Displaying posts published in

June 2018

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Iraq: The Banker, the Mullah, the Militia and the Cook by Amir Taheri

By on June 24th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12574/iraq-banker-mullah-militia-cook

The young technocrats around Muqtada al-Sadr get their ideas, especially on economics, more from Milton Friedman’s texts than Muhamad-Baqir al-Sadr’s “Our Economy”.

The next step should be to also accept ideological and political diversity. I believe that in the past 15 years, Iraq has made significant progress in that direction.

In a system of down-to-earth politics, Iraq would be liberated from utopian illusions that have caused it so much tragedy, and focus on bread-and-butter issues closer to the concerns of both our banker friend and his cook.

“How is Iraq?” we asked a friend just back from Baghdad the other day.

“Bad, very bad, my friend,” was the reply. “Even my cook has an opinion about how to form the new government.”

The Iraqi friend is a prominent banker who spent his youth in exile in the West and returned home only after the fall of Saddam Hussein. However, he seems to have retained the traditional mindset of many of us Middle Easterners, who see ourselves as victims of despotism and yet fear any system in which even the cook has an opinion.

To be fair to our friend, the current political scene in Baghdad isn’t exactly reassuring. The general election failed to produce an outright majority and the formation of a new government could take weeks if not months.

We are used to seeing governments formed and reshuffled in hours, if not minutes, with narrow elite of “usual suspects” playing musical chairs in and out of ministerial posts. In that system, any hitch in forming a government could be dealt with by having some ministers shot, as did Saddam Hussein in his heyday, or exiled into ambassadorial posts with a golden handshake.

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MRS.MERKEL’S MALADY-MIGRATION BY CHRISTOPHER GAGE

By on June 24th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/06/24/ms-merkels-malady

Germans like to apologize. During a brief trip to Munich last year, tensions between locals and newly arrived migrants often flared into fizzing commotions of swinging fists, splatting saliva, and the kind of primal chest-beating one cravenly enjoys from the safety of a Barcalounger and in high-definition on a screen, but rarely relishes up close and personal.

These little flare-ups were often followed by an apology from one of the bystanders. With misty eyes, they would insist with pure conviction that such violent incursions were rare. Yet the mea culpas always seemed artificial—almost rehearsed.

That’s not to judge an entire country on the witness of a few days. Anyone having visited Germany will remark on the conviviality of its people. Their dehydrated sense of humor. And their seeming genetic need to apologize for their part in the great staining of Western, and indeed, human history.

That stain is why Angela Merkel has opened the door to more than 1.5 million refugees since 2015. That stain is why Merkel is clinging to what was the sleepiest job in Europe.

Merkel’s Götterdämmerung means her 13-year tenure could end just months after securing, albeit desperately, her fourth term. Such a grandiloquent virtue-signal also led to the Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) gaining 13 percent of the vote before forming the official opposition. In Germany, this kind of thing doesn’t happen.

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MICHAEL WALSH: A FAREWELL TO STEVEN KANFER

By on June 24th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/06/24/mazel-and-may-i-add-tov-and
Mazel and, May I Add, Tov . . . and Farewell

EXCERPTS

“Steve Kanfer, who died quietly in his sleep Wednesday night at the age of 85, almost nothing was beyond his expertise, his knowledge, or his talent; the man was not so much a polymath as a poly-abled master of just about anything he tried—writer, essayist, TV writer, wit, bon vivant, host, devoted husband of his wife May Kanfer, father of two, grandfather, mimic, musician, craftsman and one of the titans of Manhattan arts criticism during his heyday at Time magazine, where he reviewed films and edited the Books section with grace and style for decades.”

” He was a man of formidable knowledge—his study in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y. was crammed floor to ceiling with books on every conceivable subject. He wrote biographies of Groucho (another spot-on impersonation), Brando, Bogie, and (Lucille) Ball, along with studies of the Jewish Rialto (Stardust Lost) and a history of the Jewish Catskills (A Summer World). And yet, he was always interested in what you were doing, what you were writing, how your family was. He took joy not in his own accomplishments, but in those of his friends. It was entirely characteristic of him that, in the end, he slipped away from us in the middle of the night, without waiting for, or wanting, applause—which we the bereaved must now supply posthumously.

