Hum, ho, the Trump haters have found a new authority figure to swear the man is crazy. Rocketing to fame thanks to the objective media today is a woman with the extraordinary name of Bandy X. Lee.

Dr. Lee, MD, is now in danger of having her license pulled by the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Psychiatric Association (APA) for engaging in ethically prohibited long-distance diagnosis without even interviewing the supposed patient in person. In real psychiatry, not the imaginary kind peddled by the NYT-WaPo Axis of Lies, psychiatric diagnosis is serious business, which normally involves a private interview with the clear, legal consent of the patient, an explicit set of criteria covered in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of the APA, and an absolute guarantee of privacy in the patient-doctor relationship. Dr. Lee violated all those rules, and in the real world (not in the media narrative) that means her career is at an end. I’ve seen licenses pulled for much less than that.

That is presumably why Dr. Lee’s claimed team of fellow psychiatrists has never been named — if they exist. Lee uses the term “we” in claiming that her extremely dubious “diagnosis” (which does not exist in the DSM) is backed by an unspecified group of fellow “experts.” A real licensing board would suspend her for abusing her license to practice for obvious political payoffs, thereby bringing her profession to public ridicule and contempt.

So what are Trump’s psychiatric symptoms?

Lee’s Exhibit A is Trump’s response to Kim III (a paranoid who is never criticized by Democrats). Kim III boasted about the “big button” on his desk, to launch ICBMs tipped with nukes at the United States of America, Japan, South Korea, and quite possibly China, all within range of North Korea’s ICBMs. In response to Kim’s threat, Mr. Trump tweeted:

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BOOKS Comments turned off

Book Banning Bunkum Trump’s feckless bluster isn’t a threat to the First Amendment.

By on January 8th, 2018

One reason many Americans don’t trust the media is because they treat every Donald Trump outburst as a Defcon 1 level threat to the survival of the republic. The latest example is the panic over Mr. Trump’s legal threat to the publisher of Michael Wolff’s book and his lament that libel laws are too weak.

Mr. Trump had his lawyer send a letter on Thursday to Henry Holt demanding that it “cease and desist” publication of Mr. Wolff’s book. This is a longstanding Trump tactic designed to underscore his claims that a book or article is false. Invariably the threat vanishes as the controversy does.

Mr. Trump tried this with us when we criticized one of his debate performances during the presidential campaign. His lawyer sent a letter threatening the Journal and the editor of these columns, in his personal and professional capacity, with a defamation suit if we didn’t apologize and retract the editorial. We ignored the letter, repeated the criticism, and Mr. Trump dropped the subject.

Mr. Wolff’s book may be partly imagined, as his work often is, but that is no reason to block publication. Unless an author has violated national security, or some contractual agreement with an agency like the CIA, no court is going to ban a book in advance of publication. The Supreme Court declared such “prior restraint” on free speech unconstitutional in the landmark Near v. Minnesota case in 1931. Henry Holt knows this and responded to Mr. Trump’s letter by moving up the publication date.

Mr. Trump’s libel lament is also familiar and feckless bluster. “Libel laws are very weak in this country. If they were strong it would be very helpful,” Mr. Trump said on Saturday at a press event, joining the queue of politicians who wish they could sue journalists.

In February 2016 as a candidate, Mr. Trump declared: “One of the things I’m going to do if I win, and I hope we do and we’re certainly leading. I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.” The difference now is that he’s not even claiming he can change the libel laws; he’s merely griping about them.

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BOOKS Comments turned off

Review: ‘Fire and Fury’ in the Trump White House The author writes as if he were the omniscient narrator of a novel, offering up assertions that are provocative but often conjectural. Barton Swaim reviews ‘Fire and Fury’ by Michael Wolff.

By on January 8th, 2018

Michael Wolff has done what the rest of us chump writers can only dream of: He has gotten himself and his book denounced by a sitting U.S. president on live television. That, together with a cease-and-desist letter sent from the president’s attorneys to the publisher, will ensure not only that the book makes Mr. Wolff a truckload of money but also that it gets talked about for a generation. “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House” is thus in a class with Salman Rushdie’s “Satanic Verses”—by itself a forgettable book, certainly not Mr. Rushdie’s best, but remembered forever as having provoked a death sentence from Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini.

Mr. Wolff was allowed to lurk around the White House for something like six months, presumably because someone in the first days of Donald Trump’s administration thought he would write a sympathetic account. It was an idiotic decision. Mr. Wolff is known in New York and Hollywood for his withering takedowns of popular public figures; he was only ever going to write one kind of book.

