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April 2019

Spain: Does the Term ‘Islamist’ Constitute Hate Speech? by Soeren Kern

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14090/spain-islamist-hate-speech

“The external enemies want to tell us how to run our country…. Angela Merkel and her fellow travelers, George Soros, the immigration mafias, believe that they can tell us who can and cannot enter our country. They demand that our boats pluck so-called castaways out of the sea, transfer them to our ports and shower them with money. Who do they think we are?” — Ortega Smith, Secretary General of the Vox party, Spain.

“These…. groups stand out not because of prejudice (‘Islamophobia’ or racism) but due to their being the least assimilable of foreigners, an array of problems associated with them, such as not working and criminal activity, and a fear that they will impose their ways on Europe…. Other concerns deal with Muslim attitudes toward non-Muslims, including Christophobia and Judeophobia, jihadi violence, and the insistence that Islam enjoy a privileged status vis-à-vis other religions” — Daniel Pipes, historian, “Europe’s Civilizationist Parties,” Commentary, November 2018.

“We all know about the lack of freedom, if not direct persecution, suffered by women and Christians in Islamic countries, while here they enjoy the generosity characteristic of freedom, democracy and reciprocity, of course, all of which they systematically deny….” — Santiago Abascal, President of the Vox party, “Trojan Horse,” Libertad Digital, December 2014.

“The left defends any gratuitous offense, even the most beastly ones, against Christians as ‘freedom of expression.’ At the same time, the mere fact of criticizing Islam is branded as ‘Islamophobia.’ …. Is this still Spain or are we in Iran?” — Elantir, blogger, Contando Estrelas.

No Free Ride for Asylum Seekers Who Enter U.S. Illegally Trump administration tries to rein in an out-of-control system. Matthew Vadum

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273521/no-free-ride-asylum-seekers-who-enter-us-illegally-matthew-vadum

Attorney General William Barr overturned a Bush-era policy by finding that asylum-seekers who enter the United States illegally are no longer eligible for release while their claims are processed.

The move is part of the Trump administration’s effort to reform the nation’s dysfunctional immigration law enforcement system. The new policy, announced April 16 but stayed for 90 days, will almost certainly be challenged in court by left-wingers, like more or less everything President Donald Trump does. The American Civil Liberties Union is already chomping at the bit to fight the policy in the courts.

America’s asylum system is routinely abused by illegal aliens, economic migrants, and people who don’t like living in what the president aptly termed sh*thole countries. In recent years only about one-fifth of asylum applications have been granted.

The system is currently under siege as the U.S. is being swamped by would-be immigrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Over 1.4 million individuals have been apprehended at the southern border after entering the U.S. illegally. About a half a million of those have been caught in the past year and a half.

“We are currently experiencing a system-wide emergency in our processing and holding facilities,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection Deputy Commissioner Robert E. Perez said last month.

Indonesia’s Democratic Advance An expected Widodo win spurns the Muslim nation’s Islamists.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/indonesias-democratic-advance-11555630087

Indonesia faced an election choice Wednesday between incumbent President Joko Widodo and Prabowo Subianto, a former general supported by radical Islamist groups. Preliminary results project a Widodo win, which is good news for the world’s largest Muslim democracy.

Unofficial “quick count” numbers from at least six pollsters show Mr. Widodo leading by nearly 10 percentage points in a popular vote which directly elects the president. The incumbent declared victory but cautioned supporters to wait for official results to be released in coming weeks. Mr. Subianto disputes the polls, but quick counts proved accurate when Mr. Subianto lost to Mr. Widodo in 2014. The former general’s spokesman says he doesn’t want violence over the election result, and voters should hold him to it.

Should the results hold, Indonesians have avoided a dangerous turn. Mr. Subianto, once the son-in-law and potential successor of former dictator Suharto, was expelled in 1998 from his special forces command after allegedly leading bloody crackdowns against democracy activists. On the 2014 campaign trail, he said that direct elections are “not in accordance with our own culture.”

