Displaying posts published in

October 2019

France: More Death to Free Speech by Guy Millière

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15002/france-free-speech

Defending someone who is accused of being a “racist” implies the risk of being accused of being a “racist” too. Intellectual terror reigns in France.

France is moving from a “muzzled press to a muzzling press that destroys free speech”. — Alain Finkielkraut, writer and philosopher.

Writers other than Éric Zemmour have been hauled into court and totally excluded from all media, simply for describing reality.

In a society where freedom of speech exists, it would be possible to discuss the use of these statements, but in France today, freedom of speech has been almost completely destroyed.

Soon in France, no one will dare to say that any attack openly inspired by Islam has any connection with Islam.

On September 28, a “Convention of the Right” took place in Paris, organized by Marion Marechal, a former member of French parliament and now director of France’s Institute of Social, Economic and Political Sciences. The purpose of the convention was to unite France’s right-wing political factions. In a keynote speech, the journalist Éric Zemmour harshly criticized Islam and the Islamization of France. He described the country’s “no-go zones” (Zones Urbaines Sensibles; Sensitive Urban Zones) as “foreign enclaves” in French territory and depicted, as a process of “colonization”, the growing presence in France of Muslims who do not integrate.

Christians in Burkina Faso: “A Fight for Survival” by Uzay Bulut

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14945/christians-attacks-burkina-faso

“In the middle of the night, you must go and listen to sermons. You’re forbidden to criticize them. Women have to cover their heads. There’s no talk of cigarettes, alcohol or music, no celebrations … If you smoke, at first they just tell you not to. The third time, they kill you.” — A resident of Burkina Faso, reported by Lindy Lowry, Open Doors, June 20, 2019.

“They’ve forbidden prostitution in the [gold] mines — they slit their throats. They kill someone about once a month, I’d say, and it’s always people they’ve warned. Except the prostitutes. They don’t warn them. They just kill them.” — A resident of Burkina Faso, reported by Lindy Lowry, Open Doors, June 20, 2019.

Terrorism — committed by armed groups such as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Al-Mourabitoun, Ansar al-Dine, Ansar-ul-Islam lil-Ichad wal Jihad, Boko Haram, Islamic State in Greater Sahara and the Macina Liberation Front — has resulted in the displacement of more than 135,000 people in Burkina Faso, two-thirds of them since the beginning of this year. Their violence also has led to the closure of many schools.

The extremist attacks on Christians in the Muslim-majority West African country of Burkina Faso are not only a cause of great concern, but indicate that terrorist groups in the Middle East, such as ISIS, have not been defeated; they have moved their operations elsewhere.

Terrorism — committed by armed groups such as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Al-Mourabitoun, Ansar al-Dine, Ansar-ul-Islam lil-Ichad wal Jihad, Boko Haram, Islamic State in Greater Sahara and the Macina Liberation Front — has resulted in the displacement of more than 135,000 people in Burkina Faso, two-thirds of them since the beginning of this year. Their violence also has led to the closure of many schools.

According to a September 18 report by the international Catholic organization, Aid to the Church in Need:

“The most recent villages to have been abandoned are those of Hitté and Rounga, where the inhabitants were given an ultimatum by the Islamist terrorists, who ordered them to convert to Islam or abandon their homes. A source, who requested anonymity, said: ‘They are by no means the only ones facing this situation, rather they are just part of a program by the jihadists who are deliberately sowing terror, assassinating members of the Christian communities and forcing the remaining Christians to flee after warning them that they will return in three days’ time — and that they do not wish to find any Christians or catechumens still there.'”

CARDINAL PELL OF AUSTRALIA -HERO UNJUSTLY TRIED AND CONVICTED

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/

He has been long loathed by leftists and secularists, mercilessly targeted by journalists with childish insults aimed at his person and his faith and with obsessive character assassination that has rightly left many people, Catholic and non-Catholic, doubting that he could ever have got a fair trial; indeed, his conviction on the uncorroborated testimony of a single witness has dangerous implications for all Australians.

