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July 2019

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An increasingly public rift is widening between AOC’s camp and the Democratic establishment Eliza Relman

By on July 14th, 2019

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2019/07/13/an-increasingly-public-rift-is-widening-between-aocs-camp-and-the-democratic-establishment/23769122/

A racially-charged rift between left-wing Democrats and the Party establishment has emerged in recent days after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and prominent progressives exchanged barbs. 
The tension escalated on Friday after the House Democrats Twitter account attacked Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff for criticizing Rep. Sharice Davids over her vote on a border aid package.
“Who is this guy and why is he explicitly singling out a Native American woman of color?” the official Democratic account wrote on Friday night.
Many progressives expressed outrage over the post, which was retweeted by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff. 
“It’s deeply concerning that House leadership seems to be focused on attacking progressive Democrats who want the party to fight more aggressively against Trump’s cruelty at the border,” Waleed Shahid, Justice Democrats’ communications director, told INSIDER.

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The Palestinian Problem Is Dying of Natural Causes David Spengler

By on July 13th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/the-palestinian-problem-is-dying-of-natural-causes/

“West Bank grows calmer as pocketbook issues take priority of protests” is the headline of a New York Times story today. It seems that the Palestinian jihadists of the old intifadas are more concerned about making a living than killing Israelis. Writes reporters Isabel Kershner:

BILIN, West Bank — On a recent weekday, Muhammad Abu Rahma returned to the place where Palestinian protesters and Israeli soldiers used to clash in weekly confrontations that made the West Bank village of Bilin a symbol of resistance against the Israeli occupation.

But this time, he came not to protest but to picnic with his wife and three children. He had served three terms in prison for his activities at the height of the protests. But now, at 33, he had a family and a job as a garbage collector.

“People want money to live, and permits,” he said, referring to the Israeli permits allowing laborers to work in Israel, where they can earn twice as much as they do in the Palestinian territories.

It turns out that time is on Israel’s side, as Ambassador Yoram Ettinger and other Israeli analysts have argued for years. The Arab “demographic time bomb” turned out to be a dud, as fertility rates plunge across the Muslim world, a phenomenon I discussed in my 2011 book How Civilizations Die. In a 2011 analysis for Asia Times, I counseled Israel not to attempt to make peace with a Palestinian population heavily tilted towards hot-headed youngsters, and to wait until the declining Palestinian fertility rate had raised the average age of the West Bank population. Like Northern Ireland, the militants would find themselves married with mortgages (at least those who survived). Prime Minister Netanyahu generously commented on the article when it was published.

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“Sweden is at War” by Judith Bergman

By on July 13th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14518/sweden-is-at-war

In 2017, a Swedish police report, “Utsatta områden 2017” (“Vulnerable Areas 2017”) showed that there are 61 such areas — also known as no-go zones — in Sweden. They encompass 200 criminal networks, consisting of an estimated 5,000 criminals. Most of the inhabitants are non-Western immigrants and their descendants.

In March, the Swedish National Forensic Centre estimated that since 2012, the number of shootings classified as murder or attempted murder had increased by almost 100 percent.

“Sweden is at war and it is the politicians who are responsible. Five nights in a row, cars have been set on fire in the university town of Lund. Such insane acts have occurred on hundreds of occasions in various places in Sweden over the past fifteen years. From 1955 to 1985, not a single car was ignited in Malmö, Gothenburg, Stockholm or Lund…. None of these criminals is starving or lacking in access to clean water. They have a roof over their heads and they have been offered free schooling…. They do not live in dilapidated houses…. It is called upbringing and this is missing for thousands of girls and boys in Swedish homes today.” — Björn Ranelid, Swedish author, Expressen, July 5, 2019.

“Very few things were better in Sweden [before]…. We have built a strong country, where we take care of each other. Where society takes responsibility and no man is left alone”. — Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven.

Sadly, many Swedes probably feel terribly left alone in a country that increasingly resembles a war zone.

In 2018, Sweden experienced a record number of lethal shootings, 306 in all. Forty-five people were killed and 135 injured nationwide, most deaths occurring in Region South, where Malmö is located. In March, the Swedish National Forensic Centre estimated that since 2012, the number of shootings classified as murder or attempted murder has increased by almost 100 percent. The Centre also found that the most popular weapon used in the shootings is the Kalashnikov assault rifle. “It is one of the world’s most manufactured weapons and used in many wars,” said the Centre’s team manager, Mikael Högfors. “When they are no longer needed… they are smuggled into Sweden”.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

How millennials replaced religion with astrology and crystals By Jessica Roy

By on July 13th, 2019

https://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-millennials-religion-zodiac-tarot-crystals-astrology-20190710-story.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab

I love myself.

I am beautiful.

It was an unseasonably chilly night for June in Los Angeles. About three dozen people, mostly women in their 20s and 30s, were spending their Friday evening lying on yoga mats on the back patio of a shop a few blocks from Hollywood Forever Cemetery and the Paramount Pictures lot. Attendees had been invited to bring whatever they needed to make the space cozy: Blankets. Pillows. Crystals.

