Displaying posts published in

June 2019

POLITICS Comments turned off

Second Debate Night Circus More heat than night one, but not any more light. Joseph Klein

By on June 28th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274160/second-debate-night-circus-joseph-klein

Two white male septuagenarians were the headliners of the second Democrat primary debate held in Miami on Thursday night. Barack Obama’s vice president Joe Biden and Socialist-Democrat Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, leaders of the pack so far in early polling, had the opportunity to go head-to-head, without the distraction of “rising star” Senator Elizabeth Warren on the same stage. She had her place in the spotlight on what turned out to be Wednesday night’s undercard. But the expected jousting never took place. Sanders and Biden largely ignored each other and tried to stick to their respective talking points. Sanders was the revolutionary demanding major transformational change. Biden was the experienced public servant who knew how to get things done. The only issue that they directly sparred on directly with each other was the war in Iraq, which Biden voted for as senator and Sanders opposed.

After the two main contenders, the middle of the pack at Thursday’s debate was represented by California Senator Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana. The also-rans included John Hickenlooper, Colorado’s former governor; Colorado Senator Michael Bennet; New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand; California Representative Eric Swalwell; writer and spiritual guru Marianne Williamson; and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

There is hardly any difference in terms of the leftward-leaning direction the candidates want to take the country. The differences among the candidates lie in their styles of delivery and the speed of transformative change they want to bring about.

The candidates were totally aligned with each other in making President Trump their punching bag. There were 52 mentions of Trump during this second debate, 17 more than on the first night.

Sanders spewed the most pejoratives, calling President Trump a racist, a pathological liar and a phony in one breath. He said that he would expose President Trump as “the fraud that he is.” Biden said that President Trump has ripped the soul out of America and destroyed alliances. Harris called the president America’s leading national security threat. Hickenhooper called him “the worst president in history.” Williamson accused the president of “harnessing fear for political purposes,” which she said she would counter with “love.” And so on.

Continue reading →
EDUCATION Comments turned off

Angela Davis, East Germany and Fullerton Two exhibits send conflicting messages at a university library. By Joseph D’Hippolito

By on June 28th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/angela-davis-east-germany-and-fullerton-11561676857

An exhibit here at California State University’s library warns against the evils of communism. Less than 40 feet away, another exhibit commemorates an adherent.

In the Atrium Gallery, the Regimes Museum displays uniforms, flags, posters and other paraphernalia from East Germany. Not only soldiers, sailors and police wore military-style uniforms. So did postmen, bus and streetcar operators, volunteer firefighters and members of the Red Cross. Children and teenagers wore less-formal uniforms from the Young Pioneers and Free German Youth, the state-run youth organizations.

A pinstriped shirt for prisoners, a blazer from the Ministry of State Security (or Stasi), and a card showing border police how to search a van for escapees represent East German tyranny. Other items depict the rebellion against communism: scenes of protesters demanding freedom and of a nascent punk movement, an East German flag with the coat of arms cut out, a drab green civil-defense tunic with a pink butterfly carefully painted on the back.

Across the hall, a glass cabinet in front of the Academic Senate showcases left-wing activist Angela Davis, who delivered a speech on campus in 1972 and was the Communist Party USA’s vice-presidential candidate in 1980 and 1984.

A student assistant created the exhibit for Black History Month after watching a library video of Ms. Davis’s speech, said special collections librarian Patrisia Prestinary. “It’s to draw attention to the collections that we have,” Ms. Prestinary said. “I try to encourage my students to be creative when it strikes them, when there’s an issue they want to write about.”

Continue reading →
POLITICS Comments turned off

Kamala’s Killer Instinct, Biden’s Glass Jaw, and Williamson’s Mesmerizing Lunacy By Jim Geraghty

By on June 28th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/democratic-debate-kamala-harris-criticizes-joe-biden-busing/

The headline out of tonight’s debate is going to be Kamala Harris starting off the second hour by turning to Joe Biden and just kicking the snot out of him on the previously long-forgotten issue of forced busing in Delaware. No older white male wants to get into a fight about racism with a younger African-American woman in a Democratic presidential primary. Biden tried to defend himself by first contrasting his work as a defense attorney with Harris’ record as a prosecutor, then moved on to a not terribly convincing, “I did not oppose busing in America; I opposed busing ordered by the Department of Education,” and then he cut himself off. Septuagenarians who have been in the Senate longer than I’ve been alive should probably avoid the term, “my time is up.” Biden would have been better off defending his stance on the merits, declaring that busing kids across town to new schools away from their homes was angering parents and exacerbating racial tensions instead of healing them.