Here, in order to dispel the impression fostered in some quarters that Cardinal Pell, who has been vilified perhaps more than any other public figure in Australian history, lacks sympathy for the Jewish People, let’s remind ourselves of a speech he gave in Sydney on 14 May 2001, on the topic”Christians and Jews: The way ahead”:

‘Last night Rabbi David quoted the Jewish saying that after the destruction of the 2nd Temple, the gift of prophecy is dead; so that those who claim to prophesy are either babes or fools. Despite this, both of us have been condemned tonight, to talk on “the way ahead”, but my ambitions are very limited for a number of good reasons. A bishop has to be planning for tomorrow, although Jesus himself told us not to worry too much. Tomorrow can take care of itself, we have worries enough today! And in the Catholic community there are scattered individuals who are so busy preparing for the future that they ignore and neglect today’s responsibilities.

I speak too as one less wise; my normal condition, but in this case without extensive experience of ongoing dialogue, deep theological or sociological discussion on this vexed area of Jewish a Christian relations. 

However I pray the psalms every day, with all other Catholic priests; and I love them. I don’t know how many priests, especially those suffering or in trouble, who have told me how much the psalms have helped them.

In Rome 35 or 36 years ago our lecturer on the Psalms told us they were unique in any literature. 

These were the years of Vatican II and all such claims were greeted sceptically by many students.

I reserved my judgement and during the later years I have read something of the other great religions and found nothing to equal the Psalms as a body of prayerful literature.

I have come to know and love much more deeply the writings of the great prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah and especially Ezekiel, the strangest of them all. And I have come lately to study Elijah much more closely. For a long time I didn’t understand his top billing among Jews and Christians and with Jesus himself! Now I believe he is particularly important, and for us now, because monotheism was nearly wiped out then by Jezebel and the prophets of Baal.

Trump’s Latest Move Against the Press: Get to Da Choppa! Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2019/10/12/trumps-latest-move-against-the-press-get-to-da-choppa/

Originally published at New York Post.

Since abandoning the daily press briefing, which had sunk into an embarrassing spectacle where journalists would bully former press secretary Sarah Sanders, the White House now favors “chopper-pressers” where the boss interacts with the media while his helicopter idles nearby.

In his latest battle with the American news media, President Trump is bringing out the heavy artillery: Marine One.

Since abandoning the daily press briefing, which had sunk into an embarrassing spectacle where journalists would bully former press secretary Sarah Sanders, the White House now favors “chopper-pressers” where the boss interacts with the media while his helicopter idles nearby.

Like his use of Twitter, Trump’s impromptu gaggles frustrate the media and enable him to control the message for the day.

There is no camera on the press, only Trump. You usually can’t hear the questions on television, only the answers. It takes away the media’s ability to grandstand. There are no Jim Acosta moments.

It also requires journalists to yell over each other and outshout the deafening blades of the president’s waiting ride, conduct that undoubtedly amuses the commander-in-chief.

Trump has held three chopper-pressers in the past 10 days. Thursday’s briefing lasted 11 minutes — the president fielded a number of questions related to Ukraine, Turkey, Joe Biden and his rally in Minneapolis that evening. In one exchange, Trump forced a reporter to ask about the so-called “whistleblower” three times before he answered:

Reporter: Do you know the whistleblower’s name?
Trump: What?

Trump’s Foreign Policy Deals Properly with Tyrants Roger Kimball

https://amgreatness.com/2019/10/12/trumps-foreign-policy-deals-properly-with-tyrants/

Trump’s coddling of the dictatorial mind is not capitulation but a steely eyed gambit to get part—he hopes all, or a lot, but at least some—of what he and what the United States wants.

Over at PJ Media, my friend Roger L. Simon makes some sage observations about the proper conduct of foreign policy among great powers in general and, in particular, about the behavior of President Trump with respect to this important arena of human endeavor. 

Roger’s first point has two parts, a strophe, as it were, and an antistrophe. 

The strophe involves a patent moral dimension. We should not conceal—from others or from ourselves—the moral caliber of the leaders with whom we deal. Besides the United States, the world’s only other colossus is China. Not only does it preside over the second largest economy in the world, it is also eagerly and aggressively arming itself and asserting its prerogatives throughout Asia and, increasingly, throughout the world. 

