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August 2019

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

J. Frank Bullitt :Stop The Madness Before It Drives Us All Crazy

By on August 14th, 2019

:https://issuesinsights.com/2019/08/12/stop-the-madness-before-it-drives-us-all-crazy/

Each week the world produces news that irritates, stuns and infuriates, and on occasion makes us question our collective sanity, leaving us, for example, wondering just how the likes of Joe Biden has been able to reach lofty positions from which he has been able to affect policies that impact our lives.

Here are a few stories from the last week that confirm suspicions we are living in foolish times:

While the Democrats fight to see who can build the biggest welfare state and promise voters that if they just gave them the power, they would make sure everyone has health care, in Great Britain — where everyone has health care — 4.4 million in a country of 66 million are waiting on surgery.

According to the United Press International, “new statistics posted by the National Health Service also showed a 16% increase of patients who’d waited for more than 18 weeks for non-emergency operations, such as hip or knee replacements.

“The NHS figures showed 233,000 Britons had waited for more than six months and 37,000 more than nine months.”

In America, Medicare for All promises free and easy health coverage, but the reality is it “would outlaw all private insurance,” makes sharp cuts in provider payments, which will lead to physician shortages and government rationing of care, and means higher taxes and Americans losing the coverage they have now.

Sen. Bernie Sanders is no longer unhinged — the door that once a barrier between his raging mind and the real world outside has completely fallen off.

On Saturday, Sanders, the Democrat or Socialist or just plain crazy uncle from Vermont, tweeted that “Donald Trump believes climate change is a hoax. Donald Trump is an idiot.” We don’t think the global warming scare is a hoax. Maybe a fraud. Perhaps a spreading swamp fever. Possibly just a big mistake. But not a hoax. We don’t believe Trump is an idiot, either. But quite a few on Twitter think Sanders is. Look at some of the responses:

“Bernie Sanders believes bread lines are good. Bernie Sanders is a communist idiot.”

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Bolton In London Lauds Brexit On National Security Grounds by Thomas McArdle

By on August 14th, 2019

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/08/14/bolton-

he British love their chips, but they’d best be careful not to let them get fishy. The most provocative thing U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said during his visit to No. 10 Downing Street this week was that the British don’t want their “telecommunications system in the 5G world to be compromised by the ‘Manchurian chip phenomenon’ any more than we do” — referring to the dangers posed by the Chinese 5G telecom pioneer Huawei.

I&I outlined the Huawai threat in some detail in May. Its hardware and future software upgrades could be used by Beijing for espionage, or even to attack the military and civilian computer resources of the countries using it.

Even liberal Democrats recognize the threat. “Allowing Huawei’s inclusion in our 5G infrastructure could seriously jeopardize our national security and put critical supply chains at risk,” Senate Intelligence Committee top Democrat Mark Warner of Virginia wrote in March. “Software reviews of existing Huawei products are not sufficient to preclude the possibility of a vendor pushing a malicious update that enables surveillance in the future. Any supposedly safe Chinese product is one firmware update away from being an insecure Chinese product.”

Bolton said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s new government was “looking really from square one on the Huawei issue” — which some British officials claimed was an inaccurate account of Bolton’s meetings — and Bolton offered to arrange briefings on the U.S. findings on Huawei.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Can Nuclear Power Be Saved? By Jonathan Lesser

By on August 14th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/nuclear-power-clean-reliable-energy-us-should-embrace/

It’s a clean, reliable source of energy that the U.S. would do well to embrace.

Whither nuclear power? That question has become more important as energy policies evolve to emphasize emissions-free “green” energy and an increased electrification of the U.S. economy. Some environmentalists consider nuclear power to be crucial to reducing carbon emissions; others continue to vehemently oppose nuclear power and believe that our energy must come solely from renewable sources.  The public, encouraged into hysteria by dramatizations of nuclear-plant accidents such as the film The China Syndrome and HBO’s Chernobyl, is split.

Meanwhile, the nuclear-power industry itself is in a parlous state for a variety of tangled reasons. In a recent Manhattan Institute report, I broke them down into four categories: (i) decades of construction cost overruns and plant delays because of poor designs, lack of manufacturing expertise, and changing regulations; (ii) political squabbling over spent-nuclear-fuel disposal; (iii) energy policies, including renewable-energy subsidies and mandates, that have distorted electric-power markets and made it harder for nuclear plants to compete; and (iv) lower natural-gas prices and more efficient gas-fired generators. In the past few years, threatened plant closures have led state policymakers to award subsidies to eleven existing plants. More such subsidies are likely forthcoming, if for no other reason than some nuclear-plant owners wanting their share of the subsidy pie. “Nice plant you got there,” they seem to be saying to local economic stakeholders. “Be a shame if something happened to it.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Hillary Ruins the Plan By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on August 14th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/ball-of-collusion-book-excerpt-hillary-clinton-ruins-the-plan/

Plan A was to exonerate her and get her elected. Plan B, the failsafe, was an ‘insurance policy’ meant to destroy Trump.

