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Ruth King

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Anatomy of a Kangaroo Court A trial that has nothing to do with law.Kurt Schlichter

By on May 24th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/anatomy-of-a-kangaroo-court/

The Donald Trump New York City farce is on the way to being over. The prosecution (at least) rested after what would’ve been a disastrous performance by Michael Cohen in any other trial, but the standard rules don’t apply here because this is not actually a trial. This trial has nothing to do with law. It is a scummy attempt to frame a political opponent of the Democrats to keep him from winning an election against the desiccated old pervert in the White House. Normally, a jury would laugh this case out of court, except that it would never have been in court had the defendant been named Tronald Dump. Everything about it is a lie and a scam, and as soon as you understand that you will understand this disgraceful case.

The Democrats behind this charade are wearing the law like a skinsuit, presenting an exterior that makes this look like a real jury trial when, in fact, it is nothing of the sort. You see the forms and processes performed, but they mean nothing because the fix is already in. Let’s talk about what happens now in terms of procedure. In terms of legality, why bother? Again, this isn’t a legal matter. This is a joke.

The state must prove each of the elements of the charge beyond a reasonable doubt. Remember, in real trials, criminal charges have elements. For instance, fraud is typically a knowing misrepresentation intended to induce reliance that causes monetary damage to the victim. Each of those requirements is an element. Was there a misrepresentation? Was it knowingly false? Was it intended to induce reliance? Was someone who reasonably relied on it damaged in terms of losing money? Each of those elements must have substantial evidence in support of it. Remember, the state has to prove everything. The defendant can just sit there with his arms crossed like a late-80s rapper and say nothing, and if the state fails to provide evidence beyond a reasonable doubt proving each element, he must be acquitted. Others have discussed how the state has failed to prove any of the elements against Trump here — suffice it to say that, as a legal matter, the state has failed on every one of the elements. But again, this case isn’t a legal matter. This is a kangaroo court. We’re just talking about how the scam will proceed.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Christopher F. Rufo Boycott, Divest, and Sanction Columbia For decades, the university cultivated the conditions that led to its campus Intifada.****

By on May 24th, 2024

https://www.city-journal.org/article/boycott-divest-and-sanction-columbia

The images of the recent protests at Columbia University have grabbed the attention of the American public: students chanting for a Palestinian state, “from the river to the sea”; activists setting up a mass tent encampment on the campus lawn; masked occupiers seizing control of Hamilton Hall. For some, it was a sign that ancient anti-Semitism had established itself in the heart of the Ivy League. For others, it was déjà vu of 1968, when mass demonstrations last roiled campus.

After weeks of rising tensions, Columbia president Minouche Shafik resolved the immediate conflict by summoning the New York City Police Department, which swiftly disbanded anti-Israel student encampments, removed the occupiers of Hamilton Hall, and arrested more than 100 students, who were subsequently suspended.

President Shafik feigned surprise. In a statement to students, she expressed “deep sadness” about the campus chaos. But to anyone who has observed Columbia in recent decades, the upheaval should not come as a surprise. Behind the images of campus protests lies a deeper, more troubling story: the ideological capture of the university, which inexorably drove Columbia toward this moment. Columbia for decades has cultivated the precise conditions that allowed the pro-Hamas protests to flourish. The university built massive departments to advance “postcolonialism,” spent hundreds of millions of dollars on “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” and glorified New Left–style student activism as the telos of university life.

Terms like these might sound benign as euphemisms, but the reality is sinister. As the protests revealed, postcolonial theory is often an academic cover for anti-Semitism, DEI is frequently a method for enflaming racial grievances, and student activism can become a rationalization for violence and destruction.

The university, founded by royal charter in 1754 and a great American institution for more than two centuries, has lost its way. There will need to be a reckoning before it can return to its former glory.

The first part of that process is understanding what went wrong. To do so, we will attempt to uncover the roots of Columbia’s Intifada.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Israelis Have Nowhere Else to Go – Bret Stephens

By on May 24th, 2024

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/21/opinion/israel-iran-raisi-death.html
The danger to Israel from moves at the ICC, or from campus protests, boycott and divestment efforts or various kinds of arms embargoes, are minimal.
    Contrary to some opinions, Israelis are not “settler-colonialists.” Jews believe they are originally from the Land of Israel because they are.
    And Zionism, far from being a colonialist project, is the oldest anticolonialism struggle in history, starting during the Roman era, if not the Babylonian Captivity before it.
    The idea that Israeli Jews should return, like the Algerian French, to the lands of their forebears misses the point. The Israelis have nowhere else to go, a fact underscored by the waves of hatred now engulfing Jewish diasporic communities.
    They will not return to the lands of Russian pogroms, or Arab massacres, or the Holocaust.
    The more pressure is exerted on Israel to relent in the face of its enemies, the more Zionism it will generate.
    Nothing so crystallizes Jewish identity as the daily reminders of bigotry.
    Jews have the right to rule themselves as a sovereign state in their original homeland.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The China Connection Is the Real Scandal Phyllis Schlafly in June 1988

