Displaying posts published in

October 2019

CHARLOTTE’S NEWS WEB

https://spectator.org/crowdstrike-and-the-impeachment-frenzy/

CrowdStrike and the Impeachment Frenzy George Parry,

In his telephone conversation with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, President Trump requested Ukraine’s help in getting “to the bottom of” the Russian collusion narrative and the role of CrowdStrike, a private computer security company, in propagating that story. Lost in the volcanic eruption of faux outrage and condemnation aimed at the president by the Democrats and their wholly owned media subsidiary, this reference to CrowdStrike indicates that the Justice Department’s investigation of the counterintelligence operation against candidate and president-elect Trump may be hot on the trail of exposing what could well be a seminal lie that the Democratic National Committee’s computer server was hacked by Russian operatives. To understand why, consider the following:

On June 12, 2016, WikiLeaks announced that it would soon release stolen computer files that pertained to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

www.foxnews.com/opinion/marsha-blackburn-democrats-impeachment-revenge-scheme

Dems’ impeachment gambit is a revenge scheme orchestrated by a fallen political party
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, (R-Tennesee)

Another day, another scandal that’s sure to trigger the Trump administration’s downfall—if only the American people would be less picky about what the definition of the word “evidence” is.

The Ukraine Call Transcript. The Whistleblower Complaint. The Impeachment Inquiry. The pieces of this latest impeachment jigsaw have reached mythic status, bolstered by frenzied reporting, and insistence on the part of Democrats and advocates that this time, they’ve got the president right where they want him.

“WORLD TAKE NOTE!”: Genocide of Christians by President of Nigeria by Raymond Ibrahim

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14958/nigeria-genocide-christians

“It’s tough to tell Nigerian Christians this isn’t a religious conflict since what they see are Fulani fighters clad entirely in black, chanting ‘Allahu Akbar!’ and screaming ‘Death to Christians.'” — Sister Monica Chikwe, reported by John. L. Allen Jr., Crux, August 4, 2019.

“Hundreds of indigenous Numan Christians in Adamawa state were attacked and killed by jihadist Fulani herdsmen. When they tried to defend themselves the Buhari govt. sent in the Airforce to bomb hundreds of them and protect the Fulani aggressors. Is this fair?!” — Femi Fani-Kayode, former Minister of Aviation, Daily Post (Nigeria), December 6, 2017.

Such is the current state of affairs: a jihad of genocidal proportions has been declared on the Christian population of Nigeria, and spearheaded by that nation’s president and his fellow Fulani tribesmen, even as Western media and analysts present Nigeria’s problems as products of economics — or “inequality” and “poverty,” to quote former US President Bill Clinton on the supposedly true source that is “fueling all this stuff.”

Muhammadu Buhari, the Muslim president of Nigeria — who reached that position in part thanks to former US President Barack H. Obama — continues to fuel the “genocide” of Christians in his nation.

Most recently, Father Valentine Obinna, a priest of the Aba diocese of Nigeria, attributed the ongoing slaughter of Christians to the planned “Islamization of Nigeria”:

“People read the handwriting on the wall. It’s obvious. It’s underground. It’s trying to make the whole country a Muslim country. But they are trying to do that in a context with a strong presence of Christians, and that’s why it becomes very difficult for him [Buhari].”

The Hat, the Turban and the Cap: Which Can Save the Mullahs? by Amir Taheri

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14957/iran-politics-military

The nature of political power, in any system, is that those who secure a share of it always want more.

The military chiefs, more specifically the top brass of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), have always promoted their ambitions through the vast media empire they control inside and outside Iran. What is new is that today they are advancing their bid for power directly and more openly.

Does this mean that we now have two generals testing the waters for a direct bid for power?

The hat, the turban, and the cap are of little use when the head is rotten.

As Hassan Rouhani’s presidency drifts towards what promises to be less than a brilliant end, speculation is starting about the next phase in the power struggle that has been a permanent feature of the Khomeinist regime from the start.

Some Iran-watchers argue that the regime’s true backbone consists of the military-security establishment using the “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei as a frontman. While that view reflects an aspect of the Iranian reality, it would be wrong to conclude that the military chiefs would remain content with the present arrangement. The nature of political power, in any system, is that those who secure a share of it always want more.

The IPCC’s Seldom Mentioned ‘Uncertainties’ Michael Kyle

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2019/10/the-ipccs-seldom-mentioned-uncertainties/

The IPCC’s latest serve of climate catastrophism, released just before the UN General Assembly met in New York last month, ironically contained some good news. But not even “inadequate” models, “limited” observations, poor understanding, dodgy “projections” and revelations about “deep uncertainty” could rein in the hyperbole.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the UN agency that “assesses” the status of climate-change science and produces reports on it. It also prepares a Summary for Policymakers (SPM). This document is crafted to be digestible by climate bureaucrats, national leaders and the media, most of whom have been drip-fed alarmist rhetoric for years, if not decades.