Moreover, China has a dismal human rights record, a fact that is daily bruited about the Western world by reports of China’s savage treatment of the Uyghurs, for example, their efforts to create a surveillance state by imposing a system of “social credit” on its citizens, and its militant treatment of the protestors in Hong Kong. 

Last week’s flood of stories about the craven behavior of the National Basketball Association, Nike, Apple, and other American business interests that talk woke but act like hypocrites when their bottom line is threatened has simply reinforced what we all knew about those horrible people (I mean those running Apple, Nike, etc.) They wear bluejeans and eschew ties, they talk about love and “saving the environment,” but they instantly kowtow to tyrannical hegemons the moment it will aid their balance sheet. 

The Brexit Knot By Douglas Murray

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2019/10/28/the-brexit-knot/Britain now faces a great political and constitutional crisis

Being a classicist, Boris Johnson would be familiar with the Gordian knot. But for anybody whose schoolroom memories need refreshing, the knot in question was put in place by Gordius, king of Phrygia. Reputedly only a ruler of Asia would be able to untie the knot — making it a slightly less glamorous version of King Arthur’s sword in the stone. In any case, when confronted by the knot, Alexander the Great is said to have spotted the fast way to undo the problem and simply whacked at it with his sword, so proving that he should become the king of Asia.

If ever there was a fearsome knot in modern politics it is the question of Brexit. Not that the knot was as completely tied in 2016, when the British people were given a straightforward choice. The question the public was then asked was whether it wanted to “remain” in or “leave” the European Union. The public voted by a majority (52 percent to 48 percent) to leave, though it has since appeared that for those who set the question this was the wrong answer. Or at least not the answer that the political class expected the public to select. And so the knot tightened and became ever more knotty with each resulting effort to untie it.

The civil service, it turned out, had not been instructed to prepare for the eventuality of a “leave” vote. Then–prime minister David Cameron and his colleagues may simply have expected the “remain” side to win. Or they may have feared that if word had got out that the civil servants were preparing for the possibility of a “leave” vote then that would have bolstered that side of the campaign. Whatever the reason, on June 24, 2016, Whitehall turned out to be unprepared for what was one of only two possible results.

With Cameron having resigned just hours after that vote, the stunned victors plunged into a bout of fratricide. The lead Brexiteer — Boris Johnson — was politically assassinated by his own leadership-campaign chief, the second most prominent Brexiteer — Michael Gove — who then made an unsuccessful bid for the leadership himself. Unsuccessful because, with the victors in disarray, a path through the middle of the Conservative-party membership (who vote in leadership elections) was created for Theresa May. And so the former home secretary who had given a single half-hearted speech in favor of Remain ended up becoming the Conservative-party leader, the prime minister, and the person responsible for making sure that Britain exited the European Union.

Judy – A Review By Marilyn Penn

http://politicalmavens.com/index.php/topic/politics/

If you like your biopics of legendary celebrities reducing them to formulaic caricatures, here’s one not to miss. Think of Alec Baldwin’s skillful skewer of our president which gets a laugh in a five minute skit on SNL and then imagine it stretched out to a feature length film with familiar side characters who are mostly evil in ways that are now shopworn tropes. Louis B Mayer, head of MGM, here a huge man towering over a petite Judy Garland, lives up to his reputation as a tyrant who forces the teen-aged girl to diet and keep working till all hours of the night His assistant, a nameless version of Annie’s Miss Hannigan, is brutal in snatching away hamburgers from our hungry heroine and adding to the cruel atmosphere of “the studio.” If reality were added to the film, we would meet Judy’s most formidable enemy – her mother – who began feeding her pills at the age of 10 and who saw all three of her daughters as viable meal tickets for her own unsuccessful marriage and life. Louis B offered the multi-talented young Frances Gumm a new name and an opportunity to find a big life her own – something that Shirley Temple most famously achieved despite a childhood spent in similar circumstances.