By on May 24th, 2024

https://eagleforum.org/psr/1998/june98/psrjune98.html

Now we know why the Democrats were so vicious in their attacks on Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN) and Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN). Theirs were the committees that were closing in on the China connection, the scandal that can bring down the Clinton presidency, the scandal that has made Congressmen start to utter the T word (treason). A series of front-page news stories in the New York Times (May 15, 16, 17) essentially vindicated Thompson’s charge that the Chinese Communist Government tried to influence the 1996 U.S. election with campaign contributions.

Bill Clinton’s friend and ubiquitous Democratic fundraiser Johnny Chung told Federal investigators that he funneled nearly $100,000 from the Communist Chinese military to the Democratic campaign in the summer of 1996. The money was handed to Chung by the daughter of the top commander of China’s People’s Liberation Army, General Liu Huaqing, who was also one of the top five members of the Chinese Communist Party’s ruling Politburo.

Chung’s liaisons with the Clinton Administration were so cozy that he was able to arrange for the daughter, who goes by the name of Lt. Col. Liu Chaoying, to get a speedy visa and come to America to be photographed with Clinton on July 22, 1996. She is what is called a “princeling,” one of the privileged offspring of China’s ruling elite. In addition to her title as Lieutenant Colonel in the People’s Liberation Army, she is a senior manager and vice president for China Aerospace International Holdings, which is the Hong Kong arm of China Aerospace Corporation, a state-owned jewel in China’s military-industrial complex, with interests in satellite technology, rocket launches, and missiles.

Johnny Chung told Federal investigators that Col. Liu actually gave him $300,000, which she said originated with China’s military’s intelligence arm, and told him to use the money for Democratic campaign contributions. He apparently kept $200,000 for his “businesses.” Soon after the picture-taking fundraiser, Col. Liu had Chung open a California branch of Marswell Investing, another of her Hong Kong enterprises, whose chief “business” was parking Chinese money in the United States. She also invested $300,000 in Chung’s facsimile business. Chung was quite a hustler; he visited Clinton’s White House 49 times.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

What’s The Dems’ Plan B If Lawfare Doesn’t Stop Trump? We Have Some Ideas

By on May 24th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/05/24/whats-the-dems-plan-b-if-lawfare-doesnt-stop-trump-we-have-some-ideas/

Next Tuesday both sides will present their closing arguments in the People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump, a case that exists for one reason only: to stop Trump from ever occupying the White House again.  

But what if this doesn’t work? What if there’s a hung jury or, worse yet, an acquittal? What if none of the 88 trumped-up felony charges results in a conviction and voters actually have a chance to elect Trump, should they prefer him over the decrepit failure known as Joe Biden?

What is the Democrats’ Plan B?

They must have one. Democrats are nothing if not always prepared. And they’ve already made it clear that they will do anything to stop Trump. Anything. That is, except run on the issues.

It looks increasingly likely that they will need a plan. Democrats bent and twisted the law into impossible shapes to rack up those felony charges against a political opponent. Now the seams are showing.

After Michael Cohen’s disastrous turn on the stand in the “hush money” trial undermined the bedrock of this case, even CNN is hedging its bets in the outcome.

The case has already failed to live up to its billing as political kryptonite. A Yahoo News/YouGov poll found that a mere 16% say they’re following the trial closely. Cable news ratings are down. New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg whined about how, “when people were asked how the trial made them feel, the most common response was ‘bored’.”

Of course, none of that will matter to the jury, which could very well render a guilty verdict. But even Goldberg admits that this won’t necessarily stop Trump, given that he’s unlikely to be sent to prison before his appeals are heard.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

South Africa, Putin’s Marxist Cadres and the International Court of Justice at the Hague by Nils A. Haug

By on May 23rd, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20659/south-africa-putin-marxist-cadres-and

[I]n 2023, the ANC, on behalf of the South African government, brought charges of genocide against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). This case seems to be another fatuous endeavour by the ANC for prominence….

[T]he ANC has effectively “turned its back on Western values, and expressed its support for countries and organisations that subscribe to terror as a measure and method of governance.”