Editor’s note: Andrew C. McCarthy’s new book is Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency. This is the first in a series of excerpts.

 There really was a collusion plot. It really did target our election system. It absolutely sought to usurp our capacity for self-determination. It was just not the collusion you’ve been told about for nearly three years. It was not “Donald Trump’s collusion with Russia.”

Here is the real collusion scheme: In 2016, the incumbent Democratic administration of President Barack Obama put the awesome powers of the United States government’s law-enforcement and intelligence apparatus in the service of the Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential campaign, the Democratic party, and the progressive Beltway establishment. This scheme had two parts: Plan A, the objective; and Plan B, a fail-safe strategy in case Plan A imploded — which all the smartest people were supremely confident would never, ever happen . . . which is why you could bet the ranch that it would.

Plan A was to get Mrs. Clinton elected president of the United States. This required exonerating her, at least ostensibly, from well-founded allegations of her felonious and politically disqualifying actions.

Plan B was the insurance policy: an investigation that Donald Trump, in the highly unlikely event he was elected, would be powerless to shut down. An investigation that would simultaneously monitor and taint him. An investigation that internalized Clinton-campaign-generated opposition research, limning Trump and his campaign as complicit in Russian espionage. An investigation that would hunt for a crime under the guise of counterintelligence, build an impeachment case under the guise of hunting for a crime, and seek to make Trump un-reelectable under the guise of building an impeachment case.

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MEDIA, POLITICS Comments turned off

Max Boot’s Dishonesty By Charles C. W. Cooke

By on August 14th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/max-boots-dishonesty/

Max Boot is a narcissistic, dishonest, calculating, manipulative writer who engages in the same willfully dishonorable conduct he claims to disdain in others.He intentionally misconstrues what others write and then lies about it, knowing that no one will bother to uncover his distortion.

Before yesterday, my primary criticism of the Washington Post’s Max Boot was political in nature. As I wrote in a recent book review, I found it regrettable that Boot’s opposition to the president had not prevented him from “succumbing reactively to Trump’s cult of personality, or from making Trump the origin of every graph onto which he plots himself.” As of yesterday, my primary criticism of the Washington Post’s Max Boot is that he is a narcissistic, dishonest, calculating, manipulative writer who is prone to engaging in precisely the sort of willfully dishonorable conduct that he claims to disdain in others.

Having purposively libeled one of our Buckley Fellows after he had the temerity to argue that one does not fight racism by making lazy racial generalizations, Boot has now moved on to libeling Dan McLaughlin, one of the most thoughtful writers in America, and to making peculiar charges about National Review as a whole. As Oscar Wilde might have said: To lie about one writer may be regarded as a misfortune; to lie about two looks like carelessness.

Or worse.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Coming Migration out of Sub-Saharan Africa By Christopher Caldwell

By on August 14th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2019/08/26/the-coming-migration-out-of-sub-saharan-africa/

It could send millions to Europe

Almost the entire population of Italy, it seems, spent the last week of June watching a boat arrive from across the Mediterranean. It was the Sea-Watch 3, a Netherlands-registered ship funded by progressive philanthropists and captained by Carola Rackete, a 31-year-old German climate-change activist. Rackete radioed that she was carrying 42 African refugees rescued at sea who were in desperate health. Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini holds that such ships rendezvous with traffickers just off the Libyan coast, and are really less interested in rescuing sailors than in transporting illegal immigrants to Europe en masse. “Taxis,” he has called them. And indeed, Rackete had been doodling about at the edge of Italy’s territorial waters for several days, charting a course less consistent with any health emergency than with a wish to land her human cargo in the European Union, where it is easy to apply for political asylum and where even those whose applications are rejected are almost never deported. Since his Lega party began sharing power in a populist coalition a year ago, Salvini’s decision to close Italy’s ports to such ships has made him the country’s most popular politician by a mile — and arguably, though he is still only a cabinet minister, the leader of the Western European political Right.

This time Salvini failed. Rackete broke through a line of Coast Guard ships in the pre-dawn hours of June 29 and made port on the island of Lampedusa, allegedly ramming a customs ship in the process, a maneuver for which she was arrested. Italians were riveted to their smartphones and TV sets. A good number of Lampedusans even lined the docks in the middle of the night to holler their wish that she be prosecuted — and worse. But when “Carola,” as she was increasingly known to the public, was released in early July, a crowd of supporters waved signs with handmade hearts. She still faces criminal charges. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s foreign minister, the Social Democrat Heiko Maas, backed Rackete against the Italian authorities. “Saving human lives is no crime,” he said. 

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

It’s not racist to screen out migrants who’ll be a burden Jonathan Tobin

By on August 14th, 2019

https://nypost.com/2019/08/12/sorry-but-its-not-racist-to-screen-out-migrants-wholl-be-a-burden/

Last week’s mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, has sent public discourse about immigration off the rails.

It has allowed radicals to frame as racist normal law enforcement activities and immigration rules. We saw this in New York recently, with anti-ICE protesters stopping traffic on the West Side Highway and holding sit-ins at an Amazon store to protest the company’s compliance with immigration rules.

