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February 2019

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Why Palestinians Oppose an Anti-Iran Coalition by Khaled Abu Toameh

By on February 9th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13697/palestinians-iran-coalition

It seems the Palestinian leadership would rather see Iran continue to pose a threat to Arab countries than see peace between those countries and Israel.

Several Arab countries appear completely fed up with the Palestinians, particularly the continued bickering between Fatah and Hamas. Egyptian intelligence officials have devoted years trying to convince Hamas and Fatah to work together for the benefit of the Palestinians.

Instead of doing so, however, Palestinian leaders are preoccupied with blocking Arab participation in a conference that could see the creation of a coalition against Iran — the same country Abbas and his loyalists hold responsible for the ongoing divisions among the Palestinians. Might it be possible that the Arab countries are finally rousing themselves from their long slumber and beginning to seek better lives for themselves and their neighbors?

The Palestinians have good reason to believe that some influential Arab countries have given up on both them and the Palestinian cause. They fear that several Arab countries might even be headed toward normalizing their relations with Israel.

For several weeks now, the leadership of the Palestinian Authority (PA) has been waging a campaign against a US-Polish conference that is scheduled to take place in Warsaw later this month. US and Polish officials said that the conference will include sessions on the situation in Syria, Yemen, missile development, terrorism and illicit finance and cybersecurity. A US official said that the conference will also discuss “Iran’s destructive policies in the region.”

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Falsely Claims to be Native American Daniel Greenfield

By on February 9th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/272808/rep-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-falsely-claims-be-daniel-greenfield

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez falsely claimed to be a girl from the Bronx, when she was actually an architect’s daughter from Westchester. Then she decided to claim Jewish ancestry and now, joins Senator Elizabeth Warren in claiming to be Indian.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said that America needs to allow illegal immigrants, who are Latino, to stay in the country because they are descendants of Native Americans, and the United States is on native lands. She made the remarks during a press conference in which she called for the abolishment of ICE on Thursday.

“We have to have respect for children, respect for families, respect for human rights, and respect for the right of human mobility because it is a right,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “It is a right because we are standing on native land, and Latino people are descendants of native people, and we can not be told and criminalized simply for our identity or our status, period.”

You’re a descendant of European colonists. You share a last name with Cortes, one of the most infamous Spanish colonist leaders.

Cortes’ ancestry is Puerto Rican.

The only “native people” there were Taino Indians. There were never very many and they vanished early in the 16th century. Puerto Rican nationalists love claiming Taino ancestry even though by 1520, there were only 1148 Taíno remaining. Whatever Taino genes are in the Puerto Rican population came by way of Spanish colonists taking women from the conquered population.

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Brexit Derangement Syndrome in the Nude By Douglas Murray

By on February 9th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/brexit-derangement-syndrome-in-th

Every person interested in Brexit derangement syndrome has spent recent days becoming acquainted with one of the finest specimens of this malady to date. A Cambridge academic called Dr. Victoria Bateman has just become famous in the U.K. because of a lecture she delivered in January that has just gone big online. The lecture wasn’t in the Cambridge University economics department where Dr. Bateman can usually be found, but at a live music venue in the city.

There, Bateman delivered an hour-long lecture about how awful Brexit was, including some remarkably unoriginal claims such as that the whole Brexit process is really like the Wizard of Oz and in particular the Yellow Brick Road. What made these otherwise un-insightful remarks get some attention was that the whole thing was delivered naked. Yes, Dr. Bateman delivered the lecture as naked as the day she was born, except with the words written on her naked body in marker pen: “Brexit” (top of chest) “leaves” (right breast) “Britain” (left breast) and “naked” (roughly on the stomach area). Those of a strong and bored disposition can see the whole performance here.

It turns out that Dr. Bateman has been at this for some time, though has only just now really gotten the attention she has obviously long wanted. After the referendum in 2016, Bateman reportedly turned up to a Cambridge University economics faculty meeting similarly naked and with the same words scrawled on her body.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, POLITICS Comments turned off

Green New Deal-The Same Old Deal By The Editors

By on February 9th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/green-new-deal-left-has-only-one-idea-control/

Speaking of bovine flatulence . . .

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was supposed to be the Democratic party’s fresh new face — so why is the honorable lady from the Bronx trafficking in ideas from the 1930s?

The Left really has only one idea: control. At the end of the Cold War, when socialism stood discredited and the memory of its atrocities and repression were fresh in the minds of people who had just watched the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and much of what it stood for, the partisans of central planning found themselves in need of a new host, and what they found was the environmental movement — another vehicle for supplanting liberalism and free markets with five-year plans and political discipline. Hence the joke about “watermelons,” the new lefty activists who were green on the outside but red on the inside. The metaphor may occasion some eye-rolling and is prone to abuse, but it speaks to an undeniable truth: Environmentalism has been since the fall of the Soviet Union the world’s most important vessel for anti-liberal and anti-market forces.

