Displaying posts published in

September 2019

MEDIA Comments turned off

Media Cancel James Mattis After They Learn His Book Criticizes The Wrong President

By on September 5th, 2019

Media Cancel James Mattis After They Learn His Book Criticizes The Wrong President

https://www.redstate.com/bonchie/2019/09/05/media-cancel-james-mattis-learn-book-criticizes-wrong-president/

When it comes to foreign policy, the President has the final say, no matter how strongly his advisors feel. The media don’t seem to understand this and constantly portray any decision Trump makes as dangerous and illegitimate. Somehow, the world hasn’t gone into a nuclear meltdown though. It’s almost like they have no idea what they are talking about?

One such decision was Trump wanting to pull out of Syria. It was enough that James “Mad Dog” Mattis resigned over it. That’s fair. If he couldn’t do the job anymore, I’m not going to criticize him for deciding to move on. The irony of the entire situation is that Democrats, who cheered Obama’s disastrous pull-out from Iraq, suddenly become the hawkiest of war hawks, but I digress.

The current story is that Mattis is writing his memoir and that got the media press corp really excited. You see, because Mattis left on rocky terms from the Trump administration, including a fairly forward resignation letter, the expectation was that he was going to blast Trump.

So you got headlines like The Man Who Couldn’t Take It Anymore from The Atlantic and The Man Trump Wishes He Were from The New York Times. You could almost see the foam forming around their collective mouths. They were about to get another tell all they could fluff for weeks, and if that meant rehabilitating a person they used to hate in James Mattis, then that was a price they were willing to pay.

Then something happened. While Mattis’ book laid into a President, it just so happened to be the wrong President in the media’s eyes. That would be Barack Obama.

Continue reading →
CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB Comments turned off

ENVIRONMENTAL FIASCO, NO MORE TRUMP PRESS BRIEFINGS, GUNS PREVENT CRIMES

By on September 5th, 2019

www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/09/the-environmental-fiasco-of-wind-energy.php

THE ENVIRONMENTAL FIASCO OF WIND ENERGY John Hinderaker, PowerlineBlog.com

Wind turbines only last for around 20 years, so many of them are now wearing out. That raises serious questions about disposal of defunct wind turbine parts. The turbines’ giant blades are not recyclable, so they must be dumped in landfills. The Sioux Falls Argus Leader reports on one South Dakota landfill that is saying no mas to wind turbine blades:

[T]he Argus Leader reports that more than 100 wind turbine blades measuring 120 ft long have been dumped in a Sioux Falls, South Dakota, landfill, but there’s a problem: the massive blades are taking up too much room, according to local City officials. …

A wind farm near Albert Lea, Minn., brought dozens of their old turbine blades to the Sioux Falls dump this summer.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/the-white-house-briefing-has-been-dead-for-six-months

Trump kills the White House press briefing, 50 years after it was born

The White House briefing room has many functions: a storage space for tripods and camera gear, a backdrop for visitor photos, a temporary workspace for journalists without a desk.

What it is not, at least since March 11, is a venue for President Trump’s press secretary to brief reporters on administration policies.

Next week will mark six months since the last White House “daily” briefing, another erosion of transparency and democracy under Trump or a sad indictment of the “fake news” media’s incivility, depending on your view.

“The reason Sarah Sanders does not go to the ‘podium’ much anymore is that the press covers her so rudely & inaccurately, in particular certain members of the press,” is howTrump defended the scarcity of briefings earlier this year. “I told her not to bother, the word gets out anyway! – [dated January, 2019]

https://drrichswier.com/2019/09/01/guns-prevent-thousands-of-crimes-every-day-research-shows/

Guns Prevent Thousands of Crimes Every Day, Research Shows

It never fails. A split-second after a mass shooting occurs, grandstanders and ideologues issue statements demanding new gun controls—even if the laws already on the books failed or the laws they want would have made no difference. Case in point: the tragic incidents in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, in early August 2019.