“But he could also be fierce, especially regarding Jewish issues. A close friend of Elie Wiesel, Steve had a clear-cut opinion about the moral rightness of Israel and no patience with attacks on it. Remarkably, for a New York Jewish intellectual, he was a political and cultural conservative, which is to say he believed in the superiority of Judeo-Christian Western civilization and sought to preserve, protect, and defend it from all its enemies, including radical Muslims, cultural Marxists, and the New York Times.”

“He was, as far as I could tell over the course of nearly 40 years, afraid of absolutely nothing and nobody and would take on all comers in the pages not only of Time, but also City Journal, the New Leader, and elsewhere. Thanks to his formidable erudition, he was equally at home debating politics, history, music, as well as literature, especially American literature—and always from the standpoint of a moral humanist, equal parts the Jewish Jesuit Naphta (in his burning intellectualism) and the expansive Settembrini (in his love for people and his appreciation of the human comedy) in Mann’s The Magic Mountain. And we were all Hans Castorp, the “pure fools” learning at his feet.”

“But above else, Steve Kanfer was an American—not just a patriot in the political sense, but an American in the old-fashioned sense. From his Old Country ancestors, he inherited the Jewish love of learning and respect for tradition; from his New York upbringing he had the American skepticism of pigeonholes and categorization, and contempt for arbitrary limits; for Steve, there were no limits to understanding, only a failure of the will and the imagination.”

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Canada Attacks Religious Freedom We tried to open a law school that upholds Christian values. That’s not allowed. By Bob Kuhn

By on June 24th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/canada-attacks-religious-freedom-1529623475

Mr. Kuhn is President of Trinity Western University

Langley, British Columbia

Canada legalized same-sex marriage in 2005, amid many promises that traditional religious believers would be protected. Those promises have proved empty. Earlier this month the Supreme Court of Canada told Trinity Western University, which I lead, that it could not open a law school. Accrediting a school that upholds traditional Christian teachings on marriage could send the wrong message to Canadians who disagree with Trinity’s beliefs, we were told.

This isn’t about the quality of our educational programs. Our researchers hold millions of dollars in grants. Many members of our faculty have been recognized as 3M Teaching Fellows, Canada’s most prestigious award for excellence in educational leadership. We are consistently ranked one of the best Canadian universities for educational experience, according to the National Survey of Student Engagement.

Trinity simply is being punished for asking its faculty and students to observe traditional Christian teachings on marriage through a community covenant. In 2001 the high court ruled decisively that this policy did not disqualify the university from training public-school teachers. It seemed as if the ruling gave Trinity a secure place as one of the few private faith-based schools in Canada.

But that was then. In 2012 Trinity decided to open a law school. It would have been the only private one in Canada and the only one to offer a specialty in charity law. It was an arduous task from the beginning. Three provincial law societies—similar to state bar associations in the U.S.—said no in March 2014. Everyone agreed that Trinity’s program met all the requirements and would train competent lawyers. But law societies across the country held public meetings during which Trinity’s students and faculty were called bigots and worse.

The Law Society of Upper Canada, the nation’s oldest and largest, told the high court in Ottawa during oral arguments on Nov. 30, 2017, that accrediting any “distinctly religious” organization would violate the Canadian Charter, which is similar to the U.S. Bill of Rights. It added that when the government licenses a private organization it adopts all its policies as its own. If these arguments had been accepted, they would have spelled the end of Canada’s nonprofit sector. In their zeal to root out the supposed bigotry of traditional religious believers, these lawyers were prepared to dynamite Canada’s entire civil society.

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Shouting and Spitting Lefty Protesters Hound Fla. AG Pam Bondi Out of Tampa Movie Theater By Debra Heine

By on June 24th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/shouting-and-spitting-lefty-protesters-hound-fla-ag-pam-bondi-out-of-tampa-movie-theater/

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi had to be escorted out of a Tampa theater screening of the Mister Rogers documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” by police Friday night due to screaming protesters who hounded her throughout the building.

Enraged at Bondi over her recent actions on health care policy and her stance on immigration, the activists created what the Fla. AG’s spokesman called a “volatile scene,” getting into Bondi’s face, blocking her exit, and spitting on her.

Timothy Heberlein of Organize Florida took the video of Bondi leaving the theater flanked by law enforcement, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

“What would Mister Rogers think about you and your legacy in Florida? Taking away health insurance from people with pre-existing conditions, Pam Bondi!” Maria José Chapa, a labor organizer, screeches at Bondi in the video. “Shame on you!

“You’re a horrible person!” another protester bellows.