Warren Goldstein, Chief Rabbi of South Africa, citizen.co.za, November 15, 2023

[E]verything Western, regarded as colonialist or imperialist, must be destroyed and recreated according to atheist, socialist, dogma… in pursuit of a revolutionary version of pseudo-egalitarian social justice.

The historic ties of these African countries to the totalitarian countries of Russia, Cuba, and China and to revolutionary movements such as Hamas are as strong as ever.

Through BRICS and other forums aligned with anti-Western actors, these African countries oppose the West with impunity and reject any pretence of joining the West’s sphere of nations with their liberal democratic traditions.

Anglo-American nations blissfully ignore Africa’s strong connection to despotic regimes and persist in their simplistic approach towards these countries by showering them with financial incentives and arranging unproductive conferences…. African countries gladly accept the offered funds while remaining aligned to totalitarian regimes. Financial enticements by the West for the purposes of gaining favour are made in vain: these leaders remain, at their core, Marxist revolutionaries imposing extreme socialist policies on their populace, unfortunately leading to the demise of hitherto prosperous and productive economies.

Until a positive regime change occurs, no improvement in the lives of the average citizen can be expected. The people get poorer by the day. ….The dim prospects of the poor, which led to the protest and resulted in millions of dollars in damage to the economy, have not improved.

South Africa which is fast approaching a failed state. A 2023 Harvard Kennedy Business School study describes the cause as “collapsing state capacity and spatial exclusion” — which translates as state inefficiency and the exclusion of whites from certain aspects of the economy. The same can be said of Zimbabwe (very much a failed state), Namibia, and others…. Consequently, skilled workers continue to depart the country in droves.

This is the complex world of southern African politics, whose leaders present lip service the Western ideals of democracy while accepting generous global hand-outs – usually offered, unfortunately, with no demands for accountability.

In South Africa, the most “important benefactor of the African National Congress’s (ANC) since independence in 1994, providing military support for years, was the former Soviet Union. Despite exhibiting a veneer of democracy, the ANC and their associates, remain fervently Communist-Socialist, adopt Marxist-Leninist socialist dogma as their political worldview and hold Russian President Vladimir Putin in high regard.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

From the Embers of an Old Genocide, a New One May Be Emerging Nicholas Kristoff

By on May 23rd, 2024

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/15/opinion/darfur-sudan-genocide.html

First they killed the adults.

“Then they piled up the children and shot them,” a witness told Human Rights Watch. “They threw their bodies into the river.”

That’s a scene from a humanitarian crisis happening now in Sudan that has been overshadowed by Gaza and Ukraine and may be about to get far worse. It’s a conflict, by some accounts a genocide, unfolding particularly in the Darfur region there.

You may remember Darfur: It was the site of a genocide two decades ago. Those atrocities galvanized a vast response, led by protesters across the United States. Barack Obama and Joe Biden, then senators, were among those who called for action, and they were joined by tens of thousands of high school and college students, plus activists from churches, synagogues and mosques working together.

While hundreds of thousands were slaughtered in Darfur at that time, the campaign also probably saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of others. Other countries imposed sanctions and an arms embargo, peacekeeping forces were established by the African Union and the United Nations, and the Sudanese leader who commanded the genocide was eventually ousted.

Yet today the slaughter in Darfur is resuming — and the international response is not. Most Western nations and African ones alike have been fairly indifferent.

“The inaction pales in comparison to the situation 20 years ago, when global leaders felt morally and legally obliged to act on Darfur,”

Some of the same Arab forces responsible for the genocide in the 2000s are picking up where they left off. They are massacring, torturing, raping and mutilating members of non-Arab ethnic groups — the same victims as before — while burning or bulldozing their villages, survivors say.

There’s a racist element: Arab militias mock their victims as “slaves” and taunt them with racial epithets — the non-Arabs are often darker skinned. The militias seem to be trying to systematically eliminate non-Arab tribes from the area.

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BOOKS Comments turned off

The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation by Victor Davis Hanson

By on May 23rd, 2024

“In The End of Everything, Hanson tells compelling and harrowing stories of how civilizations perished. He helps us consider contemporary affairs in light of that history, think about the unthinkable, and recognize the urgency of trying to prevent our own demise.” — H. R. McMaster, author of Battlegrounds

War can settle disputes, topple tyrants, and bend the trajectory of civilization—sometimes to the breaking point. From Troy to Hiroshima, moments when war has ended in utter annihilation have reverberated through the centuries, signaling the end of political systems, cultures, and epochs. Though much has changed over the millennia, human nature remains the same. Modern societies are not immune from the horror of a war of extinction. 
 