I am powerful.

Ana Lilia was leading them in affirmations, closing out a 90-minute breathwork session celebrating the summer solstice.

I am a bright light.

I am ready to be seen.

Most days, Lilia works with individual clients. In the evenings, she teaches classes or puts on events, such as the solstice gathering. She first got into breathwork four years ago and started taking classes to become a teacher six months later. If you’ve never done it before, it’s a mix of breathing exercises and guided meditations meant to relax you and help connect with your thoughts — a cross between the last 10 minutes of a yoga class and a therapy session that takes place entirely in your head.

A spiritual shift

She’s one of a growing number of young people — largely millennials, though the trend extends to younger Gen Xers, now cresting 40, and down to Gen Z, the oldest of whom are freshly minted college grads — who have turned away from traditional organized religion and are embracing more spiritual beliefs and practices like tarot, astrology, meditation, energy healing and crystals.

And no, they don’t particularly care if you think it’s “woo-woo” or weird. Most millennials claim to not take any of it too seriously themselves. They dabble, they find what they like, they take what works for them and leave the rest. Evoking consternation from buttoned-up outsiders is far from a drawback — it’s a fringe benefit.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

U.S. Universities’ Dangerous Lack of Foreign Gift Transparency By Rachelle Peterson

By on July 13th, 2019

https://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2019/07/12/us_universities_dangerous_lack_of_foreign_gift_transparency.html

Rachelle Peterson is the Policy Director for the National Association of Scholars.

Last month the Department of Education revealed it is investigating two universities, Georgetown and Texas A&M, for potential violations of foreign gift transparency laws. Federal law requires colleges and universities to disclose gifts totaling $250,000 from a single foreign source in a calendar year, but Georgetown and Texas A&M’s past filings “may not fully capture” their foreign receipts, the Department said in letters to the two institutions.

Both universities must now turn over documents regarding their gifts from Qatar and from two Chinese tech firms suspected of espionage, Huawei and ZTE. Since 2012, Georgetown has disclosed receiving $350 million from Qatar and Texas A&M $274 million. Neither has disclosed any gifts from Huawei or ZTE. Georgetown is also being asked to disclose gifts from Saudi Arabia and from Russia, including from cybersecurity company Kapersky Lab. In its original disclosure filings, it reported $6 million from Saudi Arabia and none from any source in Russia.

For years, colleges have been collecting foreign gifts—some with alarming strings attached—without bothering to follow federal law. My organization, the National Association of Scholars, helped blow the whistle on these violations in our 2017 report on Chinese government-funded Confucius Institutes, which offer a unilaterally pro-China outlook and suppress academic freedom. Many Confucius Institutes brought in major donations to their host universities that never reported those gifts. In a separate report, the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found that 70% of colleges whose Confucius Institutes cleared the $250,000-per-year disclosure threshold failed to report those gifts in accordance with the law.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Pelosi’s House of Pain By Matthew Continetti

By on July 13th, 2019

https://freebeacon.com/columns/pelosis-house-of-pain/

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez turns the 116th Congress into Thunderdome

Not so long ago — as recently as the cover of the March 2019 Rolling Stone, in fact — they seemed like the best of friends. I’m referring to Nancy Pelosi and the members of “The Squad”: Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and (not pictured) Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley. They shared some good times.

It was the dawn of a new era. House Democrats had returned to power after eight years. And these Democrats were remarkably diverse in age, ethnicity, race, and gender. Ideology, too: Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib belong to the Democratic Socialists of America. “Our nation is at an historic moment,” Pelosi said in January. “Two months ago, the American people spoke, and demanded a new dawn.”

Well, the sun has set. And fast. Whatever Pelosi’s plans might have been, they’ve been lost in a fog of anti-Semitism and left-wing radicalism. If Ilhan Omar isn’t causing Pelosi trouble, Ocasio-Cortez is. And vice versa. One day the speaker has to respond to the charge that Jewish money controls American foreign policy. The next she has to downplay flatulent cows. It’s enough to make one pity her. Almost.

Pelosi’s bind began on election night. As Republicans learned from 2011-2015, holding one chamber of Congress isn’t worth that much. The president and the upper chamber block legislation. Frustrated by inaction, the majority turns inward. Divisions grow. The more extreme members target leadership. The speaker spends more time negotiating with her own party than with the president and Senate majority leader.

