Displaying posts published in

October 2019

FIAMMA NIERENSTEIN: WHEN THE DUST SETTLES IN SYRIA

https://www.jns.org/opinion/when-the-dust-settles-in-syria/

The United States has left the Middle East numerous times under several American presidents. But it has consistently returned—for better or worse.

 To speak about Kurds has suddenly become a cry in favor of human rights and self-determination by the Western press, and rightly so: The assault they are suffering is lethal and may become genocidal. More frightening is that it is being perpetrated by the Turks, who are already stained by the Armenian genocide and are led by a leader who considers himself an almighty sultan. And it’s really odd that Europe is only now discovering who he really is.

How can this be? Didn’t Europe know that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during these last 16 years in power has been possessed by a vicious fundamentalist Islamic and imperialist dream, who has repeatedly displayed unprecedented arrogance (he has closed newspapers and thrown more than 150,000 dissidents in prison) and expressed extreme ideas that have systematically dismantled the precious Kemalist heritage that once made Turkey the hope of a bridge between the Islamic world and the West? Didn’t it see that he inundated the world with slogans and anti-Semitic standpoints corroborated by his friendship with Hamas, who supported former Egypt President Mohammad Morsi as leader of the Muslim Brotherhood—a man he praised being himself the greatest Muslim Brotherhood politician in office? Is it coincidence that Erdoğan allowed the passage from his country of thousands of Islamic fundamentalists in possession of whatever passport to boost ISIS, which many claim he supported through trade and furnished with weapons?

Bard Prison Initiative Debate Team Meets Harvard (video) *****

https://www.wsj.com/video/bard-prison-initiative-debate-team-meets-harvard/E610B789-4D24-471A-98DC-E200B5F7B051.html?mod=trending_now_video_5

Bard Prison Initiative Debate Team Meets Harvard The debate team at the Bard Prison Initiative, which offers free college in New York prisons, made international news when it beat Harvard four years ago. Here is a first glimpse of the competition, from a new PBS documentary, “College Behind Bars.” Photo: PBS

Rashida Tlaib’s hypocritical stance-Nurit Greenger

https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/rashida-tlaibs-hypocritical-stance/

The Democratic congresswoman, who claims to be a champion of human rights, supports Armenian aggression, occupation, and ethnic cleansing in Azerbaijan.

First-term US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) supports occupation and ethnic cleansing.

Having a clear problem with Jews and the Jewish state, Tlaib often blames Israel for “occupying Palestine” and holds it responsible for the Palestinian refugee issue, which she regards as an example of “ethnic cleansing.”

Yet, she makes a U-turn when it comes to Armenia’s illegal military occupation and ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region. She unabashedly supports this internationally condemned occupation, in opposition to 28 years of bipartisan US policy and four binding UN Security Council resolutions.

According to an October 8, 2019 article published by the Los Angeles-based Armenian newspaper Asbarez, the Armenian National Committee of Michigan recently met with Tlaib to discuss issues important to the American-Armenian community of Michigan and committed to co-sponsor two House resolutions aimed at improving relations between the US and Armenia.

The impression is that Tlaib has become a political prisoner the Michigan Armenian lobby that in all likelihood has been greasing her political career, helped her to gain a congressional seat.

State Department Says Nearly 600 Security Violations in Clinton Email Investigation By Rick Moran

https://pjmedia.com/trending/state-department-says-nearly-600-security-violations-in-clinton-email-review/

They took their own sweet time about it, but the State Department’s internal investigation into the Hillary Clinton email imbroglio has finally been completed. As you might expect, it was pretty much of a whitewash. The only eyebrow raising news coming from the release is the number of blatant security violations by Clinton and 38 other State Department employees.

Daily Caller:

State Department investigators probing Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state discovered nearly 600 security incidents that violated agency policy, according to a report the Daily Caller News Foundation obtained.

The investigation, conducted by the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, found 38 individuals were culpable for 91 security violations. Another 497 violations were found, but no individuals were found culpable in those incidents.

The investigation concluded Sept. 6, and the report was issued Sept. 13.

No criminal charges, no action whatsoever. It’s like the violations never happened.

Big surprise, huh?

Hillary fared a lot better than others who have mishandled classified information.

What is National Period Day? (?????!!!!!)By Siobhan Neela-Stock

https://mashable.com/article/national-period-day-what-is/

We rarely talk in public about periods, but this is changing with Saturday’s first-ever National Period Day. 

