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July 2018

Michael Galak The Legacy and Lessons of Barbarossa

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2018/07/legacy-lessons-barbarossa/

The hallmark and genesis of the Great Patriotic War, as Russians call it, was the political incompetence of the Soviet leadership, their naiveté, paranoia and blind reliance on a Marxist interpretation of world events. Marx is no longer the Kremlin’s sacred text, but all else has changed little if at all.

June 22, 1941 – its the date which is engraved in memory of all who had a misfortune to be born in the USSR. This was the day Operation Barbarossa began, the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union. By today’s date, July 10, German forces were at Kiev’s doorstep and, behind the rapidly advancing front line, the Wehrmacht and SS were firmly in control. On this day Jews were being massacred in the Polish town of Jedwabne, as they would be in countless other locations.

In retrospect, the clash between Hitler and Stalin was inevitable, two predators willing and ready to spill blood generously to achieve their delusional dreams of world dominance. Both required enemies to hate to consolidate their hold on their respective populations. The Nazis were focusing their need for hatred on the Jews. The Soviets were concentrating on the ‘evil’ of the international bourgeoisie. The Soviets adopted pseudo-scientific Marxist theories of class struggle as the basis for the extermination of millions of unwanted souls. The Nazis based their extermination programs on the equally pseudo-scientific theories of race and social Darwinism. Both regimes were quite successful in brainwashing their followers. Both were socialists with insignificant ideological variations. Even flags, songs and holidays were similar. The difference between the Nazis and the Soviets, described as the divide between the evil ‘Right’ and the noble ‘Left’, has always struck me as being contrived and nonsensical.

The beginning of the direct war between the USSR and the Nazi Germany was characterized by the extraordinary series of events. The two countries were allies and, following the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty, which stunned the world at the time, were busily dividing Europe. Hitler was grabbing France, Netherlands, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Greece, Yugoslavia and the Western half of Poland. Stalin, not to be outdone, was getting Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, parts of Hungary, Romania and Eastern Poland. Stalin demanded an increase of his share of the European spoils during the Molotov’s visit to Berlin in 1940. Hitler refused and activated the contingency plan of attack on the Soviet Union ‘Barbarossa’ almost immediately after Molotov’s departure. Both countries were planning to attack each other sooner or later.

14 Times Republican Officials Were Viciously Harassed, Threatened With Death Bre Payton

http://thefederalist.com/2018/07/10/14-times-republican-officials-viciously-harassed-
n the past couple of months, Republicans and government officials who work for President Trump have received death threats, been run out of restaurants and stores, and followed to their cars.

Throughout the past couple of months, Republicans and government officials who work for President Trump have received death threats, been run out of restaurants and stores, and followed to their cars. The uptick in harassment coincides with increasingly aggressive rhetoric from leading Democrats.

Here are 14 times Trump administration officials and Republican lawmakers have been threatened or run out of establishments recently.
1. Protestors to Mitch McConnell: ‘We Know Where You Live!’

Protestors followed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to his car outside of a restaurant in Kentucky on Saturday. In a video recording of the encounter, protestors are seen walking behind McConnell and shouting at him: “Vote you out!”

Hundreds of protestors were demonstrating outside of a nearby Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office on Saturday, when the senator was spotted dining at a restaurant just a few miles away, CNN reported.

“We know where you live too, Mitch!” the group of protestors are seen yelling. “Abolish ICE!”
2. Protestors Follow Elaine Chao To Her Car

Two weeks ago, protestors followed McConnell and his wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, as they were getting into a vehicle. These demonstrators played audio of border-crossing foreign children whose parents were reportedly apprehended and heckling the senator for the Trump administration’s border enforcement policies.

“Why are you separating families?” the men ask.

“Why don’t you leave my husband alone!” Chao responds.