In one sense, “Fire and Fury” is a typical piece of “access journalism,” as it’s known, like many titles by Bob Woodward or, on the more gossipy side, like the “Game Change” books by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. Mr. Wolff takes the genre to another level, and perhaps a lower level. If he has employed objective criteria for deciding what to include or exclude, it’s not clear what those criteria are. By the looks of it, he included any story, so long as it was juicy. We’re told, for instance, of Mr. Trump’s supposed method of bedding other men’s wives in his pre-presidential days; of Mr. Trump’s promise to his wife, who had no interest in being first lady, that everything was OK because he wasn’t going to win anyway; of the president’s scolding of the White House cleaning staff for picking up his shirt from the floor (“If my shirt is on the floor, it’s because I want it on the floor”); and many other such weird tales.

Former chief political strategist Steve Bannon was evidently the source of the book’s most staggering revelations—if “revelations” is the right word for the sort of titillating office gossip that Mr. Wolff reports as fact. A typical story: Mr. Bannon, in a heated argument with the president’s daughter Ivanka, called her a “liar”—with a choice modifier to go with it. This took place in front of the president. The father’s response: “I told you this is a tough town, baby.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump’s ObamaCare Lifeboat New rules could make association health plans a realistic alternative.

By on January 8th, 2018

The Trump Administration is on a mission to rescue health-care markets and consumers from ObamaCare’s shrinking choices and higher prices. Witness the Labor Department’s proposal to allow small businesses to band together to provide insurance on equal footing with corporations and unions.

The share of workers at small businesses with employer-sponsored health benefits has dropped by a quarter since 2010 as insurance costs have ballooned in part due to government mandates. About 11 million workers employed by small businesses are uninsured. Some businesses have dropped their workers onto state insurance exchanges where premiums are subsidized by taxpayers.

Enter President Trump, who last fall directed Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta to consider “expanding the conditions that satisfy the commonality-of-interest requirements” for association health plans under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or Erisa.

Large-group plans that are self-insured—i.e., funded by unions or employers—are covered by Erisa. These plans are exempt from ObamaCare’s essential benefits requirements, though they must comply with rules on annual and lifetime limits and pre-existing conditions as well as state solvency regulations.

Mom-and-pop businesses and sole proprietors aren’t so lucky. Most purchase coverage from insurers in the small group or individual marketplaces, which are subject to ObamaCare’s coverage mandates and controls on premium prices. The Obama Administration precluded small employers from forming association plans that are exempt from Erisa by narrowly interpreting the “commonality of interest” membership requirements.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

JOAN SWIRSKY: MOURNING IN AMERICA

By on January 8th, 2018

LIBERAL GRAVE JUMPERS

Not long after the November 2016 presidential election, I was at a luncheon surrounded by a large group of powerful, sophisticated, and formidably wealthy women, actually full-bore capitalists––dripping in diamonds and wearing pricey designer outfits––who all voted for the Socialist Hillary for president and twice for the Marxist poseur “president” Barack Obama.

At casual glance, you would think this gathering was a lavishly catered fundraiser for a good cause, with gorgeous flowers on display and wine flowing. But in truth it more resembled a wake.

“It’s not fair,” one woman lamented, echoing the age-old mantra of the left, and completely oblivious to the fact that most Hillary voters would consider it “not fair” to be wearing a seven-carat diamond ring and driving to a fancy luncheon in a Bentley when this privileged woman could––progressives believe actually should––be “sharing her wealth” with the deserving masses!

“Everything we worked for is lost,” another diva announced––“what will happen to choice?”––again referring to the Holy Grail of the left, i.e. ending the lives of living fetuses who simply need a few more months of in-utero development to become vibrant human beings, babies who would be adored by millions of would-be adoptive parents throughout the world.

Significantly, none of the leftist women I encountered at the luncheon has defected to Cuba or Russia or China to prove how ideologically pure they are or how genuine their belief is in socialism or communism. Au contraire…all of them keep living the high life while they keep telling the rest of us not to wear fur coats, not to drive gas-guzzling cars, not to send our kids to private schools, on and on, while, to a person, they do exactly the opposite of what they pretend to stand for!

This luncheon was held a couple of weeks before the National Day of Mourning on January 21, 2017––also known as the Women’s March on Washington––in which thousands of women gathered to express their shock and fury at Hillary’s loss of the presidency.

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