On this day, people in all 50 states are rallying to highlight an invisible problem — period poverty. Many menstruators (not all people who menstruate are women; transgender men and non-binary people get their periods too) cannot access or afford essential items to manage their periods, like tampons and pads. This is in part because 35 states in the U.S. levy a sales tax on menstrual products, considering them non-essential. 

Everyone, whether a menstruator or not, is welcome to join in on the rallies. 

Nadya Okamoto, 21 years old, is leading the clarion call. Okamoto founded PERIOD, a youth-run nonprofit that supplies people with period products, when she was 16 years. She was drawn to the issue when she learned about period poverty while talking with people experiencing homelessness who couldn’t afford menstrual products, as Mashable reported in 2018. Okamoto was a homeless teenager herself at the time.

PERIOD @periodmovement

If faces were bleeding, someone would do something THIS SATURDAY is the first-ever #NationalPeriodDay. We’re hosting rallies in all 50 states to demand menstrual equity and an end to the #tampontax. Find your local rally at http://nationalperiodday.com . @SeventhGen @BBDOSF

Beto O’Rourke Announces Support for Menstrual Equity Act on National Period Day By Matt Margolis

https://pjmedia.com/trending/beto-orourke-announces-support-for-menstrual-equity-act-on-nationalperiodday/

Not to be outdone by Cory Booker’s “women are people” moment in the last debate, Beto O’Rourke decided to virtue signal his pro-woman accolades on Saturday by tweeting that “women across America don’t have access to the period products they need,” and since it is #NationalPeriodDay (who knew that was a thing?), that “men need to join women in demanding real change.” Beto wants “real change” and identifies as a man for the moment (at least until he needs a Hail Mary for his campaign) and he’s announced his support for the Menstrual Equity Act.

Degrading a Masterpiece New York’s glorious Frick Collection does not deserve its planned mutilation. Catesby Leigh

https://www.city-journal.org/frick-collection-expansion

Current architectural-alteration plans for the Frick Collection on Manhattan’s Upper East Side—which appear likely to clear their final regulatory hurdle at the end of this month—will cause considerable harm to the finest house museum in the United States. This is particularly unfortunate because the Frick’s superb classical architecture is integral to the experience of its magnificent art collection, consisting largely of Old Master paintings by the likes of Veronese, Rembrandt, van Dyck, and Fragonard.

As part of an expansion of its facilities, which include the 11-floor Frick Art Reference Library building in the northeast corner of its property, the Frick proposes to do away with its Music Room, a fine circular chamber that opens off the building’s Garden Court. Both the room and the court were designed by John Russell Pope in the 1930s. The Frick also proposes to gut the Reception Hall designed by John Barrington Bayley four decades later and to surmount Bayley’s beautiful pavilion housing the hall with a low and recessed—but thoroughly inappropriate—window wall. A new raised roof will make space for a second story on top of the pavilion, where a museum shop will be located, while Pope’s Music Room will be replaced by a special exhibition gallery, rectangular in plan. “Stripped classical” doesn’t do justice to the proposed gallery and new reception hall, which will also replace the Bayley pavilion’s bookshop, lodged behind the existing hall. “Anorexic classical” is more like it. With their dull, blank white walls, these spaces will be as cold as ice, and utterly discordant with the Frick’s architectural character.

The plans have some positive aspects. It will be wonderful for visitors to climb the original mansion’s grand staircase to the second floor, where Pope converted family quarters into museum offices. These will now be used for the exhibition of small paintings, drawings, and works of decorative art. And the Frick has long emphasized its need for a larger auditorium, better conservation facilities, and better accommodations for school groups. But to degrade the existing house museum would be a terrible mistake.

In 1912, Pittsburgh steel magnate Henry Clay Frick retained Thomas Hastings, whose New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue had just been completed, to design a home extending from 70th Street to 71st Street and facing Central Park. The Paris-trained Hastings was one of the nation’s foremost exponent of French classicism, the museum’s dominant architectural idiom. The home Hastings designed for Frick was a low-slung mansion built of Indiana limestone whose porte-cochère entrance was set back from 70th Street. The mansion’s exquisitely detailed gallery—100 feet long and 35 feet wide, with walls covered in dark green silk velvet and crowned by a segmental glass vault—fronted on 71st Street.

