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July 2019

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Civil Rights, Then and Now By Abraham H. Miller

By on July 23rd, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/07/civil_rights_then_and_now.html

“The civil rights movement evolved from non-violence, to directed resistance, and finally to outright violence.”

The civil rights movement was in full swing. Governor George Wallace had stood in the doorway at the University of Alabama only to be finessed by President John F. Kennedy federalizing the Alabama National Guard. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. had delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech from the Lincoln Memorial.

It was a hot muggy summer in the early 1960s, and a Midwestern university was holding a special graduate program. Students came from all over, including the South.

We looked upon the Southern students with suspicion and inquisitiveness. The particular group of four white males were always impeccably dressed.

They weren’t quite viewed as the enemy, but certainly their Southern drawl seemed to grate on our sensitivities about racial justice.

It took a while to get to know them. It started out like those middle-school dances where the boys congregate at one end of the dance floor and the girls at the other.

Maybe we felt more comfortable with them when the humidity chased after the temperature and the sportscoats and ties came off; the neatly pressed khakis and the white, short-sleeve dress shirts remained.

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Trump’s Diabetic Shock The reality behind Bernie’s wailing about the price of insulin.

By on July 23rd, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-diabetic-shock-11563838601

Bernie Sanders has been registering his outrage about the price of insulin, and the presidential candidate thinks government-run health care is the solution to high drug costs. But almost no one noticed last week a Trump Administration move that could make the diabetes treatment more affordable for more Americans. In any event the insulin story is more about perverse incentives than corporate greed.

The Trump Administration put out an IRS guidance last week for high-deductible health plans that are paired with a health-savings account. Millions of Americans, typically with modest health expenses, prefer these arrangements because they allow an individual or family to control more of their own money and decisions while insuring against a serious illness like cancer.

The previous guidance said such plans could only cover certain “preventive” services before the patient met the deductible—which can run several thousand dollars for a family. So folks have to shell out a pretty penny for treatments for chronic conditions like diabetes or asthma before insurance kicks in.

This makes little sense because a drug like insulin is preventive care. A diabetic who maintains his insulin regimen is much less likely to suffer awful and expensive complications like amputations or blindness. The same dynamic is true for keeping asthmatics in good supply of inhalers. This spending reduces costs over time, but insurers couldn’t offer the benefit on these plans because of a curiosity in government regulation.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Trump’s Hesitant Embrace of Human Rights Highlighting China’s religious persecution is good politics, at home and abroad. By Walter Russell Mead

By on July 23rd, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-hesitant-embrace-of-human-rights-11563835208

The big news from Washington is that Woodrow Wilson is back. From Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Vice President Mike Pence and even, if somewhat hesitantly, President Trump, senior American officials are putting human-rights concerns front and center in American foreign policy.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has condemned Chinese repression of Muslims in Xinjiang, hosted a conference of 106 countries to discuss religious freedom around the world, and announced the formation of the International Religious Freedom Alliance. Mr. Pompeo called China’s mass repression of the largely Muslim Uighur people “the stain of the century.” On Wednesday Mr. Trump met at the White House with 27 people from around the world who have faced persecution for their religious beliefs.

At first glance, the embrace of human rights by the Trump White House seems odd. Mr. Trump has made no secret of his disdain for the idea that promoting human rights overseas should be a major theme of American foreign policy. Outreach to leaders such as Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un and Mohammed bin Salman is predicated on the president’s willingness to overlook their dismal records on human rights. And that an administration whose domestic supporters attack an opponent by chanting “Send her back!” should head a global drive for human rights strikes even many Republicans as improbable.

But the political logic behind the administration’s Wilsonian pivot is strong. Team Trump needs to unify its populist and conservative supporters in the U.S. even as it builds a coalition against Chinese overreach in Asia and beyond. Incorporating a vision of human rights focused on religious liberty helps on both fronts.

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HISTORY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Moshe Perlmann, 1940: Koran And Hadith Depict Jews As “The Incarnation Of Evil” Andrew Bostom

By on July 23rd, 2019

https://www.andrewbostom.org/2019/07/moshe-perlmann-1940-koran-and-hadith-depict-jews-as-the-incarnation-of-evil/

Professor Moshe Perlmann (1905-2001) was a meticulous scholar of Arabic and Islam, with great fluency in not only Arabic and Hebrew, but also Russian (having been born in Odessa), and German, as well as further written proficiency in Persian, Syriac, French and Italian.