Recently it seemed as though the major divide would be over impeachment. Pelosi’s terrified by the prospect. The idea isn’t popular, especially with voters in battleground districts. And Mueller’s report didn’t give her much to work with. She would have been in a better position had the special counsel actually said that he thought President Trump obstructed justice. But he copped out, leaving people confused and Pelosi forlorn. She’s let Nadler, Schiff, and Cummings fire their subpoena cannons at will. But this war of attrition favors the president. And deepens the frustration of Democrats who wish Trump had been impeached on inauguration day.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Can Ilhan Omar Overcome Her Prejudice? I was born in Somalia and grew up amid pervasive Muslim anti-Semitism. Hate is hard to unlearn without coming to terms with how you learned it. By Ayaan Hirsi Ali see note please

By on July 13th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/can-ilhan-omar-overcome-her-prejudice-11562970265

Oh puleez! I appreciate Hirsi Ali’s unique biography and valor, but Ilhan Omar is programmed and won election because she represents the faith driven hatred of her constituents. Why should she alter her hatreds? Her fellow Democrats give her a pass, fearing that they would be tarred as Islamophobes….rsk

I once opened a speech by confessing to a crowd of Jews that I used to hate them. It was 2006 and I was a young native of Somalia who’d been elected to the Dutch Parliament. The American Jewish Committee was giving me its Moral Courage Award. I felt honored and humbled, but a little dishonest if I didn’t own up to my anti-Semitic past. So I told them how I’d learned to blame the Jews for everything.

Fast-forward to 2019. A freshman congresswoman from Minnesota has been infuriating the Jewish community and discomfiting the Democratic leadership with her expressions of anti-Semitism. Like me, Ilhan Omar was born in Somalia and exposed at an early age to Muslim anti-Semitism.

Some of the members of my 2006 AJC audience have asked me to explain and respond to Ms. Omar’s comments, including her equivocal apologies. Their main question is whether it is possible for Ms. Omar to unlearn her evident hatred of Jews—and if so, how to help.

In my experience it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to unlearn hate without coming to terms with how you learned to hate. Most Americans are familiar with the classic Western flavors of anti-Semitism: the Christian, European, white-supremacist and Communist types. But little attention has been paid to the special case of Muslim anti-Semitism. That is a pity because today it is anti-Semitism’s most zealous, most potent and most underestimated form.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

JAMES FREEMAN: BOYCOTTING HOME DEPOT?

By on July 13th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/boycotting-home-depot-11562960186

Seems like it’s getting easier every day to enrage a segment of politically active Americans. Witness the current effort to boycott Home Depot because of co-founder Bernie Marcus’ comments about President Donald Trump.

Boycotts are a great way to express customer displeasure and influence corporate decision-making. Such voluntary action by consumers to enforce market discipline is infinitely superior to government regulatory discipline, which is conducted in the name of consumers but inevitably reduces their freedom to make choices.

As for Home Depot, there’s nothing wrong with consumers deciding not to shop there. But in applying their new Marcus standard, such consumers may have trouble finding anywhere in America where they can shop. Here’s how Mr. Marcus triggered the latest political backlash against a U.S. business with a recent interview in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

In the course of describing how he plans to donate nearly all of his multi-billion-dollar fortune to charity—and also reflecting on the roughly $2 billion he’s already given to organizations concerned with the treatment of autism and traumatic brain injuries, among other causes—the Home Depot co-founder also mentioned that he planned to support President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign.

That was enough to light up social media with calls for shoppers to abandon Home Depot, even though Mr. Marcus hasn’t worked there in more than 15 years. It’s true that he remains a significant shareholder, but a closer look at his comments reveals that he was hardly offering an unqualified endorsement of Mr. Trump.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Trump’s Taiwan Progress A $2.2 billion arms sale comes as Taipei grows more wary of Beijing.

By on July 13th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-taiwan-progress-11562971520

Deterring Chinese military dominance in the Indo-Pacific is a top U.S. strategic goal, and the Trump Administration made progress this week with a tentative $2.2 billion arms sale to Taiwan. The next sale should be F-16V fighter jets, which is the island’s most pressing defense need.

The Pentagon on Monday notified Congress of the sale of 108 M1A2T Abrams tanks, 250 Stinger missiles, and transport vehicles. Lawmakers have 30 days to object to the deal, but that’s unlikely given the near-unanimous backing of pro-Taiwan legislation in Congress in recent years.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang called on the U.S. to “immediately cancel” the deal, and on Friday China said it will sanction U.S. companies that participate in the arms sale. That’s mostly symbolic since China doesn’t buy arms from the U.S.

But what Beijing has never understood is its starring role in consolidating Washington’s cooperation with Taipei. Last month’s voyage of the Chinese Liaoning aircraft carrier through the Taiwan Strait is the type of saber-rattling that increases American support for the island’s democracy, as Taiwanese want little more than to preserve their freedom.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Kamala Harris Says Crossing Border Illegally Shouldn’t be a Crime By Nicholas Ballasy VIDEO

By on July 13th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/kamala-harris-crossing-border-illegally-shouldnt-be-a-crime/

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) argued that crossing the border illegally shouldn’t be considered a “criminal enforcement issue.”

Harris said she would treat illegally entry into the U.S. as a civil offense. Her comments were made during a segment on The View .

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