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Ruth King

Democrats, Not Republicans, Protect Dirty Cops Democrats’ selective outrage about police abuse doesn’t square with recent history. Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2020/06/11/democrats-not-republicans-protect-dirty-cops/

Abuse and inequality—at the hands of American law enforcement—comes in all forms.

The death of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer has been condemned broadly—by everyone from the Republican president and leaders of both parties to Americans of every color, religion, and partisan affiliation.

The nation now is engulfed in a heated and inarguably dangerous debate about “systemic racism.” Every aspect of the nation’s law enforcement apparatus, activists insist, is the framework that enables this alleged travesty.

“Many Americans . . . do not see these levers of power as protecting them, or even representing them,” U.S. Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said in a June 6 statement. “And rightfully so. The same offices that can be used for good, can and have been used to oppress. That must change.”

Calls for police reform and accountability are happening on a bipartisan basis. That has not been the case, however, when it comes to Obamagate. Democrats, led by the forked-tongue Schiff, have spent the past three years defending, even justifying, unprecedented abuses by the nation’s top law enforcement chiefs related to their targeting of Donald Trump, his associates, and his family members.

The Trump-related victims of James Comey’s FBI may not be black, they  were unfairly targeted nevertheless. It was not race that motivated their persecutors, nor was it any actual suspected wrongdoing. They were targeted because of their political views.

Riots In Defense Of The Narrative Are No Vice

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/06/12/riots-in-defense-of-the-narrative-are-n

It’s widely known that our betters say it’s OK to protest in massive groups despite the risk of coronavirus transmission, but small gatherings not in support of Black Lives Matter are still unacceptable. Now we’re told that it’s also fine for protests to turn violent as long as it happens for the “right” reason. Imagine, though, the howling that would have pierced our ears had there been a whiff of violence started by the protesters whose only demand was to be set free of the pandemic lockdowns.

Watching these developments, including the conquest of a chunk of Seattle by a band of louts, we are reminded of David Bowie singing “this is not America” 35 years ago. We’re losing what we were and becoming something much less than that. The evidence is in the following statement.

“Non-violence is an important tool for protests, but so is violence,” Wellesley College professor Kellie Carter Jackson recently said in a Slate interview.

Before dismissing that outrageous assertion as a lone and therefore meaningless opinion, consider that the acts of thousands are often cued by a single person. Then take a look at the effort to normalize that sort of thinking:

Democratic Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey described the unrest as “a once in a lifetime opportunity,” adding, “yes, America is burning, but that’s how forests grow.”
According to California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters, “young people, they have a whole new definition for ‘looting.’”
New York Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones, who directed the utterly mendacious 1619 Project, which might be the most racist screed published in the mainstream in this century, said “destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence.”
Essence magazine, which is by no means an underground publication, and surely holds some influence over its readership, recently posted an op-ed headlined “Burn It All Down.”

Sports in a Woke ‘Utopia’ Disagreeing with the “progressive” narrative mandates Maoist-style humiliation. Joseph Hippolito

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/sports-woke-utopia-joseph-hippolito/

As riots roiled the nation following George Floyd’s death, the “progressive” quest for totalitarian dominance inflicted two casualties on the NFL.

Denver Broncos’ head coach Vic Fangio and New Orleans Saints’ quarterback Drew Brees had to apologize one day after stating opinions that contradicted the Leftist narrative of the United States as systemically racist.

“I think our problems in the NFL along those lines are minimal,” Fangio said June 2. “We’re a league of meritocracy. You earn what you get, you get what you earn. I don’t see racism at all in the NFL, I don’t see discrimination in the NFL. We live in a great atmosphere, like I alluded to earlier. We’re lucky. We all live together, joined as one, for one common goal, and we all intermingle and mix tremendously. If society reflected an NFL team, we’d all be great.”

Beforehand, Fangio said Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis policeman who killed Floyd, “should be punished to the full extent of the law of the crimes he was charged with” and failed “to uphold the badge and uniform he was entrusted with.”

The Quiet Struggle Over Jerusalem’s Temple Mount Jordan vs. Turkey. Joseph Puder

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/quiet-struggle-over-jerusalems-temple-mount-joseph-puder/

There is a quiet struggle going on over control of East Jerusalem’s Noble Sanctuary (Haram al-Sharif) or Temple Mount.  It is not as you might guess between Israel and the Palestinians.  It is actually between two Sunni-Muslim nations, the Hashemites Kingdom of Jordan and Erdogan’s Turkey.  To the extent that Israel is involved in this quiet struggle, it is to strengthen Jordan’s position against the encroaching Turks, by adding Saudi representatives to the Islamic Waqf Council.  The Islamic Waqf Council controls the activities surrounding the Noble Sanctuary or Temple Mount.  Israel has engaged the U.S. administration to mediate the issue with the Saudis.