In The End of Everything, military historian Victor Davis Hanson narrates a series of sieges and sackings that span the age of antiquity to the conquest of the New World to show how societies descend into barbarism and obliteration. In the stories of Thebes, Carthage, Constantinople, and Tenochtitlan, he depicts war’s drama, violence, and folly. Highlighting the naivete that plagued the vanquished and the wrath that justified mass slaughter, Hanson delivers a sobering call to contemporary readers to heed the lessons of obliteration lest we blunder into catastrophe once again. 

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Rewarding fascism Today’s recognition of the State of Palestine is virtue-signalling at its most dangerous and dumb. Brendan O’Neill

By on May 23rd, 2024

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/05/22/rewarding-fascism/

So now we know what it takes to become a state: the murder of Jews. Rape, kill and kidnap Jews and seven months later, the leaders of Ireland, Spain and Norway will recognise your statehood. That’s the lesson of today’s coordinated spectacle of virtue-signalling in Dublin, Madrid and Oslo: pogroms work. The butchery of civilians gets results. Fascism has its rewards. This is ‘diplomacy’ at its most dangerous.

Of course, Irish taoiseach Simon Harris, Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez and Norwegian PM Jonas Gahr Støre are presenting their pious recognition of Palestine as a stab for peace. This is about helping to ‘create a peaceful future’, said Harris. They’re either delusional or they’re engaging in doublespeak. For the true impact of their imperious intervention will be to exacerbate hostilities. Hamas will feel emboldened. It now knows that a wonderful gift awaits it if it keeps battering Israel: a state of its own. In dangling this dream before Hamas, the three PMs have all but green-lighted its terrorism.

Rarely has virtue-signalling felt so reckless. The PMs are so keen to broadcast their correct-think to the world that they appear not to have given one thought to what the consequences might be of three European nations butting in to a bloody war. Their blindness to everything but their own righteousness was best summed up in the figure of Simon Harris. There he was on the steps of Government Buildings in Dublin sermonising about how this is ‘the right thing to do’ – translation: ‘aren’t I wonderful?’ – without so much as a flicker of concern for the global impact of rewarding an act of apocalyptic violence.

That really is what is happening here. Harris and the others were careful to condemn Hamas’s 7 October pogrom, of course. Harris called it a ‘barbaric massacre’. And yet the fact is that today’s announcements, this vain granting of legitimacy to a Palestinian state, would not be happening had it not been for 7 October. Indeed, Harris expressly linked his recognition of Palestine with the ‘appalling’ and ‘unconscionable’ war in Gaza. Yes, a war started by Hamas. On 7 October. With its carnival of anti-Semitic barbarism, the likes of which the world had not seen since the Holocaust. And there you have it. Want a state? Start a war. Kill some Jews. Job done.

Whatever subjective spin the three PMs put on their heedless act of global virtue-signalling, the objective consequence is the legitimation of Hamas. Indeed, Hamas has warmly welcomed their recognition of Palestine, describing it as ‘an important step towards affirming our right to our land’. I’m not into guilt by association, but seriously – when an army of anti-Semites starts singing your praises, you’ve messed up. Badly.

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Ireland, Spain, Norway Recognize Palestinian State; Israel Recalls Ambassadors by James Lynch

By on May 23rd, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/ireland-spain-norway-recognize-palestinian-state-israel-recalls-ambassadors/?utm_source=recirc-

Israel is recalling its ambassadors from Ireland, Spain, and Norway after the three European nations announced that they would formally recognize a Palestinian state.

Ireland, Spain, and Norway announced on Wednesday they will be formally recognizing a Palestinian state beginning next Monday, and each nation called for a cease-fire to end the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.

“I am sending a clear message today: Israel will not be complacent against those who undermine its sovereignty and endanger its security,” Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz said upon its decision to recall the ambassadors.

The countries’ ambassadors in Israel will be subject to “reprimand talks” where they will be shown footage of the atrocities Hamas committed against innocent civilians on October 7.

“Recognizing a Palestinian state will lead to more terrorism, instability in the region and jeopardize any prospects for peace,” the Israel foreign ministry said on X. “Don’t be a pawn in the hands of Hamas.”

The Palestinian Authority and Hamas celebrated the decision from Ireland, Spain, and Norway to recognize a Palestinian state, although the leaders of each country distanced themselves from Hamas.

“This is an investment in the only solution that can bring lasting peace in the Middle East,” Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre said, referring to a two-state solution.

“We hope that our recognition and our reasons contribute to other western countries to follow this path, because the more we are, the more strength we will have to impose a ceasefire, to achieve the release of the hostages held by Hamas, to relaunch the political process that can lead to a peace agreement,” Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez said to Spain’s lower legislative chamber.

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