One night won’t sink the Joe Biden campaign, but boy, did he look like he had a glass jaw, and he also seems to have aged a decade since he left the vice presidency. When asked what his first priority as president would be, Biden answered that it would be defeating Donald Trump.

This night shouldn’t have gone this badly for him. “Build upon what we’ve done” is probably a more reassuring and appealing message than completely scrapping the entire existing system of private health insurance.

Separately, Michael Bennet went after Biden on making a deal with Mitch McConnell extending the Bush tax.  This is a really interesting contrast to Wednesday night, when no other Democrat bothered to go after Elizabeth Warren, the highest polling candidate on stage.

Beyond that exchange, Kamala Harris came prepared. During one particularly irritating moment of shouting and crosstalk, she silenced the cacophony and declared the audience “doesn’t want to witness a food fight. They want to know how we’re gonna put food on the table.” (Is it the job of the president to put food on your table?) She seemed to be wanting to replay the Obama style – simultaneously casual, personal, and inspiring. The also-rans might want to start diverting some of their fire to Harris, because otherwise, she will just demolish every candidate ahead of her.

Bernie Sanders shouted almost every answer, and seemed even more cantankerous than usual, insisting that a quote he gave to a Vermont newspaper was “mischaracterization of my view.” When Swalwell went back to the “past the torch” line, Biden just smiled a “get a load of this guy” grin while Sanders’s eyes bulged and he seemed to fume. Sanders stood out when standing next to the likes of Martin O’Malley, Lincoln Chafee, and Jim Webb. This is much tougher competition, and he’s having a tougher time.

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Religious Suppression North of the Border American politicians shouldn’t be afraid to stand up for the faithful in Canada. By Avi Schick

By on June 28th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/religious-suppression-north-of-the-border-11561676755

One of New York state’s great civic leaders once began a meeting by observing that I wore a yarmulke at work. I’d just been nominated as president of New York’s economic development agency. I told him that headgear hadn’t seemed to hinder Cardinal Edward Egan’s effectiveness. We got down to business and got along fine. This incident came to mind last week when the National Assembly of Quebec passed a law barring public employees from wearing religious clothing or symbols at work.

Advocates say the bill promotes the separation of church and state. In reality, the law suggests that religious practice is incompatible with public service, that people of faith cannot be trusted to balance their religious beliefs and civic responsibilities, and that employees must choose between their consciences and careers. Public employees won’t be the only ones affected: If the government won’t hire someone who wears a turban or crucifix, why would a private business?

During my decade as a yarmulke-wearing government official in New York, I occasionally encountered those who viewed religious professionals through a lens that magnified their faith while obscuring their abilities.

On two separate occasions when I was in Albany for the State of the State address, senior officials approached me in the holding room for politicians and staffers off the Capitol floor, shook my hand, addressed me as “Rabbi,” and thanked me for coming to deliver the invocation. Mortified colleagues quickly corrected them.

If religiously observant employees are given the chance, eventually people will focus on the job they are doing and not the clothing they are wearing while doing it. The best way to ensure respect for different faiths and cultures is to make them well-represented in all workplaces. That means not excluding them from the workforce or forcing them to hide their identities.

Continue reading →
ISRAEL Comments turned off

In Israel, Chilean president signs agreements on health, science, tech On the diplomatic front, Sebastian Piñera says the Chilean Embassy will not relocate from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv

By on June 27th, 2019

https://www.israelhayom.com/2019/06/27/in-israel-chilean-president-signs-agreements-on-health-science-tech/

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Chilean President Sebastian Piñera on Wednesday to further the relationship between Jerusalem and Santiago.

The two sides signed a memorandum of understanding between Israel’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Space and the Chilean National Authority for Scientific and Technological Research, as well as agreements related to aviation, and a declaration of intent on health and medical cooperation between the two countries’ health ministries.

