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August 2019

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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MEDIA Comments turned off

A Week in the Life of ABC ‘News’ Trump-bashing, race-baiting, and fear-mongering. Or as they call it at the network, Tuesday. Edward Ring

By on August 14th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/08/13/a-week-in-the-life-of-abc-news/

ABC Nightly News,” televised daily across the nation at 5:30 p.m., offers what is perhaps the lowest common denominator of the mainstream media’s liberal, anti-Trump bias. But even if you compare what ABC has to say to what actually constitutes balanced reporting, as well as to what qualifies as newsworthy reporting, ABC falls short.

By these standards—by what used to be the basic editorial criteria for good journalism—ABC “news” is a dangerous fraud. They spew propaganda, calibrated at an almost infantile level, calculated to reinforce carefully nurtured biases within their television audience.

ABC News is anchored by the dashing metrosexual, David Muir, an actor of extraordinary skill. Muir, along with a laudably diverse collection of equally telegenic thespians masquerading as “journalists,” manages to exude convincing gravitas despite delivering, night after night, an embarrassing infotainment sham, mixing in equal parts pablum and agenda-driven propaganda. Forget about the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Television Political Journalism, or the Edward R. Murrow Award. Give David Muir an Oscar.

ABC’s nightly “news” is easily dissected. Their 30-minute formula, which all three legacy networks follow, consists of a prolonged opening segment, about 15 minutes in length, in which the  top national and international stories are presented (or so they tell us). An examination of what they reported on last week, during the five days from August 5 through August 9, provides ample evidence of just how far removed they are from genuine journalism.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

The Rise of Cultural and Economic Jihadism in American Civilization Selling us cultural suicide as a moral virtue. Jason D. Hill

By on August 14th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274618/rise-cultural-and-economic-jihadism-american-jason-d-hill

Two Democratic presidential candidates, Bernie Sanders and Julian Castro, have agreed to speak before the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). The candidates will address the forum during its convention in Houston on August 31, 2019.

The ISNA is listed by the United States Justice department as an entity of the Muslim Brotherhood which is a terrorist organization linked to several Islamist and Jihadist global political movements. These movements have as their goal the establishment of a global caliphate. This means that their goals are to subject all human beings to Sharia law. In fact, the president of ISNA was quoted in a 2006 film as saying that the organization’s mission was to change the Constitution of America. The organization has as its goals, by means of a jihad campaign, the destruction of western civilization from within.

There are several reasonable people who believe that both Sanders and Castro are either ignorant of the ISNA’s real goal, or are simply trying to turn a blind eye to an organization’s radical agenda with the hopes that they can modify the nihilistic and jihadist agenda of the movement.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I submit that both Castro and Sanders, given their virulent demonstrations of Americaphobia are directly complicit with the goals of ISNA. They are joining forces with an enemy organization to delegitimize our great republic under the current form of its constitutional configuration. Before analyzing the real motives behind these America-hating politicians, let us briefly examine their stated political visions for America.

Bernie Sanders is an avowed democratic socialist. He intends to transform our system of free market enterprise that has lifted millions out of poverty and raised the standard of living for all persons. What does he intend to transform our socio-economic American civilization into? A totalitarian, expropriative government of theft by legalization. Socialism advocates vesting ownership and control of the means of production, capital and land in the community as a whole. Socialism is not a morally neutral system. Any system of governance presupposes an answer to the questions: Are you a sovereign entity who owns your life, work and mind? Is your mind something that can be nationalized and its material contents distributed by the state? Socialists think the answer is yes. They believe the products of one’s efforts belong to the community; that the state and society have a moral and financial responsibility to care for other people’s children; that is, the procreative choices made by those who are strangers to us, and that the most successful and productive people should be the most penalized.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Humanitarian Hoax of White Supremacy: Killing America With Kindness – hoax 44 by Linda Goudsmit

By on August 14th, 2019

http://goudsmit.pundicity.com/23077/the-humanitarian-hoax-of-white-supremacy-killing

http://goudsmit.pundicity.com http://lindagoudsmit.com 

The Humanitarian Hoax is a deliberate and deceitful tactic of presenting a destructive policy as altruistic. The humanitarian huckster presents himself as a compassionate advocate when in fact he is the disguised enemy.

The radical leftist hucksters in the Democrat party have repeatedly accused President Trump of being racist and a white supremacist. Is it true? Let’s find out.

Racial unity has been the subject of political speeches since before the Civil War. The United States was founded in 1776 during an era of worldwide slavery when even black men owned black slaves. Supremacy is the corollary of enslavement – you have to be a supremacist to own a slave. Slavery was outlawed in the United States in 1865 with the passage of the 13th Amendment. So, let’s be clear, slavery has been illegal in the United States of America for 154 years.

Many countries and religions in the world continue to legally practice and embrace slavery – not Judeo-Christian America. The United States has Constitutionally rejected slavery and the attitude of supremacism that supports it. Instead, our American national credo strives for racial equality that is made possible through upward mobility and a robust middle class.

Equality in America is a matter of equal opportunity, not a guarantee of equal outcome. This is a very important distinction because it is what separates President Trump’s America-first ethos of individualism, from the radical leftist Democrat party’s ethos of collectivism. We will come back to that.

President Donald Trump is an unapologetic advocate of upward mobility and wealth creation for ALL Americans. Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! President Trump’s economic policies are color-blind and responsible for the lowest unemployment in the black community in history, as well as the lowest unemployment rate for hispanics in America since records were kept.

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BOOKS Comments turned off

The Education of Clarence Thomas Clarence Thomas and the Lost Constitution by Myron Magnet. Reviewed by Peter Wood

By on August 14th, 2019

https://kirkcenter.org/reviews/the-education-of-clarence-thomas/?

Clarence Thomas graduated cum laude from the College of Holy Cross in Massachusetts in 1971 and received a J.D. from Yale University in 1974. His memoir, My Grandfather’s Son (2007), testifies to a much deeper educational journey—one that began under the determined watch of his maternal grandfather in Jim Crow Savannah and that culminated in his ordeal during the 1991 Senate confirmation hearings. In between came his appointments as head of the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Education, chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

What he learned in those positions was significant, but not transformational. The transformational moment, we learn in Myron Magnet’s new book, Clarence Thomas and the Lost Constitution, came in 1980, “after he read through [Thomas] Sowell’s works, registered as a Republican, and voted for Ronald Reagan.” He was drawn by Reagan’s “promise to end racial social engineering.” Thomas had had a bellyful of that at Yale and had concluded that “blacks would be better off if they were left alone” instead of being conscripted into the utopian schemes of liberal politicians.

Needless to say, this wasn’t an idea he picked up from his teachers at Holy Cross or Yale, though it did owe something to his grandfather. Moreover, it prepared him for the opportunity he had at the EEOC when “he hired as special assistants Ken Masugi and John Marini, students of political philosopher Harry Jaffa.” Masugi and Marini introduced Thomas to texts that deepened his knowledge of the American founding.

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