A Doctor Down Under on the Virus of Antisemitism (VIDEO Of Colonel Richard Kemp)

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2019/10/a-doctor-down-under-on-virus-of.html

Declares  Dr David Adler, chairman of the (politically incorrect, and all the better for that) Australian Jewish Association (AJA):

“It’s the world’s oldest bigotry and it’s on the rise again. Antisemitism is associated with the darkest chapters of human history when humanity abandons civilised moral codes. Societies and ideologies which embrace it typically suffer a major decline if not complete destruction. Examples span the latter years of the Roman Empire, the Spanish Inquisition, the suppression and pogroms of the old USSR, to the Nazi implemented Holocaust of the second world war….
Antisemitism in some ways has the characteristics of a virus which morphs. During the Inquisition it was hatred of the Jewish religion with forced conversions by torture. Under the USSR it was Jewish culture such as circumcision or teaching Torah which was banned. The Nazis took a racial approach with the objective to eliminate the Jewish race. In more recent years, it is hatred of the world’s only Jewish state, Israel, which has become the principal focus for antisemites. Yes, anti-Zionism is antisemitism.”

And to combat this virulent virus in all its strains, clearly identified by Dr Adler in his diagnosis here, a strong antidote is required:

“All these components need to be vigorously called out and condemned. The most widely accepted definition of antisemitism is that of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which includes working examples of what is unacceptable. Australia became a full member on 4 June 2019. At a minimum, all federal and state bodies, including schools and universities, should formally adopt the working definition of the IHRA. The Australian Jewish Association will be proposing that leadership commence with the federal parliament and we are asking the government to pass a resolution to that effect. While this does not solve antisemitism, it would be a powerful signal that Australia stands united against antisemitism”.

Meanwhile, AJA director Michael Burd secured an exclusive and special interview/discussion with that supreme realist and staunch friend of Israel Colonel Richard Kemp.

Separatist chaos on the streets of Barcelona as protesters lose faith in divided politicians Alan Ruiz Terol

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/19/separatist-chaos-streets-barcelona-protesters-lose-faith-divided/

On yet another night of smouldering barricades, billowing smoke and whistling projectiles on the streets of Barcelona, Elisenda Lluch couldn’t help but feel sympathy for her younger comrades turning to violence.

“I’m done preaching pacifism,” the 57-year-old told the Sunday Telegraph after attending a massive march in the city center, only a few hours before the city descended into chaos once again.

“We’ve been peaceful for years, and the verdict was 100 years in prison altogether,” said Ms Lluch, in reference to the long-awaited Spanish Supreme Court verdict that sealed the fate of nine Catalan leaders on Monday.

Since then, growing pockets of protests have turned to levels of violence not sees since the independence went mainstream more than a decade ago. Exasperated, demonstrators have lost faith in politicians – and politicians have lost control of the streets.

Chants of ‘fascists’ aimed at the Socialist government echo between alleyways and housing blocks. What little hope they held following the ill-fated 2017 referendum, when the more hardline conservatives were in power in Madrid, has all but vanished.

But it’s not just national politics that is losing touch with the younger people.

Regional politics too is struggling to offer the alternatives needed to pull demonstrators back from violence, with splits emerging and backroom infighting among the separatist Catalan governing coalition.

Crime in Britain’s most affluent areas soaring at faster rate than anywhere else in UK, Telegraph analysis reveals

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/19/crime-britains-affluent-areas-soaring-faster-rate-anywhere-else/

Crime in Britain’s most affluent areas is soaring at a faster rate than anywhere else in the country, a Telegraph analysis of official data has revealed.

Robbery, theft and drug offences in the wealthiest districts of England and Wales are outstripping the national average by up to four times, as criminal gangs deliberately target rural and suburban communities.

A detailed analysis of Home Office crime figures, broken down by neighbourhoods and household incomes, found a startling rise in certain offences in the least deprived areas over the last two years.

While theft has increased nationally by four per cent since 2018, in the top ten per cent of the country’s richest areas the figure is 16 per cent.

Similarly, drug offences in the least deprived communities are up 16 per cent, compared with 12 per cent across the rest of the country.

Robbery rose by more than a quarter in the wealthiest areas, compared with 11 per cent elsewhere.

The analysis also suggests that violent crime, robbery and theft are also increasing at a faster rate in rural communities than in urban areas.