The focus of Perlmann’s work was the Medieval religious polemic, especially Islam’s anti-Jewish (here; here) and anti-Christian tracts (here; here). Unearthing and providing unique annotated translations of pathognomonic texts (cataloguedhere), with insightful commentary, Perlmann, as obituarist Herbert A. Dawson,observed, allowed the original writings, “to speak for themselves,” leaving readers “to draw whatever moral they can.”

Perlmann, uncompromising in his examination of Islamic religious fanaticism, even in mythically “tolerant” Muslim Spain, brought to light (1949) the “profuse” employment of the dehumanizing Koranic epithet (Koran 2:65/7:166)characterizing Jews as apes, for the incitement of the jihad annihilation of Granadan Jewry during 1066—a massive anti-Jewish pogrom, whose killing of some ~4000 Jews greatly exceeded in scale the much better known Crusader ravages of the Rhineland 30 years later at the outset of the first Crusade. Two decades later, Perlmann lamented how in 1966, the 900th anniversary of this “Granada debacle,” which he remonstrated was “the first major pogrom on European soil,” had “passed unnoticed.”

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

The LAPD Stands With Lawbreakers and Against ICE By Jack Dunphy

By on July 23rd, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/the-lapd-stands-with-lawbreakers-and-against-ice/

Gentle readers, things have reached a pretty pass in Los Angeles, where, sad to say, the two most influential political constituencies are now the homeless and illegal immigrants. Everyone else, all you citizens and legal immigrants, all you people paying your mortgages or your rent, and most important all you people paying your taxes and keeping the racket running, you’re the marks, and you’re expected to keep paying and be quiet about it.

We’ll leave the homeless aside for our purposes today, turning our attention to illegal immigrants and the inordinate sway they hold over L.A.’s politicians. And in speaking of politicians, I include Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore, who in a display of spineless dishonesty rivaled only by that of the mayor himself, appeared last week alongside Mayor Eric Garcetti to produce a video intended to allay the fears of illegal immigrants facing deportation.

“We’ve all heard reports,” Garcetti says to open the video, “that the Trump administration is threatening to round up and deport thousands of immigrant families this weekend.”

Thus, the mendacity begins with the very first sentence. The deportations, says Garcetti, are to be carried out by the “Trump administration” rather than an agency of the federal government fulfilling its duty under the law. And note the resort to an old and tired deception, the reference to “immigrant families,” eliding the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants.

Garcetti goes on to encourage “every Angeleno to know their rights and how to exercise them.” After reminding his audience they have the right to remain silent, he says, “You don’t have to open your door to an ICE agent who doesn’t have a warrant signed by a judge.” No, Mr. Mayor, we wouldn’t want anyone traipsing onto the premises without permission, would we?

And then comes the part taxpaying rubes will find most galling. “And if you need help finding an attorney,” says Garcetti, “you can call 311and learn more about our Justice Fund and other resources that offer legal support.” The city’s 311 system is intended to be a resource for Los Angeles residents seeking routine services like pothole repair and trash cleanup. In my experience as both a resident and employee of the city, such requests take months to receive attention, if indeed they receive any at all. You can dial 311 until your finger bleeds as you watch the trash pile or homeless encampment multiply outside your door, but if you call to tell them you’re on the run from ICE agents, you’ll get help muy pronto. CONTINUE AT SITE

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MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

Film In ‘Skin,’ an Israeli Director Portrays a Neo-Nazi’s Evolution Jamie Bell, who made his name in 2000 as a young dancer in ‘Billy Elliot,’ plays a neo-Nazi who changes his ways in Israeli director Guy Nattiv’s new movie, ‘Skin’ By Tobias Grey

By on July 22nd, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-skin-an-israeli-director-portrays-a-neo-nazis-evolution-11563802201?mod=hp_lead_pos10

The Israeli director Guy Nattiv decided to make a movie about a reformed neo-Nazi only after receiving the blessing of his grandfather who survived the Holocaust.

“Skin,” which opens in the U.S. on July 26, is Mr. Nattiv’s first American feature film. Mr. Nattiv said he dedicated it to Ruben Monowitz, who died two years ago at age 96, “because he taught us as grandkids how to accept and forgive.”

Mr. Nattiv wrote the screenplay for “Skin” after persuading Bryon Widner, a former skinhead who co-founded a violent white-power group in Indiana in 2003, to sign over the rights to his life story.

“I’ve got to give Bryon a lot of credit,” said Mr. Nattiv, who is 46. “He gave me full authority to tell his story the way I wanted to.”

“Skin,” which won the international critics prize at last September’s Toronto International Film Festival, draws its title from the hate-filled tattoos that Mr. Widner had removed from his face and body after dropping his racist beliefs and turning state’s evidence.