“Israel and Chile have a lot in common,” said Netanyahu. “We share values of democracy and human rights. We share a belief in market economies and both of us have done a few things to promote these values in our respective countries.”

“We believe in entrepreneurship. We believe in creativity. We have relatively small, not so small, but relatively small, very vibrant economies,” he continued. “It’s recognized by the countries in Latin America, Chile’s capacity in this regard just as the countries of the Middle East and the world recognize Israel’s capacities as an innovation nation.”

As part of his three-day visit, Piñera drew the ire of the Israeli government when he visited the Temple Mount on Tuesday accompanied by senior Palestinian Authority officials.

Continue reading →
ISRAEL Comments turned off

The better and stronger we make Israel, the safer we make the world’ Dr. Miriam Adelson sits down with former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley to discuss US diplomatic efforts in the Middle East.

By on June 27th, 2019

https://www.israelhayom.com/2019/06/27/the-better-and-stronger-we-make-israel-the-safer-we-make-the-world/

In a special interview at the Israel Hayom Forum for US-Israel Relations, held in Jerusalem on Thursday evening, Dr. Miriam Adelson sat down with former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley.

During Haley’s time representing the US at the international forum, she was a staunch defender of Israel and did not hesitate to call out UN organizations for their entrenched anti-Israel bias.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

In 2018, Haley declared fearlessly that she would use her high heels to “kick” the enemies of the Jewish state.

After introducing Haley as Israel’s “real-life” Wonder Woman, Dr. Adelson said, “Throughout her service, Nikki has demonstrated moral clarity and courage. She put the fear of God into a godforsaken place. She stood up to bullies and called out hypocrites.”

“Nikki defended Israel, always openly, without hesitation, and often in defiance of other world powers. She did so, I believe, because Israel is good, and she did so because she knows the US is never more credible than when it honors its allies,” Dr. Adelson told the forum.

Continue reading →
ISRAEL Comments turned off

Right From Wrong: #MeToo, harassment and Yaron London By Ruthie Blum

By on June 27th, 2019

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Right-From-Wrong-MeToo-harassment-and-Yaron-London-593948

On Wednesday evening, veteran Israeli broadcaster Yaron London opened the current-events program that he co-hosts nightly with Geula Even by issuing a “clarification” – demanded by his bosses at KAN, the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation – of something “inappropriate” he had said during Tuesday’s show.

London did this by repeating the anecdote that got him into trouble with angry feminists across the political spectrum, and explaining why he did not need to apologize for it.

The “scandal” for which he is being raked over the coals, and that has been eliciting non-stop calls for his ouster, surrounds a story he told in the context of an item about a social-media post by Arab-Israeli anchor Lucy Aharish. Aharish – who recently married hit series Fauda star Tzachi Halevy – complained about strangers approaching her on the street and asking whether she’s pregnant.

“Stay out of my uterus,” she wrote, requesting that the public respect her personal space.

Agreeing with Aharish about the liberties people take with celebrities, London recalled an invasion of his own privacy 10 years ago: A woman with whom he happened to be sharing an elevator suddenly leaned over and patted his belly.

“London, what’s this?” he recounted her commenting with uninvited familiarity, as a way of indicating that he had put on weight over the years.

Clearly embarrassed and irritated, London retaliated in kind.

“I touched her breast and said, ‘This also isn’t what it used to be.’”

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Britain has ‘by far the highest rate of returning jihadi fighters in Europe’ Bill Gardner

By on June 27th, 2019

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/06/27/britain-has-far-highest-rate-returning-jihadi-fighters-europe/

Britain has by far the highest rate of “exceptionally dangerous” returning jihadis in Europe, police chiefs have warned.

A report from Europol revealed that of hundreds of Britons who travelled to Syria and Iraq amid the rise of Isil, nearly half have been able to return safely.

It comes amid widespread concern at the low number of returning fighters and so-called jihadi brides successfully prosecuted in British courts.

According to the annual Europol report, roughly 45% of Britons who travelled to Syria and Iraq have already come back to their home country.

The country with the next highest proportion was Germany, where 33% have returned, while in the Netherlands and Spain the return rate is thought to be just 18%.

