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September 2019

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

US Adversaries: Nothing to Fear from the White House? by Con Coughlin

By on September 21st, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14902/us-adversaries-nothing-to-fear-from-the-white

This [shooting down a US Navy drone] was a clear-cut act of provocation against the US in violation of international law, one that required a firm and decisive response from the White House.

Yet, having initially threatened to respond militarily, Mr Trump then changed his mind, thereby allowing the Iranians off the hook.

With Mr Trump’s focus firmly fixed on winning re-election in next year’s presidential election contest, the Iranian regime has probably concluded that the White House is determined to avoid all forms of overseas military intervention at any cost.

The result is that Iran — and other adversaries of the US, such as China, North Korea, Russia, Venezuela, Cuba and the Taliban — now may feel even more emboldened to continue their provocative actions in the Gulf and elsewhere, knowing that, so long as Mr Trump is in the White House, they do not have to fear they will be subjected to military retribution from Washington.

For all US President Donald Trump’s bluster that the US military is “locked and loaded”, the reality is that the White House has absolutely no interest in launching military action against Iran in retaliation for its involvement in the devastating attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure. It is a decision doubtless not lost on Iran.

On the contrary, for all Mr. Trump’s machismo posturing, the most the President can be expected to do is intensify the sanctions regime against Tehran, a move that is unlikely to strike fear into the hearts of Iran’s battle-hardened veterans of its Revolutionary Guard.

Indeed, the President’s disinclination to confront Iran over its increasingly aggressive conduct towards the US and its allies in the region appears only to have emboldened the ayatollahs to even greater acts of provocation, such as last weekend’s attacks on Saudi Arabia’s Khurais oil field and the Abqaiq oil processing facility, which resulted in the Saudis losing nearly 50 per cent of the country’s oil processing capacity and for a while sparked a sharp jump in oil prices.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

MY SAY: #WALKAWAY MOVEMENT GAINING GROUND

By on September 21st, 2019

https://www.walkawaycampaign.com/
#WalkAway movement urges disgruntled Democrats to leave the party behind.

The #WalkAway Campaign is a true grassroots movement, founded by former liberal, Brandon Straka on May 26th, 2018. The #WalkAway Campaign encourages and supports those on the Left to walk
away from the divisive tenets endorsed and mandated by the Democratic Party of today. We are
walking away from the lies, the false narratives, the fake news, the race-baiting, the victim narrative,
the violence, the vandalism, the vitriol. We are walking away from a party driven by hate. We are
walking toward patriotism and a new, unified America! We are the future of this great nation!

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POLITICS Comments turned off

‘Grey’s Anatomy’ star Isaiah Washington opens up about decision to leave the Democratic party after Trump White House visit

By on September 21st, 2019

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/greys-anatomy-star-isaiah-washington-opens-up-about-decision-to-leave-the-democratic-party?fbclid=IwAR3iyUzTyXZSXdy6GOt_4-MydFqTz6d2ugUsOshfRIQVYcfILqCflMelo0I

On Fox Nation’s latest episode of “Nuff Said,” “Grey’s Anatomy” star Isaiah Washington opened up about his decision to leave the Democratic Party, and the reaction he got from the Hollywood community after publicly declaring his support for the #WalkAway movement.

“Walking away is… a sacrifice,” Washington said. “There’s a risk and there’s a penalty for it but you have to walk away when it matters…and the reason I chose to walk away from the Democratic party…is that something doesn’t feel right.”Washington, who once played Dr. Preston Burke in the hit TV series, said he was never asked about his politics during his two-year career on the show, and that his political activism developed recently after he attended a celebration at the White House commemorating Trump’s support of the First Step Act.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Elites in Robes: Mark Steyn VIDEO

By on September 21st, 2019

https://www.steynonline.com/9746/elites-in-robes

In this edition, Mark talks about judicial activism in America, the plight of Tommy Robinson in the United Kingdom, and the Australian justice system’s mishandling of Cardinal Pell’s prosecution.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The Climate Cult’s ‘New Theology’ Is a Poisonous Proposition “What do you confess to the plants in your life?”Thaddeus G. McCotter

By on September 21st, 2019

amgreatness.com/2019/09/20/the-climate-cults-new-theology-is-a-poisonous-proposition/

Gertrude Stein mused, “a rose is a rose is a rose . . . ” Unless, of course, it is your Grand Inquisitor.

In the latest evidence the Left is regressing into a permanent vegetative state, the Union Theological Seminary (UTS) in New York City hosted “a beautiful ritual” to help combat climate change: “Today in chapel, we confessed to plants. Together, we held our grief, joy, regret, hope, guilt and sorrow in prayer; offering them to the beings who sustain us but whose gift we too often fail to honor. What do you confess to the plants in your life?”