Representative Ocasio-Cortez’s brief public career offers testimony to a mind that never has been at risk of being violated by a coherent thought, much less an original one, and so she has settled upon the “Green New Deal,” a concept and a marketing campaign that already was hackneyed and shopworn back when Barack Obama was pushing it years ago, and when Thomas Friedman was pushing it before him, and when the Communist Party USA was pushing it before him. Van Jones, quondam Maoist adviser to President Obama, wrote a book on the subject, The Green Collar Economy, in which he made the case for conjoining “our two biggest problems.” The program he spelled out will be familiar to any student of the history of socialism.

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Was Stacey Abrams really the best the Dems could do? By Russ Vaughn

By on February 9th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/02/was_stacey_abrams_really_the_best_the_dems_could_do.html

EXCERPT

“……After but a preliminary search, I was wondering why on Earth the Georgia Democratic Party powers that be had selected a former tax attorney, who doesn’t pay her taxes timely, to be the chief executive officer of the state, expected by voters to govern responsibly. Why would they advance a person to head their state, whose major obligation to the citizenry is managing the financial affairs of their state, who obviously cannot responsibly manage her own financial affairs? According to articles out there on the web, candidate Abrams owed some serious money to the IRS, more than $50,000. She had student loan debt in excess of $90,000. And what’s even more damning was her personal credit card debt, pushing $80,000. It’s doubtful that Ms. Abrams has completely balanced her books since that was reported less than a year ago, although, as a favored Democratic Party figure, the possibility can’t be dismissed.

So Abrams appears to have issues when it comes to managing her personal finances, and Georgia Democrat fat cats wanted her to head their ticket, to entrust her with the financial well-being of their state — with a budget approaching $50 billion. Did they seriously want voters to believe they could not find, in the entire state of Georgia, a better qualified black female who could check off their requisite identity politics boxes, one, perhaps, who pays her taxes and her credit card bills? Worse is that even though Georgia voters rejected this irresponsible woman and elected a man with a business background to manage their state finances, national Democratic Party leaders still saw fit to select a tax-evader as the face of the party to deliver the SOTU rebuttal, which she did rather poorly — and poorly is being charitable.

This politically correct farce illustrates the madness that permeates the Democratic Party, wherein qualifications to manage the affairs of our states and our nation take a dismissive back seat to race, sex, and sexual preferences when it comes to candidate selection. For an even better demonstration of this leftist irrationality, one needs only to view the video of that sullen, surly, white-clad gaggle of Democrat women in the House chamber for Trump’s address and observe their immature behavior. You’d be hard pressed to find any examples of thoughtful, responsible leadership in that crowd of churlish girls. Yep, I said “girls,” because that is exactly the description their adolescent comportment begs for. With their spoiled, snotty, self-serving behavior, they clearly demonstrated to America what the Democratic Party has become: a refuge for know-nothing know-it-alls, who, with the absolute certainty of adolescents, think they can do a better job of managing family affairs than the grown-ups. And these are the women to whom the Democrats expect the voters to entrust the future of this nation?

If the Democrat leadership believes that Stacey Abrams represents the very best of this lame-brained bunch of petulant, pussy-hatted politicos, wouldn’t you just love to see the financial statements on the rest of these new Democrat “leaders” who will control the trillion-dollar budgets and deficit spending of your nation?

Sleep on that thought, America…

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Al Gore comes out in favor of Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal By Ethel C. Fenig

By on February 9th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/02/al_gore_comes_out_in_favor_of_ocasiocortezs_green_new_deal.html

Noted environmentalist but failed science prognosticator and multi, multi, multi-millionaire Al Gore, whose lavish homes fit the lifestyle of a Democrat former senator, former Democrat vice president, failed Democrat presidential candidate, Academy Award-winner, Grammy-winner, Nobel Peace Prize-winner, and all-around hypocrite chimes in on fellow (yeah, yeah, she’s a woman) Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.)’s equally non-scientific scheme to ruin the USA while getting rich — probably — and more famous in the process.

The Green New Deal resolution marks the beginning of a crucial dialogue on climate legislation in the U.S. Mother Nature has awakened so many Americans to the urgent threat of the climate crisis, and this proposal responds to the growing concern and demand for action. The goals are ambitious and comprehensive — now the work begins to decide the best ways to achieve them, with specific policy solutions tied to timelines. It is critical that this process unfolds in close dialogue with the frontline communities that bear the disproportionate impacts today, as this resolution acknowledges. Policymakers and Presidential candidates would be wise to embrace a Green New Deal and commit to the hard work of seeing it through.

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‘Never Look Away’ Review: Towering Art as High Drama Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s latest feature explores the power of art as exemplified by an artist who resembles painter Gerhard Richter.By Joe Morgenstern

By on February 9th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/never-look-away-review-towering-art-as-high-drama-11549578464?mod=cx_picks&cx_navSource=cx_picks&cx_tag=video&cx_artPos=6#cxrecs_s

When your debut feature wins an Oscar—and almost universal acclaim—the path ahead probably leads downhill. That was the case for the German filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. His electrifying 2006 political thriller, “The Lives of Others,” set in the former East Germany, explored state-sponsored surveillance, the beauty of empathy, and what it means to be human. His second film, “The Tourist,” starred Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp in a silly Hollywood confection about gangsters and mistaken identity; it left Mr. Donnersmarck’s admirers wondering how he would climb back from such a steep descent. “Never Look Away,” in German with English subtitles and entering national release this week, provides the answer: by taking on, with formidable if not total success, a mountainous subject—the power of art as exemplified by an artist who resembles the towering figure of Gerhard Richter, and as dramatized in a fateful family saga across three eras of German history.