The day before this showdown between Chao and protestors, Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters called for Democrats to “create a crowd” whenever they see a Trump administration official at a restaurant or shopping mall and to “tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”
3. Liberals Wish Rep. Steve Scalise Was Dead

In response to Water’s call for mobs of protestors to heckle and crowd around Republicans, Rep. Steve Scalise, who survived an anti-Republican shooting last year, called for civility among all Americans, from both sides of the aisle. His call for civility was met with pushback from people who said they wished he had “succumbed to his wounds.”
4. Liberal PAC Fundraises For Billboard Encouraging Passersby to ‘Take Out’ Scalise

In May, a liberal PAC was raising money to erect a poster encouraging passersby to “take out” Scalise. The wording of the billboard, combined with a comment from the PAC chairman saying his group was planning to “toss mortars” at Republicans, was sloppy, to say the least.
5. Man Arrested For Threatening To Kill Republican Supporters

On Saturday, a man was arrested in Suffolk County, New York, for threatening to kill supporters of Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin and President Donald Trump. The Daily Caller has more:

‘Martin Astrof was arrested after he threatened to kill supporters of Congressman Lee Zeldin and President Donald Trump,’ Suffolk PD said. ‘Astrof went to the campaign headquarters of Congressman Zeldin and became irate with a campaign worker at approximately 11:15 a.m. After threatening to kill the campaign worker and other supporters, Astrof backed his car up in an aggressive manner nearly striking the worker.’

6. Cynthia Nixon Calls ICE a ‘Terrorist Organization’

“Sex and the City” star and gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon, who campaigned in Suffolk County over the weekend, called ICE a “terrorist organization,” and called for the “monstrous Trump-Pence administration” to be abolished.

7. Woman Screams Out Steve Bannon at a Bookstore

On Saturday, a woman reportedly screamed at former White House advisor Steve Bannon, who was shopping at a bookstore in Richmond, Virginia. The woman called Bannon a “piece of trash” and continued to yell at him until the bookstore owner called the cops, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
8. Woman Confronts Scott Pruitt At DC Restaurant With 2-Year-Old Son On Her Hip

Last Monday, a woman eating with her two-year-old son at a restaurant in Washington DC confronted former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt and urged him to resign.

“This is my son, he loves animals, wants clean water, clean air,” the woman said. “I’m urging you to resign before your scandals push you out.”
9. Mob of Protestors Swarm DHS Secretary at DC Restaurant, Yell ‘Shame! Shame!’

Days earlier, a group of protestors swarmed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen at a Mexican restaurant in Washington DC and shouted “SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!” at her repeatedly until she left.
10. Restaurant Owner Kicks Out Sarah Huckabee Sanders

Two weeks ago, the owner of a restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave her eatery because the White House press secretary works for the Trump administration.
11. Net Neutrality Supporter Threatened to Murder FCC Chairman’s Family

In late June, a man was arrested and charged for threatening to kill Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai and his family. Earlier this year, Pai, had to cancel appearances because of bomb threats aimed at him after the chairman voted to repeal Internet traffic regulations last December.
12. Protestors Left A Burnt, Decapitated Animal Body On DHS Employee’s Front Porch

In a recent threat assessment, DHS officials reported an uptick in the number of threats made against employees at the department since the increased attention to Trump’s enforcement of U.S. immigration policies. In one case, a DHS employee who lives in the Washington DC area found a body of a burned, decapitated animal on his front porch, ABC News reports.
13. Idaho State Rep. Threatened With Death, Rape

Idaho State Rep. Priscilla Giddings has been threatened with rape and encouraged to kill herself by people who disliked a Facebook post in which she explains how having a gun saved her life while fighting the Taliban overseas. Giddings, a former combat pilot and current major in the Air Force Reserves, says that disarming women in the U.S. is a step backwards. You can listen to the vile voicemail messages she received here.
14. Protestors Hand ‘Wanted’ Posters With Stephen Miller’s Face On Them To His Neighbors

Several weeks ago, White House senior advisor Stephen Miller’s face was slapped onto “Wanted” flyers found circulating among his neighbors at an apartment complex he reportedly lives in.