The message is clear: Guns cause violence. Tax them, take them, ban them, regulate them. Do something, maybe anything! Such knee-jerk, emotional responses are dangerous, writes Charles W. Cooke in National Review, “for when a nation sets up a direct pipeline between its emotions and its laws, it does not keep its liberty for long.”

Continue reading →
HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Federal Judge Rules Terror Watchlist Violates Constitution By Mairead McArdle

By on September 5th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/federal-judge-rules-terror-watchlist-violates-constitution/

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that a government terror watchlist that prevents flagged individuals from flying violated the Constitution.

The No Fly List of “known or suspected terrorists,” which includes over 1 million individuals, violates the constitutional rights of those placed on it, U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga ruled.

Twenty-three Muslim U.S. citizens, backed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), had sued, claiming they faced “a range of adverse consequences without a constitutionally adequate remedy” as a result of being placed on the list.

The plaintiffs “have constitutionally protected liberty interests that are implicated by their inclusion” on the watchlist, Trenga wrote, adding that the Department of Homeland Security process through which an individual could challenge their inclusion on the list “is not constitutionally adequate to protect those liberty interests.”

 

“There is no evidence, or contention, that any of these plaintiffs satisfy the definition of a known terrorist,” Trenga said, adding that the behavior qualifying someone as a “suspected terrorist” is too broad.

“CAIR has a half-dozen other watchlist cases pending in federal courts across the country, and this opinion will pave the wave for our continued victories,” CAIR national litigation director Lena Masri said in a statement. “Today’s opinion is a victory for the more than one hundred American Muslims we represent and for the thousands of American Muslims who are currently stigmatized by the watchlist.”

Continue reading →
P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Free Association for Me . . . By John Hirschauer

By on September 5th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/free-association-for-me/

Recent events have left me — admittedly not much of a sophisticate — confused. When I heard that Debrah Messing was looking to effectively blacklist actors who deigned to attend a rally for the president of the United States, I started wondering when it is (and is not) 0kay to exercise freedom of association.

By my count:

It is okay to refuse to hire or work with actors who have attended a Trump rally.

It is not okay that Karen Pence works at a religious school that refuses to hire people whose sexual behavior violates its religious precepts.

It is okay to refuse service to Sarah Sanders at a restaurant for violating its sincerely held political beliefs.

It is not okay to refuse to bake a cake for a ceremony that violates your sincerely held religious beliefs.

It is okay (laudable even!) to exclude whites from all-black dormitories and all-black graduation ceremonies.

  

It is not okay to exclude men from women’s sporting events.

And it’s not okay to say anything about it, because one side deserves it. Or something.

Continue reading →
BOOKS Comments turned off

Disregarding the Separation of Powers Has Real-Life Consequences By Neil Gorsuch

By on September 5th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/disregarding-separation-of-powers-has-real-life-consequences/

The rule of law is undermined, and liberty diminished.

Editor’s note: This article is adapted from Neil Gorsuch’s book A Republic, If You Can Keep It, which will be published this month.

The separation of powers and its role in protecting individual liberty and the rule of law can sound pretty abstract. I confess it seemed that way to me in my high-school civics class. I came to appreciate the genius of the Founders’ design more fully only years later, when as a judge I saw what happens to real people in real cases when the separation of powers goes unattended. Let me share with you a few of their stories, some of which you will see laid out more fully later. They’re just a sampling of so many that came across my desk.

Caring Hearts. Caring Hearts is a small business in Colorado that provides Medicare nursing services to the elderly. One year, the government performed an audit and concluded that Caring Hearts had improperly billed hundreds of thousands of dollars of services, so it slapped a fine of over $800,000 on the company. The trouble was, the government applied the wrong rules. Instead of applying the regulations in effect during the time Caring Hearts provided its services, it faulted the company for failing to abide more-onerous rules that the agency adopted only years later. How did the government get its own rules so wrong? Every year, the executive agency administering Medicare has used the legislative authority delegated to it by Congress to issue a river of legally binding regulations and thousands more “sub regulatory guidance documents” to explain those regulations. The agency had apparently written so many new legally binding rules that even it had lost track of all the changes.