Either of those two elements might have been ambitious enough to fill a conventional feature. This one, which runs a few minutes more than three hours, is filled to overflowing, though only occasionally does it seem overlong. (An extended sequence about the avant-garde scene in postwar Dusseldorf conspicuously verges on self-parody.) And as befits a story about the visual arts, it was shot by the great American cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, who gave us the peerlessly pure images in Carroll Ballard’s “The Black Stallion.”

Mr. Donnersmarck’s artist hero, Kurt Barnert (Tom Schilling), offers a perfect pretext for re-examining his nation’s calamitous past, from the rise of the Nazis before World War II through postwar division to unification in unimagined peace and prosperity. “Never Look Away” is equally about the suffering Kurt’s family endures during much of that time, and about Kurt’s art—how he makes it, how it changes him and those it touches. The details of his life sometimes hew closely to those of Mr. Richter’s; at other times they’re freely fictionalized. (The fraught relationship between the filmmaker and Mr. Richter, arguably the world’s pre-eminent living artist, was recently examined in a New Yorker piece by Dana Goodyear.) Rich as the film may be in aesthetic considerations—very rich indeed—it’s the startling arc of Kurt’s life story that sustains the dramatic narrative.

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EDUCATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Florida’s Voucher Vindication New data shows how school choice lifts college prospects.

By on February 9th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/floridas-voucher-vindication-11549670717?cx_testId=16&cx_testVariant=cx&cx_artPos=4&cx_tag=collabctx&cx_navSource=newsReel#cxrecs_s

One issue that helped Florida Governor Ron DeSantis beat progressive Andrew Gillum in November’s gubernatorial nail-biter was his support for the state’s private school voucher program. To understand why that mattered, consider a report this week on the link between K-12 school choice and college success.

Nearly 100,000 low-income students can attend private school in Florida under its Tax Credit Scholarship (FTC) program, and 68% of the students are black or Hispanic. When the Urban Institute examined limited data in 2017, it found that school-voucher alumni weren’t much more likely to earn bachelor’s degrees at Florida’s state universities than were their public-school peers. Some critics seized on this as evidence of school-choice failure.

Now comes new evidence from the Urban Institute, which this time examined a larger data set of some 89,000 students. The researchers compared those who used school vouchers to public-school students with comparable math and reading scores, ethnicity, gender and disability status. The new research also included students who attended private and out-of-state colleges and universities in addition to Florida schools.

High school voucher students attend either two-year or four-year institutions at a rate of 64%, according to the report, compared to 54% for non-voucher students. For four-year colleges only, some 27% of voucher students attend compared to 19% for public-school peers. Voucher students also appear to have broader post-high school options. About 12% of voucher students attended private universities, double the rate of non-voucher students.

What of graduation rates? Voucher students who entered the program in elementary or middle school were 11% more likely to get a bachelor’s degree, while students who entered in high school were 20% more likely. Some 35% of students in the study participated in the voucher program for only a year. But the researchers note that “the estimated impact on degree attainment tends to increase with the number of years of FTC participation,” indicating the program is important to student success. High schoolers who stayed in the voucher program for at least three years “were about 5 percentage points more likely to earn a bachelor’s degree, a 50 percent increase.”

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A Visit With Venezuela’s Interim President ‘ Juan Guaidó says in an interview.‘I personally don’t believe that Russia and China are on Maduro’s side,’ By Annika Hernroth-Rothstein

By on February 9th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-visit-with-venezuelas-interim-president-11549667894

Much of the Western world has recognized Juan Guaidó’s claim to be interim president of Venezuela, but the old president, Nicolás Maduro, seems determined to hold on to power. Does Mr. Guaidó hope for foreign intervention? “It’s important to remember that a dictator will not freely relinquish power after having hijacked the constitution and ruled with threats and promises,” he tells me in an interview in his office at the National Assembly. “Sometimes it is necessary to put enough pressure on him that he leaves. A military operation may be the most effective form of pressure, but it is not the form we hope for and believe in.”

He goes on to say that all options are on the table—echoing the public statements of President Trump and other U.S. officials—but insists he prefers a peaceful process that would enable fair elections and spare the Venezuelan people from costs of war. Anyhow, he says, Mr. Maduro is increasingly isolated.

Some countries—China, Russia, Turkey and Iran prominent among them—have continued to support Mr. Maduro, but Mr. Guaidó says he isn’t worried that Venezuela will become the focal point of a new cold war. “The support for the democratization of Venezuela and for our struggle has been enormous—completely unparalleled,” he says. “I personally don’t believe that Russia and China are on Maduro’s side—they are simply protecting their investments here in Venezuela. But slowly they are realizing that Maduro cannot offer them either stability nor guarantees. What the opposition stands for is stability, protection of Venezuela, and a fostering of democratic processes.”CONTINUE AT SITE

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