The report warned that returning jihadis and their supporters pose a serious ongoing threat to national security.

“Those that have returned garner kudos with like-minded individuals,” it said.

“Their training and experience – such as handling weapons and explosives – makes them exceptionally dangerous. 

Continue reading →
MEDIA Comments turned off

Big Media and the Great Kremlin Conspiracy Daryl McCann

By on June 27th, 2019

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2019/06/big-media-

Big Brother, in the person of President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, was not persuaded by the findings of the Mueller investigation: “If there wasn’t active collusion proven, then I think what we have here is a case of passive collusion”. To put it another way, if President Trump is not guilty of being a Kremlin agent, in any technical, literal or actual sense, then he is still guilty. Former Director Clapper—along with former CIA Director Brennan and former FBI Director Comey—helped generate the Great Kremlin Conspiracy in the first place. Is there, then, a possibility that James Clapper might have a particular agenda in his strange response to the Mueller Report? Are we, perhaps, on the verge of uncovering one of the great scandals in American history, in which the intelligence agencies of the United States conspired to affect the course and consequences of a presidential election? Do not expect a media outfit such as CNN to take up the story—after all, James Clapper gave his reaction to the Mueller Report in his present capacity as CNN’s “National Security Analyst”. Big Media, regrettably, is no less invested in the Great Kremlin Conspiracy (2015–19) than Big Brother.   

Today, news and truth are like passing strangers. It was not supposed to be like this. The Walter Lippmann–John Dewey debate of the mid-twentieth century revolved around the question of whether the ordinary person could ever be expected to interpret meaningfully what was happening in the wider world. Dewey, in an optimistic liberal vein, believed it possible to educate Joe and Jane Citizen with the necessary wherewithal to be informed and insightful enough to make sense of the world for themselves. In contrast, Lippmann believed we were reliant on journalists and editors choosing objectivity over ideology and putting even-handedness before their own interests. That remains, however unlikely, freedom’s best hope.

Walter Lippmann’s Public Opinion (1922) was a sceptical—though not cynical—analysis of the problems of ordinary people exercising genuine democratic oversight of their governing class. The supposed purpose of the press and news media, as the Fourth Estate, was to make our political elite genuinely responsive to public opinion. This process, asserted Lippmann, was handicapped by the disjointedness and changeability of the untutored opinions of the public. There were, therefore, two interconnected problems that needed addressing for the health of a modern democracy. First, whatever the assertions of news agencies, facts invariably require interpretation (meaning anything from contextualisation to prioritisation or omission). Second, the modern world has become “altogether too big, too complex, and too fleeting” for the private citizen, bound by the limits of “subjective, biased, and necessarily abridged mental images”, to pursue meaningful interpretation without expert assistance. The role of the press and the news media, thus, was the “manufacture of public opinion”, an expression that in 1922 did not attract the opprobrium attached to it since the publication of Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman’s treatise on the mainstream media.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Obama’s Top Unmasker Bashed, Conspired Against Trump Using Government Email By Madeline Osburn

By on June 27th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/06/27/obamas-top-unmasker-bashed-conspired-trump-using-government-email/

President Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, used her government email to bash Donald Trump before and after the 2016 election, according to documents uncovered by the American Center for Law and Justice.

Power infamously abused authority in the unprecedented unmasking of hundreds of Americans working with the Trump campaign, and the latest documents add to the evidence of her acting on her anti-Trump sentiments in an official capacity.

Starting before the GOP primaries, in an email connecting Oskar Eustis, the artistic director at the Public Theater in New York, with scholar Norman Ornstein, Power commented that a Trump win in the New Hampshire primary would make politics no longer rational.

“Oskar, Norm will explain our political system, in a way that will fleetingly make it seem rational, though maybe not after Trump and Sanders win NH,” she wrote.

The Hill reports that several emails provide ample evidence of the diplomat’s Trump-bashing after the election.

In December 2016, for example, when sent a news story about Trump’s effort to communicate a new policy direction for the U.N., Power snarkily replied: ‘This reflects the lack of understanding of history.’

When Trump announced his intent to withdraw the U.S. from a global climate deal, Power emailed a colleague: ‘Lord help us all.’

Continue reading →