The Hashemites, who once controlled Mecca and Medina, Islam’s holiest sites, lost out to the Saudis in the 1920’s.  The Hashemites are related by a bloodline to the Prophet Mohammad through his daughter Fatimah and her husband Ali, the Fourth Caliph.  Hasan, the son of Fatimah and Ali, is the progenitor of the Hashemite line, which is a subdivision of the Quraysh tribe.  The consolation prize was control over Islam’s third holiest site -The Noble Sanctuary or Temple Mount where the Al-Aqsa and Omar mosques are located. The Prophet Mohammad is said to have flown from the al-Aqsa mosque to heaven on his horse named Buraq.

Given the historical rivalry between the House of Saud and the Hashemites, Jordanians in the past would not contemplate allowing their Saudi rivals a foothold in Jerusalem’s holy places.  But now, after 100 years, Erdogan’s Turkey is challenging Jordan’s control over the Temple Mount. Jordan, under the Hashemite King Abdullah II, is finally relenting to the Saudis out of financial necessity and a looming threat from Erdogan’s Turkey.  

Free Citizens Do Not Kneel White progressive racial masochism is nothing new. Bruce Thornton

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/free-citizens-do-not-kneel-bruce-thornton/

In the last couple of weeks we have witnessed people, most of them white, kneeling before black protestors and activists as a supposed gesture of repentance for their crimes of “white privilege” and tolerating “systemic racism.” The kneeling penitents include not just ordinary people, but police officers, National Guardsmen, and, in a shocking self-debasement of the world’s greatest democratic republic, a gaggle of House Representatives adorned with “culturally appropriated” African kente cloth scarves.

White progressive racial masochism is nothing new; Tom Wolfe skewered it brilliantly nearly a half century ago in essays like “Mau-Mauing the Flak-Catchers.” But the current manifestation is more significant and dangerous. It has taken place amidst violent widespread rioting and looting and assaults, and so these acts of kneeling are a form of tribute exacted by the sheer power of destruction wrought by the rioters and their “peaceful” abettors. As such, they undermine the very foundation of citizen self-rule and political freedom: Government by laws, offices, and free deliberation rather than by the whims and failings of one man; and by accountability to the sovereign people and their laws, instead of submission to violent coercion.

Kneeling specifically appears in Greek literature as an emblem of political slavery that follows an absence of rule by law and accountability. In the Histories, Herodotus’s narrative of the Persian wars continually contrasts the free, self-ruling Greek with the slavish, unfree Persians. One cultural practice in particular epitomized for the Greeks the political enslavement of the Persians who were ruled by the quasi-divine Great King Xerxes bestowed with absolute power over the lives and property of his subjects. Hence the law that anytime someone came into the presence of the King, he had to kneel before him, then bend over and kiss the ground as an act of submission. The Greek word for this was proskunesis, an act of “obeisance” suitable only for acknowledging the gods.

TEXAS DISTRICT 24-Beth Van Duyne for Congress

Whichever standard issue leftist wins in the primary in Texas District 24, she will face Republican Beth Van Duyne, former mayor of Irving, Texas in November.

In 2017 Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne publicly pushed the state legislature to ensure Texas would be next to adopt an anti-sharia law.

https://www.bethfortexas.com/

My name is Beth Van Duyne and I’m running for Congress because I know the people of the 24th District deserve to have a strong, principled voice in Congress.

I’ve been asked what prompted me to run for public office; the answer is simple – my children. We live in a very fragile time for our nation, our families, and the future of the American Dream. Socialism is on the rise, our border crisis has never been worse, and we face constant threats from hostile nations willing to use cyber-attacks, nuclear weapons, and terrorist jihad. When I think about my two children, I want them to have the same opportunities in life that I did; I want them to be able to grow up safe and proud of our country.

This Democrat (Kim Olson- TX -District 24)Is So Outraged She Doesn’t Mind if Rioters ‘Burn It to the Ground’ By Tyler O’Neil

https://pjmedia.com/election/tyler-o-neil/2020/06/11/texas-dem-even-if-people-loot-so-what-burn-it-to-the-ground-n518917

When protests over the police killing of George Floyd devolved into looting, vandalism, and arson across America, destroying black lives, black livelihoods, and black monuments, Democrats and liberals shamefully downplayed or even excused the violence because the perpetrators agreed with their political agenda. Yet it seems none have proven quite as vocal as a Democrat running for U.S. House in Texas’s 24th congressional district.

