Displaying posts published in

February 2019

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Turkey: Imprisoned Former Opposition Lawmaker Symbol of Unjust Justice System by Uzay Bulut

By on February 12th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13716/turkey-eren-erdem

During his tenure as an Turkish member of parliament, Eren Erdem exposed ISIS and al-Qaeda activities across Turkey and often called on the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government to stop those activities and bring the militants to account. For that, he has been subject to pressure, investigations and trials.

In 2015, Turkey’s president Erdogan condemned Erdem and called him a “traitor”. An investigation into treason was launched against Erdem, who also received death threats over social media, with his home address posted by pro-government Twitter users, presumably to enable an attack on his house.

“On January 7, the court decided to release me by unanimous vote, as there is not a single piece of evidence against me….” – Eren Erdem, letter written from prison around January 28.

A former deputy of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Eren Erdem, who has been under arrest for seven months on terrorism charges, remains incarcerated — even though a court ruled on January 7 that he would be released pending trial.

Just before he was to be let out of prison, Istanbul’s chief public prosecutor’s office objected to his release. A higher court accepted the objection and once again issued a detention warrant against him.

In reaction to Erdem’s re-arrest despite the court ruling, his father, Hasan Erdem, said: “I’m talking to the person who is giving the instructions for this. You should know that my son and I are not afraid of you. You will not be able to bring us to our knees.”

Continue reading →
POLITICS Comments turned off

Watchdog Group Files Fundraising Ethics Violation Complaint Against Gillibrand By Mairead McArdle

By on February 12th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/kirsten-gillibrand-fundraising-ethics-violation-complaint/

A watchdog group filed an ethics complaint on Monday against Democratic 2020 presidential contender Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, saying she violated Senate ethics rules by using improper fundraising methods.

The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT) filed the complaint with the Senate Select Committee on Ethics, noting that the New York Democrat sent out a tweet during President Trump’s State of the Union speech inappropriately asking for campaign donations by using footage of herself on the House floor during the speech.

“Chip in $5 so we can put an end to this,” Gillibrand’s tweet said.

The watchdog requested that the committee “immediately investigate” Gillibrand, who announced her run for president last month and vowed to take on institutional racism, corruption and greed in Washington, and special interests.

“Presumably Senator Gillibrand is aware of her ethics violation because she later removed the tweet after raising funds in violation of ethics rules, all of which should be returned,” FACT wrote in its letter.

Continue reading →
EDUCATION Comments turned off

We’re Failing Our Students, and It Hurts Us All By Ilana Redstone Akresh

By on February 12th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/colleges-universities-left-wing-bubbles-failing-students/

They can go through their entire education without coming across a principled, non-left viewpoint.

In late January 2019, Kenneth Mayer, a political-science professor at the University of Wisconsin, drew the attention of a Republican state legislator for language in his syllabus that described Trump as “a president who gleefully flouts the norms of governing and presidential behavior.” His supporters see this as “not a bug, but a feature,” the professor wrote in his syllabus, adding, “To others, he is a spectacularly unqualified and catastrophically unfit egomaniac.” In response, the campus issued a statement supporting Mayer, stating that he “leaves his political opinions at the classroom door and asks his students to do the same.” Regardless of one’s views of the current administration, it is difficult to support the claim that Mayer’s opinions stayed at the door, given that they’re embedded in the course syllabus. Professor Mayer’s endorsement of a singular political perspective in the classroom points to a larger problem that plays out more broadly and has serious implications.

We can trace the current level of political polarization to multiple sources, but, whatever the causes, we could arguably reduce polarization by increasing our ability to see issues from perspectives other than our own. Given its potential to bridge divides, nurturing this ability should be a high priority. And yet, this is neglected in one of the places where it could do the most good: the college classroom.

Continue reading →
P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

The Intersectional Road to Perdition By Victor Davis Hanson *****

By on February 12th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/virginia-democrats-controversy-intersectional-politics/

Who is the greatest victim of them all? Leave it to the mob to pick the ‘winner.’