Nothing Quiet on the Migration Front By Václav Klaus

https://amgreatness.com/2019/04/18/nothing-quiet-on-the-migration-front/Editor’s Note: The following is drawn from remarks delivered in late March at the Mathias Covinus Collegium International Conference on Migration in Budapest, Hungary.

Many thanks for the invitation and for giving me the floor together with this prestigious group of speakers. I would like, first, to congratulate the organizers of the conference for choosing such an important topic in the right moment—before the European Parliament elections.

Some of us are no great fans of the European Parliament because this is not a real parliament. The parliament is usually the most significant symbol of a democratic system, as it is in our nation states. This is, however, not the case of the European Parliament. Its undemocratic substance can’t be improved by increasing its competences or by changing its electoral procedures or its voting system. Democracy needs a demos and it is an undisputed fact that there is no demos at the European level. But let’s turn to the topic of our conference which is the mass migration into Europe.

I agree with the title of the conference which indicates that the mass migration is “the Biggest Challenge of Our Time.” I have only one disagreement with it: the question mark in the title is superfluous. I suppose most of us came here because we are convinced that this formulation is not a question, but a statement of an evident fact. Regretfully, not many European leaders are ready to say it aloud, clearly and convincingly. Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán is one of the few, if not the only one.

“We’re Gonna Punch Trump in the Face!” Says 2020 Dem Losing to Everyone Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/273518/were-gonna-punch-trump-face-says-2020-dem-losing-daniel-greenfield

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is brave. Or at least that’s her campaign branding.

I guess it takes bravery to humiliatingly lose to everyone except Andrew Yang and Julian Castro after raising millions of dollars. It takes bravery to debut your kickoff speech next to the Trump hotel only to have no one show up. And it takes bravery to continue humiliating yourself around the country. And then getting desperate and saying things like, “We’re gonna punch Trump in the face!”

That would be “dangerous incitement” if a Republican had said it. But it’s “awesome” when a Democrat does.

“We’re gonna punch Trump in the face!” she tells me, smiling broadly, literally jumping up and down. “It’s the New York way!”

Gillibrand isn’t New York City prole. She’s wealthy upstate. The New York way couldn’t be any more alien to her if she were from Iowa.

The routine, like all her routines, is wincingly unconvincing.

Pelosi, Schumer call on Mueller to Testify…. By Yaron Steinbuch

https://nypost.com/2019/04/18/pelosi-schumer-call-on-mueller-to-testify/

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer are calling for Robert Mueller to testify before Congress as soon as possible after what they described as Attorney General William Barr’s “partisan” handling of the special counsel report.

The top Democratic congressional leaders released a joint statement hours before a redacted version of the nearly 400-page report will be released and after The New York Times reported that White House lawyers and Justice officials have already discussed the report’s findings, according to The Hill.

“Attorney General Barr’s regrettably partisan handling of the Mueller report, including his slanted March 24th summary letter, his irresponsible testimony before Congress last week, and his indefensible plan to spin the report in a press conference later this morning — hours before he allows the public or Congress to see it — have resulted in a crisis of confidence in his independence and impartiality,” Pelosi and Schumer wrote.

President Trump and the Crisis of Separated Powers

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/trump-and-the-crisis-of-separated-powers/90653/

The denouement of the Special Counsel investigation — unfolding on the Imax of the Internet — illuminates nothing so much as the fact that our republic is in a crisis of separated powers. It shows that a special counsel can come close to destroying a presidency even in cases where, as now seems clear in respect of President Trump, there was neither collusion with a foreign power nor obstruction of justice.

This is what happens when our press, politicians, and prosecutors ignore the constitutional principle of separated powers and press for or set up either an independent or special prosecutor. Such a blunder destroyed Richard Nixon’s presidency, damaged President Reagan’s, nearly kneecapped President George H.W. Bush’s, and almost destroyed Bill Clinton’s presidency.

Yet rarely has the crisis of separated powers been thrown into such sharp relief as in the case of Mr. Trump. Feature the press conference at which Attorney General Barr presented Robert Mueller’s report. The moment came as Mr. Barr was being questioned in respect of Mr. Mueller’s decision neither to prosecute nor to exonerate the President in respect of obstruction of justice. Mr. Mueller left it to Mr. Barr.