Bondi told the Times that the protest conflicted with Fred Rogers’ message of peace, love, and tolerance. “We were in a movie about anti-bullying and practicing peace and love and tolerance and accepting of people for their differences,” Bondi said. “That’s what Mister Rogers is all about. We all believe in free speech, but there’s a big difference there.”

The organizers didn’t plan to confront Florida’s top law enforcement official Friday night, Heberlein told the Times in an interview. But when one of them spotted Bondi in the ticket line before the film, he said they knew they had to say something.

According to Chapa, one of the organizers confronted Bondi before the movie over her February decision to join in a lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act — a move seen by many progressives as a threat to people with pre-existing conditions covered under the law.

“[Another protester] approached her first and she was trying to engage with her and ask her difficult questions, and she felt uncomfortable answering the questions,” Chapa told the Times. “And I guess she felt threatened because she called the police.”

The Tampa Police Department confirmed that they got a call from Florida Highway Patrol asking for help escorting Bondi out of the Tampa Theatre.

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THE MAIL: BBC SLAMS MARR OVER ‘ISRAEL KILLS KIDS’ SLUR-TOM GROSS

By on June 24th, 2018

I attach an article below from today’s Mail on Sunday (the Sunday edition of the Daily Mail, one of Britain’s most popular papers).

It is a very rare forced admission by the BBC that their star presenter, Andrew Marr, breached editorial guidelines with a “misleading” claim (probably based on fake news elsewhere in the British media which Marr had wrongly believed and not fact checked) that Israel had killed “lots of Palestinian kids” in Gaza. Marr gratuitously made the claim in the middle of discussing a story about Russia on his influential Sunday morning BBC1 show.

It is an important story by the Mail but it is regrettable that the Mail story doesn’t mention that Hamas and Islamic Jihad took responsibility for most of the recent Gaza deaths – people may wrongly think Marr was right.

Anti-Semitism campaigner Jonathan Sacerdoti forced the BBC complaints board to actually carefully examine the deaths on the Gaza border over recent weeks, which they were legally bound to check carefully, and the BBC complaints board concluded that their own presenter had in fact mislead the BBC audience with his claims.

Of course, Marr is the just the tip of the iceberg. BBC correspondents, anchors and BBC chosen studio “experts” continually provide misleading information, smearing Israel, as do many other media outlets.

On the day Sacerdoti made his complaint to the BBC several weeks ago, he also notified me about this and I considered writing about it, and yet not a single British news outlet I then approached at the time said they would be interested in an article pointing out that Marr (and much of the rest of the media) had mislead.

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Buried in IG report, shocking revelations about Clinton emails found on Weiner’s laptop By Rick Moran

By on June 24th, 2018

The issues surrounding Hillary Clinton’s emails just won’t go away, and the recently released DoJ inspector general’s report shows why.

Daily Caller:

According to the recently released inspector general report, on September 28 and 29, 2016 the New York office of the FBI immediately reported to the Washington headquarters its discovery of, first, 141,000 and then 350,000 emails on the laptop of Anthony Weiner – also known as “Carlos Danger,” a now-convicted sex offender. Mr. Weiner is the husband of Hillary Clinton’s inseparable aide Huma Abedin.

Now we know by October 4, the New York office had found 700,000 emails. The New York agents had seen and reported to FBI leadership they had seen email headers, all domain names, Mrs. Clinton’s initials on one sensitive but not classified document, and the missing BlackBerry backups.

The New York agents described it as the “entire file” of all Hillary Clinton emails from 2006 until 2016, including the BlackBerry messages that Comey himself had referred to as “the golden emails.”

What did the FBI do with this treasure trove of hundreds of thousands of emails that Hillary Clinton and her lawyers never turned over to the bureau?

Nothing – at least nothing to obtain evidence.

There was a flurry of activity at Headquarters. Strzok-Page texts show that Strzok, McCabe and Priestap discussed the Weiner laptop among themselves shortly after the “bomb” dropped in the video conference that day. In fact, Priestap and Strzok were waiting outside McCabe’s office to discuss it while McCabe was with Comey. There were also two calls between Comey and McCabe that evening.

Does anyone really think they were not having their own “oh s—” moment?

The FBI case agent in New York sure had one.