Continue reading →
ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, MEDIA, POLITICS Comments turned off

10 Craziest Things CNN Town Hall Revealed About Democrats’ Economy-Wrecking Climate Extremism By Chrissy Clark

By on September 5th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/05/10-craziest-things-cnn-town-hall-revealed-democrats-economy-wrecking-climate-extremism/

Despite seven hours of conversations, there was no substantive talk. The majority of questions were asked by climate change activists tossing softball questions.

On Wednesday CNN hosted a town hall focused on environmentalism with the 10 Democratic presidential candidates qualified to stand on the September debate stage in Houston. These candidates are Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Julián Castro, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, Bernie Sanders, Andrew Yang, and Elizabeth Warren.

Despite seven hours of conversations, there was no substantive talk. The majority of questions were asked by climate change activists tossing softball questions at the candidates, or Sanders supporters who wanted to attack other candidates — cough, cough Joe Biden — and their climate platforms.

Among the dull questions and lackluster answers, several moments highlighted Democrats’ full-fledged dive into extremist policies that will wreck the American economy and scientific advancement.

Continue reading →
HOMELAND SECURITY, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Mattis: Obama Failed to Respond to Iran Bomb Plot on U.S. Soil Because of Nuclear Deal By Matt Margolis

By on September 5th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/mattis-obama-failed-to-respond-to-iran-bomb-plot-on-u-s-soil-because-of-nuclear-deal/

After the surprise resignation of Secretary of Defense James Mattis last December, Democrats were quick to politicize the news, and have certainly been hoping ever since that Mattis would provide them with new information they could use to attack Donald Trump. He does have a memoir coming out, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead, but it looks like it’s Barack Obama and Joe Biden who get the bulk of the criticism.

Prior be being Secretary of Defense under Trump, Mattis served as commander of U.S. Central Command under Obama and Biden. Mattis had predicted that Iran would continue to provoke the United States. Mattis’s warning went ignored, and when Iran committed an act of war on American soil, he was not told about it, and the United States never responded to it.

The duty officer at his Tampa, Florida, headquarters on Oct. 11, 2011 told him that the attorney general and FBI director had held a press conference to announce the arrest of two Iranians who had planned a bomb attack on Cafe Milano, a high-end restaurant in Washington that was a favorite of the rich and famous, including Saudi Arabia’s ambassador, Adel al-Jubeir.

As Mattis writes, “Attorney General Eric Holder said the bombing plot was ‘directed and approved by elements of the Iranian government and, specifically, senior members of the Qods Force.’ The Qods were the Special Operations Force of the Revolutionary Guards, reporting to the top of the Iranian government.”

Continue reading →
FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Jason Greenblatt, diplomat pushing Middle East peace plan, to leave Trump administration by Alex Pappas

By on September 5th, 2019

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/jason-greenblatt-diplomat-pushing-middle-east-peace-plan-to-leave-trump-administration

President Trump on Thursday announced the departure of Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt from his administration as he commended the diplomat for his efforts to pursue peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Greenblatt, a former Trump Organization lawyer, has served as the president’s special representative for international negotiations and was tasked with developing a Middle East peace plan.

“After almost 3 years in my Administration, Jason Greenblatt will be leaving to pursue work in the private sector,” Trump said. “Jason has been a loyal and great friend and fantastic lawyer.”

The president continued, “His dedication to Israel and to seeking peace between Israel and the Palestinians won’t be forgotten. He will be missed. Thank you Jason!”

A senior administration official said Greenblatt has decided to return to New Jersey to be with his wife and six children.

