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Ruth King

War on Trump USAGM Pick Michael Pack Undermines U.S. Battle With China: Ben Weingarten

https://www.newsweek.com/war-trump-usagm-pick-michael-pack-undermines-us-bat

Nearly a full term into the Donald Trump presidency, the administration was finally able to fill a little-known but pivotal seat with someone of the president’s choosing. The political establishment had worked tirelessly to block the appointment. Its obstruction would continue post-confirmation. The appointee was subjected to an onslaught from Congress, in the courts and in the press. The apparent aim was to undermine him as part of a broader effort to undermine the president’s policies.

The continued fight against Michael Pack, the new CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), is a microcosm of the fight of this presidency: to overcome a political establishment unwilling to afford the president the same privileges as his predecessors—including to staff the executive branch with supporters. That is, to overcome a Washington, D.C. hellbent on preventing the peaceful transfer of power.

In so doing, it is the Resistance that has eviscerated our norms, values and institutions. In its jihad against Mr. Pack, it has done so to the detriment of our national security interests.

USAGM is an essential part of America’s arsenal in the War of Ideas. The independent federal agency oversees the Voice of America (VOA), Office of Cuba Broadcasting and USAGM-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, the Middle East Broadcasting Network (MBN) and Open Technology Fund. We, the American taxpayer, contribute $800 million annually to USAGM to “inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy.” Its outlets faithfully fulfilled this mission during the Cold War. To triumph over today’s Communist menace, China, it must do so again.

Of Pardons and Presidents Trump’s clemency for Stone has nothing on Clinton and McDougal.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/of-pardons-and-presidents-11594584012

Say this for President Trump’s commutation of Roger Stone’s 40-month prison sentence late Friday: At least he did it during an election campaign so voters can add this to the ledger of character issues they take into the voting booth. Like everything else about this Presidency, its scandals, real and imagined, are public.

On the merits, the judgment of Attorney General William Barr sounds right. Mr. Barr recently called Mr. Stone’s prosecution “righteous” and “appropriate.” He had his department review the excessive recommendation of up to nine years in prison by special counsel Robert Mueller’s prosecutors, and Justice revised its recommendation in line with what the judge ordered. 

Mr. Stone is no martyr. He is by his own description a political performance artist, and he finally ran into prosecutors who weren’t amused. There are legitimate questions about the anti-Trump bias of the jury forewoman, but the full jury found Mr. Stone lied to investigators and tried to bully witnesses. He was probably trying to protect the lies he had previously told to make himself seem more influential than he was. The proper avenue for addressing trial bias is on appeal. 

The commutation spared Mr. Stone from having to report to prison on Tuesday, where the 67-year-old would have been vulnerable to Covid-19. But Mr. Trump didn’t issue a full pardon, which means Mr. Stone’s felony conviction stands and so does his appeal. It’s too bad Mr. Trump let Mr. Barr spend political capital to recommend a lighter prison sentence only to commute that sentence later. Mr. Trump tends to do that to people who work for him.

In Defense of ‘Reactionary Liberalism’—A Reply to Osita Nwanevu written by Bo Winegard *****

https://quillette.com/2020/07/13/in-defense-of-reactionary-liberalism-a-reply-to-osita

I am a liberal conservative, or as the New Republic‘s Osita Nwanevu would have it, a “reactionary liberal.” I lean right-of-center and, as I have argued before, I believe that many of the West’s most cherished values—individualism, due process, free speech and inquiry, and the rule of law—are imperiled by radical progressivism. So, I was delighted to be challenged by Nwanevu’s recent article entitled “The Willful Blindness of Reactionary Liberalism.” Although the piece is highly tendentious, it is a vigorous defense of progressive identity politics and an attack on liberals like me.