The film stars British actor Jamie Bell as Mr. Widner and Australian actress Danielle Macdonald as Mr. Widner’s wife, Julie. Mr. Nattiv’s script also focuses on the African-American antiracist activist Daryle Lamont Jenkins (played by Mike Colter) who helped get Mr. Widner into an FBI witness-protection program.

The film explores how easily teenagers with no family ties and limited means can be scooped up and indoctrinated by white-power groups. It also shows how dangerous it can be for them to try to leave the organizations.

Mr. Nattiv, who had already written and directed three movies in Israel, said he struggled to drum up interest for the script in 2016, when he began shopping it around Hollywood. “I did research in Ohio, Indiana and the Rust Belt, and I saw racism and I saw gangs,” Mr. Nattiv said. “However, the reaction to my script was: ‘We like it but there are no real neo-Nazis in America.’ ”

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BOOKS, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

When the Lion Wakes: The Global Threat of the Chinese Communist Party written by Aaron Sarin

By on July 22nd, 2019

https://quillette.com/2019/07/22/when-the-lion

It has become something of a truism to say that China will rise to a position of global dominance in the twenty-first century. All the evidence seems to support the thesis and we are flooded with the most fantastic figures charting the rise. Harvard political scientist Graham Allison treats us to a selection of these in his recent book Destined for War. He tells us that China’s GDP was less than $300 billion in 1980, a figure that had risen to $11 trillion by 2015. The country’s total trade with the outside world came to just $40 billion in 1980, but in 2015 it was $4 trillion—a hundredfold increase. Allison has plenty more shockers up his sleeve: “For every two-year period since 2008, the increment of growth in China’s GDP has been larger than the entire economy of India. Even at its lower growth in 2015, China’s economy created a Greece every sixteen weeks and an Israel every twenty-five weeks.” In fact, since the Great Recession of 2008, 40 percent of all the economic growth in the world has occurred in just one country: China. Allison quotes Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s founding father, for the coup de grâce: “It is not possible to pretend that this is just another big player. This is the biggest player in the history of the world.”1

If Lee was right, then there can be only one outcome. “This world will be China’s,” says the brother of Ye Cheng, the Communist Party billionaire who now controls Australia’s Port Darwin. It is time for China to “change the world where rules are set by foreigners,” according to Wang Jianlin, chairman of the Dalian Wanda Group and China’s second richest man. China will “lead the entire world on political, economic, military, and environmental issues,” in the words of president-for-life Xi Jinping. But when men like this use the word “China,” they mislead us. It will not be the Chinese people who rise to inherit the earth, who wake to shake the world. It will be the Communist Party.

Chinese citizens have been indoctrinated for decades with the idea that Party is country. The idea was introduced by paramount leader Deng Xiaoping soon after the Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989. He realised that as long as the state and the people were seen as separate entities, then the door would remain open for recognition of the Party’s many historical crimes—and also for recognition of the ongoing subjugation of the people by the Party. He wanted to make sure that citizens would never again rise up as they did in 1989. As China-watcher Clive Hamilton explains: “For many new Chinese arrivals in the West, one of the hardest concepts to understand is the distinction, essential to democracies, between the nation and its government. When they do grasp the difference, they are open to becoming critics of the party-state without feeling they are betraying their homeland.”2

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MEDIA Comments turned off

MEDIA’S ANTI-TRUMP BIASED REPORTING IN AUSTRALIA: TONY THOMAS

By on July 22nd, 2019

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2019/07

America Observed With an ABC Squint
America Observed With an ABC Squint
“The national broadcaster operates a very large Washington bureau and you have to wonder why, given that so much of its ‘reporting’ is the distilled essence of anti-Trump coverage from newspapers and other media which, were he to cure, cancer, would accuse him of putting nurses out of work. Correspondent Connor Duffy’s coverage of July 4 celebrations is sadly typical.”

The BBC is facing a citizens’ crowd-funded lawsuit against its left-biased reporting, while the ABC is still forgetful that half of its funders are centre-right taxpayers. The latest ABC annual report trumpets Leisa Bacon, director ABC audiences, on its second page proclaiming, “The ABC is unique in its ability to
 unite the nation … we are here for every Australian”.

The ABC’s online surveys and Roy Morgan polls show massive trust in the ABC, but why do fewer than 20 per cent of the polled actually tune in? For 2017-18, by the way, ABC 7pm News audience fell 5-8 per cent.