Darwin, Einstein and Ridd- The Quest for Truth – Inspiring-Read it all

https://quadrant.org.au/

When Judge Salvatore Vasta  ruled on Peter Ridd’s case against James Cook University, he introduced his 76-page decision with a few thoughts on the key element in any “quest for truth”:

… Intellectual freedom is also known as academic freedom. It is a concept that underpins universities and institutions devoted to higher learning. Obviously such institutions must have administrators that care for the governance and proper direction of the institution. However, the mission of these institutions must undoubtedly be the search for knowledge which leads to a quest for truth. In reality, intellectual freedom is the cornerstone of this core mission of all institutions of higher learning.

This is so because it allows ideas to conflict with each other; to battle and test each other. It is within this “battle” that the strengths and weaknesses of ideas are found out. In this process, there comes “learning”. And with learning comes discovery.

Victor Davis Hanson weighs in on the Notre Dame Cathedral fire…brilliantly By Peter Barry Chowka

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/04/victor_davis_hanson_weighs_in_on_the_notre_dame_cathedral_fire_brilliantly.html

Victor Davis Hanson is a well known conservative historian, academic, and author. He contributes commentaries prolifically on the current political scene to a variety of publications. He is a frequent guest commentator on the Fox News Channel. When Dr. Hanson speaks, I listen.

On Fox News’s The Ingraham Angle on Tuesday, April 16, Hanson appeared live from his home in California for a three-minute Q and A on the burning of Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral. When a transcript of the program appeared online on Wednesday, I read his comments, which were as impressive as when I first heard them.

His comments totaled 362 words. I can’t think of anyone who can fit more substance and meaning into so few words.

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: Hundreds marched through the streets of Paris today to ask for the intercession of Notre Dame, Our Lady. The cathedral named in her honor was heavily damaged by fire yesterday, but it is structurally sound. French President Macron vows it will be rebuilt as donations pour in from around the world. And amid the tragedy at Notre Dame, there is a lesson to be learned.

Joining me now is Victor Davis Hanson, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. Victor, you say there’s an irony in the history here in the aftermath of this architectural tragedy, tragedy in terms of what we’ve lost in church history. What is the irony?

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON, HOOVER INSTITUTION: After 800 years, we were the steward of this iconic representation of western civilization, Catholicism, Christendom. And of all the years, 2019, at the height of our sophistication and technology, I’m not blaming the French or anybody, but we were found wanting and we didn’t protect this icon. And we don’t build them anymore.

The Soho Forum Global Warming Debate, And The Impact Of Scientific Arguments Francis Menton

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2019-4-16-the-soho-forum-global-warming-debate-and-the-impact-of-scientific-arguments

As you may have noticed from the announcement that appeared for the past week or so on my sidebar, the Soho Forum held a debate Monday night on the issue of Global Warming. The official resolution for the debate was Resolved: There is little or no rigorous evidence that rising concentrations of carbon dioxide are causing dangerous global warming and threatening life on the planet. The debaters were Craig Idso for the affirmative, and Jeffrey Bennett for the negative.

For those who haven’t heard of it, the Soho Forum sponsors debates, roughly monthly, on current policy issues. The venue is usually the Subculture Theater, at 45 Bleecker Street in Manhattan. The Forum’s Director is long-time Barron’s senior editor Gene Epstein; and the Chief Operating Officer is my daughter Jane. Other recent Soho Forum debate topics have included things like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the causes of the 2008-09 financial crisis.

Holding a debate on the issue of global warming or “climate change” — and particularly one focused on the scientific question of whether empirical evidence supports or refutes the hypothesis of potential dangerous warming — is often difficult. Contrary to what you might think, the problem is not that it is hard to find scientifically-literate advocates for the skeptic position. Actually, there are plenty of those. Rather, the problem generally is that adherents to the alarmist cause refuse to debate anyone who disagrees with their position, often denigrating their adversaries as “climate deniers.” So Gene Epstein deserves credit for locating Mr. Bennett, and Mr. Bennett also deserves credit for being willing to put his position to the test.