Nwanevu’s basic thesis is that progressives are actually the modern champions of the liberal tradition and that those who oppose and criticize them from the Left (Matt Taibbi and Jonathan Chait) or the Right (Andrew Sullivan) or both (the members of what was once known as the Intellectual Dark Web) are actually fighting a reactionary battle against an expansion of freedom. Therefore, Nwanevu argues, it is progressivism’s enemies who are illiberal. He describes liberalism—correctly, so far as it goes—as “an ideology of the individual⁠. Its first principle is that each and every person in society is possessed of a fundamental dignity and can claim certain ineradicable rights and freedoms. Liberals believe, too, in government by consent and the rule of law: The state cannot exercise wholly arbitrary power, and its statutes bind all equally.”

However, reactionary liberals, he argues, do not appear to understand or appropriately value an important liberal freedom: Association. “Controversial speakers,” he notes, “have no broad right to speak at private institutions” and senators such as Tom Cotton have no right to appear in whatever magazine or outlet they desire. Reactionary liberals, it seems, are confused about these issues, and that is why they (incorrectly) condemn universities for restricting the range of acceptable opinions on campus and deride newspaper staffers for protesting the publication of an op-ed with which they disagree.

Penn Museum to remove Morton Cranial Collection from public view after student opposition By Komal Patel

https://www.thedp.com/article/2020/07/penn-museum-morton-cranial-collection-black-lives-matter

““Just as these remains were transformed into objects through their collection, they must now be uncollected, [and] recognized as persons,” Mitchell said. “Approaching this ethical challenge is as complex as it is crucial.” 

Penn Museum will remove the Morton Cranial Collection, a collection of about 1,000 crania with some belonging to enslaved individuals, from public view after students called for the crania to be repatriated. 

The collection is the work of Samuel George Morton, an 1820 Perelman School of Medicine graduate who used the skulls of enslaved people to argue that there are inherent differences between the brains of people of different races.

Morton, who is from Philadelphia, was an active participant in the medical and scientific community in the early 19th century.

During the Penn & Slavery Project’s 2019 symposium, students presented findings that the Morton Cranial Collection includes 53 crania belonging to enslaved individuals from Havana, Cuba and two crania belonging to enslaved Americans. A portion of the collection is currently in public view in a Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials classroom in the Museum. 

Signed, Sealed, Undelivered: Thousands Of Mail-In Ballots Rejected For Tardiness

51095/signed-sealed-undelivered-thousands-of-mail-in-ballots-rejected-for-tardiness

Mail-in voting, which tens of millions of Americans are expected to use this November, is fraught with potential problems. Hundreds of thousands of ballots go uncounted each year because people make mistakes, such as forgetting to sign the form or sending it in too late.

An NPR analysis has found that in the primary elections held so far this year, at least 65,000 absentee or mail-in ballots have been rejected because they arrived past the deadline, often through no fault of the voter.

While the numbers are relatively small — around 1% in most states — they could prove crucial in a close election, especially one in which many more voters are expected to cast absentee and mail-in ballots to avoid going to the polls during a pandemic.

Those who use mail-in voting for the first time — especially young, Black and Latino voters — are more likely to have their ballots rejected because of errors, said Charles Stewart, a political scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies election administration.

”That’s the sort of thing that makes me wary about what’s going to happen in November when we get an even larger influx of people who haven’t voted, or haven’t voted by mail in the past,” he says.

BLM, ‘Back the Blue’ protesters clash in Bay Ridge

http://www.news12.com/story/42359319/blm-back-the-blue-protesters-clash-in-bay-ridge

Black Lives Matter protesters and demonstrators who support the police came face-to-face in the streets of Bay Ridge.

Protesters marched 20 blocks towards the 68th Precinct.

Supporters of BLM say they are fighting for peace and equality that is long overdue.

However, ‘Back the Blue’ demonstrators say it is time they took a stand after weeks of protests around the nation calling to defund to the police.

They waved American flags and held signs showing support for President Donald Trump.

Many protesters were shoved to the ground and some American flags were burned in the streets.