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Heroic and Inspiring Stories from the Greatest Generation By Elise Cooper

By on June 24th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/06/heroic_and_inspiring_stories_from_the_greatest_generation.html
Two recent nonfiction books highlight the bravery of the previous generations. These adventure stories bring to the forefront those who seemingly have been erased from history. Thanks to Corey Mead, who wrote The Lost Pilots, and Carole Avriett, the author of Coffin Corner Boys, people will know about these heroes.

Coffin Corner Boys is a compelling read about a B-17 crew who escaped from Nazi-occupied France after their plane was shot down. This book is a reminder of the Greatest Generation’s spirit, valor, and patriotism. The Coffin Corner is a particular position in the flying configuration where they flew “low squadron, low group, flying #6 in the bomber box formation [while] they were exposed to hostile fire.”

On March 16, 1944, the ten-member crew had to bail out of their plane after it was shot down by the Germans. Each crewmember had to endure severe cold, wetness, hunger, and exhaustion. Irv Baum and Ted Badder had the misfortune of landing by two Frenchmen who turned them in to the Nazis for two thousand francs.

Baum, who was Jewish, tried denying that he was “[a] Hebrew. I was told, ‘You’re lying’ and at the same moment was backhanded across the face hard enough to break open the corner of my left eye. We were sent to a processing camp near Frankfurt, where they questioned us about the names of our crew. I kept saying it was a crew I didn’t usually fly with, so I didn’t know any of them. About midnight, about five of us were taken outside. Then six or seven guards came out with rifles, lined us up and the officer, yelled, ‘Ready. Aim. Fire.’ But nothing happened. They put us back into our cells, and I spent a sleepless night.”

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Facing humiliation, Mueller backs away from prosecution of Russian entities By Thomas Lifson

By on June 24th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/06/facing_humiliation_mueller_backs_away_from_prosecution_of_russian_entities.html

The Mueller special counsel investigation purportedly was instigated to discover possible illicit Russian influence on the 2016 presidential election but now is backing away from the only indictments aimed at Russian entities, leaving only alleged process crimes (such as General Flynn’s alleged false statement to the FBI) and alleged crimes that occurred long before the Trump candidacy (such as Paul Manafort’s Ukrainian connection).

Devlin Barrett writes in the Washington Post:

In a pair of court filings Friday, the special counsel added four assistant U.S. attorneys to the case against Russian entities and people accused of running an online influence operation targeting American voters.

People familiar with the staffing decision said the new prosecutors are not joining Mueller’s team, but rather are being added to the case so that they could someday take responsibility for it when the special counsel ceases operation. The case those prosecutors are joining could drag on for years because the indictment charges a number of Russians who will probably never see the inside of a U.S. courtroom. Russia does not extradite its citizens.

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What Tocqueville Can Teach Us about Presidential Scandals By Richard Reinsch

By on June 23rd, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/alexis-de-tocqueville-on-presidential-scandals/
We need a republican remedy, not a bureaucratic one, to the disease of executive-branch abuses of power.

In the aftermath of Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz’s report on FBI misconduct during highly sensitive investigations of Hillary Clinton’s emails, we might turn to an unlikely source for wisdom: Alexis de Tocqueville.

In the midst of any contemporary agitation, it’s always useful to turn to Tocqueville. And he can offer plenty of resources for us to think about our contemporary scandal-ridden Washington, its breaches of the rule of law, and its accompanying investigations. Rumors of wrongdoing and federal inquests are nothing new. They usually find presidents at one point or another during their tenure in office: Watergate, Iran-Contra, Whitewater, Lewinsky, Valerie Plame, and now the accusations of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. The Obama administration largely escaped, though it may not have been for lack of evidence on certain matters. But to classify properly the power of scandal and investigation in our time requires thinking about how a modern democracy will hold itself accountable to the sovereignty of the people. We should labor for a republican remedy to the disease of executive-branch abuses of power. The bureaucratic remedy we have instead sought has only made us sicker.

Special Prosecutor Tocqueville

Near the end of Democracy in America, Tocqueville addressed the issue in a chapter entitled “What Sort of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear.” Passages in this chapter are prescient in their description of what we now call the administrative state. Tocqueville fears that a tutelary “protective power,” one that “is absolute, thoughtful of detail, orderly, provident, and gentile,” will come to rule democracies. This power, strangely, is exercised under the shadow of the sovereignty of the people, to guide and keep them free. Such consolidated rule will concede to the people a popular vote at regular intervals knowing that it, ultimately, holds the only authentic authority.

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