The UTS unraveled the rationale behind their beautiful ritual in a sacred Twitter thread. In sum, religions that believed God gave humanity dominion over the earth have advanced the climate change crisis by encouraging generations to . . . exercise dominion over the earth. The seminary’s solution is to “birth new theology, new liturgy to heal and sow, replacing ones that reap and destroy.” Ergo, the root of their “new theology” is to place humanity on the level of plants as both peers and penitents. “What’s different (and the source of so much derision) is that we’re treating plants as fully created beings, divine Creation in its own right—not just something to be consumed.”

(As an aside: the Left’s menu of approved items we can consume is getting rather limited, since the climate cult claims the “crisis” is aided and abetted by eating meat—human meat excepted, of course. And now, if plants are my peers—or superior beings—can I have rice as a side dish with my porpoise free tuna? Can I even have a tuna salad sandwich? Perhaps, this is the Malthusian climate cult’s plan all along, because they hold people to be the reason for climate change? Less food; fewer people; less climate change—and with less than 12 years to accomplish all this!)

Here, we see the UTS realizes the beautiful ritual where people confessin’ the blues, sins, or anything else to a plant may, like broccoli, have its detractors. Yet, they remain undeterred: “And here’s the thing: At first, this work will seem weird. It won’t feel normal. It won’t look like how we’re used to worship looking and sounding.”

True enough. I’m not, nor have I ever been, an earth worshipping pagan (despite having listened to Led Zeppelin). Further, I don’t consider making what’s old (an earth-worshipping cult) new again (the climate-change cult) remotely miraculous, except maybe as a matter of marketing and as an indictment of the postmodernist mind. 

Still, in bad news for Ted Turner, the UTS potential to finally turn the term “humanist” into an exclusionary epithet for those who hold people superior to plants and animals in the natural order could constitute a minor miracle within the Left’s abominable cancel culture. Regardless, just because something is new and different doesn’t mean it can’t be stupid and pointless; and sometimes weird is just weird; and some “extractivism” deserves derision and—

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Real Cure for Inequality Income gains are now rising faster for low-wage workers.

By on September 21st, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-real-cure-for-inequality-11569020055

The left’s apocalyptic economic predictions for the Trump Presidency haven’t panned out. With jobs plentiful and wages rising at the fastest rate in a decade, liberals are doubling down on alarms about inequality. The inconvenient evidence is that low- and middle-income folks are reaping more economic benefits than during the Obama years.

Democrats flogged last week’s Census report that showed health coverage and Medicaid enrollment declined in 2018. But they ignored the other side of that story: Worker earnings increased by 3.4% while the poverty rate declined 0.5 percentage points to 11.8%, the lowest level since 2001. Benefit rolls are shrinking as low-income workers earn more.

According to the Census Bureau, the number of full-time, year-round workers increased by 2.3 million in 2018, and employment gains were biggest among minority female-led households. The share of workers in female-led households who worked full-time year-round increased by 4.2 percentage points among blacks and 3.6 percentage points among Hispanics.

As a result, real median earnings for female households with no spouse present jumped 7.6% last year. The poverty rate among female households declined 2.7 percentage points for blacks, four percentage points for Hispanics and 7.1 percentage points for their children. Remember this the next time Senator Kamala Harris complains that Mr. Trump’s policies are harming women and minorities.

These findings reinforce Labor Department monthly reports that have shown stronger employment and earnings gains in industries dominated by women such as health care and hospitality. The jobless rate for black women last month fell to a historic low of 4.4% and neared a nadir for Hispanic women at 4.2%.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Soros Takes on Denaturalization By Marion DS Dreyfus

By on September 21st, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/09/soros_takes_on_denaturalization.html

The left-leaning Open Society, lavishly funded by moneybags darling of the left, octogenarian George Soros, has just published a 194-page ‘report’ on a process I’ll wager not more than 1% of  readers are aware of: denaturalizing  questionable citizens.

Maybe that should read “citizens,” since the government is not, contrary to the notably omission-laden materials by the ACLU and the Society, pursuing legitimately naturalized persons who became so with no shadowy elements attached to their by-now geriatric citizenship sacrament.

During the past three decades, according to a document put out by the ‘always-scrupulous’ ACLU, denaturalizations were pursued an average of 11 times per year. But under the Trump Administration, this jumped in 2017 to 95 cases referred by the Department of Homeland Security. That was bumped up to some 1600 cases by the U.S. Citizenship and  Immigration Services, as of 2018.  Then comes 2019, and in its budget request, the  U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) indicated its intention to review the files of an additional — hold onto your MAGA hats — 700,000, for which they requested funding of an additional $200 million.

In this document, as in the panel discussion attended in mid-September with four key researcher-writers — including the Senior Managing Legal Officer of the Open Society Justice Initiative Laura Bingham — this process of re-examining questionable naturalizations, without proper documents, or with unsettled legal issues of provenance and possible prior criminality,  this effort “throws away standards, due process, fairness, and devaluing the sanctity [sanctity, mind you] of American citizenship.”

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