From The Ox-Bow Incident to To Kill a Mockingbird, novelists warned of the American propensity to become mob-like and often lethally so. Our Puritan roots, when coupled to elements of Athenian-style democracy, can on occasion vary wildly between dangerous bias and equally mindless self-righteousness.

Update those traditions within the modern bane of electronically charged instantaneous social media, identity politics, the decline of journalism, and vicarious virtue-signaling, and we increasingly suffer psychodramas like the Virginia fraternity mess, the Duke Lacrosse fiasco, the Kavanaugh hearings, and the Covington nightmare.

In such cases, predictable constructs often set afire the new mob. “Vulnerable” women or minorities or both are juxtaposed against young white males who have the scent of traditionalism, conservatism, or “privilege.” I say “psychodramas,” because the point is never to assess guilt or innocence or to establish some set of objective standards by which to condemn or exempt the accused. No, the aim is to vent outrage — the quicker, the more venomous, and the more public, the more advantageous either in a careerist or psychological sense.

The result is that there are now no rules in the Roman arena of feeding the accused to the carnivores — except two. If the progressive cause can be advanced, then necessary, one-time adjustments can call off the mob. And, two, given the complex hierarchy of victimhood and the relative degrees of perceived progressive correctness, it is sometimes difficult to sort out who should be rescued from, and who served up to, the famished lions.

Continue reading →
ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Vote on the Green New Deal Every Member of Congress should step up and be counted.

By on February 12th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/vote-on-the-green-new-deal-11549931107?cx_testId=0&cx_testVariant=cx_1&cx_artPos=0#cxrecs_s

Democrats rolled out their Green New Deal last week, and by all means let’s have a national debate and then a vote in Congress—as soon as possible. Here in one package is what the political left really means when it says Americans need to do something urgently about climate change, so let’s see who has the courage of those convictions.

Thanks to the resolution introduced last week by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, there’s already official language. While it’s nonbinding, the 14 pages give a clear sense of direction and magnitude in calling for a “10-year national mobilization” to exorcise carbon from the U.S. economy.

Continue reading →
ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Green New Deal: A Cautionary Tale Australia’s costly and fatal 2009 effort to upgrade houses for energy efficiency. By Tim Blair

By on February 12th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/green-new-deal-a-cautionary-tale-11549928511

The Green New Deal—introduced in Congress last week and immediately endorsed by several Democratic presidential candidates—calls among other things for “upgrading all existing buildings in the United States . . . to achieve maximal energy efficiency.” We’ve tried it in Australia—on a much smaller scale—and it didn’t go well.

On Feb. 3, 2009, Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his treasurer, Wayne Swan, announced the Energy Efficient Homes Package. “To support jobs and set Australia up for a low carbon future the Rudd Government will install free ceiling insulation in around 2.7 million Australian homes,” declared a press release from Mr. Swan’s office.

“For a time-limited period of two and a half years, from 1 July 2009, owner-occupiers without ceiling insulation will be eligible for free product and installation (capped at $1,600) simply by making a phone call.” At the time, A$1,600 was worth about US$1,280.

Continue reading →
ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The New Germany Energy Program – and Its Deep Historical Roots A disturbing glance at Germans’ close identification with “nature.” Michael Ledeen

By on February 12th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272823/new-germany-energy-program-and-its-deep-historical-michael-ledeen

When I was in Europe in the 1980s, starting my research on fascism, I had a German friend, an historian my age who subsequently wrote some excellent books on Italian fascism. At seminars and conferences, he invariably apologized for being German, which annoyed me to no end. After all, he was a post-Hitler German who had no responsibility for the Third Reich. I wanted him to just get on with his work and stop acting guilty for things he had not done. Nowadays, I wish we paid more attention to the country’s cultural history, which has an uncanny resemblance to its present in unnoticed ways.

I see that the Germans are going to do away with coal – and nuclear-generated electrical power. The abolition of nuclear power plants is old news, but the shutdown of the coal generators is new, and has been hailed by the Green Party and other environmentalists.