BLM: rebels without a cause BLM activists claim they are fighting America’s systemic racism. It’s just a shame it doesn’t exist. Xin Du

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/07/09/blm-rebels-without-a-cause/

Around the world, people understandably reacted in anger and disgust at the killing of George Floyd. But if the subsequent protests, which descended, at points, into riots, lootings and indiscriminate iconoclasm, are meant to increase racial harmony and deter police brutality, then they’ve failed spectacularly.

In a few short weeks, more black people have died from the chaotic and indiscriminate violence, excused by leftist media and politicians, than unarmed black people at the hands of the supposedly racist police in the whole of 2019.

But were the protests at least built on a solid foundation? Is there rampant racism in the police force, and systemic racism in the US as a whole? In short, no.

Are police killing black people more than whites?

Derek Chauvin, who killed Floyd, is now under arrest and awaiting trial. He is likely to spend the rest of his life in jail. In this instance the legal system is clearly not racist. Moreover, Minneapolis chief of police, Medaria Arradondo, is black – a fact that undercuts the charge that the Minneapolis police department is systemically racist.

Racists do exist, of course. And there will be racists in the 800,000-strong US police force. But to say that the US is systemically racist is a different claim. And too many people are unable to make this distinction, or worse, propagate a narrative that deliberately blurs it.

In an essay on the Black Lives Matter protests and riots of the mid-2010s, I referred to studies from Harvard, Washington State University and the City University of New York, which all suggested that police in the US do not shoot blacks more than whites. In fact, the evidence suggested they are less likely to shoot black suspects.

BLM Anti-Police Hate-Fest Comes To Small-Town America This is what a cultural revolution looks like. Dawn Perlmutter

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/07/blm-anti-police-hate-fest-comes-small-town-america-dawn-perlmutter/
Yardley Borough is a small river town in Bucks County, Pennsylvania located on the Delaware river across from Trenton, the capital of New Jersey. The town has a total area of one square mile and according to the last census has a population of 2,434 of which 2,224 are white. It is known for its beautiful historical district that includes 18th and 19th century buildings that contain homes, shops, restaurants, and offices on Main Street. It is the site of the second oldest Quaker meeting house in Pennsylvania. Quakers were significantly active in the abolition movement against slavery and Yardley was an essential station for the Underground Railroad. In the past few weeks, it has become the unlikely scene of Black Lives Matter protests.

On June 19th in the guise of a Juneteenth celebration a Black Lives Matter anti-police hate fest descended upon Main Street surrounding people at outdoor restaurants and blocking traffic. Protesters were chanting “No Justice No Peace, No Racist Police” in front of local officers whom many have known their whole lives. The protesters were predominantly high school and college students and self-loathing affluent white middle-aged women attempting to show how woke they are. Many brought their children and grandchildren who held handmade signs with popular BLM and anti-police slogans.

A previous rally was held on June 4, 2020 and over a thousand people showed up. At that protest Black Lives Matter activists led a humiliation ritual in which the white townsfolk bowed down to BLM organizers in a solemn prayer like vigil. They somberly repeated the names of black men who were described as killed by the police. They also engaged in gestures and slogans such as “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” and “Say His Name”. Thoughts of Jonestown and other cults were running through my mind as I watched men and women willingly debase themselves. Many of the white women genuinely feel guilty about their privilege because they never worked a day in their life. Kneeling in submission while reverently repeating anti-police affirmations and apologizing for being white was a form of expiation, an atonement ritual. For these spoiled hypocritical women, the BLM protest was a method for them to assuage their guilt for having black women clean their toilets and take care of their elderly parents. The largest part of the crowd were high school and college students who have been taught to hate their country, schooled in revisionist history, made to feel shame for being white and conditioned to disrespect the police.

These men, women and students are the result of years of indoctrination by academia, the media, radical Marxist and black nationalist organizations whose primary strategy is to make white people, corporations and the entire next generation feel guilty for their ‘white privilege’. BLM’s goal is power, money and a totalitarian revolution. It may be one of the biggest shake downs in American history.