Miller reportedly told his colleagues that a bartender at a restaurant flipped him off when he went to pick up a sushi order at a nearby restaurant and repeatedly yelled at him. This confrontation prompted Miller to throw away $80 worth of sushi for fear that it had been tampered with.
Bre Payton is a staff writer at The Federalist. Follow her on Twitter.

Another ‘Migrant’ Uber Driver Has Sexually Assaulted His Passenger

– An Uber driver has been charged with trying to forcibly touch a passenger in Westchester County.

27-year-old Iqbal Hussain was arrested by Rye Brook detectives at his apartment in the Bronx on Tuesday.

Police say Hussain was working as an Uber driver when he attempted to subject a female passenger in his vehicle to sexual contact.

The woman was injured while trying to defend herself.

Hussain was charged with assault and attempted forcible touching, and was released on $500 bail.

*Between June 2014 and June 2018, there have been at least 375 reported sexual assaults committed by Uber and Lyft drivers upon their female passengers in the U.S., according to the watchdog website “Who’s Driving You?”

New Israeli Drug for Crohn’s Disease ‘Groundbreaking’ By Tyler O’Neil

https://pjmedia.com/trending/new-israeli-drug-for-crohns-disease-groundbreaking/

On Sunday, an Israeli drug company announced that a cure for Crohn’s disease may be in the works. As results of a massive study on the effectiveness of a potentially life-saving drug come in, RedHill Biopharma has also filed new patents for it in the U.S. and Europe.

“This is a groundbreaking new approach, and if we’re correct this will be a new salvation for patients and for doctors and for everyone affected by this disease,” Guy Goldberg, chief business officer at RedHill, told ILTV Israel on Sunday. “We are right now conducting probably the largest most robust study ever done with an anti-bacterial approach to treating Crohn’s disease.”

Crohn’s disease is an inflammatory bowel disease in which the body’s immune system attacks the gastrointestinal tract from mouth to anus. Signs and symptoms include abdominal pain, diarrhea, fever, and weight loss, while complications include anemia, skin rashes, arthritis, inflammation of the eye, and tiredness.

The direct cause of the disease remains unknown, but it seems linked to a combination of environmental, immune, and bacterial factors in people with a certain type of genetics. About half of the overall risk is related to genetics, with more than 70 genes involved. Tobacco smokers are twice as likely to develop the disease. There is as yet no cure, and people with Crohn’s disease have a reduced life expectancy.

Approximately 1.5 million people were diagnosed with Crohn’s disease worldwide in 2017, and global sales of Crohn’s disease therapies are estimated to exceed $10 billion in 2018, according to RedHill’s research.

“The current way of treating Crohn’s disease is basically suppressing the body’s entire immune response and that only works for a temporary period of time and it has very serious side effects,” Goldberg explained. “They’re essentially treating the symptoms of the disease and not providing a cure.”

By contrast, RedHill is “trying to address the underlying cause of the disease,” Following the theory that it is caused by a bacterial infection involving Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP).

That’s why the RedHill study is so important. The Israeli company is currently conducting a first Phase III study of the drug RHB-104 among Crohn’s disease patients. The last patient in the study completed 26 weeks of treatment in early May 2018, and results from the study are expected in the coming weeks.

The study is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study evaluating the safety and efficacy of RHB-104 in subjects with moderately to severely active Crohn’s disease. The goal is disease remission, and the study has enrolled 331 patients in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel. CONTINUE AT SITE

Schumer: Trump Chose Kavanaugh as Insurance against Mueller Investigation By Mairead McArdle

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/chuck-schumer-donald-trump-chose-brett-kavanaugh-as-insurance-against-mueller-investigation/

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said on Tuesday that President Trump nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh to fill Justice Anthony Kennedy’s seat on the Supreme Court because the president is “worried” about Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

“Why did the president stick with Kavanaugh? Because he’s worried that Mr. Mueller will go to the court and ask that the president be subpoenaed,” the New York Democrat said, flanked by other Senate Democrats outside the Supreme Court. “And President Trump knows that Kavanaugh will be a barrier to preventing that investigation from going there….His views on this issue are more extreme than just about anyone else on that list.”