In a live digital event on Tuesday, Kim Olson complained about police snipers stationed on a roof at a protest she attended in Dallas, Texas.

“They had snipers on the roof, what the hell you got snipers on the roof for in a peaceful march? Even if people loot, so what? Burn it to the ground, if that’s what it’s gonna take to fix our nation,” Olson said in video obtained by The Washington Examiner. “I don’t think — but I’m just saying, what are you going to do? Shoot us as we protest?”

“I mean, we really have fundamentally pivoted the militarization of our police force. … It used to be ‘protect and serve,’” she complained.

Olson made the comment during a long answer to a question about her position on far-left calls to disband or defund police departments. The candidate began by admitting that while “defunding” is a “tough word,” she supports shifting funding toward rehab centers and social workers.

Iran: The supreme leader’s regional girdle is tearing apart By Hassan Mahmoudi

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/06/iran_the_supreme_leaders_regional_girdle_is_tearing_apart.html

Internal, regional, and international developments reinforced by the coronavirus crisis, have submerged the Iranian regime’s policy of war-mongering and export of fundamentalism and terrorism into a whirlpool of crises.

Iran counts on Syria as its strategic ally. In the last 40 years, and especially the last nine since 2011, it has supported Bashar Assad’s regime with a vengeance, spending enormous amounts of money.

In its turn, Tehran uses Syria as a link through to Lebanon’s Hezbollah, to supply it with weapons and logistics.

On Feb. 25, 2019, on the invitation of Iran’s chief terror master, Qasem Soleimani, Assad, for the first time since the 2011 start of Syria’s civil war, visited Tehran unexpectedly where he met and talked with Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

In this meeting, Khamenei said that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s help for the government and nation of Syria is equal to giving help to the ‘resistance’ against the U.S. and its allies pressures and he honors it dearly.

Hossein Taeb, the head of the Ammar Base Council affiliated with the IRGC, explained the strategic importance of Syria when he said: “Syria is Iran’s 35th province.  Defending it is a greater priority than defending Khuzestan (Iran’s southern province).”

After the onset of the uprising in Syria, when the Iranian regime vastly escalated its cooperation with Assad’s regime to suppress it, Hossein Taeb declared: “If the enemy attacks us to invade Syria or Khuzestan, our priority is to preserve Syria. If we hold Syria, we can regain Khuzestan, but if we lose Syria, we will not even be able to hold Tehran.”

J.K. Rowling has been mugged by gender reality By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/06/jk_rowling_has_been_mugged_by_gender_reality.html

In December, J.K. Rowling, the billionaire author of the Harry Potter books, dared to support a woman who argues that men cannot magically become women. For this crime, Rowling, who has been a lockstep leftist, became the subject of a sustained hate campaign. On Thursday, she published an essay justifying her belief in biological womanhood and expressing concern that the transgender movement is part of a sustained attack on women.

Transgender madness has progressed further in Britain than in America. The woman Rowling was defending, Maya Forstater, lost her job for challenging proposed amendments to the Gender Recognition Act of 2004. Under the GRA, people who want legal “gender” recognition have to jump through a few hoops showing their commitment to their non-biological gender. The proposed revisions would end any requirements other than a person’s say-so.

On Name Changing and Statue Toppling By Victor Davis Hanson

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/on-name-changing-and-statue-toppling/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=right-rail&utm_content=corner&utm_term=first

General David Petraeus wrote an impassioned article in the Atlantic this week about the need to change the names of military bases that for over a century have been named after Confederate generals and to recalibrate iconic remembrances such as statues commemorating Robert E. Lee at West Point — points of reference he reminds us that have been central in his own experience and career.

His relevant points were twofold and ostensibly rational: Commanders such as Bragg and Benning (Petraeus proposes the renaming of other eponymous bases as well) were not especially effective commanders worthy of such majestic base commemoration. In some cases, as Petraeus notes, they were not even highly regarded by their peers. No one, certainly, would wish to defend the worldview of a Braxton Bragg. And, as Petraeus put it, as “traitors” they fought for an ignoble cause that perpetuated slavery. (Of course, the logic of renaming should then apply to the northern California community of Fort Bragg, also named after the unattractive Braxton Bragg — an idea to which some in the Democratic California legislature failed to win over the town’s mayor in 2015).

I think Petraeus is in many ways correct about his anguish. Yet, the bases were named not so much to glorify overt racists as for a variety of more mundane, insidious reasons in the late 19th and early 20th centuries — from concessions to local southerners where many of these bases were to be located, to obtain bipartisan congressional support for their funding, and to address the need in the decades-long and bitter aftermath of the Civil War to promote “healing” between the still hostile former opponents.