The BLM organizers stood in front of the small Yardley Borough Municipal Hall that houses the towns offices, post office, police department and public meeting room. Although the protests were along the entire length of Main Street, they chose to make their stand in front of the town Hall to symbolically challenge local government. It was there that BLM organizers led the humiliation ritual where white townsfolk kneeled before them. They seemed to take pleasure in degrading the white residents of Yardley. Who is oppressing whom? The submissive town folk bowing to them had the blissful look that all brainwashed useful idiots have right up until they realize they have been conned.

Although Yardley was a longtime Republican town it now has a largely Democrat town council with one independent. The new Council President is an activist with no roots in the community and ambitions to fundamentally transform the town that was founded in 1682. In his short time on council he introduced and passed a gun control resolution, an LGBT ordinance, took a moment of silence against police violence and recently made Juneteenth a recognized holiday. The Vice President of Council is a young millennial mom whose primary accomplishment is virtue signaling. She often publicly apologizes for her white privilege, but it is just a pretense for her political ambitions. She posted after the protest that “I weep with my black brothers and sisters for the systemic and institutional racism that has infiltrated and consumed our communities, our governments, our police forces and our very souls. Yesterday was a day of mourning in Yardley Boro for all the lives gone too soon because of racism. It was a day to reflect, as an elected official, how I can do better to be fair and compassionate, balanced and inclusive.”…… “To use the platform and privilege of our affluent town to elevate the voices of the oppressed.”

After the first BLM demonstration the town council complimented each other on how the peaceful protest went, they neglected to disclose that a 12 year old girl wearing a Trump t-shirt was harassed and a small group of counter protesters were spit on. While the town council sugarcoats the anti-police hatred and racist rhetoric that occurred at the protests, they have gone out of their way to cover up anti-Semitic hate crimes in Yardley even though the only school in the small town is a private Hebrew Academy.

While the council embraced the Black Lives Matter protests Covid-19 was used as an excuse to cancel the three biggest annual events in the small community. They canceled the Memorial Day Parade, a long tradition that honors local veterans where neighbors make floats, veterans are honored, and kids ride their bikes at the end of the procession. The same day they voted to make Juneteenth a recognized Yardley Holiday the annual longtime September tradition of Harvest Day was canceled. The October 2020 Yardley Beer and Wine Fest was also canceled. The symbolism was clear we are canceling your culture, your history and your traditions and replacing them with the holidays that Black Lives Matter dictate. If the message of BLM fascism wasn’t clear enough, in front of the Memorial Plaque on the Municipal Hall that lists the names of the towns fallen soldiers someone wrote in large letters BLM and Blacks killed by Cops then wrote names including George Floyd, Mike Brown, Trayvon Martin and many more. This was an obvious mockery of the memorial to the towns fallen heroes who died in WWI and WWII. Soon these plaques will either be vandalized or just removed by the town council who will declare them symbols of racism.

Knowing that residents were not happy after the first protest, the town council deliberately did not officially inform any of the businesses or residents of the second protest. However, the Chief of Police who understands how thin the blue line is that separates chaos and order, put into effect crowd control protocols. Almost every officer in town and over a dozen from nearby communities and a Major Incident Response Team (MIRT) were on duty for the “Juneteenth Peaceful Protest For Justice”. Fortunately, Yardley has a Chief of Police who understands how a protest can turn violent with just one brick. Unfortunately, when the Chief of Police was asked at a council meeting if any tickets were given when the BLM protesters blocked Main Street, a major State road, he said “No violations were issued, you cannot ticket a thousand people”. Not surprising since Yardley Borough Council votes on his contract which expires the end of next year.

Business owners who just reopened after the Covid 19 lock downs closed their shops and stood in front of their stores guarding them from potential looters. One restaurant owner had to cordon off his sidewalk tables with caution tape to protect his customers from the crowds. A long-time Yardley friendly couple that regularly sit on their front porch on Main Street were visibly armed as the protesters marched in front of their home. There are a lot of residents who are not happy about having an anti-police hate fest walking down Main Street blocking a state road and forcing businesses to close.