Trump announced Kavanaugh’s nomination Monday evening, after which a slew of Senate Democrats pledged to oppose his confirmation.

Democrats are most worried about the conservative, Catholic federal appellate judge’s potential to help overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case which established a constitutional right to abortion, but they have also sounded the alarm about Kavanaugh’s views on presidential indictment.

The Strange Career of White Privilege By Victor Davis Hanson

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/strange-career-of-white-privilege/

Rich whites invent minority pedigrees to gain advantage while they condemn poor and working-class rural whites as racist.

You hear the phrase “white privilege” nonstop in America these days, as the slogan has transcended the campus and entered popular culture.

Historically, the term apparently refers to the original European settlers who came to the United States and later equated the protections of the U.S. Constitution solely with their own majority ethnicity and race — a tribal and chauvinistic mindset that still governs politics and immigration the world over, from China and Japan to most African and South American countries.

Yet the singular transcendent logic of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence was that all people innately were created equal. It took over two centuries on the ground to catch up to such lofty idealism.

Yet given that immigration by the early 19th century was already bringing in millions of so-called non-white immigrants, in addition to Native and African Americans, America soon was at least evolving into a multiracial democratic nation united under one shared culture — a radical idea and the first such edgy experiment in human history.

During the civil-rights movement of the 1960s, the nation’s racial tensions were mostly still defined as a binary of a dominant white majority and an often discriminated-against African-American minority.

Years of past prejudice had sparked the idea of affirmative action, or federal reparatory programs accorded to a historically discriminated-against black minority.

Mueller Will Not Present ‘Collusion’ Evidence at Manafort’s Fraud Trial By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/robert-mueller-paul-manafort-collusion-evidence-wont-be-used/

But that doesn’t mean he has no such evidence.

Paul Manafort faces two criminal trials, the first of which is scheduled to commence in the Eastern District of Virginia later this month. It is routine in such cases for the parties to file “motions in limine,” which ask the court to preclude evidence on topics that are claimed to be irrelevant to the charges and that could cause unfair prejudice or confusion.

The indictment on which Manafort will be tried primarily involves allegations of tax cheating and bank fraud. There are no charges involving so-called collusion in Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, the suspected scheme that was the rationale for Robert Mueller’s appointment as special counsel. Manafort thus filed an in limine motion to keep the collusion issue out of the case. In responding, the special counsel agreed with the defense, representing that the prosecution “does not intend to present at trial evidence or argument concerning collusion with the Russian government.”

This has prompted some chirping from Trump supporters. They note that Manafort is accused in the Steele dossier of being the key cog in the supposed Trump–Russia “collusion” arrangement. The suggestion is that Mueller has no real collusion evidence despite the fact that the FBI has been investigating the matter for two years.

It may well be that Mueller does not have a prosecutable collusion case (indeed, we have long surmised as much). But that is not a conclusion that can sensibly be drawn from the unremarkable fact that the special counsel does not plan to prove collusion in the imminent Manafort trial. Because collusion evidence would not be germane to the fraud allegations that the jury will be asked to decide, there would be no reason to introduce such evidence, if it exists.

AMIL IMANI: IRAN IS RIPE FOR REGIME CHANGE

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/07/iran_is_ripe_for_regime_change.html

It is hard to believe that four decades has passed since the Islamic Revolution was forced upon the Iranian people and their freedom disappeared. Under the rule of these adherents of death, everything in Iran is deteriorating while Iran’s religious government is strong and has a great deal of control on everything. Too much control without independent checks and balances encourages corruption, nepotism and inefficiencies. As a result, the bulk of the nation’s wealth flows to a few select individuals.