The IPCC is an odd outfit. Created in 1988 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), it is no surprise to learn its Secretariat is located in the latter’s Geneva building. Except for the Secretary Abdalah Mokssit, a Moroccan applied mathematician and meteorologist, most of its 18 staff seem to be “communications and media specialists” or administrators. The current chair is Hoesung Lee, a South Korean economist. He was elected in late 2015, after Rajendra Pachauri. resigned under a cloud of sexual harassment allegations.

The Trumps, the Bidens and China The upside of Washington’s influence scandal. By James Freeman *****

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-trumps-the-bidens-and-china-11570210513

“With apologies to Captain Obvious, the plain fact is that the Trumps had a big real estate business long before the 2016 election. Is there any Biden history in Ukrainian natural gas or Chinese finance prior to Joe Biden’s vice presidency?”

Even Hunter Biden doesn’t deserve the Chinese judicial system. But there is a silver lining to Donald Trump’s suggestion that foreign governments scrutinize unusual financial arrangements involving relatives of people at the center of American political power. There is value in a U.S. President telling the world that the Clinton Foundation will not be the model for how this country conducts its foreign affairs.

“China should start an investigation into the Bidens, because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine,” the President told reporters on Thursday at the White House.

Was it really that bad? The Journal’s James Areddy reports:

Hunter Biden, a 49-year-old lawyer and the second son of the former vice president, owns 10% of a private-equity firm called Bohai Harvest RST (Shanghai) Equity Investment Fund Management Co.
Over the past roughly six years, it has channeled $2.5 billion or more on behalf of its financial backers into automotive, energy, mining and technology deals, according to interviews with people familiar with the private-equity firm and a review by The Wall Street Journal of financial filings and other official business records.
Hunter Biden is one of nine directors of the firm, known as BHR Partners, which is controlled and funded primarily by large Chinese government-owned shareholders.

In 2014, the Journal’s Chao Deng reported from Shanghai that this esteemed group was raising a fund to invest outside China, “with the yuan-denominated portion of the fund to be converted to U.S. dollars through Shanghai’s free-trade zone.” Mr. Deng noted:

Camille Paglia, Now More than Ever Emina Melonic

https://amgreatness.com/2019/10/05/camille-paglia-now-more-than-ever/

More than anything, Camille Paglia’s style and élan vital invites readers to think further about culture and ideas and, in a society dominated by ideology, this is something we need now more than ever.

Ever since she burst onto the intellectual scene with the publication of Sexual Personae (1990), Camille Paglia has been challenging the norms of what it means to be a public intellectual. Her critiques of culture, art, and society have garnered a lot of attention from friends and foes alike. Love her or hate her, when Camille Paglia speaks, the world listens. As it should. She is a writer of enormous intellect, who has a feel for the nuances and intricacies of how being human works. She is a great synthesizer of the large and great ideas upon which civilizations were built and crumbled, and her views on gender, sexuality, and art are delivered with a verve and speed only a few can match.

Paglia’s new book, Provocations, is a collection of essays written over the course of the last 20 years. As one might expect, the essays cover a multitude of topics: feminism, politics, gender, higher education, film, and art. In many ways, Paglia has continued the approach of analysis and synthesis of ideas she did in Sexual Personae. She has the ability to take a large idea that encompasses one civilization in history and show us that those signs never left us.

Paglia certainly did this in Sexual Personae, in which she brilliantly posited the theory that the Apollonian and Dionysian divide in man never really left us despite the cultural and chronological distance of ancient Greek myths. Men are still thrusting toward the need to conquer and women still nurture but also have an incredible power over men. These are tough pills to swallow in today’s society of identity politics in which the struggle to erase the differences between men and women is all consuming, but according to Paglia, we are still re-enacting the most primal archetypes of humanity.

Anti-Trump Fraternity and NeverTrump Sorority Collude in Impeachment Scam Roger Kimball

https://amgreatness.com/2019/10/05/anti-trump-fraternity-and-nevertrump-sorority-collude-in-impeachment-scam/

Donald Trump asked President Zelensky to help with the Justice Department’s investigation of efforts to subvert the 2016 election. Donald Trump is the president of the United States. It is part of his responsibility to see that our elections are open and fair. Bottom line: not much to work with there for the anti-Trump fraternity.

How stupid does the anti-Trump fraternity think the American people are? By “anti-Trump fraternity” I mean not only the increasingly frantic Democrats who, like Belshazzar at that memorable dinner party many years back, can see the writing ever more clearly on the wall for 2020, but also the NeverTrump sorority who just cannot get over the fact that someone was elected president of the United States without their permission, indeed, over their explicit objections. How dare they!

I ask how stupid they think the American people are because it has long seemed to me that they must have a very low opinion of our intelligence given the preposterous anti-Trump narrative they keep trying to foist off on us.