One of the saddest sights were the faces of the young people who are ashamed of their country and have been so thoroughly indoctrinated into believing that police are racist. Ironically, Washington’s Crossing is just four miles up the road from Yardley and although they were raised here, they have no concept of their own country’s history or how men younger than them fought and died for their freedom. Their teachers, parents and community leaders have failed them by filling their hearts with hatred and lies. BLM exploits the anger they inculcated and now have an army of deluded young white activists who they are using to destroy their own futures. The few bright students that see through the lies are bullied and ridiculed into silence.

Soon after the protests residents started taking down their American flags and putting up Black Lives Matter signs on their lawns. This is either the result of fear of being ostracized, a deterrence against looting or just virtue signaling in actual support. This is what a cultural revolution looks like, a small towns history is eradicated, town leaders sell out, useful idiots bow down, cowards acquiesce and the few patriots that are left load their weapons. In the spirit of Yardley’s original brave abolitionists local officers continue to protect our freedoms even when they are being called racists and killers.

After Turning Hagia Sophia into a Mosque, Turkey’s Islamist Tyrant Threatens Jerusalem Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2020/07/after-turning-hagia-sophia-mosque-turkeys-islamist-daniel-greenfield/

The outcome was inevitable.

The fake Reichstag coup that so many western nations fell for closed the door on any kind of independent authority in Turkey. All that remains is Erdogan, its insane Islamist tyrant, and his fantasies of rebuilding the Ottoman Empire. 

The reconquest of the Hagia Sophia was a crucial step in that direction. 

The process was meaningless because Erdogan now wholly controls the courts. Judicial decisions are Erdogan’s decisions. And Erdogan made it clear that the hijacking of the historic church is just one step in a larger plan for Islamist expansionism targeting other Islamic “holy” sites that had once been under Ottoman control.

Like Jerusalem.

“The revival of Hagia Sophia is the harbinger of freedom of Al-Aqsa and the footsteps of Muslims emerging from the era of interregnum,” the Turkish president said late Friday, referring to the mosque in Jerusalem that many Muslims consider under occupation.

Al-Aqsa is the Islamic occupation mosque in Jerusalem that had been planted as a symbol of the Islamic conquest over the holiest site in Judaism. The similarity to what Erdogan had just done was obvious.

Turkey’s New Mosque a Monument to Western Decline We may think we’re exhibiting high-minded principles, but our enemies know the score. Bruce Thornton

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/07/turkeys-new-mosque-monument-western-decline-bruce-thornton/

Last week Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that on July 24 Hagia Sophia, for a thousand years one of Christendom’s most storied and significant churches, will once again become a mosque. So far, the remnant of established Christianity has been silent. But this affront to the faith that is one of the pillars upon which the West was founded reveals how damaging has been the historical amnesia and appeasing double-standards that have compromised our response to the challenge of Islamic jihadism.

Until recently Turkey had been a poster-boy for the dubious globalist consensus that liberal democracy and free-market capitalism are the destiny of all humanity, including Muslims. In 1923 founder Kemal Atatürk created Turkey to be a modern Western nation-state, with religion separated from the secular government. He abolished the caliphate, closed Islamic courts, gave women equal rights in divorce and inheritance, allowed them to vote, restricted sharia to religion, and secularized education for females as well as males. In 1934 Hagia Sophia was turned into a museum, part of Atatürk’s program to recognize Turkey’s pre-Muslim history and strengthen Turkey’s modern global identity and prestige.

But over the years it took the military to maintain this modernizing, secular program in the face of the more traditional and conservative Muslim masses and their discontent. Starting as mayor of Istanbul in 1994, Erdoğan became their champion, and as president has abandoned Atatürk’s democratic, secular program: He has jailed more journalists than any other country, and built 17,000 new mosques. Nearly a century of efforts to reconcile Islam with liberal democracy are failing under Erdoğan’s incremental Islamization. Turning Hagia Sophia back into a mosque is an important sign of his success, and a gesture of defiance of the “rules-based international order.”