In the left’s telling — and it’s increasingly hard to distinguish the hard left from the soft — the administration and those who support it are no better than the insane white nationalist who committed the El Paso atrocity.

Similar hysteria has greeted a new Trump administration regulation governing legal immigrants’ access to public welfare. The New York Times depicted the new rule as part of an effort by the president and his hard-line immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, to “shift” the demographic makeup of newcomers to the country.

Under the new rule, those who are in the country legally will have a more difficult time obtaining green cards or gaining citizenship if they received food stamps, housing assistance, Medicare or other public benefits.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

POLITICS ARIZONA : CURT SCHILLING MULLING A RUN FOR CONGRESS

By on August 14th, 2019

http://www.rollcall.com/news/campaigns/trump-endorses-curt-schilling-bid-congress-arizona-terrific

Former Arizona Diamondbacks and Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling can count on the endorsement of President Donald Trump if he decides to run for Congress in Arizona.

The former Major League Baseball player turned conservative talk show host is weighing a congressional run in the Copper State, he told the Arizona Republic this week.

Trump took to Twitter on Tuesday to support that potential development, writing that Schilling was a “great pitcher and patriot” and that it is “terrific!” he is considering running in Arizona.

Schilling, who is listed as a Massachusetts resident, has long been one of Major League Baseball’s most politically active former players. In 2016 and 2017, he expressed interest in running to unseat Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts before ultimately backing out of the race. He actively campaigned for Republican presidential nominee John McCain in 2008 and supported President George W. Bush’s reelection campaign in 2004.

He endorsed Trump in 2016 and has vehemently defended the Trump administration as a commentator for the conservative media outlet Blaze TV.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

5 Biggest Misconceptions About The Trump Administration’s Record On LGBTQ Issues Matthew Craffey

By on August 14th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/08/14/5-big-misconceptions-trump-lgbtq-record/

If you cut through the lies and the false narratives peddled by the media, you’ll find Trump has been one of the greatest presidents for LGBTQ Americans in history.

Recently Ric Grenell, the openly gay U.S. ambassador to Germany, hosted a discussion in Berlin with international LGBTQ activists as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to decriminalize homosexuality around the world. More than 70 countries have laws against LGBTQ activities. Through economic influence, increasing education, and advocating policy changes, this important new global campaign hopes to change that.

Activists from countries such as Lebanon, Georgia, and Botswana shared their experiences and discussed the harrowing conditions LGBTQ individuals face in their nations. Grenell gave activists from the most affected countries a forum to develop better strategies to fight for LGBTQ policies and made it clear the United States would help in their struggle however it could.

The Trump administration also announced the appointment of another openly gay man, Robert Gilchrist, as the U.S. ambassador to Lithuania. If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Gilchrist could play a pivotal role in LGBTQ policy. His challenge will be to do this in a culturally conservative country that lags other nations in affirming LGBTQ desires.

There is a large potential political and cultural impact to our top diplomat in a country like Lithuania being a gay man. It sends a high-profile message that to have a good political and economic relationship with the United States, nations will need to accept LGBTQ individuals and improve treatment of their own LGBTQ citizens. It’s one more example of how the Trump administration is using soft-power and influence to carry out this important global initiative.

However, the dominant narrative weaved by the media and Democrats incorrectly paints the administration’s record on LGBTQ issues. The very same Advocate article on Gilchrist’s appointment still claims that overall, “the Trump administration has taken many anti-LGBTQ actions.” But has it?

As a gay man myself, it’s important to me to know how the facts measure up to these accusations. Below are the most notable allegations of anti-LGBTQ actions supposedly taken by the Trump administration, and whether the media and leftist politicians reported them accurately.

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

If You’re Not Grateful To The United States, Why Are You Here?By Casey Chalk

By on August 14th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/08/14/youre-not-grateful-united-states/

Rather than ridicule America’s past, as if the travesties of U.S. history nullify its soaring glories, immigrants and longtime Americans should be grateful for America and its political and cultural traditions.

Earlier this month, the Washington Post featured an op-ed entitled “I am an uppity immigrant. Don’t expect me to be ‘grateful,’” by New York University professor Suketu Mehta, an author who recently published a book arguing that “immigration is a form of reparations” for past American crimes.

In the article, Mehta accuses America of stealing “the futures of the people who are now arriving at its borders,” of causing many immigrants “to move in the first place,” and of “despoil[ing] their homelands and mak[ing] them unsafe and unlivable.” He censures the West for “despoil[ing] country after country through colonialism, illegal wars, rapacious corporations and unchecked carbon emissions.”

Mehta asserts, for such reasons, that he’s “entitled” to live in the United States. Yet a few brief historical reflections will demonstrate that immigration as reparations is a bit more complicated than Mehta lets on. Moreover, no one, whether first-generation immigrants or direct descendants of voyagers on the Mayflower, deserves to be here. Being American is a gift for which every citizen should be inordinately grateful.

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