At the same time, it must be said that they have a touching trust in our patience. Fans of P.G. Wodehouse may recall that in the preface to Summer Lightning old Plum adduced the “nasty remark” of one critic who complained that a previous novel contained “all the old Wodehouse characters under different names.” Ever looking on the bright side, Wodehouse mused that that critic had probably by then been eaten by bears “like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha.” But if, he noted, said scribe was still among us he would not have been able to make the same objection to Wodehouse’s new novel because this time he put in all the old Wodehouse characters “under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy.”

The Education of a Cynic By Brian Stewart

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/book-review-the-education-of-an-idealist-samantha-power/

Samantha Power’s new memoir unwittingly crystalizes the weakness and amorality of Obama’s foreign policy.

In The Education of an Idealist, a new memoir of her government service, former U.N. ambassador Samantha Power relates a breathtaking moment from the White House Situation Room in 2013. In the course of a meeting on the mounting humanitarian and strategic crisis in Syria, President Obama, brushing aside Power’s arguments in favor of more assertive action against the Assad regime, grumbled, “We’ve all read your book, Samantha.”

The president was referring to A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, in which Ms. Power, then the executive director of Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights, detailed America’s long, deplorable record of inaction in the face of ethnic cleansing and genocidal war.

A Problem from Hell opens with the lethal persecution of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, in whose behalf the U.S. ambassador in Constantinople, Henry Morgenthau, issued urgent but unavailing dispatches to Washington reporting the outbreak of “race murder.” Power fleshed out her survey of modern genocide (a term, she reminds us, coined by the scholar Raphael Lemkin) by turning to the Holocaust, Iraq in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s 1988 Anfal campaign against the Kurds, Rwanda in 1994, and the Balkans for much of the Nineties. Power’s personal journey into this ghastly subject began as a freelance reporter in Sarajevo, where she witnessed what Slobodan Milosevic’s project of “Greater Serbia” meant for ethnic minorities in the former Yugoslavia.

With the partial exception of Bosnia and later Kosovo, where the United States led belated rescue operations under NATO auspices, these campaigns of systematic slaughter were greeted by fatal indifference by the outside world and permitted to take their hideous course. In A Problem from Hell, Power condemned generations of American policymakers for their declared realism—more precisely, to borrow a concept from Christian philosophy, their amoral quietism—in the midst of systematic persecutions and massacres of minorities.

If the House Won’t Vote, Impeachment Inquiry Is Just a Democratic Stunt By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/impeachment-inquiry-house-must-vote-or-its-just-democratic-stunt/

It is not for the Speaker and her adjutants to decree that there is an inquiry.

‘The House of Representatives . . . shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.”

It’s right there in black-and-white: In article I, section 2, clause 5, our Constitution vests the entirety of the power to call for removal of the president of the United States in a single body — the House.

Not in the Speaker of the House. In the House of Representatives. The institution, not one of its members.

To be sure, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a very powerful government official: second in the line of succession to the presidency; arguably, the most powerful member of Congress. She wields decisive influence on the business of her chamber. She even has the power to induce the House to vote on whether to conduct an impeachment inquiry.

But she does not have the power to impeach on her own.

In the end, Speaker Pelosi is just one member, a representative elected biannually by one district (in her case, the 12th district of California, centered in San Francisco and not particularly representative of the nation at large). Sure, she enjoys primus inter pares status because she is chosen by a majority of the House’s 435 members. But like each of those other members, her vote counts as just one — in a body that generally requires 218 votes to get the important things done.

She is the Speaker. She is not the House. She does not have the authority to call for the president’s removal. She can argue for it, like the other members. She can vote on it, like the other members. But she cannot do it by herself. Only the House, acting as an institution, can do that.

AOC Says Trump’s Attacks on Schiff Are ‘Targeted’ Anti-Semitism By Stephen Kruiser

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/off-her-meds-aoc-says-trumps-attacks-on-schiff-are-targeted-anti-semitism/

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) probably says and tweets more remarkably ignorant things than anyone in Congress — perhaps more than anyone in the United States. Her latest attack on President Trump regarding his attacks on California Democrat Adam Schiff may be her dumbest hot-take yet.

Yes, the Democrats work from an identity politics-based playbook all of the time, but this is a stretch even when applying their ever-changing rules.

The post she’s tweeting here as a source for her charge is from The Intercept, and was written by Mehdi Hasan, a noted Iran and Ilhan Omar apologist.

Speaking of Omar, the most outrageously laughable aspect of this concern-trolling by AOC is the fact that half of her “Squad” are openly raging anti-Semites. Omar is so awful that she inspired a condemnation resolution by her own party after she had been in office only a month.

This is Barack Obama’s legacy. White males who are Catholic, Protestant, or atheist are the only people subject to public criticism. Democrats hide their lunacy behind identity shields.