The most naked bias at the moment is in the ABC’s pro-Democrat US reporting, since few Australians cross-check the material. So let’s sample ABC bureau’s July 4 Independence Day coverage in Washington DC.[1] The reporter is Conor Duffy, mocker-in-chief of President Trump.

For his print piece, falsely labeled “analysis”, the ABC gave us a choice of three headlines. “Trump dreamed of pomp and ceremony. Instead he got soggy tanks”. Maybe that was too deranged, even for the ABC, so a second version went: “ANALYSIS: Wild weather, small crowds and protesters rain on Trump’s parade.” The third top read: “Donald Trump hoped for a parade to rival Bastille Day, instead he got small crowds and soggy tanks”.

For starters, there were no tanks on the Mall, especially not soggy ones. The 25mm chain gun on the two parked Bradley Fighting Vehicles is a pet compared to an Abrams tank’s 5.3m smoothbore of 120mm calibre.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Crying ‘Racism’ for a Free Kick Anthony Dillon

By on July 22nd, 2019

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/bennelong-papers/2019/07/crying-racism-free-kick/

As someone with Aboriginal ancestry, I feel compelled to discuss the allegations of racism that have been dominating the media of late, with AFL star and all-round nice guy Adam Goodes at the centre of the storm. First, I don’t see him as the major reason for the furore. Neither do I believe racism is the cause, though some would have you believe it is. Rather, several factors have converged to sustain a story that, by rights, should have died quickly: a manipulative media and the insatiable hunger for attention that characterise what I call the ‘race bloodhounds’ who are always eager to catch the whiff of any and all perceived ‘racism’.

Professional ‘blactivists’ delight for reasons that will be discussed later in this article in talking about the assumed racism directed at Aborigines. All who dare challenge the absurd notion that Australia is racist to the core are themselves accused of being racist or, as I know from personal experience, branded a sell-out, an Uncle Tom or a coconut (brown on the outside, white underneath). So, if you are a blactivist or race bloodhound, don’t bother reading any further. The same psychology that lets you see racism where there is none dictates that, regardless of the argument presented, you will walk away even more convinced of your core position, which can be summarised thus: any criticism of, or disagreement with, any Aborigine for any reason represents a clear and irrefutable example of racism. It is a sad reaction, but a predictable one: that which does not start with reason will not end by reason.

Much of the controversy has been the product of media manipulation, rather than of Adam’s own doing. I do not believe Adam has been milking this fiasco; indeed, it is obvious he has been deeply upset by it. But some media outlets certainly have been playing it up, and very much at his expense. Consider the booing, which is a hallmark of bog-standard mob mentality, not necessarily of racism. However, some have found it very convenient to respond with the truism “there is no place for racism on or off the field”. Few would disagree with that, but where is the evidence that the crowd’s booing was prompted by an inherent dislike of Adam based purely on his racial identity?

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Unlike His Critics, Former New York Yankees Closer Mariano Rivera Is A Mensch The Hall of Fame pitcher supports a pluralistic nation with democratic institutions and free association. By David Harsanyi

By on July 22nd, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/07/22/unlike-critics-former-new-york-yankees-closer-mariano-rivera-mensch/

In a transcendently ridiculous column at The Daily Beast, readers are warned that MLB Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera has “served at the pleasure of a racist president, taken part in thinly veiled propaganda on behalf of a far-right government in Israel, and gotten chummy with outright bigots and apocalyptic loons.”

Mo Rivera? The greatest closer—perhaps the greatest pitcher—in Major League baseball history? Mo Rivera, the first player unanimously selected as a first-ballot Hall of Famer? As a longtime Yankees fan, and someone fortunate enough to see Rivera up close for a number of years, I can think of few greater pleasures in sports than watching him work. So I never thought I’d be able to admire him more. But here we are.

It’s not surprising that The Daily Beast, whose editor-in-chief blames Israeli Jews for white nationalism, would find Rivera’s support of Israel problematic (the original illustration for the piece, incidentally, had Rivera standing on a pitcher’s mound shaped like a yarmulke atop a Jewish star).

Nor is it surprising that the piece offers no evidence that Mariano has “served at the pleasure” of the Trump administration—even if you accept the debatable contention that the administration is racist. Rivera didn’t join the pinstriped Sturmtruppen, he merely accepted a nomination to the Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition. He signed onto the Opioid Drug Abuse Commission. He went to the White House as a delegate for the Special Olympics. He took “friendly photo op” as part of an interfaith conference in Israel with the U.S. ambassador to Israel. These days, I guess all of this qualifies as extremism.

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