Renee Zellweger, an actress who displayed great subtlety in her performance in Jerry Maguire, here chooses to go for pursing her lips and concentrating on the exterior resemblances to the famous singer, including successfully mimicking her singing voice. But the poses take over and leave us with very little compassion for the interior life of a woman addicted to alcohol. drugs and men in ways that guarantee disaster. The theme of Judy’s role as mother, frustrated by financial problems and custody battles with the children’s father, can’t preserve our sympathy as we watch her continuing her spiral of self-destructive behavior despite its overwhelming consequences. What we’re left with is a superficial look at a very talented woman who unfortunately didn’t get sufficient help with serious psychological problems, trading that for the love and devotion of audiences throughout the world.

What Is Impeachment For? By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/impeachment-process-political-not-legal/

It’s a political process, not a legal one — and the political climate is anything but static.

What is impeachment for? Seems like a simple question. Constitutionally speaking, it also appears to have a simple answer: to cite and remove from power a president guilty of wrongdoing.

Aye, there’s the rub. What sort of wrongdoing warrants removal from power?

I’d wager that the flames of impeachment were stoked more this week by President Trump’s foreign policy than they have been by any purported impeachable offense his opponents have conjured up over the last three years. By redeploying a few dozen American troops in Syria, the president acceded to a Turkish invasion of territory occupied by the Kurds. Ostensibly, that has nothing to do with the impeachment frenzy over Ukraine, whose government Democrats accuse the president of pressuring to dig up dirt on a political rival. But Turkey’s aggression could crack the president’s impeachment firewall.

There is rage over Trump’s decision. It is rage over a policy choice, not over high crimes and misdemeanors. Only the most blindly angry can doubt the lawfulness of the commander-in-chief’s movement of U.S. soldiers, even though it rendered inevitable the Turks’ rout of the Kurds.

CHARLOTTE’S NEWS WEB (MINNEAPOLIS 3, 2019)

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/06/somalis_have_changed_minneapolis.html

Somalis have Changed Minneapolis=By Sunny Lohman

Everyone not lying to themselves predicted when the federal government under Bill Clinton – aided and abetted by Lutheran Social Services, Catholic Charities and World Relief Minnesota — plopped 30,000 Somalis down into the midst of the kind, virtue-signaling, eager-to-help Midwesterners of Minneapolis (of which I am one) that it would lead to some grave consequences for our community.

Now, due to continuing refugee placements as well as chain migration there are an estimated 80,000 Somalis living in the Twin Cities metro area, or more like 79,000 if you subtract those who’ve left the country to join terrorist organizations like ISIS.

Anyhoo, here’s a week Minneapolitans had with their Somali neighbors last month:

On Wednesday, May 15th a couple of University students were attacked on campus at the East Bank Train station by two Somali thugs. It was an attempted robbery that the guys rebuffed sustaining injuries that required a hospital visit.

On Thursday, May 16th two Somalis burned down the pavilion at Lake Calhoun [or Lake Bde Maka Ska if you’re a virtue signaler) an eating and hanging out meeting place in the heart of the city enjoyed by generations of Americans around the prettiest city lake you’ve ever seen. This is in the most expensive neighborhood in Minneapolis.

US should support, but also prod, Ukraine By Lawrence J. Haas

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/465523-us-should-support-but-also-prod-ukraine

President Donald Trump’s controversial interactions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky must not distract attention from the important question of U.S. policy toward Russia in connection with its war in Ukraine – especially as Zelensky and key European leaders send disturbing signals that they want to appease Russia’s Vladimir Putin in hopes of ending the war.

Ukraine remains a key issue of East-West contention and, at the moment, the highest profile flashpoint of Putin’s efforts to extend Russia’s influence far beyond its borders. How the United States and its allies respond will go a long way toward either containing Putin or encouraging him to push harder.

Washington should reaffirm that it won’t recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea, maintain its sanctions on Moscow, look to add more sanctions in the face of Russia’s further aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere, and seek additional ways to fortify Ukraine beyond the military aid it has already provided.

Washington also should discourage French and German calls to accommodate Putin in hopes of reducing East-West tensions – calls that are causing serious splits in Europe over how best to respond to Putin’s aggressive behavior around the world.