Those (few) of us who spent time studying German cultural history in the run-up to the Third Reich will have a frisson of deja vu at this announcement, for the Germans have long had a unique, weird, and durable relationship to “nature,” which is still with them. They have embraced the notion that modern civilization, with its scientific base, is dangerous to the human soul. This was the basis for an important mass movement that urged young Germans to get out of the cities and into the forests and mountains that constituted the “natural” setting for German life. This youth movement was called the Wandervogel, and shaped the thoughts and passions of a generation or two of young Germans.

Continue reading →
ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Phony ‘Justice’ through Phony Climate Policy By Marc Sheppard

By on February 12th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/02/phony_justice_through_phony_climate_policy.html

Would you be surprised to learn that of the five goals pronounced in the so-called “Green New Deal,” three of them focus on some form of social or economic “justice?” Or that the two that don’t instead use language right out of the UN’s globalist playbook? Well, they do, and, if you’ve been paying attention, you shouldn’t be all that surprised.

Indeed, the convergence of climate “science” and social “justice” is nothing new. Some argue that it dates back to 1972, when an unlikely blend of legitimate environmental activists, dyed-in-the-wool Marxists, and assorted anti-establishment 60’s leftovers met in Stockholm, Sweden to discuss the planet’s ills. And from that marriage of global environmental and social-justice concerns was born the IPCC’s parent organization – the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and its socialist-environmentalist manifesto – the Stockholm Declaration.

Others point to the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro (a.k.a. the Earth Summit). There, the event’s Secretary-general, Maurice Strong, told the opening session that industrialized countries had “developed and benefited from the unsustainable patterns of production and consumption which have produced our present dilemma.” Yes, this was the gathering which spawned the infamous Agenda 21 [PDF], a global contract that pledged governments around the world to a UN plan to change the way people “live, eat, learn and communicate” all in the name of “saving the earth” from mankind’s mistakes, particularly global warming. (See IPCC: International Pack of Climate Crooks for details).

But these were non-binding international agreements typically not worth the paper they were then written on, not proposed legislation for a sovereign nation which would immediately impact the lives and wellbeing of hundreds of millions of citizens.

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

From Paris to Riga to where else? By Silvio Canto, Jr.

By on February 12th, 2019

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

Over the last two months, we’ve seen the so called “yellow vest” riots underway in France. It’s become so routine that the media is grown tired of reporting it, or maybe they don’t like to tell us how citizens are reaction to tax increases over climate change.

Over the weekend, I saw this. It looks like the vests have some imitators in Riga, Latvia, according to this AP report:

Earlier Saturday, activists in Latvia staged a picket in front of the French embassy in Riga, the capital of the small Baltic EU country, to support the yellow vest movement and urge Latvians to demand higher living standards.

The activists waved Latvia’s red-and-white flag, shouting slogans like “the French have woken up, while Latvians remain asleep.”

Very interesting. This story also reminds me of a conversation that I had a few weeks ago with a new student from Latvia attending a local community college.

Continue reading →
POLITICS Comments turned off

The Education of Ilhan Omar Democratic leaders rebuke their anti-Israel freshman colleague.

By on February 12th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-education-of-ilhan-omar-11549930665?cx_testId=16&cx_testVariant=cx&cx_artPos=2&cx_tag=contextual&cx_navSource=newsReel#cxrecs_s

The Democratic Party’s support for Israel has been fraying for years, and some new Members of Congress seem willing to indulge in arguments that border on the anti-Semitic. So kudos to House Democratic leaders who slapped down one of their own, freshman Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, for her ugly comments.

“Legitimate criticism of Israel’s policies is protected by the values of free speech and democratic debate that the United States and Israel share,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House Democratic leaders in a joint statement on Monday. “But Congresswoman Omar’s use of anti-Semitic tropes and prejudicial accusations about Israel’s supporters is deeply offensive. We condemn these remarks and we call upon Congresswoman Omar to immediately apologize for these hurtful comments.”

The leaders are trying to put out a firestorm that erupted after Ms. Omar claimed on Twitter that her colleagues defend Israel for the money, writing, “It’s all about the Benjamins baby.” When asked who she thinks is “paying American politicians to be pro-Israel,” Ms. Omar named the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac, which doesn’t donate to political candidates, though it does urge U.S. support for Israel.

Continue reading →