This is a wake-up call for Iran’s authorities and the international community. Although denied by many through the past four decades, Iran is literally a political, social and economic time bomb closing in on a colossal detonation.

While Iran continues to develop its missile program that is sharply criticized by the United States and Israel, they simultaneously seek to suppress people’s desire to keep a share of the country’s wealth. Prosecution and imprisonment of innocent people and systematic and illegal abuse of detainees, along with hundreds of gruesome acts, have also been reported.

Iranians have witnessed several uprisings, but they have become numb and unable to function and conduct a normal life. The battle against the Islamic regime remains arduous and long. The mullahs will not give up power easily, even if that means the complete destruction of Iran.

Pressure To Break Up Facebook Builds The conservative-hating social media giant may soon get its comeuppance. Matthew Vadum

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270691/pressure-break-facebook-builds-matthew-vadum

America’s largest communications union, the 700,000-member Communications Workers of America (CWA), has joined an activist coalition called Freedom from Facebook that seeks to break up the monopolistic social media giant.

So far the groups supporting the Freedom From Facebook coalition are predominantly left-wing. Among them are MoveOn.org and Public Citizen. Facebook has about 2 billion users worldwide.

But the ideological makeup of the FFF coalition could change in a heartbeat if Facebook continues down its intolerant, authoritarian path. That’s because conservatives have long been abused by Facebook and this ill treatment has only intensified since the election of President Donald Trump. Conservatives are getting wise to being used and taken advantage of and they don’t like it.

The Left claims to have only the purest motives for wanting to take action against Facebook.

“We should all be deeply concerned by Facebook’s power over our lives and democracy,” said Brian Thorn of CWA, the newest member of the Freedom From Facebook coalition.

Facebook’s workers are not represented by CWA, but the union does represent more than 100,000 employees at AT&T Inc. Facebook’s contracted shuttle drivers and cafeteria workers reportedly belong to labor unions.

A Champion of Constitutional Safeguards Brett Kavanaugh has a fine record as a judge. Senate Democrats will give him their worst anyway. By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Andrew M. Grossman

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-champion-of-constitutional-safeguards-1531189515

Days before President Trump announced his choice of Judge Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court, Senate Democrats had vowed to oppose any nominee. Backed by an activist-fueled propaganda machine, they now will unleash relentless personal attacks—on Judge Kavanaugh’s Catholic faith, his “elitist” Yale degrees, his service in the George W. Bush administration.

As with the attacks last year on Justice Neil Gorsuch, they should be unavailing. Over Judge Kavanaugh’s 12 years on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, he has developed an impressive record as a legal thinker and a champion of the Constitution’s structural safeguards against overweening government.

Typical is a 2008 dissent in which Judge Kavanaugh concluded that the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board was unconstitutionally structured because it improperly insulated the agency from political accountability. The opinion was a tour de force of historical exposition and originalist methodology—that is, interpreting the Constitution’s text as it was originally understood. The Supreme Court ultimately agreed, adopting the reasoning of Judge Kavanaugh’s dissent.

Yet he is equally wary of unbridled executive authority, as a 2013 case shows. When the Nuclear Regulatory Commission declined to proceed with licensing the proposed waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., which the agency appeared to oppose on policy grounds, he wrote: “The President may not decline to follow a statutory mandate or prohibition simply because of policy objections.”

In articles and speeches as well as formal opinions, Judge Kavanaugh has been a leading critic of Chevron deference, the courts’ practice of giving agencies free rein to interpret their own statutory authority. In a 2016 law-review article, he wrote that Chevron encourages the executive branch “to be extremely aggressive in seeking to squeeze its policy goals into ill-fitting statutory authorizations and restraints,” cutting Congress out of the picture. “The American rule of law, as I see it, depends on neutral, impartial judges who say what the law is.”CONTINUE AT SITE