“It has been the honor of a lifetime to have worked in the White House for over two and a half years under the leadership of President Trump,” Greenblatt said in a statement. “I am incredibly grateful to have been part of a team that drafted a vision for peace.”

Greenblatt worked in concert with White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, on the Middle East peace plan.

Continue reading →
BOOKS, HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Book reveals how Chinese intelligence steals U.S. tech secrets to dominate world Bill Gertz

By on September 5th, 2019

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/sep/3/deceiving-sky-reveals-how-china-steals-tech-secret/

‘Hey there, do you sell the ‘Poisonivy Program’? How much do you sell it for? i wish to buy one which can not be detect and killed by the Anti-Virus software.”

The email was sent to a Chinese cyber security company from a military officer in a special part of China’s People’s Liberation Army intelligence service, formally known as the Third Department of the General Staff Department.

American intelligence officials know the spy service simply as 3PLA, and it has been one of Communist China’s most successful tools for stealing American military technology through cyber means. A second Chinese military intelligence-gathering arm is called the Second Department of the General Staff Department, or 2PLA. The Fourth Department, or 4PLA, conducts both electronic spying and electronic warfare.

Together the PLA intelligence units have placed China at the forefront of the most significant foreign intelligence threat to American security. All three cooperate closely in stealing a broad array of secrets from the United States. If the information is in digital form, the Chinese steal it.

PoisonIvy is well known in international hacker circles as the favored software of the PLA. It is a remote access tool (RAT) and, while not the most advanced software on the international hacker black market, would turn out to be an extraordinarily effective cyber intelligence-gathering weapon for 3PLA.

Continue reading →
HISTORY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Clarifying the Palestine Saga Yoram Ettinger

By on September 5th, 2019

https://bit.ly/2lYTD4F

The Palestinian leadership is rehashing the notion that Palestine has been Arab/Muslim from time immemorial. But, is such a claim consistent with historic documentation?

According to Brown University Prof. David Jacobson, “the Greek Palaistine and the Latin [Rome] Palaestina… appear to refer not to the Land of the Philistines [Pleshet in Hebrew], but to the Land of Israel…. The Philistines [Plishtim in Hebrew] arrived on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean from Greece or Cyprus in approximately the 13th century BCE…. The Israelites’ traditional foes, the Philistines lived in a small area along the Mediterranean coast south of what is today Tel Aviv, an area that embraced the five towns of Gaza [hometown of Delilah], Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath [hometown of Goliath] and Ekron….

“As early as the Histories of Herodotus [the Greek founding father of Western historians] written in the second half of the 5th century BCE, the term Palaistine is used to describe not just the [Philistines’] geographical area, but the entire area between Phoenicia and Egypt – in other words, the Land of Israel [including the Judean Hills, referred to by some as the ‘West Bank’]…. Like Herodotus, Aristotle [along with his teacher, Plato, the founding fathers of Western philosophers] gives the strong impression that when he uses the term Palestine, he is referring to the Land of Israel…. In the 2nd century BCE, a Greek writer and historian Polemo of Ilium made a similar link between the people of Israel and Palestine….   

“The early 1st century Roman poet, Ovid, writes of ‘the seventh day feast [the Sabbath] that the Syrians of Palestine [the Hebrews] observe….’ Another Latin poet, Statius, and the writer Dio Chrysostom use ‘Palestine’ and ‘Palestinian’ in the same sense….
“Likewise the early 1st century CE Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria, occasionally, uses the name Palestine when referring to the Land of Israel….

“’Palestine’ is the Greek equivalent of ‘Israel.’”  The Greek word ‘Palaistine’ is remarkably similar to the Greek ‘Palaistes’, meaning ‘wrestler’…. The name ‘Israel’ arose from the incident in which Jacob [the Patriarch] wrestled with an angel (Genesis 32-25-27).  Jacob received the name Israel because he wrestled successfully (sarita’ in Hebrew) with the Lord (El in Hebrew)…. 

Continue reading →