Displaying posts published in

January 2019

From the BuzzFeed Psychodrama to the Covington Video Melodrama By Victor Davis Hanson

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/from-the-buzzfeed-psychodrama-to-the-covington-video-melodrama/

In the current polarized climate concerning the shutdown, Trump, the media, etc., it would be wise for everyone to take a deep breath and wait at least 24 hours before snap editorializing, in response to the latest sensational morality tale flashing across electronic media.

In the present climate, one video (or even three or four videos from different angles and elevations) is not necessarily worth a thousand words.

Similarly, co-authored sensational scoops might not be so sensational if the old anonymous “sources say” modus operandi has no verifiable supporting documentary evidence as alleged — and if, at the outset, the co-authors cannot substantiate their story, and especially if they also cannot substantiate it later when challenged by the special counsel. (NB: In both the Michael Cohen and Covington stories, BuzzFeed ran with stories that were not substantiated but that did reflect its own predictable agendas).

I doubt we will know exactly what happened at the Washington, D.C., march until more eye-witnesses, videos, interviews, etc. are all collated (other than the fact that different groups were shouting different things, sometimes at each other). But the result will probably be a lot more complicated than the initial narrative of “white spoiled MAGA Catholic youth approached, surrounded, and taunted noble Native American elder,” a narrative that has induced an epidemic of virtue-signaling.

Trump’s freewheeling past should not lend automatic credibility to the latest media charge against him (which, a nanosecond after hitting the media, was followed by demands for his impeachment).

So, too, that a co-author of the BuzzFeed piece, Jason Leopold, had been a confessed felon, had been fired or repudiated by various news venues for alleged unprofessional conduct, and had been an admitted prevaricator did not ipso facto mean that his latest “scoop” had to be immediately written off as false. Just a few hours of gestation would make that clear enough.

Termites, Bigots and GOATs: Rationalizing Complicity with Anti-Semitism by Alan M. Dershowitz

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13593/womens-march-antisemitism

Consider the front page story in the New York Times Sunday Review, which singled out the Palestinian issue as “one of the great moral challenges of our time” — ignoring Syria, Ukraine, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Chechnya, Tibet, Cyprus and many far greater moral challenges, which are largely ignored by the hard left.

Recall that Hitler was not elected by anti-Semites or because of his anti-Semitism. He was elected as the result of his economic and other policies by people who gave him a pass for his anti-Semitism because they approved of his other policies.

People who support Louis Farrakhan because of the alleged good he does for the Black community and despite his overt anti-Semitism are complicit in bigotry, and those who march under the banner of such bigots are only one degree removed from such complicity.

Those women and men who marched in the Women’s March under the leadership of Linda Sarsour and Tamika Mallory colluded with anti-Semitism. These two leaders of the Women’s March worship the most influential anti-Semite in the United States today, Louis Farrakhan. They claim to disagree with his crass anti-Jewish (and anti-gay and anti-feminist) preaching — although there is reason to doubt this, as it relates to Jews — but they admire him for his impact on elements of the Black community. They must understand that this impact includes influencing hundreds of thousands of Blacks to consider Jews to be “termites” and destroyers of the world. But they do not care. They regard him as great — Mallory has called him “the GOAT” (“Greatest of All Time”).

Marching with these supporters of an anti-Semite is the equivalent of marching under the banner of David Duke, who inspires white supremacists with the same sort of bigotry with which Farrakhan preaches Black supremacy. Hitler inspired pride in Aryans, Mussolini made the trains run on time, and Stalin spread the wealth. But would the women who marched with Farrakhan’s admirers have marched with these bigots?

Turkey’s Unjust Justice System: Armenian MP Under Attack by Uzay Bulut

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13569/unjust-turkey

Armenian member of parliament Garo Paylan has good reason to fear for his safety. In January 2007, the Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was shot and killed outside his newspaper’s office in Istanbul. Dink, known for his outspokenness on the Armenian genocide, was prosecuted under Article 301, and received numerous death threats. It has been 12 years since Dink’s murder, and the case has yet to be solved.

Prosecutors are stepping up their efforts to have Paylan’s parliamentary immunity removed, so that he can be tried for “insulting Turkey.” This is a travesty of justice perpetrated by the very system charged with upholding justice.

On January 13, US President Donald Trump warned Turkey of possible economic sanctions if it attacks Kurds in Syria following the American withdrawal of troops from the war-torn country. Washington would do well to apply similar pressure to Ankara, a member of NATO, to cease violating the human rights — and endangering the lives — of other ethnic minorities and critics, such as Paylan.

Turkish prosecutors have filed a motion to strip an Armenian lawmaker of his parliamentary immunity over his outspoken criticism of the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Invoking Article 301 of the Turkish penal code — which states that “insulting the Republic of Turkey, the Turkish nation or Turkish government institutions” is punishable by a prison sentence — the prosecutor’s office of Diyarbakir began proceedings against Garo Paylan, who was elected in 2015 to Turkey’s Grand National Assembly as a member of the opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).